Sons of Damas

by Tatsurou

Brink: To Boldly Go

Jak and Shining began to explore the new island they'd crashed on carefully, not wanting to stumble into anything by accident. Shining took point and moved slowly, controlling his pace so that he wasn't moving so fast they'd come across danger before they were ready, but not so slow that Jak would start to get impatient. As he led the way, he took in the details of the island.

It seemed to be both rockier and more alive than the last one, with larger rock formations and wider spread plant life, even if it was only moss, short grass, and large mushrooms. The discovery of a gate blocking their path with a mechanism to raise it caused a bit of concern. "I get the feeling we aren't alone here," Shining murmured softly.

"Whoever might be here, they better be able to get us back in the air," Jak growled softly.

Behind the gate, a Red Eco mod for the staff gave Jak access to a Scatter Gun mode, once again with far less ammo than Jak was used to. Still, it proved both useful and comforting, and the waterfall they climbed past proved relaxing as well. Shortly past the waterfall, however, was a Precursor Statue about Jak's size shaped like an Oracle statue with glowing blue eyes. As Jak and Shining approached, the eyes flared, blasting them both with concentrated Red Eco that their bodies struggled to absorb.

"W...what was that?" Jak demanded as he struggled through the sensations coursing through his body.

"Feels...like a new spell," Shining spoke up. "Or...Eco technique...or something..." Focusing his mind, he shaped Red Eco at the tip of his horn, shaping it into a large sphere. As he relaxed, the sphere floated away from him before eventually dissipating.

"That's...disappointing," Jak grumbled softly. "Seems all it did for me was suppress the Dark Eco inside me a bit more-"

"Hang on!" Shining interrupted. Focusing again, he once more shaped the sphere. Instead of relaxing, however, he nudged it forward, then tensed. He felt a surge of Eco leap from him to the sphere, and it exploded violently.

Jak's eyes popped open as he stared at the blast zone, then grinned widely. "Jak likes," he purred, shaping a charge of his own in his hand.

Further up the path, the pair encountered large boulders that looked somewhat fragile. Throwing the charge, Jak grinned as he watched the blast reduce the boulders to dust and shrapnel. Behind the boulders, orange machines could be seen cutting down trees, but they turned around to pursue Jak and Shining as they approached. The brothers quickly moved to defend themselves, discovering that the automatons' armor was rather durable. The new ability - which Jak decided to call Eco Amplifier - proved quite effective against them when they were able to use it accurately. Unfortunately, attacks from the automatons broke their concentration, causing any orbs generated to dissipate, so they shifted tactics to work together, with one of them unleashing the explosion while the other guarded them.

After dealing with the orange robots, the pair paused to catch their breath. "This is a lot harder than it used to be," Jak panted breathlessly.

"That's because...we used to have more than enough weaponry...to blast our way through," Shining gasped out, shaking sweat out of his mane, wriggling like a dog. "But all we've got now...is your staff, and our abilities."

"And even those are limited," Jak grumbled, shaking himself off as well. "Let's keep going. It's not like we're going to find bigger, even harder to kill robots around the corner, right?"

Two turns later, they found blue armored robotic walkers armed with Red Eco laser turrets, which promptly turned to charge the pair.

"You just had to say it, didn't you?" Shining grumbled irritably.

"Can't you just toss them aside?" Jak demanded irritably as they dove for cover. "You just got a Red Eco amplification, and that's power. Can't you put that to your telekinesis and throw them off the island?"

Shining blinked at his brother for a time. "...shut up," he finally grumbled before doing just that.

With the path once more clear and a more direct method of dealing with troublesome armored robots determined, they continued forward, using Shining's shield to protect them as robots tried to dump cut trees onto them as they followed a narrow path. At the end of the narrow passage, a strange platform - like the top of the Totem that had given them the Eco Amplifier - stuck up slightly out of the ground. "So...what's this?" Shining asked curiously, poking it with a hoof. Rainbow colored light suddenly flared out of it, and Shining leapt back. "Yikes!"

"You okay, Shining?" Jak asked worriedly.

"Y...yeah," Shining replied. "It felt...weird. I feel refreshed."

"Refreshed?" Curiously, Jak stepped onto the platform, feeling his Eco reserves replenished almost instantly. "Wow! It's like an Eco Vent, but...whoa."

"Jak?" Shining asked worriedly.

"It refilled all my Eco reserves," Jak explained. "It's...calming."

"Definitely going to keep an eye out for these, then," Shining murmured. "For now...let's keep going."

Eventually, they made it past the last of the automated robots, finding their last obstacle to be a force field...with the fuse box controlling it on the near side. "...okay," Shining murmured as the pair combined physical strength and magic power to rip the fuse box out, "either these defenses are badly designed, or are designed deliberately to test someone passing through here."

"Given our adventures, either is possible," Jak replied readily as he led the way past the now deactivated force field.

Behind the force field, a large house resting atop a tree awaited them. Near the top of the spiral staircase, a crazy seeming old man wearing complex looking goggles stuck his head out with a cackle, his long beard dangling past his bald scalp as he hung upside down. "You two don't startle easily, do you?" the man asked when the brothers barely flinched when he popped out right in front of them.

"We've seen a lot," Shining grunted.

"Indeed," the old man agreed. "You've both been touched by the darkness, haven't you?" When neither of them responded, he continued. "I know Dark Eco when I see it."

"And...you are?" Jak asked cautiously.

The old man stroked his beard for a moment. "Good question! I know a lot, but I don't know that!"

"Okay...what are you doing out here?" Shining inquired.

"Wow! Two for two!" the old man praised. "Don't know that either!"

"...know about the robots?" Jak continued calmly.

"...a bit," the old man admitted. "I made them to help me, but they turned against me."

"If you built them, then can you fix our ship?" Shining asked eagerly.

"Already saw the damage," the old man countered insistently. "The fusion rods are shot to Shiloh. Without a little juice...well, you're stuck here with me!"

"And...do you know where we can get that 'juice'?" Jak inquired.

"Well...there's one Velonium Power Pod on this island," the old man explained. "It's your funeral if you want to go after it-"

"His fiance was kidnapped by the Sky Pirates," Shining interrupted.

Jak blushed brightly. "We're not-"

"Only because you haven't proposed yet," Shining refuted.

"...it's on my Uber-bot 888, the biggest, nastiest bot on the island," the old man explained. Noticing the eyes still on him, he pointed. "That way."

Comments

[RanmaChaos]

Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.

[Starcat5]

Ah yes, the Dark Eco Sage. I vaguely kinda sorta almost remember him. I wonder if he'd be interested in knowing that his predecessors are still around?

[megabyte97]

So... They got attacked by heavy duty tree cutters? The orange ones with the CAT logo on them?

[ArchAngelGundam]

I have one thing to say about that old man:

[Dirty Bit]

The old dude's funny

Also, Jak pointing out Shining's use of levitation

[Pinklestia]

7599192

Is because Shinning was so useless in the oast Ark he has to get used again to use his magic and team up with just Jak.

[Kenshinryuu]

This old guy is awesome. I can just see him and Keira bouncing ideas off one another and making some mechanical monstrosities to smack pirates around.

Now, the major question on my mind: is Jak going to end up using Shining like Pinkie used Twilight against the Changelings???

[DiscountDiscord]

7598677 Huh. Hadn't considered that. A valid theory in my opinion.

[KVFFour]

7599864 Yes.

[Jake Witt]

Friendship Totems & a crazy old man. Odd.