Heading Home

Ratchet awoke once more to a life without an alarm clock. He preferred this life, as it was less noisy and annoying. But, it would be nice to get back to the Nundac Asteroid Ring, or more specifically, the Apogee Space Station. Yet, he was almost reluctant to leave. He loved Planet Pokitaru. It was the vacation spot of any species in the galaxy if they were worth what they were born for. But, it was irrelevant of the fact of whether or not he was leaving the beautiful ocean covered space rock. Everyone else couldn't wait to arrive through the station's artificial air, gravity, and atmosphere. He needed to fit in with everyone else.

He got up, but not before checking the old non-alarm digital clock hanging from the wall. 8:17. That was a pretty decent time to wake up, reach over the edge of the mattress, and turn off the lobby communication device that would give a wakeup call to any and all the master suites on all of the islands in all of the cabanas. He almost fell groggily from the edge of the bed as he got out putting on his bunny slippers. He was almost as embarrassed about having these as he was about having those specialized rocket ship underpants. But, he didn't care. He merely walked around to the other side of the bed to attempt to wake Talwyn. He gave a slight push on her abdomen, yet stayed quiet. She stirred for about a few seconds, and then dozed off again. Ratchet immediately gave up. There wasn't anything in the world that he could think of that could possibly wake her when she was tired. After all, Ratchet did always wake up about two hours before she did. He walked across the room, in no hurry to get showered, but, he felt as if he wanted to get a head start on the day today. He walked into the bathroom, which was actually quite large for what it was supposed to be. The hydroshower was almost as large as the bathroom in Ratchet's room back at the station. It looked like it had four jets that would drench him and spray him with cleaning liquid as they moved up and down. Ratchet thought this because there were small slits in the wall where it looked like the nozzle would move vertically. As he stepped in, he realized that there was no switch to activate the shower's jets. But, the device proved that it didn't need one. It automatically shot out the water as he stepped in. Sort of like the one at the station, only he had to turn it on verbally. This was more technologically advanced than the station. And Ratchet sort of enjoyed it.

He simply stood there as he was first pelted with the usual constant spray of cleansing water that moved from the top of his body to his feet. It felt nice to have him being comfortably sprayed by water. Next came the cleaning liquid. Ratchet didn't know what it was, but it sure smelled nice. Once again, it never penetrated his tightly shut eyes. Instead, it sprayed him in the same manner as the water did when it was coming out of the business end of the nozzle. It moved down for about seven seconds, and then up for the same amount of time. He was covered in white, sweet smelling foam that he could feel cleaning deep into his fur. Then, the water came again to rinse off all of the soap and cleanser that was now covering every square centicubit of Ratchet's body. In almost a single spray of the water, the foam disappeared as though it were never there, and Ratchet was just getting his body ready for soaping all over again. It was amazing how quick the soap was gone, and once Ratchet's whole head was relieved of it, he opened his eyes to witness exactly how fast it was ridding his body of it as if it were an unwanted pest. Ratchet was bewildered as well. Once all the soap was gone, it all went into the unstopped drain, and Ratchet prepped himself for the airblast system. The shower did something that Ratchet had never seen before. Some of the tiles that surrounded him on the shower walls jutted out about an inch, and then started moving up through open cracks in the molding together of the tiles. After they were completely out of the way of the now open square that had the same area as the tile, a small little vent appeared in the place of the hole that was also square and had the same area. It did this four different times around him so that he would be dries on all four sides as he was wetted, soaped, and rinsed. Ratchet was about to think that it was impossible to deliver enough thrust of wind and air to dry his entire body. But, he ended up eating his own words. The vents let loose a powerful blow of wind that would have pinned Ratchet to the wall if he weren't balanced by the stopping power of the other ones. He was dry within thirty seconds of the beginning of the blast. He opened his eyes to find himself so dry that he didn't need an extra towel, and he wouldn't even have to fluff it. It was a pretty neat hydroshower, overall.

He exited the shower, and a little machine that stood next to the sink spit out Ratchet's long sleeve gray shirt and a pair of his favorite jeans. After this it let out a small pair of underwear. Ratchet looked at it and found that it had rocket ships on it. He almost didn't have to look. He knew what was coming. He didn't groan this time; instead he just put everything on. It all felt comfortable, as it must have gone through a wash on the way from the dresser to the machine. But whatever had happened, he was proud of the fact that he had lived here. He walked out of the bathroom with a slight smile on his face. But that smile faded as he saw that Talwyn was still out cold in the bed. In fact, while he was in the bathroom, he almost could tell that she had snored.

"This is just ridiculous," Ratchet said. "How on Pokitaru can you sleep for that long?!" But, of course, he might as well have been talking to a corpse. She wasn't getting up. But Ratchet was more than prepared for that. He walked over to his manifestor which rested on top of the dresser. He took it down and scrolled through his inventory until he found his old Combustor. He also went down toward the middle, finding the blank Combustor shots. Finding both the items, he quickly manifested them, and he loaded the shot. He aimed the gun in the air, braced himself for the explosion, and squeezed the trigger.

The loud shot rang out throughout the cabana, waking anyone who hadn't risen, and making everyone else pause their vidgames and look around suspiciously. It certainly did the deed of waking Talwyn, due to the fact that she was sleeping in a bed that was only a few cubits away.

"I'm up! I'm up!" She screamed as the shot rang out. She instantly hopped out of bed. And continued yelling. "Are we under ATTACK!!???"

"No," Ratchet said. "It was my Combustor. You people are too darn lazy." He started to swing it in a vertical three sixty motion in the area were the trigger was, showing that he was content of his doing. Talwyn wasn't mad thankfully, but she could agree that there were probably some other better ways to wake her up. Ratchet just shrugged his shoulders.

Everyone was down in the cabana's kitchen within five minutes. And after everyone saw that Zephyr was cooking, they all wanted to barf up a lung and go find a Galaxy Burger somewhere in the Korthos Sector.

"You know, Ratchet," Talwyn said. "You should really try cooking." Everyone else smiled and nodded very fast. Ratchet replied with, "No way. There's no way that's happening. All I can do is make toast." And, with that, he stuck a piece of bread into the toaster that was next to a few skillets, and pulled down the handle. A few seconds later, It popped out golden brown and appetizing. "Ta-da!" Ratchet said. Everyone else appeared to be impressed, because they were licking their lips. Ratchet made a few more pieces, one for everyone. They all devoured their piece like it was a perfectly ripe gravity well. Even Zephyr had to comment.

"This here's better than anything I've ever made," He said. Everyone just looked at him as if he were saying something new.

"Well, everyone," Ratchet said. "We've been here for our fill of vacation, so what do you say we head back to the station?" Justin shouted his agreement. "YAY!!" Everyone else agreed, but they couldn't leave without, oh, say, one more piece of Ratchet's delicious toast.

About a half hour later, they were all set for departure. They had packed their clothes and belongings, and were on their way to the transport hovercraft that was ready to take them back to the Island were they would check out of Jowai Resort, get in their ships, and head back to the Apogee Space Station. They all boarded the craft, carefully pulling their luggage up the steps of the craft. After everyone was on it, the steps withdrew, going beneath it. And within seconds of this happening, the craft was off for the lobby once again. It flew at its eighty mile an hour speed across the fresh water in the morning sun. The light was bright, so everyone put on their novelty sunglasses. This shielded their eyes from the planet's sun's dangerous rays. There was no one flying the craft, in fact, there never was. It flew on a planned course. It knew where it was all of the time, whether at the lobby, or at the island. Whenever it was at one of those locations, it would go to the other one. It was like the DreadZone planetary transport that he used in those days. Any tampering with the planned route would cause the craft to explode.

It took about five minutes to arrive at the lobby island and hop out of the craft. Ratchet told everyone to go back to the ships. He told Justin and Clank that he would be at Aphelion in a few minutes after he checked out. He walked over to the front desk in a small room. The concierge smiled at the fact that his favorite customer was back in the lobby.

"Hello, good sir," He said, with ecstasy. "Have you come back to check out?"

"You know it!" Ratchet said. "And by the way, can I rate the hotel's service?"

"But, of course," The Cazar said. "We at Jowai Resort love it when our loyal customers review our service. We are all always wanting to be told what needs to improve."

"Well, first of all, I think the temperature in the cabana could stand to be a few degrees warmer, and, I think the toasters are starting to get a little defective. It kept the bread in the slot a little too long. But, other than that, it was pretty darn great to stay here, and that wasn't just because we were staying in the Royal Suite."

"Thank you for your kind words sir. Please come back and stay here again."

Minutes later, they were just exiting the atmosphere of the beautiful Planet Pokitaru. As the planet slowly inched away from view, everyone stared at it as if they were all having a contest to see who could keep it in there range of vision for the longest period of time. Ratchet probably wouldn't have won, but he swore that he heard a small voice coming from the inside of the planet saying, "Don't go." But, to the voice's dismay, Ratchet only continued toward the distant space in front of him. There wasn't any question of where he'd rather be. He wanted to be back at Apogee Space Station in the Nundac Asteroid Ring. After all, the place was probably a mess.

It didn't take long to get close enough to the Ring where they could just go into hyperspace for a few minutes, rather than just fly Aphelion for the next four hours instead. He pushed the small button on the dashboard that activated the Super Boosters. The ship was instantly surrounded by the same little colored pixels of the hyperspace area. They almost shone on Ratchet's fur. Clank's eyes were instantly drawn to the alternating colors of the pixels. Ratchet didn't know why he would do this, but when he did, the rest of the world would just go away. Clank's reason for acting this way was because his optical sensors are drawn to areas of bright light, and that it relaxed them, so therefore he was almost asleep while it was happening. He was especially susceptible to fire, hyperspace pixels, and new light bulbs.

Only minutes later, the tube around them vanished, and the Asteroid Ring was in view. Ratchet set course for the small landing pad on the northern-most rock, realizing that Talwyn's ship was right next to his. They both landed at about the same time, and shut off their engines. They opened the hatches on their ships, and hopped out. Once again, Justin needed no help. They walked over to the teleporter cannon, and wondered who would go first. Although, the silence was broken when Justin said, "Can I go first? Please, oh, please?" No one could deny those cute little puppy dog eyes that belonged to the little Lombax kit, and he smiled as he leaped through the cannon's waiting translucent tube.

Everyone else soon followed, each tightly holding on to their luggage so that it wouldn't fall through space, as Ratchet almost had, twice. Once they were all on the rock, Ratchet just had to comment. "Well," He said. "It sure is great to be back."

They all walked over to the elevator that would take them up to the main hallway of the Station. As they approached it, Ratchet looked up at the big, spherical Space Station, and thought to himself how great it would be to walk through those halls once again. He thought back to when he raided the station a few years ago. Nothing had been renovated or altered since his arrival, and now, he was okay with that. Before he could notice what had happened, he was standing in the elevator, and it had already started its trip up. He was racing up the transparent tube that was held together by small strips of metal. They whizzed by very quickly and quietly. Then, almost instantly, they were surrounded by darkness. It came quickly. And it must have frightened Justin a little bit, because he could feel little hands wrapping around his stomach area. But, within seconds, they withdrew. There were little lights that were arranged into horizontal groups so close together that it looked almost as if it was just one circular line of a light. They went by as quickly and as quietly as the little straps of support metals did. This went on, lights passing and metal strips whizzing by, for about thirty more seconds. Then, he felt sudden G force as the platform slowly came to a stop. That meant that they were nearing the entrance to the hallway. They came to a direct stop, making Ratchet feel almost weightless. They all walked into the foyer. There was a little three way intersection that Ratchet also remembered from his first visit. They walked right, and then Talwyn took a small card key out of her pocket, and pressed the edge against a small pad on the wall that was next to a sealed door. The door quickly opened with a small whoosh sound. Inside, Ratchet found himself once again standing in the old living room of the Apogee Station. He was finally home again. Or, at least he was at the place at which he was sheltered. His real home was his old garage back on Planet Veldin. He wondered if that dump was still standing anymore. Probably not, but he almost wished he could see it again. But, as I said, he felt as if he was home again.

Ratchet sat on the couch, smiling as if he had saved the Omniverse once again. Oh, wait, he did save the Omniverse once again. That thought alone was enough to make him smile wider. Things were pretty peaceful, except for Cronk and Zephyr having their usual 6:00 PM argument over something that no one really even cared about.

"I'm tellin' ya, I was a graduate of the Polaris School of Lombax Research."

"Ya durn fool! Ya don' even know the first thing that has anythin' ta do with Lombaxes. My mother was half Lombax."

"Yea, yea, sure. Ya hit me with that one…" Cronk began counting on his fingers as if doing a hard math problem. "…two adventures ago."

All Ratchet could do was just give up, claimed that neither of them knew anything about him, and rolled his eyes. When his eyes reached the other side of his sockets, he noticed that little Justin was sitting on the other end of the two-person couch with a vidgame controller tightly clutched in his fist. Ratchet looked in front of him, and saw that there was another one conveniently placed directly in front of him. And, he saw that the hoverbike game was at its loading screen. Ratchet gave a small chuckle, and said, "You are so totally ON."

It was an uneventful race, mainly because no one picked up any weapons that were actually useful enough to use. Oh, sure there were a few missile launchers, and an electroshock zapper here and there and maybe a machine gun in there somewhere, but other than that, there was nothing. The only thing that was worth gaping for was the standings of the race. Ratchet and Justin had TIED. That's right, TIED. They each had the same amount of minutes, seconds, and milliseconds in their elapsed time. Everyone who was watching not only stared open-mouthed at the place board, but they actually made a small coarse noise coming from the very back of their throats.

"Wow," Ratchet said as he watched the replay. The game was right. He couldn't see a microcubit of distance between the front of his hoverbike and the front of Justin's hoverbike. They had no choice but to call it a draw. They both sighed unhappily, almost wishing they could go back in time to play it again, only with more aggression.

Talwyn sat down next to Ratchet and said, "Hey, it's okay. I mean, it was just a vidgame. It's not like it was the Polaris Championship of Hoverbike Racing."

"Yer right, Tal," Ratchet said, smiling once again. "Hey, Justin."

"Yeah?" The kit replied.

"How'd you like it if I taught you how to use that new Omniwrench?"

The kit immediately sprang up out of his seat on the couch and exclaimed, "Really?! We could do that NOW?!"

"Oh, sure," Ratchet said. "In fact I thing that going just outside would be a perfect setting."

"Oh, boy!!"

"C'mon!! Let's do this!!"

Ratchet stood at the bottom of the stairs, patiently waiting for Justin to hurry up and grab his Wrench. He wondered what he was going to teach him, and what he was going to keep for himself. Maybe I could teach him the Hyper-Strike. Yeah, that's not too hard to do. After all, all yer doin' is slammin' the head into the dust. 'S pretty darned powerful too. I remember I took out a few doctors at Medical Outpost Omega with that move in one swing. Yeah, I guess I'll teach him that. And of course I have to teach him how to swing the wrench in general. And, I should probably find a winch crank and teach him to turn it. I should probably show him how to slide down a cable with it. Now, the Comet-Strike. That's a different story altogether. That's pretty hard, but it delivers one heck of a punch. Well, I'll think about it, I guess.

The kit came running down the stairs with the wrench tightly grasped in his small fist, almost too big for him.

"Ready!" He said.

"Cool."

They decided to have the lessons right outside of the station. Ratchet was already busy teaching Justin how to swing the wrench three times, remembering to save your energy for the final swing with an added twist of the body. Justin mastered that within four minutes of the start.

"Alright, 'Wrench master," Ratchet said. "Let's try something a little more hard. I'm gonna show you how to Hyper-Strike."

"Oh, boy!!" Justin exclaimed. "This should be fun! Is it?"

"Yeah, you just gotta master it before it gets really fun, though. Okay, here's how it works."

Ratchet brought the hand that the wrench was grasped in and the other hand and drew them nearer to each other. Ratchet paused for a second to say, "Hold your hands together." The kit did so, and the wrench was now being held with both hands.

"Alright," Ratchet reassured Justin. "Now jump. Make it as high as you can." The kit leaped up into the air, and natural instincts told him to raise the wrench above his head. Ratchet was amazed. The kit fell to the ground perfectly on his feet. Ratchet almost wanted to go wide eyed, but he didn't want to overexcite the kit. He simply said, "Good JOB!!!!" And then he returned to the lesson.

"Okay," He said. "Now, do the same thing over again, only this time, when you get to the very top of yer jump, slam the wrench down in to the ground as you come back down. It's pretty devastating."

The kit did exactly as told. He leaped up into the air with the same grace as before. And, as instructed, when he reached the summit of his trajectory, he started to quickly force the wrench down along with the artificial gravity. But, there was one slight problem. Justin had accidentally had his thumb pushing down on the kinetic tether release button. As he swung the head down, the centrifugal force blasted it right out of its socket in the shaft, and, like a rocket, it flew right toward the window of the station.

Ah, crap.

The head broke right through the window, and it shattered into thousands of tiny shards of SpacGlass. Both Lombax's eyes went as wide as dinner platters on Thanksgiving. They heard Talwyn calling from the inside, from where they thought was upstairs.

"What was that?!" She said, almost panicky.

They both could just stand there, stammering in fear of Talwyn's rage. Or, at least what would be her rage when she saw the broken glass on the floor. They had to do some thinking that would have to be faster than the time it took for Ratchet's old Harbinger's missiles to turn into the charged particle beams and slice right back through all of the bad guys. They both came to an instant conclusion, however. They made a mad dash for the teleporter cannon as they heard Talwyn walking down the flight of stairs. They heard the sound of her footsteps alter slightly, indicating that she had reached the floor. Then there was a gasp, but Ratchet and Justin were just too far away to hear it.

They landed in a heap on an asteroid that Ratchet could not recall. He had never seen it in his whole life. He looked around to see exactly where they were. Check that, where HE was. Justin was not there. But where was there?! He was floating alone on a desolate rock one kilocubit from the Station. But he could still see it.

"JUSTIN!!!" He screamed into the cold artificial air. (This was around the station in every direction for exactly one zetacubit.) Then, he heard a very small voice from behind him.

"He is safe,"

He knew that voice. It sounded like a… robot. But it wasn't Nefarious. He turned to find two Vorselon troops standing behind him. Ratchet's teeth were clenched in absolute hate. He reached for his Manifestor, but his hand only met his thigh. He tried the other side. But there was nothing. One of the robots slowly held it out for him to see. How? He took a closer look. He saw that there was a small bomb strapped to it, counting down from ten. Ratchet could only gape as the troop slowly let it fall off of the asteroid. Ratchet leaped onto his stomach next to the edge and reached for it. Too late. It had already fallen too far. He slowly got up and watched it detonate. Tears began to well up in his eyes. He worked so hard for so long to get those weapons. No. TOO hard for TOO long. Now he had nothing. His wrench was even gone. Then he heard a noise. It sounded like the noise the teleporter cannon makes. He whipped around to find Talwyn falling out of a warp that was five feet above ground. She crashed down, but only to get up quickly and dust herself off. She looked to her side to see the troops. She gasped and looked at Ratchet.

"Do something!" She yelled as the troops restrained her by the arms.

"What do you propose that I do?" He yelled back. My Manifestor is gone!"

That was all he got to say before the world went absolutely black. He crashed to the dirt with a loud thud. Then he heard Talwyn calling his name…