OMFG.

This is for you, RingWorks, for being the first of my old readers to come back. I didn't want to delete it all, but my account… died. Badly. And the stories thus died as well. You have no idea how much I've missed you, and not just you alone- all of my old readers who used to read Darkness Calls and bug me about updating it! There is no way to describe just how much I've missed you, so here's an old one that got erased to tide you over until I get the rest of them up. Thank you!

I don't own Jak and Daxter. If I did… heh. That would be one freakin' scary game…

1234567890

The blonde smirked wryly, glancing through the information on the computer screen before him.. He had gotten the data from an old, canceled prison project just that day, or more specifically, he had received the information on a single subject: DEW400322u3. This particular prisoner was quite special, and you could tell just from the identification number. All numbers were structured as thus: crime, cell, prison block, tower number. But this one had no crime. Just that enigmatic DEW.

What was DEW?

It was what ruined his life, and then gave him a new one.

Subject DEW400322u3 was, in reality, the young man standing there in that room, looking over the papers. Jak Hagai was the name he went by, most of the time, but slipped into lapses of responding to his old prison identifier some days. It was so strange, now, looking over the pictures and data as if it had happened to someone else, so far away… simple phrases like "subject shows signs of absorbation of DE rather than metabolisation of substance", or, "fits of muscle spasms from DE treatments" meant so much less to him, then when he had heard them directly from the mouths of the scientists so long ago. All of them were dead now, though.

He'd killed them.

One by one, in their sleep or right there, willingly or unconsiously, he had killed them. Some from stress, others from the poison in their systems from being in the same room with him, still others- many more- from snapped necks and crushed vertabre, from removed vital organs, from distroyed bodies and minds. He had killed a lot of them with his own two hands, and not a single one was alive to that day.

Because that was what they had done to him.

They had wanted "elvenkind's greatest biological weapon", and by god, they did their jobs to the letter. They got what they were aiming for.

…but then, they should have realised they shouldn't have wanted to. He was the greatest biological weapon. He could kill hundreds in seconds, if need be, emotionlessly, cooly, and effectively. Sadly, this included his creators, as well, and the ones to commandeer the experiment done.

And that was what he was on trial for, now.

The city was afraid of him. They were scared of the thing they had unwittingly unleashed on the world, and now, they were trying to get rid of it. They couldn't kill him, of coarse, but they could decide to exile him via city-wide vote. That was why he had those papers. The council wanted to see him, the next day, and he was going to show them that information. He wasn't trying to stop them from exiling him or anything, either, or else he wouldn't show them.

Nothing says "I'm too dangerous" like the number 218 under the column of "daily death toll" on only one of the more than 730 days he had been in captivity.

Bored, he scrolled through it, searching for it. How long had it been, anyhow? He found his answer on the very last page. "Subject escaped confinement on day that order was given to destroy it. Will soon be brought back for questioning and dissection. Project DEW: terminated." Looking at the top of the page yielded the date, and subtracting that from the one on the front, from when he was first captured…

…he had been there for almost- almost- three years, not just two. He sat back in his chair, zoning out, with the number running through his head.

One thousand and fifty-two days.

1052 days of his life had been taken from him. 1052 days, his channeler powers, his life, his sanity, his humanity, and any remote chance of being able to lead a normal life in that place.

And it had given him power.

Power enough to drive any man insane flowed through his veins, through his blood, through his very soul. He could kill an army with a snap of his fingers, could command respect and fear with simply being in the room.

No wonder no one liked him. Heh.

Some days, he wished that they would talk to him- someone, anyone! Torn, Ashelin, Kiera, Samos, Daxter- hell, he would settle with pecker! Someone to show him that they weren't scared of him- someone to tell him they cared! But did they?

Of coarse not.

He was an enigma on legs, to them, simply a scary enigma that could wield a gun like a madman and killed like a demon from hell. No one asked him anything about himself. And those that knew things about him usually tried to forget them. He wanted to get to know them- they shrank away. He tried to be nice to them- they took advantage of him. He tried to run away- they gave chase. And then, when he opened up to them, they ran away, to a place of normalicy and humanity that, by very definition, he could not reach, could not delve into.

That was why he was showing the council the data. Telling them the whole truth. He wanted to get exiled. They had a place only they could go, perhaps he could find one, too. Maybe he could finally, ultimately get away, perhaps he could run from it all, at last. The wasteland was somewhere he, with all his freakishness, would be accepted, because his changes would actually help him survive. He could live on forever without food or drink. His wounds healed practically at once. He could kill anything.

And perhaps, in such a place, he would finally be able to get in touch with the darkness. He could meditate for as long as he wanted, without all those idiotic people coming in asking what was wrong, or why he looked so pale. And there would be no one to scare away by opening his eyes and showing them that they were pure, pitch black- no one to frighten by scraping his claws across the ground, to bare his fangs at and growl, watching them back away and run for their lives, screaming, disrupting his meditation and causing him to be unable to focus on it for the rest of the day. He could finally, finally get in touch with his element. The last of the precursors had told him, that time, that the darkness withing him was ballanced with a glorious light, but he had yet to find or disire it. No doubt there was some sort of light eco in him now, keeping him alive, and for that, he had to be greatful, but he still wanted to continue his dark researches. It intrigued him beyond measure. It was so… interesting. When he wasn't pondering something to do with plotting, or having his "mindless" moments, he was likely to have the dark substance on mind, if only in the very back, tucked away behind thoughts of his friends, or staying alive.

…and he was sorry.

…Gol. …Maya. …he had been such a nieve asshole in regards to them. …would that happen to him, someday, too? Would he, too, be hunted down and slaughtered by some young hero, seeing him as "the bad guy"? Would he, too, be forced to live out his final days within some pitful state as that which the world had reduced Gol to- barely able to breathe, unable to walk, sickly and weakened?

Would they have been proud of him?

Had he not done what he did to them… and had they been able to see him that day… would they have been… proud of him? To have basically followed in their footsteps- to have been pushed into the darkness and accepted it?

"…would they have… understood?" he whispered to himself, digging his nails into the table.

"Who?"

He would have jumped, had he not been used to things like that happening and had one ear open for intruders.

"…no one." he sighed, shutting down the page he had up and pulling out the disc, setting it on the table next to him. Behind him, Keira shared a glance with her three companions, before stepping forwards.

"…er… Jak, do you…" she bit her lip, with an awkward little smile. "…do you need help… you know… preparing for tomorrow?" there was a short silence.

Then, he turned around to face them.

"…no. I'm…" he hesitated. "…I'm ready."

"Are you sure, buddy?" Daxter asked, jumping off of Kiera's shoulder. Torn nodded.

"As much as I hate to admit it, the rat's right, Jak." He rasped out, an expression of almost… concern… on his face. "…you sure you don't want to read it to us, to make sure it's okay?"

"…I'm not going to read them anything. But thanks for the offer." He sighed, head turned a little bit away. At the looks they gave him, he shrank back a little, but elaborated on this point. "…I'm not going to talk, unless they ask me questions. …just… you know, give them the data and let them decide for themselves."

"But-!"

"It's okay, Kiera." He sighed, leaning back against the table. "…just… don't worry about it, okay?"

"Jak." Ashlen stepped forwards, a dark look on her face. "…First of all, I would like to say, in the name of Haven city and all of it's residents…"

And she bowed.

"…that we apologise that something like this happened to you, who saved us all."

There was a silence.

…then,

"…don't." Jak sighed, running a hand through his hair. He had been thinking about growing it out, to match the warrior-like cornrows that he had seen around the city. It wasn't like he would have to let it grow that much.

"…and I'm sorry that the council is attempting to banish you for something we did to you in the first place." This, of all things, hit home. He paused, slightly, before shaking his head.

"…don't bother…" he sighed, recalling all the things that he had done to the people that had experimented on him.

"…now, with that out of the way…" she snatched up the disc off the table, eyebrow elegantly arched. "…I would like to inform you… that I have little to no conviction in your ability to allow the council to let you stay, tomorrow."

"…good assumption." He sighed, rolling his eyes. She nodded.

"Then I hope you don't mind our looking over the information you have, here?"

He sat there, amusement written across his every feature for a moment, before sighing, like he was talking to a naughty little child.

"…oh… if you must."

She nodded, walking towards the main computer of the room with the disc held out, fully intending to put it in so it could be showed on the full screen, but his words made her pause.

"…but I warn you…" he smirked. "…it's not for the faint of heart."

The four of them gave him looks ranging from scathing disbelief to disbelief and curiosity.

He leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk that the computer sat on, waiting. Perhaps he could glean some miniscule amount of amusement from this.

And maybe, they might finally understand why.

Screens flashed up. A query of whether or not to open the document in question.

Yes.

It took a shorter time than he had thought it would, at least. Only a few minutes of them scrolling through lines of statistics and pictures of him either restrained, screaming, foaming at the mouth, bleeding dark eco, or pictures of him coated in blood, smirking, with a maniacal, homicidal glint in his eyes as he strained against the hands of his captors, desperate to tear through flesh once more.

Only a few minutes before they reached that day.

It had been the highest day of casualties on his record. The day that he had broken free enough to wreck havoc amongst the building- the day he had "gone dark" for the first time.

He watched as they stood, eyes rooted to the security footage of him as he worked his

way through the ranks of the KG, skin ashen pale, horns curling around his head, eyes black and empty, as his hands tore through them like paper, with a smile on his face.

Ashlen only just managed to turn it off before Kiera threw up.

Only just.

And slowly… as if in slow-motion… they all turned to face him, at once. Looks of pain, of sympathy, of fear, of horror- they were all written across their expressions. He sighed, tsking, crossing his arms across his chest, eyes carefully closed to avoid their looks.

"…I told you so." he said, quietly.