Ratchet and Clank:
The Chosen One

I DO NOT OWN RATCHET AND CLANK. INSOMNIAC GAMES DOES! ANYTHING ELSE BELONGS TO ME!

Chapter 8: The story of Rage

Kaden sat down in his red leather chair, facing the window. He kept his upper body supported by placing his hands on his knees. How was he going to explain to the other? What if he didn't believe him? A frown hushed over his lips and his eyebrows knitted together in an unhappy thought. What if his own son thought of him as a coward? He sighed heavily. Maybe he was a coward. A nobody.

Ratchet slowly sat down in one of the green leather chairs, on the other side of the desk, opposite to the red chair. It was just him and his father. He told everyone he wanted to speak to the other alone. Besides most of them had to get back to their duties anyway. If he guessed right, Talwyn and Clank went to look around the place more. He wanted answers; properly just a Lombax instinct running through his veins. How could some simple answers hurt? It wouldn't be that bad now, would it?

An awkward silence came into the room... He hated it. He needed some sort of sound to enter the air around him. With that, he sighed again but more loudly than last time. He turned his chair around to face the younger. Kaden opened his mouth, but the words were stuck in his throat. He glanced down, watching his tail swing back and forth lightly in an unsteady rhythm. How would he start it?

The other stared at his father with a slightly confused face crossed with a worried expression. Why hadn't the older said anything yet? It wasn't like him. He would normally be cheerful or in some other happy mood, but now... It was like his father was on a different planet. Like he was there but distant. When the other sighed again, he knew the quietness was bugging him. He felt the same. He swallowed and noticed that his throat was really dry. Ah, he would get water later, right now though, he had to ask again. "Dad, who is Rage?"

Kaden exhaled slowly and heavily. He looked back up to Ratchet with a blank face. "Rage... Rage has been around for a long time. Before Tachyon even attacked the Lombaxes twenty odd years ago." He started. He took a long sharp breath and closed his eyes while doing so. "It all happened back when I first started working at the Centre for Advanced Lombax Research..." The memory flashed before him. He told Ratchet how it all began.

I was in my lab, at home of all places, working on a top secret experiment for the C.A.L.R. It was an experiment to make a living, breathing person with just chemicals and basic science equipment. If it worked... If I made it work, it would be a day to remember. A day where couples who couldn't have a baby together, could use this process to make a child of their own, using simple DNA and chemicals. It would make history.

Now you see, this was just a prototype; even still, I needed to be careful to put in the right chemicals in the tube where experiment 093 was floating. Experiment 093 was created to be a male Lombax with white fur and black stripes. The first Lombax to have white and black fur. He was almost complete. Just a few more fluids needed to be added. I climbed up the ladder to reach the top of the tube the experiment was in, I had the last few chemicals in a pouch around my waist. I pulled out one of the chemicals and took off the lid. I just needed to concentrate. Something that was hard when you thought about your wife and newly born son, who had actually just walked through the door.

I turned my upper body to see my wife, Katy, standing there holding our precious little, tiny boy, Ratchet, who was born a month early, in her arms. He looked so much like me. Golden fur, big emerald eyes and my smile, but he hadn't received my stripes on my cheeks. He had Katy's stripe colour: brown. He also had her laugh which was amusing. He looked like a bundle of fluff when he was born. Hehe. It was cute.

"How's it going, sweetie?" Katy asked me, as she smiled. She walked further into the room, closing the door behind her first. Her crystal blue eyes were shining brighter than ever against her golden fur that day. Maybe she was just proud of what we brought into this universe.

"Fine, thanks. I just need to add a couple more chemicals and then I'm done and all we have to do is wait." I smiled back down at her, waving at Ratchet while doing so which ended up being a bad idea. My right foot slipped off the ladder causing me to, by instinct, use my left hand, which had the chemical in it, to grab onto something for support. The whole bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, that was explosive, fell into the tube with experiment 093 in it. "Oh no..." I mumbled. The liquid inside of the tube began to bubble like a volcano was about to explode as I crashed to the floor. The pressure caused the glass tube to crack and smash, sending me flying across the lab. I smacked into the wall, leaving cracks in it and I landed on my back in a heap. I opened my eyes slowly, but all I saw was a blur. I heard faint voices but all the ringing drowned it out.

The next thing I knew, Katy was in my face looking worried. Her head was bleeding, she obviously got hurt during the explosion too. Luckily, Ratchet didn't take any damage, Katy must of risked her own life to protect him. "Kaden? Kaden, can you hear me?!" I turned to her and nodded shakily. I got onto my knees unsteadily and then to my feet, but at least I didn't collapse. I heard something moving on the other side of the room. My ears perked to their highest point, I knew what it was.

I glanced to where the tube use to be, and just as I guessed right. Experiment 093 was standing there with an angry look on his face. He was staring at us like we were fowl, disgusting creatures from a different dimension. It looked as if an electric net from a Magnet-Cannon was around him, it crackled around his body. Yellow energy balls started to form in his hands, and suddenly, in a flash they were thrown at us. I shoved us all to the ground as quickly as possible before they could hit any one of us. Another wave of energy came flying at us, it went straight threw us but no pain was felt. All I could feel was a strong pressure drop which held me down. It looked like Katy was feeling the same, but Ratchet, he looked fine as if nothing was going on.

The pressure went back to normal, and we got up slowly in case another attack was hurled towards us. A deathly voice echoed in the lab. "Everyone shall bow to me. Everyone shall bow down to me, Rage, the most powerful person in the universe! And nothing will stop me!" With that experiment 093 disappeared without a trace.

"We didn't know where he fled to, but we knew he was extremely dangerous and needed to be stopped at all costs." Kaden looked down at his hands which were in his lap. Tears started to swell up in his eyes. "It's all my fault this happened. If I had just concentrated!... None of this would of been a problem." His voice lowered at the last sentence. "I should of fought back and put him down when I had to chance."

Ratchet was hanging onto every word that his father said. He would have never imagined that that would of happened. It shocked him. How was he suppose to reply to that? Oh, just a pat on the back and a simple 'I'm sorry'. No, it wasn't good enough. He opened his mouth but nothing was said. He struggled with words. What could he say?... Or what could he do? The younger got out of his chair and walked over to the other.

The sounds of light footsteps made Kaden lift his head up. He was greeted with a small body at his knees. Ratchet had knelled down and wrapped his arms around his father's chest. At first the older froze at the contact, his son had never hugged him before so it felt... strange. Strange, but nice. Hesitantly, he brought his own arms down to wrap them around Ratchet's small back and pulled him up a bit. He felt the other's cheek against his chest, and the arms around his chest. It was nice to hug him again. It had been a long time since that happened. He just wanted to enjoy the moment with his son, to have no interruptions to disturb them. But maybe he should explain the second part of it before anything- Ah screw it, he shall tell the rest of the story another time.

Spent quite a while on this chapter, I had to put some extra thought into it. If there's any mistakes, I'll change it another time, I'm getting too tired for all this. Anywho, hope you enjoyed this chapter and liked the little background info on Rage, and I guess Kaden and Ratchet as well, I just had to add Ratchet's mother into it :3 R&R please, it would be nice.