------------------------------

Raz felt an awful weight settling around his shoulders even as he floated down unto the ground. Glancing up, he noted his levitation ball was very dark now, hardly giving out any light. At that moment, somewhere in the back of his mind, a doubt sounded. Could I have done it? But no, his rational mind screamed, it was impossible. If it had been anyone else who had been driven insane, he wouldn't have thought so. He'd read about insane Psychonauts before, and the affects of psitanium. But it wasn't anyone else- it was Lili. Lillianna Marie Zanotto, the girl who could kick ass, look cute, and win his heart without even trying. So there had to be a mix up.

It was eerie and surreal stepping on the hollowed grounds of Thornley Towers Home for the Disturbed. It had been blown up! Raz had seen this place go up in flames and crumble down. But now it was almost totally the same. Boyd no longer guarded the gates, the crows were nowhere to be seen, the courtyard of the asylum lacked any brains-in-a-jar or debris, and where Gloria's pots with smiley faces had once been, there was nothing. Raz shuddered. He wished the crows were here. It was so quiet, so absolutely silent. It was unnatural. The elevator wasn't working, so Raz had to walk/levitate up to the top. Everything was twisted into exactly how it had been before the explosion. The rats were gone. Everything seemed deserted.

Then Raz saw it: A G-man from Boyd's mind, holding a telephone and playing air guitar as it walked down the hall, blue skin shiny and red eyes glowing. "I work on the phone lines. I could listen into any phone conversation I want, but do not, owing to my sense of professional duty." It wasn't possible for it to exist outside the Mental World. But it was still prancing in front of him. Raz froze. It was only there for a few seconds before fading into thin air. Raz took a deep breath and then continued along his way. Keep calm, he told himself, there's an explanation for all of this. It probably won't make any sense, but there IS an explanation for it.

As Raz approached the elevator to take him up to Loboto's old lab, he felt a curious sensation in his body. His heart rate slowed and his breathing was normal. He wasn't freaking out anymore. Or rather, he was, but in mind only. He couldn't feel the ground beneath his feet as he stepped out of the elevator. There was a thick grey fog hanging around the dome- how he wished he'd remembered his goggles. But with that unearthly calm that he couldn't understand, he stepped forward into the fog and descended silent as a ghost up the winding steps. Under any other circumstances, this either would've been really cool or really scary. Now his mind was focused on one thing: Lili.

Her voice was faint, as the fog muffled all sound, distorted it. She could have been across the empty room or right in front of him; he'd never know until he bumped into her. There was white light that seemed to come from within the fog itself swirling around the room. It made it look like morning. Carefully, Raz studied the room as he moved around. She was so close… where was she?

"Raz… help me, you jerk…" he almost laughed and cried at finally seeing her, hearing her attitude-laced voice. Her hair was down to her waist now, officially out of its pigtails. Her eyes were blank, the pupils rolled back. Hugging her knees to her chest, she sat on the floor, rocking herself slowly and quietly begging for help. Raz had never been emotional, but the sight just about broke his heart. She was wearing a black sweater with a Pikachu printed on the front, and dark red-blue checkered pants. Her gloves were absent, and she was covered in what smelled like volcanic ash. "Raz…"

"Lili!" he yelled, shaking her. "Lili, it's me! I'm here!"

She fell limply against him, muttering, "No, no, never really here, you'll be gone soon, no, no, never ever ever."

Raz felt ready to have an emotional breakdown, but instead he took out the psycho portal he'd gotten from Sasha. Placing a gentle kiss on her forehead first, he put the door in place, and entered her mind. Without his goggles, his eyes simply glowed for a moment before his astral projection flew into her head. His physical body collapsed on top of hers, and the world's two youngest Psychonauts lay unconscious on the ground. The mist made everything look pale. Had it not been for the subtle rise and fall of their chests, they could've been dead.

-----------------------------

Lili's mind was very… wrong.

It had been tampered with somehow, fused into Gloria's mind. Half of the area was Lili's: Pink skies, black ground, and lots of stairways/doors leading to the hidden area of her mind. (Because her father was the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, she'd learned how to guard her mind carefully.) Most of these stairways weren't connected to the ground, or floated in midair. A few teddy bears and black guitars hovered around, giving the place a pleasant, creepy, totally Lili feel to it.

The half that wasn't Lili's was part of the catwalks from Gloria's mind, crudely merged onto some of the stairways in Lili's mind. The sky seemed to vanish once the catwalks started, and there were censors running amuck everywhere. The bigger ones from Gloria's mind were fighting off the hordes off mini-censors that were whaling on them. A few nightmares on Lili's side had opened up holes in the ground and their skinny arms flailed madly as they screamed in pain.

Raz wasn't sure where to begin. One of the doors, fighting the censors, battling the nightmares, checking out the doors that connected Lili and Gloria's minds, looking into Gloria's min altogether – it seemed there was no way to decide. Everything was in such utter chaos there was no way of telling which one was more important. The nightmare holes were tripling in number even as he watched; the censors were pouring out of both minds seemingly without end.

Then Raz saw it again. Two huge, elongated orange eyes, the small pupils vibrating as they stared at him. Suffocated breathing sounded, along with the smell of rot. The creature was shaking, standing hunched on legs far too skinny and bony to support its body. It's arms were thin and, had they not been folded over its chest, would've been about six feet long. Its skin was molted grey, scaly, and it's think body contrasted to its huge head that bobbed back and forth on a long, twisted neck. It had a long, thin tail with a huge sickle-like claw attached. As it stood there amongst the catwalks, it raised one clawed hand as if waving before it leapt up with surprising strength and vanished into the darkness. Raz stood rooted to the ground, nearly immobile, when it occurred to him for the first time that everything was that creature's fault.

Levitating to the catwalks, Raz began to chase the creature frantically. Its steps were loud and echoing, giving Raz a clear idea of where it was at all times. He shot psi-beams at it, and it just barely dodged as it flew, a flurry of long limbs and snarling, to avoid him. The blasts usually missed by about half an inch, even though Raz was focusing. But at the same time, the catwalks were becoming fractured, old, and rusted the deeper he ventured. Some places were slimy and Raz nearly died trying to keep on level footing. Occasionally a flash of a second creature would come into view, but he had to worry about the one he had within his sights first.

Finally, a shot hit.

The creature screamed and fell onto a platform, shivering violently. It clutched at itself, trembling, then began to change shape. The eyes became more human, the skin more of a sickish white-grey, and long black hair sprouted from the head of the creature. It became recognizably human, albeit long limbed and tall, with deeply angled, pure orange eyes that glowed. Black, skin tight clothing that looked like the body suits the Psychonauts had issued back in the 60's was the only clothing the creature-turned-boy wore besides thick orange gloves and boots.

Raz recognized him from somewhere… he paused to study the trembling boy in front of him. Why was this kid so familiar?

"Hello," the orange-eyed person drawled quietly. "I'm Zaberial Zanotto."

----------------------

Oooh, the suspense!

I woke up this morning, realized I had enough reviews that I should have updated, and wrote this entire chapter in a half hour.

Anyway, same as always, three reviews and I'll update. I'm trying to make the chapters longer, but it's hard. I honestly didn't think anyone would be interested in this fic. Tell me how I'm doing, people! I have misspellings and grammar issues everywhere, probably, but since this was written at four in the morning, bear with me!

I love you, my reviewers! You're like the army of Kamikaze bunnies I never had!