Here's (some of) that Dadmas I've been hyping up!

And, to the lucky soul who didn't know Spargus had a sea monster...Nope, the Lurker Shark is scarier. Hands down. The sea monster just kind of...tentacles out of the water and kills you.

But that heartbeat that comes from the Lurker Shark...

shudder

Anyway, enjoy!

Keira hated being in the Freedom HQ.

It seemed like everyone was on edge these days. Torn was almost eternally glaring at the console as he coordinated various attacks around the city, his tattooed face twitching with stress. He would mutter to himself and bit his lip a lot as he marched around, slamming doors and shoving chairs.

Ashelin wasn't around often anymore, stuck leading ever-increasingly dangerous missions in the newly formed Metal Head nest. When she was in the building, she could usually be found leaning against the wall, exhausted; on one memorable occasion, Keira had found her in the back stairwell, her head in her hands.

Samos was being stretched thin, which worried Keira. Her father wasn't a young man; this much stress couldn't be good for him. But with more and more casualties, his power was needed to keep both civilians and soldiers alive.

But the worst part was the silence.

There was a suffocating tension, so thick she could cut it with a knife and serve it on a plate. They all shuffled around, going about their daily business, fighting battles that would never end the war.

But no one dared say what they were all thinking.

Because they were all thinking it.

If Jak were here…

Keira wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and set her screwdriver down. She didn't have much to offer in the way of fighting, but she could do her part to keep everything running. Torn was especially appreciative of her efforts, thanking her profusely whenever she managed to replace a shattered computer screen or reattach wires that had come loose. Of course, he also had a tendency to slam his fist on the consoles, which caused most of the problems to begin with; but Keira appreciated the gratitude all the same.

And that had got her thinking.

Never, not once, had Keira ever thanked Jak.

Not in Sandover, after he'd saved her father. Not in Haven, after he'd saved the entire city.

Had he felt like she did sometimes, when she did a whole day's worth of work in two hours and got no words in return? Unappreciated, overworked, annoyed? No wonder he preferred it out in the Wasteland! They probably thanked him up, down, and sideways for all his help.

Keira roughly yanked a piece of metal sideboard off the computer. From where he was sitting, Samos looked over at her. "Keira, dear, are you alright? You seem upset."

"I'm fine, Daddy," she responded automatically. "Just...annoyed with this stupid computer."

Samos gave her a fond smile. "Ah, Keira, you've been working on it all day. Take a break for a few minutes."

She smiled back, but faltered as her feelings spilled into her thoughts. "...Daddy, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, my dear," he replied. "What's on your mind?"

She tucked her knees up to her chin and sighed. "Do you think that Jak and Daxter are going to come back to the city?"

Samos' face fell. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'd like to think that they will, once this war is finally over. But Jak's anger is...still strong. I hope that one day, he will return."

Keira frowned thoughtfully. "I don't think I would be mad at him if he didn't," she said slowly. Samos raised an eyebrow. "I mean, Jak...he's done so much for us. He should be happy, even if that means he stays in the Wasteland."

"..." Samos closed his eyes. "I always tried so hard," he whispered solemnly, "to give Jak good experiences. To give him a happy childhood, to give him some semblance of a normal life. But I had to preserve our future, whatever the cost, even if the cost was…"

"Jak," Keira finished for him.

"Yes." Samos sighed heavily. "I wonder, sometimes, if I didn't go too far. If I expected too much of him. Almost all his childhood, Jak was always running around and saving everyone else. It never even occurred to me that he might want or need anyone else to save him."

Keira buried her head in her knees. "I wish I'd defended him," she said, her voice muffled. "It might not have made any difference at all, but...he at least deserved to have someone defend him."

Samos rubbed her back comfortingly. "Well, what's done is done. The most we can do is try to fix what we can in the here and now. No changing the past."

"...The past…" Keira abruptly stood up, a grim sort of determination on her face. "You're right, Daddy. I can't go back in time, but I can show Jak that I still care now."

As she started to head for the door, her face set in determination, Samos blinked at her. "Where are you going, Keira?"

"To find Sig." The door opened and the elevator appeared. Keira stepped onto it. "I need to make sure Jak knows that we're still here for him."

Jak wasn't quite used to sitting in the passenger seat.

He was so used to it just being him and Daxter, or close to it. If Sig came along, he always preferred to man the gun instead of drive, which left Jak to be the wheelman.

Damas, however, shut that down immediately.

"We're taking the Slam Dozer," he said as they entered the garage. He was shouldering a thin, blaster-type rifle on his back; he was also sporting a few pieces of armor he didn't normally wear. "Jak, you're going to be the navigator, since you saw where the Dark Maker was headed. Daxter, man the gun."

The Slam Dozer was a hulking, metal behemoth of a vehicle with enough spikes to rival the king's own armor. It cut through the sand and wind easily, knocking down and smashing through cacti and over rocks. Jak grinned fiercely as the storm picked up around them, rustling his hair.

"There it is!"

Jak gestured to the horizon. There, half buried in the sand, with dark mechanical parts sticking up towards the sky, was the Dark Maker. Damas drove them up to it, the Slam Dozer skidding in the dirt.

Jak had been right: it had landed just past the river that ran through the Wasteland. It was another Dark Maker satellite, its grotesque tentacles spread out like oozing dark eco. Damas narrowed his eyes at the machine as they got out of the buggy.

"It looks inactive," he remarked, circling it like a vulture. He reached out to touch it and a spark of dark eco arced out towards him. He pulled away with a hiss, his fingers burned. "Ah. But it's not."

"You okay?" Jak stepped forward, yanking down his scarf. "Those things are filled with dark eco."

"Nothing I haven't had before," Damas said, shaking the pain out of his hand. "If a little dark eco was enough to scare me away, I wouldn't last very long out here."

He continued examining the machine, though he was careful not to touch it. Jak glanced at the console and furrowed his brow.

"Dax, this is just like the one that Seem showed us." He slid his fingers across the smooth panel, where coordinates were flashing. "I'll bet there's a dark eco crystal in it!"

"Ugh, like we need anymore of those lyin' around."

To Jak's surprise, the consol didn't require anything to open up and reveal the crystal. He snatched it up with a grin. "I guess we didn't have to play any games this time around."

Damas reappeared next to him, hands on his hips. "It seems like it uses the tentacles as whips to disable its enemies. And, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say the center is its weak point. There's dark eco bleeding from it, do you see?"

Indeed, when Jak looked, he saw dark eco leaking out into the sand. Damas continued, "And that is useful information. Weak points mean we can defend ourselves."

"Yeah, we've learned a lot here today," Daxter said with a roll of his eyes. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, can we get somewhere safe before we end up buried alive by the stupid sandstorm?"

Damas and Jak glanced around. The wind was picking up, the sand harsh against their skin. The king made an amused noise in his throat.

"A fair point. As much as I'd like to investigate more about this enemy, I'd also like to make it back to Spargus with all of my skin intact. Let's head back."

Jak pulled his scarf up, but felt it slip slightly down from his nose. Annoyed, he yanked it back up, only to have it fall back down again. Damas gave a bark of laughter.

"Here. Let me show you an old Wastelander trick." He moved behind Jak and hitched his scarf up. Instead of winding it around Jak's neck, as the boy had it, he tied it into a knot at the nape of his neck. "There. It should stay up now."

Jak tugged it gently and it didn't move. "Thanks."

Damas gave him a smile and something tugged in Jak's chest. Something pleasant, comforting, almost...nostalgic. Before he could comment on it, however, he heard Daxter's shout.

"Ahh! Jak!" Daxter ducked down behind his friend's boots. "That thing's still kickin'!"

Jak flipped the morph gun to his blaster. The Dark Maker was shifting, rising out of the sand, its long tentacles slithering to life. "Shit!"

Damas slid the rifle off his back. "I suppose we'll get a chance to test out our theory. Aim for the center mass!"

Jak trained his gun on the Dark Maker. It was hovering tiltedly above the sand, with dark eco dripping out of it. Jak took a few shots, watching the bullets ping harmlessly off the dark metal.

"Damn it," he muttered. "I can't get a good shot."

"...The armor is made of plates," Damas commented. He hopped over the tentacles as they whipped out towards them. "There's some kind of connective tissue between them. Do you see the purple glow?"

Jak's eyes searched the enemy. Along the center mass, there were purple cracks separating the plates of armor. It looked more flexible and softer than the armor itself. "If we can hit the connective tissue, I'll bet we can destroy the armor!"

"Exactly." They both ducked to avoid another swinging tentacle. "Try to take it down from here." Damas turned away and started running, headed for the cliffside nearby. "I'm going to get a better angle!"

"Yeah, okay!" Daxter shrieked at his back. "We'll just be over here, dying!"

The Dark Maker was quicker than Jak expected: he had to duck and dodge away from the tentacles as they spun out towards him. He shot at it, but his bullets just ricocheted off the hard armor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damas climbing up the cliffside, to a ledge that jutted out.

A tentacle snapped out, just barely swiping against his shoulder with a sharp sting. Jak hissed in pain, while Daxter yelped and leapt to the other shoulder.

"This thing is gonna tear us apart!" Daxter shouted in Jak's ear. "Jak, what do we do?"

"...We need to figure out how to get a clear shot," Jak said, panting. He gave two quick jumps over the tentacles. "But it won't let me stand still for long enough!"

He gave a few more shots as he ran, the yellow eco streaking through the air. They all missed by a mile and he growled in frustration.

"Maybe Damas can get a shot!" Daxter shouted. Jak glanced back to see where the king was, but he paid for his distraction. A tentacle slammed into his midriff and sent him sprawling along the ground. The back of his head hit the cliffside with a loud crack!, sending pain shooting down through his spine.

He vaguely heard Daxter shrieking as he was flung in the opposite direction. Jak struggled to his feet, his vision doubling in front of him. He started to stumble towards his friend, gun drawn. "Daxter?!"

"Ahhh! I hate all this Precursor crap!"

Jak felt a hand grab the back of his shirt and abruptly haul him upwards. He tumbled back onto the rocky ledge that Damas was standing on. "Gah! Hey!"

"Stay up here." Damas' voice was firm and commanding, leaving no room for an argument. "You're injured and I have a good shot lined up."

"But Dax is down there!" Jak winced as he went to stand up, fully intent on going after his friend. He almost toppled over, dizzy from the strike to his head. Damas seized the front of his shirt and gave him a rough shove, making him land on his butt in the dirt. "He's going to get killed down there!"

"No, he's not," Damas said calmly, his gaze focused on the fray below. "He'll be fine."

Damas exhaled slowly, his eyes focused on the Dark Maker. His movements were precise, methodical, practiced. He had settled his rifle on a rock and was staring down the sight, a steady finger on the trigger. Calm and measured, he gently turned the rifle ever-so-slightly to the left, then adjusted it again.

Watching him, Jak was reminded of his childhood playing with yellow eco. He used to channel it into his hands, the power coursing through his blood, so he'd snap on his goggles, take careful aim, and…

Fwoosh.

By the time Jak realized Damas had even fired a shot, three more rang out. Each one hit the connective tissue, tearing it apart and shattering the Dark Maker's armor. With a screech and a spray of dark eco, the creature fell to the ground, its body crashing back into the sand. Damas gave a bark of satisfied laughter.

"Well, that was certainly something." He hopped down from the ledge and stooped down to retrieve Daxter. "Still in one piece?"

"Of course I am!" Daxter was fine, though his fur did have some sand stuck in it. "That thing was lucky you got to it first! If it had gotten too close to me, POW! ZING! Orange Lightning, a Dark Maker's worst enemy!"

Damas returned to the rocks and knelt down to examine Jak. "And you?" he asked gently. "Still with us?"

"Fine," Jak said. He stood up, but swayed on his feet and felt a harsh pain run down his side. "Ugh...okay, maybe not fine."

"Hmph." Damas reached behind Jak's head and pressed on the spot where he'd hit his head. Jak winced. "Quite a goose egg. I'd say you have a concussion, but then, I'm not a medic. Come on, stand up. We need to get out of this storm."

Damas hauled Jak to his feet and slid the boy's arm over his shoulder. Daxter was waiting in the Slam Dozer, watching anxiously as Damas guided him towards the buggy and helped him into the passenger's seat.

"Ya okay, buddy?" Daxter asked.

Jak flashed him a weak grin. "Fine. Just had my bell rung, is all."

Damas slid into the driver's side. "This storm is growing fast," he told them. "We're going to have to take shelter."

"Where?!" Daxter shouted. "In the sand?! Under the Dark Maker?! On the—!"

"In the caves." Damas turned the ignition and the Slam Dozer awoke with a roar. "The desert is my home. I know all its dangers, and all its sanctuaries. There's a place nearby we can wait out the storm."

Daxter glanced at Jak, who winced as he buckled his seatbelt. "Uh...shouldn't we get something to heal Jak…?"

"Once we get to shelter," Damas said firmly. "Until we get there, Jak, just try not to move your head too much."

With that, he slammed his foot onto the gas, sending Jak's head snapping backwards and causing Daxter to topple over onto the backboard of the vehicle.

"Easier said than done, I should warn you," Damas added with a wry smile. "Just hold on, Jak. We'll be safe soon."