Chapter 368 - The Deal Made

Zil Crawford, the adopted daughter of Alice and Elizabeth, was walking down the street in London…

It had been six months since Alice, Elizabeth, Ella, and Alle departed The Tomb Raider Universe. As someone raised in a home of the supernatural and scientifically advanced, Zil had a hard time coping with the outside world from a very young age…

Zil never had much of a social life growing up, and now, she was all alone in the world… Alice and Elizabeth were gone… Ella and Alle were gone… Everyone was just … gone…

In her hands, Zil clutched a photo of Zeel…

It was the only photo she had that connected her to Alice and Elizabeth, and needless to say, she only had the photo because she stole it…

Everything else that belonged to her family disappeared when they did…

Though she never knew Zeel personally, her Mothers naming her 'Zil' had some pretty obvious implications about their state of mind at the time…

For the ten years they were together, Zil could always see the longing in their eyes, and when it came time to leave, she could also see the relief in their eyes…

Like a great burden had been removed from their shoulders, and Zil had to admit, witnessing their relief broke her heart… In this life and any other, there was only one thing she craved above all else – making Alice and Elizabeth proud to call her daughter…

So even if somewhere deep down she despised Zeel for taking her Mothers away, Zil knew that Zeel's approval was the only thing that could allow her into The Crawford Family… Well, at least that was what she guessed from the information provided…

As far as Zil knew, or rather, as far as she was allowed to know, The Crawford Family was some Hidden Clan somewhere in the world…

They probably stood at the peak of the world, always watching her every movement, and that made Zil a bit paranoid if she was to be honest…

From the information she had been able to put together, Zil had a vague idea about why her Mothers and Sisters had to leave so suddenly…

Alice, Elizabeth, Ella, and Alle were probably exiled for a couple of years and when it came time for them to return, she could not join them since she had not yet proven her worth to The Crawford Family…

As for Zeel Crawford, he was probably the Family Head and involved in a lot of secret government projects that sent people to the moon to gain superhuman abilities and Sci-Fi stuff like that...

That was the only story that was logical to Zil, and since Alice and Elizabeth never confirmed or denied her theories, Zil guessed that she was on the right track…

Zil paused and glanced around, removing her phone from her pocket to take a quick peek at the GPS that confirmed she was heading in the right direction…

"A couple more blocks…" Zil muttered with a downtrodden look on her face…

It was a mix of embarrassment and self-hate… she couldn't do the one thing Alice and Elizabeth had asked of her – keeping the orphanages running…

Zil was the sole beneficiary of Alice's and Elizabeth's entire Estate, and that meant she was in charge of the dozens of Orphanages Worldwide…

However, she was not gifted with money management, so when funds started leaking from the businesses, she failed to notice anything until it was too late…

Even the people employed by the Estate had no idea why the electronic currency was just vanishing… Not being stolen… Not being transferred from one account to the other…. Just vanishing from the bank accounts…

As a last-ditch effort to save her Mothers' legacies, Zil hired a Private Investigator to look for alternative sources of funding, but investors avoided her like the plague…

Zil was forced to use her considerable combat skill to shake a few less-than-legal trees to keep the entire Orphanage Business afloat…

Thankfully, before she could become accustomed to the life of crime, Zil was notified of a possible Investor that could resolve not just her financial issues, but also her emotional issues…

The Investor's name was Lara Croft – a woman suspected to have entanglements with not just Alice and Elizabeth, but also Zeel Crawford…

"Hey…" Zil groaned, lifting the Old Man she had bumped into off the ground "You need to watch where you are walking… you walk fast for someone so old…"

The Old Man looked at Zil, then glanced at the photo clutched in her hand and frowned…

Zil quirked her brows "You know this guy?" she asked, gesturing to the photo of Zeel in her hands…

The Old Man nodded his head while wincing, like even thinking about Zeel caused him pain…

The sight was a bit funny to see, and that was the only reason Zil chose to entertain a brief conversation with the old geezer…

"That kid took something very precious from me…" The Old Man complained, nearly losing grip on his walking stick "I came all this way to take it back, but by the time I got here, he was gone…"

Zil giggled a bit in her heart since Zeel, from the way her Mothers described him, was a trillionaire so there was no need for him to take anything from a poor Old Man…

Such an image didn't match well with the Zeel in her imagination, so Zil chose to ignore the Old Man altogether…

Zil brushed past the Old Man, planning to put an end to the conversation that wasn't going anywhere… She thought she had encountered someone with useful information, but as it turned out, The Old Man was probably a pretend-psychic planning to make a quick buck…

"Perhaps, there is a deal to be made here…" The Old Man suddenly shifted his tone from amiable to eerily mysterious…

Still, anything mysterious drove Zil's curiosity…

Zil paused her step and gave the Old Man another once-over "What deal?" She inquired with a quirked brow, trying to look uninterested...

Alice had warned her to never make deals and never mess with time, but those were two things Zil chose to ignore because it didn't make any sense…

"I can point you in the direction that will lead to the man in the picture you carry around… and in repayment…" The Old Man bobbed his head back and forth as if trying to think about something "How about you just owe me a favor? All it takes is the shake of a hand…"

The Old Man extended his hand, and Zil hesitated for a couple of seconds before she took it, and just like that, the deal was established…

Zil felt a shudder down her spine… "The Woman you are looking for, Lara croft… you won't find her in the big building… just head two blocks in that direction and you'll see a gym and that's where she'll be… of course, you have to beat her in a fight or she won't bother with you…"

"Thanks…" Zil was surprised that the information sounded credible "You were actually helpful Mr… uh?"

"Mephistopheles…" The Old Man replied "The name is Mephistopheles… and I would hurry if I were you… the next thirty minutes could determine if you live an extraordinary life or a normal one…"

"Huh…" Zil shrugged her shoulders, not caring for the cryptic message within Mephistopheles' words "A strange name for a strange old man… it suits you…"

Not wasting any more time, Zil dashed away, intent on reaching the gym to meet with the woman who had the answers she sought…

As soon as Zil departed, Mephistopheles' appearance morphed to become an inhuman creature with a mouth full of sharpened teeth, and eyes as black as the abyss…

Mephistopheles' body began to fade from existence, being forcefully ejected back to the Universe from which he came… He had been in this Universe for too long, and his powers had been long spent, but that just went to show how far he was willing to go to fuck Zeel over…

"I have stayed too long…" he mused, but the content smile never departed his face "I didn't find the Homo-Superior, but I did manage to get someone close to him…"

With that, Mephistopheles faded into nothingness, forced back into The Ghost Rider Universe…

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A couple of minutes later, Zil pushed open the door to Lara's Gym, and was immediately surprised by the shouting and yelling of everyone inside the establishment…

She could literally feel the strong emotions washing over her…

Excitement…

Shock…

Awe…

Wonderment…

Anger…

Everything was jumbled together as spectators observed the ongoing match in the ring…

Of course, the person on display was Lara Croft, and the gym was packed with fighters waiting in line to get their chance at defeating her… Though, Zil judged that nobody could possibly win against Lara…

Others may not be able to notice, but as someone trained by Alice and Elizabeth, Zil was attuned to the muscle movements of bodies beyond the human peak…

And Zil could tell from a glance, the way Lara's muscles moved was not like a human's…

Human muscles become lacked into certain patterns after puberty, and from what Zil could observe about Lara's movements – her muscles were in a constant state of readjustment…

Zil had witnessed such a phenomenon before… in Alice and Elizabeth…

It was like her Mothers' muscles would become whatever tissue they needed at the moment… Zil pushed through the crowd to make her way to the front, but as soon as she got within a couple feet of the ring, an overwhelming feeling of confusion could be tasted on her lips…

Growing up, Zil was exposed to the Rainbow Aura of Elizabeth all the time, and that allowed her to perceive emotional states more keenly than anyone else…

"Hmm…" Zil frowned, looking inside the ring as she traces the feeling of confusion to one person – Lara Croft…