Crash leads the group into entrance of an ancient looking structure going inside the volcano.
"Why are we going in here?" Sora asks.
"I think Crash says, there is an entrance to the mine through here." Coco explains. "It would be much better and sneakier than going through the front door."
"Good plan." Sora compliments. The group head inside and through the dark interior, they can see a door leaking out light with another lab assistant with a rifle guarding it.
"Anything to take him out quietly?" Crunch whispers.
"I think I have something." Sora says. He aims his keyblade and casts blizzara at the lab assistant, and it hits him right in the mouth as well as knocks him down a bottomless pit.
"Nice. What else can you do." Crunch asks.
"So much, I think I've lost count of the amount of stuff I can do." Sora responds.
"Guys, we have a problem. We can't see that well so we could also end up like that lab assistant with the wrong step." Coco says.
"I can help with that." Aku Aku says before glowing bright enough for the group to see a good distance away.
"Nice." Sora says. The group then parkours over to the door, which when going inside, they find a hallway made of metal with small rivers of lava flowing through the floor with no safe way to get across besides jumping.
"I think its safe to say Cortex has a safety-less workplace addiction." Coco says. Crash makes some nosies before Aku Aku translates.
"The entrance to Cortex's castle on island three is almost the same, just with toxic waste instead of lava." The group harmlessly jumps over the many lava rivers until the hallway ends and they enter a wide open room with lab assistants moving equipment in. However, these lab assistants appear like a cross between a lab assistant and a heartless, as they're all black with yellow eyes and a heartless symbol pinned to the left side of their chest.
"So, the heartless are working with ." Crunch grunts.
"I think he's controlling them." Sora says. "I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the heartless can temporarily be controlled by someone who's heart is dark enough."
"Temporarily?" Coco asks.
"Later. We've got baddies." Crunch says, punching back a lunging lab heartless. Sora takes out the keychain Ruby gave him and uses it for his keyblade. It switches to have a mainly pure black base with red armour plating with an accent colour of silver and a thorny vine traveling up the hilt to the end where a burning silver rose made up the teeth. This keyblade is called "Silver Rose".
Using the keyblades form change, the keyblade shifts so the teeth extend into a scythe blade and the hand guards collapse down to extent the handle making a scythe similar to Crescent Rose. He then begins eliminating the lab heartless effortlessly.
"Woah, no thats cool." Crunch says.
"Thanks, I actually just got this." Sora says.
"Keep moving forward guys." Coco ushers on. The group moves to another room which houses many pieces of mining equipment, this time guarded by some lab assistants wearing miner getup. Crash runs to the assistants as the reach for some pickaxes and spins insanely fast, knocking the group around until they're no longer functional.
"Woah, that was insane." Sora says.
"That is Crashes death tornado technique." Aku Aku explains. "It can also allow him to glide short distances."
"Are we gonna stop to talk about every ability we have! Lets keep going." Coco demands.
"Classic Coco. Always on task." Crunch smiles. the group make their way to another room, this one much larger and darker than the rest. "Anyone know where the light switch is?" The room then suddenly illuminates (barely) to reveal a jacked up tiger with spike shoulder guards.
"Cortex said you come here." He says. Lab assistants and lab heartless surround the bandicoots. "I didn't expect little boy to come with. I deal with him first. The ground around Sora falls, leaving nine pillars keeping Sora from falling into the abyss bellow.
"Tiny! This same set up didn't stop Crash before, what makes you think it'll stop Sora!" Coco calls out to him.
"Tiny learn from mistakes. So he prepared." The now named Tiny tiger grabs a spear out of the darkness. He leaps at Sora, who jumps to another pillar. Tiny leaps again and while in mid air, Sora leaps to attack, but Tiny bumps him aside and almost knocks him off the edge. Luckily, Sora quickly recovers and jumps away from an oncoming Tiny. When he sees Tiny jump again he has his spear poised to strike. sora jumps away and watches Tiny embed his spear unto the ground.
Taking this opportunity, Sora quickly strikes with Silver Rose and snaps Tiny's spear. This does nothing to him, so he keeps leaping around, prompting Sora to leap away. Among all the dodging, he spots an unstable, and shaking pillar. He leaps over to it and Tiny follows suit.
After leaping away and Tiny taking his place, the pillar gives way and falls Tiny along with it. Eventually, Tiny ,somehow, gets back up on the pillar he jut fell on.
"Ahhhhhh! Tiny fell again! Now Tiny crush you!" Tiny yells, however, he is unable to do anything as Crunch comes in punches him into the wall. Tiny falls back on to a pillar and looks up to see the bandicoots joining Sora. "Tiny need new strategy."
"You'll have plenty of time to think in the dark." Crunch says before looking to Crash who pulls out his bazooka and fires at the pillar Tiny was laying on, causing him to fall into the darkness. "Nice shot buddy." Crunch says.
"This way guys!" Coco waves over to another room. The group make their way through another hallway, this time there are no lava rivers fortunately, until they find a pad swirling with orange energy.
"Is this the portal?" Sora asks.
"Yes. This should take us to the factory section of Cortex's castle." Coco answers. The group stands on the portal and are whisked away to island three.
Upon getting there, Sora looks up at the factory to see the castle closer and much larger than expected.
"I'd hate to have to climb up there." Sora says, to which he notices Crash shiver a little. 'Had he actually climbed up before?' Sora asks himself.
"Inside. Time is of the essence." Aku Aku reminds everyone. To which every make their way into "Cortex Power" As the factorys tittle reads.
Before anyone comments, yes I know Sora could have curb stomped Tiny like he was bug, but thats not interesting to read, so he's just going to have to play fair until the later bosses. I have some fun ideas for them. Also, didn't like the keyblade name? Please suggest a better name. I'm open to anything.