Children of a Lesser God

There were black SUVs parked outside, waiting to transfer everyone to the office building. Laz got in the first one while everyone else pilled in. Besides the drivers, everyone else were the ones involved in the operation.

He had already said goodbye to Malene as she had to get going for her flight.

Some might have thought it would be more of a bittersweet goodbye, but those people clearly don't know Malene and Laz.

Sure, there was hugging and kissing... but after that, there was a whole bunch of Malene lecturing Laz about taking care of himself and about what she would do to him if he ended up with other women...

Her description of bad, bad things while looking at his manhood did not turn him on in the least. Ruby, to her credit, didn't add anything. She just looked at Laz from underneath her base ball cap with a 'you'd better listen to her,' kind of stare.

Before long, they were on their way.

The plan was they would park down the street, get out and unload while Laz and Ruby went ahead to find a way to sneak in, or at least blend in.

Well, that was the plan anyway. Laz, Ruby and all the others were under the assumption that this gate opening was going to be some sort of secret endeavor.

They soon found out that they couldn't have been more wrong. The entire thing looked like a media circus with camera crews all over the place. News reporters, both professional and armature had craved out a slice of the event and were showing everything there was to show. The various military guards just added to the scene, making it that much more of a big deal.

As Ruby and Laz watched, more and more people arrived, making the crowd size swell.

"This..."

"Is perfect, for the most part." Ruby finished the thought for Laz.

"But why? I mean... why would you even want to?"

"They must have some confidence that this will be more of a show than a massacre." Ruby said after some thought.

"What do you think?" Laz was curious.

"It's a dice roll baby. How strong will the wizard behind the curtain be? There is that but also they must be convinced that they have the strength to protect themselves and others. It's honestly stupid. I can only think that it was something someone ordered them to do. Anyone who has been inside a gate knows that you could just a likely end up in the center of an abandoned town or in the middle of a scorched wasteland. There really is no telling what happened to the gate on the other side."

"Then it could even be up in the sky or in the middle of the ocean?"

"Well... Underwater yes, middle of the sky, much less likely, but not impossible."

"Why is that?"

"Gates are a two way door, darling. They had to have been built somewhere accommodating on the other side as well. Of course, that was when it was built. Depending on the time ŀapse, an entire civilization could have risen and fallen since then. The same thing could happen here as well. Let's say someone's gate led to the middle of a forest in the past. A nice quiet place that was out of the way. But now that nice quiet forest could be located in the middle of a city. There is no telling. And the gate's... well who knows how or why they appear?"

"I think it has something to do with the energy available in the world. Once it reaches a certain point, the gate will appear," Laz commented. Although he didn't know anything for sure minus what A'ruya had told him, he had a brain in his head. She said this gate should be safe based on the amount of energy it stored. If it required a lot more than it did, then it probably wouldn't have even shown itself, much less be able to be opened..

"Yeah?" Ruby said, interested in his thoughts. Blood Moon had come to the same conclusion, but there was no way to back up that logic. But now that Laz was talking about it, Ruby felt like there might be something to it. Unless Laz was just making shit up as he went along.

"Yeah. Which can only mean that as the energy on the planet increases, the gates that appear are going to get more and more dangerous," Laz said in warning. Ruby nodded her head in agreement.

"Well. I guess for now, we should just take the front door?"

"That should work."

Laz and Ruby made their way back to where everyone was parked and informed the group leaders. Remi and Damien for the council. Dwayne and a much subdued Jennia for the Vodun. Freya's assistant was named Helen and she was the lone leader of the Vampyres group.

"So this is good right?" Dwayne asked, seeing everyone keep quiet.

"Yes and no," Helen responded.

"How so?" Dwayne asked.

"Well. Getting in will be easy. But now there are a lot more eyes on us, them and everything that's happening," Helen responded. Everyone nodded in agreement except for Laz.

"That's not as big of a problem as you think it is, at least going in isn't." Laz said with a strange smile.

"Oh?" Helen was respectful on the surface. In her heart and thoughts however, she didn't like males at all. But since she had orders to follow, she would do so. And order number one that Freya told her was to listen to anything Laz said.

"The rune I used isn't just limited to masking your energy and aura. It's primary purpose is to distort. So not only will it distort your energy and aura, it will also distort your picture on camera. It will even distort you face and features to anyone who looks at you. When they try to think back to who you are, they will simply remember a figure of smoke, here and gone before you leave an impression," Laz said, explaining things. He only understood how powerful and diverse runes could be after messing around with them. Before that, he could only see on the surface.

It was just a pity that there was no grading system for Rune uses to measure their ability.

'Maybe I should come up with one?' Laz thought to himself before putting it aside.

Ruby had the same idea but didn't dismiss it so quickly. Instead, she took out her phone and sent a few text messages before storing it away. She wasn't the only one. After hearing about exactly how powerful runes could be, even Dwayne and Helen sent a few quick messages to their respected leaders.

Remi was much more blunt about it.

"Remi's thinks that when she gets back, she will start exploring runes as well. Are Nordic runes the only ones that can do this?" She asked with a sparkle in her eye.

"Honestly, Sanskrit should have a similar function. But I think in the end, even something like English could be used. It's more about the power behind the word than the word itself. The word, the rune, the text... these things just provide focus for the power. Not everyone can do it. And those that do will find that some things work better or worse for them."

This was Laz's honest thoughts. He had actually tried using English to write before and although it worked to some degree, it wasn't nearly as potent as when he used Nordic Runes.

"Anyway, back on topic. We are going to basically go in the front door. Just remember, act like you belong there. From what we can tell... they are basically letting anyone in to this thing."

"That's not going to cause problems?" Damien asked, speaking out for the first time.

"It won't if you keep your mouth shut and let me do all the talking," Laz responded back, surprising even Ruby. From what everyone knew, Laz was kind of an introvert. For him to display this kind of attitude, it was somewhat out of character. What they didn't appreciate was that Laz was under a bit of stress with this whole thing and as the time approached when he would have to lead, he was starting to feel it more and more.

But he wasn't going to back down.

As the caravan of SUVs pulled up, no one questioned it. Instead, one of the guards posted at the gate of the office building opened the door and just shouted out,

"Pull over into section 1G and unload. You took your sweet ass time getting here too but at least you brought a decent number this time." With his words out of the way, the guard retreated back into the small booth by the gate.

Laz was rather surprised that a regular looking security guard would treat actual solders this way, but then Laz felt the pressure from the man's energy and recognized that he was actually one of those chosen bastards. He wasn't that strong which was why he got guard duty, but even that was enough for him to act in contempt towards regular people.

Following the signs, Laz's caravan quickly found their space.

Laz gathered the leaders while everyone else was piling out of the vehicles. It was also now that he noticed a lot of duffel bags in the trunks that got passed around. Shooting a look at Dwayne, Dwayne quickly explained,

"If everyone else is armed and we are walking around in nothing but flashy threads, we would stand out too much. So my well connected uncle hooked us up with some military grade weapons as well," he said with a proud smile, earning him the respect of those gathered.

Laz didn't understand why they would appreciate these types of weapons.

"Monster cock..." Ruby said lovingly.

"Monster what the hell?" Laz asked back.

"Well it feels weird to call you baby and darling all the time so I figured I would get a little creative."

"I can't believe you said with a straight face," Laz responded while turning a bit red from the stares around him.

"Why? It's true..."

"And enough of that. What were you going to say?" Laz changed the subject.

"Not everyone's body is as impressive as yours. For most of them here, a regular hand gun is just as deadly as an all out attack from a late stage, foundational realm. And the bigger the round, the more deadly it becomes, same as a regular person."

"Ah..." Laz felt this made sense. Dwayne handed him a small.45 cal.

"What's this for?"

"You're a captain. You don't need an actual weapon in this case since it's not a war zone. This is enough to show your position in the squad."

"How do you... never mind. Guess I will need to thank Aaron for this all later."

"He figured you probably weren't well informed."

"Fair enough."

Just as Laz was about to give everyone some orders to move out after telling the vehicles to take off, a man of rank came walking over to him of his own accord.

"CAPTAIN. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOUR MEN DOING OVER HERE WHEN THEY SHOULD BE INSIDE?"

Laz couldn't help but gulp back against his fear of communication as his first interaction in this role was about to begin.