Chapter 20: Sky Pirates And Wastelanders

Date: April 15, 3658

Location: The Edge of the Wasteland

Standing near the edge of the Wasteland was a series of city ruins that once was a beautiful busy Wasteland City. In the days of Sandover when the two Hero's existed, this city houses several thousand elves and a royal family. When the metal heads came through the people of this tough city were put through the paces. Hundreds of Channelers had fought and died, but their deaths hadn't been in vain. A single impregnated royal Princess had fled to safety with her guardians. They escaped in a Precursorean ship that had taken them to a land across the ocean, here they met creatures that one would never have thought intelligent nor would one think them capable of anything other than hard labor; but those thoughts would've been incorrect. This place was called the Brink or also known as The World's End. It was here she gave birth to a son, who's name meant rebirth. Her line survived to the modern era, but with it's survival came a price. Knowledge was lost. Nobody knew who the heir was nor did they know any survived the destruction of that once wonderful city. So after nearly give hundred years black boots stepped onto the sands of the ruined city and the person who stood there had no idea his destiny would soon collide with another. As his raven hair blew around in it's low ponytail, his dark eyes scanned the ruins.

"Cap'n." came a gruff voice from behind him. He didn't need to turn to know who this person was, he'd traveled the Brink with him for over a decade.

"Klout." He acknowledged the burley man.

The man had a shaved head with dark marks on his forehead and three spots on the top of his head where hair was starting to grow once more. He had a mean look to him. He wore a tore sleeveless blue tank shirt with armor strapped over his stomach and wrist guards that shone with silver metal. His pants were black with a grey patch over the knee and black combat steel tipped boots. On each hip he had a pistol gun and around his waist was a belt filled with bullets waiting to be used.

His eyes narrowed as he looked around the ruins. "This place won't have not'in but bones in it." He looked at his leader.

"Klout where is your sense of adventure?" The raven haired captain asked. "Back aboard the Phantom Blade." He muttered as he followed his leader into one of the tunnels.

The young captain looked at the device in his hand as it beeped every few seconds. A corresponding beep could be heard ahead of them. As minutes passed they continued down the corridor, never once coming in contact with a formable wastelander or wasteland metal head. It wasn't odd for them not to come in contact with a wastelander; but not a single metal head? That was unusual. Finally, after an hour of traveling through deep and dark tunnels they came to an open cavern. Inside they found Precursor controls still beeping and flashing. "Remember," the captain told his first mate. "we are after fuel cells. So don't touch anything other than those." Klout gave a nod before heading one way as his captain headed another.

Jak's fingers kept typing across the keyboard as she gathered more information on weapon systems for aircrafts, pistols, rifles and her favorite mods for what looked like a Precursorean version of a zoomer. She then downloaded the information into a file and sent the file off to both Keira and the Freedom League headquarters. Smiling at the thought of Keira screeching because of the information sent to her, Jak then began looking over battle plans that the AI had left for her to look over, while she waited for Daxter to return with her father.

Pausing at looking at the holographic plans she realized that she'd pretty much ignored Damas since finding out that he was her old man. I always thought he was dead. Her gaze returned to the documents on the holopads that were scattered upon the table. I came back here and went through the tests and became a member of this city with Daxter. These people haven accepted me though. Her eyes drifted away from the information on the pads. They probably never will. She recalled her last training battle with Sig. The burly fellow had become quite the friend in showing her and Daxter the ropes in become a true wastelander. Sig is one of the few who actually does want me here. Kliever just wants me here so he can use my skills in his death races with the marauders. She shook her head and went back to reading the texts in the holopads, when she heard multiple footsteps coming her way. Turning around she saw the familiar face of her lover and boyfriend, behind him was her father and Sig.

"What'd you find there?" Damas inquired as he approached the table.

"These are battle plans, building plans and shielding plans that my master and creator Dr. Aldoza made in the case that your species would be evolved enough to be seen as a threat by Errol and his forces." A synthetic voice stated.

"An AI?" Damas asked Jak who gave a nod.

"Ze-dura, you said earlier that you'd be making an appearance for this."

"And I shall." came a voice from behind them.

Turning around Jak saw a man standing there wearing black cargo pants, black combat boots and a plain white shirt. "This is my moveable platform. I believe my creator called it an Android body." He bowed before Damas. "I am Ze-dura. I am a synthetic life form otherwise known as an AI. I was created thousands of years ago by Dr. Aldoza as the last ditch effort to ensure your species does not become extinct." He looked at Jak. "I believe your daughter has already been reviewing the battle plans in case an attack comes to this city."

"Yeah. I have been." Jak stated with a nod. "I believe they need to be translated into our language in order for anybody else to understand them though." She looked a bit sheepish and rubbed the back of her neck as Sig looked over the words.

"Damn Cherry!" He exclaimed. "You can read this?"

"It's in Precursorean." Damas explained. "I can read some, but not all." Jak looked at her father. "My father had me tutored by my teacher in this language." He chuckled. "He'd wack me over the head every so often when I couldn't understand anything. He certainly had a distinct air of wisdom about him. Older fellow. Wonder if he's still alive?" He scratched his chin at that last part.

"What was his name?" Jak asked, a bit curious since this was a rare opportunity to see into her father's life before he was a King.

He laughed at Jak's question. "Samos Hagai."

Jak and Daxter shared a look before both burst out laughing. The fates had to have had a good laugh at them for that one. Calming down Jak explained her story to her father and that Samos had been the old man that was with her at the metal head nest all those months ago. To say he was surprised was an understatement. After another good laugh the four men and AI turned towards the plans before them and as the AI began to explain everything.

Keira had just returned from Freedom HQ to her garage workshop near the stadium when she heard the beeping sound her computer usually gave when she had a message. Choosing to ignore it for the moment she walked up the stairs to her apartment. The one bedroom, half bath apartment was her little haven above her garage. She'd spent quite a bit of her hard earned money to make it as quiet as possible, thanks to some tech Vin had given her. Throwing her dirty clothes off to the side of the room she went into the bathroom and began giving herself a sponge bath, once done, she then went into the bedroom and laid down under her comforter, quickly falling asleep.

Unknown to her, at that moment, her computer stopped beeping for four and a half seconds before it returned to it's normal alert sound. The reason for this wouldn't be discovered for a few weeks yet, but the moment that the metal head army had destroyed the power station and killed it's occupants the head scientist and secret underground agent known as Dr. Vincent Mcloy had placed electrodes on his brain and proceeded to dump his mind into the computer grid system. In less than a second the first Elfin Artificial Intelligence came into being. After only ten seconds in the system he had become sentient. In thirty seconds he had found, located and destroyed any and all barriers that disallowed him from interacting with the freedom fighters. In one minute he had already begun to execute a plan to help the city in the future by creating small android robots with the original royal family colors on them. A minute and a half later all servers in Haven a City were being monitored by him as he shut down systems that he wouldn't need for months to come. So on this day when he saw the messages to both the Freedom League and Miss Keira Hagai, the AI then opened, copied, and then resealed the messages so that the recipients wouldn't know they'd been opened. Afterwards the AI began reading the messages and in twenty seconds began to implement another set of plans by accessing the old weapons factory that was housed in the old prison. Using the android robots he began to build the machines and weapons that would be needed in the upcoming war, he also added his own modifications that he believed would improve both weapon systems and the speed of the vehicles. Once this was completed he went back into a hibernate state and once more waited for information to come to him on when he could reveal himself to his once long time fellow freedom fighters.

M-Angel: Sorry for the long wait on this one guys. Been busy lately, I'm also working on my Akatsuki no Yona story. I will try harder to get out more chapters for this story. So, what do you guys think of the story so far? Just curious. The action will be coming very soon.
xoxoangii: All this build up is making me anxious for the action! I'll try my best to keep the turnaround time of the chapters short, I held this chapter hostage for several days before posting (I just starting going into labor, so it's been quite crazy over here.) Let us know what you think so far! 3