Guardian-ad-litem

By Snare-chan

Pairings: None
Ratings: PG-13
Category(ies): General/slight AU
Warning(s): Cussing
Status: Continuation, 3/5
Summary: When we'd first joined the Underground things were simple – ask for your orders, go out and shoot things, then come back and do it all over again. But this one?

Notes: Wow, I don't think I've ever received so many great reviews before! It's so neat to come home from school, all tuckered out from the annoyance that are guaranteed in my not-so-demanding-schedule-but-I'll-say-it-is, and see all the funny and constructive comments you people have. I feel so…empowered, like I could take on…well, maybe not. I'll just leave all the fighting to Jak and I'll write this here fic – sounds like a fair deal, ne?

Not really much else to say this time around besides the fact that I think, out of all the chapters, this one was the most enjoyable of them all to write. The timing might seem a little awkward at first, but hey, at least I'm putting more detail in here than in the cut scenes in the game. It's always seemed kind of awkward to have a five second cinematic scene in the game from time-to-time, but eh, that might just be me.

Disclaimer: I don't own Jak II; wish I did like everybody else. They should put Jak II in stock, then I'd buy it all!

Dedication: To my coolest, bestest guy friend ever. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as I have with my Jak II game, which means this story would suck even more than it might already because I'd know Jak shit about what's going on. ;D

I don't know how I managed it, but someway, somehow I'd gotten around to falling asleep again. It could have been due to all of the excitement, hard work, or being woken up way before the crack of dawn…or was it yesterday? I don't really know anymore, did I sleep through it or is yesterday actually still today? Well whatever point in time it is I must have been more tired than I'd originally thought to fall asleep during any racket the child in our midst made. I guess when you live in a hustling, bustling metropolis like Haven City you kind of learn to sleep wherever you can, when you can.

That's not the weird thing, though. What is would be the fact that I actually slept. Like, really slept. No nightmares, no late night cry-fests, no more tail pulling, no interruptions. Period.

With that realization, ladies and gentlemen, it was like having a cold slap to the face. If there had been no explosions, guns going off in the distance, random flashes of light, shadowy presences, unusual sudden noises, or even a baby's cry…then why had I even bothered to wake up when I could be using this once-in-a-blue-moon free time more efficiently, like for more sleep?

Maybe that's just it. It's not that something had woken me up, it's because nothing had woken me up. How screwed up is that?

Cautiously peeking one lazy eye open to be sure I wasn't missing out on something, such as a metal head staring me in the face or the building being gone, I let the blurry images around me collect and form into the room I'd been sharing. Don't give me that look; people have told me I'm a heavy sleeper, so you can never tell if something bad was going on while you were counting sheep.

My vision wasn't greeted with anything blue-eyed, small, or destroyed, so that must count for something. For as far I could see, it was pretty dark in the old room, which was now taking on the pungent smell of baby powder and could use some major redesigning. Some new walls, a couple coats of paint, a little bit of décor…and some little bit of everything might make the place into more of an eyesore than a war zone.

Turning my head a little bit I unfurled my ears and took a better look around. The first thing I spotted was, and I'll be damned, talk about your Kodak moment! On the other side of the bed stood Jak; the big lug gently rocking the little kid in his arms all natural-like as he fed her. He still looked a little unsure, but it was all a super improvement from yesterday (if that much time had passed anyway. I'm not awake enough to be quite sure yet). I mean awww guys; I'm getting all teary eyed here!

Whether I was still too tired to be thinking straight or the moment was just too cute and sweet and precious but…the thing was, the whole matter was so serene and peaceful, something so unlike what I'd grown used to here, that I kind of felt at rest. After getting a front row seat on more raids than I have fur and seeing things that I'm sure will come back to haunt me, I forget that there are still good things in life.

Um…besides beer, babes, and buddies. Heheh.

This right here just proves that Jak would make one kick ass dad. I mean, how many kids could say their old man fights for the Underground, has more gun upgrades than he has shirts and can turn into a one-man killing machine? Not many, I'm sure.

…

I did not just think 'cute' and 'Jak' and mushy, girly stuff did I? Ick, I did! Watching over the kid has made me soft overnight! What will the ladies think if they hear?

The silence was suddenly filled with the shrill cry of an unhappy baby, the sound helping to wake me up faster than having a bucket full of scolding hot water thrown at my face. Instantly, my ears pulled back in an attempt to make it stop oh my god make it stop, but it was absolutely useless. I could be inside a soundproof tank and still have to put up with her crying.

Have I emphasized the amount of her whining yet? Because I can go on, you know; she does sob a whole lot.

Shaking my head weakly, I leapt from the bed and onto Jak's shoulder; the guy barely twitching at my presence by his head. He's an observant dude, so knowing him, he'd already figured out I was awake and as ready as I'd ever be.

We didn't even have to exchange a word, my limp tail offering itself up to her tiny, iron-like grasp as soon as I'd gotten comfortable. Amazing what I'll do to please a gal…

I must have had the most miserable look on my face, which makes sense since having my tail used as a pacifier isn't exactly the most pleasurable occurrence to happen to me, because even Jak was giving me an apologetic look.

"Don't worry, Dax; we only have her for a couple more hours."

I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any wistful tone in what he just said.

Glancing at the clock proved that it was indeed tomorrow and not yesterday, and from what I could read, the flashing red numbers on the clock said we had about an hour to kill before drop-off. The kid must know this, I mean, why else would she finally play goody-good for my sidekick and me?

Man, I hate it how the little snots can do that! It's like they're born with an annoying switch that doesn't turn off till puberty, and then the masses part and either go into über angry-at-the-entire-universe mode or become a raging sack of hormones. Sounds familiar, huh?

"How's she been holding up, big guy?"

Jak shrugged, the bobbing up and down momentarily releasing my tail before it was snatched back. "She's calmed down a bit, so we should be able to move her fine."

I managed to keep uh… the kid 'occupied' while Jak rummaged around and gathered all of her belongings. How he managed to fit all of it back into the bag was beyond me (then again, how it all got in there in the first place was also beyond me), and he shifted it over his opposite shoulder. The weight alone almost toppled him over, his body and the bag having to wrestle a bit for balance before we were able to finally head out the door.

Only to find Torn standing there.

"ECK!"

For the record that wasn't me, it was Randilyn. For real.

"Jeeze man, do you always stand in front of doors like the freaking boogeyman? Get a hobby!"

The brunette simply snorted before slowly looking us up and down. At first I got the creepy feeling he was checking Jak out before realizing what a sight we must be. A renegade with a kid tucked in one arm and an ottsel with his tail getting sucked off. We were just asking to be made fun of. I can feel it stamped all over us. If he had anything to say, Torn kept it to himself for once, his right hand whipping out to offer us a single slip of paper, like he was offering us a cigar. Wouldn't that be the day.

"Here are the exact coordinates. Try not to get too lost."

"Don't get lost he says…is it just me or do you always care this much?"

"Just get moving; you're wasting time!"

Having received that tearful farewell, we were out of the stuffy place and out into an even stuffier place, the fumes of machines outside the hideout clogging the air around us. Instinctively, I couldn't help but wriggle my nose at it, still not used to the stench of the city even after having lived in it for two years. Each and every time I took a lively stroll outside, it was like walking through an oven chocked full of axel grease.

Near the entrance of the alleyway, somebody had been kind enough to retrieve for us a two-seated zoomer; the hunk of junk one of those bright neon-ish green looking contraptions that stuck out like a sore thumb. The thing had to have been stolen; no one would be insane enough to actually buy one of these ugly things and drive it around town with their dignity intact.

It had to have been Torn's idea to get us one of these.

Moving over to get ourselves settled, we quickly discovered it was a good thing that we'd started out early, because this was turning out to be more complicated than we'd thought. She wouldn't let go of my tail without a fight, and even then whenever we tried to set her down to get situated, she'd make a racket that could wake the dead. It was finally just decided that I'd have to sit with her down in the seat.

I wasn't comfortable with this at all. For one thing, if I wasn't up there then who was going to keep an eye out for buildings and pedestrians? Jak wasn't necessarily careless - he knew that no ride meant a longer and more drawn out mission - but he wasn't exactly perceptive enough to come to terms with the fact that Krimzon Guards aren't bowling pins. For another, I was now stuck in a confined space with a kid who loses one-half her body weight after every feeding and enjoys using my tail as one of her chew toys.

"Hey, Jak?"

The vehicle lurched slightly with a cluttered, smoke-filled sputter as he kick-started it, my view of the sky getting a whole lot closer as he moved it into the upper zone. "Yeah?"

"I uh…know you like to ride these babies fast and furious, but do you think you could try and not be your racer self for one day? I'd prefer not to scar the kid for life."

"Right."

"I'm serious Jak. I don't want to go hurdling into any walls, get my fur dry cleaned or have to explain to this girl's mom that her kid got fried in a freak speeding accident." I made sure to add as much deadpan to my voice as ottsel-ly possible, my voice dropping at least an octave or two to make my point.

"You worry too much. Just keep on eye on her and we'll be there in no time, I promise."

Flashing me a reassuring smile from above, he returned his eyes to the road. His words may have been slightly comforting, since I've never known him to break a promise, but this piece of scrap metal was hardly trustworthy. For a moment, I sat tensed and huddled in the extra seat, the crawler still gnawing on my fifth limb like there was no tomorrow. Once we'd taken a few smooth turns without any mishaps I started to relax, though. Down inside the seat I could just make out Jak's effort to be patient with the crowds of other drivers and not go full throttle with the accelerator, and that's saying a lot when it concerns a guy like my friend here.

Perhaps Jak is right. Maybe I do worry too much.

Screech.

"Oh fuck."

That simple phrase was barely a whisper, but my ears picked it up like it was a gunshot. Without even thinking about it, I double-checked to see that Randilyn was all buckled up.

Peeking my head over the edge of the seat, I had a general idea of what had gone wrong. I'd felt the sudden pull as he'd tried to break in time, the gentle tap as we barely nudged whatever it was in front of us… I knew, oh I knew, we were screwed – no, gangbanged. Without even looking, I probably could have realized we'd run into one of those smooth, ruby red Krimzon Guard high-speed chase zoomers you see on television all the time, what was it now…'KG's Most Dangerous Chases' or something like that?

A single word wasn't uttered as guard #37077190-whatever started on his bike-like vehicle and looked back at us over his shoulder, then at his scratched up paint job, then back up at us.

Jak and I put on our most sincere and innocent smiles.

The Krimzon Guard hit the red alert button and sounded the alarm.

My friend wasted no more time with him, his foot slamming down on the pedal that sent us into a gut lurching downward motion, then full speed ahead. The whole ordeal nearly had me careening out of my seat. Most people were smart and dive-bombed out of our way; for everyone else we're only lucky that most of them were red units as we sped through the streets.

"I thought I told you to drive safe!"

"You told me to drive slow, and I did!"

Only a friend of mine would take a time like this to be a smartass. Had we even been driving for ten minutes? Five? This has got to be a new record. I was prepared to tell Jak just that, my head popping up a little higher to be heard over the wind. In a second, I was pulling my head back inside the zoomer just as fast as an electronic blast narrowly missed lobbing my head clean off my shoulders. A sharp turn had the kid and I bouncing around in the seat like rubber balls a couple seconds after I'd gone back down.

If she started to cry, I think my ears would start to cry right along with her.

"This can't possibly get much worse," I mumbled, my tiny paws hanging onto the kid both for support and in hopes of comforting her enough to keep her from breaking down, "Eh kid…don't cry! We'll be there in awhile, you'll see!"

Then thick puffs of smoke filled the air, the black clouds and pungent smell alerting me to the condition of our vehicle. If you don't know, when one of these puppies begins to smoke like that, it's trouble with a capital 'T,' AKA: the zoomer is about to go supernova and blow up into itty-bitty pieces of dust.

'Abandon ship' sounds good right about now.

"Dax!"

See? Jak agrees with me, too.

With one minute to spare, Jak reached over and grabbed us both before scrambling over the side. Our ride just kept on going, shortly crashing right against a wall and becoming a gigantic pancake. One that's on fire and shooting shrapnel all over the place. It's what's for breakfast.

"Wow, talk about a close-"

"Hey you, stop right there!"

Practically hissing, I decided to just keep my mouth shut for the remainder of this mission. Obviously it was only causing us nothing but more bad luck than usual. Looking over my shoulder confirmed this as a large mass of those good-old neighborhood 'men in red' decided it would be neat to hunt down and overpower the light-haired man holding a couple-foot-nothing that has no idea how to say 'Krimzon Guard,' much less know what one is, and carrying yours truly on his shoulder. These guys really don't play fair at all, do they?

Enemy fire started filling the streets as Jak ran left and right to avoid getting hit, the attacks coming at us like a rainstorm – thunder, lightning and all. Taking another nervous glance over my shoulder, one that I knew I'd regret shortly, I clung to Jak's hair as I noted just how many of those red tin cans were actually coming after us now. It was like one big tidal wave of red blood, and that lovely little visual was not what I needed right this moment. Nearly gagging, I turned back to face forward, my head dipping a little to help with Jak's balance.

And what do my eyes behold in front of us? The final stretch to the water slums, of course! Oh Precursors, what a sight for sore eyes.

Then all I saw was dirt and grime.

Not knowing what had gone wrong, I was left dazed and blinking rapidly to get my bearings back, my brain processing the pain in my front and along my left cheek. Judging by my current position I think it's safe to say I'd fallen off, though exactly how that had happened I was still trying to figure out. First things first would most likely be to remember how to get up…I use my goggles to do that, right? Or maybe it's my shoulder; I have one of those, if I remember correctly.

Who am I again?

Weakly, I turned my head to spot Jak curled up a little, the edge of his hair just in my line vision. I'd recognize those strands anywhere since everyone else around this town doesn't have anything remotely blonde looking without using a bottle, so it had to be him, and he was on the ground. Like me. Probably feeling extreme pain. Like me. He's also not moving. Unlike me.

Oh that's right, I use my hind legs to walk! Scrambling up as fast as my body would permit with what pride I had left after face planting to the ground like a sack of potatoes, I moved over to his side to check and see if he was all in working order. I had to drag myself a little over his shoulder since walking around would take too long. Sad, yes; less painful, even more yes.

I shook his arm slightly, the limb only tensing and curling tighter around the baby in his arms. The kid looked alright enough, or at least not resembling a morsel that had been chucked into a fire pit, chewed up like cud, then spit back out onto its rusty dish to be covered in dark eco sauce. Another nice visual brought to you by me, myself, and I.

"Jak? Jak! Hey buddy, now is not a good time for a nap!"

What was I supposed to say? 'Oh, hi pal, are you hurt? Feeling a little under the weather? In need of some help? Yeah, I noticed that you should be Swiss cheese by now and feel like you have a one-ton rock on your chest. I was just wondering." Yeah, that would go over so well. As well as getting Torn to wear a frilly pink tutu.

Tug.

"Jak, come on."

Tug, tug.

"Jak buddy, the big reds are still following us."

Tug.

"Come on man, at least open your eyes!"

That must have been the magic phrase of the day, because those baby blues were snapping open and peering right through me. The thing is, you see, they weren't exactly blue anymore. Try a jet onyx black.

Hm. Well shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit I don't think I can say this enough oh shit! 'Oh shit' doesn't even cover this level of shitty-ness!

I watched as Jak's hair did an instant bleach thing, his nails shot out into well-manicured talons, and his skin turned into that ashy grayish purple that gave me the impression that he was of the walking dead. As he released a guttural growl his sharp incisors flashed, the added touch only improving his destroyer image.

This is his evil alter ego; this is Dark Jak.

The change was quicker than I can ever remember, the shift in Jak like the blink of an eye. It was so fast that if you did so much as blink, you'd miss it and be dead. After the couple of times that he's done this, I still can't help but back off, not necessarily from fear, but more out of surprise. Not much in this town can scare you after a while, even flesh-rendering, bipolar best friends. That or it's just a hero thing.

What soldiers had caught up to us hesitated, some of them even stepping away in uncertainty, though it's rather late for that now. They might as well bend down and around to kiss their asses goodbye because no one gets my buddy this mad and lives long enough to tell about it. Not metal heads, not Baron Praxis (well ok, he did live, but he probably wished he wasn't alive after he got his butt handed back to him); not even getting struck down by anything short of himself could stop him when he's like this.

Jak stood up gradually, his dark pools for eyes peering at his shattered shoulder plate, then at the kid crying in his arms. Where the metal had been struck, a black char mark smoldered slightly, a large crack running from the strike to the bottom edge. Had the guy not been wearing it, the kid would be dead, probably shot right in the head.

And Dark Jak knew this.

His lips drew back in a pissed off snarl, the sound soon accompanied by the soft hiss of dark eco as it collected around him and set him off like a purple beacon. As he lifted his free hand, he didn't even bother to jump, his fist slamming down into the ground with enough force to add another pothole to the already broken-up road. I had about five seconds to get back up onto his shoulder or else become BBQ orange fluff.

Citizens of Haven City might not have been scared before – chases involving the KGs and the violence that would often follow were a very common practice around these parts – but they were screaming in horror now. With the dramatic entrance eco-boy here made, the chaos and destruction that was happening as we speak would shock me white, too, if I was defenseless.

More units of Krimzon Guards came rushing in from all directions, replacing the ones Jak had just destroyed. Soon the whole place was filled with electricity, enough to rival the static my fur could accumulate in one night's sleep as the guards fired off rounds at us and Dark Jak returned the favor. The girl and myself were right in the middle of it all, and once again I had to wonder, 'How do we get into these messes anyway?' This was supposed to be a simple mission; this was supposed to take only a couple of minutes. This was not the case.

My paws were hanging on to the point where I think I'd broken through the fabric of his shirt as tall, dark, and gruesome became airborne, his crouching form shooting up from the streets to the upper levels in one bound. He almost overshot as he vaulted onto a zoomer and its occupant who was stupid enough to pass through a danger zone at a time like this. Backhanding the driver out with one sweep of his arm, he didn't bother with the controls; instead, he…surfed on it.

I kid you not. It would seem that it doesn't matter what form my friend's in, he's still innovative. This was a very good thing, as we were leaving the armored police behind in our dust. KGs were still stalking us of course, but we finally entered the damn water slums, the sector never having felt as far away as it had today.

Does D.J. here know how to stop, perchance?

Taking a daring leap off of the zoomer and making a dramatic arc through the air the vehicle made a nosedive behind us, the machine combusting as it ran directly into one of the many spiraling, wooden walkways underneath us. I suppose that answers that question.

There was some quick roof-hopping before the big guy decided to sit back against one of the back parts, managing to hide from any passing patrol groups that might spot us until the alarm stopped sounding in the background. For once even I was silent, holding my breath so as not to alert any of those goobers from before that we were still nearby and sitting targets for them to take out like last week's leftover dinner.

My ears swiveled around to pick up the sounds of metallic wails but when no sirens could be heard, I knew they'd given up. Took the stubborn bastards long enough if you ask me, considering this whole mess was all due to a scratch on a government-paid vehicle anyway. I released a breath I didn't know I'd been holding and turned back to my partner, about to say something smooth and cool and heroic sounding…

Only to come face to face with a Jak that still wasn't Jak. He hadn't changed back, even when the danger had passed, even when he should be running on empty and be falling into an unconscious heap.

For some strange reason, I still wish it was yesterday.

To Be Continued…

A/N: Gawd I love writing Dark Jak, being able to should be illegal or something. Just because it's too much fun. It's a pity you don't really see much of that dark alter ego in Jak II except when you summon him during a battle or something. In the fandom world he sure seems to be titled quite the killer, despite the fact the metal heads do more damage than ole DJ here, but that's a rant for another time. XD;