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Planet Grelbin, Tundor Wastes
01:49am local time

Angela leapt off of the small precipice to the right of her house, landing knee-deep in a snowdrift. She struggled out of it, into less deep snow, then hopped and clicked her heels together, activating her charge boots. The duo rocketed across the snow, floating several centimeters above it. "Angela." A calm voice said from her back. "There are YETIs approaching at nine and five o'clock." Angela veered to the right and the YETI that was about to slash her ended up hitting another YETI. Snow, fur, and blood flew everywhere as the two groups of arctic monsters collided and fought amongst themselves. Angela and Clank glided away, untouched.

"Tell me, " Angela began, eyes flicking between the terrain ahead of her and the GPS unit in her hand. "Do you and Ratchet do that a lot?"

"Actually, yes. It allows him to watch where he is going, he tells me." There was silence for a while. "Left."

"What?"

"LEFT!"

Angela banked sharply to the left as a blast of ice from a leviathan's mouth behind her just barely missed. "Thanks. We would've been goners there..." the lombax said, shaken.

"Do not mention it."

For another ten minutes they zoomed along. Distant cries of pain could be heard, along with artillery being fired and the occasional howl of a YETI or leviathan. Angela righted herself at the crest of a snowbank looking down into a sort of valley. The shelters of the nomads were mostly in flames. White shapes - lombaxes and YETIs - could be seen running through the smoke, along with the occasional metallic glimmer that signified a robot. On the far side of the valley there were repeated white flashes, a sure sign of the presence of leviathans.

"DUCK!"

By now, Angela was used to acting the moment Clank spoke, and she crouched instantly. A YETI went sailing over her head, faceplanting into a snowbank. With a growl, it leapt up and advanced. Angela pulled the metal tube off of her belt and activated it. A shimmering blue stream of plasma erupted from one end, snaking through the frigid air as if it had a will of its own. The YETI continued to move forward, although more cautiously now.

PSSSHHHTTT!

Angela swung the Quantum Whip, catching the YETI across the chest. Angry now, it charged.

PSSSHHHTTT! SNAP! SHHHAAP!

Angela swung the whip again, hitting the monster's legs and waist. It charged again, and Angela barely had time to flip to the side to avoid its slash.

FWWAPP!

This time, she jumped and brought the whip down with all the force she could muster, hitting the beast on the top and front of its head. It stumbled back, dazed, shaking blood from its eyes. Giving a mournful howl, it turned and ran. The lombax looked back toward the battleground. Another lombax, barely visible in the thick smoke, backed up slowly from the robot in front of him. Before long, his back was to a wall; he was trapped. Angela swapped her Quantum Whip for her Lancer, aimed, and got the robot right in the head. It turned toward her, but before it could move anymore, another shot went through its chest and finished it off. She ran down into the ruined camp and up to the wounded lombax's side. He was breathing heavily, blood pouring out of multiple YETI-induced wounds. Angela pulled the canister off of her belt and opened it, forcing the lombax to drink some of its contents. Almost immediately, he seemed to relax as the Nanotech did its work, healing cuts, replacing spilt blood. "Hide in the snowdrifts." She told him, then ran deeper into the smoky camp. So thick was the smoke that she almost ran slap-bang into a group of robots that were terrorizing several lombaxes. She whipped out her Gravity Bomb and fired.

Broing...

All twenty robots turned toward the sound.

BOOOOOOMMMMMM!

And then they were reduced to a pile of scrap parts.

One of the very young children was shaking an elderly lombax. "Gramma, pweeze wake up! Pweeze!" Angela knelt in the snow and felt the old woman's skin. She was cold. Deathly cold. She looked up at an older lombax and shook her head slightly. The pale yellow male gestured to another female, presumably his sister, and she gathered up the now silently crying child. Angela pointed the way she came. "If you keep traveling that way, you'll get out of this smoke pretty quick. You should be able to find a male lombax near there. Good luck." She turned to go, but the yellow lombax grabbed her arm, smiled, and bowed slightly in an expression of thanks. She smiled back, thinking of how much he reminded her of Ratchet - he certainly had at least some Veldan blood in him, what with his fur color and height. With some difficulty, she pulled her Multi-star Launcher off of her wrist and gave it to him, deciding that it would probably be more useful to him than to her. He bowed once more, then hurried his family group in the direction she had pointed. Angela set off in the opposite direction, hoping to find more survivors.

Two YETIs menaced four small figures huddled near the gutted remains of a house. Her Lancer defeated one YETI before it even knew what was going on. She cautiously circled the other YETI as it tried to decide whether or not to attack her. "Run!" she yelled to the four. They began to run, but one stumbled and they all stopped. The YETI, distracted, looked back and forth between Angela and the other four, and she took that opportunity to attack.

TSEEEW!

The moment the YETI looked away, she brought her Lancer up and fired a charged shot at its neck, fusing its spine from the heat and killing it instantly. Sure that there were no more enemies in the immediate vicinity, she turned toward the four. To her surprise, two of them were pure Veldan lombaxes, a rare occurrence on Grelbin, and the other two were robots. And one of the robots looked exactly like Clank. She glanced behind her, half expecting to see Clank not on her back. But he was still there, dutifully watching for any enemies behind her. Shaking her thoughts off, she turned back to the four. The girl lombax was limping, something metal embedded in her leg. Angela squatted in the snow and opened the vial of Nanotech, beckoning her over. The girl looked at her companions for a second, eyebrows raised, then limped forwards and held out her leg. Carefully, Angela pulled the metal shard out and poured a small amount of Nanotech on the wound, also making her drink a small amount. She then turned to the robots. "Go in that direction and stay hidden. Eventually, you'll come to another group of lombaxes who will most likely be near or in a snowdrift. You'll be safer with them than in here." She smiled briefly and rose. "Good luck."

"You too." The girl replied, grinning. "See you around." She led the other three away through the smoke.

Angela watched them for a few seconds. "You okay, Clank?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"I've been better." They moved off again.

Three leviathans rose out of the glacial depths beneath the thick ice sheet that made the Tundor Wastes. Each of the holes that they had punched through the ice with their thick-domed skulls was more than ten feet across. The massive dark blue body that rose out of each hole was well over twenty feet tall - and that was less than a third of the leviathan's total length. The single moonstone embedded in each of their skulls powered the beams of ice that they shot from their gaping, needle-toothed mouths. The large fin-like ears and chin antennae waved as each head moved, searching for a new target. All in all, it was an awe-inspiring sight.

But not for Angela and Clank.

They had seen too many innocent lombaxes fall prey to one of the ice beams or worse yet, getting too close and being snatched up and... well, suffice it to say, it wasn't pretty. "I think it's time we sent these three back to where they came." Angela said grimly, equipping her Plasma Storm. Blue plasma crackled lazily from the weapon's center to its three carbonox prongs, and would occasionally drip to the ground, making the snow evaporate.

"I agree."

Angela started toward the rightmost monster, carefully keeping out of sight. She tensed to run out into the open and fire - the smoke was too thick and the distance too great for her to aim accurately.

"Angela? Be careful."

The yellow lombax dashed across the snow, firing as she went.

PSSSHHOW! ZAP! ZAP! ZZZZAAP!

The smallest leviathan, the one on the right, roared in pain and fury as the ball of supercharged plasma hit its side. It jerked its head in her direction, a ball of ice building in its mouth. Angela didn't let it get any farther. Two times her finger pulled the trigger.

PSSSHHOW! PSSSHHOW! ZAP! ZZZZAAP! ZZZZAAPZAP!

The leviathan gave a moan of defeat and its upper body crashed down onto the ice, then slid back down into the depths. A single moonstone rolled down the hill, toward Angela. Quickly, she gathered it up, slipping it into a pouch on the back of her belt. By then the other two leviathans had turned toward her. One of them, the center leviathan, was almost done building the sphere of ice in its mouth. With wide eyes, Angela slowly backed up. The leviathan fired.

KKKKSSSSHHHHEEW!

She sideflipped, but the beam caught her legs, sending her sprawling in the snow. She rolled, the ice beam from the second leviathan missing her by only a few centimeters. Springing up, she unleashed three plasma orbs at the left leviathan.

PSSSHHOW! PSSSHHOW! ZZAAAP! Z-ZAP!

One missed, but the other two struck it in the face. It moaned, swinging its head around blindly, dark blue blood pouring from its ruined eyes. The center leviathan nudged it with its snout, and it retreated down its hole. The remaining leviathan turned toward Angela. There was something in its eyes... something that none of the other leviathans had...

Intelligence.

It let out a mournful cry, then slowly began to sink back down into the water. And then it was gone. Angela turned away from the now vacant holes, back to the ruined village. The robots had all but disappeared, but the YETIs were still visible.

"MOVE!" Clank shouted from her back.

She did, half turned to see the leviathan back, a beam of ice coming out of its mouth. The ice hit her, and she could feel Clank being ripped from her back.

And then all was black.