• Published 28th Oct 2021
  • 1,282 Views, 165 Comments

Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes - Blackdrag-rose



Starswirl and Autumn Blaze grow up on Veldin with a Lombax called Ratchet, where they'll begin an epic journey to save their galaxy from the dangers that plague it, unaware of the dangers that exist in their universe.

  • ...
11
 165
 1,282

PreviousChapters Next
All 4 One: Phonica Moon

Upon blasting off Autumn informed the others that, according to the information that was on the computer she had used to activate the ship, this was a prototype ornithopter, designed from travel between Magnus and it's moon, though the rest of the group said nothing as they left the planet behind. For a time nothing happened as they flew through the atmosphere, though when they reached a certain point they found that the spherical insides became active and that it looked like they would be controlling it for some time, like a drone or small ship to get them to the moon. After that the outside layer of the ship fell off like it was simply plating to make sure the insides reached the point where one could carefully fly through all of the asteroids that were between Magnus and the Phonica Moon, even though it was weird for there to be four seats, unless he somehow knew four people would follow in his path. A few moments later the lunar module released itself from the rest of the debris, allowing them to assume direct control over the vessel so they could survive traversing the asteroid field, all while making sure not to end up like Cronk and Zephyr.

Each of them controlled one of four thrusters that extended from their vessel, where Autumn quickly determined that they didn't have enough gelatonium to reach the moon, though Virtuous made a note of the crashed ships that were around the massive asteroid field and determined that they could siphon what they needed from all of the wrecks. As such that caused everyone to carefully navigate their way through the asteroid belt, which was easier said than done since there were a fair number of small asteroids and a decent number of larger ones in their way. It meant that avoiding them was far harder than what they originally expected, since at first it seemed like they could just fly to the moon with ease, where Qwark remained silent as he focused on the path ahead of them and listened to what the others were saying. To ease their travel, and avoid being wrecked by the asteroids, Starswirl focused his magic a little and simply moved some of the more offending obstacles out of the path, allowing them to move with some level of ease.

He also explained that using too much magic might be a bad thing, since the Master wanted him and Autumn, before finding that they had already punched through the asteroid belt and were floating down to the moon's surface, allowing them a few moments to see that Croid had set up obstacles to prevent Nevo from following him.

"Well I'll be, it looks like there's gravity and oxygen up here... definitely not the norm for most moons." Autumn commented, meaning that none of them had to take their O2 Masks out, even though Virtuous didn't need such a thing, though at the same time she and the others climbed out of the vessel that had brought them here before starting to follow the path that was in front of them, "Either Croid did it so he could survive up here, or this moon was already like this when he decided to build a hidden lab outside of Nevo's reach."

The Vendor that Cronk and Zephyr sent them gave the group a chance to restock their ammunition and empower whatever weapons still needed to be upgraded, before continuing down the rest of the path and jumping up some platforms, all while listening to Croid's message for Nevo. Apparently he was disappointed in his former friend, mentioning how he was willing to be an assassin for 'those things', meaning he likely knew Nevo wasn't totally behind his past crimes, though such a thing did make them wonder what in the world was going on now. After that they came into contact with a resident of the moon, a rocky centipede that stood as tall as the halfway point to their knees, a Craterpede according to the warbots, though while it's defenses were greater than what they were expecting, likely due to it's nature, they brought it down in no time. That was followed by the barrier in front of them lowering so they could move forward, keeping an eye out for additional enemies and whatever defenses Croid might have installed to make sure Nevo didn't get close to his hiding spot.

Sure enough the enemies they ended up encountering were more of the bugs from Sargasso, which were easy to take out, and the new Craterpedes, where aiming at their tails seemed to do more damage to them, at least according to Cronk and Zephyr, who seemed to be enjoying their front row seats to the battle.

They also discovered that Croid had installed a number of Swingshots for them to use, such as the spinning ones that sent Autumn and the others flying to another part of the moon's surface, though while they were sure that Croid had used them to avoid the Craterpedes they found that he had more and more messages for Nevo. The way he talked about 'Them' told the group that the Master might be some sort of energy monster, like they thought at one point during their travel through Terrawatt Forest and the areas connected to it, with those odd energy readings Autumn had discovered. In addition to that they found a beast with multiple eyestalks in the acid pools that they eventually reached, Lurkers they were called, and while these new enemies were also tougher than most of their previous enemies they went down in no time. It sure felt like Croid had chosen the moon for the native creatures, and some he had most likely stolen from Terrawatt Forest, to ensure Nevo couldn't reach him, though in the off chance of him succeeding the group knew there had to be robotic defenses of some kind waiting for them, somewhere along the path they were following.

Traversing the path also allowed them to constantly confirm that Croid liked the various Swingshot devices, as they were set up all over the surface of the moon, meaning he either used them to get from point to point or was providing a path to ensure Nevo's demise, but Qwark claimed that such a thing didn't matter in the end, as either way they were going to use them to their advantage.

The interesting thing was that the purple mechs they had seen previously were here as well, meaning they weren't part of Nevo's army and were actually part of Croid's forces, so Autumn guessed they could be called 'Croid Mechs', though they went down with ease as the group moved through the various walls that were in the way. After taking down the first group of bots, however, they discovered something interesting, electric riot shields that could reflect things, which was why they were called Reflectors, which was perfect for reflecting lasers and protecting them from harm. The reason they were great for that was because that happened to be the next obstacle they had to deal with, as Croid had set up some ion turrets to protect the various walkways that were in front of them, where the Reflectors protected them from some ion beams that were fired from the turrets. Fortunately the turrets had to go down for a few moments, to make sure they didn't overheat, and those instances allowed them to move again, though whenever they reached the end of the path someone tore down the turrets, just to make sure they weren't used against them in the future.

Autumn was pleased to have something like the ion turrets as an obstacle, as they made things more interesting for her and the others, forcing them to slow down and ensure that no one was harmed by any of the beams, though the number of ion turrets confirmed one thing, Croid was expected an attack and had prepared for it. It was also a nice change of pace for everyone, since doing the same thing repeatedly got annoying over time, which was why they had been a little eager to tackle the comet shard obstacle in the fields before discovering the unpowered Guardian. This adventure, as a whole, was fresh and new for them, as there were so many new things for Autumn and Starswirl to try, especially with people neither of them really fought alongside, mostly because Qwark had been a coward for a time before breaking that part of himself and Virtuous was usually busy tracking down villains. The only question they were interested in figuring out was who the villain of this adventure was, as the Master was a mysterious figure and there could be more than one, based on Croid's various messages, meaning they were eager to see who or what this 'Master' was.

Eventually they discovered what appeared to be a sealed air vent leading into Croid's hidden lab, a large one that defeated the purpose of it being 'hidden', to which they used their Reflectors to smash the power sources and unsealed it, allowing them to find that it was a sudden drop and quickly activated their Jet Packs.

Sure enough they found that Croid's defenses were waiting for them, even though they could use the thruster feature of their Jet Packs to break certain items to open the way for everyone to head deeper into the lab, though this time around none of them could use their Reflectors to cancel out the ion turrets. As such they moved around where the beams were located and simply avoided each turret, where Qwark noted that some of the small robots using them hung their heads in shame for allowing them to make it passed them. The shaft was longer than they expected, meaning there were a larger number of ion turrets than they expected, but, eventually, the group reached the end of it and dropped down onto what looked like the start of another gauntlet, this one having more ion turrets between them and Croid's final position. As such the group proceeded like normal, using their Reflectors to protect them from the ion turrets while someone else fired on the defenseless robots that were controlling them, eliminating a threat to their current plan, while finding some odd light purple water below them that Autumn was sure was some sort of poison.

As they did that, however, Qwark pointed off in the distance and they realized what it was, he had spotted the fifth of the six hidden labs that Croid had deployed all over Magnus, meaning another RYNO VI piece was within their grasp, which caused them to plan on making a slight detour once they reached it.

Croid's defenses were many and even slightly challenging, even though Autumn and Virtuous, with their intelligence, were able to figure out how to solve each section they came across, something that left their defenses to Qwark and Starswirl, who did so to the best of their ability. So far it looked like the only real enemies in this place were the ion turrets, save for a lone mech that happened to be guarding part of the cavern that the lab was built into, so the pair smashed it to pieces as the others focused on breaking the remaining generators to lower all of the barriers in their way. After that they found where the lab was located and entered Croid's fifth critter lab, where they started up the trial and followed the path that was in front of them, solving the various puzzles the insane doctor had set up to keep the RYNO VI out of Nevo's hands, or at least it sure seemed that way. In the end, however, the group claimed the fifth piece of the weapon, the right leg of the mech, and with it in hand they teleported back to the path they had been following earlier, where they discovered that the platform that would take them forward fell out and caused the group to use their Jet Packs once more.

It was actually amazing how much Croid had put into his own security, even though he must have salvaged what he could from all of the minions that fell near his various bases, otherwise none of this should have been possible, and made them wonder how long it was going to take to actually reach him. This time around the group had to head upwards and avoid all of the saws in their way, since there didn't seem to be any path heading downward, while also avoiding grinders that were doing nothing, even if they had been used to clear out this area once upon a time. After a while they found an opening to escape through with ease, using some Swingshot targets to ascend through the section of the hidden lab before pushing a spinning level to raise a platform that allowed the group to leave the defense area that Croid had set up. After that it was a simple matter to use the Reflector with the Glob Lobber to break through the laser defense that seemed to be powering the next door, bringing them to the outskirts of the real hidden laboratory, a replica of the Hall of Paradoxology, a rather foolish move since Nevo would be able to find him instantly if he looked hard enough.

Sure enough the path leading to the hidden lab held a number of purple mechs and instances to use the Reflector, all of which seemed designed to slow down whoever happened to be invading the moon, but, like always, Autumn and the rest of the group tore through them, opening the way into Croid's lab... where the very first room had a number of chambers and a few references to something interesting.

"Planet Toranux?" Qwark inquired, as this was the first time he had heard of the planet in question, then again he wasn't a scholar like Autumn, Starswirl, or even Virtuous and his counterpart, hence why he glanced at the others for a moment, as it looked like Croid had done a lot of research on it.

"I've heard of it, but the Lombax archives tells that it was wiped out by the Cragmites." Autumn remarked, though in that moment she found that the planet in question looked like a light green planet with several blue islands scattered around it's surface, which had to be one of the few images that remained of it, before she snapped some scans of the screens in front of them and sent them up to Cronk and Zephyr, "Guys, see if you can find anything else about Toranux and send me what you find... this might hold a key to solving the mystery of who the 'Master' is."

In that moment they heard Croid talking to himself down the hallway and found that he was wearing a tinfoil hat on top of his head, speaking of creatures inside the 'rocks' that needed vessels, though he seemed somewhat confused by the fact that they were there and, when Autumn tried to explain things to the insane Tharpod, all he said was that she was hungry and wandered off.

"He's definitely insane... but there are answers to be gained from his lab." Virtuous remarked, as he had walked over to a computer after seeing that Croid was staring off into space during Autumn's explaination, where they found that he had a useful discovery, that Ephemeris uses a versatron charging station and used a sonic ping to prevent ships from getting close to it, "This is child's play... I've already triangulated the location of Ephemeris' charging station to the Vilerog Plateau, and, according to the computer, there's a pod we can use to return to the planet's surface... it even claims that there's a 'Shard of Toranux' nearby."

Starswirl found it as soon as Virtuous mentioned it, the blackened shard with a crimson core and was as big as the vessel they used to reach the moon, to which he sealed it inside a cage of magic and warped it into his magical study area before everyone boarded the pod so they could return to Magnus and put an end to this adventure.

PreviousChapters Next