Flying into the launch bay of the last ship in Drek's fleet, the trio's ship set down on the landing pad so they could disembark. "So where do we go from here?" Twilight asked.
"Now we must traverse from teleporter to teleporter," Clank explained, "going from one ship to the next until we reach the flagship so we can confront Drek directly."
"And...the reason we couldn't blow up the cockpit of the flagship from space to take him out?" Twilight pointed out.
"For one thing, our ship doesn't have any weapons," Ratchet pointed out.
Twilight drew forth her RYNO. "Strap me to the nose cone," she offered.
"For another, the fleet has a large amount of defensive weaponry," Clank countered, "and our ship has no weapons shielding. This was the only ship we could get on board without being shot out of the sky."
"I see," Twilight sighed. "It's just...I just want to go home and rest...get all this out of my system..." She shook her head. "At least tell me this doesn't have to be a stealth mission?"
"Nope!" Ratchet replied, pulling out his Devastator. "Blast everything that moves and force the locks."
"Sweet!" Twilight crowed, gripping her Omniwrench in her magic.
Clank shook his head. "Are you certain you two are heroes?"
Twilight giggled. "Action heroes, maybe!" She rushed to the teleporter.
The first ship passed easily. Two robots - one that needed to be fooled with the hologuises - and a room full of robodogs were easily dealt with. Twilight attempted her transformation spell on the robodogs, but they still became orange-chicken hybrids. Ratchet rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he stared at them. "What?" Twilight asked.
"Just wondering if they'd taste like orange chicken," he joked, earning a punch on the knee.
In the next ship, they passed the first room by having Twilight seal the side chambers so the robots couldn't get out to trigger the alarms. The second chamber was dealt with in the same way. Using the hologuise, they tricked the robot in the third chamber to lower the force field. After wrecking that robot, they went through the teleporter.
In the third ship, Twilight used her Swingshot to clear the gap first, as she could use her telekinesis to fire at the robot dogs on the other side mid flight. One RYNO volley cleared the next chamber. The hologuise got them through the forcefield to the next chamber, where they took the teleporter onward.
Once on the flagship, they had to go outside to get around a force field. Walking around the underside of the ship, Twilight projected a mobile magic wall as she had back on Kerwan to block the weapons fire of the other ships that came close to them. However, the weapons fire was stronger than she had expected, and the first shot broke the barrier into pieces. Dizzy from the feedback, she started to drift away from the ship as her gravity spell faded. Ratchet grabbed her and took her to another platform that led him into a hanger bay.
"Stay here and rest up," Ratchet instructed. "I'll handle the turrets." Taking the fighter jet inside, he flew out to do just that. By the time he returned, Twilight had regained her focus, but decided to husband her magical reserves for the actual conflict with Drek by clinging to Ratchet's back for the rest of their EVA.
Once back inside, Twilight dropped from Ratchet's back and fought her way through some robodogs to clear the path for him when he returned to normal vertical alignment. Entering the control center of the flagship, they began to stalk towards the Captain's chair. However, as they approached, an infobot came out from behind the chair, giving them the information that Drek was on Veldin, getting ready to press the button to blow up the planet.
"Not on my watch!" Twilight said firmly, and the group returned quickly to their ship.
Once on Veldin, the trio made their way to where the planet destroying laser was based. Along the way, they encountered Horned Toads, Blarg Elite troops, missile ships, and the occasional tank. All were dealt with quite easily with their combined arsenal.
When they reached an Invinco-lock, Twilight took the time to catch her breath while Ratchet hacked the lock. "Why couldn't we land closer?"
"There was not a safe landing pad closer," Clank explained.
"Besides, we don't know exactly where the laser is," Ratchet added.
"And it probably has defenses so landing on it would be a bad idea?" Twilight posited.
"Precisely," Clank agreed as the lock clicked open and the gate turned off.
Sighing, Twilight launched a fireball that cleared many of the hostiles before them. "Let's get going then."
They managed to make their way through the rest of the way with little trouble. The only major obstacle came when the only way forward was diving through a pool after filling it. Twilight grumbled, but eventually telekinetically anchored herself to Ratchet's tail and allowed herself to be dragged behind by the strength of Clank's Hydro-Pack. Once through, Twilight was soaking wet, dripping, and looked absolutely miserable as water weighed her wings against her sides.
"Not. One. Word," she scolded as Clank stepped onto an expansion platform.
"My lips are sealed," Ratchet promised.
"I do not possess lips," Clank pointed out as he expanded into immensity, carving a new path through.
Reaching a massive central platform, they saw Drek descend in a massive battle mech. "What the?" Ratchet asked in shock.
Drek laughed wickedly. "Imbeciles!" he crowed. "After all the trouble you've gone through, you're about to die right where you-"
"Shut up!" Twilight shouted. "Because of you, I've spent the last three weeks shuttling from planet to planet trying to save the galaxy! I've had my childish illusions shattered, been left for dead, and seen the worst the galaxy has to offer! And now I'm cold, I'm wet, I'm cranky, and I can't even perfect a simple transformation spell!" Her horn glowed as she ranted. "And on top of that, you've wrecked who knows how many planets through sheer stupidity! Whatever your reason for trying to build a new planet, buying a barren one and terraforming it to perfection would have taken under a week and cost a twentieth what you have to have paid to do all this, not to mention what you did to Pokitaru! And now you're giving me a headache! So you! Do not! Get! To talk!"
On her last shout, a blast of magical energy lanced from her horn and punched through the cockpit of the enemy mech, which promptly collapsed. After a time, a single sound was heard from within.
"Buk-KAK!"
A perfectly formed chicken wearing Drek's business suit hopped out of the cockpit, glaring at Twilight and looking a cross between mightily offended and enraged.
Twilight grinned widely. "I did it!" she crowed happily. "I perfected the chicken spell! Thank goodness my helmet automatically records the formula for these accidental magical discharges. Now I can see what I did right this time!"
Ratchet stared. "So...does this count as before fighting Drek?"
"She still needs to analyze the results, so no," Clank countered.
Ratchet snapped his fingers. "Darn."
"Besides, I do not even have 500 bolts on me to give you, so you should accept the draw," Clank pointed out.
"Alright," Ratchet relented. "So what are we going to do about the artificial planet? We probably can't leave it where it is."
"We shall investigate the laser and see what can be done," Clank suggested, heading for the laser platform, not noticing when his massive feet reduced the Drekken to a bloody smear.
At the laser platform, Twilight popped open an access panel on the laser unit and began analyzing the tech as best she could. "So what's the plan for all this, Clank?"
"I had thought we could use the planet destroying laser to destroy the artificially created planet so as to restore gravity stability to the solar system and end the threat of the Blarg armada," Clank suggested, gripping the side of the platform as he stood on the ground below, still gigantic.
"An interesting idea," Twilight murmured. "Shame about the planets damaged to make it, though. Most of them haven't begun completely destabilizing yet. If they could be restored, they could be saved at this point."
"Well, it's not like you can hotwire the laser to supercharge your teleportation spell to send each chunk back to the planet it came from, right?" Ratchet offered jokingly.
Twilight frowned. "Actually...that's not a bad idea!"
"It's not?" Ratchet said in shock.
"Any object has a certain intrinsic memory of the shape its supposed to be once it's been shaped," Twilight explained. "That's the basis of the reconstrunction spell I use to fix things in our home when they shatter. If I incorporated that spell into the laser fire, each chunk of the planet would seek the planet it was from originally to merge with it again. Combined with the teleportation spell, each chunk would teleport to the right planet to begin the reconstruction process! It'd be like the planets were never damaged!"
"If perchance you know a spell to create gyroscopic stability," Clank offered, "would that not combine with those spells to make any planet that has shifted from its original orbit and rotation return to its original courses?"
"It would, but I've never perfected such a spell," Twilight groaned.
"Perhaps you could use the gyroscopic stabilizer my gigantic form utilizes as a basis?"
"That could work!" Twilight said happily. "You just need to flip this laser around the other way, then I need to hook you up to it from underneath so I can super boost the power of the laser for this!"
Ratchet blinked. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked.
"Yes," Twilight replied. "After we fire the laser, Clank and I are probably going to drop like rocks, since the massive energy drain will force him to revert to normal size. Can you get down below and set up a bounce pad for us to land on safely?"
"Sure thing!" Ratchet said eagerly, repelling to the ground below from a nearby Swingshot target.
The firing went off without a hitch, save the force of the blast broke the laser down, causing it to explode, blasting them downward onto the bounce pad Ratchet had prepared. Looking upward, they saw the planet chunks vanishing in teleportation wakes.
"I guess we can only hope that worked right," Twilight muttered.
"We'll likely find out on the news tomorrow," Ratchet pointed out.
"Yeah," Twilight replied, yawning.
"Come on," Ratchet told her. "Let's go home." Scooping her up, he turned to head for their house. "You coming Clank?"
Smiling, Clank trotted along beside them.
Late that night, Clank was disturbed from his sleep mode as he heard Twilight fussing in her bed. Standing, he approached her. "What's wrong, Twilight?"
Twilight stilled. "Can't sleep without my plushy," she muttered.
"Where is it?" Clank asked.
"Over there," she said, pointing.
Turning Clank spotted the Captain Qwark plushy. "I see..."
"I can't just cuddle up to him like nothing's changed," she murmured. "But...I can't sleep without something to cuddle."
"Hmm..." After a time of thought, Clank opened his storage compartment and began working on something. After a time, he hopped into Twilight's bed.
"Clank?" Twilight asked, reaching out. Her hoof touched something warm and fluffy.
"Baa!" Clank said, synthesizing a childish sheep sound. He had used the mini-yeti fur from Hoven to make a sheep suit for himself, so that he resembled a sheep plushy when his limbs were pulled in.
Blinking, Twilight pushed her hoof against the fur and found it quite soft, thick, and fluffy, much like wool. Smiling, she pulled him in, and found him quite comfy to cuddle this way. "Thank you, Clank," she whispered happily.
"Baa!" Clank replied, closing his eyes.