Note: Hello! I have been posting on AO3 for a while but my friend suggested I be here on too.
This story is inspired by an eerie piece of concept art from Going Commando that fascinated me when I found it on the wiki. Definitely check it out because it rocks. I thought it needed a story behind it. Thanks for for reading and I hope you enjoy.
Core temperature dropping to dangerous levels.
Emergency thermoregulation procedures activated.
Reboot sequence commencing.
Memory restoration at 50%.
Clank awoke facedown in the snow. It was not his usual vantage point, which alarmed him somewhat. Especially because he couldn't remember how he got there.
He pushed himself up and brushed the snow off his head. An expansive icy tundra surrounded him, quilled with tall splinters of ice and snow. The winds whistled harshly and swirled a blizzard through the inky sky above him. He was alone.
Oh dear. There was probably a perfectly good explanation for this. He would just have to wait until his memory fully rebooted. This was peculiar though; he must have taken an extremely hard hit to have warranted a system-wide shutdown.
He squinted at the sky, trying to ascertain his location. His sensors locked onto a distant moon, which he scanned into his planetary map for analysis. After a few alarmingly slow moments of assessment, he had his answer. If he was looking at this moon from this position, he must be on planet Grelbin.
So that was one mystery solved. Now, why was he here? And why was he alone? Where was—
Memory restoration at 75%.
He and Ratchet were exploring the Tundor Wastes. They were mining moonstones to trade with the Mystic so they could find Angela. If they brought him enough, he would reward them with a Hypnomatic, a device to control the sentry bots blocking their way to Angela's hideout.
It was coming back to him now. Angela. Megacorp. Fizzwidget. Ratchet. Ratchet. Ratchet? Where was Ratchet?
"Ratchet?" he called meekly. His own tinny voice made barely an echo in the churning storm. This was not good. Though he was a machine, he perceived a chill that had nothing to do with the blizzard.
Why had Ratchet left him?
Fear seemed warranted right about now. Slush dripped into his optics, and he shook his head to clear it away. He had to move. He would be covered in snow again in no time if he continued to stand idle.
He began wandering with very little direction. Perhaps he should look for clues? The intensity of the snowfall would make it difficult, especially considering how long he must have been offline, but he had no other options. Anything at all would be useful— footprints, discarded equipment…
Clank trudged up a sloping hill, hoping to gain his bearings at a new vantage point. Just as hopelessness started to gnaw at him, he squinted as he detected a discoloration in his periphery. He approached it with trepidation.
Blood.
Memory restoration at 100%.
He remembered everything.
Smashing the moonstone deposits, dodging the blasts of the arctic leviathans, and most of all, those horrible yetis. Disgusting, slobbering, ursine creatures which burst from the snow at the slightest provocation to attack whatever was nearby. They were formidable; they attacked in groups and were frighteningly resilient. Ratchet could empty an entire clip of lancer ammo into one and it would barely stumble. From Ratchet's back, it was all Clank could do to keep track of them and alert Ratchet when a new one emerged, as he heard the click of another of Ratchet's weapons run dry after each fight. Seeker gun, empty. Shield charger, empty. Minirocket tube, empty. Synthenoids, gone.
The further they roamed from the Mystic's camp, the more taxing the battles became. Ratchet was low on ammo and stamina, but he pressed on. They were almost done, weren't they? How many more moonstones could there be?
Come on, Clank, we're almost done. No use going all the way back for supplies at this point. Ratchet winced through a pained smile.
They had been swarmed.
They'd gone too far with too few supplies and now they were suffering the consequences. A new fleet of yetis rushed them everywhere they turned. Running to safety was futile. Every possible path forward or backward was laden with burrows of yetis eager to pounce.
Ratchet began strafing with his multi-star chopper and accidentally sidestepped on top of a leviathan's pit, triggering the massive serpent to burst forth from the ice and into the chaos. He dodged, and not a moment too soon—Clank calculated that even a microsecond in the icy water would freeze them both solid—
That is, if the leviathan didn't devour them first. Despite putting some distance between themselves and the beast, Clank heard Ratchet yelp as its icy breath hit his shoulder.
Mounted on his back, Clank felt the pounding of Ratchet's heartbeat reverberate through his metal body. Ratchet squatted into a crouch, which was Clank's cue to activate his rocket thrusters. With the boost, Ratchet steered them to a heretofore undisturbed stretch of snow overlooking a steep slope. Yetis emerged from the ground when they touched down, but Ratchet blasted them with his final gravity bomb.
As the yetis lay stunned in a semicircle around them, Ratchet quickly dislodged Clank from his harness and held him up to his face. The emotion in his eyes was hard for Clank to read. Whatever it was, it caused his nonexistent stomach to sink with realization.
"Ratchet, wait—"
Ratchet touched his forehead to Clank's own for a moment. Clank wriggled fruitlessly against Ratchet's hands, but there was little he could do. The yetis were recovering and beginning to shamble closer. With one hand, Ratchet procured his wrench to beat them back; with the other, he wound up and threw Clank as hard as he could off the ledge.
Right before Clank landed face first in the snow, he heard the yetis snarling and bellowing. Right before everything went black, he heard Ratchet snarling as well. Then a quick shriek of pain. Then nothing.
Reboot sequence complete.
Clank stood dazed, in what he now realized was the very same spot from which Ratchet had thrown him.
Well… this was certainly not good. He was counting on a boost of confidence once his memories returned, but learning the answers failed to do anything but fill him with even more dread. He had no idea what to do next. Not without Ratchet.
Why had Ratchet thrown him away? They were a team, weren't they?
All hope was not necessarily lost, he forced himself to realize. Ratchet was nowhere to be found, which, yes, could mean that he'd been eaten, but could just as easily mean that he escaped. Hoping desperately that it was the latter, Clank scoured the surrounding area for footprints.
Beyond the blood splatter, there was a displaced patch of snow, and a shallow valley leading away from it into the distance. The trail overlapped with a pair of gnarled footprints, and Clank realized exactly what he was looking at. After a struggle, something had been dragged along the ground from this point forward by a yeti. Something exactly the size of Ratchet.
He had to hurry. The snowfall would fill the trail quickly.
Clank plodded through the snow, following Ratchet's trail and the monstrous footprints accompanying it. His propellers wouldn't work for more than a few seconds before getting bogged down by the dense, wet flakes, so he made his journey on foot. He was grateful he had a path to follow, as the landscape was barren of any distinguishing landmarks. Without it, he could wander forever and find nothing.
Periodically, the ground rumbled beneath him. Every creature in this tundra lived underground. It was eerie to walk on top of them. He could only assume that his weight was not enough to stir the yetis. Additionally, he suspected that his metal body lacked the attention-drawing odor of his fleshy counterparts.
Clank spotted a blocky lump in the distance and decided to investigate. As he drew closer, his hunch was confirmed—an ammo and nanotech crate. He and Ratchet stumbled across a few in their mad dash through the wastelands, but never enough to improve their odds.
This was very fortuitous. He could use the nanotech to heal Ratchet's injuries, assuming he wasn't already too late… the thought made him shudder and he deleted it.
He reared back and flung out his fist, spinning until it contacted the boxes and they splintered. Bulbs of nanotech bounced out, as well as an ammo refill for the miniturret glove. Hmm. Miniturrets were traditionally useful for distracting smaller enemies while Ratchet engaged a more pertinent target. Perhaps they could use this. Clank scooped up the replenishments and dumped them in his chest compartment.
Returning to Ratchet's path, he was unable to keep his mind from wandering. His attempt to move "What if Ratchet is dead?" to his mental recycling bin had failed. He'd never felt more hollow in his life than when that thought was in his head, and he couldn't figure out why. Not even when Chairman Drek nearly destroyed the solar system had Clank felt this degree of dread at the prospect of failure.
Clank believed himself to be a hero. That was reason enough to rescue his partner. Moreover, he needed Ratchet to save the galaxy. But beyond that, what was it? What was it that made him feel like nothing would matter anymore if he couldn't save Ratchet?
Deep in thought, he failed to notice that he'd strayed from the trail and was now plodding across one of the frozen ponds.
Finally, a noise—one of very few that he'd heard at all since he rebooted—caught his attention. He looked down and saw ice cracking under his feet. Panicked, he stumbled backward, just as a serpentine shadow manifested beneath the ice.
He scrambled behind a snowdrift and shakingly waited for the inevitable eruption of the leviathan. In the ensuing silence, he cracked his eyes open to find that the shadow had vanished. If he had stayed there a moment longer, it might have been a different story.
One where he was scrap metal scattered across the tundra or in the leviathan's stomach. Leviathans, more sensitive than yetis, were not deterred by his status as a robot.
Good to know.
Clank trudged forward until the flat land turned into abrupt mountains and cliffs. Surely, he was close to Ratchet by now. He had to be. There was nowhere else to go.
The snowfall had rendered the trail nearly invisible now, so Clank imagined its trajectory toward the cliff face. As he approached, the spiky features manifested into craggy openings amidst the ice sheets. Caves. His attention was drawn to one dark, gaping maw in particular. A lair if he had ever seen one.
Bracing himself for the moment of truth, he entered the tunnel. The skeletal structures of several unknown animals littered the floor. Clank shivered as he trepidatiously maneuvered around them.
After a very short distance, the tunnel became a cavern. It was only slightly smaller than Ratchet's garage on Veldin, but the shadows cast by a dozen crystalline speleothems made it far more claustrophobic.
Ratchet lay prone in the back of the cave, dumped unceremoniously in the snow. His pointed ears provided the only evidence that the crumpled lump was even a Lombax at all.
He was deathly still. His duraplate armor was dented and mangled but seemed to have protected his vitals from most of the vicious incoming attacks.
He appeared to be alone, which puzzled Clank for a moment. It didn't last long, however, as one of the shadows to his left rose and gradually took the shape of the largest yeti Clank had seen yet.
Its body was scarred from years of arctic survival. One eye was a milky, blind ball of pus, long infected and untreated. Its gray and white fur was marred by a torrent of dried blood, tacky and fresh, spilling down its chest from its swollen nose. A bludgeoning wound, Clank surmised. A last-ditch attack from a wrench, if he had to guess.
So the blood had not been Ratchet's after all.
The beast shuffled toward Ratchet, blocking Clank's view of his distressed partner.
Clank gasped without thinking. The yeti whipped up its head at the noise, and Clank quickly ducked to hide himself. When he heard shuffling resume, he dared himself to peek back over and saw the yeti return to its resting place.
Now that there was a yeti between himself and Ratchet, Clank stayed put and zoomed in as far as his optics were able. There was no other blood. All four of Ratchet's limbs remained attached to his body.
Clank didn't know why Ratchet had not been eaten yet, but he knew better than to tempt fate by questioning it.
Ratchet was safe, for now, if likely frostbitten and bruised. Clank couldn't allow himself to accept anything else. Ratchet was alive. He had to be. And Clank was going to save him.
But how?
He'd gone on solo missions to assist Ratchet in the past, but he always had technology to hack, or gadgebots to command. He was only as useful as the tools he had access to. Here in the icy wastelands, he had nothing. How was he supposed to save Ratchet with nothing?
Clank carefully ran through the list of resources at his disposal. Snow. Rocks. Nanotech. Miniturret ammo and no miniturret. Helipack. Turbobooster. More snow…
Oh dear. He was—to borrow from Ratchet's vocabulary—well and thoroughly hosed.
He could run back to town, but he doubted the fickle Mystic would provide any help, and he couldn't reach Angela without Ratchet. He had no friends to help him. All he had were enemies.
Enemies.
An idea suddenly hit Clank like a proverbial wrench to the face. Maybe he wasn't hosed after all.
He bid Ratchet a reluctant parting glance and returned to the wasteland.
Finding his way back to the cave the second time was easy now that it was marked on his map of the tundra. Before dipping back into the tunnel, Clank looked back at his own trail of footprints. His path was clear. He could do this.
He didn't have a choice.
The beast was upon Ratchet by the time Clank slid down the tunnel and stumbled to a stop by grabbing a stalagmite. He arrived just in time to see it close its claws around Ratchet and knew there was no time to hesitate.
The snowball landed beside the beast with an anticlimactic piff. The yeti whipped its head up in irritation, huffed at Clank, and returned to its prey.
Clank focused on turning his panic into determination and hurled another snowball. If he couldn't be appetizing, he would be annoying instead. This one hit the beast on the shoulder.
"Hey! Um… you!?" He waved his arms vigorously.
The beast shuffled around to face Clank and snarled a warning. Clank stared it down defiantly. He formed another snowball, and launched.
Oof.
He was really hoping to hit it in the face that time, ideally right in its bloody nose, but it landed just left of center of the yeti's sternum. He bent down to grab more snow when the yeti startled him with a roar. Standing his ground, he fired once more.
He still couldn't hit its face, but the fury in its eyes informed him that the first stage of his plan had succeeded.
The snowbeast dropped Ratchet and launched itself at Clank. Right as it swiped, Clank activated his helipack and propelled himself up and out of the tunnel.
Dense snowflakes hit his face once he landed outside. The moment he felt the force of the yeti land behind him, he took off running. He knew where he was going.
He had a head start and ran until he could feel the yeti's breath behind him. When it got too close, he used the helipack to give himself a boost out of the range of the yeti's claws. He continued on foot until it was nearly upon him once again, then launched out of its reach. He repeated the pattern to lure the yeti further and further away from its cave.
Run, leap, glide, run.
When he spotted the familiar, shattered remains of an ammo crate, Clank prepared for the final stage of his plan. A claw swiped at his antennae, far too close for comfort. He leaped one last time and landed atop a thick slab of ice, narrowly avoiding slipping and falling on his face. He only had one shot at this. If he failed, he'd be scrap metal and Ratchet would be… no, no, don't think about it.
He hopped up and down on the ice, sending vibrations through the icy water below. The cracking echoed louder with each successive jump. He had to get the attention of the creature below.
The yeti pounced. Clank closed his eyes and shoved off the ice as hard as he could with his turbobooster. As he flew backwards, he dared himself to peek.
His timing was perfect. The moment the yeti struck the ice, the leviathan splintered it from beneath and sent crystal shrapnel flying. It swung its enormous head back and forth, scouring the snow for whatever had disturbed it before homing in on the yeti. Both creatures bellowed and battled before the size and stamina of the leviathan won out. Crunching the yeti between its jaws, it slinked back down into its icy abode.
Clank sat stunned for a moment, processing all that unfolded before him, unable to believe that his plan had succeeded.
The snowbeast was no more.
He bolted back to the cave as fast as his tiny, tiny legs could carry him.
Ratchet was right where Clank and the yeti left him. He attempted to roll Ratchet over so his face was no longer buried in the snow and, despite the difficult size disparity between them, succeeded in flipping Ratchet onto his back.
He was still breathing, Clank noted with joy. What would he have done if that were not the case? To avoid feeling sick again, he decided not to think about it. The moment he opened his chest compartment, the nanotech bulbs automatically flew to Ratchet and absorbed themselves into his body.
Clank sat beside him, anxiously tapping his fingers together, waiting for the nanotech to do its work. Minutes later, Ratchet began to groan softly, and Clank sprang to attention. "Ratchet!"
Ratchet cracked a small smile at Clank's voice and arduously sat up. "Oof… Hey, pal. What's up?"
Clank rushed to his side to support him. "We are safe now. The yeti is gone."
"Gone for good, or…?"
"Gone for good," Clank said gravely. "I made sure of it."
Ratchet laughed weakly. "I'm impressed. Great job."
The compliment flew over Clank's head like a poorly aimed torpedo in a Thugs-4-Less dogfight. He had other priorities. "Ratchet, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I think so."
Clank sighed with relief. "That is good to hear. In that case…" He stood up on Ratchet's lap and scolded into his face: "What were you thinking?!"
Ratchet winced in surprise. "What are you—oh, right. Look… I was just trying to keep you safe. It was the only thing I could think of." He nonchalantly lifted Clank off his legs and set him to the side. "I figured they wouldn't chase you if we separated because—you know, robot. I didn't want to see you get ripped to shreds because of me, so I split us up."
"But I did not want to see you get ripped to shreds!"
"And you didn't! You saved me." Ratchet held out his fist in triumph to Clank. "I knew you could do it."
Clank was reasonably sure that he was expected to respond to the gesture by nudging it with his own fist, but he was confused. "Do… what, exactly?"
Ratchet began brushing snow off his head. "Well, I didn't know for sure, but I knew that if anyone could outsmart those things, it would be you."
Clank paused. That didn't make any sense. He was so small, so unequipped for a rescue mission. Ratchet was the fighter between them, the slayer of beasts. Clank knew he had his own strengths, but going toe to toe with monsters was not one of them. "How did you know I was capable of saving you?"
"Well, we saved the galaxy together, didn't we? I learned a lot about you. Like how stubborn you are." He patted Clank's head teasingly. "And I knew that I would never leave you alone out here, so I trusted you'd do the same for me. No matter what it took."
Clank shyly looked down. "You trusted me."
"To come back for me? Well, yeah. Isn't that what friends do?"
Friends. Friends.
Friends. Clank gaped. That's what he and Ratchet were, weren't they? He hadn't realized it. He'd never had one before... But it all made sense now. The immense anxiety for Ratchet's safety. The utter dread when imagining what he would do without him. The immeasurable relief that Ratchet was here beside him, safe and sound. The bubbling joy upon realizing that he would be for a very long time. This is what a friend felt like.
He had a friend. Goodness.
The silence of Clank's pondering made Ratchet's smile fall. "No seriously, isn't it? You're kind of the first one I've ever had. I don't know all the rules yet."
Clank giggled creakily, his heart full. "I think you are on the right track. May we try that again?"
Grinning, Ratchet produced his fist once again at Clank's eye level. Clank beamed with pride and bumped it with aplomb.
Ratchet hefted himself to his feet and staggered up the tunnel to the mouth of the cave. The nanotech hadn't repaired him to his peak form, but at least he could stand upright without being visibly pained. He would need real medical attention once they returned to civilization.
Clank joined him in overlooking Grelbin's desolate landscape. A few yetis wandered, stirred by the vibrations of the battle, and Clank knew so many more lurked beneath the surface. "How do we get back to our ship?"
"You mean you don't want to start a new life here in this cave?"
Clank looked at him with confused horror.
"It was just a joke, pal. Because I don't know how we're going to get back across the entire tundra with those things still out there."
Clank opened his chest compartment and produced the miniturret ammo. "May I suggest we run for our lives?"
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
Ratchet bolted through the tundra, kicking up snow, slush, and yetis in his wake. It was quicker without the need to hunt and smash moonstones, though clusters of yetis still pursued them no matter where they turned.
Since he'd had such luck earlier, Clank kept his eyes peeled for another frozen pond. When he located one, he tapped Ratchet and pointed to get his attention.
"Ratchet, get ready!... Fire!"
Ratchet lobbed a miniturret on the pond's icy shell and continued to run. Clank watched the chaos unfold from Ratchet's back. Yetis swarmed the small machine spamming them with bullets, only to be ambushed by an annoyed and hungry leviathan. The monsters were quickly no longer concerned with the tiny lombax and even tinier robot.
"Did it work?" Ratchet panted.
"Yes!"
"Heh. You're pretty smart, you know that?"
"I may have an inkling." Clank smiled until he heard Ratchet gasp sharply. "Is everything alright?!" he exclaimed.
"Take it easy. I'll deal with these ice holes."
Ratchet charged through another swarm of yetis, dropping a miniturret behind him. Despite the toothy death machines bumrushing them, or perhaps because of them, Clank laughed. Obliterating monsters and luring them to their icy death was fun, but doing so with his newly-christened best friend was something special.
"We're almost there!" Ratchet yelled. "I can see the ship!" He turned to the side so Clank could see. Atop the bluff they stood on, only one more stretch of ice stood between them and the safety of the Mystic's camp. It was beneath a tall rock structure which, based on their earlier observations, seemed to ward wildlife away. If they could make it there, they'd finally be protected from Grelbin's monsters.
"It's a straight shot. You know what that means?"
"I believe so."
"Good. Hang on."
Ratchet leapt off the bluff and hit the ground with his charge boots. Clank enjoyed the rushing wind accompanying their home stretch until the world suddenly turned upside down. Ratchet tripped and their velocity sent them tumbling… right into the metal platform their ship sat atop of.
They were back at the Mystic's outpost. They were safe.
The collision threw Clank from Ratchet's back, rendering him staring at the sky in a useless daze. Splayed beside him, Ratchet laughed, delirious with adrenaline. It was contagious. Clank didn't know how long they laid in the snow giggling like maniacs, but, once they ran out of energy and their wits returned to them, Ratchet grinned at Clank and held up his hand. Refusing to leave him hanging again, Clank jumped up and rewarded his friend—his friend—with a hearty high-five. He still couldn't believe it.
"Ow."
Maybe a bit too hearty.
Ratchet wrung out his hand and looked around. "Well, if I remember right, we had a conspiracy to bust and a galaxy to save?"
Clank nodded. "I, for one, can hardly wait to leave this planet and give Fizzwidget a piece of our minds."
"Yep." Ratchet rose to his feet and offered Clank a boost back into his harness. "Let's trade those moonstones, find Angela, and never ever come back to this stupid planet."
"And…?"
"And never push ourselves further than our limitations or resources again, yeah, yeah. Let's go get that dumb Hypnomatic, huh?"
The Mystic's camp was vacant, so Ratchet set Clank down to count out their moonstones while he ran to retrieve the pack of emergency nanotech from their ship. Clank counted and recounted the moonstones, becoming ever more perturbed with the unchanging result. He perked up when he heard Ratchet's voice behind him.
"Hey… thanks again."
"Think nothing of it. But, you may not want to thank me just yet."
"Why's that? We're out of here once he comes back and gives us the thing, right?"
"Not exactly. I believe he said the Hypnomatic would cost us… sixteen moonstones."
"And we have…" Ratchet counted the rocks spread on the ground in front of Clank.
All fifteen of them.
"SON OF A-!"
Note: Fun fact: I learned that ants will sometimes incapacitate/dismember their prey but keep it alive so they can store it for later without its flesh rotting. This is the reason the snowbeast kept Ratchet alive and I wanted to include it in the story somehow, but I couldn't think of a reason why Clank could possibly know that. So, the more you know!