Two shards are hidden beneath Nitro Harbor’s refineries, guarded by booby traps and Nitro-infused currents. Crash leads a daring heist with Coco and Aku Aku as lookout; they dodge sentry drones, surf explosive waves of nitro, and race phantom echoes of themselves. Cortex arrives mid-heist, and a three-way sprint erupts across refineries, ending in a clash on a collapsing conveyor belt. They all grasp a shard at once; it fractures again, seeding more instability. Time hiccups and, for a second, Crash sees an alternate outcome where Cortex rules the island.