Sorry for the delay, but this chapter is finally up! It's a long one, so I hope you guys enjoy! Thanks to Jaywings and Sailor Spellcheck for beta-reading.
Quick warning: this chapter contains blood, drowning, and references to torture, so please be careful!
Enjoy!
Raz and Oleander stared up at what looked to be a wide, open cave that was trying very, very hard to convince them that it was actually a cityscape. The walls towered high above them like the previous buildings had, but these were the walls of a cave, except with shapes appearing to be slightly off-looking windows and doors carved into them. The "sidewalk" they stood upon and the "road" in front of them only barely resembled such, with no asphalt or concrete to sell the illusion—only stone and dirt. The driverless cars no longer rumbled down this road—a massive cave-in to their left would've prevented any possible traffic anyway.
Oleander looked around warily, wondering aloud, "What kind of mental world is this?"
"...is this?" his own voice echoed.
"Only one way to find out." With that, Raz walked down the shoddy excuse for a sidewalk; he wasn't convinced something wouldn't try to run him over if he stepped onto the "road." Only the occasional figment stood here and there, such as one of a flock of bats and pigeons swooping overhead, and another of a mole with a suspiciously rectangular head and pointed chin sticking out of the ground. Otherwise the place was deserted, with only the echoes of their own footsteps filling the silence.
...And one other sound, gentle and familiar, somewhere up ahead.
It was a sound that still brought a chill down Raz's spine, but it filled him with excitement nonetheless. "Hey!" he cried, charging forward.
"Slow down, private!" Oleander whispered harshly. "We don't know what's down here!"
"I do!" Raz called over his shoulder, following the sound. It was a quiet sloshing noise that echoed off the city-cave walls, and as he got closer, he could see a reflection of light dancing on the ceiling. The sounds and lights led him down a narrower tunnel, and finally he skidded to a halt before a break in the road, a crevasse, with a wide stream of water filling the gap.
Oleander arrived at his side, panting. "Man, what was the hurry?" he gasped, staring down at the stream. "Don't you got a fear of this stuff, or something?"
"It's... complicated," Raz said, embarrassed. He raised a hand, waving at the water, and a watery arm, the Hand of Galochio, waved back at him. "See—"
"Dang, Cal, you took your sweet time getting here," an unfamiliar voice hissed.
"Not again..." Sighing, Raz turned around to face the mental figure that was approaching him. He was slim and tall, albeit not nearly as tall as Loboto, but still enough to tower over Raz and Oleander. He wore a trenchcoat that looked uncomfortably hot on him, and a wide-brimmed hat that made him nearly resemble the G-men Raz had seen in Boyd's mind. "Look, we—"
"Do you have it ready, or not?" the man growled.
"Of course I do, what sort of idiot do you take me for?" came Loboto's voice. Raz spun around to see Oleander again, a smug grin on his face.
"One that's three days late on this job to begin with," the man spat. "You're lucky these guys are moving slower than we expected."
"Right, geez," Oleander said, hands on his hips. "I got it! It's... around here, somewhere."
...What is it? Raz whispered into Oleander's mind.
Not a clue. Help me search.
"Where?" the client demanded.
"Just a moment!" Raz exclaimed, turning this way and that to see... whatever sort of device this client was expecting. Or maybe it was a brain? He hoped it wasn't a brain. He didn't immediately spot anything in the narrow tunnel, and the man was shuffling his feet, his arms crossed and fingers digging into his coat. Oh man, this is bad. I don't have it ready, and he's getting mad, and he probably won't pay us—
What are you talking about, soldier? Oleander asked, turning to raise a brow at him. This is a mental figure. He's just representing something that already happened to Loboto.
Oh, yeah. Raz shook his head to bring himself back. As he did so, he picked up on a sloshing noise nearby. Hey, you hear that?
...Is... that an aquatic accent?
Exchanging glances, Raz and Oleander crept up to the edge of the water and looked down to where the splashing noises originated from. Something was approaching them—something that smelled vaguely like a fish market that had run out of ice.
"Whoof!" Oleander stumbled back, plugging his nose, and Raz gasped, wafting the air away from his face.
As whatever-it-was drew nearer, they could see what appeared to be something almost person-sized that was... not a person. It was big, lumpy, and covered in fins, and its bulgy, unblinking eyes were now staring up at them expectantly. At this point Raz was also covering his nose, struggling to breathe past the stench.
"What is this?" the mental figure behind them asked, and Raz gave a jump, suddenly remembering he existed.
"Uh!" Raz spun around, looking from the man and back to the horrific mutant fish, and gave a nervous grin. "This is... it! The thing you requested! Here it is!"
Though he couldn't get a good look at the man's face, he got the distinct impression that his nose was wrinkling as he stared down at the water. "...Right. Not... what I had in mind, but we're on a tight schedule, so it'll do." He turned back to them. "Has it been prepped with the information it needs?"
Raz eyed Oleander, who was still plugging his nose as he knelt down near the monstrosity. This thing's accent is the worst I've heard, the Coach thought, but it seems to have some vague idea of some job or other.
"Yes," Raz replied with what he hoped looked like a confident nod.
"Great. Get on with it, then!" the client exclaimed, waving at the fish. The creature warbled in response, bubbles rising around wherever its mouth was, before it resumed sloshing down the stream, soon passing out of view. "This had better work."
"It'll be fine," Oleander went on in Loboto's voice. "Those bozos will just think it's an alligator trapped in the sewer!"
There was a short pause before a gargled scream echoed from downstream, followed by the sound of rapid splashing. The mutant fish returned shortly, flopping up onto land on the opposite side of the stream, where it awkwardly scrambled up through the cave on about eight different-sized fins. Down along the stream it had come from came the sounds of many rapid footfalls echoing against the cave walls, alongside a lot of variants of the word "NO," including one that manifested itself physically, firing across the water and toward Raz and Oleander, who dove out of the way.
"Oooor it'll lead these guys right back to us!" Raz exclaimed.
"WHAT?!" the client cried, staggering back as a small army of Censors in police uniforms began charging out from around the bend.
"Welp!" Oleander hopped back to his feet. "Good luck with that!" And with that, he took off running.
"Wait, this way!" Raz called, hopping onto his lev ball and leaping over the stream.
"You frauds!" the client screamed, charging after the Coach. He made a dive for him, and Oleander barely moved out of the way, rushing back over toward Raz. He seemed to hesitate, only to take several steps backward before running forward, bouncing via levitation and landing roughly on the other side.
Raz didn't wait for him any more than that, keeping to his lev ball as he continued to charge down the tunnel.
"You can't do this to me!" the mental figure cried. "Everyone else will hear about this—AAGH!"
Raz did not look behind himself to see the man get clobbered by Censors. Instead he kept moving, eventually passing the awful mutant fish, which somehow shoved its massive body through a tiny crack in the cave wall. Eventually he realized the tunnel was starting to narrow and he wasn't sure what lay further ahead, so he hopped off his lev ball to wait for the Coach to catch up. The cries of the Censors remained in the distance and did not draw any closer.
Meanwhile, Oleander trudged up to him, resting one hand against the cave wall as he fought to catch his breath. "That... was a close call..."
"Yeah... but..." Raz turned to look back down the tunnel. "Did that mean that Loboto's plan there failed?"
"Looked like it," the Coach gasped. "Geez... and I thought that lungfish was ugly."
"I think Linda looks pretty nice, as far as lungfish go..." Raz muttered. Something struck him, and he frowned, looking around the tunnel. "Hey, we never ran into Loboto here."
"Huh, guess not." Frowning as well, Oleander raised himself up, looking around. "Did we miss him?"
"I don't think so..." Now that the Coach was with him, he kept moving down the tunnel, squinting in the relative darkness. There was no light source here, but that never seemed to matter in mental worlds. Even so, he could see nothing up ahead... but he could hear something.
Clank, clank, clank...
"Is that...?" Oleander muttered. He didn't have to finish his thought as both he and Raz picked up the pace to find a memory vault frolicking about in the narrow tunnel.
"Aha!"
The vault's ears perked at Raz's voice, and it turned to face him before leaping in surprise and scrambling further down the tunnel. Once again Raz hopped onto a lev ball to catch up with it, and swung a psi-punch at it when he was close.
"Gotcha!" he exclaimed as the vault collapsed to the ground, spitting out a stereoscope. Dismissing the lev ball, Raz stooped down to pick up the device. "Now we're getting somewhere," he said as he held the device up to his eyes.
"Loboto: Discomfited!" read the first slide.
The next showed Loboto in an apartment looking similar to the one Raz had seen him in before, looking alarmed as people pounded on his door, shouting angrily.
In the next, Loboto was frowning as he sneaked out through a window, carrying a bag that was full of dentist tools as well as a familiar teddy bear.
Next, Loboto was seen smiling as he hung up a sign reading "Dr. Caligosto Loboto D.D.S." in front of a small but nice-looking building.
The next slide showed the inside of the building. Happy patients sat within the waiting room while a receptionist smiled from the front desk. An open door showed Loboto with a genuine smile as he worked on an equally-happy patient. (Man, not sure I buy that, Raz thought.)
Another slide showed a closeup of a note for some kind of medicine, which Loboto was signing in flowing, elegant handwriting.
The next slide showed a place that had bottles of medicine lining the shelves. A couple people were looking over the note in concern, one of them holding up the same kind of note with the significantly more garbled handwriting of a real doctor, while the third person dialed the police on the phone.
The next slide showed the police barging in on Loboto while he was working on a patient, both Loboto and the patient looking horrified while the police pointed at Loboto accusingly.
The eighth and final slide showed Loboto in a straitjacket, screaming as he was dragged off to an asylum with a silhouette Raz was very familiar with.
"...Wait, what?" Raz blinked as he pulled the stereoscope away from his face.
"Here, let me take a look." Oleander grabbed the device when it was passed to him and frowned at it. "Lousy viewmasters..." he grumbled before peering into it. After a couple minutes, his cheeks puffed out before he doubled over with laughter. "That's what got 'im?!"
"What was it? What did he do wrong? Uh, other than practicing dentistry without a license?"
Grinning, Oleander tossed the stereoscope aside. "Those pharmacists caught 'im by his signature on that prescription note. Too fancy for a real doctor!"
"Oh... wow." Raz stared down at the discarded memory and frowned. "He... really did try to go back to being a dentist."
"Yeah, lotta' good that did him," Oleander said, waving a dismissive hand.
"He was trying to be better, though." Raz scratched the back of his head. "He probably could've gone about that a better way, but... he did try."
"Yeah, and went right back to crime n' villainy as soon as he got the chance." The Coach rubbed his chin. "That was Thorney Towers, though, which is where he was when I met him... we shouldn't have too much more to go through."
A shudder clawed up Raz's spine. "I don't think I want to see the asylum again. That place gave me the creeps."
"Unless you think we'll find a tower in the middle of a cave, I don't think you have to worry about that."
Raz considered telling him that he'd seen that tower twice—once in the Brain Tumbler experiment and once in Loboto's mind previously, but decided against it. Instead he shook his head, moving further down the tunnel. It continued to grow narrower and narrower until they could no longer stand side-by-side. Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the cave was growing more and more humid, the walls becoming slick with moisture and the sound of water dripping constantly surrounding them. It wasn't, he realized, all that different from the atmosphere of Thorney Towers itself, with its proximity to the lake making it consistently humid, at least, from what Raz had seen.
But... it was a cave. Unless something changed up ahead, it seemed this place had given up all attempts at displaying itself as anything other than a cave.
Just as Raz was about to bring this up to Oleander, the cave began to widen slightly, and the sound of rapid footfalls echoed in their direction. They stopped in their tracks as a mental figure of a woman with blue skin and a flowing purple dress stormed up to them, her fists clenched and glowing with pyrokinetic energy. "There you are!" she snarled. "Did you think you could just run away after that?!"
"Uh, no! Of course not!" Raz exclaimed, subconsciously dropping into a psychic pose. "I was just—"
"You've ruined this for me, Caligosto!" the woman cried, and without warning, swung her fist forward. Rather than a psi-punch, she unleashed a fireball, which Raz had to throw himself against the wall to avoid. "You're lucky I don't set this whole place ablaze!"
"Look," Oleander said, his attempt at Loboto's voice faltering somewhat. "I can make it up to you—"
"How?! Your twisted torture methods muted my captive! Now I have to dive through his mind myself to extract the information!"
Raz took a moment to wonder how that might've happened, and immediately wished he hadn't.
"I can... pay you for your time?" Oleander offered with a shrug.
"Oh, you'll pay, all right!" With that, she lobbed another fireball, this time at the Coach, who tossed up a psi-shield around himself and Raz.
The fireball exploded upon contact, nearly blinding them as the intense flames roared over the shield. Raz ducked down and threw his hands over his helmet, for all the good it would do, until the sound finally died down. When he looked up, the woman was gone, and their surroundings were charred black.
Hesitantly Oleander dismissed the psi-shield, shakily lowering his hands. "I knew he got mixed up with some dangerous ones..." he muttered.
"I mean... it's not like we didn't see what Gristol did to him," Raz pointed out. "He was trying to take over the world."
"Yeah, him n' everyone else," Oleander grumbled. After taking a moment to listen and make sure no other furious pyromaniacs came charging at them, he signaled Raz onward and resumed walking down the tunnel. "Forward march, but be careful about it."
"Not like we have much of a choice." Frowning, Raz cast a glance around the narrow tunnel as it led them in a steady decline. "Where else are we supposed to go?"
"I'm just saying to proceed with caution, soldier!" the Coach snapped. "You saw what we just dealt with! He's been gettin' involved with more and more dangerous criminals all the time. After that lunatic, who knows what else we could run into!"
"Hey!" called a familiar yet high-pitched voice from up ahead. "Where d'you think you're going?!"
Oleander stopped dead in his tracks, and Raz edged out from behind him to see what they were up against this time. He blinked when he didn't immediately see anything.
"Up here, shorty!"
In spite of the insistence of the voice, it was definitely coming from lower to the ground. Looking down, Raz froze upon finding himself face-to-face with...
...a very, very short version of Coach Oleander.
The mental figure stood shorter than Raz, and less than half of Oleander's actual height. He was dressed in camouflage army fatigues, and his face was flushed red in fury, his fists clenched at his sides. Glancing back at the real Coach, Raz found him in an identical pose, with his face turning a remarkably similar color. His eye twitched.
"Wha'd'you think you're lookin' at, Cal?" the mini-Oleander said, jabbing a tiny finger at the real Oleander. "You'd better not be thinkin' I'm short! Even though I definitely am, and I am extremely insecure about it and very easy to make fun of!"
Raz looked between the two Oleanders a few times as the real Coach's face turned a deeper and deeper red, wondering if he should intervene. But before he could do anything, Oleander took a deep breath, his face returning to its proper color, and then straightened his back, placing one hand on his hip. "Of course not!" he said with his spot-on Loboto impression. "I would never dream of making fun of such a handsome man of such reasonable height! Especially when I myself am such a hideously massive height, I cause car accidents due to my mismatched eyes getting mistaken for traffic signals!"
Immediately Raz covered his mouth to swallow back his laughter. This was a serious mission!
The tiny Oleander seemed taken aback, but went on, "Oh, I wish I were so tall as you! Then I wouldn't get walked all over by the Psychonauts! Truly my incredibly short height is the only reason for that!"
"That's not—!" the Coach blurted, only to clear his throat and regain his composure. He resumed speaking in Loboto's voice: "Well, at least you have normal interests, like rabbits and psychic weaponry! How I wish I could have such wonderful and fulfilling hobbies, instead of my disgusting obsession with teeth and brains!"
"You forgot my awful music tastes and my even worse karaoke skills!"
"Yeah?! Well you forgot your—uh, my awful people skills and alarmingly violent tendencies!"
"You're one to talk about violent tendencies when I was the one who tried to take over the world!"
"YEAH?! WELL YOU—"
Raz stared at the two, deadpan. "Okay this was funny at first, but now it's just sad." Sighing, he walked between the two of them to get around the miniature Coach, who didn't seem to be acting as a roadblock. "I'm gonna keep going."
"Move ahead, soldier, I just gotta get this out of my system," Oleander whispered as he passed.
"Got it."
"Where was I... oh, right." After clearing his throat, Oleander's Loboto impression resumed: "And you—er—I couldn't even sing half as well as you, I bet!"
Rolling his eyes, Raz followed the tunnel where it curved away from the tiny mental figure. It struck him that Oleander was one of the last people Loboto had worked with, with the exception of one other person. With that realization, a deep chill came over him, and not just from the thought alone. A cold wind whistled through the tunnel, and Raz pressed through it to find himself in a much wider cavern... and staring up at a pair of brilliant yellow eyes that he had never wished to see again.
Yelping, Raz scrambled backwards as the eyes bored into him. "No, no! You're not supposed to be here anymore!" he cried. His breathing picked up rapidly as his heart hammered in his chest.
The eyes continued to stare at him, and a quiet laugh echoed throughout the cave, along with the rushing of distant water.
"No, no no no, not again..." Raz ducked his head and covered it with his hands, shivering. "Nona, please, you can't do this again, please..."
It was several moments before he realized nothing was happening. Slowly he raised his head, finding the eyes were still there, but... taking a few steps closer, he realized that's all they were—a pair of disembodied eyes and a transparent, shadowy form, suspended within a vast, dark cavern.
...Or not-so-vast. The path continued along a bend, and on one side of it was a deep crevasse. There was a wall just behind it that was shrouded in shadows, making the cavern seem deeper than it really was. There may have been water deep within the crack in the earth, or it could have just been some sound conjured up by Loboto's mind. Either way, this obviously wasn't the real Maligula—only the shadow of a memory of her... or something to that effect. Loboto hadn't seen the real thing, had he?
"Yes, she's terrifying, isn't she, Caligosto?"
The hair stood on the back of Raz's neck.
Tearing his gaze away from glowing eyes, he turned to find someone standing in the middle of the path. Wearing shadowy robes and his oversized crown was Gristol Malik, who eyed Raz with a nasty grin. "Terrifying, yet loyal to me, the crowned prince of Grulovia."
"My Nona's not loyal to you," Raz said lowly. "She's not gonna hurt anyone like you wanted her to."
"Oh, but she will." Gristol took several strides toward him, glowering down at him. "And she'll drown you for sure if you keep up with that attitude, doctor."
As he drew closer, Raz stepped forward with a challenging glare... and then the smell hit him, shocking him out of his anger. He stumbled back, coughing and gagging at the overly-strong fish smell, which was somehow worse than the scent of the mutant fish they'd encountered earlier. "YEESH, what is that?!"
"The caviar, of course!" Gristol reached into his coat, pulling out an enormous open tin of caviar. Some of it spilled on the ground as he waved it in front of himself, and visible clouds of stench wafted off the clearly-rancid food. "Would you like some?"
"Augh! No!" Raz cried, shoving the tin away.
"Hmph! More for me, then." Gristol drew the tin closer to himself and pulled a spoon out of another part of his robes. "The best eggs are stolen from poor unsuspecting fish in the ocean, you know!" With that, he began messily shoveling the rotten fish eggs into his mouth.
That seemed out of character for Gristol... but, of course, it wasn't him. "Right... mental figures," Raz muttered under his breath. While the mental figure of Gristol was stuffing his face with expired food, Raz crept around him. "If you can hear me, Loboto, keep your memory of Gristol just like that." Before he left the area, he cast one last glance back at the shadow of Maligula, whose piercing gaze was still fixed on him. "And—" his voice caught, and he shook his head. "Forget her entirely."
Finally he turned away, eager to leave both Loboto's and his own memories of those two behind. Feeling too heavy to summon a lev ball, he broke into a run, charging headlong through the cave, wherever it took him. He didn't care to pay too much attention to his surroundings—anywhere was better than there.
After what felt like an age of running blindly, Raz bashed his right shoulder against the cave wall, and cried out, stumbling to a halt. He braced himself against the wall, grasping his shoulder, his chest heaving as he gasped for air, only to freeze. While he was finally away from that awful rotten fish smell, there was another smell present in this part of the cave... a metallic smell. Lifting his head, he gave a start as he realized just how narrow the tunnel had become. Moisture—some liquid that he swore was darker and thicker than water—occasionally dripped from the ceiling, and the rocks and earth that comprised it shifted occasionally, as though they were seconds from caving in. His breathing quickened as he started to back away, but that only made the metallic smell overwhelm him all the more, bringing back dizzying memories of raw meat and sharpened cleavers and rising water.
How far had he gone? Where was he now? Hadn't Gristol been the last client Loboto had dealt with? Or had they gone further back into his past this time? This part of the cave was so twisted, it was hard to tell. He opened his mouth to voice his questions to Oleander, only for the realization to jolt through him that the Coach wasn't there.
Feeling the blood rush from his face, Raz spun around. "Coach—?!"
Something was blocking his path.
"In a hurry now, doctor?" it said in a low growl.
Raz looked up, up, up at a figure that towered over him. It was too dark to make out any features—he could only see that the man was nearly as tall as Loboto, and that his eyes were glaring directly down at him. "I-I'm sorry," he stammered, stumbling back. "I am. I'm really sorry." What about, he didn't know; he felt lightheaded, his stomach was turning, and his legs were starting to feel like jelly.
"Of course you're sorry now. If you'd been quicker about things earlier, none of this would have happened."
"I'll—I'll be quicker now, I promise." He had no idea what he was saying or what was being referred to, feeling too awful to argue. "P-please let me get back to it, sir."
"Very well," the man said. "I think you've learned your lesson, after all. Just know, however, if you let us down one more time..." He bent down until his eyes were level with Raz's. A hand shot out and snagged Raz's shoulder, and he could suddenly feel the man's smoky breath on his face. "...I may not be kind enough to repeat that lesson."
The figure forcibly turned him around and let go, and Raz ran. He had no idea where he was going at this point, and the tunnel was growing even more painfully narrow and suffocating, to the point where he couldn't run, but had to shuffle carefully, edging between the narrow walls. At the very least the metallic scent was gone, but that was all he could say for this place. He wished he could turn back and find Oleander, but not knowing if that terrifying mental figure was still there, he could only press onward.
Clank—shhhffft... clank—shhhffft... clank—shfffft...
The repetitive noise made him pause.
Just up ahead he could see something teal and brown sticking out of the floor. Clods of dirt kicked up behind it every so often. As Raz crept closer, he recognized the memory vault, which was caked in dirt and steadily digging into the ground as though trying to bury itself. The path finally ended here, or looked like it might; beyond the vault, the cave narrowed to the point where no human could squeeze through, though with the way the earth around him felt like it was shifting, he wondered if it might open up at some point.
The memory vault, meanwhile, perked its ears as it sensed his approach. Immediately said ears drooped as it turned around, giving him a terrified, pitiful look before resuming its work, digging even faster than before.
"Sorry, Loboto," Raz murmured as he pulled back a fist. "I know you're probably not gonna like this, but..."
With one psi-punch, the memory vault was knocked off its feet, and it subsequently coughed a stereoscope up out of the hole it had been digging. Raz stooped down to pick it up, hesitating only for a moment before peering into it.
"Loboto: Disarmed!" read the first slide.
The second showed Loboto in his lab in Thorney Towers, sitting at a desk and glaring down at a paper that read "EASIER DE-BRAINING METHODS?" with nothing underneath. He held his head in his hands—two hands, Raz noted. Behind him, a figure like the one Raz had just gotten away from was approaching him.
In the third slide, the man held out a paper reading "Anti-Psychic Weapon" with some concept drawings beneath, and with his other hand, pointed at a calendar on the wall, indicating a specific date—the 30th of the month. The days crossed out on the calendar indicated that it was currently the third.
In the fourth slide, Loboto was holding the paper in his left hand and holding up his right, giving the man a confident "not a problem!" look.
The next slide showed several images, each with the calendar in view and the 30th circled: one image of Loboto talking to Oleander, another of Loboto holding up Mr. Pokeylope and saying something to Sheegor, and another of Loboto grinding at a mortar and pestle on his workbench, the weapon plans sitting forgotten, and the calendar date indicating that the other project was due tomorrow.
The slide after that showed Loboto in a dark room, meeting with the other client, who held out his hand. Loboto, meanwhile, held up his own hands, looking nervous and apologetic.
In the next slide, a telekinetic hand held Loboto against a table as the man hovered over him, looking infuriated, while Loboto in turn looked horrified.
The next showed another telekinetic hand holding Loboto's right wrist and pulling it off to the side, while a wicked-looking saw hovered over him.
The final slide showed—
Raz dropped the stereoscope, his earlier dizziness hitting him full force as he stumbled and fell back against the wall, his stomach turning. Coach, he thought frantically. Coach Oleander, where are you? Please...
It wasn't long before he heard a voice down the tunnel he'd come from: "Rrrghhh stupid caves—!"
BAM!
A green psi-punch slammed through the narrow walls, widening them enough for Oleander to squeeze through. "I know I shouldn't expect accessibility on the battlefield, but sheesh!" he growled, dusting off his hands before turning to Raz. "I didn't mean for you to go this far without me, private! What were you..." He faltered.
Raz wasn't entirely sure how he looked, but it must've been bad judging by the way the Coach's face softened.
"Raz?" he asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on his shoulder. "You all right? Talk to me, soldier."
"I..." Raz swallowed down the sick feeling that was welling up his throat. "I don't think Loboto wanted anyone to see this..."
Oleander's brows furrowed. "I told you, soldier, no secrets in wartime." But when he looked over at the discarded stereoscope, he frowned. "Huh. Actually..." He picked it up and clicked through the slides. "Yeesh, how many clients did this guy take on at the same time? No wonder he took so long to..." Another click, and he went quiet, followed by a few more clicks. "...oh..."
"Is... is th-that it?" Raz stammered, looking at Oleander as he sat next to him. "The thing you didn't want to tell me?"
"...Yes and no," Oleander said, staring down at the pit the memory vault had been digging. "I knew he'd replaced his arm with that awful prosthetic, but I... I thought he'd... done it to himself. And if he was crazy enough to do that to himself... what would he do to hurt someone else?"
"W-well... now you know that's not what happened. So you don't have to see him like that anymore, right?"
The Coach shook his head. "No, soldier... you don't understand." Holding out his hands, he gestured vaguely. "I know the truth now, but I thought differently then. And... here's the thing. When you have allies you don't know if you can really trust in wartime, you, uh... have to make... plans... in case things don't really work out."
"Plans?" Raz raised his head. "But what plans did you have to—" He paused as the memories came rushing back. "...Ohhh. Right, you had Boyd blow up the tower."
Oleander jumped, turning to Raz and making a cutting sign near his throat. Meanwhile, the cave shifted audibly around them, seeming to groan, but Raz didn't immediately notice.
"It's okay," he said, holding up his hands. "I know you wouldn't do something like that again." Thinking for a moment, he sighed. "I guess I wouldn't have much room to say anything against you for that, anyway, since I was kinda the one that helped Mr. Pokeylope with that plan to blast him out the window."
"Raz!" Oleander hissed.
Before he could respond, the walls of the cave shook violently, and the ground split open beneath them.
Raz and Oleander dropped through the earth into an open free-fall, clumps of dirt and rocks falling down along with them as the rumbling of the cave turned into an all-out roar. Frantically Raz whipped out a thought bubble, grabbing it for dear life, while Oleander zipped past him. "COACH!" he cried, reaching out toward him as he dropped down out of sight.
Above the roar of the earth around them came a pained, enraged howl, and Raz had to think for a moment to place it. Psychic wolverines...? he thought, and then his blood ran cold. No... Loboto.
"I KNEW IT!" Loboto's voice screamed over the sound of crashing rock and collapsing tunnels. "I KNEW IT WAS ALL LIES!"
"L-Loboto?!" Raz called out. "What are you talking about—AGH!" His thought bubble popped, sending him back into a freefall, only for something to catch him. "What the—"
"Got you!" Oleander called, wrapping his TK hand around Raz and lowering him to the ground. "You okay, soldier?"
"I guess, but—AH!"
A boulder crashed next to them, and Oleander pulled Raz to his side, putting a psi-shield over the both of them.
"LYING LITTLE BRAT!" Loboto screamed, but from where, neither of them could tell; the destruction all around them made it hard to see, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere. Said voice, while enraged, took on a wounded edge as he wailed: "I TRUSTED YOU...!"
"Loboto!" Raz called out. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean—"
"DIDN'T MEAN IT?! NO, NO! OF COURSE, YOU MEANT NONE OF THAT, NONE OF WANTING TO HELP ME...!" Another wordless wail echoed through the destruction of the cave around them. "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN—I ALWAYS KNEW—PSYCHICS RUIN EVERYTHING!"
Several more boulders collapsed to the ground around them, one and then another striking Oleander's shield directly.
"EVERYTHING!"
Raz and Oleander huddled close as they waited out the chaos around them. By the time the Coach's psi-shield fizzled out, it finally stopped, leaving them in an eerie silence. Neither of them spoke as they gazed at their surroundings—they were now in some enormous underground cavern deep beneath the cave system they'd been in before. All around them were cracked rocks and boulders and enormous clumps of dirt, but the place seemed empty otherwise. And off in the distance... was Loboto, his back turned to them, his head in his hands.
"There!" Oleander whispered, and Raz broke off in a run toward him. "Wait—!"
"Loboto!" Raz called, and immediately a massive tooth jutted up out of the ground, blocking his path. Multiple other teeth erupted out of the ground until they could no longer see the doctor. "Loboto, please, we just want to talk!"
"Talk?" Loboto's voice boomed over them. "Dear Razputin, I think I've heard enough of your talking."
The floor shook again, and several massive objects wreathed in purple psychic light hovered up into the air above them. Craning his head back, Raz was able to make out a giant syringe, bone saw, dental drill, dental hook, mallet, and ice pick, among other things.
"Now, I want to hear you scream!"
Raz took several steps back. "C-coach...?"
"Yeah, I see it!" Oleander scrambled up to Raz's side.
"Do we have a battle plan?" Raz asked, glancing back at the Coach warily.
As if on cue, Loboto cackled from somewhere within the cave, and the giant mallet overhead came flying at them.
"Yeah, I got one! RETREAT!" With that, the Coach dove out of the way as the hammer struck the ground between him and Raz, who crashed backwards from the force of the impact.
"Oof! Okay, let's NOT do that again." Raz glared at the oversized tool, reaching out with TK to try to grab the handle.
"Hands off!" Loboto cried, and the hammer was yanked away. "Leave this to the professionals!"
"We've gotta do something, though...!" Raz moved to Oleander's side, finding him glaring up at the tools above them. "Do you have any real plan, here?"
"Not at the moment." His eyes widened as the bone saw came flying at them this time, and he yanked Raz out of the way as the teeth of the instrument dug jagged holes in the cave floor beside them. "AGH!"
"What's that?" Loboto taunted. "I can't hear you! Please say 'aaaah'!"
This time, the dental pick took a swing at them, and they both dropped to the floor, hands over their heads as it whooshed over them, leaving a nasty dent in one of the nearby molars.
Oleander was the first to his feet and helped Raz up. Seeing the bone saw and dental hook raise back up into the air, he heaved a sigh. "I should've known this would happen..."
Something flared up within Raz's chest, and he stomped his foot. "Knock it off!" he snapped. "You've just been fighting with him the whole time! How's that supposed to help?!"
"I know!" Oleander cried, hands on his head. "That's what I'm saying—if I'd been... rrrghh..." He grit his teeth. "Slightly nicer, maybe he wouldn't have snapped like this..."
Softening, Raz nodded. "I think he was close to a breaking point anyway... Just wish it was a breakthrough and not a breakdown!"
The Coach perked up, looking over at the tooth that the hook had struck. "Breakthrough... that's it!" he whispered. "If we can break through these dental barriers, maybe we can get through to him! It'd be too risky to use these giant weapons in close proximity to himself!"
"Good thinking!" Raz turned to face one of the teeth that was sticking out of the ground and held his fist back to ready a psi-punch, only to wince. "Ugh, something about this just makes my skin crawl."
Oleander stood at Raz's side and held back his fist as well. "Gotta break a few teeth to make a knuckle sandwich! Ready?"
"Guess I'll have to be..."
"GO!"
The combined psi-punches smashed into the oversized tooth, shattering it with an audible crash. Deeper within the cavern, Loboto snarled. "What are you doing?! That was terrible dental work! And you're only proving my point!"
"You said psychics ruin everything, not break everything!" Raz retorted.
"Ruining, breaking, incisors, incissors."
"Who in the sam hill says 'incissors?'" Oleander muttered.
"The point is, you're wrecking everything! I'm going to need backup!"
Half a moment later, several pairs of footfalls began weaving around between the giant teeth, followed by a chorus of "NO"s. Five Censors came into view, each of them wearing plain white collared shirts and medical masks.
"Great, of course he had to call in the hygienists to clean up for him," Oleander grumbled.
"Go knock out some more of those teeth—I'll take care of these guys!"
"Hey, a senior agent doesn't take orders from juniors!" the Coach retorted, but hurried up to a nearby incisor regardless.
Meanwhile, Raz fell into a psychic pose, focusing on the oncoming Censors. Once they were close enough, he fired a psi-blast at them, which ricocheted off two of them before flying over and blasting into the tooth Oleander was swinging a psi-punch at. When the remaining three Censors saw the combined powers shatter the tooth, they switched their targets over to Oleander instead.
"Oh no you don't!" Raz hopped up onto a lev ball and barreled toward the Censors, bowling over them before they could reach the Coach.
"Stop it!" Loboto cried. "I should've numbed you first!" With that, the syringe overhead zipped downward in Raz's direction.
With a yelp he made to leap out of the way, only for the tip of the syringe to nick him in the arm regardless. Initially he cried out from the sharp pain, only to groan as it was almost immediately taken over by intense dizziness and nausea. "Uuuughhh..." He attempted to stumble toward Oleander, only for his feet to take him in a completely different direction, sending him careening into a nearby molar. If he hadn't been wearing his helmet, he probably would've seen stars from bashing his head against the enamel.
"Snap out of it, soldier!" Oleander commanded, grabbing him by the shoulder via TK and hoisting him back up to his feet. "We're almost out of here!"
"Uughhh..." Shaking his head, Raz attempted to rid himself of the dizziness. "R-right, sorry..." Once the tooth-infested cave stopped spinning around him, he followed Oleander up to a premolar. "How do you know this is the right way?"
"This is the direction we saw him before he brought in his dental work," Oleander whispered. "I think if we can get past just this last one, we should be able to get to him!"
Nodding, Raz pulled back his fist, reading a psi-punch, and the Coach did the same. Together they swung their punches, and the tooth shattered, allowing them to pass through... to...
"That... wasn't there earlier."
Before them was a large lake smack in the middle of the cavern, and in the middle of that, a small island covered in rubble.
Raz crossed the yard or so to the shoreline, the toes of his shoes touching the water. "Coach, you don't happen to have your, uh, mono-propulsor, do you?"
"Nope," the Coach answered, stepping up to Raz's side and glancing over at him. "Learned to swim, by chance?"
"Uhh, nope." Raz sized up the distance between the shoreline and the island—definitely farther than he'd ever tried bouncing off of his hydrokinesis. "I... think we may have a problem."
To punctuate his point, a deep "NO" sounded from behind them, and they whipped back around. Five Heavy Censors, also dressed in hygienist outfits, were trying to squeeze out from between the gap in the teeth that Oleander and Raz had made.
"You can say that again!" Oleander cried.
"Nah, I'm good!" Raz responded, taking several steps back until his feet sloshed into the water. Looking back at the lake warily, he swallowed. "Okay," he began, "so I'm still working on my hydrokinesis—"
"Your what—?!"
"I know, it's new to me too—but I think if I can get it to hold me above the water for more than a few seconds, maybe it can carry the both of us across the lake!"
Oleander stared at him deadpan. "Hope you packed a parachute for a jump like that, kid."
"I gotta try something—"
"The battlefield's not the place for practice, soldier!"
"You got any better ideas?!"
"NO!" the Censors behind them answered, finally squeezing through the gap.
Needing no further encouragement, Raz leaped forward into the water. Please catch me please catch me please catch me—
SQUELCH.
While initially relieved that he was not drowning, Raz winced as he shifted his feet. "Ugh, I don't remember the hand of Galochio being this squishy, or lumpy, or... stinky..."
"Get away!" Oleander cried from the shore, followed by a loud WHAM and an angry "no!" "MOVE IT! Raz, how are you holding—uhhh..."
Something gurgled below him, and he looked down to find the horrible lumpy fish they'd encountered earlier, now swimming in place beneath his feet. "Uh..."
The fish gurgled again, and Raz stared at it blankly.
Swinging another punch to block another of the oncoming Heavy Censors, Oleander called over his shoulder: "He says to move over!"
Raz stared at the lumpy fish for a moment before taking an awkward step back. The fish bubbled in satisfaction before warbling something again, this time a bit louder.
"If I'm hearing you right, then gladly!" the Coach exclaimed. With one more psi-punch striking a Heavy Censor square in the jaw, he knocked it backwards before turning around to face the water. He looked from the fish to his own feet a couple times, frantically muttering something about depth perception before lev-bouncing himself onto the fish. His boots squished against the lumpy back, but the fish didn't seem to mind. It gurgled happily as it swam them further into the lake, leaving the Heavy Censors watching them in confusion from the shoreline.
"HEY!" Loboto cried. "Have you come to betray me too?!"
The fish warbled something back, bubbles rising up around its face, and Oleander covered the sides of Raz's helmet.
Meanwhile, Loboto gave an affronted gasp. "LANGUAGE!"
Raz was about to protest that he couldn't understand the fish anyway, when Loboto continued:
"I'll need to wash out your brain for that one!"
"You mean his mouth, right?" Raz asked, pulling Oleander's hands away.
Overhead, the hammer and ice pick moved into position directly above them.
"No."
Raz and Oleander ducked down while the fish nearly dipped beneath the surface before thinking better of it. Meanwhile, the hammer struck against the ice pick, and the Coach tossed up a psi-shield at the last second. Even with his mental defenses as strong as they typically were, Raz felt him frantically hoping the shield would withstand the blow.
It didn't need to.
The giant ice pick hovered inches over the shield, shuddering. They watched it, eyes wide, as Loboto's voice stammered: "N... no, no... that's... n-no... n-not... the right... tool for the... for the job..."
Slowly the ice pick stilled, and the purple light surrounding both it and the hammer flickered. Oleander perked up and dug his heels into the fish. "Move it, move!" he urged, and the fish zipped away just as the giant tools crashed down into the water below, creating a wave that splashed over them. The fish stopped, and Raz and Oleander shivered, wiping at their faces for all the good it would do before slowly looking up to see the tools sinking into the water.
"...That was good, Loboto," Raz said, turning to face the island. "Those aren't tools you need to use... or tools that anyone should use."
The cave was silent around them, save for the gentle lapping of the water.
"...C'mon," Oleander said, nudging the fish. "It should be smooth sailing from here."
Just as the lumpy fish began moving again, a loud whine sounded from behind them... then another to the left, then to the right, then in front of them. Several sized-up toy pirate ships armed with cannons came sailing toward them, each piloted by a blue-colored Regret... a Deep Regret, specifically.
"Uh... Coach, Regrets are supposed to be a good thing, right?"
"Good for him... not for us!"
On cue, one of the Deep Regrets turned its ship's cannon toward them and fired a spiky weight. The fish warbled loudly and swerved out of the way, and the weight crashed into the water next to them. Electricity crackled over its surface before it exploded, sending up another jet of water.
"Shouldn't the water conduct the electricity?" Raz wondered, only for the Coach to cover his mouth.
"Don't question it—this is bad enough as it is!"
Raz looked from one boat to the other before perking up and shoving Oleander's hand away. "No... it's perfect!"
"What?!"
"Hey, fish friend," Raz said, crouching down to try to peer over the lumps and into the fish's eyes. "Get the attention of one of those ships and swim up to another!"
The fish gave an uncertain gurgle, but swam over to the nearest toy boat and warbled loudly. In response, the Deep Regret captain aimed its cannon toward them.
"Ahh, I see what you're doing," Oleander remarked, rubbing his chin. "Right, get over to another one of the boats, on the double! GO!"
Not needing to be told twice, the fish zipped across to the next nearest boat while the Deep Regret shut one eye, still trying to aim its cannon at them.
"Steady," Oleander said, while Raz watched the other Regret warily. It was also in the process of frantically loading its cannon to shoot at them. "Steady..."
The further Deep Regret fired the cannon, launching a spiky explosive in their direction.
"MOVE!" Oleander commanded, and the fish darted out of the way, leaving the projectile to crash directly into the other toy ship. The Deep Regret gave a wail of despair that quickly turned into a frantic stutter as the bomb exploded, electrocuting the bug. The boat, seemingly worthless without a captain, tipped onto its side and sank into the water.
"Hah, now that's what I call a bug zapper!" Raz exclaimed.
The fish groaned.
"Aw, who asked you?" After waving the fish's disapproval off, he pointed toward one of the other boats. "Now let's try this again!"
"Not sure the friendly fire'll work a second time," Oleander said, and Raz noticed that the other Deep Regrets seemed to be panicking. "It gave those Regrets some regrets of their own, and I dunno if they'll be repeating that mistake, at least not that easily."
"What else are we supposed to do?"
It seemed the fish had an idea, as it once again took off toward one of the ships. Instead of swimming in place, however, it began to zip around it in circles.
"Ooohh, stupid Navy, never gave me the chance to get my sea legs...!" Oleander whined, crouching down on the fish and grabbing one of its too-many fins for support. While Raz did the same, he kept his gaze on the Deep Regret, which was steering the boat to try to follow them. The fish moved faster and faster, the Regret trying more and more frantically to keep up with them, the boat tilting to the side as it strained to move in circles. After a few more loops, the boat tipped completely over, the Deep Regret's whines soon turning into gargles as it sank beneath the water with its toy vessel.
Raz felt a bit dizzy as the fish slowed to a stop, but he couldn't help but remark: "Guess that captain went down with its ship!" When the fish beneath him gurgled in agreement, he grinned. "Now we've just got—"
"LOOK OUT!"
Raz spun around at the Coach's words, and had just enough time to realize that while they'd been pulling this maneuver, one of the other boats had come closer, and was now practically on top of them. Before either he or the fish had time to react, the Deep Regret fired its cannon.
Oleander tossed up a shield around himself, Raz, and the fish beneath them, but the impact of the electric bomb fired in close proximity caused all of them to rock wildly in the water. Staggering backward, the Coach inadvertently released the shield and bumped into Raz, whose dizziness made it harder for him to keep balance on the slimy body of the fish.
"Wait, wait, no—!" he cried, slipping backward off the fish and into the water.
"RA—"
The roar of water filled his ears, and something grabbed his leg.
It's okay, it's okay, it's just the hand of Galochio, Raz thought, trying to will the hand to bring him back up as it had started to do recently.
It yanked him lower.
No, no, no—! Frantically Raz waved his arms, trying to pull himself higher in the water, but something grabbed the edge of his coat instead, pulling him down further. He looked down, and panic bolted up his spine.
A dozen or more red-and-yellow swirling eyes gleamed up at him from the depths of the lake, and a dozen tiny hands reached up through the water toward him.
Doubts, he remembered. Of course Loboto had doubts, but Raz could definitely get rid of these. All he had to do was...
...was...
Luckily, they're highly flammable!
Lili's voice normally made Raz feel lighter, but now the memory of her words were like weights yanking him down as realization dawned upon him.
COACH! he cried out over telepathy, swinging his arms and kicking his free leg as he tried to reach the surface again. HELP!
But the Doubts were closing in, slinking ever closer, more of their hands reaching upward, their gaping mouths stretching open wider, surrounding him with their hellish glows. Looking back down, Raz pressed a hand to his temple and fired several desperate psi-blasts at the mental constructs, which didn't even flinch on contact. Something squeezed his wrist, and he yelped, eyes bulging as water gushed down his throat.
This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, some distant part of him tried to remind himself, but all he could feel was the water around him and the hands dragging him lower. His lungs were burning and his vision was starting to fade, but as it did, he found himself turning to see the eyes of the last Doubt that had grabbed him, now staring directly into his own. The dark depths of the water and bubbles and even the other Doubts faded, leaving nothing but those red-and-yellow lights staring into him.
The world grew bright in a sudden green flash.
The dark lab was briefly illuminated in the psychic light from the psi-blast as the scale model of the brain tank fired at Dr. Loboto. Raz, invisible on the other side of the room, covered his mouth to hide his gasp as Loboto was knocked backwards out the open window, screaming for what felt like an age, the shrieks growing quieter and quieter until Raz could no longer hear them.
Finally, that's over with, came a deep voice from the brain tank, while Raz continued to stare on in horror.
A wail from outside the lab announced Sheegor's arrival as she rushed over to the window, oven mitts gripping the edge. "Doctor!" she cried. "He's—he's really...?!"
It's all right, baby, Mr. Pokeylope soothed. We did what had to be done.
"D... did we?" Raz found himself stammering as he allowed himself to become visible once again.
Somehow he knew this wasn't how he'd felt at the time—he remembered feeling lighter now that that creepy doctor was out of the way. He remembered feeling like he was living one of the True Psychic Tales adventures, having defeated his very own psychic (or, well, anti-psychic) super-villain. He remembered leaving Pokeylope to reassure Sheegor while he snagged the jars containing Sasha and Milla's brains and hurried them upstairs, ecstatic to be able to rescue his heroes and tell them everything he'd done.
But now, while Sheegor carefully worked to re-brain her turtle friend, Raz found himself gazing around the lab. He could see burn marks he'd previously failed to notice coating one cracked wall, while in another corner near the workshop, he could see a calendar with circular red ink stains where a marker had bled through from a previous page. And again he saw the brain tank model, now in a totally new light, knowing that the Coach had planned to murder his partner in crime once he was done with him.
His gaze turned upward to the tools suspended from the ceiling. He could see the drill, a bone saw, a syringe, a hammer, ones he had seen hovering above his head in giant form... and in their reflective metal surfaces, he could see the red gleam of his own goggles staring back at him, glowing aggressively in the dark lab.
Shuddering, Raz yanked his helmet off and stared down at it, but the goggle lenses weren't glowing—they looked the same as always. But he stared back up at the instruments—some being ones that Loboto had once longed to use for their intended purpose—then at the scorch marks, the calendar, and the brain tank. Finally he turned back to the helmet in his hands, which were trembling.
"I didn't know," he said quietly. "I... I thought I was being a hero."
He looked up again. Sheegor and Pokeylope were gone, and Loboto was standing in the middle of the lab again, staring down at a brain in his hands.
"I helped everyone else—everyone I could, anyway... but not you. Not back then."
Loboto turned slightly to the left, his optics flicking in the same direction, but still not facing him. When Raz took a few steps closer, he flinched away.
"You—you were trying to steal my brain, but... so was Linda, and Coach, and... and I just... I'm sorr—"
The silence of the lab was shattered by an earsplitting roar.
Raz shuddered and gasped, then coughed around a sticky, sugary candy taste in his mouth. His jacket was soaked and his hands were struggling to grasp at the scaly gray surface beneath him.
"Remember your own rations next time, soldier!" Oleander snarled, tossing a wadded-up plastic wrapper into the water. He then lifted his helmet, water pouring out from beneath it, and shook his head. His face softened. "Are you okay?"
After taking a second to swallow down the rest of the Dream Fluff that had been shoved into his mouth, Raz took another breath. His lungs were no longer burning, and if it weren't for his sopping wet clothes he would question whether or not he really had even been close to drowning earlier. "I... I think...?" Slowly he took in his surroundings, realizing he was back in the cavern and atop the mutant fish friend again. This time, though, there were no Deep Regrets piloting toy pirate boats in the lake. "Where did...?"
"Had to take them out first. Sorry it took us so long to get to you." Oleander rubbed his face before glaring down into the water. Raz followed his gaze, only to stumble back when he saw the dim yellow glow deep within the waters below. Immediately Oleander grabbed his arm, giving him a hard look. "Let's not do a repeat rescue mission! Dang Doubts—whose idea was it to put those blasted things in water?"
The fish gargled something, and Oleander nodded. "Yeah, good plan. Let's get out of here."
With that, they approached the small island in the center of the lake. Only the sound of water lapping the shoreline greeted them, the cavern eerily silent otherwise. As they stepped off the fish, it gave one last gurgle before turning around and disappearing into the lake.
"No turning back now," Raz murmured, and the Coach nodded grimly. After watching the ripples fade, the two turned to face the island. It was small—Raz was pretty sure he could circle it in less than a minute on his lev ball—and covered in rubble that instantly brought Thorney Towers to mind. Most of it was piled up in the center, but it seemed deserted otherwise. "...Loboto? Are you there?"
Nothing answered.
"Dang, don't tell me we fought our way across this lake only to get to the wrong place," Oleander said, crossing his arms and walking toward the rubble in the center. "Could be under here, but I doubt it. C'mon."
Raz followed the Coach to the pile, but just as the two of them pulled their fists back, a voice echoed from beneath the wreckage:
"I'm surprised, Morry!"
Oleander froze, sweat trickling down the back of his neck.
"This is where you wanted me, isn't it?!"
All at once the floor began to quake, shaking the rubble and jostling several pieces of stone loose. Raz and Oleander staggered backward, Raz managing a weak shield to deflect some of the rocks until Oleander created a stronger shield as larger ones started falling. The pile of wreckage was rising upward—or, rather, something was rising up from beneath it. A massive form became visible as more and more of the rubble fell away, revealing something that was larger than the wreckage covering it in the first place: a full-sized brain tank, ready to roar into action.
"Oh no, not again!" Raz and Oleander cried simultaneously. Raz's head snapped over to look at the Coach incredulously, but before he could question that, a familiar cackle filled the air.
"I thought you'd be happy to see your brain child again, Morry!" a voice from the top of the tank exclaimed. Looking up, they found Loboto himself sitting atop the tank, patting the machine with his left hand and grinning down at them. "And now the two of you are going to get all the attention from it!"
A powder shot directly out of the tank, spraying over Raz and Oleander, whose eyes widened. "No!" Raz exclaimed, plugging his nose. "C-can't... sneeze... now...!"
The Coach covered the front of his face, eyes watering as he struggled to keep his sneeze back. "I c—I caaaa... aaaaaa... AAAH—"
"CHOO!"
Both of them sneezed simultaneously, then frantically looked around. "Hey... I've still got my brain!" Raz exclaimed.
"Yeah, so do I." Oleander scratched the top of his helmet in bewilderment, only to look deadpan. "...Right, how are we supposed to lose our brains when we're usin' 'em to access this bozo's mind?"
"Humph, it was worth a shot," Loboto muttered, then grinned. "At least this should work!" At once the front of the tank glowed, and Raz and Oleander dove in opposite directions to dodge the psi-blast, which left a smoking crater in the ground where they'd once stood.
"Rrrgh, I didn't wanna see that thing again!" Oleander cried, scrambling to his feet. "I've seen enough of it in my nightmares!"
"What a coincidence!" Loboto shot back, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. The tank turned to face the Coach. "So have I."
An enormous, transparent-purple, clawed hand materialized next to the tank, grabbing a chunk of rubble and lobbing it at Oleander, who managed to block it with a psi-shield.
Raz hurried to Oleander's side, fighting the urge to psi-blast the tank. "Leave him alone! He doesn't want to hurt you anymore!"
"Oh, please, I've heard that one before," Loboto snarled. Another psi-blast fired from the front of the tank, and Raz and Oleander found themselves bolting in opposite directions once again.
"Loboto, please, I mean it!" Raz said, holding up his hands. "We've both made mistakes—"
"MISTAKES!" Loboto cried, throwing his head back with a humorless laugh. "Yes, mistakenly trying to kill someone! Isn't that right?!" The tank whirred as it turned on Raz this time, the front of it glowing once more.
But it wasn't the threat of another super-powered psi-blast that was making a lump form inside Raz's throat. He struggled to swallow it down. "No," he said. "It wasn't right at all."
The tank shuddered, the brain case at the front flickering. "What's that?" Loboto said, his robotic eyes turning down toward Raz.
"I-I shouldn't have agreed to the plan. I should've just... gone into your mind like I did with the others, and figured out what was going on. I never even thought about giving you a fair chance."
For a moment Loboto's optics flickered, only to flare brighter. "Ah, yes, of course you would say something like that when faced with this!"
Without further warning, the tank fired another psi-blast, and Raz dropped into a dodge roll. "But I said it before, too!" he cried, holding up his hands again as Loboto re-focused the weapon. When the dentist paused, Raz took a hesitant step closer. "Or I was trying to, anyway."
Loboto tore his gaze away, optics twitching off to the side.
"You heard it, didn't you?" Raz went on. "When I talked to you... It was after you tried to drown me in Doubts... but you couldn't."
Loboto flinched, then snapped his head back over to Raz, lips pulled back in snarl. "No, but I can blast you to pieces now!" Pounding on the tank with his fist, he fired another psi-blast, which Raz barely managed to dive away from. "Nnnngghhh stay still!" Several more psi-blasts fired, but Raz managed to leap out of the way of each one, silently thanking his father for training him in acrobatics.
A loud clunk from the opposite side of the tank interrupted the blasts, and Loboto turned the entire machine around. "What is it now?"
"Your tank's missing its brains," Oleander replied, clenching his fists. A green psychic hand hovered next to him.
"How's that?"
"Cuz I just did this!" With that, Oleander launched a psychic uppercut through the glass brain case, shattering it. "HAH—uh-oh—" And he shuddered audibly as the slimy green liquid from within the case sloshed out over him. "Eeeeugh!"
"Good to see you're finally taking a shower, army man!" Loboto taunted, drumming his claws against the tank. "You could definitely use it."
"Yeah," Oleander retorted, wiping the green goop off his face, "well you definitely can't use your tank anymore!"
To his surprise, a number of claws had sprung out of the tank to grip the brain within, holding it in place. Loboto leaned further over the tank to sneer down at Oleander. "Says who?"
Raz hurried up to Oleander, finding him staring up at the tank with his hands hanging at his sides. "Coach, are you okay?"
"Of course not!" Loboto snapped. "He's peeved that I'm able to use his precious tank far better than he ever could!"
"No," Oleander muttered, looking away. "I told you, Cal, I didn't want to see that thing again. That's... that's not something I want anything to do with anymore." He shook his head, then turned an accusing eye up to Loboto. "And I thought that's how you said you felt about brains!"
Loboto jerked back, his optics twitching from the brain at the front of the tank and back to Oleander.
Raz frowned; of course it wasn't a real brain, but the Coach had a good point. "You did tell us that, Loboto..."
Tugging at his showercap, Loboto looked one way, then another. He bit his lip before spinning the tank around, forcing the tank's mechanical claws to let the brain go and launching it out into the surrounding lake. It sailed over the darkened water before landing with a distant splash. The tank then turned around, Loboto dusting off his hands as he looked down into the shocked faces of Raz and Oleander. "There! No more brains."
"...Uh," Raz said, holding up a finger. "That's... not what—"
"Perfect!" Oleander interrupted with a wary smile. "Good work, soldier!"
"How was that good?" Raz whispered.
"Cuz now he can't use the—"
The claws at the front of the tank suddenly clamped together, and a glowing purple light focused within them.
"...tank."
With a high-pitched whine the psi-blast charged up, and Raz and Oleander split up once again to dive away from it.
Oleander crashed against some of the rubble as the blast fired just behind him. "Aaggghh...!" Rising to his feet, he wiped the dirt off his face and glared up at Loboto. "Look, Cal, neither of us want to fight you!"
"Really," Loboto said, resting his chin against his hand and regarding him with a deadpan expression.
"...Okay, the kid doesn't wanna fight you. But that's not the point—you've already agreed you're not gonna go about stealing brains anymore. Now all we want is for you to not cause more trouble! What've you got against that, huh?" He frowned up at Loboto, only for his eyes to widen and the color to drain from his face as the giant purple TK claw came swiping at him. Too late he tried to stumble backwards, and the claw snagged him and hoisted him into the air.
Meanwhile, Loboto glared at him from his seat atop the tank. "You wouldn't understand!"
"Coach!" Raz cried. Biting his lip, he looked between the two adults a few times, only to perk up, noting that Loboto's focus was entirely on Oleander. He crept up behind the tank before carefully climbing its massive treads.
Oleander grit his teeth, kicking his legs in the air and pushing his hands uselessly against Loboto's grip. "I understand plenty! I went through some of the same crap as you!"
"Oh, your parents sent you away to a place that would hate you?!" Loboto snarled, yanking Oleander closer. "You had to deal with ungrateful clients who were happy to just toss you aside?!"
The Coach fumbled. "Uh... no, but the—"
"You had to move from place-to-place?" As Loboto rose to his feet, his telekinetic claw trembled. "Never safe, never knowing if you'd be seen as a psychic sympathizer by the wrong person?"
Raz stopped in his ascent for a moment, brow furrowing.
Meanwhile, Oleander shrugged helplessly. "Look, all of us gotta deal with that last one."
"But you didn't have to deal with other psychics plotting your demise!" Loboto yanked Oleander even closer, his optics glaring into Oleander's eyes.
"We're not doing that anymore!" he insisted. "Both Raz and I made some bad decisions, but we're not gonna keep doing that!"
"Of course you will!" Loboto's voice was shrill, his body shaking. With a swipe and a clench of his own prosthetic claw, the TK claw clenched down on the Coach, who let out a choked cry. "They always have! They always will!"
Raz finally pushed himself up to the top of the tank just in time to see Oleander's face turning red as Loboto squeezed the life out of him. "Coach!" he cried out, only to cover his mouth.
"AH!" Loboto spun around to face Raz, his brows raised, only to furrow again. His hand clenched into a fist. "You've come to stab me in the back, haven't you?!"
"No! That's not it!" Raz exclaimed, waving his hands in front of himself. "We want to help you!"
"You're lying!"
For a moment he was certain Loboto would lash out at him, but the dentist only stood rooted to the spot, his optics twitching toward Oleander (who still kicked and struggled in his grip) and then to the tank below. His knees were buckled and his shoulders were hunched and his chest was heaving, and it struck Raz how different his perception of him had become—he looked nothing like the psychic supervillains in True Psychic Tales.
His posture, his behavior reminded Raz of one time when he'd been helping clean up after a circus show and had found a raccoon that had gotten into the ticket booth. He'd wound up with it backing against a corner as it glared at him, shrieking and spitting, hackles raised, body trembling...
That thing's more afraid of you than you are of it, Ford had told him of Linda, after she'd chased him through the lake bed and attacked him multiple times.
Loboto was scared, and he was cornered.
Taking a breath, then letting it out, Raz dropped his hands to his side, loosening his own stance. "We don't want to hurt you, Loboto. Not like your parents did, or your professor, or any of those people you worked for."
For a moment Loboto stared back at him, expression unreadable. "No," he murmured, and his TK claw loosened its grip slightly on Oleander, who coughed and gasped for air. He continued to look at Raz, then turned to face the Coach... only for his TK claw to pull back, and his expression to harden. "Of course, they never managed to trick me into trusting them!"
And he hurled Oleander down toward the shoreline, where the Coach crashed into the water. Before Raz even had time to react, Loboto whirled around, swinging the claw toward him instead.
Raz held his arms in front of his face, stumbling back until he felt his feet nearly slip off the top of the tank. Finally he cried out before he could stop himself:
"CALI, STOP!"
The word echoed in the sudden silence of the cave.
It took Raz a moment to realize the tank beneath him was no longer rumbling, and Loboto had failed to grab him. Slowly he drew his arms away from his face, and nearly fell backward at the sight of the purple TK claw hovering inches from him and trembling in mid-air. Past that was Loboto, his own prosthetic outstretched, his entire body shaking visibly but otherwise unmoving as he stared at Raz.
Once again Raz relaxed his stance, the vision of Loboto in front of him starting to blur. He reached up, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and his throat was tight as he spoke: "Y-you have to believe me."
Slowly, slowly the psychic claw faded as Loboto's real prosthetic dropped to his side. But suddenly the tank they stood upon let out a deep, metallic groan before its metal casing abruptly buckled with an ear-splitting screech. Before Raz had time to react, the entire thing fell apart, collapsing into the rubble beneath them.
Raz yelped as he dropped to the ground with it, finding himself surrounded by ruined stone walls and metal scraps. Scrambling back to his feet, he scanned the wreckage, but he could no longer see the tall frame of Loboto. He nearly groaned in frustration, but stopped when he heard a sniffle nearby. Frowning, he moved a piece of twisted metal aside... and found a familiar child huddled beneath it, his face buried into his knees, shoulders trembling.
"...Cali," Raz said gently, crouching down in front of the kid. "It's okay."
"N-no it's not," Cali stammered between shuddering sobs. "I c-can't leave this place. I can't."
"Yes, you can, Cali."
"No." He let out a strained whimper, his shudders briefly growing in intensity. "W-we're in too deep to get out… I d-don't know how..."
"We'll get you out of here, just like we got out of the hospital," Raz said firmly. He wanted to put a hand on Cali's shoulder, but held himself back.
"But I... I don't even know what's out there," Cali protested.
Raz gazed at him for a moment before reaching out to him, as he had at the hospital. "Wanna find out?"
Finally Cali raised his head; tears ran down his face from beneath his mismatched glasses as he looked from the outstretched hand back up to Raz. "B-but I... I-I don't have anywhere to go." He scrubbed his knuckles beneath his glasses, and his chest jerked in a hiccup. "N-no one wants me."
Something within Raz's chest clenched.
Before he could stop himself, he threw himself forward, wrapping Cali in the tightest hug he could muster. Tears burned at his eyes as he rested his head against the other kid's shoulder, and his firm words shook with emotion as he spoke:
"I do."
Cali sat frozen in shock as both words and actions sank in. Slowly, shakily he drew his arms around Raz's shoulders. As he returned the hug uncertainly, Raz held him tighter until finally Cali rested his head against Raz's shoulder, sniffling.
Another quiet sob nearby informed Raz that they weren't the only ones overcome with emotion. Opening his eyes, he spotted Oleander a short distance off, leaning against a pile of rubble, and he was pretty sure the wetness he was frantically and ineffectively scrubbing from his face wasn't lake water.
Raz wasn't sure how long he held Cali in that cavern, deep beneath the underground cities and cave systems built and dug out from years of pain and loneliness. But the next thing he knew, he heard a familiar, older voice mumble over him: "You… really would help me?"
Cali wasn't little anymore; Raz's arms were instead wrapped around Loboto, whose spindly arm and clawed prosthetic still hesitantly clung to him.
"Of course I would, Loboto," Raz replied, and hugged him all the more fiercely.