This is a short fic that took me about an hour to write and edit. It's supposed to be kinda dumb, but it has an ending showing Dr. Cortex's soft side only used towards his 'niece', Nina. Enjoy!

I don't own any characters, places or things mentioned in this story.

The Iceberg Lab Mishap

It’s been a while since Dr. Cortex and his niece, Nina, visited the Iceberg Lab. Almost three years, in fact. Nina had only been there when Crash and Cortex had to team up and defeat the Evil Twins. Dr. Cortex is still very sensitive about that and he had a right to be since it caused him much embarrassment. He couldn’t show his face in front of the other scientists for months.

So now here they were, Neo and Nina, heading over to the Lab on the doctor’s latest airship. When his original airship floated away, he got to work on a new and stronger airship. Unfortunately, that one was recently destroyed when Dingodile was on guard duty in the control room and he pushed the big red button he was told not to push. Dr. Cortex had screamed himself hoarse for three days straight. Why Dingodile is still alive is a mystery, but the doctor probably didn’t want to make any more mutants.

Still, this airship was by far the best out of the three. This time, he went all out on weapons. Cannons, machine guns, missile launchers (N. Gin’s idea) and, of course, Mega Ray Gun is Dr. Cortex’s favourite. From the ground, anyone who wasn’t blind could see the shiny new yellow plating and the gigantic black “N” on the left side.

As the sun reached the top of the sky, somewhat blocked by the airship, the Iceberg Lab was in sight. At last, thought the doctor, I’m home. Seeing the Lab dominating the surrounding area was a beautiful sight to him.

“See that, my evil young niece? THAT is a lair!” Cortex said, bringing the airship lower. “Now all we need to do is…figure out how to land this thing” He fiddled with the controls until the airship was facing the opposite direction.

“Gimme that thing! Watch and learn, uncle” Nina rudely pushed aside the doctor, knocking him to the floor, and took over the helm. With ease, she docked the airship. Dr. Cortex frowned.

“I could have done that” He muttered. Nina left the controls, stepping on Cortex’s foot on the way, and went outside to the ground. She was unimpressed by the Lab. The front door was heavily guarded by machine guns. Dr. Cortex started digging through his pockets for the remote. Nina sighed and went over to the active lift.

“Coming?” Cortex muttered something and followed. He almost fell of the platform on the way up, due to Nina’s “too close for comfort” complaining. The two made it up to the top surprisingly safe. Nina leaned over the railing, looking down at the iceberg below.

“Gees, how many times have you tried to take over the world now? At least ten times, right? Why don’t you use this ‘lair’ of yours to-“

“Enough! I know what I’m doing” Of course that was a lie or he wouldn’t have created his own enemies. By now he would have taken over the world. “Come inside, Nina, I’m going to show you my latest scheme. Wipe your shoes” Nina ignored his command (or as she saw it, suggestion), tracking snow into the Lab.

Inside it was as if Dr. Cortex never left. Machines made clicking and whirling noises and lights blinked all around them. It would have shut down after a few weeks of no one there, but Dr. Cortex made Pinstripe hang around and make sure that “his baby is safe”. Other than that, he was alone in the lab and could do whatever he wanted to. But for that moment he completely forgot about his favourite niece coming along. That was even better than being alone for him. Why did he bring her again? To show her his plans, of course! And where are his plans? Oh, yes, that always locked room is his favourite room in the whole Lab. Nobody could get in without the key and nobody could get out. But he always had the key in his pocket.

Dr. Cortex led Nina to the door with the yellow “N” on it. While he felt around his pocket for the key, he started explaining to his niece how important this room is.

“Behind this door are my latest plots, my previous plots and where they went wrong and, of course, a TV, PS2 and some video games for, uh…ideas” He pulled out the key and stuck it into the keyhole. “Now watch, Nina, as you are about to enter a room nobody but me has ever been in!” Dramatically, he turned the key and opened the door.

Unfortunately, behind that door wasn’t exactly what Dr. Cortex had expected, because there was Dingodile, Tiny, Ripper Roo, N. Gin and, of course, Pinstripe partying in Dr. Cortex’s room. This, as you can imagine, sort of ticked off the doctor. It didn’t tick him off as much as seeing his TV and PS2 smashed in the chaos, though.

“YOU! YOU B-“ Nina interrupted him with a burst of laughs, snorting like there’s no tomorrow. She dropped to the floor, rolling with laughter. Dingodile smiled and N. Gin said “Boy, we really got you! Uh, master” N. Gin covered his head with his arms, waiting for Dr. Cortex to kill him. Ripper Roo laughed insanely, but it probably wasn’t because of the situation, more because he’s crazy. Tiny sat down calmly and Pinstripe pretended to be busy playing video games on the broken PS2. Dr. Cortex looked at each of their faces, all gleeful except N. Gin, still waiting to be killed. He turned to Nina, waiting for her to stop laughing. She finally calmed down and spoke.

“Uncle, we’re sorry to have TRICKED YOU!” She yelled out the last parts through peels of laughter coming from her own mouth. Nina clutched her stomach, gasping for air. Dingodile couldn’t help but joining in, which quickly led to everyone in the room laughing insanely. All except the doctor, of course, who was feeling like he could kill everyone in the room-except Nina.

It took an hour for Dr. Cortex to kick everyone out except N. Gin, who he was yelling at (with a wide range of colourful language) between kicking him. Nina lounged in Dr. Cortex’s chair, watching them. After a few hours of that, the doctor got bored and said N. Gin could leave. He thanked him and left, standing dumbly outside for the next few days. By time Dr. Cortex had finally forgotten the whole thing, Nina concluded that the Iceberg Lab was boring. She took the airship and left, heading towards Cortex Castle. Cortex decided to stay a while more, mostly playing video games to make himself feel better.

On his last day there, he thought it would be good to look over his plans again. Good thing I have another copy in the control room, he thought, since his minions destroyed the originals. Cortex went to the room, again searching his pockets for the right key and opened the door. It was just the way he left it. It took him a minute to find the right plans. He opened the up on the wrong side and turned them over. They were the plans, yes, but written all over them were various annoying messages like “That’ll never work”, “Dumb. DUMB. DUMB!!!”, “Could this get any stupider?” and “NINA CORTEX WAS HERE”. Dr. Cortex looked up into space. Then he did something totally weird and uncalled for. He smiled-a pleasant smile.

“Evil nieces will be evil nieces”