Children of a Lesser God

The drain was every bit as bad as Laz thought it would be. It was obviously used for bodily waste which seemed strange in a place inhabited by robots and automations. But that also indicated that they kept a large number of organic creatures as well. Laz had only seen the Lab, so he could only imagine what other places it was connected to.

Even with the smell and slippery floors, Ruby seemed unbothered by it. He wasn't sure if he should be impressed by her or scared. He was leaning towards impressed though since it was obviously a good skill to have.

He could barely stand the smell.

But it didn't last long.

As they emerged into the street from another drain cover, Laz couldn't help but take a big breath, his body cover in the filth from the sewer drain. When Ruby emerged, she was perfectly clean without a spec of dirt on her.

"How the hell?" Laz asked.

"It's a talent baby. Now what do we do? Any idea how we get out of here? That gate is still locked and if this place is going to be destroyed then we need to find the key quickly," Ruby mentioned, looking around at where they were.

"If my guess is right, there is some sort of power station or something that is powering the force field like thing blocking the gate. If we can find it and power it down, we should be able to go back through…?" Laz pondered out loud.

Ruby nodded her head, but she was also looking in a certain direction. Laz ended up feeling the usage of power as well and turned his head, worried.

What worried him was he felt both the energy of an infected like them along with the energy of some of those conceited bastards. And it was close, very close. The natural atmosphere in this place seemed to restrict their senses so being able to sense the battle meant it couldn't be too far away. What they didn't understand was after their separate encounters with ancient blood relatives, they were stronger in ways that they didn't notice at first. Laz had gotten the golden eyes of his master while Ruby's enhancements were just as strong. Not to mention the actual blood that was still inside Laz's system, floating serenely above is now completed foundation.

'Maybe instead of infected, I should call us aliens instead?' Laz thought, thinking about how his blood ability came from the Asura while Ruby's seemed to be related to the rainbow colored snake.

'Either way, that could be addressed later. I don't recognize the actual energy being used, but that might just be because we are so far away.'

Laz turned to look at Ruby who was already looking back at him. With a sigh and a nod, they took off in the direction of the fight.

'This is going to be a pain in the ass,' they both thought at the same time.

A ways away, Dwayne, Jennia and several members of the Vodun were being confronted by several chosen. They were currently hiding within the first floor of a building they had entered to check out while various balls of fire, shards of ice, bolts of lightning and blades of air hit the door again and again.

"Remind me again why the hell you thought it would be a good idea to act like the voice of a security system and tell them that they needed to leave the area or they would be killed? They didn't even know we were in here until they heard your voice?" Jennia screamed at Dwayne over the sounds of the bombardment.

"How was I suppose to know they would realize that because we were speaking English that my voice wasn't actually from a security system?" Dwayne said, shrinking back. Jennia's fierceness always seemed to scare him.

"Had you actually said something to me before doing something stupid, I would have stopped you!" She shot back, intent of blaming him even if they were killed.

"Well, at least the sounds should draw others over. Besides, we've stopped the, from coming in the windows, didn't we?" Dwayne said back, point at the open area that was being covered by a barrier. One of their groups was sitting with his legs crossed while rocking back and forth with his hands folded on each other. He was somehow maintaining a barrier which blocked off the window, but the size of the door was too big for him to cover. This was the reason they had focused their attacks on the closed door. Besides, the door would allow them to come through as a group as opposed to trying to come in one at a time through the window.

"You're assuming they would be drawing over our people? You think any of those useless losers from the council are going to stick their heads out for us? Or those sŀut bitches?" Jennia asked back with venom in her voice.

"Maybe they won't, but my bro wouldn't leave us to our fate. And don't forget he's got his girl with him as well. And even you said she scares you…".

Jennia wanted to say something back, but decided not to. He did have a point about them being the strongest in the team. Still, against these ten bastards, she wasn't so sure even Laz or Ruby would stand a chance.

Jennia couldn't help but look around for anything useful and wondered if they could go farther back into the building. If they dropped the barrier, the attackers wouldn't jump through the window right away, but they would notice soon enough that they had left and go after them. What's worse is that at least they were in a defensible position where they were at, but they would be picked off one by one if they were to try to leave.

Jennia knew that even though they had more people, not everyone in their group was a fighter. For example, the guy maintaining the barrier could only do that. If someone got in close, he would be dead before he could even try to dodge. Aaron had sent them with a diverse group in the hopes that it would be more beneficial than just fighters, but now that seemed to have been a bad choice. Even Dwayne was one of those types as far as she knew. He could be called a tank in that he could take a lot of damage, but he couldn't do much else. Except for using him as a meat shield, Jennia didn't think he had much else of a purpose.

Despite the lesson she had been taught, she still felt like she was the only one capable of leading and refused to listen to the suggestion of others. She also wouldn't expect that they were going to die here.

She was thinking of making a break for it herself and leaving the others here to buy her time.

'That's it. As long as I am alive, I can always regroup with the others and get out of here alive... or get revenge maybe....?'

Jennia's thoughts were starting to go different places as everyone was getting more nervious.

Before they had much more time to think the door cracked in half from the constant barrage and came flying into the entranceway. Although the members of Jennia's and Dwayne's team weren't all fighters, everyone was prepared to go out fighting. Those with combat abilities prepared themselves for close range while those that didn't gripped their guns tightly, hoping they would at least be useful.

Just as they were expecting to enter the fight for their lives, there didn't seem to be any sound, at least nothing loud. No one came in and there didn't seem to be any movement from outside.

Curious, Dwayne got up and went towards the window to peak out. Seeing as how the door had been broken, there was no reason to keep the barrier on it.

Dwayne popped his head out just in time to see a body fly past like a rubber ball. It ended up hitting the ground and rolling for several tens of feet before it stopped, no longer moving or breathing.

Dwayne took a deep breath before turning back the other way, only to almost get hit by a blast of fire. He quickly ducked back inside.

"What is it?" Jennia called over, seeing that Dwayne had checked.

"Something is fighting them out there," Dwayne said while running for the broken door.

"Where the fuck are you going?" Jennia yelled at him.

"I ain't sitting here, waiting to die. Since someone decided to come help, I am going to do my part," Dwayne said reaching the door.

"You stay right here..."

"FUCK OFF," with that, Dwayne ran outside, only to be amazed.

Out of the ten people he knew were attacking, three had already been killed. The other seven were doing their best to bombard the new comers with whatever attack they could muster, only to find it practically ineffective.

The new comers were of course Laz and Ruby, both quite a bit stronger than before. Laz had reached the late stage of the foundation realm while Ruby was now at the peak and ready to start building her Void Palace. Compared to these chosen who at most could be considered mid foundation realm, Laz and Ruby were on another level.

Laz had just gotten blasted with a huge ball of fire, but ran through it like it was nothing. Compared to the strength of his black flames, these fire balls, no matter what the size, barely tickled. After closing in on his attacker, Laz balled up his first and swung forward, striking the man in the chest and sending him flying. With more cracked ribs that one could count mixed with the heavy impact on his heart, there was no telling if he was going to move again.

Ruby, for her part, just walked forward, swaying her hips from side to side. The person who was originally throwing fist sized and razor sharp shards of ice at her suddenly stopped and dropped his hands like he was suddenly confused, blinking his eyes as his mouth hung open. Ruby was then able to walk right up to him, step behind him and reaching one hand in front of his chin and the other behind his head, she burst with strength and with a quick twisting motion, broke his neck.

Seeing that five out of their ten man group were already dead, the others started to run in different directions without hesitation. Ruby, caught up in her blood ŀust, wanted to charge after them, but Laz put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

She turned quickly and was about to attack before noticing it was Laz and calming down. She couldn't help but take a few deep breaths as she realized she was getting too influenced by her newfound strength.

"DAMN BRO. THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!" Dwayne said before running towards him. Just as Dwayne was going to huge Laz for saving his life, he noticed Ruby's still snake like eyes and her heavy breathing. Dwayne put on the breaks and skidded to a stop, almost falling on his face in the process.

"Hello mam..." He said, a bit scared.

Laz couldn't help but laugh at his quick change in attitude and even Ruby chuckled a little, causing Dwayne to calm down a bit.

"It's not just you here?" Laz asked the question, knowing that others were inside and starting to peak their heads out. Seeing as how it was Laz and Ruby who had arrived, they quickly ran outside to thank them.

"So what happened?" Laz asked Dwayne. Jennia had just come out herself, but Laz got the feeling that she wasn't about to get close to them if she didn't have to. She was being especially vigilant when it came to Ruby, not even daring to make eye contact.

"We found this place and went in to check it out since it looked important. Then those guys be coming along and seen the open window like thing over there and decided they would check it out too. Then... well... some things happened and they noticed us in there and decided to break down the door. After that, you all came along and here we are." Dwayne seemed to have glossed over some parts as Laz noticed people rolling their eyes at his description, but Laz wasn't going to call him out on it.

"Why did it seem important?" Laz asked, looking at the building.

"Cause up there, they got tons of power lines running all over the place. From the roof, down the side, from over there to those giant towers back there," Dwayne started describing everything he noticed about the building, causing Laz to not understand.

In truth, Laz and Ruby had been stuck in the lab for almost a whole day, completely missing the meet up time. Everyone else ended up joining up together on time, but seeing Laz and Ruby missing meant that they didn't know what else to do. After a bit of discussion, everyone chose to go off on their own way and meet up again in 24 hours, hopefully allowing for Laz to return. The idea was that this would give them enough time to look around as they pleased while being careful as well.

Under Jennia's lead, Dwayne and the other Vodun found a storage vault containing tons of the energy batteries that Laz had pointed out and they had loaded up as many as they could. After the next meet up, they were going to tell the others about it since they had already taken their fill. This way the other members of their group could benefit since they had all they needed. Jennia was against this, but Dwayne was still going to pass on the information. As they were arguing about it, Dwayne ended up getting distracted by the building in front of them, although no one else understood why.

Him going in through the window just meant that everyone else had to chase him and that led to what had happened.

"Hold up. Hold up. I don't understand. This, that and the other thing... just what are you thinking?" Laz had to stop Dwayne before he got completely off topic.

"This building has a lot of power going in and a lot of power going on, or so it seems, right?" Dwayne simplified his thoughts and stuck on point.

"Right. Got it."

"Well... we need to shut down whatever is stopping us from going through the gate, right?"

"You're thinking that...?"

"Right. Force fields bro. Force fields. They be up blocking the gate and we can't go through so if we can knock out whatever it powering them...?"

"We can go through."

"Exactly!"

"What kind of shit are you smoking? Force fields? Fucking force fields? Are you whacked out of your mind? Jennia couldn't keep her silence or her distance anymore and spoke up. She felt like it was bullshit but if Laz bought into it, it would be trouble. After all, she couldn't stand up to either him or Ruby.

"Why is it bullshit?" Laz asked, patting Dwayne's shoulder. He looked hurt after being yelled at by Jennia. Laz couldn't help but wonder just what kind of relationship these two had.

"Because the amount of energy it would take to create a force field is impossible. I went to school for physics and let me tell you, we haven't invented anything that could power that yet!"

Laz took an honest look at Jennia, wondering if there was something wrong with her. He then looked around at the fact that they weren't on earth and then back at her.

"What?" She seemed to miss what Laz was implying.

Laz turned to look over at Ruby who almost seemed to be laughing.

"She's in denial. When something so crazy happens and then your life is put in jeopardy, sometimes people just snap and can't process what's happening. It could be considered a defense mechanism. Or a coping mechanism."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. She's seriously loosing it."

"So what's the solution?" Laz asked. When he turned to look at Jennia, her face seemed to imply that her brain was half way between here and gone.

Ruby didn't respond. Instead, she walked forward towards Jennia who failed to notice her at first.

By the time she did, Ruby was right in front of her face.

"What do you want? Do I know you?"

POW!!

Ruby hit Jennia so hard that her jaw cracked and she was sent flying. Had it been someone with a weaker cultivation or body, the blow might have separated their head from their neck.

Luckily Jennia was stronger than most. Despite that, she passed out from the blow.

"Damn...."