Lazarus Aquato, Augustus Aquato

Raz’ grandfather, Lazarus, has a very noble bloodline and a very dark secret.

The Aquatos, with their unique water-acrobatic skills, have been the kings of the circus world for as long as anyone can remember. The number two family in the circus was the fortune-telling and mystical Galochios. The Galochios hated the Aquatos because they were jealous of the way the Aquatos always stole the spotlight with their high action, splashy tricks. The Galochios’ skills were thoughtful quiet. Most of the action took place inside their minds, so they were no match for the Aquatos when it came to stealing the spotlight.

The Aquatos did not like the Galochios because they felt their powers were unnatural, and possibly from dark sources. It was an unfair prejudice, but it was about to become more true. There was much bad blood between the two performing families. So of course, when Lazarus fell in love with the young, beautiful Marona Galochio the two families did everything they could to keep them apart.

But Marona and Lazarus kept meeting in secret. Marona got pregnant, and was ostracized by her family. After the Aquatos took her in, however, the Galochios wanted her back. She refused. They began a long-distance mental torture of Marona, to try to manipulate her into returning to her family. The psychic pressure was unbearable, but she refused to leave Lazarus. It made her weaker and weaker, and left her without the strength to survive childbirth. She died as her son, Augustus Aquato, was born. Lazarus’ hatred of the Galochios was cemented forever.

Years later, Lazarus married a nice, non-psychic woman and had seven more children. Augustus was raised among them as if he were just another child, but he knew he was different. He knew he had inherited some of the mental powers from his mother, but the Galochios were such villains in the Aquato family, he saw these powers as shameful, dark secrets. He trained instead to be an acrobat like his father Lazarus, and all of his half-brothers and sisters.

Lazarus children became world famous from their extravagant and dangerous aquatic acrobatic stunts. His oldest daughter, Camidalia Aquato, would perform synchronized swimming with alligators. His son Raffio would high dive into a large bucket of water. But then one by one, the Aquato family died mysteriously. All during performances, and all in water.

It all started when Lazarus was performing a large, outdoor cannon stunt. The trick was to blast him self out of a cannon, and fly over a large tank filled with deadly sharks, piranhas and poison jellyfish. This was a routine trick for Lazarus. As he prepared for his flight, he was being watched by the bitter and twisted fortune teller, Zalto Galochio, Marona’s father and patriarch of the Galochio family. Though it had been his own fault, he blamed the Aquatos for Marona’s death.

Right before Lazarus’s cannon fired, Zalto focused all his telekinetic energy on the wheel of the cannon. He managed to pull it off, sending the cannon crashing to its side, where it fired Lazarus straight into the side of the tank. Lazarus got his head lodged in the tank wall. Inside the tank, just his head poked through like a tasty shark snack.

The Galochio’s were delighted and gathered around to watch Lazarus’ immanent decapitation. Lazarus twitched and flailed and struggled to free himself. Cracks began to appear in the glass around his neck. The Galochio’s stopped laughing when they realized the tank was going to rupture and spill its contents down on top of them. But it was too late. Lazarus popped his head out, shattering the tank wall. Glass, water, sharks, piranhas, poisonous jellyfish, and Lazarus Aquato flooded down upon them. Soon the water ran red with the blood of the psychic family. It was a terrible bloodbath, and most of the Galochio’s perished. Only a few survived, including Zalto, now missing one leg from the knee down. And, of course, Lazarus.

Zalto went insane with rage. He unleashed a powerful curse on the entire Aquato clan. They were all cursed to leave the big top forever, or die in their own water stunts just as his family had done.

The Aquatos were a proud family, and they also had no idea what else to do. The show must go on, and so they kept performing. Within a year, they were all dead, Lazarus, and all of his children. Save one: Augustus.

His eldest son must have been protected by his Galochio blood. It was a blessing and a curse. He survived, but he lived to see his entire family drowned, eaten, washed out to sea, boiled or otherwise destroyed by water. He left the circus, changed his name to Austbleift (not really. Some other name, the name that Raz gets) and left to start his own circus that had absolutely zero water acts.

Augustus swore that his family would never set foot in water, never perform in the rain, never cross another ocean as long as they lived. And they would never again work in the big top. He hated the water. Wouldn’t even drink it. But there was one thing he hated even more:

Psychics.

Lili Zanotto

The Zanotto’s, for as long as anyone can remember, have been one of the most powerful families of the psychic world. For generations, they have been high-ranking members of the Psychonauts. Every child a prodigy, every adult, a powerhouse. There have been many Grand Head Psychonauts (the “president” of the Psychonauts) in the Zanotto family, including Lili’s father, Truman Zanotto.

Truman represents a new conservatism in the Psychonauts ranks. When Truman was younger, a psychic apathy began to develop in the nation, as psychic terrorism was on the decline. The Psychonauts had done such an effective job, that they had made themselves less in demand. The country began to forget about them. The government began to support them less financially. And the Psychonauts themselves changed, in a effort to become more modern and keep with the times. They elected leaders like Molton Yuppa, an extremely progressive psychic, who tried to move the organization away from its psuedo-military roots and into a more public service organization. Psychonauts began to take on more peacetime rolls. This didn’t make them any more popular with the public, however. “Do I really want my tax collector to be psychic?” people wondered.

Truman Zanotto belonged to a conservative renaissance that gained popularity within the psychic ranks by promising to return their organization to what they saw as it’s glory days.

“My opponent,” Truman declared in many election campaign speeches targeting the incumbent Molton Yuppa, “Has turned us from commandos to candy stripers!”

He was elected in a landslide. Some said because he spoke up for the common psychic, and represented the mainstream paranormal viewpoint. Still, others credited the Zannotto political machine, which had created and promoted generations of Zanottos into powerful public office. It seemed almost a forgone conclusion that Truman would take the most powerful office in the Psychonauts, because with every generation of Zanottos, it seems they get more successful than the last.

Until Lili. Lili has no intention of following in the Zanotto footsteps. Although a powerful psychic herself, she has no interest in showing off her powers. She’s so skilled, and her family is so privileged, there are really no challenges in her life. She knows what everyone’s thinking. She wins every psychic student competition, aces every test. Her teachers all let her get away with murder, because she’s a Zannotto, and it’s just assumed she’s going to do great things someday. Every year she becomes more rebellious, bored, and detached. The only time she gets in the slightest bit of trouble is when she displays her lack of interest a psychic career.

“Don’t you want to be a psychonaut, Lili?” The school counselors ask.

“Why?”

“So you could help people.”

“People are fine. They don’t need me.”

“Is their anything you do want to be?”

“A gardener. I like plants.”

“You like plants? More than people?”

“I can’t tell what they’re thinking. They surprise me. People don’t. Usually.”

Her mother and father had very little time for her during the campaign, and even less now. So they ship her off to whispering Rock summer camp whenever possible. Normally, it would be the kind of thing she’d hate, but she doesn’t really mind because at whispering Rock she can be by herself. She likes to spend time in a tiny garden she’s made out in the woods. She’s even developed a plant that grows dream fluffs as a blossom. No other kids come around because they are all sticking close to camp now, what with all the rumors of the hulking lungfish.

And so she’s left undisturbed, out in the woods, tending her garden, reading books on plants, staying away from people. Not really taking an interest in camp activities, until a strange kid with goggles shows up and she finds herself caring about something besides plants for the first time she can remember.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14