It has been around three months since the Garde's subsequent departure from Earth. John and Cindy, having dated for a while now, began the honeymoon stage of their relationship.

They had sex like a pair of rabbits in heat; spurred on by the trend Marina and Vishnu likewise took the final step in their relationship.

After months of crying herself to sleep over the loss of Stanley, a loss the rest of the group pretended to mourn, Ella began throwing herself into training.

She trained so hard that she had to alternate between training and spending time in the stasis pods for healing since Marina refused to accept her self-destructive behavior anymore.

Elizabeth, not liking the fact that all the others were coupling up, started to revisit Alice's and Zeel's bedroom after having moved out ever since the battle of New York.

Much to her chagrin; however, Zeel refused to touch her at first, if it had not been for Alice's intervention the bedroom would have actually become a battlefield.

Elizabeth had begun getting more and more frustrated the closer they got to Lorien as if she was struggling with a decision.

Zeel noticed her behavior but didn't pay much attention as he was prepared for every eventuality – including but not limited to ones where Elizabeth betrayed both Alice and himself.

Three months later the group was coming up on the solar system of Lorien – truly a beautiful solar system compared to all others Zeel had seen.

He held a final conference to finalize all details and plans put in place for the battle with Setrakus Ra a couple of weeks later. That was the estimated time of his arrival, calculating his speed and tech used to travel deep space.

"Our main priority is the restoration of Lorien right?" asked Marina eager to get back to the home she had seen countless times in her dreams.

"Yes! Setrakus Ra should be on his last legs by the time he reaches Lorien, probably has one trump card but it won't be technologically inclined since he knows it will have no use on us," Alice mentioned since Malcolm Goode was a spy of Setrakus Ra, he likely knew the details of their nanites.

"Then what would it be?" John asked then began bragging "There is nothing he could use to threaten us with – even the destruction of Earth would be impossible from so far,"

Vishnu shrugged "We won't know until he shows us,"

Zeel nodded "Basically yeah,"

"I've always wanted to know, what is a cosmic force?" Cindy pointed out a question everyone had overlooked since Zeel mentioned it a couple of weeks ago.

"Well, let's see how best to explain it? Alice?" Zeel thought before thinking it was best to throw the hot potato to Alice.

"Actually I am a bit curious as well," Alice replied raising a brow since she had yet to see him meeting any cosmic force in his memories. How did he know about it? Did he really meet one?

"Well to put it simply, cosmic forces are necessary. It is said the first gods borrowed their power from a powerful cosmic force and refused to return the power after the universe was created. It is also said that cosmic forces were born because gods were wreaking havoc in the universe.

But one thing is certain- Cosmic forces serve a purpose that is necessary to the survival of a universe, sometimes more than just one universe.

Some are to erase life when it's no longer beneficial to the universe, some to create life and repopulate planets, some to craft beauty in the universe creating galaxies, and countless stars to fill the infinite expansion and others to reward the worthy," Zeel said in more of a monologue trance than actually attempting to explain to the group "Simply put, they serve a purpose unlike everything else in the universe who decides their purpose.

They are sentient but lack emotional traits. Cosmic forces can't procreate unless they are very old, possibly billions of years old. Lorien on the other hand is relatively young – maybe a couple of million years,"

"That's young?" Vishnu asked with a gasp.

"Well yeah for cosmic forces," Zeel replied nonchalantly "Anyways as for as gods go - I don't know. Cosmic forces made sense because they hold the balance in place but gods are things I never paid attention to research due to the many restrictions placed on my Universe,"

"So you're on a god hunt?" Ella asked eyeing Zeel like a hungry beast, she was still very much angry about Stanley's early passing.

"Yeah, maybe one will be able to resurrect your shotty little boyfriend," Zeel replied sarcastically.

Ella attacked Zeel without any warning, but he was already prepared and was about to send her flying away when Alice intervened freezing Ella in place.

"You won't let me have any fun right?" Zeel asked somewhat upset.

"No infighting," Alice responded keeping her stoic expression looking at Zeel dead in the eyes.

As a woman, Alice had learned to keep her own ground in the relationship while simultaneously not going overboard.

Later after the meeting, Zeel started a new project on the computer, it was a project called 'Divine Spark'.

Zeel knew that if something couldn't be done on Lorien to settle their energy problem, then Alice and himself wouldn't be able to stay alive much longer.

He laughed in his mind imagining how Elizabeth would look like a widow, she would probably join them in the crave because of boredom alone.

Little did Zeel know that Alice was thinking of another matter altogether. She knew that it would be a hassle to live 500 years or possibly more, during that time Zeel and herself would not always be in love.

She knew that it would likely be her who ended the relationship in comparison to Zeel, he was a very possessive person and would never let her go.

To make sure they couldn't end their relationship – one that had already escaped from normal human relationships, she started to think of ways to enhance the Ownerum tag on her and Elizabeth's bodies.

It was like the ownerum legacy of Zeel but more potent to a whole other level.

Alice viewed their relationship as a really long marriage and she decided long ago to force herself to be with Zeel for the rest of her life if necessary. She knew she might come to regret the decision at some point in the future.

After all, every marriage had its problems and she didn't want to rely solely on his ownerum ability to ensure her loyalty to Zeel, when you live 500 years you are bound to have a couple of flings when you get bored of your counterpart and this was something she was actively trying to avoid.

She could trust herself to remain faithful for 500 years, but what about 1000 years? 10,000,000 years?

Zeel didn't look like the kind to accept death so easily when there was an entire Multiverse to explore.

Knowing Zeel and his nature, if she even accidentally kissed someone else he would abandon her and kill that person no doubt. If she was completely honest with herself, that was one of the reasons she worked so hard to make Elizabeth his lover.

Elizabeth was in a place where she required a strong shoulder and was fiercely loyal, sooner Elizabeth would die than betray Zeel.

It was in her Lorien nature, that accompanied by Zeel's ownerum somewhat guaranteed that Elizabeth even after thousands of years would remain loyal to Zeel.

However, just to be safe she would also include her; Alice had learned not to take any chances with Zeel – even if you are sure about the outcomes, be double or triple sure.