Jak, Shining, and Daxter moved quickly through Boggy Swamp, the last area to explore around Rock Village. There were only two real points of interest for them as they went through. The first was their first exposure to Yellow Eco, which allowed Jak and Shining to throw fireballs. While Jak burned through the Eco as fast as any other time no matter how many he threw, Shining discovered that if he held the Eco in his horn with his magic, he could contain it far longer for later usage. Also, his fireballs launched from his horn.
The only other point of interest in the swamp was finding the Flut-Flut - the bird who thought Shining and Daxter were his parents - on a teleporter, saddled for riding. He seemed very eager to assist them, and helped them gather the remainder of the Orbs and Cells in the swamp.
On the return to the Village, they met Keira at the levitation device. As she started work on plugging the Power Cells in, Shining watched over her shoulder. "So...how does this thing work?" he asked.
With a smile, Keira began to babble technological terms well above Shining's understanding. Seeing how lost he was getting, she smiled. "Pretty much the same way as you're able to manipulate things with your magic," she explained. "But it uses the Eco energy of the Power Cells instead."
"But...same principles?" Shining clarified.
"Pretty much, yeah," Keira agreed.
"So...similar enough you could hook the helmet that channeled my shield spell into the A-Grav Zoomer's Heat Shield into the levitator and channel my magic into that so I could control whatever was being levitated?" he asked. "Using this big thing as an amplifier?"
"Hmm...maybe," Keira admitted. She pulled out a spare helmet. "Worth a shot! Now just hold still!"
While the actual connection process wasn't entirely pleasant, having the levitator guided by Shining's magic meant that the boulder blocking the path could be set aside rather than just held aloft. Seeing this, Daxter grinned widely. "Say, Keira...think there's enough juice for another lift?"
"With all the Power Cells you brought, certainly," Keira replied. "But what should I be targeting?"
"How about that Klaww fella up there?" Daxter offered.
A bit of tinkering later, and Klaww was dealt with using the levitator. Seizing him in the inverted gravimetric field, Shining slammed Klaww against boulders, into the ground, and several times into the magma.
With Klaww dealt with, Jak and Shining took the Zoomer through the Mountain Pass to the Volcanic Crater. While flying Lurkers tried to blow the place up, Shining shot them down before they could get out of sight.
Activating the warp gate in the Red Sage's lab, Jak and company stepped back to allow Samos and Keira to land. "Holy Yakow!" Samos proclaimed after straightening himself. "The Red Sage's lab looks worse than the Blue's!"
"Well, it definitely looks as if there's been a struggle here," Keira pointed out.
At that moment, a laugh was heard above them with a strange echo. As everyone looked up, the blue skinned, emaciated male Jak, Shining, and Daxter had seen on Misty Island smirked down at them from his hovering positon. "I'd hardly call it a struggle," he corrected. "Would you, dear sister?"
The female figure from the island floated down beside him. "Certainly not!" she proclaimed primly. "The red sage gave up with so little effort. No fun at all."
Samos stared. "Gol?!" he demanded in shock. "Is that you?"
"Gol?" Jak demanded. "Does that mean the girl is Maia?"
"Wow," Daxter muttered. "She has not aged well. She was much hotter before she was blue."
Maia stared down at Daxter for a time before her eyes flicked between Jak and Shining. "You three!" she snapped. "Ugh, even now you invade my privacy?"
"Actually, we were hoping you could tell us how to reverse Daxter's Dark Eco related transformation," Shining countered. "I'm sorry if we upset you when we were younger. I assure you it wasn't intentional. Do you suppose you could take a look at him and see what you can do?"
"What?" Daxter demanded in shock and anger. "You want the freaky blue people who were talking about destroying the villages to give me a physical? No way, no how!" Daxter began flailing as he levitated into the air. "Whoa! Put me down!"
"Since he's so against it, I'd be happy to take a look," Maia purred, examining him through lenses of Eco. "...but this is not a mutation."
"Eh?" Jak asked in shock.
"What?" Shining added.
"Seriously?" Keira demanded.
"That's impossible!" Samos proclaimed.
"Are you loco in the coco?" Daxter shouted. "Look at me! How can this not be a mutation?"
"It is an evolution," Gol stated. "And before you start babbling about 'blind obsession with things we aren't meant to tamper with', we can see that Daxter's cells have undergone an accelerated evolution. Aging, energy generation, healing factor, Eco metabolization...all these factors have increased by at least a factor of 4 from an ordinary human - in excess of what our scans show Jak is capable of - and still growing every time his body absorbs Eco."
"However, scans show that these abilities are in infancy, and can't be reliably tapped yet," Maia clarified. "Also, his body appears capable of metabolizing Dark Eco...eventually. Not yet, but the potential is there."
"Wait, are you saying I'm some sort of super being now?" Daxter gasped, completely gobsmacked.
"It couldn't have happened to a worse child," Maia growled.
"Is that all it takes for this?" Daxter demanded. "Getting dunked in Dark Eco?"
"No," Gol piped up. "It appears your unique genetic structure was naturally keyed towards this evolution, and the Dark Eco exposure drastically accelerated it. Instead of your descendants 1000 or more years from now achieving these abilities, you did."
"At the cost of pants," Daxter grumbled as he was returned to Jak's shoulder.
"This is amazing!" Maia proclaimed. "Clearly, our studies are in the right direction! Dark Eco is the key to unlocking the secrets of the Precursors! Once the Robot is fully powered, we shall open the silos and unlock their ancient secrets...and all the Dark Eco of the world!"
"Wait, what?" Samos demanded as Gol and Maia vanished.
"So much for changing me back," Daxter grumbled. "Still...super being. Can't argue with that. ...but couldn't I at least have gotten a robe or something? I am not liking this breeze!"
"Do you think you can set your wardrobe issues aside long enough to focus on the end of the world as we know it?" Samos demanded angrily.
"Why?" Daxter countered. "Unless and until those abilities Gol and Maia mentioned kick in, I'm the comic relief of this trio. That means Gol and Maia are Jak and Shining's responsibility. They're taking it seriously enough for all three of us, so I'm going to focus on pants!"
As Samos and Daxter continued to argue, Jak, Shining, and Keira shared a much needed laugh. The tension relieved, the pair of warriors was ready to explore further.
huh, that put things into perspective
*sigh* I miss Gol. he had a cool design and voice.
6557772 Seriously. Dee Snider. Dee Snider was his VA. You can't get more awesome than that.
... That actually explains a lot. Daxter being the jokester, while Shining is the moral compass, and Jak is the big decision maker. Combined, they are an office clown... Man that is depressing.
6557935
In terms of science, yes.
In terms of magic or other supernatural force, mutation refers to a creature being reduced, while evolution refers to a creature reaching a higher state of being.
6557798
...for a second, I thought you were describing Daxter as Id, Shining as Super Ego, and Jak as Ego. The "office clown" comment kind of confused me. WTF are you talking about?
6558091
Interpretation based on every fantasy story I've ever read.
6558091 It's more of a terminology at this point due to magic and all shit.
I believe he meant that mutation is a random change in these terms and evolution is a stable modification to a being that raises it to a next evolutionary stage.
6558159
What 6558169 said.
6558050 You got what I was describing quite well. In my opinion Daxter is a bit more active jokester than most people, plus he takes what chances he can to bring about levity.
6558244
Well, in this case, mutation/evolution specifically refers to the way the body reacts to Eco. If the body becomes dependent on Eco or rejects the substance, it's a mutation no matter what else it does to you, because it becomes a weakness. If it becomes better able to metabolize Eco or starts generating its own, it's an evolution even if it turns you into a newt, because Eco generation/manipulation is a super power as far as this world is concerned.
So, in this case, it's Pokemon evolution.
Another enjoyable chapter. Well done.
well that escalated quickly...
Good fic so far, (its more of a "ok" fic but ill be nice.) but theres 2 things wrong with it.
1st: every chapter is a summary,
Like this:
Even when the story turns into a bit more than that, (The bit with daxters evolution or whatever for example) you fail to explain ANYTHING in detail about the enviornment, yeah most of us have played the original, but you diddint even mention they were in a volcano when they got to the red sages place, hell it was basically pure dialogue.
I get theres not alot going on in jak 1 but I can tell your trying to speed through it so you can get to the other games.
2nd: Is it me, or does shinig seem OP? Or at least makes the entire adventure to easy? Im starting to think your just useing him to speed things along. I mean, he deals with virtually everything with little to no effort, I mean look at this:
You diddint even say he was a f#cking lava monster BTW!
At this point I would say shinings literally better in every single way compared to jack.
Why would I ever play as jak instead of shining?
6566108 First game, no reason. Second game, Dark jak and the morph gun. 3rd game, Light jack, who is capable of something even Twilight can't do, which is slow the passage of time. She can go back in it, but cannot effect its flow.
Gol and Maia just practically summed Daxter's importance in the third game
>"However, scans show that these abilities are in infancy, and can't be reliably tapped yet," Maia clarified. "Also, his body appears capable of metabolizing Dark Eco...eventually. Not yet, but the potential is there."
Wait... does that mean... *gasp*, are you gonna let Daxter finally get dark powers in the next game? Heeee, Dark Dax sounds adorable!~
>"At the cost of pants," Daxter grumbled as he was returned to Jak's shoulder.
You know, he really doesn't have to wait till the third game. I bet Kiera could make him a low quality pair of pants in like... five minutes. They might be made of metal, but they'd be pants. In fact, in the games Daxter faffs about and doesn't really make any strides towards acquiring pants. He sure likes to complain about it, however...
Further evolution might involve friendship.
66.media.tumblr.com/876b1e8fa82812e90168f667382cdde5/tumblr_mhpagyHwW51s0vecko1_500.png
Does this mean the lost frontier is going to happen? 'cause I really don't accept that as part of the Jak and Daxter series. It doesn't stick the what has already been stated as fact in the games. The green eco weapon shouldn't work the way it does in lost frontier as green eco heals, that thing would be should heal anyone it's aimed at.
7441283 That's bloody horrifying.
7512944
Funny... I just watched someone die in a game healing too much...