OK, I finally felt the unknown need to actually submit fan fiction again. drum roll So everyone who's been spared from me, be scared now...yes, it's coming, and it's worse than usual. In fact, it's a cross over between the Slayers's world and the one I created, meaning that only possibly Rachel will get it. manical laughter Hey, think of it this way, at least it's short...
Mistress Mara, of the Ivory Tower, was in a foul mood. Maurthan had once again foiled her plans for world domination by insisting that he, too, wanted to share in this domination, which irked Mara to no end. She was the one who had come up with the plan, after all, and she was the one who had the guts, popularity, and power to carry it out. Therefore, Maurthan was only being petty. This wouldn't be a problem except that she needed to spend large amounts of time with Koriana's pet parliament to get her bill passed through there, and if Maurthan was going to keep her occupied, she just didn't have that sort of time. That meant that she had to do something drastic, she just didn't know what, yet.
Luckily, somewhere about mid afternoon, she realized that letting loose a demon on Maurthan might very well keep him busy enough that he ignored her for long enough for her to get her railroad bill. Summoning a demon was rarely a problem; in fact, it was a rather routine occurrence by magicians in SecEarth. So Mara stood up at that moment and wandered off to her magical circle, and made the mistake of calling for "any demon".
What arrived was perhaps not what she had been expecting. For one thing, it called itself a "mazoku". This terminology startled Mara for a moment until she remembered from old Japanese lessons that this meant "evil one" which was close enough to demon that it shouldn't be a problem. What worried her more was that this "mazoku" had bobbed purple hair, an annoying grin, and perpetually shut eyes.
"What are you doing here?" Mara asked, narrowing her own eyes and looking for something to prod it with.
"Sore wa himitsu desu."
"Speak English if you can," Mara ordered, not looking happy. Demons were supposed to be her inferiors, and she had no desire to let one of them make fun of her.
The purple haired fiend shrugged.
"Who are you, anyway?"
"Sore wa...I mean, it's a secret."
"You look...familiar. Oh, that's it. You're from Slayers, aren't you? Don't bother answering that. I already know what you're going to say."
Mara scowled. She had been hoping more for a poltergeist or a succubus...not a purple haired trickster-priest.
"Could you do a favor for me?" she asked, smiling sweetly, although she didn't quite know why she bothered.
"Sore wa..."
"Stop that." Mara commanded, using her command tone. She doubted that it would shut him up for long, but it should at least allow her to get a few words in before he was able to undo it enough to speak again. "Now, I am going to order you to bother a certain Maurthan. Do you know him?"
The question undid the command. "I...I..."
"Never mind," Mara said, trying to think up a banishment spell. Considering how difficult this would probably be, as even when demons could not resist commands, the more annoying ones could stall them, she would most likely be better off banishing Xellos (if he was who she thought he was) and summoning something a little more specific.
She finally remembered her patented "radiant light spell", guaranteed to banish all of the lower orders of demons and get rid of most of the upper levels too. She thought it up, let it go, and watched Xellos, perhaps a tad bit charred, but not seriously injured, grin at her happily.
"You know that I feed off anger and aggression, don't you?" he said.
"Yeah, thanks for reminding me," Mara said, wondering exactly how you got rid of a powerful demon. She could always teleport him into another dimension, preferably back to wherever he had come from, but that took a bit more work than she really wanted to expend unless absolutely necessary. Her more powerful banishing spells were partially controlled by various divine forces, and ever since the last god-like figure had determined that she hadn't learned very well from her last talking too, they had been mysteriously silent. Therefore, Mara had no other choice than to summon something to get rid of Xellos.
Summoning Queen Koriana, the high priestess of an earth religion that Mara couldn't understand, would probably be the most effective way of doing things. But, unfortunately, Koriana was half a continent away. The only other thing Mara could think of doing was summoning a more powerful demon and hoping that she could control that particular entity.
So, with this in mind, Mara threw up her arms and said, "I command you, King of Demons, to take your minion and return him to his home."
Nothing seemed to happen, not unusual, and so Mara sat down as Xellos perkily asked her, as if he hadn't noticed a thing, what she had just done.
"Drop dead," Mara said blandly.
"If you wish," Xellos said, putting a hand over her hair which Mara hit as hard as she could. "Touch my hair again and whatever death I can give you won't be good enough."
Xellos shrugged and wandered over to where Mara's precious herbs were, carefully knocking them over one by one.
"I hope that you intend to clean that up," Mara said, growing before she was interrupted by a shrill, nasal voice, saying, "You know, some of those plants are endangered. And removing anything's life needlessly is a big no-no. Do you think that plants don't have feelings too?"
Mara sunk lower in her seat. What was Plaidly doing here? She turned around and said, "I hadn't thought that you'd be here, Your Highness."
"You don't need to call me that," Plaidly said brightly. "After all, class shouldn't matter, and I'd really prefer to be philosophizing anyway. But we have serious business to attend to. Did you know that this miscreant (He pronounced it wrong. Mara assumed that he'd gotten it from a word of the day scroll.) is killing innocent plants?"
"I did," Mara said, rolling her eyes. "But I could not convince him without violence to stop it. Would you help me?"
Plaidly's eyes lit up. "Do you really mean it? You mean that you've finally learned something from me? I always knew that you had."
Mara sighed. "Just before you teach him why what he's doing is wrong, would you be willing to tell me why you're here?"
"I don't know," Plaidly said. "I just heard someone call me and then I was here."
Mara shrugged and watched Plaidly. She'd never really figured out much about Plaidly, but understanding that he was in fact the King of the Demons did make things a little clearer.
"You know," Plaidly said, walking up to Xellos. "Destroying life is wrong. How would you like it if I destroyed your life? That would be terrible, now wouldn't it? All life is precious, after all. Now, in Asi-Asi, you'd be arrested for doing something like that and be put in jail. It was a law I made. Isn't it great? Although it is wrong to take someone's freedom away for doing something that isn't serious, but killing innocent plants is serious. So I want you to promise never to do it again."
Xellos gave a somewhat puzzled look.
"As it is, I'll just have to reinforce in you the desire to help society, not hurt it. Can you do that for me?"
Xellos cowered under the onslaught of Plaidly.
"If you don't, you'll be guilty of your actions and will deserve to be brutally killed," Plaidly said, nodding his mousy head calmly. "But everyone deserves a second chance. Not a third chance, but definately a second chance. So I'm willing to help you. Actually, we have support groups for this thing. I'm taking you to Isa-Isa right now to put you in one..."
Mara could hear, as Plaidly dragged Xellos away to his "life is wonderful" support group, the sounds of Xellos' screaming. She smiled smugly to herself, and returned to her work.