196 Breakthrough

Laz was out.

The girls had stopped dragging him after noticing what had happened.

The police had pulled their guns and were pointing them at everyone.

Agent Wallace started screaming to get his men back in order while running for Brian.

The firefighters and media personal were frozen in place while the remains of the house still burned.

It was pure chaos.

After several minutes of useless shouting and posturing, agent Wallace pulled out his badge and started taking control of the scene. He had the police go and surround Laz to make sure he didn't move while trying to get the swat to handle the girls. He had a bad feeling about them and knew that he needed to separate them from the crowd and media.

He also checked out Brian personally to make sure he was really dead and found a hole shot clean through his forehead and out the back. There was no doubt about it, he was dead.

Just when agent Wallace was getting the situation under control, several black vehicles pulled through, going around the gate and the crowd and coming to a stop near where the various security guards, swat and agents were stationed. Out of the now parked vehicles came several women in suits who were also armed. They went right for the girls who had been led away by the swat agents along with the ones who were still hidden further down the wall. The woman in charge went straight for agent Wallace.

"I'm agent Myth, who's in charge here?" She asked, raising her voice to get everyone's attention. Agent Wallace, still hunched over Brian's body stood up and walked over.

"What the hell are you doing? Who are you?"

"I'm agent Myth, CARD. And you?" asked the women, holding out a badge and id for agent Wallace to look at.

"Why the hell are you here?" Agent Wallace asked without identifying himself.

"Why else would we be here?" Agent Myth pointed at the agents who had started to round up the girls.

"You knew about this?"

"I don't believe I've caught your name?"

"Agent Wallace, from the.... ICCU."

"What? What the hell is that?" Agent Myth asked.

"Infected control and containment unit."

"So that's a thing now? I guess I didn't get that memo..."

"Are you questioning me?"

"Of course not. You're information is real so we will just take this as being your command. My only objective is these girls and their safety."

"Whatever. They don't leave, understood? I will call my boss and figure out who is suppose to do what. Can't believe I wasn't briefed on this before..."

"I can't believe they put together a team to fight bigfoot..." Although it sounded like agent Myth had said it under her breath and to herself, it was still loud enough for agent Wallace to hear and he couldn't help but stiffen up at the ridicule.

While doing all this, he let the fire department in to do their thing while organizing the media near the entrance way so he could keep them updated and out of the way. He never noticed that all the girls were being loaded into the various vehicles while agent Myth climbed back into the lead car.

"So what's happening? Why is Laz being left to them?" Ruby asked. She was currently sitting in the car with Leona and Vivi, waiting on news.

Agent Myth, otherwise known as Lady Mathilda, pulled out a cigarette and rolled down the window while lighting it.

"It's become too big and there are too many eyes. If we even made an attempt for him, it would alert everyone around and we would be facing way too much attention," she said while taking a puff before continuing.

"At best, we can get these girls out of here and to a hospital where they will be safe. At least there, they will be in the public's eye and out of danger from any sort of retaliation. As far as your little man goes though, for the moment, he is on his own."

Although the girls were upset and anxious, they knew that what she was saying was right. At the moment, there was nothing they could do. They had watched the feed, up until it went dead right after a shot rang out, but it was only now that Lady Mathilda confirmed that Brian was dead and that it was Laz who shot him. Before this, they had no idea who shot who.

"I will send the girls away and we will wait here for the time being in case an opportunity presents itself, but I wouldn't hold on to hope. He is being chained up and locked in the back of a swat truck instead of an ambulance. Whether he lives or dies is solely up to the gods right now dears."

This truly was the best plan... and the only plan. Lady Mathilda led the way, driving off with no one noticing. Despite the medics on site trying to care for the girls they were quickly brushed aside. There were several members of Black Rose that had far more medical training than any countryside EMT. In the chaos that was currently ongoing, no one thought that anything was out of the ordinary right now.

At the same time that the abducted girls were being led to safety by Black Rose, Laz was currently unconscious in the back of the swat van, locked down with every restraint that was humanly usable. His hands were bound and connected to his bound feet by a half meter long chain. Even if he wanted to stand, he would be unable to do so. On top of that, he had been injected with several rounds of the drug that Brian had used on Leona when he had her abducted. This was just a further measure put in place by agent Wallace who was trying to get things situated and had known about the drug.

He couldn't care less if Laz lived or died, he simply needed a body to show for the reports.

As the agent thought about it, it was probably better that Brian was dead. At least this way, he was now in total control of the entire situation. On top of that, knowing that Brian was keeping girls locked in his basement meant that there would be little recourse from his father and whatever political connections he had. As long as he kept the girls out of the news, he could use them to keep the political pressure off his back.

Agent Wallace was simply a suit, he wasn't a player in the political game and could be easily disposed of. Those girls were his safety measure.

With all things considered, agent Wallace went to address the media and started spinning a tale of a federal manhunt to capture an illusive and dangerous individual who was known to have killed several dozen people, leaving out their gang relation. He even hailed Brian as a hero who gave his life to bring such a criminal to justice while praising those blessed humans who were taking a stand. The entire thing was made out to be like some epic drama, one in which the news media's would devour and embellish upon, causing agent Wallace to become even more of a hero himself.

And that was exactly what he wanted.

While Wallace was spinning his web of lies, Laz was currently stuck deep within himself as he fought with the aggressive snakes of lightning that were still tearing him apart. It felt like little fire worms were crawling their way all over his body, slowly melting it down form the inside.

'Now what the hell do I do?' Laz asked himself as he looked on in horror.

'I know that I've killed Brian and have probably been taken into custody, but even that won't matter if I can't live through this."

As Laz observed more and more, despite the pain, he was able to notice something interesting. The little snakes of lightning were crawling all over his insides, but gave a wide berth towards his core. If anything, they looked like opposite pulls of a magnet. Whenever they got close to his core, they ended up bouncing off and going in another direction like a force field that wouldn't let them move closer.

Seeing this, Laz had an idea.

Albeit a painful one.

'If these little snakes of lightning were just another form of energy, then they obviously wouldn't want to get close to something that is a different form of energy. On top of that, it seems like the energy in my core is stronger than them and that's why they can't get close. But if it's a form of energy, then maybe it can be used.'

With an internal breath, Laz started to circulate his self made Infinity Technique. Like cars on a highway, all of the snakes started being pulled into lanes and began rushing through his body in the direction of his choosing. Had he been awake right now, Laz would have screamed out loud.

Before doing this, the energy was going everywhere and wasn't just blasting the same internal nerves over and over again, but now that they were being put on a path, he had no choice but to feel the constant pain and burning of these snakes of lightning rubbing on the same places over and over again. It's like the difference between being wounded in multiple places versus getting cut in the same spot, over and over again.

It was like dragging his own body further into hell.

Laz was only able to hold on thanks to his strong will power and the fact that he noticed that when he did this, the energy would be super charged and launched at his core, causing it to be devoured, bit by bit.

And since this crazy energy was several times stronger than anything he had taken before, it was pounding his core harder than he thought was possible.

He knew what he had to do thanks to A'ruya, but he never really considered how hard it would be to pound his spherical core down to a foundation. Just because you hit an iron ball with a hammer didn't mean it was going to just become a flat disk. But using the lightning snakes, he was now equipped with a hydraulic press to do the work for him. Thanks to this, he could see his core becoming flatter and flatter.

Laz had no idea how much time had passed, but he had no choice except to keep doing it until all of the lightning energy was gone.

Just when Laz felt like he could no longer go on, the last bit of energy hit as he made one last desperate attempt with everything he had.

BAM

The once perfect sphere was now a flat platform, shinning within him. On top of that, laz could make out strange symbols all along the base of it, thing that he could barely recognize as runes. But these seemed different than the ones he had studied before.

Despite that, the biggest change was how the energy flowed.

It used to be drawn into the sphere from wherever and then emitted from the sphere in the same way, with no real direction or path. But now, the energy would flow into the bottom of the foundation and be let out at the top. Due to the change in flow, Laz was clearly able to feel that he not only was the energy much more compressed and dense than it used to be, but he could also use a hell of a lot more of it at one time.

It was the difference between simply using a firecracker to explode outward versus using a controlled explosion like a cannon. They were on two entirely different levels.

Feeling this new found power, Laz understood that he was now officially in the Foundation Realm.

And now it was time to wake up.