We continue Nigel's adventure to become a Psychonaut where we enters Wiz's mind to learn PSI Blast and meets some of the enemies he will encounter in mental worlds
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this.
DM77's Psychonauts Chapter 7
Wiz's Shooting Gallery
Nigel soon arrives back at Wiz's lab after using Raine's underground transport system and approaches Wiz with a smile on his head.
"Okay, I got it, check it out" Nigel said showing the Advanced Training Learner's Permit that Raine signed.
"Excellent. Well, my behind is covered if something goes wrong." Wiz said with a nod "But are you sure you are ready to do this? It could be dangerous."
"Yes!" Nigel said with a nod "Are you going to pull me into your mind like Sarge did?"
"Ha. No offense, but it's time you saw what an organized mind looks like." Wiz said with a grin.
The Psychonaut scientist then pulls out a mini door like the one Sarge had but this one was coloured red and black with the Psychonaut's logo on it, he then psychically attaches it to his forehead and it opens. Nigel sorts his shades as his mind is pulled into Wiz's mind and the door closes.
We come to Wiz's mental world which was nothing more then a white and black technological cube in a mental void. Wiz and Nigel stand ontop of one of it's sides.
"Welcome to my mind." Wiz said to the younger camper.
"Huh. It's so empty." Nigel said looking around. He sees Wiz look at him and adds "Uh, I mean…."
"There's more here than meets the eye, but I've learned to keep it under strict control." Wiz explains to him on why his mental world is like this. "And that's what I'm going to teach you: control. Your feelings, your fears, your anger. You must learn to control them, focus them, concentrate them, and release them."
"As therapy?" Nigel asked confused
"No, as firepower!" Wiz told him and walks with Nigel "Say something hideous and horrible jumps out as you. Something so disgusting that it simply must die." He then stamps his foot down on a panel which was a switch and out in front of them a tacky novelty lamp pops out from the ground.
Wiz winces in disgust and said "Ah, oh, so tacky… I… can't… look… directly at it!" He looks to Nigel "But I control those feelings, focus them, concentrate, and….realease!" He does the motions and then fires a mental beam from his mind at the lamp and destroys it "And the world is a better place. Your turn."
Nigel readies himself as Wiz makes three more similarly tacky but different looking lamps pop out and Nigel focuses and does the Psi-blast destroying all three of them. He then as instructed by Wiz takes out three more in a certain order for precision training.
"Excellent. A victory for good taste. Now then…" Wiz said and makes a silver device appear with a spoon arrow and around them were seven setting going left to right, the first six were numbered 1 to 6 with colors going from green to dark orange and the final was red with a skull on it. The spoon arrow was set at 1. Then a cannon appears and shoots out a black cubed robot with three red optics and silver arms and legs onto a platform saying No repeatedly. Wiz asked, "Is this what you saw in your vision?"
"Um, well, it sure seemed a lot bigger in my head." Nigel admits unsure.
"Ah, problems often seem larger in our heads than they really are." Wiz said nodding "That's an important lesson to learn."
"But…" Nigel said but Wiz cuts him off.
"This is a Micromanger." Wiz explained pointing to the robot "An integral part of any sane person's mind. The Micromangers roam through your psyche, looking for thoughts that don't belong. Hallucinations, manias, waking dreams…the Micromangers hunt them down and censor them out."
"Why do they come after me? I'm not a mania!" Nigel asked confused.
"True, but you are a foreign entity in my mind. You technically don't belong here." Wiz explained.
"Yes, but I was attacked in my own head." Nigel points out to back in the Brain Tumbler experiment.
"Yes. Well, the Brain Tumbler could be malfunctioning. Or you could be insane." Wiz said thinking about it "We'll test for that later. For now…" He points to the Micromanager "Blast it!"
Nigel nods and looks to the robot as it stayed still, he aims and fires a Psi-blast hitting it and sending it flying off the platform and into the void.
"That's the spirit." Wiz said smiling.
"I killed it" Nigel said feeling a bit bad.
"It was just a thought I was having, and it's not dead. It has just returned to its basic form raw psychic energy." Wiz said with a smile "Now I'll leave the machine on for you, so you can practise. You need to blast 1000 Micromangers to earn your Markmanship Merit Badge. Come back every day for practise, and you should have enough in as little as three weeks!"
"Three weeks!" Nigel said in shock "I only have a few days to earn ALL my merit badges and become a Psychonaut."
"Slow and steady win the race, my eager young friend." Wiz told him "Now practise. Slowly and carefully." He then leaves in a doorway.
"Oh man…" Nigel said and goes to practise, the cannon fires a Micromanger one at a time at a dreadfully slow pace. As he fires he looks at the dial "I wonder what would happen if I turn that dial up?"
Nigel does so and the Micromangers at a faster pace, thinking he turns it all the way up he can get the 1000 he needs quicker, he begins turning the dial up to the higher settings however after it gets to 6 it was a struggle but he manages to force it onto the skull setting. The world shakes and on one side of the cube a bed and a bunch of blocks pop out along with some Micromanagers.
"Oh yeah, come to poppa!" Nigel said grinning seeing the Micromangers.
Suddenly Wiz drops down for a trapdoor that appeared and said to Nigel in a panic as he grabs and shakes him "Nigel, what have you done? This is not control! This is chaos! I'll try to fix it. You stay here and keep their numbers under control" He runs and exits though a doorway.
"O-Okay" Nigel said and rushes to the area which was on the other side of the cube he was on and looks around and shoots some Micromangers before getting there.
Wiz pops out of a panel and points to a pipe valve and said "Nigel, you see those valves? That is where the Micromangers are leaking out. PSI Blast the valves to shut them down and get this area under control!
Nigel nods and takes out some Micromanagers as he gets on the bed, sort some emotional backage as well but sees on the bed a mental vault. He opens it and sees a reel titled 'Wiz's First Loss' In the reel it was from Wiz's point of view as a baby, in it he saw his mother handing him a rattle, feeding him, and caring for him while his father watches.
The fifth slide was when it took a turn, his mother was bed ridden sick and dying while his father looks sad and worried holding her hand, next slide Wiz was looking by a window as the father stood in the rain by a grave and the last slide showed Wiz looking at his father from his playpen as he looks solemn through the window.
"Wow…that is sad." Nigel said as he sighs, he then refocuses and moves and shoots the valve to shut it, when he does another one opens up he goes to it battling through many of the Micromanagers it brings out and shoots that one too to close it.
Wiz pops out and said "Good, well you got them all." He then exits and soon all the stuff begins to go back into the area it all popped out of, but then on another side more stuff pops out this time platforms and what appears to be a mobile is what the area is along with another valve. Wiz comes out and said "Oh no. You close one lead down and another springs up! Well come on. We've got to take care of these too!"
Nigel runs to the area and is introduced to a new kind of Micromanager, this one had silver highlights on it's main body and from it's optics fires a censor blast at Nigel as he dodges and fires back destroying it though it was stronger then the regular Micromanagers. He then moves and platforms and takes out the valves and the other when it spings out.
Soon the area closes up and gets resorted back into order and like before another side opens up, this time it was a tower of shoeboxes and shoe shine and a roll of measuring tape as a grindrail. Nigel was confused and also saw some new form of enmy, bombs with eyes and feet and a lit fuse, he knew these from True Psychic Tales as Bob-ombs a representation of Personal Demons that blow up in your face when too close but easy to take out with skill but only with PSI Blast as hitting them hurts you.
As Nigel heads there he finds a new Mental Vault and gets it open. The reel this time was 'Wiz's Second sight' It showed Wiz now as a young boy working in his father's cobbler shop, his father still depressed about his wife refuses to talk about it with Wiz, Wiz no doubt earlier learned of his psychic abilities uses them to read his fathers mind which had thoughts of his mother that start off innocent and sweet, but eventually turn into something no child should see of their mother as Wiz scans his father's mind. Shocked and traumatized of what he saw Wiz chooses to leave his father which is where the reel ends.
"Well…can't really blame him for that…definitely makes me and him similar in the form of we both left home but his is more reasonable than mine" Nigel said shuddering. He then moves avoiding blasts from the Blaster Micromanagers and the Bob-Ombs while sorting luggage and takes out the two valves of this area.
This area cleared it gets sorted back into place. The next side opens up and it solely consists of one structure that resembles a Generator with fire shooting out the four pillars. This time Nigel had to deal with normal Micromanagers and Bob-Ombs. Nigel then jumps up to the top of the generator and shoots the valve but sees no more pop up.
"That's it! I've completely blocked off all of Wiz's Micromanager outlets!" Nigel said smiling "I can't wait to tell him."
Wiz soon appears and takes out the last of the Micromanagers, then he turns to Nigel looking firmly and said "Young man, I hope you've learned a lesson here today."
"Yes, I have." Nigel said nodding sorting his shades but smiles and said "That shooting things is fun and useful."
"No, that once you lose control of your own mind, it's very hard to get it back!" Wiz told him firmly.
"Yes, one's thoughts must be 100% controlled at all times!" Nigel said with a nod.
"Well, no." Wiz said thinking "Actually, if you try to completely suppress your undesirable feelings, they'll build and build and eventually explode."
"Oh." Nigel said, then a thought came to him so he asked "So, uh, what would happen if you were to, say, completely block off all your Micromanager outlets?"
"Well, there would be a buildup of censor energy within, that would… uh… eventually." Wiz said which then dawns on him as he and Nigel look at the Generator that shudders and smoke comes out as it begins to fall apart and the two look shocked. The Psychonaut scientist says "Run, Nigel. Very fast."
The Generator then explodes making a large hole, when the smoke clears a large mutated Micromanager robot emerges from it, it was colossal and had a roboti head onto of it's cube body and it's left arm resembled a stamp. This was a Mega Micromanager.
Wiz gets up glaring at the robot and said "You are my own creation. I command you to stop!" The Mega Micromanager goes to stamp down on them both, but Wiz pushes Nigel out the way in time "Ahhhhhh!" When the stamp is pulled up Wiz was stuck to it and said "Nigel, it's time to earn your merit badge!"
Nigel nods and runs away to avoid the stamp but despite it's large size it was able to keep up. Not only that Mini Micromanagers were there to reinforce the Mega version and heal it from damage Nigel does to it. Nigel decided to deal with them and runs around the cube and takes out the five valves the Mini Micormanagers were coming from.
When the last valve was destroyed the Mega Micromanager roars in anger, it then began to tear off pieces of itself and throw it at Nigel, when they land the separate into more Mini Micromangers to attack Nigel. Nigel dodges and Psi Blasts the giant robot. It was tough as the Mini versions weren't making it easy but Nigel jumps up and fires one like PSI blast at it's head. The Mega Micromanager roars weakly and falls over backwards defeated.
Nigel helps peel Wiz off the stamp and then asks awkwardly "So, is this where I get a speech and learn another lesson?"
"No. Here's your merit badge. Let us never speak of this again." Wiz said pulling out a red badge with a target lense design.
Nigel smiles as he attaches it to his backpack and strikes his victory pose, he was free to PSI Blast anywhere he wants.
We come back to Wiz's lab where Nigel exits out of his mind and back into his own body. Nigel smiling said "I want to shoot more things."
"Okay, okay. Enough about my mind." Wiz said putting the mental door down "Let's stay out of my mind for a while. Let's just go back into yours, huh? Step up to the Brain Tumbler when you're ready."
Nigel was about to when he hears Raine in his head, asking him to come see them. He nods and does so.
When he returns to Raine's sanctum. Raine waits him to approach and said "In recognition of your hard work, dedication, and mental agility, I'm proud to bestow upon you the official merit badge for…TELEKINISIS!"
Nigel is given a yellow badge with a block and an arrow pointing right. He poses and soon found himself to make a mental hand appear to grab things and carry them. He then soon found himself back in his own mind with Raine for training with this power.
"With Telekinesis we can use our minds to grasp and object, and then throw it!" Raine explained, they motion to a trashcan resembling a clown "Go ahead. Try it yourself!"
Nigel nods and uses his mind to lift up the trashcan, aims it somewhere and then throws it.
"Woo! Good throw." Raine said with a smile "NOW!" He makes a hoop appear "Let's see if you can make it through the hoop."
"You sound like my dad!" Nigel said with a sigh.
"Hey, I've been thinking about that." Raine said arms folded "Why'd that guy hate psychics so much? What did we ever do to him?"
"Well, Psychics killed his whole family. Cursed them and all their descendants to die in water." Nigel explained to them.
"Whoa." Raine said in surprise. Through something in their eye to be recognition about this.
"Yeah." Nigel said nodding.
"Talk about baggage." Raine said shrugging.
"Tell me about it." Nigel said nodding and adds "And the weird thing is, I'm pretty sure he's actually psychic himself."
"Ha! Coo-coo!" Raine said to that "Well you can work on him when you get home. For now….HOOPS!" Nigel nods and begins throwing the trash can through the hoops till he was down.
"Now let me show you something….Pick that trashcan and aim your toss at the side of the caravan." Raine said, Nigel nods and does so and the trashcan breaks into pieces "Ka-blooie! Throwing something against a wall is a little more destructive than tossing it around on the ground, isn't it?" They hear feet and looks to see a Micromanager "Oh no. Another one of my Micromanagers. Now, how'd that get in here?"
Raine looks at the robot and sees it just scanning the area and not charging at them "Looks like we're in luck. He doesn't see you yet. Why'd don't you smash him on the head with that handy trash can?"
"Alright." Nigel said and concentrates and picks up the trash can and hurld it at the Micromanage and sends it flying into the darkness.
"Bulls-eye!" Raine cheers
"Looks like the TRASH took HIM out, heh heh." Nigel said chuckling.
"Next lesson, we'll work on your snappy one-liners." Raine told him shaking their head.
Nigel nods and once back in the outside world heads back to Wiz's lab to head back into the Brain Tumbler and confront the shadowy menace.
Well that was eventful, now that Nigel has combat time to return to the Brain Tumbler and see what that entity is protecting.
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