Doctor Neo Cortex and Ripto join forces to rid themselves of their respective adversaries Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon by genetically modifying Ripto's "Riptoc" minions and disguising them as Crash and Spyro, leading the two protagonists to believe they are against each other. Crash and Spyro are alerted of their respective worlds' predicament and are sent to get rid of the disguised Riptocs. Crash and Spyro eventually encounter each other between Wumpa Jungle and Dragon Castles, believing each other to be a disguised Riptoc. However, they soon discover that they have been tricked into fighting each other by Cortex and Ripto and decide to team up against them. Spyro and Crash's recent success leads to an argument between Cortex and Ripto so they decide to send Cortex's niece, Nina Cortex, to Fire Mountain where she kidnaps Coco and the Professor. Blink the Mole informs Crash and Spyro of the kidnapping. When the duo confronted Nina, Crash distracts Nina having her chase him so Spyro can free Coco and the Professor unnoticed. This worked as Coco and the Professor are free while Nina is trapped in a cage. The Professor is disappointed as their work to track down Cortex and Ripto is destroyed so Coco hatches an idea: If Crash and Spyro can put a tracer on Cortex and Ripto, they would track them to their headquarters so the duo splits up and go to each other's home world this way their respective nemesis won't suspect anything. Only Spyro succeeds in planting a tracer on Cortex. Crash and Spyro reach their headquarters in outer space called Tech Park. As a team, Crash and Spyro defeat Cortex and Ripto once and for all.