Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 121: Leona

'Sister huh?' Laz wasn't much of one for unwanted company, but at least Dee and Reggie had this sort of innocent feeling to them. This sister of theirs, on the other hand, gave Laz a feeling of an ice sculpture. Only useful to look at and possibly cool the air temperature down a few degrees around it. Since it was May, it wasn't getting too hot just yet, so therefore she only appeared to be good to look at. It might have been a harsh criticism, but that was just the feeling Laz got from the look she was giving.

*How did you make her angry, human?* Vivi said asked while making herself comfortable again. Dee had gotten up and walked towards the girl as soon as she appeared, leaving her alone.

Laz looked over towards Vivi and shrugged his shoulders. To the best of his knowledge, he didn't know this girl.

"What are you two doing here?" The girl asked while switching her gaze between Dee and Reggie.

"We were just... uh..." Reggie didn't really know what to say.

"Meeting a new friend and his cute dogg!" Dee knew exactly how to answer the question; truthfully. The girl looked over at Laz and Vivi as though evaluating the situation in her mind. Laz, seeing that he was being judged, had a strong desire to do something rude, but decided against it. Instead, he stood up and walked over to a mini refrigerator that was plugged in using an extension cord to the camper. After grabbing out a bottle of water and talking a drink, he sat down and again went to lay down, as though the whole situation had nothing to do with him.

"You both shouldn't be wandering around to strange people's places, especially in an area like this. Let's go home." The sister said while turning around.

"But wait, we weren't done talking to him," Reggie argued.

"I don't care. Move your ass now or I will tell mom about this," the girl said while glaring at her brother.

"But sis, the dogg..." Dee tried to argue, apparently comfortable with calling the girl her sister as well.

"Go. You shouldn't just pet random dogs when you don't know if they have been vaccinated and cleaned. You could get fleas or any number of things that way."

Vivi's head shot up like a rocket while glaring at the sister. She wanted nothing more than to attack her right there, but barely managed to hold herself back.

*She's the one with fleas, stupid... dirty... ggrrrr....* Vivi voiced her anger to Laz instead of following through with what she wanted to do. She already knew that she shouldn't attack that girl cause that would cause big problems for her and her human, but that didn't mean she didn't want to.

For Laz's part, he didn't say anything. He was just glad that Vivi hadn't yet learned more colorful ways to insult people yet, but he knew it would happen soon. She was too smart for her own good. Plus, Laz tried to not draw too much attention to Vivi since she hated having to go around with a collar and tags on. Therefore, unless they had no other choice, he didn't make her wear them.

"HEY! I DIDN'T YOUR NAME?" Reggie's voice yelled out from the road.

"I'LL TELL YOU IF YOU COME BACK." Laz yelled back while making himself more comfortable.

He wasn't sure if they were going to come back since things went the way they did with the sister. As far as he was concerned, even if they were the same age, they were still just kids. Parents words and rules still had a large impact on their lives. Laz didn't want to admit it, but it made him a bit jealous that they had others looking out for them. He felt a bit more lonely due to this.

While the afternoon was winding down into the evening, Laz and Vivi both slept and relaxed. Just as it was getting dark, Vivi's head bolted up and looked off into a particular direction, as though she had sensed something. She then shook her head and got up, making her way over to wear Laz was still resting with his eyes closed. She knew he wasn't sleeping though.

*Looks like she's back. Why do you always had such a strong effect on females?* Vivi asked while standing next to Laz.

*Who knows. From what I can tell, she seems to have something to say and it isn't a nice something.* Laz responded without opening his eyes. His spirit sense had grown in proportion to his level and was able to pick things up from pretty far away. He could sense the girl's heightened blood pressure and heavy breaths, as though she was getting herself ready for some sort of intense action. Based on the fact that she was looking his way, it didn't take much to figure out she was going to make a move against them.

Laz was actually slightly surprised by this girl. She was already in the late stage awakening but he could tell that it was a natural thing and not due to training. He couldn't help but wonder if that made her what some would term a genius? Getting that far without actively cultivating would seem to indicate it as such..

*Whatever. It's your problem. I'm going inside. I've still got this nice bow and I should find some other ones as well. The bouncy one from earlier said that I would look even better with painted nails so I'm going to order a few things.* With that, Vivi walked towards the door of the trailer and stretching up, pawed the handle of the screen door and let herself in. They usually kept the outside door open unless they were going to sleep or it got cold.

*Don't take to long, you need to make me dinner still.* Vivi added as she turned the corner and disappeared into the back of the camper.

'That is one spoiled dog. I guess it's good that I gave her an allowance or else I would be broke in no time,' Laz thought to himself while turning his attention back towards the 'mysterious' figure.

Taking a closer look, he noticed that the girl had changed into black colored leggings and tight, black, long sleeve shirt. Combined with her naturally dark skin, he knew that if he was a normal person, he wouldn't be able to see her coming. Although Laz had strung some lights outside the camper, he rarely used them since neither him nor Vivi really required them to see what was happening around them.

Because of this, the entire area around the camper was pretty dark as opposed to the lighted areas around the other trailers farther away. It made them stick out and yet not stick out at the same time.

The girl worked her way closer while her eyes adjusted to the lack of light. The sun had set but the sky hadn't gone dark and the moon wasn't up, making the area appear back lit, but dark from the front. It was obvious that she wanted to get to him before he went inside for the night.

As she stalked closer, Laz maintained his position and didn't move, allowing her to do as she wished. She noticed the dog wasn't around which meant she didn't have to worry about being discovered due to that. Although she was fairly steady with her movements, her mind was a bit of a mess.

'Just got to scare him. Just got to scare him. No need to take it too far. He looks like the lazy slacker type which means he won't want any trouble so this should be the best way to get him to leave Reggie and Dee alone.' She was back here to frighten him into avoiding her brother and Dee. Because she hadn't talked to or listened to them on the way home, she had no idea what had happened. It also didn't help that they both decided to clam up since they felt the situation would explode if they did say anything about it to her. She was a rather stubborn person, but a good person. Due to the the appearance of the abilities in all of them, she had been trying her best to keep them safe by keeping the whole thing hush hush. Even her mother and Dee's parents didn't know about it. She was worried that if they found out, the parents would immediately trust the government and want to report it. From all of her studies on cultures and past history, she knew that it would be a bad idea to do that. Therefore, when they had suddenly decided to befriend this stranger, she decided to take action.

Sadly, she had no idea who it was that she was dealing with.

But then again, maybe it was a good thing it was Laz and not someone else.

While she was still hidden from view, the girl put on a Halloween hockey mask she had stolen from her brother. Then, looking at her hand and closing her eyes, she tensed her body up really hard, for several moments until a dark purple glow started to light up her surroundings.

'Amazing. Even though she has no clue what she's doing, she is still able to do it,' Laz observed and praised her at the same time. She was basically shaking her insides by tensing up, causing her energy to circulate from her source essence, albeit, rather slowly and stiffly. Still, the end result proved that it was a usable way of doing it even if it wasn't really suitable.

'I wonder how powerful she would be if she knew the correct way to do it?' Laz couldn't help but ask himself, realizing that he was gaining a professional interest in this girl.

After causing her energy to flow into action, Laz observed her closely, wondering what the change would be. He was kind of surprised to see that the nails on her hands started to grow until they were almost a foot long. When they finally hit a foot long, the girl calmed herself and let her breathing slow and grow steady. He then saw her move her fingers around which caused the nails to scrap against each other, making an almost metallic clanking sound.

'Well, what do you know? It's like... Catwoman meets Freddy Kruger.' Laz was actually feeling somewhat amused by this.

After she regained her calm, she quickly made her way forward and came upon the young man who looked defenseless in his sleep. Even with the low light, she couldn't help but wonder why the hell his skin looked so white and flawless?

Laying there with his eyes closed but his senses locked on to her, he noticed she was staring at him up and down, seemingly drawn in by his skin color.

'It's not like I wanted to look like Casper you know? Why does everyone have to pour salt into this wound.' Laz wanted to say something but held back. Instead, he was just waiting on her to make the first move.

The girl got closer and closer till her masked face was rather close to his. She then brought up her claws to his face threateningly and said with the deepest voice she could manage,

"Hey, kid. Wake up."

Laz had to give it his everything to keep from laughing. He could tell that from behind the mask, her pretty face was flushed as though even she was embarrassed by this. As opposed to doing anything though, he just continued to lay there with his eyes closed while making slightly vocal mouth breathing sounds.

"Kid... Hey kid?"

She tried again, a bit louder this time. Despite his desire to laugh out loud though, Laz just kept faking sleep.

"Kid.... Wake up..."

This time she used almost a normal volume, trying to get his attention. But to no avail. Standing up straight, she paced back and forth a few times before using one of her claws to poke his arm. She was worried she was going to stab him since her claws were as sharp as knives, so she did so only lightly. The end result was Laz slapped his arm as though a bug landed on it before turning over, causing his back to face towards her.

'This little.... I swear...." The girl started running out of ideas as for what to do to wake him up without causing a commotion. She figured she would try again, this time poking his back a bit harder than before while also speaking.

Just as she was about the poke him though, Laz flipped over and went "BOO!"

"EECCCKKKK."

The girl jumped as though she had just received the shock of her life and fell back on her butt while making the cutest, high pitched scream he had ever heard. Laz couldn't hold himself back any longer and started shaking while laughing.

"That, was, awesome," Laz got out between the fits of laughter while the girl sat on the ground taking deep breaths.

"Kid... Hey kid..." The girl tried to deepen her voice while speaking the script she had prepared, but it failed miserably in the face of the guy laughing.

"Just, stop... please... I can't take much more,"

"Uhh..." The girl didn't know what to do anymore.

"Alright... alright. I'm good... I'm good." Laz finally got himself under control and sat up, facing the girl in the hockey mask that was still on the ground with the claws on her one hand pointed in his direction.

"Anyway, my name is Laz. And you are?" Laz asked while extending a hand out to help her up.

"You need to stay away from those kids, you understand?" Despite the failure in progress, the girl was still going to get her message across. Laz just took a deep breath with a smile still on his face.

"I know your the sister from before, I just wanted to know your name." Laz kept his hand extended while giving her some time. Although it took her a minute or two, she finally seemed to droop her shoulders in defeat.

"I'm Leona, Reggie's sister," she introduced herself finally, but then some worry came up when she went to grab his hand. She had forgotten that her claws were still extended out.

"Umm. Sorry. These are clip-ons, part of the costume ya know?" Leona explained.

"No they aren't," Laz said with a smile and reached his hand out to grab hers.

"Hold on... they are really... sharp?" Her claws hit his skin pretty hard as Laz didn't adjust his hand to avoid them, but they didn't make a scratch.

"It's fine," Laz said as he stood up and pulled her up.

"But... how are you not...? and how did you..?"

"Know that they are real?" Laz finished her question.

Leona didn't say anything and just nodded her masked head.

Laz didn't respond back with an answer, but slowly circulated his energy, causing his bright blue eyes to turn blood red and start shining.

"Because, I'm just like you. Now are you ready to talk?"