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Ch. 2: The Rebirth of the Female Bandicoot.

As suddenly as if I were hit by a bullet, I immediately woke up, then quickly proceeded to use my mighty sniffer to scope out the area. It was only after a short while later until I had found the familiar scents of the jungle plants, the rolling sea-salt infused waves, and the distance scents of food that I knew I was right back in the jungle.

If I can close my eyes real quick, and think back really hard, I can distinctly recall the sight of me amongst a number of different plants on the jungle floor, and that there were bright lights that could be seen poking through the canopy of the trees, indicating that it was sometime around mid-day.

Still being a wild animal, I did not ponder what had just happened back there, as I now recall that I was already on the hunt for my next meal. Under no time at all, right across from the patch of grass from which I stood, was a mighty ant hill, the worker ants pouring out of the top as if the queen had just made a royal decree that today was moving day. Seeing this as my opportunity, I then snuck up from behind the hill, and then immediately started devouring them, one by one, while enjoying myself in the process.

And then I heard humming.

Not the normal kind of humming you hear around summertime from the Cicadas that might populate the woods behind your house. No, this humming was much more foreign sounding than that, a lot more electrical, a lot more mechanical, and though it was faint, it seemed to get faster and faster.

I guess a part of me must have remembered the events of what had happened yesterday, (or it was just an everyday fight or flight response, normal bandicoots do not have good memory), for I then immediately ran into a bush behind the hill, and then proceeding to continue onwards to parts unknown.

I ran for as far as my little bandicoot paws could carry me, using my nose to hopefully find my territory so I can hide in my little burrow to wait out the noise. Only the noise did not seem to go away, for no matter how fast I ran, the noise always seemed to follow me. After some time had passed, (How much time exactly? Enough to realize when something is afoot, that's what.), I then realized that the noise did not come from anywhere in the jungle area, but instead, had come from above me.

My ears then led my eyes to a hole in the canopy right above from where I sat, to what appeared to be two glowing balls in the sky: one larger, one smaller. The more I looked at it, the more I felt as if the air around me was slowly starting to burn me alive, with the rest of the plants around me becoming a darker shade of more red, as if they were also starting to burn. As the speed and intensity of the humming continued to increase with the increasing heat, I then tried to move away, only to feel like both my arms, legs, and head were being restrained by some invisible force. At that point, it was like I had no choice but to stare up at what appeared to be the sun, and its little brother, as they were about to explode and devour the entire planet in their intense heat.

"Cu-Cu-Cortex! I still think you are making a big mistake"!

...

My eyes then slowly started to open, only to find that I was flat on my back in what appeared to be a pitch-dark room. Okay pitch black is a bit of an overstatement, for there were a couple of windows that showed off the night sky, as well as a couple of computer monitors on the far off walls that also gave off some kind of glowing light. That, and there had just so happened to be a giant source of light right above me: a source of light that had come from one of the most over the top evil, (or, perhaps, the most ridiculous), ray gun you will ever see.

[Seriously, I get the complexity of the process involved probably explains the reason for its enormous size, and that hanging it from the ceiling helps it fire at its target. But what is the point of having all those flashing light bulbs all over it? To draw more attention at the next evil scientist's convention?]

"N-Brio, like I said before, we cannot stop now! We are about to make scientific history here! Plus, do you want us to waste all of this valuable electricity by shutting this all off"?

"B-but Cortex...it took the Ripper Roo two months to recover from all of those changes, aren't you afraid that the effects of the Evolvo Ray might ki-ki-ki-ki-kill someone of her size"?

There was then a brief bit of silence before Cortex continued in what appeared to be an insulted, angry tone.

"You fool! Do you think I am not aware of the consequences! While you were gone, I had taken it upon myself to reconfigure the ray so that the dark mojo only effects small parts of the creature over time! A bandicoot like her should be able to recover no problem"!

N-Brio then gasped.

"Bu-bu-but Cortex...I am the only one who knows how to alter this machine...I...I...I was the one who invented it".

Cortex then let out a frustrated growl.

"Just trust me and do what your told! Quickly, throw the switch"!

And just like that.

Tch...CLUNK!

The switch was pulled, and the humming started to intensify even more. I then tried to roll back on my arms and legs, only to find that what been restraining me in my dream turned out to be brown leather straps attached to some cold surface. I then stared up at these two bright suns as they glowed ever brighter, their brightness seeming to envelope everything within my vision. It was at this point that I just excepted my fate.

"P-p-p-please be brave little Tawna".

Then suddenly, a bolt of electricity shot out from the ray and shook me all about, like I was being played with by a cat with Parkinson's disease. I must have let out the loudest shriek of my life as the mojo fueled electric beam made its way into every single fiber of my being, doing God knows what to me.

Then suddenly...black out.

...

As suddenly as if I were hit by a second bullet, I immediately woke up in a similar area from which I have been in before: similar scents, similar plant life, and similar disregard for what had just happened. Low and behold, right out of the patch of grass from which I stood, was that ant hill again, with a similar number of ants pouring out of it. Like before, I was about to make my way toward the hill to gorge myself silly.

But then my head started to hurt.

I remember it being a quick and sharp sort of pain, sort of like the shock you get when you shuffle across wool carpet and then proceed to touch a doorknob, except felt along your brain. Though I do remember it causing me some sort of discomfort, the shock was so quick that I immediately forgot about it and continued onward toward my feast.

And then I started to feel weird.

Writing this right now, I am not sure how I can try to describe this weirdness in a way that makes sense, so bear with me:

Imagine you are a machine designed to place the hoods on cars in an assembly line. As soon as the computer sends the signal to turn you on, your mechanical arm immediately extends toward one of the belts so you can then pick up the hood, turn around, and then places it on the car, only to keep repeating this process until the computer turns you off. Now imagine that one day, as you are busy placing the hoods on these cars, as you usually are, a thought hits you:

"I exist".

You are not yet aware of what you are doing, why you are doing it, or that you are even machine, but rather, you are a being that takes up space.

That was what I had felt during that time near that ant hill, for at that moment, though my instincts had kept on telling me to eat those ants because I was hungry and I needed to eat, I had actually felt like I was aware of myself. I was something standing by some elevated patch of dirt that was eating these little guys, that I had no idea what they were called, in an area that I also did not know what to call it.

After I had finished eating, I then crawled away from the ant hill, this weird feeling not seeming to go away as I made my way back toward my hole in the ground.

And then the pain came back...hard.

Not even inches from the hill, more of these electric shocks traveled through my brain, the pain being so unbearable that ,after a while, I just laid there with my paws over my head like I was bracing myself against an attack from above. With every shock, it seemed as if more and more revelations kept on popping up in my head like popcorn: I became aware of the giant nose on my face, I had started to recognize the jungle as the place that I lived, I became aware of my everyday routine of waking up in my burrow, finding food, and sleeping; but most importantly, I had also started to remember the events that had let up to my capture (which both explains my brief memories in both this chapter and chapter one), as well as the faces of the two doctors that were holding me captive.

...

One of those shocks must have been particularly painful, for I do remember eventually waking up during the middle of one, and found myself, yet again, strapped to a gurney in the castle.

From what I could remember, it was a different room than the one I had been in previously. For starters, the surface I was strapped to felt more padded than the one near the Evolvo ray, and the entire room looked smaller too. Closing my eyes, I can only recall seeing only one window that showed off the night sky, and there was a large entrance with intersecting horizontal and vertical metal bars blocking it.

Even though the storm still brewed within my head, I had still tried to wiggle my way out, only to find something else new: Every part of my body, from my kangaroo-like hind legs, to the tips of my giant, pointed ears, were on fire.

Okay, I was not literally on fire, but the aches and pains I had felt all over could have fooled me. That first wiggle I had attempted caused such a negative reaction, that I swear my screech could have been heard from heaven.

Except this was not my normal everyday screech, (that you may be used to seeing me do by this point), this one ended up sounding bigger, deeper, less rodent like, and it hurt like hell.

Suddenly, a bright light appeared above me, giving me both a better view of both the stone walls and metal bars, as well as inviting another shockwave of agony to ripple across my entire nervous system, as I try turn my head away from the source. The sound of a creaking gate drew my attention to the entrance of my cell as N-Brio slowly entered the room. He tip-toed inside carrying what looked to be a plastic bowl containing some kind of thick yellow soup in one hand, with some kind of metal spoon in the other. He then began to hum to himself as he placed the bowl on the gurney, and then proceeded to press a button on the side of the wall that raised the top half of it so that I was sitting up and facing him.

As he continued to hum, he then began to open the lid of the container, giving me a better view of the soup as he scooped up some of it and pointed it toward my face.

"Don't worry my dear...I..I..I've mu-mu-modified this batch of formula so that now the pain should subside within a couple of minutes. So, please, pu-p-please, can you open wide"?

Seeing as how you can argue that I just now received the mind of a human only recently, it was only fitting that I refused that glop like the stubborn baby I was. With every attempt Brio made to let the "air plane" land, I had denied it by either turning my head away from it as far as I can, (writing this already makes my neck hurt), or by using my nose to knock it out of his hand. Eventually though, he did leave me alone, turning his back toward me as he gently took his bowl and walked out of the cell door, giving me the chance to be alone with my own thoughts.

For a while, I just sat there, trying not to move so as not to invite another full on nervous system attack, that is, until I began to move one of my fingers where I had found that something felt wrong.

As I fought through the pain needed to turn my head toward my paw, I had noticed that this "finger" I had moved had actually come from one of these two little nubs that had not been there before. Upon further inspection, I had then noticed that not only had these little nubs appeared on my other paw, but also my feet as well, with me only being able to move each one of them just only a little bit, (I guess my brain just had not made those connections yet).

A short while later, N-brio came back into my cell pushing what looked to be a steel table on wheels, carrying both the plastic bowl from earlier, as well as a plastic box containing something small, dark, and moving. N-brio then wheeled the table overt to my line of sight, and then proceeded to open the lid to reveal that that moving something was actually a small group of ants that scurried all around their little prison as if aware completely of what was going to happen to them. Not content with the ants I had eaten in my dreams, I immediately stood up and was about ready to chow down, only for that pain to shoot through me again, causing me to emit another painful shriek.

N-brio, being the conniving man that he secretly is, saw this as his opportunity to strike, and quickly poured the soupy substance down my throat while my mouth was open, to which I then swallowed without much thought.

At first, nothing had happened, but then only a short while later, I felt my eye lids slowly start to droop again as I began to go under, something besides heavy duty pain killers obviously being included in that modified formula.

And this is where things become a bit fuzzy, for I was mostly asleep through the rest of my mutation, causing time and events to kind of blend together as I drifted in and out of dream land. Most of my dreams, as you may have guessed, all involved me hunting food in the jungle as if nothing had ever happened. Except this time, as each part of my body slowly started to reconfigure itself, I had the displeasure of hunting with what my dream self would either perceive to be a broken leg, an arm, a back, or even having to deal with two swollen mosquito bites that only served to slow me down.

However, no matter how many changes I had went through during my time in that room, it did not feel as painful as it was in the beginning. In fact, whether it was because of side effects brought on by my new formula, or just the fact that I was just getting used to everything not being set in stone, I even started to feel stronger from all of these new changes.

One of the dreams that I can still recall as if I were still there was one were my hunting was unexpectedly interrupted by one of the island's local falcons, its brown feathers blending in perfectly with the nearby branches as it swooped in and wrapped its large talons around my shoulders. In any other instance, this would have spelled doom for me, but this time, I had the nerve to repeatedly swat at those yellow claws with my new, longer, bandicoot paws as he struggled to get my body off of the ground, all the while, making the weirdest squawks I have ever heard in my life:

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Cut it out. Ow. Ow. Ow".

...

I then slowly opened my eyes again to see N-brio, this time, off in the corner of the of my cell, rubbing the parts of his hands I had scratched in my dream.

Immediately, I had noticed something felt different. Looking down, I had noticed a large beige blanket covering a large section of my body. I then began to wiggle my arms and legs and found that the restraints that were holding me in place were also gone.

With this revelation, I then threw the blanket off, then stared, in absolute shock, at what was hiding underneath.

"Uhh...He-he-he happy birthday Tawna.", N-brio had said with a nervous chuckle, "Welcome to the first day of b-u-bu-bu-both your new life, and your new body".