Chapter 3

After Daniel had informed Jay of Eric's sneaky action, Jay seemed to have given him more respect. To be friends with Jay ment you had to be useful to him in some way . Most people would be disgusted by this thou, so Jay disguised this part of himself with how he treated you .

Perhaps at first Jay was bringing him along because of their history together, or the possibility that his parents and Daniels would ask why he didn't help his friend out , but now he really wanted Daniel with him , because it seemed his usefulness had not entirely expired.

What was amazing though was how Daniel hadn't once stopped scrolling through his phone , but picked up on something important, while he was right there the entire time speaking with the culprit, but saw nothing!.

There was the possibility that Daniel was lying, but Jay knew him like the back of his palm . The guy would rather die than lie about anything important. He was so easy to read , but just as complicated to deal with.

Jay drove the car on the highway , but it didn't take five minutes for them to ran into another insectoid monster four meters tall.

Blocking the way !.

Many pedestrians and drivers had been brutal eaten leaving a rustic smell permeating the entire area .

I'll deal with this one , Jay jumped out of the driver's seat way before Eric could react to it. He then run right to the beast bug. Daniel was shocked by Jays decisiveness. Did he not feel utter disgust for the features of the beast ? How was he soo calm .

But this was an opportunity to witness what exactly Jay could do . Eric's telekinesis was versatile and useful, but it was very generic.

Perhaps he could do more with it, but for now Daniel could understand the many possibilities for his abilities. But with Jay it was different. How did his power operate? Was it one way or multiple? Did he have full control or once deployed its effects left his direct command?.

With all his genius Daniel felt like he could be doing more ! It was like he processed things faster, but the world itself had rules on how fast events occurred.

If there was a second evolution of powers, it go for a bit more breath than depth with his genius mind. There were many reasons why . He felt like with his human body further advancement that went into the depth of his intelligence would cripple him , why did he think this way? Because he was a genius! He saw things about himself others wouldn't ever see.he was constantly running self diagnostics on himself. His heart rate his breath his vision smell etc .

His conclusion was he had wasted his potential! Infact every walking human had wasted it ! Had he fully utilized what was given him at birth , he without superpowers could single handedly take down that beast!

This didn't even have anything to do with what he previously said about scientists preventing human evolution. It was like sitting on a pile of fertile land and dying of starvation!

He was constantly getting upset , he kind of understood why all geniuses of earth were soo irritable. And he was sure they hadn't reached his level.

But his train of thought was going of Tangent . truly , his current hurdle was to train his mind before he ended up scatter brained.

Jay reached 7 feet away from the bug monster as both were advancing toward each other.

And the moment came . With a stabbing motion the bug tried to skewer Jay to it's front leg , but Jay released his barrier. A pale blueish dome surrounded him fully blocking the bugs attack.

Daniel found it interesting, he felt the unstable barrier had a lot of growth potential, but in its most defective form it had already reached the point where it could cheild against the attack of a four meter tall bug? And to harmer home a point , bugs where already strong enough to lift more than twice their body weight at normal size . Now scale it to the size of two full grown adults of about 6 feet tall standing like a pole as one and thicken them a bit.

Luke beside him was shaking out of fear . How could a pervert whose first reaction to the end of days was to suppress an entire gender of minors into sex slaves, be so afraid? It made little sense, but Daniel refused to think about it too much . He might have become a genius , but it didn't make him the master of human behavior. In fact he couldn't be bothered to even learn it ! His talents were needed elsewhere.(To serve himself)

But the bug hadn't given up yet . Like a gattling gun , it rained stabs from four of its legs at the impenetrable barrier of Jay's.

" His power is really useful for the role of tank, but his attack power is almost non existent." Eric in the front passengers seat concluded out of the observations he made.

" I disagree there is a lot of attack potential there , he just has to realize it. After all he just manifestated his power merely a couple of hours ago." Daniel said from the back seat .

" Maybe you are right , but for now this is as far as he can go , I'll get out to help him " Eric said as he got ready to step out of the vehicle.

" You underestimate Jay , he might not be a genius, but his adaptability is amazing " Daniel said causing Eric to think a bit ,and sit back down .

" But not as much as you , I've been paying attention to you since before we left the school , immediately using the person closest to you as a meet shield , texting some questionable people, and getting all knowledge available of useful medicines and the like on your device , before the Internet is permanently shut down . You are so quick it's frightening " Eric said to Daniel with an Eerie tone .

" Don't think I didn't see you show that text to Jay before we got into the vehicle. " He added .

Daniel felt like laughing he would have , but he didn't. To casually reveal one of your trump cards so easily . You must be really stupid, or not find me threatening enough.

" I guess I am aren't I .... Plus do you think you could have hidden the fact from Jay for long enough before he figured it out ? You weren't exactly subtle with it too after all you did it right in front of us all."

Luke looked between the two , and a thought came to mind .' these aren't teenagers at all!'

He could barely understand the context of the discussion, but what he gleemed from this was already shocking . Eric had done something right in front of them all, but none of them apart from Daniel had seen him do anything.Daniel had already informed Jay , And Eric knew he'd informed Jay . But from Daniels reaction one could tell he already expected Eric to know !

It was an open secret , and the oblivious one was him . He'd been with them the entire time and paid close attention to everyone, yet stuff happened under his watch , and he'd seen and heard nothing.

It made him feel very in adequate, after all he was older.

" You don't seem surprised, where you testing the extent of my abilities? Haha hahaha hahahahahah interesting, very interesting , I thought at first you were only capable of technical stuff, there is more to you than that though." Eric seemed elated , but Daniel could tell it was all fake . The bastard wanted to kill him were he sat.

To be honest Eric might not be as smart as Luke might have thought . It wasn't his judgement that got him answers, rather a feature of his ability!. Daniel had to now reevaluate Eric's power, and rename it too.

This wasn't telekinesis, the ability to move objects from one point to another.

This was Omni presence! An all powerful. Within a certain determinable rage , Eric was all present. This was terrible, a very very terrible ability! No secrets existed anywhere within his range !

This lead Daniel down a rabbit hole . If he already met Omni present, were there more like omnipotent and Omni scient? !

Out of all abilities these three were hax ! .

And the one he feared most was omniscient.

One would think Daniel should have given Eric's power omnipotent , and a teleporter Omni present. But that was archaic and wrong . A teleporter wasn't everywhere at once , and Eric was not all powerful in the range he' administered '

" I'm glad you find me interesting, you might end up protecting me like Jay"

"Don't push your luck . You might be useful, but not necessarily to me " Eric replied sharply when he felt Daniel wanted to use him as a bodyguard.

Daniel said this precisely for that reaction. He was now on Eric's radar , but he'd rather he think of him as an opportunistic bastard than a superpowered genius.

Jay was struggling to come up with a way to attack the bug monster. He was scared really , really scared .before him was a gigantic insect. It was revolting and sickening to look at , it was stronger than anything Jay could think of . The impact of its legs against his shield power caused the impact point to explode causing huge dents .

He didn't fully trust his own abilities, he could barely understand what it was. But it acted like a shield , so he called it a shield.

He had the instrument of defense, what about his offensive ability?. He could wait and tire the bug monster out , but he didn't know if his shield could last till then .

Then a thought came to him. Shield were not attack oriented tools , but he had seen warriors represented in media use it to kill. Granted that wasn't it's main use. However he once heard the saying "whatever is in my hand is my weapon " was it a self defense class or something else? He couldn't remember.

But that gave him the inspiration he needed to take one step toward into understanding his power.

Jay cancelled his shield, and the bug got its chance . It attacked him with it's front legs at speeds faster than a arrow head released from a bow

Jay was scared he was being reckless, he had no confirmation about his theory, and neither had he certainty that his power wouldn't fail him.

But he took the risk anyway.

WhoBooM .

A giant bug was shot into the grass land by the highway, it's front legs broken , and leaking slimy yellow sappy blood that gave of a uniquely disgusting stench!

In the vehicle back seat Daniels eyes widened briefly before going back to before .

Eric scowled a bit , but readjusted his facial muscles trying not to get any of his inner thoughts examined . But he gave himself too much credit, Daniel had already created a character template of him with the abundance of information at his disposal. Eric wasn't a totally different person from before the Apocalypse started . He might have some differences , but it was only how synical he had become. Everything else was the same.

Jay came into his element, he walked cooly to the inspectoid monster while the beast shrieked and got onto its intact feet.

It charged at Jay only for

WhooBooM !

The second attack spelt it's doom as a huge dent formed on its carapace causing internal injuries.

The giant bugs were just big bugs . There was no other uniqueness to it apart from size and strength, so the internal injury was enough to slowly kill it off. But they had wasted a lot of time .

Jay stood on the corpse and used a kitchen knife to pry open the dead bug's head carapace. He then fished in it for a long while and took out a red crystal like gemstone. Daniel really envied how easy it was for Jay to adapt to the disgusting appearance of the bugs.

He only adapted to their gruesomeness fully after being transformed into a genius but what could he say , he had his strengths , and Jay had his.

" Don't waste any more time . I killed a bug in less than half the time you used right now." Eric said .

" Mavis sonic blast is the reason you can say something like that " Jay retorted. He'd finally done what Eric had . He wasn't his lesser .

" Then let's make a bet ."

" What kind of bet ?"

" The one who kills of a bug the fastest will get the others red gemstone" Eric layed down the terms .

Jay knew what Eric was doing. In any other situation he might have agreed .but he didn't know the value of what he held. It could be a determining factor that could save his life in this now dangerous world.

" Go bet with someone else , I'm holding on to my gems" Jay got a rug and wiped off the puss like body fluid of the bug off his hands. Even still the odor permiated the vehicle making it hard to breath.

Daniel shut them all out , and sent his full undivided attention to the science he'd procured from the net .it was already 65% phone battery life and there was no charger or power for that matter. He must finish before his phone battery life finished, he was on a clock .