Prologue: A Beautiful Morning
For many years I knew a hero. I watched the boy turn into a man. I watched him fall in love with my daughter, and I could not have been happier. Fifteen years ago, however, Jak and his best friend, Daxter, disappeared. We don’t know where they went, but we do know how they got there. Another Rift Gate was found just outside Kras City. Without another Rift Rider, we could not follow them, so we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Now I do not believe they will ever come back. My daughter, Keira, still longs for her love and sits by the gate every day. I fear she may be losing her sanity. I wish there was something I could do to help her, but my knowledge does not spread to matters of the heart.
Jak and Daxter, if you are out there, if you can somehow hear this prayer, please come back to us. We miss you.
-Samos the Sage’s audio log, five years before his death.-
Jak and Daxter: Guardians of Equestria
Jak slowly opens his eyes and looks around the cavern which is dimly illuminated by the soft lavender glow of Twilight’s shield. All around him, the ponies that had attended the Grand Galloping Gala were beginning to stir as if awakened from a deep slumber.
Spotting what he was looking for, Jak stands up shakily and makes his way over to where an oranges rodent is getting unsteadily to its feet. Jak smiles widely for the first time in what feels like forever as he stands up and maes his way to his best friend.
“Hey, Dax, what’s up?” Jak asks nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just had a fight that had brought the whole of Canterlot Castle down around them.
Daxter rubs his head as he looks up to Jak. “Next time you want to ask me to go to a potentially dangerous party, do me a favor and don’t. Trust me, it’s good for both of us. What happened anyway?”
Jak uses a hoof to muss the Ottsel’s fur atop his head. “Later, Dax. We need to see if the girls are okay first.” He lowers himself down in consideration of his friend. “Hop on up and let’s find them.”
After a few minutes of searching, Jak notices the six bearers of the Elements of Harmony standing around the form of their Princess. He stops next to Twilight and gently nudges her, softly enough to let her know that he is there, but not hard enough to distract her from her magic. He looks down at Princess Celestia. The Princess was still unconscious but definitely alive. Instead of asking Twilight and risk distracting her further, he turns to the pony on his left, Rarity.
“How is she?”
Rarity smiles softly and keeps her soft gaze on the Princess. “She’ll be fine, darling. The way Twilight explained it, Princess Celestia, used up a ton of magic cushioning the fall of all the ponies at the Gala. If not for her, most of us would probably have broken bones or worse. The magic used was tremendous, even for a pony as powerful as Princess Celestia. The expenditure of that much magic so quickly, drained the Princess to a point of unconsciousness. It doesn’t help that she didn’t use any magic on herself to soften her own fall. Thank goodness Alicorn bone structure is much sturdier than an average pony’s.”
“That reminds me,” Jak states contemplatively. “Where is Princess Luna?”
“The way I heard it, she was dealing with a delegation from the Griffon Kingdom. I think they were meeting in Manehatten.”
“What were they meeting about?”
“Well, apparently, one of their soldiers attacked a pony in Ponyville, only to be beaten back b y a third party. The meeting was to basically assure each other that neither was an act of war and that both parties in the altercation were not working on their respective country’s orders.”
Jak smiles a little at the memory. “Ah, I see.” He looks to ceiling of rubble up above. “Any idea how long we are going to be down here?”
“I can only assume when either Princess Celestia wakes up or when Princess Luna returns from her meeting. I doubt any of the remaining unicorns in Canterlot have enough magic among the lot of them to lift some of the boulders covering us. The ponies down here can’t use their magic on the boulders unless Twilight takes down her shield but then the rocks would fall. To use the term of some of the more uncouth ponies of Equestria, we are screwed right now.”
Jak lets out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, I’d say we are.” He turns to Pinkie Pie. “Any fun games you can make up on the spot?”
Pinkie laughs at the absurdity of his question. “Oh, I can think of a few.”
Jak sighs as Pinkie draws a circle in the dirt with her nose. “That’s thirty-five games in a row.” He perks up. “Best of seventy-one?”
Just then a rumbling is heard from above. Everypony in the cavern looks up just in time to see sunlight leak through Twilight’s magical barrier. Looking into the hole is none other than Princess Luna, looking worried.
“OH, THANK GOODNESS WE FOUND YOU!” she shouts into the cavern, her voice reverberating off the walls and causing everypony to cover his ears. Luna shrinks back at the reaction. “Oops. Sorry. Just hang tight a little longer and we... er… I will be able to clear the rest of the rocks away so you can come out.”
As the rest of the ponies let out a cheer, Jak remembers something. Something that had been thrown to the back of his mind due to him being under a collapsed castle. He walks over to Twilight, the only other pony besides himself and Celestia (who was still unconscious) that was not whooping. She had yet to say anything to him, though his previous fears of talking to her breaking her concentration had been assuaged as he had seen her friends come up to her and have full conversations.
“Hey, Twilight,” he asks tentatively, “I was wondering, uh, what happened to the Rift Gate?”
Twilight looks at him sadly, as if she had known that question would come up. Tears start running down her eyes as she looks at him silently. She opens and closes her mouth a few times before finally answering, her voice strangled through the tears. “I’m so sorry, Jak. W-when the castle collapsed, I couldn’t get my shield up in time to surround the Gate. I saw it crushed under the onslaught of stone.” She starts crying even harder. “N-now you can never go home.”
Jak feels as if he has just suffered a crippling blow to the stomach. He felt hot tears well up in his eyes as he directed his gaze to the ground. “Oh,” he said morosely. “I see. Thank you, Twilight. He slowly turns around and walks away to an isolated corner of the tavern to wait out Princess Luna and the excavation team.
An hour and a half after Luna’s appearance, the rock ceiling is finally removed to a point where Twilight can release her shield spell. As the Pegasi fly their way out, carrying some of the earthbound ponies, the unicorns levitate themselves and some of the earth ponies out of the cavern, Twilight carrying the still unconscious Princess Celestia herself. As Jak lands with all four hooves on the ground, he looks around him. The castle has been completely destroyed and he can see for miles in any direction the beauty of the Equestrian grasslands, the sun shining down wonderfully on his coat. The warmth of it all is enough to lift his spirits. He looks over to Twilight, standing next to him, tear streaks still staining her beautiful face.
“Twilight, you’re right,” He says with a smile. “I can’t go back to my world. You were wrong, however in saying that I can’t go home. You see, this is my home now.”
Twilight looks at him, eyes wide, tears filling them again, this time due to joy. She lunges into him and plants a kiss firmly on his lips. “I love you, Jak”
Daxter, on Jak’s back, sticks out hit tongue and places a finger on it. “Get a room, you two.”
Jak and Twilight laugh. It is a beautiful morning.