King lunged across the battlefield at near super speed, Andras barely having time to block his attack, King knew he couldn't out power Andras so instead he jumped back.

"Orpheus! Focus!" King commanded, a red spiral floating through King's body, Andras and his black wolf charged, and King jumped out the way.

"Persona change! Grim Reaper!" King commanded again in the air, once he landed he put his hand to his mask, "Grim Reaper, use Agilo!"

The attack that came out felt and looked different, a bigger explosion of fire, one that heavily damaged Andras and knocked him down, King quickly switched back to Orpheus and felt something knew rise up from his Persona.

"Orpheus, use Tarunda!" He commanded, and noticed that skill seemed to make Andras weaker, as he was suddenly having a bit of trouble holding up that big sword.

King grinned. A bit of smugness leaking into his personality. "Not so tough now huh?" King chided, then charged, Andras tried to block King's sword but was still too weak to raise his and because of that the sword cut through Andras' body, blood splattering.

Andras was dead, but his wolf wasn't, and looked pissed. It howled in rage, a howl loud enough King was sure it could probably be heard at the top of the mountain.

Suddenly the wolf grew in size and kept growing until it was the size of a bus and glared down at King in contempt. King wanted to believe that the whimper was not from him.

The wolf slammed it's head into King and sent him flying, smashing him into the side of a building, pain exploding through his body as he saw stars.

When he regained his senses he noticed the now massive wolf holding the great sword in it's mouth and charging, King, letting a curse out scrambled to his feet yanking his hand to his mask.

"Persona!" He yelled, and Grim Reaper came up in front of him to block the swing from the wolf, with less than impressive results as the wolf powered right through Grim Reaper and straight into King though he was lucky enough to unbalance the wolf, so instead of the sharp part of the blade the flat part of it hit instead, once again sending King across the battlefield.

King hit the ground with a hard thud, and for a moment he couldn't move due to the pain, he suddenly wanted to give up, give up and just let himself die. Yet he didn't understand why.

Why, if he felt like this, was he-against all cohesive thought- standing up again?

He had an idea, though he was to stubborn to admit it, he felt something completely new rise up inside him, not a skill. No, something else.

Something he somehow new how to do, one final time he put his hand to his mask, watching through his fingers the wolf once again charging.

"Manifest, Persona's!" King commanded, and nearly collapsed as Orpheus and Grim Reaper came out at the same time, stopping the wolf in it's tracks, suddenly wary of it's predicament.

King was tired, so tired he could barely see, barely stand. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for six months. But if he did that… Shiho would die. So he ignored these feelings. And called out one more time.

"Orpheus, Grim Reaper… Agidyne!" He yelled, his Personae lifting their hands in unison. The wolf howled again and lunged, but a burst of fire that leveled the ground in front of them hit the wolf, howling in pain as it dropped the great sword and flew back.

King barely had time to sigh in relief as he passed out, and barely registered someone wearing a tengu masked catching him as he fell.

LINE BREAK Akira

"Damn, I'm already tired of this fighting. I'm really rusty." Joker complained as he moved along, finishing off another shadow as Crow used Robin Hood to blast another.

"Tell me about it, I was basically made from stuff like this and I'm still tired out already." Mona sympathized, sending a cat smile Joker's way.

"Once we get used to this again it'll be smooth sailing though." Panther said.

"I wonder how the other group is doing?" Queen wondered.

"If there anything like I remember then they should be fine yes, plus your new addition." Crow said.

"Our addition, your part of the team now too after all, for better or worse." Mona said, a gentle smile on his face.

Crow smiled sadly, "I'm afraid it's not that easy, I'm still half expecting Oracle to snuff me out when I'm not paying attention and am almost certain Noir will try to kill me the second she sees me, Queen's already punched me, you've already bit me and Panther's already bopped me in the head."

"It was only out of concern or your total wellbeing." Oracle said, a dangerous smile on her face.

"I was unaware that was a new way of showing concern." Crow responded dryly earning a chuckle from the group.

Suddenly, the group heard a howl so loud it seemed to resonate throughout their entire bodies, only Joker and Crow seemed to stay calm.

"W-what the hell was that!" Panther asked, panic in her voice.

"It would seem the other group has found themselves in a fight, and from the sound of it it's one hell of a shadow." Crow said.

"We have to help them!" Joker said and pointed in the direction of the howl "Let's move quickly!"

Before they could get anywhere however they were suddenly found themselves surrounded by more shadows, which quickly changed into their true forms, three Bicorns, and three Mandrakes.

"Damnit we don't have time for this!" Queen said and looked towards Crow and Joker. "You two go on ahead, we can handle these guys!"

"Hell no! I'm not leaving you guys!" Joker protested.

"I don't think it'd be tactical to split the group up even more." Crow said calmly.

"Look damnit!" Queen exploded. "They could die out there if that shadow is a strong as it sounds, they only have four people one of them is an amateur. We're the veterans here- we can handle this!"

Joker still wanted to protest, but the glare his girlfriend sent him made him nod reluctantly. He turned to the former wild card. "C'mon, we need to move quickly."

"Right." Crow said, following his leader as he took off through the underbrush, after a few minutes they came out to an area with surprisingly little foliage. It looked like the highway, and by the green sign hanging over the street it was.

Joker's knees got shaky as he saw all his friends unconscious along with a dead Andras.

"That's strange, don't shadows usually disappear when killed?" Crow questioned.

Joker was in sensory overdrive and didn't really register what Crow was saying, he watched in frustrated awe as King took on the shadow by himself, Joker noticed that King had somehow gotten himself a new weapon and different Persona.

"So that's the new wild card user? He does fight like a total amateur." Crow said, which Joker still didn't really hear, just watched as Lucas was flung across the highway street, slowly getting to his feet.

"C'mon, he's gonna lose if we don't help him." Crow said, running forward to aid King, Joker shaking out of his daze followed after Crow to help.

He never got the chance, neither of them did. Because suddenly, King somehow manifested both of his Persona's at the same time, and he got his second look at Grim Reaper, the manifestation of King's will.

"Orpheus, Grim Reaper, Agidyne!" King yelled out voice cracking as his Personae let out a massive blast of fire, sending the shadow flying.

King's leg's buckled, but Crow was already catching him and gently lowering him to the ground, Joker was worried he was dead, but was relieved to find him just unconscious.

"I know you saw that, he just used two Personae at the same time. He's a very different wild card than you are, or what I was." Crow said, admiration clear in his voice. Not jealousy Joker noticed.

"Yea, he in himself is a total anomaly." Joker agreed.

Joker's ears twitched as he heard a whimpering sound, and was mildly shocked to find the black wolf still alive, struggling to walk as it limped over to the dead Andras, sitting down beside it and rubbed its nose against the Andras' face, crying over it's dead master.

Sadness pinged in Joker's chest, and was unaware of the sad look on Crow's face. "It's still alive it seems, poor being, I doubt it really has any will to fight now." Crow said, sympathy in his face.

"Shadows… Have emotions too, but I've never seen one grieve before." Joker said, Crow hummed in thought.

"Do you think… they're evolving somehow?" Crow questioned, but not to anybody in particular, then shook his head. "It's best not to think about that, makes it harder for us to do what we have too, we should wake up the other's and get them out of here, I mean hey, we're already at the bottom of the mountain after all."

Joker was mildly shocked to realize Crow was right, somehow, despite their condition King's group had made it to the bottom of the mountain first. Joker didn't realize until now that he was treating it like a competition, as the twinge of defeat rang in his chest.

"Guys!" A voice called out for them, they both turned as the rest of their group came running up, only minor cuts and bruises on them.

"Woah! What the hell happened here? And why is that shadow not fighting you guys? And why are our friends unconscious?" Panther asked.

Crow and Joker looked at each other and sighed in unison. Then they explained what they saw as the group woke up the clocked out ones. Who which utterly freaked out when they saw Crow alive which caused more explaining.

It was a very stressful twenty minutes for group B.

"Woah! King can use multiple Personae at the same time? That's wicked." Skull said, rubbing at his head where it was hurt.

"It seems like there's something interesting with every wild card, one's a great leader, one can use two Personae at the same time, and the other one is a psychopathic murderer that deserves to be locked up." Noir said the last part with a murderous glare at Crow.

Crow looked away and said nothing, though his shoulders did sag a bit. He wasn't surprised at all, in fact he was expecting worse, but that doesn't mean he had to like it.

"A-anyway." Queen began. "It seems like the shadow version of Christopher knows more than he lets on, including the real one."

"Yes, but we have no way of knowing exactly what they know though." Fox said.

"Leave that to me." Oracle said and everyone looked at her.

"I can hack into his phone, look at his texts, his call history. Etc. It seems you all still underestimate me." She said with a smug smile on her face.

"I can provide assistance if need be." Crow said, but Oracle was already shaking her head.

"No, no. You wouldn't be much help pretty boy. Your more of a detective than a hacker. I can do it on my own. In the meantime." Futaba said as she looked at the still unconscious King. "We're gonna have to find a place for him to stay. I don't know if you guys-or even him- have thought about it, but once we change this creeps heart where is he gonna go?"

Everyone went silent at that save for Crow who was looking at everybody confused. Joker came to the disturbing conclusion that no one had really thought about that.

"Cross that bridge later. We have to get out of here, next time we come here we start the climb up the mountain." Joker said earning nods from everybody. "Alright, let's go."

LINE BREAK Lucas?

"Lucas? Lucas!" A beautiful women that wasn't unlike Lucas with her looks called. She had been looking for him around the neighborhood for almost thirty minutes.

Eventually she found him by the abandoned train tracks with other neighborhood children. The women smiled softly as she watched them playing, her son being the leader of one team, and his best friend Alice on the other, her dyed blue hair swaying in the wind.

Eventually Lucas noticed her. "Mommy? What are you doing here you should be in bed." The bouncy seven-year-old said sternly, running into his mother's arms. His mother had always been sickly, nearly dying during childbirth it wasn't until years later though they found it was cancer.

She laughed with joy and smiled as Alice came up to the both of them, a teasing smirk on her face. "Mommy's boy." She said and laughed as Lucas blushed a bright red.

"Hey now! That's no way to treat your leader!" Lucas protested still blushing, Alice rolling her eyes, Lucas' mother suppressing a smile. Some girls when they liked a guy would tease and bully them, and she had been around long enough to notice a girl crush when she sees them.

"Now, now." Lucas' mother chided gently. Then looked at her pride and joy. "Your fathers coming home today, I've been looking for you! Come along little leader."

"Daddy's coming home? Awesome!" Lucas said excitedly, waving bye and following his mother.

The memory shifted, and suddenly an older Lucas, about thirteen, was hiding behind the wall listening to his parents argue, it had been happening a lot recently, and they were growing more and more.

"Rebecca I don't want you to worry about me when you should be taking care of yourself!" His father yelled.

"I cant worry about myself Michael, there's so many bills to pay since you were discharged from the army, and now your working at a desk job while I'm doing nothing!" His mother yelled right back.

"You have cancer Rebecca! I don't want you straining yourself anymore than you have to, especially since you also have to deal with the kid!"

"The 'kid' has a name and is our sonMichael, and Lucas is very independent, he's like you in many ways!"

"He's nothing like me, he's weak and pathetic, those leader qualities he showed years ago are long gone and now he's just wasting space." His father snapped.

Lucas could almost hear his mothers shoulders sag. "Y-you don't mean that." She said weakly.

He heard a sigh that could have only come from his father. "I don't… I'm so sorry Rebecca, I love you and Lucas… I'm just so stressed right now. I need a drink." Lucas heard footsteps but before he could move his father appeared in front of him.

Michael looked like a deer in the headlights. "Lucas?" He reached out for his son, Lucas recoiling like he'd been poisoned, running up the stairs, ignoring his father calling out for him.

He put his hand on the door to his room, but the memory shifted again. Not his mother and his father, but him and his best friend Alice, sitting on the railings of an old bridge. Both seventeen years old.

"Those cuts… where did you get them." Lucas stated, looking at the marks on her wrists. It wasn't a question.

"You already know." Alice said looking away, her now natural brown hair swaying, Lucas sighed.

"Why." Lucas said, once again It wasn't a question, he could think of many reasons, her father hitting her, her mother's drugs, her father trying to rape his own daughter. The only solace being the fact that Lucas nearly killed Alice's father, but instead had him locked up forever.

But her mothers drug problems and the scars of the past were still present in her mind. Lucas knew that, and he thought he had it bad at times, with his mothers cancer and fathers increasing mood swings at least he still clearly loved the both of them, Alice didn't have that.

"You already know why." Alice said, looking but not really looking at him, it broke Lucas' heart.

"I'm moving soon, I don't know where." Alice suddenly said looking straight ahead., Lucas' eyes widened, and his mouth went dry.

"W-when?" Lucas asked, and Alice did look at him this time, a small smirk on her face, a smirk that reminded him of the old Alice.

His Alice.

"What? Gonna come give me a goodbye kiss?" she teased, not realizing Lucas was steeling his nerves.

"No." He said getting up and moving close to her. "I'm gonna do that right now." He said and took her lips with his own, Alice stiffened in shock for a brief moment before wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her hands in his hair absorbing herself into the kiss.

When he pulled away they were both flushed and breathing slightly harder than normal.

"I don't know if I love you." Alice said, and Lucas snorted.

"I don't know if I love you either." He said smirking, and to his surprise Alice laughed, albeit a partially hollow sound.

"Wow." She breathed still laughing a little. "Are we this broken, that we can make out and not love each other?"

"Desperate to feel something I suppose." Lucas said, smiling and pulled away completely from her sitting back down on the railing, Alice was mildly surprised how cold it felt without him even though it was the middle of summer. "Maybe we've been broken for a long time."

"Who know's?" Alice pondered, looking up at the blue sky before turning to him. "I do know I am gonna miss you though."

"We've been friends for years, I'd be a bit insulted if you didn't." Lucas quipped smiling.

"I don't think 'friends' have sex and kiss each other." Alice pointed out.

"Not the point I'm trying to make." Lucas rolled his eyes. "And we haven't had sex in a long time, not that I'm counting."

"Hey, no matter what you can't say I don't have good p-"

"ENOUGH." Lucas said, voice a bit higher pitched making Alice pitch into giggles, eventually the laughter died down and they sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of nature.

"It's going to be dark soon, we should probably head back." Lucas said, the sun slowly slipping behind the trees.

"Right… This is probably the last time we'll see each other." Alice noted.

"Probably." Lucas said, looking at his best friend.

"I'd say I love you, but that'd sound wrong." Alice said and Lucas rolled his eyes and smirked at her.

"Whatever. I'm gonna head back later. My father wont be home till later." Lucas said, turning back out to watch the horizon. The country area's of Ohio not to far from it's capital.

"Yea, yea. See you Lucas." Alice said and started walking, and as Lucas watched her walk, he knew that would be the last time he'd see her.

The memory shifted again, this one very recent, right before he came to Tokyo, right after his mother's death. Two days after. He was walking home, as mechanized as everything else for the last two days had been.

He numbly walked up to his own home, a simple home not unlike the one's those 1800's factory workers had, but a bit bigger. He had a bad feeling, though since his mother's passing he always had those.

When he waked into his house and saw his father, hanging from the ceiling, veins popping from his forehead and face blued, eyes bulging. It took him almost thirty seconds to react.

"Oh." He said, staring at his father's corpse.

"Oh!" He said, staring at his father's corpse.

"OH GOD NO!" He said, staring at his father's Fucking corpse.

Lucas sprinted out of the house screaming bloody murder for help, quickly other residents came out, and Lucas barreled into one sobbing, incoherent, and old woman by the name of Mrs. Harris.

He didn't hear Mr. Harris running inside the house.

He didn't hear the shocked screams.

He didn't hear the attempts to calm the sobbing eighteen-year-old.

He didn't hear the sirens.

He didn't hear his name being called as he started running.

He didn't even hear his own sobs, though he felt them.

He didn't anything.

He just didn't.

Lucas woke up with a gasp, and for a moment wondered where he was, a big room clearly, but not his room, he was in a cold sweat and was shaking made worse by the fact that he was alone in the room.

He staggered out of the bed feeling drained, and slowly trudged over to the steps leading downstairs, mildly shocked when he saw that he was in Leblanc.

And that the rest of the Phantom thieves were downstairs, minus Shiho, but plus one person he didn't know, staring at him in concern.

Akira stood up. "Your awake." He said, relief in his voice.

Lucas nodded. "I'm awake."

"Are you okay?" He asked, confusing Lucas.

"Uh… Yea? I feel fine if not a little tired." He said.

The rest of the phantom thieves looked at each other with pinched faces confusing Lucas even more.

"W-what's going on here? Why are you all acting like that?" He asked, slightly worried himself now.

More looking, and more silence until Lucas couldn't take it anymore. "What the hell's wrong?" He demanded.

Makoto stood up and walked over to him and took a deep breath.

"Lucas?" Makoto asked.

"Yes?"

"Who's Alice?" She asked.

Lucas' eyes widened, and his mouth went dry.

Oh shit.

A/N: Boom! Back at it again with another chapter. I have recovered from being sick and am ready to pump out this chapter, had a lot of fun writing this one and loved to delve into Lucas' past a little.

I hope you all don't hate me too much for how I portrayed Lucas in his dream memories. But for some reason writing him like that felt right too me.

Gleamfang: Thanks for the encouragement to get better, totally what helped me a lot lol. I hope this tells you how Lucas is a different wildcard, with the two personae and the dream memories sequence. And yes, Akechi is gonna be one of the mainer characters of the story and I show this bipolarism because I want to make it known while they are happy to see him and have him back. It's not completely okay and they are conflicted on how to feel.

Serpent1234: Dude, please don't be sorry I love the fact that you are so enthusiastic about this story. It makes me smile for real, and even while sick I was writing this story because I WANTED to, not because I felt obligated.

That's all guys! Enjoy this chapter, I'm feeling this story hard right now.