Chapter 6: Fighting Demons

Yeah last chapter kind of sucked. But at least the story was good! I hope. So anyway, please review!

Hey! Raz! I have time! Get the heck over here!

He sighed and jump-and-floated (he wasn't really comfortable with the new kind of levitation) to the stairs near the entrance of the building. He knew that voice, and Professor (or perhaps intern) Meier didn't seem that patient to him. He was happy, though, because it was going to be his very first broadcasting lesson. It wasn't the sort of thing you could just learn. Why did everything seem so much easier at summer camp?

He was there.

"Okay. So, do you know how telepathy works?"

"Uh… I thought broadcasting was part of telepathy."

"No, but they're kind of related, so they're grouped together."

"Oh. Actually, I don't know."

"I thought you were the True Psychic Tales fanatic. In #3, Sasha Nein learns telepathy from Clavd, who –"

"Swedish Secret Agent Clavd? The one who –"

"Yes, the one no one who no one suspected because it's kind of an oxymoron, and all that scandal stuff. But that's not what we're talking about today. That was the edition where it explained telepathy. Telepathy is going just past the first layer of censors and listening to someone else's thoughts or emotions in your head."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, broadcasting is the exact opposite. It's taking a thought from your own mind and forcing it into someone else's head."

"So just, like, think of something, and give it to someone else?"

You could put it that way. She smiled at him.

Actually, Meier, I get it now. Sorry to spoil your fun.

She gave him a dry glare. He smiled sweetly and innocently, and with most of those other dumb adjectives that they usually use to describe children. Of course, "they" was usually wrong, but that didn't matter. The only thing he had that "they" doesn't usually have was sarcasm.

"Okay, sixth grader. Go away now. Lunch break is almost over."

"Okay. Bye, Professor Meier!"

"Bye, Raz! Oh, and did you tell Milla about the yoga tape?"

"Oh! I forgot! I'll go tell her right now!"

"Thanks!"

Raz: Hey, Milla!

Milla: Raz, darling? You can broadcast already?

Raz: Yeah! Isn't it cool?

Milla: Yes, darling! Do you have anything else to tell me?

Raz: Yeah. Professor Meier's done with your yoga tape.

Milla: Floating Yoga for Beginners? Is that the one, darling?

Raz: I guess.

Milla: Okay. Thank you darling. I'll come by and pick it up later.

He felt her focus shifting from him to Professor Meier, who was right next to him. Now he had to talk to Zig.

Raz: Zig! Do you know how to broadcast?

Duh! Is this about Lili?

What else? She's in psychoisolation!

Not really. Actually, she's in her mind. She can go anywhere in her collective unconscious. Oh!

What? Is something wrong?

No, dorkface, it's just that she just came into my mind. It feels really weird, if you didn't know yet.

Oh. No, I actually didn't. Uh, how could I get into your collective unconscious? There isn't any room left in mine, so I can't get any more doors.

Uh… Maybe… If you went into Milla's mind, her mind should connect with Sasha Nein's and I know Lili's been in his mind for advanced training in Mental Focusing. Actually, a lot of kids have been in his mind for basic training in shooting because sometimes he subs for the teacher.

Oh. Well, I actually went in his advanced training at summer camp. I have him in my collective unconscious.

Yeah, I know, but do you honestly think he'd let you in just so you could spend a coupe minutes with your girlfriend in her mind, when she's supposed to be in psychoisolation? Milla's nice. Sasha plays by the rules. Deal with it.

Oh. Yeah. Huh. I guess I'd better go talk to Milla then, huh?

Yeah. I'd offer, but I don't have a psychoportal.

I do! I filched it from Sasha's lab when he and Milla got taken across the lake. He forgot to ask for it back.

Oh. I guess you'd better get over here, then.

Okay! Just wait a minute. I have to get all the way across the building, so it could take a minute.

Countdown begins now. 45… 44… 43… 42… 41…

He reached the room that she normally shared with Lili right when she said four in his head. "I wouldn't have done anything to you if you hadn't gotten here before the countdown was over. You knew that, right? That's why I didn't threaten you."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, I knew that."

"Right. Let's just do this."

"Sure."

He TK'd the psychoportal onto her forehead, pulled down his goggles because they looked cool, and entered the mind of someone with a way of seeing that was slightly parasitic.

The world in Zig's mind was… black. He saw a sparkling object that looked like a cassette tape. He switched Clairvoyance to one of his preselected powers, so that he had it ready. He used clairvoyance on the tape. There were three vaults that he could see from where he was standing. Suddenly, he heard Zig's voice coming from the air around him. It was different, though. Enthusiastic, not bored.

"Hello, this is the mind of Amelia Easter Johnson, but you'll call me Zig if you care about your life. I don't care about you enough to make a mental projection of myself for your enjoyment, so you'll have to navigate around my mind your own way. If you punch any of the vaults, I'll push you out of my mind, hack out your guts with a chainsaw, dissect your brain, and teleport all of your parts to the middle of the Sahara Desert. I'm registered as a Teleporter, and since I warned you in advance, and since my requests are simple and easy to do, my actions if you should happen to punch any of my vaults are perfectly legal by Psychonauts regulations. Have a great time in my mind!"

Raz paused. It was Zig… but happy. Or enthusiastic, at least. Wow.

A second later, an image of Zig flickered in front of him, then solidified.

"D'you like the recording?"

"It's certainly, uh, you. Why is your nickname –"

"I keep trying to punch the vaults, but I'm short and I can't catch up with them. I know what you're thinking, and yes, it's very obvious, but I'm not that good at precision levitation. I can go in a straight line, and I can go out of control, and I can float, but that's just about it. There's no in between for me."

"I could get them and give them to you without looking at them."

"Okay, sure. I've still got some personal demons to clear up, so meet me at the other side, and Raz?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll know if you look at any of my reels, and you know you're dead if you do, so don't look at them. It would be a pity if I had to kill you. You're actually a decent person."

"Oh. I've never gotten a threat that was a compliment before."

"What did you expect me to say? 'You're too hot to kill'? you should know me better than that by now."

She disappeared and he knew she was flickering into existence in another part of her mind. Now, he just had to get those vaults.

Near the end of Zig's mind, he saw her battling a… what was that thing? It was… he used clairvoyance on the friendship bracelet next to him.

It was some demon-woman, probably blown out of proportion. Very real here, though.

"Raz, if you help me fight her, I'll hate you forever. This is my own battle to fight."

He understood. He ran around and freed up some mental health for her to use.

Then he went back. He was pretty sure… yep, there was a cobweb. Small, and in a hard-to-reach place, but after he opened it, a piece of mental baggage dropped down. It was surprising, but that was the first piece he had seen in Zig's mind so far. The first cobweb, too. He sorted the duffel, and heard an ear-piercing scream. He assumed that Zig had killed the demon. He went back to that room.

"Thanks for the health. My collective unconscious is over there. It's part of any sane person's mind, but most people hide it away. I don't trust teleport bugs, though. Anything that puts you in a snot bubble, snorts you up its nose, then sends you to someone else, who puts you in another snot bubble definitely isn't worth trusting. Plus, they see everyone as packages. Not even first-class, so I don't trust them."

"That's only gross if you think about it too much. Can you show me which door is Lili's?"

"The black one."

"I should've known. Thanks, Zig!"

"You're forgetting something that's important to your outside survival."

"Oh! Here are the memory reels. Sorry, Zig.

"It's okay. I almost forgot, too. It's amazing how many things can slip your mind when your fighting your mo– your personal demons."

"That was your mom!"

"Yeah, but blown out of proportion. She's not that bad in real life." Zig smiled. "Now get out of here before I push you out, and go see your girlfriend!"

Raz knew how good finishing off personal demons could make people feel, since he'd done it for four people, not including himself and Oleander (those were shared demons), so he ran out the rectangular opening in Zig's mind.

He noticed that above each door, there was an object. He didn't see Zig sneak up behind him.

"Those are the things I use to see what each of those people is up to. The real stuff is on my desk. I've gotten some of the stuff in their minds, but not vaults. I just can't do vaults."

"I know. That was weird today, punching that many vaults without looking at them. How many were there, by the way?"

"A lot. More than in most peoples' minds, that's for sure."

"How come you had so many?"

"I'm not good at compressing them. Repressing seems mean, and compressing is hard, especially back when there were so many demons, but if you noticed it, there was a little mini theater in there, so now I can watch the memory slides."

"Oh. Okay."

A second later, Raz was just preparing for Lili's mind when she came flying out of it.

"Stupid personal demons… Oh! Hi, Zig! Hi, Raz!"

She stood up and brushed off her clothes. "Will you two help me fight the Psychonautics Board? I'm having some trouble with it, since it's been in there for three years, and I never noticed the room until today."

"I fought my dad combined with Oleander's dad. I've hated my dad since I was six, and who knows how old Oleander is? We should be able to beat this guy."

"That's the problem. There are thirteen people on the Psychonautics Board. They're all about the same, except for the chairman. He's tough. Could you two kill the twelve while I work on the chairman? Raz, you can shoot six people with one shot, right?"

"Yeah."

"And Zig can read minds. She can slander and make them fight one another."

"Yeah, Raz, I know all about your hydrophobia."

"Hey! Get out of my mind!"

Zig smiled.

"Come on, guys! Let's go! We have to beat these people!"

They followed Lili to a hidden chamber in her mind. It was actually pretty clean. One cobweb, but it would've been really hard to get it, and downright impossible if you weren't skilled in acrobatics. Sure, Lili could levitate as well as a Psychonaut, but in her mind, she knew she was a Psycadet, so that was the lever of skill she had.

They got to the room Lili had told them about. Some of the board members were represented by wild animals, such as the gorilla and the polar bear, some looked like Nightmares, and some looked like monster-censors… He assumed that the robot-censor was the Chairman. Lili made a shield between the kids and the board people.

"Okay. You know what they look like. Raz, you can beat the animals, Zig can feed the censors confusing information, which will explode them, and both of you can fight the Nightmares. I'll go for the chairman. Zig, which Board member do you hate the most, besides the Chairman?"

"Probably that one guy who's always like, 'There are no exceptions! It's psychoisolation for you!' He always gets on my nerves."

"I think he's the… yeah. He's the macho-censor. Raz, do you know any of the Psychonauts Board?"

"I don't like the one who yells."

"That's the polar bear."

"Okay. I'm going for him, anyway."

"Do we have a set plan?"

"Yeah, Lili, we know what to do. Let me get out there and kick some Censor butt!"

"Okay. Get whatever skill you're going to need ready… Okay. Let's go."

They were plunged into chaos. Raz started shooting, starting with the polar bear, but the shots riquocheted off of four other people and stopped at the sixth person. Eventually, Lili joined them. The fight was only about two minutes long, with censors exploding, three people shooting at nightmares, and animals disappearing after falling on the ground.

"Okay. Glad that's over. It was like a boss fight in a videogame, except it hurt. Plus, with boss fights, you don't usually have to fight thirteen people at once. It wouldn't have been hard at all if I'd gotten to fight them in sequence. What were you two doing today?"

"I fought some personal demons. I'm finally over my mom throwing stuff at me and calling me a devil when she found out I was psychic."

"Oh, yeah, 'cause she's Catholic. It's kind of pathetic, isn't it? People know about psychics, and how anyone can be a psychic, and sometimes they don't figure it out until they're twelve, and then everyone's so surprised that, after discommunicating the house down the street because there's a psychic there, their own kid is levitating on a regular basis, reading people's minds, all that stuff. People just have all these secrets they think psychics can get at. It's so dumb!"

(Raz)"I think people just don't know what to do with them. I thought my dad was gonna kill me. Then I met him in the brain tank and he said he just couldn't teach me anything, so I think he was just confused."

(Zig)"Oh, yeah, let's all forget my mom. First, I wanted to be Buddhist, so I was sacrilegious, then I was a psychic, so I was an unnatural being, then I got depressed because my mom hated me, so I started wearing black, so I was somehow disrespectful to God. The thing is, every religion, every single one, says at one point or another that you should love and respect everyone for who they are. Love thy neighbor and all that junk, the Buddha saying that everyone deserves an equal chance, every religion says something like that, and then everyone keeps saying how horrible psychics are. We save them from things that they aren't even aware of."

Raz was confused. "So the demon you were fighting earlier was your mom?"

"Yep. What was your demon?"

"Well, the first one wasn't really a demon, just an image of Linda the Lungfish. I've never seen my own mind before without some kind of interference. In the brain tank, though, I had to fight my dad and Oly's dad, so I guess my demon was my dad."

Lili, although in psychoisolation, still took the chance to say, "Great job, loser. You've saved a camp full of kids, three teachers, and the rest of the world, not to mention my dad, and you've never even seen your own mind. That's actually kind of pathetic."

"Thanks, Lili, I feel so much better."

"Well, they'll be coming to feed my body soon. I'd better get back."

"Wait! I have something to give you! I forgot because I only just found it today, but, uh… it isn't from my mind, but, I want you… tohave this flower, that I took from Fred's mind, and dunked in a paint fountain in Edgar's."

"It's sweet, Lili, and he's nervous. Sounds like he really likes you!"

"I knew that Zig. Thanks, Raz! It's really pretty! It's a poppy! Cool. Do you know if it wilts?"

"Uh, no, I don't."

"Too bad I can't take it out of my mind. The cobweb duster only takes cobwebs, right?"

"I think the flower's a little thick for the cobweb duster. Plus, flowers are supposed to be looked at, not woven, and the only thing I've ever hooked the duster up to was a loom."

"Oh. Pity. Then I could tell all my friends that my boyfriend's so sweet, he went to two minds just to get me a cool flower."

"Why do I see another slumber party in your mind?"

"So I can brag to everyone about Raz. I have to go now, though. Sorry. Bye!"

"I didn't know it was normal to talk about someone being nervous in front of them."

"Yeah, normally we'd do that behind your back, but this is a collective unconscious here. Plus, that's what we'd be saying anyway."

"Oh. I never knew girls were so… obsessive."

"At least they don't spend forever in the movies showing about how nervous the guy is that he has to practice what he's gonna say."

"Trust me, that doesn't happen in real life."

"Maybe not to you. They always do it in the chick flicks, though."

Okay, I don't like putting a person's name in parentheses just to show who's talking, but it's really hard to figure out a way to introduce each person as they talk. The Zig as a Buddhist is kind of interesting, though, because that's before when she was emo. Spell-check doesn't like emo. It puts a little zig-zaggy red line under it. It doesn't like zig-zaggy, either. But seriously, if you think about what might have happened , this was just a couple years ago when Zig wanted to do this, then her mom got mad at her, then she found out she was psychic and her mom got even more mad at her, and she probably ran away to a fire station or a friend's house or something. Then she turned emo because (notice that I didn't even put in any mention of her dad in there) her mom couldn't stand her and only other psychics seemed to accept her. I mean, kids are less prejudiced, but I doubt that many of her friends' parents, under this philosophy I've got in this story, would want an untrained psychic in their house. Or a trained psychic, for that matter.

Sorry I haven't updated in forever. I've been doing internet stuff (as in, not typing fanfic) but this chapter's pretty long to make up for it.

I've been thinking of doing a story with 666 paragraphs, or lines, or something like that. Would anyone read it? I. myself, am not Christian, and I take no offense at a number divisible by 2, 3, 6, and 9 (just counting the obvious ones) but I think it would be fun just because it means something to people. It'll be the ushiest, gushiest, sweetest story ever (and hopefully well-written) but I just need and idea. I'm. I'll even post on the preview that it's the one that I wand to have 666 paragraphs. I just want to know if anyone will read it.