Disclaimer: The Ratchet and Clank franchise is the property of Insomniac Games, Inc., and as President and sole owner of Insomniac Games, Inc., I am entitled to 50% of the proceeds received…wait, I'm not the president of Insomniac Games? I have no ownership rights? I'm not making any money off of this? Darn it…

Spoiler Warning: This story contains spoilers to the plotline of Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. Seeing as this game has been out since 2009, I'm not sure why someone would be reading this story if they were not aware of what happens in that game. However, just to be safe, all readers are forewarned and it is recommended that you push the "Back" button on your window if you wish to avoid the game being spoiled for you.

It hurt at first. That burning pain from an energy blast that Ratchet never thought would be directed at him. There was a burning sensation at he clutched at his chest, and he could feel small sparks of electricity shooting up and down his arms and legs from where the energy from the blast interacted with his armor. Oh stars, did it hurt…Ratchet let out a weak cough as he felt his heartbeat slow down.

His heart beat once…then again…and then the pain was gone, and he was falling.

Ratchet opened his eyes to blackness. It wasn't dark per se; he could see his limbs and body just fine. He was just surrounded by this endless shadow, with nothing else in sight. There were no buildings, no people, and no stars. A shiver went down his spine as he realized how alone he suddenly felt. It may have not been "dark," but it certainly was foreboding and unsettling.

Where was he?

The young Lombax turned around a few times. Nothing. Just the black. What had happened exactly? Putting a hand to his forehead, Ratchet willed away a headache that didn't seem to exist. He was drawing a complete blank regarding what had happened in the past few minutes. He could recall fighting Nefarious again and then jumping onto Alister's ship to escape, but what happened after that? How did he get from the ship to this place of complete blackness?

No, not blackness he realized. Nothingness.

Or perhaps not, as suddenly a speck of light started to shine in the distance. Even from as far away as he was, Ratchet could tell that it was warm, and far friendlier than the strange place he was currently standing in. That's where he wanted to go. That's where he had to go. Ratchet became more encouraged by these thoughts as he drew closer to this light, and a small smile started to spread across his face.

Just as suddenly as the light had appeared in the distance, Ratchet felt something solid hit his chest. Looking down from the light he had been approaching, he saw a small sphere of glowing yellow and light brown. It had a wispy appearance to it, almost like the Zoni he had seen with Clank. This was different, however; despite having the general shape of a sphere, it seemed like this thing had no corporal form of its own. Was this frail-looking thing what had stopped Ratchet so suddenly and firmly?

Whatever it was, it didn't matter to him that much. What really mattered was still the light in the distance. Ratchet moved around the sphere to continue, but the thing just moved in front of him and pushed against his chest again, this time more strongly.

For some reason, he thought that this sphere pressing up against his chest should hurt. It was doing something that was supposed to be painful to him, but it wasn't. Aside from the pressure from the push and the annoyance about not making any progress, Ratchet felt nothing. Why wasn't it hurting him? Or better yet, why did Ratchet think such an action should be hurting him?

At his third attempt at reaching the light, Ratchet was pushed back so hard that he stumbled.

"Hey! What gives?" Ratchet exclaimed, his voice sounding like an echo to him before it even left his lips. At this he paused and put a hand up to his mouth. "What happened to my voice?"

"Right now," a voice said, sounding much like an echo itself. Ratchet startled a slight bit upon realizing that it was the sphere talking. "You don't have a voice."

"What do you mean?" Ratchet asked, annoyed. He just wanted to reach that light, was that so much to ask? "Of course I have a voice. I'm using it right now."

"Right now," repeated the voice, insistent. "Your vocal cords are still. You aren't speaking."

"Okay, that doesn't make any sense," the Lombax sighed, giving up. He wasn't getting any answers, and honestly he didn't care. "Look, can you please let me by? I want to reach that light."

The sphere responded by shoving against his chest again, forcing him backwards and away from the light.

"Stop that!"

"Trust me, Ratchet," the sphere spoke again. "You don't want to reach that light."

"How do you know my name?" he asked, rubbing his chest where he kept getting pushed. Now it was starting to hurt, but again not nearly to the extent that he thought it should. "And why not? I definitely don't want to stay here!"

"You've forgotten what happened, Ratchet. It's okay," the voice said, trying to sound as comforting as possible. "We all forget at first. But you need to try and remember."

"Try and remember what?"

"Close your eyes and think," the sphere ordered. "Where were you just moments ago?"

Seeing no other option but to obey this odd little wisp, Ratchet closed his eyes and thought back. Again, he remembered jumping onto Alister's ship after defeating Nefarious, Clank on his back, and they zoomed off into the stars. His headache started to get worse as he continued to concentrate.

They had landed at the Great Clock…there was a conversation with Clank. What was it about? That's right, Clank was staying at the Clock to continue his "father's" work. And Ratchet understood. That was the little robot's place in the universe; it was where he belonged. Although Ratchet knew he would miss the little Sentry-bot-gone-wrong, he was not about to stop Clank from doing what he really felt he should be doing. Ratchet had dragged him around the various galaxies they'd been to long enough, and if Clank wanted to do his version of "settling down" then the young man was not going to stop him.

"You are a good man, Ratchet," the sphere said fondly in his head, almost as if it could tell what he was thinking. "Keep going. You're almost there."

Keep going. Alister was there too. He was saying something about saving the Lombaxes from…something. What—oh right, they were trapped in another dimension from using the Dimensionator, and Alister wanted to use the Great Clock to change the past so that Tachyon never had the opportunity to annihilate the Lombax race. He and Ratchet argued for a moment, and then Ratchet turned his back to enter the Great Clock with Clank. He had mixed feelings then, thinking now was the time he would leave his best friend behind forever, but he was happy to spend those last moments with Clank. Nothing else was more important.

Except that Alister disagreed with Ratchet's decision to leave the past as it was. He was yelling, saying the Lombaxes needed them, that they had to be saved. He hated that Ratchet was walking away so calmly…

"I said stop!" Then Alister shot an energy beam from his double omniwrench, and—

Ratchet's eyes shot open, staring at the sphere form that had now risen to the level of his face. He stared at the flowing yellow and brown colors for a moment before lowering his eyes to look down at his hands.

"I'm…dead," he spoke with finality. "Alister killed me."

"I'm sorry, Ratchet," the sphere said.

Ratchet looked back at the wisp again before looking around into the nothingness again, acknowledging the bright light in the distance that still called to him, but this time not moving towards it.

"So this…is where we all go when we die?" Ratchet wondered.

"Not exactly," the sphere interrupted his thoughts. Although, it was now less of a sphere and more of a small pillar as it grew to nearly match Ratchet in size, just slightly bigger than the Lombax. "This is more of a transfer dock. You're not quite on the other side yet."

"Then, that light," the Lombax pointed to the bright speck. "That's the other side?"

"One of them, yes."

"Then why am I still here?" he inquired to the wisp. "Why did you stop me?"

"I've been watching you and Clank for many years, Ratchet," the wispy form answered. "And from what I see Clank doing, you won't be here long. I had to stop you from crossing over before your friend had the chance to save you."

"Save me? From the dead?" Ratchet thought out loud, his brain finally coming to terms with what had brought him to this ominous place. The light at the far end now seemed farther away than ever. "Alister killed me! How can you save someone from the dead?"

"First, forgive Alister," the form gently insisted. It seemed to move a bit of its "body" to rest on Ratchet's shoulder. "He just doesn't understand that the Clock is not meant to alter time, only keep it."

"He's obsessed with changing the past and saving the Lombaxes," Ratchet spat out. "Doesn't matter if he rips a hole in the time-space continuum in the process."

"Can you really blame him?" The entity asked. "Was it so long ago that you agreed with his plan?"

"…No, I guess not," Ratchet honestly did not have an argument against that. It wasn't until he met up again with Clank and the small bot had explained to him what would happen if the Great Clock was used as a time machine that he gave up on the idea of changing the past to save his parents. As much as he wanted to see them again, the risk to the rest of the universe was too great for him to be selfish.

"Think of it this way. When Alister was banished from joining the Lombaxes and exiled to Torren IV, he thought he was literally the last Lombax in the universe," the being described. Ratchet knew this was true. When he first met the Lombax general, he could remember Alister yelling out how there were no more Lombaxes, and that he thought Ratchet was an assassin using a hologuise. "He was alone, as far as he knew. His best friend was dead, and he had no idea you were alive."

"I'll admit, it was nice to know I wasn't the last of my species out there," confessed Ratchet. "Out of the blue, there's this older Lombax who not only could tell me about my race and what happened to them, but also happened to know my father?"

"You were hooked on that. I would have been too," said the ghost. "And in you, Alister saw the chance to correct the colossal mistake he made all those years ago when he helped a creature that should not have been helped."

"I guess it's one of those 'worst things come from the best intentions' sort of things," the younger concluded. "He couldn't have known what Tachyon was going to do though."

"No doubt, Alister wouldn't have agreed to help Tachyon if he had. I know that for certainty," the gold and brown form affirmed. He then started to laugh again. "Memories are strange. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was that his first name was Percival."

Ratchet laughed with him. "I thought it was too."

"I tried to warn Alister…"

"He can be incredibly stubborn. He wants to do the right thing," Ratchet agreed. "But still…"

"But still, he must be stopped," the ghost interjected again. It moved in a way that looked like a nod. "And to accomplish that, you need to be alive again."

"…Clank is going to save me?" Ratchet questioned, going back to the ghost's previous explanation. "And how exactly is he going to do that. I'm dead."

"As you have said before," the ghost laughed a little once again. "The thing is the Clock can be used to travel into the past. But only for a short time."

"Like I did when I traveled to Zanifar and Morklon and used the time portals to change their histories?"

"Sort of. The Clock can be used like that when the changes would only rip the time continuum slightly, and the time rift can be stabilized," the ghost explained. "The changes made to those places at those times did not have the impact on the universe the way that bringing back the Lombaxes would. That would be too great of a change."

"And bringing me back from the dead wouldn't be?"

"Actually, it would," continued the ghost. Ratchet looked like he wanted to speak again, but the ghost held up a "hand" to stop him. "You have made a huge impact on many different galaxies, Ratchet. Your death resounds in space and time like a tsunami on an entire island. Changing this event, normally, would probably come close to breaking the Great Clock in half."

Break the Great Clock in half by bringing him back from the dead? He was that important to the universe? Ratchet eyes widened as he felt his shoulders start to crumble underneath the weight of that newly discovered fact. The ghost patted him on the shoulder again, and it was oddly comforting to the Lombax.

"But, if bringing me back would do that, then shouldn't Clank leave me dead?" he asked.

"Believe me he's worried about that, but there's a slight catch to it," resumed the angel. "The Clock can go back in time to change the past, but it has a limit for how far it can go back without causing a huge time rift."

"…What's the limit?"

"Six minutes."

"Six minutes?" yelled Ratchet. "But we've been talking much longer than that!"

"Don't worry, Ratchet," the angel replied. "Six minutes will be just enough time. Just. Time moves differently when you're dead."

"Why six minutes?" the Lombax asked, completely perplexed that such a seemingly random number would hold such importance.

"Powers that be, Ratchet," the angel explained…or didn't explain rather. "Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers."

"…Is there anything else I should know? You know, before I go back there?"

"Just that Alister needs to be stopped. Keep him from using the Great Clock."

"But what do I have to do?"

"You know what and how, Ratchet," the angel stated. It was odd, it was almost as if Ratchet could tell that the strange, translucent form was smiling. "And you'll have Clank."

"Clank," Ratchet said simply. He sighed with a smile. "I don't know what I'd do without him. He puts up with so much from me."

"He feels the same way, Ratchet," the angel reassured him. "That's why he's having such a hard time deciding whether or not to use the Clock to save you."

"Either leave me dead and keep time in balance, or try and save me and possibly rip the Clock in two," the Lombax summarized, still smiling. "Good ol' logical Clank. I hope he's all right."

"He will be, once he makes the decision," spoke the angel. "I know you can do it. I'll be watching you the whole time."

"Watching me?" wondered Ratchet.

"I've always been watching you, Ratchet," the angel chuckled. "Though it's really annoying when all you can do is watch."

"I don't…" the young man trailed off. "…understand?"

"We can talk more about all this when it actually is your time to cross over," the Lombax angel said conclusively. "Hopefully that's not for a good while, but I'll be waiting and watching on the other side in the meantime."

He put both of his hands on Ratchet's shoulders this time, and gave a very firm push as Ratchet stumbled back…

…And landed on his rear, barely avoiding the energy blast that had come from Alister's omniwrench.

There was an explosion behind him as the blast flew past him and hit the pathway leading to the room that Clank had called the Orvis Chamber. Clank himself had his metal hands gripped onto Ratchet's shoulders, holding on after having pushed him out of the way of the attack. Ratchet could feel the heat from the explosion through his fur and onto this skin beneath it.

Clank rolled off of him, allowing Ratchet to push himself to his feet. He turned back to the old Lombax general, betrayal clear in his eyes. He stared at Alister in disbelief, shocked at the idea that the older Lombax would attack him with the intent to kill him. Where was the mentor he had met not so long ago? The one who had complimented his fighting skills, his flying abilities, and even his humor?

It would seem that Lombax was gone. The spark in Alister's eyes looked unhinged as he lunged to attack Ratchet again. He recalled the words of the angel he had just finished speaking with.

"He just doesn't understand that the Clock is not meant to alter time, only keep it."

Ratchet was going to make him understand. The younger man felt Clank silently hop onto his back one last time, and Ratchet steeled himself for the oncoming battle.

It was on.