"Hey, kid, quit it."
"Why? Is it irritating you!?" Razputin shouted, knowing that nobody would hear anything when this ended.
"No. Okay? You're gonna panic. I don't care about you, but I won't stand for anyone screwing this up. This is serious business, and when you fuck up, you die."
"Oh thanks, that helps."
"I'm serious, kiddo. Just chill out, alright? You'll do fine."
"Why are you being nice?"
"Because I'm better than you. I'm obligated to help you out."
"You're not better than me! I was a Psychonaut already at age ten, okay?"
"Oh, here we go, yeah. The whole "I should've been out before everyone else, forget regulations, wah wah wah, I was a Psychonaut when I was 10," the whole bitching and moaning - it doesn't make you more likeable. Quit being a punk."
"ME likeable!? I'm surprised anyone likes YOU! What are you... Whatever. I don't care."
Razputin groaned, and as the feeling of the shoe faded from the back of his head, he coughed wildly, the kind of cough you make just before you throw up.
"Goggles? Jeez, are you okay!?" Brent asked, looking down at him.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I..." He didn't even look back. "I swallowed a bug is all."
"Gross," Xander said, a quiet tinge of sarcasm in his voice, laughing quietly. Brent, meanwhile, set out to
"Please fasten your seatbelts," Sasha mumbled, casting it over the small PA system. "We will be landing in a few short moments."
Razputin reached over, clicking it into place. You never get used to the landings of the jets. A normal airplane, maybe, but not the Psychonauts jets. The jet hit the ground, and with a jolt forward that sent almost everything not fastened down across the jet (one clip-on fuzzy dice earring included) to the windshield, and the seatbelts zipped back up. Everyone slowly filed out of the jet, looking up at a gigantic mansion, moonlight casting down upon it.
Sasha headed in front of the group. "Alright, we will be entering the mansion in teams of three. Thomas Carol, Brent Larson, and Katie Sellar - Timerri Russ, Marcus Aane, and Lili Zanotto..."
Razputin shuddered. He saw this coming, but regardless, he would still feel that awful sinking feeling as the next three names were called: "Vernon Tripe, Razputin Aquato, and Xander Tripe."
Xander sighed quietly. "Vernon..."
"Team one, you'll go to the second floor. Team two, stay on ground level. Team three, you will investigate the basement."
"The... the basement. Where the serial killer usually is," Razputin asked, wincing.
"Yes, the basement, although you don't have to have such a negative outlook..." Sasha responded.
"Oh okay then, can you hand me a pen and paper?"
"...why?" Sasha raised one eyebrow above his sunglasses.
"Writing my will, making the most of my time left here..."
"Please, just go, Razputin."
Razputin filed out, with Vernon and his much less enjoyable brother Xander. "Yeah, whatever..."
Vernon hadn't changed all that much. His voice was still the same, monotonous Vernon drawl that seemed to go on and on and on - except he looked almost entirely different. His hair was long and black, hanging out under his hat, the same old Aztec-looking one. He was skinny, barely any muscles on his bones, and actually rather tall. He wore a light grey pair of jeans over cheap ripoff skater shoes, and a black T-Shirt for the band Muse.
"Hey-a Raz. How's it going?"
"Fine." Razputin replied briefly. Then again, it really wasn't fine. Lying to Vernon wasn't helping either.
"Okay. Some graduation, huh?" Razputin winced at this comment. "Xander, you're the coolest." Yeah right.
Xander smirked, stepping forward. "Yeah, I know, I'm the one that got the good genes in the family, huh?"
Vernon laughed, slowly, nasally and quietly. "Ah-huh, ah-huh... yup. That reminds me of the story of Metal Gear Solid. It's a great game. It's about this guy Solid Snake. Solid Snake isn't actually his name, th-"
"Vernon, I don't need a story right now." Razputin groaned.
"Hey, if he wants to tell a story, he'll tell a story." Xander snapped back.
Razputin sighed and looked down at his feet, as they continued across the mansion, searching for the stairs that even lead into the basement in the first place, much less entering it. Vernon's drawling story continued on as they continued down a hall and finally down the stairs.
"And so, in the end, my dog became the governor and it was the best summer ever!"
"Well, that was the most believable story of canine presidency I've ever heard, but I don't remember where the part about your dog started," Razputin responded, scratching the back of his head.
"Yeah, well, it was character development," Vernon responded.
Xander hushed the two, rounding a corner - that whole God complex that should have been so painful for anyone else. And there, sitting on a small rug with a sketchbook, was a rather small man. He wore a top hat, with orange hair coming out the back of it, reaching down past his shoulders. His clothes were tattered and torn hobo attire, stark contrast to the top-hat. And sitting next to him was a bloody dagger.
"Don't move," Xander yelled, cutting through the silence.
"Wh-what?" His voice was shaky, and confused.
"Put your hands in the air."
Razputin should be the one doing this - he outranked Xander, high honors or not. The man conformed.
"Stand up, slowly." Xander walked over, as the suspect stood up. "What's your name?"
"...Mark... M-Mark Gan. Mark Gan." And as Razputin attempted to read his mind, Xander kicked him in the back. 'Mark' tumbled to the ground, face first.
"Bullshit! What's your name!?"
"My name is Mark Gan!" He yelled back, terrified.
"Your name is Mark Gan, and you live in the basement of Fairs Maske's mansion, with a bloody knife and a sketchbook." He took one step forward, onto the man's back. "I'm completely authorized to restrain you, and kill you, should the need arise - you're obstructing justice, you're a murderer, and I'm a government-contracted Psychonaut. What's your name?"
"No you're not!" Razputin shouted, quickly, trying to end what could only be described as police brutality.
Xander stepped back, spitting to the side. "What the agency doesn't know, can't possibly hurt them."
Vernon stood with a stoic expression, before mumbling, "He's Fairs Maske. He's delusional."
"Delusional?" Xander asked.
"He's schizophrenic, and thinks he's one of four people who live in this mansion, all personalities he has."
Xander stepped away, as Fairs began to stand up, and while the red-haired Tripe turned his head, he grabbed his knife, holding it in an army grip.
"I only got to see two. One is Mark Gan, who thinks he's a painter, and one is Reid Schumacher, who thinks he's in a bunker under siege in Vietnam."
And just then, as Fairs was about to shout and lunge forward, Xander turned around, seeing Fairs standing with the knife in his hand.
One would expect the egotistical, assholish Xander to run and cower, as this would be his breaking point indeed, but Fairs made his own fatal mistake. As Xander took a step back, trembling, the murderer shouted, "Get out of here, you freak!"
And in a second, Xander's hand was firmly around the man's neck, clenching his arm with the other hand, and walking around behind him, pinning his arm back. "It's okay, guys, everything's okay." Xander whispered.
And then there was a sickening crack as the man's elbow was bent up and broken, the sound of the knife dropping, the quick sight of him being thrown to the floor, and a stomp and crack that just went to show everything was NOT okay.
"Jesus Christ!" Razputin shouted, as Xander slowly drew his foot from a small puddle of crimson fluid. "Okay, that was illegal in so many ways, that was against everything in the rulebook, that was NOT OKAY!"
Vernon stared, eyes wide, cringing a moment, stepping back. "And Vernon's mind was still connected with his! You could've messed him up just as bad!!" But Xander was grinning wildly, staring down at the bloody mess that was once a redeemable mind.
"No, Razputin. I do what I want. You aren't going to tell the agency. I know you aren't."
"Oh yeah? Why not?"
"Because you know what happens to people who get on my bad side."
"See, this is what I'm talking abou-"
That bastard once again made the world cold and bleak, Vernon's shaking becoming incredibly slow. "See? This is what I'm talking about, Raz."
"What's wrong with you? This isn't the solution to all of your problems! I mean, you could at least be taken to a psychologist or somethi-" Razputin blinked, eyes widening. The Psychonauts were pretty much extreme psychologists. And if all else failed, that meant one thing. Someone was going to have to go into Xander's mind.
"What's wrong with me? He reminded me of my father. I HATE my father."
"Yeah, yeah, what Psychonaut doesn't have father issues?"
Xander stared him down, walking his way around Razputin, a finger dragging along him the whole time, before glaring at him through tightly winced eyes, as if trying to pierce through his soul, snarling and growling. And with his other hand, he shoved Razputin away.
He hit the wall with his back, color restored, and promptly clutched his stomach. Xander wiped his hands, as Razputin knelt down, staring up. It would be so easy right now, just to put Xander in his place - light him on fire, psi-blast him, anything. Just shut him up. But yet, he knew it would only land him in more trouble.
"Well, Fairs committed suicide when we caught up to him, and that was that. C'mon Vernon, come on Raz, let's go report back to Agent Nein and Agent Vodello."
Xander started up the stairs, and Vernon followed after, trudging up, eyes wide and locked upon the corpse the whole time.
But Raz took a seat against the wall, staring into what once was Mark Gan, what once was Reid Schumacher - what once was a lot, and a lot of potential. What if he could just understand what was going on his head?
And then there was another voice forcing its way into his head.
"You're going to have to." A cold, calculated and concise voice.
"...No, I can't!" Razputin yelled back - so loud, and yet, not a single sound in 'the real world.'
"Please, Razputin. You're the only Psychonaut with actual field experience in mind repair. Come upstairs."
He trudged up, and saw Xander standing in a trance, staring at a wall painting. "You've seen Requiem for a Dream, haven't you?" Sasha asked, suddenly.
"Uhhh... no." Razputin responded, quickly.
"Well, there was a scene where Harry looked out his window and hallucinated seeing his girlfriend at the end of a pier and ran to her."
"Uh... okay, and?"
"I wanted to let you in on what we were doing, of course."
That was unusual. Then again, it was nice. "Yeah, well, where's the psi-portal?"
"Of course. On the table next to you," Sasha projected, before that eerie presence in Razputin's head disappeared again. He grabbed the psi-portal, hitting Xander squarely in the back of the head. He pulled his goggles down, as his astral projection dived in.
--
"Three... two..." Someone mumbled off in the distance. Razputin looked around - a dark, bleak room, slowly illuminating. And with two simultaneous gunshots, the room suddenly lit all the way up.
Two men - one that looked like Xander and one that looked like Vernon lie on the floor dead. "Whoa, what the hell!?" Razputin asked, glancing down at them - a bullet hole in each's head. And suddenly, the wounds seemed to stitch themselves up, and they stood up again, holding pistols to eachother's heads.
"MY LIFE SEEMS TO BE SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL!" Xander shouted, staring down Vernon.
"I recently found myself in the most ridiculous of situations, in which - " Vernon began, staring right back.
"I had left my car locked and everything in the Psychonauts parking lot that morning, and it was a crappy day. As I left the last class of the - "
"Day, I found my car had been VANDALIZED! I mean, not just some dents or a broken window, I mean, someone personally broke into my car, burned the - "
"EXPENSIVE LEATHER SEATING, TORE OUT THE RADIO, AND BROKE EVERY SINGLE WINDOW!!"
"Naturally I wasn't too worried as I could contact my insurance, but they INSISTED that they were in fact NOT COVERING THIS TYPE OF - "
"DAMAGE, AND TO THE BEST OF MY ABILITY I TRIED TO CONVINCE THEM THAT I WAS IN FACT INSURED FOR VANDALISM, TO THE POINT WHERE I HAD TO READ THEM THEIR OWN - "
"Contract, at which point, FINALLY, they agreed to pay me my insurance money, but when I - "
"WENT TO THE DEALERSHIP, on the assured promise that I would be sold the car, the sleazebag in the business suit told me I didn't - "
"Have good enough credit, which was ridiculous, because I could barely get a credit card in the first place! I mean, I never once missed a single payment on any - "
"THING I HAD EVER BOUGHT!" Xander shouted, an incomprehensible noise out into the air following it.
"Ready?"
"Yeah. Three... two... one." And then they shot eachother again, while Razputin stared on in a mix of sheer terror and utter confusion.