Ratchet and Clank:

The Chosen One

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

Chapter 10: What about this Chosen One?

Ratchet was walking down the hallways of the new Lombax Research building. He had just been with Clank and Talwyn, who had told him how wonderful Planet Volzar was. That was the planet they were on at the moment, Ratchet had never gotten told before until his friends did. They said it had everything you could need: farm land to plant crops; clear water streams to collect your water supply; many materials to build things out of. Ratchet was now on his way to meet up with his father in his office. He hadn't told him everything from the story, which was slightly odd, he had to admit. He just shrugged his shoulders at the thought and carried on walking, until someone called out his name. He turned around to find Jasmine, the female Lombax he had met in the libary, running up to him.

She stopped in front of him, and it was just then he realised that she was his height. She held her side and panted. "Hey, I was wondering if you were heading to Kaden's office?" When Ratchet raised an eyebrow, she held up a pile of paper in her left hand. "Got a report to give him."

Ratchet's eyes went wide for a second. "Oh, right, heh. Erm, sure... You can join me." His nerves kicked in, and butterflies started to form in his stomach. Jasmine chuckled as if she knew, but walked ahead of Ratchet. As soon as he was sure she couldn't see him, he facepalmed from what he had said moments ago. I'm such an idiot. He thought. He jogged until he was at Jasmine's side. Then an awkwardness started to fill the air around the two Lombaxes as they walked. There was no-one else around the area, so all they could hear was their light footsteps.

Ratchet looked outside a window and saw the sun shining brightly. "Sooo... Nice weather we've having, huh?" He rubbed the back of his head. What kind of question was that?! Come on, Ratchet, even Qwark could of thought of something better than THAT!

"What?" Jasmine asked, slightly confused at the question. Why would he ask her that type of question? He was kind of strange, but that was what she liked about him. She blushed a little. I hope I mean that in a friend way. Anyway, back to the conversation. She giggled. "I guess you just don't know how to start a proper conversation off."

"W-what? No, no, of course I do! Erm, it's just... weird to have Lombaxes appear out of nowhere." He noticed she raised her eyebrow, so he put up his hands. "N-not that it's a bad thing!" He sighed quietly. "Sorry, it's just strange as I didn't grow up with the Lombaxes and I never knew anything about them until recently. It's hard to get use to, hard to know what to say, hard to-"

Jasmine punched him on the arm, but not hard enough to hurt him. "Gee, I get it. Stop before you hurt yourself." She joked. "We're here anyway." Ratchet looked around to see that they were indeed at their destination. Jasmine knocked on the tall brown door in front of them.

Kaden called out a while later. "Yes?" Jasmine opened the door. Kaden was sitting at his desk, fixing something with his wrench. "It's me General. I have that report you wanted from the previous fight we had earlier."

Kaden stopped what he was doing and looked up at her. "Ah! Wonderful, just pop it on my desk." He smiled warmly, as she did what she was told. Once the report he on her desk, she saulted him and walked out of the room to get on with her duties. Once she left, Kaden noticed Ratchet standing outside. He sighed heavily, he really did not want to tell his son the story, but he had to. So, putting on the biggest grin he could master, he yelled out to his son. "Hey, Ratchet! Come on in."

The younger's golden ears shot up at the sound of his name. He turned towards his father's office and noticed him sitting down behind his desk. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He made his way up to the desk and slowly sat down in one of the green leather chairs. Now that Ratchet was close enough, he could tell his father was modifiying a blaster of some sort. Alister did say his father was one of the smartest Lombaxes that ever lived.

Kaden smiled, and put his wrench down. He noticed that Ratchet was looking at the blaster. "Heh, this is just something I do when bored. I can modifying guns, gadgets, household objects, robots-"

"Aren't we hear to disscuss about that seond part of the story?" Ratchet cut in. As much as he would love to hear about that sort of stuff from his father, he had to know the important things first. If there was a villian running around causing chaos, then something had to be done, and fast.

"Oh... right. Yeah, I guess we should." Kaden stood up and leant up against the huge window behind him. He frowned. "You're properly thinking who his Rage guy is exactly. Am I correct?" He glanced at his son, who nodded. Kaden looked back outside. "Well, I'm gonna tell you straight. He is someone you do not want to meet. He is too dangerous for anyone to handle."

"But what about this 'Chosen One' everyone has been going on about? Can't that stop him?" Ratchet asked, curiously. He had remembered that book he had read, maybe it did come in handy at last. Kaden didn't answer at first, but he knew he had to. "...Yes." He said after a few minutes. "It can stop him."

"Then who is it? How do we find them?" Before Kaden could answer Ratchet's questions, the room started to flash red and the alarm went on. The loud sound made Ratchet cover his ears; Kaden was use to it so he didn't need to. "What's going on this time?!" The younger yelled over the noise.

"I don't know! I guess we'll have to find out in the main hall! Come on!" Kaden shouted back to his son as he ran out of the room. Ratchet caught up to him. They were no intruders this time, so what was it? In about 5 minutes of non-stop running, both of the Lombaxes got to the main hall, where everyone gathers up for meetings and actions like these. Kaden made his way to the front of the room to speak with Scar. Ratchet spotted Clank and Talwyn out the corner of his eye, and walked up to them. "Do you guys know what's going on here?" He asked them.

"No, we were just talking to some Praetorian Guards before the alarms started going off." Talwyn said, slightly worried. "I wonder what is going on?"

"Prehaps, we will find out soon." Clank commented. They all nodded their heads.

Kaden jogged up to Scar, who was typing on the supercomputer, turning off the alarms and red lights. "So, what's going on this time?" The orange-golden Lombax asked.

Scar glanced at Kaden. "We picked up a high frequency signature on Planet Cobalia in the Cerullean Sector. Ryan and I believe it could be Rage. This may be our only chance of stopping him." He straightened up. "So, what should we do, Kaden? Kaden didn't answer, he stared into space. "Kaden?" Scar asked again.

"I don't know." The Lombax said. He sighed. "I suppose we should head there and see if it really is him." Scar nodded his head. "Tell Jasmine, Max, Ryan, Ratchet, Clank and Talwyn to gather everything they will need; we'll be leaving shortly." Kaden walked off to grab his armour and weapons.

30 minutes later...

Everyone who was going on this mission, was standing in the hanger, checking that they had everything they needed. Ratchet, Clank amd Talwyn were standing by Aphelion. Clank and Talwyn were doing a check list while Ratchet was busy under Aphelion checking her up a bit before take off. He didn't want to crash in the middle of space or something.

"All right people! Time to head out!" Kaden yelled to everyone. The shout surprised Ratchet making him shoot up and bang his head on Aphelion's engine hard. "Oww." He moaned. He got up from under his ship and rubbed his head lightly. He quickly recovered and jumped into his starship, taking the driver's seat as normal. Clank got in the passenger seat, while Talwyn made her way to the back seats. They all buckled up, set course for Cobalia and took off with the rest of the ships.

It took at least an hour or two once Cobalia was in sight. There had been no space battles so the trip took shorter than expected and everyone made it there in one piece. They all jumped out of their ships and gathered up. "Alright, team, the signature was picked up south, so if we head in that direction, we should find out what this is all about." Kaden said. "Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, sir!" They all yelled.

"Good. Come on, this way." Kaden took the lead with Ratchet, who had Clank on his back, and Talwyn behind him. Ryan and Scar were at the sides of the group, while Jasmine and Max were at the back. They walked for a few hours in the swampy jungle before coming to an opening full of grass. Clank hopped off of Ratchet's back, and scanned the area. "Hmm, interesting."

"What is it, pal?" Ratchet asked, curiously.

"This area appears to have a weak ground. I am suggesting that there may be caves underneath us." Clank answered.

"Maybe someone should go test it out?" Ratchet indicated. No-one spoke up or they looked away from his glance. So he sighed. "Fine! I'll go and be your guinea-pig." He gently walked on the open ground, step by step, making his way over to the other side. "Ratchet, be careful!" Kaden called out. He tensed up as Ratchet almost tripped over.

The golden Lombax looked the the group behind him, and grinned. "See, nothing to be- AHHHH!" The ground gave in beneath him and swallowed him whole. "RATCHET!" Everyone yelled worried, apart from Max who didn't give a crap about the younger. At that point, they didn't care about the ground and ran up to the hole Ratchet fell through. They couldn't see anything at first from all the dust, but as it cleared away, they saw Ratchet lying on his back.

Ratchet slowly opened his big emerald eyes, and groaned in pain from the fall. He heard the rest of the group call out his name once the ringing stopped in his ears. "I'm okay. Don't worry." He yelled back up to them. He guessed that he must of fell at least 25 feet, judging how heigh up the hole was. He got on his knees, picked up his wrench that was lying next to him and stood up. At first he was a little shaking, but he walked around a bit, and after a while he was back to normal. Looking at his new surroundings, he cringed. There were stalagmites and stalactites hanging and sprouting everywhere. If it wasn't for that hole he made, there would properly be no light in this cave what-so-ever. There was the ocassional sound of water dripping somewhere deeper in the cave. Ratchet glanced back at the crew. "I'll find another way around. I see an enterance in here that could lead me out of here."

Kaden didn't like the idea, but he knew their time was ticking, so he didn't have much of a choice. "A-alright. Just... be careful." With that, he got up, as well as everyone else, and carried on heading south.

It had been an hour at the most since Ratchet fell through that hole. It had been a nightmare just getting as far as he was now. The only light source he had was the blue light from his armour, and that didn't help much. He had obtained a few cuts and scratches here and there from the sharp edges of the rocks around him. After a while, he made his way through a cave opening. There were rocks and boulders lying everywhere. To his left, there was a pool of water. To his right, there was another enterance, properly his ticket out of there. But in the middle of the opening, made him tense up. Standing there, was a white furred Lombax with black stripes. He held a double-ended wrench that had loads of spikes on one end, and blades on the inside of the other. He wore a grey vest top, with a red cape that had flames at the end of it. He also wore dark grey trousers that had a red end which were kept up by a thick red belt, and on his feet were grey shoes. The thing that made Ratchet cringe, crossed with a scared look, was the evil grin the Lombax made on his face and the fact that he didn't have any colour in his eyes, just black.

The Lombax stepped forward, more into the light, still grinning. Ratchet noticed that he had sharp teeth. "Ah, Ratchet, we finally meet again. It's has been several years, hasn't it?" His voice was deathly and slightly deep. The look on Ratchet's face made him chuckled. "I can sense you're scared. Heh, now why would someone like you be scared of someone like me?" He smirked.

Ratchet gulped. It all made sence of who this Lombax was. The first white and black Lombax. Came the voice of his father in his head when he was talking about this 'Rage' guy. He gasped and his eyes went wide. Rage! He yelled in his mind in shock.

The Lombax opposite him chuckled again, but more evilly. "Indeed. That is who I am." The shocked expression on Ratchet's face made him explain. "I can read people's minds in my present. So I warn you now... Be careful of what you think around me." He jumped off the rock he was standing on, which Ratchet didn't notice, and began to walk up to the golden Lombax.

Ratchet slowly backed off, from instinct, but unfortunately in no time had his back up against a rock. Rage stopped 5 feet away from him, and smirked again, before hearing people call out for Ratchet. He frowned heavily and turned to Ratchet. "We shall meet again, Chosen One." And with that a ball of yellow energy glowed around his right hand, and fired it at Ratchet without a warning.

The younger Lombax smashed the rock he was up against moments ago into a million pieces from the impack of the hit. The close contact made him fly across the cave and fall unconscious as he fell to the floor. The next moment, Kaden and the rest of the group made their way into the cave opening. Dust still filled the room, so they didn't see Rage disappear from sight. Once the dust cleared up, Kaden gasped as he saw Ratchet lying on his front, not getting up. "Ratchet?!"

He ran up to his son, and moved him onto his back. He put an ear up to his chest, to check he was breathing. He sighed. Ratchet's breathing was fine. He wondered what happened. Guess we have to wait until he wakes up. He thought. "Ryan."

"Yes, Kaden?" The orange Lombax asked, still worried for Ratchet.

"Call up Alice Coba and tell her to get a medical room set up for Ratchet." Kaden replied, while putting his son on his back. They made their way back to their ships, and headed back for Planet Volzar.

Chapter 10 of The Chosen One. I drew a picture for this chapter, so you can check it out of Deviantart, I'm YellowDizzyLombax on there too. I wanted to do some more Ratchet/Jasmine in this one, not much, but enough for some 'aww's. I don't really like this chapter with the detail and such, maybe I'll re-write this chapter before writing up the new one, I'm not too sure at the moment. Let me know what you think first.

Also, I've re-wrote the first chapter if you want to check that out too.