Here's the second chapter. By the way, I don't blame any of you if you're confused about the mechanics of a Psychonaut's jet. (Please review and so on.)

Membranous Insanity

Lili jumped out of the jet and tried to figure out where exactly she landed. Well, at least she wasn't completely off her target…and at least she only tore down a few trees…and even though she didn't know how to put down the landing gears, the jet wasn't all that damaged…

She was in the parking lot, ("I hope Oleander wasn't too fond of his car…") and conveniently enough, near a stump that led to the transit system under the camp. Lili jumped in and landed neatly in the cart upon which some feminine, computerized voice asked in an interestingly seductive manner, "Where would you like me to take you, Agent Cruller?"

"The sanctuary," Lili snapped. The cart didn't seem to realize that this young girl couldn't be Ford (because, for one thing, he's a man, not a girl) and so whirred along its merry way to Ford's sanctuary.

Ford raised an eyebrow when he saw Lili jump out of the stump and run over to him. "You're supposed to be at HQ."

"Well, yeah. Maybe. I guess. But that's not important right now!" Lili had found that the best way to get her father to forget about a certain detail was to shout, 'That's not important right now!' and so tended to say this a lot, even if it usually only worked on her dad. She was about to go on a long ramble containing a summary of events leading up to a question, but stopped herself when she realized something. "Wait, you knew they were gonna leave me behind at HQ?"

Ford chuckled and tapped his head. "Part of my subconscious is still in Raz's head. I just peeked a little while you all were flying in that jet."

Lili found that now it would be quite uncomfortable talking to Raz, knowing that an old man could listen in. She tried to stop thinking about it so she could do the thing she came here for and so that Ford wouldn't read her thoughts about him being a pervert. "Okay, so anyways, you can still access the HQ's database, right?" The crazy old man nodded, and Lili felt elated. "Great! That means you can tell me where that lady's evil lair or whatever is!"

At this, Ford shuffled uneasily. "Weeeeelll…"

Her bubble of elation popped. "Oh great. What?"

"First of all, Sasha and Milla would kill me for sending you out there! Second, don't take this the wrong way, but you're not needed. Everybody who can take care of it is already there. If you needed to go and save them, I would know through Raz and trust me; they're not in trou…bl…e…"

Cruller suddenly had a strange, dazed look on his face as he stared at something Lili couldn't see. The old man snapped out of it quickly and bluntly said, "They're in trouble. Well, at least Raz is." Lili didn't know whether to celebrate this sudden shower of lucky coincidences or to start worrying about Raz. "He got knocked out," continued Ford as he shuffled over to a computer. "Might've been a trap. Not sure 'bout the others, but they were probably caught in the same one. I'll have to send you in." Something started printing out, and Ford ripped the paper off and handed it over to Lili. "If you see Sasha or Milla, tell them not to kill me for this."

Lili glanced down at the slip of paper that had the coordinates, then looked up at Ford again. "Hang on, can't you teleport me there? Sasha mentioned that you could earlier."

"Afraid that you'll crash that jet next time?" The girl scowled, and she wished that Ford would stop grinning. "Sorry, but I have no idea where exactly…eh… '42 W, 17 S' is, or what this lair looks like. If I tried to send you over, you might end up…in Germany or something, I dunno. Here's a radio for communicating with me." The radio was a dull green, though some of the paint was peeling off. It smelled weird and looked like it could explode.

"…I think it's safer if you do to me whatever it was you did to Raz," said Lili, trying to hold the radio by the antennae to avoid the sparks. Unsavory as the idea of an old man in her head was, she preferred that to having something explosive in her pocket.

"Hey, my mind's broken enough! I don't need to go around, breaking more pieces off and shoving it into every kid's brain!"

The resulting mental image was enough to convince Lili not to push the matter further. "Okay, I'll stick with the radio. I'll call you when I get there, I guess."

"You also might need this." Because Lili had been ready to leave, she was completely unprepared for the flying Psycho-portal aimed at her. She grabbed at it and fumbled with the tiny door until she got it in her pocket.

"Okay, thanks. I'm not sure if I'm ever gonna use it, but thanks anyways."

"Be careful. And only tell those guys I willingly gave you that paper if you have to. Like when they're torturing it out of you or something."

"Thanks…I guess." She waved back to Ford before jumping back into the stump.

Back in the parking lot, Lili was surprised to see a boy loitering around Milla's car. "Hey!" she barked, climbing out the stump. "Who're you?"

The boy stiffened up and guiltily turned around, but once he saw it was only a girl, he relaxed. He had a very long hat and blue skin and was dressed in Asian-like clothes. Lili vaguely wondered if it was made of silk. "Um," the boy mumbled sullenly, "I'm D'artagan."

That didn't sound like an Asian name at all. "…Dartigan…?"

The boy didn't seem all that angry. Maybe he was used to his name being mispronounced. "No, Daaart…taaaag…gaaaan. D'artagan."

Lili shook her head. "I'll just call you Dart. " He didn't seem to mind. "What are you doing here? Camp is over. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen you around here before…"

"Oh, well…uh…" Dart started to shiftily look away under Lili's suspicious glare. "…I was…hiding in the bathroom…"

"…From Bobby?"

"Yeah! That guy!"

"The whole time?"

"Um…yeeeah…" Knowing how implausible his story sounded now, Dart quickly changed the subject. "So, uh, you're going to Vera's place, right?"

Lili's eyes widened, but then she remembered that she was a psychic who lived with psychics and therefore shouldn't be so surprised. "Stop reading my mind."

"Then stop making your mind so invitingly readable," Dart retorted lazily. "Anyways, can I come with you?"

Judging from his behavior up to that point, Lili decided that Dart would give a vague answer to the question, 'Why?' And though Dart was slightly suspicious, she could use all the help she could get. Infiltrating a crazy villainess's lair is hard work, you know. "Fine. Get in the jet."

Dart quickly whipped his head around to the jet in amazement (consequentially almost hitting Lili with the end of his hat) and said, "You know how to fly that?" But Lili didn't answer and her invitingly readable mind said something along the lines of "Well…" in brainwaves. Dart suddenly grew nervous, but he followed Lili and they both levitated in. Instead of sitting in the back, Dart decided to follow Lili to the cockpit, which may have been the worst mistake he had ever made.

As Dart was wondering where all the gauges and levers and all the other stuff needed to steer a jet were, Lili put the keys in and closed her eyes to get ready to drive.

"Wait," said Dart, getting very nervous indeed. "Why are you closing your eyes?"

"'Cause I can only drive this thing with my mind, and I need to close my eyes to concentrate."

"You're gonna drive a jet with your eyes closed?!"

"Zip it. And tell me if I'm gonna crash into anything." Lili thought she heard whimpering as the jet shakily took off.

The trip almost made Lili go mad. Listening to the cheerful voice of the jet's GPS was teeth-grinding enough, but together with Dart's loud screams whenever the jet started dropping (which was often), the whole affair was the please-shoot-me-I-long-for-the-sweet-embrace-of-death kind. A regular conversation on the jet was a morbidly joyful voice intoning, "Warning, Mount Rushmore straight ahead!" while a high-pitched scream right next to her ear warned her of the same thing.

When the jet finally landed roughly, Dart immediately tottered out, fell to the ground in a belly flop, and lay there, vowing never to under-appreciate the ground ever again.

Lili pointedly landed on Dart. "Get up, moron. It wasn't that bad."

"You flew too low! I could hear trees scraping the bottom! And you almost crashed into that building! And you broke President Roosevelt's nose!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll call Ford now, and we'll go."

There was nothing indicating where the two children were. Not even a sign proudly declaring the country's name. Only a broken fence, an abandoned warehouse, and a dirty poster on the ground saying 'Viva la Revolution!' for some reason.

They easily jumped over the fence and approached the large, intimidating warehouse door. The rusty metal door wasn't locked, but it was extremely heavy and both of them had to tug the handle until it slid enough to let them slip in.

The inside was very dark. The light that came through the crack in the door only revealed a strip of the concrete floor before being overwhelmed by the complete darkness. There was also a horrible smell, which reminded Lili of when her fish died.

Lili couldn't even see a shadow. Was anything still in here? How would they find Vera's lair? Was it underground or something?

"…Maybe we can find a light switch," Dart said, finally breaking the silence. He was already moving along the wall with a hand out to keep him from bumping into anything. "You go to your right. I'll go this way."

Lili did so because it was a sensible thing to do, but neither of them went far when she heard a noise.

Scrrrt scrrrt, went the noise.

Although she didn't want to sound scared, the girl squeaked, "What was that?"

"Maybe that's the sound of you kicking a rock," replied Dart somewhere in the darkness, though even he didn't sound convinced. The sound was more metallic.

KlikliKLANG. And then it was completely dark.

"…Aaand that's the sound of the door closing," said Dart, hoping his eyes would adjust quickly.

Heh…hehehehe…

"…Aaand that's the chilling maniacal laugh of someone about to kill us."

"Maybe she can't see us either…"

"Intruders…I see you over there…you won't take mommy away from me…" The metallic scraping sped up its rhythm, and Dart quickly realized that whoever the owner of the voice was, she was dragging a metal thing and was now running over to where he was.

The blue-skinned boy ducked and tried rolling away, but it was hard when he had no idea where exactly his attacker was. He felt something swing above him as he ducked, but then rolled right into the attacker. They both fell and there was some struggling noises before Dart finally got up and ran away. "We have to make light!" He suddenly felt many degrees hotter. "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

"EEEYAAHAHAHAHAHA!" the mystery attacker screeched somewhere far off, and after that Dart heard what could only be Lili screaming. Shit! When had she stopped chasing him?! The boy charged over to where he thought he heard the scream and ran right into Lili's illuminated psychic fist.

"Oh sorry," Lili apologized as soon as she found out who she had punched. "I thought you were that crazy laughing woman…"

"Jus…just find something to light on fire…" Dart groaned and felt his nose. It was bleeding. He heard Lili run off somewhere just as the chilling cackle started up again. He rolled over to the side just as something came down on the end of his hat, tugging it off. Dart grabbed it and stuffed it back on his head before running off again.

"Try grabbing your thought bubble!" said Lili from who-knew-where, and Dart pulled a blue bubble from thin air, which managed to cast a paltry blue glow. It was helpful, as he could see that he was about to run into a wall and so turned quickly, but looking behind him to see the attacker almost made him trip. The blue glow created a "flashlight" effect on her face, and what he could see of it showed pure, homicidal insanity.

She also seemed to be smoking, which just made her creepier.

Dart suddenly rushed towards the woman and aimed a psi-punch at her chest, but the psychic energy popped when it hit her. It had pushed her to the ground, but was otherwise ineffective. While he was gaping in confusion, the lady got up again and hit him on the side of his head with her weapon.

It was definitely a metal pipe, thought Dart as he collapsed onto the ground. His thought bubble popped too, but he already knew that the woman was raising her pipe again for another blow. Too dazed to roll away this time, Dart shut his eyes and braced for the pain that would surely hit.

There was suddenly an orange-ish glow and a harsh howl, and a steaming pipe clattered besides Dart. When he opened his eyes again, Lili was running up to him, red-purple bubble in hand, and she quickly dragged him away from the cursing woman.

"Sorry," she said, breathing heavily. "I couldn't set her on fire for some reason, so I tried her pipe."

"My psi-punch didn't work on her…" Dart murmured, trying to ignore the fact that his head was bleeding. On a whim, he tried using clairvoyance on the lady, and only got a second's glimpse through her eyes before getting kicked out somehow. "I don't think psychic stuff works on her," he said, strangely calm.

"Oh, just great! We can't fight her and we can't open the door without her coming over to stop us!"

"You know, listening to you panic makes me happier for some reason…"

"Screw you. Just stay here. I just had an idea." Dart felt himself being dragged to a wall and watched as Lili ran back to the crazy lady. By now, the pipe had cooled down and the woman was rushing towards them again, her cackling as strong as ever. Lili pushed her back a little with psi-blasts that, though not very effective, apparently still stung a little, and once there was a comfortable distance between the two, the pig-tailed girl telekinetically grabbed the pipe so that the woman was now in the air. She shook her around until the woman lost her grip and then finally whacked her on the head with the pipe. The woman seemed to have been knocked out, but Lili hit her again to be sure. It may seem unbelievable that Lili would hit anybody on the head with a pipe, but she did. The crazy woman was trying to kill her after all. (She also tried pretending that the woman was a stuffed animal, which helped a lot.)

The lights flickered back on, blinding the two for a few seconds. "Okay," said Lili, rubbing her eyes, "I think there's an –" Her sentence broke off into a loud shriek as she turned around to face Dart. It looked like she was pointing at him, but he saw what she was screaming at once he looked left.

In the corner, just a foot away from him, was a skeleton. There were wriggling maggots all over it, left with no more decaying flesh to eat. The skeleton had probably once been female, as it was wearing a very torn and dirty dress.

"…So that's where the smell came from."

"Stop being so calm! It's creeping me out! Just help me open the door. I think there's a first aid kit somewhere in the jet."

While Lili ran outside, Dart leaned against the now open door and held the side of his aching head. With nothing better to do, he surveyed the inside of the warehouse. It was completely bare. Concrete floor, concrete walls, concrete ceilings with some lamps. There were no telltale cracks of a secret entrance or anything, as far as he could tell.

Lili came running back inside with the kit. She tossed some bandages and some tissues to Dart. "Wipe your nose and try cleaning your head before bandaging it. I'm gonna check on that lady."

Dart cleaned off most of the blood. While wrapping his head, he said, "I don't see anything leading to a secret lair. There are no books to pull out, no panels to press on…"

"Oh great," Lili muttered, wrapping the crazy woman's burned hands. "We can't waste time looking around for a stupid switch…maybe this person knows."

Dart quickly glanced at the woman. Even unconscious, she had a crazed, murderous grin on her pale face, which only supported the boy's opinion that asking her anything would result in a knife to the face. "If you wake her up and try to ask her, I'm pretty sure she'd try to kill you again."

"I'm not stupid! I have a Psycho-portal. If you feel better, we'll have to go in her mind."

"Ah. Going into a murderous woman's mind makes me feel much better."

"Okay then," and Lili threw the small door onto the woman's forehead, where it stuck like very adhesive tape. Without even bothering to check if Dart was following her or not, she sat down and flew through the small door at the same time.