Scene #7572: Psychonauts Any% Speedrun (Glitches)

Owner	Pose
Persephone Kore	The Psi-Responsive Alter-Ego "Queen in Veils" is barely a machine. It's more like a doll made in the image of a fanciful goddess, in ways that just have to be on purpose. Its limbs, rather than betraying motors and hydraulics, are only simple ball-joints. Its long hair flows and fades like wispy dark smoke; its pearl-white chassis hints at a flowing dress. The halo-crown above its head casts down a curtain of vertical slats to the floor, vaguely imitating sunbeams and giving its form a half-glimpsed mystique. Its face is indeterminate. Persephone herself is sitting in the three-story-tall mech's palm, her legs dangling off. She sips a mug of coffee serenely; her eyes are gracefully shut, and her face is wearing a smile so natural it's impossible to imagine her without it. She waves at Flamel as he passes by the observation window without opening her eyes. His scanning devices are already redlining. The arena controls haven't been set, so it's still a featureless white void- or it should be, anyway. The Queen in Veils (or maybe just Persephone?) has managed to terraform even the blank white space out to a hundred feet, shaping it into a gray rocky moonscape. The "sky" is black and starry overhead, but there's still air to breathe. I'm nice like that! Haha.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's fancy scanning devices throughout the area are all making those horrible, unnerving synthed noises, whining as if saturated in Chernobyl's own heart-stuff. Flamel is loving it. "Wow!" He mutters. "Hard to find this kind of earnestness. You must really not be afraid of just about any kind of emotional shot." Unless Persephone has her own ideas about where to set this to, Flamel's brought a cassette tape containing all the data needed to load up a particular arena. A summer that never ends is hell, but a cozy summer camp that sits in your memory eventually turns to gold. Flamel Parsons loads up an old haunt, where more than one psychic skirmish has been fought: The asphalt parking lot and ring of dry, dusty, beaten walking space, right at the edge of Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp in the pacific northwest. It's ringed by all kinds of tall trees over the steep hills that surround the camp, and in the distance, one can see cabins big, small, and even truly massive. This is a place of meetings and separations. Children have been crying here, wanting to not stay or to not leave. The commemorative tree-log inscription that explains the history of 'witches' and 'paranormal hysteria' has been vandalized by a camper bragging about getting to first base with his girlfriend. Flamel Parsons floats down to a dozen feet or so from the Queen in Veils' feet. "Wow! That's an amazing Think Tank. You're able to operate it externally and embodied?" He's adjusting his outfit, getting mentally ready. An engine is revving in his skull, softly. "I'm pretty ready to go. No obfuscating emissions, please?"
Utsuho Reiuji	Given Utsuho flat-out said she was going to show up and watch, it's probably not a surprise when she does. It might not be obvious given she's in the spectator's area, though. She has a camera drone! It is currently doing random loops near the Queen in Veils, because Utsuho has never operated anything by joystick before and her ability to steer is... questionable.
Persephone Kore	"I'm afraid of lots of things, Flamel!" Persephone says, but in the kind of tone that makes that really hard to believe. (Should she really have been able to hear him from there? It doesn't matter.) "Everybody is. I'm not that perfect yet." She's smiling even more now as the arena ripples and shifts. For a moment the Queen in Veils' moonscape terraforming sticks despite the change in scenery- one kind of reality-shaping dominion contesting another. Then she relinquishes it, and the Psychonauts parking lot shines through. "Wow," she marvels. "This place is... beautiful. It's bittersweet. The weight of it... are you really trying to make a girl cry, Flamel? You'd better not!" The coffee mug floats down to the ground gently- in a simulation like this, she could've dropped it, but it seems like she's not the kind of person who enjoys just breaking things. She gives Utsuho's camera-drone a little wave, too, before standing up on the Queen in Veils' palm. "I'm just a girl who never stopped playing with dolls," she says with a little laugh. "You don't mind, do you?" It twists space, redefining her location from 'there' to 'here' and relocating her into its heart-cockpit. "I know you're special, Flamel," she says warmly, her voice now subtly amplified by the machine. "I know you're capable of beating me, even if you're not prepared for how just how hard that will be! But somehow, I don't feel worried at all. Being here, with you... learning how to fight. It feels like the most natural thing in the world." "Just show me how, and I'll do it!"
Flamel Parsons	"Hey, Think Tanks are cutting-edge gear, I've definitely got to brush up on how to fight something like that! Go ahead." Flamel rambles as he limbers up a little. He stretches like a complete dork, looking less like he's about to have a fight and more like he's about to have a tennis match. "Lots of minds are capable of a lot of stuff, it's just a matter of being willing to decide to do it." He's even limbering up his own telekinesis. Large, translucent psychic hands appear in the air around him, bracing against each other, stretching fingers and palms, or imitating elaborate shoulder loosening. "Alright! Show me your favorite doll. Remember, this place is consequence-free, so fight however hard you're able to decide to!" He takes his fighting stance. Two fingers on each temple. "On three. One... two... three!!" He's targeting the heart right away. First thing to do is to try to dive straight into that brain. He wants to know what it's like. Astrally projecting, his physical body stays still while a phantasmal Parsons-shape slams forward like it was fired out of a cannon and tries to hit the Queen in Veils and project straight into the aggression-processing areas of the mind, "guns" blazing, smashing and crashing with the intent to wreck as much of the faculties on first contact as he can and test if Persephone's faculties of forming combat tactics will hold up.
Persephone Kore	You are being shredded apart by a black hole, ripped atom from atom by its tidal forces. An infinite plunge into the end of the universe at unthinkable, gut-dropping speeds. It's so gentle, so passive, but there's no way to make sense of it. You have to pull away, you need to pull away. But can you, Flamel? Persephone's heart is a monument to Sapient Heuristics' work. It's something that isn't quite impossible, but is only theoretically possible, which isn't any less scary. Mindscapes are usually comfortably unreal; force of personality or training can give them some hazardous solidity. This is a mind that is more "real" than the physical world. The psychic things she does- they're not really tricks. Not finding the points of leverage, the narrow avenues where reality allows the mind to act, but simple brute gravity. Any moment she is not grinding the world around her to dust is a moment she is being impossibly gentle. "You're so brave," she says! "Ahaha, it's so irresponsible. I like it a lot actually! But I can't just let you do that to me, Flamel. Let's keep this in physical space, okay?" The psycho-sensitive equipment squeals in a way that it really never should, in a way that its machinery shouldn't be able to produce. That's the split-second of warning Flamel gets. The Queen in Veils doesn't gesture- its hand is cupping its cheek in warm adoration- but a flatly horrifying amount of psychic force impacts the parking lot where he was standing. The asphalt is obliterated for ten feet all around, sending out pings of shrapnel and creating a crater of dirt and rubble. It's hesitant, almost, like she's unsure if this is an okay amount of force to use. It really really isn't.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel makes contact not with a barrier, but with an event horizon. It savages his astral form the minute he reaches its fuzzy boundary, forcing a grimace across his face. "Oof! That's a hell of a defense. Normally I see something armored up, this is really different." He pushes his sunglasses up his nose. Brave, huh? "Really? Thanks! I built the bravery myself. Always better than store-bought. Well, I can do my work meat-side, don't worry." There's that warning. Uh oh! Flamel can see just as clearly as his equipment. That's why his panic response is to suddenly flicker out of sight, in fear. "Woah!" Going invisible, he dives to one side, suffering shrapnel but surging away. "Close one!" He mutters, eyebrows up beyond his sunglasses -- albeit only visible to the observers. That's a benefit of being in the stands! Better to dive back though. Into the ten-foot crater, he dives on a cushion of levitation, using it to build up speed and launch up. Then, above, he glides, unable to fly but able to slow-fall over the Queen and try to rain down a strike with thick, heavy psychic blast from above, a column of orange light! The raw psychic energy is meant to decay one's ability to move, guard, or even focus on assault. It's a psychic attack as much as a physical one, which is to say, "very". But it can't get into her mind, only try to target those faculties from the outside, like an artillery strike.
Persephone Kore	The Queen in Veils tilts its head up to track Flamel- completely unnecessary, given the nature of the combatants involved, but I like playing dolls! It's a habit. It's a big target, despite its elegant profile; graceful in a slow and sedate way. The bolt of psychic energy spears down between two of the slats of its 'curtain' and strikes the side of its face squarely, cracking and scorching the plastic-like chassis. "Ahaha! That's amazing, Flamel," she marvels. It's hard to tell if that's the mental impact of his blow, or if she's just Like That- either way, it's hard to sense any hostility from her in the first place. The weakness of the Queen in Veils is also its strength. As an extension of Persephone's self, her mindstate can be affected through it- but the reverse is also true. Metal bends itself back into place. Plastic bleaches from scorched black to pearl-white. Cracks un-spiderweb, slowly but surely, restoring it to its pristine imitation of divinity. I have an obligation to look strong. I have an obligation to be their perfect princess. Dylan, Marc, Dr. Carpathia, all of Sapient Heuristics... I want to be their hope! I want to make them proud. "So I can't let you hurt me," she says, her words blending with the gravitational impression of her thoughts, "but I can let you try! And if you think you're stronger than that..." The asphalt shatters as the Queen in Veils takes a step towards Flamel. Impossibly verdant grass and wildflowers are sprouting up through the parking lot's cracks and in the crater as her mindscape reasserts itself. Dust and air spirals together, compresses, and ignites in its hand, forming a miniature star. But the star doesn't burn the flowers or wilt the grass: as she tries to strike Flamel with it, its heat is distinctly non-hostile. It could burn through his strength, take him to the edge of defeat, but rather than painful searing it's the exhausting warmth of a summer day; the soothing crackle of a fireplace. "Then prove it! I dare you to prove it, to show me again!"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's invisibility flickers briefly as he lands, before deactivating for a minute. He watches what she does next. "That's the funny thing about being a Psychonaut!" He rambles idly, cheerfully. "At the end of the day, it's all spy-work, and all it's all about shimmying around the stuff people are forbidding! And it's never about proving things and showing things. I don't think I've ever done that for anything but research reviews! I wonder what it's like." The sun sears towards him. Planting two fingers on each temple, he focuses everything on his shields and levitation both at once, and sort of monkey-balls his way through what comes next. Forcing himself into an orbit of sorts, he slingshots around the sun's non-hostile gravity. "I hope I can find ouuuuut!" He calls out, as he swings around and tries to plant on her back. From there, a stealthy scamper along it tries to leave a trail of Confusion explosives, the periods torn off of question marks left stuck to the shape of the Queen in Veils before he kicks off and they all chain their detonations.
Persephone Kore	"But aren't you supposed to be showing me things? Ahaha, you really are the worst," Persephone says, though her tone's still warm and devoid of venom. She keeps the sun in her hand, not bothering to try and track Flamel's rapid ping-ponging by sight; the Queen in Veils tolerates the series of explosions with serene equanimity. "I won't let you get away with that, Flamel! I won't let you get away with not doing your best!" There's a persistent undertone to fighting Persephone. The aura of gentle warmth and doting terror she projects makes it an act of will to oppose her: fighting is easy for her, and hard for you. It gives an intrinsic, unreasonable feeling of being the underdog. It's hard to tell whether this being a game of plastic and pretend makes convincing yourself to fight her easier, or harder. That feeling briefly dissipates, though, as she raises the hand that holds the Sun towards Flamel: I don't want you to give in or run away! I don't want you to take this from me. I want to hurt and be hurt. That little star said the world would change me- you're the world, so try your best! The star explodes towards him. The sound isn't deafening. The light isn't blinding. The heat doesn't burn the flowers. But just as he tried to affect her mind, this is an attempt at affecting him- a gentle reprimand. I want to play games with you! Don't be sore.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's got an explosion headed his way. He knows what to do, but he sure doesn't like it! He runs towards it, and his barriers start to flicker on, off, on, off, as he moves through pockets of reduced heat and pressure and light, somehow dodging through portions of the explosion. How? Little sonar pulses blast out of him every few fractions of a second, scoping out the moments of lightest pain. Dispersing the shield with a sudden shockwave, he suddenly goes motionless, a blank stare at the Queen overtaking him. Was his aggression finally ground down? No... not quite. He can't invade her mind, but he has a few other ideas. Her constant outward pressure... can he grab it, grapple it, pull it? Wrestle, judo-flip, and use his own powers to invade -- not her mind, but his? His astral form is suddenly trying to snatch at the heart of the Queen in Veils and judo-throw her into Flamel's own brainscape, an attempt to leave her mentally crashing and smashing into mental terrain of a large containment chamber in Flamel's mindscape. An environment that looks uncannily like a brutalist, cold-war-era anomalous-being study and containment facility, all concrete and blast doors and interior auto-turrets set to try to prevent escape. For the observers, Flamel's even rigged the security cameras of his mind-lab into screens around the arena!
Persephone Kore	Persephone puts up no perceptible resistance to the 'judo throw'- whatever Flamel's trying to pull, she willingly goes along with it. Even when she discovers herself in the mental 'containment facility', she doesn't register any alarm- just an innocent marveling. Wow! Is this what the inside of your mind looks like, Flamel? You're so clever! I'll feel kind of bad if it doesn't work, haha. Persephone relaxes. She allows her strength to affect the world. And it does. Flamel's mindscape is cored inside-out. Metal shrieks as it's torn from metal; concrete howls as it's ploughed to dust. The security turrets ping at her, but the Queen in Veils hardly notices the bullets. What do doors matter to an entity like that? In the real world, pieces of concrete and twisted metal rain down, along with a couple of Flamel's turrets- she everted his mindscape, and then the Queen in Veils made that outward expression material. The turrets put rounds into the Queen in Veils' sides, but she crushes them like soda cans when she notices. "That was incredible! I didn't even know that was possible," she gushes, seeming to have forgotten the pretense of fighting. "Haha, you really are smarter than me. I knew you could teach me new things!!"
Flamel Parsons	The Parsons Anomalous Containment Institute's heavy containment sector is torn to shreds. Blast doors and shields try to close, only to get ripped out of their tracks. Auto-locking stability frames are torn out of their braces. A hole is torn out, running from the core to the outside world... FZZT! A little electrical explosion happens on Flamel's forehead, blasting open some synthetic skin and leaving a crater where Persephone's astral form just escaped. A chunk of skull falls away, looking like part of a geodesic home's geodesic dome. He cries in pain, stumbles in disorientation... "Wow! No wonder they never taught you psychonautics, hard to imagine anyone finding a brain you could do boot camp in! Really impressive exit." He cheerfully rambles through the pain. "Well, maybe hard to imagine because that caught a chunk of my imagination on the way out." Something shiny and purple falls out of his skull. He snatches it out of mid-air and crams it back in, seating it with an electrical crackle. "Nope. Definitely unimaginable." He says, restoring a fighting stance. "Alright, you've seen blasts, bombs, psychonautics, invisibility, barriers, levitation... Let's see if I can give you anything else!" Flick! Invisible again. He's levitating around silently, at high speed. The only sign he's even attacking are that bursts of sudden flame appearing near or inside the Queen in Veils when Parsons flickers visible and then invisible again. He's trying to overheat her! If the large machine is too hot for her to touch psychically, it'll limit her ability to use it, and hopefully let Parsons wear her down by forcing her to use her abilities in a more unamplified way.
Persephone Kore	There is a limit, eventually, to the Queen in Veils' ability to repair itself. It's accruing enough damage from enough unique sources that it's started playing catch-up, still smoothing over the divots from the question-mark explosives as it's pockmarked with bullets and overheated. And yet it still feels near-invulnerable, subjectively- maybe that's Persephone's (my!) aura of awe talking, but there's also the simple fact that Flamel's attacks aren't uncovering any kind of inner workings; no motors, no wires. Persephone is, he may realize, moving the three-story-tall doll's limbs via brute telekinesis. Short of physically breaking it into pieces, she is the vital component... but judging how its movements slow, the pyrokinesis trick may have merit. "Wow! You can just make heat inside someone like that? I have to use friction and everything!" Its head tries to follow him at first, interpolating between the flickers of visibility- but that's no use; he can tack and maneuver, and she doesn't have the combat intuition to anticipate his movements. Instead she relaxes, letting out a soft little breath that the doll-mech amplifies and attuning herself to the frequency of his thoughts. You're a bright mind, Flamel! I can feel your weight even easier than Marc or Dylan- but don't tell them that, haha. You can try to hide, but I can't stand to be apart for long! For several long seconds, nothing. And then the Queen in Veils lunges, its hand grasping for Flamel- it's guided by a psychic sense keen enough that he'll have to swerve to dodge it. "Got you!!"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's snatched out of his levitation, with a short, urgent "ghk!" His invisibility only disperses a few seconds after the grip locks on. "Yeah! Direct pyrokinesis. One of the more advanced techniques." He grunts through the pain of the grip. "Wow, I could have sworn I was gonna get away from that clairvoyance. Well, I'm starting to run out of stuff to show you... All I've got left is telekinesis!" He can't get a good gesture out, but he can plant two fingers on his temples by twisting an arm around a little... And suddenly, whoosh! A fist the size of the Queen in Veils' own hand, orbiting Flamel and intangibly tethered to his skull, takes a rough right swing at her mecha's head! And then another, and another, in a tight CQC/boxing mixed formation. Multiple translucent telekinesis-hands are getting involed, at least half a dozen, trying to overwhelm her with a flurry of strikes.
Persephone Kore	"Aw. Don't feel bad if it has to be over! You've taught me so much already, Flamel. Really, more than I could ask for!" The Queen in Veils could, physically, make a good attempt at crushing his body in its hand right now- but psychologically, he can tell Persephone can't. The idea doesn't even occur to her! When she reads the upcoming attack from the weight of his thoughts, she doesn't instinctively recoil- even though that leads to her taking it right on the chin. Plastic splinters and metal bends under Flamel's blows, and its hand relinquishes its grip; the Queen in Veils obviously can't endure that pummeling forever, even though Persephone herself seems almost content to. "Wow! You've got me on the ropes, Flamel! I really love it, actually. But I still can't just let you win!" The Queen in Veils' body is overheated, so she doesn't chance any fancy maneuvers; instead she just inelegantly brings up a really hard piece of concrete, shoves it brutally-gently against his striking telekientic limbs, and tries to jam it through the wall of fists to slam into his body.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's battered by the concrete, slamming back and skidding over what remains of concrete, flowers, and debris. "OOF!" He winds up going over the edge of one of the craters, hanging at its lip while he catches his breath. "Plenty to learn from you too! Even if, I guess, it's kind of like learning about the sun. Not a lot about how to affect it, mostly how to work around it." He levitates up and over the ledge, readying up taking deep, heavy breaths urgently. Come on, come on... "You can't? Aww. Well, I've never minded that, sometimes Psychonauts work means having to fix someone's brain until they let you win. But I get the feeling that's not gonna happen this time!" He claps a fist into an opposing palm. The giant psi-hands do the same behind him. "Alright... let's see if I can make this work! I get the feeling you're patronizing me a little with that 'on the ropes' talk. I wanna find out if that's true!" Grenades, now. Confusion riot grenades, specifically, thrown in tandem with the tight, practiced punches, creating a visual sea of mentally corrosive confusion clouds to strike from. Parsons flickers in and out of visibility, but those translucent hands are always visible and always trying to strike through the shimmering sickly-yellow sea of cognitive corrosion. It sticks to one's mind and one's mecha, as if building up for something...
Persephone Kore	The Queen in Veils relaxes entirely into Flamel's assault, letting it wash over me. You're a very special person, Flamel! Whoever made you... they put a lot of love and care into you. And you've put a lot of love and care into yourself, too, haven't you? But even so, I'm not worried. I told you: I'm really, really strong too! I have to be. Let me prove it. Please let me prove it. The grenades, its regeneration can tolerate. The telekinetic blows, less so- but Persephone starts to read their timing from Flamel's psychic signature, detecting their intent and occasionally managing to batter them aside with her own, ineluctably powerful forces. I'm never patronizing! I really do mean it. Everybody has their limits. I've never found mine, but I'm sure you could reach them! But "if you really doubt yourself," Persephone says, her words blending with her intent again, "then prove that doubt! Prove you can't do it. And then I'll accept it." The Queen in Veils opens its arms. Its heart is wide open.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel wipes off sweat and leaking synthetic fluids from his forehead where the gaping wound remains. "True stuff! They sure put their all into making someone like that. Literally, with all those connectomes. But man, did you even have sweat glands growing up? I sure can't imagine you straining here." His mind is straining to keep up with the exchange, wearing down as she rebuffs the assault. "Haha, don't worry! I've got plenty of problems in my mental construction, but not self-esteem." He grins, and takes his stance again. The floating fists light up, burning with a harsh fire. Still, the man is basically on his last legs as far as mental energy goes. His skull visibly sparks through the hole, and his eyes are unfocusing. His striking rush is actually surprisingly light, as he tries to take a breather and build up, while still inflicting that overheat anew.
Persephone Kore	"Ahaha! Things just come easily to me," I say. "It's almost unfair! But don't worry about it. You've shown me all kinds of things I could never imagine on my own!" The Queen in Veils is battered and cracked, but still regal in ruin, like a well-loved antique. My force of identity is still bending it back into shape, though at this point it'll only be rejuvenated with a prolonged rest. "Now let me show you something only I can do!" The Queen in Veils raises its hand. The world cracks. The asphalt parking lot is shredded apart, its dust and debris pulled into her whirling orbit as she asserts the weight of her reality over it. The trees become sawdust, and then a burning proto-stellar nebula. The concrete becomes rubble, becomes an asteroid belt. The Earth can't survive this storm. That's step one! The dust and plasma and micrometeorites in her orbit condense down into a shape in front of her. They're crushed by unbelievable pressure, atomic structures obliterated and rearranged by the force, impurities falling to the ground as ash. What's left is a crude spear of pure diamond, fifteen feet long. It turns lazily in the air, its point aiming towards Flamel. "This isn't real, right? The Shrine. So it's okay," she says warmly. "But I had fun with our little game of make-believe! Thank you so, so much, Flamel." The diamond spear is fired with enough telekinetic force to break the sound barrier several times over and produce a vapor cone shockwave. Wherever it impacts is subject to a roaring kinetic explosion from the momentum alone.
Flamel Parsons	Flamel exhales, going a little pale. He calmly takes his sunglasses off as he observes the high-intensity telekinesis. The sensors at the rim of the arena are screaming, in some cases overloading. He takes a deeeeeeep breath, doing his best to resist the urge to focus on probing the process with clairvoyance, because surely there'll be more than enough of that for later. Psychic shield after shield comes up as fast as he can get it. Even his telekinetic hands ready to try to snatch it out of the air. All for naught. All of them are obliterated by the incoming strike's sheer force, weight, and speed. The treeline at the hills bends, first away in splintering awe and then towards, in bared reverence, as pressure oscillates. The semi-simulated Lake Oblongata boils away a layer of water. Ultra-reinforced cabins shudder and spark. Segments of an underground bunker are exposed as soil is ripped away. A skeleton of shining purple minerals and sputtering electronics lies limply skewered to a disturbingly durable humvee that was parked in the lot and is now totalled on a highway in the distance. "Holy shit." It barely manages to mutter before the environment is un-loaded from the Shrine's systems and things reset.
Persephone Kore	The Queen in Veils dematerializes in a shimmer of light. I float down to the floor, heels clacking softly on the indistinct material of the pure-white default arena. I feel a little guilty! Really I do. You did so well, and I still didn't lose. That's a little cruel of me! ... But I have things I'm willing to be cruel for, anyway. I walk towards you, holding out my hand. I'm smiling, I think- it doesn't seem insincere, does it? Because I really mean it. You're something beautiful and special. Thank you for showing me your heart, Flamel. I hope you liked what you saw of mine! Persephone blinks. She's still holding out her hand. "Oh, uh, haha. I got a little lost in my thoughts there. How much of that did I say out loud?"
Flamel Parsons	"Haha, don't think sound waves have much to do with that!" Parsons says, clasping the hand eagerly. "Don't worry, I didn't hear anything embarrassing." Little chuckle there. "Not for you anyway. Sure was educational, though! And wow, what an experience. Never done something like that before in my life! I really need to go get a look at those readouts, that last part was something else. Around my world we never see that kind of raw power, it's all technique."