Ratchet, Autumn, and Starswirl were allowed to rest for the rest of the afternoon, and into the night, but when morning arrived they were dragged out to the next planet Vox wanted them to tackle, though while both they and their friends had been given a light meal upon their return to the DreadZone station the ship had a decent meal waiting for them. It showed that Vox understood that keeping his captives fed, and not totally exhausted, was a key to making sure he got the money he wanted from those that were watching his show, maybe even convincing them to fork over more Bolts. One thing Autumn had found the previous night was that there was a trading card game of sorts connected to DreadZone, with the four best contestants, the Exterminators, being the rarest ones for someone to get their hands on. The Exterminators were Vox's best warriors, those who killed all the heroes once they reached the end of their usefulness to his network, and based on what Al and Clank were able to find so far they knew who the four were: Reactor, Shellshock, the Eviscerator, and Ace Hardlight.
Other than that they were left to their own devices on the transport ship, allowing them to think about what sort of danger might be waiting for them on Sarathos, though if it was anything like Catacrom Four Ratchet knew that it wouldn't matter in the end, they would smash through them and move on like nothing had happened, but there was one thing he thought about during their travel.
"Well, at least we figured out what happened to Ace Hardlight... hard to believe another hero has fallen to darkness, just like what we've seen so far." Ratchet commented, knowing that the guards were listening to their words and didn't want to give Vox any additional information on who they were talking about, since they had worked hard to put Qwark on a good pedestal after what happened during their first adventure.
"Indeed, twisted into a being of darkness." Starswirl replied, as he had been doing everything in his power to learn about Vox and his dark ally, even though they all knew that Vox was to blame for darkening such a warrior, turning him into a person who killed for fun and showed no remorse for what he had done over the years, "He and the other Exterminators will be hunting us and the other contestants at some point, meaning we might come into contact with him and his allies, so we'll have to be careful."
Autumn simply nodded her head as she listened to them, as there was nothing more that needed to be said, though while they traveled she found that Vox allowed contestants that were unfamiliar with the show to watch previous seasons, and found all sorts of planets were used for the show, especially ones that weren't resting inside the Shadow Sector, such as the world of Orxon. From what she could determine Vox must have made some sort of arrangement with Drek to use the factories that his contestants ended up blowing up or tearing apart, but with the insane Blargian gone there was no telling if he had the same agreement with the new leader, but she assumed he was just invading the planet for fun. Other than that it seemed like the sequence of planets was random, so one season's planets would be different from the ones of the next season, or the one before it, meaning it would be impossible for her and her brothers to figure out a pattern and see if they could get more information before reaching their destination. It would be a deviation from what they usually did, as whenever the three of them gained the coordinates for a new planet someone, usually her or Starswirl, would learn about it and tell everyone else what they were able to find, but that just meant they would have to learn everyone once the ship reached each of the planets.
What they discovered later was that Sarathos was an alien planet that might be a swamp, to some degree, and that there were several structures built by Vox's people, arranged as a new course for anyone who was sent here during their season of forced entertainment, and, sure enough, the guard insisted that only Ratchet and Starswirl head down, leading Autumn to observe from the transport ship.
Welcome back, DreadZone fans! Have we got a show for you! Dallas stated, where the siblings determined that, of the pair that did commentary on what happened in DreadZone, he had to be the one that did the introductions to each planet and his partner either said nothing or waited a while before speaking whatever was on her mind, On today's episode, Team Darkstar has been dropped onto the hellish alien world of Sarathos! Their ultimate goal: destroy a monstrous alien creature known as the "King Leviathan" and take it from me people, monstrous is putting it nicely.
Ratchet and Starswirl glanced at each other for a moment as they listened to him give them their objective, though before moving they accessed the Vendor and found a new weapon, the Hunter Mine Launcher, which reminded them of the Mine Glove that Autumn made and was produced during their first adventure. With the new weapon added to their arsenal the brothers headed down the path in front of them, where both of them were pleased to find that the first foe of this planet were the little green snappers they had fought in the past, so loosing a single mine from their new weapons was enough to take a group out. After that both of the brothers got a look at one of the new enemies that they would be fighting, large scorpion-like creatures, no doubt native to Sarathos, that had four legs, three eyes, and their tail split into three points, all with the ability to fire lasers or globs of acid at their enemies, which they knew about when the first pair attacked them a couple of seconds later. They were aggressive creatures and clearly didn't want people like them to be near them, hence why they lashed out so quickly, though it only caused the brothers to do the same thing, blasting their way through a few Leviathans that were in front of them, as they were sure that was what Autumn would call them.
One thing the brothers discovered was that the Leviathans were somewhat tougher than most of the enemies they had faced so far, during their time in DreadZone, and some even jumped out of what appeared to be acid pits, meaning there were other areas they had to worry about while they carefully made their way through the area.
It didn't take them all that long to reach the door that seemed to be part of the course they were following, where Ratchet pulled out their new Hacker Ray and used it on two orbs that were floating near it, allowing Starswirl to channel his magic for a moment as he formed a barrier between them and their enemies. When the door opened they found that it brought them to a central chamber that seemed to be natural, save for the metallic walls that had been added around the area, to which a number of the smaller snappers jumped out and charged at the brothers. For the first few moments Ratchet used the new weapon to lay mines and blast all of the small enemies into submission, especially since they jumped out of a pit of acid and had no idea that his trap was waiting for them, and once the last one fell a dropship flew in to deploy a couple of gladiators. Starswirl was waiting for them as he loosed a burst of magic and blasted the new enemies before they were able to fully deploy, even tearing the ship apart so it could be used again, which seemed to be the end of the challenge as Dallas proclaimed that they were moving onto the swamp, his favorite part based on what they heard.
As they headed through the open door in front of them Dallas informed the brothers that their next objective was to track down and commander something called the 'Puma', which had to be another vehicle created by Vox's people, though the pair said nothing as they restocked at the Vendor. With that done they walked own the path and opened fire on the foes that were waiting for enemies to appear, a Leviathan and a couple of snappers, which were easy to take care of since the amount of enemies in this part of the area wasn't overwhelming. As they did that Starswirl noticed that they were out in the open once more and that the path they were following had a force field in the way, guarded by a turret, meaning the courses were going to get tougher and tougher as time went on, causing him to grip his weapon as he and Ratchet moved further along the path. Sure enough when they reached the turret a dropship came to drop gladiators, so Ratchet threw an emp at their first foe and knocked out the turret, allowing his brother to blast it apart with a bolt of magical energy, so he turned his attention to the gladiators, who didn't seem afraid of the magic that Starswirl possessed, just like the foes he and Autumn had faced on Catacrom Four.
This was the first time that they had found enemies who weren't, to some degree, frightened of the magic that both of his siblings used during their adventures, meaning Vox must have warped their senses as well, to make them frightened of death by his hand, causing him to sigh as he focused on the task at hand.
Once the gladiators were taken care of, but before they could hack into the orbs that were around this area, several of the Leviathans and snappers leapt out of their hiding places and attacked them, causing the brothers to defend themselves for a few seconds, opening the way for them to blast them into submission. As soon as all of their current enemies were taken care of Ratchet hacked into the orbs and deactivated the barrier, allowing them to head up the ramp and found a group of snappers that failed to do anything to them, as Starswirl used a burst of wind around them to knock the smaller foes off the walkway. More joined the gladiators that were dropped by a new dropship, where neither brother was even remotely surprised to see such a thing, given what they had been through so far, but they opened fire on their enemies without delay, especially when a couple of Leviathans decided to join the fun. Even then it wasn't long before they found a pair of Swingshot targets that brought them to where another turret rested, and another dropship that deployed several additional gladiators, causing the brothers to fire on them as soon as they entered the area.
It took a few moments for them to take down their enemies, but in the end Ratchet and Starswirl were successful and that meant they had access to a new vehicle, the Puma, which wasn't as armored as the Landstalker, but it had four wheels, the back pair larger than the front pair, and had enough room for two people, meaning all of Vox's vehicles had to have room for two people.
Once they were inside the Puma, where Ratchet was in the driver seat and Starswirl took control of the cannon, and as the pair headed down the path they blasted through the snappers that were in front of them as the latter used their weapon to blast apart the dropships that moved into the massive area they were heading towards. Based on what Dallas had said they had to capture three security nodes, which were scattered around the flat area that was around them, so they could face the King Leviathan and then tackle the Dread Challenges before leaving, and based on what they were seeing right now all three of their targets had to be inside the modern structures. One thing the brothers discovered was that the guns of the Puma were just as powerful as the guns on the Landstalker, which meant that the cannon had to be as strong as the missile launcher that was on the other large vehicle, and the reason they knew such a thing was because Ratchet was able to blast his way through the gladiators with ease. While he did that Starswirl aimed the main cannon and blasted the dropships that were moving into the area, eliminating them and the gladiators aboard each one before they could even overwhelm the pair, which Ratchet was grateful for as he tracked down each of the nodes with Clank's help.
The nodes, as the brothers discovered, were guarded by snappers and gladiators, nothing too serious for them, and their skills surprised Dallas, Juanita, and the viewers, as they were able to overcome the defenders of the first node with a few moments, allowing Ratchet to activate it before heading out for the next one. Neither of them found much more guarding the second node, meaning it didn't take them long to smash through all of the defenders and turn it, though the third one had an enemy tank, a red Landstalker, guarding the node, which actually took a lot of punishment before it was brought down. Starswirl considered the idea of using his magic on the tank, since they didn't want to spend so much time on this planet and wanted to get DreadZone over with, but he decided not to for a time, choosing to wait for them to head over to the ramp leading to the Leviathan's domain before summoning his magic and forming a flaming bow. Ratchet found out why not a few moments later, there was a large group of gladiators coming at them from behind, so his brother loosed a flaming arrow into the air and it separated into a burst of smaller arrows that struck down his targets in a few seconds, all while blasting parts of the ground as well.
Once that was done they entered the Leviathan's lair and climbed off the Puma, finding that to challenge the King of the Leviathans they had to hack into all seven on the orbs that were around the platform, to which Starswirl lifted the Puma with his magic and deposited it elsewhere. With that done he and his brother opened fire on the enemies that were now coming at them, more snappers and some Leviathans, so neither of them were very worried as each one opened fire on their enemies and hacked into the orbs that would awaken their objective. The King Leviathan, as they soon discovered, was just a slightly larger than all of the other Leviathans they had found so far, and had red armor on top of it, which did bare the mark of DreadZone based on what Ratchet was seeing, so neither of them held back as they blasted the figure and avoided the attacks that were coming at them. Sure enough it wasn't long before Ratchet and Starswirl emerged as the victors of this event, something that seemed to utterly shock the announcers for a time, which was understandable when Ratchet thought about it, he had magic users on his side, before it was announced that they had survived and had completed the challenge.
Winning this campaign awarded them with another Green Medal, a device called the Cable Launcher, and the ability to head for Kronos, the next planet in their DreadZone season, though instead of leaving the brothers decided to tackle the Dread Challenges to earn some points and make Vox happy. The first one was right up Ratchet's alley, a Hoverbike event called Check Me Out, which was him using the vehicle to follow a series of rings and avoiding the explosives that had been put in his way, which the gun took care of in no time, and it wasn't long before he beat the challenge. The second, and last, challenge was known as Swamp Fever, where they took the Landstalker out and were tasked with eliminating the rest of the Leviathans, twenty-three of them to be exact, causing the brothers to climb into the vehicle and head out. It didn't take Ratchet and Starswirl all that long to track down all of the Leviathans and take each of them out, something that would no doubt cause some fans to cheer at them succeeding over all of their enemies and conquering the challenges Vox's team had come up with.
Once the Dread Challenges were done, and they were sure of that, Ratchet and Starswirl returned to the transport ship and headed back to their containment area, as it was time for them to rest and regroup with Autumn, Clank, and Al, all so they could prepare for whatever was waiting for them on the next planet.