It's pretty telling that Alicia actually has no respect of her own, only fear. All the girls fear her, but the moment corrupted Aura gets into the picture? They don't fear her, they respect her. Because they see her as a badass who does the things she needs to get done. Unlike Alicia who just pulls strings. To the girls, Aura has guts while Alicia is just a coward. And I could be wrong but even Veronica starts to shift away from Alicia and towards Aura, joining HER clique unofficially. Meanwhile even the boring nerd Aura is still a martial artist and students actually respect/fear her for that. Not all of course, but it's still implied.
Hell, Richard himself has never treated Alicia like an equal, always like a subservient puppet. (which...is unfortunately true as you find out later on in the game) And I think the only reason why he wants to get Aura's (former) best friend as part of his harem, is mainly to get Aura jealous and compete for his attention, and also isolate George as a byproduct.
I think that Richard himself wanted Aura at first as just a dumb bitch to use whenever he wanted. But after dealing with her enough times, I think he realised that she WAS basically his equal. And by just subduing and dominating her, it would be pointless and boring. But turning her into the very thing that would practically conquer Roya as his Demon Queen? The very supposed hero would become the demon that would take over the world, and Richard wouldn't even have to lift a finger afterwards. Because Aura is just THAT powerful on her own, and that's without her Divine Gift.
I honestly thought that Richard was a lazy, cocky, egotistical loser. But in reality, I think he just put all of his eggs into two baskets and that was his main issue: overconfidence because he thought he had all the cards. Not realising that Aura was a persistent, stubborn, purist type of person...much like him. The game frequently makes references as to how identical they are, just on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
