Dislcaimer: Anyone who genre jumps with me knows I've said this a couple times already, but sorry for the radio silence recently; my computer had a breakdown and I had to get a new one, and then I had to get used to OpenOffice (which I kinda love now), and I got a job and I got in a car crash but everyone's okay and it's been a helluva couple months, really. But I'm back!

Invincible

Chapter Nine: The Moment to Fight

While Keira started a fire in the cave they'd found, Jak used a massive rock to block the entrance and seal them in. They'd all be made uncomfortable by the lack of an easy exit, but they'd be a lot safer, too, and safety came before comfort. By the time Jak went to sit down next to the fire with them Keira was sitting there with her head in her hands, zoomer parked safely behind her, while Daxter rifled through his rucksack.

When he pulled out the old stained journal and Jak caught sight of it, his expression changed from worried to devastated. He backed away from the ring of firelight until his back hit the cave wall.

Daxter had hoped Jak wouldn't know what it was, that maybe Jak had never even seen the journal before, but it was clear that wasn't the case.

"I'm so sorry, Jak," Dax said rapidly, guilt burning a hole in his gut. "I should have burned this damn thing. But, if I hadn't found it I wouldn't have met you, and then I… I dunno, I guess I thought maybe there'd be something in here that could help you and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kept it but I did, and now I think we need it."

Keira looked back and forth between them, bewildered.

Daxter ignored her and kept talking to his best friend. "Jak. Jak, I'm really sorry, I really am, but… those things back in… in the village, they looked like Dark Jak, man, and we really, really need to know. In the interest of all of us not dying horribly an' all."

Jak's gaze dropped to the ground and he wouldn't look at Daxter, but he nodded.

Sighing in relief, Daxter opened the journal for the first time in months. The escape from Haven had been a lifetime ago and Daxter hadn't taken the journal out of his rucksack since showing it to Samos that night.

When Keira leaned over to look at it Jak's head snapped up and his eyes widened.

"No," Daxter said gently, moving away. "The less people that see this, the better. It's not fair to Jak." Daxter's own heart ached looking at the damn thing. It had been different when he first found it; he'd taken it out of pure curiosity, and while he'd been stunned at the clinical detachment the journal showed then it was different now. It was worse now. Jak was his friend now, and it was horrifying to read the way the scientists had written about his friend as if he weren't an elf. Daxter didn't want to know how far the 'dehumanizing' part of the project went. He definitely didn't want anyone else to see the journal. Jak didn't deserve that.

Unfortunately, Daxter realised a moment too late that Keira had finally been pushed too far. She'd always had a quick temper and now she'd had enough. Narrowing her eyes at Daxter, she grabbed for the journal.

Daxter narrowly avoided her and darted to Jak's side.

"I said no!" he barked. "Please, Keira! How often do I ask something like this?"

"Never," Keira growled, and flung out an arm. "But how often do we get chased out of our home by creatures that look like Jak?"

Jak flinched.

"That doesn't mean anything!" Daxter snarled, bristling. "Jak's our friend, he would never-"

"I don't know that!" Keira glared at Daxter. "I don't know anything about him, Dax! You just showed up with Jak one day claiming you broke him out of a hospital basement, how do I even know that's true? These things look like him, they're following him, they destroyed our home!"

"It was Jak's home too!" Daxter shot back.

"No it wasn't!" Keira was on her feet and really yelling now, and as Jak flinched back further against the wall Daxter moved protectively in front of him. "Jak never cared about Sandover, he only ever cared that you lived in Sandover!"

"Stop talking about him like he can't hear you, he's right here!" Daxter looked like a salamander trying to defend a dragon, but it was clear he meant every word he said. "Jak cares about you and Samos and the village too!"

When Jak let out a low distressed whine and punched the wall to get their attention, Daxter cut himself off abruptly and turned to his friend.

"Jak?" Daxter said, radiating anxiety, because the sounds Jak could still make were so animalistic that he usually avoided them altogether.

"I've got a right to know," Keira said sharply, distracting him.

"Jak's got a right to his privacy," Daxter retorted without looking at his foster sister.

"Not when we just lost our home to dark eco freaks that looked just like Dark Jak, he doesn't!"

Daxter whirled and glared at her. "And when do you plan on sharing your past with us, Keira?"

"My past hasn't killed anyone!" Keira glared at Daxter. "And while we're on the topic, what were you doing in Haven all those years, anyway, Daxter? I know there weren't any metalkid gangs left the last couple years. Just how were you earning your keep?"

"None of your fu-"

Jak punched the wall again. They both turned to him this time.

Looking pleadingly at Keira, Jak held his hands at his side, palms up, and tilted his head.

"You didn't do anything to apologise for," Daxter said, angry with Keira for making Jak feel like he was at fault.

But Keira deflated as suddenly as she'd exploded in the first place, sinking back down across the fire and burying her face in her hands again. "I- damn it. No, Jak, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have... I… it's just…" She looked up, and her eyes were starting to glitter. "Sandover's gone, and Daddy's gone, and I think Haven was burning, and what are we going to do?" Keira's last few words were a terrified wail.

Daxter sighed and looked down at the journal he still held. They didn't even know if it had any answers for them. It was still their best bet. He shook his head and turned to Jak. "Maybe you should read it yourself. I mean… now that you can."

Jak would have backed up even more, but the cave wall stopped him. He shook his head, eyes locked on the journal, and gestured between it and Daxter.

"Jak, man, I don't really want to read this damn thing either." Dax backed into the wall himself, then slid down it so he was sitting on the rocky floor and looked back up at Jak. "Sit down?"

Reluctantly, Jak sat down beside him, but still refused to look at the journal. Dax looked up and over the fire and caught Keira's eye. Sighing, she left her position by the zoomer to come and sit at Daxter's other side. He leaned as far in to Jak as he thought his buddy would allow before cracking the journal open and beginning to read out loud. He skipped the header where it said Subject 103DE2- he didn't think Jak needed to hear that, and he sure as hell didn't want to call him that.

The first few sentences made Dax glad of that decision.

"Subject prototype Dark Warrior, throwaway subject, suggestions prohibit use of name, prohibit friendly contact, prohibit conversation… Jak, I seriously don't want to read this. You're my friend, this is mad disturbing."

Jak didn't seem to hear him. He was staring at the line prohibit use of name, and he slowly reached out to run a finger along the words. He tilted his head at Daxter and then moved his free hand to cover where Dax knew his tattoos were.

"That ain't yer name," Dax said flatly, bumping his shoulder against Jak's side. "If you don't answer to it, it ain't your name. That means your name's Jak. Nothin' else. Not 'less you want it to be."

The sudden movement Keira made on Daxter's other side let him know she was curious, but this wasn't his to tell. None of this was.

Daxter sighed and shut the journal. Jak frowned and Keira opened her mouth, but before either one of them had a chance to say anything Dax had started speaking again.

"When the metalheads invaded I was living with my dad in the Slu- Dead Town. I didn't know my mom, Dad never said anything about her and I didn't ask. I thought I could ask when I was older and he'd answer me. But… when the metalheads attacked, Dad woke me up and told me to run, and I... well, I did. I ran away. " He hissed out a breath between his teeth. "Just... ran away, and left my dad."

Jak leaned into him. On his other side, Keira did the same.

Daxter wanted to shut his eyes. He didn't, because that would be cutting Jak out of the conversation. "I didn't come back for... Precursors, I don't know. Days, I think.." Daxter swallowed, closed his eyes, and quickly forced them back open. "And then …well, I went back, eventually. Only it took a few tries. I was scared of m'own home... who does that?" Daxter's breathing started to speed up. So did his speech. "An' I found my dad, he was still in the kitchen, only… only his chest was all kinda ripped to shreds, an'… I didn't know what to do so I ran away again, and I kept runnin', an'…"

By now Dax was nearly hyperventilating and Jak shook his shoulder to get him to stop.

"You don't have to tell us, Dax," Keira said quietly.

Dax's eyes were suspiciously glittery when he whipped his head around to stare at her. "Yeah I do, Keira."

Jak squeezed Daxter's shoulder. When Dax looked at him, Jak shook his head and put his hand on the journal.

"Jak, really-"

Shaking his head again stubbornly, Jak ducked his head and thumbed through the journal, finding a page and pointing at it.

Daxter's heart sank. Jak hadn't known how to read until recently. He'd known Daxter had the journal all along. He'd read the damn thing, or at least parts of it.

That raised all kinds of new questions, but now was hardly the time to go hounding Jak about them.

Swallowing, Dax wiped angrily at his eyes and bent to read what Jak had pointed out. It was towards the end of the journal and nowhere near where Dax had been reading. It was also in a different format. "Requested permission to pit- Jak-" Daxter would not call his friend by that damn string of numbers and letters- "Against other Dark Warriors. Other Dark Warriors seem to be badly flawed; the dark eco not only attracts metalheads, but warps lesser elves into lesser Dark Warriors, dubbed merely Warriors. Permission pending for further investigation." Daxter stopped.

He was at the end of the journal.

Keira broke the silence first. "So... 'against other Dark Warriors.' That means that Jak is.. was supposed to be a Dark Warrior, too? And that's what they're called. And the villagers..." She winced. "They'd become weaker versions. Warriors. Unless they're killed outright," she added quietly.

Jak shifted, but didn't move to add anything.

"Does that mean, if we've both been around Jak this long...?" Keira trailed off, Jak flinched, and Daxter leaned around to glare at her.

"It's Jak," Daxter said firmly. "We'll be fine."

Jak himself didn't look too convinced of this, and there was very little logic in that statement, but none of them pointed that out.

Instead, exhausted and heartsick, they put the fire out and curled up in the corner to sleep- Jak with his back to the wall and Daxter beside him, Keira on Daxter's other side, just close enough that if she reached out she could touch him but just far enough away not to bother Jak.

For one more night, at least, they could take comfort in each other's presence.

The morning would be a different story.

Daxter spent most of the night staring at the cavern ceiling, knowing it was impossible to make out in the darkness but straining his eyes to try anyway. He could hear Keira's breathing on one side, slow and even save for tiny hitching sobs every now and then, and Jak's breathing on his other side, just a bit too quick and unsteady for Jak to really be asleep.

Because in the morning, they'd have to split up.

Keira wanted to go to Haven and search for Samos, he knew it. He even understood it, at least a little.

But he and Jak couldn't go to Haven. He and Jak were going to have to face the wastelands, which were overrun with Warriors and Dark Warriors and metalheads, all of them out for Jak's (and by extension, Daxter's) blood. With Sandover gone, and likely the other scattered villages overtaken as well, they had no choices left.

Daxter fell asleep with a lump of worry lodged in his throat, but by the time he opened his eyes in the morning it had metamorphosed into something new- into a resolve, into a focus, into something to strive for.

This wasn't the same world it had been two days ago, and they were changing with it- but they were going to fight, and they were going to live.