Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 124: Learn A Bit, Train A Lot

Of course, she has spoken the thought out so that Laz ended up hearing her, but he was very confused.

*Runes?*

It was hard for Vivi to hold in her excitement as she made her way over to Reggie who was getting consolation from Dee and Leona. As much as Dee hated her ability, she now knew that Reggie's was useless, at least as far as they knew. As for the reason why they had not shown each other before? This was because Leona had said it was dangerous and also because they had gotten it at different times, Reggie being the last one.

As she came up to him, she smacked his leg with her paw, causing him to 'yelp' in pain as he looked down. Seeing Vivi there, he was wondering what had hit him since it felt like something really hard, which wasn't something he could imagine Vivi doing. While looking down, Vivi used her paw to point at the two light discs as though she wanted to take a closer look. Thinking that she was amused by them and astounded at her intelligence, Reggie directed one of them to float down to her while she started to use her paw to mess with it.

*I thought so...* She finally said when she was done.

*Thought what?* Laz asked back as he saw her make the disc float away.

She finally explained it like this. The disc was basically a blank slate that he could write runes on. When asked what that meant, she explained that there were two types of writing that had a basic means of power, Sanskrit and Runic. Since the discs Reggie was able to produce were blank and didn't have anything else on them, he was basically using the Wyrd rune without knowing it. The effect? Unknown. But if Vivi had to guess, she would guess that because it affects the flow of fate, that it was the reason Reggie had made contact with Laz. It had guided him to Laz. If Reggie was able to not only learn each rune and what they mean but then incorporate them, he could use a wide variety of abilities, kind of like a mix and match. As far as what effect they would have, that would depend on the combination. First and foremost though, he should start simple and practice a lot.

When Laz asked what the difference was between Runes and Sanskrit, Vivi could only reply that she knew about Runes but not about Sanskrit. Based on her feelings though, Runes were more powerful, but less complex. You could do far more with Sanskrit, but that also meant it was far easier to make a mistake, but since she didn't have memories of it, this was only the feelings she got. Runes, due to being simple, were much faster as well. It was basically power versus precision.

Dee had been trying to cheer up Reggie since he still thought his ability was to making moving flashlights with only Leona staring at Laz. She watched how he looked at Vivi and how Vivi was looking at him. It looked like a conversation without words which captured her interest, making her wonder a bit more about what this weird guy was hiding. He seemed to know a lot and was able to answer all their questions. He also came off as being very mature which at first made her think he was older than her, but at other times she wondered if that was really the case. Either way, since he was useful, she would keep interacting with him. As it was, his knowledge and training was exactly what she had been looking for. She didn't know what was going to happen with that annoying guy but felt that things would happen soon.

As Dee and Reggie continued to chat, Laz had walked over and patted him on the shoulder making Reggie think he was trying to make him feel better. Hence, when he heard the next words out of Laz's mouth, his jaw practically hit the floor.

"Well, congratulations Reggie. In this game of ability surprise, looks like you got the most powerful one," Laz said with a serious face.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"How?"

No one really had a clear response, just questions. If it wasn't for Laz's serious face, they would have thought he was being a smart ass.

"Yeah, I figured this. Ok Reggie, I want you to look at something and try picturing it as forming on the disc, ok?"

"Umm, sure?"

Laz used a stick and drew an M shape on the ground as he was instructed to by Vivi.

"Ehwaz, movement. Try to picture it," Laz reminded him.

Reggie went a little blank thinking of the M shape since that was all it looked like, an M. He didn't think it seemed special. But as he thought about it, he also remembered the word Laz said, Ehwaz. As he did both things at the same time, suddenly, one of the disc light up and a dark yellow M appeared on it.

"Woah, strange...".

"Hey... does this mean you can write things? Like, is this a spiritual text message?"

Dee's thoughts were rather unique about the event while Reggie, having been the one to do it and felt it, felt like his energy drained out quite a bit as the rune appeared. Leona was just looking on but not saying a word, an indifferent expression on her face while her mind was working overtime. It didn't escape her notice that Laz once again was turning to Vivi while sometimes nodding as though he understood.

"So... what does this do?" Reggie asked after examining the disc.

"Hmm... I'm not totally sure, so let's try out a test. I want you to run forward as fast as you can." Laz suggested. In truth, he heard from Vivi that it should increase his movement speed, but wheither that meant his hand speed, reaction time or running speed, she wasn't clear. Therefore the best option was just to try it out.

"No problem." Reggie got into a crouch and took a position like a professional. Without any warning though, he shot forward as a speed that was even faster than what Laz had shown.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH." Reggie's echoing screams seemed to fill the forested area as he disappeared out of sight, leaving the other three behind with different expressions.

"Will... he be alright?" Leona finally asked to break the silence.

"That's kind of hard to answer," Laz replied back with a rather dumbfounded look. Even Vivi seemed surprised by how it worked. Leona immediately shot Laz a cold glance which caused him to need to follow up.

"So, if he were to stop suddenly or hit something, he might be in for a world of hurt, but the rune shouldn't have just made him faster. It should have also increased his reaction time meaning it's unlikely for him to hit something. This all depends on if he has enough energy though and how he uses it. If he slowly lets off the gas, he should slow down so to speak. If he just suddenly cuts off the power, then it would cause him to basically return to his normal running speed and probably cause him to fall over. I guess this whole thing is just up to chance." Laz finally shrugged his shoulders as though he had no idea what would happen. Leona continued with her cold gaze until the finally caught sight of something speeding back their way. As it go closer, it started to slow down, allowing everyone to take a breath and relax. It seemed as though Reggie had figured out a bit on how to control it.

"WOW, THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME." Reggie came to a stop in front of the group while grasping for breath.

"And that's only the basics of that rune. You can also use it to move stuff other than yourself. You can also use it on other people. What I mean to say is that there is far more to learn about what that rune can do besides just make you run fast," Laz followed up with the words that Vivi had told him.

Although he was just hearing a few uses from Laz, he started to get some ideas from even these vague hints. Now that he had experienced it for himself, Reggie understood what Laz meant by he had the most powerful ability.

"Heh, even I'm a bit jealous of that," Laz couldn't help but to be in awe of Reggie's ability. Even though he had several strong points of his own including the black flame, he could tell instantly how useful the ability to use runes would be.

*It's not like you can't you know,* Vivi's soft voice chimed in.

*What's that now?* Laz asked back.

*Since you have an external ability like the black flames, you can also draw and use runes. But you will never be as quick or as diverse as Reggie. He was born to it while you will have to put in a lot or work to make it work,* Vivi explained, leaving Laz a bit excited.

'I wonder why she never said that before...' Laz didn't think too much after that and instead, got everyone to calm down. Although it was fun to use abilities, they needed to train them properly first. Before that, during that and everyday after that though, they needed to train their bodies.

"Alright. Well, this will be something to work on. Each of you is special in your own little snowflaky way, so much so that it's impossible to really get a full grasp on your abilities right now. That takes time. But more importantly than that, you need to build your bodies," Laz threw on some cold water before their fire of ambition spread any more.

"Why should Reggie train his body with an ability like that?" Leona was the first to ask this practical question. Since Laz had shown them the proper way to use and build energy, allowing their source essence to expand, wouldn't that mean that Reggie would benefit more from doing that than training.

"Your body is like a battery. Although you can keep building more energy within it, the best results come when you use the best material for that battery. The stronger you are, the more energy you can withstand. This way, you won't come to a point where you might explode or go crazy one day," Laz patiently explained.

"So, like those people you hear about on the news going crazy and shit?" Reggie asked while coming to a realization.

"You got it."

With this explanation, all of them realized that what Laz was saying made sense. If they wanted to grow their energy and source essence, they needed to have the body for it first. After that, no one tried using their energy again and just followed Laz to do standard exercises. The cold and stone faced Leona was in the best shape and able to keep up while Dee and Reggie struggled hard. Push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, running, climbing trees, and other various yet simple activities, Laz had them do them all until Dee and Reggie looked like they would drop. According to Laz's estimation, they would both take a while to get on track.

"Alright, let's stop here for today and head back. I know you all have school, but you should try doing these things daily in your free time no matter what. It's important. Any weekend day you're free, we can come up here and work together. I will get some stuff together to increase the difficulty." Although Laz was ending it here, in truth, Vivi had promised to show him what she was talking about with Runes, hence why he didn't say they could meet up tomorrow. Besides, they would need to still do home work and have their lives, so he was planning on only investing as much into them as they wanted to do themselves. You couldn't force someone to train after all.

As everyone tiredly walked down the mountain, Laz took Vivi on his shoulder and started to jog, getting ahead of the crowd and disappearing first. Although Leona could have caught up with him had she tried, she stayed back with Dee and Reggie who were tired and moving slow. When they finally got off the mountain, they could see lights on in Laz's trailer. They had been at it since early morning and it was already dinner time so everyone was very hungry. They split up and while Dee headed home, Reggie was walking with his sister.

"Reggie..."

"Yo?"

"Go on ahead. I forgot I left my jacket at his trailer." It seemed like a stupid excuse, but the was the truth. The only part she didn't admit was that she did it intentionally. Knowing his sister, Reggie didn't say anything and just walked on ahead. He didn't think that she was going back for anything other than the jacket since as far as he knew, she had never been attracted to a guy before. There had been times when he would have thought she liked girls, had she not seemed equally as annoyed with them as she was with guys.

When Leona finally walked back to the trailer, she noticed Laz was outside with wet hair while Vivi was munching on something. They both were watching an old TV that had been propped up outside and it appeared as though Laz had taken a shower. When Leona walked over, she saw Laz smile at her before turning back to the TV. It looked to be a local news program.

Leona walked over and grabbed her jacket from one of the empty car seats sitting around and turned around as though she was going to leave, but hesitated. Laz had noticed she had left the jacket but also knew she had left it after she came back down. Therefore he knew she wanted to talk about something.

"So.... what is it?" Laz asked, trying to prompt her. Taking the que and realizing how obvious she had been, Leona didn't hesitate any longer and sat down across from him.

"Is this all we are going to do?" she finally asked.

"What do you mean?" Laz said, a bit curious.

"This feels like... I don't know... It's missing something. Like, it's just too easy..." Leona said. And it was the truth about how she felt. It seemed like it was too basic and easy and that wasn't what she wanted. Having seen Laz's body, she knew that he obviously trained a lot harder than what he showed today. What she wanted was something like that, something that would actually make a difference and not just a high school work out routine.

Laz couldn't help but chuckle a bit. It seemed like she was thinking along the same lines that he was. In truth, this was nothing more than an intro. Originally, Laz had come up with two training plans. Because of Reggie and Dee's currently ability, he had decided to go with the easier one for now and work up to what he considered the actual plan. But it seemed like Leona felt herself ready for it. Physically speaking, she was. Mentally though, Laz wasn't sure.

"What's with that face?" Leona asked, going from being hesitant with something hard to explain and straight into her cold demeanor.

"Nothing. But... you are right. This isn't the type of training you need." Laz's experience over the past year and a half along with the training he did while back in New York gave him a rather twisted perspective on what was actually needed, but it wasn't for the faint of heart. Seeing him answer honestly, Leona softened a little.

"Then what should I be doing? I'm guessing your going easy on us because of those two?"

"You're right again. They aren't ready for the real training yet."

"Am I?"

"I'm... not sure."

"Why not?" Leona thought back to how she had worked out and thought that her performance matched his. She had always been athletic, so although it was a bit tiring, it hadn't been hard.

"Because, it's not just harder physically, but it's also harder mentally," Laz tried to explain.

"That's not a problem. I can handle anything." This was the way she felt, it was a confidence in herself. Even when her dad passed away, she never once broke down no matter how badly she wanted to.

"You sure? Because if you start, I won't let you stop. Because once you stop, you will have wasted both our time." Laz spread his spirit sense around and confirmed that no one was around for several hundred feet. Since he had chosen to set up his camper in a far off lot, there were empty lots all around him.

"You think I can't do it?" Leona felt like he was challenging her pride. To her, she believed that no matter what he asked, she could do it. And she didn't like to be questioned.

"That will be up to you," Laz said with a smile. Vivi, seeing how the conversation was going and knowing what Laz was going to do, grabbed the dried meat with her mouth and made her way into the trailer to get comfy on the couch before turning on the inside TV.

"When do you want to start?" Laz asked, feeling amused.

"Right now," Leona answered with conviction.

"Ok. Then stand up," Laz said while standing up. Leona quickly followed suit, standing right in front of him as though challenging him.

"Good. Now strip!" And with that, Laz proceeded to take off what little clothing he had thrown on after his shower.