Chapter 18: The Mysterious Abyss

Date: April 15, 3658
Location: Spargus Harbor

Red and orange hair blew in the wind as the young man clung to the ashen skinned she-devil that was his girlfriend and best friend. His eyes took in the sight before him as they flew around the floating Precursorean City. The egg shaped city with its flying circular monoliths that flew around the structure seemed to be in working order. Glowing with hues of blue, red, yellow and greens. They flew to the very top where they found a single opening.

Adriana dove downwards causing Daxter's hold on her to tighten. Suddenly it was pitch black and Daxter couldn't see anything, but Adriana could as she weaved through the standing buildings that shot up out of the ground towards her. Her eyes could see everything with precision. Every detail of every building. Some were symmetrical, some were circular, others looked to be standing on their corners and then there was a single building in the center of the monolithic structure that was a spiral with windows on all sides and a stairway going downwards into the monolith.

"Daxter," she spoke his name causing her voice the echo. The young man looked up at her towards where her voice was coming from. "I'm about to land. I don't think it's going to be very smooth."

"Huh?" The former ottsel questioned. "Whadaya mean not smooth?"

"Bumpy." She smirked as she both saw and heard him smack his hand against his forehead. "I don't have practice with these wings." She paused. "I was quite surprised when they appeared."

"Yet yer the one who made them appear," he stated a matter-of-factly.

"I sensed the well of dark eco that was unstable," she stated. "I absorbed it knowing I'd undergo a change." She smiled. "I like these wings but I have no idea what I'm capable of doing with them...yet."

"Mar would freak in seeing them," Daxter mumbled. "I however think they're sexy."

Adriana smirked. "I bet." She nuzzled his neck causing to chuckle.

"No friskiness on a mission babe." He smiled when he could practically feel her pout. "Afterwards ya can have the Daxtinator in any way ya feel like havin' 'im."

Adriana licked and nibbled the outer shell of his ear. "Deal," she whispered before plunging downwards into the spiral building.

Location: Haven City

Keira shook her head as she typed in the sequence of numbers once again only for the computer to spit out another series of error numbers and sequences before the holo screen went blank, rebooted and brought up a new set of corrected sequence numbers. Smiling she looked at Torn who looked unimpressed; as always, though this time the Commander had a half grin on his face as he began typing his numbers into the computer that brought up tiny red and blue dots on the main holo projector in the center of Freedom HQ.

"Alright," his gravelly voice said. "You've got the job." He chuckled. "Only Vin was ever able to do that."

Keira giggled a girlish giggle. "That's because he was a scientific genius, now you've got me; the mechanical genius." She looked at the computer. "I'll admit, numbers aren't my forte, I'm more into building things that Jak and Daxter can use to kill things." She smiled as a sense of accomplishment came over her. "Tess and I have teamed up together and have been tinkering with some new yellow gun mods. I think we'll have the bugs worked out in a few weeks since everything seems to be quiet; for now."

Torn nodded. "It's too quiet," he stated as he looked at the monitor. "Jak left the city for Spargus this morning. So she won't be back until the weeks end." Typing a few key strokes he brought up a series of comm numbers. "Jinx, you there?"

"Yo scars, what you want?" Torn's left eye twitched at the pyro's nickname for him.

"I need somebody to go down into the tunnels and kill some metal heads for me," he stated as he looked at the camera monitors and could see some minimum movements.

"Get blondie down there then," Jinx replied as the giggles of a woman could be heard.

"Jinx, if you don't do this you won't get any new bombs from us to tinker with." There was silence on the other end.

"Gotcha," he replied. "Give me the coordinates."

Torn smirked as he felt some sort of victory over the pyros stubbornness. "Sent," he said as he finished typing a text to the man's comm unit. "I want it done-"

"Pronto." Jinx finished for him. "Gotcha. Talk later." He ended the conversation as the unit shut off cutting the freedom league commanders next orders off.

Torn growled lightly as he glared at the blank screen. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the holo tablet in front of him. Two units had gone missing in sector 45 near the wall that was close to the mines. Jak hadn't been there yet, or at least not to his knowledge. So it made him uneasy to see two unit vanish without warning. He frowned. 'Where did they go?' he wondered silently, not even noticing that the aqua haired girl had left him to his thoughts.

Jak groaned as she sat on the ground. Her back ached now and her shirt now had two holes in it that had ripped down to the edge of her pants. Her armor likewise had two holes in it, but the nanites in the armor had already begun to regenerate thus the holes in the armor were getting smaller. Daxter looked around the area they had landed in and found that they were in utter darkness. Feeling his back pocket he pulled the fanny pack to the front and ran his hands into it. Grasping what he was looking for he pulled the tube out and snapped it in half and it began to glow as he shook the liquid material inside. The glow stick allowed Daxter to see the glyphs on the walls, his eyes widening.

"Jak?" Daxters voice shook slightly as he reached into his pocket to grab a couple more and placed them on the wall so they could see the glyphs better. Upon hearing footsteps behind him Daxter looked at Jak.

"Dax," her voice sounded far away as they both looked at the images. "This is-"

"The beginning," Daxter finished for her. On the wall was the store of their adventures in Sandover and the story of how they fought and defeated the evil Akron siblings.

Jak picked up the glow sticks and turned towards the opposite wall and gasped as she looked at the mural of two being clashing in a fight. They both looked like Adriana in her new form with Precursorean armor on each. One she recognized as Mar, the other was a mystery to her. Under their feet were the corpses of elves who had fallen in battle against the machines. On the next wall she found it almost blank, as if construction had been ceased in the middle as the only thing on it were two people with their backs to each other. One was shrouded in darkness and glowed with dark and red eco and was definitely a woman, as the other glowed with red and yellow eco giving him an orange look. Their faces were empty with no way of telling who they were.

"Is it me," Daxter began as his voice echoed in the room causing Jak to look at him. "Or do those two look like us?"

Jak frowned. 'He's right,' she heard Adriana's voice. In her mind she saw her other self's face. 'The female is definitely us. The other...'

Daxter? she looked at the red head who was giving her a questioning look. "One problem Dax." The young man raised an eyebrow. "You're not a Channeler."

Daxter blinked and smirked at her. "True," he said as he lifted the glow stick and spotted the door to go deeper inside of the monolith that they were in. "This way." He nodded his head towards the door. Jak grabbed his hand and began to drag the red head behind her. Daxter laughed. "Somebody's in a hurry."

Their laughter soon came to an end as they came across an old oracle machine that had one empty eye and one with a power-cell in it. "Brings back memories," Jak mumbled as she approached the machine. The eyes began to glow and within her mind Jak found herself transported to another time and place.

Eyes opened for the first time in a millennia. The being turned its head and looked about the room it was in. In thousands of tanks around him the being found his dark eco induced brethren in deep sleep. "Computer, what is the era that we are in," his gravelly voice commanded authority immediately.

"We are currently in the mechanical Industrial Age of the elvin species," the mechanical voice replied. "The metal head Kor has been killed. Mar is alive and has awaken his soldiers to look for you." There was a pause. "Also, the daystar has returned Commander."

Mechanical legs and body parts began to move. The being stood at seven feet tall with a bipedal look to its legs as they were bent in the different places. The partial organic head turned towards the monitors. Its eyes narrowing. "Awaken my soldiers, tell them Commander Errol is ready to begin plan B."

M-Angel: Hehehe... I leave you hanging on a cliff there. Sorry about that. So, what does everybody think so far? You like where this is headed? Okay, now the next chapter the war is gonna begin while Jak and Daxter discover something long forgotten by the elvin people that's been kept a secret by the Precursors.
xoxoangii: This is so cruel! I was on my toes for this one, hope you guys were too!