Chapter 38: Channelers Found
Date: April 30, 3658
Location: Far Drop - The Brink
Defending Far Drop wasn't as hard for Jak as it would have been for someone who was normal. Because she could fly, thanks to Adriana's uniqueness, she was able to defeat the enemy army faster and more efficiently. The dark eco infused soldiers proved to be quite dangerous and some were outright strange; more so than she. One had the vibes of something from a movie Daxter was obsessed with, a sort of Darth Vader. He has no legs, ad he floated around on dark eco mist and could summon dark eco lightning on will. The lesser soldiers could produce dark eco orbs that stung a bit but didn't do much damage. These were the more common soldier than the Darth Vader type, which led her to believe the more powerful ones were generals and the others were just common foot soldiers.
Jak ended up having to defend the orphanage once again, as the soldiers were kidnapping them. Most likely for experiments by Skyheed. This just pissed her off even more. The really needed to take the fight to Skybeed and end this game of cat and mouse.
Once the orphans were safe enough, Jak took off towards Barter's place. The bar was a disaster area. She spotted a pirate lady she had fought a week ago in order to get a part for the Eco Seeker. The woman was fighting off a dozen robots single-handedly. It was impressive, but stupid. Chucking a dark eco ball at the group of robots holding her down, Jak turned towards the mutants that the soldiers were using as common fodder. A giant chain around a mutant ape was electrically charged and was causing the beast great pain. Perceiving this as the weak point, Jak changed up a bolt of dark eco lighting that overcharged the fusion reactor that controlled the collars. The chains fell from the mutants necks, who then turned on the soldiers.
Jak was about to turn to leave when her wing was clipped. Landing on her feet she turned towards the one who had just shot at her. Ears falling back, her obsidian eyes glared darkly as a ball of dark eco formed into one hand before she relaxed, slightly. The pirate woman stared at her with wide eyes.
"What are you?" she asked, her green eyes staring in awe and shock at what was before her.
Jak turned towards the destruction beyond her towards the highest point of Far Drop. "A dark channeler," she answered before giving a flap of her wings and ascending to the sky to take out the floating fort of destruction.
As soon as Daxter had landed he knew that Far Drop would forever be changed by this attack. For the better or the worst, he wasn't sure. He, along with the still loyal crew of the Jolly Rogers went about finding survivors amongst the rubble of Far Drop. Off in the distance a large explosion, could be heard as the floating fortress was taken out by none other than Jak. This of course made Daxter both proud and worried. Worried because Jak had been in her dark form for more than twelve hours straight; proud because, well, Jak accomplished what she always accomplished: saving a group from utter disaster.
Pulling wood planks and mortar from a fallen home, Daxter came across a child with red hair that reminded the former ottsel so much of his younger self. Shaking his head, Daxter pulled the boy's body out from the rubble and found a tiny little girl with beautiful cerulean blue eyes and aqua colored hair. The tiny child had to have been only a toddler, but she captured Daxter's attention instantly. Picking her up, he inspected her to see if she was hurt. The toddler started sniffling before wrapping her tiny arms around Daxter's neck and crying silently against him.
"It's okay sweetie," he said comfortingly as he rubbed her back. "The Daxtinator is here to save ya." He grinned as she looked at him before hugging him once more. Chuckling he admitted that was possibly the cutest reaction he'd ever gotten from saying that to anyone.
"Dax!" a familiar voice caught his attention.
Turning swiftly, Daxter saw that Jak was back to her normal looking self, though she was covered in blood and had patches of her pants and shirt missing, thankfully not showing any of her goods. "Jak, lookie what I found!" he said as he held the tiny tot close. "Phoenix thinks there might be survivors. He was right." He nodded towards the others that the crew had already dug up from the rubble. "The kid's family is dead though," he mumbled sadly as he nodded towards the dead boy and woman he'd found before finding the girl.
Jak touched the little girl's head before she suddenly sensed something from the child. Frowning, she felt a bit deeper and found what she was looking for - a swell of eco. "She's a channeler," she whispered to Daxter whose eyes widened at this information.
"Wonder what type?" Daxter thought out loud.
"A born channeler," Jak answered. There were three types of channelers, a lesson Daxter had learned as a kid. A natural channeler, who could channel any type of eco, much like Jak had been in her younger years as a boy. A born channeler, who was born with a certain type of eco in their body. The last, being the rarest, was an ascended channeler, which was what Jak was now. "I wonder..." Jak recalled the orphans that she'd saved earlier. She'd sensed a lot of eco around them but had brushed it off to being the Aeropain army. "If Skyheed was after the children because they're born channelers." A clapping sound caught both of their attentions.
"Bravo Jak!" Phoenix exclaimed as he finished clapping. Walking up to the duo, he gentle took the little girl out of Daxter's arm. "This is the reason both you and Skyheed are here. The hidden tribe of channelers that live in the brink. This is only one of many, and believe me, if Skyheed took out this tribe he'd stop at nothing to get the others."
"Why?" Daxter asked, not understanding as he retook the child who began to cry in Phoenix's arms. "They're just children."
"Of course," Jak said softly as she put the pieces together. "Baron Praxis once stated that had I been a child it would've been easier to control me. Once my powers began manifesting to what they'd become, I began to resume my rebelling, thus he increased the experiments in hopes that I'd break."
"But your spirit was too strong," Phoenix finished for her. "The same could be said for many adults."
"Yeah, but I was the only one to survive the experiments," she said with great sadness in her voice. "The adults died very easily."
"Perhaps there's another reason they want the children and not the adults," Daxter pointed out. "What if it's because they're still a growin' and the adults no longer are." Beyond them the old castaway had been listening to their conversation.
"It's the hormone levels," he stated causing the group to look at him. "Children have very little hormones, but adults have a lot of them. Mutations occur in adults. Some are quite grotesque. Children who are on the cusp of adulthood have some hormones, mostly raging ones that they don't understand. But, if one were to use those hormonal levels to their benefit..."
"You'd get a warrior like Jak," Phoenix concluded.
"Not quite," the survivor stated. "Jak is a freak of nature no matter what. She is an ascended channeler, a very rare being; even for a channeler. No," the man shook his head. "If you use all those hormones to your benefit and at the right moment introduce dark eco or any type of eco and overwhelm the system, you'd get a created born channeler who'd never need to recharge their powers. If this occurred in a natural channeler, the possibilities would be endless."
"Such as...maybe...a change of sexes," Daxter pointed out causing the old man to think about that one even as Jak slapped Daxter over the head.
"Possibly, as a sort of side effect or even slight mutation," the old man concluded before aimlessly wondering off.
"I don't care why he wanted these children," Jak began as she touched the little girl's cheek. "Because frankly I don't give a flying rats ass. Skyheed needs to be stopped and that will never happen if we don't take this fight to him."
"Agreed." Phoenix looked towards Barter. "I'm certain the lurker community agrees with this, especially after this latest attack."
The lizard type lurker nodded. "Phoenix and Jak are Barter's friends," he stated. "Barter will give you anything you need to take that...barbarian out! He killed many of Barter's friends tonight."
The sounds of high heel boots could be heard as the crowd parted to reveal the female pirate from earlier. "You going after Skyheed?" she asked as she raised an eco pistol. "I want in. He killed my second-in-command and my lieutenant."
The woman came to a stop in front of the other captain. Their height difference was quite noticeable for Jak and Daxter. Without her high heels, the woman would've come just below Phoenix's chin, with them she was eye level with the raven haired male. "Angii..." Phoenix said her name so softly you knew there had to have been something between the two.
The dark haired woman smirked at him as she raised her other hand, a ball of blue eco crackled in her palm. "I think you know I won't take no for an answer on this one Phoenix." Her eyes seeming to crackle with the same energy that was in the palm of her hand.
Daxter and Jak both cocked a brow at this exchange both sharing a knowing look with each other. "The more the better," Jak answered breaking the tension between the two.
"You got a ship babe?" Daxter asked the woman.
Angii chuckled darkly. "Do I ever," she stated as she walked away, her hips swaying to and fro quickly catching attention by the male members of Phoenix's crew, which happened to be all of them.
"Congratulations," Phoenix said as he looked at Jak. "You're about to experience the second most frightening pirate caste. The Barbarossa is just as frightening as the once long ago Dutchman." He then leaned closely to Jak. "She's also my half-sister."
The duo coughed to cover their laugh at the thought of Phoenix being afraid of the much shorter woman. "Never would've guessed," Jak said with a smirk playing with her lips.
Deciding to save face, Phoenix quickly gathered his men and began barking orders to them to gather supplies, ammunition, and anything that would help them with their invasion and their victory against Duke Skyheed and his dark soldiers.
It didn't take long for the ragtag group of pirates to find the limping Aeropain sky ship. The eco glowed brightly on top of the ship. Daxter was using his long distance scanners to scan the immediate area for any hidden enemies, but found nobody. However, he was picking up something else. Reading the information coming out at him made his head hurt. He was smart but not Vin smart and all this data made no sense to him. Using the ship VI to contact Annalina, he began to send her the data The Precursor warrior appeared on the holo next to him. "Daxter, are these readings coming from the vicinity you are in?" her voice sounded slightly worried.
"YYYYeah," he said elongating the word. "Why?" he asked sounding curious but worried as well.
"If these readings continue, the world's eco flow will soon come to a complete halt." Her face looked quite serious. "The eco core must be fixed immediately"
"Uh.." he began. "What if, hypothetically, somebody had the eco core and was using it as a weapon of sorts to power their mutant channeler army?"
Daxter was met with silence for a full minute. "Hypothetically, if that happened, the world would be in an even worse trouble than it already was in," she answered. "The core would self destruct after forty-eight hours. The fallout would be worse than a million nuclear bombs going off. No life world be able to survive in a twenty-five hundred mile radius. The radiation would inevitably spread throughout the entire planet. Gaia would become a sterile planet in five years time."
"Sterile?" Daxter asked gaining a nod. "Sterile is bad." He looked towards Jak who was flying with him. "Okay...we'll get back to you in a couple hours." He disconnected the comm link with her and looked towards Jak. Shit just got real.
Back on the station that covered the desert city of Spargus City, Annalina looked over the data given to her by Daxter and prayed to whatever gods that were watching that those two were able to fix this problem before it hit a critical time. Looking towards the countdown timer she saw that they had seventy-two hours before Errol's army would become a true threat to this world and it's inhabitants. So far they only had one cruiser ship to worry about. She didn't want to think about the dreadnought that was the Daystar just yet. Wringing her hands together, Annalina walked out of the control center and headed towards the exit to see how the newly trained Spartans were doing.
M-Angel: Sorry for the lack of updates to this story. I got a job back in June and updates have been spotty. I'll try better. Did anyone like the new character I added? Bet you can't guess who she was inspired by...
xoxoangii: hmmm... still trying to figure it out...