Chapter Text
It was easy to forget, sometimes, the way Ratchet had been when they first met, all those years ago. When he’d been angry at everything, and didn’t expect anything from anyone, and so resented it when people expected things of him.
By the time their first adventure was over, those edges were worn down. Ratchet had saved the galaxy not for fame or fortune, but because it was the right thing to do. He marvelled over the attention, let himself enjoy it a little too much at first, but wasn’t surprised when it disappeared.
“What have we done for them lately?” he’d joked wryly, when Clank had noted the freebies and discounts were beginning to dry up.
The second time, he saved the galaxy because he wanted the adventure. When pressed, he admitted he’d never felt so alive as when he’d been that close to death. When asked why he would run errands for people, he just pointed out it was fair trade. He wanted something from them, so he needed to do something for them.
These days, he did things simply because he wanted to help. These days, Ratchet was a nice guy, a true hero—an adrenaline junkie that bordered on death seeker on occasion—and would always put others before himself.
Since meeting Talwyn, he’d even begun to seem content with his life. Clank still swore he would stay with Ratchet until he’d found the lombaxes, but as the years went by, he knew that was more of an excuse than a reason. Ratchet’s desire to find the lombaxes was becoming akin to an ordinary person’s desire to win the lottery. He had people who cared about him here. A purpose. He was more than the orphan freak he’d once been.
But Clank remembered. Clank still saw the loneliness that had once defined his friend. He never mentioned it, but he was there for those nights that Ratchet would turn to the dimensionator with a kind of muted, reluctant hope, and tinker until the early mornings.
And so, one day, after Ratchet got sick and almost died because the lombaxes had never trusted anyone else with their medical science, Clank interfaced with the dimensionator. He got the basics. And then he tried to be the zoni he’d been told he was.
Robots—even when they were zoni—did not truly sleep, or indeed ‘wake up’. But they did occasionally go offline or power down. Powering back up was never fun, and this time seemed worse than usual, every process needing slow and detailed scans before coming online.
By the time his visual processors came back, he was vaguely aware he must have failed to find the lombaxes. He was lying on a metal bench, staring up at a metal ceiling. He was pretty sure success should have come in the form of a warp hole he needed to walk through.
“Oh, you’re back online. One sec’.”
His limbs were still running diagnostics, but Clank was able to turn his head toward Ratchet’s voice. He then tilted it curiously – his friend was dressed in clothing Clank had never seen before, and without his signature flight cap. The fur on the top of his head was longer and messier than Clank had expected, but he now understood why Ratchet normally hid it. It puffed up along the centre like a mohawk. Or maybe it was just the result of some new shampoo – his tail seemed fluffier too.
He finished whatever he was doing—apparently repairing some sort of personal hygienator—for the moment and pushed away from the far workbench, rolling his chair around to sit in front of Clank’s table.
“Okay, let’s have a look at you,” he muttered, as if talking to himself, while reaching over Clank to grab a tool hanging—
Wait.
Clank turned his head backward and forward, trying to see more of the room they were in. This was not any of Ratchet’s workshops. It looked vaguely similar to the garage he had back on Veldin, but smaller. And it didn’t have any of the larger tools Ratchet usually worked with.
“Ratchet?” he asked slowly, “where are we?”
“No, this is a electromagnetic reader,” he said absently. “I guess that wipes tool-assistant off your potential objectives. And that wasn’t the most promising start for your logic databanks. Try another sentence.”
“What? Ratchet, what are you talking about?”
Ratchet paused, turning his head to look at him in mild curiosity. “Wait, are you calling me Ratchet? Huh. That’s a new one,” he said, and shook his head before going back to his apparent attempts to read Clank’s electromagnetic output. “Usually it’s ‘wrenchead’, ‘kitty’, ‘hero’, what have you… But I guess Ratchet has a certain ring to it. It’s a handy and versatile tool, after all. And we lombaxes are nothing if not handy and versatile. Okay… you are putting out a lot of energy, little guy. What’s your standard?”
He stared. And then he stared some more. Ratchet knew his standard. But this… this was obviously not Ratchet.
But he looked like him. Maybe a little fluffier than normal, but he had the same shape and colour. He even sounded the same.
Clank’s servos had finally come online, allowing him to push himself upright. He stared into those familiar green eyes, only becoming increasingly positive that this was indeed his best and oldest friend. “Who do you think you are?”
He’d intended it to come off cautious and questioning, but judging by the amused smirk he got in return, and the way Ratchet sat back in his chair, he suspected it sounded differently.
“I am the guy who found you in the middle of a crater and was nice enough to fix you up,” he said. “Some thanks would be nice, by the way.”
“Uh, yes,” he said, just to be safe. “Thank you. But uh… what is your name?”
His eyebrow ticked, amusement only increasingly. “Alexander, apprentice to Master Feedle of Crydon City, planet Aotic.”
“Aotic?” he repeated blankly. “Of the Centron galaxy?”
He’d never been there. Ratchet had never had much good to say about the galaxy – they’d recently learned that it was a result of some political issue they’d once had with the lombaxes. It must have been a bad one, if it was still causing Ratchet issues after twenty-five years, but no one had ever explained it to them. Ratchet had always assumed no one really remembered – it was just one of the joys of historical politics.
“I take it you didn’t intend to come here,” the lombax said wryly. “That or the crash damaged your databanks worse than I thought. To be honest, I’m not much for software, so if you want to get that checked out you’ll need to find someone else. Feedle’s got a few contacts, but he’ll probably charge you for the referral. And I’m not getting on his bad side by telling you about them off the books.”
Clank wasn’t really listening. He was still staring at ‘Alexander’, looking for some sign this wasn’t who he seemed to be. “So, to extrapolate from what you have said so far, you do not know who I am?”
“Well… if I had to guess,” he said slowly, raising an eyebrow again, “you look like a miniature version of those warbots that Drek guy was putting out a few years back, before my dad and the council put him down. But that whole line got destroyed and Drek’s been in prison for the better part of ten years now. Not to mention that whether that’s what you are or not, you’ve been modded to heck, so it hardly matters. Who did those mods, by the way? They’re pretty awesome.”
“Your… dad?” he repeated, ignoring most of it. “You have a father?”
“Most flesh and blood people do,” he said dryly. “Are you planning on answering one of my questions one of these days?”
“Perhaps. That was an answer, if it satisfies.”
Alexander rolled his eyes the exact same way Ratchet did. “Okay, well, without any knowledge of your specs, you seem to be fixed up. I had to buff out a few scorch marks and replace a connector, but you looked pretty good. I’d still suggest seeing someone who knows you better, and probably a programmer.” And with that, he rolled back from the bench, gesturing toward the door. “For the record, you’re welcome.”
Clank didn’t move, instead watching the way he sat in the chair, and how his hands moved. It was all the same, but for some very, very slight differences. He didn’t hunch quite as much as Ratchet, and his hands took a second longer to curl in on themselves or drop after each gesture. It was that, more than anything else, that made Clank review the conversation, relistening to each word and picking up the less breathy tone. Alexander sounded younger than Ratchet, he realised. More like he had a few years ago.
How strange.
“May I ask how old you are, Alexander?” he asked, and the lombax raised his eyebrows, surprised.
“Uh, sure. I’m twenty-four. This is my second year of apprenticeship. But you don’t need to worry, I went to a lombax school, after all – I’ve been fixing ’bots since I was a kid.”
So he was the same age as Ratchet. “That is not my concern.”
“Oh… kay then,” he said, and tilted his head to look at him sideways, the way Ratchet did when a little unnerved. “Look, little guy, I did this as a favour. If you don’t want anything else tuned up, Doctor Zan says you’re free to go. Door’s right over there.”
“And I will use it, once I have established a few important details,” Clank said firmly. “May I ask who your father is?”
“Uhh…” Alexander slowly got to his feet and began walking backwards, toward the other workbench. “You didn’t get that from what I said earlier?”
“Not at all. My understanding of Chairman Drek’s demise appears to be very different from your own,” he explained. “I suspect there are, in fact, many differences between our understandings of recent history.”
Alexander’s hand curled around a small remote, and he held it loosely at his side, thumb resting on one of the buttons. From his movements, it was obviously some form of self defence beacon or alarm, though Clank wasn’t entirely sure why he would need one. Alexander had no way of knowing Clank’s abilities, and even those who did mostly considered him harmless without Ratchet.
“My father is Kaden,” he said. “Guardian of the Avoidables.”
Kaden. Just like Ratchet.
“Alexander,” Clank continued slowly. “I have heard that the lombaxes eradicated the cragmites many decades ago. Is this true?”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed, and because Clank knew to look for it, he saw the constant twitching of his tail stop. “They were banished to another dimension.”
“Not even one remained behind?” he pressed.
“No,” he said shortly. “They were all exiled. Every last man, woman, and child.”
“Which means that one was not taken in by the lombaxes, and raised as one of their own,” he surmised. “He did not grow to adulthood and discover the fate of his people. He did not take revenge on those who had raised him, and force what few survivors there were to leave the galaxy.”
“What are you talking about?”
He blinked once, deciding his hypothesis could indeed hold water, and then pushed himself to his feet. “I believe I have transported myself to another reality. I believe you are this reality’s version of my friend Ratchet: the last known male lombax in that dimension. I believe I have made a terrible mistake, and I need you to help me find my way home.”
At first, Alexander didn’t even move. He just continued staring at him like Clank was mildly insane. And then, just as Ratchet probably would have in his place, he hunched forward, one eyebrow raised, and eloquently said, “Huh?”
“Look, buddy—”
“I am called ‘Clank’.”
“And I’m sure you hate it every time—moving between realities is something even the greatest engineers on Fastoon have trouble with. There’s no way some tiny robot with rocket modifications could do part-time work as a dimensionator.”
“Alexander,” Clank said patiently, following him across the room, “Whatever you believe to be possible is beside the point. The simple fact is that it happened, and I require your assistance to reverse the process.”
“No, if this is true, you need the assistance of the Lombax High Council,” he replied. “And I am not risking my job or my dad’s reputation to try and contact them on the word of some buggy miniaturised warbot.” He stopped, swung around, and pointed at the door again. “You want help, go find someone that can give it to you.”
“You are that someone,” he insisted. It had been so long since Ratchet had said no to pretty much anyone that Clank had forgotten how stubborn he could be when he didn’t want to do something. “There is no one I trust more.”
“You don’t even know me!” he snapped. “Now would you get out of here? I have work to do and a quota to meet.”
“I thought you were an apprentice.”
“I am! And part of my apprenticeship is fixing the stuff my boss doesn’t have time for. Which is most of the stuff that comes through here,” he added dryly, before glaring down at him again. “So I don’t have time to spend talking to software bugs. You need to go.”
“You were quite happy to talk to me earlier.”
“Not really. I was checking your diagnostics, and you kept asking questions. But I’m done answering them. Get. Out.”
“Alexander –”
Ratchet had, when he’d been younger and angrier, growled on a fairly regular basis. He was calmer these days; more prone to exasperation and increased determination than true anger. But Alexander had apparently not learned to channel his frustration in productive ways. He growled through bared teeth, snatched Clank by the head, and roughly carried him to the door.
“Good luck, little guy,” he said, and dropped him outside. He then slammed the door shut, leaving Clank alone in what appeared to be a carpark surrounded by tall, looming buildings. Clank spent a moment noting the grim, low-energy architecture and the huge sign over the door a few metres away. Feeble’s Electrics. He then stood up and knocked on the door again, only to be answered by an annoyed call. “Go away!”
“I do not understand why you are objecting so strongly,” Clank called back. “I would at least appreciate some further information.”
“Go ask an infobot! There should be one two blocks east!”
“Thank you, but I would prefer you answer my questions.”
“And I would prefer you go away! One of us is not getting what he wants here, and in case you didn’t notice, I can shut you out!”
He tilted his head, intrigued by Alexander’s reluctance. It had taken time before Ratchet did things without a clear reward, but this went far beyond the way he’d once needed convincing for every little favour. “Perhaps I could speak to your employer, instead. Would he be in the main shop?”
There was a pause, before another growl was softly audible and Alexander opened the door again. “That would be a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because Master Feeble doesn’t share my opinion on buggy software,” he said. “He thinks the best fix for a broken ’bot is a replacement. So unless you want to be reformatted, you should stay out of the main shop.”
Clank tilted his head the other way. “I see. Is that why you wanted me to leave, in case he should enter your workshop and find you conversing with a broken machine?”
“No, I want you to leave because I’m busy,” he said through clenched teeth. “Look, pal, if you don’t tell them I sent you, I can give you the name and address of a programmer that can check out your software. That is the best I can do.”
“Why are you so afraid of your employer finding out you sent me to someone who does not share your speciality?” Clank asked curiously. “Is that not simply customer service?”
“First of all, you’re not a customer,” he pointed out. “Second of all, referrals are good money in Crydon. And this is the only place in the entire Centron galaxy that will take a lombax as an apprentice. So yeah, I’m a little cautious of screwing up. Now, do we have a deal, or do I shut this door again?”
“Why do you need a Centronian apprenticeship?” he asked. “Why not work on Fastoon?”
Alexander stared at him for several beats, then looked up into the middle distance before silently closing the door again.
Clank knocked. He had become friends with Ratchet only by being more stubborn than him, after all.
“Go away!” Alexander sobbed through the door.
“If you truly did not wish to help me, you would have returned to work and ignored my knocking,” he pointed out. “You would make it far easier on yourself to simply let me back in.”
There was another, longer pause before the door reopened and Alexander stared helplessly down at him. “Why do you want my help? I’m just a kid – I’m barely out of school! And I already told you, I’m not going to call my dad to help you use the dimensionator, it’s just not happening.”
“Twenty-four hardly makes you a child.”
“Ugh,” he said, but stepped back and gestured for Clank to come back inside. “Biology lesson, tin can. Lombaxes grow slower than most sentient races in the universe. We’re legal adults at twenty-five, but we don’t stop growing for a few years after that.”
“Interesting. Ratchet has been living independently for over a decade,” he said as he strode back to the workbenches. “It has only been twenty-four years since the lombaxes disappeared. It surprises me that he was not recognised as a child, if that is indeed what you consider a fourteen year old.”
“Yeah, well, most lombaxes don’t leave Fastoon until we’re masters of our craft. It’s kind a pride thing.” He paused, still standing near the door, to just look at him for a second. “You’ve really never met another lombax before?”
“Two others,” he corrected. “Neither for long. Angela Cross lived in another galaxy, and—” He paused, wondering if Alexander knew Alister. Ratchet had said he and Kaden had been friends. “—the other was killed shortly after I met him. Angela was the first of his kind that Ratchet had ever seen, and that was only a year after I met him.”
Alexander didn’t react for a minute, before he made a quiet ‘huh’ noise and shut the door. “So… what exactly is it you expect me to do? The only thing special about me is my dad.”
“I do not know your father,” he said. “I know only Ratchet. And there is a great deal that is special about him.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked. “You mean because he’s the last lombax? That’s not special, that’s… luck, I’m guessing?”
“A strange kind of luck, perhaps,” he said. “But no. Ratchet is brave, loyal, selfless, and heroic. I do not believe these traits are unique to a single reality.”
“Yeah, you haven’t spent a whole lotta time with me yet,” he said as he walked over. “That sounds more like my dad.”
“Why would it not also describe you?”
He opened his mouth again, then sighed and flicked his hand before finishing the walk over. “I guess if you haven’t met many lombaxes, you don’t know I’m not exactly an example of prime lombax beefcake. And in case the apprenticeship in the one galaxy that doesn’t adore lombaxes didn’t clue you in, I’m not exactly scoring straight As in the brains department.”
“I do not understand,” he said. “What does any of this have to do with being heroic?”
He chuckled. “Because my dad is a hero. The hero, in point of fact,” he said, and then looked up and around at the workbench before reaching into the junk and pulling out a holographic image screen. He handed it over, and Clank found himself looking at something Ratchet may have given his whole life to have seen.
Alexander, so similar to Ratchet, was flanked by two lombaxes that were clearly related to him. One was almost his spitting image, only both taller and broader, while the other was more petite and—Clank suspected—an incredibly beautiful female. These were Ratchet’s parents.
“My dad guards all the lombax inventions that have the potential to cause real damage in the wrong hands,” Alexander explained as he sat down in front of the hygienator again. “He’s smart, tough, and knows the basics of how pretty much everything he guards works. And I’m never gonna live up to even half of his greatness.”
“I suspect you are giving yourself too little credit,” he replied, setting the picture aside. “If you took a chance, I am certain you would prove twice the hero your father is.”
Alexander just smiled, already poking at the machine. “So I’m guessing you have a plan to get back home. And since you say you don’t know my dad, it mustn’t have anything to do with him.”
“Indeed. We need to find the zoni.”
“The zoni?” he repeated. “You know most people don’t believe they really exist.”
“You know of them?”
“Sure. I did a class in my final year called Plausible Causalities. We learned about loads of legendary species that may or may not have interfered with this dimension,” he explained absently. “I actually did alright on my zoni test, actually. Well, I passed it, which is more than I can say for the technaroids one.”
“The zoni are indeed real,” he said, and wandered over to sit as close to the in use workbench as he dared. “They merely need to reside in robotic bodies to survive in this dimension. For example, mine.”
“Uh huh,” Alexander glanced at him sideways, his expression doubtful. “And so, what? You think you’ve somehow skipped realities, and the zoni will be able to get you back? They supposedly control time and space, but you’re a little further than the next galaxy.”
“Indeed. Even the dimensionator was only supposed to move across dimensions. Realities are a deeper level.”
Alexander glanced at him again, more cautiously this time, but didn’t say anything. He just shifted the remote from earlier closer into reach and went back to his repair. Clank briefly wondered what it was before refocussing on his new friend.
He found himself inspecting the differences between Alexander and Ratchet again, noting the thicker fur and larger size. Clank sometimes suspected that Ratchet didn’t eat as well as he should, and the knowledge that there were almost no doctors in the universe that truly knew how to treat lombaxes unnerved Clank when he thought about it too much. Luckily, most sentient, bipedal organics had similar makeups, once you got past the surface level, but chemicals and nutrients could vary in small and curious ways. Looking at Alexander, who had clearly grown up as a lombax was supposed to, he began to wonder just how healthy his friend truly was.
“Why do you not live on Fastoon?” he asked. “Surely you could find some form of work on your own planet.”
“Yeah. But most people across the universe have at least heard of my dad,” he said, his tone bland to prove it really didn’t bother him the way it might have. “So a lot of people on Fastoon would have only given me a job so that they could have a connection to the Great Kaden. And honestly, most of them would have been a little disappointed I don’t live up to the hype. So I came out here, because the Centron galaxy doesn’t exactly have the same high opinion of lombax science that most in the universe do.”
“Why?”
He grinned without looking up. “Despite what most teachers will tell you, not everyone was okay with what we did to the Cragmites,” he said, before his ears flicked up and he looked toward Clank again. “What did you say happened in your version? We kept one and raised it?”
“Yes. Tachyon was raised from a hatchling by the lombax people,” he confirmed. “Then, when he was old enough and learned what had happened to the cragmites, he turned on the lombaxes, and attempted genocide.”
“One cragmite against the whole lombax population?” he asked incredulously. “How’d that go down?”
“As I told you, there remains only two surviving lombaxes in my current timeline,” he said bluntly. “From what I can gather, less than a city managed to escape to the other dimension.”
Alexander’s mouth and ears twitched, but he didn’t otherwise respond, instead going back to his work.
A few minutes passed in relative silence, and Alexander finished whatever he was doing to the hygienator. He lifted it onto a high shelf and took down the next device, which seemed to be a relative to the crotchinator. Clank began to wonder if Feeble’s Electronics serviced the red light district of this planet, but didn’t comment. Ratchet had pointed out to him, more than once, that things like that could pay a lot better than electronic egg beaters. But while he let the silence stretch, content to examine the lombax in front of him, Alexander started to glance at him awkwardly.
“So, uh… plan? To find the zoni? You were coming up with one?”
“I assumed you would take me.”
“Take you?” he repeated incredulously.
“Once you have finished your work, of course.”
“Oh, boy,” he sighed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “First of all, tin can, even if I meet my quota, I don’t finish work. After this, there’s more tomorrow, and the day after that. My next scheduled break is six days from now, and I do not have time to go gallivanting across the galaxy on some mad quest for a race that might not even exist. Second of all, take you how? In what spaceship? Somehow I don’t think there’s a public transit shuttle that had an express route to Zoni-ville.”
He blinked, surprised. “You do not have a ship?”
“You did hear me when I said I’m only in my second year of apprenticeship, right?” he asked. “How the heck would I have enough bolts to buy a spaceship? And don’t even get me started on those pampered rich kids that get their daddies to buy them one when they’re twenty. Uh-uh. The first spaceship I get is going to be bought and paid for by me.”
“Ratchet built his own ship many years ago,” he said blankly. “I had assumed you would have done the same.”
“You know, I’m starting to think you’re making this guy up. He sounds a little too good to be true,” he joked. “I mean, sure, I’ve designed spaceships—who doesn’t have a few schematics lying around in sketchbooks?—but building one? With what tools? What parts? You need some serious bolts to have that sort of fun.”
Or the youthful irresponsibility to prioritise parts and tools over things like food and clothing, Clank reminded himself, thinking of long and roundabout arguments he’d had about proper self-care. And that wearing armour was not the same thing as looking after yourself.
“Look, little guy,” Alexander continued firmly, “I don’t know why you’re expecting so much of me, but the simple fact is that even if I wanted to help you, I can’t. I don’t have the time or resources. I can point you in the right direction, but that’s it. You want real help, you need to go to the Galactic Rangers or someone more… qualified. Not me.”
This was becoming frustrating. “When I first met Ratchet, he was almost ten years younger than you, with only an omniwrench and a ship that barely held itself together, and he managed to save an entire galaxy.”
“Well, great for Ratchet,” he said bluntly. “Since you seem to be forgetting already, I’m not him.”
“You are simply not willing to take a chance!”
“On what?” he demanded. “What is it that I could possibly get out of helping you? Aside from getting myself fired?”
“Some self-confidence, for one.” Clank folded his arms, annoyed by the argument. He could not understand how he’d had more luck convincing a selfish teenager to help save the galaxy than he was getting a responsible young adult to help him find a race of people he… didn’t… think… existed.
Huh.