Fanfic / Torque (Jak and Daxter)

You’re walking a path built for another. The road is treacherous and difficult, the moreso because you lack what he has. It is not impossible, for you have your own gifts – but take care all the same.

Onin through Pecker to Keira

Torque is a Jak and Daxter fanfic Role Swap Plot of the Jak II: Renegade game written by RocketOwl . In this story Praxis has succeeded in turning Jak into a brainwashed warrior for him to control use as a weapon. Keira and Daxter set out to turn him back by joining the Underground. As they go on their journey Keira and Daxter's friendship becomes even stronger and they help each other through the trials that are set out before them. All the while Keira is pulled further into a destiny that wasn't meant for her.

Summary: The Dark Warrior Project comes to fruition and the Baron has a new right hand attack dog. Keira is forced to work with the Underground to get her friend back and to save Haven city. Without the Precursor's blessing, however, it'll take all her skills just to stay alive as she follows a destiny not meant for her.

Warning: Spoilers from the Jak and Daxter games will be unmarked.

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This fanfiction contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Having raised all three of Keira, Jak and Daxter, Samos was in particular verbally abusive to Daxter.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Due to having to go to Spargus to get Light Eco, Damas and Seems make appearances in this story.
• Adaptational Deviation: The whole story of Jak 2 deviates right from the start with Keira and Daxter reuniting with one another. It goes further by revealing that Jak has been made loyal to the Baron, putting the burden of the plot on Keira to handle.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: Artwork by RocketOwl on tumblr shows Keira with long hair, while Jak has his hair style from Jak X.
• All Myths Are True: When Keira declares her intent to go outside Haven to get Light Eco to cure Jak, everyone else thinks she is crazy as Light Eco is something of a fairy tale. When she returns with Light Eco in hand they are all shocked.
• Anger Born of Worry: Torn is furious that Keira and Daxter nearly got themselves killed when they went outside the city to fix the pump without a proper weapon. He would have kicked them out of the Underground if Keira hadn’t stood her ground and pointed out that she got the job done.
• Apologetic Attacker: When Jak catches Keira after her and Daxter’s stakeout and says he is taking her to the palace, she says she is sorry before hitting him with her eco glove, stunning him and allowing her to escape
• Babysitting Episode: A fair amount of chapter 13 is Keira and Daxter taking care of the Kid for a while, and they bond quite well with him.
• Badass Boast: A more nonverbal example, but when Keira is cornered by Krew’s team in the sewer, she activates her eco glove with an electric charge daring them to shoot her as they are standing in water after Jinx says she’s not a killer. The bluff works.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • A Metal Head gets the drop on Keira and nearly kills her but Sig arrives and takes it out with his Peacemaker.
  • When Erol is close to strangling Keira to death, Jak shows up and saves her.
  • Keira gets to be one herself when she breaks everyone out of the Fortress gaining the respect of just about everyone in the Underground.
• Big Damn Reunion: When they reunite Keira and Daxter give each other a joyful hug.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: After the experiments and torture Jak has become the loyal Dark Warrior for Praxis and will attack anyone the Baron wants him to.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Jak has been broken down and turned into a loyal warrior for the Baron after being tortured and experimented on for two years. He goes through other round that messes him up badly.
  • By chapter 18 Keira is so wound up that she is willing the threaten people to get the things she needs. Daxter calls her out on this and how she is throwing away the contacts they have built up and doing things she would never do. She ends up breaking down and express all of her fears over possibly failing to save Jak.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Keira and Erol seem to have something of a friendship and good working relationship, to the point that when he begins to flirt with her, her only reservations come from her work with the Underground. Then she sees video of him torturing Jak and any illusion she had of him shatters. Even more so when he confronts her after beating him in the race and finds out she's working with the rebels.
  • Keira views of her father takes a hit when Daxter reveals just how abuse he was to him. Then takes another hit when she reunites with her father only for him to tell her to stay focused on the Rift Rider and stay out of other affairs despite all the work she has done.
• Call-Back: When she starts to get despite for the King of Spargus help to get Light Eco, she starts to list off all her skills like she did to get into the Underground.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Keira lays into her father for not telling them anything that was going to happen, insulting Daxter and, insisting that they try to set things to how they should be going and not on how they are going.
• The Cameo: Seem makes a very brief appearance to hand Keira a jar of Light Eco and then promptly leaves.
• Childhood Friends: Given that they were friends already it isn't hard for Daxter to work with Keira now that he is unable to team up with Jak.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Vin gives Keira and Daxter a data chip that allows them to see the experiments and torture that Jak was put through and it makes them sick. The Baron plans for the scientists to put Jak through another round because he has been acting to freely. When Jak is subject to another round its described from his groggy perspective and its not pretty.
• Darker and Edgier: The fic is quite a bit darker compared to canon. Special mention must be given to the description of the carnage that Jak unleashes on the Water Slums district.
• Day in the Limelight: The whole story is one for Keira with her taking on the destiny meant for Jak.
• Defector from Decadence: Some of the Guard don’t agree with the Baron, especially with sending The Dark Warrior on the people. One such guard helps Keira get away from the carnage in the Water Slums. He returns in a later chapter and allows Keira and Daxter to go on with their prison break and states he is only staying with the Gaud to protect those like him.
• Defiant to the End: Knowing that Erol is going to kill her or take her to the Baron to be tortured, Keira decided she is going to fight to the bitter end and puts up a pretty good fight before she is overpowered. Luckily Jak shows up and saves her.
• Dehumanization: Erol is even more hateful of Jak in this story. Referring him to as a monster. It doesn’t help that he feels that the Baron is playing favorites and he believes that The Dark Warrior thinks himself better than Erol.
• Delaying the Rescue: Once Tess has told Daxter that she has found that Samos is in prison, he decides against telling Keira right away so she won’t be forced to choose between going after her father or prioritizing saving Jak first. He also feels that Samos deserves it as Samos must have known what was going to happen on some level.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Erol’s presumed death from the second game, in which he rammed his bike into barrels eco while trying to kill Jak after the Championship race, is replaced by him being killed when Keira stabs him in the neck with a screwdriver at the end of a fight.
• Did Not Think This Through: Keira going outside the city without a proper weapon really came back to bite her when a Metal Head got the jump on her.
• Disposing of a Body: After she kills Erol Keira takes the body to Torn, who passes it along to Ashelin, who plans to dump his body along one of his patrol routes. It helps that the body has wounds convincing enough to blame a probing attack by Metal Heads.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Averted, as when she needs to treat Jak’s injuries after the fight with Erol and she has him remove his shirt, she notes she might have enjoyed the view under different circumstances, but Keira is still in shock over what happened and has herself focused on batching up the wounds.
• The Dreaded: Jak becomes this so much that people will avoid him and zoomers will fly away faster if he is patrolling the streets.
• Drinking Contest: At some point Keira tried to out drink Sig with the expected results. She wants a rematch.
• False Flag Operation: Praxis pushed back the Metal Head invasion that killed hundreds during Damas’s rule, which gave him the support he needed for his coup. Turns out he was the one who orchestrated it.
• Fire-Forged Friends: While they had already been friends before, Keira and Daxter hadn’t had the same bond that the latter had with Jak. As the story goes on and they take on missions for the Underground and delve into their personal quest to save Jak, their friendship grows stronger.
• Friend to All Children: Daxter gets along pretty well with the Kid when Torn has Keira take care of him for a while. He helps him with building a pillow fort and complimenting the Kids crude drawing of him, and lets him cuddle up at night when the kid is sad. Should be no surprise given the Kid's real identity.
• Foreshadowing: Onin tells Keira that she has her own gifts that will help her on her journey. In chapter 13, Keira starts to show signs of sage powers over green eco.
• Game of Chicken: When Keira is unable to bring herself to kill the three gangsters in the sewer, she instead activates her eco glove which uses an electric shock. They are all standing in water, so she could easily shock them all into unconsciousness and drown if they shoot her. Jinx deems it not worth the risk of calling her bluff and lets her go with one of the prizes that they were after.
• Great Escape:
  • With a good chunk of the leadership captured, Keira and Daxter enter the Fortress and let everyone out (Underground or not) before the Baron can execute Torn and the Shadow.
  • She does it again with her mission to get Jak out of the palace. Though it's told from the groggy perspective of Jak, Keira, Daxter and their team fought their way through a lot of guards to get to him and back out to the getaway van.
• Green Thumb: Keira starts to become aware that she has some kind of power (implied to be sage power over green eco) when she is able to commune with a tree.
• Hidden Wire: Keira make several drones she let loose during her tour in the palace and they plug into the system.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: No fighting but Keira does attempt to reach out to the Dark Warrior when they come face to face with one another and some part of him recognizes her, with mentions of Daxter, hinting that some part of Jak is still there under the surface of the Dark Warrior.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Erol meets his end when Keira stabs him in the neck with a screwdriver. He struggles for a bit, resulting in Keira being covered in blood.
• I Never Told You My Name: When Onin mentions Jak during their conversation Keira picks up on it right away as neither she nor Daxter said a thing about him. This clues them in that there is something more going on than Praxis's oppressive rule and Jak's brainwashing.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the fact that Jak has been brainwashed, most events are still playing out because Keira is taking on the destiny meant for him. Some things are different given that she is The Unchosen One.
• Internal Reveal:
  • While the summary already tells the audience what happened to Jak, it isn’t until the third chapter that he shows up during the Baron’s announcement about him and Keira and Daxter see him.
  • Keira is rather shocked to find out that Ashelin is working with the Underground.
  • Tess informs Daxter she has found out that Samos is in prison.
  • Light Eco being thought of nothing more than a fairy tale, some of the members of the Underground find out that it does exist when Keira brings back a jar full of it to cure Jak.
• In the Back: Keira is shot just as she makes it through the portal after she sets free the prisoners in the Fortress. It's very likely she was hit in the back.
• Irony: While taking care of the Kid, Keira and Daxter figure they have to call him something. They go through a list before seeing his necklace being the seal of the House of Mar. So, they decided to come him Mar, not knowing that is his actual name.
• It Gets Easier: Torn gently assures a shellshocked Keira after she was forced to kill Erol that it gets easier.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing:
  • The reports that Vin is able to dig up on Jak and give to Keria and Daxter refer Jak as 'the Subject' or 'it.'
  • It's very brief, but Keira calls the dead corpse of Erol an it.
• It's All About Me: When Jak saves Keira from Erol and she stands beside him, Erol assumes that they have been scheming together to humiliate him before the Baron and undermine his authority. He couldn’t be more wrong on the entire situation.
• I Will Find You: The Warrior declares to himself that he will find Keira so she can answer his questions about the dreams he has been having.
• Jerkass: Both Samoses come off as rude and unsavory. The Shadow treating Keira injuries as unfortunate but couldn’t be helped. And older Samos insulting Daxter right off the bat.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite coming off as a hardass with his insistence that they get things back on track on how they should happen, Samos does have a point that if the loop isn’t completed then a devastating paradox could happen.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he has had his hard ass attitude with her beforehand, when Keira comes to Torn after she was forced to kill Erol he treats her with considerable care.
• Loophole Abuse: Keira and Daxter get around the Test of Manhood in Mar's Tomb by having Daxter climb into the locking mechanism and pulling a bunch of levers to unlock the door. The Oracle isn't too happy about that.
• Made My Self Sad: When Keira thinks what could have been after her first race, how Jak would have loved to have raced just for the fun of it and she would be a friendly rival, it makes her feel sad as it made the day that she at least qualified not feel like a win.
• Metaphorically True: When Keria needs to come up a story to get Farley to take her on as a mechanic, she tells her that she lost her family. Which. while technically true, leaves out the part where she traveled through a portal and got separated from them in an explosion.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: At first Keira only joined the Underground to get Jak back from the Baron. Once she does and heads out to get Light Eco to cure him from his latest round of Dark Eco injections, she begins to question herself as what she will do now. All she really wanted was to get Jak back and go home, but she has made so many connections, and so has Daxter, she doesn’t really know what she will do now.
• Oh, Crap!: Jinx gets this expression when Keira points out that the job she wants him for is hitting the palace. Really starts to crap his pants when he finds out that they are stealing the Warrior, while on the job.
• Precision F-Strike: Keira swears every now and then but special mention has to goes to when she realizes that with everything going on that she forgot about the races and only has a day left to put a team together.
• Properly Paranoid: Keira doesn’t trust Kor at all and is careful with what she says around him. When the Shadow brushes off her concerns she starts to choose only to share things with those she has grown close to in the Underground.
• Rabble Rouser: A man in the Water Slums stirs of the people there that The Dark Warrior is just an instrument of fear meant to control them and ends up starting a riot. This quickly leads to Praxis unleashing The Dark Warrior on the slums, with Keira and Daxter caught up in the chaos.
• Recurring Dreams: The Dark Warrior has been having dreams that he can’t understand not knowing that they are of his past life as Jak. They began after he caught sight of Keira.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: When Keira calls in the favors she has built up to capture Jak, Torn agrees to help her in any way he can. It helps that she has long since gain his, and much of the Underground’s, respect. Also, unlike the Shadow and her father, he is more willing to take her at her word over her suspicion that Kor is the traitor.
• The Reveal: Jinx is the relative that Tess has mentioned several times.
• Role Swap Plot: The story has Keira taking on Jak’s destiny in Jak II: Renegade due to him becoming a brainwashed warrior for Praxis.
• Saying Too Much: During the talk that Keira and Daxter have with Onin to find answers to what is going on, the elderly seer mentions Jak. The thing is that neither Keira nor Daxter even asked anything about him. Keira picks up on this right away and starts to ask how Onin knows about Jak. Onin refuses to say anything more on the subject and sends them on their way with some parting advice.
• Shame If Something Happened: Krew uses the threat of this when he tells Keira not to get too good at racing. It doesn’t stick, and Keira declares she intends to win. Krew makes good on his threat after the race and has her garage trashed and steals the Precursor Key.
• Shock Collar: Not a shock collar but a collar that allows the Barron to keep track of the Dark Warrior after the latter has been running off one to many times.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: While Keira and Daxter’s friendship grows, they start to take friendly jabs at one another.
• Sore Loser: After losing the race to her Erol went to confront Keira over it, able to get into her garage given that he made a copy of her key months ago. It's unclear what his original plan was as he happens to overhear a conversation that implicates her with the Underground, giving him a different reason to let his frustration out on her.
• Stable Time Loop: An interesting example, there is a lot of indication in the story that things should have been playing out like they did in canon, being an actual case of a stable time loop. Why they haven’t in this story is unknown at this time. The Oracle does tell Keira that she must complete the loop. Samos is rather insistent that they get things back on track, but Keira points out that Onin and the Oracles have been able to come up with solutions to the problem and keep things going.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Samos telling Keira to stay focused on the Rift Rider and nothing else only pisses her off because not only has she been working on the Rift Rider but doing everything she can to help the Underground and rescue Jak.
• Suicide Mission: Praxis reveals to Keira that he intends to send his Dark Warrior on a mission to the nest to make way for a weapon to destroy it and has no intention of pulling the Dark Warrior out.
• These Hands Have Killed: Keira is very shaken after her first time killing someone.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Keira designs an eco glove that can deliver a nasty shock to anyone that gets past her gun. Comes in handy when she is nearly taken prisoner by Jak.
• Uncanny Valley: Kor, a seemingly harmless old man, has this effect on Keira right away.
• The Unchosen One: Both Onin and the Oracle state that Keira wasn’t who they were expecting. Onin goes as far to say that she is walking a path not meant for her, but she has her gifts that will help her. The Oracle tells her that she must complete the loop, but cannot offer her much else in the way of help.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: No reporter seems to be bothered at all by Daxter being a talking ottsel.
• Verbal Judo: Keira is able to convince the Oracle in Mar's Tomb to hand over the Precursor Stone because things aren't going the way they should have gone, and the Baron is on his way to take it anyways.
• We Used to Be Friends: After she killed Erol, Keira goes to the Underground base where Torn eventually tells the shellshocked girl that the two of them used to be friends.
• Wham Line: Onin’s response to where Keira needs to go to find light eco. “You must travel now across the sands to the hidden jewel of the Wasteland, the city of warriors – Spargus.”
• Workaholic: Not really by choice but Keira has so much on her plate she barely has any free time. As Tess points out she is managing a blue-collar business, training both on the gun range and on the racetrack and running jobs for the Underground all at once. And on top of all that is her efforts to get Jak back. This is part of why Daxter decides to have Tess help him find Samos, without telling Keira, to get a load off of her shoulders.
• Wrench Whack: Deconstructed. A wrench used on a normal person might do some damage, but trying to use it against monsters like Metal Heads doesn't go as well. Keira nearly gets herself killed when she goes out on her first mission for the Underground armed with only a wrench. She promptly gets a gun from Tess after that.
• Wild Card: Keira herself is a wild card in that she is taking on the destiny that was supposed to be meant for Jak. Her decisions and actions are completely different from his and begin to lead to different results.
• You Monster!: Once Erol discovers she's a member of the Underground Keira doesn’t hold back, letting her anger toward him out during their fight in which she calls him a monster after learning what he did to Jak. Even Torn says that Erol was a monster long ago.