Chapter 3: The fall
9:30 am, mission briefing
Xexus, Deroot, and Otto were all standing in what appeared to be a briefing room, around what was a small holographic table, detailing how the army of clones will engage ratchet and clank, "The plan will be that when he arrives, we will have the regular units fight him first, if he gets past that then the elites will enter the fray , I will fight him myself and if things start to look bad, i will fall back to a position that i will have you two positioned at to ambush him, understood?"
Deroot spoke up "uh, shouldn't you also get your generals to help make the plan as well?"
"I would prefer to not bring them into this, because this is suppose to be your first ever test against an actual enemy, I only want you two in on the battle plan because after this, you'll be assigned command posts of the clone army, so i want to have you two figure this out on your own".
Xexus muttered his opinion "There you go again with your crazy plans" Otto, continued without hearing that "Again if anything happens, you two are my backup plan incase i fail to kill them, now get to your positions".
3 hours later, mind transfer machine.
Xexus and Deroot were waiting in the massive room that was crucial to Ottos plan, they kept checking their equipment to see if everything was working properly.
"This is taking too long, i would've preferred to have attacked ratchet first rather than use the standard clones as cannon fodder" xexus complained as he checked his lacerator and laser blade for what seemed like the 50th time that day.
Deroot replied after cleaning one of the barrels of his laser mini gun of some hidden grime, "Well you heard Ottos orders, we are to stay here incase his plan fails".
Xexus snorted to Deroots response, there were multiple things xexus hated about today so far, waiting for the enemy, being left in the dark about certain events, and using others lower in rank as mere pawns when there was no need for it.
Xexus, fed up with waiting, stood up and walked towards the exit "i'm gonna go check up on things outside" before he could open the door however, Deroot already had his hand on xexus shoulder, "xexus you know our orders, and you know how many times you got Otto pissed at you for disobeying them, now have some more patience and wait, who knows maybe they already took care of ratchet before he could do anything".
Instead of doing what Deroot wanted him to do like a good little puppet soldier would do, he immediately turned around and exited the facility and replied "This is a battle Deroot, many unexpected things could happen". was all he said as he went to where he knew otto would be along with the elite clones.
Elite arena
Xexus stuck to the shadows,trying not to get spotted by otto or ratchet, when he got to the arena he noticed that they were talking, instead of jumping in immediately he decided to get close enough to here what they were saying.
"Hahahaha! You actually bought that cheesy story?!" recognizing the voice was otto's, xexus was a little curious about what this 'cheesy story' was, so he decided to stay hidden.
"Whatever nonsense you've heard about this being for my empire, or credit for our work is one big lie" once xexus heard that, he was completely shocked, still curious since he still doesn't know what ottos motive is, he continued to listen.
Otto quickly flew down to where ratchet and what xexus assumed to be his partner clank and immediately continued "This is for power, and the question for today is whats more powerful than intelligence?" Ratchet, having what looked like a confused face on him simply said "The RYNO?"
Xexus immediately slammed his head as hard as he could into the nearest wall that, somehow didn't get anyones attention 'this is the guy this army was cloned from? i guess that explains why the standard clones lost so easily' he thought with a tinge of guilt for thinking of the standard clones like that. But otto was right, while overwhelming firepower and brute strength is hard to beat, not having the intelligence to use such forces effectively could easily make it very simple for it to be defeated by a much less powerful force.
Otto continued "nothing can defeat the power of the mind" as he finished that part of the his gloating, he activated a nearby monitor, showing the mind transfer machine. "you see this machine on the monitor, all of this has been leading up to it, what that machine is capable of doing is transfer the knowledge one person carries over to another, and once these clones are complete, i'll use them to gather all the highly intelligent beings in the galaxy, have their intelligence transferred to me, and become the most intelligent entity the universe has ever known!" xexus, now trying to figure out why otto would have this goal instead, immediately felt stupid for not realizing it sooner, with the way otto looks, to the way he dealt with that last guard back when he was created, and the typical 'villian reveal diabolical plan to good guys cliche' he just gave to ratchet and clank, now feeling like he's been used, and slightly stupid, he became downright furious with otto, for not only using him, but every other clone.
Before xexus could jump down and rip otto a new one, the elite clones started coming out of the floor panels to attack ratchet, so he decided to run back to the mind transfer device and convince deroot that otto was using them, and hopefully blow up that machine to end ottos plans, 'otto i swear i'll make you pay' he thought running as fast as he could, while unintentionally activating his parasite.
Mind transfer machine
Quickly running back into the building that kept the machine so many clones died for, xexus quickly ran over to deroot, who hadn't moved from his spot.
"Jeez xexus relax, you look like you ran into a-" deroot couldn't finish his sentence as xexus threw what appeared to be explosive charges into his arms. "start planting those on key parts of the machine". was all xexus said as he walked over to one of the machine supports.
Quickly realizing what xexus wanted, deroot tried to say something "xexus wait, i know you and otto don't get along, but blowing this up will most surely get you-"
"He lied Deroot" was what got deroot to stop, now curious what he meant by that deroot asked, "lied? what do you mean by that?" xexus, as he was getting one of the charges on the support he replied " he lied about everything, about what were doing, about the clones, he was using us!" Deroot, still in denial just stood were he was, taking in what xexus just said.
Xexus continued, "He was going to use the clones and us to grab every intelligent being in this solar system and transfer their knowledge to him, so he could become, in his words, 'the most intelligent entity the universe has ever known!' " Deroot, was blown away but he still had that sense of doubt inside of him, telling him that xexus is just mad, and needs time to cool off, hoping this was some bad dream before the day ratchet gets to the facility,"deroot, i know you don't believe me, but i heard it all, he even denied it himself saying it was nonsense and that only power mattered, now please, help me blow up this god forsaken machine that so many of our brothers died for". xexus was now standing in front of deroot, giving him a look telling him that this was no dream and that it was reality, deroot wanted to believe so much that he became oblivious, but he wasn't the only one xexus was too, and now that feeling of being used changed him.
Looking up, e noticed that all the bombs were placed except the one xexus gave him, turning around he noticed that xexus was waiting on him to make his choice, of either remaining delusional, or join him in getting revenge.
He walked up to the last part and placed the bomb on it firmly, and were now walking out towards the exit to get out of the blast radius, they didn't get far as otto came running in, with some bits of his clothing scorched, with some marks from laser fire on his face as well.
Quickly looking up from were he was he then noticed xexus and deroot, "the plan failed, quick i need you two to get into position, wait". quickly realizing something was wrong he noticed they didn't look happy to see him and it looked like the mind transfer device had explosive charges all over it.
Quickly realizing what they were doing he immediately got mad "XEXUS, DEROOT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING, YOU KNOW WE NEED THAT-" he wasn't able to finish because of the lacerator round that grazed his face.
"You mean 'you need that' right?" xexus said with a hint of disgust in his voice, then deroot decided to voice his opinion "so what xexus said was true, about you using us for gaining power" deroot said with the same amount of hate.
Otto then tried to reason his way out "look i know you guys don't like the sound of that, but i need to become the smarts being in the universe in order to make my empire saf-"
"SPARE US YOUR BULLSHIT YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" xexus yelled but this time, there was a dark red aura surrounding him and deroot as they got more mad.
"you lied to us and tried to use us for your own gain, you deceitful snake!" was what deroot said, with his aura looking more like tiny flames coming off his body while xexus were giving off a more sinister feeling, then their eyes started to glow red.
'Impossible! the limiters on the parasites should prevent their evolution!' otto screamed in his head.
Before either one of them could do anything, a wrench came flying into the room and hit deroot in the face, with what followed was a barrage of shock missiles, causing xexus to find cover.
"dammit, completely forgot you were being chased" xexus said, with his voice being a little deeper then before, ratchet came running throughout the entrance, shooting at xexus with his dual lacerators.
"Well looks like you still had two left, they won't really be of any help though!" ratchet yelled as he continued shooting at xexus.
Before they could even hit him however, xexus disappeared and reappeared in front of ratchet, ratchet quickly jumped to the side and tried to hit xexus with his omniwrench, which was parried by xexus laser blade.
"ratchet be careful, these clones are not like the last ones we fought" clank said from ratchets back,"What, how can you tell?" while ratchet and xexus remained in their gridlock, truing to overpower each other, deroot recovered and started shooting at ratchet with his massive gatling gun.
Ratchet quickly kicked xexus and had clank use his helipack to jump over the barrage of laser fire and into cover behind some debris.
"They have an unusual energy radiating off their bodies thats somehow amplifying their abilities" ratchet fired more shock rockets at deroot but they were intercepted by the amount of laser being fired.
"Oh great, super clones" ratchet said in the most sarcastic way possible as he moved to another set of cover as the one he was at shattered.
They kept up their fight, completely forgetting about otto who made his way over to the mind transfer device, activating its defensive system, it shot a beam towards ottos head and he began to float, while two giant green hands materialized on both sides of him, once the materialization was complete, he turned around and quickly flew at xexus who was just about to leap at ratchet.
Xexus, already in motion could only brace himself as otto punched him out of the air, smashing him into a nearby wall.
"Since your the one who caused all this xexus, I'll kill you first!" otto said as he rushed at xexus again to crush xexus with one of the giant green hands, quickly realizing that this fight will only get worse, xexus decided to use plan B, "deroot forget about them we got to go!" deroot stopped his barrage and tried to catch up to xexus, but ratchet quick got in the way, trying to mow him down with his duel lacerators, while that was happening otto finally landed a hit on xexus and sent him flying into a wall, before he could recover, otto grabbed him with one of the giant hands, he pulled xexus close to him, "It's still a shame though, you could have been my top general, running the most feared army in the universe, oh well i guess i'll have to go back to the drawing board!" before he could crush xexus however, "y-yeah? well i guess i'll just have to take you to hell with me!" before otto could reply, the explosives started going off, blowing off the supports and causing the whole thing to collapse on top of them, and xexus world went black.
Unknown
When xexus came to, he saw deroot dragging him through what was left of the cloning facility, towards what was left of the ship hanger, him and deroot were both badly bruised and bleeding, their clothing ripped and scorched, but what xexus noticed was that deroot lost his right hand.
"w-what happened" was all he could say, he could barely speak without pain shooting through his throat, "when the building collapsed it made the reactor that was powering the building explode, destroying a few other buildings and sent us flying, save your energy, your bleeding much more than i am, plus the main reactor is going to go off soon."
Deroot finally made it to the ship hangar, finding one that was and put xexus down in the co-pilot seat, he went into the back, grabbing any medical supplies he could find, when he got back to the cockpit however, he was taken aback at what he saw, the wounds on xexus healing on their own at a rapid pace, the bleeding also stopped, but xexus had passed out before they got into the ship, so instead of wondering how his wounds had healed, he quickly patched up his own wounds with the first aid kit, looking back at what was left of the facility, he doubt otto survived but he also noticed a small blue streak in the sky, indicating that ratchet and clank had survived, once the ship made it out of the atmosphere you could see the remains of the facility completely explode, due to the main reactors meltdown.
Looking back for one last time Deroot had a look of sorrow, "We no longer have a home, were the only clones left, but i think we can at least try to start anew." he had the ship auto select a random planet, so he decided to get some shut eye before they got to who knows were.