Next Chapter. Amanda shows up again. This chapter provides her background and how she came to be. Plus Fake Crash shows up again.

Crash is not mine. Amanda and any other OC's are mine.


Chapter 11 Breaking Point

Amanda walked through the darkened tunnels of the mysterious tomb that she had come to find herself in. The world around her was dark and musty and she couldn't but to wonder how many innocent people had to suffer to build this behemoth of a structure.

Her thought's were interrupted when she could hear the sound of footsteps.

The forgotten minion prepared for battle when a heart wrenching feeling pierced within her chest. She had a feeling that she already knew who was following her.

"I know you're following me, Nicholi." Amanda called out quietly, her southern accent filled with anxeity.

From the darkened shadows, the dark skinned assistant emerged dressed like a Egyptian servant.

"Dr. Cortex knows you're here; he's sent us to find you."

"Nicholi; you can't do this to me. Remember we were friends." Amanda's voice was slightly cracking looking back at her once best friend.

"Amanda you know it's for the best if you come back. You're probably living constantly on the ran; you can't go home because you know that is the first place we'll look. If you stay in one place to long, we will eventually find you. You associate with very little people because you know they will be used against you. It would lift a lot off your shoulders if you were to come back and accept the life that is right here." Nicholi's voice was sad; he knew that she wanted nothing to do with Cortex. She was probably the only minion to resist and managed to escape. He knew that if he had more courage, he would have fled with her.

"I'm sorry Nicholi, but I cannot live my life like that."

The dark skinned assistant looked at her with dark eyes, but no matter what he did, he would never bring himself to hurt the girl standing right in front of him.

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to take you by force."

Nicholi quickly walked towards her, his machete in hand.

Amanda felt her survival kick as she went towards her friend ramming her boots into his chest. The assistant screeched as he picked himself up again, his eyes had a dark glow as he stared at her.

She knew he wouldn't kill her, but she couldn't let him take her Cortex.

Nicholi swung his machete but Amanda sped around him, avoiding the colision

Amanda took out her boomerang and threw it, knocking Nicholi's weapon out of his hand.

The assistant immediately kicked it away so her enemy couldn't use it.

Nicholi charged towards her. Amanda wanting this before more enemies came, waited before she back kicked him knocking him to the ground. Before the assistant had another chance, Amanda kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious.

"I'm sorry Nicholi, but this is something I need to do."

The forgotten minion moved on.

Meanwhile in another part of ancient Egypt, Crash had discovered one of the tombs had some sort of hidden canals that would rise and fall in a rhytmatic pattern.

Crash started wading in the cool clear water. The bandicoot made sure that he knew when the water would rise again.

Crash aimlessly wandered down the path looking out for minions or other obstacles. The water slowly started to rise as Crash calmly started to tread the water.

Changing his movement the boy started swimming; being careful not to be in front of gaps in the floor in case the water level went down again.

After about 10 minutes, the water lowered and Crash was wading again.

Steps then came into Crash's view as he walked up the steps onto drier ground.

The tunnels were dimly lit with a spicy incense drifting around his nose.

Crash noticed a human wrapped in bandages with short almost white hair. A good number of bandages were wrapped around the assistants chest which looked a little busted. The mummy assistant looked like she was jumping around in some spike tomb or something. But, since the assistant was moving rather slow in her tomb like vechile. Crash figured if he was careful, he could outrun her. But, that didn't mean he could have a little fun.

"Hey mummy, do you always move so slow?" The bandicoot asked, grinning widely.

The assistant turned in Crash's direction smirking.

"Well if you think your so confident: the crystal is about 500 yards away from here. How about we race to see who can get to it first?"

"Well if you think you can beat me, but you should know that heroes always win."

"Let's see if that's true."

Crash and the assistant immediately took down the halls toward the canal each determined to get to the crystal first.

Meanwhile back in the age of pirates, Coco was riding her jetski along the bright blue waters. So far the coast had been clear and the little girl took the time to gently float among the waters and take in the splendor of the ocean.

Then on one of the small islands, she noticed the Fake Crash. Seemingly unharmed from what happened last time.

"Fake Crash?" Coco asked, confused.

"Well hello again, little lady. I told you I would be fine didn't I?" Fake Crash asked, grinning.

"I guess you were right. But, what happened?"

"Well those pirates thought I was your brother and they chased after me like you saw. That's whenI swam into this cavarn giving them the brush off. I haven't seen any of the pirates since."

"Hmm."

Suddenly the pirates had taken notice of the bandicoots and began firing bombs at them.

Coco immediately sped off to notice Fake Crash hanging on with water ski's.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Coco asked.

"I have no idea, but it's fun! So hurry up and start driving."

The little bandicoot rode along the waters avoiding the bombs and cannons coming from enemy ships.

Speed bumps littered the water sending Coco into the air with Fake Crash doing tricks in the air.

An assistant in a look out was swinging an anchor in a 360 degree motion. Coco swung to the far left just missing the anchor as Fake Crash made a jumping move into the air. The small girl manuevered passed the different bombs and the sharks that were lurking under the water.

Coco noticed the small island off in the distance. The crystal and gem had to be there.

However, Coco noticed that the pirates were gaining on them. It wasn't going to take them very long to ambush them.

"Coco I think I have an idea to get them off the trail." Fake Crash said.

"How we would be able to do that?" Coco asked.

"I'm going to unlatch myself and the minions will go after me. They think I'm your brother, so I'll be their top priority. Giving you time to find the crystal and gem."

"But, what's going to happen to you after that?" Coco asked, worried.

"Don't worry about that, I'll be fine. You need to hurry and get the rest of the crystals and gems before it's too late."

Coco sighed before she complied.

Fake Crash unhooked himself from his harness before flying off into another direction. The assistants as Fake Crash had predicted, immediately dove after him giving Coco the advantage to find the crystal and the gem.

Meanwhile back in the catacombs of the tombs, Amanda walked down the darkened halls. Her red eyes scanned the walls before she noticed the crystal lying on the ground.

She hestiently picked it up before she continued.

The darkness that surrounded her was a reminder of her past.

Amanda had lived a happy childhood back in Texas on her family's cattle farm.

She longed for those days with clear blue skies and warm sunshine. She remembered when she had very short hair keeping her head nice and cool as she wore her favorite hat when she used to go riding with her father on hot summer days.

That all changed when she was 14 years old.

One day on her way home from school, she had been abducted and blindfolded.

For almost 2 days she had no idea where she was being taken. Until her blindfold was removed back Cortex's castle.

That was where her life changed.

Amanda had remembered Cortex had used a syringe to inject what looked like a chemical into the veins on her arm. She remembered when the injection was going through her body; it was not pleasant to say the least. She had been curled on the ground, writhing in pain. Her insides felt like they were on fire.

She had looked up at Cortex; demanding to know what he had done to her. He had only smiled eerily not saying a word. To him, everything was going according to plan.

When the pain had died away, Amanda found the strength to stand up and she saw herself in the mirror. Her body was much firmer, her once sky blues eyes were now blood red.

Spending all her time in the sun had given her a nice tan now, her skin was a sickly pale. And less than two weeks, later her short hair had grown to her waist.

She had remained at Cortex Castle for close to 2 years. During those years, she had gone through horrible torture. Cortex had put her through vigrious training; claiming she needed to build more strength for her new enhanced body. As time went on, she witnessed more and more animal and human mutation. Lots of them went on to become emotionless minions, others died from failed escape attempts, or their bodies were unable to handle the numerous training or treatments.

During her time, she had also met Nicholi, who originally had come from Nigeria. The two became very close rarely being separate from each other. They both had a feeling that something was going on here. So they both made a promise that they would never hurt each the other.

However, that would one day change. That was the day Cortex had decided to put Amanda into the Cortex Vortex and brainwash her into believing Cortex was her master. Amanda had tried resisting, but the minions had managed to strap her down.

Cortex had a nagging feeling Amanda was considering an attempt to rebel, so he wanted to make sure she remained loyal.

Amanda had barely managed to resist the Cortex Vortex's attempts to brainwash her and was rejected.

Cortex had screamed at Brio; demanding to know what happened. But with newfound strength, young minion managed to free herself from her bonds and without warning, took off down the halls.

Amanda ran as fast as she could as the minions to tried to grab. She then decided to take a risk and jumped out the window and swam as far as she could.

She was finally picked up by a cargo ship that saw her randomly swimming near and helped her onboard.

Amanda explained she was a runaway and asked how far the ship was going.

The captain explained their last stop was off a northen dock in Maine. As much as Amanda wanted to go home, she know she couldn't. Her home was the first place Cortex would look. Anywhere in America was where the minions would look. She asked where they were going in Europe to discover they were going to Amsterdam. Once the boat reached dock in Amsterdam, Amanda fled into city, living destitute on the streets. If she was lucky, she could find a mill or a cellar she could sleep. Taking any job she could like sweeping the floors or doing dishes. Any other job that offered more money may cause her to stand out for sure and if things got heavy or suspicions of her being nearby were aroused, she had to flee. But she knew she was better off on the streets than a being with no shell.

Amanda noticed the end of the tunnel when she saw another crystal and 4 gems.

She looked down another path that was flooded to hear the sound of people coming closer. The sounds of taunting came from a younger boy.

Amanda knew that had to be Crash and she wasn't ready to confront the bandicoot. She knew no matter what she said, Crash wouldn't trust her.

She placed the crystal on the ground with the others before running away.

That's the end of the chapter. You'll see Amanda one last time in the story before it's over. This is another character I really liked creating. But, for now, Read and Review.