Return to Crusade

By Sarge11

Disclaimer: 

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

Hey, Mr. D 91, I thought you said you would review to the end. I don't see how you could find the time to review The Ranger's Hymn, just today, but still can't review my major story. Ah well. I guess maybe you just didn't know, or maybe the review is even on its way right now. Whatever.

Superdork398: I'm sorry to here about your grandfather. I do not even have to have met him to know that he was a great man. His service during the war was enough proof for me. It's exploded again! You really need to upgrade your BM. Well, I'm somewhat sorry that you want it to go on forever, seeing as this is the last chapter. But never fear! I've already got the first chapter to the next story outlined. Hang in there man!

Tankbain: Thanks!

Mr. D 91: Though you did not review for the last chapter, I will answer to the songfic of mine you reviewed. I don't exactly understand what you were talking about when I changed everything but, ROCK ON!

jay.w.: Yeah I like it too. Well, the answer why I can't do both is because I work based on two factors. What I'm in the mood for, and two, what the readers want. The biggest factor is what the readers want, which merely controls what I write. The mood I myself am in, determines how high the quality is. Like when I wrote chapter 8, my day had generally been crap. However, when I wrote chapter seven, I had just eaten a nice meal, the weekend was starting, my grades were good, and we didn't have any homework or projects. So you can see how they would conflict.

Gamer619: Thanks.

Hylic Soul: I agree.

Chaos Wielder: Yeah. If you liked that, then you'll really like chapter six.

Chapter 14: Home

Ratchet jumped from his starfighter and descended down towards the trees. Before he reached tree level, he righted himself and pulled on his sharp cuffs. He angled himself toward one of the great tree's trunks and reached out, the sharp end on his cuffs grabbed onto the bark, and hesliddown about two yards before he stopped. Then, he instantly started climbing the trunk, ignoring the great physical stress a stunt like that caused. He knew there were sure to be guards patrolling the treetops, so he pulled out his laser staff, but did not activate it. He heard a guard coming and activated his personal gravity field generator and went prone. He waited until the guard passed and started creeping up behind him, and put him in a chokehold. He then placed the inactivated butt of the staff up to its head and activated the beam, effectively drilling a three-inch hole in the noid's head. He immediately shut the beam off, dragged the body over to the edge, and dumped it into the murky water below where the sharkagators lurked, making a bit more noise than he would have liked. The next guard in line heard the commotion and rushed into the room; only to find it empty. As he was looking around, Ratchet, who was hiding on a branch, silently shot an oil slick from his wristin front of where the guard was standing to the edge of the platform, and slipped out his grav-field generator underneath the guard. The device slipped underneath the guard who, not used to the change in gravity, lifted into the air and started kicking and flailing. Ratchet turned off the field and the guard fell back to the ground and landed on the oil, and shot off the edge, too terrified to scream,and the Tyhrranoid splashed noiselessly below.

Ratchet picked up the generator and put it back in the mod slot of his suit. He put on his Protopet fur boots over his noisy armored boots, and put the cloaking device in the other mod slot in his suit and activated it. He became invisible.

He made his way toward the ventilation shaft entrance.

Why do Tyhrranoids always put the vent entrance so low? Ratchet asked himself.

He took the vent cover off after disabling the security terminal next to it, and deactivated his cloaking device since he didn't need it anymore. He climbed into the vent and found his path blocked by security walls; laser barriers reinforced by Adamantium walls. Simple. Ratchet estimated that a single EMP grenade would disable the barrier long enough for him to cut through the walls. He covered the vent again and tossed the EMP. The grenade exploded and took out the barrier; he activated his staff, turning off one side so he could increase the length of the other side and he started carving. He pulled through just as the laser barrier came back online. However, as soon as he looked forward again, he found his face just a millimeter away from the next barrier. He jumped back and hit his head on the wall and singed his tail on the barrier behind him, the beam cutting through his armor; Ratchet struggled to stifle a yelp of pain. He leaned forward and cocked his head as his suit's HUD automatically assessed the situation and processed information regarding the walls. Ratchet came to the conclusion that Ratchet had to go through at least ten more barriers until reaching Nefarious' private chamber. Ratchet silently cursed himself for not being prepared,because he only had one EMP left. His "payload" consisted of one full magazine for his whip, oil for the oil slick, a power source for the grav field, cloaking device, and laser staff, and two EMPs. He decided to save the EMP for dropping into the final vent where Nefarious was.

Ratchetthought that he could disable the fields with the runoff of his whip; and it wouldn't even cost him ammo. He could just equip it and hold it over the edges of the barrier.

He proceeded through the rest of the vent this way and finally reached the hatch that led to Dr. Nefarious' private chamber and threw the EMP through the vent. He slid down on a rope immediately after the boom, and found three Lombaxes, obviously survivors of Dr. Nefarious' attack on Veldin. They were lined up on a wall with blindfolds on. Standing about two yards away from them, with guns still pointed at them, but shut down, were three Commander Bots. Ratchet pushed the bots down and released the prisoners, who climbed up the rope. For the first time, Ratchet looked around Nefarious' "room". It was more like a battle arena. As Ratchet was looking around the room, he didn't notice the platform opening in the floor, but his environmental sensors indicated that something had jumped through the floor.

Instead of turning around to see who it was, he used his neural connection with his suit to activate the camera in the back of his suit and saw Dr. Nefarious approaching stealthily. He just kept watching him as he stepped forward, waiting for the expected move to come. When it finally did, Ratchet was more than ready. Nefarious reached around Ratchet's neck in an attempt to grab it, but was flipped forward as Ratchet grabbed his arm and pulled him over his shoulder. Ratchet instantly crouched down as Nefarious sprang up and faced Ratchet again. Ratchet started twirling his staff around over his head, and moved his arm back in the ready position.

Nefarious smiled and said, "The Steel Kitten wishes to fight. Good; this will make things interesting."

Ratchet did not hesitate and rushed at the mad Doctor. He felt something growing inside him, something primal, making him stronger… rage. He could feel it consuming him, controlling his actions, making him reckless but strong. He could feel it clouding his mind over what Nefarious had done, on Veldin and beyond, what he was about to do with those Lombax prisoners. He felt his anger burning and burning until things started to drop into slow motion. His vision became clearer and, with the slow motion helping him and increasing his reflex time, he could move faster than he ever had before. He could feel his anger, and then he remembered the attack on the Phoenix, how Sasha and Angela had almost died, and he roared the roar of the lion and he charged even faster and more ferociously.

Dr. Nefarious winced at this but ran at Ratchet anyway; and got one of his fins cut off.

Ratchet kept on running and, merely by his speed, started running up the wall and flipped up onto the ceiling running upside down. He thought of Drek, and his velocity increased. He had so much energy built up that when he stopped on the ceiling over Nefarious he stood still for an instant, just standing upside down, before he dropped down, his staff spinning like a P-51's propeller, and started chipping away at small parts of Dr. Nefarious. After he landed, Ratchet dropped down on his head and started spinning around in a dance move he had learned on Metropolis while looking for Drek's second-in-command, and extended his legs in a kicking move that sent Nefarious flying to the other side of the room. Ratchet assumed the ready position again.

Nefarious got up and dusted himself off, and actually looked a little scared. As usual, he teleported out, but did not notice that Ratchet had slapped a tracking device on his remaining fin.

Ratchet hacked and slashed his way through Nefarious' base towards the docking bay faster than he drove a Turboslider, the benefit of his cloaking device too damaged for a quick repair.

He reached the hangar just as Dr. Nefarious took off in his private shuttle. No matter, Ratchet thought emotionlessly. He activated his ship's transponder signal. The ship blasted through the roof just as more guards entered the bay, but the ship made short work of them. Ratchet hopped in his fighter and shot off after the scientist.