"What? WHAT?!"
"W W Will y y you s s stop sha sha shaking m m me.... allready?"
Xelloss held his spinning head and gave the blond woman a disoriented look. Then he smirked. "Still as voilent, I see... Kept up the trait, ne - Fi-chan?" Firia gritted her teeth but didn't take the bait.
"Xelloss..."
"I SAID I don't know either." The Mazoku repeated and tried to get his shirt and jacket back into place after the shaking-attack earlier.
"Oh yea?" Firia didn't sound too convinced at all. Whatever was going on and had gone missing in Dietrich's camp, she had to know. It could jeopardize the dig if something went wrong. What had they found over there, what?!
"Here you go, have something to drink..." Leaned against the side of the car, the figure sat slumped together, head hanging. He seemed to be at least just about awake, but not much more though. Rick placed the glass of water in the young man's weak hand. He looked like a young man anyway, even though he did look strange. Somehow the assistant of unofficial undercover Mazoku Xelloss Metallium, felt a bit worried over his new finding. Rick watched the other slowly sip the water and took another mouth-full from the liquor bottle in his hand.
As assistant, secretary, and friend of Fanny Connor, Maggie Iris Milage knew the somewhat famous archeologist Miss Connor since some time back. Actually, even though Fanny was some years older than Maggie - seven actually, Maggie being 21 - they had gotten together while she studied extra history and was on practice in Greece. Fanny had been on vacation that summer with her family, but by Fall when they ran across each other again in the University Halls back in the States again, the older woman had offered her new friend a hasty job. Maggie had accepted the opportunity (better than stay home with nothing but extra classes to do while waiting for other jobs), and they'd been together even since. Miss Connor's sometimes short and fiery temper had always been one of her charms, Maggie thought, and on her good side when dealing with all the grumpy men in the business. However, it was also know to get them both into the strangest situations. Amster Dietrich seemed to be able to trigger that fairly easily - a thing Maggie all too well understood, the guy was SUCH a jerk. But THIS was on the weird side, even for this day, the young light-brown-haired woman thought to herself and watched for a distance how her superior and friend chased a strange purple-haired man around in little circles.
"I don't know!"
"I don't believe you!"
"I don't know!"
"I don't believe you!"
"But Fi-chaaaan!!"
"Shut up!"
"But, I don't know!"
"And I don't believe you!"
Maggie watched Fanny (yes, that's still Firia) chased the strange guy around in classic Tom and Jerry fashion on the dusty little hill, not really knowing how to start.
"I DON'T know!"
"I DON'T believe you!"
"Bu' Fi-chaaaan!!"
"Shut up I say!"
"But I still don't know!"
"And I still don't believe you!"
After five more turns around in circles, the fancy dressed man seemed to notice her and smiled a bright smile her way and gave her a wave. "'Llo there Miss! 'Scuse me for not properly greeting, I'm being followed, see."
Uuh.. Ookey... Maggie thought and just stared as he ran pass her same as by previous lap. This time though, Firia noticed her and stopped her pursuit to halt by her friend. After dusting the worst dust off herself and catching her breath, Firia put her hands on her hips and turned to Maggie.
"Mag? What are you doing here?" She breathed out and pushed some blond strands out of her face.
"Well..." The girl started as she watched the strange man finish the lap on his own and come up around and behind Fanny - the blond woman not noticing. "... It's been some events down in the camp... I thought you might wanna hear, it's kinda funny actually..." she trailed off as she could see the guy size her friend up from behind with a wide appreciating smile.
"Well?" Firia -still totally unknowing to Xelloss standing behind her- asked impatiently. "What is i-- ... EEK!!! - XELLOSS!!!" Firia jumped with a shriek, as one tends to do when someone take you by surprise - or pinch your behind.
"Sorreee..." Xelloss smiled sheepish. "Couldn't resist... heheh... Such nice shorts it is... Where DID you buy them? Interesting material I say!" He giggled and rubbed he back of his head when she didn't buy the excuse one bit. Firia grew a shade of red and clamped a fist together, smoke almost coming out of here ears. If Maggie had been able to keep her own giggling in check, Xelloss' face would have gotten a short but hard date with Firia's fist. However, the young woman couldn't help herself by the sight and giggled out loud.
"Ouh! Whatever." Firia breathed out and just gave the Mazoku a glare of death instead. "Sorry Mag, what was it you wanted again?" Maggie's mouth twitched as she calmed from the fun outburst. She cleared her throat and pinned her glasses higher up on her nose. Xelloss just stood with a smile beside Firia like nothing ever happened.
"Oh, it's probably not that important... Anywhow - G'day Sir, I don't think I've had the pleasure..? I'm Maggie Milage, Fanny's helper and friend you might say." She extended her hand politely when that friend made no notion what-so-ever to introduce her to the purple guy.
"Aahh... Beautiful!" He answered as he took her hand with a broad smile. "Sel Metallium, at your service. An old... acquaintance... to Miss Connor. A pleasure to meet you Miss Milage."
"The same, Mr Metallium. And please, say Maggie."
"Only if you say Sel......" He teased back. Maggie chuckled - this guy was funny. Firia was not nearly quite as entertained though. She sighed and Maggie looked up.
"Oh, sorry! Okey, I just thought you'd like to know, - it's about Mr Jones... He's gone ballistic again." She hid a grin. "Remember last month, when he thought he saw some monsters and ran around shouting about it for a week? Well, this time he claims he saw a WALKING STATUE. With clothes to boot!" Maggie laughed, Firia became expressionless. "He came running shouting about it 40 minutes ago, no one took much notice as usual though. Maybe you should go fetch him and talk to him again. I mean, he's a real good at his job but he's a real weirdo sometimes..."
"A... walking statue?" Firia tried slowly. Maggie shrugged 'Yea?' and looked strangely at the two others who suddenly seemed suspiciously interested.
"Eeh...you don't take this seriously, right?" Maggie looked back and forth between them. "I mean, it's just Jones we're talking about here..."
"Where did it come from?"
The young woman gave her boss a wondering look.
"Well... I think he said... east?"
Firia and Xelloss stared at each other.
"Diethrich!" the Ruyzouku female exclaimed in shock. She grabbed a hold of Xelloss' shirt (again) and locked stares with him. "You don't think it's...? Do you?"
"What?" Maggie wondered aloud, but was dismissed. "OhmiGod..." Firia continued and held her hand to her mouth thinking. "We have to find him! But where...Where'd he go?!"
"Who? The statue?" Weird the girl thought, but decided it was best to play along. "It supposable went around the camp, I think."
"Around the camp? Our camp? Then... that's towards the barrack and the parking, right?..."
The parking? A chilly feeling tip-toed up along the Mazoku's back. Xelloss' eyes widened visibly. It was even enough to make Firia notice and give him a questioning look.
"Rick..."
"What about him?" The ex-dragon asked -Maggie didn't even bother to-. "Except that he looks just like..." She trailed off. Xelloss just stared eyes wide open in the direction he'd shooed off his own assistant not so long ago. Well it IS true some fates is drawn together... The ex Mazoku Priest bit his lip. Could his hunch be right then? Shit!
"Run for it!" He shouted and did just that - towards the parking. Firia and Maggie blinked and looked at each other. Then the first caught on and bolted after with her heart hammering in her chest. A chance. A hope. A possibility. HopeHopeHope!
Icy blue. The stranger's eyes blinked foggily and unfocused at him, head still hanging slightly. So weak. So very weak. Stiff and strained limbs, tattered clothes and sore body. How now stone skin and metal hair can even seem sore... But it did. Rick couldn't help but feel pain for the guy.
"A... am... I..." voice weak and dry as grovel. "... dead?" It asked and looked dazed at him, water glass clasped in its limp hand. Rick swallowed and looked at the young man (or whatever it was), then at his soon empty bottle, and back up again.
"I don't think so. I..." He started but was cut short. Rick Grey gasped as the figure shakily reached out an unsteady hand towards his face. The dry stone skin touching his warm cheek, pain-filled eyes looking up to him and a scraping sound when the metal hair rasped against the side of the car as the boy collapsed heavily into his lap with a whispering sigh.
"Gandpa?"
Rick Grey just stared, frozen in place.
Flushed cheeks and heavy breathing. Sel Metallium tore open the gray suit-like summer jacket and picked up pace as he ran over the sunburned plane. Hate when the pieces fall to place so fast it hits you over the head. Damn. Damn, Hell, and all the creatures within. Hm. That by the way reminded him, - he needed to check up on that place sometime soon again. Should be about time. But sure as Hell itself, now was not the time. With a violent screech that picked up quite a dust cloud (and wow what a cool move if he'd been wearing a cape. But he didn't.), Xelloss slid around a corner and down to the part which he recalled parking earlier that day. Accurate enough, there was the car, speaking it's usual "my owner is damn filthy rich just so you know, and yes, don't bother to try to steal me, I've got burglar alarm yes, you idiot". However, a new set of rough scratches crowned the vehicle's back just slightly by left back tire. Just below the open backseat door sat a known figure hunched over, cradling something half-lying in his lap. Xelloss stood silent for a moment watching the scene before advancing, absently registering the sound of the girls entering the lot behind him.
"R-kun?" Rick looked up at his Boss with glassy eyes just as Firia arrived from behind. Caught up in her breathing she stood silent behind Xelloss as they watched Rick sit up more straight and wipe away some water from his eyes.
"It... It 's so-o ssad..." He sniffed and rubbed his nose with a sad puppy-dog face from out of this world. "I dunno why bu' ah feel so... so...sniff..." Xelloss absently noted the empty beer can and bottle by the side. It would explain how Rick managed to pull off the puppy-expression so truthfully, or at least explain its origin. Tssk, tssk.. - Youths these days... never did could handle the booze.
"He... he...even called me 'Granpa'.. or something. It's so sweet! ... I think. ... And - " The drunken young man continued talking about absolutely nothing of importance and didn't offered even the slightest protest as Xel kneeled by him, leaned him back, and exposed the person in his lap. The trickster fell silent and so did his blond companion, but Maggie said it all when she finally caught up with them and panting joined the group.
"Holy shit! A stone-guy!" She exclaimed amazed.
In much need for mental help, that was what most people working at the Connor-Dig Camp said about Mr. Jones. Some people just dismissed him for have seen 'too much X-Files' and laughed. A young man named Rick Grey could possibly be charged for that notion -even though it never seemed to have effected his natural skepticism about just about everything supernatural (except for his Boss, who he'd already dismissed as a bad joke cracked by mother nature on a bad day)- , but the truth was, that Mr. Jones who was just a normal middle-aged man in a steady economical situation and life in general, actually never did liked that show. He just simply attracted strange things and events. As shown. If he had lived an age before his present one, he'd most likely been one of those innocent people who just seemed to run into the Dramata herself, one too many times (aka, he'd been one dead extra.)
"Hey, YOU!"
Mr. Jones looked up pale in face from trying to unlock his car door so see a weird man in a safari-hat came walking towards him with several big bad-looking guys in tow.
"You saw a STATUE walk by, I hear?" Amster Dietrich stated more than asked. Mr. Jones looked around nervously.
"Eh, ye-yes?"
"Show it to me, NOW!" Jones jerked back scared by assault from the angry headman of the other team of archeologists.
"But I don't know where it is now!"
Dietrich cursed colorful and almost threw his hat to the ground. "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! I hate to have to go ask Fanny about it. Damn!" he chewed (hai, on the toothpick ^_^) and looked around a while, thinking.
"Uhm... uh... Miss Connor is not here." Mr. Jones started weakly. The other snapped his head in his direction and gave him a hard stare. "She just left in a hurry... with Miss Milage, and some other rich-looking guy, in his car. They had the statue."
A very angry scream echoed over the dig site known as the "Atlantis Site" to the public through the media. Amster Diethrich really HATED days like this one. But at least he could be happy Xelloss didn't got his way, and he swallowed that toothpick and got a punctured lung. - Not even while screaming loud curses all over the place. Maybe the Gods actually had something better to do.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but ain't this a 90-road? [1]" Maggie held on to the inside of the car's door the best she could while looking nervously ahead. It felt like he was driving TWICE as fast damnit! Lucky for him, she thought, the young man she now knew as Rick, was fast asleep on the other side of the backseat from her - snoring soundly. In between them wrapped in a blanked and secured tightly, sat/lay the strange stone figure limp. To Maggie it was all crazy, but unlike Rick, she took it without the shock. The again, no one had chased her with a shovel either.
"Right Xel! It won't help a shit if we hurry so much we crash!!" Firia yelled from the seat beside the driver, but the man didn't loosen the weight on the pedal. "Do you think you own the road, or what - aaRRGH!?!" She screamed as the car made a quite dangerous change of lanes and sped pass a line of trucks.
"As a matter of fact," Xelloss said soberly and turned back in line a second before the meeting traffic would have sent them somewhere painful. "I DO own the road."
"And I DO believe you're the one behind all of Bill Gates." Firia answered him in a sarcastic tone, her hand grasping for her heart drumming like crazy from the scare. The driver blinked and then laughed nervously.
"Eh-heeeh-he! Now I have NO idea where you'd get something like that from, Fi-chan! I mean what would such a nice guy like me gain on that? Right? Hai, hai!"
Firia sweatdropped and gave the silly Mazouku a low, rather dangerous glare. 'Namagomi', she muttered though clenched teeth. It made her think though... or rather, - continue what she'd wondered before. How the heck had Xelloss Metallium's existence pass her by these last years? And... if he had been around for longer than that which it somehow felt like, what had the Mazouku been up to? The result of the last thought gave the dragon a classic 'judgement day' background music to slowly dawn on her the more she thought about it. Scary scenario, so to say. Another more for the moment important question irked her mind right then though.
"And just where the hell are we going by the way, you darn inventor-of-Yahoo!-Geocities-popup-ads!"
Xelloss almost drove off the road. "NANI?!"
"Bastard! Watch where you're driving!"
"Yahoo!-Geocities popup ads??!! Fi-chan! That's hitting below the belt!" The accused part shrieked.
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not, it's YOU we're talking about!"
"Not even I would do such a foul crime against humanity!!"
Firia didn't seem to agree as she in sudden new rage tried to strangle him, all the while Xelloss kept up his upset denials of ever being behind such a thing and slowly turned more and more blue-purple by the lack of oxygen. I think you can imagine the result the developing situation had on the driving here. - In the backseat Rick slept dreamless, the stone-guy was still out cold, and Maggie was pretty certain she was about to die.
[1] - as in 90km per hour.