//------------------------------//
// Commando: Smolg 
// Story: Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

As they flew away from Snivelak, and the defeated Thug Leader, Ratchet and Clank told Angela what happened on her lab, just so she knew what they had discovered, which admittedly wasn't a whole lot since no Thugs had been left to make sure they stayed in their cells, though she seemed pleased to hear that they had taken care of the corrupted defenses and that her place was safe, so once this was done she could reclaim it and update it, even if it would take some time to ensure it was ready for whatever the future might hold.

"So this Plumber you encountered... you've met him before, twice back in Solana?" Angela asked, as while the majority of the tale was interesting, especially since she had no idea who the other robot was and had to assume that it was someone from Solana, considering her interest in Clank, she focused her attention on the other part of their story, a person they had met and she had no knowledge of, as this was her first time hearing about him.

"Yes, and we have come to the decision that he is omniscient, especially since he said that he would 'see us in another year or so', no doubt referring to another adventure," Clank replied, though he could understand if Angela was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that she missed meeting such a person, thanks to the Thugs taking her to Gorn and then to the Headquarters on Snivelak, or even if she was weirded out by the existence of such a person, "we have also determined that aiding him in his endeavors might yield better results, both in terms of potentially cryptic advice about the venture we are currently on, advice about ourselves, or information on what's happening to Ratchet's sister."

"The Plumber said that his son was keeping an eye on my sister, so at least she's safe," Ratchet said, knowing that Angela didn't need to be told which sister he happened to be referring to at this moment, as it was his missing sister given that Autumn was sleeping in her seat of the ship, though he thought about something for a few seconds, "or at least as safe as she can be, given that his son might be using the same rules that he's using... which I'm sure means only minimum contact between them, if any at all, while keeping an eye on her from afar. If only he could tell me where she is, I'd figure out how to track her down and reunite with her..."

Angela could see that while any information regarding his missing twin was welcome, especially since he had next to no information on who she was and what she was up to at the moment, it also had to be annoying to learn that he wasn't actually allowed to be given the core piece of information that the Plumber knew, as it seemed like he knew where in this universe she might be. She found that Ratchet's strength was amazing, that he wasn't breaking down or raging at the rest of Bogon for everything that had happened so far, and noticed something interesting, he was, once more, touching his necklace, a constant reminder of what he was missing, while being an item he could focus on to keep calm and not break under the pressure of his anger. After that she informed them that she had some information on where they needed to go next, as she stole a transportable holodisplay from the Thugs Leader while she was escaping from the fleet, even if he was able to catch her in the process, and it seemed to be a personal log of some kind, like a journal, which was when he talked about Megacorp lying to him after he returned from the Distribution Facility on planet Smolg. According to his words and a small video he had filmed, revealing a massive number of crates with the emblem of the Protopet on the side, there was an insane amount of Protopets being shipped out, as he took a moment to count things in his head and claimed that the containers contained over three and a half zillion Protopets, a number that didn't exist, and that it was guarded by all sorts of hazards, before he said he'd be demanding a bigger cut of the action, once he was done with them.

"Disruption the shipments on Smolg would be a start, but we won't be able to do much for the containers that have been shipped out already," Angela commented, taking a moment to power down the holodisplay as she thought about what all of them needed to do next, while Ratchet and Starswirl seemed to be considering all of the information they had gained from this message, even if it was from the one who Autumn had just beaten in combat, before she steeled herself for the statement she was about to drop on her friends, "If we're going to have a shot at saving Bogon, from the menace that has been unleashed upon everyone, we're going to have to break into Megacorp Headquarters... and to do that I need to find my old ID Badge, which should be on my home planet."

"Then we'll make sure to take care of the problem, before recovering the badge," Starswirl said, as right now it seemed as if none of the planets were actually in danger of being devoured by Mr. Fizzwidget's insane and dangerous creation, or at least it sure seemed like it, so disrupting the shipments seemed like a smart thing to do first, especially since they might gain some more information while they were there and might find a way to bypass the defenses without needing the card in question.

Angela nodded her head as Ratchet agreed with his brother, to which he altered the course he had set earlier and set off for Smolg, because it was time they took matters into their own hands and hopefully saved some planets before they were put in danger, unlike their last adventure where they were just cleaning up Drek's messes before they caught up with him, before dealing with whoever happened to be behind this madness and brought peace back to Bogon.





While they were traveling to Smolg, and getting some rest since everyone was kind of exhausted after everything they had been through recently, Clank found another episode of Behind the Hero for them to watch, one that seemed to be the conclusion on Qwark's current series, and this time around Autumn yawned before forcing herself to sit up, showing them that she wanted to listen to this as well. According to the announcer it had been six weeks since Qwark had escaped from his cell, meaning he must have escaped sometime before Mr. Fizzwidget had called Ratchet and his siblings to Bogon, but all the man had to say was a few speculations on what might have happened to the missing former superhero, though that did cause the three of them and Clank to sigh, since he was more like a villain and less of a hero, but that was their opinion and the public seemed to prefer thinking about his former status. Some of the ideas were rather interesting, like being the victim of an overzealous fan, reminding them of Zurgo and what he had been doing when they first encountered him, did he go out of his way to beat a villain, to prove himself as a hero, and died heroically, or was he out there, among the stars, doing whatever he wanted without any consequences. In the end Ratchet and his siblings didn't care that much, because as of right now their focus was on stopping the Protopets and figuring out Megacorp's part in all of this, where Clank took a moment to turn it to Robo-Chef, a cooking show he liked, for the rest of the trip, allowing them to focus on the mission and whatever they might find on Smolg.

It wasn't too long after that they found their way through the atmosphere of Smolg, a planet shrouded with thick clouds or a thick layer of fog, preventing one from seeing what might be on the surface, before Ratchet found the facility that was on the Thug Leader's journal entry and located the landing pad that was right outside it, though they were amazed once they saw all of the large containers that were scattered around this place.

"Yeah, Megacorp is planning something big," Angela commented, though she was taken aback by the scene that was right in front of them, since it was far more than what they were expecting to find and not even the journal entry did nothing to prepare anyone for what they were seeing, all while Ratchet carefully pulled into the area that a weapon Vendor was in, as it was where the landing pad was, before she sighed, "Well, we had best get started."

"Sadly there are no new weapons to add to our arsenals," Autumn said, where she waited for Ratchet to stall the ship and climbed out, making sure not to go too fast since she was still recovering from what happened on Snivelak, allowing her to check the Vendor for new weapons, though with nothing inside the device she and her siblings restocked their weapons before facing the facility that was in front of them, "So, which path do you think we should take first?"

"The left... though are you sure your body can handle another planet, so soon after what happened?" Ratchet asked, as he wanted to make sure that nothing was wrong with his sister, as Starswirl seemed worried about something and that meant he might be thinking about Autumn's magical energies, since she seemed to have burned through them back during her fighting with the Thug Leader.

In response to that Autumn used the Jump Pad and launched herself over to the shipping area that Ratchet had picked out as he answered her question, to which he, Starswirl, and Angela followed after her without wasting time, finding an area that had all manner of crates and an electrical fence that they would have to bring down, where they discovered that many of the containers had other icons, no doubt the mutant guards that were supposed to be here. The first thing they did was find a button that deactivated the barrier in question, which was right in front of the fence and Angela frowned when she found it, since it seemed like a design flaw as she stared at it, before they found a Snapper enemy, a two headed mutant with purple armored skin with red pieces on top of that, an enemy Angela named, where they weren't surprised that she knew of them since she worked in the Genetics Division of Megacorp. Sure enough the group had to be careful when they engaged it, due to the fact that it had two heads and could attack two different enemies at the same time, but the Snapper was a single foe and it was facing the four of them, so it didn't take them long to bring it down and start navigating a path that had been formed in between all of the crates that were in this warehouse, even though it brought them to some small purple creatures with spikes on their back and sharp teeth in their mouths. The Grulches, as Angela called these enemies, were easier to take care of, since none of them had the same armored nature that the Snappers had, meaning they didn't have to worry about wasting too much ammunition on all of the smaller foes, even though they made sure to keep their guards up since there were some Laser Guards here, based on what Angela had told them before their visit to Boldan, so they were expecting to run into them at some point in time.

Some of the containers, as it turned out, were designed to open when they got close to them, revealing more Snappers for the group to take on and that was what they did as soon as they discovered more enemies to tackle, Angela once more showing that she had some skills as a hero as she avoided both of the heads of the Snappers and struck them before they had a chance to hit her, and both she and Ratchet had a smile on their faces as both fought beside each other, which put a smile on Autumn and Starswirl's faces as well. It was still odd that someone had gone out of their way to make a path that cut through the warehouse, even if it looked like they might have been dropped in from the ceiling or something, which all of them knew would open if that was the case, and finding some electric fences every now and then really just make them wonder why Megacorp had designed it like this in the first place. Even Angela, who had worked for Mr. Fizzwidget and his company, was having a hard time explaining what they were seeing as they explored the warehouse, as it looked more like someone knew they would be coming here, before Ratchet and his siblings even knew about this planet and the number of containers that were still here, and had modified the place into an obstacle course to slow them down, where Autumn knew that the only person who might know anything about their ventures on the other planets was Qwark. Of course that was an odd thought to have and there really was no evidence to suggest that it was true, save for their boss' behavior, as all of them agreed with Angela's feelings on that matter, before they refocused on blasting the enemies that happened to be standing in their way and used a button to open the way forward.

They eventually found a conveyor belt, not hooked up to anything in the warehouse, that needed a Dynamo to activate it, before finding that it brought them to a ledge that allowed them to progress deeper into the massive building, using one of the metallic cranes to reach another, even if the second brought Ratchet, his siblings, and Angela to an area they had to drop down into and discovered containers breaking as Snappers and Grulches marched on where they were standing, as if this was an ambush or something. Of course the interesting thing was that at this point in their adventure most of their weapons, if not all of them, had upgraded to their superior forms after being used in combat so much, like how the Lancer transformed into a more impressive gun called the Heavy Lancer or the Blitz Gun became the Blitz Cannon, which boosted their arsenal's power to greater levels and allowed them to be ready for whatever the future had for them. Autumn, while enjoying the upgraded power of their various weapons, pulled out her tablet and made a note about all of the upgrades she and her siblings were seeing, though the main reason she did such a thing was due to her jotting down that two forms of a weapon were interesting and was something that she was going to have to tell Gadgetron about, but she needed to make some modifications to her designs so the next generation of weapons could have five forms. Angela noticed that as they walked and inquired about it, where Autumn explained that Version 1 of the weapon, or V1, would be the base form and the weakest of the five, while Version 5, again V5, would be the strongest form and would be the one that took on a brand new appearance, similar to what they were seeing with Megacorp's weapons, which left V2 through V4 to gather all the power that the weapon needed before becoming it's final form.

Ratchet chuckled a little as he found his way to an Electrolyzer terminal and hacked into it, which allowed him to power up an elevator, as Autumn seemed to be just fine and it appeared that her creative mind was no longer bound by anger, but after they used the elevator he and the others found something coming down towards them, which caused Angela to step up and tell them that it wasn't a problem... revealing an egg shaped device, the 'Balloon-o-Gram', that contained a rather brief message for them, which was a welcome to Bogon and the coordinates for Grelbin.

"My original plan was to separate from you guys, so you could continue exploring Bogon and taking the fight to the Thugs, all while I gathered the tools to put the final stage of my plan into action," Angela spoke up, speaking to Ratchet, Autumn, Starswirl, and Clank for a moment, all while they watched as the Balloon-o-Gram deployed some balloons before blasting off, revealing that it's mission was done and that it was heading back to wherever it had come from, before she sighed as she realized what she was doing and how it deviated from every plan she had come up with, "While you did guys that I was going to head back to my home planet, Grelbin, so I could find some items to help us bring down the Protopet, using the Balloon-o-Gram as a way to contact you in case of an emergency... Davin must have learned we had been captured and that I'm still tearing all of my old plans apart, so he sent it to remind me of what I need to collect for the final assault."

"Then once we're done exploring the facility, and making sure we got everything we can get our hands on, we'll head over to Grelbin and get everything you need," Ratchet said, because if he knew Angela as well as he thought he did, which was only due to what she had told them so far and what he had seen during their time together, he was sure that there had to be a device or something on Grelbin that would put an end to the Protopet plague that was about to hit Bogon, and, if his experiences in Solana told him anything, it was better to totally explore an area before leaving, since there might be a new weapon or gadget, even coordinates for another planet, for them to gather.

"Then we can worry about assaulting Megacorp and putting an end to this mad scheme of theirs," Starswirl added, as that seemed to be their end goal right now, given that everything that happened to be occurring right now was the fault of the company that had brought them to this galaxy, instead of Angela as Mr. Fizzwidget claimed she was when he teleported all of them to Bogon, though once that was done they were going to have to figure out a way back home, or get used to living in this galaxy.

Angela glanced at them for a moment before nodding her head, as originally she would have been worried about trying to invade Yeedil and assault Megacorp's headquarters, especially since it had been designed to be incredibly hard to break into, if not entirely impossible, and after seeing what Autumn and Starswirl were capable of, which wasn't counting Clank's knowledge and Ratchet's combat abilities, in addition to her own skills, she was sure that they could actually break into the building and put her plan into action. With that done the group jumped onto the grind rail that was in front of them and let it bring them over to another part of the facility, one with a white domed area of some kind, even though it looked like the path in question would be heading around it and not inside it, and sure enough they found some Laser Guards patrolling this area, causing them to open fire on them without delay. After taking a pair of Laser Guards out the group found more of the smaller enemies, Snappers and Grulches, blocking the way forward, not that it mattered since Ratchet and Angela were the first to open fire as Clank noticed that the magical siblings kept their eyes open for any additional enemies that might try to sneak up on them, a wise idea since none of them had any idea what sort of additional defenses they might encounter during their time on this planet. The path in question brought them to a set of platforms that lead right to one of the smaller ships that were scattered around Smolg, transport ships no doubt, finding some Snappers resting in their way that they took care of without delay, before discovering some steps that allowed them to find an Infiltrator terminal, which happened to be linked to an electric fence.

After Ratchet hacked into the terminal, and brought down the barrier, they opened fire on the enemies that were behind it and continued following a path that had been built for whatever workers called this place home, even though it did bring all of them to another ship and connected them to the outside of a building, allowing the group to blast and smash their way through their enemies, before coming to a stop in what seemed to be the other side of the building, discovering what seemed to be a fragment of a gadget.

"Interesting, it's a piece of the Hypnomatic," Angela said, staring at the flat edge of the gadget in question, showing them that she did have some information about it to share, even though Autumn carefully stored it away since she couldn't use it right now, given that it was incomplete in some manner, where they paused for a moment as Angela thought about their discovery and what it might mean, "if we can complete it, by finding the other parts, we can use it on specific robots and open defenses that we normally wouldn't be able to get through... I think someone on Damosel might be able to fix it, but I have no idea where to find the other fragments."

"Probably on Grelbin and Damosel," Ratchet remarked, because it seemed like they were nearing the end of their quest in Bogon, since it appeared that the assault on Yeedil was coming up soon, so he had to assume, based on that thought, that there were two more pieces of the Hypnomatic for them to collect, something that Autumn agreed with since she nodded her head a few seconds after he said that.

Angela thought about it for a few seconds and figured that he was right, especially since this was his second adventure and knew more than she did, even if she was the one who worked for Megacorp and knew some of their secrets, to which they cleared out the area of Grulches before using a platform to return to their ship, allowing them to restock their ammunition once more before using a set of small floating pads, and some Swingshot targets, to reach another small transport ship, as it seemed to be leading to another part of this facility. The path in question brought them to an elevator that lead right to a Levitator pad, to which Ratchet and Clank used the wings in question to head forward as Starswirl surrounded himself and the others with a magical sphere, all so he could lift all three of them into the air so they could follow after his brother, who was navigating through the area while avoiding some vehicles that were moving through the air. Of course, due to the fact that Ratchet could only use the Levitator for a certain amount of time, he had to land every now and then before using the next pad that was in front of him, before they landed on one of the larger ships that were out here, likely full of guards or obstacles for them to overcome in some manner, and the only foes on the first vessel happened to be a Laser Guard and a single Snapper, something that caused them to frown before taking out both enemies. With that done the group headed into the center of the ship and found another Levitator pad for Ratchet to use, so as he used the wings once more Clank found that Starswirl kept the barrier up as he levitated himself and the others through the air, before it brought them to an area where a number of containers were resting, even though everyone opened fire on all of the guards before making their way to a structure that rested near their ship.

What they discovered, upon reaching the final structure before returning to their ship, was a Snapper that actually had one head instead of the usual two they were used to seeing, plus it was wearing a red sweater with a white scarf and happened to be smoking on a pipe with a monocle in front of it's right eye, where it took one look at their weapons and seemed to just give up on life as it sat there, almost like an actual person would. In the following moments they found out something, the creature fully expected someone to kill him and actually seemed to be asking for it to happen, since he seemed to have a desire for the feral nature of his own species, where Clank understood his plight since he had been designed to be one of Drek's warbots, even though he was actually a defect that not even the experts at Gadgetron were able to figure out, as no one seemed to understand why he happened to be different from all of the other robots in his series. While Angela was surprised by this piece of information, since no one had told her about Clank's past, the mutant crab was somewhat happy to have found someone who was similar to him, even though he humbly asked them for some Bolts for food, which turned out to be forty thousand and Ratchet paid it when they learned that he was willing to trade a holodisplay to them, one that just so happened to contain the coordinates for Damosel. The recording happened to contain Darla Gratch, who was one of Solana's reporters and must have been brought to Bogon on accident, reporting from Allgon City, where it appeared the Protopets were starting to spread and devour everything that happened to be in their way, though there wasn't much else to learn from the video as they claimed the holodisplay.

With that done the group returned to the ship and Ratchet set a course for Grelbin, as he had a feeling that they might be able to make the Hypnomatic on Damosel and that the last piece had to be somewhere on Angela's planet, so it would be a simple matter to track it down, claim the piece, and then head to Allgon City to deal with all of the Protopets before they headed to Yeedil to put an end to this madness.