章 116: Chapter 105 - The Search of Aurora

As everyone was about to place their hands on the engravings representing the opposites of their best attributes, Zeel spoke up causing everyone's hands to pause.

Truth be told, everyone was much more trusting of Zeel than Alice, even if she was the nicer of the two "You forgot about one thing Al…"

"What is it?" asked Elizabeth unsure if Zeel would have her do something that might endanger herself. She did not delude herself into thinking that Zeel treasured her even a fraction as much as he did Alice.

When they first met, she was aware that they were Loric soulmates, but Zeel was an outsider and not a Lorien by birth. There was no telling if he would respect Loric traditions, and if he did not, Elizabeth would be forced thing she saw inside him when they first met.

When Lorien Soulmates meet for the first time, their bond shows them the darkest secret of the to-be spouse. This later evolves into a bond that ties the couple together or leads one to murder the other.

Basically, Loric soulmates were like 'Either you can't live with them, and you definitely can't live without them,'.

Elizabeth knew what she saw was not Zeel's darkest secret since he blocked her out in time, but she did saw something very scary that Alice did not know. Elizabeth would rather die than tell anyone about it, it was just too unbelievable even for aliens with supernatural abilities.

"The opposite of a gift is a curse, hence 'A blessing and a curse' that is written on the top side of the wall in Felian," Zeel responded but by then it was already too late as the engravings came alive and gripped the hands of the nearby Garde members.

"What's happening?" Alice asked Zeel a bit concerned at the current events. Could she have gotten it wrong? Is everyone going to die because of her? These thoughts and more rushed through Alice's mind like a tsunami.

"For thousands or possibly even tens of thousands of years, their Felian DNA has been suppressed; so awakening something that was already asleep can be painful, by the way here," Zeel replied while walking around the room and laying down 'Speculum Splinters' or Spec for short.

Since it was the first time that he would use the Spec Bomb outside the lab, Zeel decided to be sure with extra protections, in case the bombs did not work.

Calibrating a Speculum Splinter to this Universe required a lot of time and mirror energy.

Alice recalled what this is used for – transmission between dimensions. The engravings soon lost their shimmer as the entire room turned a dull grey.

The Garde members were no longer attached to the engravings. Not long after being released, the entire group began coughing up blood and internal organs – change is a painful process after all.

"Grab everyone quickly!" Zeel yelled to Alice who then used her telekinesis to drag everyone towards their location, not minding them sustaining, even more, injures than those received from the engravings.

At the moment Alice caught them, Zeel waved his hand and a crystal embedded in the wall floated towards him. This was of course not missed by Alice, who chose to ignore it since the situation had already become quite dire.

The spec bombs became active; Alice didn't say anything that could distract Zeel since she was aware that the bombs were Zeel's best trump card for escaping. The mere fact that he immediately used them was a testament to the seriousness of this situation.

The ground began to crystallize slowly, Alice stared at the crystallization occurring beneath her feet. She saw her reflection, but it seemed to be something more like it was a version of herself looking back at her.

That version had blank, dark eyes that seemed to want to engulf her, replace her, take everything that belongs to her. It was like staring at someone who worked as hard as yourself, but was not blessed with the same opportunities.

However, Alice did not have the time to stare any longer as Zeel slapped her across the face.

"Never look too deep into any dimension," Zeel growled as his brows sweated, he was trying to make the crystallization happen faster.

Zeel was apparently not fast enough as the Felian ruins began vibrating in and out of existence. The voices coming from the wall was too fast even for Zeel to fully translate.

"What is happening?" Alice questioned after regaining her wits – lesson one was never to panic in a situation you can't control; there is always a way to get through the situation.

Alice was embarrassed at Zeel's earlier slap. She had his memories and was aware of the dangers of peering into the Mirror-verse.

"You should have figured it out by now it's a temporal explosion. Temporal devices are hard to maintain and tend to explode after they are used. Of course, the Felians are making a larger Temporal Destruction, this would destroy not only us but our futures and past as well," Zeel explained as he kicked the ground as if urging it to crystallize faster.

*Boom*

Suddenly, everything lit with a turquoise-green flame, and the next moment, everything was erased from existence.

At the same time as the explosion, the crystals on the ground lit up turning into a mirror for a brief period of time, sucking everyone inside.

However, Zeel and Alice took the impact of the explosion as they were a bit too late in the transition from reality to the mirror dimension.

Alice's and Zeel's backs were smoking and burnt to almost the point of seeing their bones. Unknown to Zeel, the green flame scorched a piece of his skin and wrapped around it like it was embracing something precious.

The series of events that would result from that action happened immediately after and had far-reaching consequences.

Universe Zero (Formerly, one of the strongest Universes in Existence) (Also Zeel's Original Universe)

In this once great Universe, there was nothing currently. For as far as the eyes could see, there was only oblivion. Empty was not a concept in this Universe, most concepts had long lost their meaning before the destruction of this Universe.

What now filled this Universe was a strange energy that was infallible across the Multiverse – Absolute.

Currently, a beautiful woman soaked in a lake that held infinite stars. The woman had luminous silver hair, that contained a slight tint of blue in the strands.

Her hair seemed both real and illusionary as it swayed in the ripple-less water.

Her sensual curves and alluring figure were not hidden. Was there a reason for her to hide, when she was the last humanoid being alive in this once great Universe?

The teenage-looking woman exhaled a deep sigh, not befitting her beauty in the least.

Anyone who places their eyes on her snow-white skin would wish all the world happiness be bestowed upon her.

Her cold, calm, blue-purple eyes did not detract from her beauty in the least.

As her naked body exited the waters that seemed to resemble the water of creation itself, the woman turned her eyes to the snow-filled mountains in the distance and spoke "You are awfully quiet today, Archy,"

"Everything that is left to be said has already been said, my mistress," Archy replied from nowhere in particular.

Archy was not a humanoid, no he was something much greater, much more ancient. He was amongst the first sentient planets in the Multiverse.

Archy had also been known by a different moniker, The Planet of Everiternal Ice. Archy was the only planet in the known Multiverse to hold every version of ice in every Universe, and since the dawn of time, he had never submitted to any being.

With strength like his, there was no need to serve anyone.

A testament to this is his ability to survive even after a Cosmic Being wiped all life from his favorite Universe.

"I am sorry Archy. When I was used, cast out, and abandoned, only you cared for me, but still, I use the Multiversal Currents to search for him every day," the woman said as she unfurled her angelic, silver wings that seemed a bit too small for her grown pasture.

The woman continued "Every day I use the currents and continue to kill both myself and you. I don't care about my death, but I shouldn't drag you down with me. I actually hope that you would leave me, so I can die by myself, chasing my own selfish dreams,"

Archy seemed to sigh as the mountains and skies quaked, then the snow swirled as it took a humanoid appearance.

Archy then placed his hand on the head of the girl named Aurora. It was like a father chastising his daughter "I have lived long enough, I only hope you find that which you chase princess,"

Before Aurora could respond to Archy, there was a ripple in the waters of the lake.

Aurora disappeared from her location as she stood above the lake, staring intently at the ripple with ruthless eyes of indifference "So he is still hiding from my gaze, but this does not make sense. The turquoise flame in this ripple is not like him,"

Aurora continually muttered to herself with a ruthless look in her eyes "Archy, why can't we locate him in this section of the Multiverse? A Malatorian (Really small Hippos/Zebra mix) cannot change its stripes, we have been looking everywhere he should appear to grow his strength,"

Archy too was a bit anxious, the lake was a part of himself.

He, too, was constantly searching for the whereabouts of that being, but could not find an answer.

But sudden enlightenment struck Archy "What if we are thinking of this the wrong way, Princess?"

"What do you mean?"

"You are amongst those who know him the best, but maybe we should be looking at this as someone who knows the future him, and not the current him,"

"Okay," Aurora said as she sat down in deep contemplation before saying "Eventually, he would have inherited the head of The Crawford and all its resources.

He is curious by nature, and would not remain in this Universe or any other, he would try and master the Absolute. However, that would not be allowed, so all the Powerhouses would team up and barely force him to seal the majority of his memories in…"

Aurora suddenly shot up as Archy finished her statement "In a Forbidden Cube. A Malatorian cannot change its stripes, but it could forget it was a Malatorian in the first place,"

Aurora giggled a bit childishly as she once again entered the lake waters, her wings become that much smaller "So all this time we were looking for someone who is hiding from every being in Multiverse, but what we should have been looking for is a being with sealed memories that miraculously survives guaranteed death,"

Multiversal Travel was not rare, but not many Mjumpers would survive past three Universes. Hence, Aurora just had to wait until that person jumped Universes enough time to scope out a pattern.

Archy watched as his adopted daughter once again entered the waters.

He knew that the use of the Multiversal Currents was slowly killing the girl, but he also knew her determination to find him – Zeel Crawford.

Archy turned his gaze away from the waters as he stared out into the Absolute, hoping that his daughter would find that guy before his eventual death.

Even if he was strong, Absolute was not an energy Archy could resist for much longer.

∞∞

*WHOOOOOOSH*

The next moment, the group was falling through the mirror dimension.

Suddenly, they exited at the base in New York City.

Zeel and Alice had minor injuries compared to the others who impacted the top of the nigh, impossible to penetrate, class coverings.

Grunts could be heard as Zeel waved his hand and encased each member of the Garde in a stasis pod, except for Alice and himself. Their healing factors would make it so that their burnt flesh would regenerate in a little over an hour.

"Been a while since we bled huh?" Alice joked since they had not really been threatened for their survival recently.

"Yeah," Zeel replied touching his back and feeling the flesh wiggling in place, attempting to cover his exposed shoulder blade.

Zeel felt that something was very wrong and missing from his body.

Zeel then said "Once again reminding us no matter how strong we are…. we are but humans in the end,"

"You knew that was going to happen, huh?" Alice asked shifting the topic to what occurred in the temple earlier.

"I had my suspicions but nothing concrete. I think you mistake how I see things. We are basically observers Al. We intervene too much and we get fucked. The limiters are there for a reason; it means we're on a threshold of what our human bodies can hold.

We need to be something more to contain the power, put simply we are dying," Zeel said, but he did not tell Alice that he was dying at a much faster rate than herself.

"Then can't we store the excess power somehow?"

"How do you think we are able to have limiters? Something is helping us siphon the excess power, maybe whatever is connected to our legacies,"

"Then what if we use them to power the Mjumps?"

"We need a Navigation system first and it is simply not enough. We would need to store this power for a thousand years just to do a halfway jump through the multiverse. The nanites themselves are providing energy for our system after integration with the Zeelinium crystal, and we get power from eating, walking, being in the sun, everything,"

"So we have too much energy for a human body but not enough for anything major that requires a large amount of energy?" Alice asked for clarification purposes.

"Yeah, think of most humans as one drop of water every hour, the Garde would be a water faucet –a steady stream of water but not a very large quantity.

We on the other hand are actual streams that never dry up, the energy required for Multiversal jumps – the Niagara Falls worth," Zeel answered after careful considerations.

"So what's happening to those guys?" Alice asked gesturing to John, Marina, Ella, Vishnu, Elizabeth, Stanley, and Cindy in their respective Stasis pods.

"They're enlarging the faucet's mouth for greater output, they always had the power but their bodies were limiters much like us, so now they have to re-adjust. The difference is their power comes from an outside force while our power needs help from that outside force just to regulate it,"

"Huh, a lot to consider let's just see how things work out, ETA?" Alice asked.

"About a week or two," Zeel answered as both he and Alice started working on their shared and individual projects.

Alice's projects were geared more towards botany, exotic plants and animals.

She created technology that could not be misused, and also aid in the development of primitive worlds or as she would call them 'less developed worlds'.