4-1 Impact Sights
Got a bit distracted with posting this. Don't Starve The Forge had me distracted. Anything else to say... nope.
Oh, actually, please don't suggest bosses in the reviews. I've got the story planned in its entirety already. If I need help with some kind of addition, I'll make it known. Mr. Crumb would have been interesting, though. He just became relevant to me too late, is all.
As the rays of the morning sun shone over the Last Resort hotel, signalling the start of a new day where they could pretend yesterday's events never happened, the Mario Bros and the bandicoots climbed their way onto the roof. After the previous night's incident, Coco discussing her invention with E. Gadd, and surviving Dingodile's idea of dinner, the group had decided to turn in and recover from their full night of adventuring. The hotel was more than graceous in providing them with free hotel rooms as a thank you for their timely arrival.
Awaiting them on the roof were Princess Peach, Dingodile, Polterpup, N. Brio and E. Gadd, all nursing cups of coffee as they drank away the morning drowsiness. Yes, even the ghost dog had a cup of coffee. Don't ask how or why. They were waiting for the rest to arrive in order to continue their hunt for their villains.
"Ah, you're all awake. Just in time too." E. Gadd casually greeted the group of heroes as he stood next to a satellite marked with his logo. Coco's Super Science Diviner had been attached to it in the middle of the night with the help of N. Brio, and was now ready for use. "We've finished running the preliminary tests, and the device is functioning wonderfully. I'll say I've never seen such complex engineering in a device like this in my entire career!"
"Aww, thanks. I do have an IQ of 164 after all. Wouldn't want it to be just a number after all." Coco happily responded to the compliment.
Once everyone was gathered together around the professor, Mario clapped his hands together and spoke. "I can see you guys managed to finish the thing. You always manage to deliver, Dr. E. Gadd."
"I do indeed, Mario. Thanks to the help of N. Brio over here, we managed to submit the proper brainwave template into the device. Now it can detect a mad scientist anywhere across our entire galaxy. And I'll say that the galactic range came in handy for all of us."
He stepped aside to reveal a monitor, showcasing the image of the area where the hotel was located. Everybody gathered close to get a good look at the image, and noticed the three blips located right on top of where the hotel was.
"As you can all see, the Diviner's ability to detect mad scientists is in fact functioning properly. Those dots over there clearly represent N. Brio and I."
"Mmm, I've always considered myself more of a revenge driven scientist, but alright, let's keep reinforcing stereotypes, why don't we." N. Brio commented.
Dingodile narrowed his eyes as he noticed an inconsistency. "But that's only two of ya. Who's the third dot, then?"
The group wondered for a bit, before turning to all look at Coco. The bandicoot girl took notice of the stares, and spoke in confusion. "What? It's probably just someone inside the hotel, what are you looking at me for?"
Everybody coughed awkwardly and looked away, to Coco's annoyance. Their attention was snapped back to the task at hand by E. Gadd clearing his throat.
"So, you guys found Cortex and Bowser then?" Tawna asked the scientist.
"Indeed. The issue is." The scientist walked up to the monitor and pressed a button. The map on display began zooming out. And it kept zooming, and zooming, and zooming…
The screen now displayed a map of the galaxy, with one green dot marking the Earth, and a red dot marking where Cortex and Bowser were. The distance between the two was, to put it into the simplest of terms,astronomical, emphasis on the astronomic part.
Still, it wasn't as bad as they thought, at least for the Mario world residents, who recognized something familiar about the spot. "Hey, that looks like where the Good Egg Galaxy is." Mario pointed out to the others. "Rosalina usually parks her observatory there, maybe we can ask her to give us a lift over? Peach, you have her number, right?" He turned to the princess. She looked at him with a frown as she shook her head.
"I do, and I've given her a call. Several, in fact. She hasn't responded to any of them."
"She must be in trouble, then!" Luigi exclaimed. "How are we gonna get to her? We don't have any space ships or launch stars to take us off the planet."
Sensing his owner's distress, Polterpup hopped up to his feet, sniffing the ground vigorously. He shot over to E. Gadd, jumped on top of his head, ignoring his protests, and started gnawing on a joystick that was attached to the doctor's seat.
"Gah! Careful, you mutt! That's the controls to the Pixelator! You could end up teleporting us into the vacuum of space if you're not- Ohhhh."
E. Gadd started typing away at the monitor, muttering some scientific nonsense under his breath. That gave the others plenty of time to ask some proper, expository questions.
"What's a Pixelator? Is it some kind of video game teleporter? Because if it is, I want in on that." Coco asked.
"It's a teleporter, yes. This thing can deconstruct bodies and objects down to a molecular level and teletransportate them anywhere in the world, so long as there's a camera around. I used it a lot back in my adventure in Evershade Valley. I'm pretty sure my car keys are still lost somewhere in the other dimension, but it's pretty safe otherwise." Luigi explained.
"So, you guys just need to pixelate yourselves over, save this Rosalina lady, and kick Cortex and Bowser's butt, right? Any chance I can get a slice of that accion?" Tawna asked, slyly. Crash gave her a wink and a thumbs up, very much into the idea.
But, like was normal for the story, something came up to make things harder for them
"There's a problem with that." E. Gadd revealed. "The distance that I'd have to pixelate you is massive, and the Pixelator doesn't have the power to perform such a feat."
"So? That shouldn't be a problem, we could just find some stars and power it up, right?" Mario suggested.
"We can, yes. But unfortunately, we'd need around, hmmm, carry the 1, divide by shininess… 121 stars to achieve the necessary power."
The Mushroom Kingdomites hissed at the thought. 121 stars. That was an entire adventure in its own right. There was no way they would be able to get all of those stars on time.
"That sounds like a lot of stuff to collect. Are you sure there are no alternatives we can use? Something more easily accessible?" Aku Aku asked.
"There aren't many, no. Power moons could be an option, but they don't output nearly as much power as power stars. Shine sprites are all the way on Isle Delfino. We could try out- "
As E. Gadd rattled out option after option, each with their own detriments, a thought echoed in Crash's brain. Power star. Power star. Power star. Power- power something. It was something familiar to him, definitely. Power bars? No. Power chair? No. Power blisters? Ew- wait! That was it!
Coco was also mulling it over in her brain, when Crash tapped her shoulder. "What is it, Crash?"
The older bandicoot made a diamond shape with his hands, then mimed running around, looking for something. He adopted a hunched over posture, babbling in a faux deep voice, and then straightened out and spoke in a higher pitched one, waggling his finger while shaking his head no. He seemed to be imitating her, chastising him. She did that a lot, but he was calling back to a specific moment in their life. Something involving Dr. Cortex… wait!
"Dr. Cortex is secretly Beyonce? No? Oh, the power crystals! I was way off."
Her outburst caught the others' attention, stopping E. Gadds rambling. "Hey, Professor Gadd. How much power would you say a single one of your power stars outputs exactly? I think we're onto something, but I need some mathematical confirmation."
"Hmm, well." What followed was a rapid fire discussion between the two, filled with so much complex technobabble to be borderline indecipherable to the others. Still, it didn't take much to know what it was about.
"Power crystals, hmmm, that sounds like a good idea. Though there might be a problem with that." Aku Aku thought out loud.
They were going to get their answers anyway. The two had finished their discussion, Coco tapping on her tablet while E. Gadd supervised. "Alright, according to our calculations, we need about 121 stars to achieve the power necessary to pixelate ourselves to the Good Egg Galaxy. But, if we add in a single power crystal, we can reduce that star amount tooooo… 21!"
That elicited some positive reactions from the locals. "21 is definitely more achievable. I can head back to the castle and collect those while the rest of you get one of your power crystals!" Peach suggested.
"But there's an issue with that! The power crystals were destroyed after we blew up the Cortex Vortex and the Time Twister. As far as I know, the only crystals left are the ones used to power the Psychetron." Aku AKu pointed out, dimming the mood.
"Well, can't we just take one from the machine?" Coco asked.
"How many crystals does it need for it to work?"
"Well, it needs six, and there's six inside. If we take one out…" Coco started counting on her fingers, using her big brain to process the complicated math question before her. "That leaves five. And five is- yep, we can't use it. Dr. N. Brio, is there any chance for there to be more crystals still around in the castle?" She turned to ask Cortex's former lackey. He hummed in thought as he tried to remember.
"Hmmm, the-they scoured the wreckage of the Cortex Vortex to find those crystals, that's for sure. It took months for the interns to collect them, and according to N. Gin, who briefed me in before we left for this dimension, there m-m-might be some still left intact around the wreckage. I can't guarantee it, though, it's a pretty buh-buh-big might."
"Well, there we go, we have our plan!" Mario was optimistic. "While you guys stick back and look for stars, we can go look for the crystal by this vortex thingy! I bet you we'll have this whole thing powered up before lunch time!"
"I'll definitely need help searching on my end, the castle is quite big. And I don't think the toads will be of much help." Peach pointed out. Tawna walked over to her with a confident stride, ready to volunteer herself.
"How's about I come with? Been a while since I stretched out the ol' bounty huntin' legs of mine." She did not say, being interrupted by Dingodile walking right in front of her.
She had to shove him aside to get her offer out. "Count everything he just said for me too. I wanna have a look around this place. Especially in regards to visiting royalty."
"Oh, that's very kind of the both of you." Peach simply chuckled. "I'll be sure to give everyone here a proper tour of my castle and kingdom once this whole debacle is over. We can start going back."
The trio made their way downstairs back to the elevator, exchanging good byes with the sibling duos. Coco had opened up the portal. Their destination? Cortex Island.
As they jumped away, N. Brio, E. Gadd and Polterpup were left behind. The chemist scratched his back a bit, waiting for the awkward silence to end.
"Soooo… how about that death ray of yours?"
"Oh, it's in the basement. I've been thinking about adding a popcorn function to it for some time now."
"Oh, heating problems, I assume? I ran into the same problems with my death ray- "
In the abandoned areas of Cortex Island, where no Lab Assistant dared set foot at the risk of being exploded; or fired, and in the place where the ruins of Uka Uka's prison once laid, lay the ruins of Dr. Neo Cortex's Cortex Vortex. While it took only one chunk of the space worthy brainwashing device to free the once sealed evil mask, it didn't take long for the rest of it to come along to Earth while the Bandicoots were off on their time traveling adventure.
A huge canyon had been carved out thanks to the debris, though thankfully the forest had already begun recovering by the time our heroes popped out of a dimensional rift and landed a distance away from the canyon itself.
"Are you sure we'll be able to find a crystal at all? I don't think anything could have survived something like this." Luigi pointed out as he stared at the chunks of metal that dotted the end of the Canyon.
"We can only hope." Aku Aku said. "Keep your eyes peeled anyway, it may take us hours, maybe even days before we can even possibly catch a glimpse of one crystal, let alone an intact one."
Crash stopped in his tracks when he saw a crystal sticking out of the ground by the cliff overlooking the canyon.
"Or we can just find one now." Aku Aku said, bewildered.
"What are the odds of that?"
"Gimme a moment." Coco looked at her tablet to answer Luigi's question. Meanwhile, Crash started to walk towards the crystal to grab it. "According to math, we had a 0.000000000000- there's, like, a few hundred zeroes to this. So I'd say astronomically low."
"Well you know what they say: never look a gift star in the eye. It's just plain rude to do that. They're very shy, you know. Just take it and don't ask questions. Let's just take the crystal before some unforeseeable coincidence makes things harder for us" Mario casually said.
Crash reached for the crystal, dramatically wiggling his fingers as he went to grasp it, dramatically, and hoping that nothing dramatic would happen to artificially enhance the stakes. Dramatically.
Before that could happen, though he dramatically bumped his head into something.
Crash's "ow." caught the others' attention, making them turn to see Crash grasping his head in pain.
And another Crash doing the same across from him.
The other Crash looked pretty different from what they knew their Crash looked like. Same general body structure, but with big floppy ears, eyebrows bushier than Crash's own, a pair of green jorts instead of the dark blue they knew, and an impressive overbite and bulbous nose.
"Ow, that hurt!"
Oh, this Crash could talk too? Well that was interesting.
Crash looked in confusion at his double.
His double looked in confusion at him.
Crash struck a pose. His double struck a pose as well.
Crash pulled at his cheeks and made a funny face.
His double did the same funny face as well.
Soon enough, the two were cycling through random poses at an increasingly rapid pace. The others could only look on in confusion at the display. Except for Aku Aku, who concentrated on the second Crash, until it dawned on him.
"I've seen this Crash before."
"You have? Cause I don't remember anything about a second Crash back at Castle Cortex." Coco questioned.
"Perhaps not back when you were in training, but I've seen him around during our time traveling adventure, dancing for no reason. I thought it was just some glitch in the fabric of reality, but here we are. He was real all along."
The two Crashes had finally tired themselves out, and had settled with poking each other to gauge who was real, and who was some sort of hallucination induced by too many hits to the head. A high pitched, whiny voice coming from the woods caused everyone to turn their attention away from the Crashes display, Other Crash looking especially startled.
"Ugh, bro, what's taking so long!" Out of the woods, another Coco, with similar features to the other Crash in terms of an overbite and extra bushy black eyebrows, and apparently dyed blonde hair if the black roots were to go by, walked towards the group with her hands on her hips. "We're wasting daylight! My great invention needs that crystal."
"Sorry, sis. It's just, you know, all of this." Other Crash pointed at the original Crash and Coco and their friends, looking especially confused.
Other Coco looked at her doppleganger, and scoffed. "Well, well, well. If it isn't those inferior doppelgangers Papa Cortex told us about."
"Inferior? Oh, I am gonna show you inferior, you- !" Coco was held back by the brothers before she did anything drastic. Other Coco rolled her eyes.
"Temper temper, me. But we don't have time for arguments. Papa Cortex isn't here to tell us what to do anymore, so now I can finally show my genius to the world with nothing to stand in my way! Crash, the crystal."
Other Crash went to grab the crystal, only for Crash to grab it at the same time. "Hey, let go. We need this thing."
"Well we need it more to save the world." Mario said. "What could be more important than that?"
"You wanna know, moustache man? Why this crystal will help me power the greatest invention this world will ever lay its eyes on! An invention that no genius in this world has ever even had an inkling of a thought on!"
Other Coco posed dramatically, raising her arms to the air to emphasize the importance of her creation.
"The Butter Recycling Machine!" She declared to the world.
And the world remained silent. Or at least those present. At least Other Crash had the decency to clap, along with regular Crash.
"Butter recycling? Really?" Coco was the first to say, causing Other Coco's bravado to deflate.
"I mean, yeah, it's a bother to have to go to the store whenever you run out, but butter's easy enough to get. Why recycle it?" Luigi felt the need to add. "It sounds nice, but a bit too niche in my opinion, right bro?"
"Hey, I don't know enough about cooking to have an opinion on this. It just goes into spaghetti and cakes, that's all I'll ever need to know."
Other Coco rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Bah, you non-believers don't know how dumb you sound. My invention will revolutionize the cooking world, and make my brother and I into billionaires!"
"Yeah, in another reality, maybe. But I had that idea years ago, I did the math, and newsflash, it's never gonna catch on." Coco explained smugly.
"Yeah, well you wait and see. When I get that crystal to power the butter recycler, I will patent the machine and sell it to the world. There will be butter recyclers in every single household, workplace and restaurant. It will become a household name, and revolutionize the cooking world forever! And when I'm rich, I'll show up to your house and rub all of my money and fame in your poor and not famous face, Fake Coco."
"You're the fake!"
Crash and Other Crash dropped the crystal to keep their sisters from trying to kill each other. "Come on, sis. Let's just let them have the crystal and find something else. I hear solar energy is all the rage these days."
"Oh, don't bother holding me back, bro. I'll get that crystal if it's the first thing I'll do!"
"Uhh, don't you mean the last thing you do?" Mario questioned.
"Nope."
The Other Coco suddenly rushed at Real Crash and body slammed him off his feet, sending the crystal flying into the air and to land in Other Crash's hands.
"So long, suckers!" She said as she shoved her brother and herself off the cliff, shocking the heroes.
"What the- hey!" Coco was the first to rush forward, the others following along to the edge of the cliff to peak over it…
To see the Other Bandicoots sliding down the canyon, the Coco riding her Crash like a skateboard. She did a kickflip with her brother in order to give them the loser sign and stick out her tongue at them, before riding away.
"Wow, that's actually kind of impressive." Mario whistled in awe.
"Yeah, that Fake Coco is cool and all. But what she doesn't know is that Crash and I invented humiliskating. And were gonna show them who's the best at it."
Crash, who had just managed to get back up to his feet and walked over them, immediately knew what was gonna happen, and shook his head.
"What? It was my turn last time, now it's your turn!"
Crash put his foot down. He could still feel the road rash on his butt from the last few times. He was the one who didn't wear a shirt, he lacked the protection.
"Ugh, okay, rock, paper, scissors for it?" Coco suggested, presenting her hand.
The older bandicoot thought on it, before agreeing to it. He presented his own hand, and following the ancient ritual of rock, paper, scissors, played the game.
"Shoot!"
Crash had rock, Coco had paper. It was time to accept defeat.
Crash sighed, walked over to the cliffside, and waited for Coco to hop on top of him, knocking themselves into the canyon and riding off.
Mario, Luigi and Aku Aku had witnessed the whole scene, the former two in clear confusion, the latter with fatherly exasperation.
"This has happened before?" Luigi asked.
"Annoyingly, yes. They seem to have invented a sport regarding riding people like skateboards. It's the sort of thing one has to expect from adopting two children who were raised by mad scientists. I just accept it and move on." The mask simply shook his head, before turning to address the bros lack of transportation. "Will you two need any help chasing after them? Because I refuse to be used as a board."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about it, Mr. Aku. Luigi and I have this covered."
Mario scanned the area for something to use, before settling with two boulders that were sitting particularly close together, with just enough space between them that shoving something through the opening would achieve the desired effect. Luigi quickly moved over to the two rocks, then jumped onto his side, letting Mario smash him with his hammer in between the rocks.
Out the other end, a perfectly flattened Luigi was dispensed, ready to be used as a board. Mario grabbed him, tossed him in the air, then hopped on right over the cliff, letting gravity do the rest of the work to send them down the canyon path, on their way to reach the Fake's.
Aku Aku sighed, before floating after them to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. It was hard being the sane one of the group, but it had to be done. The cliff was now empty, the gentle wind rustling the trees leaves as the sun rose.
Until the cliff was shaken by a loud stomp, and a loud roar. A tree was knocked down off its roots, as the new visitor looked down the cliff to watch the slowly shrinking forms of the bandicoots and bros.
It looked like fun, and the place it found itself in looked great for a nap. But it had to remember its job it needed to do, and a boss who had given them very clear instructions.
"I want you to go down to this Cortex Island place and find me some crystals. Purple rocks, you'll know them when you see them. And if you see the Mario Bros, tell them I'm not gonna let them muck up my plans without a fight."
"Lord Bowser, are you sure sending Petey Piranha down there is a good idea? Not to insult his competence, but he doesn't have the best track record with the bros."
"I don't need perfection, I need a distraction. Besides, I've got a good feeling about this time. You listening, Petey? Don't screw this up."
Petey Piranha scratched his butt, and let out a burp he had been holding in for a while. Guess he was supposed to do something now.