Disclaimer: I don't own Ratchet and Clank. It's just been in my life since I was 11

Kyzil Plateau, Planet Veldin (11:13 AM Local Time)

On the arid desert planet of Veldin lived a cat-like creature that looked nothing like the reptilian Veldinites that inhabited the planet. The creature had fur the colour of gold with brown stripes, round green eyes and long triangular ears. The alien jumped off the rocky ledge where his home (which was really just an old, run-down garage with a trailer attached) was. He walked purposefully toward the eyesore that was his clearly homemade ship. The dings and rust were skillfully painted over with blue paint. The one who built the ship had clearly put of thought and effort into it.

The golden feline walked around the ship, inspecting it with an expert eye. At first glance, no one would have pegged him for an engineer. Not with his small stature, deceptively scrawny limbs and rather young age. However, mechanics seemed to be in his blood as it came so easily to him. His small hands, wrapped in very large brown gloves, sported five fingers each (as opposed to the three fingers other species had), and they were long and skinny. Perfect for more delicate work. A wrench as large as he was ever present at his side; more like an extension of his arm than a tool. Even his name, Ratchet, sounded like it belonged to a mechanic. Just Ratchet; no last name.

Young Ratchet was only an infant when he was left, alone, on Planet Veldin. He never knew his parents; and he didn't care to. They abandoned him here on this barren wasteland of a planet without any knowledge of who or what he was. All he knew about his species was that they were called "Lombax." His parents didn't even bother to leave him with a name. He grew up alone; always taking care of himself and he was good at it. Hell, he had to be; he'd been living on the streets for as long as he could remember.

Ratchet slid a wooden crate over to the ship and used it as stepping-stool to reach the engine. He made a few final touches to the engine of the precious ship, his last hope of leaving this planet without outright stealing a ship, with the help of the Gadgetron Helpdesk on his left wrist.

"Final step: attach a robotic ignition system," droned the monotone female voice.

"Shit," Ratchet growled irritably. How the hell was he supposed to get his hands on a robotic ignition system? It wasn't like anyone would just leave something like that lying around. The Black Market would probably have one handy but Ratchet had nothing of value to trade and next to no money so he couldn't buy one either.

"Thank you for using Helpdesk technology," the monotone voice added, snapping Ratchet from his dismayed thoughts. The mechanic sighed with an angry roll of his moss green eyes.

Yeah, well, screw you very much, he thought as he buried himself in the ship's engine and got lost in his work. He did everything possible to forget that his dream of escaping this backwater planet was still far from becoming reality.

Meanwhile, in a factory on a nearby planet…

In a robot factory on planet Quartu, everything seemed to be business as usual. A single conveyer belt with a computer attached spat out large, menacing guard robots, one after the other, into a large shaft. However, today, things were not the same and they never would be again as production suddenly stopped without being instructed too. A large red "X" flashed on the green computer screen with the blueprints for the sentry bots. As the machine failed, a loud, warning alarm went off and a new robot came literally tumbling out of the machine.

This new robot; whose serial number was B5429671, was different from his fellow guard bots. Though his plates were the same silvery colour as the others and he shared their glowing green eyes; he was much smaller than the others. The machine shut itself down as the little robot opened his eyes and stood up, taking in his first sights. B5429671 did not understand where he was at first. He analyzed the room with all the machines that were used to make other machines (how odd), and the large hole in the middle of the floor. His databanks told him that this place was a factory and he was built here. But for what purpose?

What was I built for? The robot wondered.

The grey robot's optics caught the glowing cyan gaze of a small, rust-coloured robot hovering in place on the other side of the shaft. B5429671 made his way to the brown robot, unaware that one of his fellow sentry bots spotted him and was given the order to destroy the smaller, defective robot.

The brown robot, known commonly as an "Infobot," showed his chrome-plated companion a rather disturbing video on the screen placed on its stomach. B5429671's optics widened in horror and opened the black casing, hiding the Infobot inside his body. Was this what he was built for? Protecting the Solana Galaxy from this Chairman Drek?

B5429671 jumped up, startled as his much larger counterpart suddenly appeared in front of him, large and menacing. The larger sentry bot went to grab him but the smaller robot used his size to his advantage and ran between his attacker's legs toward a large pipe. He jumped inside and slid down the pipe, which conveniently had a working space ship at the bottom. The cockpit closed itself automatically as B5429671 analyzed the controls and searched his databanks for information on piloting. The robot pressed the engine button and the ship took to the skies, followed by two other ships.

Approaching Planet Veldin… (11:47 AM Local Time)

Chased by the other two ships, the escaped sentry bot looked behind each shoulder several times. The pursuers shot at B5429671's ship, the first two shots were dodged, but the third met its mark as one of the robots locked on to its target before shooting a green plasma shot that brought B5429671's ship crashing towards the desert planet below…

Back in the Kyzil Plateau, Ratchet looked up toward the sky, his eyes widening in surprise as he spotted a ship falling from the sky toward the ground, not far from his garage. Ratchet would never know what initially drew him to the crash site. He just wanted to see if he could salvage anything from the crashed ship, he convinced himself. There could have been a robotic ignition system in there, for all he knew. With his wrench in hand, Ratchet took off from his garage and made his way toward the crash site.

The young mechanic knew the area very well and made his way across the large, metallic bridge to the stair-like ledges with ease. His wrench made easy work of the horny toads that got in his way as he was used to dealing with much worse than the local wildlife. Ratchet climbed the ledges one by one as easily as he would a staircase. He had done this hundreds of times, after all. His garage was a bit secluded from the rest of the city which was fine by him. Even though it wasn't great for his ship-fixing business, but he would take it over dealing with bullies and assholes on a daily basis.

When he climbed to the top of the last rocky ledge, he had to jump across two small gaps to make it to the actual city. The fall would have been significant enough to break his bones if he missed but Ratchet wasn't worried. While the gaps were new, he had plenty of experience with jumping long distances.

As he made it across the gaps, he found that he wasn't met with the usual hubbub of Veldinite people. In fact, the city was pretty deserted. Huh, weird. He was even more surprised to find that robotic soldiers (who were not the Galactic Rangers) were shooting and brandishing electrified weapons. Ratchet dashed to the right side of the small metallic tunnel and hid behind some crates. The young lombax breathed in shallow pants; partly from the quick dash and partly from fear. Why would anyone want to attack Veldin? This planet had very little resources so it was often ignored by criminals and authorities alike. It also helped that pirates usually kept to the Shadow Sector, Solona's criminal hub.

Ratchet shook his head of such questions. He quickly activated his homemade bomb glove and set it to "Ion Grenade," which was made to short a robot's circuitry. Running out from his hiding spot, Ratchet threw a couple of the bombs at the robot. As they exploded at the feet of the robot, it seemed to be electrified; the lights in its optics going out as it went stiff as a board and fell on its back. The mechanic waited a few moments to make sure it was really down before making a move.

With the attacker no longer a threat, Ratchet went back to the crates and broke them open, their contents spilling out onto the ground. He made sure to be careful of the red crates as they were full of explosives that had a tendency of blowing up when touched. The beige wooden crates were filled with bolts that Ratchet gleefully filled his pockets with. It never hurt to have some extra money. The rocket mechanic was pleasantly surprised to find a blue crate just lying around. He relied heavily on the healing abilities of nanotech as he couldn't afford to pay hospital bills. He pocketed a few of the carefully, individually wrapped vials of nanotech.

Ratchet walked past the deactivated mech only to run into his buddies who were also wielding electrified weapons. It was no easy feat for Veldin's black sheep as he'd never fought against robots before. It was always Veldin's wildlife, bullies and the criminals that operated on the planet's streets. Ratchet knew that the crash site was close as the smell of smoke filled his nostrils. He broke open a few more stacks of crates, the majority of them containing bolts, but there were a couple of them that had a large "G" on each side. Ratchet grinned wolfishly as he broke open the crate and reloaded his bomb glove with the Gadgetron ammo.

Ratchet saw the massive crater in the middle of the street as well as the wreckage of the ship that had made it. Some of the pieces were still on fire which may have destroyed any useful parts. There were a few bystanders that were staring at the smouldering ruins of the ship but were too afraid to come close. Good. That meant that he had first pick at the salvage. Most of the time, gang members and other criminals fought over first pick of the salvage in these situations. Most would have been too afraid to get in their way but, hey, finders keepers, right?

Ratchet searched through the ship but came out completely disappointed as he couldn't find anything that even remotely looked like a robotic ignition system. Most of the ship wasn't even salvageable though he did find some useful parts that he could use for his own ship. One could never have too many parts and some were even intact enough to sell. Ratchet was just about to leave when he spotted something lying in the disturbed sand, dark and almost mud-like from having not seen the sun in a while. The square object shined silver in the desert sunlight which drew Ratchet's gaze. His bare, clawed feet moved toward the object without his permission.

Ratchet picked up the metal box, figuring that it was probably a robot though it looked more like toaster to him. There was evidence of a head, and arms and legs too. Ratchet shook the robot lightly, startled by the sound of something clattering around inside of it though he decided to ignore that for now. Could be something got loose in the crash. Nothing a rocket mechanic like himself couldn't fix.

"Could be useful," he murmured to himself. Robots often went for a high price and could even be used to trade for a robotic ignition system off the black market. But at the same, it would be nice to have a robot to help him out with stuff. Of course, he'd have to repair it before deciding what to do with it. He tucked the robot under his arm and carried it, as well as the other salvage, back to his garage.

Author's Note: Well, this is my first fic for Ratchet and Clank, a game I've been enjoying since I was 11 and I felt like trying my hand at writing a novelization of the first game. Tell me what you think because I do like getting feedback and knowing you guys like my writing or not.

~ Darth Synkka