Chapter 52
"Nazz, move!"
Nazz registered Kevin's voice just in time to jump to the side. A geyser of fire shot past where she was just a moment before and rose into the air behind her.
"What the hell, dude?" Eddy's Brother asked, brandishing his sword. Jimmy glared at him. His eyes were glazed over in anger. His body shimmered and his hair waved around as an intense energy built up around him. Eddy's Brother ran toward the boy, sword in hand.
"Don't hurt him!" Edd screamed.
"Don't get your sock in a knot," the man called back. "I'll just beat some sense into—"
A wall of ice slammed into Eddy's Brother, knocking him back and sending him rolling down the hill.
"I hate to agree with him of all people," Kevin said, "but maybe we do need to beat some sense into Jimmy, or at least knock him out. Maybe the Blue Plague's gotten to him, like it did with me at the glacier!"
Worn from the previous fight and disheartened by their new opponent, everyone drew their weapons and prepared for battle.
~ßßßßß~
Jimmy felt power swirling around him as he used it to cast strong spells at his targets. The Voice moved his body for him, making him dodge attacks and deliver blows of his own. Those horrible, rotten traitors wouldn't stay still as they tried to hit him with pathetically weak attacks.
The hilltop they were on no longer existed, nor did the mountain of boulders or even the sky. There was only Jimmy in a void of blackness and his opponents, his vague, blurry, faceless opponents. Nothing else mattered. Even coherent thought was but a memory as he focused purely on his powers, his body moving on its own as he dodged or ignored whatever oddly-weak blows that made it through his psychic shield.
Occasionally, he would hear strange sounds, like those he made from his mouth when he got hurt or prepared for a powerful attack. Voices, like the one in his head. Only these were not as clear, and they came from the outside. Like the faces of his targets, they were blurry, and blended with one another. Jimmy tried to ignore them, but no matter how hard he tried, occasionally a voice would sound different. He couldn't tell who was talking or what they were saying, but some tiny, pleading part of his mind recognized it, and it occasionally forced him to stumble in a lapse of concentration.
He gained the upper hand when he managed to land a hit on the blonde one. He smacked the opponent with his weapon when it came too close, causing it to sail through the air a ways until it hit the ground. It didn't get back up, and two others foolishly stopped fighting to scramble near it. One of them—the tall one with the useless sword—suddenly charged and smacked the blunt end of his weapon into Jimmy's torso. It hit much harder than any other attack that had landed on him before, but he quickly shrugged it off and forced his opponent away with a powerful burst of energy.
Turning back to the fallen target and the two others standing over it, Jimmy fired a stream of lightning at them. To his surprise, one of them idiotically dashed in front of it. The lighting hit the target dead on. However, the electricity immediately gathered to a spot on the opponent's head. In an instant, it launched back at Jimmy, only to disappear in his shield. Jimmy grew even more furious.
The one who had reflected his attack turned to the others. It said more mumbling words, and began to run away. Jimmy gave chase. Running quickly became pointless, so he propelled himself forward with jets of flame from his hands. He got closer and closer to the coward, but to his surprise, it suddenly vanished with a low boom. Jimmy looked around frantically, but he could no longer sense his target. It had vanished from the area altogether.
Feeling a slight drain from the chase, he rolled on the grass downhill and slowed down. Jimmy had almost forgotten what grass felt like. It was long and cool, but somewhat itchy against his exposed skin.
Wait, why was he contemplating it? He had a battle to win. As he got up, he once again heard the faint chirp in his mind. He felt as though he was on the verge of remembering something, but it was just out of reach. He tried to ignore it, to make it go away, but it was incessant, infuriatingly persistent. It didn't cross the threshold of being unbearable, but it teetered on the line.
It would've driven Jimmy mad if it wasn't begging him to realize that he already was.
Luckily for Jimmy, he soon got back to the fight. The adrenaline of hitting his targets with full power helped to blot out everything else, and soon even the mumbled, pleading voices of his prey no longer slowed him down. Time passed—the only way Jimmy recognized that it had was because his targets were wearing down, getting back up less quickly and slowing down in their movements—until he heard a second low boom. He turned, sensing his new opponents before seeing them. The one who'd escaped earlier was back, and there was someone else with it. Jimmy let a surge of power and rage flow around him. He wasn't just going to decimate the coward and the red-haired girl, he was going to drag it out and let them suffer—
"Jimmy?"
Everything froze. Jimmy's body stood still. Time crept to a halt. That voice. What is that voice?
That is none of my concern.
But it is mine. Jimmy wormed his way through the tiny speck in his mind. Waves of terror formed around him as he felt his senses coming back, the horrors of what he was doing filling him with dread. His consciousness bled around him, tearing through a thick fog that concealed the truth. It was terrifying. Horrible. What have I done?
Don't struggle. Let the power ease you of such feelings.
Never! Jimmy clung fiercely to his fear. It was horrible, but he knew it was the only piece of humanity he had. He struggled and fought to stay conscious, to stay more than just the pleading voice that went unheard. Unheard. He had heard her. He knew that voice. He'd always known her voice!
That's not important!
It is! That girl—she's calling my name!
I'll kill her! I'll kill all of them!
No!
"No you won't!"
Jimmy thrust himself forward. His mind was clear, clearer than he'd ever felt before. Every thought, every emotion rushing through his head was his own, growing more powerful as Voice ripped away from it. However, the Voice fought back, and Jimmy struggled against it. It was ungodly, the feeling of his very psyche separating. His mind was expanding, splitting apart into two separate consciousnesses. Even as they divided, the thoughts of one still penetrated the thoughts of the other. Jimmy could hear the Voice screaming at him, mentally clawing to get a hold of his consciousness and reunite with it. He kept moving forward, however. Sarah was calling him. Sarah!
The ripping sensation went from his mind to his body, and Jimmy's senses began to come back to him. He tried to step forward, struggling as some force tried to pull him back. He felt a horrid aura behind him, and when he opened his eyes he saw that the air around the corners of his vision was dark and distorted. In front of him was Kevin and Sarah, staring at him with looks of shock and concern. Jimmy felt the force pulling him back grow stronger, and he held out his hand in desperation.
"Jimmy!" Sarah ran forward and clasped onto his hand. She pulled hard, and Jimmy felt himself moving forward. Kevin ran behind Sarah and pulled on her, and then Ed did the same with Kevin. Jimmy's arm felt like it was on fire, screaming in pain, but he grew free enough from the aura to lift his other hand out. Edd and Nazz grabbed it, and with a countdown given by the former, everyone pulled Jimmy out. He flew through the air for a few feet, and landed near the boulder mountain.
"Jimmy, are you okay?!" Sarah dashed toward Jimmy and knelt near him. He breathed heavy, tears rolling down his face.
"I'm so sorry!" he pleaded. "I-I-I d-didn't mean to!"
Before he could say anything else, a sudden burst of air blew past everyone. With Sarah's help, Jimy struggled to his feet, and they looked past the others to where he was a few moments ago. Standing in Jimmy's place was a cloud, a deep blue aura of sorts. It continually shifted around in erratic spurts. Lightning zipped around it, small puffs of flame appeared and disappeared nearby, and the grass beneath it froze.
The aura suddenly condensed. Everyone took a cautious step back as it grew more and more solid, taking on a definite shape. Jimmy gasped as he saw what it was turning into. Two arms sprouted from a torso, then a pair of legs, and then a head. Tufts of puffy hair sprouted on top of it, and a large retainer orbited around its mouth.
It turned into Jimmy.
The aura didn't solidify completely. While most of it was in the shape of a dark, smoke-like Jimmy, the rest of it swirled around him in a blue miasma. The dark Jimmy scanned the area, his face livid and his eyes a dark crimson.
"J-Jimmy," Ed gasped. "This was inside you?"
"I-I…" Jimmy lost focus. His mind suddenly felt very hollow, the presence of the warm psychic energy that used to be inside him all but nonexistent. "I-th-think it's my PSI!" he called. "At first I couldn't use my powers, unless this voice in my head let me. That thing must be the voice! My PSI is evil!"
Dark Jimmy calmly waved an arm in front of him. In an instant, a tidal wave of fire materialized in front of him and burst forward.
"Take cover!" Kevin screamed as everyone sprinted to get out of the way. Nazz tried to absorb the flame with her PSI Neutralizer, but the attack pushed her back and burnt her skin faster than the device could protect her. Sarah grabbed Jimmy and the two jumped to the side just before the fire wall slammed into the mountain.
"Jimmy, if you really can't use your powers anymore, then get to safety!" Kevin shouted, running to Nazz's aid. "We'll take care of this impostor!"
Jimmy tried to get to his feet, but couldn't find the strength to stand. He turned to see Sarah running into the fray with everyone else, and a pit welled up in his throat. Without a word, he crawled into one of the mountain's many openings and hid inside.
The inside of the mountain was surprisingly dark. It was hollow, as Jimmy could see the boulders piled up all the way on the other side of it, but sunlight only slipped through a few cracks up above. A gaping hole took up most of the mountain's stone floor, where a powerful jet of air blasted up from it. The wind was warm and amazingly quiet, making little more noise than a distant rumble. Jimmy could definitely tell that it was home to a sanctuary, but between the guilt in his stomach and the hollowness in his mind, he couldn't enjoy the peace around him.
"What are you doing in here?"
Jimmy jumped at the sound of an old man's voice. Scrambling to his feet in terror, he fumbled to draw his golf driver and looked around.
"Easy there, I didn't mean to frighten you."
Squinting, Jimmy saw the outline of a stout man nearby. His features were obscured in the dark, but he didn't seem very intimidating.
"Wh-who are you?" Jimmy asked. "What are you doing all the way out here?"
"I could be asking you that," the man said. His voice had a strange quirkiness to it, like he could burst out in a warm chuckle at any moment. "I was simply hiding from that beast-man that you all fought off. A good show, if I do say so myself."
"Oh." Jimmy thought back to when he first saw the Wolf, who looked like he was pawing inside the cave for something. Of course, all he had been thinking at the time was how to go about obliterating it. "Well, I don't think I'm going to be fighting anymore."
"Why do you say that? You seemed to be the one with the most gusto, aside from that man."
"B-but that was the Voice! It was my PSI powers, controlling me and making me evil." Jimmy sighed, and then remembered that "PSI" wasn't a household term. He opened his mouth to explain, but the man cut him off.
"Your PSI is evil, you say?"
"Uh—well, yeah, I mean—"
"I find that hard to believe." The man leaned against the wall, and tilted his head up. "Now I don't possess such powers myself, but I know some that do, and I've studied it quite thoroughly through them. If there is one thing I know for sure, it's that PSI is never intrinsically good or evil. It is simply energy."
"B-but what is that, then?" Jimmy peaked through an opening in the mountain, and saw the others battling with Dark Jimmy. The being made minuscule movements, but with each one a devastating psychic attack would materialize. The others could barely get close to him, as he maintained both a psychic shield and a physical one at the same time.
"You didn't let me finish," the man said calmly. "PSI is a strange yet magnificent form of energy. It can only come from something with a mind, a living consciousness that not only tells the energy what to do, be it manifesting itself physically or interacting with the metaphysical world around us, but it also gives the energy a signature. A color, or flavor, so to speak, which is unique to every single person that possesses it."
Jimmy gave the man a few seconds to continue, and when he didn't, he said, "Okay, but what does that have to do with me? With this?"
"It has everything to do with you. It's your PSI, is it not? Only you can control it. It is a part of you, part of your mind, part of your personality, part of your very being even. It is no more good nor evil than you think it is, than the actions you use it for."
Jimmy couldn't find anything to say back. He pressed his fingers to his temples and lost himself in his thoughts, feeling the newfound hollowness of his mind. It certainly wasn't what he'd felt like before he first used his powers. There was something there before, even if he'd never really felt it. It had been there for as far back as he could remember, and now it was just gone.
"Now, while I've never seen a case quite like yours," the man continued, "I can say with a fair amount of certainty that if your friends do manage to defeat your PSI, then it will be gone for good. That probably isn't likely, though, for I haven't seen that much raw power come from one person since…" his voice faded, but he shook his head and continued, "Well, I don't think you'd have to worry about that particular scenario as much as you might… a different one."
Jimmy gasped, and looked out to the battle. Kevin and Ed were madly dashing around, focusing their full attention on healing the others. Rolf and Eddy's Brother rushed toward Dark Jimmy, attacking it with all of their might the instant Nazz disabled its physical shield. Dark Jimmy simply electrocuted them before they could get any closer. He levitated a little off the ground and moved forward, ignoring the two that he'd just stricken down.
"Now you seem a bit tired, which is understandable," the man said. Still hidden in the dark, he walked near the opening that Jimmy stood at from the other side and pulled something out of his coat. "If you'd like, I could provide some cover for you, in case you wish to do something about this mess."
Jimmy leaned against one of the boulders, clenching onto it. His entire body shook. Was that thing really a part of him? He scanned the field once again, and his eyes locked on Sarah. She dashed around madly to avoid Dark Jimmy's attacks and push others to safety. She didn't avoid everything, however. A streak of lightning would trip her. A stray chunk of ice cut through her arm. A lick of flame scorched her clothes. She began to run slower and slower, and more attacks connected.
She was going to die, and it would be all Jimmy's fault.
"Y-yyeeeeaaaaaaaauuuuuggghh!" Jimmy charged out of the cave, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"W—hold on! I'm not set up yet!" the man called after him. Jimmy kept running. Ed, Nazz, Edd and Rolf lay on the ground unconscious around him, while Kevin and Eddy's Brother called out to ask what the heck he was thinking.
"Jimmy!" Sarah cried out.
"I know what I'm doing!" Jimmy lied back. Dark Jimmy took notice of him, and immediately summoned a bolt of lightning. It slammed into Jimmy, causing him to trip and fall to the ground. He felt the lightning course through him, making his entire body buzz sharply with pain. However, there was another feeling, something even stronger than the pain.
It felt familiar. It was his.
Jimmy got to his feet, the lightning still zipping around his body. He could feel it, not just through the pain but through an entirely different sense as well. The lightning came from him, not the Voice, not from something or someone else. With a mental twitch, he changed its path around his body. It continued to zip around his clothes, but no longer passed through him directly. Though it was small in comparison to Dark Jimmy's power, the energy Jimmy had was in his total control. It was his.
A series of low screeches suddenly sounded from behind. Jimmy turned around to see something—five things—rocketing from the boulder mountain. As they came closer, he realized that they were rockets, each no bigger than a bottle of soda, blasting toward Dark Jimmy. One crashed into his shield, exploding with a force powerful enough to shatter it. Everyone that was still conscious watched in awe as the other four rockets slammed into Dark Jimmy himself, each giving off an intense boom as they exploded.
"Go, boy! GO!" Jimmy heard the man shout cheesily from behind. He dashed forward, covering his mouth as smoke began to surround him. Without a further thought, he dove forward, and landed right on top of Dark Jimmy.
At once, Jimmy felt the immense power surge through him. It threatened to tear his body apart, but as before, Jimmy felt an intense familiarity. He kept it at bay. It couldn't hurt him. It was his.
You're an idiot! You're weak both in mind and body, and you think you can overpower me?
The feeling of Jimmy's mind merging back with the Voice was just as unpleasant as it was the other way around. This time, however, they were pushing into one another instead of pulling away. Jimmy's bodily senses began to fade. He saw nothing but the void. He couldn't hear anything over a fierce roar of noise that enveloped him. The Voice passed into Jimmy's consciousness, threatening to take it over again, but this time Jimmy fought back
You want to get rid of me? Without me, you're nothing but a scrawny little crybaby!
The Voice flashed images in Jimmy's head, memories of all the times he'd gotten hurt or cried. They were vivid, taking over his senses and forcing him to feel every cut and bruise he'd ever gotten. Jimmy almost felt like crying himself, but he continued his mental push. The energy around him was becoming more familiar, more his own with each passing second. At once, he saw into the Voice, and new images flashed before him. He saw himself making a deal with the Kanker sisters. He saw his ice pop scam, and the look on the Eds faces when they didn't get any of the money he made from it. He saw his own deviant smile, his cunning wit taking on a form of its own.
"Y-you're me," Jimmy gasped. He'd almost forgotten about the need to breathe at this point. "You're a part of me!"
I am the better you!
Jimmy pushed harder, digging deeper into the Voice's consciousness. The further he went, the more it felt like his own. The Voice retaliated, sending frantic images of past nightmares and horrid memories, but Jimmy held fast.
"You're my tough side. The planning, cunning, scheming part of my mind! You're not any more important than anything else about me." Jimmy's voice was hoarse and struggled. He couldn't tell what was happening physically anymore, but his mind was becoming more and more clear. "But you're not any less important either! You and my PSI are both part of me. I am not a medium, or a vessel. We're all one and the same!"
Jimmy felt his PSI swirling madly around him. The Voice cried out in anger, but it began to fade. The darkness around it began to fade as well, evaporating into nothing as Jimmy felt his mind coming together. His thoughts became more clear, and the Voice transformed from a separate entity into something else entirely. It became memories, memories of all the times Jimmy had used PSI. He felt all the lightning that had coursed through his fingertips, the heat from all the fire he'd conjured, and the warm psychic glow of his powers in his head.
One particular memory surfaced, and everything slowed down as Jimmy watched it unfold before him. He saw the very first time he used PSI, back at the glacier when everyone had fallen off the train. He had used PK Fire, not to attack one of the many enemies around them, but to save Kevin's life when no one else could.
Jimmy smiled, and felt a warmth inside him. All at once, his senses came back, and he was standing back on the hill. He saw and felt and heard his PSI swirling around him, giving a brilliant purple aura as it quelled and began to seep back inside his body.
Everything became quiet, save for a warm gust of wind blowing from the mountain.
"J-Jimmy, are you okay?" Sarah walked cautiously toward the boy. She was cut and bruised and beaten, but her face only showed concern.
"I-I think so," Jimmy said. He felt dumbfounded, not knowing whether to move or keep still. His mind was so clear, though. He smiled at Sarah, who returned the look and broke into a run. She charged into Jimmy and hugged him tightly.
Jimmy immediately hugged her back. She felt so warm, so familiar. More memories rushed through his head, of all the times the two of them had played together and helped one another and hurt one another. Through the good and bad, she was always there, and she was here now. For moment, Jimmy felt like he was back at the cul-de-sac, enjoying a breezy summer day with Sarah.
His eyes fluttered open. He saw his hands glow a light green, and he heard Sarah gasp as her wounds began to close. Beaming, he hugged her tighter, and she did the same. He felt energy come from himself, not from the Voice or anything else. It was purely his, to give to her.
"Dude, that was amazing!" Kevin shouted from near the mountain. He helped Rolf to his feet, the last person to be brought back to consciousness. "What did you do to Dark Jimmy?"
Jimmy nearly winced at Kevin's voice removing him from the moment. Sarah finally broke away from the hug, but she smiled at him, and he felt better. "I-I dunno," Jimmy replied. "I took my PSI back from him, I guess." He walked over to the others with Sarah, and continued, "When I first realized that I had special powers, I was afraid of them. Well, most of me was, I guess. A different part of me wanted to use them, though, so I think it turned into its own… thingy."
"Amazing! 'PSI is able to inhabit and split apart different parts of one's personality'. I'll have to add that to my notes!"
Everyone turned to the boulder mountain. The man Jimmy saw before stepped out of it into the light.
"Who are you?" Kevin asked.
Jimmy heard the man finally let out a warm chuckle. He was stout, almost as short as Eddy. A pair of thick, foggy glasses covered his eyes, and he wore a white lab coat. Two puffs of white hair sat on his otherwise bald head, and he sported a thick mustache that covered his mouth.
"I believe that you are the ones I have been waiting for. I am Doctor Lloyd Kohfey Andonuts. But, if you'd like, you may simply call me Doctor Andonuts."
