As it turned out, having a brute of a circus ringmaster punch apart a large chunk of your mind because it was trying to rebel, while effective, was not something that could happen consequence-free. It made Tanya feel a little better for not telling him about “Marona’s” true identity. He refused to listen, so it wasn’t like she didn’t offer, but still…

After going overboard the first day, they got into a rhythm. Three hour sessions, twice a day. Within those sessions, it was a combination of ordinary therapy and psychic reconstructive surgery.

“They gave me the medal for the bravest, most violently successful soldier, and what did they do to advertise it? They turned me into a doll! Dressed me like I was an ordinary little girl!” Tanya ranted as Mom reviewed the aggravating memory. “No, not an ordinary girl. That would imply that I was somewhat prepared for it. No, they dressed me like the daughter of nobility! Like a princess! The kind of person who volunteers out of a sense of duty and gratitude for their otherwise favorable position in life.” Tanya unleashed a massive wave of fire onto the memory, which did absolutely nothing.

“Hmm… Tell me, why did you volunteer?” Mom asked, patiently.

Calm down. This was a lifetime ago. “I was eight, at the time.” Tanya explained, taking deep breaths. “The imperial inspectors had just come by, testing all the children for magic potential. The nuns dressed it up, of course. That getting a good score would help you get adopted by a nice family. Lies. The ones who got a high score, like me?” Tanya laughed dryly. “They got notices of future conscription. It was before the first World War, over a decade overdue. The odds of no draft occurring within fifteen years was essentially zero.” Tanya spat in disgust. “The Empire, in its infinite wisdom, declared that the only thing I was good for was killing enemies. That I would only have the freedom they allowed me as long as there were insufficient enemies to satiate the bloodlust of the standing forces.” That particular turn of phrase was colorful enough to break Mom’s composure, a little bit. “So I shot for Officer’s school. I did very well, and graduated right on time for the war’s beginning a year and change later. But you already know that part of the story.” Her rant drew one of the many memory bubbles that floated haphazardly in her mind closer to her. As expected, it was the one where she got the conscription notice.

“So the question is: why was being dressed as a noble so aggravating? You were just following orders, right?” Mom asked, carefully expanding the conscription memory and folding it up to be placed in its proper place. There wasn’t anything more to say about it.

Tanya began to answer, then paused. No, that only came later… as Tanya thought, a network of dots with lines connecting them started to manifest. It was her associative network, the underlying structure of her thought processes. In more hostile interactions, a psychonaut could do some serious mental alterations by making and breaking connections, which had a significant chance of snowballing into some wild insanity if they connected the wrong things. Either way, it was only accessible if brought to the surface through thought-provoking activities, like questions. Tanya glanced upward at the network, seeing the concepts involved.

‘Respect’ attached to ‘dangerous’, ‘hierarchy’, and… ‘masculine’?. Ah. “My first thought…” Tanya said, looking at the other parts that were there. It was frequently unpleasant to see your own thought processes, but they always, without exception, always made sense. “Was that because of the way they portrayed me, most people believed that I didn’t earn the medal. That it was pure propaganda. The only ones who did were the true patriots who couldn’t imagine the General Staff passing out a bogus medal. Granted, you couldn’t swing a shovel without hitting that flavor of idiot…” Tanya took a deep breath. “But… at the time, I was upset because it was the first time that being a girl became something I could only suffer through.” Every time before, it was either irrelevant, coddling that was annoying but pleasant, or she could compensate somehow, like bringing coffee to the other cadets when the preferential treatment of the female cadets bothered her. But then? “It would have been better if I was in a simpler dress, if they were more honest about my background… but I wouldn’t have been happy unless I got to wear my uniform, like they’d have done if I was a boy. They tore me down after my accomplishment just so they could shame the citizenry into greater fervor. ‘This delicate waif could earn the highest of honors. Why can’t you?’” Argh, there came the tears again. “Later, I learned that the reason they did it that way was because Imperial Princess Hildebrand was in charge of the shoot. She didn’t understand martial pride, what I had to go through to get that medal. She saw me as a doll she got to play with, as royalty are taught all their subjects might as well be, and had her fun. The propaganda department was doing the best they could with the hand they were dealt.” Damn royals. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that she was doing me a favor, giving me the chance to dress up. But probably not, I didn’t get to keep the dress.” Not that she wouldn’t have ditched it at the first opportunity if she did keep the dress, but it was telling that she didn’t get the option.

Mom pulled her into an embrace, and Tanya took a break to enjoy the simple pleasure of it, hugging her back and drying her tears on the mental projection. After an unknown amount of time, Mom spoke up. “Do you feel better now?”

“...Yes.” Tanya admitted. It was far from the first time that Mom had prescribed a good cry, nor will it be the last.

“Do you have anything else you’d like to say about that memory?” Mom continued.

“...No.” Tanya replied. “Let’s go to the next one.” She slackened her grip on her mother, but waited for her to stand up and set Tanya down before turning back to the mental world they were building. “They didn’t build the pyramids in a day.”

The design Tanya had decided on for their new mental world was that of a giant pyramid settled in an eternity of sand, with further structures built around and on top of it. The interior of the pyramid was the tomb complex, where all of the various detritus from her previous lives would be stored and sorted. The exterior would be a city, a thriving mini-society where Tanya could allow her emotions and thoughts to intermingle and sort themselves out… once it was finished. That part should mostly build itself when they’re done with the foundation.

But to do that… she needed to review each and every memory she still possesses from her first two lives, both so that they can be properly… ‘embalmed’ is the metaphor they were using, but what they were actually doing was going through the memory, understanding everything they could about the whys and hows of it, and processing any unhandled emotions from the events. Once finished, it was able to be entombed without issue, sequestered from future emotional energy inflating the memory’s importance.

Tanya was fairly certain that such a practice would be considered excessively literal, in the absence of psychic powers, but apparently it was a standard therapeutic technique for the Psychonauts. Taking things one at a time, boiling things down to the full truth, and letting the emotions play out.

It was not as onerous of a task as it sounded. Only memorable events stayed within memory, thus the designation. It was a bit more expansive of a definition than one might think, but it meant that you never saw a memory of being bored doing paperwork, unless something broke up the monotony by something interesting interrupting you, or you making some grand realization from the information presented to you. Those uninteresting memories broke down and became emotional baggage, figments, mental cobwebs, and contributing to the formation of nuggets of wisdom, not really forgotten but reduced to only the barest outlines of recollection.

That still left Tanya with a lot of memories to go through. “Ugh, this memory.” After checking to see that it wasn’t a third life memory, which was the excuse Tanya used to prevent Mom from finding out about Agent Cruller, Lucrecia, and the Aquatos, Tanya let herself react naturally. That is, she winced as the bubble expanded and revealed the contents. “I was kicking myself for years after this.” Every time the memory popped up when she was trying to get to sleep, she got to experience that embarrassment all over again.

“I think it’s cute.” Mom said.

“That was why I was kicking myself.” Tanya replied. It wasn’t a very important memory, all told. She was supposed to wait for General Rudersdorf in the courtyard of his manor, and his dog was particularly enthusiastic to meet a stranger. It was a moment of weakness, playing with the dog.

“And now…” Tanya said, prompting the line from the memory.

“Kept you waiting, Degurechaff!” General Rudersdorf said, announcing his presence as Tanya rubbed the dog’s belly while whispering what a good dog she was. “Over here.”

“Eh?” Tanya had said, looking at the General, accompanied by one of his aides. The memory ended.

“I don’t even remember what that meeting was about.” Tanya said after it finished. “I think it was something about the Legadonian invasion? Was it before or after Osfjord?” She wasn’t sure. “It’s not important.” She decided.

“Well, the General there seemed to be in good humor about it.” Mom said to soften the blow of the memory.

…Huh. “Yeah, he does.” Tanya said, rewinding the memory and taking a good look at his face. Wait a minute. “...He looks like he’s trying not to laugh.” Tanya deadpanned.

“Exactly. Good humor.” Mom reiterated. “It’s better than the alternative you probably feared, right?”

Given that she was mortified that she had lost his respect… “I suppose.” Tanya allowed. He could have been actually laughing, or disappointed, or disgusted, or… actually the worst option was probably him being afraid for his pet’s life by leaving him within Tanya’s reach.

“...Yikes. Yes, that is much worse.” Mom said as she looked at the mockup that the Strategic Assessment and Risk Analyst had provided, projecting an illusion of Rudersdorf’s worried face.

“Thank you Sara, your services are not required at this time.” Tanya deadpanned. “Do not involve yourself in these sessions.” Again.

“Apologies.” The mental entity said robotically. “Updating preferences.” Hopefully she’ll listen this time. Her presence did make it easier to simulate things, made the mental images more complete, but that was not helpful right now.

Tanya turned back to the memory. “...This really isn’t so bad.” She admitted. “Rudersdorf wasn’t my direct report, so his opinion wasn’t as important as Zettours. Besides, people do tend to like people their pets like. He might have even thought worse of me if I didn’t indulge the dog.”

“Most importantly, Tanya:” Mom said. “If he was trying to avoid embarrassing you by laughing, that’s something you do for someone you respect.”

…She’s right. “You’re right!” Tanya said, brightening. “Yes, Rudersdorf did respect me.” With a steady heart, she packed away the memory into yet another casket. As Tanya shut it, it transformed into a sarcophagus of a dog, which was promptly put into its proper place within the tomb complex. For easy movement, the pyramid was a skeleton of the interior, wireframes indicating the full dimensions of the chambers with only the floors actually existing. Once they’re done with the past life memories, the pyramid will be filled in and they can begin with the exterior.

Before they could gather up the next of the many memories floating around chaotically in the air, a bell sounded. “Ah, that’s time.” Mom said. “We should stop.” As one, the mother daughter pair brought out their smelling salts and opened the container. Ugh.

----------------

Tanya woke up in her recliner. Immediately, her head throbbed with the raw chaos that her mind was still in, agitated by the slow construction. Theoretically, they could have done a patch job, just shoving everything into a coherent mass, which would have fixed the headaches in a few days at the cost of unknown mental changes, but because Tanya had insisted on doing things with the most long-term stability with the lowest chance of personality alterations… After two weeks she was beginning to regret that decision. “Ugh…” It’s always the worst right after a session.

“Tanya, you’re up?” Mary asked from her position at the kitchen table. She was eating some Legadonian style pea soup. Mom had gotten a cookbook of Swedish dishes, for her to try cooking, and she loved it. “Have some artsoppa. It turned out really good!”

“Well.” Tanya absently corrected. “It turned out well.”

Mary huffed. “You know what I mean!”

Now, time to see if she can get up. Another side effect of this treatment method, beyond the headaches, is that ever since they started the process, it kind of… scrambled her ability to use her psychic powers. Not so much that she couldn’t use them at all… but it stopped her from using her more intuitive powers, the ones she used without really thinking about it, as well as ruining her fine control. When she was told about this effect, she didn’t think this would be a significant problem. Unfortunately, that list included psychic reinforcement, and as she only found out when she couldn’t anymore, she had been using it at low levels constantly for basically her entire life. As such… her muscle strength wasn’t even enough to stand for very long without it. It would be relatively simple to fix with an exercise regimen, now that she’s aware of the problem, but it has to wait until after she gets her head back on straight. Until then, she has to live with it. Her telekinesis lifted her out of her chair and attempted to set herself on her feet… but a spike in her headache caused the hands to jerk and instead cause her to fall face-first on the floor. “Ow.” Tanya complained, her voice muffled by her nose being flattened.

“I’ve got you, Tanya.” Mom said, her own pink telekinetic hands deftly moving her to the table and pushing her seat in so she could sit up straight. Mom proceeded to bring the bowl of soup to the table in front of her. “Say ‘ah’.”

Mary snickered at Tanya’s predicament, slumped at the table getting spoon-fed soup, but Tanya didn’t particularly care. She loved it. Not the soup, although it was certainly palatable, but there was a simple pleasure in releasing all responsibility and accepting heartfelt care and attention.

In other words… she was enjoying her summer vacation. She felt a little guilty about not putting her all into physical therapy, but Mom was completely aware that she wasn’t fully motivated, quick with platitudes to ‘take all the time you want’ and ‘enjoy being her little girl again’. So… she did. She enjoyed each and every part of it. Even the parts that Mary teased her over. The sole unpleasantness was the constant headache, but even that held value as an excuse to just… not do things, and get Mom or Mary to do them for her. Exquisite.

Sure, she could, and Mom did, point out a cause for this particular mental association cluster, that of spending the first evening after her emotions stopped being suppressed crying in her mother’s arms, and how much time she spent being coddled and nursed in the aftermath of another equally mind-shaking battle within her mental ream created an outsized influence on her associative network, and that she was using that overpowered associative cluster of loving Mom as an anchor for her personality while her mind was in flux, just like Ford did… But the accuracy of such assertions was irrelevant. Tanya found that she didn’t care. Mom was earning her paycheck for however long it took to complete the treatment, as while it wasn’t her normal set of duties, she was fully qualified to take on that role and employing a full-time nurse and psychic therapist for a single patient with severe mental damage was something the Psychonauts did already have paperwork for, all billed to their health insurance, overtime and all. She was even accruing PTO while she was doing it, an office lady’s dream scenario.

There was no reason at all to hurry, and it was amazing. Well, okay there was one reason, but Tanya was good at enduring pain. It was even manageable, by going back into the psycho-isolation bed that Agent Nein installed. It was a custom job, where an existing bed frame with the necessary supports had the psychic insulation panels installed, with an air cycler attached to keep things breathable and to mitigate the insulation issue. That is, the issue of heating that naturally arises with Tanya entombing herself with blankets within the box in the summer, although the psychonauts on-base housing had excellent air conditioning so the box itself didn’t need any.

Conveniently, the frame already had a mechanism to lower one of the sides, making it a natural door that made it easy to enter and leave without needing to bother with the inconvenience of the door being on top. It took Mary three hours to stop laughing when she realized that when you stripped away the technology Agent Nein had installed an oversized crib in their now shared room, but she’s learned since then that no amount of teasing is going to spoil Tanya’s enjoyment of being pampered, waited on hand and foot as she slowly rebuilt her mind into a fortress that was stronger than ever.

After the last spoonful of soup entered Tanya’s mouth, Mom put a half-full glass of milk in front of her. “Do you think you can manage, darling?” She asked, gesturing to the glass. Idly, Tanya thought about messing it up on purpose, but decided not to. She was feeling pretty put together right now, she could probably do it.

Tanya focused on the joy she felt, from the tips of her toes all the way up to her still short hairstyle. The constant weight of existence lifted, as she steadily activated Levitation. With her weight cut in half, Tanya took a moment to stretch her limbs, the inefficiencies of her control causing blue wisps of telekinetic power to waft off of her. She found that in her current state, the more calculative techniques she had innovated to control her psychic abilities tended to spike her headache, as did trying to study for her high school equivalency/college application or any other mentally intensive activity. So she switched to the more emotive techniques that were standard among the psychonauts, and found them much less aggravating of her condition. With both hands, she picked up the glass of milk and steadily brought it to her lips.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Good job Tanya.” Mom said encouragingly as the milk vanished, warmth blooming further in Tanya’s chest as her empathy picked up her mother’s loving pride. “It won’t be long until you’re back on your feet and gliding through life even faster than before.” As unfortunate as that was, it was for the best. The only thing worse than this ending… would be if she got tired of it. “Now, let’s get you settled down with your meditation tape to fully recover from your morning session. Then, if you’re feeling up to it, we can do some physical therapy.”

Tanya nodded, not trusting her voice. Focusing entirely on how happy she was, she let those thoughts buoy her enough to allow her to walk slowly back to her recliner, wobbling with every step. Settling down, she telekinetically flicked the switch on the record player, turning on the soothing sounds of the ocean. She needed to think as little as possible to let her headache settle down. So she emptied her mind, letting a smile dominate her face as she relaxed.

Bliss. She’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

----------------

“I have to say, Tanya.” Otto Mentalis said as she settled onto the office chair in her new workstation. There was plenty of space, the summer intern program had already ended. “While Agent Vodello has been talking you up when it comes to your academic prowess, I must admit I didn’t see this coming for quite a few more years.” He gave a wry grin. “But then I was read in on your circumstances. I must say, genuine reincarnation? I’m ashamed that I didn’t connect the dots sooner, given all of that literature that Sasha’s been publishing about the phenomenon.”

“I do thank you for accommodating me, Agent Mentalis.” Tanya said politely. “But when you’re a college graduate twice over, it’s not difficult to go straight to major-relevant courses if the college is flexible enough to allow testing out of the core curriculum.” All it took was a night of cramming with psychic memory-augmenting techniques to refresh their knowledge for each course and it was easy. Well, she needs to actually take one or two of the courses, but that can be done in parallel with the engineering course load.

“I suppose it wouldn’t be.” Agent Mentalis agreed. “Given your age, a correspondence course makes perfect sense, and the facilities here for psycho-reactive engineering are even better than at MIT, so you’ll be able to get your lab grades here without issue.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t want you getting involved in wild parties and drinking your way to failure.” With a grin, he finished the joke: “Or worse, to a business degree.”

Tanya burst out laughing. “I’m not making that mistake a second time, I assure you.” Tanya eventually said. “Was that in the file?”

Agent Mentalis laughed as well. “No, it wasn’t!” He said after he recovered his composure. “Your first degree was in business?” He asked.

“Well, it was economics, actually.” Tanya corrected. “At the University of Tokyo. But close enough.”

“Yeah, that’s just as bad.” Agent Mentalis said, scoffing. “But if you’re not going to fix that with your do-over, what good is it?”

Having a loving family for once, escaping from Being X’s influence, recovering from the trauma of nine years of global war with a personal kill count in the tens of thousands? But Agent Mentalis was being rhetorical. “My thoughts exactly.” Tanya said, blindly agreeing with him.

“Good, good.” Agent Mentalis said. “Now, I had my interns stock that workstation with everything you need for your Introduction to Psitanium course.” He placed a workbook on the table. “This has all the information you need to do those lab assignments. I’ll be at my desk, and if you have any questions, just use telepathy. I tend to shut out noises when I’m working.” Tanya nodded absently, but Agent Mentalis decided to vent a bit about his latest assignment. “Truman asked me if I could make the Psychoportal protect the agents from some of the backlash if they end up forcibly ejected from people’s minds. Apparently, over half of the drop outs of the training program include ‘didn’t sign up for diapers’ in their exit surveys. We don’t even make the agents wear them! Just the trainees during projection exercises.” He exhaled strongly to vent his frustration with the task. “I’m not even sure where to begin. The nervous system’s disruption is inherent to the forceful ejection, isn’t it?”

That seemed a bit extreme for such a minor reason, but Tanya supposed the 203rd spoiled her when it came to the resolve of recruits. “Well, given that a common mistake when novices astral project guarantees that side effect, forceful ejection or not, doing the reverse of that seems like it might work.” Instead of putting in ‘too much’ of oneself, instead throttling the projection to leave more behind? What exactly causes the stun effect?

Agent Mentalis chuckled. “Find that out from experience, eh?” Tanya blushed. “It happens to the best of us. Like Ford.” He chuckled to himself again, reminiscing for a moment as old people tended to. “But I suppose that’s a workable starting point. You’re going to go far with ideas like that, Tanya.” After a moment, he added: “But don’t go too far. I’ll need a test subject for this, and the next crop of interns won’t be here for three more weeks.”

Tanya sighed. She literally signed up for this. It was in the contract. She was just glad that the brain donation clause was able to be opted out of.

----------------

Tanya loved her flying car. She didn’t invent it, that was Agent Mentalis’ patent, but he was probably stretching his remit as her Professor to allow her to build her own as a final project for the Telekinetic Machinery class. It was painted bright red, to better improve visibility, with the chassis specially designed to make someone with the proper cultural context to immediately assume that it could transform into a small mecha. It couldn’t, but someday, Tanya hoped to modify the vehicle to make it so. Of course, like all teenagers who find themselves with personal transportation, it comes with extra responsibilities to assist the household to compensate for the extra expenses.

Like picking up her little sister from school. Unlike Tanya, Mary (now officially ‘Mary Vodello’ rather than ‘May Daye’) only had an 8th grade education in the 1920s as her highest academic achievement. To exacerbate this, she wasn’t exactly a top student even by those standards, and there was about eight years out of school to make her forget stuff. So while she did manage to skip one year of school… She simply couldn’t exceed the other children by a large enough margin to overcome the school system’s natural reluctance to ruin the socialization aspect of public education. So she was ‘merely’ one of the smarter 4th graders, despite being younger than the rest of her cohort.

Helmut Fullbear Elementary School was the one all of the appropriately aged children of Motherlobe based psychonauts went to, so theoretically Mary could just take the shuttle that went between the on-base housing and the school, but Mom was out on a mission. So if Tanya wanted to spend her afternoon the way she wanted to, she had to take Mary along.

Not because the eight year old reincarnate wasn’t trusted to be left on her own, but because Mary gets bored, and has learned plenty of ways to make Tanya’s life unpleasant if she left the girl home when she was out having fun.

Also, it was hilarious to fly over the massive line of parent’s vehicles waiting to pick their own brats up. Some of them even honked. Tanya had the top down, so she could even make out a swear from one particularly angry-looking father.

Oh, she recognizes that one. Slowing down to a stop over one of the vehicles, Tanya turned her car upside down and looked up at the smiling woman who had waved her over, leaning out of the driver's side window. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Boole.” Tanya greeted, unbothered by talking upside down. “Picking up Lily from kindergarten today?”

Dr. Boole’s daughter in law nodded tiredly. Tanya could hear Baby Dogen excitedly clap from within the vehicle, and sent the psychically sensitive baby some affectionate but calming thoughts. “Sitting in two school lines a day isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but you know how well Truman pays for babysitting.” Tanya hummed in agreement. Lili had absolutely refused to go back to the Motherlobe’s daycare facility after some disaster that Tanya didn’t get the details of, and Truman caved and just hired babysitters instead of pushing the issue. It certainly helped Tanya afford her hobby.

“It was nice seeing you again, but I am in a bit of a hurry.” Tanya explained. Glancing to the front of the school, which had started letting out about a minute ago, she added: “Besides, Mary might PSI blast me if I keep her waiting.”

“You kids go have fun.” Mrs. Boole said with another smile. Tanya brought her car back to an upright position and moved closer to the school, settling down to a position above the grass, about a tenth of a meter off the ground.

Mary had stopped glaring at her, as one of her friends drew her attention and ensnared Mary into a conversation of some kind. Tanya couldn’t really understand how Mary could get so invested in schoolyard drama, but after her own psychic therapy to settle the traumatic war memories down she seemed like she occasionally forgot about her previous life. Well, whenever Tanya was actually interacting with Mary she remembered it fine, slipping into the semi-antagonistic sibling relationship that they had settled into, but she acted differently whenever she was talking to anyone else. It made Tanya wonder how much the usage of her extensive education from her past lives impacted her own perspective.

“What on earth is that?” Shouted some teacher-looking adult that Tanya didn’t recognize. She was pretty sure she'd seen all of the teachers here… Was she new? “Why aren’t you in line? How old are you? Twelve? You can’t possibly be old enough for a driver’s license, and I don’t see an adult if you have a learner’s permit!”

Taya blinked. “Who are you?” She asked, before glancing down at herself. Sure, she was fourteen, but she didn’t look that young, did she? It must be the baggy jacket. It was not warm enough to go without.

“You can call me Mrs. White.” She said, sniffing arrogantly. “Now, answer my questions, young lady!”

Tanya hummed. “No.” She said bluntly, before leaning back and regaining vision of Mary. “Mary! Hurry up!” She shouted, telekinetically tugging on the girl’s skirt lightly to get her attention.

“I’ve already called the police, they’ll be here any second.” The annoying woman said. “We’ll see what they have to say about this. What school do you go to? O’Peia middle school? You don’t look old enough to go to high school…”

Tanya scoffed. “I’m working on my Masters degree.” She deadpanned. “I’m breaking zero laws right now.” Idly, she noticed the police officer that hangs around the schools when they let out jogging towards them. “Hello, Officer Washington.” She said in greeting.

“Hello, Tanya.” Officer Washington greeted back. The dark-skinned officer turned to the disgruntled teacher. “What seems to be the problem?”

The woman exploded, metaphorically. “She drove onto the grass and is too young to be driving a car!”

The Officer stared at the woman. “Ma’am, that isn’t a car.” He pointed to the bottom. “No wheels. Nothing I can do. There’s like six of these flying around town, and we can’t even give them parking tickets.” That wasn’t strictly true. Many of the ordinances relating to parking could be applied to any kind of obstruction, not just vehicles, but this was easily solved by parking only in designated parking spots, as it was not illegal to park things that weren’t cars in parking spaces. “If she lets that thing touch the grass I could maybe get her for littering, but beyond that?” He shrugged. Eventually, laws will be passed that will restrict her usage of her flying car, but as long as they can wait another two years for her pilot’s license to become official, Tanya doesn’t care.

Mary jumped into the back seat of the car, using a levitation orb as a spring to clear the side door without resorting to flight. “Mary!” The teacher scolded. “What did I say about psychic powers at school?”

“School’s over.” Mary replied glibly. “Tanya! Let’s go!”

“Seatbelt, Mary.” Tanya warned. Mary grumbled but strapped herself in after floating into the passenger seat. It was a full harness, so that passengers wouldn’t fall out when Tanya put it upside down without warning. “Who is this woman, anyway?”

Mary looked at her as she dug out a pack of gum, popping some in her mouth before answering. “Mrs. White? She substituted for the spelling class today. She said she normally teaches at the private school.” Ah, the Catholic one. Tanya didn’t know they used non-nun teachers there. Or Mrs. White just pretends to be a nun when she’s teaching there.

Tanya hummed. “Right.” Turning back to the substitute teacher, “I’m Mary’s older sister Tanya. Welcome to the madhouse that is Helmut Elementary. Go Rainbows. Now go away and bother someone else.” She turned to the amused policeman. “Keep up the good work, Officer Washington.”

With that, Tanya went straight up and turned to fly to their destination: the game store.

----------------

Mary was vibrating in her seat by the time Tanya parked the flying car. Opening up one of the compartments, Tanya pulled out a roll of quarters. “Here’s your budget, Mary. Have fun.”

Eagerly snatching up the change, Mary leapt out of the vehicle and flew across the street to Litwak’s Arcade. “Bye, Tanya!”

“I’ll tell you when we get pizza in a few hours.” Tanya sent telepathically, not wanting to bother shouting after the girl. Fridays were for having fun, after all. “I’ll protect your share.” Mary replied with a faint and perfunctory concept of gratitude rather than a coherent word, but she wasn’t that skilled with her telepathy. She had a tendency to send way too much information rather than limiting it like one should, but Tanya could easily parse most of her attempts by now.

Tanya left her vehicle and put it in park, the top of it closing as Tanya walked into the game store. Cards, Comics, and Games wasn’t a particularly special gaming store, with the sole factor that attracted Tanya to its offerings being the fact that it was the only store of its kind within the boundaries of Mystery, Massachusetts, which was the small town closest to the Motherlobe. The proprietor, Mr. Furgeson, was a stern man who saw an unfilled market niche and sought to fill it, despite not being someone that should be running a store with a target demographic under the age of ten.

“They’re waiting for you.” The man grumbled as he loomed over the glass counter filled with baseball cards with the register on top, gesturing to the upstairs area of the building.

Tanya skipped the stairs and settled down onto her chair, smiling at her friends. “It’s my turn then? What did I miss?” Couldn’t have been much, picking Mary up took maybe twenty minutes.

The rather fat college freshman behind the crypt-master’s screen chuckled. “Not much. Just the unspeakable horrors that have savaged your companions.”

The dark-skinned high school student at the table rolled his eyes. “They’re just tusked worms, Parson.”

“I said they were unspeakable, Dave.” Parson replied. “Also, they’re really more pedipalps than tusks.”

Tanya observed the map, miniatures carefully placed among the gummy worms that Parson was using for the monsters. “Dimensions?” She asked. Crypts and Chimeras had many things different from the famous roleplaying system that she recalled from her first life, more emphasis on the amalgamated creatures like the owlbear and hippogriff. There were dozens of ones that she had never heard of before taking a read through the Chimeric Chronicle.

But it still had set-volume fireballs. Parson rattled off the dimensions of the dead end they were ambushed in smugly, as he knew that if she was to cast it, Ashna’s Fighter would be in the area. “Hmmm… How much damage are the worms doing?” Tanya asked. She had to leave at the start of the encounter, so she missed that.

“I’m going to die after one more hit unless they roll one on damage.” Ashna, Dave’s slightly older sister, said, frustrated but resigned. “That poison is no joke.”

“...three chances to hit, next closest target with three worse armor class, seventy percent as many hit points, and twice the chance to fail a poison save, potentially dangerous… They go next, correct?” Tanya asked. At Parson’s nod, Tanya patted Ashna on the shoulder. “Your sacrifice will be remembered.” Tanya said consolingly. Turning to Parson, Tanya issued her command with all the authority she used to save for artillery barrages. “Fireball.”

Parson laughed. “Better start rolling another character, Ashna.” Both Parson and Tanya started rolling dice, and determined that both the worders (spider-worms) and Ashna’s fighter, Birch the second, were toast. Tanya picked up the gummy worms and put them all in her mouth at once, enjoying the sugary treat she had earned.

“Birch the third coming right up.” Ashna said, grumbling at her poor record. She picked up her dice and performed her usual superstitious ritual for good luck. It involved putting away all of her other dice for some reason.

“Maybe they won’t die to fireballs so easily if you stop naming them after wood.” Opined Nathan, the final player in the group, who was fiddling with a deck of playing cards, elaborately shuffling them for no purpose. It was a nervous tic of his; American culture was not kind to overweight pasty-skinned guys like Nathan and Parson.

“Or Tanya could stop being so willing to hit me with them.” Ashna grumbled as she rolled her dice.

“Artillery is the king of the battlefield.” Tanya said sagely. “But any commander with sense values the contribution of the infantry, the queen of the battlefield.”

“...Thanks, Tanya.” Ashna said sincerely, not understanding the implications of the old joke.

“Now, while Ashna does that, “ Dave said, “Nathan, search the room.”

“Hm?” Nathan said. “Oh, right. Rolling to find secret doors and loot.”

Tanya smiled as she let Nathan’s thief do their part. She missed this. Sure, it wasn’t quite the same, but it was only as different to the games of her first life as trying some other game system, so unless she wanted to write out her own ruleset, she had to play with what people knew.

Hours later, the pizza delivery had dropped off the food without incident, another plus of Mr. Furgeson’s management, and Mary had arrived to eat her share. “So are you going to join that Squad Leader tourney next week over in Boston, Tanya?” Parson asked politely between slices. He was referring to a popular new war game, one that Tanya actually remembered from her first life, albeit as a relic of late pre-modern wargaming.

Tanya nodded. “Definitely. I’m still tweaking my plans of attack, but I’ll be ready.”

“I’m sure that everyone will enjoy getting crushed by the littlest nazi again.” Dave said with a wry grin. “You do still have your hat, right?”

“It’s not a Nazi hat!” Tanya insisted. “It’s a replica Kaiserreich officer’s cap. Second Reich, not third.” Despite her vehemence, Tanya was still smiling. They were just joking around, after all. To complete the bit, Tanya grumbled some imprecations about them in German.

“But you’re playing the nazis.” Dave observed, accurately. Squad Leader was a world war 2 wargame, after all.

“I’m certainly not going to play the Communists.” Tanya retorted, scoffing. “And I do have an American strategy ready if needed.” And a Communist one. It was just a game, after all. It would be foolish to not be prepared.

“The Allies will crush them just the same.” Mary said, finishing her third and final pizza slice. Tanya resisted the impulse to insist she eat the crusts, limiting herself to a disapproving glance. Three slices was a lot of pizza for an eight year old, even without the crusts. “Both Reichs have it coming.”

“Mary, you don’t even know what the Nazis did.” Tanya pointed out. They did not cover World War II before middle school, from the materials she blew through.

Mary, not a particularly skilled liar, looked away nervously before gathering her courage. “Sure I do.” She said, “They invaded everyone.” It was a blatant guess…

…but she wasn’t wrong. “That’s not why they’re so vilified, Mary.” Tanya explained.

“Yeah, the only ones at this table the Nazis didn’t want dead are you two.” Dave added. “Light hair, blue eyes? Aryan ideal, the both of you.” That wasn’t quite true. Mary had very light brown hair that could be mistaken for blonde in bright light and greenish blue eyes. Also, it was an oversimplification to say that the Nazis wanted all the untermensch dead. It wouldn’t be an enjoyable argument, so Tanya didn’t dispute it.

Also… “She’s not Germanic, either. She’s Nordic.” Tanya explained. The Nazis cared about that. “Ethnically, I’m Slavic.” In both this life and the last, incidentally. The Empire’s greater reach was primarily due to enthusiastic integration of the component cultures. Which the Kaiserreich didn’t do. Tanya emphasized her point with a thumbs down. “We’d have still been untermensch, me more than her.” Also, Tanya didn’t like men romantically. That really was a death sentence, although if Being X had twisted the Empire so much that the Nazis still came into power… Well, it’s probably a good thing that Tanya didn’t need to consider such extreme actions for survival.

“...wait, you’re not related?” Parson asked, confused.

“We’re both adopted.” Tanya explained. “I kept my original surname, Mary took on our mother’s.” Tanya wasn’t particularly attached to the Dosva name, beyond vague amusement at the pun, but it did prevent people from asking ‘are you related to Agent Vodello?’, which was a much more annoying question for people to ask in comparison to ‘Do you know Agent Vodello/Nein/Mentalis/Spark/Ember/O’Peia/Boole/etc.?’, which only came up when her connection to the Psychonauts came up and not just when her name did. Mom never brought the topic up, even when she was officially adopting Mary, so Tanya just took it as an unspoken agreement to not discuss it. Besides, it would be super awkward to say something about it now.

“...What is your last name?” Dave asked Mary.

“Don’t tell them.” Tanya ordered her, which seized the interest of the entire table.

Mary didn’t immediately answer, thinking carefully. When she smiled, Tanya knew what she was going to say. “I’m Mary Vodello, nice to meet you.” Brat.

Tanya muttered some colorful Portuguese swears as each of her friends made the connection. Before they could ask questions, Tanya cut them off. “Is it really that surprising? You knew I was connected to someone in the Psychonauts. A sizable chunk of the town is, after all.” That was a small exaggeration. The Motherlobe employees and their families only amounted to 2% of Mystery’s population at most, putting it as the third largest employer in town. The town’s major industries were tourism for the three attractions that the area’s large psitanium reserves created, such as the Questionable Area?, followed closely by distribution centers for a big conglomerate that sent pharmaceuticals, toiletries, and cosmetics around the tri-state area.

After a moment, Dave nodded decisively. “Agent Vodello having kids is pretty surprising, yeah. Can you get me her autograph?”

“Are Agents Vodello and Nein really in a relationship?” Ashna asked, invested. “Is he your dad?”

“How old is your mom, really?” Nathan asked.

“After this long, I can only assume Agent Nein is afraid of commitment.” Tanya said, covering her face with a hand in frustration. Mary laughed at Tanya’s pain, as usual. “Also, none of your business,” She added, pointing at Nathan. Mom was seventeen when Tanya’s ‘first birthday’ occurred, so she was 30 this year. “-and no.” She finished, pointing at Dave.

“Hey guys, cut it out.” Parson sailed, scolding their mutual friends. “This is why she didn’t want to tell us. She’s still Tanya, who her mom is doesn’t matter.” One of the less subtle social dynamics of a gaming group is that whoever is the game master tends to take something of a leadership role above and beyond their imaginary authority, so Parson’s words successfully restrained the curiosity of the others. Ashna and Nathan murmured apologies. “Now Tanya, take a look at this new set of rules. I was thinking that a good way to encourage multiple leaders was to use formation bonuses that give smaller squads an advantage over massive mobs.” He passed out the binder full of notes for the war game he was designing, the page already turned to the formation rules he had mentioned. Tanya used telekinesis to hold it, her fingers were still covered in pizza grease. Besides, she could eat and read at the same time this way.

Ah, back to normal. Tanya smiled as she read through the design notes. In every one of her lives, college was a happy time, her intellectual curiosity fully sated. As for the aftermath, when she used her education…

Third time’s the charm.