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// Kras: New City Challenges 
// Story: Jak and Daxter: Heirs of Mar 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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After returning to the garage for a few moments, giving them not to no time to do anything other than wait and see what the next set of challenges might be, Jak and his sisters found that the next two races would be taking place in Kras City, which all of them found to be rather interesting, especially since they expected the first one to take place in this city and not in one of the other destinations, but Daxter figured that it was for Blitz and his network to showcase one of the new tracks that had been constructed recently. Rayn informed them that the first race was going to take place in the Loading Docks and was a Death Race, while the second would take place in what was called the 'Dirt Stadium' and the event was a Deathmatch, and beating those would unlock more challenges for them to tackle, such as a Freeze Rally that would take place in the track they had just raced in and one of Haven's new tracks, though she didn't want to overload them and allowed them to focus on the tracks and challenges that they had to take care of first. After that she took a few moments to explain things to all of them, so they wouldn't go into any of the races blind, as the Death Race was more for newbies, like jak and his sisters, so it would be one or more of them chasing a swarm of drones that would be deployed onto the track and their goal, for one of them at the very least, would be to destroy the enemies in front of them, meaning they would have to take down as many drones as they could to get the medal involved with the challenge, and it varied between locations. The Deathmatch, however, was all about two teams going up against each other and involved gunning down their enemies in a predetermined amount of time, though since the other team only had three racers right now they were going to use drones for that as well, that way it was easier for them to complete the challenge, since blowing the other racers up would only remove talented racers from the field and would only upset viewers.

As such Jak and his sisters readied themselves for the two events that would be taking place, where they were brought to the Loading Docks in due time and discovered that it was a decent sized area, especially since it was built so racers could race through the actual area that all sorts of vehicles loaded and unloaded things in, such as trains and sometimes even an air transport, though this time around none of them had to worry about Cutter and the rest of the team that had been sent to bring them down. Of course the siblings knew that, from the explanation of both upcoming events, Cutter's team would be moving onto the Deathmatch challenge and would no doubt be waiting for them to complete the first track that was in their way, though all of them were interested in showing their boss that Cutter and his team weren't going to do all that much for them and would no doubt bring out the other tougher racers, which was what Jak wanted. For an event like the Death Race Ashelin and Torn knew that it would be hard for either of them to take one of the drones down, mostly in the sense that Jak and his sisters would be on the field and neither wanted to get in their way, and Rayn found that such a thing was fair, for as long as one member of their team tackled the challenge it was fine in the eyes of the network, even though some of these challenges were designed for newbies to rank up before granting them access to any of the future tracks. Jak and his sisters waited for a few moments as the transport delivered them to what appeared to be the start of the Loading Docks track and Keira confirmed that the vehicles were ready for another run, though once that was done she pulled back and joined the others as they watched what the siblings would do, who just grinned at each other as they knew what was coming since it was going to be different from what had happened in the previous race.

Once everyone was ready to go, and the drones were released onto the track, Jak and his sisters paused for a few seconds as the timer counted down before racing off as soon as the countdown was over, where each of them immediately found a number of yellow racer drones in front of them and opened fire without wasting a single second, though to keep up the fact that they were playing for keeps the siblings fought for the right to take down the drones and get the upper hand in this race, basically putting on a show for Blitz and his viewers. Of course they didn't use any of their Eco powers, even if it was impossible for anyone else to detect their skills, especially since there were no other racers around them to fight for first place, so Jak, Twilight, Starlight, and Cozy essentially rained death upon the yellow drones that were in front of them and put on a show as they raced around each other, as if they were trying to get to the head of the pack. For the most part this was an incredibly easy challenge for the siblings to tackle, as it was far easier than the vast majority of the jobs they had done while trying to protect Haven City and Spargus from their enemies, though everyone did their best to look like they were taking this seriously, and they were in some sense, while they smashed their way through every drone that had been released onto the field. The interesting thing was that more and more drones were deployed as they raced around the track, giving them a chance to take in the entirety of the Loading Docks, though this meant that whatever parts went into making the drones had to be cheap and lead to those in charge of the event buying a whole lot of parts to make all of these vehicles for someone to blow up, though after taking a moment to consider that the siblings returned to blasting all of their enemies while doing their best to put on a good show for the viewers, not to mention Blitz. This also gave them a good opportunity to memorize the track they were on, since they figured that they would come back for another race at some point in the future, which one none of them knew since it looked like Rayn was only told what two or three of the next races were to give the racers time to prepare.

In the end, however, Jak ended the race with over one hundred and ten drones destroyed, as he scored one hundred and fifty by the time the Death Race was over, while Twilight came in at ninety, Starlight earned eighty-seven, and Cozy had a grand total of eighty, though since they were all on the same team it really didn't matter since one of them had gotten the gold and that was all they were after, though Rayn, once again, revealed that the ratings were good, better than the last year's ratings, meaning it was in their best interest to continue this little game of theirs.

As they were preparing for the Deathmatch race, however, Ashelin revealed that she had Keira analyze the bottle that had been used during the reading of Krew's will, finding that it did, in fact, contain Black Shade, a rare and deadly plant found in Sanctuary, back when it was known as the Wasteland, which could make a slow acting poison that would, true to Krew's words, last until the end of the race season, and she made sure to look annoyed while she said it, mostly to make Rayn think they were still poisoned. Rayn, of course, revealed that her father never did half measures and that he never, in all of her life, cut corners, meaning that if he wanted to poison someone, either to kill them or get them to do something while he was focused on something else, such a thing was going to happen in the end, so all they could do was race against the other team and beat them in every event that happened to be between them and the trophy, which just so happened to be what Jak and his sisters were planning. Once that was done Jak found that their ratings had definitely improved, even if Blitz felt they weren't worth wasting his time on since he seemed to think they were failures as racers, meaning what they were doing was working out quite well and that they should continue challenging each other while they were on the tracks, or at least he and his sisters could do that since Ashelin and Torn didn't want to get in their way, not when neither of them had any Eco powers and the siblings had all the power. Another thing they discovered was that the Dirt Stadium was just a stadium with a dirt floor, meaning everyone would be racing over dirt and earth while chasing down a swarm of drones, which would serve as their targets during the event, and it appeared that the team with the highest amount of kills would win the event, something that caused all of them to glance at each other as Ashelin and Torn silently understood that they would be dealing with the other team while the siblings collected the majority of the points needed to win.

When it came time for Jak, his sisters, and their friends to take part in the Deathmatch they walked into the transport and let it bring them over to the stadium in question, where they were carefully placed all over the arena so it would be more fair for both teams, instead of giving one of them an advantage over the other, though there were a number of tunnels and ramps scattered around the arena, meaning there were all sorts of paths for them to take, and the drones as well, so all they had to do was wait and see what happened when the event started.

A few minutes later, once everyone was assembled and ready to go, everyone waited for a few more seconds as the clock counted down before bursting forward as a number of yellow drones drove throughout the arena, scattering themselves in a matter of seconds, but Jak was fine with that as he and his sisters followed after their targets as Ashelin and Torn did the same thing to their targets. While this was more of a team challenge, or had been modified to be that way since all four of them were taking part in the KGC, Jak and his sisters followed their routine and engaged each other like they had done in the last two races, making it more of a game between them, so while they were trying to get a higher score than their opponents they were also trying to get a better score than their siblings, something that seemed to be followed by cheers from some of Kras' watchers, those who watched over the races and events. As they did all of that, however, Twilight did find Shiv coming after her and discovered that Ashelin was hot on his tail, to which she grinned for a moment as she took a moment to weave a bit of magic as Shiv opened fire on the back of her vehicle, only for him to shoot out his own tires and caused him to come to a stop as Ashelin sped by, making the viewers assume that she had fired at him first, before he had a chance to fire at Twilight. The reality of the situation was that she had created an invisible portal behind her racer and let it take in all of the bullets that Shiv fired at her, even though they burst out of the other end of the magic that she had put on the front of Ashelin's vehicle, and a quick nod to her friend had informed Ashelin that she didn't have to waste ammo on her target, so while they made it look like Ashelin had taken Shiv out the reality was totally different and there was no way for anyone to figure out that they had used magic to knock out one of their opponents for a time, allowing both her and Ashelin to return to the event at hand.

The event ended when someone got ten kills, which happened to be when Jak blasted both his tenth and eleventh target into submission, meaning he scored over the needed amount without even trying to do so, while Twilight and Starlight had managed to get seven kills each, leaving Cozy with just six, even though Ashelin and Torn ended up getting four each, even if neither of them had been trying and it was just luck on their part, much to the annoyance of their opponents, who just left the Dirt Stadium without saying a single word.

Once that was done Jak and his sisters found themselves being taking back to the first track in Spargus, where it appeared that they were going to be tackling four events today, which was more than what each of them were expecting to do in a single day, though this time around it was going to be a Freeze Rally event, meaning someone from their team, which was going to be Jak since he was the star of their team, though Rayn informed them that this would be the last one of the day and that tomorrow morning would be a tougher event. That connected to what they had been told about the sport, that it was fast paced and quick, though while they had been assuming it was a reference to the races and events it seemed like it also applied to how fast one could move through the events, especially if people scored as well as Jak and his sisters did in the events they had tackled so far, though Jak, wanting to be sure that the watchers were given a show, decided to race his sister once more and they were game for it. Rayn, instead of trying to persuade them to do something better with the time they had, explained that this event was about the fastest time and that a racer needed to hit a number of floating tokens to 'slow down the clock', as each one put a pause on the timer, even though there was a two second, a five second, and a ten second token for racers to grab, but since all four of them wanted to take part in the event there needed to be four watchers to make sure the times were right. She was sure that such a thing was possible, hence why she headed out for a bit to make sure that Jak and his sisters could do what they wanted, though not a few moments later they found that she returned to them and informed the siblings that it was okay for them to do what they wanted, so with that done they just headed down to their vehicles and waited for them to be taken back to the first track that their team had experienced, all while they knew that they would be revisiting each track a number of times before this was done.

Upon their arrival in the Spargus-like track Jak and his sisters found that there were now a number of tokens floating in the air above the sands, a blue one with the number two on it, an orange and purple that had ten on it, and a purple one with a five emblazoned upon it, all scattered around the track and making the racers who did this be smart about how each of them tackled the course, but it was all part of this particular challenge and Jak was interested in checking it out, before he and his sisters tackled whatever the next day had for them. Not a few seconds later they climbed into their vehicles, after each of them were delivered to the track, and let the clock tick down before they were supposed to head out, though once they did so each of them made sure to act like they were actually racing against each other and trying to one up the rest of their siblings, even though each of them could see that those who were observing the event seemed to be cheering them on while they did so. Driving into some of the Time-Freeze Tokens did exactly what Rayn had told them, according to what the announcer proclaimed as they raced around the track, their individual times froze when someone ran into a token, so if Jak, for example, drove into a token than his time would be paused for the specified amount of time that was on the one he broke, hence why Rayn made sure four judges were present so each sibling could have someone accurately recording what their true time was, allowing them to focus on the challenge and their personal race. Since they had been here once already all four of them knew a good route to take and, as such, each took a different route of sorts while racing against their siblings, allowing all of them to put on a show for Rayn, Blitz, and everyone who was watching the event right now, all according to their plan to make sure that whoever owned the other team didn't notice Keira looking for information, as it was the last thing they needed right now.

The interesting thing was that this was also a two lap event and that to beat the challenge one had to beat the two minute and twenty second time, such as getting one and a half minutes for example, before they discovered that it was possible to obtain a time like that, as Jak scored it with ease while his sisters were five seconds behind him, or Starlight happened to be five, Twilight was at ten, and Cozy was stuck at fifteen, even though it caused the announcers to cheer for them, which just meant that people did approve of them and their skills, despite what Blitz said.

"The first day is done and you four are already the fan favorites," Rayn commented, going over the ratings and found that, against all odds, the group her father had picked out where at the top of the rankings already, as usually the fan favorites were divided between both teams, but this time around it was all on one team and was centered around Jak and his sisters for the most part, where she was starting to understand some things now, before she glanced at the group as everyone gathered in the garage that happened to be their base, "normally most teams would be worried about the race at the start of the second day, usually because it leads to crushed dreams and sometimes even death... trust me, back when this sport started we saw the deaths of a number of racers and had to create the rules that we abide by today... but with how skilled all of you are I have the feeling that we'll be able to overcome the first of the Qualifying Events."

"And what's the first Qualifying Event?" Torn asked, because while he wasn't concerned about their chances of winning this event and adding to their wins, especially with Jak and his sisters on their team, the fact that this particular event caused so much disaster make him curious as to what in the world Krew had pulled them into, all while finding that the siblings were excited to hear the information that Rayn had to share with them, not that he was even surprised at this point, after everything he and Ashelin had seen so far.

"A Circuit Race around the Dethdrome," Rayn explained, which explained so much to the group and made it so they didn't have to waste too much time revealing why this happened to be the first Qualifying event, or what they had to do to win all the points to move forward with the rest of the KGC, meaning Jak, his sisters, and the others could spend the rest of the day resting before worrying about what might happen when it came time for the next race, "once we've won that, and I'm sure we'll pass with flying colors, more events will be opened up for us to tackle... and it will send a message to the other team that we're not to be underestimated."

Jak glanced at his sisters for a moment when Rayn wasn't focused on them, since they were the ones that would take their team further, as it sounded like she knew something about the other team and wasn't telling any of them anything right now, either because she wanted to confirm something first before speaking her mind or she was purposely keeping what she knew from them, but in the end Jak decided that they would find out what she knew in time and focused on beating the Qualifying Event that was coming up.





When morning arrived Jak, his sisters, and their friends headed out with their vehicles, after eating breakfast and making sure that Keira was sure nothing had happened to their racers overnight, where they were brought to a rather large area which happened to have a large track that did seem like it might be difficult to tackle, to some degree anyway, which was also part of Kras City, so they didn't have that far to travel before they arrived at their destination, though sure enough it took no time for them to find that Blitz was walking over to where their vehicles rested.

"You newbies are finally going to see what I've been talking about all along," Blitz stated, as if they were rookies that were in over their heads, which they certainly weren't and anyone who had been watching the show would tell him such a thing if they were face to face with him, before he glanced at them for a few seconds as he considered something, though at this point Jak and his sisters were studying him with great interest, in case he said or did something that revealed a secret to all of them, "what makes this the most watched sport in the world..."

"You mean besides the fact that this is, in fact, the only sport that is televised to the entire world?" Twilight inquired, where she made it sound like she was interested in what he might have to say, even though she and her siblings knew that there was nothing the man could say to explain things to them, especially since they knew that she was right, but she took a few seconds to pull out her notes, "Please, do explain... I'll correct your mistakes."

"It's ultimate speed and incredible danger!" Blitz replied, where he did look like he was taken aback by Twilight's words, a small victory for them and those who disagreed with everything that he said, before he coughed for a moment and put on his smile as he focused on his words, instead of being intimidated by Jak and his sisters, which had to be hard after what Cozy did the last time he was in front of them, which was why he beckoned to the track, "Welcome to the Dethdrome, one of the fastest and most dangerous tracks in the entire world... many people lost their lives in the past, chasing a sad dream that never came true... anyway, good luck out there."

"You're mostly right, which is quite a surprise... but don't talk bad about those who wanted to win this, otherwise one of my siblings might get upset," Twilight said, something that caused Blitz to take a step backward, showing that he took her threat very seriously, especially after seeing what Cozy had done and didn't want to see if the rumors about her were true, as in about her transformed state, and a quick glance from her sister caused him to flee with his camera following, though as that happened she smiled as she glanced at her tablet, seeing that their ratings had gone up again, showing them that the viewers enjoyed seeing Blitz like this.

With that done Jak and his sisters took one final look at their vehicles before climbing into them as Ashelin, Torn, and the rest of the racers drove into the starting area of the track, where they waited for a time as the announcer counted down, though once that was done everyone started heading down the road that was in front of them and started the race, once more following the routine that Jak and his sisters had established so far while keeping an eye on what Shiv and the rest of his team did. This track seemed to be built over parts of the sea that were near Kras City, especially since they and their friends traveled though tunnel that was carved through a large rock that rested out in the water, drove down a road that was winding and twisting while it had been carved out of the center of the other large rock they jumped over to, before all of them drove along the road that rested on the sides of another mountain range, keeping low to the water this time since there wasn't much height to this range. Truth be told Jak and his sisters had no idea why this was considered one of the far more dangerous tracks for the sport, save for the fact that the rules during the first few seasons had been minor and it likely caused a lot of death, though when they focused on the track each of them found that it was rather easy to follow and, thanks to the efforts of Ashelin and Torn, the siblings were able to focus on their own 'rivalry' and put on a show for all of the viewers, all while taking care of whoever passed their friends. It just showed whoever Shiv's boss was that they weren't here to play around and that everyone who was sent against them would fail in no time, just like those the four of them had faced in the past, though as Jak considered that Starlight shot out the tires of Cutter's vehicle, as he tried to pass by her, and sent him back down a few positions, even though his tire would be repaired in no time and he'd be back in the race while they dealt with the rest of his team.

Jak found that it took him and his sisters about four and a half minutes to reach the end of the second lap, which allowed them to finish the race with Jak having the fastest time of them all, though that also meant that they had won the event and were now one step closer to being able to enter the Grand Prix of the Red Eco Cup, which would bring them one step closer to the trophy Krew wanted, though Jak and his sisters kept their eyes on the future, as there was no telling what the rival team might do in response to their rising success, but it made things that much more exciting and made them eager to face whatever their rivals had in store for them.