Chapter 31: The Castaway
Date: April 20, 3658
Location: Jolly Rogers / The Brink
Daxter watched Jak begin to type into one of the computers as Phoenix began looking around the precursor ship. "Impressive," he said as he went to touch one of the dials.
Daxter slapped his hand away. "No touchy, touchy," he told the pirate captain as he waved a finger at him.
Phoenix growled at him before Jak suddenly spoke. "I've got it on the scanner," she announced before looking at the two men. Rolling her eyes at them she continued. "It's on the island here," she pointed to the map. "It seems to have fallen into one of the volcanic tubes."
"Joy," Daxter said with sarcasm. "You know, I was starting to think ta myself, boy it's been a while since we've been in a boiling volcano." He smiled at her aging a chuckle.
"You know what Dax?" she began with a light chuckle. "I think you're right."
"I take it you two have been in a lot of volcanoes lately?" Phoenix asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Dude, you have no idea," Daxter said with a smile. "First there's volcanic crater, then volcano canyon, then-"
"The drill platform in Haven City, next the wasteland volcano-" Jak voiced.
"Oh! Let's not forget the volcanic tubes!" Daxter announced as he remembered the tubes that led to the Akron's citadel.
Jak chuckled. "Well, it could be worse."
"Jak!" Daxter yelled. "Don't say that! When you do, it always gets worse." She rolled her eyes at him as Daxter raced over to the pilot's chair.
"What are you doing?" she inquired as she tapped a foot on the floor.
"I've had it with your driving," he told her as he began running his hands along the holographic surface. "You do too many crazy stunts!"
Jak pouted. "Do not," she mumbled.
You do. Adriana said, putting her two cents into the conversation.
Daxter eyed her over his shoulder. "Uh-huh," he said as the cruiser began to pull out of the hanger bay. "Keep sayin' that sweetheart." The ship gave a lurch as it dove down towards the island below them. Daxter's hands moving at lightning speeds as he drove the ship through and around large rock formations. Grasping the joystick, he manually steered the ship through some caves before slowing down and coming to a stop.
"Okay, color me impressed Dax," Jak told him as she grabbed her sword and pistol that she'd left onboard when they had boarded the Aeropain ship. "Let's do this," she said confidently as she pressed the airlock button.
Daxter gasped as he dodged another killer robot as it tried to hack him in half with its saw-like hands. Jak was using her precursor empowered sword to cut clean through the robots as Daxter used his staff weapon to shoot red eco bolts at the metal monsters. Captain Phoenix was hacking into a security field, which meant somebody had created these monsters. "What did I say, Jak!? You jinxed us!" He saw her take out six robots with her sword. She glared at him. "Any day now!" Daxter yelled at Phoenix as he ran over to Jak's side, having killed the last robot.
Just then three blue robots that looked to have been made in Haven City came rushing towards them. 'Talk about déjà vu,' he thought as he distinctly recalled a memory where Torn had sent him and Jak to destroy several of these monster robots that Praxis had made.
"One more line of codes!" Phoenix yelled at them from over his shoulder.
"How about it Jak? Send one big dark bomb and those things are dead," Daxter asked his green/blonde companion.
Jak smirked at him. "Why not?" she said with a shrug before sheathing her sword. Pulling the dark eco energy from her body into her hand, Jak watched as an eco orb appeared, crackling with dark lightning before chucking it towards the three robots like it was a ball and they were pins needing to be knocked down. The resulting explosion rocked the area and created a crater three times the size of the robots, into the ground.
Phoenix had finished the hacking and turned just in time to watch Jak create the energy of dark eco before destroying the robots with it. 'She's one of them,' he thought with shock.
Daxter hummed as he walked passed Phoenix who seemed shocked. "What? Never seen a dark channeler before?" he asked with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"Channeler?" he inquired as he watched Jak walk towards them. "Impossible. They've all died on the mainland," he told the red head.
Daxter smiled grimly. "No all of 'em." He then continued to walk forward.
Phoenix stopped Jak from following. "You're really a channeler?" he questioned her.
"A dark one," she said, emphasizing dark one. "I use to channel all eco, but after Baron Praxis…" she looked at her hands before fisting them. "Things changed."
Phoenix had a feeling that something horrible happened to this girl before he released her. "I understand," he said kindly.
Jak was about to continue when Daxter's scream caught her attention. Both she and Phoenix ran after him, only to find an old man laughing a Daxter's reaction. "A jumpy one, aren't ya?" the old man said. He wore strange goggles over his eyes, a worn out shirt and patched up pants with a tool belt around his waist. The man looked at Jak. "You've been touched by the darkness."
"How do you-" Jak begun only to be interrupted by the old man.
"I know dark eco when I see it," he said, "You see that I saw what I saw when I saw it." Jak gave Daxter a look causing her friend to make sign that this guy seemed crazy. Neither noticing the nervous look on Phoenix's face.
"Okay," Daxter said as he backed away from the old timer when he saw the grease on the guy's long white beard.
"So who are you?" Jak inquired.
"Uh, good question," the old man said as he rubbed his greasy gloved hands on his beard. "I know a lot, but I don't know that."
"What are you doing way out here?" Daxter asked as he tapped his foot on the steps leading into the tree house that the castaway had jumped out of at him.
"Wow! That's two!" he replied in shock. "I don't know that one either."
"Do you know anything about these dangerous robots that we've encountered?" Phoenix asked the old man.
"Yes, I built them to help me around the island," the castaway said with excitement before looking sad. "But they turned on me. I built the barrier so they wouldn't hurt me."
"Is this guy reminding you of someone?" Daxter whispered to Jak.
Nodding she replied simply. "Vin."
The two saw the man get up in Phoenix's face. "Is something wrong with your hearing son? Yes, I built them!" he yelled angrily. "And each one is no good to the titanium bone!"
"If you're so good with mechanics, perhaps you could help me with our ship." Phoenix glared at Daxter. "Somebody shot at it."
"Are you talking about that small Precursor cruiser? Nothing's wrong with that." He rubbed his beard. "Of course, I couldn't get inside."
"You didn't damage it?" Jak asked with worry.
"Of course not!" he yelled defensively.
"Look, were looking for a small orb that fell into the volcano," Daxter said.
"Oh!" the old man pulled something from the bag on the steps. "You mean this?"
"Yes!" all three cried out as Jak took it from the castaway.
"Saw it fall from the sky, didn't know what it was until I found it," the old man said. "No good to me here."
"But you know what it is?" Phoenix inquired.
"Of course," the old man stated with an obviousness to his tone. "An Eco Seeker."
"Do you know how to use it?" Jak asked gently as she handed it back to the older man.
"Hmm...let me see now." He began to examine the device, turning it over in his hands. The golden orb seeming to be examined from all sides. The man touched a dial on the side, before touching another. "Great engineering. Top notch! But can't help you." He threw it to Jak.
"But you said-" Daxter began.
"I know what I said when I said it," the old man grumbled. "But I know when I see trouble when I see it and that's a whole lotta trouble!"
"You remember something," Phoenix said seeing the gears work in the old man's head.
"Well..." the castaway said as he tried to keep hold of the memory. "I don't know...I can see huge warehouses filled with eco of all kinds, mostly dark. Stacked as high as the eyes can see."
Phoenix raised a brow at him. "Please, sir," Jak said, not partial to begging. "We need to find the eco in order to put this area of the world back in balance." She handed him to device once more.
"You are the prettiest face I've seen in some time," he said garnering a smile from Jak and a glare from Daxter. "This is nothing but trouble honey; but for you my dear..." he rubbed his hand on the surface of the device. "You see this whole device is a self-fusing locking mechanism so that not everyone can use or misuse it. So if you just turn these here-" He began turning the screws on the sides, pressed a button, then twisted. "Reverse the polarity. Presto!" The device suddenly opened up to reveal a holographic display with an arrow pointing into a direction. The gears began pulsating as the bottom glowed blue. "The seeker looks like it doesn't have much power left to me," he told them. "It's pointing to a new energy fuel cell..."
"If we power it up it may work better." She looked at Phoenix, "Let's get back to the ship."
"It's pointing over the brink," Phoenix told her as they returned back to her ship, the castaway following them.
"We don't have much choice!" Daxter yelled as he ran passed the dead robots.
"He's right," Jak agreed. "If you're right, then the storms around this area will only continue. Not only that, spread to the rest of the world."
"Even if we did stop the dark makers," Daxter began to grumble. "What kind of world would be left if it's only going to be destroyed later on?"
"I suppose you're right," he said pulling a comm unit out as they entered the precursor ship. "Klouse, prepare the Jolly Roger, we're heading towards Far Drop for supplies before we head out into the breach."
M-Angel: Took me a little while, but I did remember to write another chapter to this story.
xoxoangii: I like how it just took the castaway to open the Eco Seeker like it was nothing. lol