Chapter Ten

Jak glared.

Daxter chuckled.

Jak glared.

A lock of blonde hair fell across Jak's nose, causing him to go a bit cross eyed and making his nose twitch.

Daxter snickered.

"Oh! Sorry dear, let me just..." Jak's face was assaulted by a whisk broom, knocking the bit of hair off and nearly taking his nose with it.

Daxter laughed so hard he fell off the cabinet he'd claimed for a seat.

Jak glared.

Somehow, after convincing the bird watcher that they really hadn't meant any offense and were truly very sorry, Daxter had charmed the woman into putting her scissors to work once more, this time upon Jak's hair. Jak himself, as usual, was given no say in the matter, and quickly herded into a seat where the shearing began before he could even attempt to protest.

So here he was now, sitting with his knees scrunched up nearly to his chest on the shortest stool he imagined he'd ever seen, with the little old lady still barely able to reach the top of his head, a pile of hair steadily growing at his feet and the downpour of hair continuing with no sign of ending any time soon, leaving him little to do but glare at the cause of his torment.

Jak had never cared for hair cuts. It was the reason he had so much of it in the first place. As a kid he'd preferred to style it into something similar to what he'd seen in a comic the local artist had tried and failed to start up. As a prisoner nobody had cared about his hair except to keep it out of the way, leading to the dreadlocks he'd sported throughout his adventures in Haven. There was a reason the only haircut he'd had even after things had calmed down was when Damas had had the monks shear his head while he was unconscious.

Jak twitched, forcing himself to remain still as he heard the snap of the scissors directly beside his ear and another large clump of hair fell to the ground. Another snicker drew his glare back to the cabinet, where Daxter was climbing back up into his place. "Sorry man." the ottsel snickered, failing utterly at sounding even remotely sincere. "It was cool when we were kids, but I can't take you seriously when your hair is as tall as I am."

Jak huffed, rolling his eyes and resigned himself to his torment. At least he could take the time to plot his vengeance.

~SoS~

After finally escaping his personal hell, Jak found himself standing outside the birdwatcher's hut trying to ignore the ottsel draped completely across his head. "Soooo much better." The creature actually purred, sending a shiver down Jak's spine as he quickly tried to focus his mind on what to do next. Unable to pick something before Daxter started rubbing, Jak just started quickly walking towards the first thing he saw, the massive windmill in the center of town, also known as the mayor's house. The windbag had had at least two power cells last time, and they were going to need them.

Stepping into the windmill, the first thing Jak noticed was the man himself, pacing and muttering, with what little he could make out predictably being about his reelection campaign. Why he was so concerned about reelection in a town of less than a dozen people where nobody else cared about the position was anyone's guess, but it kept him occupied anyway. The second thing he noticed was a loud buzzing coming from a back room.

Before he could investigate and confirm what his memory was telling him was there, the man noticed them and immediately began to shuffle his way over, Daxter perking up and, thankfully, stopping his... Activity, upon noticing the man.

"Oh, don't tell me that you two have problems as well!" the man exclaimed, and for the life of him Jak couldn't tell if it was irritation or despair in his voice. Regardless the man didn't leave time for anyone to respond, so maybe it was simply instruction. "First I hear of monster sightings near the village, now this. See those gears up there, boys? See them? See how they're not moving? That means our village has no power! The eco beam coming from the jungle temple has been interrupted! Boys, everyone's too frightened to go out and find out what's happened!" And without missing a beat the man was back to pacing except instead of muttering now he was rambling and ranting at them about his eco problems.

"Do you have a point?" Daxter finally cut in when the man stopped for a moment to catch his breath.

The man stopped, actually taking a moment to look at who had entered, And Jak swore he could in fact see some gears turning for a moment. "Yes, well... Okay! Look, if you two go out there and fix the power beam, I'll give you a power cell!"

Jak nodded, and started to turn away, but apparently the mayor wasn't quite done yet. "Oh! And, another thing!" He exclaimed, a hint of excitement and, -was that greed, ambition, or both?- crawling into his voice. "If, by any chance, you just so happened to be interested in, say, making a donation to my reelection campaign. A modest donation of course, of, let's say ninety precursor orbs? Why, I might just have a second power cell you could have as well!"

Jak rolled his eyes and turned to leave, they could get both later, no need to pay the man off yet. Daxter though, once more had different plans, and a yank on his ear pulled Jak's attention back to the mayor.

"How about instead," Daxter began, leaning forward with a slightly predatory grin. "You give us both cells now, and we don't tell everyone that you're trying to buy campaign donations? And sending children to do what you're too scared to do of course." He tacked on the last, returning to his usual position and rubbing his knuckles. The mayor looked a bit confused, and slightly scared, but not enough to where Jak thought he'd cave to Daxter's demands. So, giving the ottsel a nudge he flashed a glance towards the back room, Daxter's grin indicating he got the message.

"Or maybe we'll just tell them what you have in your back room there. I'm sure everyone would be interested to know why you're working with lurkers. Do they make good campaign donations?" Daxter mock whispered the last bit, and whether the man knew what he was talking about or not, he panicked, pulling off his hat so fast Jak saw some hair go with it and shaking it out, the two cells falling out along with a fair few orbs. Flashing his hand out, Jak scooped up everything before the Mayor could protest.

"Fine, have it your way!" the man forced out around more stuttering than Jak had ever heard. "And take that thing too, just, just don't go telling people that!" Smiling, Jak stepped around the man and went to the back, breaking open the familiar red box to collect one of Keira's flies. He really didn't know why it was here, or any of the others around Sandover for that matter. The lurkers hadn't come into town yet, and never would if his memory served and the timeline held close enough to the original. Had they sent scouts ahead?

Whatever the case it didn't matter much, so with the fly in hand Jak headed for the door. "Oh, if we're in the area we'll think about fixing the beam too." Daxter called as they passed the mayor, who Jak caught bursting into tears out of the corner of his eye. Relief or purely upset he couldn't tell, and didn't particularly care. They had other things to worry about for now.

~SoS~

Stepping out of the windmill, the first thing Jak laid eyes on was the house across from it. The house he grew up in. Or, more specifically, the man standing inside the house he grew up in. Stepping inside as if drawn in a trance, Jak stared at the ornery old man who had ostensibly raised him. His uncle, the great explorer. Except he wasn't, he couldn't be. His uncle, anyway, not after all he'd learned in the last few years. But if he wasn't that, then who was he? Could he trust anything he supposedly knew about the man?

He was always off on his next adventure, never really around for the whole, raising him, part of raising him. Instead he was off across the seas or exploring the mountains always in search of riches and glory. Yet, now he stopped to think on it all, past the glitz and glamor, the maps and charts, sturdy clothes and the strange accent supposedly built from all the various regions and dialects he'd encountered, thinking on it, the man had never brought home so much as a single precursor orb. And that in this time when all you had to do to find them was step five feet off the beaten path, if you even had to leave the path at all! Heck, beyond that, every time he got ready to go for another such expedition -

"But I seem to be a spot short on the old Precursor orbs. I would've pledged my word that I had ninety of them." The man's voice cut across his thoughts like a hot knife, and Jak realized that the man had turned to face them and begun speaking, coincidentally confirming his thoughts in the process. The man always needed a loan. If he didn't outright ask for it, there was always some excuse.

"But I gather that your young friend, you know, the little annoying miserably ugly one, might have just pilfered them as a sort of a spot of fun." Jak froze, eyesight bleeding red. He vaguely remembered this conversation from before. Daxter had never said a word or shown any indication besides a quiet grumble that the statement bothered him. Just a quiet growl under his breath, just like he was doing now, though, this time it sounded a lot more aggressive. "Uh, Jak?"

The growling stopped, Jak's vision cleared, and he realized both man and ottsel were looking at him strangely, though the man's gaze turned to shock as he spun towards Daxter instead. Oh... It wasn't Daxter growling this time. Shaking his head, Jak turned around and left, weight shifting on his shoulder telling him Daxter was gone. That was fine, he'd be back when he was done with whatever he was doing.

Still trying to clear his head, Jak made his way to the fisherman's dock and sat at the end. Why had he lashed out like that? He had thought the violent outbursts were from the dark eco, and with that gone he should be cured, but it seemed a lot of the instinct was still there. And it seemed most of that instinct had turned towards defending his best friend, even though that friend didn't really seem all that bothered himself.

And, now his thoughts turned that way, it was true. Even before being turned into an animal, the adults of the village were always dismissive of Daxter. It didn't seem to bother any of them when he was changed. In fact, they seemed more to embrace it. Some simply ignoring the change entirely, others treating him as if he'd never been human at all. Come to think of it, it wasn't until they'd met Tess that Daxter had been treated like just another person. No wonder he'd fallen for her so completely.

A sudden weight on his knee shook Jak from his thoughts, and Jak caught Daxter with a concerned look for such a brief moment he'd have called it imagination if he hadn't known how quickly Daxter could mask his expressions. He frowned for a moment before pushing away his thoughts. Despite how he sometimes acted, Daxter hated pity. Unless of course it was coming from an attractive female. And he'd come to terms with all of this years ago anyways. Best to just follow his lead, for now anyway.

Looking closer at Daxter, Jak realized he was holding a power cell. Seeing that he had his attention at last, Daxter spoke up. "Yeah, just took a little bit of convincing, but I made the 'ol' codger' understand that our adventure needed the cash, and cells, more than his." The ottsel grinned briefly, holding up the cell to Jak's nose before leaping back to his shoulder and shoving it in his bag. Jak had to repress a snort at the poor attempt at an imitation of his uncle's bizarre accent. Uncle... The thought brought the frown back to his face, and Daxter noticed immediately.

"So what's up? You got kinda weird back there, then just walked off. I mean, it was a good try at intimidating the guy, but maybe leave the growling to me for a while? It works a lot better with fangs." Jak did snort at that. Daxter was right, of course. He'd probably looked ridiculous, just some kid snarling like an animal. People were more likely to try and take him to a psychiatrist than be intimidated. But that did bring his thoughts back to where he'd started in the first place.

"Who is he Dax?" he finally spoke, barely loud enough for himself to hear, but plenty for the other's sensitive ears. "Who, your uncle?" Daxter was looking at him with that condescending confusion again, but Jak just looked back, raising an eyebrow and waiting. "You're talking about that guy back there." He pointed back toward's Jak's old house. "Your un-... Oh." And there it was. But Daxter of course didn't have an answer, instead gazing back at the house with his own confusion.

To Jak's surprise though, Daxter's confusion morphed as quickly as he'd ever changed states before, to anger, and now he was the one growling as his gaze swiveled in the opposite direction, facing Samos' hut instead, and now Jak was the one confused.

"That lazy old good for nothing...-" Daxter cut out into some harsh mutterings that Jak couldn't quite make out, but knew instinctively would be rather unkind to children's ears. "That stupid log must have given him a concussion, or maybe he really does just have bird crap for brains!" The once boy was just short of shouting, luckily nothing he was saying so far was really that out of the ordinary for him when it came to the sage. Still, Jak wasn't sure exactly what set him off this time, and as Daxter's eyes met his, he must have realized it.

"Jak, he dragged you through that portal, just a kid, an important kid, but still a kid, and just dumped you on the first random stranger he found!" Jak blinked. He hadn't thought that far through the situation yet. He doubted it was quite that extreme, but it made sense. There was no way they'd lucked into an actual close relative, and even if they had there was no way Samos could have explained that to the man. It really did look like Samos just hadn't wanted to raise a kid and dumped him on someone else. But then there was Keira... Everyone knew she'd been adopted. Not that that was hard to tell, what with the complete lack of family resemblance.

So, what, Samos was happy enough to raise a stranger, but not the one person he'd been entrusted with? Or was this just more timeline nonsense and he'd only taken in Keira because he already knew about her?

And now Jak joined Daxter in glaring at the hut atop the cliff. After a minute or five of mutual glaring, Daxter shook himself free and glanced Jak's way. "Hey, let's go punch some Yakkows. That always cheers you up." Jak raised an eyebrow, not sure who they were really supposed to be cheering up, but nodded anyway. There was another cell for them in the task anyway, and they'd both just found a lot more pent up aggression that needed to be released.

~SoS~

"Have you completed your task?" The oracle spoke as soon as Jak reached it, not waiting to be provoked this time or even just falling back on it's pre-recorded script. Jak rose a curious eyebrow at that. Was it just him, or did the statue seem, eager?

"Oh yeah!" Daxter piped up immediately. "My boy here's even been getting his glow on! Show em Jak!" Apparently the statue wasn't the only eager one either, as Daxter seemed to completely forget his feud with the inanimate object in favor of showing off Jak's abilities.

Obliging both, Jak raised his right hand, palm up, and focused. He'd made a pitstop on the way over to absorb as much eco as he could, so it was a simple matter to feel the electric sensation in his core, and begin to draw on it. A bit more focus, and he managed to guide it out and pool it in his hand, fingertips arcing at first before he managed to draw out enough to form an actual cluster of eco floating in his palm. The effort, now completed, he realized felt rather similar to how he used to utilize yellow eco. An interesting thought. What might happen if he tried to throw blue eco at someone?

"Good." The statue speaking once more broke Jak from his thoughts, and his focus as the eco ball dissipated, reabsorbing into his body. Interesting. "Holding eco within your body is the first step to becoming the true hero, the hero we need you to be. But it is only the first step, and you have a long way to go." Jak scowled at that. This was already more than he'd had for any of his previous adventures, and they'd gone just fine. It didn't help that it sounded an awful lot like something Samos would say.

"Yeah yeah, we get that from Samos all day long. Are ya gonna pay up or what?" Daxter snapped, apparently thinking along the same lines as Jak. And then the oracle seemed to awaken again, eyes glowing brighter and a low sound of wind rushing from it's mouth. Jak felt a pull as if he was being dragged towards it by the inside of his chest, and then the force was gone as a stream of blue eco flowed from him to the statue. The oracle only drew a small amount before it ceased, fading back to it's normal state, leaving Jak slightly out of breath, like he'd just sprinted around the village.

"Blue eco contains the energy of motion. Channel it through your body and you can move like lightning itself and attract small objects towards yourself. But that is not the limit of this eco's capability. Reach out, and claim your reward." With that, the statue went dormant once more, but the active power cell in it's left eyes shut down, it's peripheral orbs collapsing into the core as it fell from it's hovering position. But, rather than pop out of the oracle's mouth as every other cell the duo ever claimed from an oracle, this one simply landed in the statue's eye socket, rolling to a stop in the bottom of the ocular hole.

"Bah! Stinking stingy oracles. It's all tests with these guys. Alright, be right back." Daxter muttered, hopping down and moving to climb up the oracle's mouth. "Wait." Jak stopped him, peering closer. There was a hole in the back of the eye socket... "Reach out... Hm.."

Stepping forward, Jak raised his arm again, focusing on the cell as he once more drew blue eco through his arm, this time pushing it out and towards the power cell, imagining it like an extension of his arm. "Woah." Daxter uttered, suddenly back in place on his shoulder, and it was all Jak could do not to nod in agreement as he concentrated his focus on the blue form that was slowly taking shape in front of his hand. Apparently imagining his arm was the right way to go, as the eco formed a ghostlike arm around his own.

Focusing on reaching out, Jak pushed the energy forward, and the ghostly hand stretched out, following a mixture of his thoughts and motions, the action somehow felt both natural and disconcerting in it's self confliction. Jak pushed that thought away for later, or never, and wrapped ghostly fingers around his goal, somehow not surprised when he realized he could actually sort of feel the cell in his hand, despite the complete lack of resistance from pushing through the statue itself. Ignoring that, Jak lifted the cell and pushed it through the back of the socket, satisfied immediately as the orb rolled right out at his feet.

Turning to share a grin with Daxter at the success, Jak shifted his focus to the remaining cell, moving his phantom limb to grab that orb as well, only to come to a sudden halt as the statue lit up again, and his eco arm was forcibly dissipated. "Bring me another form of eco to claim my remaining power cell." And with that, the statue went dormant yet again. Sighing in disappointment, Jak bent down and grabbed the cell he had gotten, and passed it to Daxter with a grin. "This could be fun."

~SoS~

Awesome! Another Wednesday upload! Ten in a row, that's great! Totally didn't miss three years or anything!

Okay yeah, no. I'm seriously sorry about the insane wait time on this chapter. I'd make excuses, but if you've been reading on this site long enough you've heard them all already and really don't care. Just pick a few of the usual ones and you'll probably be right. It's been a wild time. I've been meaning to get back to this for a long time, and the fact there's almost as many reviews begging for an update as for anything else has been both awesome in that it tells me how many people care that much about the story (I figure like everything else for every review there's several more people out there that feel the same way.), and depressing because I knew I've been letting them down for so long and couldn't bring up the urge to actually sit down and write the chapter.

Basically let's just refer back to earlier notes where I say I am a terrible person not to be trusted to update reliably. That said, I'm going to try and be better. I want to see where this goes as much as, likely more than, anyone else. Don't expect weekly updates again, but if I start straying closer to years than months again feel free to yell at me. It does help.

As a bit of an extra way of saying sorry, I made sure this chapter brought up past the 20k marks! So, hello to all the sort by 20k minimum folks! Next step, we have to gather the true 50k elites! Here's hoping that's within... Maybe not the year, that's a lot for the length of time, next year maybe?

Thank you to everyone that reads this fic. Double thanks to everyone who follows or favorites. Triple to those that review.

And the biggest thank you to the ones who reviewed and sent me PMs encouraging me to keep writing. I never intended to stop, but that extra step is a massive encouragement, knowing that people want to read your work that badly. I can only hope that what I've come up with after all that is good enough to justify your faith in me.

Thank you.