Chapter 4: Memories

As the celebrations ended, most people went on home, however Jak and Daxter had already made up their minds that no matter what they weren't going to return to the palace; unless it was to gather their things from their room. Jak yawned as he stretched his arms over his head, causing his shirt to lift slightly and show his well toned belly. This of course gave both Keira and Tess; who were cleaning up the booths, a bit of a show. Whistling at Jak, Tess poked fun at him. "Nice belly Jak." She said with a playful wink.

Flushing Jak immediately put his arms down and laughed nervously. "Thanks?"

"No, thank-you." Keira flirted and winked at him as she and Tess went into the back to put the garbage out.

Shaking his head he paused at the sight of LJ, still awake; if only barely. The little boy's eyes drooped, causing his head to bob downward and then he'd jerk his head back up. He then looked up at Jak, his eyes portraying what he seemed to not be able to say. In fact, now that Jak thought about it, LJ hadn't spoken once in the week since the fight with Kor. He then thought back to his many babysitting jobs he had to do for the kid and realized that he hadn't spoken once. He then heard older Samos' saying good-bye in the back and saw the older man walk out to leave. "Samos," he began causing the older elf to pause in his footsteps. "Did I ever speak?" he said this as he nodded down towards his younger self.

"Now that I think about it," Samos began as he went into deep thought and then looked up at Jak's waiting gaze. "No." he sighed. "Whatever happened to you before you came to the underground had already stopped you from speaking. You seemed scared and you had been shaking in fear when I came across you and that mutt in the dark alley." He looked at the young boy, who seemed more attentive and was trying to grab the bird that was fluttering around Samos's head like it always did. "I guess we'll never know what really happened to you. However one thing always confused me." Jak gave his mentor a look that asked for him to continue. "How your younger self even survived the year before I found him."

"What do you mean?" Jak asked his eyes widening as he realized what his montor meant even as LJ climbed into his lap and looked up expectantly.

Samos looked as if he was going to continue when Sig walked into the room. "We'll finish this conversation another night son." He said as he rushed to leave, suddenly wanting to get back to the palace.

"Hello Cherry." Sig greeted Jak as he noticed that the little boy had officially nodded off in the youth's arms. Jak looked down and chuckled. "Does that a lot, doesn't he?"

Nodding Jak carefully shifted the boy in a more comfortable position. "Let me put him down, and I'll be back to explain some things to you." Jak said as he walked past the wastelander.

Once upstairs in his bedroom Jak laid LJ down in the bed and noticed that Mutt was already sleeping on the floor. The croca dog lifted its head and received a pat from its master. "Keep him safe Mutt." He said as walked back downstairs. When he closed the door he turned just in time to see Tess and Daxter walking hand in hand into Tess' bedroom. Shaking his head he went to go down the steps but stopped when he saw Keira walk up to him, her hips sashaying left to right in a sensual movement. Swallowing hard he gave her his best innocent smirk. "Going to bed Keir?" he asked calling her the nickname he'd called her every time he'd seen her, though almost always was in his head when he was growing up.

Raising an eyebrow at the nickname she laid her hands on his chest. "Only if you are." She flirted. It was then Jak picked up a scent from her and realized she was a bit drunk.

"Okay, but you'll have to go ahead." He paused trying to find a good excuse. "I've gotta make sure Dax locked up."

Keira giggled. "Don't be too long." She said as she continued her way down the hall and ended up in the room three doors down from his own room.

Sighing in relief he walked down the steps and looked around for Sig. He found the wastelander in the booth nearest to the exit. In front of him were two steaming cups of coffee. "Figured this was going to take awhile." Sig explained as he motioned towards the cups of coffee. "So explain to me why there's a kid following you around and why."

"Yeah."Jak said as he rubbed the back of his neck as he sat down across from the man. "Ok. I just want to say beforehand that ever word I'm about to tell you is one hundred percent true, even when it sounds extremely crazy." Sig gave a nod. "Okay, so this all began a long time ago in a village called Sandover."

Jak looked over at Sig after finishing his story. "Okay, so let me get this straight." Sig said trying to put this all in some words that made sense. "You lived and grew up in a village that only existed a little over three hundred years ago, you found some sortta Precursor device that brought you and your friends here, got captured, tortured and escaped in the last two years; toppled the old tyrant Praxis, killed your enemy Erol in a race and annihilated the metal head leadership and found out from said metal head that you are really the lost Prince of Haven City and that the kid was or is your younger self."

Jak nodded. "Yeah." He looked towards the stairs. "That…that about covers most of it."

"Most?" Sig asked, now really wondering if this kid he'd grown to like was really crazy. "There's more?"

Jak sighed. "I didn't want him to go through what I have. It's just not right." He looked down at the cup of coffee in his hand that he'd finished an hour or so ago. "I destroyed the Rift Gate in Kor's nest. The pain I've gone through, the innocence that I lost." The cup suddenly shattered in his hands. Not seeming to feel the shards of glass as they imbedded themselves into his skin he continued. "Samos knew everything that was going to happen." He growled. "He knew! Yet he did nothing to stop it!" by now the growl had turned into a snarl.

Sig had see Jak mad before, hell he'd seen the beast the first time he'd taken the kid and his diminutive friend out to the pumping station for that hunt. The creature had scared the shit out of him. He'd fought against many creatures, but that thing was out of the worst of nightmares and it would seem he was about to get an encore visit from the ferocious beast. However, just when he thought Jak was about to lose it, he reigned in his hatred and anger and looked at Sig sheepishly before muttering an apology. After a moment of silence and thinking about what had been told to him, he knew he had to do some research before making a judgment and snagging the kid and bringing him back to his old man.

"Okay." was all he said as he stood up and grabbed his staff weapon.

"What?" Jak asked his head lifting from where it'd been on his chest since the apology had been said.

"I believe you." Sig looked up the stairs. "You plan to keep him safe and you're going to need help." Jak nodded. "Daxter needs some training before I'd trust him with anything."

Jak snorted. "Why does everybody think Dax is helpless?" Sig raised an eyebrow. "If it weren't for Dax, I'd be dead a hundred times over." He sighed. The way Jak talked about his friend caused the wastelander to sit back down.

"How'd you two meet?" Sig asked, genuinely curious how the muskrat and hero had become friends and why Jak would claim that the runt had saved his life a hundred times over.

Jak looked up and him and smirked. "Well, that's a long story."

"You see me getting up any time soon?" the wastelander leaned back into the booth and waited for Jak to start. "Well, we met the day Samos and I had arrived in Sandover…"

By the time Jak had finished the story of how Daxter and he had become friends to their many adventures growing up; including the wumpbee incident on his ninth birthday, it was morning. Jak yawned and couldn't believe how tired he was now. Sig didn't look fazed and chuckled at the youth. "Go on to bed Jak." He said. "I'll keep watch until somebody comes to relieve me."

"Ugh." Jak groaned as he stood up out of the booth and went to the front door and locked it. "Just go up to one of the rooms upstairs. Tess had then redone just so that people could sleep over when they needed."

"I appreciate it." the wastelander said as he watched Jak go upstairs. It was a few minutes after he was certain nobody was going to be coming downstairs when he pulled out a comm. unit.

"Report." came a gruff voice over the boxes speakers.

"You're up awful early." There was a sigh on the other side. "You haven't slept, have you?"

"Nightmares keep one awake, especially when the nightmare is real." came the sad reply.

"Well, I've got good news, for a change." Sig stated, unsure of how to explain this one to his friend.

"You found his body?" the voice said followed by what sounded like a sob, though Sig couldn't be certain.

"No."

"Then what!?" the voice demanded anger seeping in the voice.

Why didn't I put this together sooner? They're so much alike. He chuckled. "I found him, but-"

"But what?"

"Well, this is going to sound crazy." Sig wasn't even sure if he truly believed it. "You know that kid Jak that I've been telling you about for the last six months?"

There was a chuckle. "Yes."

"It turns out that he's Mar." Sig knew this was going to be hard to tell.

There was a sigh on the other end. "Is this a joke?"

"Now listen." and with that Sig repeated what he'd been told, afterwards he'd let his king decided whether or not to believe any of this.

As soon as Jak walked into his room he spotted LJ sleeping on the bed with mutt, who lifted his head from the bed as soon as he had entered the room, only to put it back down. Deciding not to wake LJ he grabbed a pillow and sheet from a cupboard in the room and laid down on the large couch that was positioned right under the window to the outdoors. The morning commotion had already begun, and Jak was tired as hell. It didn't take him long to fall into a fitful sleep.

Jak found himself being held by strong arms. The person holding him was running from the bad guys. He didn't know how he knew this; he just did. Suddenly the man holding him came to a stop. In front of them were dozens of men in red and black armor. A big man in the center of this group approached them. Jak's littler self clasped the shirt of the man holding him. Fear radiating from his tiny body to the point that he whimpered. "Be still son, no one shall harm you. I won't let them." said the man holding him.

"You shouldn't make promises to him that you can't keep Damas." said the all too familiar voice of Baron Praxis.

"Praxis." Damas said in a saddening sigh. "You've killed my wife, let me leave with my son. Mar has done nothing!" The little boy tightened his grip on his father's clothes.

Praxis seemed to think about this for a second before suddenly a new voice was heard. "The boy stays." The crowd of guards moved aside, revealing Count Vegar. "Even if you leave, this child must stay. He is the key to everything."

Praxis, having turned towards the count turned back towards Damas. "The vote has been cast, your son stays."

"You'll have to pry him from my dead arms." Damas snarled readying himself for a fight when suddenly the child fell from his arms and to the ground.

Jak watched as his father fell and looked up to see the ever familiar sneer of Commander Erol. "Good job Commander." Vegar said as he roughly grabbed Mar and began to tug him away. Once away from the scene Jak watched his younger self struggle to get lose from the counts grip. Getting annoyed with the struggling child Vegar grabbed him by his throat and lift him off of the ground. "Knock it off you little bastard!" the count yelled.

A whimper left the child's lips as his air supply was being cut off. When suddenly the count gave a cry and dropped him. Mar coughed and gasped for air as he gulped it into his lungs. Turning his head he saw Mutt his croca dog that mommy and daddy had gotten him. It was then that his natural instincts to save his life kicked in and he ran with mutt not too far behind him….

Jak gasped as he shot up from his sleep. He found himself once again in his room that was above the Naughty Ottsel. Turning his head he saw LJ sitting on the floor playing with some blocks that Tess had given him. The blocks were made out of precursorean metal and thick glass; that had blue and green eco trapped inside the glass. The boy looked up at Jak, his eyes widening and a smile suddenly came onto the child's face.

Swinging his legs over the edge of the couch he continued to look and LJ and also put the pieces to his dream into place and something clicked. "Your name is…Mar, isn't it?" he asked the little boy, whose eyes widened at his friend finding out his secret. He gave a tentative nod. "Mar…" Jak whispered and then smiled. "It's a good name for ya kid." The boy stood up with one of the blue eco blocks in his hand and walked over to Jak and hugged him and then handed him the block. Chuckling Jak picked Mar up and walked downstairs.

Daxter rubbed his hands together as he and Jak stepped into the gun range together. Finally after waiting a week after getting his body back, he was about to get a gun of his own and learn how to use it. It wasn't until they stepped inside that he noticed Tess and Sig in the room. "Hey guys, what are yer doin' here?" as he asked this Jak sat LJ; who Jak had told Daxter was now named Mar, over in a corner and sat a bag down in front of him. Mar opened the bag and pulled out his blocks and immediately began going town with building something with them.

Tess giggled at Daxter's question. "Well, I'm here to give you your new guns and then Jak and Sig will show you how to use them." She smiled at the little boy who was oblivious as to where he was. "While you are learning how to shoot and be a hero in this form like you were while you were a cutie ottsel; I'm going to be watching Mar here." Sig's good eye widened at the kid's real name being used.

"Uh Tessy Poo?" Daxter questioned as he looked at the wastelander.

"Don't wet yourself chilipepper, I'm in on the little secret." Sig assured the youth as he noticed how Daxter had suddenly put himself into the view between the heir and Sig.

Daxter's chest deflated with a sigh. "Woo, thank goodness." He sauntered over to Tess as Jak waited by leaning against the door into the gun course. Daxter eyed several large weapons on the rack. "So what am I learning with?" asked eager to begin.

Tess pulled a box up on a table near the wall of guns. Inside were two duel eco pistols. "These are a smaller version of Jak's gun. They have the same power, only compressed into a smaller version. They have the three main bad boy mods, which we'll get to in a minute. She flicked a small button on the side. This is the safety, you just flick this small yellow button up to turn it off and down to turn it on. This red button on the same side helps you to flick through the mods. The mods are blaster, scatter, and peacemaker. The peacemaker isn't has powerful as Jak; whose isn't even as powerful as Sig's weapon. Anyway, there are upgrades which will allow you to make these sturdier and capable to hold more ammunition, oh and the kick back is barely noticeable on these. Oh I just love these pistols!" she cooed, causing Daxter to lift and eyebrow at her and look at Jak; who shrugged. "Ashelin hasn't even gotten this pistol yet. Mostly because it's a one of a kind."

"Why's that Tessy?" he asked as she handed him the guns. He held them in his hands and was impressed to see that they were lightweight and not really that heavy, unlike Jak's beast. He still remembered lifting that thing while being on Jak's shoulder and shooting at guards or transports and shit. He wiggled his eyebrows at Jak, who snorted.

"Because I made them especially for you snookums." She cooed as she kissed his cheek.

Sig cleared his throat and stepped forward with another box, this one was bigger. "As nice as those pistols are Jak told me how you liked to throw things back when you lived where you lived."

"Hell yea!" Daxter yelled. "I could kill a lurker crab at thirty yards with a single shot from my bow. The trick was to shoot through the tiny hold they popped out of." He explained as he got excited over that memory. "Boy I miss that bow, it was awesome."

Jak nodded. "Yeah, he once shot a lurker shark with one." He smirked as Daxter's ears fell back.

"Oh…well, yeah, he was gonna swallow yer ass." He threw back at his friend.

"That's a story for another time." Sig said as he brought out a precursorean rod that was shaped in the bend of a bow; but the strings were missing. Handing it to Daxter, who had sat the pistols down on the table, who then took the bow that was handed to him. "Flick it by shoving the rod forward." Sig instructed, Daxter followed and when he did it he watched as a blue eco string appeared and attached from top to bottom of the bow and watched as blew lights lit up along the rod which had also transformed into a more natural looking bow arch.

"Sweet eco!" Daxter yelled happily as he looked at the bow.

"Now there are four types of arrows in this quiver." Sig said handing Daxter a long bag that would go on the youths back. The red ones are clearly marked. These will make your targets explode. The yellow one will make your targets burst into flames. The blue ones will allow the arrow to travel at a fast speed to reach their target." Sig paused as he took one out of the quiver. This one looked different. It was devoid of all color and was completely black. "The ones marked with black, are dark poison arrows. These will kill your enemies almost instantly."

Daxter's eyes were wide with awe at what he'd been given and for a moment he felt his chest constrict with emotion. Taking a deep breath he spoke. "Thanks Sig." he said sincerely.

"Hell Cherry, can't let you get yourself or Jak here killed." He smiled. "Now let's see what you got." Daxter nodded at he hooked the quiver to his back and his pistols on his hips. Upon seeing that he was ready Sig nodded for Jak to move away from the door. "Now, there are three rounds to the first two levels. Six rounds to the last three. Each round is programmed with different types of enemies and yes there are civilians cut outs in there too. Some are electric and some are programmed to shoot back." Sig warned Daxter. "And in the case you wish to stop, just push the red button at the end of the hall." Daxter went to step forward. "AH, and before I forget cherry, there are hidden boxes throughout the course. Some have arrows and others ammo."

Daxter nodded. "No problem." he said confidently as he walked into the course and the doors shut behind him. Upon entering the area the course cameras all activated and a projection appeared on the wall in the waiting area where his friends were.

Jak watched with a smile as he saw Daxter sneak around a corner and shoot a metal head cutout, followed quickly by shooting a KG guardsman behind the metal head with his pistol on blaster mode. It wasn't long before more enemies appeared in front of Daxter and began popping out at a slow rate; this allowed his friend to shoot them easily. Level one was always the easiest, it was level three that was hard.

Daxter was having fun. He had to admit that he'd been scared about this part of the training. Learning what his weapons did was the easiest part, the hard part was shooting; but as he defeated level two his confidence grew. If I remember right, level three has the shooting guards in it. he thought as walked through level three's doors after reloading his gun at the loading station outside the levels doors.

As soon as he entered the room a metal head cutout of a flying drone came at his head. He flicked his bow out and shot at it with the red eco arrow. The resulting explosion caused the fellow cutouts to disintegrate into nothingness. Right, this floor is totally going to be harder than the other two.

As he rounded a corner, he noticed that the room looked different and had the looks of a Haven Forest. He continued to walk into the room and saw a civilian pop out. He ignored that cutout, but shot the metal head behind it with his blaster mod. Then the civilian went down into the ground and was replaced by two metal heads . He kicked and shot, just like how Sig taught Jak and smiled as the two cutouts became nothing but sheets of paper.

Next came a barrage of KG guardsmen, he then saw a wall pop up for him to hide behind as the guardsmen began shooting. Diving behind the wall Daxter peeked around after the guards stopped and then shot with a yellow arrow with his bow and watched the cutouts burst into flames. The sprinkler system activated, but it was too late for the cutouts, they'd been reduced to ash.

Daxter smiled as he walked up to level four and realized that this was the round that Jak had a problem with and had yet to pass and groaned as he reloaded his weapons at the station and walked through the door.

Jak continued to watch Daxter's progress and smiled as he watched his score go up and up with each round he went through on each level. He then heard the gun course doors open and saw Torn and Ashelin walk into the room.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, quite surprised that the two even had time to come here.

"Tess told us that Daxter was still in the course after two hours into it." Ashelin looked up at the score and smirked. "Are these his scores for each kill on each level?" she asked Jak, who gave a nod. "He's got a better kill score than I did on my first try through this course." She looked at Jak, "though I'll admit I was so worried the night before that I wasn't really awake."

Torn snorted as he watched Daxter nearly get decapitated by one of the flying cutouts and then looked at the kill score and the missed score; which caused him to do a double look. "Not a single miss?" he asked, causing Jak to smile and Tess to giggle as little Mar smiled at his blocks.

"Nope." Sig stated proudly. "The cherry knows how to make a shot count. He hasn't hit a single civilian either." He looked at the Haven City Freedom Guard Commander. "You still think he can't take shoot right."

Torn crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll admit I may have been a little doubtful that he wouldn't get himself killed." He paused as he watched Daxter duck and dodges his way through a closing corridor and then pulls out a blue arrow out and shot the switch that would stop him from being squished and finished the fourth level, a level Jak was still struggling with.

"Okay, now I'm impressed." Jak said as he watched Daxter suddenly ping the quit button the elevator would bring him back to the front room.

As Daxter walked into the room he had the most shit eating grin on his face. "I lived!" he yelled as he saw Tessy walking over to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist. "That was awesome! Hard. But way awesome." He smiled as he kissed her.

Tess giggled as she kissed him back. "Not bad cherry." Sig complimented. "Not bad at all." He watched as the elevator dinged behind Daxter revealing Keira.

"Keira!" Daxter yelled. "What are you doin' here?"

She smiled as she walked up to Jak. "Jak asked me to program the levels for you." She stated as she kissed the hero on the lips.

"WHAT!?" his chest deflated thinking all of the level had been tweaked on his behalf.

"He wanted me to make level three and four harder for you so that your confidence on the first two would be tested." She looked up at Jak. "Not only were you doing better than I thought you'd do, but when I put in the last tweak in level four I was impressed how you got out of that mess. Jak has a hard enough time doing it on the normal settings for that level."

"So, you made it harder?" Daxter asked, which he received a nod from the mechanic. A grin returned to his face as he hugged his two friends. "Yer the best friends a guy could have!" he laughed.

Mar deciding that what was going on seemed more important than his blocks he ran over to Jak and tugged his hand. Bending down Jak picked the kid up. "Jak, I wanted to speak to you about, LJ." Ashelin began.

Jak frowned. "What about him."

Ashelin sighed as she felt that Jak's defenses were coming up. "I think he needs to be placed in a stable environment." she said. "You're going to be busy, especially since we've gotten more reports of larger metal heads moving in the sewers and we need you-"

"Woe, stop right there." Jak said sounding shocked. "I haven't even agreed to work for you guys again and you're assuming that I'll help you after how you treated Daxter and the things you," he pointed at Torn. "were saying about one of my friends."

"Listen Jak," Torn began shocked that he was still upset about that incident.

"Nu-uh." Daxter interjected. "You listen Tattoo Wonder, you were about ta say something totally uncalled for about the best guy we know! Sig may have been MIA at the time but that didn't give yer asses any good reason to sass about him."

"Now what's this about Chilipeppers. I think I should know about this one." Sig said sound both curious and angry. He knew that the Commander could care less about him, but he didn't even know the guy and he'd been sassing about him?

"It was when we'd asked him to teach Dax how to shoot right." Jak said, "When they said no, I offered to teach him; only for Ashelin to say I –"

"Look this is just getting blown out of proportion." Ashelin said looking at the little boy in Jaks arms. Mar clung to Jak; fear was starting to show in his eyes.

Jak narrowed his eyes. "You know what?" he growled. "I don't care anymore." He then began to walk out. "I've been used all my life, and now you want to use me again. It ends now! I'm not something to be used. I'm not a tool! And I'm done being used as one." with that Jak stalked out of the place both Daxter and Keira running off after him with Tess and Sig leaving soon after.

M-Angel: It's offical, I can't help but write long chapers when it comes to this story. I don't care either, because I can finally do it. I've been trying to write this way for years and finally I can. Now if I could only do it with my other stories. Lmbo! As always your imput is always welcome. I love hear from my readers through a review or PM. So now that I've offically kncoked the balance of things in Jak's world let's see if I can put some order to this chaos.