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sonicringnoise · 12 days ago

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Surprise Sunday Snippet (Part 2)

Continued from HERE (long long post lol)

Nobody ever checked the rooftops. Jak allowed himself a sharp grin as he watched Wastelanders hurrying down the street. Guarding Damas, if he were to guess. That'd slow him down.

Perfect.

He took a running start, and launched to the next roof. Daxter muffled a scream in Jak’s scarf and hung on for dear life.

"Why are we doing this again?!" he hissed.

"Tactics."

Jak dropped to slide under a billboard, popped back up and kept running.

"I'm going to find every passage in and out of this hellhole. And then thats the end of the metalhead problem, and we can breathe for once."

"Uh-huh." Daxter ducked instinctively when Jak used a support beam like a parallel bar and swung down to a fire escape. "And the fact that King Scaryman won last time doesn't worry us because-?"

"That was a fluke!"

Jak dropped to the street. Almost to the stadium.

"I had to swim! It slowed me down!"

Daxter wasn't so sure about that.

And it turned out he was right to be skeptical of their chances. A left turn was blocked by two Wastelanders who spotted them and raised an alarmed shout. When Jak backtracked, there were Wastelanders to the right as well. Jak cursed and kept going straight. That wasn't as efficient a road: too narrow, no alleys to turn off into if he needed a quick escape. Keira's garage was at the complete opposite end of the row!

And then Damas dropped from nowhere to land in front of him, blocking their path.

He'd come from overhead. The stadium.

"Frithrottit," Jak muttered under his breath as he skidded to a halt.

"I believe this is the end of the road, son." Damas’s smile had no business being that ominous.

"I told you. I know every passage in the city."

Armored feet running up behind them made Jak whirl on instinct, ready for a fight. Instead of KG, he saw the Wastelanders from earlier, out of breath and leaning on their gunstaffs.

"Can you-" puffed the woman at the front, "Can you guys just go to a gym like normal city folk?"

"That would rather defeat the purpose of the exercise," Damas replied with an amused tilt of his brow.

"Dear Volcan just take the kid fishing or something! The air here is way too polluted for running!"

Damas snorted. "I'll warn you next time."

Then he folded his hands behind his back and turned an expectant look on Jak and Daxter. The boy made a frustrated growl, but he had set the rules and he couldn't change them now. Scowling a little, Jak raised his hands in defeat.

"Fine, where do you want to talk?"

It was probably for the best that he didn't see the knowing grins his petulant tone caused behind him.

"Bleachers seems open enough," Damas offered. "You'll be able to see anyone coming in advance."

Jak paused. Damas had thought ahead about the few triggers he'd learned about so far. He'd gotten used to that from the Morgues, but no one else. His scowl softened into more of a thoughtful frown, and he studied Damas for a moment as though he were a puzzle.

"...okay," he said after a moment.

It was strange to be in the stands rather than on the track. Jak followed Damas with his hands in his pockets, glancing around periodically. There weren't any guards up here. No civilians noticeable either.

Damas took a seat in one of the rows and glanced expectantly at Jak and Daxter. He didn't seem too surprised when Jak chose a row slightly above his.

"Alright," Damas said, "We have...an hour-ish. Any questions you've got, I'll do my best to answer succinctly."

Jak blinked.

"Wait, I'm asking the questions?"

That wasn't how he'd expected this to go. He'd figured losing the race would mean being subjected to all manner of questions about his existence and what had happened to him.

Damas folded his arms comfortably and gave a smile that didn't really reach his eyes.

"We're having a conversation, not an interrogation. That does tend to imply more than one party talking."

"Oh."

Suddenly a little sheepish, Jak pondered his options.

"Y'know what, fair enough."

(Four days after this)

The mock hunt was a little different this time. Not a race this time, hunter and quarry. Jak and Daxter got fifteen minutes' headstart, but after that, the gloves were off. Jak knew two new secret passages in Haven. Damas, he unfortunately had to concede, knew all of them.

Jak kicked the zoomer into high gear and cut a turn much too tight. Daxter dug his claws into Jak's shoulder with a high-pitched yelp.

"I love you, pal, but next time you wanna include me in some father-son bonding, don't!"

Jak gritted his teeth. "He's not my-"

Daxter rapped on the side of his head with tiny knuckles.

"Denial Town, paging Denial Town, please extradite Jak the Skeptic."

He avoided Jak's poorly-aimed smack by scurrying to the other shoulder.

"Pal, you got the same scowl, first off. He's definitely proved he used to be head honcho around here-"

"So? It doesn't make him my father!" Jak shot through the Industrial Sector before doubling back up another street. "He could be a- a cousin or something, we don't know!"

"Dude. You just found out you still got kinfolk and you're hoping you don't? I don't get it."

Jak set the zoomer on a straight shot down an alley and leaped off the back of it to a fire escape. He didn't answer Daxter for several minutes, hopping roof to roof. After taking a moment to catch his breath behind a neon sign, he couldn't avoid the flat stare anymore.

"Okay, okay-! Look, the only- the only fathers I've ever seen were Samos, Praxis, and Bruno. The only one who I still trust is the baker, man. I don't know where this guy is gonna fall on that line."

Daxter considered this.

"...the old lady used ta nanny Spikes or somethin', right? You said he and baker-man both mind their p's and q's around her. So he's got that goin' for him at least."

"Yeah, but even you mind your p's and q's around Abuela," Jak argued, "And don't call her "old lady", I swear she has ears everywhere."

He knew he was in denial. But he couldn't let go yet. Jak had spent the last two and a half years being betrayed by nearly every authority figure in his life. The Morgues didn't count, they didn't try to be any kind of authority. Sig didn't count either, he was just Sig! But this guy, this guy was a warlord. Formerly king of Haven. Jak didn't want to let his guard down and get dragged right back into the frontlines because of "mystical whoo crap", as Pecker put it.

Damas had been putting in the work to make up for their...tense...first impressions, Jak could give him that. And he'd had all the posters requesting information on his whereabouts taken down, which took a lot of the pressure off Jak. But after Kor -- after Krew and Torn and Samos -- he just wasn't ready to believe the man had nothing to hide. Jak didn't mind being more friendly with him, he would go as far as to say he was disappointed when they weren't able to do their mock hunts. But he wasn't ready to acknowledge that he might have a father when he had only a vague idea of what fathers were supposed to be like.

"Okay, we're cutting through the Tomb next. He hasn't come in there yet." Jak glanced back over his shoulder and cursed. "Gah! Rot, how'd he catch up?!"

Damas was already at the far end of the street, walking with the confidence of a man who knew exactly where they were.

Maybe the Tomb wasn't a good idea. If Damas caught up enough to see them go through the hold Praxis smashed into the back, he'd find the base camp the two had made in the music puzzle chamber.

"Crap. Uh-"

Jak looked around.

"Skip the Tomb. Stadium."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Keira had been doing her best to stay out of all this....this.

When Ashelin asked if she'd seen Jak since the Nest was destroyed, she shrugged and said she'd left before he did.

When her father asked her to contact Jak, she shrugged and said he wasn't answering his talk-box.

Both of these things were true. But she didn't mention that she knew they'd swapped talk-boxes with a random stranger to throw the Underground off their scent.

When Wastelanders showed up to ask if she knew where Samos was, she shrugged and asked if they could tell him to come by her apartment and pick up some of her tools.

They knew she was dodging questions, but they left her alone. Mostly.

They had been hanging around her stadium a lot lately, which made testing her racing zoomers a little awkward. Especially when they wanted to ask a million questions about the specs after she was done. Sometimes in the middle of fending off nosy race enthusiasts, Keira would glimpse Jak booking it down an alley or through the upper bleachers with that warlord from the news either a little ahead of him, or close on his heels. She didn't know what that was about, but no one was shooting and no one was using a dark eco form, so she assumed it was reasonably logical.

That was a lie.

Keira was one of the Sandover Trio and she knew well and good that not one of them did things because they were reasonable or logical.

Which was why she supposed she wasn't terribly surprised when Jak appeared, darting into her garage like the devil was after him.

Keira immediately took exception to being involved in...whatever Jak had been up to since going to ground.

"Noooope nope. Don't you drag me into this."

Jak gave her the pleading look that used to work when they were little.

"Come on, just for a minute?"

Keira eyed him, then Daxter, with increasing skepticism. She'd hidden them from KG in her garage before, no regrets. But there was usually some level of collateral damage.

"Uh-huh," she drawled. "And then you're gonna bust my tool bench again?"

Jak wilted comically.

"That was one time! You said you weren't mad anymore!"

His defense was cut short with a squeak as he went ducking behind the curtain. Unsurprisingly, the Wastelanders showed up not even a minute later with the warlord her dad was so scared of. Damas, she thought Tess called him. He was an intimidating sight to be sure, but his deadly look was tempered considerably by the humor crinkling the corners of his eyes.

"Good afternoon," he said, eyes twinkling.

"I don't suppose you've seen my son today?"

Oh for Precursors' sake. Keira felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. She pasted on her Customer Service Smile anyway.

"And that would be...?"

The look of amusement did not fade. If anything, he looked and sounded closer to laughter than before as he tilted his head, trying to see around her.

"You would know him as Jak."

I'm gonna kill him.

Keira inhaled slowly with a marvelous affectation of calm, and smiled brightly.

"...excuse me for a second."

The Wastelanders stood at the door of her garage, exchanging looks ranging from knowing to alarmed when the garage suddenly rang with the girl's shout.

"What the Frith, Jak! You didn't tell me the guy was your dad!"

Immediately, the boy in question yelped in palpable offense.

"DUDE!"

"Not cool, Kee!" Daxter's voice echoed after him, "You can't throw a guy under the zoomer like that!

Damas broke into a laugh that wasn't nearly as menacing as his appearance would suggest.

"Oh, there he is."

He leaned further into the garage.

"Found you, Jak."

"Doesn't count! Keira sold me out!" Jak shouted back.

"And you have to catch me, not find me!"

"Still finding every possible loophole," Damas scoffed. "Well that hasn't changed from when you were little."

He turned to Keira with a conciliatory half bow. "May I?"

Keira stepped aside and shrugged. "Don't touch my tools or my gear. You break it, you bought it. Ask Jak."

"It was one time!" Jak protested, but the decreased vehemence suggested he was embarrassed about it.

#jak and daxter #keira is a good friend #she'll hide you from the cops but when dad shows up you gotta go

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sonicringnoise · 12 days ago

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Surprise Snippet Sunday (Part One)

(Father's Day silliness. For context, this comes from an au I haven't posted, where Spargus invaded Haven at the end of Jak 2. Someone tipped off Damas about the time loop, but they'd initially expected Jak to be older because he got through the Tomb. First face-to-face meeting didn't go over well, Jak just came off a week of 80% of the adults in his life betraying him. Also features @sparguscityangel 's character, Ru (first seen in Over Haven's Wall) and her family, who Jak crashes with sometimes because Abuela said he wasn't going to stay outside and Abuela is Always Right)

(Ru and Jak have encountered Damas in the boiler room of the old Westside Hotel, working with Vin to restore water filters in the slums)

Damas shifted on the ladder and looked down at the computer.

"Alright, Vin. Let's see if that's got it."

Under his breath he muttered,

"And if it didn't, I have an excuse to stay down here longer."

"You need an excuse?" asked Jak incredulously.

"Kid-" Damas made a face and corrected himself. "Jak, I either fix something or go kill something, and the latter is not conducive to relief efforts."

"How long are your people going to be here?"

Jak wondered if he needed to start planning for when the Wastelanders left and there was no one to keep these changes from coming undone.

"We stay," Damas quietly replied, "until I feel I can trust this territory with a regent. I stay until I am able to leave this place with my son."

Uncomfortable, Jak pushed his hood back and rubbed his face.

"Look-"

Why couldn't he have had Daxter here? Daxter would've known what to say.

"I...don't know you. It's not like...your fault, but-"

This was a strange concession to make, and this warlord probably wouldn't appreciate it if he knew Jak was doing it out of pity.

"Man, I can't even be in rooms without windows too long before I have to run. Gonna be a while before new faces stop making me nervous."

Damas immediately clocked a very important detail in the confession.

"You're not going to be in here long, are you?"

Jak tried to ignore that undercurrent of pain in the man's voice. The guilt swam up from the depths of his mind, ready to sink its claws into handholds long drilled into place by Samos. The need to reassure an adult, be their protector. Sacrifice his own feelings of security or mental health to spare the feelings of someone older.

Part of him was trying to tell him to stay. To give up and let this stranger tell him what to do because that's what heros did, they listened to their elders.

Jak wasn't that obedient little kid anymore. He was his own man, and even if he felt bad for Sig's friend, he wasn't going to set himself on fire to keep a stranger warm. Not anymore.

"Yeah, this room's...not great." Jak shrugged. "Also me and Ru were kind of trying to get some food when your buddies showed up, so."

Damas grimaced. "I apologize. And I'm...sorry about the ambush. Before, I mean. Sig was near frantic by that point."

"Okay yeah, you know what," Jak frowned. "What was all that with "training" and "Federation law" or whatever it was you said?"

Damas leaned over the ladder, seeming to ignore Jak's question at first.

"Well, Vin?"

"Not operating at 100%, but sediment levels are 90% lower than before!" the data ghost called happily.

"Well, that's one thing to go right today, at least," Damas remarked. He groaned and climbed down the ladder before looking up at Jak.

"That is a...difficult thing to explain without getting long-winded, I'm afraid. Perhaps the next time I see you, circumstances will be more accommodating for longer conversations."

The next time.

He wasn't going to stop Jak from leaving.

Part surrender, part leap of faith.

And partly a recognition of a need Jak had expressed.

"Uh...okay." Jak slid down off the pipes and side stepped to Ru. He firmly ignored the raised eyebrow he got when he laced his fingers through hers.

"Oh- wait!"

Damas held up a hand suddenly.

"There was a reason I still had people looking for you-"

He knelt to poke around in a shadowy recess beneath the pipes a moment before coming up with a familiar weapon.

"Sig wasn't fast enough to give this back to you that night -- and I was in no state to even remember it existed. But you shouldn't be tearing around a city like this unarmed."

Jak blinked. All that fuss and chasing...to give him his gun back?

As though he were reading Jak's thoughts, Damas grimaced and held the gun out, stock first.

"To a Wastelander, your weapon is an extension of yourself. A new module reflects a new skill learned or a new experience survived."

The grimace became a bittersweet smile.

"You've...already earned all three of the traditional ones. Says a lot about you."

"Says I have to fight a lot," Jak grumbled.

"And," Damas replied, "it tells me that you're a survivor. A weapon like this isn't the kind of thing you trust to a random individual to take back to its owner. It needed to be done in-person."

"You could've just said that," Jak pointed out. It was hypocritical, and he knew it. He was no paragon of "talk before you act" himself.

Damas rubbed his forehead -- wincing slightly when he touched the red spot where he'd slammed into the pipe. "If I may speak in my own defense," he said with the slightest touch of humor, "there has been a lot going on."

Jak was quiet for several uncomfortable seconds, just staring at him. Then he shrugged and took the gun back.

"Fair enough, I guess."

Damas watched them start to look for the path back to the door with a barely disguised sadness.

"Be-"

Jak turned his head with a questioning look, and Damas winced.

"Be careful out there. Stay out of the Fortress area."

"I'm fine." Jak squeezed Ru's hand a little tighter. "I know every street and passage in this hellhole. They've never caught me yet."

"You don't know every passage," Damas scoffed, and a bit of the sadness left him.

"And I suppose you do," Jak retorted, rather rashly. The grin he got in response confirmed it.

"No you don't. City's changed," he argued.

Damas’s grin got wider. "I can get to the Underport without going through the flooded section."

"Bull!" Jak snorted.

Now the man was starting to remind him of Sig a little more. There were worse things.

Damas studied him for a second, then muffled a snort.

"Tell you what, kid: pick a day. You beat me to the Underport, I have to show you the secret way in and out. If I beat you, you have to explain the orange guy."

"Wh- Daxter?"

Damas turned slightly, and Jak and Ru just barely heard him mutter, "I knew his name wasn't Chili!"

Ru and Jak exchanged glances. Well, he wasn't stopping them. And he was letting Jak set the terms for their next encounter. That was more than most people gave him.

"Alright, fine." Jak folded his arms and raised his chin. "When I pick a day, you'll know."

"And how, exactly, will I know?"

This time it was Jak who had the ominous grin. One Samos and Torn had long since learned to fear.

"Trust me. You'll know."

#jak & daxter #dadmas #THEY'RE SO AWKWARD I LOVE IT #damas referring to daxter as “the orange guy” is peak

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sonicringnoise · 13 days ago

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light Jak

#jak 3 #light jak my beloved #absolutely the coolest design

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sonicringnoise · 19 days ago

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I just finished another playthrough of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (help me) and HAD to finally draw my favorite dark eco queen. Maia is truly a woman who steps on people's throats.

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sonicringnoise · 20 days ago

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I headcanon Precursors as a species all having one main genotype, but a very wide array of phenotypes to account for all the different planets and environments they end up in.

Wilder environment, need for speed and being small enough to hide? Ottsel, Muse, or bird shape. Muse Precursor: sheer evil 🤣

More sentient species around? Copycat shapes that don't always work out identically.

because the adorable water buffalo/goat Proto Jak should not be forgotten I am now pretending that's a young Precursor who didn't mimic hu'mens super well and Absolutely Does Not Care

I usually imagine them as monotremes so that both the ottsels and the Precursor egg make sense without getting into a life cycle as complicated and inefficient as a Xenomorph's (I love them, but why is there even a franchise, xenomorph propagation is so inefficient they should've gone extinct by the second movie I swear)

But,

Hear me out,

If some of them were also pseudo-marsupials.

Like Australian possums, and sugar gliders, and koalas, except young hatch from eggs.

Because first of all, arboreal ottsels sound both cute and menacing.

Second, baby ottsel hanging onto its parent's back in a tree and doing the Judgmental Baby Face at someone.

Also!

What if the true root of the Precursor/Hora Quan conflict didn't originate as some cataclysmic battle of good and evil, but merely two similar species competing for resources?

Metalheads all belong to one hive, presumably all the same genotype, but have an extremely diverse set of phenotypes. They hatch from eggs. More than one of them can take the appearance of other species in order to camouflage.

What if the earliest form of the feud boiled down to

"i need this eco to lay my eggs and hatch my hive"

"No, *I* need this eco to lay my eggs and feed my children"

The Hora Quan have the advantage of a hive mentality, but the Precursors have the advantage of time energy.

Actually I really like the idea of their species functioning extremely similarly. It's just that one set is techno-organic, and the other is more like eco-organic. Which...is...deeply unfortunate when the former species consumes eco.

Also still emotional about the Baby Precursor in Jak 2 (no I am not accepting that as a "hologram", it contradicts what was already established by Kor and the Tomb).

This thing is the first young member of their species in centuries, has some level of hive memory of their people, generations of knowledge, and the very first thing they do is try to comfort Jak. There are scholars there that revere them as a deity, studied them their whole life, and the only thing the Precursor cares about is telling Jak "there's still light in you, it's going to be okay" 😭

#jak and daxter #then i propose a terrible headcannon #the lurker shark is a precursor #now you might be thinking that's very stupid #and you're right! it is

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sonicringnoise · 21 days ago

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I haven’t written anything Jak and Daxter-related in, oh… twenty years? But there’s been an idea in the back of my head for all that time, and I’m certain I can still write all those characters spot-on.

I need to just write it, I think. For old time’s sake.

#jak and daxter #jooooiiiinnnn uuuussss #dooooo iiiittttt

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sonicringnoise · 21 days ago

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I think it would've been cool for the Dark Jak mode to look different depending on what environment the level is set in. Like, what his horns look like, what color his skin and hair is, whether his stats are more strength or stealth.

Ram horns in the mountain levels, the standard goat horns in the city, maybe antlers in water levels, and octopus camouflage (hence his coral look). And different moves that only work in those specific environments!

#jak and daxter #ottsel colors when he's near the oracles or temples #if naughty dog is going to give us the worst lore in the world with those shitty little rats might as well use it #give him a strange orange sheen over his skin like precursor metal #make the horns bronze #i don't know guys it's 4 am and i have insomnia

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sonicringnoise · 22 days ago

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Oh, your son? The one who got kidnapped? Yeah we sent him through the time portal. Yeah, to the past. So he would grow up safe and hone his skills and also establish your actual bloodline until it was time for him to face his destiny. Yeah no whatever version of him you run into will have completely forgotten you're his father. Oh, also you won't recognize him because you never got to see him grow up and you've assumed he's lost and likely dead this whole time. Yeah, sorry about that.

#jak and daxter #dadmas #the fact that this is said by those fUCking rats

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sonicringnoise · 25 days ago

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youtube

I feel like this is my chance to share my broadway knowledge.

In 1997, several YEARS before Jak and Daxter, Max Casella was Timon on Broadway.

Does anyone see my vision lol

#does this make the ship better or worse?#who can say #Youtube

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sonicringnoise · 1 month ago

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i have justifications for all of these. btw

#jak and daxter #oh don't worry #no justification is needed at this time

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sonicringnoise · 1 month ago

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Trying to decide between practicing drawing facial expressions or drawing a man's garden being menaced by an unrepentant Augustynolophus

This is my life now apparently. Draw face in ¾ view once again, or draw dinosaurs as anachronistic nuisance animal-neighbors

#good art #“offended tooting” is sending me #dinos #digging up your garden

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sonicringnoise · 1 month ago

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Snippets: WIP Thursday

It has been forever since I've had the time and mental spoons to do one of these but! I did a fairly large plot overhaul to one of my old wips a while back and just realized I never showed the updated version

This is the Splinter Cell au, where Jak took Mar into the Tomb with him and Tess decided the Underground had been compromised after what Torn did. Originally, the first time Jak met his parents was after the race where Errol gets his fool self killed. Now the timeline for the first encounter has been significantly altered. If you've listened to Epic: the Musical, you'll probably catch the lines that inspired this scene lol

The devastation was breathtaking.

Twisted spires of crystal rose like a toxic forest, shattering concrete and crushing walls. Impaling hellcats- and their occupants.

It was as if all the dark eco bubbling under the Tomb had been frozen in an instant. Contained. And then weaponized.

"Holy crap," Daxter whispered, "What did that?"

"Not what," Tess murmured. Her face was grim as she lowered the binoculars. "Who."

She turned to hand the binoculars to her companions and blanched.

"Where's Jak?" she demanded.

"Guess," said Daxter, resigned.

"He's not going after the Stone-!" Tess ran to the roof's edge, scanning the crystalline minefield for her friend. "Even if Praxis dropped it, it's way too dangerous down there!"

"Trust me, he knows."

Jak slid between rock and rubble, desperately scanning the battlefield for the satchel Praxis had been carrying. He knew striking the crystals too hard would cause an explosion -- and with this many spires, it would probably take out half the town. He kept his footsteps light and did his best not to look at the frozen forms of Krimzon Guards, entombed in the eco permanently.

What a terrible way to die.

He heard the moans of the wounded. Someone sobbing. Jak squeezed between two glowing pillars and halted abruptly.

A cluster of KG huddled, half of them collapsed and the other half kneeling and in surprisingly good condition given the circumstances. They had their helmets off -- gods, some of them were no older than Jak. Their families must have been recent immigrants to Haven, unable to hide their firstborn from Praxis's enlistment law.

"We're sorry, we're sorry, don't kill us, we're sorry-" The young girl nearest him was whispering to no one. To everyone.

Jak had reached the epicenter.

Every crystal had shot out from this one crumbling piece of bridge.

There-!

The satchel hung suspended.

Its strap had been absorbed by the crystal, but its contents didn't seem the worse for wear. But getting to it was going to be a challenge.

Jak grimaced and slid off his boots. Then, gingerly, he eased out onto the thin spar.

Easy. Easy does it. Watch your balance.

He kept his center of gravity as low as he could, inching towards the dangling satchel.

The further he got, the more he could see.

Praxis had fared better than his men, it seemed, but even he was having difficulty getting to his feet. He stared with blind hatred past Jak without even seeing him in the darkness. His eye was fixed on a figure standing on the rail of the bridge.

He was bent slightly, leaning on a staff for support and breathing heavily. Jak squinted and realized that the man's arms were trembling as though with exertion. Had he done this?

"What have you done?" Praxis demanded.

He sounded more desperate than defiant.

The man -- a Wastelander by the look of him -- gave a weary chuckle and slowly pushed himself back upright.

"You should be grateful. I left you thirty survivors under your command. Of course, I can't guarantee they'll stay under your command."

Praxis stumbled to his feet and cast about for his sword.

"You-!" He snarled and took a shaking step forward. "What did you do? How did you do this?"

Jak was just as interested in the answer as the Baron. He crouched at the end of the crystal and carefully drew the bag towards him, keeping one eye on the stranger. If he could create destruction like this, he probably had powers on par with the Acherons. Jak wasn't ready to gain a new enemy.

The Wastelander lifted his head, and for a moment Jak swore he was looking straight into his eyes. The man smiled, then glanced back down at Praxis.

"Did you think you'd created a dark warrior?"

He laughed scornfully.

Jak felt the blood freeze in his veins.

"Did you actually think it had worked?"

Suddenly his eyes were pitch black.

"Oh Aldrik. He didn't get that from you."

_______________________________________

Sparing Praxis was not an act of mercy. It wasn't even his choice. Channeling that much eco of any kind at once was hard on the body. Using dark eco like that had the potential to be debilitating. It was fortunate that Praxis was too shaken to realize that Damas was barely able to stand.

He wanted to kill him.

He should have killed him.

He had accepted Haven's rejection of his House. He had chosen not to pursue revenge, chosen to move on. And in spite of this, his enemies had the audacity to take his son.

His sons.

Phobos was cautious. Not ready to hope, yet. Believing in parallel timelines didn't necessarily translate to believing that the boy Sig was mentoring was theirs. Was from a timeline where they'd actually succeeded in having a second child. She said nothing to Damas about it, but he knew she was struggling with the thought of finding not one, but two children who had been taken from them.

Whoever this young resistance fighter, this Jak, had begun life as, Damas knew in his heart that he, like Mar, had done nothing to Praxis.

"You could have walked away," Damas remarked, looking down from the crumbling rail. "I was willing to go my own way. But you've crossed too far over the line, Aldrik, and I'm not going to allow you to retreat this time. Not after what you did to my son."

Praxis found his sword, jammed between concrete and rebar, and began trying to work it free.

"I didn't do rot to your brat," he sneered.

"Didn't you?"

Something in his voice must have caught Praxis's attention, because the man stilled. He raised his eyes slowly, and for the first time seemed to notice his enemy's altered visage.

"Didn't you, Aldrik?"

Would the traitor respond with bravado, Damas wondered, and foolishly brag of his experiments on the boy?

Would he feel fear, understanding that his experiments had done nothing but destabilize a power the boy was born with?

Or would he feel anger, apoplectic with the knowledge that the thorn in his side who had escaped his clutches so many times was the son of the man he'd betrayed?

"No." Aldrik seemed to be speaking to himself, rather than Damas.

A little of his strength was returning. Enough to lean forward without losing balance. For a moment he glanced to the left, to the slight figure crouched on the spire. He'd tracked the boy through the havoc he created often enough to recognize that silhouette.

Look at him! No fear!

Despite himself, Damas smiled. He'd keep Praxis distracted. Let the boy do what he'd come here to do.

"Come on, Aldrik. Don't disappoint me," he said mockingly, "You can work it out on your own. Your experiment failed, you never had control in the first place, because-?"

With a snarl, Praxis ripped his sword from the rubble. He raised it with a trembling arm, no stronger than Damas was at that moment.

"I should have killed your hellspawn-!"

His fury was interrupted by Damas slowly clapping.

"Look at that, he can be taught!"

Damas channeled his mother-in-law, feigning an encouraging tone like a youngling teacher.

"That's right, Aldrik!"

Then he dropped the undignified charade, cold as ice again.

"He was mine."

Whatever you intend to do, young one, this would be a very good time to do it-

He didn't even have time to finish his thought. Jak snatched something round, faintly glowing, from the bag Praxis had lost hold of. Damas felt a jolt like electricity shoot down his spine.

The Precursor Stone.

That was the bloody Precursor Stone!

He had narrowly avoided utter cataclysm!

"Hey Praxis!" the boy shouted, and his enemy whirled, caught between the two.

Grinning fiercely, Jak held the Precursor Stone up over his head.

"Drop something?"

"What?"

In horror, Praxis grabbed for his belt, only to finally realize that the satchel was gone.

Without another word, the boy stood and leapt to the next spar of crystal.

Was he barefoot?!

Frith in a bucket, he was going to be just like Mar, wasn't he?

Damas watched Jak hop from facet to facet, beam to stone, as if the combatants and destruction around him were mere inconveniences.

He couldn't help it. Damas laughed.

A long, rolling chuckle bounced around the solidified dark eco, echoing eerily. Damas shook his head as the laughter subsided.

"Ah, look at him go," he said, beaming. "I look forward to catching up to that one."

Then he turned his attention back to Praxis. He'd run out of eco. On the other side of the forest of crystal, he could see one of his people approaching quickly in a stolen zoomer. His enemy would live to fight another day. But not with the forces he'd commanded before.

A spiteful urge seized him, and he found himself repeating what Praxis had once told him, as he was dragged into the air train in chains.

"A wise man knows when to stop fighting. Do you, Aldrik?"

As casually as if he was going for a Se'enday drive, Damas swung himself up into the passenger seat when Kleiver -- looking notably shaken -- pulled close enough.

"What the bloody rot did you do?" Kleiver hissed, gunning the engine.

"Sent a message," Damas answered. He pointed towards a barely visible silhouette running towards the edge of the roadway.

"There. Follow him as far as you can. Shoot down anyone who tries to stop him."

"And you are gonna do what?" Kleiver asked sourly.

"Probably pass out," Damas admitted.

"...I ain't rescuing you from your wife when she finds out about this, lordship."

He snorted. "That's a problem for later."

The mechanic glared at him and swung the zoomer into a faster lane. "You're half mad, you know that?"

Damas leaned back in the seat and finally let his overtaxed limbs rest.

"I've heard something along those lines, yes. Try not to lose the boy. I want to know how he's getting to and from the island without the air train."

"What boy?!"

Damas didn't bother hiding his grin. "My boy.”

#jak & daxter #i love a good dramatic confrontation between damas and praxis #damas sent a message #the message was fuck you #dadmas

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