Isamu finished up the story of Jak’s first adventure with the reveal of what was on the other side of the precursor door. As Jak put in the last power cell in the final slot, the door opened and from it a light momentarily blinded them before receding and revealing a massive ring with a pure white light coming from it.

“And that was the story of Jak and Daxter’s first adventure. So…what did you think?” Isamu said with a hopeful smile.

It was a few seconds before all the mares and Spike gave him applause, clapping their hooves or, in Spike’s case, claws together in appreciation. After it died down, various compliments were thrown about.

“Woohoo!!!” cheered Pinkie. “He beat the bad guys and won a prize! That was a great way to end a quest!”

“Don’t forget all the awesome battles that Jak had before and the dangerous places he explored! Boy do I wish I could meet him! He’s so freakin’ awesome!!!” added Rainbow Dash.

“I agree, darling. His acts of bravery and sacrifice of his own personal safety for the sake of a friend, all the while enjoying the adventure are traits of a most desirable quality.” she said as she stared off into space with a dreamy look on, imagining Jak as a blonde haired, green coated stallion with just enough muscle to make him look in shape, but not so much to make him look like a body builder. “Oh, if only he were single and a pony. Who cares if his coat would be green, that resolve to do what’s right no matter the cost combined with such gallantry would make any mare swoon.” she thought.

“Don’t forget, that by stopping them, Jak also saved all the animals of his world and the environment in general.” said Fluttershy with a smile. She then frowned as a more disturbing thought came to mind. “I couldn’t bear to dwell on what that terrible substance would’ve done to the lightning moles, the baby flut-flut, and their homes.” she said as an image of said animals in agony as they mutated in the middle of a dark eco saturated wasteland caused her to shudder.

She then felt something pat her on the back and looked to her left to see that Applejack had moved in between her and Ikari to give the shy pegasus some emotional support. “There, there, sugarcube. Ya don’t need ta worry none. Ya said it ya’self, them Aceron varmints were dealt with by Jak, so those critters prob’bly lived the rest of their lives in non-eco tainted homes happily eva after.” Applejack’s comforting words seemed to do the trick as Fluttershy leaned into her friend, turning the friendly pat on the back into a one legged hug; with a joyful smile and closed eyes.

“Thank you, Applejack.” The butter yellow pegasus said as she sat up. She then gave her orange friend a smile before continuing. “You really put me at ease with what you said. I guess I was just being silly, fretting over what might’ve happened.”

Said earth pony gave another friendly pat, “Don’t mention it, I’m always happy to help mah friends, Shy.” she said as she rose back up, walking back to her seat on the left side of Ikari.

Twilight, on the other hand was a bit puzzled. There seemed to be something missing from that story; then it hit her. “Wait a second, Isamu. When did you and Ikari come into the picture? We didn’t hear any mention of yourselves, much less how you were both created.”

“Yeah, when did Jak get the ability to grow wings or claws and do all the cool stuff that you guys do?” Rainbow Dash added.

Isamu grinned at them as he answered. “I was getting to that. Be forewarned, things will be getting a bit darker now.” Isamu was happy that not only did the story entertain his new friends, but was also so good that they wanted more. He then became intrigued to know how they would react to the darker subject matters in the story of Jak’s second adventure. With these thoughts in mind, he introduced the next tale.

"Now, Jak's next adventure deals with his separation from his friends, a corrupt ruler, how Ikari was born, and..." at this point, he positioned his hands in a way that made them look like claws, "...monsters that eat eco!" he said as he moved his fingers in a creepy way with a matching voice. He then put his hands down. "'Jak and Daxter: Terror of the Metal Heads'!"

The next epic story of Jak and Daxter started off pretty mundane for what the ponies and dragon were expecting. After the reveal of the giant ring, Kiera suggested that Jak and Daxter find something to help move it back to the village. However, Samos suggested that before they do that, they should search the rest of the citadel. Apparently, he had a feeling that there was another item of interest that they would need. Jak, Daxter, and Kiera looked at him weird for a second, but decided not to question it. They did find something just like the sage said, some sort of wheeless vehicle with nothing but a thruster on the back. After finding something to lift the heavy machinery, the three friends moved both the rift ring and the vehicle back to the village where Kiera studied both devices until night fall.

“They might not question it, but ah am. How did Samos know that there was somethin there that they needed for the ring. Sounds mighty suspicious if ya ask me.” said Applejack with suspicion in her voice.

“This Kiera has all the fun.” thought Twilight with a bit of jealousy. She felt that that human girl was sooo lucky that she was able to study a new piece of technology. All Twilight could do was hear about it.

After a few days of studying both devices, the sage’s daughter told both heroes that they would be able to test the device soon; she just needed a little more time studying the vehicle and for them to build her a long ramp and place the precursor ring at the end of it. Not questioning the mechanic of their group, Jak and Daxter set to work doing what was asked and were done by sunset. Pleased with their handy work, Kiera gave them the good news that she should be done analyzing enough of the strange mode of transportation by tomorrow morning and went to tell her dad the same.

Early the next morning, everyone got ready to use the recently discovered machine, though Daxter seemed to have not gotten enough sleep the night before if his taking a snooze on the hood of the vehicle was any indication and Kiera was looking over the dashboard of the vehicle, checking the dials and switches to see if they were on the right settings. Jak, meanwhile, was gazing out at the ring and daydreaming about the kind of excitement that was to be had with the test run of the newly discovered ride.

Samos broke his fantasies of adventure when he said the obvious statement of it being the “big day”, but then said in a, to Jak, strangely sad tone that he hoped the teen was prepared for whatever would happen by the end of this experiment; as though he knew.

“Wait, wait, wait!” said Pinkie with her hooves in the stop gesture. Isamu looked to her with a questioning eye brow in response. She then explained the reason for the interruption. “Something big is going to happen right?” Isamu nodded. “Well this story is probably going to be really long, but still very exciting. We’re almost out of food and some of us might get hungry while listening…” she then turned to her friends “and I’m pretty sure none of us want to miss a second of this, right girls?”

“Right!” everyone besides Ikari replied.

Turning back to the blue angel, she continued. “So, I’m thinking that maybe you could wait just a little bit for me to go back to Sugar Cube Corner to get some extra snacks.”

“I think I’ll contribute some more food from my place too.” said Applejack, joining in on the idea.

“By the by, I myself am in need of a visit to the little filly’s room. I’m sure your story is going to be picking up soon, darling, but you know, ‘nature calls’ as it were.” said Rarity with a sheepish grin.

Putting up his hands and patting the air in a placating gesture, Isamu gave permission. “Alright, alright; snack runs and bathroom breaks for everyone who needs them. But hurry back to hear the rest of the exciting tale.” he said as he made another gesture for them to go. Pinkie Pie did as said and went home to grab snacks and Applejack did the same at her home; Pinkie getting various sweets and Applejack packing not only apples and apple products, but also some salad and various other veggies. The taste of the red fruit was great and all, but not everypony appreciated its sweet splendor as much as her. She also packed a few more bottles of apple cider and various flavors of soda.

Rarity and Rainbow Dash left for the unicorn’s aforementioned reason and returned shortly. That left Pinkie and Applejack as the last two mares to return. About twenty minutes later, both of them returned to find everypony else waiting patiently. Except for Isamu who was lying down with his hands behind his head and one leg crossed over the other. When he heard them set down the extra food, he sat up and looked from his left to his right to make sure all members of his audience were accounted for.

“Ok, is everybody done going to the bathroom or going on snack runs?” he said to them. When they nodded in unison, he smiled. “Good! Now where was I…?” he said while looking up and putting a hand to his chin. He then flipped an index finger towards the air in realization, “Oh, yeah!”

The blue man picked up where he left off and told them how Kiera had figured out most of the machine and that it interacts with the precursor ring in some way.

“Well that’s certainly vague.” said Twilight with a deadpan.

Isamu shrugged, “What can I say? She only had a few days of studying it before the experiment.”

Getting back into the story, Isamu told of how after Samos reprimanded Daxter for touching a button without knowing what it did and Kiera calming down her father, the sage told the three friends that he had experience with similar technology and was confident that Jak could make it work. Hesitantly, Jak pressed the heart shaped ruby button and the small orange dome next to it popped open and metal balls began moving in an organized pattern within. Kiera found it interesting since it appeared to be reading out coordinates, but to where neither the three friends nor Isamu’s audience knew at the moment.

Suddenly, the dome snapped shut and lightning like bolts of eco shot out and seemed to activate the ring, causing it to slightly hover a bit above the ramp. The ponies and dragon felt tension rising within as the description of what was happening around the ring was recounted to them. The sky rapidly switched from day to night repeatedly and the soft glow of the ring turned from a peaceful white to a chaotic vortex of blue and purple. Fluttershy sunk a little lower into her position on the ground in fear because of the ominous nature of her mental image of the scene.

Said scene got even scarier with the telling of a deep booming growl of a voice coming from the ring saying that the “Past Rift Gate” had finally been opened, and from the now to be revealed rift, hundreds of ugly metal bug like things started flying out and swarming overhead. A few seconds later, a monster’s upper torso burst through the light and roared at the humans and one animal and pointed at Jak while exclaiming that the green/blonde teen couldn’t hide from him while glaring at the boy with four yellow eyes.

“Ha! It wears glasses!? That’s not so scary!” laughed Rainbow Dash.

Isamu smirked before responding. “Nooooo…I mean he literally had four yellow eyes.” This caused Rainbow’s smile to disappear and her eyes to widen. “That’s not all.” he continued, “This thing, from what Jak could tell, was as tall as a three story building. Its skin was covered in blue scales with metal armor covering parts of its body including most of its face which had a mouth full of razor sharp teeth with each one being about the length of a sword.” The description got his audience to have various expressions of fright as they pictured the traits of this beast while he went on. “What’s more, it had these thick fleshy fins around its head that were arranged in a way that made it look like a manticore’s mane.”

By the end of the description, everypony was shaking in their seats from the terrifying mental image that all of these traits conjured up. Fluttershy was the most frightened and was debating whether or not this creature was scarier than dragons. Even so, fear wasn’t the only emotion most of them were feeling. Some, namely Rainbow Dash, was on the edge of her seat to find out what happened next. Where did this monster come from and how did Jak deal with this encounter?

After looking around at his audience’s faces for a moment, Isamu told them of how equally terrified Kiera was when she insisted that Jak do something about it. Jak, unfortunately, was panicking just as much as she was, trying to think of anything to do to make the monster go away. In his fear addled haze, he pressed the red ruby button again via punching it. He really shouldn’t have done that, as the very second he did so, the vehicle shot right towards the portal and the monster. Just as it looked like they were going to crash into the metal beast’s mouth, the vehicle slid right under him and into the vortex.

Even though the inside of the portal made it impossible to tell up from down, the passengers still felt as though the vehicle was going down a slope at high speeds. Daxter couldn’t take any more and rhetorically asked to get off the crazy thing. Suddenly, as though the chaos around them was listening, granted the rhetorical request with a lightning bolt from a random direction striking and destroying the vehicle. The explosion sending Samos and Kiera off to the sides, while Jak and Daxter both went forward. Just before both heroes reached a light at the end of the glowing tunnel, Samos yelled for Jak to find himself.

The audience of this tale that took a very early and frightening turn now looked at their angelic story teller in slight confusion. Twilight was the first to voice her friends’ collective perplexed feelings. “Umm…why did he say that? I mean, it sounds very deep, but why did he say something like that then?” she then formed a small smile. “I highly doubt that careening through the vast expanse of a portal is the time or place for saying something philosophical.” she said with a chuckle.

Isamu wagged a finger at the inquisitive unicorn while grinning. “Ah, ah, ah! No spoilers!” he said with a fake scolding tone.

“Yeah, Twilight! Don’t make him spoil it for the rest of us! If you want to eat spoiled story, that’s fine by me, but the rest of us want a fresh narrative!” said Pinkie in an overly serious tone. Coming from the pink mare, it was hard for her friends to tell if that stern voice was real or not. Regardless of the sincerity of her tone, the other ponies started to have similar sentiments as they looked at each other, then at Twilight. None of them expressed what they were feeling about this situation; except for Rainbow Dash who was sitting up with her fore legs crossed over her chest and shaking her head with an annoyed frown.

Nervously, Twilight tried to give an excuse. “But I…!” however, as she looked at Pinkie’s scowl and Rainbow’s disapproving look, Twilight gave up. “Uuuugh…fine! Continue.” she said as she gestured for the blue man to do so.

With another smile, Isamu turned his pure, white, glowing eyes to the rest of his audience as he did just that, telling them of what happened when Jak and Daxter finally exited the portal. Jak and Daxter were coated in a mixture of dark and light eco as they descended from what felt like the sky. The light that they saw at the end of the portal’s tunnel had blinded them and they were unable to see where they were landing, but as soon as they got up from their long fall, the two friends were amazed to discover that they were in a huge city. Not just any city, but a city that was made entirely out of metal!

Neither of them had seen anything like it. Most towns that they had explored had buildings that were made of mostly wood and stone. The only exception being Gol and Maia’s citadel and even then, it was really just a repurposed Precursor installation that was made of the similarly named metal. This piece of civilization, however, was clearly made out of man-made metal. Not as strange, but still noteworthy, were the zoomers that were flying high off the ground and seemed to not need propellers.

Before Jak and Daxter could gawk further at the technological marvels of the city, they heard footsteps coming from further up the road. What they saw was very intimidating. Humans in red armor and holding staff-like weapons were walking towards them and were led by an orange haired man in a yellow uniform who was holding a small metal object in his hand like the armored humans held their weapons. They all seemed to be in that part of the city for the two heroes as they marched towards and stopped right in front of them.

Hearing this reminded Twilight of the royal guard. The orange haired man sounded like he might be the captain if the fact that he was leading them was any indication. “I wonder why that city’s police force would be greeting newcomers. I certainly hope he isn’t in trouble. Maybe they think that he entered the city illegally? If that’s the case, then they had better have at least told Jak what he’s being accused of before trying anything.” she thought with concern. She knew that these events had already happened, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t feel worry about who she was hearing of.

What she and the rest heard next was simply shocking. One of the men in red told Jak to step away from Daxter, who ran with a scream. The orange haired man got a little annoyed with the guard who was focusing on the fleeing rodent and told him and the rest to forget him since someone called “The Baron” was only interested in the teen. Apparently they were waiting for him. Suddenly, one of the red men smashed the bottom end of his staff like weapon into the scared teen’s face and he was out like a light. As he lost consciousness, the blonde could only tell that he hit the ground by the loud thump that was heard. He also heard Daxter saying that he would rescue him soon.

When Isamu’s audience heard this, their jaws looked like they could become unhinged by how far they dropped and their pupils had substantially shrunk, making their eyes look all the larger. All of them had the same kinds of thoughts running through their heads. What sort of ruler sends out guards to greet newcomers? Why would said ruler want someone who just came to the city arrested without provocation? And what sort of corrupt justice system would allow such a thing?

Rainbow Dash was the first to get over her shock. She shook her head vigorously to get rid of her gawking expression and replaced it with a look of outrage. “What the hay!? How in the name of Celestia could anypony be arrested for just visiting!? He didn’t do anything!” she said while flailing her forelegs in protest to this travesty. By this time, her friends were looking at her; some with equally angry looks and nodding in agreement. “It’s horrible, unfair, and just plain not cool!!!” she said as a closing to her rant. She then crossed her forelegs over her chest to signify that she would not change her views of the situation no matter what anybody told her.

Isamu at this point was also frowning. The frown only growing deeper as he gave the cyan pegasus more bad news “Oh, it gets worse; a lot worse.” He said in a dark tone. Ikari also frowned, knowing what was coming next.

What was regaled next was horrible, awful, and just generally made the ponies and one dragon feel dreadfully sorry for the hero whom they had come to like. Jak, the one who stopped two mad scientists from flooding the world with dark eco, was thrown into a prison and subjected to getting that very substance pumped into his body as part of some twisted experiment. Each day this would happen, and each time the pain grew and grew. To add insult to injury, or in this case, injury to injury, the men in red, who he later found out were called Krimzon Guards would frequently kick him around to get him moving from his cell to the operating table and would throw him back into his meager living quarters hard enough for his face to slam up against the back wall and knock him out.

Surprisingly, all of this pain didn’t break his will. He may have been sad the first few days, but after that, the anguish brought forth an anger that could rival the fiercest of predators. How dare these people treat him this way and how dare the ruler of this place orchestrate such a thing!? He hated Baron Praxis and the orange haired man named Erol with all his soul.

Along with the anger came hallucinations. Jak attributed this partially to the dark eco that was most likely messing with his brain. Some of the figments would be of people he met and toys from his childhood. Then would come the scarier ones of the various monsters he had to face, and some that he was sure his mind was making up. Along with these mental amalgamations of consciousness, a voice was conceived in his mind that, at the moment, did not have an image to associate with. So, it appeared to be disembodied. A voice that sounded like his, but slightly deeper and more menacing.

On the first day after this figment’s conception, Jak noticed that this voice mirrored his angry feelings. No, that wasn’t quite right. It sounded more like its fury was of a more amplified form, judging from how much it yelled things such as, “They are hurting us! You must kill them!” or “The same with their guards! They’re following that bastard ruler and they all need to be slaughtered!” and sometimes, “I am the only one you can trust! That orange rat ran away from you and never looked back!” For the most part, the teen agreed with the voice, accept for anything involving Daxter. He still held out hope that his friend turned rodent would come to his rescue or at least had been trying to all this time.

For two years, Jak endured the torturous experiments and for two years, his anger grew. During that time, the other hallucinations faded away, leaving only the angry voice behind to grow more prominent within the womb that was his mind. One day, after another dark eco injection, the computer told Praxis, who was nearby, that nothing about the young adult’s physique had changed. Over these two years, Jak had learned the reason behind this torture. Creatures called “Metal Heads” had been at war with the city and the baron wanted a new weapon to fight against them. It was a horrible excuse for doing this to him against his will and it made him all the angrier.

After yelling at Erol about how he would not be remembered as the one who let the city fall to the metal heads, he told him to move forward with some sort of plan and to kill Jak later. It seemed like all was lost, until he heard a voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Ding, ding, third floor! Body chains, roach food, torture devices!”

Jak suddenly felt a weight on his chest and heard the voice ask if he had seen any other heroes around. It then told him that it was Daxter. Opening his eyes to see if it was true, Jak closed them back up as soon as he confirmed who it was. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with any talking after being injected for the umpteenth time. Plus, he was still feeling too angry to focus on much.

After a bit more rambling, the orange rodent begged his friend to say something to him for once in his life. Unbeknownst to him, not only did Jak hear his plea, but also the voice that was conceived in his mind heard it too. It became angry with how grating Daxter’s voice was and added this fury to Jak’s own. The voice then decided to make Jak say something just to shut the rat up.

For this part, Isamu tried his best to mimic how Ikari sounded on that day. “I’M GOING TO KILL PRAXIS!” he roared in a deeper and more gravelly voice. The voice had the effect of making his audience’s eyes widen once again. Each of them shocked at what Jak’s first words were and the sort of voice he said them with. Isamu continued the story after he got a good look at their reactions.

“While Daxter was figuring out how to unlock the restraints that were holding his friend down, Jak’s anger at those that had hurt him continued to grow.” he said looking at his audience, mentally noting the looks of anticipation. Even they knew something was going to happen. “Until finally, with a roar, Ikari was born; ripping the metal cuffs off his hands!” he said while pointing at Ikari dramatically.

The ponies and baby dragon looked at Isamu and then slowly looked at Ikari, who was scowling. It was obvious that the whole tale of how he was born brought up bad memories. After staring at him for a moment, Rainbow Dash finally spoke up.

“So, that’s why he’s so angry all the time?” she asked Isamu.

“Yep, my brother was born from pain and suffering. Not only that, but everyone saw him as a monster. Personally, I see him as more of an irritable idiot that needs to be beaten down every once in a while to stop his tantrums.” the angelic being said with nonchalance.

Everypony turned to Ikari, feeling sorry for him. Not only was this angry soul born in such a horrid way, but almost everybody in his world immediately hated him; including his brother apparently. Ikari raised an eyebrow while still scowling at them. He then felt a hoof on his right shoulder and turned to see Fluttershy with tears in her eyes. “Uuuh…?” he questioned before Fluttershy nearly knocked him over with a hug, sobbing into his chest.

“Th-th-that’s so horr-rr-ible! I, I couldn’t imagine anypony being born in such a way! It’s too awful to consider!” she said as she continued to sob.

Ikari looked down at the yellow pegasus for a while before looking around at the ponies in confusion at this sudden embrace. Not knowing what else to do, the purple man awkwardly started patting Fluttershy’s back while looking at her confusedly. After a moment of this, he unwrapped her forelegs from around his torso and surprisingly pushed her off with very little force. The pegasus stopped her sobbing and looked up at him to see that he was giving her a side glance mixed with a scowl for a second before he shrugged and turned his gaze to the rest of the group.

“I guess it isn’t worth staying sad over, but I really wish I could help him in some way. It must be so awful to be born with so much pain, have everypony’s hatred added on to that, and bottling it up for so long. No wonder he’s so angry all the time.” she thought as she used an offered hanky from Rarity.

Isamu raised an eyebrow at the display. He, like Ikari, didn’t get why she would care about his monster of a brother’s feelings. He then shrugged his shoulders as he mentally chalked it up to her not knowing the full extent of the sort of influence his existence had on Jak’s mind. “Soooo...yeah. After that, both Jak and Ikari were about to kill Daxter, but before they did it, Jak recognized his best friend and stopped his body from delivering a killing blow. After Daxter got over the shock and told Jak to remind him not to get him angry again, Daxter instructed our green/blonde hero to put on the new clothes that he had brought for him.” he said as he pointed to the clothes he was wearing. “After getting the clothes on, Daxter jumped on to his designated position on Jak’s shoulder and their escape commenced.”

Isamu then went on to talk about what Jak had to do in order to get through the prison. According to him, Jak killed every krimzon guard he came across. He did so in various ways. Ranging from flinging them off of ledges, to sneaking up behind them and snapping their necks, to even pulling off their helmets so that he could shove their own shock rods down their throats and watch as they spasm to death. He took great pleasure in killing the guards who worked there; while Ikari applauded him within his subconscious.

The ponies could certainly understand that Jak was angry at the guards for what they had a hoof in doing and knew that if they had suffered like he did, they would want those who did it to answer for their crimes. Even so, their sympathy for the tortured man’s situation didn’t stop them from grimacing at the sheer brutality of his revenge against these unscrupulous thugs. Rainbow was surprisingly the first to express their discomfort. It was surprising because everypony thought Rarity would be the first to comment on what would obviously be considered barbaric by the prim and proper mare.

“Whoa! I know I’m sometimes the first to jump to violence when angry, but even I have to admit that what he was doing was a bit severe.” the rainbow mare said with widened eyes and a disturbed frown. Looking around, she saw that all of her other friends had similar feelings. Though, Fluttershy’s reaction was the most pronounced as she was hiding under her hooves and shaking in both fear of how brutal Jak was being and sadness for all of the guards that died in such a painful way.

To Fluttershy, it didn’t matter that they were working for a mad man. Those men didn’t all deserve to die. Isamu guessed that this was what her thoughts most likely were and didn’t blame her for them. She wasn’t there. The timid pegasus did not understand how Jak was feeling because she never went through such torture. She couldn’t have possibly experienced the torment of being oppressed in such a way.

Isamu sighed, regretting giving such a detailed description of how his host had dealt with his oppressors. In the first story, his audience was able to stomach the death that Jak had brought upon most of the enemies he encountered, such as lurkers, because they sounded more like monsters than actual sapient beings. Though Fluttershy still felt sorry for them because of how much she cares for all living things, but that’s beside the point. The point was, unlike lurkers, these krimzon guards were Jak’s own species and he was killing them with extreme prejudice. Isamu knew that even this world wasn’t perfect as he had heard of murders and other crimes happening in various cities all across Equestria during his imprisonment and also knew that if any of these mares kept up with current events, they too would not be astonished at the notion of murder; which was why Isamu was not surprised that most of their reactions didn’t get any more expressive than “significantly disturbed”.

After considering these things, Isamu finally responded to Rainbow Dash’s comment. “Well, Rainbow, even the most cheerful of people can become ruthless killers in the right circumstances.” he said with a deadly serious tone.

Rainbow Dash looked down with a frown, reluctantly agreeing with his logic, unable to find a coherent way to dispute it. She then looked back up, “Still, it’s disturbing that anypony could find it fun to kill somepony else.” Isamu nodded in agreement. Despite it being something one had to accept as real, death would never be a comfortable subject to most people.

Continuing on, Isamu told of how when Jak had gotten hurt during his escape, he found krimzon guard boxes filled with packages of green and dark eco. He was thankful for the green, but was hesitant when he looked at the dark. Ikari subtly influenced his mind by making him desire some dark eco. It only took Jak pointing his hand at it for the dark eco to break out of its packaging, fly up to the appendage, and be absorbed into his body. Surprisingly, there was no pain from it. The only thing that happened on the outside was a few sparks of the purplish eco jumping out of his hands for a second before receding. Inside, Jak could feel himself get slightly stronger.

The two friends continued on before they eventually got outside, where Daxter assured him that they would get Baron Praxis for what he did to him. After walking a short distance, an old man in blue robes, who introduced himself as Kor, stopped Jak and offered him help. However, Jak got angry at the man for randomly stopping him and decided to make the old codger useful by getting information from him. The furious man aggressively walked closer, causing Kor to back up, while Jak rudely asked for information on where exactly he was. Meanwhile, Daxter noticed a small green haired kid standing nearby, whom was looking a little scared at Jak’s sudden hostility. He decided to calm the kid, who seemed to be with Kor, down by apologizing and giving him the alibi that Jak was a novice when it came to conversing.

After the apology, Kor told Jak that the angry man was a “guest” of “his majesty” Baron Praxis, the ruler of Haven City. The only part of what the old man said that was new to Jak was the name of the city. He now had a name to go with this crappy place. Jak then told him that he had recently been a “guest” in the baron’s prison, spitting the word guest out like it was a piece of rotten meat. Kor melodramatically responded with the notion that it didn’t matter if one was imprisoned or free to roam the city, everyone was the Praxis’ prisoners.

Isamu’s audience was starting to dislike this baron more and more. If torturing Jak wasn’t enough, now they’re hearing that this Baron Praxis was a tyrant to his own citizens. Before the ponies and dragon could revel in their mutual dislike of this horrible ruler, Isamu continued his story with the encounter of patrolling guards confronting and threatening to kill Jak’s group just for being in that part of the city. Kor then told Jak that if he protected them, he would introduce him and his friend to somebody that could help them.

So, Jak did just that. The first one that ran up to him tried to smack Jak with his shock rod, but Jak ducked under it and punched the guard hard enough to dent his armor and double him over. Two guards came up and aimed their weapons at him to shoot a shock round, but Jak was too quick. One spin kick knocked the weapons out of both guards hands and before they could react, Jak grabbed the one on his left by the shoulders and threw him into the one on the opposite side, both of them flying into a wall. The guard with the dented armor had just gotten back up when Jak’s hands planted themselves on both sides of his head and forced him to take a knee to the face, cracking the front of the helmet. Jak then did a leg sweep and caught the guard by the head. He then proceeded to smash the man’s face into the ground.

The two guards that were thrown to the wall got back up and tried to rush him, but Jak heard their footsteps and jump tackled them from his crouched position. He then beat them senseless and after a few punches, grabbed their weapons and shocked them into unconsciousness. Throwing the weapon away, the violent hero turned to see a Krimzon dropship delivering more guards. Before Jak could act, Ikari’s voice rang through his head and caused a massive headache.

“Alright, you had your fun. NOW IT’S MY TURN!!!” Ikari yelled excitedly from inside Jak’s mind. He couldn’t wait to finally have his chance to tear these guards a new one.

In a split second, Jak transformed into his darker half for the second time, only this time, he let out a great roar as he did so, “RRAAAAAAAH!!!” It was a loud roar with an echo that could be heard over the nearby traffic and rattled the armor of the guards that had just departed from their transport.

“Ooo-hoohoo~! It’s flank kicking time!” Rainbow Dash said while grinning ear to ear after Isamu was done describing the roar.

And right she was, for the next scene that Isamu told was certainly violent. Though “flank kicking” was an understatement. It was more like a flank shredding. Jak, with Ikari partially in control, bounded from guard to guard, slicing through armor, skin, and bone. On the last downward strike of his claw swipe combo, the guard that would’ve received a chest slash to match his comrades tried to dodge the attack, but was too slow. Instead of receiving a wound to the torso, his right hand was cut off. The guard fell to the ground, clutching his bloody stump. Ikari decided that he could save that particular guard for after he checked to see if there were any survivors of his onslaught.

It turned out that there were. Two of the guards had wounds that were shallow enough to not be fatal by themselves, but the dark eco that was in their bodies would finish them off soon enough if they didn’t get some green eco soon. Unfortunately for them, the closest hospital was on the other side of the district and the closest eco demon was now five feet away. Both guards tried to raise their weapons, but the combination of a few bones being sliced through and the dark eco eating away at their insides made it nearly impossible to aim, much less lift their shock rods.

Ikari smiled at their futile attempt at a last stand and tackled both of them claws first, each dagger-like nail going into their necks. As he stared down at them, he angled their heads to stare directly at him while they choked to death on their own blood.

By the end of his telling of that massacre, Rainbow Dash’s smile had gone from excited, to strained, to a small frown. She thought that since Jak no longer had the element of surprise and that there were bigger numbers, the angry hero would have to settle for simply sending them packing with a beating instead of killing them. Like she said, she too would’ve gotten violent with those who would treat her so poorly, but killing struck her as too harsh. What Isamu described was even harsher than the prison break part. Hearing about how violently Ikari had dispatched with these krimzon guards made Rainbow feel conflicted. These krimzon guards needed to be taught a lesson, but she felt they didn’t really need to be killed. She wasn’t sure if she liked the fact that Jak was acting as judge, jury, and executioner with Ikari’s help.

Not noticing his pegasus friend’s expression, Isamu continued on. After the last two guards died, the dropship finally left. Just as he got up Ikari put his head in his hands in pain as he turned back into Jak, signaling him forcibly taking back control of his body. Daxter, seemingly not concerned that his friend had a head ache, opted to instead focus on how cool the previous event was and told him to do it again. Jak ignored his friend’s rudeness and voiced his thoughts on what just happened. That something “he” did had something to do with it and he was unable to control it. Ikari, at that time, was inside Jak’s subconscious with his arms crossed and feeling smug that not even this host of his would always be able to keep him bottled up. If Ikari wanted to be out, he would be out whether Jak wanted him to or not as long as his host was angry enough.

After that was done, Kor thanked them and told them that he needed to get the kid to safety. Before he could go, Daxter stopped him and asked what they should do. Kor told them about the rebel group called “The Underground” and their leader, “The Shadow”, where to find them, and to ask for Torn. After they parted ways, Jak immediately ran in the direction he was told and later found a parked zoomer which he then proceeded to steal for the sake of fast travel.

“HE DID WHAT!? HOW COULD HE DO THAT!?” yelled Twilight.

“What, you mean taking the zoomer?” asked Isamu. “What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong? WHAT’S WRONG!?” yelled Twilight again. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong! He stole somepony else’s zoomer! Granted, he killed some guards, but that was in self-defense. Here, he just up and stole a zoomer! He didn’t even ask the citizen that might’ve owned it.”

Isamu looked at Twilight and thought up an excuse. “Well, he needed to get there quick and without krimzon guards seeing him. He didn’t have a disguise so what better way to go around the city than being on a vehicle that would make you too fast to be readily recognized?” It wasn’t much of an excuse, but it was just about good enough for the outraged mare.

Twilight turned away reluctantly with a sour look, “Fine, I guess it wouldn’t do to be recognized and risk getting thrown back in prison.”

“That’s the spirit.” the angel said while ruffling her mane. Twilight straightened it, feeling annoyed at his actions but stayed calm nonetheless. Though she was mad that Jak would just steal, she still wanted to know what would become of the blonde hero by the end of this new adventure.

After she calmed down, Isamu continued. After avoiding guards patrolling the upper hover zones, Jak and Daxter finally found the area that was described to them; a dead end near the city wall. There were two people there a brunette man and a blonde woman. When he asked the woman where he could find Torn, said man approached with a sneer. After a rather rude introduction, Torn told him that if he and Daxter wanted in at the Underground, they needed to go and steal the Baron’s banner from a tower in a place called “Dead Town”

Fluttershy shivered in slight fear at the mention the name. “W-what kind of place is that?”

“Oh…it’s not much.” Isamu said sarcastically. “Just a destroyed part of Haven City filled with ruined buildings, toxic water, and two types of animals that would rather eat you than become your friends.” he finished as he leaned towards her. This didn’t do anything to quell her fears, but it didn’t build them up either. The place didn’t sound any worse than the Everfree Forest, minus the toxic water. Though as far as dangerous animals, the Everfree was ten times worse since it had more than two types. It also reminded Fluttershy and her friends of a larger version of the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters.

After his description, the tale of Jak’s first mission in this adventure began. The trail to the tower of which the banner sat upon was not much of a challenge. Like Isamu said, there were only two types of dangerous animals there. Frizards which, from their description, sounded like a hybrid of a frog and a lizard if the name hadn’t given it away, and blue-tongued skrats, whose tounge could launch out and sting anyone who got within ten feet with poison. To the ponies, these animals were small potatoes compared to the manticore they faced a few months ago. Even Fluttershy wasn’t that scared especially since she had a pet boa constrictor named Constrandra.

Jak’s path continued to be easy, killing a few frizards and skrats that tried to take a bite out of him. That was, until he got to a bridge leading to the tower, which fell apart from the middle outward the moment he set foot on it, forcing him to leap the rest of the way over. If there was one thing about those experiments that he liked, it was that it gave him a little extra boost in strength when not transformed. After jumping off of platforms that crumbled at the slightest touch, and swinging off of poles in ways that would make an Olympic gymnast jealous, both friends finally reached the top.

Rainbow Dash had a huge smile on her face to express how much she liked this part. She was an athlete and really in to danger, so hearing about death defying acrobatics was always fun for her to hear. The next part got her even more excited as Jak, not realizing how fragile the platform he was on might have been, slammed the pole of the banner down after wrenching it out of where it was stuck. This caused the entire area to crumble, sending the two heroes down into the murky water, a tarp saving them by launching them into the air and onto a rope that they grinded on right to a waiting Torn who watched in awe as the whole tower collapsed. After getting over his awe, Torn told them that they were in and all three went back to the hide out.

“Before you continue, how did that part of the city get destroyed?” asked Rarity as she took out an apple to snack on.

“You’ll see my little fashionista. All in due time.” said Isamu with a cheeky grin.

Isamu then told of the next mission they were sent on. Apparently, the Baron shut off the water to the slums just to kill Underground members and Jak needed to go to the pumping station and turn it back on. Isamu’s audience was understandable disgusted. How could anybody be so cruel? There were citizens in poverty living in the slums, but the Baron didn’t care. All he cared about was killing the Underground, despicable. While Jak was on this mission, he encountered, for the first time, metal heads. According to Isamu, these creatures were quadrupedal, scaly like reptiles, had very sharp teeth and claws, armor plating attached to their skin, and most prominent of all, had yellow glowing gems embedded in their skulls. There weren’t that many on the beach, where the entrance to the pumping station was located, nor were there many near the end of the trail. It was mostly the dangerous animals from Dead Town. Finally, they got to the valve to turn the water back on. Daxter tried to turn the crank, but it wouldn’t budge. Jak, meanwhile, was amused at his friend’s efforts to show him that he was strong. After Daxter’s second tug on the crank, Jak had enough and hit the pipe that it was connected to. This somehow opened the pipe above them and caused the crank to spin and launch the rodent into the metal tube. Isamu’s equine audience had the same surprised expression that Jak had had at that moment as Daxter was sent on a painful trip back to the entrance area, hitting each corner face first.

This was met with various winces and other expressions of empathetic pain. None more so than Rainbow Dash since she had had plenty of face plants in the past. However, those winces turned into amused smiles and giggling when it was told how Daxter got out. Jak had turned the valve at the end and as the pressure built up, Daxter came out bit by bit. First was his head, then his arms. He was then shot out of the pipe and laid on his back. Before Jak could say anything, Daxter told him to be quiet and that next time he would be turning the valve. He promptly fell back unconscious.

“Hahahaha!” Rainbow laughed. “He must’ve felt so stupid!”

“Shucks, Rainbow Dash. Are ya tellin us that ya haven’t done anythin’ just as foolish? Need I remind you of the dragon ya kicked in the face?” Applejack said in a smug tone.

“Ummm…uh, well.” Rainbow’s pride seemed to be too strong to let her admit that she had her stupid moments, so she grumbled incoherently.

“You’ll have to tell me about that some time, Miss Dash.” the angel said with a raised eyebrow and mischievous smirk.

After the rest of the mane 6 and Spike had a good laugh, they all continued to listen to the story. Before Jak was able to get back to the hideout, he felt a tug at the back of his mind. It lead him to some shack in the water slums, however, this was no ordinary house. It contained a precursor oracle who told him that the dark eco inside him would destroy his body and that only it could help him to control his powers, but only if he collected a certain amount of skull gems from his enemies, the metal heads.

“How revolting! That statue is asking for body parts in exchange for power! I don’t care what that oracle gave me, I would never do something so disgusting.” said Rarity.

“Why not, Rarity? I thought you liked gems.” said Pinkie while giving her an elbow nudge.

“Yes, but unlike skull gems, the gems that I adore come from the ground, not a living thing’s head. Could you imagine it? That would be like somepony coming and cutting off my horn!” This caused Twilight to involuntarily cringe and put her hooves over her own horn. For unicorns, their horns were not only what made them what they were but were also very sensitive to any sort of damage. Pain from an injury to one’s horn had the potential of knocking the unicorn out.

Isamu caught sight of Twilight covering her horn and made a funny connection. “Wait, a unicorn’s horn is pointy, sensitive, and hard as b…” when it clicked in his mind, a big toothy grin came over his face. “Oh my God. That’s…” he thought with amusement. “Pffffffftehehehehe!” he chortled. Twilight put her hooves down and stared at him inquisitively.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing, nothing. Nothing at all!” Isamu said, waving her off.

“Getting off the subject of dismembered horns, Jak’s next mission before he could see the shadow was to blow up a stockpile of explosives.”

According to him, Torn told Jak that there were “lots of Krimzon Guards and constant patrols” They expected Jak to have to sneak past guards that were…well, guarding the entrance in order to get in. However, not only were there no guards at the entrance, but the sliding doors opened up for him. To say that his audience was stunned would be an understatement. How stupid do you have to be not to lock the door on something important? Apparently you have to be as stupid as the Baron to do that. However, their forming opinions of the Baron being an idiot were dashed when they heard what was waiting for him in the first room.

“A freakin’ tank!?” Rainbow Dash said with her mouth agape. “Are you kidding me!? How the heck did Jak get out of that!?”

“Well, if you would let me tell the story, you would find out.” said Isamu with a deadpan.

Rainbow Dash smiled sheepishly and blushed in embarrassment. To which Isamu rolled his eyes before continuing.

The second Jak went through the opening on his left, the computer, which Isamu explained was basically like an artificial brain, said over the speakers that the blonde hero’s use of the door was unauthorized and that the tank would be activated. Jak ran for his life as any sane person would do. This was made harder, by having to jump over bottomless pits and dodge turret fire in addition to the tank’s fire that he had to dodge. Then, when it seemed to the ponies like it couldn’t get any worse for him, Isamu added that Jak had to break electrical tubing on raised platforms in order lower an electric fence and escape the war machine. All the while, the tank kept shooting at him.

Suffice it to say, Isamu’s audience was amazed that not only did Jak escape, but he did it without a single scratch.

Later on in the story, after Jak had beaten up all the guards that were unlucky enough to get in his way, he and Daxter finally reached the ammo storage area which also contained barrels of liquid eco. However, that didn’t seem important to him at that moment. For luck was on his side when he picked up a strange rectangular device that Daxter happily informed him was a security pass that would allow access to other parts of the city. This fortunate event, sadly, wasn’t meant to be cherished as a sound directed them over to a nearby grate which, when peered through, showed them guards giving metal heads eco as part of some sort of deal that Baron Praxis had made. Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up at this, the situation sounding pretty shady to them.

Jak too was interested, but had no time to contemplate what the scene he had just witnessed could mean as the nearby tank suddenly activated and gave chase. Fortunately, the computer that was controlling it was too stupid to not shoot the cooling system to the giant explosive in the center whenever Jak hid behind one. As such, once the last pipe of coolant was blasted apart, the computer informed everyone in the building that the temperature of the weapons was reaching what it called “critical overload” and advised everyone to evacuate. Coincidentally there was a door to the outside that just opened up. The demolition duo jumped out right as the room behind turned into an inferno, launching both heroes forward into a three story drop that both Jak and Daxter managed to survive without a single injury. How? Not even Isamu was sure, but that was beside the point. What really grabbed everyone’s attention was Pinkie Pie’s laughter.

“Pinkie, what’s so funny?” asked Fluttershy in her quiet voice. Despite the low volume, the pink party pony still heard and turned to her yellow friend with a giggle.

“He, he, he, oh Fluttershy! Don’t you get it? That meanie, Baron Praxis, was so silly in planning how to store his ammo that he authorized a tank to be operated just to get rid of one guy! HAHAHAHAHA!!!” she said with hysterical laughter.

Everyone else looked at each other for a second then joined in. She was right! That was pretty stupid of the baron to do. What an idiot. After the laughter died down, Ikari wiped a fake tear from his eye. “Heh, heh, heh.” He chuckled as he calmed down. Fluttershy noticed how Ikari had joined in and smiled up at him. Proud that he was showing signs of being somewhat more social. Ikari saw her look and tried to cover it up.

“‘cough, cough’ ahemm” he said into his hand.

The shy pegasus decided not to push the matter and settled for giving a sideways smirk to show that she saw through his horrible acting.

The story picked up again with the recount of Jak’s delivery mission to Krew. It was hard for Jak to get to the bar known as the “Hip Hog Heaven Saloon” with all of the guards chasing him. Despite this, he got the package to the bar and was stunned and disgusted to find that the bar owner that he was looking for was the fattest tub of lard he had ever seen. To the nausea of his audience, Isamu went into detail.

“Oh, God was this guy fat! Seriously, he had rolls upon rolls of fat rolling off of him. He needed a hover chair in order to move and could barely move his arms. The man had sweat and grease on his face. The only things skinny about him were somehow his legs, and those looked like fleshy twigs next to his girth! Don’t even get me started on what his arms looked like!”

“I…ugh ‘gulp’…think we get the idea.” said Rarity as she threw up in her mouth a little.

“Yeah, partner. That was…kinda disgustin.” said Applejack, looking more green than orange.

Pinkie seemed to be one of the few who wasn’t outright feeling queasy and instead just had widened eyes. “WOWIE! I’m glad I have a hyper metabolism! I wouldn’t be able to throw parties and have fun if I was that fat.” she said in thankfulness to her body’s ability to break down fat so quickly.

“Heh, yeah. Especially with how many cupcakes I’ve seen you eat this day alone.” said Isamu. He eyed the huge basket that was nearby which Pinkie had brought as an extra for herself after the break. It used to be full of the mini sweets, now a fourth of them were gone. Not the least bit ashamed of her eating habits, Pinkie showed how much she didn’t care by stuffing another cupcake in her mouth.

“So, now that his description is out of the way, how about I tell you what happened next?”

So, Jak, having found the guy who was said to have the info, demanded the information on the deal that the baron made with the metal heads, but Krew used one of his hired guns, Sig, a very tall dark skinned man in metal head themed armor, to distract the angry hero from the question by presenting him with a shiny new weapon called the Scatter Gun. This weapon shot red eco as wide angled waves at short distances.

At hearing what this weapon did, Twilight immediately added the item to the mental list of things that she wished she could study. A weapon that could shoot energy as an attack sounded a lot like the combat spells that unicorns had developed over the years.

After Jak got back from training with his new gun, Krew sent him to back up Sig at the pumping station while the tall warrior killed large metal heads with an impressive looking weapon called the Peace Maker. Krew apparently wanted Sig to kill metal heads and mount their…heads on the walls as trophies. One would think that this news would make the ponies and possibly only nonviolent dragon a little nauseous or just plain disturbed, but they weren’t. It really wasn’t surprising. They were just told about a man who was cruel enough to torture somepony for two years and runs his city as a tyrant, monsters that eat energy, and most recently, learned about a mystical device that asked for a specific body part from said monsters as payment for lessons in the hero’s newly acquired dark powers. Mounting the heads of vicious monsters in a bar to attract customers was pretty tame, all things considered.

During the tale of this mission, the light eco freak’s audience marveled at the power of the Peace Maker. For Rainbow Dash, the electrical orbs that the gun launched sounded very familiar to the lightning she could kick out of a storm cloud; except this had a lot better range and could be directed anywhere. Hearing about this weapon really struck a chord with her if her declaration of “Amazing!” was any indication.

After the mission, Jak realized that he had enough skull gems, so he visited the oracle, who shot dark eco into him. This somehow gave him a new power which Ikari at that time was very happy for. Though he had wished that the increase in power would also give him more power over the body, but he was happy with the next best thing. Anyway, the new power was the ability to perform a move called Dark Bomb, in which Jak in his dark form could punch the ground to send out a wave of dark eco.

Getting back to the Hip Hog, Jak received his next mission, which the ponies, Rarity especially, were repulsed by, for it was a mission to take out gun turrets in the sewers. Rarity, being the prim and proper pony that she was, summoned her fainting couch as the image of the heroic biped covered in sewage entered her mind while she dramatically fainted. The others didn’t fare much better. Except Applejack who was only mildly disgusted. Working on a farm wasn’t exactly a clean job. However, they did laugh at the fat jokes about Krew they were told that Daxter made.

Isamu continued, telling them that Jak gave an ultimatum. Unless Krew gave him info on why Baron Praxis was trading with the metal heads, he wouldn’t do this job for him. What Krew begrudgingly told the blonde/green hero induced anger in Rainbow and Applejack and shock in the others. The baron had cut a deal with the metal head leader. If he supplied them with eco, they would regularly attack the city just enough for the people to feel that they needed to rely on him for their continued safety. Applejack mumbled to herself about how much of a “dirty low down snake” this baron was and Rainbow gestured about as she described what she would like to do to somepony who could even think of such a messed up method of garnering loyalty.

The sewers sounded just like what the ponies and dragon thought, dark, dirty, and full of bodily waste. As Jak trekked, he came across the same creatures he saw in Dead Town and dodged the shots of the first turret before destroying it with one shot of his scatter gun. Continuing forward and turning on a light revealed three quadrupedal metal heads called grunts that turned and attacked, but they too fell to the might of the red eco powered weapon. After the second turret, the two friends tried to walk on a metal cat walk, but it immediately crumbled beneath their feet and they were forced to walk in the darkness below.

Finding and turning on another light switch revealed that the room they were in was full of Metal Heads. Fluttershy lowered her head in fear of what she might hear happened, but such worries were unwarranted. Jak immediately put away his gun and turned into Ikari who performed a Dark Bomb at point blank range of the first creature that got to him. The closest ones were either torn apart or vaporized by the initial blast and the furthest ones were slammed into the wall, dying do to the force of the attack and the overdose of dark eco they were given.

“Hoooo weee! Ah’d hate to get hit by one of those!” said Applejack, thankful that Fluttershy was the one providing the demon with a place to stay.

Jak later destroyed the last turret, got out of the sewers and headed back to the gun course to pick up the gun upgrade that he was promised. He then went back to Torn and received a mission to save the foreman of the Baron’s mining operations from the metal heads because said foreman was one of the underground’s best infromants. The place was crawling with metal heads. Not only were there the four legged grunts, but there were also small scorpion metal heads and insect like ones that Isamu called “Metal Jackets” because of their dark eco shooting stingers. When the two friends got to where the foreman, Vin, was hiding, Jak and Daxter nearly got their heads shot off when they opened the door. The human on the other side was freaking out and constantly shooting, thinking that the blonde human and rodent were enemies. When he was finally convinced, they all went through the portal back to the city.

After they got back, Vin told them about the metal head eggs that were draining the shield wall of its power. The paranoid foreman told Jak where the eggs were and how to warp there with the warp gate. In this mission, Jak destroyed a lot of eggs with turret fire. Fluttershy was a little saddened at hearing about what was essentially infanticide, even though these were baby monsters. The fact that she was an animal caretaker and the element of kindness caused her to feel at least a little bit of sorrow for all creatures who died, even the scariest of them. Also on this mission, Jak encountered spinning bladed metal heads, flying metal heads with guns for legs, and metal heads with arm mounted guns and shields. It was a harrowing task, but he accomplished it.

When he received the mission to go to the racing garage and sign up for this one woman’s racing team, Isamu mentioned a few things on the contract that Krew signed for them and Pinkie yelled out “GAME RIGHTS!?” just like Daxter had, causing everypony to look at her like she was weird, but then shrug it off as Pinkie being Pinkie. After meeting the racing client and trying the jetboard, which Rainbow Dash wished she had, Jak asked about getting into the palace to see the Baron, which the woman behind the curtain angrily told them how to get up there in exchange for leaving her alone. Needless to say, Isamu’s audience didn’t like how she was treating the hero after only just meeting him.

The next two missions were pretty interesting. The first had the two friends meet and protect Ashelin, a friend of Torn’s, which led to the next one in which they met a blind fortune teller named Onin, who had an interpreter named Pecker, whose name Pinkie laughed at, for obvious reasons. The purpose of meeting Onin was to ask about the Seal of the House of Mar and the tomb that was connected to it, which Isamu drew an illustration of in the dirt.

“Hey, wait a second, I know that symbol!” said Twilight pointing at the picture.

The rest of the group looked at her with questioning faces before Rainbow Dash spoke up. “What are you talking about, Twilight?

Twilight gestured to the dirt drawing before putting her hoof down. “I’ve seen that symbol before in books about eastern pony philosophies. That symbol represents balance in Maoism whose followers believe that there is a duality of opposites in nearly everything of the universe and it’s this balance of these dualities that create…harmony.” Twilight looked with widened eyes at both Ikari then Isamu’s equally surprised faces.

“That’s just weird.” said Isamu.

Shaking her head to clear it, Twilight continued. “Anyway, in official illustrations, the symbol, known as Yin and Yang has a white side with a black spot and a black side with a white spot and is shaped just like the picture Isamu drew.”

Fluttershy tilted her head at this. “But…how can that be? This ‘House of Mar’ is from another planet. How could the symbol for that family be the same as the symbol for one of our planet’s philosophies?”

Twilight put on a determined look before responding. “I don’t know, Fluttershy, but I bet with some extensive research into Equestria’s past, we can find out exactly why.” Her face softened a bit and formed a small smile as she looked back at their angelic story teller. “But for now, I think we’d all like to hear more of your story Isamu.”

Returning the smile, Isamu turned to the rest of his audience to continue.

Pecker interpreted Onin’s sign language. Apparently, in order to get answers about the seal and the tomb of Mar, Jak had to go to the precursor mountain temple and get three artifacts from it. So that’s what Jak and Daxter did. However, what Pecker didn’t say was what obstacles were barricading each artifact.

The first, a blue eco crystal fixed to what looked like a torch made of precursor metal, was guarded by, surprisingly, metal heads; which confused the mane 6 since, as they recalled, the oracle said that the metal heads were the sworn enemies of the precursors. So they being the ones who guarded the temple seemed strange. Interestingly enough, the description of two of the bigger metal heads that guarded them reminded Twilight of rhinos. What also stalled Jak’s progress was a block puzzle that Jak had to solve while being mere inches above a pool of dark eco. In order to solve it, Jak had to punch the blocks and with each hit, part of the blocks unfolded as they rotated in the direction of which they were hit. Rainbow especially liked this part of the story since even though it involved a lame puzzle, it was made cooler with the added danger of it hovering over dark eco and Jak solved it with his fists.

The next artifact was the Precursor Lens, which was guarded not only by another rhino metal head, but also a new type of metal head called a centurion. This metal head had both a shield and a dark eco gun for an arm. Twilight was fascinated by this since it seemed that metal heads could use eco to do similar things to unicorn spells.

After killing a couple more of the shield metal heads, Jak and Daxter passed over this natural bridge with pieces of precursor metal stuck in them. The second they passed over, the pieces of metal revealed themselves to be floating platforms as they destroyed the bridge when they broke free. Using them to get to the next area, Jak killed another group of metal head grunts and another one with a shield, the demolition duo finally got to the lens. However, Jak couldn’t figure out how to get it down from the light it was affixed to. Daxter walked into the center and immediately smelled something cooking. When he noticed the smoke, Daxter looked behind himself to find that the tip of his tail was on fire and promptly freaked out by running all everywhere except for the pool of water that was just five yards away.

Some of the mares were shocked at what happened and felt a little sorry for Daxter’s predicament. Especially Fluttershy, who had her hooves covering her mouth and eyes widened to dinner plate size. Rainbow, on the other hoof, was biting her lower lip, trying not to laugh. While the situation of one’s tail being burnt sounded painful and shouldn’t be laughed at, she couldn’t deny that the image of a small rodent freaking out and running around had some slapstick value to it. Besides, there was a body of water nearby. So it wasn’t like he was in any danger of his tail being completely burned off.

And she was proven right; for after a few seconds of Daxter running, he accidentally hit a switch that caused the lens to descend from the light above. Shortly after Jak caught it, the blonde hero looked down to see Daxter collapsed at his feet, sighing in relief that his tail had finally been put out. Though the hero wasn’t exactly sure how since Daxter didn’t look wet like he had jumped into the water. How the orange rodent’s tail was put out would remain a mystery.

The third and final artifact was the precursor gear which was guarded by, you guessed it, more metal heads. However, just like the other two artifacts, this one had an obstacle that made the challenge of getting it unique. This artifact’s obstacle was an avalanche of rocks that seemed to be never ending. Jak had to climb up the steep passage all while avoiding the falling rocks. Strangely enough, throughout this whole mission, there were krimzon guard crates scattered all over the place that provided him ammo and green eco and it was no different here as every now and then, Jak found a crate with a case of green eco. This was just what the doctor ordered as earlier in the climb, the blonde hero wasn’t fast enough to get behind cover; and as a result, took a hard blow to his right hand and fore arm that shattered the hand and gave his forearm a compound fracture. Thankfully, Jak was somewhat skilled in channeling eco and was able to heal his arm up in seconds, though it was still pretty sore. It didn’t matter in the slightest to him. Once a person goes through getting massive amounts of dark eco pumped into them, all other pain feels like a paper cut.

When they eventually got to the top, it was only a few hops across floating platforms before Jak and Daxter reached the resting place of the final artifact. It floated near the bottom of a mysterious and very complex looking contraption. Daxter, figuring that it wouldn’t hurt anything, walked over and swiped the gear from its spot in the machine. As he walked away, Daxter remarked that no one would know they were there…as the machine fell apart as a result of the gear being taken. Jak was about to tell him off for how wrong his friend was, but stopped and just let it go when he saw a large piece roll by.

Twilight face hoofed at Daxter’s foolishness. “Of course he would do that.” She then looked to Isamu. “Nothing catastrophic happened when the machine fell apart, right?”

“No, not really. Nothing besides a huge mess of precursor metal. As far as I can tell, it might’ve just been a piece of precursor art. It seemed to have as much practical use as one.”

Rarity’s attention was immediately drawn to this. “Hmmm. That would be interesting if your theory was proven true, quite interesting indeed. Over the course of this whole story, I was lead to believe that the precursors were mostly about practicality and barely had any interest in aesthetics. It would certainly add depth to the creators of your world.”

Isamu shrugged. “Well, unfortunately, that’s all we have to go on since all the other precursor made machines that Jak encountered had apparent practical purposes. Unlike that machine that which was seemingly just there to be looked at.”

Rarity in a ‘rare’ moment of not being overly dramatic, didn’t appear very distraught. In fact, she returned Isamu’s shrug with one of her own. “Ah, well. I suppose it’s not worth being too bent out of shape over. Besides, the fact that the precursors could make worlds with their amazing machines already gives them a monumental amount of intrigue. That, and it must have taken some level of creativity to make a whole planet, so I’m not entirely disappointed.”

Isamu nodded at her good way of looking at the situation then continued the story.

After returning to Onin with the artifacts, Jak decided to try to get into the palace. The first step for getting into the palace was to get the elevator for one of the support towers moving. For that, they talked to Vin who, after some reverse psychology, started rambling about how he would get the elevator running while doing exactly that. To Isamu the funniest thing about this part of his story telling was not Vin’s rambling, but the fact that Twilight asked the blue angel if he could repeat all of the scientific jargon that Vin had uttered. She even took out her note pad and quill to jot them down. She was disappointed to learn that since Jak couldn’t keep up with what Vin was saying, Isamu couldn’t either and thus couldn’t relay what the foreman said.

“Yet another scientific mystery about his world that will be really hard to solve without something tangible to study.” the bookworm thought bitterly.

After turning on the power boxes, Jak got up to the palace, which was a perilous climb with lots of traps, and eavesdropped on a conversation that Praxis and Errol were having with the metal head leader via hologram chat. This form of communication reminded Twilight of a new spell she heard about that unicorn scientists were working on. After the hologram disappeared with a threat to the city being made, Errol urged Praxis to let him lead an assault on the metal head nest. To which the Baron called it a foolish plan and went over what he immediately wanted done.

During these orders, Jak and Daxter learned that Ashelin was the baron’s daughter and that the true heir to the throne was a child. If Isamu didn’t have his audience’s attention before, he sure did now. The news of Ashelin being the Baron’s daughter was shocking to say the least. The very tyrant who the underground was fighting against didn’t even have the complete loyalty of his daughter, Rarity having the more outspoken reaction amongst her wide eyed friends.

“Oh-hoho, oh my!” she giggled while closing her eyes in mirth. She opened them before continuing. “Now that is certainly embarrassing. Not only does Baron Praxis fail as a ruler, but also as a father, if Ashelin’s cooperation with his enemies is any indication.” by the end, she looked to be on the verge of laughing hysterically. Her friends just looked at her with dropped jaws for a moment before Rainbow spoke up.

“Wow, Rarity. That’s harsh.” she said, stunned by how mean the passive aggressive unicorn sounded.

Rarity turned to her polychromatic friend with a glare. “Well excuse me for not having sympathy for a horrible monster who would torture such a great stallion…er, man?” Isamu nodded “...yes man, a great man like Jak.”

Isamu rushed to put out the flames of what appeared to be a growing argument. “Whoa, Rarity. No one’s faulting you for feeling angry at Praxis. Right, Rainbow?” he said, turning to the mare with a pointed look.

“Uh, right.” she said, scratching the back of her head.

Hearing this, he smiled. “Good, now let’s get to an epic fight!”

The battle that he told certainly was epic. A few steps away from the window of which they eavesdropped, Jak and Daxter were confronted by the baron who was piloting a giant jet propelled octopus mech. He shot red eco bullets at the two heroes, but they were able to dodge. Jak pulled out his blaster weapon and fired at the shield around the machine, weakening it slightly. After it was done shooting, Praxis flew it over to a recharge station to restore his defenses. Isamu then explained that this was due to the major design flaw of the mech’s weapons system draining power directly from the shields, a flaw that made Twilight Sparkle wonder how dumb the baron’s scientists were to think that a machine with such a glaring design flaw was combat ready.

After this thought, Twilight refocused her attention on Isamu’s story. Currently, Isamu was telling them how Jak dodged the bullets and was able to shoot the mech enough times to cause it to spin out of control and break down the electro-fence as it flew to the next area. In that next area, Praxis switched up his strategy and used missiles, which Isamu explained were like fireworks, but they were so slow that Jak could easily dodge them. What’s more, they weren’t even homing missiles, which Isamu explained were basically like fireworks that could follow you.

‘Exactly how was this guy a threat?’ thought Twilight before facehoofing. When she heard about the mini fire tornadoes however, her attitude changed. ‘Never mind’ she thought with widened eyes. The baron’s third attack sounded exactly like one of the advanced pyromancy spells she had read about.

Back to the story, Jak had ran out of yellow ammo and turned into Ikari. With one dark bomb, Baron Praxis was forced to hit the eject button before the rest of the mech exploded. Before flying away the baron was telling Jak that the dark powers he was given wouldn’t protect him forever. He also said-

“Since he made him he could destroy him, right? Then he said that they would meet again soon, right?” said Spike, somehow guessing exactly what Isamu was about to tell them.

Staring at his young dragon friend with widened eyes, Isamu responded. “How did you know that?”

Spike rolled his eyes while smirking before answering. “Oh, please! Do you know how many times I’ve read that kind of line in a Marevel or Investigator comic? Mane-iac, Dr. Tundra, the Green Gargoyle, and many more villains give that same silly defeat speech about how they’ll get the heroes next time. They’re always so sure of themselves and then the heroes show how full of it the villains are by beating them again. The funny thing is, they say that stuff no matter how many times they’re beaten.” Spike chuckled before continuing. “Trust me, a lot of villains in comics give the post-defeat speech. In fact, what the baron said reminds me of that one fight between Saddle Rager and The Emperor, one of the villains from her solo-comic. He claimed that he gave Saddle Rager her powers too.”

The radii of Isamu’s eyes had gotten bigger by the time Spike was done. It was astounding how similar the scenario he was talking about was to the young drake’s comic books. He then looked at the rest of his audience. “Huh…I learn something new every day I’m out of the literal stony lonesome.” After he shrugged, the story went on.

Author's Note

This is just something to tide you guys over until I'm finished with the rest. Sorry for the super long wait. I had college stuff to do and I've recently thought up a new crossover fic. No, it won't be a displaced story. I want to get the first chapter out before the idea goes away. Here's a hint on the premise.

Chrysalis and her forces shall route when they hear his shout, the black bug's lies will be silenced forever and then....true love will be free to flourish!

Tell me what you guys think of this chapter and the crossover that I plan on writing please.

Keep your eyes on the look out for my next crossover and also an idea I came up with for an original character that, surprisingly, was inspired by a project I was doing for my digital sculpting class. Stay tuned for that too.