The Chosen One Chapter 5

Ratchet and Clank:
The Chosen One

I DO NOT OWN RATCHET AND CLANK, INSOMNIAC GAMES DOES!

Chapter 5: Meeting new people


Ratchet returned to his father, who was fast asleep on a chair outside the room. He grinned and shook his head. "Hey." He said. But Kaden didn't budge or wake up. Growling in slight annoyence. He spoke a little louder. "Hey, Dad."

"Wh-wha?!" Kaden woke up in shock and landed straight on the ground with a loud thump. Which caused his son to laugh lightly under his breath. "I must of dozed off." He chuckled, and looked embarressed.

"I wouldn't blame you. You looked pretty tried when I first saw you." Lending a hand to his father, who was shocked from the help but still accepted it, and pulled him up on his feet. "I do that sometimes." He admitted.

"I bet you do. With all that saving the universe stuff." Kaden replied. "Come, son. Let's go get something to eat. And you can tell me everything on the way."

Both Lombaxes set off to the dining room as Ratchet started to explain what happened. "I found this book, but I wasn't aloud to read it..." A sigh. "What was it called? Oh yes, 'Mysterious Legends of the Past,' I had a bit of curiosity in it."

Kaden's eyes grew wider, but Ratchet didn't notice it, so he continued like nothing ever happened. "But, did you find something more, son?" He asked, with a nervous smile.

"Yeah, I found this book too called 'The Special Myths' and look at this..." He showed the book to his father. "...Here is a description of this 'Chosen One'..." Handing it over.

Kaden read the page, and he slightly kept glancing back and forth between the book and his son. Oh know... He thought. Closing the book after he finished reading it, Kaden lended it back to Ratchet. "That was very...interesting, my dear boy."

The younger was a bit shocked how the older one handled the information; like it didn't mean anything. Worthless. That annoyed him a little. "What did you really think of it?" He asked, with a quiet growl in the back of his throat.

"You were right. It had some interesting detail in it." Was all that was replied. Kaden's walking grew faster.

"D-did you even look on the next page?" Opening up the book again, he grabbed his father by the arm. "In the paragraph that you read, it said that there is meant to be drawings of what this 'Chosen One' might look like." He flipped the page over, like before, there was more writing.

"But, Ratchet, there is n-"

"Look closely." The other interrupted. "The page has been ripped out by someone if you haven't noticed. It seemed whoever got or read this book last, didn't want anyone to see that certain page. That was the only page that was taken out." He glanced back at Kaden. "Doesn't that make you a bit curious?"

"...It does but, son, I haven't really got time to deal with some ripped books when I have an entire planet of Lombaxes to take care of." Now Kaden's voice grew a bit louder. "I'm sorry if your disappointed but I have better things to do than worry about that kind of stuff." He started to walk off again.

Ratchet growled in anger that his father didn't even listen to anything he really said. "Fine! Be a stuck up person like that who doesn't even care! I'll solve it myself!" The younger stormed off back to his make-do room, skipping dinner.

As Kaden watched his son walk away, a guilty expression fell upon his face. He sighed. "Now what am I going to do?"

---

"How could he say that?" Ratchet mumbled under his breath. He was still mad with his father, and was on the way to his room.

Not seeing where he was going, he bumped into two people. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that." Looking up, it was two male Lombaxes. But the taller one made a feeling rise up through his body. Not in a bad way...or a good way. The feeling like he was familiar but he had never met the person before.

"Oh that's okay, kido." The taller one spoke up. His fur was orange with thick red stripes on his huge ears, arms, chin and tail. His tail was short and had no bush at the end. Something must of happened in the past. He had a big red nose and thick bushy red eyebrows. His left eye was closed from a long scar that ran down it. His right eye was fine, it was brown. "Say, your Kaden's boy... Ratchet, right?" He asked.

"Y-yeah." The younger replied, nervously. He still wasn't use to being around other Lombaxes. It was all new to him.

The other Lombax, who seemed that he had a bit of Cazar in him, chuckled. "See, I told you he looked just like his father." This one had dark brown fur with black stripes on his ears, head, chin and tail. Also his thin eyebrows were black, as well as his nose. There was black circules around his blue eyes, the same markings as Alister but black. This Lombax also had a scar over his eye but on his right one, however he could see out of them both. On his right ear, a chunk was missing.

Both of the older ones wore the new Lombax Praetorian Guard Armour. But the orange male had shorter sleeves, and the colour of the outfits were in slighly different places.

Ratchet looked oddly at the two. Like he was confused.

"Oh, how silly of me!" The orange spoke again. "General Wrigley. Ryan Wrigley." Holding out a hand, instead of getting down to make a salute like Jasmine did.

The golden one shook his hand and smiles. "Well, you er, know my name already." Then he turned to the other.

"And I'm Scar." He also shook his hand with the younger. "And don't ask about the name. It's a long story." He chuckled.

"Don't worry, I won't." Ratchet grinned, but it quickly fell as he glanced at Ryan from the corner of his eye. That feeling was back. And he knew why now.

The older two noticed the slight tension rise up in the shorter Lombax. "What's the matter, boy?" Scar asked.

"It's just..." His voice drifted off. But he snapped out of it. "D-did any of you know a Lombax called... General Alister Azimuth?" His chest tightened when he said that name. The memories were pouring into his mind as he held back the tears.

"Of course we did. I mean, he was my cousin." Ryan answered, smiling. "Why'd ya ask? Did you meet him or something?"

"You look a bit like him, with the brown eyes and red stripes. That's all." Moving his derection to his feet, he sighed sadly. "And yeah I met him a few weeks back now when I was searching for Clank. But he...he..." Ratchet stumbled a few times before getting ahold of himself and whispered, "He died not too long ago."

A sad expression hushed across General Wrigley's face, and he sighed heavily. "Oh god, now I wish I saw him more often after Tachyon attacked, but he was exiled before I got the chance to see him again." A couple of tears fell down his muzzle.

"It wasn't your fault. The counisal wouldn't let you go and visit him. You knew what they thought of him." Scar rubbed his back gently to comfort his friend.

"I'm so sorry." Ratchet mumbled quietly. "If I had just been on his side, he would of been alive."

"What do ya mean?" Ryan asked, confused and curiously. "What happened?" Even though he didn't really like to talk about the past, he needed to know what happened to his cousin.

"Well you see, when I met Azimuth he kept going on about this Great Clock that Clank could of been in at the time. Also he wanted to use it to go back in time to stop Tachyon having the Lombax secrets and attacking Fastoon. To bring back my family. I went along with it in the end." His vison got cloudly. "When I got Clank back, he explained why it wasn't good to use the Clock's power as a time machine, and I agreed with him. Clank was never wrong. But Alister, he didn't.

Once we defeated Doctor Nefarious, we all went to the drop Clank off at the Great Clock because that was were he belonged. And that's where it all went wrong." He sighed. The memories can back at him like a punch in the chest.

"So wait, that's it." Alister spoke up. I released Clank from the embrace I gave him. "What about the Lombaxes?"

"They're not in danger, they've...just moved on. And we'll find them. But the past stays where it is." As much as I would love to see my family, just I couldn't risk destroying the entire universe to just bring back the Lombaxes. I turned to Clank and started walking towards the Clock. "Come on, Pal. I'll walk you in."

I felt his eyes pirce right through my heart. My chest was burning. My vision started to get cloudly. But I still pressed on. "You were never a sidekick. You do know that right?" I said to Clank, to try and cheer me up a little.

"I always thought that you were the sidekick." Clank laughed.

"Where are you going?" Alister said at last. "This is your responsabilty. You can't just walk away."

But I did. I carried on walking. I couldn't bare it anymore, I needed to get away from him. You can't change the past, just get over it. I know he made some mistakes in the past, but that's what life was about. It can't be perfect. Nothing was.

"The Lombaxes need us!" He yelled this time. The rage was building up now. "Don't walk away from me!"

I still walked with Clank. Clank was always right and he's my best friend, more like a brother to me in fact, so I had to agree with him.

"I said stop!" He shouted. I heard him charge up his wrench and shoot an electric blast, either towards me or Clank. It all happened in a blink. I turned around quickly and Clank pushed me to the ground. The shot destroyed the path leading up to the enterence.

When I got up, Alister's eyes were digging into me. That look that gave me the chills. Nothing was going to stand in his way now. He enlighten his hoverboots and jumped onto a rail, which I quickly followed not far behind him with Clank on my back. I was chasing him, I needed to get to the Orvus Chamber before Azimuth.

However, he still got there just before I did. Sigmund tried to stop him, but failed and almost got killed in the process. Alister pulled the leaver and that's when we started to fight.

"After minutes of battling, he finally fell to the floor." Ratchet closed his eyes but carried on. "I tried to put time back where it should be, and started to pull the leaver. However, I pulled too hard and it broke. But that still didn't stop me.

Some sort of electrical force was around the centre of the Chamber, I pushed to go forward but all it did was shove me to the ground. I got back up though. I think I faintly remember Azimuth whispering "I'm so sorry", however the noise was so loud I couldn't really hear myself think properly." Glancing back up at the two elder Lombaxes, more tears went down his face.

"I went for it again...but he stood in my way."

"No. Let me." The General said, bravely.

I got confused by what he meant by that so I asked, "What are you gonna do?" Alister started to walk towards the centre of the room. That's when I knew the answer.

He looked back at me and smiled. "Take care of yourself, Ratchet!" Then he slammed his wrench into where the leaver was and pushed with all his might to get time back to normal. The blast sent me and Clank flying.

When it all calmed down, I lifted up my head and glanced back to where Alister was. But he wasn't standing. He was lying on the floor, like he was frozen. His wrench was still jammed in the centre. I got up in a rush and stepped to him quickly.

"Alister?" I asked. I looked down to his out-streched hand that had his pocket watch in it. It's the one with a picture of my father, Kaden and, himself Alister Azimuth. I knelt down and picked it up.

By now, Ratchet's face was soaking wet with tears as he glanced up at the other two Lombaxes. "Knowing that he was..." He sighed. "...he was dead. I took the pocket watch and looked after it ever since. But it isn't working now. I tried fixing it, however it was too much hasial."

Ryan and Scar were shocked by some of the things the younger said. It was just so unexpected. The orange Lombax pulled Ratchet into an embrace. Even if he didn't know him very well, he knew the shorter one needed comfort.

The golden Lombax didn't really care, he wasn't use to mych hugs but he wanted one right now. When the taller Lombax's arms pulled him into a hug, he calmed down a little bit.

General Wrigley pushed away gently, and put a finger under Ratchet's chin so he could look at the younger. "I know how you feel, boy." He said, quietly. "Many people I knew and loved died in Tachyon's attack... But they will always be in here." He moved his finger to Ratchet's chest. "Your heart." He smiled warmly. "You are never alone."

A smile hushed across the smaller Lombax's face. "Thank you."

Scar grinned slighly. Ryan always knew how to cheer people up when they're feeling blue. It's what he's good at. He is such a nice, loving, funny guy to be with.

All of a sudden, a loud alarm started to go off. Ratchet covered his ears frm the noise. It was ear shattering to him, but the others were okay. Guess they're use to it by now. "What's going on?!" He yelled at the top of his voice.

"Someone's attacking the base!" Ryan and Scar shouted back.