His mind felt like it was splitting apart.
No, that was too painless of a description of what was happening to him; if he could move his body he would have already destroyed his brain with energy just to stop the pain flooding in from his body. At first, only Hondo's despair was transmitted through the memory, but the instant that Fen lowered his mental guard, he felt everything.
His despair. His rage. His pain. His knowledge. His love. His ideals. His grief. His agony.
Everything that made Hondo who he was, they all integrated with his mind and became a part of him too. The remnant of Hondo's ego stored inside the memory clashed against his own and made a mess of his body in the meantime, uncaring if the body the dominant ego took over was in shambles when they gained control.
Either way, his body was filled with living energy. Any damage caused by their battle for control could immediately be regenerated.
"Fuck! Get out of me- Argh!" Fen roared, every muscle in his body straining against one another as he desperately tried to force the invader away from his mind physically after his mental attempts all failed. He could feel whatever was inside his head eating away at him and growing stronger. Hondo's remnant pushed its way into his mind and started viciously destroying his mental space, causing agonizing pain to rack his mind.
The feeling of helplessness nearly drove him insane as all his efforts to stop him failed.
'Is this how I die? From a fucking memory? No, I need to go back home, back to... back to them... them?' Fen's pain suddenly increased as he realized he couldn't remember who he was trying to get home to.
He mumbled, "There's a reason why I need to go back to Earth, I know it, but this fucking thing is making me forget!"
It was the worst feeling in the world, forgetting something so important but not even knowing what it was.
If the memory thought that he'd go down without a fight then it was wrong, he had invested too much of his effort, blood, and sweat for his mind to get taken over by a remnant of a dead guy that he had killed. Even if he didn't deserve to live because of what he had done, he had still earned his place in the universe. He had killed too many people and monsters, crushed too many Opfer as a Principality, even becoming an icon of hatred, just to lose everything here.
Fen's vision suddenly went black as his consciousness returned to the mental space.
Where there were originally two orbs formed by mental energy surrounded by red and green energy tendrils, there was now a red and black shadow angrily lashing out with tendrils of energy at the space, greedily devouring Fen's vulnerable mind while the other greenish orb stood silent, staring at the chaos happening around it.
The instant that he appeared in the mental space, the red orb froze before collecting all its energy in one place and striking out at him, forming a long and sharp spear of reddish energy aimed at his consciousness.
Maybe it was because it was a memory fragment and so was used to this space, but its actions were much more refined than Fen's, who had to spend time just to get used to the surrounding space and how to move.
But even if it was more used to this space, this was still originally his domain. Fen controlled a sliver of his mental energy to divert its strike and urged his consciousness forward, closing in on the memory. He dug tendrils of his essence into it and began to tear it apart, uncaring if his own consciousness was damaged in the meantime. If he survived, then he'd recover.
"Screech!" The memory trembled in pain from his actions before throwing him off, corrupting a part of him at the same time when it touched him with its red tendrils.
Fen quickly collected himself and refocused on the memory orb, noticing that his actions had taken out a sizable chunk of its essence. Its red tendrils no longer writhed with so much power anymore- it looked like his efforts were effective at weakening it. By circulating his own mental energy he could disrupt and dislodge its corruption, but the injuries inflicted on him while he was digging into its 'main body' refused to heal.
'Damn! I forgot that my Vital energy doesn't transfer over to the mental space.' Fen scolded himself for forgetting such a crucial detail.
While in the mental space, his only source of strength was his own willpower fueled by his experiences; fortunately, thanks to his time in the Tasks and the Program overall, Fen's willpower was much stronger than most Vituls at his age. Even Deion hadn't taken an intelligent being's life until he was in his twenties, while Fen was thrown into killing since he'd entered the Program. The experience hardened his will until he became the person he was now, capable of killing without blinking an eye.
Now, the two of them were severely injured, but neither of them were willing to lose right now in the battle for dominance over Fen's body. Even if it was just a fragment of Hondo's memories, it understood the value in possessing a physical body, and the Warrior's rage when he died gave it the strength to fight against an opponent who would usually dominate over it while Fen wanted to live for... well, purely for the sake of living and rediscovering what was taken from his memories.
Every time he thought about the important people in his life, it was like a piece of cotton was shoved into his head and blotted his thoughts until it became impossible to discover what his own interests were.
The hole in his mind was so large, however, that he was able to notice how distinct of an impact the lost memories made on his decisions, fueling his desire to get them back.
Slightly recovered from their mental wounds, the two of them faced each other again. One humanoid mental being, and another orb filled with memory fragments; both of which were intent on destroying the other.
Fen sent a ripple of energy out into the mental space as he roared and charged towards the memory orb, which quickly prepared a shield of red energy to block his strike.
****
In the Void Dimension, Principality Squad room.
"Fen? You okay?" Amelia knocked on Fen's door while rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes. She had gone to bed shortly after Fen did, but had woken up sometime in the 'nighttime' due to the loud noises coming from the room next to hers. "There's a lot of loud noises... Fen?"
She paused her knocking after hearing somebody walk towards the door from within the room.
The door opened up, and she saw Fen in his nightwear peer at her from within the darkroom, half of his face hidden within the darkness.
"Yes?" He sighed, and Amelia saw the irritation half-hidden in his eyes.
She peered through the small crack in the door, trying to see what was causing so much noise, and asked, "Is everything okay? The walls are thick, but there's a lot of noise coming from your room."
Her green eyes narrowed with suspicion after seeing the disastrous state of his room. His bed was half-destroyed, with the wood rotting some places with traces of Vital energy corrupting the material. There were visible scratches on the hard rock walls, and even their regenerative capabilities were having some difficulty with polishing the damage.
"Fuu..." Fen clutched at his brows and sighed with an apologetic expression. "Well, you see... some stuff happened, and I had a nightmare- You know what, screw this. Who cares about blending in, this is my body now."
"What-"
Suddenly, Fen reached out and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her off the ground completely with his immense strength. Amelia looked at him in shock before she started struggling to breathe, and she began to slam her fists down on his hand but it was no use; his body was too strong to be affected by her meager strength.
Fen's eyes narrowed as he sensed her collect her Mana around her to form a spellwork before interfering with its creation with a tendril of Vital energy.
"Damn. It's too different from my Aura..." Fen clicked his tongue after watching his Vital energy collapse in on itself after dissipating her Mana and refocused his attention on her, his expression unchanging after her face started to turn red, and then purple. "Well. I've got a lot of time to get used to it, so I guess it doesn't matt- oh shit."
All of a sudden his expression shifted into one of pure rage and he roared in her face before releasing her, throwing her back into the wall. As she coughed and struggled to get air in her lungs and recover from being choked, she saw her Squadmate fighting against several Vital constructs that resembled humanoids, their fight creating several dents in the walls in the hallway.
'What the hell is going on? Is he being controlled? Why was he talking about Aura?!' Her mind tried to come up with an explanation for what was going on, but the intensity of the situation prevented her from thinking for too long.
One of the humanoid Vital constructs managed to stab Fen through the leg and throw him towards her, making him land on top of her chest with a dangerous cracking sound. Thankfully, it seemed that the crack came from Fen's body and not hers.
He rolled from on top of her and hissed in pain while clutching at his ribs, before looking at her with a dangerous look in his dark eyes.
"You seem important to him," he seethed, his face twitching in pain as several Vital Spears pierced through his back and narrowly missed his vital organs. A cruel smile spread across his face, "I wonder how he'll react when he watches me kill you."
Fen- no, not Fen but somebody else who was controlling his body- raised his hand to her face and was just about to apply more strength into his limb when the air around them suddenly stopped moving. His face froze in a smile, and her Mana sense told her that the energy in his body suddenly stopped moving, freezing him into place like when a boa constrictor wrapping around its prey.
"Phu!" The veins on his body popped out as he tried to exert his strength to break out of the energy's restrictive hold, but even if his physical body was under his control, the Vitality was directly under Fen's authority. As a Warrior, he had no idea how to properly control VItal energy, allowing Fen to sneak his will into the energy within his body to gain a tool with which to beat Hondo out of him.
Right now, the energy inside his body was writhing and causing as much pain as possible to weaken Hondo's consciousness. Fen quickly thought of the plan after he lost the battle for dominance in the mental space and implemented it as fast as he could after he was forcibly overthrown from his own body.
Finally, Hondo's memory fragment couldn't take the onslaught of pain any longer and fell to unconsciousness. Fen took advantage of Hondo's weakened state and quickly took back control of his body, making sure to squish the memory fragment sitting inside the mental space after rousing his willpower once more.
He then immediately surged his Vital energy into his body, regenerating the damage he caused to himself whilst also firmly reattaching his consciousness back onto his own body like a car-owner settling back into their vehicle.
The feeling of being separated from your physical body completely was... disturbing. The difference between entering the mental space with a physical body and entering without was like floating in the ocean in the pitch-black night with or without a lighthouse to guide you back to shore. Having a body grounded his mind in a way that gave him immediate relief and drove away the pangs of insanity eroding at his mind.
After opening his eyes, Fen finally became aware of his position. Amelia was lying beneath him with a scared expression on her face, her fingers digging into his fingers which were still halfway around her neck.
He immediately backed away from her and collapsed onto the wall, panting after realizing how close he came to killing one of his only friends within the Program. He was exhausted both physically and mentally- fighting to regain control over your body can do that- but right now his mind was full of thoughts of how the hell he was going to apologize to Amelia.
How could he even start that conversation? They'd gone through so much together, but this was... too much. He'd almost killed her.
Fen's thoughts were interrupted by a warm hand on his face, and he flinched back to see Amelia leaning towards him with a worried expression on her face. Her green eyes reflected the tiredness that he felt and showed how weary she was, but her simple act of caressing his face unconsciously melted away his worries about fixing their relationship.
"Are you okay?" Her unsteady voice snapped him back to reality. "What happened Fen?"
"Fuck if I'm okay, are you?" Fen brushed her hand away from his face and got up, searching for any major injuries on her body that might require a Healer. Er, he tried to get up. When she saw his attempt, she pushed him back down to the floor before his legs gave out from the sheer physical stress he just went through from having his insides carved up by his Vitality.
"Stay down." The firmness in her voice eliminated any of his intention to resist her help. "You're going to tell me what the hell just happened, but first, you're going to heal and recover- fortunately, because of your dumb Knight abilities, that won't take too long," she sighed, taking a seat next to him on the wall.
"And yeah, I'm fine. A little rattled, but whoever that was in your body, they didn't hurt me too badly." A wince tugged at her lips while she gingerly touched her neck.
She gave him a weak smile. "And we really need to stop doing this."
"Stop doing what?" Fen raised an eyebrow at her vague remark.
"Stop having conversations like this while sitting on the floor, obviously. There's a sofa- or whatever the Foundation thinks qualifies as a sofa- but I don't think I can carry you all that way. You're too fat." She shook her head just thinking about how heavy he was.
He laughed at how strange her thoughts were when something like... that, had just happened, but stopped and winced after feeling how much his chest ached from moving. His pain tolerance training was mostly targeted towards sharp and extreme pain, like getting stabbed, but right now his whole body just ached like he had the flu, and because of the nature of the injuries, he couldn't immediately recover either.
When Hondo was still inhabiting his body, Fen specifically targetted the most painful regions in the body while ensuring that none of the damage he did would threaten his life. Sure, the damage wasn't as severe as two minutes ago, but he still needed some time to pass his Vitality through his body to regenerate.
After a while, he opened his mouth to speak.
"...I'm not human." He rolled his eyes to the side to see Amelia's reaction, but to his surprise, she just nodded and didn't say anything. "What, was it that obvious?"
"You kidding? It was obvious as hell." She frowned at the question like she was insulted. "I knew there was some other reason why a bastard like you could get so damned strong."
She scoffed, "And let's be honest here, it's not like its impossible that you weren't some other race mixed in with human; even now, there're still a few half-elves back on Earth."
He cracked a small smile at how easily she accepted his statement and the absurdity of it all, even if she had the wrong idea about his race.
She turned her face to look at him with a confused expression on her face. "But what's not being human got to do with having someone take over your body?"
"Well, first off," he grunted, "I'm not some half-human or half-elf or some other half-thing like you probably think I am. Er, at least, I don't think I am."
He frowned as he pondered what he knew about his own race.
"I... I don't think my family is my real family. I know that I'm not human because D- Um, someone, told me, but I don't think they're like me." He turned and saw that Amelia was doing her best to say awake, yawning while using her hand as a rest for her face. She nodded at him as if to motion him to continue, but her action evolved and just carried her off into restful unconsciousness, where she plopped her head on his shoulder and started snoring.
"...By the Heavens, that's loud." He smiled and pat the redhead on his shoulder, but not before giving her a look full of exasperation and envy. Not only did she have the gall to fall asleep while he told her about one of his secrets, but she even snored something terrible. He was exhausted too, but at least he had the decency to begin explaining what had happened without letting his exhaustion affect him.
'Damn,' he struggled to lift his body off the ground before finally landing back on the floor with a dull thud. 'Well, it's not like the floors uncomfortable... maybe a little... hard...'
Fen's mind joined Amelia's in unconsciousness while his natural energy worked on regenerating the damage done to his body, aided by his natural recovery rate.