Universal Heroes- Book 3

8~5

Denis
When we returned to the place, Nyeka and Alex were surprisingly still there. Given that she had all the time in the world to escape, this could only mean she wanted all of us out of the picture before she moved onto world domination. Weird plan but it was gonna work in our favour so I wasn't opposed to it.

"Remember that our prime mission is to get the crystal." Star said.

"I'll get it." Ethan said with a subtle hint of pride connected to how he got it the first time.

"I'll go to." I said immediately after. "For backup y'know?" I added.

The obvious reason behind it was that I just couldn't hurt Alex, even if the situation called for it. I didn't know why but I could never bring myself to do it, and come to think of it neither would he.

I dismissed the idea as the two of us headed up the stairs behind us and ran along the second floor, discussing our plan along the way.

"This should not only buy time for the others but complete our mission." Ethan said.

"Yeah, I think we have her this time. If you get the crystal and give it to me, then I could teleport home and get it to Blue." I said.

"I like it. Alright it's go time."

I started by sending a paralysing shock toward Nyeka, allowing Ethan kick the crystal from her hands. The speed at which he was able to grab it before it hit the ground was astonishing to me in a way. He gave me the thumbs up after regaining his balance again before I felt a heavy object hit my head. If I wasn't careful I could've fallen over the balcony and like..died.

Nonetheless I was now somewhat impaired due to the blow. My vision had taken a while to clear up and I could feel a throbbing pain in my head as blood trickled down the back of my neck. I had to pull myself up however because I knew Nyeka's focus was on Ethan, now that he had her prized possession. I stumbled to my feet and saw him backed into a corner, skillfully holding her off all while still holding the crystal. I teleported there to save time and energy, using what strength I could muster up to punch her in the face. I continued to beat her up with strong emotion. She simply smiled at me before pointing behind me. Before I could react, a body hit me, sending us both to the end of the corridor.

"Maybe we underestimated her." Ethan said, rubbing his head.

"Maybe. But remember what Blue told us. There has to be something she's about to do that we already know." I said hopefully. I wasn't ready to give up and I knew Ethan wasn't either, but the way we 2-on-1'd her and still ended up losing badly showed that we were missing something. I looked over the balcony to see what the others were onto. We weren't the only ones who were beaten badly.

Elijah's body was just beneath us on the ground floor. The end of a chain on Alex's neck that I hadn't realised before was now glowing orange, forcing me to believe a truth I didn't want to face. Ethan must've seen it happen and lost his focus; I honestly couldn't blame him for that. Sub and Star were on the other side of the room, helping Corl to stand. I barely recognised the guy due to the amount of cuts and bruises all over his body.

In conclusion, I started to think that this had turned out to be more of a disaster than we expected. I hated to admit it, but Nyeka did have us in a checkmate. I couldn't think of a plan even if I wanted to, not just because of my head injuries, but I was as lost as I was before we arrived.

Nyeka had now come over to our side, holding a gun at Ethan's head and a sword at my neck. It didn't take long for me to realise she left the crystal just to do this, but I was guessing she was counting on one of us going for it just to kill the other.

"It's a shame it's had to come to this. If I could turn back time and go back to the days when you all loved me, maybe this could have been avoided." she said.

That's when an idea started to form in my head. The one power I had which no demon could foretell was time control. They wouldn't know or realise the time change, and I could take anyone I wanted with me. The problem was: I couldn't change anything which happened to Corl, Star, Sub, Elijah or Alex as they weren't coming with me, and therefore they too wouldn't know. However, when me and Ethan volunteered to do the important part of the plan, we had an idea of what we needed to do. We now had the power to change the outcome of it all this time, and we needed to stay calm and use what Blue told us.

I turned to Ethan and nodded slightly, holding out my hand for him to grab. Nyeka placed her hand on the trigger shakily, like she was hesitant to finish us. We used that to our advantage and I got us out of there before she got over herself. We were now 5 minutes in the past, just after I was supposed to be hit in the head.

I turned and grabbed the item from her, throwing it in the air while Ethan shot it with lasers. It exploded into dust, and at the same time Ethan and I got a dawning realisation of the same thing.

"Demonic magic is all about illusion." Ethan said slowly.

In other words, while Alex becoming his demon and Nyeka controlling his soul through her crystal was real, everything outside of it was an illusion. The pain and hits were real, but her power was nonexistent apart from the one we knew best - spells.

"I guess since it was like we weren't there for the explosion we're not under her spell anymore." I said.

"Well then let's take this from the top now." Ethan said with a smirk.

Nyeka started to back away, grasping the crystal in her hands as Ethan wouldn't have had it now that he travelled with me. Either way, we closed in on her, charging up our powers for the final fight.

"This is for the shit you put us through." Ethan said sinisterly.

We picked up speed, zapping her with our powers as we got closer. Then Ethan morphed into a t-rex, digging his teeth into Nyeka's torso as he picked her up and held her over the balcony. I hit her with a paralysing shock again, forcing her to drop the crystal into my hands.

Now when I wanted to teleport I couldn't. No matter how much I tried, my brain weirdly failed to make the connection between here and home. Ethan had dropped her onto this side of the balcony, returned to his human form and gave me a quizzical look.

"I think something's blocking me from teleporting." I stated worriedly.

"Drop it." Ethan said quickly.

I did as he said and dropped it, and by this time Elijah's soul now belonged to Alex. Ethan looked over as the crystal exploded into dust, but no one died after that. Instead a new part of Alex's demon was seen as it howled in pain before retreating. There was only so far he could go back given the size of him. That's when I remembered Alex's weakness being pain, and everything started to connect from there. The others below probably had the same idea, but the explosion probably scared him and along with the pain caused him to be tamed. That meant that now we had the upper hand, even if Nyeka had the real crystal.

"We're giving you the option, Nyeka, hand it over and surrender or we'll take it from you." Ethan said harshly.

The woman looked up at us in cuts, blood and tears and gave us a look of anger, which slowly turned into insanity as she started to laugh maniacally. She stood and started to walk in our direction, still laughing. Then as she got a couple feet from us, she smashed the crystal onto the floor, much to our surprise.

After the dust had cleared, Nyeka's dead body lay before us, taking all the words out of our mouths. An orange orb floated toward Ethan and he held it in his hands, relieving some of the pain from him.

It wasn't the same for me when I remembered who had it, and on looking down I could see Alex's lifeless body as well, surrounded by a dimming purple aura.