Surprisingly, the laboratory was virtually untouched by the destruction above. Coco dashed for where she had been standing before the destruction had started, while Crash plopped himself on her tan sofa, playing with his yo-yo. Steven cautiously admired Coco's technologies, and was squinting at one of her prototypes. Crunch had shut the door behind him, and walked over to where Coco was standing. She picked up the wrench she had dropped, and continued to tinker with the teleportation machine. Crunch pretended to look interested in what she was doing, but he was actually keeping watch on the treacherous old man.

"Fortunately, I think I have a solution to our predicament,"Coco said, "but it will take more power than we have. I created, and tested a time travel machine three weeks ago. it worked well enough, but it took a remarkable amount of energy to power it. Now that the main generator for our power is destroyed, I can no longer power it. The back up generator, even though it produces enough power for the teleportation machine, does not produce enough energy to power time-travel. Anyone have any ideas?" Coco inquired.

Steven hesitantly spoke up. "The energy you would need to power that machine, by the looks of it, is equivalent to the entire power grid of Seattle. I'm not sure there's a source of power that abundant short of a nuclear warhead," he observed.

"The way humans do nuclear power is so inefficient. I built a generator that could supply more power than three nuclear bombs with a fraction of the uranium you guys use," Coco retorted. The two began to argue over various scientific things. While neither of the boys understood half of what Steven and Coco were saying, they could see the argument was reaching volatile levels. Sensing this, Crunch's hair started to raise, and he began to let out a low growl. The older Bandicoot was about ready to pounce on Steven when he was snapped out of his rage by Crash bounding off the tan sofa with glee. Crash began pointing excitingly at his purple yo-yo, chattering in Crash talk. Yet, his speech was so filled with energy that neither Coco nor Crunch could decipher what he was saying. Giving Crash a puzzled look, Crunch crossed his arms.

Crash then ran over to a nearby box, and tilted it on its corner. "Crash, you're not making any sense. I'm not sure what your yo-yo and that box have to do with any of this," Crunch sighed.

"Crunch, don't you see? Crash, you're a genius!" Coco said while giggling.

"He must have found a cure to cancer then, for you to say that one of your brothers is a genius. Congratulations, sis, you know something I don't. Now get on with it!" Crunch said while rolling his eyes.

"Crash is pointing at his yo-yo because its purple, and he tilted the box on its corner so that it became a diamond. What it purple and diamond-like? Power crystals! Those would work to power my machine," she happily said.

"Sis, I don't doubt your brains, but you forgot one piece to that puzzle. Our power crystals were smashed along with the rest of our belongings when our house burned down. The only other person in the world that knows their location is Cortex - and Cortex isn't exactly here to celebrate our solution." Crunch pointed out.

"The way we beat Cortex to the crystals was by intercepting his crystal locater radar messages. Therefore we need to talk to him about that. And before you interrupt me again, I had Crash plant a tracking device (the T-S1-30) in Cortex's head long ago. Unfortunately, it is kind of faulty, but its all we got," Coco resolved.

"Alright, lets assume that your whatever-you-call-it in Cortex's head happens to lead us to the right place. Lets also assume that the most insane man on Earth will help his arch enemies out with their problem. And lets say that we even manage to find the crystal. What do we do with that murderer?" Crunch said while pointing a metal finger at Steven.

"He'll go with you. I have re-engineered the teleportation machine to transport three Bandicoots weighing up to 1,000 kilograms,"Coco said, then turned to Steven. "You don't weigh much, do you? My older brother's habit of packing on muscle has made him weigh almost as much as two people."

"What should happen if I do weigh too much?" Steven cautiously inquired.

"It'l reject you."

"Oh ok, what a relief. I though you were going to say something much wo-"

"'Reject' is my polite way of saying that it will re-arrange your limbs, make your blood boil, and electrocute you." Coco interrupted.

"Oh"

Then Crunch weighed his opinion in. "While I'm glad that you wont be staying in the laboratory alone with this maniac, you can't seriously think that Crash and I can be responsible for him?" Crunch growled.

"Think of it as a challenge, big bro."

Crash and Crunch were standing on the warp pad ready for transportation. Crash had done this many times, but he was really excited to go on a mission with his older brother for once. On the other hand, Crunch had never done this before, and was slightly nervous.

Coco prodded Steven towards the warp pad and indicated for him to stand next to Crunch, who dwarfed him in size. Responding to the old man's reluctance, Coco reassured him that "Crunch doesn't bite. Well unless you look like a particularly juicy and protein-rich piece of meat. Although his sweaty stench might prove to be more deadly that his bite," she said, laughing. This prompted a growl from her older brother and giggling from Crash, but in no way assured Steven.

Once Steven was in place, she trotted back to her control console and began to run coordinates through her database to find Cortex. Once she found the supposedly-correct coordinates, she gave a thumbs up and pulled the lever to activate the machine. As power started to flow to the warp pad, Steven suddenly tried to run away in terror. He was rudely stopped by Crunch's metal arm. The burgundy Bandicoot grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and held on tight even as the pad began to work. In a blinding flash of light, Steven, and the two male Bandicoots were gone.

Crunch's only thought at the moment was : "Damn you old man."