By the way. Qwark being fluent in Lombax is in fact cannon (All 4 One, for those wondering). He's also said to have been an orphan, but that was in Size Matters, which is not considered a cannon Ratchet and Clank game. I ran with it anyway.

And yes, I'm building something of an internal cannon with these stories. :) Which means that what happened at the end of last chapter will be integrated into some of the future stories, in the same way that Ratchet's childhood stories have become integrated into the larger set of shorts.

I've made this entire chapter on this topic exactly, just because I was so motivated. Future ones will be a mix, but I needed it out of my system. :)

Landing on His Feet

Ratchet boxed up the last of his things; his birth certificate, the crate of unsold jewelry prototypes his mother had made (save the ear clip meant for him and a simple steel watchband, both of which he'd taken to wearing regularly), a few photographs. It was a mix of personal belongings and things to sell; Ratchet had bolts to spare, but he'd been concerned that the currency the lombaxes now used wasn't the same anymore. Between his items and Talwyn's, they had a hoversledge at the ready; the single largest items being Ratchet's and Talwyn's suits of Carbonox armor, squashed into crates with regular clothing rolled inside to both pad out the boxes and efficiently use the limited space.

Better to be prepared.

"Are you coming, Ratchet?" Clank asked, peeking up into Ratchet's old bedroom on the second floor of the garage. The two ships Grimroth had been working on were parked outside, turning the garage space into an open party room.

"I… kinda just want to get this over with," Ratchet said, sheepishly, as Clank propelled himself all the way up to the rafters and around to Ratchet's old living space, marveling at the collection of old posters and knickknacks he'd acquired- a small amount from his time at the orphanages, but most in the four years he'd lived and worked with Grimroth before leaving Veldin behind.

"Are you planning on taking any of this with us?" Clank asked, tilting his head.

"Other than Alister's wrench?" Ratchet countered, looking at the old weapon carefully hung up on a pegboard. "No, not really. I'm going to box it all up tomorrow, bring the toys and board games down to the charity shelter and toss the rest. I have digital copies of my photos… I don't need anything else here, really."

Clank rested a hand on his chin. "I suppose."

"It's just stuff. Heck, I'm only bringing the wrench as proof I knew Alister. That thing is really too darn heavy."

Clank nodded. "Shall we, then? Grimroth roasted something in the fire pit."

"Oh yeah, I can smell it from here. That's a thing I'll miss for sure," Ratchet said, smiling, as he hefted Clank on his back, taking a running leap out of his room and over the banister. Clank popped open his propellers in surprise, slowly lowering the pair to the ground below.

"Way to make an entrance, short stack," Hulia said, cuffing him on the ear. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"I always wanted to do that," Ratchet replied sheepishly. "Figured I'd do it tonight, since Roth can't ground m-"

"Like hell I can," came a booming voice. Ratchet spun around, ears flicked upwards.

"Now you're stuck here," Grimroth boomed, hefting Ratchet (and by extension, Clank) onto a shoulder. "No running off for you tonight. You are homebound for it, y'hear me, you little rat?"

"Oh, dear, look at what you have done," Clank droned, sarcastically.

"I know," Ratchet replied. "Guess I'll have to stick around, eat delicious barbecue, and talk to friends."

"Such a terrible, terrible punishment," Grimroth commented, as he carried the pair over to the entrance where the pit was situated. "Looks like you're stuck in time out for a while," he added, as he let them down, shoving a plate in Ratchet's hands.

Walking on Thin Spaces

Ratchet pulled the unwieldy apparatus off his head, looking down. He could see the faint traces of the lombax city that Tachyon had shown him eight years ago, on the other side of some cliffs where the Dimensionator felt prudent to open the portal. Ratchet frowned. It looked like a day's walk out, easily.

"Ratchet, it is not to stay here," Clank advised, holding out his hand to take the Dimensionator. "We should be keeping it with us." He tugged on Ratchet's arm, as Talwyn quickly pushed their belongings through the shimmering portal before stepping through herself. Ratchet passed the device off to Clank, who compressed it into his matter storage before pulling Ratchet along with him.

Ratchet turned and smiled, squeezing Hulia's and Sasha's hands one more time before disappearing completely though the shimmer, just as he heard Qwark blow the longest nose blow of his life.

"Okay, thank goodness for your timing, pal," Ratchet said as soon as the portal closed behind, holding up his fingers in a pinching motion. "We were this close to being on the receiving end of collateral snot damage."

"Thank you for the mental image," Talwyn grumbled out in lombax.

Ratchet blinked, then replied in the language himself. "Yeah, that's going to take a while to get out of my head. Let's move."

Each of the three grabbed a pull bar for the hover sledge, pulling it along behind them around a narrow crevasse in the mountain's cliff face watching as the sun faded fast in the horizon.

"Light for your head?" Ratchet asked Talwyn, who laughed at the stilted choice of words.

"Headlamp," she corrected in lombax, stopping to fish through their belongings for the device, offering one to Ratchet as well.

"Actually, I'm good," he replied, leaning against the grey stone cliff behind him, adjusting his eyes to the stars and moonlight, looking at the city off in the distance, dotted with only the occasional street light, dim, so not to blot out the natural evening light. "Wonder if they've named any new star patterns," Ratchet commented, looking back up at the sky.

"Constellations," Clank corrected.

"Are both of you going to gang up on me every time there's a word in lombax I don't know?"

"Yes," Talwyn said with a small smile.

"Of course," Clank intoned, with a chuckle at the end.

Once Talwyn fitted the headpiece, they resumed a slow pace down the footholds, occasionally shimmying sideways long narrow passages with the sledge barely on the path. Eventually, they reached an extremely narrow gap, and Ratchet frowned.

"Time to unload," he muttered, strapping as much of their belongings as he could carry to himself, before hoverbooting down the ledge, removing the supplies, and jumping back up for more. Between himself and Talwyn (with Clank helping load things on them), it took five trips to bring the supplies to a lower ledge, before the three of them looked between each other.

"You know, it would probably be faster if we just brought everything down to ground level this way," Ratchet commented. "Clank, if you've got the gelatonium, we could just fly straight back up and get everything all the way to the bottom in a half hour."

"I thought cats liked narrow footfalls," Tal joked.

Fighting With Other Felines

It was just after sunrise when the city wall began to tower overhead, and Talwyn was beginning to feel fatigue.

"Hot," she said, panting. "I don't even want to think what this place is going to be like midday."

"No joke," Ratchet responded. "Looks like you're going to have to learn how to be nocturnal."

"Oh, nooooo," Talwyn whined sarcastically. "But how will I get my luxurious tan?"

"Tal, you don't tan," Ratchet deadpanned, whistling at the sheer size of the gates ahead.

"Actually," she replied, a bit more seriously, "this is me tan. I don't get enough sunlight, and, like most Markazians my skin starts turning pur-oh shit."

Talwyn dodged a beam of light, shot from a turret up on the wall. Ratchet perked his ears, hearing the device charge for another shot.

"HOLD!" he screamed in lombax, hoping that someone was manning the device, or, at the very least, the turret itself was self-aware. He held his arms up, and Talwyn and Clank did the same. "We're not looking for a fight!"

A black-and white furred lombax peeked his (or her, it was difficult to tell from the height) head out from behind the turret, hidden behind a helmet with only the ears poking out. He (definitely a he; the lombax had a tail), stood in plain view while two other turrets popped out of the wall alongside, manned by two more lombaxes, a male and a female, in identical armor.

"I am Talwyn Apogee," Tal shouted. "Daughter of Max Apogee. If he's here, he can vouch for me."

"And I'm Ratchet Bolide. My parents were Kaden and Hikaru Keck, both deceased. If Angela Cross is in the city, she can confirm who I am. I also have some of my mother's jewelry designs, my birth certificate, and their marriage papers."

"Marriage license," Talwyn hissed at him, shaking her head.

The lombax that had initially fired upon Talwyn leaned over, to the side of his turret.

"Get out," he gruffed.

"I… what?" Ratchet asked, backing a good step backwards.

"You're not welcome here. Didn't you read the sign on the way, idiot?"

"But that's…" Ratchet started, before the Lombax guard made a hand symbol, and the other two on turrets fired wide, missing Ratchet, Clank and Talwyn, likely on purpose as a warning.

"You have until the count of five, and then I'll tell them to vaporize you. Leave your things and go."

"But…"

"Five."

Ratchet scooped up Clank, and the Lombax signaled again, turret shots arcing wide.

"I said leave your things. Nothing but the clothes on your backs. Four."

"Not leaving him," Ratchet responded, glaring hard, and holding Clank tightly.

"Then you'll die here. Three."

Clank wiggled out of Ratchet's grasp, and sat on a sledge, narrowing his eyes at Ratchet. Ratchet knew that glare. Clank was telling him to go.

Ratchet shrunk, as he heard the turrets power up again.

"Two," the guard intoned. Talwyn grabbed Ratchet by the scruff, forcing all his muscles to jelly, subduing him completely and slinging him on her shoulders piggyback, hitting her thrusters on her jetpack hard before Ratchet recovered.

As he regained his senses from the scruff pull, Ratchet could faintly hear the turrets power down in the distance, and began cursing loudly in Blargian the entire ride to some nearby dunes.

Scratching Posts

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Ratchet screamed at no one in particular, ripping at a nearby sign in the desert, listing waymarkers. Talwyn stood, arms crossed, watching him vent, pounding, scraping, and denting the post until the blazing heat began catching up to him.

Feeling sweat begin to pool in his hand and footpads, Ratchet stopped, growled low and sunk to the ground next to the post.

"There were some caves we passed not too far from here. Let's go seek some shelter," Talwyn said, placing a light hand on Ratchet's shoulder.

Ratchet looked up at the sign, now bent at an odd angle. "Hey, Tal. So it looks like there's three cities… A Mei'luc City, an Inrau City and a Denglu City…. but what's 'qar a puc'loi' mean? Maybe we can go to one of the other ones and actually get some freaking help."

Talwyn carefully leaned over, confirming Ratchet had read the sign properly, and then helped him to his feet, muttering.

"Dad always told me lombaxes were 'shoot first ask questions later' and a combo of being both a bit too trigger happy for their own good as well as assuming most people knew what they did- and got mad when they didn't…."

Ratchet blinked, shaking out his fur and trying to look at Talwyn through the desert glare. "Huh?" he asked, confused.

"Qar a puc'loi is a quarantine area, Ratchet," Clank said, over the comms, through to the nav unit strapped to his wrist alongside his mother's wristband. Ratchet immediately grew back to his full height and perked his ears. "As I am aware from quite the extensive experience…" Clank continued over the voice communicator, as Ratchet and Talwyn heard a distinct background hum, "lombaxes tend to be… brash, for lack of a better word. Those signs were apparently littered over the desert to not come within 50 kliks of a city without a clean bill of heath or face a firing squad. We missed all of them, I am afraid, and nearly were blasted to smithereens by the latter. It is only that you mentioned whom you were that they did not vaporize you on the spot, considering the possible detriment to public health you would be. I have already sorted out the situation; our belongings and I are in an irradiation chamber. You need to go to the quarantine area for a few days. Then you can come back."

Ratchet sighed deeply, feeling the creep of the sun and reading the directions to the quarantine site on the dented and nearly shattered waypoint.

"How much do I owe them for a broken sign?"

Sleeping All Day

Clank shook his head in the small dark chamber; sitting on one of Talwyn's quilts wrapped in a ball, and closed his eyes. He was to be stuck in the chamber for the next two hundred hours for full sterilization. He set his program to sleep, with an override for incoming transmissions or a direct call of his name, shutting himself down to minimize the time he had to be utterly alone.

X

"Hey pal," Ratchet hissed. Clank blinked and spoke aloud.

"Hello Ratchet. It has been…" he stopped, counting the cycles since entering sleep mode, "seventeen hours. How are you faring?"

"The food here is really weird," Ratchet replied sheepishly.

"This is traditional lombax preserved food," Clank heard Tal retort from a distance behind. "Dad made some on occasion… though they've definitely swapped out some ingredients for what they could source here, it seems."

"What is wrong with it?" Clank asked, amused.

"It's so dry," Ratchet replied. "Dried fruit, dried meat, seeds…"

"Jerkies are easier to prepare in a desert environment and can be stored for long periods without spoiling," Clank chuckled.

"I just want a burger. Or a salad."

"Shhhhh, Ratchet don't say the 's' word around Lombaxes," Talwyn hissed, hiding a giggle in her tone. "Or Lomabx made robotic nurses, as the case may be" she added.

Clank shook his head, scraping his antenna on the top of the irradiation chamber, considering Ratchet and Talwyn being attended to by a bunch of Doppelbangers in scrubs.

"You doing okay, pal?" Ratchet asked, snapping Clank out of a daydream.

"I have my sleep mode activated; I am only to wake upon my name being called, the commlink activated, or a sudden change in environmental conditions. One of the soldiers woke me over the PA system about six hours ago to make sure I did not require anything, but I would prefer not to sit and stew while awake for eight days of decontamination."

"As long as you're good pal, I'll keep the comms to a minimum. See you in like, a week?"

"Yes, see you soon, Ratchet."

X

"Hey, pal."

Clank blinked. "It has been… fifty hours. How have your last two days been?"

"Lots of needles, even more checkups. Apparently I have a taurine deficiency."

"You should eat more raw meat."

"Eugh, gross."

Clank laughed. "There are pills you can take, as well as it being an energy drink additive, although I would advise against the latter."

"They offered to fix my eyesight problem," Ratchet said, perking up slightly. "Said it was a combination of not enough taurine and too much time in daylight."

"How much will it cost?" Clank asked, tilting his head.

"They use bolts, so I'm not concerned about that. We've got more than enough."

"Is there an issue, then?" Clank knew there was an issue; he could hear it in Ratchet's voice.

"It's eye surgery…" Ratchet replied sheepishly. "I'd…"

"If it is not deemed an emergency, you should request the operation after we are reunited, then."

"Thanks, pal."

X

"Clank, there is a mad robot with an electric razor. Save me."

"You are fine, you clearly have enough time to contact me."

"Well, that's because Talwyn is getting a flea and tick spray now. I'm next. And they said they are going to have to shave my fur."

"It will grow back, Ratchet. Just remain out of the sun until then."

"I was calling for sympathy, not you taking their side!"

"Do you wish to spread foreign mites to this environment?"

"But… but I'm gross and naked without my fur!"

"You haven't had a grooming in months, Ratchet. Honestly, you need one."

X

"Hey Clank."

"Yes?"

"When they said shave, they didn't mean everything. Just short, since I'm on my winter coat right now, and its way to hot for that here. And the tick removal was like this giant Jacuzzi. Was actually pretty relaxing."

"Thank you for the status update." Clank chuckled a bit to himself. Ratchet was hopeless without him. If Talwyn hadn't been there as some sort of grounding, well…

X

"Clank?"

Clank shot awake. The voice was not Ratchet's.

"Yes?" Clank asked, after pressing the small intercom button on the corner of the irradiation chamber.

"Your friends have taken all their immunizations, and have the approval of the medibots to be cleared for entry. They are on their way."

"Thank you for the information, Miss…"

"Lucina," the white furred Lombax replied sternly.

"I have…" Clank started, before counting the cycles since going into sleep mode the previous time. "Approximately six more hours, yes?"

"Go back to sleep. They'll be here when you wake."