Masses of angels and demons battled each other, bodies flying throughout the cavern amidst the flashes of light and heavy roars. Firelight cast the scene in a wavering, otherworldly glow.

Many more angels had appeared, some Cam knew well and some he was familiar with. A brilliant flash of light expelled from Purah as two demons ripped through her. Cam stared at the scene, horrified at the bodies of other fallen angels all around. To the side of the cavern, on a lower section, Sephiaza battled four angels at once. Cam's heart jolted at the sight of her in action, spinning and throwing out waves of dark energy. She was not as acrobatic as the angels or threw her weight around like the demons, but she quietly, and effectively, hurled her power out in swift and devastating attacks.

Cam jumped onto a higher section. Within a large group of angels, he saw another pure demon lashing out. Its huge form crested the waves of angels spiraling and flipping around it, their light swords flashing. A stray demon came near Cam and he dodged its attack, bringing his dark sword down across it. Sean came upon it an instant later and unloaded two shots into its head in quick succession.

"Go," Sean said. "I'll make my own way." He shuffled down the inclining rock and made his way into the nearest group, reloading the shotgun as he went.

A low throbbing pounded in Cam's head, and he looked up to see Vass on an outcropping further up. His son stood there, statue-still, with a strange, troubled look on his face. He appeared both indifferent and conflicted, Cam thought, just quietly looking out at the mayhem.

Focusing on Sephiaza, Cam pushed his way past another demon and made his way to her. He would have to leave the pure demon to his brethren. He had a stronger enemy to face.

Sephiaza blocked an attack from Laylah and shoved her back, and then darted towards Rathanael. Her hand shot out and grabbed his face. A second later she squeezed, crushing his face in her hand and caving his skull in. Brilliant light shot out between her fingers. Angels cried out as Rathanael's limp body crumpled to the ground, his face now a fleshy mess of blood.

Cam flew into the air, a fierce roar escaping him as he readied his sword. He landed by her and swung out, and his dark light sword clashed with a field of dark energy that appeared over her hand. The blow was enough to push her back, however, and Barratt came to the side and swung his sword. She ducked at the last second, but Barratt's other sword grazed the side of her forearm, singing the skin and cutting through her sleeve.

Cam rushed towards her and lashed out with a series of attacks, fuelled about a brutal anger in him. No, not anger, but a power source he was in control of. It felt new and familiar at the same time. Guiding and strengthening his actions.

"Good to see you've come around," Sephiaza said between blocks and attacks. Nearby, Sean's shotgun rang out among the clashing angels and demons.

Cam weaved around Laylah, Barratt, and Kalaziel, each attacking and retreating and coming at her from different angles. Her dark shields flashed all around her, but Cam pushed on. The chains still around his wrists swung with his motions, spiralling around him like a force of their own. Sephiaza glared and—he thought—smiled at him, her eyes glinting through light flashes and Cam's dark light sword. He no longer saw her as Alyssa, but recognised her as the demon commander she was, who needed to be stopped at all cost.

He jumped high, flipping over her and swinging out, and then continued his barrage of attacks from a different angle, keeping her moving and turning. Light crashed into dark in rapid bursts all around her. Cam kept going, harder, pushing himself further as his anger rose. He saw another angel fall from a great height, releasing a pillar of bright light as he fell. Cam cried out and struck, again and again.

A surge of pulsing energy coursed through him as he fought, numbing his senses but also heightening his actions. He felt himself drifting away but pushed back to the surface of his mind, focusing on the light within him.

The dark, and the light. Together.

Another strike against Sephiaza's block caused his sword to crack, and the dark light burst into a solid beam of grey light, both black and white at the same time. The blade hummed with a powerful energy, as solid as any light sword he'd ever seen. A light so conflicted and solid it was almost beyond his perception. He spun away from a blast of her dark energy and continued his attacks, pushing her back even more. He realised the fight had become just her and him, the others now distracted by other demons.

As he clashed with her, memories and voices raced through his mind. Balthiour, standing before him the year before: I started to see things differently. Feel things. Things that felt right; and had somehow felt right all along, but I just couldn't see it before. Balthiour had been was so close, Cam realised. So close but, he had gone too far, beyond his own saving. Dark and light. The power flowed through Cam, and his next attack struck her defensives and threw out a burst of sudden energy. Sephiaza was thrown back and hit the ground, rolling and sliding against the rock.

A sharp jolt of pain rippled through Cam. He keeled over and fell onto his knees. The chains around his wrists clinked and thudded to the ground. Sephiaza rolled onto her hands, long hair falling over her wildly.

A crippling energy took Cam's breath and his chest tightened. His arms seized up, becoming numb, as if they were being taken from his control. No.... what... what's happening? Cam looked up at his son. Vass's face remained impassive, but there was a hunger, a yearning, behind his eyes.

Cam tried to stand but stumbled, falling onto his side. He gasped and sputtered, fighting through the pain, but it was overwhelming. His throat burned with a sickening taste, as if he was being devoured from the inside. He thought he had controlled the balance, using both the light and dark to give him strength. But—another stab of blinding pain shocked him—he had been wrong. No, he couldn't have been. He was certain that a light and dark balance could exist. The strongest force. He tried to stand but was held back by a crippling power, the darkness spreading through him. Tapping into it had increased his exposure to it, but his light wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough. Sephiaza was on her feet now and stepped towards him.

Cam looked up with watering eyes and he grimaced through the pain. Why couldn't he wield the dark with the light? Vass. He was the key to all this. A child of both light and dark. If Cam couldn't control both sides... then Vass could. A child born to both sides.

Sephiaza came to him, her long boots stopping by his head. Somewhere nearby, a shotgun blast rang through the air, but sounds had begun to dim and distort.

His son could control both sides. His son. Son. Bath's last word to him... it wasn't Sun. She was talking about his son. Vass. He was what could help them...

"I once thought you were so incredible," Sephiaza said, and for a second he thought he glimpsed the woman behind her eyes. "The world will be a better place once you're gone."

Cam heaved himself up, using all his strength to lift himself onto his knees, and faced her with his head high. "Sephiaza," he said, forcing the strength in his voice. "I think we should break up."

She glared at him, and a corner of her mouth might have twitched, but her face tensed with a great intensity.

"Goodbye, Camael," she said. There was no venom or hatred in her voice; it was a simple, definitive goodbye.

Cam smiled defiantly at her. There it was, somewhere deep inside him, hidden but now found. He smiled at its awesome purity.

Sephiaza swung her arm out and released a spike of dark energy that cut through Cam. Pain flared across him and then a powerful fire replaced it.

The scream he heard fill the air was raw and pained, twisted with an uncontrolled rage. Vass landed beside his mother and shoved her away violently.

Cam tried to look at his son, but a heat of blinding white power flowed out from him and filled his vision. The white light became a sphere that surrounded Cam and expanded out from him, becoming his whole world. Within the light, Cam smiled.

***

The fighting stopped and those around covered their eyes and backed away. The light retracted in an instant and disappeared. Nothing remained where Cam had been.

"What did you do!?" Vass cried.

"Oh stop," Sephiaza said. "It was always meant to be this way."

Vass glared at her, his shoulders heaving from his heavy breaths. Her contemptuous, derisive scowl sent a furious shiver through him. He cried out and rushed to her. The dark shield that appeared over her blocked his punch. And then he threw another, and another.

He called upon his dark light sword and struck out. The blade smashed into her shield and pushed her back, almost throwing her to the ground. Vass advanced. He cried out and swung his sword, which crashed through her shield and sent her spinning and stumbling to the ground.

He stood over her, his face contorted with a pained grimace. Her dark hair hung over her in a wild mess, bordering her large, fear-shot eyes. "It's over, Mother. My father was right. My darkness is stronger than yours, because I have light in me. True light. He tried to use both, but he couldn't. I see it now."

"You are a fool!" Sephiaza said, her face twisted with disgust. "You always have been."

He paused, almost smiling. "It was always meant to be this way."

His blade came down and plunged into her neck. Her eyes bulged, the black sword casting heavy shadows and lights over her beautiful, perfect face. Then she became nothing and dropped to the ground.

Vass stood over her, staring blankly at her empty, peaceful form. The sounds of battle had faded around him. He turned and saw dozens of demons rushing away into tunnels and holes around the cavern, leaving the surviving angels, all looking at him from their various positions. A startlingly quiet air filled the cavern as the last of the demons left, with only the heaving breaths of the survivors around him. Bodies lay everywhere, demons and angels scattered in bloodied heaps. Some of the angels leaned over the dead bodies of their brethren and wept.

A nearby angel, bald and heavily bearded, turned to Vass. The balls of light around his fists subsided as he stepped towards him.

"You are the son," he said to Vass.

A female angel with long dark hair lay on the ground where Cam had been, looking over them with wide, devastated eyes.

"He told you of me?" Vass asked cautiously. He realised he was surrounded by dozens of the enemy, but, he was surprised that he didn't feel threatened or afraid. He wasn't sure what to feel.

Another angel dropped down beside them. She was muscular and broad-shouldered, with a stern, imposing manner. "I am Zuriea, Commanding Angel," she said. "Tell us who you are."

Vass considered his answer, and sighed, looking away. Eventually he said, "You know, Cam was right. A balance can exist, between light and dark. He knew it, and felt it, and I can feel it too."

"Who are you, to say such things?" Zuriea said disdainfully, as if Vass gave her a bad taste in her mouth.

"I... I don't know what I am. I'm like you. And like them. Both sides together. I used to think I was a demon tainted by the light, and sometimes I thought I could see myself as an angel, fighting the dark. But I am also part human. Like you all. I understand that I'm all three, and that all sides can balance. It makes me stronger for it."

"What happened to Cam?"

Vass turned and saw a human standing on a higher level, a shotgun in hand. Blood and dirt was smeared over his haggard face and clothes.

Vass shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. I suggest you have your Mystic Angel's look into it."

The tall woman, Zuriea, was eyeing him. "You know more than you say."

Vass shrugged. "My mother would usually say the opposite. But I don't know what happened to Cam. I have a theory, however."

The dark haired woman stood up from the place Cam had last been. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Her eyes were sorrowful, with a startling kindness behind them. "For your loss. Cam is a great loss, to us all. To the world."

"I can feel it already," said another angel. She was further away on the ground level, holding her arms up slightly. Vass caught a feel of the power emanating from her and marked her as a Mystic Angel. "The world is shifting. To us. We have struck a great blow to the demons on this day, even with the loss of Cam. With Sephiaza gone, we stand a better chance of keeping the balance on our side."

"We've all been told that the balance is ever shifting," Vass called out to her, "but I don't think it needs to be that way. If a true balance can exist, not the tilting scale that we see it, but a true balance, then I feel that will make the strongest impact on the world."

"You would go against our purpose for being sent to this plane?" Zuriea said, glaring at him. "Say that millennia of struggles have been a futile cause?"

Vass raised a hand defensively, but kept his actions small and slow. "I only say what I know, and what I feel. What my father gave his life for." He paused, looking over them all, and swallowed. "I can help you. If you'd have me. I'd like to learn what this all means, too."

Zuriea studied him with a stern, troubled expression, and said, "Angels do not work with demons, boy."

"We will have you," the woman in the distance said, her hands still up, feeling the air.

"Lahabiel," Zuriea said, "we cannot go on what you think—"

"She's right," the bald man said. "I can feel it too. At the least, it would be wrong to turn him away."

"He is one of us, also," the kind woman said.

Zuriea eventually shook her head. "I tire of this place. We have lost a great deal today. Let us leave and mourn our fallen, and discuss what we can." She gave Vass a hard look. "We will have the son of Camael for now, and hear what he has to say."

Vass nodded to her. Around the cavern, angels moved and made their way to the exits, helping their wounded brethren. Zuriea ordered several to stay behind and see to the bodies. The fallen angels and demons would need to be removed and ritualistically burned, to return them to their origins. There was little chance of them being discovered down in these caves, but there was an order to things, Vass understood.

The kind woman introduced herself as Laylah, and walked with him as they left. She allowed him silence, perhaps sensing the maelstrom of troubled thoughts whirling through his mind. Her presence was a strange comfort however. He felt he was on the right path, at least. Finally. 

[Thank you for reading. Please feel free to leave a comment and click the Like star. I'd love to hear what you think of the story. Thanks!]