Time: Nefarious Intent
As they made their way to the space station, the two ships paused just outside the laser satellite defense barrier surrounding Nefarious' station. "So," Ratchet began over comms, "how do we get in? If we break through, Nefarious will know we're attacking."
"I believe I could make it through without breaching the barrier," Aphelion spoke up. "However, I cannot guarantee I could get a second ship through."
"It's probably best if you don't," Azimuth spoke up. "We should divide our forces at this point. My ship can breach the barrier if necessary. I'll stay out here and make some noise to divert Nefarious' attention. If you get cornered, call me and I'll bust in to help you."
"I...don't really like splitting up at this point..." Twilight murmured worriedly. "What if something happens to you?"
"Twilight, I've been taking care of myself in this galaxy for the past two and a half decades," Alister countered. "I can take care of myself quite well. You three have been a team for years as well. This is the most efficient way to handle things. Besides, someone needs to make sure Nefarious doesn't leave the station while we're infiltrating it."
"You make a valid point, General," Clank allowed after a time.
"Doesn't make this feel any less of a bad idea..." Twilight muttered.
"Once Nefarious isn't an issue anymore, we can take the time to help Azimuth if he gets in trouble," Ratchet explained calmly to Twilight. "He's the last threat to the Clock, after all."
"Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I'm going to throw a fuss over it," Twilight countered. "It's your call, Daddy. If you say we do it this way, we'll do it this way."
Ratchet nodded. "We're doing it. Good luck, General."
"You too, Ratchet!" Azimuth called as he directed his ship to peel away.
"Take us in, Aphelion."
"Yes sir!" Aphelion agreed. "Engaging quantum cloak. Entering temporal slipstream."
Aphelion activated her quantum fields, shifting herself to one second out of sync with the rest of the universe, allowing her to pass invisibly through the barrier.
Aphelion landed silently on one of the many linked asteroids surrounding Nefarious' Station. The station itself was a giant effigy of Nefarious head, with a large ring extending outward from where the ears would have been. The asteroids were within the range of the ring, but arranged above and below it.
As Ratchet, Clank, and Twilight leapt out, Qwark contacted them via communicators. "Dad, Mom, Sis, come in! I'm on an asteroid inside the main perimeter. Come meet me as soon as you can."
"We're on our way!" Ratchet replied fervently.
"And I have the food Aphelion made for Snowball miniaturized in my chassis," Clank added, patting his compartment.
"Thanks!" Qwark replied fervently before cutting communications.
"I have triangulated his position," Clank added. "Syncing to nav units now."
With his location locked in, the trio made their way forward carefully through the outer perimeter. The rocky asteroids were covered in pink bioluminescent fungal growths, and the occasional biological hostile. The three heroes easily dealt with any threats with low-energy weaponry that wouldn't draw too much attention from the station, and judicious use of Clank's new Time Bombs. Unfortunately, the path through the asteroids was not very straight forward, and even with Qwark's location marked on their nav units, they were forced to wander around until they found their way forward.
For some reason beyond any of their abilities to comprehend, the region governed by the space station had a breathable atmosphere with enough weight for Twilight to fly in, although she chose not to get too much air so as to avoid drawing attention. The only exceptions were a couple times where Ratchet missed landing on an asteroid and Twilight swooped down to pull him up as he fell.
"...okay, something's bothering me," Twilight muttered after the third such incident.
"Is it my sudden drop in acrobatic ability?" Ratchet suggested. "It's just that I have this weird kink in my tail just now, and-"
"No, not that," Twilight countered. "I can probably figure out why there's an atmosphere in a self-contained asteroid belt. Heck, even there being gravity to work with makes sense. But why is down out into space? Shouldn't it be towards the station or something? What's even down there to pull on us? I can't see anything down there!"
"A caged temporal anomaly," Clank answered as he glanced downward. "Apparently, Nefarious was somehow able to capture a piece of the time wave released when the Clock malfunctioned, and has a gravity cage containing it to analyze it to understand the Clock better."
"Oh," Twilight muttered. "I...guess that could allow for it. Is damaging the station going to cause a problem with that?"
"Negative," Clank assured her. "The anomaly is almost completely spent."
"That's a relief," Ratchet groaned out, massaging the kink out of his tail. "Let's get a move on."
As they continued on, they passed by a Grummel-net vendor, where they acquired a new weapon...the Rift Inducer 5000, which was designed to open an interdimensional rift, allowing an extra-dimensional entity - named 'Fred' by the Grummel-net engineers - to devour any hostile entities in the area.
Further on, they encountered a great deal more mechanical enemies, which the Rift Inducer was surprisingly effective at dealing with. Unfortunately, the sheer numbers were forcing the trio to move in a less and less stealthy manner in order to make progress.
"At this rate, Nefarious is sure to know we're infiltrating," Twilight grumbled. "We might as well have had Aphelion ram the station in mech mode."
"Except then we wouldn't be certain if he was even on the station," Ratchet countered.
"Not to mention Qwark is somewhere here, and might have been hit," Clank added.
"Speaking of Qwark..." Twilight murmured, her eyes wide as she caught sight of her BBBFF...and what he was wearing.
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I hope its his alicorn outfit from 3
loved the update!
I'll bet Qwark's wearing clothes with Best Princess printed on it.
7000480 Knowing him it'll be something requiring bleach for thier eyes.
7000497 I can imagine Qwark using that to his advantage, but then again... he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
7000371
7000480
7000497 If it hasn't been changed from the games, it's a (cross-dressing) nurse outfit. With his normal green suit still on underneath it. If it has been changed, I eagerly await what it could be.
It's going to be a spike costume isn't it?
7000371 7000480 7000497 Answer: D. All of the Above.
was a giant effigy of Nefarious head
1. Nefarious'.
Alright. At this point, I've got three questions, and they're not negative.
1: Where did you get this amazing artwork?
2: Are you going to do a crossover with NiGHTS?
3: Is Azimuth going to die in this story?
You cheeky bastard... Ripped straight from Doctor Who.
Not that I'm complaining, of course. It was a wonderful reference.
It's a shirt that says "Not Captain Qwark", I just know it.
7000972 I believe I can answer your questions.
1. It's written in the bottom left corner.
2. Not unless he writes a PWNY-Verse with NiGHTS.
3. Probably not. I mean, we had Ace Hardlight, we have Snowball... Then take all of his other stories where he SHOULD have killed characters (or at the very least had something very bad happen), but then went out of his way to NOT do that exact thing. I do not think he likes killing characters. Plus, he's alluded to Twilight smacking some sense into him, though probably not literally. Once you're a part of the main character's family (in Tatsurou's stories at least), it's REALLY hard to kill you.
7001390
61 F0E?
It's kinda hard to read with the strike-through.
Also, if he does commissions, I would pay him to make artwork for a NiGHTS crossover I have in the works involving her meeting Sunset and Sci-Twi, who are still suffering some nightmares for everything that happened, and that it could impact them heavily in the future...
So... according to the R&C wiki, Fred likes reading. I can totally see Twilight using the Rift Inducer 5000 to let him into a library where they go on a reading binge. Or Fred pulling her into his dimension to share some books.
I get the feeling it's like a train wreck. You can't look away despite it being horrible.
A nice chapter, can't wait to see what happens next!
So much speculation... When canon is horrifying enough as it is...
7001425
It was made by G_Haze.
7001718
Twilight already stated why the logic of her theory doesn't make sense in story.
As for your theory, the only way gravity could be the same direction as described is if each individual floor had its own gravity circuits keeping everyone down on that floor. Any other explanation involving a single source of gravity within the station would still pull everything towards it, not uniformly down even within the station, let alone without.
The only way gravity could work that way is if it were a gravity spell, but Nefarious doesn't have access to magic.
Assuming normal physics - which is what Twilight was rationalizing by, and previous games have stuck by as far as gravity around planetoids goes from what Twilight's seen - the situation around Nefarious station does not make logical sense. As such, the only viable explanation is something that somehow alters the normal laws of physics.
7001908 Okay.
What do you think of my questions?
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
7001929
But he would have no reason to. It would make more sense just to give everyone in the station jetpacks. Not only is it cheaper and more efficient, any squishy invader then has to deal with a null gravity environment.
7001914
I have frequently considered a NIGHTS crossover, though not as a PWNY-verse fic.
And I don't answer spoilers.
7001982
Maybe. But that still doesn't address my "more efficient" point. To have uniform gravity throughout the asteroids in the station's region, he'd need dozens of gravity anomalies covering a flat plane below the station for the entire region...and repulsor engines in the asteroids to keep them from being dragged down into the anomalies. And he has no reason to want those asteroids out there. They aren't part of the station, and only provide the heroes with a way to sneak in.
Also, in the original game, he had a Zoni captive out there. So since Twilight already rescued all the Zoni, it's not unreasonable to assume he managed to capture some form of Zoni energy, or a chunk of the time ribbon that was released when Nefarious damaged the Clock.
Or, shall we say it's not unreasonable that Lawrence had the foresight to set something up to capture that energy just in case Nefarious was a total idiot?
I love how you make up explanations for the things I always find confusing, I actually consider them the canon explanations
7002134
I was referring to the original temporal rift that was released when Nefarious messed with the Clock. The wave of time energy that spread across the entire galaxy and created those anomalies in the first place. If a device was set up to capture some of that energy, it would have created such an anomaly in the contained space for Nefarious to study.
And now she got a another "scarred for life" moment.
7004509 lol, so I did.
Also... I should have done a bunch of awesomeness memes/responces to the I, Robot reference.
Has anybody else noticed the willfully ommitted words yet? I thought they were just an editing error at first but seeing it two or more chapters in a row makes me think Tat's making a hidden message from the dropped stuff.
7013519
Umm...what willfully omitted words, exactly?
7013529
Neeeeevermind. Turns out it was an issue with my browser not displaying italics correctly ^^; Fixed now though.
...I hope he stuck to the Qwark-Nurse look. Any other disguise will be terrible!
7002167 And I have the BBBFF song in my head...
with Twilight hopping around the biggest egotistic hero in the cosmos.
So much for being told how to get past the barrier here... still got an idea to try though.