Chapter Two: Old Communications

Entering the lecture hall, Raz and Lili were greeted with what appeared to be beds and Sasha Nein standing at a podium right at the bottom row, waiting for all the students to arrive so that he could get started with class.

"Raz. Lili. Glad you could join us, take a seat anywhere and we can get started." He greeted, nodding to the teens. The two simply shrugged and attempted to make their way to one of the open beds, but were stopped abruptly by a rather annoying voice.

"Just don't go trying to share a bed, lovebirds!" The voice exclaimed, causing the two teens to flush. While Raz was more preoccupied with his own embarrassment, Lili was furious by whatever the voice was implying and scanned the room for the culprit, finding that it was none other than their tormentor Norma.

"Norma." Lili's tone was filled with venom as she glared daggers at the brown haired girl. The three of them hadn't exactly had a good relationship, especially after Lili had found out about the way that she had treated Raz back when they were younger. For a time it seemed that things would get better, but after Raz was permitted to be mentored with Sasha along with her she had started acting annoyingly narcissistic once again.

Norma was your typical mean girl, but above all else she was a total hothead (Literally). She had short brown messy hair that she covered with a beanie, and her skin was an odd tint of pink that may have signified the heat produced from her powers. Aside from her mean girl antics, she was normally pretty tolerable, but she really had it out for Razputin in particular. Ever since he was ten she made it a point to make his life a nightmare. Obviously that didn't sit well with Lili.

"Lili. Here's to another great year, yeah?" Norma's voice was smug; she had the intention of antagonizing the red haired girl, but Raz had snapped out of his embarrassment and stepped between the two before any more words could be thrown at either party.

"Hey, guys, take it easy. We're here for class, there's no need to go and try to kill each other." Raz spoke, attempting to deescalate the situation. His attempt would be successful, but mainly due to Norma's sister Lizzie making her way over and yanking her sister back by her collar.

Lizzie had appeared like the complete opposite to her sister. She was quiet, and cold in nature, and didn't care about making her true feelings known from the start. She, unlike her sister, had blue skin and wore an abundance of pelts and fur articles of clothing. She even had a few tattoos, but if you asked her about it she'd tell you respectfully to fuck off.

"Liz-"

"I get you want to squash whatever competition there is, but it's pretty pathetic that you're bullying them when you're 18." Liz scolded, smirking as her sister's expression turned to one of pure rage, but before she could have her outburst, Sasha cleared his throat to alert them that he was watching them.

"...I'll get you back for this. And you aren't safe either, twerps!" Norma exclaimed, storming off with Lizzie trailing behind her to find a suitable place for them to sit.

Raz let out a sigh of relief as Lili continued to eye Norma with her brow furrowed in annoyance. "Geez, the hell's her deal… Why does she hate you so much?"

"I think it's the fact that she doesn't like that I'm Sasha's pupil now too. Must think I'm replacing her or something, but I don't think she hates me." Raz replied, shrugging as he gestured towards two free beds that were beside them. "Anyways, you can have the first pick. Thanks for trying to defend us, Lili."

Lili smiled, "Someone has to. You're too much of a pushover to try and defend yourself."

"Hey! I'm not helpless, y'know?" Raz asked rhetorically, crossing his arms defensively as Lili simply laughed at him.

"Sure act like it. Now come on, we've gotta get ready for class. Hurry up and pick a bed." Lili replied, flopping onto the closest bed to her as Raz was left without a way to defend himself, proving Lili right.

"Fine. But I'm doing it because I want to. Not because you told me to."

The earlier portion of their classes were filled with the finer details of the mind, such as how to use words and communication to sway an opponent in order to gain the upper hand in combat, or how to fix broken communication units courtesy of Otto Mentalis. All in which are in response to not having access to your psychic powers.

It seemed like they were training them for the worst possible scenarios for a Psychonaut to be in, but that wasn't very surprising. What was surprising was that they were doing this on the first day of all days.

"How am I supposed to write a paper on using herbaphony to lockpick? How do you even explain that?" Lili groaned, staring down at the syllabus provided to them in order to get a proper hold of their classes and plan for the assignments to come.

"You just have to-" Raz started, before swiftly being interrupted.

"Don't finish that sentence. I'm annoyed, not incompetent." Lili used her telekinesis to place her syllabus into her backpack while walking to what appeared to be their next class. "Anyways, what do you wanna do for lunch?"

Turning to him after a few seconds without a response she found that Raz was looking around the hallway rather cautiously. Upon further inspection it looked like they were getting stares from some of the new Junior Psychonauts.

Who could blame them? They were the first group that were up to graduate. Lili was already well known as the daughter of the grand head, but Razputin wasn't that far behind. His name was known throughout the facility, whispering conversations of the ten year old who saved Truman Zanotto and defeated Maligula. They were pretty much celebrities in the eyes of the freshmen.

"Seriously, is it really that hard to mind your own business..?" She mumbled under her breath, glaring at a few of the students eyeing them, watching as they turned away from them in a mixture of fear and excitement. They just locked eyes with someone that seemed so high up in the social hierarchy. "It's not like we're exactly famous, but geez. Talk about unnerving."

Raz nodded in agreement, "Yeah, sorry. It was just a little distracting, if this is what lunch is gonna be like we might not want to go to the cafeteria."

"You could always come to my diner." A voice spoke, with a flash of orange shooting in front of them, revealing itself to be Sam Boole. She was another one of their senior classmates, though she was a bit more aloof and kind hearted than the twin sisters. "If you want to get away from all these stares."

"Oh, Sam! That actually sounds like a great idea, what do you think, Lili?" Raz turned to Lili with a smile and a tilt of his head, to which she replied with a nod.

"Beats all these weirdos staring. Thanks Sam." Lili spoke, nudging Raz with her elbow to signify that they needed to head to their next class. "We're gonna be late, we should probably get to class."

"Oh, you're right! Want me to-" He started, being cut off by Lili locking their arms and dragging him along.

"No need, our class is just down the hall. You coming, Sam?" Lili inquired, turning to Sam as they continued on down the hall without her.

Sam hesitated to answer for a moment, glancing behind her before using her hand to make a shooing motion. "No, go on ahead. I'll catch up with you guys in a minute."

"Huh, that was weird. Like more than normal for her." Raz noted, freeing himself from Lili yanking him around, using his newly freed hand to cup his chin in thought.

"She was probably waiting for Adam. Pretty sure she has a thing for him." Lili commented, shrugging as Raz stared at her in confusion. How could she come to that conclusion?

"What makes you say that?" He inquired, tilting his head curiously as he turned his head around to look at Sam in the distance, she was conversing with Adam rather happily. "Oh… I guess that would make sense."

"Right? Seriously, you couldn't make it any more obvious." She joked as the duo made their way into their next classroom, with their teacher Milla Vodello smiling and waving at them as they entered.

She was a tall and beautiful woman, with one of the nicest smiles and auras you'd ever see in your lifetime. She was definitely a fan favorite of many of the students due to her friendly and caring nature, but just as bright as her personality was her choice of fashion. Bright colored dresses and earrings to go along with her gorgeous long brown hair.

"Hello, darlings. Come in and take a seat, we've got much to cover for today's lesson." The woman greeted, smiling at the as she gestured to the many bean bag chairs that were littered across the lecture hall.

Waving back to their teacher briefly, the two teens made their way to a pair of bean bags laying in wait for them as Sam and Adam entered the classroom laughing and presumably flirting with each other.

"I have no idea how I didn't see it sooner." Raz commented, watching the two of them enter the room together.

"Told you. They're pretty obvious." Lili whispered in response, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly as Milla stood from her meditation position in order to begin teaching her lesson.

"Alright class, listen up please! We're going to review an older subject just so that we can make sure none of you have gotten too rusty. Think of it as a refresher." Milla informed, looking amongst her class cheerfully before she continued. "Our plan is to showcase your specialties. Something to show off just how much your hard work has paid off! Who would like to go first?"

All at once, all of the students in the class raised their hands excitedly to show off what they had learned over the years while training at the academy, all excluding Lili who couldn't care less about showing off.

"Mmm, Razputin, how about you?" Milla called, gesturing for the boy to come up to the stand and showcase his abilities to the class. Raz confidently made his way up to the front of the class with a smile on his face and pulled a small rubber ball out of his bag. "Whenever you're ready, dear."

Due to his past of performing with his family, Raz was more than confident that he'd put on a great show and wow the crowd. Even if most of them seemed more disinterested than anything. All except for Lili.

"Alright, well, as some of you may know, last year I was rather proficient with my teleportation, a skill I didn't even know I had until our second year when we were trying to figure out our specialties." He began, tossing the ball in his hand idly as he stared at his classmates with a confident smile. "And that's all fine and dandy, I have no issues trying to teleport myself around, like so."

Suddenly Raz appeared behind Norma, removing the girl's beanie and inspecting it as she realized just what was happening. "Hey, you prick!"

Placing the beanie back down onto the girl's head he then suddenly vanished once more and appeared before Adam who was idly rolling his yoyo around, but as Raz appeared the yoyo was snagged out of his hands. "And y'know, I got to thinking. What if it wasn't just myself that I could teleport? What if I could try something new?"

Raz tossed the yoyo back into Adam's hands as he vanished once more and appeared behind Lili where he propped his arms on top of her head with a playful smile while she scowled angrily. "So I got to experimenting, trying different ways to use my abilities. I even tried combining a few, which ended up in some less than ideal situations…"

Lili swiftly moved aside, causing Raz to nearly fall over, but just as he was about to hit the ground he used his teleportation once more and rematerialized in a standing position right beside Milla once more, stumbling slightly as the rush nearly got to his head.

"Ahem… But I'm happy to tell you all that I've figured it out! I figured out how to use Apportation!" Raz exclaimed, taking the ball in his hand and making it teleport from his hand to the top of his head, balancing it rather easily. "With this, I could move large scale objects with ease and not even break a sweat! Heck, with apparition I could try to relocate vehicles and all kinds of other equipment!"

"Oooh, that's very resourceful, Razputin. I'm quite impressed with your progress." Milla praised, clapping her hands together excitedly as those that were now interested in what Raz was showcasing joined in with her applause.

"Thank you guys, it's definitely one of my more situational techniques, but I think it'll go a long way." He finalized, grabbing the ball balancing on his head and placing it back into his bag before bowing courteously and heading back over to his seat.

As Raz made his way back to the beanbag, Lili stretched her hand out and gave the boy a small low-five in order to congratulate him for his hard work. It was little gestures like this that assured him that she was happy for him and not just making fun of him 24/7 (Even though that's totally what she did).

"Alright, so we still need each of you to come up and showcase your specialties that you should have been practicing with. Who wants to come up next?" Milla questioned, smiling as the students began to raise their hands excitedly once more.

The class would go by like that, with each member of the class going up to the front of the room and presenting what they had been practicing on since the beginning of their time there at the academy. Razputin had his Apportation, Lili had her Herbaphony and Pyrokinesis which she combined to make "Flaming Death Plants", Adam showed off many of his new yoyo tricks that he'd apply into a unique martial art, Sam had nearly summoned a whale into the facility, Norma had learned to turn the air around her into explosions, Lizzie figured out how to turn the classroom into a ski resort, and Morris and Gisu learned more advanced ways to keep themselves afloat without their equipment, much like Milla.

All in all the students were at their best, some would say they were more than ready to be assigned real missions regarding the safety of the world once again, but as of yet there hadn't been any major threats so they were perfectly fine training until the time came.

"Well, I'd say today's class was a complete success! You all did so well!" Milla complimented, smiling at her students as the bell rang to signify that it was now time for lunch. "Have a good lunch everyone, I can't wait for tomorrow's lesson! We're going to talk about meditation and psychic focus!"

Everyone began to gather their things and prepare for lunch, but seeing as a certain someone had a quick shortcut to Sam's diner and back, they all silently agreed to bother Razputin and see if he could take them on a quick trip outside of the academy.

"Hey Raz, are you guys ready to go?" Sam questioned, shifting her attention between Raz and Lili as the rest of the seniors stood behind her waiting for their instantaneous transportation.

"U-Uh, yeah. Is everyone coming along with us? I wasn't expecting to teleport this big of a group, I haven't teleported this many people before." Raz mumbled, looking between the other seniors in thought as he attempted to figure out if he had what it took to take everyone to the diner.

"Yeah, is there a problem with that, Rusty?" Norma antagonized, smirking at Raz's apparent "failure" at stepping up to the plate and being useful for once. Raz frowned at Norma's statement, taking it as a challenge as he pulled his goggles over his eyes.

"Everyone, make sure you're making contact with me." He instructed, stepping into the middle of the group as everyone around him placed their hands on either his shoulders or his back. "Let's do this."

"You sure about this, Raz? Won't this-" Lili started, worried that Raz might exert his mental energy if he tried to teleport such a large group, but she was swiftly interrupted by Raz snatching her hand and giving her a confident smile.

"Relax. I got this." He whispered before turning to the other seniors with further instructions. "Everyone picture the diner in your head and brace yourself. If this is your first time dematerializing, when you rematerialize you might feel a bit nauseous."

Everyone's eyes went wide in tandem, "Wait wha-"

Not a single person in the group got to finish their statements, in an instant the world seemed to disappear before their very eyes, it was almost as if their entire existence blinked and suddenly they had found themselves right in the middle of Sam's diner.

"And… We're here…" Raz sputtered out, clutching his head as he removed his goggles and stumbled forward. He was lucky that Lili had been holding onto him, she made sure that he was able to stay on his feet as everyone else looked around them amazed by what they had just experienced.

Raz had the capability to do something like this, and only at 14? More than that, he had experienced this feeling countless times before and had mastered it so quickly, it was jaw dropping! The after effects were brutal, however, and try as he might he couldn't force back the lightheadedness that followed, but his teleportation was nearly on par with that of Ford Cruller.

"Good job, man. Can't even believe you were able to pull that off!" Adam praised, patting the boy on the back as he made his way past him in order to find a place to sit down.

"Seriously Raz, you work wonders!" Gisu chimed in, hopping on her board as she planned to skate around the place and have some fun.

The exhausted Raz replied with a thumbs up as Lili continued to help him catch his breath after exerting so much energy. Slowly but surely he could feel himself regaining strength, but he still had to rely on the redhead beside him to pull off his signature goggles.

"You've gotta stop falling for that intimidation. You don't have anything to prove to her, you know that right?" Lili scolded, letting go of Raz as he found himself able to stand on his own. He smiled softly and shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing except my pride. I have to take risks in order to improve." He replied confidently, smirking as he looked amongst his celebrating classmates. "Besides, I've got to maintain my amazing Psychonaut image, don't I?"

Lili rolled her eyes and smiled at the boy's antics, "Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna go grab something to eat, you wanna tag along?"

"Nah, I feel like if I eat I might get sick. I don't know how you guys aren't nauseous after that…" The emerald eyed boy replied, holding his stomach as if all his confidence washed away entirely. His stomach felt like it could burst at any moment.

"Alright, just sit down for a bit and take it easy." She instructed turning to walk away, but ultimately deciding on doing something before departing from the boy's side. Without any warning Raz was met with a swift kiss on his cheek before Lili scurried off, leaving him to his own devices.

Raz placed a gloved hand to his cheek as he felt his cheeks grow hot. That was exactly what he was talking about before, moments where she'll do little things like that that make them feel like they're a couple, but they've still never talked about it. They've never given much discussion as to what they were now, but it seemed like they were dating, no?

Raz sighed; feelings were confusing. He couldn't understand the mind of Lili Zanotto, but regardless he cared deeply for her. Even if they weren't ready to have that conversation he was happy with what they had. They could always figure things out as they went along.

"You gonna keep talking to yourself?" A voice uttered, scaring Raz enough to jump and turn to the culprit defensively. Luckily, it was just Sam appearing to make fun of him for being such a lovesick fool. "Seriously, you'd think you two would make up your minds already…"

"Aren't you, like, madly in love with Ada-" Raz started before being silenced by Sam quickly using her Telekinesis to shut the boy's lips with a red face.

"W-Who told you that, n-no one was supposed to know..!" She whispered, glaring at the boy who was more shocked by the fact that she moved so quickly to silence him before he could reveal anything aloud.

"K-Kinda figured it out on my own… But only me and Lili have figured it out, at least, I think." He revealed, cupping his chin at the last portion. It was possible that one of their other classmates had figured it out and just hadn't said anything, but no one had acted like they might have known.

"Phew, that's good." Sam replied, letting out a sigh of relief as she placed a hand to her chest. She then turned her head to face the boy who had her heart in the palm of his hands, chatting idly with Lizzie and Morris. Raz knew that look, she was deep in thought, wondering what she should do.

"...You're afraid, aren't you?" Raz asked. Well, it was more of a statement. Sam's eyes shifted to Raz before her gaze returned to the dark skinned boy. She didn't respond, so Raz took that as an opportunity to question her further. "Why? You seem like you get along, don't you?"

There was a pause as Sam pondered Raz's statement. "Yeah, he's a good friend to me, but… I'm pretty sure he has a thing for Lizzie. Besides, I don't think it would work between us, I'm not exactly your typical girl. Definitely not someone who gets along well with people."

"Right, right… But what's the problem with that?" Raz questioned, idly looking down at his gloved hands before continuing. "Sure you may not be what is the norm for people, but I'd say you're pretty interesting. You're related to one of the founders of the Psychonauts, your psychic abilities are incredible, you know how to cook, and you're generally an all around joy to be around." He then lifted his head to look at the orange haired girl who stared back at him with a small appreciative smile, "Even if you may act a little… Odd, you're still a pretty cool person in my book. You should give yourself more credit."

"Thanks, Raz…" She mumbled, smiling softly at the boy who now was quite a bit taller than her. Damn her genetics for making her the shortest of the bunch. "Still, I don't have a shot if he's still gunning for Lizzie. But, for singing my praise, how about I whip you something up to eat. You think you feel alright enough to eat?"

"Ehhh, that depends. You gonna put acorns in my food again?" Raz joked, laughing along with Sam as the two made their way over to the counter. Just as they made their way over however, the shopkeeper's bell rang to indicate that someone had just entered the diner. Someone rather familiar.

"Hey, Sam, do you think you could-" The boy started, cutting himself off as he inspected the inhabitants of the diner, finding himself shocked by who stood a few feet in front of him. "Raz?"

"Dogen?"

And here we are again, with another chapter.

Yes indeed, I'm introducing the characters from Psychonauts 1 & 2. I do admit that I may have some trouble working out some "Older Versions" of the characters from the first game, I will try my best to stick true to their personalities.

Now, for an overview: In this chapter we get a look at the first half of the Senior's classes, and although the subjects might seem a bit... Lackluster in the first half, they're the type of classes that are made to hone your knowledge of certain skills outside of their psychic capabilities.

We also get a bit of insight into how certain relationships have changed in this age for the Junior Psychonauts. Namely, Sam having a crush. (This probably seems out of character, but it'll be for a good reason, I promise).

And we also have Norma, which I shouldn't make her out to be too annoying, but she'll definitely be a bit of a nuisance at first, much like in the second game.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy, and I'll see you in the next chapter.