I don’t know who first had the idea of crocodogs in Jak and Daxter getting big enough to ride into battle, but I’ve been playing enough Monster Hunter Stories for that to stick in my head immediately.

Bonus:

This Leaper Lizard looks like he’s planning something nefarious somehow. Also his cheek structure is now reminding me of a Snidely Whiplash mustache and I can’t unsee it.

Fic Prompts: Tuesday

Demolition Trio au, set right after the confrontation with Errol (and subsequently Keira) at the racing garage. Featuring a little worldbuilding for Spargus.

Something must have set him off.

Sig knew that Jak didn’t just Go Dark because somebody bumped into him during rush hour. He clung to whatever control he could manage with the desperation of a drowning man. There had to have been actual danger in order for Jak to morph now.

Right?

Sig hoisted himself up onto the roof of the saloon and scanned the edges until he caught sight of Jak’s hunched over figure. The kid didn’t have Daxter with him, which was worrying. His claws dug into the concrete, leaving shallow scratches, and he was breathing altogether too quickly.

“Jak?” Sig crouched about a yard away from him. “What’s up, kid? Is it metalheads? KG? Do I need to charge up the Peacemaker?”

Shark-black eyes snapped to the side to watch him warily. Jak bared long fangs in a silent warning: don’t come any closer.

“Okay.” Sig sat down and put his gun to the side. “Alright. I’m just gonna sit right here and watch your back, okay? Is that cool?”

He studied the boy, concerned.

“What happened, kid? Can you tell me?”

Jak opened and closed his mouth a few times, but couldn’t control his breathing or the dark eco enough to speak aloud. He tugged his claws out of the rooftop and clumsily fingerspelled a name.

Errol.

Sig knew that name to be more than just a champion racer now. He knewwhat that name meant to Jak. Revulsion flooded him like the bile in his throat, roughening his voice to a growl as he asked, “What did he do, Jak? Did that little creep touch you? Are you alright?”

“Taunted me.” was all Jak signed.

“In front of everybody, like he didn’t do anything wrong?!” A sense of outrage rose in his chest at the image.

“Well doesn’t he think he’s special, taking liberties like that.” Sig snapped. He took a deep breath. Being agitated wasn’t going to help Jak calm down. “Kid, if I could get into that part of town unnoticed, I’d wipe him off the map so fast the Baron’s head would spin.”

A bitter scoff wrenched itself out of Jak’s teeth. His hands were brusque and choppy as he answered, “But Keira likes him. Thinks he’s better than me.”

Keira? Wasn’t that the girl Daxter said they’d grown up with? Sig winced. He knew as well as any Wastelander that some of the worst abusers groomed their character witnesses as carefully as their victims. But that didn’t make the damage any less severe.

“I was supposed to race today. I can’t. I left Dax to race- I can’t look at them. I’ll snap, I’ll-” Jak put his hands down and gulped in air desperately.

“Jak?” Sig called softly, “can I come a little closer?”

After a tense moment, Jak nodded. Sig took it slowly, moving forward an inch at a time. With every forward motion he paused to give Jak time to adjust. The kid wasn’t the first shell-shocked warrior Sig had seen working through a flashback, and odds were high that he wouldn’t be the last, either. But it was always harder when it was somebody you knew and cared about.

“You cool if I just run my mouth for a minute?” Sig asked once he’d gotten within an arm’s length of the boy. “That used to help your- that used to help Damas focus right after Mar got kidnapped. Just something to drown out all the noise in your head, that’s what he called it. You don’t even have to pay attention.”

Jak was still tense and hypervigilant, but his ears perked up, rising from where they’d been pinned flat against his skull. It was the first sign of interest Sig had seen thus far, and he was taking it as a yes.

The big man settled into a more comfortable position and ran over a few ideas in his head.

“Did you know the first Spargans raised crocodogs as battle companions?” he began, “You’ve never seen a full-grown croc. Mar’s pup, Chopper? He’s only three years old. He won’t start getting bigger for another two years give or take. And man, he’s gonna grow fast.They’re big enough to take down a fully grown metalhead at about eight. By twelve, they’re big enough for a man to ride into battle.”

Jak shifted slightly to throw a curious glance at Sig. There were two points of light just barely visible in the center of his eyes – that was more than Sig had been able to see a few minutes ago. He was starting to break out of it – either that, or he was beginning to run low on dark eco. Sig kept talking.

“Once Spargans started using vehicles, they didn’t ride crocs into battle anymore. We went further inland, away from their natural habitat. Felt cruel to take them that far into the desert, y'know? It just seemed like it was time to let that tradition go. We stopped raising them, and the wild ones keep to the islands off the coast for the most part. But a few younger ones still wander into the city from time to time. Matter of fact, not long after he first staggered half dead into the city, Damas found an orphaned crocodog in a kangarat trap.”

He had barely been able to trade for enough food and water to last him a day, yet the newly exiled man had shared what he had with the wounded pup. That was where Sig’s mother had found him, huddled in an alley beside the dog. She had taken them both into her home and informed her son in a no-nonsense way that the refugee and the pup would both be staying.

“I think she knew he risked starvation to keep her alive,” Sig mused, “Because once she got big enough to do some real damage, she turned into a real demon around everyone who wasn’t Damas. If you so much as looked sideways at him, Ghost was liable to take a chunk out of you.”

Jak actually managed to force a smile at that. Sig wondered if he was thinking of Chopper, who already showed the same loyalty to both Jak and Mar.

“Does he still have Ghost?” Jak asked shakily.

His claws were beginning to recede now. Good, he was getting distracted enough for the dark eco to lose traction.

“He sure does.” Sig snorted. “That demon dog lives in a sea cave under the city. If he’d put her anywhere else, she’d have eaten anybody who came near her pups.”

He leaned forward, just a fraction. “Chopper is one of Ghost’s pups. Bet you didn’t know that. He was the runt. His sisters were all big and independent enough to hunt and survive without help after their first year. Chopper needed a little extra help. So Ghost brought Chopper to Damas.”

“How did Mar get him?”

Sig actually laughed a little at that memory.

“Same way he finds anything: by poking around somewhere he’s not supposed to be. Like somebody else I could mention.”

He winked at Jak.

“Little Man thought he was big enough to follow his dad through town, down to the sea cave that day. Which is terrifying, because he was two, and there’s a lot of steep ledges on the way down there. Of course, Ghost smelled him immediately and went all puppy-crazy. She got him by the back of the shirt and dropped him in her little nest, and once he saw Chopper, that was that.”

The toddler had squealed with joy, thrown his arms around the runt’s neck, and settled right down. While Damas had been busy having a miniature heart attack over how sneaky his son was, Mar had gotten cozy in the nest and ended up falling asleep. Ghost had been delighted, of course, that Her Human had finally brought his pup to introduce into their little pack. Enough that she wouldn’t even let them leave until Damas had taken the hint and picked up the runt. Ghost needed some pup-free time to rest and hunt. It was high time Her Human did his share of the work around here!

At this part of the story, Jak let out a startled hoot of laughter. Mirth softened those sharklike eyes and crinkled them at the corners. Personally, Sig found the look very endearing.

Jak sighed and pulled his knees to his chest. He rested his arms across them and took in a long, slow, breath.

“I’m…glad,” he rasped, “Chopper was…with Mar.”

Tentatively, Sig reached out and patted the kid’s back. “Me too.”

“Glad…he still…has a family.”

That made Sig wince. It wasn’t his story to tell, he knew that. But there was a wistfulness under that low growl that was tugging at his heart. He had to say something.It didn’t feel right to let Jak go on thinking he was unwanted.

“You do too, if you want it,” he said quietly.

“What?”

Sig swallowed hard and prayed for the right words. “Kid…I send a report back to Damas every day – everyday – because he wants to know where you are, what you’re doing, if you’re okay. It’s not just because you brought Mar home. He wants to know you,kid. He knows you’re his kid’s big brother. Now he wants to get to know you as Jak.”

There was an air of naked disbelief around Jak, even as his skin slowly darkened from corpse-white to the warm brown that Sig was accustomed to. He didn’t say anything, but as his sclera cleared, there was a look in his eyes that clearly said Don’t tease me like that. Don’t get my hopes up.

Not for the first time, Sig wished he could get ten minutes unsupervised in a room with the people who had filled Jak with such self-loathing.

“Hey.” Sig edged a little closer and nudged Jak with his shoulder. “You’ve already got your foot in the door. Once you’ve run a couple work missions with the folks in Spargus, they accept you as one of their own pretty quick. City’s only as strong as its weakest link, so once you’re connected you look out for your fellow links. You know what I mean?”

Jak looked away and somewhat conspicuously swiped an arm across his face.

“Guess so.”

Sig patted his arm. “C'mon. Race will be starting soon. You wanna go downstairs and watch Daxter kick tail on the racetrack?”

With a watery smile, Jak nodded. “…yeah.”

This year I’ve been drawing alot of art of my fursona Tizzy. I drew her with my favorite Ferngully 2 characters, I drew her with Tiny and the rabbit siblings from The Seventh Brother and it’s sequel Tiny Heroes (the background for that picture is an edited screenshot from the first movie), and I drew her in the style of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, I’m doing alot of nostalgia pieces for her and have more planned