Author's Note: yeah yeah i know guardian is on hiatus im so sorry. i get sidetracked easily. okay so this fic could never have come into fruition without the help of Blu and Krocatoo. go check out their tumblrs (bluandorange and krocatoo, respectively). super short prologue but we'll get to the good stuff soon.

the usual disclaimer, i don't own jak and daxter or any of it's characters, i just thought keira got shafted by naughty dog so im rewriting the story with her as the protag. here we go


Prologue

2 Years Earlier

The ground was hard and cold and artificial. The air tasted like it had been laced with tar. The smell was even worse. And the noise- Precursors, it was almost overwhelming. And so many people. More than had ever lived in Sandover, more people than she had ever seen before in her life.

Keira leaned back under the overhang of the large metal building, watching in silence as they walked across the enormous streets in droves, though most held their heads down and avoided eye contact even amongst each other. Those that didn't walk flew above the pedestrians on vehicles that looked suspiciously familiar. Unfortunately, they were about the only familiar things she could find. Jak, Daxter, her father, even the rift rider itself, all were gone. The latter was in pieces, blown up after they'd flown into the face of that... monster, and scattered all over this place. She still held one of the cogs from it's internal mechanisms in her hand.

Her father's last words hadn't been helpful. Hadn't even been directed at her. 'Find yourself, Jak'? What was that supposed to mean? Where had they all gone? Were they safe, had she been the only one to make it entirely through the rift and end up in this place? A tremor of uncertainty shook her and she frowned to herself, squeezing the cog hard enough that it left imprints on her palm.

She'd never been alone before. She was injured from her landing – her back and shoulder ached periodically as if to remind her of the hard fall she took – and this whole place was strange and unfamiliar. There was no one to help her. No Daxter to lighten the mod with his stupid jokes or her father to give her advice or Jak to save the day. Just her and her and what she wore on her back.

Keira trembled again.

What on earth was she going to do?

It was past noon when Keira started coming up with a plan. Hungry and hurt and tired and lonely as she was, with no way to fix any of these things, her mind started working at her problems like it was a puzzle. She was always good at those; she'd built the zoomer, after all, had worked out the cages and traps that had held the eco sages for Jak to be able to break them open.

Problem 1: Food. There were a few street vendors and some shops along the roads, and a bazaar off through an underpass looked like it had some stalls too, but they were using currency that she had never seen before, so she'd be unable to buy anything. That left stealing or trying to sweet-talk a shopkeep.

Problem 2: Injury. She assessed herself thoroughly and came to the conclusion that it was mostly bruising and a bit of scraping along her back, where she'd skidded on the concrete. Overall, she'd been lucky, and only needed time to heal, assuming she was able to feed herself and find someplace to rest.

Problem 3: Shelter. Tied in with her money problem. She didn't trust any of these strangely dressed people to provide her a place for the night for free, and she had nothing to pay anyone with.

The logical solution, then, was to find a way to earn money to fix all of these things. Seemed simple enough to her, and it was at least a plan, which was more than what she had half an hour ago. The only issue was that she wasn't sure what she could do in this world that would give her the money she needed. She couldnt' perform quests like Jak and she didn't have her father's botanical prowess.

...But she did have her mechanical expertise. And if the appearances of the various types of zoomers were anything to go on, they were probably similar enough to her A-Grav prototype that she'd be able to figure them out with relative ease. Or at least, so she hoped.

The pictures along the walls and being projected off of the sides of the buildings around her, made of moving light or paint on paper, showed many different things. Some for recruitment for something called 'The Krimson Guard,' something related to a clothing store of some sort, a few advertising a bar in the 'docks', wherever that was, and most importantly for her, a rather large one that spoke about zoomer racing at a place called the Stadium.

Keira approached the sign and looked it over. A racing track, then, and despite herself her little fifteen-year-old heart quickened with excitement at the very concept. When she'd built the A-Grav a few months ago she hadn't even been sure it would be ready to fly, and yet here in this city the denizens had already worked out a sport. Surely they'd need a mechanic?

Taking note of the address on the bottom of the sign, Keira flagged down a passerby, got directions, and set off down the dusty street.

The stadium itself was one of the biggest, grandest structures she'd ever seen. And after her demonstration to the head mechanic, it was now also her home.

Farley, a tall, heavyset woman in her late fifties, had been skeptical when Keira showed up on her doorstep looking for work and she clearly had thought of her as barely more than a child who'd gotten it in her head to run off from home, but after some quick thinking to invent a story of losing her family – which wasn't entirely untrue – she'd offered to give her a chance.

She'd taken Keira around to one of the smaller garages on the side of the structure and had told her that if she could repair one of the busted zoomers stored there by the end of the day, she'd get the job. Farley had intended to leave the girl there for a few hours to keep her safe and out of trouble before gently nudging her out the door, but to her surprise the teen just picked up a tool box, opened up the chassis correctly, and just studied the inner workings. Then, deliberately, she set to work, carefully and delicately fiddling around with the guts of the machine, and an hour later Keira had presented the now-fixed zoomer to be inspected

Farley gave the nervous girl an appraising look. She was no pro, but she had talent, and had clearly been around vehicles before. And even though the zoomer that she'd fixed almost didn't start up, Farley knew that given time with it the girl would probably be a damned good mechanic.

"You earn your keep, okay?" Keira nodded at the elder woman. "Tell you what, if you help me out around the shop, take on some of the chores 'round here, I'll let you stay in this garage. It's got a little apartment attached to it. Once you're on your feet you can start taking your own clients and working for your own team. Then you can start paying me in cash. Besides, I'm getting too old for this stuff, so new blood's always welcome."

Keira straightened up further and nodded again. "I won't let you down, ma'am."

"I'm sure you wont." Farley smiled and held out the key for her to take. "Tomorrow morning, you be in my garage at eight'o clock sharp, yeah?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Just Farley, sweetie. Now go get cleaned up, you look like your came out the rear end of an exhaust port. I've got chilli on the stove I can share with you, skin 'n bones as you are."

And thus, Keira had ended up warm and fed and with a place to call her own by nightfall. And she'd done it without Jak or Daxter or anyone else. Because of that she knew she'd survive. She had to, because she had to rebuild the rift rider to get all of them home.

The cog from the original rift rider now sat on some twine around her neck and as she sat on the edge of the stadium, high above the city, she ran her fingers over it. A reminder of her goal. She would work on it whenever she had time, would keep an eye and ear out for the others, and when they were all ready, they would go home to Sandover and leave this polluted, crowded place behind.

Keira could do it. She knew she could.