Zeel and the unconscious Aurolana drifted through many worlds, but each time, he got closer and closer to stopping their spiraling motion…
Each new Universe they visited, Zeel would force them to stay a second longer, and soon, he was sure that they would find a permanent residence in a Universe of his choosing…
That was, of course, if everything went as planned, and Zeel knew that things rarely did go as planned…
Just as Zeel was about to alter their course using all the power left in his Anti-Gravity Boots, Aurolana's eyes flickered open for the first time since the Abyssal Domain…
There was a certain blankness in her eyes that showed her deep confusion… it was only Zeel's comforting soul pressing against her own that calmed the frightened Apollonian…
Zeel cursed the bad timing of her awakening as he tried to coax her back to sleep using their soulmate bond…
But Aurolana could not even recognize herself, so the moment she felt such a close connection to someone, she refused the link like it was a plague…
This made Zeel's chaotic insides even more chaotic…
"Be calm…" Zeel comforted, brushing his fingers through Aurolana's feathers just the way he knew she liked it…
This action calmed Aurolana a fair bit, but the next moment she frowned…
"I can hear something…" She whispered, clutching her head to focus on the voices…
"Aurolana DON'T!" Zeel warned, but it was already too late, Aurolana had already let the voices into her mind – the voices of infinite humans praying across the Multiverse….
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Aurolana screamed using her Angelic Voice, causing the indestructible Multiversal currents to shudder…
An Apollonian's voice was as dangerous as their wings, so even Zeel clutched his head in pain as his eyes bled profusely…
Just like the automatic reaction from a creature in danger, The Multiversal Currents turned red, forcing Zeel and Aurolana to pass through several Universes on the verge of destruction…
Of course, that just worsened Aurolana's situation because humans, in worlds that are going to be destroyed, prayed more intensely…
"Close off your mind!" Zeel warned, grabbing Aurolana's head and forcefully taking her lips but it did little to help…
All the prayers from all the humans in danger across the Multiverse bombarded Aurolana all at once…
As an Apollonian, she could hear them all, and it was within her nature to answer them all…
The normal Aurolana could ignore the pleads of humans, but the current Aurolana was freshly born with no knowledge of what she could and could not do…
"Make it stop!" Aurolana demanded, forcing Zeel to complete the action through their soulmate bond that she previously avoided…
Zeel was caught unprepared by the sudden soul intrusion because never once had Aurolana superposed her will onto his before…
[Nanite Stage 4 Upload to Information Dimension: Zeel Crawford – 95%... (Cancellation Imminent)]
The nanites in Zeel's body reacted to Aurolana's command like it was Zeel's…
Almost all the nanites uploading Zeel's Life Code into the Information Dimension were diverted to the Anti-Gravity Boots on his feet…
---BOOOOM---
The Anti-Gravity Boots flashed with streaks of red, creating a large disturbance in the Multiversal Currents that pushed Zeel and Aurolana into an entirely new Universe…
--------------------------
THE 100 UNIVERSE
The void cracked three hundred feet in the air…
Zeel and Aurolana shot out of the void, but they didn't make it very far before the attractive force of the void threatened to pull them back into the Multiversal Currents…
Aurolana sent a pulse of Grace into her wings, and sliced at the connection tethering both herself and Zeel to the Multiversal Currents…
The crack in the void snapped shut, sending a shockwave that shattered the windows of the city below…
Zeel and Aurolana fell from the skies like puppets that had their strings cut, both too exhausted to do anything…
BANG
BANG
Zeel and Aurolana bounced off the side of two buildings before colliding with the ground…
People on the streets gasped at the sight…
Some approached the duo, while others withdrew their phones to call the hospital concerning the strange event of two people appearing from thin air…
The pain of falling from three hundred feet was damaging, but it was something that an Apollonian and Homo-Superior physique could easily recover from…
Sadly, that was only the case if both of them were in their prime, and Zeel and Aurolana were far from their prime…
Zeel's internal organs were being reduced to mush as the three divinities fought for balance inside his body…
Aurolana's wings were damaged beyond belief, causing her mind to shift between sanity and insanity…
"Ugh…" Zeel and Aurolana groaned, slowly stumbling to their feet, startling their would-be helpers into running away…
Aurolana glanced at the people gathering a couple feet away and frowned, instinctively willing her wings to disappear into her back…
"Something still feels wrong…" She mentions, the prayers bombarding her mind had reduced in volume but not potency…
Zeel also frowned for a couple of seconds as he diagnosed the problem…
"This world is about to be destroyed… I can feel all the Nuclear Launch Codes gravitating towards activation by a basic Computer Program…"
"Can't you stop it?" Aurolana inquired desperately, she didn't know who she was, but she knew it was her responsibility to help these people…
"Usually, I would be able to but I've depleted nearly all my nanites…" Zeel admitted reluctantly "If I have no more nanites in my system, then there is nothing to replicate and it will be gone forever… Let's go, we can't help these people… Gods we may be but we can't survive planetary destruction as we are…"
Zeel grasped Aurolana by the hand, attempting to pull her along but she slapped his hand away in anger…
"Who are you to tell me what to do?" Aurolana argued, clutching her head as her memories scattered once more "I want to help these people!"
"Stop being a Child, we need to-"
---BANG---
Zeel could not finish his statement as Aurolana balled her hand into a fist, and shot him away with a precise blow to the chin…
Zeel collided with the wall of a nearby building, destroying the loadbearing wall of the building and causing it to collapse…
That just further enraged Aurolana, even though it was her own fault in the first place…
Aurolana sped at Zeel, throwing another punch with no consideration for the humans who had been injured by the building's collapse…
Zeel dodged the blow, and proceeded to wrap Aurolana's arm and her head in a choking grip, slamming her into the ground with enough strength to form a crater…
---BOOOOM---
The dust cleared and Aurolana could be seen struggling desperately to wiggle her way out of Zeel's chokehold…
"Calm down… you're an Apollonian, stop being a child!" Zeel pleaded, knowing that his time would soon come to an end if he could not immediately administer treatment…
Zeel Crawford – 96%... (Cancellation Imminent)
"Napoleon?" Aurolana questioned, not clearing hearing what Zeel had said "I am the daughter of Napoleon?"
Zeel's grip faltered at the mere stupidity of Aurolana's question, and using that opportunity, Aurolana turned the tables on their battle…
Three more buildings collapsed as the two superior species of Universe Zero battled…
Zeel managed to restrain Aurolana once more "Look at what you are doing…"
Aurolana glanced around and witnessed all the destruction their battle had caused… humans buried beneath rubble, some crushed to death, and children bleeding from missing limbs…
Aurolana willed her mind to think clearly for a second, and that was enough time for her to notice the trails of smoke that crisscrossed the skies….
"It's coming… we need to leave…" Zeel urged Aurolana once more, but she shook her head in disagreement…
"I can feel that we are close…" Aurolana confirmed what she already knew from their soul bond, and then she looked Zeel in the eyes "But if the person I was before this loved you, then I think she was a pathetic person because I would never love a coward!"
Aurolana focused on the prayers bombarding her mind, feeling the people that were previously praying disappear from her perception as the first nuke made landfall…
"I hear your prayers…" Aurolana whispered into empty air, and then the wings on her back began to glow, multiplying to become thousands in a second…
Then Aurolana smiled happily as all the feathers on her wings detached, turning into rays of light that scattered all over the world…
The nearest humans were the first to have feathers sink into their chests, turning their bodies into light particles that departed Earth for the nearest habitable planet…
"You're going to die…" Zeel watched as Aurolana, a new side of Aurolana was highlighted before his very eyes…
They say that soulmates knew everything about each other, but Zeel couldn't phantom that beneath all the layers, Aurolana, at her very core, was such a caring person...
As her feathers disappeared, so did her life force, and even then, what did she accomplish? Saving a couple thousand humans from death?
"Beautiful isn't it?"
"What?" Zeel questioned, confused…
"Spreading hope into the hearts of those who have lost it…" Aurolana replied, a happy smile on her face even though she was dying one feather at a time…
"They wouldn't do the same for us…" Zeel reasoned…
"You don't seem like a person that would allow them to…" Aurolana courtly responded…
Zeel glanced at the percentage that would ensure his survival… it was stuck at 98% percent, and moved no further…
It would probably still get to a hundred percent eventually, but he could feel his life slipping through his fingers with the decrease of Aurolana's feathers…
Tears leaked from the corners of Zeel's eyes as he looked at Aurolana for the first time… like really looked at her in a profound way that went beyond just her physical features…
And beneath it all was a beautiful soul - a soul he was not worthy of…
"Gosh… how could I not notice you were so beautiful before?" Zeel complimented and Aurolana returned a weak, cheeky smile…
Zeel forced all the Cyber-Lines remaining inside his body to manifest below his skin, then he placed both his hands on Aurolana's featherless wings…
"There is no need for both of us to go…" Zeel comforted, brushing Aurolana's wings for the last time "This way a part of me will forever be with you, and our soulmate bond will keep you alive for a couple hundred more years…"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Spidle and blood flowed from Zeel's mouth endlessly as he forced all his remaining Cyber-Lines, the most important thing to a Homo-Superior aside from their brains, into Aurolana's wings…
Aurolana's wings became silver with sharpened Cyber Blades for feathers…
The pain was excruciating but Aurolana did not resist, feeling Life Force return to her body – Zeel's Life Force which was nearly identical to her own, and hence, compatible…
Zeel knelt as the transfer was completed, and he used the last of the nanites in his system to create two stasis pods…
Zeel retrieved Elizabeth's body from his Storage Ring and placed her into the first stasis pod, giving the dead Elizabeth a small pec on the forehead before sealing the pod…
Then he walked over to the weakened Aurolana, picking her up and similarly placing her in a stasis pod…
"You'll be forced to sleep for a couple of years as your body adjusts to the Cyber-Lines in your wings… and when you wake up, I'll be gone…"
"I was wrong…" Aurolana caressed Zeel's cheek, not refusing his sacrifice since it was already too late "It's not that you didn't care… you just never had a reason to care before…"
Just as Zeel was about to withdraw and close the stasis pod, Aurolana pulled him in for an intense kiss that lasted a couple of seconds, but felt like eternity…
"Goodbye…" Zeel whispered, closing the pod and narrowing his eyes on the Space Ship in the distance that was struggling to leave the Earth's atmosphere…
Using the last ounce of power he could muster from his Dimensional Shift Divinity, Zeel warped Elizabeth's and Aurolana's pods into a closed section of the Space Ship…
Zeel Crawford – 98%... (Corrupted Upload Cancelled)
Zeel sat on the ground and watched the nukes speeding across the skies, already aware of exactly which one was about to make landfall a couple miles south of his position…
That would be the nuke that ends his life... if the imbalance of divinities didn't end it first…
Zeel's body started to turn into black ash, his fingers dissolving first as the rest of his body slowly followed…
---BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM---
Zeel glanced south, marveling at the beauty of the incoming flames from the nuke's detonation…
"A good day to die…"
Then the flames engulfed his body…
Zeel Crawford, at the end of his life, did something unthinkable – he sacrificed for someone else…
*Sniff* *Sniff*
This brings the entire first arc and our amazing MC (Zeel Crawford) to an end...
I find it poetic, at the end of his life, Zeel was able to put someone before himself.
Yes, this is real emotional growth for the first time...
And this attitude will continue for the next arch - I will be exploring Zeel trying to be good in a world that is bad and chaotic.
Will he be able to do it?
Find out on my pa treon ---> pa treon.com/The_Young_Flash
OR!
JUst stay tuned and follow me on ROYALROAD AND SCRIBBLEHUB!