Written by Nobody , Illustrated by Nobody 

 The First Entry of the Playstation All-Stars Saga

Chapter 1: He’s Destined to Defeat You

“Both of us have lived for a very long time, Sorceress” Malefor said as he strutted about the Sorceress’ throne room. His presence here was beginning to make her uncomfortable. All Dragons are her sworn enemies, it was for that very reason she banished all of them from the Forgotten Realms millennia ago. Somehow, this Malefor Dragon was able to find her and was now speaking to her candidly. Why am I even tolerating his presence? But deep down the Sorceress knew the answer even before she asked the question to herself. This large, powerful, purple Dragon frightened her. She of course tried to give no inclination that she was intimidated by him, though she herself wasn’t exactly sure if she was showing any outward signs of being afraid. But why am I afraid, she thought to herself again. I am the Sorceress; I have complete mastery of all elemental magic and can take down any Dragon. But even as this thought entered her mind she knew that this Dragon was different.

“Why are you here, Malefor? No Dragons are allowed in my Realm. I thought I’ve made that abundantly clear.” The Sorceress felt she was doing a decent job concealing her emotions, but she also couldn’t get a read on Malefor at all.

“To deliver a warning. I’m aware of your sentiment towards Dragons, and although I try not to take your resentment of my species and I personally, it still stings. What have I ever done to earn the hatred of the mighty Sorceress?” Was he seriously patronizing me? My name is feared throughout the Forgotten Realms and throughout Avalar. But Malefor was a prideful Dragon, the Sorceress could tell as soon as she first saw him. It was to go against his very nature to put himself beneath another creature, especially one that wasn’t a Dragon. What is his ploy?

“My eternal grudge with the Dragon race needs neither an explanation nor justification, Malefor. Now I ask again, why are you here?”

“I assume you know a lot about Dragons. They say you can’t hate something unless you love it as well. To devote so much energy into loathing someone with every fiber of your being takes a conscious effort to focus endlessly on the very thing you despise. It’s why you’re allowing me to have this conference with you. You know who I am and how dangerous I can be.” The Sorceress gulped silently as she maintained her poker face. She could see the rage boiling quietly in Malefor’s eyes. He was indeed one of the most dangerous Dragons in existence. “However there is only one creature in existence who has lived as long as me and who has killed roughly as many Dragons as I have. So in mutual respect I come here and heed this warning. Another purple Dragon has been born in the Realm of the Artisans. Like me, he is destined to wield both the elemental forces and the convexity itself. If he is allowed to reach adulthood, he will rise to challenge us, for it is his destiny. I’ve seen in, and surely you too must have been warned by your prophets, maybe not specifically, but nevertheless were told of a challenge to your throne.” It was true that I’ve been warned by my prophet of a danger to my throne, but how could Malefor know that?

“If I already knew about the danger you’ve come here to warn me about, Malefor, then why tell me again?”

“Because I’m asking you to deal with the problem. Unlike me, you have an entire kingdom at your disposal, while I would have to deal with this personally. I’m telling you to figure out a way to kill that Dragon now, before it has any chance to live. Before he has any chance to defeat you.” To think that any Dragon stood a chance against me was laughable. But Malefor had said that this infant was a purple Dragon. And Malefor was a fully-fledged adult purple Dragon, which made her all the more nervous about this infant Dragon. Malefor then came uncomfortably close to the Sorceress and circled around her. The Sorceress did not move or allow her body to tense up. To move or show discomfort would be a sign of weakness, and she couldn’t allow herself to be weak in the presence of a Dragon. His head was now inches away from hers, and he whispered into her ear. “Once you kill him, the other Dragons will fall. You’ll have what you’ve always wanted. And them someday, I will too.” He walked away from her and headed towards a large window. “Goodbye, Sorceress.” He said as coldly as when he first came here, but with a faint smile, then he flew out the window. The sudden gush of wind from his wings made the Sorceress shutter, but she also knew that his presence here today had rattled her. She has been alive for a thousand years, and today was the first time since she was a young that a Dragon had scared her. Although “scared” wasn’t the appropriate feeling, at least not now since she didn’t think she needed to worry about Malefor at the moment. It was… what Malefor said about hatred. Her loathing of the Dragons began in her adolescence, before she found the power she needed to kill the creatures that murdered her father. But today she had met a Dragon who was either her equal or superior in magical prowess.

The Sorceress’ scepter shook in her hand, before she realized that it was her hand itself that was shaking. She forced herself to calm down, and proceeded to think about how to deal with the problem Malefor had warned her about. Another purple Dragon… Malefor had been born thousands of years ago, like she was. Purple Dragons were rare, the pinnacle of their species abilities. Now that the Sorceress knew of one in its infancy, she had to kill it. But why did Malefor need me to deal with the problem? The answer was obvious now that she remembered where the infant Dragon was born. Neither she nor Malefor could get into the Dragon Realms, there was a magical barrier keeping them out specifically. But the Sorceress did have the resources to find and steal a Dragon egg. Maybe that baby Dragon could be of some use is she could appropriate its magic abilities. The process would kill the baby Dragon, but that was what she wanted in the first place. And to think that a Dragon would be beneficial to her in any way, it almost made her cringe, like how Malefor made her cringe. Hatred…

“Bianca!” Little feet could be heard as a young bunny made her way as quickly as she could to the throne room.

“Yes my liege.” Such a young prodigy of magic. Someday I’ll have to tell her what happened to the rest of her family and her peoples. How I murdered all of them so they couldn’t rise to challenge me.

“Prep the orb, I have a call to make.”

“Right away, my liege.”

---

Whenever Crash doubted why he did the things he did, risking his life to save others from Cortex’s malice, all he had to do was remember that he was created by that man to do his evil bidding. He had to remember how frightened Tawna was when her life was in the hands of Cortex, and how much he loved her. He would do anything to keep her alive, to keep her safe. It was because Crash cherished life that he must protect it. So if that meant traveling the world and time itself to find special crystals that Cortex intended to use to enslave all life on the planet, he would do so. It didn’t matter that it was dangerous, or that no one except Tawna and his sister Coco would ever know he risked his life to save the world. It was because it was the right thing to do.

This particular crystal Crash was searching for was located very far back in the past. Looking at the large sphere in front of him which sporadically irradiated lightning bolts in all directions showed some sort of prehistoric swamp with lava pits and bones of ancient dinosaurs. Ominous... The date showing on the Time Twisting Machine’s display noted that the period of time of his destination was hundreds of thousands of years ago, the furthest in time which he had ever gone up to this point. This was also the last of the crystals he needed to get. Without this treasure, Cortex could not complete his goal of world conquest. Nervous as usual, Crash found the courage to enter the portal in front of him. Little did Crash know that he would save the world in more ways than one upon traveling to the past.

Upon arrival, he landed on his feet as the glistening sphere behind collapsed into a singularity. Certainly this was most terrifying location Crash has been to so far (maybe besides Cortex’s castle). His mission was to find the Power Crystal in this swamp; one device that Coco invented would at least point him in the right direction, while another component of the Time Twisting Machine Crash had in his pocket would allow him to summon another portal that would take him back to the future. He navigated through the swamp, trying to keep a low profile while not being spotted by any of the wildlife. His plan to remain undetected eventually failed and he had to run from a triceratops. His evasion actually ended up leading him very close to the Power Crystal (fortunately). He headed in its direction when he overheard some voiced in the distance. He pivoted his ears to better locate the noise and understand the noises and soon heard what was being said. It… was English! He slyly made his way to the location of the conversation, and spotted three human shaped creatures covered in three differently colored robes conversing around a fire.

“Why don’t we just destroy the egg and continue with our real reward” said the blue robed thief. He was holding the Power Crystal in his hands. He clung to it and stared at it intensely.

“Because we’re not going to defy the orders of the Sorceress” said the green thief. “She is not to be messed with. We were instructed to steal this egg and bring it back to her. If you value your life, then you will do what she asked of us.”

“We risked our lives stealing this egg” yelled the red thief, “and we were almost killed on the spot. We’re lucky to have made it out of Artisans alive.”

“Well if someone wasn’t distracted by a certain crystal, we wouldn’t have been spotted.” retorted the green thief.

“Hey,” the blue thief shouted angrily, “we aren’t going to be paid for this; I just made sure our efforts weren’t in vain.”

“To the Sorceress,” the red thief said coldly, “sparing our lives is its own reward.”

“And besides,” the green thief added irately, “there’s no way in hell your sharing the profits once you pawn that crystal, you greedy bastard. It’s written all over you face.”

“Well maybe I won’t!”

“Come on you two,” the red thief said reasonably, “can’t we at least get this egg to the Sorceress so she doesn’t have a reason to kill us, and then we can ‘discuss’ what to do afterword’s. I don’t even know why you two agreed to stop anyway. If this egg is so valuable, who’s not to say were not being followed by Dragons who tried to kill us?”

“Like any Dragon has the courage to voluntarily leave their Realms” Replied the blue thief crudely. “They’ve been cooked up on those islands for centuries and wouldn’t have the gulls to leave those Realms even if we stole all their treasure.”

“And I think I’m kind of jealous of the Dragons” replied the green thief honestly. “They don’t have to deal with the Sorceress.”

“You’ve got that right” replied the red robbed thief.

Whoever this Sorceress creature was, Crash didn’t want to meet her. But those thieves said that they were delivering a Dragon Egg to her. Crash could see the purple egg with white specks on it near the middle of the camp. A Dragon? Those were real? The helpless Dragon inside its egg reminded Crash of a particular baby Polar Bear he met while in the Artic retrieving a crystal. It was injured and its mother wasn’t anywhere in site. He made a splint for its broken leg and used it to realign the fractured bone in its front paw. Crash then spent several days finding it food and nursing it back to health. I made a friend that day, and I was also chased away by that young bear’s mother. I couldn’t have outrun the angry bear, but she didn’t pursue me, she only chased me off. She might have been a feral creature, but I think she understood what I was doing… maybe. Those thieves had the Power Crystal I was searching for. But that crystal belonged to someone else. Dragons they said. So maybe Dragons are intelligent. In any case, Crash wasn’t going to allow these thieves get away with this, and maybe they could avoid this Sorceress creature for failing to do their job.

Crash vaulted towards the camp, startling the three thieves. Crash reached for the egg and was quickly pursued. The thieves were fast, really fast. They caught up to him in three seconds and tackled him to the ground, causing the egg to fall to the floor. Crash fidgeted on the ground and flung the green thief off of him. The blue one charged at Crash, but was met with a violent spin attack by Crash which flung the bandit way further than should have been possible. It was Crash’s specialty, and these bandits were going to learn the power of that move.

“What the hell is that thing!” The red thief shouted.

“Doesn’t matter! It’s after the egg. Don’t let him get away with it!”

The blue thief quickly sprinted at Crash, and he dogged the knife that came from within his robe. After his second attempt to impale Crash, he grabbed his arm and used his spinning ability to fling him away. Crash turned in time to see the green thief approach, but was tackled to the ground by him. Crash was struck in the face and pinned to the ground as the red thief picked up the Dragon egg. But the commotion must have lured pterodactyls to the area, because one swooped down and picked up the green thief. He screamed in a panic as he was carried off. Other pterodactyls could be seen and heard in the sky. Crash moved quickly towards the distracted and terrified red thief and launched at him. He dragged him to the ground and wrestled the Dragon egg from him and reached for the crystal. The red thief kept the crystal away from him, and reached for his concealed knife and thrust it into Crash’s abdomen. The pain rocketed up Crash spine and he went limp onto the ground. The red thief got up from the ground, before he reactively looked up and dropped down again to avoid the talons of a swooping pterodactyl. Crash grasped the deep puncture on his side, and his hand was instantly covered in blood. But Crash ignored the pain and got up. He ran as best he could and picked up both the Dragon egg and the Crystal. He felt around for the return pad that would activate his way back home, but couldn’t feel it in his pocket. The blue thief returned holding the device in his hand and he ran towards the red thief.

“Come on, we need to get out of here” The red thief shrieked as his blue accomplice approached.

“But that creature has the egg. We can’t return to the Forgotten Realms without it.”

Crash grimaced as blood continued to spill onto his jeans. His hands were full with an egg and a crystal, and he definitely couldn’t outrun these quick thieves with a gash in his lower abdomen. But a pterodactyl grabbed Crash and carried him into the air. He dropped the egg after about two seconds, and the blue thief caught it after he dropped the return pad. The pad bounced off the ground, and this caused it to activate; a huge sphere appeared above the component of the Time Twisting Machine. Crash used the Crystal to injure the pterodactyl enough to cause it to drop him. Crash plummeted towards the ground and painfully landed on his legs. The drop was about fifteen to twenty feet, and he instantly reeled in pain in both his legs and in his wound. But again, Crash fought through the increased pain and made his way toward the thieves. He threw the Crystal at the blue thief. It struck him in the back of the head since he was too distracted by the portal. The red thief turned around after seeing the crystal with his peripheral vision, but Crash spun into him, sending him careening into a tree. The spin almost caused Crash to pass out (he must have been losing a lot of blood). Crash regained his focus as the blue thief lunged at him, and Crash was able to move out of his way and wrestled the egg out of his hands. A shriek of another pterodactyl caused both Crash and the blue thief to turn around as it flew straight at them. Crash ran toward the activated portal as the pterodactyl rapped it’s talons on the blue thief’s shoulders. The crystal was still lying near the activated portal, so Crash slid and grabbed it as well before launching into the sphere.

Crash came back to the future and landed harshly on the ground, the egg rolling forward gently on the ground and the crystal bouncing on the floor. Crash labored to get back up, falling once as he tried. He managed to get up and limped his way forward. Crash was hoping that Coco would be nearby, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight. And Crash couldn’t shout to see if she was close. Just another disadvantage of being a mute. Crash stumbled forward, looking for anything to either stitch the hole in his lower stomach or clean up and wrap up the wound. As he searched, he began to lose conscious again. He collapsed to the floor. No good deed goes unpunished. No, that wasn’t the expression Crash was looking for…