Conscious, Conscientious

Deon sat in his exceedingly comfortable bed in his and Skrili’s hotel room, watching his TeamTrack closely. The two teams in the final fight of the night had been going at it for hours now, and he followed nearly every second.

After he, Pang, and Phillip brought Skrili back to the hotel together, Pang showed him how to access the tournament broadcast on his TeamTrack. That way he could still follow the event, while keeping an eye on Skrili as she recovered from the healing process.

He tried watching Kotono Inoue and Hiroko Hamasaki’s fight earlier, but there had been some sort of technical interference. All he saw was a gold light shine around Kotono, and then signal went dark. By the time it came back mere minutes later, Kotono and Hiroko had already emerged victorious, and the crowd was losing their minds in excitement.

Deon resolved not to miss their next round. He needed to see the source of all the hype for himself.

As the current fight raged on, Deon found himself increasingly fascinated at all the contestants’ abilities. They must have put in years of endless work to get to this point. Three of the four current participants were Imaginers, and each used their powers in unique ways he’d never thought of: manipulating light with reflections, customizing the fighting platform to their advantage, and more.

It all amazed Deon. But it also made him question himself.

The longer he couldn’t awaken his new power-up on command, the longer he was stuck at the same skill level he’d been in.

He glanced over at Skrili, who was sleeping in her bed across the room. He missed training with her in the desert. It felt like they were a team then, but now she was far too busy with the Conscious Competition.

But it wasn’t the tournament itself, and certainly not Skrili’s determination to help Phillip afford treatment for his sickness, that bothered him. It was the fear that in all of this, she’d grow distant from him again—and grow closer to Pang.

And worse: that she’d get too good for him.

Eventually, one of the competing teams emerged victorious by imagining a series of structures to trap and confuse their foes, before sneaking up and tripping them out of the arena. While it wasn’t quite grandiose enough to make up for how long the fight had gone on, Deon was still impressed.

He was determined: soon, he’d be just as good of an Imaginer as them, Benny, and all the other certified pros.

No—he wanted to be even better.

For now, though, there was only so much he could accomplish training by himself. He needed a challenge, and Skrili certainly wasn’t in a position to help.

There was Pang’s offer, however. But while that was tempting, Skrili clearly didn’t want him to trust her.

Deon sighed. I’ll just forget it, he decided. Maybe there’s another way…

Still too alert to go to bed, and with little else to do, he opened up The Multiverse: A Complete Guide for Complete Idiots again, turning to the Fantasy Country section.

After about an hour, his TeamTrack vibrated.

Deon picked it back up and noticed he’d received a message.

It was from Pang.

“I’m bored. Can’t sleep :(” it read plainly.

Deon stared at the screen for a moment—he didn’t think Pang would message him, especially not this late. But he knew what she wanted. Unsure of what else to say, Deon simply replied:

“That sucks.”

After a minute or two with no response, Deon figured that was that. But then he received one more message:

“Meet me at the training rooms?”

His attempt at playing dumb had failed. Pang was pushing hard to get him to fight her again. Why did she want so badly to help him activate his power-up? Deon hardly knew her. Something didn’t sit right.

Another message came:

“Don’t you wanna get stronger?”

Followed by another:

“Skrili doesn’t have to know.”

Deon glanced over at Skrili again. As much as he wanted nothing more than to re-awaken his newly found abilities, was it really worth going behind her back? And clearly, Pang knew this was something Skrili wouldn’t like. Why was she so willing to knowingly disrespect Skrili, who was doing her a massive favor by fighting in this tournament?

It pissed Deon off.

It might be worth it just to give Pang a piece of my mind, he thought angrily. Skrili shouldn’t have to put up with her.

No—that alone couldn’t justify it.

But…if I don’t figure out how to tap into these powers soon…Deon thought. ...and if Skrili keeps improving and getting more successful here…

…She’ll have every reason to leave me behind.

Deon felt his heart begin to pound as he began typing his reply.

“Be there in five minutes,” he sent.

~

Instructions for warping to the hotel’s training rooms had automatically downloaded to Deon’s TeamTrack when they first checked in, so he opened the application. Following its guidance, he walked over to a corner of the room and pressed an icon on the screen.

A red light enveloped him from below, and after a flash, he found himself in a new place.

He was in a long, black hallway illuminated by floating orbs near the ceiling. Large doors with red numbers on them were along the wall, likely entrances to the various training rooms. Deon figured the rooms must have been quite large, because all the doors were a short walk from each other.

The hall curved around a corner at the end, indicating more training rooms farther down.

Deon stood alone in dead silence. It felt wrong to be here this late. He was probably the only soul in the whole area.

He shifted uncomfortably. We’ll make this quick…I’ll head back up to my room as soon as we’re done, he planned.

Deon heard light footsteps coming from around the corner. Pang emerged, walking quietly with a pink hoodie over her usual fighting clothes. She noticed Deon and smiled.

It wasn’t her menacing smile, though. It was a friendly one.

Deon gave an awkward wave and waited for her to reach him.

“Hey,” Pang said, her voice quiet. She seemed nervous, still smiling.

What’s with the personality shift? Deon wondered. “Hey,” he greeted back. “Um…what do we do…?”

“I think all the rooms are open,” Pang shared. “Come on.”

She led him to the nearest one, and then held her TeamTrack up to it. The number on the door turned green before the door vanished. Together Pang and Deon entered the training room, the door reappearing behind them.

The room was just as large as Deon suspected, around the size of the fighting platform in Gloat Stadium. The floor and walls were all padded in red and black, and several padded shapes and mats lay randomly across the floor, likely left that way by whoever had previously trained in here. It smelled clean, and the air was still and cool.

Pang removed her hoodie and tossed it to the side, walking to the middle of the training room. She turned to Deon. “Ready to have fun?” she asked.

Deon looked around uncomfortably. “Uh…I mean, sure.”

“What, feeling guilty?” figured Pang with a smirk. “Me too, I guess. I didn’t tell Phillip I was doing this. He worries about me, since I—well, I’m over-sharing…”

Deon joined her at a distance, in the middle of the room. “Well, thanks for wanting to help me. I’m just here to try and awaken those powers again, and then we can be done.”

Pang broke eye contact with him suddenly, with a slight pout. “Okay…” she uttered. Then, she shifted into her fighting position. “Don’t hold back, though.”

Deon nodded, though uncertainly. Pang’s mannerisms were odd. Something really wasn’t right.

Nonetheless, he shifted into his stance.

“Alright, let’s do it,” said Pang.

Before Deon could even prepare a defense, Pang had already shot forward and kicked him in the chest. He flew back, crashing against the padded wall and falling forward. Even with the padding, the impact still knocked the air out of him.

“Cheap…shot…” Deon struggled to say, standing back up.

“If I remember right, I need to piss you off for this to work,” Pang explained calmly.

“Fair en—” started Deon.

But again, he felt a sharp impact and tumbled partway across the room; Pang had speedily attacked him once more.

“Do you mind?!” Deon exclaimed.

“You can do better than that, Deon,” said Pang. “I’ve seen it. Let’s see it again.”

She zipped at him again, but this time, he had expected it. As Pang jumped to kick him, Deon imagined a stone wall directly in front of himself. Her foot crashed into this instead, so she hopped off with a flip.

As she did, Deon imagined and shot a flying fist at her. It collided with her in mid-air and sent her tumbling onto the padding. He charged her, but Pang quickly recovered. Suddenly, he felt something grab him from behind and casually toss him across the room.

Deon landed unsteadily, and turned just in time to see a giant hand she had used his powers to imagine. She wished it out of existence.

“Remember that one?” Pang reminded him. “Bring back any memories?”

It did: he thought of their last fight in No Man’s Land. She had trapped him with a giant hand against a tree as she ridiculed Skrili and ripped up her precious photo.

“Don’t you feel bad at all?” Deon shot. “Especially now that you need Skrili’s help?”

Pang shrugged. “A little. But I’ve done worse. I’m a bad person.”

Her nonchalance annoyed him, on top of the memories of how she broke Skrili down to tears. She didn’t deserve Skrili’s help. Sure, Phillip didn’t deserve to die from his illness, but Pang was just…something else.

Deon’s face felt familiarly warm, especially in his eyes.

Pang’s eyes widened with anticipation and excitement—Deon’s must have begun glowing. “Yes! There it is,” she noticed with a smile. “Alright, come on.”

As wrong as it felt, Deon tried to hold on to his growing anger. He stared at Pang, the source of his rage. But even still, this new energy was fading already. He could feel himself holding it back for some reason.

Pang seemed to catch on. “Gosh, seriously?” she asked. Her default, condescending attitude was beginning to show again. “What’s the big holdup?”

Deon gritted his teeth. “What’s in this for you, anyway? Are you gonna manipulate the power-up and get revenge or something?”

“I couldn’t keep up last time,” Pang answered ponderingly as she put her fists on her hips. “And revenge? I don’t want that, silly.”

“Then why are—”

He fell silent when a series of solid, black objects appeared, floating around Pang. They all took the shapes of cartoon hearts. Pang mentally drew smiley faces on them simultaneously.

She sighed like she had taken a refreshing sip of water. “Man, you’re super creative. It makes it easy to imagine cooler stuff,” she told him. “Big Benny’s more naturally detailed, but he didn’t give me much to go off of.”

All the hearts shivered for an instant, and then with a point, Pang launched them at Deon.

Alarmed, Deon imagined another stone wall. But as he feared, the hearts broke straight through it: since Pang had used his powers, she could let her creations affect his however she wanted.

Deon managed to imagine the first couple black hearts out of existence, but there was no dodging the others as they all pounded into him. The several blows tackled him further back each time, until he was up against the padded wall. He tasted blood after the last one punched him across the cheek.

“Come on, the stone wall again? You have so much more to offer me, Deon—I can feel it,” Pang called over.

Deon spat as he regained his composure.

“Because I mean, look at what I can do with your powers,” Pang said.

To Deon’s shock, a massive, shadowy structure began filling the room, as if Pang was painting it in the air. It took on a shape that vaguely resembled the small canoes Deon’s mother used to imagine for him and Lammy in the pond, but it grew more complex. Soon, this floating vessel was much more robust and angular. Deon was unsure what kind of boat it was.

“If I can do this, what’s stopping you?” questioned Pang. “I know the answer of course, but I wanna hear it from you.”

Deon said nothing. If Pang could imagine faster and smarter than him without his power-up, he had no defense.

Pang sighed.

The giant boat darted forward, pounding into Deon. For a split second he thought it would crush him, but Pang had purposely made it light—it felt like three of the black hearts hitting him at once, which was still quite a hit.

Deon almost fell over, but another impact from the boat sent him back into the wall. He cursed to himself.

“You’re holding back,” Pang said.

Another blow.

“You’re afraid of it.”

Yet another.

“Let it out.”

One more.

Finally, Pang gave it a break, and the boat vanished. Deon was keeled over, clutching his stomach and gasping from the throbbing pain all over.

Pang tilted her head. Her face had fully returned to its usual intimidating and larger-than-life expression. “You’re scared of the rage taking you over again,” she said soberly. “But if you want this power-up, you need rage. For some reason, your powers heighten with your anger. You have to let it out.”

“You…don’t want that,” Deon warned.

“Yes I do. Try to beat me,” Pang instructed. “If you can’t, you won’t be anybody special out here. Just someone to forget.”

Instantly, the heat in Deon’s face returned. He glared at Pang as she stared back, unfazed. From the day they met, she’d been doing practically nothing but making him and Skrili feel small, tactically picking at their deepest insecurities. Not even his last brutal victory against her put her in her place.

“Don’t you do anything but tear people down?!” he exclaimed. Now there was an orange hue in his vision. “Fine—you deserve this.”

Pang’s eyes lit up with anticipation.

Or…was it longing?

Either way, the storm had arrived.

Rage enveloped all of Deon’s being, and just as swiftly as it poured in, he felt his limitations vanish. He knew it—now he could imagine anything he wanted.

Guess it’s time I test out my finisher, he thought bloodthirstily. Go, Twitchy.

Just before Pang appeared a being even larger than the boat she had imagined. It was Twitchy: the squirrel-monster Deon had used as an illusion against Phillip, and the attack he had been working towards during his training with Skrili.

But with this power-up, now he could imagine it—as a real object—flawlessly.

Pang looked up at it in fear, but there was still an uncomfortably eager gleam in her eyes.

Under Deon’s control, the sharp-toothed giant squirrel swung a paw at Pang. It hit her fully, slamming her against the mats as she let out a cry. Twitchy followed with two more swings, which were just as devastating.

Even as Pang let out cries of pain, and as her arms shook when she tried to push herself back up, it didn’t faze Deon. His anger had overwritten all other emotions, and it felt perfect.

“I’ll get what I want,” Deon said darkly. “And that’s to be stronger. Than you. Than everyone. To be the strongest.”

Pang looked on, defenseless and oddly wide-eyed. “Do it, Deon,” she uttered.

Deon brought back Twitchy’s arm one more time—

—But as he commanded it to slash, it stopped. Confused, Deon tried again, but Twitchy didn’t budge.

Somehow, Deon had lost control of him.

Pang appeared just as perplexed—clearly, it wasn’t her.

Then, Twitchy turned around.

On his own.

The giant squirrel faced him, seemingly out of its own will, and looked down at Deon. Its usually beady eyes were now orange, just like his and Lammy’s.

And they were full of sorrow.

“Is…is that what you want?” Twitchy asked.

Deon gasped. The squirrel’s voice wasn’t its own: it was a female’s.

It sounded exactly like Savannah, his childhood friend and recent ex.

“What…how…” stammered Deon. “What…do you mean?”

“Is that really all you want?” Twitchy asked again in Savannah’s voice. “To be stronger than everyone else? To be better than everyone?”

“Well…what’s wrong with that?” challenged Deon uneasily.

Twitchy shrugged, just like Savannah would have. “You already accomplished that back home, and it wasn’t enough,” the squirrel replied. “But now you’re willing to harm this girl just to feel that again.”

Then it turned to face Deon fully, and continued. “And…well, that’s not what we want for you.”

Again Deon’s heart skipped, because now it was speaking with his mother’s voice.

“We know you can be so much more than that,” it continued as his mother.

Deon felt beside himself. “Mom…? What…do you guys want for me…?”

Twitchy smiled. “It’s something we know you can be, because it’s something you’ve already given us, over and over again.”

Now it used Lammy’s voice.

“It’s the best part about you, even though you can get a little too distracted to remember it,” Twitchy said. “We want you to be love.”

Deon froze. Immediately, all the rage coursing through him felt incredibly foolish. While it was still there, it felt like wearing someone else’s clothes. He still wanted it badly—and the power that came along with it—but it was beginning to embarrass him.

What the heck am I doing? Deon wondered.

On top of that, he had another pressing question.

“Wait…how is this happening?” Deon asked. “Who’s making you say all this?”

Twitchy’s smile remained. “Well, I’m your creation,” he said—matching Deon’s voice identically. “I’m from your imagination, your thoughts. This is all in you. This is you. And what you wanna do with that? Well, I guess that’s up to you.”

Deon looked back and forth between Pang and Twitchy several times. All those memories of Savannah, his mother, and Lammy…were they right? Was “being the best” just trivial?

Pang’s eyes were still wide, now with uncertainty. “No…you’re—you’re kidding, right?” she asked with a fake, uncommitted laugh. “You’re talking yourself out of this. Don’t be scared…please…”

Is that what this is? Deon thought. Is this my mind’s way of trying to psych myself out, like a last-ditch effort?

If he stopped now, he’d be in the same place as before—inadequate in this world. Unable to keep up.

He’d fall farther behind. He’d lose Skrili, buried underneath her growing success. Pang was probably right:

He’d be a nobody.

“NO!” Deon barked, banging his hand against his head. “TWITCHY, ATTACK!!!”

Twitchy stood, defiant and sorrowful.

“I SAID ATTACK!!!” The glow in Deon’s eyes increased, as the floodgates caved in once more to his rage.

But still, Twitchy didn’t obey. Instead, he began fading from existence.

“NO!!!” screamed Deon.

But it was too late: Twitchy was gone.

“Fine! I don’t need imagining to do this!” Deon decided furiously. He sprinted at Pang with all of his might, fists fully clenched.

The closer he got, the more hopeful Pang’s expression became.

“There you go, that’s it, Deon,” she encouraged. With each step, her overconfidence was giving way to her earlier, kinder demeanor.

Deon was almost upon her. But he heard her utter three more words with an expectant yet fearful smile, and they stopped him dead in his tracks:

“Please hurt me.”

Deon almost tripped when he caught himself. He stood there, staring at Pang in bewilderment.

“Wh—What?” he asked.

Pang looked around worriedly, trying to mask whatever it was she was feeling. “Um…nothing,” she said. “Just…just finish this. Try to win.”

“That’s not what you said,” Deon pointed out.

Shifting uncomfortably, Pang tried to avoid eye contact. “Come on…Just keep the fight going, will you?” she said weakly.

Deon felt his anger evaporating. His vision grew clearer.

When Pang finally looked back at him, she immediately panicked. “No! Your eyes—don’t stop now! You can’t stop now!” she pleaded. “Not when we’re this close…”

The reason for Deon’s pounding heart had transitioned from boiling anger to increasing worry. Pang looked like she was on the brink of losing her mind.

“Pang…why did you insist on helping me train?” Deon asked slowly. “Are you…okay?”

Something in his tone set Pang off.

She lunged to her feet, eyes bright with desperation and frustration. “NO! Don’t do that! Don’t look at me like that!!” she cried.

“What do you mean?”

Pang shoved him. “Stop! Stop with that! Keep fighting me!” she pushed him again, but Deon didn’t retaliate. “Keep fighting! You can do it! You can overpower me! You can defeat me! You’ve done it before!”

The shoves continued, but Deon didn’t block or fight back. Tears formed in her eyes.

“Come on, you said I deserve it, right?! I’m a bad girl, aren’t I?! Defeat me! Make me feel that again, PLEASE!!”

“Why?!” Deon pressed.

“I JUST WANT IT TO FEEL LIKE HE’S HERE AGAIN!!!!” Pang screamed.

She finally paused to catch her shaky breath, as Deon watched wordlessly.

“No…” Pang mumbled. “Don’t do that…don’t give me that sympathetic look…Forget you heard anything. Why did you have to stop…?”

She raised a fist and halfheartedly bumped it against Deon’s chest.

In that moment, feeling equal parts worried and uncomfortable, Deon had an unexpected surge of clarity:

He knew he’d been wrong since the second he stepped outside Tailpiece.

Those thoughts Twitchy recited—his thoughts—were right. He’d been distracted with the goal of becoming the best, yet that was the very same goal that led to his dissatisfaction in Tailpiece. Continuing down that path could lead to the same, discontented end in the greater Multiverse.

Besides, being better than everyone wasn’t the reason his mother was proud, or the reason Savannah had loved him…and now he realized, it probably wasn’t why Lammy looked up to him.

He knew the reason. He knew the kind of person he should choose to be.

“Pang…” he started earnestly. “Who did this to you?”

Pang’s golden eyes now filled with distress.

“No…Why did you have to stop…? Why did you have to stop…?” she kept repeating over and over again. She was growing more distraught each time.

Out of the corner of his eye, Deon noticed the lights on the door turn from red to green again. Then, it vanished.

Skrili and Phillip entered in a panicked rush.