A/N: ;A; Ugh this is so frigging late! I'm so sorry! The writer's block was punching me in the face but I pushed through it! And here is a nice, long chapter.

I have an announcement! I was hoping to be able to finish this before I left the country, but that is not going to happen. There will be one more update on Thurs. (and nothing on this earth will stop me from updating) but then I won't be able to update for about 3 weeks. There won't be any internet where I'm going (*profuse sobbing*) and I need to focus on...helping humanity. I will start updating again as soon as I come back, though.

DISCLAIMER: Is in the first chapter. If Jak and Daxter were mine...well...I wouldn't be writing this fanfiction because this would have happened in the game.

Jak and Daxter: A Twist of Fate
by Jam

Daxter didn't really know what to expect in the afterlife, but Samos the Sage's bright, cheery visage looming over him really wasn't it. For some reason, his mental image of the great beyond had always looked a little like the beach outside of Sandover – sunny, warm, and Lurker-free. He would be perfectly content to just laze on that beach for all eternity, but apparently that's not where he'd ended up. Maybe the orange-haired teen should have been nicer to people while he was alive, even if they did get on his nerves most of the time.

But it didn't take the boy long to come to the startling realization that he was still very much alive. He bolted upright to find that he was lying on a mat on the floor of the Red Sage's hut, probably one brought over from Sandover. The horrible splitting pain in his head that had plagued him before was thankfully absent. He didn't remember making it out of the spider caves…how had he gotten all the way back to the Red Sage's hut in one piece? The last thing he remembered…was a sea of dead Lurkers…a blood crazed Jak barreling toward him. There was no way Daxter could have outrun him, let alone beat him in a fight. So how had he ended up here? And what had happened to Jak?

"Finally decided to grace us with your presence?" Samos barked with slightly less sarcasm than usual, but only slightly. It was back in full force with his next sentence. "Why is it I can't ask you to do the simplest things without something going horribly wrong?"

Things couldn't be all that dire if Samos' warm and friendly demeanor was anything to go by, but that did nothing to calm Daxter's nerves. Usually he'd snap back with his own brand of sarcasm, but he couldn't even bother when inside he was freaking out so badly he could barely think straight. Worst case scenarios were flying past his mind's eye. What if Jak was still down there, out of his mind and killing everything in sight? What if something bad had happened to him and he was hurt, or worse? What if he had snapped out of it but he was all alone, surrounded by blood and gore and with no one to help him? "Where's Jak?" he managed to squeak out before his imagination could provide him with something worse to think about.

The old sage gestured angrily behind him with his staff, and Daxter craned his neck to peer around him. He didn't know how he hadn't been able to see Jak before. Even though the boy was asleep, or more likely unconscious, his Dark Eco aura was still whipping around him erratically. He, too, was lying on a mat. His brow was furrowed angrily even in sleep, and his claws dug into the material of the mat. So he was alive and uninjured – that was a huge weight off of Daxter's shoulders. But was he still sane? "What happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" Samos snapped emphatically. He began to pace back and forth across the hut, gesticulating so wildly with his hands that Daxter was afraid his staff might go flying. "He came charging in here with you thrown over his shoulder like a sack of flour, bleeding all over the floor! The boy nearly ripped my head off when I tried to kick him out – hence his comatose state at the moment. He should know better than to try to take on a fully trained Eco Sage."

But Jak hadn't been in his right mind when he'd come storming into the Red Sage's hut. The old sage had turned to snap at the boy for interrupting him, but the elf standing in the doorway hadn't been the boy that he had practically raised for the past fifteen years. Or, it had, but it had been a side of him that Samos hadn't seen for some time and hadn't been expecting to see again anytime soon. The sage had made a mistake underestimating the effect the Dark Eco had had on Jak. He had assumed that because Jak hadn't immediately degenerated into a mindless killing machine, they had thankfully dodged a bullet, but that apparently wasn't the case.

He had expected the worst when he had seen Jak standing there, arcs of deadly Dark Eco snapping around him almost like tentacles, eyes filled with more malice than Samos thought should be able to fit into one small boy. The only thing that had stopped the sage from knocking Jak out sooner was the sight of Daxter's limp body draped over the pale teen's shoulder. If Samos looked hard enough, he thought he might have been able to see concern and fear swimming under the layers of bubbling rage in those black eyes of his, but he honestly couldn't be sure.

In retrospect, Samos probably could have handled the situation far better than he had. Nearly attacking the volatile young man as soon as he'd come inside had gotten them off on the wrong foot, and barraging him with questions and foul-tempered sarcasm afterwards had only made things worse. Daxter was lucky that Jak had had the consideration to drop him, if somewhat indelicately, before he'd lurched forward with his claws outstretched. The boy may have been reaching for Samos' staff, which had come close enough to Jak's head at one point for the Dark Eco sparks snap angrily at it, or he could have been reaching for Samos' face – the old sage wasn't going to take any chances. Being an Eco Sage meant more than being green and having a fondness for plants, and he had used a burst of Green Eco to push Jak against the wall and pin him there.

Any sanity Jak had been holding onto flew out of the window as soon as he realized he couldn't move. The usually quite boy had snarled and howled, making noises not even a rabid Lurker was capable of as he thrashed against the wall. The aura of Dark Eco clinging to Jak had crackled with his growing rage, reaching across the room and singing everything it touched. Samos had knocked him out before he could hurt himself or anyone else, and before he got loud enough that Keira would have been able to hear him from all the way down in the lava tube. He knew how his daughter felt about the young man and the sage didn't want her to see him like this. He had half-hoped Daxter hadn't been an unconscious lump on the floor because, for all his faults, the one thing he was excellent at was communicating with Jak. But Daxter had been an unconscious lump on the floor, and if Samos hadn't healed him soon he might have been a dead lump. Head wounds typically looked worse than they actually were, but who knew what had happened to the boy. Luckily, healing him had been a trifle matter for a master of Green Eco, and the boy had woken up on his own not much longer after that.

"Yea, well, Jak gets a little cranky when he's around Dark Eco," the orange-haired boy groused as he pushed himself up from the mat and warily crossed the room to kneel by Jak. Even out of his mind and covered with blood, Jak had still managed to drag Daxter out of that spider-infested labyrinth. The orange-haired boy didn't know what on Earth he might have done to earn a friend like Jak. He must have been pretty awesome in a past life or something, because he really didn't deserve him. Daxter would have snapped long ago if he had been in Jak's shoes, but Jak just kept going and, even in his darkest moments, he still managed to be himself and be a hero without even trying. Daxter didn't know how he did it.

"The Dark Eco crystals…?"

"Yea," Daxter drawled, shooting Samos an acidic look over his shoulder. The old man had stopped pacing and was staring at Jak with growing realization, but Daxter couldn't help himself from shooting a barb. In the young boy's mind, this had all been Samos' fault. "Somebody thought it would be a bright idea to send the guy suffering from Dark Eco poisoning into a cave filled with Dark Eco to destroy volatile, exploding crystals of concentrated Dark Eco!"

"He showed no adverse effects when he came out of the Precursor city," Samos countered, tapping his staff against the wooden floor. He frowned pensively as a thought occurred to him. "Of course, it wouldn't have any effect on him if he didn't come into direct contact with it. He must have absorbed the explosion of the Dark Eco crystal, which explains why you're still alive to pester me!"

No apology. No 'Sorry for sending you both off into a horribly dangerous cave filled with who knows what on a mission I should have known would go horribly wrong because I'm an Eco Sage and I should know these things.' Just more jabs. Honestly, Daxter had to wonder how Keira had ever been born. What woman would have been able to put up with Samos long enough to…no! No! He was going to stop that train of thought right there!

The Green Eco Sage raised suspicious, bushy eyebrow at him when the boy started to gag but thankfully didn't comment on it. "It seems we need Gol Acheron's help now more than ever, though the likeliness of him aiding us now is practically nonexistent…"

It was a good thing, then, that Gol wasn't their only option. There was one other way to help Jak, and Daxter was seconds from asking Samos about it. If there was anyone on the planet who might know what the 'pure light' was, it would probably be Samos. For all his shortcomings, Daxter had to admit that the guy was an expert on all things Precursor-related. But the teen kept his mouth shut. He and Jak didn't need any help from Samos the Green Eco Sage. If he was so powerful, then why wasn't he the one out there fighting the Lurkers and destroying Dark Eco crystals? Why would he encourage two teenagers to continually risk their lives like this? The old log probably wouldn't help them, anyway. All Daxter's life it had always just been him and Jak, and it looked like it would keep being that way.

Samos hadn't always been this bad. It used to be that the worst he would get from the old sage was a harsh scolding for not cleaning his hut fast enough. He wouldn't have said the old log was his favorite person, but he'd respected Samos. Ever since the two boys had come back from Misty Island, Samos had been more caustic than usual. Yea, Daxter understood that they had sort of royally screwed up. If they had just stayed in bed and slept like Daxter had wanted to instead of going off on another of Jak's adventures, they would never have been in this mess in the first place. Granted, if they hadn't gone to Misty Island, they might have never found out about Gol, Maia, and the Lurkers until it was too late, but the teen could see why Samos would be upset with them. But if this was some sort of punishment for disobeying him, it was going too far. Daxter was honestly surprised the two of them were still alive.

The orange-haired elf placed a hand on Jak's shoulder, for once completely unafraid of the purple lightning that reached out to latch onto his skin. There wasn't a doubt in his mind anymore that Jak would never hurt him, no matter how far gone he was – at least not intentionally. "Well, maybe Gol just needs a little…convincing," he eventually said with a slow smirk. Maybe if they could capture Gol or something, they could get him to help Jak – though, the likelihood of getting through this whole 'saving the world thing' without Jak tearing Gol and Maia to pieces was looking pretty slim. Well, the faster they dealt with Gol, the faster they could look for the pure light. "We found plenty of Power Cells when we were fighting for our lives down in that spider-infested pit. They oughta enough for Keira's Zoomer. We'll just hop over and pay Gol a visit, stop him and his crazy sister from destroyin' the world, and then have a little chat about him fixing Jak."

"And I'm sure that would be an excellent plan," the sage intoned with so much sickly sweet sarcasm it made Daxter's teeth hurt, "if the boy doesn't just rip Gol apart!" the sage finished with a cry of frustrated exasperation, and Daxter had to wonder if maybe Old Samos couldn't secretly read minds. "I fear Jak is far too volatile in this state. There's no telling what he might do."

"So…what? You're not tellin' me you wanna just leave him here?" the young elf asked incredulously as he climbed to his feet and folded his arms over his chest. That put a major hitch in the whole Jak and Daxter against the world plan. It just didn't compute. "How is that helpful?!"

"I cannot remove the Dark Eco from his system, but perhaps I can attempt to suppress its effects – if only temporarily," the sage pondered as he ran a hand through his white beard. He glanced at Jak speculatively and seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment before he realized that Daxter was still standing in the hut trying very hard not to have a panic attack. "If you've got all the Power Cells, there's no point in you loitering around here. Since you've been so eager to prove yourself lately, you can take the Zoomer through the lava tube and activate the warp gate on the other side. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to concentrate!"

The orange-haired teen was shoved unceremoniously from the Red Sage's hut, and it was only his fear of what the Green Eco Sage might turn him into that prevented him from storming back in and giving the old man a piece of his mind. It seemed like the two teens just couldn't catch a break lately. If it wasn't one thing it was another, and things just seemed to be getting worse. And what if they just kept getting worse? What if Jak woke up and he was still the killing machine that Daxter had run into down in the spider caves? What if he never snapped out of it and they never found a cure, and he was stuck that way forever? What if he lost his best friend to the blood lust or, worse, what if they all just ended up dead because they couldn't stop Gol and Maia? Daxter ran his hands raggedly through his flame of yellow-red hair as he paced furiously just outside of the Sage's hut. He could really use some of Jak's laidback confidence right about now.

He couldn't do this by himself…

With one last glance toward the hut, Daxter began to make his way toward the entrance to the lava tube. He couldn't afford to let himself fall apart now. He had to hold himself together. Besides, Daxter would just be driving the Zoomer. That was something he was actually pretty good at, if he did say so himself. How hard could it be to ride through one measly lava tube? Full of burning, molten rock and noxious fumes. Where one minor mistake would probably cook him alive in an instant. Where there could quite possibly be a trap waiting for them on the other side.

It would be a cinch. Now he just needed to keep telling himself that over and over again and maybe he would begin to believe it.

By the time he got to the lava tube, it had actually sort of started to work. But his fragile confidence went up in metaphorical and literal flames when he got his first peak of the river of death he would be flying over. There weren't any patches of rock to cool the Zoomer down, just lava as far as the eye could see. His poor, naked toes would be dangling inches above that bubbling mess. The young elf quickly looked away before his common sense could talk him out of what he was about to do.

Keira was just scooting out from underneath the Zoomer by the time Daxter climbed down to the lava-warmed rocks below. The green-haired teen smiled at him as she pushed her damp bangs out of her eyes. He still didn't know how she could be so at ease standing not three feet away from a bubbling pool of hot magma, and he probably never would. "Hey, Daxter! I just finished calibrating the heat shield. Don't tell me you guys are ready to go already?"

"This is me and Jak you're talkin' about. Gettin' those Power Cells was no problem!" It felt good to be able to joke with Keira, like he was pushing a bit of weight off of his shoulders. For about two seconds he could pretend that the world wasn't in peril, that Jak wasn't in a Samos-induced coma to prevent him from skewering people, that Daxter wasn't about to go sailing over a river of burning hot lava…

"So where is Jak?" she asked curiously, and Daxter's froze for a second. How was he supposed to explain this to Keira? 'My other half isn't here because he got caught in an explosion and went into a murderous rampage, which is your dad's fault by the way, and he's still off his nut so the old log knocked him unconscious and we're not sure how homicidal he'll be when he wakes up' was definitely not an option. He tried to laugh to cover up his nervousness, but it hadn't worked if the mechanic's raised eyebrow was anything to go by.

"He's, uh…he's helping Samos out with some…things," because that had been completely convincing. Normally Keira would see straight through a lie that bad, and she probably did now, but something else was nagging at her.

"Is it just me or does he seem…different?" she asked tentatively, as though she were reluctant to face what she was about to say. She frowned down at the lava-lit rocks beneath them and wouldn't look back up. "I mean, obviouslyhe looks different, but has he been acting strangely?"

Lying wasn't going to work here, Daxter could tell by the way Keira had started gazing at him imploringly with those giant, green eyes of hers, and he could swear she must have been taking puppy eye lessons from Jak when he wasn't around. Who could lie to a face like that? But he didn't think he could tell the truth, either! "Let's just say that Jak's got a, uh…slight anger management problem. Gets a little carried away. But it's nothing we can't handle! This is Jak we're talking about, right?" he said, using the same words Keira had used to reassure him so many times before.

"It's just I worry about him. Usually he just works the Eco out of his system, but this time…and now with the whole apocalypse thing on top of everything else," she added with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "But at least we can knock Gol and Maia off the list soon."

"That's if I can make it there in one piece!" the orange-haired teen commented with a dubious glare toward the tunnel of lava.

Keira placed a hand on the side of the Zoomer and looked down at her invention with a fond, excited smile. "Don't worry. With these additional Power Cells, I should be able to supply the heat shield with enough power to stand up to this lava. It will now withstand temperatures up to 800 degrees, but no more, so keep an eye on the gauge. I don't want to think about what those temperatures would do to the Zoomer if the shield gives out!"

"Yeah, the heat…" Daxter nodded along absently, still really mulling over whether or not it was worth it to go through the tube. But…wait… "WHAT?! The Zoomer?! What about me?! Isn't there a safer route to Gol's citadel?"

"Look," the green-haired mechanic said with another roll of her eyes. "I've released more cooling balloons into the tube, so you can use them to keep the temperature down. And don't forget to activate the teleport gate in the Yellow Sage's lab. We're counting on you!"

The teen grumbled to himself as he mounted the Zoomer and shot off as fast as the homemade machine would go. If he had to do this – which he did, there was really no way around it – then he was going to get it over with as quickly as possible. It's not like he could really cruise through here and take in the scenery anyway, not if he wanted to avoid burning to a crisp. But after the first five seconds, Daxter really wished he had thought more about this and hadn't taken off quite so hastily. Because he really, really wished he could turn this Zoomer around.

He was pretty sure he was going to die.

He had felt the heat of the lava tube long before he had made it to Keira and the Zoomer, but that was nothing compared to actually soaring directly over the churning lava itself. He'd never felt heat quite like this before – the hottest days on Sentinel Beach never got this bad, and he could have sworn not even the Fire Canyon had been like this. Daxter thought that maybe this must be what baked bread felt like. The air was thick and burned in his chest with every inhalation, and the glow and heat from the lava stung at his eyes even through his goggles. With every second that passed, no matter how fast he felt like he was flying, the temperature steadily grew more and more unbearable. He found himself seeking out places to jump on purpose even though he knew it was dangerous, just to try to escape from the heat of the lava below.

The first cooling balloon was like that first breath of air after being held underwater for too long. He could ponder how on Earth Keira had managed to get those things all the way down here later, but for now he would just take them as the godsends they were.

Daxter didn't really notice it at first, but, the farther along he went, the less…organic his scenery became. Rock walls slowly transitioned into layers of pipes, thick tubes, and massive vents, and the ground under his feet more often than not was made of sheets of metal pieced together rather than rock. He had never seen so much technology in one place that was so obviously not built by the Precursors. Keira would have loved to be able to take a closer look at it all. But suddenly Daxter had a lot more to worry about than just the heat. Storage containers filled with Dark Eco rattled across his path on pulleys and conveyor belts, undoubtedly on their way to Gol and Maia's citadel. What Daxter could only assume were bombs dangled from the ceiling. Gol and Maia had obviously been expecting them if they had taken the time to leave behind so many explosive presents. He pushed the heat from his mind as he focused solely on avoiding being blown to smithereens.

It was a relief when he sailed over one final ramp and found himself landing safely on relatively cool, completely solid ground. He parked the Zoomer at the trans-pad nearby and glanced around warily. The young boy could see the teleporter not far away, its gate empty and inactive, but he didn't see much else. If Gol and Maia's citadel was through the Precursor door behind him like he thought it was, then where exactly was the Yellow Sage's lab? A movement just out of the corner of his eye had him glancing back at the strange hunk of metal standing not far from the warp gate. Was that a…flag fluttering in the mangled heap? A yellow flag. And then it hit Daxter that that mangled heap was the Yellow Sage's hut. That was his lab. Gol and Maia hadn't just stormed in and wrecked the place – they had crushed it like an egg. The Yellow Sage hadn't stood a chance. How was Samos expecting him and Jak to stop the same people who had taken down three Eco Sages without even breaking a sweat?

Old Samos had to see this. If Gol and Maia were capable of this kind of destruction then there was no way two teenage boys were going to be able to stop them. Daxter rushed to the warp gate and pressed the switch that would activate it, but frowned when only one person came through. When Keira shot through the teleporter, Daxter could immediately tell something was wrong. The young girl had buried her face into her hands the moment she had made it through the gate, and her father hadn't tumbled inelegantly behind her. His first thought was that something must have gone wrong with Jak, but he managed to keep the terror out of his voice when he finally asked, "Hey! Where are Jak and old, green and wrinkly?"

"This is terrible!" Keira cried out, running a hand through her green hair. Daxter had never seen her so torn up before – not even the day the first prototype for her Zoomer had spontaneously combusted. "They've both gone missing! I think Gol and Maia may have kidnapped them!"

For a moment Daxter couldn't breathe. All thought had stopped, and the only thing that ran through his head was a breathless, horrified 'TheyhaveJaktheyhaveJaktheyhaveJak'. But instead of the rush of blind panic that he had been expecting, instead a flood of rage that rivaled Jak's newfound temper filled him from his toes to the vibrant red tips of his fiery hair. No one messed with his pal, Jak. No one. And they had snatched him when he couldn't even defend himself! If Gol and Maia displaced one silver hair on his friend's head… "Relax, sweetheart," he drawled, surprising himself with how calm he suddenly felt. It wasn't the 'everything's going to be okay' sort of calm that he hadn't felt in what felt like ages, but more a sort of…battle-calm. Orange Lightning was not happy. "I got everything under control."

"Under control?!" Keira had apparently reached her breaking point. The girl that had been helping hold Daxter together throughout their little adventure looked like she was experiencing her own panic attack. He hadn't known she'd been so worried. She was so good at hiding it, always so much more concerned with her machines and removing any obstacles in their way, that Daxter had thought she just hadn't let their problems get to her. He'd apparently been very wrong. "Lurker armies continue to grow across the land, the sages and Jak have been kidnapped, Gol and Maia have enough Eco to complete their terrible plan, and to stop them you're going to have to fight your way through their citadel!"

"Uh…yeah. That about, uh…sums it up," he agreed cautiously, honestly more afraid of Keira unraveling any further than he was of venturing into the citadel. He was determined not to think about the fact that he was going to have to fight through an army of Lurkers all by himself, with nothing but a thorny stick to protect him.

"You've got to save them before it's too late!" she pleaded, clasping her hands together and peering down at him earnestly.

"You can count on me!" Daxter exclaimed with genuine confidence. There was no way he was going to fail and let those whack jobs do who knows what to his buddy, Jak. Jak had saved his skin more times than he could count, and now it was finally time for Daxter to pay him back. He squared his shoulders as he turned and started determinedly toward the Precursor door that he assumed led toward Gol and Maia's citadel.

"And Daxter…?" He paused when he heard Keira call softly behind him and turned to see her gazing at him with not a hint of her usual tough girl sass. "Be careful?"

He faltered for a moment, not used to anyone besides Jak really taking the time to worry about him – not when he usually worried enough for ten people. It was…nice. "Don't worry," he said, beaming back at her. "I will."

Thank you guys for your reviews and support. We're almost at the end! I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. XD