Vendra flew in the direction of the Hollow, crossing the same distance she'd just taken hours to trudge over in mere minutes. While still not at full strength, the power flowing through her was like having blood pumping in her veins again.
Without thinking, she pushed her abilities even further, feeling the wind whip against her skin as she sped up even more. Using her power made her feel alive! It was like a drug, and the more she used them the more she wanted.
As she began to push too far, however, the burning sensation and foggy disorientation caused by her collar kicked in to remind her that she wasn't completely without restraint.
While the feeling was angering, it also served to remind the convicted ex-villain that she was still bound by the controller and the invisible leash it represented. She felt a ghost of a tickle on her throat. Something besides the ever present choking of the collar itself.
She knew the chilling feeling was in her head, but she also knew she'd have to slow down if she wanted to keep it that way. But when she looked back to see how far behind she'd left her handler, she was both relieved and infuriated to see him just below her.
Between his hoverboots and cat-like agility, Ratchet moved on the ground as fast as Vendra did in the sky. Possibly even faster, as it was clear that he was keeping up with her pace once again.
The thought that even now he was holding back for her sake burned Vendra, literally as her powers flared in response, but the sound of a starship's cannon discharging pulled her from her thoughts.
Turning her attention back toward the fight ahead, she was surprised to find that the two of them had already made it back to the Hollow.
Agorian talons were circling the giant junk volcano and the deep canyon that made up the Vullard city's walls. They blasted streams of searing plasma into the buildings below.
Forgetting Ratchet for the moment, Vendra Prog grinned eagerly as she flew straight for the screeching enemy ships. Once again the alluring desire to unleash her powers took hold, but she was also eager to prove to the Lombax hero exactly who was holding back whom.
As she considered the best way to make an entrance, an unsuspecting Talon fighter hovered its way between her and the Hollow, showing its back to her, and giving her the answer she needed.
With terrifying skill that she had not lost despite months of incarceration, Vendra landed smoothly on the ship's roof and placed her palms against its metal surface.
As she pushed her psychic energy into the vessel, her mind was flooded with the sensation of its electronic workings. The wiring and circuitry of its computers were just like a brain of its own. One that she could feel, understand, and even manipulate.
With a deep breath, the space witch focused her powers and sent the ship's systems into chaos.
Engines flared and weapons discharged sporadically, causing the ship to buck and tilt. Vendra rode it like a wild bull, feeling the exhilaration as she pushed its systems even harder.
"What in the name of Argos?!" she heard the ship's pilot shout as their controls stopped responding and their instruments went haywire.
Vendra could then feel the Agorian trying to regain control of their ship, activating backup systems and pulling mechanical overrides, all of which sent irritating counter electrical signals back to her.
She frowned, and with just a thought she triggered the ship's ejector seat and sent them flying away.
The former villain savored the Agorian pilot's screams as they faded into the distance. As an added treat, she had made sure that their parachute would not deploy.
When she could no longer hear the cries, Vendra turned her focus to interfacing with the ship's comm. Systems.
Now that the pilot was gone, she was able to not only send the ship out of control, she was able to slowly bring it to heel. As the engines calmed and flight stabilized, Vendra sifted through the electrical signals in her mind and in moments the hearing centers of her brain were filled with electrical input:
"Hahaha, look at those junkbacks run!" said one Agorian voice over the radio.
"They got no defenses! It's like shooting snails in a barrel!" added another.
"Yeah, this is the easiest raid we've ever done!" continued the first.
"Did anyone else see that ejector seat?" noted a third.
"It's all thanks to boss Magora!" declared a fourth.
"Hahaha, well I can't take all the credit," came a fifth voice that sounded more commanding than the rest. "Let's all fire a 21 salvo salute to our good friend Agron Snarg for sabotaging the Hollow's defenses for us!"
""Yeah!"" chorused the other voices and a resounding cheer from the pilots rang through Vendra's brain, coupled with the physical sensation of booming cannon fire that shook the air.
Vendra's face split into a wicked grin at the juiciness of what she'd just learned. Clearly Snarg had wanted to cover his tracks and had gotten the Agorians to do his dirty work. That was good. It meant that there actually were tracks to follow in this smelly junk pit after all.
"Hey, Zork!" came Magora's voice again in Vendra's brain, "Why aren't you firing at the junkbacks?"
Vendra realized that 'Zork' must have been the hapless Agorian she'd jettisoned from the starfighter now under her control.
With an even wider grin, the excited space witch mentally adjusted the comm. equipment of the Talon and pushed the electrical wavelengths of words into them, "Sorry, but Zork had to step out for a moment," she explained playfully without moving her lips. "Hello, soon to be dead Agorian raiders, this is Vendra Prog and I'll be annihilating you today."
"Prog?" questioned one of the Agorian voices, "I thought those two were in Vartax?"
"Shutup!" shouted Magora's voice again. "It's clearly a bluff! The Lombax put those freaks on ice for good."
Vendra scowled at the reminder of her imprisonment, but her wickedly cheerful smirk quickly returned, "Oh, I can assure you that I am quite real," she called back over the radio. "True, I was imprisoned, but I've been released for 'good behavior'. However, being locked in a miserable, bleached jail cell can make a girl go a little stir crazy… I'd like to thank you buffoons for being the outlet for that frustration."
"Bah, enough of this nonsense!" shouted the Agorian leader dismissively. "Destroy whoever they are and get back to bombarding the junkbacks!"
Several of the nearby Talons stopped firing and made to turn, but before a single ship could readjust its firing line, Vendra pushed her thoughts into the controls of her own fighter. Having already lined up a shot on the nearest Agorian while they'd been 'chatting', she opened up with everything her stolen ship had.
The full fusillade ripped into the nearby talon without mercy, tearing through armored plating and engine parts in seconds. It wasn't long before the opposing ship was a smoking ruin. Then Vendra was turning her guns on the next one before the first had even fallen from the sky.
The second Talon managed to get its guns pointed at her before she opened fire this time. Vendra's Talon traded shots with it face to face and both of them took a few nasty hits to their pilot's cabins. Luckily for Vendra, she was still controlling the vehicle from its rear roof.
The second Talon quickly began to list as its pilot died in a blaze of gunfire, causing its own guns to veer off target. Now free of incoming damage, Vendra continued to pour plasma rounds into her defeated opponent until the ship caught fire and began spinning out of control.
Laughing at the havoc she caused, the mad space witch began looking for a third victim, but was instead nearly knocked from her own ship as a salvo of plasma rounds struck its side.
The armor plating failed and Vendra could feel it as her Talon's systems began disintegrating one by one beneath her. It soon became apparent that she could barely hold the vehicle together and would not win a third fight.
So instead, she turned the ship's nose toward her assailant and forced all the power she could into her thrusters.
Becoming a giant missile itself, the captured Talon screeched off towards its sibling and Vendra watched from where she'd let go several meters back, as it struck like an arrow and both ships exploded in a brilliant ball of fire and smoke.
Still hovering, Vendra raised both her fists in the air, laughing as she watched the flaming wreckage fall from the sky and feeling the rush of her powers pump through her veins. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be powerful, almost forgotten what it felt like to be free!
Drunk on her power, she failed to notice another Talon coming at her.
Using the smoke of two crashed ships as camouflage, this starfighter seemed to appear as if from nowhere, catching the laughing space witch by completely by surprise.
Its guns opened fire without hesitation.
Instinctively, Vendra pushed every ounce of energy she could into a forcefield, barely managing to stop the incoming shots from striking her directly, but the force of the impact sent her spinning through the air.
Through sheer willpower, she regained control of her flight and immediately sped off away from her attacker.
The Talon pursued, chasing her with a merciless line of fire.
Luckily for Vendra, the missiles couldn't lock on to her small heat signature and the plasma bolts were too slow to catch her.
However, physical bullets were faster than she was and they ripped through the air around her, hissing like angry wasps as they zipped by.
The caliber was large and each one that struck the shield she'd manifested felt like a punch to the gut.
Her collar burned as it fought to keep her powers in check, but her forcefield was barely holding back the bullets as it was. If she didn't do something fast, she'd be in trouble.
The point was emphasized when a bullet made it through her weakened defenses and grazed her side.
The shot was only a glancing blow, it barely brushed her skin, but these were bullets designed to penetrate starship armor. The sheer force of its passing shockwave alone burned a bubbling trail along her hip and sent pain screaming through her body.
The burning hurts so much that Vendra lost her focus on her wing control gave out. She fell from the sky like a downed bird.
Spinning wildly through the air, Vendra fought to regain control and managed to push out just enough force to slow her descent... before crashing painfully into the scrap metal roof of a Vullard home.
Dizzy from the impact the injured Nether managed to get to her knees. Clutching her side in pain, Vendra looked up and saw the blurry sight of the attacking Talon hovering above her with its guns aimed directly at her chest. She could even make out the maniacally grinning Agorian through the cockpit glass as they savored their victory.
"Die, Prog!" came a voice transmitted through the ether and picked up by Vendra's powers. It was the only sound not drowned out by the whine of plasma cannons charging.
It was at that moment that the injured Nether thought to herself that... maybe she 'had' been a little rash in single-handedly assaulting half-a-dozen Talon-class starfighters.
A whistle and a screech filled the air as rockets raced free of their housings, but they didn't come from the Talon. Instead, they climbed 'up' from the ground and struck the hovering vehicle's underbelly in quick succession.
The force knocked the ship off course, causing its plasma shots to go wide and miss Vendra completely.
A second salvo of rockets followed the first, striking the same area as the first, and the Talon could take no more. Smoke spewed from its exhaust and it began to spin out of control before crashing into the ground with a ground-shaking boom.
Vendra blinked in surprise. Surprise that she wasn't dead.
Another screech of high-pitched jet exhaust, different from the rockets, reached her ears and she turned to find Ratchet jumping up onto the rooftop with a smoking Warmonger in his hand. They made eye contact and he gave her a grin.
There were many things that went through Vendra's mind at that moment. The throughs ranged from relief at being saved to anger at being saved to embarrassment at being saved, but in the end, she landed on, "You look like a child holding that oversized bazooka!"
Ratchet's grin didn't waver and he just shrugged before walking over to where she kneeled.
When he got close, however, his face became more serious, "How bad are you hurt?" he asked, seeing the bloody hand pressed against her side.
Vendra, having nearly forgotten about the wound in the excitement of nearly being killed, winced and clutched it as the adrenaline wore off.
Looking down at the damage, she saw the purple blood that coated her hand, but noted that her Nanotech had stopped most of the bleeding and would have it completely closed soon.
"I'm fine," she grumbled dismissively as she got to her feet, trying to make the injury look as mild as possible.
But Ratchet didn't buy it. He was at her side in a second and pulling her hand away before she'd even realized he'd moved.
Vendra's eyes went wide, "What do you think you're doing?!" she demanded, before swatting him away, cursing herself for forgetting how quick he was.
Ratchet stood back up and nodded, "You're lucky it was just a graze," he said, almost like he was scolding a child. "We can put a Nano-compress on it later, but you'll be fine for now."
Annoyed at his attentions, Vendra tried to pull her singed shirt down farther to cover up the gruesome burn, "That's what I said, you fool!" she spat. "Are you not capable of turning off that nauseating 'hero' routine for even a second?"
Ratchet raised an eyebrow at her, "I need you alive to find the shard. Does that make you feel better?"
Vendra held the gaze for a moment and, despite herself, gave a smirk, "A little. So what now? We still got the boss's Talon to go after."
But Ratchet shook his head, "No. Agorian leaders are a bit cowardly, or maybe they're just not as suicidally dumb as their troops. Magora will probably hold back for now and let the ground forces take care of us."
The sound of an explosion echoed from a distant street and smoke rose to pinpoint where it had come from.
"Well, then we better get this over with," Vendra sighed, flapping her wings and rising into the air.
However, no sooner had she lifted off than the exhausted Nether felt the price of overstraining her powers like she'd just done. She fell back to the rooftop with a gasp.
"You OK?!" Ratchet asked with a concerned look.
"I'm… *gasp*... fine!" Vendra tried to wheeze scornfully, but she couldn't keep the strain out of her voice.
She was underpowered, out of practice, and she'd pushed herself too hard in the last fight.
As she rasped in air, she felt like someone who'd spent months as a couch potato, only to suddenly run a marathon on nothing but adrenaline.
"You're not 'fine'," Ratchet countered, helping her back down to a sitting position.
Too exhausted to fight back, Vendra begrudgingly allowed herself to be guided down, but she was still too prideful to let it go, "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to take a rest. After all, I did take down four of their Talons before you even showed up."
Ratchet gave her a wry smile, "Not the fifth one, though," he noted smugly.
Vendra scowled at him, "So that makes you only one to my four," she countered grumpily. "For a great and mighty hero, you're sure letting the villian do most of the work."
Ratchet, still smiling, just shrugged, "I guess I am," he said, before pulling a blood-flecked radio device out his pocket. "I better do something about that."
Vendra eyed the communicator curiously. The thing looked like it had been pulled out of a fire, but she most noted the orange stains of Agorian blood on it.
Ratchet saw her curious stare as he tuned the frequency, "I usually have Clank to hack the enemy radio signals, so I'll have to use the old-fashioned way."
Blinking in confusion at the device, the resting Nether turned her attention out over the side of the building and saw for the first time the carnage that lay in the streets below.
Dozens of Agorian warriors, all armed to the teeth, lay cold and unmoving in orange puddles. Their bodies were slowly disintegrating thanks to the Nanotech that, without a living host to repair, had been left with only their function command to reproduce.
Large, dead Agorian war beasts also dotted the area as well, their slain riders not far away. This scene was topped off by the shredded remains of some kind of tank-like vehicle with three robotic snake heads laying in various states of disassembly around it.
When the chirp of the small radio in Ratchet's hand brought Vendra back to the moment, she quickly closed her open mouth and wiped the look of astonishment off her face before the now satisfied-looking Lombax turned his attention back to her.
With a nod, the Lombax raised the radio up to his mouth, "Is that all I can expect from the galaxy-famous Magora's Raiders?" he questioned in a gruff, yet mocking voice. "I'd heard about the mighty Agorian brood that terrorized the Vela Sector, but this is all I find? There isn't an ounce of honor among the lot of you, and I should know… I've seen the yellow of your insides."
Vendra gave Ratchet a baffling look, partially from residual surprise at the violence he'd clearly unleashed below, but it was reinforced by his out of character word choice. It was hard for her to tell who she was looking at right now. Certainly not the nauseatingly friendly and righteous galactic hero from before.
Ratchet noticed her expression and smiled guiltily, "Don't tell Clank," he begged jokingly.
Before Vendra could voice her juxtaposed confusion, the damaged device in Ratchet's hand erupted with noise, mostly spluttering and growls. Vendra noted that most of the sounds were guttural and animalistic, but had a cadence to them that made her sure they were curses that her neural translator didn't have on file.
Then Magora's voice came through, "You cursed space-rat!" she snarled. "I'll have your pelt as my seat cover for that!"
The tone of the radio changed, making it clear that it was now receiving on a different channel, "This is Commander Magora, all Agorians listen up! Forget the Vullards and their junk… whoever brings me the head of that puny space-rat or the vile space witch gets first pick of all loot afterwards!"
There was an audible series of roars and cheering, not just emanating from the radio in Ratchet's hand, but distantly and coming from all around the Hollow.
A slight chill ran through Vendra as she realized that they were completely surrounded.
But Ratchet just stood up and tilted his head to the wind, twisting his ears to and fro as he listened intently to the distant sounds and noted where they were coming from.
Vendra watched this with mild fascination, until the Lombax nodded with satisfaction and crouched back down.
He looked to Vendra, "I'd say there's probably only three groups left in this part of the Hollow," he explained as he checked his equipment. "There's one to the south and one to north, the third is moving in the east, but It's hard to tell what direction they're going."
Ratchet continued to fiddle with his gear, checking his map of the Hollow and his ammo count.
Once he was happy with it, he stood up and pointed west, the direction of the Agorian group he'd just taken out, "Head up that way and keep your head down. As long as we both stay inside the Hollow's borders, your collar will be in range of the remote, so don't worry."
Then he got up to leave, "It should take me a few hours to clean up the rest… longer if they brought more Hydra Tanks. Just keep your head down and you should be-"
Before Ratchet could finish, a line of bright purple lightning cut across his vision.
Slowly, the worried Lombax turned to face a furious looking Vendra Prog, her squinted, snake-like eyes glowing purple with power and frustration.
"You're still going to act like I can't take care of myself?!" she demanded angrily.
The indignant Nether took it as a personal insult that he was telling her to run and hide after all she'd just done.
Ratchet looked away and shrugged, "It's not that. I just… work better alone."
Vendra's eyes narrowed further, "You go into every battle with a pint-sized toaster literally covering your back!" she argued, becoming more annoyed with each word he spoke.
"It'll be dangerous," Ratchet pressed more firmly.
Vendra folded her arms, "You saw what I did to all those Talons."
But whatever the arrogant space witch had thought of her battle with the starfighters, it was not shared by her handler.
Ratchet's expression suddenly became hard and he fixed Vendra with a firm stare, "What I 'saw' was you recklessly flying into the middle of a fight and immediately getting overwhelmed!" he growled.
The suddenness of his rebuke caused Vendra to deflate a little, but she didn't back down, "I can fight Agorians just as well as you can!"
"I don't doubt that," Ratchet agreed, but doing so in a tone that somehow felt like he actually did. "You could probably take on Magora's entire horde by yourself… but not all at once! I can't focus on a battle if I have to worry about you trying to bite off more than you can chew everytime I turn around!"
"Fine then," Vendra spat dismissively, "you can go do your 'lone warrior' thing with one group and I'll go take care of the rest."
"So you can end up staring down the barrel of a plasma cannon with your powers exhausted again?" Ratchet shook his head, "I don't think so."
Vendra smirked, "You going to stop me, hero?"
Ratchet pulled out the collar controller and showed it to her, "It has an 'incapacitation' function," he answered in a flat tone. "It's less ideal than letting you be able to defend yourself if something finds you, but better than letting you rush to your death."
Vendra's eyes flared with anger and lightning snapped in the space between her and Ratchet, but the Lombax didn't even flinch.
The two glared at one another for a long few moments, but Ratchet's eyes didn't falter an inch and slowly... Vendra's angry expression turned to one of defeat.
"Heh, that's right…" she began with a solemn grin, "I keep forgetting that I didn't actually leave my prison cell… I just took it with me."
Vendra tried to give Ratchet one last look of scorn, but couldn't muster the right amount of malice. She just looked… sad.
Ratchet held the remote up threateningly and his hardened gaze remained fixed as he watched her turn to leave.
He even held firm as she lifted into the air and started to float away… but then his resolve crumbled at the last second, when she gave him one last miserable glance back, "Wait," he growled, angry at himself already, but knowing in his gut that he couldn't just leave her like this.
Vendra halted mid-air, hovering in the alley between this building and the next.
'Too easy,' she thought and quickly hid the conniving smile from her face as she slowly turned around and eyed Ratchet with mock suspicion, tinged with just the right amount of hopefulness.
Eventually she hovered back over to him, but kept her look of skepticism as she spoke, "You'll let me fight?"
Ratchet sighed, "On a few conditions. One: You have to follow my lead. That means no rushing in, no getting greedy with your attacks, and no pushing yourself to your limit."
Vendra raised an eyebrow, "You expect me to-"
"Two," Ratchet continued, raising his voice just slightly as he spoke, "Your first priority is the Vullards. If we see any civilians under attack, we rescue them at all costs."
Vendra sneered, "Please, those stupid junkba-"
"Three," Ratchet growled, making it clear that there was no room to argue, "You do what I say. That means if I tell you to hide under a rock or retreat, you do it without question, even if you have to leave me behind. Understood?"
Vendra grinned, "Oh trust me, I'll have no problem leaving you to die, Lombax."
But Ratchet didn't rise to the bait and his expression remained hard, "I said, 'understood'?" he repeated sternly.
Vendra held his gaze for a moment, deciding she didn't like this 'in charge' Ratchet at all, preferring the soft and easily manipulatable Ratchet instead.
Finally, however, she conceded with a huff, "Understood."
Ratchet nodded, a slight look of relief on his face, "Good… let's go."
AN: It's kind of difficult to reply to Reviews on FanFiction. I much prefer comments system on Archive of Our Own, where this story is published at the same time under the same pen name, so if you want to chat about the story, that's your best bet.