Still releasing these on time... I must be sick, this is unlike me. Then again my other fic is... 'On hold'. Anyway - New chapter! Hooray! I think :P
Thanks to the new follower! One which was little more than 15 minutes ago. And to everyone else who reads this too!
And I have now officially changed the name to 'Distractions'. So don't get too confused :P
Anyway, I think I talk to much. Here it is. Enjoy! :D
My dreams were riddled with silver balls raining down from the sky, plummeting down as gravity finished its job. Left right and centre, people were being squashed by the metallic meteorite shower. Through the chaos I heard my name being shouted in the distance. I followed it, barely escaping a wrath of the silver globes which were bearing down on Kerwan like there was no tomorrow… Was there even going to be a tomorrow? I heard my name being shouted again, louder this time. I ran towards the still indistinguishable voice. My heart pounded - or was it the metal balls? I wasn't sure, but something was pounding.
I saw a figure in the distance but my sight was blurry like I was looking at it through water. It flopped up and down, left and right until-
"Ratchet!"
I heard my name as loud and as clear as ever and my eyes slowly opened.
Through the glass screen of my O2 mask, I could see those eyes I know so well. That pale purple skin…
Talwyn had seized me into a tight hug at the sight of my eyes being open and I could help but return it, albeit weakly. I noticed a wet warmth dripping onto my shoulder and it took me a short while to realise that she was crying… Then the questions struck me.
What the hell happened?
Why is Talwyn crying?
How did I get to her or she to me?
Where am I?
We kept up the hug for god knows how long, but it was nice, and at the same time it gave me some time to clear my head. When she eventually let go of me, we still didn't move. We just stared at each other, our smiles hidden by our O2 masks, but our eyes got the message through.
"I thought you were dead… Again…" She broke the silence with a quiet whisper.
"Well as you may be able to tell, I'm not." I replied which made her sigh and pull me in again for another hug, which I returned.
"Just… Don't do this to me again… Please…"
"I won't. I promise, Tal."
She hugged me tighter for a second before letting go and again we just looked at each other, but this time it was my turn to break the silence.
"What happened?" I asked and received a blank stare from the woman who I just realised was was on my lap.
"I was just about to ask you the same thing... What's the last thing you remember?"
"Uhh, I rang you... Then talked to Clank for about 30 seconds before Aphelion's alarm's started blaring... Wait! Where's Clank? Is he okay?" I looked around frantically. Talwyn's ship was in the background, slowly drifting away, and just behind Talwyn herself was a massive metal ball and broken shards of glass... Even weirder, attached to Aphelion were these metallic tentacle-like things which seemed to be cut in half.
"Look to your left" Tal said when she saw me look around frantically. I did as she said and found my best friend. He has been shut down, I could tell. His red light wasn't blinking...
"Three of those tentacle things had latched onto him. I took them off carefully about 10 minutes ago now..."
I nodded while giving a pretty much unconscious Clank a shoulder rub. He'll be fine. We've been through heaps together, I doubt a couple of electrical tentacles can stop him. I returned my attention back to Talwyn, slowly growing more aware of where she was.
"So how did you find me? And what the hell is that ball behind you?"
"Well, I traced your call and got a likely route you would've taken from the holonet, then I shot off... After 3 days of Cronk and Zephyr telling me not to worry about you."
"I was out for three days!?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, I'm here now at least. Not as dead as the news station has let me out to be" I gave her a smile, only to realise that she still couldn't see my face. It was the thought that counts, right?
"You don't have any idea how glad I am that they got that wrong… It was horrible! I.." There was a small chink of metal bumping metal as I went to give her a small kiss to reassure her everything was fine. Instinct kicked in I guess, though it didn't account for the fact that we were in space both with oxygen masks on. I thanked god for fur as I felt the blood rush to my cheeks in embarrassment.
"Oh, uh... Sorry… We're in space… Heh… Sorry." I tried to apologise when I saw her look away slightly. But instead of responding, she took my hand and gave me a small nod. She got up off me and held her arm out to pull me up out of the chair.
"C'mon. We better get back to Cronk and Zephyr. They'll be worried sick about us." She said as she pulled me up.
"So you snuck away, in the middle of the night, without their knowledge of it?" I almost laughed while stretching my back and arms.
"Yeah... You know me."
"Yup. And I wouldn't expect anything else from you."
"Oh, thanks." She spoke with fluent sarcasm on to receive a witty 'you're welcome' from me.
I bent down to get Clank from the seat I was unconscious on for the past three days. He now had 3 circular marks on him, each with a pinpoint of a hole in the centre of each mark... Something wasn't right, I just knew it. After meeting up with Cronk and Zephyr I was going to head straight to Big Al for him to look over Clank. I didn't want to have two people on the list of my recently lost...
I spun him around, locking him on to the mechanism on my harness and stepped up onto the bonnet with Talwyn. Her ship looked like it had drifted away while she was waking me up, or doing whatever else she hasn't told me about yet... Nevertheless, it would be the perfect time to show off my fathers hoverboots to her.
"Okay, we are going to have to do this right, otherwise its drifting through space until our O2 masks run out. I left my jetpack at home too, so I can't steer myself mid jump... You ready?" I nodded.
"You go ahead. I think there's a bit of glass in my shoe..." I lied and bent down. I put the boots on a low setting so that I wouldn't bolt around everywhere... And I jumped.
I caught up to Talwyn without activating the boots, grabbed her hand and pulled her close before tapping my heels together. She screamed as we shot through space and circled around her ship a few times. After the 4 circuit I jammed my legs in front of me to slow us down to a gliding speed than navigated back to Talwyn's ships, all the while she was hugging me tightly... And I didn't think it was from the fear of being separated...
"Where did you get those!?" A excited Talwyn asked me as I set her down on the bonnet of her ship.
"Oh, these? I got them from..." I drifted off mid sentence suddenly remembering my first encounter with Alister and how he taught me how to use them and how he wasn't here anymore...
"A guy" I finally finished after what seemed to be hours of hesitation. But simply saying 'A guy' wasn't good enough...
"And this guy is...?"
"Just some guy... An unimportant secondary character."
"What? And you still haven't given me a straight answer"
"I said its not important"
"Well if its not important why won't you tell me then?
"Because its not important and I don't want to talk about this right now"
"Oh, c'mon Ratchet, just tell me"
"I said I don't want to talk about it!" I finally snapped. Talwyn just stood there mouth slightly open at my outburst. I needed to not think about this. I needed some time alone to forget about it all. I came back to her for a distraction, not to mull over the past. I need a distraction... I need... Her arms wove around me and pulled me into a long hug. It was a different feeling to the hug back on Aphelion. This one was more filled with sorrow and pain, for me at least. The guilt started rearing in when she whispered into my ear...
"I'm sorry"
her apology was short simple, and not needed. I was the one who shouted.
"Don't be" I whispered back to her and again we rested in each others arms for an eternity.
When we finally let go of each other, she just nodded at me before turning around and opening the glass hatch to her ship. I put clank in the passenger seat as Talwyn and I sat down in the back seat and waited for the oxygen to fill the ship. Once the ship beeped, we took off our masks and look in each others faces properly for the first time in a while.
"I guess you've been through some pretty life changing stuff..." She spoke softly. And I nodded, not willing to speak just yet for the fear of my voice breaking.
"I'm just glad you're alive..." Her voice barely got to my ears, but her smile did. I smiled back at her as our eyes locked onto each other. The gravity between us got stronger and stronger as we both moved closer together. I barely took in the moment before her lips came down upon mine. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the slow kiss. Her soft lips lingering over mine which sent tingles through my body. The taste of her minty sweet breath was a whole new sensation to savour as she came back slightly more passionate than before... Then we parted.
I opened my eyes and looked at the beautiful woman who filled my sights and smiled. The kind of smile that no matter how hard you try, you cannot stop it. My heart lit when she did the same and I knew without even thinking about it at the time that I had found the distraction that I was looking for...
Boop. So what did you think of that, eh? Reviews are still thing that can pop into my emails at the moment so if you have the time :3
