Based pretty directly* off of the Subnauts AU by @venusianpeach
*If I continue in any notable way, however, it will diverge a fair amount.
---
| Baton Pass |
Hollis had made a number of mistakes over the past few weeks, but, arguably, the first of them was sending the agents Motif off on a wild goose chase.
It wouldn’t do any harm; on the job, they were as efficient as could be, and whatever mess they might get themselves into, they could reasonably extract themselves from. So long as they were offsite, there was no way they could worsen the headache that was the Psychonauts’ financial situation, in the exact same way they wouldn’t help her by hovering.
If Emmet had reminded her about one more meeting, she’d been planning to tangle him in web of thought so convoluted that even Ingo’s patience would’ve run out before he was free. Really, in sending them a continent over, she was doing everyone a favor.
Or so she’d thought.
She’d enjoyed exactly thirty hours of peace before the news of Truman’s kidnapping broke.
It would have been incredibly convenient to have them onsite and let them deal with Razputin.
It would have saved everyone some trouble if the heads of transportation had been available to perform their foremost duties.
And it would have made all the difference in the world to have a hydrokinetic on their side when faced with The Deluge of Grulovia.
But Hollis had played a bad hand, and--
Ahem.
Hollis’s plan hadn’t accounted for all of the variables, no matter how unlikely they were to factor in; fortunately, nobody had been seriously hurt and the water damage had mostly been confined to Green Needle Gulch. Whatever else cropped up in the aftermath, she’d been blissfully unaware of it for the past two weeks.
But all vacations had to come to an end sometime, and, now that she’d had a chance to decompress, Hollis was ready to tackle the responsibilities of the Second Head. There was plenty to focus on, already lined up on her desk when she returned to her office, but her attention was drawn to the neatly-stacked mission report and the unrelated forms lined up beneath it.
She picked the first up and skimmed it over; it was labeled with both Motifs’ names, as was standard for them, but the slant of the writing suggested Ingo had been the one to pen it this time.
The subject has been secured. The report promised, followed shortly by, Though perhaps the esteemed Second Head might tell certain agents to allow her breathing room next time, instead of finding busywork to keep them occupied.
Hollis wasn’t surprised on either front. If those men were on a mission, then by god they were going to see it through, whether or not it was actually feasible. She was grateful Ingo had humored her, at least, and not called her on her crap where Emmet could hear.
If the past couple of weeks had taught her anything, it was that she’d really needed the break. It was nice to know that someone else had seen it.
Her eyes flickered down to the second set of papers. They were, in fact, a color-coded series of forms from the transportation department, some fields filled in an opposite slant, others left very pointedly blank. As she flipped through them, she found backdated requisition forms, incident reports and repair requests, each ramping up in passive-aggression until she reached the last one, which had been helpfully filled out in her name, pertaining to the jet’s use. She could actually feel the echo of annoyance radiating off of it.
Despite herself, she felt a smirk tugging at her lips.
Not as much fun when other agents didn’t stay in their lane, was it Motif?
She set both sets of papers aside-- the first to be tastefully redacted and then filed, the second to be completed. Both were slightly more familiar in tone than she’d tolerate from most, but she was in a good mood, and they were funnier than they were insolent; besides, they confirmed that the pair was back on base, which she was willing to consider a positive thing, today.
Hollis Forsythe did not have favorites among her agents, but the twins were certainly up there.
The tug at her lips faded as she laid eyes on the foremost pile of papers. On top-- meaning most recently submitted-- she saw Razputin’s name, and took an anticipatory breath as something very important occurred to her.
Two of her problems had-- how would they put it? ‘Returned to station’?
And she had one newly-arrived problem without a destination.
Surely a couple of conductors could help with that.
At one point, I actually did have a fair amount planned to follow Power Trick-- or rather, its first chapter, Baton Pass-- but I don’t think I’m going to go anywhere with it at this point, so here’s the one chapter I’d written out after the fact.
While fairly cohesive this time, it does have placeholders all over, so, you know. Adjust your expectations.
---
Raz really hoped he hadn’t been called into Hollis’s office to discuss the… incidents he’d played a hand in over the past two weeks, but he wasn’t holding his breath.
At least there was a chance that, so soon after her vacation, Hollis would still be in a good mood.
The odds didn’t look good as he stepped into her office and her eyes immediately snapped to him, fingers steepled in front of her face contemplatively. She inclined her head toward the seat before her desk, and Raz did his best not to slink across the room.
Hollis didn’t waste any time, moving her hands down to fold them over the paperwork she’d prepared, “I’ve been hearing reports that you’ve experienced some… hydrokinetic difficulties while I was on vacation. Is that true, Razputin?”
“I dunno, they seemed pretty easy to me.” He said evasively, wilted at the look she gave him and then admitted, “Kind of.”
Her annoyance softened marginally at the tone, a stark contrast to her sharp nod, “And have you approached anyone in regards to the matter? Lucrecia or any of our agents?”
Raz shook his head. Nona had already been through a lot; he didn’t need to bring up his own issues when they were so relevant to her traumas, both new and newly uncovered. And the other agents-- he just didn’t know where to start. Milla… had the wrong idea what was going on there, and he really didn’t want to have that conversation with her, even if only to set the record straight. Coach understood on some level-- even had his own phobias to contend with-- but Raz was fairly confident that Oleander’s suggested solution, well meaning though it would be, would mostly consist of running drills. The idea of talking to Ford on the matter just hit way too close to home right now, and anyone else either wouldn’t have the tools to help, or would need a primer.
So really, he’d been experimenting over the past two weeks, and the only conclusion he’d come away with was that he had no idea how to control the Hand.
At least other people could see it now…?
“I see. Is there a reason for that? [Reports indicate that…] It seems to me you could benefit from some training.”
“Yeah, but N-- Lucrecia’s still recovering, so I didn’t want to bother her.”
Hollis gave a conceding nod, “That’s a reasonable [idk]. As a Junior Agent, you’re within your rights to refuse being assigned a mentor-- short of an official order from a higher ranking agent-- but I’ve got something lined up that I think you could really benefit from. Will you hear me out?”
Okay… this was not going the way Raz had feared it might; Hollis really was in a good mood. Either that, or she’d just been in an extremely bad one the rest of the time he’d known her. For her sake, he hoped it was the former.
He smiled, nervous energy beginning to dissipate, “It’d be cool to have a mentor for real this time!”
“Yes, well, I suppose that’ll average out.” Hollis said, lips quirked into a subtle grimace. Without bothering to explain, she pushed away from her desk and stood up, two fingers resting against her temple, “Gentlemen, if you would?”
A second passed, then three. The tiny pause was punctuated by the odd weightlessness of teleportation-- albeit a [lesser] sense of it as the user made his entrance.
Or, rather, the users made their combined entrance.
Hollis nodded at the pair of perfectly mirrored salutes aimed her way, and then the room’s collective attention fell to Raz.
Raz, for his part, immediately jumped out of his seat from excitement, hands clenched as he tried to contain himself.
“A pleasure to meet you, Agent Aquato,” Said the elder Agent Motif, followed by his brother’s amused, “We’ve heard a great deal. We are--”
“Ingo and Emmet Motif! The Countertype Conductors!”
For just a moment, they seemed startled by his enthusiasm and Raz made to reel himself in-- but then a booming laugh washed over the room. Hollis raised a hand to snap next to one ear, double-checking her hearing and, abashed, Ingo angled the bill of his cap over his eyes. Completely unfazed by the outburst, Emmet humored him for [idk] seconds before flicking a wrist and TKing it back into place.
“You’re… gonna teach me how to use hydrokinesis?”
“I’m hardly suited to the task,” Emmet said mildly, the angle of his smile twitching into something [mischievous]; Raz recognized the tone of a sibling about to pass the buck, “But Ingo has agreed to accompany you to a station called proficiency.”
“Which isn’t to say it’s the only track we’ll be riding. Your file indicates that there are several techniques which could use refinement, since your previous mentor was… ill equipped to assist you.” / “Regardless, while our priority is hydrokinesis, we intend to cover a number of different subjects. Presuming, that is, that you’re open to working with us.”
“Yeah!”/ “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”
Behind her desk, Hollis grimaced and, even though it wasn’t said on the physical plane, something clearly passed between the twins.
“You would be surprised.” [x]
“Now, we can hardly expect you to clear today’s schedule on such short notice, but if you would report to our office in the eastern wing-- room [#]-- at 9:00 tomorrow morning, we can begin without further delay.”
This was the eponymous Power Trick. I didn’t have the part after the intro planned out yet, so it’s just kind of on its own. Surprisingly, it’s almost entirely free of notes and placeholders.
---
Common folklore stated that twins were born when a soul became too much for one person to carry.
If that was true, Emmet and Ingo probably should have had a third sibling.
It wasn’t even that they’d caused that much trouble for their parents; they had just had the energy, curiosity and enthusiasm to exhaust an adult within the hour, and they built off of one another.
And it was hard not to get caught up in the other’s excitement when they constantly heard their twin in their heads. If something caught Emmet’s attention, he’d automatically share it with Ingo, who added onto it in his answering [idk], and the cycle would continue, on and on, until nobody outside of their thoughts could hope to understand. It was simultaneously isolating, and incredibly affirming-- because even if nobody else understood, there would always be someone on the same page. Maybe their interpretations of the text diverged, but rarely were they a full stop away from one another.
Telepathic twins were something of a cliché, but it was a cliché neither cared to subvert. Why would they, when it was so much more fun to silently collaborate and inflict benign mischief on their loved ones?
Nobody in their family had been surprised when they realized what was happening; their mother wasn’t psychic herself, but her line was full of espers and clairvoyants that cropped up every few generations, and their parent was a reasonably experienced, if casual, levitator. There was a collective understanding that the twins were among their family’s psychics-- innate telepaths-- and the matter was shelved.
Funny thing, though; while the two sides of their family were well acquainted with psychics, neither half boasted especially powerful ability. There was no reason for the boys to breeze through their parent’s levitation lessons the way they had.
It was something the pair eventually figured out on their own. Despite the fact that they couldn’t remember a time before the other’s presence at the back of their minds, as much as levitation had been the first power they’d learned, there was something beneath it: a psychic feedback loop that slowly built up momentum as they grew.
A psychic feedback loop that had not, as a matter of course, stopped spinning over the years. Not even once.
It turned and turned, a perpetual motion machine that needed nothing more than their psychic link to thrive.
That was Duality.
That was why, so long as the other still lived, neither one of them could truly be stopped.
Miscellaneous Power Trick bits and pieces. This is mostly a series of unrelated conversations.
You know the drill and so do I. (Read: placeholders, notes, and writing without context ahead.)
---
“You’re not going to take pity on your poor brother? Even after your vicious cat mauled him?”
“You’re being dramatic.” / “Which is exactly the problem. If you’d just give Lady her medicine without making a production of it, you wouldn’t get scratched.”
“I medicate her exactly the way you do. Sneezy just has a vendetta against me.”
“Maybe it’s because you keep making fun of her condition.”
“She’s a cat who’s allergic to humans. You expect me to ignore that? Who do you take me for?”
“You’re Emmet.” / “And, somehow, we love you in spite of it.”
---
“Are you guys going on the mission to retrieve Helmut’s body? Lizzie was talking about how they needed a cryokinetic and--”
“No.” Emmet said immediately, “We’re not. Nobody fills out the mandatory requisition forms if we’re not here to enforce the rules.”
“Plus, it would be a good experience for Agent [Natividad?]; it’s a rare opportunity to see field work in such a secure environment, and I suspect she would… resent our presence.”
“That’s not why you’re staying back, is it?”
“No. I will repeat. Nobody takes the transportation department seriously.”
---
[something re: twin switch nonsense]
“Hm. No. It’s no fair if we can’t give a decisive answer.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve been playing that joke since we were verrrry small. We may have become the butt of it.”
“All that’s to say that, technically, I may be Emmet, and he may be Ingo. We have no idea which of us started out as which; it was just easier to pick and be done with it.”
“It balances out. Ingo is older, but Emmet comes first alphabetically.”
---
“Wellllll...” Emmet drawled, and though Raz couldn’t tell what shifted between the two, he was sure there was something. Palm turned upward, instead, Emmet pointed to the sky, causing the water to jump in a choppy, unnatural splash.
“But.. hang on.” / “If you’re hydrokinetic, too, why’d you [comic book reference]?”
There was a stifled laugh to the side, though any physical evidence of amusement was nonexistent when Raz looked. “Yes, Emmet, tell me, why did you do that?”
Emmet balled his hand into a fist, and the water [falteringly] loomed over Ingo; without looking back, he waved it away. As an apology-- or, perhaps, a concession-- he flicked his wrist and pointed to the ground, where a small bubble of fire sparked to life.
Raz felt his brows furrow as he considered the relatively feeble displays.
“On paper,” Ingo began, smothering the fire and crossing the distance between himself and his twin, “Our [specialty] is electrokinesis. That is because we specialize in a skill called duality, which is not so easily defined. Many psychics use it a grounding technique or in the pursuit of self improvement.”
“We do not.” In unison, they swapped gestures, and whatever had changed before went back to normal.
“Truth be told, Emmet and I are both capable of performing pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis, but we lend each other our ability to do so through duality.”
“I give Ingo my ability to use hydrokinesis and his becomes stronger. He gives me his pyrokinesis. My abilities are enhanced. Give and take. A winning combination!”
“So it’s like… letting someone borrow your psychic power.” / “I’ve done that before! Or. Well, someone’s done it for me, so I could beat up some nasty [idk].”
The twins blinked at him in perfect unison. Though their expressions didn’t betray it, Raz took that to be surprise.
Slowly, Ingo inclined his head, “That’s… also a [viable] application. It’s not nearly as sustainable, however, and I can only recommend that track if there’s no other viable option. No, what we do is on a much smaller scale, and can be maintained indefinitely.”
“You guys are doing that all the time? Don’t you get, y’know, tired?”
“Do your mental defenses drain you?” Ingo asked, humoring him.
Raz shook his head.
“That’s because it’s a subconscious act. This is an ability we’ve exercised for quite some time, Agent Aquato-- long enough that it, too, has become routine.”
---
“Do you happen to remember our conversation about duality?”
With a badly hidden air of anticipation, Raz said, “Yeah…?”
“Duality, in its intended application, is a skill often employed by telepaths. I’m unsure if you’ve experienced it, but if one spends too much time outside of their body, they become prone to dissociation. If you apply duality in such a situation, it helps to sort out foreign thoughts or find mental stowaways.”
“Don’t Censors already do that?”
“Censors cannot be controlled. They dispose of what they see with no regard for [priorities]. Duality allows you to prioritize a problem.”
[...]
“I think-- yeah. I think that’s happened to me before. Sometimes it gets all fuzzy and I think I’m someone else.”
The twins shot each other a wry look.
“That happens.” / “We’ve been informed that you visited a great number of stations over a comparatively short commute. Was that when this occurred?”
Raz nodded, “In Edgar’s mind. He taught me confusion, though, so I thought maybe it was just… y’know, normal for him?”
“Edgar…?” / “I don’t believe we have any Edgars on staff at the moment. If this was an untrained teacher, that may very well have been the case.”
“He’s, uh. Yeah. Let’s go with untrained.”
“We will revisit confusion.” / “It is not a standard issue psychic power. However, it is important to have a proper handle on your abilities. Safety first!”
“Are there any other powers you learned in an informal setting?”
“...does it count if one of the Psychic Six taught me?”
“We will allow it.”
“Then just clairvoyance and shield.”
[...]
“Is clairvoyance another one of those powers that makes you go all,” He wiggled his fingers without concluding the question.
“It can be, especially if you weren’t taught the basics. Did you want to discuss it further?”
“Well I was in this whale’s head once […]”
[‘Yeah, that sounds right’/Raz concludes with admitting that he just thought it was him going loopy in the Rhombus of Ruin again.]
The [adj] atmosphere all but evaporated, along with any ambient moisture in [the area]. Though the brothers were silent, impassive, they were clearly in some kind of heated mental debate.
“That is enough.” Emmet eventually said, aloud, locking his arm with his twin’s.
“Why… why were you anywhere near that station?” Ingo asked, ignoring the declaration.
[Raz tentatively starts, thinking it might calm whatever just started. Is interrupted.]
“No. We will not be continuing on this track.”
[...]
“No, it’s okay! I can help!”
“Respectfully, Razputin,” / “It’s neither your responsibility nor your place. We understand that you’ve helped a great many people, some of them even colleagues, but you’re failing to see the distinction.”
“They were lacking a support system. We do not. Support is our system.”
[...]
“You are familiar with outpost Charlie Psycho Delta.”
[nods]
“We were not on staff when it was established. But we were stationed at the base prior to its [decommission?].”
“Just prior to its [decommission]. We were there for two months before the entire [outpost] was deemed too hazardous to warrant pouring resources into. In part, our station there was one of convenience; many agents were assigned to, and then requested transfer from Charlie Psycho Delta, so it was common sense to have someone from the transportation department on hand.”
“We were also meant to remove the train. Sunken boats and aircraft could be explained. A boxcar was more difficult to justify.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that...” [Raz]
“We did not remain there long enough to plan an extraction. Together, we were able to withstand the psilirium’s effects better than our coworkers. It was still uncomfortable.”
“We’re used to enclosed spaces, but the outpost was built by minds under constant exposure to a psychoreactive substance. The safety measures weren’t up to code and the contingencies were incomplete--”
“They had to remind employees not to consume an active psychohazard.”
“--even without taking the psilirium into account, it was a disaster waiting to happen.”
“As a hydrokinetic, being the final fail safe also made Ingo uneasy.” Emmet said for his twin, seemingly unable to resist getting a light jab in.
“And Emmet had a tendency to start sparks when he got excited, or upset, or stressed. It wasn’t an ideal situation for any of the parties involved.” They spent a second staring at one another, daring the other to either escalate or back down. Ingo sighed.
“Even though it wasn’t our responsibility anymore, the boxcar became a personal project. When work permitted, and we were mentally able, we would requisition use of a research vessel and try to decide how best to remove it from the psilirium deposit.”
“Okay, but why? Your introductory issue explained that Truman recruited you guys as conductors, so do you just like trains that much?”
“We mistakenly teleported the train there.” Emmet declared, unabashed. “It was only right that we remove it.”
“You-- wait.” / “A whole train? You accidentally teleported an entire train?”
“There was a mechanical failure. To pool information, I attempted to teleport to Ingo. He attempted to teleport to me. We are still unsure where the Rhombus of Ruin factors in.”
More Power Trick-- this time part of a mental world, Similitude Circuit. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go this direction, but I kind of dig the symbolism in it.
This is especially choppy and has notes all over.
---
As they gestured, Tragedy’s right sleeve fell, just below the line of his glove-- but it was enough to make out a thick stripe of discolored skin around his wrist. Raz narrowed his eyes and tucked that thought away for later.
[...]
At the sweep of Comedy’s right arm, Raz noticed it-- the same mark Tragedy had boasted three cars back.
“It’s been a trick the whole time, hasn’t it?” He asked, “You’ve been swapping who’s who every car.”
The pair stopped and looked at him, heads tilting inward toward one another.
“Might I ask how you’ve reached that terminal?” Tragedy asked.
Raz looked to Comedy, face twisting in discomfort and, with a healthy measure of caution, said, “You’ve got a scar on your wrist. That’s… that’s Ingo’s, isn’t it? From the psilirium cuff.”
The masks, of course, stayed stationary, but the glow of eyes behind them blinked. In unison, the narrators pulled back opposite sleeves to show mirroring blemishes.
[...]
“You’ve been switching the whole time! How’s that fair?”
“You are correct,” Comedy said, followed immediately by Tragedy’s, “That wouldn’t be fair. We’re doing no such thing.”
[...]
“That’s not-- okay, fine.” / “But you still answered to each other’s names!”
Tragedy held his hands up in a loose shrug, “It was an assumption. We’re not here to correct your interpretation of the story, only to guide you through it.”
“Even if someone’s got the facts totally wrong? You’re not going to go back and help them understand?”
“There are very few objective facts in a mental world.” Comedy said, “Perhaps the viewer finds meaning in the color of the victim’s [idk]. It may not break the mystery open, but who are we to say they read too much into the world around them?”
[...]
“Ah, well who can say what we truly represent?”
“Whatever the set requires, we can provide. We’re Comedy and Tragedy, Day and Night, Truth and Ideal.”
“Ingo and Emmet?” Raz asked, [idk].
The two laughed, clapping their hands together in sync.
“Who’s to say what we represent beyond that.” Said Tragedy.
Comedy shook his head, “In a sense. We’re modeled after the conductors for simplicity’s sake, but we’re the attendants, nothing more and nothing less.”
[...]
In their wake, Raz looked to the PA system and, for all the good it would do, said, “Okay, this is getting really annoying now!”
To his surprise, it crackled back, “Perhaps that’s a lesson to take away from this experience, then, to be mindful of your circumstance. And to be careful with confusion grenades.”
There was a brief scuffling sound, the same he heard when he fought over [idk] with one of his siblings, and then, “You need to understand that not all minds take [tampering] lying down. Be prepared for your actions to catch up to you. Act in the interest of damage reduction. Or have a contingency plan.”
A silence, and then a heavy sigh. The system shut off.
He stared at it for a few more seconds, and then announced, “If that was supposed to help, you missed the mark.”
It [idk] again, just long enough to broadcast, “Remember what genre you’re in.”
---
[there are two Enablers just hanging out. There are no other enemies around them, so they’re just enabling/protecting each other and not doing anything else. It seems harmless enough.]
“Um...” Said Raz, considering the scene in front of him.
The PA came to life with a put-upon sigh, “We’re aware.”
“What exactly are we supposed to do about that?”
“If you have a solution, let us know. It becomes a real problem when one or both of them is the killer, and they have immunity from prosecution.”
---
“Opposites can be verrrry subjective things.” Said Comedy.
[...]
“They say comedy and tragedy are the same thing; the only difference is time.” / “We don’t subscribe to that. The difference between comedy and tragedy is the light you happen to view it under.”
[the actual lighting changes, their coats invert]
“Your antagonist is the hero of their own story. You’re the villain in someone else’s.”
[…]
“That’s… really weird, coming from you guys.” Raz confessed.
“Is it?” Comedy asked, inclining his head toward Tragedy, who picked the line of thought up without missing a beat, “We wouldn’t say so. From one perspective, the recovery period following [term?] was incredibly difficult; from an outsider’s, there was amusement to be found in the situation.” / “It was a cruel sense humor, perhaps, but [?].”
