Chapter .52

As the light faded Alisa stood in a burned down forest, getting a feel for her surroundings Alisa noted the others were with her too.

"Where are we?" Asked Kota.

"We're in Lance's mind." Answered the new type. "This is what sometimes happens when Lance or I resonate, we see into the others head."

Soma shrugged as he got up and found his god arc. "Then we need to find our leader and get him out of the mess he dragged us all into." The team wandered around the woods for sometime, as they got further in the land became more distorted. Large lumps of dirt were ripped out with twisted trees growing from the sides.

"I have a feeling this is going to get worse." Stated Sakuya.

"Don't say that, you just jinxed us all!" Kota warned.

Further in they heard the sounds of combat, rushing to the notice they saw Lance, Kota, Sakuya, and Soma fighting three kongous.

"What are we doing here?" Asked Sakuya.

"Just watch, it's not a memory cause I don't remember fighting off four kongous. Alone or with a team." The others nodded and watched the battle.

...

"There's just no end to this." Complained Kota.

"Seems we need to strike directly at their leader." Said Soma, cutting one of the giant apes.

"If that's the case, then let's get to it!"

Lance shot at the other two, getting them to back away from Sakuya. "Everyone get the leader, I'll hold the line!"

"Be careful." Sakuya gave Lance a thumbs up then led the charge.

One of the kongous got brave and tried to dash past Lance, the leader swung his right arc and landed the hook of the blade around the kongou's back pipe. Lance raised his left arc then brought it down on the aragami's neck. "I won't let you get past me."

The second kongou stood on its hind legs and punched at Lance, Lance slid under its arm and stabbed with his left arc, his right arc switched to gun mode and Lance fired several spark bullets into its wound. When it was dead Lance shoved the body aside, drawing his blade for it.

"Care to dance?" The kongou growled, it curled into a ball and rolled toward Lance, the Gods Eater changed the forms of both his arcs then slammed his left arc's shield against the aragami, stopping it.

Lance shoved the barrel of is left arc into it's mouth, filling it full of spark bombs.

"Whew... it's over. Time to catch up with the others."

"Lan, Lance why?" Lance turned back to see his team on the ground, torn apart. "Why Lance?"

Lance dropped his god arcs, fell to the ground, and backed away from the gore. "No, no way. This can't be!" Backed against a twisted tree he looked at his hands. "H-how did this happen? Did I kill them? Did I kill everyone?"

Lance held his, rocking back and forth. "Nooo, it wasn't me! I didn't do it... I did nothing wrong!"

Appearing before him was a ghostly blue hannibal, the size of a human. "Yes, that's right. You did nothing wrong. It's the world that's wrong."

"The world?"

"If a world such as this didn't exist, you wouldn't have had to kill your loved ones." The ghost offered its hand to Lance.

"A world like that should disappear." Lance responded while getting up.

"That's right... It should vanish. I will lend you my help to make it so. I'll never betray you."

"Thank you."

...

In the distance the others watched to whole event. "This is bad." Said Alisa. " This thing is using his minds weakness against him."

"If we're on Lance's mind, then can't we start with a better memory?" Asked Kota.

Soma chuckled a little. "For once you've had a good idea."

"Hey, you could've been nicer about it."

Sakuya snapped her fingers to get everyone's attention. "Back on topic, we don't know anything about this mind stuff, so let's be careful and try to save Lance. I think we should start with a memory where he feels the safest."

"That's easy, let's go to anything with Alisa in it." At Kota's command the world changed from a twisted forest to the outer ghetto.

In the distance there was Lance again, this time just walking around till he saw Alisa laying face down in the dirt, Lance ran over and slid to get closer to her. "Aly! Aly, come on open your eyes!"

The Alisa woke up and stabbed Lance in the chest with her god arc. "Alisa, why? What did I.." Lance feel to the ground with blood flowing around the arc's blade in his body.

...

After watching Alisa held one hand on her chest while the other tightly held her arc. "This thing is using Lance's memories of us to keep him under control."

"What can we do? What memory would Lance find safer then with Alisa?"

"There is Kota, to the one with his mother."

Everything faded away again, this time the ghetto turned into a house on the edge of a town. The door swings open and Lance stepped out side. "I'm off mom, time to save the world."

Fallowing him a woman stepped outside as well, she had long brown hair with a hint of red, and she wore a simple tan dress and dark boots. "Be well, Lance. I just know you'll become one of the finest Gods Eaters ever seen."

"Not one of the best, THE best mom."

The woman stepped closer and kissed Lance on the forehead. "Please take care dear, I'll be waiting for you to come back a new man."

"I can't take anymore." Said Alisa.

"Me neither." Agreed Soma.

The two walked to the house, drawing the attention of Lance and his mother. "Who are you two?" Asked the mother.

Lance examined the two strangers. "You're..."

"I'm sorry but could you two strangers leave? We're having a family dictation."

"Mom it's okay they're..." Lance stuttered to find the words.

"Just believe in us Lance." Alisa held his shoulder while Soma cut his mother down, causing her to disappear.

Lance waved off Alisa and backed away. "What the hell? Where's my real mother?"

"She's not here leader." Soma kicks some dirt where the fake was. "We're in your head trying to get you out."

"My, head? That's right." Lance held up and stared at his hands. " I saw Alisa die, I gave up on living and let the aragami take over."

Alisa wrapped her arms around Lance, holding tightly. "I didn't die, you power can be fool. The vajra's thunder stopped my heart, but we have defibrillators in our armlets to revive us."

Lance wrapped his arms around Alisa, returning the hug. "Then let's fix what's broken and get out of here."

Lance and the scenery faded back to the twisted forest, just after the ghost hannibal held up Lance.

"That's right... It should vanish. I will lend you my help to make it so. I'll never betray you."

"Thank you."

...

Behind some trees the returned to the scene, this time with Lance. "Do I... really believe any of this?" Lance asked.

This time Sakuya rubbed his back. "No, you just need to believe in yourself Lance. Would you really hurt us, your friends?"

Lance hung his head in thought. "Believe in myself, yeah. Yeah, I'd never hurt any of you!"

...

In the distance the other Lance punched the ghost. "What's wrong, Lance?"

Lance took another swing at the ghost. "Lair! This is all just a fake world you make up!"

"What are you saying, I-"

"YOU killed everyone! Be gone deceiver!"

The ghost hannibal backed away then vanished. "Tch, I've failed. But your mind is still in my grasp! You can't escape me!"

The other Lance faded away while the real one put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "I'm alright, so what's next?"

Everything faded again, returning to the outer ghetto. Lance noticed Alisa lying on the ground, Lance started to run towards her till Kota tackled him down. "The hell was that for Kota?"

Alisa got up and shot at Lance, who dodged to side of the bullet. Aimed his own god arc at Alisa and fired, the fake dropped its weapon and just stood there.

"What are you!?" Yelled Lance.

"What, you've already forgotten?" The fake sneered. "I'm astounded by the human mind's ability to forget that which is inconvenient for it."

"Inconvenient? Something... inconvenient."

"Lance you have to remember, they said Alisa was hit with the vajra's thunder attack and you thought she died." Kota patted Lance's shoulder to reassure his friend. "She's still alive, she even lead the charge to find you."

Lance swung his arm, summoning a god arc. "That's right! Then I gave up and let this thing take control." Lance changed his weapon to gun mode, pointing it at the fake Alisa. "Hey, you let me out and give my body back."

The angered new type shot the fake with divine bombs, leave nothing but burn marks on the ground. "And don't you dare to insult Alisa." The world faded away once more, as everything settled Lance found his team was there with him. In a field with a big tree that was devoid of leafs.

"Lance!" Alisa tackled Lance down, holding him tightly. "It's you, we finally found you."

"Aly, you really are alive." Lance got up and scanned over his team. "Thank you everyone, I'm-"

"Don't you even think about saying sorry." Said Soma. "If you want to apologize, then stop doing everything on you're own."

Kota patted his chest, trying to look tough. "Yeah we're a team, and that means your problems are our problems."

A load roar echoed across the field, a gray hand broke out of the ground beside the tree. The demi god rose from the earth.

Lance put up his fists as the rest of his team formed a circle around him. Behind them the ghostly blue hannibal appeared, growing to full hannibal sizes and becoming solid.

Lance walked towards the aragami, away from his team. "Lance?" Asked Sakuya.

"This is caligula, my inner aragami. This is my demon and I have to be the one to kill." Lance turned back to the others with a grin. "I could use you help by keeping the demi god off my back though."

Soma took his god arc off his shoulder, now in a fighting stance. "Just hurry up and beat that monster."

Kota looked back and forth between the two adversaries. "But isn't that demi god thing also you?"

"No, it's just a program in my biometal. We'll get rid of it after we get out of here."

"Then leave it to us." Said Sakuya.

"Lance."

"Aly?"

"Win, and promise to come back home."

Lance gave her thumbs up. "When did I give to a sigh that I'd loss?"

The fighters approached their targets, Kota and Sakuya took aim while the others readied they're swords.

Lance swung his arm to summon his god arcs. The caligula breathed ice to stop Lance's march, the new type pointed his left arc at his foe. "Hope you got your affairs is order, cause I'm going star burst stream on your candy ass."

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