Disclaimer: I don't own Jak and Daxter, or any of the other characters in this fanfic.

A/N: Heya, people! I'm Feral (as you no doubt already knew…) and this is only my second-ever fanfic, so NO FLAMES! Also, while I do spend quite a bit of time play Jak 3, really do not have a talent for writing like anyone other than myself, and I'm weird… Anyway, that means that dialogue between Demon and any of my non-homemade characters (i.e. Jak, Dax and more or less anyone else that's in the game) is bound to be a bit awkward. So, I reiterate myself: NO FLAMES!

Prologue

Demon cocked her head, glaring coolly at the high walls of Spargus City. She had grown up sheltered behind those walls, safe and coddled as any Spargus youth could be. And now, she looked upon her birth-city as an outsider looking in.

Demon's name fit her with an eerie resemblance. Her hair was jet-black streaked with red at the temples, her eyes were crimson and her hands were taloned. Three jagged white scars collided on her forehead, running down between her eyes and to either side of her eyes. Glimmering silver blades sprouted from her shoulders in an obscene parody of pauldrons, shoulder-armor, matching the scythe-like blades emerging from the outer edge of her wrists. A metallic-blade-tipped tail lashed behind her, scratching odd, disjointed patterns in the orangey-red desert sand. Standing over six feet tall and whipcord thin, Demon nonetheless looked like a person you wouldn't punch, it being more likely to hurt you than hurt her.

It had been seven years since Demon had found herself outcast from Spargus. During those seven years Demon had lost the naïve innocence of her youth and gradually transformed into a feral, untamed monster with a taste for a blood and a penchant for torture. To run afoul of Demon was to risk dying a very long, slow, painful death. Many a Metal Head had learned that lesson the hard way, but more kept coming… perhaps it was because once Demon caught a Metal Head, she didn't let it go. If there were no survivors, there was no one to pass on wisdom.

Demon's traveling partner, a lithe, shadow-grey panther she had raised from cub-hood, growled softly in the background. Raleigh had been with Demon for a long time now, over six years, and he could read her like a book.

"Demon, cease this insanity. You know Spargus won't let you back in. So why torture yourself by coming out here, every single BLOODY DAY?"

"I wish I knew," Demon growled, spinning on her heel and stalking off across sand dunes toward her distant 'home'. In reality it was a sheltered hollow formed by a flat boulder fallen against a cliff face, but it was the only 'home' other than the hovel back in Spargus that Demon could remember.

Two hours later Demon slipped back into the comforting, concealing semidarkness of her 'home', curling flat on her side on the flat rock that served as her bed and letting her tail blade once again score designs in the sandy cave floor. Raleigh, watching from his tattered animal-skin bed near the cave entrance, puzzled over what his friend could be thinking about… besides Spargus, of course. Jeeze, Demon was either obsessive, or completely obsessive, and Raleigh was pretty sure it was the latter. But what did he know; he was only the panther…

In reality, Demon was thinking back to the family, the name, the life she had had back in Spargus. She could remember, vividly, who she had been. Koro had been her name, a clumsy little purple-haired, green-eyed elven youth with no fear of anything except losing someone she loved. How foolish I was…there are things far more worthy of saving than a family…

Raleigh snarled abruptly, leaping fluidly from his supine position to one of great feline irritation and anger. The fluffy, bright-red fur lining his backbone stood up on end, a vivid warning Demon knew all too well. The elf flipped off her rock, landing with her legs coiled under her and those lethal, razor-sharp wrist blades held ready for action. Her bladed tail waved threateningly overhead like a scorpion's, cold silver blade glinting in what little sunlight filtered into the cave.

"AAAAHH!" Raleigh dove aside as an orange ball of fur hurtled into the confines of the cave, screaming in terror all the while. Demon, living up to her name, roared an untamed threat to this creature invading her sanctuary, brandishing the lethal tail-blade in this attacker's face.

"Daxter, get back here! It's just a scorpion!" A half-familiar voice called from outside the shelter.

"Raleigh, down," Demon whispered, slinking back into the darkest corner of the cave. The little orange fluffball- Daxter was it? - stood up and dusted himself off, trying his best to look unruffled and unafraid. Apparently he had been too afraid of the scorpion upon the surface to realize that the roar of Demon was a threat, not just something in his head.

"Yeah, I'm comin'," Daxter shouted back he began moving back towards the entrance- only to find a great grey red-eyed panther with silvery-grey blades lining his backbone blocking his only way out.

Demon could read Raleigh's emotions like a book; she was, after all, like a mother to him. Uncertainty, hostility and the slightest tinge of fear emanated in waves from the panther as he grinned a sharp-toothed grin, hiding his disquiet behind razor-sharp teeth.

"Hello… rat. Or, shall I say, dinner?"