Chapter 7: Bandicoot Breakout (Part 1)

Water dripped from the damp ceiling of the prison block, the frigid climate causing it to become ice by the time it hit the floor, leaving the cold, hard ground peppered with tiny, transparent crystals. BG-2187 might've found these crystals beautiful… were she not distracted by her current predicament.

The Ratcicle sat on the far side of the open cell it had decided to take refuge in, having thrust BG-2187 onto the hard, icy floor before proceeding to tear open her backpack with its frost-infused claws, spilling out her belongings - a small tin of ground coffee beans, The Villainess' Guide To Exquisite Coffee, a few muesli bars still in their wrappers, a thermos of lovingly made mocha, a pair of bright pink winter mittens, a plush bunny doll that BG-2187 had confiscated from one of Evil Public School's less evilly inclined students, if only to save face in front of her fellow Brat Girls (and had since taken to cuddling up with on nights when she felt particularly emotionally vulnerable), a small sound-amplifying attachment for her megaphone… and a packet containing several strips of bandicoot jerky. The latter had quickly become the Ratcicle's priority, the Titan having shredded the packet open to get at the processed meat pieces, taking a seat on the hard floor and chowing down on one strip after another while BG-2187 could only watch on fearfully, hardly daring to breathe, let alone move. She had dropped BG-351's megaphone when the Ratcicle had broken free of its confinement, with her own megaphone falling from its holster shortly after the beast had picked her up and carried her off. She had no way to defend herself, and she knew that if the snacks in her backpack weren't enough to satisfy the frosty Titan before her, and they probably wouldn't be, then she would be…

She would be…

A fearful whimper escaped BG-2187's lips and she wrapped her arms around her legs fearfully, holding her knees close to her torso in the fetal position. The Ratcicle ignored her, having finished up the bandicoot jerky and moved on to one of the muesli bars, easily slicing the wrapper open and biting the processed rectangle of oats and raisins in half. It chewed for a moment, then spat out the bar with a snarl of disgust, the partially chewed food landing in the corner of the cell, covered in thick, gooey saliva that glittered with frost. The Ratcicle then turned its attention to the coffee tin. It picked the container up, sniffing at it curiously, not quite sure what to make of it. It tried prising the lid open, but its fingers were too bulky and awkward to grip the lid properly. After a moment, it cast the tin aside in a fit of frustration, glanced briefly at the thermos that lay on its side, seemed to decide that the beverage container wasn't worth its time… and turned to BG-2187.

The Brat Girl let out another terrified whimper. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, please, no!" she pleaded aloud as the Ratcicle stood up and started towards her, closing the distance in just three short strides. BG-2187 backed up against the cold wall, as though hoping she might somehow phase through it and escape. No such luck. She didn't have her megaphone, her combat skills were minimal and there was no way she could defend herself against the power of ice, let alone the Titan's fearsome claws. This was where it would end for her, little more than two months after she'd first been cloned. Not strong enough to be evil, not confident enough to be good… and in all honesty, probably not even big enough or tasty enough to be a satisfying meal for a hungry Ratcicle…

"You're no more important than the rest of us."

"Yeah, that's right! You're just another cog in the machine!"

As the Ratcicle lifted BG-2187 off the floor with one strong, muscular arm, the words of BG-351 and BG-254 rang in her ears, echoing through her mind.

"You know, don't you? You know that you're just another minion, no more significant than the rest of us."

That was all she had ever heard, that she wasn't special, that she wasn't good enough for… well, anything.

"Mmm, sorry, sweetheart, but I'm calling your bluff. Now, let's make this loud…"

No one ever took her seriously. They all saw her as weak and pathetic in every sense.

"You Brat Girls have had a lot of fun with me over the last few months, haven't you? Well, what goes around comes around, doesn't it? Get the message, fuzzball? It's time for a little payback."

Nina's cold words when she had tried to strangle BG-2187. She was everyone's scapegoat, everyone's target whenever a rebelling student or one of her fellow Brat Girls needed some stress relief.

"I don't need your pity! …And you shouldn't be giving it, anyway."

Even when she tried to befriend others, to sympathise with them, to support them, they all treated her like some sort of freak for trying to be nice, for trying to be a team player. She could do no right.

And now she was about to die without any self-worth.

Something inside BG-2187 snapped as she hung there in the Ratcicle's grasp. All throughout her short existence, she had been treated like garbage, treated like she didn't belong, to the point where she actually felt like garbage, like she didn't belong.

And she… was… well and truly… sick of it.

"Put… me… down."

The Ratcicle grunted inquisitively as he examined BG-2187, no doubt trying to decide which limb he'd bite into first. The Brat Girl's furry hands had curled into tightly clenched fists, her lips parting so that her canines showed clearly. She let out a feral, animalistic growl that made the Titan falter, surprised.

"I said, PUT ME THE FRICK DOWN!" she screeched shrilly, starting to thrash about in the Ratcicle's hold, wildly flailing her arms in an attempt to hit the big blue beast. "PUT ME DOWN RIGHT NOW BEFORE I DO SOMETHING I'LL COME TO REGRET!"

Bewildered, the Ratcicle dropped BG-2187 and she landed hard on her rear, grunting in pained surprise from the short fall.

"Th-that's right!" she declared wildly, hastily getting to her feet and brandishing an accusing finger at the Ratcicle like a mother scolding her misbehaving child. "That's not how you treat a girl! Trying to eat a girl is not okay! Now you just back off, Mister, or so help me, I'll… I'll…!"

As the reality of the situation caught up with her, BG-2187's eyes widened as she realised what she was doing. She was scolding a monster that was more than five times her size.

She was standing up for herself.

And it… felt… liberating.

"If you want food that badly, I'll… I'll help you find it!" she went on, still hardly believing what was happening, what she was doing, what she was saying. "But only if you behave yourself, alright? We do this my way or we don't do it at all! You understand?"

The Ratcicle, still looking bewildered, slowly took an uncertain step back, not sure what to make of BG-2187's behaviour. Brat Girls were loud and bratty, but they were rarely assertive for non-selfish reasons. The idea that a Brat Girl would willingly help a Titan find food, as opposed to subduing the Mojo-infused beast with her megaphone and locking it away to await further torment was… revolutionary. It was insane, and yet… the Ratcicle could see a degree of sincerity in BG-2187's eyes behind her anger, behind her momentary insanity.

"I… I'm offering," BG-2187 said more calmly, struggling to keep her voice steady. She slowly held out her hand. "I know this is crazy, but… I'll help you find something to eat. I'll do it, but… you have to help me in return, alright? I mean, that's only fair, right? I'll help you find food, but then you have to help me escape from this place. Deal?"

The Ratcicle stood silent and motionless, seeming to be mulling things over. After a long moment, it slowly reached out… and gently took hold of BG-2187's small, furry hand in its own bulky appendage. BG-2187 looked surprised, but then she grinned.

"You're sick of being bossed around and harassed, right? Well, so am I. That's why I want to help you: So we can both get away from that crap. I mean, we're both mutants, right? It only makes sense that we would help each other… I think," the Brat Girl summarised, her last two words spoken with a hint of uncertainty. She then shook her head, as if trying to shake that uncertainty away. She didn't want to have second thoughts, to have self-doubt. Not anymore. "Let me gather up my things. We're gonna need them if we want to get far…"

The two Brat Girls who had been assigned to replace BG-254 and BG-351 on their patrol route watched as the two frozen troublemakers were carted away, each ice-encased minion being carried off by a Ratcicle with an NV on its head, each Titan accompanied and supervised by yet another Brat Girl.

"Oy. Those two will never learn, will they?" one of the newly assigned patrol members asked her cohort.

"That's for sure. They're just not smart like us," the second Brat Girl said, sticking her finger far up her right nostril as she spoke.

"…Indeed," the first Brat Girl said after a long moment of silence, deciding not to acknowledge her cohort's unsavoury habit. "That's what they get for tormenting a mutant that's not under NV control."

"I'll just be glad when this shift is over and we can get out of this place," the second Brat Girl mused, removing her finger from the depths of her snout with a sickening wet plop. "Soon, we will return to Evil Public School's secret northern entrance! This hall of freaks and mutants is perfect for the Evil Science Fair! Ooh, Nina will be doomed to suffer in mediocrity!"

As the pair of Brat Girls continued to converse, a lanky, green-eyed figure peeked out from behind a nearby pillar of ice, grinning slyly to himself. He was accompanied by a floating mask carved from wood that bore long hair made of grass.

"You hear that, Crash?" Aku Aku asked Crash Bandicoot quietly. "The entrance to the school must be near the Rat Village."

Crash nodded, curling his tattooed hand into a fist, a look of determination appearing on his orange-furred visage. He and Aku Aku had spent weeks scouting out the Frozen Coast, gathering every scrap of information they could find on the potential whereabouts of Evil Public School. They needed to find it in the hopes of finding Nina Cortex, the vile niece of Dr. Neo Cortex. She was no ally of Crash, especially after he had previously foiled her plans to usurp her uncle as the leader of Cortex's henchmen and army, but she wasn't exactly on good terms with the bad doctor, either; she was the neutral party in the ever-ongoing battle between good and evil. A despicably self-centred neutral party who would pound the face of anyone who crossed her into a crater, but neutral nonetheless.

And with all the secrets she knew about Dr. Cortex and his plans, she was Crash's best chance of stopping the evil scientist from taking over the world with his NV-controlled Titans.

Crash stepped out from behind the pillar, out of the shadows and into full view of the conversing Brat Girl duo. They saw him, stared at him in silence for a few seconds, dumbfounded by his sudden appearance, and then—

"A FURRY SPY!" the Brat Girl who had been picking her nose shouted, brandishing a snot-covered finger at Crash, her arm shaking wildly. Without hesitation, she rushed forward, holding out her hand to try and slap Crash in the face when she got close enough, but Crash was ready for her. He stood his ground, waiting patiently for the irrational anthropomorphic bat to close the distance… and then, at the last possible moment, he lashed out with a punch. It was not a hard punch, but it was a swift one, and as his fist connected with the Brat Girl's chin, the tribal tattoo on the back of the bandicoot boy's hand glowed a vivid blue for a brief moment. The Brat Girl seemed to freeze in place for a second, and then without the slightest change of expression, she toppled over onto her back, completely immobile, only her eyes able to move, darting around in bewildered horror.

"Oh, for the love of…!" the remaining Brat Girl exclaimed, exasperated at her cohort's idiotic actions and the humiliating result of such. She sighed heavily and unholstered her megaphone, holding it at the ready. "You shouldn't have come here, Crash!" she declared, powering up the sound-amplifying device and holding it to her lips, about to utter the obnoxious bat chitter that her kind were infamous for, but Crash wasn't going to wait around for that. He darted forward with startling speed, weaving and zigzagging about as the Brat Girl twirled this way and that, trying to take aim at the maniacal marsupial with her megaphone. "St-Stand still!" she demanded rather childishly, a hint of worry present in her annoyed tone. "Wait, where'd he go?"

All was quiet in the large, open chamber of snow and ice for a brief moment, and then Crash suddenly sprung up in front of the Brat Girl, seeming to have come from out of nowhere. She shrieked in alarm, dropping her megaphone and falling onto her rear, scrambling back like a crab in panic. Crash smirked smugly. He was toying with her, undermining her confidence, making her scared and therefore uncoordinated and unfocused, and a foe who couldn't keep their head in the game… had already lost the game.

"St-Stay back!" the Brat Girl pleaded fearfully, looking up at Crash with wide blue eyes. Crash, on his part, proceeded to get down on one knee, holding out a hand to the Brat Girl, much to her surprise, but even as she uncertainly reached out to take his hand, she realised, albeit too late, that she was being drawn into a trap. As soon as her brown-furred fingers made contact with Crash's orange ones, she vanished, a small, glowing green orb remaining in her wake. Crash then leaned forward and lightly blew air onto the orb, sending it floating away like a feather in an updraft. Crash watched as the orb floated higher and higher, up towards the ceiling of the icy chamber… and then, grinning deviously, he snapped his fingers, the black ink on his hand flashing electric blue again.

The Brat Girl instantaneously regained her physical form just short of the ceiling. She had the briefest of moments for her eyes to widen in absolute horror… and then gravity took its course.

She screamed all the way down to the snow-covered floor, landing face-first in the fluffy, powdery substance where she then lay, motionless.

Crash walked over and turned the Brat Girl onto her back, checking that there were no snowflakes in her airway. She was unconscious, but breathing.

"She'll be alright, Crash," Aku Aku told him as the mask floated over. "Her Mojo is vibrant in its sheen. If she were mortally wounded, it would have dulled completely. I must give you credit; that was quite a creative use of the Mojo magic I taught you. Mean-spirited, perhaps, but creative all the same."

Crash chuckled mischievously. While he was most certainly dedicated to his role as a heroic Mojo warrior, he wasn't above some self-indulgent shenanigans now and then.

Now that they knew where to look in order to find the path to the Evil Public School, all they had to do was find a way out of this prison and get back to the Ratcicle Kingdom's main settlement. As Crash of the Titans proceeded forward, Aku Aku at his side, he could hear voices and animalistic growls up ahead; no doubt the next area was full of more minions and Titans. The bandicoot boy let his breath out in a low whoosh, resulting in a small puff of icy mist due to the frigid climate as he mentally psyched himself up for the inevitable battles ahead; a Mojo warrior's work was never done…

And that, fellow meddling marsupials, is how the Brat Girl who would go on to be known as Barista met the Titan that would go on to be known as North... but their origin story is not over yet; we've still got quite a few chapters to get through.

Anyway, what do you think of the creative liberties I've been taking with Crash's Mojo abilities? The immobilisation thing was inspired by the 'Petrificus Totalus' spell from Harry Potter, and as for converting an enemy into an orb and dropping them from a great height... Well, you can chalk that one up to my own 'unique' sense of humour.

And don't tell me that Crash wouldn't do something like that, especially where the Titans version of Crash is concerned. If this version of Crash was willing to kick a Grimly right in the family jewels in Mind Over Mutant's intro, then it's a fairly safe bet that he'd be crude enough to drop a Brat Girl face-first into the snow from upwards of twenty feet. (Yeah, Titans Crash was a bit of a mental case looking back...)