Background
Aug. 26th, 2017 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
precursorintrainingDaxter was born to an unsurprisingly poor family...as a lot of people were living in or almost in poverty because of the harsh rule of Baron Praxis. He lived with them in the section of the city that would later become Dead Town.
It happened when he was five, the Metal Head army broke through the outer wall protecting the area, killing and/or eating anyone they could bring down as they made their way towards an ancient hut in the area. When it became apparent that the area was lost Baron Praxis had his men defending fall back behind the new wall, leaving everyone outside of the barrier to die...including Daxter's family. His parents were killed soon after and Daxter was saved by a young Samos, who had lived in the hut and stayed behind and somehow managed stopped the Metal Heads, allowing what few survivors there were to gather what they had left and move into the city to try and make a new life. He stayed with Samos for a few months as the short would-be sage decided his next move.
Because Samos was planning to start a resistance and oppose Praxis from that point on, he couldn't afford to take in a young child like Daxter and left him in one of the city orphanages where he could grow up safer than with him...too bad he didn't realize the type of place it was or he might have kept the loudmouthed child anyway. The Baron's orphanages doubled as a sort of recruitment or boot camp, turning the city's discarded youth into the future Krimzon Guard. As a kid with little respect for authority, a tendency to mouth off, and a strong dislike of the Baron and the Krimzon Guard, the next few years were tough on Daxter as he became a target for bullying by the other orphans and strict discipline that failed because he was too stubborn to be cowed into total obedience. Being assigned hard chores and given discipline, running from bullies, being teased about his looks, pulling pranks, and throwing insults were almost the entirety of the next ten years of his life.
One day when he was ten, he was cornered by a group of bullies after pushing their buttons and about to be beaten to a pulp for his trouble. For the first time since his arrival in the orphanage, someone stepped in to help him. This kid, a silent boy called Jak who had only arrived a couple of days earlier, not only stood between him and the beating he'd earned himself by mouthing off...but he beat up the bullies when they wouldn't leave too. Like most of Haven City residents, Daxter was already cynical and wary of others and their motives, so he was at first suspicious of why this kid would do that without asking anything of him. It became a bit routine though. Daxter would find the kid was never very far off and would step in when bullies hassled him, even faster if he wasn't at fault. From there Daxter began to hang around with him for safety, soon finding that even though he didn't talk, the other kid was fun to be around and nice to have as a friend. They spent a lot of time sneaking out to explore and just being kids.
He soon learned that Jak could talk, but very rarely did back then, though he couldn't understand why. Sometimes he would when only Daxter was there to hear it, but mostly it was Daxter talking. He learned that Jak was originally from Spargus City, which was out in the desert wasteland, which explained his fighting skills. Spargus was well-known as a warriors' city where only the useful survived. He also learned that Jak had escaped from someone called Count Vegar, who had been experimenting on him.
When he was about fourteen, they were removed from the orphanage and placed in prison to be part the experimental stages of the Dark Warrior program as guinea pigs. The program was to create a powerful new type of soldier to use as weapons against the Metal Head armies and if successful would grant them powers beyond their wildest dreams. If it failed...well some sacrifices had to be made for the city's glory.
Daxter's loud mouth and defiance made him an early candidate for the Dark Eco injections and he was the first to be put into the chair. The injection process was painful and the first sessions he passed out during and later found himself back in the cell he shared with Jak afterward with no clue how much time had passed. This was the norm for almost four months, The last session however, he woke to find himself small, furry...and on a rubbish heap. He'd transformed after passing out and the scientists had thought him dead and simply disposed of him without a thought.
While trying to find a way out of the prison, he found his way to a Warp Gate which dumped him at the Baron's palace. Here he met Seem, a Precursor monk working for Count Vegar, as well as for King Damas of Spargus City. She took an interest in him, recognizing him for what he'd become and inviting him to come with her if he wanted to learn more and return to his original body. With nothing else to go on, he went with her to the Precursor Temple that was deep in the wasteland. There she told him the truth of what he was, though from his recount of what had changed him she couldn't explain how it happened exactly...only that he'd taken the form of a Precursor.
Seem also began to teach him about the natures of the different types of Eco and how they affected different things, and that Ottsels had the power to create and manipulate the different types. Usually only the monks were aware that it was the Ottsels that had made everything, so no one who saw him would be aware of this fact and he would need to keep it to himself. With her help, he began to study and learn to shift his form by manipulating the Eco that made up his body...though there were a few instances where he was caught in partial transformations for awhile. It took him two months to master enough that he could fully and smoothly transform twice a day, and then she began to tutor him on creating and channeling Eco, while also teaching him a little about life in the wasteland and things like riding a Leaper Lizard.
Over the next two years, he spent his time either in Spargus, learning to use weapons and driving vehicles, or in the Temple, practicing Eco usage. He became pretty good with the Red and yellow ammo for the Morph Gun, and very good at catching wild Leapers for use as transportation. Driving vehicles was a bit touch-and-go, but he earned use of the only weaponless vehicle to go on the occasional artifact run in the desert...even though he hates it due to harassment from Marauders. He also found his that Ottsel form had uses, letting him do things he couldn't as a human.
He took to Blue Eco with surprising ease, finding that he could generate it simply through friction. It was common knowledge that Blue Eco powered technology, especially when contained in Power Cells, so he trained in channeling it himself, learning that after absorbing it he could choose to increase his reflexes to the point that everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl in comparison. Green Eco was much harder for him, it making him very tired to try to create enough to have an effect on anything quickly. He found he can create small amounts over a period of three weeks and combine them into the needed amount though. Seem told him that using Green Eco would come easier over time and that he could use it different ways with practice...but he decided that was too much trouble at the time.
During all of this, he began to think of Jak, and worry how he might be doing. He needed to go back for his friend, but he needed Damas' leave to return to Haven. It turned out that, he had a spy in Haven already, who had been looking for Damas' missing son for the past seven years. A boy named Jak, who carried a carved red gemstone crest. Daxter jumped on the chance to join the hunt, realizing that it must have been his friend even though he'd never seen the crest.
It took some convincing, but he got his way and was taken back to the city, where he soon used his Ottsel form to disappear as a person and drop off of the radar. As an Ottsel, he managed to score a job with the Kridder Ridder bug extermination company as a convenient way to get around the city unnoticed. Getting employed by Osmo hadn't been difficult, as the old man had been fairly desperate for new employees and had practically jumped on the opportunity. His small size let him go deep into some places to hunt bugs, and he became quite good at it, even against bugs that were the same size as him or larger.
During his time there he befriended Ximon, the laid-back son his boss, who for some reason thought he was the coolest thing since hover-boarding. He sometimes got Daxter to and from jobs, or occasionally helped him get done, but Daxter usually just borrowed his scooter as transportation. And he also developed his first crush, on Taryn who was the mysterious female co-worker who came and went almost like a ninja. She didn't express an interest in the fuzzball that was Daxter, but at times she humor his flirting a little and was the source of most of his job equipment and information. And then there was Tik, the small harmless bug that Daxter encountered while clearing an Eco tanker of Metal Bugs and then adopted as his sidekick. It was about two months before he got his chance to help Jak though.
On a job in the Baron's palace, which he weaseled his way into after a tanker he fumigated turned out to have been en route to said palace, he overheard Vegar and the Baron's second in command, Erol, talking about the Dark Warrior program and Jak's name came up. It was good to know that his friend was alive, but the fact he was apparently a promising candidate where most others had died was hardly comforting. It was unlikely he would be called on for a job at the prison too, as bugs hassling the prisoners wouldn't be considered an issue. With help from Tik, he succeeded in stealing a prison map from the palace. He then asked Ximon for help in sneaking into the prison and from there continued on to find Jak by himself.
He found his friend, just after a Dark Eco session, and they escaped the prison together...but Jak was now darker and angrier than Daxter remembered him ever being, even if it thankfully wasn't directed at him. There was also the little fact that he would at times transform into a Dark Eco monster capable of incredible destruction, either when pissed off or when he came into contact with considerable amounts of Dark Eco. This new Jak was more talkative and wanted revenge on the Baron before anything else so they became part of the underground resistance movement and also got involved in the three way war between the Baron, the Metal Heads, and the Underground as a direct result. This largely entailed running on missions under Torn that took them all over the city and got them connections with many different people.
Krew and Sig in particular were very helpful, providing lots of information and guns in exchange for the...less than upstanding dealings they had with the gang lord and weapons dealer. Through Krew they also met the mechanic at the race garage, who really wanted nothing to do with them because they were working for Krew. Through Torn they met Vin, the extremely paranoid foreman of the Baron's mining operation and informant for the Underground. They also met Ashelin, a member of the Krimzon Guard who at times provided Torn with information.
When not on missions for the Underground Daxter continued his work at Kridder Ridder as an exterminator, gaining access to various places in the city because so much of the city was becoming infested, especially as the bugs he exterminated were actually the smaller insectoid Metal Heads...though there were a few larger and nastier ones he would encounter and have to defeat. While he didn't do his extermination work with Jak, he did everything else with him and lived with him in the tiny apartment in the Slums that was provided for them as a safehouse.
When Jak used some of their newfound connections to sneak into the palace, they were confronted by Praxis in his mech. Jak defeated him, but he escaped unharmed and upon returning to Underground HQ the duo were chewed out by Torn for acting without orders and endangering the Underground. They were sent to ferry other members to new safehouses around the city.
The next big mission they were assigned was a trip down memory lane that Daxter had never wanted to take again...straight into Dead Town. Daxter had been out there with Jak once before, but this was different. Metal Heads were moving toward a sacred site out there, just as they had back when he was a kid and his family had died. And he and Jak were expected to go defend the site alone. They succeeded, but after that Daxter had been rather quiet and subdued. He had lingered around his old home and not spoken to Jak the whole way back to report to Torn.
That quiet didn't last though, as when they arrived they were greeted with the news that the Shadow, the guy in charge...who they had been trying to meet since day one, had decided to meet them finally. It was the simple fact that it was Samos, of all people, that caused Daxter to return to his usual self. He immediately let out all of his frustration over being left in that orphanage and being used as the Baron's guinea pig...omitting the part about being a Precursor or being able to be human at will, on Samos. But really, all that resulted in was him getting told that what didn't kill him made him stronger and going home in a bad mood after being welcomed to the fight they'd been participating in for several months already.
Samos soon asked them to go to Haven Forest and destroy some Metal Head scouts reported to be snooping around. To help them, they received use of the Jet Board that the mechanic had designed since they were part of the Underground. They were also allowed to keep it, much to their delight.
It happened when he was five, the Metal Head army broke through the outer wall protecting the area, killing and/or eating anyone they could bring down as they made their way towards an ancient hut in the area. When it became apparent that the area was lost Baron Praxis had his men defending fall back behind the new wall, leaving everyone outside of the barrier to die...including Daxter's family. His parents were killed soon after and Daxter was saved by a young Samos, who had lived in the hut and stayed behind and somehow managed stopped the Metal Heads, allowing what few survivors there were to gather what they had left and move into the city to try and make a new life. He stayed with Samos for a few months as the short would-be sage decided his next move.
Because Samos was planning to start a resistance and oppose Praxis from that point on, he couldn't afford to take in a young child like Daxter and left him in one of the city orphanages where he could grow up safer than with him...too bad he didn't realize the type of place it was or he might have kept the loudmouthed child anyway. The Baron's orphanages doubled as a sort of recruitment or boot camp, turning the city's discarded youth into the future Krimzon Guard. As a kid with little respect for authority, a tendency to mouth off, and a strong dislike of the Baron and the Krimzon Guard, the next few years were tough on Daxter as he became a target for bullying by the other orphans and strict discipline that failed because he was too stubborn to be cowed into total obedience. Being assigned hard chores and given discipline, running from bullies, being teased about his looks, pulling pranks, and throwing insults were almost the entirety of the next ten years of his life.
One day when he was ten, he was cornered by a group of bullies after pushing their buttons and about to be beaten to a pulp for his trouble. For the first time since his arrival in the orphanage, someone stepped in to help him. This kid, a silent boy called Jak who had only arrived a couple of days earlier, not only stood between him and the beating he'd earned himself by mouthing off...but he beat up the bullies when they wouldn't leave too. Like most of Haven City residents, Daxter was already cynical and wary of others and their motives, so he was at first suspicious of why this kid would do that without asking anything of him. It became a bit routine though. Daxter would find the kid was never very far off and would step in when bullies hassled him, even faster if he wasn't at fault. From there Daxter began to hang around with him for safety, soon finding that even though he didn't talk, the other kid was fun to be around and nice to have as a friend. They spent a lot of time sneaking out to explore and just being kids.
He soon learned that Jak could talk, but very rarely did back then, though he couldn't understand why. Sometimes he would when only Daxter was there to hear it, but mostly it was Daxter talking. He learned that Jak was originally from Spargus City, which was out in the desert wasteland, which explained his fighting skills. Spargus was well-known as a warriors' city where only the useful survived. He also learned that Jak had escaped from someone called Count Vegar, who had been experimenting on him.
When he was about fourteen, they were removed from the orphanage and placed in prison to be part the experimental stages of the Dark Warrior program as guinea pigs. The program was to create a powerful new type of soldier to use as weapons against the Metal Head armies and if successful would grant them powers beyond their wildest dreams. If it failed...well some sacrifices had to be made for the city's glory.
Daxter's loud mouth and defiance made him an early candidate for the Dark Eco injections and he was the first to be put into the chair. The injection process was painful and the first sessions he passed out during and later found himself back in the cell he shared with Jak afterward with no clue how much time had passed. This was the norm for almost four months, The last session however, he woke to find himself small, furry...and on a rubbish heap. He'd transformed after passing out and the scientists had thought him dead and simply disposed of him without a thought.
While trying to find a way out of the prison, he found his way to a Warp Gate which dumped him at the Baron's palace. Here he met Seem, a Precursor monk working for Count Vegar, as well as for King Damas of Spargus City. She took an interest in him, recognizing him for what he'd become and inviting him to come with her if he wanted to learn more and return to his original body. With nothing else to go on, he went with her to the Precursor Temple that was deep in the wasteland. There she told him the truth of what he was, though from his recount of what had changed him she couldn't explain how it happened exactly...only that he'd taken the form of a Precursor.
Seem also began to teach him about the natures of the different types of Eco and how they affected different things, and that Ottsels had the power to create and manipulate the different types. Usually only the monks were aware that it was the Ottsels that had made everything, so no one who saw him would be aware of this fact and he would need to keep it to himself. With her help, he began to study and learn to shift his form by manipulating the Eco that made up his body...though there were a few instances where he was caught in partial transformations for awhile. It took him two months to master enough that he could fully and smoothly transform twice a day, and then she began to tutor him on creating and channeling Eco, while also teaching him a little about life in the wasteland and things like riding a Leaper Lizard.
Over the next two years, he spent his time either in Spargus, learning to use weapons and driving vehicles, or in the Temple, practicing Eco usage. He became pretty good with the Red and yellow ammo for the Morph Gun, and very good at catching wild Leapers for use as transportation. Driving vehicles was a bit touch-and-go, but he earned use of the only weaponless vehicle to go on the occasional artifact run in the desert...even though he hates it due to harassment from Marauders. He also found his that Ottsel form had uses, letting him do things he couldn't as a human.
He took to Blue Eco with surprising ease, finding that he could generate it simply through friction. It was common knowledge that Blue Eco powered technology, especially when contained in Power Cells, so he trained in channeling it himself, learning that after absorbing it he could choose to increase his reflexes to the point that everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl in comparison. Green Eco was much harder for him, it making him very tired to try to create enough to have an effect on anything quickly. He found he can create small amounts over a period of three weeks and combine them into the needed amount though. Seem told him that using Green Eco would come easier over time and that he could use it different ways with practice...but he decided that was too much trouble at the time.
During all of this, he began to think of Jak, and worry how he might be doing. He needed to go back for his friend, but he needed Damas' leave to return to Haven. It turned out that, he had a spy in Haven already, who had been looking for Damas' missing son for the past seven years. A boy named Jak, who carried a carved red gemstone crest. Daxter jumped on the chance to join the hunt, realizing that it must have been his friend even though he'd never seen the crest.
It took some convincing, but he got his way and was taken back to the city, where he soon used his Ottsel form to disappear as a person and drop off of the radar. As an Ottsel, he managed to score a job with the Kridder Ridder bug extermination company as a convenient way to get around the city unnoticed. Getting employed by Osmo hadn't been difficult, as the old man had been fairly desperate for new employees and had practically jumped on the opportunity. His small size let him go deep into some places to hunt bugs, and he became quite good at it, even against bugs that were the same size as him or larger.
During his time there he befriended Ximon, the laid-back son his boss, who for some reason thought he was the coolest thing since hover-boarding. He sometimes got Daxter to and from jobs, or occasionally helped him get done, but Daxter usually just borrowed his scooter as transportation. And he also developed his first crush, on Taryn who was the mysterious female co-worker who came and went almost like a ninja. She didn't express an interest in the fuzzball that was Daxter, but at times she humor his flirting a little and was the source of most of his job equipment and information. And then there was Tik, the small harmless bug that Daxter encountered while clearing an Eco tanker of Metal Bugs and then adopted as his sidekick. It was about two months before he got his chance to help Jak though.
On a job in the Baron's palace, which he weaseled his way into after a tanker he fumigated turned out to have been en route to said palace, he overheard Vegar and the Baron's second in command, Erol, talking about the Dark Warrior program and Jak's name came up. It was good to know that his friend was alive, but the fact he was apparently a promising candidate where most others had died was hardly comforting. It was unlikely he would be called on for a job at the prison too, as bugs hassling the prisoners wouldn't be considered an issue. With help from Tik, he succeeded in stealing a prison map from the palace. He then asked Ximon for help in sneaking into the prison and from there continued on to find Jak by himself.
He found his friend, just after a Dark Eco session, and they escaped the prison together...but Jak was now darker and angrier than Daxter remembered him ever being, even if it thankfully wasn't directed at him. There was also the little fact that he would at times transform into a Dark Eco monster capable of incredible destruction, either when pissed off or when he came into contact with considerable amounts of Dark Eco. This new Jak was more talkative and wanted revenge on the Baron before anything else so they became part of the underground resistance movement and also got involved in the three way war between the Baron, the Metal Heads, and the Underground as a direct result. This largely entailed running on missions under Torn that took them all over the city and got them connections with many different people.
Krew and Sig in particular were very helpful, providing lots of information and guns in exchange for the...less than upstanding dealings they had with the gang lord and weapons dealer. Through Krew they also met the mechanic at the race garage, who really wanted nothing to do with them because they were working for Krew. Through Torn they met Vin, the extremely paranoid foreman of the Baron's mining operation and informant for the Underground. They also met Ashelin, a member of the Krimzon Guard who at times provided Torn with information.
When not on missions for the Underground Daxter continued his work at Kridder Ridder as an exterminator, gaining access to various places in the city because so much of the city was becoming infested, especially as the bugs he exterminated were actually the smaller insectoid Metal Heads...though there were a few larger and nastier ones he would encounter and have to defeat. While he didn't do his extermination work with Jak, he did everything else with him and lived with him in the tiny apartment in the Slums that was provided for them as a safehouse.
When Jak used some of their newfound connections to sneak into the palace, they were confronted by Praxis in his mech. Jak defeated him, but he escaped unharmed and upon returning to Underground HQ the duo were chewed out by Torn for acting without orders and endangering the Underground. They were sent to ferry other members to new safehouses around the city.
The next big mission they were assigned was a trip down memory lane that Daxter had never wanted to take again...straight into Dead Town. Daxter had been out there with Jak once before, but this was different. Metal Heads were moving toward a sacred site out there, just as they had back when he was a kid and his family had died. And he and Jak were expected to go defend the site alone. They succeeded, but after that Daxter had been rather quiet and subdued. He had lingered around his old home and not spoken to Jak the whole way back to report to Torn.
That quiet didn't last though, as when they arrived they were greeted with the news that the Shadow, the guy in charge...who they had been trying to meet since day one, had decided to meet them finally. It was the simple fact that it was Samos, of all people, that caused Daxter to return to his usual self. He immediately let out all of his frustration over being left in that orphanage and being used as the Baron's guinea pig...omitting the part about being a Precursor or being able to be human at will, on Samos. But really, all that resulted in was him getting told that what didn't kill him made him stronger and going home in a bad mood after being welcomed to the fight they'd been participating in for several months already.
Samos soon asked them to go to Haven Forest and destroy some Metal Head scouts reported to be snooping around. To help them, they received use of the Jet Board that the mechanic had designed since they were part of the Underground. They were also allowed to keep it, much to their delight.
