#psychonauts merit badges | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tinyinvadr · 4 months

Text

New chapter yay!!!

Psychoborrower

Chapter 3

I almost had a heart attack when I made the jump into Raz’s pocket before he left. I got a bit too used to Sasha’s complete obliviousness to my existence that I forgot that most people tend to notice when something small jumps on them.

“Huh? What was that?”

I held my breath as he shook his jacket off. I wasn’t too worried about falling out, but I was definitely concerned this motion would make me throw up. That would easily give me away. And it’s gross.

He gave up pretty quickly once he realized there wasn’t a bug or animal on him, and went off like nothing happened.

Either way, this was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done. Really. Thanks for guilt tripping me into making up with this kid, Sasha.

On the way there, I overheard his conversations with the other campers, and he came to the conclusion that one of the kids’ brains had been stolen.

Personally, I thought he was just paranoid. The kid in question was Dogen. He’s just like that.

When we got to Milla’s class, he asked Lili about it. It turns out, Raz had a vision in the tumbler about a creepy doctor that perfectly matched up with a nightmare she had been having.

That… was a lot more than paranoia.

Lili ended up leaving class early, but told Raz to meet her later by the lake so they could talk about the situation further.

I tried not to let myself get too worked up about it. After all, none of this concerned me. But at the same time… if Dogen’s brain really was missing, that could mean trouble.

The kid was extremely powerful. Too powerful. To the point where he couldn’t control his own abilities. Head-exploding abilities. And the only thing keeping them at bay was a crumby tinfoil hat. If that brain fell into the wrong hands…

No. Everything was fine. Raz and Lili were just having shared nightmares. That’s… probably normal.

Milla was hesitant to let Raz into her mind, and wasn’t thrilled when she learned Sasha was training him. She has the tendency to be very protective. It took me forever to convince her to train me. Which is kind of strange, because between her, Sasha, and the Coach, her mind is the safest. There are a few Censors here and there, but there aren’t any platforms that you can really fall off of. The course is designed for levitation training, and it accommodates for that very purpose perfectly.

After some convincing, she let us in. Raz wasn’t as shocked by my presence, but he did seem annoyed. As for Milla, she was overjoyed.

“Flint! It’s so good to see you again, darling! And it’s so nice to see you’ve made a friend!”

Raz and I kind of just avoided eye contact for a minute, and Milla stopped dancing on the TV monitor when she took note of the uncomfortable silence.

“Oh, I see… Well, not to worry! A party is the best place to work out your problems, so I’m sure whatever’s going on between you two will sort itself out! Now then, Razputin, I’ve given you your Levitation learner’s permit. Finish the course, and you’ll get your merit badge! Start whenever you’re ready!”

I’d already done the course before, so I just hopped on my Thought Bubble and rolled on ahead.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Raz called after me.

“Sasha said I had to attend class with you. He didn’t say we had to stick together the entire time.”

“But he also said we have to try and get along. If we’re gonna become Psychonauts together-”

“Whoa, together? Where’d you get that from? It would take a miracle for them to let either one of us in, but there’s no way they’d accept both of us. And frankly, I’d question their judgement if they picked you over me, newbie.”

It didn’t take long for him to catch up to me. It was infuriating how quickly he took to every single thing he learned. He was a natural, and I hated it.

“What makes you so sure they won’t take us both? I mean, even if it’s not at the same time, eventually-”

I bumped my Thought Bubble into his, sending him rolling backwards. I was so sick of him. Natural talent. Misguided optimism. He really thought we could be teammates. Maybe in a perfect world that wasn’t pitted against me and actively sought out people like him. Maybe in a world where the game wasn’t rigged in his favor. But no. He was gonna get everything he wanted, and I’d be left with nothing, stuck at this stupid baby camp that I was only a year away from aging out of.

He rebounded from the bump and caught up to me again as I desperately kept trying to lose him.

“I just don’t get what your problem with me is. What did I ever do?”

I kept going, trying to ignore him. Then, he surprised me once again, bouncing right in front of me and bumping me back. It was with a lot less force, but enough to stop me.

“Hey, look. I can tell you’re going through something right now. And… I am too. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to doubt I’ll get there in time. My Dad’s gonna be here tomorrow. He’ll take me back to the circus where I’ll never be allowed to use my powers again. But even if it seems hard, that doesn’t mean we can’t still try, right?”

I sighed, rolling ahead and motioning for him to follow me. We made our way to the first dance platform, where the other campers and several mental dancers were enjoying the party. I sat myself down in one of the lounge seats and pointed to the space next to me until Raz got the hint.

Neither of us spoke for a minute. We just sat there, observing the party. At one point, a mental waitress brought us drinks. I started drinking mine right away while Raz looked at me like I had just committed a crime.

“Um… are these-?”

“Nonalcoholic. Milla would never think of giving a kid the real stuff.”

Even after I told him, he still looked at the glass in his hand like it was full of poison, until he eventually decided it was fine and took a sip.

“It’s good.”

We continued to sit and take in the atmosphere of the party. I knew I had to say something, but I didn’t know where to begin, or how much to reveal. So, I started the simplest way I could.

“I ran away from home too, you know.”

Raz seemed surprised.

“But… you’ve been coming here for years. Didn’t the counselors try to contact your parents?”

I chuckled. “My folks aren’t exactly easy to get in contact with, so they’ve been begrudgingly letting me live here ever since. It’s not like they can do much about it, since no one ever sees me.”

“Why do you do that? The invisibility thing, I mean. And how are you able to hold it for that long? Milka’s invisible pretty much all the time but I still see her between recharges.”

Right. There was another kid at camp that did the whole invisibility thing. Well, she was actually invisible. I just lied about it so no one would realize the real reason they haven’t seen me in the physical world. Ironically, it’s my weakest psychic power.

“I value my privacy. And just because I agreed to talk to you doesn’t mean I have to reveal all my secrets. But it looks like things are pretty hopeless for us right now, so I don’t see much of a point picking a fight with you anymore.”

“It’s not hopeless! There’s something weird going on around camp. Have you seen Dogen lately?”

I nodded. “Yeah. But are you sure his brain is missing?”

“There’s nothing between his ears! I could see right through his head!”

Oh wow, that’s… horrifying, actually.

“I saw a vision in the Brain Tumbler of Dogen with this creepy dentist who said he was gonna take his brain out. I couldn’t get all the way up to the tower without levitation, so that’s why I’m taking this course.”

At that, I got up from my seat and got back on my Thought Bubble.

“In that case, we should get moving. No time to sit around and chat. If this is as serious as you say it is, you need that merit badge ASAP. Follow me, I’ll show you the fastest way through.”

I could see the way his eyes lit up when he realized I was finally gonna help him with training. I hated to admit it, but it did feel nice knowing that this kid looked up to me, even after I was such a jerk to him. It felt like maybe all my training meant something after all.

We made our way up to the next part of the course, where you use your Thought Bubble to roll over dangerous elements. It was really the only major hazard in Mills’s mind, and as long as you levitated like you were supposed to, no harm would come to you.

At least, nothing happened to me. Raz, it turns out, was a special case. He could easily roll over fire, electricity, even radioactive waste. But when he tried to roll over the pool of water, something strange happened. His bubble suddenly popped, and he started flailing around as if something was trying to pull him down.

I grabbed onto him right away and pulled him up so he could get back on his bubble.

“What was that? Water is like, the least lethal obstacle. Why did that one throw you off?”

He looked back at the pool warily as if he could see something in it.

“My family has this problem with water. Psychics cursed all of us to die if we go into any deep body of water. I guess not even my own powers are enough to combat that.”

Wow… With every new thing I learned about psychics, I kept falling into the same trap of thinking I knew everything.

“I didn’t know psychics could curse people.”

“I don’t think it’s common. But… just once was enough to make my Dad hate all psychics. That’s why I ran away. It’s just so frustrating… I never asked for these powers. They’re not going away, and I don’t want them to, either. They’re a part of who I am, but that doesn’t make me evil! And I’m pretty sure he’s also a psychic, so why is he being so hard on me? I just… I’m sorry for dumping all this on you.”

I’d heard this all before in my own mind. Being forced to suppress a major part of yourself in order to please everyone around you… I could understand that from more than one perspective. Against my better judgement, I felt genuinely sorry for the kid.

My parents always told me not to think of humans as being like us. They didn’t deserve our pity because they could never understand how easy they have it compared to us. There was no point in thinking of them as complex people because they would never see us that way. Instead, they were nothing but living obstacles to be avoided.

But Raz knew what it was like to be treated like an outcast, even by his own family. Maybe it wasn’t the same. Maybe he still had it better than I did. Maybe this was all a side effect of me astral projecting as a human for too long. But I didn’t see him as a threat anymore. I saw him for what he was: a lost, scared kid just trying to find himself.

I saw… me.

“Hey, Raz… it’s okay. I get it. And if you ever need to talk, I’m here, okay?”

He nodded, giving a slight smile.

“Thanks, Flint.”

We rolled on ahead to the racetrack, where we won the race, and more importantly, kicked Bobby Zilch’s ass. From there we floated up towards the end of the course, blew up a few Censors, and finally made it to the end, where we were greeted by Milla.

“So glad you could make it! Now the party can really start! Let’s get you that merit badge, darling!”

We didn’t have much time to stick around and party, so Milla let us take our leave after Raz got his badge.

When we were back in our bodies and Raz started to head back to Sasha’s lab, I was lost in thought. For once, it wasn’t in a paranoid way. I was content. Even though I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the full truth, it felt like we were still supporting each other in the physical world. Sure, he had no idea I was in his pocket, but that didn’t matter. I was there as a hidden source of moral support, and he was unknowingly carrying me and sheltering me from danger.

It was sort of like the dynamic I’d come to have with Sasha and Milla, but it was nice to have someone around who was closer to my age. This was the closest I could have to a real friend.

In short, Raz was far from the worst thing to happen at camp. No, that was yet to come…

#giant/tiny #g/t #giant tiny #g/t writing #psychonauts

14 notes · View notes