16 Celestial battle

Alice unleashed an onslaught of punches, kicks, and slices upon James who elegantly parried each and pushes her back. It wasn't long before Alice exploded into an aura of dark energy and was just able to be on par with James' speed and power. In the commotion of the fight, Liam was just able to bend his restraints and get out before helping the rest of the group. They had to hold off the rest of the darkness troops and stop them from helping Alice. Izzy ran for the ship to get their weapons while the others stayed behind and fought off hundreds of troops using their abilities to hold most of them back at the entrance of the tunnel and only letting small amounts through to take them down one by one. Back inside the cave, James focused his energy and slashed his sword sending an arc of flames towards Alice who held out her scythe and absorbed it before sending it back - this time an arc of dark energy.

"Give up James! This is for the good of the people of Asuria!" shouted Alice, her voice deepened and distorted from the large amount of dark energy flowing through her body and destroying her mind. James knew this cave was too small to fight in and fired a ball of energy at the ceiling of the cave making a large hole that lead outside. He propelled himself with his energy making it seem like he was flying and was followed by Alice jumped, hooked onto the side of the hole, and threw herself up and out. Keeping her momentum going, Alice scraped the lip of the hole, sending her into a vertical spin and expelled energy from the back of the scythe's blade to turn herself into a vertical bey-blade of dark and destructive energy. James brought himself into a stance with his right leg bent behind him and his left leg straight in front. He waited until Alice was about a metre away from him before shifting his weight forward and swinging his sword into Alice's side bringing her to a sudden stop and launching her sideways like a batter in a game of baseball. Alice slammed the blade of the scythe into the ground to stop herself and tilted her head up to look at James. Her stance was hunched over like an animal and her body wasn't humane any more and was now a human shaped, melting blob of dark energy. She was gradually losing her mind and was being consumed by the celestial weapon of darkness, being turned into a mindless puppet used to achieve one goal - destroy the one who wields the weapon of flames.

James burst into an aura of flames and used blitz once more. This time, he knew he didn't need Josie and the power of the Goddess of fire was all he needed. This way, his flaming aura was lighter in colour and spheres of light were also generated from his aura. James and Alice charged at each other once again and their weapons collided sending a shock wave of energy out into the depths of the planet and the expanse of space. It cause the darkness troops to topple and Izzy, who has found the weapons in a storage box on the ship, fell and spilt the contents onto the floor. Alice heard the clatter of the weapons, whipped round and stared at Izzy with an evil grin. She didn't take long to place herself behind Izzy with the blade of her weapon pressed against Izzy's throat.

"You will destroy the crystal - olsw - and end the Asurians - wslhzl - once and for all!" Alice's words were more distorted than ever and her body was indistinguishable. Izzy's eyes were wide and she dared not make any movement lest she lose her head. James went out of blitz and lowered his sword.

"Just don't hurt anyone." asked James. Alice tilted her head and let out a psychotic laugh.

"Don't tell me what to do," she said and she took the blade away from Izzy's neck and rammed it into her back and through her heart "follow my orders and no one else has this done to them." Izzy coughed up blood and Alice yanked out the blade leaving a large stab wound like the one James' dad had when he had been murdered.

Alice stepped back to admire her work while James ran for Izzy. He slide across the floor and stopped next to Izzy. He picked her up, rested her body on his and held his hand over the stab wound to stop more blood from escaping. Izzy started to cry and looked and James with fading eyes.

"Tell Liam," she coughed up some more blood "that he was the best brother I could ever have asked for." James held her closer, started to cry himself, and looked Alice in the eyes with hatred as he said:

"I will tell him, and he would've been proud to have you as his sister." Izzy breathed in sharply and slowly exhaled as her last shreds of life faded away. James closed his eyes but felt something cold under his chin. He opened his eyes again and found Alice holding the tip of her scythe's blade, still wet with Izzy's blood, to his neck.

"Don't forget our arrangement." she said. James slowly set Izzy's body down, picked up his sword, and walked back to the cave followed by Alice. When they reached the wave of darkness troops, Alice clapped twice and they quickly moved out of the way. Liam looked at James who was covered in blood and then looked at his sister's body in the distance. James placed a hand on Liam's shoulder and whispered:

"She said you were the best brother she could ever have." Liam collapsed onto his knees and with that James left the group to walk down to the crystal were Jack greeted them with a both relieved and mocking smile.

"Welcome back." he said as James walked back up to the platform and watched as Alice placed the tip of her weapon on the crystal and began to drain it of it's energy.