#alister was like the one spark of life in the lombax thing and then it went straight to bland again

[myhyperfixationisback]

Sony please release your cruel and un-creative grip on my autism creature game series. I beg of you. Let them at least start naming the series innuendos again… PLEASE. I’m sorry the Future series ever even got released at this point PLEASE go back to the old ways I beg you‼️

[botmilf]

Ratchet and Clank: Back to the Nexus (Chapter 1 page 4)

The Lombax shifted on his back; the bed was massive in comparison to his small size—certainly no less cushy, however—and yet every night he was still restless. The next several hours consisted of Ratchet squirming into a series of puzzling positions—most notably: lazing off the edge of the bed, listening to the blood pulse to his head before thinking up some other odd sleep coil to twist himself in. This was routine for him nowadays: ever-shifting until he became too exhausted to care anymore.

              Ratchet’s ear twitched in response to the room entrance hissing apart. He didn’t have to roll over to know who walked in, and barely so much as flinched when Clank hopped up onto the bed. “Ratchet…?” the robot picked up Ratchet’s tail by the tuft, giving a light—playful tug for his attention. “You cannot go on like this forever,” Clank insisted when he got no reaction. “Drinking away our problems has never solved them, Ratchet.”

              “Yeah, well, it’s better than dealin’ with it all the time.” Ratchet finally rolled over. Bags had formed under his eyes. He didn’t sound drunk anymore, really. Just…drained. “I could’ve stopped it, Clank…”

              “Stopped what?”

              “All of it. I shoulda made Cronk and Zephyr evacuate!” he tossed up his hands in defeat, then flopped them back onto the matrass—spread out at his sides. “I could’ve…helped him,” he said, fixed rigidly up at the ceiling. “I could’ve helped Alister.”

              “What could you have possibly done?” Clank stopped playing with Ratchet’s tail. His green optics narrowed with something of frustration. “We have been over this, Ratchet. There is nothing you could have done to prevent their deaths.” The robot’s tone smoothed; he noticed Ratchet fidget. He proceeded into a speech about how tragedy is a natural part of life that must be accepted—Ratchet wasn’t really listening anymore.

              He was staring beyond Clank. At the open pocket watch on the night stand.

              “Sometimes the universe has a cruel sense of humor.”

              “…My father once said: the universe has a wonderful sense of humor!” Clank said. “The trick is, learning to take a joke.”

              But some jokes, Ratchet knew, however, were far too mean.

***

              Every night she relived it. Exactly the way it was, down to the smallest detail. The trembling of the glass just before the windows burst against the drophyd fire power. The catch in her breath as she fell on her belly. She awoke to a big hand jostling her arm.

              “It’s ready.” Azimuth softly withdrew his hand. After hours of toiling with the circuitry and programming, he at long fucking last managed to—poorly—fix it. It’d been a good three decades since he even touched transdimensional technology. “Dr. Yauvani…” Azimuth swallowed; Sriva looked up at him. “Why would you care anything for the Lombaxes? You aren’t one of us.”

              “Your kind gave me the only home I’ve ever known.” Sriva breathed out, glancing again at the Dimensionator on the work table—now in one piece again. “I cannot just forget that, Azimuth.”

***

              “Euch,” Azimuth grunted, swiping a bug off his arm. “Elders, where the hell are we going?”

              Mashing shrubs out of their path with a long machete she found in her keepsakes, Sriva hopped over a suspicious-looking mud puddle and panted back, “the hilltops.”

              “Why?”

              “The Dimensionator requires a rather large area of space to open the portals, doesn’t it?” Sriva pulled a snake out of the branch over her head and tossed it into the bushes—as though a venomous reptile was nothing to be afraid of. Azimuth blinked, wondering if he’d actually just witnessed that. “It is not too much further,” Sriva said, slashing away ahead of the Lombax.

They reached a clearing before long; the foot of the hills.

About to affix the Dimensionator to her head, Azimuth hesitated a moment before stopping Sriva. “No,” he said, shifting the device from her hands into his. “Let me.” Fitting the helmet over his ears proved to be rather uncomfortable—one would think an invention constructed by Lombaxes would be more…well…’Lombax-friendly.’ Sharing one final look with Sriva, the General yanked the starter cord.

The device hummed to life. Electricity splintered into the air, hazardously close to throwing Azimuth off balance. “Dimensionator: find the Lombaxes!” the General shouted above the noise after catching himself on his heels. The walls of reality shuddered around them. A beam of energy erupted from the Dimensionator, exploding into a portal in front of Azimuth.

The portal sizzled and crackled, struggling to remain open. The Dimensionator sparked. Then sparked again. Then sparked again and again until—

“Shit!” Sriva scrambled toward Azimuth, swatted the device off his head and flung her arms around his middle. “RUN! FUCKING RUN!” Together they tumbled down the hill, scarcely escaping the Dimensionator’s explosion. White light burst across the atmosphere, the air rippled as the wall between dimensions shattered.

“What—?” Azimuth untangled himself from Sriva. “Just what the hell—?”

“The dimensions…” Sriva hopped to her feet, staggering back up the hill. Fragments of the Dimensionator scattered at her feet, scorched to utter uselessness. “They are…fused.” She squinted into the cosmos. New constellations crossed with the old, impossibly coexisting.

“I can’t…believe—” Azimuth still stammered. Eventually he was able to organize his thoughts enough to articulate full sentences. “I…I think”— he shoots a glare at Sriva— “I think I’ll add this to my ever-increasing list of fuck-ups.”

But Sriva laughed. She turned her head towards Azimuth, smiling. “Well,” she chuckled. “I supposed the hard part is over, yes?”

 ***

                Clank had retreated into his offline state. Ratchet lied and told him he’d go to sleep, that a little rest was probably all he needed. It was the same lie he’d told him every night—and by now Clank knew it. By now…Clank had given up trying.

              Everyone had given up trying. Including Ratchet.

              The Lombax perched at the foot of the bed. Alister’s pocket watch hung open in his hand. I coulda’ saved you… The same damned sentence pinged over and over in his mind. Throughout Ratchet’s life, he’d always held out hope that another Lombax was left in this universe, that he wasn’t alone.

              “I really am the last one now, huh?” he murmured to the photo of Kaden and Alister, and sighed, snapping the pocket watch closed. With sinking ears, his hand dropped down onto his lap. “Yeah…” There was a time before when he thought he was over it. He was sure he was over it. He told himself he was over it. Until recent months, he’d ignored everything: the ghosts that brought him the shame of his deadliest failures. But it wouldn’t stop gnawing on him.

              It just wouldn’t stop.

              He couldn’t make it stop.

              Curling his legs underneath himself, Ratchet squinted at the Metropolis lights pooling in from the window, gleaming on the fringes of his fur, casting a long, Lombax-shaped shadow across the room. Dammit, he couldn’t stand this anymore. Ratchet bit back the urge to sob, the fucking urge to scream at the walls.

              Something. He needed to feel something again.

              He had to leave this place. This planet. These people.

              Rustling into his thermaflux armor, Ratchet slowly, carefully picked up Clank and buckled him to his back as quiet as he could. Had he thought about leaving him behind? Of course. But years ago, Ratchet had come to realize that he truly was nothing without the little robot by his side. Clank had become like a limb to the Lombax; without him things didn’t feel…complete.

              “Ratchet?”

              Clank’s sudden voice nearly bounced Ratchet’s skeleton out of his body. “Oh! Hey, pal!” Ratchet panted, glancing over his shoulder, a sheepish grin.

              “Where are we going?”

              “…Fastoon.” Ratchet pressed on. Out of the apartment. Down the staircase. Out onto the landing pad. Without any idea what he was looking for—or why in the hell he was going—they took off into the planet’s orbit. He was going home.