Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes

by Blackdrag-rose

All 4 One: Deadgrove

When morning arrived Autumn made sure that she, Starswirl, and Qwark had something to eat, since Virtuous didn't eat, save for the fact that his body could process liquids and he rarely did so, before heading into the underground area that was on the edge of the Tharpod village.

We've been going over the information that the elder gave you, and determined that you are leaving Aldaros Plains, as the area in front of you is the Deadgrove. Cronk commented, speaking as the group approached a Vendor that had been sent down to where they were positioned, in fact Autumn wasn't going to ask how since she could see an opening above them that a satellite could spy them from, which he and Zephyr were using to follow their progress, According to the feed, there is a large sorting station exactly one sector north of your current position... I bet my original rotator cuff that that's where you guys will find this 'Commander' Spog.

As Zephyr mentioned that they would have to find a subterranean railway station, the key to moving forward, the group took a moment to access the Vendor, allowing them to restock their ammunition before obtaining two new toys, where the first was the Blitzer, which was a punching weapon like the Walloper of old, and the second was the Warmonger, which was a rocket launcher. With those weapons in hand, and everyone had restocked their ammunition while empowering any other weapons that were available, the group headed down the path that was in front of them, which involved heading deeper into the earth, or at least the parts that weren't broken by all of the gravity machines. Of course it allowed them to face new enemies, such as the Dreadgrubs, bug critters that were native to Magnus and were incredibly weak, as a single shot was more than enough to take them down, be it from their pistols or their melee weapons. Not only that they found a large beetle creature with a harder shell and a horn growing out of it's head, though Starswirl used his magic to stall them and flip them so the others could wipe them out, even though they could just let it charge them and attack the underbelly after that.

Other than that there didn't seem to be too much for the group to worry about, as they found many minion additions to make it easier for all of their grounded enemies to move throughout the Deadgrove, but, even if that was the case, they kept their guards up since they had no idea what might be around a vine or corner.

"Is that... a minion tending to a turret?" Qwark inquired, as they found an area that seemed to have a powerful turret, no doubt to be used against the critters of Deadgrove, and it looked like the minion in question was currently getting a drink from a water cooler that had been placed near his position.

"Indeed it is. It'll likely see us as an enemy, but maybe we can reason with..." Autumn replied, though before she could even finish her statement the minion noticed them and rushed over to it's turret, turning it on the area they were in so it could be ready, all while radioing in to the rest of the minions who were stationed down here, "...it. You know what, let's just stick to blasting everything."

Virtuous nodded as he jumped down into the area and showed off his reflexes as he moved around the turret, before the minion had a chance to track him down, where they discovered that the back was wide open and if they attacked that part the battle would be over in seconds. With the turret taken care of, and Autumn had collected parts of it for later, she and the others continued down the path it had been guarding and found yet another gadget waiting for them, making Qwark wonder just how many they would obtain during this adventure. This one happened to be four Quakehammers, which let the users drill through hard stone in search of treasure, or at least that was what the Tharpods used before being drive to their current conditions, though when they combined them together they unleashed a contained mega-quake that just shattered the wall of rock in front of them. With that done they used some bouncers to propel themselves over to the next part of Deadgrove, where they walked down the path in front of them and opened fire on the minion that was outside it's fission turret, allowing Starswirl to ensure that the area was clear before they used a pad to send them flying once more, to deal with another beetle and then propel themselves onto a vine.

The vine, however, took them deeper into the region that they were moving through, as when it ended them grabbed a couple of peaceful critters, in case they found any of the other four labs, before leaping across some stones to reach the stone platform in front of them. Sure enough another barrier minion decided to try and trap them in this area, though it only caused Autumn, Starswirl, Qwark, and Virtuous to chuckle as they opened fire on their enemies, wiping them out in a matter of moments before taking out the fission turrets that were positioned further ahead. After that they found what, at a glance, looked like a dead end, but Virtuous knew that this was where they could use their Quakehammers and the rest of the group did so without much delay, allowing them to break through it with ease. Once the rock wall had collapsed the four of them walked down into the next area, which was when Cronk called and informed them that they were detecting collection activity in the mining camp below their position, meaning they had to be getting closer to their destination, or at least one of them since this meant they were getting closer to some rails.

After that they launched themselves over to an area that seemed to have a number of brittle layers for them to blast their way through with their Quakehammers, along with clearing out each level of crates, since there didn't seem to be many minions for them to deal with. Along the way Qwark found some sort of bulb that exploded when launched at something, like a steel shutter wall for example, allowing everyone to progress as Autumn fell back a little to make her notes on what they were uncovering, since they discovered something interesting every now and then and she wanted to keep track of it all for later. She also discovered some rather bouncy mushrooms that were growing out of some of the walls, which would send them in a certain direction based on how they grew, but, as everyone expected, the mushrooms were groomed in a way so whoever used them would be pushed along the path they were currently following. What was interesting was that the further along in this adventure that Autumn, Starswirl, Virtuous, and Qwark got in this adventure the more times they found an area that required more than one of them to do something to progress, providing an interesting challenge that none of them were used to.

Eventually, however, they discovered a new creature in the depths of the mine, a massive worm like critter that dug into the walls around them, where Zephyr informed them that it was a Wigwump from Sargasso, a carnivore to be exact, and it seemed to be eyeing everyone before digging into a wall, allowing them to outrun a collapsing scaffold before moving even deeper than before.

There was a shattered rail system that allowed the group to make rapid progress in descending to the depths, all so they could make their way to the area Spog was resting in, and dropped them at some steel platforms that Autumn and the others were able to traverse as well. Such a thing lead to another rail system that eventually brought them to a set of Jet Packs, allowing them to equip the gadgets before taking flight, as in move from side to side and, amazingly, perform what was a powerful smashing move to wreck whatever was in their way. The Jet Packs allowed them to safely navigate the area that was below them, avoiding still working incinerators, something none of them were going to question since some of their previous adventures had taken them to deserted places that still operated with no one working on them, while also avoiding saws and other hazards. An interesting aspect was the fact that they still had to break through some stone that was blocking the way, along with pausing on steel platforms every now and then, which seemed designed to allow the Jet Packs to rapidly recharge their power sources, or at least top off before the next session, and they even smashed a couple of laser turrets that happened to be in the way.

Autumn had a feeling that, to ensure no one tried to use this path against them, Nevo or his boss designed some terrible additions to the shaft the group was flying through, as some of the hazards actually tried to chase them down for a short period of time, but even with that happening she and the others were able to out fly the traps, until they came to a stop in an area that had another of Croid's weapon labs.

"Honestly, I'm surprised we've found another one, not that long after finding the last two." Qwark commented, which the rest of the group agreed with, even Autumn, when she went over where the pieces of the RYNO IV and V holoplans went, felt it was strange, as they were usually more spread out than this, making her wonder if they'd have the RYNO VI before reaching the halfway point of this adventure.

"Indeed. It's almost like Croid wants his allies to be armed for whatever is waiting for us." Virtuous said, though this time they headed inside the lab and found that, just like the ones before it, they had to escort some critters to the end of the line and they did so without delay.

This time around the group found that they didn't have to use either of the new gadgets they had discovered, which was just weird since Autumn knew the Glob Lobber had been used in a lab after they found it, but she wasn't about to ask any questions as they claimed the right arm piece of the plans. With that done the group returned to the path they had been following and used a platform to propel themselves forward once more, finding more bugs and minions to do battle with as they pushed deeper into the Deadgrove, as Cronk and Zephyr were sure that they were close to the rail system, which was good news for them. An interesting thing they uncovered was that there were mortar minions now, as they launched their bombs at Qwark as he stepped into their range, though no harm came to him as Starswirl engaged his magic and quickly sent the explosives at their owners, wiping all of them out so the group could move forward. While they fought all of their enemies, however, Autumn noticed that there were several other rail systems that were moving right now, so that meant someone was still mining into the area and using the material, no doubt Spog's master when the group took a few seconds to consider it.

After clearing out the rest of the enemies they found the rail station that Cronk and Zephyr had told them about earlier, which caused them to let out a sigh of relief as everyone stepped on the platform in front of them, as it moved as soon as everyone was on it, but they weren't able to get too far as the Wigwamp smashed through a wall and shattered the steel platform they were on.

Such a thing caused them to deploy their Jet Packs and descend into the depths once more, this time racing to avoid the massive beast that was following them right now, all while it looked like they were heading into the Wigwamp's nest, a bad sign since it might see them as either invaders or precious food. There were instances where everyone had to stop as the Wigwamp blocked the path, though by kicking at it's head, with the applied pressure of the thruster mode of the Jet Packs, they were able to force it back into some of the holes that it emerged from so they could get away from it. Starswirl could tell that they were doing some small amount of damage to the creature, even if it might be getting angrier with them while they did that, but for right now it seemed like this was all he, Autumn, and their friends could do. It even followed the four of them down another portion of it, trying to eat them after finding that the other methods didn't work for it, but Autumn found that they were able to bypass it's attempts and smashed through one last layer, finding a large arena of sorts that had a pool of acid and, more importantly, another rail system off in the distance.

Of course it emerged from the pool, which did nothing to it, and they opened fire on it, usually because reasoning with the various beasts did nothing, finding that it seemed to be able to heat up parts of the ground by breathing on them, but as time went by they discovered launch pads so they could use the thruster feature again, allowing them to known out the Wigwamp in no time at all.

"Okay, let's get out of here before something else finds us." Qwark said, as while he knew that Autumn and Starswirl could deal with anything, or at least they could as long as they had access to their magic, before he paused for a moment as he found what appeared to be an egg shaped device that he handed to Autumn.

Together they watched as she activated it and they discovered that it was like an Infobot, where it revealed that it was the diary of someone, Croid most likely, who stood on Zuzzo Fields as Commander Spog and his forces wasted Ozo City, while Ephemeris floated silently in the sky like a moon.

"Croid called it an ark... there's more to the story that we need to find." Autumn stated, as the holo-diary only opened new questions for them to ask, even though it was clear something had happened between Croid and Nevo, leading to one of them, the former it seemed, making Ephemeris while the latter simply stole it, "We must find Spog at once... he might hold the key to stopping Ephemeris and his dark master."

Starswirl found that Qwark and Nefarious agreed with his sister, to which they boarded the nearby rail platform and let it take them out of the Wigwarm's barrow, as it was time for them to make some real progress and deal with Spog, hopefully before anything else happened to them.