Chapter Text
"Nice work back there. Bet we could win the Bronze Cup before heading to Blizar Prime. Wouldn't mind the extra bolts to gear up."
Rivet stood at the console in front of the massive glass bay that overlooked the arena at Zurkie's with a thoughtful expression on her face with only the sway of her tail betraying her excitement at the prospect of another fight in the arena.
"Are you sure..?" Clank responded hesitantly, craning his neck over Rivet's shoulder as best he could to look at the screen. “It appears to be a considerable risk, particularly when the fate of the universe is so... Dire.”
Rivet looks back with a half-mocking, half-disbelieving smirk. “What, you don't think I can do it? After I single-handedly brought down a Seekerpede then tore through Pierre's crew like a pyrocitor through tissue paper? I thought you had more faith in me than this, Bolts.”
Clank looked away as his optics slanted sheepishly, though Rivet wasn't sure if he took her verbal jab seriously. “I did not mean to imply you were not skilled. Truly, you are one of the most experienced combatants I've ever seen. But still, some of those challenges seem quite deadly and I do not know how many unnecessary risks we should take before our mission has even begun.”
Rivet shrugged as she looked back at the screen to scroll through the challenges offered to her. “Well, I am something of a favorite here. Zurkon Junior has to make sure that I give a proper show, so he can't go easy on me.”
“Even so, twenty-five kills with an Enforcer...” Clank continued half-heartedly, already seeing that he was on the losing side of this argument. Trying to convince a lombax to do anything that they didn't want to do was an exercise in futility. “This may be beyond the realm of challenging and may be more categorized as suicidal.”
Rivet reached over her shoulder to flick at Clank's antenna. “Oh come on, don't exaggerate.” Her voice came out more irritated than she intended so she quickly tried to change her tone. “The Enforcer is awesome! It's strong, it has a ton of spread, it sets my enemies on fire-”
“And its range is quite short,” Clank interrupted. “It requires you to be in close proximity to your foes.”
“Normally yes.” Rivet conceded. “But after all those modifications I put on it with Miss Zurkon, it can hit from pretty far away.” She added smugly.
Clank couldn't argue with that. Rivet's Enforcer was something of a monster by now and the lombax had even more ideas to enhance it further, having talked at length during the trip between Sargasso and Zurkie's about the ways she wanted to modify her weapons, including adding two additional cannons on top of the two existing ones. All Clank could think about that was “overkill” but it was par for the course for lombaxes, if he judged by the other lombax he knew.
“Besides, he's probably going to pit me against a horde of enemies that fight in melee.” Rivet continued. “You know, so that it looks impressive for the crowd and on the big screen.”
Clank did not respond right away, trying to think of anything to make Rivet reconsider or at least delay her participating in this challenge until she was better equipped but he quickly recognized that he would have better luck convincing a star to stop being hot. “Please be careful.” He finally said with little hope that careful was in Rivet's vocabulary.
She responded with a confident grin and a bump of her elbow on his arm. “What's life without a bit of recklessness?” She pressed her finger on the Enforcer challenge button and let herself fall down the portal that appeared underneath her. Clank silently hoped that Rivet would not live to regret her words.
Rivet lived to regret her words.
The challenge had started easy enough. Duos of blaster-toting Goons-4-less appeared from dimensional rifts on different platforms floating over the arena's incineration field, jeering and posing for the crowd, and Rivet jumped to them to close in, phantom dashing to avoid any shot they might try to take on her while she was mid-air before blasting them twice in quick succession with her Enforcer to either kill them outright or push them past the edge of the platform to be atomized.
Rivet's confidence was rising as she fought. This was easy! If their only strategy was to appear in groups of two, she would get through this without even breaking a sweat! So confident was she that she started styling on them, merely dodging and jumping around, boosting herself in different directions with her hoverboots to avoid the Goons' inaccurate fire while doing poses of her own to pump up her fans in the crowd, which responded with great enthusiasm. She had just blasted her tenth Goon into the burning barrier underneath the arena when she heard the roar of what sounded like some kind of starship engine behind her and Clank cried out. “Behind us, watch out!”
She leaped into the air, expecting to avoid blaster fire, when she felt a rush of hot air underneath her. Then came the violent concussive force throwing her off course. She felt weightless for a second as the world spun rapidly around her before gravity remembered it existed and slammed her hard on the metal floor. She might have screamed as well, but she would insist to her dying breath that it was just a yelp of shock. Dazed by the impact, her years of combat experience quickly took over to reflexively make her jump back on her feet, scrambling away from where she lay to put some distance between herself and her attacker, ready to dodge at a moment's notice.
Although her vision was still a little blurry, the flames of the jetpack Goon flying overhead were unmistakable and she could hear his jeering past the ringing in her ears. Aiming upwards, she fired twice, throwing the airborne Goon off balance. A third blast of the Enforcer made his jetpack explode and gave Rivet the opportunity to shake her head and regain her bearings.
She felt a bit of uncertainty as she realized that the rifts were opening quicker around the arena, bringing in more Goons, both land-bound and flying. She silently cursed herself for not keeping her guard up and ducked her head down as bullets came whizzing past her ears and impacting the cover wall in front of her. This wall didn't last long as rockets fired by the jetpack Goons blasted it into rubble, forcing Rivet to retaliate with wild shots of the Enforcer. Thankfully, the range provided by her modifications made the energy blast strike the Goons from deceptively far away and she shot a couple of the flying ones down before a bullet grazed against her leg, making her tumble to the ground with a grunt.
Clank's voice broke through the haze of pain. “There is a crate of nanogel just behind us! Open it quickly!”
Rivet didn't need to be told twice. She forced herself back to her feet and swung her hammer at the crate, breaking it open and letting the nanogel automatically seek out her wounds. The cool sensation of flesh knitting back together immediately brought her relief and clear-headedness. Adrenaline began to pump in her nervous system, enhancing her awareness of her surroundings. She could hear more rifts opening, more blasters being fired, more rockets being launched. Her reflexes took over as she activated her phantom dash, barely avoiding a number of rockets landing just where she was standing.
She leaped in the air, throwing herself off the platform as she spun around just as a duo of jetpack Goons swooped in, seeking to finish her off while she was above the incineration field. Two quick blasts of her weapon caused them to fall in it themselves, only to be replaced by a hail of bullets. Another phantom dash in midair let Rivet escape the majority of these shots, but she was still above the deadly fiery hazard beneath her. This was part of her plan however as she extended her mechanical hand toward a rift on the central platform, tethering to it and moving instantly between the two points in space. The sensation was incredibly strange, as rather than pulling herself toward that point, it was as though she was instead pulling the entire universe toward her position.
Thankfully, this strange movement gave pause to the Goons as well, who stopped firing for a second to regain their bearings. This gave Rivet the opportunity to leap to a platform where four Goons had amassed together. A smirk spread on her face as she stared them down (or rather up, damn these guys were tall) for a moment, just long enough to let them realize how screwed they were. Her Enforcer blasts threw three of them to their doom just as they raised their guns toward her, leaving only a single one. She turned toward him with casual ease and pressed the trigger again before his shock had worn off.
Click
Rivet's eyes widened as she looked down at her weapon. So focused she had been on avoiding bullets and shooting down flying Goons, she hadn't even realized that she was running low on ammo. The Goon quickly took advantage of her distraction and whipped her in the face with his blaster, knocking her off her feet and making her taste blood.
The Goon began to laugh, slapping his knees with one hand as he watched Rivet stumble on the ground, thankfully without any teeth having gotten loose. “Bahaha! Forgot your bullets at home, Lomb- Oh shit!” His expression of glee switched to one of surprise and pain as his groin was smashed by Rivet's hammer as she swung it while jumping back to her feet. A second swing cracked his skull and made him fall down with barely a whimper.
Rivet didn't have time to revel in her kill however, more portals were opening and jetpack Goons were back in the arena. She needed ammo, quickly.
“To your right! Follow the magnetized panels!” Clank suddenly shouted.
Rivet didn't show any hesitation and quickly dashed in the direction Clank pointed. She leaped off the platform and set her prosthetic against the panels that circled the arena, connecting the side platforms to each other. Her arm stuck against the panel, allowing her to run against it as the device in her hand dragged her forward. The new platform Rivet was approaching had a couple of Goons on it lifting their weapons toward her as two flying Goons followed after her. They all fired their weapons at once, hoping to catch her in a deadly crossfire or force her to fall to her death in the incineration field.
Leap she did, but only to avoid the bullets and rockets before phantom dashing back to the magnetic panels and continuing her way forward. As soon as she was close enough, she jumped over the Goons heads, phantom dashing past their hail of bullets as she drew her hammer. Seeing her weapon, the Goons flinched and raised their arms above their heads, but Rivet only had eyes for the crate of ammunition in the center of the platform. She slammed her hammer on the crate as she landed on top of it, breaking it apart. The orb of shotgun shells contained within the crate automatically was added to her telequipper, reloading her Enforcer.
She turned around to the still flinching Goons and blasted them off the platform with two quick shots. BLAM! BLAM! The two jetpack Goons that were pursuing her flew in different directions around her, splitting Rivet's attention between them. She followed one of them with her Enforcer and squeezed the triggers.
BLAM! BLAM!
The jetpack's explosion greeted her eyes and she started turning toward the other Goon flying to the other side, attempting to throw herself to the side at the same time to avoid an attack she was certain was coming. Before she could finish turning, the rocket the Goon had just fired exploded right behind her, sending her flying across the platform. She landed heavily on the ground and tumbled dangerously close to the edge of the platform, her head dipping past it and giving her a good view of the blinding incineration field. However, fully overcome by adrenaline, she barely noticed the pain as she flipped to her back and raised her gun toward the Goon as he approached to try to get a killing blow.
BLAM! BLAM!
Another jetpack explosion burned itself into her retinas as she jumped to her feet. Zurkon Junior's screechy voice made its way through the ringing in her ears.
“FIVE MORE! COUNT THEM, FIVE MORE HEART POUNDING KILLS REMAIN!”
Rivet suddenly remembered that she was fighting toward a specific target. So focused on surviving, she had completely forgotten about this part of the challenge.
More jetpack Goons flew in her direction, so she raised her Enforcer in their direction again, feeling her earlier confidence returning with the end in sight.
Click
Rivet's blood turned to ice. She was already out?! There was no way, weapon crates usually dropped way more shells than this! She didn't have time to ponder that situation as more rockets were fired in her direction. In a somewhat desperate move, Rivet extended her right arm toward the central rift and pulled herself through it just as the rockets exploded beneath her feet. She felt burning pain run through her legs and singe her tail, but she had thankfully passed through the rift just in time to avoid the worst of the explosions, barely avoiding losing her limbs to the shrapnel.
She forgot about the fighting for a moment. “Junior!” She shouted angrily at the small robot floating around the arena, distracting him from his announcing duties. “Where the hell are my bullets?! Your ammo crates are almost empty!”
Zurkon Jr. looked down at her from his floating perch with his customary annoyance. “I have to make this challenging somehow. Your Enforcer is modified so much it needs a little handicap to keep things interesting for the crowd!”
Rivet snarled angrily toward her tormentor. “Oh, that's bull- OW!” Rivet's outburst was not taken as a time out by the Goons and her distraction led to one getting an easy shot at her. A bullet impacted against her prosthetic shoulder, sending a shock of pain through her body as simulated nerves detected the damage. Another rocket landed right in front of her, sending her flying again.
She suddenly realized that she was laying on her side. When did she land? She must have blacked out while falling. The crowd was roaring around her... In approval that she was finally knocked down her throne? In panic that this was the end of the Resistance's heroine? In bloodlust-filled glee, only delighted by the carnage she caused before finally falling? Truth be told, she couldn't even hear them over her own heart pounding in her ears, to say nothing of the constant ringing in her eardrums. Even Junior's endless screeching was nothing more than an annoying buzz in the distance.
The jetpack Goons were making their way to her, clearly intent on ensuring that she was really dead. The Goons on the other platforms cheered and celebrated their victory. Somehow, their movements appeared incredibly slow to Rivet, as if time itself had slowed down to a snail's pace. Colors were muted around her and there was a pulsing sensation at the edge of her vision. Or maybe that was the blood in her eyes. Her body was numb and felt incredibly heavy. Not to mention the sudden tiredness that overcame her, the weight of over a decade of ceaseless fighting suddenly catching up to her though it felt strangely therapeutic to just lay there and listen to her heart beat.
Rivet was exhausted... Was this how her long struggle was to end? With her broken body laying on the floor of the Battleplex? It wasn't fair... She still had so much more to do... She had to beat the Emperor. She had to liberate her galaxy. She had to reunite with her people. She had to meet that other lombax... That Ratchet. Her dimensional counterpart. The only lombax she had ever met, if you could even call that meeting. He sounded nice. Bolts had told her he was searching for the lombaxes too. They could have gone together. Bolts... He was still attached to her back. Was he okay? She truly had let him down by not listening to his advice, hadn't she? Because of her recklessness, he would never get to see his friend again. Ratchet would never get to see Clank again. Because of her.
Her heavy eyelids slowly started to close as colors drained from her vision. She felt like she could just close her eyes, fall asleep, and finally let go of all of her pain and misery. Maybe... Maybe it wouldn't be so bad... She did everything she could, it just... It just wasn't enough. It never was going to be enough. It's not where she expected to fail in the end, but she never really had any hope of victory, did she? Nefarious was too powerful and she had never even managed to achieve anything more than fleeting successes against his regime. Against him personally? Humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat.
Maybe it was time to give up.
Maybe it was time to finally rest...
…
…
Fuck that.
Since when did she think like that? She was Rivet! The Rebel Lombax! She was famous galaxy-wide and a dauntless hero who kept everyone who suffered under Emperor Nefarious' rule hopeful for a better tomorrow! She wasn't going to fall in the battleplex, of all places! She wasn't going to let Ratchet and Clank down! She wasn't going to abandon her galaxy!
Her eyes snapped open and she flipped on her front, instantly pushing herself back to her feet as her lips pulled back into a defiant, ferocious snarl, her ears flared out threateningly and her tail angrily flicked back and forth. There was a split second standoff as the Goons realized that Rivet had found her second wind and that the battle wasn't over just yet.
Rivet knew that she couldn't overthink things anymore. She had no room for error. One more bullet or explosion grazing her and the adrenaline pumping through her system would run out instantly. This was her last shot, her final stand.
Setting her mind to the one task of surviving this battle, Rivet let her instincts take over.
She dashed forward, running underneath the jetpack Goons without even looking at them. Her eyes were locked to the next platform right past them, where she could see another ammo crate. She had to get to it immediately, even a second of delay could be lethal. Besides, she wasn't worried, she had someone to watch her back.
Clank seemed to understand her intent, because she felt him tap her arm urgently from behind. She activated her phantom dash, the muted sound of twin explosions erupting just where she had been an instant ago. The moment she became tangible again, she leaped into the air, bullets whizzing inches past her as she used her hoverboots to boost herself in another direction mid-jump. The Goons on the platform she was approaching desperately tried to shoot her down as well, but this is what she had waited to use her phantom dash for, activating it at the last moment to fly past their volley, becoming physical again right over their heads.
Drawing her hammer once more, Rivet slammed down with all her strength, causing a shockwave that threw the Goons off their feet and cracked the ammo box open. Rather than go on the offensive just yet, she phantom dashed forward again, barely avoiding a Goon's retaliating pistol whip. Only then did she turn, Enforcer reloaded with a few precious shells, and fired twice, blasting the Goons off the platform.
BLAM! BLAM!
Before they had even disappeared from her vision, she was on the move again, phantom dashing away from another rocket explosion landing at her feet, jumping over a volley of bullets, boosting back the direction she came, firing once at the nearest jetpack Goon, staggering him and throwing off his aim just as he was about to fire at her point blank.
BLAM!
The other jetpack Goon aimed at the ground where she was about to land. Another phantom dash in the opposite direction let her barely avoid getting burned to a crisp again. Her ears picked up the sounds of more flying Goons approaching rapidly, so she spun around to face them, noticing that more rifts were opening on the other platforms, letting in more and more Goons, who all began to fire at her with no regards to range or aim, deciding to saturate her location with bullets until one of them hit her by chance.
They only needed one after all.
Rivet began a deadly, acrobatic dance on her platform, jumping, tumbling, phantom dashing, diving and spinning around the bullets and rockets flying at her from every direction. This was the moment of truth. There was nowhere to go for Rivet. If she couldn't win here and now, she was never going to make it off this platform. And the only targets close enough for her to shoot were the jetpack Goons zooming around her.
She fired once in the air. BLAM! Dove to the right, falling into a tumble under a volley of bullets. Her breathing was becoming difficult from the exertion. Every single muscle ached and every bone in her body was in pain. Her eyes darted frantically around her to track every single threat and shots fired in her direction. She jumped back, fired again at a duo of flying Goons jeering and gesticulating at her to try to throw her off her game. BLAM! An explosion. How many kills was that? She had lost count and had no idea how much longer she had to go. Her eyes were blurry from the constant flashes of explosions around her, she could only barely see shapes floating around her.
A frantic tap from Clank on her arm, she phantom dashed to her left and felt bullets passing through where her brain would have been if she was in physical space. She leaped again, boosted forward, searched for a new target. She saw movement to her right, phantom dashed in that direction, passing through two rockets as she faced the flying Goons and pressed the trigger. BLAM! Were they down? She could barely see anymore. Hell, she could hardly breathe. Maybe that's why her eyes were so unfocused.
She threw herself to the ground, falling on her back and aiming upward to get another shot at another Goon flying overhead.
Click.
Everything stopped again. Rivet looked at her weapon with a heartbroken expression. Now the only sounds she could hear were her own pained gasps that came with every breath, as if her heartbeat had already stopped in expectation of the approaching end. Her lungs burned and begged for mercy. Her legs refused to lift her back on her feet. And the Enforcer was simply too heavy for her to lift anymore.
“This can't be where it ends...” She whispered under her breath, closing her eyes as her ears flattened on top of her head, waiting for the killing blow.
But it never came.
Rather, her hearing suddenly came back to her and with it, the nearly deafening roar of the crowd. Just barely audible over it, Zurkon Junior's over-excited screech.
“TWENTY-FIVE! THAT'S TWENTY-FIVE!”
Rivet opened her eyes again. The Goon above her looked down at her in distaste before flying away, back to his fellow mercenaries. He might have said something but she couldn't hear it past the ringing in her ears. She sat up, looking around her and taking in the crowd cheering and hollering her name.
“THE LOMBAX HAS DONE IT! SHE IS VICTORIOUS! CHEER FOR HER, FIENDS! LOUDER! LOUDEEEEEEEEER!”
And so the crowd obeyed, somehow making the platform vibrate under the volume of their exultation. Ignoring the pain and soreness in her legs, Rivet stood up and slowly spun around to look at the full stands celebrating her victory.
Her victory.
She had actually won. Just when she was certain that she had reached her limits, just when she thought that this was the one mistake that she couldn't take back... She won. And she was alive.
The immense relief that suddenly flooded her body was almost overwhelming. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cheer and holler along with her audience. Her emotions were so raw that she wanted to do everything at once.
Rivet did none of that. She wasn't one to display her emotions in public like this, hers was an image of stoic confidence, no matter the odds, no matter how great the victory (which were rare enough) or devastating the defeat. That's how Rivet inspired a downtrodden galaxy to fight alongside her. Nobody wanted an over-emotional wreck as their symbol of resistance.
Still, just this once, she allowed herself to indulge a little in basking in her hard-earned victory. A tired smile came to her face as she raised her hands and began waving and posing at the crowd, letting the applause and cheers soothe her pain for a little bit.