197 Plans (1/2)
Laz opened his eyes, only to find he everything was still dark. At first, he was questioning if he had even opened his eyes, but the faint light that he could see told him that there was actually something over his head.
After moving around a bit, Laz quickly figured out that he had been restrained, tied up and had his head covered. Basically, he was being treated like a prisoner of war.
Despite the shackles, restraints and head covering, Laz wasn't panicked. Instead, he settled himself down to use his senses to try and detect what was happening and what kind of situation he was in.
His energy and spiritual sense felt rather sluggish at first, as though it didn't want to respond to him. But Laz simply fueled his energy with his black flame and burned away all the drugs in his system, allowing his energy to return to normal. At the same time, spreading out his senses, he was able to get a general idea of what was happening.
He was currently alone in the back of an armored car while people were rushing around outside. he could see that there were several guards posted around the truck, but it wasn't moving. He knew that this meant that they hadn't left yet so not too much time would have passed. Had Laz not had his breakthrough, that would have been an ok bet to make. But now, he was not only awake, but he was stronger than ever.
Still, Laz didn't do anything or try to free himself. He knew that currently he was completely surrounded and there were tons of civilians in the area. If he did attempt to escape at this moment, a lot of innocent people would be caught up in it. That wasn't a line he was willing to cross.
As such, Laz just continued to play dead while observing the things around him.
It was worth noting that his spiritual sense could spread a whole lot farther than before. Before his breakthrough, he was able to cover most of the compound, but now, he could cover an area almost ten times the size of that, meaning he could spread it out to an area that was almost a mile in diameter. Had he tried to focus in one direction, he would have been able to spread it out much farther than that.
Due to this, Laz was able to quickly find where Ruby, Leona and Vivi were sitting as though waiting for something to happen. He also noticed that Lady Mathilda was there with them as well, so he knew that they were safe. That helped take a load off his mind as well.
He quickly made contact with the three girls.
:Nice day, isn't it?:
At first, there was total silence, then it felt like three people were yelling at him at once. An interesting part of this was that if they had tried to contact him without him extending his sense in their direction, they never would have been able to reach him. The only reason their thought voices came in so clearly was because he had done so.
”LAZ!!!” Three voices shouted at once, before going off in their own directions.
It took Laz a while to settle them down enough for them to understand that he could hear them all at the same time and they could hear each other, like a voice conference. As such, they had to take turns otherwise it was just one big mess of screaming.
:Are you ok?: They decided on a round robin style questioning with Leona starting off.
:Yeah. I'm fine. Better than fine, actually.:
:Better than fine my ass. You could have been killed. And you're not immortal you idiot.: Vivi was next, only because she cut Ruby off.
:I could have been, but I wasn't. I was able to heal on my own.:
:How? And what the hell are you going to do now?: Ruby finally got her turn and focused on the important issues.
:Um. Well... I haven't gotten that far yet?: Laz didn't really have a plan, other than now wasn't the best time to leave.
:AAHHH! I knew it. Hold on...: Ruby starting chatting with Lady Mathilda who seemed to understand what the circumstances were. Although she wasn't an infected, she had a lot of experience in this type of work. This was the main reason why Yumi trusted her to run the day to day operations of their business.
Because of this, she already had a few ideas lined up to help Laz make his escape. Of course the key was that he could free himself. They didn't have the fire power or the man power to attempt a rescue while facing an armed caravan. And that was what it looked like was going to happen.
Lady Mathilda had been listening to scanners and had some intercepts going on phone calls. She already knew they were calling in the national guard to escort Laz north to the Global Sciences building for holding and testing. Although his first stop should have been jail, it was quickly decided that it was a bad plan to put him in there as he needed to be isolated and given to people who could handle him.
Having found out the extent of his injuries and what he had went through and been hit with, she was actually quite surprised that Laz had already awoken, was physically fine and already trying to think of a way out of this mess. And due to Yumi's orders, she was prepared to help in any way possible that didn't involve a serious risk on the companies part.
While she and Ruby had started making plans, Vivi and Leona had continued to find out everything they could from Laz while trying to hide their worry. All things considered, his situation looked pretty grim.
:Are you sure you can escape on your own? How are you being restrained?: Leona couldn't help but wonder, something Vivi wanted to know as well.
:Uh, nothing serious. Drugged, shackled, hog-tied, and hooded. I've also been stuff in the back of an armor car. Oh, and there are guards too. But only outside at the moment,: Laz answered without worry.
:AND THAT'S NOT SERIOUS?: Vivi couldn't help but shout at him.
:No. It's not. Due to some strange luck, I've actually been able to advance my realm.:
:YOU WHAT?: Both Leona and Vivi were surprised. Even Ruby who had been listening in while hashing things out with Lady Mathilda was shocked. And they weren't shock that he had advanced since he was stronger than all of them. They were shocked that it happened because he had almost been killed.
It took a lot of questioning from Vivi to actually hammer out how it had happened, leaving her wondering just what kind of luck he had to have been able to do things the way he did. Not just anyone would have been able to have survived the kind of pain he must have went through to make it happen. Vivi also had to admit that it was so stupid that it bordered on genius. But it was mostly stupid.