Amelia turned to look at Zelgadis in shock, "What do you mean? Of course we need him! He can really help us! We need to find him. I'm suprised you are being like this."
"Why should you be suprised? I'm still living up to the ideas that I am still a monster, aren't I? Hmm?" Zel replied with a sigh
"Are we back to this again Zelgadiss? You aren't a monster and we NEED to find Rezo! He helped us earlier, and now its our turn to help him." Gourry is nodding in agreement, and Zelgadiss concedes defeat and they split up in an attempt to find Rezo.
"REZO? WHERE THE HELL DID YOU WALK YOUR BLIND SELF TO?" Zelgadiss called out only to be bapped on the head by an annoyed Amelia. The three continue their search and come across an odd looking cave that appeared to be sealed up with a mound of rocks.
"I wonder why there are rocks blocking the entrance?" Gourry asked. They walked closer to the cave enterance to investigate. It would be a large opening if no rocks blocked the entrance, and no path was leading to the entrance.
"It must have been blocked a long time ago." Zelgadiss was commenting as Gourry pulled out his sword and broke down the entrance. "Let's check it out!" He called as he stepped into the dark cave.
"Umm," Martina said nervously. "Should we be messing with a sealed cave in an enchanted forest?"
"I'm sure Zomalgustar will protect you," Zelgadis said sarcasitcally. Amelia raised her finger about to lecture about being more polite when Martina spoke up again. "Oh, of course, how could I doubt my Lord Zomalgustar? He wouldn't let anything happen to his faithful servant!"
Everybody looked at her and blinked. "Never mind," Amelia sighed.
"What?" Gourry stepped into the dark cave drawing and lighting the sword of light to use as a torch and possible defense. "Its huge in here!" he called back. Zelgadis and the others followed closely behind the swordsman, Martina hanging annoyingly close to the other three.
Meanwhile while Gourry and the others were checking out the cave. Lina and the others were on the trail looking for Zelas. Lina was getting upset "Where could Zelas be this is going to take forever?"
Garv looks at her and says "Will you just calm down we will find her."
Lina starts jumping up and yelling "CALM DOWN! DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"
While Lina and Garv are arguing Phibrizzo speaks up "Will you two be quite." "Zelas will surely find us if you guys keep yelling at each other." They both nod in agreement. Garv looks at Lina speculatively as they move along the path leading them to where Zelas awaited them. I wonder if she is still willing to do it he thought to himself. there is no way that she wouldn't, is there? She said she wanted to! I can't be wrong about that. I know she will. I will have to learn to trust her. Garv smiled secretly to himself.
"HEY! What are you smiling at?" Lina whispered loudly to Garv, "Don't keep secrets from me!!"
"Its nothing, Lina. Honestly, its nothing." Lina sighed and threw her hands up in the air, frustrated. its like pulling teeth-trying to get information from him!
Phibrizzo looked back at the two, and smiled mischeviously. I wonder what those two are planning. Also what they plan to do once they see Zelas. It will be interesting for sure.
Lina suddenly sat down on the moist ground and sighed. "Its time for me to sit, I think." Lina said.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? We need to keep moving!" Garv yelled at her.
"Geez. Fine fine! I'll get up!" Lina struggled to her feet, feeling incredibly tired for some odd reason. "Whats wrong with m...?" she started to ask before she fell forward, unconscious.It was that dream again. The one she always woke up from in a cold sweat, as if she had just broken a fever. She had cast the giga slave to beat Phibrizzo, then came the time she could not remember. The golden darkness that she only recalled in her dreams. It always ended just short of the same point. It was something important, but she couldn't remember exactly why. Now as the golden darkness seemed to pulse she expected to wake up again. Instead she heard words through the gold. It was her voice, and the voice of a multitude of others. "I accept"
"Accept what?" Lina asked.
"Now is as good a time as any." The golden darkness became still again.
"Wait, accept what!" Then all flashed red and a fire seemed to burn through her.
"What did you do?" Garv demanded of the hell brat.
"I did nothing.she just keeled over. Maybe she's sick or something you know how fragile these humans are."
"Yeah, so fragile that she could channel the Lord of Nightmares and survive."
"My my, are we actually concerned for this toy here?"
"We need her for the plan."
"And what is that...." Suddenly Lina's unconscious form began to glow with a golden radiance. They both turned silent as the light grew and then suddenly erupted into a burst of scarlet flame that threw back both the mazoku. Garv was the first to stand up and see Lina standing in the center of the blast. Or at least he assumed it was Lina. The Lina standing before them was covered in head to toe (or tail rather) with ruby red scales, and her hair was no longer merely flame-red, but were actual flames. "L-sama." Garv heard the brat whisper. Lina turned at the sound, trying to move with the snake body she possessed from waist down. She glared as she stumbled, and suddenly she stood on legs again
"Where are we?" Gourry asked, scratching his head.
"We don't know." Zelgadis grumbled.
Suddenly Martina gasped. "What is it?"
"I found Xellos-san!" She gasped. Amelia turned around to see what Martina found and saw a pair of crystals. Inside one was Xellos and the other held Filia. "These are like the crystal Phibrizzo had Gourry in!"
Zelgadis looked around. "Well, how do we get them out of there?"
"If we break it, we kill them right?" Martina asked.
"Yes, they would die if we just broke it. We need to get them open somehow. Who put them in here??" Amelia asked to no one in particular.
Gourry looked around the room. "Maybe Rezo can help us!" He exclaimed excitedly.
Amelia hit Gourry, "BAKA!! Rezo isn't here right now, so he can't help us!"
"Shimatta! Just when he could be of serious use, he is off wandering somewhere smelling the daisies." Zelgadiss said frustratedly, "We could really use Xellos right now. But how do we get him out? There has to be a way!"
"We need Xellos-san to get them out, but we need to get Xellos-san out first?" Martina asked, confused.
"That's right," Zelgadis growled through his teeth.
"But isn't that impossible?"
"Which is why its a problem, yes."
"Well there's nothing we can do here," Amelia sighed. She started poking around the crystals, trying to see how they were embedded in the ground, or even if they were in the ground. There had to be some way to take the encapsulated ryuzoku and mazoku with them out of the cave, "We should head to Katart Mountain and ask to see the Clair Bible."
"Amelia, Xellos killed a whole clan of their people, I doubt they'll help us free him."
"I wasn't thinking about asking them to help us with Xellos." Zelgadis looked at her curiously. Then he smirked, "That is an interesting idea, they'll certainly want to help Filia. I didn't expect YOU to come up with such a devious idea."
"Devious, huh, what are they talking about?"
"Search me."
"It's the only way I can see justice being done." Amelia shrugged sheepishly
Gourry who is totally confused with what is going spoke up and said "We can't go until we find Rezo." Zel and Amelia looked at him with a angry look. Zel spoke up
"Well he shouldn't have wander off in the first place." Martina then says "Why don't you two go find him and Gourry and I will stay here and wait for you."
Zel looks at her and says "I am not wasting my time with that blind fool."
Amelia says to Zel "He did heal you the least you could do is go and look for him."
Zel who knew Amelia was right but didn't want to admit at that time said "No we are going without him."
"We are wasting time just standing around so let's getting go." While the others worked to free the soul crystals from the cave and the Forest of no Return, Garv and Phibrizzo were dealing with Lina's transformation.
"What the - ?" she looked at her flame colored scales covering her hands.
"That was what we were about to ask you." Phibrizzo grumbled.
"What's with the fire snake thing."
"Its obvious she doesn't know any more than we do!"
"Well there was that dream."
"Dream?"
"Floating in a golden darkness,"
"The...the...the....the.."
"Sea of Chaos?!!"
"I was having it just now. But it was different this time."
"How do you mean different."
"There was a voice this time, saying that she....accepted...." Lina trailed off for a moment and rolled glowing red eyes up in thought.
"Accepted what?" Phibrizzo asked nervously.
"Swear myself to thee." Lina slapped her forehead.
"What is it?"
"And I sealed the spell inside myself!" Phibrizzo pointed at her in shock.
"You..You've been walking around all this time with the Lord of Nightmares sealed up inside you?!?"
"Of course not....just her power."
Garv and Phibrizzo facefaulted.
"That's not any less bizarre!" Garv shouted.
"Or stupid," the hellbrat added.
"Shut up, you!" The kid-like mazoku suddenly erupted into flame, leaving behind a shocked and charred looking hellbrat.
Garv turns to Lina and says "You have the Lord of Nightmares power inside and you didn't bother to tell us this."
Lina says "Enough about the power I still don't understand the dream I had."
Garv looks at her "Well we need to get going to find Zelas."
"I hope the rest of your friends are doing okay."
Lina is so confused she says to herself "Accept."
"What did I accept." Garv notices that she is not listening to him and hits her. Lina snaps out of her thought and says "What is the big idea hitting me."
"We need to get going Lina." Garv says.
Lina nods in agreement."If you could ditch the scales first though?"
Phibrizzo suggested. "Why? She looks cute that way." Lina blinked, narrowed her eyes, and started to open her mouth when Phibrizzo stepped in. "Cuteness aside, even without the tail she's bound to attract alot of attention looking so frea - " The hellbrat exploded into flame again. He looked at her surprised.
"You asked for that," then Lina knocked him on the back of the head, leaving behind a few singed hairs. "What right do you have to call me cute? Anyway, as to the problem," she chanted for a few moments and suddenly appeared just as she had before falling unconscious.
"Getting your legs back for the tail was moderately impressive, but you certainly...ouch." Phibrizzo jerked back his hand from where he patted Lina on the back. "It just an illusion, common human magic."
"Damn it why didn't you get burned when you hit her?" Phibrizzo demanded.
"Maybe it's because I didn't want you...uh....because I knew you were going to. Now let's get back to finding Zelas." The sorceress turned fire spirit stomped off angrily.
Meanwhile the other slayers were still in the cave thinking about what to do. Zel gets up and says "I say we go on the Katart Mountains."
Gourry looks up and says "What about Rezo?"
"I am right here Gourry." Everyone looks up in shock as Rezo appeared before them.
Zel goes up to him and says "Where have you been anyway you don't just wander off like that."
Amelia says "Well now that Rezo is here we can get going."
Rezo is trying to figuring out what is going on asks "Where are we going to anyway?"
Zel answered "To the katart mountains to see the clair bible."
"We need to get Xelloss and Filia out of these crystals."
"What crystals?" Rezo asked.
"Maybe its these two big clunky things that me and Gourry are carrying. You're blind not deaf!" Zel yelled.
"Eh?" Rezo smiled as he cupped a hand to his ear. Zelgadis would have attacked him if it hadn't meant letting Filia's crystal fall to the ground.
"Rezo-sama, why do you aggravate Zelgadis so much?" The priest shrugged.
"Not much else to do for fun."
"If you are done discussing your sadistic entertainments, perhaps we can try to find a way out of this forest."
"Oh that's easy," Zelgadis glared at him.
"What do you mean that's easy?" Martina demanded. "We've been wandering around here for hours!"
"Yeah this forest just goes on forever." Rezo shrugged and started walking. "The exit is this way," he said.
The slayers glanced at each other and followed reluctantly, right up until Rezo started walking into a tree. "Hey blind guy, you're about to..." Rezo disappeared inside the true. Gourry stopped in mid-sentence. "ACKK!!! The true ate him!"
"Gourry-san, its an illusion, he just walked through some hole somewhere."
"I hate him," Zelgadis grumbled. "I REALLY hate him." The slayers followed the red priest through the "tree" out into the outside world finding themselves near a big sign reading. "The Forest of No Return is down for repairs, it will reopen to the public when the sorcerers in charge find their way back out."