#Daxter starts getting dadded within two weeks

[radioactivepeasant]

Snippets: Free Day Thursday PART TWO!

Surprise, now you get Baby Croc stuff that needs no trigger warnings! Still borrowing Star Wars "swears", still not sorry.

Part One Here:

The Slam Dozer rolled to a stop in the midst of the Strider Range. Three Wastelanders stepped out, looking around them for what should have been a missing warrior. There was nothing. No vehicle, no sign of the Wastelander who had activated their beacon.

"Eyes open," their leader grunted, "Could be a trap."

Something moved among the boulders, and the men raised their rifles instantly. In response the pale something shrieked and dropped out of sight. Long ears were still visible from the sides of the rock it had chosen as its hiding place, trembling. Then, as if gathering its courage, it raised its head above the boulder.

The men recoiled.

It looked almost like a human child, but...but not quite. A leathery hide the color of a bloodless corpse, pupils so dilated that no sclera were even visible, horns poking out of wiry gray hair. This was not a human. But it didn't look like an animal, either.

"What the kriff!"

The largest of their number raised his gun, sighting down the barrel onto the creature's forehead.

The leader grabbed the barrel and forced it down.

"Hold your fire!" he snapped.

"But sire, look! The rottin' thing's gotta be a metalhead!"

The third man wrinkled his nose incredulously. "You see any gems on that thing? Strewth, man, I think that's a bloody spirit!"

Their leader eased closer to the rocks, noting with some disquiet that the beacon they'd picked up was in the same direction.

"Who are you?" he demanded, as if the creature could understand him, "Are you friend or foe?"

To the surprise of all three, the creature responded.

In the broken SparSign of an extremely young child, it signed, "I Croc! Help Croc? Help big brother! Help! Help!"

On legs shaped more like a Leaper's than a human's, "Croc" bounded away to crouch over a crumpled form in the sand. This time, it was clearly human.

"Eeeeg. Ep!" The spirit thing made a pitiful squeal and patted the boy’s face.

"Big brothers not get up! Too tired! You help? No hurt!" Suddenly he bared sharp fangs, revealing how he'd gotten his name. "No hurt my brothers! You not Red Armor Crunchies? I eat Red Armor Crunchies."

The men wondered whether they really wanted to find out what a "red armor crunchy" was. Slowly, one hand out in a placating gesture, the leader of the band began to move closer. He kept his eyes on the spirit-child and its human "sibling", ready to halt if they made any sudden moves.

"We will not attack you if you do not attack us," he said to the creature. "Where are your people, little traveler? How have you come to this place?"

The spirit-child nestled closer to the motionless boy and uttered a distressed chittering. "I no know. Fancy bad man say us are monsters and taked us here so us would get dead. I no wanna get dead!"

"Exiles?" The big man murmured to the man with the eyepatch.

"Haven's really gone to the crocadogs," Eyepatch muttered back. "I thought their nature spirits had already abandoned them. Didn't think they were killin' em."

"It ain't a spirit, Drake. Nature spirits don't wear clothes."

"Then what is it? Sure ain't a metalhead, tell you that much."

"Enough," their leader interrupted sternly.

He continued to approach the exiles, one foot in front of the other, and pointed his staff behind him.

"There are others here. Animals. At least one is a species capable of speech -- they may shed some light on this. Drake, get the animals and give them some water. Kleiver, put the boy in the truck. He's still breathing."

The child brightened, losing all trace of his former ferocity as if a switch had been flipped off. "You help? You good guys?"

"We try to be," the man with the staff answered, a little dryly.

As he came to a stop by the bodies, he knelt. The human "big brother" was painfully thin, cheekbones sharp against a face that looked younger than anticipated. He had the same matted hair "Croc" did, as if no one took care of him at all. The refuse of Haven: it was not an uncommon condition for exiles to be found in. But most were older, and either coherent or already dead. This boy was somewhere in between.

"He an' Daxter no answerin' me!" Croc fretted. "Not Bad Guy, you wake him up, okay?"

"Damas. Not "not bad guy"," the man grunted as he took a waterskin from his belt. It was half empty, but it would have to suffice. "If I'm to call you by your name, I request that you do me the same courtesy."

"I no can curtsy, Damas man," Croc answered solemnly, "Tail too heavy."

"I said courtesy, not- nevermind." Damas lifted the human boy's head and poured water into his mouth. "Where did you learn our sign language, little traveler?"

Immediately, the child pointed to the unconscious boy.

More mysteries.

🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊🐊

"Yrrp!"

Jak was rudely reintroduced to consciousness by the full weight of his half-brother...clone...person...slamming into his stomach. His eyes flew open as the breath was driven from him in a pained wheeze. Instinctively, he shoved the scaly child off and rolled to his side, gasping for air. The kid was no lightweight.

"Jak!" Daxter's worried voice cut in over his wheezing, "Are- are you okay?! I tried to keep the menace distracted, but he was going crazy while they took the IV out!"

The what?

Jak slowly opened his eyes and blinked until his vision cleared. They were in a room made of metal and some kind of reddish brown stone, radiating a comforting heat -- nothing like the murderous sun in the desert. Jak made a face.

"Wh- rr?" he rasped, unable to say much more until he'd swallowed several times.

"Off. You could have hurt him," a new voice interrupted, deeper and sterner. It wasn't anyone Jak knew.

Croc chirped indignantly, and then the surface Jak lay on rose slightly as if a weight had been removed. Was he on a mattress? Oh. Yes, he was on a remarkably clean mattress. And for that matter, he seemed to be remarkably clean.

That was...a little disturbing. A lot disturbing, actually. Because Jak knew he hadn't washed himself.

"Cr-oc?" he croaked, and finally rolled back onto his back.

An unnecessarily spiky man stood at the end of the bed holding Croc, bundled up in his arms like a particularly naughty puppy. Croc didn't seem to be too upset about it, which was unusual, seeing as Croc bit anyone who wasn't Jak or Daxter. Even Tess had gotten nipped once.

Jak stared at the weathered warrior at the foot of the bed, and the warrior stared back.

"If this is another mirage, I'm going back to sleep," Jak muttered in a creaking voice.

The man laughed.

It was a crackling, raspy sound, as if he were unused to it.

"If this were a mirage, I wouldn't have to make sure the young goblin here did not undo the monks' hard work to repair your ribs."

"My ribs?"*Jak’s face twisted in confusion. "Nothing was wrong with my ribs."

The stranger fixed him with a measured stare that left him feeling oddly defensive.

"Young man, you had two cracked ribs and three that had healed improperly from past breaks. Surely you noticed that kind of pain!"

The boy's blank stare was dismally telling.

"Nobody cares about cracked ribs as long as you can still fight," Jak grumbled. "I've had worse."

Daxter cringed beside Jak. "He's not wrong. Jak here's been through stuff that would give a metalhead nightmares. Don't uh, don't take it personal, y'know? Him and me, we got raised to think pain only mattered when it happened to someone else."

"Why isn't Croc biting you?" Jak interrupted. "He hates strangers."

"Because biting one's host is not an acceptable way to treat the laws of hospitality," the man answered, then bounced Croc a little higher in his arms. "Is that not so, little one?"

"I not bite the Damas man, that's rude," Croc confirmed. "But I maybe bite the stinky man a little bit."

"No, we don't bite Kleiver either," the man -- Damas? -- corrected firmly. "You don't know where he's been."

"I bite only a little bit!"

"No."

"A just a little bit!"

The man adjusted his hold on Croc, shifting him to his hip as though a half-metalhead baby was a perfectly normal thing to encounter.

"You are not biting Kleiver and that is final."

Then he turned his attention back to Jak.

"This one led me to you and your friend in the desert. I brought you to my city. In return, I expect you to be honest when I ask you some questions."

Jak pushed himself up into a sitting position and grimaced at a faint wave of dizziness. "That's it? Just answer some questions? I don't buy it."

Damas looked annoyed. His lips flattened into a thin line for a moment, and his eyes grew calculating. Then he seemed to come to a decision.

"Answer questions for now. Should you choose to remain in my city, you will be expected to prove that you will contribute to the good of the community and not sit idly while others do the lion's share of the work. It is so for all newcomers, although dispensation can be made for your age."

Jak bristled. "What about my age?"

Their rescuer -- and host, apparently -- raised an eyebrow and Jak found himself quieting unexpectedly.

"Exiles as young as the three of you are rarely found alive. Most of our laws apply to older survivors."

Daxter blinked. "Huh. Well. Nice of someone to notice for once."

Damas barely nodded. "The monks will inform me when you are considered recovered enough to be moved. In the meantime-"

He bent and set Croc down on the floor.

"Go, amuse yourself, little one. No biting."

Then he reached into an open bag sitting on the table at the foot of the bed and held up the beacon.

"Let's discuss this."