Ratchet and Clank: The Starlight of Solana

by Blackdrag-rose

R/C: BTS

When the ship arrived at the research station, and no alarms went off when they landed their ship, the four of them climbed out of the ship as quietly as they possibly could. Once they had determined that the area they were in was clear of enemies, and that there weren't any to worry about for a few minutes, they sat around the ship as Ratchet pulled out some Nanobars and passed them to his sisters. None of them had eaten very much over the last few days, no doubt because they were caught up in their adventure, though Ratchet was grateful that the Planetary Chairman had left some of the bars in the ship.

Nanobars were basically the same thing as energy bars, but the difference between them was that the Nanobars contained an entire meal that someone could eat in a few minutes. They had originally been designed for Captain Qwark while he was on his adventures, as there wasn't a lot of time for him to relax and take half an hour to eat a proper meal. After some time the Captain had made them available to everyone else that wanted to be a hero, though that had eventually progressed until they became available to everyone, be they heroes or common workers, across the galaxy. Ratchet had personally never tried one, because there was no need for him or his sisters to have them when they rarely did anything that would require them to spend too much time on something.

He almost laughed when he unwrapped his bar and tore a chunk of it off, tasting a combination of tomato, lettuce and bacon that he knew had to belong to a BLT.

"Caesar Salad, yummy!" Starlight commented, gladly tearing her bar to pieces and getting some more energy into her body, which she knew would be useful for searching the station for clues and gadgets.

"I got a BLT," Ratchet added, a smile appearing on his face as he turned to Sunset, "So, what did your bar give you?"

"Roast beef sandwich," Sunset replied, somewhat surprised by accurate that the Nanobar could recreate the flavoring of the sandwich with such ease, "though these will definitely fill you up while your on the go."

"Now that the three of you have eaten your fill," Clank said, turning their attention to him once more, "perhaps we can make a plan of action before we blindly go running off. From my initial scans it seems that there are three paths that we can take; one that appears to require a space walk, one that requires a walk through that warship docked nearby, and a third that requires a trek through the station. Seeing how that none of you have anything that would allow you to breath outside, unless you've been hiding something from me, then it falls upon me to be the one to venture outside and see what I can find. That leaves two more paths for the rest of you to take, so whose going to take which path?"

"Are we sure that splitting up if the best move?" Sunset asked, knowing that they all knew that Drek had constructed the research station and that it was possible that there could be some traps waiting for them.

"It is the best use of our time before Chairman Drek discovers that we've searched his station for clues," Clank pointed out, not knowing if it was true or not, but felt the need to point it out anyway, "thus we have to divide our workload between the three of you and get all of our objectives done as quickly as possible. I am quite capable of searching outside by myself, so Ratchet can accompany one of you and help you clear whatever objective that you choose to take on."

"Then Ratchet and I will search the main station!" Starlight suddenly declared, causing the robot to turn to her for a moment, "What? Based on the shape of the warship, which appears to be a straight line, it shouldn't be too hard for Sunset to work her way through the ship, find whatever information it has to offer, and then make it back to our ship either before we arrive or at the same time as we do. If my calculations are correct we should each be done with our objectives at roughly the same time, where we'd be able to exchange notes on what we found before continuing our search."

"Very well then," Sunset sighed in defeat, as she didn't like the fact that they had to split up to cover all of their objectives, but also knew that Clank was right about getting the job done before Drek figured out that they were there, "this is a decent division of labor. Just promise me that the two of your will be as safe as possible."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about us," Ratchet said, flexing his hand and summoning a minion sphere into his right hand, "I'd worry about the destruction we'll be raining on our enemies."

Sunset sighed as she watched her siblings approach the vendor for a moment, buying what appeared to be one of Starlight's joke weapons that was known as the Taunter, before walking up to a force field and breaking the sphere that would have prevented someone from moving on, opening the way for them to move forward. She leaned back against the ship and crossed her arms for a moment, making no attempt to get moving towards the pod that would take her to the warship just yet. She wasn't worried about the destruction the two of them would bring to their enemies, but she was worried about the damage they would cause to the station if they weren't careful.

"Why are you not heading towards your objective?" Clank asked after a few minutes, having waited by the door that Ratchet had opened for him and stared at Sunset.

"Because mine is a straight line that should take ten minutes at most," Sunset replied, having looked over her own version of the scan that the little robot had run before they had started discussing their plans, "I'll give my family some time to move through their chosen path before I even start my own, giving myself time to prepare for what I might find on that warship."

Clank shook his head and headed through the airlock, leaving the Cazar alone to do whatever she wanted before she started heading down her own path. He walked into the elevator and rode the short ride down to another level, where the door opened for him to venture outside and begin his search for whatever his scan had indicated was out here. He crossed the walkway that connected to the elevator and encountered a creature that looked like a cross between a toad and something else, though he could tell, from just one look, that the creatures were definitely feral. He also noticed that they appeared to have the capability to breath in space, telling him that they had definitely engineered by someone to be weapons... though he had the suspicion he knew who that someone was.

The two engineered creatures looked at him for a second before coming at him, to which he swung his arms and body around, allowing to smack the two creatures off the edge of the platform they were standing on. They floated in space for a moment, glaring at him with their feral eyes, before they exploded and rained a few bolts down on the platform, which he collected with the intent on giving to Ratchet later on. He continued along his chosen path, clearing out the crates that appeared in his way and gathering the bolts that he found, before gliding down to another area that had a pack of five engineered creatures waiting for him.

Clank timed his attacks accurately, knocking each of the five creatures into space and forcing them to explode, before the way was clear once more and he had another addition to add to his stash of bolts. He climbed up to a winding walkway and carefully crossed to the opening that led into another area of the station's exterior, where he was positive he would find whatever item his scans had found. When he entered what he assumed was the final section of the exterior he found a crab like engineered creature, with a long neck and a head that had a lot of teeth, waiting in the doorway.

He turned around the corner opposite of the strange creature and found some small robots that his internal system informed him were called Gadgebots, a type of robot that he could apparently issue commands to and watch them follow through. He listened to the brief tutorial that came with his scan, which he found to be extremely useful, before he turned to the engineered creature and pressed his hands against his head. As he issued the command to attack the eyes of the little robots shifted from green to red, before they started jumping for joy and charged at the creature, tearing the poor thing down as it realized that it couldn't defend against the small robots. With the deed done, and the robots eyes returned to green, he approached a terminal and accessed another command, causing the group of robots to enter the terminal and open the way.

He entered the final area of the exterior and found a gadget that looked like a large cylinder container, which his internal systems told him was a Hydrodisplacer, another Blargian creation designed to move water from one place to another. He picked up the gadget and shrunk it down to a size that would fit in his central storage area, chuckling for a brief moment before the bridge back to the start extended. Once the way was open he immediately crossed over to the start, taking a moment to be sure that there weren't anymore enemies waiting for him, before he entered the elevator and rode back up to the airlock.

When he entered the station once more, and closed the airlock behind him, he noticed that Sunset was still standing by the ship, telling him that he hadn't been gone that long.

"How long was I gone?" Clank asked, deciding that it was better not to ask why she had yet to start traveling towards her own objective and instead focused on how long it had taken him to clear his own.

"Ten to fifteen minutes," Sunset replied, turning her gaze to the robot for a moment as a thought crossed her mind, "So, what did you find out there?"

"I found a Hydrodisplacer," Clank answered, pulling out the gadget for a moment so Sunset could take a look at it, before returning it to his storage area, "I believe Ratchet will like this gadget."

"If you say so Clank," Sunset said, before she finally stopped leaning on the ship and made sure that her weapons were at the ready, "Well, I guess its time for me to start searching that warship for anything useful."

Clank wished her luck as she boarded the pod that would take her to the warship, waiting for the airlock to close before wandering back to the ship and taking a seat in front of it. He had to wonder how Ratchet and Starlight were doing, but considered the last time he had watched them in a fight and knew that their enemies were likely falling to pieces.

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

When Ratchet and Starlight had started their trek down their path they found nothing but moving vents that seemed to be spraying some sort of toxic gas, but it wasn't deadly as it disappeared into the air vents shortly after being released. After they passed through a door they found an engineered creature that walked on the ceiling, though it growled at them and made its way further down the tunnel, where two vents opened and more of the creatures poured out. The two of them pulled out their Pyrocitors and started torching the creatures, moving through the small swarm of them until they came to a chamber that had what appeared to be one of Chairman Drek's soldiers standing guard over another blocked door.

The soldier started firing at them the moment they entered the chamber, but Starlight switched to her Blaster and put one blast right in his head, blasting him into one of the sphere's that kept the force field intact. With one of them broken, and the soldier that was protecting them dealt with, Ratchet smashed the second sphere with his wrench and they moved deeper into the station. The soldier that had been standing behind the force field didn't take too kindly to them breaking the field, but before he could move the vents around him opened and another small swarm of engineered creatures landed all around him. In the end Ratchet and Starlight put down the creatures that were blocking their way, as the creatures had dealt with the guard, before continuing once more.

"I wonder what's inside here," Ratchet commented, staring at the locked door as he pulled out the Trespasser, to which Starlight moaned behind him, "I just want to be sure that we covered all of our bases before meeting back up with Clank and Sunset at the ship."

What they found behind the locked door was a large number of crates, though before they started breaking them a few engineered creatures popped out of their hiding places and charged at them. With the creatures cleared, and the crates looted of all their bolts, the two of them entered the next area and found that they had to climb around several toxin spewing vents. Starlight took a moment to analyze the area before igniting her magic, forming a set of stairs that could get the two of them passed the vents and drop them off before the Swingshot target in the middle of the ceiling. Once they were up there she dispelled the magic and they swung over to the next area, taking down the guard and the creatures that were waiting for them.

In the next chamber they found two large containers, where they found the large mutant creatures that they had seen in the Infobot, though they appeared to be sleeping at the moment. Starlight pointed out the two spheres that were likely keeping the force field up, but she also determined that they were likely keeping the creatures asleep. If they wanted to move on they were going to have to wake the creatures up and deal with them, so Ratchet sighed and took out the first sphere with his Blaster, to which the creature near the door they had walked through burst out of its cage. That was what Ratchet had been waiting for, as the moment the creature had touched the floor he released the sphere containing the Glove of Doom minions and let them tear the creature apart.

They then repeated that process for the second creature before the chamber had been cleared of enemies, to which they entered another passageway that was filled with the engineered creatures they had been finding throughout the entire station. Once they had fought through the entire swarm of creatures they walked through another door and found an area that would require a jump from them, to which Starlight merely enhanced her abilities for a moment to follow her brother. The soldier that had been standing beside the vendor was easily put down, giving them the ability to look into the next chamber and see what they would be fighting in a few seconds. They found a pair of the larger creatures that were accompanied by another swarm of smaller creatures, but they had a different plan of attack for this chamber.

Starlight charged into the chamber alone and started firing her Pyrocitor, taking care of the smaller creatures while keeping herself away from the larger ones. Ratchet, on the other hand, followed through when the smaller ones had been taken care of, throwing two minion spheres into the air and allowing the little robots to tear the two creatures apart. Once that was done they tore down the next force field and continued their advance, where they found a circular area that was separated into four sections, blocked off from each other by a single force field. Their enemies included more of the larger creatures and a single soldier, though they employed all the tactics they had used to get to this point once more and cleared the way to a rather large chamber.

As they stepped into the massive area the door closed behind them, allowing a massive version of the larger creatures to drop from the ceiling and glare at the two of them.

"Its huge!" Ratchet exclaimed, separating from Starlight as they determined that attacking from two sides would be the best plan of action at the moment.

"Well you know what that means," Starlight fired back, throwing out a few minion spheres and letting the little robots aid them in fighting the massive creature, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

Damaging the massive creature was actually pretty easy, but after taking a certain amount of damage it moved to the back of the chamber and loosed a few enemies for the two of them to fight, which happened to be a swarm of the little creatures. Once the swarm was taken care of the massive Queen, for that was what Starlight determined the creature had to be, came at them once more with what they assumed was anger in its eyes. They employed the same tactic as before, separating themselves and attacking from two sides once more, dealing more damage to the creature before it retreated again. This time it loosed the larger creatures at them, but with the aid of their minions Ratchet and Starlight dealt with the creatures before turning their attention back to the Queen, eventually knocking the massive creature back and causing it to collapse.

Once the Queen was taken care of, and they were sure that there were no more enemies waiting for them, they walked through the newly opened door and found a pair of small engineered creatures attacking someone on a stool, to which Ratchet smashed them in the head and saved the scientist.

"Whew! I thought I was a goner that time." the scientist said, wiping the sweat from his brow as he vented his anger to some unknown person, "Some nanowit genetics must have left the cages open again."

"You can come down now," Ratchet informed him, gesturing to the stool the scientist was standing on, while Starlight looked around for anything they might be able to use in their fight against Drek.

"Honestly, a Gadget Engineer deserves a bit more respect if you ask me..." the scientist angrily proclaimed, hopping down from the stool and glancing around the small chamber, before spotting Starlight, "Wait a second... you couldn't possibly be Starlight Glimmer, could you?"

"That's me," Starlight confirmed, not surprised that someone knew about her after what had happened when she and Sunset had met Big Al, "and you would be?"

"The names Fred," the scientist replied, shaking his head for a moment, as if he was meeting a superstar and couldn't believe it, "Though if your here, then that means that Sunset Shimmer is around here as well. Honestly, Gadgetron is lucky to have employed two genius sisters, one whose skilled in making weapons and another whose skilled in crafting gadgets. Any idea when Sunset will be arriving? I actually have a gadget that I've been working on and I would be overjoyed to have her look over it for her superiors at Gadgetron. Because honestly, working in this research station is getting more dangerous by the day and I''d love to be employed somewhere safer... maybe with Gadgetron for instance."

"What are they?" Ratchet asked, knowing that if any scientist made something for one of his sisters to look over, even if it was a gadget, then it had to be somewhat impressive in its own right.

"Grind Boots," the scientist answered, pulling out a pair of boots before gesturing to the nearby rail, "these allow the wearer to slide or grind down thin surfaces or rails, such as the one over there. I know that they work despite my coworkers turning in reports that they were hurting themselves while riding on the rail, not the boots fault I can assure you, but I would like a professional's opinion on them."

"Well, if you come back to our ship with us you'll be able to ask her yourself," Starlight told the scientist, to which Fred's eyes lit up with joy, "and maybe you'd like my brother to try them out as well? Just to be sure that your, um, coworkers were wrong."

Fred took a moment to be sure that she wasn't trying to play him, but when she mentioned his coworkers, and the fact that they were likely wrong, he handed them over without any further questions. Ratchet slipped the boots on over his feet, admiring the fact that they fit perfectly, before he approached the rail and started riding down it almost immediately. As he entered the glass tunnel he turned back for a moment to see Starlight using some spell to mimic what he was doing, with Fred standing beside her as she followed him back to the ship. He had to wonder what else his sister's magic was capable of doing, though he also knew that he would eventually find out as they progressed through their adventure.

As they traveled down the rail, however, they heard an explosion and looked at the warship, watching it finish tearing itself apart and causing them to worry that Sunset might have been caught in the destruction.

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

Sunset walked out of the pod that she had rode to the warship, her weapons at the ready as she walked into the open area and found two doors that she could take, though when she discovered that the door to her left was locked she went to the one on the right and opened it up. She found one of Drek soldiers standing in the middle of the area she walked into, though she took a few shots with her Blaster and blew the soldier up as he tried to fire back at her. She found another duo of doors waiting for someone to approach them, though as she opened the one on the right she found the engineered creatures that Clank had briefly told her about. She used her Pyrocitor to get rid of the creatures, making sure that they didn't touch her as she worked her way into the next section of the ship.

in the next part of the warship she found two more of Drek's soldiers waiting for her, both with their blasters primed, but she wasted no time in blasting the two of them like the previous one. In the front section of the warship she found three large creatures that looked ready to snap someone's head off, though she merely switched her weapon to the Glove of Doom and summoned three spheres. She loosed them into the area one by one, waiting for the minions from one sphere to be done with a target before throwing out the next group of minions, before the way was clear for her to search the area.

After a few minutes of searching the head of the warship she determined that the only thing worth taking with her was an Infobot, which appeared to be back where she entered the ship to begin with. She only knew that there was an Infobot thanks to the reading that the ship's computers gave her, though once she had all the information she could take from the ship she turned to the large red button and laughed for a moment. She found it funny that the people who made the ship would leave the self destruct button out in the open like this, as if they had planned to taunt their enemies into blowing themselves up. Once she was finished laughing she prepped her hoverboard before pressing the button, to which the entire ship began to shake as she got underway.

She flew through the sections of the self destructing warship, using her skills from her hoverbike to avoid the creatures that wanted to take her head off, before getting back to the pod that had brought her to the ship. She snatched the Infobot as she got off the board, storing the two of them away as she got into the pod, allowing it to detach from the warship and return to the station... giving her a view of the ship's destruction in the process.

When she docked back at the station she walked through the door and found her siblings, plus Clank and a scientist she had never seen before, waiting for her.

"Oh thank whoever is watching that your okay," Ratchet exclaimed, throwing his arms around Sunset for a moment, telling her that they had been worried about her thanks to the ship blowing up, "We were worried about you."

"I'm okay Ratchet," Sunset replied, glad that they were all okay from their objectives, before turning to their newest friend, "So, what can we do for you, Mister...?"

"I am Fred," the scientist answered, pulling out a holo-plan of what appeared to be a pair of boots, "I was hoping that you would look over my Grind Boots and tell me if they're something that Gadgetron would be interested in."

"Well then, I'll take the plans and look them over myself," Sunset said, allowing the scientist to transfer the plans to her before continuing, "After that I'll send them to someone at Gadgetron and give them a proper round of research; send them to a tester, give them a new look that buyers will like, write a few reviews, and then, if everything is good, they'll be approved and be available for sale. Though based on these plans alone you should be expecting a call from one of our superiors in the future... you have talent and I'm not going to let it go to waste."

Fred started to cry as he thanked Sunset for everything she was going to do for the Grind Boots, and for him in the process, before handing her his contact information, so her superiors could get in touch with him. With the deed done, and the coast clear, Fred called up his ship up from the garage and got into the small vehicle, before starting the systems and flying out of the station with the determination to be rid of everything Chairman Drek was doing there.

Once that had been taken care of Clank turned to Ratchet for a moment, opening his storage area and pulling out the gadget that he had found outside the station.

"What is this?" Ratchet asked, having never seen the gadget before in his life, but knew that it had to be something that Chairman Drek had created for some sinister plot.

"A Hydrodisplacer," Clank explained, allowing Ratchet to take the gadget and study it, "It moves water from one place to another."

"Great," Ratchet said, staring at the gadget for a few seconds, knowing that this was going to come in handy later on, "I always wanted one of those, I guess. How about you Sunset?"

That was when the four of them watched an Infobot for Blackwater City of Planet Rilgar, where the people appeared to be under attack from slime like creatures that were called amoeboids. With no other leads to follow the four of them agreed that they should help the people of Blackwater City, to which they boarded their ship and got underway once more.

Comments

[Aria Blitz]

Its funny, but when I looked up that scientist's name I laughed... his name is actually Fred.

[Vigilant of Stendarr]

Hmm... Nanobars, an interesting idea for how Ratchet was able to have enough energy to do everything he did in all of his adventures (despite the fact its a video game).
And now we go to the planet that many have no doubt been waiting for... Rilgar, the hoverboard contest, and a certain merchant.

[Sonata Blaze]

Things are getting better and better with this story. Its also nice to see that Sunset's willing to help the scientist advance in his career.

7246004 Yeah, I'm quite surprised that he had an actual name... usually the name is a made up one by the author.

[not-so-anonymous]

Poor Fred.... his future is rather bleak....

[Aria Blitz]

7246351 Why do you say that?

[Guardian of Harmony424]

Planet Rilgar... May Celestia have mercy on the RYNO merchant.

[Aria Blitz]

7247337 Starlight's either going to tear him to shreds when she discovers that he has her most powerful weapon, or she might rip the weapon out of his hands and threaten to blow him up with it... who knows what the author will do.

[not-so-anonymous]

7246362 well, he appears in the third game. Briefly.

[Aria Blitz]

7248562 He does? Huh, and here I thought that the scientist was only in the first game. I don't recall seeing him in Up Your Arsenal, but maybe I merely overlooked him.

[not-so-anonymous]

7248660 like I said: briefly. Annihilation Nation ad.

[Aria Blitz]

7248670 Oh... ouch, that kind of sucks really. And now I know why I overlooked him in the game... he was there for ten seconds at most.
Poor Fred, he shall be missed... when we get to the arena anyway.

[Daxen123]

Push the big red shiny button