Raz had mixed feelings when Agent Nein got back from his mission and finished recalibrating the brain tumbler. On the one hand, he was glad that he could finally go deal with all of this. On the other hand, he… didn't want to talk to Sasha about it. If his mental landscape still bore the changes he'd seen, there'd be no way for him to really talk about any of it without revealing that he'd used the brain tumbler against Nein's orders while he was gone.
Which was the same reason he hadn't mentioned the dragon in his therapy sessions. And the secret was starting to gnaw at him, with a narrow maw full of needle-sharp teeth. But it was fine; he'd just sort out his Emotional Baggage, everything would be okay, and he could forget about Melancholia. He found himself at the door of Agent Nein's office almost without realizing he was going there at all.
"Welp," he said to himself. The boy took a deep breath, and entered.
"Ah, Razputin. I apologize for the unexpected interruption, but the brain tumbler is now properly calibrated. Would you like to continue?"
The Junior Agent bit his lip. "I… actually think I'd prefer to do this alone this time." Sasha raised an eyebrow, and Raz forced a smile. "Didn't you tell me once that isolation can lead to important discoveries?"
"Hm. Very well. If you need me, just telepathically reach out. I am always willing to help, Razputin."
Raz had to consciously try not to sigh in relief. "Thanks, Agent Nein." Once again, he took his place in front of the brain tumbler, and entered his own mental world. Maybe, if he was really lucky, everything would look the same as it did before – no ice, no dragon. It would all be a malfunction of the tumbler and he could wave it all off.
Lady Luck had no mercy, and neither did the dragon.
"Back again, boy?" she hissed, once again from nowhere in particular, and thanks to the dream-logic of mental worlds, Raz could hear her clearly over the howling of the wind and distant wolves. The bitter cold chilled him to the bone and made every fiber of his being ache, and this time there was not just ice, but snow, all the way up to his knees. Raz would have to get around by levitation ball if he wanted to avoid trudging through it.
He started floating in the direction of the caravan, figuring that would be a good place to start – and the presence of that nice, warm campfire certainly didn't hurt. It took him longer than it probably should have to distinguish the wailing of Emotional Baggage from the relentless wind, but once he did, he noticed a few bags loaded onto the caravan.
"Of course you would have baggage here," Melancholia said. "After the way you broke your family's hearts, who wouldn't?"
"We've cleared all that up now," Raz said, trying to open the carriage door; it seemed to be frozen shut.
"Oh, but have you? Your mother is still ashamed of your power, frightened of it. Your older sister resents you for leaving, for embracing what she had to hide for so long. Your brother despises psychics, still. What was it Dion said? The family would be better off without you? He's right, you know. And not just your family! Everyone would be."
Frustrated, Raz used his pyrokinesis to melt the ice holding the door shut – and in the process, set the caravan on fire. "No! Nonononono!"
A Bad Idea poked its head around the edge of the caravan, and was promptly psi-blasted into oblivion.
"Isn't this just like you, Razputin? Barging headlong into everything, throwing around powers you barely know how to control, and making everything worse in the process, even when you're trying to help."
"No, I can still fix this!" The Junior Agent started telekinetically scooping up vast amounts of snow and throwing the giant snowballs at the fire. His attention focused there, he only spared half a thought for an aside: "Wait, I never told you my name."
The dragon cackled madly again, her harsh laughter merging with the screaming gale. "I am part of your mind, stupid child!"
He cringed and muttered to himself that yeah, that was a dumb thing to say. As if trying to put out a fire wasn't enough trouble, Regrets started showing up now, and Raz had to toss psi-blasts around between grabbing snowballs until at last the flames were doused and he could properly fight off the crowd of aerial assailants.
Once that was over, he entered the caravan, expecting to find Censors, like last time, but hoping to find tags. Instead, he found… more Emotional Baggage. Raz sighed. Well, while he was here, he might as well get something out to chisel the ice away if the door froze shut again. He dug through the various objects littered around the mental caravan, trying to ignore the sobbing Baggage.
Where were all the Censors anyway? Maybe that really had been a malfunction of the brain tumbler; after all, you weren't supposed to be attacked by Censors in your own mind, unless you were insane, right? But then again, a total lack of Censors was also indicative of insanity. Was he supposed to see Censors in his own mind but not be attacked?
Raz shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand. He found the objects he was looking for and prepared to go out into the mindscape again. The freezing cold mindscape. Ugh. At least it was somewhat warm inside the caravan, though that made it all the harder to leave again.
"What's the matter? Thinking twice about running away, this time? If only you'd given it so much thought the first time, you selfish brat."
"Weren't you just saying my family was better off without me?" Raz asked as he stepped out of the caravan and tossed a hammer and a metal stake down next to the wheel. He really wanted to glare at this infernal dragon, but he had no idea where she actually was. Her voice did not feel telepathic, but seemed to be carried on the howling wind, everywhere and nowhere all at once.
The caravan seemed to be a bust for the time being, so Raz returned to the lake, following a hunch. Sure enough, in the unforgiving cold, the lake had started to freeze over. Raz lifted his goggles and squinted out over the flat white plain, more of a dull blue in the moonlit night. The figments still hovered over its surface, many-colored, but he could see a few more solid shapes sticking up out of the ice as well. He swallowed hard, trying to work up his courage.
"What are you so afraid of, coward? The Curse isn't real, you know," Melancholia taunted him, not deigning to reply to his previous comment.
"Yeah, like people don't die by falling through ice into frozen lakes all the time?" Raz snapped.
"Ah, like what happened to Helmut. Who would have been happily rebrained a long time ago, if Ford Cruller hadn't selfishly shattered his own mind."
Raz looked around in confusion. The dragon's non-presence left his quizzical look without a target. "What's your point?"
"You're still angry, aren't you? Oh, you speak of forgiveness and redemption, but your heart sings another tune. What sort of Psychonaut are you, unable to keep such basic emotions in check?"
The boy sputtered, taken aback. It took him a few seconds to form a response, but the howling wind tore the confidence from his words like the heat from his breath. "S-Sasha taught me that you can't repress all your negative emotions. I just have to… work through them."
"Or perhaps," the dragon purred, "you just know, deep down, that some people don't deserve to be forgiven. After all, rearranging someone's brain without their consent is the worst violation of psychic ethics, isn't it?"
The mature thing to do would be to stop engaging the dragon, stop acknowledging her comments. But Razputin Aquato was a ten-year-old boy. "I know what I did to Agent Forsythe was wrong! I already fixed it! What else can I do?" he protested, levitating his way across the ice. As he went, small handfuls of Regrets and Doubts dogged him, but he kept moving, fighting them off as he went.
"You still crossed a terrible line, and the Psychonauts will never forget it. Just like they won't forget how you let the mole play you like a fiddle."
As he approached, Raz saw that the object sticking out of the ice was yet more Baggage, its sobbing muffled by the ice. Already, this was more Emotional Baggage than he'd seen in any mind so far, which was… a little worrying.
Raz – carefully this time – used his pyrokinesis to melt the ice around it, then telekinetically lifted it out of the dark water. He hauled it back with him across the snow-covered frozen lake toward the shore, all the while, arguing with the dragon. "Yeah, sure, but I beat him and foiled his evil plan in the end! I saved the Psychonauts, even if I screwed up a bit on the way!"
"No," said the dragon, "Lili did. You were helpless when it mattered most. Your girlfriend had to come and save you. Frankly, I don't know what she even sees in you. As the daughter of the Grand Head, she could do much better…"
Raz tossed the Baggage onto the shore and levitated back across the ice to retrieve another bag. "Hey! Leave Lili out of this! Insulting me is one thing but I'm not gonna let you insult her too!"
Melancholia's tone actually softened for a moment. "Oh, but I'm not. Lili is a lovely girl; strong, brave, beautiful." Raz melted another bag's icy prison and hauled it out of the water. "I have nothing negative to say about her, save that she apparently has awful taste in boys." The harsh, biting tone came back with a vengeance. "She deserves better than a terrible person like you."
The boy stopped in his tracks, the levitation bubble vanishing from under him, Emotional Baggage whimpering in his telekinetic grip. He sputtered momentarily, before responding, voice raised and fists clenched. "W-well, maybe she does! But she chose me, and you better respect her choice!"
The dragon let him stand there, waiting, drawing out the tension until Doubts, Regrets, and this time Judges started to materialize. Raz chucked the Emotional Baggage toward shore and took a combat stance – and then heard the ice cracking under his feet. His eyes widened as he made the connection – the Regrets' weights, the Judges' gavels…
He struggled momentarily to summon light enough thoughts to levitate, the monsters closing steadily in. Finally, a bubble blinked into existence beneath his feet and he hightailed it toward the shore, tossing a few psi-blasts out on his way by.
"Coward," Melancholia scoffed. "Look at you, running away from your problems, hauling all that Emotional Baggage around wherever you go. You won't be able to sort any of it, anyway, you know. Not while I have all the tags."
"What?" This distracted Raz for just a moment, but that was all it took for a Doubt to pop up in front of him and catch him in its sticky ooze. And that, in turn, was all it took for a Regret to drop its weight, punching right through the ice and dragging Raz down into the inky depths with it.
He sputtered and coughed as he stumbled away from the brain tumbler, drawing a concerned look from Sasha on the other side of the room.
Raz smiled awkwardly and gave the Senior Agent two thumbs-up. "Fell into the lake; got dementistrated. No biggie!"