Chapter Text
Raz smirked. He could feel that Bobby understood that he was holding back, and understandably so. If Raz were to truly go all out there was no telling what could happen. At his current level the only people who could probably even handle his psychic capabilities were the founders, and maybe Lili, Sasha, and Milla. (At least, that's what he assumed. He's never truly tested his abilities against anyone other than Sasha and Lili, and it's been some time since then).
It was frustrating, knowing that someone who you had looked down on was now at a level he may not have even been able to comprehend. Bobby was upset, yet instead of taking it out on Raz like he would have years ago, he decided to internalize it. Use it as fuel for the flames of determination that would later drive him to better himself and his abilities.
"Come on, Bobby. You can't be so afraid of just a little punch, fight back like you mean it!" Raz encouraged, simultaneously letting a bit of his teasing side out with that irritating smirk glued to his face.
"Don't make fun of me, I'm gonna win this fight!" He shouted in retaliation, rushing the boy out of anger once more, though this time he had a plan in mind. Raz braced himself for the attack to come, but he was swiftly caught off guard by Bobby's lack of using psychic energy and quickly found himself grabbed by the boy before he slammed his head straight into Razputin's, unknowingly damaging his headpiece in the process.
Raz stumbled back, his hands covering his nose as it ached with pain. How the heck did he not see that head butt coming? "Argh! Alright, that's it!"
Raz waved a hand and Bobby suddenly found that he could no longer move at a normal pace. He had heard of such a technique before, but to experience the time stasis bubble for himself was extraordinary. The world didn't seem to move as normal, it was all a blur. Everything was moving faster than his eyes could perceive.
Before he could realize it he was outside of the stasis bubble and feeling strikes from all around him nearly over a thousand times over, the pain was unforeseeable yet his body instinctively flinched with each flurry of strikes and then he fell to the ground limp and thriving.
"I hit you a couple times, but because of the time stasis you were forced to experience everything in real time all at once. You wanted me to show what I can do after all these years, well, here you go." He explained, raising his hand threateningly as his goggles began to glow that all familiar red glow.
"Quit acting like you're gonna kill him, I think we've seen enough. He shows enough intuition to know when to not use his psychic powers in a fight, that's a passing grade." Norma interjected, making her way in between the two teenage boys before heading over to Bobby in particular as she pulled out her smelling salts. "You're done for today, you pass, Poppy."
"It's… Bobby…" The blue skinned boy corrected, struggling to get back up as his body continued to thrive in pain.
"Just when it was getting good…" Raz complained, pulling his goggles off of his eyes. Just as he rested them on his head the headpiece that he had been known to wear for so long had suddenly ripped and gently slid off of his head in two separate pieces, leaving his hair exposed to the open. "MY AVIATOR CAP!"
"Relax, it's fine in the real world, Rip." Norma informed, waking Bobby up with her smelling salts before she left as well, leaving Raz to wallow in his imaginary sadness.
"It's Raz…"
Awakening from their time inside of the collective unconscious, Raz, Bobby, and Norma opened their eyes just in time to see their mentor Sasha Nein making his way into the lab along with the red haired Lili Zanotto trailing behind him with her naturally unamused expression adorning her face. Seemed that she too was done with her mentorship time for the day.
"Ah, I see you two were able to get everything done for you for your help.. You two are free to go now, I just need to have Robert here conduct a few more tests for me." Sasha informed, thanking his two interns beforehand and permitting them to be on their way.
Lili took that opportunity to approach Raz who surprisingly was without his headpiece and was instead inspecting it with a worried expression gracing his face.
"Raz?" She called, gaining his attention as he snapped out of his trance and gave the girl a smile as a greeting before returning to his rather worried expression. Upon further expression it appeared that there was a slight rip within the top seam of his headpiece.
"I think our fight in the collective unconscious may have leaked our psychic energy a bit… My hat's gonna need to be patched up, and I don't have any supplies." He explained as the girl approached him, she stood beside him and looked over the headpiece as well, giving the boy an empathetic hand to his shoulder.
Not many people were made aware of this, but his whole thing about wearing the headpiece was a symbol of importance. It symbolized the connection between him and his roots, his family and where he had come from even if his family wasn;t ideal, it was still his home. Repairing leather just wasn't easy, and he had already replaced it once.
"I'm sorry, Raz… You wanna go out to look for another? I know you were against the idea last time, but-" Lili tried to comfort him, but he cut her off by quickly shaking his head.
"No… I think maybe it's alright to leave it be. It's just an effect of battle anyways." He expressed, affirming to her that he would be fine. "So, how was your time with Milla? Anything interesting happen?"
"Eh, it's the same old. It was nice to see a few of the others from camp though. Did you know that Kitty and Franke are together now?" Lili asked, placing a hand onto her "boyfriend's" headpiece and staring at it thoughtfully. It was nostalgic when she gave it some room in her mind, the headpiece that he had worn consistently throughout their adventures. She had seen his hair a plethora of times, but would he keep it out in the open for good? She stared up at his head, his hair a bit rough looking and wavy due to the prolonged time with his headpiece.
"Really? That's a bit of a surprise, but in retrospect I should have seen that coming…" He admitted, scratching his head idly as he pocketed his headpiece into his trenchcoat and turned his attention back to the others. "Are you sure there's nothing else we need to do to help?"
"No, that'll be all for today. Go enjoy your time with Lili and your other friends if you feel like it. Regular social outings are key for a healthy mind, Razputin, remember that." Sasha educated, encouraging his young student to enjoy his youth instead of worrying about minor tasks and work. Raz was the type to always want to be active, and would often overwork himself which no one was a big fan of.
"You heard the man, let's go. You're coming with me to my garden, Uncle Bob gave me some new seeds and I want you there to plant them with me." Lili instructed, looping her arm with Raz's as she began to lead him along out of the lab.
"Eugh, those two are still all kissy-kissy?" Bobby said, fake gagging as he watched the "couple" exit Sasha's lab. "Seriously, get a room…"
"Pfft, sounds to me like someone's jealous. Got someone that catches your eye, Robby?" Norma teased, watching as the boy blushed softly at the thought of a certain space obsessed girl filling his mind.
"Sh-Shut up…"
"So you really fought with Bobby again?" Lili questioned, talking with Raz as they walked side by side outside of the motherlobe and to what is now the vibrant garden of the young Zanotto. "I wish you two would get over whatever nonsense you've got going on."
"I fought him and won mind you, and it isn't nonsense. He's arrogant and an amateur. He lets his emotions get the best of him, but then again what psychic out there is mentally stable…" Raz commented, crossing his arms as he reimagined all of the locked away memories that he had stumbled upon during the missions of his youth. He shuddered at a select few that related to his mentors.
"Well, what did you expect? He was a jerk at camp, so he'd be a jerk now. Use that oversized cranium of yours." Lili teased, punching the boy in the arm playfully, earning a grunt of pain as he smiled and rubbed his now sore arm.
"Yeah, yeah… So what did Bob give you? Some kind of super cool PSI conductive plants? Oh! Are they those vines of his? I've always wanted to see their growth process!" Raz enthused, his studious mind going haywire at all the different possibilities. Lili snickered at his enthusiasm, rolling her eyes as she shook her head.
"No, it's nothing quite that exciting. They're waterlilies; I was planning on installing a small pond so that my plants have a natural water source when I'm not around to water them. I never really had the materials until now, and considering that there's no plumbing I was kinda hoping you would…" Lili trailed off a tad guiltily, knowing that Raz already knew what she was suggesting. He sighed, bringing a hand to his forehead as he stopped walking beside her abruptly.
"You were hoping I'd use Hydrokinesis…" He finished for her, sighing as his gloved hand moved downwards from his forehead to the bridge of his nose which he pinched in irritation. "Lili, you know how I feel about using it…"
"I know, I know! I just thought, you'd want to help, and… I thought maybe it would help you start to move past it. It's been years since then, you know it's not the power that was evil, Raz…" She expressed, stepping towards him slowly, the desire to grab ahold of his hands just in case he needed to stay grounded as they discussed some of his past trauma. "No one will be around to get hurt."
"You will, Lili…" He argued softly, letting his arms fall to his side almost in defeat as he knew the argument wouldn't go in his favor. She was right, it's been enough time and he needed to at least give it a shot to move past what he had seen from his own Noona. Besides, it could be an asset to missions in the future. "...No you won't, I'm sorry, you're strong. I-I'll give it a shot for you,"
"I promise it'll be fine. It's just a small body of water anyways, you won't even have to do much!" Lili proclaimed excitedly, grabbing the young Aquato's hand as she dragged him along. Truthfully he could have just teleported them, but Lili always refused saying that it was more fun to just waste time when they had the opportunity.
Eventually the two teens had arrived at their destination, a rather beautiful garden filled with a large abundance of unique plant life. Lili had shrubbery in the shape of skulls, a large Bonsai tree which Raz could only assume was grown artificially with psychic energy, and many different kinds of flowers, yet right smack dab in the middle of the garden was a clearing that Raz assumed would be where they'd put the small pond.
"It's always so nice coming here, there's little to no threat of violence unlike the forbidden forest." Raz spoke idly, admiring the hard work of the young Zanotto that she had spent years on with little help from Bob and Raz himself. "Your garden's amazing as always, Lili."
"Flattery will get you everywhere." Lili replied, nudging the boy with her hip before pointing outward to the open space that would be their project for the evening. "We're gonna dig out that spot right there, I'm thinking of keeping it about three to four feet deep so we can stand in it and install a more stable water supply into it later on, afterwards it's all on you to fill with the lake water."
"W-Wait, you expect me to just take water from the lake? I-I was expecting to start a bit smaller than that…" Raz informed nervously, fidgeting with his hands idly as Lili used telekinesis to bring over a few shovels that they'd use to start digging.
"You're not gonna get anywhere like that, Raz. Besides, you like to go big on your first try, need I remind you of when you teleported-" Lili started before a psychic hand was slapped against her mouth, silencing her before she could continue.
"Okay, I get it! Geez, I thought we agreed not to bring that up again…" Raz replied, blushing a deep red hue as Lili laughed at his expense, although the story was more than embarrassing it was also a good tool to tease him for his desire for knowledge.
"You were the one that came to see me in the middle of the night." Lili continued to tease him, making his face an even brighter red as he groaned in embarrassment. "Awh, come on! It was pretty sweet…"
"You say that now after screaming like a banshee and getting me caught by your dad…" Raz mumbled to himself, thinking that Lili wouldn't actually hear him, yet she did and felt her own face grow a tad hotter.
"I said I was sorry about that, you just appeared out of nowhere! It's not like dad was mad at you either, he knew what happened before he even entered the room…" Lili defended, blushing as she socked the boy in the arm once more out of uncontrollable embarrassment. "Besides, what if I had been indecent!?"
"Okay, I do not need that image in my head, we have psychics all over the place! Let's just get this pond done, okay? Okay." Raz interrupted, snagging one of the shovels that the redhead girl beside him had brought over has his face erupted in a red hue and he subconsciously put up every kind of defense he could in order to prevent anyone from reading his mind (Though his mind was already armored like a tank). "Why do we even have shovels, can't we just dig it out using our powers?"
Lili stepped away from Raz, walking over to their digging site to hide her own embarrassment. "N-No, if we do then the soil will get concentrated with psychic energy and feed into the plants. We have to slowly introduce it to them, did you even pay attention to any of the herbaphony stuff I taught you?"
"It's been a long time since then, I haven't had any time to put it into practice. The most I do is talk to you through the rose vines you put outside my dorm room, you know this." Raz explained, earning an eye roll from the girl before him. The two had spent a long time trading tips and tricks to their own abilities, but sometimes things just didn't stick as well as they'd hope. Lili completely refused anything that had to do with teleportation, she hated the nauseous feeling she got from using it.
"Yeah, yeah. Come on, let's get digging." She instructed, removing her leather jacket and commanding one of the branches of the nearby tree to hang onto it for her, extending one towards Raz so he could put his own trenchcoat away so it wouldn't get too dirty. "Hang your coat, we might be here awhile."
"How long do you think this will take? I want to know just in case I need to multitask while we do this so I can get my homework done in time." Raz questioned, removing his trademark trenchcoat and revealing his turtleneck before rolling up the sleeves and making his way over to Lily shovel in hand.
"Should only take an hour or so if we work fast, but you might as well get it done while we shovel anyways. I'm just gonna pull an all-nighter."
"Lili-"
"Save it, I don't need the spiel about healthy habits. Now get shoveling, circus-boy."
Raz sighed with a smile, and gave a half hearted salute, "Right away, Miss Zanotto."
And so the two teens spent their afternoon shoveling away, cracking jokes or just talking about their day and what they learned on the first day back. It was in rare moments like this that Raz really got to see the enthusiastic side of Lili, one that she would try to hide from everyone else because she was too ashamed to really show that she cared for the Psychonauts and everything she was learning by being at the motherlobe.
"Phew… Alright, I think we're about ready for the water. You're up, Raz, think you can do it?" Lili questioned, turning to the goggle clad boy beside her as he placed down the dirt covered shovel he had in his hands.
Raz dusted off his gloves, wiping the sweat off his brow as he nodded. "Yeah… Yeah, I think I can do this. I feel pretty good about this, uh… D-Do… Do you think you could stand with me? I think it would be better if I had support…"
"You don't even need to ask, Raz. Let's go, I'm right here with you." She replied, smiling with a light blush as she outstretched her hand to help Raz out of the pit they had just dug together. The pit wasn't all that deep, but it was the sentiment that warmed both of their hearts.
Raz took her hand and climbed out of the pit, "Thanks, Lili. I really appreciate you always trying to help me after… Well, you know."
"Hey, you brought me out of a dark period in my life, it's only right I do the same for you. I mean we're d- Friends. We're friends, right?" She spoke, stammering slightly as she almost let something slip. Her face reddened at her mistake, but it seemed that Raz didn't even notice. He was too preoccupied worrying about the water.
"Yeah. Alright, let's do this." Raz stated, bracing himself by placing two fingers to his temple after pulling his goggles over his eyes. His eyewear began to glow a bright red color as his powers activated and he outstretched his free hand towards the lake.
For a moment there was little to no activity, Lili grew a tad uneasy but right as she went to tell him to stop there was a small ripple within the lake right where Raz's hand was directed towards. He strained, grunting as his brow furrowed in focus and his hand began to shake.
Within the mind of the boy, flashes of the massive catastrophe that his own great aunt almost unfurled upon the psychics of the world raced through his brain. He often racked his mind to figure out what even really created such a dark entity in the human mind, but each time he himself would fall into a dark place that he feared and often shut it away before he could dig too deep.
Raz was realizing that he was struggling, no it wasn't that the task was necessarily difficult, but the emotional baggage that was tied to it made him nervous; fearful, if you will. He wasn't sure if he could do this without slipping and falling into the deep abyss of his mental sea.
"Deep breaths, Raz. You can do this, stay with me…" Lili whispered softly, placing a hand to the boy's shoulder to bring back his focus on the present. He needed that reminder of where he was in that current moment, and oddly enough all the weight of the water seemed to dissipate from his mind. It was as if Lili had brought about a dead calm that finally allowed him to breathe.
Per instruction, Raz took a deep breath and stopped his shaky hand, raising it as a medium sized orb of water rose from the lake, it was about the same size a Raz himself, and once it was out of the water and in the air the rest came easily to him. He brought the orb closer and closer to them until it hovered above the hole they had dug in her garden, and then he released it.
As the water fell into the hole, the two teens watched as it splashed around until eventually finding it's calm and resting within the divet relatively peacefully.
"I… I did it!" Raz cheered enthusiastically, ripping his goggles off of his face and holding them in his hand as he stared at the pond he had just created in awe, a smile gracing his lips before he was suddenly enveloped in a tight embrace.
"Oh my god! You did it, Raz!" Lili shared his sentiment, cheering as she practically glomped the boy excitedly and hugged him as tight as she could. She was proud of him, proud of the progress he had just made, and proud to see the smile on his face as he realized just what he had done. The added bonus was her new pond. "Thank you thank you thank you!"
The two suddenly looked into each other's eyes and realized quickly just what position they were in, yet Lili refused to remove herself. She wanted this, to embrace him like this. It had been a long time since they had a moment like this, and while it brought back memories of the weird relationship they had as kids, it also brought up the question of just what they were in her mind as well.
"L-Lili, um..!" Raz started, finding his resolve to bring up what had been plaguing both of their minds now that they were alone and the mood was right, yet right as he went to speak the intercom system throughout the motherlobe suddenly went off.
"Razputin Avocado? You have visitors, report to the front desk immediately."