#count veger

He'd initially mistaken the sound for mortars.

He'd initially mistaken the shape for trees.

But now Benedict looked out over the half collapsed wall and witnessed the fruit of his labors.

A vast spider, long graceful legs the size of tree trunks and amethyst-studded chitin that flashed in the dull light.

She was monstrous.

Unfathomably large even this far away, dripping caustic venom from her palps and barely making a sound as she crept down from the caves of the Foothills.

A dark goddess, sensing death among those who wore her emblem.

"What fresh hell is this?" one of his personal guard gasped from behind him.

"A demon, summoned by the foul Wastelanders," he answered with grim certainty. "Did I not warn you that this would be a fight for the very soul of our city? Screw your courage to the sticking place, my friends. We will see more horrors yet before the dawn, I am sure. Follow me, and the Precursors will protect you."

The great spider stepped gracefully along the rubble, periodically clicking her palps together in an abhorrent rhythm. Then she turned to face the northwest and settled, as though waiting.

Had he been in possession of a telescope powerful enough to look to the Precursor Basin, Veger would have beheld much worse than the spider.

Up from the swamps rose an elk, and the water surged out around him in a mighty wave with each step.

His twisted antlers branched like a tree, hair green with algae and dripping wet. The long tail of a pinniped pushed him up from the depths and into a daylight he had shunned long, long ago. Webs between cloven hooves left deep impressions in the boggy earth, the breadth of a man's hand.

The great beast turned his eyes south, towards Haven, and the corpse-lights along his back flickered with anticipation.

The time of harvest was near.

His steps were almost silent, and when the terrible shape rose in the distance, it was minutes before anyone spotted him.

Two of the painted emblems of the Federation clans had come upon them.

Benedict had studied the enemy's superstitious paintings in the Wasteland temple. He had scorned the lesser gods of the mercenary nomads as the nonsense of the uncultured. But if these demons were real, if the terrible shapes approaching his city were not illusions, then his quest was more noble than he'd even imagined. He was to deliver Haven from the gods of the underworld themselves.

The count glanced briefly at the wounded sky. The day star was gone — with any luck, the little freak with it — and nothing stood in his way save for these monsters.

But.

There were traditionally three in the depictions and cave paintings. An unholy triad. The spider, the elk, and the snake.

Where was the third?

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

Jak could have gone the rest of his life without seeing Haven City and been content. A city of demons, men drunk on power who worshipped wealth and the luxury of cruelty.

A city that had taken him from his father.

And then had taken his father from him.

It felt so wrong to leave him, even if he trusted Keira and Tess with his body. Even if he trusted Longstump with Keira and Tess.

Fourteen new moons he'd stood at his father's side. They'd watched each other's backs. And now he was gone.

It wasn't.

It wasn't right. And it wasn't just.

"Breca's circling back to meet up with Phaeng and the boys. What do you want to do, Jak?" Daxter asked, unusually subdued.

"Find Veger," Jak hissed.

Part of him wanted to drag the count back to the Wastes now, knowing the windstorms would ensure that it would be a moonless night by the time they arrived. Part of him wanted to abandon him in the desert just as he'd done to them, but instead of counting on the heat of day to finish the job, it would be the certainty of the Sack Man and the haunt-jackals. The Forgotten Dead, and even the Cry-boulders.

Death by Cry-boulder would be an appropriately humiliating death.

But would Damas have done the same?

Most likely. In a heartbeat, even. The desert was harsh and so were its people. Veger had committed the unforgivable, just as Praxis had.

And yet Jak couldn't commit himself to the thought. To make use of the spirits in such a fashion felt wrong. Fifty years ago, the King Owl and the Blood Wolf betrayed and imprisoned the Wind-Serpent so that they could kill with impunity. Would it then dishonor his great-grandfather to use them as instruments of execution?

"Place looks worse than normal," Daxter whispered in his ear, "Stay sharp, Jak. I got a bad feeling about this."

Of course. Because it wasn't enough to have destroyed the dark maker ship, or to have activated his (mostly) mortal ancestor's ancient planetary defense system. The Precursors delighted in tormenting him. Why? What had he done to deserve all of this? Was it simply because he carried the blood of some rival pantheon? They'd certainly been angry when he invoked Má when relating Errol's fate.

Little monsters. Coming back through that teleport ring to find the true form of the puppetmasters had left more than one of them coming within an inch of deicide.

Daxter, in particular, had to be physically restrained.

Jak paused at the ruined wall and listened to the rattle of gunfire and the screams of dying people. They'd destroyed Errol's droid factory, and the metalheads were scattered. That meant this was mostly hu'men against hu'men.

"You ready for this?" he asked, glancing up at Daxter.

Daxter scoffed. "Orange Lightning was born ready."

Jak almost managed a smile.

"Gods*I'm so tired of this," he whispered aloud.

He set his father's staff down, just for a moment, to reload his gun. Digging through his satchel for ammunition, his fingers brushed something smooth.

A strand of shell beads he'd once planned to add to the bits of polished glass he put on Mar's memorial when he thought Damas wasn't looking.

His own memorial. A tribute to him, to the crimes committed against him, meticulously, lovingly tended to by his father.

With shaking hands — exhaustion or rage, he couldn't have said in that moment — Jak knelt to take out the string of beads. In quick, sharp movements, he strung his childhood amulet alongside his father's and clasped the strand around his neck.

He would not return to Haven as Jak, their little puppet soldier. He would enter the city as Mar, son of Damas, and he would make them regret the day they heard his father's name.

Little One.

Daxter twitched, but Jak knew he hadn't heard words. He could make out the long hiss, the syllables, but they didn't translate to a recognizable language in the ottsel's ears. And now they knew why.

I'm sorry. Damas can't- can't hold up his promise anymore. But I can do it for him.

No, ssssnakelet.

He's dead, Grandfather. My father is dead. They kil- they killed him.

The spirit was quiet a moment, and then the whisper rose into an ominously amused rumble, deep and gravelly.

Ssssome of him, yesss. Not all of him.

What did that mean?

Was it the spirit blood?

Had Keira managed...something?

Jak indulged a momentary fantasy of Damas’s sacrifice having ascended him into a kind of wind-serpent himself. He would accept a building-sized feathery snake for a father if it meant Damas wouldn't leave him yet.

We are coming, sssnakelet. Be ready.

"What?" Jak whispered aloud.

"What's what?" Daxter demanded, "Talk to the ottsel! What's happening?!"

Tipping his head back, Jak frantically scanned the sky.

"He's out," he stammered, "I- I think Dad actually found him before he got to us! The Wind-Serpent, he, he said he's on his way here."

Daxter's fur bristled. He could guess how that was going to go.

"Well," he said with a weak chuckle, "that's something, at least."

"That's something," Jak agreed.

He holstered his gun and took up the staff again.

"Come on, Dax. Let's see what's going on in there."

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

He should have anticipated the vermin's survival. The brat was like a cockroach, nigh impossible to kill by indirect means. Veger watched him swing himself over a pile of rubble and fire indiscriminately at metalheads and deathbots alike. When the bullets ran out, he swung the king's staff — a relic too good for their tainted hands — with a practiced ease.

People were beginning to notice.

No.

This was his victory, not the abomination's!

His Precursor armor — stolen finery, of course — shielded most of his back and torso. Benedict would only get one chance to finish this.

He just needed the right moment.

"Jak!"

The insufferable sage's daughter was climbing up from the remains of the wall.

Little thief-!

The rodent stiffened.

"Keira! You were supposed to stay with-"

"Jak, something's coming!"

The brat turned to face his friend, revealing the gaps along his sides where the armor fastened.

All Benedict needed was a steady hand.

The report echoed across the rubble and the abomination dropped like a stone as the girl screamed. The rat frantically looked for the source of the bleeding, but it was far too late. They'd never get green eco in time to save him. Finally, finally, the thorn in his side had been plucked out.

The boy's skin shifted. Not the pale abomination, it was wine-dark, dotted with lights. His eyes shone white. The bloom of blood shrank, then vanished. The leather repaired itself.

The bullet

Fell out.

Light eco. The freak had been given the blessing of light eco. It didn't make any sense.

No, no it must have been a demonic trick. A mimicry of the pure gift by the devils of swamp and mountain and desert. Certainly it left him weary enough. The Precursors had given him his opening.

Veger aimed more carefully this time, lining up his shot right between the little beast's eyes.

"Thus ends the House of Mar," he sneered as his finger touched the trigger.

And then he was airborne.

When he struck the broken concrete, the world went white. Never in his life had he known pain like this! It radiated across his back, his skull, he couldn't breathe-!

Before his vision had time to clear, a vise tightened around his leg. The crushing grip wrenched him from the ground, and wind whistled through his ringing ears before he struck the ground again.

And again.

And again.

Blood poured from his nose, from his forehead, from innumerable cuts across his body. This wasn't how it was supposed to be! It wasn't- it wasn't-!

The beating, mercifully, seemed to have ended. Benedict's breath hissed strangely across broken teeth and torn lips as he sobbed for breath. One of his eyes was swollen completely shut. Through the other, leaking and watery though it was, he slowly became aware of a hulking shape looking down at him. An all too familiar face, eyes glowing bright as coals.

"Dad-!"

The abomination wasn't dead yet.

The specter of hell crouched over him held up one hand out of sight, evidently signaling to Jak.

The voice that poured out of him was inhu'men. Grating and harsh, the hiss of a sandstorm.

Or a serpent.

"No, Jak."

"But-"

"Look. Away."

Massive fingers seized the tattered remnants of Veger's cravat and lifted him with a cruel gentleness. The rough voice smoothed, lowered as Veger was brought close enough to see myriad tiny feathers growing at the temples of the beast.

"I am going to break you now," he said calmly.

"W- wait-!" Veger sobbed for breath, scarcely able to form sound at all. "Plea-!"

"Silence."

The hand that wrapped around his skull could have crushed it like an eggshell, and Veger was becoming acutely aware of that. Still, he valiantly attempted to reason with the monster — that is, he begged for his life in a humiliating display.

Over the edge of the giant's palm, he could see the fallen king's ears twitch upright, as though he were listening to something. Veger was flung back to the ground like a broken doll, and the fallen king — tarnished Heir, king of devils — stood quickly.

"Jak! Daxter! Get off the field!" he thundered.

"What? What is it?"

"Now!"

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

Damas was alive.

He was alive!

But the sun had not set, there was no eclipse. Did the massive storm cloud cover enough to force transformation?

The instant Jak reached him, Damas crouched and swept him into a short, desperate hug. Without putting them down, he backed away from the street and towards the first building he could find.

"You're giant again," Daxter quietly observed.

Damas tried to smile, but it was quick and grim.

"No hu'men cheats Death. But I was not wholly hu'men."

"And now?"

Jak wasn't sure he wanted to know, but couldn't help asking.

"I...do not know, Jak."

Jak looked down at the staff in his hand, then up at his father.

It was obvious that this transformation was different. He wore the same clothing he'd been wearing earlier that day, it hadn't torn or fallen off. It fit him now.

This was not a normal transformation.

"Is it permanent?" he asked.

A wince rippled the feathers at Damas’s temples.

"It...may be."

Jak could live with that. Damas wouldn't appreciate not being able to drive anymore, but he'd be there. A giddy relief bubbled up inside him.

It was over, or nearly over. His father had survived, he and his friends had survived.

"Can I keep the staff?" Jak joked.

"No."

Damas narrowed his eyes.

"I'll mod it if I must, but I earned that thing."

Then he softened, and his smile was real.

"You finished the fight, didn't you?"

"We sent the whole thing on a crash course to the coast," Daxter offered, "So if you guys do salvage diving you're gonna have a lot of tech to play with."

"Also Daxter threatened Precursors with grievous bodily harm," Jak added, which was slightly tattling.

"And Jak picked one up by the scruff of the neck," said Daxter, who was definitely tattling.

If the ground had not begun to shake then, Damas would have demanded an explanation.

The brief three sentences he got before dragging the boys to shelter was not sufficient.