Disclaimer: Crash Bandicoot, Coco, Cortex, and all the others whose names don't start with C are all property of Naughty Dog and Vicarious Visions. Not me.

Paradoxed

Coco Bandicoot stomped out of the portal to the sewer, more frustrated than she had ever been in her life. That had been a hard one. Seriously, who put electric lasers in a drainage pipe anyway? Especially that many? It was just excessive.

She looked no worse for the wear, thankfully. The miracles of applied temporal mechanics ensured that she was no longer smoking, sizzling, sparking or anywhere near resembled the oddly blonde pile of ash she had been reduced to far too many times, but she was pretty sure she was developing a twitch in her eye. Which didn't seem healthy. She wasn't sure her sanity could take much more of this.

If she was even sane in the first place. She was starting to doubt.

It seemed like such a pure idea at first: in between helping Crash take down Cortex and his new evil floating mask head boss (she would have to ask Aku Aku how floating masks had brothers in the first place later), jury rig the amazing time twisting supercomputer Cortex and his friends left just sitting unattended to let her travel back in time and help Crash in his earlier adventures.

Honestly, they just left a miracle of modern science sitting unattended. It was really their own fault.

It had always bothered Coco that Crash had to go through those ordeals all on his own, fighting evil scientists and giant robots and who knows how many mutated monsters with no one but their floating guardian to keep him of danger's usually mechanical grip. Her big brother was always smiles and goofiness, but to see him so afraid and to know he suffered through all that danger… it gave her the shivers. She saw him, sometimes, shivering and kicking in his sleep. No big brother that sweet should ever have nightmares.

And the time twister gave her the perfect means of fixing that. It was easy to reprogram the device to link through her laptop, and from there it was a simple set-up to let her warp back into her brother's earlier adventures. All she had to do was make it so that the machine would swap their places in history: she would take his place and do some of the work for him, while he would be stored in a safe place somewhere two inches to the left of twelve o' clock - like being in stasis. Sure, she would have to take her laptop with her everywhere, but that was no problem. She once carried that thing through an entire gymnastics competition.

And when she was done, they would simply switch back: Crash and everyone else would remember the original events, completely unaware that she had dropped in and taken some of the slack off of him. But maybe he would have a few less scars at the end of it. And the beauty was, she was perfectly safe! If anything horrible happened to her, the time machine would just rewind her back to a point before she messed up. She might get a few dings before it kicked in, but she was old enough to kick butt, she thought. Watching Crash had taught her a thing or two. It would be a total cakewalk.

Or so she thought. Again, it seemed like such a noble idea that the obvious downside just didn't occur to her.

She didn't know how Crash did it! The time machine seemed to have its own sense of humor, or maybe it was offended by being hacked, because it always took its sweet time with those rewinds. Which meant she got to remember every last nasty encounter with every last psychotic Cortex trap she had run afoul of. In the time since the started helping she had fallen down pits, been chomped on by bandicoot-eating plants, smashed by hundred ton weights, rolled over by boulders, zapped by lasers, electrocuted by eels… not to mention having been caught in way more explosions than should be healthy for anyone, let alone a girl her age.

She's not entirely sure, but she thinks she might have actually seen the pearly gates a few times. Either that or she was so punch drunk was she getting delirious. Crash didn't even have do-overs when he went through this insanity! No wonder he had nightmares! She was going to have nightmares!

And that wasn't even counting the current crisis. Crash and Aku Aku didn't know she was skipping off tracking Cortex through time in order to warp to the past, so when they asked for her help tracking down the mad genius' latest pyromaniac mercenary (and really, a dingo-crocodile? Again, it just seemed excessive) or piloting a biplane during the Age of Lead Zeppelins (which, she had to admit, was pretty cool), she needed to be there. And that was no picnic either. She got kissed by a frog. Who turned into one of Cortex' lab assistants. It was gross!

Her eye twitched again. She wondered if she should have that looked at.

All in all, maybe this wasn't the smartest plan. But it was too late to turn back now. Crash needed her. Well, maybe he didn't literally need her - after all, she knew for a fact that Crash could take care of it, since he already did. But she and her brother shared a certain fanatical stubbornness. She wasn't giving up. Not even a little bit.

In fact… something about this still felt fun. Deep down, but it was impossible to ignore the thrill of it. Like somehow she was glad to go through every painful minute. Spinning plant monsters, bouncing those nerdy lab assistants' heads in… before she knew it, she was giggling. She had barely gotten out of that alive (in fact, technically speaking she might not have), but she was here. Alive and well. And she got her hands on a gem… after getting a little electrical incentive. Did Crash feel like this too, every time he got out the next crazy situation in one piece? The way grabbing the crystal right under the villain's nose and getting back alive made her feel… happy?

Granted, she was well aware that N. Brio and his forces were technically the good guys in this situation, and that she essentially just risked her neck to help Cortex nearly enslave the planet, but she couldn't help that lighter than air feeling. She had emerged victorious, hadn't she?

It was a good thing Crash taught her some his funky moves, because this called for some victory dancing! In fact, she learned his signature dance right after they blew the Cortex Vortex out of the sky. Just thinking of that memory reminded her that she knew exactly how this adventure would go. It would be hard, but she knew she could handle it. It's not like it could get any worse!

Unfortunately, she was so busy dancing and tempting fate that she didn't notice the familiar VOOM of a certain hologram projector activating until she turned around and found herself staring into a very familiar face.

"Crash? Thank goodness! Cortex is… huh?"

Eye twitch.

"What the heck is… who are you?!"

Wow, was her hair really that puffy? She had always thought it felt a little stringier than that, like Tawna's. Not that this was a very good time to be thinking about that. She couldn't help but curse her past self's ingenuity. And the forces of irony, wherever in the temporal expanse they were hiding out.

"Ah, darnit!"

POOF!

Meanwhile, on the other side of hologram, the young bandicoot of yesteryear was treated to the seriously odd sight of a girl who looked an awful lot like her doing a strange dance where Crash was supposed to be. One second she was frozen there, waving sheepishly at her. The next she inexplicably exploded into a shower a sparkly chronological lights.

Then, she got the worst temporal-rebound headache of her life. Also the only temporal-rebound headache of her life. Though she thought it was just from staring at the screen too long. A moment later, she didn't remember the strange girl at all.

If only she knew…

Thirty Minutes Earlier, Give Or Take A Dozen or So Timeless Hours,

The air in Cortex' old warp room - technically new in this time period, but still grungy - shimmered, and Coco warped back to the entrance of the sewer portal. Though technically speaking, she hadn't gone in yet. At this point in time, she had never gone in.

The gem she found was gone, but all things considered she decided to turn this temporal bus right back around and let Crash handle this one…

Back In The Present, More Or Less:

Coco popped back to the N. Tropic Time Twister an instant after she had left.

The first thing she did was groan like a broke-down tractor, find herself the nearest wall and just lean against it for a while. The next thing she did was find the Time Twister controls and bonk her head against them repeatedly.

At least the twitch in her eye was gone. Her time fixing that little problem had thankfully cured her of it. But on the other hand, she had just spent ages drifting through the timeless void trying to reprogram her laptop so that the do-over would work this time, even though she had managed to completely obliterate her own little corner of the space-time continuum. And she thought lasers were bad.

Somehow, someway, she had gotten out of that once more no worse for the wear. Beyond the mental scars, anyway. The timeline was restored, more or less, and the Coco of the past had warned her Crash about their Cortex just as she had before (well, tried to anyway - if she remembered right, the reception for those holograms was ridiculous). But that was way too close.

She made a note to herself: link the temporal switch with the past selves' holograms next time. If her past self, Brio or Cortex popped up at all, if the hologram projectors so much as came online for a system update, she would be so out of there.

She sighed and dropped down until she was sitting against the supercomputer. If she even did that again. What was she thinking?

She looked to the Warp Pads, where Crash and Aku Aku were off exploring yet another ancient temple in Ancient Egypt, probably fighting mummies and trapdoors and only nearly escaping with their lives. It sounded exciting, but also incredibly dangerous.

Crash was out there risking his life to save everyone. It was the least she could do to make a few mistakes, take a few hits and face a little danger to keep him… if not sane, then at least safer.

This was for her big brother. And for him, she would straighten herself out and try again. She would figure out how not to nearly erase herself from history, maybe buy some insulated jeans, find her inner heroine and get right back into the fray, just like Crash would.

Just… maybe she would take a tiny nap first.

"Coco!"

Or maybe not.

Crash and Aku Aku had gotten back just after her, it seemed. Maybe their ears were burning, with all the thinking of them she had just been doing. Crash had somehow smuggled a crate of wumpa fruit back through the timestream (which, while delicious, wasn't strictly supposed to be possible. She wondered if her maybe own little time snafu had caused it), and was off to the side stuffing his face into it. Hopefully she could get her hands on one before they all disappeared down her brother's bottomless pit of a stomach.

Aku Aku had left him to his fun, and instead flew up to where Coco was sitting - an urgent look of his face, even if he kept the same friendly demeanor he always seemed to carry. She turned to look at him, and before she could say a word he was launching into

"We've got a problem. It looks like in order to unlock the path to the last few crystals, we'll have to confront N. Gin. On the moon. And I don't exactly trust Crash with the controls to a spaceship."

On cue, there was a loud commotion from offscreen as Crash, having apparently gotten his head stuck inside the crate of wumpa fruit - so much for her getting one - was now repeatedly walking into the electric gate cutting them off from the last set of crystals. Despite the fact that the fence was zapping him repeatedly. And he was laughing. Cackling like a loon, in fact.

*giggle* ZAP! *giggle!* ZAP! *giggle* ZAP…

"… right…" Aku Aku sighed. "You're a lot better when it comes to this newfangled modern technology, so I think you should be the one to face him… if you think you're ready."

Oh good, the twitch was back.

Noticing the look on her face, Aku Aku glanced at the Time Twister and then back to her. "Long day?" Their protector asked, shining the same cheerful smile as always. He sounded innocent, but she could swear there was some kind of twinkle behind his eyes. She would've glared at him suspiciously, but she didn't have the energy.

"Mnuh…" she groaned, fully aware that she wasn't speaking any actual words. She waited a second, and then tried one more time. "No prob!" She said, and to her relief it came out nice and clear. "You can count on me! Just… gimme a sec, okay?"

She pulled herself to her feet, trying not to look too much like she had just been pulled through an apocalyptic time crash. But Aku Aku shook his head… or his face, as the case may be. "Don't worry, my dear. I think we've all earned a little rest. N. Gin will keep for now. After all…" he gave her a sly glance, turning his eyes again to the time turner… "we have all the time in the world, don't we?"

She stared at him, her mouth hanging open. Did he know? How could he know? She stood there frozen, waiting for an explanation or an answer or anything to explain what she just heard - a figure of speech, maybe? - but all he did was wink at her and float off to help her thoroughly electrified brother (she could relate) get his head unstuck. Wumpa juice and singed bandicoot fur were flying everywhere, but through it all she was rooted to the spot.

That infuriating witch doctor! Just for a second, she wondered what would happen if she tried to spin him. Not too hard, just enough to send him over the non-existent horizon…

But then she laughed, again. She couldn't help it. Of course he knew. As if she could keep a secret like that from a guardian spirit. She would just have to try harder next time, she thought to herself. Crash saw her laughing and, still covered in wumpa fruit, leapt over to join in on whatever silliness he thought she was doing. And soon they had all ended up dancing together, Coco impressing her brother by copying his signature moves exactly, and Aku Aku floating in the back singing gibberish and watching proudly as his less-than-sane charges had some well deserved fun.

And so later, as Coco was dodging lasers in a strangely tiger-shaped starfighter (maybe a future Coco had come back in time as well and designed it just for her… nah!), or the next time she decided to go to the past and ended up digging for dear life away from a swarm of deadly, deadly bees, she thought back to that moment and felt even more excited knowing she had something timeless waiting for her. Her eye barely twitched at all, even!

She would be filling her big bro's shoes yet, and she only hoped her past self appreciated how cool she was going to be… and no, she didn't feel like justifying that wonky logic. Another thing she picked up from Crash.

But that said, if she ever ran into herself on the side of the road, she was totally calling it quits.

Author's Note: I've been holding onto this one for a little while, since the N. Sane Trilogy came out. It started with me thinking about how Coco was not only fully playable, but also how for the first time she has almost as many silly death scenes as Crash does, and how since she uses time travel it would be funny if she had a unique one where she paradoxes herself. Hence, a little bit of black comedy at her expense, and some fun at the game itself for its wonderful difficulty.

If you think about it, since she's time travelling she technically could have actual extra lives, too. Think of them as charges until the time machine stops taking pity on her and/or the player and spits her back into the present.