190 Rescue

AS the room went dark, Leona let out her breath that she had been holding, but she still refused to make a sound. The gashes on her body hurt, but they weren't bad enough to cause her to bleed excessively. As such, she knew they would heal soon enough. One of the benefits of her daily training was that she had an increased tolerance to pain. Another benefit was that she knew her body enough to know when she was in trouble and this wasn't that serious.

Despite her relief, she was worried as well. She had no idea what Brian had done to her but it seemed like such a casual attack had still done this amount of damage. She didn't want to know what would happen if he had attack with his full strength if this wasn't it. Despite her throbbing head, she steadied her breathing as much as possible to try to figure some things out.

Over the course of time with Laz, she had gotten a pretty good grasp on the types of powers he had seen with infected. Also, when she considered Laz's ability, or Ruby's, or even Dee's and Reggie's, she felt that Brian's was definitely different. Laz could send out his flames, but they came from the energy he produced. Even if he didn't use his flame ability, it wasn't like he could send out an attack that would just move through the air like that. The closest thing Ruby could compare it too was Reggie's ability, but even then, it was different. Reggie's ability was based on the grounds of using runes. As such, once he created the rune, it would have an effect. But most runes were like an inscription that once used, had to come in contact with something for it to be effective.

What Brian did was completely different.

Although she was stuck in a cage underground, located who knows where, Leona started to feel worried about Laz. She knew that he would find her and soon. But doing so meant he would have to take on Brian without having a clue as too his ability. The only spot of comfort she could feel was that Brian had no idea what Laz could do. Had she known that Fred had already sold Laz out to Brian, she would have started to lose her cool in no time.

What Leona didn't know was that the action of Brian's attack actually alerted Laz to his position. He had been keeping a very close eye on the main building, while keeping his distance. Up until this point, he hadn't been able to find anything since he wasn't trying to alert anyone that he was here. The hardest part about all of this was that Laz really didn't know what to do.

To top it all off, Laz didn't exactly have a guide book on how to change the shape of the laser, change the color or anything else. The only thing he could do was to add or decrease the power of the laser to make it less easy to notice. But when you do that, you lose a good portion of the picture.

Due to all this, Laz had just been casually hitting the building in out of the way spots so as to avoid detection.

But since he already had his spiritual sense focused on the building, as soon as the burst of power went off, he noticed it right away.

Considering how odd it was, Laz knew that it wasn't Leona. He would have recognized her energy right away.

As Laz focused, what he noticed amazed him. The burst came from an area below ground... way below ground. It seemed like it came from somewhere deeper than even the basement. And that was a problem. Assuming that there was actually a layer below the basement, Laz had no idea how he was going to get there.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that it would be easier to just rush in and try to push through. Or at least, the was the only idea he had. If the security inside had been moving around at all, Laz could have found a way to slip in. But it seemed like they were staying in place for the long haul and weren't coming out.

Just when Laz started thinking that he had to do something stupid, he felt a slight tickle on the back of his arm and looked down, only to see a rather cute spider looking back up at him.

:Tyr?: Laz had completely forgotten about this little guy. In fact, he had no idea how he had gotten here.

Rewind a few hours.

When Ruby had gone to pick up Vivi, unknown to them, Tyr had been excited by the sudden action and snuck his way inside the car. Then, meeting up with Laz who he had decided to follow along with, he ended up hitching a ride on Laz clothes, completely escaping anyone's notice. Even Laz who had spread his senses out to cover as much ground as possible didn't notice Tyr simply because he never focused on himself. It was only when Laz started to become agitated that Tyr sensed a problem and made himself visible.

Despite this happy little occurrence though, it didn't solve Laz's problem.

:Hey little guy. Sorry, but I can't play right now. I'm trying to find a way underground...: Although Tyr didn't possess the ability to respond to him, Laz still felt a tiny bit better at having someone next to him to share his worry.

Strangely though, after saying this, Tyr ended up looking in the direction of Laz's gaze and noticed a familiar energy. Leona had been there when Laz first encountered Tyr so Tyr knew who she was. Looking at Laz and then looking back to where Leona was and then back at Laz again, Tyr's tiny mind had some understanding on what was happening.

Big person wanted to find good smelling person.

:K:

Laz was taken back by this sudden communication. Tyr had never before communicated in a way that he could understand. Even Vivi was at a loss when it came to the little guy and could only surmise that Tyr was smart, but hadn't begun to open up his spirit. As such, he wouldn't be able to communicate for some time. As Vivi said, he was simply like a small newborn.

Yet now he was able to express his understanding.

As Laz watched on in amazement, the little spider hopped off Laz's arm and ran along the ground. Seeing this, Laz couldn't help but follow along while trying to keep an eye out. He was still nervous since although he was in disguise, he really had no reason to be standing where he was.

Just when he wanted to grab the little guy and make his way somewhere hidden, Tyr jumped behind a rose bush that was the size of a large dog and raised his two little front legs before jabbing them into the ground. Just as Laz started to regain his composure, he saw that Tyr managed to cut out a hole the was about as big as the bush with all the dirt being hidden by the brush. Then, to surprise Laz even more, Try continued to dig with his little limps, causing the hole to open up to be as wide as the bush while pushing the dirt around the hole into a compacted state, causing the hole to be reinforced. It was like he was digging out a reinforced tunnel in the ground. With a strength that the little palm sized spider had no business using, the tunnel started to snake underground, heading in the direction of Leona.

Laz was just standing there dumbstruck while the tiny spider started burrowing like a drill although silently, quickly disappearing from sight. Just a moment or two after he disappeared, the little guy came back out and looked up at Laz before waving his front legs and disappearing again into the hole.

Laz could only shake his head and follow. Although he had to crawl, Laz was never a very big person in the first place so he was able to easily climb his way downward though the tunnel. Spreading out his sense, he was able to maneuver his way down even with the fading light.

Since Tyr had picked the location and was leading, Laz quickly ended up behind a dilapidated brick wall that was already falling apart when they got there. Crawling up to the exposed area, Tyr ended up running up Laz's arm and stand on his shoulder, allowing Laz to look through on of the many missing bricks.

It's important to note that while the basement of the house had been reinforced and steel support beams had been run underground, this area was actually not really much deeper than the basement. It wasn't a dug out area underneath it as that would have made the entire building unstable. This was instead something to the nature of an area that was carved downward from the basement and off to the side. Instead of running under the house, it was actually more under the the center, open area of the complex. Laz and Tyr had dug around the real basement to arrive here.

Laz dared not use his sense to scan the room since he didn't know who was in here and could only use his eye sight to look around. Even with his enhanced vision, the room was pitch black with no light coming through anywhere. He couldn't even circulate his energy as that would stick out like a fire in the middle of a dark field. Just when he was about to start breaking down the bricks on the wall, Tyr jumped off his shoulder and ran into the room, vanishing quickly from the small bit Laz could see.

Tyr, knowing who Laz was looking for and not hindered by the darkness, made his way over to Leona who was still trying her best to bend the bars of her cage. Just as she was about to make another attempt, she felt something small and furry jump onto her arm. Before she could even scream or try to shake it off, she heard a small, weak voice in her head.

:Hi.:

Although shocked, she settled down quickly and reached out a hand to the little furry thing. Touching it, she was finally able to figure out what it was that had jumped on her.

:Tyr?: Laz had shared the name of his new little friend with the girls the earlier in the night at the club.

:Hi.: Tyr could only say and understand simple things and therefore wasn't able to tell her what was going on. But that wasn't important. What was important was that if Tyr was here, that meant that Laz was here too.

Knowing that the room was empty except for the other girls, Leona couldn't help but laugh at this sudden development. She knew that Laz would find her, but she was worried that he would somehow go postal and try to wreck the place. It seemed like he had snuck his way in instead.

:Is Laz here?: Leona asked.

:Yes. Here.:

:Can you go get him?:

:Safe?:

:Yes. It should be ok.:

:Safe. Ok. Bring.: With those simple words, Tyr jumped off Leona's hand and ran off, making his way back to Laz. When he returned, he jumped back on to Laz's shoulder and simple said,

:Safe.:

That was all the info Laz needed, he quickly tore apart the wall, moving the bricks quietly out of the way before standing up inside the room. Letting Tyr guide him with by yanking on his clothes, Laz was able to move around silent without knocking into anything and quickly arrived at Leona's cage.

Although he couldn't see her, he recognized her scent and the sound of her breathing and reached his hands into the cage while hers were reaching out.

With the steel bars between them, they hugged in the suffocating darkness, letting the warmth of the other wash over them.