Chapter 24: Plans and Exploration

Date: April 17, 3658

Location: Stadium

"War Games?" Keira asked nobody in particular as she reread the message in her inbox. "What the heck is Torn thinking? We should be preparing for an attack." She knew that Haven Forest was being overrun by the smaller metal heads and the outer western wall was crawling with the bigger ones, not to mention there were mammoth sized ones in the wasteland that would cause trouble if given the chance and that wasn't even taking into consideration the flight based ones in the mountains.

Deciding she best grab some of her new mods for the scatter gun, just in case, she quickly ran over to her zoomer jetbike and made a quick beeline for the Freedom HQ, her mind abuzz with questions for the former ex-KG Commander. She drove straight for the Freedom League garage, parked her bike and made her way to the elevator lift. Once inside she almost ran into Tess, the voluptuous blonde smiled down at her friend as Keira took notice of the new Vulcan Fury mod on her hip. It had a lightning bolt on it.

Tess noticed Keira's intense stare at her hip and pulled a second mod from her bag. "It's a new mod I've been working on for the fury," she stated. "I know these are your babies, but I kinda wanted to improve your model." She smiled as Keira looked at the mod cartridge. "I call it the Arc Weilder mod. It's a laser cannon mode. The Arc Wielder emits a thick, continuous stream of death. This beam can be swept from side to side to clear out entire rooms of enemies. Every moment the Arc Wielder is fired costs a single blue ammo unit."

"Wow Tess!" Keira exclaimed with amazement. "I'm very impressed." She also felt a bit jealous for not having invented this mod herself.

"I'm also working on a Needle Laser that emit clusters of laser bolts that can track enemies as they move," she said proudly. "However, I'm having a problem with the tracking ability." She paused as the elevator lift came to a pause. She stepped into Keira's path as the doors opened and clasped her hands together. "Please help me?" She pleaded.

Keira smiled at her friend. "I suppose I could see what's going on." She paused and thought about it for a second. "Did you troubleshoot it?"

"Yes. The miniature robotic components that is in the clusters are working just fine," she stated with exasperation.

"Hmm..." Keira said thoughtfully as they walked down the hall into the main control room of HQ.

Torn and Jinx looked up from their war game plans, the two men had a look of two children about to go wild. Keira had seen that same look upon Jak and Daxter's faces most of her life and it hadn't changed since Jak's gender transformation. It was a look that meant trouble for them and headaches for her Father, though she doubted these two were trying to make her father upset. Now she was really interested in knowing what was going on.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice." He turned towards the holographic display and brought up the map of the western side of Haven Forest. "At zero eight hundred this morning, our sensors reported in movement of the enemy." The display showed hundreds of red dots on the screen. "Unfortunately, the council and their infinite wisdom-" he said this sarcastically. "-have ordered us down and to not act."

Keira heard the soldiers standing behind her and Tess begin to complain at this. "Sir," one man stepped forward. "If we're not to act on this, then why have you called us here?" he asked causing Keira to look at him. His black hair was buzz cut on either side of his head while the top was tied back into dreadlocks. He also had the same tattoo markings that Torn had.

Torn smirked. "Name and rank officer?" he asked the young man.

"Lieutenant Major Davis Dickens, Sir!" He saluted the Commander who chuckled.

"Lieutenant, we are doing what's called a War Game. If our War Game happens to take us into the hot zone, there's no problem with us eliminating the enemy," Torn's gravelly voice made it sound like this was truly a game and not a battle. "Now is there?"

Dickens chuckled. "No sir, not if it means I get to kill a few drones and grunts and perhaps a sentry or two." A few of the men chuckled.

"You'll get your chance," Torn stated. "You are Blue Squad, our very Special Ops team. You are made up of the six best fighters, four explosive experts and three heavy weapons officers." He looked at each of them. "The explosive experts will team up with my friend Jinx here and go through the northern gate and make your way to the western gate where you will set up traps for our metalhead friends." He smirked at the glee filled looks on the young men. "The heavy weapon specialists will go with Tess here through the southern gate and make your way around to the back of our friends and wait until you receive my signal, at which point you begin to blast them apart at their flanks." He looked at Keira and the rest of the group. "The rest of you will be teaming up with myself and Hagai here and we'll be taking them on from the front. We're the distraction to the other two groups. We keep their attention on us and kill as many as we can in a short of amount of time." He looked at each person. "I don't want casualties. I want everybody to come home." He glared at them making most straighten their backs a bit. "Or else there will be hell to pay."

"Sir, yes Sir!" the group of soldiers yelled.

"We leave out at dawn," Torn said before dismissing the group.

Location: Wasteland City Ruins

Daxter hated ruins, he really did. They always brought them trouble, for him especially. It was how he ended up turning into an ottsel, it was how they had even started their adventure. He tapped his foot restlessly as he watched Jak's back as they went deeper into the ruins. He recognized where they were. It was the ancient palace ruins. He and Jak had explored under the palace once Gol and Maia had been killed in the dark silo's. Rina, the Princess of Wasteland City, had wanted these caverns mapped and for two hundred and seventy orbs, they had done it for her. Back then Jak had wanted to do it for free, but he, Daxter, had negotiated for the orbs. Now he wished they still had that map! "Eh, Jak, buddy..." He paused when he heard something.

Jak's feet stopped as she turned her head to look at Daxter. "You okay Dax?" she asked, her voice calm and steady causing her friend to look at her.

"Didn't ya hear that?" he asked, his muscles tensing.

"Yeah," she said with a shrug. "Sounded like a swamp rat." She began to walk away.

"I hated those things." He shivered at the memory of those creatures. They were as big a Jak's foot and faster that a raging lurker.

"You hated everything in that swamp," she mumbled with a quiet laugh.

"Hey!" Daxter cried out. "You be a foot high and have everything tryin' ta eat ya and see you like it!"

Jak chuckled. "I think I'll stick to being turned into a girl and losing my man bits thank you," she teased, causing Daxter to slap himself.

Pulling his hand away from his face, Daxter rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, yeah," he said with a wave of his hand when he noticed Jak had stopped walking. Looking up he saw a lightning bolt on the door. "Blue eco?" he said questioningly.

"Yeah," Jak said looking around. "Adriana says I can still channel certain types of eco, but that it's draining on me."

"Blue always tuckered you out before," Daxter stated, causing Jak to nod.

"I know." She looked around for the vent and found one covered. Walking over to it she pushed the cover off before seeing the bright blue substance burst out of the vent. Sticking her hand out into the current she grimace as pain shot up her arm. Quicker than Daxter to blink she flew to the door causing the rust covered wheel to roll away and open indefinitely. Bending over she panted. 'Note to self,' she thought. 'Stay away from blue eco.'

Agreed. She heard Adriana say within her. The eco creature nodding in agreement in the corner of her mind.

"Let's go Dax," she said turning to continue their exploration never noticing the tiny drone camera that was following them into the deeper parts of the ruins.

M-Angel: Yay! I got another chapter out this month! I feel so proud of myself and I only got distracted three times! That's an improvement. Lmbo! Finally, a battle in the making. This should be interesting to write. It's been awhile since I wrote one in this story. Hmm... Should everybody live or should there be casualties? Perhaps heavily sustained injuries instead? I've gotta think on this one. ^_^

xoxoangii: I personally get devastated when there are casualties, so if we can spare me some heart break, that would be awesome. Lol!