“You must be feeling pretty lucky if you think you can defeat me without your partners” He slowly started approaching me as he said this, readying his sword

“Maybe lucky. Or maybe I know I can defeat you James” I said this as I started to charge my gauntlets with their respective elements, walking along with him.

“Stop calling me by that name. James isn’t here to hear you” He said this as the fire and ice in his sword started to sparkle with intensity

“Then I’ll make him come out and listen to my plea!” I quickly rushed towards him, activating Power Overdrive as I did

“Well then, go ahead and try!” He dashed, just like me, activating his Power Lust. He gripped on tightly to his sword with both of his hands, starting to spin it from its handle., creating a small tornado behind him.

I quickly punched him in the face with my right fist (Which had the water charged Gauntlet), to which he responded by redirecting the tornado towards me, spinning me for a bit before launching me into the air. While in the air, I started to charge a Nova with my left hand, which got charged with the element of that gauntlet (That being the electric one), launching it towards him once it had the size of a soccer ball. He deflected it, making the Nova crash into the ground far away from him, before boosting himself up with one of his tornadoes. I quickly used a second nova to boost me toward him, quickly backing up my fist to crash it into him. Both my right gauntlet and his fireblade crashed, causing a quick steam explosion, sending us flying in opposite directions, crashing into the ground, with each of us making a crater. I slowly got up from mine, lifting myself up using my arms. James just jumped up, with almost no damage done on himself. His armor had some very good protection, not gonna lie.

“Is that seriously all you got?! What happened to the knight that almost killed me!?”

“Who the hell are you calling a Knight?” I did not know what he was talking about. I never saw myself as a knight, or worn an armor pertaining to being one “If anyone’s a pawn here, it’s both of us!”

“Oh you don’t even know half the shit of what’s going on. If you did, you’d be scared out of your MIND!” After shouting this, he once again dashed towards me, sword in hand. Once he got close, I quickly punched his sword, once again breaking it with ease.

Once he got close, I got to see something on him that began to give me a sense of worry, parts of his armor were cracking, mainly on the arm, which showed red, glowing, cracks. Those were some horrid signs. He was turning into a Demon… but I’ve only seen him activate Power Lust twice. How could he be this fucked up in these little uses?

I quickly punched him in the head with my free hand, pushing him down onto the ground, to then quickly jump on top of him, holding him down with one hand while raising the other

“Why do you have the cracks!? What did you do?!” I shouted this at him, with tears almost forming on my eyes

“What? Do you think our only missions are the ones where we fight you!? Compared to you stupid assholes, all of us go on various different missions at different times! Sometimes we have to fight armies, sometimes just simple foot soldiers, but leveling buildings and terraforming the place takes a lot of work. So, why not shorten it!?”

“But you’ve only been out of my grasp once! How did you go through that much!?”

“Well, I was gone for a few days apparently, so I had to repay all the time I was gone. Today and last night I had this activated all the goddamn time!”

That… scared me. The thought of my brother losing himself… the thought of him becoming a demon because of a group of which we don’t know anything about… the thought of him not being able to come back home with me… I could not handle it. This had to stop

“And you don’t see anything wrong with it!?” I was about to start crying as I shouted this “You don’t see anything wrong with becoming a demon, even if it means leaving everything that makes YOU behind?! You don’t see anything wrong about leaving the chance to go back to your family!?”

“As if I had one to go back to!” He tried to struggle to break free, but I held him down with all of my strength. I was not going to let him go

“You do and I’m part of it!” I quickly punched his face, as if I was trying to get him back to reason.

He stayed silent for a while, before quickly blasting me away using a nova coming from his mouth, finally being able to stand up. As he did begin to stand up, he started to laugh, maniacally, generating a new sword once again, Power Lust still raging.

“You really think a half-ass lie like that is going to trick me!? Who the hell do you think I am!?” He quickly dashed towards my position, ready to strike me down with his blade while I was still struggling to get up. I quickly rolled so that my head was in his direction and aimed my arms at him, ready to shoot a nova.

“Why would I lie about something like that?! Do you really not remember anything that happened yesterday?!” I quickly started charging and shooting novas in quick succession, each of them being deflected by his blade in different directions, but getting stuck in the air.

I tried to get up, but couldn’t. My legs weren’t responding, nor did I have enough strength to use my free arm to lift myself up. My view was starting to fade. I was using up too much energy.

“What else is there to remember besides you torturing me!?” He jumped up in the air, readying his sword to stab me.

“A lot of things… but for now, what is important right now is that you cannot dodge while you’re in the air!” I quickly closed my fist, making all of the floating novas crash into him, making a beautiful blue explosion, combining with the red from his Power Lust, making some lines of it purple, while quickly sending James backwards into the sand. I absorbed the almost wasted energy from the explosions to recover some of my own, finally being able to stand up, walking over to him.

“Tell me, why would I lie about something as serious as that. I know you’re face. I know who you are James” I continued to walk over to him, keeping my arms down, trying to not look menacing “I can help you go back to who you were”

“As if. You’re just trying to manipulate me, just like Tabatha said!” He tried to get up, but I quickly shot another Nova at his leg, throwing him off balance and making him fall again

“I’m telling you the truth. Even know you’re still as stubborn as before” I kept walking towards him, getting in front of him, but didn’t touch him

“You’re either really stupid or you really have some balls to be standing in front of me without any attempt to defend yourself, Do you know in how many ways I could finish you without even trying?”

“Yeah, I do. But I know you won’t… You’re still in there, I know you are… just please… come out” I said this while looking directly into his eyes, a few tears starting to form on mine.

“How many times do I have to tell you!? JAMES IS DEAD!” He quickly charged his own nova, attempting to shoot it directly at me. Almost as soon as he pointed his arm towards me, I grabbed his hand using my left gauntlet, absorbing the nova into myself.

“If he were dead, why didn’t you attack me as soon as I was in front of you?” That nova definitely felt demonic, but I wasn’t affected by it. I just stood there, not leaving him out of my sight “Even with Power Lust still active, you still don’t attack me. You have self control, which is something you wouldn’t achieve unless you had two consciousness… please James… just… talk to me!”

Almost as soon as I said that, in my left hand, something happened. Something which I did not expect at all. James’s Soul manifested out through it, going inside his own body, while starting to kick out the demonic soul from out of it.

“What are you doing!?” He shouted as he tried to get his grip out to no avail, due to it almost being stuck like glue to my hand

“I don’t know!” I shouted this as I also tried to let go, to no avail. I could feel 022’s soul taking the place of James’s Soul inside of me. It was a horrible, burning sensation, making me kneel down from the pain, clutching my chest with my free arm. It was becoming difficult to breathe, and my vision was becoming blurry from the pain which was great enough to cross through Power Overdrive’s pain cancelation. The voice in my head was slowly going away, the last remnant of James no longer there. What had I done?

I blacked out not long after that. I was beat out. I could not continue after that. When I finally woke up, I was not in that field anymore. I was back at the hospital wing of our base. I quickly bolted up on the bed. Nobody was there. I looked over my body. It seemed to be fine, nothing seemed to have any sort of mark or anything. I looked at my left hand, where the transfer took place. It all seemed fine, until I looked at the palm. It had a bright pulsating red circle on it, with black cracks covering all of it. I quickly covered it, and in a low volume, spoke

-J-James?-

-...- it was silent. He was no longer there. That red mark told everything. I did not have two normal souls. James’s soul had gone back to its original host. The last reminder that I had of him was gone. As I noticed this, I broke down. I finally cried. Despair had gotten to me. There was nothing I could do now. I didn’t even know if I could get to Power Overdrive without his soul. It was once again only me.

END OF CHAPTER 20