This chapter is more of a 'phase into next phase' kind of thing. Nothing overly exciting happens, just the info before the all the exciting stuff. The info itself might be interesting though.

Thanks to all who reviewed!

I do not own Ratchet and Clank, there universe or Lombaxes!

The words my father said clung to my mind all through the night and into early morning. He will not hesitate to kill if threatened… How could they bring him back? There was no way they could find common ground with someone who has experienced the pain and suffering that he must have gone through for the past 21 years! He may be more skilled then the generals, with the amount he must have fought… I shivered.

For some odd reason, the ceiling was offering great comfort as I gazed into a sea of nothing. Trying to clear my mind of the horrid thoughts running through my head, instead, I got a more depressing image. Something I wish I didn't think. What if it had the opposite effect on him? What if instead of becoming a cold killer he became a traumatised young adult, or someone so scared of everything that he struggles through each day as if it was a living nightmare? What if he just wanted peace?

What if he just wanted love or a family?

It was a sad thought. Being alone… With no one you could trust.

I needed to keep my mind off of this. It wasn't an issue that concerned me. It was between the guard and Ms Jasin and him, no matter how he turned out.

I tried to turn my thoughts to something more stupid and teenage like. Example, Am I bland? Ever since Priscilla has called me that it keeps coming back to my mind. I've never been worried about my appearance before, at least, not my fur colour. I've been proud of it… but…

I'm not too sure now…

I have too many bad thoughts on my mind.

….

Days past and nothing much happened. Well, Kilaven did end up sitting with us, turns out he not as much of jerk as I thought he was. He became officially welcome to our group the moment Hidan heard he was a fellow gay in need, well, that and he told us a few hundred Priscilla episodes I've missed. Apparently, she dyes her fur every time she breaks up with a boyfriend. That's a-lot of guys.

At this moment, we were in the class that concludes the week, lovely science. It was the most awkward lesson ever. Ms Jasin didn't glare at anyone once and she was genuinely happy. We got to make origami stars in class and everyone got a cookie! Although it was fun, (and the cookies were heaven) it was just so strange having an Ms Jasin who liked the class. Very strange indeed…

Once the bell went, everyone, excluding myself and Hidan, ran out the classroom to get away from the strange teacher. The only reason we didn't run was because we had a sinking suspicion why.

Walking out of class, Hidan walked by my side, with his thinking face on. I hadn't told him about what my dad said. So he probably had more holes in the situation than I did.

"Aradia," he said quietly, "Do you want to hang out at the Burger Place tomorrow? I think I've found something rather interesting on my dad's computer."

I turned to him and looked at my friend strangely. "You hacked into your dad's…"

I never got to finish the sentence. Hidan swiftly placed a finger on lips and a look of extreme panic flashed in his eyes.

"I did nothing…" he whispered. Giving one of his panic stares, now that's something I haven't seen in a while. I slowly nodded back. He pulled his finger away and sighed with relief.

"Burger Place at usual time, processed. Oh, is Kilaven going to be there?" I had to ask. We haven't told him anything as he hasn't officially been classed as 'best friend' yet.

Hidan sadly shook his head. "He's laying low until the commotion with Priscilla calms down. Her friends have been giving him a rough time about it. If we involve him he will just have more on his mind. I think he knows though, his mum is in the guard."

I nodded my understanding. Yep, good old Prissy has been wreaking havoc yet again. The other day, Stara came to our group just to confirm that he was gay, then had the nerve to ask if I was sure too. I think I hit her on the head with my lunch box and screamed, (making sure the whole school new) that I was straight. She learnt a valuable lesson that day. Just because someone hangs with gay people doesn't always mean they are gay.

What a bunch of stuck ups.

Speak of the devils, here they are! Walking down the hall with Priscilla still dramatically upset in the centre and (as Kilaven had predicted) her fur was now cyan blue. She looked over our way, but didn't walk our way. She just glared at me evilly. Probably because I had big guy Hidan next to me, (He's around 5'4, one of the tallest in the grade)

Hidan just shook his head. "Ignore her. she's just jealous that we're getting along better with Kilaven than what she ever did."

I inwardly laughed inside.

….

The Burger Place is the only place in the dimension where you could get these really tasty sandwiches called 'burgers'… hence the name 'The Burger Place'. It was the no. 1 hang out spots for young adults due the unnaturally large number of seats available, free holo-net, cheap food and heaps of privacy. Well, the type of privacy when you're in such a largely populated space no one notices you.

So there we were, Hidan and I, eating a delicious meal in a crowded area waiting for illegal data to upload. The Funny thing is this is exactly what spy's in holo films do…

"Okay, it's done!" explained an excited Hidan, who was busily tapping away at the holo-screen in front of us. He flipped the screen round to give me a good look at what was on it.

What I saw…

It was a lombax, a boy around our age. He was wearing casual black clothes, nothing fancy. He was golden in colour, again nothing fancy. What I noticed next was fancy though. A green, grip like gun was being held in each hand, bringing out his beautiful, piercing green eyes that fitted across a perfectly formed face. His arms were in an X formation across his chest, which by the way (due to it being very good a mid-shot) was clearing showing off a six pack. Behind him, a cyan blue lizard lay dead on the ground looking like a clean kill. What caught my eye the most was the death glare from eyes that belonged to the lombax, to someone who clearly knew how to kill.

This picture… no, this lombax… was dangerously hot!

"Hidan to Aradia, do you come in? I know he's good-looking but we have an issue here!"

Hidan's voice stopped my trial of thoughts. So he's hot to gay guys too? Damn. I shook my head, getting the thoughts out my head, and turned to Hidan.

"That, Aradia, is a non-edited, wordless advertisement for weaponry. That guy," he jerked his head towards laptop, "is charity modelling for someone called the 'President of Polaris'. He's the mysterious 'he'."

I looked at Hidan speechless. The one guy I think is hot is in another dimension, lovely. Change of thought, the one guy I think is hot is stuck with a Cragmite in another dimension. Oh, how fate loves me.

Hidan raised an eyebrow. "You don't know where I'm getting at do you?" he asked with an exaggerated sigh. I just shook my head, again.

Sighing again, he explained. "If he's being hunted down why would they put him in an ad? Won't that make the matter worse?" He looked at me for a response.

I looked back at him and responded happily, "So he's safe?"

Hidan, with a smile on his face, nodded back. My mind did a little happy dance. He was just in another dimension!

….

Before we knew it, Monday arrived. Hidan had around 35 ads with the hot guy in it and sent them all to me. I've printed a few posters and put them up in my room, set the ads as my holo-screen backgrounds and duplicated them. I spent most of Sunday putting pictures of him round my room and then fantasising about him. Hidan and I have nicknamed him Chase, simply because we were sick of calling him 'he' and because Chase sounds hot.

So here I was, standing in front of my locker staring at a dangerously hot Chase with a long electric whip. At least I was, until I was interrupted.

"H-hey, Aradia," said the annoying person.

I looked up to see Marcus, this army green lombax guy with these black square glasses, looking at me nervously. Marcus was the head of the Technology Club, real nerd, but one of those nice nerds that will carry your books and stuff. He never talks to me, so there must be a Tech breech or something…

"Yes, Marcus?" I asked, trying not to sound annoyed. He was slightly sweating and didn't look to good

"Umm… T-The dance i-is on Wednesday, d-do you want to g-go with me?" came the stuttered question.

Ok. This was definitely a turn of events. Marcus liked me? I was a little speechless and was just about to reply when I heard an odd voice; actually it was just a voice I barely ever heard at school.

"Aradia, there you are! We've been looking for you!" It was my dad. Grabbing my hand, he practically dragged me away from a now mortified Marcus. The one time a guy asks me out and my dad naturally intervenes.

While being dragged along, I looked back to Marcus and screamed, "I'll talk to you later!"

Poor Marcus fainted and my dad did not look happy, or mad. He had his 'I am working, do not bug me' face on and started to pull faster through the halls of Kaden High. Other kids moved out the way, Priscilla gave me a look of satisfaction and I couldn't see Hidan or Kilaven anywhere.

Not stopping until we reached the heavily damaged door of Ms Jasin's lab. Dad's face calmed and he lightened his grip on me. He knocked with his free hand.

"I got her!" he yelled.

I was seriously confused through these recent fast paced events. One, I never see dad at school, two, a guy asked me out, and three, I didn't even get to reply.

This could only mean something wasn't good. How else can people change within a week?

The door opened, revealing a white lombax in guard uniform. I think his name was Eider; he was Priscilla's father, which is strange because he has his head screwed on straight. That and I've never seen him glare.

"The others are here," he said, eyeing me. "Bring her in. It's going to be a long talk."

…

Ms Jasin's lab was as it normally was. Ignore the fact that there was a whole unit of soldiers in the room and it would have been quite normal indeed. The 'others' Eider mentioned were Hidan and Kilaven, looking just as confused as I was.

We were sitting on three chairs in front of a set up holo-projector making sure the soldiers new that we weren't happy.

"I can't believe we're missing Omniversal. That's my favourite class!" Hidan complained. He glared at each of the soldiers, showing off his staring ability. I had to laugh.

"Aradia, your behaviour needs some tuning," said my dad. It was a weak attempt to tell me off, so I laughed harder. Dad just rolled his eyes. "This is meant to be serious…" he muttered.

"Ok!" Eider called out from the front, "you three watch the holo-projector while listening to plan." He instructed in a monotone voice which ceased the laughing.

The holo-projector clicked, showing one of those hot ads of chase. Sending a sigh between the three of us, this one in particular seemed to be advertising armour. As it showed a clearly relaxed Chase in this real flashy gear, really bringing out his eyes…

Noticing our reaction, Eider quickly changed the slide to a picture of the three of us. Then he turned to my dad. "I thought you said he looked more like Kindra!" he said, raising an eyebrow in annoyance. So that was Ms Jasin's first name. Interesting how it came out.

My father just shrugged and said "Deal with it! Continue."

Eider sighed and looked at us. (The real 'us', not the picture) "Okay," he started. "That boy in the first frame is Ms Jasin's son." When none of us reacted, he continued. "As your parents have told you, he is on his own in a very dangerous dimension. We have no idea if it is safe now or if it is somewhat worse."

He paused and glanced at the other guard members. They all seemed to be remembering something that happened before. Hidan, Kilaven and I were starting to get restless. No new info thus far.

Eider sighed, "To put it bluntly, we don't know what he is going to be like. So were looking for some common ground or something we use can relate to him. All we have is Ms Jasin, and he probably won't believe us if we told him that she is his mother. So we thought that if we sent, let's say, a young companion he could confide into, as a 'girlfriend' or 'boyfriend' as such. It depends what his romantic taste is of course."

The holo-projector then clicked into a picture of Chase and cut out Lombax silhouette with a question mark holding hands with him.

It took a while for it to sink in. We were being asked to go on high ranked Praetorian Guard mission to make out? My dad agreed to that? I looked over to Hidan and Kilaven, who looked just as surprised as I felt. Hidan's mouth was open and Kilaven looked as if he witnessed murder. The word he was gay got around real fast…

Then Hidan summed it up. "You're sending us to a possibly extremely hostile alien dimension on a semi-blind date. Our parents agreed to that?" Yep, Hidan knew how to sum stuff up.

"Wouldn't some other girl be better for the task?" I added, nervously. "I've never dated in my life."

Eider clicked to another picture of a pink girl and me with lots of arrows showing our differences, thank you Eider.

I looked to my dad, but he looked defeated. He didn't like it either.

My dad explained with his signature sigh, "Aradia, you're the highest in your grade at Omniversal. That and you won't be alien to him."

I raised an eyebrow to that. Why would some other girl be alien to a hot guy and I wouldn't? The way my life is at the moment, wouldn't it be the other way round?

My dad explained, again, with more detailed sentences. "He will speak Omniversal as it is compulsory for everyone in the home dimension to be fluent at it. You are also fluent, you can talk to him. You are also natural in colour; you will look normal and attractive to him. You are also very smart, mature, respectful and gentle. These qualities are heavily valued in the home dimension. You are a unique individual and you show that off quite well. That is highly praised over there. You would stand out to him, even if we brought him to this dimension before he met you. Has it sunken in? If we chose a 'normal' girl from here to go, he will think that were crazy as whole race! Would you feel safe thinking that?"

I was considered normal in an alien dimension? I was considered alien in my normal environment? Thanks for pointing that out dad.

My dad faced Hidan and Kilaven. "You two are going in case he ends up being Gay. The more he has to choose from the better?"

Kilaven grimaced, "We don't have a choice in this do we?" he asked.

Then all soldiers said in unison, "Nope!"

See, exciting stuff is going to happen now! Yaaaaay!

Next chapter- 'Into the Dimension" (I need to think of more creative chapter names…)

Constructive criticism greatly appreciated!