After departing from Far Drop, and leaving behind a very grateful Barter, Jak flew the Hellcat through the space between them and the Phantom Blade for a short period of time, where Daxter and Tess remained near the turret in case they came under attack, allowing his sisters to glance out at the area as he did that, or at least Starlight and Cozy did since Twilight was focused on resting and recovering her energy, but it wasn't long before they boarded the ship, finding that Keira wanted to talk with them immediately.
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we have a problem," Keira said, speaking once everyone was gathered in the area of the ship that she worked in, while the old man seemed to be off in his own corner, doing whatever he wanted while they talked about things, to which she held out the artifact so Jak and his sisters could see it again, "the Eco Seeker doesn't seem to have enough Light Eco to operate."
"Well, we might be in luck, as we know of an old research station used by the Aeropans." Phoenix explained, something that interested the siblings and Keira, since it sounded like their earlier thoughts on Skyheed's people might be correct, in part anyway, while the old man didn't seem to want anything to do with this conversation, before he sighed for a moment as he thought about it, "It's abandoned now, but we did pick up some faint readings for Light Eco there long ago... maybe they left some behind, before leaving the station?"
"Given the environment, let's hope we can find some there." Twilight remarked, though even if they found some she was afraid that heading into such a place might do more harm to her than good, not after what happened when she and her siblings were in Aeropa, which lead to her new tail replacing her old one, so she had a feeling more changes would come to her if she joined them there, and she likely would fight by their side in a place like that.
Jak and Phoenix nodded as they changed their course, heading towards a darker section of the Brink that made it seem like part of the Edge of the World, though upon their arrival in the area Jak found that Keira, having been given a smaller vehicle so she didn't have to be tied down by Jak using the Hellcat, headed out first and caused the others to follow her in the Hellcat, even though they found the large metallic research station and the ships that seemed to be guarding it from whoever they deemed to be enemies. While Jak fired on the ships, with Daxter and Tess gunning the others down, Keira slipped into one of the landing bays for the station and headed inside, to get a head start on looking for the Light Eco that Phoenix said was in this area, though while all of that happened they heard a yelp from Keira as her communications were cut off, causing Jak to finish off their enemies before heading for the station. Of course he was worried about her, even if he knew that she could handle herself against the smaller enemies that they usually faced, so it was more in the sense of the larger foes, hence why he sped up and flew over to where the station rested, where he found a lower landing bay and used it without wasting time, allowing them to head into an area that the Aeropans used when they launched ships into the surrounding area. With that done Starlight made sure to weave a protection spell over the Hellcat, just to be sure they didn't have a stranger climb in again, even if the old man was very helpful in figuring some things out and opening the Eco Seeker to continue their quest, though all four of them held their weapons at the ready as Daxter and Tess rested on their usual perches, allowing them to move into the first chamber of the research station.
As they opened the first door they got a brief communication from Keira, who informed them that she was fine and that she was going to try and find a way to meet up with them, having figured that Jak would come running once he heard she was in danger, though they wished her well and hoped that no enemies came at her, to which they focused on following the path that was in front of them. All around them rested machines that looked like they might be running on low power, a fair amount of webbing that indicated large spiders might be here, and a path that seemed to consist of a number of large metallic boxes mixed with some metallic poles, so all they had to do was jump across some of them and spun when using the poles to reach the other side of the large chamber that the path had brought them to. That brought them to a door that lead to a circular chamber, one that happened to have another Precursor Totem, which was interesting since all of them assumed that they had discovered all of the powers that they needed for their adventure in the Brink, plus it had a pair of Precursor tablets resting nearby, not to mention an odd looking oracle that looked more like a tiki, a button, and a door that seemed impassible. Not a few moments later the siblings did the reasonable thing and tapped into the power of the Totem, which shocked each of them with more Blue Eco as it unlocked another power inside all of them, one that had to be tied to the Tiki, where Jak walked over to the button and stepped on it, opening the door it was connected to, before he focused his energy on the Tiki and teleported to where it was standing in an instant, where they found that he had, in fact, switched places with it, allowing the door to remain open thanks to the Tiki resting on the button.
Of course that was when they discovered something interesting, Dark Mutants, these ones with red crystals, burst through some of the vents and dropped down into the chamber they were in, where Jak and his sisters lashed out at them without wasting a single second, as they knew these foes were dangerous and didn't want to give them an opening, even though the odd thing in Twilight's eyes was that part of the chamber was made of Precursor technology and not Aeropan, but as their enemies fell she groaned as she tapped into her magic and stole the tablets for later.
With the Dark Mutants taken care of Jak and his sisters moved forward, where they found that some Precursor items did serve as platforms for them to use to jump over a wall and continue deeper into this facility, where they found a decent sized contained that held what they hoped was a comatose Dark Mutant, though as they jumped over another wall they all found several containers that were smashed and the others shattered as the inhabitants climbed out before rushing over to where they were standing. As such the siblings did what they had done during their time in Far Drop, they tackled the enemies that happened to be rushing at them, fighting them exactly like they had done with the other enemies they had faced off against, while Twilight kept her guard up since she was still the weakest of the four, forcing her to pick when she could use her magic and when to hold back, not to mention when to attack and when to defend. As much as Jak and Cozy loved a challenge, and sometimes they were totally focused on what sort of fights they could get into, fighting the potent Dark Mutants happened to be one of the most challenging fights they could get into and one that required them to be far more careful than before, and when Jak dealt with his target he turned and helped Twilight, just to make sure nothing bad happened to her. It took some time for them to clear out the Dark Mutants, especially since it appeared that more were on their way from the depths of the facility, though once they were done with the rest of their enemies, and they confirmed it by waiting for a few moments, they headed for the door that their targets had been guarding and headed for the chamber that was on the other side.
What they discovered, however, was that the chamber was a perfect replica of the Dark Eco injector area that Jak and Cozy had been in before Twilight and Starlight came to the rescue, where Twilight first gained the wound that lead to Midnight coming into being, and it was easy for them to see that Jak and Cozy recalled the pain that this place brought them, which also had a number of lower cells, like someone had copied Praxis' area and put it in the Brink, something that caused Cozy to growl as her anger rose... though when she started to shift into her Dark Form, and all of them realized the pain that it would cause, Twilight rushed forward and grabbed her sister's head, focusing on using her power to calm and heal her, even if it caused pain to course through her body in return.
"Twilight?" Cozy asked, though as her own changes, which had only started when her sister made her move, so she had a few patches of scales and some of the claws had been coming out, disappeared she, Jak, Starlight, Daxter, and Tess found a shudder passing through Twilight's body as the Ottsel fur seemed to spread out even more, where it started to spread down her left arm and stopped halfway to her elbow, down the sides of her body and started to move down her legs, only to stop halfway down her thighs, or at least it did for her right leg since it continued down the rest of her left leg and her hoof shook before transforming into an Ottsel's foot.
"I'm... I'm fine..." Twilight huffed, though as she pulled her hands back, and stopped channeling his powers, she staggered for a moment as Jak rushed to catch her before something bad happened, like falling off the edge of the walkway that Cozy had started to transform on, though that was when the last piece of the puzzle fell into place as he and the others watched as she lost a few more inches of her height, "just... walking will be hard..."
Jak really had no idea what to do in this situation, since the transformation into an Ottsel was impossible to mess with, or at least Eon seemed to think so, so all he could do was help his sister steady herself before they started for the other side of the chamber, though this time his sisters, Daxter, and Tess made sure to keep an eye on Twilight, just in case she had to slow down or something bad happened. One thing about her that didn't change, however, was her mind, as Twilight spoke about the injection chamber that was behind them now, the pressing matter that Skyheed and his Chancellor knew about them and their abilities, and everything else that had been discovered so far, as this place was starting to look more like a Dark Warrior Program chamber and facility, meaning it was possible that the Aeropans might have been making an army to go to war with Praxis, once the Tainted were dealt with. Truth be told Jak didn't like the sound of it, and yet he knew that it, in some odd way, made sense when he listened to what Twilight said, as she explained it in a way that made them trust that she was telling the truth, though as that happened Jak tore apart a gearbox and forced a door to open, allowing him and his sisters to find more Tikis that seemed to be the keys to making their way through the next part of the station, or at least it sure seemed that way. As he and Starlight used their new Eco Teleport ability to move through the passage and set all of the Tikis in place, Cozy remained behind to try and help Twilight out, who found that walking with an Ottsel's foot and a pony hoof made things harder, which was odd since the transformation seemed to be totally random and affected her with no reason to what changed next, but for now she seemed to be able to follow after them without much difficulty, but she had a feeling that when battle came it would be a different story.
What worried Twilight, especially after her recent changes, was that they found a chamber full of Dark Eco, which was the moment that her body felt what happened back in Aeropa and she fell to her knees as the weakness returned all at once, causing Jak and Cozy to use the Eco Rocket Jump to ascend to the top of this chamber, giving Starlight a point to focus on as she lifted herself and Twilight up to them with her magic. A few moments later, once all four of them were at the top of the chamber, they found another Dark Mutant that smashed it's fists into the ground and caused some rocks to fall, which knocked out a metallic bridge that was in front of them, meaning they needed to use a patch of crystals to form a walkway so they could move forward, even though this time Cozy did it since having Twilight do it would only weaken her and make her body change more. At this point in time they had a better understanding of why being around so much Dark Eco made Twilight so weak, it was her awakening nature as an Ottsel, beings who were far more in tune with Eco, and the amount of Dark Eco that happened to be in the Brink that was influencing her body, especially since Eon, Gol, and Maia had said that she was destined to become six Ottsels, so this could be messing with Midnight and that affected Twilight. Jak landed on the other side of the crystalline platforms and struck the Dark Mutant who had knocked out the bridge, even though there was another one that joined the fight not a few seconds later, causing him to focus on stalling both of them as Cozy leapt over to him, while Starlight replicated their movements and turned around so she could watch Twilight, who carefully tried to make her way over the path and ended up slipping on one of the crystals, causing her sister to catch her before she fell into the depths.
After both Dark Mutants were taken care of the siblings continued forward and found themselves in an area that had yet another locked door, though instead of worrying about that they focused on the large spiders that dropped down from the ceiling and attacked them, where this time around Twilight focused on using her weapons and none of her powers, but at the same time she used her imbalance to her benefit as it caused her foes to drop their defenses so she could take them all down, without needing help this time.
With those enemies taken care of, and they were sure that the spiders weren't coming at them, a walkway raised up and it allowed them to move deeper into the station, leading to a long chamber that had a number of moving boxes that Jak and his sisters could use as platforms to reach the other side, which was what they did for the next couple of moments before they reached a door leading to another chamber. This one, having three Tikis that rested near the other side, happened to have two more Dark Mutants who wanted to fight and tear them down, though again Twilight found that she stumbled a little while fighting these enemies, something she used to her benefit since it allowed her to use her weapons on the Dark Mutant who came at her, weakening it so her siblings could take it and the other one down. With that done Jak glanced at the rest of the chamber and found that they would have to use the Eco Construct power to move around and find places to move all three of the Tikis to, or at least it sure looked that way during his first look, but upon a closer inspection of the area he found that all that needed to be done was use the power to form some walkways and reach the door that had to be their main destination. As such he and Cozy focused on channeling their power and forming walkways for them to use, allowing Starlight to follow after them while keeping an eye on Twilight, who found that it was becoming increasingly hard on her to keep up with her siblings, meaning some of the other symptoms of becoming an Ottsel were becoming known as time went by, even though she was sure that, once she was done changing, she might be stronger than before, or at least she hoped so.
Once everyone was done moving along the various platforms, even if Twilight slowed them down a little, they reached the door in question and found their way into a circular chamber that seemed important, especially with the machines on one of the walls, though Jak smiled as he found Keira working on one of them, one that seemed to have a valve or something that might help them with their current mission.
"Looks like you already found the goodies." Jak commented, where he walked up to where Keira was standing, finding that she was totally working on it and seemed to be getting close to something that might help them, while his sisters looked at the rest of the chamber, mostly because they wanted to be ready in case any of the other Dark Mutants burst into this part of the station and attacked them.
"I think this is the main control room! And these diagrams..." Keira said, though as she turned her head she found that the sisters were done with their initial search of this section of the station and were walking over to where this computer had been built, where she noticed that Jak seemed a little distracted by something, Starlight seemed interested in what was in this part of the station, Cozy looked sad about something, and Twilight appeared to be focused on the machine, before she noticed what had happened to Twilight's body, "Twilight... what happened?"
"I... gave up part of my previous form... to save my sister from the pain of remembering those three lost years... I couldn't stand seeing her in pain over it, not anymore," Twilight replied, as that was the part of the truth that she hadn't told the others after she helped save Cozy from the pain of the transformation into her Dark Form, after remembering every bit of pain and agony that such an event brought to her, even though it cost her precious time in her previous form, to the point that she was starting to regard her upcoming Ottsel form as her current form, before she focused on the machine and all of the diagrams Keira was currently staring at, "Can you fix this control panel?"
As Keira started to confirm that she could, in time, they heard a noise as an elevator rose up and brought some spiders to the area they were in, to which Jak and his sisters turned around and attacked the enemies that were coming at them, as it seemed like all of the other enemies in the station were coming to deal with them, to which Keira got to work figuring out what was wrong with this control panel and how to make it work. Of course Jak wasn't surprised to find some harder foes, the Dark Mutants, joining the spiders in the assault, though he and his sisters made sure to focus on them as well, since it would be unwise of them to simply allow any of their enemies to get near Keira, especially since they could do some bad damage to her if one managed to punch her, but for the most part none of the Dark Mutants were able to get close to her or the control panel. Thanks to their efforts they were able to hold back every foe that dared to come at them, despite the fact that there was a fair number of enemies being called up from the depths, making Jak feel that this was an alarm and they had been a security system, even if that was incredibly odd when one considered it, though they remained on guard in case more enemies came up to attack them. A few more moments after that happened the alarm switched off and the rest of the sounds seemed to die down as well, meaning they had to be linked together in some manner, though with that done, and each of them were sure that nothing else was coming their way, the siblings walked over to Keira and watched as she finished working on the control panel.
"Okay, we're good to go... we just need a little juice to get things started," Keira said, though as she said that she glanced at the red panel that was showing a Dark Eco icon, even though that meant that they didn't have the power to use the rest of this machine, where Jak and the others glanced at it as well, finding all of them recognized it and that Daxter found a small container that could hold whatever Light Eco they managed to get from this.
In that moment, before the others could stop her, Twilight raised her hand and channeled her energy for a few moments, where the screen turned from red to green in a matter of seconds, something that caused Keira to smile as she pressed a button and a faucet emerged from the machine, causing Daxter to rush over with the container and captured the small amount of liquid Light Eco that emerged from the device, which he sealed before it was corrupted by the environment, as it would set them back again. Keira was happy that they had retrieved the Light Eco that Phoenix had mentioned, even if it wasn't as much as she would have thought they would find, meaning whatever else the Aeropans have might be in one of their other facilities, before they pulled back and she took a look at Twilight, finding that no other changes had appeared, though as she thought about that one of the things she noticed was that her friend's height had been five feet five inches before all this happened, though now she was between four feet six inches and four feet ten inches. That meant she was on her way to the two feet ten inches that an Ottsel had, or two feet eleven inches in Tess' case, but Twilight didn't want to think about that as she pulled herself back and claimed that it was time for them to leave, to which they headed through a nearby door and found that it brought them to a hanger after walking down another passageway, one that happened to have a rather impressive black fighter jet inside it. As Jak claimed it, since having a second ship would be useful, Cozy flew out with her wings out, tracking down where they landed the Hellcat before returning to pick up her sisters, since Keira had joined Jak in the new ship, though once that was done both ships headed back to the Phantom Blade so they could see what else needed to be done before the Eco Seeker pointed them at the Eco Core.
Upon their return to the ship Phoenix met them in the helm of his ship and handed over the Eco Seeker once they came to a stop, where Keira took it and Daxter offered her what they had obtained, though once she added the encapsulated Light Eco to the artifact it opened and pointed to something else, the arrow spinning to point in three directions, which all of them were interested in as soon as they saw it.
"The Eco Seeker is missing three items, which it seems to be pointing to... two of them are near Far Drop, but the other is in the opposite direction and is closer to our current location." Keira stated, which was rather interesting when Jak and his sisters considered it, especially since they were all expecting the artifact to be fully functional once it got some Light Eco, to which Keira looked up and glanced at all of them, knowing that she didn't have to say anything else.
Jak had a feeling that the items in question were going to be a little hard to recover, especially after everything they went through to get the artifact and the Light Eco to power it, though he was looking forward to tackling whatever challenges he and his sisters might face next, especially since there was no telling what might be waiting in the three locations that the Eco Seeker was pointing out.