"Malus..."
She had seen it all. The look of being betrayed, the magic drawing blood, and the destruction of her library. She had heard her voice as it was twisted to form such cruel platitudes and mock her very existence. The cold sting of guilt had surfaced in her gut and keeled her over with enough force to make her doubt her abilities in such a crucial time. But the worst sensation was knowing that she was for the most part unable to resist and forced to watch as her body acted against her. Patchouli Knowledge was a prisoner in her own mind, and the warden was none other than an old escapee named Malus Umbravi.
The magician looked up from her position and took control of her limbs to stand up. A black and purple void greeted her and removed any landmarks from her sight, including the nondescript floor she had once been sprawled out upon. Patchouli had no choice but to float on through the void that was her corrupted consciousness. Her body was nothing more than an avatar for her soul at that point, but the magician had her own senses and could see small blotches of activity in the void. Colors of all types flittered through the void in some places only to be swallowed up by the swirling blackness without mercy. Compared to this place, at least Makai has its beauty, Patchouli thought to herself.
For such a powerful magician like Patchouli Knowledge, it seemed that magical foes and doomsday plots were a dime a dozen. There had been many incidents in Gensokyo that seemed much worse than this. The hell raven's attempt at unleashing nuclear armageddon, Remilia's shortsighted Scarlet Mist, even the diabolical usage of the moon by Eientei's inhabitants seemed worse! But Patchouli knew that the Malus incident was much worse for her and the mansion's residents because of three startling facts: she was powerless to put a stop to Malus, the knowledge crucial to defeating her was locked away in her mind and in her heavily guarded desk, and most importantly, Patchouli was scared. Malus was in her mind, and if the lich was clever, she would use it to her advantage.
The most that Patchouli could do was try and regain control of her true senses for a moment. She had done it before when she managed to tear Malus away from murdering her familiar, but it was not to last. Against a foe as powerful as a lich, the mage's act of rebellion was akin to tossing pebbles at a tiger. It would have been her last act, but the mage held on long enough to set a personal boundary. By confining her to her library she was providing Malus with the resources to scheme efficiently, but at least she was able to protect the others from the monster in control of her body. At least until the fairy maids became her first kills.
"There you are!" came a cackling voice from above.
Patchouli looked up into the void and gasped as a swirling black mist came barreling down upon her. It smashed into her and flung her down as if she had been hit with a steel girder, and she screamed in pain as she went flying. She thought that since she was in a featureless void there wouldn't be any ground to impact upon, but as her frail body crashed against a raised platform, she cursed herself for pushing her luck. Wheezing, the magician knew that her bones would be broken if she had suffered such a savage attack in reality. Her hair was sprayed out beneath her like a puddle of violet while her robes were torn here and there to give her a ruined appearance.
"You know what the best part of being in your mind is? I can hurt you as much as I want and it won't do a thing to your health," Malus muttered as she appeared next to Patchouli's incapacitated form. The lich's crazed grin appeared through the black mist. "But you can still feel it all. You're welcome, by the way. I can only imagine how much damage it'll do to your psyche..."
The black mist dissipated to reveal a carbon-copy of Patchouli, Malus' chosen form. Despite the similarities between the two, Malus' image of her previous warden was less comforting and a lot more intimidating with those blood red eyes of hers. Horrible, sharp teeth gave her a shark-like grin.
"What do you want?" Patchouli coughed as she looked up at her doppelganger. "R-Revenge?"
"Revenge? Heavens no!" Malus gave a nonchalant shake of her head and paced around Patchouli. "I don't need vengeance. I've transcended above that."
"You haven't transcended at all, Malus. You would destroy your body and sacrifice men, women and children just for power."
"Huh. That's pretty rich coming from someone who threw away their humanity to become a magician, and for what? To rot away in a library?"
"What do you want?" Patchouli asked again with a pained scowl.
Malus moved to Patchouli's side and sank her foot into the magician's ribs. She reveled in the cries of agony and the grimaces she enticed before leaning over and twisting her foot deeper into her victim.
"Oh gods, you're looking at me like I'm the bad guy here. I just want what everybody wants. Power! The power of choice! The power to live, to thrive! No-one will get in my way when I raze this world to the ground..."
"You've... You've lost your mind," Patchouli whimpered, her eyes wide with fear.
"Nope!" Malus pointed her finger at Patchouli and chuckled. "I've got yours to play with! Who knows what kinds of secrets await in there? Spells, incantations, all sorts of good things. All it takes is some... initiative!"
At the last word four shackles came into view and clasped around Patchouli's wrists and ankles. She tried to resist the weight and pull, but when chains held her down to the circular platform she was on she found that she was completely at the mercy of one who was anything but merciful. Malus lifted her foot and smashed it into Patchouli's stomach with a sickening crunch and a yelp of distress from her victim. But she didn't stop there. The lich straddled her warden and placed a hand against her forehead to grip her temple.
"Show me something useful, Patchouli," Malus ordered.
"I'm n-not giving you anything!" Patchouli howled as she struggled against the hand on her forehead. Her touch was too agonizing to bear. "Get off me!"
"Oh, I see! You scattered your knowledge into the void! Making me do all the scavenging, huh?" Malus began to softly caress the mage's cheek before lifting her hand and letting it fly across her face in a slap. She took joy in the smack and look of disgust on Patchouli's face before returning her hand to the forehead. "No matter. I'll find it in due time. But first, let's have some fun! Let's see what you haven't scattered about..."
A subtle tickling flashed through Patchouli's mind and gave her a headache. She could feel Malus' influence pushing through her memory in search of something, anything to use to her advantage. There was no interest in brewing tea or growing flowers, and no care in the world for the old masters and their works of literature. Instead, what Malus searched for went beyond that of a simple synopsis or brew. Patchouli cried out in terror and thrashed about in her shackles when she realized what the lich was going for. A good manipulator wasn't content with one victim; they needed to bring others into their games.
Images of Patchouli's most trusted of friends filtered into Malus' mind. She saw the meek form of a red-haired succubus and frowned when she remembered how she eluded capture. The portrait of a silver-haired elegant maid drifted into view, now marred with cuts and bruises from the recent skirmish. Next came a pleasant memory of a guard sleeping on the job. Malus didn't initially see her as a threat until she saw that the chiseled body wasn't just for show. And finally came the vampire sisters, one dressed in pink, one garbed in white.
A horse cackling came from the back of Malus' throat as she focused on the vampire sisters.
"Found you!" she cried before falling silent. She remained still and glowered at Patchouli for a moment. "Really? Remilia and...? Well, I suppose I can ask her personally."
"Leave them out of this!" Patchouli shouted.
"This? Hoho! This is much bigger than me and you, but I'll let you in on something special." Malus brought her voice to a whisper and cooed into Patchouli's ear. "When I take over this mansion and rip away all that you hold dear... You're going to watch every single moment of it."
"And when you fail, Malus... I'll make you wish you stayed in your prison," the mage growled, stubborn to the end.
"When I fail?"
Malus shook her head and snapped her fingers. The black and purple void around them both swirled into a hurricane of grey and red storms. There were plenty of unidentified shapes and wisps of energy scattered about in the fog around Patchouli's confining platform, and as the mage looked up to the eyes in the sky, she realized that Malus was beginning her search for knowledge. She had scattered her spells and information as best as she could before her mind was taken over and made sure that the most crucial bits were well-hidden in the void. But Malus had quite a lot of time on her hands, and with her storms breaking the void apart in the distance, it was only a matter of time before she found something useful to her.
"I won't fail, Patchouli," Malus purred.
The lich brushed herself off and got up from straddling her warden. With a snap of her heels and a whisk of her robes she turned and vanished off the side of the platform, leaving Patchouli alone in her confinement. The mage coughed and rattled her shackles to no avail and looked up to the swirling void around her with a moan of defeat. Had she control of her mind and resources, she would have broken out of her bindings and retaken her body with her magic. Mind over matter, but when the matter overwhelmed the mind, there was not much to be done but to wait for assistance.
And though it pained her to sit back like some damsel in distress, Patchouli had no choice but to remain where she was. She could only hope that those she cared about would be able to stave off her possessed form.
Author's Note: Because I don't want Patchouli to turn out to be some prop, I decided to write this. Consider it a filler chapter and an update that says "I'm still working on this". Also, please review and comment on things, and criticism is appreciated.