Rise of the Uniposers
Angela Cross helped Ratchet & Clank defeat Captain Qwark on their second adventure, but mysteriously disappeared. However, reports have shown that she was last seen with Max Apogee on his ship, escaping from Emperor Percival Tachyon. Now, after the second defeat of Doctor Nefarious, the dynamic duo prepares to find her. The first clue, a Vullard spotted a ship like Max Apogee's in the Korthos Sector, heading to the Agorian Battleplex…
Chapter 1: The Secret of the Battleplex
"Hurry up, Ratchet!" called out Clank who was sitting in Aphelion, fiddling around with the radio, looking for something to listen to. Aphelion was only the same platform it was when Ratchet was about to leave without Clank, but at the last second he joined him. They decided to look for adventure and then Ratchet wanted to find Angela, because she might've had knowledge about the Lombaxes disappearance. But Ratchet desperately hoped that they wouldn't be knocked off-course.
"Just a second, Clank," Ratchet replied, sitting in the seat next to him, with his legs up on the dashboard and now wearing his original mechanic suspenders, not bothering to wear his extremely tight and uncomfortable armour. "Sigmund is building us a tracking beam, so if we spot Angela, we can be able to know where she goes."
Clank finally settled on Pirate Radio, before hearing a whirring sound. He sat up straight and looked to the right, and saw Sigmund rolling along the ground, following the path towards the Aphelion, holding something in his hands, but Clank couldn't make it out. Once he stopped in front of the Aphelion, Clank was finally able to see the circular metal gizmo with a green circle screen.
"Here you go," said Sigmund, throwing the gizmo over to Ratchet, who caught it lazily and then saw that it was a tracking device, but currently wasn't activated, because they hadn't seen Angela within it's preparation.
"Thanks, Sigmund," said Ratchet as he studied the gizmo, before shrugging and placed it on his belt, next to some other items with no significance, making Clank think that they were just there to look pretty. "Hopefully we can track her down," he finished, frowning from thinking about anything that could have happened to her.
"Yes. and maybe recreate the Lombax species," replied Clank, with a cheeky grin on his face, before performing his trademark laugh along with Sigmund, who's laugh wasn't very pleasant.
Ratchet gave him an angry "no" look, before turning back to the steering wheel of Aphelion and turning the radio off, much to Clank's dismay. "Aphelion, please set us a course for the Agorian Battleplex. I'm sure you still have the co-ordinates."
"Affirmative, Ratchet," said the Aphelion, still with the upgraded "Hot Rod" paint job, in an unemotional female voice. "Did I also mention that I am having wet dreams about you?"
"That's just nice," said Ratchet sarcastically, feeling a little disgusted at a computer's fetishes. He started fiddling around with some of the buttons in preparation for take-off, but it wasn't really take-off as Aphelion was already floating on the ground. He still fired up the engines, and waited for Sigmund's goodbye.
"Oh, and sir," said Sigmund, pulling the Chronoscepter out of nowhere, along with a second one, and was surprisingly able to hold them both in one hand. "Take this." Sigmund threw one of the Chronoscepters with a bad aim over to Clank, but he managed to jump in the air and catch it before it fell off the Great Clock itself. "I have my own, you see?"
Clank quickly jumped back in the Aphelion and nodded at Sigmund, before waiting for Ratchet to fly Aphelion. It began to lift up a bit, and Clank waved to Sigmund, who shed a metallic tear from seeing his friend and co-worker leaving again, thinking that when he came back, he'd stay forever.
"Farewell!" yelled Sigmund, over to Clank who was getting even higher and higher, but was still looking over the edge and waving. Sigmund waved back at him before he pulled back inside Aphelion and Ratchet closed the top, and boosted the engines to higher level shooting away from the Great Clock, and Ratchet felt weird that it didn't have an atmosphere.
Ratchet looked over to the Great Clock from a distance, where he saw Sigmund smiling and waiting for Aphelion to move out of sight, and then turned back and travelled through the starry deep space, moving away from the centre of the universe.
Aphelion flew through the starry sky, knowing where to go because they had been to the Agorian Battleplex before, but if they had to go to an unknown planet, they would have to fly there manually. They travelled past many familiar planets, like Vapedia and Terachnos, and even an unknown green planet that looked similar to Orxon.
"Now entering Korthos Sector," announced Aphelion as Zanifar came into view in the distance, and Aphelion started turning to the left to make it's way to the Agorian Battleplex, while Ratchet and Clank started listening to the radio after much arguing on which station. They thought that the flight was going to be smooth, but they were wrong…
"Valkyrie ships detected." Aphelion saw a Valkyrie in an O2 Mask in the distance, riding on a floating pedestal which acted like a space scooter, and it was riding towards them, and then turned around to inform it's army.
"Oh, no," said Ratchet. "If we're going to avoid them, we are going to need to go into the asteroid field." He took control of Aphelion and turned off to the right into the asteroid field and the smaller Valkyrie space scooters followed them but most couldn't follow Aphelion's odd path and got crushed by asteroids. The bigger ships stayed on the side and fired missiles out of it's side, desperately trying to hit the Aphelion, but always crashed into an asteroid.
Yet one of the biggest ships charged up a group of energy missiles that weaved through obstacles and stayed locked on to their target, and when they looked like they'd exploded, they were shot out. The missiles tracked the Aphelion and weaved through the asteroids until they finally hit, smashing the engines and other functions. Aphelion's voice was cut out, the weapons no longer worked, parts were flying off, the engine was on fire and one more hit and the fuel would ignite and explode, killing them instantly.
A medium-sized ship suddenly warped and appeared out of nowhere, next to Zanifar and into the sector with a battalion of small fighters, all controlled by a computer. They fired their weapons at the Valkyrie army, destroying many of the smallest space scooters, but some escaped with the bigger ships, leaving to go back to Vapedia.
Ratchet looked at it, and then took a wild guess that it was Max Apogee's ship, and wanted to follow it, also because they would have to land to repair their ship, but after he made it out of the asteroid field and before he reached the hangar of the ship, it warped again, probably to another sector. Ratchet wanted to search for it, but Clank reminded him about the ship and that they were running low on fuel as well, and had to hurry to the Agorian Battleplex.
They turned back the way they came and routed the Aphelion back on course and soon enough after about five minute, the Agorian Battleplex in all it's vicious glory came into view around the redness of the Korthos Sector. Ratchet slowed the engines and stopped it floating at the hangar of the Battleplex, before rummaging through the trunk for any bolts they had and aciddentally bumped out the Zoni Vessel, but to their surprise, six Zonis volunteered to hop to out of the Vessel and repair the ship, back to the way it was before. "Must help master," they said in unison, and they all floating in a ring around Aphelion and fired their bolts of energy at it, pushing the smoke away and placing each part back into it's original position.
"Cool!" exclaimed Ratchet, hopping out of the ship with Clank, surprised at the Zonis work. "Thanks…I guess." The Zoni didn't respond to Ratchet, but exclaimed "Zoni!" when Clank nodded and smiled at them, before they zoomed back into the Zoni Vessel, waiting for the next time they'd be used.
"I guess we should walk in and refuel the ship," said Ratchet, looking at Clank, eager to know what he wanted to do.
"Don't forget, Ratchet, that we should search the Battleplex for clues as well, because if you remember, we are looking for Angela," Clank remarked, making all sorts of hand motions as he spoke. Ratchet frowned, thinking about Angela, and Clank gave a cheeky smile, before beginning to walk in. Ratchet realised that he should be walking with Clank and quickly caught up with him.
They walked into the main room and it was basically the same as it ever was. Statues on the sides, and Terachnoids wiring Agorians to weird machines, which probably gave them their power and other stuff used for battling. Ratchet walked over to the spot where Mac's hologram was and he was currently talking a Cazarean boy, looking about ten. "What do you mean I'm too young to enter the Agorian Battleplex battles?" complained the Cazarean boy, who looked rather shabby and was angry at Mac because he wasn't let into the competition.
"I'm sorry, young boy," said Mac, which angered the Cazare even more, making him roll his eyes. "But Agorian Battleplex rules apply. No "wannabe" who is deemed too young is allowed to enter the arena at any time, unless they are a member of the crowd." The boy shrugged angrily, and then noticed Ratchet, a bit taken aback, and then quickly ran off to play the "My Blaster Runs Hot" game. "Welcome back, Ratchet," said the hologram of Mac, noticing him standing beside the hologram at last. "Are you here to partake in another arena battle?"
"Hey, Mac," replied Ratchet, crossing his arms peacefully. "Unfortunately, I won't be battling today. Have you ever seen a female Lombax running around here? We have been given clues that she was in a large spaceship and was headed here."
"Any specific features to this…Lombax?" asked Max, not knowing that Ratchet and Angela were the last two Lombaxes in the dimension, not knowing even what a Lombax was but remembering that Ratchet was one so he waited for Ratchet's response.
"Well, she is the last female Lombax, so I think that if you saw her, then it would almost definitely be her," said Ratchet, looking a bit smug because he knew something that someone as smart as Mac didn't.
"Chasing after girls are ya?" he asked with a cheeky smile, like Clank's, angering Ratchet because no-one understood why he was trying to find Angela. "Well, if you mean the Lombax that delivered a package to…well, us…then yes."
"What do you mean us?" said Ratchet, suspicious and having almost completely forgotten about his earlier point of the Lombax delivering a package. Unexpectedly, the hologram of Mac disappeared, and Ratchet thought he was scared and run off, but instead the real Mac warped next to Ratchet, finally meeting him in person.
"Follow me," he said, turning to Ratchet, before walking off. Before Ratchet and Clank got a chance to say anything, they realised that they would have to follow him. They caught up to Mac and found him stopping at one of the Agorian statues (on closer inspection, it was Osiris the Malevolent) and he quickly looked around to see if there were any other contestants, and found one, but they walked into the arena. He then tapped the letters in the inscription a-g-o-r-i-a-n with a special black stick on top of the closest machine. The ground started shaking, and Ratchet managed to keep his balance, but Clank fell to the ground. Once he got back up and dusted himself off, he saw Mac walking into a doorway, and realised that statue had been moved down.
"Come in, come in," said Mac, his voice a bit muffled, and Ratchet realised that the room he entered was soundproofed.
Ratchet and Clank walked into a black, dark room filled with Terachnoids. There were tables with glass boxes on them with weird gadgets in them and a lot of armored Agorian warriors and pyrospinners, all on the sides while the middle of the room was filled with tables and all sorts of screens, some controlled the way the arena moved or was set up while some where security screens.
Ratchet stared at the darkness and mysteriousness of the room, and soon realised that the statue of Osiris the Malevolent was moving back up, making the room darker but the room wasn't shaken at all. He smiled when he saw two young Terachnoids, probably still learning and getting their apprenticeships, squabbling over who got to keep watch of a giant experimental green worm wriggling around in the glass case. The one closest to Ratchet slapped the other and an older Terachnoid came over and settled the fight down, and the one furthest got to keep watch.
The older Terachnoid in a white coat went back into his table, on the far-right side of the rectangular room and started directing a bunch of eight young Terachnoid adults in pairs who were being tested on their knowledge, and they started pouring chemicals into beakers and test tubes, and one pair looked at the temperature while another pour their chemicals into a beaker and weighed it on a triple beam balance.
"Welcome to the Secret of the Battleplex," Mac announced, breaking Ratchet out of the amazed trance. He couldn't see Mac due to the darkness, except for the light on his head, and was worried when Clank was nowhere to be seen, although he was standing right next to Ratchet. "This is where we control equipment when the Agorians go into the battle arena and we can see how many. We also protect these foreign rare items that are hooked up to a computer which help the Agorians battle and make different methods of battle possible for them."
He guided Ratchet and Clank to a box along the end wall of the dark room with a shiny sky blue rhombus held upright inside it with writing in Lombax etched on the side. Ratchet could understand Lombax writing now due to Sigmund and Clank teaching him before they left again to begin their quest to find Angela, but Ratchet was too far away to read it.
"This is a program that can be inserted into the top of a wireless VG-9000 controller, modified by us Terachnoids, but is not used to play Vid-Comic, but rather to control things," said Mac in his most proud and smart voice. Mac opened the case and took the blue rhombus device out, and he then whistled to a young assisant Terachnoid and whispered into his ear. The Terachnoid complied and ran off.
"It will take a while to find a wireless VG-9000 controller in our storage space," began Mac, looking apologetic towards Ratchet and Clank. "So why don't I show you some of the things we have in here." He walked past Ratchet and they followed him to upper-left corner of the room, where a little midget-like humanoid creature sat in the air, her wings buzzing, kind of like a half-humanoid, half-fly, floating inside the glass case (with a glove attached to the inside of it) and looking at Ratchet, having kind of an attraction to him.
"This is a Uterin," said Mac, and worried Ratchet when he began to say the name of it, thinking that he was going to say something else. "This species is extremely rare, and can only live in glass cases without dying. Most of this species travelled to a planet in which they expected it to be made of glass, but it turned out it was just shiny ice and they all died. Some, however stayed behind and we found this one and it agreed to live with us in the Battleplex. She is happy here, because she gets to look at all the Terachnoids and guests we bring through here, and always gets feed three times each day. I think she likes you."
By the time Mac had finished his story, the little Uterin had her body pressed up on the glass case, and was staring at Ratchet, trying to get closer to him. Ratchet decided to be kind to her and put his hand inside the inside out glove and was able to touch the little creature, lightly petting her, before being kissed on the hand. He watched as a brown piece of chocolate-looking food popped out of a glass tube petruding out of the wall and into the case, and the Uterin gave Ratchet one final kiss, before moving to eat her feed.
Ratchet started blushing, before realising that Mac and Clank had already moved on to the next object. Ratchet moved over to join them and heard some of the explanation Mac was giving.
"Now, the Wormod was created when scientists back on Terachnos were trying to create a new warrior for the Agorian Battleplex, and wondered how things would go if they mixed the DNA of a worm with the DNA of the Giant Snake, found on Lindashian. So they got a pale green, giant worm and although this is just the second prototype (the first one destroyed the labaratory), it already seems to be in control. Hopefully they'll give a controlled finished one soon."
"I saw that earlier," remarked Ratchet, surprising both Mac and Clank, who thought he stayed to have a moment with the Uterin. Mac turned around and smiled, before he noticed the young assisant from earlier running back to him with a wireless VG-9000 controller in his hands.
He took the controller and then moved back to the case and plugged the device into the top of it and pressed the Start button. A metal gate on the right side of the room, with no tables in front of it, opened and a gigantic metal robot flew out, over the tables, like it was built out of floating skyscraper and a small dome on the top.
"Whoa!" yelled Ratchet, looking at the robot floating in the air, checking it's features. It had jetpacks on it's feet, hands and on it's back as well, giving the proper lift.
"Now we can control Agorians while they are in battle, thanks to this, baby," said Mac, still focusing on the controller and directing the robot closer to Mac and he started checking the metal, and showed it off a bit by whacking it.
"I wish I had one of those!" exclaimed Ratchet, nudging Clank, who nodded to him in agreement. Mac noticed this and decided to give it to them because they had already cloned the object.
"You can have her," Mac suggested, offering the controller to Ratchet. "We've got plenty more copies in storage." Mac gave Ratchet the controller and he started moving the robot around the Secret of the Battleplex, over the scientists and chemicals, not grabbing their attention, and over the glass cases, wowing the Uterin and angering the Wormod, and Ratchet kept getting used to the controls by flying around the area.
Clank got angry because he didn't get to use it, but he didn't complain, because he didn't need it anyway. After Ratchet had finished, he pressed the Start button again and the robot's fell to the floor, thankfully not knocking everything over. He took the rhombus out of the controller and looked at the etching. hopefully that he would be able to read it.
"I've never been able to read that, but as a Lombax, you might be able to work it out," said Mac to Ratchet, looking at the etching with him.
"Made in the Woldgon Galaxy." Ratchet managed to read after translating for over a minute, always getting stuck on "Woldgon", because he had never heard of it before. He looked over to Mac to see if he knew what it was, but the look on his face suggested that he had no clue.
"Must be where that Lombax girl lives, because she's the one who delivered it to us," said Mac, thinking logically.
"Then, this will be a clue to where Angela is," said Clank, getting ready to leave. "But for some reason I don't think this will be easier than we think."
"Then lets go find her!" exclaimed Ratchet, almost leaving, but then remembering what Mac said. "Mac, how will I be able to take this robot with me?"
"Just press select," said Mac, before warping again and probably appearing back outside as a hologram. Ratchet found the "select" button on the controller, and pressed and looked at the robot. It folded inwards until it became a floating octahedron, and it moved over to Ratchet, and followed him wherever he went, like a shadow in the air. Ratchet took the octahedron with him, although he was forced to, and decided that he would call the blue rhombus the "Mind Control", or "Mindrol" for short, because it could take control of anything, like possessing someone. Ratchet shuddered at the thought of it getting into the wrong hands and stopped himself from thinking about it.
Ratchet stood in front of the doorway, blocked by the back of a rocky stone statue, and waited patiently as it checked the outside for any contestants or people that shouldn't know about the Secret of the Battleplex. He then waited for those people to leave, before the statue started shaking, and Ratchet could feel a little wobbling, but not much at all. The statue lowered to the ground, and Ratchet began to walk over it quickly, afraid that it would raise up again.
Clank followed him and they looked around the main room, and waved at Mac's hologram. The pair walked through the Battleplex, and saw the Cazarean boy emerging, who stared at them in fear for a while. Ratchet decided to ignore him, as he was probably embarrassed to be around a famous hero, and then walked into the hangar to hop in the newly-repaired Aphelion.
He was afraid that it was going to be different, but to his surprise it was exactly the same as it was when they left the Great Clock. Ratchet fired up the engines once again, and nodded to Clank, who nodded back in agreement, and they then lifted into the air, turning around and leaving the hangar, saying goodbye to the Battleplex for another time. They both were afraid that finding Angela wouldn't be an easy task, and then comforted themselves by that fact that if they were going to be thrown off course, then it could lead to finding Angela after all…
Chapter 2 Preview
"Why isn't Aphelion moving?" asked Clank, and Ratchet then realised that they hadn't moved at all, and he turned around to see the War Grok grabbing the back of Aphelion like a toy, deciding not to destroy it as it could provide it entertainment. Ratchet tried blowing some more exhaust on the War Grok, trying to get it to let go, but once the tickling got too annoying, it blocked the engines with one of it's hands.
"Snowball! Let them go! I will give the cookies I baked to Gwenda!" Ratchet heard the pathetic voice, and then banged his head on the steering wheel, realising that he would have to face the miserable sap named Captain Cornelius Leslie Qwark. Ratchet forced himself to turn around, and he was able to see, just past Snowball's body, Captain Qwark, looking very much the same, except with a pouch around his body, like a sash, running up to Snowball.