Chapter 525: Some Tears
As the movie was playing on the wall sized TV, Laz was currently being embraced from all sides. While it was kind of difficult and awkward, it didn’t mean it was impossible. At the moment, Laz couldn’t help the fact that he was red faced and a little warm considering what had just happened.
"It’s not..."
"Baby... You know we all love you."
"These kinds of things... happen? I guess?"
"ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT. I KNOW.... it’s just making it worse...." Laz said, knowing the girls only had his best interests at heart but not really sure how to address the way he felt..
"That just made it sound worse," Nora said to Celes who had made the last comment.
"Well how was I suppose to know that I sounded like a wife trying to assure her husband when he can’t get it up. Obviously that isn’t a problem..." Celes shot back, kind of embarrassed herself when her comment got her some weird stares.
"Well... now you know baby...." Kennedy started, trying to be as tactful as possible.
Laz, still pouting, turned to look at her.
"I know what?"
"The most important thing someone like us can do is to learn to control our whole bodies. When done right... well.... I guess even something like that can happen." Kennedy responded.
Leona, who had been on Laz’s right side suddenly got up and straddled him, pushing the others aside gently.
"Listen babe. I know everyone is trying to make you feel better about that, but you have nothing to be ashamed about, alright? That fact that you came enough to literally drown a small animal should be enough of an ego boost when you think about it the right way. So stop sitting here and being all droopy faced. Every one of us loves you and no matter what kind of an ass you make of yourself, that will not change," Leona said in her rather harsh style.
"So I made an ass of myself?" Laz said, looking at the brown skinned goddess who was currently giving him some tough love.
"Yes babe. You did. But that’s ok," Leona said with a smile.
"Ok. That’s it," Laz said, Sitting up quickly off of Ruby’s lap and attacking Leona’s sides, tickling her fiercely.
After Laz, a bit of a war ensued with pillows, blankets and other such weapons until Laz was ganged up on by every one of his loves and fell heroically dead onto the bed.
Everyone, including Laz, was laughing their asses off. Each one of them had blood on their hands and the lives they reaped were even in the triple digits for some, but right now, acting like kids at a slumber party, they had never felt more alive or at peace.
Jill was on his left and Lyssa on his right but Kennedy had somehow crawled between his legs as everyone else had drifted off to sleep.
Her elbows were resting on the free portion of his thighs as she looked up at him.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked.
"It’s been so long since..."
"Since?"
"Since I’ve felt like I was a part of a family..." Laz said, letting his voice trail off.
Although she didn’t mean too, the words Laz had said hit her hard and she could feel tears forming at the edges of her eyes.
She knew Laz, knew his story and his past better than anyone. But despite that, she had never once thought about how he was lacking in that regard. The only one who could come close to his feelings on this was Jill, but even then, at least she knew her family was still alive, even if they were pieces of shit.
As for Laz, his parents were missing, his grandpa had been taken and he had no idea if there was anyone else out there for him.
She could only imagine the loneliness in his heart and try to imagine how she would feel if she someday lost her mom.
"You’ll always have us," Kennedy said, smiling back her tears.
"I know. Every one of you is precious to me," Laz said, patting her head gently as she laid it down.
Laz settled himself down as well, pulling Lyssa and Jill closed as he did. He felt their bodies shake a bit at his actions, but only because they were surprised. They settled down soon after as did Laz.
He wasn’t going to reveal the fact that he knew everyone else was actually awake nor did he say anything when several of them wiped a tear from their own eyes.
Perhaps women would forget a man who once made them laugh.... but they would never forget a man who made them cry.
Just like that, the night passed into day.
"So... what are we doing?" Laz asked, seeing the girls stretching and not really sure where to look first. All the girls had on athletic wear, which is to say, not much. The tops were mostly ok, except for the really well endowed ones like Nora, Kennedy and Leona who almost seemed to be bursting out from the thin, elastic fabric. Even Lyssa seemed to be slightly uncomfortable as she had grown quite a bit in the time since they separated back in the lone star state. As for the bottoms they wore... Laz could imagine swimsuits that would offer more coverage. It wasn’t to the point of being a thong... but it wasn’t far off. The more exciting part was that each of them were dressed in the same black color, almost like they were just different specs of the same person, like when building a character in a video game.
As for Laz, he was sporting some skin tight spandex briefs while his upper body was bare.
Needless to say, the massive gym underneath the hotel probably hadn’t seen this many hard bodies in a long time and the best part was they had it all to themselves as even the equipment had been moved.
’So this is what it’s like being rich?’ Laz thought to himself, but only briefly.
"While we can’t go all out, it’s good to get some close combat experience from those at a similar level every now and then," War said, bringing her leg up from behind and touching the back of her head with it even while standing on the other one.
"While we’ve been working with Lyssa, we aren’t sure of the level that Jill is currently at and we need to evaluate her body to help decide how she can move forward," Leona said, leaning back while holding her left leg to her chest while her other leg still on the floor. Laz was amazed that these two, despite their strength, were so flexible.
They were of course in charge of hand to hand combat training. While Ruby was fairly good at it too, she was more in the nature of quick attacks and strikes. As for the others, Death and Kennedy were also strong fighters, but not as fit. Famine, Pestilence, Malene, Nora and Celes were more focused as supporting roles.
While Lyssa was more geared towards that as well, she also showed great promise with her fast reflexes and surprising strength. As for Jill, she was the outlier to all of it as they didn’t know her true abilities. While Lyssa had been training with Leona and War, as all the girls did, it hadn’t been that long.
Laz knew her strength well enough, having seen her fight in the other realm, but she had grown since then during the time he was doing his prison mission and he knew better than anyone how much can change in a few weeks.
So for the first match of the day, Lyssa would be fighting Jill while supervised by Leona. War was going to record and analyze things so that they could discuss is later.
Laz took a seat along with the others and looked on in expectation.
Strangely, he was left by himself for the moment, with the girls huddled around in a group, whispering about something. While Laz was curious, he wasn’t going to butt in. Instead, he just glanced over and noticed that Ruby was surrounded by the others, writing something down. Then Nora and Malene walked over to War and Leona and whispered something in their ear. The look they had turned briefly into a frown and then a sigh before they said something back. Nora smiled as she turned away from War and Malene laughed as she walked away from Leona, quickly joining the group again and speaking before Ruby finished what she was writing and the girls sat down.
"You both know the rules so I won’t go over it again. No bloodlines abilities or powers are allowed and just remember that no matter how hurt you get, we can get you back on your feet in no time," Leona said, looking over at Nora. She was the main healer of the group although some of Malene’s spirit skills were helpful as well. Of course there was Laz too, but in general his abilities were unknown to the group as they had never asked him about them. So when someone got hurt, Nora was who they turned to.
Jill and Lyssa backed up a distance and faced each other, taking their stances. Lyssa brought her hands up and lifted her knee slightly, showing a clear leg fighting stance, like kick boxing or such. As for Jill, she took a low crouch but her muscles were taught, showing that she could strike at any moment.
War and Leona were slightly surprised by this as the move didn’t match any martial arts they knew. She had explained her teaching at the training of the queen of the elves attendants so they focused on it to try to understand it better. After all, once you learn something, it’s hard to unlearn it and the knew any training she got in the future would need to start from these basics.
"Wait a moment," Laz said, stopping the battle.
He then lifted his finger and drew a rune in the air, one that caused Celes to rush over to watch closely even before he was done.
Waving his hand, the rune then split into two and shot into both Lyssa and Jill before vanishing.
Above their heads then appeared a vague rectangular bar that was fully lit.
"Once that bar goes fully dark, the match is over," Laz said with a slight smile.
Celes was the most shocked but both Leona and War’s eyes were bright, knowing just how helpful something like this could be for training. They turned back to the girls and made a note to ask him about it.
Leona waved her hand and the two youngest ones started.
