Neo Cortex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Brothers_Band_(TV_series)

"'My army will be stronger than ever before. Soon, I will reign triumphant.'"Neo Cortex (born Leo Cortez), was a despotic American-Jewish scientist whose abominable genetic experiments were responsible for the Mutant Vortex Crisis, when he sought to craft an army of corrupted lifeforms for the purposes of world domination. Cortex had used his scientific knowledge for simple business practices before rediscovering the Wumpa Archipelago in 1990, when he focused all his efforts on unlocking the islands' secrets. As the CEO of the now defunt Cortex Corporation, Cortex used his resources to colonize the smallest of the three islands.

Cortex is considered by many to be one of the most evil hominids in fictional history, and his work today is banned in most countries and considered an abomination.

Intelligence: 68

Early Childhood
Neo Cortex was born the youngest son to a large Jewish family of immigrant circus clowns in Sunnyville, New Mexico, who had moved to America from a poverty stricken life in the Dominican Republic. Cortex was raised among his plentiful sibling brothers, but did not share in their robust health and was born with several health conditions. Consequently, his early childhood was spent in constant states of illness and distress. The least of his ailments was his enlarged cranium, which only seemed to grow with each passing year. To pass the time safely from the ridicule of his brothers, Cortex enveloped himself within the confines of his room and immersed himself with elementary readings of most any books he could find. When Cortex was three years old, his cranium began to swell and his parents became strongly worried about his health. Taken aback with fear that their son was to suffer a stroke or even death, they brought their ailing child to a hospital in Albuquerque. Unfortunately, X-Ray scans showed that surgery would have proven too fatal for the young Cortex. As his cranium continued to grow throughout his early childhood, Cortex became more and more the brunt of jokes, and over time he began to resent his family.

Biographers often note the beginning of Cortex's fall into madness and psychopathic tendencies as stemming immediately from his childhood. Cortex's obsession with genetic engineering was likely influenced by the bitter resentment he held towards his ailing health, and the envy which he had for his siblings.

Circus Years
When Cortex was seven years old, his parents' circus business began to experience hard times. America was going through an economic recession at the time, and attendance numbers at the circus were at an all time low. Refusing to fall into despair and let their family starve, the patriarchal brothers suggested to use Cortex in their circus acts as a last ditch effort to bring in new customers. Cortex's mother was immediately abhorred by the thought of this idea, but after some convincing, she relented after a convincing dialogue with Cortex's father.

Cortex's cranium by this time had already peaked at its size, and in comparison to his small youthful body, was comparatively large and distracting. His skull was so gargantuan in fact, that young Cortex had trouble keeping his balance at times. During supper he would constantly drop his plates, or run into tables and chairs around the house. This made his mocking treatments even worse, and the family unfortunately saw him as perfect fodder for circus goers.

Cortex was terrified by the idea, and tried all he could to fight back. Lashed with tears, he threatened to run away, and even tried to at one point before being locked away in his room. In a blinded rage, he blamed his oldest brothers for the horrendous plan, but was unable to do anything to stop it. His mother tried to reassure him by promising that it would only happen once, and that after that everything would go back to normal and he would never have to do it again. Cortex thought about it, and with much hesitance, agreed. A week later, Cortex went with his family to their newest act in Roswell. Cortex watched his brothers perform typical though dazzling circus acts, and he was humbly impressed by how genuinely talented his family was. He had never seen them perform before, and he felt some kind of shallow pride for their efforts. For a while, he almost forgot the reason that he was there with them.

The show was going admirably, as far as Cortex could tell, but he noticed that the seats were only half filled. A lot of the acts, espeically the clown car chase near the climax of the show, garnered plentiful laughs, but they were soon overshadowed by the overwhelming silence that filled most of the performance. When the silence became particularly painful, Cortex's father in hesitant respite brought his ailing son to the stage. "And now, ladies and gentleman! A new act!"Cortex panicked at the last second, his mother, cladded in clown makeup and dress, tried to comfort him, but it was to no use. Cortex became aggressive, and tried to push and shove his father away. His brothers had to help reel him in, and he was dragged out onto the stage kicking but was immediately stunned and muted by the sheer shock of the circus lights upon him. Whispers filled the stadium, as spectators genuinely discussed with each other the peculiar appearance of this new performer. His physical stature alone was enough of a peculiarity, and all eyes were laser fixed on Cortex. He didn't know what to do, and was inherently terrified inside more than anything else.

His family were experts in the art of theater, and improvised an act with their brother. They began by juggling colored balls around Cortex's hand, and when one of his brothers began bouncing a green ball off his cranium, the entire circus erupted into laughter. The audience was laughing more at Cortex's reactions more than anything else. They were real. It was realistically, terrified, annoyed, and confused, all at the same time. The circus goers didn't know any better, they thought it was all part of the act, and this worked to the family's advantage.

When Cortex tried to run off stage, he was stopped in his tracks by one of the clown cars jarring him as he stumbled down to the ground. He tried to escape through the other door but was again blocked by another honking taxi, and no matter where he went Cortex continued to trip and fall as the entire audience mocked him.

The show was a major success, and Cortex's stint was the clear highlight of the night. His family were proud of their success, but Cortex was humiliated. He talked to no one that night, and ignored everyone. They had a celebratory meal, but he refused to eat any of it. "At least it is now over." he thought, and he went to bed as peacefully as one could after such a horrible and traumatic experience.

The next morning, Cortex woke up to see that in the papers he was labelled as the "walking potato of Sunnydale". Critics loved his act, and his mother was arguing with his father in the other room about what they should do with him. "Pa wants you to work with us full time", said one of his brothers with his ear cuffed against the wall. His mother did everything she could to protect Cortex from entering the circus again, as she promised, but her cries were not heard as the family valued greed over integrity. Cortex was immediately pulled from home, and forced to work in the circus full time. He resented his mother for this, and never trusted her again even though she cried for his forgiveness. She pitied her son, and was the only one who showed him sympathy. Cortex no longer had time to pursue his interests or projects, such as a small self sufficient bird house he was working on in the yard. Each day he was mocked and shoved by his family on the stage, and as the weeks progressed it became worse, as the family was forced to further the stakes in order to remain relevant.

Not all spectators viewed the spectacle lightly, and a controversy of ethics began in the county papers. A local priest from one of the churches had attended a show not knowing anything of its contents, and was shocked by the abusive treatment in the circus. The priest first tried to speak to the family backstage, but they denied to speak to him as they were vile orthodox jews. It was at this point that the priest called social services, and an investigation was ordered upon the Cortez family. The family patriarch was enraged with fury, they had only now been finally experiencing the financial success they had always desired. When Cortex remarked that maybe this social investigation was what they deserved, his father snapped and attempted to physically assault his son before being restrained by Cortex's brothers. The next night, all of the family's frustrations were channeled into the circus act. Cortex's most traumatic moment crescendod this night when one of his brothers in the heat of the moment, right after making Cortex recite a scientific essay in front of the crowd, chose to tattoo a giant N on Cortex's forehead for laughs.

Not only was the tattoo painful, it was also unremovable. Cortex was furious, and resolved to free himself from the grips of his family for good.

Orphandom
It is unknown if Cortex had psychopathic tendencies before this moment, though certain biographers maintain that his enlarged cranium likely made the chemical balances of his brain largely unstable. Whatever the case was, his traumatic childhood certainly did not help either. Cortex was adamantly determined to enact revenge on his family, and after the tattoo incidence was putting together plans to destroy them. At first he considered trying to run away again, but it was too difficult and lacked the catharsis Cortex wanted. He thought of poisoning their food, but there was never a way to get them all around the table at the same time.

Whenever Cortex had tried to resist his family in the past weeks, he was always locked in the basement as punishment. Ironically, Cortex enjoyed his time spent there. He read books, crafted small engineering feats out of paper, and scribbled on the dusty cement walls. Though there was something he always noticed, Cortex despite his age was more knowledgable than his ignorant family. He realized that the house's gas line was rusting, and would likely need repairs soon or else it would likely bust open. To his family, this was a problem, but to Cortex it was an opportunity. During a family dinner celebrating the birthday of one of Cortex's brothers, the homicidal eig year old sneaked to the basement. There he rigged the house's gas line with flammable materials he had smuggled in from the garage, such as toxic oil and acrylic paints. One of his brothers witnessed Cortex doing this, and tried to pummel the homicidal maniac. Cortex knocked his brother out using an old frying pan on one of the shelves, and pushed him out the basement window which was set beside a small hill, and his unconcious brother rolled down it.

Cortex then tied a combustible engine to the home's main heater, and connected this and the flammable materials together using a burning wire. Cortex then climbed out the window and sprinted away from the house as much as he could. He had prepared a small bag bforehand, filled only with meager snacks raided from the kitchen pantry, and a few mismatched books. The exhausted and malnourished child ran and fell onto the grass, he turned around, and watched the house explode into a violent nova of orange claws. When the authorities arrived, Cortex along with his one surviving brother, were assumed dead alongside everyone else.

For the next four years, Cortex and his brother lived a vagabond lifestyle. Immediately after the explosion, his brother tried to attack his murderous sibling, but Cortex held an upper hand. He had created an electric collar that he put around his brother, and threatened death if he tried anything. The two lived in an abandoned bean factory a couple miles south of town, and were forced to survive off of canned beans and rainwater. Cortex used his older brother as a tool to act out on his plans, and slowly they adjusted the bean factory into a workable home, and forged alternate identities for themselves.

After four years, Cortex renamed himself Neo Cortex, in reference to the part of the brain, and in proud mockery towards his deceased mockers emblazoned his tattoo with steel. After doing this, he let his brother free.

High School
At the age of twelve, Cortex used his fraudulent identity to enroll in the local Sunnydale high school. Cortex passed the school's entrance exams with unbelievable ease. He barely had to focus on them, and could have answered most of the questions with his eyes closed. Cortex knew that his appearance in the town was of infamous legend and that despite his expertly forged papers, his appearance would be a dead giveaway. To compensate for this, the mad child put his diabolical skills to further use and forged papers justifying some kind of rare skin condition. Using these papers, Cortex was able to justify attending to school while constantly wrapped in mummy like clothing. Because of this eccentric clothing, Cortex became once again the victim of endless torment from school bullies and teachers alike. This time it didn't bother him, he was disgruntled but Cortex refused to fight back and focused only on furthering his intellectual pursuits. The young scientist had hatched a plan during his time in the bean factory, he was to start a business empire; but to do that he needed an education. For the rest of the year he would have to think creatively in order to avoid being exposed as the clown act from the past.

He attended his classes diligently, and passed each one of them with flying stripes. His only challenge was gym class, but he constantly circumvented his weaknesses by manipulating his classmates into carrying him through the classes. Many bullies had his eyes on Cortex, but many chose to remain a clear distance as the thought of bullying a mummified child felt unethical. Unethical to most, at least, but not to the school's most despotic bully; Vincent Vince.

Vincent Vince was a redheaded Irish boy who hated the sight of good for nothings who didn't know their place. He held a good grudge, and when Cortex snickered at him when passing in the hall one day, a vendetta was spawned. It was made worse when Vincent tried to provoke Cortex during chemistry class, and the mummified scientist did nothing but stare at him blankly. Vincent felt strange, even disturbed, and didn't know how to deal with his emotions. That night after school, Vincent and his friends scattered Cortex's belongings across the school hallways in a wild treasure hunt. The trail led to a trap, and the group locked Cortex inside the janitor's closet without warning. The pipes of the room reminded Cortex of his childhood, and he immediately felt stressed. Overheating and sweating with anxiety, the trauma stricken scientist took off his linen bandages and backed himself against the wall.

When the group of boys later returned, they saw Cortex without his bandages and one of them instantly recognized him. Cortex tried to deny it, but it was already too late. His identity had been exposed. Their laughter filled the room, and their shadows loomed over the regretful scientist, until the darkness cracked under the weight of one unexpected sneer.

Behind them was Nick Briose the only other student at the school more deserving of torment than Cortex. They tried to intimidate the strange looking teenager, but Briose was unshaken. He blackmailed the group, displaying his cunning intellect. He threatened to tell the school of their deepest secrets if they dare expose Cortex, and when they came near, he threatened to spray them with acid vials from his trench coat pocket. Justifiably disturbed, the group ran off and the two scientists sparked the beginning of a corrupted kind of bond.

Friendship with N.Brio
Cortex's only intellectual rival at school was Nick Briose, (who would later rename himself as N.Brio in subservience to Cortex). Briose was surprisingly enough around the same age as Cortex, only three years older, and was his only intellectual equal within the entire school. Briose's family were accredited Jewish-British scientists who had moved to New Mexico to conduct astronomical research. Briose had an academic upbringing much different from Cortex's childhood, and his parents instilled into him feelings of superiority towards most other people. Briose was exceedingly arrogant upon their meeting, and only defended him out of some kind of pity. Briose was the school's highest achiever and was on track to graduate early with honors, and he looked at Cortex as an elementary competitor who could more than anything else: simply keep things interesting.

The two became aware of their presence following this meeting, and never let go of that focus. For the rest of the year they were fierce competitors, fighting neck to neck at various science competitions and chemistry projects (the latter of which Briose excelled at). Honor was at the forefront of Briose's methodology, but unfortunately Cortex repeatedly cheated the system and gamed his projects. Because of this unfair advantage, Briose was suffering streaks of defeat from Cortex and these losses were beginning to affect his ego. Soon the scientist was becoming forlorn, and when he made a side comment of perhaps moving schools he was instantly scolded by his strict parents.

Cortex began psychologically manipulating Briose, and they formed a narciccistic friendship. Cortex would lift Briose up whenever one of his projects were successful, but constantly dismissed him whenever they were competitors. Briose at this time began to doubt his own intellect, but developed an attachment towards Cortex's approval. For the first time considered that he was in fact perhaps not the intellectual pinnacle of all humans, and Cortex suggested that maybe he wasn't, but that Cortex himself actually was. All the doubt collapsed into a psychological explosion when Cortex usurped N.Brio at the school's summer science fair, the event which N.Brio had always consistently and easily won. Briose's defeat was so significant, that he not only lost but got third place, and because of this he absolutely lost his marbles.

Briose would go on to suffer a mental breakdown, and in chemistry class the nervous chemist accidentally concocted a volatile potion that exploded in the room. The acids splashed upon Briose and Cortex, causing both of their skin to degenerate into a hideous yellow hue. Cortex erupted into a rage, and blamed Briose for everything which only furthered the aforementioned scientist's misery. The two young scientists were then after mocked for their yellow skin, but somehow bonded over this.

After Briose's breakdown, Cortex began using Briose more and Briose interpreted it as some kind of friendship. They would often play board games together during lunch, including one Cortex designed himself where the plot involved him building an army of soldiers, something he would go on to do in later life. Briose felt an intellectual obligation to learn as much from Cortex as he could, and overwhelmed with guilt over the chemical accident that deformed both their faces, became slavishly devoted to his intellectual superior.

Plutonium Mine and High School Explosion
Two years into high school, Cortex reached another aggressive conclusion to destroy all his peers in a violent explosion. It was at this time that the pair had begun spending their after school hours in a plutonium mine in the rural country two miles away from the school. Here, they began experimenting with the conductive properties of certain minerals, and Cortex established the mine as his new defacto home. Warning N.Briose of his plan to explode the school in a handwritten note, the two hid inside the mine on the day that the homemade nuclear device was set to implode.

The explosion would go on to destroy not only the school, but almost the entire town with it, including Briose's parents. Because Cortex spared Briose, the grateful and devoted scientist implanted two corkscrews into his cranium as a sign of devotion. The twisting of the screws would allow Briose's skull to grow abnormally over the coming years, and this was done as a way to denote that he felt indebted.

Years of Wandering
Following the explosion in Sunnyville, Cortex and N.Brio would hide inside of the plutonium mine for almost a year in order to avoid the radioactive fallout. The two huddled scientists in their denial, viewed themselves as heroes who had rid the state of a worthless town. Their resentment began to grow, and they started formulating plans for world domination. They would then take a train to Los Angeles, where they would live for another year.

Himalayan Monasteries
Their first plan was to discover some kind of arcane knowledge they could use to elevate their status beyond that of normal humans, and their research led them first to the Himalayan mountains. At the age of ten, the two scientists left America by hiding in the trunk of a cargo plane heading to far east Asia from Los Angeles. The duo then trekked by foot for two years towards the Himalayan monasteries. The two became very competitive at the monasteries, and were never able to remain quiet or "meditate" properly. This made them the brunt of much antagonism, and they were kicked out of every monastery they found themselves in.

African Villages
Cortex and N.Brio then spent three years in Africa where they encountered an ancient Plato manuscript denoting various myths and legends of a lost Lemurian civilization. Cortex would slowly become obsessed with this legend, which N.Brio dismissed as nonsense. When they thought that a certain tribe posessed a missing fragment, they tried to negotiate a trade deal in order to retrieve it. The deal went awry, and the group were imprisoned at the tribe's local camp. The two scientists were imprisoned in a wooden shack, alongside the pioneer and hunter Owen Parks. Parks was already working on creating a small incendiary device which he hoped he could use to enflame the village and consolidate his escape. At first he spoke little with the two madmen, and regarded them as imbeciles more than anything else. During an argument with one of the local guards, Parks' incendiary device was discovered and he was immediately brought to be executed. Parks' execution was interrupted when Nick Briose distracted the primitives with a random and incoherent speech, while Cortex retrieved the incendiary device and used it to alight the village in flames. The group then worked together to kill many of the surviving primitives, and escaped Algeria together via a cargo plane bringing a shipment of steel and other resources to the United States. Afterwards, Parks maintained a working relationship with them over the subsequent years, serving as their primary "hunter".

Viper Club
The evil scientists returned to America at the ages of 16 with hopes to establish a business empire that could help them achieve their goals of world domination. Cortex even at this point thought of reviving his childhood ambitions of someday being a rockstar musician, but was laughed out of the club when he tried to play.Their planned route to power was at first juvenile and naive, as the two thought that they could meet influentials at the Viper Club in Los Angeles who would possibly invest in their business ideas. The two were never able to get past the doors. Instead they resorted to buying a small farm outside of the city, (using fraudulent cheques), and from there started developing their own business of selling apples.

Early Success
The Cortex Corporation achieved early success when it patented its broadband technology that allowed television channels be more easily to broadcast channels into rural regions. Neo Cortex would later use some of this broadcasting technology in his Cortex Vortex machine, using waves to influence the minds of primitive creatures. The duo started gaining attention for their eccentric and strange interviews, where Cortex portrayed a disturbing personality. Cortex began creating a small viral obsession, and the corporation earned note for its 'futuristic' technology and systems.

Cortex Blimp
Next

Colonization
At its peak, the Cortex Corporation would have 788 employees working on the Wumpa Archipelago, with a much smaller team heading procedures in Los Angeles.

Development of the Cortex Vortex
Neo Cortex fathered Neyla in 1996.

Defeat and Death
Cortex was defeated at the age of 26.

Personality
Amusing. Emotional. Cowardly.