Chapter 365: Remembering Loss
Laz felt like he was drifting for a while before coming to a stop. When he opened his eyes again, he was sitting down at a small table in a cramped kitchen while something that smelled divine was cooking not too far away.
"I remember this place..." Laz thought to himself as he heard a shower running in the background.
It took a minute before it clicked and Laz was out of his seat, running like his life depended on it. Just as he turned the corner and opened the door, all he saw was a silhouette along with a bunch of fog. Running inside, he pulled back the shower curtain to reveal the empty shower, the shadow of the person using it having vanished. While the hot water streamed down his still clothed body, he heard a voice whisper in the now vanishing bathroom.
"Don’t forget me..."
The tears that ran down Laz’s face were far warmer than even the shower water.
Laz opened his eyes, this time to reveal the small room he had been in originally, the sound of an alarm going off as the tears continued to stream down his face.
"Kat...."
It was a memory about a person he hadn’t had in a long time and yet somehow, the pain was still there.
Getting up, Laz made his way over to a pitcher filled will cold water, a remnant of his breakfast and splashed some on his face, before drying it off with a discarded shirt.
"Why though? Why now...?"
Although the memory was still locked in his head somewhat, Laz didn’t bother to think about it too much. Doing so would have been too painful. Instead, he felt like it was about time to see what the old grandma wanted from him. Ironically though, he wasn’t in the best of moods anymore.
As Laz exited his room, the young Celes was waiting for him as though she expected him to be coming out.
"You’re here?" Laz asked, a slight annoyance that had nothing to do with the black clothed woman leaking into his voice.
"Yes.. I’m here to bring you to the meeting...?" Celes was somewhat taken aback by Laz’s attitude shift, something she hadn’t expected.
’Did he have a bad rest or something?’ She thought, but voiced nothing of her concerns. Instead, with a grunt from Laz, she lead the way.
After various corridors and hallways, they ended up in front of a large double door, made of thick, hard wood, stained and polished to a shine. If not for the runic carvings on the door, Laz was almost certain he was walking into a church.
Without hesitation, Laz pushed the doors open and much to his surprise, the massive room almost resembled some sort of king’s court. In front of him laid a plush red carpet that led to a massive dais, upon which there were seven chairs placed, in each on sat a woman of varying ages, from what looked to be thirty to over sixty years old. In the middle of the group, taking up the center chair, was the old woman Gretchen, her normal clothing exchanged for the of loose fitting robes with a deep hood draped over her face. Even with the robes ability to mask the wearer, it was easy enough for Laz’s eyes to see through such a thing. In fact, as far as Laz was concerned, she might have not been wearing it at all.
Ironically, as Laz looked at the old woman, she looked backed at him with bright eyes and made a shushing sound, as though wanting Laz to hide the fact that he could see her. This strange course of events caused Laz to temporarily forget about his bad mood as he pondered her meaning.
Walking into the room, Laz stopped at the end of the carpet and stood stock still, saying nothing. While he wasn’t moving, his face showed a sort of lazy regard that seemed like he was completely uninterested in what was currently going on, something that clearly annoyed several of the gather women.
"Not a single ounce of respect. No manners. How brazen of a young man you are...?" Said one of the older ones, a single chair to Gretchen’s right.
"Oh, I don’t know about that. After all, considering the pressure he must be under, he seems to be quite relaxed..." replied a woman no older than her thirties in a chair on the end of the left side of Gretchen.
"Ok. Before this goes on, how about one of you tell me what I am doing here? I’m not exactly free and to be quite honest, I’m in a bit of a bad mood. So let’s just skip this useless whatever you all are doing and get down to it, shall we?" Laz said, before this bickering continued.
"Why you insolent little punk. If I don’t teach you some manners right now, I’m afraid you’ll feel like you can just keep walking all over us, is that it?" The old woman to the right side of Gretchen yelled out as she stood up, her blood humming as strands of green light started wrapping around her body before shooting forth like snakes.
Laz, completely unfazed, let out a snort and waved his hand, batting away the green tendrils as though they were flies. Although the old woman had only used enough energy to smack Laz backwards and mostly like cause him to land on his ass, the fact that he could disrupt it with a simple flick of his hand was enough to alarm all the women present but Gretchen.
"YOU! YOU! WHY ARE YOU NOT COLLARED? DAMN IT YOU OLD NUT, ARE YOU INSANE?" The woman yelled at Gretchen before again calling upon more of her power. The other five women also stood and started calling on their power as well, ready to attack at any moment of Laz proved too big of an opponent for the lead woman.
Seeing this and being treated this way, Laz’s annoyance quickly returned as his body heated up. Around behind him, the Seal of the Apocalypse became visible and began rotated as Laz unleashed his bloodlust. Unlike his normal aura, bloodlust wasn’t something that could be seen, but it could be felt, more so by those like himself who were considered infected. As the suffocating feeling spread out in waves while the red ring spun behind him, even Gretchen who knew of his strength found it hard to breath.
But despite this, Laz didn’t fully lose himself. Instead, this pressure ended up being focused on the women in front of him, making them fall back into their seats as fear covered their faces.
Only Gretchen and the other old woman, ones who have seen death and carnage, could even begin to understand what the pressure coming from Laz meant.
"How.. how many times must this man have killed... to be giving off this kind of feeling..." That old woman said as she forced herself to breath.
Neither Gretchen nor this other old woman were innocent, having taken their own fair share of lives in their day. But even with all of the people they had met in their lives, from the lowest rungs of the trash of society to those who take lives and are still called heroes, neither of them had ever felt something like this.
Off to the side, even though the feeling wasn’t directed at her, Celes could barely stay standing upright when the feeling hit her. It was so strong and so sudden, she almost lost control of her bladder.
Besides Gretchen and the other old woman on the dais, the other women weren’t so lucky as to keep themselves in check.
They had been way too shielded and way too innocent as to the true extent of the world.
But now Laz had flung open this door too them and no matter what, these women were now scared of this one, lone man.
It wasn’t hard to understand what had happened with Laz’s spiritual sense and he quickly withdrew the pressure. While their faces might be cloaked to others, Laz could see the fear in their eyes quite clearly.
A fear of him.
This wasn’t something he wanted nor had he intended.
His mind circled back to the dream he had just awoken from half an hour ago and he could help but sigh.
’These women are not fighters. They aren’t nearly as strong as you were... So why am I taking out my grief on them...?’ Laz thought to himself as he reverted back into the young and innocent looking man that had walked into the room just moments before.
Laz sighed as the women twitched in their seats.
At this time, Gretchen finally got up and laughed, unable to contain herself. For a moment, the other women had thought she’d finally gone mad, until they realized she was laughing while looking at them. Even the old woman next to her sighed in disappointment at the five others.
"Do you understand now Wilma? Do you know why I want what I want? Are you still going to be as stubborn as you were back then? It wasn’t like I stole your husband after all. I was just looking for a good fucking and you if you hadn’t clued me in to how hung he was, I never would have thought about trying my luck. But besides his dick, he wasn’t worth even a second look, the disloyal prick..." Gretchen said, turning to look at the other woman who was sighing to herself.
"Why the hell are you bringing that up now, you old slut? Whatever. You girls go get yourselves cleaned up. I can’t focus in here with the smell anymore. We will move this to another room for the remainder of the conversation...." Wilma said, getting up and heading to a side door, followed closely by Gretchen who was still laughing at her while signaling Laz and Celes to follow.
In another smaller and more cozy room that was still large enough for a dozen people to sit comfortablly, they all took a seat as Gretchen stared at Laz for a moment.
"You know boy, all the times I have even seen you, whether you were being hunted down or whatever, I’ve never seen you annoyed. So tell me, what bug crawled up your ass while you rested?" While there might have been gentler ways of asking this question, now that she had revealed her nature, of course she wasn’t going to try to hide it again.
"Grandma..." Celes chided from her seat.
"What? It’s clear he pissed off about something, so what’s the harm in asking?"
Wilma said nothing and just listened in, not intent on starting anything until the other came back.
"I had a dream...." Laz responded, but didn’t continue right away. Despite that, the others were quiet as the feelings in his words struck him.
Holding out his left hand, a black flame burned to life. Like a sculptor molding clay, the flame suddenly took on the form of a woman’s who face Laz hadn’t seen in years, but one he would never forget.
"Her name... was Kat. And she was amazing."
Laz then told the three unfamiliar women the story, their story, that ended with her death on the side of a snowy road in the middle of nowhere. While he had never really talked about it before, he had never forgotten it either. It was just one more memory he kept buried and locked away, one of the many failures in his life.
By the time his story was finished, the room had been filled. Everyone was staring at the head within the flames in Laz’s hand, their thoughts mixed, but their eyes wet. Laz wasn’t a story teller, although he had a somewhat musical voice. Nor was he a performer. But from the way the group of women, all older than Laz reacted, it was like he had just told the saddest and most epic tale they had ever heard.
Gretchen, although also touched by the story, was the first to recover. Unlike her granddaughter who was openly weeping, she had been through many rough times in her life which made her more adaptable.
"After today, I hope you all understand what I have been saying. We’ve been lucky, but one day that luck will run out. One day, it won’t be an ally in that room, threatening you and making you piss yourselves, it will be an enemy. And if we want to be ready, instead of just being a sad memory to whichever one of our loved ones manages to survive, we need training. Real, dangerous and outrageous training. Even those muscle heads of girls won’t be prepared for the kinds of battles we might need to fight. Because victory for us might mean death for our enemies while failure for us might mean a fate worse than death. After all, for women like us... we no longer have rights in this world, except for the ones we fight to the death for ourselves."
"And just how do you purpose we do that huh? You and me train them? Even if we wanted to, our bodies can’t keep up like they used to, you know that..." Wilma responded, no longer opposed to the idea but knowing that they weren’t the solution.
"I purpose him!" Gretchen said, pointing at Laz who was currently leaning back with his eyes closed.
"Him? I may not know who his is exactly, but somehow I don’t think he is that free..." Wilma said, eyeing the resting youth.
"How long...?" Laz asked, without opening his eyes.
"A few months. No more than six. Besides, it’s going to take some time for the pursuit of you to wear down. And while you might not have much faith in our rune work, the ones hiding this place had been laid down long ago by hands much better than ours. This place won’t be discovered if we don’t want it to be," Gretchen said, offer the final bit of a push she hoped Laz needed.
As the vision of Kat once more came to and left Laz’s mind, he simply sighed to himself.
"Fine. But let me warn you right now... None of them are going to like it. And except for you two devils, these other five need to join in as well. And her!" Laz said, pointing to Celes last but not least.
"I wouldn’t have it any other way..." Gretchen said, a rather twisted smile on her face.
