Author Notes: First, a huge thanks for Lyre-19 that she takes me chapters for beta-reading. Also a little thank you to the Deutsche Bahn, because they are on the strike this morning. Which means that my weekend got an unexpected day added.
Also, an excuse. But I said, I wouldn't be able to uphold a chapter a week… Now I know what made Digitaldreamer draw "The 5 Stages of Writing Cursum Perficio" – When you post the first chapter, you chain a piece of your soul to it… And that kind of drains the inspiration. Should I ever write another fic, I'm gonna do it J. K. Rowling Style, meaning I'll have the whole thing done and post it bit after bit.
Chapter Four – Wanted: Psychic or
Night had come over Mumbling Stone Psychic Spring Camp like deep, murky watersof black velvet; drowning out all light and sound.
However, here and there old searchlights could be seen cutting through the darkness and the occasional curse mumbled softly under the breath occasionally broke the silence.
The search troops were on the lookout.
Agent Razputin Aquato stood behind a flagpole, panting. He'd been on the run ever since he failed to deliver the chemical compound… Activating his invisibility, he ran around the pole – headfirst into a psychic fist.
"Gotcha, you little runt…"
Skittering across the damp ground, he managed to get back on his feet and fired a psiblast into the direction of the voice. To his satisfaction, he heard a yelp of surprise and a thud.
"Hah. That's all you got ?" Raz sneered into the silence.
In that second, a dozen on flashlights were pointed directly at him.
Lili Zanotto walked restless through the campgrounds. Since his spectacular escape, Raz hadn't been seen, except for the one occasion when he pillaged some burgers from Ford's secret shack. (The shack, of course, was later declared public property, and the layers of ancient burgers were promptly devoured. Apparently, whenever Ford finished a burger, he uses a pneumatic tube to get it into the shack. Only Oleander protested, but as Sashas quick analysis – he stuffed a burger down his throat – declared that there hadn't ever been a bunny even in a five mile radius around this burger, he concurred.)
Lili sighed and looked over the lake, and at the crumbled, boring ruins of the McDonalds on the other side. As she looked over the distant remains, she mused.
She mused over a multitude of things, like how the adventurous of the campers used to canoe over there and burn and pillage. She mused about how she hated this camp, no, scratch that, all camps; and she wondered why the hell she even bothered going here every year.
Oh yeah. Boyfriend and such.
As she turned around, she saw something move in the shadows.
"Raz ?" she called out, hoping to see the familiar silhouette of her boyfriend to jump forth.
For a minute or more, she stood there, watching the darkness. Then she turned around.
"AAAAAAAAAAH !"
Raz groaned, and weakly opened his eyes. His head felt like a small, angry gerbil had decided to rip it apart from the inside. He could see spiralling patterns in his field of vision for a second. Then, with an echoing "Clack !", a bright lamp flared to life, shining directly into his face. Raz groaned and shut his eyes again, reducing the painful brightness to a bloody red glow.
A voice drifted to his ears, familiar, and dripping with a sort of icyness that drove a shiver down his spine.
"Agent Aquato. How nice of you to drop by. And we didn't even tidy… But let's rather get to business. Tell me – about the plan."
"A plan ? What plan ?" said Raz, carefully trained innocence dripping off every syllable.
"Spare me the innocence babble. You know what I mean. And be assured that I will use whatever imaginable to get what I want…"
"Hah. Big words, nothing behind. You couldn't lay a finger on me… Sasha Nein."
With another echoing "Click !", more lights went on, and sure enough, Raz sat, restrained by a pair of psitanium handcuffs, on a small lab chair. The German Psychonaut quirked a brow.
"And what makes you so sure about that ?"
"Not only are you one of the most logical, controlled, and sane people I ever met, as well as my well-liked guardian, mentor, teacher, etc. ; but also, Milla would tear you to sub-atomic particles if she found out you did anything bad to a child."
"Not exactly, darling."
From what little had remained of shadow in the lab, Milla stepped next to Sasha. Her dress was tattered and dirty, her hair a jumbles mess (a particularly unlucky squirrel was stuck in it and still struggled to escape) and the expression on her face was so unfamiliar that, had he not have been able to see her aura, Raz would've psiblasted her as an impostor.
"Um… Hi Mill- Agent Vodello. How are you ? E he he he… April Fools ?" Razputin replied, little beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he detected the malevolent signatures from the other psychics auras.
"You can take your April fools and shove them right up your nose!" another voice roared through the lab.
"Hi there, Coach. I guess I better drop and give you twenty ?"
"Make that twenty thousand, you treacherous little maggot. Nein, it's no use. We need his schedule of terror, and since he won't tell us when we ask nicely, we'll-"
"Probe my mind?", Raz interrupted. "Not in a million years. Remember? Armoured like a tank. My thoughts are mine."
The coach let loose a hearty snort.
"Mind-probing ? Aside from the fact that Nein's equipment here should break your shields in 24 hours – but sadly rendering you insane in the process, which is why we won't do it and the paperwork takes forever- we are going to use special methods. Nein, do it."
With a cold smirk, Sasha turned to the enormous computer behind him. Razputin shivered, looking around for a way to escape.
"You're all INSANE !" he yelled.
"Actually, we are not. We just hate falling into pits, being kidnapped by the lungfish, removing sticky, eatable substances from our orifices, and getting Ford to stop laughing."
Then, with the faint crackle of electricity, a hologram erupted in midair.
It resembled a transparent, blue obese, zit-blasted teenage girl with long, black hair and too much eyeliner. Raz blinked.
"Oh, noooo, help me, help, uuh, uuh, ahh, aah, stop, no no, ow." he replied monotonous, his face stuck somewhere between amusement and confusion.
Then, however, the hologram began to speak.
"My Immortal, a Harry Potter fanfic. Chapter one –"
Raz eyes widened in terror, but his face remained a grimace of control. "No matter how bad the fanfics is you make me listen to… No matter hoe much she speaks in bold, italic and underlined text (a common sign of insanity of the highest), I will not tell you the secrets of the schedule."
The three counsellors remained silent. The hologram rambled on. Minutes slowly went by, and horrible grammar, bad spelling, no plot and the overall, extreme severe nausea inducing plot drilled themselves into his head without pity. "You'll never get through with this !"
Nobody answered, only the hologram rambled on, stuffing raw horror into innocent words and hurled them into Raz direction. "DO YOU HEAR ME ? YOU WILL NOT GER THROUGH WITH THIS !" he screamed. Sasha titles his head to the side, made an unspeaking gesture, sighed, and pulled an earplug out of his left ear "What did you say ?"
Raz just groaned and leaned back.
