Jak, Shining, and Daxter moved quickly through Boggy Swamp, the last area to explore around Rock Village. There were only two real points of interest for them as they went through. The first was their first exposure to Yellow Eco, which allowed Jak and Shining to throw fireballs. While Jak burned through the Eco as fast as any other time no matter how many he threw, Shining discovered that if he held the Eco in his horn with his magic, he could contain it far longer for later usage. Also, his fireballs launched from his horn.
The only other point of interest in the swamp was finding the Flut-Flut - the bird who thought Shining and Daxter were his parents - on a teleporter, saddled for riding. He seemed very eager to assist them, and helped them gather the remainder of the Orbs and Cells in the swamp.
On the return to the Village, they met Keira at the levitation device. As she started work on plugging the Power Cells in, Shining watched over her shoulder. "So...how does this thing work?" he asked.
With a smile, Keira began to babble technological terms well above Shining's understanding. Seeing how lost he was getting, she smiled. "Pretty much the same way as you're able to manipulate things with your magic," she explained. "But it uses the Eco energy of the Power Cells instead."
"But...same principles?" Shining clarified.
"Pretty much, yeah," Keira agreed.
"So...similar enough you could hook the helmet that channeled my shield spell into the A-Grav Zoomer's Heat Shield into the levitator and channel my magic into that so I could control whatever was being levitated?" he asked. "Using this big thing as an amplifier?"
"Hmm...maybe," Keira admitted. She pulled out a spare helmet. "Worth a shot! Now just hold still!"
While the actual connection process wasn't entirely pleasant, having the levitator guided by Shining's magic meant that the boulder blocking the path could be set aside rather than just held aloft. Seeing this, Daxter grinned widely. "Say, Keira...think there's enough juice for another lift?"
"With all the Power Cells you brought, certainly," Keira replied. "But what should I be targeting?"
"How about that Klaww fella up there?" Daxter offered.
A bit of tinkering later, and Klaww was dealt with using the levitator. Seizing him in the inverted gravimetric field, Shining slammed Klaww against boulders, into the ground, and several times into the magma.
With Klaww dealt with, Jak and Shining took the Zoomer through the Mountain Pass to the Volcanic Crater. While flying Lurkers tried to blow the place up, Shining shot them down before they could get out of sight.
Activating the warp gate in the Red Sage's lab, Jak and company stepped back to allow Samos and Keira to land. "Holy Yakow!" Samos proclaimed after straightening himself. "The Red Sage's lab looks worse than the Blue's!"
"Well, it definitely looks as if there's been a struggle here," Keira pointed out.
At that moment, a laugh was heard above them with a strange echo. As everyone looked up, the blue skinned, emaciated male Jak, Shining, and Daxter had seen on Misty Island smirked down at them from his hovering positon. "I'd hardly call it a struggle," he corrected. "Would you, dear sister?"
The female figure from the island floated down beside him. "Certainly not!" she proclaimed primly. "The red sage gave up with so little effort. No fun at all."
Samos stared. "Gol?!" he demanded in shock. "Is that you?"
"Gol?" Jak demanded. "Does that mean the girl is Maia?"
"Wow," Daxter muttered. "She has not aged well. She was much hotter before she was blue."
Maia stared down at Daxter for a time before her eyes flicked between Jak and Shining. "You three!" she snapped. "Ugh, even now you invade my privacy?"
"Actually, we were hoping you could tell us how to reverse Daxter's Dark Eco related transformation," Shining countered. "I'm sorry if we upset you when we were younger. I assure you it wasn't intentional. Do you suppose you could take a look at him and see what you can do?"
"What?" Daxter demanded in shock and anger. "You want the freaky blue people who were talking about destroying the villages to give me a physical? No way, no how!" Daxter began flailing as he levitated into the air. "Whoa! Put me down!"
"Since he's so against it, I'd be happy to take a look," Maia purred, examining him through lenses of Eco. "...but this is not a mutation."
"Eh?" Jak asked in shock.
"What?" Shining added.
"Seriously?" Keira demanded.
"That's impossible!" Samos proclaimed.
"Are you loco in the coco?" Daxter shouted. "Look at me! How can this not be a mutation?"
"It is an evolution," Gol stated. "And before you start babbling about 'blind obsession with things we aren't meant to tamper with', we can see that Daxter's cells have undergone an accelerated evolution. Aging, energy generation, healing factor, Eco metabolization...all these factors have increased by at least a factor of 4 from an ordinary human - in excess of what our scans show Jak is capable of - and still growing every time his body absorbs Eco."
"However, scans show that these abilities are in infancy, and can't be reliably tapped yet," Maia clarified. "Also, his body appears capable of metabolizing Dark Eco...eventually. Not yet, but the potential is there."
"Wait, are you saying I'm some sort of super being now?" Daxter gasped, completely gobsmacked.
"It couldn't have happened to a worse child," Maia growled.
"Is that all it takes for this?" Daxter demanded. "Getting dunked in Dark Eco?"
"No," Gol piped up. "It appears your unique genetic structure was naturally keyed towards this evolution, and the Dark Eco exposure drastically accelerated it. Instead of your descendants 1000 or more years from now achieving these abilities, you did."
"At the cost of pants," Daxter grumbled as he was returned to Jak's shoulder.
"This is amazing!" Maia proclaimed. "Clearly, our studies are in the right direction! Dark Eco is the key to unlocking the secrets of the Precursors! Once the Robot is fully powered, we shall open the silos and unlock their ancient secrets...and all the Dark Eco of the world!"
"Wait, what?" Samos demanded as Gol and Maia vanished.
"So much for changing me back," Daxter grumbled. "Still...super being. Can't argue with that. ...but couldn't I at least have gotten a robe or something? I am not liking this breeze!"
"Do you think you can set your wardrobe issues aside long enough to focus on the end of the world as we know it?" Samos demanded angrily.
"Why?" Daxter countered. "Unless and until those abilities Gol and Maia mentioned kick in, I'm the comic relief of this trio. That means Gol and Maia are Jak and Shining's responsibility. They're taking it seriously enough for all three of us, so I'm going to focus on pants!"
As Samos and Daxter continued to argue, Jak, Shining, and Keira shared a much needed laugh. The tension relieved, the pair of warriors was ready to explore further.