Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective 14
🕑 Added 2022-12-26 15:00:04 +0000 UTCToday was supposed to be an Anima Academy... but I got sick and was unable to do any substantial writing for the last four days. So... extra Psychoprotective for y'all.
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As the activity planning done for the camp was clearly inadequate, the counselors had to improvise. Fortunately, the rain was over, and after breakfast, it was announced that today, everyone will get the chance to do some swimming.
Tanya did own and thus brought a swimsuit, as did all of the other campers. It wasn’t anything exotic, just a solid blue one piece along with white swimming trunks that she wore with them. The cut on her arm from Agent Crueller’s tantrum had healed enough to no longer need a bandage, so Tanya had no excuse to avoid the activity.
Not that Tanya would have avoided it even if she had the chance. There was nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of swimming. The other campers agreed, and within minutes there was laughter and merriment in Lake Oblongata.
“How are you doing that?” Gisu asked Tanya.
“Levitation.” Tanya replied, laying down on the water like there was a layer of plastic stopping her from sinking. “Fundamentally, it’s a matter of neutralizing gravity. Traditional levitation balls use this to counteract your weight, but with training it is possible to negate it directly. Currently, I weigh two percent of my real weight, and the water’s surface tension can support that. There are insects that are naturally light enough for this.” One of the many advantages of approaching psychic powers through magic is the numerical precision that it allows for. If she makes herself too light, she’ll end up floating upwards in the air like a helium balloon. It’s a narrow margin that permits floating without psychically touching the water.
“Cool…” Gisu whispered, which created a light and floaty feeling in Tanya’s chest. “I thought it was hydrokinesis.”
“Cannonball!” Shouted Lili. A spike of annoyance interrupted the mysterious emotion, and Tanya created a hand of water to catch the little girl.
“This is hydrokinesis.” Tanya pointed out. “You can tell the difference because the water beneath me is still moving and rippling like uncontrolled water is.” To demonstrate, Tanya had the hand start tossing Lili up and down, rotating her, and otherwise treating her like a small toy. “If you’ll notice, while the fingers ripple, it does not propagate to the wrist of the structure. Hydrokinesis resembles psychic reinforcement in that it allows the water to resist forces far beyond its natural durability.” Each psychic technique had its own little idiosyncrasies, Tanya had noticed. Hydrokinesis and Herbaphony both involved psychically moving other things as if it was your own body, but you needed to use completely opposed methodologies to link it to yourself, and that was fascinating in a way that captured her interest as much as strategy games did in her first life.
“Whee!” Lili shouted in delight as Tanya used a second hand of water to catch her after a throw. “I’m an acrobat!” There was that feeling again! Why did it feel so familiar?
Gisu was staring at the water, and held up one of her own hands, focusing on the water. After a moment, she turned to Tanya. “Teach me!” Her face was set in determination.
Tanya blinked. These weren’t kawaii eyes… Why was it working just as well! “Alright.” She said, her cheeks warming. “Hydrokinesis requires that one be forceful. You seize the water with your mind, diving straight into it and gripping it firmly to shape it as you desire. If you are gentle, your power will bleed away and you will create ripples at best.” Tanya held out her hand and clenched it into a fist. “As a starting exercise, you should shove your hand into the water and pull it out with a gauntlet of water. Like so.”
Tanya increased the weight reduction from her levitation and sat up, the lower weight compensating for the smaller profile. Raising her fist, she confirmed that Gisu… and apparently Adam had shown up at some point, were paying attention. Then, she drove a knife hand into the water before drawing it back out, showing off the half meter long sword she had shaped out of water, her forearm as the base. “Naturally, you shouldn’t expect to be able to create something sharp on your first go, nor should you try, but if you can manage to get the water to cling to your skin, that’s a good first step.”
“Okay Tanya, I’m done now!” Lili shouted. “Stop please!” Tanya briefly considered ignoring her pleas. It would certainly be in character for a twelve year old to harmlessly torment a younger child like that. Tanya gut churned at the notion, so she instead caught Lili and gently deposited her in the water.
Tanya reviewed the camper’s first attempts at hydrokinesis. Adam, true to his boasts, had managed to create some kind of water-flower in his hand, a sphere of water as the base with a stem and petals coming out of the top of it. He froze the flower and presented it to Tanya with what he probably thought was a rakish grin. “A flower for a beautiful flower.”
He really, honestly thought… Tanya tried to think of a response but those damnable emotions warred with each other to decide her course for her. What was the worst part of this? The revulsion from receiving a romantic overture from a boy? The disgust from having to think about an eleven year old in a romantic context? The urge to destroy the boy by dismantling that ugly gift? Anger from the boy not getting the hint the first time? The vicarious embarrassment for that shitty pickup line?
Tanya decided a measured response was required. She used pyrokinesis to make the flower explode into steam, then glared at him until he got the picture. Only after Adam recoiled in abject terror, swimming to shore in full retreat did Tanya remember that her glare was refined to make hardened soldiers think twice before crossing her and should probably not be directed at children for anything but the absolute worst offenses. Great job, Tanya. No wonder you were cal- PAIN.
“AH!” Tanya screamed as a sudden lance of pain shot through her head. Spots of light sparkled in her vision as the migraine introduced itself to Tanya’s pain receptors. For just a moment, the sky seemed to crack open with the sound of church bells before the hallucination faded as quickly as it came. She promptly dropped into the water, even the tiny amount of focus required for levitation consumed by the pain.
Agent Nein, who was writing in a notebook while playing lifeguard, immediately lifted Tanya out of the water telekinetically and pulled her to shore. “Are you alright, Tanya?” He asked politely.
Giggles suddenly leapt from her throat, preventing Tanya from answering immediately. What was so funny? She didn’t know, but the bubbling bliss that followed the agonizing pain… She was lost in the euphoria, despite the migraine’s presence. “I don’t know!” She said honestly through her giggles. Was she crying? That must just be lake water irritating them.
Agent Nein frowned at the response. “Your eyes are glowing.” He observed. What? That’s not good.
Focusing, Tanya brought out her mage shell and shut out all distractions. She went through the mental exercise she developed in her second life when she started getting tempted to use the type 95. Mental energy responded extremely similarly to her mana did, so it still worked. All of her mental energy was concentrated to a single point, everything else falling away from her perception. Once accomplished, she allowed the mental energy to flow in a trickle throughout her body once more, bit by bit in a circuit moderated by her heartbeat. Once the energy was properly cycling throughout her body, ready to be directed into her computation orb, or rather, her psychic abilities at the first notion of danger, she opened her senses once more, ready to take on armies. Reluctantly, she also tuned her mage shell to become permeable to telepathy.
“An interesting meditative methodology.” Agent Nein observed. While she was meditating, He had placed her on the ground and continued to observe the campers. “I couldn’t tell precisely what you were doing, but usually you see meditation used to control psychic energy. That was clearly using psychic energy control to meditate.” He extinguished his cigarette and used a quick telekinetic wave to disperse the smoke. “Agent Vodello was uncharacteristically cagey as to what exactly she saw in your mind…” She was? Huh. “But she was clear that you should be experiencing mood swings as your emotions stabilize. What happened?”
What did happen? She had just snapped at Adam, then suddenly… “I think it was a migraine.”
“That’s a potentially very serious problem for a psychic.” Agent Nein said, his tone grave. “What, exactly, did you feel?”
“Ah…” Was she suddenly a research subject? How many psychics get migraines? What’s his sample size? Would he deliberately trigger it if he thought he could? Probably. “I can’t quite remember what I was thinking before it happened.” She lied. “But it was a sudden pain, like a stab in the brain.” She tapped her left temple. “Behind this eye, I think. Maybe a little higher.”
“Any other symptoms? Nausea? Flashes of light? Hallucinations?” Agent Nein asked.
“No, yes, and yes.” Tanya replied. “I heard bells, and my vision…” She should probably not mention the cracks. “I can’t describe it.”
Agent Nein hummed. “How about now? Did meditation calm the symptoms?”
…It did. “Yes.” Tanya replied. “There’s still a little bit lingering…” But it was more of an echo than anything noteworthy. Phantom pain, like she experienced in the months after Norden. “But it’s nothing.”
“I don’t think it was a migraine, then.” Agent Nein said. “Instead, I believe that Milla missed a piece of emotional baggage or two when cleaning your mind’s metaphorical pipes. I wouldn’t normally suggest that, as Milla has always been one of the Psychonaut’s best when it comes to dealing with emotional energy, but she seemed overtaxed nonetheless last night.” Miss Milla did seem rather frazzled after Tanya woke up… “There are some rare cases where manpower shortages forced treatment to lay incomplete for several days, and some of those cases exhibited vaguely similar symptoms when exposed to certain emotional triggers.”
Tanya suspected a different cause, but perhaps Lili could be manipulated… No. It would certainly involve a trip to Yomi castle, and exposing Lili to that place would be horrible. Tanya winced as the pseudo-migraine’s remnants flared up, although it was a minor thing. She still meditated some more to settle the symptoms.
Agent Nein fetched another camper from the water, depositing Morris onto his abandoned chair. “Did you enjoy getting in some exercise, Morris?” Agent Nein asked idly, leaving Tanya to her meditation.
“Yeah.” Morris replied, gasping for air. “Stayed in a little too long.” He took out the plugs to his flotation devices and slipped them off. “I can’t wait until I can float effortlessly like you can, Tanya.”
Finishing her meditation with a cleansing breath, Tanya stood back up. “That reminds me, Morris: Is your problem neurological, or just muscular?”
“Dwarfism, the serious kind, with early signs of progressive muscular dystrophy.” He confirmed. “I’m actually kind of lucky, most kids like me get really screwed up skeletons, but mine looks pretty normal, if you ignore how I look like I’m half my age.”
Memories of sitting on a stack of books during meetings with the General Staff flash through Tanya’s mind. She knows what that’s like. “Perhaps psychic reinforcement could allow you to move normally, if it’s merely weakness instead of a greater issue?” Tanya mused.
“Psychic whatnow?” Morris asked.
Agent Nein, always ready to give an educational lecture, cut in: “As you may have surmised, Tanya is a prodigy among prodigies when it comes to using the physical side of psychic abilities. She has taken the Psychic Fist technique, where telekinesis is guided by physical motion to attack, to new heights.” Agent Nein telekinetically fetched a small boulder, probably weighing about a hundred kilos. “Observe.”
As prompted, Tanya lifted the rock with only minor effort. “As you can see, she used telekinesis to amplify her every motion, effectively granting her tremendous strength.” Tanya tossed the small boulder, somewhat less than twice the size of a basketball in every dimension, from hand to hand. “It may be a goal for you to work towards, in the future when you’ve grown into your full psychic strength.”
“How long will that take?” Morris asked, impatient.
“The brain is considered fully developed by about age twenty-five. It is no coincidence that psychic strength seems to plateau at that age.” Agent Nein responded. “Tanya is also gifted with tremendous amounts of psychic strength, not seen since Ford Cruller or Maligula. Even with her mastery, she couldn’t toss around that rock quite so casually without that raw power on her side.”
“Man, some people just get all the luck, huh?” Morris said, chuckling.
“If you do become a Psychonaut, Morris,” Agent Nein said somberly. “...one thing that you will learn is that psychic powers being weak in childhood is a blessing in disguise.” When he glanced at Tanya after that statement, she winced at the headache returning. Grumbling, Tanya sat back down to cycle her mental energy again.
Fittingly for a mind reader, Morris immediately understood that this was not a subject to pursue further. “So how do you start learning how to do that?” He asked, curious and eager to change the subject.
Tanya had no idea how to properly answer that question, so stalled by finishing her quick meditation. She was getting faster with it, but it didn’t seem to reduce the effect. “...math?” She said after she finished. The reinforcement formula was the first one she managed to cast without an orb, specifically to survive basic training. “No, that won’t work.” The only reason that worked for her was because all she needed to do was focus on the memory of using the physical reinforcement formula to replicate it, it wouldn’t help him form that first memory. “The difficult part is the first time.” She said to continue the thought. “Once you’ve managed it, you can use the memory of doing so to guide future manifestations of that psychic power.” It was why the Psychonauts basic training tended to emphasize not forming bad habits, from what Tanya glimpsed of it.
“Yes, but what should I do for that first use?” Morris said, somewhat annoyed.
Tanya took another moment to figure something out. “...Ask Mary.” She eventually said. “She can do it too.” Agent Nein raised an eyebrow at the assertion, but left it be.
“There is a method that can be used to directly transfer knowledge…” Agent Nein admitted. “But it cannot be done on a mass scale. In this case, perhaps it is warranted. It cannot be done now… or anytime soon, but it’s not yet decided whether or not we’ll be open to the public next year, so if you return when we do another test run, we’ll revisit the possibility.”
Ah, he means a nugget of wisdom. Tanya has three of those that she noticed when building the castle. Could she refine one to solely teach psychic reinforcement? Was he intending on learning it himself?
Tanya felt more or less recovered, so she crouched down before leaping high up into the air, over a dozen meters high and over the center of the lake before announcing her malicious intentions at the top of her lungs: “CANNON BALL!”
Was it even remotely a good idea to use a combination of psychic powers to strike the water like a naval cannon? No.
…But it sure was fun.
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After the swimming was concluded, another round of showers was called for, as Lake Oblongota was filthy with mud, leaves, and lungfish mucus.
“Finally decided to join us, eh Tanya?” Teased Lizzie. “Yer mom decided you had to play with the other kids?”
Tanya shrugged. Yes, Miss Milla brought both Lili and Tanya into the counselor’s bathroom previously, but there was a very good reason for it. That reason no longer applied, so it was back to the barracks showers.
“There’s not enough showers for everyone here.” Observed Gisu.
“That’s easy to fix.” Sam said. “I’ll skip out, no problem! Thank me later.”
Tanya grabbed the filthy girl’s swimsuit. “No you don’t.” She gently shoved the girl into one of the shower stalls.
Norma’s face had become a permanent squint, as she wasn’t wearing her glasses, but she reflexively moved to adjust them as she acted the voice of reason. “Well, Mary’s the smallest, so she’ll need to share with someone.”
Tanya snorted. “Just take a shower.” Tanya seized a portion of the water from the two running showers, hydrokinetically collecting it into a ball above the stalls. Once she accumulated a few gallons, it was brought close. Turning to the staring girls, Tanya glowered before smoothing out her expression. “Get to cleaning.”
Once all the stalls were operating, Tanya telekinetically grabbed some soap and started the efficient cleaning routine one learned in basic training. Afterwards, Tanya jumped into the ball of water and put it on a spin cycle. After seconds, Tanya left the now-filthy water ball and tossed it out the bathroom door. The rough treatment did itch at her skin, but even with her new sensitivity, it was ignorable.
“You’re done already?” Mary asked incredulously as she left her stall. She had also apparently learned how to quickly wash in the army. At least she kept one iota of discipline…
Tanya shook her head, going in behind her and quickly applying conditioner to her hair with a similar method. “Now I’m done.”
“Damn Imperial efficiency…” Mary grumbled as they left the showers, Mary in a thick and fluffy towel and Tanya in her swimsuit, which, after some pyrokinetic heating to get rid of the stubborn dampness, was as clean and dry as if it was properly laundered.
“Chores are far less boring when you use psychic powers to do them, Mary.” Tanya said, nodding sagely.
Mary groused even harder at that advice. “Lucky devil… wish I got to…” So… cute… “Hey!” Mary said, swatting away Tanya’s ruffling of her hair. It was wet, so Mary spent the rest of the trip to the cabin failing to fix it.
After a few minutes of hairbrushing and other mundane tasks, Lili entered the cabin with Miss Mila from the counselor’s door. Miss Milla immediately narrowed her eyes at Tanya’s perfectly dry and clean swimsuit.
“Tanya, did you psychically spin-cycle yourself again?” She asked, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
“There weren't enough showers.” Tanya retorted, an amused grin fighting her innocent expression.
Miss Milla rarely appreciated the efficiencies Tanya frequently found when trying to apply non-basic psychic powers to mundane tasks like Agent Nein or Agent Mentalis did. She visibly debated internally whether she should assert authority, argue logically, or let the matter slide. Or maybe that was just Tanya’s telepathy picking up on her surface thoughts. It wasn’t always obvious when that was happening, after all. Either way, Miss Milla was perfectly capable of concealing her thoughts, but didn’t bother. “Just take turns next time, please.” She eventually said, settling the matter with authority without contesting the action directly. “Also, put on a T-shirt at least.”
Well that was reasonable enough.
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After lunch passed without any further migraines and everyone was dismissed to unstructured play, Tanya found herself once more teaching the campers how to properly utilize hydrokinesis.
“As I said before, water’s natural state is to flow and settle into the lowest possible state.” Tanya gestured to the buckets each of her new students had. Their expressions of concentration… oh! Tanya remembers this feeling now. It was the combination of pride and joy when seeing dutiful students. Her 203rd was always so attentive to what she had to teach them… Even if she terrified them. Because she terrified them, to be honest.
It was a nice feeling, if bittersweet. “Water can and will slip away from your psychic fingers just as readily as it will your physical ones, so you must be decisive!” Tanya slammed her fist into her open palm. Time for the drill sergeant voice. “Do not allow compromise from the water! You are mostly water, so the bucket is outnumbered! It will act to your will like all of your other water! You are the master of this water, it exists in its peaceful state at your sufferance alone, and at your will it becomes more, greater than it could be on its own.”
Psychic power development was always a very personal experience. Shouting metaphors at people until they latch on to one and succeed is one of the faster ways to get a group of people to learn a psychic power… if you were willing to let half to a third of them fail utterly. But if she wanted to get at least some of them to get the hang of it within an hour, it was the best option.
Mary, for example… could not get even a ripple from the water. “Why do all of your metaphors have to be so brutish and violent, Degurechaff?”
Tanya snorted. “Still on that? Pyrokinesis and Hydrokinesis are very violent expressions of psychic power, Mary.” She gestured to a nearby set of brush and gently coaxed one of the local vines out from the undergrowth. “If you tried to apply that advice to Herbaphony, you won’t have any chance of success.” You might, however, learn what the plant tastes like when it explodes into goo right in your face.
Lili lost her concentration on the hand of water she was controlling. “What!? Since when could you do that?”
“Mr. Park Ranger gave me a few tips.” Tanya said smugly. “Picked it up yesterday.”
“I still think it’s skitsnack that you can learn how to do things by literally plucking it from their mind.” Mary complained, tactfully using Legadonian when swearing.
“I was doing him a favor.” Tanya said dismissively. “It’s only polite of him to repay in kind.” More importantly, Agent Nein was quite clear that sharing a nugget of wisdom held no drawback beyond opportunity cost. Holding one gave no benefit but the ability to gift it.
“So you’d be willing to share your own, then? If we did you a favor?” Mary asked.
“Children don’t have enough life experience to form nuggets of wisdom.” Tanya pointed out. “It’s not enough to know how to do something, you need to have used it enough to have a complete insight into what you’re conveying.”
Mary lit up at that fact. “So if I had a nugget of wisdom, it would be proof that I’m not a kid?”
Tanya wiggled her hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Agent Nein wasn’t very clear on exactly how much experience was required. Do you even have a honed skill?” Tanya wasn’t even sure if she knew how to operate a computation orb without praying at it, so the idea that Mary had a nugget of wisdom was… questionable.
“Sure I do!” Said Mary defensively. “Like shooting things, and flying, and…” She took a moment to think about her previous life. “I was pretty good at choir singing.”
Tanya shrugged. She was pretty good at choir singing too from the church orphanage, but she didn’t have any nuggets of wisdom to that effect. “Maybe? I suppose we could… look.”
“You? Inside my head?” Mary asked, suddenly growing pale at the notion. Tanya glanced at the other campers, who all abandoned their hydrokinetic practice in the name of watching the drama unfold.
“If you’re not comfortable with that…” Tanya offered.
“Wait…” Mary said, thinking hard about it. “That’s it! You just don’t remember being Degurechaff! You’re definitely her, but if you don’t remember being her… Let’s do it!” Well, that was one hell of a 180.
Tanya chuckled at her sudden enthusiasm. “Well, I could use a safer mind than Agent Cruller’s to test the waters…” And it was an opportunity to confirm the girl’s words vis a vis Being X. “Class dismissed.” Tanya announced to the other campers.
Was this some kind of trap by Mary? Definitely. Will that stop Tanya? Not a chance. A familiar feeling pulled at Tanya’s cheeks as she marched to where she stashed the backup psychoportal. She only had a few seconds to hide it… and it has rained since then… There!
“Is that safe?” Mary asked as Tanya wiped off the mud from the psychoportal.
“Agent Mentalis is a firm believer in robust engineering.” Tanya said, giving up on manual cleaning and resorting to hydrokinetic washing. “More to the point, this thing doesn’t use electricity.” Agent Mentalis’s other inventions operated with highly refined psitanium, to Tanya’s understanding. Potent psychic imprinting was used to impose a specific function on it, with the carved structure of the psychically reactive rock being what kept that imprint from drifting as it got exposed to environmental psychic energy. As long as it wasn’t cracked or anything, it would work just fine. The psychoportal should work the same way. After a quick inspection of the parts, Tanya nodded to herself, satisfied. “It’s in fine condition.”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked skeptically.
“You’ve clearly never seen Agent Mentalis’ testing chamber.” Tanya said dryly. “A little mud or water is nothing.”
That seemed to satisfy the berserker concealed within a little girl. “Alright. Where are we doing this?”
“The psychoisolation chamber should suffice.” Tanya said, glancing in the structure’s direction. “Do you have your smelling salts?”
“Yep.” Mary said, brandishing them.
“Good, because I left mine in my other shorts.” Tanya said as they walked, snatching them from her hand. They’re going in her mind, she doesn’t need them.
“You’ve done this more than I have.” Mary admitted. “Is there anything else we’re missing?”
Tanya took a moment to think. “...We should take a trip to the restroom first.” She said, nodding sagely as she turned ninety degrees and moved towards the facilities.
“Good idea.”
Comments
Chris Larson
About 50 bad ideas just spawned from this for each of them. This is going to backfire in the best way.
