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starry-bi-sky · 17 days

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Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well:

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents.

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill.

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.)

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one.

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself.

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.)

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.)

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe.

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal.

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking.

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter.

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind.

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous.

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own.

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t.

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward.

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”)

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell.

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his.

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it.

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now.

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own.

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother.

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten.

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands.

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely.

It is a fast dream.

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods.

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him.

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal.

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train.

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.)

—---

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again.

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person.

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.)

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird.

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is.

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off.

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom.

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.)

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

-----------------

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #danyal al ghul au #amnesiac danyal al ghul au #songs in order of the album: the hartebeest / harpy hare / and the hound / neath the grove is a heart #musician danny has my heart and soul #yes this danyal IS an alternative danny from the other au. an au where things were a little better :) but still sucks #implied good mom talia al ghul #danyal is a momma's boy send tweet #dpxdc ficlet #dpxdc prompts #dp x dc au #dp x dc fanfic #danyal is sTILL five years older than damian in this au #no beta no edits we die like danny fenton #poc danny fentons #i didnt know where to end this :(( i was gonna go on but i blanked. i thought about going into his relationships with his rogues and so on.#but that felt too much like trying to just increase the word count rather than actually writing?? if that makes sense #ugh im gonna have forgotten to include things and im gonna be kicking myself later #morally ambiguous danny whoo! we love to see it #since this was just for fun it doesnt really go into it all that much other than like. it happens. and that danny realizes he's dangerous #phantom in a hazmat suit? nah phantom looking like an assassin >:].#danyal al ghul with damian and his mom: 🥰🌸✨#danyal al ghul with everyone else: 👹🔪#am i heavily implying that clockwork had smth to do with Danyal’s amnesia and appearance by the cabin? 👀 maybe #not enough danyal al ghul aus where him being an assassin actually. has some kind of affect on him

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minty364 · 4 months

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DPXDC Prompt #134

Sam was starting her new school at Casper high today and she wasn’t very excited. Her parents had moved here from Gotham and she was a little pissed. She missed Gotham, maybe not all the pollution but definitely the architecture and atmosphere. She also missed her cousin Damian who was great with snarky comments. She goes through her school day with not much going on until she meets a kid that looked exactly like Damian except he had blue eyes instead of green.

Danny wasn’t having a good time right now. His friend Tucker had convinced him to investigate his parents ghost portal last week and Danny went in the portal wearing only a hazmat suit. Tucker had left the basement to get help and Danny turned back human before Tucker got back. Danny didn’t tell him what happened, he’d rather forget the whole thing but some help might be nice especially when he keeps sinking through the floor. Now he has to deal with that and the new girl that doesn’t seem to want to leave him alone.

#dp x dc prompt #dp x dc #dc x dp #danny fenton #danny phantom #writing prompt #danny and damian are twins #Neither know it though as Talia ordered one of their assassin’s to send him far away #Danny’s accident just happened so new power shenanigans #Sam is cousins with Damian and Danny #If anyone wants to further collaborate on any of these let me know #my asks are open #all my prompts are free to use

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littlefankingdom · 7 days

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Jason should have pull a "Mamma Mia" The Musical and invite his three potential mothers to a Wayne event with a letter signed Willis Todd, and he wouldn't have died.

#jason todd #red hood #dc comics #my ramblings #I know I'm a genius #It would have been so funny tho #like Bruce seeing Lady Shiva show up to a gala and is like “wtfwtfwtfwtf”#but she is just looking for a man she knew and who send her an invite not knowing he is dead #bruce: “Jason why is one of the most dangerous assassin in my ballroom looking for your late father?” jason: “idk”

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sun-dog-au · 11 months

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"You'd think shooting an arrow would be simple enough given all the illustrations you see in books of men holding a bow and arrow, but... The pose is completely slipping my mind right now."

#moomin #sun dog au #moomins #moominvalley #moomin sniff #sniff #sniff moomin #moomin au #illustration #pride icons #aromantic #aro flag #aromantic flag #aromantic day of visibility #pride month #I promise the comic WILL continue after this week once my irl business wraps up and if it doesn't just send and assassin

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moongothic · 3 months

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So I'm confused about something. There was a cover story about Ms Goldenweek and other Baroque works agents breaking Crocodile out of prison but he just. Told them no? And stayed there with Mr 1 and Mr 2? I don't get why he wanted to go to Impel Down just to break out when he had the chance

I can't tell you 100% why Crocodile chose to stay in prison and go to Impel Down, but my best guess really is that he was just...

Taking the L with grace

More specifically. Crocodile had lost everything. I think deep inside he might've been literally too depressed to want to go free again.

Like he does literally say that. He gave up.

He had been building his reputation as "the Hero of Alabasta" for at least 10 years at this point. He had built not just a criminal organization that he had been running for four years, but also he had been running legal business stuff (like his casino) for probably longer than that. A decade's worth of work and effort to take over a country, and most importantly, get away with it. The reason he had orchestrated that whole rebellion was so that the rebels and the royal family could "take each other out", leaving the country wide open for a World Government Official such as himself to take up. The reason Baroque Works was doing this all in secret was so that the WG never found out, otherwise they wouldn't have let him have Alabasta.

But indeed, his plans were foiled by a kid in flipflops in less than 24 hours, just at the final moment before Crocodile would win. He lost everything. And the World Government found out about what he had been planning.

So even if he escaped from that prison with his former agents, what was he going to do?

He wouldn't be able to take over Alabasta anymore because he did not have manpower (as he had lost all his goons), and having lost his financial empire he wouldn't be able to build a new army any time soon. And even if he did, now that they knew what he had done the people of Alabasta would not accept him as their new king, even if he personally assasinated Cobra and the entire family. Not to mention, the WG finding out about his plans meant that they had every fucking reason to try and stop Crocodile if he did as much as set foot on that island again. By which I mean, they could launch a Buster Call on his ass. Send all the fucking Admirals after him. And so, even if Crocodile still believed Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta and that he just had to comb through the entire desert to find it... Between the Alabastan people and the WG in the way, finding Pluton would not be easy. Especially when Robin wouldn't even be there to just point him directly to it. It could take years, if not decades, while fighting off the WG by himself. And that's while assuming Pluton was somewhere in Alabasta. Like WE the readers now know Pluton is in Wano, but since Robin didn't tell him that. All Robin said was that the Poneglyph "didn't mention the weapon", and Cobra's reaction to the name merely proved the weapon's existence in Crocodile's mind. But surely, because Crocodile is a smart young man, he'd understand there was a risk that Pluton could exist, but just not be in Alabasta, right? Like that would be a possibility too, right?

I think this is why Crocodile has given up on Alabasta. He had one opportunity at seizing the country, and he failed. And without Robin, he could spend the rest of his life combing through a haystack for a needle when there's no needle, and he'd have no idea. I think is why he explicitly says in Impel Down he no longer has "interest in that country". He won't be able to pull off another stunt like this, ever.

And that leads us back to "why not escape earlier and avoid going to Impel Down to begin with". Thanks to his status as a Shichibukai, Crocodile hasn't been on the run from the WG for like two decades. And the past 10 or so years he has seemingly lived a life of luxury in his funny little casino. But now, having lost everything, he'd be back on the run. And because he's a world famous former "hero of the people", there would be nowhere he'd be able to go where people would not recognize him and send the marines after him. So he'd be on the run, for the rest of his life or until he'd get capture again. And mind you, the guy does not trust anyone, so he'd be on the run alone. Without any purpose or goal.

And you might be thinking, "Daz and the rest of BW was still there!", yeah, arguably true. But at this point Crocodile had no reason to trust any of them. Like personally, I think the reason Crocodile ended up taking a liking to Daz was BECAUSE he chose to follow him to Impel Down when he really did not have to. Like Daz showed an unusual level of loyalty to Crocodile, and I think Crocodile recognized that. That's why Daz is still with Croc, post-timeskip. But Miss Goldenweek and co? Crocodile had no reason to believe they wouldn't betray him if given a chance and a reason. And if the WG would come chasing his ass, they'd have plenty of reason to try and betray Croc (handing Crocodile over to spare their own lives). Not to mention, when they come release their former boss from jail, what did Miss Goldenweek say?

"Let's do Baroque Works again"

As I've already explained in detail, I think we might know why Crocodile wasn't interested in being Baroque Works' "boss" again.

So. Yeah. If in Crocodile's mind he'd be on the run from the Government for the first time in two decades all alone, in a situation where rebuilding what he had before would be bloody hard if not downright impossible, and he wouldn't be able to obtain what he had spent the last decade working for regardless...

Taking the L and just going to prison might've been the easier option

#Moon posting #Asks #OP Meta #Sir Crocodile #Long post #Mind you Crocodile only *left* jail because he saw AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY for petty revenge #Like had it not been for that war bringing Whitebeard out he probably would not have bothered to try and fight WB again #Otherwise he could've just escaped prison with Goldenweek and co and travelled to the New World to fight the old man right away #((Also theoretically Crocodile might've been slightly suicidal with the ''taking WB's head'' thing))#Also worth noting that Crocodile choosing to stay in prison could've had two other purposes re:the former agents #It could've been a test of loyalty (to see if anyone would stay with him or would they all abandon him)#Which could be important to Mr Trust Issues (and to be fair he did find at least one loyal subordinate in Daz)#((Like if they had all told Croc they'd stay with him...... Who knows. Maybe he might've chosen to escape after all?))#Other option: Crocodile escaping with them would mean the agents would be in much more danger than they'd be without him #Like the WG wouldn't send tons of marines after the individual agents if they all scattered to the winds #But if they all stuck together they'd become a bigger target. And even more so if Crocodile was there to lead them #And like. IDK if Crocodile was willing to leave out Goldenweek from the assassination order and spare her... Maybe this was the same #Maybe he wanted to spare Goldenweek (and the rest?) from being put into danger by going with them?#I dunno man this reptile has far too many layers to him I can't tell what's going on in his head

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radioactivepeasant · 2 months

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Snippets: Free Day Thursday- Viper

Following the prompt from the poll: Haven finds out Jak isn't there for them. We pick up right after the boys fight Veger's robot in the mines and come up at the edge of New Haven.

"This place looks as bad as my old bedroom back home," Daxter scoffed. His keen eyes darted this way and that, looking for any sign of their fugitive.

"Jak! Over here!"

Jak tensed at Samos’s voice. He didn't sound surprised to see them. Onin might have warned him he was coming. Onin...she would be a problem if not dealt with. He'd have to consult with Damas about her.

When Samos called him again, sounding less sure of himself, Jak realized he hadn't reacted at all. Samos doubtless expected him to leap to attend him, as he had been thoroughly trained to do.

Did he want to blow his cover?

Hm. No. Not yet.

Jak turned on his heel and for a moment his heart leaped.

"Keira!"

Samos was forgotten as he rushed towards a shimmering wall that divided the waterfront from New Haven. A force field? Since when did Haven have force fields?! Jak made a note of it. Damas wanted reports; he was a captain now. He had power. That meant he needed to do things right.

"Jak!" Keira's entire face lit up. "I told you, Daddy. I told you I could feel his energy!"

She slapped her hand against the force field, ignoring the sting.

"You're alive-! Jak, I'm so sorry! I- I tried to get into the trial, they wouldn't let me in the building-! Or, or Tess, or Sig! They arrested us when we tried, didn't let us go until they'd taken you away!"

A warm glow spread through Jak's chest. Someone had fought for him. Keira had fought for him! And Tess, and Sig! In a city of vipers, he still had true friends.

Jak placed his own hand on the energy field, feeling the dull burn of its eco as he spread out his fingers over Keira's.

"Thank you," he whispered. "I don't blame you three. Not for any of it. Not for anything. I...I missed you."

Keira sniffled. "I missed you, too," she croaked, "What's it like out there? They say it's...it's nothing! That there's no way to survive! But you look-"

She cut herself off and blushed.

"What's really out there?"

Jak looked up at Daxter and smiled. Daxter nodded back. He didn't know what Jak was going to say, exactly. He'd never been a talker -- he'd really really never been a talker -- but Daxter had seen how proud of their new home Jak got. He couldn't help wanting to know what the big lug would say. Would he talk about the beach he loved so much? About Damas?

To his surprise, Jak only stared earnestly at Keira and whispered back, "Freedom."

Keira closed her eyes. "Freedom," she sighed. "I...thought I had that. Not so sure, now."

"That's why I came back."

Jak took a more guarded posture, casting his eyes about.

"I can help you. But I need your help, too."

Daxter opened the little communicator they'd stolen from the dead metalheads and retrofitted into a small holoprojector. The face of Thrax rotated above the plate, tattooed and scowling.

"You seen this guy?" he asked, waving the holo, "Name's Thrax. Real disreputable character."

Samos blinked at them in shock. "Jak, please, there isn't time! The passages under the palace, they must be terribly important!"

Jak spoke over him, raising his voice slightly. "He's a fugitive from justice. Wanted for treason. I'm under orders to bring him back, dead or alive."

"Under orders?"

Keira's face twisted with concern.

"Whose orders? Ashelin's?"

Daxter scoffed and slid down to sit more comfortably on Jak’s shoulder.

"As if! We have new friends. And they respect us! Heck, they actually like us!"

"And we respect them," Jak added, "So people trying to murder the man who saved my life don't get to walk away. Not from me."

Keira's jaw was tight. They both knew how she felt about him killing hu'men. One day, maybe she would let herself understand that it was no different from the enthralled Lurkers her father had sent Jak to kill when he was far, far too young to have blood on his hands. One day she would have to turn around and face that truth head-on. But Jak was beginning to understand at last that as long as Samos kept her within reach, it would be hard for her to slip the blinders off. It had taken exile for him to be free of his.

"I'll...I'll keep an eye out, and let you know if I see anyone like that." Keira swallowed hard. "It's been...I've been trying to get Veger's shield walls down. He cut Torn off from the city council hall, trapped him down on the waterfront. I think it's-"

Her voice trailed off, then, almost too quietly to hear,

"It's like...divide and conquer."

Anger hissed between Jak's teeth. "Of course it was Veger. He's had his hand in everything, hasn't he?"

He slammed his fist into the force field.

"He's the one who blew up the palace! Five hundred people dead, and for what?! So he could get to some catacombs underneath?!"

"And," Daxter said grimly, "so he could get the guy descended from the last ruler out of here. That guy is high on delusions of grandeur. Real heroes throw him off his groove."

"Catacombs?" Samos broke in, finally seeing a gap in the conversation that he could wedge himself into, "There must be something important down there for him to go to such lengths! Well, you're just going to have to find whatever it is before he does!"

"Oh I am, am I?" Jak asked.

Somehow Samos failed to hear the edge of danger in the boy's voice. He prattled on, patronizing as ever.

"Now, first you'll need to find another way into this section of the city. Take the sewers into the Port, then find a way north to reach us."

When the boys stayed still, looking at him through half-lidded eyes, it finally seemed to occur to the old man that he couldn't just give orders and expect them to be followed blindly anymore. With a touch of chagrin, he added, "And Jak...we're...sorry, for what happened. We should have stopped Veger."

"Yes." Jak turned his back. "You should have. Maybe you wouldn't have war on your doorstep if you'd acted."

"War?" Samos questioned, "With the metalheads?"

Daxter rolled his eyes. "Stumpy-boy, metalheads are about to be the least of your worries."

Jak took a few steps back, eyeing the buildings around him. Then he nodded to himself, got a running start, and launched up the side of the nearest row house.

Winds bless the guy in the youth barracks who'd taken the time to teach him free-running.

In no time at all he was on the roof with only a slight straining in his muscles to show for it. The shield wall only extended about a storey above them. Fair enough, they'd just have to follow the roofs to a higher building and cross from there.

Daxter flipped his goggles down over his eyes and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he scanned New Haven.

Pah. "New Haven". More like New Main Town. All he saw were the rich elite who had survived Veger dropping the palace on their high class district. Where were all the former inhabitants of the North Slum and Water Slum? Shoved into the ruined Main Town or crowded into the waterfront, he had no doubt.

"By the forges, I really hate this place," Jak whispered beside him.

"I don't blame ya, pal," said Daxter grimly. "Not even a little bit. C'mon, let's find Tess. If anyone knows how to find our guy, it's her."

Thrax could run. But there were only so many places he could hide.

Part Two planned for tomorrow