Formerly titled "The Bandicoot Factor". Single one shot, my first for this fandom, standard disclaimers apply and reviews and concrit are appreciated.
Scientific Evidence for the Continued Existence of Crash Bandicoot.
'...Ah, Coco?'
'Yes, Aku Aku
'Well… not that I wish to stifle your scientific genius, child, but I assume you have a reason for allowing your brother to play with those delicate and highly volatile technical instruments?'
'Oh, that. Yeah, I have a reason. A good one.'
'...I'm waiting.'
'Crash is helping me with some research.'
'...Research? It looks as if he's about to put a hole through something with that electricity conducting photo-microscope. Won't he hurt himself?'
'Probably.'
'…Ah. This is some sort of psychological trial for getting into the mind of your subject. We performed similar experiments in my tribe thousands of years ago... The participants usually died a slow and mentally painful death.'
'Yup, I guess they did.'
'Ah...Coco, are you sure this is a good idea?'
'Just trust me, Aku. I have my reasons.'
Coco was thinking of calling it "The Crash Factor".
She wasn't sure if it was a talent, exactly. The more apt definition for it would probably be something like... element. She believed it has something to do with several non linear mathematical concepts, (aka chaos theory; which was such an apt description that she could barely believe it), and the fact that at some point in his life, her brother's brain was poked with one too many LED's in one too many a delicate place.
As much as she loved him, Coco has long ago deduced that she has absolutely the most bizarre brother in the known universe, and no number of encounters with evil clones would ever convince her otherwise. However proving this scientifically was something which had required years of study.
She was thinking of using the Icy Areas of the gem chamber as an example in her final thesis.
Polar Bear riding.
Seriously. If her deductions were accurate, then Crunch was right to point out that Crash was probably the only person in the world who could pull that off, not least in part because he was the only one crazy enough to try it. She heard stories involving warthogs from Aku Aku but she really, really wasn't going to even go there; no, not even in the interests of science thank-you-very-much. Some things really should be confined to the history books of her brother's life before their reunion at Castle Cortex. After she'd had a few more LED's clearly stuck into the right places in her brain.
Which brought Coco very neatly on to the next point of her paper.
Crash was a failed prototype. Pure and simple. Maybe Cortex had stayed up one hour too many and drank one too few cups of coffee, maybe N. Brio had pressed a button he wasn't supposed to press. Maybe Cortex had gotten "I wonder what would happen if I inserted LED A into Hypothalamus B and charged with an energy blast of point-six-zero-two-A-X-Whatever" syndrome (yeah, she could actually kind of relate with him frighteningly well on that point. The curse of any scientist, be they evil genius or Bandicoot prodigy, was often their curiosity). Hell, Coco had no idea, but whatever it was that they had done to her brother back in that freak show that Cortex liked to call his "Laboratory for World Domination", it had done some very strange and unexplainable things to her brother's head.
'Hm... Aku, may I ask a blunt question?'
'By all means. But if it's about where I was last night then—'
'Uh, no not that. I mean... you're a god right?'
'Relatively speaking "Guardian" would be a more specific term.'
'Close enough. And you have the ability to blast gaping big holes in people if they tick you off, don't you?'
'...True, but it is not an ability I would ever exploit upon your brother.'
'How did you know I was going to say Crash?'
'Well you seem to enjoy hurting him today.'
'Oh, Aku, have a little faith. He's been here all morning and he still hasn't touched anything that would permanently damage his cognitive abilities. Now, this might be a good time to start breaking that rule you have about not blasting us with Voodoo magic.'
'...Coco, are you feeling alright? Has he done something to irritate you?'
'Oh, no, it's not that at all. Of course I'd never actually hurt him, though I am still kind of hacked off by what he did to my motorcycle last week...'
'What did he do to your motorcycle?'
'Go ask Tiny, he's currently using it as a chew toy.'
Crash was a reprobate, a trash-can reject, a black sheep, a piece of non-relative outstanding data. That outstanding piece of data had saved the world several times using only his ability to spin like a tornado, skid into things really fast, and his limited brain power.
Not that he honestly gave a damn about this. Crash was Crash. Crash did things because they were fun, or seemed cool, or because he wouldn't get any food if he didn't.
It wasn't that Crash was stupid – far from it. And he didn't have a single bad bone in his entire genetically enhanced body. He knew well enough that the world going "Kablooey!" because of one of Cortex's experiments would be a Very Bad Thing and so did his best to prevent it. But Coco had the feeling that Crash's taste for Saving the World had a lot less to do with outright heroism and a lot more to do with the fact that letting the world be destroyed would just be damned inconvenient. Besides, he liked being heroic. He liked seeing Cortex's face drop after yet another attempt at destroying the world was thwarted. It wasn't that he had anything against Cortex (which was a surprise, really, considering the LED Thing and rejected-experimentation), it was just that Crash liked the Peace and Quiet that usually occurred when Cortex wasn't trying to kill him.
Sometimes Coco thought Crash forgot that Cortex did often try to kill him.
Basically, after years of study and experimentation, Coco Bandicoot had come to a conclusion that explained her brother's strange continued survival in spite of all the odds:
Luck.
'Coco, I really don't think you should be letting him near that—'
ZZZZAPPPSPRRRKARK! ( "Ack!")
'...Conducting device. Oh dear.'
'See, look? He just got twenty-thousand volts off that thing and he didn't even mess up his mohican. You alright down there, Crash?'
' ...Grargle...'
'Good. Now stay still while I get some readings.'
'...Geh.'
That's right. Sheer total, idiotic Good Luck. The one quantity-related concept that Coco was fairly sure no scientist should ever reduce themselves to without good reason.
According to science, the odds of an activity (any activity at all which was uncontrolled) being successful, versus the odds of it blowing up in your face could be measured in the formula: P(A and B) P(A n B) P(A) P(B).
Coco could break this idea down into a very simple metaphor. When playing a board game of chance, such as Skunks and Ladders, for example, throw a dice enough times and sooner or later you'd roll a six. This was a fact of chance. Sometimes if you were lucky, you would get a six several times in a row, other times you'd have to throw a dice fifty times or more before rolling a single one.
Crash however, would pick up the aforementioned dice, take his throw at a run (however unnecessary such force might be), get distracted and wave to someone standing in the distance, slip on the skin of a wumpa fruit, trip, smash his face on the board, get his fingers caught in a scrabble bag (which he would probably have on him despite the fact that they weren't even playing scrabble), get hit by lightning, and finally let go of the dice, which would then most likely get stuck in the throat of the person he was playing against who, after receiving a very intense session of the Heimlich manoeuvre would finally spit the dice out onto the board.
And when the dice came to a stop, lo and behold, it would display a six.
Every. Single. Time.
It was like the scientific equivalent of having a Karma Credit Rating going into the billions. As often as Crash screwed up, as often as he whacked himself on the head, as many explosions as he caused, - sure he would injure himself often enough, but never seriously, and he would never feel the entire brunt of the chaos that he instigated. Things would always, always work out for him, one way or another.
He had gone up against ancient spirit gods and won. He had taken on evil geniuses and came away without even getting his fur singed. He had ridden Polar bears around the Arctic Circle, for gods sakes... Coco had actually tried it herself (all in the interests of scientific research, of course, it wasn't as if she actually enjoyed riding around on Polar bears) and had discovered that the trait was by and large, not a genetic one. She crashed into no less than three statues, was almost been eaten by a killer whale and ended with a five star plummet into the depths of an ice hole. The seals had given her a rating of Two out of Ten (darn increased intelligence ocean dwelling mammals had no sense of creativity.)
Yet by riding a Polar Bear, Crash could probably help instigate world peace, By being kicked off an island lab and washing up on the shore of another beach, he would begin a chain of events that ended with him preventing an evil scientist from taking over reality as we know it. By slipping on a wumpa fruit, Crash would save the world.
It really honestly didn't make sense.
Nobody could be as goofy as her brother was in times of crisis and not pay for it. Nobody could screw up so many times and still be living. Unless some other factor was involved in their survival.
This, thus, brought Coco to her main and final point. The thing she liked to call "The Crash Factor".
'I'm sorry, Coco but I'm afraid I just don't understandthe significance of these..experiments. You appear to be cataloguing eachincident of Crash electrocuting himself or blowing up small objects in his face.
'Yes, that and the number of times he crashes into things.'
'It's extremely complicated physics, Aku, don't worry about not understanding it, I'm sure I just need to rephrase it in a more understandable manner and you'll appreciate exactly what I'm trying to do.'
'Then my all means enlighten me.'
'I'm deliberately sticking Crash in a situation which encouraged him to stick his hands in as many dangerous volatile unknown substances as possible and seeing what happens.'
'...Ah.of course. Now it all makes sense. So how did you convince him to, ah...'
'Bribed him Some people will do anything for a Wumpa Shake, you know. Now, do you see that vial that Crash is playing catch with'
'Yes?'
'That's a thermo nuclear nanobot container, Aku. When you mess about with it the way Crash is right now, it should disintegrate your fur and strip the paint off every building within a ten mile radius. But all that's happened so far with Crash thereis that he's gotten a face full of ash. Don't you find that strange?'
'Exceedingly Though I don't think I find it odd for the same reasons you do.'
'Some people just don't understand genius. Okay, Crash, you can put the test tube down now, let's move on. I've got a treat for you now: you get to play with the Temporal Splicing device.'
'Oh my... if you need me I'll be somewhere in the spirit realm praying for your earthly souls.'
'Thank you!'
Crash broke every rule of science and physics that Coco had ever had implanted into her brain in one go.
If he were actually capable of contemplating this thought, if he sat down for a moment and actually wondered why he never seemed to fall for Cortex's ridiculous schemes and ploys. If he stopped to consider how, whenever he made something in Coco's lab explode, it would be Coco who ended up with ashes in her face, the Crash... might actually have realised that he was not a normal being.
But of course, he was Crash, so he was never going to think about it. He was never going to understand exactly how weirdly capable, yet incapable he was. He was never going to realise that his ability to bareback-ride warthogs and turn round and round really fast like a tornado had saved the world on several occasions.
The fact was that Crash was a lot more dangerous than anyone gave him credit for.
In short, he was a scientifically terrifying anomaly which should have brought the world of logic crashing down around his furry ears, and yet somehow didn't.
Because he was just that lucky.
"The Crash Factor". Subtitled: "Why My Brother Doesn't Die, An Experimental Chaos Theory-Related Thesis by Coco Bandicoot." Coco was pretty sure that it was going to get her into the history books.
'That is if my main subject would stop constructing origami aeroplanes out of my research papers...'
'I'm sorry, Coco, what was that?'
'Nothing, Aku, nothingI'm just voicing some probability statistics out loud.'
Fin.The theory in this fic, as some of you might have realised, was inspired by one postulated in the Disney Animated series "Kim Possible" concerning the titular main characters Sidekick Ron Stoppable. In this, a character theorised that he possessed some kind of "Ron Factor" which supposedly allowed him to achieve positive results through a series of apparently random mishaps that would otherwise require an impossible amount of skill. The Ron Factor may be a product of non-linear mathematical concepts (also known as Chaos Theory).
