Finally! I have what I believe to be a proper story. To put it simple, After seeing how my previous story, "Ratchet and Clank NEX: Falling Star", sounded too much like another fanfic, I decided to try to make something more original. Thus, this story was born.

It has taken me some time to come up with one that I both like and thought it would be good. So here it is.

Note: I do not own anything, but the OCs. Ratchet and Clank belong to Insomniac.

Enjoy!

Also, please comment.

Chapter 1: Returning Home?

"Approaching Planet Veldin now," said his little robotic friend. It was nice to be back in the Solana galaxy. After the events of the creature collector and Zorgo, Ratchet felt like returning to their garage back on Veldin. Well, what was left of it at least. It still wasn't fixed up after what happened with Artimus Zogg. There probably wasn't much of it left. One of their reasons for coming back was more than just being homesick. In Ratchet's case, it was to get away from Qwark. After taking care of Zorgo, he was fine for a few months. Then the complaining about the universe being "so boring" came back. He wanted some excuse to get away and what better way than going home to fix up your garage that has been in shambles for… what? A year or so?

The brown planet, that the Lombax had spent most of his life growing up on, came into view. "Ah, it's good to be back-"Just then, Aphelion interrupted. "I hate to interrupt, but my scanners show that there are several ships heading in our direction and one of them appear to be under fire." Well, so much for going back home right away. "Can you identify what kind of ships they are?" inquired Clank. "Negative, these ships are like nothing that I have ever seen." Ratchet and Clank gave each other questionable looks. Ships not known to the galaxy? "Well let's take a look at them." He turned her around so that they could get a look these strange ships.

They were strange ships. Most of them looked like peapods, only bigger , with wings, and with a darker dull blue than green… and they had guns apparently. There was at least seven or eight of them in sight and they were opening fire on another ship- one that was much different from the others. Actually, this one, in some ways, resembled Aphelion to some degree. It was red with yellow markings and canopy with blue lights coming from it.

The ship did a barrel roll followed by a hard right turn. It then proceeded to return fire on its attackers. Whoever was piloting the ship, managed to take out one the ships in the rear. However, the rest continued chase. "Do you think we should help them?" asked Clank. "Don't see why not. Hang on!" He shot Aphelion forward, after the peapod ships. He then opened fire on the ships, taking out two of them. (Only five left to go.) Two of the ships broke formation from chasing after the other and were now heading for them.

While Ratchet considered the battle, Clank was watching the other ship. It's moves were certainly not that of an amateur. As the three ships gained on them, they did a straight up flip. The ship went up too, then, as it came back down as if doing a nose dive, was directly over the one in the middle. Collision was immediate or it would have been, if the red ship hadn't had blasted it on the way down. (Four left) He watched this from a side point of view. Then Clank noticed something that stood out from the ship, the markings on the side of it.

Ratchet easily took out the other two fighter ships with skill, leaving only the two chasing after the red ship. However, one of them had locked-on to them. Even though Ratchet had managed to destroy that ship, it was too late. A missile was fired. It hit the left thruster, causing a soundless explosion that, inside, sounded more like a mutilated explosion and all that was felt was the shock wave of it. The ship was now caught in Veldin's gravitational field and was being pulled closer to the planet. Ratchet had just taken out the other two fight ships just in time to watch the one he was helping enter the planet's orbit.

"Great." The ship was now becoming a ball of fire in the sky. He sent his ship after it, even though there wasn't much he could do now. "Ratchet, I do not know if you noticed, but the marking on the ship-" He frowned. "Yeah? What about them?" still keeping his eyes on the ship that was starting to spiral out of control. "They are Lombax." Ratchet turned to his friend in confusion of what he just said. He almost didn't believe him. Then again, Clank wasn't one to lie to him. "You're serious?!" returning his gaze now and then back to the ship. "Yes, which means there is a Lombax in there."

Ratchet's attentions was now fully back onto the ship. It was getting ever so close to the planet's surface and when their ship hits the ground, there's a good chance that when it goes, it's taking the Lombax- or Lomabxes- inside with it. Could things get any worse? At this point, all he could think to do was to watch and hope that the ship would survive and so would the Lombax inside.

Luckily, Clank had just come up with an idea. "Ratchet, if you use Aphelion's kinetic tether on the nose of the ship, you could drag it along for a safer landing. You just need to get in front of it once it is attached." That could work, but he had to act fast. They had just broken through what little cloud cover there was and were now just mere thousands of feet above and rapidly descending. He fired the tether and with mere luck, it latched onto the nose without even locking on. Now, they had a new problem.

Their ship was now being dragged behind the other. Ratchet throttled Aphelion to being up front. They had to be at least two thousand feet when he was in front of it and pulled up. Truth is, he wasn't expecting that plan to work, but Clank's plans have been proven right before. The ship was now descending at a rather slower pace. "Nice thinking, buddy," he commented his friend. They were now at least below one thousand feet before the ground. "Now all we have to do is land-"

There was an explosion and the ship rocked. It had caught both of them off guard. "Aphelion! What happened?"

"It appears we have been hit. I did not detect any enemy craft that fired." They fired before she could detect them?

That wasn't the worst of it. The ship they were pulling behind them was now rapidly descending. Again. The blast must have caused the tether to snap. Aphelion finally found who had fired at them. It was another of those peapod ships. No, there were two… wait, five of them. They flew past them and went straight after the other. "Okay, these guys are starting to get annoying." Just then, three bigger ships- like cargo ships- appeared; each one being escorted by three peapod ships.

As for the other that was still descending, it came in close to a plateau. At first look, one would have thought that it would hit the side of it and that the ship would explode. However, if that was to happen, then that would have been the end of it.