• Published 1st Sep 2014
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The Sparkle in his Eye - Tatsurou



Ratchet balances saving the galaxy with being the father to a purple alicorn foal. Adorable shenanigans and explosions ensue.

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Time: Mobility

After a bit of instruction in how to properly carry himself while wearing the Hoverboots, Ratchet followed Alister on the course he'd set up to fully test him with the new gadget. He discovered that the extra speed it gave him allowed him to crash through some obstacles, although the only weapon he could safely wield while using them was his wrench. There were also any number of devices that seemed designed for use with the hoverboots for added mobility, like kickpads he could leap off of. He was certain Twilight would question why such things were scattered about when only Lombaxes used Hoverboots, but he privately thought the devices might have been set up at all points by Alister himself, and ignored by those who didn't understand their purpose.

"Well done," Alister praised as Ratchet finished the course first try. "You're a faster learner than your father when it comes to these things. You must get that from your mother. Come on, I have one final test set up this way!"

The next course had flares scattered along it to test Ratchet's speed and control. Alister had just enough time to explain Ratchet had to collect them all in under a minute before Ratchet was off. Much to Alister's surprise, Ratchet accomplished it in 30 seconds. "Amazing!" he proclaimed, completely astounded. "How did you get so good at maneuvering like that?"

"When I first adopted Twilight, she was about this size and could fly and shoot lasers from her horn," Ratchet explained, demonstrating the size with his hands. "Trying to catch her when she was feeling energetic was good practice for a lot of my adventures."

"I can well imagine," Alister chuckled. "She's been a real handful growing up, then?"

"Worth every moment," Ratchet confirmed, smiling proudly. At that point, the Hoverboots shorted out, and Ratchet staggered to balance himself.

"Ion coils might be a bit rusty," Alister pointed out. "But you'll get used to them." He hesitated. "Just...how old is Twilight, exactly?"

"Well, I don't know how old she was exactly when she arrived beyond 'infant'," Ratchet replied, "but we celebrate that day as her birthday, and she's 15 now."

"But...but then you couldn't have been more than ten when you adopted her!" Alister burst out, stunned.

"Still worth it."

Alister shook his head in amazement.

"So what's our next goal?" Ratchet asked. "Storm Nefarious' fortress and hook his head up to Aphelion's Zoni-upgraded circuitry so she can strip his mind for the location of the Clock?"

Alister stared at Ratchet. "...I genuinely didn't expect such a vicious plan from you," he admitted.

"Twilight wants her Mommy back," Ratchet grunted, pounding his fist into his palm.

Alister nodded in understanding. "Still, Nefarious would be foolish to provide any means for us to extract the Clock's location from him. But we have an advantage I did not before."

"Twilight?" Ratchet offered.

"Well...her too," Alister admitted. "And you for that matter. But the real advantage...a contact inside the clock."

"You have a way to communicate with Clank?" Ratchet demanded eagerly. "Tell me how!"

"Not here, not yet," Alister cautioned. "We need to make sure it will work first." He gently tapped a device on the front of his armor. "Meet me in Axiom City, on Planet Terachnos."

As the General's ship rose - the same fighter model as Aphelion had been pre-Zoni upgrade, but plainly not an AS - Aphelion shot into the air near them, Twilight hopping out, levitating a new set of boots. "Behold, the Omniboots!" she proclaimed proudly. "By applying grinders to either side of the hover jets of the hover boots that automatically deploy in the presence of a grind rail, lining the entire boot with material that can become magnetized when properly energized, and boosting the power source to a Mark 7 micro-generator instead of the ZZX model it had which was equivalent to a Mark 5, I have incorporated the functions of all types of boot gadgets into these!" She smiled widely at Ratchet. "I can give your boots the upgrade while replacing the ion coils with fresh ones. If they're anything like the duplicates I made to study from, they've gotten a little degraded over time."

Alister stared at Twilight, completely poleaxed. "...maybe I was mistaken about the order of the new advantages..." he murmured.

"It's been ten minutes, Twilight," Ratchet joked. "What took you so long?"

As Alister turned to stare at Ratchet, his jaw somewhat hanging, Twilight replied, "I had to take a potty break in the middle, but I couldn't find it! Aphelion's too big inside now!"

"...you're not kidding?" Alister asked, stunned. "She encountered brand new tech she's never known before, fully analyzed it, and upgraded it while incorporating other kinds of tech in ten minutes...and that's not amazing?"

"Not for her," Ratchet admitted modestly. "Though I'm half surprised she hasn't upgraded it to also be a weapon-"

"And the boosters can be activated while kicking to add the force of the jets to the blow!" Twilight piped up.

"There we go!" Ratchet praised.

Alister was torn between two warring impulses in his mind. The first was to back away slowly, jump into his ship, and get as far away from the pair as possible before Twilight got ahold of the Great Clock and rewrote the laws of reality. The second impulse eventually won out, however. "...can I get those upgrades?"

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