Jak and Daxter: Legacy

Chapter 10: Feeding the Beast

Something had changed in him since Riverjoint. True, Jak knew how to run and hide from guards now, stopped walking in shoes as if he were stumbling over broken glass, and had gotten used to the terrifying and comforting weight of the pistol on his hip.

But this was deeper than all that. He had no name for it. All he knew was that he'd suddenly been asking Daxter too many dumb questions. His age, what the worst food he'd ever had was, what it felt like being an ottsel, and whether or not flut fluts actually did taste like chicken.

And as he and Daxter continued on the dirt road beside the Ashtide's charcoal waters, tossing questions and answers back and forth like the world's longest game of catch, the same feeling he'd had back in the cave where he'd first met Daxter struck him, but for a different reason. He remembered the innkeeper in Passheart's words:

"Ottsels are clever little things. You often see 'em around those old brass ruins. Not sure why. They say they're a sign of the Precursors' favor. You must be a lucky kid."

At the time the innkeeper had said that, Jak had smirked it off, thinking he'd been doing Daxter a favor by letting him tag along. But as he glanced over at the little orange head bobbing beside his own, he wondered if the innkeeper had perhaps been right.

The path where they were now wove ever upwards, alien in its dark brown and gray colors compared to the lands they'd traversed before. Glowing red eco crystal veins wove through the rock, staining the steam from the stone vents nearby pink. Precursor machinery and ruins were absent here. There'd been some closer to Riverjoint, but the further they went, the less common they'd become.

Thankfully, the journey through the volcanic foothills unfolded quietly and uneventfully. As such, Jak had wanted to spend the time practicing with the blue eco crystal Daxter had stolen in Riverjoint, thinking he might as well use it now that they couldn't return it without being thrown in a cell.

But nothing, not even a spark, came forth when Jak tried to pull on its energy. If not for the hairs on his arm rising whenever he opened his palm to it, he'd have assumed it - or himself - was a dud.

"Speakin' of eco, I've been wonderin' about the dark stuff since we left town," Daxter said. "It goes off whenever you're cranky or terrified, right?"

"As far as I know. I haven't seen much more of a rhyme or reason to it than that."

"You've been scared a lot of times where ya didn't give in, though. Makes me think there must be some other ingredient. Like in Basinbreak, every Metal Head we saw should've done the trick, but it didn't 'til we were in that dead end death trap tunnel."

That's true, Jak thought.

"That doesn't explain the inn bridge in Riverjoint, though."

"Well, what were ya thinkin' about before that?"

"How dangerous the journey is ahead. And…"

How badly I'd treated you, Jak thought, but didn't dare say it aloud. I thought you might leave. And when I turned in Kunino…

Memories of the bloody village flashed in his mind's eye:

Jak rolled over off the body and laid there, staring at the pink sky. He'd just killed someone, hadn't he? He'd killed someone. The dark eco mark, which had been burning before, now seared as he fell into a shocked panic.

He'd killed someone. He'd actually killed someone. He'd killed-

"Jak, are you okay?"

It was Sepsu's voice, though Jak could barely hear her above his own heartbeat and the roar of fighting not far.

And the wolfadgers in Jade Forest...

Barely pausing to think, the trap now dangling by a thin thread from their repeated attacks, he picked up a hefty rock and tossed it, hoping it'd land far enough to steal their attention and send them running.

Daxter stared expectantly. When Jak's silence never ended, Daxter shrugged. "Well, I'm pretty sure I know the answer."

"You do?"

"I don't know about the bridge part. Or any other time it took over, for that matter. But in Basinbreak, ya jumped between me and that Metal Head and that's when it went off."

"When I'm being attacked?"

"Nah, I'm bettin' it triggers when you're afraid of others gettin' attacked. Like a two-legged, eco-drugged, guard dog."

It was tempting to agree. But his dark eco influenced state was a monster. Even though Daxter's reasoning made sense, he wouldn't allow it to. It took the responsibility of all he'd killed and pinned it on selflessness. And he knew if he let himself think that under the eco's control, he would be content to destroy under the guise of 'doing it for the right reasons'.

"Dark eco is selfish," he said at last. "There's nothing heroic about it."

They arrived at the peak of the path. A wide crescent of black stone sloping down to shore greeted them ahead. Daxter shivered, and the claws in Jak's shoulder prickled in a bit further. Jak inhaled deeply and listened for a while, a renewed sense of calm coming to him as the brisk wind battered against him, carrying the scent of salt and the rhythmic call of the sea. Home may have been miles upon miles away, but here, he was closer to it than he had been in weeks.

The path they'd been following split into two. One fork wended west and down to the ocean inlet, fading as it met a thin spine of black stone that cut through the waters. The eastward route took a gentler turn and followed the coast across soft dunes and swaying, sunbathed grasses. There were no travelers on the westward path. A few - ant-like in size at this distance - followed the eastern route.

"Know this place?"

"I've heard of it. Happy fun sand land over thataways goes to a spot where you can cross a bridge into red tribe territory."

"And the west? What about that shadowy place?"

"That's the Mistarch. You must never go there, Jak."

"Why not?"

Daxter hopped off of Jak's shoulder and faced him, blocking the westward path. "Because that's not happy fun sand land. Trust me, the eastern route may be way slower, but there's no way ya wanna pick the Mistarch instead. No one takes it. Now, come on-"

"The Mistarch is faster?"

"No!" Daxter cleared his throat. "I mean, of course not. Did I say 'slower'? What I meant to say was, was that it is of a somewhat comparable amount of time but-"

"How long does it take?"

"And you're a green tribe boy, remember? Don't ya just love beaches? And flowers? Gettin' sand in your shoes? Takin' a nap under a palm tree? Watchin' babes prance around in their skimpy little bikinis?"

Jak lifted the pauldron strap that crossed his chest. He peeled back one side of his shirt, then jabbed a thumb at the dark eco wound underneath.

"Jak, you can either go west and pick almost certain death just for the sake of crossin' in a few days, or go east, it takes a few extra weeks, but we live. Sounds like an easy choice to me. And remember what stress does to ya? Pissy dander?" He unsheathed his claws and flailed them in the air. "Raaaawr, Jak smash, grrrrr?"

Jak covered his eco wound again and lowered his head. Maybe he's right? Keeping calm might be more important than saving time. And that path does look dangero-

A memory came hurtling back to him:

A bridge with a railing like broken wood teeth. Hands covered with new red cuts, shaking with adrenaline, and a hoping beyond hope that no one had witnessed the previous moments. Fear, fed by the realization that his outbursts might not be predictable and could happen at any time, anywhere, for no reason.

"Remember that bridge?"

"Which one? I've been pushed off a lot of 'em lately, no thanks to you ."

"The one I tore apart with my bare hands?"

Daxter cocked his head and crossed his arms. "Yeah? Why?"

"Like I said, I didn't turn that time for any reason at all. It just started to flare up and… well, you know."

"So?"

"So…" Jak walked past Daxter and looked onwards towards the east route, stare fixed on the travelers in the distance. "The less we're around others, the better."

"Jak, I get it, but we're goin' to Haven. It's one of the biggest cities in the world. We're gonna be around a lot more people from here on out. Plus, remember my theory? Long as I don't almost get turned into a Metal Head snack again, you'll be fi-"

"We don't know what causes and stops it. And until we do, it's probably better that I stay away from others as much as I can," Jak said, fidgeting with his cowl.

When Daxter said nothing, only pouted and snapped his tail, Jak crouched and looked Daxter right in the eye. "I won't even make you walk. You can ride on my shoulder the whole way. I'll cook every night-"

"You do all that stuff anyways."

"I'll make sure that we make it through."

"Can't promise that, Bigfoot. You think Basinbreak was bad? And we barely survived that!"

"You know what else I remember about Basinbreak? You willingly coming with me, even when I didn't ask you to."

"That was different. Basinbreak would've taken months to get back in workin' order. Takin' that risk was worth it. This is just a couple of extra weeks. Besides, the Mistarch is way worse!"

"Worse than almost getting eaten alive by Metal Heads?"

"Jak, one wrong step and we either get impaled on sharp rocks, or fall over and get turned into a lurkershark snack, maybe all of the above. Ya can't dark eco punch those kinds of problems away. There's no way you're gonna convince me to take the doomsday gauntlet over sunshine street!"

The ottsel tried to look at the ground as long as he could, but made the mistake of glancing up and catching Jak's stare. "Turn those dumb goo-goo eyes the other way! You're not guiltin' me into it!"

Daxter glared at Jak. Their staring match continued, Daxter continually trying to look the other way then catching Jak's eye again, wincing and drooping his ears more with each glance.

"Stupid jerk… fine! We'll take the Mistarch. But if we get into trouble - which I know we will - and somehow survive to see another day, ya owe me a whole tanker full of fish!"

The Mistarch loomed before and above them like a black rift between mirrored dimensions, turbulent sea on both sides, waves crashing over sharp stone teeth. There was a rough path on the spine, but at times it teetered closer to the edge than Jak was comfortable with.

"Maybe you want to use that hook on your harness?"

"Havin' second thoughts? Happy fun beach land is still an option, if you could stop bein' a stubborn ass for a minute."

Jak scowled and pulled on Daxter's harness hook to give it slack and handed it to him. The ottsel sighed in defeat, then climbed to his back and clicked the hook into one of the adjustment holes in Jak's pauldron's leather strap, testing it with a little tug. Meanwhile, Jak double checked that his pistol was secure in his holster, then retightened his pauldron, trying not to glance at the Mistarch as he did so.

"Lookin' forward to that tanker full of fish," Daxter muttered as he returned to Jak's shoulder and stared at the Mistarch.

"We'll be fine. Trust me."

"Mmm, I can already taste 'em. Delicious, well-earned fish."

The path was rugged even at the bottom, the soil fine and grainy with patches of clay. Jak had to rely on scarce wedges of solid stone and gnarled roots to grab and gain a footing on, but thankfully they were abundant enough - and the slope gentle enough - that it was easier than any of the beachside cliffs he'd ever climbed back home. Then the slope flattened somewhat after a few minutes, allowing Jak to walk again at a hunched angle. The path was narrow, yes, but as long as he was careful the rest would be a breeze.

He brushed dirt off of his knee pads and pants, and put his hands on his hips. "Didn't even break a sweat. What were you so worried about?"

"Oh, I dunno. I'm probably just overreactin' ."

Sure, the slope rose again, part of it hidden by fog higher up, but none of it seemed any worse than what they'd just surmounted. Jak smiled when he scaled the next rise, finding it just as easy to climb as the last.

After a while, mist started to wreath the craggy sides of the path, making it hard to see further than ten feet. Jak powered through, hand and footholds still abundant. The entire time, Daxter was pouting on Jak's shoulder with his arms crossed.

Then the slope rose even more. Mist washed about them. Jak's muscles started to burn. It wasn't quite a sheer wall yet, but nervousness started to pluck at his gut as he had to waveringly search for stones and roots that became sparser the more he ascended. The mist was so thick at one point he could hardly see further than the reach of his shaking hands.

And then it flattened again. Jak dragged himself over the last ledge like a half-drowned swimmer out of a pool of fog. He would have flung himself to the ground and kissed it in relief had Daxter not been on his shoulder. Instead, he stood up, breathing a little heavily, but crossed his arms and smiled as he gave Daxter a smug look.

"See? We made it."

Daxter burst into laughter.

"What? What's so funny?"

"Oh, I dunno. The death trap in front of us?"

"What are you…?"

Jak trailed off once he peered where Daxter was pointing. Jak felt like a blade of grass beneath a mountain when he saw it, sweating harder than he had while climbing, taking a few nervous steps back.

The Mistarch's middle spine - which had been hidden by mist further down - ascended to the heavens in front of them, the path continuing alongside it just wide enough in spots to allow him to walk normally, but otherwise so thin they'd have to shimmy on the edge carefully so as not to plummet to their death. There were jagged cuts through parts of it where it'd worn away; likely spots where he'd have to leap or find an alternate route around. Sometimes it wove through the middle spine to what he assumed was the other side, rose with the stone, or lowered steeply like a slide.

That's going to be a lot more jumping and climbing than I thought.

From here though, he could tell that it didn't last forever. The path turned flat again where the greatest heights of the isthmus came back down from the first peak, and seemed as if it would stay level for a long time afterwards, as far as he could see.

If I can just get up there to that point, we should be fine.

Jak straightened his back, tightened his fists, and stared ahead without blinking.

"Bigfoot? You're supposed to turn around now."

Jak started walking forward again.

"Bigfoot?"

He ran. Daxter yelped and wrapped himself around Jak's neck and closed his eyes as Jak jumped over the first gap in the path, then caught the ledge. With a shaky, uncertain heave, Jak pulled them up. He instantly had to back up against the wall, for the path after turned thin enough that his boot tips - while he shuffled sideways - peeked over the edge.

Daxter stared slack-jawed at the waters half a mile below and started to shake. "You're crazy! Bonafide crazy! Turn back, ya idiot! I don't want the fish anymore!"

Jak had to admit he felt as terrified as Daxter was, his dark eco wound aching beneath his shirt, but he remained silent. At one point, he had to stretch his left leg long over a break in the ledge. He gained solid footing, then careened his right leg to follow and kept shimmying along. The path widened again soon after.

This danger-wrought stretch of the Mistarch continued for what felt like eternity. Jak was jumping, shuffling, climbing, swinging between juts of stone, and carefully sliding in regular intervals, the abyss waiting with a wide blue maw to his side. His fear never left, especially during the few times he almost slipped or careened over, but his ability to ignore it in the face of adrenaline-drenched survival instinct was greater.

Daxter never once looked down again, too busy clutching onto the front of Jak's shirt like a terrified cat and burying his face in his cowl. The entire time, a little heartbeat thundered against Jak's chest, sometimes harder than his own.

"If it makes you feel any better, we're almost at the top," Jak said at one point, pausing as a strong breeze pushed against them. "And just think of that tanker full of fish I owe you."

"Three tankers," Daxter managed to grumble.

"And… I just found a reason to promise you five of them."

Daxter somehow burrowed even further into Jak's cowl, his cold wet nose pressing against Jak's collarbone.

Before them was something that Jak could find no easy way to beat. The path ended abruptly, was missing for about five feet, then started again after the break, but at a much greater height atop a wall. Turning back was not an option, not after how far they'd come. He had to continue, take that chance, and hope he reached it.

Spots of clay-like dirt were packed between the stones in the wall ahead. Jak pulled out his sword and extended it, remembering how it'd been sharp enough to cut through the stone of Basinbreak when they'd been fleeing the Metal Heads.

"Hold tight, Dax."

Jak backed up. He swallowed down every last flicker of terror biting at his stomach. He tensed his muscles, took in a deep breath, readied his sword-

He burst into a run and sprang off of the ground, raising the blade above with both hands, wind and gravity and little claws pulling at him as he soared through the air and pointed its tip towards the clay beneath the next ledge.

With a satisfying twang and a spray of dirt, the sword dug into the earth as he stabbed it in and it held him up, shining like a lightning bolt above. But as he'd first bounced down, the little heartbeat against his own left.

Daxter screeched as he tried to scramble back on with terrified claws, failed, then plummeted, an orange streak sailing by as Jak forgot the ledge for a moment and tried to grab him with one hand, holding to the sword's hilt with a death grip in his other, dark eco aflame.

There was a click and a heavy tug at Jak's pauldron strap. Daxter hung by the thread of his harness hook below, frozen in fear as he slowly twisted around in the air.

Jak ignored the new rush of dark eco burning in his heart and prayed to the Precursors that the hook would hold. He reached to his belt, took out his dagger, and stabbed it into the dirt further up. He pulled himself higher with it, gained footing on his sword, jabbed higher with the dagger in his right hand again, and - at last - grabbed the ledge with his left.

Then he hooked his feet around his sword and reluctantly pulled it out from the clay, lifted his legs backwards, reached to grab it with his right hand to toss it over the ledge above to safety...

The sword made it with a clang. Jak pulled himself and his dagger with shaky, fiery limbs onto solid, safe ground. He turned around and hoisted Daxter up by the string as fast as he could, even as his body threatened to collapse in exhaustion and relief.

As soon as the ottsel's paws met earth, he leaped at Jak and burrowed into his arms, trembling. Jak was perfectly content to hold him and sit down for a while to catch his breath and let his dark eco wound recede again to numbness, the dangerous stretch of the Mistarch now behind them.

"Ten tankers," Daxter managed to mutter at last.

"Deal."

The Mistarch had been smooth from that point on, just as Jak had hoped for, and the weather had blessed them with gentle winds and clear skies. They made camp in a small alcove about halfway across and sat side by side next to a fire, Jak's boots kicked off, hands behind his head, and a piece of grass bobbing in his mouth. Meanwhile, Daxter buried himself in as much jellied eel as he could handle.

"You're gonna run out if you keep that up," Jak said, stomach churning at the thought of eating cans of the stuff himself. "Or vomit."

"Don't care. Earlier, I thought I'd never taste eel again, no thanks to you."

"Is the view worth it, at least?"

The alcove's mouth framed a semicircle of landscape before them. The moon shone faintly directly ahead, weaving a silver thread reflection across the ocean. Each wave glowed phosphorescent blue as it struck the shores to the north and south. But all of it paled in comparison to the stars; messy splatters on a navy and amber canvas, imperfectly perfect in their chaos, burning brightly even in the darkest stretches of space.

"Maybe a little," the ottsel finally replied.

They fell asleep soon after, lulled by the sea and soothed by the fire. In the morning, Jak awoke to the two suns rising in the east. As Jak laid there, everything shining gold, a happiness warmer than their light filled him. Even when he peeked down at his chest - as he had every morning since he'd departed - and found his dark eco wound had grown another thin tendril, he only looked at Daxter still snoozing away close by, shrugged, and moved on to making breakfast.

Chilly morning gave way to afternoon as they continued their trek across the Mistarch, surrounded by nothing but each other and endless blue skies. At one point, clouds started to appear, at first white, then as a great gray wall ahead. Petrichor brought an earthy, foreboding tang to the air. And then came the rumbling.

Within minutes, the pitter patter of rain sprinkled them, then soaked them. But Jak didn't care about the wet. He cared that they were the tallest thing on that part of the Mistarch. A cold wind from the north picked up and lashed against them, making Jak slow down as he struggled to keep his footing. The ocean swelled with angry black waves below.

At times, he took his sword back out and stabbed it down into the softer parts of the Mistarch's soil or cracks in its stone when he could, just to hold on. Lightning sparked and thunder drummed, each strike that missed them another reason for Jak to mutter yet another prayer of thanks under his breath.

"We gotta go faster!" Daxter yelled into the deafening sheets of rain.

Jak put his hand on Daxter to hold him down to his shoulder as he started running. At one point, he slipped. Sharp rock sliced his face from jaw to cheekbone, though only he could tell as it stung, the violent downpour washing away any blood instantly as soon as it seeped out of the cut.

They continued at a literal crawl and, at long last, found a place to take shelter where the Mistarch's spine started to rise again and hollows could be found below. It was a tiny crack, just large enough to fit Jak's shoulder width and tall enough to allow him to stand with his head ducked. Jak dragged himself and Daxter inside and collapsed with relief, blood oozing from his cheek cut now that they were out of the worst of the rain.

But what awaited them was far more deadly. Jak only realized it when he'd spent hours trying to get a fire lit with the few wet twigs and roots he could find growing from the ceiling from scraggly pines above the stone, failing as brisk wind blew rain and hail in, drenching them again and again, chilling them to the bone as the suns fell and the unrelenting night descended.

After giving up on the fire and kicking the twigs away in frustration, Jak looked at Daxter, who was huddling beside him and shivering uncontrollably, fur starting to whiten at the ends.

Shit, he thought. He glanced at the ceiling, then the walls tight at his shoulders. I need to turn around.

He picked Daxter up, water seeping through his fingers as they pressed against the ottsel's soaked fur. Usually Daxter would have protested, but said nothing, paws hanging limp, eyes scrunched in sheer misery. He held Daxter to his chest, got out of the alcove, then turned around and squeezed in as far as he could. Jak sat cross-legged, put Daxter in his lap, then hunched and lowered his head, forming a shield with the back of the wall to prevent him from getting any more drenched.

Without hesitation, he willed green eco to flicker from his hands. A subtle heat radiated out like a warming balm. Daxter, his eyes still shut, pawed out for it and, finding it in Jak's palm, pulled the hand close and draped himself over it like a pillow. Jade light twined through his fur and the frost began to melt away. Jak waved the other hand over the top of him, hoping to bring his shivering down.

He grimaced as the rain and hail whipped his back, the green eco flailing and sputtering as he struggled to maintain concentration, but Daxter would be safe now, and at least Jak's hands felt warm.

Over time, Daxter's fur dried, his shivers ceased, and he fell into an exhausted, twitchless sleep. And Jak, praying yet again to the Precursors as he also succumbed to slumber, green eco dying from bright lime to olive, then to a mere faint whisper, begged for a chance to wake up at least one more time.

Red. It was the color of heat, sunsets over the ocean, and the flowers he used to pick for Samos when he was a boy. He'd run away from the perfect neatness of the layered paddies and huts of the village and into the mess of the fields and jungle, where where things fit and belonged and should go didn't matter.

He always made up for it with the flowers. Most days, he'd spend dawn to dusk training with the man who - at that time in his life - he remembered simply as the long white beard at his side that'd only waggle and bark whenever he made a mistake. Sometimes, though, the sage's hand would find his shoulder and he would always startle at its softness. Then the fingers would tighten uncomfortably and retreat, but years later he could still remember how they'd felt; comfort and approval were preciously rare things for him, after all.

But some days, even fleeting gestures of encouragement weren't enough to convince him to agree to another hard day of work. To another day of villagers coming to their infirmary, giving him a nervous or annoyed glance, and saying goodbye to only Samos when they left. He'd wake up, listen for snoring, and sneak out of the hut, past the village and paddies into the wild.

Keira - at that time living in a different house with family that were still alive - would always come looking for him, challenge him to a stick swordfight, then tell him to come home with her. Then she'd wander away after he inevitably refused, always free to do as she pleased, and he'd watch her wishing he was her. She looked like the others, had two parents, and didn't have the expectations of a sage weighing like an albatross around her neck. Besides, the few side-eyes she did garner were for tinkering with simple machines, and were her choice to draw.

He'd cross his arms, huff, and sit back down, glaring at the ground for a long while, loving his friend as much as he envied her. Then he'd pick some of the red flowers that grew in the jungle, run back home, and give them to Samos and tell him that he'd meant to come back earlier, but had such a hard time finding flowers to make the house look nice so that he could practice 'generosity' for green eco training, that he'd stayed out all day.

And every time, Samos would sigh, nod, and take the flowers without a word.

But one time, he was only able to find a single flower. It was in the dry season after a wretched drought. The stream through the village was nothing more than cracked, hard mud. Long trips to the river in the jungle were taken - even by himself and Samos, who were typically allowed to avoid such mundane tasks - to bring buckets of water back home to keep the yakows and themselves alive.

That strange day, he'd gone to the fields and jungle to escape again, expecting there'd be one or two flowers, at least. But after hours of talking one-sidedly to the trees, napping in the long grass, and searching for seashells on the beach, he'd come to the clearing the flowers grew in and found none, the drought having parched them to brown spikes.

He'd searched for hours, even in places he'd never ventured before. It was then that he'd first seen the brass ruins up close, in the days before he and Keira had gathered enough courage to explore around the smaller ones elsewhere. As a boy, he'd been raised on nightmarish tales about this one's danger, and feared that if he ever went by it, one of its denizens would follow him home in the dark of his shadow, hide under his bed, and eat him in his sleep.

He'd hidden in a bush and peeked out at the ruin's doorway as it gleamed pink in the twilight, afraid that any movement would draw a demon's hungry gaze. But nothing ever came out, no teeth or claws or shadows whatsoever. The suns beneath the horizon, the light quickly dying, he'd turned back and stared at little Sandover, knowing that an irritated Samos awaited, but that he'd rather face him than the beasts of the night.

He'd gotten up, started crawling away from the bush, and-

Clank!

He'd flipped around, gawking at the only thing that could have made such a metallic thrum. Nothing looked different about the ruin and no demons were spilling forth in ichorous droves, but there was something familiar and crimson just outside the doorway that hadn't been there during the long minutes he'd been staring at the ruin before.

Screaming, he'd run home, and hadn't stopped running until he'd leaped into Samos' arms and buried himself in his beard, refusing to let go. Samos never managed to pry out of him what he'd been so unsettled by.

But Jak never brought a single red flower home again, even long after the memory of his first return to the ruins faded.

Scarlet walls. The deafening thrum of rain. Jak awoke and sighed out a shaky, billowing breath of relief, as his prayers had been answered, and put his hand to his face to make sure he could still feel it. He tried to ruffle his goatee, frozen stiff from the rain and cold. Daxter was still asleep in his lap.

Something cut through the storm. A quiet thudding; boots on stone. He sorely forced his head to turn back to look. A dark figure stood at the opening of the crack they were hiding in, surrounded by a halo of red light. He could make out no features, nor did the figure stir. They simply waited and watched, patient, calm.

Am I dying? was Jak's first thought, but the way his limbs and skin ached said otherwise. Maybe they could help?

He cradled Daxter in one arm and turned around, trying to crawl towards the red light. The figure shifted, then left, taking the glow with them. Jak felt too tired and heavy to follow, so he went back to the furthest back corner and tried again to keep him and Daxter warm with frail green eco until he fell asleep once more.

When he came to for the second time, all was eerily quiet, like that of a silence hanging over a battlefield that had been clanging with swords and the cries of the dying just hours before. The mists had grown, oozing into their hiding spot, furling about them with slow white claws. He and Daxter still shivered, but with the rain gone, the cold wasn't as biting.

"Twenty tankers," Daxter muttered, pulling Jak's hand over him like a blanket and tapping a paw on it as if he were slapping a button. "More green stuff while you're at it, too."

He tried to summon more green eco, but only a tatter of it came forth from his palm. "Fresh out."

"' Make it within ', young sage."

"Maybe if you hadn't hogged it for hours?"

"Maybe I wouldn't have needed to hog it if you'd taken sunshine street like I told ya?"

"Making good time, though. And just think of all the fish I owe you."

The look on Daxter's face twisted with more disgust than Jak thought possible. "Better be damn good fish. Like a king's feast worthy, golden scaled, raised by beautiful blonde mermaids kind."

Jak reached over his shoulder and dug into his new pack, pulling out a dried fish and some yakow jerky, handing the first to Daxter. "The subpar, soaked by rain, country river variety will have to do for now."

After some time, the two of them got up and ventured beyond the crevice, Daxter continuing to munch on his fish, spilling bits of it over Jak's shoulder where he sat. Fog enveloped the Mistarch like silver satin, twisting and curling itself around each rocky spike, peak, and hollow. To Jak's surprise, the ground had a sheen to it in parts, and every step he took made his feet tingle with uncertainty. Ice.

Though the storm had passed, the wind was just as strong as ever and monster waves roiled in the sea to their right. They made their way with careful steps. Jak quickly learned the best method to walk over the ice was to shuffle, bend forward a bit, and stab his sword into the ground to hold steady whenever the wind raged, though he did slip a few times. Thankfully, the path was wide enough here that slipping posed little threat of casting him over the edge.

It was the roaring waves he was worried about. At times, some even crested over the path with foamy white teeth, and he'd hold on with his sword and wince as water washed over his legs and shoes, soaking into them until his feet were sloshing in his boots. None ever seemed to grow taller than that, though, and as time wore on his nervousness died.

The mists had begun to evaporate mid-afternoon as the suns came out. Both Jak and Daxter smiled at their hot touch, but grinned even wider when they reached the part of the path beside the final peak of the Mistarch. Black land stretched ahead where the Mistarch ended, dotted with red eco crystals, and drizzled with drifts of steam.

What was different from the land before the Mistarch, however, was the pocket of warmth huddled at the foot of a dormant volcano larger than the rest. It shone with crimson, orange, and yellow light like a fire in the night, and from here Jak could make out a large brass structure emerging from the mountainside, shining in the morning light.

"See? We made it."

"Still owe me fish, though."

"And," Jak looked over at Daxter with a little smile. "You were right."

Daxter stiffened. "What? What did I just hear you say?"

"You heard me."

"No, say it again. I want you to utter every single one of those three words slowly so that I can bask in the fuzzy feelin' of this momentous occasion."

"Daxter, the greatest gun-toting and babe-slaying ottsel the world's ever seen, was entirely right about how dangerous the Mistarch was, and his naive bumpkin companion is forever indebted and grateful to him for braving such trials at his side."

"Ah… music to my ears! Say it again!"

" But … the naive bumpkin companion was also right."

"'Bout what!?"

"I said, 'I'll make sure that we make it through', and I did."

"That was just dumb luck!"

"Climbing up walls, jumping over precipices with dangerous currents and sharp rocks below, and keeping us from freezing all night was dumb luck?"

Daxter stiffened, then crossed his arms and wilted. "Ya played some part in it, I guess."

"That'll do, Dax," Jak tried to pat him on the head, but pulled his hand back when ottsel teeth snapped at it. "That'll do."

The rest of the journey down the Mistarch was easy, the north stretch far less dangerous than the south. There were some parts where they had to jump and slide, sometimes with black ice on the other side, but none of the path on this end was broken like the first day's stretch of the Mistarch. The glow on the slope ahead grew bigger and bigger as they neared, and Jak could have sworn he could feel its heat even at this distance. There'd be a warm bed there, time to rest and eat a full meal, and a chance to start considering how in the world he would ever be able to afford twenty tankers of-

"Uh… Jak?"

"Hmm?"

"Can we outrun that?"

"Outrun what?"

Jak twisted to look where Daxter was pointing and froze mid-turn. There were heaps of giant waves bashing against the Mistarch in increasingly large swells like a pack of angry wolfadgers. But behind them all loomed one bigger than anything Jak had ever seen, dwarfing even the abandoned city back in the Precursor Basin. It soared through the air, a glossy wall of turquoise death, raging, roaring, and sweeping towards them.

Jak glanced down the rest of the path ahead, at the wave, then at the path again, taking a step forward, then back, wondering if anywhere he could get to in time would be better than here. But with the Mistarch's spine far behind them - which could have at least prevented them from being swept over the side - there was no shelter against the wave. And there was no way, with the length of Mistarch they still had left to cross, that they could make it to shore in time.

Daxter slipped to Jak's front and started pulling on his shirt, as if trying to drag him backwards. "Ya know… I'd really like to live long enough to enjoy that fish ya owe me!"

Jak shook his head, snapping out of his stupor, heart thundering as he pried Daxter off of his shirt and ripped at the hook on his harness. He snapped it onto the front of his pauldron strap after a few shaky handed misses and tested it with as hard of a yank as he could, Daxter yelping all the while with more curses than Jak knew even existed and thought the ottsel - as crass as he was - could string together. Then he took out his sword, extended it, stabbed it into the ground as deep as it would go, and tied his wrists to its hilt with the cloth wrappings on his forearms in twice, triple, then quadruple checked knots.

Eventually, as the shadow of the wave passed over them, Daxter gave up yelling and instead clung to Jak's front. In those dreadful moments, Jak got an idea, one that could save their lives. He took a deep breath, focusing on the burning in his chest.

If there was any time to test Daxter's theory about his dark eco, it was now.

Since Sandover, all he'd ever done was try to tamp down its fire, throwing buckets of calm against it to keep it from raging out of control. He might not have been able to stop it from breaking out when it pleased. But he realized, as their death roared towards them and he remembered each instance he'd turned before, that he did have some kind of control over it that he hadn't understood before: unlocking the cage when he pleased.

Jak now approached the dark eco willingly, feeding it panicked and terrified feelings and the sight of the impending wave, taunting it to break the bars and devour all in its wake. But it needed one last meal - the key - before it could be free:

He thought of the ottsel clinging to him; of seeing him washed away and hurt. Then, of Keira letting go of his hands, and Samos tossing him out of the village without so much as a goodbye. Each thought fed the fire within more and more.

At last, he came to a memory that had occurred so long ago, he was certain most of it was made up; a patchwork of hopes, fears, and scarce scraps of truth added to a tapestry he'd spent years trying to weave together:

A dark blue figure's arms wrapped tight around him. He was set upon dewy grass, his cheek held with a gentle hand. Then the touch left, and the figure was eaten up by a brass doorway. Moaning wind was the only lullaby he was offered that night. A red silk blanket, his only protection against a suddenly cold and dark world.

As the dark eco coursed through him with fiery fangs, and he tightened his grip on his sword's hilt with the supernatural strength he knew he needed to have a chance at holding on, he understood that Daxter had been partially right about what set it off. And Jak himself had also been partially right.

It wasn't the selfless, heroic fear of those he cared about getting hurt. It was the selfish, desperate fear of losing them, and the desire to destroy anything that dared to take them.

Crushing force. Numbing cold. Silence. Then he felt as if he were an anchor in a world of constant movement; of everything trying to push him down and defying it with searing fingers that begged to let go as much as they ached to not do so. But the dark eco did not let him be afraid. He was furious. To the point that if he'd felt the little claws prickling into his shirt leave and the hook at his pauldron snap, he'd likely release his sword just to hack uselessly at the wave out of spite, and drown glad.

But the air - or lack of it - was the true enemy. How long could the wave rage and deny them a breath? He tossed this worry aside when one of the paws on his shirt lost its grip.

And then he remembered: he could be as much of a dangerous weapon as he could be a shield.

This fed the beast within even more, lending him a strength he didn't think possible. He twisted around, waving like a flag in the current from the sword, now facing up, then flung himself down with his feet to the ground, walked back in a crouch even with the wave beating into him, his hands still tied behind, his lungs searing for air. His back was now to the blade and wave, protecting Daxter against the crushing force, just as he had done the night before against the rain and hail.

The water surged against him, but Daxter's loose paw prickled at his shirt again, finding purchase to hold on. At one point, Jak thought he might have even felt one of his own ribs crack behind against the pressure of the wave, but the dark eco prevented any pain. Or care, for that matter.

As the pressure decreased and the water fell, allowing them blessed air, so too did the dark eco and its numbing effects, his gladness beating out his fear. His body ached like it'd been lashed in the winds of a hurricane, likely broken in places, but the biggest loss was that of his strength.

And when the next wave came, much smaller than the first but still monstrous, he could no longer hold on.

He and Daxter and the sword still tied to his wrists were washed over the edge in a blue, freezing freefall. It was at the final moment of the dark eco's angry power, when he remembered that there were sharp rocks at the bottom, that he used the last of his strength to flip around one more time, himself now a bulwark again between Daxter and whatever waited for them at the bottom.

When he was dashed against one of those stones - and another, and a third, and a bone-shattering fourth - and as he lost consciousness, all he could think of was that, at the very least, he hadn't lost someone again.

The waves had borne their bodies to deeper waters, safe from rocks, but farther from the dark northern shore. Daxter came to, coughing and sputtering and wobbly legged as he surfaced and paddled around in exhausted confusion.

Jak was floating beside him, eyes closed, his sword glinting in the murk below where it was still tied to one of his arm wraps. Daxter himself was still attached to Jak, too, by the hook that had saved his life twice now.

Daxter climbed up onto Jak's chest, then put a paw over his mouth. Weak little puffs of breath misted out against it. Daxter sighed in relief even as a surge of irritation boiled in his gut.

"Damn lucky you're still breathin', ya idiot! I've followed your sorry, grumpy ass for miles ! And never once did I complain about what dumb routes ya took through Metal Head nests, or get mad when ya trusted those slavers like a dumb bumpkin and then I had to follow 'em and let those bastards pet me," Daxter shuddered. "And the one time I ask ya to use the two brain cells I think must be rattlin' around in there somewhere and beg to take sunshine street, ya go skippin' your carrot-haired ass down the way I told ya not to! And then we almost plummeted to our deaths. And then we almost got toasted by lightning. And then we almost froze. And then we got sucker punched by a rogue wave because of you! And then..."

A tremor of gladness rippled through him as he glanced over Jak's eerily calm face, not furrowed with grim determination or sadness like it usually was. The cut on his cheek from the rainy night was still there, unhealed even though Jak always sealed his own wounds with his green eco right away. There were bruises all over him in purple swells. Daxter peered at the part of Jak's shirt that was floating aside just enough to show a peek of the dark eco wound beneath. The wound was slightly larger than before when Jak had first showed him it while they'd fished in Riverjoint, a new tendril snaking from the center.

They hadn't died, also thanks to Jak. In the blinding, crushing, deafening rush of the wave, Daxter wasn't sure how in the world Jak had managed to hold on. And then there was the impossible feat Jak had pulled off of flipping around and crouch walking backwards against it to shield him when he'd almost slipped away. The rocks had come after that, and Jak had somehow put himself between Daxter and them, battered around like a pinball between bumpers.

And he'd survived.

"You are the world's most badass dumbass, ya know that?"

Daxter sighed, shook the water from his fur from ear to tail tip, and tried to wake him up. But nothing worked. Calling to him, nibbling his arm, pawing at his closed eyelids, and even slapping him across the face did nothing (besides make Daxter feel a little better). He returned to the water and, using the hook, attempted to swim to pull Jak with him to shore. But even as a creature that was made for swimming, he was not strong enough to haul the weight of a young man behind him.

And so he got back on Jak and laid down in a ball. Even as they were pushed westward by the current, they were also being pushed north by the wind, so Daxter figured that eventually they'd hit shore. Or, Jak would wake up and get them there faster. They still had a whole afternoon of daylight, too, so even as it started to rain - a gentle sprinkle that was more refreshing than cold as it turned the water's surface into a sheet of ripples - Daxter felt no fear.

Until something bumped Jak. Daxter jumped to his feet and peered around, searching the water. Nothing. All there was was murk and darkness.

Daxter settled back down, curled his matted tail fluff over his paws and face, and-

Bump. Jak's body jostled. Daxter clung to his arm like he would a rowboat's edge, trembling again, glancing over to find what could have made Jak lurch like that. Then, cutting through the silt like an orange knife through the water mere feet away, a large fin emerged and started to circle. Daxter tried to pull at the pistol at Jak's hip, but then remembered the one on his own.

He snapped it out of his harness and quickly, shakily plugged in a new eco cartridge, glad and scared enough to mutter a snarky prayer beneath his breath as it hissed into life. Daxter raised his arms and took aim at the water below the fin.

" Really , world? Ya throw all that shit at us and now ya wanna send a lurkershark!?"

Just as toothy jaws stretched open beside Jak's leg, Daxter slammed his finger on the trigger. The yellow eco bit into the glistening inner side of the lurkershark's mouth, and it flung back, thrashing as a trail of gray blood followed it to where it flopped at the water's surface, oozing more as it struggled and weakened.

Daxter let the pistol back down and collapsed on the still knocked-out Jak. "Thirty tankers. Thirty tankers of delicious-"

The wounded lurkershark was ripped down into the darkness.

Daxter stared, sweating, and his heart-pounding as the water where it'd been grew still, save for the rain. Then bits of meat and bubbles started to surface. Then billowing clouds of steely gray.

And then more fins.

Daxter shot at the first that went for Jak. It careened away from his arm and the others set upon it like a splashing, oozing feast. "Forty tankers!"

Another sailed by. Another sizzling of a yellow eco bullet. Dead. More eating. "Fifty tankers!"

More and more came. How many, Daxter didn't know (he'd stopped counting at one hundred and fifty tankers of fish), but just as his cartridge ran out with a dead click click click, a last lurkershark beelined for Jak's side, and Daxter prepared himself to jump on the thing's face and scratch its eyes out, there was red.

It started as an ember in the water between them and the beast. The scarlet grew in radiating waves until it was tall as a building, but thin as glass. With a bristle-tailed jolt, Daxter realized that something else was approaching as more sharks beat against the wall.

He turned around to find that it was a human with cut ears. Their leather and silk robes fluttered around them, and Precursor metal plates gleamed atop their torso and arms, held together by glass tubes. Daxter glared when he saw the white paint on their hands, then at the golden and red mark in the middle of their face.

They walked across the water as if they were merely taking a stroll down a pleasant street, little shields of red eco growing beneath their every step over the murk. Their left hand was held forward, and as they gave it another push, the red eco wall surged, shrank, and cradled Jak and Daxter out of the water like a crimson hammock.

Daxter bared his teeth and stepped forward protectively over Jak.

"No worries, little one," they spoke with a voice like a furl of desert wind over lifeless dust, and their red eyes fell on Jak. "I mean only to bring him back."