Gourry looked in Zelgadis's direction. The now-not chimera was beginning to falter beneath Random's weight. "Oi," he thought, "I should help." Gourry walked to Zelgadis and held out his hands. "I can take her," he said.
Reluctantly Zelgadis handed Random's frail form to the swordsman. For just a minute, he appreciated how much easier she would be to carry in his chimera form. "But then she could never return...as a rock I don't stand..." Zelgadis kept walking, shaking his head, trying to ignore his thoughts.
Lina caught sight of movement in the distance. "More bandits or the town?" She thought, preparing herself to fight if necessary.
"It's okay," Iria said in her normal part-monotone voice. "It's the town." Iria seemed almost less excited than usual, which Lina had.thought was pretty much impossible.
In the distance, the movement Lina had seen, was a pair of women, dressed exactly alike, changing the sign of the town. They didn't seem to be changing the name, but only the font of the sign.
Iria sighed, "I warned you about the plot twist," she muttered. Lina rewarded her with a Fear of Dra matta ™ glare.
"Hello!" Lina called cheerfully to the two women changing the sign.
"H...i..." one of the women called cautiously, almost disgustedly.
Lina refrained from using her glare on the women. "Is this the entrance to the town?" she called.
"You want to come into town?!" the second woman asked, not even trying to mask the horror in her voice.
Lina smiled and flipped her hair back. "So news of Lina Inverse, beautiful sorcery genius..."
"Eww! What kind of name is that?! It's so -- so...last WEEK!" the second woman shouted.
The first woman looked at the group warily, "Just what do you need in town?"
Zelgadis stepped in front of Lina who was too upset to speak coherently. "We just need a place to stay for the night."
"So you'll only be here for one night?"
Zelgadis nodded.
"Nuh-uh," Lina exclaimed staring at the blue and white sailor girl uniform that was in front of her. "NO WAY! First they insult me, and then tell me I have to wear that?!? NO WAY!" Lina was adament.
Amelia looked disdainfully at the outfit that had been distributed to her at the gate-house by the two stoic and identical gaurds. It was an exact replica of Lina's. "There has to be something unjust about forcing everyone to wear the same thing!"
Random, who had woken up a few minutes ago, was cheerfully sporting another exact copy of the outfit, after managing to summon enough energy to put it on. "Come on!" She said, smiling brightly, despite the fact that she was obviously exhausted, "It's fun!"
Iria was changing slowly, complaining softly to Fate about the extra effort involved in the fuku compared to her usual baggy pants and tunic ensemble.
Zelgadis glanced in the girl's direction, "Would you two just change already? We need to get Random out of here!" A shadowed look passed over his face for a moment, replaced by one of vague annoyance. "If I have to," he motioned towards the polo shirt, khaki pants and baseball cap he was now wearing, "You have to."
Xellos seemed oddly comfortable in the get-up and even Gourry wasn't protesting. Hey it was boys' clothes, at least.
"But...but Zelgadis-san!" Amelia pouted.
"Wouldn't it be Unjust for Random to die because of your selfishness?"
"Yeah!" Random piped in cheerfully.
Amelia looked stricken, "Random-san!" Tears welled up in her eyes as she quickly began to change. "Forgive my lack of Justice!" She cried. She seemed to be acting awfully unjust lately compared to her usual self.
"That was mean, Zel," Lina looked at the now apology-blabbering Amelia.
"You're beginning to sound like Xellos," he muttered under his breath.
"What...?" Lina asked suspiciously.
"Never mind, We have to get to town to eat too you know."
Lina struck an Amelia-esque pose, finger upraised. "Then, for the sake of Random's well-being, we must hurry to town!"
Lina changed in record time, after making sure the male component of the group was NOT looking. "Let's go!" She shouted grabbing Random and dragging her in the direction of the town.
"I can go with Lina-san," Xellos perked, seeming to be closer to his usual perpetually cheerful self than he had been.
"Out of the question," Zelgadis retorted. Demon or no, he was still suspicious of the "infernal fruitcake ™.
The group stood in a very small Inn room. All of the furniture seemed to resemble something straight out of the Baroque period.
"I'm going with Zelgadis-san!" Amelia spoke up brightly.
Iria sighed dramatically, drawing everyone's attention.
"Iria-chan," quipped a very sleep and weak but still cheerful sounding Random, "did that take effort?"
"Unfortunately," Iria said not-quite-sadly-enough-to-have-wasted-energy ™, "However, I had to get you're attention to let you know that the Trindiville Ordinance states that today, females can only travel through the city with other females, and males with other males.
The entire group gaped at the scholar in awe of the news and the actual effort involved in conveying said news.
"But-but, that's STUPID!" Lina screamed.
Iria just shrugged, "It's one of today's fads."
"That settles it, then," Lina said matter-of-factly, "Gourry and Zelgadis, you'll go out together; Iria, Amelia, you're with me; and Xellos you'll stay here with Random."
"No!" Zelgadis argued, "I am absolutely NOT leaving Random here with the fruitcake! He's evil and sadistic!"
"Yes Lina-chan, why do I have to stay?" Xellos whined, not bothering to refute Zelgadis-san's opinion, it was true after all.
"Xellos is staying cause he's the healer, and that's final!" Lina answered curtly.
"Oh," Xellos seemed to almost shudder at the remembrance of his newly returned white-magic.
"Come on, Xellos-chan, you know you want to stay with me," Random giggled softly unable to pretend she wasn't exhausted any longer.
"Okay then," Lina said, "Let's get going and find some foo -- I mean a way to get Random out of here!"
"Lina-san!" Amelia admonished the sorceress," We have to find a way out of here for Random-san! We don't have time to stop and eat!"
"Oh yes we do," Lina growled, heading straight toward the nearest restaurant.
Zelgadis and Gourry walked together silently. After several minutes, Gourry finally spoke up. "Oi...where are we going anyways?"
"I thought it might be good to go to the library and find a history of the town and the area so we could see how large the zone is."
"So that will help us get Random out?"
"I hope."
Xellos sat on the floor, watching a now unconscious Random. He wondered why his muscles were so sore, and then marveled at the feeling of his leg falling asleep. "It's been a long time?" Random mumbled, turning over to face the now not-mazoku, smiling weakly.
For a moment, Xellos seemed slightly embarassed, "Sore wa himitsu desu!" he answered trying to recover.
"Not that again," Random smiled. "Finding being human again, slightly disconcerting ne?"
Xellos shrugged. "Well, I can tell you, I don't think Zelas-sama is going to like this..."
"Ano...What?!?" Lina shouted toward the restaurant owner.
"Anorexia," the owner replied confidently. Lina, who wasn't' used to confident responses, attempted to make her glare even more threatening.
"What's that?" she growled hoarsely.
"It's where you don't eat. Today, the trend is anorexia, no one in town is allowed to eat."
"We'll get her," Amelia said as Lina crashed to the ground facefaulting.
"We?" Iria questioned, crossing her arms, and leaning on her staff.
"Oi, Zelgadis, where's the library at anyways?"
Zelgadis stopped for a moment. "That's a good question," he mumbled sheepishly. He began looking around for someone to ask about the nearest library.
"So, how d'ya like doin' the human thing again?" Random asked, as cheerfully as her current condition would allow.
"You asked that already, more or less."
"Oh yeah." Random giggled, or tried to, before she fell unconscious again.
Random felt her thoughts disintegrating towards chaos. Goody! Wait...wait...something wrong...A voice, one that should be happy, sounding worried, serious...A wall, falling, slowly apart, releasing...still together, but here, yes the weakest point...being strengthened...just a little...no...yes?
"Random? Random!?" Xellos's voice seemed tinged with worry.
"That's not right..." she mumbled happily. "Xellos-chan should not be worried...
"Yeah, I think it's kind of odd too." Xellos tried to open one eye, then remembered they were both open already and closed one instead. "Life calling to life, ne?"
"That's a pretty ironic sentiment, Xellos-chan." Random turned over to lay on her side and faced him.
Xellos raised his closed eye grinning, "How so?"
"Life calling to life," Random giggled, "with you, the demon-boy, and me..."
"You what?" Xellos watched with slight disappointment and slight worry, as Random slipped away again.
"NOT EATING! WHOEVER HEARD OF NOT EATING BY CHOICE?!?" Lina growled and looked around for a good target. She caught sight of an old tree and threw a really big powerful fireball in its direction.
Unfortunately, it was a particularly nasty day during "that time of the month," and the in~theory~ really big powerful fireball came out as an itty-bitty spark.
Iria sighed and ducked casually out of the way as she remembered this was the part where Lina was going to try and take out her aggressions on her. "IRIA! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!"
"I warned you," the scribe said softly, dodging another one of Lina's oncoming blows. "But Fate doesn't' let ME change the plot."
A piece of paper floated slowly to the ground. "Right on schedule," Iria thought, as she ducked and Lina fell face down on the ground in the exact spot the paper had landed.
"What's that Lina-san?" Amelia asked, still a little out of breath, from having to unjustly carry Lina from the restaurant all by herself.
"It's a flyer about a Beauty Contest," Iria said.
Amelia refused to listen to the Unjustly Lazy Scholar, "Lina-san?"
"There's a Beauty Contest today in the Trindiville Town Hall," Lina started, "and first prize is a teleportation mirror!" Lina began to skip up and down, "With my looks, I'm a shoe-in; I'm bound to win that mirror!"
"Lina-san..."
Lina gave Amelia a Look™ and she changed her mind about what to say next.
"Lina-san, when is the contest?"
"Right now, so we'd better hurry!" Lina began to run towards a large building that looked like it might be Town Hall, lazy scholar and sugary-princess in tow.
"Hello?" Zelgadis called out to yet another passerby. "Hello?!"
The young man whose attention he was trying to catch, and who incidentally was dressed exactly like him and every other young man in this village, looked towards him. Zelgadis suppressed a shudder, realizing how similar they must look. "I wanted to look normal," the thought, "but this is the extreme."
"Could you direct us to the library?" he asked with all the patience he could muster.
"Dude, Library's aren't the trend today. You must be new in town, huh?"
"Yes." Zelgadis clenched and unclenched his fists, and gritted his teeth.
"Yeah man, the trends change daily, check back tomorrow, ne?" The young man walked away, humming relatively loudly.
Gourry had begun to notice Zelgadis's frustration awhile ago, but it didn't quite register until the now-human chimera had started to pound his head on the park bench.
"Uh, Zelgadis?...Zelgadis?" Gourry found it necessary to actually pull Zel off of the park bench. "Oi, Zelgadis...why don't we just find a faster way out of here, like a horse or something?"
Gourry felt kind of disturbed by Zelgadis's odd look. "Did I say something wrong?"
Xellos looked towards the unconscious Random. "I should really try and heal her again," he said to himself, "But that healing thing is REALLY starting to bother me..."
"Oh! So you don't want to be a healer much longer?" Random smiled.
Xellos started. "Guess not."
"But isn't it kind of nice to be human again?"
He could have sworn her look of amusement surpassed even the most amused look he had ever been able to muster.
"Well there are some things that are kind of fun..." Xellos poked at his leg, which was now tingling rather pleasantly. "And maybe Lina would be more interested in another human than a demon..." Xellos looked up from his leg and closed both his eyes, raising them, and smiling widely. "But all in all, I like the old mazoku me better, ne?"
Random giggled, rolled over on her stomach and drifted off again.
"Oh great," Tiffany sighed to herself as she watched the three late entrants. "Tow of them are so new in town, it's painfully obvious, but one of them...She looks exactly like everyone else...so much so that she seemed to stand out!"
"All right!" Lina exclaimed, "Finally we got the right building!" She pointed to the sign marked 'Beauty Contest' in the same font they had been switching the town sign to earlier.
"Why do we always go to the weird places?" Amelia whined, as Lina dragged her to a desk directly under the sign.
"Are you here to enter the contest?" the woman behind the desk asked, gesturing in their direction.
"Yes! I'm a shoe-in, huh?" Lina asked before she noticed the woman was pointing to Iria.
"Glue-eating?" the generally stupefied swordsman looked even more confused, than usual.
The stable master nodded sadly. "Yesterday was glue-eating day. These stupid trends...Well anyways, now there's a shortage of horses. I can put you folks on the waiting list though."
"How long is the wait?" Zelgadis put his hand on his head exasperatedly.
"About a day."
"We don't have a day."
"If you give me a little time, I might be able to do better. You can take a seat." He motioned to a bench under a tree and walked in the direction of the stables.
"What kind of contest is this," Amelia whispered to Lina.
"Shh!"
"But we are just standing here in front of the judges!"
"Shhhh!" Lina elbowed the princess.
"Lina! That hurt!"
Lina wanted to give Amelia a Look™, in fact she wanted to give that girl at the desk a Look™ too, but she just smiled. "I'll show her," she thought. "I know I'm the prettiest girl here." Lina smiled wider and flipped her hair a little.
"You're really worried about Random, huh? You must really like her."
"Why did he pick today to be especially insightful?" Zelgadis thought, not really wanting to talk about it.
"I guess; what about this whole Lina and Xellos thing?" he asked trying to change the subject.
Gourry looked a little sad. "I dunno, I can't help thinking that Lina and I have some sort of connection, but at the same time, I'm not too disappointed." For a moment Zelgadis thought Gourry looked almost thoughtful.
"Oi, Zelgadis...what's glue?" he asked, shattering al delusions of depth.
Xellos glanced towards Random, she seemed as well as she had been the rest of the day. "Yeah. 'well' is a stretch," he though, a little bothered by his own concern. He turned his thoughts to Lina. Oddly enough she was the least of his current problems. He felt a sudden wave of anger. "That's not mine," he thought. He pondered on the anger for a moment, then chalked it up to being a weird side effect of turning human, and continued a little daydream about Lina he'd started a while ago.
Random looked up long enough to see Xellos's smile widen, and then she passed out.
"Lina, that wasn't very just of you! Fireballing Tiffany like that, and after she picked Iria to win too!" Amelia looked as though she could go on for a long time like this, so Lina used the simplest method she could think of and fireballed the post-pubescent justic freak™
"At least I have my magic back," Lina said wiping her hand off on her cookie-cutter skirt.
"Now who is going to push the mirror?" Iria sighed, stepping over the scorched and twitching Ameila, eyeing the large ornate mirror they had put in a cart.
"You won it didn't you?" Lina smiled, and began dragging Amelia back to the Inn, leaving Iria alone with the mirror.
Iria almost wasted breath to curse Fate, decided it wasn't worth it, and followed Lina, dragging the mirror behind her.
Snowflake smelled the humans the stable master was giving him to. They smelled good, like dirt.
"Yeah, you can have this one free. Snowflake here, isn't worth anything anyway, and you folks seem pretty in need." Snowflake snorted.
"Yeah, but I guess he'll do. Thank you." One of the humans said.
Snowflake decided he didn't like this human, but the other one had started petting him. "Come on Zelgadis. Let's go" it said.
After some decision, Snowflake decided to follow the nice human.
Xellos looked up from where he was trying to heal Random again, with even less success than usual, to see Lina, Iria, and Amelia pour into the room. He was surprised to note that they were working together to pull a huge ass mirror into the room.
"How's Random?" Amelia asked, her very being pulsing with worry, at the Unjust condition of the girl/thing.
"Uhh...not too good..."
"What do you mean, 'not too good?'" he heard Zelgadis ask, as he and Gourry tried to enter the room around the girls and the mirror. "It anything has happened to her, you fruitcake bastard, I'll...I'll..." he decided to leave that one hanging, as he realized the entire group at the door was about to trip over each other.
"The mirror!" Lina barely had time to yell, before everyone crashed with a rather loud thud.
That's when Xellos noticed that Random had stopped breathing. He let the still-really-weird-healing magics run through him and attempted to use them on the unconscious elven girl, again.
Lina breathed a sigh of relief as she realized the mirror hadn't broken in the fall, and edged herself in the room. "It's all your fault!" she screamed, and pounded on whoever it was dared land closest to where she had moved to.
That someone, who happened to be Gourry, was used to this scene, and tried to think of whatever it was that he must have done wrong this time.
Zelgadis finally managed to un-entangle himself from the mess at the door, and run to Random's side.
"She's not breathing!" he shouted. "You! You mazoku bastard, you're not even trying to help her!"
"Zel, you're not helping things!" Lina laid her hand on his shoulder. "Amelia, hurry, go help Xel!"
Amelia looked slightly stricken, "Hai..." she finally said after a long pause. (and a Look™ from Lina)
"It would probably be more effective for Lina to cast Giga Slave or Laguna Blade." Iria said, glancing towards her notes.
Iria was by now, used to this group's habit of gaping by this point, and barely noted that it was happening again before going on, "Yes. If you can, Lina, the Laguna Blade would do nicely."
"Oi, minna." Everyone's gapes turned towards Gourry. "Why don't we go through here?" He pointed towards the mirror which had an arrow on it's surface now, indicating, "THIS WAY" into the mirror.
Zelgadis pushed Xellos out of the way. "Human or mazoku, you're still a fruitcake." He hissed, and put his arms around Random. He desperately began mouth-to-mouth recessitation.
"Zelgadis, that's not going to..." Xellos realized that futility of his actions and sighed stepping back, just in time to miss the Lina shaped blur that rushed past him, grabbing both Random and Zelgadis to push them through the mirror.
"Aww...isn't that sweet?" Random thought, as she became aware enough to noticed Zelgadis's efforts to revive her. She felt the familiar tingle of magic. "Magic mirror, hmm..." she thought to herself, "how cliché..." As she felt her entire body had passed through the mirror she opened her eyes. Zelgadis was still attempting to 'recessitate' her. She giggled, much to the surprise of the now chimera-again-chimera, and kissed him. "I'll get better at home, and come back." She quirked, smiled, and disappeared, leaving a very stunned, very read, very chimera, Zelgadis behind for the rest of the group coming through the mirror to find.
Snowball sniffed. The nice human's sent was moving. It started out masked by what he had come to recognize as a 'magir' (at leas that's what he thought humans called it) smell. Then it became clear again. It was really far away, but it was good. So he followed. Somewhere, he thought he smelled a gold flash of laughing light.
Episode 6 | Fanfiction