- Tropy's lab is in the western tower, right?

Dustrielle shoved his phone back in his pocket and sighed, waiting for Gin to text him back . Under most circumstances, he would've just asked the question over his communicator, for anyone to answer, but the last thing he wanted was to give everyone some more fuel for joshing him.

Or give Cortex something to yell at him about.

While the others had confirmed that none of them had received much anger or ire from Cortex in the three days since their adventure, each had promised to tread lightly for the next two weeks. The after-work hangout was temporarily shelved, once again, and Tropy chose to let Cortex in on the breakthrough with the Quantum Slicer: their newly minted key to entering the Elementals' domain.

- Yes. Top of the stairs, past Brio's piano.

- You're a lifesaver.

He buttoned up his dress shirt, which he'd relaxed slightly during the privacy of his lunch break, picked up his bag, and left his room.

Cortex's reinstatement of the daily huddle was a welcome change for Dustrielle, though this first meeting was to be held in Tropy's lab. Something new to add to the huddle's structure: they'd change the spot of the meeting every day. Supposedly, Cortex had read in a LinkedIn article that it would serve as "welcome break" and "reset button" for the middle day blues, as well as encourage anyone "hosting" the meeting to "show off anything they're proud of."

Dustrielle thought it was a load of corporate bullshit. He'd specifically avoided going into the private sector so that he hadn't needed to act like a dutiful and pleasant cog in a billionaire's dollhouse. But he would take what he could get, anything to rescue him from the days spent almost entirely alone.

As he passed Brio's piano and looked up the spiral staircase it stood at the base of, he couldn't help but feel a jolt of nervous excitement. Brio's lab practically seemed like a part of Dustrielle's own, at this point, and Gin's lab had grown to become the "home away from home", but he hadn't actually stepped into Tropy's laboratory yet. The one time he'd tried to follow Tropy to his lab, using the fact that they'd been in the middle of a conversation as his leverage, Tropy had responded with "Well, I'll end the conversation then." and teleported away.

When he finally approached the door, grinning slightly at the pure absurdity of Tropy's response to his first attempt to come to the lab, he decided to be polite and knock.

"Get in here, already."

Dustrielle frowned and softly sighed. Typical Cortex response.

He opened the door, and swiveled his eyes around the room as quickly and thoroughly as he could.

Rather than the blinding white of his and Brio's labs, or the garage-like nature of N. Gin's lab, Tropy's lab, at an initial glance, didn't look very different from the rest of the castle. The walls were the same grey stone, save for a framed painting here and there. One of the walls housed a large window, overlooking the expanse of green and glittering sea. Dustrielle made a mental note to try to find a nice spot to sit by the sea. Might help him out. Give himself a "Tropy" spot, for when he needed to forget about other people.

There was a large bulletin board placed on the wall opposite the window, with a variety of small sketches and post-it notes pinned to it. The desk underneath the board was a deep mahogany piece of pure loving craftsmanship, and outside of a closed laptop, a mechanical pencil, a pen, and a small pile of lined paper, there was not a single crumb or imperfection on its surface. The rest of the room consisted of a few small machines, with tools neatly arranged in wall storage near each one, as well as a variety of shelves. While there were some reference books stacked up, most of the books were well-worn notebooks, each with a printed label stuck to the spine.

As Dustrielle idly wondered about the notebook labeled "Temporal Madness", Cortex gestured for him to come over. He snapped himself back to attention and walked over to the center of the room. One of Tropy's armor sets had evidently been shoved over to a wall to make room for a folding table in the middle of the space, with the normal chairs scattered around it.

Per usual, Dustrielle took his spot in the folding chair, eyeing Tropy's narrowed eyes.

"Nice house Tropy, invite me over more." Dustrielle smirked.

Tropy didn't laugh. Not even with the glimmer he'd get in his eyes when he was holding reactions back.

"Idiot, I don't live in the lab. My room's behind that door."

Dustrielle held his hands up, smiling, as Gin entered, sitting down next to him.

"My apologies. The next meeting will be held in your room then?"

Tropy didn't respond, instead intensely staring at the back of Cortex's head. Dustrielle found himself leaning as well, wanting to know what exactly Tropy was watching. Though, once Brio entered and sat himself down, and Cortex turned back to the table, Tropy darted his eyes towards the table. He folded his hands, and as Dustrielle sat across from him, he could tell that Tropy was thinking, but no idea about what.

"Gentlemen!"

Dustrielle looked up at Cortex, and couldn't help but smile. Cortex looked happy, for once. Not merely triumphant or amused, happy. Always good for the others when Cortex was happy.

"I've been informed that we've completed the…what did you call it, Tropy?"

Tropy furrowed his brow and sighed. "Gin has dubbed it the Quantum Slicer."

Cortex grinned. "Excellent. And since that last piece of the puzzle has been slotted in, I was thinking that we'll skip ahead to the good stuff:"

His arms and his grin widened as far as they could go. "We're going to go collect the Elementals. Now."

"Now?" Gin looked at each of the other men, before looking back to Cortex. Like, now, now?"

Cortex rolled his eyes. "Did I stutter, Gin? Now. T-Minus fifteen minutes."

Dustrielle's breath caught in his throat. He'd thought Cortex was being jovial, jesting with his initial "Now." But as Cortex continued to stare Gin in the eye, it became clear that he hadn't been joking. Dustrielle shook his head slightly, though Cortex seemed too focused on Gin to notice the stunned disbelief.

What Cortex clearly couldn't ignore, however, were Brio's words.

"C-cortex, forgive me, b-b-but isn't this a bit… rash? I mean, we c-could do this, but we need… need… to plan this out a b-bit more, right? Let me go get m-my notes-"

"No need, Nitrus." Cortex cooly replied.

Brio set his jaw and stood up, placing one hand on the table and pointing the other at the door.

"I'm not getting in-involved in anything this large-scale without a s-solid plan. I'm just… just… just going to go get my notes. We need all the information we… we have in one place, if, and I mean if, we're d-doing this today. Send a Lab Assistant with me if you're c-concerned."

Cortex eyed Brio and sighed, reaching into one of his lab pockets and pulling out a small remote.

"No. Need. Nitrus." He repeated, slowly and evenly, clicking a button.

As if by magic, the seat of the wooden chair that Brio had been sitting in unfolded into a group of tentacle-like arms, wrapping around his waist and dragging him back. While two of the arms, once again, formed the seat of the chair, the other set wrapped around his chest and the back of the chair. The ends of the arms of the chair unfolded to form bindings that kept Brio's wrists onto the arms, and the ends of the legs made similar work to his ankles.

All in a span of two seconds.

In the tenth of a second it took the others to realize what had happened, Gin and Tropy's chairs unfolded too, forming similar bindings on them. As Brio struggled against the bindings, and Gin screamed, Tropy eyed his prosthetic arm from his own compromised position, and Cortex shook his head.

"Don't get any travel ideas, Tropy." He said, as he pressed another button on the remote.

As Tropy reached his nose down towards the clock on the gauntlet, his chair shifted slightly. The chair arm holding his prosthetic arm briefly released, but reformed into a group of smaller tentacles. Each one found its way around Tropy's shoulder, and within two seconds, detached Tropy's prosthetic and tossed it across the room.

It was the bang from the arm hitting the ground that shook Dustrielle out of his state of shock, and as he looked down, he realized that his chair wasn't holding him. It was still a normal folding chair, holding a trembling, but technically free scientist.

He hopped to his feet and bolted towards the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Dustrielle."

Dustrielle ignored Cortex, but as he threw open Tropy's door, he yelped and leaped backwards. Across the entire door frame, nearly the entire height of the door, were the electromagnetic beams that he usually only saw littering deep corners of the halls. Normally deactivated, these defenses would only be functional in the case that the castle was under attack.

If he hadn't slowed down, he would've received a fatal electrical shock.

Cortex sighed. "What did I tell you? Now be a good minion and sit back down."

Dustrielle looked back over and noticed that Cortex had pulled out his ray gun and had it pointed straight at him. The electromagnetic beams had formed across the far window as well, blocking the only other potential exit.

He felt the color drain from his face, and his slow shuffling steps back over to his chair were punctuated by the shouting, swearing, and pleading coming from the others, as they thrashed in their seats. As Dustrielle gingerly sat back down, hands both gripping the table so hard that the knuckles on his biological hand were white, Cortex nodded approvingly.

"There we go, much better. Sorry, but I didn't manage to get anything created that resembled the folding chair enough for the deception. I hope you're not offended by that. This will do just fine, though. So… shall we start by addressing the most pressing business?"

As Cortex straightened up, the others grew deathly quiet. It was clear that, despite their panic, each of the guys knew that if he wanted to live, he needed to listen.

Cortex grinned once the silence fell and swept his arm into the same wide gesture as before. "Perfect. Now gentlemen, it's become clear to me that things have changed around here. A natural evolution, really. Repeated failure in a group tends to turn those members against their leader. I can hardly blame you, really, I can't. And I've been so incredibly lucky that I've been able to catch on before this group turned mutinous. That would be the tragedy of the century."

He paused and walked over to Brio, leaning in close.

"Not that I haven't dealt with sabotage before, of course…"

Brio's teeth chattered as he eyed Cortex's ray gun, pointed at his chest. Cortex smirked, turning to Tropy, more openly aiming it towards his head.

"We've had individual members grow dissatisfied, even leaving, even working against me. But like good, collaborative scientists, we managed to come to our respective understandings. I thought we rebuilt ourselves stronger. And we did. Never had my team worked so well together. They were almost generous to each other. Almost. I just hadn't diagnosed why."

Cortex sighed and moved behind Gin, grabbing Gin's hair and pulling his face back, waving the ray gun around.

"Here I was thinking that we'd all grown past pettiness, at least, for the most part. Here I was, thinking that you were all putting aside your differences for the sake of the mission. Maybe even growing fond of each other. But of course it wasn't that. You all just had a new common enemy."

Cortex moved back to his own chair, but still held his ray gun at the ready.

"The teasing and jokes were standard stuff. The happy hours I could excuse. You were supposedly bonding after all. The secrets were harmless enough. Any and all of these things, in moderation, and isolation, were fine. But it seems as though you weren't satisfied with my allowing of your indulgences. It appears that our professional disagreements have boiled over, in a way that I initially feared irreparable."

Dustrielle's mind was racing, trying to figure out what Cortex was referring to. He hadn't done anything, at least that he could think of, that Cortex should find fury-inducing.

"It appears that Tropy may have misspoken about the timetable regarding the Quantum Slicer. I was informed of its completion yesterday, but a quick glance through its software program reveals a completion date several days earlier. Now, I have no idea why you'd choose to delay that news to me. I mean, after all, it's not as though our plans involve conquest of an entire planet and you just made the game winning move!"

That last sentence, Cortex raised his voice until he was yelling, his face going orange.

"Now, why would someone delay that? Well, I don't know. But I can put two and two together…"

He straightened up in his chair and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Tropy.

"You only told me about the Slicer's completion because I paid a surprise visit to your lab. If I hadn't shown up, you probably wouldn't have told me. Powerful technology here. Can enter and exit any point in space or time, in any dimensions, nearly instantaneously, with no ripple effects, provided no paradoxes are created. Remarkable stuff. You must've been working on something similar for years before I actually commissioned it. And that amount of work, even for a passion project, is immense. You must've thought it useful."

Tropy's face, which had been teetering between bewilderment, frustration and rage, fully tipped in favor of the latter.

"Of course I thought it was useful!" He shouted.

"Don't interrupt me, this-" Cortex tapped the ray gun with his free hand. "- is set to 'disintegrate', for your reference. But yes, you finally figure out perhaps the most powerful piece of technology in the universe, and instead of telling me this, so that we can start making our plans, you take the other guys and whisk them off for a night of fun and frivolity without me. A celebration? Sure, but I would think that such a night would be best with the entire team. Better for cohesion. So why was I excluded, Nefarious? Answer me."

Tropy glanced at each of the men in turn, gears in his head clearly turning, before responding.

"I don't exactly consider you a celebratory type."

"I haven't exactly had something worth celebrating in years. So I guess you're right. But I think I figured out the other reason."

Cortex leaned in across the table.

"You're planning a coup."

He paused, as if letting the word marinate in the air above the table, waiting for the full weight of its meaning to smack each scientist in the face.

"You took the others off to your fun-filled evening, hoping to get your seeded anti-Cortex sentiments out in the open and try to turn them against me. You wanted to be the leader again and knew what your best shot at doing so was: poach my minions out from under my nose."

Dustrielle looked at Tropy and tried to read his notoriously indecipherable face. His eyebrows were raised, a very slight waver in his lip. Dustrielle couldn't tell if it was shock, anger, despair, a combination of them ...or merely the whispers of the impact of being caught that Tropy hadn't managed to suppress. Though the beating in Dustrielle's chest was mostly his survival instinct kicking into high gear, in the small recesses of rational thought, he wondered if Cortex was right.

His instincts would normally tell him that Cortex was being irrational, that this was the culmination of the last few weeks of manic drive towards this almost attainable dream of his. That this was the coalescence of years of backbreaking work, bitter defeats and burdens that Cortex bore, and the agony of feeling as though the dream in his grasp would be ripped from him. That Cortex, in the very literal essence of the term, was at his wit's end.

Presently, however, Dustrielle's instincts were mostly giving the directive of: Oh God, oh no, Cortex is gonna kill me. He's gonna kill all of us. Oh no. Oh shit.

And his terror left a small door open, the one where Cortex's accusation of treason could work its way into Dustrielle's mind. Sure, Tropy had opened up over the course of the months Dustrielle had spent in the castle… but Tropy was just like Cortex. And just like Dustrielle. And just like Gin and Brio and Uka Uka:

Tropy was a devious bastard. One who was more than capable of lying, deception, false fronts, and playing the long game.

And if that had truly been his goal… well, he wasn't too shabby at sweetening the pot.

Through dry and cracked lips, Dustrielle tried to mouth "Tropy?" He didn't think Tropy would listen or respond, but he wanted to try asking Tropy, himself, anyway. Maybe for catharsis, maybe wondering if Tropy would answer him over Cortex, maybe for no reason at all.

At any rate, he found himself unable to say anything, barely able to move anything other than his eyes. His body felt numb and rigid all over, as he watched one of Tropy's eyebrows remain raised.

"I just have one question for you, Cortex."

Cortex grinned. "Please, ask."

Tropy furrowed his eyebrows again. "How does it feel to be so incredibly paranoid, that you set all of this up, to be wrong?"

Cortex narrowed his eyes. "You're never going to confess it, anyway. Not willingly, at least. No matter."

He straightened and got to his feet, looking at each of the guys and spreading his arms wide.

"Today, I will usher in a new era at Cortex Castle. One where we understand our roles and act appropriately. We're going to go capture the Elementals, and once we get back, we're going to kick off this new era with the Cortex Vortex's first human trial."

With those words, he pointed directly at Tropy.

"And regardless of whether or not he survives the trip, I'll be restructuring. We'll have a new set of rules, the Lab Assistants will be my eyes and ears everywhere, and if any of you even think about trying to move against me, consider yourself the second human trial."

He stopped and looked at Gin.

"Now, we're going to go ahead and get those Elementals here. Now. N. Gin, I'm going to release you, activate the Slicer."

Gin's eye had been wide for the past five minutes, but he finally blinked, and shook his head, as best as he could.

"No, I can't."

Cortex narrowed his eyes. "You will."

Gin shook his head again. "I can't. This is Tropy's machine. I just figured out the mechanical side of things. He's the only one who can actually operate the machine. You need to have some knowledge of temporal physics to make it work."

Cortex turned to Tropy. "Is this true?"

Tropy swallowed, but nodded, his face even. "Yes."

Cortex watched Tropy's face and turned back to Gin. "Well then, Gin, teach yourself some temporal physics in the next minute. I'm not releasing Tropy. Surely you can understand why I can't do that. Start it up."

Gin's lip trembled, but he shook his head. "I can't -"

His outburst was cut short by Cortex aiming the gun at Dustrielle.

"You can. You're a very smart man, Gin, surely you can handle it. When I was plotting this whole thing out, I came to realize who I actually truly needed on the team. You're one of them. But really, in the grand scheme of things."

He clicked off the safety and placed his finger on the trigger.

"I happen to have some spares."

Dustrielle stood, breath heaving, darting his eyes around.

Door? Death by electrocution

Window? Death by electrocution or fall

Attack Cortex? Death by vaporization

Let Cortex shoot? Death by vaporization

He looked around, hoping to find something that could shield himself. Damn Tropy for keeping his lab so free of clutter!

"No!"

Dustrielle let his breath out, confused at first. The terrified voice shouting "No!" wasn't his own.

The trembling in Gin's lips had spread to most of his face.

"I'll… I'll do it… I know… I know how…"

Cortex grinned and took his finger off the trigger, though he did not move the gun.

"Just as I thought…" He said, pressing a button on the remote.

As Gin's bindings came loose, and the seat went back to its normal appearance, Cortex grit his teeth. "Try anything and I shoot him."

Gin's eye welled slightly, but he steadied himself and stood up, nodding his head. Cortex smirked.

"Get the slicer ready for activation, but don't turn it on until I'm ready."

Gin nodded, stumbling over to the right corner near the window, and placed his hand on one of the larger devices. It was roughly the size of a refrigerator, and a similar shape, save for the cannon-like projection in its front.

Cortex nodded, looking between Dustrielle and Gin. "Maybe I was wrong. I think there's some fondness. Always good to know."

Dustrielle felt heavy sour spit climb up his throat, and a deep dark flush come over him. It was anger, fear, and the pure revulsion of his situation. And how deeply Cortex was relishing the moment of everyone's helplessness.

And how he couldn't seem to find a way out. He'd been in rough situations before, even at this job, but even in the bleakest of times, he could think of a way out, regardless of how likely such an escape plan could or would go.

But here, all of his ideas seemed dead in the water. And if he wasn't careful, or Gin wasn't careful, or Tropy wasn't careful, or Brio wasn't careful, he might be dead in the water.

Cortex picked up Tropy's prosthetic and tucked it under his arm. He turned to Gin. "Where's the hole going to be?"

Gin reached up with his left hand and pointed to the window. "Right there, just before the windowsill." His voice, despite its metallic echo, seemed completely flat and two dimensional, and his face was an eerie concoction of chalky green and beetroot red.

Cortex nodded. "Good."

"Now that we're all settled in and understanding, let's go through the plan. Gin's going to activate the Quantum Slicer. According to Tropy, here, the slicer doesn't permanently leave the dimensional hole open. We'll have ten minutes to get in and get out. My new and improved tractor beam should be more than enough to restrain each of the Elementals. I'm bringing Dustrielle and Brio with me for backup."

He paused, his eyes growing dark and stormy.

"And if either of you even think 'there's two of us and one of Cortex, we'll just get Cortex once his back is turned', I'm not turning my back on either of you. And one blast from this- "

He gestured to the gun.

"Will turn you into nothing more than atoms. You know, I'm sure you gents did get cocky. You looked at me and saw me as nothing more than the strategic head of our group. All the rest of you are bigger or have a skillset or have some sort of power that I don't. But I'd like to remind all of you that I'm still the fastest draw on the team."

Dustrielle turned his eyes to Brio, whose eyes were wide and watery. Cortex looked at each of the men, staring into their faces for nearly 10 seconds each, before leaning back and smirking.

"Now then, Dustrielle, I'll be using you as my social engineering tool. If the Elementals don't come voluntarily, you're playing up your inexperience. You're asking why they won't. You're politely asking, you're begging them, vaguely threatening them, whatever you need to do. Just long enough that Brio and I can activate my traction device without them noticing. "

Cortex patted the pocket of his lab coat. "Press two buttons on it, and I'll have a containment field large enough and powerful enough to restrain four Elementals at once and transport them easily. And once we get back…"

He narrowed his eyes and raised his eyebrow, cocking his head towards Tropy. "We can start onboarding the new minion, and setting the updated ground rules."

The silence that followed that statement lasted nearly an entire minute. Dustrielle could hear only muffled whimpering from Gin and the steady wheeze of panicked breathing.

Cortex, after the agonizing silence, took out the remote once again, and clicked the button. He gestured with the gun towards the window. "Brio, Dustrielle, over there. Now."

Dustrielle met Brio's eyes, and for the first time since he'd met Brio, he seemed to understand the silent communication from Brio's facial expression.

And it told him that, at that point, they didn't exactly have a choice.

At that point.

Dustrielle rose, somehow controlling the shake in his body, limiting it only to the tremor within his internal organs. As he started to walk to the window, Brio strode to his side, putting his hand on Dustrielle's shoulder, squeezing it.

"Back off, Brio. Five feet away."

Brio turned to Cortex, scowling. Cortex returned a choice look of his own.

"I'm not going to give you the space for whispering. Anything you say will be said in front of me. You two are smart enough, you should understand why I'm not taking that risk."

He eyed Gin. "You have the coordinates set?"

Gin leaned over, catching first Dustrielle's eye, then Brio's, as if trying to communicate something, himself.

Cortex grit his teeth. "My eyes are here, Gin. Coordinates. Set?"

Gin nodded. "Set, primed and ready."

Cortex smirked. "Good. Activate it. Now."

Gin pressed a button, and the cannon-like projection at the front of the machine began to glow, whirring and whining to the point where Dustrielle's ears were burning.

The lights in the room crackled and flickered as the machine's hum grew louder. Cortex frowned and turned to Gin.

"Will this machine blow a fuse in the castle?"

Gin swallowed. "It's a power hungry device, Cortex. Interdimensional travel isn't rocket science: it's trickier. And more resource intensive."

Cortex sighed. "Very well. I'm only taking one trip with it, for now anyway. But if that machine destroys anything in the castle permanently, you're through."

Gin nodded, inhaling sharply as the machine shot out a beam of light, manifesting as a portal-like tear in the universe, just wide enough for two people to walk through side by side.

Cortex smirked and gestured for Dustrielle and Brio to enter ahead of him. "Go on, I insist."

Brio and Dustrielle looked to each other, and without saying a word, or making a visible gesture, walked towards the portal.

Tropy inhaled sharply, and both men paused, looking back. Tropy's face wasn't red, his eyebrows weren't fully furrowed. His features looked steady as stone, and his tone remained evenly perched between cool logic and blazing fury.

"Your foolish little scheme is going to fall apart, Cortex, mark my words. Even if the Slicer works exactly as intended. Even if you obtain the Elementals. Even if I'm… compromised.

Though Tropy's determined diction, fervor, and tone went into this little act of defiance, there was a noticeable waver in his voice when he mentioned the possibility of himself going through the Cortex Vortex. The very real and salient possibility. But he set his jaw and continued.

" You're not going to be able to sustain this new dynamic for long. If you don't burn out from the effort, they'll burn out. Or refuse to work. Or outright work against you. So, at the end of the day, you'll either be dealing with a mutinous crew. Or. if you take 'corrective action', a dead one."

Cortex rolled his eyes, shooing Dustrielle and Brio to keep walking, and shot back: "I'll be coming up with the new name you're going to go by after your trip in the Cortex Vortex. It will be quite foolish sounding, I can assure you of that. Enjoy your last few moments as yourself, Nefarious. I won't miss it."