Nathan Charles and Luna Fang: Into the Dragon Realms

By Mutitoon90

Chapter Nine

Once inside the castle, the group was attacked by flunkies of Ripto, but the males managed to repel the attack in his own way. Nathan used his wits and technology, Crash used his spins and ducked often, Spyro breathed fire, ice, water and eletricity onto the charging foes, Sparx flew at the opponents to distract them, Hunter used his bow and arrows to take out the enemies that was trying to sneak up on any one of the group and Agent Nine fired shot after shot at the approaching foes, which nearly hit each member of the group at least once.

As soon as the group was able to rest, Crash was the first to complain about Agent Nine's accuracy with the laser gun.

"Dude! Where did you learn to fire that thing!? You nearly hit me!"

"Crash," Nathan spoke out to the Bandicoot with a mildly annoyed tone in his voice, "you're not the only one that nearly got shot by a stray bullet of a laser gun."

"Yeah," Hunter agreed with the human, "just back off, Crash."

With a loud huff, Crash sat onto the ground and folded his arms, still upset about nearly getting hit by the laser projectile, and the others continued to speak to each other.

"So, Ripto's somewhere around here..." Spyro mused at the thought before he asked the human male, "Right?"

"It's possible," Nathan replied thoughtfully, "however, I wouldn't be too surprised that he managed to leave here with a trap waiting for us."

"Not too... Surprised?" Agent Nine asked, instantly curious about the human's words, "What do you mean?"

"It's a long story; I'll explain it later." Nathan said with a deep sigh, telling the others that it was a touchy subject for the human to speak of to others.

"So," Spyro spoke out again, "let's get him!"

"As soon as everyone's ready to go." Hunter pointed out to the purple dragon before he turned to the others of the group and asked them, "Are you guys ready?"

"Ready and aiming to go, among other things." Agent Nine announced as he readied his laser gun to fire at any on-coming enemies.

"I'm ready to get that little creep for what he did to Luna!" Crash hopped up, and Sparx buzzed excitingly around the group member, since he was prepared for battle as well.

"I'm ready as well." Nathan spoke out as he played with his weapon between his fingers.

"Well," the cheetah grinned at the group, "we better get goin' while the goin' good."

"Right." Nathan nodded with the others as he spoke, and then, he said, "I'll check if the coast is clear or not."

"Okay." Hunter said, "I'll go with ya; can't be too careful."

"Yes," Nathan replied in a hushed tone and with an artful grin, "one can be too careful, and that's how the bad guys usually mess up; let's keep that between us."

"Right." Hunter chuckled as he saw Nathan's wink and winked back at the human before the both of them scouted out the area.

Once both the human and the cheetah checked that there were no bad guys or their underlings, the group went off to the double doors.

As the group carefully made their way to the doors, Nathan had developed a bad feeling, which he felt in his stomach, about how there were no one to protect the double doors. He knew that he should say something, but he did not want to cause a panic among the group, and he could not tell anyone since it was too late to say anything.

As the males opened the double doors, they saw that there were a lot of unexpected machinery in the room that Spyro knew was designed and meant to be a treasure room. The males also heard two voices; one the males knew very well was Ripto's, but the second voice sounded like a young female's voice, which all but one member of the group did not know.

"Are you sure that you can hold them off long enough for our plan to work?" Ripto asked a question, which was answered by the other voice.

"Of course! Once you're air-borne, you'll conquer the Dragon Reamls, and I'll get that Nathan for his betrayal!"

Hearing the word 'betrayal,' the group turned to Nathan, who quietly explained himself to the other males of what the female voice meant.

"Remember that long story that I said that I'd tell at a later time? Well, I'll summerize it; I grew up in a family of evil scientists, and I didn't want to be a part of it. The betrayal that she is in reference of is due to the fact that I helped stop one uncle from taking over the world and stopping another uncle from destroying a major city."

"You're called a traitor, because you've stopped your uncles from doing bad things to other people?" Hunter asked Nathan, who added, "Also, I didn't want to be a part of the family business."

"That would be it for some people." Crash laughed, knowing about the Cortex clan's tendency of losing their temper, espeically when they do not get their way.

"Let's go in and torch them!" Spyro announced his plan, and the others nodded in agreement, knowing that they, Ripto and Nathan's relative, must be stopped before their plan is executed.

Then, the group charged out to face the evil duo, however one of them stepped on a tile, which setted off an alarm.

Crash, who was the one that stepped on the tile, only had one thing to say to the group, "Oops."

"You can say that again." Nathan shook his head, seeing that his best friend had caused another accident.

Then, the alarm died down, and in its place was the female's voice; this time, it was directed at the six males.

"Well, it's nice for you guys to show up... Finally!"

As the group looked around for the female Cortex, a siloutte of a girl appearance in front of a stoplight, which told the males that the female was trying to make a dramatic entrance, as the girl continued to speak.

"I am the Cortex that will teach you how to give up, and I am the Cortex to weed out the weak and the traitorous of our proud family of Cortex. I-"

"Nina," Nathan interrupted rudely, "we're really not in the mood to heard your so-call monologue, so cut to the chase!"

The girl's shadow showed its owner's annoyance of being told to cut her monologue short, and then, the Cortex that was known as Nina turned off the spotlight and showed herself to the males.

"That's so like you, Nathan!" Hissed Nina, who looked like a hybrid of a goth, a nerd and a preppy schoolgirl, as she directed her attention to the lone human of the group, "You think that the monologues are useless!"

"That's because they ARE, Nina!" Nathan was quick to tell the girl what he thought about drawn out speeches, "Besides, I've got no time to play with you!"

"Ugh!" Shouted Nina as she became more upset with her older cousin before she added loudly, "You're so stupid for choosing to leave the great industry in the world!"

"Ha!" Nathan scoffed out loud, "Being a bad guy's not as glamorous as our fathers and uncles make out to be."

"That's not the worse part for me!" The blue-skinned female shouted out furiously at Nathan, "Your father and my uncle, Napoleon, was still hoping that you get out of this phase and return to the family business, which I think he's just fooling himself."

Nathan grinned at his cousin and said, "That's one of the few things that you and I will ever agree with, Nina."

"And that's why I'm going to wipe out off the face of the Earth!" Nina announced as she pulled a remote out of her skirt pocket and pressed a button on it.

As the button was held down, the floor started to open, causing the males to scramble to escape the expanding hole in the floor. The floor opened and exposed a rising robotic suit, which Nina hopped onto once the suit stopped raising up from the area below the floor.

"This, dear cousin Nathan," Nina spoke down to the human male, "is my specially designed robot suit that's going to crush you flatter than a pancake! So, say your prayers, Cousin, because I don't plan on playing nice!"

"Well, Nina," Nathan shook his head at his younger cousin as he pulled out his gadget, "if you want a fight, you better be ready to lose."

A hiss made its announcement as the air swiftly passed her overbite before she shouted, "You better be ready lose! I've got the robot suit!"

"Oh, boy!" The male human rolled his eyes as Nina used the robot's fist to throw a punch at the former Cortex.

Nathan dodged the giant punch, and a hole was made in the wall, which caused Nina mutter angrily and loudly. Nathan knew that Nina was not happy about missing the ex-Cortex, and she would try to punch at him again.

"Hold still!" Nina demanded at her cousin, who did not say anything, since he knew that he would only incur more of Nina's wrath.

Nina's robot threw another punch and missed Nathan again, but this time, the punch landed on a column, which deattached from the ceiling and the part of the floor that did not help hide the robot. The torn chuck of marble column landed onto the robot, which caused Nina to jump out of the useless robot.

"That's not fair!" Nina threw a fit after getting out of the robot, "I was supposed to win this time!"

"Oh, brother..." Nathan rolled his eyes as he grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her from the spot she was having her fit of frustation.

"No, no, no, no, no, NO!" Shouted the defeated Cortex, who was still venting out her fury of losing to her older cousin once again.

"Give it up, Nina," Nathan stated as he dragged the girl, who was kicking and screaming at that point, and the young man knew that Nina was well-accustomed to getting everything she wanted just by throwing a temper tantrum, "that's not gonna work on me, and I'm not gonna get hit by your father this time too!"

"Well, duh!" Nina yelled at Nathan in a rude manner, "You're the reason that he's not gonna wallop you!"

"Good!" Nathan retorted just as rudely, "I don't have to worry about him from a while, and you'd learn what it means to have self-control."

"What are you blabbing about?" Nina hissed out at her apparent enemy, "You can't do shit to me!"

"You're still so quick to assume that no one can touch you, because you're a kid." Nathan laughed out at Nina, who was truly confused about what the human male meant.

Seemingly ignoring Nina, Nathan turned to Hunter and asked him, "Do you have any rope on ya?"

"Sure," the cheetah said, "why?"

"You'll see soon enough." Nathan gave the feline a quick wink and a sly smile, which told Hunter that Nathan was about to put the girl in her place.

Giving the rope to Nathan, Hunter watched as the human took the rope and Nina to another column and tied the girl up to the tower of marble. Once the girl was tied up, Nathan asked Hunter, "What do ya think about that?"

"Not bad at all, Nathan." Hunter said, truly impressed by the male's ability to improvise on the spot.

Nina had a few more words to say to Nathan, and she refused to make Nathan feel comfortable about what he did to her. Her shouts were nearly ear-spiltting to the males.

"You can't do this to me! My daddy's going pound on you so much for what you did, and then the police will arrest you for child abuse and kidnapping and-"

"Nina," Nathan calmly spoke to the young girl, "there're two problems with what you've just said, and that's one: expecting your father to come to your rescue again, and two: expecting the police to believe you, when you've managed to rack up a five-page crimial record. So, do yourself a favor and SHUT UP!"

Nina listened to her elder cousin at that point, realizing that Nathan was not fooling about the police and her father, since she knew that was true as well. That used to work years ago, and now it no longer works, causing the girl to complain under her breath.

"Looks like you've silenced her at last." Spyro spoke up, beyond grateful about the girl finally being quiet.

"You can say that again!" Buzzed Sparx, the dragonfly, as he felt his hearing organs easing from the pain caused by the younger Cortex.

"Yeah..." Crash rubbed his ears, trying to ease the pain in them, "At least, we didn't have to use a Wumpa fruit to keep her quiet."

"I wouldn't be so quick to say that just yet, Crash." Hunter gave a warning to the Bandicoot, who became very concerned about the possiblity that his favorite food would be use to keep Nina silent for a while.

"Calm down, buddy." Nathan placed a hand on the orange mammal's shoulder, "Nina's not going to be so loud after want I've told her."

Hearing this, Nina's face darkened with rage, however she could not say anything against him, so she remained quiet.

"Now, let's get that Dino-squirt before he gets away!" Agent Nine hopped up and down; he had been waiting patiently for a chance to get at Ripto.

"Right!" Hunter agreed with a nod, "Let's go!"

Then, the group of males went off to catch up with the dinosaur wizard, leaving an enraged Nina tied up at the column.

"I'll get you for this, Nathan the traitor..." Nina Cortex swore as she watched the object of her fury and hatred ran off with his allies.