Chapter 1: So much, so fast

Jak took in his surroundings in amazement, tall buildings surrounded him and Daxter, looking nothing like the Precursor temples that were usually the only structures around of such magnitude, steel greys instead of orange and browns. It was completely different to anything he had ever seen before.

Samos had told Jak to be prepared for whatever happened when they active the Precursor Ring, so he knew to expect something different, but this place didn't look at all like it had been built by Precursors, or anywhere that Jak's uncle had described on his travels either.
Was this place where those creatures that had swarmed out of the portal had come from? It didn't seem so, there were elves walking around and no sign of those creatures here.

Jak looked around more but couldn't see Keira or Samos. They couldn't have been blasted that far apart when the machine they were on blew apart in the rift, right?

"This is the last time I ever touch Precursor junk again!" Daxter swore, throwing down the remains of the machine that he had still been clinging onto, distracting Jak from his looking around.

Jak did not believe his friend for a second. Daxter had a bad habit of just touching stuff with no regard for what could happen, and there was no way that the ottsel would keep his hands to himself the next time they came across something Precusor.

"Spread out and search the area! The light came down here!"

Jak looked over at the source of the voice, finding elves dressed in some sort of red armour moving into the area that Jak and Daxter were in.

Jak had never seen the armoured men before, had no reason to view them as a threat to himself, but for some strange reason a sudden anxiety flared up in his chest at them. His instincts screamed at him that those men were dangerous, that they'd hurt him if they saw him, though he didn't know why.
Still, Jak knew that he wouldn't be feeling this way without a reason.

Kneeling down, Jak prodded Daxter and then thumbed in the direction away from the armoured elves when his friend looked at him.

"Think that they're bad news?" Daxter asked as he climbed up onto Jak's shoulder.

Jak shrugged as he began walking away, faster than he would usually walk.
The anxiety in his chest only went away once he and Daxter were out of the line of sight of the armoured elves, though his instincts still told him to keep walking until he was far away from them.

As Jak walked, he noticed him and Daxter receiving a lot of strange looks, the people around them giving them a wide berth as if they were something strange to avoid.
Well, they probably were a bit strange to the people here. The clothing everyone wore was different to what Jak wore, right down to everyone wearing some form of boots instead of foot wrappings. It was rather strange to see that everyone was wearing boots, something that was only worn during the winter months back in Sandover.

After a while of walking, the boys still hadn't caught any sight of Keira's blue hair or Samos' log, and they were well and truly lost in this strange new place.

"Hey, lady." Daxter called out to a passer-by.

The woman looked at Jak and Daxter but kept walking.

"Hey, I was talking to you." Daxter said, annoyed, only to be ignored.

Jak and Daxter shared a frown.
Why had the lady just ignored them? If she had someplace to be, she could have at least said.

As it turned out, the lady hadn't been the only one, several other elves that the boys tried to ask for help similarly ignored them or acted like they were an inconvenience to be quickly dismissed.
Thankfully, at least a few elves were willing to actually talk for a few seconds, even if they were quick to move on afterwards and always kept their distance, as if afraid of catching something from the boys.

From what Jak and Daxter could gather, they were in a city called Haven, ruled by a guy called Baron Praxis. And one charitable elf had looked Jak up and down before advising the boy not to earn to ire of the 'Krimzon Guard', which were apparently those armoured elves that Jak had instinctively wanted to get far away from.
Jak had no idea what about him would make the elf advise him to stay away from the city guard, but he had the feeling that it was good advice anyway.

"Haven city, huh. Never heard of it." Daxter mused. "You know it?" He looked down at his friend.

Jak thought before shaking his head.
A city? Uncle Carter had described cities to Jak before, huge collections of homes, work buildings, machinery, and other things that wouldn't fit in the much smaller villages that Jak was used to, home to thousands of elves. The Explorer had promised to take Jak to visit some cities for himself once Jak was old enough, though now it seemed like Jak had arrived in one ahead of schedule.
But as for Haven city, he didn't recall such a name from any of the maps his uncle showed him.

After more wandering around, just sort of hoping for answers to fall into their lap or to at least run into Keira and Samos, Jak and Daxter wandered into an open area between all the metal structures, space taken up by many stalls that were selling different wares. At the sight of a stall selling food, Jak realised that he was starting to feel hungry.

"Ah, never more of a beautiful sight." Daxter hummed.

Jak was able to hear his friend's grumbling belly right next to his ear.

When Jak walked over to the food stall, he and Daxter ran into another issue.

"That will be eight lari." The food merchant told Jak after Daxter picked out food for them.

Jak looked at him in confusion.

"What's lari?" Daxter asked what Jak was thinking.

"Lari." The merchant said as if Daxter was stupid. "Money. A unit of currency" He clarified very slowly, as if he thought Jak was deaf as well as mute.

Jak made an 'oh' face as he understood what he was being asked for.

Money was another thing that uncle Carter had explained to Jak from his travels. In bigger settlements, they would use money as an intermediate stand-in for the value of an item, making it easier for someone to sell what they had and then buy what they needed in the complications of larger and connected settlements.
Sandover, meanwhile, was a small village where everyone contributed and benefitted, subsisting on trade both within the village and outside. There were Precursor Orbs, but Jak never really understood their worth, which seemed kind of arbitrary, they were just something to collect and then trade away for Power Cells when needed. In Sandover, if Jak wanted food outside what was shared communally, he'd do a task for Ollie the Fisherman or Zeb the Farmer, not pay something like eight Precursor Orbs or whatever it would be.

As such, Jak didn't carry any money, let alone lari.

"Uh, we don't have that." Daxter said. "Jak, you got anything in your pack that's good to trade?" He asked his friend, turning to dig around in Jak's bag.

"No lari, no food." The food vendor denied before Daxter could find anything.

"What? Come on, that's no fair. We're hungry and we have things to trade for food." Daxter whined.

"If you want to trade things, go find a trader." The food vendor scowled at Jak, as if he was responsible for Daxter's words. "I only accept lari."

"Okay, what about we do something for you instead." Daxter offered. "You got something you need us to do?"

Of course, by 'us', Daxter meant Jak. Not that Daxter could do much anyway, trapped as an ottsel.

"No." The food vendor scowled harder. "Now get lost and stop wasting my time."

Unfortunately, attempts to get food from other food stalls followed the same pattern as the first, refusing trade of items or favours and only accepting the local currency of lari. And until Jak located a place to sell what little he had in his pack for lari, they weren't going to be getting any food.

Jak huffed as he sat down on the ground, contemplating what to do next, Daxter hopping down onto the ground next to him.

"This place is weird." Daxter concluded. "Metal everywhere, everyone acting like we have the latest plague, not willing to trade for food. And they're all so rude too. I don't like it here Jak."

Jak nodded in agreement. Haven city hadn't made a good first impression on him either.

Unseen by the boys, a small figure wandered over to them, reaching over and patting Daxter on the head.

Daxter startled at the sudden touch and then turned his head to be met with the sight of a child standing uncomfortable close to him, reaching up and patting Daxter's furry ears with a smile on his chubby face.

"Hey, no touching the merchandise." Daxter snapped, pulling out of the young boy's reach and slapping the hand away. "You better not have had anything sticky on your hands."

Daxter felt over his head for any sign that the boy had left something there, then received a slap to the back of his head from Jak.

"Ow! What was that for?" Daxter demanded.

Jak looked pointedly at the boy, and when Daxter followed his gaze, he winced. The boy was tearing up, on the verge of crying from getting his hand slapped away and how Daxter talked to him.

"Ah, hey. No, no. Don't cry." Daxter begged. "I'm sorry."

He really didn't want to feel like the world's biggest asshole for making a child cry.

Leaning over, Jak placed a comforting hand on the young boy's back, rubbing it slightly while humming, hoping that would provide comfort in the absence of words.

Thankfully, it worked and the boy didn't cry, only sniffing as he calmed down.
Jak and Daxter sighed in relief.

"So, kid. Why don't you go wander back to your parents?" Daxter prompted, wanting the child to go away.

The boy didn't move, just staring at the two teens.

Jak looked around to see if he could see the boy's parents himself, but no one matched the kid in looks or were looking around as if they'd lost track of their child.

"Your parents are around here, right?" Daxter questioned.

The boy wrinkled his nose and then shook his head sadly.

"Uh, guardian then? Like and uncle or something?" Daxter tried.

Again, the boy shook his head, looking down at the ground beneath his bare feet.

Jak and Daxter share a look.

This wasn't good. The boy's parents or guardians apparently weren't around, which left them responsible for the kid until they could find someone, as they weren't exactly going to let the child fend for himself.

"Jak, come on, we've got our own issues to sort out." Daxter complained as Jak climbed to his feet, taking the kid's hand in his own.

Jak gave his friend a dull look, which shut him up.

Daxter sighed. "So, kid, you got a name?" He asked.

The boy just looked at Daxter. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, then shut it again, fidgeting with the amulet around his neck instead.

"Huh." Daxter said, climbing up Jak to get on his shoulder. "Guess he's mute too."

That was going to make things a bit tricky, but Jak was sure that they could manage.

"Come on! Someone around here's got to know who this kid is." Daxter complained.

Every person who the boys asked claimed not to know the kid's parents or be even remotely familiar with him, and similarly the kid didn't seem to recognise anyone as they walked around the Bazar then then into different areas around the Bazar. And being so new to the city, the teens had no idea where they could take the kid now that their attempt at find the parents/guardians themselves had failed.

Though, some of the elves asked looked at the amulet around the kid's neck with some degree of familiarity, but always quickly rushed away after seeing it.

"Move along!" A voice startled Jak.

Turning, something in Jak's chest seized at the sight of the armoured elves, the Krimzon Guard. Something inside him still telling him that they were a danger.

"Maybe we can ask them." Daxter suggested, pointing at the Krimzon Guard.

Jak looked at his friend, trying to convey what he thought of that idea through his face.

"Have you got a better idea?" Daxter challenged his friend. "We can't exactly keep looking after the kid, can we?"

Jak frowned but had to agree that Daxter had a point. The kid wasn't their responsibility and they still needed to find Keira and Samos.

So, even though it still felt like a bad idea, Jak began walking over to the Krimzon guard to ask them for help.
However, before they could get very far, the Krimzon Guard spotted something and marched heavily towards it.

The Guard marched over to a dirty-looking woman and child who were sitting with a cup out in front of them while in a praying pose.

"No loitering!" The guard ordered.

The woman looked up at the guard in fear.

"Oh, oh, sorry." The woman whimpered, scrambling to get to her feet.

Before the woman could grab the cup off of the ground, the guard kicked it away, sending the tiny handful of lari coins that hand been in the cup skittering across the ground.

"Move, before I place you under arrest!" The guard threatened.

Jak and Daxter shared a frown. The guard's behaviour seemed completely over the top for what the woman and child were doing.

The child knelt back to the floor and began picking up the lari coins, only for the guard to harshly stamp down on her hand, causing the child to cry out in pain.

Jak flinched and began to move towards the guard with the intention of defending the child, only for a tight grip on his hand to remind him that he still had a different kid in his current care. If Jak tried to take on the guard, would the kid be alright? Would he get hurt in the fight or wander off?

Daxter pulled gently on Jak's hair, already knowing what his friend wanted to do.

"I don't think it's a good idea." Daxter told Jak. "He looks tougher than a lurker, and there could be more around the corner.

From how the guard acted and how others reacted around him, Daxter could see that attracting the ire of the Krimzon Guard was not something they wanted to do, just like they had been warned.

Reluctantly, Jak moved away from the guard, fighting his want to defend that other child for the sake of the kid he was already looking after and his friend. He vowed that once the kid was taken care of and he knew more about Haven city, he wouldn't allow the guard to get away with doing that again.


As night fell, Jak and Daxter were no closer to finding what to do with the child they had taken into their shaky care than before, there had been vague directions to an orphanage or something but they couldn't find it.

What was worse was that they hadn't been able to find anywhere to stay the night either. No one seemed willing to take in a teenager, a child and their talking animal friend for just one night, claiming either that they didn't have the room or acting like the trio couldn't be trusted to be let inside.

"What's with this city?" Daxter complained loudly. "They act like we're criminals or something."

Jak shrugged, trying to adjust a sheet of metal he's found to lean against an alley wall in the right way to that it didn't just slide down at the slightest nudge. It was by no means an even adequate shelter, but it'd at least provide some sort of protection if it started raining during the night.
Maybe, if they pretended hard enough, he, Daxter and the kid could pretend that they were camping instead of frozen out of proper shelter by the people of Haven city, like what Jak used to do with his uncle.

The kid looked as impressed with Jak's attempts at a shelter as Daxter did, but at least he didn't voice his opinion like Daxter did.

"You can find your own if you don't like it." Jak signed at Daxter after his friend complained.

Daxter groaned in defeat.

"Fine. Just lie down already. There's no way I'm lying directly on that filthy ground." He said.

Jak squeezed himself under the sheet of metal and Daxter crawled over to lie on Jak's chest, an advantage to his new size it seemed.
Despite being strangers, the kid was happy to cuddle up close to Jak under the sheet of metal, probably finding Haven city at night much scarier than being so close to a boy he'd only met a few hours prior. It didn't take long for the kid to migrate to on top of Jak like Daxter was to get away from the cold ground, leaving Jak to be pressed against the cold and filthy ground alone, no barrier for himself.

Sighing quietly, Jak adjusted the small cloak the kid wore to make sure it covered him. Though no one had been willing to let them stay the night, one of the homes they knocked on did give a thin and old-looking cloak to the kid as a compromise. A different house had given the boys some food, even if it had been the leftover scraps of their dinner, so they were all somewhat fed, though still hungry from how meagre the scraps had been.

As Jak lay there, he began to think of what their plan would be for the morning. About what to do with the kid, about finding Keira and Samos and about finding out more about Haven city.
Another thing that Jak remembered from his uncle's stories about his adventures was that cities often had libraries, buildings full of books and hubs of information. Hopefully, Haven would have a library and Jak could find the answers he needed there.

Shifting uncomfortably, Jak tried to ignore the hard and cold ground beneath him and the small bodies pinning him down and sleep, hoping that things would be better in the morning.


Author's note: Please comment

I've decided to finally try doing a long-form story for Jak and Daxter, since this story idea isn't something that is suited to just one-shots. Though, I'll likely incorporate time-skips often to give myself some ease when writing.
I only have a vague sort of plan and no planned end yet. So, feel free to give ideas as the story goes along.