Author's note:

English is not my native language, so i may have some issues with sentence construction.

"Ratchet? Ratchet, wake up!"

Clank's voice sounded distressed as he did his best to shake unconscious lombax up. Finally, his friend let out pained moan and slowly opened one eye.

"Ugh… Heya, Clank…" he slowly reached for his head and rubbed his temples, "Pal… what a splitting headache I have… What happened?"

"I was hoping that you can clarify this," said Clank, "You see, for some reason all of my memories of last three days are…" he made a pause and looked away, as if in shame, "…gone. Completely gone."

"Heck, same here," Ratchet sighed, "I'm not sure... Can you tell me if there's something with me? I feel like something's missing..."

"Well, for once, your armor and flight cap is gone," said Clank, prompting a pained sigh from his fuzzy friend, "But you still got your new work pants, raritanium-nosed boots and magnetic harness."

"That's something at least," lombax tried to sit up, slowly regaining his vision, "Well, what's your last memory?.."

"Last thing I remember you promising miss Talwyn that you'll return after you're done with doctor Nefarious, after he asked us to come see him – and he sounded panicked during the whole thing - then boarding Aphelion and leaving Apogee station… And that's about that," said his robotic companion.

"Yeah… That's all I remember as well… Well… Let's look around then, shall we?" Ratchet slowly stood up, feeling a bit nauseous, "Maybe we'll find… I don't know, anything that will help us remember? Or anything at all?"

The surroundings were… weird. They ended up in some sort of narrow ravine, sitting on a cliff on the side of it, somewhat below the top, but still a long way to the bottom. On the edge of a cliff was a flimsy-looking fence, and strange statues depicting cat-like humanoid with arms crossed on their chest were scattered all over the flat surface of this cliff. The cliff itself was covered in sand, soft and oddly… temperatureless. Well, at least it wasn't hot or cold. Speaking of which, Ratchet realized that surrounding air is also nor hot nor cold – just of his body temperature or so. A thick gray fog surrounded the cliff and filled the ravine, making it impossible to see how deep it was. Above them was a thick layer of dark grey clouds. Everything seemed so dull and grey. And, built into the side of a ravine was a strange small building with statue of a kneeled skeleton on top.

Since there was nothing better to do, duo went towards this building. It was some sort of tunnel entry, but the door - at least that what the massive stone slab blocking the way seemed to be - just won't open.

"Oh don't tell me we're stuck already!" Ratchet moaned, leaning on the door, his headache not helping at all.

"Perhaps there is something that can open the door," said Clank, "We should look around"

"You go, pal" the lombax sighed, massaging his temples, "I'm not feeling too good… Just please… be careful, will ya?"

Clank nodded in response and went around the building, and just as he turned around the corner, he literally stumbled upon a switch.

"Oof!" little robot fell on the sand, kicking it up and revealing red lever buried in it, "Ratchet? I believe I found something," and, not waiting for lomax to reply, pulled the lever. A second later he regretted that, as he heard Ratchet gasp, overshadowed by screeching of stone, and another second later he heart body fall on the ground. Clank rushed back, and was relieved to see that his friend simply fell when the door slid down.

"I am sorry, Ratchet. I did not expect it to open so suddenly," he said, placing his hand on his chest.

"Hey, it's okay, pal," Ratchet smiled and stood up, shaking sand and dust off his hands and pants, "Well, let's go in, shall we?"

They walked through long dark tunnel, and eventually reached a turn that led them to a t-junction. But, unlike the tunnel itself, this place was dimly lit with grayish orange light radiating from tall lamp posts, and just near the corner was a portrait of someone. Ratchet never seen species like this… well, the closest he saw to it was Qwark, but this one was different. For starters, facial features were much, much more feminine and subtle, more like Talwyn's face. The skin of the creature was pale, and it had long sandy blonde hair. Her – Ratchet decided it was female - eyes were dark hazel and filled with sadness, and she was covering her cheek with her palm.

"I wonder who is that," mumbled Clank while rubbing his chin.

As it turned out, they came to a circling corridor, which led to the tunnel from one side and to a different room on the other. This corridor was full of paintings – locations and people, all unfamiliar to Ratchet and Clank. The made a full circle, before deciding to check the other room. As the walked in, a dark figure appeared from the shadows. Ratchet reached out for his trusty Omniwrench.

"Greetings, Ratchet. Greetings, Clank," said the figure in soft, but at the same time, deep and powerful voice, raising his arm slightly, as if giving them a sign to stop.

"What? Who are you?" Ratchet hesitated to pull his wrench, staring at the figure. It definitely was a humanoid in shape, and was twice as tall as Ratchet, but other than that lombax couldn't make anything out. It was just that – a dark humanoid figure in some sort of cloak. No glowing teeth or red eyes of doom. Just a dark figure.

"That doesn't matter now…" Said this stranger, slowly lowering his arm, "Mind that I wish you no harm…"

"Well that's great I guess?" said lombax as his ear twitched.

"Perhaps you could help us, sir?" Clank chimed in, hopping off Ratchet's back and slowly walking to the stranger, "Can you tell us where we are? We seem to have… lost some of our memories."

"Honestly though, this place looks like some sort of underworld" Ratchet giggled.

"Underworld? Well, you can put it this way, yes…" said the stranger, making the duo stare at him, "But there is a catch, however…" It seemed that whoever that was was smiling, "This… Is my world…" lombax and robot looked at the figure with skepticism, "I have created it all by myself. And you are on my territory now."

"Pff, whatever. Are you all alone here?" Ratchet asked.

"No, just recently... Since you two fools have unleashed the chaos on me." the Shadow figure glared on them – Ratchet felt it rather than saw, "I barely managed to trap those spirits, and you two… Well, now I'm trapped in here," the Shadow made a step towards lombax and robot, fist clenched and raised menacingly.

"B-but… We don't even know what we did wrong!" Ratchet exclaimed, raising his arms and slowly backing from the Shadow, "Last thing we know is we were contacted by doctor Nefarious, and…"

"I could have dealt with that myself!" the Shadow cut him off, "But since you two have started this mess, you'll have to deal with it!" he snapped his fingers and Ratchet's ears picked up screeching somewhere behind, in the corridor with paintings, "I have opened the portal to the very heart of chaos… Ariadnah, Woman from the Painting will wait you there" A painting frame floated from the wall to the Shadow's side. Painting depicted a woman in red skintight leather pants, jacket, gloves and high-heel boots. Her hair was dyed red with yellow streaks, and on her face was a blank red mask with small holes for eyes. And her eyes seemed... unnaturally black.

"What about her, sir?" Said Clank.

"She will try to misguide you. She will lie to you; she will try to confuse you. But, no matter what she does, you must bring me the chaos gem. Understood?" The duo nodded, and all the sudden, the Shadow disappeared.

"Impressive," Clank admitted.

"Yeah, I can't do that," Ratchet sighed, "Well, let's go look where this portal to the heart of chaos is?"

It didn't take them much time, as portal was right back at entrance junction, on the opposing side of the portrait of pale female. Through the wavy, mercury-like surface of the portal Ratchet saw dark, eerie mansion - that was when lombax noticed that the portal was right next to the painting of the same dark, eerie mansion.

"Well, here goes nothing, I guess" lombax sighed and turned to his mechanical friend, "You ready, pal?"

"I'm not sure, Ratchet" Clank replied, concerned, "But it doesn't seem like we have a choice right now, do we?"

"Yeah. Well…" Ratchet reached his hand to the portal and touched the surface. He felt strange tension, as if he was touching stretched, warm rubber, and, gathering all his courage, he pushed on the surface. It gave in all the sudden, making lombax yelp in surprise and fall face first into the portal. For a moment he felt like he was stuffed into taffy mass, and next moment he found himself painfully faceplanting on a cold stone pathway in front of the mansion he saw from the other side.

"Owww... That certainly was an interesting experience…" he said standing up. There was no way back now, and the only place they could go was the mansion.