Chapter 48：Trust is key

"So you understand what you have to do right?" asked a female voice from a speaker. Jack nodded placed the glove on. The scythe of darkness had kept him relatively young but the process of ageing still carried on at a much slower rate. He was now 21 years of age and the many years of caring for Kyle and Sophie had toughened him in ways he couldn't have imagined. The new general and he had been working on a secret project together that could help the state of the planet. He'd discarded his cloak and started anew to be a better role model for the children. Currently, he wore an improvised protective suit using the nano-bots that fused with the glove and it's wiring. Pads on the palm began to glow golden but the golden colour started to form cracks in the nano-bot suit.

"Don't worry Jack, the suit can take the strain of the ability. Your body isn't suited for it so these nano-bots should take your body's place in a way." said the speaker voice. The golden colour kept growing brighter and the cracks kept spreading. They now covered most of his arm and was spreading over his chest and back. Suddenly, the glove was repelled off the suit by the nano-bots and they formed a large shield over Jack. Large chunks of the ceiling crashed drown but the bots were able to fully protect Jack with ease. Down from the hole in the ceiling, James jumped into the room and fired blasts of energy at the cameras and speakers.

"Jack! You're alright. Come on, I'm getting you out of here!" called James. He grabbed Jack's arm to help him out but Jack instead kicked James in the chest and into the wall. A door in the corner of the room opened and a tall and thin woman with circular glasses and very light brown hair tied up in a tight bun entered then room. She wore a white skirt that went to her ankles, a blue sweater and a good fitting lab coat filled with pens and pencils.

"Felicity? Felicity Richter, right?" asked James. The woman shook her head sadly.

"Felicity Richter was my mother. I'm Jasmine Richter, the new general and chief of research here at this place ... which should be impossible to find. How did you find this place?" asked Jasmine.

"This is the only building that is actually in one piece compared to all the other ones. You might as well put a neon sign saying 'top secret government building here'!" suggested James. Jasmine walked over to the glove and picked it up. She then stopped and turned to James.

"Aren't you meant to be in prison?" asked Jasmine.

"Yeah, a bomb was supposed to be dropped on Rikers island today. How are you still alive?" asked Jack. James proceeded to explain how Sarah turned up, James stopped the bomb, when to the sanctuary, and got ambushed.

"Sorry about those armed guards. Part of the deal me and Jack made was that Kyle and Sophie were protected. I guess bringing a large group of prisoners to one stop spooked them." apologised Jasmine. Jack looked at James with uncertainty. He walked up to James and quickly brought his scythe blade around to James' neck. It stopped half an inch away from James' skin with a single finger between the two.

"They took your celestial weapons away didn't right? Then how are you still this powerful without yours?" questioned Jack. James shrugged but Jack didn't question any further.

"So what is going on between you two and this deal?" asked James. Felicity stepped in the middle of them and ushered Jack to put the weapon away.

"Seventeen years ago, a strange anomaly was found in low earth orbit. It shared many traits with a black hole but it wasn't attracting any matter. Instead it seemed to be more of a gateway - an inter-universal portal. After some tests using unmanned crafts, we were able to capture it and bring to earth for testing. However, what we didn't realise was that the vacuum of space was keeping whoever was on the other side on that side. After the retrieval craft landed, the portal opened fully and plague was released onto the planet. Eighty percent of all human beings perished with only those in the Rikers island prison and in other protected buildings surviving. That's when our orders were given. One week ago, this woman with black hair came through the gateway wearing this weird, black suit that covered their whole body and a metal mask with green rectangles for eye holes. She said that if we killed all the remaining ability users on earth she'd remove the plague. So the plan was to gather them all and bomb them. How else would we?" explain Jasmine.

James stood still trying to process it all. In the end, the only thing he could release from his mouth was:

"Did you get her name?"

"Yeah, she made it pretty clear." Jack took out a phone and tapped a few times. He then showed the screen to James with a picture of a dead man holding a gun with five letters on the wall spelled out in blood:

ALCIE

Jack put the phone away and looked at the glove in Jasmine's hand.

"We have a plan though. Now that you're here it's going to work even better. When I saved Noa from that fall, I drained them of their ability like I did with all those others. I still have those abilities and I can use them to do what I now believe was Okubi controlling Noa did. I can make a portal to whatever universe Alcie came from and force her to stop the plague. This glove can help me use the ability but the amount of excess energy is too much for my body to handle." said Jack. James gave a confused look.

"There was no sign of excess energy when Noa did it. Are you sure you're not just letting too much escape?" asked James.

"That's not what's happening. The nano-bots crumble under the amount to excess energy coming out. They can't store it all" said Jack. Jasmine tapped on the glove a few times before chuckling a little.

"I think he might be right. All that energy what's being bounced back from the barrier between our universe and her universe. If we use the nano-bots to redirect the power back to the glove it might work." said Jasmine. James gave a smug look to Jack who returned with an eye roll.

After some tinkering, they finally got the nano-bots to redirect the power back to the glove. Jack adjusted his footing and put the glove on. He raised his hand at the wall and the golden light flowed to the glove making the palm glow. The light grew brighter and where the cracks should have appeared now had the flow of excess energy going back to the glove. With the cameras busted, Jasmine stayed in the room but stayed behind James for protection if there was a malfunction. Soon some sparks of gold appeared in front of Jack's hand. A small ring appeared and began to grow. Soon it was big enough to trigger flashbacks in James' memories of falling through the network of portals. But he kept focused on Jack and the growing ring. The inside was the familiar gold and black swirling pattern and arcing electricity. James looked at Jack who was nearly collapsing to the floor in exhaustion. James walked and grabbed Jack's shoulder pouring large amounts of energy into him. It was enough for Jack to finally finish the portal sending a large gust of air into the room that nearly knocked Jasmine off her feet.

"You did it Jack. You've made an inter-universal portal!" said Jasmine. She went to put her hand into the portal but James grabbed her hand before she could. "What are you doing?!"

"That portal leads to ever universe in this dimension. Just hopping from one to another trying to find Alcie isn't going to work. And just look at Jack," said James as he turned to Jack laying down on the floor in exhaustion, "he's in no shape to go making more portals." Sarah reluctantly agreed and the two of them carried Jack to a room with a bed where they layed him down to get some rest. James went back to the room with the portal and made some flaming chains over it so Sarah couldn't access it.

James turned around to leave but Jasmine pulled him to the side.

"I need to ask you a favour." she said. James gave an annoyed sigh.

"What?" he asked.

"As you may not have realised, I've repaired nearly all of Jack's destroyed neural pathways. He now has the capacity to remember everything but key triggers are needed."

"Like how he remembered Noa because of the fact he has her ability still?"

"Sure ... how exactly did you do it though. It was the ability of someone infused with a machine that did this so technology must have progressed pretty far." An image of Sarah flashed in Jasmine's head.

"Yeah, it sure has progressed far." she looked down. "You should get going now. Thanks for helping us. I'll update you if anything happens to the portal while your gone."

"OK. Take care of Jack while I'm gone. I'll be back tomorrow with some people I think can help us navigate the tunnel system. Well, we need a more scientific name for it but it'll do for now."

James stepped below the hole in the ceiling and launched up into the air. The sanctuary was already in sight and James stepped up the pace. With a roll, he landed at the front door and opened it up to find everyone already getting used to the building. It seemed Jack, Sophie, and Kyle had kept it in pretty good shape. James jogged up the stairs and entered his room. Nothing had changed except a single letter on his bed. He closed the door behind him and picked it up.

This is what it said:

Dear James Kendrickson,

It has come to my attention that something very wrong is happening. Things that should go up are going down and decisions are changing.

A long time ago you met my companion 'The Jumper' and fought his warrior. The Jumper was one of many ... colleges of mine before he went rogue and started killing the strongest beings in every multiverse. The primary job of my colleges is to run the multiverse through a fine sieve and pick out an discrepancies in the timelines. Even the smallest can send tsunamis through the timelines.

However, you are a very special discrepancy. Something has changed your timeline massively. What it is ... I don't know. Even though the previous gods of your universe revived you, it wasn't want changed. And finding out what did change is my primary concern.

We will meet at some point but first you have something to sort out if my knowledge is correct. Stay safe until we meet.

Yours sincerely,

-I'll tell you my name when we meet-

PS- mind your head when you fall!

Suddenly, a huge pain surged through James' body as if he was going to pop. The amount of energy flowing through him sky-rocketed yet his body felt weak and his legs gave way. He fell to the floor and smashed his head against it; knocking himself out.