When the Hyperion stopped in the space surrounding the Phoenix, which had been granted to them by the President, Ratchet and his family used their smaller ship to travel to the Phoenix's dock. Once they were aboard Sasha's ship Ratchet led the way to the area that Qwark was kept in, where they would find the game console that they could use to, hopefully, restore the former captain's memories. It was a long shot, considering that if they continued to show the image of Searing to him they might actually lose the man completely, so they had to accept that a video game was their only hope of bringing the man back to who he used to be. They were all still unsure if they even needed Qwark to help them defeat Dr. Nefarious, though Sunset did mention that he might have a secret or method that could help them, but she was willing to bet that there wasn't one.
In the end they sat around the game console, on the couch that happened to be sitting near Qwark's holding cell, where they had a brief discussion to see who would play the game, though it ended with Angela declaring that she wanted to give playing a video game a try. Ratchet, deciding to let her try, gave her a crash course on how to actually use the controller and how to play the game, to which Clank added that there were tokens they could find that would, somehow, give them bolts when they completed the game. It was strange, that much they could all agree on, but considering that everything that they had already been through this definitely wasn't the strangest thing they had seen.
Once Ratchet was done giving Angela the rundown on what she needed to do in order to play the game, and that all she really needed to do was make it to the end so they could see if it helped Qwark, Angela took a deep breath and started up the game. The moment they were through the opening sequence she got started and moved the character, though she rapidly died when she forgot how to make her character fight and had to start at the beginning. She was calm about dying the first time, as she expected that something like that would happen soon or later, though her mood started to sour when her character fell into one of the lower sections of the floor and was eaten by whatever creature was waiting there. Her third death was caused by one of the Space Pirates that had been put in the game, as it hacked the character to pieces as she tried to fight back, and the fourth dead was brought on by the rats that infested the ship.
A few more minutes passed, and quite the number of deaths, before Angela paused the game and took a deep breath, to which she handed the controller over to Ratchet.
"We'll be here forever if I keep playing," Angela said, though it was clear that she needed more practice before she would even consider playing another game, "Come on Ratchet, show us how its actually done."
Ratchet nodded and took the controller, to which he managed to navigate the character to the room with the episode's gun without taking a single hit. He then moved the character through the level, collecting the tokens that were scattered in his path and putting down every enemy that bared his way, before he made it to the room with the final boss. Angela, who was watching Ratchet play, happened to be taking notes on how he was moving the controller and what he did at a certain time, just so she could get better at the game and not die so frequently. Starlight and Sunset, on the other hand, merely sat on the couch and watched, though Sunset kept one eye on Qwark to see if any changes overcame him.
Eventually Ratchet toppled the boss and the game ended, allowing them to watch the credits of the episode, which happened to continue the story of Qwark's rise to fame in the next installment of the series.
"Well," a voice said, causing them to turn to the cage and find that Qwark was standing straight once more, though he happened to be looking in a mirror that the monkey on his shoulder was holding up, "who's that handsome devil?!"
"And now he's back," Sunset moaned, shaking her head as she got off the couch and headed for the ship's dock, "I'll be at the ship once your done updating him on what's happened."
"I see she still hates me..." Qwark said as he watched Sunset walk out of the room, without turning around to actually look at him, "though, to be fair, I guess I did technically turn her world upside down. So, um... what did I miss and why am I behind bars?"
"You thought that you were a monkey for a while there," Starlight explained, though before she could actually get to what the former captain had missed she noticed Sasha walking into the room, which meant that she needed to tell them something.
"I'll handle Qwark for now," Sasha told them, turning to Ratchet and Angela for a moment, "I need you to complete another mission while we get the Captain back in fighting condition. There's a battle arena called Annihilation Nation, where we've discovered that one of the recent prizes that they're offering for challengers is a Tyhrraguise, which apparently can let anyone disguise themselves as a Tyhrranoid. I would recommend that you head there, conquer whatever challenge that they throw at you, and retrieve the device, so that way we can use it for future infiltration missions."
Ratchet nodded and the group walked out of the room what would eventually become Qwark's, once he had recovered enough to actually use it, and informed Sunset of what they were doing as they climbed into their ship.
When they arrived at Annihilation Nation they discovered that there happened to be a rule that said that only one challenger could attempt the course at any given time, which meant that one of them was going to have to get their hands dirty. Sunset immediately backed out of it, because she had been forced into the arena twice in the Bogon Galaxy and she knew that she had two unfair advantages, her wings and her overpowered magic. Likewise Starlight opted out of fighting in the arena, mainly because she hated the idea of fighting in the arena despite the fact that they needed the device that they were offering.
In the end, however, Angela surprised Ratchet once more by offering to take on the course that would eventually lead to the arena, something that she was set on doing.
"I may not be good at video games," Angela said, tapping her weapons for a moment as she approached the course access point, "but ever since we've been together I've become more of a fighter and, believe it or not, I've actually gotten better at taking out my targets. This should, in theory, be relatively easy for someone like me to handle."
"Then you might as well take this," Sunset commented, levitating something out of her bag and handing it over to Angela, "I spent some time over the last year designing a new weapon just for you... something that I think you'll be pleased to have in the arena."
Angela smiled and took the weapon from Sunset, who then walked to where Starlight was sitting so they could watch her run through the obstacle course, before she turned back to Ratchet for a few seconds. Ratchet wrapped his arms around Angela for a moment, allowing Angela to calm down if she was too excited over what she was about to do, before planting a kiss on her cheek and heading to where his sisters were waiting. That was before he stopped halfway between them and Angela, to which he turned back to her with a smile on his face, which only made Angela smile back in return.
"Go and show them just how skilled you are," Ratchet said, to which Angela nodded and moved through the teleport pad, where she entered the obstacle course.
"Are you ready to play?" the announcer called out as Angela studied the path in front of her, "Alright! Let's meet our first contestant! Meet Angela Cross, one of the scientists of Megacorp from the Bogon Galaxy. She's here to see how our own arena measures up to the ones in her home galaxy... and to see if she can be the first to conquer our obstacle course!"
The fact that no one had conquered the course before her arrival should have been a way for Angela to know that this wouldn't be a walk in the park, but she had seen enough at the end of her previous adventure with Ratchet and his sisters. So long as Searing wasn't a part of the equation Angela knew that she had a strong chance at beating the course and claiming the gadget they had come for. She honestly didn't care what the announcer said about why she had come here, because she focused her mind on the task at hand and ignored him completely.
Once the announcer was done, and the course was officially open for her to start, Angela ran forward and jumped to the first platform that was waiting in front of her, making sure to get off of it before its flames torched her from below. She landed on the middle platform for a brief moment before pausing before the third platform, where the flames were still burning at the moment, though once the flames were gone she jumped to the one in front of her and then crossed into the building. She spotted a group of eight small robots, ones that were supposed to use blades to cut through enemies that came near them, so she pulled out the weapon she had been given and turned it on.
She was surprised to see a purple beam extend from the top of the weapon, though she was more surprised to see that a second beam extended from the bottom of the weapon as well. As the robots came at her she recovered from her confusion and used the weapon on her enemies, cutting them into pieces with ease until the entire room was cleared of them. She then pressed the button that was waiting in the middle of the room, which opened the door to her left, so she advanced through it and found an area that would force her to walk passed some laser stations. She used her left hand and pulled out her N60 Storm, using the gun to take out the turrets as she made her way through the small pathway that had been constructed in front of her.
When she reached the end she used the beam sword to cut down the larger robot that was waiting there, before she jumped up onto the next platform, where she found two more of the laser robots waiting for her. The N60 Storm proved to be useful in removing the enemies from her path, though she found a path that had flames coming from the floor waiting for her. She waited for a moment and then followed the flames until she reached the middle of the path, choosing to shoot down the laser robot from where she was standing before making her way across the rest of the obstacle.
The next room had more of the smaller robots, which were taken care of with the beam sword, before she moved through the right door and cut her way through both the swarm of small robots and the larger robot that was waiting in the next building. She then noticed that the final obstacle was one that involved sections of the wall that moved out to push people into the lava below, though she timed her jumps accurately and reached the end of the area without much harm coming to her. When she actually walked into the final area of the Death Course, which was actually much easier than what the announcer said it would be, she grabbed the first prize; the second Qwark vid-comic.
The arena itself, on the other hand, was what she expected it to be; an endless amount of enemies that rushed her from all directions and forced her to use something other than her new beam sword. She used her N60 Storm and various other weapons as she fought against the enemies that came at her, cutting them apart or forcing them to do the job for her with the Infector weapon. The gladiators seemed eager to have an opponent that could stand up to their barrage of attacks, though the few number of cuts that Angela sustained to her armor did nothing to stop her from bringing a swift end to their fight.
When the last of the gladiators fell, and there were no more for her to fight, she turned off the beam sword and accepted the prize that they had come for; the Tyhrraguise. She noticed that it was handed out by a celebrity that clearly didn't want to be here, as the robot star gave her the gadget and then left immediately. As Ratchet and the others joined her in the arena, which the announcer didn't argue with at the moment, the vid screen they used to communicate with others popped up beside them, showing Sasha once more.
"How's your progress going?" Sasha asked, as if she wanted to distract herself from whatever was happening aboard the Phoenix and they happened to be the best people to call.
"We've got what we came for," Angela replied, holding up the Tyhrraguise for Sasha to see, "though I may need to get some new armor soon... this one might be falling apart."
"Well, you'd all better get back to the Phoenix." Sasha told them, the annoyed part of her voice appearing yet again, "Now that Qwark no longer believes that he's a monkey, and is back in what he calls 'fighting condition', President Phyronix has put him in charge of the fight against Nefarious. Between us I think we should have just left him as a monkey and started planning our strategy to get rid of Nefarious, but I'm not in a position to make those decisions at the moment. Anyway, Qwark's called together the first team meeting... though something tells me he's got something stupid in mind."
Sunset held back what she was going to say to Sasha, because Qwark had been smart back in the Bogon Galaxy up until he had released Searing from her prison. There was no telling if Qwark was going to have a smart plan waiting for them or an idiotic plan... though she had the feeling that Sasha was right in her thinking.