Eventually, the Wigwump's carcass fell through the bottom of the shaft into a pool of lava where it slowly dissolved. Twilight and the others carefully landed on relatively solid ground nearby. Putting her jetpack away, Twilight shrugged her shoulders as she focused her attention forward. "Let's see what awaits us now," she muttered, leading the way forward through the only path available. As she did, she muttered under her breath, "I miss exploring..."
Not far ahead, a railway station could be seen through the dark forest...and Twilight was so focused on getting to it that she nearly tripped over a yellow, egg-shaped device. "Whoop!" she grunted as she caught herself before levitating the device up. "...what's this?" she wondered, scanning the device for anything dangerous before pressing what looked like a button on the front.
The device immediately popped open, revealing a screen that displayed a scene similar to the foliage around them. The same voice they'd heard in the alter-space labs spoke as the image shifted, sounding very tired. "Holo-diary entry 005." The image shifted to show a swarm of some sort attacking a massive burning structure. "They came during the night, hundreds of them, and they attacked without warning. I stood atop Zuzo Fields and watched in horror as Commander Spog and his armies lay waste to Uzo City. Through ribbons of fire, I saw my creation, bloated and terrible a deadly moon hanging silently amongst the destruction." The image shifted upward, revealing a silhouette of the ship that had brought them to this world. "Ephemeris." Flames covered the screen, and a new image appeared. A strange figure silhouetted through a window, holding what looked like a strange white cat. "What plans does my enemy have for this ark? I can't explain it, but I feel as if some dark fate haunts us all from the future, and Ephemeris..." The flames shot across the screen again, and the image changed to a close up on the figures face, eyes glowing white and the mouth pulled back in a sharp-toothed grin. "...is the key." The image shifted again, this time to the same structure now a wasteland, with a hunched figure staring out over it. "These things will not stop with Magnus. We are simply the first steps, and I, Doctor Frumpus Croid, cannot shake the feeling that it was my work that made it possible." Slowly, the image dissolved into static.
Alister frowned, rubbing his chin. "We seem to have picked up several useful bits of information," he murmured.
"Yup!" Twilight agreed. "We now know that ship's called Ephemeris. An interesting name, to be sure. Certainly shows originality."
"And he called it an ark," Nefarious added. "Sounds like it was originally meant as some sort of emergency transport, maybe."
"And whoever's controlling it now is the bad guy!" Qwark proclaimed firmly. "...right?"
Groaning, Alister put his hand to his face. "Yes, Qwark, that's the bad guy we're trying to stop."
"Thought so," Qwark confirmed. "I mean, he was in a menacing silhouette and everything!"
Alister just shook his head in frustration. "At any rate, we need to find Commander Spog, both to cripple enemy forces and get more information."
"There's a rail station up ahead," Twilight indicated. "Hopefully, we can ride this one without more distractions."
The rail station ride proved as uneventful as Twilight could have hoped for, and as quick. Before long, they arrived at the area designated as the Northern Extra-terrestrial Sorting Terminal...or N.E.S.T. for short. As luck had it, another shop satellite had landed nearby, allowing the group to purchase three new weapons. The first weapon, the Critter-Strike, was the latest in the long line of humorously effective transformative weaponry dating back all the way to the Morph-o-Ray, this one turning enemy hostiles into pigs. The second was the latest model of Mr. Zurkon, this one utilizing the FTF tech to coordinate its attacks with other Zurkon synthenoids. The third was a Pyro-Blaster, a flamethrower of Kerchu design, the FTF tech creating a fiery magma blast. Twilight eagerly purchased everything for everyone.
"You just can't get enough of the new toys, can you?" Qwark joked teasingly.
"Nope!" Twilight replied eagerly. "I wonder what I can make with these? I mean, I've already made the Bearded modifications to the Mr. Zurkons-"
"Bearded?" Nefarious asked curiously.
"I altered the Mr. Zurkon's to be able to generate a facsimile of my magical energy," Twilight explained. "In addition to massively increasing their firepower, it enables a wide variety of attacks that can get around most defenses." She hesitated. "However, for these ones, I removed the 'Locate City' self-destruct sequence."
Nefarious stared at Twilight for a time. "...and now you play tabletop games, too? Twilight, you are making it very hard for me to stay focused on saving this planet."
Twilight chuckled indulgently. "At any rate, there's really not much I can do with the Critter-Strike...but the Pyro-Blaster...oh, I'm going to have fun messing with a fire weapon again...maybe I can add ice or lightning functions..."
"Well give me the Critter-Strike, then," Nefarious interjected, picking up the weapons in question. "I bet I can make something interesting with them. Maybe I can design it to make the pigs explode-"
"Black Sheepinator and the Qwack-o-Blitzer," Twilight countered distractedly.
"Okay...what if I tweak it so the pigs attack-"
"Qwack-o-Blitzer."
"...oh! What if I tweak it so that when the pigs get squashed, they release Nanotech?"
"Ooh!" Twilight piped up eagerly. "That's new! How are you going to do it?"
"Most of these monstrous mutations and robotic rampages we're dealing with involve runaway nanotech in some way, shape or form," Nefarious explained logically. "If I tweak the energy wave of the Critter-Strike so it stabilizes the Nanotech inside the target, it'll be stored in the pig form until broken open like a biological nanotech crate!"
"Bet I finish with the Pyro-Blaster first!" Twilight challenged.
"You're on!" Nefarious barked back eagerly.
Sighing, Alister leaned back against the nearby cliff face they'd soon have to scale. "We'll be here for a while, won't we?" he asked to no one in particular.
"I'd give it ten minutes, unless Twilight insists on waiting for Nefarious to finish," Qwark countered calmly. "In the meantime, I'm going to take a mini-siesta. Wake me when they're done." With that, Qwark lay back against the cliff face and immediately began snoring.
They are just so in sync its scary.
as Commander Spog and his armies lay wast to Uzo City
"But I finish with the Pyro-Blaster first!" Twilight challenged.
1. Waste.
2. Bet.
Let's see who make first the doom weapon that can destroy a solar system and have the size of a little box!
7305723 As it was said before, the Ratchet games are kinda easy if you simply use the best possible weapons at all times. Combined with everything else Twilight and the others have, anything that is a legitimate threat to them would need to be able to threaten the entire galaxy as well. Even without her arsenal from the previous games, it would probably take an Eldritch/Cosmic Horror to be a genuine threat to all four of them. And I almost feel sorry for the Horror. But as Tats has pointed out, this isn't about the 'challenge', but the character interaction. And that's something it does rather well.
7305687
...I ship it.
It occures to me that Nefarious's upgrade to his weapon could be retrofitted to turn beings into robots
another beautiful chapter. I am now simply waiting for you to run out of games and are finally forced to send Twilight back to Equestria, that is going to be fun.
7306117 he has NEXUS and Reboot to come next looking forward to his take on reboot
7306262
Just Nexus, no Reboot.
7305763 With her backed up by 4 Starswirl class Zurcons, a ray that turns enemies into health crates, and who knows what she's do with the flamethrower? Yeah, not likely.
7306263 By the way, have you heard of War for the Overworld? Might want to give it a look if you're having trouble coming up with names for the new Critter-Strike.
Milestone: Chapter 150
7305723 Hopefully Nexus gives somewhat of a challenge for her, at least in the magic department seeing as it deals with the nethers and Ventra's physics powers, which could be on par with her magic, or at least enough for Twilight to not be able to restrain her. Plus, maybe the nethers use something which affects Twilight's magic, making her rely more on her knowledge and her generous amount of weaponry, so she is more like ratchet at least for the final instalment on the R&C series.
I also wonder if. Cronk and Zephyr still die here, could Twilight bring them back as part of her Robot-Ghost-Pirate crew?
And more importantly, would Twilight consider Ventral Harem Mommy material? Maybe she likes the idea of having a bad girl mommy. XD
There's a word missing here, and it's driving me crazy trying to figure out what it should say.
7306663 If I'm honest, I never was a comic reader of marvel or DC , so I don't know anything about this Gorath.
Also, don't be mad but I have yet to read that story, both Jak's and Ratchet's games never got to play or grow up with, only recently did I start watching some gameplays of Ratchet and Clank. And everything I know of Jak and Daxter is from Death Battle. ^^"
As to my opinion, I don't know who would win. In Twilight's favor they have many more gadgets and weaponry for multiple type of situations, and I have no idea how many weapons actually exist in the R&C universe, and on Jak's it seemed far fewer. In terms of weaponry and diversity, Ratchet has a point.
Now when it comes to skill adaptability, I can see Jak surpassing Ratchet. While Ratchet may have generous amounts of weapons his strategy is to overwhelm his enemy with firepower, while Jak can use Eco to change his condition, from damage to technomancer, playing medic and even having a.second form of range combat. But he has to be mindful of how much he uses either way. But it's because of this limits that he would learn to be more tactical in combat. Ratchet runs and guns because his nanotech heals him as he takes damage and where he is there is plenty of sources for more nanotech, Jak however has to be mindful and learn to truly avoid as many attacks as possible while he attacks, because the more green Eco he uses, the less.he has in the future, and the more time he wastes trying to gather more. So as to being tactical I give Jak a point.
The last point will have to wait until I read the Jak.story, as I truly want to feel and know the limits Shining has actually set on Jak and Daxter.
7306658 "Black Sheepinator and the of the Qwack-o-Blitzer,"
Either a missing word, or these two should be removed.
Another enjoyable chapter. Good job.
You know, I just realized this story has 150 chapters now. I do believe this is either your longest running story, or damn close to it.
Considering Nexus is up next, as well as the relative shortness of it *Glares at Into the Nexus.* I'm going to assume we're very nearly done. Depends on how long you want to run the current game.
Awesome chapter regardless. It's always fun to see Twilight and Nefarious geek out over weapon mods.
Wake me up when its all over~!
When I'm wiser and~ I'm older~!
All this time they were finding themselves~ and I~ didn't know they were lost.
EDIT: I was rushed. I came back to add onto the first line.
7307866 Harem. Dragon Ball, DBZ, DBGT, and DBS is anime. Most anime have harems. You decide.
7309505
Yeah. Just the thought alone causes my butt to pucker up. ESPECIALLY if they use ALL the RYNOs at their disposal.
No mention of the discarded Dimensionator? i didn't think Twilight would be that oblivious.
7309971
...what discarded Dimensionator?
7309751 ...Yeah but think of the bragging rights of someone took that down. Provided if they had the one hell of arsenal...and the groove-a-tron
Is it wrong that I can somehow picture Negarious and Twilight dressed as stereotypical nerds in high school making awkward glances at one another from behind book if they didn't have inventing to bond over????
And really, Nefarious should modify the critter device so the pigs leave behind BACON as well as the Nanotech
7310270 Look closely
s.pro-gmedia.com/videogamer/media/images/ps3/ratchet_and_clank_all_4_one/screens/ratchet_and_clank_all_4_one_20.jpg
7323434
Wow, I missed that.
Not surprised Twilight missed it, too, then.
7305767
Me too, best Twilight ship so far.
8646384
The ship is cursed!
7314447
Secret Agent Clank. And it replenished health. Fortunately, that adventure didn't happen in this story, so Nefarious is still accurate in thinking his idea is original as far as that universe is concerned.