Chapter 140 - Waking Alice

Stirring awake, the crystal coating slowly dissolved as a naked Alice walked out into the open for everyone to see.

She looked around briefly, before laying eyes on the nearby Elizabeth.

In a split second, the nanites lying dormant in Alice's body awoke at that moment. A military attire suddenly materialized layer by layer on her body. By the time she was in front of Elizabeth, Alice had already adapted the look of a seasoned, but stylish soldier.

Elizabeth and Alice stood and stared into each other's eyes for a moment. Suddenly, Alice reached out and brushed Elizabeth's cheeks and then along her lips.

Elizabeth grimaced in pain slightly, since Alice's energy was slowly mixing with her own.

She was already having trouble dealing with her own energies, but soon the pain was alleviated.

Alice kissed Elizabeth passionately as she siphoned the existing energies in Elizabeth's body, and sent it through the small gap to Lorien she still sustained.

Alice separated from the kiss and paid no attention to the bulging eyes in the background. Rubbing her aching head, Alice looked at Elizabeth and asked "How long?"

"29 years, 3 months, 5 days, 2 hours, and 25 seconds," Elizabeth replied, still indulged in the first feeling of comfort since she woke up.

Noticing James and the others behind Elizabeth inching closer and closer to the exit, Alice snorted as everyone present in the cave, apart from Elizabeth, were forced to kneel and remain in that position.

"You don't need to vent the excess energy?" Elizabeth asked since she had to find an outlet for her excess energy when she woke up.

"No, the crystals helped regulate my power, you know this technique as well so you don't need to vent. Guess we were lax in your teachings. Besides we are still connected to Lorien or we wouldn't be able to use our abilities. At least you wouldn't," Alice said as she looked at Elizabeth as if looking at an idiot.

Elizabeth slapped her head in realization, she was always connected to Lorien since her abilities came from Lorien "Then why did I have to vent?"

"Each time we perform a Mjump, we adjust to a new vibrational threshold along with cosmic dissonance. Our abilities become stronger as a result due to our unique method of travel, so we have to readjust every jump," Alice explained something Elizabeth should already know.

"What's wrong with your memories?" Alice asked confused.

"Aren't Zeel's nanites dormant? We lost the connection," Elizabeth replied with a quizzical expression. Hadn't this been the case since she woke up a couple of days ago?

"Zeel is an a*shole, we won't be able to function without him – that's the way he designed everything. The moment you woke up, the three of us woke up together, that's how the nanites work. It's a sort of Quantum Entanglement phenomenon. Come here!" Alice said as she gestured to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth walked forward as Alice ran her fingers exploring every nook and cranny of Elizabeth's body.

Suddenly, Alice paused as she smiled widely, and raised her hand to the air. Her telekinetic energy gathered around her palm, glowing slightly red.

With a plop, Alice slapped Elizabeth across the face with the strength that would kill a normal human.

Elizabeth was poised and ready to fight until she felt her body became much lighter and could see a distorted humanoid shape being expelled from her body.

"What the hell? Was that inside me?" Elizabeth said scared at the humanoid manifestation of her power that was currently disappearing into the air.

Alice giggled at Elizabeth's naivety, truth be told, she wouldn't have been able to diagnose what was wrong without being able to manipulate her telekinetic energy so finely – thanks to the Energone people.

"Two reasons actually… Zeel is a master at TechnoMancy and can also manipulate energy through that method…

But you and I were much slower because we tried comparing ourselves to him. But in truth, we could never master energy manipulation like him, because we can only manipulate the energies that belong to us.

In my case, it's telekinetic energy and in your case elemental energy. Now your body felt much heavier than it should have been, which elemental energy was lingering inside your body, hindering our hive connection?

That's the first reason, the second being - you allowed the Energones to touch you before we left their planet, right?" Alice asked hoping Elizabeth would grow a little.

"Yeah, Reina kissed me on the hea…" Elizabeth paused as she slapped herself hard, wasn't Reina previously trying to steal their bodies for her daughter?

Alice nodded "She did one last hail Mary by planting her energy deep inside your body in a corporeal form.

But Zeel expected this, too bad we slept so long … without the stasis pod, you'd be dead in a couple of months. What was that elemental energy lingering in your body?"

Dismissing Reina from her mind, Elizabeth thought long and hard until she remembered jumping so high into the air, at that moment she felt as if she was manipulating more than her basic elements.

"Gravity!" she said as her eyes opened wide in shock.

"Yup, you had lingering gravitational forces in your body that the nanites could not get rid of since it was like you were rejecting them yourself," Alice explained as she began stretching her body left and right, not minding the people still kneeling on the ground "So who are that extra baggage?"

Elizabeth looked at those kneeling and sighed "I promised the old guy to get him home. By the way, aren't you curious about my experience so far?"

Alice bumped Elizabeth's head "Our connection was weak but I could still get glimpses and images. I saw through your eyes, so I know what you know. Guess you didn't feel it, so you didn't learn the techniques either,"

"Techniques?" Elizabeth asked confused.

"Before we could use our abilities how we wished because they were limited and weak; but as you have clearly felt, whenever we use energy manipulation with our abilities it's like injecting it with steroids.

We could hurt ourselves and those around us without proper control," Alice explained.

Elizabeth nodded since the moment she awoke her lightning had turned silver, Alice's telekinetic power now had a red tint to it "Yeah, so what are the techniques for?"

"Zeel created them before we left Viveron, it is meant to guide our abilities so they only do what we want them to.

If not it will probably run amok since we are not just using our abilities anymore, but also the energy it governs," Alice said as she finished stretching and closed her eyes to sense Zeel, but instead she found a huge ape coming in their direction.

"We need to leave," Alice said as her face turned ugly.

Elizabeth noticed the urgency in that statement and asked "Why?"

Alice rolled her eyes "Because you stirred awake some of those atrocities below. As much as I want to help everyone…. I know we can't win against those things below this island…. Zeel might have a way but it's risky,"

"Then we get Zeel? He's somewhere deep below," Elizabeth said focusing on her senses and feeling a thug a couple of kilometers in the distance.

Alice smiled wryly "Therein lies the problem," she said pulling up a hologram from the Mbeamer on her finger "There he is,"

Alice said pointing to a spot on the hologram of the island, some ways deep below the ground, but that's not what caught Elizabeth's attention.

There was huge beast sleeping right next to the Zeel's location.

"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"Zeel and that beast have entered a close system of energy circulation. Take away that energy and the beast will wake up. So we're in for a battle either way," Alice said waving her hand allowing the nearby kneeling people to stagger to their feet.