fandomtownies | The boardwalk, very early Saturday morning

Jak had been out hunting until the late hours last night. Mostly because it was something to do that he was good at; he had the protective instincts of a jaguar.

Which was to say none.

He sneaked through the fog with his mask on and his eyes narrowed, the little red light of the laser scope atop his blaster shining through the darkness.

Dinah had learned something throughout this particular invasion; such as, don't make a sound until you can see what's sneaking around in the fog.

The little red light tracked over the boardwalk near her, and she held her breath, freezing in place, hand tightening on the hilt of her knife.

Had he just heard movement?

Jak's eyes narrowed further as he moved along the boardwalk. Slowly. Methodically. Almost at the source of the noise...

Okay. If it's a monkey-pony, or a lizard, they probably smelled her already, so--

"Who's there?"

Dinah braced herself for the attack.

Jak blinked. "...Dinah?"

...No, Jak. That was her name. Not yours.

The red dot wavered.

"Jak."

Good thing she knew his name too, hunh? Dinah exhaled, relaxing her stance, and said, keeping her voice low, "Good to see you... without actually seeing you yet."

"I'm over here."

As you could tell by the moving dot. He came closer, though, boards creaking under his feet. Trying to get into sight range.

"What's the deal here?"

"Trail of property damage leading this way," Dinah said, taking another step or two, as quietly as she could. "Roy and I decided this might be a place to track a few." She squinted into the fog behind Jak, and asked, "You see anything else either?"

slither. slither. CLOP CLOP

"I'm not seeing anything," Jak said, shooting a glance over his own shoulder. "But I think we've got company."

"Ohhhh, crap." Dinah pulled out her phone and flipped it open, then texted Roy, MNSTRS! and sent the message. "Back-up on the way." Gulp. She looked over at Jak and the gun. Nice, big gun. Good.

Slither slither

...CLOP CLOP CLOP

"Monkey-ponies. I think. Means they're behind us..." Dinah turned toward the entrance to the boardwalk, and then realized--

Slither slither

The lizardy sounds were behind them. "Crap."

"We're surrounded."

There was a click, and a shoved, and another click.

The red laser pointer vanished. In its place, Jak's morph gun was now a deeply blue presence in the night. "I'll take lizards."

The dark eco in his body boiled.

Dinah unsheathed her sword, and took a breath, putting her back to Jak's. Much, much better to be here with him, than alone; and she didn't have time to think any more deeply on their situation than that.

"Monkey-ponies for the win."

CLOP CLOP CLOPCLOPCLOP!

Two monkey-ponies burst through the fog with gorilla roars of rage, arms reaching for Dinah and Jak as they stampeded toward them. Dinah yelled, and threw her knife at one, cheating and using TK to make sure it hit, and then shoved it into the path of the other.

Likewise, on Jak's end, there were claws, and scales, and teeth; he didn't hesitate a second, raising up the gun with the Vulcan barrel attached. It flared to life, blue eco bullets shoving their way out. One, two, three, four, fivesix, seveneightnineten--

Two lizard bodies struck the boards in front of him, skidding to a halt before his feet, lifeless. He wasn't paying attention to them anymore, though, even as the relentless noise of the Vulcan Fury died back down to its resting levels.

"We've got more incoming!"

Dinah didn't even have time to swear, because Jak was right, the sound of huge hooves was back, and speeding up toward them. "More in the fog, any second--" She shoved out with her TK again, toward the oncoming sound, then forced herself to wait until she had a target to *throw* at, and involuntarily screamed when four monkey-ponies broke through the thick soup of the fog.

One knife, two knives, shove shove shove getting closer--

Jak twisted, turning, and aimed. If these things kept on coming, they were going to be in for a treat.

Not that he couldn't handle it.

The fog lit up again as more eco bullets burst through it, burying themselves in a hoof, an arm, a head. "Let's back up!" he called, stepping back a step. "We can fry these guys pronto."

"Okay!"

Irony of ironies; Dinah had an ability that could take out half the incoming targets, but she couldn't take a deep breath to use it without possibly going crazy. Or taking out anyone behind the monsters who was in the way. Irony sucked.

She wasn't so sure about frying them pronto, but letting them get closer was a bad, bad idea.

Dinah lashed out, hard, with her sword, sending another gorilla-monkey-pony staggering back, screaming like a horse and a monkey together, nails-down-a-chalkboard, and she could feel Jak right behind, and oh God, don't let him run out of ammo...

"How many have we got left?!"

Yeah, Jak had an ability that could take these things out without any trouble. Well. Beyond the trouble of potentially frying Dinah, and he wasn't particularly interested in having to scrape her ashes off the wall.

Jak just kept on firing. Eventually, the Vulcan bullets ran out, but that was fine - there was a momentary pause in his motions as he flicked the gun up, ramming the Blaster attachment back into place. "I'll keep you covered!"

He struck the monkey-pony she'd wounded in the forehead with a well-aimed yellow eco bolt. It crashed. Hard.

Dinah looked, tried to count, came up with too many but said aloud, "Five monkey-ponies, and I think four of the lizards--" Another knife in the eye of a lizard, no finesse, telekinetic cheating cheating cheating but way too important to care about learning to do it right, not at this moment. "Three!"

But she thought, maybe, she could see a few more shadows in the fog, and that made her think that Roy was probably stranded fighting his own battles, and why oh why had they thought shouting distance was far enough...?

Jak was good at this, not scared at all, and she was as glad about that as she could be at the moment, realizing with a sinking feeling that she was out of knives as she sent the last one into the heart of a monkey-pony, then tripped it into one of its friends. "Dude. I think we're in trouble...."

...Yeah.

That didn't leave them a lot of options.

Another yellow bolt burned its way through a lizard's head. Said head exploded in a shower of gunk, spilling out across the wooden boards. A second lizard stepped in it, roared, didn't care.

"Dinah," he said, carefully, firing more bullets. "I'm going to need you to find some shelter."

"Shelter?" Dinah's voice hitched up, and no no no no one getting hurt today, no leaving Jak, no! "We're on the boardwalk, do you see anything that looks like shelter?" There was a bench, a wooden bench at that, maybe ten yards away. That was as far as she could see. Unless--

"We can jump in the water," Dinah said, desperate. "That'll ditch the monkey-ponies, at lea--" And then she yelled in pain as one of the monkeyponies got past her guard and connected, with a punch that spun her around and had her slapping into the boards. She flipped over and punched out another burst of TK at it, but this was getting very bad now.

Yeah, okay, that settled it. "Dinah!" he yelled, "GET IN THE WATER!"

Dinah staggered to her feet, and rushed to the railing, pulling herself up on it with shaky fingers. "Jak! Come on!" She turned back to him, and he wasn't moving-- "JAK!" Had to flip over the railing as a lizard-godzilla rushed where she was--

Her fingers gave way, and Dinah fell into the water with a splash.

Okay. Distractions, gone.

Jak ripped the barrel from his gun and stuffed it back where it came from. No point in ruining his equipment over these things. "Now we're talking," he said, smirking. Didn't have to keep repressing it now, the roar of dark eco in his blood, his skin--

--which changed into a blinding white as Jak roared, momentarily overwhelmed.

It gave the monkeyponies some pause. The godzillas, doubly so.

Jak righted himself, all tooth and claw and horns. Purple energy sparked through the air; one godzilla got caught in it, flying several feet into the air before it crashed, lifeless, into the water a little past Dinah.

Jak snarled.

...oh, shit. What was going on up there?

Dinah surfaced, gasping for breath and paddling, then flinched as a godzilla-ish corpse hit the water near her. Purple light, electricity, roaring, Jak oh god she'd left Jak--

Something else was up there, she couldn't see it properly, just hear it and see flashes of light and hear lizard screams, monkey-pony screams, and Dinah started to climb one of the supports for the boardwalk, fingers digging into the piling, slipping and splintering as she tried to get up there, then took a breath, let go, and started to air-walk, had to get there-- had to help--

Edited 2010-03-27 08:04 (UTC)

More screaming.

You thought these were terrifying creations by a mad scientist?

You hadn't met Jak.

His vision blurred with violet, his claws tore, the eco destroyed what it touched. Within half of a minute most of the gathered monsters had turned into destroyed corpses.

Another set of monkeyponies backed away slowly, down the boardwalk. Jak looked up, instinct drawing him towards them, all that fury and darkness needing a way out--

He sensed some other movement, tilting his head sideways. Blonde?

Dinah had finally pulled herself up to the edge of the boardwalk just as her ability to airwalk one more step gave out, climbed up the railing, hitched one leg over, and then stopped, staring at the monster corpses. Pieces of monster corpses. And the (person? demon? magic? hero?) who'd taken them out.

It was Jak.

White-skinned, wreathed in purple electricity, talons and rage and-- still Jak. Somewhere down in the part of her mind not frozen in shock, a voice said, Oh. Duh. That explains it.

She didn't move, didn't say anything, just stared, shock rendering her expression blank.

Edited 2010-03-27 08:11 (UTC)

His eyes - a complete black - narrowed.

He stepped towards her.

And then a shudder wracked his body; the purple energy around him gave a final quiver before it retreated, and he was left grasping his head, snarling in pain as the colour seeped back into his skin.

Karla had once pointed out that Dinah was a special kind of dumb, since she always rushed toward the people who could hurt her. Today was another day that proved her right.

Dinah half-fell, half-jumped off the railing and rushed toward Jak, and didn't even know she was saying his name over and over until she was on her knees in front of him and reaching for him. "...Jak Jak Jak are you okay, that looked like it hurt, God... can I touch you, or would that make it worse? How did you-- what was...?" She shut up with a violent effort, gulping for breath, still shaking. After half a minute, she asked, "What do you need?" Please, let me help.

Jak wobbled a little, nearly falling to his knee. "It's fine," he grunted. Didn't make a motion to keep her at a distance, which was a new one. "Just-- adjusting-- where's the others?"

There was a slight clomping noise.

That would have been the monkey-ponies fleeing.

"Gone." Dinah got up, stumbling, reaching for him, but not touching him. But there, if he wanted to. "We're safe now." Her voice wavered. "You saved me." And she wanted to hug him for that, so hard, but 'adjusting' didn't look like it covered what he'd just done to himself. "Sit down, already, would you?"

"I'm fine," he repeated. Righting himself, kind of. "I just used a lot of dark eco..."

Which was the textbook definition of fine. Really!

Edited 2010-03-27 08:25 (UTC)

"You are not fine," Dinah almost snapped. "You're shaky and wobbly, and you just transformed into a guy a lot bigger and nastier than you." She took a breath, then another. "Dark eco? The stuff that changed Daxter?" And that fit into the other little piece, and made so much more sense. "Jak."

"Yeah, that's me," Jak said, shaking his head and-- yeah, there was clarity, and being steady, this was good. "Only survivor of Baron Praxis's Dark Warrior program."

Right at this moment, she wants to kill Praxis as much as Jak does.

Dinah reached out for his hand instead, and squeezed it, sending as much warmth/outrage/protectiveness/gratitude/(something like the last of love) and every other positive thing she was feeling at the moment toward him, and said, "Only one there has to be. 'Cause you're Jak. You're that good. Right?"

He... paused, at the flood of emotions that were unfamiliar-and-yet-not in a lot of ways.

When he pulled his hand away, it was gently. "You don't want to muck around in my head, Dinah," he said. For her sake, not his.

This time she got that, not like she'd reacted at New Year's. And instead of his pulling away feeling like a slap in the face, it felt like Jak could've squeezed her hand in return, almost, if he'd dared.

Dinah nodded, and tried to smile, and almost managed it. "Okay." She nodded. "Okay." She got to her feet, and looked around at the carnage, then at Jak, and pushed wet hair out of her face, off the edge of her mask. "We should go back. Take a break. Get more ammo, knives. Before we do anything else." Her eyes widened. "And find Roy."

Jak kicked a limb (arm? leg? The creatures had so many of the damn things, he couldn't tell) aside and into the water, and shrugged. "Do you think he can't take care of himself?"

"I think I'd feel better knowing he's okay. Even if yeah, he probably is, I'd like to see it myself." Especially after the scare she just had for herself and Jak. But that answer might explain how she reacted to Jak being in danger a lot too.

"Oh, wait. Duh." She pulled out her phone and texted to Roy, U OK? MNSTERS GONE. She got back a buzz and emoticon of :> and :P, and relaxed. "He's fine." She looked back at Jak. "Breakfast?"

Edited 2010-03-28 03:35 (UTC)

The boardwalk, very early Saturday morning

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