Part 6: Mirror Match
Finn and Jake flew through the psychic tunnel between minds, gums flapping and shadows dancing.
"G-goggles, Finn! So he can't hit us in the eyes and turn the battle right back into either of our minds!"
Finn recalled that one time he messed about PB's lab and accidentally created an eye monster that could only be defeated by a pair of indestructible goggles. "Goggles! T-two pairs!"
Just as they slammed through the end of the portal—tailing Quasipan into his own mindscape—the goggles materialized around Finn and Jake's eyes.
Quasipan crashed head-first against the outer wall of the circular tower that comprised Finn's memories. Inside each door of the winding hallway within the tower lay a moment of Finn's history Quasipan had hoarded to decorate his own mind.
The tailless cat slid down against the tower bricks before falling away and landing hard onto the blank floor—once again head first. Glad it's not my actual head getting bashed in, panted Quasipan, mentally tuckered out.
But the human and the dog's minds withstood even more stress than mine, I need only exploit their fatigue with another bomb and then they'll never catch a glimpse of my…
The cat knew before he even lifted his head.
Far from the brink of collapse, Finn and Jake were keeping each other on their toes.
"I'm looking fine with these goggles!" boasted Jake. "You look like a nerd."
"But you can't stretch out your eyes along with the rest of you when you expand as long as you have those on. So you'll be a tiny-eyed giant."
"Or even a cyclops!" laughed Jake.
"Oh, do a cyclops, do a cyclops!" Finn clapped his knees giddily in anticipation.
Jake's eyes fused into one, and he grew a fleshy bludgeon and loincloth before blowing up to titanic size once again. But the cycloptic eye stayed the same size, because of the goggles.
"Haha, Jake, you look dope."
"The good kind or the bad kind of 'dope'?"
"Mmm… both!"
"You just need your noggin patched up so you can appreciate my handsome bod." Jake grasped the roof of Finn's memory tower and shook the structure in his palm.
"Wait, dude, my memories might get jumbled up!"
"Oh yeah. Sorry. Heh heh."
"Which reminds me… where's Quasipan's own hizzaps?" asked Jake, scanning the mind space beyond the tower. Everything else looked blank; there wasn't even any detail on the "ground" they were standing on—no grass to tread on, no sun to beam down. Just an expanse of white nothingness.
"It's a bit blurry, but from this high up I think I see some figures in the horizon, Finn. That must be the place Quasipan doesn't want us to see: his own personal emotional junk, if you catch my meaning."
"Quasipan must have teleported off there to seal it off from us," Finn reasoned.
"He can't expel two different people out of his mind; together as a team, we've got the psychic priority. We have no choice but to hold on here for as much time as it takes you to shove all your lost memories back into your own head. You raid the tower and take back what's yours, I'll dash off to keep Quasipan occupied. Without control of the tower, he can't attack me with your memories, he can only use his own."
The giant tiny-eyed goggly cyclops dog let out a giant tiny-eyed sigh.
"What is it, dude? I thought you'd love the opportunity to finally be the guy who lays out the really smart schemes, that I screw up," Finn teased.
"Ah, it's nothing. It's just that, you know? It always comes down to dogs versus cats, in the end."
"If you say so, partner. No giddy-yap, fast as you can!"
Finn slapped Jake on the ankle, and Jake sprinted off into the horizon, woofing all the while.
"All right, time to holler at the edge of my butt and FREAK OUT at my own adventures." Finn pushed open the tower door and started up the spiral staircase to the first floor hallway, cautiously probing for traps.
Meanwhile, Jake bolted towards Quasipan as fleet of foot as he could, stretching his strides out harder and faster with each bound. He knew Quasipan would catch on soon, but since this dimension of personal recollection was quite distinct from the cortex connected to the Spirit World, the cat's advantage of APPROXIMATE WORLD KNOWLEDGE was much weaker here. Nevertheless, Quasipan could still summon a shade from his recent memory to halt Jake's advance. Deducing that Quasipan was incapable of producing a copy of himself (if he could he would have done so already), that meant that his only recourse was…
A shade that could hold Jake off with absolute certainty. Jake himself.
"Hey, brother. What's up with the goggles?"
The shade clone of Jake popped into existence touching wet snouts.
Shade-Jake looked just like him, apart from his eyes being a little too far apart—recollection is never perfect, after all, not even Quasipan's. However, there was something else that seemed off. The mannerisms, the speech pattern, nothing about shade-Jake hit the mark because Quasipan didn't know him well enough. This was a poor imitation, a first blush caricature of Jake.
"Duuuuuuuude." Shade-Jake rolled over and scratched his ear, a stereotypical dumb dog. "Let's, like, chill the glob out, yo. I'll pick off all your fleas."
Quasipan conveniently forgot the trifling detail that the Jake of his recent scuffle was hell-bent on defeating him, and managed to outwit him.
"I do NOT talk like that," said Jake. "And I don't chill out. I party haRD FOREVEEEER!"
Jake had mental energy enough to imagine up only one more thing, and he knew just the thing to fuel his upcoming mindless party attack.
"A disco ball?" Shade-Jake's eyes doubled in size as he chased every little speck of light.
"That cat's opinion of me must be pretty low…" Jake cracked his knuckles and limbered up. "Time to show him I can defeat you without a sweat, all while NEVER MISSING A STEP OF MY BREAKDANCE."
"Oh yeah? You're putting a real cramp in my style, duuuuuude. Can you defeat me if I grow THIS BIG?"
Since Quasipan had no idea where Jake's limit was, shade-Jake grew to mountainous size, but cast no shadow.
Jake gaped up at his simulacrum and gulped. "Well… maybe one step of my breakdance."