• Published 25th Feb 2024
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Video Game Journeys: Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time - CrashGuy41



The Rainbooms continue their journey with Crash Bandicoot to find Sunset.

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A Different Tawna?!

After a while of catching up on recent events, our heroes decided to press onward and find N. Gin, who had the second Quantum Mask. As they continued to trek across the wasteland, they suddenly heard a peculiar sound close by.

"Y'all hear that?" Applejack asked.

Everyone listened closely to find out what was making that sound.

"It sounds like someone's playing the drums," Pinkie responded.

"Sounds awfully close," Sunset said.

"Look! Over there!" Rainbow exclaimed, pointing towards a huge robot.

Everyone ran towards the robot and stopped when they got close to the stage. Inside the robot's glass dome was N. Gin with a drum set. Lani-Loli gasped upon seeing what else was on the robot.

"Look! There's Akano! On the large drum!" he yelled.

Pinkie reached into her hair and pulled out a pair of binoculars to see better. Sure enough, the Quantum Mask known as Akano was stuck to N. Gin's bass drum.

"Alright, you bloodthirsty lunatics! Put your freaky little hands together for... RAWK-IT HEAD!" N. Gin proudly exclaimed.

"Rawk-It Head?! Are you serious, right now?!" Sunset snapped.

"What's the matter? Don't like DEATH METAL?"

"For the love of Celestia, JUST SHUT UP!"

"Just for that, I'm going to make sure that all of you get a beat-ing! Ehehehehehe!"

"ENOUGH WITH THE PUNS, ALREADY, YOU ROBOT-OBSESSED MISSILE-HEADED JERK!" Rainbow screamed.

"I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I think it's time we finally shut this feller up!" Applejack said, cracking her knuckles.

"How? I don't even see a weak spot?"

Just then, a Rambler with a flame helmet started charging towards them. Thinking fast, Crash slid into it, which launched it towards the stereo. The impact was so hard that it broke the equipment.

"My equipment!" N. Gin wailed as various stereo boxes landed, some of which were phased out of existence.

"Quick! We've got to get to that robot and free that mask!" Twilight exclaimed.

"How? Some of those boxes are practically invisible! I can only see a light blue outline around them!" Rainbow responded.

"Use my power! I can help you get up to that robot in no time!" Lani-Loli said.

"Leave that to me!" Applejack said.

Lani-Loli swirled around her and created a light-blue suit that resembled his face. He then stuck himself onto her back, giving her his power. The others gazed at her with their mouths on the floor.

"That... Is... So... Awesome!" Rainbow squealed.

"Alright, so what do I do, now?"

"Once you get up to a phased platform, you yell the word PHASE and I'll pop it into existence. Just be sure you're jumping right over it, first," Lani-Loli explained.

"You got it, partner."

Applejack ran over to the shortest stereo box, then climbed up onto it.

"Stay away from my robot! He's fragile!" N. Gin warned as Applejack leapt to the next platform, which was phased.

"PHASE!"

As soon as she said the word, the platform underneath her became solid. She did this two more times until she got onto the massive drum set. She bounced on one of the drums, then gave the robot a fierce kick. Thanks to her geode giving her super strength, she was able to instantly destroy the robot.

"Noooooo! My Weapon of Mass Percussion wasn't supposed to go down that easily!"

Applejack landed in front of her friends just as Lani-Loli relieved her of his power.

"Guess ya didn't count on me having super strength!"

"WOO-HOO! Way to go, Applejack!" Pinkie squealed.

Just then, the robot began to severely malfunction, resulting in an explosion that ejected both N. Gin and Akano. Thankfully for N. Gin, the large drums managed to break his fall, bouncing him straight onto the floor in front of everyone. Despite the impact looking somewhat painful, everyone managed to laugh at his unfortunate predicament.

"Looks like you lost again, N. Gin," Twilight said smugly as she folded her arms.

"My beautiful creation," N. Gin groaned.

"That's seriously all you're worried about after we just kicked your sorry behind?" Rainbow snapped.

Suddenly, Akano fell down and whacked N. Gin on the head. The impact sent him flying into the nearby Quantum Rift, causing Lani-Loli to freak out. They were so close to getting Akano and now it looked like they had to go find him once again. Knowing that they didn't have a choice, our heroes headed towards the Quantum Rift and eventually entered a new era. That era was Salty Wharf 1717.


Meanwhile, back at the Rift Generator, N. Tropy was quite unhappy at N. Gin's failure to stop everyone from progressing.

"I had a feeling that missile-headed moron wouldn't be able to pull off even the simplest of tasks! One such as to eliminate those bandicoots and their human friends!" N. Tropy snarled.

As he was talking, Cortex slowly walked up behind him.

"What is it this time, Cortex?"

"Uh, I believe that someone is calling you, N. Tropy," Cortex said nervously.

"Now? Of all the times for her to call, it has to be now! And when we're so close to finishing the Rift Generator!"

N. Tropy made his way towards the other side of the generator and switched on the monitor. As soon as he did, a silhouette of a cloaked figure appeared on the screen.

"What is it that you want?"

The cloaked figure began to speak in an electronic-like voice.

"Is it finished?" the figured asked.

"It is nearly complete, my liege. Soon your army can begin the invasion of the various universes you so desire."

The figure let out a sinister chuckle, as if it was pleased by the news.

"Excellent work, N. Tropy. You may continue on with your duties."

As he turned away, another thought crossed the figure's mind.

"Oh, and one more thing. I want you to keep a close eye on those seven girls that thwarted Uka Uka. Especially the purple one. She may be hiding the certain someone of whom I seek."

"As you wish."

The figure nodded their head and the screen returned to its idle green state.

"So, they want me to spy on those seven brats, eh? Ehehehehehehehehehehe! This just gets more fun by the moment."


Speaking of our heroes, they weren't having the best of luck against various Pi-Rats in the Salty Wharf. See, the friends managed to stumble into a cave that contained truckloads of pirate treasure a little while ago. This, of course, caught everyone's attention, especially Rarity's. Even though Applejack was skilled with a sword from her time with Cortex's lab assistants, the Pi-Rats managed to outsmart her. After a fierce battle, though, the Pi-Rats managed to capture everyone and left them dangling from their ship's mast. This didn't last long, however, as they were soon rescued by a tall female bandicoot. The same one that Sunset was with earlier, in fact. She had on a pink top, a blue bandana around her neck, a brown short-sleeved leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders, fingerless leather gloves with metal braces, blue pants with two brown leather belts, dark brown steel-toed boots with pink legwarmers, and three gold earrings in her right ear.

She cut the rope with a cutlass that she had, lowering everyone down to the mast.

"OW! That really hurt!" Rainbow winced, rubbing her butt.

"Thank you so much-- wait. Tawna?!" Coco gasped.

She did not expect her old friend and Crash's ex-girlfriend to suddenly rescue them. That's when she realized something. This wasn't the same Tawna that was from their universe. Crash was extremely curious and observed her to confirm that it wasn't the same Tawna he had once rescued. Eventually, Tawna whacked Crash on the head, knocking him out.

"It's good to see you guys," Tawna said. "It's been a long time for me."

"More like forever! You just... ditched me back there!" Sunset scowled, folding her arms.

"You kind of brought that on yourself when you didn't jump out of the way in time."

"Not to change the subject, but I assume that means we lost touch in your universe, too?" Coco asked.

Tawna turned the other way, as if she was trying to hide something.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Just what are ya hiding, sugarcube?" Applejack asked suspiciously.

"Applejack, please. If she is trying hide something, then it must be something extremely sensitive," Rarity interjected.

Applejack sighed heavily.

"Alright. I guess it's not my business to pry into other people's own personal troubles."

"So, what, did we like die or something?" Coco asked jokingly.

"What? No! Nope! No! What! Ha! No! Definitely not! So how are things in your dimension? Ahem!" Tawna said, trying to hide the fact that they did, in fact, die.

"The usual. A bunch of evil scientists attempting interdimensional domination."

"And to stop them, we need to collect these masks called the Quantum Masks. It's really weird, but it is how it is, I guess," Rainbow explained.

"Ooh, fun. Well, good luck with that," Tawna said, turning away.

"What?! You're leaving again?!" Sunset snapped.

"Sorry, Sunset, but, I fly solo. But I'll-- I'll lend a hand where I can. In fact, I already have..."

Twirling her hookshot, Tawna latched it onto a pole and swung away, leaving Sunset cross at her.

"Is there something y'all want to tell us, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

"She's the reason I was able to survive this long in this universe. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be with you guys again," Sunset explained.

"Still, we could've used her help finding the rest of the masks," Coco said disappointingly.

"I know. But it's like she said, she's going off alone. And if my friends and I want to get home, then we need to find those masks, even with all of this crazy stuff that's happening right now."

As soon as she finished saying that, Twilight's left eye started twitching and she started laughing like she was going crazy.

"Um, you okay, Twilight?" Fluttershy whimpered.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Twilight said crazily. "So many things happening all at once. My geode reacting to the masks, karts appearing out of nowhere, Applejack suddenly gets these weird video game powers, it's just another regular day. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

*SLAP!*

*HARDER SLAP!*

"Snap out of it, Twilight!"

Everyone's mouths hung open in shock. Fluttershy just slapped Twilight. That was an action that no one was expecting to happen. To think that Fluttershy, the element of Kindness, would suddenly get mad enough to slap somebody. They couldn't believe it. And yet, she actually did it. Anyways, after that little awkward moment, Twilight finally came back to her senses and rubbed her left cheek to ease the pain from Fluttershy slapping it so hard.

"Sorry, guys. Guess I'm just overwhelmed with all of the weirdness going on in this world."

"We all are, darling, but you don't see us going feral, do you?" Rarity chastised.

"No, Rarity. I'm sorry. I'm just not used to everything being so weird to the point that science can't even explain it."

"Twilight, look. Science is great, but you can't possibly explain everything with it. It's just not possible," Coco said. "Sometimes, you just have to accept things for the way they are and not question them... Like us."

Crash put his hand on Coco's shoulder and gave Twilight a smug reassuringly smile.

"You're right. Well, I feel better now. Let's go find that mask!"

Everyone unanimously agreed with her on that comment. Looks like they were off once again to find the second mask, Lani-Loli's brother, Akano, who was somewhere on the nearby island. But what dangers lie ahead for them once they finally obtain the mask and venture into the next world? They'll just have to wait and see for themselves.

Author's Note:

The character who is talking to N. Tropy belongs to Dragonknife5. I'm keeping them in the shadows until the right moment. The only people who know this character's true identity as of this point are myself and Dragonknife5.

If anyone asks me about this mysterious character in this story, don't expect me to say very much.

Also, the part where Fluttershy suddenly slaps Twilight is a reference to the 1987 film, Moonstruck, starring Nicholas Cage and Cher. In one scene, Cher's character slaps Cage's character in the same manner, telling him to snap out of it.