Disclaimer: Ratchet, Clank, and Lombaxes in general are copyright Insomniac Games. If you want to read fanfiction with original characters involved, that's cool, but this isn't the fic for it! - J

---

"Doctor Robotnik . . ." Snively spoke up, in that slightly British-sounding nasal tone he always seemed to use. "We've captured a new prisoner."

Robotnik raised an eyebrow, looking as corpulent as ever, but he also had a strangely bored look on his ace. "And why should I care about this one? Does she happen to have breasts the size of her head or something?"

Snively blinked, caught off guard by the question. Rather than answer it, he turned around and asked, "Since when did you care about that?"

"It's been a slow day and you know it, Snively." Robotnik mrred, laying back in his egg-shaped chair. "It's the same old drill; capture, interrogate, gloat, roboticize, rinse, repeat. They're either all freedom fighters who would sooner commit suicide than tell me where Knothole is, or they're useless chav's who were either dumb enough or high enough — and my money's on both — to come into the city and get caught. It's almost enough to stop me from enjoying any of the process."

"Well, there's no head-sized breasts to speak of on this one, but I still say you should take personal care of this one." His assistant remarked, before flashing the Doctor a rare smile. "He doesn't look like anyone or anything we've captured before. We're not even sure he's a Mobian."

Robotnik sat up, now with a piqued expression in his eyes. "We've captured an alien? Why didn't you say so? "

Snively nodded, a slow grin on his face. "Guards! Bring in the prisoner!"

"I already TOLD you, I'm coming quietly!" The prisoner barked back in the distance, an annoyed tone to his response.

Robotnik spun in his chair to see a remarkable sight; A small robot with an oval head and a rectangular body marched in, and behind him stood the usual compliment of guard drones . . . but between the drones, there was a small creature. He was a feline of some kind, with a tuft on his tail, but he didn't look right. He had split toes with thick, meaty nails, and his ear canals were hidden so well as to be nonexistent.

He was restrained in the usual manner, of course, but either he didn't care or he carried himself like it didn't matter. With his hands behind his back, Robotnik noted some battle scarring on the little furry one's body; either this cat had seen the better end of more fights, or he'd played the prisoner role too much to be properly scared out of his mind. It was a shame . . . the 'first time' offenders were usually the most fun.

"Hmm . . . he is a strange one, certainly . . ." Robotnik's eyes quickly went to the unfamiliar robot, his face almost lit up in delight as he looked down at the tiny drone. "And the cat's odd too. Who are you, little machine?"

The robot looked hesitant, glancing back at the other prisoner. The cat nodded his head, though, and the robot turned back to look up at Robotnik. "My designation is Alpha-Six-Epsilon-Q. I answer to 'Clank' for short."

"You turned for permission. Is this prisoner your owner?" Robotnik quipped once more, pointing to the alien.

Clank shook his head, trying to remain as calm as possible; even though they were already caught by now, hopefully they could still talk themselves out of this mess. "This is Ratchet. He's my friend."

Robotnik couldn't help but chuckle, and Ratchet glared at the fat man, before the doctor spoke up once more. "You're kidding me . . . you're actually friends with this . . . this animal?" He spat, having trouble finding the right words.

"You got a problem with that?" Ratchet snarled.

"You're definitely not from around here, I can see that . . ." Robotnik remarked with narrow eyes; whoever this creature was, he had a mouth almost as bad as the hedgehog's. "A pity. Tell me, then, since you're obviously so far from home . . . how did you end up here, then?"

"I'm not quite sure on that . . ." Ratchet spoke up, suddenly looking quite sheepish. It was one thing to get caught . . . and quite another to reveal technology like the Warp Pad to a planet that hadn't even made contact yet. Hopefully just acting stupid would get him released in a hurry. If there was one thing he could tell this guy liked, it was robots . . . which meant Clank might actually be useful for getting him out of this.

Robotnik shook his head, disappointed. "No matter . . ." He turned to a nearby swatbot. "Did you find them with any items?"

"None."

Ivo frowned at the robot, before glancing back at his prisoners. This whole situation was turning out as pointless as interrogating a freedom fighter. "No spaceship, no secret technology, no . . . no matter. Snively, take 'Clank' here and make sure our new friend knows how to behave."

"Yes, Doctor Robotnik." Snively replied, grabbing hold of Clank by a hand. "Come with me. This won't take long . . ."

"As for you . . ." Robotnik turned to Ratchet, even as Clank resisted Snively's tugs, but to little avail. "I have far simpler plans . . . no less sinister, I assure you, but much more common around these parts."

"Where are you taking him?" Ratchet growled, trying to run for Clank, but finding himself held back.

"Oh, don't worry, you'll see your friend again . . ."

". . . from the inside of a roboticizer . . ."

Ratchet growled, the dizziness wearing off of him as he came to. Apparently after Clank was taken away, Ratchet had been knocked out... or he at least assumed as much. He found himself on a metal floor of some kind . . . this room had purified, ionized air in it. The pollution had made it hard to resist before . . . not like he had much choice in the matter to begin with, but the smoggy, dirty air had weakened him significantly. It was like the first time he'd seen Orxon, where the air was so thick that he needed an oxygen mask just to run around the area. Why was this room so special that it had to be sterile?

Time had passed, he knew that much. He sat up, his legs in a kneeling position, noting the glass tube that encased him further within this room. Ratchet's eyes shot up, looking around to try and understand what was going on behind the screens and the assorted buttons. The fat man was now standing a short distance away, looking on with a derisive smirk of . . . satisfaction? pleasure? He couldn't tell. The glare of the glass tubing was making it hard to see.

"What's going on?" Ratchet leaned up against the glass, trying to get his senses back. His hands were still bound behind him; without his weapons, he wouldn't be able to break free of the glass. All he could make out in the room were the fat man, the weasel-nosed lackey, and . . . Clank was there too; he was standing a little off to the side, but he was there. "Clank? Clank! Answer me!"

Clank shook his head, suddenly looking despondent. "I'm sorry, Ratchet."

"Clank?" Ratchet spoke up again, watching Clank run to the tubing, "What's going on?"

"The Doctor . . ." Clank spoke, choking on the words. Ratchet's mind jumped back to how Clank had been replaced with a fake once before, but this . . . this seemed all too real for Clank. "I tried, Ratchet. I couldn't talk them out of it. This was my only option . . ."

"Out of what?" Ratchet shouted back, now finding the tubing he was trapped inside to be very confining. He turned to Robotnik, a sudden look of fear on his face. "What are you doing to me?"

"Why bother telling you? You won't care in a few moments." Robotnik remarked, looking down at Ratchet. Now this part . . . he liked seeing their last moments. He always liked this part. No matter how cooperative or unwilling the victim was, watching them before they went was always something he looked forward to.

"Stop this . . . I already told you, I don't know how I got here! We just arrived in the city, we were caught off-guard by those big black robots, and they led us here. We haven't done anything to you!" Ratchet pleaded, half his face against the glass. "Just let us go!"

"I'll be the judge of that . . . and stand up. It makes the process so much cleaner . . ." Robotnik snarled, waiting until he saw Ratchet struggle to his feet, the anger now apparent on the little creature's face. "Now, Snively!"

Ratchet snarled, but soon he felt his arms fall free; he raised them up, about to pull out something — anything! — from his inventory to try and break free, but then an instant later, there was electricity coursing through him, and he was frozen almost completely still. He could feel waves of sensation running up from his fingers and toes; his paralysis mocked him, making sure he could stand now, but he was only able to do little more than look up and glare at Robotnik.

Ratchet put his right hand against the glass, and his eyes went wide as he saw it shifting somehow . . . hardening, flattening . . . Ratchet looked at his hand in shock and disgust, wiggling the fingers. His eyes were wide as he only managed a few words out, in spite of the pain. "The biobliterator . . ."

Ratchet stiffened up to stand as he saw himself changing; stripes became reflective beacons, dull, rounded claws became sharpened shivs of metal, his stomach turned as bit by bit, the sensation of cold metal covered him. It seemed to be creeping in, eating up his body in piecemeal, saving his head for last as though the process was designed to scare him, making him more and more frightened . . . the creeping metal overtook his head, crawling along his face; he could feel it coming in across his cheeks and up from his chin and finally, lastly, all he knew was an organic brain feeling a metal body . . . He looked back at Robotnik as he noted circuitry crossing over his eyesight, and then, the world went black.

Metal knees hit the floor as the former Ratchet fell. Thirty seconds later, he came back online, whirring and whizzing as he booted up from a new power source.

"Perfect . . . so glad to see roboticization works on non-Mobians as well . . ." Ivo chuckled, looking down at the robot Lombax, and then back at his 'new friend'. "Satisfied, Clank? I told you he'd still be in one piece . . ."

The glass tubing retracted into the ceiling, and Clank ran for Ratchet. Clank helped sit the Lombax up, trying to stir him 'awake'. He knew he shouldn't have agreed to this . . . even as coerced as that agreement was. "Ratchet . . . Ratchet, speak to me."

Ratchet shook his head, as though trying to clear it, just on pure instinct. "Clank, you won't believe what kind of fucked-up dream I had this . . . time . . ." The mecha spoke, before suddenly noting how alien its own voice sounded.

Servos and circuits began to whirr and click as Ratchet stood up, slowly examining the new metallic body, as though watching it morph in front of his own eyes wasn't enough. He glanced down at Clank, then at himself, then back up at Robotnik. Ratchet blinked, before lowering his arms; a small LED screen on Ratchet's forehead lit up with a power monitor, before switching over to a status screen.

The next words that the new robot spoke ended up chilling Robotnik. "I don't understand this at all . . . what's going on?"

It took a moment for the doctor to recover himself. "I'm at a loss for words myself . . . That didn't quite go as I intended it to either . . ." Robotnik spoke, biting his tongue to keep himself from mentioning that when Ratchet turned into a robot, he should have become one of Robotnik's slaves; instead, he still seemed to be himself, just . . . robotic. His best bet at this point was to pretend that the 'malfunction' was Ratchet's robotic form rather than his metallic brain. "No matter; we'll fix you up just as soon as-!"

"I don't think so." Clank butted in, stepping between Ratchet and Robotnik.

"Remember our deal, little robot . . ." Snively hissed to Clank, motioning for him to step aside.

"No." Clank spoke, anger in his eyes as he looked up at Robotnik. "The deal was for Ratchet to use your device, and then we'd be allowed to leave. The deal did not include any further experimentation or alteration."

"You would rather leave your 'friend' like this? A crippled, hollow shell?" Robotnik countered, placing a hand on Ratchet's head, but Ratchet backed away.

"If you were unable to make sure your device worked as you intended it to, you shouldn't have used it on him so soon." Clank glared, anxious to find an excuse. "Either way, I don't believe any good can come of further experimentation on him. Come on, Ratchet." Clank tugged on a now-metallic arm. "I don't think we're wanted here right now."

Ratchet nodded, still confused, as Clank pulled him away. Once the two were out of earshot, Snively's eyebrows shot up at rocketing speed, his eyes wide in panic. "He's still a-!"

"I know, damn it!" Robotnik growled, his expression shifting instantaneously to anger as well. "There must be something about his physiology that the roboticizer couldn't account for . . . What was that word he mentioned in there? Something about a 'Biobliterator'?"

"Perhaps there is roboticization technology that he recognizes from his world." Snively remarked, now in thought. "It's possible he may have developed some form of an immunity."

Robotnik shook his head. "He never saw it coming. There's something else about him." He turned to look down at Snively. "We need to find a way to keep him . . . out of trouble. The little robot doesn't trust us at all; even if we can convince 'Ratchet', that blasted pet of his has a long memory."

"Why worry about trust at all?" Snively responded, leaning up against the console. "We could just hold them prisoner here until we figure out how to fix it."

"That would require we get it right the next time." Robotnik's eyes went narrow. "Any further tinkering with them that does not result in their immediate obedience will only spur them to sabotage us — and unlike that blasted hedgehog, these two might have enough intelligence between them to make it work!"

"We can't just let him go!" Snively shot back. "There's no telling what might happen if the Hedgehog somehow convinces that . . . that freak to help him!"

Robotnik nodded, still with a quizzical look on his face. "Of all the possible interferences those two could run, I somehow doubt that possibility will be an issue. I'll find a use for our strange little 'friends' soon enough . . ."

". . .one way or another . . ."

Meanwhile, Ratchet had wandered with Clank over to a spot that looked to be a series of prison cells. Ratchet glanced over into them, looking lost and confused, before sitting down next to one of them. He took hold of Clank, holding the little robot close with the care of a teddy bear.

" . . . I'm sorry, Ratchet." Clank spoke up, still keeping his head turned away from the newly mechanized Lombax.

"What are you talking about?" Ratchet responded, still getting used to talking in this new form. "I feel . . . well, I don't feel much of anything right now, at least not physically . . . but it was just a malfunction, right?"

Clank glanced back at the Lombax, a dismal look in his eyes. He didn't want to tell Ratchet what Snively had said to him . . . or that, at least on some level, Clank had always wondered what Ratchet might be like as a robot . . . but right then, Clank couldn't say anything.

Ratchet's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "This wasn't supposed to happen . . . right?"

"I had little choice in the matter." Clank responded finally, firmly. "I was unable to negotiate our release otherwise."

"Negotiate release . . ." Ratchet intoned in an inflection that should have been a mrr. "So he's supposed to be letting us go soon, right?"

"According to my conversation with 'Snively' prior to your transformation, we would be allowed to leave this building once they used their . . . device on you." Clank sighed, making sure he didn't use the word 'roboticizer'. Even to Clank, the word had a heavy connotation to it that he didn't like. "Any other option would have left at least one of us behind as a prisoner, and possibly resulted in your death. I only agreed to their demands once they assured me that you would not be killed by their device."

Ratchet glared down at his little pal. "That leaves a pretty open interpretation of what that thing was meant to do . . ."

"What would you rather I have done?" Clank narrowed his eyes. "Just because they couldn't find any 'technology' on us before doesn't mean they might not have figured it out by the time they would be through with you. I am required to protect Solana before I protect you!"

Ratchet took a step back, his eyes wide, before he sat down against the wall out of habit. This situation felt wrong on so many levels . . . His own body felt so foreign to him now, and yet it only took a few moments to think — well, to run enough CPU cycles — to verify that Clank had made an acceptable deal. Ratchet probably could have saved himself a little more time by telling Robotnik about the Warp Pad, and the Solana Galaxy, and showing him several of the weapons Ratchet had stored in an inventory accessible by his wrist-bracers . . . but that would have violated so many tenets of intergalactic conduct that it wasn't funny. He wasn't supposed to introduce otherworldly technology to a planet that hadn't advanced enough to make contact.

On top of that, if Clank was telling the truth, then Ratchet's view of Robotnik had just shifted from 'hostile but possibly benevolent leader' to 'small-time despot'. The only cooperation that made sense now was silence that the two of them needed to purchase at any cost. If nothing else, being turned into a robot would keep them from noticing he still had his inventory attatched . . .

Ratchet's now-blackened eyes glanced over at Clank's. "So now what?"

"Now we negotiate."

Ratchet turned to face Snively, who was so short that even when Ratchet was sitting the little lackey matched his height. "What do you want?"

"Doctor Robotnik sends his condolences for the 'malfunction' in your processing, and is willing to offer you a settlement." Snively spoke, handing Ratchet a short document. "As compensation for your newly acquired injuries, we are willing to offer you a position overseeing the Sigma quadrant of Robotropolis. You will have almost full control of your goings-on within the quadrant as well as the quadrant itself, provided that you still fulfill all of your minimal duties for the sector."

Clank's eyes went wide, while Ratchet narrowed his. "What kind of 'duties'?"

"There is a smelting facility in the area for forging much of the security systems' armor. That plant needs to be monitored and patrolled constantly to ensure that it is running as smoothly and as safely as possible. Your only other responsibility is to keep the sector secure; this includes your full cooperation with other defense systems in your area, as well as apprehension of any suspicious visitors should they appear."

Ratchet glanced at the sheet, before looking back at Snively. "I'm not agreeing to any settlement without a lawyer . . ."

"And exactly where are you planning to find one in this place?" The lackey shot back. "You should be able to understand that document almost instantaneously as is."

"Force of habit." Ratchet shot back, before scanning the page. He dully noted the thin green projection of a line onto the paper as he did this, reading it as he went. "I'm assuming that I don't have much choice in accepting this."

"You can either accept the current deal or you can try to adapt to your new body without our help . . . but I wouldn't count on that. It's not safe for robots outside of the city limits." Snively spoke, before adding on, "You don't want to know what those savages outside the borders will do to you once they find you . . ."

Ratchet let out a noise that sounded like a sigh, before just hanging his head; maybe with a little time, it would just feel like a suit of armor he couldn't remove; he might even get comfortable to this. No hunger, no pain, no wind chill . . . just himself, observing the world around him. In the meantime, he'd be able to learn how his new body worked, and at least being a security guard should be boring enough work that he wouldn't feel bad for 'cooperating'. "Fine. Take us to Sigma Quadrant."

"What do you mean, 'us'?" Snively remarked, before he saw Ratchet grab Clank roughly and latch the little robot to his back, as he'd always done.

Ratchet looked down at Snively now, switching on a light behind his eyes that illuminated Snively in small green spotlights. "The little robot and I are a package deal. You want us out of your hair? Fine, but I'm taking Clank with me."

With that, Ratchet started marching down the hallway, his stripes lighting on with a faint orange glow as he walked down the darkened corridor.