Jak came aware very slowly. He found himself floating in water in a large stone chamber, open shutters letting night breeze in through large windows. Torches illuminated a chamber that was on the verge of being royal, but in a more spartan manner than the lavish ones that had been in the palace of Haven before its destruction, though the basic design was similar. As his mind started to come back, he spoke up. "S...Shining? Daxter? ...Pecker?"
"We're okay, Jak," Shining spoke up from nearby. "A bit dehydrated...but the water therapy is helping." When Jak turned, he saw Shining sitting in the water, only his head sticking out. "Hope I can get the sand out of my nose so I can smell again soon..."
"Ahhh..." Daxter sighed as he splashed around a bit. "I love water. Oh yes, it's so good. Desert bad."
"Well, you've came back from the dead, haven't you?" a gravely voice spoke up.
Turning, Jak caught sight of the speaker. He was a tall man, old and grizzled. What white hair that he had left hung from the sides of his head like dreadlocks around his bald crown, and he was garbed in pieced together, barbarian style armor, and wielding a large double bladed spear assembled from bits and pieces of Precursor materials bound together. "Uh..." Jak began.
"This would normally be where I introduce myself, letting you recuperate before asking questions..." the man began, glaring down at Jak with rage. "But one of the things you clutched in your hands when we found you caught my attention."
"...the beacon?" Jak asked, confused.
"While the fact that it was on our frequency is of interest," the man replied coldly, "it is what was clutched in your other hand that requires immediate answers." Lunging forward, he grabbed Jak by the front of his shirt and yanked him up. He held up the Seal of Mar medallion Jak had gotten from his younger self. "Where did you get this?" the man demanded, rage strong in his voice.
Jak blinked, a bit dazed and confused. "...I gave it to myself..." he muttered drowsily.
"Don't play games with me, boy!" the man snarled, his spear flying to his hand. "I know exactly what this medallion is, and if you don't give me a straight answer for how you have hold of it, I'll carve the answer from your entrails!"
Pecker gulped nervously from his perch on the nearby throne. "Sire, I think perchance you might be being a bit hasty-"
"While your wisdom is valuable, creature, you will offer it only when requested or you will be added to the food stock!" the man snapped. Pecker immediately fell silent. "Now answer me boy-"
"Dad, stop!" Shining shouted out, climbing out of the water, his clothing and gear in a pile in the corner of the room.
The man turned angrily towards Shining. "What did you call me-"
"Dad, it's me, Ar-Mar!" Shining proclaimed. "Ar-Mar who shines! I protected Mar, just like I promised!"
"You talk nonsense!" the man countered. "Just a few years ago, Ar-Mar was-"
"How many talking unicorns do you know that are white with blue eyes and mane with a shield on their butt?" Daxter shouted. He blinked. "Wait, you're Damas? Exiled king of Haven?"
"That is I," Damas replied, but his voice was less certain. "But-"
"Precursor Rift Ring Time Travel bootstrap paradoxes!" Pecker blurted out before covering his mouth. "Sorry my liege, but they're my friends and I used to translate for a seer, please don't kill and eat me I taste terrible AWWWWK!"
Damas stared at Pecker for a time. "That...actually answers all of my questions..." He turned, staring into Jak's eyes, before finally setting him down gently. "...Mar? My son? Is...is it truly you?"
Jak managed a smile as he steadied himself. "I...I found you, Dad-oomph!"
Jak was cut off as Damas pulled him and Shining into a tight hug. "My sons," he murmured softly. "I...I thought I'd never see either of you ever again...I didn't even know if either of you survived..." His eyes were closed tight as he held them close. "My sons..."
Managing to smile, Jak and Shining returned the embrace, feeling a hole that had been in their hearts for so long starting to fill.
After a time, Damas pulled back to look at them. "Look at how much you both have grown..." he marveled. "Young warriors both if I'm not mistaken."
Jak chuckled. "Yeah, you could say that."
"We certainly can hold our own in a fight," Shining agreed.
"Good!" Damas proclaimed. "You will do well in the arena then."
"Arena?" Daxter asked, confused.
"Yes," Damas confirmed. "All who are brought out of the desert to Spargus compete in the arena, to prove their strength and ability to survive. Only the victors remain. All others are tossed back into the desert as dead weight."
"What?" Daxter demanded, shocked and more than a little appalled.
"Makes sense," Shining admitted. "With how hard resources are to come by out here, you probably can't waste any on anyone who can't contribute."
"You've learned well," Damas complimented. "I hope you both will perform well. Even if you are my sons, I cannot show you any favoritism."
"Wouldn't want you to, anyway," Jak agreed. "If I'm going to earn the respect of the entire city so they'll hear me out when I suggest uniting with Haven City to fight any new threats against the whole world, and then put you back on a united throne over the whole Wasteland, I'm going to need to work from the bottom up and show just how strong I truly am."
Damas stared at Jak for a time, then chuckled. "Yes...you're my son alright. Not sure how you'll manage to influence Haven from out here, though."
"Well, it'll be easier if you can convince Sig to carry messages from us to our agents in the city," Shining Armor suggested. "He's one of yours, right?"
Damas laughed aloud. "You two are a good team!" he proclaimed. "So, agents in the city, huh? Anyone I know?"
Jak couldn't help but grin. "Baron Praxus," he replied mildly.
"You're joking," Damas countered bluntly.
Jak simply smirked smugly.
Damas stared at him, then crossed his hands under his chin. "You have an hour more of recuperation time before you start training for the arena. In that time, you're going to give me the whole story."
Jak chuckled as he lay back in the water. "Well, it starts out in Sandover Village...I'm not sure how long ago...when Daxter fell into a pool of Dark Eco and transformed into an Ottsel..."
I loved Damas's reaction to Jak saying he had Praxus as an agent.
There was fire, we were on a bike, it was hot.
I'm so glad you decided to cut to the chase and reveal Damas as Jak and Shining's father. Especially with Daxter's line
This is good and I feel happy! Enjoy your night and or day mate.
I love this chapter, every line is pure gold. Keep up the good work.
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It was supposed to be.
7019520
Or a deliberate writing choice to indicate the intensity of the scene.
7019520
Not really, "Precursor Rift Ring Time Travel bootstrap paradoxes!" is a statement far enough out of left field that the shock of it is enough to derail just about anyone else's train of thought long enough for them to go 'Wait What?'.
After mentally running that sentence thru one's thought process, thinking about half of the legends of the Precursors and what they have done, time travel is not that much of a stretch. Once he accepted that time travel was possiable, accepting that his Sons are now older then he remembers is not that hard. It was Peekers comment about the seer that allowed him to accept the time travel bit.
the rest of the explanation is just covering what we already know.
...... Okay! top 10 things i can say (off the top of my head) to this scene. GO!
1: i don't like where this is going....
2: "Boy, do we have a story to tell YOU!"
3: Well, get yourself some popcorn....
4: That's a pretty tall order, man.
5: Father of the year!
6: "Now YOU're joking, right?"
7: Well, here's where it all began... (story loops)
8: Get comfy.
9: "Okay, but we're going to have to take turns before losing our voices, okay? Okay!"
10: Thanks for the implied vote of confidence, 'dad'" (implies in a way that they might not come back after the first rund)
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Actually, he meant it as, "We have one hour before I have no excuse to speak to you in private as father and sons, likely for weeks or more, so let's cover everything I need to know before then."
You know, considering the time travel shit involved here... this probably could've made a good first chapter to the whole story. You know, the whole start-at-the-middle thing.
Jak II really screwed with me. I think it was the presence of the younger Samos. My theory that we were in the future kept getting blown to tiny little pieces whenever he showed up. It wasn't until after I beat the game that I finally figured the stupid thing out.
I said earlier that this is one of two games I know well.
I wasn't lying, but that doesn't mean I know them well. I didn't know he was Damas.
7019790 sorry, sorry. those were just the first 10 responses that occurred to me when i saw that. i wasn't thinking about the logistics of it.
The perils of being an Exposition Fairy.
I can't wait to see how the Arena fights go, though anyone who underestimates Shining because he's a pony is going to regret it when he spins around and bucks them. And that's not even counting if he decides to pull a turtle and stand in his shield yawning to infuriate them.
And now the dastardly plot to save everyone and make the world a better place can commence! Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
And HERE we have the feels the game never provided.
7022688 Count Veger pretty much said, "lol He never knew you were his son. Get rekt! He died in his son's arms."
Now with Tat...
Count Veger: "Why- How are you still standing?!"
Dumbass: "Unicorn magic son. Hail to the king... of Haven City."
(You can tell I got lazy in this post! lol)
EDIT: (lol) ...my laugh channeled rage.
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I don't wish to disrespect your writing, in fact I look all of you displaced work, but I think that you are mistaken about the type of paradox that happened in Jak 2.
A bootstrap paradox is when an object or idea has no "origin". An example in the series is the Rift Rider, Keira says that she built the Rift Rider based of what she remembers the one they use to arrive in the future, but the one that they use in the past is the one that she had just built, so the "design" has no origin.
I think you are thinking of a causal paradox or predestination paradox. In Jak 2, Jak saved his younger self from Kor, thus allowing Young Samos and "Mar" to travel to the past, so that he can grow up to be able to, as Samos puts it, "complete the destiny he has fulfill today."
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The Bootstrap Paradox is the Rift Rider. The one from the past falls to pieces during transit...and Keira reassembles those same artifact pieces into the present Rift Rider, which Samos and Jak ride into the past, to become the Rift Rider that brings them back to the present.
...so where did those artifacts originally come from?
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I guess, I'm not intimately familiar with the Jak series.
I still think that the overall situation could be described as Causal Paradox, but there could also be a Bootstrap Paradox in there as well.
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Might as well ask 'what came first, the chicken or the egg?'
That's why they call them paradoxes; both events are entwined together in such a way that there's no separating them.
7538871
But... if the materials are the exact same ones, it's essentially aging for eternity, so eventually it would corrode into nothingness... unless every nth iteration has her just use the pieces as a blueprint to make her own, I suppose...
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Precursor alloy and artifacts don’t age or decay.
8220223
Precursor Metal is pretty damn durable if not indestructible.