Jak and Daxter: Heirs of Mar

by Blackdrag-rose

Spargus: Exploring the Volcano

Once Jak and his sisters were done studying the Dune Hopper, and having a good idea of what it might be able to do, as its name gave them some thoughts on the matter, Jak climbed into the vehicle and started to move towards the other side of the large ruins that their father's mission had brought them and Kleiver to, even though the fat Wastelander, including those who had arrived after them to collect the Leaper Lizards, was gone at this point in time and such a thing meant that they didn't have to worry about dealing with any of them. As he did that Twilight, Starlight, and Cozy climbed into their vehicles and followed after him, finding that he was heading right towards the edge of the desert, where it looked like there were a number of rock platforms between where they were driving right now and where the lone mountain that Seem's temple had to be resting on, though based on what Twilight could see there was no easy way for any of them to reach their destination, even though there seemed to be some Marauders in this area. In response to that Jak tested out the weapon system of the Dune Hopper, where he and his sisters found that it fired grenades at the area in front of the vehicle, with a short pause in between shots since the second one was a second or two behind the first one, which took out several Marauder vehicles as he moved towards his destination, allowing Twilight to continue her gathering of metal scraps for later as he headed right for the edge of the path. Once he got close enough Jak flipped a switch and the Dune Hopper crouched low to the ground for a few seconds, something they had discovered while they were going over it earlier, before he flipped it again and both he and Daxter were launched into the air, as the Dune Hopper's name revealed the power that it had access to, as it allowed the driver to use a high jump of sorts and Jak landed on the raised platform that he had picked out, causing him to head to his left and follow the path as his sisters followed after him, as Twilight or Starlight were going to use their magic to form a few temporary walkways for them to use.

As such it didn't take him long to make his way over the large rocks that the path happened to be connected to, nor did it take his sisters long to follow after him as Twilight and Starlight took turns using their magic to form walkways for them to use, before they reached what appeared to be a curved path of sorts that had been carved into the mountain, which also had a break in the path that they discovered must have been eroded by water, given the waterfall off to their right, and all of them came to a stop in front of a wall that was made of stone pillars and braziers, which lead over to a large arch that held a tunnel behind it.

"So, this is the Precursor temple that Seem and their order reside and work in," Twilight commented, as she, Jak, and their sisters climbed out of their vehicles before walking over to the arch, allowing them to see a few new statues that had to be of the Precursors, as she noted that they were similar to what they had seen during their previous adventures and would need some time to figure out what sort of differences there were, before they found that the main area of the temple was a perfect circle and it formed a perfect cylinder, a large one to be exact, that looked like it had been carved out of the vast insides of the mountain, since the rocky peak was missing, before she spotted something, "though that right there might be a pain to deal with."

What she was referring to was a construct, one made from some Eco energy, that resembled an eye of some kind and was made of a glowing material, or had been made to resemble such a thing, though Daxter jumped onto the floor and took a moment to rush over to the area the Light Eye was guarding, as it had a door behind it that they likely needed to open so they could delve deeper into this place, but when he approached the floor before the construct it suddenly focused more than it had been doing previously and a number of spears rose out of some slots that rested in the floor, creating a new barricade, to which he turned around once he saw that and returned to Jak, though after a few moments the spears were pulled back and the Light Eye returned to normal. Such a thing told Jak that they would likely need some sort of invisibility to get by the construct, something that could be achieved when he considered all of the spells his sisters had access to, as all of their spells were interesting and he knew that Twilight might have an invisibility one, though that was when he found an odd dark statue, which could be picked up and held in his hands based on what he was seeing right now, off to the left of where they were standing, though to the right rested a path that one could traverse and climb up the side of the large chamber that he and his sisters were standing in. He already knew that their main path had to be behind the Light Eye, as it seemed odd to have something like that guarding the area if it wasn't important, though at the same time he was more interested in what might be at the peak of the temple and he could see that his sisters agreed with him, to which he just walked over to the start of the path and started to climb it, though as he started to ascend, by using some poles and some cloth platforms, Twilight spread her wings and flew up to the highest point, with Starlight following with her levitation spell and Cozy just channeled the power of her Dark Form to propel herself up the wall. Jak chuckled for a moment, as he had known that his sisters would have done something like that while he was climbing the tall wall, even though both he and Daxter noticed that Cozy's claws dug into the stone carvings, not that they needed such a reminder of her power, but that didn't stop Jak from progressing up the path that was in front of him as he followed after his sisters, where he also found a tunnel that had some steps along the way, to conserve his energy for the next stage of the climb.

As such it didn't take him long to reach the top of the path, as his sisters had followed it once they got high enough and all of them had come to a stop in an area that appeared to be an outlook of sorts, as they could gaze out at the Wasteland from this point, though when he joined them a few moments later he found that his sisters were standing near what had to be a glider of some kind, given the handles that one could hold onto and the pair of cloth wings that had been made to fix the frame, though off in the distance he found what appeared to be metallic Eco Rings, forming a path from here to an opening that lead into the volcano in the middle of the massive Wasteland.

"Seem mentioned that they lost an expedition of monks earlier, as they sent them to the volcano," Jak commented, as he recalled what the monk had told them, that a Dark Artifact had fallen on the area in question and they had sent some of their monks to find it, so it could be secured and delivered to the area that all of the Dark Artifacts were stored in, even if he knew that the space Midnight had created was far better than anything the monks had, before he considered what to do next, "and I'm willing to bet that if we head over there we'll be able to find them, and maybe a new power or two along the way, so we can make peace with Seem when we get back to Spargus."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Twilight replied, something that caused Starlight and Cozy to nod their heads in agreement, as all of them felt that their brother's plan was a good one, especially since they were eager to see what had happened to the monks Seem had mentioned earlier, hence why she leapt off the ledge and opened her wings once more, taking off as her siblings followed after her, mostly in the sense that Starlight and Cozy left Simon and Theodore turn into their true forms, even though they went the hybrid route to give themselves some space, before taking to the air, leaving Jak to chuckle for a few seconds as he quickly picked up the glider and followed his sisters.

While Twilight and her sisters could easily fly over to the volcano, and find an opening that would allow them to make their way inside it, they really just flew around as they watched Jak use the path that Seem's monks used whenever one of them used the gliders to reach their destination, where it looked like he was making a circle around the entire Wasteland before he approached the volcano, as he started by flying over the water and the ruined city, then flew over a body of water that had a few bridges and a fortress in the middle of it, followed by him heading over an area that had a number of metallic ramps and then returned to the area in front of Spargus' gate, before he used the remaining updrafts and rings to align himself with a hole in the side of the volcano. Once he did that his sisters followed after him, where Simon and Theodore had to shrink back to a smaller size and toss their riders into the hole, something that was fine due to Twilight watching her sisters with her magic, before they moved down the passage that Jak was following and found that he had crashed the glider into something since it was in a pile on the ground, but he and Daxter were fine, to which they landed near him and glanced around the area that they had landed in. Resting nearby was one of the Light Eyes, who happened to be guarding a Warp Gate that likely linked back up with the temple chamber they had been in before coming here, complete with one of the dark statues they had seen earlier, though since it didn't look like there was anything behind them the siblings just headed down the rocky path that was in front of them, but for now no one had their guns out, because this was just them looking around while they searched for the monks, despite the fact that they would pull their weapons out if enemies did show up at some point during their journey. Of course that was when Jak jumped up onto a higher part of the path, which was when some Stingers burst out of the ground in front of him and rushed over to where he was standing, where he and the sisters found that Alvin tried to use his power to free them, like they had tried with the Metal Beasts, something that lead to him using the Scatter mod to blast the trio of enemies out of his way as his sisters joined him, though it caused all of them to ready their weapons as they continued to move through the volcano.

After that they found at least fifteen more Stingers standing between where they were standing and the rock sections that happened to form the next leg of their path, where Cozy leapt into the air and charged her gun for a moment, though as she neared the ground she fired a burst of the Wave Concussor and took out all of the enemies that were in front of them, because she figured that all of the Metal Heads in the Wasteland were going to be corrupted by whatever power Alvin and his brothers had run into, back when they tried to free the Metal Beasts earlier, so until they found the one in control of all of these Metal Heads they were going to have to kill them. Of course Alvin and his brothers didn't want to do such a thing, since they had come here to free those that remained, though they agreed with her assessment of the situation and just remained still as Jak and his sisters headed up the rock sections before heading deeper into the volcano, though when all of them reached the upper part of the platforms a few seconds later they discovered something that caused them to come to a stop for a few seconds, the inside of the volcano was bigger than what they originally expected. They knew that the volcano was large, based on what they had seen when they were out driving through the Wasteland earlier, though what they were seeing right now, a number of rock platforms that seemed to form a path while there was vegetation growing all over the place, told them that they might have misjudged the sheer size of the volcano, though instead of standing still for too long Jak started walking along the path in front of them and his sisters followed after him without delay, this time with all of them having their weapons at the ready. The interesting thing was that there happened to be a single Leaper Lizard standing nearby, munching on some of leaves no less, to which they walked forward and found that it fled the instant they neared it, meaning it had to be important in some manner and caused the siblings to follow after it, even if it involved the four of them jumping over a gap with falling edges and having to take down a group of Metal Heads along the way, which was a few Mantis and a coupe of Wasps, before they leapt over another gap and landed near the Leaper Lizard that was continuing to move through the area.

In that moment Jak found that he was able to mount the Leaper Lizard and carefully moved through the lower area that it had lead them to, finding a few spherical shaped creatures that seemed to be either rolling around parts of this place or eating some of the vegetation they had seen, though they seemed to have light orange scales and had spikes resting on their backs, meaning they were Spiny Hounds and seemed to be rather dangerous, to which Jak moved around them as his sisters followed after him, as while they could fight the new enemies they didn't seem to be as aggressive as all of the Metal Heads. As such Jak ignored the couple of Spiny Hounds that were nearby and found his way to an area that seemed to hold the path that would allow all of them to head deeper into the volcano, even though the path was surrounded by a river of flowing lava, not that they were all that surprised by such a thing since they were in the middle of what appeared to be an active volcano, even if it didn't spew out into the rest of the Wasteland, though Jak focused on using the couple of rock platforms and edges that happened to be sticking out of a few rock walls as he moved deeper into the volcano, while his sisters carefully followed behind him. Eventually it brought him to an area that happened to have a ladder and the next stage of their exploration through this volcano, to which he made his way around the couple of Spiny Hounds that were in front of him and leapt off the Leaper Lizard so he could climb up the ladder, leaving his sisters to land behind him and just jump up to the area that he had been heading towards, though once all four of them were up on top of the raised section they paused for a few seconds, finding that the Leaper Lizard made a sound before heading back to where it had been resting while it waited for the monks to come back for it, showing its loyalty to those who trained it. Once the Leaper Lizard was gone, and had returned to the area they had found it in a few minutes ago, the siblings turned around and continued to follow the main path, finding that it brought them to an area that had a large rock blocking the way, with a few couple pieces of metallic mesh that looked like someone could swing from one point to another, and flumes of magma that sent spheres of lava up into the air, meaning that if someone were to head down that path, as in Daxter or the disguised Neo Metal Heads, they would have to be careful as they avoided all the obstacles in their way.

Instead of doing that, like one would expect them to do, Cozy embraced her power once more and jumped over to where the large rock happened to be resting, where she kicked it and sent it back towards where her siblings were standing, as her action was to lock it into place as a walkway for them to use, so once she landed the four of them continued deeper into the volcano as they kept their weapons at the ready, suspecting that there were more enemies waiting for them, due to what they had seen earlier. From there they found an area that required them to use the High Jump to move forward and did so without delay, even though it was followed by a number of Mantis and Wasps coming in to attack them, which was when Twilight focused on the new weapon mod they had been given, the Reflector, and summoned some yellow orbs around her for a few seconds before firing, finding that her Blaster shots did something interesting when they were under the influence of the Reflector mod, they struck her targets and then bounced off of them a few seconds later, reflecting off of all of the Metal Heads and striking something else before moving to another target. By her estimates each blast had the power to hit between three to five targets when the Reflector was used, something that interested her and her siblings as they discovered this piece of information, as it would be useful for whatever the future held for them, though after she cleared out that group of enemies they continued down the path in front of them and discovered that there happened to be a steam vent on their level and a much higher section that happened to be the way forward, plus a stone slab resting in the area that they found the vent in. As such the next thing they did was pause as Jak pushed the slab into position, even if it was easy to do so and surprised him a little once he was done with his task, though with that done they used the power of the natural steam vent to propel the slab into the air, forming a moving platform for them to use and allowed Jak to use it, since his sisters could just fly, levitate, or just jump up there, though at this point he had given up trying to make them stop using their magic, as sometimes it made things much easier on all of them, especially since Starlight found a group of Metal Heads, which were the same as the ones they had faced so far, and blasted them back with her magic, opening the way for them to progress.

After that the siblings found a ledge to jump over and discovered that it lead them right up to an area that had two of the Spiny Hounds and two of the Mantis, where Jak left them to Cozy as he found another ledge that they needed to cross and did so without delay, allowing him to find a path that had a few more Mantis waiting for them and he opened fire without delay, using a Reflector blast to knock all of them down as he descended towards the depths this time, meaning he and his sisters would be ascending and descending a few times before reaching their destination, which brought him to an area that had a pipe that seemed to lead to another stone slab, which was above him.

"Seems the monks really like setting up all sorts of tests," Starlight commented, as this appeared to be a test of some kind, like sliding down some pipes or something to get over to where the stone slab was resting, though instead of doing that, and wasting time that they might not have, she engaged her magic and carefully lifted the slab into the air before lowering it down to where she and her siblings were standing, where she quickly dropped it right on top of a steam vent that was in this area, forming another moving platform for Jak to use as he caught up with her and her sisters, "Come on, we haven't found the monks yet... they have to be here, somewhere..."

Once that was done Jak followed after his sisters as they headed up to the highest point of this section of the volcano and discovered something interesting, at the top level there rested a path that lead right to three more steam vents and that three stone slabs rested in the area near them, though there were a few enemies, two Spiny Hounds and a Wasp, which were taken out by Jak loosing a Scatter blast at them, opening the way for them to reach where the stone slabs rested, so they could move even deeper into this volcano. Of course it wasn't that easy, since the moment Jak and his sisters stepped into the area that the stone slabs rested in they found a number of Mantis burst out of the ground that was around the slabs, so what happened was that all four of them opened fire on their enemies and took out the Mantis in seconds, but as soon as that was done Jak, Starlight, and Cozy separated from Twilight and moved the three stone slabs into position, one above each steam vent, where they found that doing that sealed the left and right vents while channeling the steam into the middle one. Such a thing allowed the siblings to head even higher than before, which brought them up to where a few stone pillars rested and formed a path, even with some separations between each pillar, that appeared to be leading up to an area that had a number of dark tendrils digging into the stone, meaning they had to be getting close to where the Dark Satellite had crashed, and Seem's monks as well, so Jak and his sisters kept moving forward as they kept their eyes on the target and made sure to keep an eye out for enemies that might want a piece of them. After thinking about that, however, they came to a stop at a larger river of lava, one which had to feed the lower river they had passed by earlier, and across from where they were standing they found what appeared to be a Dark Satellite that was in the middle of infecting the area around it, as the area it had landed in was full of Dark Tendrils, given that they were connected to the Satellite, and all of them could see a ladder that lead up to where the target rested, but due to the fact that there were no sounds in this area, save for all of the natural sounds, it was unlikely that the monks were still nearby.

As such Jak glanced at all of the moving slags that were between them and the ladder before rushing forward, using two of them to reach the ladder in question, even though his sisters had their own way to get over there, but when they reached the top area everyone paused for a moment, as there happened to be a monk, their body turned to stone with their face locked in an expression of pure terror, resting in front of the Dark Satellite's heart, where Twilight found that the Tendrils seemed to be slowly moving in and out of the ground, like it was terraforming the area around it, while the monk had one of the small dark statues in its hands.

"Well, we've found Seem's monks... or what's left of them." Cozy commented, as while she expected there to be more than one monk in this area, given that the leader of the order had said that they had sent an expedition out and that generally meant more than just a single person was sent, unless that single person was like her and her siblings she guessed, this did give them some information that they could hand over to Seem the next time they crossed paths, once they returned to Spargus and resumed assisting the people who called it home.

As Twilight and Midnight studied the area they were in, once more given the dual nature of her eyes, Jak walked up to the monk statue for a moment as Daxter hopped down and stared at the dark statue, no doubt wondering if he could pry it out of the poor monk's hands, to which he grasped the dark item and tried to pull it from the monk's hands, which was far more successful than he thought as he pulled back and actually shattered the monk's hands, even though it caused him to stumble backwards and knocked the dark statue into the air. Such a thing lead to Jak jumping and catching the dark statue before it could crash on Daxter, as there was no telling what might happen to him if he was infused with more Dark Eco, though when he stood up the power of the artifact became clear as he seemed to vanish from their sight, causing the rest of the group to stand there as Twilight smiled, due to her other side's power manifesting the glasses she was had gotten used to using whenever Midnight's power was active, as they could see that Jak was invisible. A few moments later Jak let go of the artifact, which shattered when it hit the ground a second later, though this informed them that their brother had gained a new Dark Eco power, the second to be exact since Dark Bomb was the first one, which caused all of them to take a moment and wonder if this Dark Invisibility would be useful, before determining that it would for the times where none of them were with him, since there would come a time for them to separate and do multiple objectives at the same time, just like what they had done in the past. Once that was done, and Jak started to head out of the area by jumping down to the river of lava and using some of the platforms to see if there was a way out of the volcano, though as he did that, and two of his sisters followed after him, Twilight remained near the Dark Satellite as she and Midnight worked together for a time, their magic washing over the area they were in as Jak, Starlight, Cozy, and their Ottsels watched as the Dark Tendrils pulled back not a few seconds later, like everything was being reversed or something, and soon a Dark Satellite rested in front of Twilight, who simply smiled as she stored it inside Midnight's storage area, choosing to suspend it in the air, which would prevent the spread of the tendrils.

Instead of questioning that, since Jak and his sisters were used to the weirdness that came from Twilight and Midnight, as in either one of them working alone or both working together, they jumped down onto some of the moving platforms as their sister followed after them, finding a path that linked up to a tunnel that had been carved through the inside of the volcano, one that seemed to be coiled like a snake and lead to the area the glider had crashed in, something that lead to Jak using the small dark statue to turn invisible and sneak right by the Light Eye that was guarding the Warp Gate, which did cause it to vanish... though once that was done the four of them used the Warp Gate and returned to the temple, but it was followed by them taking a short break before even bothering to head deeper into the temple, as there was no telling what might be waiting for them in the depths.

Comments

[PrismStrike]

that was fun. I see Midnight is getting more casual with breaking the rules of reality and bending it to her will. Jak gains a new dark eco power though i think you missed him gaining a few from the last game.

[Blackdrag-rose]

10889966 Most of the Dark Eco powers in the second game aren't important, only Dark Bomb is, so I didn't focus on the others in the second game, though I did awaken Jak's old powers to counter losing those powers.

[PrismStrike]

10890075
alright, makes sense and yeah i guess reawakening his old powers is a good trade off