The next few days were both interesting and boring. Interesting some days and boring other days with Thursday being the former. On that day, Twilight planned a picnic with the rest of her friends. Since Isamu was not allowed to be by himself, he had to come too, not that he was complaining. He felt like he needed to get out of the library anyway.

As it turns out, none of the books were written in characters that Isamu could read. When told about this the next day after Nightmare Night, Twilight was quite puzzled since even though the human was speaking their language, he couldn’t read it. Isamu demonstrated how his people wrote and the unicorn became even more stumped as the characters didn’t look in any way similar to the equish language. After studying the alien alphabet Isamu had written down, Twilight decided to later teach him how to read and write in equish. In return, he would teach her how to read and write in his language. To her, knowledge was worth more than gold.

Presently, however, they, along with Spike were walking up a small grassy hill in a field near Rainbow Dash’s house. Spike was behind his older friends, carrying the picnic basket filled with various types of sandwiches and covered with a blanket.

Isamu looked over his shoulder, “You remembered to make something that I could eat, right?”

Spike nodded, “Mm-hm, sandwiches with no flowers or hay. I still find it strange that you can eat lettuce and tomatoes, and oats, but not flowers or hay.”

“Don’t ask me, I’m no biologist.” Isamu said while shrugging. He then turned his head forward as they continued to walk. A moment later, they found the rest of Twilight’s friends and Ikari waiting for them at the top of the hill.

“Hi, girls; Hi, Ikari!” said Twilight exuberantly.

“Hi, Twilight!” the rest of the mane 6 said in unison. They were happy to see her by the smiles on their faces, except Ikari who just nodded his greeting with a neutral look.

Once the blanket was unfolded and the food was unpacked, they began setting things down in proper places. Fluttershy had brought daisy sandwiches for the girls and some fish sandwiches for Isamu and Ikari. “I thought both of you would like something different than vegetables since you’re both omnivores.” Fluttershy explained with a smile.

“Thanks, Fluttershy.” Isamu said as they all sat in a circle on the larger than normal picnic blanket. Isamu sat down with Twilight on his right and Pinkie Pie on his left; clockwise from her sat Rarity, Fluttershy, Ikari, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash; with Spike sitting near Rarity for obvious reasons.

As the group began eating and having small talk, a few of the mane six noticed the eco brothers were refusing to look at each other and would occasionally shoot the other angry glares while they weren’t looking.

Wanting to break the tension, Twilight got to the main reason she set up this get together, “So, Isamu, would you like to tell us more about yourself and your brother?”

“Sure, what do you want to know?” he replied while picking up a lettuce and tomato sandwich.

Fluttershy raised a hoof to get his attention, “What sort of animals live on your world?” she said before flinching self-consciously as she put her hoof down, “That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

Isamu swallowed the bite of his sandwich he had taken before answering, “Well, I’m no expert on this, but from what I’ve seen in Jak’s memories, we have parachimps, tigorrillas, yakcows, various fish that I don’t know the names of, leaper lizards, huge human size birds called Flut-fluts, and lightning moles. There’s obviously more, but I can’t remember the other ones off the top of my head.” He then remembered one other type. “Oh, there’s also a tribe of beings called Lurkers.” he said while taking another bite.

“Lurkers, what kind of stupid name is that?” Rainbow Dash mocked.

Isamu turned to her with a raised eyebrow and an unamused look, “You wouldn’t be saying that if you met one of them. They can be a very violent race and gave Jak a tough time during his first adventure. One of the most common are the grunts who look like what you would call a gorilla, accept they have burgundy fur, an under-bite with tusks, and yellow eyes. Then there are the bone soldiers. They have blue fur, are taller, and wear the bones of various animals as armor.”

All six ponies plus one dragon grimaced at that last part. None of them had ever heard of anypony, or being for that matter, using the internal body parts of animals as a way of protecting themselves. Not even the minotaurs and griffins with their love for fighting would think to do something so disgusting.

Looking at all of them, Isamu nodded with a small frown. “That’s what I thought. Never underestimate a lurker, especially those of the shark variety. One almost tore Jak’s leg off when he went swimming once.” he said right before taking a sip from a carton of applejuice. He mentally noted that Fluttershy’s face became somewhat pale at the mention of someone’s leg almost getting torn off. He didn’t like scaring them, but he also didn’t like anyone making light of things that Jak had to go through. If it wasn’t for his host’s fighting skills, he wouldn’t be here right now.

Ikari, meanwhile, smiled smugly at Rainbow Dash, who was staring wide eyed at what Isamu said. He was happy that the annoyingly arrogant mare had that smug look wiped off of her. He bet she wouldn’t be saying anymore smart remarks after that. He then tore into a fish sandwich while smiling devilishly at her.

Isamu tried to remember something from Jak’s memories to calm his new friends down; then it hit him, “Oh, I forgot to mention this. Apparently Jak’s younger self had a crocodog puppy as a pet. Funny thing is, the little guy decided to let his older self, keep it in the future while he went to the past. How Jak forgot about giving his older self his own pet, I’ll never know.”

The story of Jak’s pet seemed to calm them down, but it also caused various forms of shock and confusion to form on their faces. It was Applejack who voiced what was on their minds.

“Care to repeat that, sugarcube?” she said while looking at him sideways.

Rarity concurred with her friend, “Yes, darling, please do. I am fairly certain none of use heard you right.”

“I’ll tell you more about it later. There are still some questions to be asked that would make you better able to understand once I share with you mine, my brother’s and Jak’s history. The ponies reluctantly settled for this.

Rainbow Dash decided to ask her question next, “What kind of sports do you play on your planet?”

Isamu smirked at the predictable question, but also because he knew what her reaction would be to his answer, “Personally, I’m not that into sports. Jak, on the other hand, loved to race and usually won.”

Rainbow Dash wore a huge smile at this while flaring her wings, causing Isamu to mentally chuckle. “This Jak guy sounds awesome!” she said excitedly. “I really wish I could meet him so I could challenge him to a race!”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, Polychrome, but you wouldn’t like the kind of races he’s into.”

“Why the hay not!?” her smile was replaced by a frown and her wings folded slightly.

“Because he races in vehicles.” he said after taking another sip of apple juice.

“What!?” she asked incredulously. Her wings were now completely folded and her frown grew.

Isamu put his juice down before speaking, “Yep, none of the races he participates in are on foot, or in your case, on wings. He races in two types of vehicles. Flying machines called zoomers that can also hover, and cars, which are basically carriages that can move under their own power.”

This sparked Twilight’s interest. “What sort of magic was used to create such things!? They sound incredible!” she said with excitement.

Isamu could’ve sworn that her eyes went starry, but disregarded it as a trick of the light. “Actually, no; they’re purely technologically based and run on eco.”

“Weren’t you and your brother made from eco?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, but there are more than two types of eco that can be used for various things.” he then noticed Pinkie Pie waving both fore hooves all over the place in an effort to gain his attention. “I’ll tell you more about it later, right now, one of your friends seems like she’s dying to ask her question.” He then turned to the pink mare with a smile, anticipating a very simple question asked with an over-abundance of enthusiasm, “Yes, Pinkie? What is your question?”

“What kind of food do you have on your planet!? Do you have cake!? Ice cream!? What about chocolate milk!?” she said quickly in one breath.

Despite this, Isamu was able to catch it all and was greatly amused by it. “Heh, heh, I knew you would ask something like that.”

‘SQUEE’ a smile formed on her face.

“Well, to answer your question, quite a bit of what you have here is similar to what was on my planet. We have cakes, ice cream, and various other desserts. We also eat various types of fruits and vegetables that taste a lot like yours. Though there are some differences. I have yet to see anything that looks like goliath cucerries or squashkins.”

Applejack’s eyes widened and her head reared back at how crazy the names of some of his people’s agricultural products sounded. “That’…some mighty peculiar farmin ya have there.” Her face then became a little calmer, “I was going to ask about what sort of crops you grow, but I think that was pretty much answered. Hmmm.” She looked down with a thinking face and put a hoof to her chin. After a few seconds of pondering, she asked her question, “What sort o’ places are there to visit?”

“Well, there WAS Sandover Village, where Jak grew up. It was a coastal place located next to an area called The Forbidden Jungle. Then there was Rock Village which WAS partially built over water and had located next to it the Lost Precursor City and Boggy Swamp. Then there WAS…”

“Wait, wait, wait…why are ya puttin’ so much emphasis on the word ‘was’? Applejack interrupted.

“Because those places don’t exist anymore.” he replied.

“Care to tell us why you bothered mentioning them, darling?” asked Rarity. It seemed very strange to mention places that no longer exist since you could never visit them.

“That is for when I tell you Jak’s story. Now, I believe you have a question about my world?”

“Well…what sort of clothing do your people have besides what you are wearing?” she asked with a look of intrigue.

“Hmmm…a shirt, pair of pants, and shoes are standard for both men and women, or to use your terms, stallions and mares, and we sometimes have accessories such as the shoulder pad on my left and the fingerless gloves I’m wearing and…what are you doing?”

Rarity had walked over to him and started scrutinizing every inch of his form with squinted eyes. Suddenly, she straightened back to her full height with a smile, “I have a most fabulous idea!”

Isamu raised an eyebrow to this, “Ummm…you’re welcome for the inspiration?” he said, unsure of what just happened.

Rainbow Dash decided to cut in. “Alright, enough talk about the small things! Let’s hear about this Jak dude that we keep getting hints of.” she said, more or less demanding that he tell them his backstory.

“Alright then; it all started with a simple act of disobedience…” He then went on to tell about Jak’s first adventure with his best friend, Daxter. He told of how they went to Misty Island against Samos the green sage’s instructions. He then explained that a sage was pretty much a master of a particular color of eco, essentially a scientist. This got Twilight excited as she planned to ask more about eco later. After the short explanation, came the part where Jak and Daxter had overheard two humans’ plan to attack Sandover. The winged human described them as having skin similarly colored to Ikari’s, the ability to hover, and various forms of precursor metal as part of their attire. One was a man and the other was a woman, and the man had a distorted voice.

He then told of how they found a massive pool of liquid dark eco. While looking around the pool, Daxter tripped over an artifact left by an ancient race called the Precursors, who were said to have created many worlds, including mine. The ponies’ and dragon’s jaws dropped at this. A race of beings that could make planets!? Not even the most powerful unicorns or the princesses could even hope to do something like that. Such power was unheard of. Part of Twilight’s mind was raging over the fact that anything could be more powerful than her beloved mentor, but that was only a very small portion. The rest of it was blown away by this revelation and she started to wish that she had some of these artifacts to study.

After giving them a few seconds to get over their shock, Isamu continued on to the next part, Jak caught the device after Daxter threw it over his shoulder and it glowed the second it touched his hands. Daxter became amazed at this and asked how he did it. Jak, for some strange reason, was unable to speak, so he only shook his head while saying “uuuuhhh”; pretty much saying that he didn’t know how he did it either. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a bone soldier came to kill them both. Daxter hid behind Jak while he used the artifact in his hands as a weapon which was revealed to be a bomb as it exploded. The shock wave killed the lurker, but sent Jak flying back and hit Daxter with enough force to send him into the pool of eco.

Twilight and friends gasped at this, thinking that that was the end of Jak’s friend. “That’s horrible!” said Fluttershy as she put both fore hooves to the side of her head, her face having a horrified expression.

“Yeah, what a way to go.” said Rainbow Dash with widened eyes. The rest of the ponies showed how sorry they felt for Jak for losing his best friend. Applejack took off her hat and looked down with a solemn expression, Pinkie Pie’s hair managed to somehow deflate and tears began to flow down her cheeks, Rarity mentioned how this was probably the worst possible thing to occur and had a very sad look on her face, and Twilight simply looked at the ground with a huge frown and ears drooped.

Spike walked up to Isamu and got his attention by tapping him on his right shoulder, “I wish Jak was here so that I could offer my condolences.” he said with a frown.

Isamu smiled back at him and patted him on the back, “That’s nice of you Spike, but Daxter didn’t die.”

Two things happened at that moment. Spike backed up a step in shock while the ponies looked at the human with similar expressions of incredulity and yelled in unison “WHAT!?” Ikari was greatly amused by this, but kept his enjoyment of their reactions to himself while biting into an apple.

Isamu grinned, pleased that the little twist in his story managed to surprise them. He then told of how instead of it killing him, the dark eco spat Daxter right back out as a small furry creature called an ottsel.

“What does an ottsel look like?” asked Fluttershy.

Isamu then crossed his arms while putting a hand to his chin and looked up at the sky for a moment with a thinking face on. “Hmmm…” he said as he thought. He then looked back down to the yellow pegasus and snapped his fingers with a smile as the way to describe it came to him. “Think of a cross between your world’s otter and weasel and replace the brown fur with mostly orange and some yellow.”

“That sounds adorable!” she said, almost squealing.

“Heh, Tess certainly thought so.” At her questioning look, he explained, “One of Jak’s human friends.” He then went on to talk about Jak and Daxter’s meeting with Samos who told them that he wouldn’t be able to turn Daxter back but that a human named Gol Aceron could help since he was the sage of dark eco. However, the journey north to the scientist’s citadel would be treacherous since the only way in that direction from Sandover was through Fire Canyon which was filled with lava.

That’s where Kiera, Samos’ daughter and Jak’s crush, came in saying that the zoomer she invented would be able to get them through it, but only if the heat shield had enough power. All she needed where enough power cells. Another questioning glance from his friends earned them another answer, though he begrudgingly gave it since he once again had to stop his story.

“It’s another precursor artifact. It does exactly what it sounds like, powers machinery. Now, where was I? Oh yeah...”

Continuing, Isamu regaled them with, what were in his opinion, the most interesting moments of Jak and Daxter’s quest to get power cells. He got even more of Rarity and Fluttershy’s attention when the part about the sculptor’s muse came up. Rarity’s opinion of Jak went up a little when she heard that the teen was willing to go back to Misty Island to retrieve the muse so that the artist could continue his most likely fabulous work. Fluttershy was more interested in hearing whether or not Jak succeeded in getting the animal home safely and was relieved to hear that he did.

He then told of their exploits in the Forbidden Jungle which, to the ponies, sounded a lot like the Everfree Forest. The part where Jak had to fight the man eating dark eco plant was terrifying for Fluttershy, however, it caused a different reaction from Applejack who gave a sideways glance to her left at a smirking Ikari.

At the sight of the mischievous look she turned her head fully to face him with an annoyed look. “Don’ even think about going near mah apple trees.” she said in an equally annoyed tone. Ikari then picked up another apple and charged it with his eco. After the purple static electricity settled, the red fruit turned black and purple with crystalized thorns and short disgusting vines coming out. He then took a bite out of it while looking very smug as Applejack squinted her eyes in irritation. To further annoy the mare, he cut off a piece with an index claw and tried to hand it to her.

“Heeeh…eh, eh?” he said as he thrust the slice of mutated fruit at her, doing this with a mischievous grin. His frequent teasing did as the demon hoped. Applejack’s frown grew in irritation.

“Noooo thank youuu.” The orange mare said as she pushed his hand away from her face. Ikari took the dark apple slice back and ate it noisily. After he was done, Ikari surveyed the rest of the group who was now looking at him in annoyance. Deciding to be even more cheeky, he shrugged with feigned innocence whilst wearing a devilish smile.

Isamu shook his head in exasperation, “Aaanywaaay…” He continued on with his story to talk about Jak and Daxter’s exploits on Sentinel Beach, and more craziness on Misty Island. After that came the demolition duo’s perilous trek across fire canyon. The next section of his story featured the many tasks done in Rock Village and the surrounding areas for more power cells that would be used to power a blue eco levitation device that was predictably invented by the blue sage who had mysteriously vanished before they got there. They needed it to move a rock that was obstructing their way north which was placed there by a giant lurker with rock making abilities.

Fluttershy liked the part with the lightning moles. Despite him doing it for a power cell, the pegasus still thought it nice of Jak to help the animals back into their home. She also found it heartwarming that he reunited a man with his pet in Boggy Swamp but felt sad that he had to kill a lot of rats to do it. “The poor things.” she said in a glum tone.

The mentioning of a lost underwater city from this other world’s history sparked more of Twilight’s interest as not only did she like studying magic but all kinds of areas of academia, including history and frowned that there wasn’t much history revealed during Jak’s sojourn into the depths of the historic site.

The battle with the giant boulder throwing lurker, to the ponies, sounded amazing. Rainbow Dash, being a mare of action and adventure, was the most excited. Especially since the monster not only shot boulders from its hands, but could also swim in lava. Twilight was also interested since Jak used blue eco to magnetically summon platforms to get closer to the giant and the use of yellow eco to shoot fireballs to make it drop a boulder on its head several times.

This reminded her of the other times Isamu mentioned Jak using eco in his adventure. In the Forbidden Jungle, he used eco to activate bridges and platforms and open doors. On Misty Island, red eco was used to enhance strength. Finally, in Boggy Swamp, yellow eco was used to get rid of the rats. Even though he said he’d tell her about it later, the angelic human was inadvertently giving her valuable information and the more she heard about eco, the more she wanted to experiment with it.

By the end of Isamu’s recount of the battle Rainbow Dash had her hooves to the sides her face in excitement “So…awesome!” she squealed. Isamu smiled at this. Despite his apparent love for teasing the cyan mare on her color scheme, he still felt happy that she was entertained just like the rest of his new friends.

“If you think that was amazing, just wait until I tell you the end of Jak’s first adventure.” he said with a grin directed at Rainbow.

“It gets better!?” she said before gaping in astonished delight.

“Careful, you could catch flies with your mouth hanging open like that.” He jokingly admonished.

After the technicolor pegasus closed her mouth, Isamu continued to where Jak, Daxter, Kiera, and Samos got to the red sage’s lab. They had discovered that this lab was even more messed up than the one before. The second Kiera mentioned that there must have been a struggle, the same two humans from Misty Island floated down from the ceiling. The man laughed darkly at the prospect of there having been a struggle and asked if his sister thought of what happened as such. She disagreed and mockingly complained that the red sage was no fun to take on as he hadn’t put up much of a fight. Samos, at last, recognized them, “Gol!? Is that you!?” said Samos

“Wait, so Gol and his sister were the ones who were going to attack Jak’s village?” asked Fluttershy.

Isamu nodded, “That’s right. The same man whom the sage said would help in curing Daxter was the one who was capturing the other sages, but that isn’t the worst part. He and his sister planned on using a precursor robot to open the dark eco silos and flood the world with their contents.”

Twilight raised a brow at the mention of another artifact that was apparently made by the god-like Precursors. “What’s a precursor robot?”

Isamu turned to answer, anticipating a reaction of wonder and amazement from his purple friend. “If you think of a giant human who is made of metal and has all sorts of gadgetry hidden within it, then you have the basic idea of a precursor robot.”

The blue man was not disappointed as the studious unicorn’s eyes widened in excitement as she pictured such a machine. “Amazing!”

“You wish there was one on this planet so you could study it, right?” Isamu said with a teasing smile and tone.

Undaunted by his behavior, Twilight responded with just as much excitement as before. “Of course! Do you know how much Equestria, nay, this entire world could benefit from the study of such a device!?”

“Heh, heh, I can imagine.” he said before starting on a salad that he found quite tasty. As he continued with his story, Isamu’s pony audience continued to have various reactions to what he was telling of his strange world. His description of the area that the red sage lived in sounded quite inhospitable. Who in their right mind would want to live over what was essentially an active volcano? Apparently, anyone studying red eco, as it was one of the best places to harness it and was near incredibly big sources of heat and various types of metal. Though, what was not strange or surprising was that Jak and Daxter had to collect even more power cells. They were for the zoomer so that they could get through a nearby lava tube. As such they needed to explore the surrounding areas for more of the powerful artifacts.

Spider Caves seemed to be the creepiest and downright scariest sounding place that Isamu’s friends have heard of so far. According to their bipedal friend, this place was not only filled to the brim with lethally venomous spiders as the name would suggest, but also huge pools of dark eco, lurkers who were mining out a precursor robot, and a completely pitch black area that could only be illuminated by hitting special crystals that glowed green. To Spike, the glowing green crystals sounded intriguing and he wondered how they would taste. However, the mention of crystals made out of pure dark eco knocked him out of his culinary fantasy.

“I never thought that one of my favorite foods could be made out of something so evil.” said Spike. Ikari raised an unamused eyebrow at him, to which the dragon returned a sheepish grin, “Uuuh not that you’re evil per say.” He then looked away while whistling innocently.

Ikari decided that it wasn’t worth it and just rolled his eyes. Really, what point would there be to killing the little guy? All it would get him would be another stony sentence. Besides, he wasn’t all bad. He certainly didn’t try to annoy him, so that was a plus. Though, one thing that the kid needed to do was man up. The baby dragon kept being such a pushover and easily manipulated by the white drama queen. He had seen him do various tasks for her with a dumb love struck expression on his face and it made him sick. If the little Casanova wanted to get anyone’s respect, he needed to show that he had some respect for himself and not let others control him so easily.

While Ikari was having these thoughts about the young drake, Isamu was looking at the kid curiously for his peculiar statement. “You eat crystals?”

“Yeah, all dragons do.” Spike responded with a smile. He then began listing the types of gem stones they ate, all of them. “We also eat rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, garnets, jade, turquoise, topazes…”

Isamu held up a hand, “Okay, okay, you don’t need to go down the whole entire list of decorative minerals.” He then put his hand down, “So, basically what you’re saying is that a dragon’s favorite food is what can be found in a treasure chest, right?”

Only slightly put off by his interruption, Spike answered calmly. “Yes.”

“Well that explains why he was slightly drooling at the sight of Rarity’s jewel encrusted sun hat yesterday.” He then responded to Spike’s confirmation. “Well I guess I now know how to train a dragon. Give him an emerald when he behaves!” Isamu said with a chuckle.

Everypony else joined in with various volumes of laughter, with Pinkie and Rainbow Dash being the loudest. Even Ikari was chuckling a bit. Fortunately, no one heard his dark mirth over Pinkie and Rainbow’s laughing or else the amusement they were all feeling would’ve been killed on the spot.

Spike wasn’t amused, but quickly got over it. After the laughter died down, Isamu continued his story. Jak and Daxter made it through the dangerous lava tube and activated the portal at the yellow sage’s lab, only for Kiera to hop out by herself; her father not in sight. It turned out that Gol and Mia managed to kidnap him and brought him to their citadel. When they entered, they saw that Samos was in a cage. He told them that the dark siblings were draining him and his fellow sages of their eco to power the precursor robot that they had constructed. Samos then instructed Jak to free him and the other sages so that they could disrupt the force field and work on destroying the robot it surrounded.

The two friends wasted no time in getting to the other sages and freeing them. The first part of the path to the red sage intrigued Twilight since, from how Isamu described it, it sounded like a color puzzle. The path to the blue sage seemed pretty dangerous with its turning cubes, small platforms, lasers, and bottomless pit, but the yellow sage’s path was the most terrifying of them all. It involved using blue eco on precursor launchers and landing on others that were moving over a bottomless pit. The launchers, by the way, shot Jak and Daxter nearly a hundred feet into the air each time so they had to aim where they landed; otherwise, death would await them.

Strangely enough, instead of Rainbow being the one who got excited over this part, it was Pinkie Pie who voiced her enthusiasm. “Wowie! That sounds like fun! I could never jump that high with my regular trampolines! I bet everyone would have fun on those!” Everyone looked at her like the pink mare was nuts, but she didn’t seem to care.

Isamu continued to the part where Jak and Daxter climbed the platforms to free Samos. After that was done the sage disrupted the force field around the robot and told them to destroy it before convincing Gol to help Daxter. However, it was too late. The dark siblings informed the heroes that they had enough power and it was foolish to even try to stop them. Rainbow Dash seemed to get agitated with how smug this Gol sounded.

“Please tell me that Jak lays the smack down on those two!” she said with a perturbed look.

“Oh, most definitely.” He said with an uncharacteristically devilish grin.

Rainbow Dash returned his grin with another one looking just as devilish.

Isamu couldn’t wait for hers and the rest’s reaction to the fight and started telling them about it with much exuberance. This was what went on during the battle, according to him.

“And now for the epic final battle to save the world!” he said in a hammy voice.

(Battle Music: open in new tab)

Jak used blue eco to ride a platform to the dark eco silo. As he got there, he noticed two things; the giant robot, which was floating next to the silo and opening it with an eco beam from its right eye, and four clusters of yellow eco on top of the area. Quickly grabbing a cluster and aiming with his goggles, Jak blew up the eye with a few well-placed shots. Even though the robot was made of metal, and by all rights was not alive, it still whipped its head back and roared in pain as smoke billowed from the now un-occupied socket.

(stop music and close extra tab)

Twilight felt completely dumbfounded at this. “How is that possible!? It’s a nonliving device! It doesn’t have a nervous system or a brain of its own. How can it feel pain!?” This complete disregard for the rules of biology angered her.

“Don’t ask me, even I don’t know.” he said while shrugging.

“But…it doesn’t make any sense!!”

Isamu turned to look directly at her, “Sorry, Twilight, but I really don’t know.”

Twilight sighed in defeat, realizing that she wouldn’t get anything more of an explanation of the strange phenomenon out of him. After Twilight showed that she was willing to let it go for now, Isamu continued his retelling of the epic battle.

(Battle music with extra instruments: Open in new tab like before. Restart video if it ends before you’re done reading the battle section)

A weirdly shaped appendage came out of the robot’s back and shot out a strange circular device which began hovering over the silo. Both Jak and Daxter looked at it strangely for a second before it started flashing and letting out very loud alarm sounds that were steadily getting faster. They looked at each other with widened eyes as they knew immediately what it was, a bomb.

Maia exposited in an amused tone that eco wouldn’t protect them from the blast. She thought for sure that the heroes were doomed and so did the ponies and one dragon who were listening to this story. They knew that Jak wasn’t since Isamu wouldn’t be here if he was, but the mane 6 and Spike couldn’t see how Jak was able to get out of that one. Isamu then proceeded to fill them with disbelief of how incredibly lucky the human was by telling them exactly what he did to avoid getting blown to pieces.

A blue eco vent had miraculously opened up on top of the silo and Jak also noticed a nearby precursor launcher. Thinking quickly, the brave teen ran over to the vent, charged himself up with eco, and used the launcher to jump a hundred feet into the air just as the bomb exploded. What was surprising to the mares present was that he didn’t break all the bones in his body upon landing back on the giant container. However, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. The top of the silo had partially opened up and the two heroes were able to see that there was enough dark eco inside to almost reach the top. Jak also realized something very unfortunate. They were a few hundred feet up in the air and their only place to stand was on top of the cylindrical silo.

If it kept opening, the ground they could stand on would keep decreasing until both him and his friend were sitting ducks on the outer ring and would be forced to either jump off or sink to their mutating death in the eco. So, with a new sense of urgency, Jak set to work destroying the robot piece by piece. The green eco it produced from its beak went into the dark eco and created spikey mutants which Jak destroyed with eco created fire balls. When it ran out of green eco, the robot used its right arm to shoot mini red eco bombs. Jak destroyed this too and launched into the air to avoid another bomb.

After the destruction of the giant yellow eco gun on its left arm, Gol and Maia deployed the robot’s bomb thrower for one last chance at getting rid of the would be heroes when suddenly, each of the other four types of eco came out in streams from the four pillars attached to the silo and converged above it, creating, for the first time, light eco. Gol was stunned. He thought that light eco was a myth and was incredulous to find that it wasn’t and voiced his disbelief. Maia on the other hand was more scared than stunned and voiced how they mustn’t let them get it, lest their plans be foiled.

As soon as Daxter realized what it was, he told Jak that it might be exactly what the doctor ordered. However, they would need all of it in order to destroy the robot. He thought it over for a few seconds before ultimately deciding to let Jak use the eco to save the world. It wasn’t really like he had much of a choice in the matter, him being the one riding on Jak’s shoulder.

With that out of the way, Jak got a piece that broke off from the main cluster and destroyed the robot with a mighty blast. The only piece surviving being the robot’s head which landed in the dark eco before it closed. Gol shouting, “NOOOOOOO!!!” as it sank into the hazardous material. To say, the ponies were amazed would be an understatement. Sure, they had already taken down two beings that were likely more powerful than a robot, but neither battle showcased any sort of real combat prowess.

Rainbow Dash suddenly remembered what Isamu said about light eco, “Wait, so the energy that you were made from is a combination of the other four types of eco?” she said, wanting to know if she heard right.

Isamu was about to reply with a simple confirmation, but a new idea popped into his head which caused him to grin before speaking. “Yes, all four types of eco came together to form the very energy that I was originally made out of and keeps me alive to this very day. You could say they’re working in perfect harmony.” he said while looking sly and putting emphasis on the last word.

“PffffftAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” laughed Pinkie as she spat out her cherry soda. Fortunately she hadn’t turned to her sides and the drink didn’t reach across the blanket. While her laughter was going on, Twilight became intrigued, thinking that if she found a way to defuse the eco like actual light, she’d be able to experiment with the four types of eco in their purest form. Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike were in awe for various reasons.

Rarity was speechless over the fact that four forces of his world’s nature came together and made something extraordinary in much the same way the elements of harmony combined to did something extraordinary. Though there were differences between the two events. One of the major things that were different was that instead of just creating something that expunged anything harmful, it also created a single being as the embodiment of that very substance. This thought caused her to wonder if the Elements of Harmony could produce somepony that embodied all of their elements. She felt that the sight of such a being would be glorious.

“Oh…my” thought Fluttershy with widened eyes. To think, Isamu was literally made from nature itself. If his description of eco being the life energy of his world was to be believed, then the eco-created human could very well have a stronger connection to animals than even her. Spike, on the other hand, just thought it was cool since he could probably do all of the things that he said eco could achieve.

Rainbow Dash was both impressed and excited. If what he said was true, then the pegasus needed to ask him something very important. Without another thought, she flew and hovered in front of him and grabbed his shoulders while putting her face near his, “Please, oh please let me have some of your eco!” she said in a strangely desperate tone.

Isamu, to his credit, didn’t appear disturbed by their sudden closeness and calmly pushed her a few feet away. “Before you decide to invade my personal space again, may I ask why?”

Not missing a beat, Rainbow responded, “Are you kidding!? Part of you is made out of what is essentially the essence of speed and I’m all about speed! So, can I please have some of your eco!?” She then got closer to him on her back knees and clasped her front hooves together, “Pretty please with awesomeness on top!?” she said in a begging tone.

Isamu once again used his hands, except this time he used them to form a placating gesture to calm her down, “Whoooa there, speed demon. I don’t even know if you ponies can even handle a sudden surge of eco. If I give you too much, there’s no telling what could happen.” he said before putting his hands down on his knees. “The worst thing that can happen is that you suffer eco overload. That’s where you die because your body can’t handle so much power. You also have to have a natural talent for channeling it in order to use it to its full potential. Even if you’re able to withstand a considerable amount of it, you might only get a small speed boost instead of say, twice your normal speed which I would think would be more preferable.”

Rainbow Dash hovered back to her seat with a very disappointed look, but Isamu decided to try to stop her depressed mood in its tracks, “Aww, now don’t be so blue.”

Rainbow turned a deadpan look to him, “You’re blue, you dork.”

Isamu shrugged, “Eh, whatever. The point is you shouldn’t be so quick to give up, there is a bright side.”

“Like what?”

“Liiiiike testing you to see if you actually are able to effectively channel eco and maybe see if you have an affinity for a certain type.” He said with a grin before continuing. “That is, if Twilight ever figures out how to defuse my eco into the other four types.” he said while holding up four fingers and giving a friendly wink. Unbeknownst to the winged man, that was exactly what she was thinking as he said it. At that moment, Celestia’s star pupil was staring at him wide eyed, wondering if he was telepathic.“Sooo…anyway…” Isamu finished up the story with what happened right after the battle.

As Jak and Daxter rode the platform back to the top of the citadel, they did their own victory dance and were greeted by all four sages, and Kiera as they arrived. Samos complimented them, saying that they did have what it takes to be heroes which was surprising since they knew the man for mostly lectures and reprimands. The blue sage complimented Jak on his talent for channeling eco and mentioned that Samos was right about him. This caused Jak to give Samos a smug grin as what was said implied that Samos was saying good things about him all along. Jak wasn’t the only one to receive praise. The red sage complimented Kiera on her ingenuity and stated that none of this would’ve been possible without her. He then mentioned that they may have found a new sage since Gol and Maia were lost.

Samos wasn’t too sure, saying that the dark eco only ‘might’ have been enough to destroy them. Daxter wasn’t worried at all, saying that it would be no problem for himself and Jak to take them on again and asked for confirmation from his friend, but was puzzled when he didn’t receive any. He turned around and spotted his best friend and Kiera leaning towards each other for a kiss. However, before their lips could touch; the orange rodent ran up and jumped in between them, bracing himself on both of their chests and told Jak to “put it on ice.” Jak was understandably unamused.

Neither were Rarity or Twilight. Everyone else was either mildly entertained, or in Pinkie and Rainbow’s case, laughing their flanks off at how unbelievable the ottsel’s actions were. Ikari couldn’t care less. Twilight just widened her eyes at how incredibly rude it was for Jak’s supposedly best friend to interrupt an intimate moment with his special somepony. Rarity, on the other hoof, had a more emotional and vocal reaction to the display of social ineptitude.

“How…how UNCOUTH! Here, Jak has just finished dealing with two twisted scoundrels, who most likely had poor fashion sense, and wants to have a moment with his special somepony. Then his so called ‘best friend’ literally jumps in between them and ruins the whole thing! I don’t care if they were still near the battle field! Jak deserved to have a moment with his marefriend anytime he wanted.” She then put her fore hooves close together and imagined the ottsel’s neck between them. “Why, if I got my hooves on that little orange rat, I would…OOOOOO!!!” The angry fashionista threw her fore-legs forward and then crossed them over her chest. After a moment, she looked back up and saw that the rest of them were staring at her with widened eyes.

Pinkie tapped her friend on the shoulder, “Wow, Rarity. We didn’t know you were so…ummm.”

“Emotionally invested?” supplied Twilight.

“Yeah, what she said!”

Rarity turned to respond, “Well, why wouldn’t I be, Pinkie, my dear? Jak valiantly braved a most likely parasite infested jungle, two volcanic passages that could burn one’s mane off, an icky swamp, and two villains’ stronghold. Not only that, but he also faced down and soldiers with fashion sense straight out of a horror novel and their evil employers. He did it all so his best friend could be cured and what does he do in return!? Doesn’t even allow the hero the reward of expressing his affection to the mare of his dreams! I’m sorry for my unladylike behavior, but really, who wouldn’t be filled with rage over somepony doing something like that?”

“Um…well Ikari seems to like your wrath.” said Fluttershy. Rarity turned to her left to see what the shy pegasus was talking about, only to blanch. Ikari was giving her a grin that was somehow scary and goofy at the same time.

“Heh, heh” he chuckled while nodding and giving a thumbs up; which was bigger than usual because of the partially extended claw.

“‘GULP’ yes, well…” the unicorn said as she composed herself, unconsciously pushing back part of her mane. “I’m sorry to say, darling, but I don’t usually make it a habit of acting out with such fury and I’m not planning to.” said Rarity as she addressed Ikari. She then gave the eco demon a placating, yet obviously fake smile, “I hope that isn’t too disappointing for you.”

“Eh…” he said with a shrug and tilt of the head. Not everyone could appreciate rage like he could. Though, unbeknownst to him, a crueler voice with a silky tone expressed itself in the back of his mind.

“Heh…the animal shaped marshmallow could do well with a thicker skin and not cry over every problem. Hmmmm…I wonder if she bleeds what she appears to be made out of. Heh…heh, heh, heh, heh, heh!!!” It said, unheard by anybody including the one in whose mind it resided in.

After the tense exchange between the fabulously dramatic mare and the anger loving beast, Isamu finished up the story of Jak’s first adventure with the opening of the giant precursor door and what lay beyond.

Author's Note

Well, it took less time than the last chapter at least. Just in time for Halloween though. This and the next two chapters are going to be part of a three parter.

Tell me what you liked and as always, I'll see YOU guys in the next chapter. Bye bye!!!

(points for anybody knows where that's from)