A Dragon out of Time, A Crash and Spyro Story

Chapter 11: N-Gin

 His master was dead. His mentor, his father, his purpose. THEY TOOK HIM FROM ME!

N-Gin never knew his parents. He was an orphan for as long as he could remember. The orphanage which he had spent the majority of his life at was a neglected dump which didn't meet any requirements to raise children in, but no one cared enough to do anything about it. The place was barely kept running by the nuns who volunteered their time to care for the abandoned and dying children there, possibly so they could keep the children alive long enough to baptize them and prevent their souls from being dammed to hell. N-Gin (he never used the name the nuns gave him, and couldn't remember it now anyway) was horrified by the notion that he could be dammed to hell for eternity because he was never baptized. The small arguments he had with the nuns never got anywhere, and he couldn't believe there was an all-powerful God that punished him by making him stare death in the face. When he passed out one day, the nuns took him to a rundown clinic, but even that understaffed and under equipped place could recognize the symptoms N-Gin had. The cancer had already spread to his brain. They gave him less than six months to live. Even if the nuns could afford to keep N-Gin in that horrible hospital, it wouldn't have helped. So they took him back to the orphanage, and prayed for him. He had already been baptized, so they asked that the Lord have mercy on him and allows him to pass as painlessly as possible. Their prayers must not have been answered, because he was in agony for months, as the rogue cells in his body waged war on his life.

N-Gin stumbled his way to the outskirts of a large school that about a thirty minute walk from the orphanage. He was somewhat successful when he begged for food in this area. Sometimes he asked himself what was the point, as little time as he had left, he shouldn't be wasting it here. But his stomached screamed out him, and the harsh winter was making things worse at the orphanage. And besides, it was as cold out here as it was at the orphanage, and there was a slim chance he could get enough people to pity him and give him some spare change so that he could by some food and not have to risk stealing it.

The first thirty people weren't any luck. He needed a sign, but he didn't know how to write and didn't have a piece of cardboard to write on or a marker to write with. His voice was too quiet to be heard, and most people wouldn't even spare him a second glance anyway. There was the occasional person who asked why a child his age was all alone in this weather, but all they could do was take him back to the orphanage. So all he kept asking him was for spare change, and about one and every twenty people would give him something. Today, though, he didn't have much luck, and the pain in his entire body was starting to become unbearable, and his shivering wasn't helping. Maybe I'll die finally on this sidewalk, and see if I could get into that heaven the nuns kept talking about. Two people came by, walking quickly from out of the school.

"I know of a secluded place where we can remain in isolation while we work on your condition. I'll get you up to speed on all of my father's work, and then we both can research ways to stabilize the condition or see if it's curable."

"I am a young man of incalculable genius, Nefarious. If there's a way to cure the effects of Anton's key, I will find it. The problem is do I have enough time alive to do so? And will I have access to the supplies I will need on a remote archipelago?"

"If you hadn't murdered a student here, then this wouldn't have been a problem, nephew." The rather tall man said as they both started to walk past him.

"Spare... [cough couch] Spare change?"

The nephew stopped and handed him a silver necklace with a gold pendent on int.

"Here, a recently deceased child no longer needed this."

"Come on Neo, we don't have time to mess with beggars."

"I have all the time that I have on this world thanks to your father, uncle, and I will use it however I please! If you forgot, I was once as poor and desperate as this kid, because my despicable grandfather had his bastard child hidden in a carnival so no one could find out about her. What's your name, kid?"

"Andrew. The nuns gave it to me."

"So, you're from that orphanage the kids here talk about. Nefarious, he's coming with us."

"You can't be serious."

"Dead serious. Come on, we don't have time to argue. Here kid, eat this."

Andrew took the candy bar from Cortex and followed him like he asked. Eventually he was on a private jet and they flew across the continent and proceeded to board a boat to a remote island. This was the beginning of N-Gin's new life. Cortex in his spare time from trying to save his own life spent some time on finding a cure for Andrew. Although some parts of his brain and left lung were beyond curing, portable life support systems were mounted onto his body to keep him alive. And a special virus that Neo Cortex developed swept through N-Gin's body and destroyed the cancerous cells in his body.

N-Gin owed his life to the kindness of Cortex. So when he was murdered by his own creations. N-Gin wanted to murder the two bandicoots right away, but he was stopped by a force he didn't understand. It willed him towards the wreckage of the Time Twisting machine. N-Gin made the journey to the device, which was located in a very secret and remote location. When he got there, among the rubble, he found Uka-Uka. This was that strange relic that Cortex had with him at all times. A reminder of the great man who has left me. May God have mercy on his soul, if what those nuns said were true. A man as good as Cortex should definitely have a special place in heaven, and I'll make sure his murderous creations are dammed to the worst part of hell. This was when he heard his old master's voice in his head.

Uku-Uka was able to survive the implosion of the Time Twisting Machine, but Cortex had been utterly destroyed, his atoms ripped apart as they were separated from one another by the force of the cascading wave of unstable space-time. His instrument of destruction gone, his plans ruined, his brother triumphant once again. But, in Cortex's death Uka-Uka found another servant. One as lost and angry as Cortex, who's rage burned inside of him because of his master's death. A soul who sought revenge, a soul Uka-Uka could bend to his will. 

˂N-Gin˃ Uka-Uka spoke in N-Gin's mind. Apparently, this creature was associating the foreign presence in his mind as his old master somehow communicating with him from the dead. Good.

"Cortex... is that you? How... how is this possible?" N-Gin said emotionally as he held Uka-Uka in his mind.

˂I need you, N-Gin. I need you to avenge my death, to carry out my important work. I may have never had a son, but that day I rescued you in front of Madame Amberly's Academy, you became the one I would never have. Within this talisman, I'll give you the knowledge you need to continue my work, and the strength you need to avenge me. Will you do this for me, my son?˃

Uka-Uka could feel the sorrow and pain in this boy. Emotions Uka-Uka could manipulate in order to get this young boy to do his bidding. And in time, with the knowledge Uka-Uka gained from his time in Cortex's mind, he could have N-Gin reconstruct the Time Twisting Machine, and then Uka-Uka could accomplish his own goal with that glorious machine, before Aku-Aku interfered. He could go back in time and confront the creature that best harnessed Dark Magic so long ago, the one who Uka-Uka derived his form of magic from when he was just a man, and proceed to control her. The creature responsible for the destruction the Dragons, who Aku-Aku based his magic from: The Sorceress.