Rise of the Uniposers
After Talwyn runs away on the Apogee Spaceship, Ratchet finds her and leaves, only to find that the Apogee Spaceship warped again after they left. On the planet Lomtaber, the gang discovers a Lombax temple. Clank sneakily climbs the temple and almost gets killed, but help the rest get into it. Inside they find the mysterious Lombax egg being protected by four ninjas, and after obtaining it find themselves in grave danger. However, a Lombax who claims to be the egg's father saves them and demands the egg.
Chapter 4: A Red Herring
From space, sunset looked beautiful. Throughout the peaceful stars glistening in the never-ending night, a planet's sunset completed the beauty of space. Everyday, the Woldgon Galaxy was peaceful, with the occasional hum of a trading space vehicle or the occasional whirr of an adventurer leaving or entering the galaxy. It had been 3000 years since a battle had erupted in the ecstatic shine of stars. Yet, that was about change soon.
Planet: Dethrona
Location: A cloning facility in the desert.
When: Two planetary rotations after the Lombax egg was found on Lomtaber.
Four purple neon circular lights attached to the wall were the only source of light in the pitch black prison room. Four purple neon circular lights lined up side-by-side, studying the injured and exhausted figures of Ratchet, Talwyn, Clank and Qwark, respectively. Four purple neon circular lights revealed the metal cages that the group was squashed in, trying to discover a source of breath for their exhausted lungs.
Ratchet was trapped in chains around his wrists and ankles as he sat on the ground and a sickly green ooze dripped from a crack in the ceiling onto his fuzzy yellow and brown ears. After being unconscious for hours, he finally woke up and was the first one to raise his head from his knees while everyone cowered in sadness. "Wha…Where am I?" asked Ratchet weakly, looking around the place, being able to see Talwyn, Clank and Qwark to the left of him. "How did we get into this prison?"
"You don't remember?" asked Talwyn, raising her head as well, and she looked over at the damaged body of Ratchet. One of his ears had been sliced off and a bandage had been placed there, but was slowly being pushed off as the ear grew back. His arms and legs were full of bruises, and he was sure that one of his fingers had been broken mysteriously, because he couldn't remember what had happened.
"Remember what was mentioned he was thrown into his cell? Apparentally, he was knocked unconscious in an explosion," answered Clank, raising his head as well, and Talwyn then noticed a huge dent in it.
"WHAT EXPLOSION?" yelled Ratchet, startling Talwyn and Clank, but they were used to yelling because of a certain person they came across when being thrown in prison. They were too shocked to explain anything, so Qwark raised his wet head, trying to speak through his tears. "I'll explain," said Qwark proudly, his voice still having that crying tone to it. "The story goes like this…"
2 planetary rotations ago, the group were fighting four ninjas on Lomtaber, and defeated three of them, but as the last one was about to kill them, a yellow blur whooshed into the temple and collected them, before going back out the temple. It turned out to be a Lombax, who demanded them to give him the egg, claiming that it was the child of him and Angela. Now, they stood outside the temple at sunset, and the Lombax was standing in front of them, ready to attack.
"I said give me the egg, or you'll regret it," said the Lombax in a gruff voice. Talwyn, Qwark and Clank all looked at Ratchet, with mixed feelings on what they should do. Qwark was typically a coward and wanted him to hand the egg over, but Talwyn and Clank knew that it was the right thing to not hand it over immediately because they could be walking into a trap.
"Not yet," said Ratchet. "We need to know if your trustworthy."
"GIVE ME THE EGG!" roared the Lombax, causing the fur on Ratchet's skin to be blown back by the air. "IT BELONGS TO ME!"
"He won't listen…" mumbled Talwyn, and while they continued to bicker with the Lombax, Qwark tried thinking of an escape plan. Eventually, when the Lombax began to turn red and move towards them in anger, he yelled out, causing him to stop in shock.
"We'll give you the egg!" exclaimed Qwark, forming a vicious smile on the Lombax's mouth while the others looked at Qwark in anger and disbelief. "Only if you can catch all of us when we hide in the forest!" Qwark pulled Ratchet with him (causing the egg to fall into Talwyn's hands) as he sprinted towards the forest, with a confused Talwyn and Clank running behind.
The Lombax gritted his teeth in hatred and frustration, and watched as Talwyn and Clank ran into the darkness, separated from Ratchet and Qwark. Qwark noticed that the darkness enveloped them and he jumped over a large log and pushed Ratchet down behind it. "Listen, get straight to Aphelion while us three distract the Lombax, and pick us up when we are all found!"
Before Ratchet could answer or comment on how smart Qwark was being, the green figure sprinted off out of his blinded sight. As he stood up, he tried to make sense of what was going on, and then reassured himself that all he needed to do was get Aphelion and escape from this non-sensical plot. After one heavy sigh, he ran as fast as he could, jumped and skipping over every obstacle that got in his way.
"I hope he isn't after me," panted Ratchet, stopping for a brief moment, before shooting off again. Talwyn heard the sounds of the early crickets working as she struggled to navigate her way through the unforgiving forest. She was extremely frustrated as to why Qwark would throw them back into the treacherous forest, which slowed her down greatly.
"DAMN YOU, QWARK!" she exclaimed, and quickly covered her mouth when she realised that her voice had echoed and probably alarmed the Lombax. She quickly looked around for the Lombax and began to step backwards, keeping an eye on what was going on. Talwyn's foot hit the top of a log and she fell backwards, sliding off onto the dry mud. Desperately, she used the log to help herself up, and took one step back before feeling a cold hand grasp her shoulder tightly.
"You…" said the Lombax's voice from behind her, causing her to gasp and try to run away. The Lombax grabbed her other shoulder with all his strength, preventing her from getting away, and Talwyn was forced to turn around. She shuddered at the Lombax's menacing face and shook her head in fear as she was brought closer to his lips.
"No…" she whimpered as Talwyn's lips were forced to meet the Lombax's in a rough and hurtful kiss. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she was thankful that it was only a kiss, and not something much worse. Her heart beated even faster when she felt his right hand grip her body and began to move downwards to her pants.
"HI-YA!" yelled a familiar nerdy voice as Clank jumped from a nearby tree branch and kicked the back of the Lombax's head in mid-air as his hand was just about to reach inside Talwyn's underwear. The force knocked both the Lombax and Talwyn down, and she saw a glimpse of a sad expression which soon turned to an angry one when he turned around to fight the little robot.
Clank bounced off the same tree's trunk and rebounded towards him for a kick, but with only moving his arm he was caught the Lombax and electrocuted by a taser from the Lombax's belt. "Clank!" exclaimed Talwyn, and she then noticed the Lombax coming back towards her with his hands reaching for her breasts. She backed herself against a tree and closed her eyes, waiting for her gruesome fate, before hearing some rockets roaring like lions.
The giant metal robot owned by Ratchet drifted through the canopy of the trees, blowing dead leaves in the Lombax's face to blind him as the robot's hand retracted and an air sucker popped out. It was aimed at Talwyn and she wondered what it was going to do, and squealed as she was dragged along the ground and picked up by the surrounding air, causing her to head straight towards the sucker.
Quickly, the robot's hand reappeared and grabbed Talwyn before she fell back down, and she made an insulting face to the Lombax who watched as she was pulled upwards. She felt good to be away from the darkness of everything that had just happened and was glad to see a fresh blue sky and Aphelion hovering in it, with Ratchet and Qwark inside. This is when she realised that they had no clue about what had happened to Clank.
"Hey, Talwyn! Is Clank down there?" shouted Ratchet as she was lifted into the back and the metal robot was disabled again. He looked back and saw that Talwyn wasn't looking at him and was twiddling her thumbs nervously? "Talwyn, where is Clank?" She looked up at him and began to mumble an incoherent sentence, and by the expression on Ratchet's face she knew that he didn't understand.
"The Lombax….has him…" whispered Talwyn, causing Ratchet to scream out in anger and immediately close the Aphelion's top. He grabbed the steering wheel and flew back into the canopy where the Lombax was, but unfortunately with the limited sight, it seemed that the Lombax had already left. Ratchet's eye twitched in anger, before slowly flying back out and through the atmosphere out into space, having given up.
While Talwyn was confused as to why Ratchet had given and left Lomtaber, he looked back and smiled evilly. She looked back as well and realised that the Lombax had fallen into Ratchet's trap by following them in his ship. He had been injured when leaving the forest, and had a cut on his cheek, but instead of the normal red Lombax blood oozing out, there was a blue purple mixture gushing out slightly…
Qwark's voice croaked badly as he finished. He was glad to have Clank and Talwyn whispering the things he didn't see to them, and he announced them to Ratchet, and sometimes Clank or Talwyn when they weren't speaking "Excuse me, can someone else speak?" He pointed to Talwyn and she shrugged her shoulders as Ratchet and Clank looked at her, waiting for her to speak.
"Well, let's start with one thing Qwark didn't explain, which was that the ship that d-excuse me-the Lombax was in was my ship! So I thought at the time that he stole the Apogee Spaceship and was hiding on it when we were on board." She looked down at the gritty brown and grey floor, and wondered how she could be so wrong about the supposed Lombax.
"BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" yelled a maniacal laugh from a nearby room, causing Talwyn to shudder and gulp at the same time.
"Now, as I was saying…" Talwyn stopped in mid sentence and looked blankly at the air. "Oh yeah, that's right. That was when Cronk and Zephyr contacted us." Talwyn shuddered again as she heard the laughter once more, but managed to push on with the story.
After arguing to Qwark about who gets to sit on the front seat, Talwyn finally won the battle by threatening that she would use a Personal Hygienator on Qwark, knowing that he was the creator of the terrifying product. She quickly gave a friendly smile to Ratchet, who distracted his piloting enough to smile back, and she began fiddling around with the console, looking around for anything fun.
Ratchet looked backwards and saw that the Lombax in Talwyn's ship was still on the trail, and they managed to keep him a steady length behind them. He knew that because he wasn't going at full speed, the Lombax was aiming to take them out from a distance. Turning back around, he noticed Talwyn struggling with the console, trying to unlock some episodes of a show she loved, but Aphelion hated. "Need some help with that?" he asked to Talwyn, who was sucking her finger after Aphelion zapped it.
"Yes, please. I don't why Aphelion keeps this stuff if she doesn't like it," she wondered, looking at her wet finger, noticing that it would be okay. Ratchet didn't even bother asking Aphelion to auto-pilot, because she did it anyway when she spiralled out of the pilot's control unintentionally, and he crouched down next to Talwyn to try and unlock the episodes.
"I keep this junk, because my waste bin is full after the Cragmites that dumped me uploaded all their favourite music and HV shows," spoke Aphelion, having been usually quiet while Ratchet adventured, not wanting to get in his way. She noticed that Ratchet was going into the private areas of Aphelion's dasbase and began to panic. "Don't! Please don't Ratchet!"
Aphelion had no control as Ratchet tapped into the "programmer's control" area and turned it on, allowing him to go anywhere he wanted with no restraint. "There," he said, and he moved out of Talwyn's way, who went back to the main menu, and found out that a message was incoming. She turned her head to Ratchet, who noticed the message as well, and he nodded to her.
"HELP US, TALWYN!" yelled someone almost immediately when Talwyn opened the message. The camera filming the sender was too snowy for Talwyn and Ratchet to see who it was, but Talwyn found the voice strikingly familiar. Blasts of gunfire exploded in the distance, coming from the comlink making Ratchet and Talwyn even more worried.
"Hello! Is there anyone in trouble? I'm sure that voice is familiar," she said, failing the communicate with the sender. Eventually, an eligible picture formed amongst the snow, and Talwyn was able to understand that the location was her home at the Apogee Space Station. Blue bolts of enemy fire shot across the screen, and a pair of running and screaming robots followed them in fear.
"CRONK AND ZEPHYR!" yelled Talwyn as a laser hit Aphelion, barely damaging her. The pair stopped, and Cronk ran right up and filled his face right up at the screen, screaming unintelligibly while Zephyr stood guard and tried to hold off the attackers. Talwyn knew that they were in some kind of trouble and decided to help them at the Space Station, but before she could tell Ratchet, he was already preparing the grav-o-metric warp drive.
"Cragmites!" Cronk finally yelled, causing Talwyn to stop in her tracks and looked at Cronk in disbelief!
"Cragmites? What do you mean Cragmites? We sent them to another dimension!" Talwyn asked in confusion, wondering how the Cragmites could have been attacking them. Cronk began yelling unintelligibly again, and suddenly stopped when a bolt nearly hit them, and he began to fire back the supposed Cragmites, leaving Zephyr to explain things to Talwyn.
"Them there Cragimites went and attacked us, and I think they are looking for ya. I don't know how they are back, but I don't see Tachyon with 'em," said Zephyr in his usual voice, and Ratchet was shocked at how Talwyn could understand him easily.
"Well, they are going to get me. Hold them off until I come and sort things out, okay?" said Talwyn, sitting back in her chair.
"Sure thing, Talwyn," said Zephyr, who quickly turned the camera off and started shooting back at the armed unseen Cragmites. Talwyn relaxed in her chair for a moment, and then strapped the optional seatbelt on, knowing that the ride back to Polaris could be bumpy. Qwark was already cowering in fear as Ratchet finally finished preparing the grav-o-metic warp drive, and activated it immediately.
"Hey, what's going on?" asked Ratchet, noticing that they should disappear immediately, but a green and red wavy energy beam surrounded the front half of Aphelion, as if it was trying to warp but just couldn't.
"It's seems that the grav-o-metric warp drive has been damaged somehow, and is only working at 20% efficiency," said Aphelion, once again usually giving a damage report.
"I guess that laser that hit us damaged the warp drive," said Ratchet, looking back at Talwyn's ship. He realised that the Lombax had probably noticed they were trying to warp, and knew that he would plan something to stop them. He looked back forward and saw that the warping process was about three quarters of the way completed. "Hurry up, will ya?"
The three of them heard something hit Aphelion, and Ratchet and Talwyn gave Qwark the liberty of checking the back of her. Shaking, he managed to get on his knees and look out, easily spotting a latch that had been fired, attaching Talwyn's ship to Aphelion. "Hey, he's using my tether!" yelled Talwyn, having noticed the latch as well as Qwark.
"He will warp with us, won't he?" asked Ratchet, realising that he will still be on their tail and noticing that the warping process was almost complete. "Aphelion, stop the…" He heard a sucking sound and suddenly found himself staring at the Apogee Space Station. "…warping process,' he finished, knowing that he had failed to stop it.
"Ratchet, look!" yelled Talwyn, who was still looking behind them. He turned around and saw Talwyn's ship still in the warp hole, racing towards the closing exit. As the tip reached outwards, the hole finished closing and latch was forced to be released, although since a part of the ship came out, the whole ship was still intact, except disabled.
"HAHA!" they all cheered as Aphelion drifted away from the fuming Lombax and his disabled ship, heading towards the Apogee Space Station, Their celebration stopped, however, when Talwyn heard the gunfire and saw the smoke and fire coming from her home below. Her heart racing, she knew that she had to fulfull her duty and allowed Ratchet to pilot Aphelion down to the landing pad, just outside the Space Station.
Watching the top of Aphelion open up for her fight, she waited for a few moments, and to Ratchet's dismay she slowly hopped out, causing a great deal of worry for her friend. Stepping onto the surprisingly still functioning transporter, she turned around and looked at her companion Ratchet, and smiled when she saw Qwark moving to the front seat, hoping they will both be okay, and a tearing rolled down her eye as the blue energy enveloped her and swallowed her up.
At the last moment, Ratchet grabbed his Combustor from the trunk in the back and tossed it to Talwyn, watching it disappear with her in the light. He hoped that she would understand that he could not join her in battle, because of the Lombax in pursuit who would cause the same situation on Lomtaber, except worse with the Cragmites somehow crawling around the station.
Talwyn felt the control reaching back into her body, but her legs failed from the sudden grasp of control and she fell on her knees, realising that the transporter was damaged a little, causing a bumpy ride. She looked up and saw Cronk and Zephyr blasting away at the invading types of Cragmites. The Station was filled with Cragpoles, Cragmite Warriors, Cragmite Hunters and more, and she could see why Cronk and Zephyr would need help.
Realising that her simple blaster would have enough bullets nor firepower to take out many of the Cragmites, she almost gave up hope. However, she cheekily smiled when Ratchet's Combustor spawned next to her, and she was given the opinion that Ratchet was indeed smart by giving her a reasonable weapon. After picking it up, she rolled to the wall and crawled across the side to join Cronk and Zephyr, blasting some of the Cragmites closest to them.
"Talwyn, so you finally decided to help us?" asked Cronk, knowing that she was there, even though he hadn't distracted himself enough to look.
"You do realise that was in some trouble of my own?" asked Talwyn rudely, standing up and sidling to Cronk and Zephyr's side.
"Chasing after your boyfriend again?" asked Zephyr, his concentration on killing the Cragmite's still strong.
"Ratchet is not my boyfriend! I'm just helping him find Angela so he can help me find my father!" yelled Talwyn, scaring most of the Cragmites and causing them to stop in their tracks. Talwyn giggled at the Cragmite's cowardice and pointed the Combustor at them, but was overcome by some mercy and did not have the heart to pull the trigger.
"What do you fools think you are doing?" spat a high-pitched aching voice that was very familiar to Talwyn, but she was too busy fighting to notice it. The Cragmites realised what they were doing and began advancing and blasting at the threesome with bad aim, barely damaging any of them.
"You guys, why didn't you escape through the transporter?" asked Talwyn, knowing that there was an escape.
"We wanted to protect your home, because it's all you have left," said Cronk.
"That's not true, I've still got Ratchet…" began Talwyn.
"You mean your boyfriend?" Zephyr rudely butted in.
"Ratchet's not my BOYFRIEND!" screamed Talwyn, as a Cragpole stepped on one of it's mates and jumped high in the air, soaring over Talwyn and smashing his claw into the transporter, deactivating it. "We're boned…" Talwyn weeped as the Cragmites advanced towards them, and she realised that it was her end, and that she would not win the battle at all.
Talwyn, along with Cronk and Zephyr, and quickly turned around and sprinted towards the back of the small transporter room, and backed themselves against the wall, still hoping they could survive from the attack. A Cragmite Hunter ran up to them quickly and avoided the gunfire, before lunging at Cronk. Talwyn quickly kicked the foul beast off, and accidentally hit the shut down switch while her leg was coming down, forcing Cronk to fall to the ground, lifeless.
"No, Cronk!" yelled Talwyn, looking around for the switch to turn him back on. She heard the growls of Cragmites, and looked behind her to see Zephyr backed up in the corner, surrounded by Cragmites. She left Cronk and kicked two Cragmites out of the way so she could reach Zephyr, and she quickly turned him off so the attention would be shifted away from him.
As the angry Cragmites slowly creeped towards Talwyn, hissing her, she knew that she was doomed with the Cragmites at the front waiting for her to run towards them. She then realised that there was something different about the Cragmites. They had a different colour scheme to what she last saw and they all had scars on their right cheeks. Her fears were confirmed when she heard a robotic walker stepping towards her.
Emperor Pervical Tachyon was moving his way through the Cragmite crowd as they moved out of the way and he stopped in front of the scared Talwyn. "Bahahahahahaha! You have no idea how I survived, but I'm bigger than ever and I have my companions to prove it! Now take her away before she works out anymore!" One of the Cragmites scuttled over to her and knocked her viciously to the ground with his strong claw, and her consciousness slowly faded away…
"R-r-r-atchet…"
"Wait, Tachyon is back?" asked Ratchet, having gained some strength back into his voice box.
"Well, it's a little more complicated than that, and now only Qwark is left to tell you about what happened afterwards," said Talwyn, looking over at Qwark, who opened his mouth to speak but was stopped by Ratchet.
"But why did you say my name like that?" he asked curiously, giving her a cheeky smile.
"Because I was thinking about you two in Aphelion and the Lombax, and your name was first to be said by me before I fainted," said Talwyn with a lot of emphasis, rolling her eyes from Ratchet's silliness. Silence passed for a few seconds, before Talwyn realised that Qwark was supposed to be speaking. "Hurry up, Qwark!"
"Did you just hear something?" asked Ratchet, swearing he heard someone shout his name in the distance.
"Concentrate, Ratchet," nagged Qwark, biting his fingernails in fear. "Or we may be breakfast!"
"It's toast, Qwark," corrected Ratchet, looking back to see that the Lombax finally powered Talwyn's ship back up and was on their trail again, looking for a good shot at them.
"I DON'T CARE!" roared Qwark. Ratchet's eyes widened and he froze in fear until another laser smashed Aphelion's rear, throwing Ratchet's head straight into the steering wheel. "Ratchet?" He pushed Ratchet's body which fell over with no resistance whatsoever. Qwark realised that Ratchet had fainted, and so he decided to take the Lombax himself by distracting him.
"Take a deep breath," said Qwark to himself, before quickly opening the top of Aphelion, and closed it before Ratchet suffocated. As he fought against the zero-gravity, he reminded himself about the time that he fought Ratchet at Oltanis' orbit, and was able to breathe in space thanks to an oxygen field around him, supplied by his green leotard. Once he reached the edge of Aphelion, he jumped and let his body slip off her.
"What the?" yelled the Lombax when he saw a green figure drifting towards him quickly. Before he could react, Qwark was on top of Talwyn's ship, and slipped down to the window, blocking the Lombax's vision and making him try and shake Qwark off, to no avail. Qwark looked back and saw Mukow in the distance, and the Lombax was aiming towards it to try and burn Qwark in the atmosphere.
Qwark finally managed to open the top of Talwyn's ship, but was immediately kicked away by the Lombax, and he managed to grab onto the front. The ship pointed downwards and began to drift towards the underside of Mukow, so the Lombax was forced to pull it upwards, giving Qwark the momentum to leap to the cockpit and get inside.
The Lombax pulled out a pistol, but Qwark stomped on his hand, cutting off the circulation temporarily, and he proceeded to try and throw the Lombax out. Keeping the top of Talwyn's ship open, he grabbed the Lombax's shoulders and crawled out of the tiny cockpit. He tried to throw the Lombax away, but he gained his strength back and tossed Qwark to the side, watching as he desperately grabbed onto the right wing.
"Haha!" cheered the Lombax victorious. He quickly sat back inside the one seat and closed the top of Talwyn's ship, and boosted the engines to maximum so Qwark wouldn't have a chance. Qwark closed his eyes and powered up his body, and didn't bother opening his eyes until after he had landed back on the ship. He ran as fast as the vortex would allow him until he kicked the top back up and squashed the Lombax in an awkward hug.
"Get off, you fool! I can't believe you've come so far after I tricked you into thinking you were my son!" the Lombax yelled, his last comment confusing Qwark greatly. His confusions aside, Qwark closed the top of the ship and brace himself as they almost immediately entered the atmosphere of Mukow. After a long period of seeing only green, the Lombax managed to shift his head enough to see the Imperial Fight Festival nearby, now transformed into a simple friendly battle arena for aspiring heroes to train their fighting skills with only stunning weapons.
His leg showed a glimpse of freedom, and with lightning speed, the Lombax kicked Qwark away, smashing him into the right hand wall. Qwark retorted by doing the same thing to the Lombax, and this time he was damaged enough to allow Qwark to quickly land at the Imperial Fight Festival. He opened the top quickly and was too scared to shut it, and sprinted into the Imperial Fight Festival as the Lombax regained his strength.
"Please welcome our new challenger!" yelled the announcer as Qwark bolted in, and he realised that he was being mistaken for a new contestant. Qwark tried to explain things, but nobody in the crowd was listening and were just roaring cheers. Two Hug-Me-Tight Nanny Bots spawned out to test Qwark's skills, however these were tamed since he last came to Mukow.
"Looks like I'll have to," muttered Qwark, before getting ready to strike the Nanny Bot on the left. He was thrown to the ground by the mysterious Lombax who reappeared after being damaged, but Qwark strength was enough to throw him off so that he landed in between the two confused Nanny Bots. The both stood up to face each other, but instead of fighting, the Lombax pressed a button on his belt.
"Wait, that's a Hologuise!" yelled Qwark as a yellow light enveloped the Lombax's wrists and head, and he suddenly exploded into a new person. That new person was far too familiar to Qwark, as he was met before as Qwark's father, but was actually Emperor Otto Destruct. Without saying a word, he whipped out two portable machines and used them to electrify the Hug-Me-Tight Nanny Bots.
"Otto!" yelled Qwark in shock as the Nanny Bots malfunctioned and began to chase after Qwark. "You were the one who captured Clank!" Qwark noticed that the Nanny Bots were about to hug him, so he sprinted back out of the arena, leaving the announcer and crowd in shock. The Nanny Bots sped up and chased Qwark out of the arena, at around the speed of a Hoverbike.
Qwark ran through the grassy corridors, surrounded by crates and metallic walls, able to be faster than the Hug-Me-Tight Nanny Bots. Emperor Otto Destruct viewed this chase through the ship he stole from Talwyn, and knew that the chase was about to end. As Qwark rounded another corner, a giant metal robotic foot slammed down in front of him, stopping the chase.
"What the?" asked Qwark, as he looked upwards and was finally able to see the gigantic, cyborg face of Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek. The Nanny Bots stopped behind Qwark, and were seemingly programmed to wait as Drek looked down at the small Captain Qwark. He smiled and at the same time shrunk to his normal puny size, his whole body robotic, except half of the skin on his face was intact, along with his squishy brain.
"Hello again, you impudent fool!"
"And that's it. That's all I remember before I woke up here!" said Qwark, still in the dank cold cell.
"So, wait! What's going on? Tachyon, Otto and Drek? Who's next, Vox?" asked Ratchet sarcastically.
"That you would be right for once," spoke the gruff voice of Gleeman Vox, stepping out the dark shadows.
"Wait a minute, I saw your hand floating in space after the station exploded! How did YOU survive?" asked Ratchet weakly, finding it hard to believe that four of his previous villains were actually alive.
"I have my ways of misleading. But if you want to know what happened to you, I will gladly tell you because it will shame you greatly," said Vox, jeering Ratchet.
"Shoot," said Ratchet, being colloquial in wanting him to tell him. Vox quickly pulled out a pistol and shot Ratchet, but missed, only scorching the tip of his ear.
"I will if you keep this up. But I know you want me to tell you, so here you go."
BREAK
Gleeman Vox stood in the main room of the Apogee Space Station, looking at floor of dead Cragmites and his troopers looking for the lifeless bodies of Cronk and Zephyr in the transporter room, but to no avail. Tachyon had taken Talwyn back to the prison but could not find Cronk and Zephyr, so Vox was given the boring job of finding the two lost robots.
He heard the elevator rising and turned around to look at the door opening. The figure of the Lombax known as Ratchet stared at Gleeman Vox and the olive dressed soldiers around him. Before he could say anything, Vox walked menacingly towards him and towered over the tiny Lombax's body. Ratchet grabbed out his Omniwrench and smacked Vox in the eye, and he fell back a bit.
"Take him away!" Vox yelled, rubbing his sore eye as the soldier charged towards Ratchet with hard metal clubs of their own. Ratchet whacked everything soldier that came near him with the wrench, as Vox began to walk away to collect his Combustor which was left behind. Once the last soldier was down, he twirled his wrench towards Vox and watched as it spun towards him.
An injured Cragmite that was almost dead laid on the ground, noticing the wrench about to hit one of it's masters. In hope of saving it's master, it quickly got up and jumped in front of the wrench, taking the killing blow. Vox picked up the Combustor and fired straight at Ratchet, hitting him square in the chest and knocking back into the elevator unconscious.
"Wait, no!" yelled Vox as the elevator closed and the cubicle lowered to bottom. After waiting for an enormous amount of time, he was finally able to step into the elevator and listen to the music as he went down. He grinned viciously when he arrived at the bottom and saw a soldier treating the wounded Lombax, ready to transport him to the prison for their ultimate leader's collection. And hiding in one of the closets inside the station was Cronk and Zephyr, safe as sound.
"So just who is your ultimate leader?" asked Talwyn curiously, finally finding out how the four of them were all thrown in jail. "I mean, there's you, Tachyon, Otto and Drek. Would that just leave Nefarious?"
"No, Nefarious is not our leader but if you are so eager to see him…" said the smooth voice of Lawrence, walking into the room with the robotic Nefarious.
"HELLO SQUISHIES AND SQUISHIE LOVERS!" screamed the wacky voice of Dr. Nefarious, positioning himself right in front of Ratchet who shuddered from the sound of his voice.
"Where are we? Are we back in the Woldgon Galaxy?" asked Clank to Lawrence, who seemed the most trustworthy villain in the room.
"Yes, on one the most dangerous and unescapable planet in the universe, Dethrona…"
Chapter 5 Preview
One blaster bolt fired out of the ship and left an impact burning mark on the wall behind Aphelion. Another blaster bolt fired out and hit the red shield dead center. The shield began to flicker and eventually dissipated. The third blaster bolt however was still making its way to Aphelion, and could blow it up. Clank ran as fast as he could and positioned himself in front of the blaster bolt.