Chapter 8 – Dungeons and Towers
A/N: Hey everyone, phew I'm glad I managed to finish this chapter with all the work I have. College is tiring. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
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Crash stared at the newly opened portal stunned while his sister absently walked over to him.
"H…how?" She murmured. "The Time Twister was destroyed. Where did this come from?"
Crash shrugged, unsure of how to answer that. He glanced down at his hand in thought. No, it couldn't be.
"Crash, do you know what this means? This could be our way back home!" Coco muttered, perking up. The bandicoot realized this too and cheered, thrusting his fists up in the air.
A timid whine reached their ears and the two mutants turned to the baby dinosaur staring at them. Crash frowned and turned to his sister.
"I'm sorry, Crash, but we can't bring him along. He belongs here," Coco said, looking apologetically at him.
Crash sighed and then walked over to hug his dinosaur friend one last time. Coco petted its head lightly.
"Take care out here, okay?" she said. The two siblings backed away and faced the portal again.
"Ready, big brother?" Coco asked. Crash glanced at the portal and then grinned confidently at her. He got a hold of her to make sure they won't be separated and without another thought, they jumped.
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Screaming, Crash and Coco were thrown out of the portal and landed roughly on something.
"Yes! We're back…..home?" Coco trailed off when she saw that none of the familiar surroundings of the island were anywhere to be seen and instead the two were lying in the middle of a town square. "Where are we?" It was then the two realized they had fallen over a man who was out cold underneath them.
They glanced back to see crowds of people staring at them frozen in shock.
"Hi," Crash said, waving at them nervously. Almost as if a spell was broken off of them, the entire crowd burst into screaming and scrambled away in terror.
"So much for not being seen," Coco sighed. Among the chaos, she saw two knights rushing through the crowd toward them.
"Quick, let's get out of here!" Coco grabbed her brother by the arm who was about to rush to fight them and pulled him away as the panicked cries rang louder around them. She didn't know where to go. This was not where she had been expecting them to end up after all.
"Halt now!" one of the knights shouted behind them, but the siblings ran faster. They got chased through the town square until Coco had to stop at the sight of more knights standing in their way.
"Don't move," the knight warned, pointing his sharp looking sword at them. Coco and Crash gulped and raised their hands in surrender.
The knights looked at the mutants warily and then after carefully putting shackles on them, they made them walk back through the town and up a hill where a long bridge was. On the other side of the bridge was a tall castle and the girl knew whatever awaited them inside won't be pleasant.
"Keep moving!" Coco winced at the yell. She glanced back to see the knight shoving her brother forward and scowled, but kept walking by her brother's side. The interior of the castle reminded Coco too much of Cortex's with the long hallways and paintings hanging on the walls. The resemblance was simply too close for comfort. Her brother seemed to feel the same way.
They passed all sorts of heavily armed guards who eyed them with wariness and even fear. They were eventually led to a huge empty room where a tall throne stood at the end of it. A middle aged man with a thick brown beard was sitting there, eyes wide in surprise. "What is the meaning of this? What are these things?"
"Your majesty," said the knights' leader, pushing the siblings onto the floor. "We have captured these imps while they were terrorizing the town,"
Imps? Really? Coco thought in annoyance while Crash murmured the word out loud, confused.
"Is that so?" the king muttered, stroking his beard while eyeing them as if they were strangest things he ever seen in his life. Actually, they probably were.
"Hey, listen," Coco began, drawing everyone's attention to her. "I think this is a big misunderstanding. My brother and I are not dangerous or trying to hurt anybody,"
"Lies! They have dark magic, your majesty. We saw them fall from a hole in the sky,"
"Well, that's-"
"And they have knocked out a man on the street!" someone from behind added.
Coco cringed, but knew she couldn't let them continue on with this. She knew she had to reason with these people to let them go. She had to at least to try. With that in mind, Coco opened her mouth and spoke up.
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"Well, that could have ended worse," Coco said, hanging on the wall of a dungeon.
Crash was right by her who was grumbling under his breath while thrashing back and forth in his chuffs. The only sounds in the dungeon were of rats and water dripping from the ceiling.
"Hey….what do you think they are planning on doing with us?" Coco asked nervously and Crash gulped, not wanting to find out. If only their guardian was here. Maybe he could had teleported them out of this place.
Crash gritted his teeth and struggled harder with his chains, pushing his feet against the wall and thrusting himself forward, hoping to break them.
Coco frowned. "Crash, stop. That's not going to work," she said, watching him stop and pant.
Just then, something in the air of the cell shifted. The two siblings felt the shackles tremble briefly before they cried out as they fell on the floor suddenly.
"What…what happened?" Coco asked dazed while her brother rubbed his sore face. He then looked down to their chains and blinked when he saw they turned to rusty powder.
"How did this happen? They were solid metal a moment ago?" his sister muttered, examining a rusted link from the floor. They turned to the cell bars to see they rusted too. Crash kicked one with his foot experimentally and watched it break down.
Crash turned to his sister who shrugged helplessly. "I honestly don't know what's going on either. None of this makes any sense," she sighed, scratching her head like every time she was faced a frustrating situation. "But it doesn't matter right now. We need to find a way out of here,"
Crash wanted to groan when he realized they were planning on escaping from another castle again, but nodded. The two slowly made their out of the dungeon and climbed up a staircase. Just as he was about to open the door, his sister grabbed his shoulder.
"Crash, we need to be careful out there. Aku-Aku isn't around to protect us anymore. If we mess up in any way then…" she let the words hang the air and the bandicoot was hit with the true reality of their situation.
Without their guardian, they had no one to save them or pull them out of dangerous situations in time. He swallowed back his nervousness and nodded at her.
Pushing the door a little, Crash peeked outside for a moment before walking out with his sister. "Where do we go now? We never been here before," Coco stated, looking down the corridor. The two began sneaking around and turned around a corner only to find an armored man waiting for them.
Crying out, Crash did a spin attack and knocked him away sending breaking into….pieces.
Crash and Coco blinked when they saw it was just armor with no person inside it. Flushing, Crash scratched his head. "Oops,"
"It's fine. It freaked me out too. Let's just-"
"Who's there?" A real knight showed up, having heard the noise and gasped. "How did you get out?"
The mutants rolled out of the way when he charged at them with his weapon. Crash then grabbed the fallen helmet and jumped, dropping it backwards on the man's head.
"Hey!" The man exclaimed and struggled to take it off. Coco took the chance and gave him a hard kick, knocking him away. Before they could celebrate their small victory, more footsteps reached their ears and they panicked. "Hide!" Coco hissed quietly and the two scrambled away, hiding behind large red curtains.
They waited with shaky breaths as the knight came and checked on the unconscious human briefly before disappearing down the corridor looking for them.
Coco sighed in relief. "That was close," she glanced to her brother who was examining the curtain almost in thought and then glancing down the window. "Crash, what are you doing?" she asked.
The long grin he answered her with spelled nothing but trouble to her.
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"This is insane," Coco muttered with finality, gripping onto the rope in fright. Her brother had them tear down every curtain they could find and tie them together. A clever idea if they weren't hanging over thirty feet in the air!
Her brother flashed her another reassuring look from below her before continuing their descent. Heart pounding in her chest, Coco tried not to look down.
"Hey! I found them!" The mutants stiffened and looked up to see a guard looking down at them in surprise. He then got a hold of the rope and starting pulling it upward. There were probably other humans helping him as well.
"Wait, no!" Coco looked down at her brother. He gave a helpless look, obviously out of ideas. She looked around frantically and then saw a man pushing a hay wagon somewhere below them. She had a risky idea.
"Crash, start swinging with me! We need to land in that!" Coco called out, hoping he would trust her. Crash looked at her if she grew a second head, but then obliged, swinging back and forth with her to build up momentum. Coco measured the distance in her head and then shouted."Jump!"
The two let go and plummeted through air screaming into the pile of hay. Crash came out of the hay pile, cheering and marveling at how lucky they were.
"They escaped! Capture them!" one of the guards nearby yelled.
Or not.
Crash and Coco quickly jumped out of the wagon and started running away. One guard tried slashing at him with his sword, but the bandicoot slid on the ground just in time.
"Back off!" Coco shouted, knocking him down with a low kick to the ankle.
Wasting no more time, they rushed toward the castle gate that they came from only for it to be raised up before they could get out. "No! That was our way out!"
Arrows began raining down all around them so they turned and ran to a different direction. Hurrying to the castle's garden, the two ended up going inside a labyrinth to lose the humans. They ventured deeper and deeper until they couldn't hear their voices behind them anymore.
"Where do we go now?" Coco asked tiredly.
Panting, Crash looked around desperately and then saw something glinting in the shadow. It was another blue thread, going through the wall of the green labyrinth.
"We need to think carefully about this, Crash. They might be waiting for us at any corner and- CRASH!" Coco exclaimed when he brother started running in another direction. Groaning, she began chasing after him.
Soon, the two made it out of the labyrinth only to find a high wall waiting for them at the end. Crash saw the thread go through it.
"Crash, why did you bring us here?" Coco asked, annoyed.
Crash blinked at her in confusion and pointed at the thread.
She narrowed her eyes at the space he was pointing to. "I don't see anything," she said, much to the bandicoot's confusion. She couldn't see it?
Voices soon echoed in distance again and the two knew they didn't have much time before they were caught again. Panicking, Crash ran over and tried climbing the wall only to slide down and fall on his back.
"Here, help me up," Coco said, pushing herself on his shoulder and struggling to balance herself.
"Heavy," Crash grunted, gritting his teeth while his knees shook.
"Hey, I'm not that heavy," Coco huffed before grabbing onto some slightly loose bricks on the wall and using them to reach the top. "Hurry, grab my hand," she called out urgently, reaching down for him. Crash jumped up and down in hopes of grabbing it, but it was too high.
"I found you, rat!" the same guard from earlier stepped out of the labyrinth, sword glinting in his hand. The man cornered the bandicoot against the wall and raised his sword at him.
"No!" Coco cried out and nearly jumped back to stop him, but then she blinked when the blade never came down on her brother.
Crash cracked his eyes open and looked at the man sneering over him, frozen in place with his sword in the air.
"Okay, I'm really starting to consider the 'dark magic' thing," Coco said, baffled.
Crash waved his hand in front of him, but he didn't move or react to him, almost like one of the statues in this garden.
"Still, how are you going to get up here?" She asked.
Crash looked back and forth between them then brightened up when he had an idea and began pushing the frozen man toward the wall.
"You got to be kidding me," Coco slapped her forehead as her brother climbed up on his shoulders. She still helped him up and the two then hopped down the wall to the other side. They began running down a slope, hearing a confused shout coming from the castle and realized the knight was back to normal again.
"Hurry," Coco muttered.
The two bandicoots soon made it a golden grass field. Crash's eyes never left the blue thread as it snaked through the grass while Coco looked back at the castle and sighed in relief, glad they managed to escape.
"Crash, let's stop. I think we got far enough," she said breathlessly, but he walked further ahead. She scowled. "Crash, why are you ignoring-" she was cut off when another portal burst into existence in front of her brother. Panting and clutching his hand, he turned to her and grinned. "Ta-da!"
"How did…when…..where…." The girl's mind couldn't process what she just saw. So many crazy things happened just today and now she felt beyond lost. "How did you do that?"
Crash scratched his head and then shrugged his shoulders before motioning for her to follow him into the portal.
Coco stared at him and then rubbed her temples. She really needed to sit down with him and figure out how he was doing this. This wasn't normal. Only the Time Twister was supposed to be able to do that. A lot of weird things were happening around them. The new portals, the rusted shackles, the frozen knight. She worried something a lot bigger than they think was going on and they had no clue about it.
But now was not the time for questions when the knights would probably come after them soon. Sighing, she grabbed his hand and leapt into the portal.
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Dingodile growled as he pushed his way through the trees, flinching when a branch hit him in the face. "Hey, watch it!"
"Walk faster then," Pinstripe huffed. The mutant's suit had a few tears in it from their wandering through the forest which didn't help his mood. The trees around them were thin and quite tall. Nothing he had seen before.
"What do you think happened though?" Dingodile asked, after stumbling over a log.
The other scowled. "It had to be that bumbling idiot and his sister. They must have messed with the N. Tropy's machine and ruined everything!"
"What about the search though? Should we still look for the crystals?"
"I doubt that matters if we can't go back to our own time to use them right now," the shooter grumbled, rubbing his temples.
After a while, Dingodile spoke again. "You know, it's getting late. Don't you think it's time we found a place to crash in?"
Pinstripe paused and turned to face him. "I'm not sleeping in the dirt, Dingodile,"
Dingodile rolled his eyes. "Jeeze, well I'm sure if you keep looking you'll find a hotel room somewhere with a nice bed for you to lay your little head on," he replied sarcastically, earning an angry glare from the shooter.
"Shut up!" Pinstripe snapped and marched away. Dingodile sighed and ran a hand over his head before following him. Several minutes later, he pushed some bamboo away and saw a village down below in a valley.
"Will you look at that, beanpole. Looks like you're not going to sleep in the dirt after all," Dingodile called out to his companion. "Since Cortex isn't around, I see no reason not to mess around a little," he smirked, loading his flamethrower.
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A/N: Thanks for reading. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I can't say how many chapters are left, but I'll be sure to let you know once I figure it out.