Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 203: What's Changed

Chapter 203: What's Changed

Laz shook his head at this girl who started screaming and yet failed to turn her head or cover her eyes. As such, he just turned around and finished getting clean. He never had a problem being naked around others thanks to a certain someone so it wasn't like he was going to all the sudden become shy now. Also, he was here first and she crept up on him so if anything, he was the victim. Or at least, that's what he would say if things became an issue.

As he had finished washing off the soap and turning around, he noticed that she had finally left. Using his spiritual sense to check, he noticed that she hadn't gone far. Laz didn't know why, but for some reason, he felt like this girl might be a bit of a headache. And he wasn't here for that kind of thing anyway. Onacona had rescued him in a sense and brought him someplace to recover, so he felt that he needed to be respectful of the old man and his house. And if the girl was his granddaughter like he thought she was, it wouldn't be a good idea to dip his hands into that cookie jar.

Laz ended up drying off and getting dressed, but not before looking at his skin some more. It really was a weird experience for him to have gone from pale casper white to an almost charcoal grey. Even with his inner energy burning away at the mist that had permeated his body, he had no idea exactly how long it would take for him to recover. More importantly, with his power being locked up the way that it was, it would be super dangerous for him for a while if the government was still looking for him. Yes, Onacona had said that he was declared dead, but shit happens and not being able to defend himself would be a problem. Luckily, he still had a bit of his strength left.

After Laz finished changing, he started to walk back towards the house, totally ignoring the girl who was peeking around the corner of the barn to look at him. Well, he mostly ignored her. His instincts wouldn't let him ignore her completely as he did use his sense to do a once over on her. If he had to describe what she was wearing, the best way he could come up with was fake country.

Laz had grown up going all over but spent his years with his grandpa in the middle of nowhere New York. What people might not understand is that the countryside of New York is just like the country side of any other state. There are a lot of farms and a lot of farmers. As such, Laz knew a bit about country living. As such, he could see that she was wearing a thin, fitted flannel top, cut off shorts that were obviously never actually pants and boots that were in no way water proof. It was an outfit that screamed I'm country, without actually having any real country involved. Laz didn't care, but it did strike him as odd considering they were literally in the middle of nowhere and on a farm. Laz could only guess that this girl did not grow up here.

Just as Laz was about to hop back on the road that led to the house, the girl jumped out from behind the barn and raced over.

"What are you doing?" She asked while holding her phone as though she was going to call someone.

"I'm going inside. Why?"

"Inside? Who the hell do you think you are? Are you trying to rob us? Let me tell you my grandpa is home and he owns guns," she said while warning him.

She gave Laz a weird feeling while talking to him. She seemed to think he was some kind of hobo drifter that was looking for a meal which was a turn off, while at the same time being interested for the same reason. It's like... watching something super disgusting but not being able to turn away. Laz really had no idea what to say.

Instead, he just shook his head and started walking.

"Hey, HEY. I'M NOT DONE TALKING TO YOU, YOU FUCKING PERVERT!" She screamed out. Laz couldn't help but sigh and try to keep calm. After all, he was a guest.

"Yes?" He asked while looking back.

"Who are you?"

"Just a drifter your grandpa picked up," Laz figured it was a good cover as he really had no idea how to explain himself.

"That's bullshit. My grandpa never picks up drifters or hitchhikers." Laz could see that this girl actually seemed around his age, sixteen. Although, after he thought about it, he was seventeen now, wasn't he? Either way, she wasn't a kid, but she wasn't an adut. And from the looks of things, she was pretty much what you would expect to see from someone who had never been out in the real world before. Laz silently wondered if that was why she was here.

"Well, you will have to ask him. Let's go." Laz made for the house again and this time, no matter what she said, he ignored her.

Walking around to go into the door near the kitchen, Laz saw the old man stirring the pot while drinking a beer. Seeing Laz, he couldn't help but smile.

"Have a nice shower."

"Yes. Thank you again."

"You're not going to say anything about the peeping tom?" Onacona asked while watching his granddaughter come inside..

"Grandpa. Did you really bring this guy home?" She asked, despite now seeing Laz interacting with the old man.

"Of course." The old man walked over to the fridge and grabbed out another beer, handing it to Laz.

"But... isn't he underage?" The girl asked. Although Laz was well built and somewhat tall, he still had a baby face that was difficult to miss. To be fair, with the greyish complexation, Laz did look older than the girl, but not by much.

"Kamama, it's not just about age. If you had gone through what this young man has gone through, I would treat you as an adut too."

"But grandpa..."

"No butts. Go help your mother get your brothers and sisters ready for lunch. I need to talk to our young friend some more." Sarah got up and stomped away, a bit upset at having been dismissed by her grandpa.

"She's not a bad girl, but where she grew up, she didn't have to worry about anything. On top of that, she never really had to do much either. Just the fact that she does help when asked is more than I expected." Onacona sighed while looking at the hall way she had just disappeared down.

Laz didn't comment as he didn't know the situation and just drank his beer. The old man looked out of the house at this point and saw two trucks driving down his driveway. They stopped right in front of the house. The old man had an annoyed expression on his face, but he put on a smile anyway and walked outside. Laz just sat at the table while he debated using his sense to spy on them. As it was, they weren't being quiet and Onacona had stopped them on the walkway into the house so they were close enough for him to hear.

"We are just checking things out old man, no worries."

"I'm not worried. Thanks for doing the rounds and keeping us safe."

"No problem. Is your granddaughter free? I figured she might want to come out for a ride with us?"

"She's busy helping the kids get cleaned up. Maybe come back later. My grand nephew is visiting so we are spending some family time today."

"Nephew eh? Didn't think your brother had any kids, much less grandkids?"

"And you wouldn't since he moved away almost forty years ago now."

"Oh. Right right. Alright, We will do a once over and then leave you to your family time." The group of young men walked back to their truck and ended up driving towards the barn and took off towards the back fields, each of them armed with a shotgun or a rifle.

As Onacona went back into the house, he saw Laz just sitting there, drinking his beer as though in quiet thought.

"God damn kids..."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. But do me a favor. If those guys come around and I'm not here, don't leave Kamama alone with them."

"Uh... ok?"

Onacona didn't say anything else. he just sat down at the table and drank his beer. After a while though, it was like a light suddenly went on in his head and he remembered he had meant to talk to Laz about a few things.

"Right. So you don't know anything that happened in the last year, right?"

"Has it... has it really been a year?"

"Well, you were the one who escaped the envoy heading north. And it has been a year since then."

"Damn..."

"Hard to wrap your mind around huh?"

"How do you deal with losing a year of your life?"

"Boy. When you get to my age, a year is nothing except maybe the time I got left. Besides, I spent quite a few years of my life doing things that just wasted time. I would say that maybe you will too, but somehow I doubt that."

"Ah."

"You're still young. Don't bother with details just yet boy. Anyway, guess I should probably get you caught up. You see, things started changing pretty quickly after that whole incident. They weren't related, it just seemed like an event to mark when things happened.

Onacona went on to tell Laz everything that had developed in the short amount of time. Packs of demon beasts were on the loose all over the world. The hard part about fighting them was that the moved quickly and disappeared just as fast. In fact, entire towns have been destroyed from some of the larger, faster packs. Even with the government sending out troops to hunt down these packs, there were just too many showing up all over the place. And many of them had special abilities that caused casualties among the hunters.

With the larger, more dangerous packs being handled by government troops, the smaller packs were left for individual hunters to take care of. As such, most towns and villages ended up organizing hunting parties to do checks around towns to make sure that there were no traces of demon beasts. Squads such as the young ones in the pick up truck that had visited Onacona's land were a normal sight outside of cities. As far as cities went, they had their own problems.

Cites have been referred to as concrete jungles and rightly so. Although normal kinds of demon beasts would stay away from areas with a large human population, there were always exceptions. Sometimes, a random beast would appear in a city and cause a massive amount of damage before they were taken down. At other times, they would hunt and kill silently, not even letting people know they were around and disappearing just as fast. A large snake had managed to hide in central park for over two months before it was finally noticed and put down. The thing was almost 40 feet long and over 35 deaths had been linked to it.

These days, when people started talking about alligators living in the sewers, others listened.

The problem came from more than just demon beasts however. Fights between infected and law enforcement were becoming more and more common. There had even been a gang rounded up of more that six people who where all infected. As they escorted their drugged bodies away, the average person was treated to another round of brainwashing as 'specialists' explained how the mutations of the body had led to their various abilities. All of this, of course, was caused by the disease.

And they had a point, in a way. Those who tested positive to having the blood infection all ended up showing physical signs of the infection. Sometimes, it was little things like a bit more body hair or gain weird patches of color on their skin. But for some, the change was far more intense, causing them to no longer even appear human. Because of these radical changes and the bouts of violence that, although rare, were pushed to the national media, support for these infected started to taper off.

This was also the biggest difference as compared to those who were considered blessed by the heavens. They were pushed forward as a leap in evolution for all mankind, showing no outward symptoms other than some flattering war paint like marks that would appear and vanish depending on their power usage.

The world had found it's angels... and it's demons.

Listening to all this, Laz started to get a clear picture as to what was happening. And none of it sounded good.