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// Interlude: Battle's Aftermath 
// Story: Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
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Following Emperor Nefarious' defeat, and apparent destruction since there was nothing of him left, Rivet was able to let out a sigh of relief at long last, as she had finally shown everyone that he was a coward and that his rule was something they didn't have to be intimidated by anymore. While she was happy to finally bring this long battle to an end, and knew that the Resistance would be allowed to disband at long last, part of her mood was soured by the loss of the dimension she had called home for a long period of time, even if many planets had survived. She was still unsure as to how the mysterious godly figure had been able to do everything she had done, sending their enemies back through the rifts that they had come out of while also having the power to move multiple planets into a new dimension, placing them in perfect orbit so nothing bad happened to their races, but at least those she had fought to protect were just fine. Even the planets that were part of a numbered system, like Corson V or Torren IV, had their numbers altered already, in the span of a few seconds, which was impressive and rather shocking that the figure had been able to do so much so quickly.

In addition to all of that she ended up sitting on Kit's left shoulder, as the two of them had decided to talk after the battle had ended, because there were a few things they had needed to get off their chests before worrying about the future, even if there were some people she needed to talk to.

"Rivet, our parents are here." Ratchet said, as he had given his sister some time to think about the information they had just obtained, in fact he was still trying to wrap his head around the figure's powers, since they were so far beyond what he was used to seeing with his sworn siblings.

Rivet nodded, as that was something that had come as a surprise to her, even with Clank's memories and what Ratchet had said before this point, where she slipped down Kit's arm, in fact it made a good slide when the warbot was still, and found the two Lombaxes that had caught her attention earlier. She couldn't help but cry at the sight of them, as she had thought for the longest time that she was an orphan or an unwanted child that had been abandoned, even with some vague and hard to recall memories of her early years, but Ratchet had burst those ideas to pieces and seeing her parents caused her to rush into their arms. Ratchet smiled as he stood there for just a few seconds, letting Rivet finally meet the parents that he had told her about, before joining them as well, because this had been his goal for the longest time, finding her and bringing her home, and now his family was finally put back together. Autumn and Starswirl, on the other hand, remained nearby with Clank and Kit, the former needing some work to be restored to his previous state, though they were happy to see that their brother was overjoyed by what was going on, as he had worked hard for this and they weren't about to interrupt, not after everything that had happened so far.

As they stood there, however, both of them glanced out at the other members of their kind that were still lingering over in the battlefield area that their foes had created, though the only one who was no longer present, save for the one who had saved both multiverses, was the Death Goddess.

"So, any idea who that was and why she was able to do all that?" Autumn inquired, because that had been on her mind for a while now, a figure whose power they were unable to feel and whose power was powerful enough to allow them to do all sorts of mysterious things, especially restoring the barrier between dimensions, moving planets to a new position in a new universe, and containing all the damage in one universe before erasing said damage in seconds.

"No... and I have the feeling we'll never know the truth." Starswirl remarked, which both annoyed and interested him, since it meant there was more to the universe than what he and the others knew right now, but there was a boundary that neither of them would be able to cross, a whole realm of knowledge that would be unobtainable to them, before he focused on the good news, "However, it does seem like we found our people as well... maybe we can learn more about where we came from and maybe meet our parents as well."

"Maybe I could be of assistance?" a voice said, where they found that the purple dragon mage was standing nearby, with the rest of his group of four landing right behind him, no doubt because one or more of them had something to discuss with them and Ratchet, though Starswirl found that he carried a powerful staff in his right hand, "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Spike, with my sister Ember, our brother Spyro, and his girlfriend Cynder... that's with a 'y', not an 'i'. I've spent some time studying the magic that displaced Ember and I, along with the magic that caused us to regress to a younger state so we could grow up with Spyro, and be the same age no less, and I'm fairly sure that I can undo the magical seals on your memories."

Starswirl and Autumn glanced at each other for a moment before deciding that this might be a good thing for them, since it was possible that this dragon knew them before whatever brought them to Veldin, though as they agreed with that their brother and Rivet collected Clank and the Dimensionator. Once that was done they backed away as Kit returned to her base form, allowing everyone to gather near where the other dragons were standing, allowing Spike to work his magic on them as he focused his magical energy and they found that the staff glowed as well. In the following moment they found magical runes forming on the ground around their hooves, forming a circle around each of them so the memories of one didn't mix with the memories of the other, though what surprised Starswirl was the amount of control that Spike held over his power, meaning he had to be an incredibly powerful mage. Following that thought he found that the energy formed blue cylinders around him and Autumn, which surged into the air, and he discovered that they had white bits inserted into the mix, no doubt to help the spell, where he closed his eyes as he allowed the spell to work it's magic, just like he knew Autumn had to be doing as well.

"That should be good enough: Memory Recall!" Spike stated, where the energy vibrated before their eyes, pulling closer to the pair of Equestrians they had discovered after finally uncovering the source of the cracks in reality, though he smiled as he felt the spell work, awakening the long forgotten memories that were inside the pair.

Ratchet and Rivet found that not a few seconds went by before the spell disappeared, allowing their siblings to emerge without delay, though while Ratchet could see that nothing was different about them he noticed that there was a ever so slight change in how they walked and talked. It was a sign that their old lives had been restored to them, or the memories based on what Spike had said, where he could see that it would take some time for them to get used to everything that had been restored to them, to which he handed the Dimensionator to his father before picking up Clank. Ratchet's first action was to repair Clank's missing arm and fix his body so he wasn't stuck in his backpack form, something that was easy for him to do since he had some experience doing this, in fact Clank trusted him enough to do so, but the little robot did want a golden arm, causing Rivet to chuckle. Orvus did show up during the work and helped link the new arm back to his old form, allowing him to take on his own warbot form once more, something that surprised Rivet when she saw it, not to mention she was disappointed that this had been kept from them since it would have helped with the Pirates, but at least he was back to his own former glory.

Orvus also offered to restore Rivet's right arm, since he suspected that she might be torn between keeping the metallic one she was used to or going back to her missing limb, where she decided that, for the time being, she would remain on the fence about it, though Ratchet knew she'd stick to the robotic arm. As he considered that, however, he also knew that Rivet might ask Autumn to either make her a new or upgrade her existing one to a new level that was beyond what she was used to using, where he was actually curious as to what Autumn made for her. Kaden and Millie, however, were fine with their daughter's decision, since it was hers to make, while Alister informed her that he wanted to train with her in the future, as he wanted to see how she fought with her hammer, since it wasn't a weapon that most Lombaxes used, which they could confirm due to the other Lombaxes they could see. Rivet asked her father what was going to happen now, due to all of their race returning to this dimension, where he informed them all that he would have to speak with the rest of the Council, as this wasn't in any of their projections on what might happen when the Dimensional Cataclysm happened, before getting back to them on the matter.

While they talked Starswirl found that the Plumber had returned as well, though he spoke with Gary about everything that had happened so far, but he suspected both figures would steer clear of Ratchet for some time, to be sure he didn't hit either of them for allowing Rivet to be hurt all those years ago, if he still cared about it anyway.

Once he and Autumn were done thinking about their old lives, in fact Starswirl was surprised by how many years he had to go through, they joined the others in cleaning up the mess that Emperor Nefarious and the enemy army had caused in their attempt to take over all of reality, even if it meant sacrificing an entire multiverse to do so. Now that neither of them had to worry about the dimensional damage they were able to use their full magical power at long last, where the pair did so to help move rubble or tend to anyone who was wounded, since a number of soldiers had been wounded during the battle for the multiverses. Kaden did have to correct one thing, Emperor Nefarious had been about to endanger the omniverse, as in all of creation, though he was happy to see that, in the oddest way possible, that their foe had been taken care of before he could do any real damage with the Dimensionator. He, much like the rest of the group, had no idea who the visitors were, the ones who put a stop to the end of the omniverse, and suspected that Lady Sunset was quite literally a creator god who had the power to create and destroy whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, but it was hard to confirm his thoughts since she had disappeared so suddenly.

In addition to that Ratchet and his siblings got a chance to speak with Spike's group as they fixed what could be fixed and helped those who were in need of assistance, finding that the four dragons and their friends, of which there were many due to the number of adventures they had been on, were the heads of a massive army. Spike explained the situation to them as they worked, as there was a gigantic demonic army, somewhere in their vast universe, that was apparently in the process of getting ready to invade their home planet, Equus, and the planet, somehow sensing the impending danger, had selected all sorts of heroes to displace. The goal was to not only solve the problems of the area they were sent to, the adventures that they went on, but also to gain all sorts of skills and allies so that when the demons finally attacked they would be ready to defend themselves and return the favor. There were plenty of others who needed to be found and convinced to return to Equus, which was currently what Discord was doing right now, as he was traversing the universe to track down the rest of the Displaced so he could convince them to come home for a time, at least to learn this information before returning to the planets they had called home for a time.

"Take Tirek, for example, Discord said that he's taken control of an entire world and has no interest in our plight... yet, if you paid attention earlier, you would have seen him anyway." Spike continued, as there was so much to cover and he could tell that Starswirl, at the very least, was following his explanation and even nodded his head, showing that he understood what they were being told, with Autumn making notes on the matter, "It stands to reason that he sensed what was coming and came to see what was going on, either to help prevent it or to gain more power for himself... given who we're talking about, well,  I'm guessing it's the latter."

"He was ever the problem, and it seems like that's still true to this day." Starswirl said, though he wasn't surprised by this information, as Tirek was definitely a problem child, in a manner of speaking, and he was also expecting him to have plans for the rest of the omniverse, especially after the display of power that Lady Sunset had demonstrated, before something caught his attention, "Tell me, who are the strange humanoid dragons who joined the battle? The ones who are standing near the blue skinned individuals with hooves, the muscular green skinned figures, the little fox people, and the rest of the races that they're currently standing near."

"Oh, the Dracthyr? Recent additions from Azeroth, the planet Rainbow and Spitfire were sent to... we're still learning about them, so there's not much to tell you." Spike replied, which was the truth, Azeroth was full of mysterious beings and races that everyone was still learning about, even the displaced who had been sent there were still trying to figure everything out, even if it took some time to do so, and the Dracthyr were the strangest race yet, "Anyway, it seems that everyone has been accounted for and the civilians have been accounted for, so I guess it's time for us to head back as well."

"I can help with that." Kaden said, where he lifted the Dimensionator as the Plumber stood nearby, meaning they likely knew where to open some rifts to, allowing everyone to head back to their homes before they worried about the next crisis that endangered all of reality.

Sure enough Kaden was able to use the Plumber's knowledge of the dimensions to pinpoint the various worlds that many of the allied heroes had come from, allowing the group to watch as the Death Goddess and many others returned to their new homes, before Starswirl and Autumn braced themselves for whatever awaited them on their home planet.