I stood there, blinking at nothing in front of me for what seemed like forever before the realization hit me.

"Tal?" I breathed out in shock. "Talwyn? Where did you go..?"

I received no reply back. Feeling the sudden bewilderment of her disappearance, I looked around the area to find her. No luck, she was gone-and for that matter, Quark, Sasha and Clank were gone, too.

"Guys...?" My voice carried through the wind and as an echo.

Where did everyone go?

I found myself alone on the roof of our Luminopolis home. Alone with the wind blowing softly on my tattered cloak; as if the conversation that happened before was nothing but a mere dream.

No!

The confusion and anxiety caused by this began to slowly rise inside of me. I breathed in and out, holding my head and trying hard not let loose. My stomach turned like little butterflies were inside and my heartbeat quickened. I felt sick.

"He-yoooo?" I croaked out, with small little tears beginning to form under my eyes. "Guys...? Guys, where are you...-"

I turned around find myself staring into the eyes of another Lombax.

Me.

"How...?" I stepped back, taken by surprise. "Me-"

My replica gave me a cocky smile before using his hands to mentally push me off the building. I screamed bloody murder; fell into what felt like quicksand that instantly began engulfing my body. I began to flail my arms in panic - I was sinking so fast that I began to feel the light headedness that one would feel in real life as my body became heavier and heavier, and the air became thicker and thicker and harder to breathe.

I was scared.

Talwyn looked at me from her place beside me in the sand. They all did.

"Do you want to know what is happening?" They all asked me in an unnervingly calm tone.

I nodded while flailing my arms.

"Well, Ratchet. We all do, too."

I began to see black and nothing more.


I screamed. My body didn't seem to heed my commands to save myself as I fell down onto the ground. It hurt, the amount of shock created by the sudden pain of currents going everywhere all at the same time paralyzed me completely.

The landing was hard.

There was silence afterwards- not counting the small crackles of flame from different parts of the city echoing all around me. But it was silent enough that I could hear myself breathing heavily. I hadn't passed out yet, which was a surprise. I titled my head towards the origin of the shots and smiled warmly.

"Hello, Sasha."

Sasha looked down at my crumpled figure. She held her blaster casually on her shoulder as she looked at me with a stone cold look.

"Hello, Ratchet," she said.

Just the crackle of flames and small echoes of collapses...

I don't know how long we stayed there, looking at each other with eyes of an intense moment happening between us, locked into eternity.

A villain to a hero.

It was long enough for me to feel annoyed and recuperate from her blows.

"Heh..."

As I got up from the ground, grunting in pain, she shot another few rounds at me. I moved away and immediately suspended them in the air, causing her to gasp in surprise.

"You know, you're like the umpteenth person to react like that," I remarked as I brushed away the dust from my clothes with my free hand. "It's actually funny."

Sasha glared at me and readied her blaster. "Are you going to come peacefully?"

Crackle...

I raised an eyebrow. "Go where now, dear Sasha?"

Silence. She didn't seem fazed by my reply.

"Where do you think?"

We both looked at each other before I sighed.

"Can't we just have a normal conversation? I don't want this to hit the climax already."

Silence.

"Well, this has gone on for long enough," a robotic voice behind Sasha said.

My tail swished slightly. I smiled as Clank, Talwyn and Quark, who I haven't seen since a while ago walked right next to Sasha and stood beside her. Despite the amount of hurting they took from the chaos I caused and inflicted on them, they seemed unaware of anything about it. Huh.

They all didn't look too happy to see me. But I was.

"No 'hello Ratchet' from my compadres?" I asked as I moved the sparkling pieces of suspended ammo around in the air.

I was greeted with silence.

Sigh...

"Well then. Be like that...but I do have to agree, this has gone long enough, buddy ol' pal," I said, cheerfully shaking off their failure to greet me. " maybe we should end it now?"

I paced around in circles, thinking hard about what to say while moving the projectiles ever so slightly close to them so that knew who they were dealing with. My eyes shone like reflecting mirrors as they backed up a little, a terrified expression showing out in bits and pieces the more I kept it up.

"But how? Que sera, sera..."

What...

I paused and turned to them, with my tail swishing rapidly in excitement.

"Oh, I know! Let's all just all hang out, huh? I'll change the dream to suit the new scene, and we can-"

"Ratchet, ENOUGH."

I stopped talking; I coughed and wheezed. I couldn't breathe nor move, and I dropped the electric slugs on the ground. My head was spinning from the lack of oxygen as the person who held me -Talwyn- looked over to the others and back at me, with eyes full of determination and anger.

Opposite my reaction.

"But...how..."

"Ratchet, I'm sorry. But this has gone on for long enough, and if you're going to keep this up, then we'll have to send you off by force," Talwyn exclaimed between gritted teeth as she and the rest of the group readied their aim. "Do you want that?"

She looked terrified of what she was saying, her voice shaky and cracked. My eyes welled up slightly, and I feebly looked down at my hands. They were shaking, too.

Do I want that? I thought as I struggled to keep my eyes open.

Do I...

"Ratchet," Clank insisted, "please come to your senses. We do not wish to hurt you..."

Crackle...crumble, echoes of flame...

"My senses... you say..."

I gripped my hands tight. They stopped shaking and I smiled in lunacy.

"Bite... me..."

"Very well."

The last thing I remember was being yanked all the way up off the ground, before being slammed into mounds of debris and feeling the searing heat of flames that touched parts of my hands, burning my fur.

It hurt.

I was in a hole of her making, coughing and rubbing my arms while letting out muffled cries of agony from the pain.

How..did she...?

I stopped breathing.

Interesting, huh? Maybe now things will be more...exciting, Ratchet?

"In...interesting..."

I snapped out of my haze fast enough to note and avoid several rounds of blaster fire shot towards me by both Clank and Sasha. I rolled and skidded off to the side of the crater, finding myself leaning on the side and huffing.

My leg hurted.

Looking down I saw a small, but growing, stain of blood seeping from the broken slit of my blue pants. Mine.

I winced and bit my lip.

This isn't a stun shot...this is now bordering actual death...

"I'll ask again now. Are you willing to keep fighting us? Or are you ready to stop this madness and come peacefully?" Sasha asked.

I smirked. It was false brevity.

"Don't play with us if you don't want to get hurt," Talwyn added from above me. I looked up to see her and Quark (surprisingly) peering down with smiles in their faces, as if they were intimidating me to do something.

Come at me, bro. they mentally shouted.

Sigh..

I sent off whatever pieces of debris that lay around me: arms, glass, metal beams and parts of ships. Anything to take them down as they responded with a hail of bullets that never ceased to end.

Tch! Aren't they ever going to stop and reload..?

It didn't seem so. But I was slightly peeved when they continued on, and I had to scamper off to avoid getting hit. But it wasn't easy due to the pain in my leg.

Suddenly, a huge piece of a building rubble fell dead near me, raising the amount of dust and smoke up into the air and lowering the visibility that I had down to around 32%. I screamed, startled by the closeness of death and how loud the crash had been to almost leave me deaf. I then began to cough violently as a large amount of dust was inhaled and now being forced out from my lungs. In response I ran to find a break in the wind for a clean breath of air.

Behind me, I could hear the small clink of metal feet running towards my direction. I peeked back as I jumped over a few broken vendor posts and could make out a silhouette of a familiar face .

Clank.

I then felt a blow hitting me right side of my face, as another figure appear next to Clank, bigger and taller.

Quark, Damn that dude has balls...

The blow sent me stumbling back and falling over the sidewalk, and I fell onto another lower platform. I groaned, but didn't have enough time to recover as another barrage of blasts had me jumping around and deflecting them back to their senders, Talwyn and Sasha.

"Heh...," I smiled shaky as I leapt away from another slam of fists on the ground. "...this is-"

I felt the cutoff of air and was slammed into what was left of a financial building of Luminopolis.

Everything remained silent, and I had no idea whether it was because I had hit my head harder than usual or they didn't know where exactly I had landed. But for a strange reason, I welcomed the silence, and gathered my strength and got up.

I could feel they were waiting for me.

Well, that's one logic out of the way, I thought as I stepped through the pieces of inside interior building and sighed.

The wind blew, and I felt it grow colder than what I had remembered it to be.

Shivering, I spotted a tattered wind breaker. I walked over and bent down, prying it away from the person who was holding on to it from beyond and tied the strings it had around my neck. I smiled. It felt like a cloak, nice and warm.

That feels better...

I noted their presence .

"Well, I don't know how you're able to do that, Talwyn," I rubbed my bleeding leg tenderly as I faced them, "but it's annoying me. This is my dream, and I won't be taken down by someone so easily. Especially if they end up being my friends."

Quark frowned. "You'd actually kill one of us if this were real?"

"Didn't say that."

"Yes, you implied."

I frowned. "This is a dream, and nothing more. You are all just figments and fragments of my real life. Your fake lives do not matter to me. Does that answer your question?"

They stayed quiet. Talwyn looked at me and shook her head solemnly.

"You keep on believing that, and you're going to descend so low that we won't be able to save you."

I scoffed. "Save me from what? Boredom?"

There was only silence. I could hear flames and the wind blowing softly.

"That's what you need to figure out, Ratchet. Like you said, we are just figments and fragments, right?"

I couldn't breathe.


*******Author's Note:

Well, here's the 7th chapter. This was actually fun to write (I have been reading some Star wars stuff) and things just motivated me to continue on. But it looks like we are starting to reach the final chapters, and I thank the 2 people who commented again for showing interest in this story.

Crescent Moon: The bold words at the beginning of the story...you'll find out what it is when the next chapter comes out. And yes, he does seems to have hints of paranoia...XD

Vengurl22 : Thank you, it means so much when people like it. :)

and to the random person caled "Meta-Lombax": I dont think he cooks... but it would be funny if he did. I can imagine how badly that would turn out.

Ty, and the characters do not belong to me- Insomniac

Chapter 8 will be released soon... hopefully.