Chapter Four
The Mastermind
A bright pink head with a wicked toothy grin, connected to a metallic cylinder, with a metal arm and hand and a claw on the other arm. Two short legs. A spiral attached to the front of the body.
Dr. N. Trance, the Master of Hypnotism.
"What's the matter Crash?" Trance mocked. "Do I disappoint you? Were you expecting that fool Neo to be the mastermind of this operation, but found out it was I? Oh, boo hoo..." The egg shaped creature burst into a fit of laughter. Crash stared in disbelief, his word moving but making no sound as N. Trance continued, "You see Crash, who else better than me to make mind slaves out of these pathetic creatures than me, the Master of Hypnotism? They are useless creatures, these dolphins. Smart yes, but useless. They lack all weapons to fight. These sharks though... They are much more worthy, they can cause serious damage."
At last, Crash found his voice. "But... but where is Cortex?"
N. Trance burst into another fit of laughter. "That fool! He is being punished by our master Uka-Uka because he did not have the guts to carry out this mission. 'We can't just kill their babies,' he whined like one him-self. 'It's wrong. It's too much.' Pah! I care not for these stupid creatures. I, in fact, am the one who cuts off the little baby dolphins..." He held up his claw hand and the claw retracted and a more vicious, guillotine-like claw emerged, bloodstained. "In fact, I have an appointment with a wee one named Delphi in a little while I believe..."
Crash stared in disbelief and he began to back away. "You're a monster Trance. Cortex at least, is part human, but you..."
"Emotion is a weakness!" N. Trance shouted suddenly, his voice reaching a pitch of rage Crash had never seen before. "That is why I reign over that fool Neo! And it is why I shall end up as Uka-Uka's right hand man while that idiot Neo is used as my jester!" The bloodstained claw retracted and the regular claw reappeared in its rightful place. "Now get over here!"
Turning, Crash leapt to escape, but N. Trance's claw snagged his mid-section and drew Crash back towards him. "Now look into my eyes Crash," Trance ordered as his eyes glowed a deep yellow.
"Yes," Crash answered as he began to fall under Trance's control, his pupils shrinking. "Look."
"Now listen to me Crash," Trance continued, an evil smirk across his face, showing his pointed teeth. "You will go back to where you came from and you will put back on your scuba gear. You will then go to the Nitro warehouse and collect a Nitro harness and proceed to the blasting site. But, you will not simply drop the Nitro. No, you shall go down to the center of the crater and wait. You shall wait until another dolphin drops Nitro upon you, causing one massive explosion. Understand?"
"Yes master," Crash answered, his eyes completely whitened.
N. Trance sat Crash back on the ground and watched as the bandicoot promptly made his way to the door, heading for his doom by his own two feet.
The hypnotic master threw him-self upon his chair and roared with laughter.
"Uuuuhhhhh..." Coco moaned as she slowly began to awake. Her head hurt badly. She slowly sat up upon the wet concrete she lay upon. She could not remember much at...
Suddenly it all came back to her. She'd slipped into the pool knocking her-self out. And then, Okura had charged her, about to eat her in a bite...
But if that was the case, who'd saved her?
"She's awake!" a young voice cried. Coco turned to see a young dolphin in the pool next to her. "You okay? That was a nasty slip you had."
"I think so," Coco groaned as she saw the young dolphin clearly. A sudden jolt of hope entered her body, like an electric shock. "Are... are you Delphi?"
"Uh huh," the young female smiled. "That's my name."
"And your mother is Gleam right?" Coco asked again. At once, she regretted saying that. Delphi's eyes began to well and the young dolphin started to snivel in unhappiness. "Hey, hey," Coco gently cooed to the child. "I'm sorry..."
"I haven't seen her for days," the baby struggled out as she began to sob. "She hasn't come back for me, and she always has before… I want to see her again..."
Coco sighed and stood up as Delphi began to sob uncontrollably. It was horrible what was going on here. Delphi was kept here, awaiting her execution and all she wanted was to see her mother. This had to be stopped.
Then, Coco spotted something moving in the pool below the surface. A creature of black and white moving towards Delphi. Okura was going to kill the baby! "Delphi! Quick! Get moving and I'll try to find you a way out!"
"W...what is it?" Delphi stammered having stopped her tears flowing.
"It's..." Coco began, but suddenly the young dolphin was swiftly pulled under the water. "Delphi!" Coco cried, as the little one was no more.
In shock, Coco fell to her knees at this horror. She couldn't believe it... She just couldn't...
"Oh, bugger off!" Delphi's voice snapped in anger. Coco's head snapped up to see Delphi floating beside a killer whale. But, this killer whale was much smaller compared to Okura. In fact, it was a child killer whale as well! It had a nifty look of how its eyes were surrounded by the white eye patch. "I'm not in the mood for games!" Delphi snapped angrily, her sorrow gone.
"Uh, who are you?" Coco stammered at the killer whale.
"Don't you recognize your savior?" It barked in a male tone voice. "I saved you from drowning in the pool and you don't remember me?" It shook its head in a mocking way. "I'm Spot."
"Err, pleased to meet you. And you too Delphi. I don't believe I've introduced my-self, I'm Coco," she smiled. Then, she noticed Spot was wearing a harness weapon similar to the one that Okura wore. "Hey, those weapons..."
Spot smiled and butted in, "The same model as my mother wears."
Coco bit her lip to say no more to this. She'd not only found Gleam's child, but Okura's as well.
Then, she remembered the curfew for her and Crash. Checking her watch, it was two hours and ten minutes since she and Crash had split. She had to get to the meeting place, but she couldn't leave these two like this, so that they could be butchered. "Hey, is there a door, gate or something down there?" Coco asked.
"Yeah," Spot nodded, "But we can't open it."
"Maybe I can," Coco said, eyeing the computer console she'd used earlier. Swinging the chair back, she started hacking again, searching for the way to open the door in the water. It wasn't that heavily encoded at all. Coco shrugged, guessing that Cortex did not expect anyone to be here.
Shaking her head, Coco swiftly unlocked the door below and turned back to Delphi and Spot. "Okay you two, off you go, you're free."
"Not so fast!" A voice barked behind her. Turning, Coco saw N. Trance standing there, an evil frown across his face. "It's feeding time for the sharks and a certain little dolphin is on the menu. Although, they may not mind a side order of bandicoot either..." He raised up his claw arm, a sharper, more sinister claw in its place than his usual claw. "I'll have to deal with you as I did with your brother..."
"What did you do to Crash?" Coco snapped, her eyes suddenly blazing.
"Oh nothing... yet," Trance grinned madly. "I merely 'persuaded' him to help out with the Nitro blasting. You can help too you know," Trance's eyes began to glow yellow.
Coco took no chances. She knew she only had seconds to act, before Trance stole her mind. She took a deep breath and leapt into the water behind her. Trance's claw flew over her and hit the water as she sunk, seconds after; the chain retracted the claw back. Then, Coco noticed Delphi offering her dorsal fin to Coco. She grabbed hold of it in a flash.
As the young dolphin shot up and out of the water in a jump, Coco took an even bigger breath and prepared her-self to hold her breath for a while. Then, Delphi dived to the bottom of the pool and shot towards the opposite wall.
The doors were closing; Trance had set them to close again. Delphi pumped her tail as hard as she could go. It was gonna be close!
The door slammed shut, seconds after Coco and Delphi shot through. Spot was waiting for them already there. Coco knew she couldn't hold her breath for too much longer. She tapped Delphi's head to get her attention and drew a circle and pointed to the building.
"Go round to the other side?" Delphi asked, her speech slightly blurred by the water.
Coco nodded, and the dolphin took off at once, knowing Coco couldn't hold her breath for too long, Spot was right behind them. They arrived at the hanger Coco had stashed her scuba gear and Coco pointed in the hanger.
Delphi entered and headed for the surface. Coco broke the surface and gasped deeply at the fresh air. It never felt so good in all her life.
Then, she heard the sound of approaching clanking. N. Trance was coming this way! She took another breath and dived under again. She swam, with Spot and Delphi by her side towards the half completed war ship. She resurfaced cautiously and looked around. She saw N. Trance climbing into a small submarine that hadn't been here before.
She was safe for the moment. Climbing out of the water, she found her scuba gear and quickly put it on and leapt back in. By this time, Trance and the submarine had gone. She flicked a switch on her mask and said to Spot and Delphi, "We need to get to the Nitro blasting site quickly or my brother will be blown to pieces! Will you help me?"
"On to it!" Spot answered, giving a wide orca grin.
"Take my fin again," Delphi told Coco, offering it to her again. "We'll go much faster this way."
Crash approached the Nitro blasting site; a harness attached to him carrying six glass cylinders full of a green liquid. Raw nitroglycerine.
A dolphin ahead of him swam over a patch of coral to a large crater and dropped its load of Nitro into the crater. There was an explosion and then the dolphin swam off and Crash moved forward.
"Wait," he said as he dived into the crater. "Wait in crater."
As he touched the bottom and began to wait, Coco, Delphi and Spot arrived and saw him. Coco let go of Delphi and dived down to him. "Crash? Crash, snap out of it!" she pleaded to him.
"Wait," Crash murmured in reply.
"Come on Crash!" Coco pleaded. "You can fight it!"
"Wait."
"Please Crash! Do it for me!"
"Wait."
Coco grabbed Crash's head and was about to shake some sense into him, when she remembered the Nitro attached to his body. Indeed she thrust her eyes to lock onto Crash's pupil-less eyes. "Look at me Crash! Do you know who I am?"
"Coco!"
"What?" she turned her head to face Spot. "What is it?"
"A dolphin is coming this way! Ready to blast!" The killer whale answered.
"You two try to hold them off for a bit more time!" She shouted back.
"Coco..."
"What?" Coco snapped back to Crash. A tiny black pupil had appeared in each eye. "Yes! Yes! It's me Crash! Remember? Coco?"
Crash blinked once, twice and then... "Coco?"
"Yes!" Coco shrieked in triumphant joy. "You're back!"
"Where was I?" Crash asked, confused.
"Never mind, I'll explain it later! We got to get out of here. This is the Nitro blasting site and you've got live Nitro on your-self!"
"I do?" Crash asked, his face screwed up in fear. "Then lets get going!"
Both ascended up a safe distance, before Crash unclipped the harness and let it drop into the crater. There was an explosion and everything then went quiet.
"Hey! Coco!" Spot's voice called out from behind them. "Look who we found!"
Both bandicoots turned and Coco, at once, felt her heart melt.
The Mastermind
A bright pink head with a wicked toothy grin, connected to a metallic cylinder, with a metal arm and hand and a claw on the other arm. Two short legs. A spiral attached to the front of the body.
Dr. N. Trance, the Master of Hypnotism.
"What's the matter Crash?" Trance mocked. "Do I disappoint you? Were you expecting that fool Neo to be the mastermind of this operation, but found out it was I? Oh, boo hoo..." The egg shaped creature burst into a fit of laughter. Crash stared in disbelief, his word moving but making no sound as N. Trance continued, "You see Crash, who else better than me to make mind slaves out of these pathetic creatures than me, the Master of Hypnotism? They are useless creatures, these dolphins. Smart yes, but useless. They lack all weapons to fight. These sharks though... They are much more worthy, they can cause serious damage."
At last, Crash found his voice. "But... but where is Cortex?"
N. Trance burst into another fit of laughter. "That fool! He is being punished by our master Uka-Uka because he did not have the guts to carry out this mission. 'We can't just kill their babies,' he whined like one him-self. 'It's wrong. It's too much.' Pah! I care not for these stupid creatures. I, in fact, am the one who cuts off the little baby dolphins..." He held up his claw hand and the claw retracted and a more vicious, guillotine-like claw emerged, bloodstained. "In fact, I have an appointment with a wee one named Delphi in a little while I believe..."
Crash stared in disbelief and he began to back away. "You're a monster Trance. Cortex at least, is part human, but you..."
"Emotion is a weakness!" N. Trance shouted suddenly, his voice reaching a pitch of rage Crash had never seen before. "That is why I reign over that fool Neo! And it is why I shall end up as Uka-Uka's right hand man while that idiot Neo is used as my jester!" The bloodstained claw retracted and the regular claw reappeared in its rightful place. "Now get over here!"
Turning, Crash leapt to escape, but N. Trance's claw snagged his mid-section and drew Crash back towards him. "Now look into my eyes Crash," Trance ordered as his eyes glowed a deep yellow.
"Yes," Crash answered as he began to fall under Trance's control, his pupils shrinking. "Look."
"Now listen to me Crash," Trance continued, an evil smirk across his face, showing his pointed teeth. "You will go back to where you came from and you will put back on your scuba gear. You will then go to the Nitro warehouse and collect a Nitro harness and proceed to the blasting site. But, you will not simply drop the Nitro. No, you shall go down to the center of the crater and wait. You shall wait until another dolphin drops Nitro upon you, causing one massive explosion. Understand?"
"Yes master," Crash answered, his eyes completely whitened.
N. Trance sat Crash back on the ground and watched as the bandicoot promptly made his way to the door, heading for his doom by his own two feet.
The hypnotic master threw him-self upon his chair and roared with laughter.
"Uuuuhhhhh..." Coco moaned as she slowly began to awake. Her head hurt badly. She slowly sat up upon the wet concrete she lay upon. She could not remember much at...
Suddenly it all came back to her. She'd slipped into the pool knocking her-self out. And then, Okura had charged her, about to eat her in a bite...
But if that was the case, who'd saved her?
"She's awake!" a young voice cried. Coco turned to see a young dolphin in the pool next to her. "You okay? That was a nasty slip you had."
"I think so," Coco groaned as she saw the young dolphin clearly. A sudden jolt of hope entered her body, like an electric shock. "Are... are you Delphi?"
"Uh huh," the young female smiled. "That's my name."
"And your mother is Gleam right?" Coco asked again. At once, she regretted saying that. Delphi's eyes began to well and the young dolphin started to snivel in unhappiness. "Hey, hey," Coco gently cooed to the child. "I'm sorry..."
"I haven't seen her for days," the baby struggled out as she began to sob. "She hasn't come back for me, and she always has before… I want to see her again..."
Coco sighed and stood up as Delphi began to sob uncontrollably. It was horrible what was going on here. Delphi was kept here, awaiting her execution and all she wanted was to see her mother. This had to be stopped.
Then, Coco spotted something moving in the pool below the surface. A creature of black and white moving towards Delphi. Okura was going to kill the baby! "Delphi! Quick! Get moving and I'll try to find you a way out!"
"W...what is it?" Delphi stammered having stopped her tears flowing.
"It's..." Coco began, but suddenly the young dolphin was swiftly pulled under the water. "Delphi!" Coco cried, as the little one was no more.
In shock, Coco fell to her knees at this horror. She couldn't believe it... She just couldn't...
"Oh, bugger off!" Delphi's voice snapped in anger. Coco's head snapped up to see Delphi floating beside a killer whale. But, this killer whale was much smaller compared to Okura. In fact, it was a child killer whale as well! It had a nifty look of how its eyes were surrounded by the white eye patch. "I'm not in the mood for games!" Delphi snapped angrily, her sorrow gone.
"Uh, who are you?" Coco stammered at the killer whale.
"Don't you recognize your savior?" It barked in a male tone voice. "I saved you from drowning in the pool and you don't remember me?" It shook its head in a mocking way. "I'm Spot."
"Err, pleased to meet you. And you too Delphi. I don't believe I've introduced my-self, I'm Coco," she smiled. Then, she noticed Spot was wearing a harness weapon similar to the one that Okura wore. "Hey, those weapons..."
Spot smiled and butted in, "The same model as my mother wears."
Coco bit her lip to say no more to this. She'd not only found Gleam's child, but Okura's as well.
Then, she remembered the curfew for her and Crash. Checking her watch, it was two hours and ten minutes since she and Crash had split. She had to get to the meeting place, but she couldn't leave these two like this, so that they could be butchered. "Hey, is there a door, gate or something down there?" Coco asked.
"Yeah," Spot nodded, "But we can't open it."
"Maybe I can," Coco said, eyeing the computer console she'd used earlier. Swinging the chair back, she started hacking again, searching for the way to open the door in the water. It wasn't that heavily encoded at all. Coco shrugged, guessing that Cortex did not expect anyone to be here.
Shaking her head, Coco swiftly unlocked the door below and turned back to Delphi and Spot. "Okay you two, off you go, you're free."
"Not so fast!" A voice barked behind her. Turning, Coco saw N. Trance standing there, an evil frown across his face. "It's feeding time for the sharks and a certain little dolphin is on the menu. Although, they may not mind a side order of bandicoot either..." He raised up his claw arm, a sharper, more sinister claw in its place than his usual claw. "I'll have to deal with you as I did with your brother..."
"What did you do to Crash?" Coco snapped, her eyes suddenly blazing.
"Oh nothing... yet," Trance grinned madly. "I merely 'persuaded' him to help out with the Nitro blasting. You can help too you know," Trance's eyes began to glow yellow.
Coco took no chances. She knew she only had seconds to act, before Trance stole her mind. She took a deep breath and leapt into the water behind her. Trance's claw flew over her and hit the water as she sunk, seconds after; the chain retracted the claw back. Then, Coco noticed Delphi offering her dorsal fin to Coco. She grabbed hold of it in a flash.
As the young dolphin shot up and out of the water in a jump, Coco took an even bigger breath and prepared her-self to hold her breath for a while. Then, Delphi dived to the bottom of the pool and shot towards the opposite wall.
The doors were closing; Trance had set them to close again. Delphi pumped her tail as hard as she could go. It was gonna be close!
The door slammed shut, seconds after Coco and Delphi shot through. Spot was waiting for them already there. Coco knew she couldn't hold her breath for too much longer. She tapped Delphi's head to get her attention and drew a circle and pointed to the building.
"Go round to the other side?" Delphi asked, her speech slightly blurred by the water.
Coco nodded, and the dolphin took off at once, knowing Coco couldn't hold her breath for too long, Spot was right behind them. They arrived at the hanger Coco had stashed her scuba gear and Coco pointed in the hanger.
Delphi entered and headed for the surface. Coco broke the surface and gasped deeply at the fresh air. It never felt so good in all her life.
Then, she heard the sound of approaching clanking. N. Trance was coming this way! She took another breath and dived under again. She swam, with Spot and Delphi by her side towards the half completed war ship. She resurfaced cautiously and looked around. She saw N. Trance climbing into a small submarine that hadn't been here before.
She was safe for the moment. Climbing out of the water, she found her scuba gear and quickly put it on and leapt back in. By this time, Trance and the submarine had gone. She flicked a switch on her mask and said to Spot and Delphi, "We need to get to the Nitro blasting site quickly or my brother will be blown to pieces! Will you help me?"
"On to it!" Spot answered, giving a wide orca grin.
"Take my fin again," Delphi told Coco, offering it to her again. "We'll go much faster this way."
Crash approached the Nitro blasting site; a harness attached to him carrying six glass cylinders full of a green liquid. Raw nitroglycerine.
A dolphin ahead of him swam over a patch of coral to a large crater and dropped its load of Nitro into the crater. There was an explosion and then the dolphin swam off and Crash moved forward.
"Wait," he said as he dived into the crater. "Wait in crater."
As he touched the bottom and began to wait, Coco, Delphi and Spot arrived and saw him. Coco let go of Delphi and dived down to him. "Crash? Crash, snap out of it!" she pleaded to him.
"Wait," Crash murmured in reply.
"Come on Crash!" Coco pleaded. "You can fight it!"
"Wait."
"Please Crash! Do it for me!"
"Wait."
Coco grabbed Crash's head and was about to shake some sense into him, when she remembered the Nitro attached to his body. Indeed she thrust her eyes to lock onto Crash's pupil-less eyes. "Look at me Crash! Do you know who I am?"
"Coco!"
"What?" she turned her head to face Spot. "What is it?"
"A dolphin is coming this way! Ready to blast!" The killer whale answered.
"You two try to hold them off for a bit more time!" She shouted back.
"Coco..."
"What?" Coco snapped back to Crash. A tiny black pupil had appeared in each eye. "Yes! Yes! It's me Crash! Remember? Coco?"
Crash blinked once, twice and then... "Coco?"
"Yes!" Coco shrieked in triumphant joy. "You're back!"
"Where was I?" Crash asked, confused.
"Never mind, I'll explain it later! We got to get out of here. This is the Nitro blasting site and you've got live Nitro on your-self!"
"I do?" Crash asked, his face screwed up in fear. "Then lets get going!"
Both ascended up a safe distance, before Crash unclipped the harness and let it drop into the crater. There was an explosion and everything then went quiet.
"Hey! Coco!" Spot's voice called out from behind them. "Look who we found!"
Both bandicoots turned and Coco, at once, felt her heart melt.