Chapter 8: Bandicoot Breakout (Part 2)

"Well? Where is she?"

"Um… That's…" Wimp struggled to form words, positively trembling under the stern gaze of Alpha, who had just come back from rendezvousing with the Ice Prison's Warden to find BG-2187 conspicuously absent, backpack and all, while Wimp had been trying, quite unsuccessfully, to coax Screwball away from the ice wall that the intellectually challenged Brat Girl had been determined to put her tongue against. Screwball was now stuck to the frost-covered wall by her tastebuds, BG-2187 still hadn't come back yet - assuming that she was coming back at all - and now Alpha was demanding answers.

Answers that Wimp was unsure of and, quite frankly, terrified to give, especially considering the note BG-2187 had departed on:

"What do I tell Alpha if she comes back and you're not here?"

"Tell her I've deserted the cause of evil."

She had been joking, of course. Wimp was sure of it. Of course BG-2187 hadn't deserted the cause of evil. Of course she hadn't actually gone rogue. Of course she was coming back, perhaps with more hot chocolate and muesli bars from the prison's larder for the journey back to Evil Public School. Yes, that was it. She had gone over Alpha's head simply to prove that she was indeed capable, that she was worth something.

That was it… wasn't it?

"I asked you a question, soldier!" Alpha barked suddenly, making Wimp jump in alarm. "Twice, in fact!" The patrol leader then let out a weary sigh before stepping forward, her eyes narrowing. "I've had to put up with a lot of nonsense from you on the journey here, 6578. From you and your cohorts, in fact. I am tired. I am cold. I just got lectured by the Warden on behalf of Doctor Cortex himself. He's not happy, 6578. Do you know why he's not happy?"

Wimp couldn't bring herself to respond, only able to shake her head timidly, a terrified look on her furry visage.

"The Doctor is not happy because the minions he assigned to this region can't even keep this prison facility in check, 6578. Titans are escaping every other night, food is disappearing from storage faster than it should be and worst of all, there have been conflicting reports from the other patrols that bandicoot heroes have been sighted in this area. Bandicoot heroes with the power to command the loyalty of mutants! Our mutants!" Alpha declared, raising her arms as she spoke, causing Wimp to flinch and recoil, frightened that her superior might be about to hit her. "The mutants that we need to keep in check, in this facility, until such time as Cortex is ready to activate the mind control signal from his Space Head that will activate and supercharge all the NVs that have been distributed across the planet, thus ensuring total domination over all of humankind and mutant kind! The Warden is frustrated and worried, 6578, and so am I, because if we are the indirect result of the Doctor's plan failing, WE'RE ALL GONNA BE DISINTEGRATED!" she concluded in a furious scream that actually made Wimp squeal in alarm.

"I… I…" the cowardly Brat Girl stammered, tears welling up in her eyes, her nerves all but completely wracked.

"And now I come back here to find Screwball making out with the wall and you about to soil yourself because you're too pathetic to answer a simple question from your commanding officer!" Alpha snapped. "In short, Wimp, my patience has now officially worn out. You're going to tell me what transpired in my absence right now or so help me, there might not be anything left for Doctor Cortex to disintegrate by the time I'm through with you!"

That did it. Wimp burst into hysterical tears, the salty droplets flowing from her eyes in two comical, cartoonish arcs of fluid, making the bawling Brat Girl look like a living fountain. "I don't know where 2187 has gone!" she wailed between sobs. "She said she was gonna check the perimeter, but then she didn't come back, and then Screwball started acting up, and I…" The rest of her words were incoherent, completely lost among great sobs.

Alpha just groaned quietly. "They don't pay me enough for this," she muttered to herself, turning away from Wimp for a brief moment. "I mean, they don't pay me at all, but still…" She let out another weary sigh before turning back to her fellow Brat Girl, whom she very suddenly grabbed by the wrist, interrupting Wimp mid-bawl, causing her to fall silent momentarily in startled surprise. "Get a grip before I smack it into you across both cheeks!" the patrol leader hissed viciously. "Just tell me which way she went and then you can go back to wallowing in self-pity and being your usual worthless self, alright?"

Wimp reached up to wipe her eyes, trying in vain to calm herself down at her superior's request, but as soon as her vision was no longer blurred by her own tears, her eyes went wide and she let out a wail of absolute horror.

"Oh, that is it!" Alpha declared, raising a furry appendage to backhand Wimp across the face with, but Wimp brandished a quivering arm to point at something on the far side of the frigid chamber.

"No, look!" she cried. Momentarily puzzled, Alpha turned to see what Wimp was pointing at… and uttered the most obscene profanity she knew.

There, on the far side of the chamber at the heart of the Ice Prison, gazing down upon the Brat Girls and mind-controlled Ratcicles that filled the room from a higher ledge, was none other than Crash Bandicoot himself.

Alpha's eyes became almost as wide as Wimp's, but unlike her fellow Brat Girl, she was able to maintain a (relatively) cool head. "Get him," she mumbled instinctively, her words barely audible. She then brandished a pointing finger alongside Wimp's. "GET HIM! GET THAT MEDDLING MARSUPIAL!" she roared at last.

Every head in the room turned to see Crash standing there, the grumbling of Ratcicles fading away, the few Brat Girls who had been amusing themselves by playing 'Patty Cake' stopping abruptly. A deathly silence fell over the room.

And then Crash let out a loud fart that echoed throughout the chamber.

Everyone stared at the bandicoot boy for a moment, and then—

"Are you all DEAF?!" Alpha screeched. "GET THAT CHEESE-CUTTING INTERLOPER! GET HIM NOW!"

And just like that, the room descended into absolute chaos. Ratcicles leapt into action, Brat Girls drew their megaphones. A chorus of monstrous roars, chittering screeches and embarrassingly petty insults rent the air as all of the minions and Titans ran at Crash, including Alpha and Wimp, the latter just following her commanding officer's lead more than anything. Screwball wrenched her tongue free from the frosty wall it was stuck to and bounded about, looking almost as crazy as Crash himself. Almost. It was she who reached him first, somersaulting through the air to land precariously before the Mojo warrior in a one-handed handstand, her megaphone held upside-down in her elevated hand. She opened her mouth not to screech, but to scream as loud as she could into the sound-amplifying device, which was cranked up to max volume…

…But she never got to utter so much as a light clearing of the throat before Crash had taken her out with a single Karate chop to the side of the neck; a trick taught to him by his sister, Coco.

From there, the chaos quickly escalated into complete pandemonium. Shards of ice were flying everywhere, bright pink sound waves were bouncing off the walls… It was a wonder that the sheer volume of all the noise didn't trigger an avalanche and bring the entire Ice Prison down on everyone's heads. Crash leapt about like a jumping bean, bounding this way and that, landing precise punches, kicks and spin attacks on anyone who got too close. After about a minute of fending off foes, the bandicoot reached the centre of the room, and it was there that with a broad, borderline psychotic grin, he leapt straight up, reaching into the pocket of his blue shorts as he did so, somersaulted through the air as the glowing green orb he held in his tattooed hand shimmered brightly, threw the ball of magic towards the ground and…

"RAWRRRRRRRRRR!"

Crash of the Titans had taken centre stage just in time to show off the ability for which he had earned that title. He now sat upon the shoulders of a Ratcicle that was itching for a fight, and boy, was there going to be fight - one that would see all of Cortex's servants present put on ice.

But before that fight ensued, before the madness truly began, Crash uttered one word. One single, solitary, smugly spoken word:

"…Whoa."

BG-2187 exhaled deeply, amazed and relieved at how smoothly things had proceeded thus far. After forming her truce with the abused Ratcicle, the two of them had managed to sneak down to the prison's larder, where BG-2187 had thrown a chunk of ice conjured by the Ratcicle at the Brat Girl on guard duty to knock her out - a feat that had only taken her two attempts, the first chunk having proven enough of a distraction to allow BG-2187 to easily hit her fellow minion from behind. With that done, the defective Brat Girl and her Titan cohort had raided the larder, stocking up on as many muesli bars, little packets of trail mix and oatmeal raisin cookies as they could fit into the guard's backpack, which BG-2187 had taken to replace her own ripped bag. Now, they were on their way back to the prison's central chamber, currently passing through the area where the abused Ratcicle had put BG-254 and BG-351 on ice… or rather, in ice. The Ratcicle had BG-2187's replacement backpack slung over his shoulder, the Brat Girl having decided that he could carry it to make up for wrecking her previous bag, while she herself was tweaking the settings on the megaphone she had taken from the unconscious guard. She knew that she and her Ratcicle cohort would most likely need to fight their way out of this place, and if nothing else, she was determined to be ready for that.

"Hang on," she said, stopping in her tracks and looking up from fiddling with the sound-amplifying device, holding out a hand to halt the Ratcicle, who had been walking in stride with her. "It's quiet. Too quiet." She glanced around… and her eyes widened when she saw the two Brat Girls who had replaced BG-254 and BG-351 on their patrol unconscious on the snow-covered floor. The Ratcicle grunted, seeming just as surprised as BG-2187 was alarmed. The Brat Girl grimaced. "This doesn't look good," she murmured, more to herself than to her icy cohort. "Then again, that's two less guards for us to worry about." She swallowed nervously. "Let's go."

They made their way down the corridor, soon rounding a corner and emerging into the central chamber in time to hear someone shouting. There was a bizarre-sounding cry, followed by a grunt of pain, and then whomever had been shouting fell silent.

"What in the name of…?!" BG-2187 said as she stepped up to the ledge overlooking the chamber and surveyed the scene before her. Unconscious Brat Girls and Ratcicles lay everywhere, earmuffs and megaphones strewn all over the cold, hard floor. On the far ledge, where a large ice sculpture of Dr. Cortex's hand (a symbol of his 'inevitable' dominance) had previously stood erected, there was now a pile of several large broken chunks of ice, a strange figure now standing in the midst of them.

A figure that looked like a large ball of reinforced glass with… lanky arms and legs?

The figure turned on the spot and BG-2187 gasped, seeing a familiar orange form in blue shorts clinging to the back of the odd creature like a living backpack.

"Oh, no," the Brat Girl mumbled, realising what must've happened here.

Crash Bandicoot slapped his strange Titan mount around the upper back of its orb-like form and the creature raised its hand, splaying it forward palm-first and then, the rusted lever up on a higher ledge, the lever that operated the controls of the nearby iron door, began to move of its own accord. It tilted downwards, causing the bars to rise up, granting passage into the emergency escape tunnels, which were, of course, meant for the staff and not for prison escapees - hence, why the lever was so high up. Without missing a beat, Crash guided his Titan to run swiftly through the opening and out of the central chamber.

"He… He's cleared the way for us," BG-2187 realised in disbelief. "I thought we were gonna have to fight tooth and nail just to reach that far ledge, let alone access the escape tunnels, but now…" She tightened her grip on the megaphone she held. "Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. Come on."

As BG-2187 and her Ratcicle companion hastily strode across the room, eager to pass through the area before any of the unconscious Brat Girls and Titans came to their senses, BG-2187 suddenly let out a panicked yelp as a set of fingers wrapped firmly around her ankle. She glanced back, wide-eyed, to see who had grabbed her, her Ratcicle cohort grunting in alarm, raising a clawed hand to attack on behalf of its temporary ally, but to the beast's surprise, BG-2187 held up a hand to halt him, the Brat Girl still staring wide-eyed at her fellow minion, staring wide-eyed… at Alpha.

"I should've known you had something to do with this," the leader of BG-2187's patrol hissed softly, the high ranking Brat Girl sporting a black eye. "Little Miss Good-For-Nothing just had to have the final say, just had to prove herself once and for all… by letting a bandicoot in here like the traitorous wretch she is."

For a moment, BG-2187 was too terrified to move, completely at a loss as to what she should do… and then her eyes narrowed, her expression hardening. "Let go of my ankle, BG-0085," she said curtly.

Alpha frowned. "What?" she said, taken aback by her subordinate's steady, defiant tone.

"Get… off me!" BG-2187 snapped, suddenly wrenching herself free of Alpha's grasp, though only able to do so because the commanding officer had been struck dumb by what was happening. "You won't touch me again!" BG-2187 went on, carefully aiming her megaphone at Alpha's face as though the sound-amplifying device were a firearm. "Y-You won't talk to me like that again! N-Not now, not ever! I've had it, Alpha, you hear me? I'm tired of doing everything I can for you, for the cause of evil, only to be treated like garbage for my trouble!"

Alpha looked completely dumbfounded for a long moment, but then she chuckled coldly, slowly picking herself up and getting to her feet.

"Oh, I see what this is. Cute, BG-2187. Real cute," she declared jeeringly. "You didn't bring that bandicoot in here at all, did you? No, you probably let him walk right on past you because you were too scared to try and stop him. Then, once he took out the entire staff, you thought you'd just creep along behind him without his knowledge, sticking to the shadows, and follow him outside to freedom, right? Was that your little plan, 2187? How predictably pathetic of you." The high ranking Brat Girl chuckled coldly again, folding her arms as she stood there. "What did you think would happen once you got out there, 2187? Did you think you'd just walk down the road, find a quaint little Eskimo village and spend the rest of your days sipping hot cocoa and playing with baby penguins? Pfft! We're living in the real world, 2187! The Frozen Coast is a harsh, unforgiving environment. You've only been out here during the day. At night, the cold really sets in, and with it, raging snowstorms that can wipe out even the best of explorers. You wouldn't last an hour after sunset. If you didn't freeze to death, you'd get blown clean off the nearest cliff and into sub-zero waters… or onto jagged, razor sharp rocks."

BG-2187 tensed. She hadn't thought of that. What would she do once she escaped? Where would she go? Where could she go? And how would she even get there?

Alpha smirked knowingly. "I can see it in your eyes, that realisation that you were about to do something monumentally stupid. It doesn't feel good, does it? Realising just how big of a fool you are."

BG-2187 struggled to maintain her bold, defiant composure. "You're the fool, Alpha," she responded with forced calm. "You think I don't know what could happen out there? Even without those blizzards, there are still so many things that could kill me in an instant. That's life! You're the fool because unlike me, you're too scared to even consider defecting from evil, to try and survive on your own, to try and determine your own fate, your own path in life."

Alpha snorted. "You think you're the first?" she asked, smiling coldly.

BG-2187 frowned. "What?"

"You think you're the only Brat Girl who's ever tried to escape from Cortex, from this way of life? No, there have been others, 2187, and one or two of them even made it out of the Frozen Coast, off of Wumpa Island itself. They fought tooth and nail to make it to the mainland, to human territory, and then… the transmissions started coming in."

"Transmissions?"

"Distress calls," Alpha elaborated, still grinning that sadistic grin. "They managed to build or steal working communicators and they used them to call— Nay, beg for help, to be rescued. Humans aren't accustomed to seeing bipedal animal people walking their streets, 2187. Humans fear that which is different to them at the best of times. They fear what they don't understand, and what they can't understand, they destroy."

BG-2187 said nothing, unsure of what to say. Alpha, on her part, continued her monologue, her tone cynical and callous.

"Those Brat Girls who made it to mainland shores… They spent the rest of their short lives in hiding, contacting Evil Public School every day, begging to be rescued, to be brought back to the school and given a second chance as evil minions… but we couldn't have helped them even if we'd wanted to. They were too far away, and Doctor Cortex wasn't going to waste time and resources on one or two distressed minions, especially not when he could always just clone more anyway. Humans eventually figured out the frequency of those rudimentary transmitters, used them to track and close in on the Brat Girls' positions… and put them down."

"Figured out the frequency?" BG-2187 repeated. "But then… They must know where the school is, what Cortex is up to!"

Alpha shook her head, never once losing that cold, cold smile. "The greatest evil scientist in the world is smarter than that, 2187. Smart enough to cover his tracks and throw his enemies off the trail. The only reason those bandicoots keep finding us is because they can track us directly through the Mojo with their magic. Heh. Those bandicoots… They've been making a name for themselves in recent years, haven't they? Ever since they first defected from evil in the late '90s…"

The high ranking Brat Girl appeared to be talking more to herself now, her gaze growing distant. Still, BG-2187 kept her megaphone trained on her fellow mutated bat.

"Even some of the humans know about them, but they don't send their military, their agents, after them. Oh, no, of course not," Alpha went on, starting to sound quite mad. Crazy mad. "Humans love bandicoot heroes… but they despise Titans and their minion cohorts. One of those defective Brat Girls managed to make it to the mainland on a rickety boat with a caged Titan in tow. It broke free right after they arrived and, well, the humans didn't even hesitate, didn't even consider giving them a chance to be integrated into society in any way. That Brat Girl and Ratcicle were taken away, their very existence covered up by the newspapers, in which they were dismissed as a hoax. They were probably taken to some secret science facility and cut into little pieces for 'research'. Heh. And to think we're supposed to be the evil ones…"

BG-2187 looked at her Ratcicle cohort, who gazed back at her with wary eyes, the Titan seeming to understand exactly what Alpha was saying. Was that what awaited them outside of this prison, beyond the Frozen Coast? Was there just no place in the world for two former servants of evil, for two creations of evil?

"…Come with me."

Alpha, suddenly roused from her ramblings, stared at BG-2187 for a full five seconds, and then she burst out laughing.

"Oh, my gosh, you know!" she exclaimed, guffawing. "You know that you wouldn't last ten minutes out there, so you want me with you to cover your sorry butt!"

"No, I mean, come with me, all of you," BG-2187 elaborated. "Every Brat Girl in this place, every Ratcicle in this place. Together, we're strong. Strong enough to survive. We can all look out for one another. We can find a new home, one where we can live in peace. We don't have to be evil, Alpha. We don't have to be 'Brat Girls'. We can simply be… bat girls."

BG-2187 half-expected Alpha to laugh even harder at that notion, but to her surprise, the commanding officer's amused grin faded to be replaced by a stony expression. "You think it's that easy?" she asked. "We all just up and defy Doctor Cortex and go frolic in the wilds and that's the end of it, right? What if he succeeds in taking over the world, 2187? What if he succeeds even without our help? Once he's in charge, his first act will be to find and eradicate everyone who has ever wronged him. He'd make an example of us, wipe out our hypothetical 'peaceful new home' before we even have time to put on our grass skirts and start hula dancing!"

"So that's it?" BG-2187 asked. "You're too scared of what might happen to do what you know is right, what you want just as much as me, perhaps as much as all of us deep down? And then you have the nerve to stand there, gloating at me, telling me why I'm foolish and stupid? I'm scared, too, Alpha! I'm scared to absolute death of what could happen to me out there! But I still want to try!" She bit her lip, lowering her megaphone as she stood there, averting her gaze. "I still want to try to find a better life… because anything's better than the one I've got, the one we've got."

Alpha said nothing for the longest time, turning away. Her arms still folded. "Go, BG-2187," she said quietly, her voice devoid of emotion. "You and your defective Titan. Go follow that bandicoot. See how far you get. See how much 'better' your life can be. I dare you."

"Alpha…" BG-2187 began slowly, "Think about Wimp. Think about Screwball. Wimp won't survive as a minion of evil. She's not cut out for it, not in the long run, and Screwball… She's far more of a danger to herself than her enemies. Every other Brat Girl clone is defective in some way, Alpha. Every other Brat Girl isn't as smart or as strong as the ones at the top. They're all going to get themselves killed if they stay in an evil environment."

"Such is serving the cause of evil," Alpha stated. "A sacrifice here and there is inevitable and necessary for the sake of progress."

"Then why did your voice just shake when you said that?"

Alpha gritted her teeth, letting out a low, frustrated growl. "J-Just get out of here, 2187! Get out of here and leave me to sort out this mess." She sighed heavily. "It'll take at least a month to restore order after all the damage that bandicoot did. The Doctor… The Warden…" She sighed again. "A sacrifice here and there is inevitable," she repeated quietly.

BG-2187's eyes widened as she realised what her fellow mutated bat was getting at. "No. No!" she cried. "You can't just take all the blame for this! You can't throw your life away like that!"

"I have to!" Alpha snapped, rounding on BG-2187. "Someone has to take full responsibility for this mess, so that Cortex doesn't have us all disintegrated!"

BG-2187 was caught off guard by that. "You… You do care," she realised. "That's why you devote yourself to the cause of evil so thoroughly, with such discipline. You're trying to protect your kin!"

"Finally, the defect gets it!" Alpha sneered. She then sniffed, a single tear running down her cheek, the sight of it nearly making BG-2187's jaw drop in disbelieving awe. "I need to protect them. I have to," she stated simply. "I was… I was actually hoping to leave Wimp and Screwball under your watch after I was gone." She sniffed again. "I mean, it was only a matter of time before I'd have had to do this, anyway; Screwball alone is not exactly in Cortex's favour, and Wimp… Well, like you said, she's not gonna survive for much longer. I've already had to pull a lot of strings, bend a lot of rules just to keep her out of the line of fire for this long…"

BG-2187 could only stare incredulously at her commanding officer, her tough-as-nails, no-nonsense commanding officer… who was softly weeping at the thought of execution, at the thought of having to say goodbye to her comrades in arms.

"I… I understand."

Alpha blinked. "Huh?"

"I now know why you're so tough on us. It is, quite literally, for our own good," BG-2187 summarised. She stepped forward and gently took hold of Alpha's furry hand, "I… I'll come back."

Alpha's eyes widened with a mixture of shock and outrage. "You're… You're still going?!" she cried, tears still streaming from her eyes. "After everything I just just said?! What about them?!" she demanded, pointing at the unconscious forms of Wimp and Screwball, who lay nearby. "What will they do once you and I are both out of the picture?!"

BG-2187 grimaced, glancing at her fellow patrol members, at her downed comrades in arms, a pang of guilt settling in her stomach… but then, she remembered her earlier conversation with Wimp:

"Even we minions of evil need a morale boost now and then. Hang in there, okay, Wimp? In fact, we should come up with a better nickname for you."

"I'm used to it. Some of the Brat Girls back at the school get called much worse; I got off relatively easy. Besides, if you're gonna have a label slapped on you, you might as well reclaim it, make it your own, you know?"

"Ah, and turn a negative into a positive. Now that is the right attitude to have, Wimp."

"Tell her…" BG-2187 hesitated. "When she comes to, tell her that you believe in her."

Alpha frowned. "What…? What's that supposed to accomplish?" she spluttered, appearing baffled and annoyed.

"More than you think," BG-2187 said simply. "She doesn't believe in herself because nobody else believes in her… except for me. And now you. You want to protect her, but you need to give her a chance to protect herself."

"Are you going mad, 2187? You said yourself that she probably won't survive!"

"She won't. Not as a minion of evil. Not as a Brat Girl. But as a bat girl, as a friend… Well, that's a different story." BG-2187 concluded, walking over and crouching down beside Wimp's unconscious body as she spoke, gently running her fingers through the cowardly minion's purple hair, smiling warmly at her collapsed ally. "Have faith in her, Alpha, and maybe, just maybe, that faith will be rewarded."

"Faith? Faith?! You want me to put stock in—?!" Alpha started, but BG-2187 raised a finger to her own lips, shushing her fellow mutated bat.

"Just… give her a chance, okay? She's a lot stronger than you think. She just needs to see it for herself." With that, the bat girl formerly known by the serial number BG-2187 straightened up, gestured for her Ratcicle cohort to follow her… and started for the ledge where the shattered remains of the ice sculpture lay.

"Where will you go? For reals?" Alpha enquired. "You're not a wilderness expert in any capacity! You're a half-decent barista at best!"

The bat girl looked back at Alpha as she clambered onto the ledge, the Ratcicle having given her a boost before climbing up after her. "Then just call me Barista, the bat girl," she declared, putting on a brave, determined smile. "Like I said, I'll come back when I can, and when I do, I'll free everyone! I promise!"

"How?"

"What am I, the messiah? I don't have all the answers!" Barista exclaimed, chuckling weakly at her own feeble attempt at humour. "I'll figure out something… maybe. Hey, first I gotta go out there and find a place for us all to live in peace. Then I can start thinking about crazier plans, like breaking everyone out of Evil Public School!"

Alpha found herself laughing once again, but this time, it was a good-natured laugh. "Oh, man, you're just…!" she exclaimed, reaching up and wiping her eyes. "You're really something else, you know that? Maybe you're not so worthless after all… Barista," she said, smiling up at her fellow mutated bat. Barista smiled back… and then she and her Ratcicle companion made their exit through the open passage into the escape tunnels.

Alpha stood there in silence for a moment, and then, despite everything that she knew was coming, her smile grew broader and she put her hands on her hips as she stared up at the open doorway.

"Godspeed, Barista. You're nuts, but then, that seems to be what's keeping Crash Bandicoot alive, so maybe, just maybe, you've got a decent shot of your own out there."

"Humans love bandicoot heroes… but they despise Titans and their minion cohorts."

…Yeah, that line was a jab at how the majority of Crash fans tend to view the Titans games in a, shall we say, less-than-favourable light. Maybe you didn't notice that line; it was very SUBTLE. Lol!

But seriously, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you'll stay tuned for more. Once again, here's to the bandicoot's 25th! "Whoa!"