Finding Your Holiday Mojo

Chapter 1

The waves crashed rhythmically against the tropical island's shore, the salty ocean breeze causing the grains of sand that made up the beach to billow about. Seagulls cawed as they flew overhead, diving down to skim the surface of the water in the hopes of snatching up a stray fish or two. Just inland, two flowing arcs of water cascaded from out of the eye sockets of a skull-shaped rock formation… and it was at the base of this waterfall where the quantum rift appeared.

A visible tear in the very fabric of reality, this portal to another time and space hung in mid-air like a rip in a canvas, a black void with glittering silver stars visible within. For a moment, it merely hung there, a distinct blemish on the otherwise marvel of nature that was N. Sanity Island… and then a figure came tumbling out of the rift, flailing her arms wildly and crying out in alarm as she fell, wide-eyed, through the air to land face-first in the sand. A moment later, a pure white suitcase with a powder blue handle and matching clips and latches landed on the beach beside the figure, as though someone had thrown it through the portal after her.

The figure just lay there for a few seconds, her underdeveloped bat wings visibly drooping beneath the backpack she wore over one shoulder. She then lifted her head up very suddenly, coughing and spluttering, spraying grains of sand from her mouth. She got to her feet, brushing the sand from her jet black t-shirt and mossy green jeans as she did so, revealing the t-shirt's insignia, which consisted of two crescent shapes arranged to form a circle, the upper crescent a fiery orange and the lower one a pleasant ocean blue. An image of a Wumpa fruit sat between the crescents, perfectly framed within the circle. The words 'Wumpa League' were written just underneath the logo in stylised letters.

"Talk about coming in on neither wings nor a prayer," the young woman muttered to herself as she slid her backpack from her shoulder before proceeding to instinctively shake herself like a dog, sending any grains of sand caught in her light brown fur flying in all directions. She then realised what she was doing and quickly glanced around, seeing no one. "Hope nobody saw me do that," she went on, a little self-conscious of her animalistic traits; she may have been born - or rather cloned - an anthropomorphic bat, but she was every bit as sapient as a human, and she didn't want anyone to think she was anything less than that based on a few primal habits she might have.

Returning her backpack to its previous position and picking up the suitcase, the bat girl started to proceed inland, the quantum rift closing behind her as she went, a floating tribal mask appearing in its wake. The blue mask let out an over-the-top gasp, drawing great breaths via its painted, exaggerated mouth, its milky white eyes (which lacked visible pupils) wide.

"Oh, man. I'm out of practice," Lani-Loli said aloud breathlessly, the Quantum Mask taking a moment to compose himself - something that he struggled to do at the best of times - before noticing that the bat girl had already gone on ahead. "Hey, wait up!" he positively shrieked, not wanting to be left alone on the beach (for as peaceful as it was), quickly floating after the young, fur-covered woman.

"Hey, are you alright?" the bat girl asked as the mask caught up with her, glancing at him out of the corner of her sapphire blue eye. "You look like how I felt after I used a transport tube for the first time!"

"I'm okay, yes," Lani-Loli assured her in response, though he didn't sound completely certain. "Well, 'okay' is a little bit of a strong word," he went on, quickly breaking into his usual rambling, indicating that he was perfectly fine… assuming that his usual neurotic self could indeed be considered 'fine'. "I mean, on a scale of one to ten, I'd say I'm at like, a six-point-five, maybe a six-point-eight, which is not ideal, but—"

"Wow, he really is a bit of a head case, isn't he?" the bat girl murmured to herself, smirking knowingly; her friends had told her what Lani-Loli was like most days. Speaking of those friends, she was coming up to their house even now. Having left the beach behind and moved into the shade of the trees, she was approaching a cottage that sat at the edge of the path leading into the deep, lush jungles of N. Sanity island. The walls of the cottage were of a creamy white colour and appeared rounded and flowing, as though the domicile were a naturally formed structure rather than a manmade building. The wooden front door was perfectly circular and positively cute, like something out of a medieval fantasy world. In fact, the house itself wouldn't have looked out of place in a children's picture book. If the bat girl didn't know better, she'd expect the cottage to house a family of fairies or forest nymphs. Interestingly enough, it was a group of beings that were arguably of an even more fantastical nature who called this place home…

The bat girl stepped up to the front door, no longer paying attention to Lani-Loli's ramblings as she set her suitcase down for a moment, raising her fur-covered left hand - below which a tribal-looking tattoo was visible on her wrist in glossy black ink - to knock.

After about thirty seconds, footsteps could be heard approaching the door from inside the house. A lock clicked, and then the door slowly swung outwards to reveal an individual who shared the bat girl's anthropomorphic nature, albeit with fur of a different colour and texture, as well as a lack of wings.

The individual in the doorway was an adolescent girl, just short of being a teenager, with smooth orange fur covering her body, blond hair tied back in a ponytail on her head, emerald green eyes and a warm smile on her muzzle. She was clad in what appeared to be a jade green Santa costume, complete with a matching hat with a little white bobble on the end.

"Barista!" Coco Bandicoot greeted, stepping forward to embrace the bat girl in a hug. "So glad you could come!"

The bat girl, Barista, chuckled and returned the embrace, noticing a faint scent of cinnamon sugar and baked Wumpa on Coco's clothes as she did so. "Likewise," she said. There was a moment of silence as the two continued their hug, and then Barista began to fidget slightly. "Should we, um, break off the hug now?"

"Oh! Right. Sorry," Coco said, chuckling awkwardly, quickly obliging the bat girl's request. "It's the holiday spirit; it makes a persistent hugger out of me."

"Right, right. I just… Well, y'know, I'm supposed to be a grown-up and you're a kid and I don't how how long I'm allowed to be in a child's personal space before it starts to seem weird…" Barista babbled awkwardly. She then blushed. "I'm making it weird by saying that, aren't I?"

"Heh. Yeah, just a little bit," Coco said, scratching the back of her neck uncomfortably.

"I don't get out often, especially not to other dimensions," Barista admitted, chuckling in misplaced embarrassment. "Most days, I keep to the apartment complex, just loitering around while I wait for Megumi to come back… I mean, I don't just wait for her, like I'm her dog or anything… Wait, am I allowed to say that? Dog?" she then asked, a look of worry appearing on her face. "Or is that like, a derogatory term among anthropomorphic canines? Are anthropomorphic canines even a thing? Am I being politically correct by calling them such, or am I just—?!"

"Whoa, whoa, easy there!" Coco exclaimed, holding up her hands to try and halt Barista's irrational, panicked ramblings. "Don't overthink it, alight? We invited you here to celebrate the holiday season with us, not to spend it freaking out."

Barista exhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. "Right. Sorry," she said, scratching the back of her head sheepishly, now appearing really embarrassed at herself. She chuckled. "We Brat Girls are nothing if not irrational; I guess old instincts die hard, huh?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about it," Coco assured her, the bandicoot girl dropping her voice to a whisper as Lani-Loli floated past them and made his way inside. "You're hardly the only one around here who's irrational."

"I heard that!" Lani-Loli called back to them, prompting Coco and Barista to laugh.

"Anyway, come on in!" Coco said brightly, gesturing for the bat girl to step inside, the bandicoot girl grabbing Barista's suitcase for her and closing the door behind her. "You hungry? The kitchen's just through here," the brainy marsupial went on, gesturing towards an open doorway beyond the living room, in which Crash was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, a bright red Santa hat adorning his noggin, the spin-happy hero currently fast asleep with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. A medium-sized Christmas tree with a number of brightly coloured present boxes at its base stood erected beside the sofa, adorned with tinsel, tropical bird feathers, seashells (one of which appeared to be moving, suggesting that a hermit crab was inside of it), a number of jewel-encrusted artefacts that appeared to be of Egyptian origin, each one either sapphire, gold or platinum in colour… and at the very top of the tree was a shimmering purple mineral that had been cut in the shape of a star.

This crystal star was mesmerisingly beautiful - so much so that as Barista went to walk past the tree and head towards the kitchen, she couldn't help but stop in her tracks and stare up at it in awe, her mouth slightly agape. "It's so shiny…" she whispered to herself, a funny look starting to form in her eye. "So wonderfully shiny…"

"Whoa, steady there," Coco said warningly, clicking her fingers in front of Barista's face to get her attention. The bat girl blinked, seeming momentarily dazed. "Don't stare directly at it for too long, okay? It's cut from Power Crystal ore, that star, and prolonged ocular exposure to Power Crystals can have strange effects on one's mind."

"Oh. R-Right. Sorry," Barista managed, shaking her head as if to clear it. 'Was that what it feels like to be hypnotised?' she wondered to herself as she allowed Coco to guide her away from the tree. She shivered at the thought. The idea of being rendered helpless by a power that could influence, if not dominate her mind was one that unsettled her greatly. 'Maybe I shouldn't mention this to Megumi…'

The kitchen was filled with the delicious smells of baking cookies and pastries, as well as the delectable aroma of roast meat - chicken, if Barista wasn't mistaken. Well, one could argue that chicken was 'poultry' rather than meat, but that was neither here nor there. All Barista knew was that her snout was picking up on a number of different flavours, all of which made her want to lick her muzzle at the thought of sinking her teeth into the sources of such flavour.

"Oh! Ohhh, m-my! Is that… cinnamon-Wumpa pie I smell?" she asked hopefully.

"Sure is," said a familiar voice from over by the stove, and Barista's eyes lit up as her gaze fell upon Tawna, the adventurous bandicoot dressed in her usual brown jacket with spiked shoulders, blue jeans with visible patchwork and hot pink leg warmers worn over brown boots. She was stirring a saucepan of gravy on the stove, a wooden spoon in her gloved hand. "Got the recipe from an old friend."

"Tawna!" Barista cried excitedly, racing across the room to greet her fellow adult. "Oh, man, you haven't changed a bit! I, uh, mean that in the nicest way," she added quickly, causing Tawna to laugh heartily.

"Ah, c'mere, you kooky…! Just get in here!" the bandicoot woman declared good-naturedly, pulling the bat girl into a playful headlock, leaving the wooden spoon resting in the gravy saucepan while she vigorously rubbed her fist against Barista's scalp through the mutated bat's purple and red hair. Barista laughed… and then winced; it seemed that Tawna didn't quite know her own strength.

"Uncle! Uncle!" she cried, still laughing at first, but then her smile faltered. "Seriously, you're hurting me," she said in a more uneasy tone.

"Oops! Sorry 'bout that!" Tawna said, quickly relenting her playful assault and slackening her grip, allowing Barista to slip free of her hold. "I forget that not everyone can take it like Crash. I swear you could drop an anvil on his head and he'd just walk it off - not that I plan on testing that."

"Well, I should hope not," Coco said, and all three of them laughed.

"Anyway, how are ya?" Tawna asked Barista. "How's life in the SNaXX Dimension? How's Megumi treating you? Asked you to tie the knot yet?" She laughed again. "Ah, I'm just kidding!"

Barista laughed along with Tawna, but now her laughter was a bit more shaky and uncertain. She knew Tawna had meant it as a joke, but in the past few months (which were technically over a thousand years in the future because dimension-hopping was weird like that), she had been feeling… conflicted in regards to how she felt about Megumi, her roommate. In fact, Barista still wasn't completely sure where she stood in regards to the topic of sexuality; having been created to serve an alternate version of Doctor Neo Cortex as his minion, and given how quickly her life had taken a number of wild and unexpected turns since then, she hadn't really had time to think about how she might feel in regards to anyone around her on a deeper level until sometime after she had settled in at Megumi's apartment in the futuristic Neon City. All of this in the span of less than half a year (give or take time flowing differently in different dimensions)… It was enough to make anyone's head spin as much as Crash spun his whole body on a regular basis, and thus, the idea of a relationship that went deeper than friendship was still one that was very much alien to Barista. She just didn't know if she was ready for something like that, and the more she thought about it, the more confused and uncertain she became.

"I'm good. How are you, Tawna?" she asked, trying to play it cool. "How's, um, Dingodile?"

"I'm doing alright, and Dingo's the same as ever," Tawna replied. "He's currently holed up in Crash's room, playing video games with the new kid. Oh! Did Coco tell you about her, that new kid?" the bandicoot woman went on.

"I was getting there," Coco insisted, setting down Barista's suitcase and reaching for a Christmas cookie from one of the platters on the kitchen table as she spoke. The cookie was cut in the shape of a Christmas tree, decorated with green icing, red sprinkles and cinnamon sugar. She took a bite out of it, speaking her next words with her mouth full. "She's some sort of exchange student from China, here to learn about N. Sane culture. I keep forgetting her name, though. What was it…?" she wondered aloud, directing her gaze to the ceiling as she tried to remember, swallowing her mouthful of biscuit as she stood there. "Yoyo? Cha-Cha? Fifi? No, it was…"

"Gravy!" Tawna said suddenly.

"Her name is Gravy?" Barista repeated, raising an eyebrow.

"No, I mean, the gravy's burning!" the adult bandicoot cried, hurriedly taking the saucepan off the stove. "Take my eyes off it for a second and everything goes backside up! Honestly!"

"Well, you're still doing better than Crash was the last time I put him in charge of the kitchen," Coco stated, smirking knowingly.

"Oh, do tell!" Barista pleaded, grinning a devious, knowing grin as she helped herself to a cookie. She bit into it and then let out a little moan of pleasure, closing her eyes as she savoured the taste. "Ooh, this is good," she mused. "I'll have to sneak a few of these to North later."

Tawna laughed. "Go for it. There's plenty here," she said. "Coco helped me ice 'em earlier"

"You mean 'frost' them?"

"I know what I said."

Coco chuckled somewhat shakily. "Okay, take it easy, you two," she said. She knew that Tawna and Barista were just joking around, but the last time the two had met, things had gotten a little heated due to a disagreement between them.

"Relax, I'm just having fun with her," Tawna assured her fellow bandicoot. "Icing, frosting… It all tastes good once you shove it in your gob." She then paused, considering what she had just said. "'Shove it in your gob'? Jeez, I've been hanging around Dingodile for too long."

"No fair! NO FAIR!" a voice that Barista didn't recognise suddenly shouted from somewhere outside of the kitchen. The shout was followed by the sound of hurried footsteps and quite suddenly, there was something small, fluffy and black and white bouncing around the kitchen like a jumping bean.

"What the—?!" Barista exclaimed as this apparent monochrome blur repeatedly zoomed around the kitchen table at speeds that were surely impossible.

"Oh, no, not again!" Tawna exclaimed. "Crash! CRASH! Get in here and give us a hand, will ya?"

"Not fair! Not fair! Cheater! Cheater!" the mysterious blur declared in a shrill voice, Barista just staring at it in bewildered horror, starting to back away from the table. Coco made to grab the blur as it shot by her, but she completely missed and ended up falling front-first onto the floor, her green Santa hat falling from her head. "Ooh! Nifty!" the blur said, and as it sped past Barista again, it passed over the piece of headwear and in an instant, the hat was gone, which only freaked out the onlooking bat girl even more. What was this… apparition?!

Crash suddenly burst into the room, his own Santa hat lopsided and his muzzle locked in an exasperated grimace. He took one look at the scene before him and glanced over his shoulder, crying out something in gibberish, gesturing with his gloved hand for someone outside of the kitchen to come to his aid. A second later, Kapuna-Wa, one of Lani-Loli's fellow Quantum Masks, floated into view.

"By the times! Such a commotion!" the golden spirit mask exclaimed, the crescent moons that patterned her headdress starting to glow blue. She then flew straight at Crash, instantly fusing with the adolescent bandicoot to form a suit of magical golden armour around his being. As soon as he was equipped with this mystical suit, Crash snapped his fingers and—

"Whoa…" Barista exclaimed in awe as the very air in the kitchen seemed to ripple with some otherworldly energy. In an instant, the fast-moving blur was instantly brought to a halt… except not quite; it was still moving, only now it was doing so in slow motion. As if that wasn't wild enough, Barista could now see the blur for what it was: An anthropomorphic panda cub clad in a green dress top patterned with images of mistletoe, red pants and green slip-on shoes. She had long black hair that was tied back, mischievous green eyes and her cheeks were visibly rosy underneath her white facial fur. The fur that covered the rest of her body was black and even more sleek than Coco's. She was wearing Coco's Santa hat, the piece of headwear only covering one of her rounded panda ears, the visible one twitching in slow motion, her triangular snout doing the same.

"I… smell… cookies." she managed slowly in a voice that was distinctly deepened by the slow motion effect.

"What… the…?" Barista said, completely bewildered by what was going on. Her eyes then slowly, slowly widened as she realised that she, too, was moving and speaking at a snail's pace, as was Coco and even Tawna. Just what in the heck was going on?!

Crash then strode across the room, moving at normal speed, much to Barista's surprise. Then it clicked for her; this was Kapuna-Wa's power. She had powered up Crash with the ability to slow down time. Now that she thought of it, she remembered the version of Crash Bandicoot from her world of origin pulling off a similar feat with a Grimly Titan.

Crash walked up to the panda cub and took hold of her hand. In an instant, she was moving at normal speed and, thankfully, was no longer an impossibly fast blur. "Aw, man, what a buzzkill!" she exclaimed, her voice having returned its normal pitch and speed as well. Crash raised his free hand and snapped his fingers again. The air in the kitchen rippled once more, and all at once, everything was back to normal, the flow of time restored to its usual pace. Barista drew a sharp intake of breath, still a little shaken by what she had just experienced.

"That's… more like it," Coco managed as she picked herself up off the floor., dusting herself off. "I'll take that!" she went on, snatching her Santa hat from atop the panda cub's head and returning it to its spot on her own head.

"Aw, you're no fun!" the panda cub declared, pouting childishly as she stood there with her arms folded. Then her large green eyes wandered to the cookie platter. "Cookies!" she cried excitedly, her arms moving at that same impossible speed she had used before to snatch up two of the baked goods. She took a bite out of each of them in turn, looking beyond pleased. "They're so yummy!"

Coco exhaled deeply, taking a moment to compose herself. "Barista Garnet," she said with a forced air of calm, "This… is Yaya Panda, our other current house guest. Yeah, now I can remember her name clearly. All too clearly, as it were," she added in a dark mutter. "Yaya, be polite and say hi to Barista Garnet, please."

"Hi to Barista Garnet, please," Yaya Panda said without missing a beat, her words barely coherent due to her mouthful of biscuit. She then giggled at her own smart-aleck words. "Ooh! Are you a bat?" she then asked, darting over to Barista in a literal instant. "I've never met a bat before." In an instant, she was gone, and then Barista yelped when she felt someone touching her wings from behind. "Wow, your wings feel so… wing-y," Yaya said in childlike wonder.

"H-How did you get back there?!" Barista cried, bewildered as she hurriedly stepped forward to get away from the impossibly quick panda cab, only for Yaya to suddenly 'appear' in front of her again. "Seriously, how is she doing that?!" she asked Coco, Tawna and Crash, who looked on with a mixture of resigned exasperation and knowing amusement. "Can she teleport?"

"Teleport? Pfft!" Yaya said with a dismissive snort, grinning from ear to rounded ear. "Who needs teleportation with moves like these?" On that note, she became a blur again, zipping around to the far side of the table. "I'm fluffy…" She zipped back around to stand before Barista. "…And fast! Pretty cool, huh?"

Tawna groaned in annoyance. "Yep, she was born with super speed, apparently," the bandicoot woman elaborated. "Sonic The Hedgehog, eat your heart out," she went on, shaking her head. "Wish something would eat her…" she then muttered snidely.

"Hey! That's not very nice!" Yaya complained, instantly zipping up in front of Tawna, standing between her and the stove and pouting up at her. "You should say you're sorry!"

"Oh, I am," Tawna said, her tone no less snide. "Just not for being annoyed at you, kiddo."

"You wanna go?" Yaya taunted, cockily trying to coax Tawna into coming closer with one paw-like hand, even though the two were already almost touching. "I could literally run circles around you! Know why? Because I'M A PANDA!" she bellowed.

"Pandas are not inherently fast, and certainly nowhere near as fast as you, Yaya," Coco pointed out.

"Aye, you're a special case, I reckon," Kapuna-Wa said as she de-merged from Crash to float beside him once more. "In more ways than one, I daresay…"

"Oh, you're all just jealous!" Yaya declared, zipping over to the cookie tray once more and grabbing another snack, cramming the biscuit into her mouth, chewing rapidly before swallowing and letting out a massive belch, causing Tawna to groan once more.

"Cor, blimey. And you all think I've got bad manners," Dingodile said as he appeared at the kitchen doorway.

Yaya's eyes widened in outrage at the sight of the dingo-crocodile hybrid. "CHEATER!" she shouted again, brandishing a finger at the burly restaurant owner accusingly. "CHEATER! He doesn't play fairly!"

"Oh, crikey, not this again," Dingodile exclaimed in exasperation. "Look, kid, I beat you fair and square in that last game; I'm not gonna bend over backwards and let you win just 'cause you're a kid."

"No fair! No fair!" Yaya cried shrilly, bouncing up and down on the spot as she spoke, seeming to be on the verge of throwing a full-scale childish tantrum. "Big meanie! That's all you are - a big, fat, stupid meanie!"

"St-Stupid?! Why, you little tyke! I oughta—!" Dingodile began, but Tawna shot him a warning look from across the room and he faltered. "Look, how 'bout we make it best five out of seven? Would that settle you down?"

Yaya looked thoughtful. "Okay!" she said more cheerfully after a moment, giving a quick nod before zipping over to Dingodile, standing before his bulky form and then starting to wave her arms about wildly, gesturing hurriedly for him to move out of the way so she could get through, "C'mon, I wanna play, I wanna play!" she whined impatiently.

"Alright, alright! Don't get yer knickers in a twist!" Dingodile exclaimed as he shuffled aside at his own pace. "We ain't all as loaded up with energy as you…"

"Is it always this like this around here?" Barista asked once Dingodile and Yaya had moved out of earshot.

Coco shrugged. "Sometimes it rains."

Barista stared at Coco for a few seconds., and then she burst out laughing, Crash and the others soon following suit.

"What does that even mean?" the bat girl asked between bouts of mirth.

"I don't know!" Coco replied, which just seemed to make everyone laugh all the harder.

Yep. I gave Yaya Panda super speed. I know that when she describes herself as fluffy and fast in-game, she's referring to her driving prowess, but I just HAD to be a smart-aleck and take her at her word for the sake of making her… well, more annoying than she otherwise would be for the sake of indulging my 'unique' sense of humour.

More chapters coming soon!