#somehow that's become my favorite genre of aus: give Damas more gray hair with absolute nerve-wracking chaos

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Thursday: Fragile Things

(This is the one where overuse of light eco at the point of death rewound Damas’s soul back three years. He still isn't sure whether he actually died and accidentally entered another timeline's body when that Damas would have died early, or if he just had an extremely detailed vision. Either way, he broke into Haven and kidnapped TPL Jak literally right in front of Errol and his patrol, and 100% forgot to explain this to his people. Including Jak.) This is long so I'm breaking it into two three posts because even with a read-more it'd be a lot of scrolling.

Two Months Before the Incident:

For the children of the North Quarter, the bridge was a popular place to play and congregate. Most people didn't mind their youngsters hanging around the area, as it was close enough to the tower to discourage general mischief. Footraces, dramatic games of make-believe, even impromptu Raids matches were held on the dusty landmark. It wasn't uncommon for a passing adult to stop and keep an eye on the children for a while, occasionally playing referee.

It was not common for that adult to be King Damas.

He leaned against the tower, and an entrance to the filtration levels that only a handful of Spargans had the code to. Nine children ranging from ten to fourteen in age were spread across the bridge in little groups. The smaller ones were playing a fairly unhinged version of Raids that had evolved to include someone's pet dogat. The older three were crouched closer to him, intent on learning a marble game Jak was trying to teach them. Kill-Grid, he called it, some fusion of checkers and an Arena trial. Damas hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet, himself, but he enjoyed watching Jak play.

One of the water staff exited the entrance and was taken aback to find him there. For a moment, the balding man looked around as if expecting trouble. When he realized that the king was merely taking his turn looking after the collective of children, he relaxed.

"One of these days someone is going to go right over the side of this thing," he sighed.

"And that's why they're never up here unsupervised," Damas agreed. Never taking his eyes from the children, he asked, "How are the new saline filters working out?"

Jeriko made a face. "All good but one. There's a crack in the seal we didn't notice at installation. We're going to have to take it out and use the old filter until it's fixed."

"Ah. I'll have the Trade guild remind its members to examine imports from Kras more closely." Damas rubbed his nose and shrugged. "Still, three out of four isn't bad."

"No indeed.”

They were silent for a while, and Jeriko noticed something. While Damas’s eyes periodically flitted across every little Spargan on the bridge, they always came back to one in particular. The skinny little thing he'd brought back after dropping off Sig for his infiltration mission. Jak, right? Or Jag? Jeriko could never quite tell, but the boy was almost always in the tower. Far more than any of his playmates would have been. Jeriko could almost swear the boy lived there.

"You knew him already, didn't you?"

He couldn't say what had possessed him to ask what so many whispered about already. A death-wish?

But Damas wasn't offended. There was a faraway quality to his gaze as he murmured, "Yes."

He folded his arms and sighed.

"He's thirteen, now. Thirteen! It doesn't seem real."

This was not what Jeriko had expected to hear. He turned to face his king in shock.

"Did you know him...before? In Haven?"

Did he leave a kid behind? He wouldn't do that, right?

Damas’s mind was far from the bridge. He answered honestly, but he did not think then how his answers would be interpreted.

"He's changed so much-! And yet for me, it seems only days since we were first separated."

Oh. Jeriko blanched. The coup. Jak had probably been a hostage to ensure that Damas cooperated. He would have been a newborn then! The poor kid! Jeriko didn't want to think about what kind of life he'd led before Damas went back for him. And now Haven had his other child, too? It was unthinkable.

"Does...does he remember?" Jeriko asked cautiously.

Damas shook his head. "No. I was a stranger to him."

His voice caught on the words.

"But it is...better this way. Better he is spared the horrors I remember. If I must rebuild our relationship from the beginning, I will gladly do so as long as he's safe."

Jak looked up then, meeting Damas’s gaze. He blinked at the intensity of it, then beamed and waved.

Damas smiled and waved back, but his eyes were still troubled.

And now, so were Jeriko's.

Five Days Before the Incident:

(The snippet where Jak jumpscares Damas by asking "Hey are you secretly my dad or something")

The Incident:

On the mainland, autumn had arrived. The air was cooling, and leaves were beginning to change color. On the desert island colloquially known as The Wastelands, fall meant temperatures dropping from 100° to 75°, and the air drying out. A relief for everyone except the people who harvested humidity to sell water. The cooling of the air meant that the sandstorm season had ended, and the rainy season would be upon them soon.

In the city of Spargus, that meant children anxiously awaiting the first major storm of the year. Once it had rained for more than fifteen minutes in a single span, the council would choose a day within the week to celebrate the Rainfall holiday on. Rainfall meant a four day break from school, and distribution of carefully conserved fruits and sweets, and the annual plays and mock battles held in the Arena to entertain the youngest Wastelanders. (And some of the older ones, not that they'd admit it.)

Jak had never heard of the holiday before being brought to the desert city. But it reminded him of Aurora Night in Sandover -- or more specifically, Rock Village. Uncle Erasmus had brought the tradition down into the coastal village when he settled there, long before Jak arrived.

He wondered where in the world Erasmus had ended up -- or maybe when. The calendars were all messed up now.

The holiday sounded like a lot of fun. There had never been more than three children in their little neighborhood in Sandover, and celebrations were subsequently quite small. But here there were more kids than Jak had ever seen in one place before. And even the older ones were excited about Rainfall!

Jak sat under an awning with a few other twelve and thirteen year olds, sorting spent ammunition casings to be recycled. It was normally a chore for very young children, but someone in Jak’s class had gotten them all on punishment.

The actions of one affected the whole.

That's the lesson the teacher was trying to impress on them: that one person breaking rules and taking risks in the ruins could put a whole team in danger.

Half the kids understood the lesson behind the group punishment. The other half -- including Jak -- thought it was just grown-ups being mean.

"Y'know what's the worst about this?" complained a girl to Jak’s left -- one of his regular playmates these days, "It wasn't even me this time! For once, I didn't sneak off, and I'm still getting baby chores!"

Jak snorted. "Lose-lose," he signed.

"You said it," Flick agreed.

She tossed another empty Scatter cartridge into a basket and nudged Jak's foot with her own.

"Hey, you think the big boss will give you a Rain Bead this year?"

"Huh?"

Jak tilted his head quizzically.

Flick took a moment to wind her braided hair back up out of her way, only to undo her work again by shrugging.

"Y'know, since you live...somewhere in the tower. Does he take care of you? Or do you live on the first floor?"

"I live with Damas? You knew that already?"

He wasn't that surprised that she'd forgotten. There were a lot of floors in the tower, and three of them had people living in them. And since people didn't like to talk about Damas’s other kid, the baby his friend in Haven was searching for, they tended to assume that Damas wasn't the one looking after Jak.

The only exceptions were the guards and the filtration staff. They gossiped worse than old Mrs. Perch! Inside the tower, it was an open secret that Jak had either been adopted by the king, or was a biological child that had been taken from him when he was exiled.

Jak pretended not to hear them gossiping when they saw him. It just made his head hurt.

Forget figuring out how that could work. Damas said he wanted to be Jak's dad on purpose! That was even better, right? Because it meant he wasn't obligated to look after Jak, he did it because he wanted to.

Jak watched a strand of bone beads bounce against Flick's braid -- off-white against bright teal -- and counted them silently.

Thirteen, one for every Rainfall Flick had experienced. She was looking forward to her fourteenth bead. Some Wastelanders had as many as twenty hanging from belts or hair! But only those with parents living in the city.

It wasn't a gift friends could give. Apparently it was reserved only for parents and guardians.

Jak didn't know if Damas would give him a rain bead, but he was hoping he would. Ada

Lost in thought, he didn't notice the half filled blaster casing still contained until his hands tingled.

Oh, he hadn't meant to channel it out!

Jak pretended to light one of his fingers on fire and watched the eco hop from vein to fingertip like a perverse candle.

It wasn't enough for a full fireball, but that was for the best. The last time there was an eco imbalance, he'd nearly singed off Teacher Rustin's eyebrows.

"Aw cool!" Flick leaned over with a wide, crooked grin. "Man, I wish I could channel."

Feeling a bit whimsical, Jak used the fire to write words in the air before it ran out.

"That's what the shells are for, right? Even the playing field."

"Yeah," Flick sighed, "I guess that's true."

Then she started digging around for more blaster casings.

"Do it again."

"Guysss!" a younger boy whined from further down the line, "Quit! You're gonna get us in more trouble!"

Considering this was the youngster who had gotten them on group punishment in the first place, nobody paid him much attention.

"Here! How about this one?"

Flick tossed another shell to Jak.

"Nah. Empty."

The baskets were nearly full by the time they found more eco. Most of their classmates had finished their allotted baskets and been dismissed to carry on with their day by then. And according to Rustin, Jak could have left by now. But he hadn't channeled yellow eco in months! Now he wanted to find more!

"Ah-ha!"

Jak held up three shells triumphantly. Now this was enough for a fireball.

Rustin leapt to his feet.

"Noooooo you don't!" the young man shouted, "You get out of here with that eco!"

Cackling, Jak and Flick scooped up a handful of disorganized cartridges and shells and dashed out of the stall towards the beach.

Nobody minded if kids made a mess on the beach. Wasn't much to mess up. Flick turned a cartwheel -- showoff, Jak couldn't do that! -- and landed on her feet. Jak just did a somersault, as he always did back h- back in Sandover.

"Hey! I'll throw a sandball, and you blast it outta the air, okay?"

Flick ran to the surf and began packing wet sand into a sphere.

Jak drew the remnants of the yellow eco out of the spent casings. The stuff ran out quickly. You either channeled it out, or it got absorbed into your core.

The warmth gathered in his palm, sharpened his sight, and Jak waited.

Flick pulled back her arm and launched her projectile straight up.

Blam!

The fireball struck it dead-on. Sand rained down on them both.

Laughing, Jak brushed it out of his hair and shoved the fully empty casings into his pocket. Sorting through the random assortment they'd grabbed, he was disappointed to find no red residue in any of them. Oh well. There was a hint of blue, though.

Jak curved his right hand down into his left palm.

"Again!"

"You got it, partner!" Flick ran back to make another sandball, missing Jak's wince.

He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he wasn't her partner. It was Jak and Daxter, not Jak and Flick. Damas’s friend would find Daxter, Damas said so! He was so sure of it! Damas was always telling him that he would see Daxter again, that he couldn't give up.

Flick was his friend -- she'd probably be Daxter's friend, too -- but Daxter was the one who'd been through enough with him to be a partner.

"Okay! Ready for launch?"

Flick waved an arm.

"Readyyyyy- go!"

This time, Jak didn't shoot a fireball. This time he'd gotten a fingerful of blue eco.

Just that little bit was enough to propel him four feet up in a single leap to slap a hand against the sandball, smashing it.

"Yoooo!" Flick crowed, "That was awesome!"

Then an idea struck her. Jak recognized that little shimmer. When the girl's brown eyes looked almost gold for a moment, that was cause for concern. That meant somebody's parents were going to get called by the end of this.

Unfortunately, it also meant something really fun was about to happen. Choices, choices.

"Wait here." Without waiting for an answer, Flick turned and pelted up the beach, sending up little sprays of sand in her wake.

Jak tucked the Vulcan cartridge into his pocket with the other casings and shrugged. The weather was nice, he didn't mind waiting. The water was just beginning to cool, the perfect temperature for swimming. Jak struggled with his boots -- laces, he *hated* laces! It took *weeks* for Damas to teach him to tie his own stupid shoes! -- and kicked them off with a grumble before diving in.

The salt stung his eyes, but Jak had grown accustomed to that years ago. He pushed past the cloudy grit of the shallows and down past the breakers, to where the water was clear, and clean, and blue.

There was coral here. Not as dense as the reef in Rock Village, but there were more fish around it. Parrotfish nibbling at odd ends, wrasse darting in and out and hiding in the sand, funny little things shaped like flat ribbons that bumbled along. Jak loved to watch them all.

Sometimes, if he looked hard enough, he could find pieces of orbs under the coral. There were some whole ones, too, but prying them out would require breaking the coral, and Jak still remembered Samos's hour long lecture about coral being an animal of some kind. Jak didn't want to hurt an animal that wasn't hurting him just for the sake of something shiny. The shards of orbs he dredged up were enough -- the adults certainly seemed to think so. Apparently there were so many broken orbs around the desert that shards had become the most common form of currency. Jak wondered what could be powerful enough to smash an orb.

It wasn't until he came up for air that he realized Flick had been calling him. He wasn't sure when she'd gotten back. Time seemed to disappear when he was underwater. In no particular hurry, Jak swam a leisurely circuit before making his way back to shore. Flick had a bag over her shoulder that she was clinging to with a clear impatience. What was she up to?

"C'mon! Hurry! Before my mom figures out I took these!"

Well that was both promising and ominous at the same time.

Jak shook off seawater like a crocadog. (He saw them swimming beyond the reef sometimes. He badly wanted to touch one, but it Wasn't Allowed, apparently.)

Flick squealed and jumped out of the way.

"Ja-aak! Quit!"

He did not.

Once he'd wrung out his scarf -- and flicked the water off his fingers and onto his friend -- Jak leaned over with a questioning grunt.

Flick's eyes sparkled with mischief.

When she pulled back the flap, shiny yellow and blue plastic caught the sunlight.

Bullets. Unspent bullets.

Flick was fourteen; she was allowed to have Scattergun cartridges -- Jak still had to wait a year to be allowed to hold a gun -- but Blaster and Vulcan rounds? Absolutely not. The lure of the forbidden pulled at Jak, and he only hesitated for a moment.

The last time he'd given in to that call, his best friend got turned into an ottsel. But, they'd also uncovered Gol and Maia's plot.

And it wasn't like there was any dark eco here. He definitely had no chance of turning Flick into an ottsel.

Jak took adventure's bait, hook line and sinker.

Prying open the bullets to get the eco out was difficult. It took several minutes, and the sun was beating down uncomfortably on their shoulders when they finally cracked the seal on a Vulcan round. But it was so worth it. The rush of blue eco, shooting through his body, made Jak feel almost like he was back on Sentinel Beach. He whooped and took off down the strand, laughing.

Go go go go go! cried the eco in his blood, Faster! Higher! Further!

He'd made it halfway up the side of the cliff before he felt the eco beginning to wear off. Making the most of every last spark, Jak kicked off the rock wall and into a backflip, landing on his feet.

The nice thing about blue eco was that he was never out of breath after using it.

Jak turned to find Flick, much further down the beach. He waved his arms with a theatrical, "TA-DA!"

Flick whooped and waved her own arms. She waited until Jak had jogged back to her before pulling out a Blaster bullet.

"Now let's do fire!"

They spent close to half an hour playing with the elements of motion and range and fire. It was so strange to Jak that this was such a foreign concept to children in Spargus. There were no open vents here, no clusters of raw eco oozing from the rocks and the sea and the earth itself. Was it because it was a desert?

"Hey Jak," Flick said when they had begun to wind down, "How come you can channel more than one eco?"

Jak looked away from the sun, which was beginning to sink, with a startled grunt.

Oh. Right. The sages only ever channeled just one. He supposed monks were like sages in training, so they probably only channeled one eco, too.

"I don't know. I just do." Jak shrugged. "I can't turn it off. It just happens."

Flick laid back on the sand with her hands behind her head. "Huh. Well, that's kind of cool though."

They were quiet for a few seconds, but the calm wouldn't last.

Flick abruptly sat up and shifted to look at Jak. He blinked back at her upside-down visage and wondered why he suddenly had a bad feeling.

Was this what it was like to be Daxter?

"Have you ever channeled more than one eco?" Flick asked, "*at the same time?"*

A year ago, Jak would have said that was impossible. Picking up green turned off the effects of blue. Yellow turned off red. He just couldn't hold onto two at once.

Or so he'd thought.

But then came the last battle against the Acherons.

"Actually..."

Now Jak sat up, frowning.

"Actually, yeah! Only once, but it was like-"

He made a few meaningless gestures, trying to convey a sensation he couldn't describe.

"It was all four! And- and they mixed or something into- to- white eco or something!" Jak's hands were exaggerated into a shout. "It was like mega powerful!"

"Nuh-uh!" Flick challenged, but she was smiling. "There's no way. You did not homebrew light eco."

"Wasn't me, it was four sages!" Jak explained. "Maybe that's why I could do it?"

"Well can you only do it with all four, or does it work with three? Or even just two?"

The wheels were turning in Flick's head.

"What if you wanted speed and firepower, but not super strength?"

"Blue and yellow! Maybe!"

Jak didn't know that it wouldn't work.

And even if it didn't, at worst one would just cancel out the other.

"Might not do anything, but who knows!"

"We'll know.”

Next>