(no subject)

[ddddropthebass]

Who: Jak and Bass
What: One year after the defeat of the Dark Makers, Jak is a brick with a gun doing what a brick with a gun does: clean-up. He comes across an unfinished project in an old Krimzon Guard facility and his work ends up following him home.
Universe/CR: Jak-Universe AU



Clean-up, they'd called it. Really, it was more to give Jak something to do, although it was necessary to maintain the peace they'd so carefully constructed. Old enemy storehouses needed to be examined, categorized and, in most cases, blown up. Jak was the most qualified warrior to deal with any potential resistance so for the more remote posts to where it would be difficult to transport troops, Jak was dispatched. It wasn't entirely to get him out of their political hair-

Well, it was kind of for that too. But Jak was never meant to sit behind a desk. Ashelin knew it, Torn knew it, Sig knew it. Even Daxter knew it, to a degree, which is why he stayed behind as Jak went out, and hadn't that been a tough decision. Jak had taken it in as much stride as could be assumed, being separated from someone with whom he'd spent almost every making moment, and Daxter was about as happy about it but there were responsibilities to which he had to attend now, least of all the management of the Hip Hog. Things with Tess were getting serious, and for some reason Dax was actually sort of good at helping write up diplomatic legislature, in some hilarious twist of fate. So that meant a lot of staying put, something that Jak was unarguably bad at doing.

Just a few runs, Samos had asked. To tie up loose ends. If left alone, loose ends always tie themselves, and never in a way you want them to. ...he could've gone longer with that string metaphor (included something about the knots and snares of life maybe) but Jak had already since lost interest and was ready to leave.

Krimzon Guard Depot Alpha-581 was on the outskirts of the Wasteland, on one of the southern islands and only barely accessible by land. The outer walls of the depot were rusted by water and bleached pale pink by the sun, salt crusting along the seams of the plates from where the waves slapped against the foundation. Inside wasn't much better; the depot was still, sand piled up in corners and the ocean breeze whistling through holes in the roofing, manufacturing equipment in varying states of disrepair, only a handful of Deathbots wandering about the facility in confusion. Another depot set for decommission.

Only...the power grid showed one room at the center of the compound with power consumption. Blowing the building sky high would undoubtedly take that room with it, except that the Krimzon Guard were infamous for using Dark Eco in the construction of their later models thanks to Errol. An explosion with Dark Eco involved could drastically affect the surrounding ecosystem, even all the way up to Spargus. That room would have to be investigated first.

In the center of a room, near a flashing panel indication a critical power failure, is a capsule. Inside that capsule is the body of what can only be a strange-looking young boy...either asleep or dead. The panel reads CATASTROPHIC POWER FAILURE: ACTIVATE UNIT? YES/NO in blaring, blinking red. A remnant of the KG to be sure, but...definitely nothing that they'd made before. Especially with the room stinking like it'd had been painted with Dark Eco.

Comments

[shadesofeco]

Only realizing he'd drifted off when he jerks awake at the sound of the wall cracking, Jak makes a pathetic attempt at getting to his feet before giving up on that idea. It's not his injuries, they don't even hurt anymore -- which should probably worry him -- he's just so fucking tired.

"Mmm." He'll just go back to sleep then.

[ddddropthebass]

He has another option.

At his core is a fusion reactor that keeps him powered. It uses both eco and a pre-existing fuel source to perform both fusion and fission for peak performance, depending on what he needs to do. Fusion for fighting, fission for resting. It's possible, with some modifications, that he could change the carbon dioxide in the room into oxygen so that Jak won't suffocate.

It's also possible that in the process of opening up the necessary vents for intake and output that he'll vent poisonous radiation, Dark Eco fumes or maybe just explode and kill them both. Either way...either way, he'll need Jak's permission to try it. And they're out of options and he has a directive buzzing in his head telling him to keep Jak alive.

Bass comes over to Jak's side and feels for a pulse. There, but slower than it should be. "Hey. I can probably make some oxygen, but it might kill us. You want me to do it?" Yes or no, Jak. Easy answer. If they die- well, whatever. He never expected to be awake this long anyway.

[shadesofeco]

Wrinkling his nose as Bass presses his fingers to his neck, Jak grumbles something under his breath and swats lazily at his hand.

"Mm. Yeah." Whatever, just stop doing that and let him sleep.

[ddddropthebass]

He could take that as deliriousness. He could ignore that, just let Jak fall asleep. It'd be a peaceful death even, passive. Bass wouldn't be doing anything wrong; it'd be the natural conclusion of what would've happened if Jak had fallen down here without him.

[ It's not ready. Put it back. ]

Why the hell should he risk himself on the off chance that he might save this fucker? What's he got to gain from it? He'll still be shackled. They'll still be trapped. There's no point. If he lets him die, he can take his time to find a safe escape route and then he'll just go on the run on his own. They can hunt him but it's not like they'll ever catch him, or kill him. He's the best there is.

[ Why does it act like that? Rewrite it. I don't want it to talk that way. I want a tool, not a personality. Put it back and fix it. ]

Sixty-three times he was activated before, tested and put back. His shortest session awake was only two minutes. His longest was an hour and a half. Every time he was found not good enough, not perfect enough, and was subsequently forced back into the capsule for more programming rewrites, more tweaks, more changes. Errol didn't like what he was. KG-001 didn't try to make himself liked. He hated Errol the second he gained consciousness and that didn't stop, even with all the changes they made.

[ This is your last chance. I don't have a use for a gun that doesn't even work the way it's supposed to! Get it right or destroy it. ]

Bass pulls his shirt off over his head and cracks open his chest panel.

[ I guess you're coming back with me then. ]

There's no reason why he should be going to all this trouble. He's known this fuck for two days.

[ Nice work, you're pretty useful. ]

He silences the warning alarms in his head, powers down and runs on reserve to make the necessary changes to his fuel intake and output valves. His efficiency will be halved like this. He won't be able to use his cannon. He'll have to shut down unnecessary processes, at least temporarily.

[ So what am I supposed to call you? ]

There. That should do it.

[ I'll wake you up in the morning, see if we can find some shit to blow up. ]

Bass sits cross-legged across from Jak, innards exposed, core of him glowing Dark Eco pink and purple like his eyes, like Jak when he turns into that thing. There's a soft hiss into the room and Bass goes through the motions of breathing, in and out. Carbon dioxide in, oxygen out. ...it's working.

Well.

He is incredible, after all.

[shadesofeco]

Nothing happens for a while. Jak is slumped motionless against the rocks, completely unaware of anything going on around him.

But then after a minute his chest begins to rise and fall visibly, color coming back to his cheeks as his body greedily sucks down the oxygen he needs so badly. Another few minutes and his eyelids flutter as he stirs groggily.

"Mm, what happened?" he mumbles, bracing one hand against the rocks and pushing himself up a few inches.

[ddddropthebass]

"You fucking passed out because you wouldn't shut your fat mouth," Bass drawls. He's only just barely putting out more oxygen than Jak is using, so the situation they're in isn't significantly better than before. "You're gonna have a headache. Don't move, you'll use more air than you need to."

[shadesofeco]

Bass' insults just don't land. He's very, very good at ignoring that sassy shit.

He's not totally wrong though, Jak's skull feels like there's a Metal Head in there pounding to get out.

Once it's clear that he couldn't really move even if he felt like being his usual stubborn self, Jak settles back down against the rocks.

"Find a way out yet?"

[ddddropthebass]

Bass bristles, snarling and leaning forward like he'd enjoy nothing more than decking Jak across the face. "No! I haven't found a fucking way out because I've been sitting here fucking making oxygen for your dumb ass! Does that fucking rock in your skull you call a brain even understand the kind of fucking engineering marvel I just pulled off?! I'm performing fucking nuclear fission to keep you alive! Probably seriously fucking up my systems at the same time too, you ungrateful prick!"

[shadesofeco]

Hey give him a break, he's barely conscious as it is.

But that did come out more asshole-ish than he intended, and Jak holds a hand up in apology.

"Sorry, just trying to think ahead." Also, Jak doesn't know what "nuclear" or "fission" are and why they're amazing so that's kinda lost on him. "But you can't do that forever, or we're gonna both die down here."

Closing his eyes, he frowns. There's got to be something they can do, some way they can get out.

Wait.

"There's catacombs. They run all under the city, we should be pretty close to them down here. If we can dig--" Jak coughs and drags in a ragged breath. Okay, that's a lot of talking, gotta pace things. "If we can dig down into them, we can get out."

[ddddropthebass]

Bass isn't entirely placated, but Jak's right. If he just sits here, Jak'll die of thirst or starvation anyway, if the ceiling doesn't cave in on them both. They'll eventually need to get out and those catacombs are going to be their best bet.

"There's sludge down there. I dig in the wrong place and this whole room could flood." Plus, there's the fact that he can't make oxygen much faster than he already is so however long he spends diving down there trying to find an exit, the less air Jak has to breathe. He'll have to be quick.

Well...there's one way to be quick about it.

Bass stands and fiddles with the wires and switches inside his chest before closing the hatch. "Okay. We're either gonna die, or you're gonna die. Possibly drown. Maybe buried in rubble. I sure hope you're sure about there being catacombs down there." With that Bass points his hand at the ground; his fingers fold back to his wrist, his palm glows and with a sharp whine of building energy he releases a blast that breaks the floor like porcelain. Sludgewater surges up through the holes but he keeps blasting, once, twice three times, faster and stronger shots until the ground beneath the rumbles, quakes and gives way, dumping them down a series of tunnels with a roar of freezing filthy water and spitting them out onto a platform that looks like someone had sewn machinery directly into the stone of an underground cave.

"Fuck that was awful," Bass hisses, pushing himself up and shaking his head. Ugh. He searches around for Jak; the fall probably wasn't any more pleasant for him, but at least there's moving air down here. If the fall didn't kill him then he can at least breathe now.

[shadesofeco]

Hey if he's gonna die, better to die quickly from drowning than starve to death!

Filthy, stinking water bubbles up through the holes as Bass blasts and Jak takes a deep breath, holding it in. The ground gives way before the water gets a chance to surge in and drown him and they spill out into the golden tunnels below, Jak landing hard in an ungraceful tangle of limbs, the breath knocked out of him from the blow.

The catacombs snake and weave their way through the bowels of Haven City, most people blissfully unaware of their existence. They're like a spiders web of interconnecting tunnels, but Jak spent so much time scavenging and exploring them in recent years he knows them pretty well. Probably better for Bass not to know that it was just a really, really good guess on his part though.

Coughing hard, he rolls onto his stomach and spits a few times, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth shakily. The water's puddled around them but other than a steady trickle from the gaping hole over their heads, it looks like the worst is over with.

Shifting to sit up, he chuckles breathlessly and shoves his damp hair out of his eyes. "Thanks." Jak grins, a little giddy from coming so close to death. Well, that and the fact that he's still light-headed from oxygen deprivation.

[ddddropthebass]

"Why the fuck are you smiling?" Bass, meanwhile, is completely miserable. His insides are all weird (he needs to run maintenance after jerry-rigging an oxygen maker) and he's covered in filth and it's sticking in creases and crevices in his synthetic skin and it's horrible and he hates the world and everybody in it. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're even further underground than before. And your fucking beacon is now way, way out of reach. Your buddies even go digging for you, they're gonna think your ass is fucking dead, which it might as well be if we can't find clean water and food, you stupid prick."

[shadesofeco]

If Bass had been through even half the things Jak had, he wouldn't be complaining right now. This is nothing compared to falling out of an exploding palace onto a moving Hellcat, shooting a giant terraforming alien vehicle and going up against an ancient robot unarmed.

"We're alive and now there's a way out." They're both covered in thick, sticky sludge, Jak's back is soaked in blood and he's lost his gun. And yet, things have been worse. "Trust me, I know these catacombs."

As for his buddies... well, either they'll have to wait for Jak and Bass to get back and explain, or the beacon won't even kick in and no one knows anything differently.

Now he just needs to get his bearings. Healing is another possibility, but they're nowhere near another source of Light Eco right now and he'd rather save it just in case. Biting off a grunt, Jak slowly pushes himself to his feet and reaches out for the wall to brace himself while he gets his bearings.

If they're under Dead Town...

"This way." He gestures down one hall. "That'll get us to the sewers in a couple of miles. We can use those to get back to the surface."

[ddddropthebass]

"The sewers. Great." Bass looks down the path they have to take. Doesn't look stable; lots of bits of old metal cobbled together, sitting on rails or crumbling stone.

"I'll go first," he announces, shoving past Jak and scrambling up onto the first sloping rails. He finds his footing, then turns and sticks out a hand for Jak to take to help him up. He doesn't meet his eyes. Don't make this a big deal, you prick.

[shadesofeco]

That's not really--

Jak almost -- almost -- rolls his eyes. He's navigated dozens of these tunnels, he can manage this without help. But he is hurt, and he sees the offer for what it is.

Grabbing Bass' hand, he accepts the help up without a word, hopping over to the next rail and picking his way across. They have to be careful with their footing, and trade off silently when it seems one is better suited than the other to go first. It's actually kinda nice having someone his size -- well, closer to his size -- to do this with.

[ddddropthebass]

Whatever, this bitch has broken ribs. Bass can hear them creaking as they climb.

And while Bass is only a bit smaller than Jak, he's at least three times as heavy. The rails groan under his weight in weaker spots, shuddering then he has to leap off of a falling tile. "What the fuck," Bass grumbles, arms out as he balances across a naked rail to the next tunnel section. "What the fuck. This is such bullshit." He ignores the way Jak keeps his balance easily, even with an arm wrapped around his torso. "Did these assholes really hate visitors or something?"

[shadesofeco]

"Something like that."

The adrenaline's worn off from the fall now, and Jak's damp with sweat, moving a little slower. One arm stays firmly wrapped around his ribs to try and keep movement to a minimum, but he's not sure if it's actually working.

Every time there's a groan or creak behind him, he stops and turns to make sure the ground won't open up under Bass. It's a genuine possibility, he knows how heavy KG bots are.

"They were made for Precursors, I guess they didn't think about anyone else coming down here."

Continuing on in silence for a few more minutes, he bites back a sigh of relief as he spots an elevator up ahead. "There. That'll take us up to sewer level." And he can have a few seconds to stop moving.

[ddddropthebass]

Even as cranky as he is, Bass can't deny himself the hop in his step as the elevator came into view. The sewers won't be much cleaner but they'll at least be stable footing, and it'll be a quick walk back to the surface from there. Bass has decided that he fucking hates caves and basements and anything where he can't see the sky. Fuck the ground. The ground is stupid.

Bass turns around to mime shooting the precursor railings to bits and notices Jak lagging as he crosses the atrium between the rails and the elevator. "Hey," he calls, irritated. "Today would be nice. What's wrong, bones a little more broken than you thought?" Yeah, he didn't miss that exasperation when he reached to help you up onto the rails. Dumb organics never know their limits.

[shadesofeco]

Damn it. Jak gets cranky and even quieter than usual when he's hurt, and he scowls.

"I'm fine."

Jak's not fine and they both know it, but he will be once they get back. He wants to heal himself so badly, but there's just not enough Light Eco around to justify wasting it like that. Spargus is a long way away and that's the closest source of Light Eco they've found yet. He's gotta store it, keep a hold of it in case they need it for an emergency in the city.

Using the wall for support, Jak climbs into the elevator with Bass and waits for the telltale hum before it begins to propel them upwards. Frankly it's amazing that this place still runs considering it's been abandoned for thousands of years. It must be wired into the planet's Eco wells deep, deep underground.

"Should be about four miles back to HQ from here."

Four miles sounds like a fucking marathon right now, but at least the end's in sight.

[ddddropthebass]

"Yeah?" The look Bass is giving Jak is distinctly amused instead of concerned, which is the look most people would give someone with broken ribs. "You look kind of pale there, buddy. Am I going to have to haul your ass topside?"

[shadesofeco]

The elevator grinds to a halt and Jak shoots Bass a look.

"We're here."

And he's just gonna take the lead outta there, mostly so he doesn't have to see Bass looking so goddamn smug.

The water's only ankle-deep around here, but further down there's a drop and they're gonna have to navigate from platform to slippery, slimy platform. Fucking wonderful.

[ddddropthebass]

Bass is thinking about the same thing, but Jak's made it pretty clear he doesn't want to do any more hand-holding and Bass isn't about to delve into the exotic realm of altruism anyway. So he just backs up a couple steps and starts jumping the platforms, wheeling his arms when he almost skids off the edge of one and looking back to Jak when he gets to the other side. "You coming? It's a looonnng fall. Want me to go get like a wheelchair or something for you, or...?"

[shadesofeco]

Oh shut the fuck up, Jak can totally do it.

Backing up a few steps, he makes the first jump and uses the momentum to get to the second platform, but then he slips and barely makes it to the last, skidding a few inches and hopping to make sure he doesn't fling into the lake of sewer water.

He'd give himself a moment to be smug but instead hugs his ribs. Not far to go. Just another few hours of this.

"You could make yourself useful and scout up ahead," Jak grits out from between his teeth.

[ddddropthebass]

"What for?" Bass is still grinning, hands on his knees as he leans over to look Jak in the face. "I thought you knew these sewers like the back of your hand. You must know where everything is already, unless you're implying you need the help...?"

[shadesofeco]

"For Metal Heads."

Seriously. Not in the fucking mood.

Running the back of his sleeve over his forehead, Jak really, really wants to lean against the wall. But now? Now he's not gonna do it on principle. Bass is pissing him off so much his ego's starting to puff up and he flat out refuses to give him any more ammo.

"Just keep moving."