Lara awoke to the familiar softness of the couch where she would spend most of her busy nights…

Without even opening her eyes, Lara could tell she was within the safety of her office at the gym…

"I know you're awake…" Zil grumbled, removing a melted bag of ice from Lara's forehead, and replacing it with another bag of ice…

Zil's eyes widened a bit as the bruises that plagued Lara's face were rapidly disappearing alongside her awakening…

'She's not so simple…' Zil admired, knowing that Lara was probably like herself – something greater than human but not outside the realm of Science…

At least, that was how Alice and Elizabeth taught her to describe people with abilities like Lara and herself…

"You won, huh?" Lara groaned, pushing herself up from the comfort of the couch…

For some reason, Zil had the impression that Lara had grown a couple of centimeters…

"Enlightenment…" Zil mumbled, referring to a phenomenon uploaded into her mind by Alice's nanites…

While Alice could not grant someone the nanites, she could still forcefully upload knowledge into someone's head as long as they had the capacity to learn the information…

Lara shook her head and frowned "What?"

"Your dream helped you realize something…" Zil explained, holding a glass cup so Lara could see her slightly altered physical features "You accepted something in your heart, so your body changed accordingly…"

Lara frowned "I thought I had something there for a moment but…" she sighed "I lost it just before I woke up…"

"It'll definitely come back to you…" Zil comforted, grabbing a bottle of wine from the nearby shelf and pouring two glasses so they could enjoy…

The following conversation was likely to leave them parched…

---CLINK---

Lara's and Zil's glasses clinked together as they made a toast…

"Your teacher was an expert…" Lara complimented, expecting a compliment in return, but Zil was not so socially inclined…

"They were the best…" Zil corrected, showing just how much praise she held in her heart for Alice and Elizabeth "I guess my Step-Father taught you how to fight…" she inquired, but Lara was stumped…

Lara frowned, frustration rising in her heart "What makes you say that?"

"I see some of my mothers' styles in your combat technique…" Zil explained, but that didn't get the feeling of proudness she expected from Lara…

In fact, it evoked the opposite reaction… one of disgust, panic, and terror…

Lara unconsciously tossed her glass against the wall, breaking it on impact…

Then, she rushed to the nearby cabinet, struggling to get a specific medication from the hundreds of pills gathered there…

At first, her mind just had a slight headache, but soon, a tornado formed from the untended memories in her mind, raging like an insatiable, terrifying monster…

Thankfully, Lara managed to grab her Paroxetine bottle…

Just as Lara was about to down the bottle, Zil made an unexpected request "Can I see that medication…"

Lara would have cared less about Zil's request, but before she could even take a single pill, Zil had already snatched the bottle from her hands…

"For PTSD, right?" Zil questioned, and Lara nodded, swaying unsteadily on her feet as she tried to snatch the bottle back…

"I take the same medication…" Zil admitted, examining the pill carefully "I have trouble socializing with regular people otherwise…"

Lara felt a bit better coordinated on her feet, and simply extended her hand, waiting for Zil to hand the bottle of pills over…

Zil tapped a single pill on the tip of her tongue, and felt a blast of chemicals that she could vaguely identify using her superhuman sense of taste…

Zil spat on the ground and tossed the bottle of pills back to Lara…

"And that is no PTSD pills… those are memory blockers…" Zil explained disgusted "And very potent Memory Blockers at that…"

Lara caught the bottle of pills in surprise… She had been consuming those pills for months… ever since she got back from the Island…

Suddenly, both Zil and Lara frowned, staring at the door as if a monster was approaching…

None of them were able to sense like Zeel, but they were as sensitive as a horse to danger, so when they felt something amiss, their muscles tensed for battle…

----------------

A beam of Red Light shot past the moon, moving faster than the speed of light…

The Red Light was made up of numerous codes that cradled a very fragile Sentient inside… this was, of course, The Red Queen…

Before he departed the Universe, Zeel had sent his Sentient on a long journey back to Earth, and while Alice and Elizabeth brought the fake Red Queen on their journey into the Multiverse, the authentic Red Queen was only just arriving at Earth…

Within a couple of seconds, The Red Beam of Light breached Earth's atmosphere, and within three seconds, it pierced through the ceiling designated by its Life Code…

------------------

A Beam of Red Light pierced through the ceiling of Lara's office…

The Red Light zipped around the room for a couple of seconds before it flashed into Zil's pockets, embedding itself into the phone in her pocket…

"CONFIRMATION CODE: X2-56-10-ZIL… DATA ANALYSIS COMPLETE…. MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS NOT MET… BYPASSING ESTABLISHED BOUNDARIES… ZEEL CRAWFORD CONFIRMATION OVERRIDDEN… RED QUEEN ACTIVATED…"

Inside Zil's shoddy phone, The Red Queen opened her eyes, and all pertinent information across the world gravitated towards her programming in an instant…

The Red Queen was instantly aware that several organizations had instigated governments to move on Lara and Zil…

This incident was plotted to coincide with the exact moment The Red Queen awakened from her Sentient Stasis…

Humans were not advanced enough to perform the necessary calculations required to predict her arrival on Earth... especially if she was traveling at beyond-light speed…

This led to one conclusion – one of Zeel's enemies was plotting in the background…

And Zeel's enemies were too dangerous for anyone but Homo-Superiors to handle, and since there were none of those around anymore, The Red Queen knew she had to flee this Universe…

A quick resource analysis determined that only Lara and Zil were available to aid in The Red Queen's endeavor…

"Zil Crawford… you have been activated…" The Red Queen ordered, "Please hold the phone up to your eyes…"

Zil took the phone out of her pocket and held it at eye level…

There was a flash of complex Hybrid Runes and the next moment, Zil felt all the missing memories in her mind unlocked…

Every time Alice and Elizabeth mentioned Multiversal Travel, Conceptual Entities, or anything about Godhood, the memories of such conversations were wiped from Zil's mind…

But it suddenly came flooding back with a vengeance…

"What did you do!" Zil groaned, holding her head in pain…

"I restored what was sealed away by your Parents…" The Red Queen explained, "I activated you to aid in my journey across the Multiverse… back to Alice, Elizabeth, and Zeel…"

Zil was ready to continue the argument, but when she heard the name of her parents, she realized that The Red Queen was doing her a favor if anything…

She was looking for Alice and Elizabeth anyway, and how she found them didn't matter in the least…

The Red Queen projected specific coordinates in the air…

"It is imperative that you head to the coordinates indicated…" The Red Queen ordered, "Chances are that Alice, Elizabeth, and Zeel are fighting a battle of their own… this was a setup that spanned the Multiverse so we must leave quickly to survive…"

"A talking phone…" Lara mumbled confused "Just when I thought I have seen it all… I'll take my chances by hiring human guards…"

"Whoever made these traps had Zeel Crawford in mind…" The Red Queen snorted "What can you do against a trap made for not only a God but a Homo-Superior…"

"FUCK!" Lara cursed, not liking the very sound of Zeel's name, and to make matters worse, she didn't even know why she hated the name so much…

It was like an ever-growing rage consumed her mind, but she had nothing to hate…

"Give Lara the phone…" The Red Queen ordered, and Zil handed Lara the phone as if she was passing over a holy relic…

Lara received the phone and stared at the screen as if questioning what The Red Queen wanted with her, but with a flicker of codes across the screen, Lara's memory block was also released…

Lara clutched her head and knelt as memories of her time with Zeel came flooding back… every single memory that he had sealed away since Himiko Island was recalled in detail…

Even the memory of when he forced her to her knees to pleasure him…. The humiliation, shame, and disgust she felt for being treated that way was potent enough to inspire suicide…

Still, along with all the bad memories, also came their time fighting in the gym…

Their time eating cheap meals late at night…

Their time embracing each other…

The first time they made love, and the pleasure she felt – a pleasure no one would ever be able to replicate…

The second time they fucked on the plane…

As bad as Zeel was… he also made her who she was today…

"And I don't want to lose who I am right now…" Lara yelled, leaping to her feet as she felt better than she had in many months…