Chapter 5: The restraints of the female bandicoot
[A/N:Fun Fact: This and chapter 4 was originally supposed to be one chapter, but do to time constraints, it had to be split up into two to keep a consistent stream of content, interesting right?]
[Now, back to the adventure]
Me and Pinstripe ended up leaving one and a half hours later than everyone else do to the fact that this Dr. N-Gin guy was not a very well-organized person.
Imagine, if you will, me, Pinstripe, these two lab assistants assigned to be our body guards, and Cortex, in this cramped machine shop with comically oversized engines, propellers, and robot arms hanging from the ceiling, with enough random bits of metallic gears and gizmosscattered all over the floor that you can say that the room was practically flooded with the doodads. Off in one corner of the room, I, leaning against the shoulder of my lab assistant, was busy stuffing my face with granola bars given to me by N-Brio to make up for the fact that I haven't eaten yet, while Pinstripe just stood there with his hands in his pocket trying to not look the while, a very frustrated Cortex dug through said metal for this one device of interest while we were left to stand there and watch.
If I could describe how I was feeling in that room right now, it would have to be boxed surrounding machines prevented me from moving that much, due to orders given to us by the maniacal doctor that prevented me from touching anything, and, more so after I had finished eating the granola bars, I was starting to feel sleepy, not because it was late, but because my body was still recovering from all of the mutations, (and thinking about it right, was probably another reason Cortex did not want me to go).
Despite my best efforts to stay awake and prove myself as capable as the rest of the Cortex army, I could not help but slowly close my eyes as the doctor continued to dig through the large pile of metallic from within that same room must have felt my pain too, for I could have sworn that someone was holding my paw as my mind journeyed, very slowly, into dream land.
"Ha-Ha!I found it!", Cortex exclaimed, jostling me awake.
Out of a pile of junk, Cortex had pulled out what appeared to be some kind of brown leather belt, with what looked to be some kind of square control panel in the front, and some kind of seat belt clip in the on the side of the device was a large piece of paper with some kind of message written on by the way Cortex had to turn the piece of paper over a couple of times before he started reading it, the message was probably hard to read.
As he was reading, I could not help but wonder who was it that had held my couldn't have been from my lab assistant, for I had come to realize earlier that these assistants were not programmed to display that kind of emotion, (nor were their hands programmed to feel warm to the touch), and N-Brio couldn't have come by to check up on me, for I would have heard the shuffling sound of the door if he would have come in. That would have left only Pinstripe, which I didn't buy. During my limited time in the Vortex, I was exposed to a number of different professional poker games on TV that had told me to read my opponents face, (or for my purpose: the general's face in case he needs his pipe and slippers after a long day of conquering), and the way that he looked so bored and disinterested in everything in the room made me rule him out as a suspect.
Eventually, Cortex walked all the way to where I was standing and clipped the belt device around my waist, proceeding to then press a button that made the belt spew out these tinny spider-like appendages, with tinny wheels on the end of each of them, that then anchored themselves onto the floor..
"Unit A9-711…", Cortex barked to my lab assistant, "…let go of her and take three steps to your left".
The lab assistant did just that, and, after a couple of seconds, I had noticed that something miraculous had happened: I did not fall down.
I then tried to fall forward, backward, and side to side in that pile of junk, yet every time I did, the wheels would position themselves in such a way that I would only slide for a little bit before stopping completely, giving me the chance to get my feet back on the ground.
"Perfect.", Cortex continued, "We will leave here at once.A9-711, F7-100, bring them to my air ship, there are still preparations that still need to be made before liftoff".
(…)
In almost no time at all, I was whisked away with the likes of Pinstripe, our of lab assistants, and the main doctor himself, inside of his own out in a new Grateful Dead T-Shirt and some sweat pants that one of the Doctor's colleagues had retrieved from a local shop in New Zealand, I got to experience far greater heights then what I could have ever seen from the windows of the castle, including mountains that seemed to form stairs that scaled far down into the ocean, and palm trees that only appeared to me through my window as a couple of tiny green dots.
"Ey I thought you wuz tired?", Pinstripe had said along those lines, with a yawn, as I stared headlong out of the airship's front window.
N-Brio had made arrangements with Cortex to include a mattress near the back of the d airship in case I needed to crash on the way there, even going so far as to include a pair of noise cancelling headphones, as well as his own personal sleeping mask, to help me recover for events ahead. However, despite the heaviness I still felt in my eyes, the excitement I felt from seeing this view had given me the energy I needed to stay with the only available light coming from that of the setting sun, I drank in all of that view like a kid drinks a glass of lemonade, paying extra attention to all of the shades of orange and yellow as I do so.
Suddenly, I was taken out of my wonderous view of the world by a tapping on my shoulder as Dr. Cortex silently instructed me to stand next to Pinstripe, our two assistants standing right beside us.
Cortex then turned away from his giant steering wheel, proceeding then to push a giant green button before doing so that both prevented the wheel from moving, while also emitting a green glow that made the dim atmosphere appear radioactive inside that cramped little compartment. Opening a drawer underneath the steering wheel that kind of looked like the glove compartment of a car, he then pulled out what appeared to be one of those walkie talkies he used to communicate with the lab assistants, as well as a VHS tape with no label.
"Listen up!", Cortex ordered in his stern general voice, "We will be arriving at Cortex Power very shortly. When you two get there, you are to explore every inch of the power plant for any sign of either the Ripper Roo, or the by any chance that either are them are there…", he then raised the walkie talky high in the air, making sure to point at the red button on the side of the device as he does so, "I want you to press this red button which will then lock down the premises of the plant so I can go ahead and collect it turns out that there are nowhere to be found, I want one of you to push this blue button…", he points to another button underneath the red one, "…this will inform me that they are indeed vacant, and will allow me to check the other two islands for their where abouts."
He then set down the walkie talky and raised the tape, "After you have pressed the button in the instance that neither are, indeed, at the plant, I have programmed one of the lab assistants to take you into the meeting room where you are to watch this colleague, Dr. N-Gin, has left detailed instructions as to the inner machinations of the plant, and I expect you…", he said while pointing at Pinstripe with his pinky, "to follow this to the letter".
"Eyyyy forget about it Dr. C", Pinstripe said with a shrug, effectively going from greasy mob boss to edgy nineties teenager as he stepped toward his creator "We'll do it".
Cortex then walked toward pinstripe, his eyes starring him, point blank, in the face, "Just try to get something out of this, okay".
(…)
Pretty soon after that, we had arrived at the plant. This time, I was yanked away from my vantage point by my own personal lab assistant, his fingers constricting my arm as he led me toward the giant "N", in the center of the Pinstripe's assistant also led him to that same giant yellow letter, Dr. Cortex flipped a tinny switch right beside the steering wheel, which then resulted in the floor lurching a bit before lowering itself down into the floor besides the front doors as the our lab assistants marched us through the giant double doors like prisoners, Cortex then gave us a solute as the platform rose back toward its origin point, all the while, Pinstripe's grin began to grow progressively wider as we made our way down the first hall way.
(…)
If there is one thing to say about Cortex Power that the games got seriously wrong, is the lack of any actually danger that resides within that 't get me wrong, their were still steaming hot red pipes, deadly laser beams, and sections of the floor dedicated to housing giant vats of nuclear waste, but those sections were usually behind thick glass windows, with the doors leading to those areas usually being the most part, our search for the general mostly involved us touring the various hall ways, power stations, employee lounges, and control rooms of the establishment, with us only ever checking those dangerous areas via the security cameras.
When me and Pinstripe were told to split up to cover more ground, the last room I checked had caught my the average person, this room was just your typical average power station, with giant metallic tubes on one side, green canisters on the other, and hole bunch of machinery in the center. But, if one were to look closer at this one set of stairs, located near the entrance of said room, one would have noticed how it not just stopped at a narrow metal platform that was designed give the operator a birds eye view of the entire floor, but had snaked around the room to a large glass skylight located at the roof that just so happened to have been open a tad.
Call me the furry version of Eve to general Napoleon's Adam, but somehow, curiosity had gotten the better of me. Details are a bit fuzzy as to why I was so fascinated by this one window, but telling by how much I could recall the view from the windows of Cortex's blimp, I guess I was desperately wanting more of that.
I was about to make my upward when I felt the steel tight grip of my bodyguard's hand as it suffocated my arm. No matter how hard I tried to pull from its robotic grasp, the assistant just stood his feet firmly planted onto the floor and his hand firmly cuffed around my arm like I was attached to some mechanical statue.I pulled, and pulled, and pulled, but it was a tug a war match that I just could not win.
Eventually, probably because it had sensed that none of our targets were in here, he then pulled on my arm as we both exited the room, my arm still extended to the set of stairs like a child who wanted candy from the checkout line.
The thought of that staircase plagued my mind as we entered the meeting room, not helped by the fact that the meeting room looked…well…like any boring meeting room with a long wooden table, faded mustard colored walls, a large chalkboard with a pull down projector, and large black swivel chairs on each side.
As my lab assistant forcefully took the device off and sat me down in the seat across from Pinstripe, his lab assistant was already sliding in the tape and turning on the projector. As the projector turned on, we were then greeted by the sight of a giant, almost completely circular, eyeball that stared all around the room before jump cutting to a short portly man with a squashed round face and body with half of his face being completely mechanical with a bullet sticking out of it, and the other side being completely human. Normal people would have been unnerved by the sight of this greasy skinned man as he explained, in a no thrills, no budget kind of way, how nuclear fission worked, while simultaneously looking like he had taken a dip in the waste himself, but seeing as though I had been exposed to both a yellow skinned doctor with an N on his head, as well as seeing another man with two bolts sticking out his, I just assumed all humans looked this weird at this point.
Other than N-Gin's non-rehearsed introduction where he constantly fumbles his words and looks as if he is reading off a nearby cue card, I cannot honestly recall anything he said during that whole is surprising given the fact that this real-life N-Gin also had that mechanical voice like in the games. Which, to be fair, did disturb me enough to keep me listening for a while, but a weird voice only does so much when the person who has it keeps droning on and on about splitting the atom this and this machine does that before the novelty of it eventually wears off.
All the while, Pinstripe looked like he getting more out of it than I was, (key word being looked like), as he seemed to be staring at the squat man and his chalk board with his hands clasped together in much the same way that N-Brio did during our meeting, occasionally turning his head to flash me that same smug grin before turning back like nothing had ever happened.
I do actually remember falling asleep to this video. I can even recall how my eye lids lowered so gradually that I was practically conked out by the time any thought of resistance came to mind.I can even tell you the dream I had during my little it, I was several feet above the like I was Superman, I flew, with both arms extended, from island to island, the landmarks looking a lot smaller when I flew close to them do to the fact that I have never seen them in all of their majesty in real life yet.
It was when I had flown to the little banzai tree on the third second, that I felt another little tap on my shoulder.I turned and then I saw him.
This was the general.
My general.
What the vortex had told me was my general.
He was tall, taller than me, and wider too. He was also muscular, with a set of a set of six pack abs on his stomach, and had kind of a human like face like mine, with the nose and ears being the dead giveaway that told you he was not necessarily human.
Without me even thinking, he took my paw in his and raised it up to his face, kissing it before smiling and winking at part of my mind had told me that I was supposed to react a certain way, maybe blush, maybe swoon, but clearly that was something that had not been programmed in yet.
Some part of him must have took my blank stare as a compliment, for he then took me into his arms, the both of us flying all the way up to the top of tree, him only letting me go when we had reached the highest branch.
For a while, I just stood there.
Staring again at the gorgeous tropical island sunset.
It was like he had appeared from thin air when he stood by my side.
Being my sunset admiring partner.
I turned to look at him and he turned to look at me.
And we both smiled.
I was the one break the silence.
"What we want do now?", I say with my poor grasp of English
He just stood there.
"What…we…want…do…now?", I tried again, putting extra emphasis on each word to drill the point home.
And like before, nothing.
Taking a hint, I then turned my head back toward my sunset, only to hear this one peculiar sound.
"Knock knock knock"
Turning to look at my general, I had noticed the general, fist gently rapping the side of my head like it was some kind door.
"Knock knock knock".
I tried to lift my arm to stop the knocking, but the knocks just kept coming.
"Knock knock knock".
I then began to question why the general was doing this to of the screens I had seen in the vortex, the only one that came to mind then was this cartoon of a woodpecker who had pecked at this one walrus's head for hiding his food away from I nuisance to the general, was that what he felt?
"Knock knock knock".
I turned to look at the general, the sad puppy dog eyes being the only facial expression I had remembered from the vortex, and he still had that same smile on his face, that same compulsion to bonk my head.
"Knock knock CRASH"!
Suddenly, I was awake, my eyes darting around the room, the only thing I gathered being the lab assistant who had just exited the room with Pinstripe in hot pursuit.
I was about to join them, only for my own lab assistant to, again, grab my arm with the same tremendous strength he exerted before.
After a brief period of protest, I just stood there. manage to stay put, at least at first, probably thinking that the rest of them will solve whatever is making that noise and come back then those seconds turned into minutes, and those minutes turned into a half hour, and I was still stuck there with my hand still gripping my arm.
This was when I really started to get antsy.I got my second wind in this tug-a-war as I pulled and twisted my hand, even screaming like people do in martial arts anime to become more powerful as I tried to outdo my captor, all the while, my assistant still stood there, giving me the same blank stare as they all did since I had arrived at the castle day one.
Just then…WHAP! BAM!All of a sudden, my hand was free from his grasp.I turned to look at my aggressor, only to find him (I'm going to assume that's a he, I guess robots do not really have genders when you think about it) lying against the wall across from me.A noticeable dent can be seen on his face from what had turned out to be a flying office chair that was flung from across the room, had hit its target, and took a chip out of the office table when it made contact.
Turning to where that chair had come from, I found Pinstripe, his body seeming to take up the entire door frame as he dusted off his hands while also wearing that same old grin.
He had beckoned me to come forward as if to join him, but I just sat there in stunned silence, my mind still not comprehending the small act of rebellion this soldier of Cortex had just committed to one of his fellow troops.
Sensing my fear and disbelief, he briskly walked over to my chair, held my hand, pulled me up out of my seat, and then proceeded to tie the harness back on to me.
"But…but…", Pinstripe recalled me stuttering, "You…you…you can't".
Pinstripe then put a finger to my lips as if to shush me, something besides mafia movies obviously were played during his trip to the vortex, and then he proceeded to bring my face close to his.
"Eyyy…faget about it for a moment…okay sweet cheeks".
He then proceeded to commit what was probably the greatest offense he could have ever committed in Cortex's army and give me one…long…tender…kiss.
(…)
In almost no time at all, we were both barreling down the hall toward the entrance of Cortex Power, our hurried footsteps almost perfectly in sync with each other, the wheels of my harness creating the percussion section as we approached those open doors. Pinstripe would later tell me that the reason why the assistants had not come back yet was because of they had noticed some people out in the woods that had found the station, and that they needed to stop these intruders before the word got out.
As were about to approach the door, his tight grip around my arm, a strange thought had just occurred to I don't know how I managed to think this up, given what has been previously established, but in that moment, It had come across my mind that if I were to join up with the others outside, I would be put into the custody of another lab assistant.A lab assistant, mind you, that would not let me go both either here or back at the castle.
With that knowledge in mind, I too partook in my own small act of rebellion: I bit Pinstripe's arm.
I recalled it not being a hard bite mind you, because I do not remember tasting blood that that, it was a bite hard enough for Pinstripe to scream out in agony and release my grip on me, letting me free to run off to the one area of the plant that I desperately wanted to go.
Making my way with to the one room with the stair case, I immediately booked was a cumbersome process of course, with the wheels and everything getting in the way, but after some time, I had figured out that by lifting up the harness in one hand and letting my other arm rest on the guide rail, I could walk up their like the most grace full southern bell until I reached the top, which so happen to be a little chute leading to a tinny opening at the top of the factory.
Peering over the top of the power plant, I had one of the grandest views that I have ever seen in my in front of me, I could see the entirety of Cortex Castle, the blimp coming closer as to respond to the message of back, I could get a better view of the islands out in the distance, the image of both the mountain and the water fall being so clear that I could just reach out and grab it in the dark moonlight.
In some distant part of my brain, I knew that this view would not last forever, but that did not matter much to that mattered was that I was right there, right now, observing everything around is until I saw something that caught my eye.
Through the leaves of some trees right below the roof of the plant, I could just make out the sight of a man in some kind of safari hat, looking like he just saw the most peculiar thing in the world.
"Hey! Hey!", I called to said man, "Who are you? Who are you?"
Just then, I saw as the man quickly climbed down from his little branch, taking his gear with him as he made his decent.
"Hey! Wait for me!", I called as I crawled out of my little hydey hole, "Wait for meeeeeeeeeeeee"!
Being the stupid Marsupial I still was, I did not take into account the roof of the power plant, causing me to loose my balance and slide me to fall down, down, down deep into the forest floor, probably to die on impact.
[A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I will fix things if it is pointed out to me]
[Peace]