Chapter 17: Exploration

Date: April 15, 3658
Location: Spargus City

The first thing one notices upon reaching the harbor is the overwhelming smell of fish. Having lived in a fishing village their whole lives neither Jak nor Daxter were bothered by the ranking smell, those who hadn't would've scrunched up their noses in disgust and covered their nose and mouth in order to breathe better with little to no success. However it wasn't the merchants nor was it their king at the end of the docks that had their attention. It was the large floating monolith in the middle of the harbor that had their full attention. 'A Precursor City,' Jak recalled Daxter calling it. Her mind filling with excitement unlike she'd felt since coming to this time, not since... 'Not since Gol and Maia's Citadel have I felt this excited.' Jak frowned as she tried to remember if she was wrong but realized that it was in fact since that dreadful episode with the Akron siblings that she'd felt this excited.

Smiling at Daxter, who looked at her with a similar smile; both instantly knew what the other was thinking. They wanted to explore that thing and they wanted to do it now. Trying to sneak off to a boat, they both had two large hands land on their shoulders. "Aye, I've found ye after all," came the uncivilized voice of Kliever. Both looked at the large man with contempt. "Yer majesty!" Jak flinched as she heard the thumping footsteps of her father. "Lookie what I've found." He gave Jak's shoulder a squeeze while thumping Daxter's shoulder making the youth wince.

"About time." Damas' gravelly voice reached Jak's long ears, causing them to twitch in recognition of the voice.

"Your majesty called?" she inquired sarcastically.

Damas snorted and was about to make a remark when Daxter beat him to it. "You wanted to know what that thang is, right?" Daxter smiled. "I know what it is."

"Well?" The King's patience was running thin.

"It's a Precursor City," he said with a cocked grin. "There use ta be hundreds everywhere around this ole world but when their power cells begin to rot they go to the nearest Precursor Ports to be fixed."

"What happens if it doesn't get fixed?" Sig asked but a feeling in his gut told him what he already knew.

"My old man witnessed one floating over an old Precursor Port City one time." Daxter scratched his chin remembering the story his father had told him. "He said that he'd been in the city a month when the Precursor monolith appeared. It took it him nearly five years to categorize each area in that there monolith before he realized it was once a working, thriving city at one point in time." Daxter paused, his eyes widening as he remembered what happened next. "It was five years to the day when the monolith began shaking and fallin' apart. My old man got out of there quickly and just in the nick of time." He looked at the King with a face full of seriousness. "However, the city below was completely and utterly destroyed. He once said that have there been people living there, every last one would've died." He looked back at Jak who looked at him in awe. "What?" he asked defensively. "Just because I don't listen to roots for brains doesn't mean I never listen to my ole man. Besides, pops hit worse than an angry yakow on a stampede in the middle of a hot summer's day."Jak snickered as her father raised an eyebrow at that analogy.

"So," Jak began as she looked at her friend. "Who wants to go exploring?" She gave Daxter one of her signature smiles that just yelled trouble.

Daxter pointed at her. "If I get turned into something fury again I'm totally callin' off this friendship of ours!" he yelled at her, causing Jak to burst out laughing.

"Leave the dark stuff to me then!" she countered.

Both grinned before Daxter asked the inevitable. "So, gorgeous." He began as he scratched the top of his head. "How do we plan on gettin' up there?"

Fly. Jak heard Adriana answer the question in her mind.

Fly? Jak asked her inner self. In her mind's eye she could see the creature smile mischievously at her before Jak began groaning.

Daxter looked over towards Jak from the waterfront, his eyes widening as Adriana appeared, though she had a more elfin look to her than she usually did. Gone were the inky black talons, gone was the animalistic look; retaining Jak's natural features. Her skin still had the sickly pale look to it and her eyes were still obsidian black pools that covered both eyes. She gave a toothy grin towards Daxter and crossed her arms over her chest as her silvery locks blew in the wind. If Daxter hadn't blinked he still wouldn't have seen her move towards the sealed eco wells near the market place. Instead he heard an explosion that caused the hair on his arms to lift and the hair on his neck to stand on ends. The wind picked up slightly causing the dust to fly every which way. It was Sig's whistle that caused Daxter to look up. His eyes widened.

Adriana had once again changed her form, if only by adding two new appendages. Wings. These wings were each as long as her body was and as wide as Daxter's torso was long. They were black as night with long purple veins in them that glowed even in the sunlight with red ruins written on them. With her black eyes and horns, she truly looked like the devil incarnate and yet, Daxter wasn't afraid of her even as she swooped down and picked him up. They flew off towards the Precursorean City and for once Daxter wasn't anxious about this next leg of their adventure.

Location: Unknown

Feet marched across plank boards as they came to their destination in front of a series of windows, causing an image of a man to be reflected back to its owner. "Klout!" yelled his voice as he spun around causing his raven locks to spin and hit his face in its ponytail. Three metal hoop earrings jingled in his left ear while two jingled in his right. "Bring the JollyRoger about and head towards the land of the wastes." He held up a round ball that glowed with ancient Precursorean ruins on it. A holographic arrow pointing towards the wasteland above it.

"Aye, Aye, Captain Phoenix!" yelled the chubby one eyed man that wore a handkerchief on his head as he turned the wheel that controlled the airship they were on.

Captain Phoenix smiled as he looked at the glowing yellow and orange ball that was obviously Precursor made. 'You my dear friend will take us to a place that will help us destroy the Aeropan Empire and stop their evil from spreading across our world,' he thought happily not knowing that his destiny was about to collide with another's that would inevitably help shape the fate of their world.

M-Angel: Yay another update! *dances*
xoxoangii: And so close together! Yippeee!
M-Angel: Well I'm hoping to end this story by chapter 30. I'm sure you've noticed I'm adding characters from Jak and Daxter: the lost frontier. Now I both loved and hated that game, though I did like the pirate captain. It had potential to be a better game than it was and in the end I was a bit disappointed by it. Now I may do a spin off of Jak X story or I may just add that as a small part of the epilogue. I haven't decided yet. Any way, tell me what you think of my plans and this chapter. ^_^