Ratchet sighed as he leaned back on his bed, which happened to be a metal table, and stared up at the ceiling of the large tool shed that served as his home. His bed was surrounded by a couple of figurines, which happened to be the Professional Hoverboarder Skid McMarx, and a few posters of the Galactic Superhero, Captain Qwark. Laying next to his was his trusty omniwrench, which he had originally believed to be an ordinary tool until he had discovered that it could also be used as a weapon. As he focused on the wrench for a moment he let out another side and turned to the side for a moment, so that he could gaze across the large shed... to which he could look at the two shrouded beds that occupied the other side of the shed.
They were his sisters' rooms, which he was constantly told that he wasn't allowed inside them and that they needed to be covered... to prevent them from been seen while they slept. He figured that the reason they gave him was true enough, though he suspected that they wanted to keep their own interests hidden from everyone else on Veldin... not that they had many guests to begin with. The other colonists only came to their shed when they needed one of them for something; which could be anything from dealing with the rapidly repopulating population of Horny Toads, fixing any of the machines that they used in their work around the planet, or even repairing the various bridges that occasionally needed repair.
He remembered the first day he and his sisters had met, as the three of them had been dropped off at Veldin's Orphanage at the same time, though their only possessions were the pod that the three of them had been dropped off in and a note with their names. The nurse bots had taken the three of them in and raised them alongside the rest of the young children, while their parents were off working around the planet. Many of the children didn't know what to make of the trio of arrivals, as none of them had ever seen a Lombax before, which only made Ratchet an outcast from the first day.
His sisters were received in a similar manner; as one of them had been a young filly, whose coat had been a mix between pink and purple, with a horn on her head and a mark on both sides of her rump, one that looked like a star with two strips of energy behind it. Her name was Starlight Glimmer, though the other children kept their distance because she was known to lift objects with the energy that came off of her horn. His other sister was a Cazar, a cat-like creature that looked similar to what Ratchet was, though she had sharp fox ears that were about half the length of what Ratchet's ears were, ten functional fingers, and had a striped tail. However, they quickly discovered that she had much darker brown fur than her brother, and that she had fewer stripes that were noticeable.
Her name was Sunset Shimmer, though almost all of the nurse bots had scanned her and wondered to themselves as to what she was doing on Veldin... but after some time it became clear that no one was searching for her. The other thing that Sunset had, that neither Starlight nor Ratchet had, was that she was wearing a golden bracelet on her right wrist, which she had been wearing when the three of them had been found... though it seemed impossible to remove it.
For the first few years that Ratchet and his sisters had lived in the orphanage they were mostly ignored by the other children, which would only change when they were asked by the nurse bots to play with them. When they were six, and Ratchet had been shown the pod they had arrived in, the trio discovered that there was an additional item that had been with them on the vessel, as Ratchet had managed to find a moveable panel and found his omniwrench. Starlight had pouted when she discovered that she was the only one without something to arrive with them, so Ratchet put his new wrench to use and crafted a metallic staff of sorts from the various pieces of junk that rested around the orphanage.
He had apologized for how poorly it looked, as it was a long pole that ended with a two pronged head, but Starlight's eyes widened when she saw the staff and gladly accepted it with a wide grin on her face. Seeing that Starlight was happy with her staff Ratchet offered to make Sunset something as well, though she had politely declined his offer and stated that, if she wanted a weapon or tool, she would make one on her own.
During that time one of the other children tried to take Starlight's staff away, to which he had received the edge of Ratchet's wrench on the side of his head, light enough to knock him out for an hour or two. As a consequence the adults nearly came to the conclusion that the three of them had to be removed from the orphanage before someone else got hurt, but that was when a group of Horny Toads managed to get passed the failing barriers that the adults had set up. Ratchet, desperate to keep both him and his sisters safe, had charged out to meet the toads and used his wrench to defend the colonists, to which he discovered that his sisters had followed him out as well.
Despite having no prior training in combat, save for the stories that they heard the other children speak of from time to time, when they wanted to reenact one of Captain Qwark's adventures, the three of them managed to force back the toads and save the colony from disaster.
Once that had happened the adults had, after ten minutes of talking among themselves, decided that the three of them were assets to the colony and had given them an old shed to live in, after it had been cleaned out. From there the three of them had begun to make the shed livable, gathering any stray bolts they could find while they were called out for the various jobs the colonists needed them on. Sunset had managed to acquire her own set of tools, much smaller than what Ratchet had, and had taken to fixing the electric barriers that were supposed to keep the toads away from the colonies. Starlight and Ratchet were the ones that had the task of fighting the toads, often keeping Sunset safe while she fixed a failed section of the wall.
This arrangement had lasted for four years, during which the three of them had matured and grown a bit, before Gadgetron had arrived to sell the colonists some Bomb Gloves so that they could defend themselves against unwanted pests. None of the colonists wanted to buy one, as they had the talents of Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset to call upon if things got out of hand, but during the time the vendor had come to showcase the toads had managed to find an opening in the wall, one that Sunset had tried to overcome but didn't have the resources to actually fix at the moment. The vendor watched in amazement as the trio mowed down the group of invading Horny Toads, though once they were finished he approached them with a gift.
The three of them, and the rest of the colonists, were given free Bomb Gloves from the promotion that Gadgetron was offering, though he had also provided the three of them with their Gadgetron own Help Desk uplinks, and promised to get each of them a license with something called the Slayer's Guild. The vendor explained that it was an organization that was contracted by various people across the galaxy, all of whom remained nameless, to kill pretty much anything and everything that was dangerous... or just living in some cases. The guild would put a price on something when they were contacted by a client, to which it would be posted to every member of the guild and transferred to the account of whoever claimed the kills. The licenses collected bolts dropped from whatever they killed, and whatever was either dropped on the ground or found in crates, and allowed them to buy whatever they needed.
The licenses had arrived two weeks after the Gadgetron vendor left Veldin, to which the three of them were allowed to begin collecting bolts when they were called on to steam the tide of the toads once more. This allowed them to purchase various items that they didn't have around their house, such as a few components that allowed them to fix up their fridge, fix the main door, and even give them new bed sheets. Starlight had gone ahead and purchased a few components that allowed her to patch up her staff, though she constantly mumbled about not being able to buy the better components she wanted, because some were expensive and killing toads wasn't giving her enough bolts to actually buy them.
Sunset, much to the delight of the colonists, purchased the missing component for the electronic walls and installed it the day she got it, to which the toads were repelled almost immediately.
It was a month after they received their licenses that Starlight managed to get into contact with one of the makers of Gadgetron's weapons, how Ratchet did know because she wasn't willing to tell how it happened, and managed to overcome one of the problems that the designers had on his 'Blaster' weapon. The problem was that the original ammunition container had the tendency to explode when it was fired, to which Starlight, through a few well placed questions, managed to determine that the container was actually too big and that it was constantly jamming all the time. She also explained that the barrel was too small, as that would have caused some of the excess power to cause the same effect, which greatly impressed the designer.
Thanks to that Starlight became a weapon consultant for Gadgetron, which meant that she and her family would earn a ten percent discount on weapons, which she insisted on being in the contract so they could better defend themselves, and that she had the same percentage on royalties on the weapons she helped produce. At the same time Sunset had managed to become a gadget designer, as the vendor that had come to Veldin had told his superiors about the electric walls she had fixed. It wasn't as impressive as helping design all the weapons that Gadgetron wanted to come up with, but it allowed her to get some additional income for the three of them.
Ratchet, on the other hand, got his hands dirty and worked on the various vehicles that the colonists used to get around Veldin, though he paid attention to what they wanted and did the job, without adding any addition items that weren't in his contract. He even managed to get some clients from the other side of the planet, which gave him the opportunity to remove any of the pests that came at him and collect some bolts for himself.
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Ratchet sighed again as he remembered the last few years, though as he did so he had to wonder if there was something more for the three of them... something that wasn't confined to Veldin.
"I see you're remembering again," a voice said, which caused him to look up for a moment and find that Sunset had woken up, as she was wearing her light blue uniform and not her pajamas.
"Hard not to when I stare at the ceiling," Ratchet admitted, stretching his arms as he looked around for Starlight, but didn't see the young mare anywhere, "Where's Starlight this morning?"
"Still sleeping," Sunset replied, fixing herself something to eat before sitting at their table, to which Ratchet joined her, "though I think she spent all night working on another 'secret project'. I heard her muttering something in her sleep... something about 'Ripping you a new one', or at least that's what it sounded like."
"Maybe she's graduated to making her own weapons now," Ratchet said, projecting his own thoughts for a moment, "but that's none of my business... as long as she tests her prototypes outside somewhere. I don't want to patch up another wall after the hole she put in the back of the shed."
Sunset chuckled at the memory, as it had been when Starlight had the Bomb Glove for the first time and had experimented with it, to which she accidentally threw a bomb at the back wall and blew a hole in it. Ratchet had bought some supplies, which Starlight repaid in full a week later, and patched up the hole to the point where it was hard to tell if that had been there when they moved in or had been a patch up later on. Sunset would never bring it up in conversation, but Ratchet would always mention it when he thought whatever weapon Starlight was working on might do the same damage as a single bomb... or even more considering the power he heard her talking about.
Before they got any further Sunset's uplink went off, to which she pulled up the holographic map of Veldin and zoomed in on the area the call came from, which happened to be at the far side of the colony.
"Well, I guess I've got some work today after all," Sunset said, closing the map before returning to her breakfast, "I should be back by noon, not pending any more calls for repairs, so I guess you've got time to relax before a client shows up for some repairs."
Ratchet agreed that he could potentially have a client sometime today, but that didn't distract him from his own 'secret project' that he had been building in the addition to the right of the shed's front door. Starlight and Sunset had it built for him when he was home, because he needed something to do when there weren't any customers that needed repairs or upgrades on their vehicles. He had been secretly building his own spaceship, because the three of them had agreed, at one point in the last year, that it might be time for them to see the galaxy, but both Starlight and Sunset allowed themselves to be busy with their work.
So Ratchet had built it in secret, fully intending to show it to them once he had managed to complete it... but all he was missing was the Robotic Ignition System and those were too expensive for someone like him. As Sunset got ready for her departure, which included saying goodbye to a sleeping Starlight, Ratchet silently wished that the one item he needed to complete his ship would come to him.
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Unbeknownst to Ratchet someone was actually watching him and his sisters, watching them grow in their various skills as he waited for a specific moment to arrive. Orvus, an elder among the Zoni, had been watching Veldin from the massive space station that was known as the Great Clock, which rested in the exact center of the universe - give or take fifty feet - ever since the arrival of Starlight and Sunset, two oddities that neither he nor his assistant had been expecting. Oddities usually made things very interesting, which is why he kept his eye on the trio for the last ten to twelve years and noted what they were capable of. He also knew that Sunset's bracelet wasn't what it seemed, though he was sure that she would figure out what it was supposed to do... given enough time anyway.
When Ratchet made his silent wish, however, was when Orvus smiled and turned his attention to another planet, where he knew his heir would be produced in the near future.
"Well then XJ-0461, its time we got started," Orvus said, to which his assistant, Sigmund, nodded his agreement and started preparing a snack for the two of them, "This is going to be so much fun to watch. Ue-he-he-he-he!"