Ratchet and Clank: Family of Heroes

by Blackdrag-rose

Deadlocked: Torval

The following day Ratchet, Autumn, and Starswirl were on their way to the next planet they had to deal with, Torval, and this time the siblings were ready for who was going down and who was staying on the transport ship, as Autumn would be heading down with him and Starswirl would be staying here. So far the arrangement seemed to be working for Vox, as he had issued no new commands to the siblings, though Clank had found a few postings that came from Ace, as he wanted the family to have all the information they needed to bring him down, making them dislike him even more. Apparently he took kids, whether as volunteers or it was pure kidnapping, in fact they were sure it was the latter given his desire to take heroes while they were working, and put them into focus groups to figure out why Ace's toys weren't selling, while the kids either wanted toys made in Clank's likeness, as in Secret Agent Clank, Courtney Gears, or the three of them. Ace's toys weren't selling, that much they had gathered from the videos they had seen, which contained over two hundred kids and none of them wanted to touch an Ace Hardlight toy, which must have caused Ace to chuckle and Vox had likely blown a fuse when he got the results back.

Of course they couldn't talk about that, not without revealing that they had inside help to the villain they were planning on taking down, and waited until they reached Torval, where Ratchet and Autumn were teleported down to the start of their next course and got ready as a deserted factory or city appeared around them.

Welcome back, DreadZone fans! Today we're live from planet Torval. Dallas said, where his tone informed them that this had to be an interesting place, or at least he was hoping so after they smashed and defeated everything that had been thrown at them so far, Team Darkstar has dominated the DreadZone circuit so far, but I think their luck will stop here. They've just been sent to one of Torval's massive Ace Hardlight toy manufacturing plants! And although the plant was shut down due to shoddy sales, one of Ace's ships still remains! Team Darkstar will have to find that ship and escape with it before DreadZone's most elite forces hunt them down!

That thought amused the siblings when they thought about it, Vox was having a hard time selling Ace's toys and, whether it was the original plan or not, he was sentencing them to fight through one of the factories that the unsellable items were coming from, meaning he might be planning on destroying it soon. Since there was nothing new for them in the Vendor, as Autumn took a look before they did anything else, the siblings moved out and opened fire on a group of gladiators that were guarding a turret, who was disabled in no time by one of Autumn's EMPs and torn apart by Ratchet's bullets. What they discovered was that the turret was also sitting on some control orbs, so that told them that they had to deal with the guardians before hacking into them, which was going to be easy for them since they knew the turrets didn't stand much of a chance against them. They also found that there were robotic zombies on this world, how neither of them knew and, if they were being honest, neither of them really cared to figure out why it was happening, so they just focused on breaking all of them and tracking down the turrets that were scattered all over the place.

As they did that they passed by a statue of Ace Hardlight, which wasn't as guarded as everything else and might be a sign that Vox didn't care about his star player at all, but they paid it no mind as they targeted the other two turrets and all of the gladiators that were guarding them, breaking through their defenses and hacking into their control orbs without too much happening.

Upon claiming the last one Dallas informed them that they were going to have to use the Hoverbike to deal with a number of drones that had been deployed, apparently they were connected to some forcefields that were blocking the path they needed to take or something, hence why Ratchet got on it and his sister joined him without delay. Ratchet found that it was far easier with Autumn helping him out, as his sister was able to weave her magic into barriers to stop the drones, or at least small groups of them, in their tracks and opened the way for him to blast them apart, which stunned Dallas and his companion as they watched the siblings work. Of course one had to worry about Vox getting annoyed with them for making his courses that much easier, but nothing bad happened as Autumn worked her magic and Ratchet tore their foes to pieces, like he had given up or something, though she kept her guard up and knew that her brother would do the same as he rode around the factory. Thanks to the two of them working together it didn't take them long to take down all of the drones, twelve in total, and power down every forcefield that had been powered by their targets, though as they came to a stop, however, something weird happened in the nearby area.

One of the purple tears in reality showed up all of a sudden, of another version of this planet that was far more wrecked than theirs, and sure enough the figure they had seen before was fighting someone else, their attacks wrecking everything around them, though before anything else happened the tear snapped shut and left them staring at the empty area that it had been resting in.

"Someone must be messing with time and space... that's not good." Autumn remarked, as it was weird to see a tear like that once, even though it didn't stick around for too long, but seeing it twice meant that something bad was happening in their universe, especially given that someone else seemed to be going through different instance of the same courses she and her brothers were going through, "We're seeing scenes from other realities... there's no telling what might happen if things get worse than a lone tear every couple of days."

Ratchet really had no idea what was going on with the cracks in reality, though part of him wondered if such a thing might be the key to finding his missing sister, though since all of the drones were taken down they were able to climb off of the Hoverbike and approached the next area of Torval that they would be fighting through. Dallas informed them that they were close to where the getaway ship was located, but it was missing and that it would take days, possibly even weeks, for them to find it, only neither of them had the time to waste on such a thing, causing him and Juanita to laugh. Of course the announcers and Vox were underestimating their abilities as Ratchet opened fire on the gladiators that were coming right at them, all while Autumn helped him track down three nodes that would help them locate the ship, even though she had an idea as to where it might be resting. He knew she was just playing the game the way Vox intended, so they wouldn't be accused of cheating or anything, and discovered that two nodes were in areas that they had passed by already while the last one was beyond where the forcefield had been resting, so with that in mind he and his sister got to work taking down the gladiators that were coming at them as they made their way to each of their targets.

Thanks to their efforts they were able to find that the shuttle was buried beneath Ace's statue, though while Dallas told all of the viewers that it would take some time for someone to get it out Autumn just waved her hand and shattered both the statue and the base, revealing the shuttle underneath. With that done they were allowed to 'blast off', showing that they had won the challenge, earning them the second of the two Gold Medals, which granted them the right to tackle the next tournament, the Vindicator Tournament at long last, but, like the previous worlds they had been to, the siblings focused on the Dread Challenges before leaving. This time around there was only one challenge for them to do, Turret Trouble, which was basically them using one of the turrets they had seen around the facility to tear down the gladiators and ships that came to take both of them out, which was just those four waves and nothing else. To be honest Ratchet and Autumn were slightly disappointed in Vox and his lack of creativity, as there could have been another challenge that used, say, the Hoverbike, or one that forced them to take to the skies to blow up bombs that would take this place out, or something else that wasn't just a turret defense.

In the end neither of them said anything as Ratchet tore their enemies apart with the turret and Autumn used her magic to take out some of the other groups, though once that was done, and the points were theirs, they returned to the ship, rejoined Starswirl, and headed back to the containment suite to prepare for the next tournament and the planets that would come after it.