> Ratchet and Clank: The Starlight of Solana
>  by Blackdrag-rose
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prelude: Memories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet sighed as he leaned back on his bed, which happened to be a metal table, and stared up at the ceiling of the large tool shed that served as his home. His bed was surrounded by a couple of figurines, which happened to be the Professional Hoverboarder Skid McMarx, and a few posters of the Galactic Superhero, Captain Qwark. Laying next to his was his trusty omniwrench, which he had originally believed to be an ordinary tool until he had discovered that it could also be used as a weapon. As he focused on the wrench for a moment he let out another side and turned to the side for a moment, so that he could gaze across the large shed... to which he could look at the two shrouded beds that occupied the other side of the shed.

They were his sisters' rooms, which he was constantly told that he wasn't allowed inside them and that they needed to be covered... to prevent them from been seen while they slept. He figured that the reason they gave him was true enough, though he suspected that they wanted to keep their own interests hidden from everyone else on Veldin... not that they had many guests to begin with. The other colonists only came to their shed when they needed one of them for something; which could be anything from dealing with the rapidly repopulating  population of Horny Toads, fixing any of the machines that they used in their work around the planet, or even repairing the various bridges that occasionally needed repair.

He remembered the first day he and his sisters had met, as the three of them had been dropped off at Veldin's Orphanage at the same time, though their only possessions were the pod that the three of them had been dropped off in and a note with their names. The nurse bots had taken the three of them in and raised them alongside the rest of the young children, while their parents were off working around the planet. Many of the children didn't know what to make of the trio of arrivals, as none of them had ever seen a Lombax before, which only made Ratchet an outcast from the first day.

His sisters were received in a similar manner; as one of them had been a young filly, whose coat had been a mix between pink and purple, with a horn on her head and a mark on both sides of her rump, one that looked like a star with two strips of energy behind it. Her name was Starlight Glimmer, though the other children kept their distance because she was known to lift objects with the energy that came off of her horn. His other sister was a Cazar, a cat-like creature that looked similar to what Ratchet was, though she had sharp fox ears that were about half the length of what Ratchet's ears were, ten functional fingers, and had a striped tail. However, they quickly discovered that she had much darker brown fur than her brother, and that she had fewer stripes that were noticeable.

Her name was Sunset Shimmer, though almost all of the nurse bots had scanned her and wondered to themselves as to what she was doing on Veldin... but after some time it became clear that no one was searching for her. The other thing that Sunset had, that neither Starlight nor Ratchet had, was that she was wearing a golden bracelet on her right wrist, which she had been wearing when the three of them had been found... though it seemed impossible to remove it.

For the first few years that Ratchet and his sisters had lived in the orphanage they were mostly ignored by the other children, which would only change when they were asked by the nurse bots to play with them. When they were six, and Ratchet had been shown the pod they had arrived in, the trio discovered that there was an additional item that had been with them on the vessel, as Ratchet had managed to find a moveable panel and found his omniwrench. Starlight had pouted when she discovered that she was the only one without something to arrive with them, so Ratchet put his new wrench to use and crafted a metallic staff of sorts from the various pieces of junk that rested around the orphanage.

He had apologized for how poorly it looked, as it was a long pole that ended with a two pronged head, but Starlight's eyes widened when she saw the staff and gladly accepted it with a wide grin on her face. Seeing that Starlight was happy with her staff Ratchet offered to make Sunset something as well, though she had politely declined his offer and stated that, if she wanted a weapon or tool, she would make one on her own.

During that time one of the other children tried to take Starlight's staff away, to which he had received the edge of Ratchet's wrench on the side of his head, light enough to knock him out for an hour or two. As a consequence the adults nearly came to the conclusion that the three of them had to be removed from the orphanage before someone else got hurt, but that was when a group of Horny Toads managed to get passed the failing barriers that the adults had set up. Ratchet, desperate to keep both him and his sisters safe, had charged out to meet the toads and used his wrench to defend the colonists, to which he discovered that his sisters had followed him out as well.

Despite having no prior training in combat, save for the stories that they heard the other children speak of from time to time, when they wanted to reenact one of Captain Qwark's adventures, the three of them managed to force back the toads and save the colony from disaster.

Once that had happened the adults had, after ten minutes of talking among themselves, decided that the three of them were assets to the colony and had given them an old shed to live in, after it had been cleaned out. From there the three of them had begun to make the shed livable, gathering any stray bolts they could find while they were called out for the various jobs the colonists needed them on. Sunset had managed to acquire her own set of tools, much smaller than what Ratchet had, and had taken to fixing the electric barriers that were supposed to keep the toads away from the colonies. Starlight and Ratchet were the ones that had the task of fighting the toads, often keeping Sunset safe while she fixed a failed section of the wall.

This arrangement had lasted for four years, during which the three of them had matured and grown a bit, before Gadgetron had arrived to sell the colonists some Bomb Gloves so that they could defend themselves against unwanted pests. None of the colonists wanted to buy one, as they had the talents of Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset to call upon if things got out of hand, but during the time the vendor had come to showcase the toads had managed to find an opening in the wall, one that Sunset had tried to overcome but didn't have the resources to actually fix at the moment. The vendor watched in amazement as the trio mowed down the group of invading Horny Toads, though once they were finished he approached them with a gift.

The three of them, and the rest of the colonists, were given free Bomb Gloves from the promotion that Gadgetron was offering, though he had also provided the three of them with their Gadgetron own Help Desk uplinks, and promised to get each of them a license with something called the Slayer's Guild. The vendor explained that it was an organization that was contracted by various people across the galaxy, all of whom remained nameless, to kill pretty much anything and everything that was dangerous... or just living in some cases. The guild would put a price on something when they were contacted by a client, to which it would be posted to every member of the guild and transferred to the account of whoever claimed the kills. The licenses collected bolts dropped from whatever they killed, and whatever was either dropped on the ground or found in crates, and allowed them to buy whatever they needed.

The licenses had arrived two weeks after the Gadgetron vendor left Veldin, to which the three of them were allowed to begin collecting bolts when they were called on to steam the tide of the toads once more. This allowed them to purchase various items that they didn't have around their house, such as a few components that allowed them to fix up their fridge, fix the main door, and even give them new bed sheets. Starlight had gone ahead and purchased a few components that allowed her to patch up her staff, though she constantly mumbled about not being able to buy the better components she wanted, because some were expensive and killing toads wasn't giving her enough bolts to actually buy them.

Sunset, much to the delight of the colonists, purchased the missing component for the electronic walls and installed it the day she got it, to which the toads were repelled almost immediately.

It was a month after they received their licenses that Starlight managed to get into contact with one of the makers of Gadgetron's weapons, how Ratchet did know because she wasn't willing to tell how it happened, and managed to overcome one of the problems that the designers had on his 'Blaster' weapon. The problem was that the original ammunition container had the tendency to explode when it was fired, to which Starlight, through a few well placed questions, managed to determine that the container was actually too big and that it was constantly jamming all the time. She also explained that the barrel was too small, as that would have caused some of the excess power to cause the same effect, which greatly impressed the designer.

Thanks to that Starlight became a weapon consultant for Gadgetron, which meant that she and her family would earn a ten percent discount on weapons, which she insisted on being in the contract so they could better defend themselves, and that she had the same percentage on royalties on the weapons she helped produce. At the same time Sunset had managed to become a gadget designer, as the vendor that had come to Veldin had told his superiors about the electric walls she had fixed. It wasn't as impressive as helping design all the weapons that Gadgetron wanted to come up with, but it allowed her to get some additional income for the three of them.

Ratchet, on the other hand, got his hands dirty and worked on the various vehicles that the colonists used to get around Veldin, though he paid attention to what they wanted and did the job, without adding any addition items that weren't in his contract. He even managed to get some clients from the other side of the planet, which gave him the opportunity to remove any of the pests that came at him and collect some bolts for himself.

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

Ratchet sighed again as he remembered the last few years, though as he did so he had to wonder if there was something more for the three of them... something that wasn't confined to Veldin.

"I see you're remembering again," a voice said, which caused him to look up for a moment and find that Sunset had woken up, as she was wearing her light blue uniform and not her pajamas.

"Hard not to when I stare at the ceiling," Ratchet admitted, stretching his arms as he looked around for Starlight, but didn't see the young mare anywhere, "Where's Starlight this morning?"

"Still sleeping," Sunset replied, fixing herself something to eat before sitting at their table, to which Ratchet joined her, "though I think she spent all night working on another 'secret project'. I heard her muttering something in her sleep... something about 'Ripping you a new one', or at least that's what it sounded like."

"Maybe she's graduated to making her own weapons now," Ratchet said, projecting his own thoughts for a moment, "but that's none of my business... as long as she tests her prototypes outside somewhere. I don't want to patch up another wall after the hole she put in the back of the shed."

Sunset chuckled at the memory, as it had been when Starlight had the Bomb Glove for the first time and had experimented with it, to which she accidentally threw a bomb at the back wall and blew a hole in it. Ratchet had bought some supplies, which Starlight repaid in full a week later, and patched up the hole to the point where it was hard to tell if that had been there when they moved in or had been a patch up later on. Sunset would never bring it up in conversation, but Ratchet would always mention it when he thought whatever weapon Starlight was working on might do the same damage as a single bomb... or even more considering the power he heard her talking about.

Before they got any further Sunset's uplink went off, to which she pulled up the holographic map of Veldin and zoomed in on the area the call came from, which happened to be at the far side of the colony.

"Well, I guess I've got some work today after all," Sunset said, closing the map before returning to her breakfast, "I should be back by noon, not pending any more calls for repairs, so I guess you've got time to relax before a client shows up for some repairs."

Ratchet agreed that he could potentially have a client sometime today, but that didn't distract him from his own 'secret project' that he had been building in the addition to the right of the shed's front door. Starlight and Sunset had it built for him when he was home, because he needed something to do when there weren't any customers that needed repairs or upgrades on their vehicles. He had been secretly building his own spaceship, because the three of them had agreed, at one point in the last year, that it might be time for them to see the galaxy, but both Starlight and Sunset allowed themselves to be busy with their work.

So Ratchet had built it in secret, fully intending to show it to them once he had managed to complete it... but all he was missing was the Robotic Ignition System and those were too expensive for someone like him. As Sunset got ready for her departure, which included saying goodbye to a sleeping Starlight, Ratchet silently wished that the one item he needed to complete his ship would come to him.

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

Unbeknownst to Ratchet someone was actually watching him and his sisters, watching them grow in their various skills as he waited for a specific moment to arrive. Orvus, an elder among the Zoni, had been watching Veldin from the massive space station that was known as the Great Clock, which rested in the exact center of the universe - give or take fifty feet - ever since the arrival of Starlight and Sunset, two oddities that neither he nor his assistant had been expecting. Oddities usually made things very interesting, which is why he kept his eye on the trio for the last ten to twelve years and noted what they were capable of. He also knew that Sunset's bracelet wasn't what it seemed, though he was sure that she would figure out what it was supposed to do... given enough time anyway.

When Ratchet made his silent wish, however, was when Orvus smiled and turned his attention to another planet, where he knew his heir would be produced in the near future.

"Well then XJ-0461, its time we got started," Orvus said, to which his assistant, Sigmund, nodded his agreement and started preparing a snack for the two of them, "This is going to be so much fun to watch. Ue-he-he-he-he!"
> R/C: Veldin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet watched Sunset finish what remained of her breakfast and then wash off her plate and utensils, before wiping her hands clean and walking over to her bed area. She then picked up her belt, which had been laying on one of her shelves, and wrapped it around her waist, to which she locked the two sides together and walked back to Ratchet. She moved to where she kept the key to her hoverbike, a vehicle that had the sitting area placed between two fuel lines and thrusters, and picked up the small piece of metal. The vehicle was located in the storage room to the left of the shed's main door, keeping it out of the way when she wasn't needed to repair a part of the electric wall.

She had been given the hoverbike by the colonists soon after the Gadgetron vendor had come to Veldin, though it had taken her some time to repair the main systems of the bike to make it fully operational again. Ratchet had helped her repair the pieces that she could get to, which there were plenty of when she first received it, and helped her replace the broken pieces and install new ones properly. Starlight had, once she noticed them fixing the hoverbike, offered to install a few basic weapons to take out the toads if they got anywhere near her, but Sunset had declined. She knew that she could hold her own against the toads, with her Bomb Glove at her disposal, though she also knew that, if things got rough, she could retreat and call her family in... depending on how far away she was.

"Well, I had better I get going," Sunset said, walking outside and opening the storage room, to which she revealed the dusty hoverbike, "From the brief glance of the far side that I got this repair shouldn't take more than an hour or two, so I should be back..."

"...before noon, I heard you the first time Sunset." Ratchet finished, wrapping his hands around his sister for a moment, as it was his custom to hug her before she went out on solo jobs, "Just make sure that you keep yourself safe while your out there... there's no telling if there's anything else besides those toads out there."

"Don't worry about me Ratchet," Sunset told her brother, wrapping her arms around him as well, before the two of them pulled back and broke the hug, "I've got my Bomb Glove at my disposal, just in case some of those toads come after me."

Ratchet sighed and nodded to her, to which Sunset climbed onto her hoverbike, powered it up, and took off in the direction of the broken part of the electric wall. He knew that his sister could handle herself in combat, as both he and Starlight had done the same in the past, though he couldn't help but worry for her. He watched her ride into the distance for a few minutes before she eventually disappeared, to which he turned around and headed back into his own shed. Before he could reach his shed, however, he spotted the shroud that covered Starlight's bedroom move and watched as his other sister trot out of her room. As she walked out of her room Ratchet spotted that she was still wearing her communicator, which allowed her to talk with whoever she decided to call... be it her family or the Gadgetron Weapons Team.

"Morning Ratchet," Starlight yawned, trying to shake how tired she was, which had been brought on by a long night of inventing with the other members of the Gadgetron Weapons Team, "Where's Sunset?"

"She got called to the far side of the colony," Ratchet explained, reaching for his sister's communicator, which was attached to her right ear, for a moment and pulling it off for a moment, "You, on the other hand, need to take a break before you go back to trying to make another weapon... don't want you to collapse in the middle of a meeting or anything."

"I've got a few more holo-plans that I want to send in before noon," Starlight said, yawning as she also made her breakfast, to which she set her bowl on the table and sat down, "My colleagues were studying my plans last night... and there's one that I know we have to improve on before any of the plans are submitted to Gadgetron."

"Oh really?" Ratchet asked, wondering what weapon his sister was talking about this time, "Is there anything you can tell me about this weapon that you are working on?"

"Only that the current design calls for it to be a nine barreled rocket launcher," Starlight replied, eating some of her cereal after answering, "Once we get the plans to the point where Gadgetron can approve of the production of the weapon, then I'll send the plans in and see if anyone buys it. That's also taking into consideration that they might think the weapon is too dangerous and decide not to sell it, where I might get some compensation for the time put into developing the holo-plans.

Its a shame that Sunset had to get called away before I woke up... I really wanted to tell her happy birthday before any of us got busy with our various jobs."

Ratchet hid the shocked look on his face before Starlight could tell that he had forgotten his sister's birthday, which he knew that she would never let him forget about. The three of them, all unaware of their actual birthdays, had taken to using the month they arrived at the Veldin Orphanage as the month that their birthdays were in. The nurse bots had, after some careful calculations, concluded that Sunset was the eldest child, so her birthday was actually near the beginning of the month. Ratchet was actually the middle child, which put his special day somewhere in the middle, while Starlight was definitely the youngest among them, as her day was near the end of the month.

He couldn't believe that he had overlooked the fact that Sunset's birthday was today of all days, as he had nothing to actually give her as a gift and if he went out to get something now she would definitely know that he had forgotten.

"You forgot again, didn't you?" Starlight asked, rubbing her eyes for a moment, though she had caught her brother trying to hide the fact that he was shocked by what day it was.

Two years ago, on this exact day, Ratchet had actually been busy with his clients and had actually forgotten Sunset's birthday, but she had forgiven him in the end. Starlight, on the other hand, wouldn't let him forget and would definitely hold a second time over his head... to which he knew that he couldn't let her know that he had forgotten.

"Of course not," Ratchet nervously said, waving his hand a bit as if to brush off the question, "I've got a... project... that I've been working on for Sunset. A secret that I can't tell you about."

Starlight stared at him for a moment, as if trying to determine if he was telling the truth or not, before letting out another yawn and finishing off her breakfast. She then turned to the sink and washed her bowl out, before returning to the table and levitating the communicator back into her right ear. She then tested the connection, as sometimes it actually couldn't connect after being removed for a few minutes, but a small smile appeared on her face when the screen showed up.

"Whatever you say brother," Starlight finally said, levitating a cup into the air behind her as she moved towards her room, "I've got a few corrections to make before noon, so have fun... doing whatever you were doing before I woke up."

As Starlight went back to her room, and shrouded herself, Ratchet got up and headed outside, turning towards his shed and opening the door just a bit. He stared at the covered, and mostly complete, spaceship that he had spent the last year working on, to which he sighed and went inside, determined to make some fixes to it so it would be ready for when he acquired the one item he needed to get it started... whenever that was.

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

It didn't take Sunset long to reach her destination, which was all thanks to her hoverbike, but when she approached the weak part of the wall she discovered that there was now a small chasm between where she was and where the generator was. She sighed as she slowed the bike down to a crawl, before coming to a complete stop in front of the chasm and turning off the bike to conserve its power. With the hoverbike parked she climbed off of it and carefully approached the edge of the chasm, studying the distance between her and the other side for a few moments. She knew that she could easily jump the chasm with her hoverbike, getting both her and her tools over there without delay, but she also knew that she might be able to jump it by crossing on the few columns of stone that still stood.

She sighed and ran towards the first stone column, to which she leapt into the air and carefully landed on the top of the column, landing on her hands and feet. Before she lost her momentum she continued forward, using her natural reflexes to leap from one column to another before she came to a stop on the other side of the chasm. With the chasm successfully navigated she approached the seemingly offline generator and pulled out a few of her tools, so that when she reached it she would be able to get started almost immediately. Once she reached the machine she gently opened the lid to the power module and immediately spotted the problem that she had been informed about... the main power cord had simply been unhooked from where it was supposed to be connected to.

"All this for a simple unhooked power cord," Sunset said to herself, picking up the cord and slipping it back into place, to which the missing section of the electric wall powered back up, "I guess that today will be a relaxing day after all."

The moment she finished that statement she heard the sound of something flying through the air and turned around to see a spaceship heading over her head, but from the looks of it the ship had been shot out of the sky. It flew for a few minutes before crashing into the ground, halfway between where she was currently located and where her family's house was located. She couldn't believe this was actually happening, that someone had actually been shot down when they were entering Veldin's atmosphere, but she reached for her communicator as she put her tools away.

"Ratchet here," Ratchet said over the communicator, "Did something come up while you were fixing that generator?"

"No, the repair job was actually easier than I was expecting it to be," Sunset replied, before shaking her head and getting to the reason that she called, "but the reason I called was because I just saw a ship crash land somewhere between where I'm standing and the house. I figured that I'd quickly ride back to you, as it appears that the route I took to reach the generator has been damaged, and then we'd investigate the wreckage together."

"I'll try talking Starlight into coming with us," Ratchet commented, though Sunset could clearly see that he was washing his hands, "She's supposed to be having a conference call this morning, so she might be busy when you get back."

"I see," Sunset said, sighing as she reached the edge of the chasm once more, "I'll be back home as soon as possible... just try your hardest to convince her to investigate the ship with us."

Ratchet confirmed that he would try to do that and cut the communication off, leaving Sunset to sigh as she looked out at the chasm once more. She ran at the column again and leapt into the air, but this time when she landed she merely rolled back onto her feet and kept her momentum going. It didn't take her long to get back to her hoverbike, though as she climbed onto it she sent a brief message to the person who had informed her of the broken section of the wall, to indicate that it had been taken care of. With that out of the way she activated her hoverbike once more and got underway, heading on the other path that would take her back home.

When she arrived about ten minutes later she found that Ratchet was the only one standing outside their house, immediately telling her that Starlight was still busy. She came to a stop in front of the house and turned off the hoverbike, before climbing off of it and walking over to her brother, whose eyes lingered on where the ship had gone down.

"I've seen a few ships circling the area of the crash site," Ratchet said, picking up his omniwrench as he turned to his sister, "From what I can gather, none of those ships are actually from Veldin... but they haven't picked up the ship, if it is actually one of theirs to begin with. The only creature's that might be in the way are more toads... though I don't think we have anything to worry about if that's all we end up fighting along the way."

Sunset nodded and turned back to her hoverbike, where she picked up her handheld weapon, which happened to be a saber like object with a blade that retracted into the handle, and slipped it onto her belt. She had few opportunities to use the weapon in the last few years, not after finding it during one of her solo missions and using it to defeat a swarm of toads when she had forgotten her Bomb Glove at home, but she always felt better having it with her. Once she was prepared, and she had locked the hoverbike in her shed, she returned to Ratchet's side and the two of them began the trek towards the wreckage.

At first all they found were a few toads, which Sunset concluded must have either found an opening in the wall or had dug under it to enter the area they were in, but neither of them were too concerned by the fact that the toads were there. Ratchet smashed several of them with his wrench, though Sunset resorted to using one of her bombs when they found a group of them, to quickly clear the way for them. They found quite the number of crates as they followed the path, adding to the amount of bolts that they had, as well as a crate filled with nanotech, though neither of them actually needed it at the moment.

Then they found what appeared to be a turquoise colored robot that moved around on what appeared to be a sphere of light, though it had some sort of cannon on its right arm, which it used to shock one of the toads with a laser. Neither of them had any idea what this robot was, but as they approached it the robot turned on them and fired its laser at them, to which they backed up and primed a bomb in their gloves. They then took the robot down with their bombs, to which it exploded and allowed them to move onward, where they discovered another four robots, each like the one they took down, standing in the way to the crash site.

The two of them sighed as they ran forward to meet the robots, Ratchet smashing one of them under his wrench while Sunset blew the second one up with another bomb, which she had found a crate of ammunition for and restocked her supply. She threw the excess ammo she didn't need to Ratchet, who primed his own glove and blew the next robot apart with a well placed bomb, leaving just one in their way. Sunset, not wanting to waste another bomb on the robot, swiftly approached the robot and pulled out her weapon, to which the blade extended to its full length, before she brought it down hard on where she assumed its power core was, cutting into the metal with ease.

Seconds later the robot was down for the count and the way to the crashed ship was open, to which she retracted the blade and slipped it onto her belt once more, before the two of them approached the ship. There were pieces scattered everywhere, though what caught Ratchet's interest was the small robot that was laying in the middle of the wreckage, its arms and legs tucked in to make it look like it was a lunchbox of some kind. He stared at it as Sunset dug into the only intact piece of the ship, clearly looking for something useful, though he carefully picked the robot up and studied it.

He could tell that the robot was offline just by looking at it, though he hoped that it would be easy to repair and get back online... as it might actually be the one piece he needed for the spaceship.

Once Sunset had found a few pieces, which she was annoyed that the majority had been damaged by the ship getting hit and crashing, the two of them took their finds back to their house. When they arrived at the front door they found that Starlight was waiting for them, though she was definitely grinning from ear to ear as they approached.

"Those holo-plans I was working on are projected to make quite a lot of bolts in the future," Starlight happily said, before she noticed that they had some extra stuff with them, "What, did you raid a junkyard without me?"

"Actually, its more like a crashed ship," Sunset replied, setting her few items down before running her land through Starlight's mane and rubbing her head, "though I'm glad that Gadgetron liked your plans."

Ratchet, after agreeing with Sunset's statement, returned to his shed and closed the door behind him, so that he could work on the ship and the robot without interruption. He set the robot on his workbench and turned to the ship, pulling out his wrench before popping the hood up and finishing what he had been working on before Sunset had called him.

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

Roughly half an hour later Ratchet pulled himself out off the ship and stared at the engine, marveling at the fact that he had actually accomplished his task of building a spaceship.

"Interesting," a voice behind him said, something that he actually wasn't expecting.

"Wah!" he exclaimed, falling off of the box he had been standing on and turned around, expecting to find either of his sisters standing behind him and found that the robot had come back online.

"You seem to be quite handy with that wrench," the little robot said, indicating that he had been watching Ratchet for some time before actually saying anything.

"You bet I am," Ratchet replied, brushing off the dust that had gotten on him when he fell to the ground, before beckoning to the ship, "I built this ship..."

"Ratchet, are you okay?" he heard Starlight ask, causing him to mentally curse the fact that there wasn't much noise dampening between his shed and their house, "I heard something hit the ground and I was worried that you might have hurt yourself."

"Yeah," Ratchet called in response, not wanting to reveal the spaceship before it was actually usable, "I, um, lost my balance for a moment and nearly fell over... you heard the side of the box I was standing on hit the floor."

"What was that?" the little robot asked, clearly confused as to why there was another voice, as his original scan had detected one living person and determined that he hadn't scanned the main house.

"My younger sister," Ratchet replied, opening the door to his shed and beckoning the robot outside, "Don't worry, she's only making sure that I was unharmed..."

That was before Ratchet turned around and that both Starlight and Sunset were standing outside his shed, to which he allowed them to see the spaceship he had been building. The robot, on the other hand, seemed surprised to see that his sisters, as it now knew that there were two of them, were a equine and a Cazar. It though it was strange for a Lombax to have such strange siblings, but didn't voice its opinion as the two looked at them and they returned the gesture.

"So... whose your friend?" Starlight asked, focusing on the robot and not the spaceship.

"My serial number is B5429671," the robot said, to which the three of them looked at it for a moment, 'What?"

"You need a normal name..." Starlight commented, staring at the robot for a moment before something came to mind, "What about Clank? I heard the sound that your feet make before you scared Ratchet and figured he was working on something, though I didn't think he'd have a new companion."

"Hmm, I believe that I could get used to that," the robot, Clank, replied, "but back to the matter at hand. I am currently in search of someone to assist me in saving the solar system... He could probably help."

With that Clank pointed at the poster that Ratchet kept in his shed, another one that was of Captain Qwark, though Ratchet and Starlight seemed excited about the idea of going out to find the Captain. Sunset knew that her younger siblings liked Captain Qwark, so she never said anything about their fascination with the hero, but she had to wonder what danger Clank was talking about.

"So, what's this danger you mentioned?" Sunset asked, to which Clank opened a small compartment in his chest and retrieved what appeared to be an infobot.

The infobot grew to its full height and opened its mouth, revealing the message that Clank had seen earlier to the three siblings, who turned to look at it. The infobot revealed that someone named Chairman Drek, leader of the Blarg, had a problem with the overpopulation and over pollution of his home world. This 'problem' was apparently going to be corrected by tearing massive pieces out of a lot of planets and adding those pieces to this 'new world' that he was building, leaving the original planet to destroy itself in some manner. The Chairman even went so far as to thank the people of the planet he was attacking next, Novalis by the intro of the infobot, before getting angry when he discovered that his little rant at the end had been filmed as well.

"The people on those planets are hosed!" Ratchet exclaimed, somewhat worried that the deranged Chairmen might come for Veldin one day, "Look, we'd love to help you out, but we don't have a working spaceship. I mean, I have built one, but I'm missing a crucial component to get the ship started."

"The Robotic Ignition System?" Clank asked, having taken a moment to scan the ship and locate the missing component, "Sir, I believe that we can assist each other. I happen to be equipped with the latest in Robotic Ignition Systems, allowing me to start any ship I choose."

"You don't have to call me 'Sir'," Ratchet said, moving one of his hands to himself for a moment, before moving onto Starlight and Sunset, "the name's Ratchet. These are my sisters Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Clank told the sisters, before turning back to Ratchet, "Please, we do not have time to waste before the Chairman strikes Novalis."

"Then we had better get going," Sunset commented, turning to the house for a moment, "Captain Qwark should know what to do with the information we present to him, so make sure that you get everything you want to take."

Starlight, hearing that they were actually going to help Clank out in his mission, ran into her room and gathered the various hoof drawn plans she had made for future weapons, not wanting to leave them behind. She also grabbed her staff, confident that if they found any trouble on Novalis, or any of the other worlds, that she had another weapon to defend herself with. Sunset, on the other hand, turned her communicator on for a brief moment and sent a message to the colony, telling them that the three of them were leaving Veldin for an undetermined amount of time. Once that was done she closed the communicator and, like Starlight, picked up her gadget plans, some of which she figured Gadgetron would love when she got around to showing them off.

The two of them returned to the front of their house and locked the door, as Ratchet told them all he already had everything he needed, before they helped their brother pull out the spaceship. During that process Starlight glanced around the outside of the ship and wondered if it would hold until they reached Novalis, because she was concerned that it might come undone when they entered the planet's surface. When two more ships flew towards the crash site, however, she quickly boarded the ship and sat in the back, where Sunset joined her not seconds later. Ratchet took the pilots seat and waited for Clank to take the remaining one next to him, knowing that he had to sit there so he could activate the ship, before he closed the lid and started up the ship.

When they were finally in the air and began the journey towards space, however, Starlight brought up the one thing that Ratchet had hoped that she would forget about.

"So, why were you building a spaceship anyway?" Starlight asked, to which she and Sunset stared at their brother for a moment, who gulped as he felt their eyes rest on him.

"Happy Birthday Sunset," Ratchet finally said, hoping to convince her that he hadn't forgotten, "I started building this last year for your thirteenth birthday, which involved leaving Veldin for a few days before we returned home... which is why I tried keeping it a secret, Starlight."

He felt Sunset's hand on his shoulder for a moment, though he merely turned back for a brief moment to see some tears of joy running down his sister's face, telling him that she was grateful that he remembered.

"Thank you Ratchet," Sunset said, staring out at the stars as they began their journey to Novalis, "thank you."

Ratchet nodded and turned back to the controls, not wanting to ruin the mood by crashing the four of them on a moon with no way to get off of it. Sunset was happy to be leaving Veldin, Starlight was excited to meet Captain Qwark in the future, and Clank seemed pleased to be starting his mission, but Ratchet was content to have given his siblings something special, which brought a smile to his face.
> R/C: Novalis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As it turned out Novalis wasn't actually too far from where Veldin was located, though it still took some time for the ship to get close to the planet. During their flight Sunset and Starlight remained silent, mostly due to their amazement of the vastness of the space and stars around them, while Clank asked Ratchet to return his appendages to the steering wheel. Ratchet did as he was asked and returned his hands to the wheel, though it was clear that he was also amazed by the vastness of space around them all. After a bit they watched the watery planet get closer and closer, to which all four of them leaned in closer for when they entered the atmosphere, so they could get their first look at the new world.

When they neared the edge of the atmosphere Clank spoke up, mostly to remind Ratchet of something that he had forgotten about in the excitement of leaving Veldin.

"Remember to lower the landing gear after we enter the atmosphere," Clank commented, but then noticed the look on Ratchet's face the instant he mentioned the gear, "You did remember to raise the landing gear before we left Veldin, right?"

That was before the four of them heard a few pings as something came undone, which happened to be followed by what smelled like something else burning.

"That's bad, right?" Starlight asked, trying to cover her nose to prevent the burning smell from assaulting her senses, but could still smell it regardless.

"That was the landing gear being torn from the ship by the force of reentry," Clank explained, glancing at Ratchet for a moment, who was trying to make sure they could still safely land, "and the smell, on the other hand, is from the holes that were left by the landing gear... which are causing havoc on the ship."

"So we're going to crash," Sunset commented, staring down at the planet as their ship flew through the atmosphere, clearly wondering what her brother had gotten them into.

"In all likelihood," Clank confirmed, though it was clear that he worried that his mission to save the galaxy from Chairman Drek was over before it really started.

"Not if I can help it," Starlight growled, closing her eyes as she focused on her horn, to which Sunset noticed that her horn was starting to glow as they drew closer to the surface of the planet.

A light turquoise colored aura began to appear around the four of them, to which Clank turned to look at Starlight in surprise as the intensity of the aura began to grow. Ratchet tried to steer the ship out of the way of crashing into anything, but he then noticed that they were heading towards a mountainside and that the wheel was pretty much dead. He closed his eyes and waited for the impact that he was expecting to occur, but he felt something strange roll over his body as he waited for reality to sink in. After a few seconds he dared to open his eyes, to which he discovered that he and the others were sitting on what appeared to be a landing pad... with the wreckage of their ship embedded in the mountain.

"What... happened?" Ratchet asked, gently getting onto his feet as he noticed that his family, including Clank, were all unharmed from what should have been a fatal crash.

"I... managed... to teleport us... out of the ship," Starlight huffed, her horn dying down as she sat on the landing pad, "We're going... to need... a new ship..."

The truth of what happened dawned on Ratchet as he looked at his younger sister, as both he and Sunset had been used to Starlight using magic for their entire life. She had never tried expanding her knowledge of spells, save for the basic manipulation and a few basic elemental spells, so Ratchet had no idea that she could pull something like this off. He was glad that she had researched more spells before they had left Veldin, otherwise he was sure that they would have been crushed against the mountainside. He guessed that the amount of power required to get all four of them out of the ship and teleport them to safety must have drained Starlight out.

That, in itself, told him that he needed to pay more attention on how to properly exit a planet's atmosphere and enter another's, without destroying the landing gear and ruining their next ship.

"Well... we won't be able to rebuild that ship anymore," Sunset commented, staring at the mountain for a moment, before sighing and turning to her family, "It seems that we have two paths to choose from; going into the waterworks and looking for people to aid, or heading into the plains and taking the fight to the invaders."

"What if we divided our forces in half?" Clank asked, beckoning to her and Starlight for a moment, before turning to Ratchet and himself, "The two of you could easily take the waterworks and search it, before catching up with Ratchet and myself... provided we aren't finished with the plains when you return to the landing pad."

Starlight sighed and approached the Gadgetron Vendor that happened to be sitting near their location, to which her mood was instantly lifted the moment she spotted the newest weapon that they were selling, the Blaster she had helped complete the plans for years ago. She had been told that the weapon was supposed to appear on the market soon, during her last session with the Weapons Team, but she had no idea that it would be this soon. She quickly called to her family and they approached the vendor as well, to which the three of them purchased their own Blaster and stocked up on ammo.

"Ratchet and I will take the plains and attack the invaders," Starlight said, returning to the conversation she had interrupted, much to the surprise of both of her siblings, "Sunset, it should take you a few minutes to clear out the waterworks and then catch up to the rest of us... I have the feeling that we'll be taking our time outfoxing those robots."

"As you wish dear sister," Sunset replied, staring at her Blaster for a moment before she turned towards the entrance of the waterworks, "Remember, watch each others back and don't take on more than you can handle... and pick up any nanotech in case you gut hit by something."

"Don't worry about us Sunset," Ratchet said, priming his Blaster as he approached the platform that would take him and Starlight down to the plains, "We can take care of ourselves."

Sunset turned and looked at Ratchet for a moment, before sighing and nodding her head towards him, to which she merely patted him on the shoulder before she walked into the waterworks. She leapt onto the rock platforms that were in her way, only to stop when she felt the cavern rock for a moment and watch as two spikes fell from the ceiling, though they fell in such a way that opened the way for her to continue. The path lead her right into a small room that was filled with what appeared to by fly like robots, but as they noticed her she leveled her Blaster with them and started blasting them, jumping over some of them and putting a blast in the back of their heads, until they were all gone.

The next chamber was split in half, with running water separating the two halves, to which she spotted several of the robots that she could have sworn were descending on the plains. One leapt over the gap and pulled her blade into her spare hand, cutting one of the robots in half as she turned around and tore the second one to pieces with a few blasts. The third chamber was actually separated into three platforms, again separated by the running water, so she sheathed her blade and returned her new gun to her side, before running to the end of the platform she was standing on and leaping to the middle platform. Once she landed, and determined that there were no more enemies to fight, she followed through with her momentum and leapt to the final platform, where she spotted two rising pistons.

She rode the two platforms to the upper level, though as she broke the boxes that laid in her way she spotted more of the fly robots and pulled her Blaster out, blasting the small group out of the way as she reached what appeared to be the end of the waterworks. As she passed through the final door she spotted a blue skinned person that had a bulky body and was wearing dark brown overalls, though he appeared to be working on the pipes.

"Excuse me," Sunset said, noticing that his back was turned to her and felt uncomfortable addressing the person's backside, though she noticed an immediate change in the person's movements the moment she spoke.

"Huh... that's odd," the person said, turning around and looking at her, with a completely surprised look on his face, "You aren't who I was expecting... its actually a nice surprise in a way."

"And just who were you expecting?" Sunset asked, curious as to what the plumber was talking about, though she suspected that he was referring to someone like Captain Qwark because of the planet being under attack.

"Originally I was expecting a Lombax and his robotic friend, but you'll do," the man said, his hand reaching out and lifting her right arm into the air, to which she discovered that his eyes were lingering on her golden bracelet, "This definitely wasn't something I was expecting... I wonder if that means what I think it could mean."

"Why were you expecting my brother and Clank to come here?" Sunset asked, not understanding why he was waiting for them, nor did she understand what was so special about her unremovable bracelet, "Just who are you anyway? And what's so special about this bracelet?"

"I... am the Plumber," the man dramatically told her, letting go of her arm for a moment as he dug into his pockets, to which he pulled out an infobot, "I was supposed to give this to someone else, but I know that it will reach its intended destination if I leave it with you. As for that bracelet of yours... I'm afraid that you aren't quite ready for any of the answers I could give you."

Sunset could only stare at the man, the Plumber as he called himself, as he handed her the infobot, before moving to her right and heading towards what appeared to be a large sewage tunnel. She had absolutely no idea what the man had been talking about when he mentioned that he had been waiting for Ratchet and Clank, while making no actual mention of her or Starlight. The other thing that annoyed her was that the Plumber clearly knew something about her bracelet, but felt the need to tell her nothing about why she had it or what purpose it served.

"None of this makes any sense." she called after the man, who stopped at the edge of the pipe the instant she resumed speaking to him, "You haven't given me anything to actually work with."

"Look, I'd love to give you all the answers now Sunset," the Plumber replied, turning to her for a moment, "but if I did then it would take away from your journey. Just remain true to yourself and enjoy life... that's all I can offer you."

As she looked out the window to gather her thoughts, and try to make some sense of what she discovered, she spotted her family engaging the robots that stood near the bridge. She turned towards the pipe that the man had been standing near and watched him leap into the water, no doubt heading back to the entrance of the waterworks. She stared at the pipe for a moment and realized that it was actually the fasted way back to the landing pad, besides backtracking through the waterworks, to which she sighed and followed the Plumber back to the beginning. She was determined to head back to her family and catch up with them, so that they might be able to defeat the robots that wanted to bring about the destruction of the city.

She also wondered how the Plumber could have known her name without her ever having the opportunity to introduce herself... which she knew was only going to bug her until the two of them crossed paths again.

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

"Are you sure that your sister will be okay?" Clank asked, just after attaching himself to Ratchet's back as he and Starlight moved down to the plains, to which the two of them had been studying their enemies before reaching their destination.

"Yes, because according to the Gadgetron scans of that area there isn't much in the waterworks that would be too much for her," Ratchet replied, blasting one of the robots in the face as Starlight smashed another one's head in with her staff, "Besides, Sunset is the oldest sibling, so she can take care of herself."

"I still do not understand how a Lombax came to be siblings with a Cazar and a pony," Clank commented, his curiosity getting the better of him as his companions fought the invaders, "Its very odd."

"First off, I'm a unicorn," Starlight fired back, turning to a pack of fly like robots and blowing them to pieces with a bomb, "and second off, its not that difficult to understand. The three of us landed on Veldin in the same pod and we were raised in the Orphanage, until we proved that we were a benefit to the colony when the toads broke through the fence."

"That still does not explain how the three of you originally met each other," Clank pointed out, still trying to figure this out, though he knew that he had to be fighting a losing battle.

"That's the one part that none of us know either," Ratchet replied, approaching the bridge before holes were blasted in it by an enemy fighter jet, "but the three of us arrived together and we've lived together for the last ten years, if not longer. At this point the three of us have determined that the how doesn't matter... unless we were able to find out the truth someday. The odds of that happening are slim to none, so we've come to the decision to leave the matter alone... so you're going to have to accept the fact that we don't know everything."

Clank decided to remain silent as the three of them arrived at the end of their journey, which happened to be when a transport vessel landed on the ground in the middle of the crater and was swarmed by more of the robots they had been fighting. Both Ratchet and Starlight sighed as they primed their weapons, as they both had believed that their search to find a new ship had ended in complete failure. The robots advanced on them, their blasters firing at them and forcing the two of them to separate from each other, to which they returned fire immediately.

Several of the robots, the flies, went down swiftly, though that was when the remaining robots gathered into one collective group and trained their weapons on Ratchet. Starlight, seeing the opportunity to try another spell, ignited her horn and summoned a moving barrier that blocked the robots from hitting her brother. As the robots stared at the wall for a moment, trying to understand what they were seeing, the two of them flanked the robots and blasted them in their backs, before they both used their hand weapons and broke them into pieces. Once the robots were down they turned to the ship that had landed in front of them, to which Clank detached from Ratchet's back and stared at the ship.

They didn't have to wait long for the door to open,as the moment it did a elderly man with a cane stepped out of the ship, though he was followed by an infobot.

"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me!" the elderly man exclaimed, waving a hand as he walked down the walkway, "What are you? Mercenaries? Torturers? Assassins? I'll tell you anything... here, take my infobot. Its all I have left."

Both Ratchet and Clank moved to tell the man that they meant him no harm, but Starlight shot them a glance to keep them quiet before turning her attention to the infobot. As it turned out the infobot showed Captain Qwark during one of his commercials for Big Al's Robo Shack in Metropolis, telling people that Al was the person he went to for repairs on his weapons. None of the three of them knew what to make of Al and his store, but they now had a destination that Captain Qwark was supposed to be at... though that was when reality sank back in.

"Now if only we had a ship," Ratchet moaned, facepalming as he realized that it was his fault that they wouldn't be able to leave Novalis any time soon.

"A ship! You're not going to torture me!" the elderly man said, before pointing at the area that the landing pad was in, "Well as Planetary Chairman I could arrange for you to borrow our cruiser ship."

As a large green ship lowered onto the landing pad, which brought a smile to Starlight's face, Ratchet thanked the Chairman for the ship while Clank promised that they would tell Captain Qwark about the invasion. With the Chairman saved the nearby bridge extended itself to the other side, allowing the three of them to return to the landing pad without much delay. They arrived in time to see Sunset pull herself out of the water near the opening of the waterworks, which told them that she must have taken it to get to them as quickly as possible so she could aid in defending the city.

"I really should have just retraced my steps," Sunset moaned, seeing the glances she was getting, "So, how were things on your end?"

"Oh, the usual," Starlight replied, trying to hold back her laughter at the thought of her older sister riding down the sewer pipes like she did, "fought a bunch of robot invaders, saved the Planetary Chairman from robots that were trying to kill him, and secured an infobot for Metropolis... along with securing a new ship to use, courtesy of the Chairman himself. Apparently Captain Qwark should be in Metropolis, Ratchet and I have decided that we should go there first... unless you found something in the waterworks that would make us change our direction."

"No, all I found in the waterworks is someone who gave me an infobot for someplace called Outpost X11, on Aridia," Sunset explained, not bothering to mention the Plumber's name just yet, though she shook herself a bit to get the excess water off of her, "but I do agree that we should head to Metropolis first... just as soon as I dry off from my ride down the pipes."

At the mention of the pipes both Ratchet and Starlight fell to the ground in laughter, causing Sunset to moan as she realized that they would be holding this over her head for quite some time. She was grateful that they had found a ship and a lead that would take them one step closer to finding Captain Qwark, so she supposed that she could handle being laughed at every now and then. She would find some way to get back at them in the future, she just had to figure out when the best opportunity to do so would be.
> R/C: Kerwan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Once Sunset had dried off from her ride down the pipes in the waterworks, which neither Ratchet nor Starlight would forget about, she joined her family in their new ship, to which Ratchet started the sequence to launch the ship. The moment they were in the air Clank set the coordinates for Planet Kerwan, where they would land somewhere in Metropolis and begin their search for Captain Qwark. While they were flying through space Starlight and Sunset compared their notes on the enemies they had fought, to which Starlight pulled out her tablet and started sketching out weapons that she might submit to Gadgetron later on.

During the time that Starlight worked on the holo-plans for the various weapons she came up with after fighting certain enemies, such as the fly type robots, and Sunset offered her opinion on them, either improving an existing weapon design or remaking an incomplete one into a better weapon. Ratchet, not really into making his own weapons like his sisters, decided to leave the two of them to their business, all while wondering what Gadgetron would do with that nine barreled rocket launcher Starlight told him about. Clank also remained silent, mostly because he wanted to hear what the two sisters were talking about and what weapon ideas came to each of them.

Eventually the ship reached Kerwan, to which the new automated landing system engaged and allowed them to make a much smoother landing in Metropolis. Once the ship was on the landing pad, and had settled down, Ratchet powered the ship down and opened the hatch, allowing the four of them to climb out and stretch their legs.

"I hope Mr. Gadget likes these plans we created," Starlight commented, finishing up the bundle of holo-plans she and Sunset had created, as she was going to be sending a trio of weapon's to Gadgetron before starting their venture into Metropolis, "I'm personally found of the single rocket launcher, but we'll see what he says."

"Mr. Gadget?" Ratchet asked, knowing that he should know the name already, but in the heat of the adventure he had no idea who his sister was talking about.

"Seriously? Your actually asking me this?" Starlight asked, staring at her brother with amazement on her face, as if she was surprised by the fact that the question had been asked, "Elcon Copernicus Gadget, the founder of Gadgetron... does the mane ring any bells now?"

"Oh, you mean Mr. Gadgetron," Ratchet replied, scratching the back of his head as they walked down the nearby ramp and approached a vendor, to which he discovered that they had two paths to choose from.

"Close enough I guess," Starlight sighed, knowing about the name that the public associated with the founder of Gadgetron, though she and Sunset, both employees for the corporation, tended to call him by his actual name, "Anyway, I sent him some of the holo-plans that Sunset and I created on our way here, which was why I said that I hoped he liked them. We won't know for some time, so we had better resume our search for Captain Qwark."

"Well, we have two choices," Sunset commented, turning to look at what was on their left for a moment, before turning to see what was on their right, "On our left we have what appears to be an obstacle course, while on our right we have a path that should, theoretically, lead us to Al's Robo Shack..."

Clank, instead of waiting for them to come to a decision, detached from Ratchet's back and made his way towards the obstacle course, as he had spotted the person they had been looking for. He briefly heard a collection of sighs as his companions slowly followed after him, no doubt annoyed by the fact that he had ignored their conversation, before the four of them were standing before Captain Qwark.

"Welcome to the Captain Qwark Fitness Course!" the green clad robotic lookalike proclaimed the moment they arrived, waving its arms as it bobbled back and forth on its spring, "If you're strong enough, fast enough, and clever enough to beat my fitness course, you will receive a reward from my head trainer.  Simply make your way to the third island to complete the course.  Good luck! Qwark Enterprises is not responsible for sprains, broken bones, snapped tendons, bruised egos or accidental death incurred while taking the challenge."

"Excuse me Captain, but we have more pressing issues," Clank said, staring up at the wobbling robot while he spoke, "We urgently need your assistance!"

"Clank, that's not the real Captain Qwark," Sunset sighed, tapping the spring that the lookalike bobbled on, "Some time ago Captain Qwark commissioned Gadgetron to make this for his 'Fitness Course', so that way he didn't have to stand by the entrance and greet everyone that came to run it. I, personally, didn't work on the design for this, but I heard about it from the team that made the plans... I just never thought that I'd actually see it one day."

"Oh, I see," Clank said, though he definitely sounded sad by the fact that this wasn't the real Captain Qwark, "Well then, I doubt we need whatever prize his head trainer could offer us."

"I don't know Clank," Ratchet replied, his eyes lingering on the course for a moment, "I'm willing to bet that his head trainer has a gadget that we might need later on in our adventure, so wouldn't it be in our best interests to recover the gadget now and not have to come back for it later?"

Clank stared at Ratchet for a moment, as if trying to determine if he was actually wanting to run for the prize or if he wanted to impress the Captain, before he admitted defeat. He could not fault Ratchet's logic in acquiring the gadget at this point in time, instead of having to come back to Kerwan at a later date to acquire it. Once they had determined that they were going through with the course Clank attached to Ratchet's back, allowing the group to get started with the first island. As Ratchet and Sunset leapt up to the first platform they noticed that Starlight stayed back for a moment, studying the layout of the jumps she would need to do.

It was at that moment that Sunset came up with an idea to help her sister keep up with her and Ratchet, something that she knew could help Starlight out.

"Hey, Starlight," Sunset said, turning to face her sister as Ratchet jumped between two walls behind her, "Do you think you could apply a jump boost to yourself? Kind of like your giving yourself a higher jump."

"Its theoretically possible," Starlight commented, her eyes lighting up as she thought about it, "I should be able to augment my natural jumping abilities with a small boost, but I should consider creating a pair of boots that will allow me to do the same thing without wasting my supply of magic."

"I'll see what I can do about that," Sunset promised, knowing that together they could figure out this problem.

Starlight nodded and her horn lit up, before she leapt at the path Sunset and Ratchet had taken and landed on one of the cliffs, to which she grinned and followed after her siblings. Sunset smiled and turned to where Ratchet and Clank went, to which she used her own cat like reflexes to leap between the two walls, before she turned a corner and repeated the process. Once she was on the top of the first island, to which she discovered that Ratchet was waiting for her, she turned back to watch Starlight riding what she assumed was a magical elevator of some kind. Sunset was impressed by how quickly her sister had figured out the next problem she would be facing and found a way around something that her body hadn't been built for.

Once they were all together again they took their turns riding the zip line down to the next island, where Ratchet used his omniwrentch to get to the second island, followed by Starlight using her staff and Sunset using the handle of her blade weapon.

The second island had a massive tower that rested in the center of it, though within the first few seconds of their arrival they noticed that there were moving sections on all four sides of the tower. Ratchet and Sunset took the lead and leapt onto the beginning of the path they needed to take, while Starlight used her magic to follow them by either boosting her abilities or forming a walkway around some of the obstacles. They passed by a number of moving pieces, both on the actual walkway and the wall that they would need to leap between, before they eventually reached the top of the tower. They took a moment to look out at the city, giving Ratchet and Starlight a chance to catch their breath, before they followed the second zip line down to the third and final island.

There the group found a rather hefty fembot that happened to be dressed up in workout clothes, as she was doing jumping jacks the entire time before they arrived.

"Listen up you lard balls!" she proclaimed the instant they arrived, swinging her arms to point at them, "That was the most pathetic display I have ever seen on that obstacle course."

"Whaddaya mean?" Ratchet demanded, as he had been pleased with the progress he and Starlight had made, considering that they didn't do this sort of workout as often as Sunset did.

"We finished the course," Clank pointed out, before beckoning to the three siblings next to him, "I also doubt that you've seen many thirteen year olds complete the course, much less their twelve year old siblings."

"Oh yah!" the fembot proclaimed, as if she was getting excited about something and was preparing to reveal something to them, "But it was we- wait, did you say thirteen and twelve years old? I was expecting grown ups to be running this course, not children."

"Are we really lard balls?" Starlight asked, staring at the fembot for a moment, wondering if the fact that they were under the expected age of those running the course would be enough to let them have the prize.

"Of course not!" the fembot proclaimed once more, before kneeling before Starlight and rubbing her head for a moment, "That is just Helga's way of encouraging lazy bums who disgrace her obstacle course. I'd point out that your brother over there disgraced the course, but the three of you ran the course better than most grown ups that come here to train. For that I have a special reward for the three of you, something from the Captain himself... give Helga a moment."

Helga turned around and dug into what the group assumed was her pack, though after a few minutes she pulled something out and turned to face them once more. The item in question was what appeared to be a small metal box that had a open cylinder attached to the front of it, with a band of either leather or metal attached to the bottom of it. Sunset's eyes widened as she gazed at the time that Helga was going to give them on Captain Qwark's orders, as she had seen a few reports about the gadget two weeks ago.

"A Swingshot?!" Sunset proclaimed in amazement, accepting the one that was presented to her, while her siblings did the same.

"Ja!" Helga confirmed, a light smile appearing on her face for a moment, "With it you can sway to and fro from those targets up there, but judging by your reaction you knew what it did before I said anything."

"I've read reports on what they do, but never tried them out before," Sunset replied, attaching it to her left arm, as her golden bracelet made it impossible for her to wear anything on top of it, "Thank you Helga."

Helga waved goodbye to them as she boarded what appeared to be a taxi, disappearing into the city in a matter of seconds and leaving them to their own devices. Sunset turned to Starlight and helped her equip the Swingshot to her front right leg, so that she would be able to join her and Ratchet without the fear of being left behind. Once the three of them had their new gadgets on Sunset took aim at the first target and activated the gadget, firing a cable that connected to the target and allowing her to fly to the next stand. As her siblings joined her she took aim at the last one and repeated the process, dropping in front of a third zip line, to which they rode down to the start of the fitness course.

With their new gadgets in hand the group headed towards the path that they believed would take them to Big Al's Roboshack, where they would be able to obtain information on where Captain Qwark went. As they walked down the steps near the vendor they came across an enemy that commanded a pack of robotic dogs, though the moment he spotted them coming he snapped a command to them. Instead of wasting their ammo on the dogs the three of them drew their hand weapons, to which they bashed, smacked, and slashed the small group of robotic dogs to pieces.

They followed their enemy into another group of robotic dogs, but they threw a few bombs when they noted that there was two goons trying to gun them down. They also noticed a bridge just a few feet ahead of them, but when they approached it a chopper appeared in the sky and turned towards them, clearly stating that if they wanted to go further they would have to go through it. As they weighed their options on how to deal with the new enemy, which only stared at them as they debated what to do, Ratchet eyed the light pole near them and started to wonder something.

"Hey Starlight," Ratchet said, causing his sister to turn towards him for a moment, to which he beckoned to the downed pole, "Think you can throw that at the chopper and get ride of it?"

Starlight eyed the pole for a moment, then turned to the chopper as if she was calculating what could happen if she did grab the pole with her magic and throw it like her brother suggested. She was concerned that she could accidentally send the chopper into the bridge and destroy their way forward, but she knew that there was the chance that the pilot could miss the bridge and fall into the abyss. She looked at Sunset for a moment, who shook her head no, but she sighed and grabbed onto the pole, before sending it through the air and smacking into the blades that kept the chopper up.

The chopper drifted over the edge before the engine failed, to which the pilot dropped to his death before the chopper exploded, clearing the way forward.

"That was amazing!" Ratchet exclaimed, impressed that the enemy pilot couldn't avoid the pole before it was too late, while also impressed by his sister's growing control over her magical powers.

"And completely reckless," Sunset added, turning to her siblings for a second, "That could have destroyed the bridge, which would have prevented us from moving forward and visiting Al's Roboshack, thus depriving us of any information on Captain Qwark. I will admit that your abilities are growing and that your control is improving, but I would caution you to really consider the effects of your actions."

"I will!" Starlight replied, pulling out her Blaster and moving forward, to which she started blasting the remaining enemies as her siblings followed after her.

They rode down an escalator for a few seconds before finding another enemy that controlled a pack of dogs, though this time they simply shot their targets to pieces. The three of them took a moment to make sure that there was no one else around them, to verify that there were no more enemies in the area, before they agreed that the coast was clear and entered the Roboshack. Inside the Shack they found a yellow skinned roboticist, who also had a hefty size to his body, standing behind the counter, viewing something on his own tablet.

"Say, you're that robot guy, right?" Ratchet asked, to which the person sighed and turned towards him for a moment.

"No, I build robots," the person replied, to which he closed his tablet and set it on the counter before he looked at his customers, "I, myself, am not a robot guy, per se."

"Nerd," Ratchet told Clank, just after the little robot detached from his back and joined them in the conversation.

"I like him," Clank replied, though it seemed like he was a little annoyed that Ratchet would make that comment, especially when his sister's were employees with Gadgetron.

"So now that we've cleared that up," Big Al continued, eager to get past the awkward absence that followed his failed attempt at humor, "what can I do for you?"

"We saw your broadcast with Captain Qwark." Sunset explained, eager to get to the reason they came to his shack to begin with, "We were hoping you could help us find him."

"Your logic is commendable," Big Al replied, shaking his head for a moment as if he was remembering the commercial, "but I haven't seen Captain Qwark since we shot that commercial... wait a second, you wouldn't happen to be Sunset Shimmer would you?"

"That's me," Sunset confirmed, wondering how the man had known her name without introducing herself.

"Then that makes the unicorn next to you Starlight Glimmer," Big Al commented, a large smile appearing on his face as he stared at the two of them, "which makes the two of you the Shimmer Sisters."

"You've heard of us?!" Starlight exclaimed, surprised that someone that wasn't from Veldin would know them by name, though she had to wonder how that was possible.

"Oh absolutely," Big Al said, picking up his tablet and showing the group a picture of Sunset and Starlight standing side by side, one that they had posed for shortly after they joined the cooperation, "You two are the youngest people to ever join Gadgetron, making both weapons and gadgets that are currently being sold to everyone across Solana. Several of my friends have a few of your items, be it the recently released Blaster or a Swingshot, though I guess I can brag to them that I met you face to face. Would it be appropriate if I asked for both of your autographs?"

Sunset and Starlight glanced at each other for a moment before tuning to Big Al once more, to which Sunset took the offered pen and signed her name on her side of the picture, before Starlight picked it from her hand and did the same on her side. Once the two of them were finished with signing their names Big Al took the tablet back and stared at the picture, before closing it and setting it back on the table.

"So awesome," Big Al said, sounding like a fangirl for a moment, before collecting himself and staring at Clank through his glasses, "Say, do you run on standard XP-18 sisterboards?"

"Version 7.66," Clank confirmed, to which Ratchet looked at the robot in confusion, though his sisters seemed to know what the two of them were talking about.

"Back at ya," Big Al replied eagerly, as if he enjoyed the fact that they had brought Clank with them, "I may be able to help you out after all.  How does a Helipack upgrade sound?"

"Upgrade?" Ratchet asked, curious as to what this upgrade was and what it would do to the small robot.

"Natch.  Since he's a seven-six-six, I could have the little guy flying in no time," Big Al explained, though he also waved his hand in a dismissing manner, "Considering that I just met two of Gadgetron's rising stars, and they signed one of my pictures, I'm willing to wave the commission fee this one time."

The siblings shared a glance with each other before Ratchet nodded to Big Al, to which he picked Clank up and got to work before their very eyes. It didn't take very long for Big Al to turn back around and present Clank to them once more, allowing them to view his work with looks of approval on their faces.

"There we go," Big Al said as he set Clank down on the counter, the helicopter parts of the upgrade springing from his head and arms.  "I added some extra stabilizers and power to the boost jump function, that way he can carry you up a good height."

"Ratchet," Clank asked, sounding proud of the work that Big Al had done to him, "am I cool now?"

"Yeah." Ratchet said, chuckling as he looked at the small robot, "You da man, Clank."

Once that was over they left through the back entrance of the shack, to which Ratchet was able to try out the new helipack function that had been installed. He boosted up to the first ledge of the boxes and grinned for a moment, enjoying the thrill that he experienced, before repeating the process to the top of the second boxes. He waited a second as Starlight used her enhanced abilities to catch up with him, before Sunset followed suit and stood behind him, to which he marveled by how skilled she was in using her natural reflexes. The moment they were together they leapt across the gap and rode the small elevator to the top of the small tower, to which Ratchet glided down to the waiting platform.

Starlight, knowing that Sunset couldn't do what Ratchet did without someone like Clank on her back, stood next to her sister and ignited her magic, teleporting them down to their brother.

They smashed the three enemies that had been waiting on the platform, before moving up another elevator and finding a large group of robotic dogs waiting for them. They let a few Blaster shots fly as they blew the dogs to pieces, before Starlight threw her staff at the retreating enemy and pinned him to the ground, allowing them to catch up and put him out of his misery. The next area had a train waiting in the station, though they had to smash their way through the enemies that were waiting for them before they could board the waiting train.

As the train departed they had to time their jumps from one section to another, to avoid falling to their deaths, so they could attack the brutish enemies that were trying to gun them down. When they arrived at the front of the train it pulled into the next station, allowing the waiting infobot to fly into an area as another bomb enemy prepared to put them down. A few seconds later they were moving on once more, cornering the infobot and forcing it to reveal what information it had to share... to which they discovered another planet that was in the process of being harvested for Chairman Drek's new planet. During that viewing Sunset pulled out the one that the Plumber had given her, to which Ratchet got excited when he found that Skid McMarx was on the ship that was shot down.

They debated where to go next, weighing the disaster that was occurring on Eudora against the presence of a celebrity on Aridia, each of them adding their opinions on where they should go to the overall discussion. Eventually they determined that there might be something useful on Aridia that would make the trip worth it, as Sunset believed that there might be a useful gadget waiting for them. Starlight and Ratchet agreed in the end, because by the state of things of on Eudora it appeared that Drek's troops were only in the beginning stages of their operation. Clank, however, was definitely annoyed that they had overruled him, as he believed that attacking Drek's Lieutenant should be the correct course of action, but decided to go with the group.

They quickly returned to their ship and sat in their seats, to which Ratchet activated the start up sequence and set course for Planet Aridia, where both he and Starlight were eagerly awaiting their meeting with Skid McMarx.
> R/C: Aridia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Ratchet, his sisters, and Clank flew towards Planet Aridia, which Clank told them would be a long flight, Sunset and Starlight declared that they were going to rest before they arrived at their destination. Ratchet yawned with the mere mention of getting some sleep, as he was already tired from having to deal with the crash on Novalis, which told him that he needed to improve his skills some more, and the trek through Kerwan. He hadn't gotten the chance to actually get some decent sleep between leaving Veldin and starting their adventure, but knew that there had to be someone flying the ship and kept his hands on the steering wheel.

"Ratchet, why do you not rest as well?" Clank asked, waiting a few minutes to be sure that his sisters were asleep before asking the question, "You have been pushing yourself to your limits since we left Veldin, and you look like you're about to faint from what you did on both Novalis and Kerwan. You need to rest before you do anything else."

"I need to focus on flying this ship," Ratchet told the robot, glancing at Clank for a moment before turning his attention to the controls once more, "I don't want to suddenly crash when we reach Aridia, otherwise we would need someone to come rescue us."

"I am equipped with the capability to use the ship's auto pilot function, should the actual pilot require rest from time to time," Clank told him, causing the Lombax to look at him once more, "Rest assured that I will get the four of us to Aridia safely. You need not worry about something happening to us along the way."

"If you say so Clank," Ratchet replied, sighing as he released the controls for a moment, noting that the ship stayed on the course even as he removed his hands from the wheel, "Just make sure that you wake us the instant we arrive at our destination. We've got a celebrity and his agent to save, not to mention uncovering some gadgets that will help us down the road."

Clank watched Ratchet stretch his arms for a moment before leaning back in his seat, just enough to let him relax and sleep without disturbing his sisters at all, before his companions were all asleep. Once he was the last one awake he turned his attention to the controls, checking them to be sure that they were headed for Aridia and that nothing would get in the way of the auto pilot. He was certain that they would reach their destination safely, giving his companions the opportunity to get some well deserved sleep before their arrival.

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

Clank let his companions sleep until the moment that the ship entered Aridia's atmosphere, to which he merely turned to Ratchet and proceeded to wake him up.

"Ratchet, we have arrived at our destination," Clank said, loud enough to wake the lombax up, including his sisters as well, "The ship is in the process of landing as we speak."

"Good, then we can scan the area for Skid and his agent before we land," Ratchet replied, straightening his chair while his sisters woke up from their rest, while Clank started to scan the area around the landing pad they were heading for, "We'll find Skid, find his agent, and recover whatever gadget Sunset's sure is waiting for us, before we make our way to Eudora and confront that lieutenant that's following Chairman Drek's orders."

"Finding Skid should be easy," Starlight commented, yawning as she sat up in her chair, while Sunset followed suit and stretched her arms, "locating his agent and that gadget will likely prove to be a challenge, but we'll worry about that as we search the surrounding area."

"So how are we going to do this?" Sunset asked, rubbing her eyes for a moment before staring at the map that Clank brought up, "It looks like we have three paths to choose from; one that appears to be to the immediate left of the landing pad, while the second and third start on the opposite path, only to diverge some distance away. One of those two paths is likely going to lead to the top of that tower, while the other might lead whoever takes it to the base of that large cannon over there. Now the question is, who takes which path?"

"I'll take the one on the left of the ship," Starlight spoke up immediately, as she reasoned that Skid might be hiding near the landing pad in the hopes of finding someone that could help him, "I'll leave the two of you to fight over the remaining two objectives."

Before either Ratchet or Sunset could make a comment the ship landing on the landing pad, to which Clank powered down the systems and popped the lid, allowing Starlight to leap out of the ship and run towards the objective that she wanted to take. Ratchet and Sunset looked at each other for a moment before getting out of the ship and heading over to the Gadgetron Vendor, while Clank remained attached to Ratchet's back. They spotted Starlight holding the latest Gadgetron weapon, the Pyrocitor, for a moment before she dashed in the direction she wanted to take, to which the two remaining siblings sighed and bought their own copy of the weapon.

With their new weapons in hand the two siblings headed towards the tower, leaving Starlight to deal with whatever she found in the direction she was heading.

-------

As Starlight trotted down the path she had decided to pick, before her siblings could voice their own opinions on her choice, she eventually spotted something - and someone - around the corner she came to. It was a green skinned person that had three fingers on each hand, wore what appeared to be a hippy shirt and shorts, had his feet tucked into some sandals, and was wearing a visor of some kind. She recognized the person from the various posters that she had seen Ratchet looking at from time to time, so she grinned as she approached the celebrity.

"Skid McMarx!" Starlight called out, getting the attention of the celebrity as she approached him, "My family and I saw your distress call on Aridia's infobot."

"Hey there little filly," Skid replied, seeming completely relaxed, despite the situation that he was in, "Did you see that epic space battle I was in?"

"Of course I did!" Starlight remarked, glancing around them for a moment, "So, what happened?"

"My agent and I were ambushed," Skid told her, rubbing the back of his head for a few seconds, "He kept telling me that they were fireworks, but who's laughing now? Actually, seeing how we were both shot down, I'm not laughing either. I'm sure that my agent is fine, but I'm actually having getting back to my ship, due to my sprained ankle and the local Sand Sharks."

"Then let me clear the way for you!" Starlight exclaimed, pulling out her new Pyrocitor as she turned towards the area that the sharks were in, "I'll be back before you know it."

The first area she walked into, which had been vacant of almost all life except for a green pod like thing, was swarming with sharks in a matter of seconds as they pulled themselves out of the sand. She turned her weapon on the sharks and pressed the lever, releasing a gout of flames that torched her targets and burned them to a crisp, to which she discovered that the pod like creatures spat out more of the sharks. As she used the weapon to burn the sharks around her, and get closer to the pods, she ignited her horn and picked up some of the burning patches of sand, to which she threw a fireball at the pods from afar.

When the pod creature died, and the sharks around it were dead, she waited to be sure that no more of them were in the area, but after a few seconds she figured out that the pods were the key and focused on hunting them all down. She determined that wiping the pods out would make it possible for her to make a path that Skid could easily traverse, so that they could get to his ship without any problems. She moved around what appeared to be a rock column of some kind, burning the sharks that appeared in her way, before she levitated herself up to the top and found two more of the pods waiting for her. She then repeated her process of burning the sharks and using the flaming remains to form a fireball and blow the other creatures to pieces.

One of the sharks got close to biting her, but she managed to pull herself back in time and snapped her Blaster out, putting a blast in the shark's head and opening the way forward. While she thought about how close she had come to getting hit she spotted an area off to the side that had another pod creature and a few more sharks, but considering that they were out of the way she didn't think that she needed to remove them.

The final area she walked to had two more of the pod creatures, though as she started counting the fins she noticed that there were plenty of sharks roaming around in the sand. The instant she touched the sand the sharks burst out and came at her, forcing her to turn her new weapon on them and burn them to cinders. As she did so she kept her eyes on the pod creatures, waiting for enough cinders to gather around her before turning them into a fireball and burning the closest pod in seconds. With one down she turned her attention to the sharks, keeping them in her sight as she slowly prepared another fireball that would end this fight.

Once she had charred the last pod creature, not counting the one that was out of the way, she returned to Skid and beckoned for him to follow her to his ship.

"You have my thanks little filly," Skid remarked, opening his ship for a moment before looking for something, "Before you go, I have something that I want to give you... just let me find it."

Starlight was excited to be meeting an actual celebrity, though she wondered how excited she would be when they eventually found Captain Qwark. She was surprised that Skid was even going to give her a reward for what she had done, though it made her wonder what the celebrity was going to be giving her. A few minutes passed, during which she watched Skid dig around the ship, before he pulled himself out of the ship and held a board out to her, one that looked different than the ones that most hoverboarders used.

"This here is a Z3000 Deluxe Hoverboard," Skid told her, slipping the board into her pack before standing once more, "It isn't much, but its the only thing I can offer you in thanks for getting me back to my ship."

"But i can't use it." Starlight stated, knowing that the board was made for someone with two legs and not four, though she had an idea of what she could do with it anyway.

"I'm sure that you'll find a use for it," Skid remarked, opening the other side of his ship before sitting down, "I'll see you later little filly."

Starlight stared at the celebrity for a moment, wondering if he was going to wait for a tow company or something, before she signed and headed back to her ship. Before she got very far she turned back to the celebrity and decided that it would be best if he at least knew her name, in the off chance that they saw each other in the future.

"Its Starlight Glimmer," Starlight commented, causing Skid to look up at her for a moment, "My name is Starlight Glimmer, not 'little filly'. I'll see you around Skid."

"Alright, I'll see you on the flip side," Skidreplied, a smile appearing on his face for a moment, "Starlight Glimmer."

Starlight smiled and nodded her head for a moment, before heading towards the ship, knowing exactly what to do with the hoverboard and who would benefit from having it.

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

Ratchet and Sunset followed the same path for a few minutes, either blasting or burning their enemies as they approached the tower, where they discovered the area that separated into two different paths. Once they had reached that point, and discovered that there wasn't any enemies in the area, they quickly determined who would be taking which path. Clank, knowing that this conversation was going to be coming up in advance, suggested that he and Ratchet take the tower, as Sunset didn't have something to prevent her from falling or give her the ability to glide. In the end Sunset determined that Clank was right and let Ratchet head forward, using his swingshot to access the tower, while she headed to the right, to see if she could find Skid's agent.

"Are you worried about your sisters this time?" Clank asked, trying to engage Ratchet in conversation while they swung around the area, looking for the gadget that Sunset had been convinced would be here somewhere.

"No, not really," Ratchet replied, landing on a platform and opening some of the nearby crates, collecting the bolts that he found, "Starlight is, as you have already discovered, one of Gadgetron's best weapon designers and she has quite a habit of making weapons that blow her enemies to pieces. Sunset, on the other hand, is also an apprentice with Gadgetron, but her field of expertise is that of the gadgets themselves, such as this Swingshot. When the three of us are separated from each other we can hold our own, and even overcome what's troubling us from time to time, until one of the others arrives to provide support. Together, however, we are definitely a force to be reckoned with."

"You are exaggerating," Clank commented, detecting that his companion was telling him something that wasn't quite the whole truth.

"Yeah, I was," Ratchet admitted, touching another platform as he looked around for the next target that would allow him to progress even further, all while not even attempting to hide the fact that he had exaggerated in his telling, "Clank, we've only just started our adventure, but I can tell you that my sisters and I will not allow Chairman Drek to get away with his plans. If Sunset is correct in believing that this gadget is necessary to our overall goal, and I'm willing to bet that she's right, then we had better collect it and get underway."

Clank would have said more, but then Ratchet reached a chamber with a seemingly endless pit, so he remained quiet while Ratchet went from target to target. The two of them swung around the chamber, going from one side to the other before wrapping around the border, to which they crossed the chamber again and landed at what had to be the peak of the tower. He then walked into the middle of another chamber, where he found what appeared to be a hand held gadget with a few points sticking out of the front of it. He realized that he had no idea what the item he had found was, so he tapped his Gadgetron Help Desk and took a scan of the gadget, hoping that it was something that they had information on.

That was when he discovered that this was a Trespasser, something that would allow him and his sisters to bypass the Invinco-Locks that were scattered across the galaxy. He had no idea if Sunset had actually worked on the gadget or not, but at the moment he approached the nearby activation pad and worked his way through the lock that had been placed at the end of the tower. With the way back to the tower's entrance revealed he and Clank began their descent back down to the beginning of the tower, so that they would return to the ship and meet up with his sisters.

They both had to admit it; they were excited to see what Sunset and Starlight found on their respective paths.

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

Sunset sighed as she stepped down the path that she had been left with, understanding why she had been assigned with this path while Ratchet took the tower. Clank allowed her brother to do more than she would do on her own, so she was determined to make something that could equal what the little robot was, though she knew that she may not get the chance to do so until they were done with Chairman Drek. Her mind already had several ideas on what she could make, and what she could use as a base if she could find the pieces intact, though she knew that when she and her siblings set out for the next planet she would have enough time to start making her plans.

One of the construction robots leapt onto the walkway she was walking on and pointed its flamethrower at her, to which she sighed and put her own weapon away, pulling out her blade and letting the blade extend. As the robot's flames came at her she leapt over them and swung her sword at the robot's arm, severing its weapon before she threw it off the walkway, allowing it to sink into the mud. With the enemy dead she found that three more of them were currently standing in her way, to which she retracted her blade and pulled out her Blaster. With her weapon in hand she charged at the construction robots, either blasting them to pieces or doing enough damage to push them off the edge, where they'd sink into the mud.

When she reached the elevator she rode it all the way down to the bottom of the tower, to which she found a few sharks that swam around in the sand and a few more construction robots blocking her way. She started blasting her way through her enemies, tossing the sharks aside as she focused on the robots, breaking them into pieces and opening the way forward. Every time she destroyed one of the robots, and the area around her was clear, she would kneel beside whatever was left of the robot and search for pieces that she could use. She managed to salvage a few pieces that she could use later on, mainly intact power modules, but there wasn't too much to speak of, thanks to several of the robots exploding when they died.

She passed through a set of pipes and took out the two sharks that inhabited them, including the construction robot, before pulling herself around a ledge and up a set of smaller ledges that allowed her to leave the tower. She took around her, silently determining which direction she was supposed to go in, before she turned to her left and leapt over the small patch of sand that rested between her and the cannon. As she approached the cannon, to which she discovered a ramp thatrequired a pair of boots that she didn't have at the moment, she spotted someone finishing a call.

"No signal what so ever!" the person exclaimed, angrily stomping his feet as he walked around, "This down time is killing me!"

"Excuse me sir," Sunset said, putting away her weapons as the person turned towards her for a moment, knowing that this had to be Skid's agent, "do you require medical attention?"

"Don't be so literal girl!" the man replied, waving his arms around while he spoke to her, "The problem is that I'm stranded on this backwater planet and my star client is nowhere to be found. I was Skid's agent, but I haven't seen him since our ship crashed. And an agent without a client is like a flea without a dog... say, like look like an athletic kid. If you can bring me the championship prize from the Hoverboard Races in Blackwater City I'll make you my next star!"

Sunset, determining that the agent did not actually need any help, turned to leave him so she could return to the ship and see what her siblings found, before something came to mind and made her turn back to the agent for a moment.

"For the record, I was asking if you sustained any injuries after you crashed," Sunset told the agent, to which he glared at her, likely because she was correcting what he had misinterpreted, "but I'll be on my way now."

She left the agent along and found a transporter of some kind, one that wrapped around her and took her beneath the land, to which she came out near the ship. As she walked off of the second transporter she spotted both Ratchet and Starlight waiting near the ship, again making her wonder what they had found. She wasn't surprised to find that they were arguing over something, though as she approached she found out that it was merely who killed something first.

"I told you that I killed a Sand Shark first!" Starlight told her brother, gesturing to her Pyrocitor for a moment, "I burned one of them alive the moment Skid McMarx told me that he needed help getting to his ship."

"And while you were talking with Skid I killed one of those sharks myself," Ratchet replied, which Sunset knew was correct since she had seen it herself, "I'm sorry Starlight, but I got the first kill on this planet."

"Ugh... fine, I give up," Starlight moaned, shaking her head as she noticed that Sunset had returned, "Oh, hey Sunset... how long have you been standing there?"

"I only just got back," Sunset admitted, facing her siblings for a moment, "so, what did you guys find?"

"I helped Skid McMarx get back to his ship," Starlight immediately responded, before igniting her magic and pulling out a hoverboard from her back, "and he gave me a Z3000 Deluxe Hoverboard as thanks for getting him to his destination. I also killed a bunch of sand sharks and the creatures that spawned them, so I've also earned a fair amount of bolts for getting rid the lot of them."

"Oh lucky," Ratchet commented, referring to the hoverboard for a moment, before collecting himself and presenting what he had found, "I, on the other hand, found a Trespasser, a gadget that will allow us to essentially hack through any of the Invinco-Locks that we might find on our journey. I must say that you were right Sunset, there was an important gadget waiting for us on this planet... something that we likely needed to get to that lieutenant on Eudora."

"Well then, both of these will likely be of some aid to us on our journey," Sunset said, a smile appearing on her face as she looked between the two items, "We had better get on our way to Eudora, otherwise we might miss that lieutenant and any information he might have on him."

"Sunset, I have to apologize for not getting you anything for your birthday," Starlight suddenly said, ashamed that she had let her desire to build a powerful weapon make her forget to get her sister something for her special day, "so I want you to have the Z3000. Its going to be some time before there's a hoverboard that I can safely use without fear of falling over or hurting myself. I would have given it to Ratchet, but then he would brag about it and we'd never hear the end of it."

Sunset knelt beside her sister and wrapped her arms around her, giving her a hug for even remembering to think about her birthday, even while she was busy making holo-plans. She honestly had no idea what she would do with the hoverboard, but she knew that, given time and some creative thinking, she'd be able to come up with something. She heard Ratchet moan thanks to Starlight telling them that he would brag if he had been given the board, to which she released her sister and picked up the board. With the board in hand, and all of their objectives cleared, the three of them returned to the ship, where Clank had prepared the ship for their next destination and was merely waiting for them to seat themselves before entering the code.

The four of them were excited for the next planet; as there was a robot lieutenant to confront, valuable information to locate, and a lumber site to search for additional items to aid them in their quest.
> R/C: Eudora
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As the ship left Aridia, and began the journey to Eudora, everyone picked something up so that they weren't bored from the amount of time it took to go from one planet to another. Ratchet, being the pilot, couldn't take his hands off the steering wheel unless Clank engaged the autopilot, so he kept his attention on following the directions the ship gave him, while glancing at the stars every now and then. Clank flipped through his own memories and the files he had been given when he had been made, deciding to see what information he had in case there was anything that they could use later on. Starlight pulled out her tablet and got to work on some more weapons that could be created, taking into consideration what she had seen on Aridia and sifting through her incomplete plans.

Sunset, on the other hand, opened her own tablet and pulled up the holo-plan for the Z300 she now possessed, where she could begin tinkering with the plan until she could create something identical to the glider system that Ratchet used when Clank was on his back. She was sure that she could, given enough time and resources, create something to give her the ability to glide like her brother, but she knew that she could always outfit the hoverboard as well.

When they landed on Eudora a few hours later Sunset sighed and put her holo-plan away, somewhat annoyed that mimicking Clank was harder than she thought it would be. Starlight, on the other hand, had finished another set of weapon plans by the time they landed, so she sent them along as Ratchet turned the ship off and opened the lid. The four of them climbed out of the ship, to which Ratchet and his sisters stretched their bodies for a few seconds, before they walked over to the vendor to see if there was another weapon to add to their arsenals. That was when they discovered the Glove of Doom, one of the weapons that Sunset had helped Starlight with and had submitted to Mr. Gadget two days ago, had become available.

"I'm impressed that your boss made this weapon as quickly as he did," Ratchet said, flexing his hand for a moment as he wondered what destruction the latest weapon could cause, "Time to test this baby out."

Starlight knew the reason why Mr. Gadget was making the weapons quicker, as she had included a message in her last transmission that said that she and her siblings were willing to test the weapons in the field, as they were in the process of helping people in need across the galaxy. She didn't mention that they were trying to stop Chairman Drek, but the prospect of protecting people and making sure that there were safe seemed to do the job in getting more of her weapons produced. She knew that she'd be seeing some of her other weapons in the future, so she was excited when the time came to use some of the more powerful ones she and Sunset had made. She had decided to let Ratchet think whatever he wanted about the reason for how quickly the weapons came out, though she did take notes in case there was something wrong in the weapons.

Ratchet threw a sphere forward and four little robots emerged from it the moment it touched the ground, though the little bots jumped for joy when they spotted the wood cutting robots and charged at them. The instant the first little bot touched its target it exploded in a burst of gears and sparks, raining death while the other three repeated the process with the other robots. Ratchet whistled as he watched the carnage, amazed and disturbed by the amount of destruction that Starlight had packed into their small bodies... which only made him wonder what level of power the other weapons she had submitted contained.

"These guys are going to quickly become my best friends," Ratchet commented, preparing another sphere as he advanced down the path that led away from the locked door, leaving Sunset and Starlight behind by the ship.

"We had better follow him," Sunset said, sighing as she followed her brother down the path, with Starlight walking beside her, "I just hope he doesn't get hurt in his eagerness to try out your newest weapon."

"I imagine that the Glove of Doom will make some decent profits for Gadgetron," Starlight replied, pulling out her tablet and making some notes about the level of power that the robots contained, a small smirk lingering on her face while they walked, "I mean, I know Ratchet likes my weapons, but if he likes a weapon that just recently came out, with little explanation on how to use it, then that means that other customers will like the weapon as well."

They followed their brother to an area that had several more of the lumber robots roaming around, cutting into the remaining trees while the axe carrying ones merely patrolled and kept an eye out for intruders. Ratchet's little minions ran forward, blowing the axe carrying robots into the walls while he swung his wrench into the heads of floating robots, smashing them into the ground as he moved along. He came to a bolt crank that, when rotated all the way around, opened the bridge for him to pass into the next area, where more of the lumber robots were continuing their work under the protection of Chairman Drek's troops.

As Ratchet forged ahead Sunset knelt next to the robots he had left mostly in one piece, taking intact pieces of them off of their broken bodies as she collected the modules that hadn't been broken. Starlight looked at her while she worked, appearing to wonder what she was doing for a few moments, before she shook her head and let her sister do what she wanted. She also put down any enemies that Ratchet ended up missing, blowing them to pieces as they passed them by and followed their brother over another bridge.

Ratchet smashed and blasted his way through another set of enemies, before he came to an area that had a lift that would give him and his sisters a boost so they could reach the next area... which would involve them flying over a gap between the two areas. It was then that he stopped in his tracks and wondered how the three of them would be able to cross, because both he and Sunset had something to get them across the gap, but Starlight had nothing. He considered her magic for a moment, but he had no idea how long her concentration would last and if she'd be able to cross to the other side with them.

"So how are we going to do this?" Ratchet asked, staring at the destination they needed to reach, his mind working out how they were going to accomplish the task, "I mean, two of us cane safely cross over this gap, but that leaves Starlight to turn back and head to the ship until we return."

That was seconds before a magical bridge, made in the color of Starlight's magic, formed before his eyes, to which he turned around and spotted the glow resting around his sister's horn.

"Or you could ask me to build a bridge," Starlight said, a smile appearing on her face as she started to walk across the magical bridge, "You had best hurry if you want in on the rest of the action."

As they crossed the bridge they encountered a larger robot that blocked their path, though the combined might of their collective minions and their weapons tore the robotic creature down. Sunset noticed that a major part of the robot remained intact, to which she let her siblings continue ahead while she searched for more intact modules, where she smiled when she spotted five powerful modules that were intact. She knew that she could do something with them, so she pocketed them as soon as she had loosened them and then followed after her siblings, catching up to them as they made their way across another gap. She had to admit it, but her sister was definitely getting stronger the more she used her magic, leaving her to wonder what she could and could not do with her natural abilities.

They found a chamber that had three more of the larger robots, though it was guarded by a small group of Chairman Drek's guards that didn't take too kindly to them and Clank showing up. It actually took them some time to clear out the area, as they had to avoid their enemy's attacks and time their own accordingly, though there were a few times were one of them almost got hit in the process. When the battle was over, and the three larger ones had been taken out during the fight, the group relaxed and walked into the chamber they had to fight to enter.

It was on the other side of the chamber that they discovered a new weapon, a circular cylinder weapon that the group determined had to be a cannon of some kind.

"So this is the Suck Cannon," Sunset commented, staring at the weapon as Ratchet picked it up, giving her the ability to better study it as she pulled up her tablet, "Apparently this isn't a weapon produced by Gadgetron, but by the Blarg instead. According to what I'm reading this weapon uses quantum technology to suck in small enemies inside of it like a vacuum cleaner when the owner holds down the trigger. Then, once its full and can no longer suck enemies up, the owner can release the trigger and then press it again, releasing the enemies as missiles that are fired at whatever the owner is targeting."

"I'm not sure if that's useful or not," Ratchet said, though once Sunset nodded her head he stashed it with the rest of his weapons, knowing that his siblings would want to look at it in the future so they could make something superior to it, "Now, where can we find that lieutenant that's following Drek's orders?"

Starlight remembered the locked door near where they landed their ship, so she suggested that they return to the ship and immediately leapt over the gap that separated them from the area they landed their ship. Within a minute they returned to the ship, but instead of getting into the ship they walked up to the door that rested behind it and parted so Ratchet could approach it.

"So Gadgetron makes both the Invinco-Locks and the Trespasser?" Starlight asked, as she had more experience with the weapons and not the gadgets, which was Sunset's area of expertise.

"That is correct," Sunset replied, watching her brother work the lock while they talked, "though I am pretty sure that someone knew that this Trespasser was going to be on a transport to another planet and, somehow, stole it away from the transport, only to drop it on Aridia."

"That does not explain how it ended up at the top of the tower on Aridia," Clank commented, recalling where Ratchet and found the gadget to begin with.

"Maybe the thief that stole it believed that no one would be able to find it at the top of the tower," Sunset said, recalling that she had been told that it was only because of his Swingshots that her brother managed to reach the top of the tower, "so by leaving it at the very top the thief believed that they would be able to return at a later date to collect it. No doubt whoever had taken it intended to sell it to the highest bidder, so its actually better for us to have it than a criminal that could do harm to others."

"That's... actually a valid response," Starlight stated, surprised that she hadn't thought of that while considering how the gadget had been left at the top of the tower, but before she could say anymore the door opened.

"Let's go find that lieutenant," Ratchet said, pulling out his wrench as he advanced down the new path, watching out for additional enemies that might be guarding their target.

They encountered two more bolt cranks along the new path, opening a mode of transportation that involved using their Swingshots to traverse the massive gaps. Starlight used her magic to create steps that allowed her to keep pace with her siblings as they moved over the raised platforms, taking notes on everything she saw as she followed the path. After some time they eventually reached another door that had another lock, to which Ratchet pulled out the Trespasser and moved to unlock the door, giving his siblings time to rest before they confronted the lieutenant.

Once the door was open they walked inside with their weapons drawn, which was fortunate because they found the lieutenant waiting in the middle of the chamber. He stared at them the moment they entered the chamber, but the moment that Clank detached from Ratchet's back, and he noticed that it was four on one, he turned tail and ran from them as fast as his robotic legs would take him. Ratchet immediately started to follow the lieutenant, but Sunset held her hand up to stop him, before pointing at the infobot that had been left behind by their target.

"Why are we not following him?" Clank asked, staring at his companions for a moment, "He has the information that we need."

"We know nothing about interrogation," Sunset replied, before turning the little robot to the infobot, "but this should be able to give us some insight on where we should go next."

As it turned out the infobot revealed that there was a research station that Chairman Drek was using to build addition weapons, be they mechanical or living creatures that could be controlled. The recording even listed several of the items that someone might be able to find at the station, though Sunset knew that they were likely to find one or two useful items that would aid them in their quest. Once the recording was over both Starlight and Ratchet were showing that they were eager to get to the station, so that they could get their hands on whatever Drek was working on. Clank tried to tell them that they could not be bothered to go to the station, as they had to track down Captain Qwark and reveal what Chairman Drek was doing, but that was before Sunset told him that the station was their only lead left at the moment.

Clank eventually agreed with Sunset and her siblings, knowing that, even if there was another lead they could follow, they would likely be going to the station anyway, to pick up the gadgets. With the group in agreement they returned to their ship, took their seats, and let Ratchet start the launch sequence, each of them wondering what information and gadgets they would find at the station.
> 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.
> R/C: Rilgar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Starlight sighed when Clank told them that it would take them most of the night to reach Planet Rilgar, which meant that they'd have a chance to sleep while he kept the ship on autopilot. Ratchet apparently didn't like to turn the ship over to his little robotic friend, but after being reminded that Clank had done it once before, giving his sisters a chance to hear the tale, he reluctantly agreed to the plan. Sunset, on the other hand, was studying the holo-plan that she had been given, double checking for errors that could potentially make her and her colleagues tear the boots apart and build them a second or third time before they got it right. Starlight wasn't annoyed by what her siblings were doing, or what Clank was doing, but she was annoyed by a small data file that Sunset had pulled from the warship and passed along to her after their departure from the research station.

She was annoyed that the Blarg had, in some manner, acquired her plans for the RYNO weapon, one that Mr. Gadget had labeled as too powerful and too dangerous for someone to use within certain safety guidelines. The Blarg had built a prototype from her plans, to which the file included a picture of her weapon after it had been made and a brief half a minute video of the prototype in action. She nearly whistled when she witnessed the overwhelming power of her weapon, though she restrained herself as she noted some errors that the Blarg hadn't corrected. She had known that the RYNO plans were far from perfect, as she was still learning how to make powerful weapons and the RYNO had been her first attempt at making one, so she knew that there were errors she'd have to correct for the later models... if Mr. Gadget allowed her to work on a second version of the weapon.

She also had to bite her lip when she noticed that Mr. Gadget had, before the plans had somehow been stolen, classified the RYNO weapon as a Class 3 weapon, telling anyone that looked at the plans that the weapon was dangerous and not to be taken lightly. The prototype was also missing, as there had been no sign of it in any of their scans of the research station, so she resolved to find the weapon and throw whoever had it into a cell somewhere. She also had to wonder if she should give the weapon to Ratchet or Sunset once she had retrieved it, or if she should inform her boss about it when she caught the thief... but she resolved to figure out that problem when, and if, she came across the person who was carrying her weapon.

Though she had to admit to herself that she would be completely annoyed, or even completely destructive, if she found that the person who had the prototype was trying to sell it to someone.

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

When they finally reached Rilgar they landed on a landing pad that happened to be outside Blackwater City, though when they did Starlight had to ask why they didn't land in the city itself. Clank, having taken a scan of the city and the surrounding area as they prepared to land, had the answer as to why they landed where they were and why they hadn't landed in the actual city.

"Most of the landing pads around the city are closed until further notice," Clank explained, showing Starlight the announcement his scans had picked up, while they proceeded to climb out of the ship, "this is, I'm afraid, the closest landing pad that we can use at the moment."

"I understand," Starlight replied, sighing as she looked at the city from where they were standing, "I don't like it, but I guess we can clear out some of those amoeboids along the way... if the people that were called in to get rid of them haven't already cleared them all out for us."

"Chances are that those people will want to get rid of us as well," Ratchet commented, restocking his ammo at the vendor that rested near their ship, where he found yet another weapon available for purchase, "Hey Starlight, isn't this another one of your weapons?"

Starlight trotted over to the vendor to look at what her brother was staring at, but when she spotted the weapon in question she knew that it actually wasn't of her design. It had been apart of the three weapons that she and Sunset had sent to Mr. Gadget a few days ago, though Sunset had actually been the one to suggest the weapon and had created the original holo-plan. The weapon had been based around the idea of a mine that floated in the air, but when an enemy came too close it would engage its primary functions and chase down the target until it exploded. Starlight was actually surprised to see that her sister's first actual weapon was on the market, because they had both agreed that it might never pass the trials that Gadgetron put their weapons through, but she was happy none the less.

She then realized that she had been staring at the screen for a few minutes, so she cleared her throat as she got ready to tell her brother the truth.

"Actually, this is one of Sunset's weapons, one that she called the Mine Glove," Starlight admitted, causing Ratchet to raise an eyebrow at her for a moment, "What? I can't be the only weapon inventor in the family. Maybe this weapon will start Sunset down the path of wanting to make more weapons like it."

"Okay then," Ratchet said, turning to Sunset, who had approached the vendor to see what her siblings were staring at, "So, seeing how this is your weapon, what can you tell me about it?"

"Well, this is obviously a glove type weapon," Sunset explained, knowing that her brother preferred to hear what the weapon did from the person who made it and not from the person who ran the vendors, "Its similar to the Bomb Glove, except this one throws hovering mines that stay stationary until it detected an enemy, though once it finds a target it homes in on them and blows up."

Ratchet nodded his understanding and the three of them purchased their own Mine Glove, where they discovered that they had an additional twenty percent off on their purchases which, when added to their original ten percent off discount, gave them a total of thirty percent off on all purchases. Starlight discovered that Mr. Gadget had approved of the increase percent off, seeing how both she and Sunset had weapons on the market at the moment, so she decided that it wasn't worth worrying over. If anything the additional percent off gave them the ability to spend less on weapons and ammo, which meant they could save their bolts and either put them away for something nice in the future or save up for something else.

With that done the four of them moved over a long boat that happened to be between the landing pad's island and the second one, which happened to have a building built on top of it. Sunset held her hand up for a moment as she spotted a button that might open the door to the building, causing her siblings to stop as she activated her Mine Glove, palming a mine as she touched the button. The instant the glass door went down someone, wearing a gas mask and some sort of light metallic armor, ran out of the building and charged at Sunset, unaware of the mine that zeroed in on him. Sunset leapt back down her to siblings, who had waited on the boat, and watched as the explosion blew the trooper to pieces, opening the way for them.

As they got onto the second island they found what appeared to be a tank sitting in the middle of the building, spewing what they guessed was a chemical that would harm the amoeboids into the air. Ratchet, eager to get underway, snapped his fingers and summoned a minion sphere, to which the four little robots surged out of their home and tore into the tank, blowing the vehicle to pieces in a matter of seconds. Once that was done they quickly searched the building for a few moments, collecting the bolts that happened to be lying around, before moving through the second entrance and finding another boat that separated them from the third island.

Clank allowed Ratchet to easily cross over to the boat and then to the island, though Starlight activated her magic and got both herself and Sunset across the gap with ease.

The next building they opened had a squad of four troopers that came at them the moment the door was open, to which the three of them pulled out their blasters and fought off the attackers. Sunset also used her new mines to target those that stayed near the back of the pack, throwing them over the heads of their enemies and allowing them to expand within seconds, blowing someone up in the process. Inside the building they found a rather large amoeboid walking around, but the instant that Ratchet put a blast in its head it separated into two halves that were much smaller than the original one. Starlight shook her head and repeated the process, separating the two enemies into four smaller ones that clearly wanted to bring about the end of them.

Before either of them could react Sunset stepped forward and burned the amoeboids to pieces, making sure that they were charred before powering down her pyrocitor.

"Was that necessary?" Starlight asked, confident that they could have reached the end of their enemies... eventually, she mentally added after a few seconds.

"Just wanted to be completely sure that was the end of them," Sunset replied, walking up the stairs and spotting a horde of enemies waiting for them across the next gap, "but it seems that there's still more enemies to come."

Ratchet grinned as he pressed the button and extended the bridge, to which he threw eight spheres into the air and watched them land in the middle of the group of enemies. Chaos erupted as several of the spheres became mines and sought out their targets, blowing whoever they touched to pieces in a matter of seconds, while the other two spheres loosed the minions that wrecked the remainder of them. Ratchet had to resist the urge to laugh at their enemies, as he was enjoying the chaos that his sisters' weapons were causing and had to wonder how powerful that one Starlight had described to him, the nine barreled rocket launcher, had to be. He did, however, let out a sigh as they crossed the bridge, knowing that he might never see that weapon until Mr. Gadget declared that it could be sold to the public.

They found an elevator and rode up to the next area, where they found a couple of amoeboids fighting the troopers, to which one of them accidentally pressed a button that allowed more of the slime creatures to enter the area. Starlight engaged her magic and caught her siblings by their tails, dragging them back into the elevator shaft as she watched the two forces tear into each other. Sunset immediately figured out what Starlight wanted of them, so she powered down her weapons and waited for the fighting to stop, while Ratchet frowned and merely watched. The instant the amoeboids were taken care of, and half of the troopers had been taken down, the group exited the elevator shaft and charged at their remaining enemies, easily removing the weakened soldiers and opening the way forward.

Once they had collected all the bolts they rode a taxi into the city itself, where they found more troopers fighting a group of amoeboids and heard a tank rolling around nearby. Starlight leapt out of the taxi the moment that it stopped, igniting her magic and throwing fireballs at the closest enemies, giving her siblings time to sort out their ammo before returning to her side. When they were together again they moved forward, using the momentum of the heated battle that was already in progress to their advantage, tearing into the troopers and the amoeboids. The instant the two forces were done with they found that there was a tank rolling around, protecting a door that had to lead deeper into the city, but before they moved on Starlight spotted someone to the right of them that was definitely acting shady.

She stopped her siblings for a moment and approached the person, wondering if this person knew something about the RYNO prototype she had read about in the files.

"RYNO for your robot," the person nervously said, pointing at Clank while he spoke to them, "trade ya."

That was seconds before Starlight's horn ignited and lifted the shady person into the air, to which he found four circular rings wrapped around his arms and legs. Even Ratchet, Sunset, and Clank were surprised by how quickly Starlight had reacted to the mention of the RYNO weapon, though Sunset held them back as she watched what her sister was going to do.

"According to the files I read on the way here the Blarg were only able to produce a single prototype of the RYNO weapon," Starlight snapped, anger filling her voice as she stared at the man she was holding, "a prototype that was stolen shortly after many of the research station's experiments were released from their holding pens. Gadgetron had declared the weapon to be of the Class 3 variety, declaring that the weapon packed too much power for someone to safely use it, but they never had the chance to build the first prototype. According to what was in those files the Blarg cut corners when creating the prototype, courtesy of Chairman Drek himself, and there's an eighty percent chance that the weapon might explode when its fired.

I want four answers from you; how did you get your hands on the original holo-plan, how did you manage to steal the prototype from the Blarg, who were you planning on selling the weapon to, and where are you keeping the prototype of my first W.O.M.D?"

"There's nothing you can do to me that will make me talk!" the man declared, apparently determined to keep what he knew to himself, as if he had something to hide or was protecting someone.

"Oh, there's plenty I could do to you," Starlight growled, energy blades forming around the man's groin, "the question is, are you man enough to lose something precious in exchange for keeping the RYNO from me?"

"I broke into Mr. Gadget's house after you sent the RYNO plan to him, after I got a tip from someone else that worked on it with you," the man replied, immediately intimidated by her threat and answering the questions that she had asked, "I took it from his personal computer while he was in the pool, though I left a virus that would only erase the plan the moment I sold it to the Blarg. When I heard that the Blarg had made a prototype, and had given me half of the agreed upon amount for delivering the plan to them, I paid their research station a visit and swiped the prototype as payment, but not before releasing the creatures to erase the evidence that I was even there.

I was planning on selling the prototype to anyone that had enough bolts to buy it from me, so that I could get my full payment from the Blarg and declare this transaction complete. I was planning on selling it for roughly one hundred and fifty thousand bolts, which is actually a twentieth of how much it would have sold for if I had dared to sell it on the Black Market, so your lucky that I wasn't being greedy. As for where I've been keeping the prototype... I've been carrying in my trench coat for the last few weeks, which isn't as easy as it sounds considering the weight of the weapon."

Starlight glared at the man for a moment, before turning her energy blades into magic and opening the man's trench coat, allowing the magic to move around before she found what she was looking for. She carefully extracted the prototype from the man's coat, making sure not to press the firing mechanism, before gently bringing it over to her and placing it on the ground. She stared at the nine barrels that the rockets would fire out of if someone used the weapon, remembering how much power the weapon could pack if it was fired and wondering what that would be if she fixed it up.

"Umm... am I free to go?" the man asked, snapping her out of her trance and causing her to look up at him for a moment.

"No," Starlight replied, opening her tablet before she composed and sent a note to the authorities, "I'm still reporting you for breaking into Mr. Gadget's house and stealing a classified holo-plan from his personal computer, so I would count yourself lucky that I'm not including the selling of a highly dangerous weapon to someone who has no idea what they're getting into."

"We should get a move on then," Sunset commented, causing Starlight to turn to her and Ratchet for a moment, "We'll leave you alone with this guy and see if we can't find some information on what to do next."

Starlight nodded and remained where she was standing, opening the side panel of the RYNO and pulling out her tools, intending to repair the weapon as she waited for the authorities to arrive. Sunset and Ratchet turned their weapons on the tank that was blocking their way and blew it up with some of their minions, opening the way for them to move on. As they moved on, however, Ratchet had a question that hadn't been answered and wondered if Sunset or Clank could answer it for him while they continued their adventure.

"So, what's a W.O.M.D?" Ratchet asked, curious as to what Starlight had said when she had blown up in front of them.

"A Weapon of Mass Destruction," Clank replied, knowing that Sunset was focused on something else and had planned on answering if her stead, just in case the question had been asked.

"I see," Ratchet said, though as he fired his weapons at their enemies he had to wonder what his sister was doing making a weapon of mass destruction in the first place, though when he remembered how she treated the shady salesman he decided that making her angry was something he shouldn't do.

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

After fighting their way through a nest of amoeboids, troopers, and two tanks, while not mentioning the maze like containment cages that they had to walk through, Sunset and Ratchet eventually found themselves in a park like area. It was a circular area that had only one other entrance they could take, not to mention the taxi that would likely take them back to their ship, but they noticed that there was a group of troopers behind the locked door and immediately got to work removing them. Once that was done they returned to the middle of the area, where they found a green skinned woman that was dressed in a purple outfit, though it was separated into two pieces that showed off her stomach area.

"Welcome to the Hovercon Intergalactic Hoverboard Competition!" the woman greeted them excitedly, staring at the two of them or a moment as if she was looking for something, "Captain Qwark's giving away a brand new Platinum Zoomerator to the winner of this competition!"

"A Platinum Zoomerator?" Ratchet said, turning to his sister for a moment, "Hey Sunset, wasn't that the prize that Skid's agent asked you to bring back to him?"

"Wait a second," the woman said, holding her hands up to prevent them from going any further, "do you guys mean Skid McMarx?!"

"Yeah, Skid couldn't make it on account of his ship crashing on Aridia," Sunset replied, not even liking the idea of even racing against others, but knew that Ratchet wouldn't let them leave the planet until she had entered and had won the prize, "so I guess I'm here to fill in for him."

"We'll see about that," the woman said, clearly making sure tat she didn't laugh at what Sunset had said, "Just tell me when your ready to enter the race and we'll get you started."

Instead of talking to the woman Sunset took Ratchet's hand and dragged him into one of the small rooms that rested around the area, intending to form a plan before they did anything else. Once they were in the room she had picked out Clank popped off Ratchet's back and the two of them faced her, clearly wondering what she wanted to tell them.

"Do we really want to spend some of our time racing?" Sunset asked, wanting her brother's input, and Clank's input as well, before they did anything else, "Because I'm positive there's something else we can do besides entering a race."

"My scans indicated that there was only one other path we could have taken," Clank answered, pulling up the map of the area for a moment, before zeroing in on the area to the left of their ship, "however, taking this path requires a trek through the sewers. Ratchet and I can easily search the sewers while you race for the Platinum Zoomerator, though I have no doubts that by the time you've finished the race Starlight will be waiting for you and we will have finished our search."

Before Sunset could fire something back, however, Ratchet decided it was time to assure his sister that he could take care of himself and that he didn't need to be watched over all the time.

"Look Sunset, Clank and I can take care of ourselves," Ratchet said, pulling out his blaster and glove weapons, "I've got enough firepower to protect myself from whatever we might find in the sewers, plus I know how to avoid enemies and nothing should be able to touch me."

"Fine, have it your way," Sunset commented, sighing as she looked at her brother, before pulling out the Z3000 she had been given, "I'll see if I can't win that Zoomerator while you search the sewers... maybe you'll find something interesting that will aid us in our quest down there."

Ratchet nodded and reattached Clank to his back, before heading out into the open area and making his way towards the taxi that would take him back to the ship. Before he could even reach the taxi, however, the hoverboard girl waved him over, almost as if she wanted to have a word with him before he left the area.

"So, is your girlfriend going to race or is she against it?" the woman asked him, to which Ratchet's face paled at the thought of him and Sunset dating, as they had spent their entire lives living together.

"Umm... she'll be out in a few minutes," Ratchet answered, kind of annoyed by what the woman called Sunset, "and she's not my girlfriend... she's my sister."

"Oh..." the woman said, watching Ratchet jump into the taxi and taking off, while she wondered how she could have gotten his relationship with the cazar wrong.

Sunset, on the other hand, looked out over the layout of the racetrack that her scans provided her, as she had no idea how the track actually looked like. She didn't consider the scans an advantage over her competitors, as they had been racing much longer than she had and likely knew the track by heart at this point, so she needed anything she could get her hands on. She was also concerned that she might wreck when she actually got on the track, as the only training she had with the hoverboard was when she had read the instructions she had found online. After a few minutes after Ratchet's departure she sighed and turned towards the the woman who was still standing in the middle of the area, having not moved the entire time.

She was eager to get on the track and see how terrible she could actually race, though she hoped that it gave her siblings enough time to finish what they were doing.

"Your boy... I mean brother said that you were going to race," the woman said, to which Sunset noticed that she had corrected a mistake before it had been made, "Ready to show the other racers what you've got?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Sunset replied, moving her hand to the hoverboard she had for a moment, "Let's do this."

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

Starlight grinned as she authorities marched off with the shady salesman, who had been released from her magical hold and placed in actual cuffs. She was somewhat glad that she had found him and had acquired the prototype, which she had hidden in case Mr. Gadget had the authorities looking for the weapon as well. She had asked one of the authorities about the weapon, to which she learned that they had apparently been under orders to acquire the prototype and deliver it to her, under Mr. Gadget's orders. She knew then that her boss had learned of the theft and had determined that if anyone could safely use the weapon it would be one of the people who had created the holo-plan, to which she assured the authorities that she had taken the prototype from the salesman before they had arrived.

Once the shady salesman was taken into custody, and the authorities took off with him, she turned towards the path that her siblings had taken and followed it, wondering what trouble Sunset and Ratchet had gotten themselves into. She swiftly made her way through the tunnel and maze that her siblings had walked through, following the open path until she came to an open area with a woman standing in the middle of it all.

"You here to watch the race?" the woman asked, seeing her walk into the area and decided to speak with her.

"I'm looking for my brother and sister," Starlight answered, turning to the woman for a moment as she wondered if she had seen them, "Have you seen a Lombax and A Cazar walk through here? The Lombax has a small robot riding on his back."

"Oh, yes I've seen them," the woman replied, her voice faltering for a moment before restoring itself, "Your brother and his little robotic friend took the taxi back to their ship, though I think that they were planning on exploring the sewers on the edge of the city. Your sister, on the other hand... well, she's racing at the moment."

Starlight was going to ask what the woman was talking about, but before she could do so the woman turned on the monitor above her head and moved out of the ring. The two of them watched what was on the screen, to which Starlight discovered that a race was in progress and that Sunset was playing follow the leader with the current leader. She had no idea how Sunset had learned to ride the hoverboard like that, but considering that it was only the second lap and that her sister was in second place she also had to marvel at how good she was doing. She honestly didn't care what the prize was for winning the race, but she was definitely impressed by her sister's skill with the board and her ability to avoid the explosive boxes.

"It's almost like she's a natural born hoverboarder," the woman commented, pulling out a box of popcorn and chuckling as the person in fourth place blew up one of the sets of explosives, "or at least she has the ability to adapt to new skills... its strange really."

Starlight wasn't surprised by that comment, because she had seen what her sister was capable of when she had created the holo-plan for the Mine Glove and knew that she could adapt to anything if she set her mind to it. As the race came closer to the end she watched as Sunset pulled neck and neck with the person in first place, to which she and the woman eagerly watched to see who would pull into first place. As the two of them came close to the finish line the person in front of Sunset mistimed his jump and flew off the track, allowing Sunset to ride forward and pass the finish line in first place. Starlight cheered for her sister as the race ended, while the woman returned to the center of her ring and waited for the winner to return to them.

Sunset landed nearby and hopped off her board, picking it up as she walked to where the woman was standing and found that her sister was waiting for her. Before either of them could say anything the screens above the woman turned on as a new recording started to play, one that happened to have Captain Qwark speaking.

"Hi folks, Captain Qwark here!" the Captain announced, as if he was actually speaking to the people around him and not to someone that was recording the entire conversation to be used later on, "It's my distinct pleasure to introduce this year's Hovercon Intergalactic Champion.  Let's give it up for newcomer-"

At that point the screen cut to a static image of Sunset, which she happened to be in the air and was flying over one of her competitors heads, before a synthesized voice over stated "Sunset Shimmer".

"Today's winner will take home a brand-new, Professional Grade, Model T-15 Platinum Zoomerator," the Captain continued, which only told people that the recording had been cut for a moment to include the name of whoever the winner was, "Manufactured by Gadgetron, this hoverboard drive delivers more lift, speed and maneuverability than any other anti-grav device on the market."

Sunset knew what the item was as the woman handed the Platinum Zoomerator to her, because she had helped the design team when they were having trouble creating the device, but she kept her mouth shut while the recording finished up.

"Well folks, that's all the time we have." the Captain's recording concluded, "Tonight, remember to set your Infobots to the Qwark Classic Channel for tonight's episode of 'Dogfight over Death Canyon', starring yours truly. Thank you and have a Qwark-tastic day."

With the recording over, and the prize in hand, Sunset and Starlight started to celebrate Sunset's victory over the track, but before they got started Ratchet appeared behind them and joined in on the fun. It was then that they discovered that he had found Captain Qwark's trailer on the other side of the locked door, which had only been accessible by traveling through the sewers. He and Clank had bribed the doorman to let them inside, to which they discovered that Captain Qwark had been watching their every move since they departed from Veldin and that he needed their help in stopping Chairman Drek from destroying the galaxy... and when he had mentioned help he had mentioned all four of them by name.

The Captain had given Ratchet an infobot that held the coordinates for the planet that he had built his training course on, Planet Umbris to be exact, and had requested that the four of them meet him them to plan how to stop Drek. Sunset had to admit that it seemed strange that the Captain had been watching them since Veldin, but she didn't say anything as she knew her siblings wanted to do what the Captain said. She didn't want to ruin their excitement, but she had the strangest feeling that there was something wrong with this entire thing, though she couldn't put her finger on what that something could be.

"Relax Sunset," Ratchet said, noticing the look on his sister's face for a moment, before patting her on the back, "Its Captain Qwark's personal training grounds... what could possibly go wrong?"

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

"Sir, are you sure that he's a hero?" Sigmund asked, resisting the urge to facepalm the moment Ratchet said the one statement that no one, not even Orvus himself, dared to say.

There was something about that statement that made the universe smack whoever said it with something bad, though the range of what could happened was different for everyone. Orvus knew that if he said the statement that it might cause disaster to the Great Clock, so he didn't say it and always facepalmed when he watched other people say it.

"Yes, he is," Orvus replied, moaning as he watched Ratchet for a moment, knowing that something big was going to hit Ratchet in the future, "fortunately, the coming experience will help shape him and his sisters into the warriors that the universe needs... if they survive what is coming their way."
> R/C: Umbris
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"I can't believe that we're going to visit Captain Qwark's personal training grounds and join him in his quest to stop Chairman Drek!" Starligt excitedly said, staring down at her RYNO as their ship made its way towards Planet Umbris, "We're going to be made into heroes and save the galaxy!"

"This is going to be great," Ratchet commented, clearly excited as well, though he kept himself in check as he flew the ship, "We'll run his course, pass whatever trails he has to throw at us, and then start planning our first step in the campaign to stop the destruction of the galaxy. The people back on Veldin are going to be so proud of us when we return to them... once Drek has been dealt with."

Sunset, on the other hand, wasn't saying much about the 'mission' that Captain Qwark had told Ratchet about, as she was reviewing the RYNO holo-plan, by Starlight's request. Her sister wanted her help in completing the weapon, as there were a few problems with the prototype that the Blarg had made and it was taking her longer to fix them... to which Sunset had been brought in to help repair it. She honestly had no idea what Starlight was expecting, as she didn't have a lot of training in the weapon faction of Gadgetron, but decided to help her sister out in the end. She was, however, grateful that Starlight was willing to give her a crash course in the companies guidelines on weapons, as it gave her the ability to understand the holo-plan better.

All she could say was that her sister was definitely skilled when it came to designing weapons, because the more she looked at the plans the more she realized how dangerous her sister's weapons were... and this was only the beginning of her career. She dreaded to wonder what else her sister was capable of creating, but knew that, at some point in the future, she would truly find out what weapons of destruction her sister was capable of designing.

Clank, likewise, remained silent, but considering that he had nothing else to do but start the ship so Ratchet could fly it, he found himself thinking about everything he had already seen from his companions... and that included the weapon that was being repaired in the seat behind him. He was impressed by how well his three companions worked together, though that was understandable considering that they had grown up together, and he was somewhat amazed by how well they could take out a group of enemies with their weapons. Starlight's ability to make weapons, and powerful ones like the RYNO, unnerved him and made him wonder what her limit was... or if she had a limit to begin with. Ratchet was great in combat with that wrench of his, though that wasn't taking into account the weapons that he purchased from the vendors and how quickly he switched them, depending on what enemies he was facing.

When Clank thought about Sunset, on the other hand, he realized that there wasn't much difference between her and Ratchet, save for the strange golden bracelet she was always wearing. He had scanned it the first time he had laid eyes on it, interested as to what gadget the Cazar had created for herself, but even as he studied the bracelet he came to the conclusion that it wasn't a gadget at all. As far as he could tell the bracelet was basically solid gold, though what he found interesting was that his scans indicated that there was some sort of energy matrix residing inside the bracelet... one that he was sure that Sunset was unaware of. He couldn't get any closer to the matrix without telling Sunset of its existence, so all he could do was wonder what the bracelet was supposed to do.

Clank did know that one day he and the others would know what the bracelet's function was, though he had the feeling that it was going to be something that none of them would be expecting.

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

As their ship flew down to the landing pad on Planet Umbris, which was located on a small island that was close to the citadel they had seen in the Infobot, Sunset and her siblings got their first look at the training grounds that Captain Qwark claimed to use for his personal training. From what they could see from the air they determined that there were a lot of turrets, wandering mines, and other hazards that were waiting for someone to come their way. Ratchet and Starlight were eager to start their trial, where Clank wasn't quite as eager to run through all the hazards that were between them and the end. Sunset, on the other hand, counted all of the various hazards that they could see in her head... until she came to the conclusion that this was more of a death course than a training ground.

Once their ship landed on the landing pad Clank powered off the ship and the four of them climbed out of their seats, but before any of them could do anything they found Captain Qwark riding a helicopter above their heads... though it appeared that he was carrying a megaphone of some kind.

"Welcome to my challenge course," the Captain called down to them, to which the four of them looked up at him, "Now is your chance to prove yourselves strong and brave, like me!" There was a pause as he chuckled for a moment, before continuing with his speech. "Conquer it, and you'll join me in my fight against evil!"

"Haven't we done enough already?" Ratchet loudly replied, wondering if there was a chance that they might be able to get around the course and get to planning their fight against Drek.

"What? I can't hear you!" Qwark called down to them, pretending that the noise from his helicopter was preventing him from hearing anything that they said.

As Ratchet tried again in vain the Captain proclaimed that they should tell him whatever they were saying later on, to which Ratchet roared that they could be dead by then. As Qwark flew towards the citadel in the middle of the entire course, where they all agreed that he would be waiting for their arrival, they turned towards the weapon vendor and restocked on their ammo. Once their weapons were at the ready, and Clank had taken his place on Ratchet's back, they moved forward and activated the Swingshot targets that allowed them to travel down to the beginning of the training course.

The first thing that they came across was a bomb dispenser, where the head of the machine spun around in a perfect circle and threw out bombs in a predetermined area. They pulled out their blasters and each put a shot in the machine, causing it to explode and open the way for them to move on through the course, where they crossed a bridge and took out a second dispenser. There were a few floating mines blocking their way, but with some well placed shots the three of them removed the floating spheres and moved onto the turret that rested before a few ledges. Clank suggested that to Sunset that she should use her hoverboard to get passed the turret and take it out, but instead she merely ran at the turret, leapt over everything it threw at her, and put a shot in its head to deactivate it.

They circled around the ledge, being careful to take care of the mine that was lurking near a tree, before they came across a second bridge, but unlike the previous one this one happened to have a set of mines moving in a set path around it. The three of them lifted their blasters and took turns shooting at the mines, eventually destroying all of them and allowing them to move to the other side of the bridge. They also removed the duo of dispensers that stood in their path, allowing them to move up the stairs that they had been guarding, where they found two more mines floating in the air. The mines were quickly removed before they turned their blasters on the third bridge in front of them, where they shot down every mine that had been floating around the bridge.

Once they crossed the bridge they found a trio of buttons waiting on the ground, so each of them stood on one of the buttons and the gate in front of them opened before their eyes, revealing an area that had four more dispensers waiting for them. Ratchet moaned a little bit, but leveled his blaster with one of the dispensers and took it out, while Starlight and Sunset aided him in taking out the other three. With the dispensers taken care of they each stood on another button, though these ones were spread out from the others, before the second gate opened and allowed them to cross two more bridges. Ratchet went first, crossing over them and trying to keep them intact as certain sections fell into the murky water below, though once he was across he realized that there wasn't a way for Sunset or Starlight to cross.

As he started to shout at them he watched as Starlight fashioned her own bridge, to which she and Sunset crossed over the gaps in the original bridges until they were standing beside him once more.

The next area they found themselves in appeared to be a medium sized ledge that had a maze of barbed wire, which had only one way forward, and a turret at the end that was shooting in a wide swipe like motion. The three of them followed the path that was open for them, collecting whatever bolts just happened to resting on the ground, before Starlight reached the end and took out the turret, giving her siblings an easier time getting to the end. Once the three of them were together again they engaged their Swingshots and swung over to a much smaller ledge, before activating a second target and swinging over to a long bridge.

Before they moved into the next area, however, Clank had them wait a moment before they went charging in blind, where he detached from Ratchet's back for a moment.

"What's up Clank?" Ratchet asked, curious as to what his robotic companion wanted from them, though it gave them a slight break before they continued Qwark's trial.

"These green buttons seem to placed as a trio," Clank replied, referring to the buttons that Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset had stood on to open the gates, "and it appears that there's another trio of them somewhere in this area. My suggestion is that the three of you go into this area and find the buttons, but when you do one of you would stay behind to make sure that its active until the gate is open. Once that gate is open I'll pull out the flare gun I found earlier and signal for all of you to return to this position, so that we can all move into the citadel together."

"Where did you find a flare gun?" Ratchet inquired, finding no reason to object to the plan, though he was curious about one thing that his companion had mentioned.

"In the ship we borrowed," Clank replied, pulling out the small flare in question, "I had a feeling that we'd need it during the trial and it appears that I was correct in my assumptions."

Ratchet nodded before he and his sisters ventured into the next area, though as they approached the first turret that was shooting at the wall they found that it was protecting one of the buttons they needed to press. Sunset took the turret out and stood on the button, allowing her siblings to move around and find the remaining two buttons that would allow them to enter the citadel's lower area. Starlight spotted the second button literally around the corner from where Sunset was standing, though Ratchet, on the other hand, moved towards the end of the ledge they were wandering around and found it near the wall. A few seconds passed before the flare burst into the sky, to which they gathered near Clank and, once he was attached to Ratchet's back, they advanced into the citadel.

They walked up the small set of stairs that happened to behind the gate they had opened, but at the top they found two groups of floating mines blocking their way, to which their blasters popped out and they started firing at their targets. Once the mines had been taken care of they separated from each other once more and pressed the buttons around the floor, opening another gate that rested beside the golden statue of Captain Qwark. Instead of a traditional staircase they found a ladder that stretched all the way to another area of the citadel, so Ratchet sighed and started climbing until he reached the very top, where Sunset followed suit until she was standing beside him. Starlight, on the other hand, used her magic to create a magical elevator and traveled up the length of the ladder until she was at the top, to which she leapt off of it and landed beside her siblings.

In front of them, however, happened to be a large pool of water that had at least two large sharks swimming around in it, to which Sunset wondered how they would get through this obstacle.

"Ratchet, I believe that we can use the Hydrodisplacer here," Starlight commented, pointing a hoof at what appeared to be a pipe in the floor, one that looked like the pipes that interacted with the gadget.

Ratchet grinned and pulled out the gadget in question, to which he interacted with the interface and drained the pool of all its water, leaving the sharks to try and move around. Once the water was gone they descended into the empty pool and smacked the sharks with their weapons, ending their misery before moving through a pipe and walking up a decent sized pair of steps. They took a moment to walk around the railing before they found a second Hydrodisplacer interface, but before Ratchet emptied the water inside the gadget into the pool Starlight ignited her horn and took down the two sharks that were waiting for them. The moment the sharks were taken care of, and the water was stored in the pool, they swam across the gap and came to another walkway that had yet another interface for them to use.

When the next pool was drained the three of them dropped into the area the water used to reside in, to which they pulled out their blasters and took out every shark that happened to be waiting for them, making sure to collect the bolts along the way. Once they were sure that there were no more sharks left, which wasn't hard to figure out, Ratchet returned to the interface while Starlight and Sunset remained near the ledge that would allow them to move deeper into the citadel. In seconds the water was back where it belonged, to which Ratchet dived under the water and, after a few moments of swimming underwater, he emerged near where his sisters were waiting and climbed out of the water.

They found another interface and Ratchet lowered the water level, making it safe for the three of them to use the Swingshot targets that happened to be resting above the water. Once they had crossed the gap they found another area, one that was larger than the previous one, that was void of water and had what appeared to be five or six of the sharks moving around. In the middle of the chamber was a pillar of sorts, though at the top of it was a trio of buttons that only required one of them to activate them all so they could move on.

"Okay, I'm getting tired of this," Starlight moaned, her horn glowing as she formed a magical bridge connecting where they were standing to the pillar.

Neither Ratchet or Sunset complained about what their sister was doing, as it allowed them to cross to the middle of the area and open the door in front of them, before Starlight swung the bridge around and let them cross to the open door. They moved through a tunnel for a minute or two, breaking open the nearby crates and collecting the bolts or ammo that they dropped, before coming to an area that had a walkway that ended with Captain Qwark standing in the middle of a circle. They silently approached the Captain, three of them eager to begin their work on bringing an end to Chairman Drek's schemes while one, on the other hand, worried that they were walking into something dangerous.

"Well, well, the four of you continue to surprise me." the Captain said, leaping back onto a floating platform before beckoning to the circle he had been standing on, "Step into the Ring of Heroes and I will finally give you what you deserve."

Clank immediately detached from Ratchet's back and moved into the circle, before he turned back to his companions and beckoned them to join him.

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

Orvus watched the scene that was unfolding from the Great Clock, though he hated what his eyes were showing him because he knew what could happen. He knew that Captain Qwark was a clever person at times, so much so that if he chose to convince the heroes to join him he might actually get them to join with Chairman Drek and his crazy plans. There was also the chance that Qwark could accidentally turn the three of them into a group of mercenaries that didn't care who they worked for so long as they got paid, but that, too, would result in disaster. His favorite future, the one that Sigmund agreed was the one they desperately wanted to happen, was where the three siblings and Clank became the greatest heroes throughout the universe.

The only common similarity between those three possible futures, and he was sure there were only three because he had constantly checked his readings before the group had reached Umbris, was the creature that was created in the heart of this planet... one whose creation he would forever blame on the chaotic being he had sent back to its own plane of existence. No matter what future Qwark chose for the heroes, be it the good future or one of the bad futures, the creature would be born regardless of his decision. All Orvus and Sigmund could do was watch the event unfold and reveal which future the universe would be heading towards... without bothering to have their usual snacks while the future unfolded.

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

Starlight and Ratchet happily joined Clank in the Ring of Heroes, but Sunset stared at the Captain for a moment and continued to wonder if there was something else that was going on. As she looked at him, however, she noticed that a brief look of agony flashed on the Captain's face before disappearing, though she was positive that she had seen it. Her siblings turned towards her and started encouraging her to join them, mentioning that they could begin planning the moment they were all deemed heroes by the Captain. She sighed and joined her family, but while she did so she made sure to keep her eyes on Qwark... just to be sure that there wasn't something that she had overlooked.

A few seconds passed before Qwark's hands moved behind his back, though not an instant later the floor beneath their feet gave out and the four of them fell into the pit below them. Starlight, thinking fast while falling, cast a quick spell that slowed their falling speed, allowing the four of them to safely land on the ground and stare up at the Captain, whose platform lowered down into the pit as well.

"Why did you drop us in here?" Starlight shouted, glaring up at Qwark for a moment, silently wondering if they had been lured to their deaths by the galaxy's own superhero.

"I'm the spokesman for Drek's new planet," Qwark explained, to which the four of them shared a look of disbelief at the revealed news, as if none of them believed that it was true, "That means, among other things, I have to stop anything getting in the way of the planet being completed. When the four of you left Veldin I saw greatness in all of you, though I knew that potential would be wasted if one of Drek's soldiers took you down before you reached me. I was ordered to get rid of the lot of you, but after everything I have seen I've decided that it would be a benefit to the cause if you joined us and helped me restore order to the planets of this galaxy... after Drek is finished with them. He gets to build his planet and we become the greatest group of heroes that the galaxy has ever known!"

"So we either join Chairman Drek and betray the entire galaxy, or say no and what?" Sunset fired back, curious as to what the Captain could do when there were three of them and only one of him, "You'll keep us down here until we change our minds?"

"Considering that I actually don't want to hurt you, keeping you down here would be the best course of action," the Captain agreed, though his expression turned serious for a moment, "Chairman Drek might ask for some serious decisions and the destruction of a few organizations that still oppose him, one of which is the company that supplies weapons to all of his enemies, but I'm sure that we can..."

"NO DEAL!" Starlight roared, pulling the completely fixed RYNO out of her stash and pointing it right at the Captain, though as her magic gathered around her all of her weapons seemed to pull themselves out of where she kept them, "I will not betray the galaxy and join the person who seeks to bring an end to everything... nor will I turn my back on Gadgetron and destroy them because someone asked me to do so. Now that you know our answer I have an offer for you; either surrender yourself peacefully and receive your punishment by the proper authorities, or decline and receive advanced punishment by method of a barrage of weapon attacks combined with a RYNO charge."

Sunset had seen what her sister was capable of threatening when she was angry, thanks to the shady salesman back in Blackwater City, so this wasn't new for her or Ratchet, but as she glanced at her sister she noticed something different. A dark purple mist was rolling out of her eyes, something that she assumed had to be magical in origin and started to make her worry that something had changed in her sister. She was also worried by the fact that her sister's magic was lingering in the air all around them, as if it was waiting for something else to happen.

"Then I guess I have no choice," Qwark said, his platform rising into the air as a massive cage door opened on the other side of the cavern, "this Blargian Snagglebeast should be enough to keep you entertained until Chairman Drek is done with his plans. I'll be back when that time comes, so don't die while I'm gone."

Before Starlight could fire on the Captain, and drop him into the cavern so she could punish him, the platform took his well out of her range, forcing her to turn her attention to the approaching enemy. It was the massive creature that she and her siblings had seen in the Infobot that had taken them to visit Big Al, though this time it seemed more annoyed than it was in the commercial. It reached for the person that was closest to it, which ended up being Sunset, but Starlight noticed that if she fired the missile her sister would still get hurt by the creature. She made a split decision and threw up a barrier spell around her sister, but before she could level the RYNO with the Snagglebeast the creature grabbed the small shield and picked it up... with Sunset inside it.

Though as Ratchet watched the event play out he noticed something odder than the weird mist rolling off Starlight's eyes... there was a faint glow around Sunset's golden bracelet, almost as if it was reacting to Starlight's magic.

"Starlight! Ratchet!" Sunset shouted, glancing at her siblings for a brief second, seemingly unaware to the change in her bracelet, "A little help would be appreciated!"

Ratchet snapped out of his standby mode and pulled out several minion spheres, to which his robotic minions raced across the ground and attacked the Snagglebeast's feet. While he did that he pulled out his blaster and started shooting at the creature, though he did notice that Starlight was priming the RYNO this time, though her other weapons provided Ratchet with some aid as she readied her massive gun. The Snagglebeast, somehow sensing that Starlight was the main threat, turned towards her for a moment as she released the button, loosing a wave of nine missiles that surged through the air and barreled into the creature's chest. The nine missiles pushed the creature back until they were all gone, though as the beast staggered before their eyes Starlight knew that the power had taken the creature down in an instant.

As the creature fell to the ground its hands closed, crushing the sphere that Sunset had been inside, but before either Ratchet or Starlight could say anything there was a flash of light beside Starlight and Sunset appeared, as if she had warped from one place to another.

"What... just happened?" Ratchet asked, wondering how Sunset could have teleported from one spot to another, without having any sort of magical abilities.

"I... I don't know," Sunset admitted, staring down at her bracelet for a moment, watching the glow disappear while she wondered if it had something to do with what had happened, "but I'm glad that whatever happened had worked."

"I'm tired, angry, and confused," Starlight moaned, laying on the ground for a moment after placing the RYNO next to her, "let's take a break before we bother with finding a way out of here... though if that fails I could always build a way out for us."

Ratchet let out a chuckle as he sat down near his sisters, as he was merely happy that they both had emerged from the ordeal as the same people they had been before Qwark had revealed his hand. The strange mist that had been lingering around Starlight's eyes was gone now, though the same could be said for the strange glow that had overtaken Sunset's bracelet for a moment. He briefly wondered if Starlight had attached some of her magic to the bracelet during the creation of the sphere that had surrounded Sunset, so she could pulled their sister over to them if something bad happened, but when he looked at Starlight's expression he knew that his idea wasn't correct.

Something strange had happened when the Snagglebeast crushed the sphere, but they were all tired from their journey through Qwark's death course and needed a short break before deciding what to do next.

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

Orvus moaned as he watched the screen in front of him, pulling up two smaller screens that had points of interest he had noticed while Qwark had betrayed the heroes. The screen on the left had the image of Starlight's dark and sinister mist that had begun to emit from her eyes, though that was already gone at this point. The other screen had a brief image of Sunset's own eyes, where he had noticed the color had changed to golden for a moment, though it was a sinister gold color. A nightmare had been born in the heart of Umbris, as he knew that was going to happen regardless, but the problem he now faced was trying to figure out which of the two sisters had the creature he had caught a glimpse of.

With how hard it was to actually determine the future these days he knew that he had no choice but to watch from the Great Clock and see what the future had for them... though he dreaded to wonder if two nightmares had been created in the heart of Umbris, a thought that made him shiver slightly. He only prayed that one nightmare had been created... though he knew that he would eventually find out as the three of them continued their adventure to stop Chairman Drek.
> R/C: Batalia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Clank allowed his three companions to rest for one whole hour, which he timed with his internal clock while he wandered around the massive cavern they were in, before he started to return to them. He had found a large metallic door that appeared to lead to a hanger while he had looked around, a hanger that his scans indicated had a ship waiting for something to use it. He didn't go and look at the ship itself, as he figured that Ratchet would want to look at it before they left Umbris, though from what his scans showed him this new ship was much faster than the one they had gotten on Novalis. Considering the speed that Chairman Drek was moving with his campaign, attacking multiple planets with either his troops or trying to rip chunks out of them, Clank knew that they needed a faster ship to catch up with their enemy.

After a few seconds of mentally debating whether or not he should actually leave the ship alone he spotted something familiar, as an Infobot had popped its head out from behind one of the ship's landing gear. He ran over the metallic bridge that connected where his companions were resting to the hanger, before coming to a stop in front of the Infobot and allowing it to show him what was happening on another planet. It showed that the Planet Batalia was under attack by bombers, no doubt under orders from Chairman Drek to remove another thorn from his side, and that a commando was calling for aid.

"Hey Clank, did you find anything?" Ratchet asked, though Clank had to turn around for a moment to notice that his companion had walked over to him, leaving Sunset and Starlight alone for the moment.

"Yes, I have found Chairman Drek's next target," Clank replied, stepping out of the way so his friend could view the Infobot, "Planet Batalia is under attack by Drek's forces and a commando is calling for assistance."

"I can see that," Ratchet commented, staring at the Infobot as it replayed the news that it showed Clank... though Clank didn't like the look on his friend's face.

"Ratchet, we cannot let Chairman Drek get away with this," Clank said, silently hoping that he didn't have to persuade the Lombax to do what was right, "You know that if we don't stop him, or Qwark for that matter, than he'll continue on his mad quest until he has destroyed the entirety of the galaxy. Veldin is, no doubt, somewhere on his list, so can you look past your anger towards Qwark to see the bigger picture?"

"Am I really that easy to read?" Ratchet asked, letting out a light chuckle as he collected the Infobot and turned towards the ship for a moment, "Yes, I'm angry at Qwark for hurting me and my sisters... though I guess this is all of our faults for wanting to leave Veldin and stop Drek from wrecking the rest of the galaxy. We should have been more careful and made sure that we weren't walking into a trap, considering that this entire course looked like a death trap from above, but we were too eager to side with Qwark and we overlooked the obvious trap. I'm also mad at Qwark for betraying the galaxy, but Drek is the bigger fish that we need to fry and we should be focusing our efforts on saving the galaxy.

If that means that we can take out Captain Qwark in the process of saving the galaxy, even if it means we have to blow him out of the sky, then I will gladly overlook my anger until we've reached the endgame."

"Good, because I'm itching to kill Drek's troopers," a voice behind them said, to which they turned around and found both Sunset and Starlight standing there, though Starlight was holding the RYNO as if she was about to fire it, "He and Qwark have so much to answer for... and I'm going to enjoy taking down every single one of their agents that we find as we travel across the galaxy."

"I... I don't know whether to be impressed that your so willing to fight Drek now, or terrified that your so eager to draw blood," Clank said, worry crossing his face for a moment as he recalled the sinister mist he had seen around the unicorn's eyes for a moment.

"She's got more weapon plans churning through her mind now that Qwark's revealed his hand," Sunset commented, making sure that she had all of her weapons while looking at her bracelet for a few seconds, "I already tried to stop her from thinking about Qwark's betrayal, but it seems that this time being the elder sibling has no sway over what the younger sibling does, says, or feels. Though, truth be told, I'm eager to leave this place and see what's happening to the other planets... that's if the two of you are up to saving the galaxy after what just happened to us."

Ratchet and Clank looked at each other for a moment, sharing a look that showed that they were definitely getting a little scared of the two sisters, though for Ratchet he knew that they would be able to make better weapons and gadgets that would allow them to deal with Drek's forces more effectively. Clank, on the other hand, was more terrified of the sinister feeling he had gotten when Starlight's eyes had started emitting that mist or when Sunset's bracelet had started glowing.

"Then we should get in the ship and I'll set our course for Batalia," Clank said, opening the hatch so that the others could get into the ship, "because Drek's forces are in the process of attacking the planet and a commando is calling for aid."

"Then set the course for Batalia," Starlight replied, leaping up into the ship as the others followed suit, "we've got some troopers to fight and some people to save."

Clank smiled as Ratchet helped him climb into the ship, silently pleased that, despite the betrayal they had all suffered, Starlight was still eager to save the galaxy and that she wasn't letting her anger for Qwark get in the way of what was really important. As he sat in his seat he set the coordinates for Batalia, allowing Ratchet to take control of their new ship before they began the journey towards Drek's next target.

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

Getting to Batalia was easy for the new ship, though none of the people riding inside the ship bothered to get any sleep after everything that had happened. Starlight started to mumble to herself as she used her tablet to create what she called the 'RYNO II', a weapon of her own design that would be superior to the original that she currently carried, though she claimed that it would take her roughly five to six months to work on the plans considering that she was now working alone. One of the people that had helped her make the original weapon's holo-plan had sold the plans to the salesman, who in turn sold the plans to the Blarg and then stole the prototype when he didn't get his full payment. She had learned from her mistakes and was taking on the RYNO II project by herself, so that there wasn't a repeat of someone stealing the holo-plans, though she was also determined to figure out who had tipped off the salesman in the first place.

When their ship finally landed on the landing pad, and they had climbed out to see what was happening to the city, they were confronted by the commando they had seen in the Infobot.

"At attention you deserting maggots..." the commando started to say, but as the words left his mouth Starlight strode forward and pointed the RYNO right at him.

"We aren't your soldiers," Starlight growled, still angry from Qwark's betrayal and eager to dish out some punishment on Chairman Drek's forces, "We are, however, combat trained civilians responding the Drek's forces attacking this planet, and at the same time responding to your call for assistance, so it would be nice if you treated us with respect."

"Or what?" the commando challenged, appearing to be a tough guy for the four of them, but with the RYNO up in his face it was clear that he was concerned for his own safety.

Starlight grinned as she glanced at the enemies that were standing near the Gadgetron Vendor, to which she turned the RYNO towards them and loosed the volley she had been priming, allowing the missiles to fly through the air and collide with the Blarg and robots that were waiting before the bridge. The last missile corrected its course and flew to the top of the building to the right of the bridge, no doubt it changed because Starlight's magic was involved, and collided with a machine that was designed to dispense additional enemies, obliterating it before it could produce more foes. The commando looked at the carnage the unicorn could cause with one weapon, to which he wondered what he could do with the four of them.

"Or she'll do that," Sunset commented, checking her weapons as she and Ratchet, with Clank on his back, started to approach the vendor so they could see if there were additional weapons available, "Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll be wrecking Chairman Drek's forces and obliterating those bombers that are giving you trouble."

"Wait, I want to try something I read about on the way here," Starlight said, staring at the weapon that Sunset had purchased, the Devastator she had developed almost a week ago, and let her horn light up for a moment, "Before I got involved with starting my plans for the next RYNO weapon I did some research on supposed spells that unicorns are able to cast, though all I could find are references to Old Earth and their understanding of my race. According to what I read, and I'm mostly drawing conclusions at this point, some unicorns are able to duplicate items using their magic, so I figured that I would try it as long as we were coming here."

"Then might I suggest using one of the saw blades that the robots were carrying?" Clank commented, overhearing what Starlight was saying, though he worried for the galaxy if she was able to make duplicates of the RYNO with her magic, "It would be much safer than using your magic on a weapon."

Starlight frowned for a moment, as if considering what Clank was telling her, but then she decided that trying her new spell on something that wouldn't explode was the best idea. She turned her magic to the small saw blade for a moment and picked it up, studying the metal for a moment before casting her spell on the item. A few seconds passed before a light engulfed the saw blade, though when the light faded there were two perfectly identical saw blades floating next to each other. She grinned as she looked at her success, but then she decided to make a few more copies of the blades, so she engaged the spell once more and created a total of eight saw blades. Once that was gone she spun the blades around her and threw them towards an enemy that was standing on the other side of the bridge, wondering if she might be able to make a weapon that launched spinning blades of death.

Once she showed that the spell actually worked, and that it wasn't going to blow up in their faces, Sunset allowed her sister to create two copies of the Devastator, but said that doing this would be the only thing that it was okay to create a duplicate of a weapon... unless all four of them determined that the weapon in question was something that they all needed. Sunset wasn't about to rob Gadgetron blind by using her sister's abilities, no matter how much Starlight tried to get her to change her mind on the matter.

"Okay, I am definitely scared of her," the commando commented, reminding the four of them that he had been standing there the entire time, watching them talk, "Look, there's a turret in that fortress over there, and it needs to be repaired and used to shoot those bombers out of the sky before they reduce the planet to rubble! I'm sure you know what to do."

When all three of them were carrying a Devastator, and Clank was back on Ratchet's back, they left the commando alone, walked towards the bridge and collected the bolts that had been left from when Starlight used the RYNO on the Blarg. As they approached the bridge a ship flew passed them and loosed a missile, though it flew into the bridge and blew it apart before their eyes... leaving a small circular walkway for them to use. Once they were on the other side of the bridge Ratchet moved down the pathway that led to the lower area, where he found several Blarg waiting for him as they surrounded a bolt crank. He summoned a few of his minions and let them go to town, watching them surge towards his enemies and blowing them up in seconds, allowing him to turn the crank and extend the bridge.

Once the bridge was reconnected, and Ratchet had gotten off the bolt crank, a tank moved out of a bunker and started rolling over the bridge, though that was before a barrage of missiles from Sunset and Starlight took the machine down before it could even reach them.

"I think I had better let them get into that city on their own," Ratchet commented, watching his sisters take turns attacking enemies from where he was standing, before pulling up the scan of the planet that Clank had created before they landed, "I guess I can check out the grind rail near the ship and see what's out there."

"That would be wise," Clank replied, his eyes zeroing in on the two sisters as they turned in the opposite direction, though he wondered how much damage the two of them would be able to cause while he and Ratchet were gone.

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

When Starlight and Sunset rode down a small slide of water they came to an area that had a tank and multiple Blarg soldiers waiting for them, though it appeared that they were fully prepared to destroy anyone that got in their way of wrecking the planet. Starlight grinned as her horn lit up, though instead of using her Devastator she slammed her hooves on the ground and two clusters of black crystals erupted from the ground, stabbing the two soldiers that were the closest to them. Sunset was surprised by how quickly her sister had cast the spell, but then she stood back as Starlight repeated the spell, a massive cluster taking down the tank while smaller ones captured the soldiers. Starlight seemed overjoyed with developing her magical powers, but Sunset was worried that the spell she was currently using was going to drain her if she wasn't careful.

As she approached one of the clusters, however, she pressed her hand against the crystal and watched as a light purple aura started to emit from the gem, before it bent around itself and surged into her bracelet. Her eyes widened as she watched the event happen before her eyes, as she realized that she had actually discovered that her piece of jewelry did something other than sit on her wrist. Somehow her bracelet had the ability to absorb the lingering aura of her sister's magic, though she had to wonder if the bracelet had been suppressing Starlight's magic all of these years... to which the ability had been broken when her sister's magic had flared after Qwark's betrayal.

As her sister moved forward, taking out their enemies with her weapon, she stayed back and took in all of the magic that had been left behind, wondering what her bracelet did with the magic that it was taking in. Once the crystals were completely drained, and the bolts were collected, she joined Starlight at what appeared to be a gap between their platform and that complex that had the turret.

"You two are definitely full of surprises," a voice said, to which the commando appeared to the left for a moment, "Alright, I need the two of you to get into that compound and take control of that turret. And here, you deserve this Infobot I commandeered from one of the enemies."

The Infobot in question revealed a few details about Orxon, the planet that the Blarge originated from, and the possible gadgets that they had left behind on Chairman Drek's orders. Starlight's grin only got bigger as she wondered what she could do with all of the items that their enemy was leaving behind, though she knew that she'd have a small window of time to study the gadgets before they were heading to another planet. Once the Infobot was done she levitated her staff over to the bolt crank and attached it to the top, as her staff had been designed to copy her brother's wrench in several aspects, and she opened the way for them to move on.

Before they even started walking over the newly extended bridge, however, Sunset placed her hand on her sister's shoulder and stopped her from rushing forward.

"I suggest you use your weapons this time," Sunset said, beckoning with her own Devastator for a moment, "Don't want you to use all of your magic at once and have to sit a planet out to recharge your batteries."

"I guess your right," Starlight replied, pulling out her Devastator before pointing it at one of their enemies, "Time to crack some skulls."

They found a few more of Drek's forces patrolling the compound, though when the soldiers spotted them they started shouting commands and turned to face them. Starlight took aim with her Devastator and loosed several of the missiles, which flew through the air and collided with the soldiers that were standing before the door that had to lead to the turret. Sunset's missiles followed seconds later, allowing the combined force of their attack to devastate the forces that were standing in their way, but before they could approach the door they found two tanks standing in their way. Starlight switched to the RYNO and took aim, where she unleashed a hail of missiles that destroyed both of the tanks and opened the way for them.

Starlight then attached her staff to the next bolt crank that they came across and spun it around, where she opened the door and revealed the massive turret that would allow them to destroy Drek's bombers. As the two of them approached the turret, however, Sunset spotted someone that she had been sure that she was never going to see again, but yet she was proven wrong.

"Mr. Plumber, fancy meeting you here." Sunset said, causing the man to turn from what he was working on and see that the two of them were standing behind him.

"I knew that I'd be seeing you again," the Plumber commented, turning to look at Starlight for a moment, before proceeding to scratch her behind her right ear for a moment, "So, what brings you to Batalia?"

"We're here to stop Chairman Drek from destroying the planet," Starlight answered, her face softening as the Plumber worked his magic, "and that means that we need to use the turret."

"Normally I would object to such a thing," the Plumber replied, though that didn't stop a grin from appearing on his face, "but considering everything that you've already been through, and what you might do in the future, I don't see a reason to stop you from using the turret to destroy the bombers."

Sunset leapt into the seat of the turret and took aim at the bomber that was the closest to them, though at the same time Starlight sat on the top of it and watched for missiles that were coming their way. As Sunset started to fire at the first bomber she noticed that there were a few missiles that were launched at them, though Starlight's plan seemed to work as the cluster of them exploded before they could reach the turret. When the bomber was reduced to a burning mass of metal they turned to the second bomber, allowing Sunset to open fire while Starlight took out each and every missile that was fired at them. Soon the second bomber was reduced to the same state as the first one, but before long the remainder of the bombers were in the same state and Starlight tapped the top of the turret to indicate that their job was finally over.

As Sunset climbed out of the turret she could tell that the Plumber was definitely impressed by their skills, though she was sure that he had something to tell them.

"I knew I was right about you two and your brother," the Plumber commented, his hand reaching into his pockets before he pulled out an item that looked like the Metal Detector gadget, "I don't need to tell you what this gadget is, but consider it my way of saying thanks for saving the planet. Now Starlight, I know your angry at Qwark for betraying you, but you have to look past your anger and remember all the good times that you shared with your siblings... it will help you find balance once more."

As Sunset accepted the gadget, and was already considering ways to improve it, Starlight nodded her understanding to what she had been told, before the Plumber backed away and bid them farewell. As they boarded the taxi that would take them back to their ship, however, something crossed Starlight's mind that confused her for a moment.

"Hey Sunset, how did that man know my name?" Starlight asked, voicing her concerns as they returned to the ship, "And how did he know that we had a brother?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," Sunset admitted, though she realized that when she had met the Plumber on Novalis she hadn't questioned his knowledge, "maybe he's just really good at guessing people's names and reading their emotions."

Starlight didn't seem to enjoy that explanation, but she sighed as they approached the ship, where they found Ratchet and Clank discussing what appeared to be coordinates from a second Infobot. It showed a gadget report from one of Drek's inventors, who was apparently working out the problems in what he called a 'Pilot's Helmet', a headset that allowed the wearer to interact with certain ships by using their thoughts. After viewing what their brother found Starlight showed him their Infobot for Orxon, though while Ratchet seemed impressed by what they might find he was also determined to visit Gaspar first. He claimed that whatever was on that planet would help them in the future, because he was certain that the pollution on Orxon would prevent the three of them from exploring the region until a later date.

In the end the four of them decided that Gaspar was the best course of action, so they climbed back into the ship and set the coordinates for their next destination.
> R/C: Gaspar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The ride to Planet Gaspar was mostly in silence; as Starlight was focused on the weapon holo-plans that she had already started, Sunset was working out a theory on what her bracelet was capable of doing, Clank was focused on making sure they reached their destination, and Ratchet was focused on actually flying. Despite what Clank was doing he was also reviewing a map of the area that they were supposed to be landing in when they reached Gaspar, studying it so they could have a better idea of what to do when they arrived. From what he could tell there were only two paths for them to take; one that lead in the direction of what appeared to be a compound of sorts, while the second appeared to be some platforms out in the lava that had some bombers out there.

When they finally arrived at their destination they gathered around the weapon vendor, where each of them bought their own Walloper, a fist weapon that fit over their right hands and was three times as powerful at the strikes they could do with their main weapon. While they looked at their new weapons Clank determined that it was a proper time to decide who was being assigned to which task, though he had a feeling which one he and Ratchet would get.

"We have two paths to choose from," Clank commented, watching his companions test out their new weapons for a few minutes, "The one in front of us will take us to that compound, where I'm assuming that we'll find a Pilot's Helmet or two somewhere inside. The other path is out into the lava area, where my scans indicated that there's a few bombers fueling up for whatever planet Chairman Drek plans on attacking next."

"Then Sunset and I will take out the bombers before they can depart for Batalia," Starlight said, causing her brother and the robot to turn to her for a moment, "What? We stopped the bombers before they could finish their job, so it makes sense that Chairman Drek would send some more of them to finish the assault. This time we'll make sure that all of them are taken care of and that none of them escape this planet."

"I don't know if I should feel sorry for whoever chooses to fight the two of you," Ratchet commented, as he knew the destructive power that his sisters could pack when they were together, "so I guess this time I won't worry about the two of you. Go out there and show the Blarg that they can't always get what they want... without consequences that is."

Starlight seemed eager to get underway, she she engaged her magic before Sunset could say anything and starting moving down towards the platform that was the closest to the landing pad. Sunset sighed before followed after her sister, as she didn't want to have to resort to using her hoverboard when the steps her sister made unraveled themselves once she was done stepping on them. Once the two of them were on their way Ratchet scooped up Clank and attached him to his back once more, before making sure that his weapons were fully stocked on ammo. When he was sure that his weapons were ready, and that it was actually just him and Clank, he got on the elevator pad and slowly traveled down to the area that would take him to the helmets that they had come to retrieve.

When he reached the end of the elevator's short path he found a dispenser launching small spheres that turned into the same mechanical mutts he had seen back on Kerwan, though there was also a gunman standing behind a turret that took aim on him the moment he stepped off the stand. Once he reached the area that the enemies were running around on he pulled the Walloper out and charged forward, punching one of the mutts so hard that it shattered into pieces upon impact. The others came at him immediately, to which he used his new weapon to clear the immediate area around the turret of enemies, making sure to dodge the gunman's attacks before planting his fist in the soldiers chest.

Once the enemies had been taken care of, and he was sure that there weren't anymore around him, he leapt into the turret and turned it on the massive iron door that was standing in his path. In a matter of seconds the door was broken into pieces under the amount of shots that Ratchet put into it, allowing him to move forward until something else decided to get in his way.

"Are you sure that its safe to leave your sisters alone?" Clank asked, watching Ratchet waste his enemies while thinking about something completely different.

"For the last time Clank, I'm positive that they can handle themselves," Ratchet replied, collecting the bolts that were scattered around him, while mentally sighing at the fact that the robot on his back seemed to enjoy asking the same question over and over, "besides, Starlight has the RYNO at her beck and call. So unless Chairman Drek is actually here, on this planet and at this exact station, then I am positive that there is nothing that the two of them cannot handle."

When he stepped into the next area he found a couple of circular robots that were just floating there, but he readied his Walloper and slammed it into the first one that he approached, forcing the robot to explode. As the first one fell the remainder of the group zeroed in on him and closed themselves, though as they started to glow Ratchet determined that they were definitely bomb type robots. He slammed his weapon into them before they could get close to the level of charge required for them to explode, clearing the area around him so he could move forward. He found two more gunman, several more bomb robots, and another dispenser waiting for him around the corner, though he also found another massive door that looked like it needed to be broken apart by a turret.

He immediately set to work clearing the area around the first iron door, only so that he could fall back for a moment and determine a proper plan of attack this time. He took stock of his current weapons and pulled out his Glove of Doom, to which a smile crossed his face as he started palming three spheres that were full of robotic minions for him to call on. Once he had a basic plan, a terrible one he had to admit, he approached the second door and threw the spheres forward, to which the minions emerged from their nests and charged towards the enemies. He watched as the little robots decimated the enemies that stood before the door, allowing him to weave through the destruction that his minions were causing and reach the turret that would get him into the compound.

Once he had commandeered the turret he turned it on the second iron door, to which he blasted the door down and waited a few seconds to be sure that there weren't any enemies that came charging out. When he was sure that there weren't any enemies coming out of the opened door he climbed out of the turret and returned to the door, to which he entered the compound and prepared another few spheres of his minions. He rode another elevator up to the top floor of the compound, to which he found the next set of enemies that were waiting for him and loosed the minions he had been preparing.

As he made his way through the complex, and his minions ruined the enemies closest to him, he pulled out his Devastator and took out the enemies that stayed near the back of the pack. It was actually quite enjoyable to take care of his enemies without having to worry about his sisters getting hurt, though, as he told Clank, that worry was quickly becoming nonexistent these days. He came to a room filled with tanks, though as he stepped into the hallway he found several more gunman waiting for him, to which he summoned the last of the robotic minions that his glove had. He had to resort to using his Bomb Glove on other enemies as he used the last missiles of his Devastator, but when he reached another turret he turned it on whoever was left.

After a few moments, and busting another iron door down, he walked outside and took out the last few gunman that were standing guard, before he was definitely certain that he had finished off the rest of the enemies in the area.

"I'm glad that's over," Ratchet said, picking up the only Pilot's Helmet that was laying on the ground, though while he did so Clank popped off his back, "its a shame that this is the only one of these that Drek's scientists left behind..."

"Correction," Clank interrupted, beckoning to a crate that happened to have two more helmets inside it, "Chairman Drek's scientists happened to leave three of them behind... though I'm surprised that they left three perfectly intact helmets behind."

Before either of them could say anything else, though in the same instant that Ratchet picked up the other two helmets after putting his own on, the two of them felt the compound shake for a moment. Clank, having read the scans of the planet before they landed, had already determined that the nearby volcanoes were dormant, no doubt due to Chairman Drek's tampering, but when the compound shook again he knew something was wrong. He pulled up his scans again and searched for what was causing the shaking, though after a few seconds his readings were telling him that the center of the tremor was out in the lava field... where Starlight and Sunset were at the moment.

Though before Clank could say anything to Ratchet his worst fears were realized as the nearest volcano became active, spewing lava out and causing the levels to rise all around them as more volcanoes started to wake.

"Ratchet, we must get back to the ship," Clank stated, leaping onto Ratchet's almost immediately.

"Way ahead of you pal," Ratchet replied, heading down the path that would take him back to the ship, though he hoped that his sisters were already on their way back to the ship as well.

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

Sunset and Starlight had been fighting their way through the small amount of enemies that stood guard over the bombers, as the first platform they came to had three of the robotic mutts. They had used their new Wallopers to clear the way, though Starlight used her magic to levitate the broken pieces of the robots and threw them into the fuel lines of the bombers. The chain reaction caused the ships to explode, allowing them to move onto the next platform where they found four more of the robotic mutts waiting for them. Sunset was glad that they had their Swingshots, as they used the targets that sprung up after certain bombers were destroyed and moved through the lava field.

One bomber got unlucky as Starlight, in a fit of boredom, activated her magic and summoned a cluster of dark crystals that skewered the bomber, to which Sunset was amazed by the amount of leftover magic that the cluster gave off.

"What are you doing?" Starlight asked, as she stopped when Sunset wanted to touch the crystal for a moment, though she watched as the excess magic bent around and was absorbed into her bracelet, "Wait... how long have you been able to do that?"

"What? You mean absorbing your leftover magic?" Sunset commented, watching the magic finished entering her bracelet, "To be honest this is fairly new for me... as in this only started showing up after Umbris..."

"I wonder if this means that you can absorb my magic and use it as your own," Starlight said, focusing her magic for a moment and summoning a light blue sphere, "Let's see if you can absorb this and use it as your own."

Sunset sighed for a moment and wished that she had kept this a secret much longer than she actually had, but now that her sister knew of her bracelet's strange ability it wasn't worth arguing about. She held her hand out to the sphere and waited for a few seconds, to which the sphere moved towards her bracelet until it surrounded her right hand completely. She could tell that some of the power was being pulled into the bracelet, but for some reason some of it remained around her hand, to which she stared at it for a moment as she wondered what to do with it.

"So... what do I do now?" Sunset asked, as she had no idea what to do with the magic around her hand and knew that her sister had a better idea on what to do.

That was before Starlight grabbed one of the robotic mutts from the next small platform and levitated it over to where they were standing, holding it before Sunset while making sure the it was dangling above the lava.

"Strike him and let's see what your capable of," Starlight encouraged, eager to see if her sister could replicate magic after absorbing what was leftover from her own magic.

Sunset sighed and approached the poor robotic mutt, as she knew that it hadn't been designed to go through this, but considering that Chairman Drek had it created to hurt people didn't do much to help her. She stopped in front of the mutt and prepared herself, bringing her arm back for a moment before letting out the breath that she had been holding the entire time. Once she released her breath she swung her arm and let it draw close to the mutt, but then it stopped a few inches before the mutt and then the magic happened. Sunset watched as the air around her fist cracked under the pressure of the magic, as if the bracelet was aiding them in their test, before the poor robotic mutt was crushed under the pressure.

Sunset thought that it was over once the mutt was destroyed, but then, as she lowered her arm, she felt the ground shake for a moment before the volcano closest to them became active once more. Her eyes widened as she realized that her bracelet had added the leftover magic she had absorbed on Batalia to the test, increasing the power of whatever spell Starlight had created. Once the level of the lava started to rise, and the ground continued to shake, Sunset turned to her sister and got her moving backwards so they could return to the ship.

"What did we do!?" Starlight shouted, worried that they might have set off a chain reaction that activated the dormant volcanoes around the entire compound.

"I don't know!" Sunset shouted back, using the Swingshot targets, and occasionally Starlight's magical steps, to get over the lava field, "We'll discuss it when we're back in the ship!"

When they reached the area they had landed on to start their journey down their chosen path Starlight threw up a set of stairs for them to run up, though as they reached the top Sunset turned around and watched as the lava continued to rise. She glanced at the compound their brother had journeyed towards, though before she could make any observations Ratchet finished riding his elevator to where they were standing. He nodded to them and tossed two helmets towards them, to which Sunset and Starlight each caught one as they followed their brother to the ship as he threw Clank inside so they could get the ship started. The ground shook again, this time more violently than the last time, but instead of wasting time looking around the three of them climbed into the ship after Clank.

"Set the coordinates for Planet Orxon," Ratchet said, making sure that they were all in the ship before closing the hatch, "I don't know what Drek did to this planet, but it seems that we set off some sort of trap he set for us. I should have known that three Pilot's Helmets were too much to ask for without something terrible happening."

Sunset decided not to say that it was actually her and Starlight's fault for what was happening, though as the ship got into the air and flew over the compound she watched as the structure tilted for a moment before the lava started devouring it. She sighed and leaned back in her seat, staring at the helmet she had been given and wondering if the venture to this planet had actually been worth what was currently happening to it.

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

Unbeknownst to the four of them they were still being watched by someone, though this time Chairman Drek had chosen to remain in his office while he went over the plans his scientists had given him. He had seen the 'heroes' visit Batalia and lay waste to his forces, to which he had immediately sent out a command to have some additional bombers gather at his compound on Gaspar, so they could launch another assault on the planet while the annoyances were no longer there. His scientists knew about the heroes and the fact that they were disrupting his plans, but his head scientist had come up with the plan to develop two world ending devices at the same time. The purpose of there being two, he had been told, was simple; one was the decoy that they would allow the heroes to destroy, giving them enough time to position the real one so they could obliterate the planet that was in the orbit of his perfect planet.

He hated to admit it, and he planned on not telling the head scientist this, but the plan on building a decoy so he could actually get away with moving the real weapon into position was something that he couldn't pass up. The PlanetBuster Maximus, the decoy, was designed to have a massive payload, something that Drek had insisted on including to make sure that the threat it presented was too irresistible for the heroes to pass up.

"Sir," a voice said, causing him to look up at the door to his office for a moment, where he found one of the scientists standing there, "I've got some bad news... its about our compound on Planet Gaspar."

"Please don't tell me that those 'heroes' raided my compound and made off with some of my property again," Drek growled, as he was already annoyed that they had taken several of his gadgets to use against him, such as the portable Hydrodisplacer they stole from his Research Station.

"I'm afraid that this is worse than them making off with a Pilot's Helmet," the scientist said, approaching the desk for a moment as he opened something on his tablet, before placing it on the desk and showing him the video, "Here, I'll let the video do all the talking."

Drek watched as the video zeroed in on the compound, showing him that everything was in order and that the soldiers he had assigned to the compound were doing their jobs. Everything seemed just fine and appeared to be progressing in the same order that happened every other day, only there was something different after a few minutes. A ship landed on the landing pad, to which he growled and ground his teeth for a moment when he spotted the 'heroes' climb out of the ship, to which they activated the vendor and bought new weapons. He watched as they separated into two separate groups, the Lombax and his robot heading towards the compound while the Cazar and unicorn traveled into the lava field.

He watched in annoyance as the Lombax slaughtered his soldiers, broke down the iron gates that were supposed to protect his compound, and walked into the compound as if he owned the place. Minutes later the pair walked out the other side of the compound, where he watched them pick up three Pilot's Helmets and deposit one of them on the Lombax's head. Then the compound seemed to shake, catching the pair off guard while they sought out the cause of the shaking, to which the video zoomed in on the area that the other pair had traveled down. From what Drek could determine, as whatever had taken the video had missed what had caused the shaking to occur, either the Cazar or the unicorn was responsible for the volcanoes suddenly becoming active once more and destroying the entirety of the compound.

The 'heroes' had survived the deterioration of the area around the compound, which annoyed him to no end, but he was more annoyed that they were still taking his property with the intent on using it against him. He pulled out the Infobot he had created for the decoy weapon, one that would get the heroes off of his back for a few days at most, and he passed it over to the scientist without a word. The scientist collected the tablet and the Infobot, knowing that he was going back to Orxon and place it somewhere hard for the four heroes to find. When the door closed behind the scientist, and he was sure that he was alone, Drek pressed a button on his desk and locked the door, before pressing another one to make sure that no one would be able to hear what was coming next.

He gripped the desk for a moment before his knuckles turned white, though he grunted as he literally tore the desk out of the floor and tossed it into the wall to his right.

"I'm going to kill those insolent children," Drek loudly said, crushing his fist into his other hand for a moment, recalling a battle suit that he was in the process of creating, "and I know exactly how to do it as well."
> R/C: Pokitaru
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The ride to their next destination, Orxon, was in an awkward silence as both Sunset and Starlight kept what they had witnessed on Gaspar to themselves. Sunset was still in shock to discover that she not only had the ability to absorb the excess magical energy of Starlight's spells, but that she could also use that energy without any training... allowing her to perform magical acts like her sister could. She stared down at her bracelet for a moment and flexed her fingers for a moment, remembering the sensation of the magical aura that had been swirling around her hand for a few moments before she, at her sister's encouragement, had released the energy.

She hated to admit it, because of the devastation she had caused to the compound and the surrounding area on Gaspar, but she had actually enjoyed the rush of power she had felt. She could have sworn that she felt a part of her, one that had been dormant her entire life, awaken when Starlight had her try to use the bracelet's magic for the first time. She knew that this new feeling didn't make any sense, as Cazar's didn't have the ability to produce the same feats of magic that Starlight was capable of creating, but yet she had been able to do something with the power she had already absorbed. It felt strange, wrong even, for her to even use magic, but she had the strangest feeling that she would tap into this new power multiple times in the future... even if she didn't want to use it.

She did wonder if it was possible to understand the power that she now had access to, though she determined that time would tell what was really possible and what was impossible.

Starlight, on the other hand, was keeping her mind busy by working on the RYNO II holo-plan, determining what type of missile it should use, though if that type of missile didn't exist she decided that she would just make that type of missile a reality. There were too many variables that she needed to work out before the weapon could be manufactured, which was why the original weapon had been created by a group of weapon designers. Even remembering the original weapon made her remember that one of her co-workers had delievered the weapon to the Blarg, by use of the salesman she found in Blackwater City, made her want to make sure that no one else worked on it besides her.

She was, however, determined to figure out who had told the salesman about the location of the holo-plan and bring the person, or the group she reflected, to justice.

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

When they actually arrived at Orxon, however, Clank's readings went off and warned them about the toxic air that rested outside the ship, to which Ratchet knew what to do.

"Hey Starlight," Ratchet called to the back seat, causing his sister to look up from her holo-plans, "Could you throw up a small barrier around the ship when we land? Maybe make one that keeps the toxic air out long enough for Clank to exit the ship?"

"I... I can try," Starlight said, not really sure if it was possible to do what her brother was asking, but she was determined to try something new as her horn lit up, "just let me know when we've landed and I'll cast the spell..."

Sunset could tell that her sister was unsure of her capability to perform the spell that Ratchet had requested, which she was also sure that both Ratchet and Clank had noticed her lack of certainty as well. However, she could still feel the power of the bracelet, as if it had recharged during the journey between Gaspar and Orxon, so she decided to see if she could aid her sister. She simply placed her right hand on her sister's shoulder and closed her eyes, allowing whatever magic the bracelet still had to surge into her sister and empower her spell. As the ship touched the landing pad a barrier phased into existence around them, one that surrounded the entire landing area and gave Clank more than enough room to safely get out without endangering his companions.

As Clank exited the ship, and Ratchet closed the hatch behind him, Starlight stared at Sunset for a moment, telling her that her sister had felt the rush of power empower her shield as well.

"Well then, we had best move into the cargo area while we wait for Clank to return," Ratchet said, moving into the back seat and opening a door that allowed him to enter the area he had mentioned, to which Starlight and Sunset followed after him... after making sure the barrier was down first.

There was enough room for the three of them to spread out and stretch their legs, allowing them to relax from the travel they had sat through and talk about whatever was on their minds. Sunset, remembering the helmets they had recovered from Gaspar, pulled out her tablet for a moment as Starlight sat down, as she needed to make some modifications to the helmet so her sister could wear hers without any problems.

"Hold still for me while I take your measurements," Sunset said, pulling out a few tools and making notes on the tablet as she went to work, "I want to make sure that this helmet fits you perfectly."

"I still can't believe that you pulled off such an impressive barrier back there," Ratchet commented, watching one of his sisters work, while the other seemed to be lost in her thoughts for a moment, "I mean, I only asked for something small so you didn't burn out your power, but you proved that I shouldn't worry about that."

As Sunset moved to her workbench, with the tablet in her hands, Starlight wondered if it was time to reveal that it was because of them that the compound had been destroyed. She really wanted to talk with Sunset, alone anyway, but it seemed that it might be that they informed their brother of what Sunset was capable of doing as well. She hated making these types of decisions, because she didn't know if her sister was going to be mad at her or not, but she sighed and decided that she was going to have to roll the dice this time. She only hoped that everything went smoothly and that she didn't set off some sort of bomb with her news... though one could only imagine Ratchet's reaction to this news.

"I'm pretty sure it would have failed in twenty or thirty seconds if Sunset hadn't empowered it," Starlight said, though as she looked up she found that Sunset had ignored the conversation, but Ratchet was tilting his head sideways, "Wait, you seriously didn't notice that she had placed her hand on my shoulder?"

"I was piloting the ship," Ratchet pointed out, but he had actually seen the gesture and had wondered what that had meant, "I assumed that it was to make you relax and take away the pressure."

"She lent me her strength, if I can be totally honest with you," Starlight replied, pulling out her tablet and flipping to a video that showed the excess magic of her crystals being absorbed into the golden bracelet, "Apparently Sunset's bracelet has the ability to absorb magic, though we only figured this out back on Batalia... and we decided to test her magical abilities back on Gaspar."

She could tell that Ratchet, upon hearing of their testing Sunset's new abilities on Gaspar, had set his wheels in motion and that he was already piecing together what had happened. She also realized that he was much smarter than she had given him credit for, though she determined that it was his desire to keep up with them at all times that allowed him to do this.

"So... its our fault that the compound was destroyed," Ratchet said, his eyes widening as Starlight merely nodded, "Well then, I guess that means that you'll have to teach her on how to properly use magic. Wouldn't want another accident to happen on another planet."

"Wait, so your fine with what happened?" Starlight asked, wondering if she had actually heard her brother right for a moment there.

"No, not when the area began to destabilize like that." Ratchet replied, frowning at her for a moment, "Starlight, you and Sunset could have died out there! Those volcanoes were dormant until you tried to test Sunset's magic, not to mention that you could have killed yourselves while trying to satisfy a simple curiosity you both shared. Look, when Sunset's done with the helmet I want you to talk to her about this... just explain my concerns and try to stress the fact she's dangerous without training."

"Very well," Starlight said, sighing as she looked over at her sister, who was still in the 'zone' and likely hadn't heard a single word they had said, "I'll do what I can when she's finished with her project."

"And finished!" Sunset exclaimed, turning around in her chair and holding up the Pilot's Helmet she had been working on, reshaped to fit on Starlight's head while retaining the same color it previously had, "Come on, let's see if this fits or if I'll have to work on it some more."

Starlight nodded and moved over to Sunset, where she gently moved the helmet over her sister's head and slipped it on, allowing her horn to fit through the hole she had added to the top of it. The two of them fiddled with it for a few moments, making sure that Starlight was comfortable with wearing the helmet, before they determined that everything was okay. When Starlight used her magic to lift something for a moment, which was merely lifting a can on the other side of the cargo hold, both she and Sunset discovered that the helmet actually increased her abilities just a bit... to which they decided that they had to test it on some enemies later on.

During their time going over the capabilities of the Pilot's Helmet, which took roughly an hour that Ratchet fell asleep while they spoke, Starlight went over the rules of magic usage with Sunset... and the various things that Ratchet had said to her earlier. Sunset wasn't too happy with the rules, but she wasn't sure what to do with the bracelet and determined that she needed help in keeping herself under control. They still had no idea what Sunset was even capable of, so the two of them agreed that she needed to learn the basics... which caused Starlight to grin at the thought of being the teacher for once.

Once the hour had passed there was a knock on the door that allowed the previous owner to move cargo into this area without going through the pilot's seat, to which Ratchet stirred and opened the door to allow Clank to enter.

"So, what did you find out there?" Ratchet asked, stretching his arms as the door closed behind his companion, "Anything useful or interesting that we can use against Chairman Drek?"

"Magneboots?!" Sunset exclaimed, looking at the boots that Clank pulled out, knowing what the item was because she had seen them in a report from Gadgetron not too long ago, "These are supposed to allow you to walk on any metallic surface... so they should definitely come in handy later on."

"Sweet," Ratchet said, though he had some trouble pulling them off of Clank, as the moment they were given to him his robotic companion flew to the bottom of the boots, "Did you find anything else out there?"

Clank picked himself up and dusted himself off for a moment, before opening his compartment once more and pulling out an Infobot he had found near the ship. It played a message about the resort on Pokitaru, highlighting the helmet that was responsible for allowing customers to breath underwater, before Chairman Drek's ships appeared in the background. As the Infobot ended Ratchet looked at his sisters for a moment, but he didn't need to be told what was on their minds as they were all thinking the same thing. Once the Infobot was back in Clank's storage area the four of them returned to their seats and set off for Pokitaru, where they would stop Drek once more and recover some of those O2 masks the resort people had.

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

They reached Pokitaru much quicker than they were actually expecting, though Ratchet grinned at the thought of being able to deal another blow to Chairman Drek's plans on ruining every planet in the galaxy. Unfortunately Starlight was more annoyed with Drek's activities on this planet... which was the dumping of toxic waste into the water and turning the wildlife against the people who called the planet home.

"He's despoiling planets that he, and the rest of the Blarg, have no interest in!" Starlight fumed, hopping out of the ship while the rest of her family followed suit, "Why doesn't he just dump his waste on a moon that no one's going to live on? Better yet, why doesn't he just dump the waste in a black hole? I mean, there's two black holes that he could be using instead of soiling other planets!"

"What I want to know is why he hasn't bought a barren planet and started the process of terraforming it to meet the needs of his people." Sunset commented, staring up at the ships as they approached the vendor to see what weapons might be available, "Makes no sense as to why he'd want to rip the rest of the galaxy apart like he is..."

Before they reached the weapons vendor they came across the man that they had seen in the Infobot commercial, though he was definitely more stressed than he had been when the commercial had been created. He was still wearing his Hawaiian shirt and sandals, though he nervously glanced at them as they neared him, as if he believed that they might be part of the invasion that was happening around the resort.

Hey, you guys are the first friendly faces I've seen in weeks." he said, before pulling back a little bit, which only furthered their thought that he was hesitant to believe they were going to help him, "You are friendly, aren't you?"

"To you, yes." Ratchet said, to which the man seemed to relax for a moment, which only told them that he was glad that some form of aid might have come after all.

"To them, no!" Sunset and Starlight said, both of the speaking in unison as they pointed at the ships that were dumping toxin into the water around them.

"Well that's wonderful!" the man happily said, before pointing to a building that they could see in the distance, "Down at the visitor's center, we've got a atmospheric gunship.  We used to use it for tourist stunt flights, but if you know your way around the controls, you could probably use it to take out all these ships dumping waste into the waters and turning the wildlife vicious!  If you can escort me to the visitor's center safely, I can give you the keys and you can use the gunship to shoot all those Blargian dumpships out of the sky... and I'll even throw our last O2 Mask in free of charge!  How's that for the deal of a lifetime?"

"Wait, you only have one of those masks left?" Ratchet asked, surprised that the resort didn't have a stockpile of them laying around for the man to give out to new visitors.

"Well, one fully functional mask and a bunch of parts laying in a box," the man replied, shrugging for a moment, "I'm sure that someone could find enough parts to make one or two more masks, but there's no one at the resort that's capable of doing that besides our robotic expert and he's already tired of fixing them up. You'll have to find someone else that's got the ability to recreate the masks."

Sunset didn't actually like the idea of salvaging through scraps of broken masks, because that's what she assumed the man was talking about, but she decided that as long as they had a working on she could replicate the mask once or twice. Now that they had something to do, which meant escorting the manager to the hanger so Ratchet could use the ship, they returned to the vendor and purchased the next two available weapons. The first weapon was the Decoy Glove, which was actually one of Starlight's joke weapons, one that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously considering it was a blown up version of whoever threw the sphere out, but Mr. Gadget seemed to like the weapon idea and produced it anyway. The second weapon, on the other hand, was the companion weapon that Sunset had made to go with Starlight's Devastator, the Visibomb Gun, which was designed to launch a missile that the owner could steer into an enemy from afar.

With these two new weapons each purchased by the group, and the manager now officially scared of the people he had chosen to escort him to the locked up ship, they pressed onward and came across their first enemies. They were puffer fish that could apparently breath on land, though the moment Ratchet took a step on the sand spikes popped out of their bodies and they began to move towards him. Ratchet, however, was expecting something like this to happen, because the moment one of the fish came near him he pulled out his Pyrocitor and started burning all of the fish around him into charred corpses. There was also a strange pink creature that glared at them as they approached, but a Devastator shot from Starlight sent the creature back into the water.

When they boarded the nearby ship, allowing the manager to take control and get them underway, they were assaulted by a steady stream of puffer fish mutants, though the three of them blasted the mutants back into the water and didn't let them get anywhere near the manager. It was a short ride to another island, where the three of them climbed off the boat and immediately started firing more shots at the puffer mutants that were waiting for them. They also encountered another pink mutated creature, though they removed it from their path and walked over the water for a moment so they could approach the waterfall area. There were more of the puffer fish waiting under the waterfall, though they proved to be no match for the combined might of Ratchet, Sunset, and Starlight.

Sunset, upon seeing that they were decimating their enemies, sighed and put away her weapons, to which her blade sword appeared in her hand and she attacked with it.

When they reached the second boat they repeated the process they had used on the first one, defending the manager from the puffer fish until they arrived at their next destination. Upon arrival Sunset leapt up onto the walkway and activated the bridge connecting their area to the next one, before striding forward and leaving her siblings on the boat.

"What's wrong with her?" Clank asked, wondering why Sunset suddenly went further ahead without discussing anything with the rest of her family.

"She recently learned that she can use magic as well," Starlight explained, determining that her sister had simply grown tired of overpowering their enemies with three people using weapons and was planning on studying her innate magical powers, "Her bracelet has the ability to absorb my excess magical energy and, in turn, allows her to use it as her own. From what I can gather from our experience on Gaspar, and the destabilization of the area around the compound, her bracelet has been absorbing pieces of my magic for the last ten years or so, thus increasing the amount of power behind her first attempt at magic."

"Wait, she knows magic as well?" Clank exclaimed, somewhat disturbed by the fact that there was a second magic user in the galaxy, while overlooking the fact that she and Starlight had been responsible for the destruction of Drek's compound.

"Yes, and she's got a decent amount of power stored inside that bracelet," Starlight said, as she had felt the power of the bracelet for a brief moment, though she had no idea how much power it actually had inside of it, "Come on, we had better see what she's doing to her enemies."

They followed the path that Sunset had taken and found her standing before a large group of puffer fish, though after a moment flames erupted from her sword as she ran forward. Starlight watched as the flames cut into the fish, cutting them down as if they were merely wheat and burning them like Ratchet had done earlier. Instead of extending the next bridge Sunset approached the edge and leapt across the gap, as if she had engaged a teleportation spell and crossed the distance with ease. Starlight was kind of surprised that her sister was using magic without falling over, but as they opened the way forward they watched Sunset either cut down her enemies or burn them with a simple fire spell.

When they reached the hanger Sunset took a breath and sat beside the robotic shop, allowing them to catch up and marvel at the destruction she had left in her wake.

"Tired?" Starlight asked, knowing that her sister might have overdone the amount of magic that she poured out, because she was already starting to show signs of exhaustion.

"Yes..." Sunset admitted, pulling out her tools for a moment, "Now, while Ratchet deals with the ships we can work on fixing those masks... if the manager lives up to his end of the deal."

The manager, true to his word, gave them the O2 Mask that he carried, had the crate of parts brought out to them, and moved out of the way as Starlight opened the hanger, allowing Ratchet to climb into the ship and take off to deal with Chairman Drek's troops. Sunset and Starlight focused on figuring out how the O2 Mask had been made, which they were glad to have the parts nearby as it allowed them to figure it out much quicker. Within ten minutes the two of them had a second functional O2 Mask sitting next to the original, this one twisted into the look that would allow it to fit around Starlight's head, before they focused on the third one.

As Drek's ships started falling from the sky the two of them continued with their work, finding just enough parts to make a third mask for Ratchet, before they worked on integrating the function of the O2 Mask with the Pilot's Helmet. The design was actually quite simple, as all they had to do was think a command through the helmet when they were about to go underwater or were about to walk out into the vacuum of space. Once Starlight's helmet had the mask added to it, and that it was actually coming out of its compartments like it should, she went into the water and moved her head under the waves, only to discover that the mask worked and that the helmet was fully functional.

By the time that Ratchet returned to the hanger, which was after destroying all of the tanker ships and the fighters that were protecting them, Sunset and Starlight had finished their work on their helmets, to which he handed his over and allowed them to add the mask to it. Once the third helmet had the O2 Mask added to it, and it also worked like a charm, the group started to bid the manager of the resort goodbye, but before they left he promised them that they were welcome back whenever they wanted. Ratchet didn't know what to say to that, so he merely nodded his head and followed his sisters through a teleportation pad that took them back to their ship.

With the O2 Masks in hand, and the resort saved from Drek's minions, they boarded their ship and set their course for Orxon, where they would finish what Clank had started earlier.
> R/C: Orxon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The journey to Orxon was uneventful, though Sunset took the opportunity to relax in her seat and get some rest in before they arrived at the polluted world that Chairman Drek left behind. Starlight had been right about her feeling tired after testing her magic like she had done, but she understood that the reason she wasn't tired on Gaspar was because the bracelet had done all of the work for her. She had pretty much burned through her store of magic, as small as it actually was, and had no idea how to wield the power of her bracelet, so she had felt drained after her tests. She was determined to overcome that problem in the future, but for the moment she was resting so that she could be prepared for whatever they found on the almost deserted planet.

Starlight, on the other hand, was busy studying the images she had of the carnage her sister had left on Pokitaru, not to mention the readings that Clank had taken on Gaspar. She was trying to determine just how powerful her sister's awakening magical abilities were, though the destruction of Chairman Drek's compound still troubled her. Her sister barely knew how to use magic, so she shouldn't have been able to pull off that level of power, but the bracelet had given her the ability to do so. She needed to figure out the secrets of that golden bracelet and fast, before it gave Sunset the power to do something like she had done on Gaspar.

When they arrived on Orxon, where Clank continued to frown at the toxic air around them, Starlight closed her tablet and shook her sister for a few seconds, to which Sunset yawned and stretched her arms as she woke up.

"So, did anything happen while I was out?" Sunset asked, engaging her O2 Mask as her siblings did the same, before Ratchet opened the hatch and they started climbing out.

"Nope, you didn't miss anything." Starlight replied, looking around the environment with a hint of anger in her eyes, "We had an uneventful flight."

"Just looking at this planet is making me annoyed," Ratchet commented, his voice echoing the feelings that were racing through Starlight's body, "He did this to his own planet, yet instead of trying to fix his home he decides that its better to tear other planets apart and build another home for his people. Who knows how long that planet will last before it looks exactly like this one, polluted and filled with toxic air... and then the process we're trying to stop will begin again."

Clank had to admit it, but he hadn't been sure that Ratchet even cared about the other planets and that he merely wanted to get back at both Captain Qwark and Chairman Drek for what they did to his family. Now he was seeing another side of his companion that he didn't know even existed, a serious and calculated side that he assumed had been hidden while his sisters had become the stars of Gadgetron. Ratchet knew the serious nature of what they were dealing with, as Drek had a legion of soldiers at his command and a plan to tear every planet to pieces. Clank let a smile appear on his face for a moment, because now that he knew that all three of his companions definitely had their minds set on bringing Chairman Drek down.

"Then we had better stop Chairman Drek and fast," Clank said, climbing onto Ratchet's back as the siblings approached the edge of the landing pad, "before this becomes the fate of every planet that he touches."

They approached a platform that was near their ship, where they collected the bolts that dropped from the crates, but then they looked out over the distance that rested between them and the path they needed to take. Ratchet could easily glide down to the platform that would take them into the rest of the compound, but he knew that his sisters would have a tougher time following him. Sunset had the hoverboard, so he wasn't concerned about her, though when he thought about Starlight he wondered how far those stairs of hers could take her before they started to fail. Before he could say anything to either of them, so that they could form a plan on how to get down there together, Sunset pulled out her hoverboard and flew down to the ledge that Ratchet was staring at.

Ratchet chuckled as he and Starlight followed their older sister, though when the magical stairs appeared he didn't bother to use Clank's hoverpack as the two of them walked down to where Sunset was standing.

On the same platform that they landed on they found a creature that looked like one of the mutants that they found in Drek's Research Station, though behind it stood a force field. Ratchet beckoned to Starlight, who engaged her magic and levitated the creature into the air, before she pressed it against the field and destroyed it in a matter of seconds. With the field down, and the way forward open, the three of them advanced into the next area, but before they could reach that area they found a pair of birds that attacked them. Sunset's sword leapt into her hand and she cut them out of the air without a hint of hesitation, sheathing her blade as the two bodies hit the ground, opening the way forward once more.

As they crossed a small gap Starlight pulled out her Devastator and loosed a missile at a small blue creature, blowing it to pieces as the three creatures in the area around them woke up. As she trained her weapon on another target she spotted a minion sphere roll towards one of the other creatures, to which the little robots emerged from their home and wrecked havoc on the two creatures that she was facing. The last creature, the one that was the furthest from the next force field, received a missile to the face and was cut down in seconds, allowing them to open the way around the force field.

"I am so glad that you enjoy that Glove of Doom," Starlight commented, as they approached another weapon vendor and made sure that they were well stocked on ammo, "maybe I can customize it at some point in the future."

"I can't help it that your weapons are so good," Ratchet admitted, his eyes lingering on his sister's weapon icon, recalling the one weapon she had worked on and had taken some time ago, "So... um... do you mind if I use the RYNO? Maybe just this one time?"

Sunset wondered how her brother could ask Starlight if he could use the RYNO, after all the headache and annoyances she endured to get the weapon to begin with, but then her sister surprised her. Starlight merely chuckled to herself as she tapped the weapon icon, to which the RYNO appeared before her and she levitated it into her brother's hand. Ratchet looked at the massive rocket launcher he was holding now, as if he couldn't believe that she was simply handing it over to him for the moment without even asking why he wanted it.

"Go right ahead," Starlight said, catching something flying in the distance to the left of where they were standing, until she noticed that it was one of Drek's ships that was left behind to protect the madman's secrets, "and it seems like we have someone for you to use it on."

Ratchet spotted the airship and turned the massive weapon on the enemy, to which he pressed the trigger and loosed nine missiles that tore the ship to pieces before it could even move out of the way. Ratchet was pushed back for a moment, but he looked down at the weapon he was holding and grinned as he imagined the pain he could inflict on Chairman Drek with it. With the way clear they advanced up the path on their left, where they collected any bolts that they found before they entered the building that the path brought them to. They spotted another one of Drek's soldiers blocking their path, but Ratchet allowed Sunset to approach the enemy and cut him down with her sword.

They quickly made their way through the small building, getting rid of a few more of Drek's soldiers and a couple more of the mutants, before they were on the other side of the building. Once they were outside they took down the soldier that was standing in their way, including the four birds that were flying around him, with one set of missiles from the RYNO. Starlight had to admit that giving the weapon to Ratchet for the moment was a good idea, because it gave her a chance to truly study the weapon while it was in use and determine what she could do for the next model she was currently making. Another airship appeared in their path, but it was torn to shreds by another grouping of RYNO missiles and allowed the three of them to move on.

The next area they came to had a lot of the red mutated creatures sleeping everywhere, but this time both Sunset and Starlight moved to the side and allowed their brother to step forward. Ratchet grinned as he pressed the trigger and moved forward, raining a hail of missiles upon the mutants that were in his way, blowing them to pieces and tearing down the barrier that they soon came to. While that was happening Starlight continued to take notes, nodding every now and then when she noticed that the prototype was living up to the specifications she had built into the weapon. Ratchet barely paused as he leapt over the gap that rested behind the barrier, where the weapon tore down the two mutants that were sleeping in front of a set of platforms.

They came to a set of gas containers, protected by a duo of soldiers, but instead of using the RYNO to remove them Ratchet moved out of the way as Starlight loosed two Devastator missiles, blowing them apart as they moved towards the next building. They came to a elevator pad that took them into the building, where they passed through a doorway and entered an area that had breathable air, allowing them to disengage their O2 Masks for a few moments. In the middle of the room they found what appeared to be a vendor, though it had the symbol for nanotech on the front of it and they approached it without wasting a second.

"What do you suppose this is?" Ratchet asked, while Clank removed himself from his back and looked at the machine as well, almost as if he was studying it.

"It is a nanotech dispenser," Clank replied, wondering how he had the file for the machine in his memory banks, but decided not to question it at the moment, "This machine sells Premium and Ultra Nanotech, which are specially designed drinks that increase the nanotech of whoever drinks them... useful for making sure that you don't do down in the middle of a touch fight."

Ratchet and his sisters shared a look between themselves for a moment, wondering if it was worth the bolts to buy a pair of them for each of them as they usually didn't take a hit, before they each sighed and went ahead with the purchase. Clank, on the other hand, insisted that they let him fiddle with the machine, where they discovered that he had somehow hacked into the machine and had made the purchases free. Ratchet would have said that it was unfair of his companion to do that, but considering that the bolts would have done to Chairman Drek and his evil plans, which none of them agreed with, he decided that it was fair that they robbed their enemy... again.

With the nanotech drinks downed, and their nanotech raised quite a bit, the three of them turned around and backtracked to the vendor that Ratchet had asked for the RYNO at, as they decided to retrace their steps instead of gliding over the gap once more. Once they returned to the vendor they turned towards the other path, where they found a mutant that was sleeping above another group of mutants. Ratchet, eager to get off the planet, turned on the RYNO and started blowing the mutants to pieces, before turning it on the mutants that were resting before a metal rail. He spotted an Infobot floating behind the second group of mutants, but the moment the missiles hit the ground it moved out of the way and flew to some other area in the compound.

"Okay, that's enough of that," Starlight said, levitating the RYNO out of her brother's hands before he accidentally blew the Infobot to pieces, or the rail system for that matter, "I think you've had enough fun with this for now."

"Yeah... I think I might have gone overboard," Ratchet admitted, rubbing the back of his head for a moment, "but you did a good job designing that weapon. I can't wait to see what you do if Mr. Gadget commissions you to make a second RYNO weapon."

Ratchet, being the only one to possess a pair of Magneboots, walked on the rail while his sisters took Starlight's magical stairs to the end of the rail, where they took out the enemies that were waiting for them. Ratchet would have complained about the arrangement, but they had determined that there might be something laying around they could use in the future, be it the Infobot they were chasing or another gadget. Once Ratchet had rejoined his sisters they took down the barrier that was standing in front of them, allowing them to Swingshot across the gap and reach another platform.

Once they landed Ratchet went on the offensive, loosing the little robots from the Glove of Doom upon their enemies while firing missiles at the ones that were further away. Starlight made notes on how her brother fought, wondering how many weapons she could make that would aid him in dispatching his enemies much faster. She knew that she could modify his current weapons to do that, but she could only take it so far at the moment and kept any weapon ideas in her tablet for the future. Sunset, on the other hand, found it strange how destructive her brother could be at times, though she had to reflex on the events of Gaspar and knew that she wasn't any better.

As they turned a corner they found another group of mutants waiting for them, but this time Sunset, having studied how her sister used her magic, waved her hand and several small fireballs flew through the air, smiting the mutants that were in front of them. Ratchet and Starlight waited for a moment, to be sure that Sunset hadn't overdone it with her magic again, but when she didn't fall over they knew that she was limiting herself to the smaller magical abilities.

They climbed a set of steps, after smashing another spinning sphere, and took out the mutants that were resting at the top, though before they turned the corner Sunset held a hand up to stop them. Once they had stopped she peeked around the corner, seeing at least two more of the mutants resting in front of another barrier with one of the blue mutants sleeping between them. She beckoned to Ratchet and indicated that he should use the minions once more, to which two spheres went forward and the eight minions tore the group of enemies to pieces. The moment the group of enemies were done for they smashed the spheres to pieces, dropping the barrier that the mutants were resting in front of and revealing what else they had to deal with.

Six more of the mutants stood in their path, with the Infobot floating above them, so they each pulled out their Devastators and started loosing missiles at their enemies. The mutants leapt up the moment they were under attack, but before any of them could even reach their targets they were all dead and the way was clear. During the fall of the mutants another airship appeared at the end of the platform, but the combined missile barrage tore the ship to pieces before it could even fire at them. They rounded the corner and found two more of the mutants waiting for them, but they were also removed from the area by the Devastator, allowing the three of them to approach the Infobot. The little robot flew up to the top of the shaft they were in, to which Starlight sighed and levitated them into the air, following after their only lead on what Drek was doing.

Once they got their hands on the Infobot they learned that Chairman Drek had finally determined the perfect location where they could move their new planet to, though the robot didn't say where that location was. Drek seemed pleased with the discovery, though made the comment that they were going to destroy the planet that was currently inhabiting their new planet's 'perfect orbit'. The picture then zoomed out to something that he called the 'PlanetBuster Maximus', which was apparently a massive bomb that was designed for the singular purpose that was the destruction of whatever planet it was dropped on.

"Okay then, its time that we pay Planet Hoven a visit," Ratchet growled, annoyed that Drek was planning on blowing up whatever planet that was occupying the orbit that he wanted his planet to have, "and destroy this 'PlanetBuster Maximus'. Then we'll find out where Drek's hiding and take him out once and for all."

Sunset, Starlight, and Clank agreed with Ratchet, so they dropped to the walkway below where they were standing and made their way back to their ship. Once they were inside, and the hatch was closed behind them, Clank set the coordinates for their next destination and Ratchet got them underway, so they could put an end to another of Drek's plans.

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

Chairman Drek stood in his private study, where the table had been fixed after he had ripped it out of the floor, and stared out at the vast space around him. He had heard the report of his toxin dumpers being destroyed above Pokitaru, which had annoyed him more than he was willing to admit, but then the ball entered his court. He just received confirmation that the 'heroes' had found the Infobot containing the coordinates for Hoven, and the PlanetBuster Maximus, and he knew that they would be heading there next. It gave him and his scientists plenty of time to finish building the second planet destroying weapon, the Deplanetizer, and get everything in place.

He had also ordered Captain Qwark to take care of his mess, though in preparation for the heroes surviving Hoven, and he was fairly confident that they'd make it off that planet alive, he had given the fallen Captain a ship that would destroy the heroes. Though if the heroes died on Hoven, which he and his scientists had determined was unlikely, he had a back up plan to self destruct the ship he had given Qwark and kill the other annoyance as well. Either the heroes would survive and destroy Qwark later on, or Qwark would destroy them in combat, or they died on Hoven and he blew Qwark to pieces.

Drek smiled as he looked out at the stars around him; whichever way the dice fell he would wipe the board of all the enemies and annoyances that opposed him. And then, once they were all gone, he would continue with his plans and move the new planet into position... once the other planet was out of the picture anyway.
> 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.
> R/C: Gemlik
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Unlike the flights to the previous planets, where each of them had some level of relaxation before their arrival, Ratchet and his siblings were busy preparing for their arrival at the Gemlik moon base, where they knew they would find a massive amount of Drek's soldiers waiting for them. Clank, on the other hand, remained in the front of the ship, allowing the auto pilot to fly them to their destination while making sure that they didn't run into anything in the middle of space. It gave Ratchet and his siblings time to prepare their weapons, fix up their gadgets and whatever armor that Sunset was trying to craft for her siblings.

Starlight focused on going over the various holo-plans that she had already created, the ones that Mr. Gadget had put into production and had already produced anyway, and reflected on how to improve them for the coming trials. She had a variety of weapons that she had downright rejected after completing their plans, though there were a few components on those weapons that she knew she could use to augment their existing weapons. Of the crates in the cargo area she found several that had weapon pieces, one that she had asked Clank how they got their hands on, only to discover that they had been dropped off by an unknown ally on Hoven... as if they had been in thanks for destroying the PlanetBuster.

Sunset, on the other hand, devoted half of her time to trying to create armor for her and her siblings, though she was disappointed when she found that there wasn't a vast amount of metal and components that she could use to craft anything. She had planned on giving Ratchet a chest piece that would protect him from enemies that targeted the chest area, but thanks to the small amount of components that she had to work with she knew that she couldn't do that. She made do with what they had and built a gauntlet that Ratchet could wear on his left hand, one that was designed to expand outwards and form the gauntlet when her brother thought the command. She was using similar commands that the Pilot's Helmet used, so that way it was much easier for her brother to use the gauntlet without having to learn another series of commands.

The other half of her time was devoted to researching the various spells that she had found, wondering if her new magic could mimic the powers that the people of Old Earth had found. She seriously hated to admit it, but the more she learned about her magical abilities, and what she was truly capable of, the more she wanted to expand her existing knowledge and learn more spells. She knew that she was far from mastering all of her abilities, but she needed every spell she could get her hands on so they had a lot of options when it came time to fight Chairman Drek. She and Starlight shared every spell that they found, intending to increase the amount of spells that they knew, but Starlight also admitted that the 'voice' spells that Sunset had found might be beyond her abilities at the moment.

When they got closer to the moon base Sunset immediately started scanning the area, purely to figure out the layout of the base and to determine how many soldiers were waiting for them. She still had the feeling that Chairman Drek had purposely lured them to this location so he could dispose of them, which only made her wonder what trap they could potentially be walking into.

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

When they finally arrived at the moon base Ratchet brought the ship down on a landing pad that was on the outer area of the base, giving them the opportunity to restock their weapons as the scans finished running. Ratchet and Clank looked over the layout of the path that they were going to take, because there was only one path from their current location that lead into the actual base. Starlight reviewed the various defenses that were scattered throughout the base, thinking of ways to overcome the towers that they had seen when they had flown into the landing area. They wanted to be absolutely sure that they knew everything they could about the base before they got underway, during which they occasionally looked out from their area to be sure that their enemies hadn't noticed their arrival.

Sunset, on the other hand, was focused on one of the readings that she had taken, one that was on the other side of the moon base and revealed someone that all four of them wanted to punish for what he had done to them. Captain Qwark was here, on the other side of the moon base, which only told her that Drek had sent him to deal with the problem that he had failed to resolve the first time... which only made her more angry.

"I do not see Drek's ship anywhere." Clank commented, having finished going over the readings and determined that their target had already left the area, "We must have missed him!"

"Who knows where Chairman Drek and Captain Qwark was now!" Ratchet moaned, more annoyed that they couldn't catch Drek and end this madness, "If we're going to catch either of them we'll need a faster ship."

"Perhaps we can find such a ship at this station," Starlight said, knowing that her own reading indicated that there was one such ship on the other side of the base, before she noticed something different about her sister, "Um... Sunset, are you feeling okay?"

Sunset had, while her siblings were talking, held her hands over the visor that protected her face from the space around them, because she had felt something unusual happen to her eyes. When Starlight looked at Sunset, which was when she lowered her hands from her visor, she caught a gasp before it could escape, because her sister's eyes were different now. Her normal cyan colored eyes had changed to an eerie golden color, though the sclera around them, which was usually white, had turned pitch black. It was almost like something dark and terrifying had awoken in her sister, though she apparently hadn't noticed the change save for the fact that her eyes hurt.

"Qwark... he's here," Sunset growled, feeling her anger rise as she looked in the direction that the Captain was supposed to be located in, which only made her approach the end of their platform, "Let's get this show on the road!"

Before either Ratchet, Clank, or Starlight could say anything Sunset leapt into the air, but then they were amazed as she sailed over to the small bird like robots that were waiting for them, smashing her fist into one of them and shattering it into pieces. As she hit the ground the rest of the robotic birds lowered to the ground and attacked her, but she swung her arm and slammed her fist into one of their heads. As the robots focused on her Ratchet and Starlight attacked from behind, using their handheld weapons to take out the robots so they didn't accidentally hurt their sister with a missile or with flames. When only one robot remained Sunset grabbed onto one of its wings and swung it around, sending it right into the tower that was standing behind Ratchet and destroying it, including the barrier it generated.

Once the first group of enemies had been dealt with Sunset immediately wanted to move on, but Ratchet stopped her the moment he noticed that her fingernails had sharpened into claws.

"Calm down Sunset," Ratchet said, though he was surprised by how feral his sister had acted, as he had never seen her act like this in all the years they had lived together.

"I'll calm down when we've dealt with Qwark." Sunset replied, charging up the steps that rested beside them and zeroing in on the next group of enemies, with her siblings following behind her.

The next area had six more of the flying robots moving around above where they were standing, though they also noticed that there was a soldier from Drek's research station walking around as well. As Sunset launched herself up to one of the flying robots and raked her new claws into it, though Starlight noticed that there was some form of actual gravity around the station, otherwise her sister would have flown off into the depths of space in an instant. The soldier turned his gun on Sunset as she landed beside him, but that turned out to be a distraction as a Devastator missile hit him in the chest and tore him to pieces. Neither Ratchet or Starlight bothered with the flying robots, allowing their now more feral like sister to tear them out of the air and smash them into pieces.

Neither of them were sure what was happening to Sunset, though Ratchet and Starlight, having seen the eerie eyes that she now possessed, believed that it was her sudden discovery of her magic that was changing her personality.

Once the last of the little robots had been taken care of Starlight turned her Devastator on the second tower and blew it to pieces, opening the way and revealing a soldier that was using a turret, though he was protected from damage from the front thanks to a glass wall of sorts. Ratchet and Starlight looked at their enemy for a moment, wondering if they should utilize the barrier spell that Starlight had used once or twice in the past, but the decision was made for them in the end. Sunset sailed through the false air and landed behind the turret, to which the soldier turned around in surprise seconds before her fist tore the poor guy to pieces. She then turned to the door that was blocking their way, but that was when Ratchet and Starlight discovered that she was waiting for them to catch up with her.

Ratchet, upon walking up to his sister, discovered that the door was locked with an Invinco-Lock, so he sighed as he pulled out the Trespasser and slid it into the lock. A minute later he retraced the gadget with a grin on his face, allowing the door to slide open and reveal what the three of them would have to deal with next. Another turret rested in their way, though as Sunset got ready to leap over to the the turret's back Ratchet held her back and pointed at the path that had been built into the side of the area, telling her that they could deal with it without her doing what she was planning on doing.

Ratchet had to admit that his theory about his sister's change in attitude had to have some truth behind it, because Sunset merely growled as he told her to stay put and stayed where she was standing, where he noticed that she seemed to have adopted the posture of a wild fox or something. Starlight ran out into the open and the turret started to fire at her, but as she jumped around and annoyed the shooter Ratchet got onto the upper path and took out the three little robots that he found there, before walking down behind the turret and taking the shooter out. Before beckoning for Sunset to join them he found another Invinco-Lock to deal with, so he pulled the gadget back out and went to work on the lock for a minute or two, before it opened up.

Once that was done he stashed the gadget away and beckoned for Sunset to join them, though he was starting to worry about the impact her magic was having on his sister, because it really seemed like he and Starlight were looking at someone else. Sure, all of them were angry at what Captain Qwark had done to them and were planning on dealing with it when they found him, but he was beginning to suspect that, as she was the older sibling, her anger at Qwark was much greater than both his and Starlight's own anger. Qwark had hurt both him and Starlight as well, so her desire to get back at him was likely to be much greater than either of them could muster on their own.

The moment Sunset was standing beside them again she noticed the turret that was sitting out in the open and growled, before bursting through the fake air and landing behind the soldier, to which she tore him down in seconds. Ratchet and Starlight moved up to the empty turret and found a path on their right, one that had three more of the little robots running around what they assumed were poison containers. Ratchet pulled out his Blaster and took a shot at the closed container to where they were standing, wrecking all of the containers that were standing there and tearing the robots to pieces with the poison clouds that erupted from the destruction. As Ratchet did that Sunset looked over the edge to the left of the turret, to which she found two more soldiers staring up at her in fear, before she grinned and leapt into the lowered walkway.

"She is staring to scare me," Clank commented, though he was secretly wondering how much anger and hate the Cazar was feeling to make her adopt what she was doing at the moment, as his data banks held no records of her race going over the edge like she currently was doing at the moment.

"She'll be fine once we deal with Qwark," Ratchet stated, but even as he said that statement he had to wonder if getting back at Qwark would allow them to start healing, or if it was going to cause more harm in the long run.

Starlight, seeing a piece of one of the poison containers sitting on the floor in front of them, wrapped her magic around the piece of metal and chucked it through the air, sending in on a collision course with the tower that was keeping the barrier up. She then noticed that there was a airship in the middle of the area she opened, one that appeared to be waiting for them to step into the room so it could begin firing at them. She then got an idea on how to quickly remove the airship before it could hit any of them, so she turned to Sunset for a moment and beckoned to the enemy waiting for them. Sunset grinned and burst into the air, using her newfound speed to sail on top of the airship and slam her fist into the cockpit, taking out the pilot in an instant.

Before she destroyed the ship itself the door behind her opened, allowing her to spot two more airships waiting for them, so she ducked into the cockpit and turned her ship's guns on the new arrivals, blowing them out of the air within seconds. She then turned her ship on the poison containers that were waiting outside the room, getting rid of them and any unfortunate enemies, before she leapt out of the cockpit and destroyed the ship. She then walked out into the area passed the room that Starlight had opened up, searching for additional enemies to get rid of while her siblings caught up with her.

Starlight made an effort to record everything that was different about her sister, just in the off chance that Sunset didn't remember what was happening at this moment... but she suspected that the information she was gathering would be used in some other manner. She also made sure to collect every bolt that was lying on the ground, because she also had the feeling that they would need every bolt they could get their hands on when they caught up with Drek.

The group walked to the door that Sunset had opened when she had taken out everyone in the immediate area, revealing an elevator that would take them into the base. However, the ride down was incredibly short, which told Starlight that it was merely meant to move people from the outside area and deposit them on the inside area. When the door in front of them opened they found four more of the flying robots moving around above their heads, to which Ratchet merely patted Sunset on the shoulder for a second. Sunset leapt across the gap and latched onto one of the robot's legs, dragging it to the ground before she used her claws to cut out the power module that was powering her enemy. The other three robots came down seconds later, but Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight watched as she merely repeated the process until all four of their enemies were dead.

Starlight noticed the rising liquid poison that rested between where she and Ratchet were currently standing and where Sunset was standing, so she engaged her magic and created a walkway for her and Ratchet to join their sister. They then turned to the right and found another chamber that was filled with the same rising liquid, so Starlight repeated the process and created a walkway that connected to the platform in the middle of the room, before extending it to the other tunnel they would be heading down. Once they had crossed the chamber Ratchet spotted another gap in front of them, though on the other side he noticed three more of Drek's soldiers waiting for them to arrive. He shared a glance with Starlight, who nodded her silent agreement, before patting Sunset once more, allowing their feral sister to sail through the air and strike their enemies.

"This seems wrong," Clank commented, noticing that neither Ratchet nor Starlight were using their weapons very much, to which he determined that they were taking advantage of the changes in their sister.

"I'd rather not fight with her in this state," Ratchet replied, pulling out his Swingshot as he waited for the enemies to be finished off, "Arguing with her never worked in the past, because most of the time she was right while the rest of the time either Starlight or I were right in what we were arguing about. This time, however, her anger and rage towards Qwark is preventing her from focusing on anything other than revenge, resulting in what we are now seeing. Even if we wanted to have her hang back and not kill everything, which might be impossible at this rate, she'd figure out a way to get back into the fight."

"I hate taking advantage of her current state, but we might as well let her vent her anger," Starlight added, knowing that her sister had a lot of anger to blow off before she reverted back to her normal self, or at least she hoped that Sunset would return to her normal self, "She'll return to normal once we've cleared this base out."

Ratchet would have said more, but then he noticed that Sunset beckoned with one of her arms, to which he waited for the liquid to lower before he swung to the other side. Starlight, on the other hand, merely made another bridge and walked across, joining her siblings at a point where they could see what was in their way. They found a rail system that would take them down into the area below them, which would make them walk around and avoid the orange poison until they approached the other exit. Starlight, not wanting to bother with this, created a walkway that allowed them to walk over to the other exit without having to worry about the poison below them. They found another soldier waiting for them, but this time flames danced around Sunset's right hand and she threw it at the poison containers near the soldier, taking him out and clearing the path for them.

They then found another chamber filled with rising and lowering poison, but before Ratchet could plan out what they needed to do Starlight created a walkway that descended towards the platform below them, allowing them to reach their destination without hurting themselves. The elevator they found took them back up to the outside area, though when the door opened they found two more of the flying robots waiting for them. Sunset leapt out of the elevator and smashed the first one into the floor, before turning around and planting her foot in its chest area, shattering the power module and reducing the pair of robots into a pile of scrap. They found a barrier blocking their way, though as Ratchet started to wonder how to bring it down Sunset found three more robots to rip out of the air, revealing an area that would allow them to break the tower that powered the barrier.

"Hey Sunset," Starlight said, causing her sister to turn to her for a moment, to which she pointed a hoof at the tower, "Go crazy and break that tower down."

Ratchet watched as Sunset grinned and sailed into the chamber that was blocked off, where she smashed the tower that powered the barrier, before turning to her right for a moment and smashing into the airship that had been patiently waiting for them to arrive. The door opened to reveal a trio of flying robots that lowered to the ground, but this time Sunset leapt back to where Ratchet was standing as he loosed a Devastator missile. It tore into one of the poison containers and blew all of the robots to pieces, including the rest of the containers so that their journey forward was much easier. Before they moved through the next area they spotted three soldiers sitting behind turrets, but as they started firing Ratchet noticed that there wasn't anyway to get to them.

That was before Starlight pulled him over to another Trespasser pad, to which he started hacking into the Invinco-Lock while Sunset remained in front of the turrets, jumping around and keeping their attention on her. When the door was open, and the soldiers manning the turrets were vulnerable, Ratchet threw a minion sphere out and the little robots rushed out and tore the soldiers down. Once that was done they rejoined Sunset, who had moved further down the path and was staring at the eight flying robots that were flying around the area in front of her. Ratchet also spotted two soldiers that were fully prepared to fight them, though this time he had Sunset stay back in case the door behind the soldiers opened and revealed an airship that was waiting for them.

As he and Starlight tore into the little robots and the soldiers, which was easy thanks to the Pyrocitor taking care of the robots, the door behind the soldiers did open and revealed two airships that had their guns trained on where they were standing.

"Sunset!" Ratchet shouted, taking out one of the soldiers as the airships moved their guns towards him and Starlight, "Take them out!"

Seconds later Sunset sailed right into the cockpit of the first airship, smashing the pilot the moment she impacted it, though this time she had angled her attack so that the force of her strike would make it collide with the second airship, taking both of them out in a minute or two. As her siblings dealt with the rest of their enemies, blowing them up with their weapons, she moved up onto the platform that would take them around the building Ratchet had opened the door on, finding a second set of turret enemies that didn't have a weak point by the looks of it. Sunset growled as she approached the first one, slamming her left fist into the glass and shattering it in seconds, causing the soldier to scream as she got rid of him.

When Ratchet and Starlight caught up with her they found three broken turrets and three dead soldiers, though Sunset appeared to be waiting for them so they could move on together. They found another elevator that allowed them to descend into the next area, but this time it turned around so that they would be upside down for a time. Starlight resorted to using a spell that mimicked the ability of the boots that Ratchet was wearing, to keep herself and Sunset from falling on their heads until it was time to let go. When the door opened the three of them found what appeared to be an army of robots birds that had a force of soldiers working beside them, along with what appeared to be seven dispensers that restocked the birds every now and then.

"By the Maker," Starlight commented, taking in how many enemies there were and wondering if she needed to use the RYNO to clean all of them up, "that's a lot of enemies. So, shall we use our weapons to get rid of them, or shall we loose the beast?"

Ratchet looked over at Sunset, whose eerie eyes were lingering on the enemies that they were staring at, but he already knew that she was thinking at the moment. Truth be told he was eager to use up all of Sunset's rage and anger so that she'd return to normal, though he did catch the fact that she was starting to pant from the amount of fighting she was doing. He had to believe that his sister's rage was quickly reaching its limit, which she believed would mean that the moment it ran out she would return to normal. He sighed for a moment before patting Sunset's shoulder, to which Starlight nodded as she undid the spell she had cast on her sister, allowing Sunset to drop into the area below them.

The moment she landed the soldiers pointed their weapons at her and signaled the charge for the little robots to engage their enemy, which resulted in all of the little robots surging towards her. Sunset growled and allowed power to gather in her hands, to which she spun around and released a gale of wind that pushed everyone of her enemies backwards. Once that was done she went on the offensive, weaving around the sea of enemies and making her way to the outer area, where she slammed her fist into the dispensers and destroyed the devices in seconds. When one dispenser fell she moved onto the next one, avoiding her enemies until she had removed all of the devices that would spawn more of the little robots, until they were all gone and she finally engaged the horde of enemies that had been following her.

"So, even in her feral state she retains her intelligence," Clank commented, watching what was happening as Ratchet and Starlight slowly lowered themselves into the area, "Most impressive."

As Sunset fought on one side of the massive chamber, keeping the enemies focused on her, Ratchet and Starlight took out the enemies that stayed at the back of the pack, making it easier for their sister to do what she was doing. Once all of the enemies were dealt with the door behind them opened, though while that happened Ratchet noticed that Sunset was definitely getting tired, because she was starting to huff every now and then. He also noticed that her claws were halfway gone at this point, telling him that she was definitely running low on whatever was fueling her transformation into her feral state.

They moved through the new door and rode the elevator back up to the outer area once more, though this time they found a set of spiral steps that allowed them to walk out to the area that they had seen on their earlier readings. As Sunset stepped out of the stair area, and her siblings followed her, she found the person that she was eager to get back at for what happened on Umbris.

"QWARK!" Sunset roared, bursting into the air the moment she spotted the Captain, who had been staring at the staircase the entire time as if he had been expecting them.

Ratchet and Starlight expected their sister to reach the Captain in seconds and knock him onto the floor, so that way they all could beat some sense into the man that had betrayed them and the galaxy, but that didn't happen. Qwark apparently had his fist at the ready, because the moment Sunset reached him his right hand was in motion before she even realized it was coming. As she reached for the Captain's face, to force him into the ground, his fist came into contact with the left side of her head, knocking her to the side while shattering the glass of her mask.

"Sunset!" Starlight shouted, though as she ran over to her sister Ratchet leapt into the air and brought his wrench down on where the Captain was standing, only for Qwark to jump back and disappear into a starfighter.

While Starlight cared for Sunset, who had been knocked out by the surprise attack, Ratchet and Clank jumped into the ship that resting behind them, allowing them the opportunity to take off and bring the fight to the Captain. Ratchet then discovered that Qwark had been expecting him to follow, because he started a one sided conversation while he attempted to shoot them down. The rest of the enemies that resided in the moon base flew out to join Qwark, where they started firing at Ratchet as he attempted to avoid them and shoot down Qwark as well. He heard an angry yell over the intercom the moment he destroyed the first of the six engines that Qwark's ship had, which only brought a smile to Ratchet's face as he continued to fire at his enemy.

"I owe you one..." Qwark started to say, but then he decided to cut himself off as Ratchet tore the second engine off of his starfighter, "Why you son of a..."

When the second engine fell Qwark turned his starfighter around and turned on a tractor beam of sorts, keeping Ratchet's ship in one position as he loosed a barrage of missiles at him, where Ratchet returned the favor by blowing the missiles up until the tractor beam failed. As Qwark moved out of the way Ratchet made sure that his next pair of missiles hit their target, blowing the third engine, and a section of the ship, to pieces. A shield sprung to life around the starfighter as the rest of Chairman Drek's ships zeroed in on where Ratchet was, forcing him to focus on getting rid of the annoying pests while Qwark moved away from him.

It took some time, but Ratchet eventually took out all of the fighters that had come to Qwark's aid, where he found that the shield had been lowered and resumed firing upon his true target. When the fourth engine was destroyed, and another section of the starfighter followed afterwards, Qwark shouted that Ratchet was going to pay for what he had done, but Ratchet didn't care at the moment. When the fifth engine failed Ratchet heard the Captain taunting him and telling him to catch him if he could, which only annoyed Ratchet more than he already was. As he tore into the sixth and final engine he heard Qwark pleading for his life, saying that they should let bygones be bygones while trying to save his own skin.

Ratchet sighed and pressed the missile button one last time, letting the ship's final missile tear into the final engine and blow it to pieces, which resulted in Qwark's starfighter spinning out of control as it headed towards the planet below them. As the ship went down he heard one last transmission from the former hero, saying that Ratchet had passed some sort of 'test' before he started screaming at the top of his lungs as he collided with the planet below them. Once the deed was done Ratchet returned to where his sisters were waiting, depositing the ship in the hanger he had gotten it from before running over to where Sunset was resting.

"How is she?" Ratchet asked, kneeling beside Sunset while Starlight was looking at her tablet, no doubt because she had taken some readings to be sure that Sunset hadn't been seriously hurt.

"It appears that she'll be fine, save for the bruise she'll have for a few days," Starlight said, glancing at Clank for a moment, as the robot had found a faster ship and another Infobot, "Clank, do you think we can still use the ship we used to get here?"

"It is on route as we speak," Clank replied, a light chuckle escaping his lips for a moment, "I anticipated that we might need more than one ship if the one we found here was small, and it appears that I was correct in that regard, so I activated a signal that will bring the other ship to us. Now then, we should see what Chairman Drek is up to this time."

The Infobot revealed that the rest of Drek's soldiers were currently in the process of attacking the planet below them, no doubt following the orders that he had given them. The news robot seemed to have suffered some damage as well and there appeared to be someone who was running around like a mad man, though Ratchet was glad that they had already dealt with most of the forces that were supposed to be attacking Oltanis. Before Ratchet could say anything about the situation on the planet below them, and he was sure that Starlight and Clank had their own opinions as well, he heard something that he wasn't expecting.

"Self Destruct Sequence Initiated" a recording said, one that sounded a lot like Chairman Drek and seemed to come from all around the moon base, "Prepare to Die you Insolent Brats!"

As the station started its built in self destruct sequence Ratchet noticed the ship they had taken from Umbris come into the area they were in and landed near the staircase they had taken to reach this point, just as Clank had promised. Before he made his way over to the faster ship he helped Starlight carry Sunset onto the second ship, before telling her to strap themselves in and closing the door behind him. He quickly made his way to the other ship, where he found Clank waiting for him, and strapped himself in, before starting the ship and heading towards the planet below them, with the ship carrying his sisters not far behind. He barely looked back as the moon base exploded, knowing that Chairman Drek was going to be annoyed when he figured out that they were still alive.

He breathed a sigh of relief that they had overcome the trap that Chairman Drek had set for them, though he knew that they were getting closer to the end of their journey... and the inevitable battle with Drek himself.

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

Chairman Drek frowned as he looked at the screen that showed him the Gemlik moon base, watching his enemies move throughout the entire base and slaughter his troops. He zeroed in on Sunset once, raising an eyebrow when she entered her feral state and charged at the soldiers that opposed her, somehow overpowering everything that was in her path. It was almost as if he was looking at a different person when the beast emerged, because she didn't act like the warrior she had been before her arrival at the moon base. Her anger and hatred towards Qwark had fueled some sort of evolution in Sunset, something that both he and his head scientist hadn't been expecting.

He was at least pleased that Qwark had gone down with the starfighter, because that removed one annoyance from his life that he didn't have to deal with himself anymore. Even the destruction of the moon base failed to remove Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Sunset from the equation, which only fueled his anger towards the family that stood in his way.

"Shall I call on your elite soldiers?" his head scientist asked, having waited until he was sure that Drek was in a better mood than he had been when the news of the station had come in, but he had determined that his boss' mood wasn't about the change anytime soon.

Drek sighed as the picture zoomed in on the pair of ships that departed from the moon base, one that had been the ship that was stolen from Qwark's base on Umbris and the second being a highly advanced ship that he had developed for his own personal use in the future. He was getting tired of the 'heroes' stealing his gadgets, weapons, and ships, because they were being turned against him and he was growing tired of being annoyed. He also thought about the question for a moment, wondering if he should just call the entirety of his elite forces in and send them to Gadgetron, so that way he could remove the people that supplied his enemies with ammunition.

"Call all of them in and tell them that I have a high ranking mission for all of them," Chairman Drek finally said, his screen moving to show the headquarters of Gadgetron for a moment, "I'm going to hit these 'heroes' with everything I've got... even if it means that I have to destroy Gadgetron as well."
> R/C: Oltanis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet wasted no time in getting the new ship to Oltanis, landing on the only available landing pad as the ship he and his family had used to reach the now none existent Gemlik moon base landed next to him. Before he opened the hatch of the new ship Starlight opened the cargo door of the second ship before she threw up a barrier around the two ships, preventing the lightning storm from hitting any of them. Clank, now protected from the lightning, also jumped out of the faster ship before making his way over to the cargo ship, where he and Ratchet followed Starlight inside before the door closed behind them.

Sunset was laying in the middle of the cargo hold, still knocked out cold from the punch that dented her Pilot's Helmet and potentially exposed her to the space around them.

"When do you think she'll wake up?" Ratchet asked, worried that his sister might be in a coma of sorts thanks to her going feral and being surprised by Qwark like that.

"She should resume conscious in a few hours," Clank commented, pulling up one of the readings that Starlight had taken on the flight down to the planet's surface, which had just finished in time for him to calm down the Cazar's siblings, "With such a storm raging outside it will be impossible for me to provide aid to either of you, but I can watch over Sunset until either of you return to the ships."

"If she happens to wake up before we return, which she might, I want you to show her some of this." Starlight said, copying the images and video she had of Sunset going feral to the tablet that sat beside Clank, "She needs to know what she's capable of when her emotions mix with her potent magical abilities... and how much power her attacks have when she can't control herself. When we're done with Chairman Drek I'll put aside some time to train her on how to use her powers, even if I have to take time off from inventing new weapons."

"We had best see to the people of the city and make sure that they're okay," Ratchet said, pulling out the Devastator for a moment as he walked towards the door, "Come on Starlight, let's go save the day again."

Starlight nodded and followed Ratchet outside, closing the door to the cargo ship as they approached the weapons vendor to replenish whatever ammo they spent when they were on the moon base. There they found a weapon that was created by one of Starlight's colleagues, the Tesla Claw created by Professor Nora, that was available for purchase. Starlight had helped create the design of the actual weapon, but the function had been developed by her colleague, who Starlight openly admitted that she didn't trust since the first day they had been introduced to each other. In fact Professor Nora was one of the other four weapon designers that had worked along side Starlight on the RYNO project, though that fact only made Starlight more suspicious of her colleague.

Regardless of her personal opinion towards the Professor, and her suspicions on who sold out the RYNO plans, she and Ratchet bought a Claw to add to their arsenal, which the promise that a third would be provided to Sunset when she woke up later on.

"So, which way do you want to go?" Starlight asked, beckoning to the path that lead into the city before moving her hoof to the path that lead away from the city, where her scans indicated there was another weapon for them to pick up.

"We had best deal with the city first," Ratchet replied, lifting up his Tesla Claw for a moment, a grin appearing on his face as he wondered how much power the latest weapon had, "and I'm eager to see if your colleague's are on your level of weapon making."

"I hope Professor Nora's weapon is to your liking," Starlight said, holding back her negative opinion of her colleague for a moment, as she had no idea if she was right or not.

The two of them walked over to the path that would take them into the city, where they leapt down into the ruined walkway and slowly walked into the open area in front of them. Within seconds of them entering the area a slot in the ground opened and four robots leapt out to face them, turning their weapons towards them as they did so. Starlight noticed that their weapons mimicked the Tesla Claw's function, shooting lightning beams at whoever the wielder's target is, but it was a simple matter to throw up a shield to block the first wave of attacks. Once the attackers realized that they weren't doing any damage, and lowered their weapons, Ratchet returned the favor and blasted one of the robots with his own weapon before Starlight joined in on the fun.

Ratchet spotted a bomber ship blocking their path, so he pulled the Visibomb Gun for a moment and locked on to where the ship was floating, flying a missile right into the front of the ship and obliterating it in seconds.

The next platform they came to had five of the smaller robots roaming the skies, which were easily removed with their new weapons, before a group of electric robots emerged from their hiding place and started attacking them. This time Ratchet and Starlight leapt over the lightning beams that their enemies were using, before returning fire with either their Tesla Claws or Devastator. When the enemies had been removed they rounded a corner and found another bomber ship, to which Ratchet once again switched weapons and took it out so they could move on. Unfortunately they were then ambushed by a group of six robots appeared from their hiding places and, once again, started to fire at them.

"Seriously, these guy are already getting old," Starlight commented, loosing a missile that tore her target to pieces, while Ratchet did the same with the Tesla Claw.

"Then why don't you use the RYNO on them?" Ratchet said, noticing that she hadn't pulled out the weapon that would have cleaned their enemies up much faster than they were currently doing.

"I'd rather not use that at the moment," Starlight replied, clearing the remaining enemies with her Devastator before making sure that the area was clear, "Besides, we should be taking our time to be sure that Sunset has enough time to rest before we return to the ship."

Once they were positive that the area had been cleared, and that they had collected all of the scattered bolts, they jumped up to a smaller platform and found a grind rail that would take them further into the city. Ratchet hopped onto the rail and started sliding, to which Starlight used one of her spells to keep an eye on where her brother was going before teleporting to him when he reached the end. Once they landing on the platform at the end of the rail they found six more robots waiting for them, to which they let loose a few missiles to get rid of them. They also found three of the smaller robots floating above the walkway behind where the electric robots were standing, allowing them to move on with ease.

They then walked up to the walkway that sat in front of them, finding another one of the bomber ships that Ratchet took out with a Visibomb missile. When they rounded the corner they found another enemy looking down at them from where he was standing, but Starlight removed the robot with a Devastator missile. They then spent a few minutes climbing up to the top of the area they were in, giving them a decent view of what was waiting for them while Starlight took out the small robots that were sitting above their heads. The next walkway had a turret waiting at the end of it, but a well placed Blaster shot took it out in seconds and allowed them to move on with ease.

The next platform was guarded by only two of the smaller robots, to which neither Ratchet nor Starlight bothered wasting ammo as they used their hand weapons to get the job done. Once those enemies were dealt with they stopped in front of a grind rail that had three rails, to which Starlight voiced her concerns about the hatch that was sitting behind them.

"This is the only way forward, unless we wanted to backtrack," Ratchet commented, readying himself for the ride he was about to go through, "but we might as well see where this leads. You going to create a walkway for yourself, seeing how you don't have any boots of your own to use on the rail?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Starlight said, not liking the idea of letting Ratchet face whatever this rail had in store all alone, before her magic ignited and formed the beginning of the magical walkway, "I'll race you to the end of the rail."

Once Ratchet started sliding down the rail the hatch behind him opened and three more of the electric robots emerged from their hiding place, each one taking a different rail as they followed Ratchet. Starlight followed on her magical walkway, though as she pulled out her Devastator to take out the robots Ratchet called out to her and told her not to worry about the enemies that were following him. Ratchet was glad that his helmet gave him the ability to look behind him, because he was able to dodge the attacks that the robots threw his way until he came to a electric grid that forced him to move to the only open rail that didn't run through it. He then repeated the process twice more, allowing the next two grids to remove the remaining two robots that were following him before he reached the end of the rail.

He waited for a second before Starlight appeared beside him, to which they approached the man that they had seen in the Infobot, who still had his slightly burned hair.

"Hey! Welcome to my shop!" the man loudly said, greeting them as they approached him, "What can I do for the two of you!?"

"We're looking for Chairman Drek." Ratchet replied, indicating the height of the Chairman with his hand for a moment.

"Sure! Yeah, I've got lots of stuff on sale!" the man said, as if he hadn't heard what Ratchet had said, to which Starlight suspected that his hearing had been damaged by the bombing, "After the bombing no one is around to buy anything!"

"Are you okay?" Ratchet asked, worried that the man might have been hurt during the attack.

"Low prices?! You bet!" the man replied, reaching behind him for a moment before pulling out an Infobot, "I can make you a deal on a busted turborater, a mangled carbonizer, or... I've got this Infobot."

"I guess the bombing must have been pretty loud," Starlight commented, to which Ratchet nodded his agreement as he wondered what to say to the seemingly deaf man.

"Oh ho! You are one shrewd negotiator!" the man said, as if he had interpreted Starlight's statement as an agreement to buy the Infobot, "I'll tell you what, I can let this Infobot go for half price!"

Starlight and Ratchet looked at each other for a moment, somewhat surprised by the fact that they could buy the Infobot for half of the price that he was going to originally charge them, before agreeing to take it off of his hands. When Ratchet thanked the man for the Infobot the man got upset, indicating that he believed that Ratchet was complaining about the price for a moment, but he made no move to take the little robot back as he walked away. The Infobot revealed that Chairman Drek had built large mech warriors to act as 'bodyguards' for whoever bought them, but they both knew that it was a cover for what he was really doing. Drek was building an army of battle mechs that were likely designed to target and destroy his enemies, which they were sure meant them, Clank, and Sunset.

"I should have known that this was only going to get harder as we neared the end of our journey," Starlight commented, pressing a button that opened the way for them to return to their ship, "but at least we have a target for when we arrive on Quartu. So, should we check on Sunset and then leave this planet, or should we go check out that other path and see what we find?"

"Well, it appears that there's a second path besides the one that you mentioned," Ratchet said, looking at the pair of ships for a moment before following his sister, "Look, why don't you take the path that leads away from the city and I'll take the one that involves using that metallic surface that's sitting behind me. I'm sure that we'll both find something interesting that will definitely aid us in our quest to stop Chairman Drek, be it another weapon or some sort of gadget. Also, don't worry about Sunset too much, because I'm sure that she'll be just fine when she wakes up."

Starlight nodded for a moment before heading towards the path that would take her away from the city, allowing her brother to walk up the rail behind him so they could cover more ground in a shorter amount of time.

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

Sunset moaned as she picked herself off the floor of the ship she found herself in, rubbing the side of her face for a moment as she wondered what had hurt her. She looked around and found that she was in the cargo ship that she and her siblings had taken from Qwark's base on Umbris, resting on the floor of the cargo hold. She reached up to her helmet for a moment, only to find that it was no longer on her head and that it was actually sitting on a bench in front of her, with a dent in its side. She was so confused as to what was going on, because the last thing she remembered was the arrival at the moon base, but anything that happened after that was lost to her.

"Oh good, your awake," a voice behind her said, to which she turned around and found Clank sitting behind her, "Your siblings will be quite happy to see that your up and about again. How are you feeling?"

"Horrible." Sunset admitted, gently pulling herself into a sitting position, wondering why her body hurt so much, "I'm feeling pain all over my body, which I'm sure I wasn't feeling when we arrived at the moon base. Though that raises the question that I need to ask; what did we do at the moon base anyway?"

"Wait, so you remember nothing?" Clank asked, trying to determine what she knew and what she had forgotten, though he had the feeling that Sunset might not remember anything.

"I remember arriving at the moon base, but anything that happened after that is lost to me." Sunset admitted, sighing as she looked over at the little robot, "Why? Did something interesting happen at the moon base?"

Clank was silent for a moment, wondering what the best way to tell Sunset that she became a feral creature that was bent on the destruction of Captain Qwark, only to be knocked out by her target. He considered telling her nothing of what happened at the moon base, to leave it for one of her siblings to take care of when they returned to the ships, but he saw no reason to withhold the information. He also had no idea what would happen if he showed Sunset the images and video that Starlight had copied to the tablet that was sitting beside him, but it appeared that he was going to have to take a risk in that regard.

"I wouldn't call it interesting," Clank finally replied, opening the tablet to the video that he had been given, before turning it towards Sunset, "but your sister wanted me to show this to you."

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she took the tablet from Clank, pressing the button that would start the video as she wondered what Starlight wanted her to see. When the video started up she found herself staring at the moon base through Starlight's eyes, as she had been the one to film the video, before it turned to her as she completed her scans of the station. That was when she discovered the change in her attitude when she found out that Qwark was at the station, as her eyes had taken on a sinister look as her emotions took over. Before she could make a comment on her change in attitude she watched as her past self went into a feral state, before leaping off of the landing pad and striking the first enemy she came to.

She watched as the video progressed, seeing her past self become more feral as they drew ever closer to the end of the moon base, where she knew Qwark had been waiting for them. She had to admit that she must have pretty terrifying to their enemies, but she also knew that she must have worried her siblings the entire time. She cringed when she saw herself growl at Ratchet, when her claws had grown into the sharpened state they had been in, and did so again every time she saw herself eagerly take on enemies that stood in their way. She couldn't believe that the person that Starlight had filmed was actually her, especially when she used her claws to rip her enemies in half as if they were made of paper.

She was sure that the person in the video was someone else entirely, but she couldn't deny that she had turned into some type of monster when her emotions mixed with her magic.

"I don't believe it..." Sunset commented when the video was over, rubbing the side of her face as she realized how she had been hurt in the first place, "I became a monster that had no control over itself. Is this what my magic is capable of creating? If so... then I might as well learn how to lock my magic away so something like this doesn't awaken and turn on anyone that annoys me."

"Sunset, you cannot hate your magic for this," Clank said, collecting the tablet the moment Sunset let go of it, "You let your emotions cloud your judgement for a moment, which is something that all of you need to work on. Prove to yourself that this incident will better your life, that you'll use your powers to the betterment of the galaxy and not let your emotions dictate your actions."

Before Sunset could reply to that statement the door to the cargo hold opened up, to which Starlight and Ratchet walked through the door and closed it behind them. The instant they entered the area Starlight noticed that Sunset was up and ran up to her, throwing her hooves around her and tightly gripping her sister. Ratchet, on the other hand, stood next to them and waited his turn, knowing that Sunset would need some time before she was ready to go into the field again.

"So, what did you guys find out there?" Sunset asked, not wanting to discuss her feral state she had assumed, now that she knew what had happened at the moon base.

"Well, we bought the Tesla Claw," Starlight replied, pulling out the weapon in question before switching to the one she had found when she was by herself, "and I found the Morph-O-Ray! Its a weapon that turns enemies into chickens and was made by, you guessed it, Gadgetron... though how one of them ended up on this planet I will never know."

"We also got the coordinates for Quartu, where Drek's building large mechs to 'sell' to the general population," Ratchet added, indicating that he believed the mechs were for something else besides what the Infobot told them, "So we're going to pay Quartu a visit and see if we can't get rid of those weapons... and maybe figure out where Drek's new planet is being moved to."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Sunset asked, pulling herself onto her feet before facing her siblings, "Despite what happened at the moon base we should move on with our adventure, before Drek destroys anymore planets and ruins the lives of millions of people. We'll deal with my magic when we're sure that the galaxy is safe from harm."

"I shall start our ships and set our destination," Clank added, following Ratchet to the door before turning back to face Sunset and Starlight, "Let's go deal Drek another blow that will leave him quaking in his shoes."

Sunset smiled, because despite everything that Drek threw in their way the four of them were going to find out which planet their enemy would be replacing with his own, fight through whatever challenges he decided to put in their way, and then defeat Drek before he got away with his plans. They were confident that they were going to win this fight with Drek, and at that exact moment that was all they needed to believe as they got ready to visit a new planet.
> R/C: Quartu; Arena
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The journey to Quartu provided Starlight and Sunset, who were taking the cargo ship to the planet, with more than enough time to go over the various pages of spells that Sunset had been painstakingly gathered ever since she learned that she could use magic as well. She had made sure to copy the entirety of the Dragon Language and the various spells that she could use if she studied the material, which was why it was at the beginning of what she was starting to call her grimoire, or her book of spells. She had no idea why the Dragon Language and its associated spells interested her so much, but she decided that she would figure out the reasoning behind her interest once she and her siblings had defeated Chairman Drek.

Starlight, on the other hand, was cross referencing many of the spells and abilities that her sister had found, discovering that nearly all of them had come from Old Earth. She was amazed by the amount of content her sister was able to find, especially when she turned to a certain page that displayed the same ability Sunset had used on Gaspar. The person who used the ability had been called 'Whitebeard' by everyone across the world, which was usually followed by people saying that he was 'the strongest man in the world'. She was amazed that the man, a giant really, could cause so much damage to one island in his old age, immediately making her wonder what sort of damage Sunset could do if her own powers mimicked this Whitebeard's own.

She also spent time flipping through the various stories that Sunset had made notes to visit later on, to which she discovered some interesting abilities that her sister might want to attempt later on and created her own notes to go along with what they already had. She found several spells that caught her eye, magical missiles and devastating attacks that were developed by gathering one's own energy into a certain point, before she came across one ability that revolved around gathering energy into a blade for a few seconds before releasing it.

"Getsuga Tenshou," Starlight commented, reading the name of the ability as she played a short video regarding the attack, to which she marveled at the sheer amount of energy the user put into each swing, "Yeah, we have so got to see if this move is even possible."

"What are you looking at?" Sunset asked, putting down her Pilot's Helmet, now dent free and fully functional again, before moving to where her sister was sitting, "That's... definitely something I've never seen before."

"Do you think that either of us can pull something like that off?" Starlight asked, curious as to whether either of them had the ability to use such a powerful move on their own.

"We won't know until we reach Quartu," Sunset replied, smiling as she briefly browsed everything else her sister had found so far, "Drek is going to be in a world of hurt if we can use even a quarter of these abilities... but that doesn't mean we should stop searching. Keep looking for more powers that we might be able to use... and remember to buckle up the moment she arrive at our destination."

Starlight grinned as Sunset walked back to her station so she could resume her own studies, knowing that with every spell each of them learned the more powerful they became. Starlight knew that she had a head start over her sister, but judging by how quickly Sunset was moving through the basics she had determined that, in some former life before this one, Sunset had to have been some sort of magic user and had somehow retained a piece of her knowledge regarding magic. She was fairly confident that her sister had used magic in a previous life and that her former abilities might be surfacing once more, though Sunset seemed convinced that this was all new to her.

Starlight let out a light chuckle, because she knew that either way Chairman Drek was screwed six ways from Sunday now that there were two skilled magic users fighting against him.

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

When Ratchet and Clank landed on Quartu they powered down the ship and remained in their seats, letting the readings that Clank was working on finish while they waited for Starlight and Sunset to catch up. Ratchet had believed that he had flown to the planet at the same speed as the cargo ship, but considering that his sisters were an hour behind him he knew that he had to adjust to the speed of the new ship. Still, it gave him and Clank time to scan the area around the landing pad and see if there was anything of interest that they could use in their quest to stop Drek, without going anywhere near the mechs or the factory.

"Is there anything we can do besides wait for them to arrive?" Ratchet asked, looking outside and spotting a robot patrolling in front of the factory, to which he wondered how to get inside without raising the alarm.

"We could always take a swim through the nearby coolant system," Clank commented, causing Ratchet to look at him for a moment, "My readings indicate that there is something inside that plant that you may find interesting... and it would allow you to eat into the time you have to wait before your sisters arrive."

Ratchet looked at Clank for a moment, wondering if he was actually being serious or if he was joking, before sighing to himself and opening the ship's hatch. He leapt out of the ship and looked around the immediate area, spotting several crates that he could loot for their bolts and another Gadgetron vendor that he could restock his ammo at. He noticed the area that would take him to the factory, and the additional path that lead to what he assumed was the area that the battle mechs were being built at, before turning his attention to the coolant system that Clank had pointed out.

He had no idea what item or gadget Clank had found in his readings, but it gave him something to look for while he waited for Sunset and Starlight to arrive.

"Might as well see what we find inside that building," Ratchet said, allowing Clank to reattaching himself to his back before closing the ship's hatch.

He climbed the piping that would allow him to reach the opening that would take him inside the building, though when he reached the top and looking into the water he found three rings resting around in a circle. He also spotted what appeared to be a door of some kind, to which he assumed the three rings, when activated, would open the door and allow them to move on. He leapt into the water and submerged himself, though as he sank under the water his helmet provided the oxygen that part of it was designed to give. He also noted that Clank had some sort of modification added to his body, one he was sure that hadn't been there before, but instead of asking about it he decided to wait until they were at the end of the building.

Ratchet used Clank's new underwater pack to swim through the three rings, opening the door and allowing them to move deeper into the coolant system. The small corridor that was opened had two spider bots walking on separate walls, a beam emitting from their backs and touching the wall opposite of them. Ratchet waited for a few seconds, judging how fast the robots moved in the water, before spotting a gap between the two of them and shooting forward, using the new pack to get through the beams before they could touch him. When he leapt out of the water he found another tank that had a button in the middle of the platform, though there was electricity moving through the water.

He knew that if the electricity touched him while he was in the water that it would cut him down and fry Clank before they even knew what was happening.

"I cannot believe that we're doing this," Ratchet commented, walking to the button and pressing it, turning off the electricity and allowing him to jump into the water around him.

He swam into the open passage that rested behind the platform, dodging the three spider bots that happened to be in his way, before finding a roundabout that had three more rings. He made sure to swim through the rings and activate whatever door was in front of him, because he had no idea how long the electricity would be off and didn't want to be in the water when it activated again. The next corridor had four more spider bots moving about, giving Ratchet some difficulty before he came to an open chamber that had more of the little robots moving everywhere.

It took some work to move around the spider bots, and avoid their beams, but in the end he managed to cross the chamber and enter the next tunnel, where he had to dodge even more of the little robots. Once he reached the end of that tunnel he found a room with more of the rings, to which he immediately swam through them so that the door would be open when he came to it. As the door opened he spotted what he assumed was the end of the coolant system, so he swam straight up and leapt out of the water, landing on the platform with seconds to spare as the electricity came on as he touched the floor.

"I can't believe that we just did that," Ratchet huffed, deactivating the O2 Mask as he looked at Clank, indicating to the new pack he had equipped, "When did you get that installed?"

"The Hydropack?" Clank replied, not really sure where the new pack had come from either, "I'm... not sure. It just appeared when we went underwater the first time."

"We'll discuss this later," Ratchet said, picking up the item that Clank had seen on his readings, which appeared to be some sort of attachment that connected to his belt, "I wonder what this thing is."

"That is a Bolt Grabber," Clank answered, studying the device before Ratchet attached it to his belt, "It increases the range of which you can pick up bolts."

"Sounds useful," Ratchet commented, looting the crates that rested in the room they were standing in, before attaching Clank to his back and finding that they were near the ship.

He leapt out of the opening he was standing in and flew down to where his ship was resting, though as he started to wipe off the remainder of the water that was stuck to his fur he spotted his sister's ship preparing to land. He watched as the cargo door opened and Starlight leapt out of the ship, igniting her magical steps as she descended towards the robot that patrolled the outside of the factory. The robot, and the robotic mutts that followed him, barely had time to register what was happening when Starlight collided with them, her weapons blowing them to pieces and clearing the area for the cargo ship to land.

Ratchet smiled and threw his towel back in the ship, before crossing the pathway that he would have taken when his sisters arrived and approached the ship. His smile remained on his face when he spotted Sunset walking out of the ship, attaching her sword to her belt before locking the cargo door behind her.

"Ready to deal Chairman Drek another blow?" Ratchet asked, knowing that Starlight was excited for the fight that was coming, though he was wondering if Sunset had spent enough time resting.

"Yes, that I am," Sunset replied, though a light amber aura wrapped around her left hand for a moment, before dissipating completely seconds later, "Let's go blow those mechs to pieces."

The three of them encountered a pair of robots that were the same ones that Ratchet and Starlight had fought back on the previous planet, as if Drek was merely copying what he had found on other worlds to protect his secrets. A bolt of lightning surged past Ratchet and Starlight, colliding with one of the robots and blowing it to pieces in seconds before the remainder of the charge curved around and tore the second one apart. At first Ratchet thought that Sunset had bought the Tesla Claw and immediately turned it on their enemies, but upon looking behind him he noticed that the lightning had come from her hand and not an actual weapon.

This time Ratchet didn't say anything about her usage of magic, because he was starting to figure out that Sunset was a natural born magic user like Starlight, though the only difference was that Sunset had started much later than her sister.

They engaged their swingshots and crossed the gap, landing on the platform that would no doubt take them to the person that had created the battle mechs. On their immediate right they found a group of robotic mutts, to which Ratchet and Starlight's Blasters took them out in a matter of seconds and allowed them to move forward. The moment the robotic mutts had been taken care of two more of the electric robots popped out of their hiding place and started to fire at them, though as Starlight threw up a shield to block their attacks Ratchet fired two Devastator missiles and took them out.

They moved forward and found another group of robotic mutts waiting for them, but this time Ratchet and Starlight moved back as Sunset clapped her hands together, drawing in the air around her. Once all of the mutts had lined up Sunset released the spell she had been forming, blowing out a gust of wind that tossed all of the mutts backwards, giving her siblings time to shoot them down with their Blasters. They then round a corner and found six of the electric robots waiting for them, though as their enemies primed their weapons Ratchet and Starlight fell back to another plan as a shield sprung up in front of them. Ratchet grinned as he pulled out his Visibomb Gun, to which he loosed a missile that he steered right into the middle of their enemies and blew them all up.

As they drew closer to the building on the opposite side of where they landed their ship they encountered another group of robotic mutts, which were destroyed seconds later thanks to the Blasters. Though as Ratchet and Starlight moved into the building, and started clearing out the remaining robotic mutts they found, Sunset stood in front of what she assumed was a locked door. She was still a novice when it came to magic, but she was feeling something powerful behind the locked door, though as she pulled out her tablet to take a picture of the door she noticed how the lock looked; it appeared that there was an eight sided shaped key that would open it... something that they didn't have at the moment.

"We'll be back for whatever is in there," Sunset told herself, putting her tablet away as she rejoined her siblings, just in time to meet with the scientist behind the creation of the battle mechs.

"Hmm... was it pi over infinity or..." the scientist said to himself, as if he was completely unaware that people where standing behind him while he was staring at the device in front of him.

"Do you need help fixing that?" Ratchet asked, causing the scientist to turn to them for a moment.

"Actually, I'm trying to destroy it." the scientist replied, slamming his hand into his fist to illustrate his point, "I was contracted to re-engineer my enlarging machine to create huge, heavily armed, mechs. Had I known that Drek was behind this I never would have done it."

"Is there anything we can do?" Clank asked, causing the scientist to think for a moment before responding to them.

"Well," the scientist started, indicating to the machine while he spoke, "if you will volunteer to be enlarged, you may be able to stop those mechs long enough for me to sabotage this machine."

Clank immediately thought that it was a ridiculous idea for him to be enlarged so he could fight the battle mechs himself, as he was fairly confident that either Starlight or Sunset could take them out without him. He then recalled how much destruction Sunset alone had caused when she had entered that feral state, though he dreaded to wonder if hand to hand combat might bring that creature out again. He cast a look at Ratchet for a moment, to get his input on the matter, but all he got from the lombax was a nod, to which he sighed and entered the machine. In a matter of seconds his body expanded, becoming bulky and packed pull of missiles that would allow him to take out the battle mechs, though he was surprised by how tall he was.

Before he could say anything Starlight teleported herself and her siblings up onto his back, which told him that it was time to get underway and see to the destruction of the battle mechs.

"Clank, I have only one comment," Ratchet said, staring down at the route they had taken and spotted more enemies filling their path, "CRUSH THEM ALL!"

Clank rolled his eyes as he walked forward, his massive feet crushing whoever was unfortunate to be standing in his path while he used his massive fists to crush the barriers that were blocking his path. Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset remained where they were standing, watching out for the battle mechs that were no doubt getting ready for their arrival. Starlight held the RYNO out as they drew closer to the arena, determined to use her best weapon against any mechs that would be standing behind Clank so they could clear the arena much faster.

When Clank stepped into the arena the battle mechs entered moments later, rapidly descending into the area while he started punching at those that got close to him and his passengers. Ratchet, spotted choppers joining the fight, pulled out his Devastator and started firing missiles, taking out those that got too close so Clank didn't have to worry about them. Starlight trained her RYNO on the mechs that attacked from behind, using the massive payload to blast them back and, in some instances, completely wreck those that were unfortunate. Sunset, on the other hand, remained where she was standing, gathering magic into herself as she determined when battle mech she was going to strike down.

The opportunity presented itself when she spotted one descending towards the arena, to which she moved her hand out and a mass of lightning appeared in the air, striking the robot in rapid succession until it exploded.

Clank had to admit it, he was somewhat thankful that the three of them had been riding his back the entire time, because he had underestimated how much damage the battle mechs could take before they exploded and how much power each of them had packed. Once all of the mechs were down for the count, and he ensured their heads were smashed so the bodies didn't get back up, Clank left the arena and circled around to the machine that had enlarged him. Starlight put away the RYNO and teleported the three of them back to where the scientist was standing, allowing Clank to step back onto the machine and shrink down to his original state.

The scientist thanked them for destroying the battle mechs, and giving him the opportunity to re-calibrate the machine to work for Clank's specific design, before handing them an Infobot. It revealed a commercial that showed off one of Gadgetron's latest inventions, another one of Starlight's rejected ideas that actually made it to production, that was called the Hologuise. It was a device that would allow the user to take on the form of a robot, one that appeared to be the same model that Drek used to guard his factory, to which Ratchet commented that with the device in hand they could finally catch up to Drek and put an end to this fight.

Starlight and Sunset, on the other hand, had the feeling that Chairman Drek might be launching an attack on Gadgetron headquarters, seeing how there were some of his robots in the commercial. They wouldn't put it past the villain to take out the company that opposed his destruction of the entire galaxy, so once the Infobot had played its message the two of them were already heading back to the cargo ship. Ratchet didn't blame them for wanting to visit Kalebo III and make sure that their employer and fellow employees were safe from their enemy... though he wondered if they'd even find any of Drek's soldiers waiting for them at the headquarters for Gadgetron.

Still, the three of them were determined to show Chairman Drek that he was wrong and that money couldn't buy him everything... not to mention that destroying the entire galaxy was wrong in the first place.
> R/C: Kalebo III
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Both Starlight and Sunset hated being right most of the time, because when they followed Ratchet's ship down to Gadgetron Headquarters they spotted a large amount of Chairman Drek's ships hovering in the air above Gadgetron. It didn't take them long to guess what was happening, because many of the ships had their guns trained on the buildings below them and started firing at anything that wasn't on their side. They had joked that Drek didn't have the balls to attack Gadgetron, not with the defenses that they both contributed to building over the last few months, but seeing the Blarg launching a full scale attack against their employer and colleagues angered them. Even Ratchet, who wasn't employed with the company, was angered by the sight before them, to which he wished that either of their ships had weapons to fire back at them... which they didn't at the moment.

Clank, on the other hand, was disgusted by what his maker was doing, so much so that he wished that Sunset's feral side would emerge for an hour or two and decimate the Blarg that were attacking Gadgetron. As both ships drew closer to the planet's surface Clank's reading finished, to which he noticed something odd that he was sure he must have misread.

"Are Gadgetron's shields and cannons supposed to be turned off?" Clank asked over the intercom, wondering if either Sunset or Starlight knew the answer to the question.

"No... why do you ask?" Starlight replied, though by the tone of her voice she knew that something was up if Clank had mentioned the shields being offline.

"Because my readings indicate that both the shields and their primary cannons have been turned off," Clank replied, reviewing the scans that he was looking at, trying to figure out what was happening, "And, to make matters worse, the secondary weapons are either offline or malfunctioning."

Both Sunset and Starlight were silent for a moment, glancing at each other while they used their tablets to quickly convey a set of questions and answers to each other. A few minutes later they came to the same conclusion, one that they both agreed on because there was only one way that something, like an attack on Gadgetron Headquarters, could happen.

"The only way that this could be possible is if one of our own betrayed us," Starlight finally replied, though in her head she was already thinking back to Professor Nora and wondering if she was behind this attack, "The only people with the codes necessary to turn off the shields, not to mention the primary cannons and secondary weapons, are Sunset, myself, the Department Heads, and Mr. Gadget himself. One of the Department Heads must have betrayed us... though figuring out which one of them did so will have to wait until we're done with this invasion."

As the ships landed on the landing pad Ratchet took stock of the current situation, worried about the sheer number of enemies that were currently attacking Gadgetron, while they were unable to fight back. He knew that Drek had to be desperate to defeat them if he was attacking the manufacturer of the galaxy's weapons, all because his soldiers couldn't take out a group of combat trained civilians. With Gadgetron currently under attack he knew that there wouldn't be any new weapons for purchase, though when they exited their ships and approached the vendor he breathed a sigh of relief when he discovered that they could still restock their ammo before beginning to repel the invaders.

He also noted that the eerie eyes that Sunset had on the moon base were back, but this time she didn't appear like she was going to assume a feral position and attack their enemies... though he decided to wait and see if he was right or not. Though after a few seconds, during which both he and Starlight pulled out their weapons so they could get underway, he noticed that Sunset had yet to pull out any of her weapons.

"Time to teach Chairman Drek a lesson," Sunset commented, pulling out the hilt of her blade sword and extending the blade, her eyes barely leaving the trio of soldiers that were guarding the deactivated electric gate, to prevent her and her family from providing aid to Gadgetron.

Sunset walked forward, but as she did so Ratchet noticed that she wasn't gathering her magical energy like she had done on the previous they had visited, as if she wasn't going to use any of her spells this time. He cast a look at Starlight, wondering if she knew something about what their sister was doing, but by the look on her face it was clear that she was more focused on figuring out who was behind lowering the shields and deactivating the weapons. He gulped as he wondered what destruction his sister would rain down on their enemies before they caught up... and the damage that she would cause to the buildings themselves. He turned back to Sunset and watched as she disappeared from where she was standing, only to reappear in front of one of the soldiers as if she had been aided by a gust of wind.

She immediately struck the soldier in the chest with her sword, but before anything else happened a ripple effect occurred and the wind sliced the other two soldiers that were flying around her to pieces. As she landed on the walkway she turned towards the next section of the bridge and found some bomb spheres waiting in their way, but before she could do anything a Visibomb missile flew into the middle of them and blew all six of the to pieces. She glanced back and found that Ratchet had the gun responsible for the destruction in his hands, though she smiled and nodded as she turned to the soldiers that trained their guns on her.

Another trio of soldiers appeared in their way, though this time Sunset stopped in her tracks as her siblings used their Devastators to remove the soldiers and open the way for them to enter the building. When they walked inside the building they discovered that the way to Mr. Gadget's office was sealed off by an electric wall, one that both Sunset and Starlight knew would be hard to penetrate with their arsenal of weapons. Sunset wondered if her magic could penetrate the field, but considering everything that had already happened with her new powers she wasn't willing to risk more damage to the buildings.

"Damn it all," Starlight nearly shouted, pounding her hoof on the electric field for a moment in vain, "One of the Department Heads has to have betrayed us, because only one of them has the capabilities to activate this barrier... we'll have to go the long way around."

They turned towards the path on the right of the buildings entrance, as the left took them away from their true destination, and found a massive amount of robotic mutts waiting for them. Above them floated another one of the soldiers, but as he trained his gun on their location Sunset's sword pierced his chest and knocked him to the ground. As the mutts looked at them Ratchet moved forward and pulled out his Pyrocitor, before turning the weapon on and burning their enemies to cinders. Once the mutts had been dealt with the three of them walked into the next building, where Sunset grabbed her sword before they passed through the door.

Sunset and Starlight were expecting the testing room to be offline due to the attack, but when they were all inside the room the doors closed and trapped them inside they knew something was up. When the doors opened and the testing robots came out with their holding area they knew that something was wrong, because they weren't supposed to attack employees at all. They started throwing bombs at the three of them, to which they had to dodge for a few seconds before they pulled out their own Bomb Gloves and returned fire on the testing robots. It took them a few minutes to get rid of the endless waves of testing robots that called this testing room home, but when they finally cleared out their enemies the doors opened and allowed them to move forward.

Sunset growled as she glanced around them, her mind working as she wondered if she and Starlight were correct in their assumptions... though she also agreed that they had to wait until they were done saving Gadgetron before they could figure out who the traitor was.

"Okay, now I believe you guys," Ratchet commented, glancing around the testing room for a moment as they started walking towards the ladder that would allow them to move forward, "Someone besides Chairman Drek is trying to get rid of us."

Sunset and Starlight merely nodded their heads as they climbed the ladder, Sunset using her magic to simply leap to the top while Starlight floated herself up there as Ratchet climbed. When they reached the top they found another group of soldiers waiting for them, though as they started firing their missiles at them Sunset merely shrugged and Starlight snapped a shield to protect them. Ratchet pulled out the Visibomb and turned to a corner, using the angles to get a well place missile into the middle of their enemies and take them out without them seeing it coming.

Once they had dealt with the group of soldiers Sunset turned her attention to the small gap that they had to cross, where the electric field was also deactivated at the moment. Starlight assembled a small walkway for them to use, so that way they didn't have to waste time using their other tools and gadgets in crossing the gap. Inside the next building they found a group of eight bomb spheres, though as they activated the self destruct sequence Ratchet pulled out his Walloper and smashed through them as if they were made of paper. The three of them took a moment to gather themselves as they stood outside the second testing room that had been built around the Headquarters, just in case this one was also a trap.

When they walked in the doors slammed shut and the testing robots, this time equipped with the Walloper, poured into the room to attack them, just like the robots in the previous testing room had done. Sunset, not wanting to waste time on the robots, slammed her hands together and took a breath, before she unleashed a force of wind that pushed all of them backwards. It gave her siblings time to whip out their Devastators again and start loosing missiles, tearing into the downed robots before they even had a chance to pick themselves back up. The moment all of the robots had been dealt with, rather quickly Clank mentally added, the doors opened and they walked out of the second testing room.

They walked out onto the balcony area of the second testing room and found four robotic mutts waiting for them, but as Sunset raised her weapon to deal with them a trio of soldiers leapt out of a ship above them and started firing at her and her siblings. Starlight threw up a shield before the missiles could reach them, though she frowned at the soldiers as Ratchet readied his Devastator once more... to which she also noticed that Sunset was doing the same.

"I thought you were going to forsake weapons now that you had magic!" Starlight teased, knowing that her sister could very well change into a person who didn't need to rely on weapons, not with how potent her newfound magic actually was.

"Maybe when I've built up some endurance with my magic," Sunset replied, popping out of the shield with Ratchet and firing a barrage at the soldiers, taking them out of the sky in an instant, "I can use one really powerful spell, or five or six weaker ones, before I'm out of juice and have to resort to weapons again... and I've still got a few more weak spells I can use before that happens."

Once Starlight lowered the shield she and Sunset leapt across the small gap in front of them, landing on a platform that had four bomb spheres waiting for them. As his sisters moved to the platform Ratchet stayed behind, making a note of what his sisters had said and wondering just how much he didn't know about Sunset's newfound magical abilities. Sunset seemed to be restricting herself in terms of her magic at the moment, so she didn't faint like the last time she had used her powers, though Ratchet was still amazed what she could do with one well placed spell.

"I'll say it again, but she scares me sometimes." Clank commented, engaging the Helipack as Ratchet jumped the gap as well.

Ratchet nodded his silent agreement to Clank's statement as he approached his sisters, where they restocked their ammo before planning out their next move. They found five more of the bomb spheres waiting in front of the next deactivated barrier, to which Sunset turned to Ratchet and pointed at the Visibomb Gun he was holding. He nodded and took aim at the middle of the group of bombs, loosing the missile and sending it right into the center of the group, where it exploded and removed all of the bombs in a single instant. Once the coast was clear they engaged their Swingshots and swung over the gap, swinging into the open passageway where Ratchet landed on a rail that took him to the next platform.

Sunset and Starlight teleported to him as he engaged the robotic mutts that were running around the platform, removing them from their path before they entered the third testing room. As with the last two testing rooms this one also closed its doors and loosed the testing robots, armed with the Pyrocitors this time, before they turned their weapons on them. Ratchet had his sisters protect themselves with a shield as he loosed a few minion spheres, summoning a swarm of little minions that tore their enemies to pieces. Once the area was clear, and the doors were open again, he switched to the Visibomb again and took aim at the soldiers that were waiting on the other side of the testing room.

As he took out the soldiers with the Visibomb he got a glance at what was waiting for them, taking note of the group of bomb spheres and the robotic mutts that were walking on the walkway. He beckoned to his sisters, who took down the shield that was protecting them and ran towards the opening, where Starlight took hold of one of the robotic mutts and smashed it into the rest of them before crushing it in her magical hold. Sunset, on the other hand, pulled out her Walloper again and took care of the bomb spheres, smashing them to pieces before the three of them could safely move on. She did, however, notice that another Blarg ship had arrived and was letting off more soldiers, though this time it stayed in position and started firing at them.

She leapt back as the ship targeted her, though as she did so a group of RYNO missiles flew through the air and tore into both the ship and the three soldiers that were flying around the area, obliterating all of them in an instant.

"I was getting annoyed with them," Starlight commented, lowering the RYNO for a moment as she and Ratchet caught up with Sunset, to which Sunset raised an eyebrow at her, "What? I wanted to see if the Blarg could stand a chance against us without me using my best weapon... though I guess if I did use it we'd already be done with this invasion and be on our way back to Quartu."

"It seems like we've crushed the invasion anyway," Ratchet said, turning towards the open area that stood between them and where Mr. Gadget was supposed to be waiting, "Now then, let's get our hands on the gadget we came for and see what Chairman Drek has hiding in his factory."

Once the words left his mouth the doors on either side of them opened and more of the testing robots came out, each wielding one of the three weapons that the previous robots used against them. Ratchet sighed and threw out the remainder of his minion spheres, to which he and his sisters watched as the little minions surged out of their homes and decimated the robots that were trying to hurt them. When the smoke cleared they found that the entirety of the testing robots had been destroyed, opening the final door that would allow them to make sure that Mr. Gadget was alright.

As they walked forward the three of them had their weapons at the ready, in the off chance that one of the Blarg had taken the CEO of Gadgetron hostage or that some of them might be guarding him under Chairman Drek decided his fate. They found Mr. Gadget standing in the middle of a small chamber, though he had some tools around him as if he was trying to determine how to fix the shielding problem.

"Mr. Gadget! Its good to see that your alright," Sunset commented, putting her weapons away as her siblings did the same, while her boss turned and looked at them.

"Ah, Sunset and Starlight, I was wondering when you would arrive," Mr. Gadget said, standing up and dusting himself off as he turned to face them, "and I see that you and your brother have dealt with the invading Blarg. Good work on defending Gadgetron from Chairman Drek's assault. I have been trying to fix the defenses ever since the invasion started, but for some reason I haven't been able to repair or fix anything."

"Well then, maybe we can figure out what's happening," Starlight replied, pulling out her tablet as she started running a scan on the actual defense systems, "I assume you have some ideas as to who did this?"

"Better, I have a note of confession from the person responsible for this outrage!" Mr. Gadget stated, showing the note to Sunset while Starlight worked on the systems, "It seems that Chairman Drek bought out Professor Nora's loyalty and ordered her to deactivate our defenses, which she was pleased with doing according to that note. She assumed that the soldiers were going to destroy this compound and kill everyone that worked here, so she wanted to make sure I knew who was responsible for the attack before I died. I'll have to send the authorities after her once the defenses are back online... though I'll have to make sure that none of the other Department Heads have been corrupted by Chairman Drek as well."

"Well then, I guess we got our answer Sunset," Starlight said, sighing for a moment because she had hoped that none of her colleagues would betray them like this, "and... done. It seems all Professor Nora did was overcharge the system and corrupt the data, making it impossible for someone to repair the system if they didn't have a replacement file on hand. She should have known that I'd be able to repair the damage she caused to the system with ease, but then again she was planning on this place being decimated by the time we came to save the day."

"Its good to have our systems back online," Mr. Gadget commented, holding out three gadgets for the three of them to take, "Here, I want each of you to have your own Hologuise... so you can figure out where Chairman Drek is and end this madness beforehe does something that's not repairable."

"Like blowing up a planet?" Ratchet stated, accepting the gadget and staring at it for a moment.

"Especially like blowing up a planet." Mr. Gadget replied, waving his hands in a motion that would get them going, "Now, go figure out where your enemy is and do whatever you need to do to stop him... I, on the other hand, will focus on finding Professor Nora and bring her to justice for her crimes against Gadgetron."

Starlight nodded before she and her siblings left where Mr. Gadget was standing, who had immediately started making calls the moment he had finished telling them what they needed to do. The moment they were away from their employer they crossed the walkways in front of the building and returned to their ships, which had been completely untouched by the invasion. Clank got the pair of ships started and set their course for Planet Quartu, where they would finally figure out where Chairman Drek was going and which planet he was planning on destroying.

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

Chairman Drek cracked the tablet that he had been holding when his head scientist gave him the news that his top soldiers had failed to destroy both Gadgetron and the meddlesome 'heroes' that were quickly coming his way. He was annoyed that even his best underlings were getting slaughtered by combat trained civilians, who shouldn't have been aware of what was coming their way until it was too late. He glanced at the Deplanetizer that was following his fleet, knowing that it was the key to breaking the 'heroes' that were following him, before turning back to his head scientist.

"Send the order to the rest of my forces and have them meet me at the requested location," Drek angrily stated, to which the scientist nodded to him, "I want every soldier in my employ waiting at the planet's surface when I arrive. Those 'heroes' will be upon us soon, so I want to be sure that we give them something that they cannot overcome... and then, when they're beaten and bloody, I'll obliterate them and their pitiful planet."

He knew that he had still won in the end, but in the off chance that the rest of his army couldn't defeat the troublesome 'heroes' he had some modifications made to the suit of armor that he used whenever he went into the field. In the end he had still won this war with the lombax Ratchet, the failed warbot, the unicorn called Starlight, and the cazar named Sunset... and soon they would be a distant memory.
> R/C: Quartu; Factory
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When the pair of ships landed back on Quartu, without any resistance from the factory below them, Ratchet and his sisters climbed out of their ships and approached the vendor. Their plan was simple; they were going to engage their Hologuises, sneak into the factory and, after what they knew was going to be a long gauntlet of enemies, steal whatever information there was on what Chairman Drek was doing. As Ratchet and Starlight restocked their weapons they noticed that Sunset had her tablet up, almost in the manner as if she was reading a book of some kind. Ratchet could tell that Starlight knew what was going on, though that meant that he and Clank were both confused as to what Sunset was doing at the moment.

Clank, having no relation to Sunset, found it easy to approach the Cazar and speak his mind, if only so he and Ratchet could figure out what was going on.

"What are you doing?" Clank asked, though when he moved his head to get a better angle to read the tablet he found that Sunset seemed to be researching additional spells.

"I'm studying before we go inside the factory," Sunset replied, though she eyed a spell that used the wind to create a whirlwind that tossed enemies into the air, "I may not be able to use these spells just yet, but with some time and practice I should be able to use each of these to aid us on whatever adventure we're on in the future."

"Assuming that there's another adventure after defeating Chairman Drek," Clank commented, not understanding why Sunset wanted to go on another adventure after this one, but decided not to press the issue.

Sunset noticed that Clank didn't say anything else, but she turned her attention back to her tablet and continued reading up on the spell that she had been researching, wondering how powerful the spell could be. After a few minutes of waiting for her siblings to finish restocking their ammo she noticed them moving towards the entrance of the factory, so she shut down her tablet and followed them. They were fortunate that the robots in the factory were unaware of the fact that the one guarding the entrance were already dead, otherwise Sunset knew that they would have found more standing waiting for them.

"Well, let's see if these work like they're supposed to,"Ratchet commented, pulling out his Hologuise and activating the button, to which he noticed that his body changed to match the appearance of the robots patrolling the factory.

He looked to his right and noticed another robot standing next to him, one that had a pink band around its left arm that immediately identified that it was Starlight standing next to him. He turned his head around and stared at Sunset, who was staring down at her own Hologuise in confusion before she pressed the button again... only nothing happened to her. Starlight turned to watch Sunset try again, but when the same result happened both she and Ratchet took their guises off, to which Starlight took Sunset's Hologuise and ran a check on its systems. She was trying to figure out what was wrong with the device, because hers and Ratchet's had worked without something like this happening to them.

"I don't understand what's going on," Starlight growled in frustration, as all of her scans had found nothing wrong with Sunset's Hologuise, "According to these scans the device should work just fine, but every time you press it nothing seems to happen... almost as if something else is preventing the gadget from working."

Sunset sighed as she stared at the entrance of the factory, wondering exactly what they were going to do now that one of them was unable to use the Hologuise. Based on their scans from their last visit to Quartu, to destroy the battle mechs, the factory was large and would take some time for them to fully explore. She determined that not being able to disguise herself may actually be a blessing, because that would give her the freedom to scout ahead with her magic whenever she was able to and, in the process, plan out their attacks so that the sentries didn't know what was happening.

"Let's not worry about that right now," Sunset said, accepting her Hologuise from her sister and stashing it with the rest of her gadgets, "This does, in a way, give us the ability to scout ahead and properly plan out our attacks without the sentries discovering what we are actually up to. I can use my magic to scout ahead and bring back information that we can use to our advantage; whether that's however many enemies there might be, the patrol routes of those enemies, or whatever obstacles there might be in our way."

Ratchet and Starlight shared a look with each other, as if they were actually worried about what was doing to be in their way, before they sighed and engaged their disguises. Once their robot disguises were on again the trio approached the entrance of the factory, to which Sunset remained to the side where she wouldn't be seen by whoever was on the other side of the door. When the door opened they were greeted by a force field that was operated by a robot on the other side, to which Ratchet waved his robotic arm at the guard and watched as the field collapsed on itself.

Starlight beckoned with her hand for a second and Sunset leapt out of her hiding place, to which she threw her sword right into the robot's chest and knocked it into the wall. The three of them entered the first area as Sunset tore the robot to pieces, making as little noise as possible in case the sentries had noise detectors installed in their bodies. They waited a few seconds, to be absolutely sure that nothing was coming after them, before Sunset moved close to the area above where they were standing and looked at the guard that was walking around. She waited until the robot's back was turned before leaping up onto the platform and calling upon her magic, conjuring a trio of icy spears that she used to pin the robot to the wall.

Once she was sure that the robot was down she turned back to the area below her and beckoned for her siblings to join her, to which they disengaged their disguises and leapt up to where she was standing.

"Okay, I'll admit that this was a good plan," Ratchet remarked, noting the ruined robot that was pinned to the wall by spears made of ice for a moment, "So that's what we'll be doing throughout the entire factory?"

"Unless you'd like to try a full frontal assault on the guards." Starlight stated, a smile appearing on her face as she realized what advantage Sunset had been speaking of, "Personally, this is a much safer plan of action than attacking with brute force... and it will give Sunset some time to actually practice some of the spells she picked up."

Ratchet rolled his eyes for a moment before turning to Sunset, nodding to his sister so she could see what was ahead of them before they bothered engaging their disguises again. Sunset leapt up to the next platform for a moment, spotting a robot that currently had its back turned, but before she could do anything it started to turn around and she jumped backwards to avoid being seen. She sighed for a moment before beckoning for Ratchet to use the Visibomb Gun, to which her brother aimed at the doorway she had walked trough and loosed a missile into the passage. A few seconds later there was an explosion, to which Ratchet nodded and the three of them leapt into the passage, before they quickly crossed the path that rested before them and stopped where the robot had been.

They encountered another door, one that they all assumed had another robot standing behind another force field, so Sunset moved into position and waited for her siblings to see what was waiting for them. When the door opened, on the other hand, they found that there was no barrier preventing them from moving forward and no sentry waiting on the other side. Sunset frowned as they walked forward, but as she spotted a conveyor belt she held up a hand and stopped her siblings from moving out into the open area. She could tell that there was some sort of trap that was designed to make them leave their disguises, but she needed one other piece of information before they did anything else.

Sunset slowed her breath as she focused her magic, closing her eyes for a moment as a amber sphere of magic appeared between her and her siblings, giving her sight once more. Sunset used this 'seeing eye' and sent it along the path that they were going to have to take in a few minutes, spotting two robots that were walking around the next platform with one that was walking above them. It was definitely a trap of sorts, one that she immediately knew the answer to without having to think about it so much, though she decided to use the eye a little more and sent it flying up to the platform far above the one with the two robots. There she found a few more robots patrolling what appeared to be their way into the main area of the factory, though she had a few ideas on how to remove them.

Once she had gotten enough information on what was in front of them she severed her link to the eye and felt it shatter as if it was made of glass, where she let out a sigh as she opened her eyes and looked at her siblings.

"What was that spell?" Ratchet asked, mainly because he was constantly being surprised by every new spell that his sisters showed him, which gave him the desire to know exactly what extraordinary feats they were capable of performing.

"Its a spell called Second Sight," Sunset replied, taking a few deep breaths to regain herself, as the cost to use the spell was more than what she assumed it had been, "It gives the user the ability to scout wherever they want, such as allowing me to look at the area in front of us and see what might be waiting for us."

"That's... amazing!" Ratchet said, as he had never heard of such a spell before, though he knew that the combination of his sisters' knowledge on magic would create something greater than this.

"So, what did you find?" Starlight asked, getting back to the matter at hand before Ratchet made them forget why they were infiltrating the factory to begin with.

"There are two robots on the platform that's the next one we'll be landing on," Sunset replied, recalling everything that she had seen with the spell with ease, "and above them is another robot that's just patrolling a walkway. And above them are three more robots that are standing guard over what I assume is the entrance we're looking for. We should be able to use the Visibomb Gun a few times and easily take out the first two sentries... and then whoever else you feel like taking out before we continue walking."

Ratchet smiled as he pulled out the weapon in question, to which he moved to an angle that would allow him to position his missiles with the greatest of ease. Starlight and Sunset waited in their hideout and watched as their brother loosed three missiles in rapid succession, no doubt tearing into the three sentries that Sunset had pointed out. After a few seconds Ratchet moved the weapon in the direction of the upper level and loosed another missile, as if he was testing his luck and seeing if he could actually hit something up there. Based by the look on his face it was clear that he didn't hit anything, but the lack of an alarm meant that the sentries had no idea that someone was taking out their comrades.

"I missed the second group," Ratchet said, explaining what had happened to his sisters, "but we should be able to reach our destination without having to worry about the first one that Sunset spotted."

The three of them emerged from their hiding spot and hopped onto the conveyor belt, allowing it to take them to the small platform before they leapt onto the one that had a ladder leading up to the upper area. Starlight took one look at what was in front of them, and the falling barrels of waste that the factory was producing, before letting out a sigh and engaging her magic. A set of magical stairs appeared at the edge of the platform, winding all the way to the area that rested on the other side of where the falling barrels were. Ratchet and Sunset nodded for a second, knowing that this was meant to speed things along, before the three of them ran up the set of stairs until they reached the barrier that was blocking their way.

It was then that Ratchet and Starlight reengaged their Hologuises, assuming the form of the sentry robots and approaching the barrier that they needed to deactivate. Ratchet waved his robotic arm at the sentry that controlled the barrier, waiting a few seconds as the robot took down the obstacle that was blocking their path. The instant the barrier was down Ratchet deactivated his disguise and threw out a minion sphere, to which the four little robots ran out and tore into the sentries that were patrolling the area. Starlight, seeing her brother switch forms, did the same thing and slammed her staff into the robot that was reaching for the alarm button, breaking its arms before she dragged it into her brother's sights.

With the robots removed from the picture they approached another ladder, which was smaller than the ones they would have taken to reach this level, before they climbed to the top and found a metal door. When they approached the door it opened to reveal the end of the walkway they were on, to which they discovered that they were going to have to glide down to the next platform. Sunset held up her hand for a moment as a door opened on the platform, watching as two robots walked out of the area they had been in before turning around and headed back inside as the door closed behind them.

"So, what's the plan this time?" Ratchet asked, kneeling as he watched the robots, trying to judge if he had enough time to glide down their and put on his disguise before the robots stepped out of their hiding place.

"I'm going to throw them into the abyss below us," Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face as she realized that she could use one of her spells to great effect, "Then, once these guys are taken care of, we can move forward and see what else is waiting for us... and figure out where Chairman Drek is hiding. Starlight, I'm going to need you to teleport me into the area that the robots come out of the moment they leave it, because we're going to have on shot at this before they figure out that somethings wrong."

Starlight nodded her understanding and focused her magic on the spell that her sister requested, while Sunset merely brought her hands together and gathered her magic as she prepared her own spell. Ratchet, on the other hand, watched his sisters work their magic, knowing that there was nothing he could do at the moment to aid them in their preparations. He also knew that this day, when the two of them combined their talents for magic, had been coming the moment that Sunset discovered that she could use magic as well, though he had been expecting it to come later in their lives.

The moment the door opened again, and the robots walked outside, Starlight released her spell and Sunset disappeared for a second, only to reappear behind the pair of robots. Before the two robots could turn back around Sunset unleashed her spell, blowing out a gust of wind, identical to the one she had used previously, and knocked her targets off of the walkway, where she knew that they would be destroyed the moment they touched the ground. Once the robots were no longer in their way Sunset turned to where her siblings were standing and beckoned for them to join her, to which Ratchet descended with Clank's Helipack and Starlight with her magical stairs.

"That worked better than what I was expecting," Clank commented, having witnessed the sisters' plan before reattaching himself to Ratchet's back, "Chairman Drek has a right to fear us if this is how our plans work."

"We're not done with the factory yet," Ratchet replied, his hand resting above the Hologuise button again, "There's no telling what dangers we might have to face before we reach the end of this place."

They moved onto the conveyor belt that was resting in front of them, where Ratchet and Starlight assumed their disguises as Sunset hid behind them the entire time. There wasn't enough room for all three of them, so Sunset decided to hide behind her siblings and make sure that any sentries didn't see her until it was too late. As the door in front of them opened they discovered another sentry walking around, though this time when Ratchet took off his disguise he loosed a Devastator missile right into its chest, blasting it into the wall and tearing it to pieces. Once that robot was taken care of they quickly discarded their disguises as Sunset leapt onto the platform above them, giving her a look at what rested at the end of their tunnel before letting go.

"There are three robots on the other side of the tunnel," Sunset commented, looking at her siblings for a moment while she came up a plan that would work in their favor, "unfortunately, the walkway between us and them is separated into three pieces... two conveyor sections and a stationary one in the middle of the other two. We won't be able to use the Hologuise much here, because you'll have little time to reequip your disguises before the robots are looking this way again. What we're going to have to do is take them out from afar and then cross the walkway, so I guess its time to take out the Visibomb Gun again."

Ratchet smiled and moved to the back of the room they were in, pulling out the weapon in question and taking aim at the area that they had to eventually walk through. He loosed one of the missiles and sent it flying to the other end of the tunnel, to which he landed in the middle of the two robots that were standing near the button and tore them to pieces. Before the third sentry could really figure out what was going on, or if someone was taking out its comrades, Ratchet loosed another missile and removed it from the other side of the tunnel. Once the final sentry was taken out he lowered the Visibomb Gun and nodded his head, to which the three of them began their journey to the other side of the tunnel.

It didn't take them long to cross over the three piece walkway, which both Ratchet and Starlight admitted would have been difficult to cross with the sentries watching the passageway, but when they opened the door on the other side they found a platform above them. They immediately retreated into the room they were standing in as two robots emerged from their hiding places, telling them that there were definitely a few more enemies for them to take care of. Sunset also noticed that there was another sentry on the edge of the platform, though his back had been turned so he hadn't noticed any of them before they had retreated inside the room.

Before they could plan something Starlight opened the door once more, to which she found that the single sentry was alone, so she engaged her magic and yanked the robot off the ledge, dropping it into the abyss below them.

"That's one way to get rid of an enemy." Ratchet commented, not really sure if that was completely necessary at this point.

"Let's use the Devastator and get rid of the other two," Starlight said, pulling out her rocket launcher while her brother followed suit, leaving Sunset to watch for the enemies as they took aim at the two doors on the platform.

They waited a few seconds before the doors opened again, though the moment that the robots stepped out into the open area Sunset watched as four missiles left where they were standing. Two of those missiles tore into the robot on the left side of the platform, blowing it to pieces in seconds, while the remaining two flew into the third sentry and removed it before it knew what was happening. Once the sentries had been removed, and they were sure that there was nothing else in the immediate area, the three of them engaged their Swingshots and swung to the platform above them.

When they landed on the platform they found a switch that looked like the one that had been protecting the jet fighter on Pokitaru, though Starlight merely stared at the switch as she used her magic to force it into the floor and open the door in front of them. They quickly collected all of the bolts that were laying around the platform before regrouping at the newly opened door, where they all knew that they had to be getting closer to their target. They spotted another door in the passageway, though before they reached it Ratchet and Starlight put on their disguises and continued to walk forward. It was a good thing that they did that, because there was another barrier with a sentry resting behind it, which was disabled the instant Ratchet and Starlight waved at their enemy.

The moment the barrier was down they took off their disguises and used their hand held weapons to smash the sentry to pieces, allowing Sunset to catch up with them before they moved further into the factory. When they turned a corner they found what appeared to be the heart of the factory, as they discovered the machine that produced the robots that Chairman Drek used to fight his battles. Clank, on the other hand, immediately recognized the place where he had been created and detached from Ratchet's back as they approached the machine with the working conveyor belt.

Sunset and Starlight immediately noticed that there was some damage to the machine, so they spent a few minutes running some scans on it and fixing whatever their scans found.

"That should do it," Sunset commented, standing straight as she pressed the button that would turn the machine back online, though she wondered what information it had for them.

After a few moments a message appeared on the screen; Son.

"Mom?" Clank asked in surprise, confirming his suspicions that this was the very factory he had been created in.

You have done well. appeared on the screen seconds later, to which Ratchet and his sisters smiled a bit, both for themselves and for Clank getting recognition for what they all had done.

"I tried, Mom." Clank said, happy that his mother was pleased with what they had done so far.

There is still more to do. replaced the message that had been on the screen a second later, leaving the four of them to nod their understanding to the machine.

"I know," Clank replied, though he steeled himself for whatever information his mother might have for him and his friends.

A few seconds passed before an Infobot emerged from the conveyor belt, to which Ratchet joked that Clank now had a sister... which gave him two punches from both of his sisters. As the Infobot started its video they discovered that Chairman Drek had completed his work on his new world, which the four of them agreed looked horrible and ugly at the same time. Then he mentioned that there was one problem still in their way, to which the camera moved to the planet that Drek planned on blowing up and replacing with his own world. That was when Ratchet and his sisters discovered that the planet that was the end game of this madness was their home world, which only pissed all three of them off in the process.

They even got a look at the weapon that Drek had designed to get rid of Veldin, something that he called the Deplanetizer and hailed as the most powerful laser ever created. As the Infobot finished its message it gave Clank the coordinates for Drek's fleet, where they might be able to end everything before their enemy had everything in position.

"How... how DARE HE!" Starlight shouted, her anger flaring as the eerie mist from before returned to her eyes, though it vanished seconds later, "If he thinks that he can get away with this, without us coming and kicking his flank, then he's got another thing coming."

"Don't worry... we won't let him blow Veldin to pieces," Ratchet said, grinding his teeth for a moment, before turning to the exit chute, "Come on, let's go hit that fleet of his and see if we can't take him out quickly... or, if he's not there, then figure out where on our home world he's planning on moving that laser to."

Sunset and Starlight nodded as Clank reattached himself to Ratchet's back, before the four of them slid down the exit chute and landed at the entrance of the factory. Once they landed they immediately headed to their ships, where they climbed into either the cargo ship or the hyper ship and then prepped themselves for launch. They were going to find Chairman Drek and rip him a new one, for everything he had done to them up until this point in time and for everything he had done to everyone else across the galaxy. At that point Ratchet didn't care if Starlight used that dark magic or if Sunset went feral, because both of those were bound to help them reach Chairman Drek.

He only hoped that Drek was still on the fleet and hadn't reached Veldin yet, otherwise he was sure that they'd have to waste time scouring his fleet for the information on where he was located.

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

"Those heroes have raided your factory on Quartu," the head scientist commented, reading a report as he stood in Chairman Drek's presence, who was looking out at his new world, "Apparently they accessed one of your machines and it gave them everything it had on your plans to obliterate Veldin... they'll be here in a few hours if my calculations are correct."

"They'll be meeting their deaths soon enough," Drek replied, sighing as he looked into the mirror, glancing at the soldier that was standing behind the scientist for a moment, "You, on the other hand, have provided me with everything I could have asked for, both in regards to my planet ending weapons and the improvements to my personal battle mech. You, and you alone, know everything about my battle mech, my plans, and everything that I have gone through to reach this point, and for that you have my thanks."

"Th... thank you sir!" the scientist said, not used to being thanked for his hard work in figuring out solutions for the Chairman's problems, though he liked the appreciation anyway.

"Which is why I can't leave you alive..." Drek commented, to which the soldier behind the scientist reached forward and snapped the scientist's neck before he had a chance to respond, "Can't afford to leave anything to chance at this point in time and have you tell those 'heroes' about my plans, or my weaknesses. Now then, I have to prepare for the arrival of my 'guests'... and the destruction of their pitiful mud ball planet."
> R/C: Veldin; Orbit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet and Clank reached the fleet before Sunset and Starlight did, to which Ratchet sighed as he considered that, once this entire ordeal was over, he'd have to upgrade the cargo ship so it could keep up with his own ship. He had run a scan on the cargo ship's systems, so that he knew what systems and parts he would need to buy when it came time to upgrade the ship, which he knew would take come time to complete once they were finished with Chairman Drek. It was also time that he and his sisters actually acquired their own ships for their own personal use, though he was willing to bet that he could convince someone to let them keep the two ships they were using.

"It seems that, once again, we have an hour to spare," Clank commented, looking at his tablet as his scans ran in the background, "Maybe there's something we can do that doesn't involve waiting for your sisters."

"Like the coolant system on Quartu?" Ratchet asked, remembering his swim through the systems and finding the Bolt Grabber, "I guess if there's something like that here than it might be worth taking a look at... considering we might find something important that could aid us in stopping Drek."

Clank didn't say anything about whatever they found helping them in their quest to stop Drek, but he did agree that it might play some role in the future. Once Ratchet was ready, and received word that his sisters would be at the fleet within the next hour, he returned Clank to his back before jumping into the water around them. It was a simple matter for Ratchet to spot the three rings that would activate the door, so he swam down to them and made sure to circle through them. As he passed through the third ring he turned towards the closed and watched as it opened, allowing him to swim through the small tunnel it had before ascending to a platform.

As he pulled himself out of the water he got a look at what was in front of him, another water filled obstacle course that was filled with electricity... exactly like the one on Quartu.

"Whatever is at the end of this has to be important if Chairman Drek protects the path to the end with electricity," Ratchet commented, though for a moment he had to wonder why he was doing this, before he sighed and pressed the button that would start the countdown.

He leapt into the water in front of him and immediately submerged himself, where he engaged Clank's mysterious Hydropack and swam into the tunnel that was his path forward. As he rounded the corner he spotted what appeared to be a fan, though there were three sections of the fan that were made of what he assumed was electric energy. He decided that it would be bad if the pieces of the fan hit him, so he angled himself into position and passed through two of the electric sections of the fan. As he turned the next corner he barely missed the mine that had been waiting for him, which he assumed would only activate if he ran right into it, and managed to pass through the fan that was in front of him.

Unfortunately behind the fan was yet another one, which he managed to avoid rather easily, before he found a section of the tunnel that was filled with more of the laser spiders from Quartu's coolant system. As he moved out of the spiders way he found another fan blocking his path, to which he swam between two of the electric sections and continued toward two more fans. Ratchet groaned to himself as he carefully moved through the first fan, avoiding the blades, before he approached the final fan and moved between the electric blades. When he turned the corner he found another spinning fan that was protected by four mines, but with some luck he managed to avoid the dangers before moving into a section that had more of the spiders.

As he moved through the spider area he mentally wished that he had come of his sisters' magical abilities, one that would have allowed him to teleport to the end of this death course without having to go through it.

After the gauntlet of spiders he found two more fans blocking his path, so he carefully moved through the openings that were presented to him and made sure to dodge the spiders in his way. He then spotted three more fans in his path, so which he sighed as he carefully made his way through them, avoiding the electric blades until he was through all three of them. He encountered a pair of spiders blocking his path with yet another fan behind them, so he repeated his pattern he had been using the entire time until he was past the fan...until he found two more blocking his path.

Once he was through the fans, which he was already getting tired of, he spotted a trio of rings that he had to swim through and activate the door in front of him, though this time they were lined up for him to swim through. He wasted no time in swimming forward and activating all three of the rings, to which the door opened and he aimed for heading through it so he could end this course. He approached the open chamber in front of him, looking for anything that might stop him from reaching the end, before moving through the open door and swimming to the platform above him.

When he pulled himself out of the water, and avoiding getting shocked to death, he found what he assumed was some sort of robot resting in the middle of the room, but it made no effort to run or attack him.

"That's a Codebot," Clank commented, looking around to see what Ratchet was looking at, "they're supposed to interact with the Invinco-Vault they were created with. My scans indicate that there are no Vaults on this fleet, so it might be a good idea to take it along in case we discover where its specific Vault is located."

"Alright," Ratchet said, picking up the Codebot and stashing it with the rest of his gadgets, before turning to the left a bit and noticing a shuttle that he assumed would return him to the area he had landed his ship in, "Let's head back to our ship."

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

When the two of them returned to their ship they found that the cargo ship had caught up with them, as both Sunset and Starlight were getting ready for their assault on Chairman Drek's forces. Ratchet had expected his sisters to arrive shortly after he had finished swimming though the water tanks, as that was what had happened on Quartu, but he was pleased to find that he was wrong. They were clearly going over their scans of the entire fleet, as if they were trying to figure out where they should hit their targets and where they needed to use stealth to avoid being overrun.

Ratchet popped the lid on his ship and pulled out his towel so he could dry his fur off, though after a few seconds he threw it back inside the ship and walked up to his sisters.

"So, what's the plan this time?" Ratchet asked, as he was curious as to which route they were taking this time, "Are we going to hit them with everything we have, or are we going to play it safe and sneak through Drek's entire fleet? Or do we loose the beast from its cage and let it smash through our enemies so we can reach the end of the fleet faster?"

"I hope your seriously not considering trying to awaken that... that thing inside me," Sunset replied, referring to the feral creature she had become on the moon base as another entity, because she still found it hard to believe that was actually her, "because its not that simple at the moment."

"Why not?" Ratchet said, wondering what was stopping Sunset from beasting out, "Because the last time it happened you were overjoyed that we had finally caught up with Qwark and could finally let all your rage out on him. Chairman Drek ordered Qwark to eliminate us, so shouldn't some of your anger be directed at him as well?"

Ratchet still hadn't told either of his sisters what else he had found on Oltanis, the whole PDA being sold by their still alive enemy, but he didn't want to bring that up. As much as he liked the destructive power of Sunset's feral state, which might end this conflict much quicker, he personally didn't want to be on the receiving end when Sunset learned that Qwark was still alive. He also felt incredibly terrible for even offering the idea to the table, but the deed was done and there was no taking it back... though he only hoped that it wouldn't come back to bite them in the future.

"Its because she doesn't know how to call on that power," Starlight replied, priming her Devastator as she finished purchasing all the ammo that the three of them needed, before heading over to the teleporter with Sunset not far behind, "and besides, we've already decided that we should advance with a mix of fighting our enemies and sneaking by them. You'll get to fight some enemies and we'll be able to sneak by some of the other ones, so everyone wins in the end."

Starlight and Sunset walked into the teleporter and vanished, but before Ratchet could follow them he felt Clank wack the back of his head, to which he winced for a few seconds.

"What was that for?" Ratchet demanded, growling for a few seconds.

"For treating your older sister like she was a common animal," Clank replied, as he couldn't believe that Ratchet would stoop to wanting the feral creature back, especially after what had happened last time, "She's already rejecting what happened at the moon base and she doesn't need you to remind her that she became something different, even if it was for an hour or two. You should be helping her overcome what happened, not bringing it back up every now and then."

Ratchet remained silent for a few seconds before letting out a sigh, because he knew that he had failed as a brother for even considering that they use the creature Sunset had become.

"I'll make it up to her," Ratchet replied, priming his Devastator for a few seconds, to be sure that it was ready, before he stepped onto the pad and activated the teleporter.

When he appeared in what he assumed was the next ship he found that his sisters were waiting for him, though Starlight seemed prepared to get the raid started without him. The instant he approached the door Starlight aimed her Devastator at the middle of it, as the moment the door opened she zeroed in on the sole robot guard in the middle of the chamber and loosed a missile at it. As the robot fell to the ground in pieces the three of them moved into the chamber, to which they approached the door on the other side and prepared themselves for what might be on the other side.

Ratchet, thinking ahead for a moment, pressed the button on his Hologuise and opened the door, where they discovered a guard that was protected by another barrier. The moment Ratchet waved his hand, and barrier fell down, Starlight moved to the side and loosed a missile into the robot's chest, getting rid of the obstacle and allowing them to move forward. The next chamber had a pack of six robotic dogs sleeping on the floor, though before any of them stepped over the single laser in front of them Ratchet pulled out a minion sphere and sent it rolling across the floor. The four robots tore four of the dogs to pieces before they knew what had hit them, though as the other two woke up Starlight switched to her Blaster and shot them in the head before they could move towards her siblings.

Once they cleared the chamber of their enemies they approached the next door, with Ratchet in his disguise once more, but when they opened the door they found another teleport pad that would allow them to move to the next ship in the fleet. They quickly moved through the teleport pad and appeared on the next ship, though as they opened the door in front of them they discovered three buttons that were separated by laser beams. They quickly moved back as the doors lining the sides of the hall opened, revealing three sentry robots that walked out to their laser before returning to their rooms.

"I've got an idea," Sunset said, pointing to the button furthest from where they were standing, "Ratchet, why don't you use your Hologuise to traverse the room and stand in front of that button. Starlight, why don't you do the same thing and stand in front of the one in the middle. Once the both of you are in position I'll take out the robot closest to where we're currently standing, which is when you both should drop your disguises and do the same for your robots."

Ratchet nodded and leapt over the first laser, to which he activated his Hologuise and slowly walked towards the second button as the robots reappeared, before repeating the process and coming to a stop in front of the third button. Once he was in position Starlight moved out into the open area, quickly leaping over the lasers in her way before coming to a stop in front of her button, where she assumed her disguise as the doors opened once more. Sunset waited until the doors had closed before moving into the room, though a spark of lightning coursed around her hand as she stood in front of the door that her target was resting behind.

The moment Sunset's door opened she held her hand up at the confused sentry for a few seconds, which immediately flashed red the moment it spotted her, before she released the energy she had been gathering and tore the robot to pieces. That was followed by the sound of Devastator missiles going off, telling Sunset that her siblings had gotten rid of their targets and cleared the way forward. The three of them gathered before the next door and waited for a few seconds, to be sure that they were all ready for whatever they would find in the next chamber. When the door opened they found that there were five robotic mutts waiting around a button in the middle of the room, though that was seconds before four sentry robots walked out of their hiding places, turned around when they reached the button, and returned to their rooms.

Ratchet pulled out his Blaster and waited until the sentry robots were in their rooms, because the moment their doors closed he aimed his weapon at the heads of the mutts and took each of the five out before they knew what had happened. He then rolled a minion sphere into the chamber, to which the little robots emerged from their home the instant the sentry's doors opened and the sentries walked into the area. Their enemies barely knew what hit them as the minions tore the four of them to pieces, opening the way for Ratchet and his sisters to move forward without having to worry about more enemies at the moment. They then approached the door at the end of the room and Ratchet engaged his Hologuise, where they found another barrier and had it deactivated by the robot guarding it, before taking their target out and moving into the front of the ship.

Before they moved onward they stopped in front of the teleport pad, to which they made sure that they were ready for whatever was waiting on the next ship before crossing to the next ship in the fleet. When they appeared in the next ship they found that there was a laser grid on the floor in front of them, so they engaged their Swingshots and crossed over the lasers with ease. The moment they landed they found five more robotic mutts waiting for them, but Sunset was ready for them as she used the air around them to blast the mutts back just a bit. That gave Starlight and Ratchet plenty of time to simply bash their hand held weapons into the mutts heads, breaking them into pieces and allowing them to advance further through the ship they were in.

The next room had five more of the robotic mutts and three sentries waiting for them, but it was at that moment that Starlight decided that stealth was getting them nowhere fast and pulled out the RYNO. She pressed the lever the moment all of her targets were in the room together and took all of them out without them even being aware that enemies had entered their area of the ship.

"Isn't that a little much for the few enemies we're fighting?" Ratchet asked, wondering why his sister would waste some of the RYNO's ammunition on such a small amount of enemies.

"At the rate we're going Drek will have destroyed Veldin before we even figure out where he's placed that laser of his," Starlight fired back, hopping into the chamber and approaching the door on the other side, "I'd like to see our home survive this ordeal and not get blown to smithereens while we're taking the stealth option."

Ratchet opened the door in front of them and spotted another barrier blocking their way, but as he prepared to use the Hologuise he looked back and noticed that Sunset wasn't standing behind them anymore.

"Um... where did Susnet go?" Ratchet asked, to which Starlight merely pointed a hoof to the barrier, which made him look back at the barrier for a second.

Sunset appeared behind the sentry as if she had moved through the shadows themselves, all without her target even knowing that she was behind it. A second later lightning pierced the sentry's chest, destroying it in the process, before the barrier it had been guarding collapsed on itself and opened the way for Ratchet and Starlight to move on.

"Well then, if we're not using stealth anymore I might as well use some of my magic to get us through this quicker," Sunset commented, beckoning her siblings forward as she approached the teleport pad that the sentry had been protecting, before disappearing and heading to the next ship.

"So... what was that power then?" Ratchet asked, because he had never seen something like that, which only told him that his sisters might be scratching the surface of their potential at this point.

"We found that among the spells that Sunset wanted to learn," Starlight explained, walking forward as she moved to where her sister had been standing a moment ago, "the people of Old Earth called it the Flash Step, or Shunpo in some cases. I'm impressed that she managed to replicate the spell... though I think she might have added another spell to the mix to improve its usefulness."

Ratchet sighed and followed Starlight through the teleport pad, to which they found Sunset standing in the room that they appeared in with a frown on her face. Before they could ask what was troubling her, which Starlight knew there was something that was currently annoying her sister, Sunset beckoned them through the airlock and they stepped outside. Their platform moved around a bit before docking on another walkway, giving them the ability to discover that they were being stopped by turrets on the last ship. She then pointed at the midway point of their walkway, where Ratchet spotted a hanger that he could use to take out the turrets and allow them to move on to the last ship in the fleet.

They quickly made their way to the hanger and passed through the airlock, to which Starlight and Sunset remained near the left wall while Ratchet hopped into the ship and took off.

Ratchet flew through space and circled the ship that the turrets were on, priming his missiles as he used his guns to take out the fighters that Drek had left behind to protect his fleet. Every now and then he zeroed in on one of the turrets and took it out with a few of his missiles, before he was forced to go away from the ship and take out some of the fighters. He repeated this process seven more times, taking out a turret before he backed off and took out whoever followed his way from the fleet, to which he'd head right back in. Once all eight of the turrets had been dealt with, and the way forward was cleared, he remained in the ship for a few more minutes and took out the remainder of Drek's fighters.

He didn't want any of them to shoot at them after he returned the ship to its hanger, so he figured that it would be better to take them out first before returning to his sisters.

When Ratchet returned to the hanger the three of them walked back out the airlock and returned to the walkway that they had been forced off of, to which they resumed their walk around the exterior of the ship until they entered another airlock. They spotted a pack of robotic mutts barking at them the moment they entered the airlock, but they decided to ignore them and focused on the moving lasers that were blocking their path. They took their time in moving through the obstacles, making sure that none of them were touched by the lasers, before they approached the door on the other side of the room and walked onto a platform that turned them around.

Once they were right side up again they approached the next door in their path, to which they discovered a room that looked like the control center for the entire fleet. The three of them approached the chair in the middle of the room, each of them with their hand held weapons drawn, before they discovered that there was an Infobot sitting on the chair. The information that the robot shared with them revealed that Chairman Drek was already on the surface of Veldin, though he had apparently chosen an area that was around their house because he had been standing in front of their home when he shot the small commercial.

"We've got his location!" Ratchet said, activating the nearby teleport pad and teleporting back to where their ships had been docked, before his sisters appeared behind him, "Let's go end this."

Ratchet knew that Chairman Drek was going to be in a world of pain when the four of them caught up with him, though he couldn't help but shake the feeling that they might be walking into a trap of some kind.
> R/C: Veldin; Confrontation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It didn't take Ratchet or his sisters long to land their ships outside their house, though as Ratchet landed near the shed he had built his first ship in, and had blown up on Novalis, Starlight and Sunset landed their ship near the shed that held Sunset's hoverbike. Once the ships had landed the three of them leapt out of their ships and approached the front of their house, where Clank walked behind Ratchet the entire time. Their house was pretty much untouched, which made Starlight wonder if Drek even knew that he had stood in front of their house when he shot that commercial.

As her siblings made sure that their house was the same as they had left it, which she was sure that nothing had been moved since they were last here, Sunset pulled up her map of the region of the Kyzil Plateau and discovered that the electric fence she had repaired had been completely broken.

"And now I have another reason to hate Chairman Drek," Ratchet commented, just as he and Starlight approached Sunset, "that poster of Qwark I had is missing."

"I still don't understand why you'd want to keep it after what happened on Umbris." Clank replied, having connected himself to Ratchet's back so they could get underway with ease.

"It was a Limited Edition Captain Qwark Collectable Poster from when he first started his 'adventures'." Ratchet stated, putting some emphasis on the word adventures, now that they knew that not everything about the Captain was actually true, "I figured that I could keep the poster until I found something to trade it for, but it seems that Chairman Drek ripped it right off the wall and ruined it... such a shame too, there were only six of them left when I found that one."

"Oh for the love of..." Sunset moaned, priming her weapon as she stopped near the weapon vendor, eying the toads that had invaded the area thanks to Drek's forces, "Look, we can worry about finding one of the other posters when we've finished off Chairman Drek and stopped his planet ending schemes... though it appears that we'll have to cut through the rest of his forces to reach him."

Starlight nodded and restocked her weapons until they were all full on ammo, to which Ratchet sighed and followed suit, seeing how they had spent quite a fair amount of their arsenal against Drek's fleets. Once the three of them had their ammunition replenished they turned to the path in front of them and switched to their hand held weapons, as they had no reason to waste ammo on the toads. As the three of them removed the toads they noticed that some of the soldiers took to the air and aimed their weapons at them, though before the closest one could get a missile off Starlight loosed one of her own and took it out. Sunset took the opportunity to do the same with the soldier floating above the bridge, clearing the immediate area of enemies so they could see what was waiting in front of them.

As they reached the middle of the bridge they spotted a ship fly overhead and come to a stop nearby, to which three more soldiers appeared in their path as the ship disappeared. Sunset switched to her hand held weapon for a moment as she assaulted the toads at the end of the bridge, allowing Ratchet to pull out the Visibomb Gun and take out the soldiers from afar. Considering how many enemies were in their way, and the amount of firepower Chairman Drek had assembled to take them out, removing enemies from afar was fair game at this point. The moment the soldiers were taken care of the three of them continued forward, leaping from platform to platform as they neared the tunnel that their enemies had been dropped off in front of.

A large group of toads greeted them as they approached the small tunnel, though as they eliminated their enemies Sunset spotted another soldier at the end of the tunnel. She beckoned to the nearby cliff and then to the enemies that she assumed would be in their way on the other side of the walkway, to which her siblings nodded their understanding before they moved into position. As they split up Sunset called on her magic and formed a fireball in her right hand, to which she ducked under the soldier that was in her way and blasted him in the back, blowing him to pieces in seconds. Before she relaxed she spotted a ship move into position, aimed right at the area where her siblings were at the moment, so she pulled out her Devastator and blew the ship to pieces before it could fire any missiles.

"You guys okay?" Sunset asked, using a speech function of their helmets that she had painstakingly rebuilt, as the original Pilot's Helmet systems were all focused on controlling ships and nothing else.

"Yeah, we're fine." Starlight said through her helmet, indicating that the function worked at long last, "We weren't expecting that ship to appear at all, so I'm glad you took it out before it could fire on us."

"Can we focus on taking them out?" Ratchet cut in, though Sunset could hear the sound of him readying the next missile in his Devastator, "If we take too long Drek might decide to activate that laser of his and blow Veldin to pieces... with us along with it."

Sunset looked across the gap in front of her and spotted a tank moving around the area, though not a few seconds later a duo of Devastator missiles flew through the air and tore it to pieces. She then moved out into the open area and worked her way around the pathway, taking care of the toads that she found before she came to the area that she and Ratchet found Clank in so long ago. She also noticed that there was quite a number of enemies blocking her path, but she smiled as she threw up a shield in front of her, to which the soldiers in front of her looked confused for a moment.

Seconds later four devastator missiles entered the area in front of her, tearing the four soldiers to pieces as the tank behind them zeroed in on where Sunset was standing. Sunset, on the other hand, used that opportunity to to create a sphere made completely of wind in her left hand, so that once it was ready she lowered her shield and charged forward. The tank loosed its missiles at her as she approached it, but she used the shadows around her to avoid the missiles as she crossed over to where the tank was resting, allowing the missiles to take out the toads that had been waiting in front of the tank. The instant she reached her target she leapt onto its body and slammed the sphere into its power source, allowing the magic to tear the tank into a shower of pieces as she landed behind it.

"Impressive," Starlight said, crossing the gap with her magical steps as she and Ratchet joined their sister, "I guess that's one more spell that we can add to our growing list of spells that we can use to wreck Chairman Drek and his soldiers.... which reminds me."

Starlight turned towards the electric fence that was blocking their way, zeroed in on the ship that was floating above the fence, and tore it out of the sky with her magic, slamming it into the ground until it was completely destroyed. Once the ship was taken care of they approached the fence, where Ratchet pulled out the Trespasser and activated the interface that was waiting for them. As Ratchet took care of the fence Sunset stared at it, realizing that everything that Drek had used to build his blockade had been ripped from the fence she had created to keep the toads away. Their enemy was using what she had created against them, though she was sure that Drek had no idea that she had built the fence he had torn to pieces.

Sunset made a mental note to come back to any fence they found once they had finished off Drek, so that she could see if it was possible to rebuild the fence after what their enemy had done to it.

The instant the fence went down they spotted six toads hopping around the area, so they switched to their Blasters and shot them down so they could move on. Starlight stared at the metallic walkway in front of them and conjured a moving platform, to which the three of them climbed onto it and let it carry them to the end of the line. When they reached the top they found another Gadgetron vendor sitting nearby, but seeing how they weren't stressed for ammunition at the moment the three of them walked to the Hydrodisplacer pipe. Ratchet pulled out the gadget that they needed and inserted it into the pipe, draining the water below them and opening the way for them to move forward once again.

They spotted a button blocking their way, another one that looked like the ones on Pokitaru, so Starlight gripped it with her magic and forced it into the floor, opening the large pipe in front of them that had been sealed a moment ago. They entered the pipe and found an area that they could climb up, so they carefully climbed the ladder and leapt up to the platform above them... only to find that there were more soldiers waiting for them. As the soldiers trained their weapons on them Sunset threw up a shield in time to intercept the first volley of attacks, giving the three of them time to prepare their own weapons.

When the shield came down the three of them separated from each other, though Ratchet moved to the left of where they had been standing and loosed a Devastator missile at the soldier flying in front of him. Starlight and Sunset did the same thing, where the three of them moved forward and rained destruction on the soldiers that were currently in their path at the moment. The tank at the end of the tunnel turned towards them as they took out the rest of the enemies, but before it could fire a missile at them Starlight's horn lit up and she picked the machine up.

"Its... heavier than I was expecting it to be," Starlight moaned, as she had actually never lifted something like a tank before today, "but I do have a way to dispose of it without wasting any ammunition on it."

As she approached where the tank was waiting she spotted several soldiers dropping out of their ships and turning to face the tunnel that the three of them were leaving. She grunted as she ignited more of her magic, lifting the tank into the air for a second before she threw it at the soldiers in front of them, crushing them under the weight of the tank. Then, to be sure that neither the soldiers or the tank survived, she conjured a lightning bolt into existence and blew the tank up from afar, erasing it and whoever she had crushed. The other soldiers, distracted by Starlight tossing the tank around like a toy, failed to notice the Devastator missiles flying their way, so they were removed without even noticing that they were under attack.

They waited for a few minutes, to give Starlight some time to recharge a bit from the amount of magic she spent on the tank, before they started for the next platform. They encountered several more soldiers that had come off of another ship, which meant that none of them were even aware of what had happened before they arrived. Sunset, deciding to take a different approach this time, summoned another shield and intercepted a volley of missiles before they could touch the three of them, but this time Ratchet didn't need to be told what to do next. He pulled out the Visibomb Gun and started loosing missiles out into the open area, turning them so he could strike every enemy that was in their path... and that included the ship that had brought more soldiers into the area.

When he was sure that the coast was clear he nodded his head and switched to his Devastator, while Sunset lowered the shield and the three of them continued to march through the obstacles that Drek had put in their path.

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

"And she can throw tanks around like toys!" Drek fumed, walking around his platform as he looked at his tablet, keeping track of where the troublemakers were so he would know if he needed to suit up or not, "I guess its a good thing I planned on expecting all three of them to reach me, because at the rate their going I'm going to need my battle mech to finish them off."

He paused for a moment and looked at the mech that was floating in the air behind him, taking in the weapons that were designed to get rid of both Starlight and Sunset. He had painstakingly created this suit of armor to combat their potent magical abilities, though based on the black crystals of Batalia and the destabilization of Gaspar he was beginning to wonder if he hadn't bitten off more than he could chew. He also considered jumping into the suit before his enemies arrived and just press the button that would end this mud ball of a planet, so that way he could be rid of two birds with one stone.

He then turned back to the tablet for a moment, rewatching the scene where Starlight lifted the tank into the air and threw it like it had been a toy for her to play with... to which he sighed and turned to the battle mech.

"It cannot be helped," Drek said, not liking the idea of having to dirty his own hands in this matter, "I'll give them the true meaning of despair before I destroy this pitiful planet."

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

The three of them moved onto a platform that had only toads on it, so Ratchet moved towards the edge while Starlight and Sunset got rid of the pests that Drek had allowed to enter the area once more. There seemed to be no end to the amount of soldiers that Drek had to throw at them, or the ships that brought more in, and they were definitely running low on Devastator missiles. It was fortunate that they had more weapons to use against their enemies, because at the rate they were going they were going to have to switch at some point. To prove the point Ratchet used the last Visibomb Gun missile he had to scout the area in front of them, finding another electric fence blocking their way with more soldiers standing guard.

"Drek's definitely giving us a run for our bolts this time," Ratchet commented, turning to his sisters as he switched to the Tesla Claw, "So, how are we going to get to the end if we run out of our main weapons halfway there?"

"Okay, no more games," Starlight replied, pulling out the RYNO and jumping onto the platform above them, to which she obliterated everything in front of her with one press of the button, "At the rate we're going Drek is going to activate the Deplanetizer and blow Veldin to pieces before we even reach him. I'm going to eliminate everything that's standing in our path."

Sunset sighed as Starlight ran forward, using the powerful RYNO missiles to tear down everything and everyone that happened to be standing in their path. She and Ratchet followed their sister, swinging on the Swingshots and landing where they assumed their sister would be, only to find that she had torn the electric fence to pieces. They followed the path of destruction that was in front of them, though after a few seconds they found that Starlight was waiting behind a stone pillar, as if she was surveying the enemy in front of her before she moved in. Ratchet spotted a large amount of enemies standing between them and where he suspected that they were supposed to go next, though he knew what was coming.

Once the three of them were together again Starlight moved forward, taking down everything that dared to stand against her and her siblings, though Sunset suspected that many of their enemies were starting to clear out thanks to the power that her sister was pouring out at the moment with the RYNO. The moment the area was clear of enemies they engaged their Swingshots once more and swung across the gap in front of them, landing in another pipe that had a ladder they immediately climbed, where they got a glance at what remained in their way. Sunset stared at their enemies for a moment, counting at least another ten shuttle ships and fifty soldiers blocking their way, but she knew that it was only a matter of time until they were cleared out... either by Starlight's RYNO or a direct order from Drek.

They then entered another chamber that had a Hydrodisplacer pipe, to which Ratchet pulled out the gadget and deposited the water he had taken from the first pipe they had encountered. Once that was done they leapt into the water and submerged themselves, where they swam to the other chamber that was connected to the one they were currently in and climbed out onto the railing around them. They followed the small pipe for a moment and appeared outside the water tanks, to which they discovered a platform that they had seen on Quartu... the one that turned small robots big an vise versa.

None of them questioned how one of them showed up on Veldin, but rather they approached the machine and Clank leapt onto it, growing into his giant state so they could finally reach their target's location.

Clank smashed through all the obstacles that had been placed in his path, swinging his fists at the enemy soldiers, shuttle ships, and the walls that had been placed at what appeared to be the end of the road. Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset rode on Clank's shoulders, making sure that their friend got every enemy that tried to fight them and smashed every ship into pieces. As they broke the second wall down Sunset noticed that they were getting close to one of Chairman Drek's structures, which told her that they might have reached the location that their target had been waiting in. The instant Clank stepped into the ringed area a black battle mech, this one designed to float around and fire attacks from afar, lowered itself into the area.

What was when the four of them noticed that Chairman Drek was in control of the mech, which told them that it was time to end this game once and forever.

"Imbeciles!" Drek shouted at them, "After all the trouble you've gone through, after all the terrors you've witnessed, you're about to die right where you started. Its actually kind of... poetic... when you think about it. Don't look so surprised to see my battle mech, I knew that once you had finished off that idiot Qwark it would only be a matter of time until we fought. I had this beauty prepared for the event that you managed to survive my gauntlet of soldiers, crafted by the greatest scientist to ever grace the Blarg, but instead of me explaining how this mech works I'll just show you instead."

Clank charged forward and swung his fist at the Chairman, but Drek seemed to have been expecting that attack and moved his mech backwards, escaping through an opening in the structure around them and heading to the plateau that was closest to where they were standing at the moment. Before any of them could get prepared for the fight with Drek, and restock their ammo at the vendor that happened to be there, Sunset noticed something strange about the mech's left arm, as part of it seemed to be glowing. A few seconds later Sunset was lifting into the air, which surprised all of them because neither she nor Starlight were using magic at the moment, before she was dragged through the air by some unseen force that tugged at her bracelet.

"I could easily beat that lost Lomax and the defective war bot on my own," Drek said, staring at Sunset as she floated in front of him, "I could even beat him if he was allied with that unicorn. Two magic users, on the other hand, would have been much more difficult for me to defeat, especially when you're at least five times more powerful than your sister. My head scientist designed this addition to the mech, so that I could lock onto that pure gold bracelet that you've been wearing and drag you away from your pathetic family... all so that I could eliminate you with the greatest of ease."

Before Sunset could say anything she spotted a charge forming in the left arm of Drek's mech, though as she took into account that her siblings were directly behind her, and thus in the way of whatever Drek was planning, she decided that she could take whatever he was doing and used her magic to summon a barrier in front of her family. That was before a burst of energy erupted from the mech's left arm and barreled into her, forcing Sunset to take the full force of whatever attack he had been preparing. When the smoke cleared Drek grinned at the limb body that his mech's newest ability was holding, though by his scans he knew that there was no nanotech left in his target.

He had been expecting more of a challenge from someone as powerful as Sunset Shimmer, but it appeared that his head scientist might have gone overboard with the readings and videos in the effort to excite him.

"Worthless trash," Drek growled, tossing the still body to the ground as he turned towards the remaining enemies, who were finally getting a look at what had happened as the barrier fell, "I guess its about time that I bring an end to this pitiful world."

"Sun... Sunset?" Starlight said, engaging her magic and appearing beside her sister, but she got no response and her scans got nothing on her nanotech levels, "No... this cannot be happening... not after everything we've been through."

Drek glanced at the unicorn as she laid next to her fallen sister, merely because his scans had indicated a rise in magical energy, another item his head scientist had created for this fight, before turning to the massive robot coming his way. Then the energy in the area spiked for a moment, to which he turned back to the fallen cazar and her sister, though as he looked at them again he noticed that the pony had dark mist rolling off of her eyes. The darkness surged around the cazar's body, as if the unicorn was trying to bring back her fallen sister with some unnatural means, though Drek would have none of that as he pointed his mech's left arm their way once again. He'd obliterate both of them in an instant, so that way he could focus on taking care of the robot that was approaching him and then get to destroying this planet.

That was seconds before the darkness around Starlight was snatched from her eyes, bending around Sunset's body as the magic in the area created a storm of energy around the cazar. When the smoke cleared Drek, Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight stared at sunset in confusion, because instead of a normal cazar standing there they saw a feral fox like creature standing there, with all four of her limbs touching the ground. Sunset's body had turned pure white, her hands and feet had turned into sharpened claws designed to deal massive damage, and there was even a white mask that completely covered her face, though there were two horns attached to it. Starlight noticed that there were red markings on her sister's body, though where her heart was supposed to be there was a hole they could all see through.

The creature that Sunset had become on the moon base, even for a few hours, had returned once again, but this time it had taken on the form of a hollow, something that Starlight and Sunset had researched when they were looking for more spells to use against their enemies in the future.

"Impossible! You can't be alive!" Drek shouted, turning his entire mech towards Sunset, while he wondered how such a change could have occurred, "Just who are you? How have you taken on that form?"

The hollow raised its right hand for a moment, almost as if it was studying it for a second, before it brought it down hard on the ground in front of her, shattering the area around it as Starlight teleported to where Ratchet and Clank were. Starlight was surprised by what was happening, because both she and Sunset had been sure that the feral creature had been a once in a lifetime occurrence, but now she was being proven wrong once more. Ratchet was also shaking, as if he couldn't believe what was happening and refused to believe that their sister had been cut down in front of them.

"Did you hear what I said?" Drek shouted, his anger rising as he wondered if she should just end this before something else happened, "I want to know who I'm about to kill."

The hollow gripped the ground it was standing on and roared with all its might, releasing enough magical pressure to shake the entire plateau that it was standing on. Starlight's eyes widened as she heard the creature roar, because it sounded like a monster was actually standing before them and not their sister.

"I see that you cannot understand me," Drekc commented, holding his mech's left hand towards the hollow once more, just as energy finished gathering in it, "I will end this here and now."

The hollow leveled its head with the left arm of Drek's mech, though when an eerie red energy gathered between its horns everyone's eyes widened in surprise. Drek sweated for a moment before releasing the energy he had gathered, though as he did so the hollow did the same thing and the two energies collided and produced a massive explosion. Starlight threw up a barrier as the smoke reached her and Ratchet, though she was more surprised that the creature was able to produce a cero, something that she and Sunset had agreed that they would be impossible to replicate. Drek's mech leapt out of the smoke and instantly started moving towards the next plateau, though that was when Starlight noticed that the left arm was missing.

Impossible, Drek thought as he moved away from the ruined plateau, I was promised that this cannon would rival the power of the RYNO, but it seems that my enemies had another trump card to use against me.

Before he could reach the second plateau he noticed a flash ripple through the air before the creature appeared in front of him, gathering more energy between her horns. He growled as he moved his right arm towards the creature, knowing that the cannon in the right arm was weaker than the left one and knowing that he had no choice in the matter. The collision of the two attacks produced another explosion that decimated the second plateau, though Drek emerged from the smoke and made his way toward the Deplanetizer... though his mech was missing its other arm.

As he entered the area that the Deplanetizer was in something collided with the side of his mech and smashed him into the side of a nearby mountain, where he discovered that the creature had followed him once more. There was a massive gash on his mech's front, telling him that the creature had cut through the plated armor with nothing more than the claws that it had. The creature had ruined his mech and had forced him to start its self destruct sequence, though as he set the mech to move away from the cannon, so he could take out the creature, he prepared his own flying suit. It was equipped with a remote to activate the laser, which had been a precaution in case the mech had been heavily damaged, but he was glad to have created the suit in the end.

As the mech headed in the opposite direction of the Deplanetizer he disengaged from it, hiding behind a rock as the creature followed the suit into the distance and was consumed by the explosion. He smiled and used his suit to reach the laser, reaching for the button that would bring an end to this pitiful planet, but before his hand could touch it his entire right hand went flying over the edge as if it had been cut off. Then the creature appeared in front of him, growling as it stared at him and forced him to back up, cursing his luck that even the explosion couldn't take care of this monstrosity.

That was before the creature carved open the front of his suit, dealing a wound that he knew was to be fatal, which was followed by the creature tossing him into the side of the mountain he had hid behind to use the mech as a decoy. This time he didn't bother to move, because he knew that he was going to end up dead from the loss of blood, from the creature's own powers, or the laser that he was going to activate just to end this madness. As he reached for the button that would trigger the laser he looked up for a moment, to which he spotted another beam of energy coming his way and accepted his fate.

The hollow roared as the explosion took care of Chairman Drek, though as the smoke cleared the creature looked at the laser in front of it before staring at the planet above Veldin, as if it wondered if it could remove the planet with its own powers. After a second it moved to one end of the laser and gripped the section that it was connected to, though it used all its strength to force the laser to turn around and face upwards. It then touched a panel and opened the controls, though before it could do anything it heard the sound of something touching the floor behind it, to which it turned and looked at Starlight.

"You can stop rampaging now," Starlight told the hollow, hoping that it was relinquish control over her sister and not destroy the planet above them, though she had no way of understanding what had happened to make this even occur.

The hollow growled at her and turned its horns on her, but as it gathered energy Starlight had the feeling that it wasn't going to attack her or the others. Starlight watched as the energy turned into an orb that floated over to her, before the hollow roared once more and crashed onto the floor around it. The energy that had created the hollow seemed to expire, because the color returned to Sunset's body, her hands and feet lost their claws, the mask shattered and turned to dust, and the hole seemed to restore itself. Starlight was amazed when she saw her sister laying there, in the form she had worn before Drek attacked her, and wondered how powerful her sister's magic had to be to reverse such a wound.

She also breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that Sunset was breathing again, to which she gently deposited her sister inside Clank's giant chest until they were done with the planet looming over their heads. She then turned her attention to the sphere of energy that was floating nearby, but when she decided to scan it she found something that she wasn't expecting.

"A translocation spell," Starlight commented, staring that the laser as she figured out why the hollow had given her the energy to begin with, "Of course, that hollow somehow figured out that the only way to safely remove Drek's planet is to send the pieces back where they originally belong, hence the sphere. Clank, do you think I can hook up your gyroscopic stabilizer to the laser? With that, the power of this sphere, and the laser itself we might actually be able to safely reverse the damage that Chairman Drek has caused to the galaxy."

Clank was eager to reverse the damage that his maker had caused to the galaxy, so with a little tinkering Starlight had connected his stabilizer to the laser, safely inserted the sphere into the main power generator, and fired it up without delay. The three of them watched as the chunks of the various planets separated from each other, only to disappear in a flash of light and leave Veldin behind. Once the deed was done Starlight had Clank move away from the laser before she tore the power core out of it, which only made it explode shortly after.

"So, do you think that actually worked?" Ratchet asked, staring at the place where the planet had been resting for a few minutes.

"We'll see if we succeeded in the news tomorrow," Starlight replied, letting out a yawn as Clank walked in the direction of their house, "but we should see that Sunset is taken care of before getting some sleep... this hero work is exhausting."

Ratchet smiled as they neared their house, pleased with himself considering that the four of them had left Veldin and, despite the horrors and trials they had endured, had managed to save the galaxy from total destruction. He was sure that there would be some celebrating in the future, but at the moment he wanted to head home and get some well deserved sleep before another adventure came knocking at their door.
> Interlude: The Invico-Vault
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset was slow to wake up, as her senses seemed to be completely dormant at the moment, but despite that she managed to open her eyes a bit and get a glance at the area she was in. She could make out the form of a hospital bed and the various machines, all beeping and running their various systems, that happened to be resting around her. She also noticed that she was hooked up to many of them, which told her that something had to have happened before she and her siblings confronted Chairman Drek, but her memory was a little fuzzy at the moment. She glanced outside the room she was resting in and spotted the familiar setting of Veldin outside the hospital, which brought a smile to her face as she discovered that they had succeeded in stopping the madman.

They had saved Veldin, and countless other worlds, from being destroyed in what was likely the worst money making scheme that she had ever seen. She still reflected on how he could have terraformed a barren world into what he desired, but she knew that it would have been impossible to make Drek see what he was doing was wrong.

"I see you finally decided to wake up," a voice said, causing her to slowly turn her head to her left and spot Ratchet standing there, "Here, let's get this off of you."

She waited a few minutes while Ratchet slowly removed all of the machines from her body, though at one point she noticed a doctor had come in to try and stop him, before giving in and helping her brother. Once most of the machines were no longer attached to her, though there was one that the doctor wanted her to keep on at the moment, the doctor placed a container of water near Sunset before leaving the two of them alone.

"How... how long was I out for this time?" Sunset weakly asked, coughing a bit before drinking some of the water the doctor had left behind.

"A few days," Ratchet replied, pulling a chair over and taking a seat, before noticing that Sunset was looking for someone else that wasn't present at the moment, "The reason that Starlight's not here with me is because she got a call from Gadgetron, where they claimed that they managed to pinpoint Professor Nora's exact location... on Pokitaru if you can believe it. I guess she had a vacation house that she was planning on using to hide herself before she disappeared completely, but she should have known that our sister would have tracked her down in the end."

"Serves... her right," Sunset said, remembering that Professor Nora had been the reason the defenses at Gadgetron had been deactivated when they arrived to acquire one of the Hologuises, "What... what happened to Drek... and his planet?"

Instead of answering her right away Ratchet remained silent, as if he was thinking about what he should tell her and what he should leave until Starlight was back. The hesitation told Sunset enough about what had happened; her feral side had, somehow, escaped and went on a rampage, no doubt destroying both Drek and his planet in the process. Starlight had been convinced that her feral nature had been a one time thing, but Sunset had felt the beast residing deep within her despite what her sister said. She was sure that the beast was just another part of her, one that she was sure that would be with her until the day she died, because Sunset was certain that it represented her natural instincts.

"You turned into a hollow and slew Drek before he could destroy Veldin," another voice said, though Sunset was surprised to see Starlight walking into her room, because of what Ratchet had told her, "I have the video of what happened if you want to see how badly your alter ego beat Drek, though something tells me that you'll want to wait until you've recovered from your ordeal."

"I think I'll wait until I've been discharged from the hospital," Sunset replied, leaning her head back against the pillow for a second, wondering how such a transformation had been possible, "too much excitement might be bad for me... though its a shame that we never figured out what was behind that locked door on Quartu. I'm sure that Drek was keeping something special hidden behind that door, but all we needed was the Codebot that went to it and we could have figured out what he was hiding."

Ratchet, again, remained silent, but this time he was recalling the Codebot that he had discovered thanks to Clank suggesting that he take a swim through the fleet's water tanks. He had to wonder if that robot he had found was actually the key to the door that Sunset had mentioned, but until he knew for sure he didn't want to excite his sister. Truth be told he had no idea what door she was even talking about, though he figured that if he or Starlight ask where it was on Quartu, the location of it, then they could take a detour and see if they found anything that might point them to where Drek hid the robot that opened it up.

Or, he silently reflected, he and Starlight could see if the Codebot he had found was the one that opened the door and, if it was, then they could see if there was anything that Drek was hiding from them.

"It will be a few days until the doctor discharges you from the hospital, now that your awake." Starlight commented, pulling out her tablet and opening the map of the area of Quartu they had explored, "With Ratchet's new ship, the one we found at the moon base, we can easily return to Quartu and see if we can't find this door... and determine where the Codebot for it is located. Or we could wait until your discharged from the hospital and go there together, though it depends on what you want to do Sunset."

"Its right there, by the scientist who helped us in getting rid of those battle mechs," Sunset replied, pointing her finger at the area on the map for a second, giving her sister enough time to circle it before lowering her hand, "You'll feel something pulling you towards the door when you get close to it, because when we were there I felt some sort of energy behind that door. With Drek's minions no longer protecting the planet you guys should be able to find the door in no time... you shouldn't miss it, not when the keyhole is an eight sided object."

"Rest up while we're gone Sunset," Starlight commented, putting her tablet away as she looked at her sister, "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself by doing activities that you aren't ready for yet."

"You got me there," Sunset replied, a small smile appearing on her face as she looked at her siblings, "Remember, be careful while you explore that arena area... there's no telling what dangerous parts are still lining the ground after we trashed those mechs."

Ratchet smiled just a bit, once again confirming that no matter what happened to them his sisters would remain who they actually were and wouldn't give into what had happened to them. With Sunset bidding them farewell for the moment Ratchet and Starlight left the room so they could go find Clank, who had been running scans on the ship they had taken from the moon base so they could replicate what they found on other ships. They would need his help in getting back to Quartu, though Ratchet was sure that the little robot would enjoy some time away from his work.

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

"Explain to me why we came back to Quartu." Clank commented, reattaching himself to Ratchet's back after landing the ship in the requested destination.

Clank was fine with being interrupted from his work, as nearly everyone in the galaxy was interrupted whenever they were working, but he still didn't understand why Ratchet and Starlight wanted to go back to Quartu. Chairman Drek was defeated and every factory he had owned had been shut down after his death, including the one on this planet, so he was curious as to why they were here to begin with. From what he had heard Sunset was awake in the hospital, though instead of being by her side Ratchet and Starlight wanted to explore something that their sister had found but could not open the last time they were here.

"Think of this as Drek's Last Secret," Ratchet replied, not bothering to pause at the vendor considering that there was no need for weapons at the moment, and even if there were some enemies left he'd just let Starlight take care of them with her magic, "Sunset's sure that there is something locked behind that door, though according to her the only way to open it is with a Codebot... like the one we found on Drek's fleet."

"That doesn't explain why we had to drop everything and come straight here," Clank returned, knowing that they could have come back to the planet a few days or a week from now.

"Mr. Gadget told me that he's been talking to the new Head Scientist of the Blarg," Starlight replied, though she activated her magic and formed a bridge over the gap that they could have used their Swingshots on, but didn't want to bother with that at the moment, "Apparently the two of them are supposed to be in the middle of determining what to do with the factories that Drek used to produce his war bots, which means either their destruction or being turned over to Gadgetron for production of additional weapons. I saw the list of places that were confirmed for being torn apart in the future and this factory was on the list, so the reason that we came here now was because in a week this entire place will likely be ripped to pieces.

And don't worry Clank, I told Mr. Gadget that the machine that made you was located on this planet and he said that he'd try to have it relocated someplace else."

"I... I see the reason behind your decision now," Clank said, admitting defeat once again, something that he was becoming familiar with these days, "and it will be good to get my mother away from this place."

Ratchet held up a hand as they approached the door that Sunset had marked on Starlight's map, the one that had the eight sided lock that they had been told about. Clank jumped onto the floor and stared at the door, but while the three of them stared at it Ratchet reached into his pack and pulled out the Codebot that he had found while exploring Drek's fleet. He rotated the little robot around for a moment, to line it up with the lock that was on the door, before he gently slid it into place and, upon hearing a clicking sound, backed up. The three of them waited a few seconds before the door split in half and moved into the walls around it, opening the way for them to discover whatever Drek had been hiding.

What they found was a massive amount of crates that held a fairly large amount of bolts, which they could easily add to their accounts before they departed from Quartu. In the middle of all the crates, however, Starlight found what she suspected that Sunset had felt when they passed by the Vault the first time; a shimmering purple crystal. She couldn't feel whatever Sunset had felt, but with that one glance she could tell that the crystal had to be important for Drek to have hidden it away like this. Then, as she stared at it some more, her eyes widened as she realized exactly what she was looking at, because she knew that Sunset would want to see it as well.

She gently picked up the crystal with her magic and turned to her brother, knowing that both he and Clank would be confused as to what this crystal was.

"Sunset's going to want to see this," Starlight said, a smile appearing on her face, "she is going to freak out when she discovers what Drek was keeping in here."

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

When the three of them returned to Veldin, and entered the hospital, they found that Sunset was sitting straight up in her bed and that she was reading something on her tablet. Ratchet suspected that his sister either had another idea for an interesting gadget or she was reading a report that Gadgetron had sent her. Her ears perked up the moment the door opened, so when she spotted her siblings and Clank enter her room she powered down her tablet and set it to the side.

"Isn't it a little early to be heading back into work?" Ratchet asked, wondering if his sister was already trying to push herself after just waking up.

"I was reviewing something that Mr. Gadget had sent me," Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face as she felt something else resting in the room with them, "You found what was inside the blocked off room, didn't you?"

"Yes, and you won't believe what Drek was hiding," Starlight happily answered, pulling out the shimmering crystal and gently deposited it in front of her sister, "Trust me, I was shocked to see this sitting in that locked Vault."

Sunset stared down at the crystal for a few seconds, her eyes widening as she realized what her siblings had found inside the chamber she had pointed out. She had heard rumors of six of these crystals being discovered on some unnamed planet on the outskirts of their galaxy, but shortly after their discovery they had all disappeared. Some claimed that it had been a hoax by the person that had discovered the seemingly barren world, while others claimed that the crystals had been stolen shortly after being revealed. She had been sure that the six of them had been stolen and sold on the Black Market, never to be seen again unless the person who bought them revealed that they had them.

She never expected that she would be laying her eyes on one of the six crystals, much less even having the opportunity to hold one in her hands for a few minutes.

"One down," Starlight commented, to which both she and Sunset grinned for a few seconds, "Five to go."
> Interlude: The Interview
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	A month had passed before Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Sunset were brought to a studio for their 'Hero Interview', though it was mainly because Mr. Gadget wanted to have the best possible candidate interview the four of them. There were plenty of people he had researched that had problems all over the place, which would have made the following interview with his greatest stars impossible. Some of them even had a habit of asking the wrong questions, something that actually made his decision much easier as he could simply remove those offenders and move onto the next person in line. In the end he had decided on someone by the name of Discordious, though he insisted that he be called Discord during the course of the interview, and had arranged for Starlight and her family to appear on the Chaotic Nature for their interview.

Discord appeared to be wearing a brown suit, but every time Mr. Gadget looked at him he could have sworn that he spotted something different about the humanoid, be it small horns or a tail that disappeared moments later. He was fairly certain that Discord was actually of a race that had the ability to shift their form, with how every so often something about his body changed, though every time someone mentioned the changes to him he seemed to brush them off. There was even a pair of metal gauntlets that he wore over his hands, which either covered up what his hands actually looked like or gave him a unique look to separate himself from the other hosts that Mr. Gadget could have chosen from.

Still, to be on the safe side Mr. Gadget was also in the studio, so he could watch the interview as it took place and see if there was anything they had to edit later on.

Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight entered the studio first, though Mr. Gadget knew that Sunset was going to be running a few minutes late, because she was either running some tests on something they had found after Drek's defeat or she was practicing her magical abilities. The three that were present approached the chairs that Discord and his assistants had prepared for this event, where the host was sitting in a chair opposite of Ratchet's and Starlight's own. There was a chair designed to fit Starlight's body, as she really couldn't sit comfortably in an ordinary chair, and a fourth one that was supposed to be Sunset's, though neither Ratchet nor Starlight seemed worried that their sister wasn't there on time.

"Where is Sunset?" Clank asked, taking his seat as Ratchet and Starlight did the same, though he was the first one to express his concern for the missing member of their group.

"Running late, like we said when we left the house," Starlight replied, pulling out her tablet for a moment, checking her messages and finding nothing from her sister, "We've got five minutes before the show actually has to start, so let's hope that she arrives before its time to start... otherwise we'll have to start without her."

Ratchet didn't say anything about the fact that Sunset might be late, because he was considering everything that she had been through over the three weeks they had flown across the galaxy to stop Chairman Drek... and the transformation he, Clank, and Starlight had witnessed during the final fight. Sunset had withdrawn into herself after watching the video of her 'hollow', as Starlight deemed the creature, trashing Drek to the point that it obliterated their enemy. He could tell, without having to ask anything, that the experience had changed her personality and how she looked at life, as she had become more serious about learning control over her powers.

As he began to delve deeper into his thoughts, or tried to anyway, he heard some footsteps behind where he was sitting and turned around to find Sunset approaching them, though she was carrying a small box under one arm. Besides the box she was carrying, Ratchet noticed that his sister had changed out of the clothing she normally wore and was now wearing some sort of black robe now.

"Sorry I'm late, I was making some last minute changes to my weapon," Sunset commented, patting the sword that she always carried, but didn't go into detail as she took her seat, "So, did I miss anything?"

"No, we were just about to start." Starlight happily commented, just as the lights changed and their host got the show started, as if he had been waiting for Sunset to show up before they started.

"Welcome to Chaotic Nature!" Discord called out, standing before the crowd and holding his arms out, to which they cheered at him for a few seconds, "I'm your host Discordious, but please do call me Discord. Joining me today are the heroes that toppled the mad Chairman Drek and saved the Solana Galaxy from total destruction; Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Sunset. Or, as they have come to be known as throughout the galaxy, the Glimmer Family."

Discord moved his hand towards the four of them, to which the crowd cheered for a bit as he returned to his seat, where he had carefully prepared his notes for the actual interview.

"We've got a list of questions that people would like to have answered," Discord said, organizing his notes into their proper order before looking up at them again, "but first, I think we'll start with something simple; how does it feel to not only put a stop to Chairman Drek's plans, but also restore the planets that he had ripped sections out of and save the galaxy?"

"A little overwhelming to be honest," Ratchet admitted, glancing at Clank for a moment before returning his attention to their host, "When we first left Veldin we were trying to find Captain Qwark, so that the galaxy's greatest hero could muster whatever he needed so he could put a stop to Drek's plans. None of us thought that we would take up the torch, so to speak anyway, and take the fight to Drek... it still doesn't seem completely real though."

"I am quite proud of what we accomplished," Clank added, "My initial goal was to find transport to someone who could put a stop to Drek, but never did I imagine that I would be joining the fight myself. I'd say that the Chairman got everything that he deserved... and then something he wasn't expecting."

"It sure was exhausting work," Starlight commented, to which Sunset nodded her agreement to the statement, "though it did give me plenty of time to test the many weapons that Sunset and I developed for mass production... and one jewel that had been stolen by Drek."

"Jewel?" Discord asked, curious as to what Starlight was talking about, to which she pulled up a picture of the RYNO... as Mr. Gadget had made sure that the dangerous weapon had been left behind.

"The RYNO," Starlight replied, a smile appearing on her muzzle as she looked at the first in what could be a long line of weapons, "Stolen by a Shady Salesman, sold to Chairman Drek, produced by our enemy, and reacquired before the thief could sell it on the Black Market."

It was clear that even a picture of the mighty weapon was enough to make Discord pause, though after a few seconds he cleared his throat and the picture was put away. Discord looked at Sunset for a moment, to see if she had something that she wanted to add to what the others had said, but when he got nothing he decided that it was time to move on.

"So Ratchet, how does it feel to have two sisters that are much smarter than you are?" Discord asked, reading one of the questions he had pulled from a questionnaire he had sent out a few days before the interview.

"It pushes me to be my best and find what I'm actually capable of," Ratchet replied, not surprised that someone would want to have that answered, "Starlight might be the queen of making weapons and Sunset might be great at making gadgets, but I'm not too bad at flying ships and taking out enemies from the sky. Maybe I'll get into mechanics in the future as well... so I can fix the ships that we have and any appliances that need fixing."

"Not without my assistance," Clank added, indicating that he believed that Ratchet might need some help in the mechanic field.

"Now something for the young mare," Discord said, suddenly shifting to Starlight for a moment, "Are there any projects that you had to scrap before completing them? Or is there anything you had to take apart to add to another project?"

"Not exactly," Starlight replied, taking a moment to think through all of her inventions and see if there had been one that she had to get rid of or add to another one, "No, I don't think there are any that I had to take apart or add to another weapon."

"And how about you Sunset?" Discord said, shifting the same question to the cazar for a moment, "Same question to you."

Sunset stared at Discord for a moment, clearly thinking through all of the gadgets that she had designed and had rejected, either because they failed her expectations or the expectations of Gadgetron. There was one or two that she had in mind, though they weren't total failures because parts of them had been included on other projects her coworkers had worked on.

"There was an EMP device I developed by accident when I was working on the electric fence," Sunset finally said, to which Starlight nodded because it had wrecked one of her own weapons when they discovered it, "unfortunately it kept wrecking the fence, so I gave the information to a coworker and Gadgetron, eventually, produced the Tesla Claw."

"That raises another question," Discord said, seeing how Sunset was finished with the mention of the weapon, "How did you guys track down Professor Nora anyway?"

"Oh, that's simple." Starlight answered, "She didn't clear her work computer of all her files and, after some digging, we discovered that she had a safe house that she would be staying at for a few days before disappearing completely. We decided to arrest her and brought justice to those that she caused the death of... I'm just annoyed that she betrayed the company and joined Chairman Drek."

"And how do you feel about Gadgetron working with the Blarg?" Discord asked, knowing that this would be a touchy subject for them, as the Blarg had been enemies up until the defeat of Chairman Drek.

"They aren't terrible when you get to know them," Clank commented, knowing that it would take Starlight and Sunset longer to answer the question, "though their newest Head Scientist seems... a little bit mad."

A video popped up on the screen beside Discord, which showed the Blarg scientist in question rubbing his hands and smiling as if he had something terrible in mind. He then said something about getting back at one of his coworkers for always taking his food from the company fridge, though whatever his plan was none of them bothered to listen to. Starlight actually chuckled a bit, because she knew that the scientist didn't have the same skills that Drek had, so there was no reason to worry about him trying to destroy the galaxy like the scientist that came before him.

"Okay, we've got a few more to ask before the session is over," Discord commented, turning off the video before facing the four of them once more, "though this one is more of a curious observation that many are likely asking themselves at the moment. Sunset Shimmer, what in the world are you wearing at the moment?"

"Oh, you mean the robes?" Sunset said, earning a nod from both Discord and half of the audience in attendance, "These are shinigami robes, or rather their supposed to be. When I was researching potential powers to test, such as a interesting fire spell, I noticed that the people of Old Earth had a society of peace keepers that wore this type of armor. Under the robe I'm wearing pieces of my original suit, but this is supposed to turn from cloth to metal when someone attacks me with a handheld weapon... so I'll have to wait to test it in the future."

"I can tell that your fond of the Old Earth powers that you've discovered," Discord commented, not asking a question as he looked at Sunset, "though I have to ask; does this mean that your swearing off weapons and switching to magic full time?"

Sunset remained silent for a moment, because while she felt like a natural at magic, just like Starlight was, she had the uneasy feeling that using too much at any given time would awaken her hollow once more. At the moment she knew that she would rely on her sword, because she had designed it to be an extension of herself, but she knew that the weapon alone wouldn't last her in the long run. She was going to have to resort to guns in the future, she knew that to be true, so it made her answer much more simple once she had thought about it.

"Not for the foreseeable future," Sunset replied, crossing her arms for a moment after she laid the box in her lap, "I might be learning to use my powers at the moment, but I need much more practice before I can actually leave Starlight's weapons behind and take up the mantle of magic all by itself."

"I can see that," Discord commented, sighing before reaching the end of his list, "Okay then, one last question; many people have heard a rumor that you guys found something on Quartu, something that has been lost for some time. Tell us, is this true or are the rumors merely pulling our legs?"

"Oh, the rumors are definitely true," Sunset said, tapping the box for a moment and causing the six sides to separate for a moment, revealing the shimmering gemstone that she had brought with her, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to all of you, across the entirety of the Solana Galaxy and its planets, one of the long lost Raritanium Cores!"

The crowd gasped for a moment and held their breath, because they had heard stories about the discovery about six special pieces of raritanium that suddenly vanished. Even Mr. Gadget, who had been amazed by the feats that his shining stars were capable of in the past, was shocked by the fact that they had found one of the legendary six crystals, something that he had tried and failed to find on his own. He stared at the purple crystal as it floated there, though he was wondering where the other five crystals had been taken to... but he knew that if anyone could find them it would be his own stars.

"Raritanium... Core?" Discord asked, carefully eying the crystal while keeping his distance from it, which was kind of hard considering he was sitting in the chair at the moment.

"A special piece of raritanium that was discovered on a planet at the edge of the Solana Galaxy, by the explorer Max Apogee," Sunset replied, staring at the crystal with awe in her eyes, something that she was sure that wouldn't go away anytime in the near future, "Its said that Max Apogee exploded the edge of the galaxy, searching for planets that have yet to be explored, before he discovered a planet that he knew hadn't been documented yet. He ventured down to the surface and explored the forest that he landed on the outskirts of, taking note of how differently the forest acted than any other forest he had been in before.

The story goes that he found some sort of ancient ruin in the middle of the forest, one that happened to have six shimmering crystals that he knew were raritanium. He collected these six crystals and called them the Raritanium Cores, because he knew, from the short time he was in their presence, that they radiated with a power that was much stronger than the ordinary raritanium people were using. He left the planet behind, with the purpose of returning in the future, and handed these to some scientists so they could determine what they could use the Cores for, but when he returned to where the planet had been he found nothing.

Max Apogee hasn't been seen in some years, as if he flew into the vastness of space searching for the planet he found the Cores and simply disappeared. I don't know where the other five of these crystals are, but its only a matter of time until they're discovered and returned to where they belong... wherever Mister Apogee had intended for them to end up."

"W... well that's all the time we have for questions today," Discord said, as if the appearance of the crystal had knocked a node loose, though Sunset paid it no mind as she stored the crystal away, "Let's have a round of applause for the heroes taking some time to be here today and wish them a prosperous future... in whatever form that it takes."

Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Sunset stood up and waved to the crowd as the show officially ended, though Starlight had to wonder if the end comment meant that they had only seen the beginning of their adventures by defeating Chairman Drek... and if that was the case then what were the four of them going to have to do next.
> Commando: Transit, Aranos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Six months passed after Ratchet and his sisters appeared on the Chaotic Nature for their interview, though Clank had inquired as to why he had been included as a member of the family on the show and why he hadn't been informed about it. Starlight admitted that she actually had no idea where that had come from and determined that it was merely Discord's attempt to tell the people of Solana that a family of four had saved their galaxy. Clank truly didn't seem to mind the fact at all, though it made him curious as to how none of his friends, or family members he later reflected, could have missed the rumors that their host had mentioned.

Ratchet didn't mind the addition to the family either, though as he looked around their small home he began to wonder if it was time for them to move to a larger location. Both he, Starlight, and Sunset were all thirteen at this point, though they were all some years away from when they wanted to start dating, roughly sixteen they had all decided, so he wouldn't have to worry about that part of life just yet. He chuckled as he moved Starlight's special chair, the custom one made to fit her body, into position near his and Clank's own chairs, as they had been selected for yet another interview. This one was called 'Behind the Hero' and, from what he could gather, the four of them would be answering some simple questions about what they have been doing since their last interview.

"Think she's going to be late again?" Starlight asked, straightening her mane as she stepped out of her room, which she covered up seconds later so the film crew didn't capture anything private on accident.

"The interview won't start for another half an hour," Clank commented, sitting in his chair as he looked over a holoplan that Starlight had finished working on and had sent to Mr. Gadget, something that she had dubbed the RYNO II, "I'm sure that Sunset's busy studying the Raritanium Core that we found and likely hasn't noticed the time yet, though I am willing to bet that she'll be here in a few minutes."

Starlight still couldn't believe that they had found one of the legendary Raritanium Cores locked in a Invico-Vault on Quartu, as if Chairman Drek had been keeping it there until he had discovered the other five crystals. She was also annoyed with that fact, because she had spent a good two to three months scouring every planet they had been to during their adventure to stop Drek, but had found nothing on the whereabouts of the other crystals. Even the representatives of the planets that they hadn't visited during that time reported that they knew nothing of the five crystals, making Starlight wonder if they weren't in Solana at all and were actually on a planet that they didn't know about yet.

She also reflected on the fact that Sunset had, as of two months ago, started calling the purple crystal they had recovered by a new name, as she had taken to calling it 'Generosity', which Starlight assumed meant the opposite of Chairman Drek's greed.

"She'll be here before the start of the interview." Ratchet replied, cutting into Starlight's thoughts as she finally set her brush down on the counter, "And there, all four chairs are in place for the big event... now all we have to do is wait."

As Ratchet finally took his seat and relaxed a bit, which he knew wouldn't last too long, Starlight heard her tablet go off and found a message from Mr. Gadget. Apparently he was quite pleased with how she had constructed the second RYNO weapon, as she was now the sole person who could work on the weapons thanks to what had happened with Professor Nova half a year ago, and he promised to have the weapon fully developed in time for their next adventure... whenever that happened to be. Starlight smiled and powered off her tablet, before moving to her chair and taking a seat so she could be ready for whatever the people wanted to ask them this time.

Ten minutes passed before Sunset returned to the house, wearing the same shinigami robes that she had worn during their interview on the Chaotic Nature, though that was before Starlight noticed that she wasn't carrying the box that contained the Core.

"So, where's Generosity?" Starlight asked, using Sunset's pet name for the crystal, knowing it got her sister a little excited, "Please don't tell me you decided to lose it after all this time."

"Maker forbid that I lose something like the Core," Sunset replied, looking at her sister for a moment, only to determine that she was pulling her leg once more, "Generosity is safely locked inside the vault that I specifically created to keep it safe from harm, and any of the other missing crystals if we happen to find any of them."

"That's good to know," Starlight commented, allowing her sister to take her seat at long last, "I'm glad that the crystal is safe from those that would sell it on the Black Market and try to make a profit off of it. I assume that you have the keys or the combinations to open the vault, so that you can check on it whenever you like?"

"Of course I have the keys to open the vault," Sunset said, though she made not motion to show her sister where the items were located, because she didn't want someone to find them and steal the Core while they were busy, "but enough about that for now; we've got an interview to get through."

The four of them then spent fifteen minutes watching the camera crew move around the outside of their house, as it had been decided to do this simple interview in their home instead of at a studio, before the announcer was ready to get underway. The lights that pointed at the four of them turned on, telling them that the show was starting and that anything they had to say to each other had better wait until the end of the interview.

"Welcome back to Behind the Hero," the announcer said, clearly reading from a script as the cameras turned to the four of them, "Tonight's heroes are the family of four who recently restored peace and order to our galaxy: Ratchet, Clank, Sunset Shimmer, and Starlight Glimmer. So ladies and gentlemen, tell us about your latest adventures... though you'll have to keep it in simple terms for the viewers."

"Well, as you can imagine, we've been pretty busy." Ratchet commented, recalling everything that had happened after they had appeared on the Chaotic Nature, "After Drek's defeat there were parades, press conferences, fancy dress balls..."

"I felt a little sick after one of those," Sunset admitted, remembering when she shivered when one of the balls, the Fall Formal she recalled, had ended on them, "Don't know why though. None of us have ever been to one in our entire lives."

"There was also the Weenie Roast at Al's." Clank added, trying to keep them on track, though he suspected that something would break the train of thought eventually.

"Oh yeah, there was that." Ratchet confirmed, relaxing once more as he stared at the cameras, knowing that the exciting parts were pretty much past them at this point, "And then... things started to slow down a bit."

"There was the Grand Opening at Groovy Lube!" Starlight threw in, before a smile crossed her face for a moment, "I also got promoted to the sole developer of the RYNO weapons, in addition to producing other weapons along side them."

"I think those were... last week," Ratchet commented, though from the look on Clank's face he knew he had gotten something wrong.

"More like six months ago!" Clank replied, somewhat annoyed that Ratchet would have forgotten that Starlight's promotion had happened shortly after they had appeared on the Chaotic Nature.

"We also celebrated all of our thirteenth birthdays, considering we were tracking down Drek when they occurred." Sunset cut in, also pointing out something that Ratchet had forgotten, "We just had a simple party and called it good... there's always the following year to get presents and plan something spectacular."

"So we're still pretty busy," Ratchet explained, looking at his hand for a moment, before turning back to the cameras around them, "but in a more... domestic sense."

"Yesterday, I flushed out my radiator core," Clank pointed out, opening the cavity in the middle of his body to prove his point.

"Which is good for all of us," Ratchet said, nodding his head before leaning back in his chair to relax, "It's just... no one needs a hero right now..."

Sunset opened her mouth to add something to the conversation, so they could reach the end of the interview, but before she could say anything the four of them disappeared in a flash of light.

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

When the four of them reappeared in some unknown area, along with the chairs they had been sitting in when the light had overtaken them, they were greeted by a rather fat humanoid that had sparse hair and with what could only be described as an excessively happy expression on his face. It took both Starlight and Sunset all of ten seconds to determine that the figure before them was actually a hologram, because it was completely blue and its image seemed to shimmer as it phased into existence.

"Welcome!" the hologram happily said, looking at the four of them as they took him in.

"What the?" Ratchet demanded, though while he was taken by surprise his right hand touched the handle of his wrench, something that he always carried with him, while his sisters carefully touched their own handheld weapons.

"I'm Abercrombie Fizzwidget," the hologram continued, as if it had completely ignored what Ratchet had said, "founder of the Megacorp company in the Bogon Galaxy."

"Bogon?" Ratchet asked in confusion, turning to his sisters for a moment, knowing that one of them had to know exactly what the hologram was talking about.

"It's the next star cluster over from Solana," Sunset replied, tapping her chin in thought for a moment, "which means we're closer to the unexplored Polaris Galaxy."

"And the hypothesized center of the universe," Starlight added, as she had read some of the items that Sunset had gone through in their attempt to find the other Raritanium Cores.

"I'm sorry to incapacitate you," Abercrombie continued, causing both Starlight and Sunset to look at the hologram for a moment, "but our entire galaxy is in a very precocious situation."

"Would you like the honors, or should I do it?" Starlight asked, referring to the poor choice of words that the man was using.

Sunset shook her head, telling her sister that it wasn't worth correcting the hologram and that they should just let the person play the message so they could figure out why they were here. She didn't like the words that the man was using incorrectly, but she could guess what he actually meant and decided to let him get to the point.

"I must humbly request your sustenance on a mission of dire urgitude," the hologram said, though when it used a word that didn't exist Starlight immediately growled, "A mission of superfluous peril. A mission of unequizacle imperitude."

"Did any of you catch what he just said?" Clank asked, because he had the feeling he knew what the man had meant, but he wanted to be sure before saying anything.

"He wants us to be heroes to the people of the Bogon Galaxy," Sunset explained, sighing as she looked at the hologram, "though I'm pretty sure that there are some English professors that are rolling in their graves at the moment."

"Indubitably!" Abercrombie proclaimed, before an image of a creature appeared on the screen next to him, "A few days ago, this top secret biological experiment was stolen from our testing lavatory."

Starlight looked at the creature for a moment, though while she knew that the exterior of the creature was definitely cute she knew that looks could be deceiving. She decided to keep that to herself until there was a moment where she could express her thoughts to her siblings, though she suspected that she'd have to wait to do that.

"It was stolen by this dupliferous criminal mastermind!" Abercrombie continued, the screen shifting to reveal someone dressed up in some light armor and wearing a mask over their face, "I need you to get the experiment back."

"We'll do it!" Ratchet proclaimed, which was added to by both Starlight and Sunset nodding.

"We will?" Clank asked, as if he was shocked that Ratchet would even want to save a small experiment, but then thought better of that because of who he was living with.

"Crank I have precipitated your recalcitrance and have prepared this counter offer," Abercrombie stated, rubbing his chin as the screen started to show them a few items, "We are prepared to give you a job as the head accountant for Megacorp, plus a penthouse suite in lovely Megapolis, and our state of the art robotic masseuse."

"Deal." Clank agreed, though there were a few sparks to show that he liked the look of the masseuse he was going to be given.

"What about Starlight and Sunset?" Ratchet asked, knowing that the fat man was likely looking for him and him alone, but he had also taken his sisters as well.

"Sunshine and Starlit, I was not expecting to incapacitate either of you," the man admitted, as if the fact that the two of them were there threw off whatever he had been leading up to with Ratchet and Clank, "but I am sure that Ratchet could use the assistance. We'll need to get the three of you in superlatory shape!  While in transit to the Bogon Galaxy, you will all undergo heavy training and conditioning, including martial arts, heavy weaponry, survival skills, stealth, macrame, ballroom dance, and origami!"

"Awesome!" Ratchet exclaimed, more excited than his sisters were, though he knew that they were wicked powerful without having to go through commando training as well.

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

Two weeks passed before the three of them were ready to leave the ship that Abercrombie had beamed them up onto, where they had spent their time training in the various categories that he had assigned to them. Ratchet was now fully decked out in the commando armor that Megacorp had provided him, though while he was admiring his new armor he caught a glimpse of Starlight wearing her custom made suit of armor. Megacorp had taken the armor that they had given Ratchet and had, with come measurements from Starlight, carefully configured one of the suits until she could comfortably wear one of them.

Sunset, on the other hand, had tried to stick with the armor she had handcrafted for herself, but Megacorp had insisted that she wear the suit that they provided her. After some back and forth Sunset finally switched out of the robes she had crafted, muttering that she was missing out on the perfect opportunity to field test the armor, and slipped into the green suit of armor they had given her. Once she was ready she joined her siblings by the screen that Abercrombie spoke to them through, which was preparing to tell the three of them where the Thief had taken the experiment to.

"Your looking like a real commando now," Starlight commented, noticing their sister join them, along with the annoyed expression that disappeared moments later, "Don't worry, you'll have time to field test those robes when we're done with the task that Megacorp hired us to take care of."

Sunset nodded as the screen lit up to show them their destination, though not a few seconds later the hologram of Mr. Fizzwidget phased into existence to explain the situation.

"We've used bipolar vector regurgitation to track the thief's location to a flying base in Sector Seven." the hologram explained, earning two moans once more, "Infiltribulate the base, and retrieve the experiment."

Ratchet had been very specific about the ship that the three of them would need to have during their stay in the Bogon Galaxy, one that had four seats, in case Clank ended up joining them later, and some firepower in case they ended up taking the fight to the Thief while they were in space. The standard ship that would have been given to them was a little longer than the standard issue, easily allowing enough room for all three of them to comfortably sit down when they traveled between planets. He smiled as he looked at the ship, knowing that they would be able to track the Thief down and recover the experiment in no time.

"Sir, ready for launch," Ratchet said, throwing in a salute for their employer, which his sisters mimicked.

A few moments later, after Clank wished them luck on their mission, the three of them boarded their new ship and took off, leaving the massive ship behind and descending to the planet that the Thief was supposed to be located on. It didn't take them long to find the flying lab that their target was supposed to be located on, though as they flew into the area near it Ratchet turned their radio off so they didn't get detected by a radar. As they approached the ship he turned it on autopilot and allowed the system to get them close to the hatch that would allow them access to the ship, knowing that something would be waiting for them.

The moment the three of them were aboard the Thief's ship Ratchet allowed the ship to fall back for the moment, though as he pulled out his newest weapon, the Lancer, he knew that he could call upon it at a moment's notice. Starlight also had her weapon at the ready, but Sunset was holding the gun in her left hand while she carried her sword in her right, though Ratchet had no idea if the weapon would be effective against the enemies they were bound to find across the ship. They spotted what appeared to be an elevator in front of them and, upon finding that it was the only thing besides their entry point, they climbed onto it and took it up to the top of the shaft.

Once they reached the top they found a door that opened the moment they approached it, though as it opened to allow them to continue forward Ratchet immediately spotted some sentries hanging from the ceiling, just waiting for enemies to come near them. The three of them loosed a few shots from their Lancers, knocking the robots from where they were hanging and forcing them to land on the walkway in front of them. Sunset moved to the side and swung her arm, releasing her sword with enough force that, when it struck the robot on the fight in the chest, it knocked her target into the wall behind it. The second robot started to move towards her, but it failed to account for Ratchet and Starlight as they burned it into the ground, breaking it into pieces as they finally took care of it.

"So, everything takes longer to kill in the Bogon Galaxy than in the Solana Galaxy," Ratchet commented, watching Sunset pull out her sword before spotting the ladder that would allow them to continue, "going to have to keep reminding myself of that fact."

After they climbed the ladder, and had entered the small room it came to, they found a passage that appeared to take them near the exterior of the ship. With it being the only way they could advance the three of them moved towards it, to which two more of the spider like sentry bots descended from the ceiling and turned towards them. As they quickly took care of those two Sunset noticed that another had dropped down behind their enemies, though this one was red in color and had a flamethrower instead of saws on its arms. The instant they cleared the trio of them, and entered the next room, they found three more of the robots waiting for them, to which they promptly shot them to pieces so they could move on.

They walked out onto what appeared to be an exterior walkway, though within a few seconds of them stepping outside they found a large number of metallic spheres pour out of two holes that appeared to be spawn points for them. There were also two more of the spider robots standing on the walkway, though Ratchet decided that, with the amount of enemies standing in their way, to switch to the second weapon they had been given; the Gravity Bomb. Starlight and Sunset backed up as Ratchet pointed the weapon at the group of enemies, though the instant he discharged one of the bombs the entirety of their enemies were blown to pieces.

"Dang... that's powerful," Starlight commented, eying the weapon for a moment, wondering how powerful the other Megacorp weapons that hadn't been released were, "I guess they weren't kidding when they said they wanted the experiment back. Its almost like we're going to fight an army again, only this time we'll have much more powerful weapons in our arsenal."

Ratchet smirked as they approached the next door that was along their path, to which they found another spider bot sitting on what appeared to be another elevator. The combined power of their Lancers took the robot out within seconds, allowing them to climb onto the platform and ride it up to the next walkway it was attached to. Once the elevator stopped they found four more of the saw blade spider bots patrolling a door, to which Starlight pulled out her own Gravity Bomb and mopped the floor with the robots. The moment the robots were taken care of they approached the door, though as it opened they found the experiment locked up in a cage and sitting on a pedestal in the middle of a seemingly small chamber.

Ratchet shared a look with his sisters, as they all knew that the seemingly small chamber was merely a trap waiting to be sprung, but considering that they didn't have any other option they walked into the chamber and stayed away from the pedestal. Starlight engaged her magic and lifted the cage off of the pedestal, though the moment it was off of where it had been resting the wall opened to reveal the Thief standing with a group of spider bots. It took Starlight all of five seconds to spot the cage that the Thief was holding in his left hand, one that looked similar to the one she was levitating and forced her to discover that they had been played with a decoy.

"I see its time to update my security forces," the Thief commented, moving to the wall on his left just a bit, where the three of them noticed what appeared to be an exit of some kind, "Nice try though. Give my regards to Megacorp."

Starlight ignited her magic and slammed the exit shut before the Thief could even enter the tube, but as she did so she took another look at the Thief and noticed something odd. The Thief appeared to be floating above the floor by an inch or two, though it didn't take he long to figure out that the Thief was using a hologram on them, which meant that the experiment wasn't even on the ship to begin with. It had all been a ploy, a ruse that the Thief had used to lure them to the ship so he could escape without anyone detecting where he was heading next.

"I'd make a witty remark about something, but it would only be wasted." Ratchet said, pulling out his Lancer as the second wall in front of them opened and revealed more spider bots, "so let's just get out of here and see if we can't find a lead or two on where that Thief took the experiment... for real this time."

Starlight grinned as she loosed another Gravity Bomb at the approaching enemies, taking out the front wave and opening the way for her brother and sister to follow through. Ratchet wasted no time in shooting the robots that came close to him, making sure that they were actually dead before moving onto another target. Sunset, on the other hand, ducked and dodged the saw blades that came her way, before spinning her sword around and severing one of the robot's arms. She then removed the other arm before planting her blade in the robot's chest, though as she did so she noticed that more were coming her way and she pulled out the Lancer to provide some addition fire.

Their combined power was enough to decimate the entirety of the robots that had been assembled against them, to which they noticed that there was another exit that was on the other side of the door they had entered through. The moment the other exit was open, and they determined that there was no other way out of the chamber, they leapt into the tube and slid down to the exterior. They landed on a wing that had a large group of flamethrower spider bots, but before any of them could reach the three of them Starlight loosed a Gravity Bomb and tore all of them to pieces. Ratchet looked around and found an entrance they could use to get back inside the ship, so they climbed through the opening and approached the next elevator shaft that rested at the end of the room they were in.

When the platform lowered into position they spotted one flamethrower bot and four saw bots, though at that point Ratchet pulled out his Gravity Bomb and took the five of them out in a single instant. They rode the platform up a little bit and passed through the door that they found, though they started shooting at the spider bots that happened to be sitting on the other side. They followed the passage to another room, to which they spotted four more robots waiting for them, though as they started fighting they spotted a few spawn points on the wall as more spheres came out to fight them.

It didn't take them long to clear the room of enemies, to which they passed through the door and climbed up into the middle of the following room, though that was followed by the doors opening and more enemies coming out to fight them. The spider bots came at them in the form of a wave, but Sunset noticed that there was an opening that they could use to get off the ship and get back to their ship. She pushed several of the enemies out of their way and beckoned her siblings to follow her, though as she neared the edge she had spotted she turned around and started blasting at their enemies. She provided cover fire with Starlight as Ratchet called in their ship, though the moment it arrived they abandoned the fight and boarded their ship.

Once they were all aboard the ship Ratchet closed the hatch and they took off, where he then radioed in to Mr. Fizzwidget to inform him of the bad news. Apparently their employer didn't seem to mind the fact that they didn't recover the experiment, but he did inform them of a situation on Planet Oozla, where the Thief had been spotted. Ratchet knew that the Thief wouldn't be there when they arrived, but he knew that they would eventually catch up with their target and recover the experiment.

Their adventure in the Bogon Galaxy was only just beginning, to which he smiled as he set their course for the planet they had been told about by their employer.
> Commando: Oozla
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Planet Oozla was, according to all the maps they had access to and the various searches they did before, a planet that was covered in swamps and had a Megacorp building that was supposed to be protected by some sort of defense system. According to the video they had been given, so they could see what the Thief had done before departing from the planet, they determined that their enemy had hired a group of mercenaries by the name of Thugs-4-Less. Apparently when the Thief said that he needed to update his security forces, after Ratchet and his sisters had trashed them, that meant that he was buying some mercenaries that would be better than what he already had. One of the Thugs had been behind the shutdown of the perimeter defenses of the facility on Oozla, though judging from the lack of replies the three of them could easily determine that the place had been overrun.

When they landed their ship on the landing pad they got a decent look at what was around them, to which they immediately noticed that there were two paths for them to take. As they took note of what was around them, and the enemies that they might encounter, they also restocked their weapons, pausing to purchase the newest weapons; the Chopper and the Blitz Gun. Starlight looked at the weapons as she purchased them, carefully handling them as she determined how to use them, during which Ratchet got his own weapons as well. Sunset looked at the weapons, nodding as she looked at the scans her sister had taken on them, but made no attempt to purchase some for herself.

"So, what's the plan?" Ratchet asked, priming his new weapons as he glanced at the two paths that rested before them, "Should we separate and go down both paths, or should we stay together and clear one of them out before doing the second path?"

"We should cover more ground," Starlight replied, glancing at the path that rested to the left of where the ship had landed, "Ratchet, you and I should head to the Megacorp building and see what we can find inside. Sunset, you don't mind clearing out the other path, do you?"

"I don't mind at all," Sunset answered, knowing that it gave her a chance to test any of her spells if she so desired, though there were a few she had in mind if she found a decent enemy to use them on, "Hopefully I'll find something in the swamp that we can use to track down the Thief and recover the experiment."

Sunset then turned towards the other path and walked forward, knowing that she'd find something to deal with that will occupy her time before they had to leave the planet. Starlight watched her sister leave the landing pad, though after a few seconds  she and Ratchet turned down the path that she had picked for them. Not a few seconds later they found some sort of mutant snail creature that was definitely aggressive, as they snapped at each other with claws that were attached to them. Starlight grinned and pulled out the Lancer for a moment, to which both she and Ratchet opened fire on the mutants in an attempt to clear the path that they wanted to take.

The instant they cleared the first area of enemies they followed the path forward, though as they turned the corner they spotted a few glowing bugs that were flying in the air in front of them. It took the bugs a moment to notice that they were there, but instead of wasting ammo on them Starlight pulled out her staff and swung it through the air, smacking the bugs in the head with her weapon and disposing of them in seconds. She then spotted someone moving in the swamp ahead of them, making the motions of someone who needed assistance, but before she could engage her magic and latch onto him the person was dragged under the swamp, disappearing from their view altogether.

"That's... not normal," Ratchet commented, seeing the man get pulled under the swampy water, though he wondered what was currently swimming in the water around them.

"No, and something tells me we'll be seeing whatever pulled that man under soon." Starlight replied, holding her Blitz Gun out as she continued the path, "Keep an eye on the swamp... there's no telling what that creature is going to do before we figure out a way to take it out."

She spotted a platform sitting on top of the water, allowing them to cross to the next part of their path without having to worry about using Starlight's own magical bridge to cross the gap. The moment they touched the ground of the next rocky area another mutant leapt out to attack them, but it was accompanied by some strange red creature that looked like it liked to hop around and bite its enemies. Another mutant and a hopper joined the pair in front of them, to which Starlight heaved her weapon up and started blasting at them until they were all taken care of. As they prepared to advance onward they spotted a log that was laying on its side, though not a few seconds later Ratchet noticed another employee under attack by the hopper mutants.

He palmed a few Chopper stars as he leapt over the log, spinning his hand and throwing them at his chosen targets, to which they spun around and tore into his enemies. Despite his effort to save the Megacorp employee the red mutants gathered around him and killed him with their sheer numbers, though Ratchet growled as he switched to the Blitz Gun and blew them to pieces. There was nothing left of the poor employee, so he returned to Starlight and the two of them returned to the direction they had been heading towards.

The next walkway happened to be broken into pieces of floating stones, though before either of them could touch the first stone they watched more of the mutants pop out of the water and land on several of the stones they needed to cross. Ratchet decided not to waste time as he laid into the mutants that were blocking their way, taking advantage of the Blitz Gun's function to fire in succession with little pause to his advantage. The instant they touched the other side of the stone walkway they were assaulted by more of the red mutants, which was followed by Starlight throwing several Chopper stars of her own.

They turned the corner and found three more of the larger mutants waiting before another platform that floated on the water, though Ratchet and Starlight wasted no time in attacking them. As they felled the first of the mutants two more leapt out of the water and joined the attack, causing the two of them to frown as they focused on clearing out the enemies that were standing before them. The combination of their newest weapons actually proved to be of use, because they were able to clear the area with some well placed attacks and a few Chopper stars.

As they leapt onto the metal platform they noticed that there were two more in front of them, connecting them to the next part of the area, though they knew that they had missed the two other sections was because of the enemies that were standing in their way. As the two of them made their way across the metal platforms Starlight threw several more stars at the enemies that leapt onto the walkway, taking care of them before they were forced to stop and fight. The moment they reached the end of the metal platforms Ratchet leapt up and beckoned for Starlight to join him, to which she engaged her magical stairs and followed after him.

They then came to another area that had a host of the red mutants waiting for them, as the moment the two of them arrived the mutants stopped what they were doing and came right at them. Starlight wasted no time in pulling out the Gravity Bomb and loosed a charge at the enemies that were coming their way, blowing the small mutants to pieces and clearing the way for them to advance once more. She then changed to the Lancer and took out the flying bugs that were moving around the stones that rested at the end of the area they were standing on, allowing them to advance to another stone area that rested on the outskirts of the Megacorp building.

It was there that Starlight spotted what she assumed was the creature that had taken the employee under the water earlier, though the moment it's eye noticed them two large vine like arms erupted from the water. It was painfully clear that the creature wanted to get rid of them, so that meant that they were going to have to fight it before they could get into the actual building.

"Don't let those vines touch you!" Ratchet shouted, loosing a series of Chopper stars at the creature's eye, as he assumed that it was the only thing that they could hurt at the moment.

Starlight glanced at her brother for a moment, as if she couldn't believe that he might have thought that she didn't know the basics of fighting enemies, but as she did so she noticed one of the vines came at her. She activated her magic and threw up a shield around her, though she was surprised by the force of the attack as there was a crack in the barrier that rested around her. It was a sign that she needed to take her opponents more seriously and not play around, though it was also clear that this enemy wasn't being serious because it was hiding the majority of its body under the water around them.

The next vine that came towards her missed her, but this time Starlight engaged her magic and set the vine on fire, causing the creature to swing it around wildly and opening it to her brother's attacks. Ratchet wasted no time in using up what he had left in his Blitz Gun, targeting the eye the entire time, though when the weapon was drained he palmed more of the Chopper stars and started loosing them at his target. Starlight joined in the assault, adding her stars to the onslaught that Ratchet was performing on the creature, while also using up the entirety of what she had in her Lancer.

Eventually the creature let out a roar of pain and sunk beneath the water, though after a minute or two of waiting both Ratchet and Starlight determined that they had seen the last of the creature... for the time being.

"A shame we couldn't get rid of it," Starlight commented, almost moaning when she realized that she had used up most of the ammo in her four weapons, which was the same with her brother's weapons, "I have the feeling that the creature might wait until its recovered before doing anything else, so it should give us some time to figure out a way to track it down and, finally, defeat it."

"We'll get around to it... in the future," Ratchet replied, leaping across the stones that had risen from the water after the creature had disappeared, allowing them to finally reach their destination, "This place has definitely seen better days."

Ratchet spotted a few more of the larger mutants moving around the entrance of the building, so he pulled out the Gravity Bomb and blew them all to pieces so they could move on. They had barely taken a few steps before Starlight spotted something resting above a pedestal of some kind, which appeared to be a Megacorp gadget. Their HelpDesk, now containing several files from Megacorp, recognized the gadget as the Dynamo, something that activated certain pieces of machinery with well position switches. She passed it to Ratchet, who slipped it over his right wrist and pointing it at the switch that rested near where they were standing, activating the machine and causing a little elevator to rise.

"I'm going to admit it, but that's disappointing," Starlight said, taking the elevator with Ratchet before they approached the buildings entrance, "Seriously, I could have done that with my magic."

"And now I can do it too," Ratchet replied, not really upset with the gadget, because now he could at least keep up with his siblings when they used their magic to cross gaps and build bridges, "Come on, let's see if we can't find anything that tells us where the Thief went and then see if Sunset found anything on her end of the swamp."

When they entered the Megacorp building they spotted more of the glowing flies buzzing around their heads, though instead of wasting what little ammunition they had left they switched to their handheld weapons and bashed the bugs over their heads. As the first set of bugs was dealt with Ratchet activated the next Dynamo switch and revealed another elevator, before they activated a platform that took them over to the other side of the room. The instant they reached the other side of the room they leapt off the platform and bashed the bugs that were flying around, before Ratchet activated the next three walkways that allowed them to cross another gap.

Once they had done that they found that there were several more of the larger mutants patrolling what appeared to be an area that connected to the outside of the building. Starlight, annoyed with the fact that they were low on ammo, ignited her magic and burned the mutants that were in front of them to pieces, making sure to get all of them before they walked towards the door they had spotted. As they followed the path around the exterior of the building they leapt over another gap, this one much smaller than the other ones, before entering the building from another door.

When they reentered the building they found another gap waiting for them, but then Ratchet spotted more of the switches lining the wall on their left and started activating them. As several platforms lowered themselves the two of them quickly crossed the gap, making sure they were on the other side before the machines deactivated. Once they were on the other side they found a walkway that looked like it lead underneath the building, but they knew that they weren't prepare for whatever they might find down that path. Ratchet turned around and spotted another switch, to which he activated a moving crate section that they had to run through before they reached the other side.

As they walked into the room they found a communication screen, though as they approached the screen it snapped on and Mr. Fizzwidget appeared before them.

"Ratchet?! Come in." Mr. Fizzwidget said, though Ratchet was surprised that their employer remembered his name, as he had gotten Clank's, Sunset's, and Starlight's wrong the entire time, "Are you there?"

"Copy Mr. Fizzwidget," Ratchet replied, saluting the screen for a moment, though Starlight merely rolled her eyes as she waited to see what their employer wanted of them this time.

"Listen, I have some new inflammation on our experiment's wherewithal." Mr. Fizzwidget said, the screen changing to show a resort and than an image of a moon, "The Thief was indemnified at Megacorp's Maktar Resort. Also, the Thugs have towed a moon sized jamming array into Maktar Resort orbit."

"Should we take it out?" Ratchet asked, wondering what else there would be to do at the resort besides fighting the enemies that the Thief had hired to fight them.

"Affirmulious!" Mr. Fizzwidget replied, "Its disconfrabulating our annual Galactic Gladiators broadcast. See for yourself."

The screen changed to reveal what appeared to be an arena that was attached to the resort, where people could enter the arena and fight against the gladiators that called the place home. It revealed that there were two serious gladiators that were considered to be the best of their own divisions; Chainblade of the Bio Division and the B2 Brawler of the Robotics Division. Once the commercial was over Ratchet informed their employer that he had the coordinates, to which their connection to Mr. Fizzwidget was cut until they contacted him at a later date in the future.

"I wonder how Sunset's doing on her path," Ratchet asked, activating a elevator that they rode to where a teleportation pad was waiting for someone to use it.

"She's doing okay," Starlight commented, because she knew that, if Sunset was actually in trouble, there would be warnings going off in her helmet, as she had designed it to watch out for excessive magical spikes, "otherwise we'd be seeing, or feeling, destruction like what occurred on Gaspar when she was untrained in her magical capabilities."

Ratchet nodded, knowing that Sunset would only truly tap into her magical potential if she was truly desperate, where the both of them would have noticed if something like that had happened.





Sunset sighed as she moved along the path she had been given, finding a shattered stone walkway that had clearly been broken in the last couple of days. She spotted her enemies standing on the other side of the walkway, red mutants and larger snail like mutants, but she made no move to pull out either of her guns as she tapped the end of her sword on the ground. As teleported to the other side of the walkway and approached her enemies, swinging her sword around and allowing it to extend like a whip, slicing through the mutants like they were made of butter.

After she had been released from the hospital, after recovering from the wounds that her hollow hadn't healed when it gave her body back to her, she had delved into learning and perfecting her magical abilities. She was still far from that level, but she had modified her sword to include a whip like motion, so that with one flick of her wrist she could change it from a single blade and form a whip. The edge had been sharpened as well, as she had determined that she might face enemies that didn't fall after a single hit and might need something stronger. She had prepared for another adventure, so now that it was actually happening she was glad that she had the opportunity to see how her modifications worked out... and if they needed tweaking later on.

Once she had cleared the immediate area of enemies she moved forward, though as she turned around the corner she spotted more of the larger mutants sitting in front of a mutant that she assumed would move if she jumped on it. One of the mutants came at her and snapped its claws in her direction, but she merely stepped back just a bit and severed its claws from its body, before moving to the side and driving her sword into the creature's heart. Sunset then repeated the process with the rest of the large mutants, swiftly clearing the area and causing the swamp mutant to stare at her the entire time.

She looked at the mutant before engaging her magic, teleporting to the other side of the area she was in, to which she spotted that she would have to cross through a cavern to continue forward. Two of the larger mutants moved out of the cavern, though they swiftly fell to the same method that she had used, before she spotted a small fly like mutant that was flying around in a swarm. She sighed and gathered her magic into her for a moment, steadying herself for a few seconds, before blowing out a stream of fire and burning the swarm of bugs to ashes. Once that was taken care of she noticed that she would have to leap onto fly traps to reach the area that would allow her to leave the chamber she was in, but she merely teleported up to it and left the chamber behind.

She realized that she had come to a massive swamp area, with a large number of the ugly swamp mutants that rested in the water, but she knew that there was only one way forward. She immediately spotted the way she needed to go through and engaged her magic, teleporting over to the collapsed building that she assumed had to be the correct path. As she walked into the area she spotted at least eight of the snail mutants patrolling the area, though the moment she wanted into the ruined area they turned towards her and started snapping their claws at her.

She sighed and called on her magic once more, causing a whirlwind of energy that pushed her enemies back for a moment, giving her time to whip her sword around and take some of them out. Several of them recovered before she could touch them, so she had to sever their claws before ending their existence, which proved more difficult when the bug mutants decided to interfere. Once she was sure that she was done with the area she was in, and that there weren't anymore enemies standing in her way, she exited the ruined area and found another swamp area blocking her path.

Within a few seconds she spotted where she was supposed to go next, so she expanded some more of her magic and teleported to the base of where she needed to go. She paused for a moment before she flashed to the top of where the fly traps were supposed to lead her, to which she found a large pipe that she assumed lead to something important. She also spotted what she assumed was a platform of some kind at the end of the pipe, so she warped down to the end of the pipe and appeared before a scientist that appeared to be waiting for someone to show up, though he was carrying a gadget in his right hand.

"Welcome, welcome!" the scientist said, moving his head in all the directions around them, as if there was actually a crowd around them, "If everyone can take their seats we can proceed with today's demonstration. First, I'll need a volunteer."

Sunset decided to humor the scientist, because she was interested in seeing what his gadget was capable of doing, so she merely raised her hand and got the show on the road.

"Excellent," the scientist continued, still ignoring the fact that there wasn't a crowd around them, "Your name miss?"

"Sunset Shimmer," Sunset answered, before the scientist engaged the gadget and moved the platform she was standing on for a few seconds, before turning off his gadget and holding it up in success.

"And there you have it! The Megacorp Tractor Beam in action!" the scientist exclaimed, clearly impressed with the gadget's performance, "Let's give it up for our volunteer. Miss, how about taking advantage of our show special?"

Sunset considered the usefulness of the actual gadget, and what she and her sister were capable of performing on their own, but then decided that they might actually need the gadget in case she or Starlight ran low on magic. She gave the scientist the thousand bolts he was asking for, as she had enough in her bank account to afford several large purchases, before she collected the gadget and moved on. She could practice with the gadget if she desired, but she didn't want to waste anymore time than she already had and spotted the way she was supposed to go next. She teleported to the top of the ledge that rested above where she was currently standing and moved along the path, before she found a switch and opened the way back to the ship.

She spotted her siblings waiting by the ship, which told her that they must have moved much faster than she had, even with her jumping from place to place with her magic. They quickly shared what they had found with each other, showing the Dynamo and Tractor Beam to each other, before Ratchet made a comment about their next destination and what they needed to do there. Once they were done filling each other in they returned to their ship and set off for the Maktar Resort, where they would stop the Thugs and see if they couldn't figure out where to go from there.

Sunset had the feeling that they were going to be in for a fight when they arrived at their destination, but she was very confident in their ability to overcome whatever the Thugs could throw at them.
> Commando: Maktar Resort
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It took Ratchet and his sisters some time to reach the area in which the Maktar Resort was located, giving both Starlight and Sunset time to recover their magic and study the area surrounding the resort. They took note of what appeared to be a asteroid field of some kind, where they suspected an ambush would be placed if the Thugs were actually smarter than they actually seemed to be. While they scanned the area they would be heading towards, and the potential enemies they might fight, Starlight started making a list of everything the three of them needed to do at the moment. Besides taking out the jamming array, and having someone take part in the gladiator fight, Starlight also noted that they needed to return to Megapolis and pick up Clank.

At the same time Starlight took note of how her sister was faring, because her readings revealed that she had expanded some of her energy to clear the way through the path they had given her. She had to wonder what Sunset had done all by herself, but considering that she had been using her magic to do things much faster, before they had been brought to the Bogon Galaxy, she suspected that she had merely used her powers to get passed several obstacles that would have taken more time to clear the normal way. She almost sighed for a moment, because she had lectured her sister on the proper usage of her magic when they had started training after she had been released from the hospital, which meant that she'd have to do so again when they had time.

As they flew into the asteroid field, the only way to their destination, the ship's alarms went off for a moment, to which Ratchet started looking around the exterior of the ship.

"What's going on?" Starlight asked, looking around for whatever her brother was looking for, but at the moment she didn't see anything that was different about the area around them.

"We've got incoming enemies," Ratchet replied, flipping some switches and activating both the ship's shields and the weapon systems, something that he had trained in before they had arrived in this galaxy, "Its time to show the Thugs that we mean business... even if it means that we have to blast them into a thousand pieces."

The moment that Ratchet mentioned that the Thugs were coming at them the scanners went crazy, as at least twenty ships appeared on their radar with the intent on tearing them to pieces. He flipped a switch on the dashboard and activated the systems that would allow him to aim his missiles at whoever got caught in his crosshairs, so that way he didn't have to waste time with actually aiming and could take enemies out. One enemy came near them and started firing at them, but as Ratchet fired the blasters and tore the ship to shreds he groaned as the enemy managed to get a shot off. The shield shimmered for a second before it collapsed completely, to which Ratchet started flipping a switch to get them back on before their enemies tore into them.

"This cannot be happening," Ratchet said, panic entering his voice as he tried to get the shields back online, before turning to his sisters, "Could either of you spare a shield until we get through this mess?"

Sunset touched the side of the ship and expanded her energy, a flame colored shield forming over their ship in time to take the next few shots that were coming their way. She nodded and Ratchet engaged their enemies, loosing missiles that the ships that he knew would take longer to take out with his blasters alone and taking out the smaller ships with the main systems. Starlight used her magic to grab several of the asteroids around them and slammed them into whoever was closed to them, smashing the ships and their pilots before they could get anywhere close to the three of them.

When the twenty ships were taken care of they thought that they would be able to move on, but then seconds later the alarm went off as another twenty enemies flew into the area around them. This time the enemies managed to get more shots off on them, because Sunset was starting to sweat as her shield prevented the attacks from reaching them. Sunset noticed that, at one instant, that their enemies were planning on just rushing them all at once, after figuring out that the shield was preventing them from hitting their target. She grinned once and told Ratchet to let their enemies get close to them, but when the majority of the Thugs' ships were all around them she poured more of her magic into the shield and, in an instant, loosed a wave of fiery destruction that tore through nineteen of the twenty ships.

As Ratchet removed the final Thug ship, and then continued towards their actual destination, Starlight reflected on how tired her sister looked from keeping that shield up the entire time. She knew that it had to be draining, to keep the shield up and then convert it into a wave of destruction, but she took note that the golden bracelet seemed to be reacting to the strain in some way. She seriously wanted to know what was so special about that bracelet, because every time she thought she had figured out everything that the bracelet could do, and understood it, something else came up that changed her opinions.

It was almost as if the bracelet had a mind of its own, as if it had been crafted by a creature that existed outside the normal rules of the universe and had been given to Sunset at a young age by their parents... wherever they were at the moment.





When they finally reached their destination Starlight noticed that Sunset was still tired from their fight in the asteroid field, as the moment they started climbing out of their ship she fell to one knee and started huffing for a few seconds.

"You okay Sunset?" Ratchet asked, resting a hand on his sister's shoulder, worried that she might have overexerted herself to protect them from the ships that Thugs-4-Less had sent at them, "Should we take a break before moving forward?"

"No... I'm fine," Sunset weakly replied, pulling herself back onto her feet before looking out at the Resort itself, "We've got to take out that jamming array and get into that arena..."

"You are in no condition to be fighting in the arena," Starlight commented, shaking her head just a bit as she turned to her scans, wondering if it would be best to have her sister come along with her and have the two of them take out the array.

"Never said... that I wanted... to fight in the arena," Sunset told her sister, moving to the weapon vendor and picking up the Chopper, one of the weapons she had ignored on Oozla, before she palmed several of the stars in her right hand, "Come on Ratchet, we've got to get you to the arena so you can see what prizes their giving away."

Starlight was somewhat surprised that her sister even wanted to go near the arena, but then again she had said that she wanted to get their brother to the entrance so he could fight. Sunset was going to take it easy for the moment, which was actually a smart move considering the amount of power she had used up during the fight with the Thugs. She watched as her sister pulled her arm back and threw a trio of stars towards one of the pile of crates that was sitting before them, though that was followed by several of them exploding and one of the Thugs being ripped to shreds.

The instant the enemy was taken care of, and the three of them touched the platform he had been standing on, Ratchet and Sunset turned to the left and moved forward, leaving Starlight to head to the right side.

Within half a minute of leaving the main platform Starlight noticed what appeared to be robotic chickens of some kind, but as she made a note of them in her files she pulled out her own Chopper and loosed a few stars at them. The stars moved around and tore into her enemies, allowing her to loot the crates around her as she rapidly approached an entrance that was blocked by a large cylinder. She spotted a symbol that Sunset had pointed out when she had showed off the Tractor Beam, to which she ignited her horn and gently removed the section from where it was resting. With the deed done she gently sent the cylinder on the platform behind her and advanced into the building that would, in time, lead her to a small ship that would take her to the jamming array.

Once she was inside the building she noticed a robot, carrying clipboard and moving around as if it was late for something, before she zeroed in on a pad that she assumed that the robot interacted with. She gently moved the robot over to the pad with her magic and waited a few seconds as the door opened before her eyes, to which she let the robot go as she pushed onward. The next room had what appeared to be a bomb sitting in the middle of the room, but she took a few seconds to study the device before she turned towards the passage on the right side of the room. She noticed several more of the robotic chickens coming at her, and that included the blast door at the end of the passage, so she tore the robots to pieces with her staff as she determined what she needed to do next.

It took her all of ten seconds to figure out what the bomb was for, so she teleported it to the blast door and watched as it was blown to pieces, causing the enemy that was standing behind it to run into the passage and start firing at her. Starlight smirked as she teleported behind the Thug, because the instant she reappeared she smacked her target in the middle of his back before pulling out the Lancer and loosing a few shots until he was dead. Once the deed was done she noticed that there was what appeared to be a launch pad in the middle of the room, to which she smiled as she thought about the inspector robot that had been following her the entire time. She gently picked the robot up with her magic and set him down on where the pad would have launched him towards, opening the door that would allow her to move forward.

She teleported to where the inspector robot was standing, as it didn't want to move from the area anymore, before heading into the passage in front of her and spotting even more of the chicken robots blocking her way. As she stepped into the passage she noticed that another Thug was waiting for her at the end, beckoning her to move through the passage as if he wanted a piece of her. Starlight smiled and pulled out the Gravity Bomb, loosing a bomb at the group of chicken robots to get rid of them before appearing next to the Thug and blowing him to pieces. Once the enemy was taken care of she noticed another blast door blocking her path, along with a bomb resting in the middle of a room on her left, but this time she merely teleported to the other side of the door and continued onward.

She then exited the building she had been moving through and spotted the ship she had spotted when she had entered the building, though it was still protected by the barrier that she had seen. She also noticed another launch pad that had another bomb resting in the middle of an electric field, to which she assumed that she had to take out the four ships that were powering the barrier. She smiled as she tore the bomb from where it was floating and set it sailing into one of the small ships, blowing it to pieces and decreasing the strength of the barrier. She then repeated that three more times, sending the bombs that spawned to remove the rest of the ships and take down the shield that was preventing her from getting into the ship.

Once she had brought the barrier down, and the walkway behind the ship was restored, she trotted into the limo shaped ship and closed the door behind her, so she could ride to the jamming array and take it out. It didn't take the ship very long to reach her destination, as it had been moved into the Resort's orbit, but when she arrived she engaged her mask and stepped outside so she could get to work.

The instant she stepped out of the ship she spotted what appeared to be one of the power generators for the array, which was protected by the chicken robots, so she used her staff to make quick work of her enemies before turning her attention to the power source. She spotted a bolt crank and attached her staff to it, allowing her magic to spin it around and raise the generator out of the area that was keeping it safe from damage, before tearing out the power core and causing the generator to fall to pieces. She quickly checked her readings, to determine how many more of them she needed to get rid of before the jamming array went down, before setting off to the north of where the ship landed.

It took her a minute to reach the second generator, which was again guarded by the chicken robots, so she continued to use her staff and cleaned up the area around the bolt crank. The moment that she was done with the enemies she turned the crank and revealed the power source of the second generator, before she destroyed it with one swift swing of her staff. She then ran around the immediate area for a bit, looking for where the remaining generators were, before she found a launch pad that allowed her to leap up to one of the platforms that rested above her. As she landed she spotted more of the chicken robots running around, so she smashed them with her staff as she made her way towards the next target on her list.

She then found a floating walkway that was guarded by a spider bot, with the bolt crank waiting on the other side with two more robots, so she tore the first apart with her Chopper before loosing a Gravity Bomb at the other two. Once they were taken care of she raised the next generator out of the floor, to which she delivered the same blow that destroyed the previous two before beginning her search anew. She backtracked to where she had taken the launch pad and spotted a walkway that was laid out over a lava field of sorts, to which she spotted another generator and grinned as she used her magical steps to reach the walkway.

Starlight came into contact with more of the spider and chicken robots, where she used her Gravity Bomb to get rid of the larger groups of enemies while sticking with her staff for the lone enemies. After clearing out the area she found another crank that allowed her to smash the fourth generator, to which she left the lava area and started looking for the other two targets. She then resumed walking around for a bit before she discovered another jump pad, to which she leapt up to where it connected to and immediately smashed the chicken robots that were walking around the platform. As she finished with her enemies she used another pad to reach the fifth generator, to which she used her bombs to remove the enemies that were walking around it before she searched for the bolt crank that would allow her to remove her target.

Once she found the crank, and removed the fifth generator, she turned her attention to the scans once more, scouring the moon sized array until she discovered where her final target was resting. She chuckled when she found where it was, because it was literally right in front of her muzzle and she had ignored the light that the generators gave off. Instead of getting back on the ground and running to a jump pad she engaged her magic and ran over a walkway that would take her to her target, as she was eager to get this over with. She found that the final bolt crank was guarded by one spider bot, so she smashed it to pieces before raising the generator, to which she used one more Gravity Bomb to destroy it and the robots that had been guarding it.

With her task done, and the jamming array offline by her scans, she nodded her head and returned to the limo ship, to which she closed the door and began the journey back to the Resort. Along the way, however, the screen in front of her came online and she spotted their employer, who seemed eager to relay some information to them.

"Good work my boy!" Mr. Fizzwidget exclaimed, completely ignoring that it was Starlight sitting in front of the screen and not Ratchet, but she was going to overlook it for the moment, "You are proving to be invaluable in this underware. Any who, it appears that the Thief is now under the protection of Thugs-4-Less, but I may have found a way for you to insinuate their operation."

"Is it dangerous?" Starlight asked, because she knew that if it was dangerous that she, Sunset, and Ratchet would likely be heading to wherever the coordinates were, regardless of whatever they were supposed to be doing at that planet.

"No no no... actually, yes it is," Mr. Fizzwidget replied, clearly failing at trying to make it seem like it wasn't dangerous, though he appeared to be setting up another video, "Take a look at this."

Starlight then watched as the video explained the Desert Riders, a sort of racing event for Thugs and other people who used the hoverbikes that Megacorp created. She could see how she and her siblings could get some valuable information, all they needed to do was beat one of the races and they'd likely be able to join the club... and get something on where the Thief was located. Once she had the coordinates she thanked their employer and watched the screen go blank, as she wondered what Ratchet and Sunset were getting themselves into at that moment.





As Ratchet and Sunset separated from Starlight they walked down a walkway that had four slot machines on their right side, but they ignored them as several Thugs started firing at them. Sunset pulled out several of the Chopper stars and threw them through the air, allowing them to spin through the area around her targets before they embedded themselves in the Thugs. As Sunset approached what remained of her targets Ratchet pulled out his Lancer and shot at the chicken robots that had been ignored by his sister's stars.

"Seems like Starlight's getting excited," Sunset commented, feeling her sister's magic for a moment before turning to the elevator in front of them.

"I expect nothing less," Ratchet said, riding the elevator up and spotting an enemy that hadn't noticed that they had arrived, to which he loosed a storm of Lancer shells and tore the Thug to pieces.

The other enemies noticed that they had appeared and started firing at them, to which Ratchet moved in front of his sister and returned fire to the best of his ability. Sunset resorted to using her sword on those that her brother didn't take down immediately, as she didn't want to use what ammo she had at the moment until they reached a group of enemies that was larger than what they were fighting. The instant that the area was clear they boarded a limo type ship, which briefly moved forward just a bit until it came to another platform and let them off.

When they exited the ship they found that they were at the end of a wall they would have to climb up before they could move forward, but Sunset sighed and magic swirled around her left hand for a moment.

"Isn't it a little early for you to be going back to using magic?" Ratchet asked, knowing that it had only been five minutes since they had landed, which, according to Starlight's own notes on magic, wasn't enough time to recover from what she had gone through.

He had also read several of the notes in his spare time, because he wanted to determine how Sunset even had magic to begin with, though Starlight had come to the conclusion that the bracelet was the key to everything. His sister had been able to determine that the piece of jewelry increased Sunset's magic regeneration by some degree that she wasn't able to pinpoint yet. He could tell that several of Starlight's theories were right about that ability, because within roughly five to ten minutes after landing in the Resort she was at least halfway back to her normal self.

"A simple transportation spell," Sunset promised, knowing that anything more might push her over the edge and force her to stay back at the ship until her siblings were done, "just to the top of the area above us."

Ratchet sighed and nodded his head, to which she teleported the two of them up to the top of the platform and allowed the magic she had been gathering to leave her once more. They found more of the Thugs waiting for them, though a ship flew in and started dropping off more enemies for the two of them to fight, to which Ratchet growled as he pulled out the Gravity Bomb. He leapt over the small gap between their platform and landed on the one that their enemies were standing on, to which he started loosing bombs at his targets. Several of them were restored by the ship above them, to which Ratchet assumed that he would have to fight an endless tide of enemies before the ship left.

Sunset appeared next to him and sliced off one of the Thugs' arms, causing him to drop the weapon he had been carrying, before she turned around and drove her sword into his heart. She pulled her weapon out and turned her attention to the other enemies, cutting into those that tried to hit Ratchet from behind as she wondered what would take out the ship above them. When Ratchet blew up the last Thug the ship shuddered for a moment before it flew off into the distance, leaving them to continue towards the arena. They found a jump wall, though this time they simply leapt up to the top before they found a room with more Thugs waiting for them with a few more of the chicken robots.

Ratchet started firing at his targets, providing cover fire as Sunset leapt down into the room and cut one of the Thugs' guns in half, before bringing an end to him as well. They spent a few seconds to be sure that there weren't more enemies in the room, which there weren't according to their scans, they advanced onto another walkway and found even more enemies waiting for them. Sunset spotted another ship depositing more enemies for them to fight, but this time she growled and summoned a fireball, to which she threw it into one of the ship's exhaust systems and blew it up from the inside out. They then cleared the enemies that were waiting for them, either cutting them into pieces or blowing them up, before they approached the door that would take them into the arena.

"So, I guess this is it." Ratchet commented, restocking his weapons as he wondered what Chainblade would be like up close, before approaching the door and knocking on it, "Hello? I'm here to fight in the arena."

"No, you are not ready for the arena." a voice replied, just as a mechanical eye opened on the door and turned to Sunset, "The Cazar, on the other hand, she is definitely ready for a fight or two. Tell you what pal, either she fights or neither of you fight."

"Oh by the Maker," Sunset replied, drawing her sword and pointing the end of it at the eye, "Fine, I'll play your 'game'. Don't come crying to me when the other fighters are wrecked beyond belief."

The eye remained silent as the door opened, to which Sunset sighed and entered the area as Ratchet moved towards where the watchers sat and waited to see what happened which his sister stepped into the ring. When Sunset did step into the ring the announcer exclaimed that a cazar had stepped into the ring and mentioned that the last one that had stepped into the ring had died a horrible death against the normal gladiators. Sunset didn't seem phased by the fact that there had been another cazar before her, though the only response she gave was for the fight to begin.

The moment the gladiator doors opened, and the enemies poured out of where they had been waiting, Sunset let them come to her as she used her sword, and nothing else, to cut her way through her enemies. Ratchet had to admit it, but his sister was definitely getting better at fighting with only her sword, because at this point it didn't even look like she had been weakened from her excessive magic usage earlier. He considered that the bracelet was behind it, as Starlight had thought as well, though at one point he looked at the golden piece of jewelry and could have sworn that he spotted a small crack in the metal.

When the basic fight was over, and Sunset had been given a gadget that was basically the Bogon version of the Trespasser, Sunset declined another fight and left the arena, to which Ratchet left with her.

"Just the one fight?" Ratchet asked, noticing that the moment they left the arena they appeared on a powered down walkway that connected to where their ship was located, to which Sunset used the new gadget on a nearby terminal.

"We don't have time to waste on arena fights," Sunset commented, smiling as she overcame the lock that had been placed on the terminal and activated the walkway, "Come on, we can take a picture at that booth for Clank and then see if Starlight found anything."

As it turned out the Thief was expecting them to make it through the arena, because when they used the machine the Thief appeared and revealed that he had captured Clank, to which he electrocuted the robot to show that he would kill anyone that got in his way. Sunset almost laughed, because it was clear that the Thief had merely powered Clank off in an attempt to scare the three of them off so that they would return to Solana. Now that they had the coordinates for Megaoplis they knew what their next course of action was, because the moment they told Starlight what had happened they were back in their ship and were racing through the stars once more.

The Thief might have assumed that they would flee when they saw what had happened to Clank, but in reality it only made them want to stop their enemy even more than normal... and the Thief had no idea what power that Sunset and Starlight would unleash on him the moment they caught up with him.
> Commando: Endako
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When the three of them arrived at their destination, Megopolis on Planet Endako, they immediately noticed that there were two paths that they could take, which was great considering that they would likely have to search the entire city to find where the Thief had stashed away Clank. Starlight's scans indicated that there were enemies waiting on both paths, be they the Thugs that the Thief had employed or the natural enemies that had been positioned here by the people of the planet. She had figured that there would be enemies native to the city waiting for them, considering where they were at the moment, and the Thugs weren't a surprise either.

They approached the weapon vendor and looked at what was available besides restocking their ammo, to which they discovered that there were two more available; a powerful rifle that was named the Pulse Rifle and a glove weapon that dispensed turrets, hence the name Miniturret Glove. Ratchet and Starlight each picked out one of the new weapons for themselves, checking out their new weapons as Sunset made sure that they weren't ambushed by any enemies that might be wandering the nearby area.

"You sure you don't want another weapon Sunset?" Ratchet asked, checking out the scope on his Pulse Rifle for a moment, "They may not be Gadgetron weapons, but they sure pack quite the punch when you need them to."

"I'll be fine," Sunset replied, turning her gaze to the gadget she had picked up in the arena, the Electrolyzer, before she held it out to her brother, "Here, you might need this more than Starlight or I."

"You sure about that?" Ratchet said, taking the gadget from his sister, though he didn't have to worry about how to use it seeing how he had watched how Sunset had used it back at the Resort.

"We can burn through or destroy whatever obstacles we encounter," Sunset answered, nearly laughing at the statement, considering that she had no idea she could even use magic six months ago, "provided we don't encounter anything that's resistant to magic... which I'm sure we would have heard about if something had been invented or discovered that could resist us."

Starlight sighed and shook her head as she turned back to her own weapons, still quite shocked how her sister changed from someone who was into weapons and became someone who used magic all the time. Sometimes she wished that Sunset had been born a normal Cazar and didn't have that cursed bracelet she always wore, because she had enjoyed being the only one who could use magic. Having someone else who could use magic had been great, in the beginning anyway, but Starlight generally only used her magic to lift her weapons, her staff, her various tools, and the occasional enemy that she wanted to discard. Sunset, on the other hand, used her powers to kill everything that they encountered, as if she had an infinite amount of magic at her disposal and wouldn't have to face the consequences of using too much power.

She also had to wonder what would happen if that golden bracelet was ever broken, though considering that it appeared to seal up Sunset's magic she assumed that if it broke then her full power would be released... though if that was good or bad she had no idea.

"Do what you will," Ratchet said, sighing as he admitted defeat, because he knew that no matter what he said Sunset was still going to use her magic, "I'm going to go find Clank and see if we can't figure out where the Thief went."

As he moved to the left of where their ship was resting he spotted what appeared to be a locked door, though as he stepped near it the door opened and a robot, one that looked like a hydrant that could shoot lasers, appeared before him. He cycled through his weapons and pulled out the Blitz Gun, to which he blasted the robot to pieces before heading into the area that had been opened up. He spotted a terminal that required the gadget that Sunset had handed to him, so he pulled it out, connected it to the terminal, and spent a minute moving the connectors around before the door in front of him was open.

As the door opened he found four robots spinning around the floor, though they appeared to be small robots that each had three blades sticking out of the middle of their bodies. Ratchet could tell that they were dangerous to get close to, so he switched to the Chopper for a moment and threw two stars into the chamber, cutting the robots to pieces within seconds. He turned to the left and found two more of the spinning hydrant robots moving along the floor, though as he backed up a little bit to avoid being hit he, once again, switched weapons and pulled out the Gravity Bomb. With the weapon in hand he blew the two robots to pieces and approached the door in front of him, though before he could even approach the next entrance another group of spinner bots came at him.

He swiftly erased the spinner bots with another Gravity Bomb charge and walked into what appeared to be a control room, where he found another terminal that he swiftly activated. Once the room was fully functional again he activated the crane in the room ahead of him and experimented with the controls for a few seconds, to be sure that everything was actually working. He then picked up the massive cube that was resting in the room and smashed the spinner bots that were moving along the floor, before depositing the cube in front of a section on the wall that would allow him to continue onward.

He dropped into the room for a moment, making sure that he had gotten rid of all of the enemies he had seen on the screen, before jumping on top of the cube and pulling himself into the walkway it connected to. He found another laser robot spinning around, so he swiftly leveled his Gravity Bomb with where it was at the moment and blew it up with one of his remaining charges. The moment the charge tore the robot to pieces another one took its place, but Ratchet merely sighed and took it out in the same manner as the previous one. As the second charge dissipated he approached the door that they had been protecting, to which he discovered that he was at the end of the building he had entered, because he was now standing at the edge of a walkway that was made up of two small floating ships.

He spotted a laser robot waiting on the other side of the walkway, so he swiftly switched to his Chopper and threw two stars at the robot, watching them tear the would be enemy to pieces before making his way to the other side. After he crossed the gap he found what appeared to be a large robot that had two guns and was ready to fire them, but he simply sighed, pulled out the Pulse Rifle, and took aim at the robot's head. He waited a few seconds to be sure that the robot was actually an enemy, but when it turned its guns on where he was standing he pressed the trigger and blew the robot to pieces.

"Really?" Ratchet commented, looking at the rifle for a moment, wondering how powerful Megacorp had actually made the weapon before producing it, "A single shot was enough to kill that robot... fells like I'm back in Solana for some reason."

He turned the corner and spotted another large robot waiting in front of a sealed door, but as it turned towards him he lifted the rifle up once more and put the robot down before it could fire at him. As the robot fell a second door opened and a group of the spinner robots came out to attack him, to which he switched to the Lancer and loosed a few shots to get rid of them. He then approached the previously sealed door, pausing for a moment to destroy the laser robot that was in his way, before he cycled to the rifle and shot down the larger robot that was waiting on the other side of the gap he had come to.

Once the enemies were taken care of he leapt over the gap and approached what was an entrance to another section of the building he had entered near his ship. He found six more of the spinner robots waiting in front of another control panel, so he pulled out the Lancer and removed them before they could come close to hurting him. As he approached the terminal he noticed that the door that would allow him to enter the next area was sealed off by a blast door, which told him that there had to be a powerful explosive nearby that he could use. He repeated the process he used in the previous chamber of the building, using the Electrolyzer to reactivate the control panel before taking command of the crane.

He moved the crane around, using the cube that he found to smash any and all enemies that happened to be resting in the three rooms he could see into, before placing it in a position that would allow him to climb up to a walkway. With that part of the task done he picked up the explosive cube and carefully carried it back to the sealed door that was blocking his way, dropping it with a loud thud and starting the detonation sequence. He backed away from the control panel and watched the door explode, though as he advanced through the next couple of chambers he kept his eyes open for any enemies he might have missed with the crane... though when he reached the metallic cube he had found nothing alive.

He swiftly climbed onto the cube and leapt into the walkway, though when he landed on the edge of the walkway he spotted two more of the larger robots waiting for him, to which he swiftly took them down with his rifle. The two doors in the room opened up and out of them poured more of the spinner robots, though Ratchet sighed as he pulled out the Chopper and started throwing stars at every enemy he spotted. It didn't take him long to clear out the robots that were trying to kill him, so once the area was clear he spotted an elevator that he rode up to another walkway. When he reached the end of the walkway he spotted the table that had been in the video that the Thief had sent to him and Sunset, when he shocked Clank in an effort to make them head back home.

Ratchet had been expecting the Thief to be smart and actually take Clank away from the area after sending the video, but Clank was resting right on the table with the Thief nowhere in sight. Sunset had already told him that Clank was offline, how she could tell that from a video he had no idea, so he started looking for a way down into the area... before he found himself being pushed into the chamber with the Thief fleeing the scene.

"Son of a Qwark!" Ratchet snapped, annoyed that he had been caught off guard like that, though he had to wonder how he had missed where the Thief was standing as he moved to where Clank was resting, "Alright buddy, let's get you up and running again."

He approached the terminal that was connected to the table that Clank was resting on, using the gadget that Sunset had acquired once more to work his way through the system until he had reconnected all of the connectors and restored power to Clank's systems.

"Final digit of Pi is..." Clank said, bolting upright for a moment, but he seemed to regain himself as he noticed that Ratchet was standing right beside him, "Ratchet? Where are we? Hmm, I must have dosed off."

"We're in Megopolis," Ratchet replied, not surprised that Clank didn't recall being shocked by the Thief, "We should look for a way out of here... then I'll fill you in on what happened after we parted ways."

"And what about Starlight and Sunset?" Clank asked, noticing that neither of their sisters were around them, "I don't see either of them at the moment."

"They're likely on the other side of the city looking for clues as to where the Thief ran off to," Ratchet commented, noticing a hole in the wall that Clank could climb through, at the same time that the robot did, "Say, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Unfortunately, I am," Clank replied, sighing as he climbed off the table and approached the hole they had been staring at, to which Ratchet helped him up, "I shall return in a few minutes."

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

Clank found himself in a small room that had only one exit to, though as he approached the opening he found that he would have to glide over the large gap that rested between where he was standing and the platform ahead of him. He spotted what appeared to be small robots that spun around with blades attached to their bodies, along with a larger one that appeared to use a laser as its weapon. He sighed and leapt into the air, gliding down to the platform below him, though the instant he landed he balled his robotic fists and smashed the two spinning robots before they could get him.

He knew that he couldn't touch the laser robot, but as he turned the corner he found what appeared to be the Megacorp version of the small robots he could command back in the Solana Galaxy. Clank smiled as he released the four robots that were sealed in glass, before connecting to them thanks to his special programming and sending them at the laser robot. He also moved along with them, because he noticed that the laser followed him, so he used that to his advantage and moved the laser out of the way so the little robots could tear the larger one to pieces. The four of them then advanced further into the next room, where there was another laser robot that they ripped to pieces, opening the way for Clank to move forward.

When he entered the room he found a larger robot trapped in a cage, one that his systems identified as a Bridge Bot, so he let the robot out and rapidly commanded him to build a bridge across the gap that the room lead to. With the bridge in place Clank moved to the other room, where he found a large crate blocking his way and another laser robot that happened to be protecting the robot that he assumed could move the obstacle in front of him. The little robots surged forward and tore into the laser robot, giving Clank time to release the Lifter Bot and remove the crate that was in front of him.

As he turned the corner he had the Bridge Bot move positions and make another bridge, connecting him to the area that he knew he would find the switch that would release Ratchet. He connected to the smaller robots again and sent them forward, watching them run across the bridge and separate into two groups, which was followed by both of the laser robots being destroyed. With the way clear he approached the terminal that rested near the door he had seen and sent some of the small robots into it, opening the door that he was standing in front of.

He bid the remaining robots farewell, released them from whatever he had them doing, and ran up the walkway he had revealed, pressing a button that reunited him with Ratchet.

"Nice job Clank," Ratchet said the moment the door was opened, to which Clank polished one of his hands with a smile on his face, "Come on, I'll tell you everything that's happened since we last saw each other... while we track down Sunset and Starlight, before they get into trouble."





Sunset and Starlight had waited a few minutes after Ratchet departed from them before they started down the path on the right of where the ship had landed, which happened to be blocked by a type of electric gate.

"So, shall we do this with magic and slip by the gate?" Sunset asked, knowing that they would be able to do the task with ease, "Or should we investigate the area and do it without magic?"

"Like this!" Starlight replied, smashing the trash can that had been in front of her, which caused the gate to open up and dispense a group of spinning robots to fight them, "See? Easy as pie."

Before Sunset could cut any of the robots to pieces Starlight pulled out her Lancer and put some shots into them, though she smirked as they walked into the second area that was sealed off. Sunset spotted another trash can and, after a moment of internal debate, decided to take Starlight's approach and knocked it over as well, though this time a robot wielding a laser came at them. She smiled as Starlight raised her weapons, but before her sister could touch the robot Sunset leapt above it and drove her sword into its head, cutting off its power and bringing an end to it.

Starlight sighed and walked through the second gate, to which she unleashed a hail of Lancer shots on the spinning robots that happened to be blocking their path. After a minute she lowered the weapon and nodded when she discovered that all of them had been taken care of, before she teleported up to the walkway that they would have to travel through. The two of them found another trash can that, when knocked over, called on more laser and spinning robots, though together both Starlight and Sunset removed them before they could touch them.

When they walked out of the room they spotted who they assumed was the leader of Thugs-4-Less, though as he taunted the two of them they simply ignored him and moved on through the walkway on their left. They noticed two more of the laser enemies waiting for them, but Starlight merely took them out with a well place Gravity Bomb charge and opened the way for them to move forward. They then came to a drop off into a room that rest below them, though as they lowered themselves into the room Sunset whipped up a small wind cyclone and took out the trash can that was resting in the middle of the area.

When the doors opened, and the enemies started pouring out of them, Starlight started firing the Lancer at everything that came near her, while Sunset tossed them into the walls around them with her wind magic. As the last spinner fell to pieces a laser enemy came their way, though Starlight blew it apart with a Gravity Bomb charge and opened the way once more. They walked out of the area and spotted what appeared to be a grindrail, though they ignored it and took the nearby elevator to wherever it connected to. It took them to a walkway that clearly would let them enter a building, but as the door opened two more laser enemies revealed themselves as the Thug Leader flew overhead once more.

Once the enemies were taken care of they entered the building and spotted another elevator, this one appearing to head up just a bit, but they each wondered what they would find in the next area. They found two trash cans that, when they were knocked over, unleashed an army of spinning robots and laser robots to fight them, to which Sunset actually pulled out her Chopper and threw several clusters of stars as Starlight used the Lancer on other enemies. It actually took them some time to get through the amount of enemies that were standing before them, but when no more enemies came out of the doors that had opened around them they knew that they were definitely done with the area and could move on.

When Sunset saw the area that they would soon be entering she noticed that it appeared to be the perfect place to set up a trap, to which she had Starlight stay back with the Pulse Rifle. She was correct in her assumption, because the moment she stepped into the area the Thug Leader appeared and started spouting some nonsense about how his employees did a terrible job of dealing with the three of them. Before he could finish whatever he was saying Starlight loosed a shot and blew a hole in the engine, causing the ship he was flying in to tilt as he turned the guns on where she was standing. Sunset had been expecting something like that, because she poured some magic into her blade, causing it to catch on fire, before she swung it and extended the blade, allowing it to dig into the ship's right wing and sever it from the main body of the ship.

The Thug Leader, deciding that he was already outmatched at the moment, disengaged from the ship as it dropped into the abyss below them, though neither Starlight or Sunset moved to eliminate him as he disappeared.

A teleport pad opened in front of them, to which they appeared before Clank's apartment and spent a few minutes looking around before they found Ratchet's Grindboots and Swingshot. With the gadgets in hand they opened the back entrance to the apartment and stepped into another teleport pad, where they appeared near their ship. They spotted Ratchet and Clank sitting near the ship, apparently catching up on the adventure, so they joined the duo and handed the gadgets over to their brother.

They were all glad to have Clank back with them, because he had been a big part of their first adventure and had assisted them many times during their visits to the various planets. Starlight knew that the Thief had to be sweating at the moment, because now that the four of them were together again there was nothing they couldn't overcome.
> Commando: Barlow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After Ratchet and his sisters had told Clank everything that had happened since they had parted, telling him about the planets they had already visited before coming to this planet, before mentioning that there was another location they needed to check out. Starlight had told him that the Desert Riders might have some connection to Thugs-4-Less, though she also suggested that it might be in their best interests to infiltrate the group and see if they could find anything that connected to the Thief. Clank didn't really understand how the Thief had discovered that Ratchet and his sisters had been coming to the flying laboratory, but he did understand that they were hot on their enemy's trail.

Once they were all caught up on what they were doing, and their weapons were restocked, they climbed into their ship and set the course for Planet Barlow.

As they moved towards their next destination Sunset and Starlight shared their notes on what was going at the moment, to which they discussed the possibility that the Thief might not be a male as Ratchet assumed he was. Starlight happened to be looking at one of the pictures that Megacorp had provided them in the beginning of their quest, though as she looked at it she could determine that the Thief had to be female. Ratchet didn't seem to mind the fact that his sisters might be right, though Sunset and Starlight had to wonder what she truly looked like if it was a female lurking under the mask that their enemy wore all the time.

During the flight to Barlow Starlight also took the opportunity to ask her sister something that had been bothering her, something that related to the bracelet that she wore all the time.

"Are you aware that there's a crack in your bracelet?" Starlight asked, wondering if her sister had even noticed the small crack, though all the scans that she had run indicated that magic was definitely slowly leaking from the piece of jewelry.

"Its easy to miss such a simple thing," Sunset commented, pulling her arm up and staring at the bracelet for a moment, though she turned it around and looked at the crack that she had noticed before Mr. Fizzwidget called upon them, "I've been aware of it for the last three weeks, though I haven't really noticed any side effects that would be associated with it."

"Including the magic that's leaking from it?" Starlight inquired, pulling out her scans and showing her sister, who eagerly looked at them as Clank looked at them in the rear view mirror, "Sunset, I don't need to remind you of the last two times your magic went out of control... which might actually happen if we don't do something about the leak in the metal."

Sunset knew what her sister was talking about before she even opened the next few pages of the reports that she had given her; she was referring to the hollow inside of her. In truth it wasn't the same thing as the one that the people of Old Earth recorded, but considering that they had nothing else to call the creature she had become, besides a monster anyway, they had agreed to refer to it as a hollow. The creature had been the result of her potent powers mixing with her unstable emotions when dealing with their enemies in the Solana Galaxy, though even now she could feel the creature inside of her... just waiting for the chance to come out and cause havoc once more.

She could understand where Starlight was coming from as she looked at the report, she was worried that the constant leak of her magic might awaken the creature inside of her once more... which would only result in more destruction.

"So then we use some magic to patch it up and pretend the crack never happened." Sunset said, energy wrapping around her left hand for a moment, "Shouldn't be too hard."

"My magic should be better to repair the crack," Starlight replied, her horn lighting up as a swirl of energy appeared around her, "Wouldn't your magic weaken the metal and make it fail faster?"

"Actually, according to my own scans, it might be better to use Sunset's magic first and then bind yours on top of it," Clank commented, staring at the bracelet the entire time, "The combined abilities of the two of you might be able to keep it together for a longer period of time, rather than having only one of you work on it at any given moment."

What Clank didn't tell either of them was that he was certain that Starlight's magic had been the catalyst that had weakened Sunset's bracelet back on Umbris, when she first used Dark Magic. She had surrounded Sunset with her magic, though he suspected that, once the magic had completely covered her body, the bracelet had soaked some of it in and the binding had weakened. He wasn't an expert in the use of magic and what the two of them could do with it, but he did know that if they pressed more of Starlight's magic against the weakened bracelet it might only worsen the situation... if not completely shatter the piece of jewelry altogether.

Unfortunately they all knew what would happen if Sunset's inner creature, which was also held back by the bracelet, were to merge with her completely... they could say farewell to whatever enemy they were fighting at the very least.

Sunset sighed and extended her arm out, to which she wrapped her magic around the bracelet and tied it as tight as she could, making sure to keep all of the leaking magic contained inside the bracelet. The moment she was done with that Starlight moved her own energy over to the metal, wrapping her magic over what had already been created and binding it all together. Once she was finished she ran a scan on the bracelet, checking to see if their work had actually done anything or if they were simply wasting their time, though she breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that the leak had stopped.

With the task of binding the bracelet completed they returned to their scans and poured over their maps of the planet they were heading towards, hoping to have a decent amount of information on where their target was located before they reached their destination.





When they finally reached their destination both Starlight and Sunset noticed that there were several rotting signs that indicated that this place used to house a Gadgetron building. They also noticed that, of the few buildings that were still intact, only one of them had any power to it, which they assumed would have something interesting that Mr. Gadget might have forgotten about. When they exited their ship they approached the weapon vendor and noticed that there was yet another weapon available for purchase, something called the Seeker Gun. While Ratchet and Starlight checked out the newest Megacorp weapon, amazed that another had come out so soon, Sunset approached the vendor and acquired every weapon that she hadn't picked up, much to their amazement.

"I thought you were focusing on using only magic," Ratchet commented, pointing his Seeker Gun at the path they would be taking, grinning as he looked at the enemies that were unaware that they were even standing there.

"Its time to take a break and focus on something else," Sunset replied, checking the scope on her new Pulse Rifle for a moment, "In time I won't need to use weapons to defend myself, but I'm far from that day and I should really learn to use the other weapons that are at my disposal. Besides, its about time I helped out instead of focusing on my magic... they are plenty of other days where I can practice my skills."

Before either Starlight or Ratchet could make a comment on what she was saying, or even understand that she was giving up magic for the moment, she cycled to the new Seeker Gun and pointed it at the tunnel they would be heading down. She then loosed a charge from the weapon, sending out a bit of metal, one that she assumed had to be the seeker, that tore into the two wild mutt creatures that were running around the tunnel. Once they were down for the count she beckoned her siblings forward and they walked into the tunnel, following it around a bend before they spotted three warriors standing in the middle of the ruins in front of them.

Walking behind them was a brutish and ugly looking purple creature, but before they were spotted by their enemies she beckoned for Ratchet to pull out his rifle and take the creature out. Ratchet smiled and acquired the creature in his scopes, following it for a few seconds before pulling the trigger and taking it out with a loud crack from his rifle. The warriors turned towards them as the creature died, though as they did so Starlight charged forward and loosed a Gravity Bomb charge, blowing the three of them backwards as Sunset threw several Chopper stars to finish them off.

As the trio of enemies fell to the ground two more charged out of the rubble, to which they met their end as Ratchet appeared beside Sunset and put some holes in them with his Lancer. When they were sure that there were no more in their immediate area they continued into the small building in front of them, to which they were ambushed by another duo of enemies. Starlight took great pleasure in getting rid of them with her Seeker Gun, before they noticed that the area in front of them was crawling with the wild mutts they had seen earlier. Ratchet pointed at the warrior that was riding one of the ugly creatures for a moment, though he leveled his rifle with it and put a shot right through its head, removing it from the equation before it could reach them.

Starlight and Sunset grinned as they pulled out more Chopper stars and threw them into the air, sending them at the mutts that were waiting for them and cutting many of them down with ease. Ratchet took out the warrior that was coming down the hill, the same one that he had knocked off the ugly creature from before, before bashing one of the mutts in the head with his wrench. The instant the area was clear they walked up the hill the warrior came down and stopped at the base of the bridge that was waiting before them, to which they spotted a host of warriors coming their way.

Starlight grinned as she cycled back to the Gravity Bomb, leveling the weapon with the group of enemies and loosing a charge that separated them into two smaller groups of enemies. The moment that happened Ratchet and Sunset were on top of them, allowing their Seeker ammo to tear into them as they either slew them where they stood or knocked them off the bridge and made them fall to their deaths. They broke through the group of enemies that were coming towards them, stopping to make sure that they were all dead in one form or another, before they turned their attention to the enemies that were standing before them.

That happened to be three more of the ugly creatures that was guarded by one of the warriors, so the three of them switched to their rifles and put a shot in each of the creatures heads. The warrior came at them, but Sunset switched to her sword and parried the attack that was coming their way, before she blocked three more attacks and put the warrior out if his misery. They approached the bridge that would allow them to move forward, to which Ratchet put down the next annoying ugly creature that was blocking the way as his sisters tore the other two soldiers to pieces.

They entered the next building and noticed that there was a camp area sitting right below them, but instead of attacking immediately they took a moment to relax before they moved on. It gave Starlight time to consider if they were going on the right track, though when she did find out that they were on the right path they prepared their weapons and leapt down into the camp area.

"Invaders!" one of the warriors shouted, drawing his sword as the three of them dropped down on him and his friends, but all his shouting earned him was a blast in the head from Ratchet's Lancer.

The three of them wasted no time in clearing the immediate camp area of the warriors that had been camping there, though as they crossed through the next ruined building they came to an area that was crawling with warriors and a few of the ugly creatures. Ratchet pulled out his rifle again and started by taking out the creatures, while his sisters moved forward and used their weapons to shoot down every warrior that came their way. It took them a few minutes to clear the warriors and their beasts out of the way, though once they were all finished off the gate in front of them lowered and allowed them to move into the area.

When they walked into the area, which clearly looked like an arena of some kind, the gate closed behind them and the bridge in front of them opened up... which was followed by more of the warriors coming their way with what appeared to be the rest of their army.

Ratchet smiled and pulled out the rest of his Chopper stars, to which his sisters did the same thing and together the three of them fought against the tide of enemies with the stars. Several of their enemies managed to make it through the storm of stars that they had thrown at them, to which Sunset slammed into them with her sword and took them out one at a time. One of the warriors, wearing less armor than the other ones, challenged her to a one on one and drew his sword accordingly, though she was in no mood to play around. She slammed her sword into the warrior's own and forced him backwards, to which she continued to overpower the man until she had him backed up against the gap where the bridge used to be.

Once she had him where she wanted him, and also had him disarmed, and spun around and delivered a kick to his chest, sending him over the edge and causing him to fall to his death. As the last warrior fell the bridge restored itself, to which the three of them crossed over to the building that was standing in front of them, which they discovered had previously been a Gadgetron weapons building. Inside they discovered an old robot that had been waiting for some time for peaceful people to arrive, because the moment they entered the building it seemed to power on... and blow a fuse.

"Oh, excuse me," the robot said, smiling at them as they approached her, "I think I just blew another vacuum tube... wait a second, your the Glimmer family, aren't you?"

"That would be us," Starlight replied, returning the smile as she looked at the robot, "How did you find out about us?"

"Mr. Gadget contacted me a week ago, saying that something special was going to arrive for the three of you," the robot answered, her tone becoming serious for a moment, "He didn't know when you would arrive, but he made sure to keep this weapon under lock and key... as per the instructions you left for him in the event that it was completed and you were snatched by someone needing your help in another galaxy. Very smart of you to create a crate that could only be opened by the combined magical signatures of both yourself and your sister, Sunset Shimmer."

"No way," Starlight breathed, just as the robot laid a crate in front of the three of them, one large enough to contain a certain weapon of hers, "He managed to complete work on my project while we were training to become commandos... Sunset, help me crack this thing open."

Sunset approached the crate, with her left hand surrounded by magic, and she touched the piece of metal, to which Starlight did the same thing with her front right hoof. A few seconds passed before the crate emitted a faint unlocking sound, though once it had done that Starlight gently lifted the lid up and revealed the weapon that had been brought to them. It was a massive gun that had eight rocket launchers attached to the front of it, though where the original one of its kind had been a square this one had been assembled in a circle formation. It was more powerful than the original one as well, though Starlight was pleased to see that Mr. Gadget had followed her designs to the letter this time.

"That's... that's not what I think it is, is it?" Ratchet breathed, staring at the weapon and remembering what had happened when he had used the predecessor that his sister had made.

"Its the RYNO II," Starlight replied, a grin appearing on her face as she gently lifted the weapon up, "it might have one less silo than the original weapon, but it packs more power than its predecessor ever did. The Thief will never know what hit her once we reach her."

To prove her point she walked out the back entrance of the building and pointed the RYNO II at the group of mutts that were standing there, though once they noticed her the entire horde came at her. She smiled as she turned the weapon on, firing missile after missile until the entirety of the wild pack had been slain under the power of her weapon. She chuckled as she held the weapon, impressed that it contained the amount of power that she had specified when she had originally created the holoplans for it.

From that point on it proved to be a simple matter of crossing the gap in front of them and speaking with the Desert Rider that happened to be standing there, though Ratchet and Clank decided to go to the other path that had been waiting by their ship. Sunset and Starlight spoke with the crying man, who was frightened of the weapon that Starlight now carried, and said that all they had to do was race the others and they'd be considered one of them. It was then that they discovered that the Desert Riders used a hoverbike for their races, to which Sunset got herself situated in the seat and drove onto the track.

Starlight then spent the next half an hour watching the race that her sister was apart of, watching Sunset overtake her opponents on the track, while sometimes letting them get ahead of her, before she would pull ahead of them and win the race. Once she had won the first race, and had earned the Desert Rider helmet she was sure that she was never going to use again, the Rider they had spoken to actually received a message from his Boss. It was then they discovered that the Thugs were supposed to be meeting in a nearby system, to which Starlight started researching where the base was so that they could be prepared for when it was time to leave, before it ended with the leader proclaiming that he was going to write up one of his subordinates.

With the information in hand, and the Rider was thanked for his time, they followed the path that their brother had taken and rode the elevator down to their ship, though they made no move to search for their brother.

A few minutes later the second elevator, that was resting behind their ship, lowered to the ground and they noticed that Ratchet was coming their way. They quickly shared with him that they had the coordinates for where the Thugs were meeting, much the their brother's surprise before he smiled with a look that told him that he wanted some payback for what happened before they reached the Maktar Resort. When they were done Ratchet explained that he had found a gadget that was called a Thermanator, something that could change water to ice and back to water.

With only one lead available for them to take, and nothing else to go on, the group climbed back into the ship and began preparations for their departure... where they would take the fight to the Thugs and teach them a lesson as they searched for more clues as to where their true target was hiding.
> Commando: Notak
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet took his time to reach the Feltzin System, where the Thugs were supposed to be gathering sometime in the future, giving his sisters time to plan out a strategy that they could use when they reached their destination. He had the feeling that they would be fighting the same ships that had ambushed them on their way to the Maktar Resort, so he had some experience fighting them and outmaneuvering them. The only thing he worried about was the default shield that came with their ship, because one lucky shot was enough to take it out and force Sunset to use her magic to protect them from being shot down. If worse came to worse they could pull off a barrier around the ship again, but with how unpredictable Sunset's magic could be they could very well knock her out and force her to sit a planet out.

Ratchet also didn't want to admit it, but he was concerned that, if they continued to rely on Sunset's magic to protect them while Starlight used hers to smash their enemies in situations like this, they might accidentally awaken the creature sleeping inside of her... and none of them wanted the creature to come back after what happened last time.

"I'm beginning to think we should have asked Megacorp to provide us with a second ship," Starlight commented, looking over what she and Sunset had created in terms of an attack strategy, though with it being forty against one she knew that their ship would take massive damage without someone to power the shield, "This ship is nice for traveling from one planet to another, but we seriously need another one if we're going to be engaging in space battles all the time. I doubt either Sunset or myself can hold a shield for more than an hour at most, so we need to either salvage some of the wreckage we cause and make another ship for someone to use, or we figure out how to improve this one to the point where we don't have to use our magic to protect ourselves."

"I guess we could try to capture some of the Thugs' ships and see if we can't reconfigure them into an additional ship that we can use," Sunset replied, tapping her ship for a moment as she opened a folder on her tablet that contained a list of potential ship designs she had spent a few days developing, "It would take some time and energy to do something like that, but it might be possible to accomplish such a feat... provided we found enough working parts to do it."

"Would be nice to have a repeat of what happened in Solana." Ratchet added in, referring to the two instances where they found an intact ship waiting for someone to take them, "If we found a ship in that manner I have no doubt that we'd be able to take it and use it to our advantage in these situations."

"I think that ship that the Thief used as a trap would make a decent vessel," Sunset said, already knowing that it could possibly serve as a research ship and as a fighting ship, "if only we had time to track it down and take control of it. I can already envision several changes that I could make to that ship to make it better than it already is, and of course that would include adding several systems that would improve the overall function."

Ratchet tried to imagine his sister taking control of that one ship and outfitting it the way she was speaking of, creating a research ship that doubled as a warship and had the firepower to deal with the Thugs. He could see her smashing everything that came at the warship, though he had the feeling that Megacorp might attack the ship if something like that happened. He had to admit that the thought of having any ally in space battles would be a benefit, even if it was controlled by one of his sisters, though there was no reason to worry about Sunset building a warship at the moment.

His scans indicated that they were approaching the Feltzin System, where he knew that they would find the Thugs and maybe some information on where the Thief was headed next. This time he turned on the weapons and shields before they entered the area, so that he could avoid having the shield broken by an enemy's lucky shot.





When they entered the area surrounding the space station they found that Ratchet had been right to activate the shield before they had reached their destination, because the instant they approached the station several of the Thugs fired at them.

"We are under attack!" Clank exclaimed, knowing that it would help snap Ratchet into the mode he needed to be in if they wanted to get out of this without a scratch on them.

"Its time for some payback," Ratchet said, activating the ship's weapons and heading into battle, tearing into the first ship that came their way without a second thought.

As Ratchet flew around the field and tore into the ships that were firing at them, and he noticed that they had come out in their full force of forty ships instead of two separate waves, Starlight grabbed several of the asteroids around them and hurled them at the station itself. Her intent was to ruin the station beyond repair and take out something that belonged to the Thugs, as Sunset had determined before they arrived that there was nothing they could salvage that she couldn't acquire from the research ship. She did, however, grab several items that appeared on her radar with her magic, certain pieces of the various ships that might come in handy later.

At one point Clank asked her how she was collecting the various pieces that she acquired, to which she explained that she had been working on a device that mimicked the weapons system that they used to cycle through their guns. She also parred it with an experimental device that was supposed to shrink items down, but she had to be certain of what she was grabbing because she could only take ten items max before she ran the battery dry and would have to recharge it. She mentioned that it would take some time to perfect the devices that she was carrying, but she was certain that she and Starlight could do just that... once they were done with what Megacorp wanted of them.

At one point Starlight's asteroid got a lucky shot and tore the station in half, though that was followed by Ratchet tearing the last of the ships to pieces and looking around for anymore enemies.

"Come on, that was disappointing," Ratchet said, turning off the weapons and shields the moment he determined that there were no more enemies in the immediate area, "Clank, see if there are any transmissions in the immediate area."

What Clank found was a transmission from the Thief to the Leader of the Thugs, who proceeded to tear the leader a new one when she exclaimed that the Thugs she had hired were not where they were supposed to be. She then closed by saying that if the Leader's employees didn't come to the destination she specified then their contract would be terminated, only to be followed by the transmission being terminated and leaving the Leader confused. With nothing else to go on, and the station pretty much destroyed, Ratchet turned the ship around and set the coordinates for their next destination, knowing that they'd likely miss the Thief and that they'd find something interesting to make up for it.





When they reached Notak, and climbed out of their ship, Clank pointed at the sky in front of them and they watched the Thief fly off to who knew where.

"We always seem to be late," Clank commented, turning to his companions for a moment, "why do you suppose we're always late?"

"Well, we're chasing someone who knows this system better than we do," Starlight replied, a small smile appearing on her face, "besides, now we can focus on figuring out where the Thief went and what she was doing here. I'm sure that we'll find something, or someone, that can tell us where our target is heading next, that way we can hopefully catch up to her and put an end to this game."

"Well, hopefully we catch her at whatever planet she's heading to next," Ratchet said, checking the map for a moment as he figured out which path they needed to take, "It appears that we'll need to head towards that chemical factory over there if we're going to have any chance at figuring out where the Thief went next, though I see that she also left behind some of her guards to make sure that we don't immediately follow after her."

Before they moved over the bridge and did battle with the Thugs that were waiting for them, they could see them even from where they were standing, they approached the weapon vendor to see if anything new had been added. Ratchet found a weapon called a Synthenoid, which only reminded him of the Glove of Doom and the little robots that tore many of his enemies to pieces. He collected the weapon anyway, knowing that he would only be able to put it to use if he was ever separated from his sisters and needed some help dealing with his enemies. Neither of his sisters bothered picking up the weapon, which he figured that they would do considering what they were capable of doing by themselves.

Once Ratchet had the newest weapon they crossed the bridge and forced the Thugs to emerge from their hiding place, though they were followed by what appeared to be a legion of robotic chickens. Sunset started to laugh as she pulled out her sword and flipped a small switch she had built into the hilt, changing the blade from a solid piece of metal and transforming it into the whip she barely used anymore. Starlight noticed what was about to happen and leapt back with her brother not far behind, but the Thugs, not knowing their sister well enough, weren't so fortunate when Sunset started swinging her sword.

The tip of the whip lashed out towards one of the Thugs and cut his gun in two before he had even a chance to fire it, which was followed by him dropping to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The other Thugs rushed Sunset, hoping that one of them could pass the whip and gain the opportunity to hurt her, but they all fell to the ground as the tip of the whip cut them down as well. Sunset had designed the weapon to do this back when she was in the Solana Galaxy, as it had been useful in dealing with the toads that had bothered her back on Veldin. She hadn't had an opportunity to use this feature since she discovered her magic, as it had been potent enough to allow her to deal with anything without allowing them to get close to her.

When the Thugs had been dealt with Sunset returned the sword to its original form and backed up, allowing her siblings to take over as they loosed a hail of Chopper stars on the robotic chickens. They made quick work of the robotic chickens, allowing them to enter the tunnel on their left and enter a chamber that had a couple of pumps moving in unison. Ratchet smiled and pulled out the gadget he had acquired on Barlow, to which he froze the water in front of them and created a slippery walkway that they could use. Starlight would have preferred to use her magic and create a walkway for them, but she decided that they might as well save their magic for something that deserved to be burned by their powers.

They then leapt into another section of the tunnel that had a dispenser that happened to be spawning the robotic chickens, though as they approached it Starlight whipped out the Blitz Gun and tore the machine to pieces, allowing them to move forward with little to block their path. As they exited the tunnel three more of the Thugs came out of their hiding places and attacked them, though they didn't get very far as Sunset slew one with her sword and her siblings cleared the other two with their Lancers. When the enemies in front of them fell they walked onto the walkway in front of them, but Ratchet had them stop for a moment as he spotted an enemy ship waiting nearby.

Ratchet then pulled out his Pulse Rifle and leveled it with the ship, waiting for a few seconds before putting a shot right in the pilot's heart and destroying the ship in a matter of seconds.

Once the ship was down they eliminated the group of robotic chickens that had been standing in the area before it, which was easily dealt with and opened the way for them to move on. The next platform had another group of robotic chickens waiting for them, though as they moved to clear the way several Thugs popped out from where they were hiding and fired at them. Starlight summoned a shield and stopped the attacks from reaching them, giving Ratchet the opportunity to take out one of the Thugs without having to put himself at risk. Sunset, on the other hand, lifted one of the containers that the Thugs had been hiding behind with her magic and threw it at the platform that they would soon be heading to, destroying the enemies that were waiting for them.

"Let's do this the easy way," Ratchet said when they reached the next platform, leveling his rifle with the platform that they would have to jump to, though he noticed that Starlight was doing the same thing.

The two of them then proceeded to shoot every enemy that happened to be standing on the other platform, erasing them and any allies they might have had before they emptied their ammo. Once they were done with the Thugs they leapt over the gap and rode the elevator up to another platform, where they found another ship waiting for them. Sunset sighed and extended a hand towards the ship, her magic wrapping around it and crushing the metal until the ship exploded as if it had been made of paper. With the ship taken care of they leapt over the next gap and approached what appeared to be a screen like the one that Mr. Fizzwidget used to show them the Thief and the experiment.

What they found was the coordinates for someone's shack, where he worked on ships and upgraded them passed what was considered legal by most companies in the Bogon Galaxy... and that included Megacorp. Ratchet expressed his desire to visit the location at some point in the future, so they didn't have to drain either Starlight or Sunset of their magic by creating a shield to protect them, before Clank stated that they really should be getting a move on. They then leapt off the edge in front of them and levitated down to the platform below them, or glided in Ratchet's case, before they landed on the platform and loosed a few shots at the robotic chickens that were waiting for enemies to show up.

They rounded a corner and spotted another device that was spawning more of the robots, but this time Starlight grabbed an enemy and smashed it into the machine until they were both ruined. The three of them then switched to their hand held weapons and fought their way through the amount of robotic chickens that were coming their way, knowing it would be a waste to use their ammo against such easy enemies. They then approached the factory itself and found a bolt crank waiting outside it, so Ratchet spun it around and opened the door so they could figure out where the Thief went.

Starlight spotted a space where they would have to jump between two walls and tried to convince her siblings to just teleport to the top of the platform, but in the end she was the only one to do that as both Sunset and Ratchet walk jumped until they were beside her. The next turn gave them an overview of the majority of the factory, though the moment they spotted the water beneath them Ratchet pulled out the gadget from before and froze the water solid. Once the deed was done they moved across the surface until they came to a set of platforms that they jumped up until they came to yet another bolt crank.

Once the bridge was connected they crossed over it and smashed the few enemies that were waiting for them, before Ratchet had to thaw the frozen water that was waiting before them. Starlight stayed back as Sunset and Ratchet leapt into the water and swam through the tunnel that had been frozen over, where they emerged on the other side and leapt out without wasting a second. As Sunset beckoned for Starlight to teleport over to them Ratchet unfroze the water in front of them, before he glided down to a bolt crank and revealed another walkway that was connected to the platform he had just been standing on.

Ratchet then swam through another tunnel, froze the water when he was in a smaller area, and leapt up a wall so he could reunite with his sisters, before the three of them moved on. The next watery area had rising water that lowered after it reached the top, but when Ratchet noticed the shark swimming in the water he merely sighed and allowed Starlight to move them to the next platform. They rounded a corner and spotted another shark in the next tank, so Starlight caught it with her magic and quickly moved it into the tank they had bypassed completely. Ratchet then froze the water at a certain point and the three of them walked through the tunnel that was waiting for them, connecting to another tank that had yet another shark in it.

When they were on the next platform Ratchet unfroze the water, but instead of removing the shark this time Starlight merely moved them once more. They then froze the next tank at the halfway point and walked through the tunnel that would take them further into the factory, to which they leapt up into what appeared to be a control room of some kind. They found a trio of small robots, that looked almost identical to the ones that came with the Glove of Doom, speaking with each other, though the conversation stopped as they approached them.

"Excuse me, have you seen any masked weirdos?" Ratchet asked, going through some silly movements to convey his message to the robots, who merely laughed in their own manner.

Clank, knowing that Ratchet would only delay them at this rate, acted on the groups behalf and spoke to the robots, determining that they had a transmission from someone fitting Ratchet's description of the Thief and they were willing to show it to them... for a small price. The message was an order for some chemicals that would allow someone to fire a large rocket or missile of some kind, though the message also contained the exact coordinates where the chemicals were supposed to be delivered.

"Let's go show that Thief that we mean business," Starlight said, smiling as they all knew that the time to fight the Thief had come at last, though as also pulled out the RYNO II for a moment, "and take back that experiment."
> Commando: Siberius
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the flight to their next destination, a planet with cold winds and frozen ground that reminded the group of Hoven, the four of them were silent as they prepared for what they might find in their way. Considering that they were right on the Thief's tail, and were closing in fast, they knew that they were going to have to fight their way through a massive group of enemies to reach their target. Starlight was preparing her weapons, making some tweaks here and there to make sure that they were all ready for the fight ahead of them, all while creating a few holoplans that she might send to Gadgetron when they returned to the Solana Galaxy. Clank was focused on getting the scans of the planet, so he could determine where they needed to land so they could find the Thief and retrieve the experiment with the greatest of ease.

Sunset, on the other hand, was flipping through her notes on the various powers that the people of Old Earth discovered before the end of their civilization. One story happened to contain a man that held a similar power to the one she used back on Gaspar, something she hadn't tried to use ever since it accidentally appeared in her hand. With some extra research into the story, as she didn't have anything else to occupy her mind other than prepare for the confrontation with the Thief, she discovered that the name for the attack she used, according to the people of Old Earth, was Gekishin. Upon further research she discovered that the name meant 'severe earthquake', which she felt was appropriate considering what had happened when she used it the first time.

Once she had discovered this piece of information, and kept it to herself for the moment, she looked down at her bracelet and wondered what would happen if she used the attack again; would she ruin another world, like she had done to Gaspar, or would she be able to control the power inside of her and prevent another disaster from happening.

"You thinking about Searing again?" Starlight asked, seeing her sister stare at her bracelet once more, for what seemed like the tenth time since they left Notak behind.

"Excuse me?" Sunset replied, snapping herself out of her concentration and turning to her sister, "What do you mean by 'Searing'?"

"We have to call your hollow something besides, well, 'hollow' all the time," Starlight explained, as she had personally grown tired of referring to her sister's inner creature as a hollow all the time, despite the fact that it resembled the creatures from another of Old Earth's stories, "and Searing just seemed like an appropriate name, seeing how you like to use fire magic most of the time."

"That was true when we were in the Solana Galaxy," Sunset countered, knowing that she had focused on fire magic when she had first discovered that she was a capable of using and controlling magic, "and its been half a year since I discovered the other elements that I could use in addition to fire. To call my inner creature 'Searing' would be like saying that I favored fire magic over the other different types of magic... regardless of what I did in the past."

"Then why not settle on a different name?" Clank suggested, overhearing the conversation and, after a brief moment of internal debate, decided to throw in his opinion on the matter, "Maybe something like Darkstar? Or possibly the Nightmare?"

"Oh come on, we're not going to call the creature inside of me either of those names," Sunset replied, not believing that this was even happening at the moment, "I mean, the hollow is a manifestation of my anger and my inner darkness... we don't need to give her a name that makes it sound like she's a villain or something."

"Well, she did go on a rampage and kill Chairman Drek," Starlight commented, remembering the event with ease, considering she had witnessed something terrible that might have changed how their family worked, "If we hadn't stopped her from continuing her rampage I'm sure that she would have ruined most of Veldin in a fit of rage... not to mention the planet that had been brought into orbit above it. That's not accounting for the people and the native creatures that also called the planet home at the time... I'm pretty sure she would have slaughtered many of them if she hadn't been stopped."

"How about Pride?" Ratchet suggested, though after a few seconds of silence he looked back and found that none of them thought that the name was very funny, "What?"

"That... that was just plain stupid." Starlight said, bringing her hoof to her face for a moment, "Anything would have been better than calling our sister's inner creature 'Pride'... I mean, we could have called it Ira, meaning anger, and it would have been a thousand times better than what you suggested."

"Okay then, we'll call the hollow 'Searing' and never speak of this again," Sunset finally said, sighing as she tried to wrap around the fact that her family wanted to nickname the creature she had become during their fight with Drek, "and no, we wont have a discussion about changing the name in the future. We're leaving it where it is and we're throwing away the key. Let's focus on locating the Thief and then bring this quest to a close so we can go home."

"Searing it is then," Starlight happily said, making a note of the change in her tablet before returning to what she was doing before she had noticed her sister staring at her bracelet.

Sunset moaned, because despite the fact that she had brought the argument to a close she still felt like Starlight had won the war, as it was her suggested name that had been picked. At least she knew that when they found the Thief they would forget about the creature inside of her and focus on recovering that Mr. Fizzwidget had hired them to recover.





When they reached Siberius Ratchet moved the ship around the compound where the Thief was supposed to be located, taking stock of what might be waiting for them so they could accurately plan out their attack. From what they could see from the air it appeared as if the only enemies that they would have to fight before they reached the Thief was more of the spider bots that they had fought on the ship they had been lured to. One thing that the four of them could agree on was that there had to be more enemies than what they were currently seeing, because this was the place where the Thief planed on using the chemicals she purchased from the factory on Notak to blow the experiment to pieces.

Once they landed their ship they approached the vendor and restocked their ammo, where they fond that there were no new weapons to be added to their already considerably large arsenal that they were carrying around. Ratchet had to wonder if they actually needed more weapons, considering that they had the RYNO II to fall back on if they actually needed some serious firepower, but decided not to question it at this point. He guessed that Starlight liked to see what weapons Megacorp could produce, so that she could make her own weapon holoplans that would later be handed off to Gadgetron when they returned to the Solana Galaxy.

After a few minutes of making sure that their weapons were at the ready, and double checking the machine to make sure that they hadn't missed anything, the group moved forward and immediately spotted circular dispensers in the ground ahead of them. The instant one of them stepped into the proximity of the dispensers they opened up and started spawning large spheres that had four blades sticking out of their midsection. Starlight and Ratchet were quick to react to the appearance of the spheres, because their Lancers were out within seconds and they immediately opened fire on them before they got any closer than they already were.

One of the spheres managed to get around the two of them and approached the group from the back, but Sunset was on top of it as she shoved her sword into its chest and destroyed whatever allowed it to move.

Each of the dispensers happened to have ten spheres a piece, so once they were depleted they powered down and allowed the group to move on once more, before a small building in front of them opened and five spider bots walked out to fight them. Ratchet cycled back to the Gravity Bomb and loosed one of the charges, blowing two of them to pieces and wounding the other three lightly, forcing Starlight to pick up the slack as she tore them apart with a second charge. The instant the group of robots was dealt with they turned to the bridge beside them and took one step on it, to which they discovered at least five green spider bots were slowly making their way towards the three of them... with another fire red colored ones providing cover fire from a platform above them.

Starlight snapped a shield into existence to prevent the red robots from hitting them, allowing Ratchet to cycle back to his rifle and pick them off one at a time, though she knew that someone needed to deal with the green robots advancing towards them. Sunset walked through the shield and beckoned the robots to come at her, to which she spun the moment one was near her and cut the robot in two, going from the base to the head. As the two halves fell into the freezing water below them she raised her sword to parry one of the arm blades that the other spiders had, before twisting the sword around and driving it into the robot's power core. She didn't have an opportunity to pull back her sword and throw the body off the bridge, so instead she swung her arm and cut the robot she was attached to in two pieces, all while cutting into the robot that was standing behind it.

The other two decided to come at her at the exact same time, so this time Sunset called forth a little wind magic into her blade and swung it a bit, using the force of her swing to knock the two robots into the water below them.

"She's definitely got this place well armed in case of someone coming for the experiment," Starlight commented, lowering the shield as Ratchet finished off the last of the red robots, "it makes me wonder what we'll find when we get closer to our destination. Or what will happen when we actually fight the Thief."

"I'm sure that, by the end of this trek, she'll be begging for her life." Ratchet replied, switching to the Chopper for a moment as he spotted more robots on the next platform, "Until that time comes we should focus on reaching our target... which means that we'll have to eliminate anything and everything that she can throw in our path."

Ratchet swung his arm and loosed the stars he had pulled out, sending them through the air and hitting the robots that happened to be waiting for them to arrive, cutting at least one of them down and wounding the other three. Starlight leapt up onto the platform and swung her staff at one of the survivors, smashing the casing that protected its power core and ripping the core out with her magic. As that happened Sunset appeared behind the other two robots, swinging her sword around and cutting the head off of one of the robots, before removing the legs of the second one and shoving it into the water below them. Another robot happened to be waiting to the right of where they were standing, but Ratchet intercepted it with his Blitz Gun and shot the robot until it was a pile of spare parts.

"And we had best be careful," Clank commented, knowing that his scans indicated that they were approaching an area that had more robots waiting for them.

The group road the elevator they found to the bottom, where they leapt onto a small pillar that had another two sphere dispensers waiting for them to trigger them. It was a simple matter to get rid of them, as Ratchet and Starlight used the Lancers to remove those in front of them while Sunset took care of the ones that tried to flee with her sword. As her siblings prepared to move forward Sunset turned around and extended the sword into its whip mode, cutting into two red spider bots that they had ignored when they crossed over to the pillar, so that way they weren't attacked from behind.

Once the rear had been taken care of they crossed onto the major platform, where they immediately found a force of at least ten more spider bots patrolling the area, which immediately turned towards them the moment they touched the ground. As they readied their weapons they all noticed that a ship had also moved into the area, though they discovered its function as Sunset cut one robot in half and another descended from the ship to do battle with them. Ratchet pulled out more of the Chopper stars and threw them around the area at the same time that Starlight used her Blitz Gun to shoot the ones on the right, though for every robot they broke into pieces two more took their place.

At one point there appeared to be more enemies than what they were cutting down, to which Sunset sighed and knew that they had to do something before they were overrun.

"Enough of this madness," Sunset said, teleporting through the air and appearing on top of the ship, to which she spun her sword until the tip faced the top of the ship, "I'm ending this here and now."

Magical energy pulsed around the sword for a moment, though none of the robots seemed to notice that their carrier was under attack from one of their enemies. Sunset then lowered the sword into the top of the ship, cutting into the metal as if it was made of butter, but after a few seconds the ship shook under the pressure and a hole was blown into the top of it. Then, to be absolutely sure that it didn't generate anymore enemies, she swung the blade and released the energy, cutting the entire ship in half. Once the deed was done she let the pieces of the ship rain down on their enemies, flattening many of them as her siblings finished off those that remained.

As the smoke cleared Starlight and Ratchet found their sister standing among the wreckage of the ship, having used her magic to protect herself from any damage she might have taken.

"What was that about not using the Getsuga Tenshou?" Starlight said, knowing that at one point in the past she and Sunset had discussed the possibility of Sunset using her sword to channel her magic and perform what she had just done, to which she had been told that she was never going to do that.

"I might reconsider that at this point," Sunset replied, sheathing her sword as the three of them approached the next weapon vendor, "but we had best not dwell on that at the moment. If the Thief is watching our movements, which I'm fairly certain that she is, this attack might have scared her enough to make her reconsider staying here... but if she hasn't fled yet, if she's not watching us that is, then we have the chance to take her out before she has a chance to actually run."

Starlight and Ratchet knew that the effect of Sunset's power might alert their enemy to how much power they actually had, but there was no changing the fact that Sunset had done what she did. The three of them quickly restocked all of their weapons, making sure that everything they had on them was prepared for what was coming their way next. The moment they were ready Starlight teleported them onto the back of the massive trucks that happened to be sitting next to them, knowing that it was the only way to reach their target. The instant they were on board the door closed behind them and they felt the floor shift, indicating that they on their way to wherever the Thief had the experiment.

The door in front of them opened and a large group of spider bots marches towards them, but Starlight was expecting that as she loosed two charges of her Gravity Bomb at the same time, blowing the spiders to pieces and clearing the way for them to move on. The instant the spiders were taken care of the front of the cargo truck they were on opened up, revealing that they'd have to swing to the next ship in line. It wasn't hard to do that, not when they all had their Swingshots from their first adventure at this point, though when they walked to the top of the truck the Thief flew in on what appeared to be a hoverboard of some kind and started firing at them.

As Ratchet and Starlight returned fire, and dodged the Thief's attacks, Sunset noticed that the Thief wasn't even trying to hit Ratchet, as if she was still trying to scare them into fleeing the galaxy and leave her to her own devices. Sunset had to wonder if there was another motive behind the Thief missing Ratchet all the time, because she didn't seem to have that same problem when it came to Starlight or Sunset.

Once the Thief retreated for the moment the next truck opened for them to move on, though when they landed on the floor of its back they were assaulted by more of the spider bots. That was also when they found that there was two more sphere dispensers in the same room, so they switched to the heavier weapons and mowed their way through the enemies that were standing in their way. Even without using the RYNO II they had to make sure that they were careful, as the room they were in was small and they didn't want to hurt each other in the process of clearing out their enemies. Once they had cleared out the third truck, and the door had opened for them to move forward, they used their Swingshots again to reach the next truck in line.

Sunset wasn't surprised to see that the Thief had returned to attack them again, but once again she noticed that their enemy went to great effort to not hit Ratchet, confirming that there was something going on that she didn't understand. This time when the Thief decided to fly away she shot at the tires of the truck they were on and tried to get ride of them that way, as the truck tipped over as they neared their final destination. Starlight summoned a sphere around them as they were thrown from the ship, which allowed them to land on the platform that the Thief had been heading towards.

"Okay, let's put an end to this," Ratchet said as the shield fell apart, to which he climbed onto the structure and climbed the ladder to the top of the next platform.

Sunset noticed that where they had ended up happened to be a platform that was designed to launch missiles, which was what she assumed the Thief had been planning on doing with the chemicals she had purchased. As her siblings once again restocked their weapons, which she didn't do considering she didn't use any of her weapons during their trek, Sunset walked onto the platform and watched the Thief the entire time. She took note of the fact that the experiment was tied to the missile in front of them, which meant that the Thief might be planning on blowing it to pieces as she suspected.

"So, how does it feel to have everything you worked for broken by a lombax, a unicorn, and a cazar that can use magic?" Sunset shouted, pulling the Thief's attention to her for a moment, "Do you feel ashamed? Do you feel pissed off? Do you feel annoyed that everything you've worked for has been broken?"

"So you can perform telekinesis," the Thief replied, though despite the fact that her voice was altered by some device Sunset could hear a hint of annoyance in her voice, "am I supposed to be impressed? Magic, as you call it, does not exist... despite the fact that you and the pony behind you were born with the ability to use telekinesis."

"So you haven't been keeping track of what we're able to accomplish with a little bit of magic," Sunset commented, a smile appearing on her face as she considered how to end this entire fight in one go, "Well then, we had best fix that point of view you have."

Sunset's magic flared and she snatched the Thief right out of the air, dragging her to the middle of the platform and using some extra magic to lock her arms against the side of her body. Once she was satisfied with what she had done, and made sure that the Thief couldn't move, a sphere of blue energy wrapped around her right hand as she approached the Thief. It had been six months since she last used this power, though she felt it was appropriate that she brake the Thief right here with the very power that frightened Chairman Drek. She knew that the surrounding area would suffer a small tremor and a few cracks in the ground, but they would stop the Thief in her tracks and finish off the mission they had been hired to complete.

She grinned as she stopped before the Thief, knowing that the game of cat and mouse was finally over at long last and that the Thief would go to prison for what she had done.

"Any last words before I end this game of ours?" Sunset asked, though she expected the Thief to beg for mercy before she slammed her fist into her stomach and released the energy she had summoned.

"I'm not a fan of puppeteers but I've a nagging fear," something started to say, though Sunset suspected that it had to be a ringtone of some kind, "someone else is pulling at the strings..."

"Do you mind if I take this call?" the Thief asked, surprising Sunset by the request for a moment, "It could very well change the tides of this entire fight."

Sunset growled and pulled her arm back as the song played, snapping her fingers for a moment and unbinding the Thief, who merely pressed something on the side of her helmet and the music stopped.

"What is it Ivan? I'm preparing to do battle with some of Megacorp's latest lackeys." the Thief said, turning around and facing the missile for a moment, though it gave Starlight and Ratchet time to get behind Sunset, "What do you mean I stole the wrong experiment? I know that they were planning on cloning the creature, but the machine hadn't been used when I stole the experiment and escaped with it. What do you mean that the logs of the cloning machine might have been altered? Only three people have the access codes to alter any part of that machine; you, Mr. Fizzwidget, and myself, and I know that neither of us would jeopardize our mission like this. Hold on a moment, its hard to yell with this blasted device altering my voice."

The three of them watched as the Thief removed the mask that she was wearing, which apparently was the device that altered her voice because her voice sounded normal when she resumed speaking to whoever was on the line.

"Okay, that's much better. Now run that by me again," the Thief continued, annoyance appearing in her voice once again, "What do you mean that Mr. Fizzwidget logged into the machine, cloned the experiment, and left the clone for me to steal a few days later?! I'm the lead scientist on the project and I would have noticed whether the creature I was stealing was actually a clone or the real deal... what do you mean there was an addition to tell the clone from the real deal? A small white circle on the back of its head... yeah, I'll take a look at it before I get these 'heroes' even more pissed off at me."

Sunset turned to Starlight and nodded her head once, to which her sister pulled the experiment free from the bindings that kept it trapped to the missile and brought it down to the Thief.

"Yeah, I'm looking at it now..." the Thief said, though her voice faltered as Starlight spun the creature around, as all of them noticed the circle that she had been told about, "(Auto-censored word here)! I can't believe that he actually played me like this! All my weeks of planning to steal the experiment and go into hiding until I could destroy it... all ruined because our employer happened to have a good idea and clone the original creature. Look, I need to set some things straight with these 'heroes' before I can determine what our next move is... I'll contact you in a few days and then we'll go from there. Hopefully we can still stop Megacorp in time... okay, I'll take to you later."

The Thief hung up on her partner in crime and turned to face them, though Sunset was surprised to find a cat like creature that looked a lot like Ratchet, though she also noticed that there was a missing element; namely the tail. The Thief sighed and pushed her hair backwards, clearly annoyed by the most recent turn of events that had befallen her seemingly perfect master plan.

"First off, my name is Angela Cross," the Thief told them, "so no more Thief this or Thief that. Second... it appears that I have some serious explaining to do..."

Sunset sighed and drew the magic of her attack into her bracelet, knowing that they were going to be here for a while so they could hear everything that Angela wanted them to know. Somehow she knew that their adventure in the Bogon Galaxy was far from over... and that things were only starting to heat up.
> Commando: Tabora
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before Angela had told them anything about what was going on, and why she wanted to blow up her boss' experiment so badly, she took the four of them to a nearby building that would protect them all against the weather of Siberius. Starlight would have summoned a barrier to protect them, but figured it was better to let Angela do what she wanted before they started jumping to conclusions. Though both she and Sunset were impressed by the updates that had been made to the shelter, which they assumed was because Angela had been preparing for this day for a long time and wanted someplace safe so that she could watch the fireworks when she launched the missile and got rid of the experiment.

Once the five of them had entered the building, and Starlight levitated the experiment into the cage that Angela had been keeping it in the entire time, Angela closed the door and sealed it tight to prevent the cold air from getting inside. The moment the door was sealed Angela pulled off her cape and tossed it onto a chair near the door, though it was clear that she was still frustrated by her complete failure to secure the real experiment. She sat in a chair that sat around a table, to which Ratchet and the others joined her, as they were eager to hear what she had to tell them about the experiment.

"Oh where to begin with this mess?" Angela said, sighing as she tapped a button on the table and brought up a picture of the experiment, choosing to leave the creature in its cage for the moment, "Experiment 13, or the experiment as Mr. Fizzwidget called it, is a creature that had been genetically modified to be the perfect pet for anyone in the Bogon Galaxy. I was supposed to be working out the defects that the experiment had, so it could be prepared for the market, and I would have perfected it if the timeline hadn't been pushed forward on me. One of its major defects is that it, well... eats its handlers or anyone in the immediate area."

"So... the experiment is a killer..." Clank commented, not believing that they had been hired to recuse something that could potentially destroy an entire settlement all by itself, or an entire planet if it had been cloned, "Now I can see why you wanted to get rid of it."

"I thought that if I could get rid of the real one that I might push the timeline back and give me enough time to fix everything that was wrong with it," Angela explained, looking back at the clone that was resting in the cage, "Now it seems that I'm going to have to go to Plan B; get enough resources, weapons, and gadgets, along with a keycard of mine, so that we can launch an attack on the Megacorp Headquarters and get to the actual experiment."

"Seriously? That's your backup plan?" Starlight asked, causing Angela to turn back to them and nod her head, "Look, I know that two of us could easily destroy the headquarters with our magic alone, but there has to be more to your plan than just gathering resources and attacking Megacorp."

"I've also been working on a device that could fix the experiment, but its not complete," Angela admitted, pressing another button and revealing a device that had three small suction cup like things attached to it, "This is the Helix-o-Morph, a device I believe that can fix the real experiment... when I manage to complete it. I left it at my own residence, so I'll need to head there and see what needs to be done to fix it... though we're going to have to give the clone back to Mr. Fizzwidget."

Sunset didn't like where this was going, because Angela was talking about them taking on the entirety of what Megacorp could throw at them so she could fix something that was dangerous to everyone in the Bogon Galaxy. Starlight was right in thinking that the two of them could, with their magic, destroy the headquarters on their own, but that was something that she didn't want to consider. She was also sure that her potent magical powers could do the job, but if she unleashed a fully powered Gekishin on the building, or any world for that matter, she knew that the result would be a massive disaster.

She could also tell that Ratchet might actually be agreeing with the plan, though after a few seconds he made a comment that told her that he was being smart about this whole situation.

"We'll deliver the clone back to Mr. Fizzwidget and see what we can learn from him," Ratchet said, getting onto his feet and walking over to the small cage that they were keeping the clone in, which only looked him in curiosity for a few seconds, "Who knows, maybe there's someone else pulling the strings behind this madness and he's unaware of what's going on."

Angela sighed again, but this time she made no move to stop them from taking the clone from the cage and leaving the building so they could return to their ship. As they left the building she did tell them that she would tell them if she found anything that they might be able to use or get some information out of, which only told Sunset that Angela thought that they didn't fully believe her at the moment.

"Ratchet, wait a second," Angela said, stepping outside the building and grabbing onto his wrist, before she slipped him a small plastic looking material, "Just slip that into your headset when you get the chance... my numbers on it so I can contact you when I have some more information."

Before Ratchet could say anything Angela went back inside the building and closed the door behind her, though Sunset was able to catch what she assumed was a blush before the door closed. Ratchet sighed and slipped the chip into his headset, allowing the number to be integrated into his system before they bothered to call Mr. Fizzwidget. It was clear that Ratchet had no idea what was even going on at the moment, or if he did he wasn't showing that he was following what was happening, but Sunset would keep notes for him anyway. Sunset had the feeling that she knew what Angela actually was, but she didn't want to say anything to Ratchet or Starlight before she confirmed her suspicions.

They quickly made their way back to their ship, where Ratchet pulled out the experiment and activated the communicator that would allow them to speak with Mr. Fizzwidget. Their employer seemed impressed that they managed to track down the 'Thief' and recover the 'experiment', which told them that the old man had no idea who had taken the experiment. When Ratchet inquired about where they would meet Mr. Fizzwidget they received a video about how Megacorp turned a planet with rain forests into a massive desert, which was where he told them that he would gladly meet them.

Ratchet waited until the message was over, and the communicator was turned off, before he tapped the side of his headset and tested the number that he had been given.

"This is Angela Cross," Angela said, before noticing that it was Ratchet that was calling her, "What is it Ratchet?"

"Just wanted to tell you that we're meeting Mr. Fizzwidget on Planet Tabora," Ratchet replied, while his sisters got the ship started so they could leave the world, "just in case you happened to discover anything else after we left and wanted to know where to find us."

"Thanks Ratchet," Angela said, a hint of happiness in her voice, "I'll be sure to let you know if I find anything useful."

Ratchet hung up and hopped in the ship, setting the coordinates for Planet Tabora and setting off for their next destination, though he had to wonder if their quest was over or not.





They happened to arrive a full hour before Mr. Fizzwidget was supposed to arrive, so Starlight and Sunset walked around the immediate area of where they landed and looked at what was around them. Starlight noticed that there were some strange creatures wandering around the desert, but they didn't come close to where they were standing so she didn't feel the need to pull her weapons out. Starlight also noticed that the planet was pretty much dead from all the years that Megacorp had spent digging for all of the precious minerals that they had seen in the video. She had done some research on their way to Tabora, trying to figure out what they could have been looking for besides everything that they had already extracted.

Despite her searching she had no solid clues as to what Megacorp had been looking for, which made her wonder if Angela might know something about all of this.

Sunset, on the other hand, noticed a small ship appear on her radar, as she had been keeping an eye out for Mr. Fizzwidget, but she smiled as she noticed that the ship was actually the one that Angela had used. She and Starlight had been sent a file containing the identification number of the ship that Angela used, so they would know when she either was coming to tell them something or join them in a fight. She spotted Angela setting the ship down near the abandoned settlement, in an area that was below the actual settlement, so while Starlight looked around for useful information, and Ratchet waited for Mr. Fizzwidget, she moved to a elevator and rode down to where Angela was landing.

When she reached the bottom of the area she spotted Angela climbing out of her ship, though she was curious as to what their newest friend might have to tell them.

"You find something out already?" Sunset asked, wondering what Angela could have figured out in the couple of hours since they had departed from Siberius.

"No, I just remembered that I had forgotten to tell you about something that will prove what I was talking about," Angela replied, looking around for someone and quickly found that they were the only two in the immediate area, "So, where's the rest of the group?"

"Ratchet and Starlight are waiting for Mr. Fizzwidget to arrive," Sunset said, wondering if this was the best time she could be bringing something she had observed into the open, "Angela, do you have a crush on Ratchet?"

Angela definitely faltered the moment she asked the question, as if she hadn't realized that she had acted differently towards Ratchet in the short time she had known him. It merely confirmed what Sunset had suspected on the last planet, that there was something more than the whole Thief vs Hero thing going on at the moment.

"I... I don't know what you are talking about," Angela replied, gulping to clear her throat for a moment, "I mean... he's clearly already spoken for..."

"I'm his sister." Sunset deadpanned, not believing that she found someone else, in another galaxy no less, that thought that she and Ratchet were boyfriend and girlfriend, "And, as his sister, I can tell you that he's definitely not seeing anyone at the moment. So I'll ask you again; do you have a crush on my brother?"

"...yes..." Angela weakly replied, confirming that there was something between her and Ratchet that would need to be expanded upon in the future, "...he doesn't know, does he?"

"He doesn't know that you have a crush on him." Sunset said, noticing that a light smile had appeared on Angela's face for a moment, "Though that makes we want to ask the question; why are you hiding the fact that your a lombax?"

The moment after she asked her question was followed by a silence from Angela, as if she had been smacked across the face after discovering that Ratchet was actually single. That made Sunset assume that there was something else that Angela wasn't telling her, but she knew that she had already taken on too and might freak Angela out.

"...how... how did you know?" Angela asked, her voice shaky for a moment, which definitely clued Sunset in on the fact that something was different this time.

"Angela, I grew up along side Ratchet for the last thirteen years," Sunset replied, letting a sigh escape her lips as she heard her radar go off, which made her check the readings and find that another ship had arrived, "Hold on, Ratchet's going to want to know that Mr. Fizzwidget's here."

Ratchet and Starlight were glad that their employer had finally arrived, because they were both starting to wonder if he had forgotten about the experiment that they had just recovered. Ratchet kept them on the line the entire time, giving Angela time to decompress from what Sunset had told her not moments ago and regain her composure. The pair of them then heard the crushing sound of a large ship crushing a much smaller ship, which Sunset knew meant that the ship they had been given had been smashed to pieces. They waited a moment, listening to Mr. Fizzwidget's excuse about there being something on the landing pad and then saying it was insured, before they heard the sound of ejector seats going off.

"You guys okay?" Sunset asked, waiting for a few seconds before she heard the sound of Ratchet's feet and Starlight's hooves touching what she assumed was a pile of sand.

"He just ejected us from the ship!" Ratchet replied, though it was clear that he was annoyed, "We landed in a underground cave that appears to connect to the settlement you were exploring... so we'll move through it and catch up to you as quick as we can. I have the feeling that we'll be down here for some time."

Sunset sighed and closed the communicator, through after that she asked Angela a few questions to pass the time so she could get to know her, and the situation, a bit better. One of the things that she was curious about was the selection of music that Angela had, to which she discovered that she had found a strange piece of metal that contained it and a few other songs from Old Earth. Her personal theory, one that was largely supported by other scientists she spoke to, was that the people of Old Earth managed to launch something that she referred to as the 'Codex'. It was supposed to be a large device that contained the majority of the stories that Sunset had been researching when she first discovering her powers, but those were from the fragments that the people of Solana and Bogon were able to collect.

From what they could determine the Codex was far from complete, as there was too much history that was missing from their archives for it to be complete. Angela's fragment was one of the few musical ones that had been recovered, though she was unable to figure out who had created the music or what purpose it served.

"One of my goals in life is to find the fragments of the Codex and reassemble it, so everyone can finally uncover what lead up to its creation," Angela admitted, to which Sunset nodded her understanding, before she opened her tablet and started tipping something in, "Have you heard what happened to Old Earth, before the people evacuated?"

"I actually haven't heard what happened to the planet," Sunset told her new friend, because she had thought that the planet had merely been abandoned, but by the way Angela spoke it made her wonder if something else had happened.

Angela turned the tablet around and showed her a hologram of the planet that had been called Old Earth, though Sunset was surprised to find that the moon had been split into two fragments. She waited a few minutes, wondering what Angela was trying to show her, before the surface of the planet cracked as if its core had become unstable. It was like a cataclysm was happening across the entire planet, tearing all of the various civilizations to pieces under the intensity of the of the core's unstable nature. Then, without much warning, the planet exploded, to which it and its moon were reduced to mere piles of rubble that floated in the space the planet used to inhabit.

"Scientists have no idea if the people of Old Earth tore their planet apart or if the world turned on them," Angela said with a sigh, powering down the tablet as she looked up at the sky, "It sort of reminds me of what Megacorp did to this planet when they arrived; they terraformed this entire area and began digging all the holes you've no doubt already seen. I inquired as to what Mr. Fizzwidget was searching for once upon a time, though the answer I got was that he was searching for one of the fabled 'Raritanium Cores'. He wanted one of them, why I'll never know, but he never found it and used the resources to grow the company into what it is today."

Sunset wondered what had lead Mr. Fizzwidget to assume that one of the Raritanium Cores had been buried on this planet, because it had been reported that all six of them had been together at one point before being separated across the vastness of space. She would have mentioned that she actually had one of them, but decided not to considering the fact that it was back in Solana at the moment and that there was no way for her to get it.

"Mind if I ask you something... that's not related to whether Ratchet's available or not..." Angela said, causing Sunset to turn back to her for a moment.

"What's on your mind?" Sunset asked, curious as to what Angela would possibly ask her.

"You said that you could use magic, yet you retracted that, oh what do you call it...?" Angela started, but it was clear that she had no idea what terms to use when speaking about magic.

"Spell?" Sunset offered, knowing that it was going to take some time to convince Angela that magic actually existed and that she wasn't messing with her.

"...yeah, spell," Angela said, sighing for a moment before looking at Sunset, "What I want to know is what would have happened if my contact inside Megacorp hadn't called at that moment before you swung your fist at me."

Sunset took a moment to wonder that very question herself, because she had summoned just a lot of power into her attack so she could have ended the fight between them and Angela before it had even started. She knew that the attack would have put Angela out of commission for some time, though the effects of the planet would have been much more devastating. She still remembered Gaspar, where she had used the spell for the first time, and the destruction she had accidentally caused when she had no control over her powers. The sad part was that she had to tell Angela something, though she had to wonder if her answer would be believable... which made her wish that she had a recording of what happened on Gaspar.

Unfortunately, most of Drek's video recordings had been purged shortly after his defeat, so there was no way to show Angela what she had done to the planet.

"I can only describe it in one word; destruction." Sunset replied, flexing her hand and summoning the spell from earlier, before relaxing and sending it away once more, "The spell, according to the people of Old Earth, is called Gekishin..."

"...meaning 'severe earthquake'..." Angela slowly said, now understanding how fortunate she was to have her friend call her when he had, "That's a dangerous power you have."

"I'll have to show you when we're done with our mission," Sunset commented, which was followed by Angela nodding her head, "and don't worry, I'll keep the truth about what you really are a secret until your ready to tell Ratchet. Though one day you'll have to tell me what happened to your tail."

After Angela somewhat agreed to that, even with Sunset promising to keep everything she learned a secret, they then spent the next ten minutes talking about something else; Ratchet. All the small questions that Angela asked merely told Sunset that she was definitely interested in her brother, which had been confirmed earlier while they had been waiting for Mr. Fizzwidget to arrive. Sunset would have found it odd that she was answering Angela's questions, but considering that they were possibly the last two of their kind she decided to be nice and not say anything about it.

When Ratchet and Starlight finally showed up near where the two of them were standing they seemed happy to see them, though it also lead to Angela shutting up almost immediately when she spotted Ratchet. When Ratchet asked what Angela was doing on Tabora he learned that she had forgotten to tell them something back on Siberius, which caught Starlight's interest as well. Sunset noticed a look that basically told her that Ratchet couldn't believe that she hadn't told them that Angela had arrived, but he seemed to cool of so he could see what she had to show them.

What she wanted to show them was the Megacorp Testing Facility, where Sunset assumed they would find some records on what the experiment had done before Angela had attempted to steal it. When the short video ended Angela moved to get into her ship and depart, but before she could do so Ratchet actually asked her if she wanted to tag along when they went to the next planet. Sunset knew that he was merely asking so that they could split up into two teams when they arrived on Dobbo, though she hid her smile when Angela blushed and hurriedly accepted the invitation, before getting into her ship and blasting off before anyone could stop her.

With Angela gone Sunset rejoined her siblings and they returned to the settlement, where she and Starlight got to work reassembling the ship that Mr. Fizzwidget had smashed, accidentally or not. Sunset had the feeling that they were going to learn some ugly truths when they reached Dobbo, but that was an unfortunate side effect of trying to save a galaxy from a threat. She only hoped that nothing from Solana would repeat itself in Bogon... otherwise she was sure that something bad was going to happen.
> Commando: Dobbo
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It took Starlight and Sunset twenty minutes to make sure that every piece of their broken ship was accounted for before they could actually get to work on repairing it. Once they were sure that they had all of the pieces Starlight downloaded a holoplan of where the pieces went and how to attach them, so they wouldn't make any mistakes. As they worked Sunset noticed that Starlight happened to be using the wrench that Ratchet used back in Solana, so she asked about it while they pieced together the ship. Apparently they found another wrench during their trek through the underground cavern, one that was much stronger than the one that Ratchet had been using, so Ratchet grabbed the new one and handed the other to Starlight.

Sunset found it odd that there happened to be a wrench sitting in the middle of a underground cavern, but she decided not to worry too much about it as she worked.

During the next hour they received a stream of constant updates from Ratchet, to which he would tell them about the enemies he was fighting and what he was discovering. He made a few comments about the creatures that he discovered, which happened to be a sort of mutated sand fly and a mutated lizard that breathed poisonous fumes on their enemies. He also mentioned that he found some sort of glider that had been forgotten about, though he collected it in the off chance that it would actually be important in the future. The last thing he mentioned was a large creature that slept beneath the sands, ones that attacked if someone like him came in the immediate vicinity of where they were resting.

Starlight seemed impressed by the amount of enemies that Ratchet had reported, though she knew they needed to get the ship fixed before they could leave the planet. One thing that did distract them from their work, however, was an old man who might have been a hippie or some kind of mystic, though they really weren't sure what to make of him. What really distracted them was when Sunset needed to take a break and switch off her magic for a few minutes, which was when the man decided to speak with her.

"Your chi is out of balance," the old man said, holding up Sunset's right arm and motioning to the bracelet for a moment, as if he knew exactly what the heart of the problem was, "You are in control at the moment, but there is another force inside of you that is vying for control. You must learn to control 'Pride' before she asserts herself over you."

"She's called Searing," Starlight commented, sliding a piece of the ship into place, though while she had originally been interested in what the man had to say she now found that it was what she and Ratchet had been telling Sunset all along, "and Sunset hasn't had any urges where that creature might resurface... or even come close to coming back."

"Just because 'Searing' has been caged at the moment does not mean that she's defeated," the old man said, looking at Sunset for a moment, or more like he was staring inside of her very soul, "and sooner or later that cage will open like a floodgate. One day you and your counterpart will settle this with each other, but you won't be able to get to that point without transportation."

A few seconds passed before the old man pulled something out of his pocket, which happened to be a crystal of some kind, and then held out his hands as it floated into the air. Nothing happened for a minute or two, besides the two sisters staring at him as if he had lost his mind, before energy moved out of the crystal and wrapped around the broken ship. Starlight quickly grabbed her tools and backed out of the energy field, surprised by what the old man was doing and interested in what would happen to the ship at the same time. Another few seconds passed before the pieces of the ship spun around and pieced itself back together, slowly reconstructing itself until all of the pieces were gone and it was a whole ship again.

"It has been healed," the old man said, putting away the crystal before turning back to Sunset, "Remember, keep your emotions in balance and you'll remain in control... anger will only lead you towards destruction."

Sunset felt that she should say something to the old man, or even question the fact that he had harnessed the power of the crystal without any effort on his part, but before she could say anything the man merely bowed his head and walked out of the settlement. Then she assumed that she lost the old man due to the heat of the surrounding desert, because one moment she was sure that he was standing there and the next he was gone.

"I doubt that's that last we'll see of him," Starlight commented, hopping into the ship and checking the systems that she had access to without Clank to power it on, "I just hope that he managed to put the ship back together in the right way, otherwise we'll be here even longer than before."

Sunset nodded and let her sister check the ship, making sure that there was nothing else that could possibly make them stay on this planet any longer than necessary. Ratchet eventually returned to them, to which he told them that he had encountered a strange man when he came back for ammo some time ago and that he sold him a bunch of crystals he found out in the desert. Sunset assumed that it was because of her brother that the old man had the crystal that allowed him to rebuild their ship, which Starlight eventually declared was safe for travel once more. Once Starlight had given the okay to move they all boarded the ship and departed for Dobbo, where they knew that they would find Angela waiting for them.





When they finally arrived on Planet Dobbo, and landed on the landing pad, they found that Angela was indeed waiting for them, though she seemed to be checking out a weapon that reminded Starlight of her own Devastator. Both she and Sunset were happy that Angela was going to be aiding them, because with even teams of two they wouldn't have to worry about Ratchet going overboard at all. They didn't see her carrying a handheld weapon, like the wrench that Ratchet carried or the staff that Starlight had, but that didn't mean she didn't have one somewhere on her person.

"Nice weapon you got there," Ratchet commented, after having landed the ship and turned it off, before leaping out and approaching Angela, "I take it this is one of the latest Megacorp weapons?"

"This is the Minirocket Tube," Angela replied, a smile on her face as she noticed something that Ratchet was interested in, which allowed her to remain calm and not be blushing all the time, "it fires rockets at whoever your targeting... much like the Devastator that Starlight built back in Solana. I did some research on a few of the weapons that Megacorp recently released and I can tell that they're identical in function to your sister's weapons, minus the new looks and the ability to evolve into a new form later on."

"Nice. I'll be sure to add that to my collection," Ratchet said, noticing another vendor not far from where the weapon vendor was resting, "I take it Megacorp released a new suit of armor to go along with their latest weapons."

"They did indeed," Angela said, waving a hand for a moment, as if she was dismissing the notion of the armor, "Look, we had better get underway before someone notices that we're together... and I know exactly how we should separate."

"Oh really?" Starlight asked, curious as to what Angela found in her research of the planet before they arrived, "What were you thinking about before we arrived?"

"Ratchet, Clank, and I should take the main Megacorp building over there," Angela replied, pointing to the building that they had landed near for a moment, "As an employee for Megacorp I should be able to get us through all of the defenses and show Ratchet what I was referring to back on Siberius. In the off chance that the defenses don't let us through... well, that's why I came prepared for a fight. While we're doing that the two of you should head down the walkway and make your way to the edge of the facility, where you'll find someone with an interesting piece of technology. He'll be able to send you to the moon, where I have it on good authority that the Leader of Thugs-4-Less is waiting for a decent challenger to appear... instead of listening to the person who employed him."

"So you want us to take him out?" Sunset inquired, not that she was against taking the man out of the picture permanently, to which Angela nodded once, "Well then, you might as well consider him taken care of."

Sunset grinned and started down the path that she and Starlight would be heading down, though as she passed by the armor vendor she spotted robotic chickens, more armored than the ones that they had already encountered, waiting for intruders to arrive. The instant that she touched the ground near where the robots were waiting Sunset drew forth her sword and cut one on their heads off, forcing the remaining two to attack her. She spun around and took their heads as well, clearing the way for them to move forward, where she spotted a pair of sentry bots waiting for action. Sunset jumped out of the way as the robots fired at her, to which Starlight appeared where she had been standing and loosed a missile from her new Minirocket Tube, blowing the pair of robots to pieces.

As the robots fell to pieces the door beside where they were standing opened and another pair of robots came out to fight them, but Starlight didn't give them a moment to fight back as she loosed another missile and tore them to pieces. Once they were taken care of they turned to the left and spotted a gap in the walkway, which apparently was intended for someone with a Dynamo to cross, but they merely engaged their magic and crossed to the other side. As they landed on the other side Sunset kept her magic going for a few more seconds and threw the enemies that were sitting around them into the water below. The moment that she had taken care of the robotic chickens they climbed up to the next platform and spotted more of the sentry bots waiting for them... and between them and the next building was what appeared to be a flying tank of some kind.

Sunset called upon the wind that she had used a few times before, mainly to push her enemies back so her siblings could tear their enemies down, though this time she had something different in mind for the magic. The wind whipped around the robots in front of them and tore into the circuits that were powering them, causing them to explode in midair and clearing the way so Starlight could have a better chance at hitting the tank. Before she could loose even a single missile they noticed that two more doors opened and six more sentry bots stepped out to oppose them... to which Starlight moaned as she noticed that they were all standing together and were making no motion to move apart.

"Sometimes they make things too easy for me," Starlight said, loosing a missile that tore into the group and blew at least three of them to pieces, to which Sunset caught the ones that survived and tore into them like she had done with the previous group, "Now then, let's see about removing that tank."

Starlight cycled through her weapons and drew out her Pulse Rifle, to which she leaded the bottom of it on the boxes that were resting in front of them and followed the tank through the scope. She waited a few seconds, making sure that she had the tank's weakness in her sights, before she took a deep breath, pulled the trigger, and listened to the sound of the tank exploding. Once she was sure that the tank had been removed, and that it was a pile of scrap metal, she and Sunset teleported to the next platform and moved onto the next enemies that were waiting for them. That was when they discovered a large group of sentry bots that were armed and prepared for combat, which was just fine with Starlight as she pulled out her RYNO II.

Sunset backed up as Starlight unleashed the power of her weapon, watching the missiles tear into their targets with ease and quickly clearing the way for them to move on. She assumed that Starlight wanted her to deal with the Leader of Thugs-4-Less when they met him, which was why she was tearing into their enemies and making sure that none of them escaped. Sunset didn't mind, because she had no idea how they were going to get to the Leader if the device that Angela mentioned was the same one that they used to enlarge Clank back in the Solana Galaxy.

The next building they came to happened to have another group of sentry bots waiting for them, though before Starlight could put them down she spotted another tank moving into position. She waited a few seconds, letting both the sentry bots and the tank get into position, before she pressed the trigger and started blowing all of them to pieces. The good thing was that she managed to clear the way to the next building, though she ended up using all of the RYNO II ammo in the process, so she cycled to a new weapon as more enemies showed up on their radar. Before she could fire a single shot at their enemies, however, several of them seemed to malfunction, as they turned their weapons on their allies and started firing at them.

Sunset and Starlight watched as the rest of their enemies tore each other to pieces, both of them wondering what had happened to cause such a change in their behavior.

"Do you think we have an ally that only Angela knows about?" Starlight asked, making sure that they walked through the wreckage as they looked for the man that they had been informed about.

"We might," Sunset replied, stopping as they came to an end of a walkway and spotted someone standing next to something in the distance, "but we'll have to ask her another time... we've got someone to deal with at the moment."

They engaged their magic for a moment and teleported across the gap, appearing before someone that looked like they were an accountant of some kind... if an accountant was dressed like a wrestler.

"Nobody - I mean NOBODY - gets by the Mathematician." the man told them, even pounding his chest a few times to prove that he was someone that they shouldn't take lightly.

"I take it that all the good names were taken?" Starlight asked, because she was sure that she could come up with something different that would make the man sound more menacing than the 'Mathematician'.

"Watch your mouth zero, before the Mathematician subtracts your head from your shoulders!" the man roared, pointing his calculator at them while punching some buttons on it, as if he believed that it might do something, before turning their attention to Dobbo's moon, "That moon is where we divide losers from winners, before adding them to the Megacorp Games! There's a challenger up there waiting to reduce you to nothing!"

Starlight grinned and leapt onto the machine that was sitting to their right, to which Sunset stood beside her sister as she wove her magic into the device for a moment. A few seconds later they disappeared in a flash of light, surging through space until they appeared on the surface of the moon that the man had been pointing to. When they appeared, and shook off the effects of the spell, they noticed the battle mech that was standing before them almost immediately, though it took them a few seconds to realize that their target was actually piloting the machine.

"Oh, its you two again!" the Leader exclaimed, moving his robot's arms and putting them in a fighting position, "I guess I get to settle the score from Megopolis. You did a pathetic job trying to kill me the first time, though that makes sense considering your first foe is still alive!"

"I'll have you know that Qwark is dead!" Sunset replied, crossing her arms for a moment, though she could feel her anger flare for a moment thanks to the brief mention of the man who betrayed them, "And soon you will be as well!"

"You must not be keeping up to date on a show that's airing across both Solana and Bogon," the Leader said, a grin appearing on his face for a moment, "Qwark was arrested for selling bogus Gadgetron merchandise, though he escaped the authorities and is supposed to have come to Bogon... which means that you failed to kill him the first time."

Starlight noticed the brief flash of red energy around her sister for a moment, so she teleported to the top of a nearby building and opened her communications link to their brother. The Leader of Thugs-4-Less had just pressed what she and Ratchet referred to as the 'Qwark Button', which was any mention of the man who had betrayed them, as it seemed to annoy Sunset each time he was mentioned. Ratchet needed to know what was going on, so that he could prepare himself and Angela in case the incoming attack also happened to have an effect on the planet they were on.





Ratchet mentally moaned when he and Angela entered the building, because the instant they did so Angela discovered that none of the robots liked her anymore than they liked him. She had said that this could be a possibility, though he almost wished that she hadn't mentioned it when they were talking outside the building. The moment she stepped near one of the sensor bots that floated in the air it turned red and started firing at her, which forced Ratchet to blast the machine out of the air as she backed up to him. Once they knew that they definitely weren't welcome in the building, and that anything they came across was going to be hostile towards them, Ratchet didn't waste time going to war against the first group that was standing in front of them.

He loosed a few missiles, that were joined by Angela's, and they took out the flying sentry bots, leaving him to cycle to the Lancer to take care of the floating spheres that had been resting below the sentries.

"I hate being right." Angela moaned, switching to her own Pulse Rifle, which Ratchet didn't even know she had, and took aim at the next sentry bot that was blocking their path, "Well then, seeing how we have no choice in the matter, shall we get started?"

"Are you sure that you know how to use these weapons?" Ratchet asked, recalling that Angela had missed him and his sisters quite a number of times back on Siberius.

In response to the question Angela got the sentry in her sights and pulled the trigger, blowing it to pieces before it had a chance to register what happened to it. Even the robots that had been standing further along the path they had to take seemed shocked that the sentry had been taken out, judging from how fast they were approaching the wreckage.

"I took some lessons before I tried to take the experiment," Angela said, cycling back to her Minirocket Tube and pointing it at the enemies that were slowly noticing that they were standing there, "Come on, let's take care of business and then I'll tell you anything that you might want to know the answer to."

Ratchet nodded and the two of them moved forward, firing at their targets and removing them from the walkway that they had to follow, allowing them to move towards their destination. When they reached a elevator that would take them to the next area they found what appeared to be a large group of robots, sentry bots and soldiers alike, that were waiting for them. Ratchet knew that whatever was in here that Angela wanted to show him had to be important, but to require so much security meant that it was more important than he was thinking it was. For once he wished that he had Starlight or Sunset with him, because even with Angela he had no idea if they could cut their way through their enemies and survive.

He was about to say something about their chances, but then he noticed that Angela was holding a weapon that appeared to be different than anything he had in his arsenal.

"I managed to convince my friend to loan me this 'Zodiac' weapon for some 'testing'," Angela explained, noticing Ratchet's look for a moment as they rode the elevator down to the lower level, "Now we can see if this weapon is as powerful as he promised."

Angela leveled the weapon with one of the enemies that happened to be waiting in front of them, but when she pulled the trigger the weapon powered up for a few seconds before releasing a charge that tore nearly every enemy in front of them to pieces. The only ones spared were the three soldier bots that were waiting on the elevator in front of them, though Angela quickly put the weapon away. Ratchet was amazed and disturbed that Megacorp had made a weapon that was almost as powerful as Starlight's RYNO weapons, or more accurately the one she was currently carrying.

As they finished off the last of their enemies, and walked along the path that would take them to their destination, Ratchet noticed something was bothering Angela and asked her about it.

"That weapon is too dangerous for the public to be wielding it," Angela said, sighing as she made a note to tell her friend about the weapon's power, "and I wasn't even warned about it. We could have been seriously hurt if something went wrong with that attack... I'm going to have to give Ivan a piece of my mind when I next speak with him."

"Its almost as powerful as the RYNO II," Ratchet commented, activating a set of platforms that they needed to jump across, until they reached one that they rode to the top of the room they were in, "Gadgetron only makes the weapon, one of each model anyway, for Starlight, to use against whoever her enemies are and record her findings so she can build an even better one in the future. She's already said that no one else is to own a RYNO weapon, as she is sure that some criminals might do harm with them... which Sunset agrees with. The best thing to do is make sure that no one else has the weapon, which means we'll have to take to Mr. Fizzwidget about it when we're done with the experiment."

Angela nodded and they approached the terminal that she wanted to access, but when they stopped in front of it she found that it was currently offline at the moment and called a maintenance bot to fix it. What ended up happening what that the robot did nothing besides show up and then depart, to which Ratchet pulled out the glider he found on the previous planet, told her to wait near the terminal, and then took off after the robot. Angela then waited a few minutes before the terminal's screen came online, which told her that Ratchet had reached his destination and had restored power to the terminal that they needed to access, before he appeared in the teleporter pad.

When he noticed that the machine also required payment for viewing what they needed, on top of everything that they had gone through to get there, he exclaimed that the galaxy 'blows', before saying that the only good thing in it was that Angela and his sisters were there with him. Once the machine had been paid they watched the recording that they had come for, which verified everything that Angela had warned him about back on Siberius, before he downloaded it so he could show his sisters later on. Before he could place a call to Mr. Fizzwidget, in an attempt to make him see how dangerous the experiment actually was, he received one of his own, to which he discovered that Starlight was calling him.

When he accepted the call the screen lit up to what appeared to be a small city on a moon, a large mech that appeared to be looking down at someone, and Starlight watching the entire thing.

"What's up Starlight?" Ratchet asked, though he had to wonder where Sunset was at the moment.

"Unfortunately nothing but trouble," Starlight replied, sighing before tilting the screen down to show Sunset, who had a red aura surrounding her at the moment, "The Leader of Thugs-4-Less pressed the Qwark Button."





"I did what?" the Leader said, zeroing in on Starlight while she was speaking to her brother, though he was glad to have an audience watch him smash the cazar's head in.

"You pressed the 'Qwark Button'," Starlight repeated, sighing as she braced herself for what was to come, because she knew something was definitely coming, "You shouldn't have done that."

Before the Leader could make a retort, or do anything for that matter, his view of the surrounding area shrunk and forced him to look down, to which he discovered that the lower half of his mech was now missing. It was almost as if the legs had been cut off and discarded, though now he got a good look at Sunset as she slowly approached him... with the ground around her feet cracking just a bit. As Sunset drew closer to the mech energy began to gather around her left hand, in the same fashion as what had happened on Gaspar, though this time she fully intended to shatter her enemy. She called some magic into her right hand and used it to push the mech onto its back, making sure that her target couldn't go anywhere until after she delivered her attack.

She then leapt on top of the mech and pulled her arm back for a moment, allowing the power to build for a brief few seconds, before swinging her arm towards her target and releasing the power.

"Gekishin," Sunset said as her fist stopped in front of the mech, cracking the air as the power she had been building was released into the world around her.

The ground around the mech cracked and shattered as the power rushed out in all directions, though at the same time pieces of the battle mech shattered under the intensity of her attack. Parts of the ground surrounding her heaved themselves upwards, just like in an earthquake, while several of the buildings were completely destroyed in the process. As the destruction moved across the moon Starlight surrounded herself in her magic and lifted herself into the air, allowing her to bypass what was happening and keep an eye on her sister. To Sunset's annoyance, however, the only other damage the mech sustained, besides a damaged power core, was a few cracks to the glass that separated her from the Thugs-4-Less Leader.

Before she could permanently put an end to her target he flipped a switch and the compartment he was in ejected itself from the mech, allowing him to escape into space for the moment. Sunset let him flee from the moon, because she knew that they would cross paths again one day... and when they did she would be sure to put him down.
> Commando: Joba
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When Sunset and Starlight returned to the area in which they had left the Mathematician, once again by Starlight's magic, the man informed them that they were welcome to head to Planet Joba and compete in the Megacorp Games. Neither one actually cared for fighting in a gladiator arena, or another in Sunset's case, but they accepted the coordinates and jumped into the taxi vehicle that was waiting nearby. They then took the scenic route through the facility, giving them a view of every building that they had walked through to reach their destination, before they returned to where their ship was located.

Ratchet and Angela appeared in the teleportation pad not a few seconds after Sunset and Starlight arrived in their taxi, though Angela was looking a little scared for a couple of seconds. When Starlight asked her what was bugging her, however, she quickly realized that their newest companion had no idea what power Sunset could command at the moment.

"I'm officially scared of your power," Angela said, pulling up her tablet and picking a picture of the moon that they had just left, "all that destruction, all from you releasing such a powerful spell... I'm very lucky that Ivan called me when he did."

"The Thugs-4-Less Leader managed to get away," Sunset replied, not even wanting to discuss the fact that she had blown up and could have very well broken the entire moon, "so we'll have to be more careful in the future. He's bound to have some nasty surprises for us now that he knows exactly what he's fighting against... though if he's anything like Chairman Drek he'll do something stupid and end up providing us with the perfect way to get rid of him."

Ratchet didn't want to bring up the fact that, when they fought against Chairman Drek, that Sunset had actually been killed before the fight had begun, though that had been followed by Searing appearing in full force. He knew that his sister was referring to something else, which was why he didn't say anything about the creature that apparently shared Sunset's body. Considering what he had seen of the Thug Leader, and some of the stupid decisions he's already made, he knew that their enemy was going to do something stupid that would allow them to get rid of him swiftly.

"We also managed to get the coordinates for Planet Joba," Starlight said, getting them back on track, as she preferred to leave that event in the past, "where there is supposed to be another arena of some kind. If its anything like the one at the Maktar Resort, and I do believe that it is, then we should enter it and get whatever gadgets they're offering to the winners."

"Well then, I had better get back to working on the Helix-o-Morph," Angela commented, pressing a button on her wrist, which the others all assumed would call in her ship, "We're going to need it to deal with the experiment when we launch our assault on Megacorp... when we finally reach that point in time."

Ratchet could tell that Angela was reconsidering all of her plans because of what Sunset did, but he also knew that she wasn't planning on using those powers to her advantage. Sunset's powers were often unstable, thanks to Searing, so there was no telling if she would cause a little damage or if she would cause complete devastation... which was why his sister always seemed to use the weaker spells so she could keep herself in control.

"We'll be heading to Joba first," Ratchet said, popping the lid of their ship so his sisters could climb inside first, as they sat in the back all the time, "then we'll see if we can convince Mr. Fizzwidget to meet us somewhere and dispose of the experiment."

"Good luck with that." Angela replied, barely turning around as her ship came to a stop in the water behind her, "Oh, and Ratchet?"

"Yes Angela?" Ratchet said, turning around to face her for a moment, to which she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Please be safe." Angela told him, before hopping into her ship, closing the hatch, and taking off for wherever her residence was, all without giving him time to say anything.

Unfortunately for Ratchet there was someone else that was willing to say something, which only made him sigh as he set their course for Planet Joba.

"Ratchet and Angela sitting in a tree," Starlight teased, a smile appearing on her face, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"





On their way to Joba Ratchet commented that he wanted to visit the ship shack after they contacted Mr. Fizzwidget, because he had the feeling that they might be attacked on their way to wherever they were going to meet their employer. Sunset and Starlight agreed with that, mostly because they were sure that Sunset's magic might give out at the wrong moment and they didn't want that to happen in a space battle. It also allowed Ratchet to get Starlight to stop with the whole him and Angela getting together and starting a family, which made him moan because Angela was definitely a few years older than him and likely had her eye on someone else.

When they finally arrived at their destination they found that there was a group of enemies not far from where they landed, though they didn't seem to concerned that a ship was landing near them. They also found two new weapons available for purchase; the Plasma Coil, which reminded them of the Tesla Claw, and the Spiderbot Glove, which apparently used remote controlled spiders to hurt their enemies from afar. Ratchet wasn't sure that they even needed the additional firepower, considering that if they really needed some serious power either Starlight or Sunset would use their magic to clear the way. In the end he collected both weapons for himself, though he was correct in his assumption that neither of his sisters bothered to get either one of the weapons.

"Well then, let's see how useful this weapon actually is," Ratchet said, walking up the ramp and pointing the Plasma Coil at the warriors that were standing in their way, to which he released a charge and knocked several of them down in an instant, "Its definitely a powered up version of the Tesla Claw, only it uses a charged sphere instead of a bolt of lightning."

The warriors that survived the attack charged at where Ratchet was standing, but they didn't expect Sunset to be there as the whip function of her sword caught several of their blades before they could even touch her brother. She pulled their weapons out of their hands and left her siblings tear into them with whatever weapon they desired, because in a matter of minutes the way was clear for them to move forward once more. Once the area was clear of enemies they walked into a tunnel like area that was apparently sealed off on the other side, but Ratchet spotted a Dynamo activator and instantly activated it, which allowed the door on the other end to open and created a walkway for them to walk on.

Starlight, having cycled to her Pulse Rifle as they entered the tunnel, took out the purple dino creature that happened to be walking their way, allowing Ratchet and Sunset to fight off the enemies that were coming their way. Several of their enemies stayed at the back of the pack and tried to shoot them down, to which Starlight returned the favor and hit them with her rifle or her lancer. The moment the enemies were taken care of they reactivated the walkway and raced across it, though when they arrived on the other side they climbed up the ladder that was waiting there, or teleported in Starlight's case, so they could see what was waiting for them.

There were another force of enemies waiting for them, including a turret that would prove to be a challenge if one of the warriors used it against them, but Sunset seemed to have a solution to the problem. She expanded her magic and seized the turret for a moment, though that was followed by a cracking sound as she tore it out of its foundations and tossed it off the cliff... with the warrior that had been working on it.

"Not what I was thinking of, but that works," Ratchet said, pointing his Plasma Coil at the confused warriors as they tried to understand what had happened before their eyes, "Now, let's get to that arena."

The coil he released tore through the enemies that were standing there, though those that survived the attack soon met their end by either Starlight's weapons or Sunset's blade. They opened the door that was blocking their path and noticed two more warriors standing in their way, with another dino behind them, but this time Starlight used Sunset's method and threw the dino off the cliff. The two warriors stared at her in shock, as if they couldn't believe that she had done that, so Sunset cut them down before they could regain their senses.

"That was fun, tossing the creature off the cliff," Starlight commented, a grin appearing on her face as the three of them climbed up another ladder, where they could see what their next challenge was.

What they found was another force of warriors standing around a vacant turret, though it was being patrolled by another one of the dinos that had a warrior riding it. Sunset and Starlight both grinned as they activated their magic, which was followed by Sunset tearing the turret out of the ground and throwing it into the door on the left, while Starlight threw the dino off the cliff. Once his sisters had completed their individual tasks Ratchet charged forward and loosed a Plasma charge, tearing into the warriors as they stood dumbfounded by what his sisters had done to their forces.

The enemies that weren't cut down by the Plasma Coil charged at Ratchet, to which he cycled to his Gravity Bomb and removed the last of them that he could see. That was before he pressed a button and the door on his right opened, where three more warriors came out and swung their weapons at him, forcing him to back up a bit. He decided to use his wrench this time, blocking his enemy's attacks and smashing the head of his weapon into their knees, before he used their own weapons to end them. When he was done with them, and he was sure that the area was completely clear this time, he beckoned for his sisters to come forward as he looked for where they were supposed to go next.

He then spotted a dynamo activator and charged it, to which the wall in front of him lit up as a platform appeared in front of him and started moving, though before it got very far he leapt onto it and rode it to the top. Ratchet had to jump over several of the sections that came out of the wall, even going over a few that had multiple jumping pieces, before he eventually reached the top of the wall. Once he reached his destination he turned around to toss the Dynamo down to his sisters, but then he noticed them standing beside him before he tossed the gadget to them. He always failed to account for their magic, something that kind of made the entire adventure unfair to him, but at the moment he decided not to dwell on the fact.

"So, two more turrets for us to handle," Starlight commented, staring at the enemies that were standing before them, wondering what they were going to do about them this time, "So, are we going to throw them outside or just fight our way through the horde of enemies that are waiting for us?"

That was followed by a surge of plasma coils, which slammed into several of the warriors and blew them into the walls, leaving the remainder of their enemies to get into the turrets. Starlight summoned a small shield around them as Sunset grabbed both of the turrets with her magic and started to pull them from where they were resting. The strain was clearly more than she was expecting, but she sighed and tore them out of the floor, throwing one into the wall to the right of where it had been resting while she dragged the other one into the abyss behind them.

Two more of the dino creatures charged out of their pins and came at them, to which the three of them merely moved to the side and let them pass, though that was followed by Starlight shoving them off the cliff they were standing on. They then made sure that the rest of their enemies had been taken care of, before they moved through the open door that the turrets had been protecting and riding down the rail that they found on the other side. When they reached the end of the rail they found someone that the three of them never expected that they would see again... the Shady Salesman from Rilgar.

"Oh no, not you three again," the Salesman said, taking a step back the moment the three of them approached him, "the last time I saw the three of you I ended up in prison..."

"Where you should still be at the moment," Starlight growled, her RYNO II appearing in her magic for a moment, "You like this weapon? Its the successor to the RYNO that you stole from the Blarg, the RYNO II. Tell you what, you give us whatever you were going to sell us, for free I might add, and I won't call the cops on you or use some of the missiles to blow you up."

The Salesman looked at them for a moment, clearly weighing his options on the matter, before he let out a sigh and pulled out a set of metallic wings, which looked like they would fit into Clank's body. Ratchet took the device from the man and started reading the instructions, though Starlight gave the criminal a look over, searching for anything else that he might be trying to hide from them, before nodding her head and sending him on his way. Before the man could disappear, however, she attached a small homing device, homemade before she was snatched from Solana, to his headset as he walked away, unaware that she could now bring him in whenever she wanted.

Once Ratchet had installed the flying device into Clank's systems the three of them took off, making their way to the arena that they needed to visit. Sunset and Starlight merely used the magical stairs that Starlight was fond of creating to get them to their destination, though when they landed in front of the arena door Sunset kept her eyes open for any enemies.

"Hello, we're here to fight in the arena," Ratchet said, knocking on the door as he spoke, though after a few seconds he noticed a mechanical eye, identical to the one outside the other arena, open and stare at them.

"Oh, its you again," the mechanical voice replied, staring at the group for a moment, "Sorry kid, but the people don't want to see you at the moment... they want the Angel of Death."

"Excuse me sir," Clank said, after disengaging from Ratchet's back and approaching the door, "but what exactly do you mean by 'Angel of Death'?"

"Its the nickname the cazar here earned after her first arena battle," the eye replied, "She killed every enemy that came at her and survived till the end of the onslaught, all without taking a single hit to herself in what was supposed to be a fight to the death for anyone that entered the arena. Fans have been demanding that she make an appearance in the Megacorp Games, so they;ll be excited to hear that she's come here for some gadgets to help you in whatever you are actually doing."

"So I have to enter the arena and risk my life... for some gadgets?" Sunset stated, sighing as she drew her sword out of her sheath, "Fine, I'd rather not fight at all, but if it will get us closer to our goal then I guess I have no choice."

When Sunset stepped into the arena she heard the announcer declare her by the stupid name that her 'fans' had given her based on the one battle she had been through, but her eyes rested on the board as she realized that she would need to go through two battles to get the gadgets they would need. She sighed as she doors opened and the enemies, be they the warriors from earlier or the dinos that they rode, charged out of their containers to fight her. She cut the warriors down before they could reach her, made sure to dodge the dinos before pushing them into the lava around them, and sliced through the robotic spiderbots that were coming her way. There were even smaller spiderbots, that looked similar to the one that the Spiderbot Glove used, but she got rid of them with the whip effect of her sword.

During the fight she felt something awaken inside of her, but she ignored it as she cut down every enemy that came at her until they declared that she won the fight and rewarded her with the first of the two prizes; a pair of boots that were called the Gravity Boots. That was when she discovered that the second match was a cage match, where she was launched into the air and landed on the wall above the arena. It was designed to make her fight against her enemies while avoiding the hazards that erupted out of the lava below her, which was actually much easier than she was expecting.

The second match proved to be a breeze for Sunset, because she merely allowed the hazards to smash into her enemies and finished off the ones that were too smart to fall for the same trick that took out their comrades. Once she had finished off the last of her enemies, and was allowed to return to the arena floor below her, she was rewarded with another gadget that preformed the same function as the Trespasser, though this one was called the Infiltrator. With the new gadget in hand she declined any more challenges and teleported out of the arena, where she met her family by a terminal that required the use of the new gadget. She sighed and handed the device to Ratchet, who activated the terminal and, not a few seconds later, had the gate open so they could return to their ship.

On the way back to their ship Ratchet contacted Mr. Fizzwidget, who completely ignored every warning he was trying to tell him until the mention of his Deep Space Disposal Facility. They were even given the password that would deactivate the defenses so they could meet later on, though Sunset rolled her eyes when she heard that the password was 'Qwarktastic'. When the call ended, and they were back at their ship, Ratchet punched in the coordinates for the Ship Shack, because he wanted to be prepared for anything that might happen between now and their arrival at the facility.

Sunset silently agreed with her brother as she climbed into the ship... she had the feeling that something terrible was going to happen when they reached the facility.
> Commando: Todano
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet and his sisters didn't stay on Planet Joba for long, because the moment they had the gadgets they had come for they departed from the planet and began their short journey to their next destination. Ratchet flew the ship into the Ship Shack and gently landed in the indicated area that was available for them, not that there were any other customers around at the moment. Starlight and Sunset moved to the side to share their notes on the Deep Space Disposal Facility that they would soon be visiting, determining how strong the defenses were so they could tell Ratchet what they needed. As it turned out the price for the upgrades was a fair amount of raritanium, though they were fortunate enough to collect quite a large amount of it when they were attacked outside the Maktar Resort and when they ambushed the Thugs in the Feltzin System.

The first thing they purchased as additional shielding, so that way Sunset and Starlight wouldn't need to use their magic to empower the shields anymore, before they discovered that there was a third layer of shields they could acquire. Clank determined that they would require more raritanium in order to purchase the third layer of shielding, but that didn't stop Ratchet from buying some additional weapons that he planned on using against whoever their enemy happened to be. He knew that, at some point in the future, he was going to need the additional firepower to overcome whatever opponent they came across, so he was choosing to be prepared this time around.

"The ship is as prepared as we can get it at the moment," Ratchet commented, walking away from the terminal with Clank following behind him, "We should be able to deal with the majority of our enemies without having to risk either of you anymore, unless someone manages to kill our shields that is."

"Please don't even mention something like that," Starlight said, sighing as she closed the program she had open on her tablet and stowed it away, "I'd rather not jinx ourselves this time around."

What she didn't tell either of her siblings was that she had been reviewing something other than the ship upgrades, something that she knew would become important in the future. She had been keeping an eye on what was happening with Sunset's magic, because there were times where her readings said that everything was normal and then she would spot a tiny spike in the data. It also lined up perfectly with the day she spotted the crack in the bracelet that her sister wore, which told her more than it would have told anyone else who was studying magic. Little by little Searing was chipping away at the bracelet, weakening the metal until the day came where she could shatter it from the inside and release all of her power.

She knew Sunset was aware of the danger, more than she or Ratchet could ever be, but she didn't want to alarm them that their brilliant plan to seal the crack by wrapping both of their magic around it had basically slowed down the deterioration of the bracelet. One day Searing would be back in control, Starlight knew that it was bound to happen, but the infuriating part was that she couldn't figure out when it was supposed to happen. So she kept her mouth shut on the matter, because if she was wrong about this, and she seriously hoped that she was, then she would be causing unnecessary panic for no reason.

Starlight decided that it was better to wait for the moment, because she wanted to get better data and readings before she could determine whether or not she needed to warn her siblings of the danger.

Once Ratchet and Clank had determined that they had definitely purchased all of the upgrades that they could afford, as Ratchet wanted to double check before they left, the group climbed into their ship. Ratchet then set the coordinates for the Deep Space Disposal Facility, where they intended on meeting their employer and seeing if they couldn't convince him to get rid of the experiment.





When they arrived at the Deep Space Disposal Facility they all noticed how quiet the place seemed, as it appeared that none of the machines were actually working at the moment. Ratchet managed to maneuver their ship inside the facility before coming to a near stop, because he had gotten them as close to the core of the facility as he could before they had been asked for the password.

"Input the password whenever your ready Clank," Ratchet said, though he flipped the switched that powered up the ship's shields and weapons, just to be on the safe side in case the word they had been given was wrong.

"Check," Clank replied, leaning forward to press the keys that would allow him to transmit the password to the facility's computer, "Here goes nothing."

They waited a few seconds, to be sure that the computer had accepted the password, before the defenses turned on them and started firing at their ship.

"Great, now we have to hold off the defenses until Mr. Fizzwidget arrives," Ratchet said, a grin appearing on his face as he turned the ship to the first defense mechanism, "Time to see how well these upgrades perform."

Ratchet fired at the first defense station he came to, dealing some damage to the machine before he was forced to move out of the way and head towards the second one. Starlight noticed that the damage had caused some sort of blue energy to admit from the machine after they had departed from it, leading her to assume that they had actually done quite a bit of damage to it. Ratchet circled around the six machines twice, the first time to make them all assume the same weakened state as the first one he had targeted, though the second time was when he laid on each turret and broke them into pieces for real.

To be sure that none of the facility's defenses came back online both Starlight and Sunset kept their eyes peeled for any repair bots that might come out, though when they found one they merely crushed them with their magic. It wasn't long before all six of the defense turrets, and the mass of repair bots that had come to fix them, were taken care of, which was swiftly followed by Mr. Fizzwidget appearing on their screen.

"Come in gentlemen, can you hear me?" Mr. Fizzwidget asked, once again ignoring the fact that he had also hired Starlight and Sunset to aid their brother, though neither of them were about to correct the man.

"Sir, you gave us an erroneous password." Clank replied immediately, though the others could tell that he was definitely not amused by the fact that they had been fired upon.

"Implausible," Mr. Fizzwidget said, though that was followed by his left hand moving to his chin, as if he was thinking about something, "unless, is this Tuesday or Wednesday? Anyway, sorry to have missed our meeting, but I was called away to film a commercial for our weapons facilitory."

"But sir," Ratchet cut in, hoping to get back to the matter at hand, "what about the..."

"...the commercial?" Mr. Fizzwidget replied, wrongly assuming what Ratchet was going to say, "Here, watch this."

The four of them were then subjected to the commercial that Mr'Fizzwidget was supposed to have been filmed in, though it was clear that he had barely been filmed at all. There was a robotic lookalike that appeared to be doing the entire tour, though during the tour it was giving it lost every single robot that had come to tour the facility. The robot seemed confused when it left the facility alone, though that was where the commercial ended and Mr. Fizzwidget hung up on them before any of them could say anything.

"Perhaps we can still find him at the weapons facility," Clank commented, which actually managed to cool Ratchet down enough before they set their new coordinates and left the Disposal Facility behind... before they got fired at some more.





They arrived at their next destination, Planet Todano, they actually arrived at the same time as another tour bus, though while the robots were climbing out of their vehicle Ratchet and Starlight restocked all of their weapons. Ratchet spotted a new weapon that had recently become available, something that was called a Hoverbomb Gun, which apparently loosed a floating mine of some kind and only exploded when the trigger was pulled again. He found that the weapon might be good if he was forced to fight alone for once, which had happened many times in the past, so he acquired the weapon and grinned as he finished restocking his weapons.

Sunset, for the most part, merely looked ahead of them and took in the sights, which included four large missiles and what appeared to be mutated squirrel creatures.

They finished stocking their weapons at the same moment that the tour started, but as Starlight followed them she quickly discovered that there was no information to be gained from the robotic Mr. Fizzwidget, as he and the other robots didn't speak at all. The moment Starlight figured that out she fell back in with Ratchet and Sunset, which was quickly followed by the squirrel mutants coming at them all at once. This time none of them bothered wasting their ammo on their enemies, because as it turned out the mutated squirrels could be killed in one hit of their handheld weapons. Once they discovered this fact they followed the path that the tour would be taking until they reached the end of it, being sure to remove every mutated squirrel that happened to be in their way.

The moment they reached the end of the trail Ratchet spotted a terminal that used his newest hacking device, so he activated the terminal and, after a few seconds, the elevator lowered itself until it was were they could get on it. They rode the elevator to the top of the dam, giving them the opportunity to see exactly what they were up against and what they needed to do before they figured out where they needed to go next. From what they could see there were two paths that they could take, one that apparently lead into a missile silo while the second went right into the weapon facility itself.

"I volunteer to go through the weapon facility," Sunset immediately said, not even bothering to waste a second before informing her siblings of which path she wanted.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" Ratchet asked, though he knew that the answer would be yes considering the power that his sister was able to call upon, "You sure that you don't want Starlight to follow you?"

"You could use her assistance more than I would," Sunset replied, though she tapped her sword for a moment, "besides, I'm sure that there's going to be more security in the missile silo than in the factory... something tells me that they might be more interested in keeping that missile safe than whatever is in the factory."

"Then be safe," Ratchet said, sighing for a moment as he tapped the hacking device, "and don't go overboard with the magic."

Sunset smiled as she walked towards the entrance of the weapon facility, her sword in motion as she approached a group of mutated squirrels, which rapidly cleared them out of her way. When she actually entered the facility she noticed a security wall that would likely block her way, though when she noticed a movable cylinder to her right she knew what needed to be done. She activated her magic for a moment and moved the cylinder into the security wall, cutting it in half and providing her with a way around it without hurting herself. She knew that she could have just teleported to the other side, but it was much easier to open the way with whatever happened to be around her at any given moment.

She walked down the passage that was behind the security wall and entered another area that happened to have two more cylinders leaning against a wall, which told her that there were two more security walls for her to get through. She also spotted what appeared to be a robot inspector of sorts, though she could easily determine that it was necessary to open a door or two that was ahead of where she currently was at the moment. She moved the smaller of the two cylinders into position in the first security wall, though she immediately followed that by moving the larger cylinder into the second wall. Once that was done she grabbed the robot inspector and dragged it over to the door that had been covered by the security walls, though the instant it touched the pad on the floor the door opened for her to move on.

Before she ventured deeper into the facility she noticed a ledge in the room she was in, one that lead outside, so she decided to take a look and teleported herself up to the walkway that happened to be up there. As she walked across the bridge that she discovered she spotted what appeared to be one of the security robots that had been built to protect the facility, though she immediately knew that it had to pack quite the punch. The robot noticed her and started firing at her, so she summoned a shield to protect herself and noticed that the weapon the robot used left small dents in her shield. She studied the robot for a few seconds, blocking all of the attacks with her shield as she waited for the moment it had to reload its weapon, though when it happened she teleported behind it and used her wind powers to cut the robot in half.

Once that was taken care of she walked up the path that she had discovered and found what appeared to be a makeshift stand of some kind, with what appeared to be a young adult of some race standing on the other side. The odd thing about the young man happened to be the fact that he was dressed in a costume that resembled the one that Qwark wore all the time, which made her wonder how so many people in Bogon knew about the former Captain.

"Captain Qwark completing quality control on super electro gadget," the young man said, flipping a gadget in his left hand while holding a larger than normal hammer in his right hand, "Hammer of Power detecting no defects..."

That was before the young man noticed that Sunset was even standing there, watching everything he had done for the last minute at most, though he seemed shocked and surprised at the same time.

"Sunset Shimmer of Veldin," the young man said, holding his hammer at the ready, almost as if he was going to attack her, "I knew this day would come. Draw your weapon, enemy mine, for I shall smite you in the name of Captain Qwark!"

"And why would I want to fight you?" Sunset asked, wondering what she had done to enrage the young man so much, though she suspected that it had to do with the defeat of Qwark half a year ago.

"You and your family shamed the greatest superhero who ever lived!" the young man exclaimed, as if he couldn't believe that she was asking him that question, "I shall restore his honor by dispatching all three of you... starting with you if necessary."

"Fine, I'll play along," Sunset replied, swinging her sword and locking it back into his normal blade mode, because she assumed that using the whip would be too much for the young man to handle, "So, what's your name?"

"Kevin," the young man answered, a grin appearing on his face as he held his hammer at the ready, "Let us dance, enemy mine!"

Sunset sighed again and beckoned the young man forward, though every time he swung his hammer at her she merely blocked his attacks with her sword, as she was unsure if he was actually an enemy or a pissed off fanboy. He appeared to be nothing more than a pissed off fanboy in Sunset's eyes, so she didn't get very angry at the few instances where he mentioned Qwark. She found that there was no need to actually use her powers against the young man, because it would be a waste to shatter the young man, when he was only mad that his hero had been disgraced.

At one point she managed to get the blade of her sword under the head of the young man's hammer, effectively stopping his weapon in its tracks when she twisted the blade and the whip trapped the weapon. However, just as Sunset was about to disarm her opponent and proclaim victory, the young man twisted the handle of his weapon and it pulsed with energy, knocking her sword out of her hand. The young man then brought the hammer down on where she was standing, though this time Sunset merely summoned a shield to stop the attack dead in its tracks. That was when Sunset noticed that the hammer had glowing veins in its head, though as the weapon came into contact with the shield she watched as some of her own energy was absorbed into the weapon's core.

"Hammer of Power, Reflection Mode," Kevin shouted, pulling his arm back and swinging his hammer at the shield again, "Have a taste of your own medicine!"

The hammer managed to shatter her shield, somehow, but before it came any closer Sunset ducked out of the way and punched the young man in the chest, though she took the hammer before her opponent tried to attack her again. She also made sure to pin him to the ground with her magic, so she could study the weapon and figure out what he had done to it to give it the ability to absorb and reflect magic like it had done.

"Give the Hammer of Power back!" Kevin growled, though Sunset found it hard to take his seriously now that he had been disarmed and pinned to the ground, "It has an experimental energy core that's supposed to absorb different types of energy and use it for its own purposes... your magic was one that I wasn't expecting."

"So you aren't planning on trying to kill me or my sister with our own magic?" Sunset asked, though she had half a mind to shatter the hammer and be done with it.

"Well, I still want you to suffer for what you did to Captain Qwark," Kevin replied, "but killing all three of you was never my goal to begin with... I want to be a hero for the people of Bogon, not a villain bent on domination."

Sunset stared at the young man for a moment, wondering if he was telling the truth or not, but then she sighed and pulled her sword back to her with her magic, before she sheathed her weapon. She tossed the hammer into the air with her magic and caught it in midair, before she called on her intense magic and crushed the hammer under the intensity of her power. She made sure that it, and the power core, were in a thousand pieces... because she didn't want the technology the young man created to fall into the hands of someone that actually wanted to kill her and her siblings.

"I'll let you go for now," Sunset said, snatching the device the young man had been working on and dropping it on his chest as she released the magic that had pinned him down, "Don't mention that type of technology to anyone..."

She didn't wait to see if the young man agreed to not share the information or if he was planning on reconstructing the device and selling it to someone. She was running behind her siblings and she wanted to get off this planet more than when she arrived, which she assumed was because of what the young man had done and said.





Ratchet let out a sigh as he hacked into the terminal as Sunset ventured into the facility, though Starlight stood guard in case there were any surprises for them. When the security wall was open they pulled out their rifles and took out the robot sentry that was apparently waiting for enemies to come its way. The mutated squirrels in the area ahead of them seemed surprised when the robot was destroyed, but they allowed the mutants to kill themselves by accidentally activating all of the mines around them. Ratchet let out a chuckle as he and Starlight moved into the area in front of them, as he was actually amused that the mutated squirrels had done their job for them.

They eventually reached the entrance of the silo and rode the elevator they found to the bottom of the shaft, where they both knew they could encounter enemies that would try to hinder their progress. As they left the elevator they found at least five robot soldier enemies standing in their way, guarding the passage that would allow them to progress through the silo. They both switched to their Minirocket Tubes and loosed a set of missiles at the closest robots soldiers, blowing them to pieces and alerting the rest of their forces that they had company to deal with.

Ratchet smiled as he cycled to his new Plasma Coil and let a charge out of the weapon, tearing into the enemies that were running out to face him and his sister. As he forced the robot soldiers into the passage they were guarding Starlight loosed missiles at them, blowing them up one at a time until she was sure that they had been taken care of. When they entered the next room they discovered that there were some spawning pads for the robot soldiers to use, because the moment they walked into the area at least three instantly appeared before them. Starlight threw up a shield before any of the robots could attack them, though moments later she was glad to be proven right as several small missiles hit the shield.

"You ready to take them out?" Starlight asked her brother, though she immediately knew the answer because Ratchet was always ready for a fight, even if he lacked the proper weapons to win one.

"Oh yeah, I'm ready for this," Ratchet replied, priming the Plasma Coil and his Minirocket Tube, as he wanted to be prepared in case one of his weapons ran out, "Let's show them that we mean business."

Starlight threw the barrier at the enemies that had gathered before them, to daze them for a moment, before she and Ratchet separated and started loosing their own offensive. Ratchet's Plasma Coil took care of the larger majority of their current enemies, even those that spawned in to continue the fight, though Starlight tore several of the soldiers to pieces with her rockets. When Ratchet's main weapon ran dry he switched to the Minirocket Tube as well, blasting whatever enemies were still there as Starlight made sure that there were no more teleporting in behind them.

Once they were sure that there were no more enemies in the immediate area they gently moved forward, just in case there were a lot more enemies waiting ahead of them that they didn't know about. Unfortunately they had been right about worrying about there being additional enemies waiting for them, because the moment they turned the corner they spotted what appeared to be at least ten of the robotic soldiers standing guard over the next gap. Starlight sighed and pulled out the RYNO II, though she had hoped to avoid using it for some time after the last time she pulled it out, but with Ratchet's most powerful weapons out of ammo they needed a better way to clear out their enemies.

"I'll shield you while you rip them a new one," Starlight said, levitating the weapon over to her brother, though the moment he had it she threw up a shield with a small opening that he could shoot through.

"If you say so," Ratchet said, a grin appearing on his face as he pointed the large weapon at the enemies through the opening, "Oh this is going to be interesting."

Ratchet pulled the trigger and the enemies standing in front of them disappeared in a cloud of smoke, though he also wrecked the area that happened to be behind the robotic soldiers. The excitement at using the RYNO was there, but he seemed surprised by the amount of power that it packed, as if he believed that it wouldn't be much stronger than the original weapon.

"You can have it back," Ratchet commented, returning the RYNO II to his sister, who put the weapon away the moment she had it back, "I think I'll stick to my weapons for now."

They walked across the gap, thanks to the small magical bridge that Starlight summoned, before they rounded a corner and spotted a door that was currently blocked off. Ratchet smiled and accessed the terminal beside it with his new hacking device, though the moment it was open they found a heavily armed robot patrolling the area. The combined power of their rockets tore the robot to pieces in a matter of seconds, allowing them to access an elevator that took them to another area of the silo. When they walked into what appeared to be the last room of the silo they spotted a screen that rested on the wall to their left, though it was currently in the process of receiving a message.

Ratchet was pleased to find that Angela was sending them a message, no doubt to inform them that she had discovered something, though he had to wonder how she knew that they were there to begin with.

"Angela calling Ratchet on secure band seven echo foxtrot," Angela said, apparently trying to get it to connect all the way, but Ratchet could see what the problem was.

"Ratchet here," Ratchet replied, allowing the connection to be secured, "Did you find out something on the experiment and what Mr. Fizzwidget plans on doing with it?"

"You mean besides the Thugs taking over my flying lab?" Angela commented, annoyance flashing through her voice for a moment, "Apparently someone made them a better offer than what I had given them. Also, Megacorp has finally given a name to the experiment; they're called the Protopet now. And, to top it off, Ivan has found a rumor that Mr. Fizzwidget is going to the Silver City, on Planet Boldan, to distribute a free batch of the clones... which will only start the panic I was hoping to avoid."

"Then my sisters and I will go there and talk some sense into Mr. Fizzwidget," Ratchet replied, though he lifted one of his weapons up for a moment, "by force if necessary."

Angela sighed and wished them luck in their endeavor, saying that she was going to try and get some information from the Leader of the Thugs himself, which meant that she'd be sneaking aboard their main ship and looking for the information by herself. Once they were done talking the screen powered down, leaving Ratchet and Starlight to climb out of the area they were in and return to the top of the bridge they had walked across. They found Sunset standing on the bridge... surrounded by sheep and holding a weapon that had to be responsible for the amount of animals around her.

Sunset mentioned that she found a weapon called the Sheepinator inside the facility, though she determined that she had no use for it after testing it out and handed it to Ratchet. They, in turn, told her about their brief talk with Angela, informing her of the fact that the Protopet was going to be distributed to a city in a matter of hours. The four of them were in agreement that they needed to head to the city, if only to fight against the Thugs and, if they could do it, have a discussion with their employer. Once they had determined their next course of action they rode a rail from the top of the dam all the way down to their ship, where they could begin their journey to Boldan.





Kevin watched Sunset Shimmer as she rejoined her siblings and they, as a group, climbed into their ship before they departed from the weapons facility. He had been warned in advance of her potent magical powers and the possibility that her attitude might change if someone mentioned Qwark or if something happened to her magic. He had even been warned that she might break his hammer, and the experimental core, and in the end it was broken and cast aside like a piece of trash. The only fortunate thing was that he had managed to record his findings, something that he knew his employer would find interesting now that he knew what the device was capable of doing.

He pulled out his communicator, counted his blessings that it actually hadn't been damaged from the encounter, and slipped it on, before placing a call to his employer.

"I'm here," a voice on the other end said, though it was obvious that he was using a device to change his voice at the moment, "Do you have something to report?"

"I have good news and bad news," Kevin replied, pulling up a schematic of the other device he had been working on along side the Hammer of Power, "The bad news is that Sunset Shimmer broke the Hammer of Power when she saw what it was capable of doing. The good news, however, is that the technology works... and that I can continue work on the Power Gauntlet."

"How much time do you need to complete the Gauntlet?" his employer asked, though it was clear that he also went to great effort to not sound pleased or annoyed.

"At least five days if you want to have it at the capacity I mentioned earlier," Kevin replied, knowing that it would take some time to complete the Gauntlet, which made him fortunate considering he had already started it when his employer requested this test, "then you'll be able to use it for whatever you desire, my Captain."

The voice made no effort to acknowledge the last bit of the sentence, though he did authorize the work be resumed on the Gauntlet and that he take all the time he needed on fixing up the device. Kevin was excited to be fixing up the Gauntlet once more, because at the moment Sunset Shimmer had no idea that there was another device that could bring harm to their magic. She and her siblings would rue the day that they shamed the greatest superhero in the entire Solana Galaxy, if not the entire universe... and he was glad to be a part of bringing them down.
> Commando: Boldan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset remained silent as Ratchet flew their ship towards Planet Boldan, preferring to keep her thoughts to herself this time and not bother either of her siblings. She was still thinking about the young man she had encountered at the facility, who happened to have a device that almost appeared to be made by Megacorp, almost as if they were trying to develop ways to siphon the energy of creatures and then use it for their own purposes. She was sure that there was something that she had overlooked when she shattered the young man's 'Hammer of Power', but despite all the time she spent thinking about that encounter she couldn't figure out what she might have missed. She only stopped thinking about then encounter when Starlight asked her to take a look at the holoplan she had been working on in her spare time when they were between planets.

Apparently her sister was trying to make another RYNO weapon, the RYNO III according to the title of the schematic, but they could both tell that the weapon was far from complete... though that didn't stop her from assigning a password to the holoplan.

Clank, during their journey, tried a few times to dissuade Ratchet from their current course of action, insisting that there had to be a trap somewhere in the city that was waiting for them. After determining what Angela had paid the Thugs a lot of bolts to get them to work for her, which had taken some time considering she didn't tell them how much her price had been, he had crunched the numbers and determined that there was only one group that could have bought them out from under her; Megacorp themselves. What he could not determine was what the company wanted with the group of mercenaries, which added to the worry he felt when he had insisted that they had to be walking into a trap.

When they arrived outside the Silver City, where Mr. Fizzwidget was supposed to be giving away samples of the Protopet, they found that the path leading into the city was blocked by an electric fence... something that both Sunset and Starlight could easily bypass with their magic. Unfortunately, before either of them could open a small portal to the other side, Ratchet commented that he was going to go through the tunnel that a none magic user would use to get around the barrier. Starlight sighed and simply nodded her head, telling their brother that they would patiently wait until he deactivated the shield before they into the city.

Sunset, on the other hand, merely sat on one of the nearby curbs as Ratchet moved to the entrance of the tunnel he intended to travel through, appearing to meditate while she waited for her siblings to tell her it was time to move on.





Ratchet sighed as he and Clank rode the elevator down into the tunnel that would allow him to get around the shield that was in front of where he landed their ship. He knew that his sisters could easily get around the barrier with their magic, and he halfway expected them to do so as he was heading to this tunnel, though he was somewhat surprised when Sunset had started to meditate as he headed to this area. He was worried that Searing might be trying to resurface again, considering that they hadn't seen the creature since they defeated Chairman Drek, though he was glad to see that Sunset was making sure that he and Starlight were safe from the wrath of her inner creature.

"Are you worried about Sunset again?" Clank asked, noticing that Ratchet didn't move forward when the elevator reached its destination, despite the fact that he had prepared his new wings ahead of time.

"I'm worried that Searing might be closer to escaping than we originally thought," Ratchet admitted, approaching the pad that would allow him to use the wings he had grafted into Clank's body, "She just found out that Qwark is still alive, something that I have been trying to keep her from discovering after I found him back on Oltanis, when he was trying to sell me a Gadgetron gadget that I assume he stole. I didn't want Sunset to find out that he was still alive, because she easily gets mad whenever someone mentions him in her vicinity and could potentially release some of that creature's power. We were lucky that Searing didn't try to break through back on Dobbo, but it is only a matter of time until something, or someone, forces Sunset's hand and lets that creature back into existence."

Clank opened his mouth to say something about Searing and the sealing method that Sunset and Starlight had used, and his worries that they might have failed in that regard, but he decided not to say anything and let Ratchet get started on flying through the tunnel. Ratchet engaged the wings and leapt into the air, though as he approached the first spinning gear in front of him he slowed down a bit and moved between two of the sections when the opportunity presented itself. He then moved passed the next spinning piece, which happened to be a small triangle piece of metal with the middle missing, but it was easy to get around and allowed him to approach a circular door that opened and closed every now and then.

Once he had passed through the circular door he made sure to maneuver through the next spinning gear area before he descended down towards a platform that would allow him to restock the fuel in Clank's wings. He took a moment to take stock of what was around him, including the rush hour traffic that was happening at the moment, before he let out a sigh and reengaged the wings. The moment he took off he had quite the effort to make sure that none of the vehicles touched him, because he was sure that even being touched would make his wings retract and make him fall to the ground.

Luck was with him, because his constant moving and dodging the vehicles allowed him to reach the middle of the tunnel and land before another station that would allow him to recharge the wings. He then got back into the air and continued forward, ducking or rising over electric cables that were in his way before he managed to reach the very end of the tunnel. When he landed he found that he was standing before what appeared to be a second elevator, so he retracted the wings into Clank's body and rode the elevator to the top. The moment he reached the top he found himself on the other side of the barrier that his sisters were standing behind, though he immediately pressed the button that would open the way for them to join him.

"Did you have fun in there?" Starlight asked as she joined him, though Sunset wasn't too far behind her after she had shaken herself out of her meditation.

"Nothing but flying and dodging obstacles," Ratchet replied, letting out a sigh as he pulled out his Minirocket Tube, "I guess I should have just let you open a portal and skip the entire thing. Now then, shall we get to the main event and teach the Thugs a lesson?"

"Of course," Starlight answered, a grin appearing on her face as she pulled out her Pulse Rifle, "I thought that you would never ask."

The three of them turned towards the walkway that was in front of them, keeping an eye on the two Thugs that were clearly ignoring their presence and appeared to be playing some sort of game with each other. Starlight sighed as she leveled her rifle with the Thug on the left and pulled the trigger, clearly disliking how easy some of her enemies were to take out as the Thug fell to the ground. The second Thug turned towards them and then pressed the button that was near where he was standing, opening the door and allowing three more of his comrades to join the fight. That was followed by a rocket colliding with the Thug after he pressed the button, blowing him into the wall behind him as the other three got into position.

Before any of them could fire a shot in return Sunset appeared behind the one that was more armored than the others, her sword in motion as she cut into the bracer on his right arm. She grinned as she realized that she finally found something that didn't die from one swing of her sword, though as she leapt back she noticed that the Thug had his own sword to use against her. Their weapons clashed and sparks flew, though Sunset was pleased to have someone that she could actually fight against while her siblings tore into the other Thugs. She and the Thug remained in the constant struggle for sometime, neither of them giving the other any ground as more sparks flew, before Sunset disarmed her opponent and slew him where he stood.

"I haven't had an opponent like that in a long time," she said, turning to her siblings for a moment, "Sorry about that, I guess I got carried away at the fact that someone managed to live through a single swing of my sword. We had better move on."

Starlight knew that her sister liked to research the various stories that she got her attacks from, and even further develop her reserve of tricks, though sometimes it almost looked like she took on an aspect of one of those people who had been recorded. She had, as a way to keep up on what her sister could do, also researched those stories and memorized several of the people that she found interesting. As such she had to wonder if the sudden desire to find a worthy enemy that could keep up with her was something that Searing had passed onto her, or if it was something she had picked up from one of the people she read about... such as someone called Kenpachi Zaraki, someone who enjoyed fighting too much.

She settled on believing that it was all Searing's fault, because it was much easier to blame someone that they all knew about and not someone who was long dead.

Once they had finished the area they had been standing in they turned to the left and walked out into an area that had a fountain, which also included at least ten more Thugs and a large number of red robotic chickens. The Plasma Coil proved to be the best weapon to use at the moment, because while Sunset put up a shield to protect them from being hit her siblings used their weapons to tear into their enemies. One charge was more than enough to take out four enemies at the same time, if properly timed that was, so between the two of them they managed to clear the entire area of their enemies. They then spent a minute collecting the bolts from the various crates that had been resting around the area, adding to the total amount that the three of them had, before they turned around to head in the opposite direction of where they currently were.

When they entered the second area they found a force that equaled the one that they had just finished getting rid of, to which Sunset sighed and repeated the process they had done in the previous area. The Thugs constantly attacked the shield while their robotic chickens tried to get around them, but neither Starlight or Ratchet allowed them to get close as they used their Plasma Coils to cut their enemies down. As they reached the end of the number of enemies that they had Sunset lowered the shield and grabbed an enemy with her magic, before throwing him into the wall near where she was standing and then into the ground in the middle of the area. When the Thug struggled to get out of her magical aura she merely sighed and tossed him off the edge of the area they were on, all while her siblings cleared up the rest of their enemies.

The moment they were sure that they had, once again, cleared the area they climbed onto the elevator that the Thugs were guarding and rode it to the top of the building it was attached to. When they reached the top of the building they spotted another group of five Thugs waiting for them, though when Starlight noticed that  they were all standing near each other she let out a sigh. She and Ratchet fired the last of their Plasma Coil charges, which tore the group of Thugs to pieces and allowed them to round the corner that their enemies had been guarding. That was when they found five more Thugs standing guard over what appeared to be the elevator that would take them to the ground floor once more, only these ones were prepared for a fight unlike all the previous groups they had fought.

Ratchet and Starlight cycled to their Minirocket Tubes and started loosing rockets at the Thugs, where those that were actually paying attention to their arrival were fortunate enough to dodge their attacks. As two of the Thugs fell to the rockets Sunset appeared behind one of them and struck him down with her sword, before surrounding herself in a small shield as the remaining two fell to her siblings' rockets. When the smoke cleared the three of them rode the elevator down to their next destination, though as they did so they spotted several more enemies gathering to fight against them.

"They must have brought most of their forces to the Silver City," Ratchet commented, counting the enemies that were standing between them and the next elevator, "which means we're going to need someplace to restock our ammunition soon."

Sunset sighed and pulled out her Chopper, something that she hadn't used in quite a long time, but instead of slipping it on and using it she merely removed the ammunition container and opened it up. She then thrust her hand forward and tossed the stars into the air in front of her, but before they touched the ground she ignited her magic and caught all of them. She spun the stars in the air for a few seconds, merely to make the Thugs tilt their heads in confusion, before she sent them flying towards their targets. Several of her enemies happened to survive the hail of stars that she threw at them, while the majority died within the first few hits, though she merely moved to the side as Starlight and Ratchet used their Minirocket Tubes to clean up those that were alive.

"There, now we should be able to reach the next weapon vendor without having to worry about using all our ammo," Sunset said, just as the elevator came down and a red Thug soldier stepped off of it, "Well then, I guess we know what to do now."

Her words were followed by two more rockets that flew through the air and barreled into the Thug's chest, blowing him onto the wall on his right and opening the way for them once more. Ironically enough when they reached the top of the tower they found another weapon vendor and an armor vendor, though this time Ratchet sprung for some additional armor in case he came to a point where he was separated from either of his sisters. Once they had all of their ammunition restocked they approached the walkway that was on the other side of the entrance they had passed through, to which it lowered into position and allowed them to walk on the side of the tower.

As they started walking down the side of the tower they noticed that six of the doors in front of them opened and one Thug stepped out of each one of them, to which Starlight and Ratchet took turns firing a rocket at them. It didn't take them long to reach the bottom of the tower, where they found a passage that allowed them pass through the tower and come to a stop on a new platform that had a bunch of Thugs waiting for them. It was definitely living up to Ratchet's assumption that they had brought a massive amount of soldiers to fight against them, though the unfortunate thing was that they were grouped up enough for their Plasma Coils to tear into their numbers.

This time the Thugs had the opportunity to fight back, as they were loosing missiles and blasts at where they were standing, which forced Sunset to summon a shield to block them from hitting any of them. She kept the shield up for some time, allowing it to constantly get hit by her enemies, but as the seconds passed by she noticed that her magic was starting to crack and put a strain on her. She was surprised that the Thugs were packing so much force at the moment, but instead of letting them get the better of her she brought her magic together and threw the shield at the enemies on the platform in front of them. She then turned towards the ones on the lower level and used the rest of the magic to burn them until she was sure that they had been taken care of.

When that was done she fell to one knee and took a few deeps breaths, wondering why she always felt so tired whenever she preformed a powerful spell when she knew that she had the ability to use at least four of them before she even got this tired.

"Your anger must be draining your magic a lot faster than what it normally does," Starlight commented, as she had determined that her sister's anger had a massive effect on her abilities and sometimes happened to take more than they originally believed it did, "You should rest up and stay near the back... I don't think that we'll run into anything that will require too much magic at this point in time."

Sunset sighed and got back onto her feet, though this time she pulled out her Lancer and checked it for a few seconds, as it had been some time since she had actually used the weapon and was pleased to find that it was fully stocked on ammo. It wasn't as powerful as the weapons that her siblings were currently using, but it was better than doing absolutely nothing while Ratchet and Starlight took care of all their enemies.

Once the area had been cleared of enemies, and the flames had died down, they crossed to the other platform and rode the elevator the Thugs had been guarding to the top of its tower. When they arrived at their destination they spotted more of their enemies coming their way on the platform that was opposite of where they were at the moment, so they faced their enemies and started firing at them. Sunset's Lancer shots were mere distractions that the Thugs clearly hated, though it gave her siblings time to figure out who to hit before they used their Minirocket Tubes to blow their targets backwards. When the platform was cleared they walked over Starlight's magical bridge and took up defensive positions as more Thugs came their way from the circular walkway.

As the number of Thugs increased on the walkway, further validating Ratchet's guess about how many soldiers the Thugs had brought to the city, Starlight growled and switched to her Hoverbomb Gun, but instead of firing the bombs she tore them out and floated them into orbit around their enemies. With a small surge of magic she ignited all of them at once, blowing literally every Thug to pieces and scattering their bodies into the water below the walkway. Once the way was clear once more they walked to the other side of the circular walkway, where they found yet another elevator that they took to the top of the next tower.

The moment they reached the top they found a last defense point that the Thugs must have set up in advance, though the three that were standing guard were definitely ready for a fight. This time Starlight threw up a shield as the attacks came their way, but as soon as the shield started getting hit she pulled out one of the Spiderbot drones and sent it up the ramp that was right beside them. A few seconds passed as she maneuvered the spider into position, where she marveled that none of the Thugs noticed the white spider robot moving on the wall, but she grinned as she detonated the spider and got rid of the Thugs.

"I swear, sometimes our enemies make this too easy for me," Starlight commented, lowering her shield and walking through the remains of the defenses as she approached the next walkway.

The three of them then walked down the side of the tower they had reached the end of, though as they descended towards the bottom both Ratchet and Starlight shot down every enemy that showed their faces with their Minirocket Tubes. Once they reached the bottom, and had used the passage to enter the building the tower was attached to, they immediately noticed that Mr. Fizzwidget was not there, but rather a robotic version of him was in the middle of an open area.

"Seriously?" Ratchet asked as they walked into the area, glaring at the robot the entire time, "All that time and effort, and the only thing we have to show for it all is a visit to a robotic version of Mr. Fizzwidget..."

"Freeze knuckleheads!" a voice behind them shouted, to which they looked back and found the Leader of Thugs-4-Less standing there with two of his goons, though Sunset grinned for a moment, "The lot of you are under arrest for attempting to bump off Mr. Fizzwidget, which had just earned all of you a trip to our new prison."

The video that he showed them happened to be the research ship that had been Angela's, which they had been told had been stolen some time ago by the Thugs, and a bunch of 'experts' that would make their 'stay' enjoyable. Both Starlight and Sunset found it amusing that the Thugs believed that they would detain either of them, considering that they had potent magical powers that would make it impossible for them to be captured.

"So I get to finish you at long last," Sunset said, grinning as she faced the Leader and flexed her right hand for a moment, a sphere phasing into existence before disappearing, "because you'll need more than two soldiers to detain the four of us."

The Leader smiled and pulled out a switch, though as he did so Sunset noticed that he and his goons were standing in the passage that they had taken to reach the open chamber. That was when her eyes opened as she realized that they had walked into a trap, one that the Thugs must have set up when Megacorp aired that commercial that Angela showed them. The Leader flipped the switch and the area became active with electricity, meant to shock them into submission or until they passed out from how many volts they were using. Considering that none of them were expecting the electricity at all Ratchet and Clank were the first to fall down, though that was quickly followed by Starlight falling as well.

Sunset tried to resist the electricity that was coursing through her body, and succeeded in doing so for a few more seconds than her siblings, but in the end she fell to the floor as well and let the darkness claim her.
> Commando: Aranos, Escape
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet moaned as he gently picked himself off of whatever he happened to be laying on, though when he looked at it he found that it was a simple metal bed that could only fit one person. The last thing he remembered was that they had figured out that the whole Mr. Fizzwidget visiting the Silver City had been a carefully designed trap to get him and his sisters. He was honestly surprised that they had all walked right into it without seeing anything to tip them off, just as he was surprised that neither Starlight or Sunset could resist the electricity and make sure that they didn't end up in prison.

At some point his hearing must have returned, because he was aware of someone running something over what he assumed was an energy wall of some kind, though when he looked he found that Clank was the one doing it.

"Hey," Ratchet said, stretching his body after being out for who knew how long, "Thanks for the annoying alarm."

"Sorry," Clank replied, dropping the metal cup he was holding as he turned to face Ratchet, "I awoke some time ago and decided to run some tests on our surroundings... and I'm afraid that there might be no means of escaping from our cells."

"What about Starlight and Sunset?" Ratchet asked, taking note that neither of his sisters had been locked in the cell that the two of them were currently standing in.

"Starlight is in the cell to our left," Clank answered, not surprised that Ratchet hadn't taken note of the fact himself, considering how much electricity the Thugs had used to knock them all out, "Sunset, on the other hand, is in the cell that's the closest to this area's entrance... though I am afraid that she might be in a worse situation than we are."

"Oh yeah?" Ratchet commented, wondering what would make Sunset's situation worse than what he or Starlight could have at the moment, "What makes you say that?"

"Because the Thugs-4-Less Leader left a repeating message for Sunset," a second voice said, to which Ratchet finally noticed that Starlight was merely sitting on the floor of her cell, "Apparently he's fond of pressing the 'Qwark Button', because the message is a constant reminder of her failure to kill both himself and Qwark the first time they met each other. What he fails to realize is that this action will only make her angrier and angrier... until she finally snaps and Searing takes over her body once again. Why can't we have an enemy that's smart enough not to anger Sunset?"

Ratchet was in agreement with Starlight, because the last time Sunset and the Thug Leader had been in the same area, back on Dobbo's moon, Sunset had demonstrated that pressing that 'button' wasn't the best idea in the world. Only a little bit of her anger had been enough to cause the moon's ground to quake, so he had to wonder what would happen if she released even more of her anger in the process of such an attack. There was always the possibility that Sunset's anger might accidentally release some of Searing's own power, which would be even worse if it came to that.

Even as Ratchet thought about their situation he looked passed Starlight and watched Sunset, who was squirming and twitching more than what he would have liked. He could tell that the message, and what was happening to them, was likely pissing her creature off, which was something they wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Then we had better figure out a way to lower the cell walls and stop whatever message Sunset's listening to," Ratchet said, sighing as he realized that they might not even be able to do that, "Otherwise I'm not sure what will happen to this ship if Searing takes control."

Before either Starlight or Clank could say anything one of the grates in Ratchet's cell burst open, to which a female looking robot, one that looked like the Infobots they had hunted for back in their home galaxy, entered the cell and beckoned for Clank to follow her. It was clear that they didn't have much choice in the matter, because Starlight had clearly made some efforts to escape her cell and had, somehow, failed to do so. Clank followed the robot into the vent she had come from, which he knew might very well have someplace where he could deactivate the power in the cell they had awoken in.





Once Clank had reached the end of the vent that the other robot had taken him through, and used some twists and turns, he found himself in an area that had a large number of platforms he could jump to before he reached the other side of the room he was in. He noticed that the room was also filled with dangerous liquid, so he had to time his jumps right until he was on the other side of the room. it didn't take him very long to reach his destination, though when he landed he had to punch two blue colored robotic chickens to pieces before he could release the large robot that happened to be caged to his left.

As he released the robot he discovered that it had a hammer, which meant that he could use the robot's abilities to remove obstacles that he couldn't remove by himself. He and the robot rode the nearby elevator up for a second and walked into the next room that he came to, where he activated the hammer function and let the robot smash the box that was blocking their path. The area that connected to the one he was in had another crate blocking the Hammer Bot's path, so he let the robot smash it to pieces before he approached what appeared to be a device that would launch him into the vents above him. He also took note of a locked door, where he assumed that the vent above him would eventually allow him to open the door he was standing next to.

It didn't take him long to order the Hammer Bot to launch him into the vent above them, to which he spotted four more of the robotic chickens running around and blocking his path. He made short work of his enemies, though once he was finished he approached the trapped Micro Bots and freed them from their cages. As he turned around, and spotted the next part of the path he needed to take, he spotted another set of four robotic chickens that weren't paying attention to him, to which he set his new minions on a rampage. The little robots tore the chickens to pieces, allowing him to approach an elevator that took the three of them down to a room that was behind the locked door he had spotted earlier.

He opened the door and allowed the Hammer Bot to enter the room he was in, though that was before he climbed onto the next lever device and had the hammer bot launch him, and his little minions, into the next vent system. He found a door that required the little robots to enter it, so he had then open the way forward and found another room that had a lot more enemies than what he was expecting. There were two more chicken robots standing in front of him, which he easily removed, but when he spotted the two spider bots coming his way he ran to the only available elevator and rode it to the top walkway. He then smashed the two chicken robots that were standing guard before releasing more of the little Micro Bots that would allow him to move forward.

Clank made sure to be careful as he fought the spider bots that were blocking his path, using himself as a diversion so the Micro Bots could tear his enemies to pieces. During the process of getting rid of one spider bot he came across two more Micro Bots, though once they had been released the remaining enemies didn't stand much of a chance. With the way clear, and the bolts collected, he approached another locked door, one that happened to require all four of the Micro Bots that he had collected so far, though when the door was open he spotted a button that he hoped would turn off the power where his friends were trapped.

He pressed the button and hoped for the best, because there was no knowing if the button was the one he was looking for or if it released one of the other 'inmates'.





Ratchet let out a laugh as the power that had been fueling both his cell and Starlight's cell was cut off, allowing them to freely leave where the Thugs had deposited them after they had arrived aboard the ship. His laugh, however, died when he noticed that Sunset's cell was still locked by whatever was powering it, telling him that the Thugs' Leader had deemed her more dangerous and had locked her in a cell with two power generators. It only annoyed him that one of his sisters was being treated like an animal, though before he could say anything to Starlight about breaching the cell walls he spotted some spider bots entering their area. Starlight seemed to notice their movements as well, because she summoned a shield to guard them as they regrouped by the weapon vendor and restocked their ammunition... which they both agreed was another dumb decision that the Thugs' Leader had made.

"Once we get rid of these guys we need to figure out how to release Sunset from her cell," Ratchet commented, still wondering where the second generator could be located.

"Agreed," Starlight said, priming all her weapons as she took a deep breath for a moment, though that was before she noticed something happening to one of the cell's walls, "unless its weakened to the point where she can release herself."

The two of them watched as claw marks appeared in the cell wall facing the walkway, to which the robots stopped attacking the shield and turned towards the cell. The energy holding the wall together started to fall apart before their eyes, though as Ratchet and Starlight watched what was unfolding they spotted something that reminded them of their first adventure; the feral state their sister took on when her anger overpowered her. The robot in front of Sunset didn't stand much of a chance as she used her claws to pierce its power core, causing it to shudder for a moment before she ripped its heart out. The other two enemies approached her at the same time, but Sunset wasted no time in tearing off one of their arms and then using them to kill their owners.

Before either of them could tell whether Searing or Sunset was the one in control at the moment, though they had their opinions on which one it was, Sunset stood up straight and coughed, telling them that she must have won in the end.

"How did you manage to overcome Searing?" Starlight asked, because if they knew how their sister was able to do that then she knew that they would have a method to help her relax whenever Searing came back.

"I told her to back off until we found the Thugs' Leader again," Sunset replied, a light smile appearing on her face, though she knew that her eyes still had the appearance they took on when Searing took over, "I was fairly certain that we'll encounter him again in the near future, so I basically told Searing to wait until we found him... though we all know what's going to happen when we find him."

"Well, he deserves whatever you and Searing give him," Ratchet said, somewhat surprised that his sister and her creature managed to agree on something for once, but decided that it was better than nothing, "You had better restock any weapons... something tells me we might be needing all the ammunition we can get our hands on."

"...why were we imprisoned with our weapons anyway?" Sunset asked, not bothering to move towards the vendor, though she drew her sword as she started down the path they needed to take.

Ratchet and Starlight looked at each other for a moment, because they had clearly missed that fact when the walls keeping them in their cells had fallen and their enemies had come for them. They also weren't surprised to find that Sunset didn't care much for the weapons she had acquired in the past, because it seemed like every time Searing took over, even if it was for a few seconds, Sunset focused more on magic and less on her weapons. Before they moved on Ratchet and Starlight quickly returned to the weapon vendor and looked for any additional weapons that they might benefit from having in their arsenal, though the only new one was a Shield Charger that summoned a shield for a limited time.

With the weapon added to both of their arsenals they followed Sunset along the walkway that they hoped would take them to wherever their ship was, because they knew that if they had been left with their weapons then they could assume that their ship had to be somewhere aboard the flying lab.

They found a platform that had three more spider bots waiting for them, but Ratchet would have none of whatever they were planning as his Plasma Coil tore them to pieces and allowed them to progress onward. Once they were all on the platform they rode it towards the next walkway, where three more spider bots lowered themselves into the group's line of sight, as if they had no orders to protect themselves. Starlight moaned as she repeated what Ratchet had done to the previous group, using her Plasma Coil to clear the way once more, though it was plainly clear that she was getting annoyed with how easy some of their enemies were to kill.

Once the area was clear they rode another platform to a walkway that stopped before a set of walls that they would have to jump up, though while Ratchet did the jumping Starlight and Sunset merely teleported to the top. They then found ten more spider bots blocking their path, though it was shameful when Ratchet and Starlight's Plasma Coils tore through them like they were made of paper. Ratchet then spotted another jump area that would take them to the top, so he jumped onto the floating platform and kept doing so until he was on the side of the room. He then turned his Plasma Coil on the robots that were standing in his way, though once they were gone he beckoned for his sisters to join him and they teleported up to him.

As they pressed onward Ratchet hoped that Clank was okay on his own, though he had the feeling that his companion was more than able to protect himself from whatever enemies he discovered in the vents.





Clank watched as a lift rose up above him, though he could tell that Ratchet and his sisters were on the move and that the button he had pressed had been the one he needed. He nodded his head and moved along the vent that he had to move through, though when he came to the end of it he noticed that he was in another room that was filled with dangerous liquid. He carefully made his way to the middle of the chamber, where he jumped the rest of the way until he was definitely on the other side where he found a Bridge Bot waiting trapped in a cage. With the robot released he had it build him a bridge, though that was when he spotted three robotic chickens that started walking across the moment the bridge was created.

Clank smiled as he ordered the Bridge Bot to retract its bridge, dropping the three robots into the dangerous liquid below them the moment the floor beneath them gave out.

With the way clear he reengaged the bridge and crossed over the pool of dangerous liquid, before he retracted the bridge and rode the elevator to the top of its shaft with the Bridge Bot beside him. He found four more robotic chickens waiting for him, though he made short work of them before they could get behind him and destroy the robot that was following him. He approached the edge of the path he was on and spotted a cluster of cages on the platform below him, to which he ordered the Bridge Bot to build a bridge that expanded halfway between him and the other platform. With nothing else to do he ran across the bridge and glided down to the platform, where he released the Micro Bots and a second Bridge Bot from their cages.

With the new Bridge Bot in hand he crossed the next gap and entered a room that had two spider bots guarding a caged Hammer Bot, where he allowed his Micro Bots to tear them to pieces. Once they were taken care of he released the three robots he found, as there happened to be another trapped Micro Bots in the room, before he had the Hammer Bot start smashing the crates that were blocking his way. When the crates were out of his way he spotted another crate that happened to be sitting where he assumed the Bridge Bot had to go, along with one more Micro Bot. The puzzle was easy for him to work around, as all he had to do was have the Hammer Bot shatter the crate and have the Bridge Bot form the bridge, before he and the four Micro Bots crossed over to the other side of the room they were in.

Once Clank was on the other side of the room he had the four Micro Bots enter the door, to which it moved out of the way and allowed him to pass through the passage that was open for him... to which he appeared outside the building he had been in and spotted Ratchet's ship nearby. He had the feeling that his companions would be here soon, so he decided to wait by the main door, because he knew that it was the only place they would be coming out of.





Ratchet and his sisters walked off the elevator that they had ridden, though before they could get very far they noticed that there happened to be a floating wrench waiting for them.

"Would you look at that, another wrench." Ratchet said, picking up the new wrench, which had to be more powerful than the one he found on Tabora, before turning to his sisters, "So, who wants the other wrench?"

Starlight looked at Sunset for a moment, who merely shook her head for a second, before she sighed and accepted the weapon from her brother, to which she wondered what she would do with two of them. She guessed that she could always combine the two in some manner and increase the power of her staff, though she knew that it would take some time to make a weapon like that. She also wondered why there happened to be a wrench on Angela's research ship, though she could easily assume that it had been left by one the Thugs as they had departed from the ship.

With the wrench issue solved Ratchet noticed that they were at another jump area, so he sighed and leapt on the wall before he touched the platform. He then continued along the path that opened before him, jumping between all the platforms that appeared before him, until he was at the top of the walkway and beckoned to his sisters. As they teleported in behind him Ratchet moved along the walkway he had found, to which he walked outside the ship for a moment and spotted two spider bots as they came out to fight him. He smiled as he used his Minirocket Tube to get rid of them, but as he took a step forward he spotted a Plasma Coil charge that slammed into four enemies that he hadn't noticed.

Starlight grinned as she and Sunset joined their brother, to which the three of them continued along the outside of the ship until they were forced to enter the ship once more. The chamber they entered had seven more of the spider bots waiting for them, but the combined charges of both Starlight's and Ratchet's Plasma Coils destroyed all but one of them. Sunset charged forward and tore one of the robot's arms out of its body, much to the surprise of her siblings, before she swung the arm around and used the weapon attached to it to carve her enemy's body to pieces.

Once the enemies were dealt with Ratchet leapt along another floating set of platforms that took him to the top of the room, with his sisters not far behind him, where they found a door that allowed them to finally exit the building they had been locked inside. They found Clank waiting outside the door they walked through, to which he informed them that they needed to get into the building across from where they were at the moment if they wanted to get into their ship. Ratchet immediately spotted the door that they would need to open so they could get into the building, without using his sisters' magic that was, and sighed when he noticed that he would need to actually hack into the terminal next to it if he wanted to move on.

It took him a few tries to open the door, as this one was actually harder than the previous ones he had accessed, but once it was open he noticed that he would have to use Clank's wings if he wanted to reach the end of the building. Starlight and Sunset elected to stay near the ship until he had reached the main building, though Ratchet knew that it was because Starlight wanted to keep an eye on Sunset and be sure that Searing had retreated for the moment. He couldn't blame Starlight for worrying, because he always worried about his sister whenever the creature showed itself and took over, but he was confident that Starlight would be able to keep things under control until they could figure out how to bind Searing permanently.

Ratchet waited until the dangerous liquid was at a low level before engaging Clank's wings, to which he flew through the tunnel that was now open and made sure to reach the next platform before the liquid could touch him. He followed the walkway for a moment and found another pad that would allow him to use Clank's wings, so he took off and moved closer to the end of the building. He made sure to avoid the electric beams that were along the walls of the passage, because he was sure that they would knock him into the liquid if he was touched, before he landed on a platform that had a third pad waiting for him. He let out a sigh as he moved through the next passage, making sure to avoid the electric hazards that were in his path until he reached the definite end of the building.

Once he and Clank had reached the main control room he beckoned for his sisters to join them before he touched anything, to which they teleported in behind him before they started searching for the button that would release their ship. The screen in front of them turned on as Angela appeared, to which she informed them that she was transmitting from the Thugs fleet, leaving them to wonder how she had managed to do that. Apparently she had found something out, but before she could tell them what that something was the Thugs' Leader walked by where she was hiding and she sneezed, to which the Leader realized that she was there. The transmission ended with the Leader ordering his underlings to capture Angela and take her to their headquarters, though the four of them now had the coordinates for wherever the fleet happened to be at that exact moment.

Sunset growled as energy flickered across her body, because this just gave her one more reason to hate the Thugs-4-Less Leader, on top of all the stupid things he's already done.

"Set our course for Planet Gorn," Sunset said, just as the field covering their ship was disabled, "Let's show the Thugs that no one messes with our friends or family and gets away without suffering our wrath."

Ratchet agreed with his sister, because he figured it was time to finally get rid of the Thugs completely... and their Leader was basically giving them the invitation they needed. He also wanted to save Angela, though that was more because he sensed that there might actually be something between them once this adventure was over.
> Commando: Snivelak
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After breaking free of the poorly constructed prison that the Thugs had built into Angela's ship, and receiving her message that ended in her being captured by the Thug Leader no less, Ratchet and his sisters climbed into their ship and took off for their next destination. Ratchet actually flew much faster than what he normally did, because he knew that Sunset wanted to get back at the Thug Leader for everything that he had put them all through. That decision was also added by the fact that Ratchet actually wanted to save Angela, because he was convinced that there was something that she wanted to tell him and hadn't had the opportunity to do so thanks to all the madness they were going through at the moment.

Clank, on the other hand, was making sure that their defenses were at the ready, because they all knew that the Thugs would be waiting for their arrival at Planet Gorn. He assumed that this was all a trap so the Thugs could finally eliminate them, but he also knew that it would be impossible to do so thanks to Sunset and Starlight's magical powers. One thing that he was worried about, and Starlight agreed with him, was that Searing seemed to be appearing more frequently in Sunset's eyes, which spoke volumes on how angry the Thug Leader was making her. He secretly hoped that this would be the last time they ever saw the Thug Leader, because this time he knew that Sunset wouldn't hold back when it came time to fight him.

Sunset remained silent as she tried to meditate and calm herself down, but it continued to be a losing battle, because Searing had been riled up and seriously wanted something to kill, which was why she was pouring into Sunset's body at the moment. She was sure that her eyes had the coloration that Searing had, but she decided not to worry about it too much as they rapidly approached their destination.

When they arrived at Planet Gorn, where the Thugs fleet had been located, several ships flew passed by where their ship was at the moment and fired at them, to which Ratchet was thankful that Clank had activated the shields before their arrival.

"I detect Thugs-4-Less ships all around us," Clank commented, beckoning to the radar that had come with their ship, "and there are four larger ships around this immediate area. My bio-scans indicate that Angela is not aboard any of the larger ships, but I do believe that we may be able to figure out where they have taken her if we destroy the entire fleet."

"I'll take the two larger ships on our right," Sunset replied, surrounding herself with her magic before she teleported outside the ship, "I'm going to rip them a new one."

Ratchet sighed as he flew forward and started firing at the Thugs that were flying around him, blowing them up with some well placed shots as his shields took whatever they could dish out. Starlight assisted her brother as he flew around, as she grabbed some unfortunate Thugs as their ships passed by them and either threw them into another ship or into the mountains around them. Her actions seemed to piss the Thugs off more than they already were, because more of the smaller fighters started to swarm around them in an effort to get rid of them. That just made Ratchet want to target the larger ships even more, because while he tore into his intended target, and ripped sections off of it, Starlight used her magic to toss their enemies around like they were nothing.

That was seconds before Ratchet tore a massive hole in the ship he was targeting, by hitting a certain section of the ship that caused the explosion, but he grinned as he realized how he could beat the Thugs in record time. With the first of his targets taken care of Ratchet turned his attention to the second ship, which he had to spend a few seconds searching for, though it was easier than he was expecting because he found the swarm of smaller ships protecting it. He and Starlight smashed the smaller ships as they flew towards the larger ship, though Starlight focused on using her magic to toss the smaller ships around and throw them into each other.

They fought through the large swarm of enemies, cutting them down before they could tear their own ships to pieces, before Ratchet managed to get shot at the larger ship's weakness and tore a massive hole in it, causing it to explode before the pieces rained on the ground below them.

"That will show them that they shouldn't mess with us," Ratchet said with a grin on his face, to which he briefly turned to Clank, "How's Sunset doing with the Thugs that she wanted to take care of?"

As soon as the words left his mouth he heard an explosion, which was followed by a large number of burning ships being scattered all around them. Ratchet didn't need to know that Sunset was tearing her enemies to pieces, though he had to admit that he was curious as to what she was doing to them. He maneuvered their ship into a position that would allow them to watch their sister, where they watched her fly around a set of smaller ships and tear their wings off of them, all without touching any of them. It was almost as if the wind itself was bending to her will, because every time she swung her sword at one of the ships she cut off their wings without touching the ship, and she wasn't even using the whip function she had installed in the weapon.

Despite the large number of enemies that were flying around her, and trying to shoot her down, Sunset didn't seem to care how many ships she had to take out to reach her target. At one point she broke through the swarm of enemies that were gathering around her and landed on one of the larger ships, to which she released a wave of energy into the top of the ship and cut it right in half. As the first ship exploded Sunset reappeared in the middle of the smaller ships, cutting them to pieces as she searched for her second target, though it didn't take her long to discover that it was trying to flee the planet's surface. She released a gust of wind energy that tore into the ships that were around her, though while that happened she burst through the air and flew after the ship that was trying to leave the battlefield.

In the end Sunset reached the ship before it could leave the planet's surface and repeated the process she had used to take out the first one, though when it was a burning wreck, and the smaller ships had fled while she was distracted, she returned to where Ratchet had parked their ship.

"Do we have any idea where the Thugs might have moved Angela to?" Sunset asked, teleporting back into her seat before Ratchet got their ship started again.

Before Ratchet or Starlight could say anything Clank managed to pick up something on one the Deep Space Channels, though as he pulled up the transmission everyone noticed that it was the Thugs-4-Less Leader that had sent the message. The Leader was clearly pissed off that Ratchet and his family were in the Bogon Galaxy, making it harder for him and his employees to make an actual living. He continued to tell them to hightail it back to their own system before he trashed the daylights out of them, while also saying that they better not try to search for him because he was as unpredictable like the wind. When the transmission was over the four of them had to resist the urge to face palm, because the Leader had done something incredibly stupid that made Qwark look smarter by comparison.

"Does he realize that he had transmitted his exact location?" Clank asked, though he was secretly wishing that they were dealing with Qwark again, because even the former captain didn't do something like this when they were trying to track him down.

"If not then he's about to find out," Ratchet replied, though he looked back to see Sunset grinning from ear to ear, but he couldn't blame her for being excited about the idea of finally removing the Thugs Leader from their lives.

Clank downloaded the new coordinates and Ratchet got them underway, knowing that this time they could finally bring an end to some of the madness that the Leader had brought to their lives... all while finally saving Angela from whatever she had gotten herself into.





When they finally reached the coordinates that the Thugs Leader had unknowingly sent them, which happened to be Planet Snivelak, Ratchet and his family discovered that there was definitely a base of some kind, no doubt built by the Thugs themselves at some point in time. It almost seemed as if this was the place that the Thugs lived in, as it appeared to be their main base of operations, though they also assumed that the larger building, the more sinister looking one in the distance, was where all the meetings were held and what not. The Thugs Leader was hiding somewhere in the base, though it was up to Ratchet and his family to fight their way through the Thugs that remained so they could figure out where he was hiding.

After they landed their ship they climbed out and surveyed the surrounding area, though while they did so Starlight turned to her sister for a brief moment.

"You should stay behind us until we find the Thugs-4-Less Leader," Starlight said, taking a brief note of the fact that Sunset was a little tired from the fight on Gorn, "Let Ratchet and I deal with the soldiers that we come across... and we'll let you have the Leader when he reveals himself."

Her statement was also directed to Searing, because she knew, from her last experience with Sunset's inner creature, that if someone promised her something then she would likely hold back until she got what she was promised. She knew that if Searing went ahead and fought everything that was in their path, and shattered everything around them, then she might drive the Thugs Leader away... and take Angela with him.

"I understand," Sunset replied, sighing as she looked at the main area of the base that they had flown over, wondering if that was where they would find their target, "I'll stay out of your way unless one of you asks me to assist you."

Ratchet sighed as he equipped his Swingshot and latched onto the targets that were hanging in front of them, to which he swung from where he had landed their ship until he reached the building that they brought him to. He waited a few seconds until his siblings had appeared behind him before they swung over the second set of Swingshot targets, which allowed them to drop down on a walkway of sorts. There was a door that was blocking their way into the main area of the base, so they were forced to lower the nearby rail into place before they could use the rail system to get around the blockade. Once the rail was back in place Ratchet leapt onto it, knowing that his sisters would teleport to him the moment he reached the end of the rail system.

He eventually reached the base of the tower that the rail wrapped around a few times, to which he immediately started climbing and used the Dynamo to activate more of the walkways that he needed to use to reach the top. It was easy for him to reach the top of the tower, though then he had to walk over to where a couple of helicopters were taking off, to which he had to duck and weave his way through their blades before he reached the base of the platform they were using to take off. He then walked across the walkway that happened to be to the right of him, where he found a jump pad that allowed him to reach the other side of the blockade that he had passed by.

When he landed on the ground he turned to the blockade and watched as his sisters merely teleported to where he was standing, bypassing everything that he had gone through, though he had been expecting that to happen anyway.

Sunset stood back as Ratchet and Starlight moved forward, each of them pulling out a weapon as they noticed that an army of Thugs was moving across the bridge and were heading right towards where they were standing. Starlight was expecting a large number of soldiers to be in their way, though she was impressed that the Thugs were smart enough to bring out a few tanks to try and take the two of them down. Starlight snapped up a shield as the tank fired their first shots at them, though she noticed a few cracks that appeared in her magic, telling her that the tanks were more powerful than what she had been expecting. When the second volley came their way both Ratchet and Starlight broke apart from each other, before they turned their weapons on the tanks and started firing at them.

Their Minirocket Tubes proved to be quite useful in taking out all three of the tanks that the Thugs had brought out, though their enemies then used the wreckage as cover before they started firing at them. Ratchet and Starlight noticed that the soldiers were using the ruins tanks as cover, though when they did so they cycled to their Plasma Coils and loosed a charge each at their targets. It was fortunate that the Plasma Coils' charges hit multiple enemies, though they knew that with the large number of foes standing in front of them they were going to need to be precise with each of their attacks. With this being the headquarters of the Thugs they knew that they were going to have a really rough fight ahead of them, though they also had to be careful at the same time.

Once the bridge was cleared of enemies they walked towards the entrance of the base, though as they did so they kept their eyes peeled for anything that might want to do them harm. They spotted a moving laser on the ground in front of them, but before they could move over it they noticed a group of enemies move into position as they leveled their weapons at them. A few plasma charges were enough to put the group of soldiers down, but before they took another step a second group appeared and took the place of the first one. Ratchet and Starlight returned fire until they were sure that there were no more Thugs near the entrance, though once they knew that the way was clear they moved over the laser with ease and then continued their search for the Thug Leader.

The instant they turned to their left they spotted a large number of Thugs coming at them, which made Ratchet wonder if the two of them had enough ammunition to make it through the base without having to resort to letting Searing out early.

"Don't worry, we'll reach the end without having to resort to anything dangerous," Starlight said, leveling her Pulse Rifle with a tank in the distance and placing a decent shot in the one place that would cause the most damage, as it exploded and caused the soldiers around it to look at it in surprise.

The distraction proved to be useful, because the moment the Thugs looked away from them, for that brief instant, Ratchet and Starlight started firing at them, using whichever weapon they desired to cut their way through them. It proved to be difficult to actually cut down everyone in one shot like they had back in Solana, as it appeared that the Thugs were wearing some decent armor that made them much harder to take down. As they made the Thugs back up, making them lose the ground they were defending, Starlight noticed a chopper enter the area and turn towards where they were standing. Instead of letting it get close she grabbed it out of the air and dragged it towards the ground, breaking it into a large number of pieces as it exploded in a ball of fire.

They turned another corner and came to an area that was clearly set up for a battle between two forces, because the moment they entered the area a force field appeared in front of them and behind them. Once the force fields were in place the Thugs teleported into the area, though this time Starlight and Ratchet loosed a storm of Chopper blades at everyone that was standing in their path. That proved to be more effective than what the two of them were expecting, because by the time that they had both emptied their Choppers the immediate area around them happened to be cleared of all their enemies. The instant the area was clear the force fields were deactivated, giving them the opportunity to move on, but they stayed back for a moment to check their ammunition.

"I'm still worried that we might not have enough ammo to last us until we reach the Leader," Ratchet commented, checking his main weapons and discovered that they were mostly dry, to which Starlight nodded the same thing.

"Then I might as well give you mine," Sunset replied, removing the ammunition packs from all the weapons that she had and passed them to her siblings, knowing that they would be able to use all of it get to the end, "I don't think I'll be needing any of it anymore... not with you know who backing me up."

Ratchet nodded as he accepted the ammunition, though he still wished that whatever had happened to release Searing into the world had never happened to being with... though he suspected that it was linked to what happened at Umbris so long ago. They were going to have to deal with the consequences of letting Searing out to fight with the Thug Leader, whatever those consequences happened to be.

Once they had all of their ammunition back, or half of it anyway, they advanced forward again, though as they did so two more choppers came into the area in front of them and started firing at them. Starlight sighed and summoned a shield to protect them from the first wave of attacks, though before the choppers could fire another wave she grabbed them both with her magic and slammed them together hard enough to destroy the both of them. With the choppers taken care of they turned to the right and entered another area that had two defensible positions, though the moment they approached the one closest to them the Thugs started firing at them. Only three enemies actually stood in their way, so Ratchet used his Pulse Rifle and took them out in rapid succession, allowing them to advance through another laser area.

The instant they passed by where the Thugs had been defending themselves a force field sprung up around them, trapping in the area they were currently in as two gates opened to reveal a large group of enemies waiting for them. Starlight grinned as the Thugs foolishly revealed themselves, because this time she took a page from Sunset's book and emptied her Chopper of all its ammunition, throwing the blades around as they sought her targets. Ratchet joined in as well, facing the second door so they could make sure that none of the Thugs managed to get around them and hit them from behind, though he knew that Sunset would take care of them if that ever happened. Their strategy took some time, but in the end they managed to clear the area of their enemies and opened the door that was to the south of where they were standing.

Ratchet was sure that they had reached their destination, because in front of them stood the legs of a rather large mech that he was positive that the Thug Leader was going to use to try and crush them with. It turned out that he was right in thinking that it was the Thug Leader that was standing before them, because the moment they approached the mech they spotted him near the end, only he was laughing his head off.

"What's so funny?" Ratchet asked, taking note that Angela happened to be trapped in the middle of the mech's chest, though he was sure that Starlight could easily rescue her now that they knew where she was being kept.

"The four of you!" the Thug Leader exclaimed, staring down at them as if he was better than them, "I laid the perfect trap for the lot of you, and I even gave it the perfect bait, and you came right into my hands as if you were a pack of dogs chasing a ball! Now that you're all here I can get rid of you and get on with my life. Prepare to die morons!"

"Just a second, I'm not finished yet." Starlight said, stopping the Thug Leader before he could bring down the mech's arm on where they were standing, though her horn stopped glowing as she finished carving a glowing doorway into one of the buildings, "Come on Angela, let's get you out of there."

The Thugs-4-Less Leader watched as Angela Cross, his own prisoner, disappeared from the chest piece of his mech and appeared beside the lombax and his annoying sisters. His master plan may have been broken a little bit, but he had been planning on getting rid of Angela the moment he was finished with Ratchet and his sisters. After all there was only three of them, five if he counted Angela and the small robot, and he had a large mech that could easily level the entire base if he wasn't careful, so he wasn't worried about a fight between the lot of them.

"It will be much more fun killing her with the rest of you instead of letting her watch you all die," the Leader shouted down at them, a smile appearing on his face, "I know that you won't be able to kill me, not when you failed to kill me the last few times that we encountered each other... and that's also taking into consideration that you didn't kill Captain Qwark the first time you fought him."

"Seriously, would you stop pressing the Qwark Button?" Ratchet shouted up at the madman, because he could already tell that Sunset was getting angry, "You're only making this worse for yourself."

"Oh, is the commando going to send his pathetic sister to fight me all by herself?" the Thug Leader mocked, glaring down at Sunset as he noticed that her head was facing the ground, "See, even she's given up before the fight has even started. Better I kill the lot of you now and get this mess over with."

"Suit yourself," Ratchet replied, turning to Starlight and Angela for a moment, "Come on, let's get out of here before Searing blows this entire area to pieces... or does anything worse considering how many times that man has pressed her buttons."

Angela clearly wanted to tell him something, or wanted to ask him another thing, but at the moment she knew that they needed to get away before they were caught in the crossfire. Instead she merely nodded and the four of them faded as Starlight teleported them to a safe distance that was away from the base, leaving Sunset alone with the Thug Leader. At least three of them had an idea of what was coming, as they had traveled with Sunset and knew what her power was like, though Angela was beginning to understand that making Sunset angry wasn't the best idea in the world. They were eager to see what happened next, though Ratchet made sure that Starlight was ready to teleport them to their ship in case the destruction that was to come reached the platform they were currently standing on.

"So, what name should I put on your tombstone?" Sunset asked, not bothering to lift her head at the moment.

"You won't be needing my name," the Leader replied, glaring down at her as he wondered where the rest of her group went, though he knew that he would have time to hunt them down once he was finished with her, "Remember this fact; you failed the kill Captain Qwark the first time you fought him, so you stand no chance of defeating me with whatever 'abilities' that you happen to possess. Now, I think its time that you and your annoying family bit the dust."

With that said the Leader raised the mech's right arm into the air, where it stayed for a few seconds, before he lowered it towards where Sunset was standing, intending to smash her into the ground without giving her the chance to defend herself. The moment the arm hit the ground it produced a bit of smoke that covered Sunset for a moment, leaving the Leader to wait until it had cleared before he could be certain that he had struck his target.

"You know, I'm going to enjoy this a lot more than I should," Sunset said as the smoke cleared, revealing that she had sidestepped to the right quite a bit to avoid the arm.

The Leader didn't think it was strange that she had avoided his attack, because she and her sister were well known for doing that several times during a fight, but what he thought was odd was the fact that her voice had become a little bit demonic. The other thing that he had noticed was that she was suddenly wearing half of a mask on the left side of her face, a bone white one that added to the demonic look with the flame details that were on it. He had no idea what she actually was, or what her abilities actually were, but he decided not to let her show him anything and started the attack once more as he used the other arm to hit her.

This time Sunset burst out of the smoke and sailed towards the chest area of his mech, to which he hastily made the large robot turn before she managed to reach her target. That proved to be a worthless move, because as the mech moved out of the way Sunset spun around in midair and slammed her fist into the chest of his mech, shattering the cage that had held Angela. The mech staggered backwards for a moment before the Leader swung at Sunset once more, who merely moved out of the way and let the arm slam into the building behind her, smashing the top of it as he followed Sunset through the entire base. Sunset dodged all of the attacks that came her way with the greatest of ease, though she wasn't surprised that the large mech was too slow to hit her in her current state.

Eventually the Leader got a lucky swing and the mech's right fist connected with Sunset, sending her flying into the side of one of the buildings and created a small crater where she landed. She guessed that she deserved this for being too careless when she noticed that the Leader couldn't touch her, but all that told her was that she still needed to improve her skills. As she started to pry herself out of the hole she was in she noticed that there was a barrage of missiles heading her way, so she merely extended a hand and summoned a barrier to protect herself from the blast.

As the smoke cleared Sunset appeared in front of the mech, as she had teleported out before the Leader had a chance to use another attack, though she remained still as one of the mech's arms came right at her, but this time she used her magic to stop it before it could even touch her. She then swung her arm at the joint that connected the right arm to the mech's body, destroying it completely and severing the arm, to which she tossed it at the ground behind her as the Leader backed the mech up a bit. Sunset burst through the air and followed the mech, going on the offensive as she swung her fists at the mech, allowing the magical pressure behind each of her attacks to crack or shatter every piece of metal she ended up touching.

At one point the Leader swung the mech's other arm at her, but this time she spun around and released a wave of energy that cleaved the entirety of its arm in half, all without using her sword this time. As the mech backed up even further Sunset gathered some of her energy into a small sphere and threw it at the mech, though she waited until it was right in the cage where Angela had been held before detonating it. The Leader seemed to know what was coming next, because he engaged what appeared to be a jetpack of some kind and got off of the mech as an explosion tore the robot to pieces... leaving only the legs behind.

"That mech cost me one million bolts!" the Leader shouted, though once he landed on the top of a building he pulled his guns out and turned them on Sunset, "I'm going to make you pay for that!"

Sunset sighed and summoned a gust of wind that knocked the Leader to the ground behind him, though he was lucky to escape without any real damage as his jetpack had taken the entirely of her attack. She then landed on the ground not too far from where the Leader had landed, though she was giving him a chance to use his weapons against her if he so desired. The Leader decided to go out guns blazing, because he got onto his feet and loosed every piece of ammunition that he had in his weapons, creating a screen of smoke around where Sunset had been standing. The moment he emptied both of his weapons he backed up to study his work, taking note that he had charred some of the walls around them in the process, but decided it was something he would have to deal with.

When the smoke cleared he discovered that Sunset was still standing there, though he noticed a shimmering shield disappear as she started to approach him. He turned tail to run away, but before he could move an inch Sunset appeared behind him and grabbed him by the collar of his armor with her magic, lifting him into the air without having to touch him. He could see energy gathering around Sunset's left hand, something that he remembered seeing back on Dobbo's moon... where she had shattered the ground with one swing of her arm. Before he had a chance to consider what she was going to do to him she released the magic that was holding him, though as he fell towards the ground Sunset swung her arm and let the sphere of energy connect with his chest.

The instant her left hand was close to his chest he could feel several of his ribs cracking under the pressure of her attack, though he coughed up some blood as the air in front of his cracked as well. The ground around them cracked and shattered as Sunset released all of her anger in the one attack, causing sections of the base to heave upwards while many of the buildings collapsed under her destructive power. The earth itself moaned as the earthquake moved throughout the entire area, tearing into the structures that the Thugs had built as the main base suffered the most of the damage. The ground surrounding the legs of the mech collapsed under the pressure and fell into the lava beneath them, which was followed by several sections of the base following it.

The large building behind the base shattered under the intensity of Sunset's power, its pieces falling into the lave all around the base as the earthquake moved even further from the main base.

Once the attack was finished Sunset let the Leader fall to the floor, where she let him moan as the ground around them shattered and buckled under the intensity of the earthquake. She looked around for a moment and had to admit something to herself, but she hadn't expected the damage to be this severe when he decided on which attack to use to end this fight. She glanced back at the Leader for a moment, trying to find some pity for him, but in the end all she felt was relief that his idiocy would never return to bother her or her family anymore. As she started to turn away she noticed that the Leader was getting back up, making her wonder how he could even more after her attack had broken many of his ribs.

"I... told you before..." the Leader huffed, getting back onto his feet despite the pain he was feeling, "... you cannot... kill me..."

"You should have stayed down... you would have lived longer," Sunset growled, energy gathering around her as she faced the Leader once more, "Now I'm going to hurt you some more."

Sunset dashed forward and slammed her fist into his chest again, breaking his already cracked ribs as the pressure of her attack cracked the ground around them once more. This time Sunset went on the offensive, slamming both of her fists into the Leader in rapid succession as she broke him, and the surrounding area, into more pieces than they previously were. When she ended her barrage she slammed the Leader into the ground, where he coughed up more blood and remained where he was laying. She took note of the fact that most of the base had been ruined under the intensity of her attacks, though the earthquakes were still tearing the surrounding areas apart.

She sighed as she levitated herself into the air, but before she could go very far she glanced down at the Leader once more and noticed that, despite the fact that he was broken beyond repair this time, he was still getting up. Instead of saying anything this time she levitated herself until she was above where the tallest building in the base had been, before she brought her hands close to each other and gathered what energy remained into one last attack. A large sphere of flaming energy, roughly the size of the chest of the mech she destroyed, formed in front of her, to which she threw it down at where the Leader was standing and let it descend towards her target. The explosion that followed tore a massive crater into the center of the base, though she knew that it would leave no trace of her enemy behind.

When the smoke cleared she was pleased to discover that the Leader was no longer there, so while she returned to where the ship was located she felt the mask she was wearing break apart as Searing's power finally dissipated. The moment she reached her destination, and she found her family waiting for her, she smiled and opened her mouth to tell them the news, but then she fell forward as she succumbed to how tired she suddenly felt.

"Let's get out of here," Ratchet said, after he and Starlight had caught their sister, "We can discuss our next move when the world around us isn't falling apart at the seams."

He was glad that the Thug Leader had been dealt with, but he hated the fact that Sunset worked herself to exhaustion in order to rid them all of someone that was as annoying as Qwark. They still needed to stop Megacorp, so he didn't dwell on the fact as they climbed into the ship and departed from the planet as the ground fell apart all around them.
> Commando: Smolg
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As they departed from Planet Snivelak, and the ruined base of Thugs-4-Less, Angela told them that she had managed to swipe something out of the Leader's pocket. She claimed that her captor had gotten arrogant and sloppy after her capture, which allowed her to take anything that might give them a clue on where to go next. The video she played for them revealed that Megacorp had a distribution facility on Planet Smolg that could very well have 'over a million crates of Protopets', though that was the Thug Leader's personal opinion. Ratchet and Starlight discovered that there was also a large number of mutant creatures that were designed to protect the shipment, which immediately told them that they were going to need to be careful when they visited the facility.

After returning the video to her own pocket, and allowing Ratchet and Starlight to form their next plan of attack, Angela remained silent for the most part, though she occasionally glanced at the sleeping cazar that was to her left. She knew that Sunset Shimmer had very potent magical abilities, and she had almost been on the receiving end at one point if Ivan hadn't interrupted their fight, but what she had seen on Dobbo was nothing compared to what had just happened. In just a few swings of her fist Sunset was able to release enough power to shatter the entire area around her, though Angela was starting to believe that that had been a mere fraction of her actual power. Even the brief discovery of what happened on Planet Veldin, the world where Ratchet and his sisters had lived for the majority of their lives, did nothing to make Angela feel better.

Angela would never admit it to either Ratchet or Starlight, because she was afraid of what they might say to her if she did admit it, but she was absolutely terrified... of Sunset Shimmer.

No matter how many times she tried to wrap her head around what she had seen on Snivelak, and even on Dobbo for that matter, she still had no idea how the cazar had the ability to use magic like Starlight could. She had been told, at one point she was sure, that the golden bracelet she wore was the heart of everything that was happening to Sunset after they started their last adventure. It was a brief tale she had been told, but for some strange reason she knew that the bracelet was the problem, though she had an even stranger feeling that it wasn't a normal bracelet. All this information did noting to make her feel better, because she had absolutely no idea how a seemingly normal cazar had developed the powers that Sunset currently possessed.

She wiped some of the sweat off of her forehead in surprise, leading her to realize that she was so terrified of what Sunset was capable of doing, or could be capable of doing, that she had started to sweat in response.

"Is something wrong Angela?" Ratchet asked, causing Angela to look up for a moment and remember that she wasn't alone at the moment, and that three of her four companions were looking in her direction, considering that Sunset was still sleeping.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," Angela replied, smiling at them for a second to get rid of whatever they were thinking about, "I was just... lost in thought for a moment. Just taking into consideration what we need to do before this Protopet nightmare is finally over. Maybe thinking about what I'll do once we've saved the galaxy from those little monsters."

Ratchet nodded and turned his attention back to the ship controls, along with Clank, though Starlight seemed to be lost in thought before returning to whatever she was working on with her tablet. Angela had heard that Starlight was responsible for the creation of the first and second weapons in the RYNO series, which was the reason that Megacorp had created the Zodiac weapon. She was convinced that the unicorn was creating the next weapon in the series, no doubt working on the holoplan so she could be prepared for when they returned to the Solana Galaxy. Though Angela knew that she was more scared of what Sunset was capable of doing, though she knew that she would have to talk with Ratchet when they reached Smolg.

Angela had the feeling that they hadn't seen the full extent of Sunset's power... and she was sure that something horrible was going to happen to release it all.





When they reached Smolg they studied the facility as Ratchet brought them closer to the only area where they could safely set their ship down, though Angela also noticed that Sunset had yet to wake up during the entire flight. As they landed the ship and climbed out Sunset still hadn't moved, leading Angela to worry that something might have happened during her clash with the Thugs Leader. Ratchet and Starlight moved towards the weapon vendor to restock their weapons, though Clank remained in the ship and took a seat by Sunset. Angela felt that she was missing something important, so she followed Ratchet to the vendor and restocked her own weapons, those that needed it at the moment.

"So, is this normal?" Angela asked, causing Ratchet to look at her with confusion on his face for a moment, "I'm referring to the fact that Sunset has been sleeping since we departed from Snivelak and hasn't woken back up yet."

"Oh, you mean that," Ratchet replied, nodding his head as he finished restocking all of his weapons, "Every time Sunset releases a large amount of magical energy, and her anger I might add, she exhausts herself to the point where she'll be out of commission for a few hours to an entire day. Clank prefers to stay behind so that there's someone there when she wakes up, which allows Starlight and I to focus on the task at hand without having to worry about something happening to our sister."

"How often has this happened in the past?" Angela inquired, wondering how many episodes Sunset had that would allow Ratchet and Starlight to move on without her, because she had seen that they worked better as a unit.

"Once I do believe," Ratchet immediately answered, though it was clear that he wasn't completely sure about his answer, "or maybe it was twice this has happened before today."

"Its only twice if you count the time she turned into Searing and destroyed Chairman Drek," Starlight commented, moving away from the weapon vendor to check her tablet for a moment, "though, to be honest, this is actually the second time this has happened... and I'm getting sick of it already. I'd rather have Sunset fight beside us, instead of having to rest from burning through too much of her magicka. I wish she would listen to my warnings about magic, but I'll keep barking up that tree until she does so."

Angela nodded again, though this time she had to wonder if they would be splitting up once more or if one of them was going to suggest that someone stays behind with Clank and Sunset.

"I'd like to suggest that Angela and I check out the large ship over there," Ratchet said, to which Angela surpassed a gasp of surprise as he pointed to the ship in question, "I take it that your okay with that Starlight?"

"Yeah, I can deal with that," Starlight replied, shaking her head as she started moving to the right, "Have fun with your girlfriend Ratchet!"

Ratchet brought his palm to his face for a moment while Angela's face went red, to which Starlight walked away with a smile on her face and a spring in her step. As his sister walked away Ratchet turned around and went the other way, though Angela followed after him not a second later, before the two of them used the jump pad in front of them and leapt over to the back entrance of the large ship. They immediately spotted a two headed creature that was clearly one of the mutants that had been designed to protect the cargo, though they pressed the button to lower the field it was trapped behind and took it out with their Minirocket Tubes. The moment the creature was taken care of they turned to their left and started up the pile of crates that formed a walkway, though they had to bash their way through the smaller purple mutants that were standing there.

They followed the path until they came to an area that had two larger crates that opened as soon as they were in range of them, to which they spotted four of the larger mutants coming their way. Both Ratchet and Angela cycled to their Plasma Coils, which they then used to clear the mutants out of their way so they could move on without having to worry about something attacking them from behind. They then spotted an area that would require them to climb on top of each other so they could move on, so Ratchet helped Angela get to the top of the crate and then waited for her to return the favor. There was one more of the smaller mutants sitting on top of the crates, so Angela simply smacked it over the head with her weapon before they moved on.

Ratchet did find it odd that Angela's handheld weapon was a simple metal pole that extended when she needed it and collapsed when she was using an actual weapon, but he decided to say nothing about it.

The next area they walked into had at least eight more of the larger containers, thought they were scattered in a manner that told Ratchet and Angela that they were going to have to activate all of them before they reached whatever was ahead of them. They looked at each other for a moment as the containers started to open, but they merely grinned as they pulled out their Plasma Coils and continued blasting their way through their enemies. Once they had cut their way through the mutants that emerged from the containers they approached an area where they would have to jump down, though there were a large amount of small and large mutants prepared to guard Megacorp's shipment.

Ratchet cycled to his Lava Gun and leapt down into the pit, though the moment he touched the floor he turned and saw Angela standing beside him, though she was still carrying her Plasma Coil. Together they took care of the enemies that were in the pit with them, before pressing the button and releasing the remaining enemies so they could move further through the cargo ship. During their assault on the second wave of enemies Angela switched to her own Minirocket Tube and took out the enemies that happened to sit near the back of the pack. Once the enemies were actually taken care of they took a moment to catch their breath, knowing that they needed to take their time before they did something rash.

The next part of the ship had another of the larger mutants guarding the passage between the pit and where they were heading, though it quickly fell to Angela's rockets. They then encountered a group of smaller mutants walking around a spawner, so while Angela took out the thing that could spawn more enemies Ratchet smashed the mutants into the floor with his wrench until the area was clear. After a few seconds of collecting bolts they approached a conveyor belt that was being protected by more of the mutants, so they tore into them with their weapons until the entire lower area was clear.

"A Dynamo Activator..." Angela commented, spotting the device as she looked around for a path for them to take, "kind of wishing that I had grabbed one when I was on Oozla."

"Don't worry about it," Ratchet replied, holding his Dynamo out and activating the device, allowing the conveyor to move, "Come on, let's see where this will take us."

They followed the crate that was sitting on the conveyor belt, watching it move towards the end before returning to where it had been resting before Ratchet had activated the device, though Angela pointed out a hole between containers that they could jump thorough. With the hole discovered Ratchet reactivated the device and they climbed onto the crate, though when they approached the hole Ratchet helped Angela jump to their destination. Ratchet, on the other hand, had to ride the crate again, though when it came time for him to jump Angela caught his arm and pulled her up to where she was standing.

With that deed done they approached another gap that they would have to jump across, though once again Ratchet helped Angela across first before attempting it himself. When he was standing beside her again he activated the device that was floating in front of where they were standing and they rode forward until they came to an area where they could jump to another section of the cargo ship. It was a simple matter to get rid of the small mutants that were standing around the place where they landed, though once they were taken care of they approached a elevator device that they would have to ride.

Ratchet pulled out the Dynamo again and they quickly rode the elevator to the top of its destination, though once they were at the top they carefully climbed down into the pit below them. The moment they entered the second pit the containers that were blocking their path were torn apart as a large group of mutants broke out of them and made their way towards them. Ratchet pulled out his Plasma Coil again as Angela followed suit, to which they combined the last of their charges to blast away the entire host of enemies until they were alone again. Once they had cleared out the mutants Ratchet pulled out the Dynamo yet again as they approached another conveyor belt, though this time they had to climb onto a platform and ride it to the end of the conveyor belt, where they rode it to an area where an actual elevator was waiting for them.

"And now we need an Electrolyzer," Angela commented, turning to see Ratchet pulling out the hacking device in question, "Yeah, I kind of figured that you had that one already... I'll move out of your way."

Ratchet smiled and went to work on the terminal for a few minutes, to which Angela watched him while keeping her eyes peeled for enemies, before he backed away and pulled her onto the elevator, where they rode up to an opening that would allow them to exit the cargo ship at last. Before them rested a rail that would allow them to move through the rest of the containers and see if there was something useful that they would use in their quest, though Angela stopped Ratchet before he could move on.

"Is something wrong?" Ratchet asked, wondering why they were stopping at the moment, when he knew that there were more enemies out there that were going to get in their way.

"You could say that," Angela said, sighing as she put her weapons away for a moment, before she pulled out a small data card and handed it to Ratchet, "The coordinates for Planet Grelbin, my home world, are on this card... where the completed Helix-o-Morph is waiting for me to collect it so we can use it against the Protopet."

"Wait a second... did you say completed?" Ratchet inquired, surprise flashing on his face for a moment, "I thought that you said that the device was far from complete when we spoke on Siberius."

"Ratchet, as much as I hate to admit it, I lied about the device," Angela admitted, sitting down on the platform as she looked out at the planet around them, "I had no idea if you or your sisters would believe me about the Protopet and Megacorp's madness, so I didn't want someone to tell them that I actually had a device that could cure the Protopet before they could put their plan into action. Go ahead, dislike me for wanting to keep something like the Helix-o-Morph a secret until I was ready to use it, but I can live with whatever you decide..."

"Everyone hides something Angela," Ratchet replied, placing an arm around her as he sat next to her, "I'll never tell my sisters this, but I spent a good year building a ship that would get us off our home world of Veldin, though when they discovered it I played it off as a birthday present for Sunset. I had my reasons for keeping the ship a secret, just like you had your reasons for keeping the device a secret, so I can't blame you at all."

Angela turned to Ratchet for a moment and quickly kissed him on the cheek, before pulling back and clearing her throat so she could tell him something else.

"We had better get going," Angela said, to which the two of them got back up and turned to the rail in front of them, "There's no telling what else Megacorp has that's guarding the shipment... or what gadgets they might have waiting for someone to grab."

Ratchet smiled and followed Angela down the rail, where they approached the vendor that was sitting before them and restocked all the ammunition they had already used. He had the feeling that this was the beginning of a relationship between the two, and that thought made it much easier for him to want to get through all their enemies all that much quicker.





Starlight sighed as she watched Ratchet and Angela jump over to the back of the cargo ship, though she knew it would be good for her brother to connect with Angela. She was positive that Angela had a crush on Ratchet, which she was sure that Sunset had noticed long before she had, though she was fine with her brother finding someone to take an interest in. Whether their relationship evolved into a serious relationship or they stayed friends was up to them, but eventually Starlight let out another sigh before turning back to he path she had been given. These days she was used to splitting up from her family so they could explore more of whatever planet they happened to be on, though this was likely the first time she was doing this alone.

She let out another sigh before she jumped onto one of the floating platforms to her right and continued forward, though she had to engage her Swingshot to get over the gap between her and the ship she was heading towards. The instant she landed she swung her staff and smacked the three small mutants that were waiting for her on their heads, making sure to knock them off the edge before continuing forward. She quickly leapt over the next set of floating platforms, following the path until she reached the building they were connected to and rode the elevator she found downwards. Once the elevator reached its destination she walked forward and found another weapon vendor, though beside it she found a pad that Ratchet used to activate the wings that he had installed in Clank some time ago.

Starlight considered going back and asking Clank to assist her for a moment, but then she decided that it was better if she did this by herself and merely used her magic to surround her entire body. Once she had accomplished that she lifted herself into the air and levitated through the air, heading over to the large floating platform that she assumed that she was supposed to head to. When she reached the platform she noticed that there was absolutely nothing she needed to do there, no enemies to get rid of and no bolt cranks to turn, so she floated through the air and started the trek towards the next one. Again she found nothing on the second platform, so she sighed for a moment and continued towards the ship that was resting some distance in front of her.

When she reached the ship she found a larger two headed mutant waiting for her, so she switched to her Minirocket Tube and blew the mutant apart without wasting a second. As she started to look around the ship she spotted a heavily armed robot guard that had its weapons trained on her, so she merely raised a shield around her and waited until her opponent was done firing at her. The moment the robot stopped its attack she lowered the shield and loosed a pair of rockets at it, blowing it to pieces within a matter of seconds, though she was sure that it was the only enemy left on the ship. As she looked around the ship she discovered that there was nothing else for her to do here, so she surrounded herself once more and floated over to the next platform.

This time there were two of the two headed mutants waiting for her, so she gladly used her Plasma Coil to get rid of them as she approached the platform, though from there she headed towards the next ship. All she found aboard the ship was a group of the smaller mutants, so she quickly got rid of them with her Lava Gun before she approached the middle of the ship. She looked up and spotted another platform some distance above her, though this one much larger than the ones she had passed to get here, but she engaged her magic and started the trek to the end of the platform.

As she reached her destination she spotted two more of the larger mutants guarding the edge she needed to land on, so she used her rockets once more and got rid of them. The moment she got rid of them she spotted at least ten more of them coming her way, which told her that the path she had taken must have something interesting that someone wanted to protect. Instead of wasting her time fighting the creatures that were coming her way, and costing herself some time, she engaged her magic and flew over the mutants, listening to them snap at her as she moved towards her next destination. She flew over the large group of containers, keeping her eye out for any of the flying robots, before she landed in the building she had been trying to reach the entire time.

As she walked up the stairs, however, she spotted a large mutant that was different from all the others she had been dealing with the entire time... this one was missing one of its heads and was wearing a scarf of some kind.

"Go ahead... you'd be doing me a favor," the creature said, waving one of its claws as it accepted a fate that Starlight was hesitant to give it at the moment.

"Why would I end your life?" Starlight asked, beckoning to the two mutants that were fighting each other nearby, "Clearly you aren't like them at all... which reminds me a lot of my friend Clank."

"Oh really?" the creature commented, eager to hear something different than whatever he had been listening to his entire life, "And how do I remind you of this friend of yours?"

"Because he, too, was built from a series that was designed to destroy," Starlight answered, noticing a look of surprise appear on the creature's face, "and he ended up saving the galaxy we were born in from complete destruction."

That thought made the creature think about something, which made Starlight happy that she might have influenced someone without really trying to. They spent a few minutes talking about what Clank had done, which added to the creature's surprise and desire to live again, before he traded her a broadcast for some bolts to get him started. What she discovered was that Megacorp had put their plan into action, part of it anyway, and that there was a planet under attack by the Protopets, to which she thanked the creature before she headed in the direction of the ship once more.

When she arrived at the ship once more she found that Sunset was up and about once more, though Ratchet and Angela had also arrived shortly before she had. Apparently they had uncovered a fragment of a device that could control certain Megacorp robots, though they would need the remaining two pieces of it if they wanted to use it. That was before the rest of the group discovered that there was a planet under attack at that very moment, so everyone hopped back into the ship and let Ratchet get everything set up. They were going to strike at whoever was attacking the people of Planet Damosel and save them from the Protopets... and then they agreed that they needed to venture to Grelbin and retrieve the device that Angela had been working on.

They needed to stop Megacorp before they did something that couldn't be fixed.
> Commando: Damosel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	During the flight to Planet Damosel, where the group knew the Protopets would be unleashed upon the people that called the planet home, Sunset was busy reviewing the video that Starlight had taken of her fight with the Thugs-4-Less Leader, trying to figure out what had happened to her. She wasn't surprised to find that when her power melded with Searing's during the fight that they had devastated the surrounding area with a powerful earthquake, though she was surprised to find that half of a mask had appeared on her face during the fight. That told her that Searing had much more influence over her than she originally thought, which meant that if she gave into her anger again she was likely to relapse and allow her inner demon yet another chance to damage another world.

She sighed as she looked at the destruction of the Thugs complex, hating herself just a bit for feeling no sympathy for the Thugs as she wondered if there as a way to use Searing's power without causing so much devastation. She knew from her past experiences that Starlight was strong in magic as well, and she had been jealous of that fact up until the moment that she had developed her own powers, but she also knew that her sister didn't have any experience in what was happening to her. She knew that there had to be some way for her to overcome her inner demon and gain control of her powers, but for the moment she had no idea what that something had to be.

As Sunset studied her fight with the Thug Leader, and taking note of what she and Searing had done, Starlight looked back at her tablet and continued making modifications to the weapons that she had been designing the entire time she and her family were in the Bogon Galaxy. She was designing a new arsenal for Gadgetron, which would actually incorporate the nanotech absorption technology that Megacorp had built into their weapons, though she had yet to see any of their weapons evolve into their secondary form and become more useful in combat. What she was also doing was avoiding a conversation with Sunset, because she didn't want to get into a discussion about the dangers of magic with her sister for what seemed like the hundredth time since they discovered that Sunset could use magic.

Starlight also noticed that Angela, Ratchet, and Clank, for the most part, remained silent during the journey, which told her that something must have happened between her brother and Angela while they were alone. Or maybe she was overthinking the fact that Angela and Ratchet would make a good couple... which made her shiver for a moment before she turned back to her work.





When they finally arrived at Planet Damosel they found that there really wasn't too much destroyed at the moment, though all they would really see as they flew in were the Protopets generating themselves from dispensers while some security robots tried to remove them. The weapon vendor provided them with another opportunity to restock their weapons, as they didn't before their rapid departure from Smolg, but as they started to move forward Ratchet noticed that there were two other paths for them to take. One appeared to lead to a pad that resembled the one Clank used to enlarge himself so long ago, while the other appeared to be a rail that eventually stopped at a platform some distance away from where they were standing.

"Think there might be anything useful along either path?" Ratchet asked, wondering if any of his companions had any opinions on what they should do about the rail or the enlargement pad, "Like another piece of that device we found on Smolg perhaps?"

"There might be something at the end of the rail system," Angela commented, reaching down to her boots and pressing a button that was cleverly hidden on the side near her leg, "Give me a few minutes... and then we'll start purging the Protopets from this world."

As Angela approached the start of the rail she put away the gun she had been holding, the Plasma Coil, and pulled out the piece of metal she carried that extended into its pole form. She took a breath for a moment before she hopped onto the rail, allowing herself to start the journey to the platform and whatever item it might have for them to use in the last bit of their adventure. As she approached what she knew had to be the first of many gaps in the rail system a train car happened to appear next to her, so she switched onto the rail that the train used to ride the system before switching to the other side of the gap. She then moved back and forth for a few seconds, making sure to avoid slamming into the pillars that were in her path, before she came to a section that was taking her around and back the way she came.

She also made sure to smack each and every Protopet that happened to be sitting on the rail, allowing her frustration towards Mr. Fizzwidget to be expanded every time she hit one of the little blue monsters. She also made sure to avoid the explosive rings that were in her way, which she knew would do some damage to her if she accidentally touched one of them. Eventually she came to a rail section that had multiple lines, which meant multiple trains would be coming in, so she reached for her head piece and activated a function that would allow her to see behind her. She then used that function to avoid the trains as they came her way, allowing her to weave through the traffic until she descended towards a circular tower that was near where the rail started.

Angela rode around the tower, smashing the Protopets that got in her way and dodging any of the explosive rings that had been left there as well, before she reached a part where she had to use four trains to get across the final gap of the rail system. When she touched down on the platform she noticed something sitting on the ground nearby, so she walked over and picked up something that resembled the gadget piece she and Ratchet had found on Smolg. With the fragment in hand she turned to the teleport pad that was sitting nearby and stepped into it, allowing it to move her back to the beginning of the rail system, where her friends were still waiting for her.

"So, what did you find out there?" Ratchet asked, because he could tell that she was okay from riding on the rail and didn't need to ask such a silly question at the moment.

"Another piece of that gadget we found the first piece for," Angela replied, handing over the piece she had discovered before switching back to her Plasma Coil, "Now then, shall we clear the streets of this menace and save the fair people of Damosel?"

Ratchet and Starlight smiled as they also pulled out one of their weapons, though Angela knew that Sunset wouldn't be pulling out one of her own, considering that she was mainly focusing on magic at the moment. The three of them pointed their Plasma Coils at the swarm of Protopets that were running around the street in front of them, allowing the three charges to smash through their numbers almost instantly. That was before the security robots turned on them and started attacking them as well, as if the four of them were actually part of the problem and weren't trying to save the planet from the little blue monsters.

While her family took care of the enemies in front of them, be they Protopet or security robot, Sunset spotted a dispenser sitting by the ladder they needed to climb, so she summoned a small fireball and sent it flying towards the machine, destroying it and robbing the Protopets of any additional allies they could have made.

The moment the first group of enemies had been dealt with, rather slowly considering that it was mainly three to two, as Sunset didn't fight the security robots yet, but they eventually won and moved up the ladder. The instant they were on top of the platform another group of security robots engaged them, this time there were four of them, so Sunset sighed as she used her sword to push her target back. It was much easier with Sunset aiding them, though she restricted herself to her sword and her weaker spells at the moment, but eventually the four robots had been taken care of and they were allowed to move on once more. Before they moved on through the Swingshot targets, and descended into the next part of the city, Sunset held her hand up as she summoned four small fireballs.

"Four dispensers rest in the area in front of us," Sunset commented, pointing out the machines in question as she made sure that each of her fireballs would target only one of the machines, "Allow me to take them out before we head there... no reason to allow ourselves to be swarmed by enemies when we can cut their numbers down."

It wasn't hard for Sunset to tear the four machines to pieces and cut off any chance of the Protopets from using them to increase their numbers, so once the deed was done the four of them moved into the open area. As they touched down and started firing at the blue monsters they noticed that more security bots had touched down as well, forcing Angela and Ratchet to turn their attention to them while Starlight and Sunset focused on burning down the other creatures. Once all of their enemies had been taken care of, for the moment anyway, the gate in front of them opened and they progressed into an area that looked like a garden of some kind.

They didn't get very far as another group of security robots dropped into the area they were standing in, so the four of them used their guns and handheld weapons to get rid of everything standing in their way so the door in front of them would lower and allow them to move on once more. On the other side of the door stood another robot that wanted to get rid of them, but Sunset merely extended her hand, wrapped her magic around the robot, and crushed it into a pile of scrap metal. They then progressed into another area of the city that was under attack by both robots and Protopets, to which Angela and Ratchet charged forward to engage their enemies as Starlight stayed back with Sunset.

Though as Angela and Ratchet tore into the enemies that were around them Sunset watched as her sister lifted the blockade that was resting in front of them, a turned over car of some kind, and crushed the enemies that had been using it as a shield, before blowing it to pieces seconds later. Once they were finished with their enemies, and Angela and Ratchet were finished as well, the four of them moved through what appeared to be a small market area of some kind, before they took the taxi that was resting at the edge of the store to the next section of the city.

The next area appeared to be a bank of some kind, so three of them took the moment to restock their weapons while Sunset stood guard and looked out for any enemies that might attack them at a moment where they might not be paying attention.

"So Sunset," Angela asked, as she had finished with her weapons first and wanted to ask something that had just come to her mind, "why are you mainly focusing on using small fireballs to hurt our enemies?"

"Searing..." Sunset replied, letting out a sigh as flames gathered around her right hand, "after awakening from sitting a planet out, thanks to expanding too much of my magical energies, its better to start off small and not go overboard. If I were to go overboard, hypothetically I mean, then Starlight and I are pretty sure that I would relapse and awaken the demon inside of me once more. The more times that Searing takes over, even if its for a little bit, the more I feel like I'm starting to lose myself to her power... as you no doubt noticed back on the Thugs world."

Angela nodded her understanding, mainly because she had no idea what to say whenever Sunset or Starlight mentioned magic or the demon that apparently rested inside Sunset. She would have found it odd that someone could have such a creature inside of them, but the more time she spent around the two of them the more she was beginning to think that this might be a normal occurrence on whatever world they actually came from. Veldin, from what little she knew about the planet, didn't have unicorns that called it home, though cazars, on the other hand, were reported to have been there once or twice. There was so much she didn't know about Ratchet's sisters, though she was beginning to wonder if it was worth learning everything that she could about them.

Once all of their weapons were restocked they jumped up the wall in front of them, or levitated in Starlight's case, before they opened fire on the security robots that were standing guard. The pair that had been standing at the entrance of the bank went down quite easily, as they hadn't been expecting some enemies to appear behind them, before the group fired at the Protopets that were running around the place. Starlight spotted four more security robots moving into the area above them, so she grinned as she engaged her magic and pulled them from the ledge they were standing on, giving the group the opportunity to blow the four of them to pieces and open the way for them to move on yet again.

The next area they came to had a group of mini robots that were spinning around, though it took the group a few seconds to get rid of them before they came to the next area, where they spotted a massive swarm of Protopets that were attacking two security robots. Starlight grinned once more as she spotted some enemies above the door they needed to pass through, so she pulled out her Pulse Rifle and took one of them out with a well place shot to the head. Before she could take the other one out, however, Sunset extended her magic and crushed it, dropping the bits of scrap to the ground in front of them, to which Ratchet and Angela used their Plasma Coils to clear out the swarm of Protopets.

The moment the area was clear the door in front of them opened, to which they used some of their Minirocket's to tear into the remaining security bots that had dropped into the larger market while their comrades had been fighting earlier. They then took an elevator up to another garden that was overrun by the Protopets, to which the group used some of their Chopper stars to get rid of them as Sunset removed the next security bot that was blocking their path. When Ratchet was sure that the area had been completely clear of enemies he nodded and Starlight walked up to the water in front of them, using a spell that mimicked the Thermanator and froze the water in front of them.

They walked through the next door and found someone that was clearly wearing a sock over his left hand, though for some reason it appeared that he was trying to use the sock puppet to hypnotize himself.

"Ah, a group of customers," the puppet said, revealing that the man must also be a ventriloquist, because his mouth didn't move while the puppet 'spoke' to them, "You look like you could use a Hypnomatic. Just bring us the pieces and we'll make it for you... for a small fee of course."

Unfortunately the group lacked the final piece of the gadget, so they were unable to purchase the completed gadget at the moment and were forced to leave the man alone with his sock puppet. With nothing else to do the group hopped into the taxi that was resting near the man and left the area he was standing in, heading back to where they had landed their ship.

"The good news is that we managed to save the city from whatever destruction that Megacorp was planning," Angela commented as they climbed out of the taxi, shaking her head for a moment before turning to the rest of the group, "the bad news is that I'm positive that we'll be needing the Hypnomatic to get into Megacorp Headquarters. We're going to have to head to my home world of Grelbin, where we can pick up the Helix-o-Morph and, hopefully, acquire the missing fragment of the gadget that we couldn't get just yet."

"I'm sure that the last piece of the gadget is somewhere on Grelbin," Starlight replied, grinning for a brief moment as the four of them moved back into the ship, "the problem is finding it. So let's get moving and see if we can't bring this adventure to a close."

Sunset had to agree that she was eager to bring this adventure to a close, considering all of the headaches that she and her family had been through since they had arrived in this galaxy. She only hoped that when they reached the main Protopet they resolved the conflict quickly, so that they could go home and resume what they had been doing before they had been taken from Veldin. She just couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something important... something that could very well tell them what Megacorp was planning.
> Commando: Grelbin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone was pleased that they had brought an end to the 'Protopet Invasion' on Planet Damosel, as the news was already referring to the incident by that name, but instead of taking a break and celebrating they focused on making sure that they were ready for whatever waited for them on Grelbin. This was one of the few planets that Angela actually had any previous experience with, which was understandable considering that it was her home world and that she likely spent most of her time in the labs when she was working for Megacorp. Starlight noticed that Angela likely spent the weeks leading up to her theft of the Protopet planning out her entire plan and researching all the necessary chemicals that would allow her to dispose of it.

She was also sure that Angela was annoyed, because all of her planning was ruined thanks to Mr. Fizzwidget cloning the Protopet and leaving the clone in place of the original one... which they knew had to be in the Headquarters somewhere.

"So, what can you tell us about your home world Angela?" Ratchet asked, knowing that Angela could likely tell them something important about the planet that they were heading towards, "What can we expect to find on the planet's surface?"

"Well, Grelbin's an icy planet and is well known for its massive ice planes," Angela replied, leaning her head back for a moment as she remembered bits and pieces of her home world, "I guess that you could say that its similar to Tabora, where Megacorp left a mining facility behind after they started digging for Moonstones and other valuable gemstones. They were forced to back off for some time when the leviathans that called the ice planes home attacked them, though their solution to that problem was to create another genetically modified race... only this one I didn't help create.

Megacorp created a race of creatures they referred to as Y.E.T.I.'s, though whatever its name stands for I have no idea, and they released them on Grelbin with the express purpose of eradicating the leviathans. From what I could gather from the archives was that there was a error or glitch when they were made, so instead of hunting down the large leviathans they turned to protecting them and the Moonstones that Megacorp wanted to harvest. I believe its easy to say that Megacorp was forced to leave the planet alone entirely, though it gave me the perfect place to settle down and not worry about other people bothering me all the time.

Not that it really mattered anyway, considering that I spent most of my time in the genetic department and was working on fixing the Protopet... and, as a personal side project, I might have spent some time researching for some way to restore the Y.E.T.I.'s to their original function."

Ratchet nodded and looked over at Starlight for a moment, who had been taking notes on what Angela had told them and was beginning her own research on the creatures that they had been told about. They needed to be as prepared as they possibly could for when they reached their destination, because if Megacorp had been forced off of the planet then they would need every advantage they could get. Ratchet then looked back at Sunset, who had taken to looking at her own tablet as if she was working on something as well, though whatever that something was he had absolutely no idea. He was sure that she might be working on something that was linked to Searing, which would make sense considering that all of them were annoyed with the creature whenever she showed up.

He also knew that Searing was linked to the golden bracelet that his sister wore all the time, though it seemed that the multiple layers of magic that both Sunset and Starlight had used seemed to work wonders on keeping the demon trapped. He wondered what it would take for them to be rid of Searing, once and for all anyway, though even as he thought about it he realized that the options available were none existent, so it was better to leave the demon alone for now.





When they finally reached Grelbin Ratchet landed their ship just outside the mining facility that had been left behind, though as they touched down he noticed that something had crossed Angela's face. It was clear that she must have had systems in place to inform her about anything that might have happened while she was away, so he had to wonder what was making her more annoyed at the moment. Or, after a few seconds of thought, he decided that it might be news from Ivan that she was looking at, which could also explain why she was more annoyed than usual.

"Is something wrong?" Ratchet asked, letting Starlight and Sunset out so they could see if Megacorp had any additional weapons available for purchase, though he assumed that there wouldn't be any.

"The robots guarding the part of the facility that connects to my place have gone haywire," Angela growled, before she let out a sigh and turned to Ratchet for a moment, "Usually you'd be able to teleport inside the facility, walk along a path without being shot at, and then come out the other side and approach the door in about ten minutes. Now we have no choice but to find the missing fragment of the Hypnomatic and make the device... otherwise we won't be able to get into Megacorp Headquarters and fix the Protopet problem."

"Then we had better get started with our search," Clank commented, allowing himself to be latched on Ratchet's back as he spoke, "because there is no telling how long it will be before Megacorp tries to attack another planet with those little blue monsters."

"Which was why I wanted to get my hands on the original Protopet," Angela explained as she and Ratchet walked up to the weapon vendor, where they started restocking all of the ammunition they spent on Damosel, "I could have bought the galaxy enough time and perfected the Protopet's design, but you know how that song and dance went by now. All we can do now is get the Helix-o-Morph, my old Megacorp ID Card, and then we can begin planning our assault on the Headquarters... though I honestly hate saying that I'm basically declaring war on the people who hired me. It just feels... wrong."

Ratchet nodded his understanding to Angela as they restocked their weapons, though that got him thinking about what could have happened if either Starlight or Sunset had been forced to stop Gadgetron from doing something stupid like this. Suffice to say that he figured the main Headquarters would have been destroyed if his sisters had to do what Angela was going through, or the entirety of Kalebo III if they had to go further than what Angela was doing.

Once they had restocked their ammunition, and checked to be sure that they were fully prepared, the group walked into the icy planes in front of them, though it wasn't long before they found something that caught their attention. There was what appeared to be a small camp site of sorts not far from where they landed their ship, though it was surrounded by floating crystals that seemed to something. Starlight and Sunset knew that the crystals did something, thanks to their exposure to their cousins on Tabora, so they had to wonder what impressive feats these Moonstones were capable of performing. They also noticed that the same old man from the desert planet was also here, though he was standing beside a icy boulder that was blocking one of the entrances that connected to the mining facility.

As they approached the boulder the man turned towards them, to which everyone, including Angela, had to wonder if he would say anything that would aid them in their quest to find the missing Hypnomatic fragment.

"Violence is not the answer," the old man said, beckoning to their weapons and then pointing to the boulder, which clearly meant that they couldn't force their way through the boulder with their weapons, "I, however, am able to move the rock. But for me to do that the forces of the universe must align..."

Starlight sighed and ignited her magic, wrapping several strands around the boulder before she tore it free from where it was resting and chucked it into the icy planes around them. The old man shook his head and stared at them, as if he was annoyed with them and was making no effort to show them his emotions, though Ratchet wondered if there was something else he was going to tell them.

"...I have also found a piece of something called a Hypnomatic," the old man told them, as he made his way back to the chair that was in the middle of the camp site, "You may have it in exchange for some Moonstones. Twenty-five to be exact."

Angela sighed and beckoned everyone to follow her into the entrance that Starlight had opened for them, though when they were inside the building it became clear that only Ratchet would be able to progress through this part.

"Look, I know there aren't a lot of Moonstones around where we landed the ship," Angela explained, pulling up her own map of the area and pointing to an area that was currently blocked off, "so we'll have to go through this area and unlock the walkways that will give us access to the rest of the ice planes. Ratchet, seeing how you're the only one with a gilder you'll have to go through this by yourself and meet us on the other end... we'll start collecting Moonstones and keep in contact with you until you come back."

Ratchet looked back at his sisters for a moment, wondering if Angela even knew about the fact that Starlight had the ability to levitate herself without straining her body at all, but decided that it wasn't worth mentioning. Starlight nodded to him as she pointed a hoof to her communicator, which led Ratchet to smile as he approached the launch pad that would allow him to activate the glider. He knew that Starlight would likely be joining him further in the facility, so they could get done with this task as quickly as possible, and that would leave Sunset to collect Moonstones with Angela. It was for the best, because they all knew what would happen to Sunset if she used too much of her magic after just recovering from her last dance with Searing.

Ratchet sighed as he got the glider ready; they needed to figure out how to stop Searing and give Sunset control once more... without seriously harming their sister in the process. He then leapt forward and extended the glider's wings, allowing him to sail forward as he began the trek through the underground mining facility. As he moved away from the opening he heard the sound of magic activating and knew that Starlight was following him to the end of the passage, where they could begin the search for the button or lever that would allow them to access the rest of the ice planes.

Angela, on the other hand, turned to face Sunset with a look on her face, as if she expected her to suddenly activate her magic and follow after her siblings.

"Are you going to follow them or not?" Angela asked, wondering why she had bothered to make a plan if Starlight was going to ignore it in the end.

"Nope... we're going hunting for Moonstones," Sunset replied, drawing her sword as she turned back to the teleport pad that had brought them into the facility, "Let them have their fun."

Angela sighed as she followed Sunset outside, though she knew that they could at least collect a few of the Moonstones before Ratchet and Starlight activated the walkways.





Ratchet let out a sigh of relief as both he and Starlight landed at the end of the passage they had flown through, because there had been some hazards that he wasn't expecting to find along the way. He had managed to avoid all of the falling ice spikes and stay above the lava, though he knew that if he was in trouble his sister would have saved him in the end. The way forward was, unfortunately, blocked by a circular steel door, which the two of them knew that Starlight could bypass on her own, but then Ratchet noticed a hacking terminal and used the Infiltrator on it. Once the door was unlocked and out of their way the two of them pulled out their weapons and carefully walked forward, not knowing if there were enemies nearby or not.

It didn't take them long to figure out what their enemies were, as the robots that Angela had mentioned earlier turned towards them and started firing at them before they even had a chance to take stock of how many there were. Starlight snapped a shield into existence before the attacks could hit them, to which she and Ratchet returned fire the moment the robots were done trying to hit them. The pair of robots that were in front of them fell within seconds, though the instant they fell four more arrived in the room, from their spawn chambers, and continued the attack. That was when Ratchet switched to the Plasma Coil and tore the robots to pieces with one of the charges, though as their pieces were discarded he waited to be sure that there were no more coming to fight them.

When he noticed that the robots weren't coming to fight them anymore, and that they were alone for the moment, he beckoned to Starlight and the two of them moved into the next room. That was when they discovered that there was a larger group of robots that wanted them dead, because the moment they walked into the next chamber the robots turned and fired at them. This time Starlight didn't summon a shield as they ducked behind two mine carts, where they waited for a few seconds before popping their heads out of their hiding spots and returning fire at the closest enemies. More enemies appeared in the chamber as some of the robots were taken care of, just like in the last chamber, though the two of them had been expecting this and used their ammunition accordingly.

As the last robot fell the next door opened, though when they walked through it they were, once again, attacked by the robots that patrolled the area, once again making them hide behind the mine carts. This time, however, they loosed charge after charge from their Plasma Coils, breaking each and every robot that came into the chamber into a pile of pieces. When they had emptied their weapons they switched back to their Minirocket Tubes and waited for more enemies to show up, though when nothing came out of the walls Starlight pressed the button that was resting behind them and opened the door in front of them.

They then took the teleport pad out of the facility, where they appeared in a chamber that had an armor vendor and another terminal that required the Infiltrator to get through. Ratchet sighed and made short work of the Infiltrator terminal, opening the door so they could return to their ship and no doubt opened the walkways that Angela had mentioned earlier. As the two of them restocked their ammunition, however, Ratchet noticed some flames moving in the distance, which was followed by them colliding with what he assumed was something breathing a stream of ice at something else.

"Is that what I think it is?" Ratchet asked Starlight, knowing that his sister was more skilled in determining what was happening than he was able to.

"It seems like Sunset's feeling much better," Starlight commented, a grin appearing on her face as she walked down the walkway beside them, "Come on, let's see how many Moonstones they've managed to recover while we were inside the facility."

They found Angela standing behind a boulder while Sunset was battling one of the leviathans that called the icy planes home, though Ratchet was impressed by how terrifying the creatures looked. The serpent creature would have scared him to his core, but considering that he had seen Searing in action he knew that it would take more to terrify him or to make him scared of something. Sunset appeared to the creature's right and loosed a stream of fire at it, to which the creature returned fire and forced their different elements to collide until Sunset backed away once more. Sunset jumped around the creature's home, looking for an opening, before she used the whip function of her sword to end the fight by taking the leviathan's head off.

Sunset smiled as she approached her siblings, handing the stone that dropped from the leviathan to Angela before turning to Ratchet and Starlight for a moment.

"I see that your feeling better," Starlight commented, her smile remaining on her face as she looked around them, taking note of the fact that the area was pretty much cleared of stones at the moment.

"That I am," Sunset replied, stretching her arms for a second before turning to Angela, "So, how many more Moonstones do we need so we can get that Hypnomatic part?"

"We're only at ten Moonstones," Angela replied, letting out a sigh as she looked at the walkways, "We had better get started... because it'll take some time to get all the stones that we need."





It took the four of them roughly an hour before they managed to recover all the Moonstones that they needed to purchase the Hypnomatic part, though the reason it took so long was because of all the Y.E.T.I.s that they encountered. Angela hadn't been kidding when she mentioned that they had overpopulated the planes after Megacorp released them, because a swarm of fifteen popped out of the ground the moment they tried to take one of the Moonstones. Sunset used her magic to combat any of the leviathans that they encountered, leaving Starlight and the others to deal with the other enemies until she was done with them.

Eventually they got the final Moonstone that they needed, so they left the planes and made the journey back to where the old man was patiently waiting for them to return.

"We've got the Moonstones you requested," Ratchet said, hoping that they could get the part they needed and build the gadget so they could get to Angela's place.

"No, you do not," the old man replied, shaking his head ever so slightly for a moment, "Existence is a lie. Sensations are illusions. Possessions are merely illusions."

"Fine, then I have an illusion of some Moonstones," Ratchet said in defeat, deciding to go with what the old man was saying, because it seemed to be the only thing that might work, "I'll trade them for a vision of that Hypnomatic part."

"You have learned much young one," the old man replied, smiling at them as he accepted the Moonstones and handed Ratchet the piece they needed, "Remember this; anger and hate are never the answer. Learn to coexist with yourselves and you will obtain... peace."

Ratchet looked at his siblings and Angela for a moment, wondering if the old man was insane or not, but after a few seconds he sighed and headed back to their ship so they could head back to Damosel. Before he could reach the ship a shimmering shield wrapped around them as Starlight lifted them all into the air, to which they turned around and floated over to where Angela's place was located. He would have asked how she knew that it was Angela's home, but considering that it was the only building in the immediate area he decided not to ask that. He had a completely different question in mind the moment they landed in front of the house and Angela went inside to recover the gadget they came for.

"Why did we need to gather the Hypnomatic part if we could just levitate up here with magic?" Ratchet asked, looking at Starlight for a moment, who was still grinning.

"We still need it for Megacorp Headquarters," Starlight replied, to which Sunset nodded for a moment, "so we'll make a quick stop at Damosel, pick up the complete Hypnomatic, and then bring an end to this nightmare."

Ratchet sighed and shook his head as they waited for Angela to return, though a few minutes later she stepped out of her house and locked the door behind her, before she turned their way and nodded to them. She had the Helix-o-Morph on hand and, as an additional bonus, her ID Card from when she worked at Megacorp, which could give them access to more parts of the building if they needed aid. With the key items in hand the group levitated back to the ship, again thanks to Starlight, before they landed near the weapon vendor and restocked their weapons.

With their main goal completed they climbed back into their ship and set off for their main destination, Planet Yeedil, though they knew that they had a quick stop to make before their arrival.
> Commando: Yeedil
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet, his siblings, and Angela returned to Damosel without delay, though when they arrived they were glad to find that there were no more Protopets or security robots in the city. Starlight and Angela had taken some scans before their arrival, to be sure that they had dealt with all of their enemies the last time they had visited the city. They were happy to announce that there was nothing else for them to kill in the areas they had previously visited, so they climbed into the taxi and took off for the building where they had left the man and his sock puppet. Oddly enough the man was still standing there, as if he hadn't moved since they had departed from the planet, though he was definitely happy to see them.

Ratchet had the feeling that he was happy to have their bolts in payment for making the Hypnomatic for them, ten thousand bolts to be exact, but thanks to the amount of bolts Starlight received from her Gadgetron weapons they had more than enough to purchase the completed gadget. Once the Hypnomatic had been handed over the man and his puppet hopped into the taxi and took off, locking them in the room and revealing a gate that had a robot on the other side. Oddly enough Ratchet noticed that the robot had a receiver on its head, which told him that it had to be the type of robot that could be controlled by the device he was holding.

He pointed the device at the robot and took control of it, to which he moved it out of the area it had been sitting in and tested the controls that came with it. He was surprised to find that the robot had guns attached to its arms, so while he moved the robot around he fired at the walls a few times as he searched for something to release them from the area they were in. It was fortunate that they had gotten rid of all of the enemies that had been in the city, because there wasn't anything that could destroy the robot as he pressed the button and opened the door that was connected to the area he was in.

"Okay, this is definitely a keeper," Ratchet said, stashing the gadget away as he pulled out his wrench again, "So, shall we get underway and begin our journey to Yeedil? Or is there anything else we have to do before we head there?"

"No, we had better head to Yeedil and get this nightmare over with," Angela replied, a smile appearing on her face as they climbed into the empty taxi, "I'm eager to fix the Protopet and stop Megacorp from unleashing chaos across the entirety of the Bogon Galaxy."

Ratchet could actually understand what Angela was saying this time, because it was the same feeling that he and his sisters had felt when they were nearing the end of their last adventure, before they confronted Chairman Drek. It was almost hard to believe that they were near the end of another adventure, though it made him wonder what he, Sunset, and Starlight were going to do once they had saved the day once again. As the taxi moved towards their ship he cast a glance at his sisters, though the looks on their faces told him that they were thinking the same thing that he was. They were all curious as to what their futures held once they were done with this Protopet business, leading him to wonder if there was any hope for a future between him and Angela.

He sighed as they reached their ship, because at the moment he had to focus on getting them to Yeedil... and then they had to begin the assault on the facility where the main Protopet was behind held.





When they reached Planet Yeedil, and landed their ship outside the Protopet Facility, Ratchet to admit that the size of the facility made him start to wonder about their chances of actually finding where the main Protopet was being held, but then he remembered that Angela was with them. If anyone knew where Megacorp was keeping their target it had to be Angela, who had received some information from Ivan the moment they neared the planet. None of them bothered to restock their ammunition, considering that they had done that before they had departed from Grelbin so they could start the assault much faster.

As they walked across the bridge that connected the landing pad to the weapon vendor each of them drew their handheld weapons, mainly to have something in their hands before an enemy or two found them.

"It appears that we'll need to use the Hypnomatic first," Starlight commented, pointing to a lone robot out in the middle of a platform to their left, before pointing the top of her staff at the multilayered shields that rested behind a gap in front of them, "I've got the feeling that those shields will come down if we can get that robot to the switch that controls them, which means that this is all up to you Ratchet."

Ratchet wasn't expecting to be the first one to do something, considering that both of his sisters could use magic and would likely strike any enemies down from afar, but he was glad at the same time. He set his wrench down beside him for a moment and pulled out the Hypnomatic once more, to which he carefully aimed it across the gap at the robot that was resting on a platform. He was sure that he was going to meet some enemies once he had assumed control of the robot, that was a given considering what they were about to do, but he wasn't about to back out of their mission. Angela was depending on the three of them to get her to the main Protopet so she could fix it with her Helix-o-Morph, which was why he took a deep breath for a moment before pulling the trigger on the gadget.

He seized control of the lone robot that was all by itself, to which his Helpdesk informed him that it was a receiver one that allowed him to hypnotize other robots so he could progress further. He did so and seized the robot on the next platform, where he pressed the button to lower the barrier in front of him and started firing at the Protopets that had been left on the other side. The instant the way was clear he passed onto another robot and rained fire down upon the robots that were designed to guard the platform, blowing the two enemies to pieces before they could even react to what was happening. He then seized the robot that was on the outside of the mass barriers that they had spotted, to which he moved his way through the gauntlet of sentries and Protopets that had been left to guard to facility's entrance.

It all came to an end when he encountered some red colored robotic commandos, which he blew to pieces before they could tear his robot to pieces, and pressed the button that they had been guarding, bringing up two Swingshot targets that would allow him and the others to cross the gap... not to mention lowering the barriers that had been put in their way.

"That was more fun than I thought it would be," Ratchet commented, putting away the Hypnomatic for a moment before he collected his wrench, to which he turned to the others, "So, shall we begin our assault?"

In response to the question Sunset swung over the gap, to which she was swiftly followed by Angela and Starlight, leaving Ratchet to chuckle for a few seconds before crossing the gap himself. They walked forward for a few seconds, looking for enemies, before the containers on either side of them opened and revealed that each of them had a tank. The two tanks moved out of their containers and started firing at them, to which the group backed up as Starlight threw up a shield between them and the tanks. A moment passed before everyone, excluding Sunset, had a weapon at the ready, so they charged forward as the shield fell and started firing at the tanks, making sure to dodge the attacks that were coming their way.

Once the tanks had been taken care of they climbed onto the platform they had been guarding and found two more tanks waiting for them, but this time Sunset seized control of one of them while Starlight took control of the other, to which they forced the two of them to destroy each other. With the way clear for the moment they quickly crossed the gap in front of them and looked at the large open area that would likely lead them inside the facility, though before they could investigate the front door they noticed several of the doors on either side of them opening. A large group of robotic commandos marched out of their holding areas and started firing at them, to which the group separated from each other and took the fight to their enemies.

Ratchet and Angela fought side by side, firing their weapons at whoever got close to them while using their handheld weapons to smash anyone that got passed their barrage of missiles. Starlight teleported to the area near the main door and loosed rockets at the tank that showed up, though she also fired at the enemies that tried to attack her from behind. Sunset, on the other hand, used her sword to sever the arms and legs off of her robotic enemies, though she also punched and kicked several of them away before they could touch her so she could cut them to pieces. Eventually the area was cleared of enemies, though when they gathered in front of the main door they noticed that it wasn't opening, leading them to wonder if they were missing something.

That was moments before Angela smacked her head, as if she had remembered something that was related to the door that they happened to be standing in front of.

"The door's switch is that way," Angela said, pointing at a passage that had opened seconds after the last enemy had been taken care of, "though I'm certain that we'll need the Hypnomatic once more."

Ratchet nodded as they followed Angela for a bit, making sure to put his weapon away and pull out the gadget that they would need, though he was pleased to find that there was another area for him to fight through with the robots. He seized control of the robot and moved forward, to which he used the guns on his robot to tear the robotic commando that was patrolling the area to pieces. The doors all around the area opened and twelve more robotic commandos marched out to face him, opening fire the instant they spotted his robot. Ratchet had to use some of his skills to move the robot around and avoid the incoming fire, which he and the others were protected from thanks to Starlight's shield, all while making sure to return fire so he could clear the area.

It took some time to clear the area of the robotic commandos, but the moment they were all taken care of Ratchet moved his robot forward and pressed the button that they had come for, to which he pulled out of the robot and the four of them moved to the now opened door that would give them access to the facility itself. They took turns with the teleport pad, slipping inside the facility so they could begin their search for the main Protopet so they could bring an end to the nightmare that Megacorp was trying to unleash upon the Bogon Galaxy. When they all appeared on the other side they accessed the weapon vendor and took a few seconds to gather all the ammunition that they had spent, knowing that they would need it later on.

During that time Sunset watched the area in front of them, keeping an eye out for any enemies that might attack her siblings or Angela while they were distracted, but in the end nothing came at them as everyone finished with their weapons.

They walked through the passage that was in front of them and attacked the four robotic commandos that got in their way, blowing them up with some well placed Minirocket Tube missiles as they moved into the next area. They carefully walked out onto the circular platform that was in front of them and noticed the raised platform that was in the middle of it, though the moment they walked up it the area started to fill with more flying commandos. Ratchet was actually surprised by the sheer number of enemies that were filling the chamber, both where they were currently standing and further along in the facility, because it made him pause for a second and wonder if someone had been expecting their arrival ahead of time.

He, Angela, and Starlight cycled to their Plasma Coils and started loosing charges at every enemy that came their way, either blasting them before they could reach the floor around them or blowing them into pieces the instant they tried to fire at them. Sunset, on the other hand, teleported over to where the other group of enemies were standing, the ones hiding behind some barricades of some kind, and used some of her magic to blow them to pieces while also using her sword against those that she was really close to. The fight went on like that for several minutes, confirming Ratchet's belief that someone had sent this up for all of them, before they managed to clear out the entirety of the area's enemies.

The next chamber they came to had three large fans that were resting between where they were currently standing and the door they needed to pass through so they could continue onward, not to mention the four robotic commandos that were waiting for them in the middle of the chamber. Starlight grinned and summoned a walkway for them to use to get around the fans, so Ratchet wouldn't have to pull out the Dynamo, and they started walking along her path immediately, though while they did that Sunset merely grabbed the commandos out of the air and sent them into the abyss below them. When they arrived at the next part of the facility that they would need to pass through they noticed that there was quite a lot of commandos waiting all around them, though it took them a few seconds to realize that they had arrived to begin with.

The four of them repeated the process they had used previously, where Sunset got rid of the enemies that were firing from the platforms above them while the others removed the enemies that were standing in front of them. It was funny when a tank entered the mix, because Starlight turned to it and ripped it apart with her magic in a second, not wanting to waste time on it at all, before turning back to the enemies around them. Once the area had been cleared of all enemies, and they waited a couple of seconds to be sure that no more of them spawned inside the room, Ratchet approached the hacking terminal by the door and connected his Infiltrator to it. A minute later the door opened before their eyes, revealing another room for them to cross through, though this one was filled with frozen water and had quite the number of Protopets jumping around the place.

Starlight, not wanting to waste any time on the Protopets, conjured a walkway that connected where they were standing to the platform that would lead them out of the room. Once that was done they quickly walked up to the exit, where Starlight took down the walkway before turning to see what else she and her family had to deal with before the nightmare was over. Unfortunately they turned into an area that had two tanks waiting for them in the distance, which would require them to use their Swingshots to get into firing range, but then Starlight smiled as she pulled out her Pulse Rifle. Ratchet noticed this and nodded his head before pulling out his own rifle, to which the two of them shot down both of the tanks that would have gotten in their way.

Once the tanks were taken care of they used their Swingshots to cross the gap in front of them, pausing for a moment before using another target to cross to where the tanks had been sitting the entire time. They moved to their right and found an elevator lift that was currently out of commission, though Ratchet merely sighed as he pulled out the Electrolyzer and hacked through the terminal. The moment he was done with the terminal he and the others turned to the weapon vendor behind them and quickly restocked their ammunition, though once they were finished them climbed onto the elevator. They then waited as they were taken across the chamber they were in, though before they even reached the other side they knew that there was likely one or two more large fights waiting for them before they reached the main Protopet.

When they rounded the corner they found that they had been correct in their assumptions that another large fight was in store for them, because there was a large number of robotic commandos that had their guns trained on them the moment they entered the area... not to mention the tank that was blocking their way forward. Starlight had to throw up a barrier to prevent them from being hit by so many attacks, which they all knew would rapidly deplete their nanoteach, before any of them even considered returning fire. Sunset teleported up to the tank while the others dealt with the commandos, raining death upon their enemies with whatever weapon they felt like using as they cut through the waves of enemies that came at them.

It took quite a bit of time, energy, and ammunition, but in the end the four of them proved to be tougher than Megacorp's robotic army as the last commando fell to the floor in whatever pieces it had left.

"I am so glad that I didn't do this on my own," Angela commented, wiping some sweat from her forehead as they took a small break, "I'm not even sure I would have been able to make it through the front gate with all the defenses that are here."

"We have to be near where their keeping the main Protopet by now," Ratchet replied, sighing for a moment as he picked both himself and his weapon up, "Come on, the sooner we get to our goal the sooner we can get out of here."

The way forward was originally blocked by a raised bridge, but with the Swingshot in hand they lowered it into place and activated what had to be the last of the facility's defenses. A large group of twelve commandos appeared on the other side of the bridge, though they rapidly fell to the combined firepower of the weapons that the group had assembled. With the enemies cleared the group carefully walked up to the door in front of them, which Angela revealed was the door that would lead them into the Protopet Duplication Room. It was where they would find the main Protopet, where they could use the Helix-o-Morph on it and fix the nightmare that Megacorp was going to unleash upon the galaxy.

Before they could get the door open, however, a shock of electricity ran through the area and drove them all to the floor, though it reminded Sunset of the time they had been captured on Boldan. She and the others weakly looked up to see Mr. Fizzwidget appear before them, though that was before he pulled something and came undone like a costume, revealing that the mastermind behind everything was none other than Qwark himself.

"You know, you made my job much easier than I was expecting." Qwark commented, to which he beckoned to the four commandos behind him and they cuffed everyone but Sunset, who he personally picked up himself, "Now I can save the Bogon Galaxy from a disaster and return to being the superhero that I was, before four of you entered my life and turned it upside down. And all of you will become public enemy number one... and two, three, four, and five."

"You'll never get away with this Qwark!" Ratchet replied, glaring at the man as they were dragged into the Protopet Duplication Room, where the main Protopet was still hooked up to a machine, "If we can't stop the Protopets then someone else will."

"The Protopet?! What made you think they were my main plan the entire time?" Qwark replied, a grin appearing on his face as he leaned Sunset against the wall for a moment, while the others were pressed against the wall on the wall near the room's entrance, "No, there's a greater threat to this galaxy that needs to be taken care of. Do the planets Gaspar, Dobbo, and Snivelak ring any bells? They should, because they were planets that were stuck by the power of a demon that doesn't care how many innocent people are hurt, so long as her target ends up dead by the end of the day."

Ratchet knew the names of the planets that Qwark mentioned well at this point, mainly because they had only visited two of them within the last week. Gaspar had been the planet where Starlight and Sunset had tested Sunset's new magical abilities, where she accidentally caused a cataclysm that reshaped everything that Chairman Drek had built. Dobbo was where Sunset had smashed the Thug Leader's mechanical fighting robot to pieces on the moon, no doubt cracking it more than any of them originally thought. And it was very hard to forget Snivelak, where Sunset and Searing had merged powers for some time to deliver a painful defeat to the Thug Leader, before completely obliterating an trace of his existence.

"But this isn't about those planets anymore," Quark said, turning to Starlight for a moment, who looked like she was about ready to unleash a storm of magical energy on their enemy, "So Starlight, who should I kill first? Maybe I should take Clank and throw him in the grinder, or maybe I should have your friend Angela drawn and quartered. Maybe I should just put my gun to Sunset's head and take her out right here and now... or maybe I could visit a certain planet that you call came from and blow it to pieces. I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear that I managed to walk away with a copy of the blueprints for something called the 'PlanetBuster Maximus'. It will be interesting to see what happens when the people of Veldin realize that none of you are there to save them..."

Starlight roared and her horn flared with magical energy, her eyes fixed on where Qwark was standing at the moment as she was filled with a rage that she had never felt before. Then she released the stored energy, to which she loosed a beam of white energy that was designed to do one thing, kill Captain Qwark for real. As the energy neared him Qwark turned around and extended his right hand towards the energy, though as Ratchet watched what was happening he noticed that the magic was bending into the palm of Qwark's hand. Starlight apparently noticed that as well, because she immediately cut off her attack and watched as the last of it's energy was absorbed into Qwark's hand... to which they watched the glove fall apart and reveal a metal gauntlet.

Sunset moaned as she regained herself, though as she noticed what was happening Qwark wrapped his right hand around her golden bracelet, causing her to look at the gauntlet he was wearing.

"Its funny how none of you noticed that Starlight's magic was the cause of this bracelet falling apart," Qwark commented, just as the gauntlet pulled itself apart and rebuilt itself around Sunset's bracelet, though once the gauntlet was off of his hand he backed away from Sunset, "and now, with the power of the attack you just launched at me, I have the power to shatter this cursed bracelet. I shall rid both the Solana and Bogon galaxies of the monster that would bring ruin to everyone, while reducing Sunset to a mere cazar once more."

The moment Qwark was near the wall to the left of Sunset the gauntlet glowed red for a moment, though it was followed by the gauntlet tearing itself to pieces as the power of Starlight's attack was transferred into the golden bracelet. Thousands of red cracks appeared all over the bracelet, on both the front and back sides of it, but for the most part it appeared that it had, somehow, survived the assault that Qwark had planned. Sunset's anger flared once more as she faced the former captain, to which her magic responded by wrapping around her, though it concentrated around the bracelet for the most part.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you Qwark!" Sunset shouted as she raised her right arm, fully intending to use the power to strike the former captain down before he had a chance to defend himself.

That was, however, until the bracelet shattered into a thousand pieces, causing her to slowly turn her head towards her now bare arm in complete disbelief. A few seconds passed as everyone looked at the missing bracelet and the golden fragments on the floor, as if none of them could believe that one of Qwark's plans had actually worked this time. That was before Sunset screamed in pain as her hands flew to her head, as now that the bracelet was destroyed Searing was trying to invade her body once again... though this time she was using her full power. She tore the chest piece of her armor off with her magic and watched as a hole slowly started to appear between her throat and chest, the telltale sign that Searing was coming.

She touched the wall behind her and was shocked when her unrestricted power blew a hole in it, where she found a set of floating platforms that would get her away from her siblings. She nearly screamed in pain as she teleported down to the top platform, but as she faced the opening she had exited through she felt her control over her body break as Searing seized control. This time she did scream as a red pillar of energy consumed her, though her last thought was that she had failed to stop the creature that was clearly much stronger than she was.

Ratchet helplessly watched all this happen before his eyes, knowing that Qwark had just released a monster that would, and could if given the opportunity, destroy everything in her path.
> Commando: Yeedil, Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"What's going on here?" Qwark demanded, turning to Ratchet and Starlight, whose eyes were focused on the pillar of energy that was resting in front of them, "I thought the source of her power, and the demon's power, was that bracelet. Shouldn't she be laying on the floor in front of us without any of her powers... and not actually doing whatever it is that she's doing at the moment?"

Originally Starlight would have agreed with the former captain, which almost made her shudder when she thought about it, because she had assumed that her sister's golden bracelet had been an artifact of unknown magical origins that bestowed power upon the person who wore it, though it came with the cost of the demon they had seen several times. Now that the bracelet was actually broken, however, she was beginning to wonder if it had actually been a prison of sorts, a device meant to contain Sunset's true power until the time came when she could take it off and learn what she was capable of doing. That meant that Sunset had been born with the same potential for using magic, just like she had been, though clearly someone feared that she would be emotionally unstable when she started practicing magic and had taken precautions to keep her magic bound.

To be completely honest Starlight had no idea if they were in trouble or not, because the last time Searing had taken control she had destroyed Chairman Drek before turning control over to Sunset again. This time, however, the bracelet was no longer a factor, which meant that Searing would likely keep her hold on Sunset's body until someone forced her to give it up.

"It appears that Sunset is a natural born magic user, like myself," Starlight commented, making sure that she was recording what happened, because she knew that when this was over Sunset was going to want to know what happened, "and that bracelet had to be some sort of magic restriction device, as she wasn't able to use magic until mine got near the metal. This is the wrong time to say this, but in all honesty I'm curious as to what Sunset's true power is like... though at the same time I know we need to think of a way to stop Searing when she emerges from that pillar."

"S... Searing?" Qwark asked, though it was clear that he must have had no idea that the demonic side of Sunset even had a name, because it clearly made him look back on everything that he had done up until this point.

"The demon that you just unleashed upon the Solana and Bogon galaxies," Ratchet replied, keeping his eyes on the pillar the entire time, knowing that there had to be something he and Angela could do to stop what was happening since they didn't have magic of their own, "There has to be some way to seal her away without that bracelet, we just have to figure out what that something is before Searing emerges from that pillar of energy."

The moment the words left his mouth the energy that formed the pillar rippled, flames pulsing outwards across the top of the room Sunset had landed in as something appeared in the center of the energy. Ratchet and Starlight waited with bated breath as they watched the pillar, wondering what was going to emerge from the energy; the feral Searing that had destroyed Drek or a possessed Sunset that wore the strange mask they had seen on Snivelak. Angela seemed concerned for everyone that was still standing there, fearful that all of them were in trouble of being hurt, though she was also compelled to see what emerged like the rest of the group. Qwark, on the other hand, appeared to be flipping between his brace persona he had built ever since his defeat and the scared person that Ratchet and Starlight were familiar with.

As the pillar pulled itself apart Ratchet started to breath a sigh of relief when he noticed Sunset standing there, but the normal cazar he had been expecting was where it ended. Sunset was still a cazar, but her armor had been torn to pieces and had been replaced by some sort of flaming dress that looked like it was a cross between a dress you wore to a ball and some sort of ancient armor. Sunset's skin had turned bright red, almost crimson colored, and her hair had been pushed upwards, giving it the appearance of looking like moving flames. Even her tail had caught on fire, causing it to look like a flaming cross between her normal cazar tail and Starlight's own tail, though that wasn't the only odd thing about her that they noticed. Attached to her forehead was a unicorn's horn, slightly longer than Starlight's, though there was a white crown, one that resembled the mask that Sunset had worn when she and Searing had merged powers back on Snivelak, in front of the horn and wrapped around the top of her head. There was even a large pair of wings attached to her back, a pair that Ratchet assumed resembled the wings that the pegasi of legend used to move around the skies.

In addition to all of that, and the fact that she wasn't wearing any gloves or boots, Sunset's sclera had turned pitch black as her eyes had turned a cyan color, something that both Ratchet and Starlight easily remembered. Searing was definitely standing before them, though this time Ratchet had to wonder if they could even reach their sister through all the power that was coursing through her veins at the moment. It was also clear that she hadn't noticed that they were still standing there, watching her the entire time, because she was mainly looking at herself, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Qwark made the smart move and quickly undid the cuffs that had been attached to Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela, informing them that he definitely needed their help to recover from this mess.

Before they could do anything, however, Searing started to laugh, filling the area with a laugh that was a hollow and twisted version of the laugh Sunset used whenever she found something funny.

"The fool actually discovered the weakness before her own family did," Searing laughed, almost as if she had beaten Sunset, while at the same time flexing her fingers, "I cannot believe that they failed to notice that Starlight's magic was slowly tearing that cursed bracelet apart over the years and wasn't actually keeping my power contained. Oh I can feel it now, the power of an alicorn coursing through my veins. After my last defeat I thought I'd never have the opportunity to feel this, but I can thank that idiot Qwark for setting me free at last... and I might even spare him for it too!"

Ratchet and Starlight stared at the demon the entire time, listening to everything that she was saying and paying close attention to what she did in case she decided to attack them. Neither of them had any idea what an 'alicorn' was or why Searing was saying that she could feel one's power coursing through her body, though they did figure out that Starlight had been wrong in her idea to bind her own magic on top of the bracelet. They were even surprised to find that the demon could speak, because the last time they encountered Searing she merely roared and let her magic do all of the talking. Ratchet looked back at Angela and found that she was freaking out, which made complete sense considering that this was literally her second encounter with the demon. He and Angela would have to think of a way to get through to Sunset, because Ratchet had the feeling that Starlight was going to have to fight her own sister before she did something that was irreversible.

Qwark, on the other hand, seemed to be torn between wanting to get down there and show Searing that he wasn't a fool, which would only prove her point, and staying up here with the rest of them in the hopes that the demon left him alone.

Ratchet would have said something to Qwark, mainly some key words that might have the chance to make the former captain think twice about facing Searing, but before he could say anything Qwark engaged his jetpack, pulled out his guns, and flew down to the platform that Searing was floating above. It was at that point that Ratchet knew that Qwark was an insane and foolish person for even heading into the arena with the demon, because it seemed like he hadn't paid any attention to what she was capable of doing during their adventure in the Bogon Galaxy.

"I was wondering if you were going to decide between showing yourself, or hiding like the ant that you are," Searing commented, a grin appearing on her face as she spotted Qwark coming her way, to which she spread her arms out wide and performed a fake bow to the former captain, "though it seems that I have the answer to that now. Tell me, Captain Qwark, are you going to fight me with your pitiful weapons... or are you going to flee like the coward that you really are?"

"I'm going to get rid of you, which was what the shattering of that bracelet was supposed to do... though I guess that this means I'll have to destroy Sunset as well," Qwark replied, pointing his guns at her as he stood his ground, "Remain where your standing demon, I shall bring an end to your existence as quickly as I can."

"So you think that you can actually touch me?" Searing asked, a smirk appearing on her face as she raised a hand, to which she made the motion of beckoning Qwark to come to her, "Very well then, show me how capable you really are in battle."

Qwark stared at Searing for a few seconds, wondering if she was going to attack before he had time to do anything, but then he decided to go on the offensive and started firing his weapons at the demon. He was fortunate that he had come equipped with every weapon that Megacorp had built over the last two weeks, because he had the feeling that he was going to need all of it. He loosed all of the ammunition in his Minirocket Tube, Plasma Coil, Bouncer, and other weapons, while at the same time calling upon an army of sentry robots to help him and throwing every Chopper star that he had. He only kept one weapon in reserve, because if none of the other weapons worked he needed something to fall back on in case things suddenly got much worse for him.

When the smoke cleared Qwark's eyes widened as he noticed that Searing was still standing in the same position, though he noticed that she hadn't taken any damage thanks to the cracked barrier that was surrounding her.

"Is that the best that you can do?" Searing asked, to which she deactivated the barrier that was surrounding her, "I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, that wasn't what I was expecting when you said that you were going to end my existence. I was expecting a weapon that none of Sunset's family had seen, producing a level of power that Starlight and a few others are capable of harnessing, yet all I get is this pitiful excuse of an attack... I guess its time that I brought this to an end."

"Not yet!" Qwark shouted, reaching into his pack and pulling out a container of sorts, to which the metal unfolded and formed two gauntlets for him to wear, "I had a whole division of Megacorp dedicated to replicating the original Power Gauntlet, in the off chance I needed to actually attack someone with their own potent magical energies. I'm going to use the power of your transformation against you, and hopefully this time you'll get hurt in the process."

"Fine, show me your 'final technique', or whatever it is that your planning on using against me," Searing said, sighing as she crossed her arms and levitated into the air for a moment, "I'll let you charge it up... or whatever it is that you need to do."

Qwark pulled his hands together and brought his palms close to each other, before bringing his hands to his side and taking a breath as he hoped that the gauntlets performed their duties to the letter. Starlight and the others watched the former captain fight his loosing battle, though as they did so Starlight looked at the flames that were still dancing on the ceiling until she saw something that didn't make sense. The flames stopped moving the instant that Qwark activated whatever the gauntlets were supposed to do, but then, to her confusion, the flames started to descend from the ceiling and began to gather in the center between Qwark's palms. That was before she felt the excess magical energy in the air started to gather in one place, forming an orb of energy that made Starlight wonder what was happening.

Somehow Qwark had devised a method that allowed him to draw in the natural magical energies that both Starlight and Sunset used, something that Starlight was going to have to destroy before it reached someone that could actually hurt them worse than the former captain.

"I always wanted to say this," Qwark said, a grin appearing on his face for a moment, "KA... ME... HA... ME... HAAAAA!"

Qwark thrust his hands forward and allowed the gauntlets to unleash the energy they had been gathering, generating a torrent of magical power that roared through the air as it headed right towards where Searing was floating. This time Searing didn't bother summoning a barrier to protect herself, almost as if she wanted to see how powerful Qwark's attempt at magic really was for herself. The resulting connection between the energy and Searing produced an explosion that lit the entire up like a large missile that had gone off accidentally. Starlight watched all of this unfold with Ratchet and Angela standing beside her, though she silently wondered if Qwark's back up plan might actually stop the demon.

When Qwark released the last of the energy he tore off the gauntlets and dropped them to the floor, watching as they overheated from the amount of power they absorbed and turned to ash before his eyes. He hopped that he wouldn't need them again, because they were supposed to be his trump card in case he actually needed to fight against Sunset or the demon. When the smoke cleared his eyes widened as he spotted Searing floating there, where he spotted what might be one or two marks that indicated that she might have been hurt, but she merely brushed them off and revealed that he had done nothing to her.

"How disappointing that was," Searing commented, getting rid of the rest of the dust as she looked down at Qwark, "Now then, I do believe that it is my turn..."

Before Qwark could say anything Searing disappeared from where she was floating, though that was seconds before she appeared behind him and slammed her fist into his back. It was at that moment that Qwark noticed that Searing wasn't messing around, because there was a sphere of energy around her fist that caused the building around them to shake the instant it connected with his back. The air around Searing trembled as she pressed Qwark into the glass floor beneath them, cracking the floor under the intensity of her power for a few seconds. Then she jumped into the air and flapped her wings for a few seconds, before she headed back towards the ground where Qwark was laying with another sphere wrapped around her right hand.

Qwark, apparently worried for his life, make the smart move and rolled to the side, leaving Searing to smash her fist into the middle of the platform and break it into five separate pieces. Unfortunately that didn't seem to save him from the demon, because Searing walked over to where Qwark was laying at that moment, thanks to the damage he had sustained from the attack to his back, and grabbed him by the neck with her magic. She then slowly lifted him up to her eye level with her magic, where she stared at him until she was sure that fear had completely taken root inside the former captain. Once she was satisfied with what she saw she thrust Qwark into the air with her magic, before pulling her left arm back and preparing another sphere attack so she could strike him down in an instant.

Starlight, watching the fight from the room she and the others had been left in, noticed that Searing was using the same move that she had used when Sunset had merged with her back on Snivelak, though as they watched she noticed something that made her blood run cold in an instant; Searing had two spheres wrapped around her left hand, one around the actual fist while a second one surrounded that.

"Oh no," Starlight said, her eyes widening as she realized what Searing was doing, to which she engaged her magic as she turned to the others, "I'm going to lift us into the air before that attack hits... and I don't want any arguing."

Starlight lifted them into the air, and the section of the floor they were standing on for good measure, as Qwark began his descent back down to where Searing was standing, unable to move out of the way thanks to the fact that the demon had broken his jetpack with her previous attack. They braced themselves for the destruction that was to come, because they were familiar with what had happened on Snivelak and knew that something bad was coming. She also levitated the broken fragments of the golden bracelet to her, because she was sure that they would be useful in some manner later on and wanted to be sure they didn't get lost.

The instant Qwark was closer to where he had been thrown from, and near his enemy, Searing swung her fist and struck him with the full power of both of her attacks in the center of his chest. The air around Qwark cracked as the power was delivered into his body, no doubt cracking several of his ribs in the process, before the power expanded into the surrounding area. The facility seemed to moan for a few seconds in response to what was happening, which was understandable considering what was currently happening to the area. Starlight and the others had to wonder if that was all that was going to happen to the building they were in, before they looked to their right and left and spotted something happening that made them do a double take.

The facility was quite literally cracking in half, as the side of the room that they were standing on was in the process of separating itself from the other side of the room, while the middle happened to stay between the two sections. Starlight and the others watched as the facility was torn in half, ruining the entire building that they had fought through and the area that was surrounding the building. Starlight was going to make a comment about what was happening, because she figured that someone had to, before Angela tapped her communicator for a moment and caused a picture of an older gentleman, one that Starlight believe was a humanoid creature.

"What is it Ivan? I'm in the middle of something!" Angela asked, trying to hide the fact that she was scared at the moment as hard as she could, without giving anything away.

"I just checked the scanners and found out that there's a massive earthquake happening at the Protopet facility on Planet Yeedil," the man replied, shaking his head as he looked at the data on his screen, "Angela, according to all of my instruments the quake is generating enough power to be a 10.0... and that's not the worst news I have to tell you."

"T... There's something worse than a 10.0 earthquake?" Angela asked, though this time she didn't bother to hide her fear at all, "What could be possibly be worse than that?"

"A cataclysm that's shaking the entire world." Ivan replied, removing the glasses from his face as he turned back to the screen, "Angela, as your friend and colleague, I'm warning you about this now, hopefully to prevent you from heading to the facility to deal with the Protopet... but Maker help you if your actually caught in the quake. If your not on Yeedil yet then stay away until I tell you otherwise, but if you are on Yeedil, and your anywhere near the facility, then I would advise you to get back to your ship and fly away immediately... because there's no telling when the quakes will stop."

As the call ended Starlight watched as the attack wrapped up at the same time, because Qwark hit the floor hard and stayed there, not bothering to move after what had happened to him. Ratchet quickly suggested that they call in their ship, though his intent was to get them all out of the ruined facility and flee so they could come up with a plan that didn't involve any of them dying. Starlight hated the fact that they were retreating until they came up with a better plan, but at the moment she had no idea if her own magical powers could even stand up to the destructive power that Searing commanded.

Before Ratchet could press the button that would call in their ship, and get them all out of this nightmare, they all heard a voice behind them that made them stop in their tracks, because they all recognized it immediately.

"Room for one more?" the voice said, causing them all to turn around and find Mr. Fizzwidget standing there, though he appeared to be as healthy as he could possibly be.

That was before Starlight noticed the item that he was carrying, an orange gemstone that reminded her of the purple one that they had recovered from Drek's hidden vault almost seven, if not eight, months ago. She immediately knew what it was, as it could only be another of the fabled Raritanium Cores, but the odd thing about it was that it seemed to pulse with energy that she had never seen before.

"Is that what I think it is?" Clank asked, noticing the piece of raritanium as well, along with Starlight's surprised reaction to the stone the instant she saw it.

"If you mean one of the six lost Raritanium Cores, than yes." Mr. Fizzwidget replied, rubbing the back of his head for a moment, "Qwark managed to find it and bought it with my bolts, but I do not know if he did something to it in the time that he's had it, or if this is something that naturally happens with the fabled Cores."

Starlight cast a look down at Searing, who was ignoring them as she stared at the shattered body of Qwark, before turning her scanner on the stone and finding something that was unexpected. The stone was pulsing with an energy signature that was almost like the ones that both she and Sunset had, only the stone's was much stronger than anything she had previously felt. That was when she realized what was actually going on; because Qwark had awakened Searing, and released a large portion of energy into the air, the stone reacted in a way that was easily represented by what they were seeing at the moment. She also felt much calmer now that the Core was near her, making her wonder if she could somehow use that power to drive Searing back and save her sister from the fate that Qwark had inflicted upon her.

She cast a look at the golden fragments of the bracelet that she had picked up, wondering if they had any power left inside of them that might work with the Core, but she wouldn't know until she tried.

"Do you mind if I borrow that for a moment?" Starlight asked, pulling out the fragments she had collected, though she noticed that both Angela and Ratchet were looking at her as if she had lost her mind.

"I don't see why not, just help get rid of this... thing," Mr. Fizzwidget replied, his eyes looking at Searing for a moment before he turned away, unable to accept what he was seeing at the moment.

Starlight took the Core in her magic, somewhat surprised by the fact that it wasn't reacting in any visible way to her yet, as she spun the golden fragments around it and hoped for the best. They all watched as the power of the Core brought the fragments together around it, allowing them to reform into one seamless piece of metal that almost resembled a necklace of some kind. Starlight looked at the necklace for a few seconds as it floated in front of them, waiting until the magic was over, before it floated over to her and slipped itself over her head by its own accord. The moment it was over her head she felt the presence of five other power sources, which she assumed had to be the other five Cores that weren't in their possession at the moment.

With the necklace around her neck, and nothing else to do, she set the piece of floor that they were standing on back where she had torn it from and then levitated herself down to where Searing was standing.

"So, someone else comes to fight me..." Searing commented, though she paused as she noticed that it was Starlight, "Oh, its you dear sister... what could you possibly do to stop me?"

"I'm not going to fight you sister," Starlight commented, her horn lighting up as she tapped into whatever power that the Core around her neck had, "I will, however, everything in my power to save you from this fate that Qwark has enforced upon you."

Starlight expected the Core to shoot a beam of energy out at Searing, or Searing to actually attack her before she did something, but what actually happened was that the Core released its energy into the sky above them. What happened next was a sight to behold, as the moment the energy hit a certain area above the peak of the ruined facility it activated whatever it was doing, igniting the night sky in a sea of colors that resembled the northern lights of sorts. Starlight and Searing watched as several beams of light shown down from the sky, each of them a different color from the others, before three more intense beams joined them. The two of them watched as the beams came to a rest in the area above them, though that was before Starlight noticed a multicolored sphere of energy resting above them.

That was before some sort of magical energy lifted Searing into the air, to which she squirmed and tried to get out of whatever was holding her, but ultimately failed as she was forced into the air between the beams of light. Starlight was also lifted into the air, stopping parallel to Searing when the demon came to a stop, though she did look around her in awe as the magic worked whatever it was doing. The two of them watched as the beams of light seemed to take on their own shapes, though Starlight was surprised when she noticed nine spirit like ponies finished forming around them. Four of them happened to have horns and wings, two of them had wings only, one had a horn, and the remaining two didn't have either a horn or a pair of wings.

Starlight didn't have any idea what was going on, mainly because she was looking around in awe the entire time, but she did notice that Searing seemed to know one of them... the beam of white energy that took on the form of a tall regal pony that had a horn and a pair of wings, along with a flowing mane and a set of jewelry around her neck and head.

"Pr... Princess Ce... Celestia," Searing struggled to say, though Starlight noticed that the hollow sound to her voice had broken for a few seconds and that it had been Sunset who had spoken.

The spirit of the white mare seemed to smile for a moment, as if happy about something, before lowering her head and pointing her horn at Searing, to which the blue and pink alicorns followed suit and pointed their horns at the demon as well. The three of them were then joined by the spirit of the fourth alicorn, the smallest of them all, and the spirits of the other five mares, to which strands of magic began to weave themselves around Searing. That was when Starlight noticed the shimmering barrier that formed around Searing, something that the demon didn't notice until it had fully formed around her, before she spotted something more important; the multicolored sphere was heading down to where Searing was floating.

It wasn't until the sphere was energy was quite literally on top of Searing that the demon noticed what was happening at the moment, but that was when Starlight noticed something even stranger occur; the eerie look in Searing's eyes had faded into nothingness, leaving behind Sunset's eye color, as a smile appeared on her face. As Searing was engulfed by the sphere of energy the spiritual ponies seemed to pour their power into the magic before them, because Starlight watched as the seemingly ancient magic tore apart whatever foul magic had constructed Searing in the first place. The area lit up as the magic wrapped around Sunset, gently removing Searing's corruption as her hair, tail, and armor returned to their original state as the white crown broke into pieces.

Starlight would have thought that the magic would have stopped when it took off the wings and horn that Searing had given to Sunset, and leave her as a cazar, but she watched as Sunset shrunk before her eyes as the magic grew so intense that she had to look away for a moment... though when the light show was over Starlight's eyes widened as she looked at her sister. Gone was the cazar that she and Ratchet had grown up with, though in her place was an amber coated mare, about the same size as the spirit of the small purple alicorn she had seen. Starlight even noticed that Sunset still had the horn and wings that Searing had given her, though as the magic in the area faded from existence both she and Sunset were lowered back to the ruined platform, where the exhausted Sunset was gently laid down as if she had been placed on a bed.

Starlight breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that Sunset's chest was moving, because despite everything that had happened in the last few hours her sister was okay... ignoring the fact that she had been transformed from her ordeal. She watched as the spirit of the white alicorn walked down to where Sunset was laying, lowering her head for a moment as if she was comforting her sister. A few seconds passed before the spirit of the white alicorn lifted her head and looked at Starlight, though she had the feeling that the spirit was trying to convey some sort of message to her.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of her," Starlight assured the spirit, not knowing what else to do since she had no idea what the spirit had been trying to tell her, but figured that it had to be watching over Sunset by how it had acted towards her sister.

The spirit of the white alicorn seemed to nod before heading back up to where the rest of the spirits were floating, where they all headed back up to the northern lights that had summoned them from whatever realm they had been called from. Starlight watched as all of the spirits headed back into the sky, where they started to disappear when they crossed back to wherever they had been called from before there were no more spirits in the area. Once the spirits were gone the northern lights faded from existence, though once the magic was over the Core around Starlight's neck dimmed down to its original state, but she paid little attention to it as she walked over to where her sister was resting at the moment.

She laid down beside her sister and smiled, knowing that her sister was safe once again... though she knew that she was going to have to explain quite a number of things when Sunset woke up.
> Interlude: Awakening
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset moaned as she slowly attempted to open her eyes, fighting the large amount of fatigue that she was feeling at the moment, only to find that she was barely able to open them at all. She was grateful that she was still able to hear things, because she could make out the sound of beeping that reminded her of the time she had awoken in a hospital after her fight with Chairman Drek, when Searing had taken over and destroyed the corrupted businessman with their incredible power. She had to assume that she was in yet another hospital, somehow wounded from her ordeal with Qwark, but this time she didn't hear either of her siblings in the immediate area. She could only hear the beeping of the machines and the beating of her heart, not to mention feeling like her body was twisted or broken in some manner.

She would have left out a sigh if she had the energy to do so, but seeing how she lacked the energy to do even that she merely closed her eyes again and decided that rest was the best course of action this time.

During her rest she felt several needles pierce her skin, no doubt to either take blood samples or inject her with necessary nutrients that would keep her going until she was able to get up on her own, but she mainly ignored them. She decided that it was best if the doctors did what they needed to do without any interference from her, despite the fact that she was clearly in no condition to be moving anywhere. She figured that the doctors would tell either Ratchet or Starlight how she was progressing, whether she was improving or not, so she didn't worry about her family too much at the moment. When she heard the door close again she knew that she was alone once more, so she allowed herself to relax and truly drift into a restful sleep that would no doubt allow her to recover from what had happened.

She had no idea how much time had passed between the last time she had heard the doctors visit her room and the time when she next awoke, where she decided that she would try to open her eyes once more. She had some degree of success, because she was able to crack her eyes open enough to notice that the room was darker than she was expecting, telling her that it had to be nighttime. With that discovery made she tried to move her arms and her legs, but to her annoyance she found that none of her limbs were willing to respond to her commands at the moment. She mentally sighed in defeat as she made that discovery, to which she gently closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, so she could visit the dream world once more.

More time passed before she attempted to move her body again, but once again she found that, for some odd reason that she was unable to grasp, she was unable to move her body at all. After her second failed attempt she was beginning to wonder if something terrible had happened to her when Qwark had revealed whatever his master plan had been. She dreaded to wonder what would happen to her if she had been paralyzed as a result of whatever mad scheme the former captain had come up with, which she knew would severely limit how much aid she would be able to give Ratchet and Starlight the next time adventure came knocking at their door.

During her thoughts about what had happened to her she could have sworn that she felt something akin to Generosity in her immediate area, but after some time it faded away and left her to wonder if she had been daydreaming.

Sunset rested for what she assumed had to be another day at least, not that she could tell because of how little sunlight or moonlight she was able to see from her room thanks to her weakened sight, before she tried to move again. Third time was not a charm for her, because she was, once more, reduced to merely trying to move herself and failed despite all the commands that she sent throughout her body. She would have tried to use her magic to aid her, but she knew that it would have been a bad idea considering how terrible her attempts to move her own body were. She decided that it was best if she didn't attempt to use magic at the moment, otherwise she might accidentally blow something up or destroy the entire room that she was resting in.

On her fourth attempt to move her body she managed to open her eyes more the before, but she found that she was still unable to get anywhere with her arms or legs. Her fifth attempt yielded some results in the form of the fact that she managed to get her limbs to twitch for a few seconds, which she counted as a small victory in her sea of failure. The sixth attempt brought upon more twitching and what she thought was some movement, but she quickly found that she was still unable to do anything. After finally admitting defeat, and accepting the fact that she might not be able to move until she recovered more, she drifted off to sleep once more.

After some time Sunset opened her eyes and, to her amazement, managed to move her head from side to side, giving her the ability to look around her and see who was in the room with her. She was expecting there to be some machines hooked up to her body, as that was the case when she had woken up in the Veldin hospital, though she was somewhat surprised when she found that neither of her siblings were in the room with her. Instead she found Angela Cross sitting in one of the chairs, checking out something on her tablet as if she was passing the time until either Sunset recovered or waiting for one of the others came to switch places with her.

Sunset watched her for a few seconds, wondering if she had the capability to speak at the moment, before Angela glanced up from her tablet and spotted Sunset staring at her.

"Oh Sunset, thank the Maker that your okay," Angela commented, closing whatever was on her tablet at the moment before getting out of her chair and walking over to her, "How are you feeling?"

"T... terrible," Sunset weakly replied, not surprised to find that her throat hurt considering that she had no idea how long she had been out for, which had to be a long time, "How long... was I out for?"

"Two weeks." Angela answered, checking some of the machines for a few seconds before turning to face Sunset again, "You gave Ratchet and Starlight quite the scare when you didn't wake up during the first few days after the defeat of Qwark and his idiotic plan. Despite everything that happened that evening your siblings thought that you would awaken in a day or two, but when the first week passed they began to worry that you might not awaken at all. I mean, the amount of magical energy that you and Starlight drew into your bodies would normally be enough to knock you out for a few days at most... even Starlight had to rest from the ordeal before she could get back to work with her weapons.

You don't remember much of what happened two weeks ago, am I right?"

Sunset nodded her head as best she could, because her lack of being able to move was starting to annoy her, though she was starting to understand why her body was resisting her commands.

"Starlight and I figured that your response would be that," Angela said, tapping on her tablet for a moment, as if she was searching for something specific, before turning it over and laying it before Sunset, "Starlight told me to show you this when you recovered, as she said that it would answer some of the questions that you might have."

Sunset watched as the video started when Qwark revealed that his entire plan had been to get all of them into one area so he could use Starlight's magic to shatter the golden bracelet that she had been wearing for the last fourteen years. When the bracelet was broken into a thousand pieces Sunset winced when she was consumed by the power that had been locked inside her, releasing Searing into the world once more. Her eyes widened in surprise and horror when she gazed upon her corrupted form, when Searing had completely taken over her body, which she knew was on a different level than the feral state when she had taken on Chairman Drek. Then came the 'fight' between Searing and Qwark, to which Searing managed to receive no damage until Qwark used some sort of energy blast against the demon.

Sunset then witnessed the total destruction of the facility they had fought through, all because Searing unleashed what was apparently a 10.0 earthquake and shattered the entire area around her. She was sure that her siblings would have given up and leave so they could come up with a plan to rescue her, and it appeared that they actually might do that, but then Mr. Fizzwidget, the real one, walked in with what appeared to be a second Raritanium Core. That was when things got really weird, because Starlight used the fragments of her golden bracelet to forge a necklace that the orange Core could rest in, though Sunset noticed that her sister looked like she was surprised by something after putting it on.

The weirdest part was when the northern lights opened above them, filling the ruined facility with an array of lights that almost seemed to take on a mind of their own as they descended towards Searing. She watched as the spirits of ponies, some large and some small, formed from those lights, though her eyes widened as she gazed at the large white one that had both a horn and a pair of wings. It was almost as if Searing had the same reaction to that spirit, because she had stopped whatever she was doing and seemed to accept whatever fate the spirits had in store for her. Sunset then watched as the power of the spirits tore into the corruption that Searing had inflicted on Sunset, wiping away almost every trace of the demon until she was a cazar again.

The strangest, and most unbelievable, part out of everything she had seen was when she had been laid on the broken floor, because there was an amber coated mare, with a horn and a pair of wings, resting where Sunset knew she should be resting.

"Now before you say anything, or freak out, I have one other thing to do," Angela said, putting the tablet on the chair she had been sitting on before pulling out a large full body mirror for Sunset to look at.

What Sunset found in the mirror was an amber coated pony staring back at her, complete with the horn and wings she had seen in the video, sitting where she knew that her reflection was supposed to be. She looked down at her arms and legs and found that they had been turned into hooves, along with her entire body being reshaped to look like a pony's body. She looked like Starlight now, though the only major difference she noticed was that her coat was different colored, before she noticed that there was some sort of sun mark on both sides of her rear. She even noticed that she was now wearing the necklace that Starlight had crafted from the fragments of her bracelet and the second Core, leaving her to wonder why this had even happened in the first place.

"Why? Why am I suddenly a pony?" Sunset asked, knowing that Angela wouldn't have the answer to that question, but she needed to ask it anyway, "I've been a cazar since birth... so why have I suddenly changed form?"

"It was all because of that infernal bracelet," another voice said, to which Sunset turned her head to see Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight enter the room, though she knew that it was Starlight who answered the question, "I did some research on the necklace while you were out, on the metal that was used to forge the band, and I discovered that there was a trace of some magic that is unlike anything either of us have used during our lives. I had to speak with Honesty in order to determine what type of magic it was, though when I heard that the fragments had been tainted by something called Chaos Magic I began to piece some of the details together for myself."

"What do you mean by Honesty?" Sunset asked, though even as the words left her mouth the gemstone in the necklace glowed for a few seconds, to which her eyes widened for a moment, "Of course, how could I have forgotten the fact that we recovered a second Raritanium Core?!"

"Was that sarcasm?" Starlight said, shaking her head as she took her seat across from Sunset, while Ratchet and Clank sat beside Angela, "Anyway, Honesty told me that the bracelet, which had been infused with Chaos Magic, was designed to do a number of things to you, one of which was to change your form into something other than a pony... or more accurately the alicorn you have become."

"Wait a second... your telling me that I would have been a pony if I hadn't been wearing that bracelet?" Sunset asked, not believing that her sister was saying something like that to begin with, though she considered that this change might make them more related if they were both ponies.

"That's what Honesty told me when we had our conversation a week ago," Starlight confirmed, tapping something on her tablet before showing Sunset a chart of sorts, "it also told me that each of the six Cores could unlock something that the bracelet sealed up. Your form has been returned to you, thanks to Honesty, but I have no idea what the other five will return to you when we recover them... so our first course of action, the next time we return to Solana anyway, would be to obtain Generosity."

Sunset looked at the reflection in the mirror for a moment, allowing her mind to wander while she took in every bit of information that Starlight was telling her. Apparently the Raritanium Cores could speak, something that Starlight must have acquired from her usage of Honesty so she could seal Searing away once more. They were also the keys to recovering who she truly was, before she had slipped on that bracelet and doomed herself to this cursed existence where she had no idea who she was anymore. As she looked into the mirror she had to wonder if the body she now had was Sunset Shimmer's body, or if it had been a form that the Core had chosen at random considering who was using it at the time.

Her identity was shattering all around her, because she knew that if she hadn't been born a cazar, and was actually a pony like Starlight, she had to wonder what else about her was false... or rather what else the bracelet had conjured to replace who she truly was, which led to tears starting to run down her new muzzle.

"Please don't cry Sunset," Ratchet said, wrapping his arms around his sister for a moment, while making sure to avoid hurting her new wings or poking himself with her horn.

"Am I truly Sunset Shimmer, or am I someone else?" Sunset commented, letting the tears flow however they wanted, "Whose the real Sunset Shimmer? The cazar that you both grew up with, or the pony that's sitting before you at the moment? Which of my memories are my real memories and which are ones that were fabricated by that cursed piece of jewelry? Ratchet... Starlight... I truly have no idea what's real and what's a lie anymore."

"Sunset Shimmer is, and will always be, our sister," Starlight answered, picking up the bed sheet with her magic and using it to pick up some of her sister's tears, "It doesn't matter if you're a cazar, a pony, a lombax, or even one of the Blarg, because you would still be our sister on the inside. We'll all help you out of the mess that Qwark put you in and, maybe someday far in the future, you might actually thank him for allowing you to discover who you really are. Before we start helping you, however, there's one thing you have to do... stop crying, because Ratchet and I are going to find the creature that gave you that bracelet and smack them upside the head with our weapons until they apologize for what they did to you."

Sunset highly doubted that she would ever thank Qwark for what he did to her, but she had the feeling that Starlight wasn't going to rest until they had discovered who she actually was. One thing that Sunset did know, however, was that their adventures were far from over and that it was only a matter of time until they found another villain to take out.
> Interlude: Preparations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Despite the fact that she eventually overcame her emotional stress, brought on by her existential crisis she had when she wondered if she was the real Sunset Shimmer, Sunset was, unfortunately, forced to stay in the hospital for an additional two weeks. During that time she learned that Qwark was still very much alive, despite all the broken bones and ribs that he had sustained after taking two Gekishin's to the chest. She knew that she should feel angry, even enraged, at the former captain for shattering her bracelet and forcing this fate upon her, but all she felt towards him at the moment was pity. Qwark really believed that he was doing both Bogon and Solana a service by riding Sunset of her bracelet, which she and her family had assumed was the source of her powers until they discovered that it apparently did something completely different... besides keeping Searing sealed away that was.

As much as she wanted to hate the man for doing this to her, or what he had done to her family throughout their entire journey through the Bogon Galaxy, she could only feel sorry for him... all because of what Searing did the moment she was freed from her prison.

She also managed to pass those two weeks with frequent visits from both her family and Angela, though what she did depended on who actually came to visit her. Clank had, somehow, managed to score his own holovision series that was going to be called 'Secret Agent Clank' and Ratchet was apparently going to be the chauffeur who drove him around. Starlight had taken an interest in the show and had, at some point between visits, spoken with the producer about being added to the show, only she wanted to be an antagonist of sorts. Sunset had no idea where her sister's inspiration came from, because Starlight described her new role as something called an 'android', though she knew that Starlight was talking about cyborgs. Apparently they also gave Starlight's character a number, which Sunset guessed represented successful models, and an actual name for her to use in the future, something that Sunset figured they'd all forget about.

The odd thing was when Clank asked Sunset if she wanted to take part in the show as well, though as the villain that had created Starlight's android character and was bent on eliminating 'Agent' Clank.

"Why not ask Angela?" Sunset asked, knowing that Angela could use the time to get closer to Ratchet, "I'm sure that she would make a better villain than me... and I'm sure the producer doesn't want two ponies on the show."

"We already asked her and she doesn't want to do it," Starlight replied, though she tapped on her tablet and pulled up a hologram that looked like a humanoid version of Sunset, "We came up with this idea for you, so that way you don't actually have to appear on screen unless the scene actually calls for it... you'll just be voicing some lines every now and then."

"...what's the character called?" Sunset asked, not really caring about the show at the moment, but figured that she would humor her brother and sister at least.

"Professor Darkstar," Starlight replied, immediately noticing that Sunset frowned at the name, "Most villains have a catchy name to go with them, so the producer decided that this would be the best name to give the character that built my android character."

"I'll give it some thought," Sunset said, not bothering to sigh as she turned and looked at her own tablet, which she had painstakingly learned to use her horn to use magic.

She and Angela had been exchanging notes on the research ship that she had recovered from Aranos, which the Thugs had stolen and modified to suit their own goals, but in the end Angela had taken it back and was hard at work reformatting the entire ship. Sunset had told Angela that, at some point in the future, she and her family would be returning to the Solana Galaxy and the lives that Qwark had ripped them from. To her surprise Angela knew it was coming at some point, so she had agreed to be leave Bogon alongside Sunset and her family, which is why she got started on working on her ship to begin with. The two of them were in the process of creating a proper starship, complete with enough rooms for all of them, a place to eat their meals, a control center to command the ship, and, by Sunset's recommendation, a place to store the Cores when they were recovered.

At the moment Sunset had suffered no side effects from wearing Honesty around her neck for the last two weeks, nor had she suffered any relapse when she had taken it off either, so she assumed it was safe to build a holding cell that could contain the Cores they collected without revealing that they were there to begin with. There were far too many parties interested in claiming the Cores for their own purposes, which was why Sunset was so interested in keeping them safe from those parties. These plans, and others, were what she worked on while she was in the hospital, knowing that it would be some time before she was released from her room.





When Sunset was finally released from the hospital, and free to do whatever she wanted, Ratchet and the others took her to the house that Qwark had given to Clank when they had started the adventure, which the real Mr. Fizzwidget gave to them for as long as they stayed in the Bogon Galaxy. Sunset didn't stay in the house very long, because the moment she was able to walk once more, without having to rely on any of her family for support, she had Angela pick her up and take her to the starship. She wanted to keep herself busy and forget about everything that had happened to her so far, so when they arrived at the ship she immediately got to work, following the plans that she and Angela had put together.

The first week she spent on her security chamber, making sure that the containment field was working before she did anything else with her time, yet found that creating such a field took time and a number of calculations that annoyed her to no end. Angela tried to help her in discovering a way to keep the magic of the Core hidden, but in the end she was as confused as Sunset was, so Sunset had to work alone with the Core. Even after she admitted that she was confused Angela stuck around to see if Sunset was able to figure it out, as she had experience with magic and might be able to figure out the problem.

"So did Ratchet tell you that he and I started dating a two weeks ago?" Angela asked out of the blue, no doubt to have Sunset take a break from the calculation that were annoying her.

"Seriously?" Sunset asked, surprise crossing her face for a moment, to which she let Honesty down and turned to face Angela, "When did he figure out the fact that you were interested in him?"

"When I leaned forward and kissed him," Angela admitted, her cheeks becoming red for a moment, "Thank the Maker that he was also interested in me, otherwise that would have been an awkward conversation after we both had cooled off. I honestly have no idea what possessed me to kiss him in that moment, but I guess I had to get around to addressing the fact that I had a crush on him at some point."

"Did you tell him that you're also a lombax?" Sunset asked, knowing that Angela had been hiding the fact of her race since the moment she had laid eyes on Ratchet, though she had figured it out almost immediately.

Instead of answering the question Angela moved her hands to her belt and undid her tail, working out the kinks in it for a few minutes before letting it move through the air. Sunset suspected that Angela had considered telling Ratchet the truth at some point, but might have backed out after her episode with kissing him... which she actually wanted to see how that had happened now that she thought about it.

"I... told him the truth after I kissed him," Angela weakly admitted, letting out a sigh as she faced Sunset, "and I, after some inner reflection, told him why I had gone out of my way to hide the fact that I'm a lombax. There's someone out there, across the numerous stars in the universe, that wants every last lombax dead and their culture dead... though the second one was accomplished with the attack on our home planet. I do not know who is trying to eradicate the last of our kind, but I had taken steps to make sure I was well hidden and that no one could uncover the truth about me... until the four of you came into my life.

Sunset, you and your family are quite possibly the best thing that ever happened to me in all the years I have been in the Bogon Galaxy, because now I can finally get that burden off of my chest and, maybe, find some comfort with the people who are my friends. I had been hiding in the shadows for so long that I forgot what having friends felt like... and now you all have saved me from my own terrible choices."

Sunset had to smile at that comment, because she had been determined to see whether or not Ratchet and Angela could even have a relationship together when their mission to save the Bogon Galaxy was over. Now she knew that it was definitely possible, as the two of them had apparently hit it off and kissed while she was recovering from her ordeal. Sunset had wanted both Ratchet and Angela to be happy when she discovered the truth about Angela, so she was pleased to find that they were doing just that already.

"How about you Sunset?" Angela asked, causing Sunset to look up for a moment, "How are you feeling after everything that you've been through in the Bogon Galaxy?"

"Exhausted, tired, emotionally drained," Sunset replied, easily listing a few off the top of her list, before letting out a sigh and tapping her screen as she searched for something to distract her from the Cores completely, "I know, I should be pissed off at Qwark for what he did... but all I feel at the moment is pity for him, and its all traced back to when Drek started his campaign to build himself a 'new' world. Before we started our first adventure I purely made gadgets and repaired security walls, though after visiting some of the planets in the Solana Galaxy we eventually came to the one planet where my magic was unlocked; Umbris.

After our visit to that planet I began to notice some, well, changes in both me and the golden bracelet that I had been wearing for the last thirteen years. Suddenly I was able to perform feats of magic that rivaled Starlight's, absorb her own leftover magic into the bracelet, and even use that absorbed power in addition to my own. I stopped tinkering with gadgets and started learning about the wondrous power that was suddenly available to me, learning both the advantages and disadvantages of using magic. So quite some time I wondered if there were even any serious disadvantages that came with using magic, because Searing only appeared when I seriously needed her help, which had only happened twice in our home galaxy.

Now, however, I actually feel more in harmony with myself, as if the Core I'm carrying is actually allowing me to become more attune to the body I have been given. I'm going to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the other five Cores are going to reveal to me when we recover them, but I am also very interested in seeing what I might have forgotten thanks to that bracelet."

Angela nodded and looked at what Sunset had finally pulled up on her tablet, noticing that it happened to a hologram that looked like one of the spirits that had stopped Searing a month ago. She also noted that there were additional tabs attached to the file, which made her wonder if there were more of the spirits that Sunset had created holograms for.

"And what is this for?" Angela asked, knowing that she might as well pick Sunset's brain a bit so she could distract her from the Core that was sitting next to her.

"I figured that the ship could use some sort of watcher when all of us are gone, on missions and whatnot," Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face as she looked at the picture in front of her, which happened to be the white alicorn spirit she had seen in the video Starlight had showed her, "Someone to help manage the ship and protect the Cores. I think its something that we can work on in the next couple of months... before something forces us back to Solana anyway."

Starlight had told her, about one week after she had woke up, that the white alicorn spirit had been given a name by Searing before Sunset was freed from her corruption; Princess Celestia. Sunset was sure that the name meant something to both her and her sister, but what that something was she had no idea at the moment, mainly because of all the missing memories. She also thought about the other three alicorn spirits that she had seen in the video, the dark blue one, the pink one, and the lavender one, because, oddly enough, she had designed holograms for them as well. Sunset had no idea what had possessed her to make the other three holograms, but after some thought she decided that it was better to be safe than sorry.

None of them had any idea if, or when for that matter, that they were going to return to the Solana Galaxy, so they had all agreed, in the last week of Sunset's stay at the hospital, that they needed to make themselves ready for their eventual departure. Ratchet and Angela, apparently, were going to be dating for some of the time before that happened, so Sunset was glad that they had finally admitted their feelings for each other. Starlight, according to what she told Sunset before she left the house, was going to be designing more weapons and practicing her own magic, because they had both determined that they needed a backup plan in case Searing resurfaced. Sunset was also going to practice her own magic as she worked on the starship, knowing that she needed to reign in her dangerous power and learn control over what she was capable of doing.

Sunset didn't want another 'Yeedil Episode' when they returned to the Solana Galaxy, as that was what many called their assault on the facility these days, so she was determined to reign Searing in completely. She also wondered what the next villain they were going to face would be like, if he was smart like Drek, dumb like Qwark, or even smarter than Drek. She sighed as she stared at her tablet, knowing that time would tell them everything that they needed to know.
> Arsenal: Return to Veldin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Sunset spent an entire year in the Bogon Galaxy, living among the people that called Megopolis home and settling into some sort of routine. Clank, of course, was the star of his own holovision show, the highly popular Secret Agent Clank spy drama that everyone in both the Solana and Bogon galaxies. Ratchet participated in the show, as the chauffeur that drove Clank around, and Starlight played the ever popular 'Android 18', who was apparently designed to flip between wanting to kill Clank and save him from whatever evil plans her maker had in store for the hero. For some reason Starlight's character was almost as popular as Clank's character, which the producer of the show was grateful for as it helped increase his sales in the end.

Sunset, on the other hand, had taken some time to debate whether or not she should join her family and lend them her voice, as her character was apparently designed to never actually appear on the show save for the holograms that gave her a human appearance, but in the end she had decided to just go with it. Professor Darkstar, the character she voiced occasionally, was apparently quite popular as well, though not as popular as the other characters on the show, which was fine with her.

When they weren't working on the holovision show, or spending time in the studio, they each had other jobs or tasks that usually kept them busy until they were needed again. Ratchet, having been hired my Megacorp to act as a full time commando, was usually sent out on missions to deal with any Thugs that survived the destruction of their main base, before they could continue the operations that the leader left behind. Clank, of course, accompanied him on those missions, though there were times where Starlight joined the two of them and hunted down the remaining Thugs. Starlight also worked alongside Sunset and Angela, though she was the one who figured out what they needed so they could protect the Cores from being discovered by their enemies.

Ratchet also took time off to have some fun with Angela, who had been restored to her former position in Megacorp by Mr. Fizzwidget, which she suspected was in thanks for fixing the Protopet that Qwark wanted to use against the galaxy. Despite the time that Angela spent with Ratchet, which was quite a lot of it, she had also been true to her word and had gotten to know all of them, listening to their tales of their first adventure in the Solana Galaxy. She was definitely curious about their home galaxy, as they had been interested in Bogon when they had first arrived, and they were all willing to give her the information that she wanted. It had also allowed her to get to know Ratchet a lot better, which was something that everyone expected considering that they were dating and having fun all the time.

During the last year Starlight and Sunset had taken some time off from their work on the starship to practice their magical skills, something that brought the rest of their family to watch whenever they were in the immediate area. Aranos happened to be the perfect planet for them to do their practice without disturbing anyone, as no one lived on the icy planet and it gave Sunset the ability to gain control of her new powers without having to worry about hurting any innocent people. As it turned out it was incredibly difficult for Sunset to regain control of the magic that was coursing through her body, but over the first few months she managed to reign in the amount of power she put into her spells.

By the time a whole year had passed Sunset was pleased to say that she had gained control of her more dangerous powers, which allowed her to relax and finally enjoy life without having to worry about hurting over people by accident.





"Ha ha!" Ratchet said, moving a chess piece towards one of Clank's own pieces with a look of happiness on his face, "My Blargian Snagglebeast devours your mutant swamp fly!"

He and Clank had been playing a game of chess while they waited for the latest episode of Secret Agent Clank to come on, something that Clank and Starlight were anxious to see now that the editing was finished. Unfortunately he had forgotten something when he made his move and that allowed Clank to checkmate him, to which Ratchet admitted defeat and leaned back against the sofa, where he wrapped his left arm around Angela. She had been given the week off of work, mainly because of all the vacation days she had racked up since her return to Megacorp, so she had decided to spent it all with Ratchet and his family, though the two of them had plans to go to a fancy restaurant in a few days.

Starlight was sitting in the golden colored chair to Angela's left, looking at something on her tablet, though Ratchet knew that she was working on her 'Top Secret' project... the RY3NO she called it. Sunset, on the other hand, was sitting across the table from where Starlight was sitting, in a chair that was designed for a pony, just like when they did that interview so long ago. Sunset was merely reading her tablet, researching more of the spells that the people of Old Earth were fond of recording and trying to determine if she could use them or not. Clank got excited as the show came on, to which everyone stopped what they were doing so they could see the episode they had been waiting for all morning.

It was mostly Clank visiting a casino to search for a robot called Maximilian, a crime lord of some reputation, and happened to be playing a game while his target at some point. At that point it was quickly revealed that Maximilian knew about Clank, because he had his guards drop into the area around them and begin their attack on Clank. It appeared that Clank was outnumbered by the amount of guards, but that was before Starlight, in her Android 18 character, barged into the casino and kicked one of the robots in the leg, shattering the metal instantly. Together the two of them turned the tables on Maximilian's guards and shorted out the robot by dropping an electric chandelier on top of him, though as Clank went to thank 'Android 18' he discovered that his ally was gone, leaving him to wonder when they would see each other again.

Once the show was over Clank handed the remote to Ratchet, who proceeded to change the channel to the news station, so he could see if there was anything dangerous they needed to know about before they left the apartment for the day. That was before he found the reporter for Channel 64 News standing somewhere on Veldin, which Ratchet immediately recognized, and was reporting that there was an invasion happening at the moment. Apparently a race of creatures called the Tyhrranoids were attacking the planet, though they were apparently under orders from someone called Dr. Nefarious. Once the broadcast was over Ratchet turned off the screen and got onto his feet, noticing that everyone else, including Angela for that matter, had followed his lead.

"Get your weapons and meet me at the ship," Ratchet said, picking up Clank and his wrench as he headed towards the front door, "We're going to show Dr. Nefarious what happens when you mess with Veldin."

"But Ratchet, Veldin is in the Solana Galaxy!" Clank commented, knowing that it would be impossible to dissuade his companion from his chosen plan, "How are you planning on getting there?"

"The gravimetric warp drive that Starlight and I built," Angela replied, a grin appearing on her face as she tapped the box that contained the device in question, "We're going to plug this into the starship and then we'll jump to the Solana Galaxy."

Clank sighed as they all climbed into the ship that they used to fly around the Bogon Galaxy, knowing that this time it was best if he accepted that he couldn't change any of their minds.





Getting to the starship was easier than what Clank was expecting, because Angela had received permission to park it near Endako's moon, so that way it was always close for when the day they needed it arrived. Ratchet easily pulled them into the side of the ship and packed it in the space designed for their ships, to which the side of the ship closed up behind them and engaged the gravity so they could walk around normally. Once the gravity was back on Ratchet opened the ship up and they all climbed out, though they decided to leave their stuff in the ship until they dealt with the invasion of Veldin.

As they walked towards the control room, where they could plug in the gravimetric warp drive, the lights turned on and the rest of the ship hummed to life, telling Sunset that the AI was definitely awake at the moment. When they actually entered the control room, however, the hologram that the AI used to interact with whoever was on the ship phased into existence before them, revealing the white alicorn that Sunset had seen in the video a year ago.

"Celestia, its good to see you again," Sunset commented, noticing that her family was spreading out as she conversed with the AI, which she expected before they had even arrived.

"It is good to see you again as well, Sunset Shimmer," the white alicorn replied, a smile appearing on her nonexistent face, "What brings you to the Starship Hyperion today? A systems update? Another addition to the ship, like a art gallery? Or has something happened... something that would require us to engage the engines?"

"Veldin is under attack." Sunset told the AI, nodding to the indent that they had set aside for the gravimetric warp drive to be placed inside, "We're going to head there and teach the invaders the consequences of attacking our home world."

Celestia nodded and the indent opened before their eyes, to which Angela pulled out the warp drive and set it into the indent, though it was quickly lowered into the floor until the entire device was no longer visible. After a few seconds Angela sat down at one of the consoles and nodded her head, indicating that all the systems were ready to go now that the warp drive was installed. Sunset had been told that the device would take a few minutes to power up before they could jump to the Solana Galaxy, so she decided to ask the AI something that was on her mind at the moment.

"So what about the others?" Sunset asked, causing the hologram to raise one of its nonexistent eyebrows, "You know, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight? How are the others faring since they were activated?"

"Luna has been guarding the Core that you found every day since she woke up," Celestia replied, causing Sunset to nod for a moment as the hologram moved onto the other two, "Cadence has been patrolling the ship, looking for errors that might need addressing by one of you at a future date, while Twilight has been making sure that the systems are fully functional for the day you needed them."

"That's good to hear," Sunset commented, turning to Angela for a moment, who was entering the command to activate the warp drive, "Hold on everyone, this is going to be interesting."

A few seconds passed by before the ship surged forward, warping through space itself as they headed towards the Solana Galaxy, much to the amazement of both Ratchet and Clank. It was clear that Clank was surprised that the warp drive even worked, considering that the device had been built from Blargian scrap metal, but Angela was unwilling to say where she had managed to acquire the material from. Before anyone could say anything they reached their exit, to which the ship came to a stop on the outskirts of Veldin's airspace, which only made Ratchet smile as he stared at his home world.

"So that's Veldin," Angela commented, bringing the ship to a halt before they flew into the ground and impacted it so hard that they created a crater, "Well, now that we're here, shall we suit up and see to kicking the Tyhrranoids off of the planet?"

"I agree with that statement," Ratchet said, tapping the head of his wrench for a moment as the group turned around so they could head back to the hanger, "I've been itching for a new adventure ever since the last one ended."

Sunset and Starlight shared a look with each other for a moment, as if understanding what was going to come next, before Sunset walked down the passage that would take her to the chamber that held Honesty. Even from this distance she could feel the call of Generosity, the Core they had found after the defeat of their first enemy, and she knew that Starlight could feel it as well, thanks to her usage of Honesty back on Yeedil. It didn't take her very long to find the single floating stone, which was still surrounded by the golden necklace that had formed from the fragments of her bracelet, though she nodded to the blue alicorn hologram that guarded the gemstone.

She grabbed the Core that was floating in front of her and wrapped the necklace around her neck, allowing herself to feel the tug of the other Core she had discovered, as if Honesty was directing her towards the location she had hidden it in. She then quickly returned to the ship and climbed inside, knowing that it was high time that they made the Tyhrranoids pay for their invasion of their home world.

When they arrived on the planet's surface they encountered a group of green robotic soldiers that were fighting the Tyhrranoids, though the moment they climbed out of the ship Angela pulled out her weapon and started smacking their enemies. Ratchet fell in beside her and together they started their assault on their enemy's location, cutting through the soldiers that were standing before them and moving up to where a pair of robot soldiers were standing.

"These must be the Galactic Rangers!" Clank commented, beckoning to the robots for a moment, as he recognized them from the broadcast they had seen not too long ago.

"Hey look!" one of the Rangers said, pointing to Ratchet as the group approached them, "It's a new sergeant!"

"What?" Ratchet asked, surprised by the statement itself, though he guessed that it could have made sense considering that he had gone through commando training and likely looked tougher than he actually felt.

"Here Sarge, you can have my gun," the second Galactic Ranger quickly said, throwing Ratchet a weapon that Starlight immediately recognized as a Shock Blaster, as it was one of the weapons that she had sent Mr. Gadget weeks ago when she managed to develop a communication line between them.

Ratchet put the new weapon to use as he lead the charge against the Tyhrranoids that were standing in front of them, though it wasn't long before they came to another blockade. This time it was two more of the Galactic Rangers that were being pinned down by an enemy in a flying ship, who happened to be firing at the area in front of the Rangers. Ratchet accepted another new weapon from them, one that Starlight identified as the Nitro Launcher, and used it to remove the vehicle that was blocking their way. They then leapt into the hole that the vehicle had been guarding and cut their way through the small group of enemies that happened to be waiting for them, before they came to a chamber that had a Tyhrranoid that was riding in a suit of armor and firing at the Rangers around it.

One more shot from the Nitro Launcher took care of the only enemy in the chamber, allowing the group to move through a hole in the wall and spot an enemy drop ship that was in the middle of deploying more enemies for them to fight. Before they could determine how to remove their enemies another Tyhrranoid flew in with his flying ship, but this time Starlight merely sighed as she grabbed it with her magic and tore it in half. Ratchet and Angela then took care of the two enemies that had jumped out of the drop ship, allowing Sunset to maneuver up to the pathway above them and take out the group of enemies that happened to be standing guard.

This time Sunset loosed a stream of fire from her mouth, the fire breath she had used so long ago, and torched the Tyhrranoids that were standing in front of her, giving her and the others a clear path to what had clearly been the house that she, Ratchet, and Starlight had grown up in. Strangely enough the shack that Sunset had parked her hoverbike in was still intact, which allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief as they approached their ruined house, where the Rangers had apparently docked their own ship behind for the moment.

"What's the situation?" Ratchet asked the nearest Ranger, hoping to get some information on how the fight was going, because at this rate he was itching to tear apart whoever had blown up the house he and his family had lived in.

"The Noids have fallen back to a base in F sector," the robot replied, which had taken just a moment as it had been reading the orders it had been given as the group approached them, "We have orders to go in and take them out."

"F Sector?" the second Ranger demanded fearfully, as if there was something there that would be the end of them all, to which the robot started to walk away, "Game over!  No way man!  We're all gonna end up as scrap metal!"

"Get back in there, trooper!" Ratchet barked out, pointing at the ship's interior while allowing his commando training to resurface for a brief moment, "We've got a planet to save!"

"Sir yes sir!" the Rangers replied in unison, following Ratchet back onto the ship as Starlight joined them, to which they noticed that neither Angela or Sunset was ready yet.

"Go on without us," Sunset said, tapping the Core around her next for a moment, "I'm going to pick up the other one and meet you over in this 'F Sector'."

Ratchet nodded as the door to the drop ship closed, allowing the Rangers to take off for F Sector while Sunset and Angela remained behind for the moment. Once the ship was further away, and the tracking beacon was on, Sunset turned around and walked over to the shack that connected to her old house, to which she used her magic to unlock the door. Angela looked passed her and stared at the hoverbike that was resting before them, before walking inside and turning the vehicle on with a smile on her face. Sunset moved out of the way and watched Angela move the vehicle out of the shack, pleased that it still ran despite the fact that no one had used it in over a year.

"So, where is the Core?" Angela asked, bringing the hoverbike to a stop as she looked at her companion for a moment, who was still looking inside the shack.

"Right here," Sunset replied, tapping a plate on the floor, which had been hidden thanks to the hoverbike, and watched as it opened before their eyes, to which a black cube rose out of the opening. Sunset grabbed the cube in her magic and allowed it to fall apart, revealing the gleaming purple gemstone that was the first Core they had found; Generosity.

"Wow... its as beautiful as Honesty," Angela commented, before beckoning to Sunset for a moment, "Well then, we had best get going before Ratchet and Starlight have all the fun in beating the Tyhrranoids."

Sunset nodded as she pocketed the second Core in her armor, before hopping onto the back of the hoverbike and using her magic to form a magical walkway for them to use so they could head to F Sector.





When they caught up with the drop ship they watched Ratchet and Starlight jump out of the ship and descend towards the ground, to which Angela drove them off the magical walkway and threw them in the direction of the ground. Sunset slowed the descent speed of the hoverbike until she could levitate them towards the ground, to which Angela pulled out her gun and started firing at the missiles that were heading up to the drop ship. They landed at the same time as Ratchet and Starlight touched the ground, though they immediately started firing at the Tyhrranoids that were coming their way as the Rangers landed all around them.

It didn't take the group very long to route the small force of enemies that were coming their way or the air ship that they discovered when a nearby door opened, but they were all pleased by the progress they had made at the moment. They then approached the drop ship that had come to a rest on the other side of where the air ship had been guarding, to which they all noticed that one of the Rangers had something that it wanted to tell them.

"Sir!" one of the Rangers said with a salute, before it pulled out a screen and presented it to the group for a moment, "We have a transmission from the President!"

The screen displayed a male cazar that had tan skin and a thick dark brown coat covering most of his facial features, though he had an easy smile on his face.

"How are things on the front line, soldier?" the cazar asked, but then gasped when he noticed who was standing beside Ratchet at the moment, "Is... is that Secret Agent Clank?"

"Greetings, sir," Clank offered, taking note of the fact that Ratchet facepalmed and that the President was focused solely on him at the moment, "We are here to help."

"Well this is an honor!" the President replied, taking a look at the rest of the group, as if he was expecting to see more of their characters, "And I see you brought your chauffeur and Android 18 along as well... wait, is that Professor Darkstar standing beside you? What evil plan could an evil mastermind like yourself be planning at a moment like this?"

"Just... running some field tests," Sunset replied, nearly moaning when she discovered that the President was a complete fool for believing that they were their characters from the Secret Agent Clank show, but decided to get it over with so they could stop Dr. Nefarious, "and taking out the competition in the process."

"Right..." the President said, as if he actually believed that Sunset was an enemy and not an ally, before he turned his attention back to Clank, "Agent Clank, we must stop Doctor Nefarious!  As you may know, only one man has ever faced him and survived.  I've just received a top secret report on that man's whereabouts.  Here, take a look."

As it turned out what they watched was a show called Nature's Mysteries, where they were trying to uncover the truth about a large man shaped monster that was hiding somewhere in the Florana Forests. The group shared a look with each other, because the image the show showed of the supposed 'monster' happened to resemble Qwark, who had disappeared from the hospital shortly after Sunset was released. If they were right, and all of them were praying that they were wrong, they weren't that pleased to be working with the man that had brought about the near destruction of Yeedil.

Nonetheless they assured the President that they would look into the report, to which they hopped into the drop ship so they could head back to their own ship... where they could begin their next adventure.
> Arsenal: Florana
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset stretched her legs after she hopped out of the ship that her family used to go from their large starship and descend to whatever planet they were visiting, though it was quickly forgotten as she gently pulled out the first Core that they had discovered. Even as she looked at its gleaming and reflective surface she had to wonder what secrets that it might hold, what truth it was waiting to give back to her after the golden bracelet had stolen everything from her. Truthfully she was thankful that the bracelet was gone, as she, Ratchet, and Starlight had originally assumed that it had been cursed considering that she could never remove it, but she also missed being a cazar. She knew that Starlight was fine with being a pony, due to the fact that she had been born that way and didn't have any magical enchantments messing with her body, so she knew that she could grow to love her body.

She almost wished that she had been born a pony, like her sister did, so that she wouldn't be conflicted over what she might discover about herself, but also knew that it wasn't worth crying over.

"You excited to see what that Core holds for you?" Ratchet asked, as everyone had followed Sunset to the room that was designed to hold the Cores, where they found Luna waiting for the return of both Honesty and Generosity.

"I am... and I'm also afraid at the same time." Sunset replied, shaking her head as she stared at the Core, once again wondering if her past self had been someone that she was going to dislike, "Ratchet, these memories are going to change who I am... and there's nothing we can do to stop them from doing so."

"Look, just remember everything we've been through and those memories won't hurt you," Ratchet commented, though he knew he was doing the worst possible job of trying to cheer his sister up, "Besides, you and Starlight set up safeguards in the off chance that something bad actually came from remembering who you used to be, so I'm confident that you'll emerge unharmed."

Sunset knew what Ratchet was afraid of her finding, because it was the same thing that she was afraid of finding; that she might not be as good as she made herself out to be. She always wondered if her old memories would show her as the hero that was conquering the forces of evil, like she and her family were doing at the moment, or if they would reveal her to be the villain that was receiving a defeat. She let out a sigh as she walked into the room that the Cores would be stored in, gently removing Honesty and placing it back where she had taken it from. She waited a second or two, to which Luna nodded to her, before she withdrew Generosity and set it into the slot that had been carved out for it.

With that deed done Sunset walked into the small chamber to the left of the Cores, which was designed to keep her and her magic contained in the off chance that something happened when she recovered her old memories, and watched as the glass door sealed itself behind her.

"Don't worry Sunset, I'm sure that the Cores will ensure that nothing bad will happen to you." Starlight said, staring at her sister through the glass, hating that Sunset had to be in a magical cell of sorts when she wanted to do this, "We'll check up on you once we figure out who the President wants us to find... and retrieve that person of course."

Sunset nodded and watched her family depart from the room, leaving her alone with the two Cores that they had uncovered and the hologram of Luna, which did nothing to set her mind at ease. She sighed again and laid down on the bed they had put in the cell, knowing that it was better to get this over with and not prolong it because her nerves got the better of her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift, where she opened herself to the magic of the Cores and started to receive a piece of the memories that had been stolen from her.





Starlight sighed as she, Ratchet, and Angela climbed out of the small ship once they had arrived at Florana, though it was because she was worried for her sister and not for the fact that she had discovered that the person they were looking for was the disgraced Captain Qwark. They all knew that Sunset wasn't a fan of the former captain, so it wasn't hard for them to imagine what she or her demonic side would do when they discovered that he was well within striking range. That was also considering that Searing even existed anymore, as there had been no sign of her since Honesty had summoned the spirits of those ponies a year ago, almost as if she had been cleansed from Sunset completely.

The three of them walked up to the weapon vendor and restocked their ammunition from fighting the invasion on Veldin, as well as picking up the newest weapons that were available; the N60 Storm, a blaster that was designed after the Lancer, and the Plasma Whip. Starlight and Angela also collected their own copy of the weapons that Ratchet had picked up back on Veldin, as the Galactic Rangers only gave him the weapons and no one else. Angela, after spending a second with her new weapons, spotted some flying bugs blocking their path and swung the whip at them, easily removing them from where they were flying and opening the path for them.

"Oh I am going to like this already," Angela said, pulling out the N60 Storm for a moment, as if wondering how powerful it was as well, "Let's do this and find Qwark... though after everything that's happened I can't believe that we're looking for him."

This time Angela took charge of what they did, as she leapt across the wooden planks that were between their platform and the next one, before following the road that lead them to the building that they had landed their ship near. Together the three of them encountered the natives, mask wearing savages that threw boomerangs at them, and used their new weapons to get rid of them. As they reached the end of the walkway they also encountered a swamp creature of sorts, though it didn't take to kindly to them trespassing in its territory at all. A combined nitro barrage from them three of them was enough to remove the creature so they could move on, granting them the ability to move into the building itself.

As they approached the entrance of the building they were attacked by a group of four natives, which they easily removed thanks to the combined power of their weapons, before Starlight noticed another one blocking their path further ahead and simply used her magic to toss the native to the side. They then came to an area that had three glass sections on one of the walls, the one that was right next to the ladder they needed to use to climb out of the building, but before they could climb the ladder they were attacked by the natives, who used the large vines around the building to ride down into where they were standing and shattered the glass upon entering the area. The three of them then cycled to their N60 Storm's and proceeded to shoot everything that came their way, making sure that they didn't miss any of their shots, before they had cleared out the natives once more.

Once the area was clear they climbed the ladder, or levitated up it in Starlight's case, and found three more natives standing near the edge of the building, giving Starlight the ability to rapidly grab them with her magic and chuck them off the building. Since they were splitting the output of ammunition between the three of them they didn't feel the need to restock their ammunition at the vendor, so they glided down to the platform below them. Angela was able to do this because she had fixed up her boots, as they had only allowed her to stay attached to a hoverboard in the past, but now, thanks to some help from Starlight and Sunset, the boots were able to slow her falling speed, making them similar to the helipack that Ratchet had installed in Clank so long ago.

As they landed on the platform Ratchet took out the native that was standing in front of them, though as soon as the native fell another swamp creature rose out of the water and attacked them. The three of them were more than willing to put the creature down, as it allowed them to jump to the platform in front of the next building, get rid of the two natives that were standing guard outside it, and then actually enter the next building. Inside, however, they found a square arena that looked like a trap, but they decided that they had better just see what the natives had in store for them and walked into the arena, to which the bridge behind them was lifted out of position and the one in front of them lowered into place.

Ten more natives attacked them, coming all at once with the intent on not giving them enough time to gather themselves so they could eliminate the intruders, but it actually didn't work out that way. The trio loosed a few more nitro charges and soon the natives were cleared out once more, allowing them to advance across the bridge that had been lowered into place and find a pair of walls that they needed to jump between. Angela smiled and put her weapons away, before jumping onto the wall to her right and then started to bounce between the two until she came to a ladder that she used to climb to the top. Ratchet chuckled as he repeated the process, though once he reached the top they called down to Starlight, who merely levitated herself up to them once again.

Two more natives appeared as they walked towards the edge of the building, but Angela was more than willing to get rid of them and clear the way forward... though it appeared that it would require them to ride the vines down into the pit below.

"Just remember to have your weapons at the ready when you land in the pit," Angela told them, as if she was the senior adventurer and not the novice that was proving that she was skilled for this sort of thing, before throwing her weapon over the vine and sliding down towards the pit.

Ratchet smiled and followed Angela down, knowing that Starlight would likely teleport to them the moment they reached the end of the vine, though when they landed they were attacked by two more swamp creatures and a whole cluster of the flying bugs. Starlight did, in fact, teleport in the moment they landed on the platform, though she used her whip to remove the flying bugs before the three of them turned their attention to the creatures that were waiting in the water. The two creatures proved to be easy to remove, as they had been sticking close to each other the entire time they were near the platform, giving the trio the ability to use their weapons and get rid of them. Once the creatures had been dealt with the bridge in front of them lowered into place, where they removed the flying bugs that were in their way, climbed into the platform that was above the one they were standing on, and then used another vine to reach another area of the ruins they had come to investigate.

When they landed in front of the ruins they were accompanied by a monkey that wouldn't leave Clank alone, though it merely served as a diversion for a masked figure, who was a little taller than the rest of the natives, to sneak up on them and force Ratchet backwards for a few seconds.

"You trespass on sacred ground," the figure proclaimed, though the trio noticed that his voice seemed to echo as it was followed by some hooting, "Now you walk Path of Death!"

"An obstacle course... how fun." Angela commented, already walking towards the ruins as the masked figure proclaimed it to be the 'Path of Death', "At least this is more interesting than working inside a Megacorp building all day long. I swear, I'm not even sure how some scientists can stand to be trapped inside a building and not get a bit of fresh air every now and then... because I know it would eventually drive me crazy."

Ratchet and Starlight followed Angela into the ruins, though Ratchet was impressed by how well Angela was actually taking her first real outing with them. To be fair he had gone to several of the planets he and his family had visited during their journey through the Bogon Galaxy to see how skilled his girlfriend actually was, though he had to admit that she was actually as good as he was... and that was including the fact that her balance had improved now when she finally decided it was time to let her tail be free once more. Despite everything that she had done in Bogon, the result all of them knew about, Angela was proving that she had the heart of a hero, which actually only served to make Ratchet love her even more.

The 'Path of Death', as the masked figure called it, was a gauntlet of platforms that required them to jump from one to another, flamethrowers that were designed to either hurt them or make them fall into the burning ground around them, a few more natives that happened to get in their way, and a few boulders and wall crushers that had been built into the ruins. Once the three of them had surpassed all of that, and emerged unharmed, they arrived at the end of the path, which happened to look like a circular arena of sorts. They even found the masked figure standing in the center of the arena, though it quickly dawned on them that the man expected them to be crushed by all of the obstacles that had been put in their way.

"Can... not... be!" the masked figure said, though whether it was in awe or shock they were unable to determine.

That was before the monkey from before took of the mask and revealed Qwark, though he seemed disheveled and broken, which was added to when they noticed the fragments of the wrappings that had been wrapped around his chest after the events of Yeedil. With the mask removed Qwark pulled out his own boomerang and entered a battle stance, as if he fully intended to fight them to the death, but then Starlight let out a sigh and approached the broken man. Ratchet and Angela watched her for a moment, wondering what she was going to do, and raised their eyebrows as she pulled out her tablet and showed the former captain something. Qwark stared at whatever she was showing him for a few seconds, before something flickered in is eyes and he fell to his knees, which drove the monkey to put the mask over Starlight's head.

In the end Qwark reverted to a feral state of hooting and making monkey gestures, though as the trio walked out of the ruins Ratchet felt the need to ask his sister something.

"So what did you show him?" he asked Starlight, wondering what Qwark could have seen that would have made him stop fighting completely and submit to someone else.

"Searing," Starlight replied, not bothering to say anymore, because it was something that all of them feared considering how much destructive power Sunset's darker side could command.

When they returned to their ship, and managed to squeeze Qwark into the back of it, they received a call from another cazar, though this one was female, roughly about Angela's age, and was dressed up in a purple captain's uniform.

"This is Captain Sasha of the Starship Phoenix," she formally introduced herself, a smile appearing on her face as she stared at the three of them, "The President has asked me to assist you."

"We've managed to recover Captain Qwark," Ratchet replied, beckoning to the back seat, where the defeated former captain was sitting still, "But... he seems to think he's a monkey."

"Of course," Sasha replied, as if she had expected something like this, or had known that this would happen considering who they were working with, "Bring him to the Phoenix and we'll see what we can do. Here's the coordinates. Sasha out."

With the coordinates of the Starship Phoenix acquired Ratchet sent them to their own starship, so that the holograms could get Sunset there without harm, before they set off as well. Things were about to get interesting, that much Ratchet knew for sure.
> Arsenal: Marcadia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It didn't take them very long to find the Starship Phoenix, thanks to the coordinates that Sasha had given them, though Ratchet was immediately impressed by the ship the moment they all laid eyes on it. The Phoenix was a little bit longer than Angela's starship, though as they looked at it Ratchet could tell that it was definitely designed to carry troops to wherever they were needed and was built to do war with whoever threatened the galaxy. He wasn't saying that their own starship wasn't up to par with the military ship in front of them, but thanks to the improvements that Sunset, Starlight, and Angela made to the ship half a year ago it was almost as imposing as the Phoenix.

Clank, having been given the code to use so that the Phoenix knew that they were friendlies, managed to get them the access that Sasha had promised them, allowing them to enter the dock and see the inside of the ship. Ratchet could tell that Angela was looking around and taking notes about what she saw, maybe so they could improve their own ship further or help improve the Phoenix.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Phoenix," Sasha said from her communicator screen, just as they climbed out of their ship and helped the feral Qwark out as well.

"I must say, this is an impressive ship," Ratchet commented, though he had to wonder where they would put Qwark, as it would be a mistake to keep him on the Hyperion... where he might find Sunset while she was still meditating and upset her.

"Isn't she?" Sasha proudly replied, indicating that she was definitely pleased with the ship that she currently commanded, "The Phoenix is the pride of the Galactic Fleet. She's equipped with the latest technology. Holodeck training suite, auto vendors for armor and weapons, virtual firing range, starfighter upgrade system... even a Gadgetron VG9000 game system!"

"A VG9000?" Ratchet said, though it was clear that, while he was interested in the system, he knew that they needed to be focused on the task of finding Dr. Nefarious and bringing this war to an end.

"Of course," Sasha said easily, though her mood seemed to sour when she noticed something appear on one of her screens, "Wait, hold on a moment, it appears that there's a starship in the vicinity of the Phoenix, which the President has declared as restricted until Dr. Nefarious has been defeated."

"Wait!" Starlight said, opening her own tablet and rapidly selecting some keys, to which she sent Sasha a small message over the screen that she was using to talk with her, "Is this the same code that the starship has?"

Ratchet nearly slapped himself for realizing that he had gotten caught up in learning about the ship they were standing in, which had caused him to forget that their starship had been following them to this exact location the entire time. Sunset was still on their ship, caught in the middle of her meditation with the Cores, and it would have been horrible if the ship had been attacked while she was still aboard.

"...you have a starship?" Sasha deadpanned, though it was clear that they should have told her about it the moment she invited them aboard the Phoenix when they were on Florana, "Why am I surprised that you have a ship of your own... fine, whatever, I'll roll with it. I'll have to tell the President about this ship, the Starship Hyperion apparently, and see if we can't give it a place to dock until the war is over."

Sasha then took a deep breath and collected her thoughts, which Ratchet was sure had been scattered when she noticed the ship coming into the area around her own ship, before opening her eyes again to tell them the rest of whatever she had planned on telling them.

"We had prepared a custom living area for Qwark, so he wouldn't get in your way, but I can see that he's not exactly welcome aboard your ship." Sasha finally said, swiping something across her screen, to which Starlight's tablet beeped, "Come meet me on the bridge when you're ready."

The connection cut away and the screen went dark, though the four of them knew that they should have told Sasha about the Hyperion and not have her find out about it this way. Starlight sighed in the end and escorted Qwark to the area that had apparently been built for them and the feral captain, though that meant that it would be all his whenever he regained his memories... if he regained his memories. The others followed her to the room, just so they could see what Sasha had created for them in the short amount of time that they had given her, though they had to admit that the room was impressive in its own right. Once Qwark was in his cage, and they were done with their visit to the room, the group walked back the way they came and took the nearby elevator that would take them to the bridge, where they hoped to find Sasha and, maybe, cool off whatever anger she had towards them.

What they found, however, was Sasha staring at the screen at the front of the ship and shouting at the soldiers that happened to be stationed in the bridge with her.

"We're losing the signal!" Sasha barked out, pointing to another of the soldiers as she kept her eyes on the screen, and whoever she had been speaking to while the group had been busy with Qwark, "Try boosting the power!"

"Wait, is that the President?" Ratchet commented, pointing at the image of the President that phased onto the screen and out again, though he could see what Sasha was trying to do.

"They came out of nowhere-" the President was saying, though the signal kept cutting off despite Sasha's best attempts to keep it connected, "Tyrrhanoid invasion force... Presidential Compound has been breached... cannot hold out much longer here-"

"Mr. President!" Sasha called out, her anger at Ratchet and his family being replaced with a growing concern for the President and his safety, "Dad! Are you there?"

Before anyone could say anything another signal claimed the connection that Sasha was trying to make with her father, to which Ratchet and his family got their first look at who they suspected was Dr. Nefarious, who happened to be a blue robot that was accompanied by what appeared to be a butler in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

"Robotic citizens of the Solana Galaxy!" the blue robot began, to which they all discovered that the butler robot was apparently using some sort of robotic sign language, "The hour of your liberation is at hand!  Too long have we robots suffered under the bigotry, the stupidity, the squishiness and foul stench of organic life forms!  Soon all robots will bask in the liberty and equality of my benevolent, iron-fisted rule!  And, as for you filthy organic life forms...you can look forward to being disintegrated!"

That was followed by some maniacal laughter and the camera that was recording the broadcast crashing to the floor, though neither of the robots seemed concerned about the fallen device.

"That's all for now." the blue robot said, before the broadcast was cut off, though whether it was him or someone else that cut it off Ratchet was unable to tell.

"Plot a course for Marcadia!" Sasha shouted at the soldiers around her, clearly more concerned for her father than anything else, which allowed her to forget how angry she had previously been, "Maximum speed. Prepare the dropship for planetary assault! We're going in..."

"We'll meet you there," Ratchet said, though he quickly made sure that they were out of the bridge before Sasha had a chance to remember that she was pissed off at them.

Once they made it back to their ship they quickly took it back to their starship, docked inside their own hanger, and made their way to the bridge, where they found Sunset waiting for them. Instead of asking how her meditation went, which Ratchet assumed had gone well due to the fact that she wasn't pissed or anything, they merely set their course for Marcadia and took off once more.





When they arrived at Marcadia, and flew down to the planet's surface, they discovered that they would have to fight through the city itself before they could reach the Presidential Compound. As they landed Starlight checked her tablet to see if she had any messages from Mr. Gadget, though she sighed in disappointment when she found that there were none. She had sent him the plans for the third RYNO weapon, the RY3NO as she called it, and had hoped that one could be made for their first official attack on the Tyhrranoids, but she would stick with the weapons that they had at the moment and hope that the weapon would be in her hooves before long.

Ratchet and Angela were equipped in the same manner as before, though they had taken some time to shower before their starship arrived outside Marcadia, so they were ready for whatever was waiting for them. Sunset, on the other hand, merely jumped out of the ship and walked up the path that was resting before them, though she elected to not bother with her armor anymore. She did, however, take a moment to see what weapons the vendor had for sale, just so she could see what her sister had designed while she had been busy meditating with the Cores they had recovered. She discovered three new weapons were available, in addition to the ones that her family already had; the Infector, the Suck Cannon, and the Spitting Hydra.

Once they were all done browsing the vendor, and Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight had picked up their new weapons, the group walked forward and followed the path until they came to the first group of enemies that were attacking the city. They found several of the small Tyhrranoids waiting in front of them, which were easily removable with a few blasts of a N60 Storm, before they found a pair of slightly bigger foes standing before a corner they needed to use. Starlight snapped up a shield as their enemies used their weapons to attack them, though once they stopped she and the others returned fire and cut them down where they stood. They then followed the pathway around the corner, where they came to an area that had at least ten enemies that were either trying to tear the place apart or were just plain bored at the moment.

It didn't take them long to tear the Tyhrranoids a new one, not with the assortment of weapons that they had at the moment, so they were free to advance without much delay. When they reached the next area of the city a drop ship came in and dropped off one of the battle mechs that their enemies had built, which had its lasers pointed at them as they stopped walking, though before it could turn its weapons on Sunset ignited her magic and crushed the mech where it was standing.

Ratchet had known, ever since they discovered that Sunset could even use magic, that both of his sisters were powerful when it came to their magical abilities, though seeing something like a mech being crushed like that made him thankful that they were on his side.

With the mech out of the way the group advanced down the only path that was available to them, where they used their weapons to blast any and all Tyhrranoids that happened to cross them, though Ratchet did notice that the bridge had been taken out during the assault. Another ship flew in as they approached the bridge and dropped off another mech, which was quickly destroyed when Starlight used her shield to reflect its attack back at it. She and Sunset then grabbed the third mech, that was standing on the other side of the bridge, and tore it in half before crushing the pieces, opening the way forward once more.

They then walked across the magical bridge that Starlight summoned, so that they wouldn't have to jump over it, and attacked the Tyhrranoids that were stationed on the other side of the bridge, though once they had been taken care of they followed the path until it brought them to a lone Ranger.

"Nice shooting Sir, Ma'am's!" the robot said as they approached, though it was clear that he was both praising them for their skills and thankful to see them, "A second wave of Tyhrranoids just landed! They're attacking the compound from the other side. We could sure use your help!"

Ratchet quickly confirmed that they were there to help and followed the Ranger to the drop ship that was waiting to pick them up, though once they were all aboard the ship sealed its doors and headed to the compound. Everyone, excluding Sunset, spent a few seconds restoring their ammunition thanks to the on board ammo synthesizer, allowing them to restock whenever they needed it. Ratchet then told Sunset that she should take to the skies when they arrived and focus her efforts on taking out the enemy drop ships before they could deposit additional enemies for them to fight, allowing the rest of them to focus on the enemies attacking the compound.

The plan, however simple it was, actually proved to be effective, as the moment they landed Sunset took to the air and flew around the battleground, tearing any drop ship that she found out of the sky with her magic. Some of the Tyhrranoids managed to survive the impact of their ship being destroyed and crashing to the ground, though they were quickly put in their place thanks to Ratchet and the others. Before they knew it the first wave of attackers was over, to which they swiftly restocked any ammunition they had spent before they walked off the ship and started the assault on whatever was coming next.

After that it was a simple matter to repeat what they did on every wave of attackers after the first one, to which Ratchet watched as Sunset tore the ships out of the sky and made sure that enemy reinforcements never arrived in large numbers. Eventually the Tyhrranoids got the message and stopped sending in more troops for Sunset to destroy, which led to the President leaving the compound to thank them for the assistance.

"Agent Clank!" the President said, shaking Clank's hand for a moment before facing the entire group, "Wow, you're even more impressive in person than you are on the holovid.  And I must say, I've never seen a butler fight like you do, son. And where would I be if I didn't take a moment to thank Android 18 as well? You definitely live up to what your maker designed you to be, though I must also thank you for keeping Agent Clank safe as well."

"Just doing our job, sir," Clank commented, noticing that the President didn't bother to thank Sunset, which he guessed was normal considering that the man actually believed that she was her character from the show.

"Sasha's told me a lot about you, though." the President said, pointing at Ratchet for a moment, so that they knew who he was speaking to, "Don't get any ideas, kid. She is way out of your league."

"That won't be a problem Mister President," Ratchet replied, wrapping one of his arms around Angela for a moment, "I've already got a girlfriend, and she'd be real upset if I started seeing someone else... not that I would date someone else at the moment."

The President almost seemed surprised that Ratchet had a girlfriend, again it was all thanks to the fact that he believed that they were their characters from the show, before he shook his head and turned back to Clank.

"The city's laser shield went down during the attack, and we are defenseless without it," the President said, which actually explained more than he actually knew, "I sent out a repairman to fix it, but he disappeared."

"Then we'll restore power to it," Angela said, to which the group saluted the President before they climbed back into the ship and headed for their next destination.





Getting to the defense center wasn't as hard as they originally thought, though when they stepped off the ship they found a gadget, produced by Gadgetron, that was called a Refractor, which basically took in lasers and fired them out again. It was similar to Starlight's shields in some regard, though she hadn't learned how to actually bounce the lasers off of her magic without hurting someone. Ratchet took the gadget in hand and led the way through the defense center, to which the rest of the group simply removed any and all obstacles that might hinder the process of restoring the city's shielding.

Every time Ratchet successfully opened the door that was blocking their path a small group of Tyhrranoids would charge out and attack them, leaving the rest of the group to take care of them with their hand held weapons. Occasionally a mech would appear in their path, to which either Sunset would crush it with her magic, Starlight would blow it up, or Angela, who had no magic, would put a well placed shot in a section of it and watch it explode. Eventually they came to an area that apparently had some sort of bridge for them to cross, though they removed the mech that was standing on the other side before they even bothered to cross, where they came to a room that had a little spider drone walking around.

Ratchet easily figured out that all he needed to do was use the gadget to direct the laser at the floor, to which the little spider would follow it until it was lined up with the socket on the other side of the wall, opening the door for them yet again. This time they removed a large amount of the smaller Tyhrranoids as they approached the next puzzle, which they had to turn a bolt crank to move a small platform before Ratchet could correctly reconnect the laser and open the door. He then quickly pieced together the next puzzle, made sure that the lasers were connected in the fight places, before the door in front of them opened and forced them to take out the rest of the enemies that had invaded the building.

When they rounded the corner, and came to the end of the building, they found their old friend Al standing in front of the console that connected to the city's defenses... though it appeared that there was a video game hooked up to the grid.

"Ah, silence at last," Al commented, pressing a few keys for a few seconds, "Now I can finally concentrate."

"What the?" Ratchet said, looking at the vid-comic, which had the symbol for Captain Qwark on the side, before turning to Al again, "Are you playing a Qwark vid-comic on the city's laser defense grid?"

"Impressive, isn't it?" Al replied, never taking his eyes off the screen as he bragged to them, though it was clear that he had no idea who he was talking to at the moment, "I simply bypassed the security server with a 626 hex matrix adapter, and reprogrammed the graphic subprocessor."

"Though it appears you have a feedback loop in the induction coils of your DB3 signal processor." Angela commented, taking a look at something and discovering the flaw herself, though she knew that Clank and the others were nodding in agreement.

"Impossible! I ran a recursive checksum on the signal matrix!" Al said, tapping some keys before something came to mind, "Though, judging as to why you are all here, that can only mean that Marcadia is under attack... and the recursive checksum wasn't told to take into account the power drain of an active bombardment... Give me just a moment..."

And just like that the power grid was back on, which meant that the city's defenses were as well, though before they departed Angela snatched the vid-comic from Al, promising to treat it gently until they were able to return it. Her reasoning was that this might actually help restore Qwark's missing memories, which they were still sure was a terrible idea considering what had occurred back in Bogon. Still, the President wanted Qwark to spearhead the assault against Dr. Nefarious, so they simply decided that they would roll with what the President wanted and hoped that something good came from what they were doing.

All they needed to do now was return to the Phoenix and see if the vid-comic would help Qwark... though Ratchet only wished that they could leave him in his monkey state so they wouldn't have to deal with whatever idiot plans he might come up with in the future.
> Arsenal: Annihilation Nation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When the Hyperion stopped in the space surrounding the Phoenix, which had been granted to them by the President, Ratchet and his family used their smaller ship to travel to the Phoenix's dock. Once they were aboard Sasha's ship Ratchet led the way to the area that Qwark was kept in, where they would find the game console that they could use to, hopefully, restore the former captain's memories. It was a long shot, considering that if they continued to show the image of Searing to him they might actually lose the man completely, so they had to accept that a video game was their only hope of bringing the man back to who he used to be. They were all still unsure if they even needed Qwark to help them defeat Dr. Nefarious, though Sunset did mention that he might have a secret or method that could help them, but she was willing to bet that there wasn't one.

In the end they sat around the game console, on the couch that happened to be sitting near Qwark's holding cell, where they had a brief discussion to see who would play the game, though it ended with Angela declaring that she wanted to give playing a video game a try. Ratchet, deciding to let her try, gave her a crash course on how to actually use the controller and how to play the game, to which Clank added that there were tokens they could find that would, somehow, give them bolts when they completed the game. It was strange, that much they could all agree on, but considering that everything that they had already been through this definitely wasn't the strangest thing they had seen.

Once Ratchet was done giving Angela the rundown on what she needed to do in order to play the game, and that all she really needed to do was make it to the end so they could see if it helped Qwark, Angela took a deep breath and started up the game. The moment they were through the opening sequence she got started and moved the character, though she rapidly died when she forgot how to make her character fight and had to start at the beginning. She was calm about dying the first time, as she expected that something like that would happen soon or later, though her mood started to sour when her character fell into one of the lower sections of the floor and was eaten by whatever creature was waiting there. Her third death was caused by one of the Space Pirates that had been put in the game, as it hacked the character to pieces as she tried to fight back, and the fourth dead was brought on by the rats that infested the ship.

A few more minutes passed, and quite the number of deaths, before Angela paused the game and took a deep breath, to which she handed the controller over to Ratchet.

"We'll be here forever if I keep playing," Angela said, though it was clear that she needed more practice before she would even consider playing another game, "Come on Ratchet, show us how its actually done."

Ratchet nodded and took the controller, to which he managed to navigate the character to the room with the episode's gun without taking a single hit. He then moved the character through the level, collecting the tokens that were scattered in his path and putting down every enemy that bared his way, before he made it to the room with the final boss. Angela, who was watching Ratchet play, happened to be taking notes on how he was moving the controller and what he did at a certain time, just so she could get better at the game and not die so frequently. Starlight and Sunset, on the other hand, merely sat on the couch and watched, though Sunset kept one eye on Qwark to see if any changes overcame him.

Eventually Ratchet toppled the boss and the game ended, allowing them to watch the credits of the episode, which happened to continue the story of Qwark's rise to fame in the next installment of the series.

"Well," a voice said, causing them to turn to the cage and find that Qwark was standing straight once more, though he happened to be looking in a mirror that the monkey on his shoulder was holding up, "who's that handsome devil?!"

"And now he's back," Sunset moaned, shaking her head as she got off the couch and headed for the ship's dock, "I'll be at the ship once your done updating him on what's happened."

"I see she still hates me..." Qwark said as he watched Sunset walk out of the room, without turning around to actually look at him, "though, to be fair, I guess I did technically turn her world upside down. So, um... what did I miss and why am I behind bars?"

"You thought that you were a monkey for a while there," Starlight explained, though before she could actually get to what the former captain had missed she noticed Sasha walking into the room, which meant that she needed to tell them something.

"I'll handle Qwark for now," Sasha told them, turning to Ratchet and Angela for a moment, "I need you to complete another mission while we get the Captain back in fighting condition. There's a battle arena called Annihilation Nation, where we've discovered that one of the recent prizes that they're offering for challengers is a Tyhrraguise, which apparently can let anyone disguise themselves as a Tyhrranoid. I would recommend that you head there, conquer whatever challenge that they throw at you, and retrieve the device, so that way we can use it for future infiltration missions."

Ratchet nodded and the group walked out of the room what would eventually become Qwark's, once he had recovered enough to actually use it, and informed Sunset of what they were doing as they climbed into their ship.





When they arrived at Annihilation Nation they discovered that there happened to be a rule that said that only one challenger could attempt the course at any given time, which meant that one of them was going to have to get their hands dirty. Sunset immediately backed out of it, because she had been forced into the arena twice in the Bogon Galaxy and she knew that she had two unfair advantages, her wings and her overpowered magic. Likewise Starlight opted out of fighting in the arena, mainly because she hated the idea of fighting in the arena despite the fact that they needed the device that they were offering.

In the end, however, Angela surprised Ratchet once more by offering to take on the course that would eventually lead to the arena, something that she was set on doing.

"I may not be good at video games," Angela said, tapping her weapons for a moment as she approached the course access point, "but ever since we've been together I've become more of a fighter and, believe it or not, I've actually gotten better at taking out my targets. This should, in theory, be relatively easy for someone like me to handle."

"Then you might as well take this," Sunset commented, levitating something out of her bag and handing it over to Angela, "I spent some time over the last year designing a new weapon just for you... something that I think you'll be pleased to have in the arena."

Angela smiled and took the weapon from Sunset, who then walked to where Starlight was sitting so they could watch her run through the obstacle course, before she turned back to Ratchet for a few seconds. Ratchet wrapped his arms around Angela for a moment, allowing Angela to calm down if she was too excited over what she was about to do, before planting a kiss on her cheek and heading to where his sisters were waiting. That was before he stopped halfway between them and Angela, to which he turned back to her with a smile on his face, which only made Angela smile back in return.

"Go and show them just how skilled you are," Ratchet said, to which Angela nodded and moved through the teleport pad, where she entered the obstacle course.

"Are you ready to play?" the announcer called out as Angela studied the path in front of her, "Alright! Let's meet our first contestant! Meet Angela Cross, one of the scientists of Megacorp from the Bogon Galaxy. She's here to see how our own arena measures up to the ones in her home galaxy... and to see if she can be the first to conquer our obstacle course!"

The fact that no one had conquered the course before her arrival should have been a way for Angela to know that this wouldn't be a walk in the park, but she had seen enough at the end of her previous adventure with Ratchet and his sisters. So long as Searing wasn't a part of the equation Angela knew that she had a strong chance at beating the course and claiming the gadget they had come for. She honestly didn't care what the announcer said about why she had come here, because she focused her mind on the task at hand and ignored him completely.

Once the announcer was done, and the course was officially open for her to start, Angela ran forward and jumped to the first platform that was waiting in front of her, making sure to get off of it before its flames torched her from below. She landed on the middle platform for a brief moment before pausing before the third platform, where the flames were still burning at the moment, though once the flames were gone she jumped to the one in front of her and then crossed into the building. She spotted a group of eight small robots, ones that were supposed to use blades to cut through enemies that came near them, so she pulled out the weapon she had been given and turned it on.

She was surprised to see a purple beam extend from the top of the weapon, though she was more surprised to see that a second beam extended from the bottom of the weapon as well. As the robots came at her she recovered from her confusion and used the weapon on her enemies, cutting them into pieces with ease until the entire room was cleared of them. She then pressed the button that was waiting in the middle of the room, which opened the door to her left, so she advanced through it and found an area that would force her to walk passed some laser stations. She used her left hand and pulled out her N60 Storm, using the gun to take out the turrets as she made her way through the small pathway that had been constructed in front of her.

When she reached the end she used the beam sword to cut down the larger robot that was waiting there, before she jumped up onto the next platform, where she found two more of the laser robots waiting for her. The N60 Storm proved to be useful in removing the enemies from her path, though she found a path that had flames coming from the floor waiting for her. She waited for a moment and then followed the flames until she reached the middle of the path, choosing to shoot down the laser robot from where she was standing before making her way across the rest of the obstacle.

The next room had more of the smaller robots, which were taken care of with the beam sword, before she moved through the right door and cut her way through both the swarm of small robots and the larger robot that was waiting in the next building. She then noticed that the final obstacle was one that involved sections of the wall that moved out to push people into the lava below, though she timed her jumps accurately and reached the end of the area without much harm coming to her. When she actually walked into the final area of the Death Course, which was actually much easier than what the announcer said it would be, she grabbed the first prize; the second Qwark vid-comic.

The arena itself, on the other hand, was what she expected it to be; an endless amount of enemies that rushed her from all directions and forced her to use something other than her new beam sword. She used her N60 Storm and various other weapons as she fought against the enemies that came at her, cutting them apart or forcing them to do the job for her with the Infector weapon. The gladiators seemed eager to have an opponent that could stand up to their barrage of attacks, though the few number of cuts that Angela sustained to her armor did nothing to stop her from bringing a swift end to their fight.

When the last of the gladiators fell, and there were no more for her to fight, she turned off the beam sword and accepted the prize that they had come for; the Tyhrraguise. She noticed that it was handed out by a celebrity that clearly didn't want to be here, as the robot star gave her the gadget and then left immediately. As Ratchet and the others joined her in the arena, which the announcer didn't argue with at the moment, the vid screen they used to communicate with others popped up beside them, showing Sasha once more.

"How's your progress going?" Sasha asked, as if she wanted to distract herself from whatever was happening aboard the Phoenix and they happened to be the best people to call.

"We've got what we came for," Angela replied, holding up the Tyhrraguise for Sasha to see, "though I may need to get some new armor soon... this one might be falling apart."

"Well, you'd all better get back to the Phoenix." Sasha told them, the annoyed part of her voice appearing yet again, "Now that Qwark no longer believes that he's a monkey, and is back in what he calls 'fighting condition', President Phyronix has put him in charge of the fight against Nefarious. Between us I think we should have just left him as a monkey and started planning our strategy to get rid of Nefarious, but I'm not in a position to make those decisions at the moment. Anyway, Qwark's called together the first team meeting... though something tells me he's got something stupid in mind."

Sunset held back what she was going to say to Sasha, because Qwark had been smart back in the Bogon Galaxy up until he had released Searing from her prison. There was no telling if Qwark was going to have a smart plan waiting for them or an idiotic plan... though she had the feeling that Sasha was right in her thinking.
> Arsenal: Phoenix, The Plan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ratchet got the Hyperion back to where the Starship Phoenix was stationed, and they had boarded the ship, he had to wonder what sort of plan Qwark had come up with while he and his family had been watching Angela tear the gladiators in Annihilation Nation apart. On their way back to the Phoenix they had all shared their ideas on what Qwark might want them to do in the fight against Dr. Nefarous, though they all shared their concerns that it might actually involve him asking if they could unleash the power of Searing upon their enemy. His plan in the Bogon Galaxy had been smart until he thought that he could remove Sunset's powers, which had eventually led to him suffering a massive wound that should have, by all rights, killed him after the attack had struck him.

Ratchet had always wondered what had happened to the captain after he ran away from the hospital a year ago, though it seemed that they had eventually gotten their answer. They assumed that one of the ships that had been at the hospital had been stolen by Qwark, though it wasn't hard for them to assume that his injury made it impossible for him to actually get very far before the ship was switched to autopilot. They guessed that Qwark must have accidentally picked a ship that could get him back to the Solana Galaxy, or it could have been on purpose considering who they were talking about, and had managed to crash land on Florana. From there they guessed that the natives must have hailed him as a fallen god of sorts, as it appeared that they had done their best to heal the captain's injuries and allowed him to seize control over the clan with little effort.

They were all curious as to how the captain could already be up and about as if nothing had happened to him, though Starlight told the others that Qwark might have some natural ability to rapid recover from whatever he's been doing. Ratchet knew that Qwark had no magical abilities, like what Sunset and Starlight had, so he knew that this was likely all they were going to come up with at the moment.

When they actually walked down the ship, towards the bridge where Qwark and Sasha were waiting for them, Angela spotted the armor vendor and looked down at her own armor. There were plenty of cuts and torn fabric everywhere on the armor she had worn when she had been trying to get Ratchet and his family out of Bogon, though she seemed a little sad to see it go. She then sighed for a moment before she approached the vendor, to which she activated the menu and spotted that there was actually something that she could get to replace what she was currently wearing. After a few seconds she pressed a few buttons and the vendor engaged itself, raising a metal cylinder that surrounded her and started switching her old armor with the new armor that was available.

When the cylinder lowered back into the floor she found that she was wearing a blue suit of armor, tailored to fit the style of her old armor no less, and that the vendor had even left her cape alone.

"So that's the new Magnaplate Armor," Starlight commented, eying the armor that Angela was now wearing, nodding her head as she looked at the armor, "I must say, it looks exactly like what Sunset and I designed. I hope that armor serves you well Angela."

Angela nodded and let Ratchet get the new armor as well, not so they could match in how they looked, but so he could be better protected when they were sent to whatever planet Qwark wanted them to visit in their quest to stop Nefarious. Once they were both wearing matching armor sets, and given Starlight's stamp of approval, the group continued their march to the bridge, as they were eager to hear what Qwark's master plan was supposed to be. As they walked into the bridge they found the familiar faces of Big Al, Helga, and Skid waiting for them, including the monkey that had accompanied Qwark from Florana.

Even Sasha was there, which was understandable considering that this was her starship, but she definitely looked pissed off about something, which Ratchet assumed was because she was basically having to give up command to Qwark.

"About time the five of you showed up," Qwark said, turning to the group as they walked down to where he and the others were waiting, "I was beginning to wonder if if any of you were going to bother coming to our first meeting."

"We stopped to pick up some armor, which I actually needed if I'm going to continue adventuring with my boyfriend," Angela replied, frowning at the man as they all came to a stop in front of him, "but now we're ready to hear whatever your plan is so we can deal with Dr. Nefarious and his army."

"Very well then. Welcome ladies and gentlemen..." Qwark began, before he remembered that Helga was standing before him as well and hastily spoke again, "oh, and Helga... Welcome to the Q Force! You have been assembled here because each of you is an expert in your particular fields. From Al's mastery of electronics, to Skid's nerves of steel, to Helga's sensual powers of seduction! And let's not forget that Ratchet has prior experience in exploring two different galaxies and Clank has his own technical advantages, while Angela is a master scientist and seasoned adventurer in her own right. And, I will freely admit it, but my vocabulary isn't large enough to tell you everything that Starlight is capable of doing and bring justice to the skills that she possesses."

When Qwark paused for a moment Ratchet noticed it immediately, along with the fact that the captain made no effort to mention everything that Sunset was capable of doing on her own, so he had to wonder what was coming next.

"Though I'm not going to lie to you, the Q Force was really my back up plan in case the first plan fell apart," Qwark admitted, causing most of the people that had been brought to the bridge to look at each other in confusion, though Ratchet noticed that Sunset was one of the few that weren't confused.

"They're your BACKUP PLAN?!" Sasha asked, anger filling her voice now, "Then tell us, oh brave and noble captain, what's the plan that you had thought of before deciding to assemble a team that we may or may not need?"

"Well, I had Al track some of Nefarious' previous purchases and found that he has a secret base on Planet Aquatos!" Qwark explained, to which the screen turned on and revealed a projected image of what the compound looked like, which Ratchet assumed that Al had a hand in creating as well considering that the images they saw weren't made by crayon, "It was... painfully easy to track him down, which is all thanks to the fact that he left his name on all of the orders and even gives the deliverers special times to arrive. Al managed to get a copy of the next order, which revealed that our enemy has a delivery coming tomorrow afternoon, so we know that he'll be at the base at that time and that he won't leave until its arrived.

My plan of attack was simple; we blow the planet to pieces and end his evil reign once and for all... without harming any innocent civilians in the process."

"Then its a good thing you assembled the 'Q Force', because that plan was stupid," Angela said, beating Ratchet to the punch, who had been getting ready to say something the moment he learned what the captain had been thinking, "The only known planet ending weapons were created by Chairman Drek and his Head Scientist, though the both of them are dead and their secrets were erased shortly after their deaths. Even if we had one of those weapons, which would take months to build, we'd never have the opportunity to use them as I'm sure our enemy would discover them and blow them to pieces before they were complete. Yes, we could try and lower the scale of such an explosion to the compound itself, but we'd never be able to sneak in all of the explosives necessary to pull it off.

We're just going to have to do things the old fashioned way and infiltrate his secret base... though ideally we would want to do it when Nefarious was away so we wouldn't risk being detected by him."

"What? I didn't mean those old fashioned weapons," Qwark said, waving his hands as if he was trying to dismiss what Angela had said, "I meant that we could use the Goddess of Destruction's powers to cause a cataclysm that would completely wipe Nefarious' base off of the face of Aquatos."

"Oh for the love of..." Sasha angrily growled, before shaking her head in an attempt to calm herself down as she faced the captain, "Even if we had the help of such a being, which we don't, we can't just go around destroying planets on a whim. It would turn us into the very thing we swore to destroy."

"Come on Sunset, help me out here." Qwark said, turning to Sunset for a moment, who turned her gaze away from the captain, "You know that we can end this before Nefarious does something that might not be reversible."

"Don't you look away from me." Sasha snapped, causing Qwark to turn back to her for a second, "I know that Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer have potent magical abilities that could turn the tide of our fight with Nefarious, I will admit that right now, but even the power of magic itself isn't enough to simply do what your asking."

Ratchet had the feeling that someone, be it Qwark or Sunset herself, was going to bring up the Yeedil Incident, which would show everyone just what Sunset was capable of doing when she was pissed off and possessed by Searing. Personally he and his family had grown tired of speaking of the event, so they stopped mentioning it completely about five months before they heard that Veldin was under attack, but it almost seemed like someone was going to mention it soon.

"That's actually not entirely accurate," Al commented, causing both Qwark and Sasha to turn to him for a moment, "I spoke to a friend of mine, who happens to be from the Bogon Galaxy, at a convention I went to a few months back and he told me about something everyone called the 'Yeedil Incident'. It used to be called the Yeedil Episode, but then people decided that it would be better to call it an Incident instead of an Episode, though I think you'll be interested in hearing what actually happened during the Incident. According to what I heard from my friend, and I have no reason to believe that he lied to me, there was a massive earthquake that struck the planet of Yeedil, eventually creating a cataclysm that destroyed much of the civilization that called that planet home."

"I'm still not seeing how magic is involved in all of this," Sasha said, looking more confused once she heard what Al had said, which meant that she didn't believe that the power that Sunset and Starlight wielded could be responsible for what Qwark was suggesting.

Sunset sighed and closed her eyes, though she opened her wings for a moment and tapped Starlight with her left wing, before she closed them once more. Starlight shook her head and pulled out her tablet, easily connecting to the screen that they were apparently using and scrolled through her videos before she found the one she was looking for. She had no desire to see this video again, and she knew that Sunset didn't need to see it again either, but she guessed it was necessary so their allies knew exactly what Qwark was asking them to do.

"What all of you are about to see is what the people of Bogon call the Yeedil Incident," Starlight said, starting the video on the screen as she lowered her tablet.

Searing, in all of her corrupted glory, appeared on the main screen, causing Al, Helga, Skid, and Sasha to jump back in surprise as they gazed upon the demon for the first time, while Qwark, on the other hand, touched his chest as if he was remembering something. There were a seconds delay before the video showed the fight between Qwark and Searing, allowing the rest of the Q Force to watch as the demon survived Qwark's barrage of attacks and emerged unharmed. It even showed the energy attack that Qwark had prepared in case Searing was more powerful than he had originally thought, but then it got to the part that Starlight wanted to show all of them. They reached the part of the video where Searing grabbed Qwark, tossed him into the air, and used her potent magic to crack the air in front of his chest.

The Q Force watched as the facility the two combatants were standing in was split into two halves, struck by the very earthquake that Al had mentioned, until the video was over.

"What Qwark wants is for Sunset to unleash that level of power on Aquatos," Starlight explained, removing the video from the main screen before putting her tablet away, "Personally, I would recommend that you all ignore that plan altogether and plan for an infiltration in a few days."

"We can end this is a single go," Qwark replied, turning to Sunset again, who was trying her best to ignore the captain completely, "One area of Aquatos is all that needs to be destroyed, not the entire planet. We can get rid of Nefarious and save the galaxy from whatever foul plans he's currently planning... all I ask is that you use the power you were given and erase his secret base."

"The consequences of even doing that are unacceptable," Sunset growled, trying her hardest to keep her anger in check, because she feared that she might relapse into Searing if she gave into her anger, "Innocent people will get hurt in the end, regardless if they were close to where the secret base is located or if they were further away from it, and the entire planet will either shake or do something else in response to whatever attack I unleashed. Or maybe something else might happen, something that none of us were expecting, and cause even more destruction that what your asking of me. Honestly Qwark, you're stupid to even consider that using my power in such a manner would have no consequences at all..."

Ratchet, along with everyone else in the room, noticed that Sunset stopped in what appeared to be the middle of her rant, though he noticed something different that appeared to be happening. His sister moved one of her hooves to her chest as she started to cough, though that was seconds before she moaned in pain as she briefly opened her left eye, which Ratchet noticed had changed to Searing's eye color. Ratchet's worst fears were being realized; Qwark's idiotic plan to use Sunset's power to basically destroy Aquatos had risen her anger to the point where Searing was trying to reassert herself again. It was the relapse that they had all feared was coming one day, but at least they had measures in place to stop the demon from resurfacing once more.

"I... won't... let her... OUT!" Sunset struggled to say, clearly fighting against Searing the entire time as her magic surrounded her, before she disappeared from the bridge completely.

"I had better go with her," Starlight commented, engaging her magic as she followed after her sister, to which she disappeared from the bridge and teleported over to the Hyperion.

"What... just happened?" Sasha asked, turning to Ratchet and Angela for a moment, because they were more familiar with what was happening and could provide her with the answers to the questions that were running through her mind at the moment.

"Qwark's stupid plan almost let Searing out into the universe again," Angela said, letting out a sigh as she turned to the rest of the Q Force, "Apparently the Raritanium Cores have the power to force Searing back whenever she takes over, so Sunset, Starlight, and I devised a cell that Sunset can stay in whenever this happens. The cell will ensure that the demon doesn't escape, while draining Sunset of her energy... so she'll be out for a few days at most. What we should do is plan our infiltration of Nefarious' secret base, because blowing it up simply isn't the answer."

Everyone else voiced their agreement, leaving Qwark to admit defeat on the matter and bow to Angela's wisdom, something that would have made Angela smile if she wasn't worried about Sunset.





Sunset appeared in the room that contained the Cores they had collected, which were beginning to glow now that Searing was trying to break free once more. She was fortunate that she and her family had devised a way to push Searing back, which involved using the Cores to create a barrier that would trap her inside a cell, one that was designed to make sure the demon failed to escape. The potent magical energies of the Cores happened to be powerful enough to prevent Searing from going anywhere, which meant that the cell Sunset and her family had created would be able to use that power to bind the demon once more.

She barely had time to take a step towards the cell when another wave of Searing's energy struck her hard, sending her right to the floor as she felt the demon fighting to get out again.

"Celestia!" a voice behind her said, one that she immediately recognized as Starlight's voice, though that was followed by Starlight's magic wrapping around Sunset and pulling her off the floor.

"I am here Starlight," the white alicorn said as she phased into the room they were in, before her sensors detected something off about Sunset's energies, "I detect that Searing is making another attempt to escape... shall I begin the Containment Protocol?"

"Yes," Starlight replied, gently pulling Sunset into the cell they had constructed and lowered her onto the bed, before backing out of the cell and closing the door behind her, "Don't worry Sunset, we'll make sure that Searing doesn't escape or hurt anyone."

Sunset groaned as she lifted her head up to face her sister, taking a moment to nod her head before she closed her eyes so she could let the Cores work their magic. Starlight watched as the container that the Cores were held in started to glow, which was followed by the barrier phasing into existence around the entire cell. The seemingly ancient magic of the Cores moved from the barrier and wrapped around Sunset, aiding her in her fight against Searing once more, just like when Starlight had used Honesty back on Yeedil.

"She'll be out for at least two days, maybe three," Celestia commented, looking at the sleeping form of Sunset for a few seconds, before turning her attention to Starlight, "Go. Be with the rest of your family. The others and I will watch over the ship and make sure that nothing happens to Sunset while you're gone."

Starlight didn't want to leave Sunset alone, especially during a time like this when Searing was stopped from taking over and Sunset had to recover from the ordeal, because her sister would be vulnerable until she recovered. As she thought about all the safety measures that she and the others had placed in this room, to keep both the Cores and Sunset, whenever she needed to use the cell, safe from whoever attempted to steal them, she had to wonder if it might be best to stay here for the first time that Sunset used the room. Once that idea crossed her mind she shook her head and turned to the hologram, which had been patiently standing near her the entire time.

"I'm sure that Sunset will be fine... just keep me updated on her condition while I'm gone." Starlight said, to which the hologram nodded her head once she had made up her mind.

With the decision made Starlight summoned her magic once more and teleported back to the Phoenix, though she was eager to hear what the back up plan was for dealing with Nefarious. When she reappeared on the bridge, and walked up to where the others were busy planning the plan that they would actually use, she was happy to hear that their plan of attack was to infiltrate the secret base and see if their enemy was foolish enough to leave his secrets out in the open. Apparently they had come up with the idea that Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela would lead the assault through the tunnels at the edge of the base, where they would meet up with Skid and hack their way to a certain portion of the base.

Starlight was sure that they didn't need five of them to infiltrate the secret base, as it would raise their chances of being detected, but she decided to roll with it this time. It was definitely better than trying to blow the base up and cause consequences to the surrounding area around where it had been built by their enemy. She hoped that Qwark didn't try anything funny while they were gone, as she wasn't sure what he would do now that Sunset was locked in a cell, but she also hoped that Sasha kept the captain on the Phoenix until they were done with Nefarious.
> Arsenal: Aquatos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Angela prepared to leave the Phoenix, so that they could start their infiltration of Nefarious' secret base, Starlight thought of something that would change their entire approach; the Hyperion itself. She had taken some time to think about what they were doing and decided that they should leave the Hyperion near the Phoenix, because Nefarious was sure to have some sort of security system that would warn him if uninvited guests were anywhere near the planet. The Hyperion would be easily spotted if they got too close to the planet, so Starlight proposed that they leave the starship behind for the moment so that the element of surprise was on their side. Ratchet, Clank, and Angela seemed hesitant to leave the ship near the Phoenix, but in the end they agreed with her and climbed into their smaller ship.

Starlight understood why they had hesitated in making a decision, because if they left the Hyperion here, with Sunset still aboard it, there was a greater chance of Qwark messing with their sister. That was why she had made sure that Sasha agreed to keep Qwark 'grounded' on the Phoenix until they got back, because the last thing they needed at the moment was Searing running around the galaxy. She also made sure to shoot Qwark a glance as she climbed into the ship, hoping that it would dissuade the man from making any decisions that he might come to regret, before they finally departed from the Phoenix.

Qwark, on the other hand, decided not to pay attention to the look that Starlight threw at him, as he turned around and made his way towards the room he had been given.

"And just where are you going Qwark?" Sasha asked, making sure that the man didn't try to leave the starship and visit the Hyperion, because after watching that video she knew that releasing 'Searing' would be more disastrous than helpful.

"To my quarters," Qwark replied, waving a hand back at her without turning his head in her direction, "I have some reports to read on Nefarious' other movements and an afternoon nap to follow. I'll let them enjoy their adventure on Aquatos."

Sasha shook her head as the man walked towards the room that he would have been sharing with Ratchet, until she had discovered that they had their own starship, because she knew that Qwark was planning something... something that involved Sunset and Searing. She made a mental note to ask Al to keep an eye on Qwark, because everyone on the Q Force agreed that there had to be little interaction between Qwark and Sunset. She only hoped that this was enough to prevent that demon from resurfacing in Solana... and prayed that Sunset was strong enough to keep Searing contained.





Clank and Starlight received a call from the producer of Secret Agent Clank on their way towards Aquatos, though by the tone of his voice it was painfully clear that he wanted them back so they could finish filming the next episode of the show. It then developed into a back and forth between them and the producer, where Starlight mentioned that if the galaxy was destroyed or enslaved by Nefarious then there would be no one to watch the show. After a few attempts to get them back to quickly film the next episode, some of which would have enticed people like Qwark around, the producer finally gave up and let them have their way, knowing that they would eventually return to the studios when they had an opportunity to do so.

When the group arrived at their destination, and somehow managed to get into the secret base without any alarms going off, they climbed out of their ship and noticed that there was a second ship docked in the area they had landed in. They knew that Skid was planning on meeting them at the base, and they figured that they would have arrived before he would, but they were surprised to see that he had actually arrived before them. They quickly visited the weapon vendor and restocked their weapons, before they picked up the latest weapons that were available; the Agents of Doom and the Flux Rifle.

Starlight was, once more, delighted to see that more of her weapons had made it to the market, but she was also disappointed that the RY3NO had yet to appear yet, or the fact that Mr. Gadget had yet to email her about it.

The moment they had all of their ammunition situated, and they were familiar with their new weapons, they rode the elevator down to the sewer, where they found Skid waiting for them. He was still dressed in the same strange clothing that Qwark had given him, showing that he was a member of the Q Force, but he wasn't carrying any weapons on him. It made sense considering that the three of them were supposed to be the muscle that fought their way through the base, though Angela noticed that Skid was carrying a hacking device that reminded her of one of Megacorp's hacking gadgets.

"Hey there dudes and dudettes!" Skid said as they approached him, a smile appearing on his face, "I take it that your ready to get the operation underway?"

"Correct." Ratchet replied, pulling out one of his weapons, the N60 Storm, while Angela and Starlight did the same with their chosen weapons, "Let's just hope that Nefarious' defenses don't reveal our infiltration mission to him... otherwise we'll have to literally tear our way out of this place with whatever we find."

Their first enemies happened to be the amoeboids that they had seen back in Blackwater City, making Ratchet wonder if that had been Nefarious' attempt in overrunning the city without directly attacking it. The slimy creatures separated into two separate beings when they were hit, and then into a group of four when smacked a second time, but even their ability to rapidly divide themselves couldn't stand up to the pressure the group put on them. When they opened the door in front of them they found what appeared to be a pair of security robots, who were firing at the amoeboids that jumped out of the liquid on the right side of the room. They waited until the slimy creatures were dealt with before they opened fire on their new enemies, quickly removing them from the area as they moved onward.

They opened the next door that was blocking their path and spotted a bridge that happened to be out at the moment, though while Skid worked his magic on the terminal to their right Starlight grabbed the security robot that was coming their way and dragged in into their line of fire, allowing them to tear it apart in seconds. Once the bridge was fully extended they crossed into the next room, where they encountered another security robot that happened to be silently waiting for intruders to come by. This time Angela threw her twin sided beam sword at the robot and cut into its chest, before she jumped up to her weapon, pulled it out, and beheaded the robot.

"Seriously dude, if you weren't dating her I'd be trying my chances with her," Skid told Ratchet, just as Angela walked by them, opened the door to the next room, and spun the weapon around, "She is one smoking hot babe."

"If it weren't for Ratchet dating her, she'd be back in the Bogon Galaxy," Starlight commented, though she was somewhat amused that Skid even thought that he had a chance with Angela.

"Can we please focus?" Angela asked, cutting through another of the security robots with her beam sword, though it was clear that she actually enjoyed the weapon more than the guns that Starlight had made so far, "I'd like to be out of here before our enemy realizes that we've invaded his 'secret' base."

Ratchet nodded and the group fell in behind Angela, who apparently had become the second in command for their little group, before they stopped at a door that had the switch to open it on the other side. They noticed that there was a pool of water that they could swim through, but before anyone could speak their mind Starlight teleported to the other side of the door and stepped on the switch, allowing them all to continue forward. To the right of the room they walked into appeared to be a sealed off drainpipe, which they assumed that they would have had to find a way to unblock if they had gone for a swim, but they paid it no mind as they approached the next bridge in front of them.

As Skid worked on the terminal the rest of the group took down the security robot that was coming their way, though once the bridge was extended they approached another sealed off door that required the use of the switch in front of it. When they opened this door, and got a good look at what was waiting for them, Starlight held them back for a few seconds as the three security robots went to town on the amoeboids that were walking around the room. Once the amoeboids were taken care of they charged out of where they were standing and attacked the three robots, rapidly destroying them before they really had a chance to fight back, though their progress was halted when they came to another door that had the switch on the other side.

Starlight sighed and repeated the process she had used to get around the first door, allowing them to approach a small chamber that had a third bridge for them to walk across. Skid went to town on the terminal while the others removed the three security robots that came to fight them, though once the hacking was complete, and the bridge was extended, they approached an elevator that took them to another section of Nefarious' secret base.

There Ratchet and Starlight found a character that they had assumed they had left behind in the Bogon Galaxy; Slim Cognito, the man they had purchased all of their ship upgrades from so they could best the flyers from Thugs-4-Less. Slim offered them some more weapons upgrades, and maybe some Bogon weapons in case they wanted them, but Ratchet merely told him that they would be back if they ever wanted them. Skid, on the other hand, declared his part of the operation a success and walked onto the teleport pad that was sitting nearby, heading back to his ship so that he could rejoin the rest of the Q Force.

Unfortunately Angela was doing the same thing, because she had powered down her beam sword and had taken a few steps towards the pad before Ratchet had stopped her.

"This next part of the operation is best left to you and Clank, though I suspect that you'll need Starlight once you reach Nefarious' office," Angela commented, though she gave Ratchet a hug before he and the others rode the pod to the area they needed to infiltrate, without being caught, "I'm just going to go back to our ship and see if I can't get an update from those AI that are controlling the Hyperion, just so I can see how Sunset's doing."

Angela could see that Ratchet was used to his other sister being beside him, because he had turned to his left as if he was expecting her to be there for a moment, but then he sighed and nodded his head. They all knew that Sunset needed time to relax and seal Searing once more, all because of Qwark being a complete idiot when it came to dealing with Nefarious. Once they were back in the mindset they needed to be in Angela departed from this area of the base, while Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight got in the nearby pod and began the journey to the area of the base that held the information they needed to acquire.





It didn't take them very long to reach their next destination, though when they arrived Starlight noticed the vent that Clank was able to climb through and knew that she'd have a hard time fitting inside it. That was why she gave Clank an experimental device that looked like one of the teleport pads they occasionally used, though she claimed that this was a modified one that locked onto her magic so she could teleport to it. Clank stowed the device away and climbed through the vents, while Ratchet waited until his friend was where he was supposed to be before watching Starlight disappear completely. Ratchet then breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that Starlight was with Clank, to which he activated the device that Angela had won in the arena and got the show on the road.

Clank and Starlight navigated their way through the upper levels of the building they were in, using Starlight's magic to distract any security devices that appeared along the way and cross any gaps that needed a switch pressed. At one point they stopped so Ratchet could raise a girder that was blocking his path, allowing him to speak with the rest of the Tyhrranoids that were working in this section of the base. It was at that point that both Clank and Starlight learned that Ratchet had studied the manual that had come with the device that he was now wearing, allowing him to easily maneuver his way to the girder in question and get it out of his way.

With the girder raised, and Ratchet continued on his own path to the end, Clank and Starlight resumed their own trek as they navigated through a spinning laser and passed through an area that required one of them to hold the door open, which Starlight was happy to do considering that she could easily teleport to Clank once he was on the other side. Starlight, again, used her magic to remove a spinning robot that was blocking her way, before using it once more to get both her and Clank past a pair of security devices that were floating around the area. She then allowed them to pass through the security door, thanks to teleportation, before they lowered themselves into the room where Nefarious kept all of his plans, where Ratchet was already searching for what they had come for.

It was then that Starlight used a duplication spell, allowing her to make an exact copy of the computer's hard drive, which she carefully stowed away in her bags. It also served as an amusing distraction from the fact that Nefarious apparently liked Secret Agent Clank, because there was a bookshelf that had almost every episode of the show on it... including some figurines of Secret Agent Clank and Android 18. She also knew it made sense not to see a figurine of Ratchet's character, as he wasn't one of the most popular characters according to the various polls the producer did, or Sunset's character, as she had yet to show her face on screen and that prevented most companies from making any 'Darkstar' figurines.

Just as they were about to depart, however, Starlight noticed something that made her pause, because she noticed a light blue crystal that was sitting on the bookshelf with the Secret Agent Clank merchandise that Nefarious had either bought himself or had stolen.

"Is that the third Raritanium Core?" Ratchet asked, spotting the gemstone at the same time that Starlight did, though as he reached out to take it he found that his hands were bound by magic, "Hey, what gives Starlight?"

"If we take this Core off of the base than I'm sure that Nefarious will hear some sort of alarm go off," Starlight commented, pulling Ratchet away from the Core before releasing him, "We know where it is for the future, so let's get out of here while we still can. We'll come back for it once we've defeated Nefarious."

Ratchet knew that Starlight hated to leave the gemstone in the base of their enemy, because it would allow them to gain more control over Searing and allow Sunset to be with them more often, but he knew that she made a valid point. It would be unwise to take the Core away from this place, not when their enemy might be returning in the near future and discover that the stone had been taken, revealing that his base was no longer a secret.

With the job done they jumped into the nearby tube and began their descent into what they suspected was the sewers, but before they reached the bottom Starlight caught them with their magic and levitated them to the very end of the massive sewer system... where they found someone working on a much smaller pipe.

"As, right on time," the man said, turning around to face them, only to discover that there was someone missing in their group, "I guess introductions are in order... I am the Plumber!"

"I... I can see that," Ratchet commented, not really knowing what else to say at the moment, "What are you doing down here, in the bowels of a sewer?"

"This here's one of the nastiest, smelliest sewers in the galaxy." the Plumber replied, taking a deep breath while both Ratchet and Starlight engaged their O2 Masks to keep the smell out of their noses, "Most guys wouldn't set foot in a place like this.  But me? Ah, I just can't get enough. But to actually answer your question, I'm looking for sewer crystals. Gonna make somethin' special for the Missus."

He showed them the harvested version of the crystal he wanted, mentioning that if someone didn't know how to clean them up then they would shatter the crystal into a pile of dust. He also mentioned that he was willing to buy any crystals that they might have found on their journey through the base, at two thousand bolts per crystal no less. Starlight knew that they didn't need the money, as they had enough bolts thanks to all the weapons that she had given Gadgetron over the last few years, but she was eager to gave the man everything that he was searching for.

She looked at the crystal with her magic, examining the matrix of the stone, before she threw a spell into the nearby sewer tunnel and waited for a few seconds. That was before they heard the sound of crystals breaking and what they could only assume was the death screams of some rather large amoeboids, to which Starlight summoned a pile of stones in front of her. The Plumber was impressed that she had gone through the effort to gather every crystal that was ready for harvesting, giving him plenty to work with in case he screwed up in making whatever he was designing for his wife. Before the group departed the Plumber pulled out his own tablet, something that none of them even expected him to have, and made a quick transfer to Starlight's account, giving her the payment for collecting all of the crystals for him.

With their actual mission completed, and a rather interesting side mission fulfilled, they boarded a nearby pod and rode back to where their ship, and Angela, were waiting for their return. Once they were back together they hopped back into their ship and took off, though they were all interested in seeing what Nefarious had planned for the galaxy now that they had a copy of his hard drive.
> Arsenal: Tyhrranosis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, Angela, and Skid returned to the Phoenix they found Al waiting for them by where they landed their ships, telling them that he was eager to get started on decoding whatever they had managed to get their hands on. Ratchet and Angela were also eager to see what they had uncovered, so the group followed Al back to the bridge, where they discovered that Qwark was nowhere to be seen. As most of their group gathered around where Al would be working, so they could be there the moment he uncovered something, Starlight walked over to where Sasha was sitting, who was currently staring out one of the windows.

"Qwark never left the ship," Sasha told Starlight as she approached, knowing what the unicorn was going to ask before she opened her mouth to speak, "so Sunset should have gotten some decent rest while you guys were gone."

"That's good to hear," Starlight said, a smile appearing on her face for a moment, knowing that Qwark would have done something to her sister if someone hadn't prevented the captain from leaving.

"And I got tired of sleeping in that cell," a voice behind them said, to which Starlight turned around to see Sunset staring there, looking more like the happy alicorn that she was before Qwark had ruined her mood, "Searing is bound up once more... until our friend decides to say something stupid and annoy me again. So, how did the infiltration of Nefarious' secret base on Aquatos go?"

Starlight spent the next half hour telling Sunset, and by extent Sasha, exactly what had happened during their trek through the underwater secret base. Ratchet came over to them and put in his parts, where he revealed where he and Clank worked together to get through the second half of the base by using the gadget that Angela had acquired in the arena. Starlight also mentioned the new weapons that had become available, causing Sunset to nod her head a few times when she heard what had a weapon was supposed to do, before they eventually reached the end of their tale.

Once the tale was over Sunset explained that the two Cores they had recovered had blocked Searing from escaping, which was what they were supposed to do, and that she would likely be unable to perform her usual levels of magic for a day or two while she was recovering. That didn't mean that she would have to sit the next planet out, as she was eager to help her family save their home galaxy from whatever Nefarious had planned for them all. Ratchet and Starlight were glad to have Sunset back, though they both knew it was a matter of time until something happened that made her sit in the cell again.

A few minutes later and Al had cracked through part of the information that Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight had taken from Nefarious' secret base, though it was also at that time that Qwark walked into the bridge. While everyone turned to see what Qwark had planned next for their against the evil doctor, Sunset turned towards the window and ignored the captain. Sasha and the rest of the Q Force knew why Sunset didn't trust the captain at all, considering that he was now trying to harness her destructive powers and use them in their fight to save the galaxy. Especially since they knew what had happened to the last planet that had suffered the wrath of Searing's powers, which had almost been the complete destruction of Yeedil.

It was at times like this that Ratchet wondered why Qwark was even in charge of this mission, but then sighed as he knew that the President had no idea what had happened to Yeedil a year ago and who was responsible for the planet's near destruction.

"Thanks to Al we know where our enemies, the Tyhrranoids, are coming from," Qwark declared, clearly getting ready to tell them his 'brilliant' plan that would remove one of Nefarious' forces from the table, "And I, in the span of a whole minute, have devised a brilliant plan to put a stop to this alien menace once and for all!"

"So long as it doesn't involve using my power to blow their home to pieces," Sunset immediately responded, not even bothering to turn to Qwark when she made the comment.

"Oh come on, Tyhrranosis has plenty of islands that aren't inhabited," Qwark said, clearly still attempting to get Sunset to use some of her power, something that Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Angela knew that wouldn't be happening anytime soon, "We can easily pick one, blow it up, and show Nefarious just what he's dealing with... and that will tell him that he had better cease his operations least the same happen to him."

"Oh by the Maker, will you leave my power alone?" Sunset snapped, turning to the captain and growling at him for a few seconds, "Stop asking me to blow islands or planets to pieces... it will NEVER happen!"

"Then onto the actual plan then," Qwark said, turning to the rest of the assembled Q Force, leaving Sunset to let out a sigh before turning her attention back to what was outside the window, "Once we arrive at Tyhrranosis Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Angela will all have to free fall from the dropship to take out the mortar launchers that will be used against us. Once the path is clear the rest of us will follow suit shortly after, while Ratchet and his family will head out and take out the four plasma cannons that are scattered across the main island. When the cannons are taken out we will spearhead an assault on the main compound, while the rangers take the dropship out to Kavu Island and deal with any other enemies that are on the island.

With any luck Nefarious will be watching as his allies are taken apart and he'll reconsider attacking the rest of the galaxy with whatever else he's got in his arsenal."

"And what will I be doing?" Sunset asked, knowing that she needed to do something other than keeping Searing locked up in her cage, otherwise she was sure to go crazy as she had nothing else to do... other than try and learn how to use more spells while she waited for her magic to return to her.

"You will be overseeing the rangers that we send to Kavu Island," Qwark replied almost immediately, as if he had been expecting that particular question to come up, though something about the way he said it made Sunset worry that he wasn't telling the whole truth, "The assault will being in a few hours, so you had best prepare yourselves."





Qwark had been true to his word when he said that the assault would take place in a few hours, as the moment that Ratchet and his family had returned to the Phoenix the ship had begun its journey in the direction of Tyhrranosis, as if Qwark had believed that they would be heading that way before even knowing. To pass the time Angela and Sasha had gone to the training room to practice with sparring weapons, nothing too lethal while they tested each others skills. Starlight, Ratchet, and Clank went over the part of the island that they would be free falling down to, making sure that they knew where to go before they even touched the ground.

Sunset, on the other hand, had taken the four rangers that would be falling with her family to the Hyperion, which was traveling alongside the Phoenix, where she modified some of their armor and gave them new weapons and personalities. The rangers, in their original forms, would never be able to survive the battle that they would soon be a part of, so she had taken it upon herself to at least give them a fighting chance... and give them some new armor to make sure that they survived the assault.

When they finally arrived at their destination, and the two starships stopped just outside the planet's atmosphere, Sunset returned the four rangers to the dropship, keeping them hidden with some cloaks so that no one would be able to tell what they looked like before they finished their descent.

"I can't wait to see what you did to those rangers," Qwark commented, looking at the cloaked figures for a few seconds before turning to the assembled group, "Well then, you know what you need to do."

Ratchet gave the captain a nod, more so that he knew that they would get their job done, as the door of the dropship closed and they began their descent towards the drop point, where they would begin their assault on the Tyhrranoid forces. After a few minutes the ship came to a stop at its destination, where the door opened and the cloaks that had been covering the rangers came off, leaving Ratchet to stare at them for a moment. Sunset must have gone overboard when she had been working on the upgrades, because these four rangers looked nothing like the rangers that she had taken onto the Hyperion. They looked more like dragons than the rangers they had been, though their colors were all different, leaving Ratchet to wonder what else had been changed.

The first one, a blackened dragon-ranger, cracked its clawed hands and charged out of the dropship, unfurling its metallic wings as it began its descent towards the area they were supposed to be landing in. The second ranger, baring a grey colored suit of armor, let out what Ratchet assumed was a sigh before following the lead robot out of the ship. The other two robots, one red colored while the other was dark green colored, took a second or two to take in what was happening before they followed the other two out of the ship. Ratchet looked at Starlight and Angela for a moment, wondering if they even needed to make the jump, but decided to get it over with and began his own descent towards the stronghold beneath them.

As he and the others followed the rangers down towards the ground he noticed that none of the missiles got anywhere near them, but when he looked at Starlight she shook her head and pointed at one of the rangers in front of them, to which he watched as the grey one blew every missile out of the air.

"I am AL-DU-IN!" the black dragon-ranger shouted as he landed, slamming his fist into the first group of enemies that he came to, causing an explosion that mimicked the Nitro Launcher bombs.

"Do save some for the rest of us," the red one commented, shooting a nearby enemy in the head with an N60 Storm shell, while the green one loosed a swarm of minions that tore into the other enemies in front of them.

The grey one remained silent as the four of them continued their assault on the building that was in front of them, while Ratchet and his family followed along so they could clean up any enemies that they might miss. They soon realized that Sunset really went overboard with the upgrades, because the four dragon-rangers were decimating their enemies until they reached the area where they met up with the dropship again. There they found a vehicle that they could use to get around the island, so while they determined where to go next the empowered rangers took the fight to the plasma cannon to their left.

With the help of the new rangers Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela quickly cut their way through the enemies that they found when they went to deal with the plasma cannons that prevented the dropship from getting close to the main part of the stronghold. It took them an hour to fight through all the Tyhrranoids that had been stationed on Tyhrranosis, which only told them that Nefarious must have been expecting an attack on this planet and had prepared accordingly. Eventually they cut through the hundred or so enemies that had been waiting for them and dealt with the last of the cannons, allowing the dropship to fly in and blow the door to their main building wide open.

As Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela made their way into the main building, so they could deal with the leader of the Tyhrranoids, Ratchet couldn't help but wonder if he had missed something in the briefing, because the only readings he was getting from the dropship were that of his sister and Qwark.





"Ah, there it is, Kavu Island, a hive of Tyhrranoids that needs to be dealt with," Qwark commented, staring down at the island from the dropship, while his companion wouldn't look at him or the island, "So... what price do I have to pay to get you to reconsider unleashing your destructive power and use it to destroy this island?"

"What part of no don't you understand?" Sunset snapped, glaring at the captain as the dropship came to a stop above the island, "I'm not a destroyer, despite the fact that you think I am."

"And what does Searing think about the fact that you don't want to destroy anything, be it a landmass or your enemies?" Qwark asked, noticing a change in Sunset's eyes that lasted a few seconds before vanishing, "As I thought, I can tell that she's annoyed about not having the opportunity to exercise her powers..."

"You are lucky that I can't use most of my magic, otherwise I'd be tempted to just obliterate you and blame the Tyhrranoids," Sunset growled, turning her gaze away from the idiotic captain for a moment, "Let's just head back to the mainland, pick up the rangers and my family, and then you can watch the defeat of the Tyhrranoids."

Qwark remained silent for a few seconds, as if he was thinking about his actions and how best to apologize to Sunset for wanting to use her powers in such a manner. Sunset, on the other hand, didn't trust the silence that was emitting from the captain, though that made her wonder if he was planning something while her back was turned. She wouldn't put it past the man to try something to awaken Searing from her slumber, which he would be crazy to think was just fine, but Sunset knew that letting the demon out was the last thing the galaxy needed at the moment.

"Then you leave me no choice." Qwark said, pulling something out from behind his back and slamming it into the back of Sunset's head, giving her little time to think about what was happening before she was knocked out cold.

Qwark waited for a few seconds, to which he dropped the hammer like object that he had crafted in the few hours that Ratchet and his family had been on Aquatos, but for a moment he wondered if he had made a mistake. Based on his previous experience with the demon, of which there were two, he knew that Searing could be awakened by pure emotions or something overpowering Sunset's own powers. It was a gamble, to smack Sunset unconscious and expect the demon to take over, but at the moment he needed Searing's powers so he could show Nefarious what he was up against. That was until Sunset picked herself up and shook her head for a second or two, before turning to where Qwark was standing and opening her eyes.

Qwark felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted Searing's eye color had replaced Sunset's own, telling him that the demon was definitely in control at the moment.

"Ah, so you let me out of my cage again," Searing commented, once again twisting Sunset's voice into a hollowed version of itself, while a smile appeared on her face, "So tell me Qwark, what do you desire most; your death, or destruction?"

"I need your power to teach an old enemy of mine a lesson," Qwark replied, beckoning to the island below them, to which Searing turned her head towards the landmass, "I would like you to destroy this island, where my enemy's troops have built a base so they can further their attack on the rest of the galaxy..."

"And why should I care about what's between you and your old rival?" Searing asked, not snapping at Qwark like Sunset would, something that would no doubt confuse the man, "What could I possibly gain from helping you deal with something that is clearly your problem?"

"Because I know where the third Raritanium Core is located," Qwark replied, causing Searing to turn her eyes towards him for a moment, "Help me make sure that Nefarious sees that he can't win this war of his, with you at our side... and I'll make sure that Sunset's family can't use the other Cores to put you back in your cage."

It was the ultimate bargain and Qwark knew it, because he was basically telling Searing that if she aided him, and helped him either change Nefarious' mind or destroy him, then she would be free to roam the universe with nothing to stop her. He was well aware that he could potentially unleash a greater monster on the people that they were supposed to be saving, but he was hoping that Searing was willing to listen to some degree of reason.

"I don't believe that you can stop them from using Generosity and Honesty against me," Searing retorted, letting out a sigh as she unfurled her wings, "but I will take you up on your offer... so long as you keep the rest of them away from me."

Before Qwark even had the chance to nod his head, or do anything for that matter, Searing leapt out of the dropship and soared through the air as she rapidly descended towards where her enemies would be waiting. Qwark watched as Searing neared the ground and started throwing magic at them, dropping magical charges that exploded when they impacted either the ground or an unfortunate Tyhrranoid. Then Searing landed before one of the mechs and swung her hoof at it, cracking the air and shattering the machine in seconds, which was rapidly followed by the ground cracking just a bit.

Nefarious' forces moved out of their hiding places and attacked Searing, who summoned a shield as the attacks came at her for a few moments before shattering the air in front of her once more, sending Tyhrranoids left and right as they were blown off their feet. It went something like that for a time, where Searing tested her powers now that she was back in control and drove the Tyhrranoids back with every step she took. That was before she reached the base that the creatures had built, to which she channeled more of her power into her hoof and swung it at the building, shattering the front of the structure with ease as the rest of the island quaked under the pressure of her attack.

Once she was sure that her enemies were sufficiently scared for their lives, and that Qwark was pleased with her progress, she flew into the air and looked down at the island for a moment, before she extended her hoof and began to gather her power. She waited a few seconds, to be sure that she had enough power in the attack, before she grinned and loosed the sphere of energy at the island. An explosion rocked the entire area around the island as the landmass was consumed by the energy she had unleashed, though when the smoke cleared there was no trace of the island.

"Come on then," Searing told Qwark, returning to the dropship as it was being recalled to the Phoenix, "I'm eager to see what else there is to destroy... before I'm caged once more."

Qwark hoped that Nefarious had gotten the message that he needed to stop his war, otherwise he might have ensured that the mad doctor would continue his quest until one of them was dead.
> Arsenal: Phoenix, The Call
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet stretched as he, and the rest of his family, waited for the dropship to return to the Phoenix, because Starlight had told him something disturbing once they had finished off the Tyhrranoid forces that called Tyhrranosis home. Starlight, having used the Core to stop Searing back on Yeedil, was attuned to the power that their sister's demon could command whenever she was released into the universe. He had been told that something had happened to Sunset on Kavu Island, because she had felt the sinister energy of Searing surface for a few minutes before the island was completely wiped off the face of the map. The fact that Searing had taken over, despite all of their preparations, made Ratchet and the others worry that they wouldn't be able to keep the demon contained with what they had at the moment.

Qwark was also missing among the assembled members of the Q Force, which only told Ratchet that he was, in some way, shape, or form, responsible for what had happened to his sister.

"Are you sure that Searing's been released?" Sasha asked, for the third time since Ratchet and his family had returned to the Phoenix, with what would have been news of their success if their moods hadn't turned sour before they had even left the enemy planet.

"Starlight is convinced that she's taken over and is walking the universe again," Ratchet replied, noticing that both Angela and Starlight were carrying the two Cores that they had recovered so far, intending to seal the demon away the moment the dropship returned to the Phoenix, "and, considering everything that we've already been through, I'm willing to believe her at the moment. Besides, Qwark is missing and that generally means that he's done something that has pissed Sunset off, resulting in what we might be dealing with once the dropship returns."

Sasha clearly didn't like the fact that Searing might be arriving soon, thanks to what she had seen when Yeedil was struck by her power, but it was also clear to her that it was best to let Ratchet and his family deal with the demon. She opened her mouth to say something to them, mainly to distract them from what was coming their way, but then the dock door opened and the dropship entered the Phoenix at last. They all waited as the ship came to a stop and the door to the outside closed, though that was before the dropship's door lowered into place and they saw Qwark standing there with a smile on his face.

"Greeting comrades!" Qwark said as he stepped off the ship, as if he had solved their problems with Nefarious while Ratchet and his family had been finishing off the Tyhrranoid leader, "With the utter obliteration of Kavu Island, and broadcasted specifically for Nefarious to see, I have effectively ended the war with my old enemy without having to actually fight him! No need to thank me, its all in a day's work for the galaxy's greatest superhero!"

"Galaxy's greatest superhero my flank!" a second voice in the dropship declared, something that Ratchet had hoped that he would never have to hear again, "All you did was hit a poor mare over the head while she had no access to her magic, and then told me to go blow an island up so you could bring an end to a fight that you won't finish yourself."

Ratchet watched as Sunset appeared behind Qwark, but thanks to the hollowed voice he had heard he knew that his sister was currently possessed by the demon, despite the fact that she was still in her pony form. Truth be told Ratchet was expecting to find Searing, in the form she had worn when she nearly destroyed Yeedil, standing behind the insane captain, but he was glad that the demon was still mostly trapped. They could use the Cores they had already obtained to make sure that Searing was put back where she belonged, all without causing massive damage to Sunset's body while they were at it.

"Seriously, if anyone is getting credit for scaring off Nefarious it would be me," Searing said, staring at Qwark as she got off the ship, "though we'll have to wait and see if this little plan of yours even works. Too bad I won't be around to see it. Isn't that right Starlight?"

That was when Ratchet noticed that Starlight wasn't playing around this time, because the moment Searing mentioned her she was in front of the demon and had both Cores at the ready. Rainbow colored chains surged out of nowhere and wrapped around Searing's legs and chest, though this time was somewhat different than what they were used to. Searing just stood there and let it all happen to her, as if she didn't care and had enjoyed the amount of time she had been given thanks to Qwark, though Starlight wasn't taking any chances. Once she was sure that Generosity and Honesty had a firm grip on the demon, and that the chains wouldn't break anytime soon, Starlight ignited her magic and the two of them vanished.

Ratchet knew that they would be on the Hyperion at the moment, locking Searing in the cell that had been designed for this, so he turned to Qwark, who seemed pleased that he might have ended the war between them and Nefarious.

"You are such an idiot Qwark," Ratchet said, shaking his head as he faced the captain, "Nefarious is a villain that is likely so bent on revenge that the destruction of a single island won't be enough to stop him form whatever else he's got planned."

"Oh you're just trying to scare the other Galactic Rangers," Qwark commented, waving him off as if what he was saying was unimportant at the moment, "Soon we will be receiving word that Nefarious has surrendered and that the entire assault on the Solana Galaxy is over... then you can admit to how wrong you are."

Ratchet had half a mind to mention Gaspar again, considering that it was there where they discovered a fraction of Sunset's destructive powers, and the fact that Chairman Drek didn't seem to care about the destruction of one of his many bases. Then he decided that it wasn't worth bringing up the past again, because he was almost certain that they would be receiving a call from their enemy anyway, though it wouldn't be the surrender that Qwark was currently hoping for. He only hoped that Qwark hadn't made the situation worse by revealing what Sunset was capable of doing to their enemy, otherwise this entire venture might get much harder on them all.





Ratchet, Clank, Angela, Clank, and Sasha had gathered in Qwark's personal quarters, while the insane captain remained on the bridge to throw around more orders to the other members of the Q Force, where Ratchet retold the story about how they defeated the leader of the Tyhrranoids. It was mainly for Sasha to know that the mission had been completed and what she missed by staying on the ship, though they were all a little annoyed that Qwark was willing to unleash Searing's power to scare away Nefarious. Now that Sasha had seen the video of what happened to Yeedil she knew exactly why Ratchet and the rest of his family got upset whenever Qwark mentioned using that power to end this threat to the galaxy, though she agreed that destroying the land itself wasn't the best course of action.

They had been wrapping up the story that Ratchet was telling when two small holograms appeared on the table in front of them, one that was definitely Nefarious and meant that the other was his butler.

"So, this is the mighty Q Force I've heard so much about?" the hologram of Nefarious proclaimed, though he sounded as if he didn't believe that they were who he was searching for, "Pathetic! I could obliterate the lot of you and they wouldn't even mention it in Supervillain Weekly. Its bad enough that they've already got headlines about a new villain taking up what is my space in the magazine... something about a villain called the 'Goddess of Destruction'. Come on, there are no pictures of this new 'villain', only rumors that she visited Tyhrranosis and destroyed Kavu Island..."

"Sir, your ranting again," the butler said, cutting into the rant so that Nefarious could get back to the reason for calling them in the first place, "but you would have done the fashion world some good if you disposed of the Q Force."

"And to think that Secret Agent Clank and Android 18 would join the squishies!" Nefarious shouted, clearly pissed off that two of his greatest heroes, or whatever they were to the mad robot, were joining the fight against him, "I guess its a good thing that I have plans for the lot of you."

"We will be sure to be ready for whatever your planning," a voice said, to which Starlight appeared behind Ratchet and the others, though when Ratchet turned around he noticed that Qwark had entered the room as well.

"Or maybe I should just ask the Goddess of Destruction to deal with you." Qwark commented, to which he smiled the moment that the hologram of Nefarious took a small step backwards, "Trust me Nefarious, you had best stop this war of yours... otherwise my friend might track you down and obliterate you where you stand. And trust me on this, they'll mention it in Supervillain Weekly."

Nefarious looked like he wanted to scream at Qwark, and likely cause him to freeze up judging from the crack in his skull that Ratchet spotted, but he seemed to think better of it. The look that followed the robot regaining himself didn't sit well with Ratchet, which told him that Qwark's plan to use Searing powers might have backfired on the captain.

"Oh just you wait Qwark," Nefarious said, his left hand turning into a fist, which he crushed for a moment as he stared at the captain, "soon I will show you, and your pathetic Q Force, the true meaning of destruction... and there is nothing you can do to stop me this time."

Once those words left Nefarious' mouth, and he indicated to the butler for a second, the transmission was cut off, leaving Ratchet to wonder if they had been talking long enough to get a trace on where it had come from. Fortunately Angela had slipped away and placed a call to Al, who was at the bridge, to which she emerged from where she had been hiding and told them that they actually had the location where the transmission came from. It had apparently come from a facility on Planet Daxx, to which they would need a new gadget to access thanks to the scans that Al had done in his spare time after completing the trace, a gadget that was called the Hypershot.

That was before Helga came into the room and declared that she happened to have a few Hypershots on hand, which they apparently needed if they wanted to assault the facility, though Ratchet and his family quickly learned that they needed to pass through one of her trials to get the gadget.

Ratchet sighed as he made his way to the training room, because he had known that Nefarious wouldn't have stopped his assault on the galaxy once he had seen Searing's power. All Qwark had did, in releasing a fraction of Searing's power, was piss off Nefarious, because the mad robot believed that he now had competition for dominating the galaxy. None of this was actually helping them at the moment, though Ratchet wished that Qwark would listen to him and his family when it came to matters revolving around Sunset and the power that was coursing through her body.

Qwark had just made their mission much harder than it needed to be, though how hard they would would soon find out when they assaulted the facility on Daxx... where Sunset would be sitting out another planet.
> Arsenal: Daxx
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Once Ratchet knew that they needed the Hypershot to get through the facility on Planet Daxx, and likely needed it further down the line, he jumped into the training course that Helga had prepared ahead of time and listened to whatever she had to tell him. It wasn't as difficult as he had been expecting it to be, because the last time he had run her course she went on and on about how he had disgraced her course and almost made him pay for the gadget he was supposed to acquire from her. The Hypershot was definitely an improvement over the original Swingshot, created by Starlight during the time they had spent in the Bogon Galaxy no less, and he was impressed by how well it functioned. The Hacker, the same device that Skid had back on Aquatos, proved to be quite a challenge considering that he wasn't used to this particular device yet, but he actually liked it more than the ones he had used back in Bogon.

By the time that he finished the course he was actually receiving praise from Helga, which he guessed was thanks to the commando training that he had gone through back when Qwark had used all of them to get to Sunset. With the Hypershot and Hacker in hand he returned to where Angela was waiting for him, to which he discovered that Starlight had returned to the Phoenix.

"Sunset managed to overcome Searing," Starlight told them, leading to Ratchet, Clank, and Angela to sigh in relief now that they didn't have to worry about Searing running around at the moment, "the Cores are working their magic on her, so she should be ready to rejoin our quest to stop Nefarious when we reach whatever planet is after Daxx."

"Unless our idiotic captain manages to piss her off again." Angela commented, echoing the thought that was on everyone's mind at the moment, at all it took was Qwark doing something stupid before Sunset was back in the cell, "Though we should focus less on Qwark and more on what we're going to do when we reach Daxx."

"Al informed me that he's managed to find two terminals in the area where the communication came from," Clank told them, bringing up the map as they made their way to their ship, "One happens to be resting in the middle of the facility itself, so it will take some time and effort to fight our way to the terminal and see what Nefarious is planning. The other terminal is out in the middle of the nearby islands, but just because its away from the facility doesn't mean that its not as important as the one in the facility. We'll have to split up when we reach Daxx, so I propose that Starlight investigates the islands and then catches up with the rest of us in the main facility, hopefully before we reach the first terminal."

Starlight opened her mouth to say something, though she immediately closed it when she spotted Qwark walking their way, no doubt with another idea on how to end his fight with Nefarious. Ratchet noticed the look on her face and continued towards the ship, knowing that she would catch up with him and Angela once they had powered up the Hyperion. Neither he nor Angela wanted to be anywhere near Qwark at the moment, not when he was constantly releasing Searing from her prison and using her to further his agenda.

"I see that your leaving for Planet Daxx," Qwark commented, staring at Ratchet and Angela as their ship departed from the Phoenix, before turning his gaze back to Starlight, "Look, I can explain why I did what I did..."

"No Qwark, you can never justify why releasing Searing was a good idea," Starlight snapped, annoyed that the captain even believed that doing something so reckless was even a good idea, though it was almost as if he had a brain injury that made him forget what had happened on Yeedil, "I can tell that you've forgotten something about the demon, so allow me to inform you of what your forgetting; she's a destroyer. Searing doesn't care what you, or anyone else for that matter, promises her, because the moment you let her free she's going to unleash her magic and destroy whatever she pleases... and I don't have to remind you of what happened when you broke the bracelet."

Qwark's hand moved to his chest for a moment, clearly remembering what had happened to him when Searing attacked him, though Starlight sighed and calmed down, before she blew a fuse and did something that she'd end up regretting.

"Look, let's forget about Searing and focus on stopping Nefarious," Starlight said, her magic surrounding her as she prepared to teleport over to the Hyperion, "because we can do that without having to resort to blowing up secret bases and erasing islands from the map. We need everyone focused on finding and stopping our enemy, and not on some evil monster that would be worse than the enemy we're trying to take care of."

As the last word left her mouth Starlight's magic activated and she was gone in an instant, though Qwark didn't need to look around to know where she had gone. She and her family were heading to Daxx, to see if they could find anything that would help them in their fight with Nefarious, though he was sure that they'd find something that their enemy left behind. Qwark, on the other hand, let out a sigh as he palmed the light blue stone that he had been holding behind his back, covered so that no one would be able to tell what it was without confronting him about it.

He had lied to everyone when he said that he remained on the Phoenix after the assault on Aquatos, because he had Al hack into the Phoenix's systems, by threatening him with the reveal of one of his darkest secrets to the rest of the team, and had slipped away for an hour or two to visit Metropolis. That, too, had been a lie for Al to believe, because in reality he had gone to Aquatos on his own and visited the person that Ratchet and the others had met down there. He had placed an express order back to Bogon, which was actually the mace he had hit Sunset with, and then marched through the empty base to see if Ratchet had left anything behind.

That was why he had promised Searing that the third Core would never be in the hands of Ratchet and his family, because he had stolen it and brought it to the Phoenix, though he was amazed that none of them had felt the presence of the other stone. He figured that the constant use of the cell prevented both Sunset and Starlight from sensing that it was near, though Qwark had made a choice in the hour or two after Nefarious' call. He had resolved himself to hand the Core over and see what happened next, but now that Starlight was gone, and the Hyperion wouldn't be back for at least half a day, he merely sighed and called up his personal ship.

He knew where to hide the light blue Core until he was ready to hand it over, as it was someplace that only he knew about and that only he could access without being attacked by the guardians.





When Ratchet and his family arrived at the facility on Planet Daxx they quickly moved to the vendor and restocked their ammunition, including purchasing the new Holo Shield Glove that was available. It was supposed to summon a shield that would protect them from harm, similar to the ones that Starlight always used, but Ratchet had the feeling that they fell apart much quicker. Once they were all prepared for what was likely waiting for them in the facility they engaged their new Hypershots and crossed over to the platform that would allow them to enter the facility... and also head out into the islands.

"Well, I'll catch up once I've found the terminal," Starlight commented, heading to the route that would take her out to the island, to which both Ratchet and Angela nodded to her for a second, "Have fun lovebirds!"

She knew that if she had said that back in the Bogon Galaxy, back when her brother had started dating Angela, they would have blushed and stopped whatever they were doing. Now, however, they didn't seem to mind the fact anymore, which was likely because they had been dating for over a year and were just fine with how things were going between them. Starlight smiled as she watched the two of them ride the elevator up to the entrance of the facility, leaving her to use the Hypershot to activate the platforms in front of her and allowing her to progress towards the terminal she was after.

When she levitated herself down to the platform above the water, which happened to made of spinning fans that had been linked together, she immediately noticed a gunship of sorts teleport into the area near her and start firing at where she was standing. It was at a moment like this that she wished that she had the RY3NO, but Mr. Gadget had yet to complete it and deliver a working prototype to her so she could see if it was up to her standards. Instead of engaging the gunship immediately, because she knew that she'd have to fight it eventually, she continued down the path she had been following and dodged any attacks that were coming at her.

She levitated herself up a jump platform, which her body was unable to adapt to, and activated the platforms that were in her path, allowing her to move forward. She noticed that the gunship came in every now and then and fire at her, though when she reached a certain point the ship would teleport into a different part of her path and repeat the process. It wasn't actually hard for her to get through, considering that the ship failed to hit her thanks to her shields whenever it actually got close to hitting her, but eventually she reached a platform that made the ship teleport in front of a platform that happened to be in front of where the terminal was located.

Starlight grinned as she crossed over to the platform that the gunship was floating in front of, though before it could teleport again she slapped it with her magic and prevented that part of its systems from working. She didn't want the gunship teleporting to a safe locating when she seriously wounded it, though once the spell was in place she pulled out her weapons and started firing at her target. It was actually an unfair fight in her mind, because her shield prevented the gunship from actually touching her while her guns ripped the ship to pieces, making her reconsider wanting the third RYNO weapon as the ship fell into the water around them.

"How... disappointing," Starlight commented, knowing that it was because of the fact that she had disabled part of its systems that allowed the ship to be destroyed so quickly, "Well then, let's see what that terminal has in store for me."

She swung over to the building she had been moving towards and entered it, though when she stepped into the building she noticed that there were a couple posters of Courtney Gears scattered everywhere. It made her think that Nefarious might be obsessed with media stars, thanks to what they had seen back in Aquatos, and wondered what she would find on the terminal. She approached the computer in question and began to analyze the data that she had found, though it didn't take her long to find a music video that Nefarious had clearly been editing for the music star. Out of sheer curiosity she played the video, discovering that it apparently included Courtney Gears calling out for robots to join in a sort of robot uprising, though she wondered if that was what Nefarious was actually planning.

"This is music?! THIS!" Starlight growled, letting out a sigh as she copied the file onto her tablet so she could show it to her family, "I wish I hadn't bothered to watch that... it would have been better if I had been listening to one of Angela's strange music."

She still had no idea what strange music Angela listened to, but it was certainly better than what Courtney Gears produced at the moment and kind of wished that she was listening to that at the moment. As she returned to their ship she had to wonder what Ratchet and Angela were doing... and how they were progressing through the facility's defenses.





Ratchet threw out one of the new shields as he and Angela were attacked by what appeared to be four of the security robots that were waiting at the entrance, allowing it to take the damage while the two of them came up with a plan of attack. Before they could actually come up with anything another set of four security robots appeared behind the first group, doubling the amount of enemies they had to deal with. It was at a moment like this that Ratchet wished that he had one of the RYNO weapons, or more accurately the third one in the line, but the weapon had yet to be made according to Starlight. He sighed as he pulled out his rifle and started firing at the enemies hanging at the back of the pack, though as he did so Angela charged out of their hiding place, with her beam sword extended on both ends, and cut into the first enemy she came towards.

He was still surprised that Angela had become so good at using the beam sword that had been given to her, because at times it almost appeared like she had been using it for her entire life. In a matter of minutes they had cleared the first two groups of enemies they encountered, though that was until a much larger security robot came into their line of sight and started to attack them. It didn't take them long to get rid of the larger robot, not with the combined power of the rifle and the N60 Storm that Angela had pulled out, before they moved forward to find out what horrors they had to fight next.

The next area had a group of five security robots waiting for them, though they cleared them out with a barrage of attacks from their weapons before moving further into the facility. That was before they found that they had encountered a much larger force of enemies, as there had to be at least twenty security robots firing at them, including at least two of the much larger ones. Angela had to fall back to her guns in the face of so many enemies, shooting everything that came close to them while Ratchet focused on the ones that were hanging near the back until he ran out of ammunition. Once that happened they pulled out weapons that were designed to hit multiple enemies at the same time, all while making sure that they avoided every enemy that tried to hit them.

By the time they had reached a gap between buildings they had managed to get through the enemies that had been waiting for them, only for them to find that there were more soldiers waiting in front of the second building.

"It seems that Nefarious fully expected us to come here," Ratchet commented, crossing over the gap and blowing up the enemies that came at him, clearing the way for Angela to follow him, "The last time something like this happened our enemy used the self destruct button to blow the facility to pieces, though I suspect that Nefarious won't do that."

"I don't see Nefarious doing that either," Angela said, cutting into an enemy that Ratchet left behind, making sure that Ratchet went undisturbed as he hacked into the terminal in front of them, "but I have the feeling that he might have messed with the main terminal."

Ratchet nodded as he opened the door in front of them, because he also suspected that most of the useful information that could have been found on the terminal might have been erased before they even arrived. As they walked into the main part of the second building they engaged the soldiers that were waiting for them, blowing them to pieces before moving further in. The second room was also easy for them to cut through, making Ratchet think that they had encountered the most of their enemies when they were trying to reach this building, but once he hacked through the second security door he found a group of at least twenty soldiers waiting for the two of them.

He and Angela ducked to the side as their enemies opened fire on them, though this time he knew that the new weapon they had picked up wouldn't remain standing long enough for them to clear out the chamber of or get to the other side of the room.

"Its times like this that I wish that Starlight or Sunset were with me," Ratchet said, checking his weapons for a minute, while wondering if this would allow Starlight to catch up with them.

"And now I get to try out my new toy," a voice said, though as Ratchet looked up from his weapon he noticed a barrage of missiles heading into the room, obliterating all of their enemies within a matter of seconds, "Thank you Mr. Gadget, it works exactly like I had designed it."

Starlight was standing between him and Angela, though what was floating in her magic happened to look like another RYNO weapon, which told Ratchet that this had to be the third version; the RY3NO. Starlight grinned as she walked into the room they had been waiting in front of, telling them about what she had found, before they reached the door and Ratchet hacked through it. Once they were inside the room he and Clank accessed the terminal, though the good news seemed to fade the moment they realized that the terminal had been accessed shortly after Nefarious placed the call to the Phoenix.

"Nefarious was able to delete nearly all relevant data before our arrival." Clank stated, shaking his head as he copied everything that he could get his hands on, "The only information that remains is the mention of two weapons; one called the Bio-Bliterator and another simply labeled 'Cannon'. Besides that there is apparently a mention of the Obani Moons, so it seems that our best course of action is to ask Courtney Gears for information... and hopefully turn her to our side."

"Back to the arena then," Angela said, a overjoyed look appearing on her face as she held her beam sword out, "Oh, I am going to enjoy cutting my way to her."

Ratchet smiled, because despite what was happening they had managed to get some clues as to what their enemy might be doing... though he hoped that Nefarious wasn't planning something that involved Searing. Otherwise he knew that they were completely screwed in that regard.
> Arsenal: Annihilation Nation, Second Course
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When Ratchet and returned to the Hyperion, and set their ship down inside the docks, they were approached by one of the AI that controlled the starship while they were gone, though this time it was the pink alicorn that Sunset had called 'Cadence'. Starlight had told them, back when the AI had been installed inside the starship, that if Sunset was locked up in the cell, and they were approached by either Cadence or Twilight, it meant that both Celestia and Luna were working to keep Searing locked up. Ratchet also knew that the other two AI could be busy with their own duties and that the one in front of them could have finished her work early, which led it to come to them when they docked in the ship.

Either way Ratchet was curious as to why Cadence was hovering before them, because this was honestly the first time that he had the opportunity to speak with this particular AI.

"Is something wrong Cadence?" Ratchet asked, echoing the thoughts that were no doubt crossing both Angela and Starlight's minds, as they were constantly concerned for Sunset's well-being after everything that Qwark had done to her.

"Celestia and Luna are making sure that Sunset's energy levels are normal," the AI replied, following them towards the bridge, where they would put in the coordinates for Annihilation Nation, "Despite the power of two Cores coursing through her body, and disrupting the Dark Magic that allows Searing to take control, it appears that Searing was fighting the power of Generosity and Honesty. Sunset managed to break through the demon's hold maybe an hour before you arrived, so she'll definitely be without her powers for two to three days at the most."

"Its not ideal, but that's the price we'll have to pay for Qwark's stupidity." Starlight commented, shaking her head as she diverged from the main path and headed towards the chamber where her sister would be waiting, "Still, I think that she'll enjoy having some company that's not either Celestia or Luna."

What Starlight didn't say was that she now had a theory behind why Searing was growing stronger every time she managed to gain a hold over Sunset's body, something that had to do with the Cores. Sunset, according to what Starlight heard from Honesty, was able to unlock a portion of her former powers, and memories, whenever she meditated with a new Core that they had recovered. Starlight was fairly sure that the power recovery also applied to Searing, which was why she seemed to be gaining a foothold every time she took over. Sunset and Searing were linked in some way, though now Starlight was concerned that they were empowering the demon at the same time that Sunset was recovering who she was.

Starlight almost wished that she had been able to take the third Core without alerting Nefarious, because it would have enabled her to see whether or not she was becoming paranoid.

When she entered the chamber that the Cores were housed in, and spotted the cell that had been built on the other side of the entrance, she found the white and blue alicorn AI's standing before two separate terminals. Starlight knew that they were studying some readings, no doubt exactly like Cadence said they would be, though she had suspected that Twilight was a little annoyed that she wasn't a part of this study herself. Despite the fact that they were all AI, and thus shouldn't have any personality besides what had been given when they were designed and installed, the four alicorns seemed to possess their own unique personalities that evolved from what Sunset had given them.

It was almost like the Cores had given them the spirits of the four alicorns that had saved Sunset, and not to mention the entirety of Yeedil, from Searing's terrible power.

"Good evening sister," a voice said, one that Starlight was relieved to hear again, which allowed her to see that Sunset had regained control of herself once again, "How was your adventure on Planet Daxx?"

"It was okay," Starlight replied, walking up to the cell that Sunset was sitting in, noticing that she was working on something like the AI made sure that she was fully in control again, "I finally got the RY3NO from Mr. Gadget, so I was able to field test it a bit before we discovered that Nefarious has apparently built two weapons; a Bio-Bliterator and something called 'Cannon', though unfortunately all the relevant information on them had been deleted before our arrival. Apparently Courtney Gears, the music celebrity, might be in league with our enemy, so we're heading to Annihilation Nation..."

"...where Angela will win the prize and see if she can't strike a deal with the celebrity?" Sunset finished, a smile appearing on her face when Starlight nodded, "I figured as much, considering that she was the one that was able to get through it with some ease the first time we went to the arena. Have you heard anything from our friend?"

Starlight immediately knew that Sunset was speaking of Qwark, because the moment that she said the word friend there was a hint of anger that followed the word.

"Yes... he tried to explain why releasing Searing was a good idea." Starlight replied, though she waited a few seconds to be sure that Sunset was fine, though when neither AI reported anything odd she decided to continue speaking, "I said some words to him before teleporting out of the Phoenix, though I seriously hope he got the message this time around."

"I doubt it," Sunset calmly said, surprising Starlight that she could even be calm when speaking about Qwark, but she was actually glad that her sister wasn't letting the captain get to her, "So... when can I leave the cell? I'm getting stiff from sitting in here and I would like the opportunity to stretch my wings at some point before we return to the Phoenix."

"Your energy levels are completely normal." Celestia stated, turning from her terminal to face the two of them, while Luna powered down the field that was surrounding the cell, "The Cores have returned you to your original state once again... so you are free to leave once more Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset smiled as she got off her rear and stretched both her legs and her wings, though Starlight was pleased to have her sister back once again, which would be great when they reached whatever planet was after Annihilation Nation. One thing that Starlight was curious about was what Sunset had been working on the entire time she had been in the cell, because it looked some sort of wing contraption. Sunset noticed what her sister was looking at, so while they walked back to the bridge she explained that it was a set of blades that she could wear over her wings whenever she was drained like this. The blades actually extended past where her wings stopped, that way she wouldn't hurt herself when she used them, and it would give her the ability to fight beside her family again... though not in a style that they were familiar with.

Once they entered the bridge they found Ratchet, Angela, and Clank waiting for them, though they were all glad to have Sunset back in the game after everything that Qwark had put her through. They quickly caught her up on what they were doing and had done on the previous planet, filling in any gaps that Starlight might have left when she told Sunset what was happening. When Sunset was caught up they finished putting in the coordinates for Annihilation Nation and got underway, allowing them to have some peace and quite while they traveled to their new destination.





When they arrived at Annihilation Nation, and climbed out of their ship, Angela and Ratchet approached the screen that told them what challenges were available. It was at that time that Angela discovered that this arena was similar to the ones in the Bogon Galaxy, where the combatants could open new challenges once one of them was finished. She didn't care for most of the rewards, which was pure bolts at the moment, so she was mainly focused on finding the challenge she needed to complete so that they could speak with Courtney Gears. It wasn't hard to find the one they needed, but as she prepared herself to enter the arena, and the course that she would have to run through first, their communicator went off.

Unfortunately they found Qwark on the other end, so Sunset shook her head and headed to the stands while Starlight followed her, leaving Angela, Ratchet, and Clank to deal with whatever the captain wanted of them.

"This had better not be another scheme to get Sunset to destroy something for you Qwark," Ratchet said, cutting off the captain before he could say anything, "because she's finally back in control after everything you've done to her... and I'd like to keep it that way for once."

"Believe it or not, but this has nothing to do with the Goddess of Destruction," Qwark replied, again using the same name that the editors of Supervillain Weekly used, though it annoyed Ratchet that the man refused to call Sunset by her actual name, "Al managed to find a post on the Supervillain Forums, something that I felt that both you and Angela needed to hear before you two separated from each other. Apparently there's someone looking for you Angela, because Al's found comments about a dark figure that wants to cross paths with you and fight you... but I'm sure that you can beat whoever this person is when, and if, he shows his face."

"That has absolutely nothing to do with what we are currently doing." Angela said, shaking her head as she pulled out her beam sword, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to start the obstacle course and see whats in store for me... I have the feeling that the course will be simple until I get to the actual arena itself."

Ratchet powered off the communicator, not even wanting to hear what else the captain had to tell them at the moment, before giving Angela a hug and then heading to where his sisters were siting, no doubt waiting for the challenge to start. He could tell that they were all eager to see what the creators of Annihilation Nation had designed for the arrival of Courtney Gears, though they all had faith that Angela would be able to clear it out with ease.

When Angela entered the obstacle course she found that they had placed two walkways between where she was standing and the first room that she had to pass through, though she also noticed that they had flames moving down towards where she was. She waited there for a moment, studying the flames and how they were moving, before running across the walkways and dodging the flames before they could even touch her. Once she entered the room she held her beam sword out, which she extended the moment she walked into the area, but when she found that there weren't any enemies for her to fight she pressed the button and opened the door on her right.

As she walked out of the room she found that the next obstacle was one that required her to leap from one platform to the next, until she reached the end of its path and would have to hover down to the next part of the course. Angela wasted no time in climbing up the platforms, while also getting rid of the spinning enemies that came at her from afar, before she glided down to the next section of the course and cut the laser enemy in half. She then spotted two new enemies spinning in her direction, though they easily fell thanks to her new weapon, though as she moved forward she noticed a tank sitting in her way.

She honestly had no idea why the people of the arena had a tank, but she let out a sigh as she pulled out her rifle and started firing at it from afar, until she scored a lucky hit and blew it to pieces. Once the tank was taken care of she was attacked by a swarm of the smaller enemies, which fell to her beam sword as she entered the next room and opened the door on her left. That was when she had to fight some of the ninja robots that she had seen in the Secret Agent Clank show, though it actually took her a few minutes to clear them out, as they insisted on using their own weapons against her. The ends of their weapons had clashed, making it sound like two energy beams were hitting each other, but in the end Angela cut through them all and advanced towards the last bit of the arena.

When she entered the last bit of the arena she spotted two laser enemies that were standing guard with a ninja robot, though she removed the two laser enemies with her gun before fighting the ninja like she had done with the previous group. Once they were taken care of she walked up the steps and found three more spinning enemies coming her way, which were easily destroyed and allowed her to advance to the end of the obstacle course. That was when she was teleported into the combat arena, where the main door opened and revealed what her opponent was; a large tank that had been shaped into a scorpion and equipped with a large amount of weapons that made it more deadly than it actually looked.

The odd thing was that it already looked like someone had beaten her to the punch, because the tank looked like it had been cut to pieces before it had called to do battle once again. That was when Angela spotted the person responsible for damaging the tank, a black robed figure that reminded her of her days when she was trying to destroy the experimental Protopet. The mysterious figure walked out of where Scorpio was being held and approached her, though Angela tightened her grip on her beam sword and waited to see what the person was going to do. The figure then reached into his robe and pulled out a weapon hilt that resembled what Angela was holding, to which a red beam extended out of the hilt, though Angela was impressed that her new opponent had her style of weapon.

"It seems the mercenary got tired of waiting," Angela commented, extending only one side of her weapon as she looked at the robed figure, "So, what name shall I put on your tombstone?"

"...Maul..." the figure replied, pulling the hood back to reveal a black faced man with what appeared to be a crown of horns around the top of his bald head.

Angela sighed and ran at the man, slamming her weapon into his and forcing him backwards, though the instant he got back up their weapons clashed and made it known that he wasn't to be taken lightly. What came next was the fact that they moved around the entirety of the arena, their weapons clashing as if they were two ancient swordsman that were fighting each other with how they were using their weapons. Angela was more than willing to test what the man was capable of doing, considering that he had taken apart what was supposed to be her challenge in getting to Courtney Gears, but to be completely honest she wasn't impressed by her enemy.

To be fair Maul did hit her a few times, not with his beam sword as he used both his hands and feet to do the damage, but even those hits were nothing. In the end Angela cut the hilt of his weapon in half, destroying it entirely, and forced him back into the cell that her actual opponent had been sitting in, but she wasn't about to kill him. Before she could tell him to run away, and rethink his actions, the man threw a smoke bomb at the ground and disappeared in the smoke that followed, though when it cleared Angela knew that he was long gone. With the deed done she sheathed her weapon and kicked the remainder of her enemy's weapon into the lava around her, destroying it as the announcer declared her the winner.

"Angela Cross will take home a rare first edition Qwark video comic!" the announcer proclaimed, just as Courtney Gears walked in from the opposite side of the arena, though Angela noticed Ratchet and the others approaching her as well, "And here to present her with the grand prize, the incredible, incomparable, intalented... Courtney Gears!"

Courtney Gears was impressed by how well Angela had cleared out the challenge, but she was more interested in Clank, who she referred to as Secret Agent Clank. Angela had to resist the urge to face palm when she realized how easy it was to arrange for some information to exchange hands, as all they had to do was include the star in one of the upcoming episodes of the show and they would have everything they needed on Nefarious. With the third installment of the Qwark game in hand, and the promise to the music star fresh in their minds, the group returned to their ship, where Clank placed a call to the manager of his show.

All Angela knew was that their visit to Holostar Studios was going to either allow them to get one step ahead of Nefarious or make them stay where they were, but she was eager to be done with the visit before they had even left Annihilation Nation.
> Arsenal: Holostar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The journey to Holostar Studios was purposely slow this time around, because there were questions that Angela wanted to answer before they reached their destination. She was curious about this mysterious Maul that had invaded Annihilation Nation, destroyed the robot known as Scorpio that she was supposed to fight, and challenged her to battle with a weapon that looked like the one she had been given. She had actually been impressed by the skill that her odd opponent had, despite the fact that she had beaten him with the greatest of ease, and knew that one day he would return when he had a new weapon and was more skilled with his chosen weapon. So while they traveled to their destination she contacted Al and had him search for anything that he could find on Maul, while making sure to keep it a secret from Qwark.

She was beginning to suspect that Qwark was trying to piss off Sunset in any way he could think of, which meant that he was still trying to unleash Searing's power in an effort to destroy Nefarious before he could put his master plan into action. She also took into consideration what the man had done in the Bogon Galaxy, posing as her boss and becoming the mastermind behind an entire plot to destroy Sunset's golden bracelet. Sure, Qwark was acting stupid at the moment, but she seriously wondered if he was merely acting in an effort to hide what he was actually planning. She didn't want a repeat of what happened to Yeedil in the Solana Galaxy, which she was sure that Ratchet and his family wanted to steer clear of if they could help it.

Somehow she had the feeling that they hadn't seen the last of Searing, but she seriously hoped that she was just overthinking everything and that the demon would stay locked up... until they could find a way to permanently destroy her. Though, even as Angela thought about that, she had no idea whether or not Searing could even be destroyed, considering that she was essentially a piece of Sunset's soul. She wondered what would happen if the demon was truly destroyed, if it would harm Sunset in some way or if she would be able to ignore the demon's destruction.

"Something on your mind Angela?" Ratchet asked, walking into the area that Angela had been sitting in, staring at her tablet the entire time as she slowly turned her focus from Maul to Searing.

"Oh, just seeing what I can find on my mysterious opponent," Angela replied, noticing that wasn't an update from Al yet, which meant that Maul was harder to find than she was originally thinking, "So far I haven't been able to find anything on him, but I've contacted Al and he's agreed to help me gather some information on him... without letting Qwark know what's going on."

"Good. The less Qwark knows the better off we'll be," Ratchet commented, taking a seat next to Angela, while looking out of the window and staring at the worlds that they passed, "He's been trying to get Sunset to destroy planets and cause untold destruction on those that he wants to keep intact, so I'd rather not tell him anything that would give him an idea to try again."

"And the better off Sunset will be without him breathing down her neck all the time," Angela said, closing her tablet as she looked out the window, "I wish we had left him on Florana, to live with the savages that we ended up fighting, because our lives would be a lot easier without him involved all the time. A part of me wishes that he had died with the quake that almost destroyed Yeedil, but we'll have to live with the hand that fate has dealt us at the moment."

Ratchet nodded his head and the two of them remained silent for the remainder of their journey to Holostar Studios, choosing to remain in the room they were in while the rest of their family, mainly Clank and Starlight, focused on the next episode that they would be filming upon arrival.





When they arrived at the studios Clank immediately began to prepare for the next piece of the show that he would be acting in, though it was quickly discovered that the ship that Ratchet was supposed to be flying for the scene was broken. Clank assumed that Ratchet had sabotaged the ship shortly after their arrival, though considering that the producer changed the buttons all the time, in some vain attempt to get Ratchet off the show considering his low popularity. What Ratchet was doing was essentially removing himself from the major scenes of the show, allowing him to slip into the background considering that the producer didn't like him at all.

Despite that happening Clank managed to get through his rehearsal without delay, while Starlight watched over him when Courtney Gears arrived to prepare for her own role in the show.

Because of the fact that the ship Ratchet was supposed to drive for the scene was broken, and no one could actually claim that Ratchet had been the one to break it, Clank had to glide into the area that he would be running through. When he landed he found his character surrounded by at least ten of Maximillian's security robots, all of which were armed and fully prepared to fight whoever intruded on their master's property. That was, of course, when Starlight's character burst out of the ceiling and crushed one of the robots with ease, before jumping up and coming to a stop beside Clank.

"Android 18, I wasn't expecting to see you here." Clank commented, slipping into his Secret Agent Clank persona as he attacked the other robots, "To what do I own the pleasure of your company to?"

"Professor Darkstar's unleashed a new creature to kill you with," Starlight replied, crushing another robot with her hooves as she moved onto the ones that were surrounding her, "I knew you would need help getting to the creature, so I figured that I would help you out and get rid of the new creature at the same time."

Clank nodded and the two of them charged through the host of 'enemies' that were standing in front of them, leaping over what was supposed to be a simulator for rush hour traffic, and tore through an electric fence that served only to slow them. That was before they tore through a second group of the ninja robots and traversed a gap that was blocking their path, to which they opened the path in front of them and reached the end of the obstacle course that had been designed for them. Once they had reached the end of the path Starlight bid Clank farewell, allowing him the chance to change into his larger form as he tracked down the monster he had been told about.

Facing the Terror of Talos, the large four armed creature that was supposed to be his opponent, was actually quite easy in Clank's book, but that was because he had dealt with finding ways to stop Searing from escaping and destroying everything. Whenever the monster was on the ground Clank would beat it into submission, though when it was in the air he smashed the larger ninja robots that came to fight him. When the first cycle was over he fought the Terror again, though this time the ninja robots insisted on bothering him the entire time, so he swiftly brought an end to them before finally bringing the Terror to the ground in defeat.

Once the Terror of Talos was defeat, and was laying on the ground, Clank shrunk to his original form and received the praise of Courtney Gears' character, the lovely Baroness as the producer called her. The two of them spent some time together, thanks to what the script demanded of them, before the producer declared the day of shooting complete and started packing everything away. Once they were alone, and there weren't any cameras in the immediate area, Courtney Gears let loose a stream of electricity and shocked Clank until he was offline.

The moment the deed was done she brought up a communicator and spoke to Nefarious, who indicated that he desired to speak with Clank before the music star did anything else.





"...where am I?" Clank asked as his body slowly powered back up, recovering from the shock he had suffered and allowing him to focus on his immediate surroundings, "Is someone there?"

"Agent Clank!" Nefarious said eagerly, allowing Clank to see that the villain he and his friends were fighting against was sitting in front of him, with Courtney Gears sitting on the side of the desk he was sitting it, "it is an honor to finally make your acquaintance!  I have been following your exploits ever since your first mission, when you defeated the mind stealing snot beasts from Dimension X!"

"I believe there has been a misunderstanding," Clank said, wondering why Nefarious even believed that he was actually Secret Agent Clank, when it was clear that the entire thing was a show and that he did other things besides what the show revealed, "Secret Agent Clank is merely a fictional character I play on the holo..."

"LIES!" Nefarious declared rather angrily, as if the very thought of Clank not being anything more than the character he played upset the robot doctor, "You are a hero to robots across the galaxy, and yet you deny your own destiny. I will say this only once, Agent Clank; join me and help me bring an end to the squishies, or deny your destiny and follow your beloved squishies into oblivion!"

Clank had the feeling that Nefarious was referring to his plans on the destruction that he told Qwark about, though based on the named weapons they found little on, back when they raided Daxx, he had to wonder what the weapons were designed to do. Clearly one of them had the ability to unleash some form of destruction, otherwise the doctor wouldn't be trying to persuade him to change sides before he moved forward with his plans.

"No," Clank said, crossing his arms as he stared at the doctor, silently wondering what his 'punishment' would be now that he was declining the villain's invitation to join his side.

"Very well then," Nefarious replied, returning to his desk and taking a seat across from Clank, to which he pressed a button and the door to the room they were in opened slightly, "You are free to go."

"...just like that?" Clank asked, because to be honest he expected that he would have been kept here until Nefarious had moved forward with his plans, and not allowed to leave the moment he declined the offer.

"But of course," Nefarious commented, beckoning for Clank to leave, to which Courtney Gears held the door open for him, "I told you that I had plans for you and your squishy friends... and I wouldn't want you to miss any of the destruction that I promised all of you. Oh, and tell your 'allies' about my star cruiser, the Leviathan, and maybe we can do lunch in the future."

Clank was confused by what was happening at the moment, though he took the opportunity to leave the robot doctor and music star behind, because he didn't want them to change their minds and decide to keep them until they were ready to unleash whatever destruction Nefarious was planning. He had some information to give Ratchet and the others, but first he had to find his way back to wherever Ratchet and the others were at the moment.





While Ratchet and Angela were waiting for the filming to end, so that they could begin the journey to the next planet on their list, they were joined by Starlight, who informed them that Sunset had remained on the Hyperion. She wasn't needed in the filming at all at the moment, so she decided to stay behind and use her time to try and find a way to seal the demon inside of her, as if she was trying to mimic what the bracelet had been doing until it had been shattered. However, while she was telling them about what Sunset was doing, they were interrupted by a sound to their left, to which they discovered that the Tyhrranoids had come to assault the studios.

Ratchet wasn't surprised to find that they were under attack again, and neither was Angela for that matter, but they knew that they would need to get to Clank before they left the studios behind. They did, however, find two new weapons that were available for purchase, the Disk Blade Gun and the Rift Inducer, to which Ratchet eagerly obtained them and used the disks against the enemies that were coming their way. He was pleased to see them cut into the enemies that were standing there, to which he and his family began their journey through the studios in an effort to find Clank.

The first studio building they entered happened to have four enemies that were waiting for them, but thanks to the new Disk Blade Gun Ratchet and Starlight were able to clear the area out with very little effort on their part. When they opened the door they found three more sitting in front of them, to which Starlight summoned a shield to protect them against their attacks, before surrounding their enemies with her magic and throwing them into the wall behind them. As they walked out of the building they spotted at least ten more enemies standing between them and the next building they would need to enter, though that was when Ratchet decided to use the Rift Inducer.

The rift tore itself open between some of their enemies and they all watched as those foolish enough to approach it, which happened to be all ten enemies, were consumed by the rift, before it slammed shut.

"Starlight, this was one of your weapons wasn't it?" Ratchet asked, looking at the area around them in surprise, because he wasn't expecting the weapon to do that at all.

"And it performed to the specifications I gave Gadgetron," Starlight answered, telling them that she had created the weapon and that she was pleased with how it performed, "Come on, we had better find Clank and then get out of here."

Ratchet would never tell Starlight the truth, but he had the feeling that she knew that he was actually somewhat scared of the weapons that she was able to make. It was similar to how scared he was of Searing, though he was sure that the demon was more terrifying than anything that anything that his other sister could make.

When they approached the elevator that was sitting in front of the building they needed to enter Ratchet pulled out the Hacker and opened the way for them, to which they entered the next part of the studio and attacked the enemies that were waiting for them. Starlight and Angela went to town on the enemies that were waiting in front of them, allowing Ratchet to hack into the next terminal that was blocking their path while they protected him. As they moved though the next section they spotted a flying dropship that clearly belonged to their enemy, though it was quickly destroyed by something other than the three of them.

That was when Starlight noticed Sunset flying over their heads, using her rifle to take out enemies that might give them trouble and making their journey easier. Apparently she had gotten bored of staying in the Hyperion and had teleported down to where they were, though Starlight was pleased to have her back in the action again.

With Sunset taking out the tougher enemies with her rifle the group managed to get through the studio with more ease than Starlight was expecting, leading her to believe that this had been some sort of distraction for them. When they reached the end of their journey, and returned to their ship, they found Clank standing beside it, though it appeared as if he was lost in thought at the moment.

"Did something happen Clank?" Ratchet asked, while Angela, Starlight, and Sunset ensured that all of their enemies had been taken care of before they departed from the studios.

"Courtney Gears took me to speak with Nefarious... and I refused his offer to join his cause." Clank informed them, though he was still unsure of why the robot doctor continued to mention destruction when he was trying to dominate the entire galaxy, "Then he let me go, with no strings attached, and gave me the name of his star cruiser, the Leviathan he called it."

"Well then, we can check out our other lead while Sasha and Al track down his ship," Ratchet said, to which everyone climbed back into the ship, "Though I know what Qwark will want us to do when he learns of its existence."

None of them had anything to say to that remark, because they knew that Qwark would ask Sunset to blow the ship to pieces, so that they could end the war with Nefarious. While they waited for their friends to find the ship, and tell them its exact location, they decided to head to the Obani Moons, because it was the only other lead that they had at the moment. They were eager to figure out what was happening there, though they were sure that it might be a waste of their time, though they wouldn't be completely sure until they visited the moons and discovered whatever was waiting for them.
> Arsenal: Gemini/Blackwater
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Once Ratchet and his family departed from Holostar Studios, and began the trek towards the Gemini Moons, they relaxed and went their separate ways on the Hyperion. Ratchet and Clank remained at the helm of the ship, making sure that they were heading in the right direction for their next destination while discussing what Nefarious wanted from Clank. Starlight and Sunset retired to where the Cores were being held, no doubt so they could check up on Sunset's magic and make sure that the demon was still in her cage, though Angela knew that there hadn't been any signs of Searing breaking out in the last day or two. The alicorn AI that had been left in charge of the Core Chamber were more than willing to do the checkups, especially since Twilight seemed to enjoy checking all of the terminals in the room, again showing that she might possess a fragment of the alicorn she had been modeled after.

Angela, on the other hand, retired to the Reading Room, a chamber she had designed for her personal research on the mysterious Codex, the strange obsidian colored cube that the people of Old Earth launched into space before the destruction of their planet. Ratchet and Starlight were the only other two who had the code to enter this room, as she only gave it to them in case of an emergency while they were on the Hyperion. She had gotten a message from Al while they were fighting the Tyhrranoids back at the studios, so she figured that it was time to figure out what they had managed to find on the mysterious Maul that had appeared in Annihilation Nation.

Still, to be on the safe side she locked the door to the Reading Room, input the code that would be required to open it from the other side, and opened her tablet as she approached the middle of the room.

"I'm here Al," Angela said, powering up her tablet to reveal Al, who had made sure to leave the Phoenix so Qwark didn't discover what they were talking about, waiting on the other side, "I'm sorry I made you wait... we were attacked by Tyhrranoids at Holostar Studios, but we routed them with ease. I take it that you found something on Maul?"

"Your mysterious friend wasn't easy to track down," Al replied, waving his hand and sending her a file, which appeared on her tablet seconds later, "but, after several hours of digging through various servers and cross checking everything I found, I have managed to put together a file that contains some information on who Maul is. Anything more than what I've sent you will have to be gleamed from the man himself, whenever the two of you meet again."

"Something is better than nothing," Angela commented, nodding her head as she opened the file, "You have my thanks for finding all of this for me, regardless of what you managed to find."

"Finally, someone who appreciates my talents!" Al nearly exclaimed, though he managed to be calm about it, just in case Qwark had been watching him with the Phoenix's machines, "I'm going to head back to the Phoenix and see if I can't locate Nefarious' star cruiser... because it appears that he wanted to keep it as hidden as possible before revealing its existence to Clank. I should have a location soon, so that file had better tide you over until then."

Angela nodded and cut the communication off, knowing that she needed time to see who Maul was before they arrived at the Obani Moons and began their search... for whatever it was that they were going to be searching for. Angela suspected that this was basically a way for them to waste time on a pointless lead, giving Al the time he needed to track down the Leviathan, but she figured it couldn't hurt to explore the moons. They might actually find something interesting while they were there, but she decided to move that thought to the back of her mind as she opened up the file that Al had sent her.

She also didn't tell Al that they were heading to the Obani Moons, as she was sure that Skid was already on his way there, thanks to the brief chat that Ratchet had with him back on Daxx, and had likely told the others where he was going.

She was eager to learn about the mysterious man that had mimicked her lightsaber, the pet name she had given her style of weapon that Sunset had created for her, and managed to destroy Scorpio with such little effort. She could have found a potential ally that could help them defeat Nefarious, unless he was solely interested in fighting against her and was interested in nothing else. She decided that she would have to cross that bridge when she reached it, but for now she opened the file to its first page and started reading about the mysterious man who called himself Maul.





By the time that they arrived at the first of the Obani Moons, the one that was called Gemini, Angela had learned quite a bit about the mysterious man that had come after her, though the interesting part was that he actually had no criminal record. That either meant that he was skilled enough to leave no witnesses or evidence of what he had done, or that he was actually a good person who simply wanted to train himself on how to use a sword. She could already hear Ratchet, or one of his sisters, telling her that she shouldn't judge people based on what they wore or how they looked, considering that Maul wore black clothing and had black skin with red markings on his face. She wasn't judging him on any of that, though she was still interested in seeing where he was on the scale of good or evil and knew that she wouldn't have an answer until they encountered each other again.

Once the Hyperion had announced their arrival at their destination Angela had unlocked the door and joined the others by the ship, where they could begin their descent to the first moon and their search for whatever they were searching for. When they landed on Gemini they noticed that there happened to be a deactivated satellite network that had to power the platform that wasn't far from where they were standing. Ratchet smiled when he noticed the energy beam that was rested in front of them, as it gave him the opportunity to use the Refractor gadget they had found back on Marcadia for the first time in ages.

The instant the door in front of them was open, and they could start exploring the moon, the group followed the beam of energy that bounced from where they landed to one of the various satellites that was in the air. They determined that it was a simple task to reconnect the satellites and open the way to the second moon, so while Ratchet and Angela moved around the platforms, following the beams of energy, Sunset and Starlight focused their magic on tearing apart the small robots that occasionally came their way. The small robots weren't even worth wasting their ammunition on, so they resorted to small bursts of magic and their hand held weapons to clear the path.

Soon the satellite network was fully restored, as it had been quite easy to reconnect the various satellites together when the beam of energy pointed to the next one in the sequence, and the group teleported over to the second moon in the system, the one called Pollux. When they arrived at their next destination Angela stayed back up a bit, allowing Starlight and Sunset to move forward and fight against whatever enemies they happened to find.

"Something wrong Angela?" Ratchet asked, having no idea why his girlfriend would suddenly want to be at the back of the group for once, though he stayed back with her while his sisters attacked their enemies.

"I figured that I'd give Sunset some excitement, especially after everything that she's been through in the last few days," Angela replied, shaking her head as she watched the two sisters tear apart the group of enemies that had been waiting in front of them.

"I see what you mean," Ratchet commented, as they all knew that Sunset had been suffering a lot lately because of Qwark constantly trying to release the demon trapped inside of her, which was why she was constantly sitting out planets this time around, "She does seem to be enjoying herself at the moment."

Angela nodded and watched as Starlight used the pad in front of them to jump into the air, allowing her to land on the top of the tower that was in front of them, while Sunset merely extended her wings and flew up there. She and Ratchet took the pad and arrived in time to watch Starlight tear the small robots that were guarding the top of the tower apart before they moved on across the bridge. The three enemies that were guarding the top of the second tower fell within seconds, as all Starlight did was shoot them to pieces before they could even return a single shot. When they jumped onto the top of the third tower they spotted a large gun robot that had been waiting for them, though that was seconds before Sunset grabbed it in her magic and tore it in half.

Angela had no idea if Sunset had been angry when she destroyed the robot or not, but she had to admit that it was an effective kill that allowed them to use the grind rail without having to worry about someone shooting at them.

Once they had reached the end of the rail they were attacked by a large group of enemies, which were shattered by Starlight's metal staff, though neither Ratchet nor Angela felt the need to draw their weapons at the moment. The enemies that were guarding the jump pads were easily torn apart by the various weapons that Starlight carried with her or, if they were really unlucky, torn apart by Sunset's magic. Even the larger robot that was designed to shoot them first and ask questions later fell in a matter of seconds, thanks to the fact that Sunset caught it with her magic and let her sister blow it to pieces.

They fought their way though the various platforms that the jump pads made them fight through, killing the robot guards that had been placed here by their enemies, before they reached a jump pad that was different than the other ones they had been using so far. As they jumped over to their next destination, or flew in Sunset's case, they found a platform that had something that looked like a tower at the end of it... with Skid standing nearby.

"Cover me!" Skid shouted as he charged at the locked door in front of them, before he promptly tripped over an uneven floor tile or his own shoelaces, "Man down!"

"It's alright Skid," Ratchet assured the hoverboard star, still unsure as to why Qwark even picked him to join the Q Force to begin with, "Fight's over."

"Yes!" Skid exclaimed, before thinking better of his attitude and changing how he was acting almost immediately, "I mean... no, that blows man. I would have joined you sooner, but I encountered heavily resistance."

"You mean at the Galaxy Burger?" Angela commented, pointing at the ketchup stain that was new to his uniform, though she chose not to point out the wrapper that had been tucked him his back pocket.

Skid didn't know whether to embarrassed or continue to put on his bravado in front of them all, but ultimately decided to ignore it at the moment as they determined what the do next. There was a force field blocking their path, one that Sunset could easily cut through with her magic so they could access the final moon in the system, but that was before they got a call to help the Galactic Rangers at Blackwater City. Apparently there were more enemies there than what Sasha had been expecting, because even with the upgrades Sunset had given them the modified Rangers were having a hard time clearing the area of enemies.

With a new set of instructions Ratchet and his family bid Skid farewell, as he insisted on staying behind so he could use his crowbar on the door of the generator in an attempt to force his way inside. The only instruction that they gave Skid was to contact them if he needed help, though something told Ratchet that help wasn't what they would be contacted about.





It was a good thing that Rilgar was close to where they happened to be, because it meant that they were able to reach their destination with little effort and deploy almost immediately. The instant they descended on the battlefield Sunset grabbed several of the enemies that were attacking the modified Rangers and threw them back at the bridge, breaking them and any other enemies that happened to be coming down the bridge. The rest of the Tyhrranoids looked at Sunset as she stood in the middle of the area that rested before the Ranger's stronghold, daring them to come and face her.

Apparently they must have heard what happened to their home world, or more accurately Kavu Island, because several of the Noids that stared at her called in their dropships and ran away with their tails tucked between their legs.

With the number of enemy soldiers cut down by at least half, and several of the major security checkpoints left unguarded, the Rangers gained the ability to fight against their enemies without having to call on Sunset or her family for aid. That didn't stop Ratchet and Starlight from leading the charge up the bridge and clashing with the enemies that were waiting there, though in a matter of seconds the Tyhrranoids had been routed. They then fought in the middle of the area, tearing apart the flying enemies that happened to remain in the area when their allies had fled at the sight of Sunset, before they managed to claim the middle of the battlefield.

Once the middle of the zone was taken the group charged at the enemy base, which was actually undefended thanks to their enemies being scared by Sunset's appearance, and in a minute or two the base's defenses were ripped asunder. As the Rangers cheered at their victory, and the timely aid of Ratchet and his family, Ratchet received a call from Skid, who informed them that he had seen Courtney Gears in the area that surrounded the generator he had been trying to get into. Unfortunately the message cut off halfway through, which only told the group that someone, likely Courtney herself, had taken Skid for some reason.

When the message finished they returned to the Hyperion and set the course for the Obani Moons once more, though this time they were heading to the final moon, Draco, where they would figure out what happened to Skid and deal with one of Nefarious' allies at the same time.
> Arsenal: Obani Draco
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After aiding the Rangers in defeating the enemies that were trying to attack Blackwater City, and smashing them into the ground in the process, the group returned to their starship and began the trek back to the Obani Moons. One of the things that Skid was able to tell them, before he was kidnapped and taken to who knew where, was that the barrier surrounding the final moon had been lowered. Starlight had considered that Courtney Gears, who was definitely aligned with Nefarious thanks to what Clank had told them, had been seen in the area, so they were all preparing for the worst. They were all expecting a fight in order to reach Courtney Gears, so they were making sure that their weapons were at the ready before they arrived at the final Obani Moon.

During that time Angela reviewed what she had been able to learn about Maul, though at the moment she was keeping it all to herself, because Ratchet and his sisters didn't need another distraction at the moment. She was, however, concerned for Sunset, because she was forced to constantly fight against her demon every time she wanted to use her magic for anything. She had seen the amber alicorn in pain several times as they explored the other two Obani Moons and during the fight for Blackwater City, telling her, and anyone else that was observant, that the constant fighting with Searing was draining her abilities. Despite their attempts to keep the demon bound, with the power of two Cores backing them, Searing was still pushing to escape, which was why she kept seeing Sunset being tired every now and then.

Angela felt sorry for Sunset, because the amber alicorn was forced to carry such a burden with almost no one to help her carry it, while trying to figure out a way to either seal the demon away or destroy it completely.

Angela knew that Sunset was clearly trying to hide what she was feeling from her brother and sister, though she suspected that she might be the only one that had noticed the change in the alicorn's behavior. There was also the fact that the Cores were supposed to restore her forgotten memories, which made Angela wonder if she was also trying to come to terms with what she was remembering. Whatever the case was she knew that Sunset could handle it, but that didn't stop her from feeling sorry for her friend while she tried to figure out a way to overcome the demon trapped inside her.

In an effort to take Sunset's mind off of the demon trapped inside her, and the destruction that Searing had previously caused, Angela had called for Sunset to join her, because she had a question about the saber she had been given and knew that only Sunset could help her at the moment.

"You wanted to speak with me Angela?" Sunset asked, walking into the room that Angela was sitting in, where she immediately spotted the weapon she had given her sitting on the table.

"I was merely curious if it was possible to change the color of the beam that extends out of the weapon you gave me," Angela replied, turning to Sunset for a moment, "Don't get me wrong, I like the purple color that you chose when you first made the weapon, but I was curious if there was a way to change it."

"Well... I suppose that its possible to undo the bindings I put on the weapon for a moment so I could access the crystal that's inside it," Sunset answered, though Angela could tell that she was happy to have something else to think about at the moment, "Considering that Maul was able to make a saber with a red blade, how I will never understand until we have a chance to ask him, it shouldn't be too hard to change the color. When I was originally making the weapon I did have several more crystals that I could use to change the color, so it shouldn't be too hard to modify the color... and we should be able to do so before we reach Obani Draco.

Was there a color that you were interested in changing it to, or are you trying to take my mind off of something else?"

"I was thinking of changing the color to blue," Angela said, though she knew that Sunset would have caught onto her plan to take her mind off of the demon inside of her.

"Then give me a few minutes and it will be ready for use once more," Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face for a second, as if she was pleased to have something different to do, "I just need to get my tools, and the crystals needed for the job, and then I can get to work immediately."

Angela was glad to see that Sunset was making an effort to take her mind off of what was troubling her, which would help her relax and stop worrying about the demon that was inside of her.





When they arrived at their destination Starlight immediately noticed that the area around them resembled the music video she had found back on Daxx, making her wonder if this was where Courtney Gears filmed her music videos. To further her point she spotted at least a dozen speakers embedded in the walls, though she was thankful that there wasn't any music playing at the moment. They took a moment to gather more ammunition for their weapons before they walked onto the bridge that was in front of them, though as they did so Starlight caught the small robot enemies that were in front of them and tossed them into the walls.

She wasn't fond of wasting their ammunition on the smaller robots that could fall apart in a single hit, but she had the feeling that they'd have to fight them with their weapons eventually.

They leapt over the gap between two sections of the walkway they were on, while making sure to avoid falling into the pool of purple liquid below them, before jumping into the passage in front of them. As they made their way through the corridor Ratchet and Angela tore the few enemies to pieces with their N60 Storm's, before they came to a section that required them to wait for the liquid to lower a bit. Once the liquid was at a lower level they walked across the metal bridge that connected to the other side, where they felled many of the small robots that came their way as they encountered the next problem.

The next chamber was definitely longer than the previous one, though they noticed that they would have to dodge flaming sections and avoid the electricity that was coming their way. At first Ratchet assumed that it would be a hard trek through this part of the moon, but he and the others managed to get to the other side with no problems at all. It made him wonder if he should be worried that this was too easy, as that would mean that they could potentially be walking into a trap that had been set up for them. Once they were through that bit they had to pass through a spiral section of the corridor, where Ratchet and Angela shot down all of the enemies that were coming their way before they reached the end.

That was when they spotted what Starlight assumed was the heart of the moon, which had been modified into a large disco ball of sorts and only served to annoy her a bit.

The enemies that called the area home were easy to get rid of, allowing them to access the passageway that would allow them to continue forward, where they found another corridor that had electricity coming their way. It was, once again, easy to get through the corridor, though they spotted another area that had moving liquid that required them to plan ahead before stepping forward. That would have been the case had Starlight not decided to summon a magical walkway for them to use to reach the other side much quicker, where they discovered what was likely the last trap that had been waiting for them. The last corridor was a bit longer than the other ones, which was combined with the various hazards that were in their way, but considering that they were able to get through the others they knew that they would be able to reach the end with no problems.

Once they reached the end of the corridor they found a room that appeared to be a room that was designed for a testing room of some kind, though they could all guess which weapon had been tested here. They turned on the monitor that had been waiting for them and watched as Courtney Gears strapped Skid to a table, the same one that they were standing near, and backed away, before a stream of energy surged through him and turned him into a robotic version of himself. Normally Ratchet would have been surprised at such a thing, but when he took what happened at Yeedil into consideration his surprise vanished into thin air. If Sunset could turn from a cazar and become a demon, and then turn into an amber coated alicorn later on, then it stood to reason that turning someone like Skid into robot was possible as well.

He turned back to the others to say something, but when he faced everyone he noticed something odd; Angela was missing, though before he could question it the screen changed to show her where Courtney Gears was.





Angela looked around in surprise as she was teleported someplace else, though by the looks of the room she was in she could determine that this was the area where Courtney Gears filmed her videos. She found Courtney standing in the middle of the room, but what was odd was the fact that she was wearing a black robe that was covering her body. She found it odd because most robots didn't wear clothes, save for what they were made with, and it made her wonder why Courtney, who hated 'squishies', would be wearing on to begin with. She pulled out her weapon in case the evil star wanted to fight her, which was what she assumed was going to happen considering that she was the only one to have been teleported into the room.

"Ah, Jedi Master Angela, I have been expecting you," Courtney said, turning around to face her, though that was when Angela noticed that her eyes had been modified to a dark yellow color, "Its time I showed you how much stronger we robots truly are."

"What are you talking about?" Angela replied, because she had absolutely no idea what a Jedi was, though she had the feeling that this was a way for the star to make her lower her guard.

"Seriously? You're carrying around a lightsaber and yet you don't know what a Jedi is?" Courtney said, letting out a sigh as she tossed aside her robe and pulled out her weapon, which appeared to be a red beam sword that mimicked the one that Maul had, "Whatever. Behind you is a fragment of the Codex... which I will allow you to have if you can beat me, otherwise I will enjoy destroying you and everyone that follows you."

Angela sighed and extended one side of her weapon, which was now blue thanks to the modifications that Sunset had made to it before their arrival, before she charged forward and let their weapons collide. When Angela swung low and aimed at the legs Courtney blocked the attack and forced her backwards, before taking her own swing at her arms and was blocked in kind. Whenever their weapons met each other sparks flew out everywhere, though neither of them paid it any mind as they tried to best the other with their sword skills. Angela had to make sure that she wasn't forced off the edge of the small circular area they were fighting on, but then again it seemed like her opponent was doing the same thing.

At one point Courtney managed to slip her blade past her defenses and cut into the armor that was covering her left arm, though that was when Angela kicked the star in the chest and knocked her back just a bit. Angela cursed herself for letting her opponent get at her, but then decided to extend the other side of her weapon and charged into battle once again. With the second blade out, and her agility aiding her, she slammed both sides of her saber into the weapon that Courtney was holding and immediately forced her to step back just a bit. Angela picked up the pace and applied more pressure on her opponent, cutting into the floor whenever she aimed low, before she decided to try something different.

Angela slammed her weapon into Courtney's weapon, causing her to stagger for a moment, before she engaged her boots and leapt over the star's head before she recovered, to which she drove one end of her saber into the star's chest. She must have struck the area that Courtney's power core was located, because seconds later the robot's body went still and she sheathed her blade. She had figured that the music star would have put up more of a fight, but in the end it appeared that she wasn't prepared for the fight that she had picked Angela for... and had given her a piece of the Codex.

Now they had to figure out how to return Skid to his natural form... which she assumed that either Sunset or Starlight would be able to do in a matter of days once they got started.
> Arsenal: Zeldrin Starport
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Angela stared at the Codex fragment that Courtney Gears had acquired, sifting through all the information that the piece contained while slowly coming to terms with what the former star had told her. The fragment contained the entirety of everything the people of Old Earth referred to as 'Star Wars', though everything meant all of the books that were on the subject and the various movies that had apparently been made to show what the stories were referring to. There was so much for her to learn about this mysterious, and previously unknown, culture that the people of Old Earth worshiped, which fascinated her to no end. She even found a section of the fragment that was dedicated to both the 'Jedi Order' and the 'Sith Lords', which revealed even more to her than she could have hoped for.

It was times like this that Angela was glad to have made the decision to step out of the shadows and join Ratchet in his adventures, because they had at least three fragments of the legendary Codex; as she had found two in the Bogon Galaxy before she had met the others. Her fragments had merely contained a section on music, which explained her strange ringtones whenever she was called, and an ever growing list of spells, which is how she assumed that Sunset and Starlight had first learned some of their more powerful spells. The Spell Fragment, as Angela called it, had been linked to a server that distributed the knowledge it contained throughout the universe, which was how Ratchet's sisters had been able to learn what they did.

Still, even with three fragments of the Codex found it wasn't enough, as there were likely almost a hundred more of them just waiting to be found, so that their information could be shared with the rest of the universe.

"Like, destroy all squishies! Dude!" a robotic voice said, causing her to snap herself out of her thoughts and stare at the robotic version of Skid, who acted the same way before he had been turned into a robot.

She felt bad for Skid, she really did, because all he was trying to do was save the Solana Galaxy from Nefarious, whose Biobliterator appeared to change organic life into robots. She was still surprised that the mad doctor had been able to perfect a method to perform such a change, but she was confident that Starlight would eventually find a way to reverse the transformation. If Starlight could figure out how to stop Searing, and somehow transform Sunset into a pony like herself, then Angela was sure that she would be able to help Skid in the future... once they were done with Nefarious.

Still, hearing her robotic friend constantly speaking of 'destroying all squishies' was getting old real fast, which made her moan as she turned the volume down on the cell that Skid was standing in.

"How is the research going?" Ratchet asked, stepping into the room that Angela was sitting in, to which his girlfriend turned around to face him for a moment.

"Not too bad actually," Angela admitted, tapping the Codex fragment for a moment, "There's so much information stored on this one piece than either of the two that I found in the Bogon Galaxy... and I can't help but study everything that it contains."

"I'm sure that my sisters would agree with you," Ratchet commented, letting out a chuckle as he stared at the fragment, "We should be at the Phoenix in a few hours, so you'll be able to get some research done before we arrive... and then see what Qwark's next insane plan is."

"Sadly, that will likely involve him asking Sunset to destroy something."Angela said, letting out a sigh as the thought crossed her mind, which she was sure Ratchet was also thinking about, "To be completely honest I'm still surprised that Nefarious even wanted to continue this war of his, especially after what Searing did at Kavu Island. If I had been in Nefarious' shoes, and had seen that destruction like he had, I would have called the entire war off, paid for any and all damages that I had caused, and submit myself to prison."

"Nefarious doesn't understand what Sunset is capable of doing when she's overtaken by Searing's power," Ratchet said, though he could imagine what would happen if Nefarious was forced to face Searing in a one on one battle, "All I can hope for is that Qwark doesn't ask Sunset to do anything stupid... otherwise there's no telling what my sister will do to that man."

Angela nodded her head to that statement, because she was well aware of what Sunset could do to a person when she was consumed by the demonic power that was trapped inside of her. She just hoped that Qwark wasn't a fool the next time they saw each other... otherwise she was sure that someone was going to end up with a broken arm.





When the Hyperion entered the space around the Phoenix, and the group crossed over to the other ship, Ratchet noticed something odd almost immediately; the ship that had Qwark's logo on it was nowhere to be seen. It made them all wonder if one of the other members of the Q Force had been sent out on a mission, which was highly unlikely considering who they were thinking about, before they decided that Qwark must be up to something. Ratchet was fine with Qwark not being in the immediate area, because it meant that Sunset could finally have a breather and not have to worry about the foolish captain asking her to blow something up.

He also noticed that the four Rangers that Sunset had outfitted, the four that resembled a cross between a dragon and a Galactic Ranger, were busy training the next batch of Rangers that would be joining them soon. He guessed that he and his family might not be needed to lead any assaults against Nefarious' forces anytime soon, considering how much damage even one of the four modified Rangers could cause on their own. When they reached the bridge, however, they noticed that Sasha was pacing as if something was bothering her, which Ratchet assumed that there was something on her mind.

That was also before he took note that there was something on the screen that was about Zeldrin, which meant that she must have found something about the starship that Nefarious told Clank about.

"Its about time that you guys returned," Sasha commented, turning to face them as they entered the bridge, "We finally found Nefarious' starship, the Leviathan, at the Zeldrin Starport, but the moment we found it Qwark ran off with the monkey... so I suspect that he's already on his way there."

"Great, and in the process he's likely tipped off Nefarious to the fact that we've discovered its location," Sunset said, letting out a sigh as she looked at the screen, "Though, judging by the look on your face when we entered, I take it there was something else that you discovered... something that Qwark doesn't know about."

"There's a second Leviathan sitting in the middle of the space between the Starport and the planet of Zeldrin," Sasha told them, bringing up the image she was referring to, revealing that there was a second ship near where Qwark was heading, "Nefarious fully believes that Sunset is going to appear and destroy one of them, which is why he's gone and set up a decoy before your arrival... and Qwark has no idea that there's a second ship."

"Which means we can trick him into agreeing not to ask Sunset to destroy anything ever again," Ratchet said, his eyes lighting up for a moment, "Come on, we had better catch up with him... before he does something stupid."

"I'm going to sit this planet out and study the Codex fragment," Angela said, causing Ratchet to raise an eyebrow for a moment, but he knew that it was something she was interested in and didn't even bother to try and talk her into joining them, "I should be done by the time you guys return from the Starport."

Ratchet nodded and departed from the bridge with his sisters, leaving Angela standing beside Sasha and the rest of the Q Force, who became interested in Angela the moment she mentioned the Codex.

"You found a fragment of the infamous Codex?" Al asked, as if he couldn't believe what Angela had told them, while his eyes betrayed his interest in the subject.

"Yes, and it holds the entire lore on something called 'Star Wars'," Angela replied, holding the fragment up for a moment, "So, who wants to see what the fragment has in store? I'm thinking of a movie night of sorts."

The moment she mentioned seeing what the fragment had in store for them, and the various movies that were stored on it, the group burst into action and started gathering everything. She had told Ratchet that she would be studying the fragment, and that part was try, but she was more interested in seeing what the various movies she had spotted could tell them. She was sure that Ratchet and his sisters could handle whatever madness that Qwark would ask of them, which allowed her to smile as she slipped the fragment into a holding cell and started up one of the various movies.





Ratchet and his sisters arrived at the Starport a few hours after departing from the Phoenix, where Clank informed them that the second Leviathan was where Sasha had spotted it. From what they could determine the first Leviathan was empty of people, machines, and pretty much everything else, essentially making it a shell of a ship. It was basically a trap for them, not doubt set up to explode the moment someone like Qwark stepped foot on it, but at the moment they knew that the trap didn't matter to much. The moment they landed in the Starport, and climbed out of their ship, they immediately spotted the ship that Qwark used when he traveled from planet to planet and wasn't using the Phoenix.

Qwark and his monkey were already there, apparently ending an argument before they could even approach, so whatever they were talking about was lost on them.

"Its about time you arrived," Qwark said, waving a hand towards them as they approached him, though they all knew who he was really talking to, "So, Nefarious is aboard the Leviathan and is likely expecting our arrival... but I think its time we put an end to this game. What price do I have pay in order to get you to destroy the Starship?"

"All I ask is that you stop asking me to destroy everything." Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face for a moment, though it was clear that Qwark had no idea why she was doing so, "I get rid of the Leviathan and you stop asking me to use Searing's powers. That's all."

Ratchet, Starlight, Clank, and the monkey watched the two of them for a few minutes, wondering if Qwark was even going to agree to something like that, but Ratchet knew that the man would eventually take it. The offer was just too tempting, as every time Qwark asked Sunset to use her power she told him off, but this time she was offering no resistance and was actually offering her powers to him. He even noticed that Sunset was preparing for her attack before Qwark even agreed to the terms, as there was an aura that started to wrap around her. That was before Qwark let out a sigh, which told them all that he had made a decision regarding the offer that Sunset was presenting him with.

'I... agree to your terms," Qwark said in defeat, as if he wanted to use her powers in the future, but knew that this was the best chance to get rid of Nefarious in an instant before he could flee, "I'll let you do your thing."

Sunset smiled as she approached the airlock that the Leviathan would normally be docking at, which was currently open at the moment, and leapt into a position that allowed her to get the best view of the empty starship. She pointed her right hoof at the starship and let the magic gather around it, forming a sphere of energy that would get rid her target in a matter of seconds. She waited a few moments, allowing the power to gather, before releasing her magic, loosing a beam of magic that roared through space and collided with the side of the ship. Sunset then watched as the entire starship was consumed by her attack, the explosions tearing it to pieces and scattering the pieces between the Starport and the planet below them.

With the deed done she opened her wings and returned to the others, knowing that it was a matter of time until Nefarious decided whether or not to actually dock at the Starport.

"At last... the war is over," Qwark commented as Sunset returned to them, shaking his head as he prepared to climb into his own ship, "With Nefarious gone his army will scatter to the far corners of the Solana Gal..."

Starship Leviathan is now approaching the Starport, a robotic voice said, causing Qward to turn around and glare at them, as he realized that he had been tricked.

"You destroyed the wrong ship." Qwark stated, though it was clear that he wasn't too happy about Sunset missing the target and destroying something else in the process, "You didn't destroy the Leviathan."

"Oh, but I did," Sunset replied, a smirk appearing on her face as she stared at the captain, "Sasha and Al discovered that there was a second Leviathan in the area, so the ship I destroyed was actually Nefarious' decoy ship. You asked me to destroy the Leviathan, which I did without resistance... but am I to take your lack of appreciation as a sign that you wont honor your side of the agreement?"

Qwark stared at Sunset for a moment, but even the glance she was giving him was apparently enough to make him reconsider even fighting with her. Everyone knew that Qwark feared the demon trapped inside of her, and the power that she could wield when she was pissed off, so it was understandable that he would have buckled under her gaze eventually. Once Qwark admitted defeat he climbed into his ship with the monkey, to which Ratchet and Starlight joined them as Sunset remained behind in the Starport.

"Your not coming?" Clank asked, wondering why Sunset would stay behind when they had Nefarious trapped.

"Not enough room for another pony on that ship," Sunset commented, turning around so she could head back to their own ship, "and, to be honest, I don't want to sit next to Qwark. Just get into the ship, do whatever it is you need to do with Nefarious, and then get out quickly... because I have the feeling that he's likely rigged the ship to blow."

Clank nodded and climbed into the ship as well, to which Sunset watched the ship depart from the Starport and head in the direction of the actual Leviathan, where they would be able to figure out what Nefarious was planning.

Once the group was aboard the ship Qwark led the charge through the interior of the ship, alerting all of the enemies that had been positioned to protect Nefarious and causing them to open fire at the group. With the combination of Starlight's shields and her RY3NO, which she hadn't been able to use much after acquiring it, the first wave of attackers was easily dealt with. It took them some time to fight their way through the host of enemies that were in their path, as well as ride the elevator that would take them to the next level and fight the next wave of attackers.

Ratchet was eager to see what Nefarious was up to, though he was also slightly annoyed that Qwark was doing little more than just firing one shot at a time before ducking under the nearest cover. When they reached the second elevator they took a moment to gather themselves, as they had no idea what the expect when they reached the top of the shaft.

"Come in, gentlemen, we've been expecting you." a voice said as the group entered the bridge of the Leviathan, to which they discovered Lawrence standing there, though that was before he then turned to the captain's chair. "The riff raff have arrived, sir."

"Captain Qwark!" Nefarious said, turning his chair around so he could face the group, "You've put on a bit of weight since last we met. I see that the Goddess of Destruction isn't with you... a pity that is. It would have been funny to see her face when all of you met your end."

Ratchet knew that, if both he and Starlight met their end at the hands of one of their enemies, that Sunset would likely go berserk and lay waste to everything that rested between her and the person who got rid of them. He opened his mouth to make some retort to Nefarious' statement, to tell him that it was unwise to mess with his sister, but before he could do so Nefarious touched a button on his chair and the Leviathan started its self destruct sequence. That was then followed by the two robots teleporting out of the ship, to which Ratchet and Starlight began their trek back to the ship they had used to enter the Leviathan to begin with, while Qwark went to go raid the files that their enemy might have left behind.

When they reached their ship they noticed that there wasn't much time left in the countdown, and the fact that Qwark had yet to return, so Ratchet made the executive decision to launch them before the ship exploded. As they were ejected from the ship he, Starlight, Clank, and the monkey watched as the ship was ripped to pieces, but there were no signs of another ship leaving the wreckage of the Leviathan as the large ship descended towards the planet below. Ratchet was sure that Qwark was dead... though to be honest he was happy that he was finally out of the picture, because that meant that Sunset was free from him at last.

The downside to that was the fact that Searing couldn't kill Qwark anymore... which meant that she was likely going to be furious when they told her and Sunset that Qwark was dead. He only hoped that they could turn that anger on Nefarious, otherwise he was sure that there would be much more destruction in their future.
> Arsenal: Metropolis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet had been expecting many things when he and Starlight told Sunset that the explosion that destroyed the Leviathan had also claimed Qwark's life. One of the things that he had been expecting was the complete and utter destruction of the Starport in a fit of rage, or the obliteration of the other ships that orbited the station. He even considered that both Sunset and Searing would have simply destroyed Zeldrin itself, much like what happened to Yeedil, or teleport to a different planet and cause some destruction. He had been expecting something, and Starlight had prepared to combat whatever was coming, but what actually happened caught the both of them by surprise.

What they got was a look of defeat that appeared on Sunset's face, as if both she and Searing couldn't believe that the man they hated was gone, though she refused to speak with either of them as she returned to the Hyperion and locked herself in the cell that kept her demon in check.

"I haven't seen her look this depressed since she learned that she wasn't a cazar." Starlight commented, remembering how devastated her sister had been when she learned the truth about herself, "I guess that, despite her hatred for Captain Qwark, both she and Searing had been looking forward to getting rid of the man... and now that has been taken away from them."

"We're just lucky that Searing hasn't gone into a rage yet," Ratchet replied, taking a seat at the bridge before setting in the coordinates for the Phoenix, "but now that both Sunset and Searing have a reason to hate Nefarious... we're going to have to be careful around her."

"You mean more than we already were?" Starlight asked, raising an eyebrow as the ship started its journey to where the Phoenix was located, "It took everything we had to keep Searing in check when she was pissed off at Qwark... but now that he's dead, and her rage will be focused on the one responsible, we might not have the ability to keep the demon contained. I'm not even sure that I'd be able to contain her rage with two of the six Cores... we really should have taken the one we found on Aquatos when we had the chance."

Ratchet hated to admit it, but when he considered everything that Searing could do when she was pissed off, and shuddered when he remembered Yeedil, he knew that his sister was right. They should have damned the consequences and taken the third Core the moment they found it, but instead they chose to play it safe and not grab it. He still hadn't called Sasha or Angela to tell them the news, because he had no idea how the rest of the team would react and had, after some debate, to simply tell them the moment they returned to the Phoenix. He silently wished that Sunset didn't have that demon trapped inside of her all the time, but at the moment there was no use wishing for something that he or Starlight couldn't change.

It didn't take them long to reach the Phoenix, where Sunset remained on board the Hyperion while Ratchet and Starlight went forward to tell their comrades what had happened.

"By the Maker, your all okay." Angela said, throwing her arms around Ratchet the moment he and Starlight entered the bridge, "We saw the Leviathan blow up from here... and we are all very happy that you, Starlight, Clank, and Sunset have returned unharmed."

"Expect for Qwark," Clank commented, turning to Sasha and Al, who were busy looking over some charts and readings they had been taking, "Is there any chance that a secondary craft might have left the Leviathan before it self destructed?"

"We've been going over the scans ever since the ship went down, but we keep reaching the same conclusion," Sasha replied, letting out a sigh, though whether it was relief or sorrow at Qwark's death none of them were able to determine, "Qwark didn't get off the ship in time... he's gone, and there's no changing that. How's Sunset taking the news?"

"She and Searing are depressed," Starlight said, looking at the star chart while she tried to determine where Nefarious was going to strike next, because they had no information on where he was planning on attacking, "The demon promised to kill Qwark after what happened on Yeedil, even going out of her way to threaten him all the time, but now... now the demon has nothing. We're just lucky that she hasn't tried to regain control yet, because an emotional Searing is the last thing we need at the moment."

"Thank the Maker for that," Sasha said, pulling up a screen that revealed a number of messages that had come to her and the crew, "We've been getting messages and reports from the other Rangers, and some citizens from the other planets, and we've managed to piece together something that might help you out; Nefarious is planning on attacking Metropolis. Al told me earlier that Metropolis was where Nefarious was defeated by Qwark in the past, so we came to the conclusion that he would want to level the city now that Qwark is dead."

Ratchet figured that Al must either have played the vid-comics that he and his family had collected while they were gone or had done some deep research into Qwark's life, though the second point was more understandable than the first one, considering that Al had been a fan of the former captain's for some time until the incident with Drek. He supposed that Nefarious would want to finish the job and destroy the one place where people still, for some strange reason, celebrated Qwark and his deeds, as if they ignored all the evil he had done. He didn't know what the destruction of Metropolis would give Nefarious, besides some bonus points with the other villains that he associated himself with, but at least it was a lead.

"Then let's go to Metropolis and stop Nefarious before he completes whatever plan he's set in motion," Ratchet said, because deep down he knew that there was something that they had missed, but it was something that they would have to worry about once they had saved the city.





When Ratchet landed in Metropolis he, and the rest of his family, found that the entire city was already under attack by Nefarious and whatever troops he had assigned the task to. He had listened to Starlight as she read off all the reports that Sasha had received, and some of the newer ones that had appeared on their trek to the planet, but even then he didn't think that their enemies would have gotten as far as they had. Several buildings were already burning, some of them were destroyed, and there were screams as people were hunted down and captured by Nefarious' minions.

"Its already started..." Ratchet said in shock as he climbed out of his ship, to which the rest of his family followed suit, "I guess the only thing we can do is find Nefarious and stop this before he puts his plan into action."

"I'll take to the skies and remove his drop ships before they can deliver any more reinforcements," Sunset said, opening her wings and touching the blades that she had attached to them, as she was in no mood to use her magic, "I'll also see if I can locate where Nefarious is hiding... just so we can get this over with."

Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela knew why Sunset wasn't too keen on using her magic at the moment, because in her emotional state, which was due to Qwark's death, one wrong move could unleash Searing and her power. They all remembered what happened on Yeedil, and the destruction they had witnessed, so they were glad that she was switching to flying and not taking such a risk. Ratchet would have preferred that Sunset stay on the Hyperion, where she wouldn't have to worry about loosing the demon upon the universe, but at this point there was nothing he could say to dissuade her. Only Starlight could stop the demon, thanks to the power of the Cores that they had recovered, so there was really nothing he could do but pray to whoever was watching that Searing remained in her cage.

"Very well," Ratchet said, turning to face Sunset for a moment, who was already ready to take off, "but please don't do anything rash. Just take out the enemy ships, find Nefarious, and then come find us once you discover where he's hiding."

Sunset stared at him for a few seconds, as if he couldn't believe that he was telling her not to do anything rash, before she flapped her wings and took off, leaving the four of them to fight their way through the host of enemies that were coming their way.

"We had best find and eliminate Nefarious before Sunset finds him," Angela commented, extending both ends of her beam sword as she pointed at the building they would have to fight their way through, "because there's no telling how long it will be before she detonates and releases Searing into the universe again. She's angry at Nefarious, so if the two of them end up meeting..."

"...then the entire planet will be put in jeopardy." Starlight finished, knowing exactly what they were hoping to avoid this time, though she let out a sigh as she pulled out her RY3NO, "Let's do this."

Ratchet and Angela followed Starlight as she began the assault on Nefarious' forces, using the RY3NO to clear out the enemies that had been waiting in the building they had landed near, while they focused on any enemies that might have followed them from behind. It was at times like this that Ratchet was glad to have one of the RYNO weapons on their side, because it appeared that the third installment of the weapon series was just as powerful as the previous two. With it Starlight smashed the enemies that had been waiting for them to pieces, though while she did that Ratchet used his weapons to shoot down several enemies that came their way and Angela cut others apart.

Ratchet even spotted a drop ship that was coming towards their location, but before Starlight could even turn her weapon on the ship it exploded into a ball of fire as Sunset destroyed it, before disappearing once more.

As they walked into the second building they found another group of Tyhrranoids that were waiting for them, though thanks to Starlight's weapon they managed to clear them out. Ratchet would have felt sorry for them, as they were quite literally destroying everything that Nefarious was currently throwing at them, but then he remembered that they were attacking the planet and decided they didn't deserve his pity. Once the second building was cleared out they accessed the weapon vendor and restocked their weapons, so that they could decimate their enemies with Starlight's RY3NO.

Before they left the building they noticed a massive orange and grey colored sphere rise into the air between where they were and another area of the city, though the three of them knew what it had to be and noticed that it happened to be charging. Angela, sensing something was amiss, sheathed her weapon, grabbed both Ratchet and Starlight by the collars of their armor, and dragged them behind a wall before the Biobliterator loosed whatever attack it was preparing. A few seconds passed before they heard the whine of a weapon powering down, to which they poked their heads out from where they were hiding and noticed that all of the organic enemies that had been standing in front of them had been replaced by robots.

With the deed done the massive sphere rose into the air and left the planet, as if turning the people in the immediate area into robots was the only reason that Nefarious had bothered to bring it to Metropolis. Ratchet looked around as Starlight laid waste to the now robotic enemies that were in front of them, as he was worried about Sunset, but he spotted her flying through the air as she searched for Nefarious. He assumed, because of the constant changes that had been forced upon her body, that she might be immune to the effects of the Biobliterator, which was one of the few times that he was glad to have Searing around.

Once the enemies in front of them had been dealt with, and they made short work of the tank that appeared in their way, they jumped up to the next walkway and attacked the robotic Tyhrranoids that were in their way. Ratchet had to keep himself from laughing as he watched Angela fight, because her weapon made short work of any enemies that came at her, as her beam sword cut through their now robotic skin like butter. Ratchet switched to his rifle and decided to take out any and all enemies that were off in the distance, while Starlight and Angela focused on the foes that were right in front of them.

It wasn't long before they encountered another drop ship, though this one was accompanied by two flying enemies, but before they could point their weapons at them the ship exploded, to which they watched Sunset spin around and cut the two enemies apart with her wing blades before disappearing again.

"Oddly convenient that she appears whenever a drop ship appears in our way," Angela commented, watching Sunset disappear before turning to Ratchet and Starlight, "Does that mean she's already found Nefarious and is helping us get to him faster... or does that mean that she has no idea where he is and merely wishes to help us out?"

"No idea." Ratchet replied, letting out a sigh as they moved forwards once again, "Though it hardly matters at the moment... as long as she's safe I can be happy if she doesn't locate Nefarious."

They came to a section where they would have to climb up a metallic walkway and go around the side of a building, but then Starlight ignited her magic and summoned a walkway for them to use. She merely wrapped it around the building, in the fashion on the one that they would have had to walk on, and they continued forward, shooting down the enemies they would have had to fight if they had followed the other path. Once they had reached the other side of the building they noticed a laser beam that required the gadget they found back on Marcadia, to which Ratchet pulled it out and used the energy field to attach the beam to the nearby pointer. The moment that was done he accessed a bolt crank and turned it all the way around, before he could bounce the beam into a hole in the wall and allowed the bridge in front of them to connect to the platform in front of them.

It was there that they found Nefarious standing on a train, near the front of it to be exact, so the three of them quietly approached him so they could get the drop on their target.

"So good of you to join me." Nefarious commented, just as a energy sphere wrapped around the entire train, which happened to depart from where it had been waiting the moment the trio had boarded it, "No doubt you were expecting me to surrender the moment you approached me, or to immediately fight you for control over this pathetic planet. No... I came to Metropolis so I could destroy this pathetic city, and you have delivered the weapon of my vengeance to me. So sit back, relax for a moment, and witness true destruction!"

With that said Nefarious teleported out of the area, but that was followed by Starlight discovering that he had merely been a hologram that had been designed to lure them to this location. Nefarious had actually trapped them and separated them from the rest of the city, leading her to wonder what the villain's true plan was for the city. She could try to teleport off of the train and see what would happen, but she assumed that their enemy had taken that into consideration and had designed it to keep them inside, which would be possible considering that he had access to one of the Cores for some unknown amount of time.

As she looked around for something to deactivate the barrier, and free them so they could stop Nefarious, Angela looked around for Sunset, as if she was concerned about something else entirely.

"I sense a disturbance in the Force..." Angela commented, more to herself than to the others, though that only worried her more than she had previously been.





Sunset was tired of searching for Nefarious from the skies, because he had actually made it difficult for someone to find him from the air, as if he had been expecting her to do this. Sure, she had helped her family with several of the drop ships that had been in their way, but even then she just wanted to find her target so she could bring this fight to an end. She didn't expect Nefarious to suddenly jump out of nowhere and start shouting to get her attention, but then again villains were idiots at times and usually did something like that when they thought they were winning. That thought reminded her of Drek and Qwark, and the idiotic mistakes they had made when they thought they were winning, but that only pissed her off even more.

That was before she spotted something trying to get her attention from below, though as she zeroed in on what it was she noticed Nefarious beckoning for her to come to him.

"I'm the one who killed Captain Qwark!" Nefarious loudly declared, as if he was trying to piss her off more than she already was, "Come on, Sunset Shimmer, doesn't that make you mad at me... or killing the man that you failed to kill time and time again?"

Sunset growled as she flapped her wings even harder than she had done in the past, soaring through the air as she headed right at Nefarious and focused solely on the robotic villain. That was seconds before there was a blinding light that erupted from behind Nefarious, causing her to lose her sight for a moment as she crashed on the platform that he was standing on. Sunset then struggled to figure out where she was and where her target was, while trying to recover her sight, but then she felt something pierce her chest, though she felt no blood pouring out of her.

That was before her entire body began to shake, as if it was violently reacting to whatever Nefarious had done to her while she tried to find where he was standing.

"Just a little serum that I developed back on Aquatos," Nefarious explained to her, though she heard the sound of him backing up, "I managed to harness the power of the Core I had recovered, to some degree anyway, and developed something that should unlock the full potential within someone like you, but this is the first time I've had the opportunity to test it. Go ahead, unleash your true power... Searing!"

Sunset screamed as the serum tore through her body, weakening her hold on the demon's power as she felt her body cracking under the power that was threatening to overwhelm her. She could feel her hooves cracking as Searing pushed her claws to the surface, her chest burning as the hollow hole threatened to open one again, and every other feeling that came with the transformation. She could feel the demon seizing control of her body and mind, all while imagining the horror that Nefarious had just unleashed on the rest of the universe.

The last thing she remembered was the energy within her expanding as she was consumed by a pillar of energy, just like what happened back on Yeedil so long ago.
> Arsenal: Metropolis; Devastation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet stared at the pillar of energy that appeared between where he, Starlight, and Angela were currently standing and the area that they had left their ship at, though all he felt at the moment was fear. They all knew what Searing was capable of doing to planets when she was pissed off, which was why they had gone out of their way to prepare themselves for the day the demon showed herself again. Time and time again they had thought that Qwark would have been the one to loose Searing into the universe again, and that they would have another Yeedil on their hands. They had prepared for this day, silently thanking the Maker, and whoever else that was watching, that they didn't have to fight Searing each day ever since Sunset had left Yeedil's hospital.

Despite all of their planning and preparations, all of which took the majority of the year they spent in the Bogon Galaxy, all Ratchet could feel as he gazed at the pillar was fear... and it took all of his willpower to stop himself from shaking.

"We're done for," Ratchet said, falling to his knees as he finally tore his gaze away from the energy, "Stopping Searing from taking over when she was halfway in control is one thing, but I don't think that we'll be able to stop her this time..."

"Of course we can stop her Ratchet!" Starlight said, interrupting her brother as she stared passed the energy, her eyes locking on where they had left the Hyperion, "We just need to get aboard our starship and retrieve the Cores that we've already collected so far. If one of them was able to stop Searing back on Yeedil, then I am sure that two of them will be able to do the same thing here... provided we can get out of this cell that we're apparently trapped in. I hate to admit it, but it seems that Nefarious planned this out better than we gave him credit for... because according to my readings this cell is designed to prevent us from leaving without using our time and energy to break it."

"Can't you just use your magic and teleport out of here?" Angela asked, though by what Starlight had just said she assumed that Nefarious had also added something that prevented her from doing that.

"Not until that barrier is down," Starlight replied, touching the cell that they were trapped in for a moment, which rippled for a few seconds before going still once more, "Give me some time and I'll crack right through it."

Angela nodded and sat down beside Ratchet, knowing that she could at least comfort her boyfriend while they waited for Starlight to break through the cell that Nefarious had trapped them in... all while watching and waiting for Searing to appear. All she hoped for was that Starlight could free them quickly so she could stop Searing, but they would have to be patient and see what was coming.





Nefarious stared at the pillar of energy as he waited for Searing to emerge, though while he waited for her to do so he was studying the power that was right in front of him. He had been curious about the strange energy signature that he had found when he studied the Core, though he was curious as to why the pillar happened to have an identical signature to the Core. Magic, as he had learned from watching Starlight, was something that was almost unheard of in both the Solana and Bogon Galaxies until she and Sunset had showed themselves. It was an interesting field of study that only the sisters were professionals in, considering that they used it daily, and he had been slowly studying it himself in an effort to beat both Starlight and Sunset, or Searing as he discovered the amber alicorn was also called.

He had looked at the forums shortly after the explosion of the Leviathan, before he launched his assault on his city, and discovered that many people in the Bogon Galaxy claimed that Searing had anger issues, which was what triggered the near destruction of Yeedil, but he knew that it was a natural disaster that had struck the planet and not someone using magic.

He would have thought more about what he was seeing before his eyes, but not seconds after he returned his attention to the pillar the energy rippled and tore itself apart, as if announcing that Searing was ready to reveal herself. He expected to find a possessed pony that looked like a demon, but what he actually found in the middle of where the pillar had been was something completely different. He found a more humanoid creature standing before him, looking more like the humans of old than the cazar that he had read about in the reports, but then he noticed all of the oddities that were attached to her. For one thing she was wearing a flaming dress that resembled a cross between something one would wear to a ball and some sort of ancient armor, while her hair appeared to take on the appearance of moving flames.

Nefarious then noticed that, in addition to everything he had already seen, Searing's tail was on fire, just like her hair, though that wasn't the main thing he was looking at. His robotic eyes were on the seemingly bone white crown that was wrapped around her forehead, which her horn appeared to be resting against, and the hole that had appeared in her chest, though that rested between her neck and the upper parts of her chest. When Searing opened her eyes he noticed that her sclera had turned almost pitch black while the inner part of her eyes had turned an icy cyan color, completing the transformation from a seemingly innocent pony creature into the demon that many people spoke about.

"So... you are the one who has released me from my prison this time," Searing said, landing on the platform that Nefarious was standing on, while giving him the chance to hear the twisted voice she used whenever she spoke, "Dr. Nefarious."

Nefarious, despite being a robot and having no mechanics that could allow him to feel any of his old emotions, felt a sudden wave of fear pass through him the moment the demon said his name, because he detected a vast amount of hate behind those words.

"Yes, I am the one that 'released' you, as you put it." Nefarious said as calmly as he could, because if he had did his research right, and he was sure that he had done so, then he knew that Searing loved to give people fear before destroying them, "And now I have turned Captain Qwark's greatest asset against the rest of the Solana Galaxy... to bad he's not here to see this. I'd love to see the look on his face when he realized what was going to happen next, but I guess I can settle on the faces of those that still remain in the city."

"So you woke me from my slumber, and gave me complete control over Sunset's body, just to blow this city to pieces?" Searing asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow at him, though Nefarious detected that she was annoyed over something.

"Is... is something wrong?" Nefarious asked, as all his research indicated that Searing loved to destroy whatever she could get her hands on and usually repaid whoever woke her up with destroying something for them.

That was when Searing started to laugh, though whether it was at him or what he had just said Nefarious had absolutely no idea, so he decided to wait and see what happened next. The strange thing about the whole transformation he had witnessed was the fact that the sky above them had partly become as black as night, while the rest seemed to be the normal coloration. As he stared at the laughing demon he began to wonder if this had been a good idea, because everything wasn't going as he had planned when he had come up with this idea some time ago.

"Oh no, everything is just fine..." Searing said, staring right at Nefarious with what appeared to be pure hatred in her eyes, "except for one small detail that you have appeared to overlook. Captain Qwark was to be killed by my hand... and YOU F**KING STOLE MY KILL!"

Searing slammed her fist against the air to her left and cracked it, which caused the ground below them to shudder for a few seconds before the buildings started to crack under the pressure. Nefarious, having equipped his body with a sensor that detected how powerful earthquakes were, would have sweated when his sensor detected a 7.5 quake in progress, but if the stories were to be believed then this wasn't her full power yet. In the off chance that Searing turned on him, which apparently she was in the process of doing, he had also crafted a weapon that would harm her, so that he could force her to submit to him.

He pulled out the weapon in question, the Cannon that Ratchet and his family had discovered thanks to the terminal on Daxx, and pointed it right at Searing, but before he could press the button Searing appeared to the right of him and cut the weapon in half, completely destroying it in the process. He wondered how she could have sliced his weapon in half, but then he noticed that one of the blades that had been attached to her wings had been removed and reshaped into a usable sword, while also generating enough heat to cut through the gun like it was made of butter. Now he was beginning to see what the other villains on the forums had meant when they said that it was a bad idea to upset Searing, which he had done by simply killing Qwark.

As a consequence he was fully beginning to regret this entire venture, because now it appeared that no matter what he had planned was going to be destroyed before he could even put them into action.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Searing asked, apparently waiting for him to have some sort of reaction to all the power she was currently using against him.

"Um... errors have been made?" Nefarious replied, staring into Searing eyes as he wondered what the demon had planned for him, all while regretting all of his decisions that related to this attack.

"Indeed." Searing agreed, wrapping her magic around Nefarious for a few seconds, giving him a moment to rethink everything that had just happened before she broke him.

Seconds later she swung her arm and sent Nefarious flying into the nearest building, crashing through one of the walls and several of the support structures that were supporting the building. Searing released Nefarious for a second and gathered energy in front of her hand, zeroing in on where she had left Nefarious before she released the beam of energy and tore a massive hole in the building. Before the smoke could clear she spotted her enemy as he engaged his jetpack and tried to get somewhere where she wouldn't find him, but she didn't intend for Nefarious to get away from her. She flapped her wings and flew through the air as she zeroed in on where Nefarious was, bashing her fist into his back the moment she caught up with him. The ground around her quaked as she released a barrage of charged punches that mimicked the power that induced earthquakes, which produced miniature quakes as she beat the daylights out of Nefarious.

Searing then grabbed a hold of him before he fell into the abyss below them, and broke his body during the fall, though she latched onto his neck and held him up for everyone to see, as if she assumed that any survivors of Nefarious' attack on the city were watching this fight with their own eyes. She grinned as she summoned her magic around her left hand, forming the sphere upon sphere technique that she had used to nearly shatter Yeedil into a thousand pieces, knowing that it was the perfect spell to destroy Nefarious' resolve and his will to continue living. She then slammed her fist into his chest and let the magic happen, which resulted in her cracking the air around them and doing a vast amount of damage to Nefarious' body.





Ratchet and Angela watched in horror as Searing's attack began to shatter the entirety of Metropolis, as the ground cracked and heaved into pieces as the buildings around them shattered under the intensity of the earthquake. It was Yeedil all over again, though this time they were unable to do anything that would allow them to stop the demon from destroying another world. Starlight was still working on the barrier that was keeping them trapped at the moment, which meant that the Cores would be unable to assist this world until it was brought down. Ratchet only hoped that this was all that Searing planned on doing to Nefarious, because if there was more to come then the entire world would likely be destroyed.

It was horrible to even watch the destruction unfold before their eyes, all while not being able to leave where they were so they could get the Cores and stop Searing.

"I've got it!" Starlight suddenly declared, which was followed by the barrier around them falling apart, "Now then, I'm going back to the Hyperion, pick up the Cores that we found, and hopefully stop that demon before she destroys this world. I suggest that you guys get out of here before things really get out of hand."

Ratchet couldn't agree more, because the moment Starlight teleported out of the area he pressed a button and called on their ship, silently hoping that his sister could stop the demon once more. He knew that Starlight could stop Searing, but he had to wonder if two of the Cores would be able to counter all of the rage and anger that the demon was feeling at the moment.





Once the attack was finished Searing grabbed onto Nefarious once more and tossed him at the nearest building, one that she was surprised to find had mostly survived the earthquake without falling to pieces like all of the other ones. Nefarious crashed into the side of the building and broke through the wall, though this time he made no effort to move himself from where he landed. Searing noticed this as she drew another blade from the set of wingblades that were attached over her wings, as the first one had easily snapped under the pressure of her attacks. She allowed her energy to gather around the blade, though as she prepared another attack that would finish off Nefarious she noticed some of his drop ships coming towards where she was standing.

She found it amusing that he believed that his servants could even harm her, let alone touch her with their weapons, so she let a grin appear on her face as she faced them.

"Getsuga," Searing said, swinging her new sword at the ships as she released the energy she had been gathering, all while shouting the second part of her attack's name, "Tensho!"

A wave of pure red energy roared through the air as it surged towards the drop ships that were coming her way, though she was delighted to see them try and move out of its way before it touched them. The wave, however, still crashed into the trio of ships and tore them all to pieces in a violent explosion that rocked the area around where they had been flying. When the smoke cleared there wasn't a single trace of the ships to be seen, so Searing discarded the burnt out sword she was carrying and flew down to where she had discarded Nefarious, who had been trying to use his followers as a distraction so he could flee.

Searing grabbed onto his neck again, dragged him outside the building that they were in, and flew over to the platform he had originally been standing on when this entire thing happened, though once she was there she pinned him to the floor. Then, once Nefarious was in a daze about what was happening around him, Searing heated up her right hand and used her nails to slowly dig into his chest piece, intending to go right for his heart.

"W... what are... you... doing?" Nefarious asked, though despite all the damage she had caused to his body Searing could detect that he was definitely scared for his life.

"An eye for an eye, as the saying goes," Searing commented in return, allowing her nails to dig even deeper as she reached for the one thing that was keeping Nefarious alive, "You killed Captain Qwark and stole my kill, so it is only fitting that your life replaces the kill that you stole from me."

"Wait!" Nefarious proclaimed, as if there was something that he had that he hadn't shown her yet, "If you let me live I can give you information on Qwark that you would find useful to..."

"What information could you possibly have that would prevent me from taking your life?!" Searing asked, feeling the metal around her nails melt as she drew closer to her target, "Qwark is dead, so anything you have is useless to me."

"Well... that is where you and everyone else is wrong," Nefarious declared, reaching his left hand to his right hand, where he pressed a few buttons and pulled up a short video of a pod escaping from the Leviathan before it exploded, "I had some systems running on the Starport and they caught a glimpse of an escape pod leaving the ship, which I double checked and detected a squishy that resembles Qwark. Searing, if you let me live... I'll let you kill Qwark for real. And, as an added bonus, I won't attack you with my forces."

Searing looked at the robotic villain for a few seconds, trying to decide if he was pulling her leg or if he was telling the truth, but then decided that she could always have someone else check his findings and see if they were authentic. If they weren't real, and she suspected that this was a ploy of his, then she would gladly track him down and finish the job of ending his life, regardless of whatever planet he fled to once this was over. She gripped his right hand with her left hand for a few seconds, giving him the impression that she was studying the findings that he was showing her, before she ripped her right hand out of his chest and cut his right hand off, all with her heated nails.

"AHHHH! Its going to take me two hours to program a new hand!" Nefarious shouted, though then he seemed to think about something as Searing climbed off of him, "No wait, I'm right handed... THREE HOURS!"

"That sounds like its not my problem," Searing commented, holding onto his severed arm as she flapped her wings and took to the sky, "Be thankful that I'm even letting you live, Nefarious, because if this is a lie constructed to save your life then I shall gladly end whatever planet you run to for safety. Now begone with you... before I change my mind."

Searing grinned as Nefarious was teleported out of the ruined city by his robotic minions, though her mood was quickly ruined when she noticed Starlight levitating herself over to where she was flying, with both Cores floating around her. She would surrender herself to them for now, but once they uncovered the truth behind Nefarious' words she would break free from her prison and track either him down for his lies... or find the place that Qwark calls home and finish what she started. Either way someone was going to die... though at this point Searing hoped that she had been lied to, so she could ruin another world before bringing an end to Nefarious' life.
> Arsenal: Phoenix; Aftermath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"I can't believe it." Sasha said, pacing around the bridge of the Phoenix while she thought about what just happened, "I simply cannot believe that Nefarious would go to such lengths... and for what? A stupid magazine..."

They had been studying the arm that Searing had surrendered to them when Starlight had approached her with two of the six Raritanium Cores they had acquired, before allowing herself to be taken to the cell that should, in theory, allow Sunset to take back control of her body. The problem was that the Cores seemed to have no effect on Searing at the moment, at least in terms of letting Sunset take back what was hers, so they had locked the demon in the cell that had been designed to keep her trapped. Starlight and Angela had run some tests on Searing, with the purpose of figuring out why she had yet to revert back to Sunset, but Sasha had no idea if they had actually found anything that would help their current situation.

The people of Metropolis were homeless for the moment, thanks to Nefarious allowing Searing to basically destroy the entire city after she appeared, and the rest of Kerwan was in a panic because of the cataclysm that had literally reshaped the entire world in the course of a single hour. Sasha had known just how powerful Searing could be when her emotions were in check, thanks to the video that she and the rest of the Q Force had seen back when Qwark asked Sunset to destroy Aquatos, but an emotionally unstable Searing was something they hadn't seen before. As she looked at the damage that had been done to the planet she knew that it had been mostly the demon's rage for Nefarious killing Qwark that had sparked so much destruction, which only made her shudder to think what would happen if Searing truly snapped and went insane.

She knew that the universe couldn't handle an insane Searing... otherwise she was sure that the entirety of everything they knew would fall apart around them.

"Its actually not that bad," Al commented, looking up from his tablet, and more importantly the right hand of Nefarious that he was studying, "Supervillain Weekly actually has tidbits and notes on everything that the other villains are up to, so it would actually be in our best interest to have someone watching it at all times... just in case Nefarious plans something else after the thrashing that Searing gave him."

"Personally, I would be surprised if we heard from him after what happened to Metropolis," Sasha said, crossing her arms as she looked over at Al, who appeared to be more interested in his tablet and not the hand of their enemy, "Have you found anything interesting in Nefarious' arm... or are you wasting time reading a magazine?"

"I'm simply waiting for my decoder to break through all of Nefarious' firewalls," Al replied, turning the page on his tablet for a moment, "He showed something to Searing, something that stopped the demon from killing him, but somehow managed to lock it up before she took his hand clean off. The demon wouldn't tell us what that something was, so its up to us to see what Searing was shown and then act on whatever that something is."

Sasha opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped herself when she spotted the door to the bridge open, though she was relived to see Ratchet and Starlight standing there, silently informing her that Angela had stayed behind to watch over Searing and the Cores that kept her trapped.

"I don't understand how she's doing it, but so far Searing is resisting the power of the Cores." Starlight commented, letting out a sigh as she looked around the bridge before laying her eyes on Al, "Have you been able to figure out what Searing wants us to find? I only ask because we haven't been able to get anything out of her."

"Personally, I think he fed her a lie about Qwark being alive," Ratchet said, rubbing the back of his head for a moment, as if he was trying to sooth a wound or something, "Starlight, upon hearing that, smacked me upside the head with a nearby book and told me that my idea was stupid... just like the last time I bothered to speak my mind."

"What happened the last time?" Sasha asked, shifting her gaze between Ratchet and Starlight for a few seconds, wondering what she would learn about their lives before they came back to their home galaxy.

"I tried to name Sunset's demon 'Pride'," Ratchet replied, letting out a sigh as he remembered what happened after he said those words the first time, "I was immediately out voted and Sunset quickly decided on calling her Searing... though why she chose that name, out of everything else she could have picked, I'll never know."

Sasha was somewhat surprised that Ratchet would even consider calling the demon by that name, but then decided that it really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. What was important was that the two Cores that they had already recovered had apparently stopped working, or Searing was asserting her power over them until she got whatever she was having them search for. She hated Searing, mainly because she was a threat to everyone in the entire universe, so she silently hoped that Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela could figure out a way to revere whatever had happened to Sunset.

She opened her mouth to say something, but just like the last time she was interrupted, only this time it was because the main screen of the bridge turned on and her father appeared on the other side.

"Mr. President, its good to hear from you." Sasha said, forcing a smile on her face as most of the people in the bridge turned to the screen, "I trust the day is finding you well?"

"No... not when Metropolis is in ruin and the rest of the galaxy is panicking that they might be next," the President replied, looking more serious than he had been the last time they had seen him, "I saw the end of your little 'skirmish' with Dr. Nefarious and that you managed to capture the creature responsible for the city's destruction. Tell me, how soon until we can execute the demon?"

Sasha couldn't believe that her father was even suggesting that they kill Searing; one, because she assumed that it was impossible to do something like without Searing fighting back, and two, she had no idea if something like that was even possible. If they could separate Searing from Sunset's body, then she assumed that they would be able to execute her, but at the moment she knew it had to be impossible.

"Its not that simple," Starlight replied, speaking up before anyone else could say anything, "You saw how powerful Searing was for yourself, so imagine how much destruction she would cause before someone was able to do some lasting damage to her. Not only that she's called the Goddess of Destruction, so I don't think we'd be able to kill someone like her without intensive study and preparations. Besides, there is another problem that you aren't aware of... Searing escaped the moment she handed Nefarious' right hand to us."

"How could you let her escape?" the President demanded, though this was the first time that Sasha had seen her father this pissed off about something since he had been running for his office.

"She's much stronger than me at the moment," Starlight admitted, though everyone knew that she wasn't foolish enough to fight her sister, even in her possessed form, "She could have easily overpowered me, but instead she allowed herself to be captured so she could hand over the right hand of Nefarious. Then she teleported out of the ship we had her in and went who knows where, but we've got people looking for her, so that way we'll know when she decides to resurface."

The President looked at them all for a few seconds, as if silently deciding something, before he let out a sigh and pressed a button near where he was sitting, cutting off the communication rather suddenly.

"I can't believe we just lied to my father... and got away with it." Sasha said, taking a seat in her chair, which she turned so she could look at Al and the others, "Please tell me we can find something useful before he begins a galactic search for Searing in the near future."

"And we're into Nefarious' hand at long last," Al said, setting aside the magazine application he had opened and brought up what he had found, "It appears that Nefarious played some videos shortly before his arm had been cut clean off, which means that they are what stopped Searing from killing him. Let's see what our enemy had to show the Goddess of Destruction."

What they found was a video of Nefarious confronting Qwark and the others that had boarded the Leviathan, which they knew about thanks to the tale that they had been told some time ago. It was nothing different from what they had heard, but then they noticed that there was also some scans and systems in place that had been keeping track of the cruiser in its last minutes. As the self destruct sequence was engaged they discovered that an escape pod had been ejected from the ship half a minute before the explosion, something that the systems in place had scanned before the ship met its end.

That was when they discovered the signature of a man that resembled Qwark, though it wasn't long before the video stopped when the ship exploded, leaving them to wonder what they had seen.

"Is it possible that Qwark survived the explosion?" Ratchet asked, voicing what everyone was thinking at the moment, all which silently wondering what Searing would do if she found out that the man was actually alive.

"It sure seems like it." Starlight commented, rewinding the video so she could see where the escape pod landed, which happened to be the Planet Zeldrin, "If we were to investigate the crash site, and see if there is anything that he might have left for us, then we would likely want to leave the Hyperion behind. There's no reason to give Searing the information she's likely looking for automatically... better to make her wait until we're sure we know what's going on."

"So then we're heading to Zeldrin," Ratchet said, letting out a sigh as he leaded towards where their ship was waiting for them, "I seriously hope that we find something useful there... otherwise we'll have to figure out how to stop Nefarious a different way."

What he didn't want to say was that he was scared of what Searing would do if she discovered that Qwark was alive, after they had witnessed his death when the ship exploded. He was sure that she would shatter an entire planet, and that was in the vein of actually destroying the planet and bringing it to an end, if she discovered the truth... which they had to avoid at all costs. They had to keep Searing in the dark as long as they could, because it seemed like the demon would patiently wait until she was told whether Nefarious was telling the truth or not. It was the only way to ensure that the worlds of the galaxy survived to see another day, unless Nefarious attacked and pissed of Searing in the time they were gone.

One thing was for certain, the crash site of the Leviathan, on the planet of Zeldrin, held some piece of information for them to discover... though whether that information was good or bad they would have no way of knowing until they discovered whatever was left behind in the escape pod.
> Arsenal: Zeldrin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Because they chose to leave the Hyperion behind, and more importantly leave Searing in the hands of someone who would make sure that she stayed in her cell, it took Ratchet and his family a bit longer to reach Zeldrin. He had uninstalled the gravimetric warp drive from their starship and attached it to their smaller ship, that way they had the ability to return to the Hyperion in case something happened while they were gone. He wasn't expecting Searing to try and escape, because she had basically turned herself over to them with the express purpose of figuring out if Nefarious was lying to her or not. They knew that Qwark was alive, and so did the rest of the Q Force, but they needed to be sure of it before they told the demon anything... and even then Ratchet wasn't about to let her know where the former Captain was hiding.

He had the feeling that Searing would skip the normal destruction and simply blow up wherever Qwark was hiding, just to make sure that he stayed dead this time. It was something that he and his family wanted to avoid at all costs, because two planets had suffered major cataclysms that had reshaped their entire world... destroying another one was out of the question.

"I just got a message from Sasha," Starlight commented, opening the message in question so they could see if there were any changes with Searing since their departure, "Let's see here... apparently Searing is just fine with her accommodations, as she hasn't tried to break out since we put her in that cell, though that leaves me worried. Sasha also says that Searing likes to talk to whoever is around for fun, whether that someone is one of the AI or Sasha herself, and that the demon tends to mention events that haven't occurred yet."

"Great, so she's talking about prophecies and the whole nine yards," Angela replied, resisting the urge to moan, though she was thankful to have left the Hyperion if that was what Searing spoke about, "Does she have anything interesting to say? Or is she just wasting Sasha's time with whatever nonsense she's making up?"

"That's just it, she's not talking about prophecies," Starlight said, looking at the list that Sasha had included in the message, "It appears that Searing has mentioned that she and Sunset have fought multiple times in the past, which we already knew about thanks to recent events, but then she mentions several fights that haven't occurred... almost as if they had happened in the past. She mentioned that Sunset fought demons from other realms, combated dragons and other forces of evil, and managed to defend a world that, and I'm quoting Searing here, 'deserved to be destroyed'. None of what Sasha is reporting to us sounds like any prophecy I've heard about, which means..."

"Searing is talking about Sunset's past?!" Angela exclaimed, as she had come to the same conclusion that Starlight had, all while noticing that Ratchet was nodding his head as well, "Of course, that blasted bracelet was designed to keep Searing in check, but that also meant that it had to suppress everything that made Sunset who she used to be. Sunset is only beginning to remember everything about her old life, thanks to the Cores that we've recovered, but Searing somehow knows everything and she's taunting us with it. The demon knows who Sunset used to be... which is why she's so much stronger than Sunset is in terms of magical ability."

"She has access to every spell that Sunset learned before her memory was erased," Ratchet spoke up, as he actually knew what the others were talking about, "and yet I don't think we've seen Searing at her full power."

"What make you say that Ratchet?" Clank asked, though he knew that he was echoing what Starlight and Angela were currently thinking, though they were a little shocked that he had understood what they were talking about.

"Searing constantly mentions destroying things, not breaking them as she has already done," Ratchet replied, maneuvering the ship a bit to avoid some pieces of a ship that got hit by an asteroid, "When Searing was originally released on Yeedil, which we all saw, she was way too calm, as if she was mimicking someone that was meditating or something, and her power merely reshaped the world. When Nefarious released her, quite foolishly I might add, she was fueled by her anger towards the doctor and her attacks caused more devastation to the planet, but not enough to destroy it. Something is preventing Searing from truly destroying any of the worlds that we have visited... though I think we all know what that something is... or rather someone."

"Sunset!" Starlight and Angela said at the same time, as they had finally realized that Sunset had been holding the demon back the entire time, while being shocked that Ratchet had figured it out before them.

"Sunset will keep the demon in check until she figures out how to completely destroy her," Ratchet commented, spotting the place where the pieces of the Leviathan had crashed onto Zeldrin's surface, "Until then it is up to us to make sure that Searing stays trapped in whatever cell Sunset puts her in... and we can start by searching for clues as to what really happened to Qwark."





When they finally landed on the outskirts of where the piece of the Leviathan crashed into the planet, which was easy to spot from the air, they also noticed that there were quite a number of robots patrolling the area... though they looked like the ones from Planet Daxx. Starligt stared at them as Ratchet landed their ship, because she had the feeling that they were also looking for something and, judging by how they were searching at the moment, it was clear that they hadn't found it yet.

"It seems that Nefarious wants to find Qwark as well," Ratchet commented, looking at the amount of enemies that laid between them and the ship's wreckage, "though it appears that we'll have quite the fight on our hands."

"Good, because we could use the exercise," Angela said, extending both ends of her lightsaber as she noticed several of the ninja robots walking around, though she spotted at least two of them carrying their own sabers as well, "Who knew that Sunset's weapon would have become so popular with our enemies?"

"So we hack, slash, and blast our way through them all," Starlight said, choosing to keep the RY3NO in her bag at the moment, because she saw no reason to use it at the moment, "Let's get the party started."

Starlight leapt off of the platform that they had landed on and levitated herself down to where the robotic soldiers were patrolling, though before they had a chance to react to her presence she started loosing discs from her Disc Blade Gun. She managed to strike several of her targets as she touched the ground, though she didn't move forward as she waited for Ratchet and Angela to catch up with her. The moment Ratchet was standing to the left of her, and Angela to the right, she threw up a shield and loosed a new of her little minions, who surged to the back of where their enemies were standing and detonated on them. As their enemies were thrown into a state of confusion Ratchet added to the carnage as he used his rifle to take down the enemies that were further away from them.

Angela, on the other hand, stayed at the back and defended their rear from the ninja robots, who had apparently been smart enough to get around the hill to their right the moment Starlight started her assault. She was actually glad that she had decided to extend both ends of her lightsaber, because there were more of the ninjas than what she had seen when they landed. She needed both ends of her weapon out at the same time so she could combat all of the enemies that were trying to attack them from behind, which she accomplished by cutting off arms and legs, cutting their own weapons in half, and most of the time carving her foes in half. Soon the area had robotic pieces everywhere, as there appeared to be an entire army of robotic ninjas working along side the rest of Nefarious' forces.

"Seriously, where did he acquire all of these robots?" Angela shouted, taking a leap back towards where Starlight and Ratchet were, after carving two of her foe in half, "Its like he's got a facility somewhere that's just churning these guys out nonstop."

"Reminds me of Quartu," Ratchet commented, blasting one of the larger robots ahead of them in the chest, causing it to explode the moment he struck its core, "The first villain we fought had a factory that was constantly producing more and more robots for his war effort, in an attempt to basically tear worlds apart and built his own 'perfect' world..."

"...and Searing blew him up." Angela finished, already knowing where the story was going, as she had been told the specifics of their first adventure after the events on Yeedil, "Starlight, please tell me you have a way to get rid of these robots, otherwise I'm sure that we'll be overrun in a matter of minutes."

As much as Angela hated to admit it, and there were only a few things left in the universe that she hated to admit, but with the seemingly increasing amount of enemies that were converging on their location she knew that they needed help. The reason she hated to admit it was because of who they could have asked to join them, but knew that it would have defeated the purpose of them coming here in the first place. Searing would have made short work of their enemies, and likely the entirety of the area around them, but it was an option that none of them had considered until this point. Even with the RY3NO on hand they were being overwhelmed, which only made Angela wish they hadn't been so keen on coming here without scanning the planet and devising a plan.

As she backed up and pressed her back against Ratchet's, who was using the last of his ammo on several of the approaching enemies, Starlight surprised them by dropping a small shield around them, which actually protected them from the ship fire that came out of the atmosphere. They watched as one of the Galactic Dropships landed near their location, to which the Galactic Rangers, lead by the four upgraded Rangers that Sunset had created, charged into the enemy lines and started to push them back. They were then surprised to find Helga and Sasha on board the ship as well, though that was before Angela noticed that the two of them were carrying her style of weapon.

"Ratchet, don't be mad at us," Sasha said, beckoning to the back of the dropship for a moment, "She told us that the three of you would be needing our help to escape this ambush, though how she knew about it before hand she refused to tell us, because we would have come with you in the beginning."

Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight looked at the back of the dropship and their eyes widened for a moment, because standing there was none other than Searing... or at least they assumed that it was her. The form that Searing was wearing this time looked exactly like the human version of Sunset that they had designed for her to use on the Secret Agent Clank show. The only difference between the actual appearance of the character and what they were seeing was that Searing's skin still had a crimson hue to it and that her eyes were still twisted... not to mention the horn and wings were still there. The flaming dress was missing and had been replaced by a robe, though most of the other identifiers that one would associate with the demon were missing as well, which almost made her look like their sister.

"What? No 'thank you' for saving your lives?" Searing asked, actually sounding disappointed as she walked off the dropship, "I'm out of the picture for five minutes and you four nearly get yourselves killed. Seriously, do I need to babysit you guys all the time?"

"What's... going on?" Ratchet said, as he had no idea why Searing was suddenly acting more like Sunset than she had previously been, unless Sunset was halfway in control and this was what that form would look like she when she was taking her body back from the demon.

"You know, saving my brother, his girlfriend, his best friend, and my sister from certain death," Searing replied, as if she was actually Sunset and not the demon, though Ratchet knew that wasn't the case, "Did you get hurt before we arrived?"

"Searing... they're confused because you are acting like you care for them," Sasha commented, letting out a sigh as she spoke to them, or mainly to the demon, "they're used to you wanting to destroy things."

"What? Sunset and I are two sides of the same soul, so why wouldn't I care what happened to them!" Searing exclaimed, as if she truly believed that she was also Ratchet and Starlight's sister, "Let me ask you this; every time I took over Sunset's body what was the one thing I never did? I never once turned my powers against my family... in fact I yielded when Starlight used the power of the Core against me."

"Sunset stopped you from destroying the entire planet," Ratchet countered, not believing that they were having this sort of conversation, when there were still enemies around no less.

"Ratchet, both Sunset and I care about you and Starlight," Searing replied, pulling out something that resembled Angela's weapon, though when she extended both sides they noticed that the beams were crimson red, "You may not trust me, but I will not let my brother and sister fall to one of my enemies..."

Before Ratchet or the others could say anything Searing charged forward and carved one of the enemy robots in half, though that was followed by her spinning around and repeating the process with two more of them. The Rangers charged in after her, blasting every enemy that came within their sights, while Sasha and Helga remained near the dropship and watched the fight take place. Ratchet knew that Searing was playing a game with them, as there was only reason that she would really come to their aid and save them from being overrun; she wanted them to find what Nefarious gave them. He knew that they needed to get her back in the cage the moment they were done with this planet, otherwise they would never figure out if Qwark was actually alive or not.

Starlight nodded her head to his unspoken statement, before refilling her weapons and charging in after the demon, because she didn't want something important to be destroyed on accident.

It took them some time, but eventually they found an intact escape pod that had a data disk waiting for them, though as Searing and the Rangers cleared out the rest of the area Ratchet and the others gathered around the other piece of information they found; a message that had been made from this exact pod. The message showed Qwark, in a makeshift dress, calling a cab to take him to an unknown destination, as if he expected someone to come looking for him and didn't want to give them any clues as to where he was going. It wasn't much for them to go on, but they now knew that Qwark was definitely alive... though the only problem was keeping that information from Searing until they figured out where the former captain was hiding.

Ratchet sighed as he and the others returned to their ship, knowing that they were going to have to talk with each other and go over their notes before they figure out where Qwark had wandered off to... all while making sure that Searing was in the dark.
> Arsenal: Thran
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet had expected that he, Starlight, and Angela would go to Zeldrin, figure out if Qwark was alive and if anything had been left behind, and then check and see if they could actually figure out where the former captain ran off to... and he expected to do it without involving Searing at all. He hadn't been expecting Nefarious to lay a trap for the three of them at the crash site of the Leviathan, which had been detonated in an effort to get rid of them to begin with, nor had he expected to find an army of enemies waiting for them. He suspected that, if Starlight had run out of ammunition for her weapons, she would have switched to magic and shown Nefarious that Searing wasn't the only powerful magic user in their group.

He guessed that he should be thankful that Searing even knew that he and the others were in trouble, otherwise he would not be sitting on the couch in what used to be Qwark's quarters. They were heading back to where the Phoenix was normally docked in space, where they had left the Hyperion the moment Searing discovered they were in trouble. The moment they boarded the ship they gave Al the data disk they had uncovered, who seemed pleased to have a challenge with an omega class asymmetric encryption, though only Starlight, Angela, and Clank seemed to know what he was talking about. Starlight and Angela had, somehow, managed to get Searing to agree to a treaty of sorts between them; she would let them hunt down and find Qwark, without her interfering, and in exchange she would do whatever she wanted to the man when they found him, provided she stayed inside her cell until they told her where to find him.

Ratchet had been there when Searing agreed to the terms, because when the demon looked his way for a moment he could have sworn that she looked hurt at the thought of them sealing her back in the cell... almost as if it was Sunset who was currently in control and not the demon, but he knew that his mind was playing tricks on him. Despite how much Searing looked like the human version of Sunset they had developed for the Secret Agent Clank show he knew that the demon was still in control, thanks to the crimson colored skin and twisted colored eyes that she had.

Once Searing was back in her cell Ratchet headed into Qwark's quarters and ransacked the place, wondering if there was anything that the former captain might have hidden away in the various compartments. Qwark may have been an idiot for releasing Searing the first time, and Nefarious was in that same boat at the moment, but the man had his moments of genius and he had the feeling that there might be something he wasn't seeing. As he searched he dropped to his knees and tried beneath the bed, because it was one of the first places that people usually hid things underneath, though he was surprised when his hands brushed over something. Ratchet grinned and pulled the item out from where it had been placed, to which he discovered that it was in the shape of a box and was, oddly enough, the size of the vid-comics that he and the others had acquired.

He carried the box out to the couch, where he found Sasha waiting for him, but she seemed curious about the item that he was holding and beckoned for him to put it on the table. When he opened the lid, however, he was surprised to find a fifth Qwark vid-comic, which was apparently a fifth issue in Qwark's fight against Nefarious... and was also a comic that wasn't supposed to exist according to the back of the container.

"If this doesn't tell us anything new, then I doubt we'll ever find Qwark," Ratchet commented, gently removing the vid-comic from the box and slipped it into the machine that would play it, before grabbing the controller and taking a seat on the couch.

"I'm sure that you'll find something useful," Sasha replied, watching him boot up the final installment of the Qwark versus Nefarious saga, which was voiced by someone that wasn't the narrator for the other parts of the series, "If these things could restore Qwark's missing memory, then I'm sure that they have something for us."

The comic appeared to be Qwark escaping from Nefarious' hidden lair, one of them Ratchet mentally reflected, and running from some sort of liquid that he assumed would hurt or kill him in seconds. He acquired the weapon that was to be used on this episode of the series and blasted his way through the enemies that were waiting in his way, while collecting the various tokens he spotted along the way. He would have played the other three in the series, as he hadn't touched the series since restoring Qwark's memories, but he decided not to bother with them and get on with what he was playing the game for. Eventually he reached the end of Nefarious' lair, to which the credits of the episode rolled and told the rest of the story that Qwark didn't want people to know.

It was at that point that he and Sasha discovered that there was supposed to be a secret hideout in the Thran Asteroid Belt, which meant that they had someplace to check out in the future.

"Well then, I had best gather the others," Ratchet finally said, setting the controller down on the table and getting back on his feet, "I have the feeling that we'll have to fight our way through whatever defenses that hideout has... and Searing needs to know that the three of us will be gone for some time."

"Hopefully this time she doesn't break out of the cell to come rescue you," Sasha replied, gently removing the vid-comic from the machine before turning to Ratchet, "Just be safe this time."

"We will," Ratchet said, letting out a sigh before he headed towards the room's entrance, "I'll call the moment we discover anything useful... or if we found where Qwark is hiding."

Sasha nodded her head and Ratchet moved through the Phoenix, using his communicator to tell Angela and Starlight that he had found something that might help them uncover if Qwark was truly alive or not. They were in the Hyperion when he contacted them, checking up on Searing and the progress that the Cores were making on restoring Sunset to her body once more. According to them there was no progress on restoring Sunset, which told him that Searing was definitely enforcing her will over Sunset's body until she got what she wanted... which was either the death of Qwark or the death of Nefarious.

Once the three of them were together again they climbed back into their smaller ship and took off for the Thran Asteroid Belt, where Ratchet used the journey to explain his reasoning for going there.





When they arrived at the Thran Asteroid Belt, which turned out to be a nearly frozen over planet that was hidden by the asteroids, they found a fortress like area that that seemed to be running on some sort of generator... though that was before Starlight noticed that one heat signature appeared when she scanned the entire building. The building was even painted green, which had been ravaged by the cold wind that was blowing everywhere, but they knew that they had to be in the right place.

"According to my scans there isn't a lot in the way of defenses," Starlight commented, making sure that all of her weapons were restocked thanks to the vendor that happened to be located nearby, as well as acquiring any new weapons for sale, "and yes Ratchet, I triple checked to be absolutely sure that there weren't any enemies hiding from us. Don't want to repeat Zeldrin."

Ratchet nodded for a moment, because they all knew that they needed to avoid giving Searing the excuse to break out of her cell and come here to rescue them... which would likely result in the planet's destruction if she figured out Qwark was hiding here.

Once the three of them had everything they needed from the vendor, and made completely sure that they were prepared for whatever was ahead of them, they walked onto the moving platform in front of them and let it take them to the beginning of the path that would take them to the fortress' entrance. Their first enemy appeared to be lawn gnomes that were wielding swords, which reminded Starlight of the former weapons that Megacorp used to make. Seeing how Qwark had been in control of the corporation for some time it made sense that he could have used their resources for more than taking out Searing... like upgrading his secret hideout's defenses without anyone knowing what was going on.

Angela, seeing the gnomes as they approached the group, activated both ends of her lightsaber and carved the first group of enemies in half, sending the pieces of the robots into the walls around them.

"Qwark stole weapons from Megacorp, despite the fact that they were decommissioned by Mr. Fizzwidget," Angela growled, turning to on of the walls and cutting a gashed line into it with her weapon, "I am so going to punch that man when we find him... and personally destroy all of gnomes before we leave."

Ratchet had seen Angela mad before today, considering that they had traveled together for some time, but he had never seen her this pissed off before. That seemed to be Qwark's special ability, making people mad enough to do something that they might regret... though he also knew he had a habit of annoying Searing to no end.

Once they had cleared the area out of the little gnomes Starlight had them stand back for a moment, which was followed by her grabbing them with her magic and teleporting them to the top of the platform that was in front of them. The instant they were up there Angela swung her weapon and cut into the gnomes that were approaching them, giving Ratchet and Starlight time to see what else was waiting in their way. That was when they encountered their next enemy, which happened to be a group of robots that looked like Qwark that attacked them the moment they laid eyes on them. Those robots were enough to tell them that they were definitely in the right area, because Qwark was the only person they knew that would have robots of himself installed in his secret hideout... it also didn't help that they were shouting his catchphrase at them from time to time.

It took them some time to cut their way through the first batch of robots, mainly because several of them refused to die until their head was severed from their broken body, but they eventually reached the next section of the fortress. They came to the electric barrier that was keeping them from moving on, not to mention the fact that it was protected by more gnomes, but Angela tore their enemies to pieces within a matter of seconds. The instant the gnomes were taken care of Starlight teleported them to the other side of the barrier, where they could restock their ammunition and take stock of what was ahead of them. It was a simple grind rail that they could use to access the island in front of them, but Starlight's scans indicated that there were more robots waiting for them down there... which was when she pulled out the RY3NO and primed it.

"I'll use a short burst of ammunition and take out the initial group of enemies," Starlight commented, gathering more of her magic in her horn for a moment, indicating that she was preparing to teleport over to the other platform, "then you two can take care of any other robots that happen to show their faces."

Before Ratchet could say anything to dissuade his sister from her set path she disappeared, only to reappear at the end of the grind rail and unleash the RY3NO silo that she promised them that she would use. Ratchet then sighed as he slipped his wrench over the rail, to which he rode down to where Starlight was standing and watched as the missile silo tore through the robots that were standing there. Angela followed him a few seconds later, though as they both prepared to do battle with the robots they were surprised to find that the group that Starlight took out was the only one. The three of them looked at each other for a moment, as they were expecting more enemies to show up the instant the first group had been taken care of, but then let out a collective sigh before they moved on once more.

They climbed the nearby ladder and faced their next obstacle, which appeared to be a pair of swingshots that would drop them off in an area that looked like a prime area for an ambush. Starlight teleported them over to the next platform and they opened fire on the robots that burst out of the glassy containers they had been placed inside. Angela carved her enemies into pieces, venting her anger for Qwark through the robots that he had installed to protect his fortress, and then let out a sigh as they finished off the last of their enemies. The door that was originally blocking their path lowered and allowed them to progress further, though Starlight merely levitated them over the icy water and dropped them at the end of the platform.

Angela carved up the gnomes that were waiting for them at the end of the platform, before allowing Starlight to grab them once more and drop them off at the next platform. The moment they landed on the icy platform they were assaulted by a group of four robots, though they proved to be no challenge for the three of them. Ratchet was somewhat surprised that they couldn't handle an army of soldiers back on Zeldrin, but now were suddenly able to deal with the mindless robots that were protecting the fortress. The instant the robots were taken care of they advanced into what they assumed was the final section of the fortress, where the rest of the defenses were waiting for them.

Starlight smiled as she leveled her RY3NO with the host of enemies that were guarding the door at the very end of the path they were on, eager to figure out if Qwark was alive or if they were wasting their time on a random goose chase. She pressed the trigger and let loose a rain of missiles that tore through the Qwark robots, the lawn gnomes, and the small cannons that occasionally loosed more gnomes. By the time that she used up half of her RY3NO ammunition the entirety of their enemies had been dealt with, giving them a direct path to the room that they had seen the moment they landed.

Instead of walking down the path, and triggering a trap that could lock them out of the room, Starlight engaged her magic and teleported them into the room, surprising the person that had been sitting on the bed the entire time.

"Oh... its you four again," Qwark commented, staring at the four of them as Starlight's magic faded, before he let out a sigh, "I was hoping to never see any of you again, especially considering our history. Where's Sunset?"

The moment those words left Qwark's mouth Angela took a step towards him and punched him right in the jaw, knocking him back onto the bed and causing him to rub his chin. He seemed surprised that she had struck him for a moment, as if he had been thinking that Ratchet or Starlight would have done the deed first, but then calmed down and took his seat once more.

"Based on how your acting I can only assume the worst," Qwark said, touching his chest for a moment, in the exact spot that he had been struck by Searing, "My 'death' has upset the demon and now she's on the loose... which means that you wanted to make sure that I was alive so you could hand me over to her."

"Actually, Nefarious was the one who released her this time," Ratchet replied, noticing that Qwark seemed surprised by that statement, "He used your death to blind Sunset, giving him the chance to unleash Searing's rage... and in the process he caused the destruction of Metropolis. Then, in order to save his own life, he handed you over to her, revealing that you were alive and giving her the chance to kill you herself, but she doesn't know that your here."

"Normally I'd say that Nefarious wouldn't be stupid enough to do something like that," Qwark said, staring out the open window that Ratchet and the others were standing in front of, "but, considering how much I poked his ego before the incident on the Leviathan, I guess even the smartest villain in the universe is bound to do something stupid. I guess I should be glad that he hasn't realized that I stole something from him... something that the three of you will definitely find interesting. Its in the panel near the entrance you teleported through, though you need not worry about a combination lock or anything... I never got around to installing one."

Starlight glanced at the others for a moment, wondering if they could trust the former captain after everything he had done to them, before she walked up to the panel in question and used her magic to remove it from the wall. What she spotted on the other side of it was a familiar blue crystal, though that was seconds before she recognized the Raritanium Core that they had found on Aquatos... the same one that they had left behind so Nefarious wouldn't know they had been there.

"The third Core," Starlight said, gently removing the Core from where Qwark had put it, a smile appearing on her face as she realized that they could use it to bind Searing, "Well then, this certainly makes up for everything we've been through for the last few days."

"So Searing doesn't know I'm here?" Qwark asked, as if he was curious as to how much time he had before the demon descended from the sky and obliterated his entire fortress.

Before Ratchet or Angela could answer the question, as Starlight was occupied by staring at the Core she was holding, one of their communicators went off with a message from Sasha. Generally that meant that the rest of the Q Force had found something that would aid them in their fight against Nefarious, which was either another lead on where his robot factory was or, and definitely more important, his main base of operations. Ratchet sighed and opened the channel between him and Sasha, though it was clear that they were all wondering what Al had found on the data disk.

"Ratchet! The Phoenix is under attack!" Sasha called out, though now that they knew the Phoenix was under attack they could see that there was static between them, "Whatever is on that disc has Nefarious worried..."

Ratchet and the others watched as Sasha's expression turned from concern for the people that were on her ship and transformed into one of pure horror. There was only one thing that would worry Sasha more than Nefarious attacking the Phoenix, because it was something that Ratchet and the others feared as well.

"Ratchet, enemies... aboard the Hyperion..." Sasha said, the static ruining the message, but they knew what was coming, "They're going after Searing..."

At that point the message cut out completely, but it was more than enough to get Ratchet and the others moving back to their ship, because Nefarious was about to repeat his mistake. Even with the gravimetric warp drive he had no idea if they would be able to make it in time to stop the soldiers from waking the demon, but they had to try.





"There she is ladies," one of the robot ninjas said, tapping on the magical cell for a moment and noticing no movement from the person that occupied the cell, "the so called 'Goddess of Destruction'. Open the cell and let's finish the job."

It had been quite easy to board the Hyperion, because there weren't many defenses in place as the emp that Nefarious had given them managed to put almost everything out of commission for the moment. The main part of their forces were dealing with the Rangers on the Phoenix, keeping them distracted so the five of them could slip into this ship and assassinate the one creature that their master feared. Without the precious AI that were controlling the ship, and the defenses that had been put in place, Searing was a sitting duck, one that they could be rid of within seconds.

The leader of their group smiled as he pressed a few buttons and watched as the cell came undone before their very eyes, though before he could approach the demon he heard the sound of something cutting through metal. He turned around and watched as a black robed figure, with a crown of thorns on his head, used a red lightsaber, in the same fashion as Angela carried, and carved two of his soldiers in half before they even knew he was there. The other two soldiers swung their weapons at the man, but the person sacrificed his robe to blind them of his movements and cut them down as if they were made of butter. Then the man turned to the leader, who started to back up and passed into the cell of his target, though his eyes never left the man that was merely staring at him.

That was before a clawed hand tore through his chest and pierced his heart, though he knew that he had met his end at the hands of the one thing his master feared.

"So, you have come to 'rescue' me..." Searing commented, looking up at Maul as he sheathed both ends of his lightsaber, "To what do I own the pleasure of your company?"

"Nefarious... sent them..." Maul replied, pointing at the robots for a moment, before pointing at Searing, "Kill you!"

That was followed by Searing tearing through the binds that would have normally keep her in the cell, but thanks to the robots the connection between the Cores and the cell was inactive. She was now free to do whatever she wanted, though there was only one thing on her mind at the moment and she grinned at the thought of finally being able to complete her promise to Nefarious.

"Its time I show Nefarious just what I am capable of," Searing said, walking out of the cell and working her magic around them, "and purge whatever world these soldiers came from!"
> Arsenal: Koros
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sasha had been expecting Nefarious to figure out where the Phoenix was located and attack it at some point in their battle against him, because all the stories she had read said that the villain would usually attack the heroes base of operations at least one time before the end of their conflict. To prepare for that day she had allowed Sunset to empower some of her Rangers, who in turn helped the rest of her Rangers prepare for the inevitable assault, and she made sure that they were well stocked on ammunition. They had gone over battle strategies and run simulations of an attack on the Phoenix, giving them an idea on what they needed to do should the ship come under fire one day. It had been easy to do, thanks to Al's ability with computers and Helga's insight on battle strategies, so they knew that they had been prepared for whatever Nefarious would throw at them.

What she hadn't been expecting, however, was for Nefarious to loose an EMP at the Hyperion, send a small team of assassins into the defenseless ship, and try and assassinate Searing while she was in her cell. She knew that such a venture would end in failure, because Searing was not the type of person to be caught off guard, even if she was trapped in her cell. She did, however, gulp as she watched the demon teleported over to the Phoenix, with the ever mysterious Maul behind her, and approached the remaining soldiers that were following Nefarious' orders. Searing slaughtered them without a second thought, cutting their arms and legs off with her hands and crushing several of their joints with her feet, but she never once used her magic.

Sasha assumed that Searing was keeping the Phoenix intact so she could know where the soldiers had come from, though she wondered if it was a good idea to tell the demon anything about Nefarious' forces.

"It feels good to fight again," Searing commented, walking up to where Sasha was standing and passed by her, "Come to the bridge with me, Sasha, and tell me where these soldiers came from."

"Why? So you can create another cataclysm on that planet?" Sasha dared to ask, though despite the fact that she had put on her best brave face she was actually stricken with fear.

"It all depends on what I find on that planet," Searing replied, turning to face Sasha for a moment, where a grin appeared on her face, "For example, if I find Nefarious... then its game over for him. Come along now, I don't have time for games."

Sasha looked at the demon for a moment, trying to figure out what Searing was planning, before letting out a sigh and ran after her, if only to make sure that Al and the others were okay. She didn't say anything to Searing as they traveled to the bridge, because she knew that all the demon cared for was causing destruction, though it seemed like the demon didn't mind the brief moment of silence. When they reached the bridge they found Al and Helga standing near each other, though it was clear that Al was hard at work trying to decipher the rest of the data disk.

"So, does anyone know where those soldiers came from?" Searing asked, causing everyone in the bridge to turn their attention on her the moment she spoke, "Or am I going to have to 'persuade' one of you to tell me the answer?"

Sasha didn't even want to know what the demon meant when she mentioned persuasion, because based on everything she had seen so far she knew that Searing would like torture whoever she thought had the information she required. She could see that Al and Helga were glancing between each other, because they already knew where the soldiers had come from, but they were unsure of whether they should tell the demon anything. Sasha didn't want to tell the demon anything either, but she considered the fact that Searing might end up blowing something up in rage if they didn't tell her something.

"Koros..." Al said, letting out a sigh as he turned away from the demon, as he didn't want to see what expression appeared on Searing's face now that she had what she wanted, "They came from Planet Koros."

"Ah, thank you Al," Searing replied, magic swirling around her hands for a few seconds as she turned to the area to her left, to which she tore open a vortex in the air before her, "Now it is time that I showed Nefarious what happens when you break a deal with me... and I am going to enjoy every moment of this."

Sasha looked through the vortex that Searing had summoned and nearly gasped when she noticed what was on the other side, because the vortex was actually a portal to Koros. She had known that Searing had an incredible amount of power, based on the destruction she had caused in the past, but she had no idea that the demon would do something like this. She wondered if Starlight was able to summon portals as well, but she had the feeling that the unicorn didn't have that ability and would likely try to figure out how to do it in the future. Sasha also noted that Searing looked pleased with herself, though whether it was because she could now destroy Nefarious' forces or her newfound freedom she had no idea.

She opened her mouth to say something, anything that could keep the demon aboard the Phoenix until Ratchet and the others returned from the Thran Asteroid Belt, but before she could actually say anything Searing stepped through the portal and disappeared from the bridge completely. Not a second later the door behind her opened, to which she turned around and found that Ratchet and Starlight were behind her, though they were accompanied by the last person she expected to see; Qwark.

"We're too late." Starlight said, watching the vortex of energy break apart until there was nothing left, before turning to Sasha, "Where did Searing go?"

"Planet Koros," Sasha replied, tapping her bracelet for a moment as she searched for something, though when she found what she was searching for she sent it over to Starlight, "I just sent you the coordinates... I only hope you can get there and stop the demon before she wrecks the planet."

"Well, we've got the gravimetric warp drive at our disposal," Ratchet said, turning around so he and the others could get back to their ship, "so we should be able to make up for the time we wasted helping Qwark get prepared for battle again."

Sasha watched them head back to where they had docked their ship, knowing that Angela would be waiting for them on the Hyperion and that the other starship was likely fully functional again. She only hoped that they could stop Searing before another cataclysm occurred on Koros... or worse, the complete destruction of the entire planet.





"Sir, I have news about your attack on the Starship Phoenix and the Starship Hyperion."

Nefarious had been waiting for news from his soldiers that were attacking the two starships, mainly because he was eager to hear that they had completed their mission. It was almost sad that he had to resort to using his best robotic assassins to deal with Searing, but if they were able to remove the demon then he would be able to sleep easier at night. His chest, which had been patched up with the same metal his robotic body had been made out of, still hurt whenever he thought about the demon and he could almost feel her claws digging into him as she reached for his heart. A wound like that was likely never going to heal, not even for a robot like him, but he would have to suffer through the phantom pain that he felt every now and then and get back to his quest he was on.

He smiled as he turned his chair towards the entrance of the room that he was in, where Lawrence was standing there, waiting to give him the news that he had been waiting for.

"Excellent timing." Nefarious said, resisting the urge to chuckle as he realized that Searing had to be dead at the moment, which meant that he was safe from her wrath, "So does this mean that the assassins were successful in their mission?"

"No sir... they were destroyed before they could complete their mission." Lawrence replied, his expression remaining neutral while a look of confusion crossed Nefarious' face.

"Impossible! Those were my best assassins!" Nefarious declared, not understanding what could have gone wrong, not when he had ordered them to activate the EMP he had given them, infiltrate the Hyperion, and assassinate Searing while she was in her cell.

"The recording indicated that there was another guardian aboard the ship," Lawrence said, turning the screen on to reveal the person he was speaking about, the man known as Maul, "He cut four of your assassins down and pushed the fifth one into the cell that Searing was kept in... where the demon killed the assassin before he even knew what hit him."

"Well, we'll just have to try again in the future..." Nefarious started, but then noticed that his butler was giving him a certain look that meant that there was more bad news, "...there's something else you haven't told me yet..."

"Our soldiers on Koros are reporting that Searing has landed on the planet," Lawrence said, pulling up another image and showing Nefarious that the demon was currently walking around the entrance of a city... where his weapon was floating nearby.

Nefarious stared at the image for a few seconds, wondering if his secret project would even be able to stall Searing while he pulled his weapon off of the planet. It was a gamble and he knew it, because Number 19 was designed to absorb energy and fire it back at whoever she was fighting, but she was also programed to mimic Searing's fighting style. It wasn't easy gathering all the data he needed to make 19, considering that the other eighteen attempts had all been destroyed during their testing stages, but 19 was the only one left. She was, literally, the only thing that could potentially stall Searing, but he was silently hoping that she would be able to stop the demon and, hopefully, destroy her.

"Lawrence... activate Android 19," Nefarious finally said, letting out a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen, "Tell her that she is to fight Searing... and that she won't be punished if she kills anyone else in the process."

He couldn't believe that he was actually having to resort to using 19, but the situation called for him to make such a decision and he had no choice in the matter... though he could only hope for the best.





Searing smiled as she stepped out of the portal she had opened and gazed upon the city that laid in front of her, while also spotting the facility where Nefarious kept his Biobliterator when it wasn't in use. It would be such a simple matter for her to fly up to the metallic sphere and destroy it, but at the moment she decided to see if there were any interesting enemies she could fight. Not that she expected to find anyone that would give her some exercise before she completely destroyed the planet, but it never hurt to look around anyway. She then turned her gaze to the atmosphere for a moment and watched a ship pop into existence in the middle of space, one that looked exactly like the Hyperion.

"Ah, Ratchet and Starlight have come to watch me end this pitiful world," Searing commented, turning her eyes back to the walkway in front of her, "Good, I always enjoyed having an audience when I destroy something."

Searing walked towards the city's entrance and nearly laughed when she spotted a group of small robots coming her way, all of them armed with weapons that were aimed right at her. She merely summoned a gust of wind around her and let the robots be sliced to pieces without even looking at them or raising her hands to direct her magic at them, as they weren't even worth the effort to destroy herself. As she walked through the gate she spotted a rather large robot that had its cannons aimed right at her, though she did summon a shield in front of her to block its attacks for a few seconds. She took a deep breath as the robot fired at her, but the moment the robot was out of ammunition she lowered the shield and loosed her own attack at it.

She simply used the wind around her and blew a hole through the robot's chest, sending it into the building directly behind it, where it collapsed in a heap as she moved further into the city.

That was when she spotted a rather large group of small robots that were converging on her location, but as they drew closer to where she was standing they were fired upon from above. Searing turned her eyes to the newcomer that was ruining her fun, despite the fact that she actually wasn't having any fun to begin with, though instead of finding Starlight or Ratchet approaching her she found someone new. The newcomer was definitely a robot, or maybe a mix of organic mater and robotic material, though the way it walked reminded her of Courtney Gears, who she knew about thanks to Sunset's memories. As the newcomer drew closer Searing raised an eyebrow in surprise, because the robot in question looked a lot like the human version of Sunset that her family had developed for the show that they were apart of... and was even wearing some sort of suit that was designed for battle.

"Either you are another one of Starlight's creations, or one of Nefarious' experiments," Searing commented, watching the newcomer decimate the other robots, leading her to believe that it was one of Starlight's hidden projects that Sunset didn't know about, "State your intentions or I will destroy you where you stand."

"Oh Searing, there is no need to be so hostile," the robot replied, sounding exactly like Sunset did, which actually pissed Searing off more than she was willing to admit, "No, I am not one of Starlight's creations. I am Android 19, built by Dr. Nefarious as a last line of defense between you and him. I know all of your fighting moves and tricks, as well as every spell that you know, so don't think that you can simply overpower me and be done with the fight in a few seconds."

"You say that you know all of my moves, but you and Nefarious haven't seen everything I can do," Searing said, staring at the android for a few seconds, "Let's see if there's anything special about you... or whether your just another robot that thinks they are better than everyone else."

That seemed to annoy Android 19, because she growled and charged at Searing, using her boosters to soar through the air and cross the distance between the two of them. Once she was close enough 19 swung her fist at Searing, but all the demon did was merely dodge the attack and dance around the various punches that were coming her way. Occasionally one of the smaller robots would accidentally get close to them while they were fighting, though 19 didn't show any concern for destroying what were essentially her own teammates. For the first few minutes Searing remained on the defense, studying how the android moved and how she swung her arms and legs every time she attacked, though it reminded her of how she and Sunset fought when they didn't use magic or weapons.

The android was a basic ripoff of Sunset, Searing finally decided, though the knowledge of her discovery did nothing to lessen the anger that was coursing through her body at the moment.

"I've had enough of this game." Searing finally declared, a sphere of magic gathering above her right hand, which she pressed into the android's chest and sent her flying into one of the buildings across the street, "Pathetic... I expected more from one of Nefarious' creations."

Searing turned her back on the ruined building and looked up at the Biobliterator, which was still sitting in the middle of the air, almost as if Nefarious hadn't issued the call to have it removed from the planet yet. That meant that he either didn't care about it anymore, considering that she was on the planet now, or he had a second one hidden somewhere else and didn't care if she destroyed this one. Before she could decide whether to blow the metallic sphere out of the air or just leave it there, as it would be destroyed regardless of which choice she made, she felt the air behind her shift for a second. That was seconds before something barreled into her back and threw her into the building she was standing in front of, causing the entire thing to explode upon impact.

"Don't underestimate me," 19 replied, smoke rolling off of her hands for a moment, giving her plenty of time to pick herself up as she waited for Searing to show herself again, "Dr. Nefarious has given me the ability to absorb your magical energy and fire it back at you, effectively making every move you make completely worthless! Now there's someone in the universe that can actually defeat you, so you had best leave this planet before I'm forced to destroy you... not that I wouldn't mind killing the 'Goddess of Destruction'."

"What a shame," Searing said, pulling herself from the rubble of the building she had been smashed into, to which she dusted herself off before turning back to the android, "Looks like you initiated your self destruct sequence. Let me give you a countdown... FIVE!"

That was swiftly followed by Searing appearing in front of 19 and slamming her right foot into her chest so hard that she lifted the android off of the ground. The attack had enough force behind it that Searing sent 19 flying back into the building that she had been thrown into before, but now there was a mark on her chest where Searing's foot had been. The ground around them shook for a moment, in response to the power that Searing had put into the attack, but then it settled down as she approached the downed robot. Searing was pissed that Nefarious had a robot that looked and spoke like Sunset, but she still wanted to toy around with before she completely erased it from the universe.

"Well well, it looks like I'm a size nineteen," Searing commented, standing over the android, though she was prepared for whatever was coming her way.

19 snapped her eyes open, flipped up to a standing position, and lunged at Searing, to which the demon smiled as she flipped backwards and slammed her feet into 19's chest again, sending her into the air.

"FOUR!" Searing continued, following the android into the air and taunting her to attack again, to which she dodged an eye beam attack that was directed at her.

'THREE' however, was followed by Searing flipping around in the air and slamming the tip of her left foot into 19's head, sending her down to the ground with enough force to create a small crater around where she landed. Searing grinned as she flew down to where the android was laying, glad that she was actually able to show someone just how powerful she was, because she was sure that Nefarious was watching the entire battle.

"You know, I'm sure that Nefarious thought there would be an advantage to building a robot that looked like Sunset in her human state," Searing commented, landing beside the android and staring at the still body, knowing that she hadn't broken it yet and that something else was coming, "but here's the thing, choosing Sunset's human form only makes me more pissed off. Whatever advantage he was banking on is really a disadvantage for you, Android 19, because that means our game will be over that much quicker."

That was followed by 19 getting into a sitting position and locking her hands on Searing's wrists, tight enough to dissuade normal people from trying to break away. Searing, on the other hand, was not a normal person and decided to see what the android wanted from her, or wait for her to finish gloating again.

"I'm going to drain you of all your magical energy and reduce you to a shriveled prune!" 19 declared, powering up her inner systems so she could get the job done, "Then, once your nothing but a shriveled pile of skin and bones, I'll use your power to destroy the rest of Nefarious' enemies... and then we'll conquer the universe."

"You want my energy?" Searing asked, lifting her legs into the air and pressed her feet against 19's chest, to which she pulled herself back and extended both of the android's arms to the max, "Tell you want, take as much as you want. In exchange I'll TAKE YOUR HANDS! TWO!"

Searing grinned as she pulled back and literally tore both of Android 19's hands off, to which she flipped around and landed with her feet on the ground. 19, on the other hand, fell backwards and stared at the stumps where her hands hand been, though she was definitely surprised by the damage she had suffered as Searing crushed both of her hands. Searing had to admit it to herself, smashing Nefarious' toys was always fun, because they were all uniquely interesting and provided her with some fun before she blew them to pieces.

"So android," Searing said, taking a step towards the robot, who backed up just a bit, "do you feel fear?"

In response to the question Android 19 turned around and ran in the direction that was opposite of where Searing was, intending to get as much distance between her and the demon as she could. Searing had to resist the urge to laugh as she pulled herself into the air, though at the same time she gathered her energy into a sphere that would completely destroy the android. As she prepared herself she let the android get a little further away from the crater she had created, though once she was far enough Searing shouted the word 'ONE' and let loose the energy she had been gathering. The sphere of energy soared through the air, zeroing in on where Android 19 was, before finally coming into contact with the robot and detonating upon impact.

The resulting explosion tore a massive hole in the ground and kicked up a large amount of dust, but when it cleared Searing grinned as she noticed that there was no trace of the android to be seen, exactly like she had intended.

Searing smiled and turned back to where the Biobliterator was floating, extending her right palm towards the metallic sphere as she gathered more energy. Even now she could tell that Nefarious had finally given the order to pull back the weapon, though he was a little too late in giving the order, because now he could watch as the weapon was destroyed. Searing aimed at the heart of the weapon, the large glowing circle that rested in the middle of it, and loosed the energy she had been gathering, releasing a beam of red energy that soared through the air. The moment it collided with the center of the Biobliterator the weapon exploded, as her energy came into contact with whatever powered it and tore the entire thing to pieces.

Searing started to laugh the moment she noticed pieces of the weapon fall to the ground, all of which were covered in flames thanks to the explosion... but she was far from finished. There was still one more thing that she needed to do before she could leave this world behind and head to where Nefarious was actually hiding, something that she had promised Sasha back on the Phoenix.

"Nefarious! I know your watching me at the moment!" Searing called out, knowing that he had likely seen her fight with the android and was likely still watching her, "Allow me to show you what happens when you break a deal with the Goddess of Destruction!"

Magical energy swirled around her right hand, more than she had gathered in the entire time she had been in control of Sunset's body, before she slammed her hand against the ground and watched as the area around her began to crack. The spell had been simple; she was using her magical power to shatter the world completely, which meant that Koros would soon be destroyed in a fiery explosion. Searing flapped her wings and took to the sky, angling herself so she could get to the atmosphere and teleport to the Hyperion before the planet's destruction occurred.

As she flew through the destruction she watched as buildings collapsed as the ground beneath them broke apart, watched as flames erupted from the cracks and spread the destruction, and grinned as the world faced the terrifying might that was her full power. People were no doubt running for their lives and trying to flee what was happening to their planet, which only made her chuckle as the ground erupted and was replaced by lava. Even Nefarious' facility shattered under her power, the pieces falling into the lava beneath them before the entire world was ended in a fiery explosion.

Once she was far enough Searing used her magic and teleported into the Phoenix, where she turned to face the planet that was about to end and threw a shield around the entire ship. She paid no attention to who was aboard the ship, because she knew that it was her family that was with her, and mainly watched the end of Koros with a look of joy in her eyes. Eventually the planet couldn't take much more of her spell, because it finally exploded and sent out a small wave of energy into the surrounding area, which did nothing to the shield she had summoned ahead of time.

Searing allowed a wide grin to appear on her face, because now that Koros had been taken care of it was Nefarious' turn to suffer for breaking his end of the deal... and she was going to enjoy tearing him apart.
> Arsenal: Mylon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"YOU BLEW UP AN ENTIRE PLANET!"

Searing honestly didn't know why Ratchet was so upset that she had wiped one of their enemy's bases from the face of existence, not to mention to weapon that he had been keeping there the entire time. She figured that he, Starlight, and Angela would have been grateful that she had bothered to go out of her way to get rid of the place where the soldiers that attacked the Phoenix had come from, but all she was getting was attitude. It was somewhat annoying, but they were her family and she would never use her powers against them, which would eventually bring them to her downfall once more. Until that time occurred she was still in control of Sunset's body, who was completely unaware of what was currently happening at the moment.

Though when she thought about losing control she noticed that Starlight now had another one of the annoying Cores, which meant that they had found where Qwark had hidden it and retrieved it.

"I'm still not seeing why your so upset." Searing said, though she crossed her arms as she leaned against one of the walls in the room where they kept the Cores in, as she refused to go back into the cell until Nefarious was dealt with, "They were your enemies, so you should be thankful that I eliminated all of them before Nefarious could rally them and use them against us in the future."

"Not everyone on that planet was on Nefarious' side," Ratchet replied, though in truth he was shocked to have seen Planet Koros be destroyed by the demon, which meant that Qwark had been right when he called her the 'Goddess of Destruction', "Couldn't you have, I don't know, summoned one of those magical spheres that you like to use and simply destroyed the facility the Biobliterator was stationed at? It would have been much easier than blowing the entire planet to pieces."

"I suppose I could have... if Nefarious hadn't revealed the fact that he made an android that looked like Sunset and used her to fight me," Searing answered, a smirk appearing on her face as she recalled how she blew the robot to pieces, "but what's done is done and there's no use crying over the loss of one world... there are plenty more where Koros came from."

"And what about the millions of people that you killed?" Angela asked, though despite the fact that she hated what Searing had done she had elected to remain calm the entire time they were talking, "There were innocent people on that planet... and you killed them all without a second thought."

"Well, now you don't have millions of people lining up to join Nefarious' army," Searing replied, letting out a sigh as she stared at the two lombaxes, still not understanding why they were so upset, "I'm sure that Sasha is pleased to have Nefarious on the run at long last... its a shame that she hasn't called you yet."

Ratchet didn't want to tell the demon that Sasha had already contacted them, because at that very moment Starlight was at the bridge and was being briefed on their next assignment. From what he could tell there was a second Biobliterator, on another planet no less, that was supposed to be more powerful than the one that Searing had just destroyed. The problem was that both he and Angela knew that Searing would want to attack Nefarious' main base of operations, just like she had done with the last planet, but there was no telling how she would react once they got there.

He counted himself lucky that they had thought to leave Qwark behind on the Phoenix, because he was about the only thing that might snap the demon out of her obsession with Nefarious.

"Oh, I saw something in your eyes," Searing commented, a smile appearing on her face as she realized what was happening, "Sasha did contact you and the two of you have been keeping me distracted the entire time the conversation has been going on. Let me guess... we're heading to Nefarious' main base?"

"Yeah, we are," Angela replied, though she merely let out a sigh as she moved out of the way, "We had intended on keeping you in here while Starlight put an end to Nefarious' plans, but you figured us out before we could even reach our destination. Now that you know where we're going I know that you'd prefer to skip ahead and start the fight by yourself... but may I offer you a suggestion?"

Ratchet noticed that the moment Angela mentioned a suggestion, which was her own idea on the assault of Nefarious' main base, Searing's eyes lit up for a second, as if she enjoyed listening to what others had to say. No doubt Angela was going to offer the demon the chance to destroy the second Biobliterator and Nefarious, but she had also likely added a condition that would prevent the destruction of another planet.

"Let me take another guess..." Searing said, though as she spoke she looked at the container that the Cores were held in, though her eyes lingered on the case for a few seconds before she turned back to the two in front of her, "I get to destroy the second Biobliterator and rid the universe of Nefarious, but in exchange I have to promise not to blow the planet to pieces AND return Sunset to her body once the entire ordeal is over. Am I right or is there something I missed?"

"No... that was pretty much what I was going to say," Angela replied, though she stared into the demon's eyes for a moment, wondering where Sunset was in the shadows that surrounded Searing's eyes, "You'll have to give Sunset back her body at some point, because it appears that your constantly fighting to keep her trapped inside and its only wearing you out. Even Gods need to sleep Searing, and you're no exception to that rule."

Searing growled at Angela, but made no move towards her, though Angela merely shook her head and walked out of the room they were in, followed by Ratchet. She supposed that she could play their game at the moment and switch with Sunset once Nefarious was dealt with, but she knew that she would eventually have complete control over Sunset's body one day. It was actually quite sad that the villains of this universe wanted to torment Sunset by constantly releasing her true powers, because every time Searing watched Sunset from the shadows she noticed something interesting; Sunset was constantly depressed.

Sunset hated the magical energy that was coursing through her veins, as if she believed that magic was a curse that was slowly ruining her life. Even as Searing stared into the nearby mirror she imagined that Sunset would be doing the same thing, only there would be a blank expression on the amber alicorn's face whenever she did it. She could feel Sunset's anger towards Qwark, her hatred for her own powers, and the gnawing fear that was growing in her mind... a fear that Searing didn't expect to find. Sunset was afraid that she would grow to like the power that Searing used, the power of an unchained alicorn, and eventually embrace who she had been before her memories had been shattered.

Searing sighed and looked away from the mirror, silently wondering if there was a way for her to convince Sunset to let go of her hatred for her powers... and she remained that way for the rest of the trip.





When they finally arrived at Planet Mylon the entire group was surprised to find that their scans indicated that there was a massive amount of enemy soldiers waiting for them. Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight all had the latest weapons ready to go and made sure that all of their ammunition was fully stocked, because they wanted to be sure that they were ready for anything. Though the three of them were expecting quite the fight before they reached where Nefarious was hiding, because they all knew that the soldiers would be aiming for Searing the entire time.

Ratchet turned back towards the smaller ship for a moment once he had his weapons fully stocked, keeping his eye on Searing while she climbed out of the ship and stared at the fortress in front of them.

"So this is Nefarious' main base of operations..." Searing commented, though a frown appeared on her face as she turned to the others, "Is this seriously all he has to offer us? A small army of robots and his weapon?"

"I guess that's what happens when you scare the villain into submission," Starlight replied, cycling to one of her weapons, which she pointed at the enemies that were at the base of the platform in front of them, "So, should I bother attacking them, or are you going to obliterate them by yourself?"

Ratchet knew that it was a decent question, because at this point Searing could simply point her hand at the fortress and tear it to pieces with her magic. The consequences of that action would likely cause yet another cataclysm that would remake the entirety of Mylon, similar to what happened to Yeedil and the other planets that survived Searing's wrath. Koros was the only planet that Searing actually destroyed, but Ratchet and the others knew that it was a matter of time until it happened again.

"Go ahead and fight them yourselves," Searing replied, crossing her arms for a moment, "I'll stay at the back and make sure that none of the robots try to pull a fast one and attack us from behind. I wouldn't want anything to happen to my sister, my brother, and his girlfriend."

Angela was surprised to be added in the demon's 'family', as she was positive that Searing only cared for destruction and was leaving the others alone because of their connection to Sunset, but she decided not to provoke the demon at the moment. As much as she hated to admit it they could use Searing on their side, because she knew that the mere sight of her might be enough to make Nefarious surrender the instant they found him. Though she was also familiar with villains and their egos, so she was under the assumption that Nefarious would still insist on fighting to the bitter end.

The enemies that were waiting on the platform in front of them were actually quite easy to deal with, as they weren't expecting the group to show up and attack them, allowing them to cut through their defenses with ease. The same thing happened to the enemies that were waiting in the room ahead of them and the platform just beyond that, which made Ratchet smile as they moved. It was painfully clear that Nefarious had been expecting Searing to show up alone and had his guards on the lookout for her, but since they were spearheading the attack the robots weren't ready for them.

The only problem that they encountered was when they reached an area that had a button trapped behind a force field, one that was guarded by a lone Tyhrranoid. This problem was rapidly removed by Searing, who opened a small hole into the area that the lone robot was walking around in, allowing one of the others to put it out of its misery and activate the button so they could move on. The next area was nothing more than some piles of crates and a moving conveyor belt, which allowed them to jump up the ladder and find another barrier blocking their path. Starlight took a page out of Searing's book and opened a small doorway behind the robotic enemy, allowing Angela to pass through and cut the enemy to pieces before lowering the barrier.

From there it got much tougher for them, as the forces that were arrayed against them must have been updated from afar by Nefarious, because they started firing at them the moment they rode the elevator down into the next area. Ratchet and Angela used their rifles to eliminate enemies that attacked them from afar, allowing Starlight to deal with whoever was directly in front of them with whatever weapon she felt like using. She kept the RY3NO back for the moment, knowing that there was a time and place to use the weapon and that it wasn't worth wasting it here... at least not yet anyway.

Searing, for the most part, merely stayed at the back of the group and stared at everyone that dared to attack them from behind, though those that didn't run away in fear she carved into pieces.

At one point they came across a door that required the use of their Hacker to get through it, but Searing sunk her magic into the door frame and tore it out of the wall with ease. The enemies on the other side of the door clearly weren't expecting that to happen, because ratchet and his family were able to get some decent shots off before they reacted. Once the enemies were dealt with Ratchet noticed that there was a laser puzzle that they had to solve to get through the next door, but before he could pull out the gadget that would allow him to solve it Searing blew the door to pieces.

"We don't need a gadget to open doors, not when I'm around," Searing commented, glaring at the enemies that were between them and the next building, challenging them to either stand and fight or run away, "I do hope that Nefarious stands his ground and fights us."

Ratchet sighed as he and the others charged out into the open area and fought whoever was left in their way, because half of their enemies had actually either destroyed themselves or simply ran away at the mere sight of Searing. He had known that Searing could inspire fear in the hearts of whoever chose to fight her, but seeing so many robots, who were programed not to feel fear, flee in terror both surprised and shocked him. Not that he was complaining, he knew it made their job easier, but he would have preferred to do all of this with Sunset and not the demon that was in control of her body.

Once those enemies had been dealt with they walked through another building and approached the platform that would bring them to the Biobliterator, where they found Nefarious and his butler waiting for them. Though instead of staying and fighting Nefarious teleported them into the weapon and took off, no doubt heading someplace else to prepare for their next attack. It seemed like there was a launch site somewhere on the planet, because Nefarious didn't direct the weapon into the atmosphere just yet... which told them that he was either finishing his preparations or he was making a stupid decision.

Fortunately Sasha sent them a dropship that would follow Nefarious, giving them time to plan their final assault on Nefarious and whatever forces he had left... and listen to one of Searing's idea while they followed the Biobliterator.





"Got to get off the planet before SHE arrives." Nefarious said to himself, hastily working on the terminal that connected to his weapon, making sure that the weapon was ready for launch before he took off, "Don't want to get destroyed..."

"Stop right there Nefarious," a voice behind him said, to which he turned around and spotted both Ratchet and Angela standing behind him, both armed with guns that were pointed at him.

"And what can you do to stop me?" Nefarious declared, pressing a button on his new right hand and summoning a shield into existence around his body, "I designed this to stop the demon in her tracks, so anything that you have to use against me will fail and I will escape unscathed. Face it, heroes, you have failed."

"Then get some!" Ratchet shouted, to which both he and Angela opened fire on Nefarious, allowing smoke to build up around Nefarious... and more importantly the barrier that protected him.

Nefarious had to resist the urge to laugh at his enemies, because he had told them that the barrier was designed to stop anything Searing could throw at him and render it ineffective, yet they persisted in trying anyway. One of the interesting things about the barrier was that he could actually manipulate it with his hands, which he tested by smacking several of the missiles that were coming his way. This was the last item he had built on Aquatos, next to the serum that he had used to release Searing, so he was confident that no one would be able to break it at all.

"Trump this!" another voice, this one coming from above him, shouted, to which he had time to look up and watch as a RY3NO volley slammed into the barrier.

For a moment he saw several cracks appear in the barrier, which was understandable considering what weapon was used against him, but his smile faded when the barrier broke.

"I'm getting real tired of this..." Nefarious declared, turning on one of his eye sensors so he could see passed the smoke, though when it came on he detected a fourth figure lurking in the immediate area around him.

"You and me both," a voice behind him said, though this one filled him with dread as he threw his right arm towards the figure, where Nefarious silently hoped that he was wrong.

Searing grabbed onto Nefarious' outstretched hand with her right hand, though at the same time she slammed her right foot into his left knee, shattering the metal upon impact and breaking his left foot off completely.

"Now show me your hand," Searing shouted, raising her left hand into the air for a moment, with a hint of joy filling her eyes as she looked into his terror filled eyes, "Nefarious!"

Nefarious, having added a blade to his left hand, extended the weapon and swung his hand right at the demon, aiming right for her head so he could end this nightmare. Searing brought down her own hand and connected with the tip of the blade, but that was when Nefarious noticed that her nails were heated and he knew what was coming. Searing tore through both the blade and his hand, though she completely cut off his left arm before grabbing onto his head before he hit the ground.

"I expected more from you, Nefarious." Searing said, heating her nails once more, ignoring the fact that the others were gathering around them, "Oh well, now the universe will be rid of you."

Before she could slay the villain, and end his reign of terror, the butler robot teleported into the immediate area, latched something onto his master, and teleported the two of them out of Searing's reach. Not seconds later the Biobliterator became active, transforming into a massive fighting robot that was designed to fight Nefarious' enemies, though before anything happened Starlight indicated that their enemy was aboard the weapon. Searing suspected that he was repairing his body and was having the robot do the fighting for him, but she would not allow her target to escape her wrath a second time.

Starlight noticed the magical energy flicker around Searing for a moment, though it was clear that she was concerned that the demon was going to blow the planet to pieces.

"Just what are you planning this time?" Starlight asked, wondering if she could even dissuade Searing from blowing a second planet to pieces.

"I'm going to blow that robot to pieces," Searing replied, holding her hands out for a moment, to which one faced the right of her while the other faced the left, "Just keep Nefarious distracted and I'll do the rest."

It was at that point that the Q Force ship flew into the area around the Biobliterator and started firing at it, though Searing smiled when she heard Qwark's voice taunt Nefarious and saw the robot switch its aim towards the captain. Ratchet and Angela climbed into the spare ships that happened to be sitting in the immediate area, praising their luck that Nefarious hadn't destroyed them before attempting to make his escape, before they took to the skies and joined the fight. Starlight merely wove her magic around her, levitated herself into the air, and flew into the battle, using her RY3NO to do some damage.

"You know Nefarious, I learned something from you," Qwark called out over the radio, grinning as he heard groans on the other side, "and I also remembered something that I learned the hard way."

"And what would that be you imbecile?" Nefarious shouted back, keeping his aim on Qwark's ship the entire time, completely ignoring what was going on around the Biobliterator.

"I remembered that it is unwise to upset the Goddess of Destruction... no, that it is unwise to upset both Sunset Shimmer and Searing," Qwark replied, deciding that it was best to refer to the person he was talking about by their actual names, "From you I learned that it is unwise to go back on an agreement that had been struck with them, because they'll figure it out and deliver a fitting punishment to the one who broke their word. I'm sorry Nefarious, but the moment you broke your deal with Searing you sealed your fate..."

"What are you... talking... about?" Nefarious said, though that was before he turned the Biobliterator towards where Searing was standing, where his scanners were going off the charts, "By the Maker!"

By that point Searing had brought her hands together and was combining the energies she had been gathering, creating an attack that would end the fight in one swoop. Now, however, the attack was generating enough energy that it was producing lightning that cut into the ground and the buildings around her. It was something that she always wanted to try out and never had the opportunity to use... until Nefarious gave her the chance to do so.

"FINAL FLASH!" Searing shouted, releasing the energy she had been gathering and watched as a beam of energy tore through the space between her and the Biobliterator.

The attack tore through the robot's core, completely ruining the weapon that Nefarious had spent months building, while the arms, legs, and head piece of the robot fell to the ground around them. Searing could hear Nefarious screaming inside the robot's head and it brought a smile to her face, but before the head exploded she felt him and his butler disappear. It was clear that the war was over and that Nefarious had given up, though in time they would eventually catch him and sentence him accordingly.

Searing turned her attention to Qwark's ship as it landed, watching the man approach her for a few minutes as she debated what to do with him. Eventually she sighed and slammed her fist into his chest, but this time she was merely punching him and not issuing the destruction of this world.

"Be grateful that I've had my fill of destruction thanks to Nefarious," Searing whispered into the captain's ear, knowing that it was only a matter of time until he messed up again, "I'll let you off the hook this time, but try my patience again and I will destroy you in a heartbeat. Do I make myself clear?"

"C... crystal clear," Qwark gulped, clearly surprised by what was happening, but choosing to remain silent so he didn't  press his luck too far.

Searing looked up to see Ratchet and his family approaching her as well, though this time she let out a sigh as she released her hold on Sunset's body, allowing the transformation to reverse itself until the amber alicorn was whole once more. She knew that she'd be back in control in the future and all she had to do was wait for that day to arrive, because it was only a matter of time until another idiotic villain woke her from her slumber.

Starlight breathed a sigh of relief as Searing released her sister and watched as Sunset's chest moved while she slept, though she was thankful to have her sister back. She could only imagine how long it would take for Sunset to completely recover from what had happened to her, but she knew that her sister would awaken in a week or two. Until that time came she would see if the third Core had anything interesting to tell her, all while making sure that Qwark stayed away from Sunset and keeping an eye out for the next villain they had to deal with.

They might have won the fight with Nefarious, but she was sure that there was another battle coming their way in the future... and she wanted to be ready for it when it arrived.
> Interlude: Conversation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Starlight hated this part of her family's adventures; the part where she sat in a hospital and waited for Sunset to awaken from what most doctors said was a coma. It wasn't a coma, as she tried to tell them that it was a magical sleep that he sister went through every time she regained her body from the demon that she shared it with. Usually Searing only possessed Sunset's body for a few hours at most, which meant that she'd miss out a day or two at most, but this time she had been taken over for at least three days... maybe four at the most. According to her estimates that meant that it would take Sunset a week at most to recover, and she had double checked her calculations to be sure that she was right, but unfortunately she was right on this matter.

Sunset would be in the hospital for another few days, sitting out of the victory that she had worked hard to achieve and not being able to watch the new Secret Agent Clank video that had been released recent... not that Starlight was even interested in it now that her sister couldn't watch it with the rest of the family.

Angela and Maul, the two who were the most skilled in the art of using the lightsaber, had been staying away from each other ever since Maul had saved Searing from the assassins that had boarded the Hyperion. Starlight knew that the two of them would eventually have a real fight with their weapons, as that was what they were able to divine from what the mysterious Maul had told them. Angela had spent the time either practicing her skills with her weapon or making defenses that were resistant against EMP's, so that they didn't have a repeat of what Nefarious did to the ship.

Ratchet and Clank had spent some time finishing the latest show episode, as well as do some research into ways that might be able to help them restrain Searing. Starlight helped with the research, in the magical way anyway, while they figured out if there was a way to use technology to help them in their endeavors. She wondered if it was possible to recreate the spell that had been placed on the golden bracelet that Sunset had been wearing back on their first adventure, but from what she could figure out chaos magic wasn't the easiest form of to wield.

Starlight eventually let out a sigh as she stared at her sister's sleeping body, knowing that if she bothered to say anything there wouldn't be any form of response, as she was the only one in the room with her sister. A few seconds later she got out of the chair that she was sitting in and headed for the door, knowing that there was some research on the Cores that she had to do, research that might help them with Searing in the future.

Finally, I thought she would never leave.

Starlight turned around and stared at the hospital room, knowing that she had heard something speak the moment she had reached for the door with her magic. She had been alone in the room with her sister, she had been sure of it the moment she had taken her seat in the chair, but now she knew that there was something else in the room. She looked around the room, seeing if she could find anything without using her magic, but after a few seconds she igniting her magic and formed a scanning spell that would detect anything else that was in the room with her. What her magic showed her was something that she wasn't expecting, because standing beside her sister's bed was the shadowy form of Searing.

Searing was staring at Starlight with a look of complete shock on her face, as if she hadn't expected to be found out until she was actually ready to reveal herself.

Um... hi? Searing said, waving one of her hands for a moment, as if she was trying to be friendly and not hostile for a change, I, uh, wasn't expecting to be found out so soon.

"How... are you able to exist outside Sunset's body?" Starlight asked, as she was sure that something like this was definitely close to impossible, despite the amount of power that both Sunset and Searing possessed.

Honestly? I have no idea. Searing admitted, turning her attention back to Sunset for a moment, as if she had been deep in thought about something before Starlight had found her out, Why does she hate me so much?

It Starlight a minute to realize that Searing was talking about Sunset, though once she figured that out she knew that the answer was obvious and wondered what game the demon was playing. She knew that her sister would hate the demonic side of herself, because Searing was responsible for shattering worlds and ultimately the complete destruction of one world. it made complete sense to her, but then she started to wonder if Searing was referring to something else, as if she was a young kid asking a parent or other sibling why another sibling hated her.

Starlight's eyes widened as she realized what she had stumbled on, if she was right anyway, but they returned to normal before the demon turned back to face her.

"Are you referring to Sunset?" Starlight asked, just to make sure that she was right in her thoughts, or if she was overreacting and overthinking everything.

...yes... Searing answered, letting out a sigh as something flashed in her eyes, something that Starlight assumed was either regret or shame, I've saved her from death itself and stopped her enemies from laying waste to both the Bogon and Solana galaxies... so why does she hate me so much?

"Because you go overboard." Starlight replied, causing Searing to raise an eyebrow, "Take for example when you went to Koros; you didn't need to actually destroy the planet, as all you really had to do was get rid of the facility and the enemies that were in the city. Searing, I'm going to be completely honest, if you toned back the amount of power that you put into your attacks, and stopped breaking every world that you fight at, Sunset might actually start to like you more."

The unfortunate thing was that she had no idea if Sunset would actually like the creature that shared her body, as she had to imagine that the transformation between their forms had to be painful. Sunset was likely annoyed with the amount of destruction that the demon caused, though she had no idea what her reaction would be when she learned of Koros' destruction.

I always thought she would like having her enemies destroyed. Searing said, letting out a sigh as she floated beside the bed, Do you remember that bracelet that Sunset was wearing? The one that was shattered?

"Yes, I do," Starlight replied, not understanding what the bracelet had to do with Sunset liking Searing, but she figured that the demon would tell her something interesting.

We weren't always like this, Searing commented, staring at Sunset's sleeping form for a few seconds, Sunset doesn't know about her past life, before she put that bracelet on, but the chaos magic that was attached to that bracelet didn't work on me at all. I'm forced to remember everything about our past life, and everything we did, and yet I cannot tell anyone anything about what we lived through. I can tell you that Sunset hated me for the longest time... and that it took something much stronger than her to make the two of us become united in a sense.

Searing paused for a moment, as if she was silently remembering the creature that she had mentioned, but Starlight wondered what was actually going through the demon's mind at the moment.

Maybe she remembers something about that creature and that I remind her of him. Searing continued, I thought this time I would be able to get her to like me, and maybe accept me without having to fight each other, but it seems that I've messed everything up once more.

Starlight couldn't actually believe what she was hearing; that Searing, the demon that had obliterated an entire world, was actually admitting that everything she had done was in an effort to get Sunset to like her. If what Searing said about the previous life she and Sunset had lived, and the defeats that the demon had suffered, then Starlight guessed that making friends with the person you were sharing a body with was the next best thing. It would have been much easier if Searing had bothered to reveal her existence to them when she was first revealed, back on their first adventure after she had saved Sunset's life, instead of waiting until the bracelet had been broken.

And I guess I might have gone a little overboard when I attacked Koros, Searing said to herself, which only made Starlight sure that the demon was losing her mind, I was so close to actually achieving total control over all of our powers, thanks to my anger towards Nefarious, and yet I backed away right before I reached the threshold between what I was using and the power that I could wield. I destroyed Koros when I was at the threshold between levels of magical power, but I retreated from our true power like a coward. What does it say about the 'Goddess of Destruction' when she actually fears her own powers?

Starlight was somewhat confused for a moment, because she was sure that Searing had always been using the maximum amount of power that she had at her disposal. Now, however, she was learning that there was another level beyond what Searing was capable of using, something that she actually feared with every fiber of her being. As she thought about it she began to see something that she was sure that the demon was talking about; the more she was in control of Sunset's body, the closer she got to Sunset's own powers. They were literally two sides of the same coin, though it appeared that Searing wanted to stay away from whatever form of magic the combination of her powers and Sunset's powers took.

Searing was actually scared of realizing her true potential, which meant that she and Sunset had to become one again to truly realize everything that they were capable of doing.

"It means that you know that wielding your full power is too dangerous, for yourself, Sunset, and everyone around you," Starlight answered, though she was still shocked to be hearing this from the demon, "If you toned back the amount of power that you put into all of your attacks, and stopped breaking all of the worlds that we visit, then I'm sure that Sunset would open up to you. You should also use your powers for the good of the universe, such as tracking down and capturing people who break the law, or helping us deal with whatever villain is coming our way next."

What makes you think that there will be another villain after Nefarious? Searing asked, raising an eyebrow at Starlight while she spoke, though it was a fair question to ask.

"There will always be villains roaming the universe," Starlight replied, a smile appearing on her face an instant later, "which means that heroes must step forward to fight them and to protect those that cannot defend themselves. Searing, you can help us protect the people of the universe against whatever threat is coming our way... and I'm pretty sure that Sunset would be happy to switch bodies with you if we could determine a method that wasn't painful."

"Ugh... its hard to rest when someone doesn't stop talking," a voice said, to which both Starlight and Searing turned to the bed that laid between them, watching Sunset's body move for a few seconds before she moved into a sitting position.

Starlight was amazed that Sunset could even muster the energy to get up after everything that Searing had put her body through, but the evidence was sitting right before her. It showed her just how strong Sunset really was, that she could take anything that the universe threw at her and emerge victorious in the end. Though despite all of that Starlight could see that Sunset was tired, no doubt because of the amount of time that Searing possessed her body for during their fight with Nefarious. That, and she was confused as to why Searing was floating to the right of her, in the shadowy form that she was currently using to talk with Starlight.

"I'm too tired for this," Sunset said, though that was followed by her preparing to go back to sleep, but she stopped part way through the motion, "Searing... I'll deal with you when I have more energy. For now... just stay beside Starlight and don't blow anything up."

Searing barely had time to do anything before Sunset was laying back in her sleeping position, though this time she knew better than to speak and wake her once more. She could tell, from what little had been said, that Sunset knew about the destruction of Koros, because she mentioned blowing something up before laying her head back on the pillow. It told her so many things at once; like the fact that Sunset was fully aware of what Searing did when she was in control of her body... and that she disapproved of the damage she had done to the galaxy. It hurt knowing that the one person that she was trying to impress was disappointed in her, but she decided that she would have to improve herself in any way she could.

That was why she had folded her shadow into Starlight's, so she could get out of the hospital without alerting any of the staff seeing her and causing a commotion. The last thing they needed was for someone to think that she was going to attack Starlight and use her for whatever goal she was working towards. Searing was bound to Sunset alone, which was something that the two of them were going to have to work around so they could live in harmony in the near future.

Starlight, on the other hoof, had an idea that might get rid of some of the pressure that Sunset was dealing with and, at the same time, maybe develop a method that would forge a stronger connection between the two... one that wasn't so painful. The bad news about that idea was that it involved using the three Cores that they had recovered, which might actually harm Searing in the process, but at the moment it was the only thing that they had to go on. If the experiment was a success then they would be able to start training the connection between Sunset and Searing, so that in the future there wouldn't be any pain when they switched mindsets.

Oh no, I know that look in your eyes. Searing commented, to which an eye appeared in the shadow next to her, though it stared at her for a few seconds before disappearing before someone else saw it, Please tell me you aren't thinking of using the Cores.

Starlight could only give the shadows a small smile as she made her way to the dock where the Hyperion was being repaired at, all while knowing that this was literally the only option available at the moment. There were only two outcomes to this; either Sunset and Searing forged a bond that allowed them to share their body... or Searing was forever purged from Sunset's body and they would have to help their sister regain her footing once more. It would be a few days until such a experiment was ready, so she would give Sunset all the time she needed to rest and relax before they tried it out... and maybe watch Angela fight Maul later.

Then they could all prepare for whatever villain was coming their way next, and whatever crazy schemes this one decided to bring to the table... though they couldn't be worse than what Nefarious tried to pull off.
> Interlude: Starlight's Gamble
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Two weeks passed before the doctors allowed Sunset to leave the hospital, as there were a variety of tests that they had to run to be completely sure that she had recovered from everything that her overexposure to Searing's demonic form. That was what the doctors told her anyway, though she knew that they were doing their job and merely allowed them to work before they allowed her to leave. She spent that time thinking about whether or not she could trust Searing, because she had been nothing but trouble ever since her bracelet had shattered back on Yeedil. The problem was that now she was beginning to wonder if the demon was actually being sincere or if she and Starlight were being played into lowering their defenses.

The problem was that Searing was constantly helping her out while the doctors weren't around, allowing her to communicate with the rest of her family without having to leave her bed. Ratchet, from what she had heard, had been completely surprised when Searing stepped out of the shadows to speak with him, but he and Clank rapidly grew to accept it and allowed her to deliver messages between them. Angela had almost fainted when Searing appeared and it required Starlight to explain what was happening, though she was the one that didn't agree with accepting the demon so quickly and only did so because of Ratchet.

While she was stuck in the hospital she heard that Starlight was working on something that would allow her and Searing to create a bond that would give them ability to change forms without the pain or anything else associated with the transformation. Sunset had no idea if such a thing was even possible, but considering that her sister could harness the power of the Cores they had acquired she knew that she had to have some faith in whatever her sister was planning.

When she was finally released from the hospital she found her family waiting for her outside her room, through the only one that wasn't present was Searing at the moment. Sunset could still feel her connection to the demon and knew that she was somewhere in the immediate area, though Starlight merely shook her head to indicate that it wasn't worth worrying about her at the moment. Something had happened to the demon in the two weeks she had been stuck in the hospital, though she was eager to see what was wrong with her other half at the moment.

They returned to the Hyperion and Starlight initiated the launch sequence, though at the same time Sunset walked through the corridor until she returned to where they had kept the Cores... where she found Searing lurking in the cell that had been designed to keep her trapped whenever she took control of Sunset's body. The three Cores glowed as she walked into the chamber, though Searing merely raised her head for a moment to indicate that she knew Sunset was there before letting out a sigh.

"I'm going to die today, just so you know." Searing said, not even bothering to move into what would pass as a standing position, as if she was admitting defeat.

"What are you talking about?" Sunset asked, though she wasn't sure what was even happening, because she had never seen her other side like this before.

"Starlight's planning on using the Cores to bind us together, but I know what's coming." Searing commented, though the way she was looking at the center of the room made Sunset wonder what her demonic side was thinking about, "Considering that the last time the Cores were used against me, where I was bound back inside you until Qwark released me, I'm afraid that the three we have might end up destroying me completely."

"Then why did you agree to this, if you knew that it might get rid of you?" Sunset asked, because she was curious as to whether the demon was truly losing her mind or if she was playing her.

"Because I want you to be happy," Searing replied, turning to face Sunset for a moment, while allowing the shadows that kept her together to wave in a nonexistent wind, "I've seen how you depressed you've been since I took over during the course of our last adventure... and how you have grown to hate the magic that courses through your body. Sunset, I can only apologize so many times for destroying a planet, so I guess the only way to atone for what I've done is to go along with Starlight's plans."

Sunset had no idea why Searing, the demon responsible for the destruction of several cities and an entire planet, was suddenly apologizing for everything she had done so far... or why she was suddenly seeking Sunset's approval all the time. She was beginning to think there was something important that was hidden in her past life, the one that had been taken from her by the bracelet that she had been wearing. Her past held the key to so many questions that were always racing through her mind, but at the moment she knew it was time to make sure that Searing was okay with going through with Starlight's plans... otherwise they would try something else.

"Searing... do you trust me?" Sunset asked, knowing that it was the best question she could ask the demon, though she never thought that a conversation like this would ever happen between the two of them.

"O... of course." Searing replied, indicating that she trusted Sunset with her life, which meant that she would gladly go through with Starlight's plan to use the Cores.

"Then you shouldn't worry about being exposed to the Cores again," Sunset said, a light smile appearing on her face, "I'm sure that, when this is over, we can get on with our lives and put the past behind us."

Sunset could see that Searing wasn't a fan of the past, though she knew that the demon was thinking about the previous life that they had shared and was unable to tell Sunset about. It was kind of annoying that the demon knew who she had been before putting on the bracelet, but eventually she would regain her memories. After a few seconds Searing nodded her shadowy head and agreed to going through with Starlight's plan, which meant all they had to do was wait until they arrived at their destination.





As it turned out the planet that they were heading towards was actually Planet Aranos, which was actually lifeless and proved to be the perfect place for them to test out whatever plan Starlight had been working on. The journey there gave Starlight time to explain that she had been working on a secret base on the planet shortly before Nefarious attacked Veldin, a research center that was designed to hold Searing. Of course all of her calculations had been thrown off when Searing used more of her power against Nefarious, demonstrating that she and Sunset had more power locked away inside them, but at the moment she didn't need the majority of the functions that the facility used. All they really needed to use was the holding area where Searing would have been kept, as well as the pillars that would hold the Cores while they were in use.

Sasha, Helga, Al, Skid, and Qwark accompanied the family on their journey to Aranos, though Qwark made sure to keep himself away from Searing and Sunset until their arrival. Everyone knew that the demon disliked the captain, and would likely hurt him if he attempted to piss of Sunset, which was why they all could breath a sigh of relief and relax.

When they arrived in the planet's atmosphere they climbed into their various ships and left the Hyperion behind, where they descended towards the location of Starlight's secret base. It was easy for them to find the building, as it held the only heat signature on the entire planet. and Sunset was pleased to find that there was plenty of space to fit all of their ships in the landing area. As they landed Sunset also noticed that Starlight was carrying a case that contained the three Cores they had recovered, though she could feel their power as they followed her sister through the base.

The strange thing was that there weren't any AI protecting the base, or any guards for that matter, telling everyone that Starlight fully expected the place to be hidden no matter what happened in the Bogon Galaxy.

"In here," Starlight eventually said, opening a door that allowed them to enter a wide open chamber, one that had six metal pillars and a chair in the middle of the room, "Originally I designed this entire facility to keep and contain Searing, more like a prison and less like what we have on the Hyperion, but we noticed that Nefarious was attacking our home galaxy and I swiftly forgot this even existed. Now, however, I have rebuilt several of the systems and made sure that everything was running perfectly... considering what we're going to be doing. Sunset, Searing, the two of you should gather around the chair and prepare yourselves, because the systems will need a few minutes to power up before we activate the energy within the Cores."

The shadowy form of Searing stepped out of Sunset's shadow and the two of them approached the chair, which happened to lower itself into the floor and leave them in a bare circle that was surrounded by the six pillars. Sunset had wondered what her sister was up to while she was trapped in the hospital, though now that she knew the truth she was curious as to what would happen when the Cores were activated. She could tell that Searing was concerned for her well-being, considering what could potentially happen to her when the magic of the three Cores were targeted towards her, but she knew that now was not the time to be worried. Sunset trusted her sister, and Searing trusted Sunset, so the demon had to trust that this wouldn't do anything besides allowing them to share the same body without any painful transformations.

Starlight directed the rest of their party into the control room that connected to the chamber that Sunset and Searing remained in, though once they were inside the room she walked up to three of the pillars and pulled out the Cores they had collected, positioning them in a triangle pattern before heading into the room herself.

Sunset and Searing watched as the three pillars became active before their eyes, to which they watched as the Cores began to glow with their individual colors. One thing they both noticed was the fact that three glows appeared between the three they had, which told them that Starlight might have been able to lock onto the signatures of the other three for a brief moment. Not long enough for her to uncover where they were hiding of course, otherwise she would have gone out of her way to take them from the people who were holding them and include them in what they were doing, but just long enough for her to reach out to them with the three they had.

"Okay, the systems are online," Starlight said over the intercom, "Just stand still and this should be over in an instant."

The energies of the Cores burst out from the three pillars and surrounded the two of them, creating a sphere of energy that would leave them trapped where they were standing. Sunset could feel her other side drawing ever closer to her, but unlike all the other times it had happened this was the one time where she was calm and not in pain. Even as she and Searing merged together she could tell that the Cores weren't trying to harm either of them... rather they were trying to heal what was wrong with them. She could even feel the three Cores that were absent lending whatever power Starlight had locked onto to the sphere, making it seem like all six of them were there for a brief moment.

Eventually the sphere died down and the Cores returned to their normal state, but Sunset was pleased to say that her sister's experiment had been successful.

"I don't understand how I could have failed." Starlight commented over the intercom, giving Sunset the ability to hear what was going on in the other room, "The Cores were supposed to merge the two of you together, but instead they seem to have had no effect on either one of you this time."

Sunset wondered what her sister was talking about, considering that she had felt the effects of this test, but when she turned to where Searing had been floating she froze for a second. There was another Sunset in the room with her, but where Searing had crimson colored skin the newcomer had dark grey skin. The newcomer's hair was a mass of shadows that seemed to move in some nonexistent wind, though some sort of dark purple mist seemed to be moving out of her eyes. Even her eyes had turned deep red, though they were surrounded by this sickly green color that made her look like she was pure evil. She also wore a dress that mimicked the one that Searing always wore, but her's was made of shadows and, oddly enough, there was no hole in her chest at all.

Sunset was beginning to wonder if tampering with the Cores had been a good idea in the first place, considering that there was now a third version of herself running around.

"Ah, it is so good to be alive again," the shadowy Sunset said, though she revealed some fangs in her mouth when she smiled, "and this time it appears that I'm finally on the top of the food chain. What's wrong Sunset? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Wh... what are you?" Sunset asked, not sure if she should attack the other version of herself or simply talk to it, "Who are you?"

"I am you... to some extent." the shadowy Sunset replied, waving a hand as if she was making sure that she was real, "I am the amalgamation of your darkest emotions, the fusion of what Sunset Shimmer fears, of what she hates, and of what she is angry at. Seven emotions once bound your powers and prevented you from reaching your full potential, but with Pride preoccupied with taking over your body, and the rest recovering from their various defeats, it was easy for me to absorb the others and their powers. With their powers increasing my own I am now the second most powerful emotion to reside within you, though now I am given the opportunity to do what Pride could not.

As for who I am... well, that is rather quite simple; I AM HATRED!"

Sunset watched as Hatred walked over to the wall on her right and pressed her right hand against the metal, though not a few seconds later a cluster of dark crystals punctured the metal and opened the facility to the planet's cold weather. With the deed done she started to laugh as she jumped through the opening she had made and landed outside the facility, clearly heading out to see if there was anything for her to destroy. What followed was the ground shaking as dark crystal spires erupted from the ground around the facility, though it didn't stop until a ring surrounded them.

Sunset could tell that this new emotion wasn't as powerful as Searing had been, otherwise the planet might have been blown to pieces, but she knew what she needed to do.

You mean what we need to do. Searing mentally corrected her, revealing that she had survived the encounter with the Cores, exactly like Starlight had planned.

"Right, sorry about that," Sunset replied, rubbing the back of her head for a moment, before concentrating on switching to a more suitable form to battle Hatred with, "I hope your ready to deal with another annoyance."

I should have killed Hatred before that bracelet was even shattered, Searing commented, though that was followed by a sigh, I cannot change the past, but we can make sure that Hatred doesn't repeat our mistakes.

Sunset nodded as the energy she had been gathering washed over her, allowing her to change her body into the human shape her family had given her for the holovision show. Luckily it also came with some clothing, the armored robes she had created so long ago, because she was ready to go the moment the energy was gone. Once she was done changing forms she jumped through the hole in the wall and followed the path of magic that Hatred was throwing around, as if she wanted to fight Sunset and was merely directing her someplace else.

It didn't take Sunset long to find where Hatred was hiding, considering that she had traveled maybe ten minutes away from where everyone else was and was merely standing on what appeared to be a bridge made completely out of her dark crystals.

"Your experiment was a success," Hatred observed, staring at Sunset's form as she walked onto the bridge, "but then again it also failed. You had no idea that I would use that opportunity to slip out and conquer the universe, but I do enjoy the fact that you are willing to hand over the rest of your power to..."

Whatever she was about to say was cut off as Sunset crossed the gap between them and punched Hatred in the jaw, knocking her backwards and forcing her to regain her footing.

"I'm going to say this one time," Sunset replied, raising her arms into a fighting stance in the off chance that Hatred refused what she was about to say, "Go back where you belong and stay there... otherwise I'll beat you into submission."

"Nice try, but you don't scare me." Hatred said, though she mimicked Sunset's stance, "I'm going to enjoy this a lot more than I should."

Sunset frowned and jumped back as one of Hatred's feet came near her, though the instant it passed by her she swung her fist at her opponent. She ended up missing entirely, considering that her opponent dodged it before it even reached her, but that didn't stop her from trying again. She used both her arms and legs to attack Hatred, who merely dodged everything that was thrown her way until it was time to plant her foot in Sunset's chest and knock her back just a bit. It was painfully clear that her emotion was more used to this form than Sunset was, but she decided not to let that hold her back as she attacked again.

Sadly the first hit she scored on Hatred seemed to be the only one that she managed to land, because after a few minutes there were some cuts and bruises on her arms and legs, indicating where Hatred had struck her. Most of the time she was able to prevent the shadowy version of herself from landing any hits, but when she landed some Hatred only increased the amount of blows she used in each rotation. Searing made it clear that Hatred had the powers of the other five emotions inside of her, which only made her more powerful than either of them were expecting. That was swiftly followed by Hatred planting her foot in Sunset's chest, harder than the previous instances, and slammed her into one of the crystal spires she had summoned earlier.

Sunset, do you trust me? Searing asked, though they both knew that at the moment they weren't going to be able to defeat Hatred at all.

"Yes," Sunset answered, because at this point it was either listen to whatever Searing had in mind or be destroyed by Hatred, and she knew that the second option would be unpleasant.

Then call on my power. Searing replied, allowing the air around them to heat up for a moment, Do what I did to that android and send Hatred back where she belongs.

Sunset knew that tapping into Searing's powers, while the transformation spell was up, would burn their magic at lot faster and could potentially leave them drained if they didn't stop Hatred. They were not prepared for something like this, not when they had no training in testing their new limits, but at the moment they didn't have much of a choice. There were several of Searing's spells that could easily destroy Hatred, if they connected to their target anyway, but Sunset merely let out a sigh as she opened herself to Searing's powers. She could feel the flames dance around her body as her hair and tail caught on fire, though this time it wasn't painful like all the previous times she had taken on Searing's form.

"I see that you are using your trump card," Hatred commented, snapping her fingers for a moment, though she had a smug look on her face while she did it, "too bad you activated my trap card!"

The floor of the bridge erupted as spikes made out of pure crystal shot out of the material and raced towards where Sunset was currently standing at the moment. Sunset grinned as the crystals came towards her, because this time she wasn't going to back down as she allowed her energy to gather around her hands once more. She slammed her fists into the center of the crystals that came at her, shattering them with the power of her earthquake ability, though this time she elected to keep the magic contained in her immediate area so she didn't harm the rest of the planet. Her smile only widened when she noticed that the smug look on Hatred's face had disappeared as she drew closer to her emotion, all while allowing more energy to build around her.

She intended on finishing this in one go, but the moment she reached Hatred the emotion jumped backwards and moved out of the way, though she heard a growl escape her opponent's lips.

"Fine then... I guess I had better wrap this up," Hatred said, to which dark energy gathered around her hands, "I will release all my energy and obliterate you... and then I'll take over the universe."

Sunset leapt backwards just a bit and pooled her energy into the area between her hands, because she intended on releasing a beam of energy that would counter whatever Hatred was planning. She could feel Searing gathering energy as well, telling her that they might need their combined powers to defeat this particular emotion, but she was glad that they were both being prepared.

"Ka... me..." Sunset said, pulling her hands back to her side, keeping the sphere of energy stable while she waited for Hatred to reveal her hand, "ha... me...."

"TAKE THIS!" Hatred shouted, throwing her hand forward and releasing the energy she had been gathering, resulting in a beam of dark energy soaring towards Sunset while breaking the ground beneath it.

"HAAAAA!" Sunset shouted back, releasing the energy she had been gathering as she leveled her hands with Hatred, to which a beam of red energy erupted from where she was standing.

The two beams of energy collided with each other and stayed that way for a moment, to which the two of them pressed against each others power with their own. It was a stalemate, which was actually not too bad in the long run, but at the moment this merely destroyed the area around them as the two energies fought each other. Sunset could feel Searing preparing herself for what was likely the finishing move, which was why she stalled Hatred's attack and kept it where it was.

Let's do this! Searing said, to which a shadow appeared next to Sunset and added her energy to the beam that Sunset had released, resulting in a much larger beam of energy erupting from her hands.

Sunset grinned as Hatred's smug look disappeared as her attack was rapidly pushed back, as if she couldn't understand what was happening at the moment. She could even see the amount of power surging past where Hatred was standing, though she was clearly struggling against the power that Sunset and Searing were producing. Then, with one final push of energy, the red beam of energy tore through Hatred's attack and collided with her, causing the area around her to explode in an explosion that rivaled what Searing had done to the android a few weeks ago.

When the smoke cleared she was relieved to find that Hatred had been destroyed, as there was a black crystal that floated in the air where the emotion had been standing, though it shattered a few seconds later.

The deed is done... Searing commented as Sunset returned to her alicorn form, but she'll be back.

"And we'll be ready for her when she comes back," Sunset replied, letting out a sigh as she turned to head back to the facility, "I need to rest after that ordeal... and tell Starlight not to mess with the Cores again."
> Interlude: Phantom Menace
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Clank looked up from the newspaper that was in front of him, turning his gaze from the story he had been reading and locked onto the building he had been staking out for the last few days; a casino that was half the size of Maktar Resort's own casino. He had been tracking Maximilian ever since he had escaped from Maktar Resort, following clues that had been given to him by his associates and other shady characters that disliked the robot. It had been quite the task to figure out what was true and what was false, because several bits of information conflicted with other pieces he had been given. Even then he wasn't one hundred percent sure that his information on where Maximilian was located was accurate, leaving him to wonder if he would ever hear from the mad robot ever again.

That was until a week ago when three robed figures approached him with some information of their own, which happened to be the critical piece he had been missing the entire time. The group's leader revealed that Maximilian would be staying at the Bolts and Gears Casino on Planet Koros for some time, where he would be meeting with someone to discuss business. Clank was able to gleam some information based on what the robed leader said, because it sounded like the person that Maximilian would be meeting with was someone that the three of them had been hunting for some time.

Clank still wondered why the three Jedi were after Maximilian's new business partner, but he decided not to ask too many questions considering that they were allowing him to confront his target while they focused on the mysterious partner.

"Any sign of your target... Agent Clank?"

Clank turned his head to the right for a moment and spotted one of the three robed figures sitting across from him, though she was currently reading the paper that he had set aside for the moment. It unnerved him that they could get the drop on him, but he would not allow them to know that and simply gathered himself before making any sort of reply.

"I have heard the security guards mention that Maximilian should be leaving sometime today," Clank replied, his eyes returning to the building across the street, though this time he was looking for the other Jedi that had been with the one sitting across from him, "His partner is supposed to be leaving with him, but they are apparently putting the finishing touches on their contract before they depart from the casino."

"Master Cross will be pleased to hear that you have found both of our targets." the robed Jedi commented, raising her right hand to her left wrist for a moment, to which she activated a small bracelet she had been wearing, "We have been searching for Maximilian's partner for some time now, but every time we got close to him he would slip away, almost as if he were a phantom of sorts. Starlene and I were starting to wonder if this was becoming a wild goose chase, but it seems that this time we might have caught him by surprise."

This was the first time that Clank had heard any names that belonged to the Jedi that had given him the information he had been looking for, though the one across from him was still unnamed. The problem was that he had no faces to assign the names to, so it left him at square one all over again and made him wonder who he was even working with. He silently wondered what would happen if he walked into the casino with the three Jedi in tow; would they be found out immediately, or would they be walking into a trap. He knew that the Jedi would fight if their lives depended on it, and he suspected that a fight was coming their way, but he decided to keep his thoughts to himself for the moment.

A brief movement behind him brought him back to reality, allowing him to notice that two more robed figures had appeared around his table and claimed the remaining chairs for themselves. Clank decided that the other two must have been waiting nearby, because there was no way that they would have replied to the mysterious Jedi's call so quickly if they were off world. He had no idea where they had been hiding the entire time he had been watching the casino, but now that they were present he knew that it was time for them to get started on their operation.

"I have received word from Grand Master M," one of the newcomers said, causing the other two to turn towards her, "He said that 'Fate has smiled upon us' and that we should 'end this as swiftly as possible'."

"Finally." the third Jedi commented, sounding pleased that they could finally enter the casino and deal with the person they had been searching for, "I was beginning to wonder if we were going to allow our target to slip through our fingers again."

"Not this time." the middle one side, the one who had mentioned the Grand Master, "Agent Clank, I do believe its time that we all head inside the casino and wrap up this little operation of ours."

Clank let out a sigh as he pulled himself out of the chair he had been sitting in for the last thirty minutes and walked across the street, briefly hearing the footsteps of the Jedi as they fell in behind him. He knew the plan, as the moment they entered the building the Jedi would separate from him and stay at a certain distance from him at all times, keeping their eyes peeled for their target. Unless their target noticed any of them before they noticed him, and Clank was sure that they would be able to catch whoever they were searching for, this would be an easy operation.

That was his thought, until two of the guards standing outside the main door stepped in their way and stopped them from entering the casino, making him wonder if Maximilian knew that they were here.

"We were warned that you might show up... Agent Clank," one of the guards said, crossing his arms in an attempt to look menacing, while the other pulled out a communicator, "Tell the boss that his 'friend' has arrived."

"This is not the robot that you were looking for." one of the Jedi said, waving their hand in front of the guards for a moment, leaving Clank to wonder if they had lost their mind.

"This is... not the robot that we were looking for." the guards replied, though they sounded like they were in a trance, which only served to confuse Clank even more.

"You will report that the coast is clear," the Jedi continued, manipulating the minds of the guards to give them the time they needed, before someone else noticed that they had slipped inside the building, "and then you will forget that you even saw us."

"The coast is clear." the guard with the communicator said, lowering his hand the moment that he delivered the message, while his partner stared into the distance with a blank expression on his face.

Once the deed was done the Jedi beckoned her head towards the door and Clank moved inside, though the instant he was inside he moved to the right while the others moved to the left. There were a fair amount of customers walking about the casino floor, either heading to turn their chips into bolts, moving to get drinks for the party they belonged to, or leaving the building in silence while thinking about the amount of bolts they lost. He didn't pay them too much attention, as this time he had a single goal in mind and needed to make sure that he kept his eyes on the prize... which was considerably easier when Maximilian was sitting out in the open.

The only problem that he noticed was that the mysterious partner that the Jedi were looking for was nowhere to be seen at the moment, which made him worry a tiny bit.

"Ah, Agent Clank," Maximilian commented from afar, turning his head to face Clank while the people around him backed up, "I was wondering when you would drop the charade and walk into the casino. I was thinking about leaving and drawing you to another building that I own, but then you decided to show up and put an end to this little game of ours. I know that you came here to arrest me, Agent Clank, but this time I have a new bodyguard that you'll have to get through before you can even touch me."

A shadow appeared next to Maximilian, almost as if whoever was under the black robe had been silently called by the robot without having to hear his name be spoken at all. The mysterious figure pulled back the hood of its robes to reveal a black faced man with what appeared to be a crown of horns around the top of his bald head. Clank knew who this man was from the various reports he had read while he had been searching for Maximilian, though he had no doubts that this was the person that the Jedi were searching for when he noticed the sheathed lightsaber on the man's belt.

"Secret Agent Clank, meet Darth Maul," Maximilian said, beckoning to the man for a moment, with what appeared to be a grin on his face, "Look upon the face of your demise and know despair."

"Not so fast," a voice behind Clank said, to which he turned and noticed that one of the Jedi was standing behind him, which meant that the other two were close at hand as well.

"I see that you have allied yourself with the Jedi," Maximilian commented, almost spitting out the word Jedi as he turned to Darth Maul, "You know what to do."

Darth Maul barely moved his head to register that Maximilian had said anything, as he was keeping his eyes on the figure that was standing behind Clank at the moment. The robed figure pulled the hood of its robe back for a moment and revealed a feline creature that closely resembled a cazar, but wasn't quite like them. Clank knew that this was a lombax, based on the orange colored fur that had a few brown stripes on the ears, though that only made him wonder what the other two Jedi were. It was funny how he thought about them and the two suddenly appeared next to the female lombax, though this allowed Clank to see that one was a female cazar while the other appeared to be a native of Rilgar.

"That's Jedi Master Angela Cross to you, Maximilian." the lombax commented, though she pulled off her robe and revealed the Jedi armor that she wore underneath, while the other two did the same, "Not that it really matters... we're here for the Sith Lord."

Darth Maul looked at the three of them for a moment, as if he was silently weighing how well he could do in a fight against the three of them, before tapping something on his wrist. That was swiftly followed by twenty robot ninjas dropping down from the floor above them and landing all around the Jedi, all while the casino patrons began to run away from where the fight would take place. Clank noted that none of the three Jedi seemed surprised to have enemies to fight, though he expected Darth Maul to run the moment his reinforcements appeared... though the only one running was Maximilian.

He knew that the Jedi could take care of themselves, especially when one of them was a master of their order, so he turned towards where Maximilian was going and followed after him.

"Sasha, Starlene," Angela said, gripping the handle of her lightsaber while she kept her eyes on Darth Maul, "I trust that the two of you can deal with these robots without my help?"

"Of course Master," the rilgarian said, extending a green beam from her lightsaber while her companion extended a blue beam, "Come on Sasha... lets show these robots what it means to fight a Jedi Knight."

Sasha sighed as the two of them separated from Angela, though at the same time the ninjas followed after their and left their respective masters alone with each other. Maul pulled off his own robes and pulled out his lightsaber, though he held it out and extended both end of it in a menacing red glow, all while keeping a neutral expression on his face. Angela let out a sigh as she unsheathed her own lightsaber, revealing that she also had a double-bladed lightsaber, though hers was purple colored, instead of the usual Jedi blue or green. They were two of a kind, as most Jedi and Sith preferred to have a single blade when they fought, but they both preferred having two blades to use whenever they were in a fight.

The two of them remained like that for a few moments, looking into each others eyes while they dared the other one to attack first, before a small smirk appeared on Maul's face. The moment that happened Maul turned around and charged up the stairs that were behind him, causing Angela to follow after him as he lead her to the place where he desired them to fight each other. While that happened she swung at him several times, intending to finish this quickly, but every time she did so Maul would turn around and parry her attacks, often cutting through whatever was around them when they clashed. Bits of metal railing fell to the ground as they raced through the casino, causing patrons to flee to avoid being hurt while the two of them were fighting.

That quickly changed as Maul turned around when he reached a certain doorway that he had been searching for, though he parried the attack that came his way and forced Angela back a bit.

Angela let a smile appear on her face as she faced Maul, who backed into the corridor that he wanted to fight in, before she realized that the area they were in was the power station for the entire casino. The corridor they were in quickly lead them to a walkway that rested above a seemingly bottomless room, which seemed odd considering that it was connected to a casino. She could tell that there were a variety of power stations that couldn't be accessed from where they were standing, though she assumed that there was a command station somewhere that allowed the employees to check up on the systems.

Once they were inside the room Maul beckoned for Angela to come at him and she mentally agreed with him, as she charged forward and slammed her weapon into his. She slowly forced him back, step by step, as each end of their weapons collided with their opponent's weapon, but despite all of that Maul didn't appear to be worried at all. At one moment an opening presented itself, to which Angela smacked her opponent in the face with he fist and knocked him backwards, though Maul rubbed his chin before continuing the fight. That continued for some time, where they parried each others attacks as they remained where they were standing, before Maul slammed his foot into Angela's chest and knocked her back just a bit.

When Angela got back into the fight she forced her opponent backwards even more, this time focusing on making Maul step backwards every time she attacked him. Maul did his best to defend himself, as well as cut a mark in Angela's right shoulder once while she was careless, though eventually he realized that he was being forced back. That was when Maul danced backward and forced Angela to follow him, though they were approaching what appeared to be the main power generator. When they approached the main generator they found that there were some energy barriers that could potentially block their way, as they found out when Maul moved past one and the barrier separated them from each other.

Angela stared at the barrier for a few seconds, waiting for the wall to fall apart, while Maul merely paced on the other side... after tapping the barrier with his lightsaber once or twice.

When the barrier went down Angela slammed her weapon into Maul's and forced him backwards, though this time he went on the defensive as she began to overpower him. At one point it seemed like he knew that he was going to lose if things continued this way, because he leapt over Angela's head, preforming a roll while he did so, and then landed behind her. Angela seemed to be expecting such a move, as the moment Maul landed on the floor behind her she spun around and cut his lightsaber in half, much to his surprise. Before Maul had a chance to understand what was going on Angela sheathed her lightsaber, gripped the Sith Lord by his shoulder, and threw him into the center of the room... right into the bottomless pit that happened to be there.

Maul fell into the bottomless pit and rapidly disappeared into the darkness, though Angela remained standing there for a few seconds as she calmed down now that the fight was over.





"That's a wrap people!" Clank's director called out, indicating that they could stop filming now that they had the scenes that they needed, "I have to admit, adding bits of this 'Star Wars' to Secret Agent Clank has been increasing the show's popularity. I am so glad that you managed to convince me to do this in the first place."

Angela sighed as she leaned close to the edge of the bottomless pit and reached into it with her spare hand, to which Maul gripped her hand and pulled himself out. They had agreed to use the set as their personal fighting stage when it came time to fight each other, and they had agreed on the route they would take through the casino, but who won was up to how well they fought. Maul had been expecting a win, considering that he had been practicing his skills ever since they finished their fight against Nefarious, but he was more than willing to accept this loss.

"Good show guys," Sasha commented, walking up to the duo and tossing them their robes, which they both caught and slipped back on, "That was some excellent fighting the two of you showed off."

"Kind of wish that I could have joined in," Starlene added, tugging her robe back on as she stopped beside Sasha, though there was a slight grin on her face the whole time, "Still, being given the opportunity to be in an action film, and not be stuck commenting on hoverboard races all day, is an experience that I will never forget."

"You could always join us full time." Angela replied, causing the race commentator to turn towards her for a moment, "Look, not even Ratchet and his sisters will be able to save the whole universe or be everywhere at once... and we all know that the Galactic Rangers need all the help they can get at the moment. That's why Sasha, Maul, and I have agreed that we need to create a real Jedi Order, so that way there will always be someone to defend the innocent when the others aren't around."

"You... want me to be a real Jedi?" Starlene asked, not sure if they were pulling her leg or not, though the thought of her doing what they did on the set, in real life, made her smile a bit.

"You have the potential for greatness, young one." a new voice said, causing the four of them to turn towards it and found an old man approaching them, one that Angela recognized as the Mystic that helped Ratchet and the others back on Tabora, "Just like the others that stand beside you."

The Mystic was wearing the standard Jedi robe over his normal clothing, though in addition to the lightsaber that was hidden from view he used a walking stick to help him get around the place. Angela had been the one who put all the pieces together; his strange warnings when he helped Ratchet and his sisters, his affinity for crystals and manipulating them, and the other strangeness that he seemed to employ whenever he was helping people out. He was like a natural Jedi, save for the fact he had been missing the weapon and robe, but he had agreed to join the new order with Angela and Maul. Sasha was reluctant to join the order as well, but after some time she decided that it might not be a bad idea to have another force of warriors around that could aid the Rangers.

"Then I would be honored to join you all," Starlene replied, bowing her head to the Mystic in respect, realizing that he was the Grand Master that Angela had mentioned on the set, "This will definitely be better than commenting on races all day."

Angela smiled and left the four of them to talk among themselves, though she walked over to where Ratchet and the others were standing and stretched her arms for a moment.

"So, any idea when our next enemy will show his or her face?" she asked, knowing that Ratchet and Starlight would have been looking for any signs of a villain that could rival Nefarious, while Sunset and Searing were likely practicing their magic together.

"No, but we're sure that they'll show themselves eventually." Starlight commented, a grin appearing on her face as they walked away from the set, "We'll be ready for whatever they have to throw at us... and so will Sunset and Searing when they finish training with their new level of magic."

Angela nodded as they walked down the street, wondering why she had a sense of dread when she mentioned the next villain, but decided that it wasn't worth worrying about and enjoyed the moment that they were all having.
> Deadlocked: Beginning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet let out a yawn as he stretched his arms, as he was tired from all the work that he, Clank, Al, and Starlight had done to the Starship Phoenix while Sasha was away. Angela had taken the Hyperion back to the Bogon Galaxy for the next few days, so she could show Maul and the Jedi that they were training the rest of the planets that they would be looking over. According to Angela the new Jedi that they were training were proving to be almost as skilled as she and Maul were, which was wonderful considering what they had seen when the two of them had fought on set six months ago. During that time Sasha had managed to land herself in the seat of Galactic President, though it was mostly because the people who elected her couldn't stand her father and wanted someone they knew, and trusted, to take his place.

He still had no idea if they were okay with their new leader being a member of the new Jedi Order, or if they even knew it at all, but Sasha didn't say that they had found out yet and was keeping it that way... as well as keeping Qwark, her Vice President, out of trouble.

Sunset, on the other hand, was currently asleep in the room that used to belong to Qwark, as both she and Searing were exhausted from the amount of training that they had put into maintaining a seemingly permanent fused state. From what Ratchet had heard Sunset and Searing were trying to unite their powers, in a more humanoid form that looked like a cross between Sunset's alicorn form and Searing's demonic form. So far they weren't very successful in creating the form that would house both of their powers, but they were able to transform without pain, which was what six months of training got them.

Ratchet still couldn't believe that Searing's name, before she became the demon that they were familiar with, was really Pride, which was something that he had held over his sister's heads... until Searing, in an act that caught him off guard, politely asked him to leave that name in the past.

"Incoming call from the Galactic President." Clank said, bringing Ratchet back to reality and allowing him to straighten his posture in the captain's chair before opening the line, "The new Galactic President."

Ratchet smiled as Sasha appeared on the screen in front of them, though she was wearing her old captain clothing under the Jedi robe that she had been given... again making him wonder how the people that had elected her hadn't noticed that she was, in fact, one of the new Jedi that was safeguarding the universe.

"Greetings, Madame President." Ratchet said, though while he knew that Sasha hated being called the President he still had to be formal when starting their conversation, "You seem to be doing well."

"Greetings Captain," Sasha replied, as Ratchet was technically the captain of the Phoenix until she could find a more permanent person to take over the position, "I see you're taking good care of my old ship."

"With some help from Starlight and Al of course." Ratchet said, indicating to the two of them, who waved to Sasha for a moment, "She needed some tuning up, but we've kept her in good shape. Hows the life of the Galactic President treating you?"

"If I can be totally honest with you, I wish I had never been selected for this position." Sasha answered, letting out a sigh as she rubbed her forehead, "I swear, some of these politicians are complete idiots... and yet they make Qwark look like a genius. One of them told me that the creation of a Jedi Order, to help the Galactic Rangers and safeguard the universe, would be a complete waste of our time, energy, and resources... though you'll never guess what he wanted to spend the bolts on."

"Increasing tax laws to give him and the others more bolts?" Ratchet asked, as he had no idea what the person could have suggested that would have made Sasha upset, as he was sure that none of the politicians knew about Searing's existence.

"I wish," Sasha replied, letting out another sigh before she continued, "No, he apparently wants us to fund some crazy and backwards science project that he discovered... so he can imprison and kill the 'Goddess of Destruction'. Everyone else laughed at him and I dismissed his plans altogether, though something tells me that he'll be looking to try again the next time we meet up."

"Is there anything we can do to relieve some of the stress that you are feeling?" Ratchet asked, knowing that there had to be something they could do to help their friend out.

"Actually, there is... though I'm afraid that its bad news." Sasha said, though her tone told Ratchet that this had to be more important than someone who wanted to kill his sister, "As you know, Captain Starshield disappeared over a month ago. I've just been informed that he's been killed."

Ratchet, Starlight, and Al all gasped in surprise and disbelief at the news, because Captain Starshield had been one of the second-tier heroes before Qwark stole most of the spotlight. They were high profile heroes that had done their work, supported good causes, and overall were good people just looking out for themselves and others. The fact that Captain Starshield, one of the better known heroes in that tier, was dead meant that someone, likely the villain that he and his family had been preparing for, was either ridding the universe of heroes or was making them kill each other for sport.

"What happened to him?" Al asked, as he was the one who kept up to date on what all the heroes were up to, though he was immediately saddened to hear of Starshield's passing.

"According to all of the reports, he was involved in some sort of illegal combat sport... something called Dreadzone." Sasha answered, to which she pulled up a picture of a blue skinned slug man that happened to be wearing a red suit and had one arm replaced with a robotic one, "We believe it was being run by this man, Gleeman Vox. He operates an underground media empire from within the Shadow Sector."

"You mean that lawless region of space on the fringes of the Solana Galaxy?" Starlight asked, though she pulled up her own map, one that had a blinking circle that surrounded the entire Shadow Sector.

"Indeed, but you'll need to be careful when you arrive there." Sasha told them, a worried look appearing on her face for a moment, "Many other heroes have disappeared over the last few weeks, which leads me to think that not all of those who have been in these 'games' are in there willingly."

"And unfortunately Ratchet and Starlight are the biggest names in the hero industry at the moment." Al commented, receiving a stare from Ratchet for not including Sunset, "What? Most people in the Solana Galaxy only remember the destruction that Searing caused to Metropolis and the complete obliteration of Koros... so Sunset's actually not included on that list at all."

"It doesn't matter either way, because I called to..." Sasha started to say, but then the screen went blank as the power to steer the ship went offline and forced them to stall.

Ratchet growled as the alarms went off, indicating that they had intruders aboard the ship, but as he got out of the captains chair and faced the door he found several soldiers waiting for them. He turned to look at Starlight, to see if she could get rid of the soldiers that were blocking their path, but when he laid eyes on his sister he found that both she and Al were surrounded by enemies. The invaders were using Al's life to stall Starlight's magic, though Ratchet knew that they were had at the moment and let out a sigh of defeat as the three of them surrendered themselves.

As they were escorted out of the bridge, and onto the ship that was now docked in the hanger, Ratchet also spotted a swirling glass container that was holding Sunset, indicating that the invaders had been prepared to capture her as well. He only hoped that whoever was taking them knew what they were doing, because he was sure that Sunset and Searing would blow up the moment they realized that they had been captured by the enemy they had been preparing for.





When Ratchet finally came to, as he had fallen asleep during the seemingly endless flight that their captures had taken to reach their destination, he found that some sort of helmet had been placed over his head. He looked down at himself and found that he had been dressed up in some sort of brownish-red armor, though after what had happened on the Phoenix he had to assume that this was the armor that the gladiators in Dreadzone wore. It looked somewhat menacing, which he guessed was the point of the armor, but at the moment he didn't care too much about that as he looked around for either Starlight, Al, or even Sunset.

After a few seconds something teleported into the area next to him, though once he realized that it was a pony, dressed in a modified version of the armor that he was wearing, he knew that it had to be Starlight. The two of them waited for a few minutes, because their suits appeared to be calibrating themselves now that they were awake, though once they were finished Ratchet could hear something in his ear.

"Starlight, are you okay?" Ratchet asked, though he had the feeling that neither one of them were going to be okay until they were finished with bringing this entire place to the ground.

"Not really," Starlight replied, though she huffed for a few minutes before she drew herself to her full height, "Just our luck, isn't it? We have a discussion with Sasha about heroes going missing, only to be kidnapped ourselves."

Ratchet nodded as his helmet's screen came on and indicated that he was to hit the nearby target, so he pulled out the gun that happened to be attached to his side, one that was called the Dual Vipers, and blasted the red target in the head. Once that one was taken care of another red colored target appeared, to which he blasted through that one as well, though when a blue target appeared a message appeared on his helmet's screen. Apparently his calibration testing was over and that it was Starlight's turn, so he stood back as he watched Starlight take out both of her targets in rapid succession, which was what he suspected would happen considering that Starlight was used to testing her own weapons before allowing Gadgetron to make more of them.

Once both of their suits were calibrated a map appeared on their screens, indicating that they needed to test out the rest of their movements before they were allowed to leave the area they were in. They followed the path that the map wanted them to follow, blasting the targets that appeared along the way, before they forced an energy field to appear and give them access to a teleport pad. When they used the teleport pad they found themselves in what appeared to be a large open area, which was clearly a practice arena of some kind. It was clear that they were supposed to make sure that they would stand up to whatever their captures could throw at them, so they pulled out their new weapons and waited for something to happen.

What happened was a holo-screen appeared in front of them with Gleeman Vox's face on it, though after a few seconds Ratchet pressed a button on his helmet and watched as it pulled itself apart, to which he helped Starlight find her button before they faced the screen.

"Greetings, heroes," Vox gloated, as if he believed that he had the upper hand in this game at the moment, though Ratchet knew that he would make a mistake in due time, "and welcome...to Dreadzone! Rest assured you are now far beyond the reach of hope. There will be no rescues, no pardons, no possibility of escape. You are now a contestant on the greatest holo-vision program the galaxy has ever known! A celebrity gladiator, battling for the pleasure of a billion screaming fans across the Shadow Sector and beyond! Chances are you'll be dead by tomorrow. But those of you who play the game with skill and strategy will earn a chance to win your freedom. So, good luck... heroes. We'll be watching you."

When the screen closed the other teleport pads in the immediate area activated and enemy robots started to pour into the arena, forcing them to turn their attention to them and slip their helmets back on. As the enemies came at them they were allowed access to a second weapon, something that they discovered was called a Magma Cannon, or a variation on the Shock Cannon according to Starlight. With this new weapon in hand the two of them opened fire on the enemy robots that were coming their way, occasionally switching to their pistols on the smaller enemies, before the entire arena was cleared of enemies.

Once they finished with their targets, and put their weapons away, the screen lit up again and Vox reappeared, though it was rapidly followed by him explaining the special collars that were attached to their necks. They were designed to shock contestants when they disobeyed Vox's rules, though they could also explode and kill whoever they were attached to if they pushed Vox's buttons too much.

"Oh, and don't bother attempting to tinker with our special collars," Vox told them, which made the two of them give the screen their full attention, "We are well aware of Starlight's magical abilities, which is why your collar is pressed more tightly against your fur, though if it is exposed to your magic, be it from a tool your holding, a spell you cast on it, or any sort of magical teleportation... well, you can use your imagination. For Ratchet's sake, however, I'll spell it out for the both of you; if you attempt to break either of your collars with you magic, a signal will be sent to a special cage... where your sister, Sunset Shimmer, will die when the cage explodes."

The video feed cut to a containment area that was different then the one that Ratchet and Starlight had woken up in, though in the middle of the room they spotted a cage that Sunset was still sleeping inside, as if she had never woken up since they all had been kidnapped by Vox's soldiers.

"So think carefully before you attempt to tinker with you collars..." Vox told them, a smirk of some kind appearing on his face, "unless, of course, you'd rather kill your sister and bring both of your lives to an end."

Ratchet let out a growl as he thought about what Vox was doing, because he wasn't pissed that his life was in jeopardy if Starlight tinkered with the collars... it was Sunset's life. If Sunset was caught in the blast, and died as a result, than Searing would likely take over and go on a rampage until she killed the one responsible for this whole mess. If both Sunset and Searing were caught in the blast, however, then he guessed that Hatred would take control and likely continue with Searing's destructive nature in mind. Either way Vox was meddling with powers that were beyond his understanding, because it was sheer lunacy for him to believe that he could get away with this without being hurt in the long run.

Starlight knew what was going through Ratchet's mind at the moment, because she had experienced the same things that he had, though now that they knew the consequences for tinkering with the collars they accessed the nearby teleport pad and headed to the containment area that they would be staying in between whatever Vox had planned for them. They needed to play by Vox's rules at the moment, because it was only a matter of time until Starlight detected Sunset's magical signature and figured out where she was being held... though it would take some time before they would be able to free her.

Starlight allowed a small smirk to appear on her face as they walked, because Vox had doomed his entire empire by capturing Sunset... and he didn't seem to be aware of the storm that he was about to unleash.
> Deadlocked: The Arena
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Ratchet and Starlight emerged from the teleport pad they found out what was in their containment suite; an area for someone to sit in a chair all day and brief them on whatever missions they were supposed to go through and a lab area that appeared to be equipped for upgrading robots. There also appeared to be two docking areas, one that they guessed would send them into the arena when they needed to do arena matches while the other had to take them to the other worlds that Vox controlled. In the middle of their containment area was some sort of message board that told them who the other contestants in the season were, though the yellow colored names had to be the infamous Exterminators that they had heard of in their research.

Sunset's name, of course, was nowhere on the list, indicating that Vox intended to keep her as leverage against them until he was tired of all of them, though both Ratchet and Starlight knew that he would never reach that point.

"Good to see that the both of you are up and about." a voice commented, causing them to turn to the lab for a moment and find Al approaching them, though he was also wearing one of the blast collars, "I hate the armor that you guys are wearing... its worse than what you were wearing during the war against Nefarious, as both of them were made from cheaper metals than what the Magnaplate armor was made out of."

"They can make due with what they were given," a voice behind them said, to which they spotted Clank, sporting a headset that had to connect to both of their helmets, "just as they did back when we started our first adventure. Besides, its not like either of them can complain to Vox about it considering that he's got Sunset trapped in some unknown location at the moment."

"She's not on the station, that much I can tell you right now," Starlight said, letting out a sigh as they stood around the central terminal for a moment, "That means that Sunset's being kept on one of the planets that are scattered throughout the Shadow Sector, though which one we'll never be able to figure out unless Sunset has the opportunity to exercise her magic."

Ratchet knew that Starlight and Sunset had developed a special connection after the amount of times the Cores had been used, as in Starlight was able to sense Sunset's magical energy and could easily tell where her sister was. The problem was that this was a fairly new skill for her and she was unable to tell where Sunset was half the time she tried to sense her, which meant that they couldn't rely on that ability to figure out where Vox was keeping their sister. The other problem that Starlight faced was the fact that Sunset was currently asleep at the moment, as the more active Sunset was the greater Starlight was able to hone in on her position.

For now they were going to have to play by Vox's rules and fight their way through the arena, otherwise they'd never be able to leave this place at all. Though even as that thought crossed Ratchet's mind he noticed that Starlight was staring off into the distance, as if she was looking for something other than Sunset.

"Something up Starlight?" Ratchet asked, his curiosity getting the better of him, though there was nothing else to do until they were called into the arena or to one of the other planets.

"I'm feeling one of the Cores nearby," Starlight replied, a light smile appearing on her face for a few seconds, "and not one of the three what we've already recovered. I wonder which one Vox got his hands on..."

Ratchet, Clank, and Al shared a look with each other, because they were all surprised that Starlight could even sense the presence of the Core after discovering that they had been kidnapped and put in this place. They knew better than to tell her that she might be wrong, because so far the last three villains that they had encountered had one of the legendary Cores in their possession. If Starlight said that she could sense one in the space station then there had to be one, so all Ratchet wondered at the moment was where Vox was keeping the stone. They all knew that the stone would be in their possession when they finally put this place behind them, but first they had to play the game and pass whatever tests were thrown in their way.

Ratchet and Starlight ended up standing beside another machine that was near the central terminal, where they discovered they could use that machine to purchase weapon mods from with whatever bolts they earned in their fights, before they were summoned to the Battledome for their first test.

"I would wish you good luck, but that would only be wasted on the two of you." Al commented, a small smile appearing on his face for a few seconds, "Now, go show them how well the two of you fight together... and that they made a mistake keeping the two of you together."

"Of course they made a mistake... though it wasn't in keeping us together." Ratchet replied, glancing behind him and taking a look at the various planets that they would be visiting in the near future, "Vox is going to provoke the sleeping bear that he's 'captured'... and he's going to regret everything that happens after she wakes up."

If Clank and Al were wondering what had happened to Sunset, and Ratchet suspected that the thought had crossed both of their minds, they now had the answer to that question. Now they knew why the two of them were even bothering to do through with Vox's mad demands, because Sunset was being held somewhere as leverage.

"Then we had better get to work," Clank commented, beckoning for Al to join him, before turning back to Ratchet and Starlight, "Show them just how skilled you are."

Starlight nodded and boarded the ship that had arrived to take them to the Battledome, though the moment that Ratchet was inside as well the doors closed and they were taken to the arena.





As they reached their destination they got a look at the people that would be commenting on their fights for the foreseeable future; a green skinned announcer with antennae that dressed in a blue suit and a red headed fembot that appeared to be his cohost. They appeared to be at the end of their comments for whoever was in front of Ratchet and Starlight, as they immediately started speaking about them before they even in the arena.

"And it looks like Team Dark Star is making a huge success in the Dreadzone so far," the green skinned announcer said, though he appeared to have another thought to add, "not that such a streak can last long with the lineup we've got. Then again, a new contender or two always shakes things up a little."

His cohost seemed either annoyed by something that had been said before Ratchet and Starlight had arrived, or by the fact that the two of them were even standing there to begin with.

"Next up we have... um, let me see here... Ratchet and his sister Starlight Glimmer?" the announcer continued, as if he was somewhat confused by who they even were, "Huh, never heard of either of them. Well, they're probably just intermission material folks, but don't worry! We'll be back with the action, once they are taken care of."

At that point Ratchet and Starlight entered the Battledome, though they kept their helmets off for a few moments so everyone that watched the news knew exactly who was standing in the arena at the moment, before they activated their helmets and let them cover their faces once more.

"So these are Ratchet and Starlight..." the green skinned alien said, sounding almost unimpressed by the two of them, "They definitely wont make it far folks, so don't bother going anywhere."

"You never know, they might surprise you," the fembot replied, sounding a little but annoyed about something, "I'm just surprised that the third one is missing..."

"Ugh... what third one?" the other announcer said, sounding a little worried that his partner knew something that he didn't.

"Sunset Shimmer," the fembot replied, though that was when her tone turned from annoyance to something of reverence, as if she knew about Sunset and everything that she had done.

"Wait... you don't mean..." the other announcer said, though the way he spoke easily told anyone that he knew what his partner was talking about, all without saying the words himself.

"Yes... the Goddess of Destruction herself..." the fembot answered, allowing everyone to know exactly what they were talking about, as if she didn't care that Vox might be listening to everything she was saying.

Ratchet allowed a smile to creep onto his face as he and Starlight pulled out their new weapons as thee enemies charged at them, mainly because he was pleased that the announcers knew about Sunset's existence. Now that everyone knew that Sunset had to have been captured along with them, and he was hoping that they all knew it, then it was only a matter of time until they forced Vox to let her out of her cell for some time. Their first wave of enemies appeared to be a group of Battledome gladiators that were accompanied by some little robotic creatures, which reminded them of the robot mutts they saw on their first adventure, and some spinning blade spheres.

Once those enemies had been cleared out of the way a set of platforms appeared at the edge of the arena platform they had been fighting on, though it only went forward and they had little choice in the matter. They rapidly crossed the two platforms and jumped down onto a walkway, where they opened fire on the gladiator robots that were waiting for them to arrive. It was much easily to deal with those robots, as they were quite literally the only thing in the immediate area for them to fight, though once they were all dead another set of platforms appeared before them. This time it brought them straight to what appeared to be a larger combat arena, where they had to fight more of the gladiator robots and spinning blade spheres, as well as another foe that looked like a cross between some sort of fish and one of the other aliens they had encountered on their adventures.

As they fought their new enemies they noticed that several dropships came in from time to time, dropping off more enemies for them to fight against, though Starlight also decided to blow one of them up before it could do so, which actually earned some cheers from the people who were watching them. The moment the groups on the first platform were taken care of a walkway appeared and connected them to the second platform, where they repeated what they had just did a second time. While they fought the second wave of enemies Starlight pulled out the Magma Cannon and used it against those that were coming their way, though Ratchet stuck to his Vipers the entire time.

Once all of the enemies were dealt with a bolt crank appeared in the middle of the platform, though once Ratchet turned it all the way around another walkway appeared at the edge of the platform they were on, so they jumped onto it and decided to find out what else they had to destroy before they could leave the arena. What they found, however, was a massive turret that was surrounded by a shield, though the moment they reached its platform something was teleported in front of Starlight, though she immediately recognized what it was and picked it up before the turret noticed them.

"What did they give us?" Ratchet asked over their communication line, keeping his eyes on the turret as it started up, while at the same time wondering if it would be of any use to them.

"Its an EMP device," Starlight replied, charging out of her hiding spot and loosing the gadget on the turret's shield, disabling both it and the barrier protecting it, "Now, let's bring it down before it can come back online."

That was easier said than done, as they opened fire on it the moment its shield was done, though it did come back online and immediately targeted Starlight, but before it could fire at her it exploded. As the turret fell apart Clank informed them that they had complete the challenge that they had been running through, earned a Green Medal along the way, and unlocked the first planet that they would have to travel to. Once the two of them knew that they were finished in the arena they returned to the ship that had brought them into the arena and took off, heading back to the containment area so they could plan their next course of action.

At the same time, however, they would begin the search for Sunset and the area that Vox was keeping her in, so they could rescue her before something set her off.





Vox stared at the remains of the turret that Ratchet and Starlight had finished destroying before their departure, though when he would normally be overjoyed by the carnage he was, in fact, outraged beyond belief. One of his announcers, one of the best in the business in fact, had let slip that there was another member of the little family that he had captured. Now all of the fans knew that Sunset was out there, somewhere, so it was only a matter of time until someone decided to ask him to allow her to join her brother and sister in the arena, even if that meant that she didn't have to go through whatever they had done before he 'allowed' it to happen.

If not for the fact that the announcer was one of the best, and very hard to replace at the moment, he would have slipped one of the collars onto her neck and detonated it without a second thought, but he couldn't do that at the moment.

"Uh...sir?" a robot said over the intercom, interrupting the thoughts that had been going through Vox's mind at that exact moment, "You might want to take a look at this..."

"What is it?" Vox demanded angrily, though sometimes he wondered why he even bothered to keep some of his worker robots around at all, when all they did was mostly irate him, "You know how I feel about interruptions when I'm scheming!"

"Well, sir... it's the latest focus group surveys regarding the new contestants..." the robot replied, indicating why it was important that he had interrupted his boss, "from the viewers..."

"Customers!" Vox growled, though his mind turned to the bolts he was currently making and that calmed him down just a bit, "If I didn't need their bolts, I wouldn't put up with them... what is it?"

"Well... its about Sunset Shimmer," the robot replied, knowing that even mentioning what he was about to mention could very well get him killed, but he also knew that his boss deserved to know what was going on, "Apparently, after the announcers announced that she was missing, a petition appeared following the end of the broadcast, one that indicated that the viewers would like to see her on the show at some point in the future. There's a fairly large percentage of our viewers asking for her appearance."

"What sort of percentage are we talking about?" Vox asked, knowing that there had to be quite a large number of viewers on the petition for the robot to even bother bringing it to his attention.

"Roughly seventy-five percent sir," the robot replied, to which the screen changed to reveal some charts that had been made, "which is about a good ninety million viewers. Now they haven't said that they would boycott Vox Media, rather they are expressing an interest in seeing Sunset join her family once or twice... and they're all willing to pay more for the opportunity."

"Just how much are we talking here?" Vox inquired, because it would have to be quite a pretty sum of bolts for him to even consider allowing Sunset out of the cage she had been trapped inside.

"Thirty to fifty thousand per viewer." the robot replied, bringing up another chart, though this one indicated how much he would make if he allowed Sunset to leave her cage for a moment or two.

Vox looked at the numbers and the amount of bolts that would be put in his pocket if he allowed Sunset to take part in Dreadzone, though the only problem was that the collars wouldn't work on her. He had hired a scientist to keep watch over Sunset, though for some reason the collars always deactivated themselves near her despite the fact that she was asleep at the moment. That was why they had created the cage that they had placed Sunset inside, because it seemed to be the only thing that they could hold her in without it going offline for some reason. If he let her out of the cage he was sure that he would be hard pressed to put her back inside, though that was when he remembered the collars that Ratchet and Starlight were wearing.

He could always threaten her with their lives, because if the two of them were willing to fight in the arena to keep her safe then one would assume that the same could be said for Sunset.

"Open a line with Sunset's handler," Vox ordered, making up his mind on the matter, "I'd like some words with her before we attempt to use our captive for more profits."





"How long are you going to keep pretending that your asleep?"

Sunset let out a sigh as she opened her eyes, revealing that she was currently trapped in some sort of circular cage that offered her little room to move around, though beyond that she found that she was in a room that almost looked like the one she and Starlight kept the Cores in. The room, however, was separated into two stories, as the second story had a glass wall that allowed people to watch her all the time, though inside that section of the room she spotted a group of scientists running around. Clearly they were either trying to run tests on her or they were keeping tabs on the condition of her body, though at the moment she really didn't care.

She looked down at herself and found that she had reverted back to her alicorn from, which meant that her fusion with Searing had worn off while she had been knocked out.

"Ah, I see that you finally decided to join us." the voice continued, causing her to look back at the scientists that were staring down at her, though one of them was pressing the intercom button at the moment, "Hello Sunset Shimmer."

"Professor Nora... I was wondering when we'd be running into you again," Sunset replied, a frown appearing on her face, "I had heard that you escaped from prison shortly after the defeat of Dr. Nefarious, but I would have assumed that you would have kept yourself hidden until the heat was off of you."

"I came here for two reasons," the former professor said, a smile appearing on her face as she stared down at Sunset, "The first reason is because the Shadow Sector is the perfect place to hide from the authorities, not to the amount of bolts that my new employer gives me for making sure his contestants are healthy before they enter Dreadzone is definitely helpful. The second reason is that I can exact my revenge on the three people that wronged me; you, Ratchet, and Starlight."

"Which means that this cage is designed to explode whenever you or your employer desire it to," Sunset commented, her frown turning to a smirk for a second as she saw the look of annoyance that flashed on Nora's face, "Then I guess I'll be staying here until my family wins and secures my freedom."

"I'm afraid that its not quite that simple." Nora replied, to which a wall to Sunset's right opened up to reveal a screen that had to connect to the rest of the Dreadzone, "Vox has decreed that you can fight in the arena as well, despite the fact that I have told him that it would be impossible to put you back in your cage once your fight was over. Then he reminded me of something, that both of your siblings are wearing special collars that will detonate if you displease Vox in any way or break any of his rules.

There are four planets that your family needs to visit and win metals from, though the first set includes the Battledome as some sort of warm up, so that leaves three. Vox has told me that he'll pull out Ratchet and Starlight when they decide to allow you to take on one of the planets that they could go through, but they're only allowed to let you out once per circuit. Vox has also determined that your 'alicorn' form is not appropriate for the arena, so he's asked me to get you fitted for some sort of form that is appropriate for your position as the 'Goddess of Destruction'. Personally I'd rather just kill you now and get it over with, but at least you'll get to see some sunlight before your eventually demise in the near future..."

Sunset allowed her magic to wrap around her, twisting her form into the fusion state that she and Searing used while releasing a burst of energy that shattered the screen near her and shook the room itself.

"Do not think that you can control the Goddess of Destruction," Sunset growled, crossing her legs and taking a seat once more, all while keeping her eyes on the former professor, "I'll fight to keep my family safe, but if you so much as think about pressing the button that will detonate those collars... well, let's just say that I'll ruin more than just a holoscreen."

Sunset smiled as Nora's face paled, as if she realized what her 'captive' was capable of doing when she focused her mind on something, though she closed her eyes and turned to meditation. She would show Vox, and whoever was working for him, what would happen if she was pissed off or annoyed, though she could tell that she and Searing were looking forward to showing off a little bit.
> Deadlocked: Catacrom Four
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet let out a yawn as he pulled himself off of the metal bed that he had been given in his and Starlight's sleeping quarters, though one quick look to the other side of the room indicated that his sister was already up and about. After the two of them had basically defeated everything that Vox could throw at them, which had been their first taste of what Dreadzone had to offer, they had retired to their containment area. There they watched the other contestants that had been dragged into the arena fight for their lives, though they were unable to access the ship that would take them off world until everyone was finished with their respective tests. Apparently there was a signal that indicated when it was their turn to either head back into the arena or use the ship to access one of the other Battledomes that were scattered throughout the entirety of Vox's empire.

Once the showings were over Ratchet remembered turning into his bed and drifting off to sleep, though now that he was awake he could tell that Starlight was already busy talking to Clank and Al... no doubt trying to get help with the collar that was strapped around both of their necks.

"Morning." Ratchet said, causing the trio to turn towards him for a moment, to which he noticed that they actually weren't looking at anything that was connected to the collars, "Did something happen while I was asleep?"

"We got a notice from Vox a few hours ago," Starlight replied, nodding to Clank for a moment, who clicked a few buttons on his console before a message appeared on the screen in front of them, "Apparently Juanita, the robot that mentioned that Sunset was missing, has caused a commotion in the people who watch Dreadzone, though its not a petition. According to this message a large number of Vox's subscribers have asked for Sunset to appear on the show at some point while you and I are take out whatever Vox throws at us."

"Wait, so after threatening us with Sunset's life if we don't follow his rules, he's going to throw her into the arena anyway?" Ratchet asked, now wondering why they even had to fight anymore, because Sunset could easily decimate the entirety of Dreadzone if she and Searing had a reason to.

"Yes, but she is allowed to fight in our stead once in every tournament." Starlight said, pressing a button with her magic and revealing a chart that she had constructed, "I did some research on the various planets that we would have to fight through, and the so called tournaments that we would be involved in, and there are four medals we must earn to access the level ahead of us. So we have basically been given the ability to allow Sunset the opportunity to fight for us... and to show Vox the true power of the Goddess that he has woken."

Ratchet could already imagine Sunset, in either her fused state with Searing or her original cazar form, taking part in the arena and utterly destroying everything that dared to challenge her. That presented them with an interesting idea, because it basically allowed Starlight the opportunity to rest and, with the help of Al and Clank, determine how to overcome the collars that they were wearing. If they were able to disable the collars, thus rendering the cage that Sunset was supposed to be caged in useless, they could then find a way to slip her a message and explain that she was free to bring the entirety of Dreadzone down. He knew that Searing would jump at the thought of destroying something if she had permission to do so, but before they could reach that point they needed to break the collars.

"Do you have any idea which planet we should have Sunset attack in this 'tournament'?" Ratchet asked, knowing that his sister would have likely determined that before he was even aware of the fact that Vox was allowing Sunset to fight as well.

"Yes, the planet at the end of this tournament," Starlight answered, pulling up an image of the planet that she had in mind, "Kronos, the rumored resting place of one of the Exterminators, Shellshock I believe he was called. According to what I was able to find, which was a small amount I might add, he's the gate between contestants and the end of the first tournament... and he's the perfect person for Sunset to display her power against."

Ratchet thought back to the last robot that Sunset and Searing had fought, the android that Nefarious had made in an attempt to stop her from erasing him from the universe, and remembered the destruction that had occurred during that fight. Of course that fight eventually ended with Searing destroying both the android and the planet of Koros, but he knew that this time would be different. With both Sunset and Searing in control, in their fused state, the only destruction would be the area around them... unless something happened and they were forced to do a cataclysm or something.

He was about to say something about Starlight's suggestion, where he assumed that Vox would be annoyed if they sent Sunset after the Exterminator, but before he could get the words out of his mouth he heard the sound indicator that told them that it was time for them to board the ship and depart for another world.

"Catacrom Four here we come," Starlight commented, letting out a sigh as she and Ratchet headed for the ship, "Its time we found out exactly what Vox has in store for us."

Ratchet nodded as he followed his sister, because while he wanted to get off the station and watch it burn from a distance, which he assumed she wanted as well at the moment, he was still curious as to what Vox could throw at them.





"Its a beautiful spring day on Catacrom Four, Juanita," Dallas, the alien announcer, called out as his partner looked down at the course in front of them, while their ship floated over the entire area, "as we kick off a new season of Dreadzone!"

"That's right Dallas," his partner replied, though she definitely wasn't as excited as he was, almost as if she wanted to go home and forget about what they were doing, "and we're lucky to have a birds eye view of the action."

"Even from up here this seasons Dreadzone battle courses look bigger and deadlier than ever before," Dallas said, though he turned his gaze to one of the cameras that were watching him and his partner, to tell the audience what was going through their minds at the moment.

Ratchet and Starlight teleported into the area as the two announcers were finishing their conversation, hearing bits about this once being an ancient robot burial ground of some kind. Ratchet wondered why robots would bother being buried in the ground at all, though he also heard some noises that indicated that Vox's crew had likely disturbed their rest. Undead robots didn't sound like something that could possibly exist, but then he remembered that one of his sisters was a magical talking unicorn and the other was a pony that commanded the power of a god. Once he thought about it, and shook his head, he realized that undead robots could happen as well, considering all of the crazy things he had already seen.

They stopped by the weapon vendor to see what they could purchase, which ended up being neither of the new weapons that were available considering that they didn't have access to their massive funds, so they had no choice but to move forward with what they had on them at the moment.

The first wave of enemies that they encountered were two of the gladiators and some of the spinning blade spheres, though behind them was one of the turrets they had taken out the previous day. Once the small fry were taken care of they moved behind the small walls that protected them from the turret, though while it mainly focused its fire on where Ratchet was hiding Starlight used that opportunity to loose an EMP at it. The moment the shield went down the two of them loosed their weapons upon the defenseless machine, tearing it to pieces in a matter of seconds and allowing them to see what else was waiting for them. Unfortunately all they found were three more spinning spheres and one gladiator, so once the enemies had been dealt with, and the walkway they had to use cleared of any electricity, they accessed the jump platform and landed on a station that had been on the top of the cliff.

Once there a sound went off that indicated that they had cleared the first 'challenge' of this particular course, though how many more awaited them they had no idea.

As they restocked their weapons, not that they spent that much ammunition anyway, they listened to Dallas as he explained that they would have to fight their way through the area below them, capture several nodes, and then take control of something called a Landstalker, which they both assumed was a walking tank or something. The moment Dallas finished his explanation the two of them jumped down into the area below them, though they immediately headed to the left and found the first of the three nodes that they had to capture. Ratchet switched to his wrench and started spinning the bolt crank around, though while he did that Starlight opened fire on the undead robots that were coming from behind them.

When Ratchet secured the first node several more robots erupted from the ground around him, but he simply leveled his weapons with them and took them all out in a few seconds. Once those enemies were taken care of they made their way across the area they were in and opened fire on the undead robots that were rising from their graves, while making sure to keep the next node in sight. When they reached the second node they were assaulted by gladiators and their little robotic creatures, forcing the two of them to deal with the hose of enemies that were in front of them. It didn't take them long to clear the area of their enemies, to which Ratchet turned the next node until he secured it as well, giving them the ability to focus on the last of the three nodes.

With the second node under their belts Ratchet and Starlight approached the opening that would take them to the final of the three, though as they walked up to it they watched as a host of enemies pulled themselves from the ground. It was clear that Vox wasn't playing around with them, because they had to switch to their Magma Cannons in order to clear out the amount of enemies that were coming after them. When the enemies were taken care of they marched into the tunnel in front of them and opened fire on the gladiators that were ahead of them, taking them by surprise for a moment before they started pushing them backwards. Once they reached the end of the tunnel, and took out the turret that was standing there, Starlight focused on the enemies that were being brought in while Ratchet secured the final node.

When the enemies were taken care of, and the node was secured, they watched as the bridge extended and connected to the area that the vehicle they were supposed to capture was waiting. They jumped off the of the small ledge that they were on, landed on the ground below them, and started walking towards the bridge, where they both spotted a large amount of enemies that were waiting for them. This time when they engaged their enemies they took their time, making sure that every target that came within their sights was put down before they turned their attention to any of the other dozen of enemies that were coming towards them. These enemies were clearly the guardians of the vehicle that they were after, as there were more for them to fight in this one area than there were in the other areas of the course.

At one point Ratchet wished that Starlight would use more than her levitation spell, but he knew that she wouldn't in case Vox didn't tell them that an excessive amount of magic might also trigger the collars as well.

They spotted a swingshot in front of them, though once they landed on the platform it connected to another dropship entered the area and opened its sides to deposit some additional enemies for them to fight, but the two of them focused their fire on the ship and tore it, and the unlucky soldiers it was carrying, to pieces. With the enemies taken care of, and the area secured against any potential threats, Ratchet and Starlight swung over to where the vehicle was located, where they discovered that the Landstalker was a cross between a metal spider and a tank.

"So this is the Landstalker?" Starlight asked, her eyes studying the vehicle for a few seconds, though Ratchet knew that she wanted to tinker with it so badly, "Oh well, this is more than sufficient for what we need it for at the moment. I wouldn't mind tinkering with one of these at some point in the future... once we're done with Dreadzone anyway."

Ratchet nodded and hopped into the main section of the tank, where he could control the movement of the four legs and the machines guns that were located on the front of it, leaving Starlight to hop into the section that controlled the missile launchers on top. Once they were in their positions, and Dallas explained that they were supposed to use the vehicle to get to some sort of arena, Ratchet tested the controls and moved forward. At the same time Starlight loosed a barrage of missiles at the nearby glowing orb, which turned out to be an explosive as the gate it was attached to exploded and allowed them to leave the area the tank had been waiting in.

As Ratchet moved the Landstalker out of its holding cell he opened fire on the enemies that spawned into the area in front of them, though at the same time Starlight used her missiles to tear into the larger targets that the machine guns couldn't reach. With their combined efforts they managed to tear into the enemies that were coming their way, blowing them to pieces and destroying every obstacle that was put in their path. There was even a turret that was blocking their way, though Starlight took it would with her missiles and opened the pathway to the arena that they were supposed to be heading towards. There were some more enemies blocking their path, ones that had jumped out of a dropship while they were taking out the turret, but Ratchet mowed them down and they entered the center of the arena.

The two of them had just enough time to exit the Landstalker before Dallas explained that they would be fighting through a series of enemies and that if they survived they would get the metal they were after, while at the same time the tank they had been riding in disappeared as it was recalled.

Once the Landstalker was gone, and both of their weapons were restocked, they were assaulted by a large group of undead robots, a group of gladiators that were accompanied by their little critters, and a seemingly endless amount of spinning blade spheres. They focused on using their Vipers on the spheres and the little minions that followed the gladiators, while saving the Magma Cannon for the larger groups that came their way. Whenever a dropship entered the arena they focused their fire on the ship and blew it to pieces, to which they would then turn their attention back to their other enemies until the wave was cleared.

Eventually they routed all of the enemies that the course could throw at them, though they were secretly pleased that they survived because they were both running low on ammunition for their weapons. As they calmed down they heard Dallas declare that they had survived their final challenge and had scored the second Green Medal they needed to access the first tournament, which meant that they were halfway to their goal. They also heard that they were now able to head to the next planet that was apart of this tournament, a planet called Sarathos, but at the moment they knew that they needed some rest before they headed there. So Ratchet pressed a button and the ship that brought them to this planet teleported them into their holding area, where they would wait until the other gladiators were finished before they could return to Dreadzone.

As they got something to eat on the ship Ratchet wondered what Sunset was up to at that moment, though at the same time he pitied whoever was watching over her, because whoever that person was would be walking on eggshells the entire time they were around Sunset.





Sunset smiled as Ratchet and Starlight teleported back onto the Dreadzone ship and left Catacrom Four behind, as she had known that they would have been able to clear the first course without too much trouble.  She wasn't the only one watching Ratchet and Starlight at the moment, as Professor Nora was up in her room watching the entire thing as well, though it gave Sunset the opportunity to watch her warden. It was funny to watch the look of shock appear on Nora's face as she watched them clear the obstacles that had been thrown at them, as if she completely believed that they would have failed.

Of course she wasn't the only one watching Ratchet and Starlight as they fought through the course, as Searing was floating beside Sunset at the moment, which was mainly due to her undoing the fusion state so they could both relax.

Is this all that this Vox character can throw at our siblings? Searing asked, staring at the repaired holoscreen that they had broken earlier, which had been rapidly repaired after Professor Nora had calmed down, I am disappointed. I expected him to have legions of gladiators ready to fight and die at his command, and yet all I see is undead robots and a pitiful amount of those gladiators.

"He'll have something special in store for us," Sunset commented, letting out a sigh  as she stretched her wings for a moment, though she was somewhat grateful to be back in her alicorn form for a moment, "just like Nefarious had that android that looked like me waiting for us when you showed up at Koros."

The android was weak. Searing stated, though she also let out a sigh as she returned to her seat, which she actually couldn't sit in considering that she was basically a cloud made of magic at the moment, She deserved her punishment.

I would suggest that the two of you quit speaking for the moment. another voice said, which was followed by a shadowy Sunset appearing to Sunset's left, Our guests should be arriving any moment now.

Sunset resisted the urge to let out another sigh, as Hatred had awoken from her slumber when she felt the immense hatred that Professor Nora held for Sunset, though she was also strengthened by her fear for Sunset's powers. Professor Nora had no idea that Hatred even existed at the moment, as the shadowy version of herself only appeared whenever they were truly alone and would disappear when someone else was watching them. The guests that she mentioned had to be the designer that would be taking Sunset's measurements and showing her the overall design of the 'appropriate' armor that she would be allowed to wear. Sunset assumed that there was an apprentice or something that was coming along as well, or someone else that she was currently unaware of at the moment.

The three of them turned their attention to the door as the handle moved, though as it opened both Searing and Hatred dived into Sunset's shadow, disappearing from the world until they were totally alone once more. Sunset fully turned around to face the door as someone entered the room, though that person ended up being a paled skinned creature that she suspected came up to her waist in her fused state. The creature was clearly female, judging from its figure and chest area, but Sunset had no idea what sort of creature was standing before her at the moment.

"You must be Sunset Shimmer," the creature said, pushing a pair of glasses into place as she spoke, "I will admit, I was expecting you to be in your 'Godly' form when I got here."

Sunset let out another sigh as she felt a surge of power rush through her body, allowing her body to shift into her fused state once more, though this time she didn't bother with breaking anything. Professor Nora had gotten the message the first time she did this, so there was no reason to repeat herself... unless it became necessary to remind her who she was dealing with.

"Much better," the creature commented, pulling out one of her tools and started to measure Sunset's body, "Your Godly form reminds me of someone I read about in one of the Codex pieces I found on my journeys across the universe, as he was called a God of Destruction as well. His name was Beerus, though he was often called the Destroyer or the God of Destruction."

"Really?" Sunset said, though she was definitely interested in someone that was known by the same title that she was at the moment, save for the fact that he was male and she was female.

"Indeed," the creature replied, moving to the holoscreen and slipping a card into the side of it, to which she moved through her files until she pulled up an image, "This is Lord Beerus... and your clothing will be modeled over what he always wears."

Sunset discovered that the 'clothing' that the creature was referring to happened to be some sort of Egyptian attire, with the strange collar that was wrapped around his neck and came all the way down to his chest area. She assumed that her chest would be bound in some manner to make her mimic this particular God of Destruction, who she also noticed looked like a humanoid cat of some kind. The only problem she had with the clothing the designer wanted to make for her was the baggy type of pants that he was wearing, though she knew that she wouldn't have time to complain about it. She was going to have to wear a set of clothing that matched Beerus' own, though she hoped that the designer would be willing to change the colors to match her own.

"Are the colors changeable?" Sunset asked, causing the designer to turn her way for a few seconds, before she beckoned to the pants and the sash that Beerus was wearing.

"Of course they are," the designer replied, pulling out a pad as she took a seat near Sunset, "Tell me what you would prefer and I'll see what I can do before your thrown into the arena."

"I have some ideas in mind," Sunset said, before turning her gaze back to the God of Destruction, "Also, do you think I can borrow the data you have on this 'Beerus' for a day or two? I'd like to learn more about the person whose clothing I'll be copying... and maybe pick up another move or two for my own usage."

"Certainly, I can make that work." the designer replied, though the smile on her face told Sunset that she hoped that she used Beerus' moves to bring the entirety of Dreadzone down around her, "Now, about those colors."

Sunset smiled as she got to work changing the colors on Beerus' clothing, knowing that whoever she had to fight would be terrified of her with the mere mention of her name or her title. She would deal with Vox when she was sure that her siblings were safe and secure... though she would gladly step forward sooner if the man did something that really pissed her off. Vox was already a dead man walking and all Sunset was waiting for was an excuse to take him out, which only made her widen her smile a bit as both Searing and Hatred laughed in the shadows around her.

They were going to ruin Vox and destroy Dreadzone, though the only thing they were waiting for was the fateful moment when Vox did something that deserved their wrath... and they knew it was rapidly coming their way.
> Deadlocked: Sarathos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet and Starlight remained on the Dreadzone ship for the rest of the day, watching the other contestants run different courses that were scattered throughout the rest of Catacrom Four. From what they could tell the first actual planet that contestants had to fight through was likely the easiest one out of them all, considering the fact that every single one of the other contestants managed to make it through the course with no problems. It was somewhat funny to watch the announcers constantly declare that one of the other heroes would fall in the arena, only for them to be proven wrong in the end. In fact one of them seemed pleased to watch the heroes clear the courses that were thrown at them, as the female robot was constantly smiling throughout the entire day.

Despite their successes most of the heroes wanted to steer clear of each other, because they didn't want to form friendships with each other in case one of them was dead the following day, though many of them wished Ratchet and Starlight well... and that they hoped to see their sister in battle soon.

Ratchet silently wished that the other heroes wouldn't act so happy over the fact that Sunset would be stepping into the arena one of these days, because he and Starlight knew just how strong she really was. Searing, when she was in control of Sunset's body, was able to use what he assumed was seventy-five or eighty percent of their total power, but she always backed away when she neared their full potential. That was the one thing that he was both curious and worried about at the same time, because while he was curious as to what Sunset's true potential looked like, and the form that it created, he was worried that she could destroy anything if she wasn't in control of her powers.

Starlight had agreed with him on his feelings when he mentioned them to her, as she had no idea what their sister was even capable of if she unleashed her full potential... and it worried her to no end. Though they both knew that if they could get the Dreadzone Collars off of their necks, and get a message to Sunset, they would unleash a creature that would make Vox shake in fear.

When they returned to Dreadzone at the end of the day, and bid the other heroes farewell, they were greeted by Al and Clank, both of whom were pleased that they had survived the first obstacle course. There was still no news on what was happening to Sunset, and whether or not Vox was actually going to allow her to take part in the fighting as well. The only thing that they actually heard was that Vox was a little annoyed that they were using Sunset to fight Shellshock, which was apparently against the rules that they weren't told, but he was willing to go through with it because of the customers.

"If he's so annoyed about it than he should have revoked his decision," Ratchet commented, frowning as he heard the news, "I'm sure that Sunset would have understood that we were supposed to deal with the Exterminators..."

"I think Vox's 'customers' had an influence on him not going back on his word." Starlight said, shaking her head for a few seconds, "Vox might also be interested in seeing if Sunset is as powerful as the stories claim... which will be the end of Dreadzone if he decides to piss her off in some manner. Though he's not an idiot, so I'm guessing that we'll get to sit a planet out and see what Sunset has up her sleeves this time around... or rather what she and Searing have up their sleeves."

"Destruction," Clank commented, turning his head back towards the screen for a moment, as if he was thinking about something, "pure and simple destruction. It makes one wonder if Vox even knows what they did in the past, or if he simply heard about you and Ratchet and decided to hold her as leverage until she snaps. We must make haste... before something terrible happens."

Ratchet knew that Clank was also referring to the collars they were wearing, because they were the only thing that was likely keeping Sunset in check at the moment. They already knew what would happen if Starlight attempted to take one off with her magic, it would set in motion a chain of events that couldn't be reversed. Al and Clank had only been able to work with the few pictures they had taken before Starlight had departed for Catacrom Four, but now that they were back they could get some more information about it before they had to head to the next planet.

Ratchet hoped that Starlight was able to crack the code with the collars, if only so they could show Vox what he was dealing with by threatening Sunset and trying to use her to further his own gain.

Starlight spent the next two hours working with Clank and Al on the collars, though they made sure that the various cameras weren't looking at them before they did so. They didn't want word to get back to Vox that they were attempting to break the collars, so in reality they managed to get maybe thirty minutes of actual work done before they decided to call it quits. As they walked away from where they had been working Al commented that the cameras seemed to go offline when the contestants were either in the arena or were visiting another world for their metals. Starlight already knew what Al was thinking, mainly because she had come to the same conclusion that he was working towards; that they used the time Sunset was on Kronos to their advantage.

Starlight smiled as they went to bed that night, because it was only a matter of time until the uncomfortable collars were broken and Sunset's power was unleashed on Vox.





When morning finally arrived, or what they thought was morning considering that Vox had an alarm go off at that time, Ratchet and Starlight sat down with the others and had a quick morning meal. There they went over what Al and Clank were going to do while they were alone without the cameras watching them, while at the same time they reminded Ratchet and Starlight to simply pass through whatever Vox threw at them on Sarathos. They made sure to purchase more of the weapons that were available, one of which was called the B6-Obliterator, which reminded them of the Nitro Launcher they had acquired on their return to their home galaxy. There was also the Holoshield Launcher, which was basically a weapon that produced a shield to protect them for a certain amount of time until it expired.

With these new weapons in hand, and another goodbye said to both Clank and Al, the pair marched up to the Dreadzone ship, teleported aboard the shuttle, and selected their destination, where they took their seats and waited for whoever was running late. Once the rest of the heroes were accounted for, and everyone had taken their seats, the ship departed from the station and headed in the direction of Sarathos.

When they arrived at their destination Ratchet and Starlight teleported down to the planet's surface, as they were apparently the first ones up again, though they waited by the weapon vendor so they could hear what their objective was.

"Welcome back Dreadzone fans," Dallas called out, though this time Ratchet had no idea where he and his partner were this time, "have we got a show for you! On today's episode Team Darkstar has been dropped onto the hellish alien world of Sarathos. Their ultimate goal; destroy a monstrous alien creature known as the King Leviathan. And, take it from me people, monstrous is putting it nicely."

Ratchet would have been shocked if the beast had been captured by Vox and imprisoned here for the contestants to fight, but from what he had seen so far this was where the creature actually lived and the entire course had been built around its home. He couldn't remember the last time he and his family visited a swamp planet, but now he knew that it might be better to avoid them unless there was no other option available for them. They noticed that there was another weapon available, the Hunter Mine Launcher, but at the moment they didn't have enough for it, so they ignored the new weapon and started the course.

The first enemy they came into contact with was a pack of small green creatures, almost like wolves of some kind by the way they acted, though once they got near them the creatures attacked them, forcing Ratchet and Starlight to put them down. Further up the path they encountered scorpion like creatures that looked annoyed, or maybe they were always annoyed because their home had been invaded by Vox's crew and they took that anger out on whoever was near them. It wasn't long before the three of them had been taken care of, though when they reached a small pool of watch they watched as another scorpion jumped out with some of the smaller creatures behind it.

They then reached a door that had two control orbs in front of it, so while Ratchet used the hacker device they won from Catacrom Four to get though the door Starlight stayed back and fired at all of the enemies that leapt out of the two nearby pools. At one point Ratchet decided that it would be better to deal with their enemies first, considering that there appeared to be more than what Starlight was originally expecting there to be, and he opened fire on the creatures that were coming their way. Once the door was unlocked they entered a small area that had more of the smaller enemies running around, though once they were taken care of a dropship entered the area and let some gladiators down to fight them.

Once the first challenge was over they passed through the door in front of them, restocked their ammunition on the other side, and then walked out so they could see what else Vox could throw at them, though that was immediately followed by them killing one of the scorpion creatures. From what they could tell they were going to have to fight through some sort of gauntlet and secure another vehicle for the next part of the course, which was actually pretty easy considering what happened back on Catacrom Four. With their new objective ready to go they departed from where they were standing and loosed their weapons on the enemies that were waiting for them, wiping out the smaller creatures before they came to a turret.

It was a simple matter to get rid of the turret, as all they needed to do was loose an EMP and its shield was down, though when it fell two dropships came in and started dumping more gladiators for them to fight. Not only were there more gladiators to fight, but there were also more of the native creatures waiting for them, as they leapt out of the nearby water when Ratchet tried to hack into the pair of orbs in front of them. When the enemies were taken care of he finished hacking through the shield in front of them and brought it down, allowing them to press onward once more.

They ended up fighting through a small group of enemies, consisting of both gladiators and native creatures, before they reached a pair of swingshots that took them to where another turret was waiting for them, though the moment they landed they noticed more dropships were coming in to stop them. They ducked behind some barricades as the turret opened fire on them, though as more gladiators jumped out of their ships Starlight smirked as she leveled the EMP device with her target. The shock of the EMP hitting the turret's shield not only knocked the turret offline for a few seconds, but also several of the gladiators stopped moving as well.

Ratchet and Starlight seized the moment and opened fire on their enemies, destroying them before they had a chance to recover, which allowed them to hack into the two control orbs that were nearby. Once they brought down the barrier in front of them they leapt onto the platform that held the vehicle that they needed, which happened to be a cross between a normal car and some sort of tank, and learned that it was called a Puma. Starlight clearly wanted to tinker with this one, which meant that she didn't agree with how it was designed, but she let out a sigh and hoped in anyway, allowing Ratchet to take the driver seat again while she took the main cannon for herself.

With the vehicle now in their possession Ratchet moved them forward, running over anyone and anything that was unfortunate enough to be in front of him. His map indicated that they needed to take control of three nodes that were in the area in front of them, so he moved to the right and shot over a gap with ease. Once they were back on the ground he moved them around until they were inside the building that housed the node, though the moment they were inside Ratchet hoped out and started to turn the bolt crank in front of them. Starlight took full control of the Puma and used its weapons to obliterate anything that tried to hurt Ratchet, while keeping a magical shield around him so he didn't get hit by any stray shots of hers.

Once they had captured the first node, and knew how it was supposed to go, they rode the Puma to the other two nodes, obliterating everyone that happened to be guarding the cranks before their arrival. Then Ratchet would hop out and begin turning the crank, allowing Starlight to take full control of the vehicle and use everything it had to lay waste to anyone foolish enough to come at her brother. When the second crank was taken care of they moved forward once more, killing everything that was directly in front of them and not stopping for anything else until they entered the building where the final node was located. Then it was a simple matter of repeating what they had previously done, which resulted in the door to the King Leviathan's holding cell being opened for them.

The instant the door was open Ratchet rode up the ramp and jumped the gap, landing in the middle of the final arena as if he was a professional at doing this sort of thing, though once they were inside their destination they leapt out of the Puma and listened to the explanation of what they were supposed to do next. From there they gathered that this was essentially a repeat of what happened on Catacrom Four, that they would have to fight through a host of enemies that wanted to kill them before they could reach the King Leviathan. This time they were going to have to hack through seven control orbs to wake up the Leviathan, which meant that they were going to have to wait until all the enemies were taken care of before they could hack into one of them.

It took some time and a lot of effort, not to mention ammunition, but they eventually managed to clear the way through the host of enemies that wanted them dead and successfully hacked through all seven of the control orbs, though they were barely given a moment of rest before the King Leviathan was upon them. At first the King Leviathan remained in the pool that had been in the middle of the arena, using its tail to attack them the entire time, but after a few seconds it clearly got annoyed and burst out of its hiding place, revealing that it was basically one of the scorpion creatures, only it was at least twice the size of the others they had fought.

Unfortunately the end of their fight was less than what Vox likely wanted, because the King Leviathan died after taking a few shots from the new B6-Obliterator that Ratchet and Starlight had acquired, leaving them to wonder if it hadn't recovered from all of the fights that it had been used in against the heroes that had come before them.

Once they were finished with their challenge, and had been awarded their third Green Metal and a new gadget, one of the announcers, the fembot again, announced that their next destination would be the planet called Kronos. Then came some news that they weren't expecting to hear; that both Ratchet and Starlight, the key players for Team Darkstar, would be sitting out the next planet and that Sunset would be fighting in their stead. They wondered how the announcer could have known that this was going to happen, as they had no idea if Vox even told them what was happening next, but now everyone, viewer and contestant alike, knew that the next episode was one that no one wanted to miss.

Ratchet allowed a light smile to appear on his face for a moment, because he knew that everyone would come to understand what Sunset was capable of when she stepped into the arena tomorrow.





"Are you excited for tomorrow?"

Sunset stared at the screen that was in front of her, watching Ratchet and Starlight crush the enemies that Vox threw at them and finish the course that was on Planet Sarathos. She was glad that they were able to work so well without her, something that had been tested thanks to Qwark in the past, and that they were fighting to release her. She had overheard someone mention that Vox was fuming that her siblings chose to let her fight on Kronos, where one of the Exterminators was resting, as if they weren't supposed to do that, which only made here smile at the thought of Vox looking angry at his own idiocy.

Still, the screen did nothing to make her forget that she was in her own cell at the moment, speaking with the designer that was delivering her clothing that she would wear in the arena tomorrow.

"No Eve, I'm not excited." Sunset replied, letting out a sigh as she turned to the designer, "After studying the information you brought me, and doing some soul searching, I've come to the conclusion that I am nothing like the God of Destruction you mentioned. He enjoys fighting and destroying, while I have come to dislike the feeling of destroying anything, be it a building or someone else."

"Well, just make sure that you don't say that on the show," Eve commented, setting a box down by the door before she turned to where Sunset was sitting, "I know its not my place to say this, but I believe that you have the potential to become who you were truly meant to be... though whoever that is, whoever Sunset Shimmer is meant to be, is entirely up to you. Just show them what you are capable of doing and maybe they'll let you go... or you could show them the true power of the Goddess of Destruction."

Sunset looked at the box for a moment and remembered the clothing that Beerus had worn in the picture she had been shown, though she let out another sigh as she knew that she would have to play the role of the Destroyer for a little while... though she seriously hoped that Vox gave her the opportunity to end this madness in one go. Maybe once all of this was over she could retire her magic and go back to what her life had been before the bracelet had cracked, but for the moment she needed to live in the now... and that meant revealing to the universe what the 'Goddess of Destruction' would do.
> Deadlocked: Kronos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet and Starlight watched the other contestants clear out their own courses throughout the rest of Sarathos, where they both enjoyed watching each hero take out whatever Vox had thrown at them and taking some satisfaction in the fact that the person that had captured them was likely fuming because none of them had fallen yet. They knew that many of the other heroes were being inspired by what they were doing, which was why the others had done much better in this course than the previous planet. This ensured that they were all prepared for whatever Vox was going to throw at them on planet Kronos, though there was one thing that everyone else on the ship was anxious for at the moment; Sunset's venture to the planet in the name of Team Darkstar.

The announcement was apparently spreading like wildfire, because everyone on the ship, be they one of the contestants or one of the few guards assigned to watch over them, knew about the up coming fight and was talking about it among themselves. Those that watched the news, and knew about Sunset's abilities, were betting on her decimating whatever was waiting for her at Kronos and earning her freedom in one instant. Those that didn't pay attention to the news, and there were quite a few of those people, decided to betting that the Dreadzone course could claim Sunset's life, as if they didn't believe that her title meant anything. Ratchet felt somewhat sorry for those that believed that Sunset couldn't live up to her reputation, because they were about to have their realities broken before their eyes.

Hydro Girl, one of the other heroes that had been captured and forced into the arena, approached the two of them and took a seat next to them, but they both knew that she was curious about something.

"Are the stories about your sister true?" Hydro Girl asked, though Ratchet could detect a hint of nervousness in her voice, as if she was afraid that everything she had heard was the truth.

"Depends on which stories you are referring to," Ratchet replied, but one look into her eyes told him that she was referring to every story that she must have seen before being captured by Vox, "Yes, the stories about Sunset destroying Koros, creating a cataclysm in Metropolis City, and nearly shattering Yeedil in the Bogon Galaxy, as well as anything else you might have heard, are all true."

"By the Maker!" Hydro Girl exclaimed, looking away for a moment, as if she was trying to calm herself down, "I heard that she was responsible for breaking multiple worlds, but I always thought they were meant to make us heroes work to preserve peace in the universe, least that actually happen to our planets. To think that someone with the power to end an entire planet, and create cataclysms on multiple other worlds, actually exists in the universe... what was Vox thinking when he kidnapped her?"

"He didn't catch her by surprise if that's what your thinking." Starlight said, keeping her gaze on the other heroes and not the one that was sitting next to the two of them, "She was resting aboard that ship that my brother and I were in control of, as a favor for the President of the Solana Galaxy, so there was no fighting for her when the guards got to her. When we awoke we were told that we would have to take part of the Dreadzon course, otherwise the cell that Sunset was locked in would explode. Now, however, Vox is willingly calling Sunset into the arena, so now everyone can see what she is capable of doing with her current level of power."

"How... how much power does she have?" Hydro Girl asked, though it was painfully clear that she was scared after what she had heard, not that Starlight or Ratchet could blame her at all.

"We are unsure of that," Starlight admitted, through she felt a bit of sweat roll down the side of her had for a moment, as if she was afraid of even considering what her sister was capable of doing with her full power, "but all of my calculations have brought me to the conclusion that she's only used eighty-five percent of her full potential so far... so that is what you'll be seeing tomorrow."

Hydro Girl nodded her head and rose from her seat, to which she walked over to where she was supposed to be sitting and took the seat that the guards had given her. Most heroes either remained in their designated sitting areas when the others were running their courses or they were sitting with the others, watching the Dreadzone episode as it happened below them. Right now they were trying to act as if tomorrow was going to be a normal day for all of them, but so far the news that none of them would be heading to Kronos had shocked them. Sunset was going to be the only one on the ship when it departed from the station tomorrow, though Starlight was hoping to gleam some information on where their sister was being held.

She wanted to be ready for the eventual rescue that she and Ratchet would have to go though once they finished dealing with Vox and everything that he could throw at them... though she also knew that Sunset could release herself whenever she decided to do so.

Their return journey to Dreadzone was uneventful, though Starlight did overhear several of the guards mentioning that they would be making a special trip to a planet that they constantly referred to as PX-17, though from how they were talking she had to assume that it was where Sunset was being held. Clearly they were talking in code to prevent them from knowing where their sister was being held, in the off chance that they managed to escape from Vox's hold and took control of the Dreadzone ship that the contestants were carried in. Vox was making sure that they knew that it was impossible for them to escape Dreadzone and find where their sister was being held at the same time, which only made Starlight a little mad at the moment.

Starlight was sure that she would be able to figure out where PX-17 was located, once she had taken care of the collars that she and Ratchet were wearing anyway, and then devise a method to deliver a message to Sunset. Now, however, all she could do was wait for tomorrow like everyone else, where she would be able to see what ruin Vox would be bringing to Kronos.





Sunset let out a sigh as she sat in the Dreadzone ship that was taking her to the planet that Ratchet and Starlight picked out for her, though she was almost completely alone at the moment. The only people that were aboard the ship were the guards that had escorted her out of the cell she had been trapped inside every since she had woken up. There was Eve as well, as she wanted to see how Sunset preformed up close for herself, after learning more about the other God of Destruction, and tell the announcers about what she would be wearing the entire time. They had both come to the conclusion that someone was going to ask about the clothing that Sunset was wearing, so they figured that Eve could tell them about it and end the matter with ease.

Eve sat near Sunset and tried to go over what obstacles that Vox might throw at her when she landed, though in reality Sunset was half listening to her at the moment, as it truly didn't matter what was waiting for her on Kronos.

"Still not excited for the fight?" Eve asked, looking up from the long list that was on her tablet at the moment and finding that Sunset wasn't even looking in her direction this time.

"There is nothing to be excited about," Sunset replied, crossing her arms and closing her eyes for the moment, "I'm only doing this because Vox has been pushed into a corner by the people who watch this show... and because my siblings have faith in my abilities. It will be a simple matter to clear my way through whatever objectives the course has, defeat Shellshock, and get the Green Metal that Ratchet and Starlight need so that they can move further in the tournament."

"So you say," Eve commented, though she turned her head towards the door that was separating them and guards at the moment, to which she noticed that it was opening up, "Here comes the guards."

Sunset turned her head towards the door for a moment and opened her left eye for a few seconds, taking notice of the fact that two of the guards were walking their way. She had noticed that the ship's rocking had stopped while she and Eve had been talking, which meant that they had to have arrived at their destination, though she made no move to get up just yet. She wanted to be sure that they were actually at Planet Kronos before she departed from the ship, though she had the feeling that she would find out the truth soon enough.

"We have arrived at Planet Kronos," one of the guards said, beckoning to the nearby teleport pad for a moment, "The announcers are awaiting your arrival."

Sunset sighed and pulled herself out of her seat, pausing for a moment to make sure that her clothing was straight before she even thought of approaching the teleport pad. Once she was sure that she was prepared, and that Eve was ready to give the announcers the description on what Sunset was wearing, she walked into the pad and teleported down to the planet's surface. From what she could tell Vox had set up quite the course for the contestants to run through before they could reach Shellshock, but she knew that none of that would be left standing once she was through with the course.

"Folks, we are here live from the planet of Kronos, where Commander Shellshock and his army have taken over the city," Dallas called out from his floating platform, "Normally I would be speaking about the contestants and their odds at completing the course, though this time luck may be on Team Darkstar's side. Today their sister, the infamous Goddess of Destruction, will be tackling the course for them and facing everything that they would have been facing. Those of you that know of the Yeedil Episode, the near destruction of Metropolis, and the complete obliteration of Koros will be wondering what will happen here today... and let me tell you, I have no idea what's going to happen today.

May I present to you all, across the universe, Sunset Shimmer!"

Sunset walked out into the open and crossed her arms behind her back, letting them all take in the appearance that she had chosen for this 'special event' as Vox called it. To the untrained eye she appeared to be a cross between a pony and a humanoid creature, as her legs ended in hooves that weren't covered in shoes or anything else. She happened to be wearing a black pair of baggy pants that covered the area between her waist and her ankles, though at the top of her pants rested a blue sash that wrapped around her waist. There was also a piece of cloth that came out of her sash and came to a stop near her knees, with a point at the end, though the color of the addition was the same color of Sunset's fur while the three diamonds that were on it were lavender colored.

On the upper section of her body was a piece of clothing that wrapped around her chest, though on top of it rested a collar that was wrapped around her neck. The collar had several stripes that mimicked the color of Sunset's fur, while the diamond that rested in the middle of it all, and rested directly in front of her neck, mimicked the coloration of the other three diamonds. Sunset also had two golden bracelets, easily thinner than the one that she had been wearing a long time ago, on both of her wrists, completing the appearance that Eve was going for when she created the clothing for her.

Sure, Sunset was basically mimicking Beerus the Destroyer, but her new look might make everyone think twice about angering her or underestimating her abilities in the future.

"So this is the Goddess of Destruction?" Dallas asked, sounding unimpressed by what he was seeing, "I guess we'll be seeing a swift end to this course folks..."

"Oh shut up Dallas, before you piss her off." Juanita snapped, turning her attention to her partner for a moment, before facing the course once more, "I, for one, would like to stay alive. Sunset Shimmer, you may begin when you are ready!"

Sunset walked forward and spotted two enemies coming her way, though the moment they opened fire on her she simply started to dodge their attacks as she zeroed in on where they were standing. Before they even had time to react to her getting close to them, and fire at her, she swung her left leg into the one that was on her left, shattering his armor like it was made of paper. That was swiftly followed by her delivering a similar kick to the other soldier's chest, breaking his armor and shattering several of his ribs in the process, before she spun around and kicked down of them off the walkway she was on. Not once did she bother to use her hands, because at the moment she didn't feel like overpowering anyone with her powers, which would damage the area around her.

She moved forward and found some of the smaller enemies that her siblings had faced on Sarathos were on this planet as well, along with the addition of some sort of flying spinning blade enemy that she hadn't seen before. The smaller enemies weren't hard for her to get rid of, as she kicked at the enemies that were standing in front of her and allowed the wind around her to bend to her will, which sliced the smaller creatures in half. The flying enemies she merely kicked out of the air as she danced around them with a small amount of her power, though when a dropship appeared she kicked the door on its side so hard that she left an imprint of her hoof on the metal as the ship crashed in the water around the platform she was on.

With the enemies taken care of Sunset returned to the platform she had been standing on and resumed her march forward, though she let out a sigh as more enemies leapt out of the water to attack her, which resulted in her trashing them like the previous group. As she stepped onto the second circular platform, however, she noticed something different as something flew through the air and landed in the space in front of her. The newcomer happened to be a humanoid creature that appeared to be made out of metal, almost like what Juanita or Courtney Gears, though at the moment Sunset wondered if it was an enemy or an unsuspected ally.

"Stop right there, 'Goddess of Destruction'," the newcomer commanded, as if he had any authority over her, though Sunset could tell that it had to be male based on the voice that it was using, "I, Warhead, son of the Exterminator Shellshock, shall exterminate you and earn my rightful place at my father's side. I have studied you, ever since you first appeared on Planet Yeedil, and have extensive knowledge on all of your abilities, making me the perfect person to get rid of you."

"If you have such an understanding of what I am capable of doing, then you should know that challenging me is a death wish." Sunset stated, though she made no move to remove her arms from behind her back, "I will say this once; back off and go home... otherwise I cannot be held responsible for what happens to you."

"Fine then, I shall exterminate you and bring an end to Team Darkstar's winning streak," Warhead exclaimed, though that was followed by him bursting through the air and heading straight for where Sunset was standing.

Sunset frowned and moved to the right, allowing her new opponent to fly right passed where she was standing, though she made no move to strike him down just yet. Warhead seemed to realize that she was no longer in front of him, because he turned on some jets that allowed him to reverse his direction, where he kicked at Sunset the moment he was near her again. Once again Sunset merely moved backwards and dodged the attack like it was nothing, which was swiftly followed by Warhead moving around her in a tornado like fashion. She could tell that he was preparing for some sot of attack, though at the moment she wasn't interested in moving away and simply waited for her opponent to finish.

"AXE KICK!" Warhead shouted from above the tornado, to which he flew down to where Sunset was standing and threw his kick at her, though Sunset merely moved out of the way and let his attack come into contact with the floor, shattering the entire platform as she moved into the air around its remains.

Sunset stared down at the platform and noticed a light among the smoke, to which she levitated downwards just a bit as a beam of energy erupted out of the smoke. The beam struck the nearby building behind her and left a burning hole in it, though she swiftly returned her attention to the platform as the smoke cleared. Warhead seemed surprised that she managed to dodge his attacks, though she knew that he shouldn't be if he knew about her abilities... which only told her that he was wasting her time. She let out a sigh as she floated down to where Warhead was standing, to which he burst off of the ground he was standing on and flew right at her, though as he threw his fists at her she merely used her hooves to block all of the attacks.

The ground around them shattered as Sunset blocked all of his attacks, as the force that emitted from her hooves overpowered the amount of energy that was surrounding Warhead's hands, resulting in the small craters that formed beneath them. Eventually Sunset got tired of Warhead's attacks and struck him in the face with the side of her leg, sending him backwards and bringing a pause to the fight. This time he did the smart thing and didn't come at her again, though it was clear that he was trying to figure out a way bypass her defenses and actually hurt her.

"This isn't much of a fight if you keep dodging all my attacks," Warhead commented, as if he was trying to taunt her into attacking him, "Maybe I should step up my game and obliterate you where..."

That was seconds before Sunset flashed in front of him, though that was merely a diversion as he swung his fist at her, only for her to slip behind him with the attack she had prepared. Warhead had seconds to spare before the attack hit its target and he threw himself to the side as Sunset's fist struck the air where he had been standing. Sunset didn't mind the fact that Warhead managed to dodge her attack, because in truth she hadn't been aiming at him the entire time... she only wanted him to think that. This was her special attack, the one that brought about the cataclysm of Yeedil, so when she released the power stored inside her fist the ground around them began to crack and heave as the cataclysm started.

Buildings cracked as her power influenced their structures, breaking the metal that kept them together and tearing the ground around them apart as if they were made of paper. That was followed by pieces of the earth rising out of the water all around them, resulting in jagged points, all of which were a variety of heights, erupting out of the watery depths. Even the walkways that Sunset had been standing on when she stated the course suffered, as it shattered into a thousand pieces that sunk into the water around them. The cracks even reached the cathedral where Shellshock was supposed to be waiting for Sunset, creating a massive crack in the side of the building as the quakes finally came to an end.

With the attack over Sunset returned her hand to behind her back, though she was somewhat pleased that she had shown Warhead that he was outclassed.

"There, now you have seen my power firsthand." Sunset said, staring down at Warhead for a moment, hoping that he would make the smart decision and retreat from the battlefield, "Go home and forget about trying to kill me..."

"Are you kidding me?" Warhead asked, a grin appearing on his metallic face, as if the fact that Sunset revealed her power only made him want to fight her even more than before, "After what you just did to Kronos, the destruction that you brought to this planet, I can't simply let you leave here alive. Tell me; was that your full power, or is there more that you haven't shown me?"

"No, it was not my full power." Sunset stated, letting out a sigh as she realized that she was going to have to get rid of Warhead, "Though at the moment that really shouldn't matter to you at all."

"And what is that supposed to mea..." Warhead started to ask, though that was seconds before Sunset appeared to his left and simply tapped his side with her fist.

Warhead was blown backwards by the force of the punch, which had been hard enough to move him and leave the imprint of Sunset's fist in his side. It was almost as if she was commanding the very elements whenever she attacked someone, but for that to be accurate her horn would have been glowing the entire time she was fighting the first group of enemies. As he corrected himself he gazed at the destruction that had occurred around him when Sunset's first attack barely missed him, remembering the accounts of the Metropolis cataclysm. The people of the city recalled seeing energy wrapping around Sunset's hand before she punched at her target, resulting in the ground shaking, buildings breaking, and the entire world being reshaped.

This had to be a small measure of her true power, though all the realization did for him was make him finally feel the terror that the people of Metropolis had to have felt when their city fell apart around them. There was one last attack he could do, one last ace he could play, but at the moment he had to wonder if his best and final attack would be able to do anything to the Goddess of Destruction.

"Is this little girl giving you trouble?" a heavy voice behind Warhead said, to which he turned around and spotted his father approaching him, though it was clear that his eyes were on Sunset, "Let us exterminate her... together."

"Yes father!" Warhead replied, shaking the fear from his body as he turned his attention back to Sunset, "I still have my trump card left... should I play it now, or wait for later?"

"Use it now." Shellshock answered, flipping open a compartment on his left arm and pressing a few buttons, which Warhead repeated on his own arm, "She will die in a blinding flash of light as our wrath strikes her with all the power we can muster... and the universe will thank us for doing this."

Sunset spotted what they were doing and wondered what the two of them were up to, though that was before she noticed a good dozen missiles launch from wherever they were being held. She glanced around the area and noticed that more missiles were coming towards where she was floating, which basically told he everything that she needed to know about their plan. The father and son duo had prepared a final attack of sorts before her arrival, as it appeared that they were loosing at least fifty missiles at her, almost as if they were expecting the large number of them to take her out. It was amusing that they believed that they could take her out, because so far she had dodged everything that Warhead had thrown at her during their entire fight.

When the missiles came into contact around her there was a blinding explosion that rocked the entire area in her immediate vicinity, causing ripples in the water and shattering several of the rocky spires that had been created by her earlier attack. A few seconds passed before the smoke cleared, though in the end Sunset emerged from the area without even a scratch on he body, indicating that even their best attack was not enough. She then let out a sigh as she pulled her hands out from behind her back and brought them near each other for a moment, to which she gathered some of her energy for an attack that would end the fight in an instant. Once she was ready she raised her hands above her head and pulled them apart, allowing the energy to expand into a large golden sphere of energy that rested just a few inches above her.

"Its been a blast, but now I must end this fight." Sunset shouted down to the robotic duo, which was followed by her throwing the sphere of energy down at where they were standing.

Neither robot moved from where they were standing as the sphere came down upon them, exploding in a fury of energy that tore the ground around them into a thousand pieces. The ripple that the attack created shattered the wall of the nearby cathedral, creating an opening that could be used instead of the method that Vox wanted the contestants to use. When the smoke died down there was a massive crater where Shellshock and Warhead had been standing, though after a few seconds Sunset knew that her time on Kronos was over. She had been tested by Warhead and had revealed a portion of her powers, as well as the amount of damage that came with fighting her for any period of time.

She had won the Green Metal that her siblings needed to move on, though she seriously hoped that Vox got the message and made the smart choice... otherwise she was sure that she would eventually blow him up as well. Sunset crossed her arms behind her back and returned to the Dreadzone ship, knowing that only time would tell if this villain was smarter than the ones she and her family had faced in the past... or if he was dumber than they were.
> Deadlocked: Avenger Tournament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet stared at the screen that showed him and Starlight what the other contestants were doing when they were running through the various courses that Vox threw at them, his eyes never leaving the screen. He had been like this ever since Sunset had appeared in the arena on Kronos, in her fused state no less, and utterly ruined everything that had been put in her way. Vox clearly assumed that Sunset would never be able to pull off what she did, or obliterate Shellshock and his son in the manner that she had used, though now he had to wonder if their captor was fuming at the loss of one of his Exterminators. Ratchet felt that Vox should be upset over what had just happened, because that meant that he would make mistakes and, eventually, bring about his own destruction.

Starlight, Clank, and Al had remained in their work area the entire time Sunset had been on the holoscreen, working on figuring out a way to disarm the collars they were wearing. Once the collars were taken care of they would figure out a way to contact Sunset, so they could make a plan to dismantle Dreadzone and get rid of Vox. Starlight only stopped one time during the process, when she had felt Sunset's large sphere of destructive energies that had gotten rid of Shellshock and his son. When the video feed ended Starlight went back to her work, though from the sounds of things it almost sounded like she had discovered something after returning to the collar.

Eventually the night was upon them, what they assumed was nighttime because of the fact that the majority of the lights in the station went offline like the previous nights, though before they turned in Starlight had something interesting to tell Ratchet.

"I'm going to laugh at whoever designed these stupid collars." Starlight commented, flashing Ratchet a smile as she raised a pencil with her magic and tapped her own collar lightly, "The three of us have deactivated the collar that I'm wearing... as well as the ones that they're wearing. In fact I've striped them of their explosives and hidden them someplace safe, so we can use them when we finally decide to break this place wide open."

Ratchet knew that his sister was skilled with mechanics and everything, but to use the time she, Clank, and Al had to not only deactivate the collars, but also remove the explosives so they could pretend to be under Vox's thumb impressed him to no end. He was already impressed by everything that she had created up until their capture, which included the RYNO series of weapons, and wondered what she would create once this adventure was over.

"So, when does mine get turned off?" Ratchet asked, jerking his thumb towards the collar around his neck while a smile appeared on his face as well.

"By the time morning comes, Vox will have lost his hold over all of us." Clank said, turning to look at the various worlds that surrounded the station, "Best not to let him know how much trouble he's in until we've found where Sunset is being held and determine how to get her a message... and break her out of course."

"Which means that we need to find someone who knows where Sunset is being held first," Ratchet replied, moving towards his bed so he could rest up for whatever Vox threw at him and Starlight in the morning, "then convince them to turn traitor against Vox and rescue Sunset from her cell. Once we've done that it should be a simple matter to save the other heroes, obliterate the other Exterminators if they're foolish enough to challenge Sunset, and get off of this blasted station before it blows."

"I doubt it will be that simple." Starlight stated, shaking her head as she turned her gaze to the Battledome for a moment, as if she was wondering what they would be facing in the morning, "The Avenger Tournament... one has to wonder what's in store for us."

Ratchet really didn't care about the tournament at all, not when they could finally get rid of the explosions that were locked inside the collars and free themselves from Vox's control. He already knew that they could make it through whatever was thrown at them tomorrow, so it was a simple matter of making sure that they survived the arena so they could advance onto the first world in the next tournament. Clank and Al would be rooting for them the entire time they were in the arena, and so would Sunset he imagined, so he didn't have much to worry about at the moment.

Eventually the four of them retired for the night, though when the morning dawned on them they ate a light morning meal as they waited for Vox to call on them to enter the Battledome. Clank told them that he managed to find some commercials that stared both of the announcers in some sort of 'update' that aired between the episodes. Apparently Vox was trying to paint Ratchet as a notorious crime boss, Clank as some sort of ruthless killer, Al as a heartless weapon modifier, and Starlight as a mad scientist that loved to watch things blow up. In the end they ended up laughing for about an hour before the intercoms went off and Team Darkstar was called to do battle in the Avenger Tournament, to which Ratchet and Starlight bid their friends farewell for the moment before they made their way towards the small ship that would take them to their next destination.





"The action is hot in the Battledome as Ratchet and Starlight take on the Avenger Tournament," Dallas called out, just as the duo teleported into the beginning of the arena with their helmets on and their weapons primed, "If they can survive this difficult series of challenges they will be the first duo, in all of Dreadzone's history, to earn the rank of Avenger!"

The first challenge appeared to be a timed one, as the two of them had a minute and a half to eliminate one hundred and twenty enemies, though as they started fighting Dallas explained that the number had been doubled to accommodate the two of them. Starlight found it amusing that they had so little time to get rid of so many enemies, so she took a page from Sunset's book and created a charge of magic that exploded when it came into contact with a group of enemies on the opposite side of the area they were in. Ratchet then moved around Starlight, shooting anything that dared to get close to him and his sister while ensuring that they both removed large amounts of enemies in the process.

By the time that they reached the end of their timer they had cleared out the entirety of their enemies, much to the amazement of both Dallas and Juanita.

Once the first challenge was over Dallas told them that their next task was to survive the course that was in front of them and make their way to the 'Tower of Power'. Of course that was followed by a large force of enemies dropping into the area around them and firing upon them, to which they retaliated almost immediately. Starlight focused on the dropships and tore them out of the air with her magic, throwing one of them into another one, while Ratchet made sure that the smaller enemies and the gladiators were taken care of. It took some time to eliminate the entirety of the enemies that were coming to fight them, along with getting some minor damage to their armor, before they were able to move onward.

They dropped onto the walkway below them and approached the second part of the Battledome arena, where they shot at every enemy that jumped onto the path that they were following. It took some time to clear out the walkway of enemies, which raised the floating platforms that would allow them to access the next part of their challenge. They rapidly crossed over to the other platform and spotted a new enemy that Vox was throwing at them, one that appeared to be some sort of armored creature that fired sharp needles at them. Neither of them were sure if that was the only trick that the new enemy had to show them, and they were sure that there was another one hidden from them, but they eliminated them before they could reveal what they were hiding.

The two of them fought several waves of gladiators and their little minions, as well as taking out several more dropships along the way, before a small walkway connected the platform they were currently on with the one in front of them. There they discovered another new enemy of sorts, as they happened to be small turrets that were attached to the ground and fired lasers at whoever got close to them. Starlight found them amusing almost immediately, because she used her magic to summon a barrier that bounced the beams back at the turret that they had come from. It was a simple matter to surround Ratchet in this barrier and have all five turrets try and take him out at the same time, resulting in the destruction of their targets and prompted the other enemies to step forward.

It was child's play for them at that point, as all they really had to do was clear out the rest of their enemies to reveal their next objective, though all it really did at the moment was bring up another walkway made of platforms that brought them back to where they took out a turret with an EMP during their warmup challenge. Once they touched the platform they were assaulted by a small group of gladiators and their little minions, though it didn't take them long to clear them out and have Dallas declare that they had beaten the second challenge in the Avenger Tournament.

Their third challenge seemed to be somewhat harder than the previous two, as they now had to fight their way around the Tower of Power and reach the top, where they suspected that they would bring an end to this entire arena run. It was a simple matter to cross the platforms between them and the bottom of the tower, as all they had to do was wait for one of them to flip over before they could follow the path to their destination. The instant they touched the bottom platform they were attacked by two more of the small laser turrets and one flying gladiator, though none of their enemies got very far as Starlight's shield blocked all the incoming lasers while Ratchet removed the enemy in the air.

Once the enemies had been taken care of they carefully crossed the section of platforms in front of them, which had all been raised to act as some sort of stairs, before they found themselves on the next part of the tower. The moment they touched down on the next platform they were assaulted by the flying contraptions that Sunset had fought against when she was on Kronos, though they were pretty easy to get rid of in the end. All they really had to do was move out of the way when they fired their lasers, which were easy to see coming considering the fact that they had to pause to charge for a few seconds, before they shot all of them out of the air and progressed onward once more.

The next stair like area happened to be easier than they were expecting, because all they had to do was jump into the middle row, wait until they determined which platform was moving at which time, and then jump forward until they reached the third platform. Small robotic creatures, mimicking the ones that had been accompanying the gladiators, spawned in front of them as they touched down, though they were easily take care of as well. The third set of stair platforms were of the variety that fell towards the ground when someone stepped on them, so Starlight merely levitated herself into the air and followed after Ratchet. Five more flying blade enemies appeared in front of them and were removed in seconds, as they were easy to get rid of now that they could plan around their lasers, allowing them to access the platforms that would take them even higher on the tower.

The next set of platforms bought them to the top of the Tower of Power, where they discovered that their enemies were one of the leviathans that they encountered on Sarathos and a large gladiator that appeared to be carrying some sort of large wrench weapon, one that fired small blasts of energy at his target.

It was shamefully easy to eliminate both of their enemies at the same time, considering that the two of them didn't leave each others side for the most part, so in a matter of seconds Ratchet and Starlight had taken out the both of them. From that point onward it became the same thing as the other platforms, as they had to deal with the waves upon waves of enemies that Vox decided to throw at them. They had to deal with the variety of gladiators, the flying contraptions, the mechanical and non-mechanical minions, and a dropship or two before they were finally allowed to rest.

Once they were done fighting the last of their enemies, and were sure that there weren't anymore of them, Dallas proclaimed that they were the first duo to ever clear the Avenger Tournament and were now officially Avengers, which was followed by their armor changing from the Dreadzone red and turning into what they assumed was Avenger green. With their victory assured, and the next two planets in the next tournament unlocked, they teleported out of the arena so they could share the news with Clank and Al, leaving behind the mess that they had created.





"I cannot believe that they won the Avenger Tournament!" Vox growled ass he turned his attention away from the screen for a moment, "Not only are those two still alive, and making a mockery of Dreadzone in the process, but Shellshock has been completely erased from existence... and even his kid, who was a prime candidate to replace his father, was taken out as well."

"Shellshock should have retired after the last season ended," a voice said, to which Ace Hardlight stepped out of the shadows, "Warhead was ready to take the place of his father, that is true, but he was arrogant to believe that he could take on the Goddess of Destruction and eliminate her on his own. We should be counting our blessings that Kronos wasn't completely destroyed in the process, because I'm fairly sure whoever is looking for Ratchet and his sisters would have zeroed in on our location if the planet had been erased."

"I could care less about those friends of his," Vox said, tightening his metallic fist around the glass he had been holding, from when he was watching the Avenger Tournament unfold, and shattered the glass, "I'm pissed that the Avenger Tournament couldn't take either Ratchet or Starlight out, pissed that we lost both Shellshock and his son, pissed that my announcers think they have the right to announce things that they shouldn't even know about... and why is this blasted gemstone still glowing?"

He was referring to the pink colored gemstone that he had gotten his hands on some time ago, as it was one of the legendary Raritanium Cores that had been scattered throughout the universe. He had been hoping to capture Ratchet and Starlight when they were aboard their own ship, the Hyperion he recalled, so he could acquire the other Cores that they had gotten their hands on. That would have left him with only two more to find and acquire, to which he could have hoarded them in one place until the end of his days and hold them over whoever was around him. The only annoying part, besides losing the three that Rachet and his family had gotten their hands on, was the fact that the one that was sitting on his desk had suddenly started glowing yesterday... and it hadn't stopped at all.

"It might be reacting to the magical energies of either Starlight or Sunset," Ace commented, raising his right hand to his chin for a moment, giving him the appearance of thinking about something, "I've heard stories that say that the Cores are bound to the two of them and are known to react when either of their magic is in effect... though of course without seeing it first hand there's no way of telling if the stories are true."

"Do you think that you can take her out?" Vox asked, clearly wanting to suddenly change the course of the conversation, though Ace caught the fact that Vox was already annoyed and that nothing would appease his at the moment.

"Not likely," Ace replied, crossing his arms as he faced Vox, "Facing Sunset Shimmer is a death sentence... and only a fool would dare to face someone of her caliber on their own, and without being prepared. Captain Qwark once incurred her wrath in the past and that lead to what has become known as the Yeedil Incident, while Dr. Nefarious is behind pissing her off and bringing about the near destruction of Metropolis... though he did get Koros destroyed. In order to defeat Sunset one must understand what she is capable of, observe her when she's using magic, and then come up with something to counter her abilities."

"Which is what you have been doing in your time off," Vox noted, raising an eyebrow as he looked at Ace, "You have until Ratchet and Starlight finish the Vindicator Tournament to come up with a plan to overpower Sunset, because I'm willing to bet they'll try and use her against you... and take off that black robe that your wearing, it looks out of place on you."

"Don't worry, I'll come up with something," Ace replied, not bothering to say anything else as he turned his back on Vox and walked out of the room, leaving the Lord of Dreadzone to his fuming.

Ace passed several of the guards that watched over the various heroes, from a control room of sorts, and grinned as he noticed that none of them had noticed that the picture that showed Team Darkstar was pretty much the same all the time. He had snuck in two days ago and rewired the video feed to replay mostly the same thing over and over again, though it would turn off when they went off world and would resume when they returned. What they were actually doing was on a monitor in his own chambers, where he was the only one that had the code to enter the room, and he knew so many things that Vox didn't know at the moment.

Team Darkstar was coming up with a plan to topple Vox's shadow empire and, as long as Ace did his best to keep their plans hidden until the time was right, Vox would never be able to see any of this coming until it was too late to save himself. Ace grinned, pulled out the lightsaber that he had been hiding in his robes, and sliced the bust of Vox that had been given to his as a present a few years ago right in half, letting both halves fall to the floor.

"I'm going to enjoy toppling this pathetic empire," Ace said to himself, shutting off the power to his new weapon and putting it away once more, before tapping the collar that was still wrapped around his neck, "and paying him back for all of the heroes that he has forced me to kill over the years. Mark your calendar Vox, because your end is coming."
> Deadlocked: Shaar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After winning the Avenger Tournament, and discovering the next two worlds that they would have to tackle in the second Dreadzone tournament, Ratchet and Starlight had got together with Clank and Al, to go over the various hazards that the planets had. They had a whole day to waste before they were called back into the arena, where they could choose between their two choices, and they were confident that the other heroes could hold their own in whatever challenges Vox threw at them. Their choices happened to be Shaar, an icy planet that they had never been to before, and Orxon, which meant that they would be revisiting one of Drek's old factories that had to have been modified by Vox ahead of time.

Ratchet was tempted to assign Sunset to planet Orxon, just so she could erase one of the reminders of the madman that had started them down the path they were on, but seeing how they only had two planets to choose from until the Crusader Tournament it was the easiest choice for them to make.

"I expected there to be a third planet in this line up." Clank commented, looking over the various footage he could find on the two planets that had to be cleared, "At least this will give us some time to come up with a plan that will allow us to get a message to Sunset, though I'm hoping that Vox releases her before he angers her."

"I'm sure that Vox is going to try to give Sunset some lie about us at some point in the future," Starlight said, tapping her chin with her pen for a moment, "He's seen that she is essentially one of the strongest fighters in the entire universe, one that might not have an equal in his mind, and I'm willing to bet that he's going to try and persuade her to stay here by threatening our lives. He'll quickly find that she'll only go along with it as long as he has some sort of leverage on her... which we have removed without him even realizing the danger he is suddenly in."

"I wish Sunset was allowed to fight in the actual tournament, here at the station I mean," Al said with a sigh, "though I doubt that Vox would allow something like that to happen. She would feel the power of the Core that's being held here, acquire it for herself, and then obliterate Vox without a second thought..."

"Its better that she gets to take on whatever is waiting on Orxon," Ratchet replied, looking at the screen for a moment, though at the same time he was recalling what had happened on Kronos, "Who knows, maybe Vox will send a child of one of the other Exterminators at Sunset in the hope of removing her... or providing his fans with the entertainment that they're paying to watch."

Ratchet was sure that Warhead had been sent to Kronos by Vox, likely in the hopes that he could provide the fans with some entertainment to appease them. He wouldn't put it past the man to try the same thing again when Sunset stepped into the arena on the next planet, which only made him worry about the amount of destruction that would occur on the battlefield. Kronos had been lucky to avoid the larger amount of destruction that occurred whenever Sunset and Searing destroyed those that annoyed them, though he doubted that would be the case in the future.

"From what I've been able to gather, Shellshock was the only Exterminator that had a child." Al spoke up, once again showing that he liked to research everything and everyone that he came into contact with, be that directly or indirectly, "Though that doesn't mean that Vox doesn't have any other special gladiators that might be able to hold their own against Sunset in a fight... before she destroys them anyway."

Ratchet and Starlight nodded to Al for a moment, knowing that they couldn't trust anything that Vox told them at the moment considering that he had lied to them about keeping Sunset trapped in a cell the entire time they were fighting for their lives. It seemed as if Vox was actively trying to eliminate Sunset without them looking, as if the obstacles that were in their way were supposed to keep them distracted from the villain's true goal. They needed a plan of action to deal with Vox, something that they could come up with once they were done with Shaar and whatever was waiting for them, though Ratchet was excited to be in a snowy world again.

The two of them went to bed that night without too much excitement, allowing Clank and Al to make sure that nothing interfered with their slumber until the morning arrived.





When morning arrived Ratchet and Starlight were up to meet it, as the moment they got up they ate their breakfast, made sure that all of the weapons they owned had their ammunition restocked, purchased any additional weapons that were available, and went over anything that Clank and Al could find on the planet that they would be visiting. There were quite a number of hazards that they would have to fight through, though they were mainly the same challenges that they had already fought through and had some of the ones that they noticed when Sunset marched through Kronos.

Once they were fully prepared, to the best of their ability at the moment anyway, they approached the shuttle and teleported aboard the ship, where they waited for the other contestants to teleport in and take their seats before they left the station behind.

During the long flight to Shaar, which they determined because it took a few hours to reach the planet, both Ratchet and Starlight noticed that the other contestants had some frightened looks on their faces whenever they looked in their direction. It didn't take Ratchet long to figure out why all of the other contestants were scared all of a sudden; they were afraid of what their sister could do with the power inside her. They had seen her battle on Kronos, like he and Starlight had, and it appeared that Sunset's fight with Warhead was enough to shake them to their cores. Ratchet knew that Sunset hated inspiring such fear in the hearts of everyone around her, so he already knew that it might be impossible to change their minds about what they had seen.

At the moment they were going to have to run with the hand that Vox had dealt them, because in the end they would be the ones that laughed at Vox when he reached the inevitable conclusion of this entire venture.

When the ship finally arrived at Shaar, and came to a stop above the first of the many obstacle courses that Vox had created, Ratchet and Starlight bid the other heroes farewell before teleporting down to the planet's surface. There they waited for either Dallas or Juanita to reveal what they were up against, because sometimes the two revealed things that may or may not help them in their challenges.

"Tonight on Dreadzone, Team Darkstar embarks on a journey through the hollowed grounds of planet Shaar," Dallas said, a smile appearing on his face while he spoke from the safety of the announcer booth, "What was once a boring historic temple is now the centerpiece of this explosive new battlecourse. Ratchet and Starlight will have to complete some of Drreadzone's deadliest challenges ever, just to gain entrance into the main temple, but even if they survive that far no contestant this season has come out of that temple alive."

Ratchet was tempted to say that they were the first ones to take on this course, seeing how the other contestants always went after him and Starlight, but then he let out a sigh as he engaged his helmet. It wasn't worth correcting the announcer at all, not when some of the facts had had given them were wrong and the others were definitely useless at the moment. All he knew was that this was supposed to be a challenging course that had claimed the lives of heroes from the other seasons of Dreadzone, which told him that they had reshaped the course a few times to change things up.

With a nod from Starlight the two of them moved towards the building directly in front of them, where Ratchet immediately began to hack into the control spheres that were waiting for them while Starlight took up a defensive position and took out any enemies that came near them. With the bridge restored they moved into the middle of the building and took out the dropship that was coming their way, before it could drop any enemies to fight them, before Ratchet turned his attention to the four control spheres that were around them. Several times he had to turn his attention away from the sphere he was hacking into because there were too many enemies for Starlight to deal with on her own.

They even spotted some sort of new enemy while they finished hacking onto the last sphere, some sort of creature that had two arms and fired energy blasts at them, but they took it out of the picture, removed the gladiators that were blocking their path, and approached the Landstalker that happened to be waiting for them. As they climbed into the machine they overheard Dallas mention that they would have to cut the power to the force fields that were preventing them from entering the main temple, and they had the location of the cranks they needed to turn already programed into the Landstalker.

Ratchet opened fire on all of the smaller enemies that spawned in front of them while he directed them towards the first bolt crank, though at the same time Starlight used the cannons to take out the tougher opponents that might give them trouble. As they approached the first crank they even took out a dropship that had come into the area, along with several turrets that would have fired missiles at them if they hadn't gotten rid of them first. Ratchet hoped out of the machine for a moment and started turning the crank, taking note of the fact that no one was trying to stop them from actually turning the device, though when he was finished, and was back in the Landstalker, enemies started to swarm their position.

It took them a few minutes to make sure that all of the enemies in their immediate area were taken care of, while making sure that the vehicle they were in would be able to stand up to whatever else they had to fight, but once Starlight indicated that they were fine Ratchet got them moving once more.

As they approached the second crank they encountered an enemy Landstalker that happened to have a shield around it, but Starlight solved the problem by chucking an EMP at it from afar and the shield came apart in seconds. Shortly after taking out the enemy Landstalker they spotted a turret, to which they removed its shield and tore it to pieces, though their fun was short lived when they noticed that there was a second enemy Landstalker that had two turrets backing it. They were able to take out the Landstalker in a matter of seconds, though not without sustaining some damage to their own vehicle, and were able to remove the two turrets within a few minutes. That left them with the small missile turrets that were guarding the crank, which were easily dealt with, and the enemies that spawned as Ratchet tried to take the crank.

Once the force field was down Ratchet climbed back into their vehicle and rode it into the temple, where they opened fire on anything and everything that looked like an enemy, which happened to be most of what was around them at the time. They moved to the left of where they entered and tore apart everything that Vox had assigned to guard the bolt crank that was waiting for them, along with two of the new flying enemy they had encountered. Once they claimed the crank for their own more enemies dropped in behind them, which they were expecting at this point, so they fought their way through the horde of enemies that had been placed between the two cranks and repeated what they had done a second time.

With the second challenge completed they were removed from the Landstalker and were told that they had to capture five more nodes, each of which were apparently hidden somewhere around the temple, though they both knew that they would be in for a long fight.

The first node that they went after was the one in the middle of the temple, mainly because they guessed that there might be more enemies there than anywhere else in the temple, so they ran up the stairs and opened fire on the enemies that were flying around the air. The node itself was guarded by three of the laser turrets that they had encountered in the first tournament and a fair number of gladiators that flew in through the various openings the building had. Ratchet counted their blessings that he had bought the Holoshield Launcher, so that way he could summon a shield to protect himself while Starlight was busy focusing on the enemies in front of her. It didn't take them long to clear out their enemies and claim the node, but they did circle back to the weapon vendor and restocked their ammunition before they encountered something tougher.

They circled around the middle temple and decimated all of the enemies that happened to be resting around the platforms, just in case they happened to fire down on where the other nodes happened to be located, before they actually left the middle area and walked to the left of where they entered. It was quite easy for them to remove the small amount of enemies that happened to be waiting for them, but as they walked through the small building that would take them to the next node they encountered a much larger group of gladiators waiting for them. It was clear that Vox wasn't messing around with them, so in response to the amount of enemies Starlight charged her horn and blew several of the larger enemies to pieces, allowing Ratchet to take the others out on his own.

The moment they were finished with their enemies they claimed the node in front of them, once again put off by the fact that no one came to stop them, before they leapt off the side of the building they were on and assaulted the enemies that were waiting below them. It was fortunate that the third node was so close to the second one, as they didn't have to waste time on enemies that might slow them down more than they would afford. The enemies around the next node clearly weren't expecting them to jump over the edge and attack them, as they were caught completely off guard for a few seconds, giving Ratchet and Starlight a head start on wasting them before they reacted. A few minutes later they had captured the third node and were on their way to the passage behind the center of the temple, where they would cross to where the next node was located.

They encountered the normal amount of enemies that guarded one of the nodes, the enemies they had bypassed to get to the third node, and the enemies that they would normally encounter when they went for the final node, telling them that Vox wasn't messing around with them anymore. Ratchet and Starlight were sure that this was for the ratings that Vox cared so much about, but it didn't matter to them in the slightest as they engaged their enemies. This time Starlight had to pour more of her magic out as the fought the gladiators, using some of the fallen weapons around her to their advantage as they tore into the enemies that flew around the battlefield. She even went as far as to pick up one of the explosives that had been laying around, attached it to one of the enemies that was approaching a cluster, and set it off in an explosion that took them all out.

Eventually the smoke cleared and they claimed the last two nodes that they needed to capture, earning them the metal that the were after and the ability to retire to the Dreadzone ship once more. They would be able to take another day off from the fighting once tomorrow came their way, as Sunset would be sent to Orxon in their stead, so they sat back in their seats and looked at the screen as the next contestant was teleported down to their course.





"I could have sworn that Shaar would have gotten rid of them," Vox growled as he looked at the screen, one again annoyed by the fact that Ratchet and Starlight were tearing apart his courses like they owned the place, "and now they're skipping out of Orxon."

"Sunset will be able to clear that place in no time." Ace commented, resisting the urge to smile at Vox's annoyance and anger, "I would be surprised if she let the planet standing, considering that it might be a reminder of the first villain she and her family had to fight. I'm also sure that the gladiators that call that planet home will be unable to to stand against her power for very long... not unless you have a great idea on how to stop her in her tracks."

Vox let out a sigh as he thought about the various people that owed him a favor, wondering if any of them could come up with something that would stop Sunset in her tracks. Warhead would have been an excellent choice, but the young son of Shellshock had jumped the gun and gotten himself killed before Vox could tell him to fight Sunset. It made him wonder how Warhead even knew that Sunset was going to be on Kronos, as he had been on a different planet at the time and had no access to the news until he had departed from said planet. There was always Toxin, a creature made of living poison that could kill pretty much anything it touched, though he had to wonder if the creature could even damage Sunset.

Then his mind turned to the duo of Sniper and Spy, where one distracted the target while the second one took the target out from afar, making them a fearsome combination in the arena.

"I'm going to make a call to our facility on PX-17," Vox said, letting out a sigh as he reached for his communicator, "I might have a way to get rid of Sunset that won't backfire on me."

As he turned around in his chair he didn't notice Ace looking at the number he had dialed, the one thing that would allow someone to figure out where PX-17 was located. This time Ace did smile as he silently excused himself from the office, as he was now one step ahead of Vox... and could now contact Ratchet and Starlight when everyone was focused on Sunset tomorrow. Soon he would finally bring about the end of Dreadzone, he just had to be patient and pray that Vox remained unaware of his plans until it was too late to stop him.
> Deadlocked: Orxon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet and Starlight watched as the rest of the contestants teleported down to the planet below them and attempted whatever course Vox had planned for them, though at the same time they realized that every course was meant to break whoever was assigned to it, as Starlight noticed that there were obstacles designed to slow down or even kill the contestant that was on the planet at the moment. It was pretty clear that Vox had each course designed to use each and every weakness that a contestant might have, which both Ratchet and Starlight considered unfair. The man was basically making sure that no one could reach Ace Hardlight, not unless they were seriously skilled enough to overcome everything that could mean their end.

The strangest thing was that they hadn't seen Ace at all over the course of their stay in Dreadzone; not on the commercials that played between contestants, no announcements from him about the various heroes he might have to fight, and not even a hint that he was lingering around the station, watching his soon to be enemies. It was as if Vox had given the man the freedom to leave the station whenever he wanted, so long as he returned when someone made it to the tournament he was in charge of.

"Hey Starlight," Ratchet said, causing his sister to look away from the screen they had been staring at for the last hour, "what do you think Ace Hardlight does in his spare time?"

"He's likely researching anyone he believes to be a threat to his reign over Dreadzone." Starlight answered, letting out a small sigh as she turned back to the screen, where the contestant they were watching finished off his course, "I mean, that is what I would be doing if I was in his shoes at the moment, making sure that I knew anything and everything about anyone that could be a serious challenge to me. I would imagine that if he was doing something like that he would be looking into our past, as we are the ones to fight him and not Sunset, though either way he wouldn't like what he found out."

"That's very true," Ratchet said, recalling how their first adventure turned out and how the people of Solana reacted to their victory over Chairman Drek, along with everything else that happened since they first left Veldin, "Still, I don't think he'll like his chances at taking on either of us in the arena... when we reach him anyway."

Starlight nodded and went back to watching the other contestants run their courses, though while she did that Ratchet continued to think about what Ace might be doing in his spare time. Everything he had seen about the man so far, thanks to the various commercials he had seen and notes that were available to the public, indicated that he enjoyed fighting in Dreadzone. Vox must have abducted him back at the beginning of Dreadzone's existence, as there appeared to be no other Head Exterminator in the entire history of the station. He guessed that Ace must have worn one of the collars that was wrapped around his neck at the moment, something that was likely either still around his neck or had been removed when he joined Vox's side.

Ratchet honestly didn't care too much about Ace at the moment, as he was just another obstacle that was preventing him and Starlight from rescuing their sister and leaving the station behind.

They remained stationed at planet Shaar for the rest of the afternoon, letting the remainder of the contestants finish their various courses and claim their victories over Dreadzone. During that time Ratchet and Starlight went over what they would do when they arrived back at the station, which was when they would start focusing their efforts on coming up with a plan to save Sunset. They were both sure that Clank and Al would be happy to join them in their planning, though they would their planning much more seriously once all of the guards were focused on watching Sunset tomorrow.

They both noticed that the guards were whispering to each other while the ship made its way back to the Dreadzone Station, though by the worried expression they were all wearing Ratchet could determine that they were already focused on what tomorrow would bring. The guards were scared of Sunset, which he knew that they should be at this point, and it almost appeared that some of them were trying to back out of their assignments to avoid dealing with their sister. Some of them had seen what she had done to Kronos, as they had been present when she destroyed the course and Shellshock, while the others had seen it on the holoscreen when Vox aired it for all to see. None of the guards wanted anything to do with Sunset, even if it was merely watching her as she was transported to Orxon, which Ratchet knew would force Vox to think outside the box.

He would find it amusing if Vox was forced to ask Ace Hardlight to take some time out of his busy schedule and help escort Sunset to Orxon, which was sure to piss off the Head Exterminator to no end. It would also be amusing to watch Ace standing around the Dreadzone ship, keeping his eyes on Sunset the entire time while silently praying that she didn't end him and escape from Vox's clutches. Ratchet knew that it was too much to ask for at the moment, but he let a smile appear on his face while he thought about something like that happening in the future.

When they finally arrived at the Dreadzone Station they returned to where Clank and Al were waiting for them, though both of them had smile on their faces the entire time. They were quite pleased that they were one step closer to reaching the end of their stay in Dreadzone, while at the same time they knew that Vox had to be fuming in anger. They all decided to start going over their plan when Sunset started her assault on the course that was waiting on Orxon, as everyone would be watching her and not paying too much attention to what was going on inside the station.

When the next morning came about Ratchet and Starlight teleported to where the contestants that had cleared the first tournament were allowed to gather, for about ten or fifteen minutes before they were told to return to their holding areas. There they found some rather interesting news; that all of the guards that rode the Dreadzone ship were refusing to ride with Sunset on the way to Orxon and that Vox had no choice but to ask Ace Hardlight to fill in for them. Not soon after their arrival in the common area everyone turned towards one of the buildings and watched as the Head Exterminator exited the building, before making his way over to where the ship was currently landing.

Ratchet knew that Ace would be heading to PX-17, the planet that Sunset was being held at the moment, and that their only hope at figuring out where that planet was located would be to sneak aboard one night and check the systems themselves. Hacking was out of the question, as both he and Starlight were sure that Vox had people looking for outside or inside hackers at any given moment and didn't want to expose what they were doing before they were ready. All they had to do was get a message to Sunset that their collars had been removed and they were both sure that Sunset would escape, but without the ability to give her that message they were forced to bide their time and wait for a better opportunity to present itself.

Ratchet let out a sigh as Ace teleported onto the ship and took off for Orxon, because he knew that Sunset would be able to take care of herself until she was able to escape from where she was being held.





Sunset sighed as she looked up at Ace Hardlight, the Head Exterminator that worked under Vox and exterminated whoever managed to reach where him in the final tournament. The man seemed to be staring at her the entire time with a look on his face that told her that he was undecided about her, almost as if he couldn't believe the amount of power that she commanded. It honestly didn't matter to her, not when all she had to do was overcome whatever was waiting for her at her destination, which was the planet Orxon. She didn't know what to make of the fact that she was returning to this one planet after her first adventure, whether she should be happy to be back or disappointed, but in the end she knew it didn't matter.

Eve, of course, was sitting on Sunset's left, keeping her eyes on Ace as well, as if she didn't trust the Exterminator to stay where he was during the entire flight.

"So... you are the Goddess of Destruction," Ace commented, taking in everything that was Sunset Shimmer, including the specially crafted armor that Eve had made for her, "I saw what you did on Kronos... and I must say that I am definitely impressed by your abilities. I would hate to face you in the arena."

"You wont have to." Sunset replied, turning her full attention to Ace, "Ratchet and Starlight will be the ones that you should worry about, as I am pretty sure that Vox wouldn't allow the two of us to fight each other."

"Agreed... and you would destroy me in a matter of seconds anyway," Ace said, a small smile appearing on his face for a second, "but I didn't come here to chat with you. I came here to warn you about the enemies that might be coming after you when you reach Orxon. I heard a rumor that two more of the residents of PX-17 are going to be appearing during your visit to Orxon, a pair of uniquely skillful twins that are called Sniper and Spy. Unfortunately I have never seen them fight before, so I cannot offer you any insight to their abilities."

"That may be true, but their names speak volumes," Sunset stated with a smile, "Now I am eager to see what they are capable of... and if they can stand against what is coming their way."

Ace seemed concerned about what Sunset had said, though he didn't say anything to her as he leaned back in the chair he had claimed and stared at her the entire time. He seemed curious about her powers, something that she couldn't fault him for, though at the same time he also respected that she could easily end his existence in a matter of seconds. He accepted the fact that she could beat him in seconds, something that other people chose to ignore all the time, which meant that she liked him more than the other villains she had come across. The strangest thing was that Ace wasn't presenting himself as the enemy, rather he was presenting himself as an unsuspected ally that might be able to help her in the future.

Sunset wondered what the look on Vox's face would be if she managed to recruit Ace to her side and destroy the prison that he trapped both herself and anyone else inside. She assumed that it would be a look of shock and horror, but she knew that Ace wouldn't suddenly change sides unless something drastic happened.

When the ship arrived at her destination Sunset pulled herself up and approached the teleport pad, to which she teleported down to the planet's surface and waited for Dallas to explain what she needed to do... before someone decided to derail her progress.

"We're here on the beautiful Blargian home world of Orxon," Dallas called out from his floating platform, "overlooking a massive raitanium mining facility. Each week challengers navigate their way through the facility with one goal in mind; destroy it! Dreadzone would like to... um... thank the people of Orxon for donating a new mining facility every week."

Sunset knew that the people of Orxon weren't donating the facility's to Dreadzone, as the only people that had called the planet home were the Blarg and, as memory served, they had settled on a new planet that was far away from this one. The facility immediately reminded her of Chairman Drek, which only made her want to wipe the mining facility off the face of Orxon and leave the memory where it belonged. Despite the fact that the air was still full of toxic chemicals, something that both she and Starlight had considered fixing before their adventure in the Bogon Galaxy, she could still breath just fine, which she guessed was due to either Searing or Hatred wanting to keep her alive... or maybe the both of them were working together.

She walked down the ramp that connected to the area she had teleported into, with her arms crossed behind her back once more, and frowned at the little robots that were charging at her, as they were easily to deal with. She didn't bother striking them down with her magic, as she merely crushed them with her hooves and kicked them into the walls around her, all while ignoring the enemies that spawned behind her. Once the smaller enemies were dealt with, and reduced to scrap metal, she turned back towards the gladiators that were behind her and flashed behind one of them, to which she crushed its helmet with a swift kick of her hooves. She then repeated the process with the others that came at her, making sure that they were all dealt with before she approached the two barriers that were in front of her.

She approached the one on her left and placed her hand on the barrier she had chosen, to which she worked her magic and tore the entire thing to pieces, allowing her to walk forward once more.

A pair of gladiators dropped down into the area in front of her, with the intent on stopping her where she was standing at the moment, while two more appeared on the edge of the platform above them. Sunset shook her head as she slammed the side of her leg into the two sniper like gladiators, cracking their suits in half, before she returned to the other two and broke them with a swift kick to their chests. With the enemies taken care of she tore the next barrier into pieces and moved forward to see what else was waiting for her, where she spotted a Landstalker that was guarded by two more gladiators. She let out a sigh as she flashed behind the top of the tank and tapped the barrier with her hand, shattering the shield that was keeping the vehicle safe, before causing the machine to explode as she applied her energy to it.

Once the turret was taken care of she cleaned the area of her enemies and moved through the next barrier, repeating the process multiple times before she reached the end of the path she had chosen. The moment she completed a full loop around the entire underground area, and returned to where she started, the drill started up and Dallas declared that her first challenge was complete. He then explained that she was supposed to head to the area above her, fight her way through the enemies that were waiting for her, and capture six nodes so she could move forward.

She leapt up to the area that she was supposed to be on and looked at all of the enemies that she was supposed to fight her way through, taking in how many gladiators she needed to deal with before she could move forward. As she looked at all of them she could tell that they were also looking at her, informing her that they knew of her history and abilities, leaving her with a small smile on her face as she gazed upon the fools that would soon lose their lives. Before she actually did anything, or even moved forward for that matter, something flew passed her head and collided with the gladiator that was standing the closest to where she was standing, slaying the person before they could defend themselves.

Sunset turned around and found a confusing sight as Ratchet, without his helmet on, landed beside her with a smile on his face as he leveled his weapon with another enemy and took them out.

"It looks like I arrived just in time," the Ratchet lookalike said, smirking at the fallen enemy that he had taken out, "So, shall we capture those nodes and blow this facility to pieces?"

Sunset stared at the lookalike for a few moments, wondering if her mind was actually playing tricks on her or if she was actually looking at her brother. She knew that Ratchet couldn't be here, not when Vox had declared that Ratchet and Starlight could let her take out a planet for them, but was willing to play along for the moment. Her thought that this wasn't the real Ratchet had some weight thrown on top of it when she noticed that the eyes of the Ratchet in front of her shifted from the green color they were into a light blue color.

"Sure." Sunset replied, turning her gaze towards one of the nodes for a moment as the lookalike started to move forward, "Say Ratchet, do you remember what we did for my thirteenth birthday?"

"Of course I do, we celebrated a job well done after taking Drek out," the lookalike said, surprise crossing his face for a moment, "Is it really important for us to be talking about this at the moment?"

"Yeah, you could say that," Sunset answered, energy wrapping around her left fist as she removed her hands from behind her back, while a small frown appeared on her face.

Before the lookalike had a chance to say anything Sunset appeared to the right of where he was standing and slammed her fist into the air, though before the magic could happen the lookalike jumped to the side. The ground cracked as her energy traveled into the area around them, causing the gladiators to run for their lives and not even bother to fight either of them. The lookalike seemed surprised that she attacked him, as she was sure that everyone else was likely surprised as well, but she already knew that he was a fake and didn't care what was running through his mind.

"What in the name of the Maker are you doing?" the lookalike demanded, keeping its weapon at the ready in case Sunset came at him again, though it was clear that he doubted that the weapon could protect him.

"Taking care of someone who isn't actually my brother," Sunset replied, magic swirling around her as she prepared her next attack, "A word of advice; if your going to impersonate someone, make sure you know everything about them before you interact with a family member. I am the eldest of the three of us, and when I turned thirteen Ratchet's present was a ship that took the three of us and Clank off of Veldin, which eventually lead us to beginning our first adventure."

"I'll have to take a note of that for my next target," the lookalike said, a light blue haze appearing around him, which remained there for a few seconds before vanishing, revealing a humanoid creature that was wearing a black suit, "I am Spy, one of the few master assassins in the universe, and I was supposed to assassinate you, but you managed to find me out with very little effort on your part."

"So, who hired you to assassinate the Goddess of Destruction?" Sunset asked, knowing that if she had an idea of who wanted her dead she could take them out in the future.

"Assassins never reveal their clients," Spy replied, bowing for a moment as he kept his eyes on Sunset, "and unfortunately telling you would be a wasted effort, as you would be dead before you left this planet."

"Oh? So where's your brother, the Sniper?" Sunset inquired, allowing a small smirk to appear on her face as a brief look of shock appeared on Spy's face, as if he was surprised that she had figured it out.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Spy answered, drawing a small dagger from its holder, as if he believed that it would be able to help him in this fight.

Sunset sighed as she dashed at Spy and swung her left leg at her enemy, who ducked under her leg and rolled to the side, though he made no effort to attack just yet. Sunset didn't mind the fact that Spy was taking his time, due to what she assumed was his arrogant nature, and she continued to advance on him while keeping an eye out for the other assassin. Judging by the name she had to assume that Sniper had to be hiding somewhere in the distance, keeping her in his sights at all times while Spy distracted her. The only place that looked like a good place for someone like him to hide was the top of the drilling facility, be it on the drill or the building itself, which she would get around to soon enough.

After a few seconds Spy slipped up and Sunset kicked him in his side, feeling the bone crack underneath his suit as the ground around them cracked just a bit. Before Spy regained himself, or even managed to get close to attacking her, Sunset spun around and planted her hoof in the middle of the man's chest, sending him backwards almost immediately. A few seconds later she flashed up to where Spy was standing and brought her leg down on him, though this time he moved to the side and allowed her attack to hit the ground. The area shook for a second or two, but when the area stabilized Sunset merely collected herself and turned her attention back to her opponent, all while she wondered why he wasn't trying anything.

"This is disappointing," Spy commented, letting out a chuckle as he straightened himself, "you fought Warhead and Shellshock with eighty-five percent of your power, yet I can tell that you've lowered your abilities since your last fight. Maybe I should tell Sniper to leave the planet and hunt down your siblings... maybe that would get you to open up and fight me for real..."

An aura that mimicked the appearance of black flames surrounded Sunset for a few seconds, though the air above them darkened at the same time. Spy looked around in concern, as nothing he had found in his research even suggested that Sunset could do this, yet she was affecting the weather with ease. Within a few seconds the aura around Sunset disappeared, though that was swiftly followed by Sunset completely disappearing from where she was standing. Before Spy could move he felt something slam into his side, to which he turned his gaze to the left and spotted Sunset standing there, with her fist connected to his side... with the same amount of energy wrapped around it.

The ground around them cracked and buckled around them, as sections of the earth rose up in jagged spires that were all different lengths, while the tunnels below them crumpled under the pressure. Fortunately Sunset had lined her target up with the front of the mining facility, as the power of her attack transferred into into the foundations of the building and caused the entire thing to crack. The earthquake that she had summoned into existence even caused the drill to crack under the pressure, while sections of the building broke apart and fell into the area around them. Sunset even went one step further as the top of the surrounding cliffs crumbled and caused the rocks to fall down towards the unfortunate gladiators that chose to stay and watch the fight.

It was a repeat of what she and Searing had done to Yeedil, though to complete the replication the ground and the building split in half, causing the two sections to separate from each other as she allowed Spy to fall to the ground.

"Behold, the cataclysm that nearly destroyed the planet Yeedil," Sunset commented, looking at the building that was falling apart in front of her, while she moved her arms behind her back once more, "This is why I lowered by power for you, so that you and your brother could actually try to fight me without being completely overpowered, but then you had to press the 'Kill my family' button."

She would have said more, but before she could continue something flew through the smoke and came at her, to which she pulled back just a bit and avoided the dagger that had been thrown at her. She turned in the direction of where the dagger came from and found another humanoid wearing a suit, though this one wasn't wearing a helmet like Spy was. This had to be Sniper, though the fact that he was standing here, before her, made her wonder what he was up to or if he was just throwing his life away. She was already growing tired of the two of them and just wanted to end the fight already, which was understandable considering that Orxon was falling apart around them.

"I... wont let you... kill my brother!" Sniper declared, leveling his rifle with Sunset's head for a moment, as if he was trying to intimidate her, though he would be disappointed.

"Fine then, you shall take his place." Sunset stated, causing a look of confusion to appear on Sniper's face for a moment, clearly telling her that he had no idea what she was saying.

Sunset flashed in front of Sniper and tapped her left pointer finger on his chest, right above him heart no less, and within seconds a hole was torn through his armor and his body, ending his life in an instant. She let out a sigh as she turned her attention back to Spy, who had picked up both his dagger and Sniper's dagger, all while getting into a defensive position. She approached the man and merely dodged all of the attacks that the man threw at her in an attempt to force her backwards, though it was clear that he was running out of area to run to as sections of the ground disappeared around him.

Eventually she backed him into a corner, which was when he stopped at a ledge that rested above a cluster of jagged spikes and forced him to turn back towards her. Spy said nothing as he threw both of his daggers at her, hoping that one of them might wound her, but Sunset merely dodged them and approached the man. The man said nothing as Sunset stepped in front of him, to which she repeated what she had done to Sniper and ended the man's life in an instant. Once the deed was done, and Spy was laying at her feet, she turned around and teleported back to the ship, knowing that she had finished off whatever she was supposed to do.

Now all she had to do was wait and see what happened when Ratchet and Starlight took on the next tournament, all while imagining the fear that had to be coursing through Vox's body at the moment. Soon she would finish off the man that held the lives of her siblings in his hands, she just had to be patient and wait for the moment to reveal itself.
> Deadlocked: Crusader Tournament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I can see that you are as deadly as the stories claim."

That was what Sunset heard the moment she teleported back onto the Dreadzone ship, causing her to turn in Ace's direction and stare at him for a few seconds. She still didn't know what game he was playing by stating that the stories about her powers were true, but she had the feeling that he had some sort of plan in the works. She had to wonder if he wanted Vox dead and had been waiting for someone to come his way, someone that could kill Vox and bring his entire shadow network to its knees. The thought of tracking Vox down and bringing an end to his life was something that she could entertain, but ultimately she needed to make sure her siblings were safe before even attempting something like that.

Until someone took care of the collars that were wrapped around their necks, and ensured that they wouldn't explode, Sunset couldn't make a move towards Vox... though if that situation changed she would be happy to go through with the thought.

"All of them are true, or at least hold some fragment of the truth," Sunset admitted, flexing her hands for a moment before she placed them behind her back again, "I've cracked moons, caused earthquakes that created planet wide destruction, and even ended the existence of one planet... not that I care for any of that."

"You hate being the Goddess of Destruction?" Ace asked, though the sound he made told her that he was surprised by her statement, which she knew that she would hear if she told the masses as well.

"Its just a title," Sunset replied, choosing to lean against a pillar and not sit in the seat she had been in, "I never wanted to be the 'Goddess of Destruction'. Captain Qwark, in his infinite stupidity, gave me that title because of the destructive nature of my innate magical abilities and, well, it just stuck to me like glue. Now everyone thinks of that title when they hear my name and they get this mental image that I'm some sort of immortal Goddess that can end planets with a wave of her hands..."

"Is that even possible?" Ace inquired, as none of the stories that he had researched made a mention of that type of power, though he had the feeling that it had to be true.

"It could be, but I have no way of knowing." Sunset answered, letting out a sigh as she called up the image of Beerus that Eve had showed her a few days ago, "This is the God of Destruction that my armor mimics, though he could end whole worlds with a wave of his hand or with a small amount of his power. Besides, I have only begun to tap into my full power... so I have no idea if I'll even be on his level once I master my abilities."

Ace was silent for a few minutes, allowing Sunset to wonder if he was trying to overthrow Vox or if he was trying to gather information so he could take her down in the future. There was no telling what was going through the man's mind at the moment, but she wouldn't hesitate to defend herself if he came at her with a weapon. Eve, who happened to be sitting between the two of them, was constantly looking from Sunset to Ace and back again, as if she was worried that a fight would break out. Eventually Ace let out a sigh and shook his had, as if he was clearing his mind of a stupid idea that he had before he even bothered to speak with Sunset.

"Vox will fall in less than a week," Ace commented, turning to the door behind him for a moment, clearly intending to leave once he said whatever was on his mind, "I just need you to hold out until then. I'm sure by then Ratchet, Starlight, and the others will have come up with a  way to get around the collars they are wearing, allowing you the opportunity to bring an end to Vox and his empire."

Sunset stared at Ace as he left her and Eve alone in the compartment, leaving her alone to her thoughts once more... and the feeling that he had been speaking the truth about the shadowy empire about to meet its end. She knew that she would have to fight in one, maybe two, more sessions once her siblings cleared the tournament they were in and the next one. She already knew that she could deal with whatever Vox could throw at her, as she assumed that he was behind the assassins, so she let out a sigh as she closed the picture she had shown Ace. She would play this game she was trapped in for the moment... and once Vox was vulnerable she would bring an end to him and this pathetic empire.





Ratchet and Starlight both let out a sigh as they finished their breakfast, while listening to the news about Sunset's fight on Orxon and the destruction she had caused to the planet. They were used to the damage their sister caused to the planets she fought on, such as Yeedil and Koros, so they weren't too surprised to find another cataclysm on Orxon. Clank was still concerned that their sister might be adapting to her new position as the Goddess of Destruction and was beginning to enjoy the feeling of obliterating anything that annoyed her. Al, for the most part, was silent the entire time, either in total awe of Sunset's powers or shocked by the fact that she had damaged another world with so little effort.

In the end they all agreed to disagree, as the main thing about Sunset finishing her test on Orxon was that they now had the necessary Medals to take on the Crusader Tournament. From what they could find out about the next tournament was that they would be fighting an Exterminator at the end of it, which was when they would either ascend to the next rank... or die.

Once they were done with their meal, and were sure that all of their weapons were fully stocked on ammunition, they bid their friends farewell and boarded the shuttle that was waiting for them. Neither of them were excited to be back in the Dreadzone Battledome, but they needed to go through with it if they wanted to blindside Vox when they finally beat Ace.

"All right Dreadzone fans," Dallas called out, though even as he spoke it was easy to hear the fear in his voice, no doubt caused from witnessing one of Sunset's cataclysms up close, "prepare for the ultimate showdown as Team Darkstar fights their way through the Crusader Tournament and the chance to take on all star Exterminator Reactor!"

When Ratchet and Starlight teleported into the arena they found themselves at the top of the Tower of Power, which told them that they might have to fight they way down to the bottom at some point. They took a quick look around where they were standing and found that they were supposed to take out a fair number of enemies that came in waves, which was added to when they spotted at least ten gladiators and twenty little robot minions coming their way. Ratchet had been planning on using the Leviathan Flail that he had picked up, during the time that Sunset was on Orxon, and use it on whatever was coming his way, but apparently one of the rules for this challenge was that he and Starlight had to use the Hunter Mine weapon they had picked up.

Even with the weapon restriction it was quite easy for them to eliminate the first wave of enemies, as the mines exploded upon impact and caused smaller mines to hurt their enemies, though when the second wave came at them a few barricades rose out of the floor as several dropships flew in with more gladiators for them to fight. With an unlimited amount of ammunition, which they both assumed was some sort of mistake on the part of whoever designed the challenge, they rained death on their enemies. The third wave was merely a collection of laser turrets and small robotic minions, which were easy to get rid of, while the fourth wave gave them a variety of gladiators, spike throwers, and robotic minions.

The final wave of enemies was what appeared to be a seemingly endless stream of gladiators that were fully prepared to kill the two of them, to which Ratchet and Starlight let loose their mines and held nothing back as their enemies came towards them. Eventually they had cleared everything that could be thrown at them at the moment, to which they were told that the first challenge was completed and that they were now allowed to move on to the second part. The next part happened to be some sort of crank challenge, as it appeared that they needed to secure the crank to unlock some sort of grind rail, and immediately opened fire on the enemies that were coming their way.

They cleared out the enemies that were all around them before they accessed the bolt crank, which extended the rail until it reached wherever it was supposed to take them to. Once they had acquired the rail they jumped onto it and rode through the path they had unlocked, as well as jumping over the explosive rings that had been put in their path. The rail eventually brought them to the middle of the Battledome, where they found another crank waiting for them, but before they could access the crank they spotted enemies approaching them from all four sides. They took a few seconds to remove the gladiators from their way, though when they took control of the crank they noticed that nothing had changed... and then noticed that another crank had appeared on their map.

They approached the second bolt crank, and wiped the floor with the gladiators that had spawned in the area around them, and took control of it, though once again they noticed that not much had changed. Ratchet and Starlight looked at each other for a moment, not really sure if they had missed something, before letting out a collective sigh and heading over the walkway that took them back in the direction of the Tower of Power. Oddly enough they found a large amount of explosives around the crank that was on the platform in front of them, which Starlight removed with one shot of her Vipers, before they opened fire on the gladiators that spawned when they stepped onto the platform.

When they finally took out all of their enemies, and took over the crank they had come for, Dallas declared that they had cleared the second challenge... and that they were going to fight Reactor next. The two of them were given a moment to restock their ammunition, which they needed after the waves of enemies they had fought through, before their opponent walked into the arena. Reactor was a large robot, around the same height as Shellshock they guessed, that basically looked like someone had taken a ship's reactor, enlarged it to a certain point, and then slapped weapons and limbs onto it.

Oddly enough Reactor said nothing to them as he prepared himself, almost as if he was disappointed about the choice of challengers that he had to fight, leaving Ratchet to wonder if the Exterminator wanted to fight Sunset instead. A first Reactor did nothing more than firing small energy blasts at them from his hands, making sure to separate the two of them from each other as soon as they started. Once he was sure that they were far enough from each other he targeted Ratchet and surged towards him, using some boosters that were on his back, but he frowned when he noticed that he had missed Ratchet altogether.

After receiving a certain amount of damage Reactor moved towards the edge of the platform they were on and started loosing larger energy bursts at them, adding to the amount of moves he threw at them. Despite the amount of damage that they dealt to Reactor's armor, and knocked some of it off in the process, the Exterminator continued to come at them with the intent to kill filling his eyes. Ratchet and Starlight loosed a swarm of Hunter Mines that tore into Reactor's chest and sides, all while loosing every bullet and shell that they had in their arsenal.

Eventually Reactor fell to the ground and his heart area died down, indicating that they had beaten him and cleared the second tournament... though neither Ratchet or Starlight were impressed by Reactor's performance. They both had to wonder if he had been intentionally holding back his most devastating abilities, because Al had found a video of one of Reactor's older matches and it showed that he had another move he hadn't shown. After a few seconds they decided not to bother thinking about it and listened to Dallas as he raised them to their next rank and told them about next planets they would have to deal with.

With their new armor in hand Ratchet and Starlight returned to their holding area, where they could continue to plan their rebellion against Vox and hope that no one discovered them before they were ready.





Ace, once again, had to resist the urge to smile when he was in Vox's presence, because he enjoyed watching the man squirm when he took in what Sunset was capable of destroying and what Ratchet and Starlight were able to do in the arena. He had already done his research on all three of them and he was always amazed by their capabilities, though it never ceased to amaze him that Vox was always so surprised. Ace had been somewhat surprised that Reactor didn't use his final move in the arena, to make the fight more convincing than it already was, but he was pleased none the less. Though, to be fair, Reactor's best move would have drained him of all his energy and would have likely destroyed the entire area without damaging either Ratchet or Starlight.

Vox still had no idea that he, Reactor, and the Evicerator were all allied against him, though Ace knew that several of the newly captured heroes would be itching to get out of here. Once Sunset was busy with whatever planet she was assigned to, and held everyone's attention, Ace would visit the designated location that Reactor wanted his body to be left in should he lose in a match. Then it would be a simple matter to reactivate him and hide him somewhere until he could move forward with his plan... and maybe blow PX-17 to pieces once Sunset was off the planet.

"I cannot believe that both Shellshock and Reactor have fallen," Vox commented, holding back his rage as best he could, "Those two were designed to end anything that got in their way... and now Team Darkstar has ended both of them. At least we can bury Reactor."

"Yes... its a shame that they took out Reactor as well," Ace said, switching to his uncaring nature, the one that Vox was used to dealing with everyday, "Maybe the Evicerator can take them out... if they manage to make it that far."

"I'm going to have to make another call to PX-17 and release another one of the inmates," Vox said to himself, as if he expected Ace to walk out in a few minutes, "maybe the Demoman, the guy who loved to tinker with explosives and watch things blow up. He might have the capability to take out Sunset... before she really becomes a problem."

Ace knew that Vox was thinking, because the man had Vox was suggesting had made a demand for the next time he was released; unlimited access to each and every explosive that Vox had access to. Demolition Man, or Demoman for short, had the basic idea that blowing everything up was the best way to do things and he was considered to be one of the most insane people that Vox had captured, which was why he was imprisoned in PX-17's prison... where he would stay until Vox thought otherwise. Releasing him was a last resort option for Vox, which meant that he had to truly be desperate to get rid of Sunset if he was considering letting him out. Ace hadn't even considered that Vox would dare release Demoman from his cell, which would affect his plans just a bit once the man was out in the universe once more.

Ace excused himself and left Vox to make his call, as there was some work he needed to do before Sunset left PX-17 and traveled to whatever planet her siblings sent her to.
> Deadlocked: Valix Belt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet awoke to the sound of something arriving at the holding area that he and Starlight slept in between planets and tournaments, though he knew that it couldn't be the shuttle arriving for them already. They were supposed to wake up, go over which planet they wanted to send Sunset to in the third tournament, and then prepare themselves for the one that they were going to take on while they ate their morning meal. Clank and Al would go over what they needed to know about the planets they had to choose from, allowing them to make an easier decision in regards to where they sent their sister, before they determined what they needed to spend their bolts on so they could survive in the arena. Then it was only a matter of time until they were called into the shuttle to do battle with Vox's gladiators or watch Sunset tear through her enemies and damage the world she was on.

However this wasn't like the previous days, as he and Starlight hadn't even taken care of the morning meal yet, but he groaned as he picked himself up and left the area that served as their bedroom... to which he found a shuttle waiting where the Dreadzone one was supposed to be.

"Is something going on that I'm not aware of?" Ratchet asked the moment he approached Starlight, who had been staring at the shuttle with Clank and Al for the last few minutes.

"I'm not sure." Starlight replied, pointing at the teleport pad for a moment, to which Ratchet noticed that the device was currently active, "Though it seems that whoever is in control of the ship is waiting for us to board it."

"Then we had better see what Vox wants," Ratchet said, letting out a sigh as he walked towards the pad, "I bet he's pissed that we took out another Exterminator and advanced to the third tournament."

"Hopefully he's seen the error of his ways and is coming to tell us that we are free to go," Starlight commented, before letting out a sigh of her own as she fell in beside her brother, "but the chances of that happening are slim to none. Let's get this over with."

When they reached the teleport pad, and teleported aboard the ship, they found that the inside was nothing like the inside of the actual Dreadzone shuttle, which was pretty bare. They found themselves in a small hallway that had at least five doors on either side of them, while at the end of the hallway was another door that appeared to lead to some sort of eating area. It was somewhat unnerving when they noticed that there weren't any guards to watch them, as they were quite used to it at this point, but they kept their weapons at the ready as they walked down to the end of the hall. As they walked they noticed that each of the doors had a label that indicated what was inside the room, such as a bedroom, a small library of sorts, and even a room dedicated to weapons.

As they walked Ratchet came to the conclusion that this ship was almost a small warship, except he figured that there weren't any guns that could be fired from the control room. When they entered the room that was on the opposite end of the teleport pad they found a table set for three waiting for them, though sitting in one of the chairs was Ace Hardlight.

"Good morning," Ace simply said, as if he was being friendly and didn't care about the arena, "Please take a seat and have whatever you want... I made sure to have my personal chefs prepare something for the both of you."

Ratchet noticed that there were a bunch of common dishes that had been assembled, like bacon and eggs, pancakes, several bowls of fruit, some meat dishes that he didn't recognize, and some pasta dishes that he assumed was for Starlight. It was clear that Ace had been expecting them for some time, as all of the dishes seemed fresh enough, so it made him wonder what the head Exterminator wanted from them. There was no telling if the food was poisoned or not, which was why he was giving them a careful look at while he and Starlight carefully collected something to eat.

"None of this is poisoned," Ace commented, looking at the two of them as they sat down around the table, all while grabbing something for himself, "I'll cut to the chase... none of the guards that were on the other shuttle want to be anywhere near the two of you. They're not scared of you or anything like that, but rather they are scared of something happening to you on their watch and gaining the wrath of your sister. They have seen how much destruction she can cause when she's mad and they have heard what your old enemies did to piss her off, so the guards decided they didn't want to guard you anymore. As a consequence Vox had to enlist my aid in making sure you reach the planets you need to go to... and thus ensuring that we can plan his downfall without him even knowing."

"Wait, I thought that you liked Dreadzone," Ratchet said, not understanding why the Head Exterminator would want to bring the entire thing down, "Why go against Vox?"

"Because I have been his slave ever since this place opened up," Ace replied, tapping his neck for a moment, revealing that he was wearing one of the collars as well, "I'm only acting like I enjoy fighting and killing other heroes, but in reality I find it sickening. I have been planning Vox's end ever since he captured me, carefully making myself into the Head Exterminator that he wanted while making sure that he never discovered the truth. I've never lashed out against him because of this blasted collar, so maybe when you remove it we can get started on figuring out how to bring an end to PX-17... and then destroy Dreadzone."

"You know where PX-17 is located?" Starlight asked, dropping her fork as she stared at the man across from her, while ignoring the fact about the collar.

"Indeed I do," Ace answered, a smile appearing on his face for a moment, "Once we send Sunset to whatever planet you've chosen for her, and remove this blasted collar at long last, we can begin preparing for an assault on PX-17... though I'll wait until you've run a course before receiving whatever answer you'd like to give me."

Ratchet looked over at Starlight and caught the look in her eye; she didn't completely trust Ace at the moment and was thinking of going along with him for now, so they could rescue Sunset. He nodded and resumed eating the food he had collected, wondering what they would find at the Valix Belt, where they would be heading to and dealing with whatever Vox threw at them.





The Valix Belt appeared to be a station that was floating among a large number of asteroids, which happened to be tied together thanks to the various tethers that were scattered everywhere. From what Ratchet and Starlight could see from the shuttle there was also a few towers that gave light to the entire area, which meant that they might have to do something with them. Ace didn't have a map of this place, as it was apparently a new addition that he wasn't aware of, but that really didn't matter to either of them at the moment. They restocked their ammunition as they approached the pad that would take them down to the start of the course, where they made sure that they had any of the latest weapons before they did anything else.

Once the two of them were ready, and Ace bid them farewell, they activated the teleport pad and teleported down to the start of the course, where they would learn what they needed to do in order to complete the entire course and earn the medal they needed.

"We're here live from the Valix Asteroid Belt," Dallas shouted, despite the fact that Ratchet and Starlight could hear him just fine if he spoke normally, "home of the legendary Gamma Energy Beam. This famous space beacon was purchased several years ago by Gleemon Vox. Now, instead of guiding ships through deadly asteroids, it is the centerpiece of Dreadzone's hottest new Battle Course... and just for fun we turned the beacon off. Can Team Darkstar turn the beacon back on, or will hundreds of ships crash into the asteroids?"

"This just confirms the fact that Vox is a terrible person," Ratchet commented as he pulled his weapons out, noticing Starlight nod for a moment, "Come on, let's go and turn that beacon back on."

They walked down the walkway that was next to the ammunition vendor and were immediately assaulted by their enemies, though at first it was merely the little robotic minions that attacked them. Once those enemies were taken care of they had to deal with gladiators that were using jetpacks, though they came in two waves that consisted of three enemies, making them much easier to deal with. They approached the tether station and found a dropship blocking their path, but Starlight tore it out of the sky and opened the way for them to move forward. They were then presented with a challenge that they weren't expecting, as if one of them activated the cable then one of them would get left behind, but after a few seconds Starlight solved it.

All she did was activate the cable for Ratchet to use, though when he was on the other platform she deactivated it and levitated herself over to her brother with ease, allowing them to move forward without leaving someone behind.

On the next platform they found the same enemies they had found on the previous one, though once all of them had been removed they found a larger gladiator had dropped in behind them. It was a simple matter to remove the larger robot from the field, as Starlight merely froze him and Ratchet shattered him with his flail, before they were able to move forward once more. They arrived on the third platform and found a larger group of enemies waiting for them, mainly four of the ordinary gladiators, one of the dropships, and one of the robotic gladiators. It was somewhat easy to remove them all, as Starlight shielded them as they returned fire on their enemies, and when the coast was clear they started jumping over the smaller platforms in front of them.

They stopped at the halfway point to wipe out the smaller robots that were coming at them, as well as the flying robots that were trying to block their path, but eventually the way forward was open and they continued their advance. The snipers that had been waiting for them were easy to deal with, again thanks to Starlight's shield, and the enemies that jumped into the area they were on quickly fell to the combined might of their weapons. They used the cable to reach the next platform and found three of the robotic gladiators waiting for them, along with a dropship and what appeared to be a decently sized amount of the smaller robots. Their first order of business was to tear the ship out of the sky, thanks to Starlight's magic, but instead of destroying it immediately she slammed it into the ground in front of them and crushed two of the three robots with it.

Once that was done it was a simple matter to wipe out the other robot gladiator and the enemies that were around it, so that they could advance towards the building in front of them. Three more dropships entered the area and prepared to deploy more enemies to fight them, but Starlight would have none of that as she grabbed the one closest to where they were standing and made it collide with the other two, effectively destroying all three of them in an instant. The door opened and a host of enemies rushed out to meet them, to which Ratchet and Starlight opened fire with their weapons until they were both sure that the way was clear. The moment all the enemies were taken care of the two of them walked into the building and claimed the crank that had been placed inside it, allowing them to claim the airship that was waiting there.

As they climbed into the ship they heard Dallas briefly mention something about clearing the place of a certain type of enemy, which meant that they were definitely supposed to use the ship for some time.

"They're all over the place," Ratchet commented, looking at the areas that the enemies were located in, who were actually scattered throughout the entire station, "Starlight, take over the cannons and take out anything that might be trouble for us... I have the feeling that this won't be easy on either of us."

"I wish we could take this home with us... I can already see ten upgrades that should be made to it," Starlight replied, before letting out a sigh as she primed the cannons, "Ready whenever you are."

Ratchet maneuvered the ship out of the hanger and took off immediately, zeroing in on the closest indicator on his map as Starlight loosed a stream of energy blasts from the cannons and tore the enemies around them to pieces. Whenever something appeared on the map Ratchet immediately told Starlight, who zeroed in on them and blew them to piece before they could fire on their ship. As they flew over the station she also fired on the enemies that were standing on the ground, making sure to get rid of them before they could deal any damage to them. Once the enemies in their immediate area were taken care of Ratchet moved them to the next part of the station, a smile appearing on his face as Starlight tore apart everything that came at them.

There were also some type of swarm enemies flying around the station, one that formed some sort of shape every time it tried to attack them, but Starlight removed them before they could touch them, though once everything was dead they flew to their next destination and prepared themselves for their next task.

They approached the entrance to the part of the station that they were supposed to go through first and tore through the two gladiators that happened to be standing there, but before they went into the building they waited for a second and three more enemies came into the area. Ratchet wondered where the enemies had come from, but then decided that they had to have come from inside the buildings around them as the three gladiators fell to the ground. The door in front of them opened and they spotted one of the larger robots coming towards them, though Starlight decided to grab it with her magic and threw it into the space around them. There were two more gladiators waiting for them near the orbs that they were supposed to hack into, though they were easily removed like everything else that they had fought so far.

Once the immediate enemies were taken care of, and the map remained clear for a few seconds, Ratchet started hacking into the orbs while Starlight looked out for enemies... all while something came to mind while she watched for enemies.

"Really? They aren't throwing anything at us while we hack into these orbs?" Starlight commented, sounding a little disappointed that nothing was coming at them, "Its almost like Vox doesn't care."

"They might be scared of you," Ratchet replied, moving to the second orb and starting the hacking device, "I mean, you have been snatching dropships out of the air and either slamming them into other dropships or just crushing them and whoever happens to be standing beneath them."

"I guess so," Starlight said, letting out a sigh as Ratchet moved through the remaining orbs and, when the fourth one was claimed, opened the backdoor to the building they were in.

With the way open they walked forward and opened fire on the gladiators that were coming out to fight them, though once again Starlight grabbed the dropships and threw them at each other to prevent an increase in enemies. It didn't take them long to reach the second building, where they removed a few more gladiators so they could hack into the two orbs that were waiting for them. Since there were only two orbs in the building it was much easier for them to get through the building and fight the enemies that were waiting on the other side of the door. Once the door was open they let loose with their weapons, tearing into the gladiators and the larger robots as they sought out what they needed to do next, though the moment all of their enemies were dead Dallas declared that they were finished with their current challenge and were to move onto the next one.

While they listened to Dallas telling them that they needed to turn the main crank, which was located in a building on the other side of the station, both Ratchet and Starlight noticed that the Gamma Energy Beam had been turned on again... and that the connection between the three reflectors was incomplete.

Several enemies came at them once the challenge started, a few gladiators and a dropship, but Ratchet and Starlight easily dealt with them before they accessed the swingshots that were ahead of them. As Starlight landed on the platform she spotted a dropship coming towards them, to which she smiled as she grabbed it with her magic and slammed it into the large robot that was waiting for them. As Ratchet joined her two more dropships came at them and again Starlight smashed them together with her magic, effectively allowing them to move forward once more. Starlight allowed Ratchet to ride the rail down to the building in the middle of the entire station, before following him with her levitation magic and hitting the enemies as she landed beside him.

They fought their way through the small group of enemies that happened to be there, accessed the elevator that happened to be in the middle of the tower, and rose to the top of it. They looked around for a moment, gathering all of the ammunition crates that rested around the top of the tower, before using the swingshots to move onward to the next platform. They found a few enemies waiting for them, a pack of six little robots and a larger robot, and removed them with some ease before they used the next cable line to reach the asteroid that the last reflector was on.

That was where they found the rest of the gladiators that were supposed to be opposing them, as the moment they landed they were assaulted by every sort of enemy that they had fought before. The gladiators moved out and fired at them as the larger robots came at them, while several dropships flew into the area and began to drop additional enemies for them to fight. Ratchet and Starlight opened fire on their enemies, jumping behind Starlight's shields every now and then, giving them a chance to slow down while Starlight latched her magic onto a dropship and smashed it into some of the other ships. Starlight even resorted to blowing some of their enemies up with her spells, not on the level that Sunset used of course, but she was able to remove some of their enemies without harming herself.

They walked around the building and entered it through the back, where they fought some of the flying robot enemies, before laying claim to the crank that they had come for. That was rapidly followed by Dallas announcing that they had reactivated the entire network and that they had completed all of the challenges that had been thrown at them. Ratchet smiled at Starlight as they made their way back to the teleport pad, because now they were determined to tell Ace what they thought about his plan.

They were going to enjoy bringing an end to Vox and his shadowy empire... once they rescued Sunset from PX-17 and disabled the rest of the Dreadzone collars.
> Deadlocked: Torval
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset let out a sigh as she looked at the table that she and Eve were currently sitting at, one that had quite the variety of dishes scattered all over its surface. It was the day following her sibling's venture to the Valix Belt, where they had restored an important space station to its full capability and dispatched with all of the gladiators that had been thrown at them. She was impressed with Ratchet and Starlight's ability to get though so many enemies without her being there, which meant that she could likely retire once this entire episode was over. As much as she liked to travel the universe, and deal with whatever villains they came across, she was growing tired of being called the Goddess of Destruction and being constantly annoyed by her enemies. At the moment she only desired to end this ordeal and go somewhere safe so she could tame her powers... and maybe find a way to bind her power once more.

She knew that the act would annoy both Searing and Hatred, but she honestly didn't care as she looked from the dishes and focused on the man that was sitting at the table with them... Ace Hardlight.

"Is none of the food to your liking?" Ace asked, clearly attempting to have some conversation with Sunset as the ship they were in headed to the planet Torval, the place that Ratchet and Starlight had chosen to send her in the third tournament.

"No, of course not," Sunset replied, levitating one of the pancakes off of the plate it was on and dropped it onto her own plate, which had been empty while she had been alone in her own thoughts, "I've been wondering what type of opponent Vox is going to throw at me once we reach Torval... and what that enemy is going to do while we fight."

"Well, I can enlighten you just a bit," Ace commented, tapping some buttons near his chair and caused a screen to appear in the middle of the table, one that held the image of a one eyed man that was surrounded by explosions, "His name is Demolition Man, or Demoman for short, and he is quite fond of building explosives and creating destruction wherever he goes... and he is definitely insane. From what I was able to gleam from the wardens of PX-17's prison, those that will talk to me without ratting me out to Vox anyway, the Demoman is one of the most insane inmates that they have ever seen. He was placed in solitary confinement because he kept attacking his fellow inmates... and from what I heard he's done some nasty things to them before he was thrown into his cell.

The wardens gave him paper and pencils to pass the time, as it was determined that he wasn't a danger to himself, and he spent his time writing notes on various explosives and other devices. Apparently he's been devising a new collar, one that can't be broken unless someone has a deep understanding of how it works, but no one has been able to follow his rambling. In his cell he believes that he is either some sort of Head Scientist, or a mentally unstable warmonger that might create a weapon that can upset the balance of the universe. Then there's the third persona he has, where the demolition expert in him comes to the surface for some unknown amount of time... so I have no idea which of them you'll be facing today."

"Great, so he's worse than Spy and Sniper," Sunset said, shaking her head as she ate something from her plate, all while wondering how bad the man's insanity must be for him to be locked up on PX-17, "Well, I guess that when he shows himself I had better deal with him quickly... because there is no telling how many explosives Vox has given him access to after being denied for so many years."

"I completely agree with your plan of action," Ace said, letting out a sigh of his own, "the Demoman, from what I overheard when Vox was talking to someone on PX-17, is being allowed access to anything and everything he might need to bring you down. Not only that, but it seems like Vox is also throwing in a 'Get out of jail free' card if the Demoman can take you out, which would be bad for the universe if he was set free."

"I'm going to enjoy killing Vox when the time comes," Sunset replied, letting out another sigh as she contained her anger, "and blowing Dreadzone to pieces along with him."

Sunset was annoyed that Vox was even offering the madman the opportunity to be set free from the prison he had been thrown into, allowing him to continue whatever he had been doing before his capture. The Demoman sounded like a walking time bomb, waiting to go off when he finally snapped, and she wished that Vox had forgotten that the man had existed in the first place. She already knew that her fight with her next opponent would cause some amount of destruction, but she guessed that this time it would be in a good cause, seeing how she would be ridding the universe of another villain or a potential villain. She already knew that both Searing and Hatred were eager to fight the Demoman, but she paid them no mind as she silently waited for their arrival on Torval.

She had the feeling that what was to come was going to test her abilities, in some manner anyway, and that she was going to have to run with it if she wanted to bring an end to Vox and Dreadzone.





When Ace's ship arrived at their destination on Planet Torval, and came to a stop within range of the teleport pad, Sunset let out a sigh as she bid both Eve and Ace goodbye for the moment before she teleported down to the surface. The area of the planet that they had flown to happened to be some sort of factory, though when she looked around her immediate area she found that there was a statue of Ace nearby. She barely listened to the announcers this time, as she knew that whatever they were talking about would be thrown out the window the moment her enemy showed his face, but she did catch the part where she'd need to blow up Ace's statue to complete the challenge and access whatever was underneath it.

Several enemies fired at her as she walked to the right of where she teleported to, which resulted in her merely dodging their attacks without using any of her magic, but then she noticed a turret powering up. The moment she spotted the turret she flashed through the air and slammed her fist into the shield that was protecting it, shattering the device that was powering the shield and exposing the turret. She pressed her hand against the metal for a moment, as she intended to leave a parting gift in the form of a magical rune, before she moved out of the way and flashed back to where she had previously been standing. Not a few seconds later the turret exploded, though the pieces that remained intact punctured the enemies that were standing near the turret, effectively rendering them all useless at the moment.

As she spotted two orbs she needed to hack into, which had been placed at the base of the turret's stand and would have only been revealed once she destroyed the device, she also noticed a blue metallic sphere float over to the orbs and hack into them, only to disappear once it was finished. She had no idea if that was supposed to be a friendly device, one that was supposed to do things for her while she was wrecking her enemies, or if it was an enemy aiding her so they could get to the fight quicker. Considering that there was another assassin lurking somewhere on this planet, one that was definitely more armed than the ones she had dealt with on Orxon, she decided to keep an eye on the device for now... or whenever it decided to show itself again.

She walked over to the other side of the area that Ace's statue had been placed in and found another turret that was warming up, though this one was guarded by what appeared to be robotic zombies. She didn't give them a moment to move towards her, as she flashed onto the shield of the turret, disabled it like she did with the last one, placed another rune on the metal, and teleported away as an explosion took all of the enemies out with a single blast. Sunset didn't move on immediately, as she stayed where she was standing for a moment and watched as the sphere moved into the area, hacked into the orbs, and disappeared once the job was done. With all four orbs hacked into a new path opened up for her to take, one that she only knew about thanks to the enemy gladiators walking out of the building ahead of her.

She crushed the robotic zombies that were in her way, smashed the other gladiators into the nearby walls, caused the next turret to explode like the rest, and even tore an enemy out of the sky, before waiting for the sphere to return and hack the nearby orbs so she could move forward. Once the door in front of her was down she overheard the announcer saying something about her having to hunt down and destroy twelve drones with the hoverbike that was sitting in front of her, but she decided no to bother with the vehicle. She levitated herself into the air and waited for a few seconds, because the moment she spotted the drones coming her way she surged towards them, causing them to turn around and head in the opposite direction.

As she chased down the twelve drones she summoned small spheres of magical energy, in the exact same amount, which she used to destroy each and every drone until only one of them remained. She eventually caught up with the final drone, but before she could destroy it herself a missile came out of nowhere and tore the drone to pieces, causing her to stop in her tracks as she looked for the person that was interfering with her run through Torval. As she landed on the ground she could have sworn that she heard either clapping or laughter to he right, so she faced the building it was coming from and spotted someone with a missile launcher in his hands... and an eye patch over one of his eyes.

"You must be the great Sunset Shimmer," the man said, lowering his weapon for a moment as he bowed to her, "I have heard many stories about you from the wardens of PX-17, when I'm not busy with my own devices, and I have heard them call you by three different titles; the Demon of Desolation, the Angel of Salvation, and the one that everyone knows, the Goddess of Destruction."

"I'm not sure about the Demon or the Angel titles, but the Goddess of Destruction is the one title I've been hearing for the longest time," Sunset commented, letting out a sigh as she stared at her opponent, because she knew that this had to be the person that Ace had warned her about before they arrived on the planet, "So, who are you exactly?"

"I am the Demoman," the man replied, spreading his arms wide for a moment, almost as if he had something planned before he had revealed himself, "and I make things explode with a satisfying KABOOM!"

Sunset watched as the building the man had emerged from was engulfed in an explosion, informing her that he had planned on destroying it regardless of when he showed himself to her. She didn't care about the building, considering that there was likely no one inside it thanks to the Battle Course running through the area, but she did cross her arms behind her back once more.

"I hear that you are also insane," Sunset said, frowning at the grin that the Demoman was wearing, "I'm curious, why did you even agree to come after me... especially when you must have heard that everyone else that's tried has ended up either dead or completely destroyed."

"Spy and Sniper only fought you because of the money they were offered," the Demoman answered, though while he spoke he fiddled with the weapon that he was holding, as if he was making changes to it in the middle of a battle, "and Warhead only got in on the action because he wanted to prove that he was capable of carrying on his father's legacy once Shellshock finally bit the dust. I am the last resort option, because when I fight an enemy the term 'collateral damage' is something that happens all the time and I have been known to bring ruin upon wherever I am fighting.

Vox has given me some special ability boosters that should allow me to keep up with you, though I upgraded them on the way here so I could do what everyone else could not..."

The Demoman didn't get very far as Sunset poured some of her magic into the sphere that was floating near her before she tossed it at one of the buildings behind her, completely engulfing the building in an explosion that matched the one that the Demoman had prepared ahead of time. When Sunset turned back to her opponent she found that he wasn't phased by the nearly instant destruction she had caused, which she guessed made some sense considering that he was supposed to be insane, but she had been hoping to chase him away with that stunt. She let out a sigh as she prepared herself, because now she knew that the man before her was basically going to be throwing his life away in an effort to best her.

"...I was going to say something about a competition between the two of us," the Demoman said, a smile appearing on his face, one that Sunset didn't like the look of, "but it seems like I'll need to show you exactly why I was released from my cell. I was given full access to the entirety of Vox's weapons, from the explosives to the lasers, and I have created a zone that will be the death of the 'Goddess of Destruction'. Then I can head back out into the universe and resume destroying whatever my various employers desire from me."

Even as he spoke Sunset could hear the sounds of missiles being loosed from where they were stationed, to which she turned her head around a few times and spotted several of them coming right for her. She let out a sigh as she levitated into the air and moved away from the Demoman, though as the missiles changed their course and followed her she let her magic gather around her. As she flew through the air she turned around every now and then and blew several of them to pieces, before continuing throughout the area and repeating the process until they were all gone. The moment she destroyed the last missile she heard the sound of something else powering up and, in a moment of decision, she snapped up a shield and prevented a red beam of energy from hitting her.

The Demoman hadn't been lying when he said that he had access to the laser cannons that she had seen in Dreadzone's Battledome, as several of them continued to fire at her until she shattered them with her magic. Once she was sure that all of the cannons had been taken care of, and made sure that there weren't anymore of them, she circled back to where she had left the Demoman and found him standing in the same place she had left him.

"I should have known that you would have survived that test of mine," the Demoman said, crossing his arms as he looked up at Sunset, "now then, I do believe that it is your turn in this contest of ours."

"Explain what you mean." Sunset replied, though she had the feeling that she knew what the man wanted from her, because if it was destruction then she would be able to give it to him.

"I just attacked you in an attempt to destroy you, and you defended yourself against my assault," the Demoman answered, a grin appearing on his face, as if he enjoyed explaining things to her, "now it is your turn to do the same thing. Choose a spell to attack me with, anything that happens to be in your arsenal of spells, and I will endeavor to dodge it to the best of my ability. We'll keep doing this until one of us is dead, so I'll say it again... its your move, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset couldn't believe that he was actually allowing her to use whatever spell she wanted against him, because she could easily end this fight in on move if she wanted to. She wasn't doing this for the sake of Dreadzone, like many of the other gladiators she had seen, and she could easily bring an end to this particular episode the moment she destroyed the man before her. Still, she had to wonder if there was a way for her to get around the whole turn based attack system that the man was telling her about, when she realized that she might actually have something to use against him. She looked into the sky for a moment, to give herself the appearance of being in thought, but in reality she was looking for something that she could use... which resulted in energy gathering around her right hand for a moment.

Before the Demoman could realize what she was doing, and retreat before he was hit, Sunset teleported down to where he was standing and threw her fist at him, cracking both the air and his ribs the moment she came into contact with him. Instead of allowing the quake to happen Sunset followed though with more punches, each of them laced with her destructive power, and with each blow connecting to her target she could feel his bones crack under the pressure. The last hit she delivered to the Demoman's body was a swift kick to his chest as she crushed his ribs, knocking him backwards as the earthquakes shook the ground around them and shattered some of the buildings that were nearby.

Sunset expected the man to fall to the ground and admit defeat, which would have pleased her to no end, but the man simply stood back up and faced her, allowing her to watch as his ribs and bones mended themselves until he wasn't wounded anymore.

"I'm from a race that can rapidly heal any wounds that you can deliver to my body, though most of my kind was destroyed years ago," the Demoman said, though as he spoke he reached down to where his boot were and twisted something on them, telling Sunset that he was preparing for his next attack, "not that it really matters at the moment."

Sunset noticed that some of the Dreadzone dropships flew into the immediate area around them, though they did nothing more than open their doors and waited for something to happen. The Demoman burst into the air, no doubt because his boots had been modified to increase his speed by whatever he desired, and flew into one of the ships before coming back out. When the man was outside the ships again he opened fire with the weapons that had been brought to him by Vox, loosing a swarm of missiles at Sunset as he dipped into the other two ships and repeated the process. He continued to repeat this process until he was out of ammunition from all three of the ships, allowing them to leave the area as he landed outside the smoke that had appeared when thee missiles hit Sunset... or the area where she had been standing.

"You cannot beat me, Sunset Shimmer, because I was hand picked to destroy you!" the Demoman shouted, with a wide grin on his face while he said the words, "My speed, my stamina, and my destructive power will rival, nah, DWARF yours... in comparison to you I am the true God of Destruction! And if that's not enough to entice you to fight seriously then I guess I can kill your family next, along with everyone that personally knows you."

"Really?" Sunset said from within the smoke, annoyance flickering in her voice, "Really?"

"REALLY!!" the Demoman loudly declared, as if he was actually enjoying himself and didn't care what happened next, despite the fact that he was likely annoying Sunset to no end.

When the smoke cleared the Demoman's eyes widened when he realized that Sunset wasn't standing there anymore, though before he could move something collided with his chest and knocked him back just a bit, leaving a small hole behind. He looked around as he tried to recover from the attack, his eyes looking for Sunset, before he noticed a mass of shadowy energy swirling around something nearby. That was seconds before a small burst of energy shot out of the swirling mass and struck him in the chest, passing through one of his lungs and knocking him onto his backside as it left a hole in him. He was beginning to think that this had been a terrible idea, that agreeing to Vox's proposal had been the dumbest idea he had made in his entire life.

He looked back at the swirling mass and felt fear creep into his body as Sunset walked out into his view, though she was surrounded by the shadowy energy he had seen.

"What's wrong 'God of Destruction'?" Sunset asked, a smile creeping onto her face as she looked down at where the man was laying, "You were talking about ruining my family and friends a second ago... and then I blew two holes in your chest! Come on, God of Destruction, heal your body and fight me. Fight ME... or give me a hug!"

"R... really?" the Demoman asked, fear creeping into his voice as he realized the error of what he had been doing, all while knowing that it was too late to save himself.

"No." Sunset said, to which she extended a hand towards the ground and summoned a sphere of destruction that was three times the size of her body, one that she sent down to where the Demoman was laying.

Her opponent couldn't run from the blast, as the moment it collided with where he had been laying it exploded with enough energy to create a two mile wide crater. She waited for a few seconds, to be sure that her opponent had been taken care of, but when he didn't show himself again she knew that she was victorious. She looked around the ruined Battle Course, taking in all the destruction that had been caused by both her and the Demoman, before she let out a sigh and teleported back to Ace's ship. With Vox's last possible trump card removed from the field, and quiet a number of his weapons, it was only a matter of time until the man wised up to the fact that he should let her and her family go... though she knew that he would still keep them chained until he was done with them.

She just had to be patient, because it was only a matter of time until she and her allies brought about the end of Dreadzone... and she would be laughing the entire time.
> Deadlocked: Vindicator Tournament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet was still staring at the screen that had showed Sunset taking care of the course that had been placed on Torval, still trying to wrap his head around what he and the others had seen. He had seen his sister when she was angry, and the destruction that she could cause, but what he had seen on Torval was different than what came before their stay in Dreadzone. To him it looked like Sunset was beginning to enjoy her new powers and the exercise that Vox was giving her, despite the constant frown she wore all the time, and had grown angry when someone came to claim what was clearly hers. Sunset was adapting to the power that was coursing through her body, though Ratchet knew that it would be some time until she was fully in control of her abilities.

He let out a sigh as he leaned back a bit; he never would have thought that one of his sisters would literally become a walking goddess, one that could destroy anything that annoyed her.

"I see that you are still hung up on the fact that one of your sisters is close to accepting who she truly is." a voice behind him said, to which he turned around and found Ace standing nearby.

"Its kind of hard to ignore it at this point." Ratchet replied, shaking his head as he turned to face the Head Exterminator, "Thanks to all of the headlines and news pieces that Vox is doing about Sunset, about her battles anyway, its impossible to ignore the fact that Sunset's become something greater than Starlight and I expected."

"And what it is that you were expecting?" Ace asked, clearly curious as to what Ratchet had been thinking about before he and his family had been captured by Vox.

"Honestly, anything would have been better than the reality we face," Ratchet said, letting out a sigh, "I just wish that Qwark hadn't broken the bracelet that Sunset had been wearing for almost her entire life, because I'm willing to bet that she would have been something else and not the 'Goddess of Destruction'."

"Well, we can't change the past." Starlight commented, stretching her legs as she walked out of the room she had been sleeping in, "Now I'm grateful that the guards that had been transporting us a few days ago decided to stop doing their job, because its easy to forget what having a good night's sleep feels like on the beds that Vox gives his prisoners. That also makes me wonder if Sunset was given a bed to sleep in at all, or does she have to sleep in the cell that he's trying to keep her in whenever she's not being thrown into the arena."

"Either way it hardly matters," Ace said, drawing their attention back to him, "We should be arriving at Dreadzone in about an hour, so that will give us plenty of time to go over our plan of attack before you have to go through the Vindicator Tournament and face the Eviscerator. Let me be clear on something, the Eviscerator is on our side... but that also means that you'll have to pull off a convincing battle with him to avoid Vox's eye when he speaks with me later. Then it is only a matter of completing the next couple of planets, passing the last tournament, and then we can put our true plan into action... as long as Sunset doesn't snap and kill Vox before we can."

Ratchet had forgotten that their next opponent, the Eviscerator, waited for them at the end of the Vindicator Tournament, which he and Starlight would be heading into once they returned to the Dreadzone Station. He didn't care about the tournament at all, considering that he and his sister would have to kill a bunch of gladiators before they reached the Exterminator, but they had to play along and make sure that Vox didn't catch onto what they were doing. If Vox knew that their collars had been deactivated, and the fact that they were allied with Ace in a plot to bring down the entirety of Dreadzone, the man would go off the deep end and try to kill them all. They had to be careful around the man, as there was no telling when he would do something they weren't expecting, but as long as they continued with what they were currently doing they would be able to catch Vox by surprise.

"I wouldn't worry about Sunset too much," Starlight commented, a light smile appearing on her face for a moment, "If Vox tries anything on her, say like trying to blow her up, she'll overcome the explosion and take down whoever is around her. We had better get ready for the Vindicator Tournament, because there is no telling what we'll have to face when we step into the arena... though I personally hope that there's more than what he sent at us in the last tournament."

Ratchet, on the other hand, didn't care how many enemies Vox sent at them, because in the end he and Starlight would eventually break through their ranks and clear the tournament. Between his skills and Starlight's magical abilities he already knew what was going to happen when they stepped into the arena, but he decided to wait and see what happened for himself.





When Ace's ship returned to the Dreadzone Station Ratchet and Starlight teleported back to their holding area so they could see what Clank and Al had been up to while they were away. It gave them the opportunity to tell their friends that they only needed to wait a little while longer, at least three or four days, before they could put their plan into action. Al was relieved that they would soon put this place behind them, not to mention putting the shadowy empire out of commission and saving the remaining heroes that were being held against their will. Clank, on the other hand, expressed his worry over Sunset's sudden change in nature, as in the fact that she was slowly embracing her destructive nature, but offered no method to stopping the change.

In the end Ratchet and Starlight were eventually called into the Battledome, to which they bid their friends farewell for the moment and climbed into the shuttle that would take them to their destination. This time when they arrived in the arena neither of the announcers had any remarks to offer them, though Ratchet and Starlight immediately found themselves restricted to one weapon; the Fusion Rifle. Gladiators came at them almost immediately, though the grouping of their enemies allowed Ratchet and Starlight to take at least two of them out at a time and sometimes even three or four if they were lucky.

When the first wave was over they were required to switch to the Leviathan Flail, allowing them to smash through everything and everything that came at them. The third wave brought about the Hunter Mines, to which Ratchet and Starlight littered the entire field with the floating spheres that destroyed their enemies with ease. The Magma Cannon followed shortly after that, allowing them to break apart the dropships that came into their line of sight, while they completely decimated the enemies of the fifth wave with the missiles from their Arbiters. The final weapon that they were forced to use was the Dual Vipers, to which they literally opened fire on anything and everything that charged at them, until the challenge was completed and they were allowed to move forward.

The second challenge was when they found themselves back on top of the Tower of Power, where they basically had to fight their way through a horde of enemies and survive for about two and a half minutes. As they ran around the top of the tower they also made sure to dodge the explosive crates that were being dropped onto the field all around them, though they also used them to their advantage and removed some enemies to conserve ammunition. While they fought the enemies on the ground Starlight tore any dropships out of the air and dropped them on their enemies, though there was the occasional instance where she dragged one above herself or Ratchet to make the ship take the power of the explosives.

Eventually she and Ratchet finished the survival course and were allowed to move onto the next part of the Vindicator Tournament, though as they started to walk away from the Tower of Power they discovered that they were going to face the Eviscerator next. Ratchet looked at his sister for a moment, because he had been expecting a third challenge before they could face the Exterminator, but this tournament was disappointing him completely. Before Starlight could say anything the two of them were teleported down to the middle of the Battledome, where they had fought the Reactor in the previous tournament, and were forced to listen to the announcers say some horrible things about them, which they ignored seeing how none of them were true.

Once the announcers were done talking a nearby door opened and the Eviscerator flew out of it, before landing on the opposite side of where Ratchet and Starlight were standing and extending the blades that he was carrying. The Exterminator appeared to be ready for battle, though neither of them knew what lengths he would go to before throwing in the towel so he could join Ace at last.

When the battle started the Eviscerator went after Ratchet first, swinging his arms though the air as he rapidly approached where Ratchet was standing, but even then Ratchet dodged the blades before they could touch him. He immediately knew why the Exterminator was going after him, because it would make the fight a little more believable, where's Starlight could shield herself until she was ready to counter her enemy. Still Ratchet had to be sure to avoid the claws before they ripped through his armor or cut into any open areas, because he knew that the Eviscerator's blades were very sharp and could easily cut through skin and bones like they were made of butter.

After missing Ratchet a few times the Eviscerator would jump back and head after Starlight, who kept her eyes on their opponent and used her shields to keep him away from her. After a minute of chasing Starlight, and missing so many times, the Eviscerator leapt into the air and loosed a beam of energy at one of them, though when it was clear that he was missing them he landed and repeated his earlier attacks. Ratchet and Starlight managed to score some hits on the Exterminator, forcing him to loose a rain of spikes that they had to dodge before something hit them. At some point the Eviscerator combined all three of his attacks into a storm of spikes, constant beams of energy being fired at them, and him rushing them while they were distracted.

After some time, and an extensive amount of damage from both Ratchet and Starlight, the Eviscerator fell down to the floor and collapsed due to his wounds, leaving the announcers and everyone else to stare at them in shock. After a few seconds the announcers regained their composure and announced that Ratchet and Starlight had succeeded and advanced in rank once more, allowing their armor to change color once more. With the victory secured they left the Battledome and returned to their holding area, where they would check and see which planets were up next in the final tournament.

Ratchet smiled just a bit as they teleported out of the arena, because they were getting ever closer to bringing an end to Dreadzone and everything that Vox had built... and releasing Sunset from her cell completely.





"And now they've beaten the Eviscerator," Vox growled, staring at the screen as Ratchet and Starlight teleported out of the arena, his anger rising as his second best Exterminator bit the dust, "all that remains is you, Ace Hardlight. Do you think that you could beat them?"

Ace already knew the answer he would have given the man if he had exposed himself, but he had to continue to play this game until the time was right and make sure that Vox was left in the dark. It was easy to fool Vox into believing a lie, as he had been doing it since the day he had been captured, so telling another one was second nature to Ace now. He just needed to make sure that his plan remained in the dark... and see if Vox had another plan for dealing with Sunset once her siblings let her go to another planet.

"Ratchet and Starlight shouldn't be a problem," Ace said, pretending to be bored of them despite the fact that they had beaten the Eviscerator, "Sunset, on the other hand, will be a tough nut to crack."

"I've got one last plan I can try against her," Vox commented, though his tone made Ace wonder what he was thinking, "She might be able to take out some of our best Exterminators and Inmates, but I wonder how she'll last against an army of enemies that want nothing more than her head... or more like a 'ghost' army."

Ace had no idea what Vox was talking about this time, but that only meant that he had reached outside Dreadzone to come up with a way to stop Sunset. He was going to have to do some research before he spoke with Sunset in a day or two, because he had the feeling that her next fight was going to be more destructive than the other times she was released from her cell. Then, once she overcame whatever Vox was sending at her, they could bring about the end of Dreadzone.
> Deadlocked: Stygia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After their success in the Vindicator Tournament, and the 'death' of the Eviscerator, Ratchet and Starlight returned to their holding area and went over which planet that they would be visiting next and which planet they were going to hand over to Sunset. Stygia, the first of the two planets, had a shield that protected the entire planet from a large number of meteors that would normally harm the world in a matter of hours. The second one, Maraxus, was supposed to be a desert like planet, something that reminded them of one of the planets that they had visited in the Bogon Galaxy, though apparently there was a large number of dust storms on the planet. They were basically having to chose between a planet that would be on the verge of destruction, if they knew Vox the way they thought they did, and something that seemed rather simple.

In the end it was a rather easy decision for them to make, as both Ratchet and Starlight agreed to take on whatever Vox had for them on Stygia, leaving Sunset to tear apart her enemies on Maraxus.

"It seems like Vox might be running out of tricks," Al commented, looking at him tablet, one of the things that Ace had recovered and given back to him, and reading a message from their ally, "Apparently there's a former Blargian station that Vox acquired lately... and its rumored that there is an army of undead gladiators that call the place home. Ace commented that Vox might be sending them at Sunset in the future, though I don't understand why we'd want to know what's being sent at Sunset."

"He's just making sure we know what's coming," Starlight replied, a small appearing on her face for a moment, "we get to keep track on what's happening to Sunset. We also get to have a direct connection to our ally, that way when its time to put our plan into action we'll know it before Vox even knows what is coming his way."

Ratchet was still concerned for Sunset, considering that they had no idea if the ghost army that was under Vox's command could be destroyed by simply being defeated in battle. For all they knew the ghost gladiators were unkillable and could regenerate endlessly, which would make Sunset mad until she reached the point where she obliterated everything around her. Ratchet had to wonder what was keeping Sunset from unleashing her true power at this point, the power that would result in her reunion with both Searing and Hatred, but he was also glad that she was holding back at the moment. There would come a time when Sunset and her other selves would finally put their differences aside, and he feared when that day finally came, but at the moment he would focus on what he and Starlight needed to deal with before they went to Stygia.

As Starlight spoke with Clank and Al, while submitting which planet they wanted to take on next, Ratchet kept himself in his mind and reflected on the planets that they had already visited in the other tournaments. The planets were run under normal conditions when he and Starlight visited them, though when Sunset was there, however, there was always someone that wanted a piece of her. Warhead, Spy, Sniper, and the Demoman were all people chosen by Vox to take out Sunset, though in the end they only managed to piss her off before she obliterated them. He actually felt sorry for the people that Sunset took out, despite the fact that they tried to kill his sister, but he kept that thought to himself as Starlight continued her conversation with the others.

About an hour or two after they submitted their decision on which planet they wanted to visit a ship moved into position near their holding area, which was rapidly followed by them receiving a brief message from Ace that simply stated that they should climb aboard the ship so they could depart. Ratchet and Starlight smiled, bid Clank and Al farewell for the moment, and then approached the teleport pad so they could board the ship that was currently waiting for them. When they appeared on the ship they found Ace waiting for them, who smiled as he moved to the navigation unit of the ship and put in their destination.

"It takes a bit longer to reach Stygia than the other planets," Ace explained, turning back to face them once the ship was moving out of the station, "so when Vox heard that you two wanted to take on the course at Stygia he ordered me to drop what I was doing and come pick the two of you up. Thankfully I wasn't in the middle of anything important... which means that we can continue planning our eventual assault on the entire station and PX-17."

"We'll be fighting soon enough, which might give you the opportunity to step into the shadows for the final phase of our plan," Starlight said, referring to the final tournament that no one has been able to reach ever since Ace had won it so long ago, "I mean, we'll have to put on a show to make it seem like we're mortal enemies, but we should be able to fool Vox long enough for him to mourn your death before sentencing the two of us to death."

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to put on a show," Ace replied, pulling out his lightsaber, something that he wouldn't tell them how he acquired, but didn't extend it at all, "We should update your handheld weapons to avoid being damaged by my own weapon, if its even possible that is, but I'm sure that you guys can work around that."

"By the time that Sunset's done with Maraxus, and whatever Vox throws at her, we'll be done with the changes," Starlight said, a smile appearing on her face as she and Ratchet followed Ace, "Now then, let's continue our discussing our plan before we arrive at our destination... because we're going to need to move fast once the last tournament is over."

Ratchet smiled as he followed his sister, knowing that they would be able to stop whatever Vox was planning on Stygia, because he had to be planning something, and then out the finishing touches on their plan before they had to step into the Liberator Tournament.





When the ship arrived at Stygia, passing through whatever meteors were in the space above the planet, Ratchet and Starlight gazed upon the power plants that kept the protective shield up, though they were both wondering if Vox had sabotaged them in order to make their Battle Course more interesting. Considering everything he had done to the previous planets that were under his control, and all of the vile things he had done for the sake of his show, they wouldn't put it passed him to do it again. One of the power stations had to be offline, increasing the danger that the planet was in, so they kept their ears open as they came to a stop above the start of the course.

"Planet Stygia, a beautiful world with pink sand beaches, friendly service, and giant meteor storms pumbling the surface!" they heard the announcer declare, likely from whatever safe area that he and his companion were currently sitting in, "We're live from the Tempest Control Station, thousands of feet from the ground, where powerful meteor shields protect the people below... but not today, because we turned them off! Can Team Darkstar destroy the jamming devices and save Stygia? Only time will tell, as the fate of an entire planet rests in their hands... and hooves."

"And now there's one more reason to hate Vox," Ratchet commented as he got his weapons in order, though he let out a sigh as he and Starlight approached the teleport pad, "Come on Starlight, let's show Vox that we are not to be underestimated or messed with."

The moment the two of them stepped through the teleport pad they expected to appear next to a weapon vendor before they started the course, but instead they immediately started inside a Landstalker. Ratchet grinned as he took control of the vehicle and started gunning down the smaller enemies that were in front of them, allowing Starlight to aim at the power generators that were powering the barriers that were blocking their path. Once the first barrier was taken care of they were assaulted by a large number of enemies; three of the larger robot gladiators, two of the dropships, at least ten of the spinning blade enemies that flew through the air, and two large missile launchers.

It took them a few minutes to deal with all of the enemies that were coming their way, and drop the second barrier that was behind them all, though they were then attacked by a group of four larger robots, two more dropships, and another pair of missile launchers. By the time they dropped the third barrier they knew that Vox was trying to kill them for real, because the amount of enemies was easily double what any normal contestant would face. As they passed through where the third barrier had been standing they were surprised to find at least five dropships in the area, dropping off gladiators before turning to fire missiles at them, a good twenty gladiators attacking from both the land and air, and six of the larger robots. At the end of the madness they also found a turret waiting for then, though Starlight protected them with a shield as she loosed an EMP at the turret, to which they tore it to pieces the moment the shield was down.

Now that they were at their first objective they immediately started to target the jamming devices that were stationed around the area, though as they did so they were attacked by dropships and larger robots, forcing them to change their target for a moment before the enemies were taken care of. Though the moment they had destroyed the jamming devices, and only the devices, one of the announcers cried out that they had somehow damaged the station and that they had to manually turn it on themselves.

Both Ratchet and Starlight moaned at the fact that Dreadzone was blaming them for what they had done to the station, but they were used to it and decided to just go with it.

Once they were outside the Landstalker they accessed the jump pad and landed on one of the platforms that they needed to access, to which they opened fire on the gladiators that were standing there. The instant they captured the first node they were attacked by the spinning enemies that flew around, though the low number of enemies allowed them to quickly clear the area. They then repeated the same process on the second, third, and fourth platforms, where they landed on the platform, attacked the enemies that were waiting for them, and then captured the node that they had been protecting. When they had the node they attacked the flying enemies that came at them before progressing onto the next platform, until they had all four of the nodes under their control.

They paused for a moment to listen for the announcer, to which they learned that the final step in turning the shields back on involved hacking the control orbs that rested around the shield's core, though oddly enough they were restricted to using the flying vehicle that was given to them and a robotic helper that would hack the orbs for them... provided they keep him alive the entire time. It was an easy challenge, as all they had to do was fly around the area and blow up any offending dropships that were in the area, as well as takeout everything that Vox could throw at them and their helper. That was when they learned that Dreadzone was launching an all out offensive on the shield's core and that they had to defend it at all costs, though that was when Starlight decided that enough was enough.

The core had three openings for enemies to attack them from, but Starlight summoned her magic and placed two magical shields around two of the openings, basically forcing their enemies to come through the one available opening, like a bottleneck of sorts. It was amusing to see the gladiators actually circle around the core and come to the only available opening, as Starlight had expected some of them to attack the shields before moving on. Eventually the Dreadzone gladiators were taken care of and the shield was back online, saving the people of Stygia and showing Vox that they were not to be messed with.

Ratchet and Starlight were sure that Vox had to be fuming in rage at the moment, which brought a smile to their faces as they accessed the teleport pad and went back to Ace's ship. All they had to do now was put the finishing touches on their master plan for the downfall of Dreadzone and wait for Sunset to deal with whatever was on Maraxus... and that included the ghost gladiators that might be coming to fight her in the future.
> Deadlocked: Maraxus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset, once again, found herself sitting at the table that she had been sitting at when she went to planet Torval, where Ace Hardlight had informed her of the enemy that would be waiting for her on the planet's surface. The Demoman was as insane as everyone said he was, more so for challenging her to a contest of destruction, but she had put an end to his life like everyone else that tried to put her down. The constant practice of her destructive abilities was beginning to make accessing her true powers much easier, though in order to fully understand what she was capable of she would need to fuse with Searing and Hatred... and both of them were against it at the moment. Searing, who was tied to Sunset in a very personal way, had expressed her concerns for such a thing, namely that she and Hatred would disappear if they ended up fusing with her.

Hatred, of course, didn't want to hand control over to Sunset, as it basically meant that she would be admitting defeat in some manner and didn't want that to happen. Sunset decided that she would have to hold back on asking about the fusion again, because there was something about their true power that scared both of her other selves.

"So, tell me about Maraxus," Sunset said, turning towards Ace once more, who was merely sitting across the table from where she was sitting, though he had been silent the entire time, "You mentioned that Vox might be hiring some mercenaries to deal with me this time?"

"That was what I thought when I heard him the first time," Ace replied, tapping some buttons and revealing an image of Maraxus, which happened to have a space station floating near it, "but now I'm sure that I misheard him. That station is the Ghost Station, an old Blargian station that he acquired some time ago, where the ghosts of gladiators are said to linger after they are defeated in real life. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of undead gladiators roaming that station, giving Vox an unbeatable army that can infinitely regenerate no matter how many times you kill them."

"You say it like you have experience fighting them," Sunset commented, though if she knew Vox as well as she thought she did she would have guessed that the man used the ghosts against Ace to see how well they could fight now that they were dead.

"I have fought them a few times at Vox's 'request'," Ace answered, pointing to his neck, where his now inactive collar was resting, "Vox has said that it is impossible to overcome the amount of enemies that he has under his thumb, the ghost ones anyway, and that it is improbable that someone can survive their attacks. Basically he's been coming up with a way to eliminate any contestant that actually annoys him to the point that you have, which is why he's moved the station's location to where it is now. Vox has decided to use his seemingly unstoppable army against the one creature that he truly wishes to kill..."

"...Me." Sunset finished, already knowing how the line was going to end before Ace was able to say the word, though a small smile did appear on her face, "So basically my fight with them will be along the lines of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object; the ghost army is, as you stated, constantly regenerating itself, hence the term 'unstoppable', while I would not be able to move on until I had destroyed them all, hence 'immovable'. Or that is how I choose to interpret the situation that I am going to find myself in once I start the next Battle Course."

"I guess so," Ace said, as he wasn't entirely sure what she was saying, but decided that now wasn't the time to bother asking about it, "Anyway, if my guess is correct you will have to fight your way through the prison on Maraxus and rescue whatever they have trapped in their special cages. Normally a contestant's robot bodyguards, his helpers, would be imprisoned and the contestant would have to save them, but that's not the case with you. And of course Vox wouldn't dare use your family members in this situation, so I guess he might have salvaged two robots from the recycling bin and put them in the course for you."

Sunset knew that she wouldn't be playing the original game of the course for very long, considering that she would likely get halfway through the course before her enemies came looking for her. She'd likely rescue the first robot that was being held against its will, and decimate the enemies that were guarding it, before the ghost army bothered to show itself. Or maybe this time she would actually get through the course and then have her enemies attack her once she was done, because that would be quite the twist. Then there was the matter of the infinitely regenerating ghost gladiators, which meant that she'd never finish the course unless she somehow ended all of them and prevented them from coming back to life once more.

She silently wondered if blowing the station to pieces would solve that problem, but until she actually faced the ghost army in battle, and saw what abilities they had for herself, there was no way she could make that sort of decision just yet. She could mentally hear both Searing and Hatred complaining that they should just get rid of it now and suffer the consequences later, but she would play along in the off chance that she discovered something that would change the tide of battle in her favor. She also hadn't told Ace about the fact that there were technically three versions of herself, as the only people who knew that were those that had witnessed her fight with Hatred. It was better that less people knew the truth about her, Searing, and Hatred, otherwise she would be asked questions that she didn't have any answers for.

She stared at Ace as his ship continued the journey to Maraxus, listening to everything he had to tell her about the planet while saying nothing in return. She kept her mind focused on the ghost army she would have to face, knowing that they were the key to her overcoming the Battle Course that was waiting for her.





When the ship finally arrived at their destination Sunset immediately noticed the eerie space station that was floating nearby, looking like a complete wreck that would have fallen apart a few years ago if not for the large number of ghosts that happened to be living on the station. She knew that a fair number of the ghosts would be gladiators that she recently killed, either from Torval, Orxon, or Kronos, and that they would be out for revenge the moment they noticed her. That made her wonder if the ghosts of Warhead and Shellshock were among their number, because she did defeat them and completely obliterate them, so they would definitely be out for revenge.

As Ace brought them in to a desired landing spot, where Sunset could easily teleport down to the planet's surface, they overheard the announcers commenting on the fact that Sunset would be fighting her way through the prison to rescue two robots, namely because they couldn't use anything else in this particular situation. Sunset wished Ace and Eve farewell for the moment, knowing that they would see each other again once she was finished with the course, and teleported down to the planet's surface, where she found herself in an area that had a few electric barriers blocking her path.

She immediately spotted two enemies walking in the area in front of her, two of the spike throwing type of gladiators her siblings had encountered, though as she approached them they began to rain spikes on where she was walking. She weaved a little magic into the air and stopped the spikes in their tracks, though she also grabbed two of them and set them back to their owners, impaling their hearts and knocking them dead where they stood. She then pulled a few more out of the floating mess and carried them with her for a minute, as the instant she walked under a corridor between buildings she spotted a few more enemies to impale. Sunset then followed the path that she had been walking along and leapt into the building in front of her, where one of the robots she had to rescue was behind held.

The instant she walked into the room a large number of enemies, a collection of the various gladiators and their minions from all the fights she had seen, dropped into the area and attacked her the moment they laid eyes on her. It was easy for Sunset to defend herself, as all she really had to do was weave her magic through the air and shield herself from any incoming attacks, while making sure that her own attacks destroyed those around her. Once the enemies were taken care of, and the area was secure, she then shattered the cage that the robot was being held inside, though that was followed by the robot apologizing for wasting her time and deactivating the barrier that was blocking the corridor she needed to pass through.

The corridor ended in a small circular room, with a few gladiators for her to fight, though once all of them were basically burning husks the door on her right opened and revealed a group of enemies that were protecting a vehicle. As Sunset dismantled the enemies around her she had to wonder why they were even guarding the vehicle to begin with, considering the fact that she didn't need to use one of them. Apparently the trick to this challenge was that she had to guard the pair of robots that were in control of the vehicle while they captured the three nodes that were scattered through the exterior of the prison. Sunset let out a sigh as she followed the robots to the first node, to which she dropped a shield over them as they worked on claiming the node while throwing fireballs at everything that tried to stop them.

Once the node was secured the trio moved onto the second node and repeated what they had done to claim the first one, which was rapidly followed by them moving to the third one and capturing it in the same manner. With all three nodes secured Sunset bid the robots inside the vehicle farewell and moved towards the opening that they had unlocked, which she figured would take her right to where the other captive robot was being held. The moment she was inside the building she spotted a group of gladiators waiting at the end of the corridor that was in front of her, along with what appeared to be laser turrets.

She walked into the end of the corridor and smashed all of the gladiators into the walls, while breaking the turrets at the same time, until all she was left with were the hacking orbs, though she simply used her magic to cut her way through the barrier they were generating and continued toward her next objective. The moment she stepped outside she noticed a larger turret waiting for her, so she simply destroyed its shield with a wave of her hand and blew it up with a well placed fireball. With the turret taken out two groups of gladiators jumped down into the area she was in, along with two dropships, and proceeded to attack her without any regards for their own safety.

As Sunset tore her new enemies to pieces she had to wonder if they were being brought back on the ghost station that was floating above the planet's surface, though that also made her realize that she had not yet seen any of the ghosts that were supposed to be here. It was almost as if the ghosts were taking their time, allowing Sunset to add more numbers to their ranks, but she would still need to remove her obstacles if she wanted to move forward.

When she entered the next building she had to pass through she found even more enemies to deal with, though they were quite easy to get rid of thanks to their low numbers, allowing her to cut her way through the barrier behind them and continue to another section of the prison. The next room had the second robot that had been imprisoned against its will, though this time its cage was surrounded by a large number of enemies, more than what had appeared throughout the rest of the entire Battle Course. Sunset, however, took one look at the amount of enemies that were down there and let out a sigh as she levitated herself down into their line of sight. The instant one of the gladiators fired at her the rest followed suit, to which Sunset used her magic to catch the missiles and energy beams as they approached her, before directing them to new owners and blowing them all to pieces.

Sunset looked at all the scattered remains as she approached the container that the robot was trapped inside, smashing it so the poor thing could be freed, though as she turned to leave the robot said something that stopped her in her tracks.

"They're coming for you," the robot said, causing Sunset to turn towards it for a moment, to which it pointed to the west of where they were standing, "The ghost army is coming, Sunset Shimmer, and only you can figure out how to stop them in their tracks."

Sunset walked outside the building she was in and turned in the direction that the robot had been pointing, trying to see if she could find anything that resembled an army. After a few seconds she found what she was looking for, as a faint line of transparent beings appeared in the dust storm that was raging all around her. For a moment it only looked like there was a few gladiators for her to contend with, but the longer she watched them the more she began to notice that the first line was stretching in both directions. What had appeared before her eyes was a literal army of ghosts, though as more stepped out of the blowing dust it was beginning to feel like her earlier thought about there being thousands of them was true.

She gathered some magic into her hands and sent out a gust of wind that cancelled the natural storm that had been blowing, revealing that there were definitely thousands of former gladiators marching towards her location.

Just how many gladiators has Vox doomed to this existence? Searing asked, to which a burning patch of sand appeared on the ground to Sunset's right.

There has to be thousands of undead gladiators coming our way, Hatred replied, which was followed by a patch of shadows appearing on Sunset's left, We might not be able to survive this.

"Don't be all gloom and doom on us now Hatred," Sunset said, staring at the gladiators that were coming her way, wondering if she would even recognize some of them from her previous fights, "There is a really simple way to get around this situation..."

For the love of the Maker, we are not fusing! Searing exclaimed, the flames dancing for a moment in response to what she had said, We can beat them without having to access our full power.

I seriously hate it when I agree with you, Hatred commented, to which the shadows disappeared completely, Just start fighting and we'll back you up however we can.

For a moment Sunset just stared at the line of enemies that were coming her way, taking a moment to consider how to go about fighting all of them, before letting out a sigh as she gathered energy around her. The moment the first gladiator spotted her, and let out a savage war cry while pointing right at her, the line of enemies broke as the undead warriors charged at her. Missiles surged out of their ranks and came at her, to which Sunset summoned a shield to prevent them from touching her, though the moment the projectiles were done she moved forward as well. She slammed into the first ghost that she came across, releasing a burst of energy that tore him and the surrounding gladiators to pieces, before she turned her attention to the others around her.

Several gladiators switched their various guns for what appeared to be bladed weapons, axes, swords, and spears, which actually surprised Sunset for a moment, because she was sure that none of them had died with those weapons in their hands. She slammed her feet into one of the enemies that were around her, shattering their chest armor with her hoof, before moving out of the way as some of the others tried to land a blow on her. Dark flames pulsed around her left hand for a moment, to which she pressed it in front of one of the gladiators and summoned a wave of dark crystals that punctured a large number of enemies. At the same time she spun around and, with her burning right hand, released a wave of flames that turned the ghosts it touched to into piles of ash, which were blown away by the wind.

One enemy stepped forward to fight her, one that she recognized as the ghost of Warhead, though he said nothing to her as he attacked with his fists, to which she merely dodged for a few seconds. She wanted to be sure that the ghosts were actually regenerating, though with the large number of enemies around her it was actually impossible for her to figure that out at the moment. She decided not to waste any time with the ghost of Warhead and froze him with a wave of ice magic, before kicking him and shattering his form into a thousand pieces. Once that was taken care of she focused on the other enemies, picking and choosing which element of magic she wanted to use before unleashing a spell on the gladiators around her.

Ten minutes into fighting the ghost army seemed to prove what Ace had told her earlier, about the ghosts regenerating, because she spotted the ghost of Warhead coming towards her once more.

You cannot defeat us, Sunset Shimmer, the ghost of Warhead said, which was followed by a wave of laughter as the other ghosts started to laugh at her, The power of the Ghost Station allows us to cheat death itself. You cannot hope to beat all of us.

"You really shouldn't have said that," Sunset commented, a smirk appearing on her face as Warhead's ghost confirmed her suspicions, just as her energy flickered around her once more, "Now I know exactly how to stop all of you from coming back."

Sunset jumped backwards and landed on one of the stone pillars that were behind her, to which she brought her hands together and allowed her energy to pour into a small sphere between her palms, though she smiled as she noticed the looks of confusion flashing on the faces of the ghosts in front of her. A few seconds later she pulled her hands apart and a large sphere of destructive formed above her head, to which the ghosts that knew of her power actually took a step back as they stared at her. She already knew that some of them were wondering if she was going to drop the sphere on them, but considering that her suspicions had been correct she had a different target in mind at the moment. She turned her attention to the space station and threw the sphere at it, allowing the energy to soar towards its destination and engulf the entire structure in a flash of blinding light.

A few seconds later the smoke cleared and revealed what had happened, the complete and utter destruction of the ghost station, to which many of the ghosts let out a chorus of despair as they realized what Sunset had just done. She had effectively eliminated the source of their regenerative abilities, meaning that they could be killed and this time they wouldn't be coming back to haunt her again. Sunset smiled as she leapt into the air and sailed into the middle of the ghost army, though while she did so she summoned large fireballs that she threw into the ranks of her enemies. As ghost gladiators were obliterated by her attacks she landed in front of Warhead and shattered him once more, before moving through the ranks of the ghosts around her.

Without the station to revive the ghosts, and give them the ability to fight on until their enemies gave up, Sunset was able to obliterate everything that was around her. The ground broke around her as the elements she called up killed her enemies, rapidly reducing the thousands of enemies she had been fighting and leaving her with piles of ash that the wind got rid of. Once the last of her enemies had been taken care of, and she was sure that there weren't anymore ghosts lingering in the immediate area, she let out a sigh as she cancelled her magic and teleported to Ace's ship.

All she had to do now was see what Ratchet and Starlight did in the final tournament, where they would be fighting against Ace in the final battle, because it was only a matter of time until they put their plan into action... and then Vox, and the entirety of Dreadzone, would finally meet their end.
> Deadlocked: Liberator Tournament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ratchet and Starlight sat at the table that they usually sat at with Clank and Al, each of them watching the events unfold on Maraxus as Sunset discovered the weakness of the ghost army. Starlight, having heard that Vox might use the army against her sister, actually suggested that the station might have the ability to bring back the dead and that destroying it would wreck havoc among the ghosts. As it turned out she was right, as Sunset apparently figured out the same thing and promptly destroyed the station before it could produce more ghosts for her to fight. From there it was a simple matter of watching their sister finish off the rest of the army, wiping them out with a variety of spells and tactics that they were used to seeing, before teleporting back onto Ace's ship and returning to PX-17.

Once the battle was over they turned the screen off and looked at each other, because now that Sunset had secured the final metal they needed Ratchet and Starlight could enter the Liberator Tournament, where they would have to make their way through the toughest obstacles and gladiators that Vox had before they could face Ace in the arena. All they needed to do was sell the fight with Ace, beat him in front of all the viewers, and then put their plan into action when Vox's guard was down, though it was easier said than done. With the end of their stay in Dreadzone approaching Clank and Al made sure that they had complete control over several of the satellites that Ace pointed out to them, the ones that would warn Vox of incoming patrol ships.

Seeing how everyone was distracted by Sunset fighting, and thus were not paying attention to what the rest of Team Darkstar did, the four of them were able to contact a certain ship that had been on the edge of the Shadow Sector; the Phoenix. Apparently Ace had managed to send out a message to the authorities once he discovered that Ratchet, Starlight, and their friends were willing to help him bring down Vox and his precious Dreadzone. Sasha, having taken back the ship once they had been abducted, informed them that allies were on their way, indicating that Angela was also coming to their rescue as well. It was a brief message between Ace's ship and the Phoenix, but Ratchet and Starlight were able to make out Sasha telling them that the Order was coming, much to their relief and Ace's confusion.

As they prepared for the big day Clank and Al turned the necessary satellites offline for a moment, to be sure the command worked, and then turned them back on, leaving them offline for a very short amount of time that would be missed by whoever was keeping track of the various satellites that Vox had around the station. Ratchet remembered asking Ace about how he knew which satellites to take out and which ones they needed to leave alone, as well as all the commands to interact with them to begin with. That was when Ace informed them, rather quickly considering that he needed to get back to his chambers, that he had allies all over the station, which was how he was able to get away with all of this without Vox catching on.

Ratchet had to admit it, but he never would have suspected that Ace and his allies would have waited this long before trying to take out Vox, though then he assumed that they had been waiting for the right moment to put their plan into action. Once the plan had been put in motion, and they were sure that the Dreadzone station was secured, they would then go to PX-17 and release everyone that Vox had imprisoned there.

While Clank and Al worked on their commands, and the exact sequence they would need once the match with Ace started, Starlight made sure that their weapons were at their best, making sure that they were cleaned and full of ammunition. Ratchet, on the other hand, looked over the holo-plans for the prison that Sunset was contained in at the moment, memorizing the route they would need to take to reach the cell she was in. He didn't bother to ask Ace how he managed to get his hands on these, because he was sure that the answer would be more allies or something like that, so he simply sat with his back to one of the walls and studied the plans in front of him.

At one point his mind turned to Sunset and her other selves, Searing and Hatred, where he wondered when they were going to pull he trigger and merge back into one body. It was something that he was coming to terms with, the fact that one of his sisters happened to be a walking Goddess of Destruction, but he had to wonder what her full power was like. He knew that Starlight didn't like it when he wasted his time thinking about Sunset's full power, but he couldn't help but ponder how much destruction she could cause with her full potential backing her once more. At only eighty-five percent she and Searing were able to destroy an entire planet, granted it took longer than they might have been expecting, so it made him wonder how deadly they would be at one hundred percent.

Sadly he had the feeling that Vox was going to be the catalyst for that transformation, when the three versions of Sunset finally put their differences aside and became who they used to be... and revealing to the entire universe the full extent of their destructive powers. Ratchet then let out a sigh as he switched his mind back to what he was supposed to be doing, because tomorrow was going to be a busy day and he would need to know the routes pretty well once they reached the prison.





When the morning of the big day finally arrived Ratchet and Starlight ate their breakfast with Clank and Al, going over their plan as quietly as they could without alerting the guards that were watching their cell at the moment. They wanted to be sure that everyone knew their part in the grand scheme, because if someone messed up Vox was going to zero in on them and put everyone on the station in jeopardy. Ace remained in his suite all morning, making sure that their allies knew what was going to be happening soon while preparing himself for the eventually fight that would take place in the arena. Everything hinged on Ratchet and Starlight putting on a show in the arena, because if Vox noticed something fishy then they were likely doomed to fail their operation.

Once they were done with their meal, and acting as if it was their final one for whoever was watching them, Ratchet and Starlight excused themselves, collected their weapons from where Starlight had left them, and approached the shuttle that would take them to the Battledome, so they could get this nightmare over with. When the shuttle arrived at the Battledome they overheard one of the announcers, Dallas to be exact, commenting on the fact that neither Ratchet or Starlight would be alive at the end of the day, to which his partner smacked him upside the head and claimed that it was too early to say such things.

The first thing they were tasked with was fighting an undetermined amount of enemies while their weapons randomly changed on them, though for the strangest reason the weapon was the same for both Ratchet and Starlight. At first they were forced to use the Arbiter, to which they loosed rocket after rocket at the little robotic minions that were coming at them, tough after a few seconds Starlight decided to change targets and started firing at the dropships that were depositing more enemies for them to fight. After killing a good twenty of the little guys, and blowing at least five dropships out of the air, their weapon shifted on them, changing to the B6-Obliterator, though that didn't seem to slow either of them down very much.

With the new weapon in hand they started to rain bombs on their enemies, including the flying enemies that got added on the second wave, and made sure that none of them got away from them. The third weapon they were forced to use was the Hunter Mines, one again allowing them to rain death and destruction on their enemies, leaving Ratchet to wonder what the show hoped to gain by giving them the weapons that could take out groups of enemies in a single use. When they cycled to their fourth and final weapon, the Leviathan Flail, Ratchet was beginning to suspect that whoever was in charge of choosing their weapons for this challenge was on their side... that or the random weapon function was on their side today.

Soon they were done with the first challenge and were declared the winners for the moment, because there was still more for them to do and they hadn't even reached Ace yet.

The second challenge involved them being in the middle section of the Battledome, the large platform that was actually two smaller platforms connected to each other, though Ratchet was placed on the platform closest to where the first challenge had been while Starlight was on the one closest to the Tower of Power. Their objective was to kill one hundred and fifty enemies each, as both platforms were actually stocked with that exact amount of enemies, though the gladiators, both living and undead, would be coming at them at an unusually fast rate in order to swarm and kill them.

The instant the challenge started Ratchet and Starlight pulled out their weapons and opened fire on the enemies that appeared on their platform, choosing the weapons that had dealt with the larger groups earlier so they could reach the end a lot faster. While they were busy fighting Vox dropped some crates into the mix, loosing a few of the leviathans they had previously fought while also calling in some dropships to fire missiles at them. Ratchet and Starlight had to dodge everything that their enemies were throwing at them, barely avoiding being hit several times, but in the end they both managed to clear out all of the enemies that they had been required to defeat.

Once they were done with the second challenge they were allowed to get back together and restock their ammunition, giving them a small window of rest before they were dragged into the arena once more. It was back to the first part of the Battledome, where they had been introduced to the whole of Dreadzone, though this time the area was much quieter than it usually was. Ratchet and Starlight knew what was happening immediately, as it was similar to what had happened when the Eviscerator flew into the arena and attacked them. This time the announcers said nothing as Ace Hardlight walked into the arena, though as he did so it also sounded like a ghost because his footsteps barely made any noise.

"Ratchet and Starlight Glimmer, I have been waiting for this day," Ace said, fully immersing himself in the persona that he had created to survive in Dreadzone for all these years, "You took out three of the strongest Exterminators I have ever seen, except for me of course."

"I'd like to see you try and take us out Ace," Ratchet replied, gripping the handle of his wrench for a moment, waiting for Ace to come at them and start the battle, "Its two on one... the odds are in our favor."

Ace smiled and pressed something on his right wrist, to which he seemed to phase out of existence for a moment before returning to normal, though that was followed by a second Ace appearing next to the original. It was his special ability, where he could create clones of himself to aid him in battle, though usually he created around seven of them whenever he was actually fighting someone in the Battledome. Considering who his opponents were, and their own skills in battle, he had decided to go with one clone, though this one would survive longer than the others thanks to the fact that he wasn't splitting so much energy between so many bodies. The two Aces than pulled out their weapons, one of which was the signature multi use blaster that the fans knew about while the second weapon was something that they couldn't have seen coming, a lightsaber with a red tinted blade.

The two Aces split from each other and zeroed in on their chosen targets, to which the original Ace when for Ratchet while the second Ace moved in on Starlight, though while they moved apart from each other a barrier appeared in the middle of the arena, effectively making sure that it was a one on one match for both Ratchet and Starlight.

Ratchet immediately pulled out the Vipers as Ace approached him, though he opened fire on the Exterminator as he moved away from the middle of the already shrunken area he had to fight in. He could see Starlight doing the same thing on her side of the arena, though instead of using a gun she was choosing to use her staff for this fight, as she had modified it to be resistant to a lightsaber's blade. She also had her magic to fall back on if she needed it, which was why he knew that she wouldn't be using any of her actual weapons unless it was absolutely necessary. Ratchet than jumped out of the way as several blasts came at him from Ace's gun, though he noticed that they left small dents in the side of the arena where they landed, which told him that he had to be careful against this opponent.

As Ratchet moved away from Ace, and switched to the Leviathan Flail, he noticed two small metallic spheres land in front of him, to which they released a wave of energy that would likely hurt him if he allowed himself to be touched by it, which was why he leapt over the waves and watched as they simply disappeared when they touched he barrier. Ratchet then used the flail to inflict as much damage as he could onto Ace, though with the ball that he had to throw it was becoming harder to actually hit his target and deal some damage. Eventually Ratchet decided that enough was enough and clicked a button on the flail's handle, to which the ball and chain collapsed into the handle, only to be replaced by a blade that appeared to be made out of lightning.

Starlight had modified his weapon for this moment, as they both knew that Ace would be more focused on a melee fight rather than a ranged one thanks to their plan, so this would allow him to deal with the Ace that was in front of him while Starlight finished off the one she was fighting.

On the other side of the barrier Starlight jumped into the air and summoned a walkway that she could use to get near the Copy Ace's back, though every time she tried something like that her opponent would realize what she was doing and prevent it from happening, leaving her at square one again. She could have thrown in a teleportation spell to aid her in this fight, but Vox had no idea about the collars being deactivated and using such a spell would tip him off. They needed to make sure that the man believed that he was in control at the moment, over all of them, so she had to play this out and see if she couldn't come out on top.

After another failed attempt Starlight returned to the floor and merely charged at the copy that was standing before her, dodging its attacks while trying to use her own weapon to damage his armor. Whenever she got too close she would jump back and try a different approach before the copy managed to hit her, though after some time she began to wonder if magic might be the answer to her problems. It took her a moment to think about that, during which she mainly focused on dodging the attacks the copy threw at her, before she decided on what to do next. She summoned her magic around her and turned the floor on her side of the arena to ice, intending to make the copy slip and fall so she could get a good shot at it, but in the end the copy merely stood its ground and came at her.

She mentally slapped herself for not realizing that Ace might have experience in that sort of environment, so instead of focusing on the ground she turned to attacking with spells again, though she decided to continue with ice magic at the moment. She dodged the attacks that were coming her way some more, studying how the copy moved in relation to how the actual Ace moved, and then felt a small grin appear on her face as she came up with an idea to best the copy. Starlight charged forward and blocked the swing that was coming her way, though instead of backing up she raised her back hooves and struck the copy in the chest, causing its attention to shift towards itself for a moment. That was swiftly followed by a series of ice spikes erupting from the icy floor and impaling the copy where it stood, though after a few seconds it finally went still and allowed her to breathe a sigh of relief.

With the copy of Ace Hardlight taken care of Starlight turned her attention to the barrier that separated her from her brother, to which all she could do was watch as Ratchet battled the real Ace.

"It seems that my copy has been defeated," Ace commented, his latest attack being parried by Ratchet's impressive new toy, "It appears that I have underestimated your sister."

"There are a lot of people that do that," Ratchet replied, a small grin appearing on his face, because now that the copy was defeated they could finish up their fight and put their plan into action at last, "then again, people do that with me and Sunset as well."

"Oh really?" Ace said, jumping backwards and beckoning for Ratchet to come at him with his free hand, "Come then Ratchet, either show me that I underestimated you or say your prayers."

Ratchet charged forward and slammed his weapon into Ace's, hard enough that sparks jumped from his lightning blade to Ace's lightsaber and then struck the floor around them, cutting small gashes into the metal. The two of them then pulled their weapons back for a moment, pausing to see what the other one did, before they swung their blades and connected once more. That was rapidly followed by Ratchet wildly swinging at Ace, which would normally be a bad idea considering he had next to no skill with a bladed weapon, and most of the attacks were simply dodged because of their poor aim. The only reason Ace had put up with it up until now was because they had been putting on a show, though now it was time to be serious and he was showing how skilled he truly was.

Though Ratchet was expecting Ace to be overconfident in his ability to dodge most of his attacks, which was why he aimed a kick right at Ace's chest at the end of his last swing. Ace, expecting an attack from the lightning blade, moved to avoid what he assumed was coming his way, though the kick managed to reach its destination and staggered him for a moment. It was at that exact instant that Ratchet lunged forward with his weapon and connected to the center of Ace's suit of armor, allowing the blade to pass cleanly through his body and come out the other side. The moment that happened, and appeared on the screens for everyone that was watching, Ratchet heard many of the fans scream in agony as they realized that Ace had lost the fight.

Ratchet, Starlight, and Ace knew that the chest piece had been altered with Starlight's weapon in mind, as she was the one that had modified both of them, and that there was actually no damage to Ace's body seeing how the chest piece took the blade's energy and moved it to his back to give the illusion that he had been mortally wounded... but they weren't about to tell the fans or Vox the truth.

"I should... have known that... I'd be beaten one day," Ace said, coughing out the words as he faked the whole scene about him being wounded, with fake blood and everything to make it more convincing for Vox, "Good luck... Ratchet..."

Ratchet pulled his weapon out as Ace fell to the ground, though as he collapsed on the floor, and went completely still, silence fell over the people that had been watching the fight, as most of them assumed that Ace would win the fight between them and were no doubt shocked to see that he had lost. Ratchet let out a sigh as he pressed the button to switch the flail back to its original form, though at the same time the barrier turned itself off and Starlight walked over to where he was standing. They stared at Ace's 'corpse' for a few seconds, just to make sure that everything had gone the way they had planned, before they bowed their heads and left the Battledome behind.

Now that Vox's champion was 'defeated' it was finally time to activate their plan... one that he wouldn't see coming now that the man was likely devastated by what had just happened.





Vox was both furious and shocked at the same time; he was shocked that Ace Hardlight, the best Exterminator he had, was defeated by Ratchet and Starlight, while at the same time he was furious because Ace couldn't even damage either of them before his demise. He had been watching the fight between them the entire time, fully expecting his champion to win, though now that he was dead, like the rest of the Exterminators, he was out of people that could kill Ratchet and Starlight. Now that they had won it was only a matter of time until they came asking for the release of their sister, because he knew that they would never join Dreadzone and kill other heroes. That left Vox with only one available option, one that he had created in case an event like this actually came about and forced his hand... one that he had hoped that he would never have to use.

He was going to have to purge all the contestants from both Dreadzone and the prison on PX-17, though he hoped that he could kill Sunset himself while his soldiers cleared out the remainder of the heroes he had captured... though he eventually let out a sigh and pressed one of the buttons on his intercom, to which an image appeared on his screen.

"Yes Lord Vox?" the robot in front of him, Commander Stone, asked, as he was the head of the soldiers he kept around in case things ever went south for Dreadzone, "How may I be of service today?"

"Its time to initiate the Purge Protocol," Vox replied, noting a look of what could have been joy appear on the robot's features, only for it to disappear seconds later, "I want the bulk of your forces to remain here and purge every hero they find until they are all eradicated... and that includes Ratchet and his annoying unicorn of a sister."

"And PX-17, sir?" Commander Stone inquired, as if it enjoyed the idea of running Sunset Shimmer through with one of its blades, though it was only doing its job and was making sure that the prison was to be included as well.

"I want a small detachment to meet me at the prison," Vox stated, reaching into his desk and pulling out a small vial of vile green liquid, to which he noticed the smile return to Commander Stone's face, "and that includes you. Together we'll kill the 'Goddess of Destruction'... and then we can rebuild Dreadzone for next season with you as the new Head Exterminator."

"It will be as you command," Commander Stone said, cutting off the communication between them, though Vox knew that he would be preparing for the purge.

Soon all of the heroes he had captured over the last few years would be dead and he would be free to start over with a whole new batch of heroes, as there were plenty of fresh fish to catch in the Solana Galaxy after the defeat of Dr. Nefarious. He would just have to do his research better this time and capture someone that would eventually grow to replace Ace, which he could have done with Ratchet if his sister wasn't around him all the time. Vox let out a sigh as he pulled a small lever and watched as the right wall of his room, which was covered in boxes, pulled itself apart to reveal a small shuttle he had placed there so long ago. He could use that to get to Commander Stone's ship in no time, then it was only a matter of reaching PX-17 and killing all of the inmates he had imprisoned there... including Sunset Shimmer.

Even as he climbed into the shuttle he felt as if something horrible was about to rear its ugly head at him, though he assumed that it was his nerves talking and brushed the feeling away... as nothing could possibly go wrong once he reached PX-17.
> Deadlocked: Awakening
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The moment that Ratchet and Starlight tried to leave the Battledome, by teleporting onto the shuttle that had brought them into the arena, they found that they were unable to do so and were trapped inside until someone told them that they were free to leave. That was swiftly followed by an alarm sounding and the sounds of shots being fired, to which they looked around to see what was actually happening at the moment. Armed robots were making their way into the arena and lining themselves up with the two of them, though as the robots did so they heard an announcement state that all video feed had been cut and that no holovision transmissions were happening anymore. Once that happened one of the nearby gates opened and the Eviscerator, in all his glory, flew out of the area he had been hiding in and ran several robots through with his arm blades.

While that happened Ratchet ran over to where Ace was laying and shook him awake, to which the former Head Exterminator moaned as he picked himself up and noticed who was standing around him, before turning his head back to see the robots that the Eviscerator was fighting.

"I was seriously hoping that this wouldn't happen," Ace said, picking up his weapon and extending the beam once more, "The Reactor had warned me that Vox had a back up plan in case things ever went south for him, something that he called the 'Purge Protocol', though I can hazard a guess as to what his plan is at the moment."

Before either Ratchet or Starlight could say anything a dropship, one that belonged to the Starship Phoenix and not Dreadzone, came into the area they were standing in and opened its door, to which they watched as seven figures departed from the ship. The figures were all wearing brown robes, ones that matched the jedi robes that Angela had been planning on producing for the new order, and they all appeared to be holding their lightsabers out. Six of the jedi had the style of weapon that only had one blade, though the colors were split evenly between blue and green, while the seventh member of their party held a lightsaber that had a purple color to it... and two blades.

Not a moment after Ratchet noticed the coloration of the blades, and the amount of blades that the lightsaber had, the figure pulled back its hood and revealed that it was Angela, who had a smile on her face as she looked at them.

"What would you guys do without me?" Angela asked, letting out a chuckle as she nodded her head to the others behind her, to which the six unknown jedi pulled back their hoods and charged into battle with Vox's robot soldiers.

"Well, we wouldn't be having a good time without you," Ratchet said, though before he did anything else he grabbed the collar around hiss neck and removed it, to which Ace and Starlight did the same.

"I really hate to interrupt this reunion, but we've got some business to take care of." Ace said, causing them all to turn towards him for a moment, "Part of the Purge Protocol was the death of every hero that Vox has ever captured, which means that all of the heroes that are in this station at the moment are in danger of being Exterminated. The other part of it was the extermination of everyone that's being held in the prison that's located on PX-17... though I shouldn't have to tell you what that means."

"This is a last ditch effort to kill Sunset," Starlight slowly said, the truth coming to her within a matter of seconds, to which she brought one of her hooves to her face, "Even after everything he has seen, and after everything Sunset's destroyed, I cannot believe that he's still trying to kill her. When will he learn that there isn't a way to kill her, especially considering that Searing and Hatred would kill him before he even got close to wound him?"

"Not if we have anything to say about it," Angela commented, beckoning them onto the dropship, to which the three of them climbed in behind her, "Ace, I'm going to need the coordinates for PX-17."

"And we're going to need something faster than this if we want to stop Vox," Ace replied, though he was fully prepared to hand over the coordinates for their destination.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," Angela said, a smile appearing on her face as she closed the ship's door and got them into the air, "We brought both the Starship Phoenix and the Starship Hyperion, both of which are equipped with enough boosters and warp drives to get us where we need to go."

Ratchet knew that Angela was going to take them back to the Phoenix, where they could dock the ship and allow someone else to take control of it, before they teleported over to the Hyperion and followed after Vox. Even as they left the station behind Ace told them that Clank and Al had already started rounding up the other contestants the moment they started their match, so it was a distinct possibility that they were removing the blast collars before they made their escape. Ratchet didn't mind them staying behind at the moment, because they were trying to save lives and he knew that they would leave the station once they were sure that it was safe for them to do so. Between the jedi that Angela had brought and the newly trained Galactic Rangers, which Angela said were better than when they were when Nefarious was running around, he was sure that all the heroes that had been trapped by Vox would be free in no time.

He then turned his attention to the stars all around them, wondering which one was PX-17 and trying to make out the shuttle that Vox had to have used to escape Dreadzone before Angela had arrived. One way or another they would bring Vox to justice... though that all depended on what happened on PX-17 and Sunset's reaction to everything the man had done so far.





As Vox walked down the hallway that would eventually bring him to the room that Sunset was being held in, where he could do what he and Commander Stone had come to do, he could feel his anger rising. He had made the smart move of leaving Dreadzone the moment Ace was dead, because not minutes after he docked on Commander Stone's ship, and left his shuttle, did everything start to fall apart. Apparently his satellites had stopped working for some odd reason, because the Starship Phoenix, the ship they had taken Ratchet and his family from, had suddenly appeared on their radars and sent ships into the station. From what the underlings reported the Jedi, lead by their founder Angela Cross, were assaulting their forces and rescuing the heroes he had captured.

It got even worse, because from what he was able to gather there were at least half of his employees that had turned on him the moment the Jedi arrived, which actually explained why the radars hadn't detected the Starship Phoenix until it was too late. That was also when he discovered that the blast collars had been deactivated, because the people in command of the collars also turned on him and made sure that they couldn't be used anymore. The worst news was the reveal that the Reactor, the Eviscerator, and Ace, all of whom he swore had been killed by Ratchet and Starlight, were actually alive and fighting against the soldiers they had left behind, though Ace had left the station with the siblings... which told Vox that they were coming to kill him.

In a series of unfortunate events Vox now found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place, because it was either face a prison sentence for the rest of his days or kill Sunset and hopefully die moments later. At this point he knew that he was screwed, almost as if the universe was laughing at him, but he prepared himself for whatever his ultimate fate was. Though before they even reached the room they were heading to he made sure to poison the blade that Commander Stone was carrying, because if there was one thing they were going to do before they died they were going to make sure that Sunset was dead as well. Though to make sure that the plan worked they had decided on using a smaller blade, a shortsword to be exact, so they could reach the heart with ease.

Eventually they came to the door that would take them into the room that Sunset was being held in, because for some reason they couldn't detonate the room like they had originally planned and had to resort to his backup plan, which was the poison.

"It has been an honor to serve under you Lord Vox," Commander Stone said, surprising Vox for a moment, but in the end the man simply nodded his head and they opened the door.

The room looked the exact same as Vox remembered it, with the walls being the same color and the holoscreen resting on one of them, which had been replaced after one of Sunset's outbursts. The observation room was empty at the moment, though there were no signs of Sunset jumping up there and killing the Professor when she had the chance. Sunset stood in the middle of the entire room, in the form that resembled a God of Destruction, though he had been told that the God she was mimicking was from an Old Earth story that her clothing designer had found. Sunset had been expecting their arrival, because she was facing the door they had entered from and opened her eyes the moment they stepped into the room.

"Gleeman Vox, we meet again," Sunset said, though she made no effort to approach them just yet, almost as if she was waiting for them to do something, "So, I take it my brother and sister have won their match and that we are all free to go?"

"Yes, and Commander Stone will escort you out of the prison," Vox said, beckoning for the robot to approach Sunset, though he waited until the Commander was right in front of Sunset so they could pull of the trick that they had planned for, "or rather escort you out of the prison and deliver you straight to HELL!"

Commander Stone, having hidden the blade he was going to use in the palm of his hand, spun his right hand around, revealed the hidden blade, and drove it right into Sunset's body at a downward angle, making sure that the entire blade was inside her body before backing away from her. Sunset, on the other hand, seemed surprised that they had even attempted something like this, before growing serious once more as she stared at them again.

"Seriously? You really think that this small weapon can kill me?" Sunset asked, flames dancing around her right hand for a moment as she pulled the blade out of her chest and tossed it to the ground, "I will enjoy killing y..."

Before she could finish her statement, and announce that she was going to kill them both, she felt a burning pain in her chest, one that she was sure didn't belong to the open wound, before she fell to her knees and coughed some blood onto the floor. Her body felt like it was on fire, almost as if there had been something on the blade that was causing a severe reaction with her body, though it pained her to raise her head and look up at Vox.

"Good, the poison is working like a charm," Vox said, grinning as he realized that it was only a matter of minutes until she was dead, "I'm sure that you have questions, but I'm afraid that you wont be asking me anything before you finally drop dead. I know that you are familiar with the Blarg and their poisoned planet, Orxon, though there was a special reason as to why I made sure to claim that world the moment Chairman Drek was dead. You see, he was working on a poison that could kill whoever it touched in a matter of minutes, and the best thing is that he never got around to making a cure for it. He managed to make one vial of this special poison, the same poison that's now tearing away at your life, before his death, though I'm sure he'll be happy to know that one of the Blarg's last inventions helped the universe by getting rid of you."

"Don't assume... that this will... kill me," Sunset coughed out, feeling the poison working its way through her body and weakening her overall strength.

"I don't need to assume anything," Vox replied, turning to the doorway and stepping back into the hallway, followed by Commander Stone, "Who would have thought that the last invention of the late Chairman Drek would be the one thing that could kill the infamous 'Goddess of Destruction'? Goodbye Sunset Shimmer, may this prison become your tomb."

Sunset forced herself to stand as Vox departed from the room, though not a second later another wave of burning pain shot through her body and knocked her back to the floor, where she landed on her side and stared at the doorway. Even as she tried to stand up again, and tried to walk over to the door, she was rewarded with more pain, forcing her back to the ground in defeat every time. After the third try had failed she remained on the floor and stared at the door, feeling the poison burning its way though her body and taking away what energy she had left.

Even as she felt her life fading before her eyes she noticed two shadowy figures appear around her, though she offered them a weak smile as she realized that Searing and Hatred had come to her once more.

Come on Sunset, fight the poison! Searing said, though for the first time Sunset was sure that she heard a hint of fear in her voice, Please, fight it. I don't want you to die.

"I don't think... I have much... of a choice," Sunset replied, though that was followed by a fit of coughing, "I bet this poison... would fail to kill... an actual God of Destruction... and not the pretender... I am..."

Yeah, Beerus would laugh at this and destroy Vox in an instant. Searing said, though despite the fact that she was mostly made up of magic at the moment she could feel tears running down her face, but then she turned to the other emotion that had been given life for a moment, Hatred, we have to give our power back to Sunset.

What?! Are you insane? Hatred fired back, as if she was disgusted by the very idea, Do you have any idea what will happen to us if we give our power back to Sunset?

Yes, I do, Searing replied, her chest starting to hurt all of a sudden, but she chose to ignore it and focused on Hatred, We, the manifestations of Sunset's emotions, will cease to exist... so in essence we would be dying, but we're already dying. Hatred, I know that you hate me, Sunset, and everything that Sunset and her family stands for, but if we stand by and do nothing then Sunset, and by effect the both of us, will die. What's better for everyone at the moment; fighting me and ensuring that we all die, or fusing back together with Sunset and ensuring that we all live to see another day?

Just because you have a point doesn't mean that I like it, Hatred said, letting out a growl as she stared at Searing, but as much as she hated the idea of fusing back together with Sunset she much preferred living, Fine, I'll do it... but if I ever get a chance to break free and go my own separate way I'm taking it.

Searing opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped when she noticed that her left hand was starting to unravel before her very eyes, to which she noticed the same thing was happening with Hatred's right hand. She already knew that it meant that Sunset's heartbeat was getting weaker and weaker, which meant that they needed to act now before they were all dead. It pained her to have to choose between herself and Sunset, especially after she had finally developed her own personality, but she knew what needed to be done... even if it hurt her to do so.

Let's do this Hatred, Searing said, allowing all of her power to gather into her remaining hand, which she rested over Sunset's heart, Let's save Sunset... and then we can deal with Vox.

By the Maker I hate you so much right now, Hatred replied, replicating what Searing was doing with her spare hand, though I guess I can settle on hating Vox and Commander Stone even more right now.

A few seconds passed before they both burst into pure magic, Searing taking on the form of a raging inferno while Hatred appeared as a swirling mass of shadows. They then began to pour their power back into Sunset's body, hopefully restoring her to the point where she could overcome the poison and stop them before they reached the end of their spell. Searing could feel herself slipping away as the magic consumed her, though she knew that Hatred was likely feeling the same thing on her end. As they worked she could also tell that the room around them was cracking, as if the amount of power they were putting out was too much for the walls and ceiling to handle.

Searing felt a smile appear on her face for a brief moment as she noticed Sunset's body move, though that was the last thing she and Hatred saw before both of their worlds went dark.





Vox and Commander Stone managed to make it outside the prison, without being stopped by anyone, before they found the Galactic Rangers standing around the ship they had used to get to the planet, along with Ratchet, Starlight, and Ace. He had been hoping to get as far away from PX-17 as he could before they found the planet, even with Ace's help anyway, but he had to wonder how they managed to get to the planet so quickly. If he still had his gun on hand he was sure that he would have pulled it out and loosed some shots at them before he was killed, though that wasn't possible as the Rangers were smart enough to remove the weapons that he and the Commander were carrying the moment they surrounded them.

Seeing how he was weaponless, and out of options, Vox was forced to watch as Sasha Phyronix, the previous captain of the Starship Phoenix, stepped out of the crowd and approached him, though she was also wearing one of the Jedi robes.

"Gleeman Vox," Sasha said, staring Vox right in the eyes as she spoke, "you have committed countless atrocities over the years, to both the heroes that you force to play your games and the planets you make them run through. Normally I would run through everything you have done, reading off a list of every known offense you have committed, but unfortunately we'll have to skip that, because we don't have a complete list, and get to the end. You have two options; surrender and go to prison for the rest of your life, with absolutely no chance of parole, or die."

Before Vox could say anything, or announce that he and the Commander had just killed Sunset Shimmer, the ground beneath their feet started to rumble and shake as an earthquake hit the area they were in. That caught Vox by surprise, because his scientists all confirmed that there was no possible way that PX-17 could have an earthquake, though if he lived through this he was going to track them all down and put them in the ground. Everyone managed to remain standing during the quake, meaning that it was one of those minor ones that did no damage other than freak people out, though when the quake began to subside the real fun started. Seconds after the quake began to lower in power a pillar of spinning fire erupted out of the prison and ascended towards the sky, though after a certain distance the sky began to swirl around the pillar of energy.

It was as if a maelstrom had opened up in the sky above them, because it looked like the sky was being sucked into the pillar of energy, though at the same time the ground started to shake once more.

"VOX!" Ratchet shouted, anger filling him as he realized that there was only one thing, or person for that matter, that could be creating the change in weather so suddenly, "What in the name of the Maker did you do?"

"There's no reason to ask him," Starlight said, her eyes locked on the pillar of energy, though for some reason she couldn't feel anything coming from it, "they did something to Sunset, that's all we need to know."

"Oh, I'll tell you what we did," Vox said, knowing that no matter what happened he was going to die on this planet, "Allow me to give you despair; we killed Sunset Shimmer! The Goddess of Destruction is no more."

The moment those words left his mouth something happened, as a circular ring, about six miles wide, appeared around the entirety of the prison and caused everyone to step away from the building. Starlight, deciding not to be anywhere near the prison at the moment, ran in the opposite direction, though she noticed that Ratchet and their friends were following her lead on this. She had absolutely no idea what was happening at the moment, but she had the feeling that something bad was about to reveal itself to all of them. Vox and his Commander, in their infinite wisdom, decided to follow them as well, choosing to leave the area around the prison in case something happened.

Once they were all outside the ring around the prison, and were a safe distance away, they all assumed that they were safe and that nothing could happen, though that was before a large sphere of energy erupted from the maelstrom and surged towards the prison, where it exploded the moment it came into contact with the structure. Ratchet, Starlight, and everyone else were forced to cover their eyes as a wave of dust came at them, temporarily making it impossible for them to see what had happened, though once the smoke started to clear there was a chorus of gasps as they took in the sights. Starlight's eyes widened as she gazed upon where the prison had been standing, because now there was a massive crater where the building used to stand, a crater that stopped at the edge of the ring that had appeared around the prison.

Starlight started to wonder what was happening, though that was before Ratchet tapped her armor for a moment to get her attention before pointing towards the maelstrom, which was no longer active... though in its place floated their sister, in the form she used when she was merged with Searing.

"Impossible," Vox said, staring up at Sunset with a hint of confusion in his voice, "We killed you... you shouldn't be alive. Commander Stone, take care of her... properly this time."

Commander Stone engaged his jetpack and flew into the air, though as he zeroed in on where Sunset was floating he swung his right arm and revealed a hidden blade that he kept in case his main weapons were taken from him. The moment he neared his target he started swinging his weapon at her, though Sunset merely extended a hand and parried all of the attacks that came her way. Not a few seconds later she stopped the sword in its tracks, with only one of her fingers, and stared at the robot for a moment, before flicking the fingers on her other hand on its chest and shattering its core into a thousand pieces. Once she was done with the dead Commander, and dropped the pieces into the crater, she moved her hands behind her back once more and stared down at Vox, who seemed ready to flee at any moment.

In an instant she disappeared from the sky and reappeared behind Vox, whose eyes widened as he realized that something had definitely happened to Sunset, because he could have sworn that she wasn't this powerful an hour ago.

"Now then, let's rid the universe of some trash," Sunset said, causing Vox to turn around and look at her, to which she extended her left hand and pointed at his face, "Destroy."

The moment that word left Sunset's mouth Vox felt something race through his body, but he looked down at his hands and started to scream in horror as he noticed what was happening, his body was beginning to disintegrate. He could only watch as his body broke apart before his eyes, though whether he was turning into particles or simply being destroyed he had absolutely no idea. Even his metallic arm was breaking apart as well, though his screams were cut short as the destruction reached his head and reduced him to nothing. Not a few seconds later, when she was sure that Vox was truly dead, Sunset returned her arm to her side as she faced the others, all of whom appeared to be shocked by what they saw.

"Is Dreadzone clear of our friends and allies?" Sunset asked, because now that Vox was taken care of there was some loose ends she wanted to clear up before she did anything else.

"It will be in about ten minutes," Sasha replied, to which she beckoned for everyone around her to get back into their ships and leave the planet, because she had the feeling that something big was coming.

"Yes, and you appear to be leaving behind something important," Sunset commented, holding a hand out as she worked her magic, "Come to me, Fragment of Harmony."

A few seconds later a shining pink crystal appeared above her hands, causing Starlight to stare at the fourth Raritanium Core in both shock and awe at the same time. She had known that Vox had the next Core, but with everything that had happened she had neglected to find the time to discover its location so they could acquire it. Not that it really mattered anymore, considering the fact that Sunset had called it to her and it had responded, though she did hand it over to Angela so she could put it with the three they already had. Starlight and Ratchet followed everyone onto the ships and departed from the planet, though Sunset decided to remain outside the ship as they entered the atmosphere.

Once they were a safe distance away from PX-17, and Sasha signaled to Sunset that Dreadzone was clear of friendlies, Sunset summoned a disk of energy and threw it in the direction of the station. A few seconds later there was a blinding explosion that shook the ships around her, indicating that she had struck her target, but she wasn't done yet, as she turned back to PX-17, summoned some more of her energy, and threw a sphere of destruction at it. A few minutes later there was another explosion as she wiped the the prison planet from existence, to which she let out a sigh before teleporting aboard the Phoenix.

Now that she and her family were free it was time to have a much needed talk... though she was sure that they weren't going to like what she had to tell them.





In the Great Clock, however, Orvus looked over the readings from Sunset's 'awakening', as he was sure that a good portion of the planets around her had shook in response to her ascension. He had known that this would have been the end result, the creation of a God of Destruction, but he had never known whether she was going to be true to herself or if Searing would be the one to take over. Now, however, he knew the end result, though that did nothing to ease his mind as he looked over all the readings that he and Sigmund had received over the last hour. Especially the twelve unique energy signatures that their instruments had barely managed to catch before they dissipated completely.. energy signatures that had only appeared to watch the event unfold before disappearing.

The other twelve Gods of Destruction had noticed Sunset's ascension, though whatever that meant he had no idea... he was simply going to have to watch events unfold and see what happened to their universe.
> Interlude: Plans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Gleeman Vox was dead, the shadowy empire he had built was falling apart the moment following his death, and the heroes that he had captured and forced to play his games had been freed at long last. Many of the heroes had removed the armor that Vox had forced them to wear, so Starlight or someone else could break them apart and reuse them in some manner. Ratchet and Sasha helped some of the heroes and innocent people back to their home planets, where they could pick up the pieces of their broken lives and return to what they had been doing before Vox had grabbed them. Ratchet was glad that many of the heroes that they had saved were still planning on being heroes, using this experience to validate the need for more than one hero in the known galaxies, though Ratchet was also sure that he heard one of them mention starting up a hero association or something like that.

Angela, on the other hand, was busy dealing with quite a large number of the heroes that they had saved, as it appeared that many of them, including Ace Hardlight, desired to train under her and the other members of her order, effectively doubling the number of Jedi that the galaxies would have. The Mystic, the head of Angela's order, had flown his own spaceship from their base in Metropolis to the fleet where everyone was stationed at the moment, as he was eager to meet the heroes that wanted to join them. Even Maul, the usually silent man that generally only spoke to either Angela or the Mystic, had expressed some desire to meet the possible recruits, as if he was actually looking to take some on himself.

Despite all of this there was only one person missing from the gathering of Jedi, heroes, and civilians, though it was the one person that many people wanted to talk to now that they were free once more; Sunset.

Normally Ratchet would have asked what was wrong with their elder sister, but Starlight knew what was wrong the moment their sister had joined them aboard the ship, before shaking her head and heading to the room where the Cores were kept. Searing and Hatred had been forced to fuse back together with Sunset, likely to save her from whatever Vox had done to her, though that meant that the demon they had come to treat as the youngest member of their was gone, taken from them. Sunset had been quick in dealing the death blow to Vox, though Starlight knew that if anyone aboard the fleet had been in her shoes they would have likely tortured the man until finally granting him the release he would have been begging for.

One other thing Starlight had noticed was that she couldn't sense Sunset's magical energy anymore, which she guessed made sense considering that she had ascended to being an actual Goddess of Destruction, or God of Destruction as she had told them before going to the room with the Cores. Sunset had even given Starlight a Codex fragment before heading into the room, indicating that a friend had given it to her and that she wanted her sister to have the information that it had given her. Still, it unnerved her that she couldn't feel her sister's energy anymore, something that she had gotten used to the moment she had started practicing with her abilities. It was almost like they were back at the start of their first adventure, where she was the only one that could use magic, but the difference was that Sunset had full control over all of her potential.

Starlight flashed back to the destruction of PX-17 for a moment, remembering how quickly Sunset had blown the planet to pieces, before letting out a sigh, because she knew that at some point Sunset would explain things to her and Ratchet.

Eventually she, Ratchet, Clank, Sasha, and Angela found themselves back in the main room of the Hyperion, though this time they were finally alone as all the heroes and Jedi decided to leave them alone. Starlight was thankful to finally be alone with her family again, and with their best friend as well, because that meant that they could get whatever was bugging them out in the open.

"So, I guess the title Qwark gave Sunset is officially what she is now," Sasha said, though she was rubbing her forehead, as if the thought of a real God walking among them hurt her brain, "Of all the times that the idiot captain had to be right about something, and not have it blow up horribly in his face, is when he labels someone with a name that happens to be what she becomes."

"Yet she is devastated by her own powers," Angela commented, knowing what they were all thinking and decided to voice it anyway, "Searing and Hatred, her emotions given life, are basically dead at this point, though it seems that Searing's death has hurt Sunset more than any of us could possibly know. You all saw the outcome of her anger; she simply destroyed Vox right then and there, before blowing up the planet and his space station in a matter of seconds. We already knew that she was strong on her own, but in this state, where she has all one hundred percent of her power, she's on a completely different level than before."

"So what do we do now?" Sasha asked, though it was clear that she had no idea what to do now that they had rescued their friends and the other heroes from Dreadzone.

Starlight had been thinking the same thing, but after some time she had come to the conclusion that she and the rest of her family needed a break from saving the galaxy, something that might help Sunset down the road. It would allow them to take some time off and help Sunset with whatever she was feeling, because an unstable God of Destruction had to be bad for the universe as a whole. She still hated the idea that her sister was a god that specialized in destroying things, but she couldn't fight it at this point, not when Searing and Hatred had given their lives to save Sunset. She was just going to have to roll with it and hope that they didn't need Sunset's new powers further down the line, because she worried what might happen to the next person that enraged her sister.

"We take a short vacation," Starlight said, causing everyone to look at her for a moment, "Look, the events of Dreadzone are weighing down Sunset at the moment, so maybe if we can take her mind off of the past she can get over it and move on with her life. Besides, the Solana and Bogon Galaxies wont be needing us for a while, not when you've got a small force of Jedi and the possibility for some sort of Hero Association backing the Galactic Rangers."

"She raises a point Sasha," Angela commented, causing the cazar to turn to her, "Between our order, the improved Galactic Rangers, and the heroes creating their own association, we can deal with anything major for the foreseeable future. The galaxies won't have to rely solely on Ratchet and his sisters to save them and how we have the manpower to undo a lot of the damage that Nefarious left behind. Ratchet and his sisters deserve some sort of break from everything they've done lately... though if you seriously need them then you could always contact me."

"Should have seen that one coming." Sasha groaned, before letting out a sigh and pulling herself out of her chair, "Fine, we can give the five of you, that includes you as well Clank, some time off from helping to protect the galaxies. The Mystic and Maul will be able to cover the Jedi order while your gone, and I can deal with the Galactic Rangers, so you shouldn't have to worry about us too much. Of course I'll send you small notices everyday, just so you know what's going on in the universe, but I will try my hardest to not interrupt you guys... wherever you decide to go for vacation."

"I was thinking Pokitaru," Starlight said, a smile appearing on her face, "from what I've heard the manager has updated his entire resort since we helped save it from Chairman Drek. It shouldn't be too difficult to request a private suite for a week or two, while making sure that no one outside our inner circle knows that we're even there... and then once we're ready we'll return to active duty and pick up where we left off."

"Sounds like you already have everything planned out," Sasha commented, looking at the people around her for a moment, "Well then, I'll let you guys get your arrangements settled with the manager and enjoy your vacation... I'm going to go make sure that Qwark stays away from that planet until you return."

Ratchet nodded his thanks to Sasha as she walked away from the table, because at the moment the last thing that Sunset needed was Qwark messing with her. There was no telling what their sister would do to Qwark if he pestered her, considering that they had no idea what she could do with one hundred percent of her power backing her. The destruction of PX-17 and the Dreadzone station had been a simple warm up, though Ratchet had to worry about what might happen the next time someone angered Sunset. He was sure that it would be a repeat of what happened in the Bogon Galaxy, where she merely caused earthquakes, but there was no way of knowing until something happened... though he seriously hoped that nothing would anger Sunset in the future.

Once Sasha was no longer on the Hyperion, and reported that the fleet would be returning to Metropolis, Ratchet took control of the Hyperion and directed them to Pokitaru, while Starlight messaged the manager with the details of their request. He knew that the manager would love to have them back, considering that they had saved his place from Chairman Drek, so he left Starlight to her work as he and Clank made sure that they would reach their destination without delay. Angela stood beside Ratchet's chair as they broke away from the fleet, knowing that in a few weeks they would be putting what happened in Dreadzone behind them and return to a normal life... until the next villain decided to break their peace and quiet.

Though for some reason Angela couldn't help but feel like the next villain was literally right around the corner, but she merely shook her head and decided to focus on the people around her for now... there would be time to worry about villains once they finished their vacation.
> Size: Pokitaru
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The manager of the Pokitaru resort was more than willing to let Ratchet, his sisters, and Angela have a private suite on the outskirts of the resort, where they would be able to avoid most of the other people and keep themselves hidden at the same time. The first thing that Ratchet and Starlight did was disassemble the Dreadzone armor that Vox had forced them to wear, with Angela's help no less, and the metal had been put to use creating the prototype for a more powerful RYNO weapon. Ratchet worried about Starlight, because of the fact that she wanted to start on the weapon during their vacation, but if that was what she wanted to do with her time he wouldn't hold it against her. There were also times where Starlight went onto their private beach and and enjoyed the sunlight with the rest of her family... save for someone that all three of them worried about; Sunset.

Sunset spent the first few days they spent at the resort either standing on the beach and staring out into the distance or sitting somewhere, usually chosen at random, and meditating until night was upon them. Ratchet and Starlight knew exactly why she was distancing herself from them at the moment, because she needed to come to terms with everything that had happened to her thanks to Gleeman Vox. She needed to come to a understanding with her powers, and her station as the God of Destruction as she preferred to call herself these days, and get over the death of Searing, even if it was to save her life.

Ratchet still couldn't believe that Searing, the demon that had saved Sunset's life several times during their adventures and shattered a couple of planets with her powers, was gone. It didn't seem possible that the demon, who had become like a little sister to them all, was actually gone this time, never to return to the universe. Starlight had told him that Searing had, at one point in time, represented Sunset's pride, meaning that she was also an emotion given life, just like Hatred was, but even the knowledge that he had named her correctly all those years ago did nothing for him. He could only sit and watch as Sunset came to terms with who she used to be and who she was now, because it had to be hard for her to accept that she was a walking god now.

The other problem was the Codex fragment that Sunset had been given, one that documented the story of another God of Destruction, one that was called Beerus the Destroyer... though Ratchet had no idea why Sunset was so keen on knowing as much as she could about the person, considering that part of the story seemed to be missing.

"Is she still meditating?" Angela asked, though at that point they were just finishing their first full week at the resort and were preparing to start their second week.

"Yeah... she's been doing that since we came here," Ratchet replied, turning to look in Sunset's direction, discovering that she was meditating outside their rooms, "Don't worry, eventually she'll come to terms with what happened and join us."

"It still doesn't seem real." Angela commented, staring out at where Sunset was sitting, her mind replaying what had happened back on PX-17, "I still cannot believe that Vox tried one last time to kill her... and yet that last attempt is what released her full potential for everyone to see for themselves. In an instant she erased the prison she had been held in, destroyed the robot that was serving Vox, and then got rid of Vox before erasing his station and the planet. Its like all of this is second nature to her."

"Well, she'll calm down once she's done meditating," Ratchet said, though he knew that Sunset wasn't pleased with the idea of being a god that only destroyed, something that none of them were exactly happy with.

Angela could only nod her head for a moment as she stared at Sunset, wondering if she would take after the person that was on the Codex fragment or if she would be different from him. It was too early to decide, so she merely sighed and rejoined the others, knowing that they would have the answers to their questions sooner or later.





It was on their tenth day that the group decided to go to the beach again, though this time around Sunset actually stopped her meditation and came with them. Ratchet and Starlight had no idea if she had come to terms with herself yet or not, but at the moment they were both glad to have their sister back with. When they arrived at their chosen destination Ratchet planted two beach umbrellas for them all to relax under, though while he had been putting them up he noticed that Clank and Starlight were busy building sand sculptures, allowing him, Angela, and Sunset to simply relax in the shade. Clank seemed to be making a sculpture of himself, a very good one Ratchet noticed, while Starlight etched some sort of emblem into the sand, one that happened to have what appeared to be six gemstones arrayed in a pattern of sorts.

"Harmony," Sunset commented, staring at the emblem for a moment, though there was a flash of knowledge that quickly passed, "the six Raritanium Cores arranged in a pattern to spread hope and good fortune to all."

Ratchet had no idea what Sunset was talking about, besides the fact that she had called the fourth Core they had recovered a 'fragment of harmony', so he simply decided that it was better to have her talking and let her be... though before any of them could truly relax someone snapped a picture of them all. To his surprise it was a little red haired girl with her hair done in a quad-pigtail style, who happened to be smiling happily at the picture she had just taken, though that was followed by her turning and snapping one of Starlight and Clank. Oddly enough Ratchet noticed that the little girl didn't turn to Sunset, who happened to be in between both groups, but decided to ignore it and deal with whoever was interrupting their vacation.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ratchet asked, because he had been hoping that they could lay low for a while and not get found out by someone, though now it seemed like that was over.

"I'm taking picthureth for my thcool projecth!" the girl happily replied, though she did so in a pleasantly high pitched, innocent voice, "I'm doing a report on heroeth, and I recognithed you from the newthpaperth! You're Ratchet, right?"

"Yeah, that' me," Ratchet said, though there was really no point in denying who he was for the little girl, despite the fact that she only seemed to be interested in him, "Why do you ask?"

"I wath wondering," the girl continued eagerly, as if she had been waiting for him to ask why she was there or why she was asking if he was indeed Ratchet, "if it would be pothible to get thom picthures of you doing thome 'heroic' acthion!"

Starlight pulled herself up from where she had been sitting, and away from her sand emblem she had been making, and walked over to Ratchet's side, indicating that she was up for whatever the girl had in mind. Angela, on the other hand, decided to remain where she was sitting, because this was all for her boyfriend and she really didn't want to pull out her lightsaber for some practice session. Sunset, however, merely stared at the girl the entire time, trying to determine if she was telling the truth or if there was something else going on at the moment.

In the end Ratchet, with Clank on his back, and Starlight followed the girl down the walkway they had used to get to the beach, though now it happened to be infested with enemies that the young girl wanted them to fight. Their first opponents happened to be some wild crabs, which snapped at them whenever they came close, but neither one of them bothered to pull out any guns as they used their hand weapons on remove the crabs. They then jumped over the log that happened to be sitting in the path, which they were sure hadn't been there thirty minutes ago, before they attacked the next group of crabs that got in their way.

As they made their way through the path they could hear the girl requesting various physical actions while they explored, such as double jumps and the like, so she could take pictures of them. Once they jumped over a wall they encountered a robot that wanted them dead, though in a matter of seconds they had taken care of the robot and looked at each other.

"What are the odds that we'll encounter more of them the further we go?" Ratchet asked, though he both knew that there were likely going to be more enemies waiting for them.

"Likely a hundred percent," Starlight said, though she pulled out the other weapons she had been working on, and approved by her superiors at Gadgetron, before she threw a pair over to Ratchet, "Well then, I guess we'll get to see how well these new weapons, the Acid Bomb Glove and the Lacerator, function in battle. There's also another weapon available in the vendors, the Concussion Cannon, but we should hold off on getting it until we know for sure if we need it or not."

Ratchet was amazed that Starlight was able to come up with three new weapons, and get two of them approved, within the first week they had spent at the resort, though he was glad that she had done so. They had left most of their weapons on the Hyperion, which was currently docked near their resort building, so they would have had to waste some time to get whatever they had on board the ship. This way they would be able to test whatever new weapons Starlight had created without having to fall back on the weapons they had acquired during Nefarious' invasion, as the Dreadzone weapons had been broken down into spare parts and turned into the weapons that they were currently holding.

With the weapon situation taken care of Ratchet attached his wrench to the crank in front of them and opened the way forward, allowing them to jump over the gap they had discovered and proceed into a waterfall area. There they fought another group of wild crabs and jumped onto the ledge above them, where they encountered another group of robots that were either standing guard or preparing to go attack something. Instead of wasting time Ratchet and Starlight loosed a pair of bombs and blew their opponents to pieces, though once they were taken care of they rode down the slide like ledge behind them, where they arrived in a camp that was infested by enemy robots.

It took them a few minutes to clear out the entire group of robots, though once they were all taken care of the door opened and they walked out of the village like area, only to be attacked by yet another group of crabs. When the crabs were gone they encountered another group of robots that were hanging around an area with chairs, though after a few minutes they were all dead and the two of them moved on once more. They found a bolt crank in their way, so Ratchet turned it around and brought up a bridge that connected to where he and his family had been trying to relax... along with some sort of armor resting in the middle of the bridge.

"Wildfire Body Armor eh?" Starlight commented, staring at the armor for a few minutes while her scanners looked up the armor and its schematics, "So its elemental armor... that might be useful in the future."

They both turned to the girl, who had indicated that her name was Luna, but before they could ask her anything a group of green robots flew into the area and blew up part of the resort, causing the girl to run while the robots followed after her. Ratchet let out a sigh as he pulled the armor on, knowing that they might need it in the future... once Starlight had finished doing whatever she wanted to do to it.

"Seriously? We couldn't go two weeks without another villain ruining our vacation?" Angela growled, picking herself up and pulling out her lightsaber, to which she extended the blade as she joined Ratchet and Starlight, "Okay, these guys are asking for it... considering the fact that their attacking the resort and endangering the lives of innocent people. Hey Sunset, you want in on this?"

Sunset sighed and stood up, dusting the sand off of her godly attire before she joined her family, though it was merely out of a desire to see what this villain wanted instead of actually wanting to blow something up.

They followed the new path that the robots had opened up, where they attacked the large groups of green robots that happened to be waiting for them while climbing up a wall and continuing their assault. Angela's weapon proved to be useful in dispatching a large majority of their enemies, allowing Ratchet and Starlight to conserve their ammunition while Sunset merely walked behind them. Normally this was when one of them would ask Sunset to target the enemy ships and take them out, but considering that the little girl may have already been taken they didn't want to run the risk of killing her on accident as well.

They eventually rode a rail down into another section of the resort, where they attacked the large group of robots that happened to be waiting for them before moving forward. They then came to a cave that happened to be guarded by only four of the green robots, though they were easy to take care of with the amount of firepower that was backing them at the moment, to which they discovered the gloves portion of the armor they had uncovered. Ratchet slipped the gloves on and then the group moved forward once more, to which they rode a small platform to one of the other islands that happened to be around the resort that they had been placed in.

Once the platform came to a stop they jumped off of it and attacked the enemies that happened to be waiting for them, a combination of crabs and green robots, before they rode another platform to a different section of the resort. There they repeated the same process as before and cleaned up all of the enemies that happened to be in the area, though they eventually arrived at an elevator. They climbed onto the platform and went to the top of the tower, though they were just in time to see Luna being taken away by a green robot, who said something about a planet called Kalidon. Even as Luna was abducted before their eyes something fell from the ship, though none of them bothered to retrieve it until the ship departed from the planet.

The item in question appeared to be a Technomite artifact, though that resulted in Starlight looking confused while Ratchet, Angela, and Clank smiled, though Sunset didn't seem too interested. The three basically told Starlight that the Technomites were considered a fairy tale, because parents tell their children a story about them to explain how technology works. They all knew that this latest adventure was going to be somewhat different than the last ones they had been on, though they made their way back to the Hyperion.

They had a little girl to save and some ancient secrets to uncover... while bumping into Qwark outside their ship, but they were in a hurry so they merely beckoned him aboard and they took off, heading for the next planet they needed to visit.
> Size: Ryllus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Ratchet set the Hyperion's course for their next destination, the planet known as Ryllus, Qwark settled into one of the chairs in the lounge area and asked what sort of adventure the family was going on this time, indicating that he believed that they were setting out to stop another villain from taking over the known universe. That didn't stop Starlight from telling him that they weren't hunting down someone like Chairman Drek, rather they were trying to locate something that would tell them about their enemy while figuring out where they had taken the little girl. Qwark nodded his head several times during her explanation, as if he actually understood what they were trying to do, but Starlight figured that he was playing them so they wouldn't throw him off the ship.

"Okay, but why didn't Sunset just blow up the enemy's ships the moment they arrived?" Qwark asked, though he had waited until they were done explaining the situation before raising his comment, "I mean, she can easily blow up a space station and a planet, so why didn't she just erase your new enemy the moment he showed himself at the resort?"

"Have you forgotten what happened a little over a week ago?" Starlight asked, somewhat thankful that Sunset had retired to the Core Room so she could be away from Qwark, "Sunset has barely had enough time to come to terms with her new powers, which means she could have easily damaged the entire resort, create a cataclysm on accident, or blown us and our enemy to pieces. Not to mention that by the time she could have decided to use her magic on our enemy the little girl had already been kidnapped, so attacking the ship would have killed her as well... which isn't something she needs at the moment."

"So, we can't use her power anymore." Qwark commented, appearing to be sad by the fact that they couldn't just use Sunset's new power to obliterate whatever new villain they had uncovered.

"Not unless you want to die a painful death," Angela said, letting out a sigh as she leaned back in her chair, though she seemed to think about something that hadn't been answered yet, "Qwark, why did you follow us to Pokitaru in the first place?"

"I was... hoping that one of you could help me with something," Qwark admitted, rubbing the back of his head for a moment, indicating that he might not have thought this through considering everything he had done to them since they had met, "I've seen how you all interact and that reminded me that I don't have a family to call my own... so I was hoping that you guys would help me find out what happened to them and if they're still alive somewhere."

Angela stared at Qwark for a moment, somewhat shocked that the man had no idea who his parents were and that he had no idea if they were even alive at the moment. She also had no idea why he had bothered to come to them with the request, seeing how it would have been much easier for him to get a check done somewhere else. She guessed that the former hero didn't want people to know that he was searching for some lost relatives, because he preferred to uphold his image at all costs. She wondered why he didn't stay back with the rest of the heroes and join their association, because it would have given him a new family to replace the one he had lost, but in the end she merely let out a sigh.

"Fine, I'll lend you some aid," Angela replied, shaking her head for a moment, "but that doesn't mean that you will be given control of the Hyperion. When we land at our destination you will remain here with the AI, who will help you search for your family while me and my family see what's waiting for us on the planet's surface."

Qwark seemed pleased with the idea of them actually helping them, but Angela knew that he would have only continued to bother them until one of them agreed... or blown him to pieces in Sunset's case. It was better to get him out of their hair, though she had the feeling that Qwark's family would be a recurring theme for some unknown length of time.





When the Hyperion finally reached Planet Ryllus the first thing that crossed through Ratchet's mind was that the place they were looking for was likely a ruin located in the middle of a forest or something. He was somewhat correct in that regard, as he happened to locate the facility that they were being drawn towards and stopped the Hyperion a good distance away from where they needed to be. This would allow them to take their smaller ship to the area surrounding their destination without risking the starship, because he knew if it got damaged they would be stuck on this planet for an unknown length of time. Once he and his family were ready to leave the ship, including Sunset thanks to the fact that Qwark would be on board the Hyperion, they used the smaller ship to leave the Hyperion and moved into the area that they needed to be in.

"The Technomites appear to have abandoned this area," Clank commented, just as he hopped out of the smaller ship and looked at the overgrown area that surrounded them.

"They sure did," Ratchet said, though the only reason he wasn't arguing with Clank over the existence of the Technomites was because Sunset was a walking God of Destruction and Starlight could use some pretty impressive magic, "So, where do you think this thing goes?"

"I would suggest searching the biggest building in the area," Sunset replied, pointing at the largest structure that they could see at the moment, "At least that is where I would put something important."

Ratchet knew that the largest structure had to be the most logical location, as that was where all the previous villains had stored anything of significance or value, and it appeared that Starlight, Angela, and Clank all agreed with Sunset's assessment. He had only asked in the off chance that someone said something different than what he was expecting, but seeing how he got the answer he wanted he guessed it was time that they stopped standing around and began their search for anything important. They stopped at the vendor to pick up the newest weapon, the Concussion Cannon that they hadn't bothered to buy back on Pokitaru, and then climbed down the ruined stairs that they happened to land near. As they climbed down into the next area Ratchet spotted several cameras flying around the area, telling him that there were left over from whoever owned the place or that someone else was spying on them.

When they entered the area in front of their ship they were attacked by a group of small sickly green creatures that were carrying swords, though they rolled when they needed to move and swung at them when they got close. Ratchet and Angela simply rounded them up and let Starlight get rid of them with one of her acid bombs, repeating the process with the second group that showed itself. Once they had cleared out their enemies the door in front of them opened and four more of the rollers moved into the area, only to be removed by yet another acid bomb while Starlight complained that the enemies shouldn't be that weak against a weapon she had only created a week ago.

As they passed through the now open doorway, and moved further away from their ship, they encountered a feral blue skinned cat creature that growled at them, as if it thought they were prey for it to devour, but the moment its eyes locked onto Sunset's eyes it suddenly lost its desire to fight and ran off with a whine.

"I was not expecting that," Angela commented, a small grin appearing on her face, "though I guess that this works in our favor, as at least the native animals have some sense to leave us alone."

Ratchet had to wonder if the poor animal even knew what it had been staring at before it suddenly turned tail and ran for its life, but decided that now wasn't the time to be thinking about it and returned to what was ahead of them.

They rounded a corner and found a savage looking plant that was spitting some sort of poison at the rock wall to its left, though it stopped the moment they walked into its area. As it prepared to fight them, in its own matter, the cat creature from earlier jumped out of the nearby ruins with three more of its kind, to which the four of them tore the unfortunate plant apart in a matter of seconds. Once the plant was dead the cats turned towards the group for a moment, likely to keep tabs on Sunset, before disappearing as quickly as they had appeared, allowing them to move forward once more. With the cats gone Ratchet accessed the bolt crank in front of them and opened the door that was blocking their way, though they had to deal with more of the rolling enemies once the way was open.

The moment the enemies were taken care of the group noticed that there was a scientist, who happened to have a flower on his head, working with some sort of gadget, one he told them could use plants to do a number of things, such as create platforms or transform into some sort of creature. He also gave it to them without charging them, leading Ratchet to wonder what was up with this planet because the cats didn't want to mess with them and a scientist didn't want any bolts for his gadget. With the new gadget in hand Ratchet watered the plant that was in front of them and watched as it pulled itself out of the ground and started to follow him around, before he moved to the soil at the dead end and had it plant itself there.

The plant created some sort of bulb that hung in front of them, to which Ratchet gave it a smack with his wrench and watched as it flew into the wall in front of them, exploding on impact and leaving a small hole for them to use. He guessed that using the plants would allow them to not constantly ask Sunset or Starlight to blow a hole in their path so they could move forward, which made him like the gadget a tiny bit. Once they hopped through the hole in the wall they encountered two more of the plants that spat poison at them, though two acid bombs were enough to take them out. Ratchet then spotted another mimic plant to the left of where they entered the small area, so he woke it up with some water and planted in inside the soil that was in front of them, to which it created a ladder made out of vines for them to climb up.

Once they climbed up the ladder, and jumped down into the area in front of them, they encountered a walkway that was crowded with the small roller enemies and two more of the poison plants at the end, but before anyone moved forward Sunset had them stop and wait for a few seconds. Just as Ratchet was about to ask why they had stopped he spotted the reason why, as the four cats from earlier jumped into the area and tore into the rollers that had been standing around, catching them completely off guard. The group watched as the cats moved around the area and ripped their targets to pieces, either hurting the rollers or tearing the plants apart with their jaws. It was then that the group discovered that the spines on the backs of the cats weren't just for show, as one of them launched them at one of the rollers and slew it where it stood, though more returned as the cat continued its hunt.

In a matter of minutes the cats had dominated the area and had cleared out the enemies, though one of them had been wounded during the skirmish, on its front right leg, and sat down to lick its wounds while the others moved out to find more enemies to hunt. Sunset gathered her magic into her right hand and approached the wounded cat, who whined as she stopped in front of it, but all she did was find where the cat was wounded and pressed her hand close to the damage. She then used the healing spell that she had been powering up, allowing the wound to close and restore the cat's energy, to which it meowed happily and licked her hand in a sign of gratitude, before running off to join the rest of its pack.

"That was nice," Starlight commented, watching the cat disappear like the rest of its kind, though at the same time Ratchet was watering the plant behind them so they could move forward.

"They've done nothing but help us since we arrived," Sunset replied, a small smile appearing on her face as she turned towards the temple, "it would have been rude not to heal the creature, especially when they have been leaving us alone and helping us clear out our enemies... though I never thought that my position as the God of Destruction would come into play so soon."

Starlight nodded and watched as Ratchet brought the plant into the area that had the soil, to which it mutated into a plant that had two mouth like openings. Ratchet, not knowing what else to do, tapped the new plant with his wrench, though that was swiftly followed by it grabbing him with its mouth like openings and chucking him to the platform that rested in front of the building they had been heading towards. Angela turned to Starlight for a moment, who made a magical bridge for them to use to cross the gap, leaving Ratchet to frown when they were all together again.

Once they had restocked their ammunition they used the swingshot to access the platform in front of them, to which they were attacked by more of the spitting plants and the roller enemies. The acid bombs, once again, proved to be the downfall of literally everything that wanted to fight them, again to Starlight's annoyance due to the fact that her new weapon wasn't supposed to be powerful enough to kill something in one shot. She hated how the evidence was stacked against her at the moment, because it was killing everything faster than what she designed it to, though she also knew that Ratchet liked the efficiency of the weapon.

The moment the coast was clear of enemies, and they were sure of it, Ratchet looked at the two mimic plants that happened to be in the surrounding area, one of which had a green head while the other had a red head, and realized what to do next. He woke up the green plant and dragged it over to the soil that the others were standing around, to which it developed into the bomb carrying plant and allowed him to blow a hole in the wall in front of them. With that done he moved to where the red plant was located and woke it up as well, though when he watered the soil again the plant that was occupying it disappeared as the new one took its place, creating the plant that had launched him a few minutes ago.

After a few seconds of internal debate he decided not to use the plant at all and allowed Starlight to levitate everyone, excluding Sunset, into the air, before they moved through the hole in the wall and were safely placed on the ground on the other side. Once they were all together again they approached the main door of the building that stood in front of them, to which they discovered the head piece of the Wildfire set just sitting on the ground. With the armor piece in hand the group approached the door and studied it, though during that time Ratchet decided to try and open it without doing anything special.

"Well, its locked," Ratchet said after a few minutes, before he turned to the rest of the group, "So, does anyone else have any ideas on how to open this door?"

"Actually, I do," Angela replied, pulling out her lightsaber and extending only one blade, "We cut through the door and find out what is so special about that artifact that Luna was carrying."

Angela moved to the middle of the door and pressed the tip of her weapon against it, allowing the beam to cut into the door like it was made of butter, before she started moving it around. It took her a few minutes to carve a hole wide enough for Clank to fit through, because she had the feeling that there was a button on the other side, but the moment the hole was the perfect size she sheathed her blade and gently helped Clank through the hole. A few seconds later and the door moved out of the way, allowing them to access whatever was inside the building as Clank stood there with a look of triumph on his face.

Clank pulled out the artifact that Luna had dropped while the others took in the console that rested before them, at it appeared to be similar to the ones on Planet Daxx, though once they were finished staring he plugged the artifact into the middle of the machine and let it spring to life. They all watched as four of the five walls moved apart to reveal a large number of gears moving around, though that was followed by a number of planets phasing into existence all around them. They realized that this was a map room, where the Technomites must have kept track of every planet they had colonized, complete with the exact coordinates for every single one of them... including the one that the robots had taken Luna to; Planet Kalidon.

They were all eager to track down the girl and save her from whatever fate the robots had in store for her, though before they left the map room Starlight copied all of the unknown coordinates down onto her tablet before allowing Clank to gently remove the artifact. In the off chance that someone was following close behind them they didn't want to give them any ideas as to where they were going next, which was why Clank asked Sunset to take the artifact and lock it in the room with the Cores. Once they were finished with the building they accessed the teleport pad that happened to be sitting nearby and returned to their small ship, though they found the pack of cats waiting for them once more.

Three of the cats stared at Sunset for a moment, as if studying her, before they did a motion that looked like someone bowing their head to a leader or a ruler, though they followed that up by disappearing into the wilds once more. Only one of the cats remained behind with the group, though one look in its eyes told Sunset that this was the one that she had healed before her family had arrived at their destination. She also noticed that this cat had small spikes on its back, roughly the size of her hand, while also remembering that the other cats had large spikes on their backs. The cat looked at her for a moment before walking forward and pressed its head against her leg, though she had the feeling she knew what was happening.

"Well, it looks like you made a new friend," Angela said, a smile appearing on her face, "Come on, let's get back to the Hyperion and get underway... we'll have plenty of time to put together a sleeping area for your friend while we figure out his diet and everything."

Sunset truly had no idea why the cat suddenly wanted to leave its home planet, and its pack, behind so it could join her and he family, but she decided that it wasn't worth worrying about and simply accepted it. Besides, the cat appeared to be happy in the presence of Sunset and her family, so she smiled as the group returned to the Hyperion... though that smile turned into a grin when she realized what Qwark was going to freak when he first encountered the cat.
> Size: Kalidon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Qwark was annoyed as he looked at the tablet in front of him, because the AI that controlled the Hyperion easily found the information that he was looking for, though it actually seemed a little too easy for his tastes. He had been positive that his parents were dead, but everything he was looking at said that they were alive and well, which made him somewhat suspicious. The AI also reported that there were several forgeries mixed in with what he was looking at, which told him that someone was trying to feed him lies in an effort to lure him into a trap. He had to wonder if this ploy was the work of whoever kidnapped the girl that Ratchet and his family were trying to save, though at the moment he didn't see anything connecting the two events together.

Though what was really annoying him was the fact that one of the AI, the one that looked like a bubblegum colored alicorn, continued to watch his every move while two more of them, the white and blue ones, remained near the Cores, as if they didn't trust him at all. The fourth AI, the lavender colored one, was no where to be seen at the moment, but he had to settle for the pink one ruining his mood every time he looked in her direction. His only salvation from her gaze was when the missing AI suddenly appeared and told them that Ratchet and his family had returned to the ship, which was basically the AI's way of saying that they were no longer responsible for Qwark, though that led to the candy AI to smile before they all disappeared.

Qwark smiled as he set down the tablet that he had been staring at for the last hour or two and made his way to the docking area, where the group would be landing... though when he entered the area he immediately spotted a large predatory cat walking directly behind Ratchet and his family.

"Everyone get down!" Qwark shouted, reaching for his blaster, which he always kept on hand in case he encountered a situation where he needed it, and loosing several shots at the large cat.

Sunset raised a hand and the small missiles stopped in midair, before they could even cross half the distance that was between the two groups, though that was swiftly followed by her reducing them to ash. Qwark stared at Sunset for a moment, wondering why she would go out of her way to save something that had followed her from the planet's surface, but he also knew that he'd never get off another shot without her destroying him. Even now he still had nightmares about the death of Gleeman Vox, how his entire body had broken into thousands of tiny pieces while the man screamed at the top of his lungs. Qwark knew that Sunset could do the same to him in a matter of seconds, which was why he reluctantly decided to lower his blaster and find out what was going on... before Sunset decided to kill him anyway.

"I'd say that you might have gotten smarter since the last time I saw you, but that would be a lie," Sunset said, lowering her hand as she stared at Qwark, who squirmed under her gaze, "Let me guess, you saw a large predatory cat walking behind me and immediately assumed that it hitched a ride to our ship... and then attacked it without asking what it was going here?"

"Yep, that sounds about right..." Qwark replied, though it took him a second to realize that Sunset had known the creature had been aboard the smaller ship the entire time, "Wait a minute, why did you bring one of the native predators aboard the ship?"

"Well, I did save his life," Sunset stated, though while she spoke everyone made their way towards the bridge, including the newest addition to the family, "He and his pack helped us out on the planet below, taking out enemies when we were outnumbered and making sure nothing serious happened to any of us. In the end he ended up being hurt and left by his pack, so I decided to heal his wounds and send him on his way, though he eventually returned to me and expressed his gratitude by rubbing its head against my leg. His pack left him with us, so we all figured out that he wanted to come along and brought him back with us... but do know that he is a very eager fighter and won't hesitate to get into a fight with someone that annoys me."

"Oh..." was all Qwark said, because he knew that if the cat attacked anything that annoyed Sunset, or looked at her the wrong way like he assumed the enemies on the planet did, then he was definitely in trouble, "So did you find anything interesting on the planet's surface, or was the trip a total waste of time?"

"We got the coordinates for a few new planets, including the one that young Luna was taken to," Starlight replied, though she nearly chuckled when the AI named Luna stuck her head out from behind a corner to see if they were talking about her, before she retreated to wherever she and the other AI hung out, "So our plan is to head to the planet, scout it out, and then find out where our enemy is hiding the young girl... though in the process we'll likely destroy part of a facility or something."

Qwark had the strangest feeling that more than a facility was going to be destroyed in the near future, but this time he decided to keep his mouth shut on the matter. He already knew that Sunset didn't want his opinion on what was happening, while Ratchet and Angela would likely point out any flaws in his reasoning if he told them. It was best if he kept what he was feeling to himself, because it would keep him alive longer than if he ended up pissing off Sunset again... which experience has told him wasn't the best idea in the world.





When they arrived at their destination Ratchet and his family began their preparations for their journey down to the planet's surface while Qwark opted to stay behind so he didn't get in the way. Sunset also decided to stay behind this time, as she felt that her brother and sister didn't need her to tag along all the time and make things incredibly easy for them. Angela, of course, gathered her gear and followed them into the smaller ship, to which they went down to the exact coordinates they had been looking for and docked their ship in the only available parking area they could see.

As they all climbed out of the ship, however, they all expressed concerns that his adventure had been somewhat easy for them, though they weren't counting what happened on Ryllus because the animals had sensed Sunset's godly nature and moved in to help her.

"This doesn't seem right," Clank said, looking around them for a moment, fully expecting something to jump out and attack them at any given moment, "this has been too easy for us."

"Well, we are seasoned adventurers at this point," Ratchet pointed out, though he raised his hands in a mock surrender fashion when Clank stared at him, "but you are right about something; this adventure has been too easy on us... and personally I was expecting something more than what we've dealt with. Keep your guard up, because now we're definitely in enemy territory."

Before Starlight or Angela could add anything to the conversation they heard the ship's radio turn on for a moment, to which they heard Sunset tell them that Qwark found something about his family and had asked how to get off the Hyperion, so she told them that she just teleported him wherever he was supposed to go and that it would be some time before they heard from him again.

"Well, that solves one problem," Angela commented, though she turned her attention back to the building in front of them, "though that still leaves us with the problem of figuring out how to enter the facility without blatantly announcing that we're here."

With Qwark now out of the picture, for the time being anyway, the group approached the weapon vendor and picked up anything that might be of use to them, such as the newly upgraded and updated Agents of Doom and the Scorcher, though this time Starlight didn't tell her brother how the weapons worked. They were experienced adventurers and Ratchet had enough experience with her weapons to know which ones did what and when to use certain weapons in a fight. Before they could get very far they spotted someone working on what appeared to be some sort of hoverboard, which drew Ratchet's attention because the man seemed to be out of place.

"Tweaking the old engine?" Ratchet asked, causing the man to stop what he was doing and rapidly turn around to face them, leading both Starlight and Angela to assume that he was up to something.

"Why? What have you heard?" the man demanded, though it actually looked like he was trying to hide something on his board while he was talking, "Who are you? What are you doing out here? Did the committee send you?"

"Sorry sir, we did not mean to upset you," Clank said, though he had to wonder what committee the man was referring to, "We were just passing through the area and my friend here got a little excited when he noticed your hoverboard."

"Yeah, well you can't be too careful these days," the man replied, though it was pretty clear that he was still upset about something, "First they accuse me of using nano-roids; do I look like a cheater to you?"

"No, because everyone had to repair and keep their hoverboards up to date," Ratchet said, though he knew that there were some truly terrible people out there that would cheat to try and beat the pros at the sport.

"Well if its all the same to you, I'd still like to prove that I'm not a cheater," the man stated, tossing the board to Ratchet while picking up the spare he happened to have hanging around, "I'll even throw in a little surprise if you manage to win."

Ratchet was somewhat surprised that he was even being challenged to a race, but considering that he was likely the best rider in the family at the moment, and that there might be something useful as the prize, he decided that it would be worth seeing what the man had in store for him. Starlight and the others merely waited where they were standing and let Ratchet go off with the man, though they kept their eyes on the facility in case something were to happen while he was securing a useful gadget for them to use in the future. About ten minutes later Ratchet returned with the prize, a gadget that called called a Shrink Ray, which according to Clank were extremely hard to find.

With the new gadget in hand the group continued on their way towards the entrance of the facility, though they stopped by a weapon modification vendor for a few seconds before moving onward, to which they discovered that their enemies were the same green robots that had attacked them on their vacation... while also telling them that they were in the right place. They swung across the gap that was in front of them and shot down the guards that were waiting at the bottom of some stairs, as well as removing the group of smaller robots that were waiting at the top of the stairs. Once they reached the top of the stairs they found an access terminal that they would need to hack though to get inside the facility, though Ratchet pulled out the new gadget and pressed the button, to which he shrunk down to the size of a key's head.

Starlight stared at her brother for a moment before gently picking him up with her magic and allowing him to jump inside the lock, to which she and Angela could have sworn they heard some echoes from inside the lock, before Ratchet jumped back out of it and enlarged himself to his normal size.

"Wow that tickles," Ratchet commented, though at the same time the door that was blocking their way opened for them, allowing them to access the facility and track down where their enemy was hiding the young girl, "You guys have got to try using this thing in the future."

Starlight had the feeling that she and Angela would be using that gadget some time in the near future, though she wouldn't deny that she was eager to see how well it worked on someone like her. She was sure that Angela wanted to experiment with the gadget as well, though they both knew that it would be some time before they were able to do that.

With the door open the group walked into the facility and found that there were normal sized robots that were colored red, though they appeared to be offline at the moment and Starlight took it upon herself to break them before someone turned them online. They rounded a corner and found a set of security spheres floating down the walkway, which were easily destroyed with a swing of their hand weapons, before they entered a section of the facility that was the assembly line. The robots that happened to be on the assembly line appeared to be finished, because the moment the group entered the room they came online and started firing missiles at them. Ratchet and the others made sure to eliminate the newly created enemies, any that were in the process of being made on the conveyor belts, and, for good measure, the robots that were responsible for assembling the robots that they had been fighting.

They then walked into a slightly larger area that had an elevator hidden in the middle of the room, not exactly well hidden, though they all spotted the final piece of the Wildfire Armor that Ratchet was wearing on the opposite side of the room and knew that they would have to pass whatever was waiting for them. They looked at each other for a moment, silently wondering if using the elevator was even worth it, but then decided that it might take them to a different area and walked onto its surface. What happened next was that they ended up fighting through a small gauntlet of sorts, which resulted in several security spheres and green robots entering the shaft to deal with them, while something tossed bombs at them from above.

All three of them were kind of disappointed when they reached the bottom of the shaft and jumped off the elevator, which resulted in its destruction, though the main reason behind all of their disappointment was the fact that the small gauntlet they had fought through had been incredibly easy. The only thing they found at the bottom of the shaft was a computer terminal that, when someone activated it, resulted in a pool of acid rising from where the elevator had crashed. That in turn made Starlight summon a small pad of energy for them to stand on and effortlessly levitated them to safety at the top of the shaft, allowing them to collect the armor piece while the shaft closed itself behind them.

The moment Ratchet put the last piece of the armor on everyone watched as his wrench caught on fire, though they quickly came to realize that this was a part of the complete armor set... while also leading Starlight to wonder what else they could do with a variety of other installations to the armor.

With that out of the way the group continued along the path they had been following and came to another area that was building more of the red robots, though this time there weren't any enemies to deal with, so they simply crossed to the other side of the room and went on their way. From there they entered a small chamber that had eight containers on the walls, four on the left and four on the right, though once they stepped inside the room the containers all opened at once and the green robots that had been put away inside them charged at them. With the area clear the rode a small elevator down into another chamber that had what could pass as a pool of acid, though when they activated the nearby bolt crank they discovered that their way around the area was going to consist of swinging on Swingshots and running across platforms.

It was somewhat easy to pass that test, as they were quite adept at racing time at this point, and they eventually reached the door that would let them move onward, allowing them to enter a room that had a large number of security spheres and green robots that wanted to kill them all. Between the three of them the robots really didn't stand a chance, not when many of them fell apart in a hit or two, and in a matter of minutes they had finished off everything that wanted them dead at the moment. That was when they noticed that they had another locked terminal, allowing Ratchet to use the new gadget and jump into the lock again, though a minute later he exited the lock and the door opened as he returned to his normal size.

That brought them to a small room that had three more of the green robots, which were once again easy to get rid of, though that was before they discovered that the next room had a large metallic sphere of some kind and a bunch of tracks that crossed the entire room. Instead of wasting time trying to figure out where to go Starlight simply levitated them into the air and brought them to the other opening, allowing them to move forward without having to deal with the headache they had passed by. That, in turn, brought them to yet another part of the construction line, which one none of them knew because the belts all appeared to be stuck at the same stage of development, though that didn't stop them from riding the belt down to the end of the room.

When they reached the end of the room, and jumped off the belt so they could land next to a weapons vendor, they all noticed the large ring that happened to be waiting for them, informing them that they would be fighting some sort of boss monster in a few seconds.

"Okay, who else thinks that this is a trap of some kind?" Angela asked, staring at the ring while she and the others restocked their ammunition, though she didn't like the look of the area they had found.

"At this point, I'd be disappointed if it wasn't a trap," Ratchet commented, stretching his arms for a moment as he and Starlight rejoined Angela, "though I'm willing to bet that this is one of those traps that we have no choice but to trigger."

Ratchet appeared to be correct, as the moment they stepped onto the metallic ring the middle of the room rose back into place, though it brought a large purple skinned creature that looked like a cross between an ape and some other creature. The monster attacked them the moment it spotted them, to which they separated from each other and opened fire, intending to bring it down as fast as they possibly could. After a few hits to the creature, leaving behind a small amount of damage, the creature jumped to one side of the room and started throwing security spheres at them, though it left itself open to attack. A minute or two later and the creature was ripping pipes out of the walls and floor and using them as weapons of its own, while also releasing energy waves in an attempt to hurt them.

In the end Ratchet and his family downed the creature in what he assumed was seven minutes, though as the creature fell he couldn't help but feel that this had definitely been too easy for them... while they also happened to find the chest piece for another suit of armor, one that Starlight told them was the Sludge Mk. 9 armor set.

"I'll take this back to Sunset and see if we can't make something better than... whatever its power is," Angela commented, taking the armor from Ratchet as she approached the nearby teleportation pad, "I'll leave you three to save the girl and return to the ship."

Ratchet nodded and waited until Angela had accessed the pad before he, Clank, and Starlight moved to the sealed door that was in front of them, though it didn't remain sealed for long as Clank hacked into it and opened it a few seconds later. Inside they found Luna waiting for them, though she had this grin that didn't sit well with Starlight at all... leading her to wonder if Angela had been right about this being a trap.

"Wow! Thankth you guyth!" Luna said, staring at the three of them as they entered the room, "You are tho heroic!"

"We should leave before any more robots show up," Starlight pointed out, to which Ratchet and Clank nodded their agreement, though they weren't too concerned since everything had been easy until until now.

"But I haven't had a chance to tell my friends about your heroic deeds!" Luna complained, though the sudden change in how she was speaking raised all of Starlight's alarms.

"Run! Its a trap!" Starlight shouted, though that was before a surge of Tesla energy passed through her armor and knocked her out cold, followed by both Ratchet and Clank.

Luna grinned as her friends entered the room and collected the unconscious heroes, knowing that she had everything that her boss needed to build the army he wanted... and the only person that could stop them was unaware of what was even happening.





Back on the Hyperion Sunset noticed that the scanners indicated that Ratchet, Starlight, and Clank had been rendered unconscious, which meant that they had walked into a trap that was similar to the one that the Thugs-4-Less Boss used against them... though this time she was free from whatever trap her family had walked into. Sunset growled as she looked at the screen, because this time she was going to ruin whoever had the balls to kidnap her family for their own purposes... once she had tailed them back to their headquarters anyway.
> Size: Discovery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Angela stared at the screen that indicated how Ratchet and Starlight's vitals were doing, though it was the same machine that had told Sunset that her family had been captured again. She couldn't believe that she hadn't taken the opportunity to talk Ratchet or Starlight out of what was an obvious trap, but she was also strangely thankful that she had been wise enough to leave before it was sprung. The moment she returned to the Hyperion she set aside the armor that they had found inside the facility and rushed to where Sunset had been sitting, to which she found out that Ratchet's sister was already plotting how to bring about her wrath on those that had taken her family. The cat that had befriended Sunset seemed annoyed as well, though Angela assumed that was because it knew that Sunset was annoyed about something and was looking for the cause of the annoyance.

Even as she looked away from the screen, and turned her eyes on Sunset, she had to wonder why someone would want to kidnap both Ratchet and Starlight, though not a few seconds later she figured it out when she recalled Vox's reason for doing so.

"So, what's the plan?" Angela asked, turning so she could face Sunset with ease, who happened to be staring out of the Hyperion's bridge as the ship slowly moved through space, following after the ship that had left the facility on Kalidon.

"We follow them to their destination, figure out where they are keeping my family, rescue my siblings, and then blow the facility to pieces," Sunset replied, though the angry tone had yet to disappear from her voice, "Why do you ask?"

"I'm just curious as to whether you were thinking about why they were kidnapped this time." Angela said, though the moment Sunset turned towards her she could tell that she hadn't, "Do you remember the original reason that drove Gleeman Vox to kidnap both Ratchet and Starlight in the first place?"

"Yes, it was because of their prowess as heroes, or more accurately their skills in regards to saving the galaxy," Sunset replied, as she was not getting why the newest enemy would want to kidnap her siblings, though as she thought about it she quickly realized what Angela had meant by her question, "You don't think our latest enemy wants to use my brother's skills as a warrior to create an army, one that uses every skill he has mastered over the years, do you?"

"Its a possibility that we cannot ignore," Angela stated, recalling what she had seen in the facility, or more specifically the number of robots that were being made there, "Imagine an army of robots that fight like your brother, think like your brother, and utilize the environment in the same manner as your brother. The newly improved Galactic Rangers would be hard pressed to fight an army of Ratchet's, while many in my order would have some difficultly fighting these new opponents. It sounds like our newest enemy wants to create an army that can conquer the known universe, the Solana and Bogon Galaxies anyway..."

"So I guess my 'charge in and kill everything' plan isn't the best one at the moment," Sunset said with a sigh, though that was rapidly followed by a smile appearing on her face, "Oh, I've got a much better idea now."

"And that would be?" Angela asked, though she seriously hoped that this new plan was better than the one that Sunset had originally been considering.

"Simple; I go up to their front door and walk in," Sunset replied, though she noticed that Angela was frowning at her, "What? There's bound to be someone inside the facility we're headed to that knows what I did to Gleeman Vox and his precious Shadow Sector, so I should be able to convince someone to let me in and do what needs to be done."

Angela had to wonder if there was even someone who was sensible enough to listen to Sunset at the station that they were heading to, though she assumed that they would be able to find out in a matter of seconds. It was definitely be easy for them if Sunset was able to gain entrance to the facility with only stating her name, her new title, and that she would destroy them all for kidnapping her siblings, leading the people to allow her access due to a dose of fear. It was a gamble, she was sure of that, but in the end she guessed that it was better than anything she might have come up with in the short time they had before their arrival. She knew that she was going to have to hack into the facility and erase all their information on Ratchet, Starlight, and the rest of their family, otherwise she was sure that this was bound to repeat itself in the near future.

She actually felt sorry for the poor fools that had kidnapped Ratchet, Starlight, and Clank, because they had unleashed the rage that was trapped inside Sunset, which would result in the destruction of everything their enemy held dear at the moment. Then she remembered that their enemy was no doubt going to build an army that revolved around Ratchet's skills in battle, to which she frowned and decided that their enemy didn't deserve her pity at the moment. Angering the God of Destruction, as Sunset now preferred to be called whenever someone used her title, was a bad decision and whoever did it would have to suffer the consequences that followed... though she already knew that what was coming was the destruction of the facility they were heading to.

Angela sighed as she looked out the window and stared at the planets they were passing, allowing her mind to turn towards the suit of armor she had brought aboard and what she could go with it... allowing Sunset to focus on the building they were heading towards and what she was going to do when they arrived at their destination.





"I would like to report that the mission was a success," Luna said, speaking to the communicator that she was holding, while her minions moved the unconscious heroes to their holding rooms so they could be analyzed before the next step of the plan was activated.

"That is good to hear," the person on the other side, her boss, replied, though in reality Luna was pleased that she had done such a good job in fooling the heroes, "and you are sure that the Hyperion didn't follow you?"

"The only way they could have followed me is if they spotted my ship as we departed from Kalidon," Luna answered, though all of her scans indicated that they were alone at the moment, "I have run several scans since my arrival and I have found nothing that indicates that we were followed... the so called 'God of Destruction' has no idea what happened to her family. We should have plenty of time to do all the research we need before someone realizes where they are being held... though by the time that happens we'll be long gone."

"Good," the other person said, though it was pretty clear that the conversation would be over soon, "I will leave you to your work... just be sure to send me everything you find out."

"Yes sir," Luna replied, to which she waited until her boss cut of the communication before putting her device away and turning her attention to the person sleeping in the room before her; Ratchet.

She had to marvel at how easy it had been to appear as an innocent little girl, ask for a few photos of he heroes fighting, and then dragging them into a trap that would give her boss the ability to create an army that could conquer everything. Based on what she had seen of Sunset's abilities, or the lack of them she thought, she knew that the news had over stated her powers, because if she really was a walking God of Destruction then Luna was sure that they would have all been destroyed by now. The fact that the station was still running, and doing all of the necessary tests, meant that everything the news said about Sunset was merely lies, which also meant that they could work for some time without having to worry about someone destroying them.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she spotted a blinking light to her right, though what was odd about that light was the fact that it was the one that indicated that a ship was in the immediate area, to which she knew something had to be wrong because her scans just indicated that there was nothing around them. She pulled out her tablet again and started to run another scan, though she stopped when she noticed that one of the facility's cameras was able to pinpoint what the disturbance was; the Starship Hyperion. She started to wonder how the ship could have even made it to this station, when she left no clues as to where she was going, before another camera started blinking and demanded her attention.

She felt her body go cold as Sunset Shimmer, in all of her glory, stood in front of the facility's main door, though Luna knew it was only a matter of time until one of the other robots opened the door and let her in... which meant that she needed to leave before the main door was even opened. She quickly backed up everything they had recovered on Ratchet's fighting style, storing it all on her tablet, before she bolted for the docking bay and her ship. She didn't want to be around when the place became a war zone, though she made sure to activate the defenses as she climbed into her ship and departed from the facility.





Sunset tapped on the front door of the facility they had followed the enemy ship to, though she and Angela had waited a few minutes to be sure that this was the place where her siblings had been taken to. There weren't any external defenses or an alarm system, which she would have added had she been the one to build the place, though she was sure that someone knew that she was already here. She already knew that she could use her vast magical power and tear the entire place apart while she searched for her siblings, but in the end she had decided that simply walking in and asking would be the best course of action. She could use her power to scare the people into submission before she decimated the facility, though that would have to wait until she had saved her siblings.

Sunset snapped back to what was in front of her when she heard the door open, to which she noticed that the person that opened the door was actually a robot, one whose appeared to have been designed after a doctor.

"Can I help you?" the robot asked, though by the tone Sunset knew that the robot was on some sort of schedule and that she was interrupting it at the moment.

"Yes, I'm looking for my brother and sister," Sunset replied, glaring at the robot as she took a step towards it, "you might know them; their names are Ratchet and Starlight Glimmer."

"Oh... we were told that you had no idea they were even here," the robotic doctor said, though he did take a step backwards for a moment, "Let me guess, if we don't hand them over you'll obliterate us until you rescue them?"

"That's correct," Sunset stated, energy flickering around her body to prove her point, "So, what is it going to be? Potentially survive what's coming your way, or get obliterated with everything else around you?"

The robot doctor stared at her for a moment, as if mentally debating whether it should just surrender or try to fight back, before it eventually let out a sigh, or what Sunset assumed was a sigh, and beckoned for her to follow it. Sunset followed the robot through the facility, keeping her eyes on the various robots that were staring at her and noticing that several of them actually reached for their weapons, before they decided not to go through with what they were thinking. That, however, changed when she entered a room that was filled with soldier type robots, as they were all pointing their weapons at her with the intent of attacking her.

"So, which one of you is in charge?" Sunset asked, glaring at all of them as the robot doctor moved out of the area they were in, leaving her with the force of guards it had brought her to.

"That would be me," one of the robots said, though Sunset noticed that there didn't appear to be any unique features on the robot, which told her that there wasn't a robot in charge and that they were messing with her, "I am AX-007, head of the security detail. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Well then, why don't we play a game?" Sunset stated, feeling her power as it moved around her for a moment, knowing that these robots were going to attack her no matter what she did, "Have you ever heard of paint ball?"

"...yeah, why?" the robot, AX-007, asked, as it was clear that he, along with the rest of the guards, were confused as to why she would even ask such a question.

"Just remove the 't'," Sunset said, to which she summoned small spheres, about the size of a coin, all around her, though she let them float there until she was ready.

"I don't get it..." AX-007 started to say, though that was before Sunset sent one of the spheres into its chest and tore through its core, to which it held up its spare hand to the wound with a look of confusion on its face, "Ow... now I get it."

Sunset smiled a little bit as she stepped forward and sent out more of the energy spheres she had created, tearing holes into the guards that had come to fight her, though she made sure to have them break apart so they didn't rip holes in the facility until she had rescued her siblings from the people that had kidnapped them. The guard robots opened fire and loosed everything that they had in their arsenal at Sunset, to which she merely used a shield to stop the attacks in their tracks before detonating them. As she stepped through the smoke several of the guards started to run, though some of them still had the spheres stuck in their chests and she detonated them, destroying them before they had a chance to flee.

She then moved through the rest of the facility, taking her time in figuring out where they were holding her siblings while she dealt with the guards that wanted her dead. Eventually she came to a locked door that appeared to have a terminal that required an access card to get through, though that didn't stop Sunset at all. Instead of wasting time and tracking down one of the key cards, or asking Angela for assistance, she merely pressed her hand against the door and used a spell that would allow her to cut through the metal. Once the deed was done she pushed the section of the door backwards and revealed what was hiding inside the room, to which she discovered that Ratchet and Starlight were pulling themselves from the beds that they had been strapped to.

Sunset also noticed that Clank was standing nearby, though he seemed a little worn out, so she guessed that they did something to him before she had arrived.

"Is everyone alright?" Sunset asked, though she kept her eyes on the outside of the room in case more guards showed up before they were ready to leave the facility.

"Yeah, though my back hurts a bit," Starlight replied, to which she stretched for a few seconds before realizing what was happening, "So, when are you going to blow the facility to pieces?"

The question was followed by a red light appearing throughout the halls and a robotic voice telling everyone that the station was in the process of self destructing. Sunset was surprised that their enemy was even bothering to try such a thing, considering she could wrap a magical barrier around them for protection, but decided that it didn't matter in the end. She tapped her hand against the wall to her right and a portal opened for them to pass through, to which she watched as her siblings and Clank walked through it. Sunset looked at the facility around her as her family vacated the facility, before she let out a sigh and moved through the portal herself, to which she appeared in the Hyperion and closed the connection before her.

She then summoned a protective barrier around the Hyperion as the facility exploded, though while they watched the destruction Angela informed them that she had managed to get some information from one of the facility's computers before something triggered the self destruct sequence. Ratchet told them that he wanted to check out whatever wreckage remained after the dust had cleared, in case there happened to be anything they could use for the future, and Starlight agreed with him. Sunset smiled as she sat with her siblings, just pleased that she had managed to get them back without either of them being hurt... though whoever their enemy was at the moment was going to regret making her their enemy.

She was going to enjoy beating whoever their enemy was, though they had to find that person's headquarters and wherever Luna, the little girl, ran off to... though she was content to relax and let her anger fade for the moment.
> Size: Challax
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sunset sat at the table that she and her family used whenever they were on a mission to save the galaxy and they happened to be using the Hyperion for traveling, though she was listening to what her brother and sister had to say while one of her hands was rubbing her cat's head. Apparently Luna was smarter than any of them had given her credit, because on the way to the facility she had done some scans and tests on Ratchet, which meant that she had some portion of his genetic makeup along with all the fighting skills she had caught on camera. That told them that their enemy, who Luna worked for, was going to try and build an army of Ratchet clones, which would definitely take the galaxy by surprise if they didn't do anything about it.

Starlight, on the other hand, said that nothing had happened to her while she was unconscious, which meant that either Luna didn't have the time to run any scans on her or some were run, only for them to conclude that it would be impossible to repeat her unique genetic makeup, which was actually safer in the long run. Sunset wondered what an army of Starlight clones could do, though she imagined the complete and utter destruction of everyone that opposed whoever their enemy was.

The main reason they had remained in the Hyperion was because Ratchet and Starlight wanted to scout out whatever was left of the facility once the smoke had cleared, because there might actually be something left behind that they could use. It was moments like this that Sunset was glad that she didn't go full Searing against her enemies and just obliterate everything that stood in her way, otherwise there would have been nothing left of the facility for her siblings to check out. Once everyone had caught up on what was happening, and started to relax, Starlight shifted her gaze to Sunset and looked down at the cat, who happened to be purring due to the attention her sister was giving it.

"So, what's the little guy's name?" Starlight asked, knowing that Sunset would have given her cat a name at this point, considering the fact that it was at least two days after it had joined their family.

"I was thinking of calling him Razor, on account of his spikes," Sunset replied, noting that the cat didn't make any sounds that indicated that it was annoyed with the name.

"Really?" Starlight said, trying in vain to mask her surprise, thought that was followed by her pulling out her tablet and making a note of the name for the future, "I could have sworn that you would have named him after the Destroyer God whose clothing your wearing."

"Oh, you mean Lord Beerus," Sunset said, looking down at the clothing she was wearing, though for some odd reason she couldn't find an answer as to why she hadn't switched to something else to wear, "Well, I had originally thought about calling him by that name, due to how he fought and how eager he was to enter battle, but then I had a thought before I could give him a new name. I thought about the possibility of Lord Beerus existing out there, in the sea of stars that we have yet to explore, and decided that it might not be the best idea to name Razor after him."

"I... guess that your explanation makes sense," Starlight replied, not really understanding why Sunset actually settled on 'Razor' instead of 'Beerus', but she decided not to make a big deal out of it.

They waited for an hour and a half before they were able to return to what remained of the facility, to which they got in the smaller ship and flew down to the wreckage to see what managed to survive the explosion. To their surprise the room where both Ratchet an Starlight had been imprisoned in, with the purpose of being experimented on while their genetic makeup was copied, was somehow still sitting there, though it was missing the ceiling and most of it walls. On the opposite side off where the room was sitting was the hoverboarder that they had seen on the previous planet, though how he managed to track them down to this place, without being seen on the Hyperion's radar, was a question that would have to be asked once they had landed.

The instant they landed, and climbed out of their ship, they were approached by the rider, who seemed like he wanted to settle something with Ratchet, as he had two boards instead of one.

"Okay, here's the deal." the rider said, tossing Ratchet the spare board, which he caught without too much trouble, "I've got these two identical boards, made exactly the same and haven't been tampered with yet, for us to use in a race to see who is truly the best."

Clank spotted what looked like a Polarizer under the rider's board, attached to the dark matter acceleration module, though that either meant that he was intentionally cheating, or someone attached it to his board when he wasn't looking. Ratchet, on the other hand, agreed to the rematch as the rest of his family looked around the area, just in case there was anything that they could have missed when they flew over the ruined area. In the end Starlight and the others merely watched Ratchet race the rider and his friends around the ruined facility and the surrounding asteroids, though at the end of it all the rider lost the race and tossed Ratchet the item that had been attached to his board, declaring that it never worked anyway before riding off into space.

As the group climbed back into the smaller ship Clank explained that the gadget was supposed to change the polarity of a magnet so you could either pull it closer to you or push it away from where you were standing. Once they were back on the Hyperion they set a course for Challax, where they could get some answers to the questions that they had... and hopefully caught up with the little girl that was working for the enemy.





When the Hyperion neared their destination, the planet known as Challax, the scanners indicated that there was some sort of defense facility put in place by the Technomites and that the Hyperion had been locked onto by whatever their enemy had left behind. The scanners also indicated that there was a large amount of ships getting ready to leave the defense facility, which meant that they would soon be under attack by whatever was inside the facility. Sunset, deciding that she needed some more exercise, declared that she would deal with the facility that would otherwise prevent them from reaching their destination. She also had Starlight summon a protective shield around the Hyperion, just in case some of the ships decided to attack them while she was busy wrecking the facility.

The moment Sunset exited the Hyperion she flew over to where the facility was and started blowing the ships to pieces, either by using her own magic or picking up the space debris and using it as her weapon. She also marveled at the amount of asteroids that happened to be hanging above the planet's atmosphere, to which she used many of them to break through the ships that were attacking her and smash pieces of the facility.

At one point she entered the facility she had been fighting around and made her way to the core of the station, to which she found the fleet's best ship, a dreadnaught, waiting for her. She danced around its missiles and various attacks, knowing that the only way it could hit her is if she actually allowed herself to be hit, though she also put some smalls holes in it while it attacked her. She would have likely taken her time with the large ship, just to test some of her more lethal abilities she had picked up, but they were on a strict time schedule and, after five minutes of playing with the ship, she blew a large hole it in that eventually led to its destruction. Before she blew the entire place to pieces she spotted a piece of armor that resembled what Ratchet was already wearing, though the coloration told her it was a different set.

Sunset grabbed the armor with her magic and teleported it back to the ship, though that was swiftly followed by her throwing a sphere of destruction at the core and disappearing herself. She reappeared on the bridge and watched as the facility tore itself to pieces, though once her job was done they were able to maneuver the Hyperion into position, allowing Ratchet and the others to descend to the planet's surface. Sunset, however, opted to stay behind again, though this time she picked up the armor she had acquired and declared that she would have a new set waiting for their return.

With the decision made Ratchet, Starlight, Clank, and Angela made their way to the coordinates that they had found at the previous station, hoping to catch the person they were after.

"Well, this doesn't look too hospitable," Ratchet stated, just after climbing out of the smaller ship and looking out at the vast desert that happened to surround the landing pad they had used, "Is it possible that Luna and her boss used fake coordinates to throw us off of their trail?"

"Normally, I would say yes," Starlight stated, though that was before she levitated what appeared to be a miniature hovercar into their sight for a moment, "but I think the only way forward is to shrink ourselves and see what this thing has to show us."

"Well then, let's fire up the Shrink Ray and see where this takes us," Angela said, though her tone told them that she was excited for a new planet to explore, considering the fact that she sat out when Sunset attacked the facility.

Ratchet nodded and pulled out the gadget that they needed at the moment, to which they all placed their hands or hooves on someone else as he engaged the device, though that resulted in all of them shrinking down to the size they needed. With the task complete they climbed into the small hovercar that was waiting for them and set off on their adventure, to which they ended up flying through some cracks in between several rocks before they came upon a hidden city. They immediately knew that this was what they had been searching for, because there was no way they could have been able to find this place without the Shrink Ray. Once they came to a stop they climbed out of the hovercar and approached the building that was in front of them, though they stopped to purchase any ammunition that they needed, as well as acquire the Sniper Mine weapon for their arsenal.

They then approached the door that was blocking their path, to which Ratchet shrunk himself once more so he could override the lock from the inside, though that was followed by him emerging victorious a few seconds later. With the way open they rode the elevator down to the next floor, where they discovered a perfect location to test out the Polarizer that they had recently acquired. Angela, who had been holding the gadget at the time, turned it on the magnet that was sitting near them, to which they watched as the luggage went flying into the other side of the room and slammed into the robot guard that was stationed on the other side of the electric fence that was blocking their way. The robot ended up colliding with the terminal that controlled the fence, which allowed them to move forward without having to actually stop and figure something out.

With the way clear the group progressed into the next room, where they found another terminal they could destroy with a magnet and the electric fence that it powered, along with the group of robotic guards that were waiting on the other side. Angela smiled as Ratchet and Starlight prepared their weapons, because the moment she activated the magnet, and destroyed the terminal, they opened fire on the guards before they could even move. Once the guards were gone they followed the path until they walked outside, to which they were assaulted by a large number of enemies that included several of the smaller guards and at least two larger ones that carried staffs that allowed them to send out electric blasts when they touched the ground.

Angela smiled as she pulled her lightsaber out, extended both sides of the weapon, and charged at the two staff carrying enemies, to which she slammed her weapon against theirs and forced them back for a moment, before she followed after them. It was pretty clear that someone had been expecting them to assault this city at some point, as the guards with the staffs were actually programed to fight like she did, meaning that it was almost like Angela was fighting two copies of herself, making her remember when she and Maul ha fought in the past. The only difference was that Maul never tried to kill her, he was just a swordsman that wanted to prove that he was the strongest in this new breed of weapon that she carried, where these guys were programed to kill her for trespassing in their city.

Eventually Angela gained the upper hand and broke the two guards, to which she rejoined Ratchet and Starlight as more enemies moved into the area to deal with them. Once the enemies had fully taken care of Ratchet approached the bolt crank in front of them and turned it, to which the magnet ahead of them turned until it faced the wall that was blocking their way. That was when Angela turned the magnet on with the new gadget and sent the hovercar that was in front of them right into the wall, opening the way forward. The moment the wall was down they entered what appeared to be some sort of garden like area, with ten more of the smaller guards waiting for them, though that was when they spotted a statue of who they guessed was the leader of the Technomites.

Once they had dealt with the first group of guards Ratchet spotted one of the mimic plants that he could water, to which he used the appropriate gadget on the plant and let it spring to life. Angela and Starlight kept the next group off guards off of him and the plant as he had it follow him to the other side of the courtyard they were in, before planting it in some soil and creating a ladder he could climb. While the guards were distracted he climbed to the top of the ladder and spotted another mimic plant that he could use, to which he planted it in the soil he had walked over and created one of the bomb throwing plants. Before he hit the plant he called out to Starlight, who threw up a shield around her and Angela, though that was quickly followed by Ratchet hitting the bomb into the statue and causing it to fall over, creating a ramp they could use to access the door they needed to pass through.

When the three of them climbed up to the door they found that it was locked as well, to which Ratchet shrunk down once more and made his way though the lock. The moment the way forward was open they found that there was a waiting room sitting in front of them, though behind it was the elevator that would take them to their next destination. As they rode the elevator to the top of the building they were attacked by several of the smaller guards and two of the larger ones, though the group took their time in dealing with them. The moment the elevator stopped moving, at the top of the building, Ratchet and his family got serious and tore into the guards they had been playing around with, along with walking through the elevator's open doors and attacking the guards that were waiting for them.

"Either these guys are actually protecting something important, or there's nothing here," Angela commented, just as she cut down the last large guard and turned to face Ratchet and Starlight, who were finishing off the last of the smaller guards, "Well then, let's ride this rail and see where it takes us."

The three of them rode down the rail and dropped down onto the pipe that happened to be sitting at the end of it, to which they started climbing up the other pipes until a ship came into the area and started firing at them. They had no choice but to move forward, considering the fact that the ship destroyed the pipes they had used to get to where they were now, to which they ran over leaves, three leaf clovers, and even crossed over a spider's web until they reached a platform that happened to have a weapon vendor on it. They took a moment to restock all of their weapons, just in case they had to deal with the ship again, before riding the nearby rail down to the building that was ahead of them.

The moment their feet and hooves touched the platform in front of the building they spotted the ship flying into the area, to which it continued to fire missiles at them as they separated from each other. Ratchet focused on bringing down the ship, allowing Starlight and Angela to take care of any enemies that ended up joining the fight while also firing a few blasts at the ship as well. Occasionally the ship would move from side to side, firing a laser at Ratchet in addition to its missiles, though in the end the enemy ship couldn't keep up with the damage that the three of them were putting on it. The moment the ship exploded into a thousand pieces a bridge rose into position, allowing them to walk up to the building and see if there was actually any clues as to where their target could have gone... along with the helmet for the Electroshock armor set.

When they entered the building they had been heading towards they discovered a massive Luna, roughly the same size as when they were their normal size, standing in the middle of the room with a large door in the back of her head. It was painfully clear that the Technomites had out played them, as the entire adventure had been one giant set up by their leader, though before they could do anything the robotic Luna took off. Now that they had to track her down once more they left the building they had fought their way towards and hopped into the hovercar that happened to be sitting nearby, to which they returned to their smaller ship and enlarged themselves back to their original height... and then noticed Qwark standing near their ship.

"You guys will never guess what I just did!" Qwark declared, though his expression told them that the man was definitely excited over something, "I found my 'father'! It turns out that he is the leader of the Technomites!"

"Well that doesn't seem right at all," Angela commented, though judging from the way Qwark was speaking he had something else that he was excited over.

"Of course it isn't, I am well aware that he cannot be my actual father," Qwark replied, though that was followed by him looking into their eyes for a moment, "I figured that the Technomites are your enemy, so I didn't go running off to meet their leader before coming to see all of you... I want in on bringing this guy to justice."

Ratchet had to wonder what game the leader of the Technomites was playing, if he was trying to con Qwark into believing that he was his son, but he smiled as something occurred to him; they could use Qwark to track down the enemy's leader and get him to lower his guard at the right moment. They were still going to follow the robotic Luna and see if it knew anything else that they might not already know, but that would give Qwark the time he needed to get into position for when they brought the enemy's leader down. Ratchet knew that Sunset wasn't going to like working with Qwark again, bu he already knew that she would see why using him was a benefit to their current mission and would go along with whatever they planned.

Time was running out for the leader of the Technomites and soon the universe would be a much safer place... just as soon as they figured out where their enemy was hiding and brought him to justice.
> Size: Dayni Moon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet, Clank, Angela, and Qwark climbed into the small ship that would allow them to get back to the Hyperion, which was floating in the atmosphere above the planet they were on, though due to the shortage of seats Starlight decided to simply teleport herself to the ship so she could warn Sunset of who was coming back to the ship. There were a lot of possibilities flashing through her mind as she readied her magic, because she knew that her sister could either ignore Qwark or attack him if he said something stupid, so warning her was the best course of action. She waved a hoof at the smaller ship as everyone piled into it, to which she received a wave from Angela, before she blinked out of existence and teleported herself back to the Hyperion, or more accurately the bridge.

She took a few seconds to make sure that the spell had faded, and that nothing had happened to her, before she started searching for wherever her sister was hiding. Sure, the Hyperion was a large ship, but there was no telling where her sister would be waiting this time, as she either stayed in the Core Room, her personal workshop, or the bridge. The third option was already crossed out, as she hadn't seen Sunset when she teleported to the ship, so she was either with the Cores or she was working on something, though when she took into consideration that she intended on messing with the armor she had recovered she guessed that it was the workshop. Starlight immediately charted her course to the room where the Cores were being held, though when she reached it she went passed it and stopped two doors down... where she spotted Razor sleeping outside the room she wanted to enter.

The cat let out a yawn as it heard her coming, though it did open its eyes and stare at her as she approached it, but the moment she stood outside the door the cat decided to pick itself up and move to the side, allowing her to enter the workshop before it laid back on the floor again. Starlight stared at the door for a moment, wondering what Sunset would say once she heard that Qwark was back on the ship, before bringing her hoof to the door and tapped on it three times, which was swiftly followed by the door opening for her. She walked into the room and found that it was exactly like she remembered it, with the right wall covered in tools that Sunset used whenever she was in the mood to tinker with gadgets or armor, while the left wall had a bed for her to sleep in.

Sunset, of course, happened to be sitting at the desk that rested at the opposite side of the room... though as Starlight looked at her sister she noticed something different about her, she would suddenly feel her magical power again. As her eyes moved all over Sunset's body she spotted some key differences between her sister's current form and what she had been before suddenly becoming the God of Destruction. Despite the fact that she could actually feel Sunset's energy again, something she was grateful for, Starlight also knew that her own power, at its current level, was actually greater than what Sunset's was at the moment, almost as if she had figured out a way to seal her godly abilities. Sunset still looked like a cross between a humanoid and a unicorn, and was still wearing her godly attire, but for a moment Starlight was sure that she had spotted runes dancing on Sunset's arm for a moment, though a second later they had disappeared completely.

Though as she finished looking over her sister, and stopped trying to find any more differences, Starlight noted that Sunset was working on a new sword of some kind... though there also happened to be a platter of food sitting near her, which pleased Starlight to no end to see her sister actually eating something again.

"I see you managed to find a way to power down at last," Starlight commented, causing Sunset to look up from the desk, "How long have you been working on that?"

"I've been searching for a way to bind my power ever since I ascended to my godly status," Sunset replied, though she pulled out some apple slices from the platter and devoured them, though she also noticed that Starlight was helping herself to a whole apple, "I've grown to accept that I'm now the God of Destruction, just like Lord Beerus, but I find that being that powerful all the time makes my life incredibly boring... so I found a way to bind my abilities and reverted to what you are feeling now."

"And your new weapon?" Starlight inquired, beckoning to the sword with her hoof before tearing into her apple for a moment, "I'm guessing that you've been thinking about this since we left Dreadzone?"

"No, I've been working on this for a long time," Sunset answered, her eyes shifting to the weapon that was resting on the table, "After the events on Yeedil, where I lost my sword due to the massive cataclysm that shook the planet, I started designing the perfect weapon to reflect who I was and what I was becoming. I took my time in designing this weapon of course, considering that I was recovering from my ordeal and that we were having to deal with another villain a few months after that. And I didn't exactly have the time to work on it during our fight with Nefarious, not when Qwark was constantly pissing me off and tried to burn all of Solana with Searing's powers. Now, however, the weapon is complete, so I should be able to take it into battle soon."

Starlight appeared to want to say something, but then decided that it likely wasn't best to say anything... only Sunset noticed and let out a sigh as she turned to her sister.

"Qwark's back on the ship, isn't he?" Sunset asked, knowing that the one thing that would give her sister pause was the man that was the cause of all her headaches.

"Yes, and he wants in on bringing down the villain that we are currently tracking down," Starlight replied, though she could have sworn that she heard the cat outside the down growl for a moment, "Apparently the leader of the Technomites believes that he can fool Qwark into believing that he is the oaf's father, though Qwark's already figured out that all is not as it appears. He wants to help plan our final assault on our enemy... which will be right after we deal with the robotic little girl he was using to bait us into starting this entire adventure."

"Well then, it seems that we'll be busy for some time," Sunset said, pulling herself from her chair and walking over to where Starlight was, though she also collected her platter so the food didn't spoil, "This should be interesting."





Starlight and the others spent the entire flight going over their plan for when they reached the location that the leader of the Technomites was hiding at, though they all knew the area would turn into a war zone the moment they engaged their enemy's forces. While they talked Qwark indicated that he had done a little bit of research and reconnaissance on the location in question, the Planet know as Quodrona, to which he mentioned that he had spotted a factory of some sort on the planet. He didn't have much more to tell them, other than the factory's existence, so Starlight suggested that he go through with meeting the leader of the Technomites, though not before she outfitted his belt with some special gadgets that would map out the entire factory, discover where the weakest locations were, and also discover what the villain's plan really was with a listening device.

She wanted to be sure that they had all of the information they needed before they launched their assault on Quodrona, though once Qwark was outfitted he was sent on his way, which made Sunset happy. Once the man was gone Ratchet and the others gathered their gear and met back up at the smaller ship, which they used to fly down to the moon that the robotic girl had flown to. They landed in what appeared to be some sort of farming community, though they kept their eyes open for anything that was out of the ordinary.

"So, this is where the robot known as Luna has decided to make her last stand," Sunset commented, looking around the area for a moment before frowning, though Razor growled for a moment, "I expected her to choose a fortress or something similar... not a farming community."

"She must have had a reason for coming to this place," Starlight said, though she and Ratchet purchased the new Shock Rocket weapon while she spoke, "Come on, let's see what this moon has in store for us."

The first platform they came to didn't seem to have any enemies that wanted them dead, only two farmer robots and seven robotic sheep, though the lights dimmed for a moment, casting a shadow over the ground, to which the sheep morphed into black killer sheep that wanted to bite their heads off. Ratchet and Starlight used their weapons on the mutated robot sheep, choosing to save the new weapon for a stronger opponent, while Angela used her lightsaber to cut through the enemies that came after her. Sunset, on the other hand, merely stepped back for a moment and let Razor tear into the sheep that came after her, deciding not to draw her new weapon at all, though once the sheep had been dealt with they moved onward.

They found a lone security robot standing outside the opening to something, though the moment it spotted them coming its way it immediately opened fire, causing them to separate for a moment. It didn't take them long to tear apart the security robot, not with Angela's lightsaber and the weapons that Ratchet and Starlight were carrying, though they did stop in front of the opening that the robot had been standing outside of. There they discovered more of the mutated sheep walking around the area in front of them, to which they charged into the room and loosed their various weapons on their enemies, though after a few minutes it was clear that they were the victors when all of the mutated sheep had been dealt with.

Once their enemies had been taken care of Ratchet, upon spotting two small pieces of soil in front of them, turned around and headed back to the opening they had entered through, to which he pulled out the Sprout-o-Matic and watered one of the mimic plants that happened to be hanging outside. Once the plant was active he led it through the small building they had cleared out and planted it inside the soil that was the closest to the rock wall, to which it grew into a large flower that appeared to be a spring for them to jump on. With the first one in place he returned to the second mimic plant and repeated the process, creating a two stop jumping station they could use to get to the top off the wall that was blocking their path.

The moment the plants were in place Ratchet jumped on them until he reached the top of the rock wall, to which Angela, Starlight, and Sunset followed him, though Sunset did have to use some of her magic to levitate Razor up to them. Originally he had been somewhat concerned when he noticed that Sunset had changed again, though he was happy that she had found a way to bind her new powers so she could join them on their adventures once more. Once they were all up on the top o the wall they rounded the corner and spotted the robotic Luna standing beside some controls, to which she pulled the levers and unleashed another group of seven mutated sheep, though she ended up running the moment the door was open.

"She really likes her sheep, doesn't she?" Angela asked, carving one of the mutated robot sheep into a pile of pieces, "At least these things are easy to fight."

"I would say the same thing," Starlight commented, blasting one of her enemies to pieces, while Ratchet and Sunset fought beside her and Angela, "though I am willing to bet that there is more to this place... more that we haven't seen yet."

Ratchet and Sunset both agreed that there was more they had yet to see, though they chose to focus on their enemies and didn't say a single word until the group of mutated sheep had been dealt with. Once the sheep had been taken care of, and they were sure that there weren't any more in the surrounding area, they walked though the door that Luna had passed through and found another locked door blocking their path. This time the solution to their problem was easy, as all they had to do was eliminate the security robot that was standing on a nearby walkway, where it was firing missiles at them. Sunset had her sister summon a shield to protect them for a moment, to which she teleported over to where their enemy was located and used her new weapon to cut the robot into two halves.

With the deed done the door in front of them lowered, allowing them to move forward once more, though that was followed by Starlight turning her shield off while Sunset teleported back to where he others were standing. The area the group walked into next was, once again, patrolled by a group of seven mutated robotic sheep, causing everyone to wonder why they weren't seeing more variety among their enemies this time around. This time Sunset merely tapped Razor's back and took a step backwards, to which the cat leapt into the area and started hunting down the sheep that were in the way, almost like it was back on its home planet for a moment.

Once all of the mutated sheep had been dealt with, and Razor was sure that the area was clear, the cat purred happily as it returned to Sunset's side, allowing Ratchet to move into the area and use the Sprout-o-Matic on a mimic plant that created the type of plant that threw people to their destination. Instead of using the plant Ratchet had Starlight summoned a walkway for them to use to get to the jump pad like flower on the platform in front of them, where he and Clank used it so they could glide over to the next platform and its flower. Starlight and the others, not possessing something like Clank, used Starlight's walkway to get them to the silo that Ratchet happened to be heading towards, though they could all tell that the guards weren't happy to see them.

Seeing how there were only two security robots waiting for them, and nothing else anywhere, it was rather easy for the group to separate into two smaller groups and take out their enemies, to which they regrouped on the opposite side of the building. There they found two places where they could grow some mimic plants, as well as a locked door on the opposite side of the silo, to which Ratchet shrunk down and slipped into the lock to override it. Once he was back outside, and the door was open, he entered the silo and stared up at the top, finding that there wasn't anything inside the thing at all, to which his switched gadgets and started moving the mimic plants into position. It didn't take him very long to get the two plants in place, and create two jump pads for them to use, nor did it take them long to get up on top of the rock wall that had been in their way.

There they found yet another helmet sitting on the ground, though their scanners indicated that this was supposed to be a part of the Mega-Bomb armor set.

"As much as I like getting new armor to protect myself, and I like it a lot, I cannot help but feel that we've found too much at this point," Ratchet commented, slipping the new helmet into his pack as the group moved forward, "I mean, I've got one complete set of armor and three, if not four, incomplete sets. This is kind of insane."

"Well, it just gives us more items to study once this adventure is over," Starlight said, though she kept her weapon and magic at the ready, just in case something they weren't expecting happened.

The building they ended up walking through happened to be another one that Luna was waiting at the end of, because she flipped the switch and activated the cutting blades on both sides of the walls before making her escape yet again. This was barely a challenge for the group, as all Starlight had to do was summon a barrier around them and they all walked forward, to which the blades shattered upon meeting her magical shield. At the end of the building they spotted a weapon vendor, which meant that there was likely going to be a fight of some kind coming up, though Ratchet and Starlight prepared their weapons while Sunset, Angela, and Razor watched for any enemies that might attack them while they were distracted.

Once all of their weapons were restocked they walked out into the open area that was in front of them, though that was before they all spotted a plane coming in and firing upon their location, to which they jumped down into the corn field ahead of them and started running. Sunset inquired why Ratchet didn't want her or Starlight to blow the plane to pieces, though he said that he believed that their target was aboard the ship, which is why he hadn't asked them to destroy it yet. With that in mind they moved through the corn field, dodging the plane's shells as it tried to gun them down, though eventually it decided to give up on that method and converted itself to a machine that destroyed both the corn and any rocks that got caught up in its teeth.

After another minute or two of that method the group reached the end of the field, to which they jumped off the edge and moved down to the platform that happened to be sitting there, though Starlight levitated herself and Angela down, while Ratchet glided onto the platform and Sunset made sure that she and Razor landed okay. The moment they were all back together again the plane turned to the rock wall above them an blew a hole in it, allowing the chunks to rain down on the platform, though none of them ever reached their target as Sunset blew all of them up before they could even get near her or her family.

The instant it became clear that the rocks weren't doing the job, and that they were still alive, Luna brought the ship to the platform and decided that taunting them was the best course of action.

"So, the courageous superheroes finally catch the little girl," Luna commented, looking at the entire group for a moment, though that was before her eyes turned red, "We knew that you would fall into our trap. None of you can resist playing the hero... save for you, Sunset Shimmer, you seem to enjoy it with the amount of people who suffer after you leave a planet. Originally we had planned on taking you all down and using all of your DNA to create an army of soldiers that the universe would never see coming, but then two of you decided to stay on your ship and we had to resort to settling for Ratchet. Its a shame that couldn't actually get your DNA before your sister showed up and ruined everything, but we will make due with the camera that have been following your every move."

"Been there, done that," Angela said, causing the robotic girl to pause for a moment, which was what she was actually hoping would happen when she spoke up.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Luna asked, as it was plainly clear that she had no idea what Angela was even talking about , though she did seem a bit interested in it anyway.

"The whole clone army thing," Angela replied, though she could tell that he friends knew exactly what she was talking about, "Qwark tried the same thing when he was in control of Megacorp, though he ended up failing miserably. You have two options, either surrender peacefully... or we'll just have to beat you up."

In response Luna prepared the ship she was in for a fight, though that was before Starlight snatched her from her seat with her magic and slammed her into the platform, apparently breaking something as Luna ceased to function as a piece of her metallic skull opened. Sunset, on the other hand, grabbed the now ship with her magic and sent it hurling down towards the water around them, though she smiled once she heard the explosion. Clank and Angela seemed impressed by the inner workings of the robotic girl, what they could see anyway, and they knew that they could gleam some information if someone went inside the robot.

"We should take her back to the Hyperion and see if she has any valuable information," Clank commented, though he almost smiled as he watched Starlight pull the Technomites out of the robot.

"Good idea, and we can see if she's got the coordinates for her boss' main base," Ratchet said, just as everyone headed to the nearby teleportation pad, which was once again conveniently placed at the end of their path.

Sunset and Starlight smiled as they traveled back to their smaller ship and eventually left this moon behind, because they were one step closer to bringing an end to this entire adventure... where they would have brought an end to a deranged villain's plan of loosing an army of clones upon the universe. Then they could get back to their vacation and the rest they deserved... until the next villain decided to show up and annoy them all over again.
> Size: Quodrona
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as the group returned to the Hyperion, and put away their weapons for the moment, they set the lifeless body that had once been the robot that called itself Luna. They gathered around the robot and together, with the varying levels of knowledge they had on the inner workings of robots, were able to attach her memory banks to a terminal and started sifting through everything that was stored inside her. It took them roughly an hour to sift through everything that had been tapped inside the robot's memory banks, but in the end the group was actually disappointed when they discovered that they already knew most of what they had found. The only new things that they received were the coordinates for Planet Quodrona, which they would have gotten from Qwark anyway, depending on when he made contact with the enemy leader, and a picture of said leader... along with his name; Otto Destruct.

Everything else was just a copy of what they already knew thanks to the planets they had recently visited, so Ratchet set the Hyperion to begin the flight to Quodrona, giving them plenty of time to send Qwark a little message that would indicate that they were on their way.

Sunset still couldn't believe that Qwark, after everything he had done to her and her family, had suddenly stepped forward and declared that he wanted in on bringing down Otto and his clone army. If she had anything to say in the decision making she could have wrecked Qwark and erased his existence from the universe, but unfortunately she had to suffer through his existence. Despite the fact that she hated to admit when the oaf had a smart idea, of which there were few considering he rarely followed them anymore, she still failed to see how he could be useful in distracting Otto when it came time to fight him. If anything she secretly hoped that he would grab Otto while he was distracted, giving her the opportunity to blow the two of them to pieces... but unfortunately she knew that it would never come to that.

Half an hour passed before they received word that Qwark was in position, though for good measure he enclosed the exact coordinates of the clone factory, just in case they hadn't gotten them from the little robot they had taken out. That was then followed by Starlight receiving a file that was essentially the full layout of the clone factory they would be heading to, detailing where the weak spots were for when they went to destroy it once they had dealt with Otto.

"He's definitely thought this through," Starlight commented, looking over the map that Qwark ha sent them, spotting all of the weak areas while marveling at how such a smart foe could have built a factory with so many weaknesses, "Sunset, I'm willing to bet that if you took out any of these marked areas, just one of them I might add, the entire factory would soon be destroyed regardless of what you took out. I know the Technomites were supposed to be good at what they did, in terms of technology, but it almost looks like they skipped a critical step when they built their factory."

"Maybe Otto was stressed for time once he learned that we were on vacation," Angela threw in, knowing that it had been the perfect opportunity to strike, as they had lowered their guard while they were on Pokitaru, "Its plainly clear that he wanted Ratchet's DNA and a catalog of every move he used, all so he could create a clone army that would destroy any known force in the universe. Fortunately, like all of our other enemies, he failed to account for the fact that Sunset's powers are not to be messed with, as she so clearly demonstrated when she tore her way through the facility you two were taken to... or the outpost that had been resting in Challax's atmosphere. If anything Otto should be praying that Sunset doesn't show up to ruin all of his plans, though he'll be in for quite a surprise when we all show up and knock on his front door."

Sunset looked at the map that everyone else was staring at and was surprised by the sheer number of weaknesses that were scattered around the factory, some of which happened to be in vital areas that were keeping the entire structure stable. She even spotted some inside the power rooms, though how those ones hadn't been detected and fixed yet she had absolutely no idea, because Technomites would never build something as weak as this. She was beginning to suspect that Otto had only recently come up with his plan to attack the universe with an army of clones, as in the moment he became aware of just how strong and resourceful Ratchet actually was.

As her eyes scanned the map of the factory they were heading towards, so they could end this adventure, she reflected on how easy it would be to cause an earthquake and literally destroy the entire place without even trying... which meant that she was going to have to hold herself back more than usual when they eventually arrived. She was glad that she had finished working on her new sword, as it was designed for an occasion where she either didn't feel like using her magic or was in a position where using it would be bad for everyone, though this happened to be the second option.

Sunset turned her eyes to the planets and stars that they were passing by, to which she allowed her mind to ignore what they were about to do while she and her cat Razor relaxed, leaving the others to create their plan of attack. She already knew it would be a full frontal assault, as that was what they were good at, but she kept her mouth shut in case they came up with something better this time. Some change would be nice, but what she really wanted was the end this adventure... and she knew that she was going to get her wish soon enough.





When they landed near the coordinates they had been given Sunset believed that Qwark had fooled them, as there was nothing around the landing pad, but then Starlight told her that it was the same as Challax, where they would have to shrink themselves to a smaller size before they went off on their adventure. Ratchet and Angela shared a look for a moment, because both of them were wondering if the shrink ray would even work on Sunset or her cat, but to everyone's relief the two of them shrunk down without so much of a problem. Once all of them were the size they needed to be they hopped into the small hovercar that had been waiting nearby, either forgotten about or purposely left for them to find, before speeding off between some cracks.

It was then that they discovered that the factory in question rested in a lava like area, as there were at least two small flowing rivers nearby, though they decided not to bother worrying about it at the moment. They approached the weapon vendor and restocked all of their weapons, to which they discovered that there was one last addition to the list; the Laser Tracer, which was powerful enough to vaporize any enemy instantly. Neither Ratchet nor Starlight bothered to buy the weapon this time, because between the amount of people that were in the group, and the potent magical abilities that Starlight and Sunset possessed, it would actually be unfair for them to carry such a weapon into battle.

Once they were all ready for the assault on their enemy's base of operations, and both Sunset and Angela had their individual weapons at the ready, they walked down the conveyor belts and marched into the factory. The moment they passed through the door they found four turrets, each with two heads, popping out of their holding areas and zeroing in one where they were standing. As Ratchet and Starlight focused on the two in front of them, Angela moved to the right an cut the turret in half before it could even fire at them, though at the same time Sunset merely summoned a small shield to stop the missiles in their tracks before her sword pierced the turret she was facing.

The moment they had cleared the room of enemies they approached the door and let Ratchet shrink into an even smaller form, to which he jumped into the lock and began whatever he needed to do to open the door for them. A few seconds later and he hopped out of the lock, where he enlarged himself back to the same size as everyone else, before the door opened and revealed two nurse robots looking over some sort of contraption in the middle of the room. Ratchet an Starlight looked a pair of shock missiles into the room, taking out both of the nurse robots in a single surprise attack, though before they could get much further the door opened and at least seven Ratchet clones walked into the room with their weapons raised.

Ratchet was somewhat horrified of the clones, not because Otto had at least managed to get his face and body type right, but because each one of the clones looked completely different from his own look. Several of them didn't even have the same fur color, as some of them were a shade lighter or a shade darker, while others had different fur colors, as opposed to the normal Lombax orange that he and Angela had. Some of them had stripes in the same locations that Ratchet had, which was understandable considering they were modeled after him, but all of the ones that had the strips had different colors that weren't the normal brown. He even spotted one clone that appeared to have small demon like horns coming out of the sides of his head, making it a little unique in the sea of copies.

It actually didn't take them long to dispose of the group of clones, as it quickly became clear that they were not as well trained as Ratchet was and had next to no idea how to use their weapons, which meant that they were quite literally fresh out of whatever cloning machine Otto was using at the moment. The moment they had finished beating up all of the clones, and they were sure that they were dead, Ratchet picked one up and tossed it into the lava, allowing the molten material to devour and destroy Otto's creation. The others looked at each other and decided that it was best to not argue with Ratchet over this, because someone could actually do a lot of harm with the amount of DNA that Otto had replicated... and it would be best if both Ratchet and Angela didn't have to fear someone creating a specific poison that targeted their genetic cord or anything similar to it.

Once they had disposed of all the clones, and made sure that there were no more in the surrounding area, they walked out the backside of the room and found a number of swingshots waiting for them, to which they took turns swinging above the lava until they came to the next part of the factory, though Sunset carried Razor with her magic. The room they walked into was a room that was filled with chambers that clearly held all of the clones that hadn't been fully developed yet, though all of them could see that these clones also had mutations that separated them from the rest of their kind and from Ratchet. At least fifteen of the mutated clones burst out of their containers and came at them, though once again they were sloppy at fighting and allowed the group to finish them off rather easily.

"Otto was clearly unprepared so such an assault," Sunset commented, dragging all of the clones onto a bed of moving magic, which she used to move the bodies to the lava again, "What did he expect from soldiers that can barely hold their weapons and fall apart from the tiniest amount of damage?"

"I don't know and I could definitely care less," Ratchet replied, watching the last of the clones fall into the lava before turning his attention to the next door they had to pass through.

The next room was smaller than what everyone was expecting, as all it appeared to be was a wall they had to jump off of an land on a platform, which they would have to repeat until they reached the top. Instead of wasting time with the room, and pissing anyone off, Starlight and Sunset levitated them all into the air and dropped them in front of the next door they had to pass through. From there they entered the room where the more advanced clones were hard at work perfecting their skills against all sorts of dummies, though what annoyed Ratchet was the fact that the older clones still didn't match him at all.

There was always something wrong with one of the clones; as one of them had deep red fur, another had pitch black eyes, a third had what appeared to be a full set of razor sharp shark teeth with a matching fin in the poor clone's back, and a whole sea of mutations that just ticked him off to no end. These were just mockeries of life, twisted clones of what a Lombax should look like, and Ratchet could tell that even Angela was getting pissed off as well.

The group jumped down into the area that the clones were using for their practice session and immediately tore into them, using their hand held weapons instead of their guns to literally hack and slash the mutated clones into pieces. Razor, on the other hand, moved to the back of where the clones were standing and attacked them from behind, tearing one of his chosen target's legs off before ripping the other limbs off. By the time the mutated clones had been completely dealt with, and were nothing more than a pile of part at this point, Ratchet calmed down enough to shrink himself and slip into the keyhole of the next locked door. When he returned a few seconds later it was clear that none of them were through with venting their rage against Otto's creations, as the next room they entered ha another twenty clones, all of which were mutated like the last bunch, waiting for them.

Ratchet's anger snapped at that point, as he pulled out all of the weapons he had gathered over the course of this adventure and started loosing everything he had on the mutated clones, causing them to either run for cover or get blown up by his onslaught. A full two minutes passed before he finally ran out of ammunition and dropped the last weapon to the floor, though he had to smile when he noticed that the entire chamber had been nearly ruined with all of the blast marks and busted pieces of the walls that were sticking out everywhere. He waited for a few seconds, merely to contain the amount of anger that was inside him, and realized that this is what Sunset must have felt every single time Qwark did something stupid to her.

Once he had calmed down, and was no longer on the verge of snapping again, he rapidly collected his weapons and backtracked a little bit, where he stopped at the nearby weapon vendor and restocked all of his ammunition before returning to the group.

"Damn Ratchet, I don't think any of us have ever seen you get that angry," Angela commented, looking at all the mutated clones that were scattered everywhere, surprised that Ratchet's rage was as explosive as Sunset's or Starlight's was.

"Otto didn't even do a good job at cloning me, and in his haste to create his army he created an army of mockeries," Ratchet replied, letting out a sigh as he checked his weapons, "Come on, let's bring this guy down so we can go back to what we were doing before he and his minions ruined our vacation."

The next room they entered happened to be one that contained quite a number of crates, all of which were the same height, and found that some of the clones had been stored inside this room, as the moment they walked through the door several crates opened and the mutated clones charged at them. The group separated from each other and attacked the clones that came after them, after they had put enough distance between them and the others, and in a matter of minutes the clones were defeated once more. It actually would have surprised them that all of these clones, apparently crafted from Ratchet's genetic code and had a great knowledge of his moves, were failing this badly, but then they remembered that they had to have caught Otto when he wasn't prepared.

The clones were supposed to be the guardians of the factory and the greatest fighting force that the Technomites had ever created, but in the end it appeared that they were nothing more than failed copies of the real deal.

Once they were done with all of the clones they approached the back of the room and found a rather large red button waiting for them, to which they assumed that it would bring about the destruction of the factory if someone touched it. Ratchet climbed onto the button and waited for it to touch the floor, where he waited for the sound of the self destruct sequence to engage, but what really happened was a section of the wall on their left opened and revealed another path for them to take. They left the room and noticed that the walkway they were on was, once again, surrounded by lava, so Starlight and Sunset disposed of the bodies of the clones before Starlight restocked her weapons at the nearby vendor.

"According to all of our information this should take us directly to Otto," Starlight commented, looking at what could potentially pass as an elevator of some kind, "which means that we can finally bring this adventure to a close and put it behind us."

Everyone nodded their agreement, along with Razor letting out a growl that seemed to have an agreeing tone as well, before they entered the small elevator shaft and rode up to the area that it connected to... where they found Otto Destruct, the very person they had come to defeat, floating in front of them with a look of joy in his eyes.

"Ah, Ratchet and his beloved family, how very nice to meet you." Otto said, glaring down at them while he spoke, "Although, I'm pretty sure that all of you have seen enough of Ratchet today."

"Thanks to all of your miserable attempts to clone me," Ratchet replied, his hand itching towards his weapon so they could get the fight started and not have to exchange dialogue with the madman, "I thought your technology was supposed to be better than this."

"Oh trust me, those failures meant nothing to me," Otto said, though his hovering platform moved around the arena they were in, as if he was getting a good look at the other members of his group, "You know, its actually a shame that we were unable to mimic or replicate the magic properties that you possess, Starlight Glimmer, because an army of you would have been much better than an army of Ratchet's. Its also a shame that we were unable to grab you, Angela Cross, because your skills with that weapon you carry, the lightsaber I believe you call it, would have made quite an interesting army."

"And what about Sunset?" Starlight added, knowing that there would never be a way for someone to clone her sister, not when she was a walking god at this point.

"It would have been the same as your army of clones," Otto replied, staring at Starlight for a moment, as if he was annoyed that she had spoken up, "Regardless of the fact that you manage to beat an army of weak and ill prepared clones, which you have my thanks for saving me the time of destroying them, I will enjoy collecting some fresh samples from all of you and begin the creation of an army that will conqueror the entire universe."

"But all of Luna's files indicated that you only wanted credit for all of the inventions your race created," Angela remarked, as she had found something interesting while searching through the little robot's memory banks, "Why the sudden need to conquer the universe?"

"Simple; I conquer them and force them to give me the credit I deserve," Otto answered, as if the answer to her question was obvious, "and then I will reach passed the limits of the Solana and Bogon Galaxies, where I shall conquer every planet I come across until I am the emperor of everything and anything. But before I can create my clone army, and get to conquering everything, I have to get rid of all of you... which is easier done than said."

With that said Otto's platform rose into the air as four openings appeared in the floor around the group, to which more mutated clones poured out and started attacking them. They were also apparently going to be timed on this fight, as it appeared that they would have to survive three whole minutes, though they all knew that Otto was underestimating the power that they could use against him. As they fought the clones, and immediately started by decimating their numbers, Ratchet had to wonder why Otto, who seemed to know a lot about them, wasn't scared of Sunset. Its not like he had taken the time to do the research that Nefarious had done to create something that negated magical abilities, so if Otto knew about her godly powers, which Ratchet was sure the villain did, then it was strange that he was even attempting to beat them.

The three minutes passed by rather quickly, which wasn't surprising considering that they could easily beat up the clones without too much effort on their part, though once the time was up, and no more clones were coming out out to fight them, Qwark appeared over one of the building's walls. He seemed gigantic, considering he hadn't been shrunken like everyone else, though it didn't take Sunset long to find that he was holding a small cage in his right hand, one that seemed big enough for a single person.

"Is it time?" Qwark asked, as if he was supposed to be doing something at the moment and wanted to be sure that he was doing the correct action, so he didn't mess up.

"Yes my son, it is time to enact our plan," Otto replied, floating up to Qwark's shoulder and stared down at Ratchet and his family, "Go ahead and crush them... though make sure to save Ratchet for later."

Qwark grinned and raised his empty hand, as if he was intending to crush everyone in the arena until they were all dead, but then he grabbed Otto's floating platform and dumped him inside the cage he had been holding, which he promptly sealed before the villain even knew what was happening. He then grinned as he tossed the platform to the side and set the cage down in the arena, where Ratchet shrunk him down to a better size so they could inform the villain of his defeat.

"How could this have happened?" Otto demanded, glaring at Qwark the entire time, though he knew better than to try and touch the bars that lined the cell, as he'd be shocked if he tried anything, "We were supposed to take over the universe as father and son!"

"You know, I knew from the moment you informed me that you were my 'father' that you were lying to me," Qwark replied, though he pointed a finger back at the group that was standing around them, "So I told Ratchet and his family that you had made contact and we devised a plan for me to infiltrate your base of operations, see what you were really planning, and then bring you down from the inside. You pretty much sabotaged yourself with your clone army, who couldn't even fight at half of Ratchet's full potential... not to mention that Starlight's got enough power behind her to do more than what she showed you. And, to top all of this off, you were fighting against Sunset Shimmer, the mortal turned God of Destruction... who even I have come to fear after, um, recent events."

"Please, the God of Destruction is merely a title," Otto retorted, as if he didn't believe Qwark at all, "No mortal can break planets, and even destroy them in some cases, without some sort of weapon backing their every move."

"Oh trust me, you don't want to make her mad." Qwark said, to which he turned his back on Otto and faced the group, "So, what do we do with him?"

"He goes to jail for attempting to take over the universe," Angela spoke up, slipping into her role as a Jedi Master once again, "which is what we would have done to Nefarious had he not escaped at the last moment. Once we lock Otto away we can return to our vacation and plan out our next move."

"Though before we do any of that, I have a question that needs to be answered." Sunset commented, walking up to the cell and staring into Otto's eyes, "Tell me, where are you hiding your Raritanium Core?"

"I sold the one piece of raritanium I ever found to a collector, who expressed an interest in the stone's odd red color," Otto replied, not even bothering to hide the truth from his captors, "I received five million bolts for the stone, which I then used to begin my preparations for my conquest of the universe. I don't know much about the man I sold the stone to, other than the fact that his name started with a 'T', so your on you own."

Sunset growled for a moment, annoyed that the stone had been sold before they had even known that Otto was going to be annoying them on their vacation, but after a few seconds she calmed down and opened a portal for them to take back to their smaller ship. Once they were on the other side they enlarged themselves back to their original heights, though they left he cage small so it would be easier to carry. In time Angela would call the authorities and they would hand Otto, and his factory, over to the Galactic Rangers, ending this adventure and allowing them to move on with their lives. They would then return to Pokitaru, to finish their vacation, where they would relax and unwind before they even bothered to think about what to do next.

Sunset let out a sigh as she rubbed Razor's head and listened to the cat as he purred for a moment, though she knew that they would find the missing stone that Otto had sold and claim it for their collection... and then they could begin the hunt for the villain that was holding the last of the six Raritanium Cores. She still had no idea what was so special about the six stones and the connection she had with them, but she was sure that she would figure it out in due time... once they had the whole set.
> Interlude: Plans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight and her family sat around the table, aboard the Starship Hyperion, and relaxed after their trek through Otto's hidden clone factory and the capture of the villain that wanted to conquer the entire universe. As they sat in their chairs, and placed the cage that Otto was trapped inside in the center of the table, Starlight mentally remarked at how easy and somewhat dull this adventure had been. Sure, she got to see some new technology in use, and could research all of the armor pieces they had acquired so she could make some better armor in the future, but she enjoyed the challenge of besting an opponent that actually made them work hard. All Otto had done was send weak clones after them and test their emotions, so she was somewhat disappointed that he didn't sense a trick coming from Qwark.

She eventually let out a sigh and picked up her tablet again, resuming her search for the truth behind what really happened to Qwark's birth parents... though the man in question was merely siting in a nearby chair and staring at Razor, as if he didn't trust the cat to behave while he was around it.

After ten minutes of searching she discovered that Qwark's parents had apparently died due to some faulty Technomite equipment, though she resolved to tell him what she had found later, when Otto was safely out of Qwark's reach, and also tell him that his parents had apparently been great heroes during their time. Starlight found it amazing that Qwark, with no knowledge of what his parents had done with their lives, had actually followed in their footsteps and used his own talents to do what he thought was right. Of course the definition of right was kind of hit and miss with Qwark, seeing how he believed that Sunset's old golden bracelet was the source of her powers when in reality its purpose was to seal a darker entity away.

Starlight knew how much it had hurt Sunset to say goodbye to Searing, the demon that had once been the bane of her existence and later tuned out to be like a little sibling that wanted to please an older brother or sister. Despite everything she had done, and everything that had been broken along the way, Searing had done all of it in an effort to either save Sunset from a terrible fate or had tried to get Sunset to like her. In the end the little demon had grown on all of them, even Sunset, and at one point the two of them had stood together against another of Sunset's inner demons, the emotion called Hatred, but in the end Starlight knew what the reality was. Searing and Hatred had given the entirety of their beings to save Sunset's life, allowing her to ascend to the position of the God of Destruction, something that Sunset had hated at first... only to grow to like.

She couldn't believe that Sunset seemed to be so calm about being a god that basically destroyed worlds, though she guessed that the reason behind it was because her sister had found a way to bind her powers, allowing her to be normal again... or as normal as one can be when they are the God of Destruction.

An hour after their return to the Hyperion, giving them enough time to relax after everything they had gone through, was met with someone asking for permission to board their ship, though everyone, save Otto, smiled when they discovered who it was.

"Sasha, is good to see you again," Angela said, greeting her fellow Jedi knight the moment she boarded the ship, "I trust you got my message and came as fast as you could?"

"Yes, though I only wish you had told me about this man earlier," Sasha replied, staring at the small cage that Otto was currently residing in, "an army of clones would have been interesting to fight, even if you mentioned that they were nowhere near Ratchet's level. Regardless of me wanting to fight an army of Ratchet's, and improve my skills, I've come with a group of Rangers to take Otto Destruct into custody, where he will likely be thrown in jail for the rest of his life."

"Then we will never again have to worry about his evil polluting the universe!" Qwark declared, gently picking up the cage that held the villain in question and handed him over to the Rangers that had accompanied Sasha, who gently took the cage from him and made their way back to the Phoenix.

Sasha, while disappointed that she couldn't help bring Otto in like she did with Nefarious, turned to the group for a moment and started tapping her tablet, as if here was more that she wanted to tell them. A few seconds later she turned the tablet towards them and let them see what she had been looking for, though most of them were shocked by what they saw. Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, and Qwark were all being invited to join the newly created Heroes Association, led by Hydro Girl and Kid Nova, on the day that they did the whole cut the ribbon ceremony and officially opened their doors to any heroes that wanted to help protect the universe. The real shocker came when they noticed that they were all being offered positions as the first three S Rank Heroes, though according to what Sasha told them that was supposed to be mean that they were the strongest and most respected of all the heroes.

The ultimate shocker didn't come when Qwark accepted the invitation to join the heroes, which everyone had seen coming from a mile away, but rather it came when he declined the offer to become one of the top ranking heroes automatically... and again when he told them that he desired to start at the bottom.

"After everything I have done, to all of you and the planets that suffered during Drek's reign, I deserve to start at the bottom," Qwark commented, knowing that the group was going to ask him why he made the decision and decided to tell them ahead of time, "Eventually I will return to the highest ranks to the order, and have the fame like position I had before I was toppled, but this time I will gladly work hard for the rewards... and who knows, maybe my presence will inspire more people to do more heroic deeds and take some of the pressure off of all of you."

"It would be nice to relax and not have to save the day every week," Ratchet said, as if the idea of being able to avoid a villain appealed to him, "and besides, being at the top of the list means that they would only hand us something that none of the other heroes could take care of."

"You mean something like a villain that's on Otto's level?" Starlight asked, though she already knew what her brother was talking about, "I'll admit that the offer sounds appealing... though its a shame that they didn't offer Sunset anything."

"I'm fine with it," Sunset spoke up, though she ran a hand over Razor's head while she spoke, "People still remember the destruction that occurred during Nefarious' attempt to take over the Solana Galaxy, so they've likely assumed that he had an accomplice that later disappeared. For me, who everyone will likely see as the thing that wiped out Metropolis and destroyed Koros, to join the Heroes Association would no doubt damage their new reputation and make it impossible for most people to call on them for assistance. I'll be fine with not being counted among the numbers of the heroes... though I never thought I would actually say something like that in my entire life."

Starlight was a little sad about that statement, because Sunset had, at the time during their journey to stop Drek, had said something about being a hero, not like Qwark considering what had happened. It was sad that she couldn't join them, but Starlight knew that Sunset likely had to figure out what being the God of Destruction meant, besides erasing worlds.

"Don't look so upset Starlight," Sunset commented, noticing that her sister seemed to be unhappy about her not being offered a position like her and Ratchet, "Think of this in a different light; the free time will allow me to track down whoever Otto sold the fifth Raritanium Core to, see if he's a villain like everyone else, and then potentially take back the Core before he or she even realizes that I'm there. Or maybe we'll be surprised and we won't find a trace of the Core until later... one never really knows."

"Well, Sasha and I have an army of Jedi to train," Angela said, a smile appearing on her face, "We want to be prepared for the coming of the next villain, because we are both certain that he or she will be coming with an army... and before anyone asks, is very simple as to why we know that fact. Drek, from what you told me, had an army, Qwark had an army when he was faking being my boss, Nefarious had his own army that he later turned into robots, Vox had a very ineffective army, and so did Otto. All of the villains have an army to do their bidding, but they always try and wreck wherever they attack, so we want to be prepared ahead of time for the incoming invasion... whenever it happens."

"Then I had best get started on designing some new weapons," Starlight spoke up, though her frown changed into a grin as she thought about what she could make next, "I've been meaning to make another RYNO weapon, especially after the third installment in the series, but the last two adventures have prevented me from putting down any ideas I might have had... though nothing is stopping me from finally creating the fourth weapon in the series."

"And I'll be sure to help the other heroes in any way I can," Ratchet threw in, knowing that it was going to be some work considering that Qwark would be there as well, but the man seemed to simply nod his head in agreement, "If the next villain is indeed coming with an army, just like everyone else, then this time we should be prepared for it and not be caught off guard... especially since we'll likely be attacked in the middle of a city or something."

"Then it is settled!" Qwark exclaimed, pulling himself from his chair and facing everyone, "We shall go our separate ways, in a manner of speaking anyway, and prepare ourselves for whatever foulness our next enemy has in store for us, be that foulness be their actual deeds or whatever their plan happens to be. And then, as the heroes of justice that we are, we shall rain our fury upon our foe and make sure that the universe is kept safe from their evil."

Sunset knew that it was likely going to be some time before they found whoever the next villain was, but the good thing was that they all had something to do to occupy their time. She recalled that Angela had known that someone was hunting down and killing any Lombaxes that had survived what had happened to their race, so she had to wonder if the next person that came to bother them was actually going to be the person that Angela was talking about. As she thought about it, and threw some ideas out, she decided that it was really just wishful thinking on her part, all so her friend could live without the constant worry that someone was hunting her and Ratchet down... which was one of the reasons why they hadn't gotten married or tried to have kids.

Sunset let out a sigh as she looked outside the Hyperion's window and stared at one of the planets that they happened to be passing at the moment, knowing that she and her family would one day be rid of whoever was searching for Ratchet and Angela... and that they would be fully prepared to meet it when it finally arrived.
> Tools: Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Four years had passed since Ratchet and his family defeated the Technomite leader, Otto Destruct, and saved the entire known universe from yet another villain that wanted to take over everything. At the same time they managed to attend the founding of the Heroes Association, where heroes gathered into small groups and took on whatever assignments the leaders of the organization had to offer. The groups always copied Ratchet and his family, going in groups of three to five at all times, and generally finished off whatever happened to be bothering the fair people of the Solana and Bogon Galaxies. The tasks were never anything major, like a villain trying to take over anything, rather they were bandits, marauders, and small organizations that were trying to copy Thugs-4-Less, all of which the new heroes had cleaned up by the end of the week that the tasks were posted.

With so many decent heroes running around the two galaxies, occasionally with a Jedi or two to help them if the situation demanded it, Ratchet and the others were able to settle down and enjoy the easy life for once. They had been sixteen at the time they had defeated Otto and were able to celebrate four birthdays for all three of them without having a villain invade the galaxy and interrupt them. Now Ratchet, Starlight, and Sunset were all twenty years old, though out of all of them the only one that had aged the least was Sunset, which was understandable considering what she was. They were even able to celebrate some of Angela's birthdays as well, much to her joy considering she had been running until she met them all and stepped out of the shadows... especially since one of the presents from Ratchet had been a pair of matching rings that had been made out of Raritanium.

That had been the start of them truly being boyfriend and girlfriend... though two years after Otto's defeat they eventually crossed the final bridge and got married, much to the joy of Starlight and Sunset. It had been a somewhat private event, with only their friends being allowed to come to it so they didn't leave another bread crumb for their next enemy to track them down with. Neither of them were planning on having any kids at the moment, not with the enemy of the Lombaxes hunting for them, but that didn't stop them from enjoying each others company whenever they weren't busy.

With no villains to interrupt their daily lives the family was able to resume a normal life, what could pass as normal when one sister was a talking unicorn with some serious magical abilities and the other was a literal God of Destruction. Starlight resumed her job with Gadgetron, making new weapons for the heroes to use while they were in the field while designing the next weapon in the RYNO Series, though she and Mr. Gadget deemed the fourth and fifth weapons so dangerous, based on the holo-plans alone, that Starlight ripped the plans into fragments and sent them to a sector of the universe where no one should be able to find them. Ratchet and Clank went into the mechanics business, opening a small shop that fixed up hovercars, upgraded the systems that needed updating, and sometimes even customizing them a bit.

Angela, of course, was still one of the top ranking Jedi in her order, along with Sasha working beside her, though unfortunately Sasha had been removed from her position as the captain of the Starship Phoenix, allowing her to fall back on being a Jedi for her full-time job. Qwark, staying true to his word, had started from the bottom of the rankings in the Heroes Association and had quickly rose to an A Rank hero, roughly were he was before being taken down by Ratchet and his family so many years ago... though his occupation suddenly changed when the last Head of the Planetary Defense Center tricked him into taking over for a day, so he could relax, and then never returned, leaving Qwark in charge of Metropolis' defenses.

Oddly enough Qwark was doing so well of a job in the Defense Center that he was actually being awarded hero points by the Association, which made him feel good inside as he kept the city safe.

Sunset was the only one that didn't resume her job or take up a new one, rather she gathered parts from the junkyards across both galaxies and gathered them on Planet Aranos, working on a secret project that she didn't tell anyone about. In addition to gathering spare parts she also practiced some of her spells on the opposite side of the planet from her work station, so she didn't end up destroying her secret project. She also took the four Cores from the Hyperion and used them in her work, though that told Starlight that her sister was no doubt trying to find the remaining two Cores that were still missing.

One thing that Starlight had noticed was that Sunset had sealed her powers, leaving her with roughly five percent of her overall power and giving her the ability to enjoy life without being bored when she simply obliterated everything that came at her. Sunset had admitted that the last time she had used her godly powers was when they were taking out Otto's forces, though now she preferred to limit herself to give her enemies a chance to survive her fight with them. Despite Sunset restricting her powers for when the next villain showed itself, and practicing her sword skills and basic magic abilities, they never got put to use in the four years they waited, as if something was trying to pull them into a false sense of security and make them lower their guard.

Eventually the day they had been waiting for arrived, the arrival of the next villain that would excite their lives, though it was once again followed by the family enjoying their lives before their foe came knocking on their door.





Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight stood on the roof of their home, where Ratchet and Starlight were in the process of completing a new experimental hover bike, one of their own design. Clank stood nearby, his eyes going over the list that Starlight had provided him so he could make sure everything was checked off so the vehicle would function perfectly, where the two siblings would try the bike out before fine toning anything that was wrong. Angela was busy at the building that housed the Jedi Order, no doubt going over another report of yet another supposed villain that might try what Nefarious had done so long ago, while Sasha was with her and sharing her insight to the master of the order. Sunset, once again, was off world, though this time she was actually working on the Hyperion, which was once again stationed on the planet's moon with permission granted to them to park it there.

"Fuel lines?" Clank asked, starting at the beginning of the checklist that he had been given, though in truth he was eager to see if this hover bike was even going to work or if it was going to break when they turned it on.

"Check." Starlight replied, a grin appearing on her face as she noticed the item in question was ready, much to her joy as she continued checking on everything else.

"Horizontal stabilizers?" Clank continued, turning his gaze to Ratchet, as both of them had specific parts of the bike that they would reply to and they both insisted on using this method when they did the check up.

"Check," Ratchet confirmed, though that was after examining the bike's wings and making sure that they worked, to which his face mirrored Starlight's as he noticed everything seemed to be just fine.

"Ion thrusters?" Clank inquired, going down to the next item on the list, though his sensors indicated that there was a change in the weather, one that would influence what his companions were going to say next.

"Tail wind..." Starlight breathed eagerly, indicating that she had felt the wind change as well, no doubt due to her own systems that had been installed in her own light suit of armor some time ago.

"If we timed it right," Ratchet added, excitement crossing his face as he envisioned what he and Starlight would be able to do with the bike, "we could ride the slipstream of the grav-train past the c-grid traffic-"

"-launch the mag-grappler onto that pedway overpass-" Starlight added eagerly, easily following her brother's train of thought while continuing his sentence with some ease.

"-and slingshot right up to-" Ratchet continued, his mind stringing together the scenario that he had been envisioning the entire time, though that was before he noticed Clank staring at them.

"Ion. Thrusters," Clank firmly stated, interrupting what they were saying and causing them to turn towards them, though once he had their attention he shook his head, "Last I checked, Ratchet, Angela had told you to mature a little bit, because she fully expects you to be a responsible parent once you track down and take care of the person that's hunting you guys down... whenever he or she shows up."

"The thrusters are fine, Clank," Ratchet reassured, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment for a moment, though that was quickly followed by him switching them on... only for them to start to burn out not moments later.

"Its probably just a fused ion duct or something," Starlight commented, checking to see what the problem was while Ratchet turned to Clank, "It happens all the time..."

Clank was beginning to think that Ratchet had taken on a little bit of Qwark's childlike nature, seeing how the man was almost never around them anymore, but even as he thought about Qwark his data tablet immediately began blaring the emergency signal... one that happened to be from Qwark.

"It seems that Qwark might require our services" Clank commented, letting the tablet float up to display the message, to which the three of them gathered around to see what was happening.

"Ratchet? Starlight? Clank? I've got a bit of a situation here at the Planetary Defense Center," Qwark explained quickly, almost as if he was actually hiding somewhere to send this message to them without being discovered, "there's just a few... thousand... heavily armed robotic commandos invading the planet. I've already contacted the other heroes and the Jedi Order, and they've engaged the commandos in their areas, though there's no one in your area at the moment and I felt that you deserved to know what was happening."

Before any of them could reply, and figure out if he needed help at the moment, Qwark turned his screen to the battle that was on the opposite side of the sealed room he was in, to which he loosed a war cry and charged into the battle with his blaster drawn.

"Hmm... heavily armed robotic commandos?" Clank commented, because the statement almost reminded him of when Drek was the one trying to take over the galaxy.

"When aren't they heavily armed?" Ratchet asked, though he helped Clank onto the hover bike as Starlight climbed into the portion of the bike that had been set aside for her.

"When we or Sunset are done with them?" Starlight offered, knowing that either of their groups could take care of the commandos in question, though as she climbed onto the bike she sent a message to Sunset and hoped that her sister would hear the message's arrival.

"Are you both certain this is functioning properly?" Clank inquired, as he was certain that they should at least finish checking the hover bike before they took off.

"You worry too much Clank," Ratchet commented, pulling the main lever to activate the engines, to which the bike levitated into the air and moved off the edge of the roof... where it promptly began to plummet towards the ground.

Ratchet engaged the auxiliary thruster and began to maneuver them through the crowd of hover cars that were in front of them, though when Clank asked where they were going Ratchet merely stated that they were taking the shortcut so they could get to where Qwark was quicker than if they ran the entire distance. The ride was cut short as Ratchet sent them flying into a Gadgetron blimp, to which they were ejected from their seats as the bike went crashing towards the ground... while at the same time Starlight levitated them down to where their bike eventually landed.

"I guess we're walking," Ratchet said, touching down on the ground, staring at the ruined bike in disappointment for a few seconds, before turning to Clank and Starlight, "So, what weapons do we have this time around?"

"Unfortunately none of our old stuff," Starlight replied, shaking her head as she pulled out the weapons in question, "Right now we have access to the Combuster and Fusion Grenade launcher, though these weapons, in addition to leveling up through us using them, can be further upgraded with Raritanium. And, at the same time, we can test out the new nav units we were given."

With the new blasters in hand the group crossed the bridge that was in front of them and came into contact with their latest enemy, which happened to be fish-like aliens, locked inside a dome of some kind, that happened to be controlling robotic bodies that they used to terrorize and attack anyone around them. All of their new enemies appeared hostile, which they had anticipated considering what Qwark had told them earlier, so Ratchet and Starlight tore through them without concern with their new weapons, though at the same time Starlight listened in one whatever the attackers were saying. From what she could gather they were looking for 'the Lombax' and that they were under orders to 'bring his head back to the Emperor', to which Starlight had to wonder who their enemy was.

Starlight had the feeling that they had finally found the person that Angela had told them about so long ago, back when they had saved the Bogon Galaxy, though if it was then they could finally bring peace to their lives and not have to worry about someone hunting them down anymore.

The second type of enemy they encountered were smaller robots that rolled around on one wheel and tried to zap them when they got close, though they could be destroyed in a single hit. The area in front of where the hover bike landed happened to have one of the oldest golden statues of Qwark, though it had definitely been damaged by the assault, as half of the statue was missing. They found three more of the fish controlled robots standing to the right of the statue, but due to their experience Ratchet and Starlight were able to take them out with some ease. They then crossed through the small building that was in front of them, making sure the citizens were safe, before taking out the flying enemies that had been waiting for them on the other side of the building, the smaller enemies that had been standing on the next bridge, and smashing the dropship with Starlight's magic.

At the end of the bridge rested what appeared to be some sort of jump pad, a new one that had been based off the ones from the Bogon Galaxy and mass produced by Megacorp, though when they used it they jumped through the air and landed on an edge of the building they had been fighting their way to. That was when they spotted what appeared to be some sort of battle walker with four legs, once again piloted by the fish aliens, though it ended up jumping to another part of the building in front of them as three more of the flying enemies zeroed in on their location. They easily took out the enemies that were coming their way and moved onward, though at the same time Starlight looked at the sky and noticed that there was a larger of starships resting in the sky, ones that had to be the ships that the invaders were using to attack the planet.

She had a hunch that the 'Emperor', as their enemies called their boss, was waiting on one of those ships, watching his forces attack the city while they searched for either Ratchet or Angela, as they were the only Lombaxes on the planet at the moment.

Once the flying enemies had been taken care of, and no more were coming at them at the moment, they accessed the next jump pad and crossed over to the building to the left of the building they had been on, where they found another group of enemies waiting for them. The enemies were easy to take care of, as they grouped together and died due to the duo of bombs that were thrown at them, though that was before Ratchet and Starlight noticed that they had been standing in front of a grind rail the entire time. Ratchet jumped onto the rail and followed the path to its destination, while Starlight waited for him to reach the end on the rail before teleporting to him, using a special head piece that they had developed that would allow her to teleport into an area that Ratchet was looking at.

The moment Starlight was with her brother again they were assaulted by a group of seven fish controlled robots and ten of the smaller ones, though they didn't put up much of a fight and soon the group was moving forward once more. As they passed through the building in front of them they discovered a new enemy that was attacking any hover cars that passed it, one that looked like a flying saucer that was controlled by the same fish aliens they had been fighting the entire time. As they followed the path they needed to take they were attacked by another saucer and a group of the smaller enemies, though once they were taken care of the group accessed the next jump pad and went on their way.

This time the jump pad had them land on a second pad before they got anywhere near the location they were supposed to land on, which was, of course, crawling with enemies that were searching for them. They were attacked by two more of the saucers and seven of the shocker enemies, but after a minute or two the group had taken them out and where moving forward once again. The next part they had to overcome happened to include walking over one of the bridges that were scattered throughout he city, though this one happened to be under attack at the moment they crossed over it, leaving them to make sure that they didn't fall to their deaths while clearing out all of their enemies as they ran to the next building.

Inside the next building they found twenty of the shocker enemies and two of the flying robots, though with Ratchet and Starlight's experience they were able to overcome their enemies and see what they had to do next. Ratchet found another grind rail for them to use and hopped on it, knowing that Starlight would stay put as she waited for a decent place to teleport to, though not a few minutes later he noticed that the ships were forcing him to go where they wanted him to go, so he had Starlight teleport to the area he would be landing in before he even reached the area. The instant she teleported into the area she loosed several shots with her new Combuster and took out the robots that were waiting for her brother, though the moment Ratchet arrived they jumped onto the jump pad and went up to the platform above them.

The two robotic enemies that had been standing on the platform were easy to deal with, allowing them to access the next jump pad that took them to a purple one, which sent them soaring towards a somewhat broken sky bridge. Unfortunately the moment they touched own on the bridge it started to fall apart, as their enemies were firing at them from their ships, forcing them to run through the robotic enemies that happened to be waiting on the bridge. Ratchet and Starlight took turns throwing their grenades at the enemies in front of them, as one was powerful enough to take out two enemies at once, though after a few minutes of fighting they eventually reached an area of the bridge that looked normal and undamaged... which was when the entire bridge collapsed and dropped them into rush hour traffic.

Starlight grabbed them with her magic and levitated them down to the Planetary Defense Center, where Qwark happened to be leading a group of heroes and Jedi against the invaders, though he didn't have time to say much while he was busy blasting his targets to pieces. One of the enemies took a shot at Ratchet and he jumped out of the way, though that allowed him to understand that this was definitely the person that Angela had warned them about back when they first met her. With all of the enemies turning towards him, and ignoring everyone else, Ratchet jumped onto a nearby grind rail and beckoned for them to chase him, to which he smiled as the heroes and Jedi tore the invaders to pieces.

As Starlight stayed behind to help the heroes and Jedi, until Ratchet found a place for her to teleport to, Ratchet rode along the rails and dodged the attacks that the enemy saucers threw at him, while at the same time discovering that the leader of the invaders, the Emperor himself, wanted to personally deal with him. Clank would warn him of where the ship's attacks were coming from, making sure that Ratchet understood what he was saying to him, and Ratchet made sure that nothing roasted them from behind. After a few seconds Ratchet noticed the perfect place for Starlight to teleport to, so while he finished up on the rail he had his sister teleport into the area ahead of him... though once he landed he found that they were already surrounded by their enemies.

The ship that had been following him on the grind rail eventually came to a halt on the side of the building that was opposite of where Ratchet and Starlight were standing... though that was quickly followed by a mechanical walker, complete with some sort of throne, walking out of the ship. The person that the walker carried was a small creature, one that Ratchet had never seen before, that had a tiny head and was wearing red clothing on most of its body, with what appeared to be some sort of crown on its head. Starlight also noticed that the creature happened to be carrying a scepter of some kind, though floating in the middle of something that looked like the letter C was a red gemstone that appeared to be glowing.

Ratchet and Starlight exchanged a glance for a moment before turning their attention back to the person in front of them, though i was clear that they both knew that this was the man responsible for buying the fifth Raritanium Core off of Otto Destruct all those years ago.

"Behold! The last Lombax in the universe!" the creature wickedly proclaimed, though at the same time it almost sounded like the person was bored, "Truly a pathetic specimen of the race, I'm afraid... so weak."

"And you are?" Ratchet asked, though he was somewhat pleased that the creature thought that there was only one Lombax in the universe, which meant that he had no idea that Angela even existed.

"Emperor Percival Tachyon, Crown Prince of the Cragmites," the creature replied, standing on its tiny legs and waving its strange scepter around for a moment, "conqueror of space and time, and, pending the obliteration of a few insubordinate species, Ruler of the Universe!"

"Nice to meet you, Emperor Tachyon," Starlight said, tilting her head to the side as she studied the walker, immediately noticing some key points they would hit if they wanted to escape at a moments notice, "So why are you looking for my brother?"

"Because I have sworn vengeance against the Lombaxes for what they did to my once noble race!" Tachyon angrily proclaimed, telling them that whatever had happened was enough to make him hate the Lombaxes with his entire being, "I will hunt down and exterminate every last Lombax in the cosmos... and annihilate them!"

"So how come it took you this long to find me?" Ratchet asked, as he was genuinely curious as to why Emperor Tachyon hadn't shown up after the defeat of Nefarious, or anything similar to that, "I mean, my sisters and I have been on the news for years."

"Sisters? Well that might explain why I never found you until I got a message about your hover car shop," Tachyon replied, though that was followed by a palm hitting his face, "I never considered that you might make a family type connection to someone who was your age and grow up like a family."

"Its actually a little disappointing that you didn't find the three of us because of the five times we saved the known universe," Ratchet commented, as it was a tad bit annoying that it was his shop that brought the Emperor to the planet and not his deeds, "or how we helped create the Jedi Order... or even how we're some of the highest ranking heroes in the Heroes Association."

"Now it makes so much more sense," Tachyon said to himself, as if he had actually missed something obvious and was annoyed about it, while at the same time failing to keep his thoughts to himself, "I was searching for 'inventions' instead of 'accomplishments'... your kind has always been quick to take the credit for anything they did, be it inventing something new or defeating a certain villain. Oh well, I'll have time to see what you and your little family has done over the years... once I've killed the both of you and finished annexing this planet for my ever growing empire."

"Wait," Starlight said, a small smile appearing on her face for a moment, one that she was sure that Tachyon was bound to miss as he and his soldiers stared at her, "do you want to see something cool?"

"I don't see why not," Tachyon replied, though he pulled out a watch to look at the time before turning his attention back to her, "Though do be quick about it, there are six more planets I wish to conquer and annex today once I've finished off your brother."

Starlight summoned her magic and weaved a glimmering barrier around her and Ratchet, one that would prevent Tachyon from getting at them while she used the second part of her plan. This specific type of shield she had summoned was designed to bend the rays of the sun itself, allowing her to either use a beam of light and cut down her enemies or temporarily blind them for a quick getaway. The entire time they had been talking she had been trying o figure out which power to use, but in the end she decided that they had best run and regroup with the others... before they waged war against Tachyon and his army.

"Solar Flare!" Starlight called out, to which the barrier reflected the light away from her and Ratchet, effectively blinding their enemies for the moment while leaving them unharmed.

With Tachyon and his troops trying to recover their sight, Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight ran towards the warship that Tachyon had been flying in and seized control of the ship. It didn't take long for Clank to seize control of the ship and soon they were heading away from the city, following the ship's directive to fly to some preset coordinates... ones that appeared to be in the Polaris Galaxy. The moment they left the planet behind the ship told them that the auto pilot would be taking over and that cyrosleep would begin shortly, to which Ratchet was immediately knocked out the moment the gas entered the area they were in.

Clank, beginning to comment on how cyrosleep didn't work on robots and chuckle to himself, received a punching glove that delivered enough force to knock him out. Starlight, already knowing that the ship would insist on her going under as well, merely opened her tablet and sent Angela a message with the coordinates they were heading to, knowing that she and Sunset would be following after them the moment they finished up whatever they happened to be doing. Once she was done with the message, and was sure she had sent it along, she powered down her tablet and slipped it into its case, before allowing the sleeping gas to knock her out.

The last thing Starlight heard was the ship entering hyperspace, heading to the coordinates that had been programmed into the ship's systems before they had even taken it over.
> Tools: Cobalia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Starlight gently pulled herself out of whatever dream she had having a few seconds ago, one that she couldn't remember at all at the moment, and opened her eyes, to which she found herself in what appeared to be some sort of jungle area. It reminded her of Florana, back when she and her family had started the search for Captain Qwark, though as she sat up as gently pulled out her tablet and scanned some of the local plants. It quickly dawned on her that they had crash landed on a planet that they knew nothing about, as none of the plants she scanned were in her systems, which only confirmed that they were somewhere in the Polaris Galaxy. She let out a sigh as she wondered whether or not Angela and Sunset would even be able to follow them to this sector, though she was sure that, with some tinkering, the rest of their family would be with them soon enough.

The moment she thought about ships, namely the Hyperion, she looked around and found the ship they had stolen was lodged into a rock wall, though it was surprisingly intact by he looks of it.

"Clank! Starlight!" Ratchet said, appearing to the right of where Starlight had been sitting, to which she turned her head and noticed Clank was sitting right next to her, "Are you guys okay?"

"Considering what happened, I'd say we're both fine," Starlight replied, to which she stood up as Ratchet helped Clank onto his feet, though at the same time she had her scanners work on the ship for a moment, "It seems that the ship must have run out of fuel while it was on autopilot... which means that this isn't the planet that it was supposed to have landed on."

"Not to mention that Angela and Sunset will be heading for the coordinates the ship was heading to," Clank threw in, causing the two of them to nod their agreement, "Though that does beg the question... where are we?"

"Beats me," Ratchet answered, shrugging for a moment before pointing off in the distance, "but there just so happens to be a spaceport near our location. I was able to salvage a small map of the immediate area and that port is the only thing that's listed on it, which means this planet is either underdeveloped or not a lot of people want to live here."

"Then that is where we shall go," Starlight said, agreeing that the spaceport was likely their best bet to get off of this planet and figure out why Tachyon hated the Lombaxes so much.

The only path forward brought them to a group of little reptilian creatures, ones that actually resembled small dinosaurs, though despite the large pack that they appeared to travel in, no doubt for their own safety, each one of them turned hostile the moment Ratchet and Starlight approached them. The good news was that the small creatures were easy to deal with, as they only needed on hit from either their hand held weapons or their Combusters, though that was shortly before they encountered a giant centipede that spat explosive balls of acid at them. The larger creature proved to be a little more difficult to take down, which was understandable considering the hard shell the creatures had evolved with, but in the end the group was moving forward once again.

Though the terrain was different than what they were used to, as they had only gone on one adventure through a jungle before, the path they were following was rather straightforward, making it relatively easy for the experienced trio to traverse. They still had to fight more of the small reptiles and the large centipedes, but so far they weren't seeing anything that could remotely give them the slightest bit of trouble. After some time the ease of their journey was disturbed when a massive creature reared up out of a deep pit, though Starlight took the moment to scan the new creature, where she found that it resembled a large fish that hovered in midair, with a large part of the underside of its body glowing blue and the top side being stone brown.

The creature didn't actually attack them, but rather it seemed to stare at them for a few seconds before making its escape, to which the trio looked at each other before they bothered to move forward.

"Okay, what in the name of the Maker was that?" Ratchet asked, though his tone of voice indicated that he was actually a little bit worried, which was understandable considering they had no idea if the creature was actually a friendly creature or a hostile one.

"I... I have no idea," Starlight admitted, though right now she was wishing that Sunset was here, because her godly nature would have likely either scared the creature off or made it submit to Sunset's power, kind of like what happened with Razor, "Come on, we had better get moving before it changes its mind and attacks us."

The trio continued along the path they had been following, though when Starlight noticed one of the reptiles hanging out on a ledge, all by itself, she levitated herself up there and investigated, to which she returned with a cache of raritanium crystals they could use to upgrade their weapons later on. They continued to follow the path they had been following, to which they fought their way through the groups of enemies that were waiting for them, moved through the small abandoned buildings that they happened to find, and then jumped down into an area that reminded them of one of the planets that Vox had them fight on for his amusement.

They then stopped as the creature from earlier rose out of the water that surrounded them and proceeded to attack them, though its attacks included firing balls of energy at them, swimming over their heads and releasing the same balls on them, or straight up trying to bite them in half. Ratchet and Starlight resorted to using the weapons that they had at the moment, because Starlight, having tried to grab one of the balls with her magic and failing at the task, knew that there were some things that could only be resolved with her weapons. They spent some time dodging the creature's attacks, while studying its movements at the same time, before using their weapons to deliver a load of blows on their enemy.

After a few intense minutes of fighting the creature started to swell up like a balloon, though that was promptly followed by it exploding, to which it rained several pieces of raritanium and left behind a glowing blue sphere of energy... which oddly enough entered Ratchet's inventory the moment he drew close to it.

"Congratulations," Ratchet's nav unit spoke up, to which they all listened to what the unit had to tell them, though Starlight appeared to be a little annoyed that her tablet hadn't mentioned anything at all, "You have collected a Leviathan Soul. These are valuable in the Polaris Galaxy, and can be traded for bolts."

"So that was a Leviathan?" Starlight commented, a small smile appearing on her face, to which she opened her tablet and turned to the page that contained the information she had already obtained on the creature, to which she added the name to the list, "I wonder if we can find someone who will take the soul from us?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll find someone to do that at some point," Ratchet replied, to which he and Starlight made their way out of the area they were in and entered the 'Cobalia Starport', just in time to hear an announcement go off about a Lombax 'invading' the star sector, "I got to hand it to Tachyon, he's a lot faster at updating his subjects than any other villain we've fought. Do you think anyone in the Polaris Galaxy even knows what a Lombax looks like?"

"Not likely," Clank commented, though at the same time Starlight nodded her head in agreement, "Considering how long the rest of them have been gone for its likely that almost no one knows what they look like, save for the three of us, Angela, Sunset, Sasha, Qwark, and a few others."

"If anyone asks, tell them I'm a Cazar," Ratchet said, remembering how much he and Sunset had looked identical because of how close their species were, which led to several people thinking they were boyfriend and girlfriend, "I doubt anyone will be able to tell the difference."

The trio walked into the starport and passed by several of the robotic citizens, who didn't seem to interested in the fact that they had come from the jungle area of the region. They looked around for a moment, taking in the sights that were around them, including the large factory that they suspected they were going to have to run through at some point, before noticing that there was something that resembled a weapon vendor nearby. When they approached it, however, they discovered that it was actually a remote uplink that connected to the main network, while noticing that a screen popped up as they walked up to it.

"Welcome to Grummel-net's Weapon Shop," a gruff voice said, though both Ratchet and Starlight suspected that the voice came through one of the speakers the vendor had, "Here you can buy ammo, upgrade your weapon, or purchase new tools of destruction. Go ahead, name your poison."

"Quick question; do you take Gadgetron bolt cards, or do we need to sign up for Grummel-Net bolt cards?" Starlight asked, because if they couldn't use the bolts they had earned over the years then they were dead in the water, until Sunset found them and obliterated Tachyon once she found out what he was responsible for.

"Gadgetron?" the voice replied in surprise, telling Ratchet and Starlight that this was either a branch of the company that didn't get many customers asking that question or they were in trouble without their funds, "Huh, I honestly didn't think anyone in the Polaris galaxy would know that name."

"So is that a yes or a no?" Starlight asked again, though there was a sense of urgency in her voice, because they had no idea how long it would take Tachyon to track the ship's location and find them.

"Look lady, Grummel-Net is the Polaris branch of Gadgetron," the voice replied, though instead of sounding annoyed the voice actually sounded happy that it got to correct something for once, "While regulations dictate we can't sell or deliver Solana weaponry to Polaris systems without written approval from someone named Orvus, that doesn't mean you can't use your account in the Polaris systems. So go ahead, insert your cards and let's do some business... you'll even get all of the discounts and whatnot that are associated with your account."

Starlight smiled a bit and slipped the two cards, her bolt card and Gadgetron ID, into the indicated slots, her earlier worry disappearing with the knowledge that they could actually buy weapons and upgrade them without having to worry about delegating their resources between the two of them.

"Well what do you know, its Starlight Glimmer," the voice spoke up, though it sounded like whoever was speaking was in awe, which was what Starlight had noticed in people when she started introducing herself a few years back, "Normally I would ask what you were doing out here, in the Polaris Galaxy, but I can hazard a guess... I'll just send a message to the proper people and let them know you and your brother have been spotted. So, what can I interest you in today?"

As it turned out Grummel-Net actually had two of her weapons available for purchase at the moment; the Plasma Beasts and the Tornado Launcher. Ratchet, already knowing that his sister had a habit of creating powerful weapons, asked what they both did, so he could hear it for himself while showing the person in control of the vendor what his sister was capable of. As it turned out the Tornado Launcher, as the name indicated, would launch a tornado disc which which the user could remotely guide around an area to destroy their enemies. The Plasma Beasts, on the other hand, would lie in wait until anything designated as 'hostile' entered their range, at which point they would launch themselves at the target and burst into toxic goo... which made them excellent for getting past shields and taking down groups.

Once they had the weapons in had the two of them opened up the upgrade menu and made sure to get everything they might need for the future, which was all of the upgrades that were currently available to them at the moment.

"So, how much did that put us back?" Starlight finally asked, once she and Ratchet were finally one upgrading their weapons, though she was concerned that they could have gone overboard.

"You haven't lost a lot, not with all of your discounts and the interest rates on raritanium," the vendor replied, though it almost sounded like it had something else to tell them before they left, "We've also got a few of your combat gadgets approved, so make sure you stop by the other vendor before you go off world again... and make sure to keep an eye out for the armor vendor, they work with us as well."

The group thanked the vendor for his time, and his help with the upgrades, before they made their way to the factory entrance, where they found a blue skinned and lizard faced person, dressed up in a nearly complete pirate outfit, arguing with what appeared to be a huge headed and eyed parrot.

"Don't you lay this on me, you worthless sack of Kerchu sweat!" the pirate was saying, pointing what appeared to be a sword at the parrot while keeping his voice at a level that wouldn't draw too much attention to them, "You were supposed to watch the gel gauge!"

"AWK!" the parrot replied, though it also rolled its eyes at the pirate, as if it either didn't care or had heard the same line so many times that it had stopped caring, "Blame the parrot! Always blame the parrot!"

"Is something wrong?" Starlight asked, though at this point she had the feeling that she and Ratchet were going to be roped into something that would help them get off of this planet.

"AWK!" the parrot shouted, pointing one of its wings at Starlight for a few seconds, before moving it back towards Ratchet and Clank, "Imperial spies! Hide the bodies! AWK!"

"How cute, he thinks we're allied with Emperor Tachyon," Starlight said, though she used her magic to grab a small pole that she kept with her at all times, to which she flicked it and allowed it to unfold into her staff, complete with pulsing electricity between the two jagged points on the top, "Allow me to clarify the situation... we are not Imperial Spies, though I guess you could say that we're on a 'rebel' type of side in this conflict."

The parrot stared at her for some time, as if it was trying to determine whether she was going to attack it or not, before finally letting out another 'AWK' and settling on the pirate's shoulder, where it did the who bird wants a cracker and got one to much on.

"No need to be so hostile, little lady," the pirate said, waving a hand towards the parrot for a moment, so Starlight and Ratchet would know who he was talking about, "He don't mean no harm. We're just a couple of smugglers... my partner just happens to be a tad bit paranoid when it comes to meeting new people."

"Glad we cleared that up," Starlight replied, flicking the staff and returning it to its pole form, to which she put it away before turning her full attention to the pair, "My name is Starlight Glimmer, and this is my brother Ratchet and his friend Clank..."

"Wait... you mean the three of you are the ones commonly associated with Sunset Shimmer?" the smuggler asked, surprising the trio with the fact that he already knew their sister, "The God of Destruction for this universe?"

"Yeah, that's our sister," Ratchet said, scratching the back of his head for a moment, because he was used to people either associating them with Starlight's job or Sunset's immense magical abilities.

"Then I shall not hold you up any longer," the smuggler replied, giving them a little bow for the moment, as if he was being respectful to Sunset, even when she wasn't there at the moment, "I can't give you our names, as that would allow the authorities to track us down, but you are free to use our nicknames; I am Red, and this is Blue... and yes, I am well aware that our names are reverse of our colors."

"A pleasure to meet you," Clank stated, finding the naming situation odd, but decided that now wasn't the time to get involved with the names, "Now, what seems to be the problem?"

"The Imperials have shut down the Gelatonium plant," Red explained, using one of his hands to beckon to the factory behind them, while at the same time the parrot looked at it was well, "As a result, we can't refuel our ship. Now, I have heard stories about everything you have done, so I have a deal for you; if you can turn the plant back on, and give us a few moments to refuel our ship, we'll provide you with some transportation off of this planet... you'll need this Gelanator to pull the job off though."

"Sweet!" Starlight exclaimed, snatching the gadget the moment Red handed it over, to which she turned towards the plant in front of them and charged into the building.

Ratchet gave the smuggler a smile as he followed Starlight into the building, though the moment they walked into the first room a voice announced that they were trespassing on 'Imperial property'. Starlight spotted a gel dispenser and drained the gel from the container, though the moment her new toy was full of gel the door in front of them opened and allowed them to progress forward. That was when they spotted the large river that was filled with some green substance, likely the gel in a liquid form, though Starlight aimed her new toy at the bottom of a platform and pressed the trigger. That was immediately followed by a large square made of gel forming before their eyes, to which they used it to jump upwards and continue through the factory.

They used the gel to get to the next ledge that they needed to jump on, though when they reached the edge of the gel river Starlight aimed the gun at the ground and created a platform they could use to cross the gap. They glided down to the other side after their jump, or levitated in Starlight's case, though that was when they spotted a group of robots that seemed programmed with the purpose of eating any stray gel. The moment Starlight noticed the gel eating robots she made sure to surround any gel she laid out with her magic, to prevent it from being torn apart, though when she and Ratchet jumped to the next ledge she made sure to retract her magic.

They had to contend with some of the small reptile creatures, to which Starlight wondered how they had even gotten inside the factory to begin with, but they used the new Plasma Beasts to put them in their place. With that taken care of Ratchet climbed to the top of the gel container in front of them and turned the bolt crank that was up there, though once he was done he returned to Starlight and they walked through the door that happened to be in front of them. It didn't take them long to traverse their way through the second half of the factory, jumping over pieces of the river with the gel, jumped over another large section of the gel river, and dealt with another group of small reptiles that were in their way.

Ratchet then reconnected the walkway he had to use to climb to the top of the second gel pump, though when he reached the top he made sure to reconnect it, to which the computer voice indicated that Emperor Tachyon would be displeased once he learned that the factory was back online. With the task down the group moved on towards the exit, where Starlight emptied the gel into the nearby dispenser before they rode the nearby elevator down to the outside of the factory.

Before they returned to Red and his parrot the trio walked up to the armor vendor that happened to be outside the building, to which they found that a new set of armor, the Blackstar Armor, was available... complete with a version that had been built for Starlight's body.

"Nice armor," Red commented, eying the new armor that Ratchet and Starlight were wearing, "I'm currently heading to Stratus City, does that work for you?"

"That sounds fine," Ratchet replied, a slight smile appearing on his face for a moment, "We'll figure out what to do next once we've reached the city... and maybe we'll find a vessel as well."

Starlight had the feeling that they were going to run into Imperial forces in Stratus City, but right now it was the only place they could go at the moment, so they were going to have to make due with what was available to them... and hope that, at some point in time, Angela and Sunset managed to join them.
> Tools: Kortog
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The flight to their destination, Stratus City on Planet Kortog, was much faster than what Ratchet or Starlight was expecting, as the moment they left Cobalia's atmosphere Red engaged a warp drive and crossed the distance they needed to travel. Not moments later they exited the warp space, directly in front of Kortog's atmosphere, and they began their descend towards the planet's surface, where Red promised to find them a decent spot to land. Ratchet decided to use the time they had left to ask a question or two about the galaxy they were in, just so they had an idea of what was happening around them.

"So, Tachyon owns the Polaris Galaxy?" Ratchet asked, though it only reminded him of the planets that Chairman Drek had owned during his first adventure and the planets that Gleeman Vox owned during their stay in Dreadzone, "He owns all of it?"

"Unfortunately he does," Red confirmed, though he sounded annoyed about something, which was understandable considering Tachyon was no doubt making his life harder, "Ironic, ain't it? The one Cragmite they didn't vaporize comes back to oppress the galaxy."

"Who is this 'they' that you are referring to?" Clank asked, though because he had no knowledge on the Cragmites, which he assumed was Tachyon's race, he had no idea who or what Red was talking about.

"The Lombaxes of course," Red replied, though his tone shifted to something that sounded like praise, "They gathered together, came up with some crazy idea, and then vaporized the entire lot of Cragmites years ago... effectively leaving their planet as a ball of dirt ever since."

"AWK! All hail the Lombaxes!" Blue suddenly said, flapping his wings in excitement for a few seconds, before he settled back down on the crate he had been perched on the entire time, "AWK! Saviors of the Universe!"

Before anyone could say anything else, or give Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight time to figure out how the Lombaxes vaporized an entire race, the communicator sprung to life for a moment.

"Attention transport vessel." the communicator said, speaking in its automated voice as everyone turned to it, "A bioscan reveals a Lombax lifeform aboard your vessel. Stand by for immediate disintegration."

"I guess we're free falling into the city," Starlight commented, to which she grasped the lever that would open the cargo part of the ship and dropped several crates through the opening on accident, "See you guys later."

Red and Blue watched as Starlight, Ratchet, and Clank jumped out of the ship through the opening Starlight had opened up, which at the same time increased their speed enough to where he wouldn't have to worry about being captured. Red looked out of his rear view mirror for a moment and watched as the Lombax and the unicorn began their drop into the city limits, while at the same time a smile appeared on his face.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll cross paths again in the future," Red said to himself, flipping the switch that would close the opening, before he left Stratus City behind, "of that you can be sure."





Starlight noticed that the free fall into the city proved no more difficult than any other free fall she and Ratchet had done in the past, as she used her magic to move herself around and shot down any missiles she deemed dangerous for Ratchet's safety. As she landed on the platform they would be landing on, and beginning their adventure through the city on, Starlight looked up at the sky and watched as her brother weaved his way through this missiles without allowing one to touch him. It wasn't long before he was standing beside her, to which they approached the weapon vendor and restocked their ammunition, as well as taking a moment to purchase the new Predator Launcher and upgrade them to the max.

The first enemy they encountered was the small robotic ones that had been attacking Metropolis, no doubt the drones of Tachyon's army, though further up the stairs they both spotted a pair of dropships that brought in the fish aliens that controlled the mechanical suits... where Starlight noticed that some of them happened to be carrying shields as well. The two of them smashed through their enemies with their weapons, though Starlight also grabbed a piece of the shields their foes had been carrying so she could study it later on, but as they walked they noticed that there was a screen with Tachyon's face on it... where he was trying slander Ratchet's character.

Starlight found it amusing that Tachyon was even trying that route, because he was doing a worse job than Gleeman Vox had done back when they were in Dreadzone.

They eventually came to a stack of crates that was apparently hiding some sort enemy vehicle that rolled forward and back, while also turning and firing at them the moment it had them in its sights. The combined barrage from their weapons tore the vehicle to pieces, where it rained several bits of raritanium, though the room behind where the vehicle had been waiting was some sort of weapon. Starlight identified it was a Shock Ravager, a weapon that was essentially an electric whip, though before they moved any further Ratchet insisted on going back and upgrading it... where they discovered that Starlight could now buy one and upgrade it at the same time.

With yet another new weapon in hand they returned to where they found it and started to cross the bridge, though before they could take a single step a ship flew into the area and blew pieces of the bridge to pieces, leaving the structure intact for the most part. Ratchet and Starlight made their way to the other side of the bridge, where they put their new whips into action as they tore apart the enemies that were carrying shields. There was another round tank enemy behind the group of shield bearers, though after some well placed shots the enemy group had been dealt with... to which more walked down the stairs on their left and pointed their weapons at them.

"Tachyon definitely isn't holding back," Ratchet said, though at the same time he used the electric whip and broke through the shields that had been raised against him, "This adventure might actually be fun."

"We'll see about that," Starlight replied, using her magic to blast all of their enemies off of the staircase, to which they walked up to a small area where more enemies were gathering, "though the title of Emperor definitely fits Tachyon... he's got some decent numbers to do what he's done to find us."

Once the enemies in the small courtyard area had been taken care of, including the dropships they had used to enter the area, they used a zip line to reach the platform in front of them... where they discovered that they were going to have to use their Swingshots to hook up with one of the flying trams to move forward. Unfortunately there was only one target per tram, so that usually meant that Starlight was going to have to stay behind for a moment, but she didn't have to wait long as a second came up right as Ratchet was moving with his tram. In a minute they traversed the distance needed and dropped off of their trams, to which they discovered that one of the rounded tanks was waiting for them.

Ratchet and Starlight took a moment to restock their ammunition, thankful that the tank hadn't noticed them when they landed, before they jumped out of their hiding spot, opened fire on the tank and its flying companion, and opened the way for them to move forward. The moment their enemies were taken care of they swung across the gap in front of them and landed on the next platform, to which they shot down the saucer enemies that appeared the instant they landed. They then climbed up the side of the cargo crates that were in front of them, where they ended up fighting a few more soldiers the instant they pulled themselves up, before they used two close walls to jump up to the next section they would need to fight through... or levitate in Starlight's case.

On the next platform they found a gel station that was being guarded by the robotic drones, which were easy to take down considering they fell apart in one hit, so once the area was clear Starlight filled up the gadget that Red had given them and they continued onward. The gel allowed them to find a chest full of raritanium, several clusters of boxes that were filled with bolts, and eventually reach the next zip line that they needed to take. Unfortunately when they reached the end of the zip line they discovered that there was nowhere else to go, which meant that they were cornered without anywhere to go... until Clank spoke up.

"Ratchet, Starlight," Clank said, pointing to a nearby building that several small creatures were pointing at, "those creatures are telling us to go inside that building."

"What creatures?" Ratchet asked, looking around the area and finding absolutely nothing that could have sparked Clank's interest, though he had the feeling that Starlight might know what he was talking about.

"Clank, do you mean the tiny robots that are currently floating in the air?" Starlight asked, staring at the creatures though a small veil of her magic, though while she did that she pulled out her scanner to see if there was any strange readings in the area, "It appears that the creatures happen to be giving off a strange glow at the same time... though in addition to that I can only see them when I focus my magic."

Before Clank could say anything the little robots in question floated over to him, though that was followed by them pouring some sort of energy into his body. The flight pack erupted out of him, though Ratchet and Starlight watched as the wings changed from their metallic structure and took on a more crystalline appearance... along with the fact that they also looked like wings this time.

"Wow, now that's an impressive upgrade they gave you," Ratchet commented, though he looked around one more time to see if he could see the creatures now that they had expanded their energy, but the result was the same as before.

"Interesting," Starlight said, looking over the brief readings she had managed to get from the entire experience, "it appears that there is a high level of chronitons left behind from the creature's manipulation of Clank's tech, or time energy if you prefer. This is so fascinating... and it kind of makes me wish Sunset and Angela were here, so they could share this discovery with us."

"For some odd reason the small robots are insisting we follow them," Clank continued, staring at his new wings for a moment, before turning his attention to the creatures that had given them to him, "and the insisting only increased when Starlight mentioned Sunset's name. They might know something about her that we don't know yet."

Ratchet and Starlight shared a look with each other, not really believing that the creatures could know anything about their sister, but in the end they decided to go with the flow and check out the building the creatures wanted them to visit. Ratchet slipped Clank back onto his back as Starlight levitated next to him, as it appeared that there was an alternate route the creatures wanted them to take that wasn't walking through the front door. Considering that Starlight could see the creatures, and the strange rings that they had created in the air, she wanted to make sure Ratchet had a guide so he didn't crash into anything.

It was rather interesting to see Ratchet flail around when he first took off, as he had never done anything like this before, but in the end they managed to reach their destination, the Hall of Knowledge as the building was called, without anyone getting seriously hurt.

"Attention citizens." an automated voice said, causing the group to stop the moment they heard it, as they were interested in what the law or rule they were about to break, "You have entered the Hall of Knowledge without authorization. Knowledge has been declared contraband by Emperor Tachyon. Any attempt to learn while on these premises will result in permanent confinement in Zordoom Prison."

"Seriously?" Starlight asked, glaring at the room around them for a moment, "He's forbidden his subjects from learning... oh, I am so going to enjoy bringing him down in the near future."

"Let's show him what we think of his rules," Ratchet said, knowing exactly what Starlight was going to do once they started exploring the facility, "and take all the information we want... never actually thought I'd actually say something like that."

As it turned out the only enemies they had to fear were the smaller drones, which either had been stationed here to prevent people from learning whatever knowledge Tachyon had deemed forbidden... or they had been told to come here because Ratchet and Starlight were here. The puzzles were similar to the underwater ones they had taken care of during their first adventure, so while Ratchet solved the puzzle Starlight waited until he was out of the water to teleport to his side. They eventually came to a room that had what they assumed were some sort of jellyfish, but instead of bothering with the puzzle Starlight merely levitated them to the other side and they moved deeper into the building... all while Starlight made sure to grab whatever information she deemed as important or interesting.

The trip eventually came to an end as they dropped down into a room that appeared to have some sort of star map, where they could see the various planets across the galaxy and learn a thing or two about all of them... though the one that caught Clank's attention was Planet Fastoon, which was apparently one of the few known Lombax planets. As Clank downloaded the coordinates for the planet he decided that the information he had gleamed from the machine would best be delivered not by him, but by the planet itself. The three of them climbed into the nearby escape pod, which Clank input the coordinates for the planet they had found, though before their enemies could break down the door the group was long gone.

Starlight, on the other hand, had noticed that there was something odd about Planet Fastoon by the information that had been revealed to them, but she trusted Clank and knew that he wouldn' withhold information... unless he deemed it necessary to do so. She only hoped that Angela and Sunset would catch up with them soon, as it wasn't an interesting adventure without the rest of their family fighting beside her, Ratchet, and Clank.
> Tools: Fastoon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	There was no conversation inside the escape pod, as the vessel bounced around too much for any of them to say anything without being interrupted by something. Unfortunately there were only two safety harnesses inside the pod, which would have normally meant that Clank would have had to be strapped into Ratchet's back until they stopped moving, but Starlight corrected the situation by magically sealing his feet to the floor, which she promised could be undone once they landed. The flight conditions also made it impossible for Starlight to grab her tablet and read what she had taken from the Hall of Knowledge, as she would likely break the device before she learned anything useful and decided that now wasn't the time to break something that they couldn't easily replace.

Eventually the one thing they had been waiting for, the pod's automated voice that would tell them what was happening outside the pod, finally spoke up and gave them what they had been waiting for.

"You are now entering Fastoon," the voice said, though at the same time they could feel the pod slowing down as it made its descent towards a location where it could land, "Touching down in... 5... 4..."

The second number was followed by the pod touching down on the ground, rather hard in the opinions of the people that were inside it, before it resumed speaking.

"Opps." the voice said, though at that point Ratchet didn't know if he'd rather blow the entire pod up or just let it sit where it had landed forever, "3-2-1. Welcome to Fastoon."

Ratchet and Starlight unbuckled themselves from their harnesses, and released Clank from the floor, before they exited the pod and came face to face with the reality they had been hoping to avoid... Planet Fastoon was in ruins. The once great Lombax city, the only thing the Hall of Knowledge had indicated was on this planet, was completely in ruins, almost as if a war had happened in the past.

"By the Maker," Ratchet said, looking around at all the devastation with a look of sorrow in his eyes, as he had been hoping to tell Angela some good news when she and Sunset finally met up with them, "this place looks like it was attacked from space or something."

"Considering how much hatred Tachyon has for the Lombax race, I'm willing to bet he's responsible for this," Starlight commented, though she wasn't as shocked as her brother was, considering the fact that their sister was the God of Destruction and could do this to a planet with a swing of her fist if she was really pissed off, "We've got to find a way off of this planet before Tachyon traces that pod and finds our location... but I don't see anything that could help us at the moment. This is likely the only time we'll need to use Sunset's magic for teleportation purposes and she's not here to help us!"

"I suggest that we explore the area around us," Clank spoke up, somewhat glad that he didn't have to say anything about the planet anymore, because Ratchet and Starlight had figured it out on their own, "We might be able to find something if we spread out and look around for a few minutes."

Ratchet and Starlight approached the nearby weapon vendor, where they questioned why one happened to be on a deserted planet like Fastoon, though they quickly purchased more ammunition for their existing weapons and acquired the Tornado Launcher, the newest weapon that was available. Once they were done upgrading the new weapon, and learning how to use it for future battles, Ratchet used his swingshot to cross the gap between where they landed and the area in front of them, while Starlight levitated over to him. As they looked around, trying to find anything of use to them at the moment, Ratchet's eyes eventually fell on an old red ship, one that looked not much larger than the one that was resting aboard the Hyperion at the moment, though it definitely looked much more advanced than what they had at the moment.

"Clank, Starlight, look!" Ratchet called out, grabbing the attention of his sister and his friend as he made his way over to the downed ship, "It's an old ship!"

Starlight wrapped her magic around the ship and gently removed it from the ground that it was stuck in, where she made sure to gently set it down and examined the damage the ship had sustained.

"From my scans I can tell that there are six components missing for interstellar flight," Clank said, looking over the ship while staring at the writing that appeared to be written on each of the ship's wings, "There also appears to be some Lombax writing on the ship, though I have no idea what the writing says."

"Then its a good thing I found a translation index back at the Hall of Knowledge," Starlight replied, loading up the index and scanning the writing into the tablet, which gave her what the writing said a few seconds later, "Hmm... one side says 'Aphelion', which must be the name of the ship, while the other says 'Angel', which could be part of the serial code that the ship was given. Looks like I can open the cockpit just a bit..."

Ratchet and Clank watched as Starlight gently opened the cockpit and entered the interior of the ship, though they were amazed by how skilled she was with her magic, even though they were being followed by Tachyon's forces. She looked around for a few seconds and opened what was apparently a glove compartment of some kind, to which she pulled out a few papers and scanned them as well. A minute or two passed before she climbed out of the ship and walked over to where they were standing, though they were unsure if she was mad about something or just deep in thought.

"Well, this ship was owned by someone named Kaden," Starlight said, tapping a few things on her tablet for a moment, as if she was trying to distract herself from something, "Ratchet... this was your father's ship."

"It was?" Ratchet asked, though at the same time he suddenly felt the urge to fix it and not leave it behind for when Tachyon finally arrived on the planet, while also noticing that something else was upsetting his sister, "That can't be what's bothering you though."

"Am I that easy to read?" Starlight commented, before letting out a sigh and looking up at her brother, "I managed to find a portion of Kaden's family tree, where most of the names have either been ripped off or destroyed to protect the rest of the family... but there's no mention of either myself or Sunset."

"You just said that most of the names were already destroyed," Clank said, wondering what the problem was, because he definitely didn't see one at the moment.

"The names might be, but not the background," Starlight replied, turning the tablet over so they could see what she was talking about, "Kaden's entire family line, from the very beginning to now, is entirely made up of Lombaxes... without a single mention of a magical unicorn or a Cazar with a golden bracelet. Heck, the only piece of information that could be of any help was the last project that your father was working on... a small ship that was designed to hold the sleeping forms of his son, a tiny unicorn, and a young Cazar."

"The ship we were found in back on Veldin," Ratchet said, remembering the day he had woke up with his sisters, back when they had been children, "Does it say who my father built the ship for?"

"No, there's only the mention of someone called Orvus." Starlight stated, though she was upset that, after all this time, that part of her world was being shattered.

"Look, it doesn't matter what my father's family tree says," Ratchet said, putting away the tablet before throwing his arms around Starlight, "you are still my sister, and so is Sunset. We'll start a new family tree with Angela and overcome what we found here today..."

"I really hate to interrupt the moment, but we had best hurry," Clank stated, driving the two of them apart for a moment, "Starlight, Ratchet and I will go out and collect the components that you need to get the ship fully operational."

Starlight looked at Clank, a little annoyed that he had ruined the moment, before letting out a sigh and jumped back into the ship, to which she started checking all of the various systems to be sure that she missed nothing. She wanted to be sure that the ship was ready to go for when her brother and Clank acquired all of the missing components, or a suitable substitute, though as she worked she discovered that most of the systems were in good condition. The only systems that weren't good were the ones with the missing components, oddly enough as she mused to herself, and soon she was making sure that everything was fine for when he components were given to her.

Occasionally she would be interrupted by Ratchet and Clank, where they would come back and hand her one of the components so she could continue working, before they went to go find another one. While retrieving the fifth flight component Ratchet opened the communicator so Starlight could hear something that was being broadcast for their channel only. It was an Interstellar Holo-Vite, one that apparently came from someone called Finnegan O'Qwarksalot, immediately telling them that Qwark was trying to tell them something. Once the message was over, and the fifth component had been acquired, Ratchet immediately handed it over to Starlight, while informing her that Clank was investigating a mine that only he could fit into at the moment.

"So, how's the ship coming along?" Ratchet asked, though it was clear by his tone that he wished there was more he could do besides stand around and do nothing, as he had cleared out all of their enemies and collected everything he could get his hands on.

"Just fine," Starlight replied, though at this point she was staring at her tablet, willing it to receive any messages from the Hyperion, because the adventure wasn't the same without Sunset around to help them out.

"I'm worried about them as well," Ratchet commented, causing Starlight to turn towards him for a moment, "We haven't heard from Angela, Sasha, or Sunset since we left Metropolis behind... and that has me worried. I know they haven't been captured, as Sunset would never allow something like that to happen, but there has to be a reason why neither of them have bothered to make contact with us."

"You don't think those strange robots that Clank sees very now and then are the cause behind our family not contacting us, do you?" Starlight asked, as she didn't have enough knowledge on the creatures to form a better opinion on them at the moment.

"I don't know," Ratchet admitted, though thinking about Angela really made him miss her, as he suspected that Starlight missed their sister just as much as he did, "but we can't dwell on the fact until we know for sure."

Starlight looked up for a moment, thinking that she heard the sound of magic happening, but then let out a sigh as she realized that her mind was playing tricks on her and that she actually hadn't heard anything yet. Ratchet, noticing her look up from her work, looked around the area as well, trying to find what Starlight had been looking for, though after a few seconds he stopped trying and returned to helping his sister while she worked. After a few more minutes of working Clank finally rejoined them and handed over the last component they needed to turn on the ship, though Starlight made sure that everything was okay before slipping it into the final slot... to which the ship sprung to life before their very eyes.

"Miserable little Drophyds!" the ship snapped angrily, though it did so in a distinctly feminine voice, while at the same time slamming shut the compartment that Starlight had been using to fix it up, "I can't believe they used Seeker Ammo! Oh what a bunch of cheats!"

"Aphelion?" Ratchet called out, concerned that Starlight's tinkering with the ship, while giving them the ability to leave the planet, might have interfered with the ship's original programming, "Are you alright?"

"Oh, a Lombax," Aphelion replied, turning to face Ratchet for a moment, though he noted that the ship sounded sad for a second or two, "I never thought that... I'd... wait a second, your Kaden's son, aren't you?"

"According to the papers we found inside you, he was my father." Ratchet said, though at the same time he was surprised that he was conversing with a ship.

"Which meant that he had to go with his emergency plan," Aphelion said, though in a manner that meant the comment was supposed to be for her and no one else, "My sensors indicated that Tachyon is still alive... and that you have no other way to leave the planet. Ratchet, son of Kaden, I will gladly aid you in your quest to do... well... whatever your here to do, though I think I can guess what that something is."

The first thing they did, before taking off, was have Aphelion play the message they had received from Qwark, where the moron happened to be doing a voice over invitation/advertisement for Tachyon's preferred Arena, the Imperial Fight Festival on Planet Mukow. At the end of the message they heard that the invitation was only valid for fuzzy, long eared orphans, their tiny robot companions, and pony geniuses... almost as if he knew that Angela and Sunset weren't with them at the moment. Aphelion confirmed that she had the coordinates for Planet Mukow already in her database, so the trio jumped inside, let the cockpit door close behind them, and they departed from the ruined planet with haste.

Though while the group left Fastoon behind, and got to know their new ship, they wondered if Qwark was actually going to try and help them, or whether this was a horrible trap that they were going to walk into... though they knew that the only way they were going to get anywhere would be to complete a challenge or two in the Imperial Fight Festival and not get caught.
> Tools: Mukow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The beginning of the journey to Planet Mukow was as simple as it could possibly be, as Aphelion engaged her warp systems to get them close to their destination, though the time allowed the ship to become used to flying again. Ratchet wondered how long the ship had been out of commission, but decided that Aphelion wouldn't want to talk about the event that ended with her being implanted in the ground on a ruined Lombax planet. This was perfect exercise for them to determine how well Starlight's repairs would hold up, which he and Clank knew would last until the ship was horribly damaged, but they decided not to bother worrying about it until Aphelion told them that something was wrong with her systems.

Of course she apologized to them when she had to disengage her warp systems and drop out near the Voron Asteroid Belt, though she indicated that she would need a few minutes to recharge before she was at full power and could get them to their destination by engaging the warp functions again. Of course before they could get very far their communicator sprung to life, though that was followed by some sort of skull emblem appearing on the screen before a robot pirate appeared before them.

"Ahoy there, young scallywags!" the robot proclaimed, at first beckoning to itself before pulling backwards and revealing that one of its hands had a hook on it, "This be Cap'n Slag, Scourge of the Galaxy. Surrender your vessel, or be cast to the depths of the universe!"

"You know, you aren't that scary," Starlight commented, though her comment stopped the robot captain from cutting off the link between his ship and Aphelion, "My brother and I have fought worse than you."

"Oh really?" Captain Slag replied, sounding annoyed for a moment, but his interest indicated that he was curious as to what was more scary than he was at the moment, "And what, pray tell, is scarier than the Scourge of the Galaxy?"

"Try the God of Destruction," Ratchet stated, though he raised his hand to his chin, as if he was thinking for a moment, "or would you know her by another name? Like the Demon of Desolation?"

"Cap'n... hic... is he being serious?" a voice behind Captain Slag said, though thanks to the camera angle none of them could see who was currently speaking at the moment.

"Oh course he isn't being serious Pete," Captain Slag replied, snapping at whoever had spoken, before turning his attention back to the group in front of him, "as if anyone could survive a fight with the God of Destruction... even the Scourge of the Galaxy has heard of her."

"Then you had best get out of our way," Starlight said, causing the captain to look at her again, "because Sunset Shimmer, the God of Destruction, is our sister... and if you decided to attack us, and succeeded in hurting us, you would soon receive a visit from our sister. So tell me, would you like to test your luck?"

Captain Slag stared at the screen, as if he was wondering if Starlight was being serious about Sunset coming for him the moment he decided to attack them, though before he could make up his mind one of his consoles started to light up. Before Starlight could wonder what was happening, and wrap her head around everything, Aphelion announced that her own sensors were going off all of a sudden. When Aphelion announced the signature of the ship, the identifying mark for all of the starships and warships, Starlight and Ratchet smiled when they heard the numbers. The space near where they and Captain Slag were flying rippled as the Starship Hyperion exited its own warp system and came to a stop nearby, though it was side by side with where the two ships were flying at the moment.

"Do you really want to see what happens when you attack us?" Ratchet asked, a grin appearing on both his and Starlight's faces as Captain Slag seemed to become a little frightened.

Starlight watched as the dreaded captain seemed to consider his options, as it was either run and live to fight enough day, or stay and get obliterated by the Hyperion. She knew that the pirates could also try to make an alliance with them, in order to preserve themselves, but she would only bring that up with Ratchet if Captain Slag brought it up.

"No lad, I would prefer to live for now," Captain Slag finally replied, though there was a wave of agreement behind him, indicating that his entire crew had heard of Sunset's destructive powers and wanted nothing to do with her at the moment, "Tell all units that these two ships are free to pass through the Voron Asteroid Belt... we'll see what else we catch in our net in the future."

With that said the pirates moved out of the way and allowed Aphelion to gather the energy necessary to replenish its supplies, though once she was done, and assured Ratchet and Starlight that she was ready to go, they engaged the warp systems and continued on their way to Mukow... where Starlight made sure the Hyperion had the same coordinates so it could follow behind them.





When Aphelion finally arrived at Planet Mukow, and landed in the area that the Imperial Fight Festival arena was in, Ratchet and Starlight waited to see if Angela and Sunset would meet them on the ground. A few minutes passed before their old ship, the one they had used to travel between the Hyperion and whatever planet they were heading towards, descended from the sky and landed near where they were landed. As the ship powered down the lid opened, to which Angela, still dressed up in her special robes, climbed out of the ship and ran over to them, where she threw her arms over Ratchet and kissed him.

"Oh thank the Maker that you, Starlight, and Clank are safe," Angela said, smiling at Starlight and Clank as she broke off the kiss, who were glad to see her as well, "A section of Tachyon's forces attacked the temple and held the attention of most of my knights, though when they suddenly pulled back I knew that you guys had done something. I got your message that you were heading into this galaxy and missed you twice, once on Cobalia and again on Kortog, though when the AI indicated that you were heading to Fastoon I checked the various planets and guessed where you would be heading next. I'm glad that I managed to find you when I did, because it looked like those pirates were about to attack you guys and your new ship..."

"My name is Aphelion," Aphelion said, causing Angela to jump for a moment and reach for her lightsaber, though she stopped herself from pulling it out when she realized that the ship had talked, "My records indicate that you are the daughter of Lorna Cross, her little Angela, but most of my memory is either locked down until Tachyon is defeated or corrupted due to my crash landing."

"That's unfortunate," Angela replied, though while she was glad to be back together with everyone else she was slightly disappointed to learn that any knowledge regarding her and Ratchet's race was out of their reach out of the moment, "I also have some bad news; Sunset's missing and she took all of the Cores with her. I went to Aranos to see if she had gotten the message you sent me, so we could travel to this galaxy together, but her lab was vacant of herself, the Cores, and whatever she was working on. So I left and followed your trail..."

"Well, its good to see you again anyway," Starlight said, though at the same time she was curious as to why her sister had suddenly decided to disappear, because she knew that it was impossible for someone to kidnap Sunset without something being blown up, "Come on, Qwark sent us the coordinates for this planet for a reason... so either he has some information he wants to hand over to us or he's wasting our time."

Shortly after the words left her mouth the communicator sprung to life and Qwark congratulated them on deciphering his clever message, to which Ratchet and Starlight rolled their eyes. The man indicated that he actually had important information for them and that they should meet him at the arena, which meant that they were going to have to fight their way through the Festival before they reached their destination. The trio walked forward and made their way towards the weapon vendor, where Ratchet and Starlight purchased the new Shard Reaper that was available, before they searched the area and started taking out the small robotic drones that were patrolling the area.

While they did that, and gathered some small statues that resembled Tachyon, Starlight overheard one of the robot's communications say something about evacuating the Emperor, which meant that they wouldn't be putting an end to this adventure just yet. Once they had recovered the last of the six statues, and they heard a recording of Tachyon's indicate that he was pleased with them, the group decided to see if there was anything useful that might be hiding on the side path. Experience told them that they should always check a side path, as they had uncovered some helpful items in the past by doing this, so they entered the tunnel that had some spinning blades moving around and ignored the recording this time.

When they reached the end of the tunnel they activated their swingshots and swung their way to the area that had a large ferris wheel, though they were somewhat surprised to find that there weren't any enemies nearby at the moment. Before they rode on the massive wheel, and continued their search, Starlight noticed some treasure boxes nearby and levitated herself over to them, where she broke them all and gathered the raritanium that happened to be stored within them... along with a piece of the RYNO IV holoplan that she had scattered a long time ago.

"I don't believe it," Starlight said, sensing the strands of her magic dancing around the fragment of the holoplan, as when she had ripped the plan into pieces and scattered them she knew that her magic had been embedded in each piece, "THIS is the galaxy that the RYNO IV plans were sent to when Mr. Gadget and I deemed the weapon too powerful to create?"

"So are you going to call all the pieces to you?" Angela asked, because at this point she wasn't surprised by what feats could be done with the magic that Starlight contained, "Or are we going to gather them while we visit the various planets?"

A flash of light followed Angela's words, to which the group stared at the completed holoplan, though that was quickly followed by Starlight storing it inside her database and indicating that she would figure out how to make it in the future. With the holoplan now in their possession the group continued along the path, swinging across the gap and shooting at the enemies that happened to be waiting for them. They reached another one of the tunnels that had a large number of spinning blades, though this time Starlight shook her head and grabbed all of them with her magic, to which she levitated them all through the tunnel and dropped them off at the end. As they reached the very end of Tachyon's special path, whatever he had decided to call it, they discovered a pair of Charge Boots laying around, to which they grabbed them before riding the rail down to where Aphelion was resting.

Once they were back at the entrance of the Festival, and restocked their ammunition, they turned to the only other available path they could take, where they swung into an area that their tablets indicated was the challenger entrance. As they touched down on the ground they noticed four of the drones were coming their way, along with a robotic creature that was sprouting electricity from most of its body. The larger creature easily fell to their combined might, as Ratchet and Starlight used their plasma creatures to blow it up, while Angela cut the drones to pieces with her lightsaber. With the enemies taken care of, for the moment anyway, the trio crossed the bridge and attacked the fish controlled suits that were coming their way, though after a few seconds they were free to use the jump wall that was next to them.

At the top of the jump wall they found two more of the electric enemies waiting for them, which were once again taken out thanks to the plasma beasts that Ratchet and Starlight threw out, though once they had been taken care of they used the jump pad to access the level above them. They cleared the electric enemy that happened to be patrolling the top level, and gathered the raritanium that was stashed away in a nearby box, before they rode the nearby rail down to the next area in the challenger area. The instant they landed they took out the drones that were waiting for them, though as they moved forward they spotted even more of the fish controlled suits blocking their way.

After a few seconds of fighting the latest group of enemies the trio made their way towards the large gate that was in their way, though it was quickly taken apart by Starlight's magic. On the other side of the gate they found two more electric enemies waiting for them, which were easily dispatched with the plasma beasts, though once the way was clear the trio started to move forward, where they discovered a large amount of enemies waiting for them. They had to fight through several of the troopers, a small unit of the robotic drones, and another electric enemy before they even reached the bridge, where they found several more enemies guarding the only path that would allow them to reach the entrance of the arena.

As they approached the teleporter they found Qwark hiding nearby, though it was clear that he had created some disguises so Tachyon wouldn't be able to guess their identities so quickly.

"Angela?!" Qwark stated, shocked to see the female Lombax for a moment, though he quickly recovered his composure before continuing, "I was not expecting to see you here, so I don't actually have something for you to use as a disguise."

"That's okay, I came prepared," Angela said, pulling out the mask she had worn long ago, and kept in good condition in case she ever needed it again, before slipping it on and pulling her hood over her head, completing the transformation into the Thief she had used so long ago, "and I already belted my tail, so forgive me if I'm a bit clumsy in there."

Qwark nodded and handed over two small kits that contained the disguises that he had created for Ratchet and Starlight, though he had taken some inspiration from the galaxy they were in to create them. Ratchet was kind of annoyed when he spotted that his disguise was nothing more than a pair of pink glasses and a fake mustache, along with the name Mustachio Furioso. Starlight, on the other hand, was allowed to don the persona of her android character she had played back during the time of Nefarious' attack on the Solana Galaxy, to which Qwark explained that no one in this galaxy had ever heard of Secret Agent Clank... meaning that she wouldn't be signaled out later by a fan or anything like that.

Once all three of them were prepared to enter the arena, and Qwark was pleased with the disguises, he started to move towards the teleporter, though he stopped before he could activate it.

"I overheard someone mention that there is another challenger taking on the arena today," Qwark told them, though he refused to look in their direction, "despite the fact that she made it here first, long before any of you arrived, she insisted on waiting for someone else to arrive before going into the arena... and she even insisted on fighting after you guys finished. The only thing I was able to find out about this mysterious challenger was that her name was Ysmir... and the fact that she was wearing a black robe that had some strange lettering on it."

Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela shared a look with each other, because they already knew that 'strange lettering' meant that someone had a Codex fragment and was using the information for their own purposes, though while they did that Qwark slipped into the building to prepare himself. That also meant that they could acquire the information for themselves, once they had words with whoever this mysterious Ysmir was and explained what was so special about the fragment. Once the three of them were ready to enter the arena, and had their weapons ready ahead of time, they accessed the teleporter and headed inside, where they found Qwark standing on an announcer's platform and holding a microphone.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Qwark proclaimed as loud as he possibly could, to which many of the specters cheered in response, "Join me in welcoming our guest of honor! Your Cragmite Overlord - and my new best friend - Emperor Tachyon!"

The moment Emperor Tachyon appeared on the screen all the cheering stopped, to which the Cragmite snapped his fingers and his troopers prepared their guns, forcing the crowd to cheer and giving the Emperor a moment to bask in their presence.

"Let's hear it for the first batch of challengers!" Qwark continued, beckoning to the trio for a moment, "Their names are Mustachio Furioso, Android 18, and Ms. Mask! Let the battle begin!"

The trio found that their enemies came at them in small groups, no doubt enlarged to give them a challenge and provide some entertainment for the people watching them. To Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela the formula for the arena was the same; fight the enemies that were coming their way, dodge every attack the enemy throws at them, and survive until the end of the challenge. There was absolutely nothing challenging about the three waves of enemies that they ended up fighting, though Starlight did tone down the amount of magic that she was using so Tachyon didn't guess who they were from his screen. They were also sure that Tachyon had seen her and Ratchet fight, so they made it look like they competent fighters, as the cheering crowd seemed to enjoy watching competitors struggle in the arena.

Eventually the trio had to contend with a large frog like creature, one that had been upgraded with pieces of machinery to allow it to walk and fire weapons at whoever it was fighting, but in the end the three of them were able to beat the creature into submission... to which they were given a new gadget, the Heli-Pods, as well as a slightly damaged vid pack that would, in Qwark's words, explain everything.

"Ingrate!" Tachyon proclaimed from the display screen, though while the insult was thrown at Qwark, who was clearly only taking it so h could get Ratchet and the others vital information necessary to beat him, his voice caused nearly everyone to stop cheering for a moment, "Clear the arena and return to your position... I wish to see how our other contestant fares in battle."

Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela made their way to an area where they could sit and watch what happened, as they were all eager to see who this Ysmir character was. A few minutes passed before the second contestant teleported into the arena, though the trio found themselves staring at someone that was wearing a robe like suit of armor that appeared to be made out of dragon scales, or something that mimicked the appearance of said scales. There were several places that were missing scales, which appeared to be intentional, though what really caught Starlight's attention was the metallic mask that the fighter was wearing, complete with a shroud of some kind that covered the back of their head.

The trio also found it odd that the fighter had no weapon to speak of, which meant that they were in a world of pain once the fighting started and they were surrounded by enemies.

Ysmir stood where she was standing as the gladiators entered the arena and charged at her, as if she didn't care about them at the moment, though when the first soldier reached her, and raised its weapon to strike her, she leveled her hand with the soldier's chest and pushed the foe back with what appeared to be a powerful gust of wind. Another soldier came at her, to which she spun around and kicked her target in the chest, cracking his suit, before loosing a gout of fire that tore through the suit and cooked the fish alien alive. The other soldiers back up for a moment, clearly showing that they were freaked out by their foe's abilities, before Ysmir moved from where she had been standing and attacked the nearest soldier.

Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela watched as the fighter used some of the strangest abilities they had ever seen; such as becoming see through for a few seconds and becoming immune to damage, dashing with incredible speeds to get behind her opponents and knock them around, and even freeze her opponents where they were standing before shattering them with a swift kick to the chest. Starlight was sure that Ysmir was using some sort of natural ability, not magical in nature considering the fact that she couldn't feel any such energy coming off of the fighter. The attacks the figure was using reminded her of what Sunset used to do back when she had started learning her abilities, though Ysmir seemed to be more in control than her sister was so long ago.

Eventually the battle was over and Ysmir was declared the winner, to which the figure bowed her head towards the screen, and a completely shocked Tachyon, before she made her way towards the exit and disappeared... leading Starlight and her family to make their way out of the arena as well.

"So, who was that?" Angela asked as they made their way towards their ships, though it was clear that she was still shocked by the mysterious figure they had seen.

"I don't know," Starlight commented, plugging the vid pack into Aphelion and listening to the information it had, where she found out that there was a location that Tachyon would soon be attacking, "Its a shame that she departed before we could speak with her... she would have been an interesting ally in the fight against Tachyon."

"Well, we should head to this mysterious facility and warn whoever owns it that they've got invaders coming in the near future," Ratchet said, just as Aphelion downloaded the coordinates for the small space station, "We'll figure out what to do about this Ysmir later... once we've finished dealing with Tachyon."

Starlight couldn't help but wonder who Ysmir was and why she felt the need to wear the mask she had worn, along with the strange suit that she had been wearing... though she knew that, in time, they would be able to solve the mystery and begin the search for their sister.
> Tools: Nundac Asteroid Ring
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Despite the fact that they had the Hyperion now, and had access to everything that had been installed inside the starship during the last couple of years, Aphelion insisted that she either fly Ratchet and Starlight herself or fly alongside the larger ship. Ratchet suspected that this was due to the fact that she had been knocked out since the attack on Fastoon and wanted to get as much exercise as she possibly could, though he wasn't about to argue with the ship. If Aphelion wanted to fly him and Starlight around for a while, so she could settle into some sort of routine with them, then he was perfectly fine with her doing that, though he was sure that he had heard the ship mutter something about size not mattering when it came to Lombaxes and their ships.

Once they had gotten the ship problem taken care of, and Angela had the ship code so she could communicate with them, Aphelion and the Hyperion made their way towards the Nundac Asteroid Ring, where a space station belonging to the Explorer Max Apogee was supposed to be resting. Aphelion, unfortunately, was the only one who had no idea who Max Apogee was, so while Angela sent her a file containing what they knew, so she could have a copy for her own systems, Starlight attempted to explain the significance behind the six gemstones the famous explorer had left behind.

"Raritanium... Cores?" Aphelion asked, not understanding why the gemstones had been called that, though she had the feeling that Starlight would explain everything.

"It is said that Max Apogee found a previously unexplored planet, landed in the middle of a forest, and found six special pieces of raritanium on display in the middle of some ruins," Starlight replied, remembering the story that the explorer had told the people he handed the stones over to, "There was originally no written record of the colors the gemstones possessed, but we have been able to figure out that one was purple, one was orange, another was blue, the fourth was pink, and the fifth is red... though its currently in the hands of Tachyon. We have no idea who might even possess the final Core, so its impossible to tell what color it might have until I get a lock on its position."

"My database says that you even named the Cores that you acquired," Aphelion commented, though Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight noticed that she was getting interested in the subject as well, "I just don't understand the reasoning behind the names."

"That is easy to remedy," Ratchet said, as he had listened to the reasoning when they had recovered one of the six Cores, "Generosity, the purple stone we recovered from Chairman Drek, is the polar opposite of his greed, which was why he had put his plans into action in the first place. Honesty, the orange stone we retrieved during our time in the Bogon Galaxy, opposed the lies that Qwark was telling us, and everyone else, at the time of our adventure. Laughter, the blue stone, was the counter for the pain, misery, and despair that Dr. Nefarious was spreading throughout the Solana Galaxy, while Kindness, the pink stone, was the opposite of the brutal conditions that the owner of Dreadzone forced upon everyone... be they contestants or his own employees."

"I see," Aphelion replied, though her tone said that she was either agreeing with their statements or she didn't like them and wasn't saying anything that might upset them.

There was no need to tell Aphelion that the Cores they had collected were missing, because she had been there when Angela told them the news back on Mukow. Once they were done with Tachyon, and had recovered the Core he was holding, they could begin their search for Sunset and the other four Cores, unless something happened along the way that demanded their attention. They all knew that Tachyon was going to demand a lot of their attention, until they managed to corner him and beat him, so there was no telling when they would be able to start the search for their missing sister. Not that Ratchet, Starlight, or Angela was worried about her, as Sunset had more than enough power to get out of whatever situation she found herself in.

Of course Aphelion decided to ask who Sunset was, as they hadn't actually told her anything before they marched into the Imperial Fight Festival, so they all decided to take turns explaining everything to Aphelion.





When they finally reached their destination, and managed to land on one of the larger asteroids, Aphelion had a decent grasp of who Sunset was, though for some reason she was too stubborn to accept that she was the God of Destruction for the entire universe. They all guessed that she belonged to the type of people that believed that seeing something was believing it, or something like that, so neither Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, or Angela bothered to correct her at the moment. There were more important matters for them to deal with, as the moment they touched down on the landing pad they noticed that there was another pod near where they had landed... and that Red was currently standing beside it.

As Ratchet and Starlight hopped out of Aphelion, and approached the spherical pod, Angela flew down in their old ship and landed nearby, to which she climbed out and caught up with them.

"Am I correct in assuming that this pod is the transport to the station?" Starlight asked, though at the same time she noticed that there were a fair number of Leviathans roaming around the various asteroids that were scattered all over the place.

"You are," Red said, to which Blue flapped his wings for a moment, but he made no effort to leave just yet, "though we oughta warn ya that the owner o' that station ain't accustomed to visitors."

"And just what is someone like you doing here?" Angela asked, as there was an occasion where she or one of her Jedi had to deal with smugglers, and she recognized Red for what he was immediately.

"Why Jedi Master Angela Cross, it is an honor to meet you in person," Red replied, giving her a small bow before becoming serious again, "though if you must know why I am here than I guess I can explain. This place is a natural breeding ground for Leviathans and I was recently commissioned by some... special clients... to acquire a few of them on their behalf. I'll admit it right now, I'm not much of a fighter, but I do have a deal for all of you; I'll trade the launch codes for this pod to you if you get me the souls I need for my commission."

"That sounds like a fair trade," Ratchet said, because he didn't like the looks that Angela was giving Red, as he knew of one bad experience she had with a smuggler that was best not mentioned at all, "We'll be back when we're ready to make the trade."

Oddly enough there happened to be a leviathan moving through the air near where they were currently standing, so Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela decided to head over to it first and see if there was anything else they could find. They found some of the reptilian creatures they encountered on Cobalia 'guarding' the leviathan that they had spotted, though they were easy to take care of as only one hit was required to knock them out. The moment the creatures were taken care of, and the way forward was open, they engaged the leviathan and attacked it with their weapons, to which they discovered the Shard Reaper they had picked up was useful in ending the fight quickly. Eventually the leviathan burst into pieces, allowing the group to gather its soul and the pieces of raritanium it dropped before heading back to where Red was standing.

Once they returned to him they found a teleport pad of sorts that would allow them to shoot across the space between them and another one of the asteroid clusters, though they selected the area with the most leviathans and took turns using the device until they were all gathered on their chosen asteroid. From there it was a simple matter to take out the reptilian creatures, battle the few leviathan that called the asteroid home, collect all of their souls, and then hop back on the teleport pad so they could get the codes they needed. Red was quite pleased to see that they were all fine and that no damage had touched them, indicating that he definitely knew something about Sunset... something that he wasn't willing to share.

Regardless of what he knew about Sunset, as he had likely heard the stories as far as Angela was concerned, Ratchet was more than willing to trade the necessary three souls so they could get the codes they needed.

"Now be careful up there," Red warned them, though it was hard to tell if he was worried about their safety or scared of what they could do to the space station if they were annoyed about something, "Last I heard, the place is run by a pair of old war bots.  Don't wanna cross 'em if ya can help it."

"Thanks for the warning," Starlight replied, waiting for Ratchet and Angela to climb into the pod first, but then stopped herself as a thought came to mind, "Hey Red, do you know anything about someone named Ysmir?"

"Ysmir? As in the Dragon of the North?" Red asked, though that was followed by a smile appearing on his face as he pulled out a small black object, one that Starlight recognized as a piece of the Codex, and tossed it over to her, "I have heard whispers of someone using that name around the Polaris Galaxy recently, even to the furthest reaches I might add, but I didn't think she'd be making her move so soon. I'll see what I can dig up for the next time we meet, as a peace offering if you desire, though consider that small fragment as a bonus for helping me out today."

Starlight caught the fragment and watched as Red climbed into the vehicle he had used to transport her, Clank, and Ratchet after they had first crossed paths, to which he blasted off to wherever he needed to go next. His words indicated that he might actually know who Ysmir was, while also indicating that he intended on checking his facts before he told them anything about the mysterious stranger they had seen in the arena. Starlight then let out a sigh as she climbed into the pod, locked the opening behind her, and blasted off towards the entrance of space station with Ratchet, Clank, and Angela.

The pod took them to the station's maintenance grid that happened to rest on a large gravity cube, though it consisted of an obstacle course that had laser fields and moving platforms, as well as curved platforms where gravity rotated ninety degrees. It took some time to actually get around the entire sphere, as they waited to make sure everyone had caught up before moving on to another part of the course, but eventually they reached their destination. The group eventually reached platform that held the maintenance elevator, along with another teleport pad they could use to get back to their ship, though after a few seconds of rest they used the elevator to enter the station... where they found a massive natural preserve within a sealed dome.

"Well would you look at that," Ratchet commented, putting his weapons away as he looked at what was on the other side of the glass, "that's quite the terrarium this place has got."

"It is strange that someone would build an oasis inside their fortress," Clank said, his eyes scanning the area and spotting a large number of obstacles that would be standing in their way, "but this entire station seems to be well guarded."

"Actually, this place looks more like a sanctuary to me," Angela stated, though at the same time Starlight was nodding her head, "See how the station connects to the terrarium? This isn't about protecting something, but rather about protecting someone precious to Max Apogee... like a child that he wanted to keep safe from his enemies. Its sort of similar to what Starlight, Sunset, and I designed to house the Cores in back on the Hyperion, only on a much larger scale than what we did."

The four of them stood there for a moment, taking in the sight of what the terrarium had to offer, before they were interrupted by one of the intercoms sprung to life and started speaking to them.

"Attention intruders!" a crotchety voice shouted at them, indicating that they must have pissed someone off already, "This is Lieutenant Commander Zephyr of the Apogee Space Station!  Lay down yer weapons, and prepare for a..."

"We already did that." Starlight replied, interrupting the voice for a few seconds, though none of them bothered to move from where they were standing at the moment.

"Already did what?" Zephyr asked, as if he had no idea what she was talking about, which only made Angela face palm while a slight smile appeared on Ratchet's face.

"Put our weapons away," Starlight stated, indicating to everyone for a few seconds, "All of our hand held weapons have been put back where they belong and our guns have been silenced for the moment. We didn't come to attack you... we came to warn you about an attack that Emperor Tachyon issued a day or two ago."

"And why should we believe a talking pony?" another voice asked, though Starlight assumed that it belonged to the second war bot that Red had warned them about.

"Would you believe us if the warning came from the last two Lombaxes in the entire universe?" Angela asked, though she had the feeling that some of the cameras were zeroing in on her and Ratchet at that very moment.

"Did somebody say Lombaxes?!" a third voice asked, to which a small eye contraption popped out of the wall and came up close to Ratchet and Angela, as if whoever had spoken didn't believe them, before the device returned itself to where it had come from, "Cronk, Zephyr, open the doors and let our guests in... they mean us no harm."

As a certain number of doors opened, and the defenses were shut off for the moment, the group quickly made their way though the outer area of the station and climbed into the terrarium, where the outer doors and defenses were turned back on immediately. While they walked Starlight focused on the voice she had heard on the intercom, the third one that sounded female, though for some reason she swore that she had heard the voice at some point in her life. It didn't take them long to reach what was no doubt the command center for the entire station, though they did have to climb up a ladder to reach the top, where they finally met the two robots that had been shouting at them before the third voice had spoken up.

The two ancient war bots weren't in the best condition, at least in Starlight's opinion, because one of them had a tall build with a faded blue and white paint job, while his companion was currently hunched over, no doubt due to a back back of some kind, with a faded red and white paint job. They were both holding weapons in their hands, indicating that they still didn't trust the group and wanted to be on the safe side until everything checked out... or maybe they had a few bolts loose Starlight mentally reflected. That was shortly before the group noticed the final person that had spoken to them, as it turned out to be a young female Markazian, which happened to be a mostly humanoid race with sharply pointed ears and whip-like forked tails. The young lady had a jetpack on her back, which was currently turned off at the moment, though she had black hair and green eyes, and was wearing a green, brown, and black outfit of some sort.

The instant they were all inside the command center the door closed behind them, sealing itself like it would have done if the station was actually under attack by someone.

"And now all of the defenses are back online," the young Markazian said, having glanced at a panel for a brief second before turning her full attention to the group, "I'm Talwyn Apogee and, as you no doubt have guessed at this point, these two are Cronk and Zephyr."

"Its a pleasure to meet you," Ratchet replied, waving a hand towards the rest of the group as he introduced them all, "I am Ratchet, and this is my wife Angela Cross, along with my best friend Clank and my sister Starlight Glimmer."

"Wait... you mean your the family that's associated with Sunset Shimmer?" Talwyn asked, to which she received a few nods from the group, "I guess it was a good thing that I stopped these two before they got us all killed. Look, I'll whip up something to snack on while you explain the circumstances that brought you here... I have the feeling that we'll be talking for quite some time."

Cronk and Zephyr, apparently understanding something in the tone that Talwyn had used, lowered their weapons and beckoned the group to a nearby table, where they sat down for what was going to be the longest talk of the year. As they did so Starlight looked over at Talywn and replayed her voice in her mind a few times, though she was certain that she knew it from somewhere else. A memory of her past, or maybe a vision of a past she had lived in a different life, sprung to mind, though all she could remember was her other self talking with a lavender coated alicorn... one that looked exactly like the AI they called 'Twilight' all the time.

For a moment Starlight wondered if Sunset had been right about having memories of a life she couldn't recall ever having lived, but then decided to shake her head and take a seat near her brother. She knew that there would be time to figure out what was happening to her in the future... once they had figured out what the Lombax Secret was, recovered it before it fell into the wrong hands, and stopped Tachyon before he really did something stupid.
> Tools: Ardolis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And that's the reason behind us coming to warn you about Tachyon's invasion," Ratchet eventually said, wrapping up the details of their current adventure to Talwyn and her robotic companions, ending with the information they had received from Qwark that brought them here.

Talwyn, after interrupting them several times to inquire how Ratchet and Angela had met, how Ratchet had ended up with a powerful unicorn as a sister, how Tachyon hadn't discovered them until now, and, of course, how they all ended up being related to Sunset Shimmer, was actually taking the news quite well. She didn't like the fact that the Emperor of the Polaris Galaxy wanted to raid the station in search of a particular Lombax artifact that would help him locate the Lombax Secret, which was why she had order Cronk and Zephyr to get them moving away from their current location. Apparently there were many locations where the station could be hidden until someone discovered it, which was why it had taken Tachyon so long to find the location in the first place.

While the two war bots had the station move to another area, along with some of the surrounding asteroids, Angela had Aphelion return to the Hyperion so the starship could follow them as they made the jump through space.

"Miss Apogee, is there any reason that Tachyon would think that you have a Lombax weapon?" Clank asked, though he and the others were sitting around a table while the station moved through space, "Besides the fact that he explored the universe and discovered things that no one else ever discovered."

"Max Apogee was..." Cronk started to say, though one angry look from Talwyn was enough to make him stop in his tracks, to which Zephyr let out a laugh at his comrade's expense.

"Not was an explorer, but rather he is," Talwyn stated, almost as if this was something that she and Cronk did all the time and was constantly having to correct him.

"...is a famous explorer and collector of rare interstellar antiquities," Cronk continued, shaking his head for a second while Talwyn turned back towards the group, "One of his most notable finds was a Lombax artifact... the other, and certainly more well known discovery, was the six gemstones that he called the Raritanium Cores, but they were stolen shortly after he turned them over to some scientists."

"Its a shame that no one was able to find any of them for such a long time," Talwyn said, turning her gaze over to Ratchet and Angela for a moment, "though one of the rumors that is often associated with you guys and Sunset Shimmer is that you actually found one of them on your first adventure."

"Yeah, we found Generosity, the purple stone, years ago after defeating Chairman Drek," Starlight explained, opening up her tablet and opening a file on it, to which she laid her tablet on the table and revealed an image of the four stones they had acquired, "and then we found and recovered three more since then; Honesty, Laughter, and Kindness. We know that the fifth stone is currently in the possession of Tachyon, but we still have no idea who holds the final stone."

"So you really have them..." Talwyn said, looking at the image for a moment, "Is it possible for me to hold one of them and actually see i with my own eyes? I've been hoping to see one ever since my father told me about them."

"Unfortunately the four we recovered were taken as well," Angela spoke up, letting out a sigh as she spoke, "Sunset carefully withdrew the stones and said that she was going to study them, for what we have no idea, but shortly after Tachyon attacked I discovered that she's missing... and so are the Cores that we recovered."

Even as Angela mentioned what had happened to Sunset, and the Cores they had collected, Starlight found her mind turning to Ysmir once again, as if she was trying to figure out who the mysterious stranger was without waiting for Red to tell her what he had figured out. Ysmir, the so-called Dragon of the North if Red was to be believed, had an unusual ability that allowed her to use the very elements however she desired, as in using wind to blast her foes away or using fire to burn her opponents. She had heard of beings that could use some form of telekinesis, without the use of magic, but that was the only confirmed one she was able to find, leading her to wonder if Ysmir was one of the undiscovered beings.

Eventually she let out a sigh and shook her head, deciding that it would be best for her to forget about such things until they were done with Tachyon and whatever he was planning.

"So, who has the artifact now?" Starlight asked, as she knew it was time for them to get back on track before they forgot why they had come to the station to begin with.

"The station was raided by pirates, under the orders of Captain Slag, years ago," Talwyn replied, rubbing her arm for a moment, indicating that it wasn't something she liked to talk about, "the artifact was the only thing they took from us. My father, before heading out on his return journey to the nameless planet he had discovered, had placed a tracking device on the artifact in case it was ever stolen... and I know its being held on Ardolis at this very moment. I've had scans done on the planet, from the safety of my station of course, and I know the exact location where the artifact is being held, but I'm not foolish enough to go charging into battle against an army of bloodthirsty pirates... not without backup anyway."

"Well then, why don't we pay those pirates a visit and take the artifact from them," Angela said, a smile appearing on her face while she tapped her lightsaber for a second, "After our last encounter with them, where they fled with their tails between their legs at the mention of Sunset's name, they won't be expecting an attack on their main base... so we should be able to catch them off guard and secure the artifact before they even knew what hit them."





Once the Apogee station was in its new position, and Talwyn indicated that she and her war bots were ready to depart, everyone transferred themselves onto the Hyperion before heading to Ardolis. It didn't take them long to each their destination, though they split up into two groups to divide the pirates' attention when they launched their attacks. Ratchet and Starlight were able to pick up and fully upgrade two new weapons from the vendor; the Buzz Blades, which released a number of blades that would ricochet a few times, and the Nano-Swarmers, a hive weapons that hurt enemies.

The moment they were done upgrading their new weapons Ratchet and Starlight followed the path in front of them and attacked the robotic pirates that were standing guard. With their improved arsenal the few pirates that were in their way didn't stand much of a chance, though they were forced to stop in front of a rock wall, where the small creatures Clank had seen earlier returned to him and gave him another upgrade that would help them out, the Geo-Laser. Starlight was able to figure out that this was a device that was capable of cutting through hard stone and pieces of earth that were in their way, which was proven right when Ratchet and Clank stopped using the laser on the wall, to which the section they had been cutting into collapsed and revealed a path they could use.

The instant there was an opening in the rock wall Ratchet and Starlight switched to the new Buzz Blades and loosed a few of them a the flying bat creatures that were coming at them, while at the same time they progressed further into the cave. It was really easy for them to make their way around the cave, cross all of the jumps they needed to pass over, and take out all of the bat enemies that were in their way, though the real challenge came when they finally reached the pirates that were waiting for them. One pirate happened to be guarding the bridge they needed to cross, so Angela pulled out her lightsaber, extended one of the ends, and charged at the foe standing in their way, to which she cut through the shield he had been carrying before slicing him into pieces.

Once the bridge was cleared the group moved forward and opened fire on the remaining pirates in the area, who happened to be standing around a campfire like normal people would do, though in a matter of seconds the way was open once more. Ratchet approached one of the stalactites that was hanging in their way and allowed Clank to use the new laser, where they cut down a platform that would allow them to move forward. They then had to deal with two more pirates and another group of the bat creatures before they could approach a rock wall, where they cut their way into a massive chamber that was filled with pirates.

The moment the wall came down, and the pirates noticed them, the group charged in and let loose with the weapons they had gathered, while at the same time Angela stood on the side and cut apart any foolish pirates that wanted to attack them from the side. The newest weapons, in addition to the older weapons, proved to be too much for the pirates to handle, as they fell left and right, by either Ratchet and Starlight's guns or Angela's saber. Eventually the large force of pirates had been dealt with, allowing the group to move forward again, though as they made their way outside the area they were in they spotted an electrified pirate charging at them... though he didn't get very far as Starlight surrounded him with her magic and pinned him to the nearby wall.

"He sure didn't see that coming," Ratchet commented, while he made sure to put the pirate down before following the others outside, to which they found the massive structure that Talwyn had pointed out on her map, "There it is... the treasure room."

"One of the heavily guarded places a pirate can have," Angela said, to which she noticed two small ships flying into the area and dropping off four pirates a piece, giving them eight more enemies in addition to the ten to fifteen that had been waiting for them, "At least they're fighting back instead of standing around and doing nothing."

Fortunately none of the new pirates they were currently facing had any shields of any kind, so the new Nano-Swarmers weapon worked like a charm as it tore into the large group of enemies that were in front of them, to which they could pick up the stragglers with some ease. The moment the entire group of pirates had been taken care of, and they were sure that there weren't any additional enemies coming at them, they looked around and found a rail they could ride into the treasure room. The group thought that such a glaring weakness would have been addressed at some point by Captain Slag, but at the moment they weren't about to complain about it. They each attached the base of their weapons over the rail and rode down into the chamber, though before they could get grab the artifact, which happened to be in the middle of the chamber, they heard some pirates singing and discovered that Captain Slag and his second in command were coming their way.

The course of action that they took was simple; they ducked behind some of the nearby crates and waited for the duo to arrive, where they would wait until they left to claim their prize.

"Wait... I smell something foul," Captain Slag said the moment he and Pete walked into the chamber, though at the same time he put away his mug of... whatever he was drinking... and changing it for a crescent shaped hook, "A Lombax... two of them to be exact... come out landlubbers and tell me why your here."

Ratchet looked at Starlight and Angela, wondering if they should do what the captain said, but then he remembered how fearful Slag had been the last time they had come into contact and decided to try his luck. He rose to his feet and stared at Captain Slag, to which Angela and Starlight followed his lead, but they all kept their weapons hidden until they knew what was going on.

"Oh... so the reports of the Starship Hyperion approaching our planet were true," Captain Slag stated, his eyes glancing at the artifact in the middle of the chamber, to which he turned around and made his way outside, "Take the artifact and get off my planet... I want nothing to do with any of you. And take your Apogee friend with you."

Before any of them could say another word, or anything for that matter, Captain Slag and Pete climbed back onto the ship they had been using and departed from the treasure room, leaving them with the item they had come for. As Ratchet claimed the item, to which it opened and revealed their next destination, Starlight contacted Talwyn and ordered a retreat, informing their new friend that they had gotten what they had come for. It didn't take them long to return to Aphelion and depart from the planet, but even as they returned to the Hyperion Starlight had the feeling that their luck with Captain Slag was going to run out one day.

She only hoped that they had discovered whatever the Lombax Secret was by then, otherwise their future was going to be made a little harder than it was at the moment.
> Tools: Rykan V
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	When everyone was back on the Hyperion, and they departed from the pirate base on Planet Ardolis, they gathered in the lounge area of the starship and focused their efforts on the artifact that had been given to them. Talwyn admitted that she was surprised that Captain Slag had handed over the artifact without fighting for it, but when Ratchet explained that the captain had realized his options were either try to fight or be destroyed by Sunset, who he had assumed was on the ship with them, it was rather easy decision to make. Ratchet wasn't about to correct the pirate captain, not when the mere mention of Sunset's name allowed them to overcome obstacles that would waste their time, so Talwyn dropped the issue and turned towards the artifact.

It turned out that only a Lombax was able to open the artifact, as when Cronk or Zephyr tried to open the artifact it did nothing, but when Ratchet touched the artifact for a second it opened up and revealed that it held the coordinates for someplace on Rykan V. With the location of the supposed Lombax Secret in their possession the group quickly decided to head to the coordinates and see what they found, while being fully prepared for some sort of assault when they landed. During the flight, however, Starlight pulled out her tablet and opened one of the older files she had saved on the device, back when she, Sunset, and Angela had first started working on the Hyperion.

"What are you doing Starlight?" Talwyn asked, leaning over to look at the tablet's screen, only to find out that Starlight was in the process of assembling what appeared to be another pony.

"Oh, just creating a hologram for Aphelion," Starlight replied, carefully selecting the form of a pegasus as her starting point, "I figured that at some point she's going to want to be here, planning our missions with us or giving us some advice on what to do, instead of hanging out in the docking bay all the time. This will allow her to explore the ship and take her mind off of what happened in the past, as well as give her the opportunity to meet the AI that Angela, Sunset, and I created so long ago."

"I've been meaning to ask about them," Talwyn said, lifting her head for a moment, just in time to see the blue winged unicorn walking by the lounge area, "Who are they?"

"Well, the one you just saw was Luna," Starlight answered, selecting a nice red color for Aphelion's design, "the white one is called Celestia, though she usually hangs out in the room we kept the Cores in, but I think she's at the bridge at the moment. The pink AI goes by the name of Cadence and she generally spends her time making sure the systems are operating without any errors, though there are times where she and Twilight, the lavender AI, will get together and hang out. When Searing was a problem we saw four spirits, in the form of these four AI, descend for the sky and save Sunset from herself, though she seemed to be at peace with them around and we designed them to run the ship when we aren't using it."

"Sunset also told us, after getting the third Core, that the AI reminded her of four ponies she could barely make out in her memories," Angela added, remembering how sad Sunset had been around that period of time, "As far as I've been able to figure out Sunset and Starlight came from a completely different world than Ratchet, though for some reason they all ended up on the same ship that landed on Veldin. Somehow they lost all their memories of their home world, though Sunset was starting to remember bits and pieces with the help of the Cores we had collected."

Speaking of memories Starlight was beginning to remember more of her home world, thanks to Talwyn's voice reminding her of someone important in her past life, but she hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet. She wanted to speak with Sunset about it, as she had more experienced with this sort of thing, before mentioning it to Ratchet, Clank, and Angela. There was something about her past that she wanted to know, though her memories were slow to resurface and it annoyed her, but a benefit was that she was sure that she knew more magic than what she currently used at the moment.

"Okay, I guess I can understand the reason behind the AI's," Talwyn said, shaking her head for a few seconds, "though why does Aphelion need a hologram that mimics them?"

"Well, its easier than downloading a whole new body type and starting from scratch," Starlight commented, adding a main and tail to the hologram she was creating, knowing that it would take some time to add it to the ship's systems when they had some free time, "besides, it certainly made me and Sunset feel more at home with ponies walking around the Hyperion... even if there were only four more of them."

Ratchet, who had been silent the entire time, looked over at Clank, who had his own tablet out and was modifying his own 'pony', though he was beginning to wonder what was up with the sudden desire to add additional holograms to the ship. Angela hadn't made one yet and he wasn't about to make one, but he decided that it was best for his sister to do what she wanted to do and leave it at that. Besides, he knew that Sunset had enjoyed having the AI around when she was questioning her existence some number of years ago, so he wasn't about to question the addition of another hologram.

He leaned back in his chair as Starlight and Talwyn continued to talk with each other, wondering what they were going to find when they finally reached Rykan V... and what enemies they were going to encounter.





When they finally reached the location of Rykan V, without being harassed by anyone, Ratchet and Clank took Aphelion out of the Hyperion and flew towards the surface, while Talwyn, Cronk, and Zephyr followed in their ship. Angela and Starlight, on the other hand, used the smaller ship they used to use for their adventures and followed the other two ships towards the planet's surface, though they were all prepared for what was coming their way.

"Uh oh." Zephyr said over the communicators, indicating that he had noticed something bad on the planet's surface, "We're picking up multiple hostiles in the spaceport! You rookies got the stones for a HALO jump?"

Clank immediately questioned what 'stones' were and if he had them, to which Ratchet replied that it was something that he would tell Clank later, when they weren't in immediate danger, and that the robot most certainly didn't have them. Once that was established Ratchet made sure that Aphelion would fly around the area until an area was cleared for her to land, which she assured him wouldn't be a problem, before ejecting him and Clank so they could perform the jump. As they descended towards the spaceport they spotted the two war bots jumping out of Talwyn's ship, with her staying inside so she could land the ship, though after a few more seconds he spotted Angela and Starlight following them as well.

As they all flew down to the ground Ratchet heard Talwyn mention something about keeping the two war bots safe because they hadn't seen actual combat in quite some time, which made him wonder why she hadn't mentioned that before hand, as Starlight could have worked on them a bit before they came down here.

Once they landed Starlight tossed out a Nano-Swarmer hive and let them go to town on the enemies that were standing in front of her, while Ratchet and the others opened fire on the other robotic enemies that were in front of them. Ratchet watched as the dropships let off a large number of enemies for them to fight, which was to be expected considering the amount of power that Tachyon was up against, though Starlight would occasionally grab one of the ships and smash it into another one to destroy them both. As they fought Ratchet noticed that there were some more ships moving into a part of the spaceport that they couldn't get to at the moment, which meant that their enemies were waiting for them in large numbers.

After some time one of the war bots charged forward, slapped what appeared to be an explosive charge on the gate in front of them, and then stepped back as he opened fire on their enemies. After another minute of fighting Tachyon's forces, and crushing them, Cronk and Zephyr activated the bomb that had been placed and blew open the path, allowing them to move forward. Oddly enough there was a weapon vendor in front of them, but neither Ratchet or Starlight were willing to complain about it considering that it allowed them to restock their weapons for the second part of their assault.

As they battled the robotic members of Tachyon's forces, who were the easiest to take care of, they noticed that there were some of the rolling tanks moving towards them. Ratchet, Starlight, Cronk, and Zephyr opened fire on the enemies that were in front of them, while Angela moved behind them and carved up the ones she was able to get at with her lightsaber. They also noticed that there were four special cannons waiting for them, hiding behind energy barriers that only lowered when someone was close to them, but they focused on the enemies that were coming their way.

Starlight, eager to see what the hidden cannons could do, approached them while the others focused on their enemies, though the one on the bottom right opened up and fired a large energy charge at her. Before it could hit her, and damage her nanotech levels, Starlight's horn glowed as she caught the attack in the middle of the air and sent it flying back towards the cannon that discharged it, but she also empowered it. The moment it came into contact with the cannon, before it could raise its shield no less, the cannon shook for a few seconds before exploding, sending pieces everywhere as the other three turned their focus on Starlight. She was eager to return the cannon fire back at them, effectively tearing the remaining cannons to pieces and opening the way forward, though before doing so she helped the others take out the rest of Tachyon's forces.

"Tachyon should be scared at this point," Ratchet commented, as he and the rest of the group rode the elevator to the spaceport, "we already had enough firepower to take his soldiers out, without the new RYNO or Sunset's abilities, but now Starlight's developing a destructive magical nature as well."

"I'm more at home with my weapons than my magic," Starlight replied, though she couldn't stop herself from grinning, "but I guess my training with Sunset finally paid off."

When they entered the spaceport they heard Talwyn mention that she actually couldn't land anywhere, so she was going to find the area they were searching for from the air while they searched on the ground. They quickly restocked their weapons as they searched the surrounding area, though at the same time Starlight noticed Red standing near a strange device on the ground, with another strange gadget of sorts sitting next to him.

"Well hey there, friends," Red said as they approached him, once again sounding happy to see them after their last encounter, "You picked a dangerous time to come to Rykan V.  Ol' Percival has shut down the spaceport until he gets his paws on the Lombax Secret."

"Oddly enough that's why we're here as well," Angela commented, staring at the strange gadget that was leaning on the railing, knowing that Starlight was going to want to look at it.

"Well, if you're looking to explore the lava refineries, you could use this here Gyro-Cycle," Red said, indicating that he was willing to sell it to them, but the group immediately knew what was coming next, "Of course, a businessman such as myself couldn't part with it without some sort of... monetary compensation.  Ya know how it works."

"So, who'd you get the Gyro-Cycle from?" Ratchet asked, staring at Red for a moment, though he spotted Blue the parrot look to the left and the right for a moment, as if he was worried about something, "Something that can cross lava sounds like it would be a very unique piece of technology."

"I bought it from a Lombax," Red replied, waving a hand as if he was dismissing who his trade partner had been, no doubt a practiced movement to keep someone's identity a secret, "He was looking to get rid of it quick and I was more than willing to take it off his hands. You know, you actually remind me of that Lombax... just a tiny bit anyway."

"This Lombax's name wouldn't happen to be Kaden, would it?" Starlight asked, though considering that they only knew the name of one other Lombax she suspected that it was a long shot to guess that it was Ratchet's father that sold the gadget to Red.

"And how do you know that name?" Red asked in return, though instead of his hands going to his weapons, like someone would have expected him to do, he simply stood there and stared at them.

"He was my father," Ratchet replied, letting out a sigh as he remembered that his father was gone and he'd never have the chance to get to know him.

Red was quiet for a time, as was his parrot for some time, though after a few minutes of internal debate he reached back to the Gyro-Cycle, gently picked it up, and handed it over to Ratchet.

"Your father and I are... I mean were... good friends," Red explained, stepping out of the way as Ratchet approached the platform the gadget was used with, "He asked me to hang onto this, knowing that I would keep it out of the hands of anyone that would misuse it, be it Tachyon or someone like him. We saved each other's lives on multiple occasions, but I was never able to repay him for the last time he saved my life... but I'm sure he'd like the fact that I was helping his son out."

Ratchet nodded and activated the Gyro-Cycle, which was followed by him shooting into the sky and heading into the Lava Refineries, though Starlight and Angela made no move to follow him, as they were planning on teleporting over once he had reached the end. Instead Starlight turned to Red, wondering if he had uncovered anything on Ysmir, the mysterious stranger they had seen in the arena.

"So, did you find out anything about Ysmir?" Starlight asked, a look of hope in her eyes, because she needed something on the fighter in case they were ever forced to fight her at some point.

"Not a lot, but I have some information," Red replied, handing over a small chip that could be inserted into her tablet, "Shortly before Tachyon left to attack your galaxy, the Solana Galaxy I mean, a mysterious warrior by the name of Ysmir appeared near one of Tachyon's outposts and destroyed it. No one is sure how she managed to tear down the outpost, without any explosives or weapons, but many people suspect that she was able to draw in the power of the nearby lightning storms and used it to blow up a very important part of the structure. There are several other mentions of her appearing on various planets across the Polaris Galaxy, either dealing with Tachyon's soldiers or erasing his outposts, and then disappearing when the job was done.

At the moment I have it on good authority that Ysmir is still in the Imperial Fight Festival on Mukow, as if she is practicing her skills against all sorts of enemies that the Emperor can send at her. Tachyon thinks that she's providing entertainment, but my sources say that all sorts of challengers are coming to fight her... be they pirates or people similar to them. The only thing I am unable to determine is where she came from, because a few weeks ago she didn't exist and then she suddenly came into being before the big invasion. I only wish that there was more I could tell you about her."

For a moment Starlight could have sworn that Red sounded like he knew something about Ysmir that he wasn't ready to tell them, but she decided not to say anything about it. As far as she could tell Ysmir was a mystery that they needed to solve... but before she could focus on trying to unravel the mystery her communicator went off, indicating that Ratchet was ready for them to teleport over. She quickly bid Red goodbye, gathered Angela and the war bots around her, and then activated her magic so they could teleport over to the island that Ratchet and Talwyn were standing on.

It was there that they discovered an ancient bunker of sorts that was littered with Lombax writing, which were no doubt instructions for someone to open the door and discover what the secret was.

"This is where the coordinates lead," Talwyn stated as the rest of the group approached, to which she gestured at the symbols and watched as Starlight stared at them.

"Any idea what they mean Starlight?" Ratchet asked, knowing that his sister had the translator ready to go and was already cracking down each and every word in front of them.

"In this room a secret born," Starlight translated, her eyes scanning the symbols and the translator that was floating in her magical grasp, "to quell the angry Cragmite storm. You've traveled far but to be clear, without a tail, your quest ends here. I see, only a Lombax can open the door and learn where the secret weapon is located... its a good thing that we have two Lombaxes."

Ratchet smiled and pressed his hand against the door for a moment, though after a few seconds a voice said Welcome back, Lombax and then followed that up with I hope your long journey has been rewarding, before the door opened and allowed them to enter the bunker.

Inside the bunker they found what appeared to be an old holo-vid player, one that happened to run on some sort of film, which activated thanks to the tampering of both Cronk and Zephyr. It then played an educational documentary on a Lombax invention called The Dimensionator, which was apparently an inter-dimensional weapon that made Starlight freeze for a moment. The old holo-vid player also included coordinates for Planet Sargasso, indicating it was a testing facility for the weapon... as well as what was hopefully a taste of Lombax humor, which made Angela raise her palm to her face.

"The weapon used to vaporize the Cragmites was... a hat." Ratchet said in disbelief, not believing that the greatest minds of their race had built such a weapon, "By the Maker... that sounds so stupid."

"We can't let something like that fall into Tachyon's hands!" Starlight suddenly declared, snapping herself out of what had come over her, while at the same time causing everyone to stare at her as she ripped the holo-vid player from its resting place, "Come on, let's get to Sargasso and find that weapon... and I am not leaving clues behind for our enemy to follow us."

Everyone immediately agreed with her, because a weapon that powerful could only be rivaled by Sunset's nature as the God of Destruction... and if Tachyon got his hands on it then they were most certainly doomed.
> Tools: Sargasso
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight was pacing in her room aboard the Hyperion, going over what she and the others had found when they opened the ancient Lombax bunker on Rykan V. She managed to handle the birth of a demon that had the power to shake worlds to their core, managed to handle the fact that every villain wanted to piss said demon off, and even managed to stay calm while Vox held her sister's life over her and Ratchet's heads. She managed to keep herself extremely calm when Sunset had become the God of Destruction and had begun to learn what she was capable of doing with her new powers, even if she wasn't here now.

An inter-dimensional weapon, on the other hand, was powerful enough to do, well, anything; like bridge two dimensions together for a moment, open gateways to other worlds, and who knew what else. Such a weapon shouldn't exist, because there was so much that could go wrong with such a weapon, which meant that securing it was one of their highest priorities... if not their main one.

Starlight glanced at the holo-plans that were on her desk, which were additions to their armor that were supposed to counter everything that Red had told her about Ysmir, especially everything that was on the small chip that he had handed her. Red had apparently been watching Ysmir for some time, studying her attacks and noticing what elements she seemed to have control over, which was why he made several notes on little upgrades that could help counter said abilities. Starlight had taken the notes, watched a view of the videos to stop thinking about the Dimensionator, and had actually come up with several small nodes that could be added to their armor, allowing them to combat the powers that Ysmir commanded.

She still had no idea if they would have to fight Ysmir in the future, or if she was being paranoid about that, but right now it was better to be safe than sorry... especially when they had no idea what the future held.

After a few seconds Starlight stopped pacing and used her magic to move the tablet's screen to the other thing she had been studying, a series of spells that were centered around Time Magic, one of the most dangerous sets of spells in the spell books she and the others had been able to find. It was on the fragment that Red had handed to her back at the location that they had originally found Talwyn's station at, as if he thought that she might need the knowledge in the future. One other thought that Starlight had was that Red knew another ability of Ysmir's one that he was unable to capture on a recording, and this was his way of warning her about it, which meant she was only supposed to study the spells and not use them to her own advantage.

She had to admit that the allure to use the spells to figure out what happened to Sunset, and where she went with the Cores they had acquired so far, was definitely there, but at the moment she knew that she had to resist its siren call and focus on what was coming there way when they reached Sargasso.

"Its just knowledge," Starlight eventually said, sending the screen back and replacing it with the special weapon upgrade she had been designing for Ratchet's wrench, "maybe one day I'll put those spells to use... but for now I need to focus on getting the Dimensionater before our enemy does."

Ratchet, Talwyn, Angela, Clank, Cronk, and Zephyr were busy going over the maps that were associated with the area of Sargasso they would be landing in, so they could be prepared for anything and everything. Talwyn had also asked Starlight if there were any modifications that she could add to her war bots to increase their mobility and their ability to withstand damage, without falling apart, so in the end Starlight was extremely busy this time. There were plans to go over, modifications to make, spells to study and memorize, and craft everything they might need for a confrontation with Ysmir or Tachyon's soldiers.

Starlight considered using one of the spells to create a duplicate of herself so there was some way for her to get through all of this work, but in the end she decided not to use one of them and focused her mind on her work. Though as she started working on one of her many projects her horn glowed for a moment before the area in front of her desk lit up, which was followed by a second Starlight stepping out of the light.

"Um, who are you?" Starlight asked, though to be honest she felt silly for even having to ask the question to begin with, while feeling the need to have something explained.

"I'm you silly," the second Starlight replied, looking like an exact mirror image of the original Starlight, "or more accurately I'm a copy of you, created by a self duplication spell so you can get all the work done in the time you desire... though if we're being honest, we might need more of us for all of this work."

"But... I never cast a self duplication spell," Starlight said, not understanding how the copy could exist otherwise, as she hadn't felt any time energy being used when the copy appeared.

"Trust me, you definitely cast the spell," the copy stated, moving to the side and accessing one of the many projects that Starlight had yet to finish, to which she got started on completing it, "but I was being serious, you're going to need more than the two of us to finish all of this before its time to fight Tachyon... or Ysmir, depending on who each piece of equipment is made to counter."

Starlight opened her mouth to say something, but before she could actually do so she watched as the area lit up a few more times and produced three more identical copies of herself. She stared at them, and they stared at her in return, but eventually the original copy she had made gave them names, literally the numbers Two though Four, before putting them to work on various other projects. Starlight mentally moaned as she got to work as well, deciding that now wasn't the best time to be questioning her magical abilities when there was so much more to worry about... and promising that she would get something to drink when she and the others had finished taking down Tachyon an his forces.





When they finally reached Sargasso, and the Hyperion stopped outside its atmosphere, Starlight rejoined the others as they made their way towards the docking area of the ship. Talwyn, Cronk, and Zephyr were heading someplace else, as there were other leads for her to check up on that could have been related to her father, so she bid the rest of the group farewell before leaving. Starlight's mind thought back to her private work room, where the four copies of her were still going to town on the pile of items she had been meaning to make. She couldn't figure out how she had created them, accidentally she mentally added, or how to get rid of them before someone else found out about them, which was why she wasn't telling Ratchet or the others about them just yet.

However, when the two ships landed in the only available landing platform in the area, the group immediately spotted Red and his parrot standing beside a terminal that wasn't working at the moment.

"Are you following us?" Angela asked, because despite the fact that Red had been helping her family the entire time she was still concerned that he might try to sell them out at some point.

"Believe it or not, but I actually have some business to attend to on this planet as well," Red replied, though that was followed by him pulling out something that resembled the many hacking devices that Ratchet and the others had used over their many adventures, "I have the feeling that you'll be needing to use these launch pads so ya can get around the planet easier, which means that you'll be needing this Decryptor to power them up. Normally I would ask for some Leviathan Souls to cover my expenses, but for Kaden's kid I'd be willing to part with it for free."

"You might as well take the last couple of souls we have anyway," Starlight said, gently taking the device with her magic before handing over the remaining souls they had gathered, "There's no need to bankrupt yourself in the process of helping us out."

"You may not be related to Kaden by blood, but you sure remind me of him a tiny bit," Red said, to which he and Blue actually chuckled for a few seconds before regaining their composure, which was when he took the Leviathan Souls anyway, "Its funny in a way, because the Plumber told me that talking with you reminded him of Kaden... which I can see the more I stand with you and trade words. I'd tell you how I crossed paths with the Plumber, but I've got my prior engagement to deal with and you have some searching to do... so I'll tell you some other time when neither of us are busy."

The Decryptor was similar to all of the other hacking gadgets that the group had used during their adventures, though Ratchet noted that it would be easy enough to learn to use the device, being difficult to master at the same time. The terminal for the launch pads proved to be one of the most straightforward terminals that Ratchet had ever hacked into, as he was barely thirty seconds into his session when he cleared it and activated all of the launch pads in the area. Once Ratchet had turned the launch pads back online, and pulled away from the terminal, Clank mentioned that one of the strange creatures he had seen back on Kortog was floating in the air near the launch pad, which immediately told them what they needed to do next.

Once Clank's wings were out, and he was ready to guide Ratchet, the duo lifted themselves into the air and took off, though a few seconds passed before Starlight surrounded herself and Angela with her magic as she levitated them along the path that the others were going through. The path they were following took them around one of the massive creatures that dotted the landscape, through a small tunnel that had the ribs of a long dead creature around them, and around a small factory area until Clank had Ratchet land in front of a second rib cage tunnel. A few seconds later Starlight and Angela touched down behind them, to which they advanced through the tunnel and approached a building that was associated with the structure they had passed outside, where they fought some small red beetle creatures that wanted to bite them.

Ahead of the group of beetles was a small angry creature that was riding some sort of contraption, thought before they got close it opened fire and started throwing fireballs at them. Starlight grabbed the fireballs and sent them flying back at the vehicle that the creature was riding, which ended up destroying it in a matter of seconds, though they discovered another terminal they had to hack through. A few seconds passed before the door in front of them opened, revealing a gelatonium plant that they were going to have to fight their way through and an enemy that looked like the one that had been guarding the building's entrance... only this one was surrounded in plate like armor that formed a sphere of death when it charged at them.

Ratchet, who was the one holding the Gelanator, filled up the gadget and made a block of gel for them to jump on, to which they quickly made their way through the various jumps that were in front of them until they reached the second container that he had to empty the gadget into so they could progress. With the door that had been blocking their path opened for them, and revealed that their next destination was a path of ground with three more of the spinning enemies, so they floated down to the area in front of them and opened fire on their enemies. Once the enemies had been taken care of they pressed the three buttons that were on the ground and activated the platforms that were waiting to the left of the building they had jumped out of.

They then rode the first platform up the walkway that was in front of them before riding another one over to an ancient building that reminded Ratchet and Starlight of the ruins of Fastoon they had seen. Oddly enough they found a terminal blocking their path, so Ratchet hacked into it as well, before the door opened for them and revealed that two more of the creatures were riding in their vehicles on the other side. Starlight seized the two of them and smashed them together, which caused a group of beetles to erupt from the ground as a trio of small leviathans entered through one of the holes in the wall. The group opened fire on their enemies, quickly taking them all down with an ease that really upset Ratchet, before beginning their search for any clues as to where the Lombax testing facility was located.

Starlight immediately spotted something on the level above them, to which she levitated herself up there and found an interesting weapon sitting on the ground, one that she heard Aphelion mention that it was called the Alpha Disruptor... and that only a select number of them had been made before the fall of the Lombaxes. With the weapon acquired, and stored away for the moment, she moved towards the bolt crank that was in front of her and opened the door that had closed the moment she claimed the weapon. As they walked outside the ruined building they discovered that there was a bridge connected to the ground area they had pressed the buttons on, where they carefully walked over it as they looked for the hidden facility.

They stopped by the weapon vendor, to pick up additional ammunition and upgrade the new weapon to its full destructive capabilities, before they encountered a large creature that intended on killing them, giving Starlight the ability to test the ancient weapon out. With the upgrades unlocked Starlight as able to take out the creature in two shots, allowing them to collect its Leviathan Soul before they pressed the buttons around them and opened the platforms that they needed to take to move forward. As they rode up to the walkway that would take them closer to their destination they took out another vehicle that was blocking their path, as well as another two of the rolling enemies that were on the platform below them.

That was followed by them discovering an entrance to another area that appeared to be made of rib cages, bones, and a variety of other bones that were scattered everywhere, as well as taking care of some of the small leviathans and beetles that they found in their way. They then circled around the walkway that they had to follow before they came to another Lombax bunker, again with another terminal that Ratchet had to hack through. They all smiled as Ratchet quickly hacked through the terminal and opened the door, where they all prepared for whatever they could find inside the bunker... though when they opened a section of the room they found the Plumber standing beside some sort of strange machine.

"Oh, its you three... and miss Angela Cross!" the Plumber said, surprise definitely filling his voice as he focused his new glasses on her, which told everyone that he hadn't been expecting her to be there, "You're all just in time. I'm about to try out my revolutionary, high speed, interplanetary transportation gizmo... though, judging by your expressions, this isn't what you were looking for. I take it you were expecting something else? Something capable of vaporizing an entire planet of whatchamacallits?"

"Cragmites, actually," Angela spoke up, though she was equally surprised to meet the Plumber on this planet, considering the last time she and the others had seen him was when he was in the sewers under Nefarious' secret base on Aquatos.

"Well I hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn't exist." the Plumber said, though his tone indicated that he either knew something that he didn't want to tell them or was trying to stop them from searching for the weapon in order to protect it from falling into Tachyon's hands.

"That's because the Dimensionator doesn't vaporize things," Starlight replied, causing everyone to turn to her for a moment, as if they were even shocked that she had managed to figure out something about the ancient weapon, "its a weapon that's capable of inter-dimensional transportation. I've been reading the various reports and historic pieces that Aphelion was willing to open for me, after some private talking and promises, and I've been able to figure out that the Lombaxes that used the weapon merely pushed the Cragmites, including their armada and their planet, into another dimension... one without any other lifeforms."

"You know, if anyone else said that I would have burst into a fit of laughter that would have hurt me in some way," the Plumber said, though he did let out a small chuckle as he pulled something out and tossed it over to Clank, "I should have known that you would have figured out the specifics of the Dimensionator. Its funny, Red told me not to underestimate you, Starlight Glimmer, and yet I ended up doing so anyway. He also suggested that I be the one to hand you that golden three and three quarters cubit hexagonal washer, though we both agree that you might need it someday."

"Then we had better stop looking for it," Angela commented, letting out a sigh as she realized what Tachyon could do with such a weapon, besides opening a portal for the Cragmites to return to the universe.

"Well, only the four of you can come to an agreement on that," the Plumber said, to which he hopped into his machine for a moment, but before he flushed himself he turned to look at them once more, "Oh, and I wouldn't worry about your sister too much... she's in good hands at the moment."

Before anyone could say anything the Plumber tapped a button and was flushed down into his machine, which would send him someplace hat wasn't Sargasso. That was promptly followed by Clank's communicator going off, to which they all breathed a sigh of relief when Clank mentioned that it had been muted the entire time, which meant that Qwark had no idea what the Dimensionator could do.

"Guys, we have a Code Red at the arena," Qwark declared, though it was clear that he was worried about something, "The fans were cheering on Ysmir after her latest match and declared that she needed something more challenging than what Tachyon was throwing at her, so the Emperor came up with a horrible idea... he wants all of you to fight Ysmir in a special match tomorrow!"

Starlight moaned, because even if her copies were busy at work she knew that none of them were prepared for a fight with an opponent as mysterious as Ysmir was... but with a deadline she could potentially finish some of the more important projects. She only hoped that Ysmir didn't have any surprises up her sleeves, otherwise they were going to be in serious trouble.
> Tools: Exhibition Match
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight and the others, for the fifth time, watched one of the fights that Red had recorded before handing the chip over to Starlight a few planets back, trying to understand all of Ysmir's abilities and skills before they had to fight her in the arena. As they watched the fights they became more and more worried about their chances, as it seemed that Ysmir had control over fire, ice, lightning, and a few other elements that were shown for a few seconds at most. Their soon to be enemy seemed to have the ability to phase through attacks, as several enemies tried to pierce her chest with their weapons and failed, as if she could simply slip by them. Clank commented that Ysmir had too many abilities for them to account for, meaning that it was virtually impossible for them to come up with a sound strategy that they could use to take out Ysmir and win the match.

Starlight, however, was going to be optimistic when it came to the fight with Ysmir, as she believed that no one was truly impossible to defeat, which meant that they had yet to find what Ysmir's weakness was. The only person that Starlight believed to be impossible to defeat was Sunset, as she was a God of Destruction and there was no other magic users in the universe save for her, Sunset, and maybe Ysmir.

"See? Right there, right before Ysmir is hit by one of the enemies she phases through the attack," Angela said, pointing at a part of the latest fight they had chosen to watch, where an enemy with an energy blade swung its weapon at Ysmir, to which it passed through the mysterious fighter before she destroyed the person in front of her, "but then when the next enemy comes at her she doesn't use the same ability again. Its almost like each of her attacks has a specific time limit that she has to wait through before she can use it again, so we should be focusing on using our more powerful attacks for that instant."

Starlight turned her head towards the screen and replayed the instant that Angela had pointed out, surprised that she hadn't noticed that fact the first few times that they had seen these fights. Even with that information in hand there were still a vast majority of abilities that they had to account for, such as Ysmir's elemental abilities, but it was times like this that Starlight was glad that she was constantly designing improvements to her armor, weapons, and gadgets. There was one untested modification that she had taken from the gauntlet that Qwark had used back when they were in the Bogon Galaxy, the one designed to suck in energy, natural or magical, and launch it to whoever she wanted to target.

She had managed to find the ancient sword that Sunset had used back before her bracelet had been broken, made some vast improvements to it while uninstalling the whip version that had been put into it, and installed the new modification that she had developed based off of Qwark's modification. Then she sharpened the edge and made sure that it was fully prepared for the coming battle... or rather one of her copies was working on making sure that the sword was ready, as well as some special modifications to her armor. She had yet to tell Ratchet and the other's about her new ability, to cast a spell that allowed her to create duplicates of herself for whatever purpose she wanted to use them for.

The four copies she had created, without trying anyway, were still hard at work in her workshop, but from what she could tell they were finishing some of the projects that would help them in their coming fight... and they were the ones that had finished working on rebuilding Sunset's old sword. Despite the fact that she technically wasn't working on the weapon, she did know that it was ready to go, making her silently wish she had discovered this power earlier in her life.

The four of them continued to watch and observe Ysmir's movements on the screen, studying how she moved around her enemies, when she used a certain power of hers, and when she dodged attacks. Clank had been right about Ysmir having a lot of abilities, not that anyone had doubted him and his opinion, but at the moment Starlight was starting to see that there were small instances where they could actually land a blow on her. They were going to have to be precise when they stepped into the arena, because there was no telling if their opponent was going to stick to what they were watching or if she was going to try something else.

Starlight took a moment to wonder where Sunset was, because this was the type of opponent she could get behind fighting and actually have some entertainment before eventually claiming victory... and then sighed as she returned her focus to the screen, as there was more to watch and additional skills they had to plan for.





When the Hyperion finally returned to Mukow, and the group had taken the time to have a decent night's sleep before the big fight, Ratchet and the others made their way down to the planet's surface, though not before Starlight ran into her workshop and gathered the sword that had been waiting for her. She had also learned how to dismiss her copies, as all she had to do was focus her magic on them and simply banish them, though oddly enough all four of the copies knew that she needed her full focus on the fight and were eager to leave for the moment. Once she had the weapon in hand, and it was attached to her belt, the group flew down to the grounds they had landed near the first time they had visited the planet, again taking two ships because Aphelion only had room for two, unless Clank rode on Starlight's back or something.

From there it was a simple matter to ride the nearby taxi over to the entrance of the arena, where they found Qwark standing outside he building... and discovered that he was walking around with a nervous look on his face.

"There you guys are!" Qwark exclaimed, running up to greet them as they climbed out of the taxi, to which they all discovered that he appeared to be ready for battle if his blaster was anything to go by, "I was worried that I'd have to fight Ysmir alone!"

"Its nice to see you too Qwark," Angela commented, shaking her head for a moment, "Now what's this about you fighting Ysmir? We're supposed to be the ones fighting her."

"Somehow Tachyon discovered that I was spying on him and that I lied about all of your identities," Qwark explained, referring to the names he had given them when they first stepped into the arena, "He's furious that two Lombaxes were fighting in his arena, and managed to make him look like a fool the entire time, but he's apparently got this idea in his head that Ysmir is an unbeatable opponent and that anyone that challenges her will die. So, after discovering that I was getting ready to call you here to give you the next clue I discovered, he had me call you in for a fight with Ysmir, though he has given his word that if we should somehow beat her, and claim victory, we'll be allowed to escape with our lives."

"So much for keeping our identities a secret," Angela said, removing the mask she had donned, putting it back in its container as Ratchet removed the fake glasses and mustache that he had been wearing, though she paused to unbind her tail, "I don't trust a word Tachyon says, as he'll be trying to kill us the next time we encounter his forces..."

Starlight snapped her head towards the walkway that challengers used to get to the arena entrance, those that didn't have access to the taxi anyway, and everyone quieted down for a moment, in case Tachyon was coming their way. A few seconds passed before Ysmir stepped through the flames, crossed over the bridge, and walked in their direction, though oddly enough none of the flames touched her armor or set it on fire. Ysmir walked right up to them and stopped before the teleport pad, though she said nothing as she turned her head towards all of them, as if she was studying who her opponents were going to be, before walking forward and disappearing.

Starlight knew that it was impossible to read Ysmir at the moment, thanks to the mask that was currently covering her face so no one could see it, but she had to admit that their opponent seemed pretty sure of herself... which they could use against her in the arena.

After a few moments of waiting, so they could gather themselves before they entered the arena, though when they used the teleport pad they found themselves on some sort of island and not in the arena. Considering that Tachyon now knew their identities, and had likely done some research before their arrival, Starlight felt that it was safe for them to assume that the Emperor was expecting high levels of destruction and didn't want his arena ruined. She also spotted Ysmir leaning against a nearby tree, as if she was waiting for someone to say something before starting the fight that everyone knew was coming. As everyone spread out they kept their hands near their weapons, because the moment they were told to begin fighting Ysmir was going to come after one of them.

Their arrival on the island was quickly followed by a screen moving into position and setting itself down so they could see who wanted to speak with them, to which Tachyon's face appeared on the screen.

"Good morning combatants," Tachyon said, his voice echoing out of the screen as his image looked over at Ysmir before turning to Ratchet and the others, "Today you have the honor of fighting for our amusement, where the winner shall earn the privilege to leave this island with their life while the loser... well, I'm sure you know what happens to losers. You may begin whenever you are ready."

Ysmir charged at the group, using her speed ability to close the gap between them, but before she could attack any of them everyone burst apart from each other. Even Qwark, who had no idea what the original plan was, was able to figure out what to do as Ysmir came at them, though once their enemy settled down they all pulled out their weapons. Ysmir looked at the four available enemies for her to choose from, going from Ratchet to Angela and from Starlight to Qwark, as if she was silently determining who was the greater threat. A few seconds later she targeted Starlight and charged at her, though before she could make contact Qwark quickly crossed the distance between them and threw his fist at Ysmir.

For a moment Ratchet thought that the attack was going to hit, as there was no possible way for Ysmir to see the attack coming, but before Qwark could make contact Ysmir pulled herself backwards and moved out of the way, where she tripped Qwark as she pulled back.

Angela, taking the moment that presented itself, pulled out a trio of bombs and threw them at Ysmir, to which she was positive that this attack was going to hit before her target could react. In the seconds leading up to Ysmir getting hit, and taking damage, her body seemed to phase and the bombs passed through her, to which the bombs struck the tree in front of her and exploded. Starlight, seeing that happen, charged at Ysmir with Ratchet coming from the left as well, though before either of them could reach their destination Ysmir raised her hands towards them and blasted them backwards with her wind powers.

That was quickly followed by Qwark, who Ysmir had ignored up until that moment, planting his boot in her chest and knocked her backwards, to which he opened fire with his blaster and emptied the entire clip in Ysmir's direction... to which the group discovered that the majority of the shells bounced off her armor with a few making tiny dents.

"How about that?!" Qwark declared, carefully switching the empty clip with another one that he carried with him at all times, "First blood goes to Captain Qwark!"

Ysmir pulled herself to her full height, her head facing the direction that Qwark was in, before bringing her hands to her face and connecting her hands together, indicating that she was preparing something. Ratchet, knowing what was coming due to the many times he and the others had watched the fights while they were in the Hyperion, moved to the side and dodged what was coming their way, as did Qwark, but Starlight as the one that stood her ground. Starlight watched Ysmir as she drew the blade that she had remade, allowing the energy function to activate as she held it in front of her, waiting for her foe to make her move.

That was followed by Ysmir releasing a large gout of fire at Starlight, who spun the sword around in a circular motion, where several of the flames breached the barrier she had briefly created and forced her back for a few seconds. As Starlight moved away from Ysmir, and still held her attention, Angela pulled out her Buzz Blades and loosed a swarm of them at their enemy while she was distracted. Ysmir, somehow sensing that the blades were coming her way, turned in Angela's direction and shifted her right hand towards her, cancelling the fire spell while summoning the wind spell that knocked out the blades from the air and sent them back at Angela. Starlight, seeing what was happening, snapped up a shield and stopped the blades from hitting Angela, though before anyone did anything else she summoned a cloud of smoke and had everyone back away from Ysmir.

"Its hard to aim at her weakness when she can somehow sense when our attacks are coming," Ratchet commented, though at the same time he put his guns away and tapped his wretch, to which the head collapsed and produced a blade that had a bit of lightning coming off of it, "Guns clearly aren't working in our favor, so we're going to have to focus on fighting her with blades and other weapons... because it might the only thing besides magic that could potentially hurt Ysmir."

"Then its a good thing I had this made in case I encountered someone that Starlight's weapons couldn't take out," Qwark said, to which he tapped his gloves, which turned silver and unfolded into a bow of some kind, while a quiver appeared on his back, "I've been practicing with an old weapon, made modern by one of the other heroes I became friends with, and I've kept this hidden until such a time that it was necessary to use it."

"Well then, let's do this," Angela stated, jumping to her feet as the other followed suit, to which they faced the smoke that was beginning to clear and reveal the shape of their foe.

Angela, Ratchet, and Qwark immediately charged towards their foe, with Qwark breaking away so he could provide cover fire with what appeared to be arrows made out of some sort of energy, while Starlight stayed at the back and powered up the sword she was carrying. She wasn't sure if what Ysmir was doing was even magic or not, but she could tell that the blade was absorbing every left over bit of energy that followed all of the attacks. She considered gathering her magic into an energy sphere and firing it at Ysmir while she was distracted, but that would actually hurt the others if they didn't see it coming... so she decided on simply charging into the battle as well.

Ratchet came from Ysmir's left while Angela came front the right, though when they swung their weapons at their target Ysmir extended her hands and stopped them dead in their tracks, slowing both Ratchet and Angela down to the point where they looked like they were standing still.

Wait, she's got a time ability as well? Starlight thought to herself, not believing what she was seeing at the moment, but noticed that the oddest thing at the moment was that she was able to move at her full speed, This just made things a lot harder.

Instead of attacking either Ratchet or Angela, and taking advantage of their situation, Ysmir merely moved out of the way as time seemed to resume for the two Lombaxes, where their weapons collided with each other before they realized what was happening. Starlight, however, let her magic gather inside the blade she was carrying for a few seconds before throwing a wave of energy at Ysmir, something that caused Ratchet and Angela to move out of the way. Ysmir stared at the wave of energy before extending her hand towards it, stopping it in the instant that it reached the area around her, before she waved her hand upwards and sent the wave into the air.

That was roughly followed by a pair of arrows flying through the air and slamming into Ysmir's chest, one next to her right shoulder while the second one found its home in her stomach, which caused her to stagger for a few seconds.

"I told you, first blood goes to me!" Qwark said, drawing two more arrows from his quiver as he took aim at Ysmir, "I guess watching you in the arena so much has given me the upper hand!"

Ysmir stared at Qwark for a moment, as if she was annoyed with him or something, but that was followed by her pulling out one of the arrows out of her body, then the second one, before she snapped them like they were made of some brittle material. Starlight couldn't tell if their opponent was hurt or not, as she didn't see any blood coming out of the small holes that Qwark had put in her armor, but she knew that now wasn't the time for her to be spending too much time thinking. A few seconds later Ysmir flashed through the air and slammed her fist into his chest, knocking the wind out of him before forcing him backwards, while surprising everyone else by the sheer speed she had pulled off in front of them.

Ratchet and Angela, sensing that their opponent wasn't paying attention to anyone else, held their weapons out and charged at Ysmir again, though this time they tried something different. Angela swung her weapon at Ysmir and forced her back before she could strike Qwark again, but that was exactly what she was hoping would happen. Ratchet approached from behind and swung his weapon at their opponent's back, though in the seconds before he could touch her, and continue the amount of damage they were doing, Ysmir activated the ability that would allow her to be immune to damage and the weapon passed through her. Before Ysmir could react with an attack of her own both Angela and Ratchet moved away from her, though they were annoyed that they weren't doing anything to her at all.

Starlight teleported into the area and loosed a volley of elemental attacks at Ysmir, intending to make her use up all of her abilities so she could deliver a blow that would change the course of this battle. As she expected Ysmir once again used her immunity ability, dodging the most of the attacks, while using the speed ability to dodge the rest of them, but Starlight had been tracking her the entire time. When Ysmir ended her speed ability she found herself impaled on Starlight's sword, though by the stance she took on Starlight noticed that she was a little shocked by what had happened.

"You have done well," Ysmir said, her voice sounding oddly familiar to Starlight, though she couldn't place where she had heard it, but Starlight flinched as Ysmir's right hand touched her horn, "but you can do better. Come Starlight Glimmer, show me your true power."

With that said Ysmir suddenly vanished and reappeared some distance away from Starlight, though what was odd was the fact that she still wasn't phased by the wound that Starlight had inflicted on her. Starlight was through playing around at this point, because so far they hadn't been able to do any damage that was slowing Ysmir down and it was starting to annoy her. Sure, she had been holding back with her magic because she had seen what Sunset had been able to do with her own magic, but that duplication spell was a sign that her own seals were starting to fall apart. Even Ysmir touching her horn was a sign that she needed to stop holding back, especially when their enemy was one of the strongest foes she had fought since, well, encountering Searing.

Starlight let out a sigh as she undid her seals, though at the same time she engaged her duplication spell, allowing the four copies she had created earlier to show up again. Numbers One through Four appeared around her again, much to the surprise of Ratchet, Angela, and Qwark, but she stopped focusing on them and focused on Ysmir. The copies charged at Ysmir and loosed the same spell at their opponent, summoning spires made of ice around Ysmir's feet, forcing her into the air as Starlight made her way towards the top of the trees. As the real Starlight stopped at the top of the spires, and charged the sword off of the energy in the air, her copies loosed every spell that was in her arsenal, throwing every element they could use at the seemingly invulnerable Ysmir.

As the copies fought Ysmir, and continued to force her backwards all of a sudden, Starlight noticed that their opponent was weaving some sort of energy through the air, though towards what end she had no idea. Then, just as she was getting ready to reveal herself, Qwark charged in and loosed arrows at Ysmir, who turned the energy she was gathering into a gust of wind that knocked the arrows, not to mention Qwark himself, backwards. She was then forced to engage her immunity ability as the copies of Starlight used more magic against her, though this was the time that Starlight was waiting for. She teleported behind Ysmir and swung the sword, now burning with a large amount of energy that rivaled the amount of power that Sunset used before her ascension to being the God of Destruction.

That was followed by a large wave of magical energy slamming into Ysmir and exploding on impact, causing Qwark, Ratchet, Angela, and the copies to back away as the explosion rocked the area... though when the smoke cleared the only thing that Starlight had managed to destroy was a portion of the back of Ysmir's hood, which revealed the coloration of her hair. Starlight found it odd that Ysmir's hair color looked like Sunset's hair, more specifically when she was in her godly state, but she had seen multiple people having the same hair color before, so she wasn't going to worry over anything like this at the moment.

Ysmir turned her attention to Qwark, as if she believed that it was his fault that she had actually taken some damage, to which the air around her shifted... though in Starlight's eyes she noticed that while Qwark and everyone else, excluding Ysmir, seemed to slow down she could still move at her full speed. Without wasting a second, and letting the opportunity go to waste, Starlight teleported herself in front of Ysmir and blocked the attack that was heading Qwark's way, stopping Ysmir in her tracks. Before she could move away, and get out of Starlight's sight, Starlight engaged her magic and the ground behind her target broke open, to which a dozen golden chains wrapped around Ysmir's arms and legs to bind her in place.

"Let's end this," Starlight said, to which she opened herself to her full magical potential, which was followed by her magic pulsing around her sword as she prepared an attack that Sunset had used to great effect so long ago, back when she and the others were adventuring through the Bogon Galaxy.

Starlight pulled in almost every ounce of magic she could muster, including reabsorbing the copies and what little magic they possessed, while at the same time Ratchet, Angela, and Qwark retreated before the attack hit its target. As Qwark retreated he seemed to realize something, as he turned back and loosed one last arrow at Ysmir from the side, forcing her to activate her immunity ability, which was what he had been hoping for. Starlight, thankful for the opportunity, readied herself as she started the attack, shouting the name the instant Ysmir's immunity ability crumbled before her eyes.

"Eat this! Getsuga," Starlight shouted, swinging the weapon at Ysmir's chest, intending on going from the left hip all the way to the right shoulder and releasing all of the power in one massive attack, "Tenshou!"

The resulting explosion rocked the entire island, kicking up so much dust and dirt that starlight had to lower her visor to prevent anything from getting in her eyes, while at the same time making her shield herself with the minor shield she was able to summon. When the smoke cleared, and everyone was able to see what had happened, there was a massive crater where Ysmir had been standing... and everything that had been in the immediate area of the center of the attack had been obliterated in that instant. Starlight was amazed by the sheer destruction that rested before her eyes, because it almost looked like something that Sunset would have done with a single swing of her blade, but after a few seconds she sat down where she was standing and kept her eyes on the crater.

"I... I don't believe it," Ratchet said, staring at the crater as he, Angela, Clank, and Qwark pulled themselves out of their hiding spot and approached Starlight, "that was one of Sunset's moves. When did you find the time to master that?"

"No... idea..." Starlight huffed, exhausted beyond belief, which was understandable considering how much power she had poured into that attack, "I... hope... it worked..."

A few seconds passed before they spotted Ysmir, though when she emerged from the smoke the entire group was shocked to see that Starlight's attack had literally destroyed most of the clothing above where she had been cut, as a vast majority of the left side of her body was now exposed... save for her chest, as there was some sort of cloth wrapped around her. Even her mask, the one thing preventing people from seeing her face, had been destroyed by the attack, to which they group let out a gasp as they stared at a face that looked like the humanoid version of Sunset they had created for the Secret Agent Clank show; Professor Darkstar. Then they stared at the bleeding cut that Starlight had given Ysmir, which was surprising because of the fact that none of their other attacks had caused any damage at all.

"You did good," Ysmir said, her voice sounding like their sister as well, which was impossible considering that Sunset had never taken on a humanoid form like this in the past, "you have beaten me..."

Starlight was about to say that they hadn't beaten Ysmir, as she and the others were still standing, but before she could speak up she noticed some cracks spreading across Ysmir's body, almost as if she was suddenly made of glass. The cracks spread out all over her body, creating crack upon crack, reminding Starlight of when Sunset had used her ability to crack the air and shake the earth. A few seconds passed before Ysmir shattered as if she had been a glass window or something, causing all of them to look at each other in shock, but before Tachyon opened up the communicator they quickly returned to the teleport pad, with Qwark carrying Starlight, and teleported back to the entrance of the arena.

Qwark promised that he still had everything he had taken from from Tachyon's quarters and office, so they returned to their ships and took off, each of them wondering what had happened to Ysmir when Starlight's attack had struck her... though Starlight had the feeling that they hadn't seen the last of her.
> Tools: Kreeli Comet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Starlight, Ratchet, Angela, Clank, and Qwark sat around the table in the Hyperion, going over the various items Qwark was able to get his hands on before being discovered by Emperor Tachyon, which sill annoyed him because he had, according to what he told the others, used all of his stealth abilities to avoid being detected while he was gathering what information he could find. One of the items he had secured was a gadget known as a Holo-Pirate Disguise, which worked like the Tyhrraguise, though instead of questioning why that was useful they turned their attention to the second item. It turned out to be another small robot that contained information on its hard drive, though this time it contained a few bits of information that were related to something called the IRIS Supercomputer, which was apparently one of the smartest pieces of machinery in the entire galaxy... and that it was currently being held by Captain Slag of all people.

It didn't take them long to guess why Tachyon was interested in such a machine, because it would be able to tell him where the Dimensionator was located... and then he could do whatever he wanted with the terrifying weapon. This pretty much meant that they were going to have to figure out where the weapon was located and either retrieve it until it could be hidden again, or help guard it until they could figure out how to permanently stop Tachyon. Despite all of this news, and the fact that they were going to have to piss off Captain Slag again, Starlight remained silent as she stared out of the nearby window and looked at the planets they were passing.

"Is something bothering you Starlight?" Ratchet asked, though he had the feeling he knew exactly what was making his sister be silent at the moment, "Its about the fight, isn't it?"

"Ratchet, we killed Ysmir." Starlight replied, but even as she said the words she couldn't help but wonder by their opponent looked like the humanoid version of their sister, the one they had created so long ago, "We beat her in battle and then she shattered into a thousand pieces... and we never got to ask her any questions about who she was and where she learned all of those abilities."

"Then you should blame Emperor Tachyon for forcing us to fight in a kill or be killed type of battle," Qwark commented, causing Ratchet and the others to turn towards him for a moment, to which they discovered that he was cleaning the bow he had used earlier, despite the fact that it hadn't been damaged at all, "though we should be counting our blessings that Ysmir wasn't actually Sunset in disguise, given what she was able to do before coming to the arena. If we had been forced to fight Sunset... well, I don't have to say what would have happened."

Starlight shook her head, knowing that even if Ysmir had been Sunset in disguise, which was unlikely, then she wouldn't have gone all out against them like that. One of the things that she couldn't wrap her head around was the fact that when Ysmir was fighting it almost seemed like her style was a direct copy of Sunset's own style. The moment that thought came into her head, and refused to leave, Starlight opened one of the fights that Red had recorded for her and the others, almost as if he had known ahead of time that they were going to be fighting Ysmir at some point.

As she watched the fight once more, and had it set up so everyone else could see what she was doing, Starlight immediately noticed something that she hadn't noticed previously... to which she opened up the command terminal and downloaded all of Sunset's moves so she could compare the two fighters. After some tinkering she laid an image of Sunset over Ysmir and started the video from the beginning, to which they all watched as both of the fighters flowed in the same motion. Not once did either of them break from what the other was doing, leaving Starlight to wonder if someone had been watching her sister from the beginning of their journey, because there was no way that someone could mimic Sunset's moves without any flaws.

"Despite the fact that Ysmir is missing a sword, she seems to have copied Sunset's movements down perfectly," Angela commented, though she was somewhat disturbed by how accurate Ysmir was in the video, "I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"If someone was watching Sunset the entire time, then we had best be on our guard," Ratchet said, to which Clank nodded his head, "its possible there might be people who have studied us as well, so we should be careful of any new strange enemies that we come across in the future... wouldn't want them to give us a nasty surprise."

Despite what Ratchet and Angela said, and what they didn't say, Starlight wasn't convinced that Ysmir had just been a fan of Sunset's style and had copied it, and Sunset's hair color, to the point where she looked their sister. There was something odd going on with the person they had just defeated... and unfortunately they couldn't ask her any questions about herself. Starlight sighed as she focused her mind on how they were going to get to the Supercomputer, though she suspected that it was going to involve fighting a lot of pirates.





When the Hyperion got near the location of the IRIS Supercomputer, the Kreeli Comet, Ratchet and the others received a rather unusual call, as the people who wanted to speak with them was none other than Captain Slag. Everyone looked at each other for a few seconds, wondering if they should accept the transmission or if they should ignore it, until Starlight touched the button with her hoof.

"Ahoy there, young scallywags!" the robot proclaimed, his face appearing on the screen as he stared at all of them, "I see that you are approaching the Kreeli Comet... no doubt in search of the IRIS, like so many before you. I'll tell you what; I'll let you use the Supercomputer if you do a little something for me."

"And what would that be?" Angela asked, knowing that striking a deal with a pirate was a bad idea, but she decided to keep her mouth shut as she listened to the pirate's request.

"Your stunt on Ardolis left a few of my soldiers questioning my every move," Captain Slag replied, his tone indicating that he wasn't pleased about the event, "the pirates that are stationed on the Kreeli Comet are the mutinous bunch that departed from my company shortly after our mutual friend Red returned from Sargasso. Before their departure they stole a good portion of my treasure, which I would like to have returned with haste... so my request is that you put down these mutinous dogs and secure the area. Once they are taken care of, and my treasure is secure, you will be given access to the IRIS Supercomputer... where you can ask it anything you want before you leave."

Starlight and the others shared a quick glance with each other, debating whether or not they should trust the pirate captain, before quickly returning their attention to the screen.

"You've got a deal," Starlight said, to which the others nodded their heads, indicating that the terms of the agreement were fair and that they would gladly help the captain out, as he actually hadn't done anything to them in the time they had known each other.

"Wonderful." Captain Slag stated, though he seemed to be happy that they were willing to help out, if the look on his face was anything to go by, "I shall be waiting for your transmission."

With that said the transmission between them and Captain Slag was cut off, to which the group continued their preparations while wondering what obstacles they would be facing on the comet. Starlight turned her attention back to the gadget that Qwark had gotten his hands on, because she had been able to modify it down into a symbol that could rest on someone's belt, just like the gadget she had invented back before Nefarious' invasion. Considering how big the actual gadget was, at least four times as big as it needed to be, she stripped it down and made four of them from the entire gadget, though she had tested them and was relieved to find that they still worked. Now all four of them would be able to infiltrate the pirate compound without being found out until it was too late for their enemies, which Starlight assumed was the original purpose for the device.

When they reached their destination they took the two smaller ships down to the comet's surface and landed near the point that Captain Slag had sent them, as he and his band had built the place and knew where the best entrance was. After they landed, and made sure that Aphelion knew to keep herself and the other ship safe while they were gone, the group approached the weapon vendor and replaced all the ammunition they had used against Ysmir, which was followed by Ratchet and Starlight picking up the next available weapon; the Pyro Blaster, the Polaris flamethrower weapon. They then walked forward and found four pirates standing guard in front of a door, one that had a pirate head on the front of it, to which they got the chance to test out their new weapon and burned the pirates to the ground.

With the pirates taken care of, and they were out of the sight of the doorkeeper, Starlight and the others tapped their new gadgets, to which an illusion washed over them. The device changed their normal bodies into the robotic version of themselves, while also adding a menacing look that gave them the appearance of being pirates, or more specifically pirates that belonged to the ones they were currently fighting against.

"Ahoy, me hearties!" the doorkeeper greeted as the four of them approached it, not even aware that they were using a gadget to fool it, "Dance the jig, and celebrate yer... er... piracy!"

As the group started to, as the door put it, 'dance the jig' they noticed that the doorkeeper conjured an image of a dancing robot that moved in the way they were, though when the projection moved to the right they were expected to do the same time. It didn't take them long to do the dance, without failing the first time, to which the door opened for them as the doorkeeper chuckled, where they found another group of pirates standing around and chatting with each other. All they had to do was wait for Starlight to levitate one of the pieces of scrap metal into the air and fire it at the explosives that the pirates were standing beside, blowing them up and opening the way for them to move forward.

As Ratchet attached his wrench to the bolt crank and moved them upwards, where they would be able to advance through the pirate fortress, they disengaged their disguises for the moment as they rode to the top of the ship they were on. They found six more enemies waiting for them at the top of where their elevator was headed, but they stood by explosives, like a group of morons, and Qwark was more than willing to eliminate them with an arrow to the explosive container. With the group taken care of Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela activated their boots and rode down the grind rail that was in front of them, though before any of them could question how Qwark was going to follow them the question was answered, because he happened to have his own pair of special boots as well.

When they reached the end of the rail they had to take out a pair of pirates that were standing in front of them, and the pair behind that pair, but the four of them were able to do so with some ease and came to another area that had four more pirates standing around a fire and a fifth one manning a turret. Qwark had them pause for a moment as he drew another arrow from his quiver, to which he aimed at the pirate standing by the turret and put his arrow in the head of his target.

"Nice shot Qwark!" Ratchet said, though for a moment he couldn't believe he had said that, which was followed by them declaring war on the rest of the pirates in front of them.

It didn't take them long to take out the remaining pirates, even though they received allies in the form of two normal pirates and one of the bigger electrified ones, so they were able to move on again. Starlight wrapped her magic around the four of them and levitated them all up onto the ship that was in front of them, using the back entrance that was available, where they opened fire on the pirates that were standing there. When the enemies had been taken care of they moved to the side, out of the doorkeeper's sight again, and reactivated their disguises, which was followed by them approaching the door and dancing the jig, as per the door's commands.

On the other side of the door they found a large number of explosive containers, which they blew up automatically, and a group of at least seven pirates walking around, who shouted at them the moment they discovered each other. Another one of the electric enemies showed up as the last of their foes fell, though Starlight used her magic to pin it to the wall so they could tear it to pieces. Starlight then levitated them across the walkway they could have walked on, but she decided to save a few seconds and get them closer to their destination. When they reached the front of the ship, however, they discovered a massive robot pirate, clad in some sort of armor with a gun that fired large explosives, that was blocking their path.

"Ahoy invaders!" the large robot declared, glaring at them for a few minutes, as if he was deciding who to attack first, "The name is Shamus McSoggeybridges, and I lead these pirates. I will cast you into the depths of the universe and plunder your ship of all its treasures!"

"Good luck with that," Starlight said, a grin appearing on her face for a moment, just as the same thing happened to the rest of the group, "You'll find that we're not easy to beat."

As it turned out the battle was extremely easy, as all Shamus did was stand where he was and fired his round explosives at them, which Starlight grabbed and threw back at him to damage his armor while Ratchet and Qwark fired at his chest and Angela cut into his leg armor from behind. After a minute of fighting part of Shamus' armor exploded, dropping pieces of raritanium, before the mutinous pirate captain fled to recover from his beating. They then advanced forward and picked up any necessary ammunition from the weapon vendor, though as they did so Qwark aimed at the two turrets that were waiting in the area they were going to have to pass through and took out the pirates that were manning them.

With the turrets taken care of they noticed more pirates, all armed with shields, coming their way, to which they opened fire as they slowly made their way down the walkway. As they moved forward Qwark also took out the other two turrets that he noticed before they could open fire on them, ensuring that they wouldn't be overpowered by the pirates. Eventually they came to a bolt crank that allowed them to lower a bridge that was blocking their path, where Angela, Qwark, and Starlight protected Ratchet while he turned the crank around. When the bridge was down, and their enemies were taken care of, they walked over it and entered another area with no pirates waiting for them, which meant that they were going to be ambushed.

That was followed by Shamus, his armor apparently reinforced in the small amount of time since the last time they had seen him, reappearing and destroying the bridge they would have used, though he simply hung on the ledge he was hanging from and fired at them... just like the last time they had fought each other. It was basically the same fight as before, only this time Angela had to switch to her guns because the enemy wasn't coming down and fighting them, and after a minute or two Shamus lost another piece of his armor, and the raritanium connected to it, before he retreated again.

It was then that the group discovered that the strange robots that Clank could see, and Starlight could also focus on if she used her magic to see them, had given Clank a laser that was capable of cutting into stone and earth like they were made of butter. With the ice wall taken care of, and the way open, they moved forward and fought the small group of pirates that were standing guard outside another camp area. After a few seconds of searching they found a tunnel that would no doubt take them closer to their destination, to which they fought the few pirates that were standing in the tunnel, though at the end they came to what appeared to be the ancient entrance of the IRIS Supercomputer, which was guarded by one last group of pirates.

It didn't take them long to get around the enemies that they discovered in front of their destination, though they had to activate their disguises once more to bypass another doorkeeper. Once they danced the jig, and the door was lowered, they took out the explosives that were in front of them and walked forward, to which they discovered that Shamus was waiting for them in front of the entrance to the IRIS Supercomputer... and that he was willing to fight them to the death. After another minute of the same routine that they had used earlier, to great effect, Shamus' armor exploded, though this time it appeared that he was dead for real.

They then walked into the area that would allow them to converse with the IRIS, where they found that it had to have been damaged during the time that Captain Slag had taken control over it... though there was a circular hatch that Clank could fit in to make the necessary repairs on the computer. Starlight, using the shrinking device they had picked up on their last adventure, slipped inside Clank's storage container as he moved into the inner workings of the IRIS, where they would get to work while Ratchet, Angela, and Qwark told Captain Slag that they had upheld their end of the bargain.

As they opened their communicators to call Captain Slag, and tell him the good news, Ratchet spotted the pirate in question walking towards them, along with the robot that called itself Rusty Pete.

"Those still loyal to me are already collecting my treasure," Captain Slag said, glaring at them with his eyes for a moment, indicating that he wanted nothing more to do with them once they had departed from the comet, "Ask the Supercomputer your questions and be out of here before one of my more idiotic followers tries something funny."

"First we have to repair IRIS to some state of functionality," the communicator said, to which Clank and Starlight appeared on the screen, "there appears to be some internal damage and pieces missing from their proper locations... Captain Slag, you wouldn't happen to know where the required pieces are, would you?"

"Look, IRIS was damaged when we found her," Captain Slag replied, though at the same time he snapped at one of his pirates, who ran off to go get something, "I'm not sure who was here before us, they never answered any of our attempts to communicate with them, but they were in the process of dismantling this machine. We were able to stop from from running off with all the parts, which would have made fixing IRIS impossible, but I'm not going to lie, I'm no genius like the people who made this machine. I never tried to put her back together, because I knew that I was only going to make it worse, but I did keep the parts nearby so someone else could do what we could not."

A minute or two later and the pirate that Captain Slag had sent away came running back with a large crate of parts, which caused Clank to come back out of the shaft he was in, allow Starlight to shrink the box down to a height that would allow them to get the parts inside the machine, and then return to his work. Once the box of parts had been delivered, and their work was done, Captain Slag and his pirates bid them farewell, intending to get away from the and never cross paths again. Ratchet, Angela, and Qwark stood in the main part of the Supercomputer, waiting to see if Clank and Starlight could turn it back on and help them figure out where the Dimensionator was located.

After some time, between thirty minutes to an hour, Clank returned from the shaft and Starlight enlarged herself after she jumped out of his chest, while at the same time the IRIS turned itself on and powered up.

"We were only able to fix her about halfway, so she's at fifty percent functionality," Starlight commented, sounding annoyed that she could have done more, but there was only so much she, Clank, and the Zoni, the special creatures Clank could see, could actually do with what was available to them at the moment, "If we find someone that had the time to repair her, and knew where to find everything needed, I'm sure she would reach one hundred percent in no time."

"Welcome Ratchet, Clank, Starlight, Angela, and Qwark," IRIS said as it fully activated, speaking with a voice that echoed all around them, "I have been expecting the five of you for a long time."

"What can you tell us about the Dimensionator?" Ratchet asked, because that was their main concern at the moment, as anything else they could ask was irrelevant at the moment.

"Dimensionator," IRIS replied, calling up the schematics, which appeared on the main screen for them all to see, "Created by the Lombax architects of Breegus Minor. Its creation marked the turning point of the Great War."

"Where is it now?" Angela asked, because she knew that if they had the exact location of the weapon they would be able to either defend it or secure it so it couldn't be used at all.

"The last prototype was hidden by explorer Max Apogee in Kerchu City," IRIS replied, though that piece of information informed them that they might bring Talwyn here to see if they could figure out where her father went... after they secured the powerful weapon.

"Before we go there the Zoni told Starlight and I that Talwyn had been captured," Clank mentioned, though he noticed that both Ratchet and Angela seemed annoyed, which was understandable considering that Talwyn was one of their friends and allies, "They said that she would die if we left her there."

"Then that is where we'll go next," Ratchet said, to which they all turned backwards and made their way outside the room they were in, though at the same time he had to wonder if IRIS could tell them where Sunset was located.

Ratchet only hoped that they would have the time to come back here and figure out all of the questions that he had about his sisters and where they came from, because all he had at the moment were questions and none of the answers. He suspected that, in time, he'd have all the answers, but for now he would have to settle for saving the Polaris Galaxy from Tachyon... and then they could focus on answering all the questions that they had.
> Tools: Viceron
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Upon learning that Talwyn was currently being held in Zordoom Prison, one of the most nasty places in the entire section of the galaxy they were in, Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight sat down and began to go over what they knew and how they were supposed to get inside so they could save their friend... along with Cronk and Zephyr, who had likely been captured at the same time. It as at that time that they discovered that Qwark had managed to swipe the blueprints for the prison, which was why he had been called out as the spy in the first place, though he seemed pleased with himself. With the plans in hand they began going over them, planning out how they could infiltrate the prison, find out where Talwyn was being held, and then rescue her before something happened to them.

At the same time Angela decided that it was time to ask Starlight about the new abilities that she was using, because she was surprised to find that the unicorn could create copies of herself, that might actually be able to take damage until she sent them away, and was able to copy one of Sunset's attacks.

"I don't know how I learned those skills," Starlight admitted, while at the same time she was seeing if there was anything on the outside of the prison that could be hit to damage the inside, to make their take easier, "one of them just came naturally to me... but Sunset's destructive power, I must have learned that by watching her closely and memorizing what she did. I guess in the heat of the battle with Ysmir I simply recalled one of Sunset's more powerful moves and used it without thinking."

"I think that's the last we'll be seeing of her," Qwark commented, causing everyone to turn towards him for a few seconds, "What? She shattered into a thousand pieces and left no evidence that she was even there to begin with. I think its safe to assume that Starlight's new powers have scared Ysmir off, which means we won't have to worry about her showing her borrowed face ever again."

Starlight, however, was unconvinced that Ysmir was truly gone, because their opponent had seemed so real while they were fighting her, which meant that she had chosen to retreat before they had really bested her. She still found it odd that Ysmir's abilities looked like magic, and could be labeled as magic depending on who they asked, but she never felt a single ounce of her opponent's power while they were fighting. She didn't recall seeing any of the runes that Sunset had used to bind her power when she had stared at Ysmir's body, which meant that even if their opponent had borrowed Sunset's voice and face she wasn't actually their sister. Despite those facts she couldn't deny that there was something off about Ysmir, but now that she had seemed to disappear from the galaxy Starlight decided that it was time to put her in the past once more.

With that decision made she returned her attention to the plans that everyone else was going over, to which she picked up a pointer with her magic and started pointing at key points that Qwark had missed out on mentioning. From what she could tell there was one way into the prison that didn't involve going through the front door, though they were going to have to move around the exterior of the prison before they reached the opening. Ratchet smiled as he and Angela pointed out areas on the inside of the prison, connecting to the entrance that Starlight had spotted and stringing them together in such a way that made it seem like one person had come up with the plan.

The moment they came to an agreement on what they needed to do, and how they were going to get inside the prison, the group sat back and relaxed until the end of their flight, because they knew that there wouldn't be any time for it once they started their assault on the prison and its wardens.





When they arrived at the prison they immediately spotted a weapon vendor, with the new Negotiator rocket launcher weapon available, so Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela picked one up and upgraded them, though Qwark decided not join in after a few seconds of indecision, which meant that he didn't want to be the odd man out. Once they all had their new weapons they moved towards the rail system that needed to be fixed, where they dealt with the small roller enemies that came at them... along with a pair of fish controlled robots that had an invisibility module added to them, which would have made it impossible to see them if their outline wasn't visible. It was easy to take out the enemies that were in front of them, to which Ratchet accessed the terminal that was in front of them and hacked into it with the device that Red had given them back on Sargasso.

The moment he finished hacking into the device the section of the rail moved into place, allowing them to climb onto the entire course and begin their advance towards the entrance of the prison they were heading towards. As they made their way towards their destination they heard the prison announcers call out various announcements for the inmates, likely calling various inmates forward for whatever their punishment was. The group ignored the majority of the announcements, as the names that were stated meant nothing to them, but then they heard one name that made them all do a double take.

"Inmate #510D, Hardlight, Ace," the announcer said through he speakers, "please report to the mess hall for KP."

"Wait, Ace is here?" Ratchet said, tapping his communicator so he could speak to Angela while they were on the rail system, "I thought you were the only Jedi that had come to this galaxy?"

"I sent Ace to the Polaris system to investigate the rumors I heard about Tachyon," Angela replied, sounding pissed off that it had taken her so long to realize that Ace hadn't been maintaining radio silence the entire time, which at the same time it was clear what she was planning on doing once they entered the prison, "Had I known that he had been captured I would have come to his rescue a lot sooner... but at least we'll be able to save him and Talwyn at the same time."

When they reached the end of the rail system they made sure to avoid the red spotlight in front of them, and the one behind it, as they removed the trio of roller enemies and walked up the wall that would bring them closer to the prison's entrance. At the top of the wall was another red spotlight that was protecting a bolt crank, though it was rather easy for them to activate the crank and lower a nearby elevator for them to use. They then used the elevator, and jumped over a gap, before they walked up another wall, where they had to jump over several electric obstacles and red spotlights before they reached their destination.

Once they were inside the prison they took out the group of enemies that were guarding another terminal for Ratchet to hack into, to which the bridge in front of them was put back into place and allowed them to move forward. Starlight pulled out the ancient Lombax weapon she had found on Sargasso, which she had yet to make a duplicate of for Ratchet, and targeted a large walker that was in front of them. She pulled the trigger and blew the walker to pieces, though before she put the weapon away she spotted a second walker and took it out as well, which was followed by them approaching a gap that required them to use the Swingshot to get over. They then took out the enemies that happened to be in front of them before walking into a passage that brought them to a part of the prison that they would have to glide down... after Ratchet hacked into the nearby terminal.

Before they got too much further into the prison, and really got the wardens pissed off, Angela and Qwark declared that it would be easier for them to split up at the moment, to which Ratchet waited as Starlight helped the two of them that would lead them to the mess hall, from the outside of the prison with her levitation magic, before the two siblings were alone with Clank again. The moment they were back together they jumped into the elevator shaft that they were at the top of and began their descent towards the bottom, where the defenses tried to stop them with lasers... ones that had a square opening in each layer for them to move through. The instant they landed on the bottom of the shaft they were assaulted by another group of wardens, though even with the two of them it was easy for them to take care of them.

They then made their way towards the moving cells that were in front of them, taking out the next group of enemies that stood in their way, before they approached yet one more terminal for Ratchet to hack into... where he managed to stop the line just as Talwyn's cell stopped in front of where they were standing. A few seconds later the door opened and Talwyn, equipped with all her gear, used her jetpack to exit the cell and land in front of them, with a smile on her face no less.

"Wow, a jailbreak," Talwyn commented, grinning at the two of them for a few seconds, "I'd say that you know how to impress a lady, but your already married and everything. Though I have one question; how did you know that we were here?"

"The Zoni told us that you were here," Clank answered, to which Talwyn nodded for a few seconds, "We will explain everything once we're somewhere safe... so let's go get Cronk and Zephyr before we make our way out of here."

The moment Talwyn was freed from her cell, and they made their way towards the shaft that brought them down here, they apparently tripped some alarm that made the wardens come at them, or maybe it was Angela and Qwark as Ratchet commented. When Talwyn asked where they were she learned that they were freeing Ace Hardlight, one of Angela's Jedi Knights, but she didn't bother to say much as they opened fire on the enemies coming their way. They then rode the elevator back up the shaft they had glided down, fighting all of the enemies that dropped in the defeat and capture them, but it was rather easy for them to succeed in defending themselves.

When they reached the top of the shaft, and the elevator came to a stop, they made their way back through the passageway they had moved through to reach the shaft, though they ignored the screen that had Tachyon speaking to them. When they reached the first area of the prison they had walked through, where they had restored a bridge, they found that they were going to have to make their way around a new walkway they could use. It took them a few seconds to get rid of the enemies that were in front of them, where they glided down to the circular area they needed to pass through, though they took out all the wardens that were standing in their way as they entered another shaft that had more robots waiting for them.

As it turned out Talwyn actually separated from the group as she rescued her war bots, though once they were all free Starlight attached something to them and activated her magic, teleporting them to the Hyperion. Once the trio was safely aboard the starship, and were allowed to relax, Starlight opened a channel with the ship's AI and had them hack into the prison, to which they released Talwyn's ship as well. With that done Ratchet, Clank, and Starlight made their way back to their ships, where they found Angela and Qwark standing next to Ace, who was garbed in his brown Jedi robes.

"I'm glad to see the lot of you again," Ace said, patting Ratchet on the back once they were all together again, "I hear your off to save another galaxy from another villain... room for one more?"

"I don't see why not," Ratchet replied, to which they all climbed into the two ships and made their way back to the Hyperion, where they could relax for some time as they moved to their next destination.

Ratchet knew that they needed to get to where the Dimensionator was as quickly as possible, but even then he couldn't help but wonder where Sunset was, which he was determined to find out once he and the others had finished off Tachyon... and for some reason he had the feeling that something big was coming their way.
> Tools: The Missing Dimensionator
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	On the way to Planet Jasindu, where the IRIS Supercomputer said the last prototype of the Dimensionator was located, Ratchet and the others spoke with Ace, Talwyn, and the two war bots about what they might have heard while they were in Zordoom Prison. At first Cronk had asked them why it was important for them to share that piece of information, but Zephyr had stopped him when he explained that the four of them were bound to know something about the Polaris Galaxy that they didn't already know. Once that bridge had been crossed Ace informed the group that he had heard about the mysterious Ysmir, who the other prisoners were hoping would come and save them at some point, but before anyone could tell them about the battle they had with the mysterious figure Ace said something else that stopped them.

"Ysmir, according to the inmates, was like a hero to the people of this galaxy," Ace said, to which he shuddered as he reached into his robe and pulled out a chip, one that he handed over to Starlight, who studied it for a few seconds before inserting it into the table they were sitting at, "but where there is a hero, there is always a villain waiting to make their move. The other inmates mentioned that this particular villain only stayed on one planet, plotting her eventual escape, but even though she's been stuck on this one particular planet she's made a name for herself already."

As Ace spoke an image appeared in the middle of the table, thanks to the special projector that Starlight and Angela had created so long ago, though what appeared in front of them all was some sort of shadowy creature that was covered by a robe made of pure darkness. Starlight had read some of the Old Earth myths that were associated with ghost like creatures that were known as wraiths, though she was surprised to find that this one was wearing a robe over its body, reminding her of Ysmir for a moment. As the image became more focused they all noticed that the creature was wearing a pair of spiked gauntlets on its hands, gauntlets that were tarnished by the shadows, while wearing some sort of tarnished silver crown that curved from the forehead and reached down towards the sides of the face. At the top of the crown rested a circle of spikes, eight set in a perfect circle, with a blood red stone set in the middle of the forehead, set between the crown itself and the head spike.

Starlight, despite knowing that it was only an image that was sitting in front of them, couldn't help but feel some sort of fear touch her as she stared at the unusual wraith... while noticing that there were dark purple strands coming from where the creature's eyes were supposed to be located.

"The inmates call her the Witch-Queen of Reepor," Ace continued, adverting his eyes from the image, leading everyone else to do the same thing until Starlight decided to just turn the image off, "though the wardens of the prison called her a number of other names; Fear, the Unspeakable Evil, and Hatred among other things."

"Why Hatred and Fear?" Angela asked, though when she glanced over at Ratchet and Starlight she found that they were thinking the same thing, they were worried that someone was mimicking another aspect of Sunset, as Ysmir might have been the humanoid form they had created for Sunset so long ago.

"Because she has an unnatural ability to induce someone's fear just by looking at them," Ace replied, though he held up a hand to stop them from asking more questions, "Listen, I only wanted you to be aware of her existence in case we ever ended up on Reepor, because both the inmates and the wardens both agree that such a creature shouldn't be allowed to leave that planet. They're afraid that something horrible will happen if she manages to leave the planet and meddle with the other planets... or the other galaxies for that matter."

Starlight remained silent for a time, remembering what she had read about Dark Magic and recalling the moment she had briefly given into the darkness when Qwark had betrayed them the first time. She had never touched the darkness again, not when she had seen how it had twisted Sunset when Searing had taken over, but she could tell, from just a glance at the wraith, that there was some sort of foul magic at work. The wraith had to be magical in nature, because there was no way such a creature should be able to exist and wear a flowing robe made of darkness at the same time without something happening.

Starlight couldn't shake the feeling that they were going to be fighting that wraith at some point in the future, because they had been introduced to Ysmir before fighting her in combat, so as far as she was concerned the same thing could happen here... though she only prayed that she was wrong.





When the Hyperion entered the space above Planet Jasindu, and came to a stop, the group was surprised to find at least three ships waiting above the planet's surface; two belonging to the Space Pirates they had several encounters with, while the remaining one looked like one of Tachyon's ships. As they into their ships, all three of them at this point, and made their way down to the planet's surface they discovered that there were more than just three ships, as there were literally pieces of at least another five scattered everywhere. Even the three they had spotted looked like they had recently been in a battle, because there were holes scattered everywhere and pieces of the ships just floating nearby.

The scene only got worse when they spotted at least three dozen smaller pirates ships crashed all around the city they were supposed to be landing near... along with one of Tachyon's cruiser ships.

"What in the name of the Stars happened here?" Starlight asked, looking at all of the destruction that had been caused to the planet, because while they landed it was easy to see that much of the surrounding forest was either still burning or had trees broken down.

Ratchet, knowing that Starlight had taken to privately saying her new phrase whenever she was alone, decided that now wasn't the best time to wonder about what she said, because the scene in front of them was a mess. Besides the ships that were scattered everywhere, while not even mentioning the trees and the fires, there was also quite the number of bodies scattered everywhere. As they landed Ratchet could see the bodies of Tachyon's forces, body parts that belonged to the robotic pirates, and even the native Kerchu that called the planet home... as if they had some massive war between the three forces.

"War is what happened here," a voice said, just as everyone else climbed out of their ships and noticed Red standing nearby, though there were a few cuts on his arms and legs that had dried up blood under his clothing, but he waited till Blue landed on his shoulder before continuing, "One of Captain Slag's underlings overheard that this was where the Dimensionator was supposed to resting and sold the information to Tachyon, who ordered quite a number of his forces to come here and claim it for him. The newest splinter group of the pirates came to help their new partner claim what wasn't his, then Captain Slag entered the picture and they all started firing at each other. I got caught in the crossfire, trying to save some of the friendly Kerchu that lived here, but as you can see my opponents were not very friendly towards me at all."

"Is there anything we can do for you?" Angela asked, because despite the fact that she disliked smugglers, this particular one had done nothing to wrong her and had actually helped her new family in their adventure to save this galaxy... and potentially the entire universe.

"No, time will heal my wounds for me," Red replied, though he waved his hand towards the city that was in front of them, "but you can help me make sure that no one got their hands on the Dimensionator... because I don't need to tell you the consequences of someone getting their hands on that weapon."

The entire group, Qwark included, nodded their heads and approached the weapon vendor, where Ratchet and Starlight picked up the Razor Claws weapon that was available before they advanced along the path that would take them to the city. They moved through the area, taking in the sight of the native critters that had been caught in the crossfire, killed by either Tachyon's forces or the pirates themselves, as well as the forces that had been fighting each other. Bodies were scattered everywhere, bolts and pieces laying here and there, though the oddest part was that none of the bodies were even breathing at all, indicating that the battle must have happened since they left the IRIS.

They eventually came to a pirate dropship that was blocking their way, to which Angela and Ace pulled out their lightsabers and carved a wave through the ship so they could get to the other side. A few seconds later they passed through a bunker like area that was partly destroyed, if the fallen ship to the right of it was any indicator, but the number of broken bodies worried them all. They were all surprised to find an intact pirate vessel, one that they all climbed onto before Clank hacked into the system and got them started on the predetermined path that had been programmed into the small ship.

It was then that they got their first glimpse of the city from their level, to which they discovered that pieces of the exterior were now lying on the ground or resting on the exterior wall that had several holes in it... as well as blocking their path, just like the ship. As Ace and Angela continued to cut through the thickest of materials, Starlight levitated several others out of their way as everyone else kept their weapons at the ready. They all agreed that it was unlikely that they might find anyone that survived the attack on the city, but that didn't mean that they were going to say that everyone was dead already. There was still a chance that someone was alive and well, despite being injured during the assault, which was why they were keeping their eyes open for signs of life.

"I knew many of these Kerchu," Red commented, staring at the bodies of the armored natives as his partner remained silent, "I helped trade with them, smuggled them things that they couldn't get on their own, and even helped them nurse the sick whenever something happened to them. It... it pains me to see them like this... all for a weapon that shouldn't exist."

"Don't worry, we'll take the weapon and... do... something to it," Qwark said, though he wasn't sure what that something was, as no one had actually told him what the plan was once they had their hands on the Dimensionator.

They entered the building that was in front of them, where Starlight levitated the more hazardous pieces outside before telling the others that the way was clear, allowing them to walk up to an elevator that took them down to an area where they would normally need to use the Swingshot to get across. Starlight created a walkway for all of them to use, allowing them to approach the middle of an area that appeared to be a cross between a work area and an arena... where they found the pieces of a large fighting robot that was surrounded by two of Tachyon's ships.

In the middle of the platform was a stand that was currently empty... and Captain Slag as laying next to it, though he appeared to be wounded from his battle with his enemies.

"Captain Slag?!" Starlight called out, stirring the sleeping robot from his slumber, which had no doubt been triggered to keep himself stable until aid came to him, "What happened to you?"

"A glorious battle against someone more evil than I," Captain Slag replied, letting out a coughing fit as he responded, while making no effort to pick himself up, "Don't worry... old Tachyon didn't get his hands on the Dimesnionator. I tasked Rusty Pete to take the weapon back to our base in the Ublik Passage, but I know that our enemy has no doubt tracked him back to our hidden base. I was able to take many of my enemy's soldiers down before they got a lucky hit..."

"Your dying, aren't you?" Red asked, dropping to one knee as he looked at the pirate captain, and the second jagged scar that ran parallel to his other scar, only this one seemed much deeper than the first one.

"Aye," Captain Slag answered, dropping into another fit of coughing, before beckoning to Starlight with his hooked hand for a few seconds, "Lass... take me hat... take me crew... and give Tachyon one for old Slag."

"I... I will," Starlight said, surprised that the dying captain would allow her to take the reigns of what remained of his forces, but she didn't say much as she levitated the hat from Slag's head.

"Good... luck..." Slag started to say, but the strain of keeping his body together seemed to fade as the power that was keeping him alive faded, allowing his body to go still, much to everyone's sorrow.

Starlight stared at the hat for a moment, allowing herself to forget what was happening around her, before she noticed that there were coordinates inside the interior of the headpiece... specifically for the Ublik Passage. She knew that Tachyon didn't have the Dimensionator, yet anyway, but if she believed what the dead captain had told her then they would soon be under attack by their enemy. A few seconds later she slipped the hat on her head and surrounded the others with her magic, teleporting all of them back to their smaller ships... with a look of shock on their faces.

"Starlight, what's going on?" Ratchet asked, because his sister usually didn't use a mass teleportation spell, without warning anyway, without telling anyone that she was about to use the magic.

"We're going to stop Tachyon from getting his hands on the Dimensionator," Starlight stated, climbing into the ship as everyone did the same thing with the other ships, where Red and his parrot climbed in with Angela, "even if it means blowing him, and his starship, to pieces."

"Then we'll set course for the Ublik Passage and cut him off," Angela commented, while she and everyone else returned to the Hyperion, where they would jump to their next destination, "Hopefully the pirates will listen to us when we arrive."

Starlight hoped that the pirates would listen when they told them that their leader had been cut down by Tachyon's forces... and that the Dimensionator was safe from their enemy's hands. She remembered the wraith that they had been told about, to which she hoped that it was a story and nothing more, otherwise she had the feeling that something horrible was going to happen when they reached their destination.
> Tools: Reepor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This time when Starlight and the others used the Hyperion to get from one place to another they were running around like bees, busy gathering armor, preparing their weapons, and making sure that everything was ready for when they arrived at the Ublik Passage. Angela had opened a line of communication back to the Solana Galaxy, to Sasha no less, and was informing the Jedi Council of what was going to transpire in the near future. She also told them about the horrors that would be unleashed if someone evil got their hands on the Dimensionator, to which the Council promised to have some additional starships meet them at the destination she requested. Qwark, being one of the most celebrated Heroes in his association, was also calling for backup, though he made sure that anyone that answered the call knew exactly what they were getting themselves into this time around.

At the same time Starlight opened a third line of communication of she could talk with Rusty Pete, who at first seemed surprised to even hear from her, but then settled down once he realized what must have happened.

"Did Captain Slag die honorably in battle?" Rusty Pete asked, just to be absolutely sure that he wasn't being played by the intelligent unicorn that was on the other side of the screen.

"He took out as many enemies that Tachyon could throw at him and lasted long enough to tell us what happened," Starlight replied, knowing that they were wasting time and needed to be prepared for what was coming their way, "Rusty Pete, you have to listen to me; Emperor Tachyon is coming towards the Ublik Passage with the purpose to obtain the Dimensionator. From what Red has been able to gather, without revealing his sources, Tachyon is moving at least half of his available forces towards your base and he intends to slaughter all of you so he can get what he wants. Are you going to let your former captain die in vain?"

"No Captain Starlight," Rusty Pete stated, saluting her in a pirate fashion for a moment, a mug of grog in one hand and a sword in another, "I'll round up all of our available forces and prepare for your arrival."

As the communication dropped Starlight had to wonder why the pirate had suddenly declared that she was the captain, but then she remembered that she was still wearing Slag's old hat. She recalled that he had said something about taking his crew and stopping Tachyon, though at this point she had to assume that he had passed on his leadership to her by passing on his hat. As she stared at the hat she had to wonder what would be happening to them all if Sunset was still around, though she shook her head as she tossed that thought away. None of them would be running around like they were, as they would have simply arrived at their destination and Sunset would have obliterated all of their enemies in an instant.

Right now it was almost like Sunset was trying to test her, Ratchet, Clank, and Angela by removing herself from the equation, so they wouldn't have to rely on her powers all the time... but in the end she let out a sigh as she returned to what she had been doing before hand.

"Rusty Pete is gathering all of the pirates that are still left under the banner of Captain Slag," Starlight stated, causing the others to look up from what they were doing, "which means that we should have enough people to hold the line until Sasha and the others arrive."

"You know, when we founded the Jedi Order we said that we would prepare for anything," Angela said, letting out a sigh as she spoke, while at the same time staring at the lightsabers that were resting on the table, "but now, on what is essentially the eve of battle, I cannot help but think that none of us saw using the Order to fight a war against someone like Tachyon."

"I don't think any of us saw this coming," Ace commented, opening a small window on the table's computer to show Sunset for a few seconds, dressed up in her godly attire, "We had a God of Destruction backing the Solana and Bogon Galaxies for a few years, which was more than enough time to make us grow a little soft... and now she's gone, leaving us to fight this war on our own."

"Relax guys, we've got this under control," Ratchet said, though even as he said those words the others noticed that he wasn't smiling at all, "I mean, we've saved the various galaxies multiple times already, so we can do the same thing again. Its not like we're fighting some sort of god-like creature this time."

Starlight let out a sigh as they went over all of the resources that they had at their disposal, silently hoping that her brother's words didn't effect what was about to happen to them.





When the Hyperion arrived at the pirate base in the Ublik Passage, and came to a stop, they were greeted by a swarm of ships, ranging from the size of Aphelion to the size of one of Tachyon's personal carriers. According to the chatter over the communication line the pirates were as prepared as they could be, with the promise that Slag's remaining lieutenants were on their way. To be on the safe side Starlight opened a private line to Rusty Pete, to which she discovered that he had already hidden the weapon away on a nearby planet, one that didn't have any life at all. She knew that it had to be Planet Reepor, as it was the closest planet on the starchart, but at the moment only the two of them knew where the Dimensionator was located... which she would recover once they were done with Tachyon's forces.

Barely ten minutes passed before ships started exiting the warp space, though when the first one appeared Starlight immediately recognized Tachyon's designs and symbols... to which she did the one thing that the pirates were waiting for; she signaled the charge.

The pirates flew out from their positions and targeted any of Tachyon's ships, where at least five of them would latch onto one of the larger ones and deploy ground troops to take down whoever was firing at their comrades. As that happened Ratchet and Clank climbed into Aphelion and took to the skies, where they provided support to the pirates that needed assistance, while Angela, Ace, and Qwark did the same thing from their own ships. Starlight remained aboard the Hyperion, with the four AI that she and the others had built so long ago, though instead of being idle she engaged the newest features of the ship, the fully installed and prepared weapons system, and opened fire on whoever was unlucky enough to get close to her.

After a few minutes of the battle raging between the two forces the space behind Tachyon's army rippled, to which more of his fleet entered the battleground and opened fire on the pirates. Ironically that was shortly followed by the remainder of Slag's lieutenants emerging from the warp space, reporting for duty over the communication lines, and then opening fire on the nearest ship that belonged to Tachyon. Unfortunately it seemed that Tachyon's reinforcements were exactly what he needed, because he slowly started to gain the upper hand as his forces blew more of the pirates out of the air, discarding their burning ships as they burnt up in the atmosphere of the planet that rested below the once hidden base.

"Ah, look at the puny unicorn and her failing army," Tachyon said over the communicator, though his tone indicated that he believed that he could win this battle and take the Dimensionator, "Oh, if only you had bothered to stay away from this galaxy... because instead of saving anyone you have handed me the weapon that will bring about the destruction of everything you hold dear."

Even as Tachyon said that the space near the right side of his fleet rippled, to which the Starship Phoenix emerged from the warp space and opened fire on Tachyon's forces...though that was followed by more ships appearing behind it and lending their aid to the war effort.

"Don't you dare think that we're just going to stand back and let you take what you want," Starlight fired back, watching one of Tachyon's ships explode as the pirates moved away from it, allowing the wreckage to fall down to the planet below, "You attacked the Solana Galaxy, so now you must pay the price for your actions."

"Oh? What was that?" Tachyon replied, as if he was taunting her and the others at the moment, "You wish to surrender to the might of the Emperor of the Universe and submit yourself to whatever punishment I have in store for you?"

Starlight opened her mouth to say something, mostly to call their opponent insane for thinking that he had the upper hand, but stopped herself as something came to mind. It almost sounded like Tachyon had recorded something and had set it to play while they were fighting, no doubt designed to go off when his reinforcement arrived, but she signaled for one of the AI to study what had been said before she jumped to conclusions. A few seconds later she discovered that Tachyon had recorded some lines of dialogue, though that was swiftly followed by another AI pulling up a video that showed a smaller ship, the same one she and Ratchet had taken from Metropolis, heading down to Reepor's surface.

She couldn't believe that Tachyon would sacrifice so many people, be they his own subjects or the pirates, in order to stall them so he could obtain the Dimensionator... so that when this fake 'war' was done it would be too late to stop him.

"Ratchet, Angela, get back to the Hyperion," Starlight called out over the communicator, feeling sweat fall down the side of her face for the first time in ages, not since the awakening of Searing that had nearly consumed Yeedil, "We've been had... Tachyon's on the planet's surface, searching for the Dimensionator. Rusty Pete, send us the coordinates for the weapon and make sure that none of Tachyon's forces follow us down there."

It didn't take Ratchet and Angela long to return to the Hyperion, or for them to breach the planet's atmosphere, but none of them were pleased with this turn of events. While Starlight was mad over how low of a tactic that had been, sacrificing so many lives like they were mere pawns, she also couldn't help but marvel at how well their opponent's strategy had worked. All of them had been under the assumption that Tachyon would have attacked them until he broke through their defenses before collecting his prize, but the diversion of a war definitely helped him out in the long run. After a few minutes they came to the area that Rusty Pete had hidden the Dimensionator in, which happened to be a heavily fortified station, no doubt built by the Cragmites so long ago... and Tachyon's ship happened to be in the middle of it all, though it seemed to have been shot down by something.

They carefully landed on the top of the rock wall that overlooked the area and had Starlight carefully carry the three of them down to the station... where they discovered that the entire place was wrecked. The cannons that would have normally fired at them had large cuts in several major components, rendering them unusable, while the buildings that would have controlled said cannons were pretty much destroyed, if the sinister blue flames were anything to go by. There was even a few posts that were supposed to serve as a barrier, keeping the inner section of the station safe, which meant that Rusty Pete must have placed the weapon in the safest place in the entire station.

As they walked forward they noticed that there were fresh bodies scattered everywhere, though the fish minions of Tachyon were wearing expressions of pure fear and terror on their faces, leading the group to wonder what had happened here.

"C... could this be the work of the Witch-Queen of Reepor?" Angela asked, though despite the number of enemies she had taken out while fighting along side Ratchet and Starlight, she had never seen this level of fear and terror before.

"Let's hope not," Ratchet said, though at the same time they approached a ruined elevator that would take them into the center of the station, where Starlight levitated them to the top of the platform and let them continue walking forward, "after fighting Ysmir, and showing how outclassed we were until Starlight unleashed her power, I'd rather not fight someone like her again... if I can help it that is."

They passed by another section of the station that had one been protected by a force field of some kind, though the barrier had been destroyed at some point, allowing the group to walk onto a functioning elevator platform that took them higher into the station. Once the elevator stopped moving they carefully walked through the tunnel they found themselves in and approached what had to be the location where Rusty Pete had placed the Dimensionator... though what they found was a quartet of dark crystals that were pulsing with some sort of energy. Weirdly enough the two closest crystals were the lowest ones, as they rose to the same height as Ratchet, though at the same time the other two crystals were as large as Tachyon's walker... which was currently impaled in the nearby rock wall by a series of crystal spikes.

Floating in the middle of the platform, with sinister purple chains wrapped around his arms and legs, was Emperor Tachyon himself... though the group took one look at him and noticed that something had been torturing him while the war had been going on.

"So, the last of the Lombaxes have arrived," Tachyon stated, letting out a moan as the chains pulled on him, as if the punishment was to be stretched apart until he was literally torn apart, "Quickly... before she returns... take the Dimensionator and flee!"

Starlight spotted the weapon in question, which was indeed a hat like the video had claimed it had been, resting behind where Tachyon was being held, though resting next to it was Tachyon's scepter and the Core that he had bought from Otto Destruct four years ago... though it appeared to be giving off a red glow the entire time. She wrapped her magic around the two items and slowly brought them over to where she and the others were standing, just in case fast movements triggered some sort of trap. She levitated the fifth Raritanium Core towards them, though once it had reached where Tachyon was being held, and was no longer near the Dimensionator, Starlight suddenly found the wraith from Ace's report floating between them and Tachyon.

She started to sweat as she realized that the creature had suddenly appeared in an instant, though she and the others reached for their weapons automatically... where they all froze the moment the creature screeched at them.

"This is mine now," a eerie voice said, which had to be coming from the wraith, where Starlight noticed that each word was stretched a little while the creature spoke, though as the words left the creature's none existent mouth it grabbed the Dimensionator with one of its hands and put it inside its robe.

"That weapon... does... not... belong to... you!" Tachyon declared, apparently trying to fight whatever was happening to him, to which the wraith turned towards him for a moment.

"You have served me well, my unknowing puppet," the wraith stated, drawing what appeared to be a sword from the other side of its robe, one that happened to have a blade that was appeared to be somewhat charred, "Now for your reward."

That was followed by the wraith piercing Tachyon's chest with its weapon, no doubt going all the way through based on the fact that Tachyon's body was smaller than someone like Ratchet or Angela. Tachyon screamed as the blade pierced his body, almost sounding as if he was being tortured by something, though a few seconds later the wraith pulled its blade back and sheathed it inside its robe. It was then that Ratchet and the others found that the area that the wraith had pierced was surrounded by some sort of dead skin, though as they watched they could tell that it was slowly spreading and causing pain to Tachyon at the same time.

The wraith turned to look at the group for a moment before it disappeared completely, releasing them from whatever spell it had put them under and allowed them to move once more.

"Well, this is bad," Angela said, glaring at Tachyon for a moment, though she made no move to attack him or anything, "I'm not sure which is worse; the fact that the Witch-Queen of Reepor is real, the fact that she can paralyze us with a single screech, or the fact that she has the Dimensionator."

"Lombaxes..." Tachyon called out, just as the deathly wound continued to spread across his body, bringing him closer to death with each passing moment, "she's... heading to... Fastoon..."

"Right," Starlight said, snatching the fifth Raritanium Core with her magic as she and the others left the area, though at the same time she contacted the Hyperion and passed on the news to the rest of their allies.

They needed to figure out how to stop the Witch-Queen before she activated the Dimensionator and summoned whatever dark creatures she was after, or destroyed the universe by merely activating the weapon. Red informed them that he had some special allies that would be meeting them on the planet's surface, though the news did nothing to improve Starlight's mood. They had gone through all of this effort, all in order to get their hands on the dimensional weapon and keep it from Tachyon, but it had been stolen before they could have touched it. Before they got too far Ratchet turned around and walked back up to the tied up emperor, to which Angela and Starlight heard a single shot ring out... though a few seconds later Ratchet returned to them with a frown on his face.

Starlight knew Ratchet had decided to put Tachyon out of his misery, something she was sure that the emperor didn't deserve after everything he had done, but she shook her head and focused on what they needed to do... finding the Witch-Queen, figuring out how to overcome her fear inducing power, and then stop her before she ended up destroying the entire universe.
> Tools: Dimensional War
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight took stock of the situation as the Hyperion, and all of their allies, made their way to Planet Fastoon; an unknown enemy had appeared out of nowhere and basically killed Tachyon, said enemy stole the Dimensionator and fled with it, and now they were pretty much facing the end of the universe if their new enemy completed whatever horrible task they were trying to complete. Sure, they had managed to recover the fifth of the six lost Raritanium Cores, the most mysterious gemstones she, Sunset, and Angela had been studying until Sunset suddenly disappeared with the other four. She also mentally counted all of the soldiers they had; as in one hundred pirates, about twenty-four Jedi knights, seventeen heroes from the Heroes Association, six different starships that carried one hundred robotic Galactic Rangers apiece, two Lombaxes, one Captain Qwark, and herself... while not even counting the two mysterious friends that Red was calling in.

Despite their numbers, and all of the training that each person had received over the years, she had the feeling that none of that was going to matter when they finally reached the Witch-Queen... or Fear, as Starlight had taken to calling her after what had happened back on Planet Reepor.

"Are you certain this is even possible?" Talwyn asked, causing Starlight to snap out of her thoughts for a moment and look at what she and Angela were working on, while Talwyn watched anyway.

Starlight wasn't sure if they would even be able to get close enough to Fear before their own horrors paralyzed them where they were standing, so she was modifying the ancient Alpha Disruptor that she had picked up on Sargasso. She and Angela knew that the energy of the Cores could be harnessed in some manner, which was how Starlight was able to temporarily merge Sunset and Searing together, at the cost of releasing Hatred. From what she could tell the six Cores had a large energy reserve inside of them, one that could very well be endless considering the Cores she had used on her sister had never run out of power. She was planning on slipping the red colored Core into the energy slot of the Alpha Disruptor, so she could launch a powerful beam of energy at Fear if the situation called for it... though she had no idea if such an attack would even work.

Considering that their opponent had the Dimensionator, and was no doubt getting ready to use the weapon, she wanted to make sure that she had some sort of back up plan, just in case things went south.

"Yes, we've harnessed the power within the Cores a few times in the past, so we know its possible." Angela replied, knowing that Starlight was trying to concentrate and didn't need questions thrown at her, "The problem is whether a blast, made up of said power, will be enough to get rid of this creature... this Witch-Queen, Fear, whatever you want to call her."

That was something else that was bothering Starlight, the fact that they started calling the wraith 'Fear' and now they were letting the name slip if that had been her name all along... just like with Hatred. The wraith's voice reminded Starlight of Sunset, not because she missed her sister enough to think their enemy was her, but because the voice just sounded like a stretched out version of Sunset's voice. The same thing had happened with Ysmir, when she spoke Starlight had immediately thought of Sunset, which was starting to worry her that she was missing her sister way too much and was substituting her voice for almost everyone else.

She let out a sigh as she closed the cover she had made for the weapon, with the Core locked in place for the moment, before setting her tools aside and looked at the people around her... where Sasha and Ace were discussing strategy, Rusty Pete and Qwark were swapping stories to liven up the mood, and Ratchet was sitting near Clank, preparing themselves for what was coming.

"I've got some good new and I've got some bad news," Red commented, walking up to the table that the entire group was standing around, though those that had been talking stopped their conversations to hear what he said to say, "The good news is that my friends are more than willing to come and help us save the universe, though they'll be meeting us sometime after we land on the surface of Fastoon."

"And the bad news?" Sasha asked, though her tone indicated that she hoped that whatever bad news Red had wasn't the end of the universe, because that was something none of them needed.

"You should come see that for yourselves," Red replied, beckoning them to follow him to the bridge, though while they did so Starlight grabbed the modified weapon and stashed it with the others as she caught up to everyone.

When everyone gathered in the bridge the first thing they saw was the planet they were heading for, the wasteland planet that was known as Fastoon, but as they stared at the planet they all noticed something different. Above the planet's atmosphere rested what appeared to be a hole like portal, similar to what Searing had used to go from the Starship Phoenix and arrive on Planet Koros moments later, only this one was much larger. There was some sort of darkness that was leaking out of the portal and descending towards the planet, which had to be what Fear was calling upon for her conquest of the universe. The group also noticed that there appeared to be a light blue ring of energy surrounding the portal itself, keeping it contained and preventing it from spreading any further... though Clank and Starlight immediately recognized the little robots that were swarming around the blue ring.

"What are the Zoni doing here?" Starlight asked, though at the same time she was thankful that they had come to their rescue, because if the rift's progress was any indication Fear had already activated the Dimensionator and was in the process of damaging the universe.

"From what I can tell they sensed what was going to happen and came to aid us," Red commented, a smile appearing on his face for a few seconds, before he pointed at the jagged cracks that had already appeared on the planet below them, "and, from what I can gather, the power of the rift and the Dimensionator is slowly tearing Fastoon apart... as if the rift is trying to eat the planet."

"You know, its times like this that I wish Sunset was still here," Angela said, looking at the state of the planet below them, "She could just erase the Dimensionator with a single word and save us the trouble of having to race against the clock... but since she's not here we're going to have to be quick and efficient with our time."

"Come on, let's head down to the planet's surface and see what we're up against," Starlight commented, to which everyone headed towards the docks and climbed into their ships.

As the ships drew closer to the planet's surface, and got a better look at the damage that had been caused already, Starlight immediately noticed that it looked like smaller rifts were opening everywhere, allowing the sinister forces that Fear was calling upon to enter this world. As Aphelion flew over the plains outside the city Ratchet and Starlight had found her in, which brought back memories of the war for her, everyone noticed that large groups of creatures, some of which appearing to come out of nightmares, were marching out of the large number of rifts. They had known that Fear had been planning on using the Dimensionator, but based on what they were seeing it was almost like she was preparing for all out war with everything and anything that might oppose her.

Starlight took the moment to mentally agree with Angela, because it would be so much easier to simply obliterate Fastoon and the Dimensionator in a single go, but they had no idea what the destruction of the weapon would case... which was actually the better option at that moment. She also noticed that the plains they were heading towards connected to the main security point of the Lombax fortress, though most of the walls appeared to have fallen down thanks to the fact that the world was literally pulling itself apart.

"Prepare for a HALO jump," Zephyr called out over the communicator, to which he, Cronk, Ratchet, Starlight, Angela, Ace, and Qwark jumped out of their respective ships and descended towards the ground.

This time when they performed a HALO jump they weren't targeted by any missiles, allowing them to land on the ground without any injury, though after Talwyn landed her ship nearby she joined the rest of the group, while at the same time the rest of their forces moved across the plains and engaged their enemies. Starlight noticed that several of the creatures didn't have hands on their arms, rather they had sinister tentacle like arms, though their arms could go from squirming to hardened spikes within seconds. She couldn't describe all of the horrible creatures that were coming out of the rifts, so she focused her energy on taking out anything and everything that Fear was summoning to combat them.

As they slowly made their way across the plains, which wasn't as easy as one might assume because of the fact that larger creatures were starting to come out of the rifts, Red separated from the group he had landed with and joined the main group.

"So when are those friends of your coming?" Ace asked, though at the same time he swung his lightsaber and took off the arm of the creature that he was fighting, before having to take its head clean off to make sure that it stopped moving.

"They'll be here any minute," Red replied, glancing around them for a moment, as if he was searching for something, though that was followed by a smile appearing on his face.

A large creature, one with two heads and lobster claws for hands, made its way towards the group, but before it could close the distance two flaming holes appeared in its heads, one hole for each head, before it collapsed on the ground and crushed several of its smaller allies under its weight. Starlight glanced towards the direction the shots came from and her heart skipped a beat, because the person coming their way was actually a pony like her, though for a moment she thought it was actually Sunset. She watched as the crimson coated mare walked towards them, though all Starlight could see was a unicorn's horn that was blazing at the moment, causing her to worry that this wasn't who she thought it was.

The unicorn mare, with a mane that looked like fire, approached the group before bowing her head to them, though now that she was close to them Starlight noticed that she was wearing a robe of some kind that covered the majority of her body.

"I see we made it just in time. I am Searing Flame," the mare said, though she smiled as she looked at Starlight and Ratchet for a moment, "My sister should be joining us in a few seconds... and maybe she'll take out a dragon or two."

Starlight wondered what dragons the mare was talking about, but as she turned her head around she noticed a large reptilian creature, with wings large enough to lift it into the air and teeth sharp enough to tear apart a ship with ease, emerge from one of the larger rifts and soar through the air. She considered pulling out the Alpha Disruptor and using it to take the beast out of the air, but before she, or anyone else, could do anything Starlight spotted a flash move through the air and slam into the side of the massive creature. Whatever had hit it caused the beast to shift in the air and fly over the forces of Fear, though as the beast loosed a stream of fire at its target, and caught several of its allies on fire, another flash moved around and collided with the beast.

As Starlight watched the fight she noticed that the blur that was moving through the air was another pony like person, just like her and the Searing that stood behind her, but as she zeroed in on it she gasped as she noticed the amber coat the mare had... though that was swiftly followed by the mare blasting the dragon out of the air and dropping it one its allies, before she flew towards the group and landed beside her sister. It was then that Starlight realized that the second pony looked exactly like Sunset, except for the fact that where Sunset was an alicorn this lookalike was only a pegasus, though she was wearing a suit of light armor that covered the majority of her body... as well as a set of blades attached to her wings, ever so slightly above the feathers to avoid going any harm to herself.

"See? I told you I can take out a dragon!" the pegasus said, before noticing that Ratchet and Starlight were standing in front of them, to which she bowed her head as well, "Oh, I forgot we were meeting up with Ratchet Cross and his sister Starlight Glimmer, as well as the rest of their group. I am Sunset Glider."

Starlight stared at the two mares for a moment, shocked that their names were Searing and Sunset without the last name part, but at that instant she needed to return to the war going on.

"Dearest Sunset, you should return to the skies and take out anything that might do harm from above," Red commented, pulling out what appeared to be a wearable sash that contained several explosives on it, which Starlight assumed was how she had damaged the dragon, "We'll handle the ground forces for you."

Sunset waited patiently as Red wrapped the sash around her body before she took to the skies, to which she zeroed in on another dragon-like creature and blew it out of the sky, dropping it on their enemies and squishing them flat. Starlight glanced over at Searing for a moment, once again marveling how the new arrival sounded like Sunset, only this time she actually sounded like the demon, but decided that now wasn't the time to be questioning everything. Searing, on the other hand, ignited her magic and threw a volley of fireballs at the enemies that were five rows back from the front line, ensuring that she harmed none of their allies in the process.

Starlight let out a sigh as she opened fire on her opponents, making sure that she didn't hit any of her allies in the process, though as they continued to fight their way towards the building that Fear had to be resting in, the one all the lightning was pouring out of, she noticed that the rifts were opening even wider than they originally were when they landed. The ground to their right cracked as it separated into two halves, though between the two halves was a river of extremely hot lava that was breaking up everything around it, causing the soldiers around the lava to flee before they were consumed. Starlight summoned a set of bridges for their troops to use to get across the fracture, though while that was happening she spotted addition creatures pouring through the rifts.

"How many dark forces are there?" Angela asked, cutting another foe in half and removing its head, while their army continued to slowly advance towards their target.

"I don't know, but if we don't get any reinforcements soon we're going to fall," Ratchet replied, because while he knew they could easily get more ammunition from the weapon vendor that Red had brought for them to use, he also knew that the sinister forces Fear was calling upon were seemingly endless... and the massive rift in the sky was getting closer with every passing moment.

A few seconds later a large burst of energy surged into the back of the enemies and exploded, tearing a large number of the horrible creatures apart as some sort of humanoid creature, one with hairy arms, spiked up hair, and a monkey's tail, appeared in the air with a smile on his face. Instead of introducing himself the creature grabbed another horrifying creature and tossed it into the air, where the poor soul exploded like a firework, before landing in the mess of enemies and started tearing them apart. Starlight seemed confused at to what was happening at this point, what with the horrible creatures and the monkey like creature, but at this point she knew it was better to blame the Dimensionator for everything.

Another rift opened above the lava and a new arrival, this one appearing to be some sort of young girl with red spiked up hair, charged out of the hole and raced towards the monkey creature, to which the two of them declared war on the horrible creatures. The girl summoned lightning around her hands, in the form of blades for some reason, and charged through her targets, while the other person exploded more enemies in the same manner as before. Starlight stopped questioning everything when she saw a creature that she could only describe as Death itself appeared near another patch of enemies and swung its scythe at its targets, reaping their souls as their bodies fell to the ground.

It was almost like fate had heard that they needed allies and was sending them help, as if someone knew the danger that Fear posed to the universe with the Dimensionator in her possession... and she really stopped questioning what she was seeing when she spotted an army of ghosts, lead by a larger man that seemed to radiate power, slamming into another side of their enemy's forces and cutting down whoever was in front of them. Another man, also with some sort of energy radiating from his body, walked along side of the army, though he appeared to be wearing a suit that was half orange and half purple, while carrying a strange walking staff of some kind.

Starlight was about to question what she was seeing, even after mentally thinking that she was going to stop questioning everything, before the man stabbed an opponent in his stomach, pulled out what she assumed was the creature's entrails or something, and mentioned skipping rope with them... while blasting several of opponents with his staff and turned them all into cheese.

"I'm going to need a drink one this is all over," Starlight mumbled to herself, though before she fell behind everyone else she opened fire on another set of enemies that were coming her way, all while trying to forget the strange people that she was seeing.

With the addition of new allies, all wielding powers that reminded Starlight of the various Codex fragments they had recovered, the tide of the war slowly turned in their favor, but at the same time the larger rift in the sky was growing ever closer. Sunset dive bombed the enemies that she was near and created a hole in their line up, which Searing surrounded with her magic and created two magical walls that went straight towards the building.

"You have one shot at this," Searing shouted, causing Ratchet and Starlight to stare at her for a moment, wondering what she was up to, "My sister and I will make sure you two reach the main building and take Fear out... otherwise that rift is going to end up destroying this entire planet and everything around it."

Ratchet and Starlight, knowing that this was the only shot they had at overcoming their enemy and her plans, braced themselves as they charged forward, heading down the pathway that Searing had created. The rest of their group stayed behind, making sure that their new allies could handle the fights they were in while making sure to protect themselves from harm. As they ran Starlight noticed Sunset flying overhead, dropping what appeared to be the rest of her grenades on her enemies, blowing them up in the process, before she had to resort to using the blades on her wings to cut up the flying enemies that were chasing her. Starlight was still surprised by the sudden appearance of ponies that reminded her of both her sisters, the real Sunset and Searing, but she resolved to talk with them once this nightmare was over.

A few minutes later the two of them were standing inside the main building that the lightning was coming from, where they found that the Dimensionator was strapped to the ceiling by some contraption as it gave off the power necessary to fuel the large rift in the sky... and also found the wraith floating in the middle of the room.

"Give up Fear," Ratchet said, though at the same time he and Starlight prepared themselves, because they knew that the creature was going to attack them regardless of what they said, which was why the Alpha Disruptor was being pulled out as well, "soon our army will have beaten your army and we will have you surrounded. Hand over the Dimensionator and we can end this without any more bloodshed."

"It matters not who wins or loses this war, because I have already won!" Fear stated, turning to face the group for a moment, allowing them to see that her sword had been drawn the entire time, though she used it to beckon to the Dimensionator, "Soon the Dimensional Rift will become stable enough to swallow this entire planet... and then the rest of the stars around it... and then the entire galaxy before it violently explodes and tears this universe apart! The shock of such an explosion with pulse throughout all of creation, tearing all of the gods that have been created apart and reducing everything to nothing, allowing someone to start over from the beginning."

"That's your master plan?" Starlight asked, not believing that the wraith would go through all this effort, and incite a war no less, if she intended on obliterating all of creation instead of ruling over it, "You'll die as well."

"That is where you are wrong," Fear replied, letting out a sound that almost seemed like a laugh, though it was one that filled the group with dread, "Once this planet is swallowed by the Great Dark, and everything is consumed, I shall be safe inside this chamber, protected by the dimensional energies of the Dimensionator. When the death of the current universe is complete I shall lead the endless forces of the Great Dark across whatever new worlds appear, where I shall live as the greatest god of all time with plenty of people to rule over and obliterate if they displease me in any way. There will be no Sunset Shimmer, no Searing, no Beerus the Destroyer... there will only be Fear..."

It was at that point that Starlight decided to make her move, to which she pulled out the Alpha Disruptor, which had been charging behind her back the entire time, and loosed the charge she had been preparing into the wraith's chest. The resulting explosion sent the wraith's sword into the air, to which it slammed into the Dimensionator and knocked it loose, while at the same time knocking whatever remained of Fear into the wall behind where she had been floating seconds earlier. The ground beneath them shook in response to what Starlight had done, rather violently she thought to herself, but it didn't seem like there was any permanent damage to either herself or to her brother and Clank.

Fear, on the other hand, had been transformed into a small silver crystal, one that had a swirling mass of darkness inside it, indicating that Starlight's attempt at using the Core as a power source had trapped the wraith instead of destroying her completely.

"Ratchet, Starlight, I don't know what you did in there, but we have a problem," Red said over the communicator, though his tone indicated that he was worried about something, "the creatures that Fear summoned are being pulled back into the rifts they had used to enter our world, along with our new allies, but it gets even worse... Fastoon is being pulled into the larger rift!"

"I've already called for a retreat before we're sucked in as well," Angela added, throwing her voice into the conversation as well, "I fear that whatever our opponent was trying to do was successful..."

Ratchet, now understanding the danger that they were in, grabbed the Dimensionator and ran outside the building they had entered, to which she spotted the forces of the Great Dark being ripped from where they were standing and returning to their own dimension... along with the ground beneath their feet. As he called for Aphelion to come and pick them up, while avoiding all of the creatures that were in the air, Starlight ran back inside the building and grabbed the crystal containing Fear, before she returned to her brother's side. A few seconds later Aphelion landed near them, to which they climbed inside the ship and took off, to which they managed to get far enough away before the building they were in was ripped from Fastoon's surface and was consumed by the larger rift.

As they flew towards the Hyperion, which was currently moving away from the planet with the rest of the starships, Ratchet saw most of the smaller ships they had used to transport their soldiers departing from the planet. When they docked inside their starship the group ran to where everyone else was gathered, where they were watching the destruction of Fastoon as pieces were consumed by the rift. The moment Angela received a notice that all of their forces were off the planet, and that everyone was at least as far as the Hyperion was, Starlight noticed something flying through space for a moment. She zeroed in on the object in question and noticed that it was a flaming ball of energy that rivaled Sunset's destructive powers... which made her turn to the pegasus for a moment and found both her and her sister standing beside everyone as well.

The attack struck the planet and lava lines started appearing within a matter of seconds, indicating that something, or someone, was going to destroy Fastoon before it was completely consumed. It was like watching the end of Koros all over again, with the earth breaking under the pressure and volcanoes erupting all over the place, while at the same time the planet was being eaten by the rift. A few seconds later an explosion rocked the planet and forced everyone to cover their eyes, though when the light faded everyone found that the planet, and more importantly the rift, were gone.

Starlight stared at the empty sight in front of her and could only thing of one thing to do in a situation like this; she, the rest of her family, and their friends needed to take a break before they even attempted to understand what had just happened... and she was sure that her head was going to hurt in the end.
> Tools: Aftermath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With the war over, and the dimensional rifts closed, the starships made their way back to their various outposts, where the Jedi and Heroes would return to their duties until they were either called upon again or something engaged them. Sasha put the command of her starship in the hands of her new second in command and teleported over to the Hyperion, so she could join the rest of her friends for a few hours before she had to return to her duties. The Hyperion then made its way back to the Apogee Space Station, which had been moved into the area near Sargasso, where Talwyn was sure it would be safe from harm... especially with the addition of a sign that indicated that she was allied with Ratchet and Starlight.

Her reasoning was that if people knew who she was allied with, and knew who their sister was, they would turn away from even thinking about attacking her base of operations and leave her stuff alone... though as everyone moved inside the space station Sasha had a question that was bothering her.

"So, who are those two?" Sasha asked, beckoning to the two new ponies that were sitting around one of the nearby rocks and were listening to whatever Qwark and Rusty Pete were telling them, though Sunset seemed more interested in her tablet at the moment.

"Searing Flame and Sunset Glider," Starlight replied, turning her gaze to the two mares again, though at the same time she wondered how Red knew them, "Its uncanny how much the two of them look like our sister, though this Searing has a more crimson coat while this Sunset happens to be a pegasus."

"You don't think something bad happened to Sunset, do you?" Angela inquired, though she stopped looking at the two ponies and focused on studying the Dimensionator with Ratchet and Clank.

Starlight didn't want to think about something happening to her sister and causing her to separate into so many different versions of herself, but she still found it odd how much Ysmir, Fear, Searing Flame, and Sunset Glider sounded alike. She guessed that the two ponies could be explained because they might be twins or something, but that didn't explain how a human fighter or a ghostly wraith could have the same voice as well. She glanced over at Red for a moment, who was currently sitting on another rock and had his gun out, though it appeared that he was cleaning his weapon and making sure it was fully stocked for the next time he had to use it. She had to wonder how he had come into contact with the two newcomers and what else he knew about them, because she was sure that he was hiding something.

Despite the fact that she knew Red was hiding something, from all of them, Starlight simply shook her head and walked over to the two newcomers, arriving just in time as both Qwark and Rusty Pete had finished what they were talking about and were walking in the opposite direction... and were discussing turning the pirate into a better fighter.

"Oh, hey Starlight." Searing commented, causing her sister to look up from her screen and turn towards them, though a smile appeared on both of their faces as Starlight sat near them, "Is there something we can help you with?"

"I was just curious as to how you two encountered Red," Starlight said, though she had quickly decided to not start off any sort of conversation between the three of them by accusing either one of them of being Sunset in disguise, because she didn't want her rest to turn into another battle, "I mean my brother and I met him when we crashed one of Tachyon's ships near the Gelatonium Plant back on Planet Cobalia, where he offered us a ride off world for helping to restore power to the plant."

"Well, we first crossed paths with Red about six months ago," Searing explained, pulling out her own tablet and hitting a few keys, to which a few planets appeared between the three of them, before she pointed at a planet that resembled Sargasso, "originally we were taking the fight to some warmonger who called herself War. She was terrorizing the people of this particular planet with an army of undead soldiers, violently killing everything and everyone that opposed her, but after some time the two of us managed to take her out and destroyed her, reducing her into the form of a crystal... similar to the one you were carrying earlier."

Starlight flashed a glance back at the table where Fear's crystal was resting, though as she stared at it she couldn't help but imagine a set of seven crystals, each containing a creature like the wraith and this warmonger that she was only now hearing about.

"The people of that planet were never able to figure out where she came from," Red commented, drawing Starlight's attention back to the conversation, as he took a seat near the trio of ponies, "It was an ordinary day when she just showed up out of nowhere, dressed up in black armor that covered her entire body, and lead her undead army against the defenseless people that I was helping out. We were forced to retreat to one of the larger cities, where Tachyon's troops were waiting in force, and watched as the two forces did battle with each other... though eventually War won in the end. Then, just as all hope seemed lost for the planet, these two showed up out of nowhere and turned the tide of battle on the warmonger, where Searing's spells were able to dissolve the undead and Sunset was able to take out the ships that were attacking from above.

When they bested War, and destroyed her body in the same manner that you did with Fear, they discovered the crystal... and the thanks of a city that quickly followed the end of a bloody battle."

"Since then we've been helping out the various planets that were under Tachyon's iron rule," Sunset spoke up, a smile appearing on her face for a moment, "You should have seen us when we were attacked by Captain Slag's pirates when were visiting Rykan I a week ago, I flew into several of their ships and used their own cannons to take out their allies. It was hilarious to watch them fire at their own ships and blast all of them out of the sky, where the lava consumed everything that fell into it, before the captain eventually decided that attacking the planet was a bad idea."

"Indeed." Searing said, turning back to Starlight as several more planets swirled around them, "I guess you can say that the two of us are essentially bounty hunters, as we have only ever gone after people that posed a threat to the galaxy, though I think at this point we're more like heroes to everyone else."

Starlight stared at the two ponies for a moment, remembering that the last time she had seen Sunset, actually laid eyes on her and had a conversation with her, had been six, if not seven, months ago. The reason behind the fact that she hadn't seen her sister during that time had been because she had been busy developing new weapons for Gadgetron, as well as fulfilling requests from the various heroes of the Hero Association. She again wondered if one of the two ponies in front of her was actually Sunset in disguise, though before she dismissed the notion completely she knew there was one thing she had to try.

"Forgive me for asking this, but does the name Sunset Shimmer ring any bells?" Starlight asked, though as the same time she noticed that Red had moved his hat a tiny bit, as if he knew something that he wasn't ready to share.

"Sort of," Searing replied, to which she and Sunset rubbed the back of their heads for a moment, "I mean, the only thing we know about her is that she's supposed to be the God of Destruction and that she's your sister... other than that her name means nothing to us, despite the fact that my own sister shares the same first name."

"I guess that makes sense considering that everyone, in this galaxy anyway, that's heard the name only knows her by her title," Starlight said, trying to hide the fact that she was disappointed in learning that the two ponies in front of her weren't parts of her sister, like she was originally thinking, but she was glad that she wasn't going to accuse them of something.

"Listen Starlight, there's something that my sister and I wanted to tell you," Sunset spoke up, causing Starlight to look over at her for a moment, a look of curiosity appearing on her face, "We've been hunting creatures like Fear and War ever since we first encountered Red, though the three of us have agreed that you and your family might encounter more of them in the future... which is why Searing and I would like to offer your our services in tracking them down and stopping whatever villains you have to fight along the way."

Starlight was surprised that the two were some eager to help her, Ratchet, and Angela with whatever villain was coming their way next, though before she could make a proper response she felt something coming their way. That was followed by a massive surge of energy erupting above the gathered group, to which a swirling vortex of light appeared above them and caused everyone to stop what they were doing at that moment. Three Zoni floated out of the vortex and drifted down to where Ratchet and Clank were currently sitting, though the oddest part, to Starlight anyway, was the fact that everyone else could see the creatures that only she and Clank had been able to see throughout the entire adventure.

To everyone else, however, the strangest part was that the three Zoni were focused on Clank and nothing else, as if their entire purpose was to do something to Clank.

"We needed to be sure you survived," the Zoni said at the same time, their voices echoing while they circled around Clank for a few seconds, "Now it's time to come home."

"Whoa," Ratchet, Angela, and Talwyn said in unison, staring at the creatures as they moved around Clank, as if they couldn't believe what their eyes were showing them, "so these are the Zoni..."

"The time has come, sire..." the three Zoni said, surrounding Clank in their own energy field, one that caused Starlight's eyes to widen for a moment as the four robots were lifted into the air, "to learn who you are... and who you will become."

"Leave him alone!" Ratchet said, though before he could jump at the energy, and hurt himself in the process, Starlight stopped him by pinning him to the ground with her magic.

"It is time to understand your purpose," the Zoni continued, though no one else bothered to make a move towards them, as they had seen Starlight stop Ratchet and knew that she would do the same to them if they made a move towards the three Zoni, "It is time to come with us."

"Yes..." Clank muttered drowsily, thought it was plainly clear that he was no longer fully functional, meaning that whatever was happening the Zoni didn't want to damage him at all, "Time to come with you..."

The group watched as Clank and the three Zoni disappeared into the vortex that had opened above their heads, though instead of closing another two Zoni flew out and tilted their heads, as if they were searching for something. One of them flew to where the Alpha Disruptor was resting, opened the lid with its energy, and carefully removed the red Core, which Starlight had taken to calling Loyalty for some reason. The other Zoni flew over to where Searing, Sunset, and Starlight were currently sitting, looking over them for a few seconds before carefully picking up the crystal that held Fear inside her prison, to which it backed away from them. The two Zoni then met back up at the vortex and disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, leaving everyone to stare at the vortex as it finally slammed shut.

"Did... did that really just happen?" Talwyn asked, not sure if her mind was playing tricks on her or if she had actually seen several Zoni take Clank and the two crystals.

"Yes, it did," Red commented, looking at the faces of everyone around him, to which he let out a sigh he had been holding back, "Listen, I have some trusted friends that might be able to shed some light on this situation. Give me a day or two and I might have some information that will help you find your friend... though until then I suggest that all of you should try and relax."

Starlight let out a sigh as she used her magic to open the cooler that Qwark and Talwyn had stocked before their arrival at the space station, to which she withdrew the one of the alcoholic drinks that had been brought along. She had never once considered that she would ever drink something like this, even after all the madness Qwark had caused when they were younger, but after the events of Fastoon, and everything that she had seen, she was willing to cross that line for once. They had seen horrors that no living person had seen before, defeated a number of horrible creatures that had come from someplace called the Great Dark, witnessed fighters from other dimensions coming to their aid, and even watched as Death itself killed their enemies to preserve the universe.

At that point Starlight had determined that she, and everyone else, definitely needed a drink or two to overcome what they had seen earlier that day... which was why they all raised their bottles in a toasting fashion before they started drinking. She was sure that whatever was waiting in their future could wait another day or two, as they all needed this moment to unwind and not bother to think about what they had just gone through.
> Interlude: The Obsidian Eye
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Oh my aching head," Starlight moaned, carefully levitating an ice pack to her head, in an attempt to get rid of the hangover she had, while at the same time vowing never to do something like that again, "next time we celebrate something, don't bother bringing any alcohol."

While most of the group had only had two or three alcoholic drinks the previous evening, and hadn't gotten drunk in the process, Starlight was the only one who had gone overboard. Her mind was stressed out thanks to everything they had seen thanks to the Dimensionator, which was still sitting where they had left it upon their return to the Apogee Space Station. The only ones who didn't partake in the alcoholic drinks were Red, as he had business he needed to take care of so they could figure out where Clank was taken, and, strangely enough, both Searing and Sunset.

When Ratchet asked the two ponies why they only drank juice or water, and not what most of the others were having, the two mares said that they didn't much care for the alcohol and left it at that.

"I'll make a mental note of it the next time we party," Ratchet said, shaking his head for a moment as he turned to Angela, "I guess the next time we see Ace and Sasha will be after we rescue Clank?"

Once morning had arrived Sasha and Ace had taken the ship that Sasha had used to board the Hyperion and departed from the space station, where they entered the warp system and disappeared. The two of them knew that Ratchet and the others would be searching for Clank, so they needed to tell the leader of the Jedi Order that Angela was going to be away for a little longer than what she said she would, but they knew that the Mystic was a reasonable person and knew that he couldn't stop her even if he tried. Qwark had stayed with the group, to help them save Clank, though Talwyn was more than happy to join them, especially when they could learn more about the Zoni along the way.

Of course Red and his parrot had disappeared the moment he finished his first drink, though that had been okay with everyone else, as he was the only one who could get them the information they needed on Clank's whereabouts.

"That's the plan at the moment," Angela replied, a smile appearing on her face, because now that Tachyon had been dealt with, and the Dimensionator was no longer a threat, she and Ratchet could finally start building their own family... just as soon as they recovered Clank, "All we're waiting on is for Red to tell us where Clank is... or for some way to figure that out for ourselves."

"Hey Searing, take a look at the message that Red just sent us," Sunset said, to which the two mares pulled out their tablets and opened the message that had apparently arrived for them, "Sweet, he found another target for us to take out."

"Apparently Red asked the citizens of a city on Rykan VII about the creatures that took Clank," Searing stated, speaking up so Starlight and the others could hear what Red had sent them, as if she wanted them to know what they were up against, "instead of answering his inquiries they told him that they were under attack by some sort of, and I'm quoting Red here, 'elemental creature'. Red describes the creature as a large fire elemental whose purpose, according to what he heard the creature shout, was to purge the world in a sea of fire."

"Huh, I had no idea there was a Rykan VII," Ratchet commented, to which he turned and faced Talwyn for a moment, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this planet, would you?"

"All I know is that Rykan VII is the last planet with the Rykan name," Talwyn replied, tapping her bracelet for a moment before calling up an image of the planet, which appeared to look like Rykan V, only with more of the planet looking like it was alive and not covered in lava, "its also the furthest from the sun, as the other six are much closer than it is, so there is more livable space for people to use. From what my father was able to find on that planet there's actually an ice cave somewhere on the planet, one that's supposed to house an ancient secret that only the 'Chosen One' can unlock."

"An ice cave, on a planet with lava refineries, that can only be opened by a creature from a legend," Starlight said, tossing the ice pack to the side, all while looking at the planet and trying to figure out where the cave could be located, "Maybe I can put one of my experimental weapons to use against such a creature... some field testing would do it some good, as I don't think those copies I made of me managed to finish perfecting it before I sent them away."

"Wait... you can clone yourself?" Sunset said, turning to look at Starlight for a moment, though it was clear that she liked the idea, "that is so awesome! A shame all you've used it for is busy work."

Starlight was tempted to just tell the pegasus that she had used it for more than catching up on her work, especially when the clones had been used to great effect in their fight against Ysmir, but she decided not to say anything. She was still thinking about the creature that Red had told them about, this fire elemental that was apparently causing havoc on a world for some odd reason. It was possible that more monsters had passed through the rifts that the Dimensionator had created, but she would have thought that all of them would have been sent home if that was the case... which meant that this particular monster was native to this dimension. Such a thing seemed silly to even think about, but when she considered what she was, and the fact that two more of her kind had been found and introduced to her, she knew that she shouldn't make this seem smaller than it really was.

The fact of the matter was that there was a fire elemental currently harassing a city on Rykan VII and Red had called for Searing and Sunset to come to their aid, though she suspected that he was also banking on all of them coming as well.

"Tell Red that all of us will head to Rykan VII and deal with this creature," Angela spoke up, causing Starlight to look over at her for a moment, surprised that she had been beat to the punch this time, "Starlight, we should check those weapons and see if there's anything else that we need to do to make them more effective... or see if you've got any ice magic in you."

"Come on, its just a fire elemental," Ratchet said, shrugging as everyone made their way to the Hyperion, though at the same time he was thankful that he had his hoverboard in case he needed to fly around something, "we'll be done with it in no time."





It didn't take them long to reach Rykan VII, especially when they were close to the planet to begin with, but as they flew their ships down to the planet's surface they spotted the creature they were after within a matter of minutes. It turned out that the elemental in question was at least as tall as the fifteen foot tall wall that surrounded the city that the creature was attacking, though the creature appeared to be a little taller than that. As the ships drew closer to the ground they all noticed that the elemental was made up of fire, lava, and molten rock, though its general shape appeared to be female in nature and the area its feet were supposed to be in was surrounded by a vortex of moving flames.

The rather large elemental was also carrying what appeared to be a sword of some kind, though it was proving to be a terrible weapon as the creature could only slash through things instead of smashing them, like one would do with a hammer... but the group let out a sigh of relief as they realized that the elemental had yet to actually breach the city's defenses.

"You know, when I sent Searing and Sunset the message about this creature I didn't think I'd be calling in the cavalry," Red said over the communicator, though his tone indicated that he was happy to see everyone again, "but considering what you guys have gone up against in the past, especially to take down Tachyon and secure the Dimensionator, I'm glad to see that you guys came as well. Now we just have to stop that creature before she breaks the shield wall and burns the city to the ground."

That was roughly followed by the creature pointing its left hand at the city and loosed a large fireball at whatever it was targeting, which was destroyed by a glimmering shield that sprung up to defend the city... though Starlight could tell that it was going to break if they didn't do something soon.

"As soon as I smash through your pathetic shield I shall purge your city from existence," the fire elemental shouted, flames dancing around her blade as she slammed it into the barrier, this time causing cracks to appear in it, "and then I shall burn your world to cinders! Then, once I am finished with this world, I shall burn the whole galaxy to ash!"

"She's insane, just like Fear and War," Ratchet commented, bringing up the warmonger that Searing and Sunset had fought, because by the sounds of it she was also insane to some degree, "So guys, how are we going to take this thing out?"

"I've got an idea," Starlight said, to which she directed the next sentence to the other ship that was in the air, "Hey Red, do you have the parts necessary to build a modified RYNO IV?"

"A... modified RYNO IV?" Red asked, though the uncertainty in his voice indicated that he was slightly afraid of the weapon, which was strange to Ratchet because the weapon hadn't been made at all, "What sort of modification are we talking about?"

"I'll send over the holo-plans for a moment and you can tell me if you've got the parts," Starlight replied, quickly sending over the plans in question, though at the same time the ships they were flying landed on a nearby plateau so they could see if Red had the pieces to built a weapon that could potentially rival Sunset Shimmer's destructive powers.

"A weapon that's designed to switch between firing the normal missiles and a new blend of missiles," Red commented, landing nearby with the sound of some tinkering coming from his ship, "specifically missile that contain liquid nitrogen. Where do you come up with these types of weapons?"

"I took the upgrade of the old Lava Gun, which was a Liquid Nitrogen Gun, and added it here," Starlight answered, rubbing the back of her head for a moment, though that was followed by Red opening the door of his ship and stepping out with the weapon in question, "though I think Ratchet should be using this weapon, as Searing and I can use ice magic on the creature and I'm sure that we have some liquid nitrogen bombs for Sunset to use."

Ratchet was, once again, blown away by the fact that his sister could have come up with a modification for the deadly RYNO IV weapon, in such a short amount of time no less, and also create one that could actually work with the weapon's existing design. He looked at the small weapon, which had some parts colored green and others colored dark green, and knew that while it was small it would pack the punch they needed to stop the creature that was attacking the barrier. With the weapon in hand, and his hoverboard was ready for use, Ratchet readied himself as he shot into the air, while Starlight and Searing followed him with their magical steps. Sunset, of course, took to the skies after grabbing some bombs from Red's ship, leaving everyone else to take to the skies with their ships, where they intended on using the missiles they had to do damage.

"Ah, more lambs have arrived for me to burn to cinders," the elemental shouted, turning towards the ships as they flew around her, but the look that appeared on her face told Starlight that the creature was pissed off that they were even there, "I am Ragenarosa, though you can either call me the Firelord or the Mistress of Flame."

Ragenarosa summoned her flames into her spare hand and targeted Aphelion, though as it loosed a fireball at her and Ratchet, with the intent to kill them, but before the attack could reach its target Searing appeared between them and used her magic to force the attack to explode in midair. The elemental screamed in rage the moment it noticed that its attack had been stopped, or to Starlight the Firelord was screaming the instant she noticed who had stopped her attack, before it loosed several more attacks that were directed at Searing. Starlight used her magic to summon several of her copies and sent them around the large elemental, while she used some of her magic to shoot large chunks of ice at several of the orbs of fire.

At the same time Sunset flew above the elemental and dropped a bomb on her shoulder, to which some of the flames turned to pure ice upon impact, though the ice shattered as Sunset joined Searing and Starlight.

"Wait... you look familiar," Ragenarosa said, her voice being amplified so everyone could hear her, though Starlight assumed it was because someone had been speaking about her and her family while near the creature.

"Trust me on this lady, we've never met before," Sunset shouted in return, to which Searing and Starlight nodded their heads in agreement, though all three of them prepared themselves for what was coming next, "I think I would have remembered meeting someone as large, and as angry, as you."

Starlight stared at the elemental for a moment, wondering if there was something behind what the creature had said, but at the moment she focused on thinking of a way to bring the large creature down... before it grew bored of them and shattered the protective barrier that was around the city.

"Ah, I can see now..." Ragenarosa declared, staring at Sunset for a few seconds, as if she was going to be the focus of her attacks and no one else, before pulling back and lifting her blade into the air, "You are correct, little pegasus, it appears that this is the first time we have met... and it shall be the last time as well."

Ragenarosa swung her blade at Sunset, causing the three mares that were standing near each other to separate from each other as the large blade passed through the air, missing all of them and allowing them to launch their counter attack. Sunset launched a trio of liquid nitrogen bombs into the air above the elemental's head, though before doing so she made sure to activate the feature that allowed them to float wherever she threw them. As she flew through the air she heard Red explain that the bombs were designed to hover in one place and absorb the ice that was in the air, though they were experimental bombs that may or may not work the way they were designed to.

Starlight and Searing flew around the large elemental, with their magic levitating them, as it followed the ships that were drawing it away from the city, where Aphelion and Angela loosed a barrage of small shots into the elemental to annoy it. From what Starlight could tell, based on what they've seen, Ragenarosa was an easy creature to piss off, as every time a missile or bullet entered its body it just got even angrier at all of them. The elemental also had a fascination with burning everything, because every now and then it would shout something at them as it slowly followed them towards a vacant area.

"Stand still so I can purge you from existence!" Ragenarosa shouted, flames dancing through the air towards the trio of mares, though Searing and Starlight were enough to freeze the flames that came near all of them, especially since Starlight's clones were helping them out.

Ratchet joined them as he flew in on his hoverboard, loosing a volley from the RYNO IV into the creature, to which the force of the explosion knocked the elemental backwards for a few seconds, though that only seemed to make it even angrier as it charred the landscape around the area that was its feet. As he distracted the creature Searing and Starlight loosed more frost magic at their target, freezing small sections of its arms and chest until the heat shattered the ice and it came at them again. Occasionally Sunset would fly near them and mention that the devices were definitely charging, to which she asked what they were planning on using them for once it was ready.

Starlight noticed that the trio of ice bombs had already fused together above the elemental's head, somehow not melting under the intensity of the flames that were coming off of the creature, but she had the feeling that she knew exactly what they were going to do with them once it was ready.

Ragenarosa used literally every tactic in her reserve to damage them, using her sword to carve up the landscape and burn everything around her, while at the same time summoning more fireballs to throw at them. Angela commented over the communication line that the creature was like a one trick pony, while trying not to offend the three mares that were attacking the elemental, and that the fight was much easier than what she had expected. The fight was still a stalemate between the two forces, mainly because they couldn't reach the elemental's core and deal a devastating blow to their opponent, but Angela was sure that Starlight had an idea... she always had an idea on how to overcome a problem like this.

Eventually the answer came when both Starlight and Searing stopped where they were floating and let the creature reach for them, though seconds before her hand could crush them she stopped in mind motion, which was followed by her hand reaching for her chest and allowing everyone to see some sort of blue colored material forming inside her core.

"What... have you... done to... me?" Ragenarosa shouted, her voice still brimming with anger towards them all, though at the same time the ice that was clearly forming inside her continued to spread and started to slow her down.

"We activated a magically charged trio of liquid nitrogen bombs next to your core," Starlight replied, watching the ice spread over the elemental's chest and creep into her hands, while at the same time they allowed the creature to see that both her horn and Searing's horn were glowing at the moment, "Searing opened a small hole inside your back while you were distracted by Aphelion and the others, where she created a specially crafted passage I could use to deposit the bombs inside. Once the charges were ready I slipped the charge into your chest, or more specifically your core, and detonated it with enough force to create what your feeling now."

"Soon your chest will be completely covered in magically infused ice," Searing added, just as the ice surrounded Ragenarosa's sword hand and froze it solid, which was followed by the hand snapping off and the pieces falling to the ground, "I do believe that this was the sign that we were waiting for."

"Open fire!" Sunset shouted, to which she, Angela, Aphelion, Red, and everyone else used their most power weapons to blow open the creature's chest, leaving a massive hole that caused the creature to collapse on the ground in a pile of pieces.

"Now that we have taken care of the elemental the people of the city should be willing to help you out," Red told everyone else, while the rest of the elemental cracked under the intensity of the bombs that had struck its core, "they have agreed to allow you to use their Obsidian Eye to see if you can figure out where the Zoni took Clank."

Starlight was pleased with the news, though while she and everyone else made their way towards the city she looked back and noticed that the elemental's core had turned into a crystal... one that was grabbed by a lone Zoni that appeared for a few seconds before disappearing, leaving her to wonder what was so special about the strange crystals that the strange creature dropped.

After they landed Red lead them to the tower that the Obsidian Eye, the telescope that would allow them to find Clank, was located in, though at the same time he told them that he speculated that the creature might have come here to destroy the eye, and the city that was surrounding it. The Obsidian Eye was a large crystal of sorts that was powered by something called a Fulcrum Star, though when they finally arrived at the device Red tapped some buttons and beckoned Starlight forward. What she found was Clank hovering in a stasis field with a few Zoni floating around him, apparently chattering about him being someone of importance while a 'Doctor' was being called in to help repair him.

She couldn't believe her eyes when she saw that the doctor was actually Dr. Nefarious, though before they could do anything the Obsidian Eye powered down... to which Red apologized and stated that the assault had drained the reserves the city had, which meant that this was as far as they were getting at the moment. Starlight didn't mind it too much, because they had acquired the coordinates for the Breegus Nebula, where they could begin their search for Clank the moment they entered the system.
> Time: Quantos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Clank had no idea what was going on around him, not after the Zoni had appeared above him and his friends after they had acquired the Dimensionator before their foe had used it to end all of creation. His sensors indicated that he was in an unknown area, suspended in midair by something, and indicated that two people were currently standing around him, which were identified as Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence. A few seconds later his sensors indicated that three more people entered the room that he was in, but he somehow doubted that it was Ratchet, Starlight, and Angela.

"Sire does not remember," a trio of voices said, though the tone made his sensors register them as the Zoni that had helped him and Ratchet in their last adventure, "You must fix."

"I know that!" Nefarious replied, not even sounding angry that the Zoni were commanding him around, while at the same time something activated and said it was running a scan, "Let's see... favorite color is green... favorite number is eighty-three billion and four point seven..."

"Access denied," a computerized voice said, though it was clear that it had interrupted Nefarious, which was followed by a small alarm that indicated that something was shutting down, "Neural safeguard activated."

"Not again," Nefarious exclaimed, his tone indicating that he was annoyed about something, "Every time I think I'm making progress with a different sequence his systems keep locking me out... I can't fix him at this rate."

"And it seems that this was the last potential combination you could have come up with," Lawrence added, showing his boss the list of combinations that had been made before they started work, "Perhaps Clank's systems don't want you to fix him."

"Lawrence... wake Clank up," Nefarious said, as the moment Lawrence had suggested that Clank's systems might not want HIM to fix him, and restore him to his previous state before the Zoni had grabbed him, he knew how to get around that.

"As you wish sir," Lawrence replied, to which he tapped a few keys and disengaged all of the systems that were currently running at the moment, though that was followed by Clank carefully being lowered onto the machine that he had been floating above.

Clank awoke in a strange circular room with all sorts of machines and devices that he was unfamiliar with, though he was shocked to find both Lawrence and Nefarious standing nearby. The trio of Zoni that he had heard were floating nearby as well, though they almost looked concerned for his well being, leading him to wonder if they were the trio that had grabbed him earlier. He checked his systems himself, as he wondered what was wrong with him, but he found nothing in his initial scan, leaving him to gently pull himself onto the floor and test his body... where he found that there was nothing wrong with him.

"It is good to see you again Clank," Nefarious stated, though Clank's systems detected that he had lost the tones he had used back when he was trying to takeover the Solana Galaxy, "I trust you had a pleasant nap?"

"As good as it can be when I'm abducted and awaken in a place that's unfamiliar to me," Clank replied, glaring at the Doctor for a moment, while at the same time noticing that his body had been upgraded quite a bit since the last time they had crossed paths, "So tell me, what evil plan are you setting in motion this time?"

"Clank, I haven't seen you or your family for about six years," Nefarious said, not even showing signs that he had been shocked by what Clank had said, rather he seemed to have been expecting him to make such a claim, "and the first thing that you think, when we see each other again, is that I'm up to no good? Honestly, I don't blame you for thinking that... but your wrong."

"And you expect me to believe that you actually turned over a new leaf?" Clank asked, noting that Lawrence was as quiet as the last time they had encountered the butler, "What could possibly make someone like you have a change of heart?"

Nefarious stared at Clank, knowing that it would be a tough argument to explain why he had changed, but then he let out a sigh and tapped on his chest piece for a moment, which opened up a small bit. What he revealed was his mechanical heart, the core of his being, though the one thing he couldn't fix, in all the time he had, was the claw marks that had been burned above his heart.

"Our God of Destruction changed by mind," Nefarious answered, giving Clank thirty seconds to see what he was showing him before sealing his heart container back up, though before he said anymore he heard something shatter near where they were standing, "Lawrence, I thought we had the anomaly contained!"

"We did sir," Lawrence said, though he tapped a few buttons and found the problem, "but it seems that the rest of the Zoni are being harassed by the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler."

"Impossible!" Nefarious declared, telling Clank that something had to be wrong if Nefarious was upset, "I decommissioned the project and scrapped the prototype weeks ago... I even destroyed it to be sure that it couldn't be used against the Zoni!"

"Indeed you did sir," Lawrence said, to which he tapped a few more buttons on his tablet before he showed something to his boss, "but it appears that the time-space anomaly has been pulling in troops from another timeline... one where you planned on betraying the Zoni and seizing control of the facility. It also happens to be the same timeline where Sunset Shimmer doesn't exist..."

"Great, now I have to deal with this," Nefarious said, his hand touching his forehead for a few seconds, before he turned to Clank, who was slightly confused as to what was going on, "or maybe this is fates way of telling me that only you can fix yourself. Clank, Lawrence and I are going to deal with this anomaly, like I should have done when I first found it, though you should make your way through the facility and find Sigmund... he'll help you out the rest of the way."

Clank decided that now wasn't the time to be questioning what was going on as he followed the pathway that was in front of him, which he was forced off of when a large machine, which emitted sonic waves, chased some Zoni through the area and shattered the walkway he was on. He maneuvered his way around the path that he was on, finding that there were some crazed robots attacking both the Zoni and the strange facility he had found himself in, though at the same time he noticed Nefarious shooting at the robots from afar. After a few more seconds he came across a hologram of a strange robot, one that resembled a cross between a gumball machine and a popcorn maker with manipulator arms, that appeared next to a walkway just as it collapsed.

Clank had to assume that this was Sigmund, considering the robot was asking him to head into the air ducts, where he entered a room that allowed him to calibrate his systems back to what they had been before the Zoni had grabbed him. From that point he had to follow the path that the hologram pointed out to him, where he passed by machines that held holograms of planets, which made him wonder where he was. As he followed Sigmund's path he encountered the Hypersonic weapon that Lawrence had mentioned, which lead him to moving through what he could only describe as distorted time, though he also encountered a room where time moved back and forth with pauses between each change.

He eventually came to a ledge that was overlooking what he assumed was the heart of the facility, causing him to be amazed by the sheer size of the place he was in.

"Wh... what is this place?" Clank asked, though it was actually directed at himself, because he assumed that he was the only one around at the moment.

"The Great Clock," a voice behind him said, which turned out to be Lawrence, though he was accompanied by the robot from the holograms he had seen, "or, as Dr. Nefarious would call it, a 'marvel of science and sorcery'."

"It was engineered by the brightest Zoni in all of recorded history," the other robot added, though he was waving his arms around in excitement for some reason, "and it was constructed in the exact center of the universe... give or take fifty feet."

"It is also burning in several places," Clank pointed out, though when he thought about who was doing the damage he remembered that Nefarious had mentioned something called the time-space anomaly, but he figured that he would be informed what that was at some point.

"I can brief you on everything that is going on sir," the robot said, to which he turned to Lawrence for a second, as if the two of them knew something that Clank didn't know, "I shall send you and Nefarious my reports, as per your request."

"Then I shall leave Clank, and the Great Clock, in your hands," Lawrence commented, to which he waved to Clank a little bit, "Take all the time that you need... and do have some fun."

Clank was confused by everything that was going on, though as Lawrence teleported out of the area he seriously hoped that Sigmund had some answers for him... otherwise he was going to be terribly lost before he figured out how to get back to Ratchet and the others. He only hoped that his friends were having better luck on their end... wherever they were at the moment.





Ratchet was not having a good day, not when he, Starlight, Qwark, Searing, and Sunset were all stranded on a planet that they didn't even know the name of. Sure, they had managed to avoid all of the mercenaries that roamed the Breegus Sector, where they were supposed to find a clue as to the whereabouts of Clank, but that had come to an end when some sort of energy washed over Aphelion and caused them to crash. Unfortunately the ship that Searing and Sunset had been flying in, which had an autopilot that they could interact with since they couldn't steer with hooves, had also crashed as well... and it was floating above Aphelion in the strange blue light that was preventing the two ships from colliding with the cliff wall, which would destroy both of them.

Ratchet considered himself fortunate that he had asked Angela to stay behind with the Hyperion, so they could scout out the Breegus Sector before giving her the go ahead to follow them, otherwise they would all be stranded... and he seriously didn't want to go back to work on the large starship.

"No wonder I wasn't affected by the anomaly," Starlight said, as she finished analyzing the energy that was around both of the ships, "its temporal energy... the same energy that the Zoni used when they took Clank, and the same energy I'm still starting to learn."

Starlight had explained, when they were fighting Ysmir, why she hadn't been affected by the time ability that their opponent had used, to which she determined that part of her unique magic was related to time. That was why when Ysmir had slowed Ratchet and Angela down, as they had been the closest to her at the time, Starlight was able to see what was happening as clear as day and stop her family from being hurt. She did, however, admit that she was still a novice at this sort of thing, which was why she couldn't stop their ships from nearly crashing until the anomaly had saved them.

"Look, we're not going anywhere until we either figure out how to repair Aphelion, or find another pair of ships," Ratchet finally said, though as he said that he was slightly annoyed that they had, foolishly, chosen to leave most of their weapons back on the Hyperion.

"Oh, you mean we get to take a leisurely stroll through the jungle?" Qwark said, to which he drew his blaster and proceeded to follow the only available path that was open to him, to which the others made sure to keep him in their sights.

The group carefully made their way into the lush forest that surrounded them, though they could tell that most of the wildlife was peaceful towards them, as far as they could tell. The path that Qwark was following was mostly straightforward and well traveled, though it was clear that he was expecting it to have some degree of safety. The trees were tall and tropical, the sky blue and cloudless, and the sun shone brightly, allowing them to enjoy the scenery for the first time in a really long time, which was a nice change of pace. The first walkway they came to had a small group of tiny purple creatures standing around it, though they were easily put down with a single shot from the new blasters that Starlight had picked up before they came this way.

Sunset, the only one who didn't have a blaster, was fine with using the blades above her wings to deal damage to her foes, proclaiming that she didn't need all of the 'fancy' guns that Starlight had created... while admitting that using the RYNO weapon would have been pretty sweet if she magic like her sister.

After they crossed the ruined walkway they encountered more of the tiny purple creatures, though that eventually ended when they stopped at a river that clearly had a bridge... though all they had to do was turn the crank on the other side of the river. Starlight levitated her staff over to the bolt crank and started turning the mechanism, saying that they never knew whether or not they might need it in the future for some reason, though Ratchet assumed that she didn't want to waste magic on more magical steps. Once they were on the other side of the river Qwark charged at the ruins that were blocking their way and quite literally kicked the wall down, allowing them to enter the ruins that they would have to pass through, which made Starlight a little annoyed with Qwark's destruction of history.

When they all were inside the ruin they spotted more of the blue light keeping a bunch of stones and pillars frozen in time at the moment, though in a way that resembled a walkway for them to use.

"Something is seriously wrong with this planet," Ratchet commented, though he held a hand up before Starlight could say anything, "and I don't mean on the scale that Fastoon was when the Dimensionator was active... I just mean that something unnatural is happening."

While everyone was on agreement on that topic, that something was definitely happening to the planet, they picked their own paths to get over the wall in front of them; Ratchet used the way provided by the blue light, Starlight and Searing floated over it with their magic, and Sunset flew over it... though a few seconds later Qwark decided to smash it down and meet back up with them. That also meant that they had to take down some strange purple creatures that resembled the ones they had put down earlier, only more grown up, but in the end they were no match for five skilled combatants.

Once the next bridge was up everyone gathered around the weapon vendor, where Starlight purchased four of the new Constructo Bombs, which was the newest generation of the Bomb Glove that was available, only this one could be modified with special modifications that you either had to buy or earn by doing certain tasks. The moment everyone had their new weapons, and understood how to use it, Qwark kicked down another section of the ruins and allowed them to test the bombs on the enemies that were waiting for them. Not a few seconds later they ran into a strange purple skinned alien, one that was dressed up in a homespun garb, though it took only one look to understand why she had been running towards them.

"Help!" she cried out, coming to a stop in front of the group, to which she actually smiled for a bit when she looked at them, "Please help me! My children are in danger!"

"What seems to be the problem, citizen?" Qwark asked formally, easily dropping into his hero persona once more, which was understandable considering he had been using it for most of his life and then perfected it upon joining the Heroes Association.

"Zyphoids!" the woman explained, gesturing to the fungus like creatures the group had been fighting so far, "We were fishing near the river when they attacked!"

"Qwark, stay here and keep her safe," Ratchet ordered, to which he turned to the rest of the group as Qwark saluted him, "Starlight and Searing, you two should head to the right and make sure that the kid is safe. Sunset and I will head to the left and rescue the others."

The Zypholids that Starlight and Searing encountered were being spawned by a plant of some kind, though with both of their magic combined they were able to save the child that was hiding along the path that Ratchet had suggested that they head down, though when they returned to the mother they found that Qwark had saved a second child... which had been in front of the group the entire time. Ratchet and Sunset noticed that the child they were after would require moving around a puzzle like area, until Sunset flapped her wings and flew over to where the child was standing. She then let him climb onto her back, while suggesting that he not touch the blades that were attached to her wings, before she returned him to his mother, who was extremely thankful to have them all back... though before they moved on Sunset flew back into the area she had been in and returned with a weapon mod she had noticed.

"Oh, thank you!" the woman cried out, though the group was happy to see the joy on her face as she embraced her three children, "But the Zyphoids will be back soon. We must make haste to the village where it is safe."

"Lead the way," Ratchet replied, to which he and the rest of the group readied their weapons, or in Sunset's case showed off her blades, "We'll watch your back."

"Our deepest thanks," the woman offered sincerely, turning to lead the way to the village, which happened to be in the direction of the wall that Qwark would have tried to kick down if he had the chance, though when they reached the wall she called out, "Alphius! Open the door!"

The wall lowered a few seconds later and another member of her race, which all of their nav-comps finally identified as Fongoids, appeared behind it, though this one was carrying a staff in one of his hands.

"Enessa?" the newcomer asked, as if he was shocked to find her and the children on this side of the wall, though he regained himself in a matter of seconds, "What are you doing out here?"

"The Zyphoids are back!" the woman, Enessa, quickly explained, though at the same time she pointed at the sky with one of her fingers, "There must be something wrong with the time keeper."

"Not in front of the outsiders!" Alphius responded, though his tone indicated that whatever the 'time keeper' was it was supposed to be a heavily guarded secret that wasn't supposed to be shared with people like them, "Quickly, we must head to the village."

As Alphius and Enessa led the way to their village Ratchet and the others spread out, taking out each and every Zyphoid that decided to try and make a meal out of them or the children, though it didn't take too much time before they had reached their destination. As they walked through the city Alphius told them that it was possible to repair both of their ships, though it would require the help of the Zoni and the use of a special item that was inside their temple. The group paused by the weapon vendor to pick up the Sonic Eruptor, which was a modified frog that was attached to a gun, before they met up with Alphius at the door of the temple.

When asked if they could keep a secret Ratchet immediately said that they could, though the only one he knew that would be a problem was Qwark, as he tended to spill the beans on anything if he was captured.

"The Zoni are powerful creatures, capable of almost anything." Alphius said, though he did so in a serious tone, indicating that what he was telling them was very important, "But they are also hive-minds, and must be kept together for their energy to work. Inside the Temple is a vessel that will allow you to rescue lost Zoni and harness their bio energy. Follow me, and don't touch anything!"

They followed him inside, where he, one of the children, and Qwark stood on a trio of buttons to open the door in front of them, though he told them that only one could go inside the temple... and the group determined that Starlight was the best choice. Sunset was a little bummed out that she couldn't run through the obstacle course, as she was sure that one was inside the temple, but with Starlight having magic, and a knowledge of the Zoni energy, it was clear who was the better choice.

Starlight was able to use her magic to slip through the moving lasers that were guarding the first button, levitated herself over the spinning flames so she could reach the second one, and walked into the chamber that contained the mysterious vessel that had been mentioned a minutes or two ago. A few seconds later two of the Zoni, looking lost and forlorn, wandered into the room she was in, to which she wrapped her magic around them and guided them into the vessel. Once they were inside the vessel she cancelled her magic and returned to the rest of the group... only to find that the settlement was under attack by someone named Vorselon.

As she joined the battle she found that Qwark had already been captured, along with quite a few of the villagers, so she and the others fought their way through the villager and took out the invaders, overhearing that Nefarious was involved with this newest enemy they had encountered. Alphius lead them through the village, allowing them to take out all of the invaders that were trying to kill them, before they had to fight one last large group that was apparently blocking a sacred vault of some kind... where they found a third Zoni that floated into the vessel that Starlight was carrying.

Alphius then took them through an old teleport pad that brought them back to their ships, where Starlight held the vessel out and let the Zoni do their thing... where they combined both of the ships into one entity; giving Aphelion a bright blue color, restored the wings that had been torn off, upgraded the weapons Aphelion had, and enlarged the cockpit so at least four people could comfortably sit inside it, six at the max. With the task done the Zoni returned to the vessel and closed it behind them, while at the same time Aphelion came back online, which was a surprise for the ship for a few seconds.

With Aphelion restored the group climbed in and promised to rescue everyone that had been taken by Vorselon, to which they took off and headed towards the large starship that was leaving the planet's surface. They were sure that their new foe was going to be in for quite a surprise... and they were sure that he had some answers for everything that he had said to Ratchet before Starlight had emerged with the Zoni vessel.
> Time: Vorselon's Warship
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It took them a few seconds to leave the planet's atmosphere and reach the vastness of space, though when both Aphelion and Starlight declared that they had reached a safe distance, and had left the time anomalies that were occurring on the planet behind, Ratchet opened up his communicator and hoped for the best.

"Qwark, come in!" Ratchet said, silently hoping that the former captain was alright, because while he was an idiot at times he had to admit that he had his moments, which usually helped them out in the end, "Do you read me?"

"Its good to hear your voice Ratchet." came Qwark's response, causing some smiles to appear on everyone's faces for a moment, "They've got us in these containment cells and... They're coming with food. Oh thank heaven, they're coming with... TAP WATER?! YOU ANIMALS!"

Starlight couldn't help but groan at the fact that Qwark was concerned about what his captors were serving him and the other captives, instead of worried about the safety of the civilians that had been captured along side him. She had long since determined that there would always be some trace of the old captain Qwark lingering in the new Qwark, though she always hated it whenever that trace showed itself.

"Would you just listen to me?" Ratchet said, though it was clear that he was annoyed that they were even having to save Qwark in the first place, "I need you to activate the nav-beacon on your belt. Can you do that?"

For a few seconds Qwark was quiet, as if he was messing around with his belt to activate the beacon in question, though Ratchet was tempted to say that he had forgotten about it. Before anyone said anything about the beacon Aphelion declared that they were receiving the signal from the ship, which would allow them to find where Vorselon was holding Qwark and the Fongoids.

"Good, now hang tight." Ratchet ordered, knowing that the former captain would remain where he was until they arrived, which would be followed by them busting their way out of the ship, "we're on our way."

As Aphelion approached the warship in front of them she announced that there were twenty-five enemy ships coming their way, which meant that Vorselon knew that they were coming to save the people he had taken. Ratchet maneuvered them around in the air, giving Aphelion time to test her new abilities that the Zoni had given her, be they new maneuvers that she couldn't use in the past or try out the upgraded weaponry that she had. Several enemies tried to shoot her down, but she and Ratchet used their combined abilities to slip past everything that was thrown at them while dealing damage to their foes. After some time it became clear that the Zoni had given Aphelion the advantage over their foes, as within three minutes of engaging the enemy ships they were the last ones standing, allowing them to fly down onto one of the wings of Vorselon's ship.

Once they landed Ratchet made sure that they all had their helmets engaged, due to the space around them, before Aphelion opened up and allowed the four heroes to climb out so they could rescue Qwark and the Fongoids. As they moved towards the main body of the ship they had to pause by the thrusters, to avoid being roasted by the flames that allowed the ship move forward. At the second thruster Ratchet used a modification he had added to his wrench, which would allow him to grab onto certain metallic objects, such as a bridge for instance, and pull it into place. He had mainly crafted it, with Starlight's help, in the off chance that he had to do something like this and Starlight wasn't around to help him out, though this time she didn't seem to mind him doing the work.

The third thruster seemed to be going none stop, to which Ratchet spotted something attached to the outside of it and yanked the item clean off the engine, powering it down so they could pull the bridge down and get across. They then had to walk up a magnetic wall so they could reach an airlock, which was opened by pulling apart another power section with the new addition to Ratchet's wrench, before they moved inside the ship and closed the airlock behind them. Once the airlock was closed they moved through the passage that they were in, dispatching three lone robots before they could alert anyone to their presence, before they started to move past some laser defenses. After a few seconds they reached a bolt crank, which they turned around a few times to clear the path for them, though they also took out a robot, with saws for hands, that arrived in an elevator.

Once they were all inside they rode down for about five seconds before they reached their next destination, where they shot down another lone robot that was standing guard before noticing that they were going to have to walk around another ionized walkway, just like the one they had used to get inside the ship to begin with. It didn't take them long to reach the end of the walkway, not when all they had to do was knock out a small power module of some kind and dodge some moving lasers, though Ratchet did have to tear apart another power station that was blocking their way.

The next room they entered had a swarm of the smaller robots moving around the ceiling, though Starlight smiled as she, Ratchet, and Searing purchased the new Mr. Zurkon weapon that had been released, to which the trio of killer robots charged at the swarm and started blasting them apart... to which Ratchet noticed something odd.

"Um, where did Sunset go?" he asked, as he was sure that the pegasus in question hadn't fallen behind, though that was followed by Starlight directing his attention to the other side of the room they were in.

Sunset was flying around the enemies that were below her, occasionally swooping down to cut one apart with the blades above her wings before moving into a higher area, though it was clear that she was either distracting them or she was having fun. With the enemies on the other side of the room distracted Ratchet and the others hopped down into the area below them, where they opened fire on the group that was down there. It didn't take long to put down the robots that wanted them dead, between the four weapons that they already had, so Ratchet was able to access the bolt crank with ease, moving some of the platforms into a usable bridge for him.

Ratchet often questioned why Starlight didn't just use her magic to create walkways and platforms for them, but it was generally because the amount she needed to create would prevent her from doing anything else, so they had to play by what was in their environment and use whatever they found to their advantage. When they finally reached the other side of the room they found Sunset standing in the middle of a pile of robotic parts, indicating that she had used her blades to crudely dismantle the robots until they stopped moving.

"What took you guys so long?" Sunset asked, letting out what was a fake yawn, though Ratchet could tell that she was just trying to impress them for some reason, "I was getting tired of waiting for all of you."

"You did a good job of clearing the way," Searing said, a smile appearing on her face as the group looked down the walkway they had to take, "Come on, let's hope Qwark hasn't done anything stupid yet."

They followed the walkway into a passage that was in front of them, though after a few seconds Starlight spotted something that she recognized; a fragment of the RYNO V holoplan, which she had ripped apart and scattered to prevent it from being used. It was significantly more powerful than the previous four versions she had created, which was understandable considering that every new generation of weapons was better than the last. She was just shocked to find it here, on Vorselon's warship, which told her that their new enemy must have been planning on gathering all ten pieces of the plan so he could make the weapon... which told her that she needed to summon the other pieces with her magic before they fell into the wrong hands as well.

The group then entered another passage that needed two power modules to be deactivated before they could pass through it, to which Ratchet pulled the exposed power parts off of the modules and allowed them to advance further into the ship. That was before they came to a large central hub area, where they found a bunch of enemies standing near what Starlight claimed was explosive charges... which Ratchet detonated with a blast from his blaster and took out the entire group in front of them.

"Whoever is making Vorselon's minions needs to be fired," Ratchet commented, resisting the urge to bring his palm to his face after seeing the stupidity of the robots he had just destroyed, "that was way too easy for us to do."

"Look, we can complain when we're off the ship," Starlight said, to which she latched her magic onto the bolt crank and turned it so they could use the nearby ionized walkway to progress further into the ship, "for now we should focus on rescuing Qwark and the Fongoids."

As they walked along the pathway Ratchet pulled apart more power modules as the rest of the group dismantled the robots that tried to stop them, eventually bringing them to another passageway that was filled with laser traps. Ratchet used two different bolt cranks to allow them to move through the passageway, especially when they had to time their advances carefully, but they eventually made it to the elevator that was waiting for them. That brought them to an area where they noticed Vorselon talking to the Fongoids he had captured, apparently asking about someone named Azimuth, which was who he thought Ratchet was back in the village, but other than that it didn't appear that they were going to get very much out of watching what was unfolding before their eyes.

As it turned out Qwark, Alphius, and one of the children were being held to the right of where they entered, to which the group noticed that Vorselon had to be stupid to let Qwark keep his blaster.

"It is good to see all of you again," Qwark commented, before beckoning to the laser wall in front of him, "Now then, how do we get rid of these barriers?"

Ratchet answered the question by tearing apart another power module, deactivating the barrier and preventing anyone from noticing... until Qwark ran up to a door and kicked it down, which turned on the alarm that they had been trying to avoid the entire time. From that moment on they openly found all of the forces that Vorselon had as they made their way to where the rest of the Fongoids were being held. Sunset used her wings to their advantage, as when all of their enemies were in a room she would fly to the back end of them and start tearing them apart with her blades, cutting down the numbers everyone else had to fight. When they reached the other side of the room they were in, where the path took them anyway, Qwark struck down another door and allowed them to attack the guards that were outside the cells that the Fongoids were trapped in.

It didn't take very long for the group to defeat their opponents and free the Fongoids, though Qwark insisted on riding in the escape ship with them to ensure their safety... though Ratchet had the feeling that there was something else the former captain wanted to ask the group before they returned to their planet. A few seconds later Ratchet spotted the bolt crank that allowed him to launch the escape pod into space, to which Vorselon screamed at his minions as the group made their way down the path that their opponent had planned out for them in advance. They eventually came to a weapon vendor that was sitting in front of an elevator, to which they restocked their ammunition and rode down to the arena below them, where they discovered that Vorselon was essentially a head that was controlling a robotic body.

"Pitiful creatures! You have meddled in Dr. Nefarious' plans for the last time!" Vorselon declared, his voice sounding a little modified by his suit, "Prepare to be killed by... wait for it... LORD VORSELON! Hahahahaha!"

Ratchet and the others prepared themselves for what should be a tough fight, but Vorselon's attacks were apparently lightning based and Starlight was able to use a shield that negated everything he could send at them. Ratchet found it annoying that Vorselon only had one set of attacks that focused on one element, though within three minutes of starting the battle they had dismantled his armor and defeated him... to which his head case ran away and declared that this wasn't the last that they had seen of him. With that deed done they moved through a different door and found Aphelion waiting for them, to which they climbed into the ship and departed from Vorselon's warship.

While they left the warship behind, and let it move to wherever Vorselon's base was located, Qwark told them that he had learned that Azimuth was located on a planet called Torren IV, in the Vela Sector. Ratchet thanked Qwark for the information, once again happy that he was on their side these days, before Aphelion engaged the warp drive and they departed from the sector they were in.
> Time: Torren IV
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Clank and Sigmund made their way across a massive gap, by using a launch pad that happened to be located nearby, before landing on a platform and watched as the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler, or rather a different version of it, flew through the air and tore several pieces of the walkway apart. From what Clank was able to gather, based on what Nefarious and Lawrence had said when he woke up, the machine that was tearing apart the Great Clock was from another timeline, though Sigmund specified that by stating that it must have fallen through the time-space anomaly and continued whatever rampage it had been programmed to do. Clank determined that the Dimensionator, the weapon that they had recovered some time ago, was partly at fault for the anomaly existing, which Sigmund seemed to agree with, but that only made Clank worry about the large station they were in... especially if something like the Dimensionator could affect it.

He had to boost himself over the gap that the violent machine had created, while at the same time vowing to tear it apart the first chance it presented him with, before he landed on the other side of the walkway and had to boost up four more floating platforms so he could reach the door that Sigmund had brought him to. He arrived in time to hear the end of Sigmund scolding a computer for not opening the door, though once it was open he beckoned him inside... where he found two strangely colored panels on the floor.

"While you were unconscious Nefarious and I installed a quantum actuator into your systems," Sigmund explained, though he noticed the confused look Clank was giving him, "its allows you to create multiple images of yourself to get things done... here, I'll show you how to use it."

As it turned out Sigmund stood above the blue panel and initiated a 'temporal recording', which he stopped once he pressed the button that was behind him and 'ended' the recording. With a flash of light Sigmund was standing beside Clank again, though there was a blue colored Sigmund standing above the blue panel, to which the robot stood on the green one and started a second recording. This time both he and the blue recording moved at the same time, but while the blue one stopped on the button Sigmund continued towards the door and passed through it, calling out for Clank to give it a go. Clank, in turn, studied the puzzle that was laid out before him and repeated the process that Sigmund went through, allowing him to catch up to the Junior Caretaker.

"Excellent job sir," Sigmund said, to which beckoned to the next puzzle and explained that Clank could record over something he had already done before, though once he was done explaining he let Clank have a go at it.

A few seconds later Clank was walking through the door and Sigmund was praising his skills in adapting to a new environment, to which the Hypersonic weapon moved through the area and tore another structure apart... though they eventually passed through another door and came to a contraption that reminded Clank of the one he had woken up in.

"Where is Orvus?" Clank asked, knowing that the name meant something to Sigmund and the Zoni, so he assumed that he was a figure of importance that he needed to know about.

"He's in your head, of course!" Sigmund replied, though the way he said that made Clank wonder if that was the truth or if he was kidding, "Locked away in a secret partition in your memory banks! Nefarious has been trying to help you see him for the last few days, but he's run out of options and this is the only path that's available to you now. Now we need to deactivate your neural safeguards and send you into your own subconscious."

Clank nodded and hopped into the machine, where he sank down into his subconscious and found himself in a white space that appeared to be some sort of training area designed to help him understand the abilities that he had only begun to tap into while he and the others had been dealing with Tachyon. The image that appeared in front of him allowed him to see what Orvus looked like, while at the same time understanding that it wasn't the real Orvus, before he was given a golden scepter that had rotating rings at the top of it. His training consisted of throwing small balls of time energy to slow down a rotating ring, hitting things to restore them to their original condition, as well as some training in using the scepter as a weapon to 'lay the smack down' on a large group of Qwark clones.

After a few rounds of testing out the various combat applications that the scepter could go through, and receiving some praise from the image of Orvus, Clank was ejected from his own subconscious... where he acquired the actual scepter and made his way through the various puzzles that Sigmund brought him to.

Clank had to admit that the first few puzzles that he encountered were rather easy, though he expected as much and decided that this was to ease him into using the scepter and his new abilities. In between puzzles he spent some time repairing the broken pieces of the Great Clock, wherever he found them, as well as dealing with small creatures that apparently fed on quantum energy, meaning that they could eat his other selves during the puzzles. While he moved he marveled at the sight of the Great Clock, taking in everything that was around him while he wondered what Starlight and the others would make of it when, and if, they ever came here.

During their walk Clank decided to ask Sigmund about something that was bothering him, which was why Nefarious was here and why he was defending the Great Clock... especially when he was sure that the villain wanted to use it for his own goals.

"Oh, another version of Nefarious wants to use the Great Clock like that," Sigmund commented, waving his hand as the two of them moved forward, "but that version of him never had someone like the God of Destruction to put him straight. After seeing how much his stupidity annoyed the god that could obliterate him with a single word, like what happened to that nasty Gleemon Vox, Nefarious decided that working against her was a bad thing... so he decided to work with her."

"Wait, Nefarious knows where Sunset Shimmer is?" Clank asked, because out of everyone that could know where the missing god was located, the robot doctor was one he hadn't been expecting.

"Um... yes and no," Sigmund started to reply, though at the same time he spotted something moving towards them, to which he pointed at the robot that was causing chaos around the Great Clock, "Oh no, its the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler!"

Clank let out a sigh as he hurled one of the time bombs at the machine and slowed it down, to which he slammed the scepter into it and smashed several pieces of its circuitry, causing it to back off for a few seconds. It loosed a wave of energy that spawned more of the creatures that ate quantum energy, but they were easy to take care of as Clank tore more of the machine to pieces. The third time he delivered the same set of blows to the machine he caused the entire thing to shudder before it exploded, raining pieces down around them. He suspected that Nefarious would be pleased that the machine had been taken care of, though he knew the doctor would be busy tearing the time-space anomaly apart... thus he wouldn't know about the death of the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler until he was done with his own task.

With the machine defeated, and the Great Clock saved from its rampage, Clank and Sigmund continued on the path that Sigmund had created for them... though as they walked Clank had to wonder what his friends were up to at that exact moment.





Ratchet stretched as he, Starlight, Sunset, and Searing climbed out of Aphelion as they landed in the area known as Molonoth Fields, where they were supposed to find Alister Azimuth. As he and the others looked out at the area around them, and determined the best route for them to use, another ship entered the atmosphere and landed near them, to which they noticed Angela climb out of her ship. They had sent word to her and Talwyn that they were heading to the Vela Sector to search for a Lombax called Alister Azimuth, whose full name they had uncovered thanks to Aphelion. Angela had asked them to wait so she could join them, because he was apparently someone that she wanted to meet, which was understandable considering that he was a Lombax.

"Any idea where Alister is hiding?" Angela asked, though she took a moment to give Ratchet a hug, and a quick kiss on the cheek, before looking at the area around them.

"According to Qwark's information he's in Vulgram Pass," Starlight commented, pulling up her tablet for a moment, so she could view the message they had been sent while they were in the warp space, only to find that there was nothing different from when she last checked, "We should ask one of the locals where that is."

They moved towards the pieces of machinery that were laying nearby, creating a platform they could jump across to reach their next destination, before Ratchet moved a platform around so they could use a jump pad to get up onto the cliff above them. When they were on the cliff above their ships they noticed that one of the natives happened to be standing next to a jump pad, though the grey skinned person seemed to be collecting scraps before noticing that they were approaching him.

"Greetings outsiders," the person said, his voice sounding modified to be more like a robots, or maybe he was a robot that had been designed to look more humanoid, "what brings you to Molonoth?"

"We're looking for Vulgram Pass," Ratchet answered, though he had to wonder if the person would impede their progress or help them along in their mission to find Alister Azimuth.

"Vulgram Pass?" the person stated, as if he was verifying what they had said, before making up his mind about something, "Surely such peaceful adventurers such as yourselves has no business in such a dangerous place... but, if you insist, you may ask the Guardian for entrance to the Hollow. You can find further directions if you make it there."

Ratchet nodded and lowered the jump platform that was behind the person, to which he launched himself and Angela over to the other side, allowing Searing and Starlight to teleport as Sunset flew over to them. That was where they discovered that their new enemies were robots that had blades for hands, leading the group to wonder what their original purpose had been. They dismantled their opponents with their guns, or lightsaber in Angela's case, before they used the next launch pad to get them even closer to the Guardian that they had been told about.

After fighting their way through another trio of enemies they found a large metallic head, though it appeared to be empty on the inside while at the same time possessing the mechanics to be able to turn and speak to them.

"Halt, outsiders!" a voice called out, though as the head's mouth moved it became a little difficult to determine if it was remotely controlled or if it was an ancient machine that had been remade into what it was now, "What business have you in the Hollow?"

"We're looking for Vulgram Pass." Starlight answered, though at the same time she studied the machine in front of them as she attempted to determine how it worked.

"Volgrom Pass?" the head said, though its voice echoed for a moment, as if it was thinking about something, "Where the exile dwells? It is beyond this Hollow, but we do not grant entrance to outsiders. They must find it for themselves."

The entire group looked at each other as they shared a look, as they had known that it would have been too easy if the natives had simply handed over the information they needed, so they immediately started looking for an alternative path that they could use. As they followed the other path Starlight noticed a Zoni floating around in front of them, though the moment it noticed her it flew over to the vessel she was carrying and entered it without delay. After that they had to go through a short obstacle course, which was really just a grind rail that brought them to a launch pad, which in turn launched them through the large head.

It was there that they found another one of the natives waiting for them, though this time the person they encountered seemed pleased to see that they had succeeded in part of their mission.

"Welcome outsiders," the person said, though at the same time he sounded a little sorry for what he had done, "I apologize for the ruse, but we like to keep our operations away from the prying eyes of galactic authorities. Come, you have proven yourselves worthy."

Angela looked annoyed by the statement, because in both the Solana and Bogon Galaxies a Jedi Knight was one of the variations of a galactic authority, though it appeared that either the race that they were dealing with didn't know that fact or they didn't consider Jedi to be authorities at all. For a moment Ratchet thought that Angela was going to do something drastic, but then she let out a sigh and shook her head before they followed the person to the entrance of the Hollow. As they passed through the opening they noticed a small red robot, with a plug at the top of its head, wandering around, to which Starlight grabbed it with her magic and reattached it to the outlet that was on the wall to their left... allowing the door in front of them to open and reveal the Hollow to them.

That was when the group found that the 'battery bots', as that was what the small red robots were called, were apparently revolting against the people that could show them to Vulgram Pass. After agreeing to gather the bots and return them to their sockets, in exchange for gaining access to the part of the Hollow that they needed to visit, Ratchet and Starlight purchased the Dynamo of Doom before the group separated from each other. Starlight moved to the right of the entrance and grabbed the battery bot that happened to be in front of her, to which she inserted it into its socket so she could find a second one and powered up the compactor... though once that was done she engaged her magic and teleported back to the main area of the Hollow to avoid being hurt.

Ratchet continued past where Starlight went and threw a second battery bot, which happened to be near the one that Starlight had grabbed, into the socket that was across from where they were standing, allowing a bridge to extend and connect to where he was standing. He then crossed over the bridge and searched for the next battery bot he needed to find, though at the same time he found a modification for the pistol that he and the others were carrying, before he found the bot he was searching for past some shredder blades and threw it into the necessary socket. Angela and Searing jumped up some platforms that occasionally shot out fire, though they arrived at an area that had flames jumping out of the ground... but after a second Searing grabbed the battery bot with her magic and sent it flying into its slot, powering up the final piece of machinery that opened the way to Vulgram Pass.

As they gathered together again they noticed that Sunset was missing, though before anyone could ask where she had gone one of the natives pointed at the top of the passage they needed to travel through... to which they passed through some compactors and used a jump pad to arrive in an area with cut up robots like the ones they had encountered outside the Hollow. They followed the trail of robotic parts that eventually brought them to where Sunset was standing, but as they opened their mouths to ask why she had gone ahead they noticed what she was looking at. The entrance to Vulgram Pass was odd, because on the side where Alister was located the entire area seemed to be shrouded in night, while on the other side it was as clear as day... leading Starlight to assume that they had found another creature that possessed unique powers.

"I've had it with these unnatural creatures," Angela growled, though at the same time her eyes glanced around the area and searched for whatever creature they were dealing with, "Yes, their powers make things more interesting, but at the same time we can only fight them so many times before they overstay their welcome."

"Come out demons!" a male voice called out, to which the group turned towards the head of another robot and watched as a male Lombax, one that was much older than Ratchet and had a white coat with red stripes, walked out of what was apparently his home and stared up at the sky above them, "Which one of you wants to be blown into pieces? Despair? Doubt? How about both!? I've got enough bombs to tear the both of you down!"

Ratchet and the group watched as two shadowy creatures, reminding him of the wraith that had called itself Fear, materialized out of the shadows that existed around the area, though they seemed to be focused on the Lombax and not on anyone else. One of the wraiths, the dark grey one, seemed to be staring into the Lombax's heart, as if it was searching for something, though it didn't appear that it had any weapons to speak of. The second wraith, wearing a normal grey colored robe, seemed to have two small sickles in its hands, though as it pointed one at the Lombax, and the first wraith looked up, Ratchet could have sworn that his doubts and despairs rose to the surface... forcing him, and everyone else, to their knees as they watched what was going on.

Oddly enough neither Sunset or Searing seemed effected by whatever the two wraiths were doing... and, when Ratchet looked closely, the Lombax seemed to be in the same state as them, as he didn't seem to be weighed down at the moment.

"See? I've become immune to your abilities!" the Lombax shouted, swinging some sort of wrench around in his right hand as he pulled out what appeared to be a set of bombs, "I've also had enough of your games... I'm going to finish the two of you off right here and now!"

With that said the Lombax threw the set of bombs into the air and sent them flying at the two wraiths, though as they expanded into their explosive form they struck some sort of shield and detonated upon impact.

"You overstep yourself, Lombax." the dark grey wraith said, though while Ratchet was sure that the wraith's voice sounded like a stretched out version of Sunset's it also sounded a little sad, causing him to wonder if it was the one called Doubt, "There is no hope for you... not when we use our full power against you."

"But please, do allow despair and doubt to overpower you," the second wraith said, to which it and Doubt raised their hands back towards the sky for a moment, "we'll hurt you now, to teach you a lesson, but in the future we'll drain the good out of you until your nothing more than a husk... and then we'll ravage the worlds until we rescue our leader, the Wraith-Queen of Reepor."

Searing, somehow sensing what was coming, wrapped her magic around Sunset, Starlight, and herself for a few seconds before teleporting them in front of the Lombax as the two wraiths released whatever they were doing, sending a wave of dark energy at them. Starlight and Searing, who seemed to know what was heading in their direction, allowed the magic to course between the three of them before the two unicorns summoned a shield in front of them and the Lombax. The attack struck the shield a moment later and forced them to take a step back, but then Starlight ignited her magic and the shield really sprung to life, repelling the attack with enough force to send it right back at the wraiths... who barely avoided being hit by the attack.

"There is no hope for us now," Doubt said, the top of her hood turning towards Despair, as if the sickle carrying wraith was the one in charge, "come sister, let us withdraw before they obliterate us as well."

"You win for now, Alister Azimuth," Despair stated, though her hood was turned in the direction of the three ponies that were standing in front of the Lombax, "but next time we meet you won't have these three to come defend you... and then we shall determine your fate at that time."

The two wraiths surged into the middle of the dark sky and disappeared into the shadows that they had appeared from, though as they disappeared whatever magic they had used on the area seemed to break as the sky returned to normal. Starlight sighed as she and Searing cancelled the shield spell that they had summoned, because now that they had found two more creatures, with abilities that reminded her of the other strange enemies they had encountered, she had hoped that they could end this in one go... but they were going to have to wait for another day to do that.

"I thank you for your timely assistance," the Lombax, Alister Azimuth, said, causing the trio to turn towards him, "With everything those two have been throwing at me for the last five months, and all the illusions they have been using, I would normally suspect that you were figments of my imagination... but none of them have ever bothered to step in and save me like that. The Vullards have shared stories with me whenever I visit the Hollow for supplies, and one of them spoke about the death of another wraith creature..."

"One called the Witch-Queen of Reepor?" Ratchet finished, just as he and Angela finished using the grind rail to reach where they were standing, while at the same time causing Alister to look back for a moment.

"Wait, those eyes... your Kaden's son! And you... your Lorna's daughter!" Alister said, staring at the two other Lombaxes for a moment, as if he was in total shock, before he brought his left hand above his chest and knelt before them for a few seconds, "I am General Alister Azimuth, Four-Bolt Magistrate of the Lombax Praetorian Guard and Elder Councilman for the Center for Advanced Lombax Research. And the two of you look so much like your parents."

Ratchet and Angela shared a look with each other, wondering how best to approach the introductions, before they let out a small sigh and decided to get it over with.

"I'm Ratchet Cross, Hero of both the Solana and Bogon Galaxies... though that includes the Polaris Galaxy now that I think about it," Ratchet replied, rubbing the back of his head for a moment.

"And I am his wife, Angela Cross," Angela said, offering Alister a smile as he stood back up, "I am also one of the highest ranking Jedi Knights for the Solana Branch of the Jedi Order."

"I am Ratchet's sister, Starlight Glimmer," Starlight added, causing Alister to turn towards her, Searing, and Sunset for a second, "I work for Gadgetron, making weapons of every grade imaginable... though I'm mostly famous for making the first variation of the RYNO weapon, as well as helping save the galaxies several times. These are our friends Searing Flame and Sunset Glider, who helped us save the galaxy a few days ago by stopping someone from using the Dimensionator to detonate a planet and wipe out all of existence."

Alister looked at all five of them for a moment, as if he was somewhat shocked by what they had told him already, before he let out a sigh and tapped his wrench on the platform they were standing on.

"I can see that some explanation is needed so I can understand everything that your telling me," Alister said, to which he beckoned them to follow him inside the robot's head, "I'm going to brew us up some tea and grab something that we can snack on... because I have the feeling that this is going to take some time for us to go over."

Ratchet smiled as they followed Alister inside his home, because he had assumed that they were going to have to fight him in some manner for him to understand that he and Angela were real Lombaxes, but he was pleased to discover that they wouldn't have to do that. Perhaps fate was telling them that good things were coming their way... and Ratchet hoped that his feelings were correct in that regard, because he wanted to find Clank as soon as possible. Once they had rescued Clank, and had stopped the villains in this sector from whatever they were planning, they had agreed to resume the search for their sister, Sunset Shimmer.

Ratchet only hoped that his sister was okay... wherever she was in the vast amount of stars that rested across the universe.
> Time: Answers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It didn't take long for Alister to find the cups he used to serve tea in and start making some for everyone else to enjoy, though it did take some time to find snacks for everyone... which was when Angela messaged Talwyn, who was aboard the Starship Hyperion that was floating above the planet's surface, to bring them all something and introduce herself to Alister. Not five minutes later Talwyn landed nearby and flew over to where everyone else was waiting, to which she dropped off the various snacks and took a seat, though Alister was surprised by how large the group actually was. Ratchet assured him that there were others that would likely want to meet him as well, considering he was one of the last Lombaxes in the universe, but also made sure that Alister knew that there wouldn't be anyone else for some time.

Of course Alister was surprised when he learned that Talwyn was actually Max Apogee's daughter, to which he explained how he knew her father and described the last time they had crossed paths.

"Wait, you knew my father?" Talwyn asked, taking a seat near Ratchet and Angela, though as she did so she tried not to look at all the diagrams that were lining the walls around them.

"I met Max Apogee a year or two after you were born," Alister said, a small smile appearing on his face for a moment, "He told me about this special set of stones that he had discovered on some undiscovered planet. He said that they were six different colors and seemed to have an energy that was unlike anything he had ever felt before, to which he named them the Raritanium Cores. Shortly after the discovery the six stones were stolen and Max went out to search for them again, claiming that he had done something wrong by removing them from the planet he had discovered them on. I had a few more instances where I bumped into him, though every time I saw him he kept telling me that he was getting closer to fixing his mistake... but he never once recovered any of the six stones and died without completing his mission."

"Do... do you know where he was buried?" Talwyn asked, because she wasn't prepared for the reality that her father could potentially be dead, which was what she was being told now.

"No, I'm afraid that I have no idea where Max's final resting place is located." Alister replied, to which the entire group detected a hint of sadness in his voice, "but to answer an earlier question the creature I heard about in the stories that the Vullards told was the Wraith-Queen of Reepor. I take it you are the ones responsible for her destruction?"

"Well, I did shoot her through the chest with a weapon that was empowered by one of the Raritanium Cores," Starlight said, rubbing the back of her head for a moment, "though I only resorted to such a drastic measure because Fear was using the Dimensionator to open a rift between dimensions so she could detonate Fastoon with enough force to wipe out the entire universe. We're lucky that the only thing that was destroyed was Fastoon, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here having any sort of conversation."

"Wait a second, I thought that destroying the planet would have erased the whole universe," Alister commented, rubbing the side of his head for a moment, already not liking what they were telling him.

"Look, we didn't destroy Fastoon." Ratchet said, to which he tapped his tablet and summoned an image that the Hyperion had captured of the planet before its end, where he played the video for Alister, "all we know is that someone fired a highly concentrated energy blast at the planet and erased it before it could be consumed by the dimensional rift."

"Impossible, no one has the ability to do something like that," Alister said, though at the same time he glanced at Starlight and Searing, as if he was wondering if their magical abilities could do something similar to what he had just seen.

"Actually, it is possible," Angela stated, though she took a moment to switch the current image with a new one, one that revealed Sunset Shimmer in her godly form and wearing her godly attire, "Alister, this is Sunset Shimmer... the God of Destruction for our universe. Her innate magical power was so strong that she could create a cataclysm by punching and cracking the air, destroy whole islands by dropping a sphere of energy on them, and could obliterate whole planets by throwing something she called a 'Sphere of Destruction' at them. She could even channel her own power through whatever weapon she happens to be carrying at the time and release a wave of destructive power that leaves scars in the surrounding environment.

We're not one hundred percent sure who launched that attack at Fastoon, and destroyed it moments later, but its highly possible that Sunset Shimmer noticed what was happening and helped us out without telling us that she was coming."

"Wait, how can there be two Sunset Shimmers?" Alister asked, telling everyone that he had forgotten the last name that the pony in front of him had told him when they had spoken moments ago.

"I'm not Sunset Shimmer," Sunset answered, shifting her gaze away from the image that was floating in front of them, "I am Sunset Glider, though the only difference in our names is what they end in... and the fact that I'm a pegasus, while their sister is, well, whatever you would call her form."

"Okay, I guess that makes sense." Alister said, before shaking his head and turning back to Ratchet and Angela, "If I heard you correctly you mentioned that the Wraith-Queen of Reepor's name was actually Fear? What's the story behind her name?"

"Her powers allowed her to induce someone's fears by shrieking at them," Starlight said, once again switching the image that was floating in the air, though this time she called up the various enemies that they had defeated in the last few weeks, "this gave her the ability to freeze people where they stood as she called their fears to the surface, while at the same time allowing her to kill someone faster. There are other strange beings like her, which most of us have fought in the last two to three weeks; War, a violent warmonger who enjoyed killing people and conquering towns and cities, Ysmir, a warrior who possessed abilities that could make her immune to damage for a short while or blast foes back like they were nothing, and Ragenarosa, a fire elemental whose rage turned out to be her downfall as she neglected to notice what was happening above her head. That's not mentioning Doubt and Despair, who we'll have to deal with later on."

"I knew that those two were strange creatures the moment they first appeared on this planet," Alister commented, shaking his head for a moment, as if he couldn't believe what they were telling him, "to think that there were more creatures like them in the universe... I can only say that we're glad to be rid of them."

Ratchet and Angela shared a look with each other, wondering if they should tell Alister about the fact that the Zoni had taken the crystals that had once been the creatures, but then decided against it. They were lucky to have beaten Fear thanks to the fact that Starlight had modified an existing weapon to use the powers of the fifth Raritanium Core, otherwise it would have been the end of everything.

"So what can you tell us about our parents?" Angela asked, causing Alister to look up for a moment, as he seemed surprised by the question, "I mean, you knew that Ratchet was Kaden's son and that I was Lorna's daughter by simply looking at us, so you should be able to tell us something about them."

"Oh, I wasn't expecting a change in the conversation so soon," Alister said, to which he took a sip of his tea and cleared his throat, before setting his eyes on Angela, "Your mother was actually one of the more respected intelligence gathers that we had back when there were more than the three of us in the universe. She claimed that she wasn't the best at her job, nor was she the worst, but she always managed to get whatever intelligence that she was sent after without leaving a trace that she was there. Frankly I think she didn't want to be in the spotlight all the time and decided to tone down the tales about her skills, but that didn't stop the higher ranking officers from saving her for the really tough missions.

I honestly have no idea who she ended up marrying before you were born, so I can't help you there, but I do know that it was before the great tragedy that befell our race."

Angela nodded and took a sip from her own cup, though thanks to her training to be a Jedi Knight she had learned how to hide some of her emotions, such as her disappointment that she couldn't figure out who her own father was, but she decided that now wasn't the time to get frustrated over the little things.

"As for Kaden... its hard to explain," Alister admitted, letting out a sigh as he turned towards Ratchet, "He was, to put it roughly, one of the great geniuses that have ever graced our people, though I'm sure that you are familiar with his work considering you found the Dimensionator. He made several advances in our technology that benefited everyone, which was why he was so highly regarded by both myself and everyone... even when he began to theorize about certain aspects of the universe that everyone else decided not to question."

"Really?" Starlight asked, as this was her area of interest, which caused Alister to raise an eyebrow for a moment before turning to one of the chests that was lining the walls.

"Yes, Kaden was the first outsider to theorize that the Great Clock even existed." Alister said, to which he gestured towards the diagrams that were on the various walls, where Starlight and the others found some sort of engineering marvel drawn on the paper, "However, 'clock' is a rather crude translation of the runes on Quantos, as they actually mean 'Keeper of Time'. According to Fongoid lore the Zoni are the guardians of time..."

"...which means that if the Zoni took Clank than he must play some part in how it functions." Starlight said, causing Alister to look back at her, as if he was surprised that she had said something and not Ratchet, before resuming his search for whatever it was that he was looking for in the chest.

"Precisely," Alister stated, confirming what Starlight had said, before his expression turned to a more positive one as he pulled out a pair of boots and turned towards Ratchet, "Your father gave me his hoverboots when he and I stayed behind as the rest of the Lombaxes departed from the universe, though his intent was for me to one day hand them over to you. Why don't you and I step outside so I can show you how to operate these things?"

Ratchet was excited about the possibility of learning something new and followed Alister outside, though as they did so Angela leaned on the rail that was outside Alister's makeshift house, watching her husband as he learned how to use the new boots. Sunset had only gone after them the moment Alister mentioned speed, though she was patiently waiting for Ratchet to get a hang of the boots before challenging both of the Lombaxes to a race. Angela already knew that it seemed odd for there to be another Lombax, when she and Ratchet had thought that it was only them and the long dead Kaden, but she was pleased that Alister was trying to get to know them.

Even though Ratchet, Alister, and Sunset were having fun she knew that it would soon come time for them to get back to business... where they needed to figure out where the Great Clock was located and make sure that neither Vorselon or Nefarious gained complete control over the powerful machine, otherwise she was sure that something bad would happen.

When the group was finished with their race, which Alister won because he was more experienced with the hoverboots than Ratchet was and knew the course better than Sunset did, Ratchet immediately asked Alister what their next move was and waited for a response... much to Alister's surprise.

"Aren't you going to suggest storming Nefarious' stronghold and taking the information we need from him?" Alister asked, looking at the rest of the group as he called on his own ship, which looked like a smaller version of Aphelion.

"No reason to," Ratchet replied, shrugging for a moment as everyone gathered outside the mining robot, as well as calling upon their own ships, "We already know, at some point in the future, we'll be storming the stronghold. You know this galaxy, and the planets, better than we do, so we'll do things your way."

"Well, we have a contact inside the Great Clock... Clank," Alister said, a smile appearing on his face as he spoke, "We'll need a way to communicate with Clank, which means that the lot of you should meet me in Axiom City on Planet Terachnos as soon as you can. With some luck we'll only be there for an hour or two and we'll be leaving with the information we need before Nefarious even knows what we're doing on the planet."

Once the group agreed that it was a good idea to meet up in Axiom City, and Starlight had acquired the exact coordinates for Planet Terachnos, Alister got into his ship and flew off the planet... to which the group did the same thing with their ships. As they did so Angela had the feeling that something was going to change when they reached their rendezvous point with Alister... though she couldn't determine whether it was a good feeling or a bad feeling.
> Time: Terachnos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It didn't take Ratchet and the others very long to gather their belongings and depart from Torren IV, though the moment they reached space once more they decided to make a stop on the Hyperion. Cronk and Zephyr were glad to see that nothing had happened to them, especially considering the fact that they had run into two creatures that almost mimicked Fear in terms of abilities. Starlight had to admit that something weird was going on, because she was starting to see a pattern with the emotional enemies that they had been fighting for the last week or two. When she had first thought that there were some similarities between the creatures she had assumed that it was her mind putting her sister's face and voice to each opponent they were fighting, but now she wasn't so sure about that.

As she thought about the enemies they had fought, and remembered all of the powers they had commanded, she came to one conclusion; there was some sort of connection between Ysmir, Fear, War, Ragenarosa, Doubt, Despair, Hatred, Searing, and Sunset. The only reason she added the two ponies to that list was because their voices almost sounded the same and they were almost identical in their coat color, both of which could normally be explained by the fact that they were twins. That had been her reasoning when she had first met them, but now, after seeing the other two wraiths, she was beginning to suspect that something might have happened to Sunset... as originally it had been her, Searing, and Hatred sharing a body for some time.

She was sure that something was wrong and that she had ignored the obvious answer because she refused to believe it, but now she had to accept the fact that her sister was in trouble, again, and that she needed to figure out how to save her... which was why she was using the cloning spell to summon a copy of herself to leave behind when she and the others went down to Axiom City.

"Are you sure that your not overreacting?" the clone asked, though at the same time she started pulling over the work station that Starlight used to write notes on, which was clean of writing at the moment.

"There's some sort of connection between all of these people and creatures," Starlight insisted, to which she let out a sigh as she watched the names go up on the board, along with the names 'Searing Flame' and 'Sunset Glider', "the only problem is that I have no idea what that problem could be."

"Hence the reason you called upon me," the clone commented, a smile appearing on her face for a moment as she turned to face Starlight, "Look, I'll be here trying to figure this mess out for you... but if I hit a road block I'm going to continue on working with that pile of weapon plans you still haven't finished. Who knows, one of them could be useful in the future."

"I trust you to work as you usually would," Starlight replied, knowing that the clone could work on the connection or her weapons, but she honestly didn't care at the moment, "Just remember to contact me if, and when, you figure something out."

The two Starlights stared at each other for a few seconds, which always made Starlight a little nervous when she was staring at herself, before the clone nodded and went to her work, allowing Starlight to slip out of her workshop and rejoin the others near their ships. She still found it weird that she had, somehow, managed to cast a spell that she didn't even know the existence of until a few days ago, though at the same time she was actually kind of glad that she had started to use it. From what she could tell there was no obvious drawback to having two of her running around, seeing how the clones were basically her, but she felt more comfortable with them running things on the Hyperion. There the clones, or clone as the case was, could either work out something that was bothering Starlight, in this case the matter of why the creatures and people were connected, or working on more of her weapons, which the clone seemed dead set on doing anyway.

After a few more seconds of walking Starlight arrived at the docking area, where she found that the rest of the group was debating how large of a strike force they needed, which happened to be coming from Sunset Glider of all people, while Angela was suggesting that they simply call someone on the inside of the building Alister wanted them to infiltrate and ask for the information. Despite what the Vullards had said about the Jedi not being the proper authorities, and thus shouldn't mettle in the affairs of this galaxy at all, they already knew that Angela could easily approach the building and get the information they needed on the grounds that it would help this galaxy... which would actually be the truth.

As Starlight thought about that fact she remembered that 'Lord' Vorselon was still out there, waiting to attack them when they were least expecting it, and attacking them while they went after Clank and the Great Clock would be the best move in her mind. Plus she knew that at some point they would be dealing with the robot and his army, which meant that any information they could gleam from Pollyx Industries, the company that had the information they needed, would definitely go to helping the Polaris Galaxy. Eventually they decided to simply head down to the city and see what the situation was, because they were sure that either Vorselon or Nefarious would be terrorizing the civilians and that said civilians would need saving.

Once the plan of attack had been agreed upon, and no one was upset over the matter, the group climbed into their ships and departed from the Hyperion, where they began the flight towards Planet Terachnos.





"General, come in," Ratchet said into his navigation unit, which was apparently the only way they could contact Alister without someone knowing about the transmission, though at the same time he and everyone else landed around each other and climbed out of their ships, "We just landed in Axiom City. Where are you?"

"I'm afraid I ran into a bit of trouble," Azimuth replied a few seconds later, though Ratchet and the rest of the group knew by the tone of his voice that something was wrong, "I've had to make a slight adjustment to our plan."

"What kind of adjustment are we talking about?" Angela asked, but as she said those words she pulled her lightsaber off of her belt and spun it around a few times, though she didn't turn it on just yet, as she wanted to know who their enemies were before anyone starting attacking whatever robots were no doubt coming their way.

"Attention citizens!" the city's Public Address System announced, causing the group to look at the buildings around them for a moment, though they were prepared for anything at this point, "Rogue Lombax Alister Azimuth spotted within city limits. Troopers have been mobilized for your protection."

"Don't worry, I have a plan!" Azimuth said before anyone else could say anything, indicating that he knew someone was going to mention something about him being labeled as a rogue and wanted them to focus on the mission at hand, "Just get to Neurox Plaza and wait for me to make contact."

Ratchet and Angela looked at each other for a moment as the communicator shut down, wondering if Alister was in trouble, but then decided that they might as well progress forward. Starlight and Searing swung across the gap that was in front of them, while Sunset flew over it, before the two Lombaxes followed after them, though before they got much further Starlight pulled Ratchet over to the armor vendor that happened to be waiting nearby. That was when she discovered that the Ectoflux Armor was now available for purchase, which had been form fitted to their bodies, before they rejoined the rest of the group. They also moved to the weapon vendor and picked up the Tesla Spikes, which would allow them to electrocute enemies with spikes they could throw at the ground.

With all the shopping done they moved to the platform that was resting above their heads and swung over the gap that was in front of them, though as they made their way to where Neurox Plaza was waiting for them, thanks to the map Angela had downloaded before they left the Hyperion, Ratchet overheard two of the Terachnoids discussing them and Alister... though one told his friend to shut up about complaining about them when he noticed Starlight. Ratchet had to frown when he heard the term 'sister of the God of Destruction', because that basically told him that the natives wouldn't be helping them out of fear of what Sunset could do to them if they pissed the group off.

They encountered more of the saw wielding enemies once they crossed another gap, to which Ratchet raised an eyebrow when he heard them mention 'capturing' them instead of 'killing' them, as the robots that had been on Vorselon's warship wanted them dead... where these ones wanted something different with them. They tore their enemies apart and took out the small mech that was blocking their path, which Sunset had been ripping apart with her wing blades while they were focusing on the smaller enemies, before they moved towards their next destination. Ratchet then used his new boots to get over the obstacle that was in front of them, while both Starlight and Searing teleported themselves and Angela over not a few seconds later, though before they moved forward they waited for Sunset to fly over to where they were standing.

When they entered the building in front of them, however, they found two more Terachnoids standing in front of a force field of some kind, though one of them seemed pissed off the moment he noticed Ratchet and Angela.

"More Lombaxes!?" the Terachnoid growled, indicating that Alister must have done something to ensure that he and everyone else in this building would be safe, which only annoyed the creature, "What, are you going to vandalize more of our equipment?"

"Mind your manners. Any superintelligent being can see that these are different Lombaxes." the second one said, to which he turned and looked at the group for a moment, before his eyes landed on Starlight, "Or, for that matter, realize that the sister of the God of Destruction is standing before us. I apologize for my companion's attitude; Alister Azimuth came through here not too long ago and the 'security robots' opened fire on him. The resulting fire fight damaged this terminal, resulting in the defense grid becoming active and blocking entry to the rest of the city. Perhaps one of you might be able to..."

Starlight focused her magic and accessed the terminal in question, to which the entire defense grid went down and caused the robots they had been fighting earlier to come and fight them once more, but it was a short lived struggle that ended with the robots being completely destroyed by the group. The Terachnoids seemed impressed by their fighting abilities, especially if they could take out a large group on their own like that, but moved out of the way as the group moved through a teleport tube that the Terachnoids activated for them. When they arrived on the other side of the teleport tube they noticed that more of the robot troops were waiting for them, to which they pulled out their weapons and started tearing into them.

As they neared the end of the walkway they were following Starlight noticed that the lost Zoni that had gathered around the city, which the rest of her family were ignoring, happened to be looking at the sky, as if they sensed something that none of them could see... but she decided that she'd figure out what they were doing later on. She wrapped her magic around Angela and levitated them into the air, to which Searing did the same as Sunset spread her wings, where they followed Ratchet as he used his new hoverboots to make his way towards the end of the moving ships that were in front of them. When they arrived at Neurox Plaza, which was easy to figure out because Alister was there, they found that their new friend was under attack, to which they jumped into combat immediately.

The small group of enemies, however, easily fell to their combined skills, though at the same time Alister complimented them on their various fighting styles... though he was most impressed by Angela's skills with the lightsaber she was carrying.

"Not bad. You all are very skilled with your weapons," Alister complimented, though while he said that he approached a nearby communication terminal, where the group followed him while keeping their eyes out for any additional enemies, "Time to get into contact with my man on the inside."

"You know someone working for Nefarious?" Ratchet asked, though it was clear that he was shocked that their new ally knew someone that worked for their enemy, while at the same time possessing the necessary information they needed at the moment.

"Actually, he's a data miner for Pollyx Industries," Azimuth corrected, where he stopped in front of the terminal and pressed something, which was followed by a shimmering light of some kind, "I saved him from becoming food for the Agorians. I'm going to ask him if there's another way inside the building so we can find a list of available Obsidian Eyes so we can talk to Clank..."

"Why don't we just politely ask for the information?" Starlight asked, causing Alister to turn towards her for a moment, "I mean, I am the lead weapon designer for Gadgetron, not to mention that we are the saviors of three different galaxies... and my sister is the God of Destruction. If anything all someone has to do is look up the name 'Starlight Glimmer' and know all of my various accomplishments, so asking would be a lot better than invading the building and breaking their defenses."

"Agreed." a voice said, to which they noticed that a Terachnoid had appeared on the communication device, who happened to be smiling at them, "I have a list of known Obsidian Eyes... and the only one not under the control of Pollyx Industries is one that's located in Krell Canyon on Planet Lumos. I don't know where in the canyon its located, but that should help you guys out."

"Oh... that makes things much easier," Alister commented, his tone indicating that he was hoping for an assault on an enemy building, but he snapped to attention when something came to mind, "Wait, Nefarious and Vorselon know we're here... so is there anything coming that we need to know about?"

"Well, there would normally be something called the VX-99," the Terachnoid replied, his smile remaining on his face the entire time, "but after going over the blueprints, and determining by focus groups that such a mech would terrorize people instead of making them feel safe, Nefarious decided to destroy all diagrams of the machine and vowed never to make it for as long as he lived."

Before anyone could say anything Starlight noticed the Zoni she had spotted earlier coming their way, to which she called for everyone to stop what they were doing as the trio came their way.

"Time Breaker!" the Zoni cried, their voice echoing as they surrounded Starlight for a few seconds, before gathering in front of her and pointing at the sky, "You fix!"

At first Starlight had no idea what the Zoni were talking about, what with calling her a 'Time Breaker', whatever that meant, and telling her to 'fix' something, but she decided to follow their fingers and looked up at the sky. What she found, however, was a swirling vortex of energy, which Starlight thought was another dimensional rift that was caused by the Dimensionator, but based on the fact that the Zoni were pointing at it told her something else. This rift was some sort of time anomaly, because a few seconds later a large mech descended from the sky and crashed into a building near where the group was waiting, though its body appeared to be some sort of saucer that's power core was protected by a Raritanium shell. It was at that point that Starlight realized that the Zoni weren't asking her to fix something like the large rift in the sky, they were telling her to take care of a problem that was unique to their station... or, in the case that was presented to her, commanding her to take care of a mech.

"Impossible! That's the VX-99." the Terachnoid stated, his gaze locked on the machine that was on his screen, though his tone told the group that something was wrong, "I don't understand... why is that machine even here? Nefarious never bothered to make it!"

Starlight stared at the mech for a few seconds, which carved its way through a building as it searched for them, though she had to wonder if the Terachnoid was pulling their legs about Nefarious never making the machine. Or, after taking into consideration the fact that the Zoni were asking for help in their own fashion, this had to be some sort of time-space anomaly, which meant that the mech could be from another timeline. If that was the case, and this machine was from another timeline, that meant that someone was messing with the Great Clock, which was only going to make matters worse for them.

Ratchet and Angela, seeing no way to get to the mech without letting it get close to them, engaged their hoverboards and took to the skies, while Searing and Starlight used their magic to create magical steps or levitate themselves into the air. Sunset, on the other hand, had already flown off the moment the mech had descended from the rift in the sky, though she was already dropping charges on the top of the mech, which were apparently connecting to the casing that was protecting its head. Starlight could tell that the pegasus was thinking of forcing the turret that was inside the casing to come out, thus allowing everyone else to damage the Raritanium shell that was protecting its core... which made Starlight think about praising the pegasus later on.

As Starlight and the twins kept the top of the mech occupied, which was easy considering what they were doing, Ratchet and Angela flew to the shell and dismantled the moorings that allowed the pieces of the shell to stick together. Without anything coming to hurt them, and interrupt them, the two of them were able to destroy all three moorings and allowed them to fall towards the ground, though once the deed was done they jumped back on their hoverboards and flew away from the exposed core. As they flew away they watched as the casing protecting the turret shattered, causing the turret to emerge and open fire on everyone that was flying around it, but with so many targets to choose from it quickly became evident that this wasn't designed to handle so many enemy targets that could fire back at it.

Starlight suspected that this was some sort of crowd controlling machine and not a tank type of machine, but she wasn't complaining at all, not when she and the others were able to dismantle the machine without it actually being able to do any damage to them... though she and the others retreated as the VX-99 detonated thanks to its damaged core. She already knew that Nefarious would design mechs to deal with someone like her or Searing, but this one seemed to be a mech that had been designed to deal with someone like Ratchet or Angela, almost as if it came from a timeline where Starlight and her sister didn't exist.

"Well, I am slightly disappointed that I didn't get a chance to attack that mech," Alister commented, though that was mainly because he had gone to get his ship while the others had attacked the machine, "but I will meet you all on Planet Lumos. With any luck we can find that Obsidian Eye and figure out where the Great Clock is located."

Before anyone could respond the communication stopped, which indicated that Alister was leaving the planet and didn't want to leave a trail for their enemies to follow, but that made Starlight wonder about something. They all knew that Nefarious hated them and would have enjoyed siccing the VX-99 on them, though oddly enough the machine had never been built and there was no notice that he had launched any guards to stop them. She was beginning to wonder if Nefarious was even an enemy at the point, because it almost seemed like he was going out of his way to make people feel safe while at the same time offering no resistance to her and her family's efforts to stop Vorselon.

Starlight turned her gaze towards the sky and found that the rift she had seen earlier was gone, meaning that someone or something had gotten rid of it... though as she and the others moved towards their ships she silently admitted that everything was starting to confuse her, while at the same time hoping that she would get some answers in the future.
> Time: Discovery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clank followed Sigmund through another section of the Great Clock, repairing all the damage that had been caused by the Hypersonic Brainwave Scrambler, while at the same time trying to come to terms with what was happening. He knew that Nefarious had been a villain, one that intended on conquering everything to get what he wanted, but now he seemed to be the exact opposite of what he had originally been. Based on what little he had learned so far, concerning the strange time-space anomaly that had apparently ripped the Scrambler from a completely different timeline, he knew that he was still a little confused as to what was going on around him. He also knew that Sigmund was hiding something from him, mainly because when he asked if Nefarious knew where Sunset Shimmer was the robot had answered with both a yes and a no.

Clank crossed over a spinning section of the Clock, which he stopped with his new time abilities, before making his way towards the room that Sigmund had flown into. There he had to deal with more of the smaller creatures that he had seen in the previous section of the Clock, though they were pretty easy to take out and allowed him to access the next room he needed to go through. There he found another puzzle that was straightforward, as all he had to do was send the first recording of himself to the switch on the left, send the second recording to the switch on the right, and use the middle pad to walk through the open door that the recordings had opened for him and Sigmund. It was then that the two of them entered the room that was apparently called the Orientation Room, which Clank thought was just a large movie room the moment he laid eyes on it.

There was even a sofa in the middle of the room with a bunch of controls near it, though Clank hated to think that all of this wasted space was for orientation.

"So all of this is for orientation purposes?" Clank asked, looking around for a few seconds, though he was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more to the room than what he had already seen.

"Not entirely," Sigmund replied, to which he took a seat on a nearby chair and beckoned for Clank to take the sofa, where Clank mimicked the robot's move and climbed onto the sofa, "One of the main purposes this room served was keeping track of your history... as the moment Starlight entered the picture the future became that much harder to read, thus forcing us to watch and see what happened. I mean, when the events on Umbris happened there were only three possible outcomes and we had no idea which one you guys were going to choose, but we were both glad when you decided to continue being heroes."

"Well, its nice to know that the two of you were watching over us," Clank said, though even as he said the words he realized that Sigmund never mentioned Sunset's name, making him wonder if there was something special about her, "but what about Sunset Shimmer? Surely you meant to add her into the statement about the future being harder to read or predict."

Sigmund stared at Clank for a moment, as if he was shocked he hadn't mentioned Sunset's name at all, before he looked in every direction possible before turning to his tablet, making Clank wonder if the Caretaker was hiding something from him. A few seconds later he let out a sigh and put his tablet away, though the look in his eyes told Clank that he was going to learn something, but he had no idea what that something was.

"Look, I'm going to be honest with you," Sigmund said, though at the same time he let out a sigh, as if whatever he was keeping back was some large secret that he needed to get off of his chest, "Sunset Shimmer was never supposed to come to this part of the universe. She was supposed to grow into her new powers in her homeland, where several beings of similar power would have been able to ease her into her role as an alicorn... before she ascended further and became the God of Destruction that everyone knows."

Clank looked at the screen as it shifted to show the four AI that they had running around the Hyperion, keeping it in running order and making sure that all of the security systems were operational, but the major difference was that the ponies on the screen looked real. Resting above the four alicorns was some sort of chimera creature, though one look at it told Clank that he didn't want to bother thinking about how such a creature could even be created in the first place.

"I don't know all of the specifics, but that creature up there is called Discord," Sigmund continued, his eyes narrowing at the chimera for a moment before he turned away, "according to Orvus, that creature is the one responsible for sending Sunset to this part of the universe. All I can guess is that someone on Sunset's home world figured out that her destiny was greater than anyone could possibly guess and sent her off world before she could become a God of Destruction."

"So your saying that the leaders of Sunset's home world wanted to protect themselves?" Clank asked, as he remembered what had happened the moment Sunset ascended to her new position, while at the same time taking note of the fact that Sigmund had said 'a' God of Destruction instead of 'the' God of Destruction.

"Considering that she erased Gleemon Vox from existence and destroyed an entire planet, I can say that they were wise to do so." Sigmund replied, before shaking his head a few seconds later, "but they could have easily sent her somewhere else, instead of warping her close to the heart of the universe. If Sunset had been teleported into the middle of the Great Clock, well, I'm sure the powers here would have sped her up until she collapsed from her own power... or something like that."

"Has Orvus ever told you to not jump to conclusions?" Clank asked, as he was worried about the safety of the Great Clock if this was the best Caretaker that his father could have left in charge of the place.

"Multiple times, but I'm right on this one," Sigmund stated, though his statement caused Clank to bring his palm to his face, "You might not be aware of this fact, but when Destroyer Gods are chosen they generally destroy the place of their ascension with the power of their awakening, similar to what Sunset did. That's why the people of her home planet were so eager to get her off world, even at the cost of turning her back into a baby and taking away all of her memories... they didn't want her to destroy their own world."

"Right..." Clank said, though he wasn't sure if Sigmund was making all of this up or if he and Orvus had studied all of this before hand, "You mentioned that Nefarious knew where Sunset Shimmer was located... do you know where she is?"

"Sort of," Sigmund replied, to which a set of ten equal sized windows appeared on the screen, though some of them looked like they were staring at the same grey crystal, "she's over there, over there, and up there!"

Clank looked at the windows and noticed the names that were associated with each of them; Ysmir, the Witch-Queen of Reepor, Ragenarosa, Sunset Glider, Searing Flame, War, Despair, Doubt, Hatred, and Purity. The windows associated with Ysmir, Fear, Ragenarosa, and War were filled with the same grey crystal, though that was before Clank noticed that there was more than one crystal in each window. Despair and Doubt's windows were shrouded in shadows, meaning they were either hidden from view or had collapsed to prevent people from looking at their true forms, while Sunset and Searing's windows were full of static... meaning that they had to be traveling through warp space at the moment.

The remaining two, belonging to Hatred and Purity, were the ones that caught Clank's attention, because Hatred's showed the shadowy version of Sunset's human form lurking in the shadows, though all Clank could figure out was that she was in some sort of arena... while at the same time the final screen showed a sleeping filly, with a light amber coat and no horn or wings, sleeping in some part of the Great Clock. Clank also noticed that the filly was resting next to Razor, the cat that Sunset had befriended four years ago, but that did nothing but make things more confusing.

"Confusing, isn't it?" a voice asked, to which Clank turned around and found Nefarious standing behind the sofa, though his eyes were locked on the windows on the screen, "Ten different aspects, seven of which are based on the emotions of fear, doubt, despair, hatred, anger, pride, and violence... which really isn't one if you were to ask me. I'd say that violence should be aggression or something else, but that's just me. The other three aspects, Ysmir, Sunset Glider, and Purity, also contain fragments of Sunset Shimmer's godly power... even if she refused to use it once she ascended."

"What are you getting at?" Clank inquired, though as Nefarious sat on the couch he nodded to Sigmund, which caused almost all of the windows to close, until only the one with the filly remained, "And what's so special about this aspect?"

"Purity... Sunset's innocence given form," Nefarious commented, his eyes remaining on the filly that was resting before them, "I asked Hatred about her, back before the aspects tore themselves apart from each other and scattered themselves across the Polaris Galaxy, and Purity, alone, holds all of Sunset's memories... yet she chooses not to acknowledge any of it. Purity is, quite frankly, one of the more confusing aspects that could have been created when Sunset came here during her search for the final Raritanium Core."

"Nefarious, what did you do to Sunset Shimmer?" Clank asked, because the only way that the doctor could know all of this, without having viewed any of it with the Great Clock's abilities, would be if he had played a part in what happened to Sunset.

"Nothing." Nefarious replied, though at the same time he almost sounded sad, which caught Clank off guard for a moment, "She came here with a small machine she had constructed, which she claimed had found the last Raritanium Core, as if she had known ahead of time that her brother and sister would have found Loyalty on their own. She claimed that the machine had used the four Cores to locate the planet she and Starlight had originally come from, though to open a way home she knew she needed all six of them, which was why she came here while her family went to fight Tachyon. Sunset was never supposed to touch the Core that Orvus called 'Magic', not with that device in her hand at the same time... yet when she did the element reacted violently with both the machine and the four Cores she had in her possession and, well..."

Clank looked at both Nefarious and Sigmund for a few seconds, finding that the two of them were trying to hide something from him, but after some time in complete silence he decided to ask the question anyway.

"What happened to her?" Clank asked, though this time he seriously hoped that one of them would give him an answer that didn't worry him more than he already was.

"Her device shattered and empowered the Cores for a brief moment," Sigmund replied, to which the screen shifted to show Sunset in her godly form, which was quickly divided into ten different colored segments that separated from each other, "and the energy surge from five of the Cores somehow summoned the sixth into the Great Clock for a few seconds... to which they tore Sunset apart with the power they contained for a few seconds. Fear, Hatred, Despair, Doubt, Rage, and Violence were thrown to the far ends of the Polaris Galaxy, though they were empowered by the rather violent departure and became creatures with terrifying abilities. Ysmir, who holds a fragment of Sunset's power, awoke soon after the event, though she went on to become some sort of hero until Starlight took her out... while both Searing Flame and Sunset Glider went on to fight Violence after a friend helped move them into position."

"And Purity is here, in the Great Clock?" Clank determined, to which both of the robots nodded for a second or two, "Why was she not expelled as well? What makes her so special?"

"The Cores needed to be stabilized after what happened to them, and so did what remained of Sunset Shimmer," Nefarious stated, to which he picked up a tablet and switched the screen back to the sleeping filly, though that was followed by the surroundings coming into view and allowed Clank to see that six colorful gems floated around Purity, "oddly enough the Cores stabilized Purity, and she, in turn, stabilized them when they cooled down. Its a balancing act at the moment, because we're trying to restore Sunset to who she used to be, but if we force too much of one aspect into Purity's body we risk creating a Destroyer that would annihilate everything... because, in reality, Purity is the core of Sunset's very being."

Clank looked at the screen in front of him again, his eyes locked on the sleeping filly as he wondered how she could deny the fact that she was actually Sunset Shimmer. He was sure that the poor thing could feel Sunset's godly energy inside her body, while at the same time being confused as to why she had the power inside of her without being able to do anything about it. He guessed that he should have been pleased by the fact that Nefarious wasn't trying to take Sunset's position as the God of Destruction away from her, but he truly had to wonder what would happen when Sunset was finally pieced back together. He remembered what happened the last time she had ascended to being a god... and he remembered the destruction she had caused not moments later.

His thoughts were interrupted when Nefarious spotted something beeping on his wrist, though by the look on his face Clank could tell that it was something important.

"I am needed back on my space station, as I have guests waiting for me," Nefarious said, letting out a sigh in the process, "I shall be back whenever I am able... though Clank, I wouldn't think too hard about what we've said. Trust me on this, dealing with a real God of Destruction is much easier than dealing with ten aspects of herself."

Clank watched as Nefarious left the Orientation Room and disappeared, vanishing as quickly as he had appeared, though at the same time his attention was drawn back to the screen by Sigmund. He half listened to the video that had been prepared for him, as it basically said that the station was keeping the universe in balance and not to use it as a time machine. Once that was done he climbed into the nearby station that would allow him to see whatever lesson his father had prepared for him, where he could use his new scepter to fix anomalies on whatever planets needed assistance. When the lesson was over he returned to reality and followed Sigmund out of the Orientation Room, where he made his way to the stations that watched over the planets known as Quantos, Torren IV, and Terachnos.

As he worked on the planets he noticed that Terachnos was the one in more desperate need of fixing, because the moment he arrived he noticed a large rift in the sky, but he was able to fix it with little change happening to the planet... though from the comments Sigmund was making, about heroes already being on the planet, he knew that Ratchet and the others would take care of whatever had come out of the time-space anomaly he had fixed. One of the weird things was that Sigmund used his hologram to keep up with him as he worked, though soon enough Clank had completed his current task and had overcome all of the puzzles that had been put in his way. As he returned to the Orientation Room, however, he found Sigmund floating near the couch, though he appeared to be listening to a recording from Orvus before the elderly Zoni had left the station.

He caught the name Zanifar, which had to be the planet, though when he noticed the look on Sigmund's face he knew that Orvus had to have walked into a trap... which meant that he needed to speak with Ratchet and the others as soon as possible. That meant that he would have to wait for them to find some way to contact the Great Clock, but he knew that Starlight would figure out some way to do so... though at the same time he knew that he was going to have to withhold information regarding Searing and Sunset. He had no idea what Ratchet would do once he figured out that the two new mares he was traveling with were fragments of his sister, but he was going to postpone that for as long as he could.

As much as he hated telling Ratchet a lie, and hurting him in the process, saving Orvus would be a great step to saving the entire universe... and then they could figure out what to do about Sunset later on.
> Time: Lumos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet smiled when Aphelion exited the warp system and entered the Korthos Sector, because it meant that they were getting one step closer to their destination and discovering where the Great Clock was located. Starlight, Searing, and Sunset were sitting in their respective seats, each doing something different with their tablets, but there was a reason that Angela was following with the Hyperion and Azimuth had chosen a different route. Ratchet was expecting some sort of ambush when they entered the sector, which Starlight agreed with considering who they were trying to beat at the moment, but they had prepared themselves ahead of time. Besides, with the combined magical power of Starlight and Searing they could potentially save themselves from having to deal with the ambush if their magic worked in space... though if it didn't they could either use Aphelion's weapons or wait until Angela caught up with them.

Their guess about an ambush proved to be correct as the moment they had crossed into the Korthos Sector, and passed a certain distance, some of the alarms started beeping.

""Warning." Aphelion declared, indicating that her scanners had picked up enemy ships, which caused the three ponies to stop what they were doing and started looking around the ship's exterior, "Hostile ships detected."

A few seconds later the communication screen shifted and revealed a trio of what Starlight could only describe as Valkyries, though they reminded her of their old friend Helga, despite the armor they were wearing.

"Well well well!" the first lady, who happened to be wearing golden armor, greeted warmly, though the group already knew that it was a front to make them lower their guard, "What do we have here?"

"Looks like this Lombax is lost!" the second lady, who was garbed in blue colored armor, stated a few seconds later, though her voice happened to be just as sweet as the first.

"What do you say, girls?" the third lady, wearing green colored armor, said in a more masculine voice, which only made the group raise their eyebrows when they heard her voice, "Should we help him find his way?"

It was at this point that Azimuth exited the warp system, in a different area than where Aphelion had entered the system, and started to move towards Lumos, to which two of the ships in front of them peeled off to deal with him. The third ship, belonging to the Valkyrie called 'Libra' by her sisters, remained behind to deal with Aphelion, though they were more than ready to deal with their new enemy. Libra opened fire on them as she moved around the entire area around them, to which Aphelion retaliated with her own weapons as Ratchet maneuvered them out of harms way. Starlight accessed the missiles and loosed some of them at the back of Libra's ship, dealing some damage to her target, but after a few seconds Libra activated a shield and called in reinforcements.

This went on for a few minutes, where they had to deal with the reinforcements and then get back to shooting at Libra, before she ended up repeating the same movements in an attempt to beat them. No one was satisfied when they eventually hit one of the fuel lines and caused the entirety of Libra's ship to detonate, taking out the Valkyrie in a flash of light. When the smoke cleared the reinforcement ships gathered the barrier they had set up to stop Aphelion from going any further and departed from the area, no doubt heading to where the other two Valkyries had gone off to so they could report what happened.

A minute later the Hyperion exited the warp system and the two ships made their way towards Lumos, though as they did so Angela had to ask about the floating ship pieces and discovered what had happened, to which she chuckled as they made their way towards their next destination. Angela informed them that Azimuth had mentioned that he suspected that the Obsidian Eye was located inside the Odin Caves in the Krell Canyon, which seemed to be a random guess to Ratchet and the others, but it was better than nothing. Starlight reminded them that at some point they were going to have to see what Qwark wanted from them, because they had received a message from him some time ago and they had yet to visit the arena he was apparently studying at the moment.

After a few more minutes they neared Planet Lumos, to which Angela hoped in her own ship and followed Aphelion down to the location of the Odin Caves, where they intended on meeting up with Azimuth and beginning the search for the Obsidian Eye.





Aphelion and Angela were able to find a decent spot to land in the area that Alister had landed in, allowing the entire group to climb out of their ships and meet up with the General, who seemed to be making sure that the coast was clear.

"Perfect timing!" Azimuth stated, a grin appearing on his face as he turned to face them, though his expression told them that he was either pleased to see them or had found something, "I've triangulated the Obsidian Eye's location to somewhere in these caves, though we'll have to search for it the old fashioned way. Come on, let's get the search underway."

The group walked across the rails that were in front of them, which were sturdy enough for all of them, before Ratchet and Starlight stopped at the weapon vendor and purchased the Plasma Striker that was in stock, which reminded them of all the rifle weapons they had used in the past. The only difference was that this weapon could actually seek out the weak points that their targets had to maximize the damage they could cause, which would allow them to end fights a lot faster. After they picked up the newest weapon, and Ratchet praised Starlight's ability to come up with weapons like these, they caught up with Azimuth, who was standing near a ledge and was gazing down at a bolt crank that would restore the walkway they needed to cross.

"This will be easy to overcome," Starlight said, though that was followed by her engaged her magic and summoning some magical platforms, to which she jumped from one to another until she was at the bottom.

Starlight looked around the area, just to be sure that there weren't any enemies in the area, before sticking the end of her staff in the bolt crank and moving it until the platform was in position, to which she levitated herself back up to the others and they resumed their mission to find the Obsidian Eye... until Azimuth spotted something that made him call for them to stop.

"Hold up," Azimuth said, to which he gestured towards a large black nest, which had a swarm of small creatures with one eye and a large mouth swarm out of the nest and retreat back into it, "See that nest over there?  Tetramites. Stay close and, whatever happens, don't let them touch you."

"What happens if they touch you?" Angela asked, though at the same time she extended the blade of her lightsaber, knowing that the beam could help them at this point.

"Let's just say they can digest anything," Azimuth explained, though his tone indicated that he had seen the creatures eat things in the past and didn't want them anywhere near the group, "Just remember that they hate water, so if we can get to the other side of that creek we'll be fine."

Starlight studied the area in front of them as she glanced at the creatures that were waiting for them to make a move, so they could leave their nest and try to devour all of them in the blink of an eye, before an interesting idea came to mind. She accessed her magic again and created a walkway that would allow the group to walk above the Tertamites, meaning that they wouldn't have to worry about them and could easily make their way to the end of the area that the nest was in. Azimuth was surprised by the skill that Starlight was showing, in being able to use her magic in such a manner, but Ratchet and Angela laughed as they moved forward, promising the General that they would show him what she was truly capable of one day.

With Starlight's magic they were able to completely clear the Tertamites until they came to an area that was safe for them to stop using her magical walkway, to which they stepped off of it as Sunset flew down next to them... though that was before they all were being levitated down into an area that Azimuth insisted that they needed to investigate. When they landed in an area that was illuminated by Azimuth's flares, however, they learned that the General knew that they would have questions regarding the disappearance of the Lombax race, thanks to the Dimensionator, and why he wasn't with them... though he had a pained look on his face as he stared at them.

"I... I made a mistake," Azimuth explained, to which he sat down against the rock wall that was behind him, "After the Great War, Polaris was a dangerous place.  Even with the Cragmites gone, I knew steps needed to be taken to protect the galaxy."

"I take it not everyone agreed at the time?" Angela asked, remembering how hard it was to create the Jedi Order all those years ago, until someone argued that someone worse than Nefarious could come knocking and they needed all the defense they could get.

"No," Azimuth confirmed, shaking his head for a moment, which meant that he was trying to get rid of the memories that were coming back to him, "Both of your parents, despite the fields they worked in, didn't like the idea of developing weapons technology further. I... had quite a few heated debates with Kaden over that, though it make things even harder when an opportunity came knocking on our door."

"Opportunity?" Starlight inquired, though she had the feeling that she knew exactly who Azimuth was going to mention, to which she noticed that Ratchet and Angela had the same idea in their heads.

"One day, we were approached by an inventor with incredible ideas," Azimuth explained, though his eyes indicated that he hated what came next, "Technology light years beyond of what we were using! The inventor was someone... someone Kaden warned me not to trust..."

"Percival Tachyon." Starlight, Angela, and Ratchet said at the same time, causing Azimuth to raise an eyebrow at them for a moment, to which Starlight spoke up, "What? He had to get the technology he used to conquer the Polaris Galaxy from somewhere... you telling us this only helped connect the dots."

"Yes... and he got the technology from me." Azimuth said, hanging his head downwards for a moment, as if his sorrow was too much for him to bare at the moment, "I granted him full access to our technology, because I thought that his weapons could be used to help keep the entire galaxy safe... but instead he helped himself to the whole galaxy. We were his first targets. Most of us took refuge in the Court, but Kaden refused and said there was something he needed to take care of. I know that he went back to your mother, but from what I was able to tell from the radars you had already been sent off to a safe place... one where Tachyon would never be able to find you unless he really looked hard enough."

"Just me? Alone?" Ratchet asked, remembering the size of the pod he and his sisters had been found in, which only lead to his confusion when Azimuth nodded, "Then where did my mother and father find Starlight and Sunset? We were all in the same pod when we landed on Velden all those years ago."

"I don't have an answer for that one," Azimuth said, though at the same time he looked up at Ratchet as he began to finish his story, "For my crimes, in giving Tachyon the weapons necessary to take over the whole galaxy, I was forbidden from joining the Lombaxes when they left... and so I have lived in exile ever since. With the Great Clock we can fix the greatest tragedy that ever happened to the universe... and then we can put your family back together."

Before anyone could say anything, or tell Azimuth that Ratchet's family was Angela, Starlight, and Sunset, the elderly Lombax slammed the head of his wrench into the wall behind him and caused it to blow apart... to which they discovered that the Vullard settlement that rested outside the Odin Caves was under attack.

"Outsiders! Please, you must help us!" one of the Vullards cried out, running up to the group as they exited the cave system they were in, before pointing at the ships that were flying over the settlement, "The Agorians have launched a full-scale assault on our settlement, and our kind have locked themselves in their homes! We know you have come in search of the Obsidian Eye, which resides in our temple, so if you save us from the Agorians I'll show you where its located."

The moment the words left the Vullard's mouth another ship came by and blew out the bridge that was near them, though that really didn't matter in the long run considering that they had Starlight's magic on hand. Ratchet and Azimuth used their hoverboots to jump over the ruined bridge, while Starlight grabbed herself, Searing, and Angela before following after them, where they left Sunset to follow in the air. Azimuth called out to them and indicated that the people they needed to take out where the Agorian Riders, which were the commanders that were riding the large beasts that had two tusks, though if they took them all out they might have a chance at forcing their new foes back. Ratchet and Azimuth attacked the Rider that was in front of them, while the rest of their group spread out and targeted the other four Riders that happened to be in the area.

As the two Lombaxes started attacking the Rider in front of them Ratchet heard several explosions in the area, though based on the noise he was hearing he could tell that some of them were magical explosions, indicating that Starlight and Searing had engaged their targets. He already knew that those two would take down their opponents within a few minutes, because their magic seemed to be stronger than anything he had seen, though he suspected that Sunset would be finished with her target shortly after the two unicorns. As Azimuth commanded the attention of the Rider in front of them, and directed it around the area around them, Ratchet pulled back and whipped out the new weapon he had picked up... to which he used the sniper weapon to put several holes in his target and his mount.

The moment all the Riders had been taken care of the Agorians called in a pair of Hydra Tanks, which were apparently tanks that had three heads that fired electric blasts at their targets. Ratchet would have been concerned about their chances, had Angela not charged at the one closest to her and sliced into an area that would have activated the tank's defense system, allowing everyone else to open fire and dismantle the tank in front of them. Searing, who had gone off to deal with the remaining tank, returned to them a few seconds after they took out their Hydra Tank, though that was followed by an explosion detonating behind her... and the broken heads of her target landing behind her.

"You know, back when we had our first adventure I used to think having magic was cheating," Ratchet commented, causing Starlight to glare at her brother while Searing walked up to them, "but now I'm actually glad that you guys can decide when to detonate a powerful magical charge to obliterate whatever your targeting."

"Talons are inbound commander." a voice called out over the communicators, indicating that the Agorians didn't care who overheard them, "Enter attack formation and destroy the rebels!"

"Oh this is going to be fun," Sunset said, to which she tapped on the middle of her suit for a moment, where her tablet glowed as she apparently changed some settings on it, "I didn't get to use this when we went to war with Fear's forces, but its better late than never."

Starlight watched as the armor seemed to shift for a moment as the color turned dark purple, while at the same time the pieces that were covering her hooves opened just a bit and revealed some wicked looking metallic claws that seemed to spark with electricity every now and then. A protective barrier appeared on the back of Sunset's wings as the wingblades sharpened on the edge, where the electricity crossed over them as well, while the armor itself seemed to harden into a metal that was harder than what she was currently wearing. A visor came out of her helmet and formed around her head, giving her some addition protection while giving her a more menacing look than what her original armor gave her.

"Okay then," Sunset said, a smile appearing on her face as she flared her wings, "Let's get this show on the road!"

Before anyone could stop her, and tell her that it was dangerous for her to challenge the Agorian flyers alone, she burst into the air and slammed into the bottom of one of the ships, to which her new claws tore through the metal with ease, though the electricity caused an explosion a few seconds after she flew to another target. Starlight then let out a sigh as Searing levitated herself into the air and targeted some of the ships that were close to them, using her magic to tear her targets apart before they could hurt the Vullards. Angela shrugged as Azimuth returned to his ship and took to the skies, where he opened fire on the Agorians that were away from where the two ponies were fighting... so he didn't get caught in the crossfire.

The rest of the group waited as the three fighters tore apart the invading Agorians, though once the invaders called for a retreat, and made good on what they said, the Vullard that had asked them for help called them over and told them that he was ready to live up to his side of the agreement. Azimuth, Searing, and Sunset rejoined the rest of the group outside the entrance of the 'temple', where they gained a device called an Omnisoaker that could help them inside the cave. Instead of worrying about the new gadget, and risking all of their lives in case it failed, Starlight summoned the bridge and moved them through the area, where she stopped when they needed to turn a bolt crank or when they actually needed the new gadget to progress further into the cave.

Their journey came to an end when they found the Zoni Temple that had been hidden inside the cave, though in the middle of the temple was the Obsidian Eye that they had been searching for... though after a few seconds of examining it Starlight determined that they were ready to use it, where the image of Clank appeared before them.

"Clank!" Ratchet said, causing his old friend to turn towards whatever screen he was standing near with a look of surprise on his face, but then it seemed to disappear when he noticed that everyone else was present.

"Ratchet! Starlight! Angela!" Clank replied, calling the names of the people he personally knew, while shamefully hiding the fact that he knew something about the other two ponies that were standing behind them, "How did you find me?"

"You didn't really think we'd leave you out here all alone, did you?" Ratchet asked, though at the same time Clank noticed that Sunset Glider's armor had changed, but decided to pay it no attention at the moment.

"No, I knew that you would have started searching for me the moment I disappeared." Clank stated, a smile appearing on his face as he looked at the other Lombax that was standing next to Ratchet, "Who is that next to you?"

"General Alister Azimuth," Ratchet replied, a smile appearing on his face, because despite what had happened in the past he knew that the elderly Lombax would appreciate the change to save the future of the entire universe, "He's been helping us look for you. Send us your coordinates and we'll come get you!"

That was when Starlight and the group heard that the signal was at thirty-three percent, due to the crack that was in the star that was used to power the Eye, but Starlight had a way around that. She had noticed that the lost Zoni that were floating around the previous sectors they had visited had followed the siren call of the vessel that she was carrying at the moment, which was why the number of Zoni in the container was constantly growing whenever she wasn't looking at it. A few seconds later she pulled out the container and used her magic to direct the power of the Zoni into the star, restoring it to its prime state within a few seconds, though the odd thing was that she noticed that she had used the power without even having to try... making her flash back to the one Zoni calling her a 'Time Breaker'.

Everyone raised their eyebrows for a moment when she restored the signal back to one hundred percent, though Ratchet and Clank chuckled for a few seconds before they got back to the topic at hand.

"Ratchet, Starlight, Angela... I need your help. Orvus is in trouble." Clank explained, knowing that Sigmund was likely listening to the conversation, "You must go to Zanifar and confront Dr. Nefarious."

"Zanifar?" Azimuth asked, sounding confused for a moment, before shaking his head, "Dr. Nefarious hasn't set foot on Zanifar since his station was completed two years ago."

"Then that is when you must confront him," Clank replied, knowing that there had to be some way to use the anomalies on the planet to their advantage, which meant that he needed to have a brief conversation with Sigmund later, "I should be able to manipulate them from here to temporarily connect the present to two years ago, allowing you to confront Nefarious then... and with luck, save my father from whatever has happened to him."

"Then we'll chart a course for Zanifar," Ratchet said, to which he and Azimuth left the temple to plan out their next move, leaving Angela and the others near the Eye for a few minutes.

"Angela, Starlight," Clank said, stopping the duo in their tracks for a few seconds, "there's something else I feel that I should tell you about; Hatred is hanging out at the Agorian Battleplex. I don't know what she's planning, but it cannot be good if you take the other creatures into consideration."

"We'll be sure to tell Ratchet about this," Angela replied, wondering how Clank could even know where the other aspect of Sunset was hiding, but she wasn't about to sneeze at the news, "thanks for giving us the heads up."

Clank nodded and the communication between them and the Great Clock stopped, but thanks to Starlight's quick thinking they could always come back and use the Eye again if they really needed it. Angela knew that Ratchet wasn't going to like the news that another aspect of Sunset had shown her face somewhere, but it was better than not knowing about her existence... though she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was going to rear its ugly head when they reached the Agorian arena.
> Time: Battleplex
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When everyone returned to the Hyperion, and docked Aphelion, they overheard Azimuth mention that using the Great Clock to save the Lombaxes would change history and would no doubt make the meeting between Ratchet and Clank void. None of them bothered to mention that they weren't planning on using the Great Clock to do such a thing, especially as that would tear Ratchet and Angela apart and would no doubt have disastrous consequences in regards to Sunset Shimmer. If Ratchet and Starlight's sister was supposed to become the God of Destruction, and the three of them were separated by the act of saving the entire Lombax race, there was no telling whether she would follow the same path she had been set on or turn to the path of a destroyer that existed to erase everything.

It was then that the group agreed that if they got a chance to even touch the controls of the Great Clock, which was a massive if at the moment, they would ignore what Azimuth wanted so they could preserve time... which meant that they needed to figure out a way to persuade the elderly Lombax to see their line of thinking.

During the time they spent going over what to do about Azimuth, and how to persuade him, Starlight excused herself and headed back to the room that she used to do most of her work in, where she had created a clone some time ago to do some research. When she entered the room she found that the clone had done as she had asked of it, research the connection between all of the strange creatures she and the others had been finding lately, as well as working on more weapons to send to Gadgetron. She guessed that it was because of the clone some of her unfinished weapons had been produced, though she was grateful that the clone had done the work, because she and Ratchet had put the weapons to good use already.

She also spotted a few more weapons that would be useful near the end of their journey, but she decided not to pay it much attention as she turned to the clone... who was sitting in her chair and sipping on the drink that was floating in front of her.

"I see that you have been busy," Starlight said, though as she looked at the board with the nine names she noticed that the clone had added a tenth name to the list, one that was labeled 'Innocence' for some reason, "and that you added another name to the pile."

"Yes. I had a thought while you and your family were busy saving the day," the clone stated, a smile appearing on her face as she finished off the drink she was sipping from, "There are nine known aspects of our sister, as you have demonstrated by all of the names you put on the board, but I considered that there had to be one 'pure' aspect that we don't know about. The only reason I added 'Innocence' to the list is because of the fact that the majority of the aspects we've seen are negative emotions, saving for Searing Flame, Sunset Glider, and Ysmir. From what I have been able to gather Ysmir has to be some sort of fighting style based on a different type of magic, based on what you and the others have seen of her and the fact that Sunset once told us that her that there might be another set of memories locked away somewhere in her mind."

"While at the same time Searing Flame seems to be more of a prideful unicorn," Starlight added, remembering the smile that the unicorn had been wearing on her face when she took out the Hydra Tank earlier, as if she had been extremely happy with her skills, "that's if she really is one of..."

"Oh come on, don't kid yourself Starlight," the clone said, cutting her off before she could finish her sentence, causing Starlight to glare at her for a few seconds, "We both know the same thing; Searing Flame and Sunset Glider are two more aspects that have been scattered throughout the entirety of the Polaris Galaxy. As you said, the other unicorn has to be Pride, but Sunset Glider, on the other hand, I have to assume is some sort of competitive spirit or something similar. This Sunset is also a pegasus, so its possible that she represents Flight as well, considering her sister would be representing Sunset's Magic, which would make sense considering that our sister was an alicorn before she became what she is now."

"I... I guess your right about that," Starlight replied, letting out a sigh as she basically admitted defeat to herself, which was odd to even think about considering that she was talking with a clone of herself, "though I think its safe to assume that we'll discover what happened to Sunset when we take out the rest of the aspects that are trying to destroy planets and ruin lives... which means that we'll need to find and defeat Despair, Doubt, and Hatred. I don't think it will be easy to take out the first two wraiths, considering that they'll be near each other if what we saw on Torren IV was any indication, but they will definitely be much easier to deal with than the pain that will come when we have to fight Hatred."

"Do you mind if I might make a suggestion?" the clone asked, to which Starlight raised her eyebrow for a moment, though they both knew what her decision would be regarding the question.

"Go right ahead," Starlight said, knowing that at some point she would come up with the suggestion that the clone would be giving her, but this method allowed her to get the idea way ahead of time.

"Use me and the other clones in combat against the wraiths," the clone said, though at the same time Starlight nodded her head, as she was understanding what she was hearing, "we should be able to confuse the wraiths, giving you and the others enough time to figure out how to take them out."

Starlight nodded once more and the clone pointed at herself, indicating that it was time for her to return to the magic that had constructed her, to which Starlight allowed the clone to rest until she needed one again. With the deed done she left the workshop and returned to where the rest of the group was waiting, where she discovered that they were nearly at the Agorian Battleplex. Apparently Azimuth was heading towards Zanifar so he could scout out what was happening, allowing them to take some time to see if the nearby arena had anything they might find useful in their quest to save the universe.

Oddly enough Starlight found herself agreeing with the rest of the group that there had to be something helpful inside the arena, which was why she smiled as they got on their ships and flew over to the Battleplex.





When they entered the main lobby of the Battleplex they found that there were a large number of Agorians standing around, either talking with each other or playing what appeared to be some sort of arcade game that was based on Qwark. There were some Terachnoids walking around, to which the group discovered that they were either conversing in 'meaning' conversation with each other, pausing to watch whatever match was going on at the moment, or just walking around the lobby without a destination in mind. Ratchet spotted several statues on either side of the lobby, which made him wonder if those were the greatest Agorian warriors that the culture had, though as he thought about that he and the others made their way towards the Terachnoid hologram that was resting above everyone else.

"Welcome to Open Fight Night at the Battleplex!" the Terachnoid exclaimed, staring down at the group as they stopped in front of his station, though he seemed pleased to see them, "I can tell that all of you are looking for a fight. What are your names?"

"I'm Ratchet Cross," Ratchet replied, to which he moved a hand towards the rest of the group and introduced them all in turn, "this is my wife, Angela Cross, along with my sister, Starlight Glimmer, and our friends Searing Flame and Sunset Glider."

"Huh... so that's who you all are," the hologram said, though his tone indicated that he knew them by the fact that three of them were related to Sunset Shimmer, before he beckoned to the arena entrance behind him, "Well then, I won't keep you waiting."

As the group made their way towards the arena entrance they stopped by the weapon vendor and picked up the latest weapon that was available, which happened to be the Groovitron Glove. It was essentially the gadget turned into a weapon, though as Ratchet and Starlight picked it up, with a chuckle from Angela, Starlight had to wonder if her clone had created the weapon while she and the others had been busy with everything else. With the new weapon acquired they made their way to the entrance of the arena and discovered that there were five challenges that existed in the Bronze Tournament. If Qwark's message was to be believed, that he would be released once that tournament was completed, the entire group was going to have to fight through all five challenges and get whatever rewards the Agorians were handing out.

The first challenge, called 'Welcoming Party' was the basic type of challenge that they encountered whenever they entered a new arena, which was basically surviving five rounds of enemies before they could move onto the second challenge. When they appeared in the arena they took up positions so that someone was facing a single direction, allowing Sunset to glide over their enemies and attack them from behind. The enemies included some sort of small red robot that used lasers to damage people, the junk robots they fought back on Torren IV, and the Agorians themselves. It about three to five minutes they had torn apart all of the enemies that had been sent at them, allowing them to leave the arena with a small amount of bolts as a reward.

The second challenge in the line up, 'Armageddon Outta Here', was basically the same as the first one, but those that had to stay on the platform had to dodge spinning saw blades that were thrown at them as Sunset, once again, helped them from above. It was a rather easy challenge for them to over come, though once they had survived the waves that were sent at them Starlight spotted a Zoni that came to them and hid inside the vessel she was carrying, while Ratchet got the bolt reward. The third challenge that they had to face, 'Return to Sender', was one where they had to send bombs back at the person that threw them at the group, which proved to be rather easy as Starlight summoned a curved barrier to catch the bombs and Searing tossed the captured bombs back at their targets. Upon victory they earned another modification to their Constructo weapons, which was decent considering they weren't getting a lot in terms of bolts, before they accessed the fourth challenge.

'Death From Above' was a challenge where they had to survive the predetermined amount of waves that were thrown at them, while at the same time making sure to avoid being damaged by sinking platforms. Sunset was, once more, useful in taking out some of the Agorians that were targeting them from higher platforms, allowing the rest of the group to move around and take out their targets. In the end, however, the group managed to win the challenge and advance to the last one, where Qwark was allowed to join them for the final task they needed to complete before he was allowed to leave the Battleplex. The final challenge, they soon discovered, was called 'Bros Before Foes', though the description told them all that they were going to have to face three waves of obstacles and enemies before they fought something called a 'War Grok'.

Qwark was happy to see them, as he started cheering for all of them as he pulled out his silver bow and started putting arrows in whichever enemies weren't targeted by anyone else in the group. Even without Qwark's addition to the group they managed to cut their way through everything that the Agorians could throw at them, which only seemed to cheer the spectators on as the announcer declared that they were bringing in the creature that was supposed to kill them all. It was during that instance, where the elevator was bringing the War Grok into the arena, that Starlight could have sworn that she noticed a shadowy creature watching them before disappearing. She was sure that Hatred was lurking, waiting for them to make a mistake, but she kept her eyes peeled for the creature as they waited for the Agorians brought in their challenger.

"I'm sorry, but your regularly scheduled fight has been cancelled," a voice said, to which Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight gasped as the elevator finally connected with the platform they were on, to which they spotted the shadowy version of Sunset Shimmer standing in front of them, "but don't worry, I have something much more grand in store for all of you."

Hatred looked like Sunset, with shadows wrapped around her entire form, but that was before everyone noticed that she was wearing some sort of metallic suit that covered her chest, her legs and waist area, had metallic boots on her feet, and was wearing metal gauntlets over her hands. Hatred was also wearing some sort of red cape, though on the top of her head rested a silver crown, that looked blackened by the shadows, that made her look like an evil queen or something. Starlight stared into Hatred's red eyes, with the sickly green color surrounding them and the dark purple color rolling out of her eyes, telling her that the aspect was infused with Dark Magic, which seemed to be well attuned to her nature.

A few seconds later Hatred chuckled as she looked at everyone who was standing in front of her, because they all had jumped backwards and switched to their handheld weapons, as experience told them that using guns never worked against creatures like her.

"I'm glad that you understand that guns won't work on me, not like the other aspects." Hatred commented, a grin appearing on her face as she took a step forward, while causing most of the group to take a step backwards at the same time, "Ratchet, Angela, Qwark... why don't the three of you leave the arena? This is going to be a magical battle and, as none of you possess any sort of magic of your own, you'll only get in the way... besides, I'd like to leave you alive so you can see the future of the universe once I obtain what is rightfully mine."

Ratchet and Angela glanced at each other for a few seconds, mentally debating whether or not they trusted Hatred to leave them alone, before they sheathed their weapons, pulled on Qwark's shoulder, and left the arena, leaving the three ponies to face the creature that wanted to duel with them.

"Now that its just the four of us, we can get started," Hatred said, to which her eyes darted towards Sunset and Searing, though the moment made Starlight a little confused, "thought I must applaud the two of you, Searing Flame and Sunset Glider, for being able to hunt down and defeat Fear, Rage, and Violence, along with you, Starlight, taking out our Dragonborn powers. Even without a touch of our godly power you were able to bring about the downfall of four of our fellow aspects, granted that they were significantly weaker than the three of us, but this is where your ride ends."

"Stop acting like we know each other," Searing commanded, her magic dancing around her horn for a moment, which was mimicked by Starlight as Sunset readied her wings for flight, "and my sister and I have no connection to those creatures that have been ravaging the worlds we found them on. We save people, while they hurt people."

"Oh, there's more between the three of us than you understand," Hatred stated, snapping her fingers and summoning a dark crystal pillar off to the right of where she was standing, "I mean seriously, who else has a mastery of magic that allows them to defy the natural laws and bend the very elements to either destroy their enemies or protect their allies? Our original state, the magical alicorn known as Sunset Shimmer, used her powers to do exactly that, but then she ascended to a state above what all of us are capable of... gaining the power to end worlds whenever she desired. I thank the two of you for ensuring the defeat of three of the other aspects, four if you count Ysmir, because this puts us one step closer to being made whole... and I shall be the one to take over the position of the God of Destruction.

Besides, I have already proven that I am the one that should take over... as I was the one that obliterated Fastoon when Fear was trying to detonate a rift so she could wipe out all of existence."

Starlight was shocked to hear that Hatred was the one behind the destruction of Fastoon, and she already knew that Ratchet and Angela were going to be furious when she returned to them, but at the same time she was surprised to hear that her assumption that the two ponies next to her were aspects of her sister was correct. Another thing that shocked her was Hatred's plan, which was basically her forcing them to defeat the rest of the aspects so she could swoop in and take the seat that Sunset Shimmer had left behind. Starlight didn't like that Hatred had been playing them the entire time, especially when the universe was at risk of being destroyed, but they had to beat her now, before she did something worse than destroying Fastoon.

"So, you are the one that obliterated that planet," Sunset growled, anger flashed through her eyes for a few seconds, which only made Hatred smile at her, "I'm going to enjoy beating you to death!"

"Sunset! Stop!" Starlight shouted, though instead of heading her warning Sunset burst into the air and raced towards Hatred, throwing her hoof, with its extended blades, at her target.

Starlight watched as Sunset's hoofblade struck Hatred right in her chest, in the area that would be her heart, but her eyes widened as the body distorted and turned into pure shadows, though at the same time Hatred reappeared on Sunset's right and punched her in the side of her face. The force of her blow sent Sunset flying into the ground, to which she rubbed the area she had been struck in and glared at the aspect that had struck her, clearly pissed off that she had been hit like that. A few seconds later Sunset got back on her hooves and charged into the battle, swinging her hooves and her wings at the shadowy creature that seemed to be ducking and weaving instead of actually fighting her.

This went on for a few more moments before Starlight noticed that Searing had appeared behind Hatred's back, where she wouldn't be able to see the unicorn until it was too late, and spotted the magical blade that had been constructed from her magic, which was apparently how she was intending on finishing off the evil aspect. Hatred phased for a second and slammed her fist into Sunset's face, knocking her against the crystal pillar she had summoned earlier, before spinning towards Searing and shattering the magical blade with a wave of her hand. That was rapidly followed by Hatred slamming her hand against the floor and summoning another pillar behind Searing, to which she picked the unicorn up and threw her against the pillar, before using her magic to pin Searing against the crystal.

Starlight took a step forward, intending on joining the attack, but Hatred glanced at her for a brief second and her magic flared, to which a half circle of dark crystals sprung up in front of her and stopped her from advancing, causing her to stare at the creature that Sunset and Searing were fighting.

"Starlight, you're not invited to this fight." Hatred stated, confusing Starlight as to why the aspect hadn't just told her to leave with the rest of her family if she wasn't going to fight at all, before she turned her attention back to Searing, "You know Searing, its actually kind of sad to see you in the state your in; unable to remember anything about yourself, bound to a form that you have never used before, and unable to use any of your true power. I was hoping for a decent fight... so maybe I should fix you."

Hatred pressed her right palm against Searing's forehead, without touching her horn, for a few seconds and her hand started to glow, though that was followed by Searing's body shifting before Starlight's eyes. Her body changed from a unicorn and shifted until she looked like Hatred, but she was wearing a flaming dress that she had worn every time she had taken over Sunset's body, though oddly enough the demonic wings didn't return this time. Starlight assumed that the reason behind that change was because Hatred was just going to rip them off anyway once the battle started, so considering that the aspect wanted to have a decent fight she guessed that pain wasn't important to her at the moment.

That was swiftly followed by Hatred tapping Searing's forehead once more after pulling her hand back, the purpose of the contact was unknown to Starlight, before the evil aspect stepped back... where Searing shattered the pillar she was held against and braced her new hands against her head.

"Wh... what have you... done to me?" Searing growled, though at the same time she managed to land on her feet and stand like Sunset would, which told Starlight that Hatred must have done something to her memories.

"I imparted some of our memories into you," Hatred stated, a smile appearing on her face as she raised her hands, as if she was entering a battle stance of some sort, "When you, your sister, and I were created, back when our original form was shattered, I grabbed as much power as I could before I was created. In the process I managed to retain some of my own memories, or rather the memories we had before the separation... so the memories I gave you will allow you to remember who you were and how to properly fight in that form, for about ten minutes. Anyway, we don't have a lot of time for me to explain everything to you and have time for us to have a good fight, so come and fight me... Pride!"

"That's not... my name!" Searing shouted, though that was followed by her magic wrapping around her as she burst into the air and soared right at Hatred, to which she planted her fist in the evil aspect's face and sent her flying into the side of the arena.

The force of the attack shattered the barrier between the stands and the arena, sending Hatred flying through both the seats and the metallic structures that rested behind them, though the Agorians were smart enough to move out of the way before they were wounded. Searing changed her magic into the shape of at least a dozen small spear shaped objects, to which she glared at where Hatred had been thrown into and loosed the barrage of arcane attacks she had prepared. A series of small explosions rocked the area that she was targeting, though that was followed by Hatred jumping through the smoke and slammed into Searing's side, throwing her into the other side of the arena while ignoring Starlight and Sunset.

Searing stood up the moment following her impact with the arena wall, though as she did so she leveled her right pointer finger with Hatred and loosed a small charge of magical energy at the aspect, who fired one in return. The resulting explosion shook the entire arena, damaging many of the panels and breaking the entire barrier between the arena and the stands, causing the Terachnoids to sound the evacuation alarms. The Agorians seemed to sense that this was a fight that they couldn't even participate in, based on the magic that had been thrown around already, which was why they made their way out of the stands and headed somewhere safe. As the Agorians did that, and Ratchet and the others followed suit, Starlight noticed that the two combatants were charging at each other again and were exchanging blows with their hands and feet.

Starlight noticed that the magic that Hatred and Searing commanded was clashing with each other, even if they weren't using any spells at that moment, as the arena beneath them was breaking under the pressure of their clash... though that was followed the both of their fists colliding, which released a surge of energy that brought down small sections of the ceiling.

"Much better," Hatred said, to which the two of them separated from each other for a few seconds, where her magic gathered around her as Searing did the same, "You may not like being called Pride, but you remember how to fight like your old self... now show me what you are really capable of."

Searing burst into the air and slammed her magic into Hatred's chest, pushing her through the air and threw her into the hole she had created earlier, but this time Searing wrapped her magic around her opponent and detonated a charge that blew a large hole in the wall, larger than the last one. A few seconds later a beam of energy raced towards her and she dodged it, though it continued into the wall behind her and tore the other side of the room to pieces around where it had landed. Hatred followed the attack and continued to exchange magically enhanced blows with Searing, forcing her into the smoke she had created as the ship fell apart around them.

As Starlight tried to get onto her hooves, and somehow help Searing, she had to use her magic to brace herself as the entire ship shook as the two aspects dueled with each other. She had expected a duel between the two more powerful parts of Sunset Shimmer to have some destructive consequences, but even now she could feel the ship shaking, as if the shock waves of their powers clashing was tearing the Battleplex apart. She noticed Sunset Glider moving and gathered her magic so she could teleport over to her, as she knew that they needed to get out of here before something happened to the two of them, because in all honesty she knew that she couldn't stand up to Hatred... not without any of the Cores backing her.

Before she could actually teleport over to the pegasus, and get her out of the way, part of the ceiling collapsed and the two aspects crashed into the floor in front of her, shattering all of the crystals with the force of their landing as the two separated from each other. The force of their impact sent Sunset flying closer to where Starlight was standing, though it meant that she was out of harms way for the moment, unless one of the aspects did something.

"You know, this was a nice warm up for later on, when you unlock your potential on your own," Hatred commented, though at the same time the shadows behind her parted as an ebony colored sword, one with a wider blade than anything Starlight had ever seen, was pushed out of the darkness, "but you are like me and the other aspects, rage and anger will fuel your drive to do improve yourself... and there is no greater target for me to take out at the moment."

Searing eyes widened as she realized that Hatred was talking about Sunset, who was trying to move at the moment, but before she could say anything she noticed that the sword was already flying through the air towards the evil aspect's target. Searing made the ultimate decision and used her magic to do the one thing that she knew Hatred would never expect... she teleported between her sister and Hatred, allowing the rest of her power to form a barrier that was supposed to slow the blade down. The weapon penetrated the barrier and pierced Searing's chest, and even continued to reach for Sunset, but Searing grunted and stopped the blade before it could reach its target. As she coughed up blood she could see the pain and shock in her sister's eyes, and could hear the pain in her voice, but she blocked those out as she felt Hatred grab the hilt of the blade.

"Only you, Pride, would have done something as stupid as sacrificing yourself for an aspect that has no magical power inside her," Hatred growled, to which she pushed the blade in a little more so she could ensure that the aspect shattered like all the others, "You know, out of the other aspects that were created, you were the only one that I felt that could stop me, when you regained your memories... and then you went and did this. You have ensured that I will become the God of Destruction... to which you have my thanks."

"Go... to hell!" Searing shouted, raising her leg for a second and planting her foot in Hatred's chest, using a lot of her energy to send the aspect flying through the air and into the wall behind her, before she turned to Starlight, "Get us... out of... here."

Starlight ran over to the dying aspect and teleported them to the Hyperion, where they would be safe from the evil aspect for the time being and give Sunset time to say farewell to her sister. Ratchet and the others, who had been aboard the Hyperion due to the evacuation, were shocked to see what had happened to Searing, who weakly wished that Sunset would remain safe until she could take out Hatred. As Sunset promised to do her best to do that, and take out the aspect, the group was forced to watch as the life faded from Searing's eyes, to which she broke down into the same crystal that had appeared after the defeat of Fear and the other strange creatures. When the Zoni appeared to collect the crystal Sunset begged the time creature to restore her sister, to which the Zoni sadly shook its head and left with Searing's crystal.

Starlight had known that something was going to happen at the Battleplex, because of the fact that Hatred had been seen there, but this was something that she hadn't been expecting... and it made her and the others more determined than ever to make sure that Hatred didn't acquire the power that Sunset Shimmer had left behind.
> Time: Zanifar
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight and the others left Sunset in the room that they had given to her back when she and Searing had come aboard the Hyperion, leaving her to grief over the loss of her sister, while at the same time giving Starlight time to tell the others about what they had just witnessed. It was on thing to see Searing dissolve into a crystal and be collected by the Zoni, though it was another thing to accept the fact that she and Sunset were actually two more of Sunset Shimmer's aspects, of which there were ten if Hatred was to believed. She still found it odd that she had been correct in her thinking, about what happened to her sister and who the strange creatures they had fought were, but that didn't change the fact that the pegasus that was remaining in her room was grieving over her loss.

"If we were talking about anyone other than Sunset Shimmer I would have said we were insane," Angela commented, to which most of the group nodded with her statement, "but we have the face the facts; our God of Destruction has been shattered into ten aspects, though only five of them remain at the moment. We have to find Hatred, Despair, Doubt, and whoever the tenth aspect is so we can restore Sunset to her original state... but at this point I don't think that our current Sunset is even in the mood to help us, not after what happened to her sister."

"I'm going to kill Hatred the next time we see her," Ratchet growled, fingering the handle of his wrench for a few seconds, which had been left in its bladed form due to the evacuation of the Battleplex, "Sunset Glider may not be our sister, not fully anyway considering that she's one of the ten aspects, but no one deserves to have one of their family members taken from them like that. I feel sorry for her, I really do, but I'm going to make sure that the evil aspect pays for this... and I think all of you want the same thing that I do at the moment."

Starlight knew that none of them liked Hatred at the moment, not after the act she had just committed, but she also knew that all of them needed to focus on the facts and return to rescuing Orvus from Nefarious' grasp. She had to assume that the reason the elderly Zoni had been captured was because he figured that Nefarious was an enlightened mind that could handle the knowledge they were going to talk about. Of course Orvus had been captured at some point during his visit, which meant that he had been tricked in some manner, though while she thought about how they were going to infiltrate the base she noticed that she had a notice on her tablet that indicated that the Hyperion had a package waiting in the airlock.

She sighed and walked over to the location the notice had come from, leaving the others to talk about their plans for Hatred when they finally caught up to her and took her out, before she reached her destination. She quickly found a package waiting for her, though inside it she found two of the Negotiator rocket launchers, no doubt one for her and one for Ratchet, and a small security device... which had a note indicating that it was related to Nefarious' base. Based on the note she had to assume that one of the Terachnoids had sent her this package, though she knew that her brother was going to be interested in the new weapon they had acquired.

When Starlight returned to the bridge she told the others what she had found, noticing the excited look in Ratchet's eyes, before explaining that the security device might help them on Zanifar... where she discovered that Azimuth was heading somewhere else, as if he had found something out and didn't want to bother them until he determine how important the something was. They discussed the plan of attack, which was simply charging through the base, saving anyone that had been enslaved, and then enter the time gate so they could save Orvus from whatever Nefarious was doing to him.

After about thirty minutes they had reached Zanifar, which was really close to where the Battleplex was located, though as they parked the Hyperion and prepared to get in their ships they noticed that Sunset Glider was waiting for them... though she had activated the secondary form of her armor, while the electricity was offline at the moment.

"Sunset, shouldn't you be grieving?" Angela asked, somewhat surprised that the pegasus was even standing before them, much less armed for war against whoever pissed her off.

"I am... but I need to be on the battlefield," Sunset replied, raising a hoof to her face and wiping away some tears that she had felt, before trying to steel herself once more, "Searing wouldn't want to see me just give up and mope after her death... she would want to see me fight our enemies with all of my strength. Taking out Nefarious' forces and saving anyone he's enslaved will make me feel much better."

Angela knew that the pegasus was only saying that to make them think that she was okay, but they all knew that her heart had been shattered with the death of the aspect that had been her sister, because the two of them had bonded over the six months they had spent together... and now she was feeling the pain that Hatred had inflicted on her. Angela wanted Sunset to stay here, where the AI could try and help her overcome what she was feeling, but she decided that it might be best if they let her do whatever she wanted, despite the fact that, if she were in Sunset's position, she would have gotten over her grief before going to another planet. She guessed that Sunset had some level of determination inside her, if she was willing to go into battle while trying to overcome her grief, but merely beckoned for the pegasus to join them inside Aphelion.





When the group landed near the fortress that Nefarious had built on the planet, in his image no less, they immediately encountered a walking mushroom creature that wanted to eat them, but Ratchet and Starlight took it out with their new Negotiator weapons. The creature separated into four smaller ones, which were taken down by their handheld weapons, before they took a moment to reflect on what was in front of them. The next location they needed to move towards had a small gap between them, though Sunset glared at the robots that were patrolling the building in front of them and launched herself into the air, to which she flew over to the other side and sliced her targets into pieces with her wing blades.

As the foes fell, and the group caught up to the upset pegasus, the door opened and two more enemies poured out of the building, to which they tore them apart with their various weapons before Starlight summoned a small barrier to prevent the walking tank from damaging them with its cannons. She then nodded to Sunset, who burst into the air and charged at the enemy, where she took out its targeting controls and caused it to move wildly around the area, allowing the others to come and help her cut it to pieces. They then walked through the building and found a lone robot standing in front of the weapon vendor, where they let Ratchet shoot it to pieces before they activated the vendor.

It was then that Starlight discovered that the Cyromine Glove, basically a weapon that threw bombs that could freeze enemies where they were standing, was in stock, to which she and Ratchet grabbed one and continued forward. With their weapons restocked, and the new one acquired, they walked out of the building they were in and found that some Fongoids were trapped behind a security fence.

"Praise Orvus, two Lombaxes and their allies!" the leader said, though as he said that Starlight wondered if the man was acting, because he didn't sound like a prisoner that had experienced years of imprisonment, "Have you come to rescue us?"

"Yes and no," Ratchet replied, because while they had come to save Orvus he knew that they would save the Fongoids as well, despite the fact that they seemed like they were acting for some reason, "What happened here?"

"Dr. Nefarious arrived a little over two years ago, and tricked us into helping him build this outpost." the leader explained, though once again Starlight thought that his statement sounded a tad bit fake, as if he had rehearsed what he needed to say before their arrival, "Before we knew it, his troops were herding us into detainment camps! The gates are controlled by that guard tower up there."

The group looked at each other as the Fongoid leader pointed up at the guard tower in question, each of them wondering why the man was acting in front of them, before they each sighed and walked around the area the Fongoids were being held in. Once they found the next path they needed to take, the one that would allow them to access the guard tower, they spotted more of Nefarious' robots coming their way, to which they opened fire and started dismantling them. As enemy ships started bringing in more targets Ratchet beckoned to Sunset, who flared her wings and took to the skies, where pieces of robots rained down on the battlefield as she took her anger out on her new targets, while at the same time preventing the rest of the group from being swarmed by enemies.

While they fought against the group in front of them Starlight overhead one of them mentioning that their orders were to 'capture' them and not 'kill' them, which made her wonder what other strange facts they were going to find on this planet.

Once they happened to finish off the rest of the robots they moved through the area they happened to be guarding and found another Fongoid that appeared to be hiding, where he claimed that he had escaped the detainment camps and was trying to get home. Ratchet took out the Omnisoaker gadget they had picked up back on Lumos and soaked up some of the nearby water, so he could launch himself into the air a few times before he landed near a nectar plant that the little swarm creatures liked. The moment he had the nectar he loosed a small charge of it so he could reach the bolt crank without being eaten alive, to which he hurried over to where the white ivy was blocking their way and put another cluster of the nectar on it.

A few seconds later and the white ivy was no longer blocking their way, allowing them to 'escort' the Fongoid to his house... which happened to have a large vine growing out of the ground, one that wrapped between some buildings and stopped at a platform that would eventually allow them to access the guard tower they needed to get into. Ratchet and Angela jumped onto the vine and rode down it like it was one of the rails they used on another planet, while Starlight followed with her magical platforms and Sunset flew through the air. Once that was done the two Lombaxes used their new boots, as Starlight's clone had made a pair of the hoverboots for Angela some time ago and she had presented it to her while they weren't busy, to access the platform above them. They took out the small group of enemies that were waiting for them and then accessed some jump pads, which allowed them to glide down to the back entrance of the guard tower.

Seeing how they had the security card in hand, thanks to one of the Terachnoids that had seen Searing's death, they were able to access the back entrance of the guard tower and immediately opened fire on the enemies that were waiting for them, catching some of them off guard in the process. They found a tank enemy guarding the controls they were looking for, though it was, once again, easy for them to take it out thanks to Sunset damaging it like the last one, to which they hacked it apart and searched for the switch they were after. After a few seconds Starlight tapped the yellow button and the force fields went down, to which the Fongoids seemed to cheer as they stretched their legs... though for some reason she still felt that they were acting and not telling them the truth.

Now that the way to the time gate was open, and they didn't have to worry about any reinforcements, the group made their way down to their destination... though as they approached it Sunset stopped before they even reached it.

"Is something wrong Sunset?" Angela asked, knowing that the mare had to be hurting on the inside, though she knew of no real way to help her at the moment.

"I... I won't be going into the past with you," Sunset replied, causing Ratchet to snap around in shock, though she held a hoof up to stop them from talking her into following them, "I cannot go into the past with you... because two years ago I was once apart of Sunset Shimmer and my presence might do something to her, which could result in me messing with the timeline. I'll just stay here and hold down the fort, which should be easy considering we just killed all of Nefarious' soldiers like they were nothing."

Angela wanted to say something that would convince Sunset to come with them, but when she considered who Sunset Shimmer was two years ago, when she was whole and not fragmented between ten aspects, she knew that this Sunset had a point. Bringing her into the past could very well have serious consequences that they weren't aware of, which meant that she would have to stay put and make sure that no more guards came looking for them. She nodded and ran her hand through Sunset's hair, before letting out a sigh and followed both Ratchet and Starlight into the time gate, heading two years into the past if what Clank had told them had been accurate.





When the group emerged from the time gate they were not so shocked to find that the ground was full of life, which meant that it was in a different season of the year when Orvus had disappeared than the winter the planet was experiencing in the future. As they looked around the place they noticed how similar the two points in time actually looked, leading Starlight to wonder if the fortress might have been built to protect the Fongoids from the natural dangers of the planet, rather than act as a detainment camp. In the future she knew that all of the huts were still intact, despite being covered in snow thanks to the winter they were going through, which made her wonder if Nefarious had actually treated these Fongoids with respect and had put their needs above his own.

They also found an asteroid lodged in the ground, though Starlight had the suspicion that it was where Nefarious and Lawrence had been teleported to back when she and her family had beaten his plans to turn the Solana Galaxy into robots... but all of them agreed it was a little weird to hear that the Fongoids respected the villain in return. They decided to make their way to the main structure of the future outpost, which they couldn't access for some reason, and found a Fongoid waiting by a rusted up bolt crank.

"Hey!" the Fongoid said, warmly greeting them as they came to a stop in front of him, "Are you here to help build Dr. Nefarious' outpost? We just finished building the bridge, but the winch crank rusted up, so we can't lower it."

"Actually, we heard that Orvus was coming to this planet and we came to meet him," Ratchet said, though he changed his tone to sound more friendly, which he had gotten better at thanks to his time on Clank's show so many years ago, "Do you know where he might be?"

"Sure I do. Everyone in the village knows that Orvus is inside the main building of Dr. Nefarious' outpost." the Fongoid replied, as if the information was common knowledge to everyone, but he didn't seem upset that they had asked him, "Can you imagine what those two have to talk about? Dr. Nefarious is brilliant!"

While Starlight admitted that some of Nefarious' designs were definitely brilliant, which she did silently because she didn't want the others to know that fact, she knew that they needed to get inside, which meant that she had to ask the question.

"Well then, we need to get inside the main building." Starlight stated, letting out a sigh as she racked her brain for something that would allow them to get across the gap without exhausting her magic, "What can we do to help?"

"Nothing we can do," the Fongoid offered apologetically, though the look on his face indicated that there might be something that could aid them in the near future, "We'll just have to wait for them to finish building the oil derrick first."

Starlight's eyes widened as she glanced at the structure in question, and remembered how it had looked two years from now, before she grabbed the Omnisoaker and darted back through the time gate, leaving Ratchet and Angela to look confused for a few moments. A few seconds later she came charging through the gate and stopped in front of them, to which she loosed a small bit of the oil she had gathered and got rid of the rust that was on the bolt crank. Ratchet smiled as he pulled the lever and lowered the bridge into place, allowing them to access the building as Starlight returned the gadget that she had taken from him.

"Starlight, what did you do to get that oil?" Angela asked, though she asked the question because she was curious as to the speed at which the unicorn was able to get the substance they needed in such a short amount of time.

"Oh, I simply teleported over to the oil derrick, threw the enemies into the air, and grabbed a sample," Starlight replied, to which she and the others walked across the bridge so they could enter the building, "then I came back and opened the way forward. It was rather easy to figure out once he mentioned the oil derrick."

Ratchet nodded as they entered the building that Nefarious and Orvus were inside, though they ignored the weapon vendor in case it might cause some damage to the timeline if they bought ammunition for weapons that didn't exist. Though it appeared that they didn't need their guns at all, because they were able to make their way to some sort of meeting room without any guards showing up to stall them. They only came to a stop when they heard the sound of Nefarious talking, though it sounded like he was discussing something with someone important... which the three of them assumed had to be Orvus.

"And your sure that the Fongoids will be okay with this?" Nefarious asked, surprising the group with the concern that the evil villain had for the people he was about to enslave, once again making Starlight wonder if there was more to this than what they had seen, "Your asking them to pretend to be helpless prisoners when Ratchet and his family come here in two years."

"I know that they don't like deceiving people, but even they know that preserving the timeline is important," a second voice said, though it sounded like someone that was much older than Nefarious, which meant that it had to be Orvus, "besides, once the heroes come here and 'free' them from your 'cage' they'll quickly revert back to their previous lives... though with some defense systems to keep them safe from people like the Agorians."

"The Agorians will be unable to penetrate this base," Nefarious remarked, as if he was proud of the work that went into the outpost, "Ratchet and his family, on the other hand, should be able to get here... without much effort... on their part..."

"Nefarious, are you sure that your okay?" Orvus asked, though the group was surprised to hear that the Zoni was concerned about something, though that was followed by the sound of the robot doctor collapsing on the ground, "Nefarious, how long are you going to resist restoring your core? Those claw marks are slowly killing you."

"They remind me... to never mess with someone... whose on a level beyond me," Nefarious replied, to which he coughed for a few seconds, though the group could tell that he was in pain.

"Well, we can't have you die just yet," Orvus said, to which the group heard the sounds of something that Starlight identified as temporal magic being used, "I'll restore your core to its original state... but I'll leave these marks as scars, to remind you of Sunset Shimmer and the lessons that she taught you. I'll also leave behind this disc, so that when the time comes the Zoni will come for you and give you further instructions..."

Ratchet held up a hand and beckoned everyone back out of the building, knowing that it was impossible for Orvus to have suddenly disappeared without a trace, not when Nefarious was apparently on his side and taking orders from him. That fact told him that the leader of the Zoni was still out there, in the future, and he was purposely hiding himself from everyone... including Clank, who was his own son. He could tell that both Angela and Starlight were confused by this information, because nothing was adding up when it came to Nefarious anymore. Ratchet guessed that Sunset had more of an effect on the evil doctor than any of them could have realized, but that still meant that something didn't add up.

Ratchet sighed as the group crossed back to the present, rejoined Sunset Glider near the ship, and returned to the Hyperion... though he guessed the next thing on their list was trying to find Azimuth and seeing if he had found the location of the Great Clock on his own.
> Time: Vorselon; Second Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As Aphelion landed inside the docks of the Hyperion, and everyone got out, one of the AI announced that they had an active communication line waiting for them, to which they moved towards the bridge so they could see what was waiting for them. Ratchet was in a confused mood, because he had assumed that Orvus had been in danger two years ago and they had been sent to make sure that he was saved, but what they had discovered was that the elderly Zoni was in no danger. It made him wonder if Clank had been lied to by someone, though more importantly it made him wonder what had happened to Orvus, because if nothing happened two years ago then he should be, if he was following the stories, somewhere in the Great Clock, overseeing all of time like he was said to be doing.

He was sure that something strange was going on, and that someone was wasting their time, but he cleared his mind as the group entered the bridge and took their seats, before he nodded and the communication line was opened... to which they found 'Lord' Vorselon staring at them with his face filling the entire screen.

"Greetings, young Lombaxes!" Lord Vorselon proclaimed, addressing both Angela and Ratchet at the same time, while moving a bit so they could see what he wanted to show them, "I think I have come across something that belongs to you."

What the picture showed as Azimuth locked in a cage, somewhere aboard Vorselon's warship, though oddly enough their opponent had left the general with his weapon, likely because it wouldn't help him escape from his cell at the moment. As the group stared at the picture they noticed that two shadowy wraiths appeared in the room behind Vorselon, where they discovered the sickle wielding wraith that was Despair and the weaponless Doubt... though the dark grey wraith was actually carrying a wicked scythe on her back. Ratchet and Angela exchanged a quick glance with each other, where they wondered if the wraiths had been tracking Azimuth since they departed from Torren IV and had turned him over to Vorselon in exchange for something else.

"General!" Ratchet called out, deciding to lure Vorselon into a false sense of victory, because if he thought that he was going to win he might do something stupid... like transmit his location to them or something.

"It is a dark day when one is tasked with destroying half the galaxy's Lombax population..." Vorselon started to say, though before he got too far he noticed that Starlight was opening her mouth.

"You mean by a third," Starlight commented, causing everyone to look at her, "What? There are only three Lombaxes left in the universe, so its more accurate to say a third than a half."

"Anyway, I have uploaded my exact coordinates to your starship," Vorselon said, to which he shook his head, as if he hated being corrected, before he turned his full attention back to Angela and Ratchet, "if you hurry you might be able to save him before his execution! Vorselon out!"

As the screen went blank Ratchet and Angela turned to the rest of the group, to which they discovered that Starlight was annoyed by what they had heard, Sunset was furious over the fact that Azimuth might die, and Qwark, who hadn't gone to Zanifar for his own reasons, was prepping his weapon for the incoming invasion.

"I know we're going to attack his ship and rescue Azimuth," Ratchet said, though as he spoke he tapped his wrench as Angela held out her lightsaber, "but how are we going to get passed those wraiths? This has to be a trap that they have set up for us..."

"You don't think they're working for Hatred, do you?" Starlight replied, though she had to admit that she was thinking of the same thing, because she already knew that the evil aspect would be gunning for Sunset in an attempt to get her out of the way.

"She's the strongest aspect in existence, if she's to be believed," Ratchet stated, where he shook his head, indicating that he didn't believe what Hatred had told them earlier, "but the presence of Doubt and Despair tells me that they might be working under her, out of fear that she could destroy them and consume their power. They have to realize that once the rest of the aspects are taken care of, and only three of them are left standing, Hatred will turn on them and cut them down... so hopefully we can convince them to help us and turn against the evil aspect."

"I'm not sure that they'll turn against Hatred," Angela commented, shaking her head as their starship approached the area that Vorselon had stopped his ship in, "the two of them seem to be the type of person that enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others... so they may not care if Hatred beats them, because she'll be doing the same thing if she becomes the God of Destruction. Our best bet is to figure out a way to beat them before they do more damage to the galaxy we're in... and then we need to find and kill Hatred, as she'll be gunning for us once she and Sunset are the last aspects left."

"You forgot that there's a tenth aspect, hiding somewhere," Sunset said, though while everyone turned towards her they would tell that she was pissed about the loss of her sister, "I could tell, in the way that Hatred talked, that we weren't the remaining aspects... there's one more that Hatred is saving for the final event. There's something about this mysterious aspect that makes even Hatred back off, because it seems that the evil aspect is willing to kill the rest of us before taking on the final aspect. Makes me wonder what is so special about the tenth aspect that makes Hatred back off and leave her alone."

Starlight looked at Sunset Glider for a few seconds and wondered if she should share her thoughts about the tenth aspect being Sunset Shimmer's innocence, or her core as she and her clone had agreed on before she had cancelled the spell. Whatever the final aspect actually represented, be it innocence or something else, wasn't important at the moment, as they had to prepare themselves for what was coming their way once they reached Vorselon's ship.





It didn't take them long to reach their destination, where they were surprised to find that Vorselon hadn't bothered to send out any ships to delay them and basically allowed them to landed on the rear dock of the ship. When they climbed out of their ships Ratchet and Starlight walked over to the vendor and found that the upgraded Buzz Blades was available for purchase, which they knew would come in handy in the near future. With the weapons purchased, and their ammunition restocked, everyone prepared themselves as they approached the doors in front of them, though when the doors opened they discovered that Vorselon had customized his troops, as there was a light blue color to them that had replaced the red coloration they had when they fought Nefarious' forces.

They could also tell that these robots were under Vorselon's control, because while Nefarious' robots always chanted about capturing members of their group, despite the fact that it never happened, Vorselon's robots clearly wanted to murder all of them and make sure that none of them survived their invasion.

As they walked into the docking area Ratchet and Starlight opened fire with their new weapons, targeting the left side of the room, while Angela and Qwark used their weapons to either cut their opponents apart or pin them to a wall with an arrow, which would explode a few seconds later. Sunset, once again, flew around the area and targeted enemies that were spawning on the level above them, intending to make sure that they weren't swarmed by their enemies. After a minute or two of fighting the swarm of enemies Sunset noticed that two tanks had entered the area, to which she flew into one of them and smashed its systems with a well placed hoof jab to its head area, though she followed that up by twisting the cannons towards the other tank and opened fire on it.

After some time they managed to finish off the rest of the swarm that had been sent to kill them, to which they advanced to the door above where they were standing and opened it, allowing them to move deeper into the ship as they searched for Azimuth's holding cell. The next room that they walked into had a bolt crank that was supposed to lower some swingshot targets they could use to maneuver around the area, but Starlight decided that now wasn't the time to play by Vorselon's rules. From what she could tell there were three buttons that they needed to press, so she called forth a magical walkway so Angela and Qwark could take the one on the right side of the room, while allowing her and Ratchet to deal with the one on the left side. Sunset, of course, flew over to the final button and literally sat on it, though it was clear that she was more focused on the aspects that could be on the ship than their actual mission.

When all three buttons had been pressed Starlight levitated everyone over to the door and found that the elevator they had unlocked brought them right back to the arena they had fought Vorselon in the last time they had infiltrated his ship, though this time he appeared to be ready for them.

"You two lasted much longer than I expected." Vorselon stated, staring at both Ratchet and Angela, as if they were his primary threat and not anyone else, "Azimuth has taught you well."

"You must not have done any research on us since our last encounter," Ratchet replied, to which everyone but him and Angela backed up, leaving the two of them to deal with Vorselon, "I am Ratchet Cross, known hero throughout the entirety of the Solana and Bogon Galaxies on at least four separate occasions, and this is my wife Angela Cross, one of the highest ranking Jedi Knights in the universe."

"You have no power against me!" Vorselon said, to which he activated his armor and disappeared into thin air, which only caused both of the Lombaxes to raise an eyebrow as they charged forward.

Sadly both Ratchet and Angela discovered that Vorselon hadn't studied up on them since their last encounter and hadn't taken the time to reinforce his armor with new weapons, because his attack patterns were the same as before. He tried to use every attack he had in his arsenal, which was the same as the last time they fought, and he only targeted on of them at a time, which allowed the other one to attack him from behind and damage his armor. When Ratchet dealt the finishing blow Vorselon's armor shattered into a thousand pieces as his head container flew off, declaring that he could never be defeated and promising them that he would return for them in the future.

With the battle over Ratchet quickly restocked his ammunition and they pressed on, to which they piled into the elevator that had dropped down upon Vorselon's defeat. They walked through the door that had opened for them and found that a large set of lasers were blocking their path, to which Starlight merely levitated them to the other side so they could enter the room that Azimuth was being held in... along with the two wraiths that were hiding in the shadows.

"Ratchet? Angela?" Azimuth said, sounding shocked that they were even here, before he grew serious as faced the entire group, "What are all of you doing here?"

"Rescuing you of course," Angela replied, to which she waved a hand to dismiss what was happening at the moment, "Relax General, Ratchet and I have done this in the past. We just need to know how to lower the containment field and then we'll get you out of that cage."

"The cables above my cell should lead you right to the power generators," Azimuth said, pointing to the three tubes in question, to which the group nodded to him, "take out those generators and the containment field should fall apart."

The group looked at the three available paths that were in front of them and, before they could decide where to go first, Sunset flew over to the path on the left of the entrance they had come through, to which she followed the metallic ramp by flying above it. From there she found several important pieces of machinery she could pull apart, as all she had to do was change an option on her screen and she could use her wings to create the same effect Ratchet had when he was using his wrench to pull things. She avoided the lasers as she made her way through the area, breaking apart several of the machines that she felt were important... until she got one that informed her that it was the containment generator she was looking for. She happily returned to the cage that Azimuth was being held in, to which she allowed the others to hunt down the other two generators they were looking for.

Ratchet chose to take on the path that was parallel to where they had entered, to which he discovered that he would need to time several jumps right with his hoverboots to avoid falling into space. Starlight watched from the door opening, as she had given Angela the Omnisoaker tool for the final path, to ensure that her brother wasn't harmed if he missed a jump. Ratchet was very pleased when he reached the other side of the room he was in, because he successfully reached the other side of the room without needing Starlight to catch him, before he pulled the generator apart and disabled it. He then used some swingshots to swing back to the other side, where he had to incorporate some jump pads to reach where his sister was standing, to which they smiled as they rejoined everyone else.

Angela smiled at them as she moved up the stairs that would lead to the final generator, where she used the Omnisoaker to grab some ice cold water that allowed her to cool off the platforms she needed to cross to reach her destination, though before she went further she switched the water for some oil to get rid of the rust that she spotted on the bolt crank. She used the crank to lower the laser walls into place so she could access the generator, which she ruined with her lightsaber, before she turned around and headed back to the cell, which no longer had the containment field surrounding it. They quickly yanked off the module that was keeping the cell locked and Azimuth was free to go, though as he jumped out of the cell they all noticed that they weren't alone.

Standing in the doorway they had come through, which would be the only way off the ship without using Starlight's magic to teleport, were the two wraiths they had been searching for... though instead of a battle happening the two wraiths simply floated over to the group.

"What do you want?" Sunset asked, though at the same time she stepped in front of the group and made sure that she was between them and the wraiths, because she had the feeling that they had come for her.

"Hatred's downfall." Doubt stated, catching the entire group off guard for a moment, "We have seen the destruction she has caused, the pain she has inflicted upon any who dare to challenge her, and felt her intent to slaughter all of us when she flew Searing."

"We are all pawns in her game," Despair added, shaking her hood for a few seconds, "You have defeated many of the aspects that were scattered across the galaxy, which is what she planned on having you do so she didn't have to expand her energy to do so. We wish to see ourselves made whole again, in the form you know as Sunset Shimmer if what Hatred had told us is true, but if she is allowed to win..."

"She'll destroy us all." Starlight finished, knowing what the evil aspect had planned for the power that Sunset used to command, "Do you have any idea where she's hiding?"

"No, but we intend on finding her and wounding her," Doubt replied, to which she tapped the scythe that she was carrying, before turning to Azimuth, "We know that you do not trust us, but we have released your ship from its holding cell. We also recommend that you get out of here by teleportation, because we plan on giving Vorselon a little... gift... before he leaves this sector."

"Head to the Bernilius Sector next," Despair stated, to which both she and Doubt turned to face the path in front of them, while turning their backs to Sunset and her group at the same time, "you may find some clues waiting for you in that Sector."

Starlight nodded and grabbed everyone with her magic, to which she teleported all of them back to the docking area they had landed on, where they discovered that the wraiths had been truthful when they mentioned that Azimuth's ship had been released. None of them wanted to stick around and see what happened when the two aspects gave Vorselon their 'present', so they all boarded their ships and took off, where Azimuth said that he would meet them in the Bernilius Sector. Starlight and the others returned to the Hyperion and got in started moving as well, while at the same time they had to wonder what the two wraiths were planning... and whether or not they were being truthful about hunting Hatred down.

Starlight let out a sigh as the Hyperion began the sequence so it could make the jump to the next sector, because she knew that, in time, she and her family would know exactly what was going on... while at the same time worrying about how odd it was that they had been sent back to save Orvus, who wasn't in danger. She knew something odd was going on, but she knew that she would figure it out in the future... once they had saved the Great Clock, Clank, and the rest of the Zoni from Nafarious and his allies.
> Time: The Chamber
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, what's next on our Temporal To-Do List?" Clank inquired, though as he asked his question he walked beside Sigmund, as they made their way through the Great Clock without a set destination in mind.

"Only one thing left on the checklist," Sigmund replied, to which he pulled up a small screen and pressed a few buttons, which displayed a checklist that he had been crossing items off the entire time they had been walking through the station, "test mnemonic station Iota."

"Mnemonic station Iota?" Clank asked curiously, though he recalled that the other mnemonic stations he had gone inside had names that were similar to the last one that Sigmund said they needed to check out.

"Yup!" Sigmund confirmed, a smile appearing on his face for a few seconds, almost as if he had a joke in mind at the moment, "As in, 'Iota test a mnemonic station'! Sorry, Orvus' sense of humor rubs off on you after the first thousand years."

"You've worked for him that long?" Clank said, though while he was surprised at first, which was why a confused look appeared on his face for a few seconds, but it quickly passed as he considered that Sigmund had to be telling the truth on this matter.

"Relatively speaking," Sigmund allowed sheepishly, though his motions made Clank wonder if he even knew what he was talking about, especially when Orvus had been missing for two whole years, "Quantum entanglement really screws with your internal chronometer, so it's hard to be sure... especially when we rarely deal with time linearly."

Clank guessed that he could understand what Sigmund had told him, but even then he had to wonder if something was wrong, as the caretaker was glancing around as he took a step in the direction that he had to go in. Before he could even move off of the platform that they were on, and turn the turrets into platforms he could use to reach the next building, Sigmund's communicator went off, to which he opened something and said that he had to report to Sector Nine. Clank had no idea what was in Sector Nine, but he assumed that whatever was happened had to be important for the caretaker to take time out of his schedule to deal with it, to which he left Clank alone to his own devices and disappeared into the distance.

Clank let out a sigh as he turned the turrets in front of him into moving platforms, by hitting their energy shots back at them with his scepter, before jumping on them and riding them up to the second obstacle, which was a pair of rotating rings that he had to slow down to reach the building. He also took a moment to repair the broken pieces of the Great Clock that he could see before he walked into the building, to which he found a complicated Time Puzzle sitting in front of him. This one required him to use four different pads, which meant that there would be four of him running around for a few seconds, but he slowly moved through the area and used his copies to observe what each button did before committing to a plan of attack.

After a minute or two of observing what the various buttons did, and formed a plan that would allow him to reach the door while the copies held it open for him, Clank smiled as he passed through the door, allowing him to see what else was in front of him. He used the jump pad to reach the platform that was far above him, though when he landed he found the small creatures that enjoyed eating quantum energy waiting for him. He quickly dispatched of them, and made sure that they had been completely taken care of, before walking forward as he thought about what sort of puzzle could be waiting for him... though instead he found Sigmund floating outside the building.

Oddly enough Sigmund was arguing with the computer that was giving him information, which in turn caused Clank to hear the computer's retort to whatever he had said... though that was before the door opened and Sigmund moved inside, to which he beckoned for Clank to fix the badly damaged mnemonic station. One wave of the scepter he was carrying was enough to restore the station to its former glory, which caused it to open like all of the other stations he had accessed since he had awaken in the Great Clock. Sigmund had him stop before he got into the mnemonic station, as he wanted to be sure that it was working properly by the short tests he could run from his tablet, but after a few seconds he nodded and beckoned for Clank to proceed.

Clank climbed onto the station, floated into place when the energy grabbed onto him, and closed his eyes, allowing himself to see whatever message his father had left for him... and, more importantly, whatever lesson he was going to learn about.





Where Clank expected to find a message or lesson from his father, which would have been reasonable considering what he had seen in the other stations he had been put into, he was surprised by what he actually found. It seemed like an empty space, what with the white walls with rotating gears, but there weren't any platforms anywhere and he couldn't find any message that might be from his father. He looked around for a few seconds, trying to determine what he was supposed to do in this mnemonic station, before he noticed a green pipe that had a few pieces scattered everywhere. His eyes widened for a moment when he recognized the hoverbike Ratchet and Starlight had finished before Tachyon's invasion, the helmet that Tachyon had wore before his death, and the Dimensionator.

That was before he noticed that the Plumber, the man that had helped him and the others in their various adventures in one way or another, was pulling something out of the pipe, which made sense considering that his job was to fix things... even if the thing he was fixing was in someone's mind.

"Hello?" Clank said as he approached the mysterious Plumber, as he had no idea what he was going in his memory banks, if the pipe was to be believed, but he had the feeling that he'd come to understand what was happening... in time.

"Oh, it's you!" the Plumber said, to which he gave Clank a smile as he turned around to face him, though one hand remained in the pipe for a few more seconds, "I've been expecting you for some time now."

"You have?" Clank asked, as he had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but he decided not to voice his thoughts as he waited for the Plumber to tell him what was going on.

"That's correct," the Plumber replied, to which he pulled his hand from the pipe, revealing a photo that was Clank with Ratchet and Angela on the day of their wedding, though in the background was Starlight and Sunset, "Mostly I came here to remind you of what is important to you, while at the same time making sure you know that new responsibilities will be coming your way... one day anyway."

"What is that..." Clank started to say, though that was before the area around them seemed to change until they were in some sort of shrine like area, one he had learned about in his reading before Tachyon attacked them, and wondered what was happening now, "supposed to... mean? Okay, where are we?"

"In one of my peaceful memories," the Plumber said, though as Clank turned back to look at him he noticed that the clothing that the man had been wearing had been replaced by something else, which happened to be a light blue colored suit that had a orange colored trim and a pair of strange pants, "I occasionally come here to have tea and talk with my friends... though you might know one of them."

Clank noticed that there happened to be a square table in front of him and that he happened to be sitting in a chair that was opposite of the Plumber, though there was an empty chair to both his left and his right. A few seconds later the air shifted and the familiar form of Red, complete with the parrot known as Blue, appeared to his left, though he was also dressed in the same clothing that the Plumber was wearing. Oddly enough Red wasn't carrying any of his weapons at the moment, making Clank wonder if this was all in his head or if someone was messing with him while Sigmund was running the tests on the outside.

"Howdy Clank," Red said, though as he bowed his head a little bit Blue flew off of his shoulder and landed on a bird perch that was sitting next to the chair that he took, "fancy meeting you here. I take it the Zoni finally brought you to the Great Clock and your learning what you need to know to replace your old man, when he finally decides to retire from his position?"

"Yes, the Zoni came for me a few days ago," Clank said, somewhat disturbed by the fact he had no idea how much time had totally passed since he had been taken to the Great Clock, "though I'm not sure that he's going to retire... he was on Zanifar two years ago and suddenly disappeared, so I can only assume the worst."

"Clank, your father is just fine," Red commented, causing Clank to look towards him, giving him his full attention, "besides, I'm sure the universe would have shuddered or something if the Supreme Kai of Time was killed by someone."

"Umm..." Clank stated, as he had no idea what the smuggler was even talking about at the moment, though he had the feeling that someone would tell him what was going on.

"Red, he has no idea who, and what, we really are," the Plumber said, to which the parrot laughed at his companion as Red rubbed the back of his head, though that was before the Plumber let out a sigh, "Clank, there are some things that you should know about us; Red and I are Kais, or World Kings if you prefer the definition of our titles, though seeing how there are two of us at the moment Red watches over the Northern and Eastern sections of the universe, while I watch over the Southern and Western sections."

"Am I correct in assuming that the Solana and Bogon Galaxies reside in your domain?" Clank inquired, remembering where he and the others had seen the Plumber.

"That is correct," the Plumber replied, nodding his head for a few moments, which indicated that he was pleased that Clank was understanding what he was being told, "and before you ask why I was in the Polaris Galaxy, I'll tell you the answer; Red invited me over, shortly after your arrival, and we talked for some time before I went to Sargasso to tell you what Starlight figured out. Orvus is the Supreme Kai of Time, basically the God of Time if you really wanted to know, and he's been watching over both the universe and time itself since he came into being."

"Is that so?" Clank asked, though even as he said those words he knew that there had to be some truth to them, because it would make sense considering that both Red and the Plumber knew more than they let on at times, which could be explained by their friendship with Orvus.

“Yes, though there are more to your future responsibilities than what you know at the moment,” Red added, though it was clear that the two of them were confusing Clank, “Don’t worry Clank, both the two of us, along with your father and Sigmund, will help you learn what your position in the universe actually is... but first you need to head to the Orvus Chamber, meet your father, and figure out how to restore Sunset to her former form. Then, and only then, can we begin to put everything back together.”

Before Clank could say anything, and question what Red was telling him, the area around him shifted and he was suddenly thrown back to the waking world, leaving both the Plumber and Red behind.





“So does it work?" Sigmund asked, though he waited until Clank had floated out of the chamber and landed on the walkway before asking his question, "I picked up some odd neural readings there for a bit.”

“I... encountered some unexpected people in my head,” Clank replied, not really knowing how to explain what he had seen, and what little he had learned during the conversation.

“Oh... I assume that you are referring to Red and Itar?” Sigmund said, though he seemed to nod as he floated over to the other opening of the building they were in, “You know, I knew that they would be properly introducing themselves to you, but I had no idea that they were project themselves into your mind and speak with you for a few minutes.”

“Itar?” Clank asked, though he was thankful that he could somewhat understand what was happening, otherwise he was sure that his mind would have broken at this point.

“Right, he doesn’t use his actual name these days,” Sigmund commented, though he moved to the side as Clank walked up to the next time puzzle that was in front of them, allowing Clank to solve the puzzle as he explained what he knew, “Itar is the Plumber’s real name, something that he decided not to use for quite some time, though I don’t know why he suddenly stopped using it. He and Red have been given pieces of information from Orvus and myself for the last, oh, hundred to two hundred years at least... maybe more, but as I explained earlier its hard to keep track of how long its been.  The two of them have been searching the universe for powerful people that could help defend everything, such as Starlight for instance, though they were tasked with keeping an eye open for anyone that could become something, well, more than what they were.”

“You mean like Sunset Shimmer?” Clank asked, making sure to time his jumps right as the time clones worked to solve the puzzle alongside him.

“Exactly.” Sigmund said, nodding his head, both towards Clank understanding what he was saying and towards the puzzle being solved at the same time, “They also kept their eyes and ears open for anyone that could become Kais like them, or Supreme Kais if they were extremely powerful, though for the longest time they couldn’t find anyone... until they came upon a special world with powerful beings calling it home. This world is the one where Sunset and Starlight came from, though it took a thousand years for several more powerful beings to be born, which pleased Orvus, as it meant that we might finally witness the creation of our God of Destruction.

Then Starlight and Sunset came here, to the Solana, Bogon, and Polaris Galaxies, where they have gone through their adventures and defeated enemies that could have damaged the universe in the long run. What we didn’t expect was Sunset being separated into ten aspects, much less one of them declaring that she was the true God of Destruction and destroying at least one planet during her existence. Orvus, Red, Itar, and I have been coming up with a way to help Sunset regain herself, while stopping Hatred at the same time... though you’ll find out what I’m talking about when we reach the Orvus Chamber.”

Clank nodded and made his way through the enemies that were standing in his way, making sure that the quantum eating creatures were taken care of before moving onward. He eventually came to a door that was sealed at the moment, but as he stood on a pressure pad in front of it, one designed to react only to his unique body style and the scepter that he was carrying, the symbol on the door started to move until a representation of his head was staring back at him. Sigmund seemed happy when the door opened in front of them, though Clank had no idea what to expect at this point, considering that everything he had seen in his time at the Great Clock had shifted his thinking of the universe in one way or another.

The large room the two of them entered was what would be, to the untrained eye, a command center of a time machine, but as Clank looked around he noticed that there were a few odd things in the room. The first was that some of the screens were zeroed in on an odd planet that, if he watched closely enough, would have the sun and moon move around it, instead of the planet orbiting around the sun. The second was that Orvus, who Clank recognized from his memories, was floating around some sort of anomaly that was floating in the middle of the chamber, though it appeared that he was studying whatever was on the other side. The third odd thing was that both Nefarious and Lawrence were standing near Orvus, though while Nefarious was taking notes on whatever they were observing his butler was minding his own business.

The three of them only stopped what they were doing when they noticed that Clank and Sigmund had walked into the chamber, which made Clank guess that everything he had gone through was some sort of test... especially considering that he would have thought that his father would have gone through a lot of effort to protect the inner workings of the one thing that kept time flowing across the universe.

“Ah, its good that you have joined us Clank,” Orvus said, beckoning him and Sigmund forward, while never taking his eyes off of the planet that he was observing, “there is something that Nefarious and I need you to do in order to make sure that the proper timeline is followed.”

“And that would be?” Clank asked, though at this point he was beginning to think that he knew nothing about keeping time flowing, but he was more than willing to learn... when Ratchet and his family was done with their current adventure.

“We need to get you to Planet Vapedia so you can start transmitting a distress call for Ratchet and his family to pick up,” Nefarious stated, causing Clank and Sigmund to look at him for a moment, “A few minutes ago we detected that Hatred will be heading there, no doubt chasing after the aspects called Despair and Doubt, but we need Ratchet, and potentially Azimuth, to head there and deal with the remaining Valkyries that call the planet home. At the moment they pose no threat to the universe, but we need Ratchet and the others to make sure that the three aspects don’t get into a fight... four if you count Sunset as well, which is why we need your help.”

“Are you sure that putting Sunset Glider near the evil aspect is a good idea?” Clank inquired, knowing that the two of them would likely attack each other the moment they were in the same area and knew that the other was there as well.

“No, its a terrible idea, but its a necessary action we need to take if we want to restore Sunset to her true form.” Nefarious replied, though he looked back at one of the screens that was behind him, as if he was remembering something that happened before Clank and Sigmund had arrived, “Clank, when you reunite with Ratchet, if you decide to help up, you’ll have to pretend that you don’t know what I’m planning... and pretend that you didn’t see your father floating beside me. For the stability of the timeline we need to make sure that Ratchet doesn’t do anything different, only until you guys defeat Hatred and save the universe from her evil.”

Clank let out a sigh, because he knew that, in the end, he would agree with Nefarious and be allowed to be taken to Vapedia so Ratchet and the others would come for him, while at the same time allowing them to interfere with Hatred and whatever she was planning. While Clank thought about it he determined that the doctor was worried about something, especially if he had seen something during the time he had been in the Great Clock, though that worried Clank that the doctor might not have left the clock at all. Clank only hoped that nothing bad happened when he was transported over to Planet Vapedia, because with the aspects of Sunset Shimmer he was beginning to understand that even thinking about hoping that nothing bad would happen would, in some odd twist of fate, make something bad happen.

He only prayed that whatever was going to be hitting Vapedia in the near future wasn’t as bad as a planet ending event, otherwise he and the others would have another reason to want the downfall of Hatred to come that much swifter.
> Time: Vapedia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet let out a sigh as the Hyperion exited the warp space and entered the Bernilius Sector, where he and the others heard the announcement of their arrival, which allowed them to get ready for whatever information came their way. They had no idea why they had come to this Sector of the Polaris Galaxy, but after finding that Orvus was just fine, and that the aspects known as Doubt and Despair were allies with them, he was beginning to think that someone had lied to them. Even Starlight and Angela agreed with him, because at the moment they had nothing solid to go on and it seemed that everyone was lying to them about everything. They had wasted time trying to ‘save’ Orvus, lost Searing to Hatred back at the Battleplex, and it seemed that Sunset Glider was constantly annoyed about what happened earlier.

While he stared out at the various planets that rested near their location, and counted the number of potential races that Hatred could wipe out if she became the God of Destruction, he heard Azimuth open a communication line with them... which meant that he must have discovered something that might help them out.

“Ratchet, Angela, Starlight,” Azimuth called out, though there was a short pause that indicated that he was waiting for them before he spoke again, “I just picked up a looping transmission on one of the emergency frequencies. Tell me what you guys make of this.”

That was followed by a sound echoing throughout the Hyperion for a few seconds, though Ratchet’s eyes widened when he recognized it, because he had helped set up the distress call in case someone ever kidnapped him and he was able to call for him... just so he could come and rescue him with some reinforcements.

“I... I don’t believe it.” Ratchet said, causing the others to turn to him for a few seconds, though they all knew that he already had figured out what they were listening to, “That’s a distress call with Clank’s signature! Which planet is the signal coming from?”

“It appears to be coming from Planet Vapedia,” Starlight commented, though as she said that she looked over at Ratchet, which indicated that she already had information on the planet in question, “and, if the first pieces of information I was able to find are to be believed, its the new home world of the Valkyries... the people that assaulted us some time ago when we entered the last sector we were in.”

“Which means that this might be a trap.” Azimuth stated, but as he said those words it was clear that he wasn’t worried about that thought at all, “I’ll meet you guys there.”

Azimuth cut off the communication line before they could reply to him, though at the same time they all knew that a distress call was too good to be believable, which meant that this had to be a trap. That thought made them wonder if Hatred was behind this, so she could take out Sunset without having to try anything herself, but at the same time they all worried about the pegasus. Sunset was still in her room, no doubt staring at the ceiling like she had been doing before they visited the last planet, though they knew that she would be ready for battle when they reached their destination. One of the other things that they knew about was the fact that one of the AI seemed to be spending more time with the aspect, as the one known as Celestia seemed to be comforting her while she grieved.

Ratchet had no idea why the AI was doing what she was doing, but Starlight speculated that their sister had originally created the white alicorn with some special commands installed in her that weren’t replicated with the other three... but if it made Sunset Glider happy, and not depressed, then he was happy as well.

They didn’t get very far through space before another ship appeared on their radar, though after a few seconds they discovered that it was another of the Valkyries that they had seen earlier... and it appeared that she, and her force of fighters, were armed for combat. The group had to wonder if the Valkyries even knew who was coming their way, and the weapons that had been added to the Hyperion after Nefarious had tried to take them out back when he was trying to take over the Solana Galaxy, but they knew that their opponents would soon find out how much trouble they were in.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Lombax,” the head Valkyrie said, though it was clear that she was focusing on Ratchet and absolutely no one else, which annoyed some of them, “I see that you and your friends have picked up our little signal. Unfortunately this is as far as you go! I, Carina, will ensure that you never reach Vapedia!”

“I see that we’ve got a fight on our hands,” Starlight commented, to which she turned to Ratchet and Angela for a few seconds, “Ratchet, turn the Hyperion to the left until the starboard side, the right side if you prefer, is leveled with Carina and her forces, though Angela, you should prepare the cannons for a volley.”

The cannons that had been installed inside the Hyperion were designed to fire specially crafted charges, which were dangerous elements contained in a sphere and wouldn’t detonate until they hit their target. Starlight and the others had installed them sometime after they had escaped Dreadzone and dealt with the man that was trying to create clones of Ratchet. After they had installed them, and made sure that they were fully functional, they never had the chance to actually use them in battle, which meant that this was the first time that they could see them in battle.

As they turned the Hyperion in the direction that Starlight wanted them to move in, and primed the cannons, they sent Aphelion out and she took out the smaller fighters that were flying around them, which would allow the shots to reach their target without delay. A few moments later the sound of the cannons being ready for fire sounded, while at the same time Ratchet finished moving the Hyperion into position, though they all smiled when they heard a shocked sound from Carina’s ship. Once they were all ready Starlight sounded the call and the cannons loosed their charges, to which the shots flew through the air and barrelled into the ship that Carina controlled... which exploded with a flash of light that temporarily blinded everyone for a moment.

When the light faded they moved the Hyperion back into its original course, allowing Aphelion to chase the remaining Valkyries that decided to stick around before returning to the ship so they could reach the planet’s surface.





When Ratchet and the others landed on the planet, in the area closest to the location of the distress signal, they found Azimuth waiting for them, though it was hard to tell if he had been scouting the area out or if he had simply waited for them to arrive before doing anything else.

“Clank's distress signal is coming from somewhere inside the citadel,” Azimuth said, though at the same time he gestured towards the building that they were going to have to attack.

“Great, which means that we’ll be fighting a horde of enemies to reach him,” Sunset commented, to which she shook for a few seconds, indicating that she was feeling something.

“You okay Sunset?” Ratchet asked, not knowing if the pegasus aspect was feeling okay or if she was feeling the presence of Hatred, though if the dark aspect was here than they were all in trouble... if what had happened at the Battleplex was anything to go by.

“N... no...” Sunset replied, though her eyes were locked on the citadel that everyone was staring at, which told everyone that she knew something that they didn’t know, “Despair, Doubt, and Hatred... I can feel all three of them hanging around this place... and, if what I’m feeling is right, there’s a fourth mysterious aspect hanging around as well.”

Starlight’s eyes widened, because if Sunset was right about what she was feeling then the tenth aspect had finally revealed itself, which meant that something major was going to be happening in the near future. All five of the remaining aspects were on Vapedia, which meant that Hatred must have planned for them all to gather so she could claim Sunset Shimmer’s position as the God of Destruction... as well as the power that came with being reunited with the other aspects.

Once they determined that the other aspects were on the planet, as well as stating how strange it was that Despair, Doubt, and Hatred had gotten here without a ship, Ratchet and Starlight grabbed the new Mag-Net Launcher that was available before they followed Azimuth as he advanced down the pathway that was in front of them. That involved them taking out a large group of the red beetle creatures that wanted them dead and using a hover station to reach an area that needed two of the battery bots so they could access an oil sample to get rid of the rust that was on the crank in front of them. Sunset, being bored of the ground at the moment, flew into the air and scouted out where the battery bots were located, to which she discovered that one of them was guarded by a pack of leviathans while the second was resting next to a launch pad.

It didn’t take Ratchet and Starlight long to gather the two battery bots, get some of the oil, and then get rid of the rust that was preventing them from moving forward, to which they approached a building that the Valkyries were patrolling at the moment. As Ratchet and the others dealt with the hammer wielding enemies that charged them from the ground, and made sure to avoid the large hammer heads that were swung at them, Sunset remained in the sky and used the blades above her wings to cut the flyers to pieces, while avoiding the lances that they were throwing at her. When the enemies were taken care of they moved through the building and approached a bolt crank that was resting in front of them, to which Ratchet fiddled with it for a few seconds before connecting the two sides into the proper slots.

That unlocked a large vehicle that they could all fit on, while Sunset flew around anyway, but even as they moved towards their next destination they knew that their enemies would be waiting for them and were no doubt gathering their forces for the assault. The only thing that disturbed Starlight was the fact that the sky directly above the top of the citadel was beginning to darken, almost as if a storm was beginning to form above them, but she could have sworn that she felt Dark Magic lingering in the air. When they arrived at their destination Ratchet switched some of the pieces of the bolt crank around and slipped it into place, allowing the platform to move around so they could advance into the citadel.

Before they even reached the middle of the platform in front of them they noticed that there was a large Valkyrie standing on a floating platform and had a gun trailed on them.

“Well, if it isn’t the galaxy’s favorite heroes,” the large Valkyrie called down to them, while at the same time keeping her gun pointed at them as her soldiers floated all around her, “No doubt you have come here to save your little friend?”

“Yes, so hand over Clank before something happens,” Starlight replied, though before the Valkyrie could respond she pointed her staff at the sky, forcing the Valkyries to see the dark clouds that were forming above their citadel, “Despair and Doubt, aspects of Sunset Shimmer, the God of Destruction, are gathering above us as they prepare to do battle with a third aspect, the one known as Hatred... who destroyed the planet known as Fastoon a week or two ago. The three of them are going to rip this entire citadel to pieces and kill anyone that gets in their way, so just hand over Clank and we can all evacuate before they arrive.”

“There is no escaping them...” Sunset commented, causing everyone to look at her for a few seconds, only to discover that she was looking at the sky above them, “two of them are already here.”

Starlight turned her attention back to the sky and found that both Despair and Doubt were already floating above them, confirming her suspicions that the three aspects were going to do battle on this planet, to which she faced the large Valkyrie for a few seconds.

“Two of the aspects are here, which means that the third isn’t far behind,” Starlight stated, though she enjoyed the fact that the Valkyrie had seen what they were referring to at long last, “just tell us where Clank is and we can all flee before they start ripping this place apart.”

“Your precious little robot is at the peak of the citadel, though he should be waking up any moment now,” the Valkyrie stated, though at the same time her troops turned towards her, while she pointed at the two aspects, “Hatred is the bigger fish... and we aim to take her out.”

Starlight watched as the insane Valkyries flew into the air and ascended towards where the two wraiths were waiting, wondering why they seemed to have a death wish considering that they had to know about Hatred’s powers. The dark aspect was responsible for obliterating an entire planet and nearly breaking the Battleplex when she and Searing dueled, so that should have been enough information to tell the Valkyries that this wasn’t a fight they could win. As the Valkyries moved towards their deaths Starlight and the others continued along the path that was in front of them, though each and every trap that they would have normally fought their way through had been deactivated and the doors were left wide open... as if the Valkyries were allowing them to find their friend without delay.

As they moved through the citadel they all noticed that the sky was darkening at an alarming rate, while at the same time both Starlight and Sunset could feel Hatred’s power coming closer and closer to the citadel... until they could have sworn that she was right on top of them.

Despair and Doubt cast a glance at the group that was moving though the citadel below them, before turning their attention to the cracks that were appearing in front of them, indicating that Hatred was coming. Sure, they had told Starlight and her family that they wanted to bring about Hatred’s downfall, but they knew that they didn’t stand a chance at actually killing her. The Valkyries that were gathering around them, on the other hand, were simply going to die the moment their foe appeared, despite the fact that Starlight had tried to save them... though their thoughts were interrupted when the cracks spread and a hand pierced them.

That was swiftly followed by Hatred, in all her dark glory, tearing her way through the strange portal that she had created, though she paid it no mind as it sealed itself behind her and left the air without any cracks in it.

“I see that I have a welcoming party,” Hatred commented, a smile appearing on her face as she tapped her sword for a moment, “and what do you know, the rest of the remaining aspects are on this planet as well. I find it odd that Purity would have been allowed to leave the safety of her ‘prison’, but it makes things infinitely much easier for me. All I need to do is kill the two of you, find and snap Purity like the twig she is, and then kill Sunset... maybe in the manner I used when I killed Searing.”

“You don’t deserve the power of the God of Destruction,” Despair countered, to which she held her sickles out while Doubt swung her scythe as well, before they pointed their weapons at their opponent, “You will die here, of that you can be sure.”

“Is that so?” Hatred said, though she chuckled for a few seconds as she drew her blade, before she pointed the tip at the wraiths, “I will make this as quick as possible for all of us.”

Hatred burst into the air and soared towards her targets, though as the Valkyries tried to follow her, and lock their weapons on her, she crashed into Doubt and sent her flying into the top of one of the peaks that rested around them. The Valkyries opened fire on the shadowy aspect and several of their shots left small holes in her, though their joy was short lived when they noticed that the holes healed in seconds. That was swiftly followed by Hatred swinging her open hand towards them and releasing a wave of dark energy that literally cut everyone in half, or rather those that were unfortunate to be caught by the attack.

Despair appeared behind Hatred and swung her sickles at her back, though her target spun around and planted her boot in her chest, knocking her backwards for a few seconds and stopping the attack in its tracks. She felt the wind around her change again and raised her sword to parry the attacks that were coming her way, though as she parried the attack she noticed a pair of wings that were beneath the blades.

"Hello Sunset," Hatred commented, grinning at the pegasus that was staring at her with a look of pure anger in her eyes, "fancy meeting you here."

"I'm going to enjoy killing you!" Sunset growled, though before Hatred could make a remark she spun around and planted her hoof in her chest, sending her flying through the air.

Unfortunately Hatred corrected herself and stood back up, though she took a moment to study the people around them before zeroing in on where Sunset was flying at the moment. That was swiftly followed by the dark aspect grabbing onto her face and throwing her through the air, though before she could contact with anything she corrected herself and avoided the magical energy blast that was coming her way. As the peak behind her exploded she flew around the area, making sure to avoid the attacks that Hatred was throwing at her while trying not to hurt everyone else that was trying to kill the aspect.

As she flew around she also noticed that Ratchet and the others were moving towards the area that they believed that Clank was being held in, though the distraction allowed Hatred to sneak up on her and kick her into another peak, to which she coughed up some blood as she looked at the aspect. At the same time both Despair and Doubt appeared on both the left and the right side of Hatred, where they swung their weapons at her... though the surprise was short lived as Hatred caught their weapons with her darkness and threw them into the peaks closest to her. As the two wraiths made contact with the peaks Hatred decided to get rid of them, as two large crystal spikes went sent flying from her hands, piercing the two wraiths in their chests.

"I'm tired of you two, so you're free to become crystals and wait to be absorbed into my body," Hatred commented, her smile widening even further when she noticed that the two wraiths were already starting to break apart, which was followed by her lifting her sword into the air as she prepared to end this entire fight with one action, "Once I kill the last of the aspects I will acquire the power to ascend to my true form... which means that you need to die as well."

Before Sunset could move she found herself pinned with her back against the peak that she had been thrown into, though at the same time she discovered that Hatred's blade was sticking out of her chest. She flashed back to when Searing had the blade pierce her own chest and remembered how quickly she had died, which meant that she was going to be joining her sister shortly. Though even as that thought crossed her mind she refused to accept it, because if Hatred won then she'd destroy pretty much everything around her, something that Sunset didn't agree with. It was in that moment that she wished that she had the power to stop Hatred, like the magical power that Searing had commanded before sacrificing herself to save her life... and in that instant she could feel eight beings reaching out to her, to lend her their energy.





Orvus looked up from what he was doing as he felt a sudden change in the energy that radiating from the five crystals that represented the defeated aspects, which made him wonder if something had awoken them. He knew that something would have called upon the energy of the other aspects, when Sunset and Hatred had their fierce battle, but he knew that it couldn't be happening now. He turned his full attention to the crystal that housed Searing, the most powerful aspect among them, and watched as the crystal turned into pure energy and disappeared. His eyes widened in shock for a moment, though before he jumped to conclusions he turned to another crystal, the one containing Sunset's rage, and watched as it disappeared as well.

"Its happening," Orvus commented, to which he beckoned a shocked Sigmund over to the main screen and tapped some keys, which made the screen zero in Vapedia, where Hatred was in the process of killing Despair, Doubt, and Sunset... to which he discovered that Purity had gone to that planet as well.

"Wh... what's happening?" Sigmund asked, though he had the suspicion he knew what was coming and was only asking to see if Orvus had anything else to tell him.

"One of the aspects are calling the others to her," Orvus stated, his eyes glancing between Sunset and Hatred, because they were the only two that could potentially do something like that at the moment, "which means that an epic battle is going to begin... and the Valkyrie Citadel is going to be destroyed in the process."





Hatred could feel the energy in the air suddenly shift, though instead of all the power coming towards her, like what she would have expected, she noticed that it was heading towards someone else. The two wraiths were out of the question, as they were breaking apart and joining the stream of energy around them, which meant that the energy had to be going towards Sunset. She had no idea how such a thing was even possible, not when her blade had pierced the aspect's heart and would end her life in a few minutes, but it was the only thing that made sense. Even Purity was out of the question, as she had mainly been watching them and was a passive aspect by nature... which meant that all the energy was heading in Sunset's direction.

That made her wonder what was going to happen with Sunset, because if all of her power poured back into her then she would have a tough fight to go through in order to gain the position she was after... especially since it would be two equally powered aspects fighting each other. She remembered calling Sunset weak and worthless, so that combined with her anger would make this an interesting fight... one that she would ultimately win, because Sunset's anger would make it harder for her to focus and eventually bring about her end. The moment that though crossed her mind the area around Sunset detonated, something that mimicked whenever she was changing from one form to another, which made Hatred curious about which form Sunset would be taking this time.

When the smoke cleared Hatred raised an eyebrow as she looked at Sunset, as her form had been changed into the form she used when she had taken on the mantle of the God of Destruction, the form that was a cross between a humanoid and the pony she was. Hatred recognized the form, though the only different thing about it was the fact that Sunset's wings were still there, accompanying her horn... but that was before she noticed that the clothing Sunset was wearing at the moment was the attire that mimicked Beerus' attire.

"You had better prepare yourself Hatred," Sunset said, staring up at Hatred for a few seconds, while at the same time snapping the sword that had been in her chest into pieces, "because I'm taking back what's mine... and your going to pay for everything you have done since you escaped."

Hatred had the feeling that Sunset was being overconfident in her new abilities, but she was more than eager to show her opponent how wrong she was... as well as tear up the landscape for a few seconds, before becoming the God of Destruction she wanted to be.
> Time: Fate of the Universe
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I... I don't believe it," Ratchet said, staring at the scene that was laid out in front of them, though his eyes were locked on the familiar form of his sister, "Sunset Glider... she just merged with the other aspects and restored our sister to almost one hundred percent."

Starlight couldn't believe her eyes either, because this was something that she hadn't been expecting when she and the others chose to follow the 'distress call' to this planet, as they had been expecting to rescue Clank and stop the Valkyries. None of them were expecting Hatred to show up, not until Sunset had mentioned that she and the wraiths were here anyway, but they would have thought that Sunset would have fled after the dark aspect had revealed herself. Instead Sunset flew up to Hatred and engaged her in battle, resulting in her and the two wraiths being dealt death like blows that would have killed them... and then Sunset somehow gathered all of the aspects into her being and took on this old form.

"We had best make our way towards where Clank is resting while we have the chance," Starlight commented, to which Ratchet and the others nodded as they continued making their way towards the peak the Valkyries had mentioned earlier.

As they climbed towards the peak Azimuth asked the rest of the group what was going on, as he wasn't used to Sunset and her powers and had no idea what to expect. Starlight and Ratchet informed him that what was coming their way was a magical battle that would shatter the surrounding area and likely destroy the entire citadel by the time the fight was over. Azimuth seemed surprised by the fact that they should be expecting everything around them to be gone in the next couple of minutes, though at the same time Angela confirmed that the Hyperion was moving in so all of them, Azimuth included, could get into their ships and depart from the citadel before they got caught in the crossfire.

Starlight also pointed out that Sunset was likely making sure that she remembered how to use her godly form before she started clashing with Hatred, which was why they were able to make their way towards their destination without having to worry about being hurt in the process. When they finally found the stasis pod that Clank was being held in, which was at the peak they had been pointed towards, Starlight fiddled with the controls and opened it, allowing Ratchet to catch his friend. Once that was done she summoned a walkway that would allow them to leave to a move appropriate area, where Aphelion and Azimuth's ship could come and get them, though at the same time Clank woke up from his slumber.

"Hello Ratchet, Starlight, Angela," Clank greeted, while at the same time slipping onto Ratchet's back, because based on how everyone was moving he knew that now wasn't the time to be walking, "What did I miss?"

"Sunset's about to do battle with Hatred," Angela replied, to which Azimuth jumped into his ship and flew towards the Hyperion, which was copied by the others climbing into Aphelion and doing the same time, "We're evacuating to the Hyperion so the two of them can fight it out without worrying about us."

"I see." Clank said, glancing down at the citadel for a few seconds, where he spotted the godly form that Sunset used to use, with wings this time, facing off against the form of Hatred, "Hopefully Sunset beats her..."

"She will." Starlight stated, though she hoped that the two remaining aspects finished their battle quickly, otherwise Vapedia would be destroyed in the process.





"Good, now the spectators are out of the way," Hatred commented, to which she turned her attention to Sunset, who hadn't moved from the peak she had been thrown into, "So, before we begin, can you explain how a powerless aspect was able to call upon the others and create what is standing in front of me?"

"Determination," Sunset replied, flexing her hands once more as she remembered how to use them once more, while at the same time silently glad that Purity had been on the planet somewhere, before she stared up at Hatred, "You basically killed a part of me a few minutes ago, but when I remembered what had happened in the past, and everything you admitted to doing, I felt that it would be wrong to give up and reached for anything that might help me bring you to justice... and the other aspects answered my call. They have restored me to a form that has the potential to beat you in battle and have given me the power to do so, so you had better bring your full power to bare against me."

"Me? Go full power against you?" Hatred stated, to which she laughed as a bit of lightning flashed in the sky above them, "Please, just because you managed to power up doesn't mean that you suddenly possess the power to defeat me in combat... and I'll prove it to you right now!"

Hatred raised her right hand until it was pointing right at Sunset, to which she collapsed her fingers until only the pointer finger was the only one remaining, where she started gathering her magical energy into a small black colored sphere above her finger. She had no idea which memories her opponent had access to, or which skills she had access to thanks to the other aspects, but she knew that she had the upper hand at the moment. She found it somewhat odd that the person standing below her thought that she was Sunset Shimmer, but whether that was true or not didn't matter to her, as she would win this fight in the end.

Before Hatred released the attack, and claimed the position as the God of Destruction for herself, Sunset raised her right pointer finger in her direction and the magic around her flared, to which a red flame colored sphere formed above her finger. A few seconds later the two of them released their attacks at each other and forced them to connect in midair, which was followed by an explosion that rocked the entire citadel as Hatred's attack was overpowered... to which she moved out of the resulting smoke cloud and stared at the large burning mess in front of her.

Impossible! Hatred thought to herself, while keeping her eyes locked on what she was looking at, She's just a combination of aspects, so there's no way she should be able to call upon enough power to equal my own... much less overpower my attack. Even if she had all the other aspects, excluding myself and Purity, there's no way she should be able to call upon this much power.

As she refocused on what was around her she spotted Sunset coming to a stop nearby, using her wings to stop herself before getting too close to where her target was floating, but at the same time she raised her finger and started gathered her energy again.

"Don't you dare underestimate me!" Hatred shouted, gathering her energy back into an energy sphere again, before turning to her target and loosing the attack.

When the second pair of attacks connected with each other the same thing happened, where Sunset's attack overpowered Hatred's and produced a large cloud of smoke and fire, though at the same time the peak that was near them collapsed as the collision of their powers broke it. Hatred moved away from the second group of smoke, surprised that Sunset had managed to overpower or deflect her attack twice in a row, though as she moved through the air Sunset appeared behind her. Hatred growled and swung her arm at her opponent, who simply caught her arm with her left hand, raised her right hand into the air, and brought it down hard on Hatred's arm, though at the last second the dark aspect noticed the aura surrounding Sunset's hand... and felt a flash of pain as part of her arm was separated from her body.

That was followed by Sunset turning her hand around and slammed her fist into Hatred's face, to which the blow sent her target flying towards the center of the citadel, where she collided with the side of it and broke the side of the building... though at the same time she crushed the arm into the shadows that it had been made from and took it into herself. Hatred, on the other hand, stood up and stared at her opponent, though she grunted and focused her power, to which she regenerated her missing limb from the shadows that surrounded her, but she made sure to flex her fingers to be absolutely sure that everything was in working order.

"I don't understand how you managed to gain the power that you are currently wielding," Hatred commented, to which she brought her hands together and formed a triangle with them, "but you'll never be able to beat me if you just stop and stare at me after cutting off a single arm. I have many more skills hidden up my sleeve, so allow me to make this fight much interesting."

Hatred gathered her energy for a moment and pulled her arms apart, creating a dark purple colored lance that was made out of pure energy, though this was another skill she and Sunset would have picked up from the studying that the being they were originally from had done back at the beginning, when she first started studying magic. If a energy blast, which had been known as the cero to some of the Old Earth cultures, wouldn't work against Sunset, then she would try something much more powerful. Based on her level of power she knew that she could also call upon the earth shattering powers that Sunset used to command, and even a small mimicry of Beerus' powers if she really needed to push herself, but this would change the tide of battle.

"The people of Old Earth called this attack Lanza del Relampago," Hatred commented, which at the same time spinning the lance around for a few seconds before pointing the tip at her target, "if you would like to test how powerful you really are, then I suggest that you stand still."

Hatred pulled her arm back and threw the lance right at Sunset, though as the lance crossed the distance between them she was a little surprised that Sunset was remaining still... until she moved to the side just a tiny bit and literally punched the lance with her fist, sending it off course and forcing it to detonate on the building that it connected with. The entire building was consumed by the explosion that followed the lance hitting it, but as Hatred came to terms with the fact that her opponent had deflected her attack, and she had witnessed it, she knew that something was wrong. She knew that Sunset couldn't be this powerful, yet she was able to overpower her attacks and destroy the area around them, to which she summoned her sword from the shadows and pointed it at her target.

"So, we're resorting to using blades?" Sunset asked, to which she flexed her hands and summoned her magic once more, though this time she was focused on something else, "Very well then, I shall do the same thing... though tell me if you remember this weapon."

Hatred's eyes widened as Sunset summoned a katana from the flames around them, as she remembered it being the one that their former form had used up until they had separated into separate aspects. She had believed that the blade had been lost the moment they separated, but now Sunset Glider had called upon the weapon, almost as if she was an incomplete version of Sunset Shimmer. Even as she thought about that she could have sworn that she noticed the fickler of some runes on her opponent's body, but she determined that her mind was playing tricks on her and decided not to bother thinking about it.

That was swiftly followed by the two of them flying at each other and clashing with their blades, to which a tempest kicked up and knocked out all of the smoke and flames that had been gathering around them. As they swung their blades at each other their magic danced with them, causing cracks to form in the buildings around them as they moved around the entire citadel. Once or twice their conflicting energies would actually break a section of the building near them off and drop in into the sky below them, raining it down on whatever was below the Valkyrie's citadel, but for the most part they appeared to be equal in power.

At one point Hatred decided to mock Sunset's lack of powerful attacks when she was using her blade, to which Sunset smiled and gathered her energy into her blade, though at the same time she knew that she didn't need to use it and wanted to show the aspect that she had better stop mocking her. When she was sure she had enough energy she loosed the attack right at her target, where it barreled into Hatred and exploded upon impact, ripping apart part of the citadel in the process. When the smoke cleared Hatred burst out of the smoke and landed on a nearby section of the building that wasn't destroyed yet, though there were scratches and cuts scattered on the front of her body... and Sunset could tell that the aspect was annoyed with her.

"I told you to go full power against me," Sunset commented, staring at the aspect for a few seconds, "Hatred, please take this seriously... otherwise I'll just pierce your heart and end this in an instant."

Hatred growled as her energy flared all around her, to which the sky darkened all around them, which indicated that she was preparing something big in response to what Sunset had said, though at the same time she stood on her feet once more. Sunset briefly wondered which power her opponent was going to use, as they had known a large number of spells thanks to their studies, but she had the feeling that she would be shown the attack soon, though she had some energy gathering in case an attack was launched at her.

"I'm somewhat thankful that we bothered to study so many magical attacks before our separation, so allow me to present you with what I found," Hatred said, to which the aura around her intensified as she held her hand out to where Sunset was standing, "Seeping crest of turbidity, arrogant vessel of lunacy. Boil forth and deny, grow numb and flicker, disrupting sleep. Crawling queen of iron, eternally self-destructing doll of mud. Unite, repulse. Fill with soil and know your own powerlessness. Art of Destruction Number Ninety, Kurohitsugi!"

A few seconds passed before four walls, each of which being made from pure dark energy, phased out of the air around Sunset and connected with each other, while both a ceiling and a floor followed suit. Sunset watched all of the darkness take on the shape of a large black box, which she guessed was the meaning of the name that Hatred had shouted, before she noticed that the box was deigned to encase her in complete darkness. She merely stood there as the shadowy box encased her completely, though she wondered if Hatred was trying to trap her so it would make the fight much easier for her... though that was followed by several spears, made out of shadow, burst out of the walls and reached towards her.

Sunset, instead of allowing the sneak attack to hit her, swung her hand and released the energy that she had been gathering in case the attack had been thrown directly at her, which caught the sneak attack and shattered it, along with the box, in one swift instant.

Hatred, who was standing in the same place she had been when she started her incantation, was shocked to see that her attack had been stopped in its tracks like that, though that was followed by her throwing shadows at Sunset with the intent on drowning her in them. Sunset was surprised that Hatred was going on the offensive with her dark magic, especially when nothing she had used so far had succeeded in working, but then she sighed and snapped her fingers for a moment. That was followed by some of the moisture in the air racing towards her as she caused the water to circle her, before she summoned a swirling mass of water that stopped the attack in its tracks... which was followed by a gleaming shield like formation forming between her and Hatred.

Hatred raised an eyebrow as she stopped her attack for a moment, because on the center of the shield in front of her was a dragon that appeared to be made out of water, which made sense considering that the shield had been made out of water a few seconds ago... though she was caught off guard by the fact that the construct was closer to her than to Sunset.

"Gate of the Elegant Water Dragon," Sunset said, a small smile appearing on her face as she looked at the gate she had created, as she was impressed that she had been able to make it.

"So it's a gate that's designed to stop my attack in it's tracks," Hatred commented, to which she smirked for a few seconds, "This sounds like something that we might have taken from the private library of Princess Celestia, back when we were her student... though that makes me think about what I'll do when I have the power of the God of Destruction backing me. When I return to our home world I will wipe Ponyville off the face of the map, eliminating Princess Twilight, the Elements of Harmony, and hopefully Discord as well in one fell swoop. Then I plan on heading to the Crystal Empire so I can give Princess Cadence a little 'present', before turning my attention to any potential enemies, like the Changeling Queen Chrysalis, and eliminating them as well.

At that point Princess Celestia and her sister should have realized that someone is terrorizing their citizens... to which I'll return to Canterlot and engage them in battle, though I will give them true despair when I take their entire city from them and force them to use their darker powers against me. Then, and only then, will I destroy the two of them and detonate our home world with enough force to wipe out each and every planet in its surrounding area..."

Hatred's speech was interrupted when she noticed that two elements, wind and earth she realized, were gathering around her, though as she watched them for a few seconds she noticed that the wind was gathering on her left while the earth did the same thing on her right. As she watched the two of them she thought that she felt some heat at her back, but she decided not to take her eyes off of what was happening around her, to which she watched as a dragon emblem formed in both of the elements she was watching. She remembered the gate style attacks that Sunset had studied and recognized them immediately, but before she could destroy them she heard the sound that would signify that they were being completed.

"Gate of the Violent Wind Dragon," Sunset called out, twisting her hand for a moment as the first gate formed, while at the same time making the same motions for the rest of her assault, "Gate of the Sentinel Earth Dragon."

Hatred watched as the two gates phased into existence, effectively trapping her between them and the third one, before she reached that she could feel the heat behind her increase, to which she turned back for a few seconds and noticed that a fourth gate was forming as well... where she heard Sunset call out 'Gate of the Majestic Fire Dragon' a few seconds later.

"Gate of the Guardian Dragons!" Sunset shouted, to which a barrier formed between the four dragon gates, effectively trapping Hatred between the four gates.

"Seriously? This is your master plan?" Hatred called out, tapping the water gate for a moment, to which the barrier shocked her backwards and forced her to glare at Sunset, "Keep me trapped in this barrier until your ready to defeat me? I'll just unleash my full power and destroy these four gates in an instant... and then I'll come for you."

"You talk too much," Sunset commented, to which she smiled as she noticed the look of confusion on the aspect's face, "but please, show me your true power... I will enjoy breaking you."

Hatred growled and focused her energy on the blade she was carrying, which shattered into a mass of darkness that completely covered her body, making it impossible for anyone to see her until she was ready to reveal herself once more. When the shadows finally separated from her body Sunset was somewhat surprised to find that Hatred's chosen 'true' form was actually just a shadowy version of the form she had, minus the wings. Hatred looked more like an evil God of Destruction, with her godly attire being full of dark colors that indicated she was evil and that she wasn't to be underestimated at all... though at the same time the force of her 'transformation' tore the entire barrier apart.

A few seconds later Hatred flashed through the air and appeared behind Sunset, to which she slammed her fist into her back and sent her flying into the building she had been standing in seconds ago. As Sunset corrected herself Hatred followed after her and loosed several blasts of dark magic at her, which zeroed in on wherever she was and blasted her out of the air, though the only one that missed her ended up creating a large cluster of dark crystals. Sunset emerged from the smoke with some cuts on her body, which was understandable considering how much power Hatred was putting into her attacks now, before she noticed that the aspect was charging the blast attack that had failed her earlier... and narrowly avoided the attack as it was loosed at her.

The building behind the one she was near detonated into a massive explosion that rocked the entire around them, though at this point Sunset was beginning to suspect that the citadel was either going to be completely destroyed in a few minutes or that it would drop out of the sky... where it would be destroyed in the process. Hatred seemed to notice what Sunset was looking at, because she spun around and loosed several more blasts through the air, all of which detonated on the buildings and destroyed them. She allowed the pieces of the exterior buildings to drop to the ground, while the middle building remained where it was standing, which would serve as a fitting battle ground for her and Sunset.

Hatred landed in front of Sunset and punched her hard in the chest, feeling the bones crack a little bit under her fist, before she kicked her target into the wall and started wailing on her... to which the power of her blows were transferred into the wall and shattered part of it. After a few more seconds she pressed a powerful charge into Sunset's chest and backed off as it detonated, blasting a large hole in the building and the ground, though as the smoke cleared it was revealed that Sunset had taken the majority of the blast, while her attire remained untouched somehow.

"How do you like that, Sunset Glider!?" Hatred shouted, crossing her arms in front of her body as she stared down at her opponent, "How does it feel to be outclassed and overpowered? Does the fact that you cannot defeat me, no matter how hard you try, fill you with despair? Its a shame that your full power is much weaker than mine, otherwise this would be an interesting fight for the two of us."

"Seriously, you talk way too much." Sunset said, to which she held the katana she had been holding out and focused her energy into it, to which she did the one thing that she had hesitated to do when she had called upon the other aspects that had been defeated, "Now that you have shown me your full power, so allow me to show you mine."

Hatred opened her mouth to tell Sunset that she shouldn't have anymore power stored away and that this was her limit, but then she saw the flicker of the runes as they phased into existence. She remembered that Sunset had sealed her power to give her enemies a fairer fight and had never bothered to unseal the bindings she had put on herself, though she was surprised to find that this Sunset was the one to bare the runes. She supposed that it could make sense, considering that the former pegasus had no power when she had formed and had none throughout all the time she had spent with Searing, so it was possible that the runes had passed over to the pegasus as well.

She looked at the katana for a few seconds and noticed that it was cracking, which caused her eyes to widen as she realized that Sunset was close to unleashing whatever power she contained... though that was followed by Sunset disappearing and appearing in front of her. Hatred barely had time to move as Sunset's right hand pierced her chest and came out the other side, which allowed her to notice that the sword had been left behind. Before anything else happened Hatred pulled herself backwards and landed on a lone platform that was floating nearby, to which she painfully looked at Sunset as she tried to heal the hole in her chest.

"I cannot believe that you fell for that," Sunset remarked, looking at her wounded opponent, wondering how she had managed to trick the dark aspect so well, but she was willing to take it at the moment, "Hatred, allow me to clarify something; you stole too much power when you separated from everyone else and it made you arrogant in battle. Sure, you were able to beat someone when they sacrificed themselves to save someone else, but against someone that makes you go full power you let down your guard way too much. Thus you brought about your own defeat..."

"SHUT UP!!!!" Hatred shouted, coughing out blood as she flew into the air, passing the ruined top of the citadel and pulled all of her power into one final attack that would level the entire citadel and a good portion of the planet that they were slowly approaching, "EVERYONE DIES!"

Sunset watched what Hatred was doing and brought her hands to her side, where she silently gathered her energy into a sphere of energy that would be the final attack she threw at her opponent, while at the same time feeling the other aspects pouring their collective energy into it as well. As she did that Hatred formed a large sphere of energy above her head, one that mimicked the Sphere of Destruction that had wrecked a few planets back when they were one being, but even as she stared at it she could feel one part of her not doing anything at the moment. Searing was holding back, but Sunset knew that she had something planned to add to their full power when the two attacks connected with each other, to which she focused on what she was doing.

A few seconds later Hatred tossed the large Sphere of Destruction down towards the remains of the citadel, intending on wiping Sunset out along with everything else, though at the same time Sunset called upon all the aspects that were inside her and loosed the attack she was preparing, to which a beam of energy raced towards the sphere and met it in the space between the two of them. The two attacks pushed against each other for a few moments, which seemed to stretch for much longer than what Sunset originally believed they would, though after a while she began to feel more power pouring into her body from some unseen source. Light blue energy gathered around her and empowered her attack, which started to push Hatred's attack backwards, but at the same time Sunset suspected that this was the spirit energy that she remembered from so long ago.

Sunset smiled as Searing rejoined the effort and pressed her energy into the attack, to which all nine of them released everything they had and poured everything they had into the beam attack. A few seconds later Sunset watched as the Sphere of Destruction was pushed backwards, as it appeared that she and the others were starting to overpower Hatred, before the attacks detonated with each other and kicked up a large amount of fire, just like the first clash of their powers. As the explosion occurred Sunset could hear the voices of the aspects, and other people that she didn't even know, urging her to defeat Hatred, to which she flared her wings and flew into the fire, intending on using it to cover herself until she was on top of her target.

Hatred, shocked by the fact that she was still being overpowered, which made her wonder if Sunset had been telling the truth, was stunned when her attack exploded in between her and Sunset... though she barely had time to move as Sunset burst out of the flames and struck her in the chest again.

"H... how did you...?" Hatred started to ask, though at the same time she could feel herself being pulled back into Sunset's body, indicating that she had lost the fight, which only seemed to annoy her.

"Spirit energy of some kind," Sunset explained, knowing that the aspect wouldn't rest until she understood what had happened, "Searing managed to find some last portion of power to use against you, so she added it to the pool and it, somehow, overpowered your attack. I will not try to explain where she got the energy, or who I heard when she poured it into my body, but I do know one thing that came from all of this. Hatred, it is time for our game to end... Sunset Shimmer will be reborn at long last."

"I... see... farewell Sunset Gli... no, Sunset Shimmer." Hatred added, to which she closed her eyes and broke into shadowy fragments, which surged into Sunset's body and pushed her backwards for a few seconds.

Sunset stood there for a few seconds, feeling the rush of power that had entered her body when Hatred had been pushed inside start to fade, while at the same time she could tell that the others were slowly disappearing. As the aspects returned to what they were before the separation, powerful emotions that changed how her life worked, she could feel her old power returning in full force, which was why red cracks were starting to form all over her. She assumed that they were there to signify that she was returning to what they had had been some time ago, the being called Sunset Shimmer, and that one last change was required before they were whole once more.

Sunset closed her eyes as she felt the magic surge out of her, a smile appearing on her face as she and the other aspects finally became one being once more... before she remembered nothing more.





Starlight and the others had been watching the fight progress, where it appeared that Sunset had been overpowering Hatred until the dark aspect had transformed into an empowered state and started turning the tide against her opponent. She was somewhat surprised that Hatred had been wounded to the point where she was going to use all of her power to defeat Sunset, but then the collection of aspects poured a ton of power into an attack that stopped Hatred's own attack and allowed her to claim victory. They then watched as the dark aspect was defeated, broken into a large number of pieces, and then absorbed into Sunset's body... which was followed by an explosion of energy that rocked what was left of the Valkyrie Citadel.

"What was that?" Azimuth asked, though at the same time he was shocked by the magical battle that had taken place, while at the same time being thankful that they hadn't been caught in the fight at all.

"A final transformation," Starlight commented, though as she said that she noticed that the energy she had been feeling from Sunset had vanished, meaning that she must have ascended back to her original state.

They watched as the smoke cleared and revealed what had happened down there, as when the energy finally died down they noticed that Sunset was standing there, though her wings were no longer there. Starlight's eyes widened as they stared upon the form of Sunset Shimmer, the godly form that she was most known for at this point, though as they watched her they noticed that she sighed and shattered the katana into a bunch of pieces. Even the sheath was broken as well, though after that had happened Sunset crossed her arms behind her back, much like she had done before being separated into ten different aspects, before looking up at the Hyperion.

A few seconds later the air around Sunset shifted and she flew up to where the Hyperion was sitting, to which the docking bay doors opened and allowed her access, which caused the group to run over and meet up with her.

"Sunset... are you..." Starlight started to ask, though at the same time she couldn't bring herself to finish the unspoken question that had crossed her mind.

"Yes Starlight, I am whole again," Sunset replied, to which she turned to the group as a whole and smiled at them, "I am Sunset Shimmer, sister of Ratchet Cross and Starlight Glimmer, and I am the God of Destruction for this universe."

Ratchet smiled as he and Starlight embraced their sister, who had overcome everything that had happened to her and become whole once more, though now he knew that Nefarious really didn't stand a chance when they had their sister backing them again. Soon the Great Clock would be in safe hands and then they could decide what they needed to do next... but for now he and Starlight were content to embrace their sister, leaving any thoughts about the Great Clock to after they had their little reunion.
> Time: Nefarious' Space Station
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet felt much better now that he, Starlight, and Sunset had been reunited, especially after all the madness they had to go through with the various aspects that had been created after Sunset had departed from her laboratory in the Bogon Galaxy. He and Starlight were sad to hear that the Cores she had been carrying, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, and Laughter, had gone missing before the separation, meaning that they had none of them at this point. Ratchet supposed that they really didn't need the Cores anymore, as they had mainly been used to trap Searing when she was trying to destroy planets, but he knew that they would eventually find out where they were taken.

As they left Vapedia behind they noticed that Sunset actually snacked on something, which was understandable considering how much power she had poured out of her so she could defeat Hatred and the power she poured out to regain who she actually was... but at the same time she seemed normal.

"So, there are no more aspects running around the universe?" Angela asked, taking a sip from the drink she had grabbed from the fridge, though at the same time she noticed that, out of the entire group, Azimuth was the only one that seemed concerned about something.

"That's correct." Sunset replied, smiling as she set down her fork and finished off the drink that was next to her, "The only aspects that were created were Ysmir, Ragenarosa, War, Doubt, Despair, Fear, Hatred, Purity, Searing, and Sunset Glider. Now that they have all been merged back into one form, and have quieted down at long last, I am whole once again... though this time I don't think we'll have to worry about any other emotions separating and trying to ruin the universe."

"Its nice to see you again," Ratchet commented, though the smile that was on his face hadn't left since they had departed from Vapedia, "especially since it wouldn't be the same to take out a villain without you being by our side. Nefarious is going to be in for quite the shock when we walk up to his space station with you behind us... he might just take one look at you and surrender."

"I honestly doubt that Nefarious would surrender the Great Clock that easily," Azimuth said, causing the group to turn towards him for a moment, to which he finally looked up from the drink he had been staring at, "He now has the potential to do whatever he wants to the timeline, even reverse his own defeat that he suffered by your hands, so there's no telling what he'll be planning. Besides, even if we go at him with the power you now command, which is purely amazing that so much destructive capabilities can exist inside one body, I doubt we would have any effect on him. Nefarious would surely have watched the timeline for any and all defeats he could possibly acquire at this point, which means he will have ensured that nothing can stop him."

"Listen, I personally don't know who you are, but my family and I have been able to overcome some impressive odds in the past." Sunset replied, to which she glared at the elderly Lombax, while at the same time wondering why he thought that Nefarious had full control over the Great Clock when Clank has been gone for not even a full day yet, "Besides, you now have the power of the God of Destruction backing you... and I am pretty sure that Nefarious remembers the last time we crossed paths. I bet he'll take one look at me on his security screens and surrender immediately, just to prevent himself from being erased from the universe... just like I did with Vox, all those years ago."

"E... erased?" Azimuth asked, though it was clear that he had no idea what Sunset was taking about, while at the same time knowing that it had to be deadly if the person it was used on was no longer around at this point.

"That's correct," Sunset said, to which she smiled for a few seconds, remembering what had happened to the man she had used that technique on, the technique that sealed her fate as the God of Destruction, "I held my hand out towards him, allowed my magical aura to surround me, and, while looking into his eyes, I said 'Destroy'... to which his very being unraveled before our eyes until he no longer existed. Basically it was the destruction of his very being, though I did follow that up by obliterating his space station and the prison planet he had been keeping people trapped on."

"Point is that we can simply walk up to the station, knock on his front door, and show him whose back," Ratchet added, causing Azimuth to turn towards his for a second, "By the end of the day we'll have control of the Great Clock, where Clank can tell us what we can and cannot do in terms of its operations. I know that one of the things that we'll want to do is figure out what happened to Orvus, but anything else will have to be run by Clank before we even attempt it."

"Even saving the Lombaxes?" Azimuth asked, to which he received several nods in return, where he groaned as he looked back down at his drink, "Fine, I'll wait until after the assault on Nefarious' space station to see what we can do with the Great Clock... because I stand by my opinion that the evil doctor won't give up, regardless of who we have with us."

"Speaking of which, where did Qwark go?" Starlight commented, to which she pulled out her tablet and looked at it, where she discovered that there was a message from the captain and decided to open it for everyone to see, "Apparently he managed to, somehow, infiltrate Nefarious' forces and has a secret way inside the space station, but for it to work we might need someone to attack from space."

"Leave that to me," Azimuth said, tapping his wrench for a moment with a smile on his face, indicating that he was eager to pay Nefarious back for everything that had happened to him, whether or not it was the doctor's fault.

"We'll have to fight our way through several points around the station," Starlight continued, though she nodded to indicate that she had heard Azimuth's offer, "but we should be able to infiltrate the station with these blueprints and get in without Nefarious noticing... at least until it is too late to stop us anyway. Then we'll have to figure out where Nefarious is hiding and confront him, which may or may not result in the destruction of his space station."

Sunset nodded as they started going over the exact plan they were going to put into motion when they arrived at the space station, while at the same time noticing that Clank seemed unable to tell them something. It made her wonder if the robot doctor had actually turned over a new leaf after their last meeting, when he had angered Searing, but she decided that she and the others would find out soon enough. She was more than willing to take apart some robots while they figured out what was going on, which was sure to surprise Nefarious when he noticed that she was there again.

Sunset let a small smile appear on her face for a few seconds, as she felt good now that she had been restored to her full potential and her original form... and she was ready for some decent exercise in the near future.





When the Hyperion arrived at its destination the group found that there were quite a number of ships flying around the area, indicating that Nefarious wanted to keep his space station safe while he was either inside the building or when he was away on business. Azimuth determined that attacking them would be a wise course of action for him to undertake, as it would make them follow him until they shot him down, though he was confident in his abilities to out fly his soon to be opponents. Once he knew where all of the enemy ships were located Azimuth climbed into his ship and flew at the space station, where a few moments later the rest of the group noticed the enemy ships flying after him.

With that done the group climbed into their ships and departed from the Hyperion, to which they flew down to a suspiciously placed landing pad that had Qwark's logo on it, indicating that this was where they were supposed to land... though that made them wonder if Nefarious knew about the landing zone his most hated foe had placed on his doorstep. They also received a transmission from Qwark that indicated that he was somewhere inside the main perimeter of the space station, while at the same time telling them that he had a way inside the station. Once they were done with Qwark's messages they approached the weapon vendor and allowed Ratchet and Starlight to pick up any ammunition they needed for their weapons... though when they noticed that the Rift Inducer 5000 was in stock they decided not to purchase it.

The thinking behind that decision was now that Sunset was back they really didn't need to go overboard with all of the powerful weapons that Starlight could have made for them, as they wanted to enjoy saving the universe instead of feeling like they overpowered their opponent and forced him into submission.

The instant they were done with the vendor they followed the pathway that would take them around the station, and give them a chance to take out any guards that were waiting for them, and started moving over the asteroid fragments that formed a walkway for them. On the other side of the rocky walkway they found a sample of really cold water that would be useful in dousing the super heated plates that were blocking the way forward, for Ratchet and Angela anyway. Starlight gathered some in the Omnisoaker gadget and loosed several bursts of the liquid on the plates, allowing them to pass over the metal walkway, before they jumped on some of the jump pads that were in front of them.

When they landed on the upper platform they found a few robotic guardians standing in their way, to which Ratchet and the others opened fire on their targets, while at the same time noticing that some of them took one look at Sunset and chose to ignore her. Ratchet would have thought that Sunset would have been annoyed, but instead she merely sought out enemies that were brave enough to challenge her and fought them... which involved cutting them into pieces or shattering them with a swift punch to their power core. When the enemies were taken care of Starlight switched the water out for the oil that was in front of them, to which they moved down to the rusted bolt crank they had passed a few seconds ago and freed it.

With that deed done they activated the bolt crank and, after determining that Qwark had accidentally set up a decoy beacon that they had walked over to, they returned to their ships and used the swing shots to pass over the other pathway that was in front of them... to which they were attacked by the group of small robotic enemies that were waiting there. A pair of medium sized enemies, the ones with saw blades for arms, phased in and attacked them, but they were easily destroyed and allowed the group to ride a transport over to a larger area that had a lot more enemies waiting for them.

As the group tore into their enemies Sunset noticed that some of their enemies were spawning behind them, to which she turned around and attacked everyone that was behind them. It was actually the warm up she had been looking for, because it allowed her to remember some of the minor spells, those that wouldn't break the entire station that was around them, and used whatever she had at her disposal to tear apart the enemies coming her way. When the current group of enemies were dealt with Ratchet and Angela used their hoverboots to traverse the jump pads that were in front of them, while at the same time allowing Starlight and Sunset to follow after them with their levitation spell... or simply floating in Sunset's case.

They stopped in front of a second platform, one that mimicked the one they had just left, and soon they were repeating the same movements and engaging in battle once more. This time when they fought their enemies they noticed a few tank enemies phasing into existence, though when once phased into existence near Sunset it was quickly dismantled, as it never saw her coming. A pair of saucer enemies also joined the battle, though before anyone could do something Sunset pulled two sharpened pieces of metal into the air and threw them at the enemies, tearing the apart and destroying them within a few seconds.

Once that was done they rode another transport to reach where Qwark was waiting for them... to which they discovered that he was wearing a nurses outfit for some odd reason.

"Well what do you know, Clank's back!" Qwark said, to which he actually bent down and pulled the little robot into a hug, though the moment was stopped a few seconds later when he noticed who else had returned, "Sunset Shimmer... I, well, I really wasn't expecting you to be restored at the moment... that kind of blows my ingenious plan to pieces. We were supposed to infiltrate one of the trash chutes, sneak our way passed the deactivated motion sensors, use a conveniently opened air vent to scan Nefarious' body, and then use the disguise to infiltrate the main control room to destroy all of his reinforcements before his return... now, however, I think it might be easier to wait for his return and just detonate the entire station with a single explosion."

"Actually, I'm itching for an actual fight," Sunset replied, to which she stepped onto the platform that was waiting nearby, "Come on, let's go inside so we can give Nefarious a properly welcoming to the area."

Qwark and the others climbed onto the platform before it flew over to the side of the ship that Qwark had set it to before they had arrived at where he had been standing. When they reached the trash chute Sunset merely floated above the mess and looked at the two pistons that Qwark claimed were offline, as she fully expected them to come online and attempt to squish them. She pulled both her hands out from behind her back and pointed them at the two pistons, to which she flicked her pointer fingers up and a cluster of dark purple crystals burst out of the machines, silencing them until someone came to fix them.

With the deed done Qwark kicked at the door that was blocking their path until it fell out of its position and hit the floor behind it, allowing the group to leave the compactor area and continue onward... where they immediately encountered several saw blade enemies in the area in front of them. As most of the group raised their various weapons, to begin the battle, Sunset noticed that none of the robots were preparing themselves, to which she held up a hand and stopped her family, and Qwark, from doing anything rash. Once they understood that there might be something strange at work here, considering that the robots weren't attacking them, she stepped forward and stared at the group of robots, who seemed to be talking among themselves.

When the robots seemed to stop their conversation, and kept glancing at Sunset to check on what she was doing, a hologram of Lawrence phased into existence between her and the robots.

"Ah, Lady Sunset Shimmer, this is an unexpected surprise," Lawrence said, though even though her back was turned to the group, and she couldn't see the looks on their faces, Sunset knew that her family had to be shocked by what the robot was telling them, "Dr. Nefarious has been expecting your arrival for quite some time. One of our soldiers will direct you to the control room of the station, where Nefarious is waiting for your arrival, so you won't have to worry about being attacked by anyone... not that someone like you needs to worry about such a thing happening."

"Then I shall make my way to the control room," Sunset replied, though once the hologram nodded and faded from existence she turned back to her family for a moment, "See? I told you that my presence would change Nefarious' mind the instant he knew I was back."

"Yeah, you were right." Ratchet remarked, though he was somewhat surprised by what the robot butler had said, because it sounded like Nefarious had known that Sunset would be made whole again and would be visiting him shortly after, making him wonder if the doctor was trying to trick them or something.

Sunset walked at the front of the group as they followed the chosen soldier towards the elevator that would take them to the control room, where Sunset nodded to the soldiers that were staring at her. Those that knew her reputation either waved back in fear or bravely nodded back in return, while the few organic employees hid behind walls and structures. It was clear that there were differing opinions on Sunset at the moment, which was understandable considering what she had done with her godly powers, but she didn't let the soldiers bother her too much. She was sure that it bothered her brother and sister, but the reality of the situation was that she didn't mind letting them think whatever they wanted.

After a few minutes, and passing through a few checkpoints, the soldier brought them to the elevator and called Lawrence, to which the group was allowed to enter the elevator and rode it up to the control room... where they found Nefarious standing in the middle of a few Terachnoids, who were apparently making sure that the 'Hypernova Defense Laser' was online and ready to go. A few seconds later one of the Terachnoids noticed that the group had entered the control room, as the guards had moved the moment they noticed Sunset approaching them, which caused Nefarious to turn in their direction.

"Dr. Nefarious," Sunset said, stepping forward for a moment, while at the same time her family carefully spread out and looked around the room, leaving Qwark to watch the door in case things went sideways, "its actually good to see you again, especially after our last encounter."

"Lady Sunset Shimmer," Nefarious replied in kind, though he gave her a bow, which surprised Ratchet and the others, save for Clank and Sunset herself, "I am good to see that you are well, after being forcefully separated into ten aspects and forced to pull yourself together... though it seems that you have emerged victorious, and stronger than ever I might add. As for our last encounter... let's just say that I took our fights to heart, quite literally I might add, and decided that being your enemy wasn't worth it, so I decided to turn over a new leaf."

"Are you saying that we should accept that you suddenly turned good in an effort to protect the universe?" Qwark asked, though at the same time he was surprised that none of the guards turned their guns on him, as he knew that the doctor hated him and figured he's be in some trouble for that comment, "Especially when you plan on using the Great Clock to correct your defeat and ensure that you come out as the victor?"

"Which would, in turn, cause the destruction of the entire universe," Nefarious stated, though he smiled when he noticed the few looks of dread that had crossed the faces of Qwark, Ratchet, and Angela, as he had expected Starlight, Sunset, and Clank to know about the consequences of using the Great Clock as a time machine, "Look, Orvus told me about all the consequences that could have been caused by the action of using the Great Clock in such a way and I decided to make sure that no one used it like that... even going so far as to stop an alternate timeline version of myself from crossing over to get his hands on it."

"Azimuth isn't going to like this one bit," Ratchet commented, knowing that the general and the doctor apparently didn't like each other, though now he was thinking that Azimuth had overlooked an important piece of information.

"Speaking of which, why don't you invite him inside the station?" Nefarious said, to which he received several nods from the Terachnoids around him, indicating that he had done something before their arrival and the Terachnoids were confirming whatever that something was, "I have told the patrols to stand down at the moment and they are returning to the station, so he should be able to land without anyone shooting at him... though they might want to challenge him to a race, if these readings are correct."

Ratchet made the call and soon Azimuth was walking into the control room, though the look on his face indicated that he couldn't believe what was going at at the moment, even going so far as to glare at Nefarious as he entered the room.

"So let me get this straight; Nefarious is the good guy all of a sudden?!" Azimuth asked, to which he gestured to Nefarious with his wrench, while at the same time the doctor made no movements to tell his guards to attack him, "His soldiers terrorized innocent civilians and prevented them from knowing the peace that was taken from them, and he's suddenly on our side?"

"My soldiers never terrorized anyone," Nefarious said, to which two holograms appeared in front of everyone, though that was where the group noticed that one of the robots was colored in Nefarious' colors and the second was colored in Vorselon's colors, "Yes, I built the robots that Vorselon used on his ship and to attack people, but the difference between me and him is that my soldiers never actually destroyed anything while his simply crushed everything that was in his way. I made sure that the people that lived on all the planets I had an outpost on were safe from any sort of harm and could go about their lives without having to worry about being interrupted by the soldiers until an emergency happened. In fact my soldiers were told to 'capture' you instead of 'kill' you, which Vorselon's soldiers were set to, despite my opinions on keeping their original programming."

"And why would you care about me?" Azimuth asked, while at the same time he glared at Nefarious, choosing to ignore everything else and focus on his intended target.

"Because I know that, given the proper motivation, you could be a hero to the people of this galaxy," Nefarious replied, to which Azimuth actually had a look of surprise appear on his face, "besides, there are only three Lombaxes left in the universe... and I would actually hate to see them disappear, especially when your race are revered as protectors of the universe. How about this; come with us to the Great Clock and introduce yourself to Orvus... I'm positive that he'll have a proposition for you, one that might be too good to pass up. And if that's not good enough for you, then I have a personal offer to add to the table."

"Really?" Azimuth said, though it was clear that the mention of Orvus, and a mysterious proposition, had actually shocked him back to a state where he was easier to talk with, while the personal offer interested him, "And what is this mysterious item or favor that you are offering to give me?"

"Attention Nefarious Space Station," a voice said, one that Ratchet and the others immediately recognized the moment it came over the intercoms, "this is Lord Vorselon. I have scanned the surrounding area and discovered that Ratchet Cross, his wife Angela Cross, and the renegade Alister Azimuth have been spotted in the area around your station. I request permission to teleport myself and my troops onto the station so we can kill the last three Lombaxes in the universe, before discussing the matters of using the Great Clock."

"He's right on time," Nefarious commented, to which he turned towards Azimuth, who was caught between thinking that this was a trap or that there was something more that he wasn't seeing, "Alister Azimuth, what I am offering you is the chance to eliminate the one person that had been a blight on your existence in the Polaris Galaxy... and save the universe from his evil at the same time. All you would have to do is take the controls of the Hypernova Defense Laser, which is already pointed in the direction Vorselon's ship will be coming from, and fire when your ready."

Azimuth looked at the controls that were in front of him, the ones that the Terachnoid had moved away from and was beckoning towards, before looking out the window and noticing that Vorselon's ship had exited the warp system, to which it was approaching the station at a decent speed. He stepped up to the controls and recounted everything that he had seen since his arrival in the Polaris Galaxy, focusing on who was the real enemy and who wasn't... before he let out a sigh, touched the controls for a moment, and pressed the button that was waiting for him. The group, both Ratchet's and Nefarious', watched as the Hypernova Defense Laser fired at Vorselon's ship and heated it up under the intensity that the laser commanded.

That was swiftly followed by the engines exploding and causing widespread destruction across the entire ship, to which the group heard Vorselon cry out in confusion, by Nefarious' betrayal, before he was consumed by the destruction. As the ship exploded, and the pieces went flying in every direction, the Terachnoids did some brief scans and indicated that no one had escaped the ship, to which Azimuth let out a sigh of relief when he realized that it was finally over.

"Now that we have taken care of Vorselon, and there are no immediate threats, I do believe that its time to return to the Great Clock." Nefarious commented, to which everyone turned towards him for a moment, "Orvus will want to go over any and all questions that you might have for him, which we're sure there will be a fair number of, and there is something that he needs to tell you, Lady Sunset Shimmer. From what I can gather he needs to tell you and Starlight about the world that you came from... as well as explain the importance of the six Cores that you collected over the years."

Sunset smiled at the thought about meeting Orvus and bringing an end to all the mysteries that were in her life, though at the same time she knew that Ratchet and the others were excited to hear anything about the world she and Starlight were actually born on. She was also curious about the purpose of the six Cores, especially after everything she and her sister had used them for over the years, so she was more than willing to follow Nefarious for the sake of answering all of the unanswered questions that were running through her head. She knew that this would be the perfect chance to understand everything that didn't make sense in their lives, as well as get some knowledge on the strange memories she had.

Sunset was excited to meet with Orvus now, because they were one step closer to uncovering the truth behind where she and Starlight came from... as well anything else that was plaguing their minds.
> Time: The Great Clock
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ratchet and Starlight had expected to find some resistance when they powered up the Hyperion so they could follow Nefarious' ship to the Great Clock, but instead the doctor was perfectly fine with them using the larger ship to reach their destination. Still, to be on the safe side Starlight decided to make sure that their ship's signature was isolated and turned on a device that would trick anyone that was searching for them, which would allow them to reach the Great Clock without revealing its location to the rest of the universe. She was sure that there were other villains that were scattered across the rest of the universe, trying to determine how to beat her and her family, so she didn't want to give them the location of something that would help them learn all about their targets... or destroy the universe if they tried to use it as a time machine to fix something.

As the thought of using the Great Clock as a time machine crossed her mind Starlight glanced over a Azimuth, who was merely looking out the window and coming to terms with the fact that he actually couldn't go back and save the rest of his race. She silently hoped that he would embrace the fact that Ratchet and Angela were still around, though now that Tachyon had been dealt with she fully expected her brother to settle down and leave the adventuring stuff to the other heroes. Besides, she was sure that Angela was looking forward to being a mother one day, which would no doubt make Azimuth happy to see the beginnings of the Lombax race unfold in front of his eyes.

Starlight smiled for a moment before turning her head over to where Sunset was standing, as she was observing the space around them and staring at all of the planets that they were passing. She had to wonder what was going through her sister's head at the moment, as she had returned to her former glory and had wholeheartedly accepted the position as the God of Destruction, where before the separation of her aspects she had been against such a thing. It was amazing to see what sort of chance someone could go through when they were forcefully separated into ten different pieces, forced to hunt down and fight each other without any actual memories, and then eventually die to each other.

Now Sunset had an aura around her, without actually calling upon her magic, that said that she was a powerful creature that no one should mess with, especially when she could obliterate planets on a whim and erase people by pointing at them and uttering a single word. Starlight had seen her sister's power first hand many times over the years, though now that she was at one hundred percent again it was odd to not feel her energy, which she would have to get used to once more. That was, to Starlight, the one annoying thing about her sister being a god, she couldn't feel her magical energy and made it impossible to detect where she was.

Starlight sighed as she reopened the fragment of the Codex that Sunset had given them back when she had escaped from the prison planet Vox had been keeping her on, the one that mentioned the creature that was known as Beerus the Destroyer. It told them many things about that particular story that the god came from, like how the people claimed that there were twelve universes and each one of them had its own Destroyer, though the more interesting thing about what she was reading was that all the universes shared a few things. Those items were that each universe had a Destroyer, an 'Angel' of sorts that watched over the Destroyer, and a 'Supreme Kai' that created planets that would eventually replace the ones that were destroyed.

She found this interesting, as it seemed like an elaborate story that someone had taken time to create, but at the same time she had to actually wonder if it was possible if any of this was real... though the thought of there being so many more universes made her head hurt a little, especially when they would be different from everything they already knew.

"Huh, what do you know, he was telling the truth," Qwark commented, snapping Starlight out of her thoughts and causing everyone, save for Sunset, to turn in his direction, "I was looking up all of the various reviews and stories about the planets that Nefarious has an outpost on, though I am shocked to find that, out of all the articles I have gone through, not one of them has said anything negative about the doctor himself. The only bad thing I can find is the people mentioning the attacks that other villains launched on them and the praise that followed when Nefarious' forces saved them, which is good and strange at the same time."

"I let myself get so blinded by my anger towards my own failings that I never considered that someone wasn't what they said they were," Azimuth said, referring to the fact that he had been so focused on stopping Nefarious, and fixing his mistakes, that he had failed to realize who was the actual threat and who was actually trying to help the people of the Polaris Galaxy, "though, after reflecting on everything I have seen over the last week or two, I would have to say that Nefarious has turned over to our side... which is going to take some time before I'm used to it."

"Your telling me," Qwark stated, shaking his head for a moment, though everyone knew it was because he and the doctor had a rivalry going on that had lasted ever since they had first met each other, "I'm going to have to find another villain to replace Nefarious... one that actually wants to beat me and not just obliterate me."

"Qwark, he said that he was on our side," Sunset commented, to which everyone turned towards her for a second, as this was the first time she had spoken up since their departure from the space station, "You can still have your rivalry with him, just it will be more in the sense of two heroes trying to upstage each other and earning more praise from the people of the universe."

Despite the fact that Sunset found Qwark annoying, as she had long gotten over her vast hatred for the man thanks to being reformed into her original state, she was somewhat happy that he acknowledged what she was telling him. She knew that he would be making some 'plans' to engage in some friendly competition to earn the praise of the people they were saving, which she knew the both of them cared too much about. As Qwark moved around the ship Sunset turned her attention back to the planets they were passing, as she was wondering what they were going to be learning once they reached their destination.





Ratchet and the others stared at the large mechanical structure that was floating in the middle of the universe, which Clank insisted it was when Ratchet asked about that fact, though at the same time they carefully pulled into what appeared to be a docking area large enough for the Hyperion to safely dock in. As they docked they noticed that Nefarious' ship landed in a zone next to them, where the group discovered that there were two more ships docked in the area as well. They immediately recognized the ship that Red, the smuggler they had encountered back at the beginning of their adventure to stop Tachyon, though the second ship was an unknown one for them. Clank had an idea as to who owned the second ship, though he kept his mouth shut as they walked towards the Orvus Chamber, which now had a walkway so they wouldn't have to bother with the obstacles that Clank had to deal with earlier.

As Nefarious led them towards the Orvus Chamber the group noticed that the Zoni were hard at work, though that was before they heard the sound of an excited creature... to which the group watched as Razor, the cat Sunset had befriended on Ryllus, run towards them and come to a stop by Sunset. A few seconds later Sunset started rubbing the cat's head for a moment or two, though once he was back to his normal self the group continued towards the Orvus Chamber... and their meeting with Orvus himself.

It didn't take them long before they reached the Orvus Chamber, where the group found a large number of controls and consoles, though at the same time they spotted a unique Zoni floating near a large table... where Red and the Plumber were sitting. Sunset raised an eyebrow when she noticed that the duo was wearing a strange set of clothing, though she suspected that this meant that there was more to them than she originally thought. She also noticed that there was a fair amount of food on the table, likely prepared ahead of time, but she knew that all of them would benefit from seating something after their fight through Nefarious' space station.

"Dr. Nefarious, its good to see you, and your companions, again," Orvus commented, turning to face the group for a few seconds, while at the same time Red and the Plumber nodded their heads, though that was before he focused on one of them in particular, "Lady Sunset Shimmer, it is good to officially meet you."

"Likewise, Lord Orvus," Sunset replied, to which she turned to the table and nodded to the two people that were currently sitting down, where she remembered one of them from her original memories and the other from the memories her aspects had lived through, "Red... Plumber... it is good to see the two of you again as well."

"Actually, 'the Plumber' is a title I took on when I didn't want to tell people my name," the Plumber said, though at the same time both he and Red stood up, "My real name is Itar, and with the God of Destruction finally being chosen its time for me to finally step up to the plate and return to being the Kai that watches over the Southern and Western sections of the universe. Red here watches over the Northern and Eastern parts, though I'm sure that you all came here for more than learning that I have a real name or the fact that we're more than we said we were."

"Indeed, there are questions that need to be answered," Orvus commented, to which he beckoned to the table and the majority of the group sat down, while Razor curled around Sunset's seat as she noticed that one chair remained empty, "First of all, I'm sure that all of you are wondering how the ten aspects came into being, though the answer is easy to explain... Sigmund and I had to draw you here, Lady Sunset, and use a machine that mimicked the one Starlight used so many years ago to induce the separation."

"How could you do such a thing!?" Azimuth demanded, because while he knew that the Orvus protected time, with the Great Clock and the Zoni backing him, he couldn't believe that he would put the universe at risk is such a manner.

"Because it would have happened on its own accord in a year or two anyway," Sigmund spoke up, causing everyone to turn to the robot for a moment, "only in that timeline Hatred would have succeeded in her quest to become the God of Destruction, which resulted in the destruction of the entire universe. We took the risk because we knew that Sunset could, given the right circumstances, overcome all of the emotions that were separated from her and return to what she had been, though at the end she would have been a whole being instead of someone that was fighting multiple personalities. In the end separating all ten of them from each other helped in more ways than you could possibly imagine, because now Lady Sunset is one being, without any emotions trying to take over, and she is back where she belongs."

"So you purposely shattered Sunset into those ten aspects, some of which caused destruction after they woke up, for the benefit of the universe?" Starlight inquired, just to make sure that she understood what the robot was telling them, though that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

"That is correct." Sigmund replied, to which the center of the table glowed until a projection of a single planet remained, with the fragments of hundreds, if not thousands, of planets scattered all around the lone world, which looked like it was on fire or something, "This is what we refer to as the End Times, one of the worst endings that we were trying to avoid, where the aspect known as Rage won the day... though instead of ending planets on a whim she would launch a long campaign against them, likely thanks to the powers of her inner warmonger, and then burn them once she conquered them. We have successfully avoided each and every horrible fact that the separation could have caused to the universe, while at the same time restoring Lady Sunset to her original state."

"Though I believe we have heard enough about the possibilities that could have happened," Orvus said, to which the projection of the planet and destruction disappeared, "I'm sure that some of you have other questions that need to be answered. Please, ask away and we will attempt to answer them."

"I am more interested in something I recently discovered," Sunset commented, causing the group to turn towards them, "While I was searching through my memories earlier I noticed that Starlight and I are from a world called Equus, though we were at the age you see us now... though when we entered a magical mirror, and came to this side of the universe, we arrived as infants with no memories of our past lives. Do you have anything to say about that?"

"Yes, and we had nothing to do with it." Orvus said, to which the screen changed and revealed the magical mirror that Sunset was talking about, though at the same time Starlight's eyes widened as she recognized the area around the item they were being shown, "From what we have been able to gather, from the hours we spent pouring over your last two days on Equus, you were tricked into entering the mirror. Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony, knew that you would eventually awaken and become the god you are now, though the price would have been the destruction of your home world..."

"Wait, a minute," Angela said, holding her hands in the air for a moment, "Your telling us that Sunset Shimmer was predestined to become the God of Destruction... and that whatever world she was on when she finally ascended would have been destroyed in the process?"

"That is correct," Orvus replied, to which a section of the image changed and revealed a chimera creature that both Sunset and Starlight recognized, "None of us, that being Red, Itar, Sigmund, Nefarious, and myself, are sure how Discord was able to figure out that Equus was in danger of being destroyed when Lady Sunset finally gained her godly powers, but that doesn't change the fact that he did figure it out. He used his chaotic powers on the mirror to destroy the anchor on the other side, meaning that whoever accessed the mirror would be sent somewhere across the vastness of the universe, though at the same time he gave Lady Sunset a special 'gift' that was supposed to allow her to integrate herself with the people of whatever world she came to without revealing what she was."

"The golden bracelet," Sunset commented, remembering the gift that Discord had given her, though now she knew that there had been something different about it.

"From what we could tell he designed the bracelet to reduce you to a four year old and strip you of all your memories," Nefarious spoke up, which made sense considering that he had been studying the timeline, if Orvus was to believed in that regard, "Now I'm no master of magic, as its a subject I'll need to brush up on before I get to your level of understanding, but we were able to determine that the mixture of the mirror's now unstable magic, the chaotic magic that was lingering on your bracelet, and a small amount of Discord's own power on the mirror itself caused you to be displaced to this side of the universe. The part we still don't understand is how he was able to send you about twenty or so years into the past, where you could grow into your powers and destroy another planet instead of your home world."

"Actually, I think I might have an answer to that," Starlight commented, though that was followed by her own magic flaring for a few moments, to which she grabbed the apple that Qwark was eating and activated the time magic she had been learning, which restored it to its original state before she moved it back into Qwark's hand, "I'm guessing that, before Sunset and I entered the mirror, I had a lot of experience in manipulating time magic, which might explain why the mixture of magic did what it did. Discord's magic might have reacted with my magic first, where it latched onto the time part of it, and then it affected the mixture, which resulted in us being sent here at the age of four without any memories."

"That is an interesting theory," Orvus said, though at the same time six objects floated out of the ceiling and landed around them, to which Sunset noticed that five of them were stone orbs while the sixth one was a purple gemstone that had been crafted to look like a star that had six points, "By now most of you are familiar with the six stones that the three galaxies refer to as the Raritanium Cores, though in reality they are something much greater than what you can possibility imagine. These stones are actually the Elements of Harmony from Equus, where they were taken from between twenty to thirty years ago, though this is the first time they have been brought back together since they left their home planet."

"Um... why are five of them turned into solid stone?" Qwark asked, as he was staring at the orbs as Starlight lifted them into the air, while at the same time Sunset levitated the sixth one to her.

"They transformed into that state when Lady Sunset was separated into her various aspects," Orvus answered, glancing at the stones for a few seconds, before turning back to the group, "When they were taken from their home world I was forced to place the planet in a sort of time lock, where I could easily access a certain point in the planet's history so that, when the six of them were together again, the proper timeline could be restored. If the Elements of Harmony were to remain in this part of the universe, and not be taken back to the moment they are needed, then Nightmare Moon would succeed in bringing Eternal Night to the planet. That would shortly be followed by the original timeline version of Discord being released and bringing a war with Nightmare Moon, which would turn into a five way war when Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra, and Tirek joined in."

"Orvus... what you are telling us is that the alternate timeline that Max Apogee accidentally created would have spawned the death of Equus itself..." Azimuth commented, though thanks to all his years in the military he knew that five powerful forces could easily tear a planet apart... if all five of them were somewhere near the power that Sunset possessed at the moment.

"That is correct," Orvus sadly said, though his tone indicated that there was more they hadn't been told yet, "Sunset Shimmer, in the original timeline, arrived back on her home planet sometime after the Crystal Empire, and King Sombra, returned... but if the world was dying she would join them in due time. If we followed this trail of changes nothing would happen to the world she was living on before returning home, though the world the mirror sent her to, Nirn, would have been destroyed by Tirek, who would have used some of his vast power to escape the destruction of Equus so he could take another world over. With Sunset dead, and the mirror destroyed, she and Starlight would have been unable to come back and grow up beside you, Ratchet, which means that you would never have married Angela, Azimuth would have died here, in the Great Clock, and the universe would have pressed onward with fewer planets destroyed."

"So we have to go back in time and put the Elements of Harmony back where they belong," Sunset commented, though at the same time she remembered where they had originally been resting after the first defeat of Nightmare Moon, "Why don't Starlight and I take them back to where they belong and return here?"

"That was what I was going to ask of you," Orvus said, though at the same time he beckoned behind him and the group noticed a time gate had appeared in the area near them, "I have set the time gate to take you and Starlight back to an hour before the Elements are needed, giving you plenty of time to slip into where they were supposed to be resting and restore five of them to their proper resting places... but I'll need you to stay there for some time and make sure that the sixth one is called upon."

Sunset nodded, as she remembered the story Princess Twilight had told her back when she had asked how she had uncovered the Elements of Harmony. It was easy for her to piece together where she needed to go, where the five orbs needed to be placed, and what she had to watch for before allowing the sixth Element to be restored. She noticed that Starlight seemed surprised that they were heading home for an hour, though when she remembered that it was only for an hour, in the past no less, she seemed sad. Sunset was sure that Orvus would tell them, upon their return, that they were finally allowed to go home, though they were going to have to wait before they were given the chance to head home.

"Then we had better get going," Sunset replied, to which she grasped the star in her hand as she pulled herself out of the chair she had been sitting on, while at the same time Starlight levitated the other stones over as she walked up to her, "We should be back in a few minutes for you guys... and the timeline should be corrected as well."

Orvus nodded for a second and the gateway opened, to which Sunset and Starlight stepped through the mass of time energy and went back to the point in time that Orvus was sending them to.





When Sunset and Starlight appeared on the other side of the time gate they found themselves in a forest that seemed wrong, as it seemed completely different from everything they were used to. Sunset searched her memories and knew that this had to be the Everfree Forest, the place where the rules were broken and savage animals lived throughout the entire place, but Sunset had the upper hand. She was, after all, the God of Destruction and, as Razor and his species had demonstrated so long ago, most species knew how dangerous she was with a single glance, which meant that they would be safe as they walked through the area.

As they started walking away from the time gate the two of them spotted a ruined structure about five to ten minutes away from where they had appeared.

"So are we sure that these 'Elements' belong in that ruined castle?" Starlight asked, though at the same time she wished that she had the memories that her sister had, or rather her version of the memories that had been stolen.

"Yes. I was told that this is where the Elements were found, straight from the mouth of the one that found them herself," Sunset replied, remembering what Twilight had told her back after she had redeemed herself, "With Nightmare Moon preoccupied with attacking the nearby town, if what Twilight told me is true, we'll have plenty of time to slip the Elements into the castle and leave before she even knows we were there."

"If you say so," Starlight said, though at the same time she kept her eyes open for anything that could charge at them, which was why she kept her staff at the ready as they walked.

It didn't take them long to reach the castle that they had been walking towards, though as they reached it Starlight decided that it was best to let Sunset look around for a few seconds, as she knew where the Elements needed to go thanks to her memories. Sure enough a few seconds later Sunset was beckoning to her, so Starlight smiled and followed after her sister once more, where they continued their walk through the castle as they approached an area that seemed to radiate a unique magical signature. When they entered the room Sunset had been leading them towards, which happened to have no door thanks to all the time that had passed since someone had last been here, Starlight noticed a strange structure in the middle of the room... one that happened to have five places where orbs could be placed.

Starlight looked to her sister for a moment, wondering if this was the place, to which Sunset nodded and allowed her to float the five orbs into their proper locations, though in the end that left the one that was currently floating above Sunset's hand... which she noticed no location to put it into.

"Okay, so what do we do with this one?" Starlight asked, staring at the purple star and the structure in front of them for a few seconds, as she was trying to determine where they needed to place this one for the proper timeline to occur.

"We wait outside the castle and see what happens," Sunset commented, to which she turned towards the door they had walked through and made her way outside, where Starlight followed after her, "if everything goes according to the original timeline the girls will be here shortly to awaken the Elements of Harmony, which should call this one over to them once they realize that its not present. Then, once the Elements are awakened, we can head back to the others and see what can be done to restore your old memories... and then figure out how to return to the place in Equus' history we're actually from."

Starlight nodded as they walked into the trees that surrounded the castle, though as they found a safe place that would allow them to watch the ruins she realized that she couldn't open her tablet, as it would no doubt change something in the part of the universe they were actually from. As such the two of them had to study the area around them and take note of the various animals that might live throughout the forest, though the only creature that dared to get anywhere near them, despite Sunset's nature as the God of Destruction, was some sort of wolf that was made out of pieces of wood, leaves, and branches. Fortunately the creature stayed away from them and kept its eyes on Sunset, as if it was making sure that she didn't hurt it, while at the same time giving Starlight the time to study the creature while they waited for the Elements to awaken.

Forty-five minutes later they heard the sound of hooves running through the forest, to which they looked up and noticed six ponies, all having different colored coats, run into the ruined castle. Sunset made a note of the fact that there were two earth ponies, two pegasi, and two unicorns in the group, though she kept quite as she waited for Nightmare Moon to make her move. Shortly later they felt the power of the pony they had been told about, though when Starlight looked at her sister she received a shake of her head in the 'no' fashion, indicating that they hadn't reached the point yet.

They waited for a few more minutes and the two of them felt the power of the Elements awaken, to which Sunset lifted the last one into the air and watched as it started to break apart in front of their eyes, though she smiled when it finally disappeared. A minute or two later they watched as a rainbow colored light erupted from the ruins, to which Sunset smiled as she turned around and headed towards the time gate. Starlight seemed surprised that she knew that they had succeeded in their mission, though she didn't question her sister as they made their way back to the gateway so they could return to the future.





When Sunset and Starlight walked through the time gate, and returned to the Great Clock, they discovered that they had returned to the exact moment following their departure. Orvus seemed pleased that they had returned, to which Starlight wondered if they had succeeded or if they had to go back and try again.

"You have succeeded in restoring the original timeline of Planet Equus," Orvus said, though at the same time he looked at everyone else, "I shall give you the coordinates for your home world, so you can go back and see what you left behind for yourselves, though there are some matters we need to discuss. First we'll need to restore Starlight's memories, which will be rather easy thanks to all the machinery we have in the Great Clock, then we'll need to over what you can and cannot bring to Equus."

"There will be restrictions on what we can take the planet?" Azimuth asked, as he wasn't anticipating something like that, but he guessed that it might made sense considering that Starlight's home planet was focused on magic and likely didn't have too many advances in technology.

"Correct," Orvus said, though at the same time he smiled as he looked at the entire group, "Give us a week and you'll be ready for the journey to Equus... though I'm sure that all of you will be excited to start this particular adventure."

Sunset had no idea what adventure Orvus was referring to, but at this point she was sure that whatever adventure revealed itself would be easily resolved... either by her family or by herself.
> Equus: Homecoming
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite Orvus' assurances that it would be easy to restore Starlight's memories to their original state, and make sure that the second set of memories had settled in without harming her in the process, they still spent a week going through all the steps and machines that rested throughout the Great Clock. There were some challenges in restoring her memories, as they had to work around the chaotic magic that had touched her mind, but for some of the magical obstacles Sunset stood there and used her knowledge to help them restore Starlight to who she was before coming through the mirror. Ratchet and the others helped whenever they were able to do so, but soon it became apparent that the only one that could truly help Starlight was herself.

As Nefarious, Sigmund, and Orvus helped return Starlight's memories, however, Orvus also spent some time with Sunset, floating around the Great Clock as he explained his position as the Supreme Kai of Time and the fact that Clank was to be his replacement one day.... once he had completed his training.

There were things that he kept from Sunset, information that he deemed important that she discover for herself, though this time she was more than willing to wait for the knowledge to come to her instead of seeking it out. She had learned much about patience and herself thanks to the separation of her aspects, things that she had learned at one point and was only now relearning. This adventure made her forget everything about herself, she knew that to be true, but at the same time it allowed her to come to terms with who she really was and what she was capable of doing, even though she had once hated the power that came with being the God of Destruction... and now she accepted her power.

Ratchet, Angela, and Azimuth spent their time inquiring about the nature of Equus, trying to understand the mysterious planet through the memories that Sunset possessed so they could better plan their visit to the planet. At the same time Talwyn had been invited to join them in the Great Clock, where she had asked her own questions about the planet that her father had almost killed, once she had learned what he had done by taking the Elements of Harmony. All the information that she had to learn, about Starlight, Sunset, and their home planet caused some headache for Talwyn, but she eventually came to terms with what she was hearing.

Eventually the week had passed and Orvus was done using all of the machines in the Great Clock on Starlight, who emerged with a smile on her face, though while everyone else smiled and cheered Sunset smiled, because she knew that Starlight had restored herself, and her magic, to what she had been before they had walked into the mirror.

"Starlight, how are you feeling?" Ratchet asked, knowing that this had to be somewhat painful for both of his sisters, having to regain all of their memories and work to making sure that they knew both versions of their lives without causing pain to their bodies.

"Better to say the least," Starlight replied, a smile appearing on her face as she sat down in the chair that had been pulled out for her, "I will admit that I am somewhat ashamed by what my memories showed me, though at the same time I was pleased to learn that I redeemed myself in the eyes of those around me and earned the praise of my mentor. Princess Twilight is going to be really pissed off with me when we return, though something tells me she'll be more occupied with Sunset's return and the change that will accompany her."

"She'll freak out once she realizes that she cannot feel my energy," Sunset commented, setting down the cup of tea she had been drinking from, before she turned to the others, "To be honest I'm excited to finally be going home, because it will be good to visit all the familiar places that will be unfamiliar to me and speak with the princesses."

"Princess Celestia is going to be overjoyed to see that you have returned," Starlight replied, knowing, from what her sister had told her, that Sunset and the Princess had some sort of bond that she was sure would be mended the moment they came into contact with each other again, "Hopefully our return to our home world is met with some rest and some settling in, after you deal with Discord and the madness he inflicted upon the mirror. I'm going to be honest, you should just 'Destroy' the mirror and be done with it, before someone else crosses through it and is sent somewhere else across the vastness of the universe."

Sunset nodded and said nothing to that comment, because based on what she remembered of the magical mirror she knew that it was only a matter of time until someone else decided to use the mirror to have their own adventure, to which they would stumble into the trap that Discord had set for her. She silently admitted that she was annoyed that the chimera creature had even done this to her, without any regards for everyone else that could get hurt in the process, but at the same time she guessed that she couldn't blame him for wanting to protect his home world. The fact that her awakening as the God of Destruction would have destroyed Equus, if she had remained there, made her somewhat glad that Discord had done this, which was why she made no comment on that as well.

"I have determined that Starlight is now fit to travel once more," Orvus spoke up, reminding the group that he was floating near the table, before he levitated something into Ratchet's hand, "and, as such, I believe that it is time you two return to your home world. Those coordinates will get you close to Equus, allowing you to use your smaller ships to land near the small town that borders the Everfree Forest, where you should be able to piece together what to do without someone telling you what to do next."

"Thank you for all of your help Orvus," Starlight replied, bowing her head to the elderly Zoni in respect, knowing that, without his help, she would have remembered one set of memories and would have questioned everything she would be seeing in Equus.

"Nonsense. its my pleasure to help you and your family out," Orvus said, waving a hand in a dismissing manner, though at the same time those that were around him guessed that he feared Sunset's power and didn't want to upset her at all, considering what she could do now, "Though I suggest that you leave soon... I think something is going to happen on Equus that only Sunset can deal with, so if she's not there the planet's history could be altered once more."

The group nodded and finished off what they happened to be eating or drinking at that very moment, though once they had done that they gathered their gear and headed towards the Hyperion. Clank even came with them, as he was curious as to what Equus looked like and wanted to meet the creatures that had taught Sunset what she knew, as well as the chimera that had sent her and Starlight through the mirror to begin with. Razor, who had been bored because there was nothing for him to do, happily walked beside the group, as the fact that they were moving towards the larger ship told the cat that an adventure was finally happening. When they boarded the ship Sunset and the others nodded to the pony holograms that had been created to replace the four alicorns that they had installed so long ago, as now that they knew that the four princesses existed they needed new helpers aboard the ship.

Sunset would have been fine with the four alicorns remaining on the ship, though Ratchet and the others insisted that they create their own helpers and not use ponies that actually existed, to which she merely nodded and let her family create new AI for them to converse with when they used the large ship... of which she noticed that there was one for every section of the ship, so that way the duties of one didn't overlap with another.

"The coordinates are set and the engines are primed," Angela commented, to which she smiled at everyone as they took their seats, though they had increased the number of available seats due to how many people there were aboard the Hyperion now, "So, whose ready to visit Equus?"

The majority of the group cheered at the statement while Sunset merely nodded, knowing that the true excitement would come when they finally returned home. Angela nodded for a second and input the command that would get them started, while at the same time Ratchet, who was in the captain's chair, pulled the Hyperion away from the Great Clock and entered the warp system that would allow them to get close to Equus. Ratchet smiled as the ship passed into the warp system, because he could finally see the place where his sisters' grew up before they entered the mirror that brought them to this part of the universe... and finally give Discord a piece of his mind if the opportunity presented itself.





Even with the skills of Ratchet, Angela, and Starlight it took some time for them to maneuver through the warp system until they were in the immediate area surrounding the planet that they were heading towards, though once they had exited the system Ratchet stopped the Hyperion in its tracks. One of the things that they had been told to not take down to the planet's surface, besides the vast amounts of weapons that Starlight had created over the years, as the Hyperion itself, though Orvus did allow them to take their smaller ships, which consisted of Aphelion, Azimuth's ship, and Talwyn's ship. With their destination in sight the group left the AI with command of the Hyperion and boarded their ships, though at the same time Sunset decided to fly through space itself, another indication of her power as the God of Destruction.

When everyone was ready they left the docking area of the Hyperion and headed down towards the planet in front of them, though they followed Sunset as she directed them towards a proper landing area that would give them time before they reached the town that the magical mirror was located in. A few minutes later they found a good clearing and Sunset landed there, to which she waited for a few seconds as the three ships landed around her, though when the ships opened everyone else looked around the area with shock on their faces.

"So this is Equus," Azimuth said, taking in the fresh air that was all around them, while at the same time actually enjoying the sights of such a pristine planet, "it seems like such a wonderful planet... and we haven't even crossed paths with anyone, or anypony, yet."

"You don't have to say 'anypony' General," Starlight commented, looking around and spotting the crystal castle that Princess Twilight owned, to which some of her memories stirred, "we say 'anyone' and 'everyone' like the rest of the universe... though we'll be meeting more of my kind soon enough."

Sunset nodded as she waited for the group to come to terms with the planet that they had landed on, and how seemingly unspoiled it was in comparison to the other planets they had been to, though as she stood there she detected several powerful beings all moving at the same time; two from the direction of Canterlot and another duo from the direction of Ponyville. She suspected that the ones in Ponyville were Princess Twilight and Discord, while the ones from Canterlot had to be Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, though judging by how fast two of them were moving she knew that Starlight's magic had been detected.

As such Sunset beckoned to the group and they started moving towards Ponyville, though at the same time she cast a glance back at the city she had been staring at and smiled, knowing that someone would be glad to see her again... and would be shocked when she discovered what her destiny had been the entire time.

When the group walked into Ponyville they noticed that several of the ponies that called the place home were pointing a hoof at Ratchet, Angela, Azimuth, Talwyn, and Qwark for the most part, though some of them were shocked when they noticed Sunset walking beside them. After a few seconds the ponies seemed to realize that they had seen some really outlandish things in the past, thanks to Nightmare Moon, Discord, and everything else that had happened, to which they returned to their lives and mostly ignored the group. The only ponies that bothered to come near them were a pair of guards, which Sunset pointed out to the rest of the group because of their golden armor, though it was impossible to tell why they were approaching them from just a glance.

"Is there something we can help you with?" Starlight asked, knowing that they were likely going to ask her about Ratchet and the others, as well as inquire about Sunset.

"We were just making sure that you and your, companions, aren't causing trouble," one of the guards said, staring at Azimuth for a moment, taking note of the wrench he was carrying, as well as the other hand held weapons that the others were carrying, before he noticed his companion beckoning in the direction of the forest, "though you'll have to forgive us for not welcoming you back to Ponyville, Starlight Glimmer. It appears that we are needed elsewhere."

Starlight nodded and the group watched as the guards moved in the direction of the Everfree Forest, which made them wonder if there was something happening near the forest that they needed to be aware of, before they continued towards the castle they had been walking towards. It didn't take them too long to reach their destination, though when they reached the front of the castle Starlight raised a hoof and knocked on the door, allowing the sound to echo through the entrance area for a few seconds. A few seconds later the door opened and revealed a small light purple scaled dragon, with some light green colored scales on his belly and going down his tail, standing on the other side of the door... much to the surprise of everyone except Starlight and Sunset.

The dragon seemed surprised to see them standing on the other side of the door, even when he recognized Starlight, though that was before he let out a sigh and beckoned to them.

"Twilight!" the small dragon shouted, allowing the group to enter the main entrance of the castle, to which he closed the door behind them once they were all inside, "We've got company... and you'll never believe who it is!"

That was quickly followed by a lavender colored alicorn, a mare that resembled the one that they had an AI of up until a few days ago, teleported into the area in front of them, though when she looked at Starlight her gaze turned to one of joy, which matched up with what Starlight remembered.

"Starlight! Thank Celestia that your okay," Twilight said, approaching her student and throwing her hooves over her for a moment, though at the same time she got a little more serious, "You and I are going to have a long conversation about the errors of using a magical mirror for your own adventure, especially when said magical mirror is missing one of its anchors and could teleport you anywhere. You'll have to introduce me to your new friends later, because there's one thing that I need to ask you; where is Sunset Shimmer?"

"I'm right here," Sunset said, to which Twilight looked over at her, where she noticed that a look of confusion crossed the mare's face for a few seconds, "It is good to see you again Twilight."

"Sunset... what happened to you?" Twilight asked, her confusion turning to fear, which meant that she must have discovered that she was unable to feel Sunset's energy, "How have you taken on this form... and what happened to your magic? I can't feel your power at all!"

"I'll tell you in a few minutes," Sunset replied, though at the same time she gestured to the door for a moment, telling her friends and family that she knew someone was coming towards the castle, "once Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and potentially Discord, arrive. We're going to need a large area for all of us to sit in while we have a conversation..."

"Well, we can always use the ballroom," Twilight commented, tilting her head for a few seconds, as if what Sunset had said had made her think about something else, "I can can't figure out why such a room was created when the castle came into existence, though I guess it serves as a large meeting room until I decide what to do with it."

Sunset nodded and they walked into the large ballroom, which Twilight lead them to while making sure that the rest of the group knew her name, though she and Starlight decided to keep her title back until the other princesses arrived. Twilight asked about the various weapons that the group was carrying, as some of them she knew about from her studies and some were completely foreign to her, thanks to the Lombax culture and whatnot. When they entered the ballroom Starlight spotted several tables that weren't currently being used and levitated them over to where they were planning on sitting, while making sure that the dust was taken off of them. Once the tables were set up Angela asked for a portal to the Hyperion, to which Starlight allowed her to travel to the ship and bring back some food for them to eat, while surprising Twilight with what she caught a glimpse of on the other side.

When everything was set up, however, Spike walked into the ballroom and announced the arrival of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, allowing Ratchet and the others to finally meet the living versions of the AI that had been aboard the Hyperion for so long.

"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna," Twilight greeted, to which she nodded towards the two royal sisters, who nodded to her in return, "It seems that you felt what I felt."

"Twilight, we have told you time and time again that you don't need to address us by our titles," Celestia said, though at the same time she noticed that there were some new faces sitting around the tables that were resting behind Twilight, along with spotting Starlight sitting nearby, "though it seems that young Starlight has returned from her adventure... and she seems to have brought some friends with her."

"Sister, I believe that introductions are in order," Luna stated, to which she turned to the group that had gotten out of their chairs, "Greetings strangers, I am Princess Luna of Equestria, though I am more well known as the Princess that rules during the night and helps ponies confront and defeat their nightmares. It is also rare for me to be awake at this point in the day, but I have been making efforts to enjoy the day more often... because everything interesting always happens during the day, regardless of what my sister tells me."

"And I am Princess Celestia of Equestria," Celestia added, nodding her head to the group for a few seconds, "I rule during the day time, during the more 'interesting' part of the day as my sister claims, where I raise the sun while she lowers the moon... or lower the sun while she raises the moon, depending on what time it is. My sister and I reside in Canterlot, the capital of Equestria, though I'm sure that you all noticed the city when you arrived outside Ponyville."

"Indeed we did," Azimuth said, to which he raised a fist over his heart, which was the old greeting of the Lombax Guard that he had been apart of before the collapse of his race, "I am General Alister Azimuth, former Four-Bolt Magistrate of the Lombax Praetorian Guard and former Elder Councilman for the Center for Advanced Lombax Research, though now I work for Lord Orvus and protect the Great Clock... and, more importantly, the timelines themselves."

"I am Ratchet Cross," Ratchet followed up, though he could tell that the three alicorns were surprised to be meeting someone that watched over the timelines, "well known hero throughout the Solana, Bogon, and Polaris Galaxies. I am also the brother of both Starlight and Sunset."

"And I am his wife, Angela Cross," Angela spoke up, politely bowing her head to the royal sisters for a few seconds, "I happen to be one of the highest ranking members of the Jedi Order, as well as a hero like my husband. I also helped modify the Hyperion, which we'll have to show you at some point in the future."

"I am Clank, son of Orvus," Clank stated, his eyes studying the two alicorns, who seemed a little surprised when they noticed that he had the ability to walk and talk, "I have been a constant companion for Ratchet and his family over the years, where I offered my assistance in dealing with whatever villain showed themselves. As I said, I am the son of Orvus, so one day the Great Clock will be mine to watch over and take care of, though I have much to learn before that happens."

"Talwyn Apogee, daughter of Max Apogee," Talwyn said, this time really surprising the three alicorns with how much she sounded like Twilight, which seemed to inspire the lavender mare in some manner, "my expertise is mainly set on figuring out where ancient Lombax artifacts are being kept and recovering them before they can be used to do harm against the people of the universe."

"And I am Captain Qwark, or Qwark if you prefer," Qwark stated, flexing his arms quite a bit, which was custom for him these days, much to the misfortune of everyone around him, "I am a high ranking hero that is known throughout the three known galaxies, though I am a friend of the family and came to ensure that they made it to their destination."

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet all of you, but that leaves me with a question," Celestia commented, staring at all the new faces that were standing before her and her sister, and added Starlight into the mix considering it was her actions that caused someone dear to her heart to follow the mare through the mirror, though it was plainly clear that she was looking for someone, "Where is Sunset Shimmer?"

Starlight and the others shared a look with each other before moving out of the way, to which the two royal alicorns got a glimpse of Sunset's new form, while at the same time Sunset made her way through the group to approach Celestia and Luna. She could tell that Luna was trying to make sense of what she was seeing, which was understandable considering that neither of them should have any experience with humans, but what surprised her was that Celestia seemed to be conflicted. Sunset would have assumed that the mare that had taught her everything she knew about magic would have been shocked to see her in this form, but instead she didn't seem to care that much... which told Sunset that there was more to this than she originally thought.

"Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, I am Sunset Shimmer," Sunset said, bowing her head a tiny bit, making sure to show some level of respect towards the alicorns, especially Celestia, "and I am the God of Destruction for the entirety of our universe."

"G... God of Destruction?" Twilight asked, though at the same time the group could tell that the announcement of what Sunset was had shocked her, as well as the other alicorns.

"That is correct," Sunset replied, to which she beckoned for everyone to sit down, as she knew that constantly standing was against everyone's best interests, especially when there was so much they needed to go over now that she and Starlight had come home, "I am now a powerful being that can pretty much decide the fate of an entire planet, and the people that call that planet home, with a single attack if I so desired, though to be honest I'd rather not blow a planet up unless its necessary."

"It seems that the vision the mirror showed me all those years ago has come true at last," Celestia commented, to which she let out a sigh as everyone turned to her, including her sister and Twilight, "Sunset, back when you were my student I showed you the mirror because it could, given the right circumstances, grant someone a glimpse into their own future, allowing them to see their own potential. It showed you that you would become an alicorn and that knowledge changed how you saw the world, for the worst I might add, though in time events circled back and returned you to the mare I had taught before showing you the mirror... however, you weren't the only one that witnessed what the mirror had to show you. Once you realized your potential future you walked away from the mirror... to which the mirror showed me another future, one that followed your ascension to the rank of alicorn."

"Sister... your not implying that you knew that this was going to happen, are you?" Luna asked, though at the same time she was trying to make sense of everything she was hearing.

"The mirror showed me that Sunset was predestined to become something greater than an alicorn," Celestia replied, earning some shock from Luna and Twilight, while at the same time noticing that none of this appeared to be news to Sunset, Starlight, and their new friends, "of course it also revealed that once she had gained the form she possesses now, and fully ascended into her new position, this world would have been destroyed in a blinding flash of light. I was shocked when the mirror revealed our future to me, and since then I considered how to change the future so such a thing never occurred... but then fate reminded me of the return of Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony, Discord and the chaos he brought, the Crystal Empire and Sombra, and so many other events.

In the heat of all of the changes that our world would be going through, thanks to the rediscovery of the Elements of Harmony, I had all but forgotten about what the mirror showed me and embraced life once again... until you, Sunset Shimmer, returned from saving Nirn, in the form of an alicorn no less. I grew worried for our world, because it was only a matter of time until you realized that you were destined for greater things and ascended once more, but then, on the day you and Starlight disappeared, Discord came to me and confessed his sins. He purposely shattered the anchor on the other side of the mirror so you could grow into your new power, and the position you have acquired, without threatening our world until you returned from your new adventure.

I was shocked that he could so casually stand by his decision to end the existence of another planet in exchange for saving our own, as if he had done nothing wrong, but then I was forced to simply stand by and watch what happened. I felt sorry for whatever world your true power would be awakened on, considering what I knew, but I was unable to go out and assist the people, as the mirror would have sent me somewhere else and would have likely stripped me of my memories and powers. So I watched and waited for you to return until the mirror stopped showing your progress, where I feared the worst... until Luna and I felt the presence of Starlight and departed from Canterlot. The rest you know."

"I... I have a question." Twilight spoke up, causing the group to turn her way for a moment, though it was clear that she was terrified about something.

"Go ahead and ask it," Sunset replied, a smile appearing on her face, because the sooner they cleared everything up the sooner the three alicorns, or rather Twilight and Luna, accepted her new position as the God of Destruction.

"How... how many planets have you destroyed so far?" Twilight asked, though the group could tell that she was inquiring how many innocent lives she had ended since she became what she was.

"Well, there was Koros, PX-17, and Fastoon..." Sunset commented, though she did so in a manner that suggested that she was thinking about something, but that was before she realized that she had only destroyed three planets and had killed only a few thousand people in the process, "actually, I've only blown those three planets to pieces... and each of them had a good reason for their destruction. Trust me, I didn't destroy them for fun."

"Now that sounds like the old Sunset that I remember," Celestia said, to which her own frown was replaced with a smile, "I remember when I was training you in the art of magic you refused to destroy anything around us, insisting that we practice in a mountain cave or near a small body of water. Of course that changed after you looked into the mirror, but now it seems as if you really have returned to who you used to be... only now its your job to..."

Before Celestia could finish what she was saying Spike gagged for a moment and spat out a scroll, which in turn caused both Twilight and Celestia to look at each other for a few seconds, as they were the only ones that sent messages to each other that way and wouldn't have done so when they were in the same room. Sunset, however, realized that the scroll had a fiery aura around it, to which she walked over to it and picked it up, before unraveling it and revealing its contents to her and the others.

"This is from the Wardens that keep the prisoners trapped in Tartarus... and its addressed to me." Sunset commented, to which she looked over what the Wardens could want with her, before she raised an eyebrow, "According to this it appears that Tirek is causing trouble again... though this time he intends on spreading total anarchy throughout the entirety of Tartarus. Such a thing means that he's going to steal back his full power before going through a prison break, which would threaten the entirety of Equus in the process, though seeing how I beat him once in the past they were hoping to enlist my help again."

"Then we had better go there before he escapes... again I might add," Luna said, to which both Celestia and Twilight nodded their agreement, while at the same time they got out of their seats and walked towards the open door.

Sunset sighed as she folded the message and let Starlight levitate it into a folder that she was levitating at the moment, because she had been hoping for some real rest from everything she and the others had been through, but she guessed that ensuring the safety of her home planet would always come first for her. As she and the others followed the alicorns outside she almost felt sorry for Tirek, because he had no idea what was coming his way... nor did he had any idea how much pain he was going to be in once she was done with him.
> Equus: Tartarus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The three princesses followed the group to where the ships they used to reach the planet were located, once again surprising Twilight by the technology that was being presented to her, before Ratchet asked where on the planet the entrance to Tartarus was located. It was then that Ratchet and the others discovered that they really didn't need to use their ships to begin with, as the gateway happened to be located in a clearing that rested near the ruined castle that Celestia and Luna used to rule from. Considering that they were pressed for time, with a creature that the Wardens of Tartarus feared enough to call for aid when he revolted, the group had to wonder why they were wasting time like this.

"Tirek won't be able to escape Tartarus fully this time, not without taking out each and every Warden that patrols the land of the damned," Luna commented, to which she beckoned with a wing and headed towards the Everfree Forest, where Ratchet and the others followed after her and the other alicorns, "which could explain why he's trying to create anarchy; he wants to turn the prisoners against the Wardens so they'll be hunted down, all without wasting the time and energy to take them out himself. To be honest I am surprised that he hasn't tried something like this in the past, but he must not have known that the Wardens had a back up plan in case he decided to act up."

"Who is this Tirek?" Azimuth asked, speaking the question that was currently on the mind of everyone except for the alicorns, Starlight, and Sunset, "I take it he's some sort of monster that you sealed away to prevent him from hurting your people, or something to that effect I wager."

"At one point in time he went by the name 'Lord' Tirek," Celestia commented, though at the same time she used her magic to move some of the branches out of her way as they walked through the entrance of the forest they had approached, "He's a being that absorbs the magic of others, forcefully I might add, and grows when he reaches a certain milestone in the amount of power he steals. The first time we dealt with him we had the help of his brother, which was why Luna and I were able to seal him in Tartarus all those years ago. Then he escaped from Tartarus, without anyone realizing it, and began his rampage, to which Twilight and her friends used the power of Harmony to send him back to his prison, though instead he was sent to Nirn..."

"Which was where I went when I wanted to return home for a few weeks," Sunset added, remembering what had happened when she had stepped through the mirror, and the battle that she had gone through in order to best the demonic centaur, "I scoured Nirn, collected artifacts with the purpose of making sure that they didn't fall into Tirek's hands, and eventually had to fight him myself, where I fulfilled a prophecy and ascended to my alicorn form. The two of us sort of transformed the landscape around us, which was because Tirek's power caused destruction and had nothing to do with what I was becoming. Then I shattered his magic and let the Wardens take him back to Tartarus without most of his magic, which means that he had to have recovered much faster than what anyone could have expected."

"Wait, this monster can absorb magic?" Qwark asked, to which the three alicorns, and Sunset, nodded their heads for a few seconds as they walked through the forest, "Our God of Destruction's powers run on magic, so doesn't that mean that we're practically handing him the power to obliterate the universe?"

"I don't intend to give him the chance to do that," Sunset commented, though at the same time she noticed that one of the Ursa Majors was staring at them as they walked through the forest, to which it backed away when it noticed that she was staring at it, "I learned my lesson the last time he and I crossed paths, after he stole quite a bit of power from some important people I knew, though this time it will be a battle that will likely stop his revolt in its tracks."

Ratchet stared at his sister for a moment, because he detected that she was confident in her abilities to overcome everything that this Tirek threw at her, which wasn't like his sister at all. He knew that her status as the God of Destruction might have changed her in ways that she hadn't noticed yet, but he hoped that she was going to take this as serious as the alicorns were. Though when he took some time to consider the changes that Princess Celestia had mentioned, about how Sunset had been against destruction and had returned to her roots, he noticed that Sunset was serious, which meant she was planning on ending the fight with Tirek before he did something terrible.

When the group emerged in the clearing that the Princess had mentioned they noticed that there was literally no trees in the immediate area around the blackened gateway, though as they approached the swirling gateway they noticed someone standing in front of the gate. The person in question appeared to be bipedal like Ratchet, Angela, and Azimuth, but at the same time the person appeared to be female if their body structure was anything to go by. The Warden, because that was who had to be standing in front of the gate, was dressed up in some sort of crimson colored armor, which was metallic in nature, though her weapon appeared to be some sort of sword... and she was wearing a helmet that prevented them from seeing her face.

As the group walked towards the Warden she seemed to notice them, to which she raised a hand over her heart and bowed to them, though Ratchet and his family suspected that she was more focused on Sunset, but at the same time guessed that the Warden wanted to give them all some level of respect.

"Lady Sunset Shimmer, I am honored to stand in your presence," the Warden said, looking up at Sunset as the group stopped in front of the gateway, "I only wish it was under better circumstances."

"Its a pleasure to have one of the legendary Wardens reach out to me," Sunset replied, knowing that, at one point in time, she had wanted the legendary figures to contact her at some point, but then she became serious about the matter once more, "I received a letter a few minutes ago telling me that Tirek is causing trouble again, so we came as fast as we could without directly teleporting to the gate. What's he doing at the moment?"

"He's taken control of one of the few standing castles, the largest I might add, and has been using it as a base of operations for his revolt," the Warden replied, to which they passed through the gateway and entered Tartarus as a group, where she started leading them towards the place that Tirek had taken over, "He's searching for my brothers and sisters, trying to eliminate the only thing that is keeping him and his army locked away in this land, but we have hidden ourselves well and know to avoid conflict with larger groups to avoid being overrun."

Sunset nodded as they walked down the path that was in front of them, which apparently went right towards the castle that Tirek had taken over, though she discovered that the building in question was like a copy of Canterlot's castle, only twisted by dark colors and the towers had been replaced by large black crystals. The sky itself was much darker than the sky of Equus, though it wasn't pitch black like some scholars believed it to be, and there weren't open fires or screams of the damned everywhere. In fact there were an alarming number of cells that were opened, which matched what the Warden had described when she mentioned that the inmates were revolting, though she knew that most of them would willingly return to their cells once she had finished fighting Tirek.

"Has Tirek killed anyone?" Azimuth asked, because if this was a revolt, and the condemned prisoners were running free, he knew that some of them had to be killers, despite how peaceful the planet they had visited had been.

"Thankfully he and his followers have merely captured those that oppose him," the Warden commented, to which she twisted her head towards the sound of a loose rock, before she calmed down and continued towards the castle, "The way things work in Tartarus is that the only way to seriously weaken our magic, which would allow the prisoners to escape in large numbers, is to trap us inside the cells, effectively making the Wardens the prisoners. We implemented this system when it was revealed that Tirek had escaped the first time, though he might have already uncovered our tactics... or this is dumb luck on his part."

"Then we should focus on letting Sunset take out Tirek," Azimuth said, to which everyone else nodded their heads and agreement, knowing that he had a sound plan in mind already, "if he's the leader of this revolt, as it appears that he is, then taking out the head of the snake will make everyone back off... especially with the power that Lady Sunset recently acquired while she was away."

As they rounded the corner Sunset noticed that there were a large number of prisoners gathering in front of the castle, no doubt waiting for more to arrive before they were given their orders, but she knew that this could be the perfect opportunity to deal with a large number of enemies. She spotted a floating island made of rock, which looked like it overlooked the entire castle grounds, to which she suggested that the Warden lead the others up there so none of them were caught in the crossfire. She really didn't want any of them to be held as a hostage by Tirek, or absorb the powers of Twilight, Celestia, or Luna, to which the three alicorns nodded their understanding and flew up to the island that she had spotted. Starlight, on the other hand, gathered her magic, wrapped it around the rest of their group, and levitated them up to the island, leaving Sunset to approach the castle alone.

As she walked onto the castle grounds, which was more level than anything else she had seen so far, she noticed that all of the inmates around her were staring at her as she approached them, though at the moment none of them raised their weapons... which meant that they were being smart and mentally debating what they should do with her.

"Tirek!" Sunset shouted, causing many of the inmates around her to flinch as she called out the centaur's name, though she didn't care about them at the moment, "Come out of your castle and surrender to the authority of the Wardens and their allies!"

"Who dares to oppose the new Lord of Tartarus?!" a voice shouted in return, to which Sunset watched as the centaur, in a smaller version of his final form no less, emerged on one of the walkways and stared down at her, "Ah, Sunset Shimmer, we meet again. The last time we fought you were empowered by the power of your friends, who aren't here at the moment, and by the power of an alicorn, which you no longer are by the looks of it. Why would I surrender to you? You are nothing but a unicorn that's been twisted into your current form, so I have nothing to fear from someone like you. Soldiers, show her the errors of her way... but make sure that you leave her alive, so I can add her power to mine."

Sunset looked at the enemies that gathered around her, silently daring one of them to throw a punch or something, which was followed by one of the inmates attacking her and causing the other ones to follow suit. Sunset sighed as she dodged the attacks that were coming her way, as they were so slow that she could follow them while only using half of her power if she really wanted, while she studied her opponents. Several of the inmates received punches to their chests, which knocked them to the ground with enough pain to prevent them from moving at the moment, while also shattering several weapons in the process.

Some of the inmates realized that they were unable to actually touch her, which caused them to flee and let their fellow conspirators to face their fate, but at the same time Sunset used a small amount of her power to summon a gust of wind that literally knocked all of her enemies onto their backs. She then glared at all of them, daring one of them to come at her again, but apparently the inmates were still weakened from being in their cells, because they decided to run and left the courtyard... to which she turned towards the centaur once more.

"I will only say this one more time," Sunset shouted, though at the same time she stared at her opponent, because she knew that he was going to fight her to the very end no matter what, "Surrender to the Wardens and stop this revolt... otherwise pain will be your only reward for everything you have done so far."

"Again you talk big, and it is pissing me off," Tirek commented, though at the same time he jumped off the walkway he was on and landed on the courtyard, where he stared at Sunset, "Come then, Sunset Shimmer, let us fight each other once more... though I promise you that this time the outcome will be much different than the one on Nirn."

Sunset knew that the outcome of this fight would be different from the last one, because this time she was a God of Destruction and Tirek wasn't empowered by the powers of godly creatures, but she let out a sigh and prepared herself. Before she made a move, however, she noticed that a sinister red aura was surrounding Tirek, which meant that he was powering himself up with the intention of going with his full power from the very beginning. Now that she knew what her opponent was doing she moved both of her hands behind her back and waited for him to finish, knowing that a large number of people would generally attack a foe when they were powering up, but she wasn't about to do that with Tirek. She knew that if she could beat the centaur at his full power, like she had done the last time, it would damage his resolve and maybe break his spirit... preventing him from doing something like this again once he knew that she would keep coming back to face him time and time again.





"What is she doing?" Qwark asked, not understanding why Sunset would purposely allow Tirek, who happened to be a centaur, to increase his power to its full potential.

"She's allowing Tirek to use his full power," Celestia commented, already knowing what her previous personal student was planning on doing, while at the same time she silently agreed that this was the best course of action, "Sunset is thinking that if she beats Tirek while he is at his full power, like she did back on Nirn, it might make him reconsider what he's doing and persuade him that trying again in the future is a mistake."

"Hopefully she can convince him that it is futile to continue attacking Equus," Luna added, feeling the desire to join the battle rising already, though at the same time she knew that this time she would have to stand back and watch what was going to happen.

As Starlight and the others nodded their heads in understanding, while leaving Qwark somewhat confused by the specifics of what they were referring to, Starlight noticed that there was someone else on the island with them. The person in question happened to be a short man with pale blue colored skin, purple colored eyes, and slicked white colored hair that was pushed backwards. The man also had a blue halo that was resting near the back of his head, while at the same time he was wearing a dark green outfit with an orange triangle on his shirt and a pair of white boots of some kind. Starlight had no idea who this man was, but at the moment she knew that he wasn't a part of Tartarus, while at the same time she didn't like how he was looking down at Sunset and Tirek.

It appeared that she wasn't the only one that noticed there was a stranger nearby, because Celestia was walking over to the man while they waited for Tirek to finish powering up to his full potential.

"Greetings, I am Princess Celestia of Equestria," Celestia said, causing the man to glance in her direction for a moment, though he didn't seem too annoyed by her presence, "I can tell that you are different from the Wardens and everyone that resides in this realm. So tell me, why have you come to Tartarus?"

"I came here to watch the new God of Destruction fight," the man replied, his eyes shifting towards Sunset once more, which immediately told Celestia that there was something more that he wasn't telling her, "I also came to speak with her about some... important... matters, ones that only the God of Destruction can deal with."

"Then you arrived in time to witness her battle with Tirek," Celestia commented, to which she stopped near the man and turned towards the duo that was below them, knowing that the stranger deserved some distance between the two of them so he didn't think that she was invading his personal space.

"Indeed I have," the man said, though it was at that moment that a small smile appeared on his face for the briefest of seconds, before it disappeared completely, "and it seems that they'll be starting soon."

Celestia nodded and joined the others in looking down at the area below them, where they would be able to witness the fight that was about to happen... and see what destruction Sunset brought to Tirek.





When Tirek's aura disappeared Sunset raised an eyebrow as she looked upon the humanoid form that the centaur had taken on when he attacked Nirn, though instead of him being old and wrinkly he was in the years that would tell someone that he was in his prime. He appeared to be about thirty years old, though at the same time his arms had taken on a crimson color while his chest was still black colored, but at the same time he had dropped the centaur form and went with a more humanoid shape with hooves in place of his feet, along with some pants to cover his lower body. His horns still curled outwards from his head and then twisted back towards his head, completing the look he had gone with so long ago, but this time Sunset didn't fear his transformed, and empowered, state.

"I saved this form in my head after you beat me the last time," Tirek said, to which he walked to the left for a moment, while at the same time smiling at Sunset the entire time, "I have since discovered that my humanoid form is much stronger than my centaur form, though the fact that you aren't running or shaking in terror, like you were the last time I took on this form, just makes me even angrier at you."

"Why would I be scared of you?" Sunset asked, not even bothering to pull her hands out from behind her back, while at the same time keeping her eyes on her foe, "I am the God of Destruction for this universe... anything you can do will be nothing compared to what I can do to you."

"You? A God of Destruction?" Tirek said, to which he chuckled for a few seconds, though he was loud enough that his minions chuckled as well, "Please, you aren't a God of Destruction. You don't have the guts to destroy anything on the scale that I can, much less kill everyone that's caught in the crossfire... especially if what happened on Nirn is anything to judge you by."

"Are you going to keep talking, or are you actually going to fight me?" Sunset asked, because if Tirek was going to keep talking she was just going to approach him and blast him back into the castle with enough force to shatter some of the walls and crush several of his bones.

Tirek roared for a second as his dark energy flared around his body, which was followed by a large dark orange colored sphere with an outer ring that was colored black, roughly twice the size of Sunset's new body, flared into existence in front of him. Once the attack was fully formed he loosed the sphere and sent it flying towards where Sunset was standing at the moment, to which she let out a sigh, pulled her right arm out from behind her back, and held her palm out so that it could face the sphere. A few seconds later the sphere stopped in front of her, where it was an inch or half an inch from touching her, though she didn't feel the need to back up or anything... because she was vastly disappointed in the amount of power that had been put into the attack.

"Ha! How do you like that!" Tirek shouted, to which the revolting inmates that were following him cheered, because they assumed that their empowered leader had done something that they could not, "Do you see Celestia? It was a fluke that Sunset could beat me the first time, which means that once I have sealed every last Warden in their precious cells I'll be coming for the magic of Equus once more."

"You need to take me seriously," Sunset said, causing Tirek to turn towards her as she shattered the sphere of energy without even moving a muscle, "I mean, if that was you at your best, and I seriously hope it wasn't, then I had better just end this now and not waste anymore of our time."

Tirek growled and charged at Sunset, swinging his arms at her in an attempt to slam her into the ground and break her like he had back on Nirn, before her ascension to being an alicorn. Energy danced around his arms as he attacked her, though at the same time she merely ducked and weaved around the slow attacks that came her way, leaving her disappointed in her opponent once more. As Sunset moved away from the attacks she also blocked several of them with her right pointer finger, because her foe was moving so slow that she needed nothing more than that to stop the centaur in his tracks.

After a minute of toying with Tirek, and not even letting him land a single hit, Sunset ducked under one attack and touched his chest for a moment, sending enough force into his chest to send him flying through the air and forcing him to collide with the wall behind him. The inmates that were watching let out a chorus of gasps as their leader was forced backwards, though at the same time Sunset could hear the uncertainty in their voices without them even saying anything. Tirek had been unable to touch her even once, not before she blasted him back into the wall, so they were apparently weighing their options in the face of their new discovery.

A few seconds later Tirek pulled himself from the wall and stretched his arms, indicating that her power hadn't put him down just yet, but she had been planning on forcing him to reveal what he could really do, because she wanted a challenge before she finished him off.

"You are definitely stronger than you were the last time we fought," Tirek commented, to which he spat out some blood onto the ground as he pulled himself to his full height, "but even then you cannot hope to beat me. Sooner or later you'll slip up and then I'll strike, where you'll suffer a devastating attack that nearly shattered the planet we last fought on. Then, when you are broken and bleeding, I'll break out of Tartarus and cover Equus in a fire that will reduce it to a barren world... and then I'll tear open a hole to a new planet and start over until all of creation belongs to me."

"Bring forth your full power," Sunset said, staring at Tirek the entire time, because she wanted to see the centaur's full power and judge whether or not he was worth the effort to even use her full power, the power of a God of Destruction, against her opponent, "because right now you don't stand a chance against me... so push yourself to the max and bring out every ounce of power you have to call upon."

Tirek growled and floated into the air, where he kept his eyes upon his opponent the entire time, while feeling annoyed that everything he had done to her so far appeared to have no effect of her at all. It was like he was relieving the nightmare that had brought about his defeat on Nirn, though this time he was at a disadvantage considering that he couldn't hurt his opponent this time around. It actually made him wonder if he had a chance to beat Sunset, but the thought of losing to her, for a second time, infuriated him, to which he allowed his red hot anger to wrap around him as he gathered his energy into a large flaming sphere of destruction that was twice as large as the last one he had thrown.

"Behold, Sunset Shimmer, a ball of energy that has enough power to decimate the immediate area that is around the castle I have taken over," Tirek shouted, knowing that this time he would annihilate his opponent and claim control over all of the magic in Equus, "With this you will die and I shall take over the planet you sought to protect with all of your power!"

Tirek lowered his hands and set the ball of energy down towards the castle's courtyard, noticing while his minions ran for their lives, and retreated to an area where they could watch without being harmed, Sunset merely stood there and watched as the ball came towards her. He couldn't believe that she was just standing there, letting the destructive ball of energy come at her, but he would gladly take her silent submission and destroy her where she stood. Soon the sphere came into contact with where she was standing and started to glow as it pushed itself deep into the courtyard, where he knew that in a matter of seconds it would detonate and take the entire castle with it.

He landed near the sphere and watched as it pushed itself further into the ground, though after a few seconds he noticed something odd about the attack. A few seconds passed before the sphere stopped its descent and started moving in the opposite direction, to which he watched in shock as Sunset moved out of the crater she was in and pushed his attack into the air. He was equally shocked to discover that she was wasn't phased by the attack at all, indicating that his full power hadn't been able to wound her at all... in fact he couldn't even leave any dust or scratches on her skin or the odd clothing she was wearing.

A few seconds later she heaved the attack into the air and used her energy to grind the sphere into nothing, taking a brief moment to note that there was a hint of dark purple around her magic, which she knew had to represent the destruction aspect of her new abilities.

"Is this really the best you can do?" Sunset commented, to which she stared at Tirek for a few seconds, wondering how she could have had so much trouble with him in the past, "What happened to the being that could only be defeated by the power of Harmony? What happened to the centaur that could devastate worlds and cause the ground to buckle under the weight of his attacks? Here, maybe I should show you one of them."

As Sunset walked towards Tirek, and took her time in the matter, she allowed her energy to gather around her left fist, similar to the attack she had used to shake the ground and cause devastating earthquakes that had been the original reason people had feared her powers. She reflected on the fact that she had kept this power under wraps ever since she had merged with two of her aspects during the time Vox had her and her family captured, but now she had to admit that she was curious as to the destruction she could cause with this attack now that she was a God of Destruction. As she walked forward she noticed that Tirek was remaining where he was standing, though he was either foolishly standing his ground or he was stricken with a level of fear that he wasn't used to feeling.

When she drew close to Tirek she remembered what he had done to her back on Nirn, and the pain that had coursed through her body, so she held her right hand out and grasped her foe with her magic, to which he seemed to snap out of his frozen condition and tried to struggle against her power. She mentally smiled as she used her magic to lift Tirek into the air, similar to what he had done to her, though when she was right in front of him she accessed her power and threw him into the air. She kept a ring of her magic around the centaur's chest and waited as she brought her left fist by the right side of her body, as she intended to repay the centaur for what he had done on Nirn... though after a few seconds she pulled on the magic to bring him back down to her.

A few moments later she spun around and planted the side of her fist in the right side of Tirek's chest, stopping him from reaching the ground while she cracked both the air around them and the ribs that were under her fist... though that was followed by what she had been anticipating.

That was followed by the ground beneath their feet beginning to violently shake, worse than the 10.0 earthquake she had caused back on Yeedil, though at the same time the ground cracked all around them. Sunset could literally feel the air around them vibrating with the intensity of her power, while the revolting prisoners cowered in fear as the ground separated into multiple sections and moved away from each other. She also watched as the ground around her broke apart and sections fell into the abyss that existed below the castle, while the walls of the castle itself cracked and shattered under the weight of her power. Even one of the castle's towers shattered into a large number of pieces, each of which fell to the ground all around the base of the castle, though some of them were unlucky enough to descend into the darkness beneath them.

When the deed was done, and the worst of the shaking was over, Sunset caught Tirek as he fell off her fist and tossed him backwards, where she allowed him to squirm and feel the pain that she had inflicted on him. She was pleased to have gotten some measure of revenge for what happened on Nirn, but she knew that, at his current level, there was no reason to bother finishing the fight... not when he had likely gotten the message. She also noticed that her power had extended passed the boundaries of the castle's courtyard, as it appeared the the areas around the castle were still shaking, tearing apart known structures while reshaping the entire landscape of Tartarus. She had known that her power of destruction was powerful, if everything she had done in the past was anything to take into consideration, but sometimes she even surprised herself with the level of devastation that was happening all around the realm.

"W... what are you?" Tirek asked, somehow finding the strength to get back onto his hooves, though at the same time he knew that he wasn't in any condition to fight her, not without some serious training, "You aren't the Sunset Shimmer I remember fighting back on Nirn."

"I told you Tirek, I am the God of Destruction for this universe," Sunset replied, to which she moved her hands behind her back for a moment, "You should consider yourself lucky that I'm going to spare your life today, because now that you know some of the power that I command you should do the reasonable thing and stop this revolt of yours. Should the Wardens call me back to deal with you again, if you case more trouble for them, I shall return and break you again... but should you upset them a third time, and force them to call upon me, I'll just destroy you where you stand."

"D... destroy?" Tirek stated, though Sunset could hear the terror in his voice, because it meant that he was imagining what she meant by the single word.

Before Sunset could open her mouth to explain what she meant, and describe what had happened to the last person she had used the skill on, she felt the presence of another inmate charging at her. Instead of dodging or moving out of the way she pulled her left hand out from behind her back and raised it into the air, catching the sword that was coming to strike her down and stopping the inmate in the process. Normally she would have forgiven the inmate for trying to kill her, because it really wasn't her place to judge the condemned, but this time she decided that she could make an exception to show Tirek what would happen to him if the Wardens called upon her two more times.

As she thought about what she could do now, and ensure that Tirek didn't do anything like this again in the future, she pulled some of her destructive energy into her right hand, to which she prepared herself for what she was about to do.

"Watch closely Tirek, this is what I meant when I could destroy you where you stand," Sunset said, to which she raised her right hand and leveled it with the inmate that had attacked her, making sure that the palm was facing her target before she said the word that would change how everyone viewed her, "Hakai."

The inmate barely had time to register what was happening as the attack struck his core, to which he started to scream in pure agony as his very being started to unravel before both his eyes and before Tirek's eyes. Sunset held onto the inmate for a few seconds, ensuring that the technique had a firm hold on the condemned inmate, before letting go and watching as the inmate's body broke apart into a thousand tiny particles. The screaming continued for a few seconds, though once the entirety of the inmate's body had been destroyed the screaming stopped, indicating that she had erased his entire existence with a single word.

With the deed done Sunset returned her hands to behind her back and faced Tirek, who was shaking in fear for his own safety now that he knew what was at stake if he caused trouble two more times. Sunset nodded her head once and started moving towards the edge of the courtyard, where she levitated into the air and flew up to where her group was waiting for her. As she landed on the floating island she noticed that the three princesses were surprised by what she had done, while her friends and family weren't, but as the Warden flew down to the area to take stock of what had happened down there, however, Sunset noticed a strange man standing near Celestia... though at the same time she respectfully bowed to him when he walked over to her and the others.

"Sunset Shimmer, God of Destruction for Universe 13," the strange man said, his voice indicating that he was powerful despite how he looked, though at the same time Sunset knew that something was up, "I am the Grand Priest. I have come to talk with you about some important matters that are related to your universe."

Sunset nodded her head and knew that something was up, because the stranger, who had identified himself as the Grand Priest, had said that her universe was actually Universe 13, which meant that everything she had learned about the twelve other universes was actually real. If she was correct in her thinking, and she assumed that she was, that meant that the other twelve Gods of Destruction she had read about, Beerus and the others, were actually real and were busy keeping their own universes in order. If she followed this reasoning she could quickly determine that the Grand Priest was here to find out who the Supreme Kai of her universe was, the being capable of eventually creating worlds to replace what she had already destroyed, as well as her Angel, the being that kept watch over her and stopped her if she really went on a rampage, or something to that effect.

Sunset wondered, for a few moments, how she and the Grand Priest were going to go about choosing who best fit those roles, but she had the feeling that the people, or rather ponies, who would soon fill those roles were close to her, even if they had no idea what was coming their way at the moment.
> Equus: The Grand Priest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once her business in Tartarus was finished, and the Wardens assured her that they didn't need help routing the remaining inmates that had scattered after Tirek's defeat, Sunset and her companions headed back towards the gateway that would allow them to return to the Everfree Forest. From there they could traverse the forest for a few minutes and then return to Twilight's castle, where Sunset was sure that she and the Grand Priest, the mysterious stranger that had shown up to talk with her, would spend some time talking before she figured out what he wanted from her. She still wondered if the Grand Priest was here to help her decide who her Angel and Supreme Kai were, though at the same time she kept her thoughts to herself until she discovered what was going to happen.

That, of course, didn't stop Twilight from asking Starlight about her adventure on the other side of the mirror, where Starlight promised to tell her everything she, Sunset, and Ratchet had gone through... where she also warned her that it would likely take a day or two to go through everything, leaving Twilight to giggle about the possible knowledge that she was about to acquire.

As they walked Sunset noticed that Celestia and Luna were glancing at the Grand Priest every now and then, making sure that he wasn't going to try anything funny while he followed them. She, on the other hand, knew that the stranger wasn't here to fight them, because if he had come here with that in mind she was sure that he would have attacked the moment she was finished with Tirek. She was also sure that the man had business elsewhere, especially if there were twelve other universes that required his attention from time to time, as well as the other twelve Gods of Destruction. Sunset also found it amusing that all this time she had assumed that Beerus and the other Destroyer Gods had been nothing but stories, only to discover, by the appearance of the Grand Priest, that they were actually real.

Sunset had an idea how the people of Old Earth, the Universe 13 version of Earth as she mentally reflected, could have known about the twelve Gods and their universes, though she would have to share it with Starlight and the others before the end of the day.

When they emerged from the forest Sunset was pleased to see that the town was alright, because based on everything that Twilight had told her, before she had chased Starlight through the mirror, she had expected something interesting to happen while they were away. As she wondered why the town seemed so ordinary, which was strange to think about when she considered that Discord was living with Fluttershy, but she had to take the mirror into consideration. She had to wonder if the mirror had done more than send her and Starlight away from Equus, though when the thought crossed her mind she immediately discarded it, because if more ponies were missing she was sure that Twilight would have been freaking out at this point... unless she was doing a better job at hiding that part of her and was keeping it all trapped inside herself.

As they approached the castle, however, Sunset and Starlight immediately spotted Spike standing in front of the door, as he had been left behind to hold down the fort while they went to deal with Tirek, though the moment he spotted them he smiled and seemed to cheer up. Sunset remembered the story that Twilight had told her at one point, where Tirek destroyed the library that she and Spike had been living in since they arrived in Ponyville, so she understood that he was worried about all of them. She smiled in return, knowing that the small dragon would appreciate the gesture, while at the same time wondering why he seemed a little nervous, because she spotted him glancing back at the front door for a moment... as if something had actually happened while they were in Tartarus.

"Spike, you didn't have to wait outside while we were in Tartarus," Twilight commented, noticing that her assistant was standing outside the castle, while at the same time wondering if something had happened while they were away, "Did something happen to Ponyville while we were away?"

"No... not exactly," Spike said, to which he opened the doors and beckoned everyone inside, allowing them to walk inside the castle before closing the doors and making his way towards the ballroom, "but, um, Discord showed up while you were away... and he's pacing around the ballroom, insisting that he needs to tell you something."

Sunset immediately flashed back to when Celestia had told them that Discord had come to her to confess his sins about tampering with the mirror and sending both her and Starlight to another part of the universe, while at the same time sending them back between twenty to thirty years. She would not blame the Spirit of Disharmony for what he had done, because it was because of his actions that he had spared Equus from being destroyed when she reached her godly state on her own terms. Still, it actually made her wonder what Discord wanted with them, though she had the feeling that she and the others would find out when they entered the ballroom... where they found the chimera actually pacing around the room, as if he was lost in thought.

They actually stood there for a few seconds, just to watch Discord pace around like a literal madman that was stressing over something, before he finally noticed that they were all standing there... though when Sunset noticed a look of fear appear on his face, for a brief second anyway, she had to wonder if it was her he was looking at or if he was staring at the Grand Priest.

"G... Grand Priest sama," Discord stumbled to say, immediately indicating that he knew the Grand Priest, in some fashion that no one else was aware of, "I wasn't aware that you would be visiting today. Can I get you and the others anything for while you talk?"

"Just some tea will do... the flavor doesn't matter," the Grand Priest said, to which Discord nodded his head and bolted from the room, leaving the man to turn to the group as they took their seats, "I know that a few new questions have formed in your minds thanks to Discord, though the first one would be how the two of us know each other."

"That's correct," Celestia replied, because thanks to all the years she and Luna had spent dealing with the Spirit of Disharmony, and the chaos he brought, she and her sister knew that they had never seen Discord that scared before... especially when they brought the Elements of Harmony to bare against him.

"Discord has been watching Universe 7 for some time," the Grand Priest commented, though at the same time he extended a hand and called upon an image of the Destroyer of that universe, but as Sunset focused on Beerus for a few seconds she noticed two familiar people standing around him, "When I confronted him about what he was doing, the one time he actually entered the universe, he stated that he was looking for two of the ponies that called this planet home; Rainbow Dash and Applejack, if my memory is correct."

"Is that so?" Sunset asked, though at the same time she was interested as to what the girls were doing there, while making a mental note to ask Twilight if she knew about this fact, "This image indicates that someone has been taking good care of them since their arrival, along with showing that they have been changed into a more reasonable form... just like the one I now possess."

"From what I understand the mirror is behind the changes that you see," the Grand Priest said, to which the group paused as Discord came back into the room and literally handed everyone something to drink, though once that was done the Spirit moved over to a nearby chair and took a seat, apparently waiting his turn to say something, "Beerus, Whis, Chronoa, and Shin have been taking good care of them since they first arrived on Beerus' planet, though it will be some time before they are allowed to return to this universe."

"They got sent into the past, didn't they?" Starlight inquired, because she had picked up some useful information from her time in the Great Clock and had an idea why the two girls weren't allowed to return just yet.

"That's correct," the Grand Priest replied, taking a sip from the cup that had been placed in front of him, to which he nodded towards Discord for a moment before turning back to the group, "For you their return would happen in a week or two, as at the moment they are wrapping up some unfinished business on their end, but for them, however, it will be a matter of years before they can cross over."

"Discord's magic is responsible for them being displaced in the first place," Qwark commented, causing the group to turn towards him for a moment, "couldn't we just ask him to, I don't know, follow his magic to wherever Rainbow and Applejack went and just pull them back to this world?"

"I would if I could," Discord spoke up, though at the same time the group noticed that he hadn't touched the cup he had poured for himself, "Sure, I can trace them to the planet, or in this case the universe, that they were sent to by the mirror, but forcefully summoning them back to this world would pretty much destroy the pony they had been before they entered the mirror. They would return without the ability to remember who they used to be, while at the same time they wouldn't be able to remember any of the relationships they made and they would have no idea who they were. However, if I waited for the time magic to wear off, and restore them to an age where their old memories could seamlessly fit in with their new memories, then nothing bad would happen.

Also, the thought of ripping Rainbow and Applejack out of Universe 7, the home of Beerus the Destroyer, scares me, as I worried that he would go berserk and cause a war with our universe until he got his daughters back. That is why I have been trying to observe the girls from a distance... as well as anyone else that has recently crossed through the mirror."

Sunset, now knowing that others had accessed the mirror, wasn't too surprised to find that Discord was checking up on those he had unknowingly displaced, as he had come to check up on her and Starlight at one point. However, the way that he said that there were others that had used the mirror, other than Rainbow and Applejack, made her wonder just how many ponies had been displaced since he tampered with the mirror.

"Discord, we know that Rainbow and Applejack used the mirror," Luna said, staring at the Spirit of Disharmony for a few seconds, knowing that she wasn't going to like the answer that he was going to give them when she asked her question, "so tell us, who else as accessed the mirror?"

"Well, I know Pinkie Pie used the mirror shortly after Rainbow and Applejack," Discord commented, to which he pulled out a small notepad and looked at it, making Sunset worry that there were a lot more displaced ponies than just the three she now knew about, "and, according to all my readings, I have come up with a list of those that have crossed through the mirror; Gilda, Derpy Hooves, Lyra Heartstrings, Trixie, Sombra, and the Sirens, though they used the other anchor and not the mirror in the other room. Even Chrysalis, ex queen of the Changelings, stopped by to use to mirror, though she refused to listen to my arguments and went in anyway."

"Discord... that's twelve lives you've ruined," Twilight said, her mind trying to come to terms with the amount of ponies, and Sirens, that she and the others would need to find the location of and bring them back when the time was right, while at the same time trying to keep herself from collapsing in pure shock.

"I understand your shock Twilight," Celestia said, draping a wing over her former student for a few seconds, before she glared at Discord, "I know that you were looking out for our world when you shattered the anchor and sent Sunset off to another part of the universe, but couldn't you have just closed the mirror once she was on the other side? Its obvious that she and Starlight didn't need it to return to Equus, so wouldn't it have been safer to permanently close the mirror, before something like this happened?"

"That would have left Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack stranded in their new worlds." Discord replied, indicating that he had thought about everything that had happened, "Now, I'm sure that Rainbow and Applejack have a way home, if our friend here is any indication of what can happen, but I couldn't leave the others stranded... especially when some were sent to worlds with little to no magic to begin with. I have been spending most of my energy trying to figure out which planets the others have been sent to and keeping an eye on them, which is draining thanks to how many eyes I have had to create over the last few weeks."

"I hate to interrupt your conversation, but I will be needed back at Zen-Oh sama's palace within the next sixty minutes," the Grand Priest said, to which he set down his cup, which happened to be empty, and looked over at Sunset, who turned her attention back to him, "I will cut to the heart of why I came here, to your lovely planet, and witnessed your fight with the being you call Tirek; I came to see who will take up the position of the Supreme Kai of this universe, as well as who would be willing to be your Angel."

"Could you please explain what these stations are?" Luna asked, because she was curious as to what the roles of the 'Supreme Kai' and the 'Angel' were, while at the same time she knew that Twilight and the others were curious as well, "We know that you're pressed for time, but it would help our decision making."

"Very well, I suppose that its only fair to explain these things to you before you make a decision," the Grand Priest said, to which he looked at everyone as he summoned the image of Beerus once more, though this time the projection of the God of Destruction was accompanied by a projection of someone with a staff and a second projection of someone that was somewhat shorter than the other two, "The Supreme Kai are essentially Gods of Creation, as they provide the catalyst for life and planets to be born, as opposed to the Gods of Destruction, who destroy life and planets, which maintains the balance of the universe. Basically they watch over the universe, sometimes advise the worlds that they are watching over, and, in the instance of Shin and Beerus, sometimes the Supreme Kai finds a planet that has to be destroyed for the safety of the universe..."

"Where the Supreme Kai will tell their Destroyer about the planet," Azimuth commented, knowing what the Grand Priest was going to say and was beating him to the punch, "which leads to that planet's destruction."

"Indeed." the Grand Priest agreed, though if he was upset over being cut off he wasn't revealing it to the group, "Angels, on the other hand, exist to guide and teach their God of Destruction to master their destructive powers, while at the same time being an attendant for them. They are also slightly more powerful than their God of Destruction, as there are times where an act of destruction needs to be stopped because of some reason. As you can see, from the projection of Whis, all Angels carry a staff that allows them to speak with people over long distances, or observe events that their Destroyer is interested in."

Sunset had known about some of the responsibilities of the Supreme Kai and the Angel, as the Codex fragments they had acquired on the other universes stopped once it revealed that there were twelve universes, thirteen if she counted her own universe. The knowledge they had on the other universes was incomplete, which meant that she had no idea what could happen when they determined who her Angel and Supreme Kai were.

"I will gladly accept the responsibility of being Sunset's Angel," Celestia said, surprising most of the group for a few seconds, as well as her own sister in the process, but at the same time Sunset smiled at her, "I don't know any of the rituals or rites that we would go through to make someone an Angel, but I am more than willing to do anything that's required of me."

"Oh, we don't need to do anything like that," the Grand Priest said, to which he snapped his fingers for a second and a scepter, one that was gold on the top and bottom, while fire orange colored in the middle, appeared near the table, though at the same time the group noticed that at the top of the scepter rested a black orb that was surrounded by a blue ring, "I prepared this ahead of time, though because I knew that a pony was bound to volunteer to be Lady Sunset's Angel I added a little something to it. Go ahead and grasp it with your magic."

Celestia nodded and pulled herself from where she was sitting, to which she approached the scepter and studied it for a moment, where she noticed that the color mimicked the flame that had surrounded Sunset earlier. She sighed for a moment and took the scepter with her magic, to which she felt a strange power surge through her magic and enter her body. A light surrounded her for a few seconds, where she felt her body changing on her, though at the same time she didn't feel any pain from it, which she assumed had to be part of what the Grand Priest had done to the scepter. When the light faded a few seconds later she heard several gasps when the others took in what had happened to her, to which she looked down at her body and nearly gasped in surprise.

Her body had changed into the hybrid form that Sunset was locked into, though she noticed that while her front hooves had turned into hands, and her forelegs into arms, her hind legs and hooves remained the same, only repositioned so she could walk like a bipedal creature, like Ratchet or Sunset. As she looked at her new form she noticed that her wings had been taken away, to which she determined that she could learn a new flying technique from Sunset, while at the same time noticing that her body now resembled Sunset's, with the partly human anatomy, the pony tail, and the pony ears that she now had. She also discovered that she was wearing some new clothing that resembled the clothing that the man called Whis was wearing, though where Whis' was reddish colored hers was golden yellow, much like her former attire.

The strangest part about it was the Angel markings that mimicked the diamonds on Sunset's sash, but she figured that it was part of determining which God of Destruction she served... though she also bowed to the Grand Priest in respect for a few seconds.

"Well, that was a rather easy decision," the Grand Priest commented, to which he snapped his fingers again and summoned a bracelet of some kind, though the group knew that if another pony took it they would be changed to match Sunset and Celestia's new forms, "Now then, who shall take the position of the Supreme Kai for this universe?"

"I propose that Twilight be the one to take on the title and role of the Supreme Kai," Celestia spoke up, to which she looked at the rest of the assembled group, and noticed that her sister seemed unsure of allowing Twilight to jump in power once more, "Luna, remember that Twilight is the first pony, since the time of Starswirl himself, that has created new magic and understood every school of magic that she has so far discovered. Despite all of her outbursts, she has proven that she can keep calm under pressure and find a solution that works for everyone, so I cannot think of anyone more suited to be the Supreme Kai than her."

"If you say so sister," Luna said, knowing that she trusted her sister's judgement, though at the same time she wouldn't deny that she was a little jealous of her and Twilight, because she was sure that the change in form had empowered her sister... and would likely do the same to young Twilight.

Twilight stood there for a few seconds, as it was clear that she was unsure of what she should do, but she eventually let out a sigh and used her magic to levitate the bracelet over to her, where she could feel the power surging into her body. She gasped as the light surrounded her and felt her body shifting, though she was surprised to discover that there wasn't any pain, just like if she had used the mirror to travel to the other world that Sunset had been on for some number of years before she had decided to return home. When the light faded she looked down and found that her body mimicked Sunset's, as well as Celestia's, though she was roughly the same height as Sunset, if not a little shorter. She found it odd to be in a form that was a mix of human and pony, where she had her tail, pony ears, and horn, while at the same time her wings had been taken... though personally she didn't mind losing her wings.

She also noticed that the clothing that had been created on her new form, just like what had happened when Celestia had transformed into her Angel form, actually mimicked the clothing of the mysterious Supreme Kai that was standing near Beerus and Whis, though the coloration was fire orange, much like the other pieces of attire that Sunset and Celestia were wearing.

"Now that I have found out what I came here to find out, and have helped you choose who Lady Sunset's Angel and Supreme Kai are, its time for me to leave," the Grand Priest commented, to which he stood up and nodded his head to Sunset, who stood up and gave him a slight bow anyway, before he conjured a book and levitated it over to Twilight, "That will help you understand your new role and all your new responsibilities, though I do know that you will have some time to relax before you are all summoned before Zen-Oh and the other Gods."

"We eagerly await the time where we can stand before Zen-Oh and the other Gods," Sunset said, knowing that she was eager to meet with Beerus, especially when it appeared that Rainbow and Applejack were currently living in his universe at the moment.

The Grand Priest nodded before walking outside, to which the group watched as he levitated into the air and summoned some sort of portal or gateway that allowed him to travel the distance between Equus and wherever Zen-Oh's palace was located. A few seconds later the Grand Priest disappeared before their eyes, to which the gateway he had opened disappeared the moment he was gone, leaving the group to come to terms with what had happened. Once they were sure they were alone Sunset turned to Twilight and Celestia, where she noticed that the two of them were having some difficulty with walking in their new forms, to which she smiled at them.

"It seems that all of us are going to be learning something over the next few days," Sunset commented, causing the group to look at her for a few seconds, before she turned to Discord, "You and I shall have words about searching for the planets that the other displaced ponies have been sent to thanks to the mirror, but for now you should continue whatever you were doing before the Grand Priest showed up."

As Discord nodded his head, and moved to head to wherever he was keeping track of all the ponies he had displaced, Sunset turned back to everyone else and smiled, because she could teach Celestia and Twilight how to walk and harness the power that came with their new forms. Then, one they had settled into a routine, they could talk with Discord and figure out where the other ponies were located, which would take some time and effort on their part, especially if time magic was involved. There was also no telling when the Grand Priest would come and summon them to Zen-Oh's palace, but she was going to make sure that they had time for some training sessions before that time came.

Sunset turned her smile towards the sky for a few seconds, because she was interested in seeing what happened when Rainbow and Applejack returned... along with the people that were watching after them at the moment. She was excited for the possibility of meeting Lord Beerus, but at the moment she decided to focus on what was happening and help both Celestia and Twilight... because she knew that they would need some help adjusting to their new forms, and then they could focus on bringing stability to their entire universe.
> Equus: Vacation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset yawned as she pulled herself out of the bed that she had slept in the previous night, as Twilight had been kind enough to give her a room for the night, while at the same time doing the same thing for the rest of the group from the Polaris Galaxy. Twilight and Celestia, along with Starlight and Luna, had gone deep into the night learning about the responsibilities of both the Supreme Kai and the Angel, as two of them were interested in their new responsibilities while the other two were satisfying their own curiosity. Sunset knew that she needed to know what the others did, and had spent some time with them as they read through the book that the Grand Priest had given Twilight, but after everything that had happened that day, and her fight with Tirek, she had retired to the room she had been given and went to sleep.

She looked over at the stand that happened to be in the room when she walked through the door, where she had taken off her godly mantle and baggy style pants before climbing into bed, but after letting out a sigh she collected the components of her godly attire and pulled them back into place. Once her clothing was back in place she headed towards the door and opened it, to which she walked down the hallway and made her way towards the room where she had left the others. When she reached the library, where the others had retired with the book, she found that only Celestia and Luna were awake, which was understandable considering that they were the ones that had raised the sun and moon every day, for most of their seemingly immortal lives.

As Sunset took a few more steps into the library she discovered that Starlight happened to be sleeping on a nearby couch, while at the same time Twilight was sprawled over the piece of furniture she was laying on, apparently adapting to her new form with some ease.

"Good morning Sunset," Celestia commented, apparently noticing her former student, turned God of Destruction, enter the room that she and her sister were in, to which she held up a cup of coffee, where Sunset noticed that both of the sisters were drinking some as well, "I take it that you slept well?"

"I did," Sunset replied, taking the cup with her hand, while at the same time noticing that Celestia was already accustomed to using her new body, as if she had prior experience with a body that was similar to her new one, before shaking her head and taking a sip of the coffee, "Did either of you sleep, or have you been studying the book that the Grand Priest left for us?"

"I took several breaks during the night, to simply stretch my legs and get some rest," Luna spoke up, before she pointed at her sister with the quill that was held in her magical grasp, "my sister, on the other hand, has been studying the book and its contents all night long. I have long since satisfied my curiosity, the curiosity that relates to the responsibilities that the Supreme Kai and the Angel must fulfill, but I have kept my sister company when the others went to sleep... and I will admit that I feel jealous of young Twilight."

"Luna, you know the book mentions that a universe could have more than one Supreme Kai," Celestia said, to which she set the book down, which had been held in her magical grasp the entire time, and turned to her sister, "but, as the book says, it will take some time before we can raise someone else to that rank. Besides, I'm sure Twilight will be willing to share her experience with her new position, once she has some experience sowing the seeds of creation for new planets."

Sunset had to admit that she was a little curious about that process, but then decided that it was better if she let the knowledge of creation remain with Twilight, as it was now her role to oversee that part of the universe. She still wondered why Celestia had put forth Twilight's name, especially when she could have easily chosen her sister or even Starlight, but she guessed that her former instructor's explanation would have to do for now. As she thought about that she heard a yawn, or rather a growl that sounded like it had been mixed with a yawn, and noticed that Razor was sleeping in the corner of the library, though it appeared that he was waking up. She smiled and walked over to the cat, to which she rubbed its head for a few seconds, though once the cat was awake it licked her hand before it rose to its feet.

Sunset was somewhat glad that Angela and the others had installed a device that served as a quick way to the Hyperion, as that meant that they wouldn't have to worry about using magic all the time to get from the castle and travel to the ship. It also meant that Razor could easily return to the ship and get his meals whenever he was hungry, meaning that he didn't have to rely on them all the time, especially when some of them were going to be busy with their new responsibilities and wouldn't have the time to feed him at certain times.

"Twilight told me that she was interested in how you managed to acquire such a creature as a companion," Celestia commented, watching the strange cat passing through the doorway that had been created, heading aboard the ship that everyone called the Hyperion to eat his meal, before she turned to Sunset, "though I am sure that you have more interesting stories than how you befriended Razor."

"I'll be sure to tell her the story, one day anyway," Sunset stated, though at the same time she knew that it wasn't a very exciting story, as she had merely healed Razor's leg and he had, in turn, left his pack behind to become her companion, which in turn caused some of her enemies to run in terror, "Now that we have chosen who my Angel is, and determined who the Supreme Kai is, I think we can finally relax a little and not have to worry about anything."

"Twilight and Celestia will have to train with their new skills at some point in the future," Luna spoke up, glaring at her sister once more, indicating that she still believed that she was more deserving of the Supreme Kai position, but she made no further comment on that subject, "but, after everything you and Starlight have been through, I think a few days of rest and relaxation are in order... especially if you are to be a God of Destruction all the time."

Sunset nodded, glad that the two were actually agreeing with her, despite the fact that Celestia hadn't said anything about it, but before she actually said anything she heard the sound of more yawning. The trio watched as Starlight and Twilight stretched for a few seconds before they finally woke up, though that was followed by the noticing that they weren't alone. That was also followed by Angela and the others walking into the kitchen area, to which everyone gathered around the large table, which had been brought in from the ballroom and swapped with the one that had been sitting there, before they had their morning meal.

It was during that time that someone mentioned going back to Pokitaru, a vacation planet when they explained things to Twilight, Celestia, and Luna, where they could relax without anyone bothering them, unless another villain decided to come and bother them like the last time they had been there. When they all agreed with that plan, and they had finished with their meal, they moved into the gateway that was open and walked onto the Hyperion, where Angela and the rest of the original group had to explain things to the three ponies that had followed them aboard... and explain the existence of the holograms that were the AI's for the ship.

Celestia seemed to find it amusing that Sunset and Starlight had created so many ponies to live aboard the ship, to help them with managing the entirety of the systems that had been installed, while Twilight expressed her desire to learn about what the two ponies had done... and discovering that Luna was slightly amused, while saying nothing about it.

When they were all aboard the starship, and the connection to Equus was severed for the moment, Ratchet returned to his seat and started the sequence that would allow them to travel back to the Nefarious Space Station, as it was an easier location to jump to than the Great Clock. With the warp drive engaged, and everyone was seating in a chair or a couch, Ratchet slipped them into the warp space and allowed them to head back to the Polaris Galaxy, where he assumed that at least Orvus was waiting for their return.





"Is something bothering you Orvus?" Nefarious asked, noticing that the elderly Zoni was floating around the space station, in the same manner that he had seen many times when they were staring at the various aspects, but at the same time they had gathered together in the station, waiting for something.

"Nothing bad this time around," Orvus rapidly said, assuring Nefarious that nothing bad was supposed to be happening in the near future, though at the same time he knew that something could change at a moment's notice, "though we should be receiving some good news any minute now."

Nefarious opened his mouth to say something, especially after everything he had learned since he had started assisting Orvus and Sigmund in the Great Clock, but before he could say anything Lawrence came over to where they were standing at the moment. His butler, who he considered to be his greatest companion at this point in time, showed him the tablet that he was holding, to which he and Orvus discovered that something was coming through the warp space. Or, when Nefarious studied the reading more carefully, the object coming their way was the Starship Hyperion, though there were some additional readings that reminded him of Sunset.

It appeared that something had happened since Starlight and her companions, as well as the God of Destruction herself, traveled back to their home world, but he guessed that they would soon discover what was happening... while at the same time he suspected that Orvus knew what was coming.

A few seconds passed before the Hyperion tore through the warp system and appeared near his station, though as the three of them watched the ship they noticed that it was already starting to slow down. As the ship slowed down Nefarious had to wonder who the other three energy signatures belonged to, because from what he could tell they didn't belong to either Sunset or Starlight. They waited as the ship came to a stop and a magical gateway opened on the other section of the walkway that they were standing on, to which Nefarious noticed that the group was together and that nothing had happened to them... while at the same time noticing that there were two additional hybrid ponies, looking like Sunset despite their strange attire, and another pony walking beside them, only the third stranger was definitely an alicorn based on how she looked.

Nefarious noted that the three strangers had to be where the energy was coming from, because they seemed to be on a different scale than what Starlight was on at the moment.

"Lady Sunset, it is good to see you again," Orvus said, to which he, and by extent Nefarious and Lawrence, bowed to Sunset for a few seconds, before turning to the newcomers, "and I see that you were successful during your visit to your home world. I am Orvus, the Supreme Kai of Time for Universe 13. Who do I have the honor of addressing?"

"I am Celestia, the newly appointed Angel for Sunset," Celestia replied, politely bowing to the group for a few seconds, before she turned to the rest of her group, "this is my sister, Princess Luna, and Twilight Sparkle, the newly appointed Supreme Kai for Universe 13."

"It is a pleasure to meet the two of you," Orvus said, to which he looked at them for a moment, taking in their new forms and the clothing they were wearing, before nodding for a few seconds, "All I can assume is that the two of you were chosen by the Grand Priest during his visit to your home planet, but I will not ask that you tell me about what he said, as I can determine what happened. So, what can I and Nefarious help you with today?"

"We were thinking of taking a break and heading to Pokitaru for a day or two of vacation," Sunset replied, knowing that Luna would have to go back to raise the moon, and she guessed the sun as well if Celestia insisted on staying near her, "though I was curious if you heard anything about the other villains."

"Everything has been quiet in the Polaris Galaxy," Nefarious answered, finally glad to have a chance to speak, while at the same time reflecting to take an opportunity to introduce himself to the group, while at the same time pulling out his own tablet and calling some images of the planets into existence around them, "I've heard rumors that there are some bandit groups forming in the Bogon Galaxy, though at the same time there hasn't been anything major in the Solana Galaxy. For the most part the three galaxies are safe at the moment, so none of you should have to worry about anything ruining your vacation and your sightseeing."

"I also agree that having some time off is essential for anyone, be they a normal person or the God of Destruction herself," Orvus commented, a smile appearing on his face, to which he beckoned towards the ship they had been traveling in, "You should be able to reach Pokitaru within an hour, maybe two, but you should be able to enjoy yourselves before yo have to return to your duties."

Sunset, knowing that Orvus was the Supreme Kai of Time and watched over the timelines from the Great Clock, knew that there was something that the elderly Zoni wasn't telling them, which meant that she needed to be on her guard. Just because Nefarious was on their side, and told them that there were no reports of suspicious movements in the three galaxies they had already liberated from their tyrants, didn't mean that someone wasn't looking to cause trouble. She suspected that they would eventually find someone who wanted her dead, because she knew that there were idiotic people who insisted on pestering her until she ended up killing them... though Qwark and Nefarious were the only exceptions to that rule.

As some of the group turned back to the magical gateway they had walked through Starlight turned back to Nefarious and asked if he was going to take some time off as well, almost as if she was inviting him to join them, but the doctor politely declined and stated that he had some former acquaintances he wanted to check up on, just to be sure that the villains he knew weren't causing problems somewhere. With the answer received Starlight followed everyone into the gateway and returned to the ship, though when everyone was aboard the vessel she closed the gateway and they reentered the warp system.





It didn't take them long to reach the space near Pokitaru, though Ratchet brought them out of the warp space with some distance between them and the planet. It gave Angela time to ask the manager if they could rent out the private suite, like they had done after Ratchet and his sisters had been freed from Dreadzone, while at the same time allowing Celestia, Luna, and Twilight to stare at the planet they were approaching. Sunset, on the other hand, knew that some of them wouldn't be staying very long, as she knew that Luna, at the very least, would be needed back in Canterlot so she could deal with the nobles and their annoying politics... unless she and Celestia closed the courts and had told the ponies of Canterlot that they would be gone for the majority of the day.

As Angela put down her tablet, and started to tell everyone that they had the suite for a few days, a few ships appeared on the radar, though Sunset stared in the direction they were coming from and prepared herself, because she assumed that they might have walked into a trap of some kind.

"Greetings to the inhabitants of the Starship Hyperion," a voice said over the intercoms, one that sounded robotic and reminded Ratchet and the others of Captain Slag, but they knew he was dead and gone at this point, "this is Captain Ironbeard, the new ruler of this part of the Solana Galaxy. You are hereby ordered to stand down and surrender your cargo to us, as well as the one called Sunset Shimmer, so that she may be punished for her actions against the pirate formerly known as Captain Slag and his lieutenants."

"Great, another nuisance reveals itself," Sunset commented, to which she raised a hand to stop everyone from talking all at once, "I'll just obliterate them... no use wasting ammunition on them."

Celestia seemed to be caught off guard by the fact that Sunset was taking direct action against the pirates, and was planning on simply destroying them, but she simply shook her head and beckoned for Sunset to be about her business. With the nod of approval from Celestia received Sunset opened a small portal so she could jump over to the other ships, as she intended on taking them out one by one until only the captain remained.

As Sunset stepped onto the enemy ship she noticed several of the pirates were preparing themselves for the eventual assault if the Hyperion didn't surrender to them, which they seemed to know wouldn't be happening, but she found it funny that no one had noticed her yet. She decided to see how long she could remain there without them discovering her presence, to which she closed the portal and crossed her arms behind her back, all while watching the robotic pirates go about their business.

"Listen up ladies," someone shouted, someone that Sunset assumed was the lieutenant of this ship, to which the robotic pirate walked through the door and completely missed who was standing beside it, "the captain wants us prepared for the assault on the Hyperion, which will be in a few minutes if they follow the pattern that our leader has discovered. Soon we will have the so called God of Destruction tied up, and then we can do whatever we want... which means that we can begin a new age of piracy with the leaders of the various organizations taken out."

"And what about the Bogon and Polaris Galaxies?" one of the other pirates called out in return, which was followed by some of the others muttering their agreement to what their comrade had said, "Aren't there heroes and Jedi in those galaxies that will come once we burn their headquarters down?"

"And the captain has a plan for that," the lieutenant replied, though he said so with a hint of joy in his voice, "Soon we shall bring an end to the order they had brought to the universe and bring about an age of chaos that will make the last age look like nothing in comparison!"

"Well, that's not good news for anyone," Sunset said, to which the entirety of the pirates turned around and noticed that she was standing near the door, though that was followed by them getting their weapons and pointing them at her, "and, unfortunately for you, this will be the last day you ever see."

One of the pirates charged at her and swung his weapon at her, as it was one of the energy swords that she recalled them carrying at times, though all she did was catch it between her pointer and middle fingers, much to her opponent's surprise. That was rapidly followed by her touching his chest and releasing a small burst of energy, which destroyed her opponent's chest and killed him instantly. The other pirates charged at her and started firing their weapons at her, though she merely danced around them and used some of her magic to impale them with spikes made out of pure destructive energy. That also meant that anything they came into contact with exploded, so she made sure to send them flying into key parts of the area around them and started tearing the ship apart.

When all of the pirates were taken care of, and she forcefully tied the lieutenant to the engine with her magic, she flew outside the ship and detonated her magic, blowing a massive hole in the first ship, while at the same time hearing that the other two ships were starting to move away from the destruction.

Sunset smiled as the two remaining ships sent out their flyers to deal with her, to which she noticed at least thirty enemy vessels coming her way as she maneuvered them away from the Hyperion. As they followed her she called on her magic and summoned several cylinder shaped objects, which would look like cans to those that weren't very observant, before she threw them at the ships that were following her. The cylinders expanded into javelins, ones that were made of pure energy, and collided with the enemy ships, to which the unfortunate ones exploded and caused some of the others to change their direction before they were hit... but Sunset merely took control of the magic and sent them flying into the closest enemies.

With that attack done she moved towards the large ship that was close to where she was flying and grinned as she wrapped her magic around her hand, though she allowed it to take on the shape of a blade before she swung her hand, which was followed by a large wave of energy, like the Getsuga Tenshou she had used many times in the past, cutting into the ship and detonating with enough force to tear the entire vessel to pieces. She then danced around the remaining ships that were still following her, which she suspected from robotic pirates that were programmed to feel no pain, though at the same time she loosed a stream of magical missiles that tore her targets to pieces... before she fired a larger charge at the final ship and blew it into a thousand pieces.

Once all of her enemies had been dealt with Sunset came to a stop and studied the area around her, waiting to see if there were any other enemies that wanted to reveal themselves... though that was when a large ship, one even larger than the Hyperion, exited the warp space and came to a stop near where Sunset was floating. She assumed that this was the flagship of her newest enemy, though at the same time she didn't care what the pirate wanted, which was why she moved her hands together and called upon her power. A few seconds later she pulled them apart and summoned a large ball of destructive energy, colored fire red like everything else, and sent it soaring at the pirates... effectively obliterating them from the universe with a single blow.

When the smoke cleared she smiled when she discovered that her enemies had been taken care of, to which she teleported back to the Hyperion and allowed them to head back down to the planet they had been heading to the entire time, knowing that it was time for them to finally rest from everything that had happened over the last few days. As they headed down to the resort area she reflected on when Discord would have some news about when one of the other displaced ponies would return to their home world... but for the moment she decided to take her mind off of everything else and relax, until she was needed to fulfill her responsibilities once more.
> Epilogue: Dawn of a New Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Six months had passed since the Grand Priest visited Equus, spoke with Sunset Shimmer about who the Supreme Kai and Angel of her universe was, and settled into a routine to allow Celestia and Twilight to understand what their new responsibilities were. Such a routine meant that the they joined Sunset and Starlight as they traveled throughout the three known galaxies, allowing them to see what the universe had to offer while trying to see if they had retained what they were learning from their reading sessions. Sunset discovered that Celestia, being who she was, was able to remember everything she had read, while at the same time Twilight was able to remember bits and pieces, though she was able to focus after some prompts from Celestia.

Fortunately Sunset discovered that none of the other villains that roamed the galaxies wanted to mess with her, which meant that she didn't need to destroy or kill anyone, though that was something that actually made her smile, as it meant that she could relax from time to time.

Part of their routine also consisted of Celestia and Sunset actually training with each other, which allowed Celestia to experience the destructive power that her former student possessed, while at the same time allowing Sunset to see the power that her teacher now possessed. Occasionally Luna would come with them and watch the high powered matches between the two of them, though Celestia and Sunset were able to keep the destruction to the minimum, since there was no reason to destroy any planets at the moment. At the same time Starlight reflected that they needed to find some sort of location where they didn't have to worry about destroying anything, but she kept her mouth shut and decided to watch the matches whenever they happened.

There were several instances while they trained where Sunset and Celestia used the higher ranking spells that had been locked away in the library that was inside Canterlot's castle, though if Celestia was annoyed that Sunset had stolen that information, back when she was younger and immature, she wasn't showing it. Sunset also confessed to it multiple times, as some of the spells were too dangerous and had been locked away from a good reason, though at the same time both Celestia and Luna commented on how skilled Sunset was at using the more powerful arts. When it was Celestia's turn to use the more dangerous spells, however, Sunset surprised everyone by using the barrier that used four Dragon Gates, which she had used to fool one of her aspects so long ago.

"I am surprised that she managed to pull that off," Luna commented, while at the same time finding it odd that her sister hadn't stopped the attack in its tracks, because she knew that Celestia could have destroyed the seal before it had been completed, though she assumed that it was because she hadn't seen it in action for a really long time, "or half of the old spells that she's managed to show off so far."

"Don't forget all of the powerful attack's she has shown off so far," Twilight added, remembering what happened when Sunset pulled out the condensed wave of magical energy, which she apparently called the 'Getsuga Tenshou', and the damage that had happened to the planet, "Sunset has learned much during her second life in the Solana Galaxy, so much so that its interesting to see what types of magic she's discovered... or rediscovered, as the case appears to be in some cases."

"I concede that fact," Luna replied, surprised that Twilight had overcome her shock over the destruction that her friend could cause, because now it appeared that she was solely interested in the magic that was used, as if she was trying to determine how powerful her powers were without actually getting into a fight, "Still, it has been some time since my sister or I have been in a fight that's this good... it makes me wish I had a form like my sister's so I could jump into the fray and test my power against the God of Destruction."

"Well, I might, and I mean might, have a solution to that," Twilight said, to which she levitated a silver ring, with the symbol of a crescent moon on it, over to the Lunar Princess, "I was studying the magic, or rather energy, that was used to transform both myself and Celestia into our new forms, which I have to tell you is fascinating and could keep me occupied for months, if not a few years, before I understand even a fraction of the Grand Priest's powers."

"Twilight, while I love it when you delve into the heart of a new field of magic, I would like it if you could focus on the ring," Luna commented, though at the same time she found it amusing that the younger alicorn had overcome all the years of calling Celestia by her title in a manner of weeks, "What does it do?"

"It does exactly what you think it does." Twilight said, to which she tapped the bracelet she was wearing, as she refused to remove it in the off chance that removing it from her arm reverted her back into her pony state, "I have basically copied the basic spell structure that the Grand Priest used to change both myself and Celestia into our current states, which should allow you to take on our form as well. Worst case scenario, nothing happens and I go back to the drawing board to see what went wrong... but I think that I managed to replicate the spell perfectly."

Luna stared at the ring that Twilight was offering her, because while she trusted her sister's newest student, and the more successful one she mentally reflected, she didn't think that Twilight had enough time to actually replicate the spell that the Grand Priest had used. She knew that the young mare, or rather young girl if what Starlight and her new friends had said was true, was skilled in terms of both studying and understanding magic, as well as using it when the need arose. Of course Twilight preferred not to fight anyone, especially after her duel with Tirek some time ago that had reshaped the landscape around them, but Luna knew that the decision had been further aided by Sunset's new powers.

After some moments of debate Luna sighed and grabbed the ring with her magic, though at the same time she didn't see a way for her to put it on, because it wasn't like Twilight's bracelet or the staff that had been given to Celestia, which was currently floating by them at the moment.

"So, if I can be permitted to ask a stupid question," Luna said, turning the silver ring over a few times, while at the same time trying to determine how she could use the object, "how do I use this?"

"Oh, just focus your magic into the middle of the ring," Twilight explained, taking a moment to point at the area in question, "you'll be engulfed in a blinding light for a few seconds, which is completely natural, and when the light fades you should have a form that's similar to mine and Celestia's... though if it doesn't work then I'll have to take the ring back to my workshop and see what went wrong."

Luna briefly nodded her head towards Twilight, knowing that the young Supreme Kai was trying her hardest to learn everything she needed to if she was to fulfill the responsibilities of her new office, before preparing herself. She allowed her magic to slip into the middle of the ring and let a gasp escape from her lips as she felt the spell slam into her body, where she felt herself shifting as the light enveloped her. A few seconds later the light faded and Luna looked down at herself, finding that the spell had worked, because now she was sporting the same form that the other three had, though she would definitely miss her wings while she was in this state. She also discovered that her clothing was basically the same as Twilight's, though she guessed that she could pass it off as trying to learn about Twilight's position as if she was an apprentice... or something like that.

Luna flexed her new arms for a few seconds, and made sure to walk around so she could get used to the new feelings and sensations she was feeling, before grinning as she looked up into the sky, noticing that both Sunset and Celestia were staring at her with smiles on their faces... to which she levitated herself up to where they were floating.

"I see Twilight perfected the spell she has been working on," Celestia commented, though she sounded pleased that her last student had been able to replicate a new spell in such a short amount of time, after spending four to five months studying the energy the Grand Priest had used anyway, "So Sunset, shall we see how well you can fare in a battle against both of us, the alicorns that originally beat Discord and so many other evils?"

"I would enjoy that," Sunset said, to which she held her hands out and beckoned the sisters to come at her with everything they could muster, "though I'll start at fifty percent, just to see how much pressure you can take before we actually step things up a notch."

Celestia and Luna smiled as they flew through the air and raced towards where Sunset was floating, knowing that all three of them were going to enjoy this battle until one of them decided to retire or surrender.





By the time the fight between the three of them had been finished, which had left Sunset shocked when she had won due to Celestia pulling back once Luna had been beaten, it was nearing the time for them to return to Equus and allow the sisters to move the celestial orbs in the sky once more. Celestia insisted on continuing her part of the routine, especially when she and Sunset remained on their home world, though there were times where Luna would have to move both the sun and the moon on her own. Luna was actually grateful for the opportunity to touch, let alone move, the celestial body that her sister moved all the time, while also being surprised that it responded so well to her commands.

When they returned to their home planet Sunset let the sisters do their work, to which she watched as the sun rose into the sky while the moon lowered until it was out of sight, indicating that a new day was beginning for the world... though once that was done Luna removed the ring she was wearing and reverted back to her alicorn form, to which she slipped the ring into a pouch Twilight offered her and tied the pouch around her neck.

"We need to do that again some time," Luna commented, though at the same time she stared at Canterlot, knowing that she was going to have to go back there alone, as Celestia had basically retired from the courts and left it to her, but also gave her a communication stone in case she needed advice on a matter, though it appeared that the nobles insisted she use it all the time, "it was much more fun than sitting in court all day long, listening to all the annoying nobles and the various problems that they bring before me. At least we closed the Night Court and incorporated it into the Day Court, which must have been confusing to everyone in the city, but they don't need to know about everything else we have learned about... in regards to the other universes and beings that are more powerful than us and Discord."

"I find it a little sad that you think so lowly of me," a voice said, to which Discord appeared in front of the four ponies, or rather three hybrids and Luna, "but then again I shouldn't really put myself above others anymore, especially when Sunset here is the God of Destruction and could easily end me with a single word."

"Quite true," Sunset replied, to which she stared at the Spirit of Disharmony, while at the same time wondering if he had found anything useful in regards to the other displaced ponies, the ones that she had told him to find and attempt to bring back once they were whole again, "so, what news do you have for us?"

"It appears that a certain duo will be returning to our world in a few minutes," Discord said, to which he beckoned to the sky, where Sunset, Celestia, and Twilight detected a cluster of powerful beings coming towards their planet.

Sunset smiled as she turned towards the direction that the powerful energies were coming from, knowing that one of them was a God of Destruction, which allowed her to determine that, by Discord's choice of words, this had to be Beerus the Destroyer, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash. She was glad that they were returning home at long last, though in her heart she knew that they would soon be followed by everyone else that had gone through the mirror portal... and knew that their return meant that things were going to change for her and the others, or at least more than the changes they had already endured.

Sunset didn't mind facing the future at this point, because she knew that she and the others could hold their own against whatever the universe threw at them... and she was excited to meet the God of Destruction that trained two of the ponies that once called Equus home.