Chapter 10

A wonderful dream he dreamt, as Crash remained lying down on his favorite hammock in complete peacefulness, just outside his home at N. Sanity Beach. The sun was already setting, but the warm air was so present that even the wind blowing on his face was a nice addition to the picture, feeling more comfortable than ever. He was so deep into the dream that even the sensations he felt were real, as not only the general coziness made him feel like he was in the clouds but also the aliveness of the experience – the birds were singing, the water was going back and forth on the sand, the pollution was finally gone from the sky with no sight of Cortex and his minions anywhere... everything was perfect.

Until he opened his eyes in that brief moment.

At first, it was so insignificant that he closed his eyes and almost did fall asleep for the second time, until he stirred his head and felt a tuft underneath his chin. His hands, which were on top of someone's waist, went up a few centimeters and unexpectedly touched something that seemed to be... hair.

Hair? Wasn't he sleeping alone?

Crash opened his eyes again, slowly and heavily due to the sleep. The room would've been considered pitch-black if it weren't for the moonlight, but fortunately for the male bandicoot, his eyes were particularly good at capturing hues, even at such conditions. He continued examining this strange body that was dangerously close to his, with its arms bent against his chest and its legs intertwined with his, and finally noticed that the true color of the hair was actually red.

Red? Tawna didn't have red hair, she was blonde; she also was taller, so there was no way she could have her head resting under his chin without having a serious case of torticollis. Her breast was larger, too, so he shouldn't be feeling this empty space between them–

Oh... no...

His blood turned to ice. Crash screamed, as he jumped from the bed and fell to the carpeted floor, crawling backwards in direction to the wall. The shock was so great that he not only lost the ability to speak, but he also was hyperventilating, staring at the suddenly familiar figure before him as if he had seen a ghost.

The creature that was sleeping next to him was, indeed, the murderous assassin lady.

With a hot potato in his hands, Crash decided that it was time to flee. He hastily removed his leather jacket from the hat rack and put on his trademark sneakers before opening the door, coming to a full stop when he reached the stairs. How she didn't wake up after hearing his scream remained a mystery, but at least he was relieved to know that his zipper was untouched.

"How long do we have to wait here?"

"Shut up, N. Gin," N. Tropy whispered. "Do you want the cops to find us?"

"You could take them out."

"I could, if it weren't for the fact that we're working in secrecy," he added. "And that darn female doesn't answer our call."

"Look, there he is!"

Hiding inside a bush on the other side of the road, the master of time and the short-structured cyborg finally saw Crash leaving the motel in an incredible hurry. With his motorcycle parked right in front of the building, the bandicoot ran towards the vehicle while simultaneously trying to pick up the keys from his pocket and, when he did, he dived straight onto the seat.

"Come on, come on," after placing the key into the ignition and trying to switch it on several times, Crash's motorcycle wasn't willing to start working. "Oh for heaven's sake, of all times like these, why did you have to cark it now?!"

"Somebody's in trouble," watching from afar, N. Tropy smirked. "Change of plans, N. Gin; let's attack him now."

"Yes sir."

Leaving the bush without making a sound, the two scientists decided to put their plan into action. When they were already crossing the road and Crash was focused in making his two-wheeled vehicle work, the homeless man, who happened to be lying unconscious a meter away from the marsupial, eventually woke up.

"Gosh, what a brick..." he remarked, his head throbbing. A middle-aged human male with a thick accent, his clothes and gloves were all torn and, aside from the fact that he didn't take a bath for over a year, his teeth was rotten and yellow, in contrast to his bulky white beard. A nearly empty bottle was also lying next to his hand. "Now where did I put my wine...?"

In the moment he turned his face at the road, the image of N. Tropy and N. Gin approaching their target like some professional agents startled the sleepy old man's mind, since it wasn't what he actually pictured.

"A WALKING FORK!" He yelled.

Finally brought to reality thanks to the man's melodramatic scream, Crash turned his head. "What the–"

SWOOSH! The beam from N. Tropy's tuning fork stroke the bandicoot so hard that he was projected against the outer wall of the building, letting the motorcycle fall against the ground with the keys still attached. Feeling like he had been shot from a taser, Crash groaned in pain, unable to move due to his straining muscles. The vagrant, however, despite having no idea what was going on and being at the wrong place at the wrong time, couldn't ignore the situation.

"Die, you little skunk." N. Tropy laughed.

"Stay away from him, you bloody elf!" The man shouted, as he grasped the wine bottle and hit directly at Tropy's head, breaking it to pieces. The blue-skinned doctor then fell to the ground with his tuning fork by his side and a tremendous headache, his hand on his temple.

"Be careful where you head that thing, you imbecile!" He exclaimed.

"I got him, I got him!" After spotting a bough twice his size on the ground, N. Gin strenuously dragged the object and held it in the air to strike the vagrant on his back, until Crash laid his eyes on him.

"Look out!"

It was only a margin of a second or two, but the man surprisingly managed to dodge the stocky cyborg's weapon and rolled to the right, making N. Gin stumble and the large bough fly towards N. Tropy – needless to say, the master of time couldn't help but give a girly scream when the branches almost jabbed him in the eyes.

"N. Gin, you fool!" He shouted, as he tried to take the heavy bough off him. "Can't you do anything right?!"

With his muscles back to normal and the cyborg still pasted to the concrete, Crash rose up and quickly lifted the bike off the ground, trying to switch it on one more time. As soon as he heard the sweet, noisy sound of the engine, his prayers have finally been answered.

"Yes!" He grinned. "Oh baby, how I've missed you," he patted the vehicle, triumphant. However, before he had the chance to get out of that place, he looked at the vagrant, incapable of leaving him there between two psychotic lunatics.

"Come with me if you want to live!" Crash warned, gesturing him to sit on the backseat. The man, although perplexed, didn't hesitate to do so in order to escape the death-defying situation and, when he did, his weight almost flattened the small motorcycle.

"Hold on tight!" With the wheels rolling at last, the two finally drove off into the distance.

As the dust dispersed through the air, N. Gin raised his head. "Doctor, they're getting away!"

"Then what are you waiting for?" Still stuck beneath the bough, N. Tropy glared at him. "Do not stand there looking at the flies, go get the mech, you ignoramus!"

And so, without a choice, the clumsy yet exhausted N. Gin went all the way back to bring the so-called mech as fast as he could, albeit leaning in one side due to the huge missile he had lodged in his brain.

Ring! Ring!

Starting to draw closer into consciousness, Amelia rolled to the other side of the bed. It was 3:05 in the morning according to the alarm clock, but oddly enough, the annoying continuous sound wasn't coming from the device itself – rather, it seemed to come directly from Amelia's satchel on her bedside table. The female bandicoot huffed, since she had to interrupt her beautiful dream against her will, and eventually picked up her walkie-talkie out of the satchel.

However, moments before she could answer the transmission, she noticed that Crash was long gone from the room.

"Oh are you kidding me...!"

The walkie-talkie rang again. Instead of speaking with Cortex and getting another good whopping sermon of his, Amelia got up from the bed, put on her boots, wore her short jacket and rearranged her hair while looking at a mirror, and then brought her satchel before she reached the door. She was ready to leave the motel room until she heard what seemed to be a noise similar to the one of a spaceship engine, rushing to the window to see if her hearing abilities were in check.

And in the end, she was right, as she not only recognized N. Gin's mech hovering above the road but also saw the smug Nefarious Tropy getting inside as well, with the fiery motorcycle nowhere to be seen.

"(They must be after Crash,)" she thought. "(I'm going to follow them.)"

Without wasting another second, Amelia ran down the stairs and flew towards the entrance – with the desk clerk's mind in another world thanks to the fact that she was wearing headphones – and, when she finally got outside, the mech had already departed, its velocity so great that she was only able to see two dazzling red lights at the horizon. It was obvious that they wouldn't invite her to the party.

"Damn!" Standing in the middle of the road, Amelia clenched her teeth. "I knew I should've brought my spaceship... now what?"

Fortunately, it didn't take long for her luck to start changing. During the first two minutes she spent thinking about her next plan in the cold of the night, a distinguishable horn was heard from afar. Amelia turned around, only to have a pleasant surprise when she sighted an approaching tank truck with some powerful headlights, carrying what seemed to be gasoline, which eventually stopped a few hundred meters away from her.

"Oy!" The human driver shouted, his head out of the window. "Can you please get out of the way? I don't know what you are, but I don't want to run you over."

Amelia smirked at the opportunity. This was just too perfect.

"Sorry, handsome, but unless you give me that pretty truck of yours, I'm not going to move a foot." She folded her arms.

Impatient, the driver scowled at her. "Fine, then!" He scoffed, gripping the steering wheel. "I don't have time for this, I'm already late for work and I'm not letting some field rat stop me."

Offended at his statement, Amelia growled. She began to expose her long sharp claws before jumping onto the front of the truck, as she climbed all the way to the windshield without any effort. The man winced in horror, as he attempted to open the door so that he could jump out of the vehicle, but the female marsupial furiously grabbed his shirt first.

"Call me rat one more time, and I'll cut your guts."

She pushed him out of the truck. As soon as the driver unmercifully fell to the dirt road, he screamed, and ran for his life until he found shelter in the motel. At last, Amelia closed the door, adjusted her seat so that she could reach the shifting gears, and finally put her hands on the steering wheel.

"Time to return the favor." She remarked.

Riding in the opposite direction, on the main road back to N. Sanity Beach, Crash and the vagrant managed to foil the two henchmen by some extreme twist of fate. With their time running out, and the adrenaline pumping through his body, Crash grasped the accelerators as hard as he could, with the motorcycle's two turbos almost bursting into flames due to the pressure. The vagrant, who clearly didn't have fur like his animal friend, was shaking cold, his hands holding Crash's stomach in such force that the bandicoot was getting out of air, and the wind was so aggressive that they could've sworn that the bike would fly.

"What the hell is going on?!" The man asked.

"It's a long story!" Crash shouted, since the noise was baffling their voices. "I'll explain you later!"

"And what the heck are you?" He examined him with a frown. "Are you a mouse? Fox? ...Kangaroo?"

"I'm Crash!" He replied. "Crash Bandicoot!"

"Crash Bandi what?"

"Bandicoot!"

"Band what?!"

Unable to elucidate him otherwise, Crash gave up. "Never mind! I'm just a mutant who knows those two scientists personally and that I'm going to leave you somewhere safe!"

"Mutant? Scientists?" He widened his eyes. "What has the world come into?!"

"I know it seems complicated, but trust me, mister..." he hesitated. "May I ask what your name is?"

"J-Jack!" He gritted his teeth due to the freezing wind. "My name is Jack!"

"Jack, I'm asking you to stay calm, okay? Everything's under control!"

"I-I hope so!" He agreed.

A few minutes later, the inevitable came. As N. Gin's spaceship-like mech began to draw closer and closer to the two fugitives, Crash glanced through the side-view mirror to take a look at the machine, his eyebrows raised at such monstrosity. This was not going to end well.

"He he he he he!" The red-haired cyborg laughed madly, contrasting to the completely stoic N. Tropy sitting by his side. "I've been waiting for this moment all my life! We're hunting some good bandicoot tonight, baby!"

"Now it's the dwarf that's chasing us?!" Jack's mouth hanged open. "What are we gonna do, Crash?"

"Keep holding me!"

Crash grasped the accelerators even harder, in order to gain more speed and more time, but the motorcycle was starting to break. The fuel was running low, the turbos were so hot that if it weren't for the wind Jack's loose pants would've already caught on fire, and the combined weight of the two was not helping the situation in the slightest.

"Why aren't we going faster?!" Jack insisted.

"The bike is too heavy!" Crash exclaimed. "We're slowing down!"

With the speed drastically decreasing, N. Gin's mech had to slow its speed as well. "Doctor, would you like to do the honors?" He looked at N. Tropy.

"With pleasure."

Much to the bandicoot's distress, the master of time grasped his notorious tuning fork and opened the side window of the cockpit to start shooting beams at their direction, to which Crash had to do some amazing maneuvers to dodge them – unfortunately, it was only the beginning.

"Darn it!" N. Tropy cussed. "I can't hit them! N. Gin, open fire!"

"Yes sir!"

The lasers of the mech then began to shoot balls of energy toward the enemy, and both Crash and Jack had no choice but to keep dodging them, even when the balls were so big that the motorcycle had to go through the bumpy roadside before returning to the road. For the first time in forever, Crash was running out of options – he thought of going through the dry rangeland in order to mislead them, but the very few trees were so far apart from each other that finding an impressive obstacle would be considered impossible... until, by chance, he spotted an enormous tree right in the middle of the field.

"Change of plans, Jack!" Crash briefly turned his head at him. "Hang on!"

In the moment he unexpectedly left the road and went through the open country, N. Gin followed him blindly. The cyborg was having so much fun in trying to annihilate the marsupial with his new toy that he didn't even question why he had suddenly changed course, while N. Tropy, on the other hand, sank into the seat with a severe case of allergy due to the clouds of dust. When the motorcycle finally reached the tree at a safe distance, Crash turned to the right – and the mech with only a few hundred meters of space between them.

"A TREE!" N. Tropy squealed. "Turn to the right, N. Gin, turn to the right!"

Luckily, N. Gin managed to maneuver the spacecraft just in time to avoid the collision and, despite buying a few more seconds, the bandicoot and the vagrant were still within their range. With the bike dying out and the two scientists alive and kicking, Crash was starting to get desperate, his mind so distressed that he didn't even notice an iron pipe lying on the road.

"Crash, watch ou–!"

TING! The front tire blew out, the motorcycle was projected forward and Crash and Jack flew out of the vehicle, as they dragged through the tarry road about twenty to thirty meters away from it. Lying sideways on the ground, Crash soon woke up with his head wobbling and a fresh wound on his forehead, his leather jacket and jeans slightly ripped due to the impact, with tar marks on them. After sighting his bike motionless on the road, Crash hurried to help his human acquaintance.

"Jack! Jack, are you alright?" Worried, he knelt down to look at him.

"I came good!" Against all odds, Jack ended up in one piece, with only a few scratches and fortunately no serious wounds. "I'll be stuffed, that was the best ride I ever had in my life!"

Crash couldn't help but smile. The man was indeed a crazy old fool, but at least he wasn't badly hurt.

"You..."

Even though it was only for a split second, Crash's ears managed to catch a not-so-distant mutter, recognizing the voice. He was about to turn his head to see the individual behind him until the own Nefarious Tropy grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, lifting the bandicoot off the ground so that he could meet the scientist's blood-red eyes. Their height difference was so significant that although Crash was five feet and three inches, N. Tropy was double the size, which made him a giant by comparison.

"Let me go!" He ordered, as he fought back to get loose of his grip.

Jack startled, since he wasn't expecting the blue-skinned scientist to arrive so soon, but when he did get up to help Crash, N. Gin impeded the vagrant by grasping his leg, which made him fall again to the ground.

"Your time is up, runt," N. Tropy snarled. "I'm tired of playing little games with you, so instead of bringing you to Doctor Cortex, I decided to end your miserable life." Smiling viciously, he raised his tuning fork. "Don't worry, I'll be merciful... this time."

Accepting his fate, Crash forcefully closed his eyes, as the master of time raised his weapon even higher in order to slam the bandicoot right in the skullcap, this until a peculiar horn was heard in the distance.

"What was that?" N. Gin asked.

N. Tropy froze. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that it was the horn of a very large truck, and it was coming towards them at an astonishing speed, as the road was already illuminated halfway thanks to the headlights.

"N. Gin, go into the mech, now!"

Frustrated for not being able to get rid of his furry enemy in that moment, N. Tropy angrily threw Crash in direction to the field before hurrying to the spacecraft. To his dismay, however, his cyborg companion was already inside the cockpit, with the lasers pointed at the incoming tank truck.

"N. GIN, NO!" Frantic, N. Tropy shook his arms. "DON'T DO IT! YOU'LL GET US KILLE–"

BOOM!

And as the truck exploded, Crash remained almost unconscious on the roadside.