Chapter Two- A Tremor of Indecision

The chamber was dank, and smelled strongly of tangy blood. There was no doubt in his mind that most of the crimson stains that smeared across the metal were painted by his own fresh wounds. His vision was shaky, and the distracting black dots that peppered the edges of his sight were beginning to engulf him. He lay pressed against the ground, his breathing shallow, and not for the first time a dominate thought took control of his mind.

Am I going to die?

Crunch's eyes snapped open, and he found himself rise to a sitting position before he realized where he was. The fur on his brow was matted with sweat, and his shallow breathing had just begun to stabilize when the threat of danger was abolished. It was another dream, or another nightmare. Crunch had been having more and more of them lately, and although many visions were quite similar to one another, Crunch was staggered by the crystal clear intensity of each one. Aku Aku had told him that his dreams may actually be fragments of memory. Crunch rubbed his head with the back of his hand before shaking the perspiration off in flecks. He groaned low in his throat, which as it exited between his clenched teeth sounded more like a growl.

"Get a grip…" Crunch snarled at himself as he rapped his forehead with his knuckles.

Suddenly Crunch heard a hard pounding on the door. His burgundy ears perked up despite the fact he already knew who stood behind it. That guy had an unmistakable scent.

"Hey Sleeping Beauty, rise and shine! Breakfast!"

Crunch grimaced, but swung his legs over the side of his bed. He stretched a brutal kink that had formed in his back, and then finally got to his feet. Absently he could hear a soft whirring hum, and he flexed the metal appendage that replaced his right arm to persuade the noise to settle. After a few basic stretches to loosen his tightened muscles, Crunch shouldered open the door of his room. He wandered down the hall, still feeling slightly dazed, but otherwise his gruff exterior betrayed nothing. He entered the main living area, where Crash was sitting pleasantly with his feet up on the table, and Coco was chattering at him to move.

"Your feet are disgusting, put them on the floor."

Crash giggled. "You wake me up this early Sweet Cheeks, and you've gotta expect it."

"Crash you moron, its noon."

"Still too early to be up and about I say." Crash finally tilted and noticed Crunch standing in the doorway. "Don't you agree mate?"

Crunch felt another strange wave of dizziness come over him, but he shook it off and walked toward the table.

"Yeah…sure."

Crunch caught Coco give Crash a pondering look, but Crash remained benevolent, as usual.

"Come to think of it, you're usually the one up at an absurdly early hour, aren't you? I don't understand it myself-"

"Is anything wrong Crunch?" Coco cut off her brother and leaned forward in her seat, green eyes wide with concern.

Finally Crunch struggled out from beneath the strange weight that hovered over him, and offered a slight grin. "I'm fine, I just had a…bad sleep."

"How is that possible?" Crash voiced though a mouthful of wamba fruit. "There's no such thing as a bad sleep."

Crunch noticed that Coco still had her eyes focused on him, but when she spoke it was to Crash. "Easy to say when you're only awake for three hours out of the day."

"A habit I think I deserve for my years of dedication to preserving the balance of island life."

"You should enjoy it instead of sleeping through it."

"I am enjoying it thoroughly in my sleep."

Although Crunch had grown accustomed to the endless streams of bickering between the bandicoot siblings, Crunch decided he needed to get out of the house for a while. He strode past the table, snatching a piece of bread on the way to the door.

"Hey Crunch? Where are you going?" Coco chirped at him.

Crunch stopped and turned around. Coco was quite caring when she wasn't being so remarkably stubborn. Crunch smiled.

"I'm just going out for a while. I slept in, so I wasn't able to do a run."

Crash snorted. "And why you insist on enduring through that bit of exhaustion every morning I'll never know."

Crunch turned and strode out the door into the bright sun. He blinked back the feeling of drowsiness. As he remained focused on the sky, he felt an odd and momentarily terrifying feeling wash over him. It was as if the world had blinked into absolute darkness, and he was standing in the middle of it. He gasped unintentionally, and as he stumbled forward to escape the blackness the world returned to normal. Crunch shook his head sharply, and growled.

"What the hell is going on?"

With no answer to his question, Crunch took off down the jungle path at a dead sprint.

A pair of golden eyes watched deviously as the burgundy bandicoot dashed at a fast pace through the underbrush. Framed in the shadows of her perch, Tina leaned forward slightly, swiping her tongue over her sharp fangs. She could predict she was going to enjoy this assignment, and was itching to put her plan into action. Yet she was obliged to follow orders, much to her chagrin, and Cortex demanded that she wait until the bandicoot's resolve fell apart, which he was convinced it would do.

From what Tina had gathered from the old doctor, this Crunch Bandicoot had been subjected to some kind of mind altering serum. This concoction had caused a reaction inside of him that, if defied, would slowly deteriorate his rational mind and convert him back into a rabid animal. Tina cocked her head. Perhaps "convert back" was not the right phrasing. Crunch Bandicoot had never started as an un-evolved creature, or so she had believed. He was called a Claret Bandicoot, which was a genetically advanced species Cortex had created himself.

Tina blinked sharply, focusing on the task at hand. What did she care about this abomination's history? She was charged with the simple task of finishing him off after his own madness tore him apart. It was child's play. Tina leaned against one hand, still crisscrossed with small cuts that had yet to heal. With a faint smile, she tossed her long braids flowing from her short red hair over one shoulder. Yes, this was going to be quite entertaining indeed.

Crunch stopped running when he reached the beach. He stood on the sandbar, breathing only slightly labored even after a five mile run. His shoulders rose and fell at the same rate they did when he was at rest. Despite the fact there was no one around, Crunch had a tendency to hide any hint of weakness even from himself. It was some kind of natural mechanism he'd developed, but from where he wasn't quite sure. He scratched his head with his mechanical arm.

There were many things he still had to work out. Number one: determine the memory he had lost when he was under the control of Dr. Cortex. Crunch's clearest memory was when Crash Bandicoot had somehow broken his connection to the evil scientist. Whether this was an inadvertent move on Crash's part didn't matter to Crunch. His mind had been set free that day, and he would have to find a way to be grateful. He hadn't demonstrated his thankfulness very well over the couple months he'd known Crash and Coco. They didn't seem to mind, or perhaps they weren't the kind of people to notice. He wasn't sure which but either way he was minimally grateful for their friendship.

Crunch took a quick scan around him. He decided to get back to his workout since he hardly broke a sweat on his run. He considered tromping through the jungle to find a good strong branch to work his biceps, but his motivation suddenly faded. Instead, he climbed up onto a rock flaking with grey shale and took a seat. Crunch normally didn't sit still for long. It wasn't only his resolution of keeping his body in the best possible condition, but also the stillness of motion had the tendency to bring on unwanted contemplations. Like, for instance, why his dreams were becoming less vague and far more disturbingly realistic. He was under the impression that Cortex had created him exactly as he was now. Crunch was not a forcibly evolved creature like Crash, nor had he been affected by any chemical contamination like Coco. He was the only one of his kind; an invented species that would serve its master with loyalty and complete its duties with savage intensity. Now that he was free, was there a purpose to his existence? Crash was completely content to simply lounge about his home without a care in the world, and Coco enjoyed tinkering with mechanics and creating- what Crunch thought to be- useless inventions. However, that wasn't enough for him.

Crunch absently scraped a shard of black rock back and forth, leaving a few angry white marks to in the shale. He sighed, and quickly tossed the shard out into the ocean before leaping off the rock and continuing his training.