As Ratchet walked out towards the chairs and couches they'd set up for the upcoming "Behind the Hero" interview, he noticed Twilight hard at work on her terminal. "What's eating you, Twilight?" he asked curiously.
"Remember that commercial we saw for the Hygienator?" she asked. "The one Captain Qwark was selling under that ridiculous pseudonym?"
Ratchet shuddered. He did remember that commercial. It still gave him nightmares, especially some of the things Qwark used the questionable device to clean...and on live holo-vision broadcast, no less! It wasn't even a late night broadcast! "I try to forget," he muttered.
"Well, he said it was a Gadgetron Hygienator," Twilight pointed out, "but I don't recall the product ever clearing testing. So I wrote Mr. Fixxit to look into it, and he just got back to me. Apparently, the Hygienator is a Gadgetron product, but it was canceled because it was never perfected. In the long run, it was more cost effective to create separate devices for each hygiene process and sell them individually or as a package deal. Investigations are currently underway regarding Qwark selling discontinued Gadgetron merchandise illegally."
Ratchet chuckled. "Glad I let you talk me out of buying one, then," he laughed. "But for now, we need to get to that interview. They came all this way, after all, and we haven't exactly had any real excitement lately."
"Right," Twilight replied, shutting down the terminal before progressing to her couch. She lay down facing the cameras on a specially designed couch for her comfort to Ratchet's left, while Clank was in a lounge chair to the right of Ratchet's.
"Welcome back to Behind the Hero!" the reporter announced. "Tonight's heroes are the trio who recently restored peace and order to our galaxy: Ratchet, Clank, and Twilight Sparkle." The announcer signaled the trio that the cameras were now focused on them. "So gentlemen, young lady, tell us about your latest, incredible adventures." As Twilight opened her mouth, the announcer cut her off. "Oh and Twilight, our audience is not exclusively the intellectual elite like yourself, so I'm afraid adventures in rewriting the laws of physics don't count." Twilight promptly pouted in response.
Ratchet couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, as you can imagine, we've been pretty busy. After Drek's defeat there were parades, press conferences, fancy dress balls..."
"Those last ones made me feel homesick for some reason," Twilight spoke up. "Which was weird, because not only have I never been to any fancy dress balls before, the first one was held here on Veldin." She shook her head in confusion.
"There was also that Weenie Roast at Al's!" Clank pointed out, trying to distract Twilight.
"Yeah, that!" Ratchet said with more enthusiasm than he'd expressed for the Weenie Roast when it happened. "And then...things started to slow down a bit," Ratchet explained in a more relaxed tone of voice. "After that, we focused on Twilight's flying lessons."
"There was the Grand Opening at Groovy Lube!" Twilight pointed out, grinning at Clank.
"And the petting zoo!" Clank added.
Ratchet and Twilight both shuddered. "We don't talk about that," Ratchet pointed out.
"Why's that?" the announcer asked.
"Because right at first, nearly everyone there mistook Daddy and I for new exhibits instead of celebrity guests!" Twilight snapped. Shuddering, she folded her wings protectively around herself. "So...many...hands..."
"Anyway," Ratchet interrupted, "I think those were...last week?"
"Six months ago," Clank corrected him.
"We just celebrated my seventh birthday!" Twilight said happily. "Clank made me a new plushy!" She held up a cartoonish looking gray pony plushy with wings and horn. "I call her Woona!"
"So we're still pretty busy," Ratchet explained, "in a more...domestic sense."
"Yesterday, I flushed out my radiator core," Clank pointed out.
"Which is good for us as a family," Ratchet pointed out happily. "It's just...no one needs a hero right now..."
As his voice trailed off, Twilight reached out a hoof to comfort him, and all three vanished in a flash of light.
The three - and their lounging equipment - reappeared in the hold of a ship with a hologram of a fat humanoid with sparse hair and an excessively happy expression.
The holographic image was entirely blue, however.
"Welcome!" he said happily.
"What the?" Ratchet demanded, going for his wrench as Twilight instinctively reached for her RYNO...which had been put away in storage, resulting in her cursing under her breath.
"I'm Abercrombie Fizzwidget," the hologram continued, "founder of the Megacorp company in the Bogon Galaxy."
"Bogon?" Ratchet asked in confusion.
"It's the next star cluster over from Solana, towards the Nexal point hypothesized to be somewhere in the unexplored Polaris galaxy," Twilight explained.
"Nexal Point?" Ratchet questioned.
"The hypothesized center of the universe," Clank explained.
"I'm sorry to incapacitate you," Abercrombie continued, causing Twilight to look around in fear, "but our entire galaxy is in a very precocious situation."
Twilight then facehooved. "Inconvenience, and precarious," she groaned.
"I must humbly request your sustenance-"
"Support," Twilight corrected with a groan.
"-on a mission of dire urgitude-"
"That one's not even a word!" Twilight complained vociferously.
"-a mission of superfluous peril-"
Twilight raised her hoof, then paused. "Actually, that part's actually grammatically correct, all things considered."
"-a mission of unequizacle imperitude!" Abercrombie finished.
Twilight slammed her face into her couch. "I give up!"
"That made no sense to me either," Clank explained.
"Oh, it made perfect sense," Twilight explained. "He wants us to come be heroes in Bogon. He just made every English Professor to ever critique language spin in their graves fast enough to power 12 planets in the process of asking is all..."
"Indubitably!" Abercrombie proclaimed. A holodisplay appeared. "A few days ago, this top secret biological experiment was stolen from our testing lavatory."
"Aw, it's adorable!" Twilight squealed over the blue, furby looking fuzzball. "I want one!"
Abercrombie seemed to smirk, then continued. "It was stolen by this dupliferous criminal mastermind!" The holodisplay showed a masked figure in a cape and mask.
"She looks cute," Twilight whispered to Clank.
"She?" Clank whispered back in surprise.
Twilight pointed with her horn. "The figure is plainly mammalian, and only female mammalian bipeds have the pronounced mammaries."
"I need you, Ratchet, to get the experiment back!" Abercrombie concluded.
"Wait, just me?" Ratchet asked in shock.
"The criminal seems to be a malodorous expert in gorilla combat, so it would be best to only send a single aficionado," he explained.
"But what about Clank and Twilight?" Ratchet asked.
"I have precipitated Crank's recalcitrance, and have prepared this counter offer. We are prepared to give him a job as the head accountant for Megacorp, plus a penthouse suite in lovely Megapolis, and our state of the art robotic masseuse." The holo display showed each item as discussed, and Clank's circuits sparked at the sight of the robotic masseuse.
"Deal!" Clank agreed readily.
"And me?" Twilight asked. "II'm pretty sure my exclusivity agreement with Gadgetron means I can't take a job at Megacorp..."
"We have consolidated such conflagration of intestines, and have a different offense planned for you, Twinkle Star," Abercrombie began.
"He could at least get the name right," Twilight groaned.
"While Ratchet is engaged in this mission of superlative importance, you will be staying in Megacorp's Child Care suite in our headquarters on Planet Yeedil, where you can spend your days either befriending other children your own age, exploring our high tech laboratories, or utilizing your own private lab for personal experiments!" Abercrombie offered, displaying holo-images of each.
"I could...make friends?" Twilight asked. "My own age? And...play with them?"
Ratchet had to look away. The naked hunger for such interaction in Twilight's eyes was embarrassing and almost painful. "Deal," he said, on Twilight's behalf.
"As for you, Ratchet," Abercrombie added, "we need you in superlatory shape! While in transit to the Bogon Galaxy, you will undergo heavy training and conditioning, including martial arts, heavy weaponry, survival skills, stealth, macrame, ballroom dance, and origami!"
"Can I train, too?" Twilight asked eagerly.
"Absotively!" Abercrombie agreed readily.
Two weeks later, they'd reached the Bogon Galaxy and completed the training. Ratchet was looking over the new green battle suit he had been provided with. "We've used bipolar vector regurgitation to track the thief's location to a flying base in Sector Seven. Infiltribulate the base, and retrieve the experiment."
"Sir, ready for launch!" Ratchet replied.
Twilight hugged Ratchet. "Come back safe, Daddy," she said. "I love you."
"Love you too, Twilight," Ratchet replied, returning the hug. "Have fun with the other kids."
Twilight stepped back. She could feel the excitement vibrating off Ratchet. He loved hero work, now that he'd gotten a taste for it. "Later, Clank!" she called out, waving.
"Safe journey, Twilight!" Clank agreed. "We will meet again soon. This shouldn't take Ratchet too long."
With that, the three went their separate ways on their various transports.
When Twilight arrived at the Megacorp base, she was greeted by workers in hazmat suits and immediately escorted to a medlab. "Umm...I thought I was going to play with other kids?" she objected in confusion.
"It's just standard issue quarantine!" Abercrombie hastened to assure her. "You're of an unknown species, after all. It's standard procedure to isomorphic you when you arrive from another galaxy before letting you fornicate with other children, to make sure they don't get any germs from you or you from them."
"That makes sense," Twilight regretfully agreed, hoping that was yet another of his linguistic slips. "So how long will it take?"
"Just a smattering of nonces, certainly," Abercrombie proclaimed. "Just to analyze a few samples is all."
Twilight sighed. She imagined this was going to take a while...
Dear god, reading Abercrombie's dialog is painful.
You know, before discovering the youtube series "Your Grammar Sucks", I used to thing Fizzwidget was the funniest thing of the game.
Now I cringe...
Oh, don't get me wrong, I still enjoy those scenes immensely.
Yeah... I remember him. Before I started to correct things in the English language he was fine. Now though, he's just grating. Ish. I need my black hole gun again. I also fear for Twilight since I kinda-roughly-possibly-ish remember what happens in the end. And yeah, the Protopet... I dislike you Fizzwidget. Strongly.
i like it and please don't have twilight be separate from her daddy Ratchet for a long time i would be sad if you do that
Grammar nazis would have a field day with Mr.Fizzwidget and he would probably drive them insane by the end of it.
now im not the best when it comes to grammar, spelling an the likes myself.. but that just hurt..i feel bad for twilight
5820795 i feel bad for twilight too
His grammar... my... my brain... GAH!
I'm with Twilight, I need a couch to faceplant. Still, good introductory to this arc. I can't wait to see Twilight interact with others.
5820753 But the Rift Inducer won't be introduced until the next game but here you go anyways.
vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/ratchet/images/b/b9/Rift_Inducer.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100220054804
5820812 i can't wait to see twilight interact with others too
IT'S A LIE! DON'T TRUST HIM!
Fornu...
I'm only seven years old!
It's been a while since I've played Going Commando. Now I wonder how the events to come shall play out
Twilight with the Woona plushie is so adorable
having recently watched the baseline game, I can honestly say Abercrombie's dialog is painful accurate as well.... I can feel my sober braincells crying for booze already...
Ah the beginning of Going Commando, sadly Fizzwidget is just one of the characters who I just cannot listen to without having to ignore all the blatant talking and issues, yet everyone seems to be in agreement with Twilight. Yet oddly enough I remember how the game went,(even though it's been a long time since last playing it) but I'm not one of the mean ones to spoil things for the people reading. (Unless they have played the game, then they already know)
If they try to make clones of Twilight, I don't think Megacorp will left standing.
*****
"Twilight, I know you are angry... but, don't you think this is a bit too much? I meant this battleship is bigger than a whole town! And were did you even get the money and the parts to build it?" Rachet asked in a worried tone after he, Clank and Twilight were teleported inside a battleship that probably had enough firepower to blow up either a moon or a draft planet, depending on the type of ammunition used and if Twilight had made illegal upgrades to it or not.
"80% of the ship is salvage done in a spaceship graveyard, the rest I ordered, designed or upgraded myself." the winged unicorn said as she started the ship power up sequence, that since it was made by Twilight and this was the first time the battleship became fully operational, it would take several hours.
"And when did you find the time to build it?" Clank asked with worry, he knew Twilight Sparkle could be scary but this... this was very worrisome.
"I just got the materials, uploaded the schematics into my holographic builder interface, and used my savings to rent enough industrial robots to build it. The salvage was done by a company that specializes in that, oh and Woona Loon helped too."
"Woona Loon?" Rachet asked fearing the answer
"Hi, I am Woona II also know as Woona Loon, this ship AI, at your service, before being integrated to the ship I was the AI of a computer master Twilight Sparkle build specially to supervise the construction of the battleship Celes Moon." a voice that sounded like a little girl with a decent singing voice said.
"Uh Twilight, may I ask WHY you feel the need to build a Battleship at all?" Clank asked a logical question.
"Is quite simple, I am a public hero. My first enemy destroyed planets by taking out parts of them to glue them together and make a new planet. Considering the fact that the fact the first villain an hero faces tend to be the easiest, and the conventions about both heroes and supervillains, I estimated I would keep facing more and more dangerous opponents until It would reach the point I would actually need to use this Battleship. Be it as a home-base because my planet was eventually blow up, or because I would need to protect myself for all my enemies."
"You know, I don't know what scares me the most, the fact my daughter thought she would eventually need a Battleship and actually build it, or the fact that having a battleship is actually starting to make sense." Rachet said with a somber tone.
"May I remind everyone that the reason why are here in the first place is because your daughter plans to declare war to a Megacorporation because they cloned her?"
"Oh don't be such an hypocrite Clank, how would you react if some Megacorporation had stolen your plans and massive manufactured generic copies of you?" Twilight Sparkle asked as her magic continued the ship full activation sequence.
"Clank? Buddy, why did your eyes suddenly turn red for a moment?"
"I just realized that if the clones have the same magical abilities that your daughter does, this battleship might be actually be needed."
******
Yeah no clue why I wrote this. I just thought "What would Twi do AFTER she faced a villain like the one in Rachet & Clank first game, and for some reason I ended thinking "Build her own Battleship". Yeah I am insane.
5820917
I actually like that, though I won't be using it. It unbalances too many future scenarios.
Also, you used 'savage' where I'm pretty sure you meant 'salvage'...every time.
5820932
Excuse me for not have been born in an English speaking country. And I know It would completely unbalance things, this is basically Twi being overly paranoid and preparing for war.
5820947
I didn't mean any criticism.
Abercrombie's dialogue hurts. And I'm not even a grammar freak.
i sense some underhandedness afoot!
It's been 8 years since I played that game... AND I STILL REMEMBER HOW AGGRIVATING HIS GRAMMAR WAS
*twitches repeatedly* I have this overpowering urge to strangle something after reading Abercrombie's speech. I tend to auto-correct myself (even while speaking aloud), so reading something like this is almost physically agonizing.
I wonder if twilight will go lessen zero on anybody.
This game and its dialogue made me want to throw my PS2 off the balcony. Nine stories up. I was almost crying when it was over...
well now that i have all the good old ratchet and clank games again (Thanks to someone, making me like a story so much i bought them all off amazon, and a ps2,) i will play each level only with the chapters. sooo in short, i am still waiting to play the first level of commando
5821024 It does. And I am.
5820813 Oh right, forgot that it was Up Your Arsenal that introduces that weapon. And the Robotic 'soldiers' that act as semi-incompetent meat shields.
Sounds more like what a torturer would say before they began.
Yeah... sure...
d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1394493205l/20894023.jpg
Its great to see you continuing through the series, and I can't wait to see how it goes.
Carry on!
Yeah, this guy is sort of funny, but I get the feeling he's sort of obfuscating stupidity or somethi-
Wait... Did he just-?
He DID!
5821584 May I remind you that this is in fact quark in a holo desquise. As in the man behind the " happy platypus" * shudder*
5821611
News to me!
Never played the games, so I went into this fic blind.
5821584 Well... I did not notice that until you pointed it out. I'm very familiar with that character, so I just skimmed his dialog since it was INFINITELY LESS PAINFUL. The parts with him, both this and future ones, are the only ones I was/am dreading. I REALLY want to say that saying that was entirely unneeded, but the painful reality is that it is EXACTLY what he would say... So it goes without saying, Goddess Damn You [REDACTED]! (name redacted because spoilers)
**IN GAME SPOILERS**I thought this fizzwidjet (or whatever) was actually quark in disguise the whole time, as the real fizzwidjet was unconscious in a closet the entire time. This one spoke weird, and the one after the reveal spoke normally.
Should be assistance, not support.
I could say the title is somewhat culturally offensive as my country never called it Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando.
We called it Locked and Loaded.
Me personally, I don't care, but I'm just letting you know.
Other examples of this are 'Deadlocked', which we called Gladiator, 'Full Frontal Assault' is Q Force and the entire PS3 set, which is called Ratchet and Clank Future, we don't have 'Future' in the title.
I find the dialogue a lot easier to watch then read. Something about his voice makes it funny...and I live with an English Professor as a Mom. I don't know why, but for some reason it was very easy for me to enjoy the jokes about the bad dialogue as they were.
Woona's theme
Fizzwidget's dialog is painful to read, namely because I'm a stickler for grammar. I really do like this fic, though. I've played all the games and have some fond memories of them, so it's nice to see this continuing.
5822326 Yes, but Fizzwidget actually DOES say those kinds of things in the game. The author was pretty spot-on in authenticity. Oh, by the way, good job, author.
Hopefully nothing dark happens to Twilight, Ratchet might go berzerk on someone and we wouldn't want that would we.
...QWAAAAAAARK!
YES, An update!
Why do I feel this is going to end EXACTLY like animorphs #52?
Twilight " ... and halt! I know the meaning of that word even if you do not! I am only six and No One will be doing Any of That in my presence for at least another fifteen years!"
ahhhh Fizzwidget... It has been too long since I played the R&C games... it's too bad I don't have a playstation to get remastered versions of them though
Wait wait wait...
Are you really going this route? Because this makes Quark an even bigger asshole than usual, if you're about to pull what i think you are.
Fizzwidget.. ugh. I think his speech is going to make me physically ill; I'd claim mentally, but I'm already quite mad.
I remember this part, never got past it for some reason or another but I remember it
5820751 Especially to a Grammar Nazi like me.