//------------------------------//
// Time: Rescue 
// Story: The Sparkle in his Eye 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	The enemy forces did not last long being assaulted from above and below.  Once they were all wiped out, Aphelion reverted to ship form, coming in for a gentle landing right in front of Ratchet.  "Ratchet!" she called eagerly.  "Are you alright?"

"I am, Aphelion," Ratchet replied, climbing up.  "But that commander - the Fongoids called him Vorselon - kidnapped Qwark!"

"Then we're going to rescue him!" Twilight proclaimed.  "Can you get his com-signal, Aphelion?"

"I'll have better luck once we leave the planet's gravity well," Aphelion explained.  "The quantum disruption we experienced earlier is especially strong on this planet."

"Right," Ratchet agreed as he hopped into the cockpit.  "...is that a sushi bar?"

"I have been massively upgraded," Aphelion replied easily.  "Do not get any crumbs on my synth-leather seats."





Once out amongst the vastness of space, Ratchet waited until Aphelion proclaimed enough distance from temporal anomalies to attempt to lock onto Qwark's signal before activating the comms.  "Qwark, come in!  Do you read me?"

"It's good to hear from you, Dad," Qwark replied quietly.  "They've got us in containment cells, and they're just inhumane!"

"What did they do to you?" Twilight asked worriedly.

"They're making me drink unfiltered tap water with the food!"

Ratchet slowly closed his eyes, covering his face with one hand.  "Qwark...you drank river water when you lived with Skrunch's people."

"Well, yeah, but Florana's unsettled and undespoiled!" Qwark countered.  "Do you have any idea how many chemicals they put in tap water?"

"Please activate your nav beacon so we may rescue you," Aphelion interrupted before the conversation could get even more inane.

"...which button is that again?  Oh right, this one!"

Twilight smiled as Aphelion picked up the signal.  "Hang on tight, BBBFF.  We're on our way-"

"Just remember the Fongoids can't hold their breath as long as I can, okay Aunt Aphelion?" Qwark interrupted.

Aphelion sighed.  "Fine," she grumbled.  "We'll do this the boring way."

Twilight couldn't stop herself from giggling at that.

As they approached Vorselon's ship, 25 fighters flew out to engage them.  "Can I, Ratchet?" Aphelion begged.  "I won't be able to go into the ship with you!"

Sighing, Ratchet released the controls.  "Go nuts!" he allowed.

Aphelion immediately gunned her engines, performing a strafing run with her primary laser weapons as she zipped through the cloud of fighters too fast for them to get a lock on her.  Three enemy fighters went down from that first barrage.  Aphelion then shot away along the z-axis, relatively above the group of fighters as she rolled before releasing a swarm of missiles, taking down five more.  She then shot straight into the group again before shifting to her more humanoid configuration, deploying an energy blade on one arm and a blaster on the other.  A quick dash let her slash three more, while four were shot clean through their cockpits.  Seizing one of the remaining ten ships, she hurled it with a spin, causing it to slam into the remaining nine as they attempted to get her with a formation assault.

"Steeee-RIKE!" Ratchet shouted out, pumping his fist.

Reverting back to ship form, Aphelion chuckled.  "That was fun!" she agreed.  "I hope I get to fight more with you like that."





Aphelion came in for landing on one of the wings of Vorselon's warship.  Ratchet and Twilight both deployed their space gear - O2 helmets, MagneGrind Boots Mark 2 with magnetic surface lock on tech to drag them to a distant magnetic - or merely ionized - surface, and low-yield weaponry to avoid tearing the ship apart.  They made their way carefully past the ship's engines towards the main body of the ship, hoping they'd have good luck finding Qwark once inside, as Qwark wasn't able to provide very useful information regarding his present location.

The pair made their way through a tunnel into the ship itself, using the ionized walls to evade the security laser grids.  They encountered few robotic enemies as they progressed, and were able to deal with them rapidly with their wrenches.

As they progressed, Vorselon could be heard making announcements regarding a rebel named Azimuth.  Given a location bearing the same name on Fastoon, Twilight didn't need to be told Vorselon had mistaken Ratchet for Azimuth to know what it meant: there was another Lombax still alive.

"We'll be looking into that once we save Qwark, right?" Twilight asked.

"Certainly," Ratchet agreed.

When they were confronted by a swarm of security robots, Twilight discovered that Grummel-Net had an upgrade available for Mr. Zurkon, turning him into a full fledged weapon capable of leveling up.  While Ratchet purchased this new option, Twilight applied it to Zurkon the Bearded...only to discover that it had gained enough experience already to unlock the first level upgrade, generating a second Zurkon type bot alongside Zurkon the Bearded...a female one called Zurkon the Clever.

"It is Zurkon the Bearded's turn to take out the organic trash," Zurkon the Clever piped up as they took form.  "He is supposed to be demonstrating proper thaumaturgical vaporization techniques."

"Watch closely, my student," Zurkon the Bearded replied, and the pair of bots began vaporizing everything in range.

This new assistance easily cleared the path to the Central Hub...where they found a Holo-Plan fragment.  "What's this?" Ratchet asked, confused.

Twilight examined it carefully.  "It...looks like someone tried to reproduce my RYNO IV designs with rockets instead of energy blasts.  I doubt it'd be as effective, but if the plans were dismantled like this, it must be effective."

"Then when it's assembled, I'll use it," Ratchet decided.  "That way you won't leave me behind in the wanton destruction department."

It wasn't far beyond the central hub that the pair found their way to an elevator.  "What floor, please?" the computer asked.

When Ratchet hesitated, Twilight stepped up.  "Detention wing," she stated firmly.

The elevator closed, and took them down the shaft.  This led them straight to where Qwark was being held, along with the Fongoids.

"I knew I could count on you!" Qwark proclaimed as the cells were opened.  "Now we just need to release everyone else, and get out of here!"  Qwark, being Qwark, immediately kicked a door down, setting off an alarm.  "...Oops?" he offered lamely.