"The sooner we get this done, the sooner we meet The Shadow and get home."
As the doorlock slid open with a grinding of gears and hiss of eco fumes, Jak pushed himself away from the wall and stepped out onto the sand. It was strange out here. Different from the rest of the city, almost like the jungles back home if someone had laid down several thousand tons of piping through it.
Jak wasn't sure what he expected from Metal Heads. More of a challenge, perhaps? They were more organized and clearly smarter than Lurkers, but they went down just as easily. Okay, so he got bitten and scratched a few times, and something tore a nasty hole in the back of his right pant leg, but they were almost to the water valve, right? Dax was still on his shoulder, and they only had a couple hundred feet to cross before they'd reach what looked like the valve access bridge.
Backing up a few steps, Jak rushed forward and leaped over the gap between ledges. He cleared it easily, but his landing was less than graceful, and he skidded in the sand before falling on his side, kicking up a plume of dust.
Contrary to popular belief, Dax was not stupid. He was loud, obnoxious, rude, (cute) and one of the most obtuse people on the planet...but not stupid. He knew the goal wasn't to meet The Shadow and go home. Not immediately anyway. Jak wanted to meet The Shadow so he could hurt Baron Praxis. If his first words in the prison hadn't been enough of a hint, watching Jak's face darken at the sound of the Baron's voice had been.
Jak had a vendetta and he wasn't going to go anywhere until he settled it.
Dax didn't know what they'd been doing to Jak in that prison; when he'd asked, Jak had responded with a clipped "experiments" and left it at that. But whatever had happened, none of it had made Jak any less athletic. In fact, he seemed even more capable than he was before. So when he leaped and fell, Daxter knew that Jak was exhausted and that he somehow had to make this mission their last one until they got some sleep.
That and the tumble sent Dax flying into the brush, and he was not going to experience that again, thank you. Extracting himself from the plant and shaking sand and leaves from his fur, Daxter grumbled irritably as he headed over to the valve and tugged on it. "Dammit Jak, what the hell is with this thing?! Stupid piece of..."
As exhausted as he was, Jak actually thought Daxter might buy that "going home" line. It was painfully obvious though, just how badly he wanted, needed to exact revenge on Praxis and Erol. They did this to him. They took away years of his life -- how many, he couldn't be sure -- and mutated him into some kind of monster. They ruined his life, took him from his friends and family-
Shaking his head sharply to clear it, Jak grunted to himself. The Dark Eco swirling inside him would take a hold of his mind sometimes, whispering and luring him into darker thoughts of hatred and violence. He'd been silent most of his younger years, but since the experiments began and his mind began to warp into something not entirely his own, Jak found that making noise -- singing, yelling, talking to himself -- would distract him from the pure evil taking root inside him.
ENOUGH. Get a grip.
Climbing to his feet and leaning a hand against a railing for balance as he crossed over the metal bridge up to the valve, Jak rolled his eyes as Daxter struggled with the valve. Lifting his hand, Jak brought the side of his fist down hard against the wheel, and it shifted suddenly with a screech of rusted metal.
In retrospect, he'd been in more pain than that before. A few times, actually; once when he'd broken his arm when he was six, when he'd gotten horribly ill from eating poisonous berries when he was eleven and those few seconds in the Dark Eco when he was first transformed. And he'd been more afraid before, too.
It still sucked, being slammed about and nearly crushed by the pressure in that piping. It had really, really sucked, and even as he cracked wise about it and hopped onto Jak's shoulder to head back into the city, he was still sore all over. It wasn't a complete bust though; his resolve to convince Jak to rest had been hardened and once they made it back onto the rickety docks that strung together the houses in the water slums, Daxter cleared his throat.
"Look uh, buddy? I was thinkin' we should find someplace to crash since...y'know, we haven't yet. And all." And thank you very much Jak, but he wanted to rest too. He was tired and hungry, and Daxter wasn't too keen on facing down another bout of danger without at least eight hours of sleep beneath his belt.
I. Not we. Jak had something to prove. If he stopped, he might not get back up. If he gave in, he'd prove he was weak. He had to survive, and that meant pressing on.
The water slums were where the lowest of the low, the poorest of Haven City's residents lived. They huddled in their damp, rickety shanty houses suspended on struts over filthy, stinking water while KG marched across the walkways.
The wood creaked beneath Jak's feet, bowing in places where it was soaked and rotten through, some slats missing altogether. At one point, something snapped and he stumbled, almost pitching into the water, the low wooden rail only just stopping him in time.
His hands were starting to shake, but it was okay. He'd pushed through this before. He knew his limits. He could keep going. He had to.
Daxter leaped down from Jak and scurried a few steps ahead of him to turn around, arms folded. "Except you don't got to, all right? I'm tired as hell and hungry, and I know you are too. I know a couple places we can crash without getting caught, okay? I'll show you over there."
Only just stopping himself in time, Jak almost stumbled right over Daxter. He clenched his jaw stubbornly and glared at his best friend, but it didn't hold the same animosity as it would have eighteen hours ago.
The idea of resting, actually resting sounded so good he could almost cry. But he couldn't afford that luxury, time was too short. He had to, had to keep moving. Find a way into the palace, destroy that machine and the twisted men who made it.
"No. You can stay with Torn if you need to."
Stepping around him, he kept moving ... into a dead end.
Daxter scoffed and leaped back onto Jak's shoulder; he had the argument half-won already. Jak couldn't tell one street from another in this city, and without Daxter's directions he'd probably collapse before he even made it back to the Underground hideout. He could just let Jak wander until he admitted defeat, but knowing Jak he was so stubborn he'd keep going until he fell over unconscious.
And Dax was just a bit too small to drag him off to safety.
"I ain't staying with that jackass, I don't even know him. Besides, we cleared that place so fast he's probably got no idea what else he can sic us on; the guy's gotta sleep sometime, too. So let's get some food and catch some shut eye. I bet you the Baron's still gonna be around and ready for an ass-kicking when you wake back up."
Finally finding his way out of the water slums, Jak stuck close to the walls -- just for the shadows, mind. Absolutely not for the extra support now and again when the potholes caught the toe of his boot and made him stumble, or the sudden crackle of a KG radio as a Hellcat passed over head made him jump.
At one point, his eyes actually slid shut and his head nodded while he was walking. Catching himself, he shook his head and rubbed his face with both hands.
Fine, the silent treatment. Then Daxter would just have to play dirty.
Daxter looked around for something he coul use; when Jak slumped against one of the walls he reached up and wrenched at a loose chunk of concrete. The rock came out easily -the buildings were practically rubble anyway- and he took careful aim at the KG cruiser that was lazily drifting overhead.
God, it was reckless. But even cowards had to be batshit loco sometime. Besides, before Jak had grown his own spine Daxter had needed to keep one large enough for the both of them; he could be dangerous when he wanted to. Besides, Jak was so dead on his feet Daxter didn't think he'd notice if his best friend set off a grenade at their feet.
So he lobbed the rock right at the driver's head.
With a loud, ringing clang the thing bounced off of the soldier's helmet and the Hellcat veered violently into a wall; the vehicle was hardly damaged but the driver was mad as hell, and immediately spotted Daxter and Jak a few feet away, looking extremely suspicious. "You there! Halt!" he shouted, and Daxter jumped at the noise -a very convincing act, he thought- and yanked on Jak's ear.
Utterly oblivious to Daxter's evil scheme, Jak startled at the noise and his head whipped around to stare straight down the barrel of the weapons mounted on top of a badly scratched Hellcat. His eyes widened, and without a moment's hesitation, he bolted.
Leaping over potholes and knocking over civilians with little regard, he kept his eyes open for any kind of escape, some place to hide. His heart raced and his stomach lurched as he heard the Hellcat's engine rumbling behind them in pursuit.
Okay, that he hadn't been expecting. Sure, anyone could figure out that one should not stand still when a weapon is leveled at one's head, but considering Jak's first run-in with the KG outside the prison Daxter had thought he'd go Dark and tear through the Hellcat like tissue paper.
That his first response had been flight instead of fight told Dax just how tired Jak was.
Luckily, Daxter knew almost the entire city as well as he had Sandover. Two years of wandering tended to do that to a guy. So he gripped Jak's hair and directed him over to one of his sure-fire safehouses where Daxter tended to crash when he was too tired to go anywhere else. It would be small and it smelled like mildew, but it was better than the streets and definitely preferable to being shot by the guards.
"Jak, there-!" Daxter pointed to the half-rotted door where Jak could slip inside. From there it was a quick trip up the stairs -"Look out, that step's gone- that one too,"- and into a small room that had once been a bedroom of a long-dead slummer judging by the moldy mattress on the floor and lack of personal effects. Clearly the place had already been stripped of all valuables, and the mattress simply wasn't good enough to take, but the floor was clean enough and they'd make do.
Bravado and anger were one thing, but at that moment, it was fear that won out. All the posturing and big words in the world couldn't hide the fact that Jak was genuinely afraid. Afraid of going back to prison, afraid of being subjected to more tests. Right then, exhausted, still running on the adrenaline his new freedom gave him, the memories of the last experiment fresh in his mind, the Hellcat might as well have been right out of his nightmares.
Slipping through the door, Jak hopped up the stairs to Daxter's instructions and collapsed to his hands and knees at the top, breathing hard, eyes clenched shut.
He waited.
The Hellcat drew close-
-and then moved past.
Arms shaking, Jak let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The alarms still rang outside, they'd be searching the area for them now.
"C'mon," Daxter urged quietly; he scaled down Jak's arm to the floor and tugged at his sleeve. He bounded once, toward the room to show Jak the way, then disappeared through the threshold and into the only room on the second floor. There was a small nest of old clothes in the corner, relatively clean and smelling significantly better than the mattress.
Daxter took the clothes and spread them out to cover more of the ground, large enough to accommodate someone of Jak's size. This was one of his older safe houses; he'd begun hoarding clothes he could steal and though he couldn't remove the mattress and get rid of that moldy smell he could at least keep the clean shirts in the corner and bury his nose in that to keep the stench away. Though Jak probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with it as he had.
"Over here," Daxter called in a stage-whisper, gesturing for Jak to come to the corner and sit. While the idea of making a nest like some kind of rodent had repulsed him at first, Daxter soon learned that beds were hard to come by and that the city rats weren't the only things that slept on whatever softness they could find. He wasn't acting like a rodent, he told himself whenever he grew angry at his packrat behavior; he was sleeping like a slummer.
Climbing to his feet like an old man, Jak limped into the room. The mildew barely phased him, it smelled infinitely better than his own prison cell, and the space was marginally bigger, too.
Sitting down heavily in the corner, Jak leaned his head back against the wall, mouth gaping slightly. It felt so good just to get the weight off his legs, be able to close his eyes, to not be constantly aware of his surroundings.
Tilting his head forward, he dragged a hand over one side of his face, then looked at Daxter curiously.
"You set this up?" he asked, a tone of surprise in his voice. It really shouldn't had surprised him, he reasoned. After all, Dax had been living out here for two years.
"Yup," and Daxter nodded as well. He pulled himself up to perch atop Jak's knee, cocking his head to the side as he sighed in relief. "I got a few here...harder to find empty places in the other sections, but the slums got plenty places for someone to crash."
Daxter also preferred this location due to its close proximity to one of the few food stalls in the slums; he could sneak out and steal a piece of fruit and make it back to his hidey-hole before the stall owner even figured out that he'd been robbed. The first few times Daxter felt somewhat guilty; the stall owners were just slummers themselves, trying to scrape out their own existence in this hellhole of a city, but he got over that pretty quick when it came down to stealing enough to live and starving to death. He was pretty good at thievery too, it turned out. Dax didn't go hungry very often at all.
Which reminded him. He needed to get them food, but he doubted Jak would let him leave with the city on high alert as it was. He hopped down and patted Jak's hand. "I'm gonna go check and see if they're still runnin' around out there, you take it easy."
And Dax was out the door and headed down the stairs before Jak could even say no.
As the doorlock slid open with a grinding of gears and hiss of eco fumes, Jak pushed himself away from the wall and stepped out onto the sand. It was strange out here. Different from the rest of the city, almost like the jungles back home if someone had laid down several thousand tons of piping through it.
Jak wasn't sure what he expected from Metal Heads. More of a challenge, perhaps? They were more organized and clearly smarter than Lurkers, but they went down just as easily. Okay, so he got bitten and scratched a few times, and something tore a nasty hole in the back of his right pant leg, but they were almost to the water valve, right? Dax was still on his shoulder, and they only had a couple hundred feet to cross before they'd reach what looked like the valve access bridge.
Backing up a few steps, Jak rushed forward and leaped over the gap between ledges. He cleared it easily, but his landing was less than graceful, and he skidded in the sand before falling on his side, kicking up a plume of dust.
Snarling, he pounded his fist against the ground.
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Jak had a vendetta and he wasn't going to go anywhere until he settled it.
Dax didn't know what they'd been doing to Jak in that prison; when he'd asked, Jak had responded with a clipped "experiments" and left it at that. But whatever had happened, none of it had made Jak any less athletic. In fact, he seemed even more capable than he was before. So when he leaped and fell, Daxter knew that Jak was exhausted and that he somehow had to make this mission their last one until they got some sleep.
That and the tumble sent Dax flying into the brush, and he was not going to experience that again, thank you. Extracting himself from the plant and shaking sand and leaves from his fur, Daxter grumbled irritably as he headed over to the valve and tugged on it. "Dammit Jak, what the hell is with this thing?! Stupid piece of..."
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Shaking his head sharply to clear it, Jak grunted to himself. The Dark Eco swirling inside him would take a hold of his mind sometimes, whispering and luring him into darker thoughts of hatred and violence. He'd been silent most of his younger years, but since the experiments began and his mind began to warp into something not entirely his own, Jak found that making noise -- singing, yelling, talking to himself -- would distract him from the pure evil taking root inside him.
ENOUGH. Get a grip.
Climbing to his feet and leaning a hand against a railing for balance as he crossed over the metal bridge up to the valve, Jak rolled his eyes as Daxter struggled with the valve. Lifting his hand, Jak brought the side of his fist down hard against the wheel, and it shifted suddenly with a screech of rusted metal.
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In retrospect, he'd been in more pain than that before. A few times, actually; once when he'd broken his arm when he was six, when he'd gotten horribly ill from eating poisonous berries when he was eleven and those few seconds in the Dark Eco when he was first transformed. And he'd been more afraid before, too.
It still sucked, being slammed about and nearly crushed by the pressure in that piping. It had really, really sucked, and even as he cracked wise about it and hopped onto Jak's shoulder to head back into the city, he was still sore all over. It wasn't a complete bust though; his resolve to convince Jak to rest had been hardened and once they made it back onto the rickety docks that strung together the houses in the water slums, Daxter cleared his throat.
"Look uh, buddy? I was thinkin' we should find someplace to crash since...y'know, we haven't yet. And all." And thank you very much Jak, but he wanted to rest too. He was tired and hungry, and Daxter wasn't too keen on facing down another bout of danger without at least eight hours of sleep beneath his belt.
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I. Not we. Jak had something to prove. If he stopped, he might not get back up. If he gave in, he'd prove he was weak. He had to survive, and that meant pressing on.
The water slums were where the lowest of the low, the poorest of Haven City's residents lived. They huddled in their damp, rickety shanty houses suspended on struts over filthy, stinking water while KG marched across the walkways.
The wood creaked beneath Jak's feet, bowing in places where it was soaked and rotten through, some slats missing altogether. At one point, something snapped and he stumbled, almost pitching into the water, the low wooden rail only just stopping him in time.
His hands were starting to shake, but it was okay. He'd pushed through this before. He knew his limits. He could keep going. He had to.
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The idea of resting, actually resting sounded so good he could almost cry. But he couldn't afford that luxury, time was too short. He had to, had to keep moving. Find a way into the palace, destroy that machine and the twisted men who made it.
"No. You can stay with Torn if you need to."
Stepping around him, he kept moving ... into a dead end.
Damn it. This was not helping his case.
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And Dax was just a bit too small to drag him off to safety.
"I ain't staying with that jackass, I don't even know him. Besides, we cleared that place so fast he's probably got no idea what else he can sic us on; the guy's gotta sleep sometime, too. So let's get some food and catch some shut eye. I bet you the Baron's still gonna be around and ready for an ass-kicking when you wake back up."
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At one point, his eyes actually slid shut and his head nodded while he was walking. Catching himself, he shook his head and rubbed his face with both hands.
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Daxter looked around for something he coul use; when Jak slumped against one of the walls he reached up and wrenched at a loose chunk of concrete. The rock came out easily -the buildings were practically rubble anyway- and he took careful aim at the KG cruiser that was lazily drifting overhead.
God, it was reckless. But even cowards had to be batshit loco sometime. Besides, before Jak had grown his own spine Daxter had needed to keep one large enough for the both of them; he could be dangerous when he wanted to. Besides, Jak was so dead on his feet Daxter didn't think he'd notice if his best friend set off a grenade at their feet.
So he lobbed the rock right at the driver's head.
With a loud, ringing clang the thing bounced off of the soldier's helmet and the Hellcat veered violently into a wall; the vehicle was hardly damaged but the driver was mad as hell, and immediately spotted Daxter and Jak a few feet away, looking extremely suspicious. "You there! Halt!" he shouted, and Daxter jumped at the noise -a very convincing act, he thought- and yanked on Jak's ear.
"Jak, we gotta run for it!"
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Leaping over potholes and knocking over civilians with little regard, he kept his eyes open for any kind of escape, some place to hide. His heart raced and his stomach lurched as he heard the Hellcat's engine rumbling behind them in pursuit.
He would not go back to prison.
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That his first response had been flight instead of fight told Dax just how tired Jak was.
Luckily, Daxter knew almost the entire city as well as he had Sandover. Two years of wandering tended to do that to a guy. So he gripped Jak's hair and directed him over to one of his sure-fire safehouses where Daxter tended to crash when he was too tired to go anywhere else. It would be small and it smelled like mildew, but it was better than the streets and definitely preferable to being shot by the guards.
"Jak, there-!" Daxter pointed to the half-rotted door where Jak could slip inside. From there it was a quick trip up the stairs -"Look out, that step's gone- that one too,"- and into a small room that had once been a bedroom of a long-dead slummer judging by the moldy mattress on the floor and lack of personal effects. Clearly the place had already been stripped of all valuables, and the mattress simply wasn't good enough to take, but the floor was clean enough and they'd make do.
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Slipping through the door, Jak hopped up the stairs to Daxter's instructions and collapsed to his hands and knees at the top, breathing hard, eyes clenched shut.
He waited.
The Hellcat drew close-
-and then moved past.
Arms shaking, Jak let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. The alarms still rang outside, they'd be searching the area for them now.
They were trapped safe.
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Daxter took the clothes and spread them out to cover more of the ground, large enough to accommodate someone of Jak's size. This was one of his older safe houses; he'd begun hoarding clothes he could steal and though he couldn't remove the mattress and get rid of that moldy smell he could at least keep the clean shirts in the corner and bury his nose in that to keep the stench away. Though Jak probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with it as he had.
"Over here," Daxter called in a stage-whisper, gesturing for Jak to come to the corner and sit. While the idea of making a nest like some kind of rodent had repulsed him at first, Daxter soon learned that beds were hard to come by and that the city rats weren't the only things that slept on whatever softness they could find. He wasn't acting like a rodent, he told himself whenever he grew angry at his packrat behavior; he was sleeping like a slummer.
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Sitting down heavily in the corner, Jak leaned his head back against the wall, mouth gaping slightly. It felt so good just to get the weight off his legs, be able to close his eyes, to not be constantly aware of his surroundings.
Tilting his head forward, he dragged a hand over one side of his face, then looked at Daxter curiously.
"You set this up?" he asked, a tone of surprise in his voice. It really shouldn't had surprised him, he reasoned. After all, Dax had been living out here for two years.
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Daxter also preferred this location due to its close proximity to one of the few food stalls in the slums; he could sneak out and steal a piece of fruit and make it back to his hidey-hole before the stall owner even figured out that he'd been robbed. The first few times Daxter felt somewhat guilty; the stall owners were just slummers themselves, trying to scrape out their own existence in this hellhole of a city, but he got over that pretty quick when it came down to stealing enough to live and starving to death. He was pretty good at thievery too, it turned out. Dax didn't go hungry very often at all.
Which reminded him. He needed to get them food, but he doubted Jak would let him leave with the city on high alert as it was. He hopped down and patted Jak's hand. "I'm gonna go check and see if they're still runnin' around out there, you take it easy."
And Dax was out the door and headed down the stairs before Jak could even say no.
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