165 Chapter 154 - Roland Cox

On an island located in the Southern Pacific, an island shrouded from the sight of everyone.

Zeel and Elizabeth are in a lab staring at the sunset projected on the screen.

"It's weird experiencing things this way," Elizabeth said as her eyes returned from ruby-red slits to her usual silver-golden color.

"I just wanted you to see what I see," Zeel said turning his gaze away.

Elizabeth was truly appalled. Earlier she grew curious about why Zeel, as a Homo-Superior, never used his enhanced senses to detect anyone or anything.

So Zeel made her experience his senses without them being suppressed.

What Elizabeth found was more than she expected, being a Homo-Superior was intense.

Elizabeth thought she would go crazy from the sensory overload, but that was not the worst part – the worst part was being aware of everything.

*Groan*

*Groan*

Zeel's head snapped around to Alice who was stirring awake.

"How are you feeling?" Zeel asked Alice who had just woken up.

Alice realized she was in a stasis pod undergoing the standard healing treatment.

"What happened?" Elizabeth asked confused at her lack of calmness when facing such a situation.

Alice thought for a moment "I could hear them; the humans were asking for help. I could feel their pain and greed, I wanted to burn them,"

"Within expectations, after you passed out we had to adjust the vibrational blocker on you – it dampens telepathic, psychic, and almost any other signals coming or going from your brain, so you won't hear them anymore, but you have to meditate and get that under control," Zeel said as he continued "I am not sure how you are going to do that, but when you figure it out let me know. I don't wanna experience the same thing,"

Elizabeth punched Zeel's arm "Stop being an ass!" then she turned to Alice "How do you feel?"

"Stronger, faster, better reflexes, better… everything. But also weakened and suppressed," Alice answered after moving her hands a bit, though she was still unable to move her legs since they got the majority of the burns.

The burns could be seen healing at a speed visible to the naked eye, demonstrating her healing factor had gone up a couple of notches.

"Divinities," Zeel inquired typing in some algorithms into the computer at the side.

"Lemme guess, they're cuddling and cowgirl position?" Zeel said trying to make her laugh with the dirty joke, while also genuinely curious since Alice liked the cowgirl position, while Elizabeth liked taking it from the back.

While Zeel joked, Alice gritted her teeth, all the while avoiding Zeel's direction, since she had the ever-increasing urge to burn him into oblivion.

She could see countless stains on what she perceived to be his soul, though she would never voice it out loud as her intuition told her that it would stagnate and complicate their already fragile relationship.

Zeel's soul was almost entirely black with only a faint area of red at the middle.

Even that red was bloody, deep, shady, and burned with a passion that was an obsession that extended to infinity.

Alice intuitively knew that it represented love? But Zeel has never been in love, right?

"Can we leave now?" Elizabeth asked "Don't get me wrong, it has been fun living life in an apartment and stuff but we haven't found what we wanted even after a year. All we get is wormholes appearing and disappearing all over,"

"That was before Alice became an ascending," Zeel explained pulling up a chart full of wormhole energy signatures "Her awakening caused the space to stabilize long enough for us to get a reading. I know what we need to get into the pocket dimension of a god,"

"What?" Alice asked confused about what one thing had to do with the other.

"We need his former followers – The Travellers, but now they have severely weakened so they should just be called Jumpers now," Zeel said displaying countless images of people having teleportation abilities that they thought useless until now.

"Why didn't we pay these guys enough attention before? And why now?" Alice asked confused.

Elizabeth explained "Because they were weak and useless, but when you ascended The Pocket Dimension responded by leaking some energy. This boosted their abilities for like a nano-second which allowed all of them to ping on our modified satellite,"

Zeel nodded "There were thousands of them. And they have a link to the dimension so I think they're the keys. Besides after the cosmic dissonance, all we were able to learn is the name of this world 'Jumpers' which is ironic because we are 'Mjumpers',"

One Week Later

"I think we got something," Elizabeth called out, gaining the attention of Zeel and Alice who were both manipulating holographic images.

"What is it?" the two asked in unison.

"Well, here we have a profile. The guy's name is David Rice, born in Ann Arbor Michigan, supposed to be dead but was never reported as such.

The guy lives a luxury life in New York but ironically nobody has ever seen him work. That and we can detect several wormhole signatures from within his apartment. The place is like a fucking beehive," Elizabeth concluded feeling proud of her seemingly 'smart' analysis.

Alice and Zeel knew that The Red Queen was the one that told Elizabeth what to say.

The Red Queen had become the official A.I. of the trio.

"Let's go, get the devices in check," Zeel said flicking his fingers at Alice and Elizabeth as their clothing morphed and shifted into their new combat gear.

The Antigravity boots had become more complex, but also smaller and more stylish. The military-style combat gear they used to wear was now replaced with a pure black outfit that had a silver lining on both sides.

And on the chest area of the new combat suit was The Crawford's Family logo, but somewhat altered since the Crawford's were a hated house across the Multiverse.

The 'C' logo had a stylish flashing of stars that seemed to contain the entire Universe inside.

In the past week, Zeel had found a way to wormhole travel due to the weak spatial forces.

All that was required is an already existing wormhole signature in the area since he didn't want to use speeds of mock eight just to complete a jump, even if it was instantaneous speed.

*Plop*

The trio disappeared from their island base, which soon disappeared, warped, and blended into itself – never leave traces behind.

In a luxury penthouse in New York City.

Pictures can be seen of thousands of places perched up onto the wall with many trinkets loitering the floor of the penthouse.

Through the window, you could see the entirety of New York City, like a god reigning above mortal men and women.

Inside the apartment, two men could be seen talking: David Rice – the target and Roland Cox – the Paladin.

"We have spent eight years searching for you and here you are," Roland said talking to the newly entered David, who just came into his own apartment.

"And who are you?" David answered a bit unconcerned, when you can run from almost anything there isn't a need to get flustered anymore.

This isn't the first time someone he had stolen from came to find him, each time he got away without as much as a scratch.

"My name is Roland," Roland mentioned not appearing hostile in the least, as he was about to continue speaking.

*Plop*

Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth showed up in a warping fashion, shocking both Roland and David.

"I thought I was the only one," David said aloud, his fight or flight instincts already kicking in.

David was a thief who can run from anyone, but something about Zeel made him feel genuine fear for the first time in his life.

Looking at the light flickering on her Mbeamer, Alice pointed at David and said "He's the one we're looking for,"

Zeel and Elizabeth were prepared to act but were intercepted by Roland who had walked in front of David.

"I am not sure who you guys are but I have business with this man, can't we just let it be. I'd be happy to let you have a run at him when I'm finished," Roland tried to negotiate as one jumper was already difficult to handle in comparison to four.

"Okay sure. Look into my eyes for a bit," Zeel said, and as Roland did, he commanded "Tell me who are you? Where is your base? What are these jumpers to you?"

Zeel wasted no time reading his memories and just opted to use his suggestion memory technique – an ability he didn't use as often since minds were complex and he assumed everyone was an enemy until proven otherwise.

Roland's eyes lost their usual shimmer as he answered the questions in a mechanical way "My name is Roland Cox commander of the paladins, a secret society that eliminates 'Jumpers' as they call themselves.

Sometimes we capture them and torture them first in our base which is located below The Parthenon in Greece. We also attempt to breathe them like livestock so we can experiment and gain their abilities to create wormholes at will and –"

"That's enough!" Zeel said as Alice's eyes were beginning to glow an ominous red "Elizabeth do it!"

"Rodger!" Elizabeth said as she disappeared from her spot and reappeared next to Roland Cox, giving him a heavy kick in the chest which shattered his rib cage and heart all at once.

The momentum sending him flying backward through the window of the penthouse with silver lightning flickering all over his body – he would probably be dust by the time he reached the ground.

Not long after, squeals could be heard from below as the supposed 'Paladin' made collision with the ground or what was left of his ashes.

Zeel was not particularly disgusted by Roland's actions but he knew that Alice had become easily irritated among that considered 'evil'.