The first thing Jak and his sisters did was step onto the platform that was in the middle of the Precursor structure that they were currently standing in, where they waited for it to take them all the way down to the path that would bring them to the three paths that were open to them, something that would give everyone a few moments to determine what was down each path and who would be tackling which path, since they had agreed on the fact that separating for a time seemed to be the best course of action at the moment. They quickly discovered a pair of Swipers wandering around the main structure of this area, which was a large Precursor structure of some kind that seemed to be the heart of the Temple, maybe where people once gathered before Haven's walls and the Eco Dome were created, though down the path to their left stood one of the Centurions they had encountered back during their trek through the Drill Platform, but for now they focused on the pair of enemies that were right in front of them, who growled and rushed at them. As such Jak and Starlight blasted the Swipers in the face with their blasters, which opened the way for Cozy to approach their foes and kick them into the walls, giving them two more Skull Gems to add to the collection, even though they were interested in the fact that the Centurion didn't bother with them as they went by, before Midnight entered the main structure that was in front of them and stared at the circular area that she and her siblings were heading for, which happened to have a number of small Metal Heads, which looked like frogs mixed with a Metal Head, which Alvin identified as Hoppers, as they bounced around and were more of a nuisance to those they fought. Midnight stared at them for a few seconds while Jak and her sisters watched her, since she was standing right in the center of the structure and it appeared that they were interested in what she might do to her enemies, which was when she raised her right arm and swung it around as she spun in place, making a complete circle as she did that, and a circular burst of Scatter energy knocked all of the Hoppers before they could reach her, allowing her to take them out in a few seconds and left her with no damage done to her body.
"So, you can fire a Red Eco charged Scatter Blast and control it at the same time," Starlight commented, as she had taken it upon herself to be the one to study what Midnight was capable of, which was hard since her abilities were above what she had seen Twilight use, and that included herself as well, meaning that if Midnight were to rebel against everyone and go to war as a force with a single warrior, even if such a thing was highly unlikely, her power would overwhelm anyone she came across and any power that was used against her, before she let a smile appear on her face, "that's impressive, Midnight, and makes me wonder what else you might be able to do."
"I know, right? I'm excited to test the limits of my power." Midnight replied, though at the same time Jak had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing, as what she had done against the Baron showed just how strong she was, and everything else she did since then just showed how much power was resting inside her body, or Twilight's body since they shared the same body, though that was when she turned her head for a moment and glanced at the others for a few seconds, as she was interested in something and was sure the others were as well, "So, Jak, how should we go about dividing ourselves to search for the three artifacts Onin wants us to recover?"
"I would say that Starlight and I can tackle the area that the Centurion is guarding, while Cozy can handle the main path and you can deal with the right path," Jak replied, because that appeared to be an equal distribution of responsibility for all of them, even if there were three paths and four of them, not counting the fact that it might be possible for Alvin and his brothers to aid anyone if one of the directions overwhelmed them in some manner, but after seeing everything that Dark Cozy and Midnight were capable of, with one seeming to be a more permanent change and the other being temporary, all he could do was take Starlight with him and hope nothing terrible happened.
Midnight nodded her head and headed over to the path that Jak wanted her to tackle, while at the same time Cozy did the same thing, to which he and Starlight turned around and headed back to where the Centurion was standing, who raised its shield the instant it noticed them approaching it, no doubt waiting for someone to attack it so it could block the attack and then fire a blast in return, though what happened was that Starlight tempted their foe into focusing on her and then used one of her small barriers to block the incoming attack, allowing Jak to blast it into the nearby rock wall. This time they found that the Centurion was a little stronger than the ones they had encountered back during their trek through the Drill Platform, as it staggered after taking the first attack and fired at Jak, who rolled out of the way to avoid the blast, which let Starlight loose a short burst of icicles into its back, knocking it to the ground and granting them another Skull Gem to add to the collection, before they started to jump up the rock ledges that their foe had been guarding before they arrived in this area. At the top ledge both of them noticed that there were three of the Hoppers just jumping around, who turned a few seconds later and headed for Jak, who happened to be the first one to reach the top ledge, though that didn't stop him from blasting them in the face with a Scatter Blast and Starlight collected their Skull Gems with her magic, to which they started to jump over the couple of stones that happened to be in the middle of a small creek, even though it was easy for Daxter and Simon to see that the siblings were keeping their guards up since they had no idea what else might be waiting for them in the Mountain Temple. On the other side of the creek Jak found a path of ground for them to walk on, which lead him and Starlight to a large open area, a hole in the ground to be exact that had a button that would rise part of the path they were following, and there was a collapsed wall off to their right, which, when they jumped down into the sunken area, was followed by a massive Metal Head, which looked like a rhinoceros merged with a Metal Head, burst out of the collapsed section and charged at them, intending on taking them down before it tried to leave this area and do whatever it was supposed to be doing.
The Ram Head, where they gained the name from Simon as they stared at it, charged at whoever its target happened to be and, due to the size of the beast, Jak and Starlight were able to avoid it with ease, though once that was done it would raise itself onto its back legs and roar for a few seconds, exposing their belly area in the process, where Simon informed them that the supposed weakness of the Ram Head was rumored to be that particular area, meaning that in order to take down one of these enemies they had to hit that area and nowhere else. As such they patiently waited for their foe to turn around and focus on them once more, just like it had done a few moments ago when it burst out of the wall, before they found it charging again and repeated what they did the first time around, only this time they made sure to stay near their foe and proceeded to blast its belly when it stood up and roared at them for a few seconds, where it staggered for a few moments before touching the ground once more, showing that a single round of attacks wasn't enough to take it down, even if they were attacking its weakness. Of course such a thing didn't stop their foe from turning around and charging at them, apparently targeting Jak as it deemed him to be the more dangerous opponent, which might be true since Starlight didn't have a Dark Form or a vast amount of energy to call upon, like what happened to Cozy and Twilight, but they were able to find another chance to attack its weakness and did so without delay, weakening the Ram Head even further and pushed the ball firmly in their court, in a manner of speaking anyway. The next round of attacks, however, brought about the Ram Head's defeat and allowed them to grab its Skull Gem, before focusing on the button and activated it so a lone platform could burst out of a nearby wall, allowing them to climb up it and continue heading through this area, though at the same time they paused for a few seconds as Starlight felt the energy in the air, as she was trying to determine if Cozy or Midnight had found a Ram Head in their areas as well.
"Cozy likely found a Ram Head in the area you told her to take on, though Midnight seems to be just fine," Starlight said, even though she knew that if Midnight was in trouble than there was something here that they needed to worry about, or at least that would be her thoughts on the matter, but so far she felt that having the twisted version of Twilight around was like having a deity on their side, or something like that, before she sighed as she and Jak climbed up the platform that the button revealed and continued moving, as they hadn't found the artifact they were after and suspected it would be up at the top of this path.
From there they climbed up a pair of rock ledges and found a Centurion guarding a gap between the area that they were standing in and the area that was the next section they needed to investigate, so what they did was patiently waited for it to fire at them and simply dodged its attack, allowing Jak to fire at it in return and Starlight simply waited for an opening to blast their foe when it fired at them the second time around, though once the Centurion was taken down the pair jumped over the gap and continued moving forward. After that they walked along a path of earth that seemed to be an arch that rested between two sections of the path, even though it appeared that some Precursor platforms were currently stuck in the ground, before the siblings reached the end of the path they had been following, giving them a good view of a large Precursor metal structure in the distance that had a blue flame inside it, though that was when the ground behind them shattered and the thin path collapsed, leaving them standing on the circular section they had stopped on, while allowing the three platforms to float in the air once more. As such Jak followed the new path that was in front of them and headed up to the highest point they had access to, while Starlight stayed a few steps behind him, before finding one of the small platforms that rested upside down and needed a weapon blast to flip sides, so he hit it with his Blaster and jumped over it to reach a shifting platform that seemed to be the way forward, something that they passed over with ease and found the upper part of the creek they had walked by earlier, even though they had to blast a couple of Hoppers that jumped out of the water that was in front of them, giving them another couple of Skull Gems to add to the collection. After they took out all of the Hoppers, which there weren't that many of in the first place, Jak and Starlight jumped over the couple of rocks that were in front of them and reached the other side of the creek, which was larger up in this area, where they found five Swipers standing guard of a corner, something that prompted the siblings to open fire on their targets and make sure that none of them got close to where they were standing, before taking all of them down and rounded the corner after taking the Skull Gems, even though it brought them face to face with another Centurion.
Sure enough it only took them a few moments to bring down their new foe and press the button it was guarding, which revealed a few platforms that allowed them to climb up to the highest point of this area, which was where the pair found a number of Hoppers and a smaller structure that seemed to be at the end of the path, so they quickly blasted their foes and collected the Skull Gems before heading over to the structure, where Starlight found a raised dais in the center of the area and stopped Jak for a moment, causing Daxter to wonder what she was doing, which was when the machine that was in this area activated and a glass lens lowered from the ceiling, allowing them to take it and leave the area, all while taking a moment to wonder how the others were doing.
While Jak and Starlight were fighting the Centurion, and headed down the path Jak had picked for them, Cozy took a few seconds to gather the ammunition that rested inside the couple of Krimzon Guard crates that were around the structure that was in the center of this area, mostly not to leave anything behind, before she stared at the couple of upside down circular platforms that happened to be in front of her, which seemed to lead down to a large area that seemed to be more like an arena of some kind, minus one wall since the direction she was coming from happened to be open. Given what she had learned from watching Midnight and the others all she had to do, to get down to where the open arena rested, was pull out her Scatter Gun and blast each platform so they switched into the upper position for a time, allowing her to move down to the next one and repeat the process until she and Theodore reached the arena, where she assumed she would find a path leading to the artifact she was supposed to be looking for, whatever it was supposed to be since they had been given no information on what Onin wanted them to recover. When she reached the third platform, however, part of the rock wall that was down in front of her burst open and she watched as a Ram Head, as Theodore called it, burst through the collapsed section she had been interested in, though right now it appeared that her foe was interested in watching her for a few seconds as it debated what to do, before she grinned for a moment and shifted into her Dark Form, leading to her jumping down into the open arena and rushed at her new foe. This time around she felt something odd as she lashed out at the Ram Head, as it sure felt like she was starting to gain some control over herself whenever she did this, but even then both she and her other half were eager to fight the Ram Head, especially when it charged at her and she raised her arms to grip the sides of its head, allowing her hooves to dig into the ground and stop her in her tracks a few moments after, even if it put her close to the edge of the arena that they were currently fighting in.
Cozy growled for a few seconds as she increased her grip on the sides of the Ram Head's head and heaved it off the rough flat ground that they were fighting on, something that caused it to shudder in surprise as she lifted it into the air, before she turned and hurled it back at the wall it had burst through, burying it under a whole bunch of rubble in the process and impressed Theodore at the same time, though when it burst out of the rubble she rushed through the air and tore out her foe's Skull Gem, causing it to crumble not even a moment later.
"I don't know what impresses me more, the sheer power you command or Midnight's magical power," Theodore said, as while he would say that Cozy was the more impressive of the two, given that it appeared that she was overcoming the vast amount of Dark Eco the Baron had pumped into her body and was gaining control over her Dark Form, he also knew that Midnight's magical power was nothing to sniff at, as she had torn down the Baron's mech in seconds and it only made him wonder what else she could do with her vast powers, "but either way, that was nicely done."
"Thanks. I'm sure the others will face their own Ram Heads, but they'll come out on top like I did," Cozy replied, which was a surprise to her, as she usually didn't talk in her Dark Form and that meant she was definitely gaining more control over this power, something that her siblings would be interested in when she got around to telling them what she was capable of now, before she focused on the nearby button and activated it, which caused a pair of platforms to burst out of a wall and opened the way for her to head upwards.
As such that was what she did, she headed over to the thin Precursor platforms and jumped up them to reach the next section of this area, where it took her a second to notice a tunnel of sorts that happened to have four Swipers wandering around the place, even though none of them lasted all that long as she rushed forward and smashed one of them into the wall that was to her left, jumped over the second's head and kicked it into the ground, before turning and grabbing both of the remaining enemies by their heads so she could toss them into the other wall, something that ended with her as the victor and gave her some additional Skull Gems for later. That, in turn, brought her to the end of the path and let her see that there was a sheer diagonal wall with a number of rock ledges, which seemed to be heading over to where the artifact had to be resting, and there were a number of boulders that were the size of a Human, though the boulders didn't matter to her since she would be able to smash through them in her Dark Form, hence why she wasn't even bothered by keeping this form up as she dropped down to the start of the slope and started to tackle this challenge. Instead of moving out of the way whenever one of the boulders got near her, like someone else would do in such a situation, Cozy swung her arm and smashed her way through the rocks, even if she jumped and one came rushing at her, which had to be her Dark Form at work, while Theodore watched her break her way through the slope and left a bunch of rubble at the very bottom of the slope, even though neither of them had any idea where all of the boulders were coming from, due to the fact that there was no mountain side above where Cozy was standing, before deciding that she didn't care at all. As such Cozy continued up the slope and headed for the peak, since it was her current destination, while along the way she made sure to smash through several more boulders that seemed to be coming her way, even though it brought her to a set of platforms that were upside down, meaning she had to use her Scatter Gun to switch their orientation, before landing on one that was just a normal platform and allowed her to move forward.
Those platforms, in turn, brought her to an area that happened to have the oddest machine she had ever seen, one that had to have been made by the Precursors, and there were a lot of moving parts that made her wonder what sort of role it played in this Temple, not to mention there was an area that Jak and Starlight seemed to be making their way through, so what she did was approach the machine and found a triangular shaped gear that she assumed had to be the one of the three artifacts they were after, though when she claimed it the machine collapsed into a pile of scrap, to which she sighed and used the nearby moving platform to head back to the central temple to wait for the others.
Midnight wasted no time in heading down the path on the right, since it was the one that Jak wanted her to tackle, where she found that there were three Swipers guarding this area and that there were two diagonal pipes that happened to be coming out of the ground, where it looked like someone might be able to use Keira's JET-Board to reach a higher point, or at least that would be the common route to get up there, though as the enemies came at her she simple shifted her right hand for a few seconds and knocked her foes backwards with a burst of wind magic. Of course that wasn't all she did, as her spell was mostly designed to do no damage to her enemies, while her main attack was to channel the power of her Yellow Eco gem and summoned a couple of yellow energy blasts in the air that was in front of her, shaped like spears to be exact, which she loosed through the air and struck down her foes in a few seconds, as they were just Blaster charges that she had modified the forms of, and she snapped her fingers to collect the Skull Gems as she moved forward. Not a few moments later she found a set of raised rocks that formed the path that would bring her to the next section of the area she was exploring, which contained a number of Hoppers that wanted to stop her from moving forward, to which she switched to the Red Eco gem and loosed a wave of red energy not a few seconds later, something that wiped out every foe that was in front of her, allowing her to reach the highest point of this area and pass into the area her foes had been trying to keep her out of. That brought Midnight to a slightly sunken area that one of the Centurion happened to be guarding, as it was standing near the platforms that appeared to lead the way to the upper section of this area, to which she raised an eyebrow for a moment as she waited for her foe to fire at her first, as right now it appeared that it had raised its shield the moment it realized she was standing there, staring at it, meaning it might be feeling her power and didn't want to anger her at all, or, and this thought was more likely, it was just waiting for her to make the first move like most of these foes had done in the past, giving her a chance to study it before making a move.
Eventually the Centurion cracked and fired at her first, where Midnight smiled for a moment as the dark energy blasts just slowed down and came to a stop in front of the area she was standing in, much to the surprise of her foe and Alvin, who was waiting on her shoulder as he watched everything that happened to her, which was followed by Midnight shifting her stance for a moment as the blasts floated around her for a few seconds, meaning she had something in mind for them and was followed by her foe raising its shield. That was followed by Alvin watching as Midnight sent the blasts through a small portal she opened to the right of where she happened to be standing, where it took them only a few seconds to hit her foe's back, something that knocked the Centurion into the ground and took it out in a matter of seconds, which Alvin was impressed by, even though he would have been more impressed if Twilight had done the deed and not Midnight, but as soon as the Skull Gem was collected Midnight spread her wings and flapped them a few times as she took off, to reach the upper part of this area. As soon as she reached the top of the rock ledges, and was allowed to see what else was in this section of the Mountain Temple, Midnight discovered a moving platform that someone would have to jump over a pair of beams to get across, so all she did was fly over them and discovered that there was a massive pool of Dark Eco that rested in front of her, where she landed at the edge of a set of rock ledges so she could look out at the area in front of her, which had to be between her and the artifact she was looking for. In addition to that it was easy for her to see that there were a few Precursor cubes that rested above the Dark Eco, five of them to be exact, and used a bit of her magic to make the one that was in front of her float in the air for a few seconds, allowing her to see that it was designed to unfold as someone struck it with their fists or feet, as in it responded to being attacked, meaning the Precursors had created these to form a path to a specific location, where the artifact was resting based on what she and her siblings were doing, before she took a moment to focus on what she was going to do next.
Midnight raised her hands and channeled her magic for a moment as she caused all of the Dark Eco to rise into the air, as in she was lifting the entire pool of Eco from where it was resting, before carefully opening a portal nearby and deposited all of it inside her storage area, where Alvin noticed that it appeared that she was capable of creating openings to a brand new space of some kind, a hidden realm that only Midnight had access to, and it appeared she was storing the Dark Eco for a later date, before she threw in the cubes as well and then closed the portal. Once that was done she flew over to the other side of the empty lake and noticed that there were a few raised sections that would allow someone to access one of the upside down platforms she had stuck earlier, which would bring whoever was in this area up to a large round platform that was in front of a large structure, which had to be where one of the artifacts rested, though that was when she found a Ram Head guarding the area, so named by Alvin, and it happened to be on the circular platform. Instead of sticking to the platform to fight the Ram Head, like Cozy and the others would have done, Midnight took off and floated in the air as she stared down at her opponent for a few seconds, where she summoned a few of Yellow Eco blasts, modified to look like a bunch of spears, and loosed them down at her opponent, blasting its armor for a few seconds and noticed that it seemed to take no damage at all, meaning it must have been outfitted with better gear than some of the other enemies they had faced since they started fighting the Metal Heads, to which she switched to her magic as she moved through the air. This time around she loosed Lightning Bolts and a few Fireballs at her target, mostly to see how it reacted and if she was able to do any damage to the Ram Head, even though one of the spells managed to make contact with the underside of her foe's body and did some decent damage in the process, to which she landed and dodged the charges that her foe used in an attempt to hurt her, where she smiled as it raised itself onto its back legs for a few seconds, which allowed her to blast the Ram Head with a number of Yellow Eco spears to the weak side and took it down.
From there she approached the metallic gate that was blocking the main structure and found that it opened as soon as the Ram Head collapsed, allowing her and Alvin to enter the inner part of it and discovered a few statues that they assumed were supposed to be the Precursors, even if they were slightly different from what Midnight was used to seeing, but that was when she discovered her prize, a crystalline object that appeared to be vibrating as it floated in the air, which made her wonder if it was supposed to reflect light and empower it in some manner, before she stored it in her pack and sighed for a moment as Alvin returned to her shoulder.
"That's all that is up here? A few enemies and a puzzle?" Midnight commented, as she was slightly taken aback by the fact that she must have been given the easiest path of the three, even though she wouldn't blame Jak for this since he had no way of knowing just how difficult each of the three paths happened to be, though at the same time she stepped outside and flared her wings so she could look around her section of the Mountain Temple, where she found that there was next to nothing in her area, to which she shook her head and flew back to the main structure that had to be where she and her siblings would meet up once they had all three of the artifacts.
Alvin could tell that she wasn't in the mood to complain about the situation, about the fact that she got the easy task and that the others might have gotten a harder path than she had gotten, though it wasn't long before Cozy rode a platform down to where they were located, returning to her basic form, before a second circular platform came down and revealed that Jak and Starlight happened to be on it, where Midnight revealed the crystal artifact she had recovered, Jak pulled out the glass lens artifact he and Starlight had found, and Cozy held out the gear that she assumed was the last one, but just before anyone could say anything the Communicator came out for a moment.
"I can't believe you guys went and did what Onin asked you to do... most people ignore her and she still gives them what they ordered or asked for," Pecker said, revealing that most of the individuals who came to ask Onin for information or an item to help them usually ignored whatever was asked of them, even though the siblings knew that recovering the three artifacts seemed to be the best option, since they knew that everything they picked up or recovered would be used at some point in the future, so these artifacts would be put to work in the near future, before they noticed he was silent for a time and suspected he was watching the old seer, "Onin says that she will search the timelines for answers about these sacred relics, and that when you come by later that she will have something to tell you."
"Then we'll go help out Torn or Krew for a time, before returning to her tent," Jak replied, informing Pecker that he and his siblings understood what he had said and that they would be doing more work for someone for a decent amount of time, to give Onin the time she needed to search for answers about the artifacts, which they handed over to Midnight once they had a chance to look at the three of them, so she could carefully store them in her storage space until they knew what sort of purpose they served, and once everything was said and done they would return to her tent to see what she had figured out about these artifacts.
Instead of saying anything Pecker disconnected the Communicator and the siblings headed back to the Warp Gate that would bring them back to the Door Lock, which would allow them to reenter Haven City and use their zoomers to traverse the city, so they could get back to Torn and the Underground, even though they were interested in what they would be asked to do this time around and knew that they were drawing closer to bringing down both the Baron and the Leader of the Metal Heads, they just had to be patient and soon it would become a reality.