Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 56: Looking Like An Idiot In One Easy Step

The old man came down the stairs and looked towards the door that Laz had just escaped out of. His son looked over at him and was only able to sigh. The old man had a smile on his face when he turned to him.

"You don't think he got it, do you?"

"You've got the vision, you tell me?" Steven replied.

"He's smarter than we give him credit for. Much smarter. And more importantly, that young man knows how to listen. He might not always get it, but he always listens. I guess his parents taught him well in some things," the old man answered with a strange smile on his face.

"Why don't you tell him?"

"He's not ready to know. It won't do him a bit of good. What he needs now is growth and time. Sadly, he will have very little of the latter and the former will be forced onto him whether he is ready or not." The old man couldn't help but sigh at his 'grandson's' fate.

"None of this should have happened. They shouldn't have returned. Now, everything will be screwed up beyond even what I can see. Pieces and parts, gears and wheels. Everything is driving something else. Choices and chance, my son. I can see so much, but he is somehow hidden. The one person I wish I could help, could see for, and yet all I see is nothing but what is happening right now. Vision is a cruel gift." The old man sighed one last time before the vertical eye on his forehead closed and he walked back up the stairs.

Steven Chu took one last deep breath before locking the door and making his way up to his own room, his thoughts kept silently to himself.

As Laz made his way back to his apartment, he couldn't help but think about everything that happened tonight. From the dealings with Kennedy to the strange meeting with his Grandpa Chu, his mind wouldn't stop moving. He had listened to the story his Uncle told him and he felt good knowing that even at a time where everyone is told to shoot first and talk later, people can still be reasonable. But as far as applying that to his life? He wasn't sure he had any real enemies to speak of.

'Well, that's not totally right. I'm sure Tommy wants to kill me at this point. Still though, what the hell happened to him.'

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Not bothering to think to much about it, Laz finally reached the building and was about to go upstairs when the he saw some golden lights out of the corner of his eye.

Making his way towards them, he realized he was walking the wooded path towards the strange, abandoned park again. Strangely, he only now remembered that he had kind of forgotten about this place after he left it the last time.

After all, it wasn't like he was able to slowly get up and adjust that time. Instead, it kind of pushed itself to the back of his mind as though it wanted him to forget. Despite that, the energy circulation in him was still running on auto pilot, feeling at though he was constantly drinking the most powerful and hateful energy drink, one after another after another.

It was like he felt full, even when he hadn't eaten or drank anything for a while. The feeling was too unusual.

As Laz approached the area, he slowed down to really take in what it was he was looking at. The park was old and overgrown, yet the grass really didn't grown tall, it was to the tops of his sneakers at most. It didn't show signs of being cut, just that it didn't get any bigger.

As he bent down, he reached out to grab a piece of the grass and tried to pull it from the ground to look at it closer. To his surprise, the grass couldn't be removed. Interested, Laz bent down and ran his hands along it, almost like he was trying to feel it on his palm while extending his sense out at the same time. Once again surprised, the grass showed an incredible life force along with feeling soft and cool to the touch. It was like brushing against silk, yet with the strength of kevlar.

Inspired, Laz took his shoes off and walked over to the stone bench that was in between the glowing golden flower and the icy blue pond. Setting his shoes and socks along with his bag next to the bench, he walked along the grass while probing with his sense, feeling the life and vitality of the area.

He also noticed many poles and bits of metal sticking out of the ground in various spots. The faded paint and rusted metal added a somewhat apocalyptic feeling the entire area. Looking up, Laz could see only a bit of moon light shinning trough the trees that surrounded the overgrown park. The entire world felt dim and yet brimming with a silent energy.

Laz was incredibly inspired at this point. Thinking about the 'scroll' his Grandpa Chu had gifted him, he thought up the pictures in his mind. Knowing, based solely on the web novels he had read, he started trying to feel the energy of the first picture.

A single step forward, the dragon like arrows of energy pointed forward, but was focused only around his forward leg. A front kick, but only part of a step.

Taking a deep breath, Laz focus on the energy circling through him like two intertwined circles. Over and over. He closed his eyes and tried to simulate sending that energy into his leg. Over and over again, he repeated the same step and felt nothing..

No movement of the energy, no flow and nothing in the way of dragons coming out.

Thinking it over, Laz decided to change it up a bit and tried to move the energy while at the same time taking a step forward.

BAM

His foot hit the ground and made a loud noise, but that was it. There was no energy involved, other than his immense body strength. Looking down, Laz noticed the grass was just the same as before. Even though earlier, he had smashed concrete with his fall, this time, he wasn't even able to leave an impression in the soft ground. Focusing again but somewhat confused, Laz stood still and just tried to feel the energy.

The moon light was dim, but the energy coming from the plant and the pond were quite illuminating. Looking at the two, Laz could see the tiny motes of light, flying between the two. He remembered when he laid there before and passed out, it felt like the light itself was nothing more than an extension of life of the two oddities. Closing his eyes once again, Laz stopped trying to move this invisible and intangible energy and instead, focused on moving himself.

He wasn't trying to step forward, he was trying to move forward without stepping. With this thought in mind, the energy seemed to react slightly.

Laz, encouraged by the reaction, took a single, sliding step forward, without using an ounce of strength. Although the energy reacted, it only fizzled a bit before returning to it's normal cycle. Not being discouraged in the slightest, Las continued on, over and over again. Moving across the park with his eyes closed, Laz could feel the energy in the forward step moving hard and more fiercely each step he took.

Laz felt like his mind had entered into a special state where things were getting more and more clear.

Then, after an untold number of steps, Laz burst through with his full focus and BANG, he kicked a giant, rusted metal spring that was sticking out of the ground.

His foot felt like it was on fire while he stumbled and he yelled "SON OF A BITCH."

Getting his footing back, he used his own sense to look at his foot and noticed that it was perfectly fine for the most part, despite how hard he had kick the metal spring. It wasn't even bleeding. If anything, the part that pissed Laz off the most was that his concentration was broken and he wasn't sure he could get it back again so soon.

Walking around a few steps to release his anger, Laz aimed a forward step 'kick' at a collapsed metal slide and without even understanding why, his foot blasted into the slide like a 10 ton hammer and sent it flying. It only stopped when it hit a tree on the other side of the park.

Although it was brief, he noticed a slight light that appeared from his foot that made contact with the thin, sheet metal based slide.

'WHAT? Wait wait wait...'

Laz, taking a deep breath, composed himself pretty quickly as he thought about that feeling.

Remembering back, he could feel the anger in his broken focus and his sense of loss at being so close and yet still coming up short. Seeing the slide, he didn't really think but just brought his foot forward. When it made contact, his mind was just thinking about sending the slide flying and his inner energy responded. It had answered his call.

Taking another moment, Laz focused in on himself and realized that in terms of his inner energy, it seemed somewhat dimmer, but was pulsing while growing brighter with each pulse. It felt like a heart beat.

Once his energy got back to the strength it was at before, it stopped pulsing almost immediately, but continued to circulate.

'So the circulation is like the energy within me, waiting to be used. And the pulsing is in its recovering itself,' Laz thought while paying attention to it.

'Wait. Am I seeing things or does it look a slight bit brighter than before?' Although Laz had the question in his head, he knew he wasn't going to get the answer from himself.

He walked back over to his start point, the stone bench and sat down to try to feel his energy again. Even though it was nice he got it to work, it was worth exactly jack if he couldn't do it when he wanted to.

While he did this with his eyes closed, he noticed with his sense that a few motes of light were coming into him again. He also discovered for the first time that he didn't feel full.

'This is soooo very weird,' Laz thought. He didn't do anything other than observe the energy enter him for a time until it once again stopped. He felt full again, but it wasn't as stuffed as before when he directly consumed the two liquids.

Standing up and walking a few steps away, Laz once again focused on the one step, however he kept a good distance away from anything in or on the ground.

After only a half hour of work, he was able to control the energy to some extent and send it forward through his leg.

After a few small tests of success, Laz braced himself on the grass and took on a horse stance. If someone looked at him from a distance, he would have looked like he was about to take on a very serious life or death battle.

Opening his eyes, Laz's gaze looked forward and in a slight moment, his eyes glowed a brilliantly bright red. With a step that he was sure would succeed, Laz performed the first step of the 'Dragon Fist' scroll and released his energy out from his leg.

Of course, had he been more careful about taking an actual step and not just exploding his energy, he probably would have discovered sooner that he was very off balance. As it was, he could no longer stop himself and while his right leg exploded out with the power to send broken and busted playground equipment flying, his left leg stood firmly in place.

The result was his body moved at half the speed of his front leg and double the speed of his back leg, resulting in him doing a show stopping split followed by a high pitched yelp of pain.