Chapter 3: Days Of Wumpa Past
Evil Public School, Frozen Coast, 2008
It was with a devious grin on his face that Dr. Neo Cortex pulled down the bulky lever on the wall in the school's basement, causing the large, cylindrical glass chamber in the centre of the room to begin crackling with electricity, power flowing to it via the wires that lined the floor, said wires connected to a nearby power generator with the letter 'N' emblazoned on the side. The glass chamber flashed with a bright light for a brief moment and there, standing within, was an anthropomorphic bat with a skinny build, light brown fur, blue eyes and underdeveloped bat wings. She was completely naked - a fact that she was quick to become horrified by, hastily covering her lower body, though this couldn't compare to the horror she felt as she took in her surroundings. Some sort of underground facility with electric cables running everywhere, large metal crates emblazoned with the letter 'N' lining the walls… and a lanky, balding man with bright yellow skin staring at her with a look of mad glee on his face from the other side of the reinforced, translucent blue glass.
'Wh-Where am I? What is this?' the bat girl thought, her heart thumping against her chest, her blue eyes wide. She started to hyperventilate, backing away to the far side of the cylindrical chamber she stood in as Cortex placed one of his gloved hands against the glass, staring at her most curiously, like he was a father admiring his newborn child through the glass window that separated a hospital's waiting room from the nursery.
"Welcome to my lab, Subject 2187!" the evil scientist greeted with a smile that walked a fine line between suspiciously friendly and decidedly deranged, the letter 'N' on his forehead glinting in the florescent light the lab was bathed in. "You are the latest in a long line of Brat Girl clones!" He held up a remote and a section of the glass chamber slid up, akin to the automated doors in Star Trek. "Step forth, my loyal minion, so we can get you properly registered! …And clothed."
Loyal minion? Clone? Subject 2187? The bat girl could scarcely fathom what the man was talking about. Where was she? Who was she? What was going on?! It was all too much for her; she backed up against the glass on the far side of the cloning chamber and crouched down, shutting her eyes and wrapping her arms around herself, shaking like a leaf. She began to whimper fearfully, tears streaming down her furry cheeks.
"Oh, no," Cortex mumbled to himself, turning away. "Another defect, and it's been so mercifully long since the last one, too." He sighed, unholstering his tried and true ray gun from his belt. "Oh, well. I still remember how to deal with this sort of thing," he mused, turning a dial on the bright red weapon, which had a yellow lightning bolt symbol emblazoned on the side, the gun beginning to power up with a high pitched whine. He raised the firearm, taking careful aim at the anthropomorphic bat, looking almost sad as he did so. Almost.
The bat girl opened one eye at the sound of the high pitched whine and let out a horrified gasp, realising what was about to happen to her. She reached up and covered her eyes, letting out a terrified sob as she did so.
Cortex stood there for what felt like a very long time, keeping his ray gun trained on the mutant girl he had cloned. At long last, he did something that surprised even him:
He began to lower his weapon.
The evil scientist let out another weary sigh as he stood there, watching the trembling bat girl with an unreadable expression on his face. 'Maybe I can give her the benefit of a doubt,' he thought to himself. 'After all, this isn't the first time a clone has come out of the cloning chamber somewhat shell-shocked. Granted, they don't usually go to pieces like this - not completely, anyway - but even so, it would be a waste to disintegrate a newly forged minion, especially when we're so short on evil staff at the moment; I'm still waiting to see if N. Brio will respond to my invitation to join me in some old-school evil…'
The quivering bat girl looked up after several long seconds when her swift demise didn't come, her tearful eyes reflecting her surprise when she found Dr. Cortex knelt down before her, smiling somewhat warmly - key word, 'somewhat' - holding out his gloved hand for her to take.
"Come, my dear minion. There's no need to be afraid. That little… display with my ray gun just now was merely a... a test! And you passed!" he assured her, fairly obviously lying through his smiling teeth.
The still traumatised girl, not even close to fully convinced, slowly reached forward to meet the doctor's hand with her own furry appendage, not knowing what else to do. Cortex took hold of her hand and stood up, gently pulling the cloned bat to her feet - surprisingly gently.
"Let's see if we can't find you some warm clothes and a hot beverage," the big-headed scientist went on as he led the girl from the room, speaking in a fatherly tone that seemed… well, partially genuine, if nothing else. "Yes, you'll want to rug up warm, my dear lackey; we're situated on the outskirts of a frozen tundra, after all…"
Neon City, The SNaXX Dimension, 3023
Four mugs of freshly brewed coffee, complete with milk foam and chocolate sprinkles, were arranged neatly in a row on the coffee table in the living room of Megumi's apartment, having just been prepared by Garnet for her unexpected visitors. Garnet's own mug was clasped in her furry hands as she gazed around at the trio of bandicoots and their half-dingo, half-crocodile cohort, who were seated on the couch, Crash and Coco leaning forward to pick up their mugs. Tawna soon followed suit, tentatively sniffing at her beverage before taking a cautious sip. The adult bandicoot swished the liquid around in her mouth, finally swallowing, and then—
"Mmm," Tawna mused contentedly, a satisfied smile appearing on her face as she sat back, leaning into the couch's fabric and visibly relaxing. Dingodile, who was squashed in between her and the arm of the couch, made to put his arm around her, a sly look on his face, but quickly retracted his bulky appendage when Tawna shot him a warning look, wordlessly reminding him that they weren't quite 'there' yet in their relationship. In his defence, Dingodile felt that he had been very understanding thus far, especially considering how Tawna had practically drooled over Crunch's biceps earlier.
"There, you see?" Garnet asked smugly as she watched Tawna positively melt in response to the quality of the coffee. "My coffee's perfectly fine. Nothing sketchy or 'illegal' about it, whatever the rumours say," she went on, rolling her eyes at the notion of anything about her coffee being illicit.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, alright?" Tawna insisted, leaning forward once more. "Anyway, there's still something a little… odd about you, if I may say so. I mean, what was all that at the doorway?"
"Yeah, you were getting kind of touchy-feely with Crash's hands," Coco pointed out, Crash nodding in agreement before taking a sip of his coffee, the male bandicoot pulling a face as he did so; he was not a big fan of coffee, or more to the point, its bitterness. He did like the chocolate sprinkles, though. In fact, they made him wish that he could be drinking hot chocolate instead.
Garnet nodded in response to Coco's words, averting her blue eyes. "Yeah, I…" She bit her lip. "I know that I owe you guys an explanation for that." She turned away, gazing out the window at the hover cars and food delivery trucks flying through the skies of the futuristic Neon City. She sighed wearily, her bat wings drooping. "I've been trying to leave my past… well, in the past, but somehow, it just seems to keep catching up with me."
Garnet turned back to the Bandicoots and Dingodile, the latter nosily slurping up the last of his coffee like it was soup. The bat girl drained the contents of her own mug before slamming it down onto the coffee table, making Crash and the others jump slightly.
"Alright, then! If we're gonna do this, let's do it properly! I believe introductions are in order. My name is Barista Garnet. Yes, my first name is Barista and my hobby is brewing coffee; I'm well aware of how apropos my name is, so don't make jokes about it!" she said sharply, brandishing a finger at the group on Megumi's couch warningly.
"Okay…" Tawna said uncertainly, a little taken aback by how snappy Garnet was being; was she really so sensitive about her name? Tawna herself associated with multiple people with odd and often apropos names, including her present company. "I'm Tawna. Just Tawna. No relation."
"I'm Coco Bandicoot," Coco said, "And this is my brother Crash… though you already knew his name, apparently."
"Dingodile's the name, good home cookin' is my game," Dingodile stated proudly. "If you're ever in Mosquito Marsh, stop by my restaurant, Dingo's Diner, an' I'll serve you up some right an' proper tucker, guaranteed!"
The Bandicoots stared at him.
"What? Never hurts for a chef to promote his grub while out an' about," Dingodile insisted, "Especially since me diner was only just rebuilt after them bastards blew it sky high."
"…Right," Garnet said slowly. "Now that we've gotten that sorted, let me show you why I was so 'touchy-feely' with Crash's hands, as you put it," she said, locking eyes with Coco for a brief moment before taking hold of the left sleeve of her robe with her right hand… and rolling it up.
"Ooh, nice tattoo," was Tawna's immediate reaction, sounding genuinely awed. She then noticed that everyone was looking at her and she cleared her throat awkwardly. "I mean… I've seen better," she declared clumsily, trying to play it cool and not act like she was easily impressed.
"So you've got a little tramp stamp," Dingodile summarised, earning him a scolding look from all three of the Bandicoots; there was no need to be so crude. "Don't see what that's got to do with anything."
Garnet opened her mouth to react angrily to hearing her tattoo be called a 'tramp stamp', but then she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in through the nose and letting it out slowly through her mouth. "I am calm. I am composed. I am in control," she whispered to herself. She opened her eyes to find that every one of her guests was watching her with raised eyebrows. The bat girl felt her cheeks redden, embarrassed that they had heard her little mantra.
"Bit of a looney, this one, I reckon," Dingodile murmured to Tawna.
"Shush!" she hissed back, elbowing him in the side. She knew that this wasn't the time or place for Dingo's insensitivity, intentional or not.
Garnet sighed again, trying to keep it together. "Yes, I do indeed have a 'tramp stamp', if you will, but this is no ordinary tramp sta—" She cleared her throat. "No ordinary tattoo," she corrected herself, tracing a finger along the tribal pattern of ink. "To fully explain the significance of this thing, I need to start from the beginning, in another time and place, in the far-off year of 2008…"
"So you're from another universe, too?" Coco interjected. "We're not from around here, either. In fact, Dingodile and Tawna aren't even from the same timeline as Crash and I. Well, Dingodile technically is, but he's from, like, three or four days in the past relative to our home world's present."
"Oh, crikey, don't start going on about that again," Dingodile pleaded. "My head still hurts from all this time travel malarkey. Other realities, other versions of ourselves… I remember when my life was simple, before all this 'quantum' crap got thrown into the mix." He then chuckled. "Still, I guess it's not all bad - I did get to meet one heck of a Shiela, after all," he concluded, eyeing Tawna affectionately. "How many Aussie drongos like meself can say that they're involved with a gal from another universe?"
"Just don't forget who wears the leg warmers in this relationship, big guy," Tawna said teasingly, reaching behind Dingodile to gently scratch at the moderately thick folds of his neck, much to the latter's pleasure. Coco stuck out her tongue in disgust and Crash turned away, the image of even a parallel version of his former love interest getting affectionate with Dingodile of all people making the young male bandicoot decidedly upset. Even Garnet didn't look too comfortable beholding the sight.
"W-Well, good! That'll cut about twenty minutes off of my story, given that I don't have to explain the multiverse concept just for the sake of context!" the bat girl said with a shaky laugh, silently hoping that Tawna and Dingodile weren't going to start smooching - or doing anything else of an intimate nature - right before her eyes on Megumi's clean, well-kept couch. "Anyway, the year 2008! That was the year I was created - or rather cloned - by Doctor Neo Cortex. Granted, this was an alternate 2008, one where things that happened in this timeline… didn't. Of course, 2008 was over a thousand years ago in this timeline… Anyway, I was cloned in the basement of a school - an evil school!" she cried dramatically, raising her hands in a feigned 'scary' gesture, her fingers curled to look like (ahem) 'menacing' claws, a 'devious' grin on her face.
Crash and company just stared back dully, not the slightest bit impressed or amused.
"…Oh, come on, that was funny!" Garnet insisted, pouting slightly. She let out a sigh of mild annoyance. "Fine, whatever. Comedy is subjective, after all. Anyway, I was cloned by Dr. Cortex, and I think even he knew that I was different from my fellow minions right from the start. I could certainly tell I was different, especially after meeting my fellow minions…"
"Wait. Cortex knew from the start that you were defective, yet he didn't cast you aside?" Coco enquired. "Wow. I guess it really was a different timeline. When our world's Cortex created Crash and myself, you should've heard how dismayed he was over the intercom as he watched us escape from his castle, his two most promising subjects leaving him without a general for his army of 'Cortex Commandoes'.
"Cortex… Commandoes?" Garnet repeated, tilting her head in puzzlement. "Was that what he called the Titans in your timeline?"
It was Coco's turn to look confused. "Titans?"
Garnet bit her lip. "I can see that there's going to be a lot to unpack here, even without the multiverse theory lecture," she mused, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. Tell me, what do you four know about… Mojo?"
Crash, Coco and Tawna just blinked, not having a clue what the bat girl was referring to. Surprisingly, it was Dingodile who raised his hand.
"Isn't it that stuff that comes out of— YEOWCH!" the dingo-crocodile hybrid cried in pain as Tawna nudged him hard in the arm. Very hard.
"There are children present," she reminded him in a warning tone, glancing over at Crash and Coco.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna assume that he wasn't about to say something disgusting," Garnet said, her right eye twitching slightly. "No, you see, Mojo is regarded - at least in my world - as the essence of life itself," she explained, moving her hands dramatically. Indeed, it hadn't escaped the notice of Crash and company - Coco especially - that Garnet had a very method-based approach to explaining or elaborating on something; she made distinct and liberal use of her body language in tandem with her words to get a point across. Coco had read a few books on psychology in her spare time, and could tell that Garnet portrayed herself with the mannerisms of an extrovert - very outgoing in terms of personality and behaviour. "It exists within every living being, and those attuned to it can see it in the form of crystalline orbs of varying colours, though blue is the most common. Living beings are born from it and returned to it upon their passing. It's something that's not to be tampered with lightly, but…"
"Let me guess: Your world's version of Cortex got wind of it and started tryin' to use it in some ill-fated, hare-brained scheme of his, am I right?" Dingodile surmised, still rubbing his sore arm.
"In those words, yes," Garnet said, nodding. "By Uka Uka's blessing, Cortex became attuned to the flow of Mojo - not enough to use it himself, but enough to see it, allowing him to locate large clusters of it… and extract those clusters with his diabolical machines. He began harvesting Mojo en mass, using it to enhance and power his Evolvo-Ray. With the power of the Mojo in his grasp, he could not only mutate animals on a scale like never before, creating some truly fearsome abominations, but he could then proceed to replicate them on an endless loop, cloning them directly from the Mojo, directly from the very source of all life. Do you get what I'm saying?" the bat girl asked, her eyes growing wide, her fur visibly bristling. "Dr. Cortex could basically create life out of nothing!" she cried, again throwing her arms up in dramatic fashion. She was so over-the-top with her proclamation and gestures that Crash and company could practically hear the dramatic rumble of thunder in the background.
"And that's how he created you," Coco surmised. "You said before that you were cloned, right? Cortex mutated something - a bat, if I'm not mistaken - and cloned you from that some time after the fact. He cloned you from another one of his minions… so that you could serve as one yourself."
"Exactly," Garnet confirmed. "Like I said before, I was… different from my fellow minions. The Brat Girls, we were called. We were an all-female race of mutated bats, and the majority of my kind were bratty, obnoxious, idiotic and highly irrational. My peers were always paranoid about everything, and I mean everything. If the sun came up an hour early, they'd chalk it up to an enemy conspiring against them rather than daylight savings. That's how comically stupid they were, and the few higher ranking, less stupid Brat Girls found a twisted sense of amusement in tricking their subordinates into doing or saying something stupid. There were the usual silly things like convincing them that they could touch their snouts with their tongues, or that the word 'gullible' was written on the ceiling… and then there were the more mean-spirited pranks like tricking them into running full speed at an open doorway, only to slam the door shut at the last moment and cause the poor saps to plough into it face-first. I honestly thought it was sick."
"That is sick," Tawna declared, a look of disgust on her face. "In fact, it's outright cruel, taking advantage of someone's gullibility like that. They can't help it if they're not the sharpest tools in the shed."
"Yeah, that kind of treatment towards one's soldiers is messed up," Dingodile said, nodding in agreement. "They're depending on you to lead 'em, and you lead 'em 'round in circles and headlong into walls for a laugh? Shameful."
"Yes, it was certainly uncomfortable to watch," Garnet admitted. "Sometimes, once the higher-ups were out of earshot, I'd help the victimised Brat Girls to their feet, dust them off and tell them that they didn't deserve to be treated like that." She sighed sadly. "They'd just think I was setting them up to take another fall, however, and would turn to walk away with their heads held high… only to walk right smack into the same door they had just walked into ten seconds ago."
Coco let out a little snort of laughter, quickly putting a hand over her mouth to stifle it, but it was too late; everyone present was staring at her with disapproving eyes.
"Sorry," she said sincerely, looking down at her pink sneakers in guilt. "It's just that… Well, that's the kind of slapstick gag that you'd see in cartoons. The idea of it happening in real life never occurred to me before today, and when Garnet said it… Well, it kinda caught me off guard," she admitted. She then sighed. "You are right, though; it's just sick, and it wasn't right of me to laugh at something like that."
"Well, to be fair, it really does sound like something out of a cartoon," Garnet said, nodding in agreement. "In fact," she want on, a grin appearing on her face, "Before my roommate, Megumi, went away on her business trip, she showed me a holo-vid of some old Looney Tunes cartoons and…" She trailed off, realising that she was getting off topic. "Never mind. Getting back to my story, I tended to keep out of the way of the higher ranking Brat Girls whenever possible. They could tell that I wasn't as 'tough' as them, or rather, as tough as they strived to act. They were real big-shots who loved bossing others around, and as someone who was as smart, but not as conceited and self-serving as they were, I was often scrutinised for being 'weak'. As you can imagine, I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove myself as a worthy addition to the team, even if that team was evil by design."
"So, what did you do?" Tawna asked warily, narrowing her eyes slightly. "You didn't try to… kill anyone to prove yourself, did you?"
Garnet grimaced uncomfortably, scratching the back of her head. "Well, not exactly," she said. "When I told my peers that I wanted to prove myself to the cause of evil, they gave me a field assignment that 'even I couldn't mess up', according to them. Remember how I said that Cortex was using Mojo to create mutants like nothing he'd ever made before? Well, the pride of his creations were the Titans - monstrous beasts that were brawn first and foremost. I was tasked with leading four Ratcicles - muscular Titans with the power to control ice - on a crusade to lay siege to Wumpa Island's jungle region, rounding up any feral Titans that had previously escaped from Cortex and using a special mind-altering device to put them back under his control, but…" The bat girl shifted uncomfortably on the spot, looking a little embarrassed. "Well, let's just say that it didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked…"
Wumpa Jungle/Ratcicle Kingdom Border, Wumpa Island, 2008
She had to admit: She looked pretty good in her Evil Public School staff uniform.
Her pink winter jacket and boots complimented her navy blue top and skirt nicely, the white cuffs on her wrists also being a nice touch. What she really liked about her outfit, however, was the pair of fluffy pink earmuffs that covered her bat ears. They were so wonderfully warm and just the cutest!
Beaming as she looked down at herself, the latest of Cortex's Brat Girl clones unholstered her shiny new red and white megaphone from her belt and read the professional-looking inscription of black letters and numbers on the side:
BG-2187
This megaphone was hers. This uniform was hers. Sure, they were of completely identical design to that which her fellow Brat Girls wore and carried, but BG-2187 didn't care. She was just so happy to have these clothes and tools, to be trusted with them. The way she saw it, when she carried this megaphone, she carried the whole of Evil Public School with her. She was Evil Public School. She represented it… and she would not take the significance of that representation lightly.
BG-2187 gazed down at the icy clearing before her as she stood there on that snow-covered ledge, watching the volcanic water spouts that had burst out of the earth, watching the quartet of Ratcicles that were clawing at the ground, digging out the snow in the hopes of using it to build a series of ice blocks that would allow them to cross the frigid body of water that separated them from the outskirts of Wumpa Jungle. Each of the Titans wore a curious headset complete with goggles that covered the beasts' eyes, the letter 'N' emblazoned between those goggles. BG-2187's peers had told her that this device was called an 'NV', and that it would make the Ratcicles obey her commands without question. When she had asked what the letters 'NV' stood for, however, the Brat Girl who had been briefing her had just turned and marched away, completely ignoring the question. Then again, it probably didn't matter what the significance of the device's name was - what mattered was that it got results, and from what BG-2187 had seen so far, it most certainly did.
"Move faster, mutant slaves!" she barked at the Titans, putting on a tough facade to try and show that she meant business. She knew that her peers back at the school would approve… even though she herself was not keen on acting so bossy, not to mention mean. "We need all mutants brought under NV control!"
The Ratcicles turned to glance up at her, growling enthusiastically in response to her words, their eyes glowing an unnatural red behind their goggles. BG-2187 had noticed this, and it unsettled her somewhat, but as long as she was up here and the Titans were down there, she didn't see it becoming a serious issue for her.
She hoped it wouldn't become an issue for her; the thought of these Titans turning on her was frightening, to say the least. Those claws. Those frost-covered, razor sharp claws…
"Ah… Ah… AAH-CHOO!"
The sound of someone sneezing caught BG-2187's attention and she gazed in the direction the sound had come from, gazed across the frigid, sub-zero water to see someone standing on the far shores. It was another Ratcicle, this one a lighter shade of blue than her own subordinates, and it wasn't wearing an NV. What it did bear, albeit on its shoulders rather than its head, was a skinny anthropomorphic being with orange fur and green eyes that, even from a distance, had a distinctly wild, almost crazy look in them.
The orange-furred fellow reached around the Ratcicle's face and tickled it under the nose, making the Titan sneeze again. This time, the sneeze came in the form of an icy blast that hit the body of water and completely froze it over.
BG-2187's jaw dropped. This crazy orange creature and his Ratcicle mount had just achieved in a matter of seconds what she and her Ratcicle subordinates had been working on all morning! There was now a safe path for them to cross and proceed onwards. The orange-furred rider wasn't finished yet, however. He dug the heels of his sneakers into the sides of his Titan mount and the feral beast started forward, carrying its oddball master across the ice and into the clearing where the four mind-controlled Ratcicles awaited. The orange-furred boy raised his hand - which bore a tribal tattoo on the back - and gave a playful wave before curling his fingers into a fist, a sly grin forming on his muzzle. Clearly, he was looking for a fight.
"Oh! Um… Get him, you, uh, mutant miscreants!" BG-2187 shouted at her Titans, albeit a little uncertainly. The mind-controlled Ratcicles didn't need to be told twice; they rushed towards the orange-furred rider and his mount as a group, clawed hands outstretched, their talons shimmering with frosty energy. The orange-furred rider didn't sit around waiting to be attacked, however; he nudged his Titan with his foot again and it started forward once more, meeting the mind-controlled Ratcicles' claw swipes with its own. BG-2187 was flabbergasted; how could someone command a Titan's actions like that without an NV?! How was such a thing possible?!
Within moments, the orange-furred rider's Ratcicle had beaten BG-2187's Ratcicles into a daze, the mind-controlled Titans standing there swaying, looking like they might fall over in a dead faint, and even as BG-2187 struggled to process what she had just witnessed, things suddenly took an even more unbelievable turn:
The orange-furred rider suddenly leapt from the shoulders of his Ratcicle mount, and as he did so, the Titan vanished in a flash of green light, a glowing green orb appearing in its wake. Even as the absurd marsupial leapt through the air in a frankly spectacular flip, he grabbed the orb as he went and shoved it into the pocket of his blue shorts, as though it were merely a coin he had found on the sidewalk and not a ball of intangible energy. The orange-furred boy then landed on the shoulders of the nearest mind-controlled Titan and proceeded to forcibly rip the NV off of its head. The Ratcicle blinked, seeming to be confused as to where it was or what was going on. Its newly appointed rider waved a tattooed hand in front of its face, said tattoo glowing an electric blue for a brief moment. This seemed to make the Ratcicle understand the situation, for it grinned broadly, its jagged teeth showing. The orange-furred rider then threw the NV down onto the snow-covered ground, the newly mounted Titan proceeding to stomp on the device, shattering it into pieces. The creature let out a triumphant roar. At the same time, BG-2187 let out a cry of horrified dismay.
"NO!" she howled, torn between shock and outrage. Before she could do anything, however, the orange-furred rider proceeded to guide his newly acquired Titan around the icy clearing, the beast reaching up with its clawed hands to rip the NVs off the heads of its fellow Ratcicles one by one, only adding to BG-2187's disbelieving horror. The freed Ratcicles blinked, roared in celebration and then ran forward, running right past the mounted Titan and its wacky rider, crossing the frozen body of water and soon disappearing down the jungle path.
BG-2187 was almost beside herself; she had just lost four Titan subordinates thanks to the actions of this… insane furry boy! She'd be the laughingstock of Evil Public School when her fellow Brat Girls found out.
The orange-furred rider turned and gazed up at BG-2187, grinning broadly, no doubt proud of what he had accomplished. BG-2187 just stared back. Then, after a long moment, the Brat Girl narrowed her eyes, clenched her teeth and canines, tightened her grip on her megaphone…
…And suddenly ran screaming in terror back down the path she had come, back towards Evil Public School and away from this furry lunatic who would do who-knows-what to her if he were to catch her.
"Huh?" the orange-furred rider said, tilting his head in puzzlement; it wasn't like minions of Cortex to run away, or indeed show any sense of self-preservation. No, they usually just threw themselves at him repeatedly until he knocked them unconscious.
Regardless, the hero of Wumpa Island, Crash Bandicoot - otherwise known as Crash of the Titans - was satisfied with his victory; he had freed good mutants from evil's control, and that was always a win in his book. He tickled his Titan under the nose again, causing it to sneeze out another frosty blast, freezing the nearby water spouts into pillars of ice, allowing the hero and his Titan to climb up to where the Brat Girl had been and proceed onward to the Frozen Coast, where more adventures - as well as Titans that needed freeing - no doubt awaited…
And so, rather than killing anyone to prove herself as a minion of evil, BG-2187 had her integrity among her peers killed for her.
And yes, the name/serial number BG-2187 is a reference to FN-2187, otherwise known as Finn, from Star Wars. You're welcome.
Anyway, what did you think of my unique (ahem) 'spin' on the moment in Crash: Mind Over Mutant when the Brat Girls first started appearing? Let me know in the reviews and stay tuned for more chapters soon!