Over the sound of his chattering teeth, Dustrielle heard Tropy groan, "Are we absolutely positive we have everything now?"

The team originally had been halfway through the time rift to their destination when Brio suddenly remembered that he'd forgotten the punch he'd made. Well, "punch" was the more sophisticated word for the drink: it was about as close to moonshine as Brio could create in a safe and drinkable manner.

But as it was, now blue light was dissipating from around the men, and their destination was coming into focus. Dustrielle now understood why Tropy was blue: the rush through time and space was a harsh, and bitter cold-journey.

As he squinted, rubbing his hands together and blowing into them, his next inhale was caught in the folds of his throat.

He hadn't known where Tropy had been planning on taking them. And while he'd mentally speculated on the potential options, what he was seeing was still a surprise:

The sky was a deep, bright blue, more saturated than Dustrielle had ever seen. But as he looked further into the horizon, his eyes went wide: the sun seemed several times larger than he'd ever seen it. It was evidently sunset, as the sun was starting its dip beneath the horizon. The sky surrounding the sun was streaked with deep purple and violet: sunset colors that, conspicuously, weren't orange or red.

Dustrielle opened his mouth and stammered, "Tropy… when are we?"

Tropy shook his head. "Wrong question, 'where?' is more appropriate. Pulchitrud. It's a planet in the Tiro Galaxy. In my endeavors, there have been plenty of points where I've needed to search for different compounds that aren't easy to find on our Earth. During one of my exploratory journeys, I happened to stumble upon this planet, and found it extremely pleasing."

He looked down at his feet and nodded at the ground, gesturing for Dustrielle to look down, too. Beneath their feet, Dustrielle saw a crimson, grasslike patch of vegetation, one that, as he glanced from side to side, seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. A field of red. He leaned down and plucked a blade of the grass, and began inspecting it, trying to gain as much insight as he could from the structure. It wasn't quite as dense as the common grass that Dustrielle was most familiar with: rather, it seemed quite soft. As he scraped the surface of the grass, eyeing the maroon stain it left on his hand, Tropy continued speaking.

"From what I've been able to tell, there's no life that we would describe as animal-like, though I've found plenty of plant-like life forms. They seem to survive on a form of chemosynthesis, since their star is too blue shifted for conventional photosynthesis to work. Atmosphere is very similar to ours, though with a higher concentration of argon and helium, and a slightly lower concentration of carbon dioxide. Enough oxygen for us to breathe, and not too much to poison us. At least acutely. I come here often, whenever I need to forget that other people exist. Though, I've not spent more than a week here at a time, so perhaps long-term it wouldn't be the healthiest. But we're only here for the night, anyway."

Dustrielle exhaled in a whistle as he looked at the expanse of land. The field seemed to extend forever in every direction, though about fifty feet from the men, there was a collection of lawn chairs and beanbag chairs. They surrounded a low-table with a cut-out in the center of it. On the table, there was a small stack of bowls, a small pile of plastic cutlery, and a grouping of clear mugs. Nestled between two of the bean bags was a small cooler. And something was bubbling in a Crock Pot on the far side of the table.

He turned to Tropy. "I'll assume the spread here isn't a part of the natural landscape?"

Tropy looked down at him and gave the widest smirk Nathan had ever seen. He raised his hand, eyeing his fingernails, and tucking his hand back into his pocket.

"Let it never be said that I didn't participate in anything team building."

Dustrielle could've sworn that the smirk flickered, for just a brief moment, into a smile of pride. He looked up at Tropy, and nodded.

"Well, now, I'm almost impressed."

Tropy narrowed his eyes, keeping the smirk on his face.

"Glad to see that I nearly met your impossible standards. Secondary goal, of course. The first was making sure that the people who mattered liked the spread."

Brio had been putting his jars of punch into the cooler, but as Tropy said those words, he looked up and cackled. "People who mattered? What, are we hosting royalty?"

He closed the cooler lid and settled down on one of the beanbag chairs. While leaning forward, resting his elbow on the cooler list, he raised an eyebrow, giving a "knowing" look.

"How long were you planning this, Tropy?"

Tropy's face went a light purple, and at first, Dustrielle thought that Tropy was livid. But then he realized: the purple was concentrated in his cheeks, and since Tropy was normally blue...

He was blushing.

Tropy fiddled with his jabot and cleared his throat. "Look… in at least one other life, I was almost certainly an event planner. It's the artistic side of my personality that… I don't have the energy for."

Dustrielle grinned. "Well then, I know who's planning our victory parade once we activate the Vortex."

Tropy furrowed his eyebrows. "After the free will of all humanity has been stolen, you think that all the organizational work involved with that would go to me?"

Dustrielle nodded, not even blinking. "You wouldn't want it to go to anyone else. Oh, sure, the grunt work goes to others, but all the creative decisions? Would you trust anyone else to have your vision?"

While he'd been being facetious when he said it, Dustrielle looked at Tropy's face, and saw a small smile, before it morphed into Tropy's trademark snide expression.

"Of course not. Alas, 'ya got me.'" Tropy gave finger quotes, mimicking Dustreille's voice and accent, before pausing to look at the others, laughing.

"What are you all waiting for, an engraved invitation?"

Tropy walked over, beckoning for Dustrielle and Gin to follow. As they approached the table and chairs, Dustrielle saw what he thought was unthinkable: the great and mighty and proper Tropy, in a suit no less, grabbing one of the beanbag chairs and settling himself into it. He shifted around, seemingly trying to find a comfortable position. It couldn't be easy, seeing how ridiculously tall Tropy was. But finally, he seemed to find a spot that worked, and let out a long exhale.

Gin picked one of the lawn chairs and leaned back, closing his eye briefly, before looking over at Dustrielle. Attempting not to trip over Brio, Dustrielle walked over to the table and inspected the Crock Pot. He gestured to it, eyeing Tropy.

"What's this stuff? The witches' brew you're going to use to poison us?"

Tropy rolled his eyes, scoffing. "Don't be ridiculous, why would I poison you?"

Dustrielle shrugged. "I'm just saying, we're on a completely different planet. Would be easy to dispose of the bodies."

Tropy narrowed his eyes. "Of course you'd think of that before anything else. Remind me to never travel with you to an isolated spot, then."

Dustrielle laughed and waved his hand. "I'm just teasing. But what's cooking?"

"Beef and lentil stew. The recipe has been in my family for centuries. Take some when you want. It should be hot by now."

Gin's eye lit up, and he bounced to his feet. "Oh, yes!"

As Gin walked over, he caught a glimpse of Dustrielle's raised eyebrow. "Tropy makes it every year for the Holiday Dinner. Whenever he attends."

Gin shot Tropy a small smile before continuing. "It's always the best thing on the table."

Dustrielle smirked. "Well by definition, it's the only thing on this table, so of course it's the best-"

The scent that wafted from the Crock Pot, as Gin opened the lid, interrupted him.

"...damn, that smells good…"

The words were out before he could stop himself. He felt his face go slightly flushed once he realized he'd said it, and he caught a glimpse of Tropy grinning.

Dustrielle cleared his throat and turned fully towards Tropy. "Well, if you're poisoning me, I'm honored that this was my last meal."

Tropy's lips tightened, as if trying to smile, but something internally strangling the action just before completion.

Dustrielle almost asked for clarification, but was interrupted by Gin shoving a bowl into his hand.

"You've got to try it, Na- Dustrielle!"

Gin's eye went wide with the misspeak, smoke lightly floating into the air.

Dustrielle took the bowl, not acknowledging the misspeak. He'd attempted to stress to Gin before that he didn't mind the use of his first name, but Gin always cited team cohesion as the reason why he always used last names.

"What team cohesion?"

"...preserve it where you can."

He took the fork stuck in a bowl, and as he took a bite, he closed his eyes. Even though he hadn't drank a drop of moonshine yet, he felt himself getting pulled, impulsively, almost irresistibly, into his past. Funny, usually only booze could do that. But the richness of the sauce in the stew threatened to fling him into a small cottage in rural Maine, ten years in the past.

He managed to shake the thought off by focusing on the garlic, the peppers, the lentils, the sauce, the beef, every texture and taste. Purely focusing on the flavors grounded him in the moment.

He glanced at Gin, who was putting the lid back onto the Crock Pot and looking over to Brio.

"Brio, you want some?"

Brio shook his head. "Later, yes. Now, no."

Gin shrugged and made his way over to a lawn chair, groaning slightly as he sat down, and took a bite of the stew. "Fine, but you're going to get it yourself."

Brio gave Gin the middle finger as Dustrielle sat down onto another lawn chair. He looked over to Brio.

"Can I get a drink?"

Brio sighed and opened the cooler. "You c-come here and get it yourself."

Dustrielle shook his head. "I just sat down."

"I'm not… not… walking over there."

"Fine then, toss the jar over. The ground is soft. It won't break if it hits the ground."

Brio shrugged and took out one of the jars, tossing it underhand. Dustrielle had caught many a ball, frisbee, hell, even drinks, in his day. And the arc on the jar was perfect, easily snatchable.

Dustrielle reached out with his left hand, and the millisecond he wrapped his fingers around the jar, he realized his mistake. See, his prosthetic could apply a good amount of force around objects, and seeing as it was completely metal…

"Ah, shit-"

The jar broke in the prosthetic's grip, and Dustrielle closed his eyes in panic as he felt his clothes get soaked. Tentatively opening his eyes, he saw the bits of broken glass in his closed fist and scattered at his feet. Inspecting his body, he didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere, and he sighed in relief.

"Are you alright?" Gin's eye was wide.

Dustrielle nodded. "I'm fine. I'm just an idiot."

Perhaps it was the pure relief at being unharmed, but Dustrielle started to laugh, almost unable to stop himself. He doubled over, wheezing, his flesh hand gripping his face. Brio and Tropy joined in.

"Yes, you certainly are." Tropy managed to croak out between gasps of laughter.

Brio took out another jar and placed it onto the ground, rolling it towards Dustrielle. He took the jar from the ground with his hand and dropped the pieces of glass from his prosthetic onto the grass. Opening the jar, he got a whiff of the punch and whistled as his nose hairs were lit ablaze.

Dustrielle didn't hesitate, taking a long swig of the drink. It burned, particularly uncomfortably so, but the undertones of flavor were like good bitter coffee.

After swallowing and cringing slightly, Dustrielle raised the jar. "Here's to being an even bigger idiot after I finish this stuff."

Brio chuckled as he tossed a jar to Tropy. "Still smarter than C-Cortex."

Tropy unscrewed the lid of his jar and took a small sip of the punch. "Might be your best brew yet, Brio. We might need to propose a trade system. A tray of brownies for a few jars of punch. Fair exchange rate?"

Brio rolled his eyes. "Sure. Only if I get to c-c-come back here sometime."

"No promises. Find your own isolation spot, it will do wonders for your mental health."

"Says the guy who can go anywhere and anytime at…well, any time!"

Dustrielle chuckled as he finished another long sip of the punch. "Hey Tropy, since you go through time so much, you should know the answer to this: do we win?"

Tropy narrowed his eyes. "Beg your pardon?"

Dustrielle shrugged. "Do we win? You know, world domination? Do we manage to do that?"

Tropy crossed his arms and looked straight at the ground. "I don't travel through time too close to us. It's too dangerous, the potential for a paradox that directly affects me is too high. I've been to the future, but the closest I've gone to us is about 5,000 years from now."

"Okay then, do we win?"

Tropy looked into Dustrielle's eyes. "Tell me, Dustrielle, how many empires from 3,000 BC can you name?"

Dustrielle tilted his head, thinking. History had never been his favorite class, and it was one he'd rarely pay attention to.

"Uh, I dunno, the Babylonians? Were the Greeks a thing yet?"

Tropy extended his arm in a wide, sweeping gesture. "My point exactly: there's no way of knowing, 5,000 years into the future, exactly what happened to us."

Dustrielle sighed. "I guess. I'm still not convinced that you don't know, for the record."

Gin took a jar of punch from Brio and after a long sip, shook his head. "I think we shouldn't try to look at spoilers, anyway. What's the fun in it?"

Dustrielle groaned and shook his own head. "But we'd get a good look at what we did right, if we won. Or vice versa."

Tropy chuckled. "Or cause a paradox in which we change the future dramatically, unintentionally. And that's your best scenario. Good thing you don't have the time travel powers."

"Fine, then." Dustrielle took a bite of the stew and winced from the heat. "But I think we would be just as well off if you went to culinary school instead of studying physics."

He'd meant the words in jest, but it seemed to trigger something in Tropy. He raised his eyebrow and watched Dustrielle wash down the stew with a shine in his eyes.

"Well, now, let's pretend we're in the universe where I did choose a career in event planning. What would you be doing? What did you want to do for work, before settling here?"

Dustrielle only barely managed to avoid having the punch come through his nose. He shook his head. "Never really had anything else I wanted to do."

Brio shook his head. "I c-call bullshit."

"No, really. Didn't know what I wanted to do at all for a while."

Tropy looked to Brio, and the two seemed to share a glance, before Tropy turned back to Dustrielle.

"Well, walk us through the journey of self discovery then. Go on, how'd the Dustrielle we know come to be?"

Dustrielle flushed deeply, absently tracing lines and shapes into the stew. "You really don't want to know, I promise."

Brio turned to Dustrielle, his face contorted somewhere between a scowl and a smirk.

"Dustrielle, I'd bet my sc-screws that you know a lot more secrets about us than any of us know about you. The least you can do is tell us the t-t-t-tiniest bit about you. Prove to us that you're not a Lab Assistant cleverly masquerading as a human… human."

Dustrielle looked over at Gin and noticed that he'd pricked his eyes up, looking up at him. Gin's eyebrow was raised the way he did whenever he discovered a machine he'd never seen before. Curiosity?

With a grimace, and a sigh, Dustrielle decided to bite the bullet. He was in too deep with them to not tell them something. Besides, if he refused, maybe Tropy would leave his dead body on this planet.

He put the bowl and spoon down onto the low table and pressed his fingers together. The prosthetic's metal fingertips cooled the warm flesh ones, a necessity considering how hot and anxious Dustrielle felt.

"Fine. Don't expect an epic romp. It's boring. Got it? I didn't exactly go to your 'Academy of Evil', my childhood was just normal."

Brio sighed. "For us, that's interesting."

Dustrielle frowned. The snippets of Gin and Brio's Academy experiences that he'd heard about seemed like an absolute dream. "Seriously? I would've killed to go to that Academy. But whatever."

He paused for a second, gathering his thoughts. "I didn't like school. For most of my life, I didn't do homework- "

Brio snickered loudly. "Please, did any of us turn all our homework in?"

Gin folded his arms, turning red, smoke flowing from the rocket. "I did."

Tropy rolled his eyes, smirking. "Of course you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Trophy shrugged, saying nothing. Gin sighed and shifted, lying back further on the chair, still looking at the others. Dustrielle waited a couple of seconds before continuing.

"Okay, but when I say I didn't do my homework, I mean it. Like, I put more effort into finding loopholes to get away with not doing it than I would've actually completing it. It wasn't just homework though, it was school, just as a whole. Felt like a fucking prison. Spent 8 hours every weekday with the teacher prattling off about shit I'd already figured out. And they expect you to be quiet. Which, fine, you want me to be quiet, I can do that. But try to read a book while they're talking? 'Nah, you're being a distraction, because you're sticking out. Give me that book, you can't have it.' Face down in your notebook, doing a little writing or a doodle? 'Nah, you're being distracting.' Stare straight ahead and try to bore a hole in the blackboard with my eyes. That's what they wanted me to do."

He took a long swig from his moonshine and winced, sniffing and spitting onto the ground next to him.

"That ain't a way to live, you know, especially when you're a kid. Maybe it was because it was the 90s. Maybe it was because it was in Maine."

Brio raised an eyebrow. "Maine? You grew up there?"

Dustrielle scowled, hearing the perk in Brio's voice. "Yeah Brio. Maine. Grew up there. Wasn't exactly boiling lobster on the daily, though. We were inland. Rural. Rednecks."

He stared down at the ground, his mouth practically moving without any input from his mind. Was it the booze? Was it twenty years of pent up sentiments, finally getting the chance to unearth themselves? Both?

"And it wasn't like I started off loud and obnoxious, or nothing. I was quiet when I was little. Just wanted to mind my own business. But that was always what the teachers said: 'He's distracting.'"

He paused. "I dunno when I started thinking like this. Maybe about eight years old. I decided to prove them right. If they were so fucking insistent that I was a distraction, I'd show them how much of a distraction I damn well could be."

Tropy raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Became a menace, did you?"

Dustrielle smiled, weakly. Though he knew full well that his childhood outbursts had started from a place of anger and spite, he couldn't help but feel a bit of nostalgia looking back at them.

He chuckled. "Shit, of course I did."

As he said it, he could practically feel his accent becoming prominent, as if forcing itself to make its presence known. It was something that he had always consciously hidden. Early on in his college career, he'd realized that the backwoods Northeastern accent had made people judge him. While it wasn't thick enough for his speech to be incomprehensible, it was enough for him to be perceived as stupid. One of his perpetual pet peeves. And he'd decided it was easier to consciously hide his accent than try to fight everyone who condescended to him. Despite how desperately he wanted to fight some of them.

He'd gotten so used to burying that part of his past that the only time that the accent popped up was when he was drunk. And even then, he'd try to suppress it, to inconsistent results.

But here and now, he didn't feel like trying to hold it back.

"Nothing violent or anything. Unless another kid tried to start that shit with me. But if a teacher had a loophole in a rule, you bet your ass I'd bend it as far as it could go. I didn't think what the teacher said was actually correct? I'd engage in a full on loud debate, and I didn't back the fuck down until they either quit trying or gave me detention. Not a single bit of homework was done, and I'd make sure everyone knew that I thought that the concept of it was bullshit."

Tropy raised his hand. "Mind if I make a little bet?"

Dustrielle looked into Tropy's eyes and shrugged. "Sure."

Tropy grinned. "I'll bet anyone here fifty dollars that half of your report cards said something along the lines of 'he's smart, but he-'"

Dustrielle cackled and finished the sentence with Tropy, their voices interwoven. "'-doesn't apply himself."

After those words, Dustrielle continued to giggle as Tropy sighed.

"Wish you'd let me finish that. I might've made a profit."

Dustrielle shook his head, smirking. "Nope. Couldn't let you do that. Try again next time."

Brio whistled and rolled his eyes. "I'll send you f-f-fifty dollars once we take over the world. Sound good?"

Tropy snorted. "Sounds like malarkey. But I'll take it."

Dustrielle rolled his eyes. "Alright. But now you get it. That was basically my entire school existence for a while."

"Did you have friends?"

Dustrielle was almost shocked by the sound. Gin hadn't spoken for a little while, but he'd been leaning in, as if thoroughly engrossed in the story.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, no, not really. Couple people I spoke to sometimes, but no one I'd really call friends. Why?"

Brio's face shifted. "Damn, I would've thought you would've been a...a...a legend. Maybe kids are d-different than they were when I was young."

Dustrielle shook his head. "Listen, maybe if I was a little different, they might've viewed my bullshit as legendary. But c'mon. Scrawny kid. Quiet kid. Queer kid. Redneck masculine fuckery basically guaranteed I wasn't getting friends."

If he'd been sober, he might not have mentioned being gay. But he was comfortable enough to share it. Besides, Gin already knew, and Brio and Tropy might well have guessed. Not that he'd ever considered himself "flamboyant", or anything like that, but people tended to figure it out.

"That was pretty much it for the longest time. Didn't really know what I was gonna do when I grew up. Like, I never had an answer if anyone asked me. Right? Only thing I knew was that I liked learning how things worked."

He chuckled. "Hated school, but liked learning. I know the irony. I dunno how your Academy of Evil or your other schools worked, but my sophomore year of high school, we had to meet with our guidance counselors and talk about what we wanted to do after high school. My guidance counselor wasn't happy to be speaking with me. I could tell you that right off the bat. And I can't blame her, of course, considering the reputation I had. But she went ahead and asked me what I was planning on doing, and I mentioned going to college."

As the memory invaded his mind, he narrowed his eyes, feeling his spit grow sour.

"I said the word 'college' and she fucking smiled at me, that bitch. She smiled at me and said, 'You sure you're looking at college?' And I said, 'Yeah, yeah I am. Why're you asking?' She shrugged and said, 'I just want to know what you're looking to study.' And I told her the truth. 'I don't entirely know yet. Thinking about doing something in the science realm, but might just go undecided before committing too hard to a major.'"

He sighed. "And you know what she did? She laughed. And she said, 'I'm not convinced you're gonna be able to get through college. There's a lot to understand. A lot to work on. Have you considered something else? How about a trade?'"

Dustrielle shook his head, his body shaking. "Ain't nothing wrong with a trade, not knocking them. But it was the way she framed it. She was telling me she thought I was too damn stupid for college. And unlike every teacher I'd ever dealt with, she actually had me somewhere I couldn't fight back, because I had to play her stupid game if she was going to give me the resources I needed to figure out how college applications worked. She knew it. She knew she could get me pinned and hurt me real bad. Real deep down, y'know?"

Gin swallowed. "And what happened?"

Dustrielle laughed, wavering. "I played her game. 'All due respect ma'am, I'd like to prove you wrong, in the worst way.' I have to hand it to her, really, I do. Because there is no one I wanted to prove wrong more than her."

He took another long swig of his punch. "Getting into college wasn't too big an issue. I always tested well, y'know? So, even without most of my homework, I had decent grades. And y'all know, college is a whole other ball game than school. For the most part, I was studying what I wanted to. I like chemistry. I like it a whole lot."

Dustrielle felt a tear come to his eye and felt himself flush as he wiped it away. Stupid thing, really, to get emotional over, but college was the first time in his life he'd been able to sit in a class and actually enjoy himself. Sometimes.

"I did fine in college. Even did my homework. Most of the time. Ultimately, when I was about to get my bachelors, I considered stopping there. Just get a decent industry job, and go, right? But…"

He stopped and began smiling, weakly. "I heard her voice in my head again. I heard her telling me that I was too stupid for college. And I wanted to prove her wrong, to the most extreme end. How do you do that?"

Gin gasped. "Wait, that's why you went for the PhD?"

Dustrielle chuckled. "I mean, not completely. Talk about studying what you want, right? I mean, you spend most of your time on your project, right? But…well… yeah, kind of, spite was also a big factor. And you want to know what I did once I got that all squared away?"

Brio snickered. "You w-w-worked with us."

Dustrielle rolled his eyes. "Well, yes, but what else?"

None of the others said anything, but each of them were looking straight into Dustrielle's face, with Tropy on the edge of his seat.

Dustrielle smirked. "Well, I got a photograph of myself defending the dissertation. And I got another photo of my doctorate diploma. And I got them printed out, and pasted them onto some paper. I wrote a little note on it and sent it to her in the mail.:

'You always said it would be hard for me to get through college. I just wanted to send this to let you know the good news. Kiss my ass, Rosemary. Regards, Dr. Nathan Dustrielle.'"

Brio and Gin both laughed uproariously, and Tropy grinned widely. "I'll assume you never got a response?"

Dustrielle shook his head. "Of course not. For all I know, the bitch is dead. I don't care. Just needed to get that out into the universe."

Tropy settled back down into his chair and stared down into his drink. "I've heard a lot of reasons for going for a PhD. Not sure if I've ever heard 'spite' before. That's the beauty of travel, you always learn more things."

Dustrielle rolled his eyes and flipped Tropy the bird.

Brio shrugged. "It's as good a…a…a reason as any, I think. Anything can be excellent m-motivation."

Tropy raised his eyebrow. "Oh? What do we think is the motivation for Cortex being such a vainglorious fool? At least Dustrielle grew up."

"Says you." Dustrielle said, giggling heavily as he finished his drink. He threw the jar to the ground and put his feet up onto the table as he sighed and settled deep into the chair.

Gin looked over to Dustrielle and chuckled. "You're waiting a while before you have another one."

Turning back to Tropy, Gin raised his own drink. "Maybe it's just because Cortex is the leader. Power corrupts, or whatever. You should try leading, see what happens."

Tropy flushed deeply and turned away. "I'll plead the fifth, entirely, for my thoughts on that."

Brio laughed. "Awww, where's your m-motivation, Nefarious?"

Tropy looked over at Brio and gave a small smile. "Somewhere in 17th century Romania, my dear Brio."

The men all laughed, and Dustrielle took another drink from the cooler. He took another deep drink, and he paused as Gin shook his head.

"Do you always try to get absolutely wrecked when you drink?"

Dustrielle put his hand to his mouth in mock offense. "How dare you, Gin? I only have one drink on weekdays!"

Gin chuckled at Dustrielle's facetious offense. "If there's any time to drink, I suppose." He tilted the jar up and finished his own drink.

The night was coalescing quickly into a haze of drunken conversations, singing, debates and long glances into the night. The sky on Pulchitrud gave a lens into the nearest galaxy, with deep red and green clouds visible against the deep dark backdrop of space, all speckled with millions of stars.

And though coherent thoughts weren't something that would easily come to Dustrielle's mind as the night went on, there was a buzzing pure joy that made itself known in Dustrielle's chest. A feeling that was almost scary in its unfamiliarity. He half-hoped that the night wouldn't end, that the party wouldn't stop. Or that he could, at the very least, grasp and hold on to the joy, keep it locked in storage until those long expanses of frustration demanded its healing presence.

He felt himself get tapped on the shoulder and opened his eyes to see Brio.

"Hey Dustrielle, we're… heading… heading out. Get up."

Dustrielle stretched his arm, and realized that he'd fallen asleep at some point, seeing as the sun was beginning to rise. He also realized, glancing slightly to the right, that he'd fallen asleep leaning against Gin, on one of the beanbags.

He flushed and clambered to his feet, brushing off his pants, and feeling them almost dried. The punch didn't seem to stain them, either, thank goodness. He went to pick up the chair, but saw Tropy shake his head.

"I'll come back and clean up later. Let's just get home and get some sleep."

He gathered with the others around Tropy, and as the flash of blue light surrounded them, Dustrielle gripped to the hope that one day he'd return. Maybe build a small house here, some place he could sip on his coffee, bask in this bright new sun and reflect on the fact that he'd managed to conquer an entire planet.

The blue melded into the dark grey walls that Dustrielle knew too far well. He caught the breath that the rush through time and space stole, and immediately gasped once he saw what the others were looking at.

The men had landed at the bottom of the staircase that led up to the atrium. And at the top of the staircase was Dr. Cortex. The sight of his hair in rollers and wearing a bathrobe might have been comical, if Cortex hadn't been so on edge with them lately.

Tropy straightened up. "Dr. Cortex, I think it would be remiss of me to-"

"I don't care where you went, just go to bed."

Tropy raised an eyebrow. "We really should ex-"

"You minions are alive, and if you'd betrayed me, you would've brought backup before coming back. I will not say it again. Go to bed."

Dustrielle didn't need to be told again. Mostly because he felt nauseated and realized he needed to get to his bathroom. He bolted up the stairs, only slightly glancing back at Cortex as he stumbled over to his room.

Removing his jacket, he leaned over his toilet, and as he waited for his bad drinking choices to make themselves known, he thought he could hear a hissed argument between two people as they walked past his room. As much as he'd have loved to listen, the world was spinning far too much to pay attention to that.

But after he vomited, and he washed his mouth out, he got a glance of himself in the mirror. Sure, his hair was untidy, and his turtleneck was a bit rumpled, but it seemed as though the joy he was hoping to capture was still lingering in his eyes. And it was all he could do to keep from wondering how long it would be before someone squashed it. He hoped beyond hope that history would not repeat, just this once.