#starmasher

[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 1: Promises

Healing had always been a tough job for him, even as a green sage's apprentice. The villagers of Sandover would often peek into the cliffside hut while he worked. He knew that, to them, what he did was magic; a hand wave, a burst of jade light, and then the flesh and blood of a wound braiding together with ease.

But Jak also knew the eco he channeled was not so simply explained. Like most things in their world, it had been created and placed there intentionally by their gods, then abandoned for reasons unknown. The villagers didn't bother asking him questions about why these things worked or how they got there, seemingly content to live without answers.

Jak, who'd been starved of answers his entire life, would have traded his soul for just one.

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 18: Despairing for Hope

The world shifted from vertical to horizontal. The mech toppled backwards, its body sending up a wave of water as it struck the ground. And Jak was left standing at the core, his whole frame on fire with new, radiating dark eco, every tendon molten, and every breath a scalding steam. Even his spit tasted of it. Of despair, akin to the air of the Wasteland over Haven’s walls at night, metallic, bitter, and sour, unable to tolerate life as it numbed his aching tongue.

But here he was. Alive. Not disintegrating. Jak tightened his fist to reassure himself of this fact. The prickle of fingernails into palm did so. Then he raised the same hand and stared at its form being enveloped but not destroyed by the violet energy. 

The dark eco receded in a wave of nerve splitting ice, the absence of its hellfire making everything else suddenly cold. It snaked back from his extremities through his limbs, then curled up in his chest again, tired, its meal done.

Alive, he thought again. He’d channeled dark eco into his body once more and lived. True, when he shivered and peeked down at his wound beneath his shirt, it had grown twice the size it’d been before, but in the face of all he’d just survived, and the mech’s core shining intact and perfect for sale by his feet, even a misery like that became a miracle.

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 17: Children of Mechs and Men

He furrowed his brows. Nothing said he had to accept her potentially strings-attached help, should she offer it. And what harm could it do for her to know only that he was looking for Gol and Maia? It wasn’t like he needed to tell her why.

“Gol and Maia?”

Ashelin flinched. "Them?”

“Are they bad?”

“They’re not heroes, that’s for sure.”

Jak raised a brow. “But they’re not bad bad, right?”

She made a disgusted grunt, then sat on one of the black marble seats of the stands, bun gleaming red as she pulled it out and rewove it, smoothing back hairs that had come loose during their racing. Through it all, she wore a grim expression.

He joined her, heartbeat quickening as he tried to unwind her last words. Daxter jumped from Jak’s shoulder and sat on the other side of him from Ashelin, wincing against the chilly breeze that brushed over the stadium walls. He withstood it for a few seconds, then retreated behind Jak's arm, shivering. Jak would have offered some green eco to help him warm up, but with Ashelin close by, he decided against it.

At their back and behind the stadium rose the middle pillar of Haven, a mountainous column of estates clustered between massive tree roots, their windows golden against the night. In front of where the three of them sat, past the dirty Slag district and its outer walls far below, stretched the ocean to the northeast, as endless in its blue as the Wasteland in the northwest was in lifeless brown.

Their winds clashed. During the day and early night, the sea reigned over Haven's air, but in the quiet hours after midnight, the Wasteland always lashed back, blasting away the light scent of salt with the tart tang of eco refineries aflame, dust that stung one's eyes, and beneath it, a smell Jak could only associate with the feeling of despair.

The Wasteland was made of a soil that had forgotten how to grow and change, after all, and was bitterly metallic, void of the earthy sweetness that the life and death of plants could bring.

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 15: Heart of Shadow, Heart of Gold

Misty purple and black and twining angles of electricity billowed from his palm. As fear numbed his veins, the eco grew taller, and the thundering of his heart and clamminess of his skin increased.

He flicked his hand, trying to cut off the energy, but instead it lashed out, biting at his arm with pinprick jolts. The yellow eco crystal lamps above the mirror started to flicker and surge, and the glass bells around them shattered and their light went out, bathing everything in raining shards and a moment of darkness.

Jak stood horrified in the violet glow and shadows, his only companion his reflection in the cracking mirror.

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 14: Lady Unne

It was then that Jak realized there was a fresh puncture in the slaver's arm, the injection site showing a peek of glowing red eco.

"I promised a sage-trained green channeler, and I don't underdeliver," the man said, taking out another pair of shackles from his long coat, easily ripping Jak's hands away with supernatural strength and clasping the shackles’ metal claws over Jak's wrists, their bite icy.

Daxter peeled himself from the ground and wobbled and walked towards them. He looked ready to leap up and attack, but the slaver followed Jak's worried gaze and smiled.

The slaver kicked Daxter as hard as he could, launching him, Daxter whining in pain. Then he booted him a second time, following to where Daxter landed, making sure to time it just as he tried to get up again.

Daxter limped to his paws and backed away, glancing at Jak in a sort of apology. Jak motioned his head for Daxter to just go. Daxter took one pawstep away. Then, the slaver pulled out a pistol.

Something cracked.

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 12: The Past, The Future, The Now

After they finished eating, Sig sat on a stone and polished his gun staff with a cloth. He explained to Jak how to take care of a gun as he did so. Then, as he gave it one last wipe, staring at the grime on the cloth, Sig said, “I don’t mean to pry, but what kind of disease are you lookin’ to cure? Maybe I could point you in the right direction?”

Jak shrugged. “All I really need to know is where Gol and Maia are.”

“The Acheron twins,” Sig furrowed his brows, the leather of his gloves making a scrunching noise as he balled his hands into fists. “Kid, you might as well turn around and go home.”

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 11: Gods and Mortals

As they moved between the mosaic sections, Seem explained nothing, only asked him after each what he felt, to which he never gave an answer. To be honest, Jak did feel something :

Unimpressed.

From the depiction of Mar living and being well-loved on an island by his people, to him using his eco powers like a star in his hand against what Jak realized were Metal Heads, being bowed to by humans and Precursors alike, to building a city with grand walls, sitting in a large throne with a family about him, to defeating a mythically sized beast in a desert with loyal armies at his back, to…

Mar had a wound. It sat over his heart as a hole in his brass form, and he stood alone, one hand cupping it, his head drooped.

"Sad, is it not?"

"Did he get hurt in the battle?"

"In a way. Mar used too much light eco to defeat Kor, and it was growing out of control. The final blow he made to Kor left a scar across the entire Wasteland, but there was an even greater one sundered within."

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[jdrebooted]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Jak and Daxter: Legacy - Chapter 10: Feeding the Beast

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.

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