Foreword:
This chapter might feel a bit fragmented, but that's because it was a last-ditch effort to squeeze in a few important developments that I almost forgot about. If anything, I'm proud of the fact that I made it this far, and that I will be able to finish.
Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.
— Proverbs 4:10
« ... »
With arms crossed and one foot braced up against the hard surface behind him, Kaden thumped his tail on his ship's outer hull and stared at the swampy horizon of Cobalia. In the distance gel plants steadily pumped green smog into the atmosphere, adding to its already murky and dismal appearance. Tachyon would probably seize control of the Gelatonium industry soon, Kaden realized with a sigh of frustration, and then this planet too would feel the sting of his scourge. For now, however, it was one of the few remaining places where a Lombax could stay a while, still beyond the would-be dictator's field of vision. Even so, his patience was wearing thin. This was taking too long.
"Getting bored, are we?" Aphelion teased. "One would think you'd be used to waiting by now."
Kaden gave a wry smile and glanced behind him at the ship against which he was leaning. "Just 'cause you're used to something doesn't mean it can't bother you."
"Shall I go fetch him?" she offered. Even with your terrathruster modification, I doubt that gyro-cycle could outrun me."
"Sarcastic and cocky?" he muttered with a raised eyebrow. "Are you becoming a teenager already, Feel?"
"I'm sorry?" Aphelion asked, sounding genuinely confused, and Kaden smiled in satisfaction. That was the bubble-headed ship he knew and loved.
"Give him another minute," he instructed. "I don't wanna risk losing him as a potential buyer if I'm not absolutely certain he's trying to bail with the merchandise.
Just then his ears perked at the far-off sound of shrieking turbines. He turned his head just enough to see his gyro-cycle blasting toward him, a glittering sphere of pulsing energy.
Kaden sighed in relief and took a step forward as the machine pulled up, then retracted into its tiny portable form and fell into the hand of its rider, a wiry reptilian creature wearing a cheap cowboy getup.
"Not bad," the seedy character muttered in a passive tone. "I'd say she's worth about... fifteen hundred."
Kaden snorted, letting his mouth twist into a snide half-grin. Typical smuggler. Of course he would want to play that way.
"I'm a law-abiding citizen, not a moron," he sniggered.
"Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that first part, friend," the smuggler retorted. "Under ol' Percival's rule, you're breakin' the law just by standing there breathing."
Kaden caught himself just short of losing his cool and drew a sharp breath before muttering, "All right, then. Since we're both outlaws, I'll play by my own rules."
He pulled his blaster on his unsuspecting buyer who couldn't completely conceal his fearful surprise.
"You can pay what that machine is worth, which we both know is at least three thousand bolts, or you can give me back my gyro-cycle and I'll practice my aim on that tacky hat of yours just for wasting my time."
"Whoa, easy there, friend," the smuggler said, retaining his composure surprisingly well. "I mean no disrespect. How's 'bout we call it two-five and part ways as unlikely friends?"
Kaden unfurrowed his brow and let a faint chuckle escape his throat. He holstered his blaster and casually responded, "Make that 'you never saw me,' and we've got a deal."
The smuggler tipped his hat and put his hands on his hips, then muttered with a snort, "Far's I'm concerned, I picked this little baby off some poor Lombax's dead body."
Kaden tightened his grip on his holstered weapon and forced a nod of agreement. This guy was something else. Still had the nerve to take a cheap shot like that even after being threatened at gunpoint. If only his sharp little joke weren't so painfully close to being true.
« « « « « ж » » » » »
A cheerful jingling bell cut through the dreary silence, announcing the arrival of a customer as he charged through the doors of the tiny convenience store. The man at the counter looked up from his magazine to see a flustered Lombax dashing to and fro as he scanned the half-empty shelves. He was holding a miniature version of himself, and the poor kid hardly seemed to mind being jerked around like he was on a thrill ride—why, he practically looked like he was enjoying it.
"Looking for something, sir?" the cashier asked.
The Lombax looked over at the man with a worried, breathless look on his face. He was obviously in a hurry, but that was no surprise.
"Uh..." he muttered, staggering to the front counter while his baby giggled with excitement. "I need milk."
The cashier raised an eyebrow, looked down at the squirming child and then back up at his father. "Oh, right. Almost forgot you Lombaxes are mammals."
"Do you have any?" his customer asked impatiently.
"Sorry, man. There aren't any mammalian species in this region. Closest thing we've got is Zanifarian Death Weasels... I don't suppose the kid could drink bone marrow, could he?"
The Lombax made a weird face, and his ears drooped out of sight. "Do you have anything that even slightly resembles milk?"
"Well, there's this." He waddled over to a mini-fridge at the far end of the counter and returned with a white container, which he opened to show his customer its contents.
The Lombax took a look, then looked up at the store owner with a raised eyebrow. "This is whipped cream."
"The Death Weasels love it."
With a sigh and a flip of his wallet, the poor flustered Lombax bought the strangest makeshift baby food imaginable and flew out of the store ten bolts poorer.
« « « « « ж » » » » »
In these last few moments, when it was too late to change a thing, Kaden found himself ironically poring over every detail of his plan to see if he'd missed anything, if there was something he hadn't considered—some possible other way. Any other way. Nothing came to him, and he wasn't sure if that was a relief or a terrible torment.
Oh, how he loathed the very idea of what he was about to do. It sickened him. How could any father who claimed to love his child possibly do such a thing? How could it be justified, even in circumstances as dire as this?
Why not just kill him myself? At least that way I could make sure he doesn't suffer.
The half-baked sarcasm of this thought made him even more disgusted with himself, and he grit his teeth so hard it hurt.
But however vile and desperate this move was, he would do it, because it was the only thing he could do. To give his son the best chance of survival possible, he would do this awful thing. For love he would commit a sin deserving of the fate that awaited him.
His child stirred in his arms and opened his big green eyes. Kaden smiled down at him and quietly said, "Morning, Tiger. Did you sleep well?"
The baby yawned in reply, and Kaden gave a genuine but somber laugh. "Listen," he whispered softly. "I know you're too young to understand what I'm about to say...but I'll say it anyway. You—were born at a very bad time, and there's no doubt you're in for a rough childhood... But you are my son, and Nayeli's. So I believe with all my heart that you can overcome everything life throws at you, and you'll come through it all kind instead of bitter... and you won't be alone forever."
The baby mumbled something in happy-sounding gibberish as an announcement came over the intercom, "Final transport to the Solana Galaxy, departing in ten minutes."
Ten minutes. He swallowed.
A careful sweep of the dreary, secluded spaceport revealed no sign of the person he was waiting for. Just frightened refugees shuffling timidly along. They looked away as if in fear when they saw him, and hastened their departure like they were avoiding the plague. Kaden couldn't blame them. As of a few months ago, every breathing Lombax in this galaxy had a target on their forehead with an assumed blast radius of about half a mile.
Where is he? he wondered worriedly. He should be here by now.
"Excuse me," a friendly voice greeted from behind, and Kaden spun around to see a plump bluish alien wearing a tool belt and a white shirt. Where had he come from? No one had been there a second ago...
"Hello there," the stranger greeted again. "Might I be the guy you're looking for?"
"Are you The Plumber?" Kaden asked.
"Sure am," the alien affirmed, sliding his thumbs behind his suspenders.
"No offense," Kaden muttered, looking the guy over, "But you might've picked a less obvious code name."
"What code name?" the Plumber asked.
Kaden paused, giving him a funny look. "Uh... Never mind."
"So, is this the kid you wanted me to take?"
Kaden swallowed hard. "Yeah, this is him."
He took a deep breath and reluctantly handed his only child over to a complete stranger. His heart pounded with guilt and his eyes filled with tears when he saw the confusion in his son's eyes as he was passed into the hands that now held his very future.
"Cute little feller, ain't he?" the Plumber observed with a smile. "What's his name?"
"Uh... His name?"
Kaden had almost forgotten. His son still had no name. Remembering Tachyon's words about Nayeli and the piercing sting of their truth, he hadn't the heart to give his son a name. Not when he knew that it wouldn't be the name his darling wife had chosen.
"Um..." he muttered sadly, "maybe you should give him a name."
The Plumber looked away from the baby to regard his father with a surprised, confused expression. "You want me to name your kid?"
"No, it's just... It's better if he doesn't have a Lombax name."
The Plumber raised an eyebrow, but questioned no further. "Alrighty, then."
He heaved the child up higher with his left arm and with his right thoughtfully tapped his chin with the tool he was holding. The three-month-old caught a glimpse of the shiny metal object and his eyes lit up with insatiable interest. He shot forth his little hands and seized his prize right out of the stranger's grip.
"Now, now," the Plumber muttered as though the baby understood him perfectly, "be careful with that. It's not a toy, you know."
The baby responded by whacking the poor unsuspecting fellow on the head.
Kaden couldn't completely stifle his laughter as the Plumber tried to gently wrestle the weapon away from the determined grip of his little clone.
When at last the battle was won and he had his tool back in hand, the Plumber heaved an exasperated sigh while the baby squealed in delight. Then as he was looking at the small object in his hand, inspiration suddenly filled his kind eyes, and he pointed the tool at the baby, saying, "Ratchet. Your name is Ratchet. Like it?"
The tiny Lombax mumbled obliviously while his father screwed up his face in disapproval.
"Ratchet?" he mouthed the name back to himself. Couldn't it at least have been an actual name?
"Suits him, dont'cha think?" the Plumber asked rhetorically as he tickled the giggling infant.
"Y-Yeah..." Kaden muttered, struggling not to roll his eyes. "Oh! I almost forgot."
He stepped over to his ship and reached into the cockpit, returning a moment later with a big brown sack which he handed to the Plumber. "This is your payment, and some food for the baby. I wish it was more, but..."
The plumber heaved the child up on his shoulder so he could look inside the bag, and his eyes popped open in surprise.
"Oh, heck, I don't need this much just to babysit for a little while."
Kaden gave him a confused look. "You mean... you don't—?"
The Plumber reached into the sack, grabbed a handful of bolts and shoved them into one of his pockets, then pulled out the white container of baby food and shoved the bag back into Kaden's hands. "You keep that, Son. You need it more than I do."
Kaden stared at him in sheer bewilderment for a moment, and after that could only smile. "Th-Thank you," me mumbled incoherently.
The Plumber didn't seem to hear him as he was opening up the lid to the white container in his hands to inspect the contents. He raised a dubious eyebrow and looked up at Kaden like he was out of his mind.
"Mister, I don't mean to criticize your parenting style, but—this here's whipped cream."
Kaden heaved a knowing sigh and averted his eyes to the floor. "I know," he muttered shamefully.
"Well, no worries. Long's it keeps the little rascal happy, it'll do for a while."
He screwed the lid back on, and before either of them could say anything else, another announcement blared on the PA, "Final transport to the Solana Galaxy, departing in five minutes."
Five minutes. That meant this was it. It was time to say goodbye.
"Gee whiz, where'd the time go?" asked the Plumber. He shouldered his squirmy load, then turned and headed for the huge transport vessel. Kaden told himself he wouldn't cry, and he wouldn't follow.
"Guess we'd better get goin', eh, Ratchet?" the Plumber cheerfully muttered to the infant dangling over his shoulder.
The baby sneezed on his nanny's back, then stared up after his father. At first he just looked confused. Then, as the distance between them gradually widened, his expression grew fearful. Not ten steps away he burst into hysterics, reaching out in pitiful desperation, and Kaden's heart broke with guilt at the pleading tone in his cries. After all the sleepless nights he'd spent desperately trying to tune out that baby's screams, he should have been used to them by now. Never before had the child sounded so shocked and afraid as he did right now.
Teeth grit, Kaden cursed under his breath and flew forward, breaking both of his resolutions at once. How weak he was. But right now he was too overwhelmed to feel disgusted with himself.
He arrived in a heartbeat, grateful for the Plumber's sense to halt, and took each of his son's tiny hands in one of his own.
The Plumber turned around and without a word gently passed the baby into his father's waiting arms. Kaden wrapped the boy up so tight he could scarcely draw breath to cry. Nonetheless he carried on, fussing and wailing like he knew what was about to happen.
"I'm so sorry," Kaden muttered in a broken voice muffled by his son's fur.
The Plumber leaned in close and whispered to Kaden in an even, comforting tone, "There's no need to worry about your little one, Son. He'll be just fine. Someone will be watching over him, you see."
Sniffling from his own tears, Kaden wiped his eyes and blinked in surprise.
"Watching over him? Who?" he asked. His ears perked up as he hopefully muttered, "You?"
The Plumber chuckled and nonchalantly waved off Kaden's shattered hope. "Oh, no, not me." He paused for a second, then added in a soft, comforting tone, "I'm just the messenger."
Kaden cocked his head in confusion, too flabbergasted to ask what he meant, and the odd stranger slipped the baby from Kaden's arms back into his own. Surprisingly, the infant calmed down a little. The Plumber patted the baby on the back, offered one last reassuring smile to his father, and then turned toward the transport ship.
Kaden watched without blinking, tears streaming down his face, as the one thing he had to live for was carried away forever.
Author's Notes:
I had ya going with that chapter title, didn't I? Bet you thought Kaden was gonna die in this chapter, didn't ya? Well, psych! You've yet again underestimated my ability to prolong the inevitable. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go gather up some tissues before I brainstorm the next chapter.
- The Plumber's Back— I have to give my little sister full credit for this idea. At first I didn't want to do it, because I could see all these canon conflicts coming up to haunt me, but in the end the mad genius of the idea won me over. I always thought that (in the Future games, at least) the Plumber came off as a sort of guardian angel type character, and I think this true first encounter between him and Ratchet reinforces that sentiment quite nicely. :)
- The Smuggler's Back— This canon nugget almost didn't make it into the story. By the time I actually caught the subtle Kaden hint in ToD, I thought it was too late to work it in. Thankfully I was wrong. :)
- Whipped Cream— Five bolts to whoever gets the joke. XP