Taking place right after the previous game's events, in which Crash Bandicoot fights Doctor Neo Cortex on top of his airship, Cortex is defeated, and the rocketsled he was standing on explodes. Cortex falls to the ground, and he lands in a mine, where he discovers a large crystal, and has a flash of inspiration. One year later, he is seen in a space station, being told by his new assistant Doctor N. Gin that to harness the Master Crystal's power, he will require an additional 25 "Slave Crystals", which are scattered across the Earth. Since Cortex does not have any "friends" left on the surface, he decides to abduct Crash (while he is searching for a spare battery for Coco's laptop) and persuades him to gather the slave crystals, telling him that he will use them to harness the power of the aligned planets and prevent Earth from certain doom.