Disclaimer: I have had a hell of a week. Fun times. I should mention, because I forgot to before, that Invincible is set so that it begins during Haven's stable period.
Invincible
Chapter Two: Free Spirit
Dax and the other metalkids he'd run with briefly before deciding he was safer and more comfortable on his own had hidden gear all over the city. Some of it was bound to still be there. After a moment's hesitation while he tried to think of an actual plan, Daxter slipped the journal into his rucksack and went to get ready.
His plan was to wing it and hope for the best.
Clearly, the kid needed help, Dax reasoned. Probably no one else even knew he was there. Except the scientists and whoever wrote the journal and, well, if they wrote the journal he doubted they cared about the kid's well-being.
The artist back at the village was always going on about karma. Daxter figured that Samos taking him off the streets, even if it had entailed a lot of convincing, was enough good karma that he owed the universe one.
The hospital was ridiculously easy to get back into. He slipped into a group of people heading for the visitor cafeteria, broke away from them to join another group heading for the ER, and eventually found his way back to the same ominous Do Not Enter door.
Dax stayed to the shadows again, but the hallway and the room were clear.
Well, the hallway was. The room… he guessed it technically was.
Dax could see the other boy a lot more clearly now. That was because the kid wasn't in his cell anymore. No, he was on his back on the metal chair in the centre of the room, his eyes closed, face twisted in a grimace, breathing unsteadily.
When he moved a little closer, Daxter realised the boy was strapped down.
Well, Dax had come prepared. He had one of his old kits with him, retrieved from an even older hiding place- an even better place than he'd thought for the kit to still be there after all this time. He grabbed a lock pick and went to work.
When Dax freed his hand, the boy's eyes flew open.
His immediate reaction was to try and hit Daxter, whose reflexes thankfully let him jump out of the way before the movement had time to really register.
"Hey," Daxter hissed, keeping his voice low. "I'm trying to help you, ya jerk. You wanna leave, don't you?" He moved back and quickly freed the boy's other hand. "Seriously, jus' stay quiet and follow me."
Those blue eyes still watched him with distrust and possibly a little fear, but there were no more attempts to hit him as Dax finished opening all the restraints and offered his hand to help the boy up.
The kid refused it, instead sliding off the chair and wobbling a little as he stood.
"I'm Daxter," Dax said quickly. "We don't have time for a formal introduction, okay? I know a quick way out."
Despite his words, Daxter didn't actually expect it to be a quick escape. He expected to be stopped, questioned, maybe even for an alarm to go off, but nothing happened. Ten minutes later, just like that, they were outside again.
The boy was leaning against the wall of the cluttered alleyway Dax had led him to, staring at the sky with an expression of wonder and longing.
Daxter dragged a few more heaps of trash into the front of the alley to block them from view before turning to his rescued friend. At least, Dax hoped he'd be a friend. "Hey. So what's your name anyway? I told you mine."
Tearing his gaze away from the sky, the boy instead stared at Daxter before pulling his scarf away from his throat. There was a nasty-looking scar there.
"Yeah, I know," Dax said patiently, which caused the kid to widen his eyes and then look away from Daxter for a long moment. "But there's gotta be another way for you to tell me. Can ya write?"
Reluctantly, the boy shook his head.
"Damn. Um." Daxter thought a second. "Can ya act it out?"
After a moment's hesitation, the boy shrugged and held his hands out, palm up. Daxter took that to mean I don't know. Maybe.
He watched for a minute before the boy brightened a little, only to crouch down suddenly and pick up a rock. The boy threw it at the ground so hard it bounced, then swiped up several more rocks quickly before the first rock hit the ground again.
Daxter stared. He was pretty sure he knew what that meant, but damn, there had to be an easier way to say that. Not that he could think of one, at least not that his buddy could use. "A jacks game?" Man, he hadn't played that in forever.
Dax was rewarded with a slightly frantic nod.
He felt a smile break out over his face. "Yer name's Jak?"
Nodding again, the boy smiled for the first time. It wasn't much of smile, since Jak wasn't exactly in the best condition, but it was more than Dax had hoped for.
He laughed. "Wait here a sec, Jak, I'll be right back with some new threads for ya."
Daxter didn't actually have far to go, since he'd dropped his rucksack in this same alley when he'd picked up his kit and he always had a spare set of clothes, but he really hoped these would fit his new friend. Jak was bigger than him, after all. After fending for himself so long out in Dead Town Dax had ended up as kind of a runt.
The clothes didn't fit quite perfectly, but Jak didn't seem to care. He was happy enough to change right in the alleyway. Daxter got a glimpse of a network of scars and an ugly black tattoo over Jak's heart before turning away until his friend had finished changing. He didn't think Jak would want him to see that, so he waited until Jak lightly tapped his shoulder before turning back around.
Then the boys looked at each other for a long moment, because Daxter's plan ended here and Jak hadn't had a plan to begin with.
"Um," Dax began finally, just as Jak made an odd sudden movement. Dax shut up.
Jak raised an eyebrow at him.
"No, you first. Then I'll finish what I was saying."
A faint look of confusion marred Jak's features briefly, but then his face cleared. He cocked his head to one side and raised an eyebrow at Dax again. What now?
"Er, that's what I was trying to figure out," Daxter admitted. "I've actually got a hotel room where my…" He stopped. "Uh, where my… I don't know what to call them. Where my… foster sister, I guess… and the guy who took me in a while back are staying. I don't think we wanna go to a hotel though," he finished quickly. "Too easy to find, ya know?"
Jak didn't reply, even nonverbally. He just watched Daxter with wide eyes.
It made Daxter uncomfortable. "I used to live here though. Out on the streets, I mean. I know some places… they'll check the shelters, but there are other places. There's one pretty close by where I doubt anyone would look… It's kinda dangerous to get to, though."
At the mention of danger, Jak suddenly grinned fiercely and cracked his knuckles.
Dax laughed again. "All right, dangerous route it is. But you gotta protect me, right Jak?"
This time the nod came across as slightly arrogant.
It was well-founded arrogance, as Daxter quickly learned. The part of the city they had to traverse to get to his preferred safe house was in the worst of the ruins that were still actually passable, riddled with metalheads, and prone to falling further apart while he was in it. Usually he tried to go another way, but if he couldn't avoid this route a lot of running like hell and climbing tended to be involved. With Jak beside him it was way easier.
Jak could take out a metalhead with one punch. As far as Dax was concerned, that made him the best friend ever. Ever in the history of ever.
Daxter kept close behind his buddy. While Jak had seemed incredibly jumpy since Dax had gotten him out of the hospital, and had looked downright scared at the thought of getting recaptured, he was clearly in his element while he fought. The fierce grin he wore seemed frozen to his face. Once, a metalhead leapt unexpectedly out at Daxter, and before he could react Jak had already swatted it away with a silent snarl.
If Daxter hadn't quite believed in karma before, he sure as hell did now.
They were nearly at Tess' place (in record time!) when Daxter got a glimpse of just what Jak had been doing in the basement of Haven Hospital. He'd thought it was odd that his friend didn't seem all that concerned about the dark eco lying around from the pulverised metalheads, but hey, maybe there was something he didn't know about it.
There was definitely something he didn't know about it, he decided as Jak suddenly grimaced and clutched his head and… changed. Suddenly he looked more like something out of Daxter's nightmares than an elf his own age.
Daxter backed up a couple steps, his sense of self-preservation honed well enough that he couldn't help but do so, but when Jak only went back to killing metalheads- now snapping dark eco out at them- Dax decided to keep following behind him. Sure, Jak was scary, but he was still killing metalheads. Dax was still safer with him than without him.
It was only a matter of minutes before Jak changed back just as abruptly.
Freezing in place, Jak glanced slowly at Daxter. He looked horribly ashamed.
Daxter knew that feeling. It was never good. He didn't want to see Jak experiencing it, so he said, "Man, Jak buddy, that was awesome. I think ya just gave the metalheads a new phobia."
The smile was uncertain, but it was a smile. Dax was okay with that.
He was more than okay with that.
When they reached an occupied part of the city, Jak froze up, going from a self-assured fighter to a scared kid in no time flat.
He flinched when Daxter threw an arm around his shoulders. "Hey, Jak, come on. I ain't gonna hurt ya. It's not much further. You'll like my friend Tess, I think. She helped me out a lot back in the day an' she knows all the back ways outta the city."
He wasn't entirely sure how much of that got through, since Jak was really nervous around so many people, but when Daxter started to walk again Jak stayed beside him so he must have done something right.
Jak looked at him a little funny when Dax headed straight for a bar, though.
Dax found Tess at the bar and waved to catch her attention. Jak hung back a bit as Dax quickly negotiated a room- Daxter had learned years ago that the Naughty Ottsel had a whole warren of back rooms. Several of them had the multiple exits he considered a necessity. Dax lowered his voice as he requested one of the ones which he knew not only had a lot of different ways out, but also had a main exit that let out into one of the underground passageways that would take them out of the city entirely when they left in the morning.
Tess had a soft spot for Dax, so it didn't take long before he was waving Jak ahead of him and ducking into the back. Their room was pretty far back so Daxter chattered as they walked.
"I found a way into the back rooms here when I was really young. I used to sleep in a storage room way in the back whenever the weather was really bad and the hotels were booked- I snuck into hotels a lot, but it only worked when there were vacancies- and after a while Krew, the guy who used to run the place, found me. Boy, was he mad… dunno what would've happened if Tess hadn't been there." He smiled nostalgically, lacing his hands together behind his head. "Ah, that's all ancient history now though. Tess and I still give each other a hand sometimes. Hey! Here we are, home sweet home." Daxter kicked open the door to the room.
It was one of the larger rooms, but it was barren enough and close enough to a major exit that there wasn't any competition for it. Unlike some of the others it wasn't really furnished, it just had a king-size mattress shoved up against the wall and a lot of assorted junk lying around, but Daxter had figured Jak would rather spend the night in a large room.
Daxter flopped down on the mattress, rolled so that he was curled snug against the wall, and yawned theatrically. When he cracked his eyes open again he realised Jak was still standing in the middle of the room.
"Jak," Daxter said. "Seriously. The mattress is huge and yer not sleepin' on the floor. Just lie down." He winked as he added, "I promise to behave."
The dark glare Jak gave him made him regret adding that last, but after only a little more hesitation Jak did join him on the mattress.
Ten minutes of staring at the ceiling later, still wide awake, while Jak lay on his side next to him and eyed every single exit a number of times in the most paranoid manner possible, Daxter sighed and sat up.
Jak immediately rolled on to his other side to glance inquisitively at Dax.
"I'm gonna booby-trap the doorways," Daxter explained, rummaging around in his rucksack. He let out a noise of triumph when he pulled out what he was looking for. They were wrapped in cloth to muffle the noise they'd make, but when Dax tossed the cloth aside it revealed a knot of strings with bells attached. Daxter quickly had the knots undone and looked at Jak again. "If I string these across the doors, no one can come in without us hearing them. Tess taught me."
Daxter himself had never had anywhere near as much confidence in this trick as Tess did. After all, if Daxter had come across the same trap, he'd just have ducked through the strings. Jak didn't seem to think of that though, or maybe it was the sheer number of times Dax draped them across each doorway, because after that Jak finally managed to fall asleep.
For a while.