It turned out that the forces that were attacking Freedom HQ were the KG robots, though they came prepared with some sort of square shaped device that not only dispensed additional forces, roller bots and the four legged ones, but also fired missiles at the Freedom League soldiers, the Neo Metal Heads that were defending the area, or innocent civilians. Just seeing the robots attack innocent civilians made Jak and Pinkie upset, though this time Daxter insisted on getting in on the action, to which he pulled out a pair of custom made daggers for ottsels to use, which he claimed to have gotten from the smiths in Spargus, and climbed onto Raven's back, while in his hybrid form. Jak and Pinkie understood what the two ottsels were going to do, as it appeared that they wanted to fly around and search for a weakness in the KG Carriers... while Jak and Pinkie fought on the ground.
In all honesty Pinkie really didn't care what Daxter did, as Raven was already prepared to get started, to which she leveled the palm of her hand with one of the roller bots, accessed the Eco inside her, and opened fire with the Vulcan Mod, tearing the robot to pieces. Jak, on the other hand, stuck to the Blaster Mod and fired at anyone that got too close to them, as he didn't want to use some of the more destructive mods they had acquired, because civilians and allies were running around where they were fighting. Some of the Freedom League soldiers escorted the civilians to safety, be it their actual residence or a hospital if they were wounded, while the remainder of the soldiers were fighting alongside Jak and Pinkie.
As the battle progressed, however, Pinkie noticed that the KG Carrier had four power nods that were vulnerable from the outside, which seemed like a design flaw to her, though instead of questioning it she gathered some more Eco above her hands. Jak watched as she formed a few Peace Maker spheres and started juggling them around, though when she tossed one in front of her, however, she spun around and kicked the sphere with the side of her leg, sending it flying into one of the power nodes and causing the node to explode upon impact. The explosion rocked the KG Carrier for a moment, causing it to stagger as it moved away from where Pinkie was standing, but she only grinned as she kicked a second sphere into the second node... repeating the same devastating explosion once more.
It wasn't too long after the second power node was destroyed that Pinkie blew the third and the fourth nodes to pieces as well, causing the entire KG Carrier to explode once the last node was gone... though that was when two more KG Carriers entered the area and started deploying more robots.
This time around Jak, Daxter, and Raven focused their attention on one of the KG Carriers, as Pinkie could easily destroy one on her own and clearly didn't need their assistance in dealing with the one she picked out, so while Jak focused on the robots that were marching towards him Daxter and Raven focused on the power nodes. Their method for blowing them up was collecting some explosives from Jinx, who happened to be in the area, and attaching them to each of the four nodes, though they did so one at a time. Once one of the nodes had explosives attached to it, and the duo had backed away, Jinx flipped the switch and blew the power node up... to which they did it three more times until the entire KG Carrier exploded from all the damage it had taken.
That was, of course, followed by Pinkie's KG Carrier exploding as well, indicating that she was having fun with the robots that it dropped off and was merely waiting for her brother to be done before she finished her target... to which the group got back together and returned to the Freedom League HQ, where everyone else was waiting for them.
"I can see that my training, as well as the training from someone else, has paid off." Samos commented, speaking the exact moment that Jak, Daxter, Pinkie, and Raven returned to their command center, though his tone indicated that he was talking to all four of them, "You're the best group we've got to lead an expedition into the catacombs."
"Please, please, let us not be too hasty." a voice said, to which Veger walked into the room and approached the table that everyone was standing around, though at the same time Raven growled at the man, "Are you sure you want this Dark Eco freak, his reality defying sister, and their corrupted pets contaminating the hallowed halls of our glorious Precursors? I should lead the expedition myself."
"Let me make one thing very clear to you," Ashelin replied, though at the same time she, along with Keira and Pinkie, glared at the man, while at the same time Pinkie silently withdrew her scythe in case things went south, "we're tired of your scheming, Veger."
"I've got the answer you're looking for." Veger stated, though this tone indicated that he believed that he had the upper hand and could easily sway the group to his way of thinking, like he had done when he was pressing charges against Jak and Pinkie a few weeks ago, "My Precursor monks have given me the knowledge to turn on the planetary defense grid... if you beg me to do so."
"You know, I knew that Seem had to know something about the weapon that sleeps in the core of our planet," Pinkie said, though at the same time she smiled, because at the moment she knew that Veger didn't have any cards to play anymore, "I bet if I asked Seem to share the information with us, she would gladly do so, which means that there's no reason for you to even bother trying to persuade us anymore."
"Jak and Pinkie have always gotten us through thick and thin." Keira added, knowing that without the two siblings Gol and Maia would have destroyed the world all those years ago, and even if those two were stopped by someone else she was sure that no one would have stopped Metal Kor from burning Haven to the ground, "I'm with them."
"Hear, hear!" Samos stated, though at the same time he tapped his staff on the ground, which made everyone else that was assembled in the room voice their agreement that Jak and Pinkie were the best chance the world had at surviving what was coming their way.
"You're washed up, Vegan." Daxter proclaimed, though even as he spoke he smiled, because saying the Count's name wrong really got a response out of him and made him less concentrated on what he was doing at that very moment.
"Veger! It's Veger, you idiot!" Veger nearly shouted, his anger clearly showing to everyone in the room, though at the same time all he could do was angrily stare at Daxter.
"Whatever!" Daxter replied, though he turned around and mentally chuckled to himself, as it felt good to annoy someone that was clearly on the other side of this war, as he was sure that the Count would be making a terrible decision at some point in the near future.
"Count Veger," Ashelin said, causing the angry Count to turn towards her, while at the same time the rest of the group wondered what she was planning on doing, "I hereby dissolve the City Council and strip you of your title, command, and all privileges. Now get out of my sight."
"What? How dare you!" Veger declared, to which he actually glared at each and every one of them in turn, as if he was burning their faces into his memory so he could hunt them down later, "I offered you mercy, but now you will all burn in the Precursor fires of creation! I swear it..."
It was at that point that Raven, who was annoyed with the former Count, let loose a roar that knocked Veger off his feet, much like he would have done in his true form, but the roar served its purpose and made a frightened former Count flee the room in terror... which got a laugh out of everyone for a few seconds, before they turned serious once more.
"That was one of the more larger attack waves that we've gotten since we set this place up." Ashelin commented, though as she spoke she glanced over at Pinkie, who smiled once she realized that someone was looking at her, "Even with Pinkie's powers we can't continue to repel such large assaults forever, especially since she can't be here all the time to defend us! That floating war factory has got to be shut down. The problem is, the factory is shielded and has gate codes on every access point. Most old KG door cyphers were kept hidden in the main system in the Power Station. If you can break into the system, you may be able to unlock the war factory doors to get inside."
"Onin says the Eco Grid in the Power Station could help you." Pecker added, to which Jak and Pinkie noticed the old lady sitting nearby, signing with her hands and allowing Pecker to continue speaking, "But to open the door to the Power Station, you must find the junction box in the sewer. Personally, I think you're crazy to go down there. But, uh, good luck."
Neither Jak or Pinkie were too keen on heading back into the sewer, even if it was to turn a junction box on or off, but they knew that sometimes trekking through the sewer was the only way for them to get closer to their goal, to which they walked out of the building, rode the elevator back to the ground floor, and started the search for a sewer entrance. It actually didn't take them too long to find one, as Keira sent them the information that they needed and they used that to find the entrance they needed to use. Once they reached the entrance they rode the elevator down to the lower level, where they spotted three KG robots, ones that mimicked the beast like Metal Heads, wandering the area in front of them, to which Jak and Pinkie blew them apart before they moved onward.
As they walked forward a trio of flying KG robots moved into the air and fired upon them, to which Jak shot them at them with the Blaster until they were laying in pieces on the floor in front of them, allowing them to move into the large area that they had been heading towards. They turned to the left and followed the walkway, as well as four pipes that they had to traverse, until they reached a door that opened up to more enemies, which both Jak and Pinkie were expecting this time around. The two opened fire on the robots that were in front of them and made sure to take out the ones that were further down the tunnel that was on their right, though they had to be careful and jump over the lasers that were designed to eliminate people who weren't paying attention.
After getting over the lasers they took out another small group of robots, jumped over a set second of lasers, and moved up to the area that was in front of them, where they opened fire on yet another group of KG robots. As they crossed a small river of sewer water Pinkie focused on some enemies that were behind them while Jak took out some more enemies that were in front of them, though once that was done they moved forward once more. It was at that point that even more enemies showed up and attacked them while they moved, to which Pinkie switched to kicking Peace Maker spheres at the robots that were flying around the area... allowing Jak the opportunity to moved beyond another set of lasers and fight the enemies that were on the other side of the lasers.
Even with the enemies around them taken care of there were still more of them in the passage that they needed to walk through, to which Jak focused on taking out the robots that were the closest to them while Pinkie focused on the ones at a distance... which involved kicking Peace Maker spheres into them, causing them to explode upon impact.
"I have no idea how she's able to kick so many of those things without hurting herself," Daxter commented, watching Pinkie kick another sphere into an unsuspecting enemy, blowing the poor robot to pieces in a matter of seconds, "but I'm not complaining about it."
They turned towards the room that was in front of them and discovered that the way forward was blocked by a grate, though on their left was a button that had to open the grate if it was pressed, but in front of the button rested a device that was designed to shoot them until they were dead if it was tripped. Pinkie, on the other hand, already had a plan in mind to get to the button without inflicting harm on themselves, to which she had Raven use his hybrid form to fly over and slam his head into it. Thanks to the fact that he was a Neo Metal Head, and that his skull was much thicker in his hybrid state than his ottsel state, no harm was done to his body... though when the grate opened two more robots flew into the area and tried to attack them, though on the return trip Raven flew into them and tore them to pieces.
With the grate open Jak and Pinkie used the strong current that was in front of them and rode down to the next area of the sewer, where they found a fair number of actual beasts walking around the area, which meant that they had to get rid of them considering that the beasts attacked them a few seconds later. Once the beasts were taken care of they jumped on some platforms that emerged from the wall, and went back into it a few moments later, until Jak and Pinkie reached the next level of the area. Jak then noticed the number of beasts that were in front of them and, with the aid of his sister, took them out, though as he moved to dive into the water, to get under the gate, he spotted Pinkie moving... to which he watched as she used her scythe to carve an opening into the wall.
In the next area they loosed a volley of shots at the KG robots that were patrolling the area, ascended to another walkway thanks to some moving platforms, and repeated the process again until they were able to cross over to the area where the terminal they were looking for was located. Once there were no more enemies in the area, and they were sure of that, Jak flipped the switched that was in front of them, to which they waited until they got confirmation that the door to the Power Station was down.
"You guys keep the surprises coming!" Pecker said over their communicator, which brought a smile to the groups faces when they heard the news, "The door to the Power Station is now open."
With the door to the Power Station open, and their deed was done, they headed towards the door that was to their right and found the elevator that they had used when they were in the Industrial section earlier, which meant that they could access the information they needed without wasting any time. They walked over to the elevator and rode it up to the surface, though when they started walking they noticed that none of the KG robots even noticed that they were there yet... to which they quickly made their way into the Power Station and closed the door behind them.
"Ah, remember this place?" Daxter asked, though as the group walked into the Power Station, and closed the door behind them, both he and Raven walked on the floor, "I sure miss good old Vin."
"Yeah, he was a good guy. A bit crazy." Jak added, remembering what they had done when Vin had been alive, while Daxter had made fun of him because of what Raven was, which made him wonder if Vin even knew what Raven's true form had been before he died.
"Hey! Who you calling crazy?" a voice said, one that the group recognized as Vin's, which made Jak and Daxter wonder how he could even be talking to them, "I can't help it if the world is out to get me!"
"Vin!" Daxter exclaimed, though not a few seconds later he glared at the area around them, as if he was searching for where the voice was coming from, "Wait a minute, is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me." the voice said, to which a head, one that looked like the hologram heads that they had seen earlier, appeared in front of them, though it looked exactly like Vin's head, "Well, actually no it's not. I'm a multi-layered hyperlinking digi-memoc-bio-construct-super-clocked-mega-memory-construct, baby!"
"Did anyone understand a word he said?" Raven asked, to which everyone else shrugged at him, indicating that they had no idea what Vin was talking about, to which they turned and looked at Vin's head.
"When the city was overrun by Kor's Metal Heads, before they got to me, I dumped my brain into the Eco Grid." Vin explained, though his words told the group that he knew about the Neo Metal Heads, "Everything's great now. Those monsters can't get me in here... not with the Freedom League soldiers and the Neo Metal Heads patrolling the city."
"Listen, Vin, I'm happy you're, whatever you are," Jak said, though at the same time he knew that they had to be quick before the KG realized what they were doing, "but right now, we need to get into the war factory but the doors are sealed. We think the code to open the doors is hidden in the system."
"It is." Vin told them, though even as he spoke Pinkie knew that something was up, because this seemed almost too easy for her liking and she could see that Jak was concerned as well.
"Really?" Daxter asked, to which a smile appeared on his face, because this was much better than he originally expected, "Can you get it for us?"
"Negative." Vin replied, to which Jak and Pinkie nodded their heads, because they had been expecting this and Daxter hadn't, as he always expected everything to be easy for them.
"Vin, can you explain why its not possible for you to do the codes we need?" Raven inquired, though if he knew anything about this system, which he knew next to nothing about, he suspected that there was something in the older systems that would make this hard for them.
"Because if you have half a brain cycle, you'd know that those access codes are guarded by the central system." Vin told them, though thanks to his new state he didn't sound scared or terrified anymore, "Ancient, nasty circuits in there. Even we bit brains can't nibble around there without getting our butts erased!"
"Just get us close." Pinkie said, to which she stepped up in front of the group and stared at the monitor, knowing that it was in their best interests if she went into the ancient system and searched for the codes.
"Oh, sure, yeah, hah, it's your death." Vin stated, indicating that he had no faith in Pinkie's mysterious abilities, since they had never tested her in this sort of manner before during the campaign against the Baron, "If you fail, I can always use a companion in here. Oh, the fun we'll have."
"Let's hope, oh god let's hope, it doesn't come to that." Daxter said, though at the same time he glanced over at Pinkie, knowing that Jak would be devastated if something happened to her.
"When I put you into the system, the main security will slam down hard." Vin explained, though at the same time the group could tell that he was preparing to do something with the system, "It'll be up to you to beat the system and get out, or get Eco-zapped for good! You checksum?"
"Jack me in!" Pinkie stated, to which her own Eco surrounded her for a moment, indicating that she was preparing to connect herself to the Eco of the Eco Grid.
"Wait for it, wait for it." Vin said, to which his head turned towards the screen for a moment, before snapping back and looking at Pinkie, "Okay! Input!"
Pinkie grinned as she connected her Eco to the Eco Grid, to which she physically surged into the screen and vanished from the physically world, to which Jak, Daxter, and Raven watched as her head appeared in the circuit that Vin had connected her to. A few seconds later the ancient security guard, the one that Vin had been worried about, appeared in the same area that Pinkie had appeared in and was already racing towards where Pinkie was standing. The group watched in horror as the security system collided with Pinkie not a few seconds later, though their eyes widened as they realized that she had, somehow, stopped the construct in its tracks. Not a few seconds later Pinkie started chasing the security system around, collecting the various components that she was supposed to collect while amazing the group... though before long she had gathered the last item and was pulled out of the screen.
Jak looked at Pinkie for a few seconds, finding that she was still in her strange half human half pony form and that there was nothing wrong with her, to which he sighed as he grabbed the decoder that flew out of the screen. Torn's head appeared a few seconds later and congratulated them on a job well done, while at the same time calling for Jak and Pinkie to return to the HQ. With nothing else to do, and promising Vin that they would check in with him again in the future, the group departed from the building, let Raven return to his dragon form, and flew back to the area that the HQ was in. When they arrived at the building, however, they found that Keria was much better at understanding the decoder and the old systems than the group realized... as the look on Torn's face told them so much.
"Jak, Pinkie, we got a big one this time." Torn said, though the small smile on his face made the rest of the group smile as well, especially since they might have the key to the factory's downfall, "That decoder you found helped us decipher the gate key for the main KG war factory. We can get inside now, and we need our best people on the raid.
"Oh gee, I wonder who that might be?" Daxter replied, though as he spoke he sat down on Jak's shoulder, because what was coming next was going to be interesting.
"There is a good chance that factory is doing more than just making death bots." Samos commented, to which the group noticed that he was staring at an image of the factory, as if he was thinking about what they might find inside the enemy stronghold.
"I want to know who's behind it all." Torn stated, though at the same time the group knew that there was another command that he wasn't openly telling them about, "How are so many death bots being made? Where are they getting the supplies and the Eco? Something about this doesn't seem right."
"Yeah, right into the hornet's nest." Pinkie said, to which a grin appeared on her face, making Jak worry that his sister's alter ego, Pinkamena, was having an effect on his sister again, "This is gonna be fun!"
Jak nodded his agreement to what his sister had said, because this was sure to bring about the downfall of the war factory and allow them to focus on taking out the remaining enemy Metal Heads... and then stop Errol before he did whatever he was planning on doing.