Arc 6. A seemingly endless loss
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 60. A symbiotic relationship in another world
While Soku continues following the crowd of zombies, Rosemary stops some moth huggers, which grab onto your face, preventing airflow and eating your body once you’ve died. Then there’s Edward and Peter waiting on the train to arrive at Constal, while Gray continues battling Ganga. Gray stands up, brushing bits of the judge's broken podium off of himself, and tries to give Ganga a bit of clarity.
Gray: “Look, I didn’t kill Anibis, Conroy, or Carla. I killed Jeremiah because he tried to kill me! And I feel bad for it, and then something took over my body to kill Charlie so it was out of my control, and I let Don live!”
Ganga “SHUT UP! DON’T SAY THEIR NAMES! YOU COULD APOLOGIZE FOR A LIFETIME AND I WOULD STILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU! THOSE WERE MY CHILDREN! AND THEY WILL GET REVENGE…THEIR SOULS WITH LIVE ON WITH ME! AND VANQUISH THE ENEMY.”
Gray: “The enemy? Like the government, or me?”
Ganga begins charging her pushing eye again while flowing the arms out of her OD and coats her arms in the crescent moon-shaped blade.
Gray: “I guess that’s me.”
Gray smirks while trying to think back to any other possible abilities she may have. He rushes her, but right as she releases a four-stage charge, he dodges, letting it destroy a bit of the courtroom.
Gray: “That’ll buff right out.”
Gray {I don’t think Conroy had any powers…and Anibis had some bandages, but they seemed more enchanted than the normal spirit magic the Sect uses.}
Gray struggles to get close because of how randomly the arms seem to be flowing around her. Eight short arms flail around, but another strange thing happens. Her head begins flinging back and forth, like her mind’s breaking open. Gray takes the opportunity to burst forward, going into the spirit state while doing so. But with his newfound control of it, he’s able to fight without much pushback, but it drains his OD. His mana is his ability, but he can only use around sixty percent before his OD shuts down. This sixty percent is still sixty times the normal amount of a normal person, a little bit more than what Soku’s OD holds. But since he can’t fully use his mana, unlike Soku, his mana drains incorrectly, leaking more than needed, wasting it. His stamina and mana are not the same thing, so even if he has mana left, he could be worn out and unable to move, leaving him in a strange position. Not wasting mana while trying to fight, or waste stamina while trying to conserve it, when for most it’s the same thing. Then, using his spiritual state, his mana flows unwillingly, slowly leaking out without his knowledge. Then, his presence forces the spirit's mana-made arms to dissipate, letting him get in close. He swung his sword at her, but unknowingly, she had been charging the pushing side of her eye the entire time, blocking it with her hair.
Gray twists his thrust, using the force to try and help him dodge and push Ganga out of the way, but she moves with him. Now facing the exit of the room, Gana places her hand on Gray’s chest, pushing him with a full six-lair charge. He’s shoved with great force, cracking his bones, and almost ruptures his organs while he goes flying backward. He tumbles through the straight long hallway, rolling and bouncing all the way to the exit. He sits up, falling out of the spiritual state, and holds his head tightly. Gray tries to stand up but throws up trying. While he wipes his face off, he watches Ganga push four arms out of her OD and begin using them as a way of travel, rushing toward Gray. While she does this, she continues to charge her right eye, so Gray needs to do something. He extends his hand and prepares to cast a spell.
Gray: “El-WALNIC!”
Right before she lets off her attack, the thick barrier that is El-Walnic forms, blocking the barrage of arms that smack into the shield. Instead of wasting a charge blast to break his shield, she decides to go even further. She holds out her hand and begins charging her left eye, giving Gray a bad feeling of deja vu. He begins charging the flowing mana spheres that are Titans Impacts under his feet, and right as Ganga’s charge completes, blasts away. The mana flows from her eyes into the palms of her hands, forming a black ball of bubbling mana that bolts off, hitting Gray’s shield right before it crumbles. This blocks a bit of the blast, and right as his crumbled shield and the gravity orb connect, he lets the Titans Impacts explode, sending him flying out of the Court house's door, which is right behind him. The gravity orb is much stronger than what Charlie’s was though, and it begins absorbing everything around it, creating a small black hole. But before it can grow strong enough to destroy the world or something anywhere near that, it turns white and shoots out all of its power. This collapses half of the building, pushing and tearing up the ground outside as well. Gray tries running away, having to run so as to not be attacked.
In just a few seconds, the orb explodes and ends, leaving him gasping for air.
Gray: “DUDE WHAT THE HELL!? This is shit! I wonder if Soku and Rosemary are having as bad a time as me.”
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Gray closes his eyes, trying to go into the astral state to find them, but he’s stopped by a blood-curdling pain in both his head and his OD. The burning sensation in his OD overpowers the strained feeling in his mind, telling him he’s obviously overworking his spiritual connection.
Gray: “DAMMIT! This hurts…I’ve been in the spirit state for way longer before, so why is it hurting now!? I wonder if it’s like trying to open something on a computer, and instead of letting it load, I just keep clicking so everything is lagging…what am I rambling about?”
Gray shakes his head, standing up to see Ganga running out of stamina. She struggles to move, having to use Jeremiah's mana arms to move. Gray watches as she falls to the ground, and right as he’s about to cheer for joy, he hears screaming coming from an office building over five hundred feet away, confusing him to how he actually heard her. Somehow, while he wasn’t focusing, the sound of her cries bounced between the spirits all the way to him.
Gray: “That was Lisa!”
Gray unwittingly lets Ganga remain free as he runs toward Lisa. He tries getting past the pain in his head, but it’s like a hammer smashing his brain in.
It’s exactly five o'clock in the morning, and he’s been running around for all of those five hours, they all have. They all struggle to keep moving, forcing themselves past their normal limits, but it’s not going to last. But then something confusing happens, Rosemary checks her pocket, but feels nothing. Standing in a bloody mess of dead beasts, she gasps when she realizes, the cloak of darkness, the cursed moon shape charm, it’s not there.
In an act of fear, she runs toward the Mayor’s office, but she’s over half an hour away.
Gray breaks through the locked door of the office building and begins searching for Lisa. He’s right about to scream out for her, but he finally slows down. He stops, takes a deep breath, and sits down. Completely calm, he slowly flows into the spirit senses, causing his eyes to turn black and his pupil to turn white. Now, with his heightened senses, closes his eyes and begins to listen. He slowly flows out his astral forms of mana, letting his mind splinter into bits of the spirits around him, causing great and uncomfortable pain. His muscles instinctively tighten, but he has to force himself to calm down. Now, using something that goes much farther than the basic spiritual senses, even the spiritual state, as this is much different.
It’s the complete opposite, instead of using the spirits to strengthen his mind, he uses his mind to strengthen the spirits, which are connected to him, creating a circle of power. He sees flashes of Lisa but through the eyes of a masked man. He feels this man's anger toward the world, how he feels it hates him, how he feels like it will always wrong him, but it begins to go wrong. Lisa cries, screams, and squirms around trying to get free from the unknown man's grasp. As she’s slowly being choked out, the masked man never feels anything for her, he doesn't have a single thought about it. In this clairvoyance-like state, Gray begins to forget who he is. He forgets that he is somebody and not this person filled with flaming hatred. The slim line connecting the two’s minds is strained, but something keeps Gray’s mind in check, something pulls him in, but not to himself, to itself. While Gray sits unconscious, a hidden figure slips something into Gray’s pocket, which seems to want Gray's body all for itself.
Gray, now reminded of his mortality, his body, and who he is, expels his mind from the man and returns to his body. He falls over, holding his head while he kicks his legs in pain, acting like a small child. But for some reason, he knows where the man is, so he pushes past his rattling brain and shrugs down the hall. He dives down the seemingly ever-turning halls, turning left, then right, then left again, and enters a random office. After passing past all of the space to keep hundreds of pieces of paperwork and at least fifteen separate rooms meant for it, Gray knows he’s in there. He kicks down the door, getting face-to-face with the man.
Gray: “Smolder! Let her go!”
Smolder, the Anarchist wearing a black straight jacket-like coat that touches the floor. The red buckles wave around while Lisa squirms, trying not to pass out. Gray stares at the man's strange mask, being black with a dark red flame design on the left side, looking like it’s burning the other side.
Smolder: “I see you’ve met Ganga…now, it’s my turn to put you down.”
Smoler throws Lisa out of the small room, and right before Gray can strike, the ground begins to melt. The wooden floor turns black and burns up, mixing with the earth below, creating lava that glows purple and black. Gray tries to jump over it, but the room quickly melts down, collapsing the ceiling on top of Gray.
Smolder stands safe while Gray quickly casts another spell.
Gray: “WAlNIC!”
He creates a dome around himself, blocking the lava both above and below, surviving the collapsing ceiling. But Smolder puts his hands on the ground, causing even more of the building to begin burning. Lisa, heroically, grabs binders and office supplies, throwing them at Smolder. All this does is annoy him and burn away in the love below, which is surrounding Gray.
Smolder burns through the wall behind him, entering the other room, allowing him to collapse the other room onto Gray, covering him in lava. Lisa is forced to run while Gray’s trapped on all sides. Thinking he’s won, Smolder walks away to the main point of the office building, being to hold most of the information of the city, working as a library. As he walks into the large and open library, he is enthralled by the sight. Three floors are all filled with different books, three floors held up by statues of men and women, representing the people who helped build the city-state. He walks up to one of the statues, slowly turning it to lava. It spreads around to all of the stone, burning through each of the statues and floors. As it begins melting and dripping down, all he can do is laugh in the pure anarchy. Then there’s Gray, who’s still trapped. The sight and sound of the lava trigger another PTSD attack, causing him to return back to Athens, in his mind that his. The sight of a burning city collapsing on itself causes his grasp on the spell to drop, and lava begins seeping through. He tries and tries, pushes and pushes, but all he can do is stop the seemingly inevitable.
Gray: “This is it…being killed by lava isn’t that bad.”
As Gray is about to give up, he becomes confused by this. His wants to live and fight were drained from him for no reason, but before he can do anymore, his mind begins thinking on its own.
{If I use the cloak, I could get past this.}
The voice is similar to his own, though its pitch is inconsistent. While Gray continues to panic, trying not to think of Athens, his OD burns, and his mind struggles to hold together, and this results in his mind answering.
Gray {If I use the cloak right now…if I let it swarm over me, I could push past the lava.}
Then, from within his pocket, something begins to cloak a light purple aura. Without even wearing it, the cloak of darkness emerges. It wraps around Gray, flowing around him like a goo, but it doesn't take the form of the cloak. The moon-shaped charm finds its normal spot, right under his collarbone, on the very top of his chest, and continues spreading to every crack of his body, consuming him completely. While Smolder revels in the burning library, he hears something crumble behind him. He turns to watch Gray burst from within the room, using the cloak as a lair of protection. Gray stands strong, realizing that his sword got left behind in the flooded office.
Smolder: “Mh, I figured you’d live.”
Gray stares at him with such anger and hatred, it’s similar to Edward when he’s in control of the warriors' spirit. The cloak heals its burns, flowing back over Gray’s body, covering his face. He then triggers the spiritual state, completely losing himself to it. Now, completely covered by the cloak like some sort of skin suit, everything on his body is covered but the intense white glow of his eyes, piercing and burning through the cloak.
Gray: “Now…You’ll burn…”
End of Chapter sixty