//------------------------------// // Arsenal: Zeldrin // Story: Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes // by Blackdrag-rose //------------------------------// Upon their return to the Phoenix, and their starship was left nearby, Ratchet, his family, and Sasha discovered that the news was already covering Nefarious' attack on Metropolis, but while it seemed like people were happy that the Rangers were able to save them they were acting like Nefarious had won... even Sasha's father was acting like he was half robot, with all sorts of fake prosthetics, to gain more supporters. "I don't believe this! Everyone's acting like Nefarious has already won!" Sasha remarked, as she was shocked by this, just like Ratchet and the others were surprised by the discovery, especially when they considered the fact that her father seemed to be buying into Nefarious' plans as well, instead of supporting the Rangers and the heroes who had brought him Qwark. "If we don't find that Biobliterator soon, we're all going to become his slaves." Starswirl stated, because he and Autumn were sure that Nefarious had set some sort of code into the machine's coding and made it so anyone, no matter who they might be, would obey his orders after their transformation, or at least were influenced by his words, like Skidd was, after all Al discovered so far. "Wait a second. Before the star cruiser blew up, didn't Qwark say he was trying to find something?" Sasha asked, where she recalled what Ratchet and his family had told her and the others after their visit to the Zeldrin Starport, Qwark's last words to them before he went on his dangerous mission, which they knew ended with his untimely death. "Yeah, he did... it's a long shot, but I guess it's worth checking the area out." Ratchet said, taking a moment to think about the idea in question, where he was sure Nefarious might have some soldiers waiting for someone to come salvage the wreckage of his cruiser, before he sighed, "The cruiser went down on Planet Zeldrin... we'll go check out the crash site and see if we can find whatever Qwark was looking for. I mean, I'm not expecting to find anything, given the amount of time we had when Nefarious teleported off the ship, but if I've learned anything over the years, and I've learned a lot, it's that you never know what might happen." Autumn and Starswirl knew what he was talking about, better than Clank or Angela did to be exact, that anything could happen during their visits to the planets that were connected to one of their adventures, like how they awakened all sorts of powers when Qwark betrayed them the first time. Since they were dealing with someone who didn't like Qwark, and no doubt wanted proof that he was successful in taking down his own foe, there was a good chance that this simple visit to Zeldrin would be anything but simple, rather he was expecting trouble. As such the both of them, not to mention Angela, agreed with him, trouble was likely waiting for them in the area that the cruiser's fragments had landed in, so they had to be ready for whatever troops might be down there and whatever obstacles might still be active, since they had no idea if any of the traps had survived. Sasha looked like she wanted to go with them, as she must have enjoyed fighting beside the family, though for now it looked like she was going to remain as the captain of the Phoenix, to keep an eye on the situation they were dealing with and what could be done to counter Nefarious' dark plans. With that done, and there was nothing else for them to talk about, Ratchet and his family regrouped at the Star Explorer and returned to their starship, allowing him to pull away from the ship before heading for Zeldrin, allowing everyone to get a bit of rest before reaching their next destination. What Autumn discovered about the planet in question was that it was one of the low populated planets, though despite such a thing no one really knew what sort of natives lived on this planet, as they preferred to stay away from those with more advanced technology. She guessed they were like the natives of Florana, though the people Qwark had been living with, and leading to be exact, had more technology than one might expect them to have, though they had some pieces of information from the last survey group that visited the planet. What they knew was that the planet happened to have a dark purple atmosphere and had two moons orbiting it, though the main feature were the massive number of uneven rock cliffs that were scattered all over the planet, with vast oceans, which made her rethink her thought about the native race that might live on this planet. The others found out why a few moments later, as she was more certain that whoever actually lived on Zeldrin might be more of an underwater race, hence why they knew next to nothing about the race, they could be hiding and keeping themselves hidden, so they might never know the truth. A few moments later Ratchet touched down on a metal pillar that looked like it could have been a fragment of the massive Leviathan, which was currently resting between two large rock mountains, somehow still mostly intact after Nefarious' trap tore it to shreds, and they climbed off after he turned off the ship. "I'm sure we'll find something useful, given that we have company." Angela commented, where she gestured to the area in front of where they landed, as there were a number of robotic soldiers guarding the lone path that lead to the side of the Leviathan, and given the number it was clear that Nefarious was worried that something important had survived, which he couldn't let anyone else claim. "Yeah, no villain would send this many soldiers to salvage a wrecked base, not unless something important was left behind in said base," Autumn said, as she agreed with Angela's comment, it made sense when one thought about it and she could see that Ratchet, Clank, and Starswirl agreed with what they were talking about, before she shifted her stance, "Come on, let's see what sort of information Nefarious is trying to reclaim." What they discovered was that there was a magnetic path to the right for them to take, another way down besides simply jumping over the edge of the platform Ratchet had landed on, though as they reached a Vendor, which must have fallen out of the Leviathan, some of the robots fired on them. Starswirl threw up a barrier to protect them for a moment, just to give Autumn and the others a chance to see if any new weapons had arrived, though when they found that nothing new had arrived, making them wonder if they had all of the toys that would be available during this adventure, he turned his magic on his foes and turned the fragments of the barrier into shards of ice that took his targets down. After that he found that the others moved forward, firing on the soldiers that were in front of them and the small shock bots that were trying to hit one of them while they were distracted, though when a larger force moved into the area in front of them things got a little interesting. By that Ratchet meant that he, Starswirl, and Angela stepped back as Autumn whipped out the RY3NO for a moment and loosed a volley of rockets at her foes, wiping out the large invasion force that had been sent to smash them into the ground, and once that was done she stored it away before they resumed their mission. One thing they discovered was that there were a fair number of components scattered around the mountain that Ratchet had landed on, some in decent condition and would fetch a good price on the market, though as Ratchet and the others walked Autumn continued to weave her magic through the air as she claimed new pieces, as she intended on upgrading their starship, maybe to the point of giving it a name. "These guys have been here for a while, that much we can tell at a glance," Ratchet said, after taking out another group of robotic soldiers, along with one of the larger floating torso robots, though as those words left his mouth he focused on the wreckage that was around them and what it caused him to think about, "so you would think Nefarious would salvage the rest of the wreckage, instead of ignoring everything else... whatever Qwark was looking for has to be incredibly important for Nefarious to disregard the rest of his wrecked cruiser." "Maybe we'll find a full copy of his battle plans." Starswirl remarked, as that would be grand in the scheme of things, due to the fact that they would be able to topple Nefarious' plans if they knew exactly what he was planning, which was why he was hoping he was right. "That would be nice, given how in the dark we are." Angela stated, showing that she agreed with the idea that they were clearly thinking about right now, figuring out more about Nefarious' battle plans so they could tear them down and bring ruin to his attempts to conquer the Solana Galaxy. The rest of the family nodded their heads before moving forward once more, blasting the soldiers that were in the way, as none of Nefarious' forces were going to stop them from figuring out what sort of information Qwark died to obtain, hence why the robots fell as they moved forward. Eventually they came to a lift that looked like it would bring them into the main section of the fallen starship, so the family made sure to blast any enemies in the area before using it to enter Nefarious' ruined ship, finding that, it too, was full of robotic guards that were looking for something. They really had no idea what it was that Nefarious was searching for, just that they knew it had to be incredibly important given all of the soldiers that had been sent here to retrieve it, so they were more than happy to eliminate more of Nefarious' forces. On the other side of the ruined starship, however, Ratchet and his family paused for a moment as they spotted an escape pod, which meant so many things and made them wonder what in the world was going on, but it seemed like no one else had noticed it yet and made sure the robotic soldiers were wiped out before doing anything else. "An escape pod... how did all of us miss this?" Ratchet asked, referring to the fact that Autumn and Al had looked for such a vessel before giving up on Qwark, though as he said that he and Angela noticed something else, there was a set of large footprints that could only belong to one person. "I don't know, but we know one thing: Qwark's alive." Angela replied, gesturing to the tracks for a moment, though as she did that Clank disengaged from Ratchet's back and approached the pod for a few seconds, but all of them felt the same, it was a sense of betrayal that Qwark had survived the explosion and fled for his life. Clank found two things as he studied the pod, the first being a warm Crotchetizer, which he didn't touch, and a screen that displayed a message, that being Qwark, dressed up as a lady, calling for a taxi to take 'her' to an undisclosed location, not to mention bribing the guy to keep quiet about this. "You know, I was hoping that the events in Bogon would have shaped him into a better person... it appears that this time I was mistaken." Autumn commented, where she let out a sigh as she found what appeared to be a data disk, which had to be what Qwark had seen and had gone back for on the Leviathan, though he left it behind for them to find in due time, no doubt a final gesture to them, or something like that she assumed. "Well, we had best deliver this to Al and see if he can figure out what's on it." Starswirl said, though he agreed with the rest of his family, he was disappointed in Qwark's actions and the fact that he wasn't saying anything to his own team, after all his talk of trying to get back in the hero business with Nefarious' defeat, "However, we should avoid mentioning him to the others, as it'll break their morale... we can mention him once we find him, if such a thing comes to pass." The others nodded for a moment before they made their way to the top of the nearby tower, allowing them to use a lone zip line to get back to the ship and return to their starship, though as they headed back to the Phoenix they got a message from the Rangers, who had been assigned to the battleground on Aridia. Apparently Nefarious tried attacking it, or rather his Tyhrranoids did for some reason, and they were called in to deal with it, which they did so with flying colors based on what they were hearing, and one of the Spies sent over something for them. What it was, as Autumn discovered, was one of the Warp Pad devices she had sent the schematics in some time ago, before the events in Bogon, that allowed one to put down a warp point and teleport to it, usually used for fleeing to a safe place, put could be used to solve puzzles, based on all the testing Gadgetron did. It was a 'thank you' for everything she had done for them, which told her that they might need it at some point in the near future and she thanked them for it, though they were happy to hear that the Rangers had no need for their assistance this time around. With that done they returned to the Phoenix and quickly tracked down Al, where Ratchet handed over the data disk while Autumn claimed another weapon, the Qwack-o-Ray, before they discovered that Al found an unknown edition of the four piece Qwark Vid-Comic series, an unknown fifth that only has a single copy. One other thing they discovered was that they had brought Skidd to the prison cell in the room Sasha had given them, and that it was possible to reverse the process he had been forced to endure, before Al focused on the Omega Class Asymmetric encryption that was on the data disk, which he claimed was a worthy challenge as he headed to the bridge to get to work. After that Ratchet slipped the comic into the console and found that it picked up after the last one ended off, the seemingly broken or edited ending of Nefarious' first assault on Metropolis, with Qwark being knocked out by Lawrence and taken to one of Nefarious' bases, with the intent of killing him in a very painful manner. By the end of the comic he and his family discovered something interesting, Qwark fled to a hidden hideaway in the Thran Asteroid Belt, where the man decided to hide out for a time, so when his foe kept to the shadows he emerged and resumed being a hero for all of Solana. In that moment they knew what their next objective was, so Autumn left a note explaining that they were looking into a new lead and didn't want to bother anyone if it turned out to be worthless, and once that was done Ratchet set off for the asteroid belt, so they could track down Qwark and get some answers from the man.