Switched

The masked figure swung its flail and its silver chains extended towards Alan. Alan parried the attack with a small fireball as he attempted to close the gap between the two. As he raised his blade, a silver doll appeared in front of the masked figure and took the blow for him. The masked figure then disappeared into a silver mist as Alan lept back in annoyance.

"Why didn't you use his power?" Alice said with no emotion in his head.

Alan did have a chance to respond as the sound of chains filled the empty night. Alan had a bad feeling and decided to call forth his mist and use it as a smokescreen. Just as he did that, multiple spike balls appeared in different directions, each of them destroying the surface they landed on. One of the spike balls grazed Alan's cheek while he was in the mist. He held back his tongue to prevent him from revealing himself to the enemy. But unfortunately for Alan, the small amount of blood was enough information to alert the enemy.

"THERE!" The figure said as he summoned ten more spike balls towards the one area that Alan was hit at.

"Not enough time!" Alan said out loud as tried to duck. Four for the spike balls came from above while the other six came from below. "Prohibere tempus!" Time came to a stop as Alan tried to escape the oncoming spikes. However, Alan was unable to move from within his mist.

"What!?" He cried out in dismay as he stared directly at the spike balls.

"Heh heh…" A familiar voice was heard laughing in a mocking way. "The mist works the same way water does when time comes to a stop." The voice then faded away as time began to flow again.

At least knowing where the spikes were headed, Alan quickly jumped and positioned himself parallel to the ground allowing the spikes to miss. He then landed and rushed out of his mist with the Crimson Princess in hand, scanning the area for the masked figure.

"Left!" Alice called out and Alan moved to the left. Within seconds, a spike ball the size of a car came hurtling towards the spot he was once at. The large ball collided with the apartment building and destroyed three rooms that were located on the first floor. The spike ball then was slowly pulled back revealing blood and guts on it. Alan quickly turned back to face the destroyed building and spotted a barely recognizable pile of red and pink mush that vaguely resembles a human embedded onto a destroyed bed.

"I need to escape this area," Alan said to Alice while glancing at the damage the masked figure caused with his magical flail. "Can you help?"

"Why," Alice responded with a despairing tone, "you're gonna die anyway. She's too strong for you to fight."

"She?" Alan looked at the masked figure and examined it. He couldn't find anything on the figure that resembled a woman.

"Dumbass, not the puppet, the puppeteer." Alice was confident in knowing who their attacker was. "Pupagenti is a woman from my time who specializes in alchemy. She is also known as the creator of the nanomasses."

"What!?" Alan blurted out loud, causing the masked figure to spin its fail once more. "Ngh!" Alan looked at his right hand and noticed black markings forming. The marking burned through his clothes.

"I have an idea, if you can achieve this plan of mine, then I'll fight with you till the end. If you can't, then well you're kinda dead." Alice spoke as the figure slowly walked towards Alan. "I've given up hope the second I realized she was our opponent. She is the reason why we lost the war against God. She let her pride get the best of her and sought after the same power we had wished to destroy during the war."

The figure threw its flail and Alan's arm moved by itself and caught by the chain. The arm gripped onto the chain with enough force to cause his hand to bleed. The figure pulled back on the chain in an attempt to free it from Alan, however, his grip was much stronger than the figure had anticipated.

"I want you to kill her and take her weapon." Alice continued, "If my theory is correct, then you should be able to wield multiple of us, assuming that Chronos is actually just like me that is."

The masked figure then raised its left hand and called a silver mist and brought small mechanical silver dolls. The dolls then charged at Alan with a small dagger in both their hands. Alan let go of the chain as the black markings receded and he summoned a large fireball and shot it at the ground. The shockwave blasted Alan and the dolls away at a high velocity. As Alan was airborne due to the blast, black markings reappeared on his body as he slammed into a nearby building, destroying the wall. Alan got up and leaped out of the area, hoping that the fireball could be enough to buy him some time to escape.

"Alice...A WARNING WOULD BE NICE!" Alan said with a pissed-off attitude.

"Look, it was your fireball. And besides, if I didn't take control of your body during that, you would have been a pancake on that wall. Now praise me."

"I'll only praise Renne like that, It's creepy when you ask like that." Alice then punched Alan in his balls. "!?!!!! W...why!!!!"

"I was testing to see if you felt pain when I took control of your body, and it looks like you do." Alice smiled as she felt no regrets in what she did. "And before you ask, no I do not feel anything you feel as I control you. Hints the reason for this inhuman strength."

"What do you mean…?" Alan groaned.

"In simple terms, the human mind restricts the body from using all of its strength due to the possibility of self-inflicted injury. But while a nanomass soul takes control of the body, they can use all of its strength without the worry of filling pain." Alice, in control of Alan's body, lept to the top of a large building that overlooked a highway leading to the Southern District.

"!?" Alan felt the pain as she jumped from the ground to the top of the building.

"Thanks to your fire ability, that hurt you way less. But you will feel pain from anything that I do. With no mental limiter, I cannot control the strength of your body." Alice said with a menacing smile. "So next time you put that girl over me, you'll feel it." She twisted Alan's right hand into a fist and aimed at his nuts once more.

"Hurt me all you like you sadist. I will not be threatened into changing how I feel about others." Alan responded in a forced strong tone as Alice punched his nuts.

Alice sighed and shook her head, "I warned you, but I like that you're loyal and honest." She giggled softly.

"More like I don't feel anything towards you-" Alan felt another blow to the sack.

"Heh heh, you don't have to be that honest," Alice said in a low growl.

"Why are all the women around me crazy…?" Alan sighed as he looked through the eyes of Alice. He then noticed four figures fighting on the highway. "Alice!"

"I know." Alice then quietly sped towards the fighting without worrying about Alan's health. As she lept from building to building, with the help of Alan's fire ability, she eventually made it to the four figures fighting.

"Renne and Boss!?" Alan spoke out in surprise. Alice summoned her blade and launched herself off the final roof before aiming towards a weakened masked figure. As she soared through the air, she performed a front flip with her blade in front, leaving behind a crimson trail in the sky that resembled rose petals. Renne noticed and called out.

"WAIT!!!!" But unfortunately for them, Renne's word came too late and Alice's blade made contact with the masked figure, and their body split in half.

Alan gave a pained groan as Alice landed after her attack and the other masked figure took its opportunity to strike at Renne who was staring at Alice, who is still controlling Alan's body, with a disappointed look. As the figure launched itself at Renne, Alice attempted to move towards Renne but realized that she wouldn't make it in time. So in desperation, she tried to use Chronos' power.

"Prohibere tempus!" However, when Alice spoke this, time did not stop. "Huh!?"

Then within a second, Sawyer ran up and shoved Renne out of the way and he turned back to Alice with a faint smile as he was decapitated by the masked figure. Blood spewed from his neck and onto Renne as his head rolled towards Alice. Staring at the body with disbelief, Renne stood up with a weird motion as if she was being controlled by strings and glared at the masked figure that killed Sawyer. While Renne and the figure had a stare-off, a strange rumbling noise came from behind them. Alice turned around to check what that noise was and spotted a large metal doll staring at them.

"..." Alice stared at the metal doll with pity as she channeled fire into her blade to superheat it. After a few seconds, the Crimson Princess glowed bright orange and she leaped into the air and performed another font flip, to allow her swing to have more force, and sliced off the doll's arm. The arm came crashing down with enough force that the road below cracked around the surrounding area. She landed gently on the ground and stared at the doll who was now preparing to use its remaining arm to crush her.

"What the hell is that!?" Alan asked in awe as he stared at the large doll with a glint of excitement. Alice noticed this and bit his lip with enough force for it to bleed. "Ow, what was that for?"

"Don't look at this with those eyes." She spoke out loud in her natural tone, forgetting that she can be overheard by Renne, who was fighting the remaining masked figure with rage in her eyes. "This doll is controlled by that person I accidentally killed. These dolls were the prototypes that led to the creation of nanomasses. That twisted human created these dolls to serve as vessels to contain the souls of the lost before realizing that she could create nanomasses that were much more effective."

Renne's ear twitched as overhear Alan talking to himself and black markings appeared on her arms and her weapon transformed into a partisan. She then called her mist and vanished inside of it. The masked figure that was fighting her seemed to panic after losing sight of Renne and called forth its mist. However, just before it could summon any dolls, Renne jumped out of her mist and pierced the figure's heart. She then kicked the body into the air with a swift motion and sliced off its right arm. As the body fell to the ground, its missing right arm became consumed with black markings, and small dolls, the size of a coin, appeared from it. She then looked back at Alice who was currently midair after using the large doll's arm as a launchpad. She then blasted herself towards the large doll's neck and spun in a graceful circle midair and sliced its head clean off.

"Woah…" Alan was left speechless by witnessing Alice's fighting style as she took a bow to the fallen metal doll.

"Impressed or what!?" Alice said out loud, unaware that Renne began to slowly walk towards her with a small knife she picked up from the masked figure she killed. "See, even I can do things better than that shorty-"

"Start talking." Alice was interrupted by a sharp knife fixated on her throat. Alice looked behind her without moving and saw purple hair in her peripheral vision. She also felt another hand grip her left hand, which held the Crimson Princess.

"Fuck." Alice said to Alan.

"You could just, I don't know, maybe RETURN MY BODY!" Alan tried to reason with Alice.

"I can't, well not yet at least…" Alice trailed off, "...I got it!"

"Renne, my dear, why are you holding me like this?" Alice said in a monotone way to mimic Alan's personality. Alice then flashed an awkward small as Alan fussed at her.

"Don't play games with me. Alan would never call me that." Renne held the knife closer to Alice's throat. Realizing that she is a lot more perceptive than she originally thought, Alice scowled at her and spoke in an annoyed tone.

"Fine, I'll tell you all that I can, but lower the knife. Alan can feel everything you do, I can't." Renne, wanting to trust the mysterious person controlling the boy that she felt close to, lowered her knife.