Kaden groaned as he felt sensation returning to his body. "...did somebody get the number of that starship?" he grunted, trying and failing to lift a hand to his head to rub it.
"...Kaden?"
His ears perked up as he heard that familiar, musical voice. "Vashiir?" He immediately rolled over in an attempt to get to her, only to fall off the med table he was laying on and land flat on his face as his body refused to cooperate. He could hear laughter from nearby, but it wasn't Vashiir or any other voice he recognized, so it wasn't important yet.
"Kaden?" Vashiir asked worriedly. "Are you alright?"
"Just fine dear," Kaden mumbled into the metal floor. "I just seem to be suffering from some sort of metabolic imbalance and my body is refusing to function. But not to worry. I'll drag myself to you." He attempted once again to move his arms, only to get very little movement. "...it appears my arms are not cooperating. I guess I'll just have to cobble a mech suit together from nearby material to carry me to you."
"...sweetie, you just told me your arms weren't working," Vashiir pointed out.
Kaden thought about that for a time. "Well, my mind seems to be working, so I'll construct a device to manipulate my tools with my thoughts!"
"Your arms still aren't working," Vashiir pointed out.
Kaden pursed his lips. "...gimme a minute, I'm sure I'll come up with something..."
More familiar laughter echoed in his ears. "Or you could just ask me for help."
"Alister?" Kaden asked, stunned. As he was lifted to a more upright position, his eyes opened and he caught sight of his old friend. "...you look old! How much did you have to drink last night?"
Alister facepalmed as Vashiir laughed. "Kaden...what's the last thing your remember?" he groaned.
"Well, I remember hiding Ratchet before Tachyon was about to kill me," Kaden explained easily, "but that memory has Vashiir being dead shortly after giving birth. But she's plainly alive, so it must have been a bad dream because we drank too much last night. Where are we, anyway?"
A young sounding female voice burst into laughter. "Okay, Daddy, now I'm glad you take more after Grandma!"
"Me too, Twi," another male voice said. Another Lombax - familiar and yet unfamiliar - slipped under Kaden's other arm, smiling up at him. "Let me give you a hand, Dad."
"Dad?" Kaden asked, confused. "Wait...Ratchet, is that you? When'd you grow up so much?"
"Ratchet?" Vashiir asked, stunned. "My baby?"
Ratchet helped Kaden over to the med table where Vashiir was laid out. "Hey Mom," Ratchet said softly, his voice thick with emotion. Vashiir seemed to be built much the same as Angela was - save she still had her tail - with copper fur with brass highlights, with golden eyes and a soft smile.
Vashiir smiled up at Ratchet, lifting a hand to caress his cheek. "My baby...all grown up. I...I missed so much..."
Kaden blinked as he managed to look around. "Umm...I'm still trying to figure out what's going on..."
"Perhaps I can be of assistance?" a kindly voice asked as a quasi-energy being with bright blue eyes floated up, smiling widely.
"A Zoni!" Kaden shouted in surprise, letting go of Alister and Ratchet and promptly falling onto his back. "...I'm okay!" he called out, lifting an arm to hold up one finger. "Oh hey, my arms are working! Time to build that headset so my arms not working isn't a hindrance. ...hang on..."
The Zoni burst into chuckles. "Oh, I like this one," he said playfully. "My name is Orvus. Welcome to the Great Clock."
Kaden blinked. "...huh. Okay, gimme a minute to rethink my assumptions...whose bitch is causality?"
The unfamiliar feminine giggle from before came again. "Mine, Grandpa!"
"Grandpa?" Kaden asked, shocked. "Ratchet, you've got a kid? Help me meet her-whoa!" Kaden found himself suspended in a lavender aura as he was lifted into the air. "This isn't technological gravity manipulation. The field's too exact and lacks the impersonal touch of machine generated. But the control is much too accurate for any known telekinetic sophont-"
"Ahem."
Looking up, Kaden noticed the figure whose horn glowed with the same aura that surrounded him giving him an irritated glare. "Right! Granddaughter!" Kaden remembered, paying closer attention to the figure before him. "...you're a pony."
"And you're a kitty," the figure countered.
"I meant no offense!" Kaden offered quickly. "Merely stating facts."
"Me too!" the filly replied. "I'm Twilight Sparkle!"
"Oh, my Granddaughter sounds adorable!" Vashiir squealed. "I need to see her!"
"Let me help you up!" Kaden called out, trying and failing to push himself through the air. "Oh, right, levitating. Now where's my wrench..."
"Let me help you, Mom," Ratchet offered, helping his mother to her feet.
"Well, you certainly grew up strong and dutiful, son," Vashiir offered with a smile. "I'm happy to see that, even if I missed most of it."
"Any more family for us to meet?" Kaden asked Twilight.
"That's Mommy!" Twilight proclaimed happily, pointing at a green eyed robot.
"I am Clank," the robot offered. "I am Orvus' son, and heir to the Great Clock."
"And that's my BBBFF-"
"Big Brother Best Friend Forever?" Vashiir translated as Kaden's eyes went to the large, waving, green man.
"That's right!" the man confirmed. "I'm Captain Qwark!"
Kaden glanced around at the family members, then pursed his lips in thought as he began muttering calculations.
"Adopted?" Vashiir asked, smiling softly as she gestured to Twilight and Qwark.
"Yeah," Ratchet replied.
"Oh," Kaden piped up, nodding firmly. "That makes much more sense than what I'd come up with so far."
"I'm sure it must be an interesting story," Vashiir suggested. "Since we have a great deal we need to catch up on since we've been pulled forward..." She glanced towards Alister. "How far?"
"27 years," Alister explained.
"That long..." She shook her head in amazement. "Well, perhaps we could start with the stories of your lives?"
Ratchet smiled widely. "It's a long story..." As Zoni began bringing seating arrangements and snacks for everyone, he chuckled. "Well, it all begins on Veldin, under the care of a nurse-bot I called Nana..."
I like him already.
Um, how did she know that? Twilight's friends didn't know, and Vashiir just met her.
How many games are there left to cover, or are we returning to Equestria soon? Nice chapter, by the way.
And this is the point where the characters read their own story, it would be faster than trying to explain it to them
Well this seems to be a big "wrench" in how things could go. Hopefully Ratchet's parents deaths where not ment to be a fixed point in time and the duplicates are not enough.
7043419
Whose to say Vashiir didn't have her own BBBFF?
My god. I LOVE Ratchet's father.
7043442 I can work with that until Tat gives us an explanation.
7043419
Because Vashiir is a Mom. Moms get these things.
7043456 And that, I can live with.
Welp, looks like Shining and Qwark are gonna hafta fight over that title.
7043502
The latter.
I love Kaden coming up with all these devices to help him but forgetting the key thing of his arms don't work
This line doesn't seem to read right to me, I keep reading it as meaning "who is causality's bitch" when I think it is supposed to mean "who made causality their bitch" Anyway screw it, great chapter. Kaden really seems like the type to find really complicated solutions to simple problems
7043537
who's = who is
whose = belonging to whom
I'm picturing Kaden with the voice of Team Four Star's Vegeta.
I forgot, what happened to the bots from Deadzone?
By the way, Insomniac games owes you a debt. Thanks to this story I bought the collection for PS3 since I had never played them before.
7043614 I did mention being something of a savant when it comes to the LoK timeline...
It's very simple for me. Everything just settles in place. It helps to remember that Defiance is a direct continuation of SR2, with Kain stuck in the distant past time of the original Serafan uprising while Raziel has been drawn forward by The Still Center of the Spinning Wheel to the time of Blood Omen. Raziel visits Kain's tomb, and overhears one of Mortanius's final messages to Kain from the end of Blood Omen.
Stable Time Gordian Knot.
Unrelated to the ongoing conversation regarding the complexities, or relative lack thereof from a nonlinear nonsubjective viewpoint, of the Legacy of Kain timeline:
This was a great chapter! I could barely stop laughing.
7043690 I just read the whole conversation... and I think my head may or may not be hurting...
Holy shit it's Schrodinger's Headache...
Also, I fucking hate time travel, for that very reason, and while I'm good at understanding the abstract, I refuse to touch time travel in any major way.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
1:31_3/19/2016
This sequence was hilarious!!!
Great chapter, excellent family bonding. I can't wait to see Vashiir meet Ratchet's prospective harem, I can see her sitting them down for some ground rules and certain things that must be avoided. I can also see her groaning as Kaden, Twilight, and Ratchet start bouncing ideas off one another and need to be reined in before they break the universe. Hmm, does she have a personal wrench like Twilight, Ratchet, Kaden, and Alister do??? Or do lady Lombaxes have a different tool they keep on hand???
7043419 MOMS KNOW THINGS!!!! Didn't your mother ever tell you to stop doing something without looking up from whatever she was doing?? Or know exactly when you were hiding something from her to avoid getting in trouble???
7043501 Shining is E/PBBBFF (Equine or Pony, Tats choice) and Qwark is HBBBFF for Human BBBFF.
7043853 It doesn't help when LoK as a series is THE EXAMPLE when it comes to Gambit Pileup. And Gambit Roulette. Kain spends pretty much all of the the Soul Reaver games trying to 'Screw Destiny'. After a few massive gambits, he SUCCEEDS. The Catch? That was EXACTLY what the other schemers were hoping he would do, as it furthered their own plans.
That's the note for it on the Gambit Pileup page. This series includes EVERY SINGLE TYPE of gambit, sometimes all at once being used by the same character. Pretty much there are only three major characters that aren't Chessmasters. 2 of them die before the start of the first game.
Interestingly enough it has a very realistic morality for its characters. NOBODY'S hands are clean in that game, there are no saints. Janos is the nicest guy there and one of the few non-chessmasters in the series. He's also murdered brutally before the first game even starts. However even he can't claim to be clean. As the vampire puts it 'One must feed from time to time...'
happy to see the family reunion but cant wait for Twi to finally get back to Equiis and start making massive changes lol
Now all we need is Twi talking with Vashiir about the girls who twilight thinks would make good wives for ratchet
This has to happen at some point.
Actually, Ratchet isn't his real name, but a name he gave himself later on, after he was sent to Veldin. Maybe you should change that to "Well, I remember hiding my son before Tachyon was about to kill me,"
So hang on. Kaden is like some super-scientist, brains upon brains, but all that brainpower comes with single-mindedness. He's like an absent minded professor, but when dragged away from his lab, usually by his loving and sensible wife, he appears to care a great deal about his friends and family, and--
OH BY THE POWER COSMIC, KADEN IS REED RICHARDS!
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/9/92/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_570_page_00_Reed_Richards_(Earth-616).png/revision/latest?cb=20100117192027
7043513 I remember that episode, and I must ask, did you feel like calling him The Troll afterwards? I kinda did.
7044523 True, but there was this one bit of his prep-work that kinda felt trolly to me, you know the one.
7044559 Huh... all ye how wish to avoid spoilers, look away now.
Well, after he was talking with that group of people that crew a human shaped robot, the captian asks if they can help. Doc says no, leaves, then pokes his head back in the door to say "Well, there is one thing". I understand what they did when they showed this, they showed the first half before the episode and the rest after to build tension, but all he had to do was look depressed, then look up with his smug grin and and say the exact same line. Leaving then coming back is just being a troll.
Any chances that Kaden will meet Stark? Because that's sure to be an interesting meeting.
7044638 yeah, an interesting meeting...that could potentially rip the multiverse to shreds and then weve got the Twilight Doom Scenario times nine thousand and six...
7044091 is Quark human? his basic body structure would suggest it, but aspects like his hands contradict ur suggestion...he doesnt have enough fingers and his hand structure is wrong...
7044724 It's probably easier to explain him as a human as opposed to a different race.
Kaden is going to be slightly miffed that his granddaughter modified his personal hoverboots before he had a chance to.
7044328
Two things.
One, as you'll recall, the paperwork in Aphelion's glovebox back during the 'Tools' arc listed 'Ratchet Gyro' as the son of Kaden and Vashiir. So I already tweaked that.
Two, Azimuth addressed Ratchet as Ratchet before he introduced himself.
I think I'm going to enjoy how you portray Ratchet's parents. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
Yyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeaah... About 124 chapters and nearly 200,000 words worth
The only things I have to complain about on this chapter was that it was so brief and mainly consisted of dialogue with very little framing for the actual scene to build visualization around...
7044354
Hmmmm..... I dunno.... I'd say he's more like a Mix between Reed Richards, and maybe the Doctor....
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/glee/images/6/61/Doctor_who_wave_hello_hi_gif.gif/revision/latest?cb=20130703204048
7044158 ... This sounds like the kind of thing that you would get if you got tzeentch drunk...
Really now? I didn't notice.
How am I still reading this.
So... AWESOME!
I remember when i started reading this while it was at the second game.
Timey wimey stuff gives me a headache....
7050510 My thoughts exactly! I'm almost invested in this as I was reading both Fortresshy stories.
7148343 We need illustrations for this fic.
Failing that, I'd kill for membership in an audio cast.
Yay for family reunions! <3
Love the reunion. Did this happen in any way shape or form in the games?
8494481
Unfortunately not.
8494484
I love the fact you did this.