James gave a little energy to Jack and William and they quickly recovered from the battle. The group hastily followed Kyle back down the stairs and into a deep, underground stone dungeon with one large cell. There were skeletons and decaying corpses chained to the walls. Between a skeleton and pile of rubble, propped up against the wall, was a old man with long grey hair and a black fire tattoo that spanned the full length of his right arm. As Kyle opened the cell door, its rusty hinges gave way and it fell to the floor with a deafeningly loud and echoed crash. The old man roll forwards into a stand and with a weak voice tried to call out. His hand ignited into weak flames but he quickly gave up and started to fall forwards. James caught him and held them up for Alcie to hug them.
"James, you're alive! I though Olrah had killed you."she cried. James looked at the old man and finally pieced together what had happened to their universe that made it so much different to his own. The James and Josie of this universe had switched places. More accurately, this was a universe where everything was the opposite to his own. The fire users were the ones who were the ones using their celestial weapon, this James went to earth in search of Alcie, and in this universe neither Alcie nor James were killed in the fight over the omni-crystal. Suddenly, the old James started coughing and blood splattered on the floor.
"He's dying, he'll be lucky to have another day or two." informed Sophie. She'd been studying to be a doctor like her mother used to be and she had a real talent for it. Alcie caressed the old James' face and started to cry. James set the dying man down on the floor, grabbed his hand, and lent in close to their ear. He then whispered the words:
"I have a plan that could save your life. But do you trust me?" he asked. The old James slowly nodded and James rose back up.
James ignited blitz and the old James ignited too. The two auras joined and began to form an orbiting sphere around them. Alcie and the others moved away as the ball of swirling and whirling fire grew steadily before clamping back down on the two James' ... now the one James. An older and man manly James arose. Looking now about thirty to forty, James' hair was still dirty blonde but now there were streaks of white randomly dotted around. The clothes he wore seemed to still fit and the scarf fit more snugly than before.
"James? What did you do!? Where's my James!?" Alcie's line of questioning would have continued but she restrained herself.
"I'm still here my love. We were perfect opposites of each other which allowed us to reach a new level of fusion. We now share this body, our power, and our memories. I'm still the person you married, but just a little younger and immortal like you." explained the new James fusion. William completely gave up hope and left for the portal leaving Alcie, Kyle, Sophie, and Jack in complete confusion.
"So, you're two James'. But now you're one?!" queried Kyle. James jumped up and down a few times to test their new body.
"Yeah, like I said. Think of it as reverse cell division. Instead of one forming two of everything and splitting, it's two fusing and forming one big version of everything." explained James.
"So are you still my husband or is it weird now?" blurted out Alcie. James walked over to her and quickly put her into a position of lying on his arm. He kissed Alcie passionately before bringing her up again. "Yeah, I could get used to this." she said all flustered.
They all walked back up the stairs into the main hall and walked up to the portal. Alcie stopped and James turned to her as the others jumped through.
"What's the matter? The portals right here." said James gesturing to the portal.
"What's going to happen? Where are you going to go? You belong in two universes now so you're going to have to choose which one to be in. You're married to me in one but you have many friends and family in the other." Alcie waited for James' response. He smiled.
"Why not both. If I put energy into the portal it'll grow. So all I have to do is make it big enough to make the two universes one."
"You do realise that this could also end in the imploding of both universes and possibly the whole dimension, right?!"
"Then it's a win-win scenario. I'm in both or none." James turned and walked through the portal. Alcie ran after him
"You're joking! Right?! Please say you're joking!" she called after him as she ran through the portal and it closed behind her.
I, on the other hand, had some more work to do. First up was the disposal of Olrah's body. I landed on the marble floor and walked over to his lifeless body and snapped, removing his body from existence. I mean, being the controller of the whole dimension has some amazing perks. I can go anywhere in it, I can make anything happen, and if something goes wrong I can just erase it and start again. At least I could do that before this annoying discrepancy turned up. Something must have happened during the time James was in prison but no matter how much I investigate nothing can be found. It's at times like these I begin to contemplate if there truly is someone higher than me; controlling my every move as if it were a simple story. They must have left me in charge for the most part but intervened because something wasn't right.
Olrah was one of my favour disciples. To be honest, I was going to pick him to take my place after I retired but I just had to challenge him with getting rid of James. That white blitz. The normal blitz and satanic blitz were planned right from the start but this is completely new. I don't even know what it's trigger is! Blitz is anger and Satanic is will but this can't be understood. But that doesn't matter. If James wants to play dirty then I'll play too. After all, fifty years has past and I'm raring for a good fight.