Chapter 3: Introducing the Female Bandicoot
For a while, I just sat there, staring dumbfounded at the countless amount of changes that had happened to my body since the last time I was conscious.
For starters those two orbs of flesh caused by the mosquito bites in my dream world had not only stuck around, but had gotten larger and heavier to boot.[Hey if you had boobs like mine, they would be the first thing you would notice].
Beyond my new bountiful bosom, was a stomach much longer and thinner than what I was accustomed to, ending in hips much wider than my stomach, and legs long enough that they almost spilled out over the gurney. Peering over the sides of my body, I was greeted with long, slender arms that stopped just before my kneecaps, and hands long enough that I could squeeze said kneecaps. My hands and feet, I would come to realize later, became covered in orange fur, the fur on my entire body feeling a lot shorter than it was previously, with my like rat tail being a lot less shorter and covered in blond. All of these changes, plus some I would soon realize later, such as a much shorter nose and set of ears, as well as the complete absence of a pouch on my stomach, would eventually lead me to the conclusion that as of this moment, I was more human than bandicoot now.
Probably sensing my stunned silence, N-brio then walked over to my side and tried to lovingly place a hand on my shoulder, to which I turned and shrieked at him. My voice, I had found out at that moment, sounded even lower than the last time I was conscious. As I recoiled from the soreness that still lingered in my throat and face, N-Brio then placed that hand right back on my shoulder, even patting it in a desperate attempt to get me to calm down as my episode of confusion continued.
Suddenly, the metallic sound of my cell door opening up triggered N-Brio to throw the blanket back on me as Dr. Cortex waltzed through the entrance of my cell, wearing the smuggest face that he could have ever pulled off in his entire career.
"Well…", Cortex had said as he walked toward my gurney, carrying a roll of measuring tape in his hand, "I see that my alterations to your device had ended up saving our little subject after all. Quick, what are her statistics"?
N-Brio then bent over and proceeded to pick up an overflowing wooden clip board that was propped up by one of the sides of my gurney. After putting on some tinny reading glasses that were located within one of the pockets of his lab coat. He flipped through a couple of pages before reaching what must have been the summary section.
"Her-her-her overall stats seem to be nu-nu-nu-normal. Her heartbeat and b-b-breathing had been acting a little erratic lately, but those have seemed to have sta-sta-stabilized over time".
"Excellent.", Cortex had said as he began measuring my arms, legs, waist, and...forehead, "What about the general"?
Rolling his eyes, N-Brio then places the clip board back down. "Great…He-he-he seems to be doing gu-gu-great. He-he appears to be developing faster than her, but that is to be expected since we have no other da-da-data of female mutants to compare her to. Bu-bu-both should be able to enter the Vortex as soon as repairs are finished.
N-Brio then turns directly toward Cortex as he began looking at my teeth, his face and tone of voice becoming a lot more serious than previously.
"Re-re-remember though that we not out of the woods yet. The last few attempts we have made to-to-to construct a general have all had subjects who progressed the same way he has, and all of them have pu-pu-proved to not have the mental capacity needed to handle the amount of instruction needed to in-in-instruct our troops".
"Then…", Cortex said as he measured the space between my ears, "…we just have to alter the intelligence building process by making sure every message is not received at once. Maybe break up the process so that he has plenty of time to reflect on what he has been taught before going into the vortex for another session".
If what N-Brio had told me before I wrote this story is true, Cortex, I swear you not, had slipped off the arm rest of my gurney, and then fell headfirst onto the concrete floor of my cell. Said fall then caused a sound so loud and so sudden that I instinctively kicked off my blanket, which then resulted in my newly formed womanly goodies to be on display for everyone in the room.
Trust me, it gets worse. After a couple of awkward…shameful…moments of silence, N-Brio then regained enough of his common sense to throw the blanket back over me, leaving Cortex to continue to stare at me, mouth open and eye twitching, like I was the second coming Christ.
"N-Brio...!", Cortex shouted in astonishment as the other doctor returned to his side, "I did it"!
Cortex then grabbed N-Brio's hands and then proceeded to dance around the room like they were a couple of impromptu ball room dancers. All the while, Cortex giggled like a bubbly Highschool girl while N-Brio proceeded to nervously chuckle as they proceeded to jump and spin around the room.
Eventually, the dancing did die down, and Cortex then came over to where I was sitting, proceeding to then hold one of my paws as he stared into my eyes with triumph.
"Throughout all of mad science…", Cortex explained, his eyes never leaving mine, "…animal-human hybrids have been created using forms of either surgery or gene-splicing techniques. But, using the other worldly properties of dark mojo, I have not only proven a more efficient way to create such beasts, but have created a process so immaculate, that I can take a small marsupial, such as that of a bandicoot, and change its DNA completely until it matches the exact build of the master's design! Hold me! I am going to faint"!
Right before Cortex fell backwards into N-Brio's arms, I must have, at that point, gotten over my shock of what was going on, for N-Brio had then told me that I then yanked my paw out of Cortex's, and then continued my struggle wriggle my way out of the gurney, occasionally shrieking and biting at the air as I did so.
Being alerted to my struggle, Cortex and N-Brio then turned to look at me, then each other, and then N-Brio pulled out another syringe, this one being aqua blue in color, and then came over and injected it into my arm.
I freaked out, of course, given my previous experiences with needles. However, unlike those previous times, this injection did not put me to sleep. Instead, after a couple of seconds, I began to feel as though all sense of control and feeling had escaped every part of my body below my neck.
Cortex then proceeded to pull out a comically over sized walk talky out of his lab coat and then proceeded to bark orders at one of his lab assistance drones as N-Brio stood by my side, this time, standing far enough away so that I could not possibly bite him if I had the chance.
After some time had passed, the bars of my cell had opened, bringing in a lab assistant who pushed what appears to be a wheelchair with black leather cushions all the way to my gurney, and another that obediently followed him. N-Brio then went over to one of the cell walls, and then proceeded to flip a switch that opened up my metal clamps surrounding my arms and legs, making it so the other lab assistant can lift me up by my arm pits and carry me all the way to the wheel chair. During that process, the blanket slid off of me again, this time making me realize another weird change that had happened to me while I was unconscious, (and no, I am not sure why I discovered this now): I now had hair.
My hair, for your information, was not the kind of movie star quality that you often see in the games, no this golden do was straighter, plainer, kind of like that of a woman who spent several years in a cave with no mirrors to check how she looks. During my trip over to there, I desperately wanted to feel those golden strands through my fingers, but I could not because of the goon's metallic hands preventing me from doing that.
As I was being placed into the chair, another lab assistant came in, carrying what appeared to be a red rain coat of some kind that was long enough that it could both function as both a shirt, and some pants. He then proceeded to slide the coat over my head, the other assistant helping in getting my arms through the sleeves before he zipped up the center zipper.
Before I could even blink, one of the assistance then flipped a switch on the back of the wheelchair, and four new straps cuffed my arms and legs to the seat.
"Well Tawna…", Cortex said as he walked into my field of vision, holding his hands behind his back, and marching back and forth as if he were a war general, "…since you will soon be an official member of the Cortex army, me and Dr. Nitrus Brio have decided that instead of continually putting you to sleep before your official initiation, that the best course of action to take is to give you a grand tour of the castle. Normally, we would give this tour to new members after their trip to the vortex, but since it is currently malfunctioning, we agreed that it might be a good time as any to get you, at least acquainted, with everything before preparations are truly ready. What do you say"?
I don't know how this was possible, but by bobbing my head back and forth really hard, I had somehow managed rock my chair so hard that it slipped out of the grasp of the nearest lab assistant, and managed to ram one of the arm rests into one of Cortex's knees, causing Cortex to emit a high pitched scream as he collapsed on the floor, rubbing the bruise with his hand in order to stop the swelling.
"I'll let you get off with a warning!", Cortex had said, voice hoarse from all of the pain, "N-Brio, give her the Tour"!
(…)
Upon leaving my cell, the lab assistants, with N-Brio in the lead, pushed me along one continuous corridor that seemed to be lined with empty prison cells as far as the eye can see.
[A/N: I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say this would be where slippery climb would be situated next to if we were to use the games as a reference.]
Thinking back to that event, I can recall many of those cells either having their doors wide open, with some cell doors either looking normal, or warped as if they were previously bashed open; had windows or mirrors that were smashed, as if they were the victims of exceptionally mad prisoners; or both.
"The-the-this here is the dungeon area of the castle", N-Brio had said while emitting an occasional nervous chuckle, "This area used to house multiple prisoners back when this whole place was previously owned by the notorious Da-da-da-Dr. Eyeswide, whose contributions to evil science still make him a house hold name within the field today".
Though I admittedly was too stupid to comprehend anything he was saying, I was still mesmerized by the simple fact that I got to experience someplace else other than my cell. My interview with old football head for this story had revealed that he knew that this would be the case, stating that was the reason he did not bother asking me for questions to see if I was retaining everything. He agreed to give me this tour, more so, to reassure himself.
"Our su-su-su-cells may look empty now, but, i-i-i-if things pan out, pretty soon all these cells will all be filled with many of the worlds leaders, who-who-who-who will all be begging to sign all of their lands and riches to the Cortex army".
(…)
After a couple more minutes, we arrived at a large square area of the dungeon, with more cells lining its walls, and a large square hole in the center. Said square hole had iron tube like railing surrounding it that prevented people from falling in, and a quick look down the hole would tell you that we were at one the highest floors of the castle, (what floor would that be, I don't know I lost count how many floors their actually are). As N-Brio was about to make his way to the elevator across from us in order let me access the lower levels, he stopped dead when he came close to the railing, peering down into the abyss with a face of pure horror.
"Nina!", N-Brio shrieked, "What are you doing"!
As N-Brio hurriedly ran down the set of stairs located directly left of the hole, (he claimed that they were faster than riding the elevator), one of the lab assistants just so happened to wheel my chair over to the railing, giving me a good view of what was going on.
On the bottom floor, I saw what appeared to be a small little girl. She, at the time, had fair peach white skin, had messy brunet hair that she wore in a ponytail, and wore a purple shirt and magenta colored shorts that all looked to be covered in drawings of cartoon ponies, (I remember she still had that overbite though, or at least, the start of one).
Beside her, was a small pile of wumpa fruit that she would hand each one to what appeared to be a slightly opened reinforced door. Occasionally, I could just make out a tinny blue foot with long black toenails sticking through the open space of that door, picking up the fruit and bringing it to its lair where loud munching and burping could be heard afterward.
N-Brio eventually confronted the little miss, immediately slamming the door and causing a huge bout of arguing to spring between them. He had scolded her for putting herself in literal arms reach of a currently unstable and unpredictable creature, who could have injured her without even thinking, while she argued that the creature seemed harmless and just wanted to be fed. This argument did not last long however, for the next thing I knew, N-Brio had pointed her in some direction, causing Nina to cry as she ran to what was probably her room.
As N-Brio marched back up those stairs, I could not help but observe what was happening in a cell right next to the dangerous beast. Though, I could only see it briefly, I could have sworn that I saw an orange hand as it tried to score some of the remaining fruit from the pile. An arm, that upon further inspection, looked incredibly similar to mine.
Eventually though, my fascination was broken by a still angry N-Brio who ordered one of the assistants to call the elevator as we began our trip downward for the rest of the tour. The next stop on our tour, being the soldier's quarters.
(...)
On first impression, the soldier's quarters looked a lot similar to the prison cells, for both had those iron crossed gates designed to both keep prisoners locked up while also allowing some one to keep an eye on them, and the rooms themselves only looked slightly bigger with the same amenities. Where these cells differed however, was the number of things in the cells beyond those amenities.
The first cell we passed was one that practically looked like a forest, with numerous large fake trees littering the place that seemed to extend on forever. A lone man in a business suit can be seen tied to a pole in the middle of the cell, only to soon be impaled by the trident of a large, bright-orange tiger in spiked shoulder pads and a green loin cloth that had jumped down from one of the branches with a loud roar, the impalement causing a large amount of hay to spread all over the cell floor.
"The-the-this here is Tiny Tiger.", N-Brio said in a meek, yet, positive tone, "He is both the muscle, as well as the look, of our in our unit".
Upon hearing his name, Tiny then jogged all the way up to the bars of the cell with a large grin on his face. Upon staring at his glowing yellow eyes and the pointyness of his teeth, I knew right then and there that was the creature that had captured me that fateful night.
"That the bandicoot I captured!?", Tiny asked while pointing at me through the bars.
"Y-y-yes Tiny", N-Brio relpied, "this is one of the bandicoots you captured. Her name is Tawna, and she will serve the role of the general's companion during our missions.
With that, Tiny immediately shot his hand through the bars as if he wanted me to shake it, only for me to leave him hanging since I had no idea what this gesture meant.
"Hi Tawna! Tiny was the one that found you when you were small"!
The next cell we passed was one that housed various amounts of training equipment, from punching bags, to bar bells, to elliptical machines, to even posters of body builders of plastered all over the walls. A large top-heavy musclebound koala in a red tank top and tight beige shorts can be seen decked out in red boxing gloves, repeatedly punching the bag with such force that it eventually got loose of its chain and hit a nearby wall.
"The-the-this here is Koala Kong…ah-ah-our mu-mu-muscle of…our…unit. Look, Ta-ta-Tiny was supposed to be our muscle, but Cortex wanted someone sma-sma-smarter for the role, and-and-and me and Cortex are not the kind of person to just let go of a previous creation, okay"?
"Ey Adrianna!", the Koala had exclaimed in a Brooklyn accent while looking at N-Brio and holding up a blue bottle of some kind, "I'm all out of wateh, get me some more"!
He then threw the bottle at N-Brio, which thankfully was stopped by the bars to his cell as we passed by another room. This room, unlike the others, was completely empty, say for a pile of books on a book shelf above a pair of bunk beds, with a banzai tree situated on the left side of the wall closest to the cell door.
"O-o-over here is where our search and destroy unit will sleep. The-the-the-thay are still being worked on at the moment, but just you wait. S-s-s-soon our army will have two killer samurai warriors poised to pull off any task that the doctor will give them".
"Ey Brio, whose da new broad ya got der"!?
Moving forward, we had found that that voice came from a large, brown, mouse like creature wearing some kind of pink striped suit, a green button shirt, and heeled black shoes in the next room. His room looked to be the largest out of all of the soldiers', with his bed being located on the right side of the room,(from our perspective outside), his sink and toilet at the left side, and what looked to be an entire shooting range by the far back wall.
Probably to impress me, he pressed a button near the shooting range that caused the targets to start moving. Grabbing a Tommy gun that was propped up against one of the nearby walls, he began unloading round after round of bullets onto every single target, while grinning and laughing like a madman as each bullet made its way just inches from each target's heart.
After the shooting had stopped, and me and N-Brio were finished covering our ears, (he used his hands to cover mine, and his arms to cover his own), he explained to me that his name was Pinstripe Potoroo and he was not only our unit's sharp shooter, but also the leading director of a nearby nuclear power plant that is to provide the castle with a near unlimited amount of power. During our interview, he had told me that him and Cortex had thought that if they relied on the same Uranium smuggling ring to power plant in the same way Dr. Eyeswide did when he owned all of these facilities back in his glory days that they would be in the clear, (to which they would be later proven wrong years later when various world governments had cracked down on that trading ring, causing Cortex Power to cancel all operations and the building to be later abandoned).
We then came to a set of red wooden double doors that were located smack dab in the middle of these cells. Pushing them open revealed a somewhat large room, with a king-sized bed against the far most walls. Retrieving a mental image from my mind, I can recall an early nineties computer of some kind near the entrance, a simple wooden wardrobe near the center of the left wall, and a tiny table one might place their glasses on near the right side of the bed.
"The-the-this is where you and the general will sleep once the both of you are fully initiated." N-Brio had said as he waved his hand across the entire room. He then went on to explain how this used to be the warden's room back when this was just more dungeon, and how the purpose of its placement was to ensure he will always be next to the most troublesome prisoners in the case they tried to escape. At the same time, he also kept apologizing for the inconvenience of us having to sleep next to creatures who have a habit of snoring, while also promising that me and this general will be transported to another room as soon as it is done being renovated.
Leaving the soldier's quarters, we continued onward toward the rest of the tour, which, to be honest, was pretty uneventful as far as I'm concerned. We took a trip to the basement and visited the little factory underneath the castle, even getting the chance to ride on the little elevators to see all of the pipes and conveyor belts ,(I still have a slight scar on my left paw from when I had accidentally placed it on one of those scolding hot pipes); we got to visit the dining hall, which was a large medieval style dining hall complete with fire place in the back, a long wooden table with simple lawn chairs along the sides, a large throne like chair for both Cortex and N-Brio on one end, and two slightly smaller thrones for me and the general on the other; and even got to visit one of the main labs, that, at the time, was conducting experiments on the newly invented floating TNT boxes.
Eventually though, N-Brio received a call on his walky talky, and he led us down this one hallway that looked like the path you would often find leading to a throne room. At the end of that hall way was a set of double doors that looked bigger and more grander than what I had seen up to that point. Once inside, I immediately knew from the look of the giant blinking ray gun in the corner, as well as the amount of darkness in the room, that this was the place where my life was changed forever.
As I was panicking, the effects of the drugs being the only thing preventing me from getting out of here, the lab assistant then wheeled me to a machine that I did not see that night. This device was still hung from the ceiling like that of the Evolvo Ray, but did not have any pointed prong to aim at its target, nor did it have any flashing light bulbs surrounding it. Instead, this device seemed to be much more spherical in nature, with little holes surrounding its underside like some kind of flying saucer, and a bigger hole right in the middle of those holes.
As the chair wheeled me closer to it, I then noticed another chair located right directly underneath it. This chair appeared to be made of some kind of rougher looking leather than the ones I have previously been in, and seemed to be connected at its base by some kind of long, metal, rod that was connected to some steel base on the floor like my gurney.
As I was being transferred to my new chair, I saw Dr. Cortex jauntily stroll toward one of the computers located on the opposite side of the strange device, and began activating a couple of programs that eventually caused the clamps to, yet again, close on my arms and legs, while also causing the lights above me to glow.
"Ca-ca-Cortex.", N-Brio had called over to the Doctor as the humming started to increase in pitch, "I-I-I just thought of something. A-a-are you sure that Tawna will obey us after her sessions with the vortex are over? We-we-we-we have not done tests on the effectiveness of going through the vortex when a perceived view of the world has already been established".
Cortex then turned around looking surprised as the likelihood of that possibility had donned on him,
"Hmmm...I guess I will just have to increase the frequency of the messages. ", Cortex said as he resumed his determined, grumpy composure, "Quickly Brio, the lever"!
Suddenly, I felt a lurch from where I was sitting, causing me to panic as N-Brio began pushing and pulling some kind of lever. As he continued to do so, I started to realize that I was being lifted off the ground, the colors in the hole becoming more and more intense as I ascended. During that time, I had noticed that the wiring from the vortex led to some kind of small room across from where I was sitting, it also glowing in the same way the vortex did. I would have journeyed to that room if it were not for the fact that I was strapped down to this evil recliner, once again, leaving me helpless to escape from sources of bright light above me.
Once inside the hole, I became aware that the colors I was seeing outside the machine had actually come from a number of small televisions located inside of it. From screen to screen you can see a wide variety of different programs, from morning talk shows with all female hosts, to sit coms targeted toward women, news programs, a couple of romantic comedies, (one of them being I Love Lucy), and even a couple of screens of instructional baby videos on how to walk and use the bathroom, (you got to learn those skills somewhere). Of course, everything seemed like white noise to me as I just sat there and took in all of those screens, only to be interrupted when I had noticed that the screens began to slowly turn in front of my face.
I was spooked by this anomaly at first, I can even recall the feeling in my arms and legs coming back as I tried to fight my restraints. However, as the screens started to turn faster and faster, I could not help but stare in front of me as my mind entered the machine's hypnotic power. As the screens rapidly spun around me, I kept on seeing this one holographic image of the doctor in front of my eyes coupled with a singular message repeated over and over again to the point that I started to fully believe it: "Obey Cortex".
But before that message can finally sink in, all the screens turned off.
For a while, I just sat there in complete darkness, my only companion being the sound of the machine's electric hum slowly dissipating into nothing, as what sounded like the two doctors fighting could be heard from the outside.
Apparently, someone, or something, had managed to break into the castles power supply and had seemed to plunge the entire castle in darkness.
Out of the blue, a lab assistant hurriedly rushed into the lab, a siren sound emitting from its mouth to indicate an emergency
"Doctors Cortex and Brio", the assistant said in a lab assistant said in a low pitch electronic voice.
"We know...", Cortex answered him, "The power is out".
"Emergency! Emergency!", the assistant continued, "Two members of your army have escaped! Two members of your army have escaped"!
"But-but-but that's impossible., said the quivering Dr. N-Brio, "The-the-the locks of each door is nearly impenetrable, who-who-who would have mental capacity to escape from us"?
"Two defective units of your army has escaped: one, the unstable Ripper Roo, and the other, the General: Napoleon".