Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 123: Abilities

As the morning came, Laz woke up early, got ready and waited. Since it was the weekend, he was hoping they would come early, otherwise he would start without them. Luckily for him, they were all in school and used to being up early so around seven in the morning, they arrived.

Laz had dressed in something a bit move covering that what he would have originally gone with, opting for a regular pair of running shorts only. Otherwise, he was just wearing socks and shoes. When the others actually got there, he noticed they had dressed in various forms of sportswear which was pretty much what he was expecting. Although the mornings could be a bit chilly, for the most part the days were getting hot, but not crazy hot. They had no idea what they would be doing so they decided to prepare for anything.

When the girls and Reggie caught sight of Laz, they all showed expressions of shock. Laz's skin had gone pale white shortly after entering the condensing realm but it wasn't like he was without any color at all. If anything, the problem was that his skin was pale white and flawless, like that of a babies and he hadn't been able to get any sort of tan since it happened. Despite this, his entire body looked like it was chiseled out of stone while his muscles rippled with power. He wasn't burly like a body builder, but instead hard like iron. It wasn't something they had seen as most kids their age were either just skinny, normal or fat. Dee and Leona couldn't help but stare for several moments at his chiseled form.

"What?" Seeing them stare at him, Laz started to feel a bit weird. Neither of the girls answered but Reggie had no problem speaking.

"DUDE, how the hell do you train to get in shape like that?" Just because Reggie was a guy didn't mean he couldn't appreciate another guy. Reggie had always been a bit of a bookworm himself so his body leaned more towards the stick thin side.

"Everyday and as hard as I can. That's what we are going to be doing, among other things." Laz didn't want to waste time and instead starting throwing water bottles into a duffel bag he had prepared before hand.

"Hey, sis. You got a bit a drool coming off you," Reggie wouldn't miss the rare chance he saw his sister flustered to poke fun at her. Sure enough, she quickly snapped back to reality and started shaking Dee to wake her up as though she hadn't been affected. No one else thought much about any of this except for Vivi who had been watching Laz the whole time. Many thoughts raced through her head but she kept quiet in the end.

"Alright everyone, let's get going." Laz said while making his way to the open field behind the trailer park with Vivi following closely behind.

"So what are we doing? Reggie asked.

"Running. Lots and lots of running." Laz said with a grin.

"I'm not so good at running.." Dee said, looking a bit dejected. In truth, she had always been a bit plump and self-conscious about it. For a young girl of 16, it had been a sore spot for a few years now. Not that she didn't try to diet, but nothing seemed to really work and she wasn't going to sacrifice her health for it either.

"Me either," Reggie added on. He was never much into sports.

"Well, your going to have to get better from now on. Nothing is better for you overall than a good run. Follow me." Once they had cleared the field and hit the bottom of the mountain, Laz quickly found the trail he was looking for and started going at a light jog. At least for him it was a light jog.

"Hey, Laz..." the only person who was keeping up with his light job pace was Leona and she quickly called out to him.

"Hmm?" Laz stopped running forward and started jogging in place.

"You need to pace to pace it slower. They are having trouble keeping up." Leona pointed behind her. Looking back, Laz saw Reggie and Dee struggling to even keep up a jogging pace on the upwards slope.

"No. At least not yet. The place we are going for now isn't far and I want them to be as tired as possible," Laz said with a smile. He had already thought about what he wanted to do today as he was a bit excited to be spending time with others.

"Umm. Sure then, I guess," Leona didn't know what to say to that since she didn't know what he was thinking.

"Alright. Let's move it. We are heading up this trail for about a mile and you two need to go as fast as possible. I'm sure you heard about the creatures roaming around the place right?"

"What?"

"That shit is real?".

Both Dee and Reggie expressed their disbelief while Leona started to frown.

"You know what you need to do. I'll leave Vivi here with you while you run, but she gets impatient if she has to wait so don't stop even if you have to crawl. Let's go Leona. I want to see how fast you can go." Without waiting for her reply, Laz had gripped the duffel bag tightly and took off, almost faster than the eye could see. As Leona watched him in amazement, Laz raced out of eye sight in a mere moment.

Feeling a bit of excitement at letting loose, Leona stopped thinking about anything else and took off as fast as she could after him.

"Wow..."

"I didn't know your sister was even that fast."

"Yeah, but that guy Laz looked to be moving so fast he went invisible."

Reggie and Dee had turned to face each other while still jogging, seeing the strange looks in each other's faces.

Laz had made it to the small clearing area when he turned around and spread out his sense. He was taking note of how healthy everyone was based on how their body was doing with the strain. Leona seemed to be in the best shape with a firm foundation. All he would have her do is build on it. Reggie and Dee on the other hand were going to need a bit of work.

When Leona finally caught up, although she wasn't out of breathe, her face was a bit flushed.

"Easy?" Laz asked.

"Pretty much," Leona answered quickly. She was hoping there was more too it than that since it really was fairly easy and seemed pointless.

"Good. Now run back to the bottom of the mountain and come back here before the others get here." Laz said with an evil grin.

"But... that's... there isn't enough time." Seeing where they were located, Leona couldn't help but express her doubt.

"Then you better start running huh?" Laz put on an even scarier face and even let his eyes light up with a blood red glow. Seeing this and realizing she was alone with him, Leona took off and started running downhill.

She quickly learned that there was a big difference when running down hill as she had to slow her speed more so she wouldn't fall. When she finally got to the bottom and started to go back up, she felt her legs start to burn. She finally arrived back at the same time Dee and Reggie got there, but this time she was totally panting and out of breathe.

"Alright, good start," Laz said with encouragement.

"Is this what you run everyday?" Leona asked in between breathes.

"This? No. This is just the starting point. I've go a trial cleared for around 20 miles that I like to go on. It was an old hiking trail that seemed to never get used anymore but was perfect for Laz's workout.

"Damn," Reggie replied.

"Alright. From now on you will need to run at least a mile everyday without using your energy. I hope that you will be able to do at least 5 miles without rest soon thought.

"UHH..."

"Really?"

"What do you mean using our energy?"

Leona was the first to notice the way Laz said it was weird. He couldn't help but smile at her intelligence.

Laz started by explaining how stages and realms worked and then showed them how to circulate their energy to use it properly. Neither Dee nor Reggie had any idea about it since they had only been doing things like this by accident when messing around. For Leona though, the whole explanation was an eye opener.

"So... It's really that easy?" Leona had tried multiple ways to come up with how to get energy in her body, but she never thought the best way was to not try to do that and instead, just move around what you already had in you. This allowed it to flow in freely as space was made, like stuffing a pillow case by filling the corners in first.

"Alright, so use that at every moment that you can. There is only so much energy in the air so it's best if you do it somewhere isolated and quiet so you can concentrate. Now, what we have to do next it to figure out what your individual powers are and how to use energy versus using your source essence." Although Laz found this stuff easy, he had been doing it for a while. After thinking on it, he realized that knowing these things would amount to the basics. That's why he decided to teach them it first.

"So Leona, go ahead." As everyone sat down on the lush grass, they decided to play a game of show and tell.

Leona's claws quickly formed in only seconds as soon as she started using her source essence.

"WHAT?" She asked, surprised by the ease of the action.

"When you learn the correct way to circulate energy, everything becomes that much easier," Laz answered, knowing her thoughts.

"Wait... there is something more..." As she focused harder, her vision suddenly went weird.

"Woah.... Your eyes sis..." Reggie was shocked as Leona's eyes started to change shape. Dee also looked on intently while Laz was a bit more relaxed. He had guessed that once they started doing this right, things would be a bit different.

"Describe what you see Leona," Laz advised while rubbing Vivi who had gotten comfortable in his ap while watching the show.

"It's weird. It's like... I can see a wider area in front of me, but everything turned all gray scale. Hold on..." Taking out her cell phone, Leona opened up the camera app and took a look at her own eyes. As she had thought, they looked like the eyes of a cat.

"That's awesome. You look so cute!!" Dee couldn't help but speak out considering the change.

"Yeah... it's unique sis," Reggie kind of thought she looked a bit freaky.

"Hmm... You should try it at night and see if you have better night vision as well. Alright Dee, you go next."

Dee's change was a bit less drastic than Leona's. Her slightly plump body grew taller while all of the extra skin suddenly became tight. It was like she grew half a foot. At this point, she was taller than Reggie.

"Uhh... that..." Leona who hadn't seen Dee do this had no idea what to say and looked at Laz.

"Hey.. is that like a growth spurt or something?" Reggie didn't understand in the slightest.

"Would you not? I'm already feeling bad as it is..." Dee was slightly embarrassed by doing this in front of everyone, but she thought this was the best chance to learn something about it. Why did she just grow? How was that an ability?

Laz put Vivi on her shoulder and got up. As they were circling Dee, both Laz and Vivi would occasionally reach out and poke her, as though testing spots on her body. Taking a step back, Laz pondered for a minute before Vivi gave him an idea.

"Dee, did you ever try to do anything while you were like this?" Laz asked as everyone turned to look at her.

"No... It's embarrassing. Why would I want to stay like this? It isn't cute..."

"Yeah. Ok. Still. Um... why don't you try lifting that rock over there." Laz pointed at one of the rocks which looked like a small flat platform. The interesting part about it was that it was a flat rock that weighed almost 300 pounds. In the past, Laz would exercise with it by constantly lifting it up and flipping it over. Now, he wanted to see if Dee could do the same. Without waiting for further instructions, Dee walked over, reached down and directly lifted it up so that she was holding it against her chest like it was no big deal.

"Oh...Is this a fake rock? How cool." Misreading the situation, Dee assumed the rock was fake and started swinging around with it. Since they didn't know otherwise, Reggie and Leona didn't say anything other than watching her play.

"Umm... Dee... no, NO. DEE?" Laz wanted to get her to stop before she did something foolish, sadly he was a step too late. She ended up flinging the rock like a Frisbee and hit a nearby tree. The end result was the tree exploded into splinters while everyone looked on with a dumb look on their faces, including Dee who had frozen in place.

"Da' FUCK?"

"That wasn't a fake rock huh?" Leona asked

"No. No it wasn't. Well Dee, looks like you have some super strength right? There are worse things." What Laz didn't say was that he was worried that she might grow up to be a rather bulky woman if she grew and got super strength at the same time. When Dee finally calmed down from the surprise, it became Reggie's turn. Holding his hands out, Laz just saw two flat circular disc shapes form in his hands before they floated up to just hover there.

"That's it?" Laz asked when it looked like he wasn't going to do anything else.

"That's it. Yeah. I'm like a human flashlight."

Umm..." Laz was at a loss for words but Vivi, who had been sitting around all this time, shot her head up and looked at Reggie like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Only one thought flashed in her mind....

*RUNES*