Author's Note

My next favorite chapter. I mainly added this for the sake of lengthening my story... I didn't want to stop at ten as I usually do. So, more random hilarity ensues.

Whoever can name all the video game references in this chapter gets a cookie ^_^

Chapter 10: Your Brain on Video Games

"Hello, and welcome to the Axion Science Research Institute," said a soothing computerized voice. Sam looked around for the source of the voice, but she only saw a white hallway that extended for several yards in front of her. "This test facility is completely harmless," the voice assured. A second later, some kind of beeping device fell from the ceiling. Sam darted down the hall and escaped through a door. The room rocked from the impact of the explosion. Sam sat down and sighed in relief. "However, not all Axion Science devices are beneficial to your health."

"Coulda told me that sooner," Sam muttered angrily. "Where are you, you stupid computer? What am I doing here?"

"There will be time for questions later, test subject. For now, make your way to the next death- I mean- TEST chamber. Yes. Hurry, before the security system in this room is activated."

"The what now?" Sam asked. The computer voice did not respond. Sam looked for a door, but all she saw were some monitors and a desk with some test tubes on it. There were no buttons and no doors except the one she had come through, and that hallway no longer existed. She heard a beep and spun to the left. The walls on either side of the room were slowly rising into the ceiling. This time, Sam heard a digital voice filled with malice.

"There you are…"

Raz was about to pull down his goggles, until he realized he was still wearing the Psychonaut uniform. Old habits died hard. Besides, goggles would only reduce his visibility in such a dark place. He heard someone speaking Japanese. He looked around and saw no one else in the room. He shrugged and walked along the path in front of him. Raz seemed to be in a poorly lit building made out of old wood.

"Ancient Japan… home of sushi, Noh acting, and…" He heard a sword drawn and the sound of footsteps running toward him. "…Ninjas." As soon as he could see the glint of swords, Raz turned invisible and levitated out of harm's way. "Too easy." With one psi-blast, he reduced both ninja warriors to pure psychic energy. More footsteps came pounding down the hallway. "They never learn, do they?"

Jazz found herself in front of a dangerous-looking bridge in some kind of dark and unrecognizable universe. She looked down and found herself wearing a pink electronic power suit with the letter "J" on her chest.

"What kind of demented world is this?" she thought. She heard a horn and saw a demon truck materialize at the far end of the bridge. It was rushing at her at a good 50 miles per hour. "Oooh crud…" Jazz backed up and aimed a hand at the truck, hoping something would happen. For once, it did. She shot a beam of energy at the truck, knocking off one of the rearview mirrors. The truck kept coming. The horn blew again and Jazz prepared for impact.

"HI-YAH!" Danny ducked as a guy lunged at him with a disgustingly huge sword. Danny phased through the floor and hit the guy from behind. The guy growled and spun around. Danny couldn't react fast enough and went flying across the courtyard.

"Nothing will stop me from getting the sword," the guy with the giant sword said. Danny raised an eyebrow. "The sword with the power to rule the universe!"

"Oh," Danny responded. "Good luck with that." He pointed the Reality Gauntlet at the guy's sword and turned it into a bowl of rice. The swordsman screamed viciously and charged at Danny with his fists. Danny raised the Reality Gauntlet and hit the guy, sending him flying off the edge of a cliff. "Now to find Vlad and—" He was interrupted by a booming voice.

"FATALITY," it said.

Suddenly the environment changed. Danny heard a countdown. He was now in an empty church… well, almost empty. A girl in a blue kimono stood across from him. She brandished a pair of daggers and smirked at him. The countdown ended and she attacked.

Sam knocked over the table and hid behind it. The doors rose completely and machine gun fire pummeled her makeshift shield. She crawled toward the opening that didn't have a psychotic military robot guarding it.

"That crate to your left probably won't help you at all," the computerized voice said sarcastically. Sam looked to her left and saw a metallic crate with the Axion logo on it. She smirked and dragged the crate back to her hiding place. The robot stopped firing.

"Where are you?" it asked innocently.

"Right here!" Sam shouted, jumping up and throwing the abnormally light crate at the robot. It shot off a few rounds before being vaporized. Sam blinked at the charred ground that used to be a robot. "Exploding crates… genius."

"The crate contained chemicals for our completely harmless shoe-making division," the computer told her. "Please proceed. Axion Labs assures you that the following tests will be more user-friendly."

"I guess I don't have a choice," Sam muttered. She stepped into the room where the robot had been. "Hey… there's no way out of here!"

"Going down," the voice said. A trapdoor opened under Sam's feet, plunging her down a steep slide into the next challenge.

Raz blasted a few more ninjas into submission before checking his backpack. "Dang it… no smelling salts… but hey, I still have Cruller's bacon!" He pulled out the strip of bacon and held it to his ear.

"Raz, are you alright?" Ford Cruller asked as his head popped out of Raz's ear.

"So far," Raz responded. "Where are you and the others?"

"They took me back to my headquarters," Ford responded. "I can't leave again without losing my mind. But the others—Sasha, Milla, Morry and Lili are on their way. What's going on?"

"We're trapped in the mind of some random guy… well… a girl who used to be a guy," Raz replied.

"…Wow, must be plenty of issues to sort out there," Ford said.

"It's a long story. The important part is that there's a gauntlet in here that can manipulate reality, and there's also an insane ghost with skate-park hair who wants to use it."

"If I hadn't seen that guy myself, I wouldn't believe a word you just said."

"You can contact the others, right?"

"Sure I can."

"Okay… here's my plan…"

Jazz didn't think she had much to be afraid of. This was only a mental world… once the truck hit her, she'd be thrown out of Tucker's mind.

But that didn't happen. The truck's tires exploded and it came skidding to a halt, spinning sideways and narrowly missing Jazz. Jazz opened her eyes and blinked.

"You okay?" Tucker asked, blasting the dead truck out of the way.

"I'm fine… thanks," Jazz responded. "…I thought you'd look normal in your own mind." Tucker still looked like Valerie, but her power suit was purple with the letter "T" on it.

"Oh well, I'm getting used to it," Tucker said. "But we've still gotta find a Reality Gauntlet and get everything back to normal."

"Then we should find out where Danny is," Jazz suggested. "He's got the complete Reality Gauntlet. The Vlad clones only have the Gem of Form."

"Doesn't that mean we have to play completely through this game, though?"

"Helloooo? It's your mind," Jazz said. "You can control it."

"…Oh, duh," Tucker said, smacking her forehead. "Let's go." She snapped her fingers, opening a portal in the wall behind them.

"I don't have time for this," Danny said, floating out of the way of the girl's attacks. He threw an ice beam at her arms, freezing them solid and making her attacks useless. "I need to find Vlad and put the Reality Gauntlets back together!" He pointed said gauntlet at the girl and turned her into a penguin.

"ROUND TWO," the mysterious announcer called.

The penguin vanished and the dagger-girl respawned across the room. At the same time, a portal opened next to Danny, letting Jazz and Tuck into the game. Their power suits turned into light suits of armor.

"Jazz, Val—I mean Tucker! You guys haven't found any Vlads around here, have you?" Danny asked. The dagger-girl flipped toward him and lunged at him with her daggers. They didn't even make contact.

"I don't think there's anything in the Doomed zone," Tucker responded. The bloodthirsty woman tried again and again to hit Danny, but her weapons just passed through him. Exasperated, she darted around to attack Tuck. She pulled out a sword and parried. "Cool, we're in Soul Warrior 3!" She dodged another attack and swung her sword at the dagger-girl's head. "Nice moves, Yumi, but I've beaten this game with every character." Tuck knocked the daggers away and slashed Yumi through the torso. Her digital image disappeared.

"FATALITY!"

"Wow," Danny said. "He's a better fighter as a girl."

"Hey," Tuck objected. "You have a gauntlet; can't you change me back now?" Danny shot a yellow beam at Tucker, but nothing happened.

"That would be a no," Danny replied.

"I didn't think it would work in your mind," Jazz mused. "You'll have to wait till we get outside."

The world around them fizzled out and was replaced by a barren landscape. "Wow… we've already made it to the final boss…" Tuck explained.

"He can't be that hard to deal with," Danny said cockily.

The three of them were surrounded by a circle of lightning, crackling and destroying the ground nearby. A lightning bolt struck the ground in front of them. Vlad Plasmius stood where the bolt had struck. The copy smirked.

"Like I said," Danny added, aiming his Reality Gauntlet. Nothing happened. "Not now! Come on!"

"We can take him," Jazz said, pulling out an energy whip. Tucker nodded and charged into battle.

Sam found herself standing above a shallow pit. In the center was some kind of gun raised on a pedestal. Around the gun were flames and a deep chasm.

"The non-violent weapon you see before you is the Axion Science Handheld Laser Transmitter," the voice explained. "It is capable of teleporting the user to the aimed-at location. It may prove useful during the tests to follow."

"How am I supposed to get THAT?" Sam asked.

"Jump."

"Oh thanks, you're a lot of help," Sam replied sarcastically.

"The Research Institute is happy to provide helpful advice."

Sam got as close to the wall as she could. Then she ran at full speed toward the pit, leaping into it and hoping to hit solid ground. She landed in front of the device and picked it up.

"Congratulations. You are now in possession of the Laser Gun. Side-effects may include hair loss, calcium deficiency, and—"

"Yeah, yeah, I don't care," Sam told the annoying voice. A panel slid open above her head. Seeing no other options, she aimed the gun above her and fired. She came face-to-face with another maniacal robot. "Oh come on………"

Tucker and Jazz attacked Vlad with their weapons. Tucker's sword had no effect, but the energy whip wrapped around him and electrocuted him. Danny hit him with an ecto-blast and punched him in the stomach, throwing him into the sparks outside the fighting arena. The copy dissolved into ecto-energy, leaving its Reality Gauntlet behind. Jazz used her whip to pull the gauntlet to her.

"That was easy," Jazz remarked, handing the gauntlet to Danny. He tried to put it back together with his own, but to no avail.

"The more I use this thing, the less sense it makes," Danny complained. He returned the gauntlet to Jazz. "You keep it. We need all the reality bending power we can get."

"What about me?" Tuck wondered.

"You can get the next one," Danny assured her. "There are still four more copies to find."

"So, where's the next game?" Jazz asked. Tuck closed her eyes and thought. Within a few seconds, a portal appeared in front of them. The three walked through… and came face-to-face with a fifty-foot tall mechanical insect. "Seriously, you have got to stop playing these things!"

The robot fired like a Fourth of July demonstration, but Sam was already out of the way. She teleported behind the robot and ran around a corner, leaving the robot alone and confused. She gasped for breath. Without warning, the ground below her started to move.

"Warning: Devices in the institute operate automatically and without warning," the computer voice pointed out. Sam heard more machinery fire up. She looked above her and saw a spiked ceiling moving towards her. She fired the gun ahead of her, narrowly avoiding a painful death.

"What kind of research is this?" Sam shouted angrily. "How many ways can a computer kill someone?"

"According to test protocol, no research information shall be disclosed to the subject in question."

Sam banged her head against the nearest wall. Or at least, she tried to. Instead, she fell right through the wall as if it didn't exist. The next thing she knew, she could see a strange city… about a thousand feet below her.