Ratchet and Clank: The Starlight of Solana

by Blackdrag-rose

R/C: Hoven

The flight to Hoven was accompanied by Starlight and Sunset being busy in the cargo area of their ship, where Starlight attempted to teach her sister the basics of magic in the short amount of time that they had. She was able to teach her a few tricks and a couple of the most basic of spells, but she was impressed that Sunset was able to take to the levitation spell with ease. They discovered that Sunset had an affinity for magic, which Starlight had to admit was strange considering the fact that her sister had been without magic until Planet Umbris, where they had been betrayed by Captain Qwark. Starlight was taking notes on what Sunset could and couldn't do, making a list of spells that they could work on in the future to let Sunset catch up with her.

Sunset, on the other hand, had half her mind focused on her research that was connected to the planet they were heading towards, which had lead her to create a pair of bracer like items that her sister could wear. They were designed to allow the cold air to turn into warmth for Starlight, so that way she didn't freeze while they took out the PlanetBuster Maximus and any of Drek's soldiers. The other half of her research was on the various types of magic that the people of Old Earth, a civilization that had come to an end some time ago, had discovered. She let a small smile cross her face for a moment as she scanned the various lists of magic she had found, marveling how a civilization had found so much before their ultimate, and mysterious, destruction.

One of those lists also included a full library of words that were not only translated into another language, a dragon language she noticed, but also the fact that each word had some inherent power behind them. She didn't know why, but for some reason she liked that list of spells better than any of the other ones that she had come across in the hour she had spent searching.

The two of them emerged from the cargo area when Ratchet started lowering their ship through Hoven's atmosphere, zeroing in on the area that the PlanetBuster was supposed to be resting in. Their various readings told them that there were two other side paths that they could take when they landed, both of which Sunset and Starlight agreed might have something interesting for them to find later on. Those readings also indicated that there were a lot of soldiers standing between the landing pad and where the PlanetBuster's ship was currently docked, not to mention the wildlife that would want to kill them as well.

"It seem that Chairman Drek anticipated our arrival." Clank commented, looking at the readings and wondering how many of their enemies would fall to his companions before they realized that they were outgunned.

"I'm not surprised at this point." Ratchet said, powering off the ship as he opened the hatch, to which he took in the cold air that was all around them, "It would have been strange if we had arrived here and discovered that no one else was here... as if this had been a trap to remove us from the equation. We actually have an assortment of enemies to deal with, so when we take out the PlanetBuster Maximus we'll set his plans back and give us some more time to locate his command center."

"I'll be happy to get rid of that bomb," Starlight commented, brushing a hoof over one of the bracers that Sunset had crafted for her, allowing the warmth to enter her body as she stood on the landing pad, "I got to admit it Sunset, these bracers that you made for me are working perfectly."

"According to the readings that I'm getting from them I'll have to tweak them a little bit more," Sunset said, leaping onto the landing pad before she took a look around their immediate area, "Our first order of business is to restock on our ammo and see if anymore of Starlight's weapons have become available, though I have the feeling that we might actually see one of them. Then, once we're done with that, we should start making our way into our enemy's fortress, where we'll be able to test whatever new weapon has come out along the way."

When they approached the weapon vendor they discovered that Sunset had been correct in her assumption, there was another weapon available for purchase; the Drone Device. Starlight explained that the weapon was designed to allow six little drones to float around the user, which would take any damage that they might sustain and, if an enemy got too close, one of the drones would self destruct on that enemy. Starlight also admitted that the weapon was designed for a single person, as a pair of adventurers could easily defend each others backs, but she was pleased that it had come out. Ratchet, on the other hand, was glad to purchase another weapon that his sister had made, because he knew that they would have to split up again in the future and was determined to have an arsenal to protect himself.

Once they had purchased their weapons they walked down the path that was ahead of their ship, where they found two mini yeti creatures that wanted to eat their faces off. It gave Ratchet a chance to use the Drone Device as his sisters stayed back, to which Starlight watched as her latest weapon took all the damage that her brother would have taken before blowing the two yetis to pieces. They had barely taken ten steps forward before a group of seven soldiers emerged from the trees beside the main path, using up the remaining four drones before Ratchet resorted to using another weapon. Starlight loosed a Devastator missile and tore a pair of soldiers down, allowing Ratchet and Sunset to take out the remainder of their enemies and clear the immediate area.

Before they went any further Sunset walked up behind the trees, as she had recalled her readings had indicated there was a massive amount of enemies up the hill, but as she walked up that path she noticed an army of mini yetis staring at her. As her siblings approached her, with their weapons drawn, she brought her hands together and took a deep breath, sucking in the air around her as she engaged her magic. Once the yetis noticed that they had company, and that two more were coming, they grinned and charged down the hill, but Sunset wasn't about to let them get the better of her. She stopped sucking in the air around her and released the magic she had been gathering, blowing out a stream of fire that engulfed the entirety of the yetis.

When the smoke cleared, and she finally stood up straight once more, they found that the yetis had been slain by her attack, much to the amazement of both Ratchet and Starlight.

"What... was that?" Ratchet asked, wondering how her sister could have learned something like that in such a short period, though he suspected that Starlight had aided her in that regard.

"Fire Breath," Sunset replied, huffing for a moment as she pulled out her own Devastator, "I overestimated how much energy the attack would take out of me, so I guess I'll have to take it easy with using magic for the foreseeable future."

Starlight had to resist the urge to tell her sister that she had told her so, because it had been one of the key points to the lecture she had given her on the flight to Hoven. Now that she knew that her sister had missed that key element, or had ignored it completely, she had something to tell her about when they had the chance.

With that threat taken care of they returned to the main path, where they quickly found a group of four soldiers waiting for them... each of them with their blasters primed. Ratchet, wanting to get to the PlanetBuster as much as his sisters did, pulled out the Glove of Doom and loosed a minion sphere, to which the little robots surged forward and took out the soldiers before they even knew what had hit them. They then came to a moving platform that took them out to a stand in the middle of the water, so they quickly crossed over to the stand and found that there were mines waiting for them. Starlight used her Pyrocitor and burned the mines before they reached her and her family, giving them a chance to ready their weapons for whatever enemy was coming next.

As they moved forward a pair of choppers flew into the area and took aim at them, to which the three of them grinned as they loosed a few Devastator missiles at their enemies and blew them out of the sky.

They then rode another moving platform up to the area above them, where they found five more soldiers waiting for them and immediately pulled out their weapons. Instead of using the minions again Ratchet switched to the Bomb Glove, mostly because he hadn't used the weapon in some time, while Starlight focused on using her Blaster and Sunset switched to her sword. The moment they dealt with the next group of enemies they walked forward, but they were interrupted by another duo of choppers that started to fire at them the moment they appeared.

Starlight, annoyed with Chairman Drek's troops already, engaged her magic and tore one of the blades from the chopper on their left, to which she threw it into the other one and blew it right out of the sky. She then engaged her Devastator and blew the second one up as well, once again clearing the way for them, but this time she remained on her guard in case there was anything else lurking around the corner. They quickly climbed out the jump wall that rested before they, or floated up in Starlight's case, before they walked through a small tunnel and came to a conveyor belt that had mines standing guard. Once the mines were dealt with they climbed up the second jump wall and dealt with the trio of yetis that were waiting for them, which was easy to remove thanks to the Pyrocitor.

They came out on a high ledge that looked out over the area that they had already traversed, though in front of them happened to be three moving platforms that would allow them to reach the compound on the other side of the canyon. Ratchet and Sunset, each having their own means of gliding, managed to leap from one platform to the next before they reached the compound, giving them an opportunity to watch their sister. Starlight, on the other hand, engaged her magic and put something she had been wanting to test into action, using the bracers Sunset had made for her and converted the warmth into a second jump. This allowed her to make sure that she didn't miss any of the platforms and land beside her siblings, to which she returned the bracers to their original function and brushed off the cold air that had tried to cling to her.

"I should have known you'd fiddle with those bracers," Sunset said, though she was wearing a smile on her face as she ran her hand through Starlight's mane, "but that was definitely a smart move on your part."

"We should really get to that bomb before it takes off," Clank commented, indicating that they would have time for this later on, when the PlanetBuster Maximus was no longer an issue.

They approached the door that lead into the compound, where Sunset briefly looked inside to determine just how many enemies they had to deal with before they reached their target. She was amazed when she found a force of twenty soldiers standing guard, telling them that Chairman Drek wanted to keep his weapon safe at all costs. She beckoned to Ratchet for a moment and indicated to the Glove of Doom, to which Ratchet grinned and primed several minion spheres as he looked inside for himself. Starlight and Sunset stood back as Ratchet rolled five spheres into the room, where the little robots emerged from their homes and roared as they surged towards their chosen targets.

They heard a series of explosions from inside the room, but when it went silent they peeked into the room and found that the entirety of their enemies had been blown to pieces. When they walked out the other side, and approached the end of the walkway, they found that the ship had already moved out of the reach of their weapons.

"We are too late!" Clank cried, worried that their failure would result in the destruction of an entire world, "The ship is leaving!"

"There's an old defense turret over there." Ratchet said, pointing at the turret as the PlanetBuster ship moved in the background, noting that it had to still be in range of the turret.

"Then get in and bring it down," Sunset commented, priming her Devastator as they approached the turret, to which she had Starlight stand on the left of the turret, "We'll remain on guard and bring down anyone that wants to interfere with the destruction of that ship, though the moment you bring it down Starlight and I will catch the bomb and lower it into the water. The bomb gets destroyed and Chairman Drek's plan gets postponed for another few days."

Ratchet nodded his understanding and climbed into the turret, where he immediately started to fire at the ship before it could get into the atmosphere and carry its load to whatever planet that Drek wanted to blow up. The moment he started firing at the ship an army of choppers emerged from the surrounding area to defend the bomb, to which Starlight and Sunset began taking them out before they could reach the turret. As the first section of the ship fell apart the amount of enemies increased, telling them that Drek was definitely planning on using the bomb and wanted it safe. Starlight, seeing the numbers increase as pieces fell off the ship, switched to the RYNO and let her enemies come to her, getting a large number of them in her sights before she loosed a round of missiles.

Even though Ratchet wasn't focusing on the choppers all around him, for which he was thankful that his sisters were taking them out, he could tell that Chairman Drek wanted to take them out with everything he had. He had the strangest feeling that this had been a trap to remove them from the galaxy, but he knew that he and his sisters were going to overcome everything that Drek threw at them. The amount of enemies increased when the next section of the ship fell apart, but then, when the third and fourth ones followed it, Ratchet noticed that the choppers stopped coming their way. When the final piece of the ship fell apart the amount of choppers in the area was zero, though as the bomb fell his sisters engaged their magic and caught it before it could touch the ground.

"That was intense," Ratchet commented, pulling himself out of the turret as he watched the bomb being deposited in the cold water, ruining the mechanics that Drek had put into it and making it impossible for the PlanetBuster to be used in the future.

"I'll say it was," Starlight said, wiping the sweat from her brow as she looked at how much of the RYNO's ammo she had used up, "By the Maker, I used half of the RYNO's ammo just to stop those choppers from touching us!"

Sunset, excited about their victory, spotted something hiding beneath the turret, to which she pulled out the Infobot and gathered her family around her, so that they could see what Chairman Drek was up to next. It showed Chairman Drek addressing his troops, telling them that they would be using their new moon base to launch an attack on a completely unarmed planet, which he mentioned wouldn't be too dangerous. He then gave them three orders; destroy anything that moved, steal the power generators that were scattered around the city they were attacking, and then destroy whatever doesn't move. The Infobot then closed after Drek told his troops to have fun, to which the group growled that he was, yet again, attacking another planet for some reason.

"We must get to the moon base and stop Drek!" Clank stated, though this time he was even more annoyed by what Drek was doing, by attacking a defenseless planet.

"I would wager that Chairman Drek isn't there at all," Sunset commented, sighing as she knew who might be waiting for them, "and that Qwark is likely standing in for him. So then, I guess we can finish our business with the Captain and then figure out where Drek really is... and what it will take to stop him."

Neither Ratchet or Starlight had anything to add to what the others said, because they were annoyed with Chairman Drek attacking another planet, so they immediately began the descend back to their ship. They were determined to get to the moon base and defeat whoever was waiting for them, be it Captain Qwark, Chairman Drek, or the both of them together. There was no telling what was waiting for them at the moon base, so they knew that they had to be on their guard when they arrived, just in case it ended up being a trap.

--------------------------------------

"They are quickly becoming a problem." Chairman Drek commented, watching the 'heroes' destroy the decoy bomb and overcome the entirety of his forces, growing more annoyed the more he watched them.

"Quite true when one takes into account that there's two magic users now," his head scientist said, his image zooming in on Sunset when she used the fire breath on the yetis, "I would wager that she's the one who destroyed the compound on Gaspar. I have to wonder how much power that bracelet of hers contains... and what we could do if we could get our hands on something like that."

Drek also wondered how much destruction he could cause if the Blarg had access to the magic that Starlight, and now Sunset, commanded on a daily occurrence. He had been robbed of the RYNO weapon he had been making, after having the plans brought to him once they had been stolen, but he could overlook that. He had determined that the three of them would prove to be a problem if they managed to make it to the end of his gauntlet, which would mean that he would have to deal with them himself, so he had added a little something to his battle mech that would tip the battle in his favor.

"Tell Qwark that its his turn to deal with these 'heroes'," Drek said, to which the scientist nodded his head for a moment, "and this time I want him to fight them, instead of running away like he did the last time."

He grinned as the scientist walked away to give Captain Qwark his orders, because despite the fact that the decoy bomb had been destroyed the ball was still in his court. He could still remove both of the annoyances at the moon base, which was why he had also built in a long distance self destruct sequence into the station, one that he could engage in the off chance that the 'heroes' survived the battle with Qwark and the soldiers that were waiting. Then he'd move on with his plans without having to worry about someone interfering... which only made him grin even wider than before as his monitor zoomed in on the planet that inhabited the orbit his perfect planet would soon be resting in; the planet known as Veldin.

"Its so good being so evil," Drek commented, watching a visual display of what the Deplanetizer would do to the planet when they had finally moved everything into place, knowing that his enemies had no idea what his final target was... which only allowed him to keep grinning.

Comments

[Aria Blitz]

the planet known as Veldin.

Dang it Drek... I hated him in the actual game and I definitely hate him in this story.
And he's got a self destruct sequence on the moon base... great. He's definitely determined to kill Ratchet and his sisters.

[Guardian of Harmony424]

So it appears sunset picked up the knowledge to begin relearning her shouts. Nice!

[Sonata Blaze]

7306941 Its awesome that she's beginning to remember everything that was taken from her. First she regained a fraction of her former power, now she's got one of the shouts down. Its only a matter of time until she remembers all her powers and spells.

And I am so wanting Drek to be dead right now.

[Vigilant of Stendarr]

Drek reveals another piece of his plan and Sunset learns some control over her abilities.
Let's hope that Drek doesn't do anything stupid before the final battle.