As the gondola made its was back down to the volcanic crater, where Samos and Keira were no doubt going over anything that the Red Sage might have been working on or have discovered before his disappearance, Jak and Pinkie took off the coats they had salvaged from the Lurkers that they had found around Snowy Mountain. They laid them over the railings of the gondola, to which they told Daxter that it would be the death of them if they wore them while moving around the volcanic crater and that it was better to leave them behind for whoever else went up to the mountain to explore. Daxter couldn't fault them for wanting to avoid overheating, because he told them that he had felt the same thing when they had been walking through the area around the Red Sage's hut and had only started to cool down when they had gotten away from it.
Once they were back in the volcanic crater, and the gondola had come to a total stop, Jak and Daxter hoped out so they could head to the miners and claim the other two Power Cells that they had, though Pinkie decided to head to Samos and see if he had anything to tell them about the other area they were going to be searching through. She found the Sage looking over the notes and various books that the Red Sage had been collecting, mumbling about something every now and then until he looked up for a second and spotted her as she walked into the small hut.
"Pinkie, I've got some bad news in relation to the Spider Cave," Samos said, closing the book he had been reading as he let her approach him, "By reading the Red Sage's various notes on the surrounding areas, I've learned that he discovered that the Lurkers are after crystals of concentrated Dark Eco, located inside the Spider Cave. You and Jak, and I guess the furball, have got to destroy those crystals before those monsters get their hands on them! The Red Sage also spotted additional Lurker movement in the mountains, where they are trying to remove some Dark Eco stores frozen in the glaciers..."
"You don't have to worry about Snowy Mountain, Jak and I took out those Lurkers while we were there," Pinkie said, a light smile appearing on her face when she noticed that Samos was pleasantly surprised to hear that piece of information.
"That is good to hear," Samos replied, waving his staff towards the direction of the Spider Cave, "but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet. I know you'll be heading into the cave for more Power Cells, just in case more is necessary later on, but do make sure you don't leave that area until all of the Dark Eco crystals are taken care of."
"Okie Dokie Lokie," Pinkie said, pausing for a moment to wave to Keira before she headed outside the hut and returned to the gondola, where she found Jak and Daxter waiting for her.
"So, what did Old Green want?" Daxter asked, to which both Pinkie and Jak glared at him, because out of the three of them he was the most disrespectful of them all considering he never called Samos by his name or his title, as he only used whatever nicknames he had already come up with while trying to invent new ones.
"Come on Daxter, can't you show a little more respect for Samos?" Jak asked, knowing that his friend was only irritated because they weren't heading down the Lava Tubes until they had checked out the Spider Cave, which meant that he had to stay as his current size for a few more hours.
"Nope. Don't care enough to at the moment," Daxter replied, though he locked his eyes with Pinkie as she came to a stop by the gondola, "though seriously, what did he want?"
"Oh, he just told me about some Dark Eco crystals he wanted us to destroy inside the Spider Cave," Pinkie answered, waving a hand if the matter of the spiders didn't bother her, because neither she or Jak were scared of spiders, "He knew we were going to be going down there anyway and simply asked that we take care of all the crystals we find, so the Lurkers don't get their hands on them."
"Makes sense," Jak commented, to which he turned towards the path they would be taking and beckoned for Pinkie to follow, "Let's get this show on the road."
With that said the trio made their way over the small stone platforms that were behind where the gondola was resting, though Jak went first to ensure that he or Pinkie didn't accidentally push the other into the lava. He did pause to collect the fourth Scout Fly that was in his way, while mentally adding that it was an odd place to have found one, before landing on a large section of rock that had a rail attached to it, complete with a large number of working trolleys. A few seconds later Pinkie had caught up with him, to which they jumped onto the passing trolley and let it take them around the track that they were currently on, collecting Precursor Orbs along the way. They intentionally missed the point where the could jump to the second rail system, so they could grab the fifth Scout Fly that was in the area, before passing by the area that would take them to the Lava Tubes.
After a few more seconds of riding the trolley around they jumped to the second ring and simply let it run its course, collecting the Precursor Orbs like last time, before they decided to jump to the third set of rails, where they found the sixth Scout Fly for the volcanic crater. They then jumped on the next trolley that was coming their way and let it bring them to the entrance of the Spider Cave, where they found the last Scout Fly for the volcanic crater, and the Power Cell it had found, waiting in front of their destination. Once that was done they jumped over the rail and descended into the Spider Cave, to which they carefully jumped on the stone platforms until they could actually see what they were up against.
What they found was a large number of wooden beams, which were currently holding the top of the cave's ceiling up, that were being chewed on by some rather nasty looking centipede creatures, while also noticing the river of Dark Eco that seemed to be running through the entire place. As they walked further into the area, so they could understand what they were searching for and what types of enemies they would be encountering, a spider, almost the size of Jak, dropped down and hung near them, to which it fired bits of Dark Eco at them in order to try and harm them. That was when Jak and Pinkie discovered that the best way to deal with the spiders was to crouch beneath them and then jump upwards while both spinning around and having a fist aimed at something on their opponent's body.
The attack that Jak pulled off not only hurt the spider that had tried to hurt them, but also put it down in one hit, making both Jak and Daxter smile as they turned back towards Pinkie.
"So that's how you do the Power Punch," Pinkie exclaimed, a smile appearing on her face as she pulled her notepad out of her hair, flipped to a new page that didn't have any writing on it at all, and wrote down some notes before stuffing the pad and her writing utensil back in her hair, "Thanks Jak, I've been trying to figure out how to use that move for the last year now, and you've shown me exactly what I need to go to use it again."
"Um... your welcome?" Jak said, not sure why Pinkie would have been practicing a move he literally just came up with for this particular situation, but decided not to question his sister as they moved further into the Spider Cave.
With the spider taken care of Jak and Pinkie carefully jumped over the river of Dark Eco that was in front of them, because they had no idea what would happen to them if they fell in, and also happened to scare off one of the centipedes that they approached. As they made their way towards a web like jump platform Pinkie noticed another spider had dropped down to give them a bad time, to which she rolled under its body, switched into a crouching position, and then unleashed the Power Punch on her target. The spider, having no idea what had hit it, was taken down in seconds, allowing Pinkie to smile at her handiwork as she rejoined Jak, where they jumped over a gap and made their way to one of the highest points of the room they were in.
It was then that they spotted a Yellow Eco vent waiting near one of the pillars that was keeping the ceiling up, though it only took the trio a few seconds to spot the other ones scattered about the area and realize what they were supposed to do.
"Hey Pinkie, remember what we did in Boggy Swamp?" Jak asked, pulling his goggles down as he stepped into the Yellow Eco vent, allowing the power to flow through him as he stared at the targets around him.
"Kind of hard not to," Pinkie replied, though she smiled as she realized what Jak was talking about, to which she carefully lifted up her own pair of goggles and moved to the other Yellow Eco vent that was close to where her brother was standing, taking out another spider while collecting the first Scout Fly of the area.
Once Pinkie was in position she and Jak opened fire on the closest centipedes that were near their vents, using their goggles to get a better view on their targets as they launched fireballs at all of the pillars that were around them. Despite the number of fireballs that they threw out at the centipedes, and how many they had taken down between the two of them, they knew that they were going to have to visit the third Yellow Eco vent in the room so they could take out the rest of the centipedes. When they were sure that they had gotten most of the centipedes, and let the Eco flow out of their bodies, they jumped onto a nearby set of floating platforms that moved around the top level of the area they were in.
While Jak made a move for the Power Cell that was hanging near the ceiling, which Daxter was more excited in grabbing, Pinkie headed towards a large Dark Eco crystal that was close to where her brother was heading, though she quickly discovered that one touch was enough to set it off, causing her to jump back into her platform as the crystal exploded. They then regrouped near the third Yellow Eco vent, where they proceeded to open fire on the last few centipedes in the area they were in, though as the last one fell they were rewarded with yet another Power Cell... as well as quite a few Precursor Orbs for their efforts. Once all of the items were collected they climbed back up to the third Eco vent, where Pinkie spotted and grabbed the second Scout Fly of the Spider Cave, which was followed by them approaching a large body of Dark Eco.
Luckily there were several platforms that would allow them to move on, though one platform would take them to another Dark Eco crystal while the second would allow them to grab the third Scout Fly, though Pinkie immediately noticed some metallic boxes behind the Fly's box and went back a few steps for some more Yellow Eco... to which she blew up the boxes and freed the orbs. Considering the size of the platforms that were in front of them Jak carefully made his way towards the Dark Eco crystal, because it was something that Samos had asked them to take care of, before heading towards the Scout Fly as the crystal detonated. Before he made his way back to the area that the third platform would take him, as that was where Pinkie was heading, he spotted some water with a dark glow near where the Scout Fly was located... so he rolled for a moment and jumped over the gap, where he found a Dark Eco crystal waiting under the water.
He quickly dived into the water, touched the crystal once he was near it, and rapidly rose back to the surface as the crystal exploded, to which he repeated the motion that had gotten him to the crystal to begin with, before finally meeting up with Pinkie once more... just in time to join her as she entered a room that was almost pitch black, save for the outlines of some crystals.
"I wonder," Pinkie commented, tapping her hand against the dark crystal for a moment, but instead of detonating like the other ones a green color spread across the crystal and illuminated the area around them, allowing them to see what was in front of them.
With the dangers, be they the spiders or the holes in their path, illuminated for them to see, Jak and Pinkie determined that one of them should stay by the crystal and keep the area around it lit so the other could progress further, until they came to another crystal and allowed the other sibling to leave their post so they could catch up. Jak went forward first, using the move that Pinkie had called the 'Power Punch' to take out the spider that was hanging in front of them, as well as the smaller ones that it had spawned, before reaching the second crystal and activating it. Pinkie, seeing the crystal light up, withdrew her hand from the crystal she was standing near and followed the path that her brother had cleared, to which she jumped over some falling platforms and used her new move to put down another spider, before turning on the next light.
A few seconds later Jak appeared next to her, though before he went ahead Pinkie tapped his shoulder and pointed at a nearby body of water, to which he dived into it and took out the Dark Eco crystal that was lurking under the water, before surfacing and continuing towards the next crystal. He then found the fourth Scout Fly hanging above where Pinkie was standing and then waited for a spinning platform to come near him, to which he rode it to the other side and jumped off once he was near the next crystal, allowing Pinkie to leave her post and follow in his footsteps. Pinkie then rode an elevator up to the next level and stopped near the crystal that was in front of her, a little disappointed that she didn't get to smack anything this time, but patiently waited for Jak to catch up and ride the next spinning platform that was in front of them.
Jak then rode up an elevator and stopped near the next crystal, allowing Pinkie to stop by him and then ride the spinning platform that was in front of them, where she jumped off and took care of some spiders that were waiting for them, before jumping up onto the higher platform and collected the Power Cell that was up there. With the Power Cell in hand she beckoned for Jak to join her, though once he was with her again they rode a nearby elevator down back towards the entrance of the area they had wandered into, allowing them to backtrack and find another part of the cave to explore. They quickly made their way back to the beginning of the Spider Cave, where they first entered the entire place, and chose a path to the left that they had ignored when they had caught sight of the centipedes chewing at the pillars that were keeping the entire place held up.
As they followed the path they spotted another spider that descended to fight them, which was rapidly removed thanks to the new skill that Jak and Pinkie had developed against the other spiders, before rounding the corner and finding a few more metallic boxes... and another Dark Eco crystal. Pinkie had them stop for a moment and then walked backwards, causing Jak and Daxter to wonder what she was doing, but she returned moments later and blew the boxes to pieces with some well placed fireballs, thanks to the Yellow Eco she had picked up. Before the Yellow Eco ran out completely she aimed at the Dark Eco crystal that they had discovered and loosed the last of her current charge on it, to which it exploded and dropped another Power Cell for them to grab.
The trio then jumped across the webbed platforms and crossed the small chamber with ease, though when they jumped onto an actual wooden walkway they found a Lurker who was trying to drill into the side of the cave. When the Lurker spotted them he turned his drill on them and approached them, only to come to a stop at the gap that was between them, turn around and present his back to them rather suddenly, and throw his drill on the platform so he could kick it. Pinkie took the opportunity that presented itself and slammed her fist into the Lurker's back, dropping it like all of the other enemies they had dealt with so far, before she and Jak moved further into the cave. They followed the walkway until they came to an area that had a decent number of Lurkers walking around some scaffolding... while at the same time trying to unearth an intact Precursor Robot.
"Just think of the damage Gol and Maia could do if they had a second Robot under their control," Pinkie said, shuddering for a moment as the thought passed through her mind, but she rejected it before it could sour her mood, "We have to stop them!"
At first Jak agreed with her and together they climbed down the walkway that they had been following, but when they reached the bottom level he had her stop before he started jumping over some more webbed platforms and entered a den full of spiders. Pinkie watched as her brother used the nearby Yellow Eco to fight his way through the host of spiders that lived in that tunnel, freeing and collecting any Precursor Orbs that he found along the way, before finding a Power Cell at the end and used the jump pad to get out of there. A minute or two later and he was standing beside her again, a smile on his face for gathering another Power Cell to aid them in their quest to stop Gol and Maia before they destroyed the world.
Once they were back together they started making their way around the scaffolding that surrounded the Precursor Robot, hitting the larger Lurkers when they decided to kick their tools and tripping the brutes when they got too close. They spent some time carefully collecting each Precursor Orb that the area had for them to grab, using Yellow Eco clusters to blow open any of the metallic boxes that were in their way. They also dodged the flames that came out of some of the vents that they encountered on the scaffolding, though after some time Pinkie let Jak explore the upper area of the scaffolding while she made sure they had gotten everything else on the lower levels. She immediately found several more of the metallic boxes that eventually ended with the fifth Scout Fly, which she rescued as she searched for anything else that might help them in the future.
Pinkie then smiled as she spotted a Power Cell hanging up on a platform that would require spinning around on multiple poles, while channeling Blue Eco by the looks of it, before she could land on one of the smaller Precursor platforms that would take her to the Power Cell she could see. It didn't take her long to find a Blue Eco jump pad that would shoot her up into the air, though as she spun around she collected all of the Precursor Orbs that were hanging around before she bothered to make her way onto the platform. Once she had all of the orbs in hand, and she was sure of that, she continued moving towards the platform and landed on it, to which she grabbed the Power Cell and rode another platform back to the lower level of the scaffolding.
She watched as Jak made his way around the highest level of the scaffolding, using the poles to make his way around the walkway, including the parts that dropped once he touched them, but before long he had reached the top of the Precursor Robot and had claimed the Power Cell that was up there... before dropping to a lower level of the scaffolding and released the sixth Scout Fly. With everything in hand Jak made his way back to where Pinkie was waiting for him, only for the two of them to agree that they had to have missed a Scout Fly somewhere inside the cave... which brought on a pissed of Daxter.
"I can't believe the two of you missed a Scout Fly!" Daxter stated, while the two of them made their way back to the entrance of the Spider Cave, where they intended on searching through the entire place again until they found the seventh and final Scout Fly, "Seriously, how hard can it be to miss a box that's jumping and makes noise?"
"Considering we were firing fireballs like madmen earlier, I'm surprised we even managed to keep track of the ones that were around us," Jak replied, as both he and Pinkie had gone a little crazy in their attempts to blow up the centipedes earlier, especially since they missed a few times at the beginning, "Now that its quiet, however, we should be able to find it with some ease... and then we'll move on towards the citadel so we can stop Gol and Maia."
The moment Jak and Daxter stopped talking, right when they entered the main chamber of the Spider Cave, Pinkie heard the buzzing they had been searching for, to which she climbed up to the platform they happened to be walking under and spotted the seventh Scout Fly... where she collected it and its Power Cell before rejoining her brother. As they made their way outside, however, Pinkie pulled out her writing pad and utensil, again from her hair, and was making notes on what they had found, what they had done, and how many orbs or Power Cells they had acquired. A few seconds passed before Jak noticed that Pinkie was annoyed about something, which he didn't understand considering that they had done what Samos had asked of them, had freed all of the Scout Flies in the area, had acquired every Precursor Orb throughout the entirety of the cave, and had gotten every Power Cell they could find.
"Is something bothering you Pinkie?" Daxter asked, surprising Jak that his friend would even care at the moment, considering that he was more interested in restoring himself to his previous body, but he decided to be silent for the moment.
"We're missing a Power Cell," Pinkie replied, her writing utensil moving across her pad as she made her calculations, though the frown that followed indicated that her math was right, "Yeah, there's still one of those somewhere in the cave."
"Forget about it for now!" Daxter proclaimed, waving a hand as they started climbing out of the Spider Cave, because he seriously didn't want to spend anymore time in the cave, "We'll come back once we're done with Gol and Maia... because then we'll have all the time in the world to find the one that we missed."
"I guess we can afford to miss one of the..." Pinkie said, though she cut herself off as they climbed out of the Spider Cave and returned to the rail track, where her eyes locked onto something as a smile appeared on her face, "actually, why don't the two of you stay here for a moment... I think I know where it is!"
Jak and Daxter looked at each other as they stood beside the rail track, the both of them wondering what Pinkie was even thinking as she turned around and went back into the Spider Cave. Jak was sure that they had gotten everything inside the cave, be it the orbs or the Power Cells, but he decided to humor Pinkie and see if she was actually right about something like this. A few minutes passed as the two waited for Pinkie to return, though every time Daxter opened his mouth to say that she was insane Jak would stop him from insulting his sister. Eventually they spotted Pinkie charging up the walkway they had climbed up to exit the Spider Cave, covered with a charge of Yellow Eco no less, but before they could ask what she was doing, and understand what was going on, Pinkie took aim and loosed a fireball.
The fireball surged towards a metallic crate that happened to be resting above the track, on the opposite side from where Jak and Daxter were standing, and a Power Cell exploded out of the shell and landed by them... to which Pinkie picked it up as the last of her Yellow Eco charge faded from her body.
"Crafty hiding spot for a Power Cell," Pinkie said, pocketing the item in question as she checked something off her list, before putting away the pad and the writing utensil, "Now then, whose up for a quick visit to the Oracle and then a ride through the Lava Tubes?"
"Let's get moving already!" Daxter proclaimed, eager to reach the end of their adventure, because he was tired of Pinkie surprising him with whatever she's been doing lately, "Despite what the two crazies said about this being 'evolution' or something, I really don't want to stay this way forever."
Jak shook his head as he, Daxter, and Pinkie made their way back into the volcanic crater, where they would gather the rest of the Power Cells in the area before heading through the Lava Tubes... where they would then be able to face off against Gol and Maia before they ended up destroying the entire world.