By the time that he got back to the Squad room, it was already around the time he usually went to sleep, so Fen headed to his new room after looking around. The new Squad room was much bigger than the old one thanks to their status as Principalities, with two private Training Halls, a common room, and a bunch of other rooms that they could use for whatever they wanted.
Honestly, Fen thought that most of it was a waste of space but the extra rooms did have their uses. Whenever he had time after polishing his skills by fighting a group of Opfer, he'd always have access to a Training Hall all to himself, which was certainly beneficial to train the abilities that he couldn't show other people.
There was even a 'private' function for the Training Halls that sealed the room off from others, giving him the full ability to train without limiting himself for fear of prying eyes. Still, just to be safe, he only went all out with his abilities inside Dey's reality after he went to sleep, where he was sure the Foundation couldn't watch him without the God knowing.
Before he could get to his room though, the sight of Amelia was sitting with Orphinia in the common room with a dagger in her hands caught his eyes. Based on the intensity of their words, the two of them were in a heated argument with each other- heated enough that Amelia was swinging the dagger around haphazardly.
With his enhanced senses, Fen managed to catch the last bit of their words and keyed into their conversation.
The two girls had a pretty good relationship with one another; there was certainly a higher percentage of males in the Program compared to females, but while it wasn't enough to completely overwhelm them, it was enough to make them feel uncomfortable at certain times. Supposedly, at the beginning of the Program the ratio between them was much more equal but the males held an advantage in the first Task thanks to their higher base strengths, so only after the first month did the ratio start to balance itself out a little more.
But it was because of the cordial relationship between them that Fen was surprised to see the two of them fighting- Orphinia was much too quiet to incite an argument between the two while Amelia had enough energy for the both of them.
"...I told you, that's not how you do it! Just vibrate the metal with energy, and hold it here!" The Mage pointed at her red hair, but Orphinia just shook her head with frustration.
She said bitterly, "I'm a Warrior, I don't have energy. You need to put your own Mana into it, and then I can hold it. That's the only way we can-"
"What are you talking about?" Fen cut into the conversation while taking a seat next to Amelia.
"Ah! Fen! Perfect, you arrived at the perfect time." Amelia turned and looked at him with excitement. She pushed the dagger she was holding into his hands before turning around so her back was facing him. "Cut my hair!"
Fen blinked in surprise before leaning forward and injecting some of his Vital energy into the blade. His injected energy coursed through the dagger and made its edge similar to an electric razor through vibrations, but before he could raise it to her red hair to start cutting, Orphinia leaped across the table and pulled his hand down. Er, tried to. He was much stronger than her thanks to the Vitality passively circulating through his body so all she managed to do was make him stop while he raised his eyebrows at her.
"Stop! Ame, what do you doing?! He's a guy, he's got no idea how to cut hair! Give me the dagger, I'll do it." She had a crazed look in her eyes as she admonished her red-haired friend, reaching with her hand to take the weapon out his hands.
Amelia bat her hand away, however, and glared at her for even trying to stop Fen from what he was doing.
"First off, that's sexist. Let him work, he's good at it. The only reason I asked you was because I didn't know when he was getting back, otherwise, I would've gone to him first," she said, turning back around so Fen could continue.
With a sigh, he raised the dagger and delicately cut a perfectly straight line across her hair, using tendrils of Vital energy to flatten and smooth her hair at the same time so he could cut better. While he cut, Amelia continued talking, "Think about it. How'd you think I cut my hair before? Sure, I didn't really need a cut before and it was more like a little trim, but Fen sometimes talked about his little sister and how he learned a whole bunch of skills to help her. So imagine my surprise when I ask him out of pure curiosity to cut my hair, and he does it perfectly! Not a single imperfection! It's part of the reason I put up with him- Ouch!"
She yelped in pain after a needle of energy poked her in the side. She glared at Fen, who had a half-hidden smirk on his face, and said sarcastically, "Oops. Must've slipped while I was cutting."
"Slipped, my ass." She muttered angrily before shutting her mouth, not daring to anger the person cutting her hair. "Anyways, as I was saying... what was I saying again? Oh, yeah, Fen's super good at cutting hair."
"Done." Fen got up from his chair and walked in a circle around his Squadmate to give a final look over his actions. Stopping, he gave a thumbs up and said, "Looks cute."
The benefit of being a Stage two Knight didn't stop at simple enhanced strength and perception- every one of his actions could be reinforced with energy and connect with his nervous system, so he could react faster and generally do things at a faster rate. A haircut that might take an ordinary person half an hour to do back on Earth could be cut down to just a few minutes.
After saying his final piece, Fen started walking to his room to finally start probing around the memories he took from Hondo and Kara, leaving behind Amelia who proudly shook her much-better-looking hair around her head in front of a shocked Orphinia.
"D-damn. I guess he is good at it- but how was I supposed to know?! Look at him! Does he look like somebody who can cut hair?" Orphinia gestured in Fen's direction. Images of when he cut through swaths of Opfer as a Principality with blood covering him flashed through her mind before they overlapped with the image of him gently cutting her friend's hair and confused her.
She thought of Fen as a machine, as rude as that sounded. He was always working on improving his strength or performing his duties as a Principality and barely took time for himself. If he didn't need to sleep, then she didn't doubt that he'd spend all his time with training.
Seeing this new side of him revealed a new world of possibility to her- not really, but it did remind her that he was a real person and not a robot.
After merging Squads, Orphinia mostly overcame her awkward and shy nature and was able to express herself much more often than before.
Although he'd never say it in front of others, Marcus was thankful to Fen and Amelia for pulling her out of her shell. After Delphina died in the first Task, he worried that Orphinia would never be able to recover. But now, every once in a while, he saw a flash of the bright and nervous girl that he met at the beginning of the Program.
"Well, he has his moments. There's no way he was like this back on Earth, right?" Amelia shrugged. "His girlfriend's gotta be one hell of a person to stick with someone like him, though I really shouldn't say that when he's so close by or he'll kick my ass."
"He's got a girlfriend?"
Amelia raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You didn't know? Besides training, his family and Miko are practically all he talks about. I don't know what'll happen after we all go home, but it'll be hilarious to see her reaction to seeing him a whole three inches taller and built like a truck." She giggled just thinking about their reunion.
Fen had long left earshot, but even so Orphinia made sure to lower her voice and lean forward as she spoke, "Don't you have a thing for him? How's that gonna work with a girlfriend in the pic-"
"Shhhh! He could be listening!" Amelia pressed her hands across her mouth while her face blushed the same color as her hair. Her eyes darted around the room in a panic, making sure that Fen didn't hear Orphinia's words. After confirming that the handsome Knight was indeed gone, she sighed with relief and rolled back in her chair, glaring at Orphinia all the while.
"How do you even know about that?" She glared.
Orphinia rolled her eyes. "Isn't it obvious? Every time you see him your eyes practically light up like beacons; I'm surprised Marcus didn't realize anything even after I asked him about it."
"Marcus knows too?!" Amelia hid her face in her hands while embers sparked in the air around her, a result of her Mana being affected by her emotions. "No! That doesn't matter. Don't tell Fen- we just have a platonic relationship- we're just friends. I'm not going to be the bastard that takes advantage of a guy while his girlfriend's away; that's a horrible thing to do."
Her words ended in a whisper while a look of horror spread across her face.
"Hmm. Well, whatever. I was just curious." But Orphinia's bored expression didn't match the smirk across her face.
It was the small moments like this that made them forget about the Program and the Tasks, making them feel almost like regular girls back on Earth who didn't have to worry about their survival every day. They were able to forget about pushing their bodies past their limits just so they could tell themselves that they did everything to make sure they stayed alive in the future.
It was a shame that the moment didn't last long before both their eyes darkened and they realized where they were. If Fen were still watching them, he would've cursed in his mind and hastened his efforts to get stronger; watching the people he cared about suffer because of the Foundation always reignited the rage inside his heart without fail.
****
"Alright, time to deal with you bastards and get your voices out of my head."
While he had their memories stored inside them, it was like he could hear wisps of foreign thought glid through his mind. It was annoying, but he usually managed to push them away. After more time passed, however, he found that their voices grew stronger and stronger until he didn't have a choice but to delve into their egos.
It wasn't entirely a bad thing to go into their memories; Fen could copy and imitate some of their techniques this way, but he was reluctant to go through the same terrible experience he had with going through Edmond's ego. The way his mind felt like it would give out against the Mage's ego made him feel like he would lose his sense of self- just thinking about it made him shiver.
His mind and body would still be alive, but the conscious in control of him wouldn't be Fen, it'd be the sliver of Edmond's ego that he absorbed after killing him. Sure, his consciousness gained some resistance towards attacks like that after successfully destroying his ego, but Hondo was especially strong for a Warrior and had a much stronger will; the very same will that forced his body to continue condensing his Aura into a bomb long after he died.
'I wonder how strong his ego will be... Will it be exactly like when he was alive, or will it be different?' Fen let his thoughts wander while his mind sunk deep into the blackness that was his consciousness space.
There were two balls of light inside the darkness that gave off the only light inside the place. One of the balls of light was bigger than the other and had wisps of red energy angrily swarming around it, while the other tightened and relaxed with pulses of green light.
According to Dey, only specific individuals in their race could access this mental space and separate the memories of the beings they killed. Vituls would usually feel a slight needling of their minds that signified stored memories, and some couldn't access stored memories at all, but if they could access this place, then supposedly it was possible to achieve long-range communication through space- this space acted as a sort-of shared mental connection between the strongest of their race.
Before Dey left to do whatever he was doing, the God showed him how he could identify their people using this mental connection by sending mental fluctuations in the space and watching for any reaction in the people around them. Even if they couldn't access the mental space, Vituls would all be able to feel something trying to interact with them.
If he looked hard enough, he could see faint glimmers of light far away in the darkness of the mental space, proof that there were other members of their race alive in the universe that stored memory or other intangible items here. Fen, of course, tried reaching those faint lights, but whenever he got far away from his own space he ran into an invisible wall that blocked him from going further. Just in case something changed, Fen tried again to reach them but once again ran into the wall.
'Too bad he isn't here to explain how to use this thing more...' Fen scoffed in disappointment before turning back and sending tendrils of energy through the space to connect with the slightly larger ball of memory while he wondered at the possibilities of what he could do if he truly understood this strange ability his people had.
Every time Dey shared information about their race, the more he grew fearful of the Creation God, and his civilization that could a people as powerful as them. Their civilization, Veratul, was able to do so much more than just achieve genetic perfection. The mental space that Fen had access to wasn't a natural phenomenon and was actually artificially constructed by their people during the war with Heaven. They used it as an instantaneous communication system that didn't need a medium like technological antennas or magical energy to use; all they needed were people like Fen who could access the space.
Their military was even more impressive. In Veratul's army, it wasn't uncommon to see Stage three Empowered on the front lines fighting alongside Stage four and even some Stage five Vituls, putting everything they had towards repelling their Godly opponent's forces.
But even that wasn't enough to stop the invasion of the Seraphim war constructs that ravaged their world.
Dey's words only strengthened Fen's determination to grow stronger, so he wouldn't have to fear for his life in front of the forces of Heaven.
"Uegh..." He groaned as his energy connected with Hondo's memories, shivering as his thoughts and ego connected with his mind until he fell into the familiar lapse of nothingness.
Back in his room in the facility, Fen's body went limp on his bed making it look like he was just sleeping while inside his mind Hondo's memories started playing like a movie, overriding his senses and making him experience everything the Warrior did in the hours before entering the Task.
The first thing that he saw was Kara, the Knight that he killed. His heart squeezed in a familiar way every time Hondo looked at her, all the way until she frowned and shoved his face away from hers.
"Pay attention! They're trying to tell us about that Opfer we're about to face- gah, look forward before he notices!" Kara's worried voice sounded like music to his ears and Fen inwardly nodded as he recognized the feeling of love inside Hondo's chest from the memory.
'So, no wonder this guy went so far to go and kill himself just to kill me. He was in love with her.' Fen had his suspicions from the devastation on Hondo's face after he assimilated Kara's Vital core into his own, but the familiar feeling in the memory confirmed his thoughts.
'He must've lost the will to continue living after she died... if Miko died in front of me like that too, I might have done the same thing- no, I'd have survived and made her killer watch as I tore the people they cared about limb from limb in front of him until he felt the same thing I did, and then kill them. Only then would I consider suicide.' It was a morbid thing to think about, but those were his honest thoughts on what he would do in the same situation.
"I'm looking, don't worry," Hondo chuckled, enjoying the sight of Kara's face in a frown. It was strange for Fen to feel 'love' for another person besides Miko, especially while knowing that he killed them, but Hondo's feelings were useful to give him perspective on his own and make him realize how much he missed his girlfriend on Earth.
So far, it looked like the Chosen didn't have a lot of his information regarding his combat ability based on the pathetic presentation they gave the two of them. Essentially, the only thing they knew was that he was a Knight, but they didn't know what Stage he reached or even what his combat style. There was a picture of him from the beginning of the Program that was a poor representation of what he looked like now, and some information about his physical ability that became irrelevant after his transformation.