Crash Bandicoot

Prologue

Where...am I?

"Crash! Please awaken, child!"

My aching head. What happened?

I sat up carefully, my vision taking its time to clear. I looked around for the familiar voice calling my name, and my eyes soon fell on Aku Aku, the floating mask who had served as my guide throughout my journey. Speaking of which, what even happened? I tried to ask him that very question, but no sound would come out.

"It is good to see that you are awake," he spoke. "I was starting to worry." I opened my mouth again, only to be met with the same result. "Child, what might the matter be?"

My voice. What happened to my voice?

It was clear that Aku Aku finally understood the situation, for he said, "This is grave news. Whatever transpired while on Cortex's airship must have triggered something within you."

I managed to make at least some sort of noise, but it came out as incoherent gibberish. I was surprised, however, that my guardian could understand me. How, I was not sure. I aimed to uncover the truth soon enough.

I stood up carefully as Aku Aku floated ahead. I followed him to what appeared to be a small hut, and the two of us made our way inside. Before I could sit, I immediately took notice of a fellow mutated bandicoot, except it was a female with blonde hair instead.

"Aku Aku, who is this?" the female asked.

I was more confused than ever. What was going on here?

Noticing my confusion, Aku Aku said, "Allow me to explain. You may not remember, but this is Coco. She is your younger sister. Like you, she was subject to experimentation."

"I found this place and decided to make my home here," Coco added. "It looks abandoned, so it should be fine."

Once again, I spoke in gibberish in an awful attempt to ask the two what had transpired. The last thing I could remember was battling Cortex and falling unconscious. Unfortunately, I could not remember any events prior to that.

Just as I had feared, Coco could not understand me. Aku Aku replied to my question instead, saying, "I will explain everything that happened--"

"Wait, where's Tawna?" I interrupted.

"Before I left to search for you, she stated that she was going to take a nap. She is quite exhausted as well."

"Then I'll let her rest. So, tell me everything that occurred. How did I end up here, and how did I lose my voice?"

"Please, one question at a time. You may want to sit, for I have quite the story to share with you."

***

It was a stormy night around the dwelling that was Cortex Castle. It stood atop a tall hill, away from the rest of the island. The ruler preferred to be distant from others.

Ah, Neo Periwinkle Cortex. Such an insane man, yet he had so many ideas. Any normal human being would believe that his plans were inhumane, but he was far from normal. He was an evil scientist with an ambition to conquer the world. This idea swam through his mind for years, even before he graduated from the Academy of Evil, a school where children would learn to be evil masterminds.

Cortex had always been shunned, even as a boy. Perhaps that was why he felt the need to take over the world; he wanted to get revenge on anyone who had wronged him. But he wasn't alone. No, a few of his schoolmates had joined him in his dastardly schemes.

Contrary to popular belief, he did make a few friends while in school. They went by the names of Nathan Gin and Nitrus Brio. There was another man named Nefarious Tropy, but he often went about his own business, although he did stay in the castle as well. And then there was Aisleen, who, as peculiar as it was to most outsiders, was an anthropomorphic feline. She didn't much enjoy speaking of her past, but one thing that was known about her was the fact that she was from the Tenth Dimension.

N. Brio had just returned from a hard day's work, which, in truth, involved the scientist gathering as many animals as he could find and delivering them to his leader. Cortex took them to his laboratory, in a state of excitement, with his colleague following him. He proceeded to mutate the poor animals with a device known as the Evolvo-Ray (even though N. Brio had created it, Cortex took all the credit).

It felt as though an eternity had passed, and finally almost all of the animals were mutated. There were just three left, particularly bandicoots. Once the first two were evolved, however, Cortex noticed right away that something was not quite right with them. As one of his assistants grabbed the pair of marsupials, they thrashed left and right in an attempt to break free.

"It's no good," Cortex grumbled. "They aren't yet under my control! Toss them back into their cages!"

The assistant nodded and took the two female bandicoots to the other side of the room, where he threw them into their respective cages. Cortex turned his attention to the remaining bandicoot. The vile scientist stroked his beard, for a heinous idea entered his mind. This bandicoot would serve as the leader of the rest of the mutants!

As the bandicoot was placed underneath the contraption, N. Brio warned, "Shouldn't we allow the Evolvo-Ray to c-c-cool off first?"

"Enough stalling!" his master snapped.

"B-But I'm not--"

The impatient Cortex took matters into his own hands and pointed the Evolvo-Ray toward the marsupial himself. After the scientist pressed a few buttons nearby, a beam of light struck the bandicoot in the chest. Before the process was finished, however, Cortex saw on the monitor that was hooked up to the device that the experiment was, yet again, deemed a failure.

When the men were not looking, the marsupial jumped up and sprinted toward the nearest window. Cortex and N. Brio both went after them. They had nearly caught him, but the animal had jumped out just in time.

"Blast it all!" Cortex yelled, causing his colleague to whince.

"What now?" Brio asked.

Cortex turned to one of the caged bandicoots. "Prepare the female bandicoot..."