Chapter 9

Darkness. Darkness surrounds her. She can feel her heart beating rapidly against her chest. She wants to get out, struggling against the restraints, digging into her wrists and ankles. She tries to scream for help but it comes out muffled. She wants to go home. Then, the lights comes on, showing her a bright, white empty room. Everything completely blurry with bright lights shining down on her. She hears the door open and close, followed by footsteps getting louder till she sees blurry visions of two figures. The guy on the left, setting up the tools looks like he has a buzz cut wearing a lab coat and the guy on the right is tall with blue skin, also looking like he is wearing a lab coat. She can immediately tell who that is, making her struggle and scream even more, desperate to get away from him. The blue figure strokes her face,

"Shh, it's ok my pet. I am doing this for us." he said. He slowly leans down and whisper in her ear,

"We will be together forever," he kisses her on the cheek as she tries to scream loudly with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Put her to sleep." She looks at his assistant, despite her blurry vision, she can tell he took out a needle and slowly pointing it towards her neck, making her scream even more.

Coco shot up, breathing heavily and feeling the tears streaming down her cheeks. She takes deep breaths, trying to calm down and starts thinking about the nightmare she had,

'Was that Tropy?' she thought feeling sick, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead. Once she controls her nausea feeling she gets up to look herself in the mirror, seeing her emerald green, bloodshot eyes looking back at her. She gets her tissues to dry her eyes when she can feel Pura rubbing his head against her leg, looking up at her extremely worried. She stroke his head and close her eyes, to see if Nadia is awake. She can see she is having an uneasy sleep and decides to leave her be to get ready. She goes out of her room to see the house is still dark with early morning sunrise as source of light. She hears someone snoring from the living room, goes in to see N. Gin sleeping on the sofa, almost slipping off. Coco look at him in disgust then looks out the window to see MegaBandicoot still lying on the ground covered in dirt. She lets out a long sigh, ties her hair back and goes out the front door, ready to work on the machine.

Hours have passed as the sun slowly rises up. N. Gin is starting to wake up and hear someone outside and can see Crunch in the kitchen standing over the stove, frying some breakfast. He looks out the window to see Coco working on MechaBandicoot, so he immediately got up and run out the door to see Coco with messed up hair and covered in dirt and oil. N. Gin slowly walks towards her, wondering if it's Coco or Nadia.

"Nadia?" Coco turns around to face him where N. Gin can see it is Coco based on her green eyes, clearly annoyed by him already.

"Oh. Sorry." He feels awkward being under Coco's scrutinizing look. She slowly returns to her work while N. Gin just stands there fidgeting with his hands.

"So, how is it looking?" he asks,

"After you attacking Crash with this, plus being used to defeat the evil twins and you piloting over here and skid it, it's really beaten up. But, I managed to make it move its arms, along with getting the chainsaw to work. Just need to figure out how to make it shoot from his nozzle." N. Gin's head shot up,

"I can help with that." he climbs up to MechaBandicoot's head and open it up.

"See this little compartment? That's where you store up the plasma ammo, however it looks like it's ran out and I only have ammo back at the labs." Coco looks downhearted until she sees Crunch calling them over,

"Breakfast is ready! Come and Eat!" N. Gin and Coco jumps off the machine and goes inside the house to see Crunch setting up the table with Crash, Nina and Aku aku sitting around the table. Coco went to sit next to Crash while N. Gin goes to sit next to Nina who is busy looking at Coco's eyes to see what colour they are, much to Coco's annoyance.

"Alright everyone. While we have breakfast, we must discuss what we can do to save Neo and Nadia." Nina decides to speak up,

"Would it be possible to go back to my Uncle's labs? We can save my Uncle and maybe he knows where Auntie Nadia last went." Aku aku nodded,

"That sounds like a good idea Nina, but the problem is we don't have any vehicles to get there." This made Nina a little disheartened.

"Hang on," Crunch speaks up,

"I saw Coco and Rocket Man here fixing that heap of junk outside." Crash's ears shot up out of interest looking excited by the news.

"Junk!?" N. Gin shouted and looks like he is about to protest but Coco intercepted,

"That's true, but all I did is the arms. We haven't tested anything else to see if they are safe to work." This made Nina angry,

"And you can't work any faster!?" her outburst shocks everyone but made Coco angry,

"I worked on it all morning by myself!" Coco retaliates.

"If you think you can work at it better than I can, be my guest!" Crash puts his hand on his sister's back to calm her down while Nina looks down, regretting her outburst.

"I am sorry, I am just worried about them that's all. I am grateful for what you have done and if you want I can help you with it. My Uncle and N. Gin taught me a bit about robotics." Coco felt a little guilty and about to say something when Aku aku interrupted,

"Any help is more than welcome Nina and when MechaBandicoot is up and running we will be able to save your family." she looks behind him to see Crash giving her a thumbs up, making Nina feel a little better.

Neo is getting exhausted, hungry and thirsty. He feels like they have been walking for hours as he is constantly being dragged by Tiny with Tropy proudly walking in front of them and having Uka uka floating around. They are treading over the rocky shore as the storms is coming towards them until they get to the entrance of a dark cave.

"What are we doing here?" Neo asks which earns him a shock from Uka uka, making him scream in pain.

"Patience. It will all be worth it." Tropy says with an evil smile. Making Neo uneasy. They walk into the dark abyss with only Uka uka's aura to light up the cave. After what felt like hours, they start to see a purple light at the other end of a tunnel. Neo can tell it is a power crystal but it is brighter than normal. He looks at Tropy to see a mad glint in his eyes while gazing at that direction.

"Come!" Tropy shouted, leading everyone down the tunnel with Tiny still pulling Neo by his chains. They got to the area where the light is blinding them, making it hard to see what it actually is. Tropy holds up his tuning fork, making it absorb the light to make it less blinding and what's in front of them shock Neo. He sees an enormous power crystal in front of him but what puts him in shock is what inside. His beautiful late wife who he thought was dead is trapped inside the crystal, completely still but looks like she was trying to get out.

"No." Neo whispers with tears prickling his eyes.

"Yes. Beautiful isn't she? Now she is mine forever." Neo is furious. His eyes burning with rage as he hears uka uka laughing evilly at the background.

"You monster!" he pulls against his chains, wanting to attack Tropy but Tiny hold him back.

"You told me she died!" Tropy ignores Neo, just staring at the power crystal with admiration.

"I said that so I can have her to myself, and now she will be essential to my plan for world domination, however I can give her back to you, if you tell me where your daughter is. If not, you will stay here and watch me do whatever I want with your dear wife and watch my plans unfold. The choice is yours." Neo shakes his head more rapidly. He can't believe this. The love of his life is encased in a crystal in front of him and the only way to save her is betray his own daughter. He doesn't know what to do.

"No. NADIA!"

I will be honest with you guys, I got a little nauseous and uncomfortable while writing the beginning of this chapter as I hate the yandere trope I gave to Tropy but I thought it will make things a little interesting and I like the idea of Tropy being mad and obsessive and I hope you guys do too. Of all the things I am doing to Neo and Coco you guys must think I hate them XD actually they are my two favourite characters along with Nina and that is why they are my focused characters however I will try and give the other characters more attention, like N. Gin is a big example.

Anyway guys,

Keep Reading! :D