Chapter 1 Alone Again, Naturally
Disclaimer I do not in any way own Ratchet and clank, I do lay claim to my idea's and my Original Characters.
"Its been three whole months since I seen anyone, please if anyone's out there answer me!" A female Lombax in a torn and tattered uniform screams into a radio before growling in frustration and throwing it across the room and hitting the other side of the bunker. Sighing she looks over at her dwindling supplies, thinking "I'm going to have to get some more supplies soon." before grabbing one of the dehydrated meals she starts to open it when she hears a pass-code being entered in the key pad at the entrance to the bunker. Turning around she barely manages to get her pistol up when a rifle butt hits her head.
Screaming she jolts up out of her bed and looks around franticly. Shuddering she looks up at the sky and see's the fragmented moon. Turning away she tries to suppress the memories that where trying to drag her under. She starts chanting to herself "It's been a year since they captured me, since they tortured me, since I killed them and destroyed there base, since I escaped, I'm safe now." After repeating that like some sort of mantra, she manages to bury the memories deep enough so they won't bother her, she looks over at the ship she stole from them and walks over to it. As she runs her hands over the patch worked metal she can't help thinking "You know old girl were a lot alike me and you. They've cut us up and put us through hell but we just keep going." Her thoughts are interrupted when a soft clanking noise comes from inside of the cabin of the ship. Smiling she asks it "What's wrong Grinder can't sleep either?" A robot that looks like he had been built from scrap raises his head out of the cabin and makes a series of clanking and grinding noises that she quickly translates "I don't sleep, I recharge, how many times do I have to tell you that Terra? Besides I can work while I'm recharging, you can't. " "Work, what are you working on?" Terra asks as she hops into the cabin, beside the diminutive robot. Grinder makes a long grinding noise, his version of a sigh and clanks out "If you must know I'm trying to get the interstellar drive to function, but I have run into, how you would say a rock wall."
"That's brick wall, Grinder, now what's the problem?" She asks as she lets out a long yawn. Giving her a deadpan look he shakes his head slightly before saying "Rock wall brick wall same difference. Anyway as you know we need to finish this interstellar drive to get to the coordinates that the alien Fisswidget specified. And we have managed to find all of the parts and equipment to build this, except one."
"The Rareatainum." Terra says as she leans back in the seat and closes her eyes. Grinder starts to speak up again but when he looks over her, she's already fallen asleep. He pats her hand lightly as he thinks, "Sleep your going to need it, the only place that had Rareatainum is the moon base we destroyed. " before he closes his eyes and goes into full recharge mode.
"… and that's why we have to go back to the moon." Grinder explains to the Lombax sitting beside him, who jumps out of the cockpit, and lets out a loud yell filled with frustration. When she finally finishes her scream she grabs a rock and chucks it at the nearest destroyed house, where it hits against the metal with a loud thump. Looking up at the robot she asks him "Isn't there any other place around here that has that stupid rock?" even though she knows the answer. "Negative the Rareatainum is not natural to this solar system, the only known samples where inside of the moon base when we destroyed it."
"Well then wouldn't it have been destroyed along with the rest of that base?" she shoots back desperately looking for a way out of going back to the base.
"No Rareatainum is extremely dense, and the explosion wouldn't have damaged it." Grinder replies as he starts prepping the ship for take off. After all he knows how this argument will end Terra may be… unstable at times but she wants off this planet as desperately as he does. Sighing she pulls out the O2 mask she took from the base, gets in the ship, and finishes the start up procedures. As they fly up to the moon Terra stares at the fragmented moon in a mixture of hate and fear. Grinder puts his hand on her comfortingly creaking out "I know this is tough but we have to do this." Sighing she looks over at him and replies "Yha I know, but that doesn't make this any easier." As they land on of the main fragments she lets out a tense breath "Ok Grinder lets get this over with as quickly as possible, fuse up." As she says this the robot jumps onto her lap and slips his hands and feet into her arm and leg armor as he does this he shifts around forming a armored layer around her, as he finishes up his antenna connects to the back of her O2 mask allowing him to communicate with her. "Fuse completed. Lets get going." Terra can't help the small grin the spreads across her face when he has to use the female help desk voice that came with the helmet. As she gets out of the ship and the hatch closes behind her she can't help glancing back at herself. What she see's looks like a monster with rusty brown and silver patched metal, shoulder spikes, and razor sharp claws. She lays her hand gently on her reflection as she looks for something, anything of her former self, and after a minute of staring at the reflection she gives up and starts heading to the base. As she gets closer to the base she can't quite hold back all the painful memories that are linked to this place.
Grinder notices that her heart rate is increasing to a almost critical rate so he speaks up saying " Listen Terra there dead they can't hurt you now, we need to find the Rareatainum and then we can leave." "Thanks... listen if I lose it I need you to get me back to the ship, ok?" Terra asks him as they enter the base and look around at the decimated machinery. "Ok, but try not lose it I'd rather not go through something like that again." The robot suit replies as he recalls the last time she lost control.
(/?\)
During there escape there had been another prisoner in the cell next to Terra's, and when they made there move she insisted on helping him. And as someone, somewhere once said no good deed goes unpunished. They had already broken him and when she turned her back he stabbed her in it. As she went down something inside of her broke and she exploded in a fireball of pent up anger, pain, hate and fear. whipping around she grabbed the other man by the throat with one hand and grabbed the knife he had stabbed her with the other. She stabbed him again and again, in a few short minutes she had managed to reduce his chest to a bloody mess. When the guard entered the mans cell he saw her standing there covered in blood, the knife in her hand he did the sensible thing he ran, but he didn't even get two steps away and she was on him as well, slamming him into the floor as her predatory instincts took over. When she finally regained some control she whipped the blood from her lips, stripped the guard and puts on his armor. Unfortunately when she see's the other guards she slipped right back into the feral state and she butchers them as well. Thankfully she used the gun instead of her knife and fangs, but in order to snap her out of it completely Grinder had to fuse with her armor and get her into the ship and away from the base, but on there way out she pressed the auto destruct and smashed the panel, preventing the few left alive from canceling it.
(/?\)
Grinder is suddenly jostled out of his memories when his sensors show her heart rate is rising again. Turning on his optical sensors he see's what's got her heart rate up. Floating aimlessly in the decompressed base is the mangled corpse of the guard that interrupted her killing the other prisoner. "Oh god I think I'm going to be sick." She groans as she collapses onto her knee's as she stares at the body. She reaches out and gingerly touches his neck where she had ripped his throat out, but her queasy stomach makes her look away. Grinder hadn't seen her like this before, so he asks her what's wrong. Terra just gives a half hearted laugh as she explains "It's nothing... I guess I just hoped that I wasn't the monster I remember being." Frowning mentally Grinder replies "Now listen Terra your not a monster, they where the monsters, you survived all of the tortures they put you through that makes you a survivor not a monster."
"Right, so how much which way to the Rareatainum?" Terra asks as stands up shakily. "Down the hall take the right, then another right and it should be in that room." As she starts down the hall she can't quiet shake the thought that maybe just maybe the men here where right maybe she was the monster.
Rambling Alert! Well people If you've read through this and got here I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my story. Now there's a few things I'd like to describe about some of the things in the story, that I can't really address in the story without drawing focus, and a few explanations to. Hmm Lets start with the explanations at the beginning I mentioned that this is a Ratchet and Clank Fan fiction. So a few of you may be wondering just where is Ratchet or Clank, and the answer is they'll be making there grand entrance in the Third chapter along with another certain female Lombax. Now the ship, ah I know I didn't really describe it well at all, and the reason is the ship been everything in my head from a two person fighter like Ratchet's, to a single seater like Angela's, but I finally decided that it be best if was a large six seater that got hacked down to a three seater, something that they had to jury-rig to get it working once they made it back to there planet. Now its time to talk about something that, is… uncomfortable to the slightly squeamish. Yes I'm talking about Grinder's flashback to when Terra lost it. She was tortured for a year, just because she was different, and no one alien or otherwise can take that without breaking in some way. Now I had her break in this way because I wanted another Lombax who was closer to the edge so to speak, and being for lack of a better term cat people, they have predatory instincts and when she broke her instincts rise to the surface whenever she feels she is in a hopeless situation. All right one last explanation, why I made it so she was tortured in the first place, well I wanted a Lombax who was different from ratchet, but not a mustache twirling villain.
Now Ratchet he's a hero, he's always going to be the good guy, the one who lets an enemy back up or gives them the chance to run. And that's not a bad thing, but what I had in mind was; lets take another Lombax one who's been through, hell. Now she's not trying to be a hero or a villain, she just wants to try and forget what happened to her and get on with her life but if she encounters a problem she going to finish it one way or another. Maybe make a few friends along the way. Ok I'm done, please review, being my first published story, I can take constructive criticism, but no flamers! See you all next time! Also sorry for this chapter being so short, to make up for it the next ones going to be almost twice as long lol.
