"Please keep your hands and feet inside the Dimensional Rift at all times. Be aware that side effects of quantum tunneling may include transmutation, macrofication, or not living anymore. Upon purchase of a Dimensionator you absolve Gadgetron of any and all damages, both monetary and emotional, that may result from the breakdown of reality itself. Thank you and have a wonderful day!"

Picked up this utterly amazing commission from  T-Bone some time back and was feeling inspired to write a silly little blurb to accompany it!

Art and title by  T-Bone
Original Post

Sequel of Sorts: Haxxor Health
Super Sequel of Sorts: Planet Rivet

---

“Are you sure that this is wise, Rivet?” Kit asked. Her tone, flat and mechanical, still managed to carry and convey a tinge of concern. “We narrowly avoided untold annihilation and the rifts have only just begun to mend.” For emphasis, the diminutive warbot gestured towards the great Sargasso swamps that surrounded both her and Rivet's home. Faint purple scars, that once bore witness to where shards of reality had simply fallen away, pocked the sunlit sky.

A dismissive raspberry was offered up in response to Kit's well founded concerns. “Come on, Kit. We were always planning to punch more holes through the dimensions anyway, weren't we?” Rivet replied. The light furred Lombax, hunched over her workstation, delicately took to inspecting the on-loan Dimensionator. As she mumbled to herself Rivet methodically ticked off a hastily scribbled check list.

Kit's eyes, a piercing set of cerulean lamps embedded into her head, dimmed as angled metal plates slid over them. “I have not neglected, much less forgotten, our plans for your much awaited adventure to the Lombax dimension. Is some caution not warranted however? Ratchet and Clank both assured us that we had ample time to prepare. Their Nefarious, and should fortune permit our very own, tend to leave them be for some time following every defeat.”

“Phase quartz looks fine...” Rivet hummed as she ticked off yet another box. “Not a scratch or imperfection to be found. Then let's see... voice commands? Wait. Wait no no no that was for the older model mentioned in the Lorbs...” Tongue blepped out, the white furred Lombax hurriedly scratched that item off the list entirely. “And so were the Matter Memory Matrixes if I'm not mistaken...”

With a sigh, Kit cocked her head to the side. “Very well, Rivet. I will inform the Morts of our aggressive and unnecessarily accelerated time table. Would you like me to return with anything after doing so?”

Vulpine like tail swishing behind her, Rivet couldn't help but smirk back at her partner. “I knew you'd understand!” she beamed. “And... what the hey. I could go for some lemonade!”

“Do try not to endanger us all until then,” Kit responded in a somber but joking tone. Arms swinging at her sides, the little warbot's pronounced clinks and clanks transitioned into soft pitter patters as she ventured out into the all-encompassing swamp.

A sly smile crept up along Rivet's face as she watched Kit's metallic form slowly fade from view. The coast was clear! Clapping her hands together, the Lombax performed one last systems check. “Hand powered crank is lubricated and fully operational. Already cross referenced the coordinates with the dimensional map. Annnd last but not least, per Clank, the three and three-fourth Centicubit Hexagonal Washer is properly fitted better than ever!”

Flashing a toothy grin, Rivet hoisted up the Dimensionator and bounded out of her workshop due opposite of Kit. Heart racing in her chest, she bobbed and weaved through a miniature maze of fungi crusted cave walls before popping out into a vast and uninhabited tract of water logged land.

Cheeks puffed out, the Lombax steadied her nerves as she held the dimension shattering device before her. As one hand turned the crank her prosthetic fingers thrummed against the trigger. Faint boops and bweeps, steadily rising in pitch, sounded out as Rivet impatiently awaited the all clear signal. Sine waves thrummed along the screen embedded into the Dimensionator, bearing the coordinates for Ratchet and Clank's very own Metropolis, as it flashed a steady and cautionary red.

BING

Rivet's ears perked to attention when the screen suddenly flickered green. With a pull of the trigger a condensed glob of purple energy erupted out from the Dimensionator. It violently fizzled as it coursed through the air, arcs of energy lashing out every which way, before shattering the very fabric of reality with a deafening crash.

Shards, bearing mirrored images of the Sargasso sky and swamp, crumbled and fell into the yawning void that Rivet had ripped open. Gales of wind raced past Rivet as the rift rapidly expanded in size, scraping up and out at the very fabric of reality, until it ultimately spread past the periphery of her vision. Energy pulsated from within it, dark veins spidering out into the air itself, before promptly, and mercifully, stabilizing. Rivet clenched her teeth and whistled as she inhaled through them. “Maybe Kit had a point...” the Lombax mumbled while she rubbed at the back of her head. There was no hiding the sheer size of this thing much less the scars and tearing it would leave behind. ...Ah well. She was in too deep now!

Dimensionator propped up with one hand, Rivet bit down into her lip as she gazed wide-eyed at the fruits of her labor. The dark matter within the rift abruptly dispersed and nigh instantaneously a picturesque image came into view. One of a bustling interstellar city, draped in twilight, whose towering skyscrapers adorned in foilage stretched beyond the horizon. One could hardly tell it had played host to the final climactic showdown between herself and the dread Emperor Nefarious but a couple weeks earlier.

“Hmmm...” the Lombax mused aloud as she drew near the gargantuan portal. The view of Metropolis was beautiful and awe-inspiring yet... off. Looking through the rift it was almost as if Rivet were peering down at it from the very heavens. “Shoot. Knew I forgot something,” Rivet harrumphed with a snap of her fingers. “I put in the longitude and latitude for coordinates but never bothered to put in an elevation. Ehh. I've got a Swingshot! I've got a Hurlshot! I'll manage!”

With a nod, Rivet tugged at a pants pocket and deposited the Dimensionator into its bottomless hammerspace where it tonked and konked against the countless other weapons she had accumulated over her adventures. Fists clenched, the Lombax wiggled excitedly before extending her prosthetic arm towards the rift. Whirrs and hums rattled throughout it while a glowing tether shot forth and spanned the gap between her dimension and Ratchet and Clank's own. Giggling, Rivet rode along the dimensional tether while dark matter and weaves of energy trailed off of her fluffy frame.

BRZZZT

“Ow!” Rivet winced as errant energies pinched at her. “That's never happened before...” she worriedly thought as painful pops continued to assail her. Each and every one of which conveniently served to mask the welling discomfort that came courtesy of her clothing growing all the more stifling, suffocating, and undersized by the second. She certainly didn't notice the snapping of threads of denim that lashed at her thighs. Nor the straps of cloth painfully digging deeper and deeper into the Lombax's shoulders. None of it registered, or would register, until it was far too late to be fixed.

More worrying was the fact that, deep within the confines of hammerspace, the Dimensionator bwooped ominously and unheeded.

“WARNING: MATTER MEMORY MATRIXES FIRMWARE NOT FOUND. UNABLE TO MAINTAIN AND NORMALIZE USER MASS ACROSS DIMENSIONS. USER WILL BE STANDARDIZED AND SCALED TO ACCOMODATE AND WITHSTAND DIMENSIONAL TUNNELING.”

BRZZZZZZZZZZZZT

An explosion of energy rippled out from Rivet's body when she breached the rift into Metropolis. As her eyes adjusted to the fading light, and she mentally primed herself for free fall, the Lombax worriedly gulped when she realized she would be touching down far sooner than anticipated.

THOOOOOOM

Fissures cascaded out from beneath Rivet's boots, waves of steel and concrete surging outward, as entire city blocks crumbled beneath her panicked gait. Yelping, the Lombax stumbled forward and hurriedly tried to regain her balance as her ample chest swung side to side. Its cushioned contents crashed into and effortlessly bulldozed aside the skyscrapers that flanked her and now struggled to reach up to her shoulders.

Eyes gone wide, Rivet tossed a look back at the sky spanning rift she had just stumbled out of and, she belatedly realized, scaled to.

---

“Ratchet! Metropolis is under attack!” Clank shouted in a measured, mechanical, and distraught tone.

“I know, pal!” Ratchet answered without missing a beat. Slinging Clank onto his back, the dynamic duo raced into action as they sprinted out of their shared suite. The sight of the sprawling city crumbling down around them as civilians raced past them was downright nostalgic. “Who do you think we're dealing with this time? Couldn't be Nefarious. He gives us, what, at least a year or two between schemes? Sometimes more?”

“You do not think it was Qwark do you?”

“Nah, Quantum's far too competent to let him get up to that much trouble. Besides it's been ages since he was in the business of purposefully making messes only to swoop in at the last second to fail to clean them up.”

“...Rivet?”

“Pff. Pal, she just SAVED Metropolis. Why would she-”

A wall of air, colored by dust and debris, crashed into Ratchet and Clank and sent them violently tumbling back. Shaking off their respective scrapes with pained groans they rose to their feet and, slack jawed, regarded the Menace of Metropolis.

“Ah.”

“...Maybe loaning her the Dimensionator was not the wisest idea?” Clank weakly offered as a looming Lombax's shadow swallowed up the whole of the city while she continued to find her footing.

“Uh, I thought the size of that rift seemed odd. Sorry everyone!” Rivet pleaded. Her sonic boom of an apology carried across Metropolis and, to her dismay, only exacerbated the problem at hand. “Hopefully going back through will reverse all the changes...” the Lombax whined. Lips pulled back she could do little more than grit her teeth as one skyscraper after another crumpled beneath her heaving bust. The accumulating damage, not only to the skyline but to her shoulder straps as well, was ample cause for alarm. Step by step her tattered shirt came to cover less and less of her. “Dangit,” she cursed under her breath. “Kinda liked this shirt too.”