4-3 The Cortex Vortex
Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boy. This took a while.
Sorry about the long delay. Re attending school for a Hospitality and Tourism degree just sapped out all of the writing juices. It took a damn long while for me to hammer this out. But, it is here.
Now, updates may be slow, in part due to classes, and in part due to me gravitating to other projects. But this is still a priority to me, and I will keep at it till it is done. You guys get some enjoyment out of this story, so I'll keep at it for all of you. I like the some of the comments that have been dropped.
Anyway, enjoy this chapter.
When the Cortex Vortex was destroyed way back when, much of its debris had eventually crashed back onto Cortex Island, the largest piece being the one to carve out the canyon they had ridden down just before. There wasn't much left of the ship other than a part of the onboard conference room, the food court, and one bedroom with no embarrassing evidence to be raided from. A missed opportunity, but not the point of them arriving there.
Their real reason, Petey Piranha, was currently lounging on the remains of the conference table, scratching his stomach as he smiled at the heroes' arrival. He jumped off the table, before doing a sumo style threat display and stomping the ground, once, then another time, before roaring at them. Someone was ready to throw down.
Boss Time
"Okay, here's what we need to do." Mario pulled the group into a huddle, signaling for Petey to wait a moment. Being the polite Boss Battle veteran that he was, he allowed it, limbering up with some stretches while he waited for the team to discuss their battle strategy. "Petey Piranha's big weakness is his belly. All we have to do is get him on his back, and stomp on his stomach to take him down."
Crash nodded in agreement. He liked this plan. He considered himself quite the expert at flopping at the ground with force. Slamming onto someone else's belly would be a piece of cake.
"Okay, just figure out how to get him on his back, and the rest will be easy? Ready? Let's a Go!"
The group parted at that shout, which was also a sign for Petey to make his move. That move was to hop into the air and stomp right where they were standing earlier. He chuckled as he watched them scamper off into the wreckage like rats. He could tell they were planning something on him. But what they didn't know is that he himself did his own little bit of planning.
He chuckled to himself, before diving into the ground and disappearing into the earth.
Navigating the torn up station remains was a breeze for the Mario Bros. They hopped through broken doors and molten metal archways as they looked around for the best place to deal with Petey.
"Knowing Petey, he's probably gonna dig his way over to us. So we gotta stay off the ground till he shows up." Mario explained as he wall jumped, avoiding hitting the dirt at all costs. Luigi gulped as he followed behind.
"Boy, I still remember the last time we fought him. I was stuck in his stomach the entire time. The things he eats terrified me more than being eaten, there was a whole washer/dryer set lying in there for some reason." He said, as he flashed back to his time inside the plant monster's stomach, surviving by using the aforementioned washer as a life raft. It took weeks of showering to get the smell out. He did not want to experience that again.
Just as they had theorized, though, they could see the telltale wormsign of Petey burrowing through the ground, raising the dirt as he seemed to explore for where they were.
"Okay, when he pops up, I knock him on his back, and then you stomp his stomach."
"Okie dokie, bro."
The two brothers separated, one sticking to the top of the wreckage, the other landing on the ground. Mario started stomping around, doing a little dance and humming a little ditty to himself.
"Hey, hey, hey, Pe-tey Piranha, why don't you come-on over, and have a nice-big-bite of little ol' Mario." He sang to the plant monster, and watched as the mound of rising dirt made a beeline for him.
He backflipped out of the way, Petey bursting out of the ground where he stood, chomping the empty air. The big plant glared at Mario, growling as he slowly, but fashionably strutted his way over to him. The two kept staring each other down, waiting for one to make the first move.
Luigi looked down from his perch above them, awaiting his own moment to act. He was already quivering in place from the tension. He didn't want to miss-time his dive and end up aiming for the jaw full of teeth instead of the stomach.
Finally, the standoff ended with Petey charging at Mario, aiming to chomp the plumber and gobble him up like a snack. Mario charged at him as well, confident in what he was about to do next would succeed, as it often tended to do when he fought the piranha plant. When the two reached each other, Mario dropped onto the ground, sliding underneath him and watching as Petey tried to skid to a stop. He flailed his leafy arms as the momentum he had built up became his undoing, leaning backwards to try and slow down, only to end up falling on his back. His belly button popped out of his stomach, making for a very inviting target to be stomped on.
"Haha, same as always, Petey." Mario chuckled, signaling Luigi to attack.
From high above the Piranha Plant, Luigi nodded, and leapt off his perch, flipping in the air, then rocketing downward butt first towards Petey's belly button.
The piranha plant howled in pain, clutching his stomach when Luigi bounced off. The force of the butt stomp was enough for him to spit out his earlier lunch, before he recovered and dug his way back underground, heading somewhere else in the wreckage to recuperate.
"Hey, did you see what he spat out?" Luigi pointed out to his brother. "I think those were the fakes!"
"Let's go look for them. Crash and Coco can handle Petey just fine. He's easy enough as is."
Flying out of the mouth and into the distance, covered in digestive juices and other such substances that should never meet the light of day, screaming all the way through their flight until they hit the ground with a loud thud.
Fake Crash pulled his face out of the indentation made by their crash in the dirt, before getting up to gag at the amount of juices he was covered in. He moaned, wondering at what point in his life did everything start to go wrong. Maybe it was that time a while back, when they stole that crystal, and got chased down a ravine by both their clones, some plumbers, and a giant plant monster?
"I think stealing that crystal was a bad idea." He came to the rather obvious conclusion.
"Ohoho, no, that's not the case at all." Fake Coco, in spite of everything that had just happened to her that day, still clung onto her grudges. "All they had to do was let us have the crystal. That's all they needed to do, a simple action of relinquishing! But noooo, sick a big plant monster on us. I swore vengeance once, but now, now I crave it, brother." She hissed out. "Come on! Let's go find our clones and make sure they learn what it's like to be made into a midmorning snack."
Fake Crash could only sigh, watching his sister run off again. Something needed to be done if he wanted the chaos of today to end.
Somewhere else in the wreckage, Crash and Coco were waiting for their turn to face off against Petey. They had taken the free time they had to ruminate on how to go about it, and suffice to say, they had a pretty good idea of how to go about it. Double team the plants gut with a dual buttstomp the moment he came around, after getting the Mario Bros to knock him down. It was a good plan, but a snag was hit when they learned that Petey had some actual planning skills of his own.
Still, puking up the brown paint like goop all over the wreckage! Now that was just too far. It dripped all over, making any attempt at navigating the place nigh impossible. And in case it wasn't obvious before, it was also an incredibly disgusting sight.
Crash, after gagging at the sight, mustered the bravery needed to take the first step. His foot sunk into the goop with a wet sounding "schlorp" sound, and he immediately regretted his choice.
"You didn't have to step in it, you know." Coco snarked. "We'll have to turn around. There's no way we'll be able to get through this mess. Not without a decontamination team, at least."
Crash wrung the last of the goop out of his fur, agreeing with her. Maybe there was a way around the remains of the food court. He thought, as they started turning around and walking back towards the giant plant monster standing in their way, that maybe they could grab whatever rotting wumpa fruit was left in the crates- wait a minute.
He and Coco slowly looked up to see Petey staring down at them, giving them a nice toothy smile, before diving down to gobble them up. They jumped out of the way in time, making him eat dirt. He growled at them as he spat the ground out, waddling over to them.
The bandicoots couldn't run anywhere, with Petey blocking their escape route. A direct confrontation was in order, the siblings gazing at each other and nodding in silent agreement. Petey sumo stomped the ground, ready to throw down.
The first one to make their move… was no one in the group, as something flew at the bandicoots position and exploded between them, sending them flying into the air and slamming face first into the steel debris. Petey laughed, patting himself for the surprise move he just pulled off. Then it dawned on him that he had nothing to do with the explosion.
Nah, he was congratulating himself for it anyway. No need to think too deeply about it. Besides, it opened up the perfect opportunity. He jumped into the ground, beelining for the nearest unconscious snack. Coco.
Said bandicoot was going to have quite the story to tell to her dentist, spitting out one or two teeth out of her mouth after peeling her face out of the Coco shaped groove she made in the panel. She looked around the area, her eyesight readjusting as she searched for whoever decided to fire at them with military grade explosives.
"Who's the genius now, FAKER!" The culprit, herself but uglier, yelled from the distance, a makeshift nitro rocket launcher on her shoulder.
She was starting to grow really annoyed with herself today. A story for her therapist to deal with.
"Okay, you wanna see real genius, you printing press error!?" She yelled back at her, stepping onto the ground,
and getting immediately swallowed by Petey for her troubles. The piranha plant flinched a bit as his stomach started rumbling with heavily muffled swears.
Fake Coco laughed in maniacal triumph. "Vengeance at last!" Now there was nothing stopping her from retrieving her rightful prize. "Soon, families across the world will no longer have to fear the prospect of unrecyclable butter!"
All she needed to do was somehow obtain the crystal from her clone. Who was currently residing inside the stomach of the autonomous flytrap… okay, she might not have thought her plan through. Guess it was time to improvise.
Starting by hopping down to the ground below, and perhaps seeing if she could strike up a deal with the monster.
"Did you hear that?"
The Mario Bros skidded to a stop at the sound of the explosion. The big plume of smoke that showed up in the distance, and the distant but painful sounds of bodies hitting steel clued them into everything they needed to know.
"Oof, they're getting their butts handed to them over there."
"I think the fakes might be helping Petey out. I don't know if he's ever used explosives that way." Mario mused. And was proven correct when a voice came from behind them.
"That's because my sister is helping him. By accident, anyway." Fake Crash crawled out of some bushes, holding out his hands in surrender. "Revenge has clouded her mind. She won't stop till Crash and Coco are dead."
"Why aren't you helping her, then?" Mario asked the clone. "You two were working pretty close together throughout this whole ordeal. Why change sides?"
"I'm tired. We've been at this for an hour now, and I had to belly slide down a cliff and get eaten by a giant plant monster in red and white polka dot underwear. I wanna go home, and follow my real dream."
"What's that?"
Fake Crash struck a pose. "Dance." And he started dancing, moving around in a stiff, geriartic imitation of the Crash dance. It was comparable to a majestic bird with severe arthritis trying to impress a mate, and trying to not keel over in the process. He ended the display with jazz hands, waiting for a response.
He got some enthusiastic applause from the two, both dazzled by the display. "That was amazing!" Said Mario.
Fake Crash bowed, soaking in the praise, until another explosion shook the area. Mario shook his head, reminding himself of their situation, before waving the other two together for a group huddle.
"Okay, I have a plan."
[hr]
Groaning, clutching his poor face in pain, and still dizzied by the unfortunate meeting of his face with a steel plate, Crash worked to regain his bearings. He was used to slapstick, but it never stopped it from being annoying. Especially since, now that he noticed, he was waist deep in the goop Petey Piranha had spat all around. Blugh.
The ground shaking beneath him, he noticed Petey was sauntering over to him, licking his lips as he readied himself for the second course of his meal. Further back, Coco was rushing over, possibly to save him.
At least she was safe. Hopefully, she'd be able to either save him, or if things came to the worst, pick up after him on his novel. Because right now, he couldn't see any way he could get out of this mess.
"Crash! That's not Coco!" Aku Aku's voice sounded in the distance. He was wondering where he ended up. Still, the call did make him focus more on the sister shaped bandicoot in the distance. The terrible dentistry and the cackling fit she was enjoying. She was Fake Coco.
So, where was the real Coco?
Petey Piranha pried the bandicoot out of his goopy prison. He didn't seem to notice, as he seemed to be focusing particularly hard on something. It was honestly rather comical how hard he was thinking. But a meal was a meal. And he gulped Crash Bandicoot down with gusto.
Wait a minute…
Petey had eaten Coco.
Petey's stomach rumbled again. It was beginning to dawn on him that he might have a bandicoot intolerance, with just how feisty they were whenever they ended up in his digestive track.
And then he felt a kick. And another one. And more and more until it felt like a tornado of kicks and punches was taking place in his stomach. Petey tried to hold down his lunch, covering his mouth as it climbed all the way into his mouth.
He could not stop the onslaught against his mouth, and with a victorious spin, Crash burst out of Petey's mouth, Coco under his arm, smashing through all of Petey's teeth and sending the plant toppling over in pain.
Crash landed on the ground, setting his sister down and fussing over her worriedly.
"Crash, Crash I'm fine, no need to fuzz." She waved him off, gagging at the amount of slime she was covered in, before smiling. "But really, thanks big bro."
Crash smiled back.
"Ugh, why is it so hard to get rid of you two!" Fake Coco interrupted the moment, standing near Petey's groaning form, nitro launcher primed and ready to fire. "No matter. I'll prove Papa Cortex wrong once and for all. Say" She pulled the trigger, and a large blast of nitro energy flew into the air, right at the two bandicoots, coming in too fast for them to react in time.
Yet somehow, Crash still appeared to save the day, flying from the air and spinning the blast right back at her, launched from somewhere in the wreckage into the area. Fake Coco could only blink dumbly before she was struck, the blast sending her rocketing high into the sky.
Fake Crash landed in front of the surprised siblings. "Sorry about that! But you asked for it!"
Crash raised an eyebrow. Wasn't he trying to kill them too?
His look of befuddlement was noticed by Fake Crash. "Eh, I was only following my sister around. She took things too far."
"Well, glad to have you on our side, I guess." Coco shrugged. Crash had a stronger reaction, hopping over to hug his counterpart tightly. "I guess once she comes back from the stratosphere, we can deal with her and Petey, and then we can go back to what we're doing before all this. After rubbing our victory in her face, of course."
Crash was not letting go of his clone. It was starting to go from nice to uncomfortably awkward for Fake Crash, who struggled futility against his arms. Perhaps if it had ended earlier, they would have been able to notice the slumbering giant stirring behind them.
Petey growled to get their attention. He struggled against his girth to get back upright as the bandicoots looked on in fear, wondering what to do next.
Fake Coco solved that problem, her continuous scream growing louder before she returned to the area by crash landing right on Petey's stomach. That was the last blow poor Petey could take, before collapsing at last, defeated. Fake Coco groaned in pain, also beaten.
At last, it was over.
Boss Defeated!
"Sorry about the mess we caused. I promise we won't cause any trouble for you from now on." Fake Crash said, currently with his sister tied up and slung over his shoulder. "Unless a sequel happens and we happen to show up in it as antagonists again."
"Probably not, but you never know." Coco said. Fake Coco struggled in her constraints, turning to send a hateful glare at the real one. She responded by blowing a raspberry at her in retaliation.
Thankfully, that was all it escalated to, to Aku's visible relief. Fake Crash simply turned around, waving goodbye as he walked into the horizon, off to live his own life.
"Welp, congratulations on getting your own evil counterparts. If you guys happen to have any sports competitions to participate in, you can bet those two are gonna show up there." Mario said as they walked away from the battlefield, a portal opening before them. "It'll do wonders for your popularity in the long run. Trust me."
"You have evil clones back home as well?" Aku Aku asked.
"Just guys who happen to have a similar fashion sense like us. Overall's, single color suits, caps with letters on them." Luigi described. "I wonder if we'll see them at any point?"
"We never really do in our usual adventures. But you never know." Mario said. "Now let's bring the crystal back to E. Gadd and N. Brio. The sooner we kick Bowser and Cortex down, the sooner all of this is stopped. Let's go!"
"- right at the melting point of human flesh, if we let it charge for long enough. What do you think?" E. Gadd finished his ethically questionable query, he and N. Brio sitting on the roof of the hotel, discussing mad science business.
Before N. Brio could answer, a portal opened, nearly blowing them away. It dumped the sibling heroes in front of them, Crash cheerfully waving at them with a beautiful, shining, power filled crystal in hand.
"You fuh-fuh-found it! Thank goodness." N. Brio exclaimed. "I thought all that was left at the crash site was just a bunch of irradiated pools of radioactive waste and sharp metal bits."
"Well there was way more than that!" Mario said as they approached. "How are Peach and the others? Are they back yet?"
"They're on their way. They managed to find enough stars back in the castle. All I have to do is recalibrate the Pixelator's battery hold to contain these two new energy sources, and then we'll be able to send you all the way to where Bowser and Cortex should be!" The doctor explained. He turned to address Coco and N. Brio. "We should get started with the crystal, posthaste!"
As the geniuses huddled together around the satellite, the Mario Bros and Crash gathered together.
"Only a bit left before we have to go confront Bowser and Cortex." Luigi said, shuddering a bit as he looked up into the sky. "I can't begin to imagine how bad it's gonna be when our bad guys decide to team up."
"Hey, you know Bowser as well as I do. He won't team up with anyone short of himself, and you know how well that went." Said Mario. Then he thought better of it. "Actually, scratch that, they actually worked together in the end. But you get my point."
Crash nodded, remembering all too well Cortex's working relationship with other mad scientists. Either they worked under his beck and call, or worked alongside him, and he'd vocally hate it the entire way through. The likelihood of two wannabe multiverse conquerors with ego's bigger than what they were trying to conquer was, to put it lightly, laughable.
The bandicoot wrapped his arms around the brothers, cheerfully pointing at themselves. The message was clear. The team they had formed was basically unstoppable.
"Haha, he gets it. Come on, let's go grab something to eat. That race left me famished."
Next time, Bowser and Cortex find out.