1:50 P.M. Jericho sat in his car outside of Dr. Yohan’s office. It was an extravagant venue, one unfit for a therapist. A flashy therapist office in a downtown area appeared odd to Jericho, since he expected places like this to be more covert. Still, Jericho did not have many psychiatrist-office references in his head and for all he knew, this could be the standard.
The drive to the office took forty minutes, and he met some unfortunate road rage from other drivers. He tried his best to ignore them. The last time Jericho decided to tell off another driver, his car became enshrouded by a cloudy veil, and he had to pull off the road and wait half an hour before it disappeared. Screw that person, Jericho thought.
Jericho refused to get angry because today was the day. Today, Dr. Yohan would attempt to extract and trigger Jericho’s ability, and nothing would stop him from getting to his appointment on time.
Dr. Yohan called yesterday, and told him that he could proceed as planned, so no filler appointment to batter out the logistics of the procedure was needed. The doctor told Jericho that he was confident from the notes he took at the previous appointment, and that it would be better if he attempted the extraction the first time, and if it failed, then the second time would only be easier. Dr. Yohan had everything prepared, and his assistant was already up to speed with the procedure. The doctor gave Jericho a quick run down over the phone, and although things sounded great, Jericho was still cautious. Jericho wanted the extraction to proceed smoothly so more prep was not an inconvenience to him, but the way Dr. Yohan spoke over the phone persuaded Jericho to agree to doing the extraction the next day.
Jericho locked his car and entered the building. He was greeted with the cheerful receptionist, Amy. She used to be one of Dr. Yohan’s patients, and would always use it as a conversation starter with newer clients. She could be lying, but Jericho trusted her, well, at least the façade she created.
The words “Hello, Jericho,” and “So, that’s a confirmed appointment at 11:30 tomorrow?” came out from her mouth simultaneously. The left side of her mouth said, “Okay, sounds good! See you tomorrow!”
“Yes,” Jericho said. He took a seat. This was all custom to him at this point. The formalities were merely formalities, but he appreciated them.
“Let’s see. You have an appointment with Dr. Yohan at two?” Amy said. She now used her entire mouth to talk. “He’ll be with you in a bit!”
Amy had the ability to separately and simultaneously talk with the left and right side of her mouth. A conversation with one person with the right side of her mouth and another with her left side would be just as clear as two persons talking. It irked and baffled Jericho how her ability was possible even though abilities like telekinesis and fire wielding existed.
Her ability did not stop there. She could do many things ambidextrously and multi-task like no other. While her left hand wrote notes, her right hand could be editing appointments. It was similar to how Dr. Yohan could write ambidextrously, but the method was different. Essentially, Amy had a knack for multi-tasking. It was easy for her.
Or it could all be a bluff. She could be hiding her true powers and creating a fake one that others know of. It was not an uncommon practice for people to hide their true capabilities especially when their powers could be so much grander, and useful than what was perceived and shown. Being secretive about abilities led to advantages, and advantages led to success.
For all he knew, Amy could simply be a very smart person like Dr. Yohan, and she used her brain power to do such things. Perhaps her ability allows her brain to split into sections and she can pinpoint the tasks she wants to do, manipulating the things her brain was capable of.
Jericho thought about bluffing a lot, especially now, considering he could very soon wield his own ability. Dr. Yohan was still a problem. He would know Jericho’s true powers, and even if Dr. Yohan had a responsibility for upholding patient confidentiality, he would still know, and that bothered Jericho.
Still, most powers are latent in some regard. They do not fully become utilized until trained, and Jericho would still have to master his ability until then.
The thought of being detained for having an uncontrollable ability crossed his mind suddenly. It was not uncommon for people to be held in a facility for months or even years just so they would not inadvertently harm others or even themselves. Living in a facility was not something Jericho wanted to do, but he supposed that if it was necessary then he would. An unresponsive, sporadic ability would do him some worry, but a couple years training to control his powers would be better than an entire lifetime of being ridiculed for having none. Only a few years had gone by without powers, and he was already tired of it all. Training for a couple years would also be better than a controllable, lackluster ability. By that point he would-
“Jericho?” Amy said. “Jericho!”
Jericho looked up. Amy had buzzed open the door for him. He smiled apologetically. The door was beginning to close, but he managed to slide in before it fully did.
“A lot on your mind?” Dr. Yohan asked. He was waiting behind the door.
“Yes,” Jericho said. “But you already knew that didn’t you?”
“I do, but I am still a human after all. It does not hurt for one to be kind,” Dr. Yohan said.
Jericho grunted. Where was this kind doctor for the past few months? Dr. Yohan guided Jericho to his office in the back.
“Hello, Jericho.”
Jericho jumped from the words, and his heart raced even more when he realized that Dr. Yohan’s assistant, Corrine, was directly behind him. Jericho broke into a cold sweat. She stood there with eyeliner perfectly matched with her blood-shot, baggy eyes. Her dark outfit reminded him of a witch that accidentally travelled into the future.
Apart from her appearance she was a rather nice person, perhaps as nice as Amy. Her energy simply exuded terror, but she explained before that the persona she created made her powers work better. Dr. Yohan’s assistant was not only skillful at amplifying abilities, but also for creeping out Jericho.
“Doing well?”
“Amazing,” Jericho said.
“Take a seat,” Dr. Yohan said, and he began to work.
***
Dr. Yohan’s ability worked in two ways: 1. He could read people’s minds. 2. He could travel through people’s minds through a medium, one that replicated himself. It was a personification of himself that he called Dolly.
Dolly was what made Dr. Yohan money, and what kept clients coming through his door, especially this one. Jericho was considered irredeemable, even to Dr. Yohan, but Dolly worked time after time, and eventually it figured out a way. Dr. Yohan had spent countless sessions creating maps of Jericho’s head, thinking even at one point that it was useless to try. In the end the notetaking and maps were helpful and proved to be more useful than previously thought. Dr. Yohan was wrong to doubt his own abilities. It was perfect in every regard after all.
Dr. Yohan did not know much about the human brain apart from what he learned in school, but he never referred much to that storage of knowledge, they were considered null compared to the capabilities of his powers. Why waste his precious brain storage on remembering the many mechanisms of the brain, when he could easily just use his ability to travel and search through brains instead?
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The brain was a sophisticated organ, one that many scientists still did not truly understand, and it would be pointless to. There was no use trying to explain the unexplainable. Merely, movement with the motions as they are, and appreciation towards them are all that were needed. No point expending thought and energy trying to understand everything. At least, that is what Dr. Yohan slowly came to realize over the years.
Dr. Yohan had tried a couple times trying to understand his power, wondering how he could walk through one’s brain as if he were there. His body projected, but not really projected. It was merely a way for his own brain to comprehend how his ability functioned; a way only a primitive human would understand.
He was sixteen years old when he suffered his first and only stroke. The cause was trying to understand his powers, attempting to make sense of it. A young teenager with newly acquired powers and a curiosity to learn more about them was left with a burst blood vessel, and immobility. Fortunately, he recovered, but he realized that he should be wary of uncovering the truth.
When he began university, he thought if he tried again, then the outcome would be different. At the age of eighteen, he was left with another near-death experience. Encephalitis this time, an inflammation of his brain. Ever since then, he vowed never to truly understand why his powers worked, and bitterly accepted that he may never know. Gradually, that became his whole lifestyle, and slowly he thought of the world to be so mundane, so meaningless.
Dolly simplified the process, and there was no need for Dr. Yohan to understand the brain. Through Dolly, Dr. Yohan vicariously moved through Jericho’s brain. Dolly walked on pink slime, going through a maze of pink walls.
The Dolly had finally met its first adversary. As was Dolly the personification of Dr. Yohan, the challenges faced were personified as well. They varied, but they were quite simple. Short, blue goblins were the easiest obstacles. Humanoid, green goblins were medium difficulty. Tall, red goblins that towered many feet over Dolly were the most difficult to defeat.
Dr. Yohan had found the problem. His intuition was correct. Over the past few weeks, he slowly theorized that the goblins were hidden away, literally invisible.
The previous session Dr. Yohan encountered an opaque wall, one that was not noticed before, and one that he was fortunate to have seen. He dug and clawed at the new-found wall and found what appeared to be a hide-out for the goblins. The gears started turning at that point. If there were invisible, nearly impossible to see walls, then there must be more of them, and perhaps that invisibility could be applied to the goblins as well.
An opaque goblin would be a new class of goblins. They would be impossible to see, but with invisibility should come a drawback- they should be easy to kill. All the Dolly needed to do was kill the goblins before any could flee.
Dolly scanned the new room. It was possible for there to be more opaque walls. Dolly stopped, a scuttering noise from the right that frantically moved, then stopped. The theory that there were invisible goblins started to hold true.
It could be the Dolly’s imagination, or it could be the goblin not wanting to reveal its location. Using an imagined then realized dagger, the Dolly slit into the brain’s wall. A mucus-like substance covered the dagger’s blade and Dolly flung the dagger from one side to the next, throwing the substance around as it walked. The substance made contact and shimmered. Dolly instantly pinpointed the goblin’s location and drove a dagger into its head.
That was one. There were still far more to go.
***
Dolly began to sweat. Killing waves of goblins was taxing. When a hundred goblins were killed, another hundred would immediately replace them. The extraction proved to be a more difficult task as time went on. Dr. Yohan predicted it would take an hour and a half, but perhaps another half-hour would suffice.
Corrine burst a quick set of energy into Dr. Yohan which converted into Dolly splitting into two. Now there were two sentient goblin killers, ready to extract Jericho’s powers.
Dolly 1, the original dolly shot a projectile from a rocket launcher and it splattered goblin guts revealing that there were probably a hundred more goblins among the opaque masses. Green blood covered the invisible goblins as they tried their best to remove the revealing substance.
Dolly 2 gave them no time to do such a thing, and contrived a katana from thin air, one that Dr. Yohan saw in a final act of a movie. Dolly 2 sliced into the goblins, the powerful strikes forced through their, now seemingly fragile bodies, and the mere air pressure proved useful collateral damage as well. Red, green, blue, and opaque goblins faltered and withdrew. They were no match for Dolly, nevertheless two of them.
“Good,” Dr. Yohan said. “Take me to where I want to go. More power, Corrine!”
The two Dolly’s split once again and the four resulting Dollys followed the retreating goblins.
Section three appeared promising. It had the strongest presence of goblins. They were protecting something there. Dolly 1 and Dolly 3 had already been on these goblins’ trail, and Dolly 2 and 4 were making their way there to rendezvous.
“Corrine!”
The four Dolly’s split into eight now. On his own, Dr. Yohan could manage six for a short time, perhaps twenty minutes, but eight was something that he needed Corrine’s help with.
One by one the goblins marched forward, and they linked arms forming a barricade. Rows upon rows of goblins chained together, in their best efforts to ward off the Dollys.
The Dollys smirked in unison, poking fun at the goblins’ meaningless attempt to protect themselves from Jericho’s extraction.
The Dolly Split was a trick up Dr. Yohan’s sleeve, but the goblins appeared to have one of their own.
The chained goblins began to glow and slowly they started to combine. Blue, green, red goblins merged to create yet another class: Purple giant goblins.
Two dark, purple giants stomped with ferocity. Many arms protruded from its body and swatted away the Dollys as they came close.
First, the opaque goblin, and now the giant, purple goblins; Dr. Yohan grimaced hoping this would be the most difficult.
Dr. Yohan’s energy began to run dry, his ability slowly thinned in stability, but still stable in regard. Corrine also began to have trouble keeping up with demands, so he knew she would have to be a gambit if things got worse.
And things did get worse.
A ferocious roar shattered the eight Dollys’ ears. Taking advantage of the destabilized Dollys, the two goblins swatted again and dealt critical damage. The Dolly Eight flew into the air crashing into the mucus walls that clung onto them. Slowly, the substance began sucking them in, holding them in place.
The giants stomped on the floor getting ready to advance. Each Dolly struggled to break free, the situation grew grim as each second passed. Like giant apes, the giants stomped around, hyping themselves up. The ground shuddered every step as they sprinted toward the Dollys hoping to end the fight.
Dr. Yohan let out an audible gasp. “Corrine!”
The two giants smashed into the wall crashing into the eight Dollys, flattening and pushing them further into the wall. The Dolly Eight heaved on the ground, their bodies battered from the impact. The giants let out a finishing blow and jumped into the air, squashing the Dollys.
The giants finished their job protecting Jericho’s brain, and roared in triumph. The sound echoed across the cavernous realm reaching from one end to the other. The remaining goblins shouted back, and the shouts of guffaw and glee penetrated every corner imaginable.
“You’re nothing,” Dolly said.
The two giants turned to see a Dolly now barely standing.
Dr. Yohan’s ability had a trump card, one that never failed. In exchange for trying his best, his ability rewarded him with the power to overcome any obstacle he wanted to overcome. This was the reason why he had been frustrated with Jericho; Jericho was unsolvable, an anomaly that even his own power could not overcome, but now it all made sense.
Dr. Yohan smirked to himself. He found himself not trying his hardest yet again. The threshold of the amount of effort he had to exude only increased as time went on. Jericho was no different from the many challenges before him, but he forgot that.
As a child, Dr. Yohan was a prodigy even before his powers. Everything came easy to him, so he never really tried. He did not practice. He did not put effort. Everything he wanted, he obtained. Every goal he made was eventually cleared. Then came the boredom.
He hated being perfect, his world became mundane and he struggled to find himself doing anything worthwhile.
He remembered now why he went into this career path. He wanted to do the impossible, to cure the ungifted, to help people with their problems because he had no problems of his own. A warm smile crossed his face, and his head turned to Jericho slowly.
“Thank you,” Dr. Yohan said.
In Jericho’s brain, the last Dolly was charged up, and the trump card kicked in.
Dr. Yohan’s sub-ability allowed him to complete any task, no matter how difficult. This subility surpassed even its own threshold and eventually mutated to the way it was today. Even if Dr. Yohan could not understand why his powers worked; he knew he won.
The two giant goblins turned invisible, but this did not bother Dr. Yohan. It was a futile attempt by the goblins; he already won. The trump card burst more energy into the Dolly, and its eyes could now see the two goblins. It imagined what type of weapon would be required to take down these two grisly beasts, and appropriately a black, purple-flamed katana formed in its hands. One-handed stance or two-handed? One-handed was more optimal.
Dolly surged with energy. Attack points? Two simultaneous slices to each head. How? Do it swiftly.
Dolly jumped into the air, energy pulsating through its body. It shifted and disappeared, sliced through one goblin’s head, and instantaneously appeared at the other side cutting through and severing the other head.
Dolly rolled and landed on the floor. The trump card’s effects dwindled away. It rained goblin blood, and even the blood became as clear as drizzling, watery rain.
The collateral damage from the strike slaughtered the rest of the goblins.
Dolly huffed and made its way to a glowing room. An antique, brown, oak-wood door formed, and it entered in.