Author's note: Takes place during Jak 3, stretching out the events of the game so that they take place over the course of at least a few months


It was just past midnight when Damas left the palace and began to walk around his city.

He wasn't the only citizen walking around, many still drinking and or talking with each other at the late hour. But activities were winding down and people were gradually making their way back to their homes, soon the streets would be more isolated so that the Sparguns could rise with the sun.

Usually, Damas would not be up so late himself, as king he had responsibilities that relied on him being among the earliest to rise. But on nights such as this, thoughts plagued him too much for him to sleep, and he had found that a walk around the city was one of the best solutions.

Damas was nearing the end of his patrol, almost all citizens now in their homes, when he heard muttering coming from the beach near the turret.
As he grew closer, he recognised the voice, it was their newest recruit, Jak.

Deciding to see why Jak was up so late, Damas changed course to meet Jak on the beach.
Jak's voice was the only one to hear, which was unusual since the young-adult wasn't the type for long conversations, that role being taken by the animal that usually stood on Jak's shoulder. In fact, Damas couldn't hear Daxter's distinct voice at all despite how those two were seemingly never apart.
When Damas was close enough, he realised that Jak wasn't talking to anyone, though Daxter was there, sitting on the sand instead of his usual perch and watching his friend with an expression of concern. Instead, Jak was listing out names.

"Kay, Tris, Vee, Sid…W-W-Wren! And…"

"Kay, Tris, Vee, Sid, Wren. Piper. Sky…N…Agh!

Damas watched in concern as Jak thumped his hand against the side of his head in frustration, then recite the names again, attempting to remember more and more.

"It's late. Why have you not turned in for the night?" Damas said to announce himself.

Jak jumped around in surprise. Concerning since the teen was usually more aware of his surroundings.
Now able to see Jak fully, Damas could see that he was clearly exhausted, bags clear under his eyes, leading the King to further question why his newest subject wasn't already asleep.

"I did. I mean I will. I just need to remember all the names first." Jak looked away, as if ashamed of something.

"Why do you need to remember these names." Damas found himself curious. Whoever Jak was wanting to remember, they must be important to be keeping the teen up despite his clear exhaustion.

"Because I have to." Jak expressed. "I'm the only one left to remember them, so I need to make sure that I don't forget."

It was easy to extrapolate from Jak's words that the people he was reciting the names of were most likely dead, and that Jak was somehow the only one to know them, or at least care that they died.

"Why are you the only one?" Damas probed.

From the corner of his eye, Damas caught Daxter silently making a cutting motion, the same one he'd made when the king had brought up Jak's father, which resulted in learning that Jak didn't know his father. Damas had no doubt stumbled upon another touchy subject.

Jak didn't speak at first.

"Because I'm the only one who survived. And it was decided that the Dark Warrior program would remain secret to prevent Haven de-stabling further after Praxis died." The teen eventually spoke up, digging his fingers into his arms.

Damas hummed as he worked over what Jak had said. 'Dark Warrior Program' stood out the most, it was apparently something that would upset the public if made known, and Jak was apparently a part of it.
Jak's monstrous form quickly sprung to mind.

"Does this Dark Warrior Program have something to do with your transformation?" Damas asked.

Jak nodded, looking out across the ocean instead of at the king.

"Praxis wanted stronger warriors to use against the Metalheads. He took prisoners and injected us full of Dark Eco against our will." Jak explained, rubbing at his chest.

Damas' eyes widened in horror.
While had already knew that Jak's transformation was brought about from being touched by Dark Eco, he hadn't realised that it was something that had been forced on the teen.
Dark Eco was a vicious and unstable substance, leaving those who came in contact with even the smallest amount of it sick or even killing them like an infection. Damas himself had only come into direct contact with it once, as part of his training as an Eco Channeler, that small amount feeling like it was eating away it him until he'd succeeded in channelling it away. He couldn't imagine what it would feel like to have it forcibly injected into him until it resulted in a transformation.

"Then the other prisoners, they…" Damas said.

"Almost all of us were people that wouldn't be missed, who could die to the experiments and then be thrown away without anyone caring. I didn't even have time to find out where I was after falling out the Time Rift before I was dragged away."

Damas was curious about the mentioned 'Time Rift' but decided to address that subject at a later time.

"Now I'm the only one who's left to remember them. If I don't, then they'll be completely forgotten." Jak added.

Damas tightened his grip on his staff.
He was well aware of the many atrocities Praxis had committed, starting with the coup that cast Damas and his loyal followers into the Wasteland. Though he did not go looking for what was happening in his former city, he was still aware of the lengths Praxis went to stay in power from reports given by Sig and other Wastelanders who went to the city. But experimenting on his own citizens with Dark Eco of all things was a new low for Praxis to sink to.

Damas found himself looking at Jak in a new light.
He already knew the teen as a strong warrior who had more than proven himself. Finding that Jak had gone through such hell yet still stood tall on the other side only deepened the king's respect for the warrior.

Yet, despite how Jak persevered, it was clear that his experiences still clung to him. Charging himself with carrying the weight and memories of those lost to the Dark Warrior Program as the sole survivor of it.

"Come, sit." Damas told Jak as he lowered himself onto the sand.

Jak looked at Damas questioningly but also lowered himself to the ground.

"When I was cast out of Haven, there were those who were cast out alongside me, whether by their own choice or being forced out for their loyalty to me. Most of them perished in the Wasteland before we found our way to Spargus and many more were lost proving themselves in the arena." Damas said. "Like you. I carried the weight of their loss within me. Even now, the pain is not truly gone, merely distant."

Jak nodded silently as the king empathised with his situation.

"Tell me of them." Damas then asked.

Jak startled slightly. "What?"

"Tell me of those who deserve to be remembered. You do not need to bare this burden alone." Damas said.

"I-I don't know." Jak responded unsurely.

Other than Daxter, no one had ever cared about the other prisoners. Those who knew of the program seeing the many prisoners as just numbers, to be lost in the sea of those who died under Praxis' tyranny. A tragic loss, but not worth knowing who they were individually.

"It will do you no good to allow wounds to fester." Damas advised. "And I wish to know of them."

Jak looked away from Damas and took in a deep breath.
He looked at Daxter who came to sit closer to him and but an encouraging hand on his knee.

"Come on Jak, I'd like to hear about these guys too. I hear their names enough, I may as well know who they are." Daxter prompted.

Jak let out his breath with a sigh.

"T-there…there were a few others already there when I was first taken. Kay was one of them. She helped me a lot in the early days, teaching me what she could about the world I'd been dumped into, she's even the one who started helping me to talk."

Kay had been a large pillar of support for Jak in those early days, her calming presence helping to sooth him as his body shook after each Dark Eco treatment, distracting him from the fear and pain with stories or her lessons. Kay wasn't the only one who helped in getting Jak to speak, the other prisoners also helping him if only to pass the time, but she was the one who started it and encouraged him each day.
Kay wasn't that much older than Jak, still a teenager herself, so Jak had imagined that she was what having a big sister would be like. In the beginning, when Jak hadn't realised just how dire their circumstances were, he'd often thought of sticking with Kay once they got out; thinking about how well Kay would get along with Daxter and Keira, maybe inviting her back to Sandover with them when they found their way back.

"She lasted a long time even though she was there before me, said it was because she wasn't going to leave me."

Of course, she eventually did.
Kay's desire to stay and protect Jak did not protect her from the Dark Eco forever. And without that pillar of unconditional support and shield against the abuse, Jak hadn't been able to cling to that boy from Sandover he used to be anymore.

"Almost everyone died on the table as the Dark Eco overcame them, but Kay passed away in our cell."

It was a tiny and rather pitiful comfort that Kay had passed away surrounded by those she could tentatively call friends instead of surrounded by unfeeling scientists on the table.

"I don't remember much about Tris, he died not long after I met him. He was very resigned to what was happening."

Tris in general, though not a bad guy, had been very depressing to be around, seemingly only interested in talking about how doomed they all were. Kay and other prisoners had told him more than once to shut up, not wanting to think about their mortality. And as a result, Jak hadn't interacted with him all that much before he was dragged away for the final time.

"There were two others there before me but they died before I could remember their names." Jak looked guilty, as if he had committed a grave sin by not learning their names.

Damas wanted to tell Jak that he shouldn't feel guilty for such a thing, that he can't be expected to remember the names of people he hardly met, but the teen obviously placed a lot of importance in remembering the names of his fellow prisoners and such advice would likely be discarded.

"Vee was one of the few of us arrested for legitimate reasons, they were apparently a notorious thief who finally got caught. They were always attempting to break out, picking locks or stealing the keys off the guards, even though they were always caught and got a beating for it."

Jak honestly felt a bit of admiration for Vee, them never once giving up on their quest to escape no matter the consequences, even as Jak himself stopped fighting back as much after so many beatings and the imprisonment dragged on.

"Eventually, Praxis decided that they weren't worth the effort."

It didn't come as a surprise, the threat had been made by both the Baron and Erol that further escape attempts by Vee would result in execution, yet Vee refused to be cowed by threats, even knowing how unlikely their next escape attempt was to succeed.

"Sid…he wasn't a prisoner. He was a guard. He apparently couldn't take what was being done to us anymore. Erol found out his plans for a prison break before he could get any of us out."

Jak honesty felt nothing when it came to the guard's death, already becoming numb to it at that point. And the guards, even the ones who acted 'nice' and didn't beat the prisoners, were still the enemy for keeping them in the Dark Warrior program in the first place. So, Sid didn't become any different from the other Guards and a name worth remembering until he was already dead and Jak overhead the other Guards talking about why one of the regular guards wasn't there anymore.
Sid may not have been an experiment like the rest of them, but he still died on that table, Erol apparently deciding that being pumped full of Dark Eco was a fitting punishment for planning a prison break.

Jak continued to list out his fellow prisoners and what he remembered of them.
He told Damas of Teddy, a man who was surprisingly old considering that Praxis was trying to make warriors, and who was unafraid to mouth off to their wardens and an attitude of his age meaning he was owed respect, even from those who imprisoned and tortured him. The old man had made everyone laugh when he'd threatened Erol that he wasn't too young to go over his knee.
Of Lucy, who used her looks to flirt with the guards to get slightly better treatment from them. Some of the prisoners looked down on Lucy for using such tactics, basically selling herself to get better treatment, but Jak and others didn't blame her for doing what she could to make life more bearable, and weaponizing her sexuality to almost escape by seducing a guard into being vulnerable to attack. She'd almost made it before being shot in the back, her body then dragged back to the cells and left there for days as a clear warning to those who still survived.
Of so many others, many he didn't have names to remember them by because they died to the injections so soon after their imprisonment.

"It got to the point that we started knowing when one of us wasn't coming back. I don't know if it was the Dark Eco in us, or just that we recognised the signs."

Jak didn't know which was worse. The uncertainty of whether they'd survive their next injection, or knowing that their time was up and being forced to knowingly walk to their deaths that day.

"When Dillon was being led to the lab as I was being brought back, we knew that it'd be his last. I didn't know him that well, he always kept to himself and didn't even give his name, but when we passed each other, we both started fighting the guards. We managed to knock them down and start running but ended up cornered on the roof with no way down because we didn't know where to go."

Jak went silent, he always tried to ignore what happened next. But he'd already said so much that he may as well talk about this too.

Damas waited patiently for Jak to continue.

"Dillion…he grabbed my hand and told me his name…then he jumped."

Damas felt something cold spread through his chest.
If the other prisoner had been holding Jak's hand, then that meant that Jak would have been pulled over the edge with him.

"The guards grabbed me before I could go over, but not Dillion."

Jak had dealt with many conflicting feelings after that.
On one hand, he didn't appreciate that Dillion had tried to make the choice of dying by their own hands instead of on the table for him, especially since he was still clinging to the hope of escape. But on the other, in his darkest moments, especially towards the end, he regretted just letting himself get pulled instead of leaning into the fall, so that the guards didn't have time to grab him.

Not wanting to dwell on those thoughts, Jak continued to list off the last few remaining prisoners.

"At the end, the only ones left were me and Rat. I think she must have been a Channeler as well, with how long she lasted."

She had never given her name, Rat just being a name one of the other prisoners had called her in annoyance that she decided that she liked. Outside of Jak himself, she had probably lasted the longest, likely through the power of sheer spite.

"Rat was never really all there in the head, just saying and doing whatever came to her mind. She would constantly mouth off and insult Praxis and the Guards, no matter how many beatings she got for it. Though, the Guards started leaving her alone when Rat pretended to enjoy it."

And by 'enjoy', Jak meant that Rat would moan sexually if Erol or the other guards decided to beat her, the guards dropping her like hot metal when she moaned for more. Though, with how Rat's sanity was questionable and with the Dark Eco further messing with her mind, maybe she really did enjoy pain.
Despite there being many differences, Rat had reminded Jak a lot of Daxter, with how they would both freely speak their mind and had an almost compulsive need to insult those they didn't like. Though while Daxter would eventually shut up when his safety was threatened, Rat would only get louder.

Rat had survived the experiments so long that Jak had even entertained the idea of the two of them escaping together, just like he had done with Kay.
He'd often wondered how Rat would get on with Daxter and Keira, and whether Daxter and Rat would become friends, or be too similar that they ended up disliking each other instead.
But in the end, Rat had decided to go out on her own terms.

"The last time I saw Rat, she was almost lucid for the first time in a while. She told me to live, for them, then blew up alongside the lab when they took her for injections. I don't know how she did it, but she managed to get the machine to explode and take out the scientists with her."

It had hurt, for his last friend in that horrible place to die and be left alone against the Dark Eco experiments, but at the same time he did admire Rat for being able to take out some of their tormenters with her.
Thankfully, it wasn't that much longer after Rat's death that Daxter showed up to break him out.

Jak slumped where he sat as he finished recounting his fellow prisoners.
With his self-imposed task complete, it was like his strings had been cut, his body demanding the sleep that had been kept from it.

"That is a lot of names for one person to remember." Damas finally spoke after a moment of silence. "Do you go through this every night?"

Jak nodded tiredly.

"I can't let myself forget. Because if I forget even one of them, they'll be gone forever and no one else will care." He explained.

It was a common sentiment. That as long as you remember someone, they'll never truly be gone.
While it was a good sentiment that could help others with their loss, Damas knew it was the opposite advice for what Jak needed since he had charged himself with remembering so many.

"Would they want to see you suffering like this?" Damas asked.

"What?" Jak lifted his head to look at him.

"If fate was different, and it was Kay or Rat who survived, would you want them keeping themselves from sleep every night, tormenting themselves until they recalled every name?" Damas looked back at Jak with a serious face.

Jak didn't say anything.
Of course he wouldn't want that. But it was different for him, not that Jak could put into words what the reason was.

"It is not just with your memories that you honour them, but with the very life you live. Through you continuing to live, to fight, to grow, that is how they continue on." Damas placed a comforting hand on Jak's shoulder

With how exhausted he was, both physically and mentally, Jak could not stop the tears from coming to his eyes, though he quickly wiped them away.
Damas said nothing but kept his hand on Jak's shoulder and he continued to cry for a couple more minutes.

Looking at the sky, Damas could see how late it was.

"Come. We should turn in for the night." He said, climbing to his feet.

Jak wobbled on his way up but managed to stand, his entire body feeling ten times heavier than it usually did.

Damas decided to accompany Jak and Daxter back to the accommodation they had been given. He was sure the teen could make it back on his own, but he didn't want to leave Jak until he was inside.

"Thanks, Damas." Jak said quietly, pausing at the door.

"Good night." The king bid as Jak slipped inside.

Damas was just about to head back to the palace when Daxter spoke up, having been uncharacteristically silent the entire time.

"Thanks, for doing that." The Ottsel said quietly.

Damas looked down at him.

"I have all the names memorised, yah know. It doesn't help often though, just makes Jak feel guilty that he couldn't remember their names on his own. It's the same with just writing their names down, he acts like not being able to remember them from memory would be disrespectful to them. Getting him to talk about them seems to help though, I'll have to use that in the future."

Daxter didn't look at Damas as he talked, his demeanour different to what the man was used to.

"I would do it for any of my subjects." Damas said.

Daxter gave a small laugh.

"Figures that it takes being thrown out to find anyone to care enough." He muttered more to himself than Damas.

Without another word, Daxter went inside himself.

Damas sighed heavily, mind mulling over what he'd learned this night and he made his way back the palace to finally sleep himself.

For someone who had gone through as much hardship as Jak had, the teen was remarkably functional, though not without damage. The boy had clearly never been able to properly grieve, instead creating an unhealthy coping mechanism for himself, and Damas highly doubted that his talk with Jak and the advice he gave would magically start him on the road to healing.

But there was something that Damas could do that would hopefully get Jak there.


The citizens of Spargus stood gathered around the beach just after the sun had finished setting past the horizon, keeping a respectable distance from the beach itself, where only those invited stood.

Most of them weren't invited to attend but stood in respectful silence regardless. Though they didn't know who they were honouring or why, if the King decided that they were worthy of honouring then Spargus would pay their respects.

With the help of Damas, Daxter, Sig and some Spargun volunteers, Jak lit the many lanterns that he had spent the last few days making under the instruction of Damas and Sig.
On each lantern was a name of those lost to the Dark Warrior project. For those whose names Jak didn't have the chance to learn, there were instead symbolic words and phrases to represent them.

Jak held the last lantern himself as he lit it, Rat's name painted on the paper.

With one last look to Damas, who nodded in assurance, Jak released the lantern, allowing it to float up into the sky.
Behind Jak, the other lanterns were released, following Rat's upwards, creating a trail of light out towards the sea.

Jak opened his mouth, to say something, but found his voice stuck in his throat.

Damas spoke up in his stead.

"I may not have met the souls we honour here tonight, but there is no doubt in my mind that if they'd been given the chance, they would have proven themselves good and capable Sparguns. They departed from this world in darkness, but now their souls shall burn freely amongst the light of the stars, guiding life onward."

Jak held his hand to his chest, then held it out towards the lanterns with fingers spread, before curling the fingers and holding his hand back to his chest over his heart.
Daxter was quick to follow, alongside Damas and Sig, with some of the other Sparguns copying the gesture in solidarity with Jak. It was a gesture that had fallen out of use since the time of Sandover, very few at the memorial knowing the sentiment behind it.

'We will be with you. You will stay with us.'

Jak continued to watch the lanterns as the drifted further and further away, even as the other citizens slowly left. A weight he'd grown so used to being there had finally eased, and he felt as though he was going to drift away with the lanterns with it gone.

He sat down on the sand, with no plans on leaving until he could no longer see the drifting lights.

"Thank you." Jak said again as Damas and Sig sat down beside him alongside Daxter.

"We honour those who deserve honouring." Damas said. "Spargus shall remember them with you."

Jak smiled.

Good.
They deserved to be remembered.


Author's note: Please comment

You want some grief and survivor's guilt on top of that trauma?
My favourite content in this fandom is Damas getting to be a mentor/dad figure to Jak, just because they both deserve it. And I've seen plenty of content focusing on the trauma Jak got from being imprisoned and experimented on, but only a couple addressing that there were other test subjects who Jak likely knew. So, I wrote Damas helping Jak with the fallout he'd no doubt still be experiencing from the Dark Warrior project.