In Which Lina Ruins Her Perfect Record, Amelia Finds A New Definition For Justice, Certain Items Are Entered Into The Lost And Found, And Several People Throw Tantrums Of Varying Degrees.
Only minutes before, the area had been a tranquil woodland. Now, explosions tossed the men who had formerly based their home and business here high into the air. What every man feared had come to pass - they had brought down the wrath of She Whose Name Is Not To Be Spoken. It was simply unfair, reflected one, as the land underneath him exploded upwards in a burst of black energy. They'd had a good season so far; really made a lot of money. They were hardworking men - what right did this flat-chested little terror have to take everything away? And then he didn't think about much of anything else, having landed rather painfully in a tree.
The little witch laughed at something her blond companion said to her, and several of the men shuddered in fear. Her red hair burned in the sun like the fireball she launched at a clump of men who were too terrified to move, and some of the men were sure they could see fangs. She grabbed one of the still-twitching men by his shirt front and growled, "Where's your boss?" The man lifted a shaking hand to point to one of the men still in flight, and she dropped him.
"Thanks!" she chirruped brightly.
"Don't mention it," mumbled the man, then passed out. The little witch, whose name was Lina, turned to another companion. "Hey, Amelia! Catch that guy in a Ray Wing, will you? Gourry," she addressed her blond sidekick, "help me tie these other guys up. We can use the rope from the net they tried to throw over us." Both of her friends scurried to comply, having long since learned that, when dealing with Lina, the safest thing to do was whatever she said do.
Lina and Gourry had long since mastered the technique of tying up bad guys, a subtle method that's often lost on novice adventurers. The knots have to be tight and serious without being impossible to get out of, because no real good guy leaves the bandits tied up so that they can't get away. That would be inhumane. About the time they were finishing up, Amelia navigated her way back to the group of badly frazzled (and now tightly bound) bandits, bandit boss in tow. Lina finished off her last knot, and stalked toward the boss, doing her damnedest to make five feet tall look intimidating. Whatever she was doing, it worked.
The bandit boss, who looked like he might need a change of pants very soon now, gibbered slightly at Lina's approach. "PLEASE, Miss Inverse, don't hurt me! I have a wife, and a kitty-cat, and a potted geranium! I have to live!" He burst into tears and grabbed at the hem of Lina's cloak. Lina rolled her eyes as he continued, "You don't understand how hard it is to make a living these days! I had to turn to a life of crime! My older brother made me! My mother was poor, and..." Lina looked down at him seriously, and he gazed back at her through his tears. "... and you're not buying any of this, are you?"
She shook her head. "Nope."
He sighed. "Can't blame a guy for trying, I suppose."
She grinned maliciously, and he suddenly wondered if you COULD blame a guy for trying... A glowing ball formed in her hand, and she lowered her face close to his. "You have one chance to live. Since you attacked us like that, I'm going to take your treasure!" It might be noteworthy to mention that Lina understood exactly how corny that line was, but like all good adventurers, knew that you sometimes had to talk to people on their level.
Suddenly he grew a spine. "But... But... That's ours! We worked hard for that ill-gotten loot! All you did is blow us all up in just over a minute!"
Lina's expression was horrified. "Gourry! How long was I kicking their butts?!"
Gourry's eyes glazed over, indicating an attempt at thought. "Uhh... about 65 seconds?" He gave her his heroic smile. Actually, Gourry had exactly three smiles: the heroic one, the lost one, and the passive one. He was that kind of guy. "Amelia counted!"
His eyes crossed momentarily as Lina bonked him over the head, her anger at having taken over a minute forgotten. "Baka! I told you to count!"
"Uhm... Hi?" The bandit boss said. "I was the guy you were trying to rob?"
"That's right!" Amelia piped up. Lina groaned. "Miss Lina, stealing is wrong! How would we be any better than them if we took their spoils? We'd be common thieves!" Amelia was on the edge of tears. "We have to turn them in to the authorities, Miss Lina! Miss Liii - ack!"
Lina pulled her to the side roughly. "Look, Amelia. They're bandits, right?" Amelia nodded, uncertain where Lina was headed. "And they stole allllll those bags of gold... and gems... and magical artifacts..." She shook her head quickly in an attempt to remain focused. "Uh... right?" Amelia nodded again. "So they have to be taught a lesson, right?"
Amelia's eyes lit up. She was back on sure territory now. "Right!! We have to make sure that they reform, so society can benefit! You can watch them while I go down the road to the Sailuune guard outpost! I knew you'd agree, Miss Lina!" She spun to face the road, the very picture of righteous self-confidence, and Lina grabbed her by the back of her cloak.
"Not so fast."
Amelia's face registered confusion. "But, Miss Lina, I thought..."
Lina sighed. "Amelia, Amelia, Amelia... When will you learn? Sometimes justice isn't just about jail times, and official sentencing! Sometimes it's about really making sure that the criminal will never commit a crime again. Sometimes..." She paused for effect. "Sometimes you have to adhere to a higher code of justice! One that calls for people to get what they deserve! One that makes... The punishment fit the crime!"
Amelia's eyes were wide, but she still had a little seed of doubt. "But Miss Lina... Even if we are just doing what they've done to countless travelers... Shouldn't we hand their loot over to the authorities?"
Lina shook her head rapidly. "No, no, no! See, that's the beauty of it! We'll use their money on our quests, and we've done a lot of really..." She choked slightly. "Really g... good, selfless things, r... right?" Amelia nodded enthusiastically. "So, it's only fitting that we use their money for, uh, good works?"
Amelia was nearly in tears again at the complete rightness of Lina's idea. "Miss Lina, that's so... so..."
"Brilliant?" Asked Lina smugly.
"That's right! It's brilliant!" She thrust her fist toward the sky. "Justice has found a new form today! I realize that it's not always so straightforward, but often lurking subtly, where injustice tries to hide it from sight! I shall-" Lina tapped her on the shoulder. "Uh... Yes?" she said, trying to swing out of speech-writer mode.
"Amelia... I think I see someone trying to get away. I want you to go after them, okay?" Lina pointed into the woods, and Amelia smiled and tossed a little salute. "I'll get them for you, Miss Lina!" Matching words to actions, she tore into the woods at a full sprint.
Gourry watched Amelia run until she was out of sight, then turned to Lina in alarm. Lina had begun making some scary retching noises, and Gourry was sure something had to be seriously wrong. "Lina! Are you okay?!"
"No!" she choked out. "I am NOT okay!" He started toward her, and she held out a hand, stopping him. "Argh! If I ever start talking like that for real, just get someone to put me out of my misery, okay, Gourry?"
Gourry's face, unsurprisingly, registered confusion. "You mean... you didn't mean all that stuff about justice, and using the money for our quests, and all?" He paused. "And you're sure you're not choking?"
Lina ran her hand through her hair and silently cursed L-Sama's talent for pairing her with clueless morons. "I'm not choking, dummy. I was expressing revulsion, get it? As for the money... I guess we'll use it next time we go on the road, but justice? I mean really, Gourry! That's all kiddie stuff, you should know that."
He nodded, and put on a thoughtful expression. "I guess I see what you're talking about..." Comprehension dawned on his face. "I get it! So what you mean is that you lied to her!"
Lina bopped him on the head. "No! I just, uh... Put it to her in terms she could understand." She turned back to the bandit boss at long last, and rubbed her hands together. "Now... Where were we?" She snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah! I remember! We were at the part where I either char-broil you, or you tell me were you keep all the stuff you've stolen!" She smiled. "What's it gonna be?" She hummed a little bit of music that made him want to wager some money and write down an answer, then said, "Bzzzt! Time's up! Tellme tellme tellme!"
He opened his mouth, and suddenly fate came to his rescue.
"Excuse me, are you Lina Inverse?"
She whirled on the speaker, eyes blazing. He was a short, balding man in his mid-fifties. He wore small, round glasses and a green uniform. "WHAT NOW?!" she roared. The little man, who had been in the business of delivering bad news to unfriendly people for the last 32 years, didn't even blink.
"Message for Ms. Inverse. You'll have to sign for it." He shoved a piece of paper under his nose, which she took, grumbling. She pulled a pen out of some crevice in her cloak, and cast around for a surface to press on. Nothing seemed apparent... Ah-hah.
"Hey Gourry, c'mere." Her slow-witted sidekick complied, and she yanked him downwards by his long blond tresses.
"OW! Linawhat'reyoudoing?!" he yelped.
"Pressing on your back. Now hold still!" He complied, and she printed, "Lina Inverse," very carefully on the paper. It only bled through to his clothes once or twice, she noted with satisfaction. Very good.
She handed the paper back to the man, and he murmured something that sounded like "Thank you Ma'am," but could have theoretically been, "Have some ham," or even "Like I give a damn." He handed her a folded letter and headed for the road in a business-like way.
Lina blinked once, then again. She nearly broke the dab of sealing wax on the letter before seeing the impression in the wax. The noise she was making now, noted Gourry, as he moved out of his end-table stance, sounded a lot more distressed than the one she'd made earlier. This might be worth seeing to, he decided. He poked her with his index finger. "Lina. Hey, Lina."
She pushed the letter toward him. "Open this," she grated.
He took it wonderingly. "Well, okay, Lina... If you say so." He broke the seal, and turned the letter so that it was right-side up. "I don't get it, Lina. It's just some letter from a priestess-lady..."
She snatched at it. "Gimme that!" Her eyes searched for a signature, and she heaved a sigh of relief. "Phew... For a minute there I thought it was from - uh. Never mind." She scratched her head, and started reading. "Huh," she said.
To Miss Lina Inverse, (it read)
I consider myself lucky that you were so near Sailoon, otherwise, I might have never found you. Perhaps some introduction is in order. I am Dainala, High Priestess of the Temple of Cepheed in Tevila. A day ago, an event happened just outside of town which I believe you will have some interest in.
Roughly an hour before dusk, several of the townspeople began to hear screams coming from an area to the west of the town. The screams gradually grew in intensity and volume before fading away. Once there had been silence for an hour or so, several of the men launched a search party. I was called to the scene not long later, and what I found was shocking. The source of the screams was a man, and he had been so badly mauled that I barely dared move him. I had him taken back to Tevila, where I have been tending him since. He has regained consciousness only once, and he managed to say your name before falling back into his sleep. Frankly, I am amazed that he managed to say anything at all, considering the length of time for which he screamed.
I do not know whether he said your name in condemnation, or as a request for help, but until I know better I choose to believe that he was asking for you. If you do not appear to answer this letter in person, I shall have to assume that you were in some way responsible for the circumstances which led to his injuries. If this is the case, I am in my authority to send your name to every temple of Cepheed that a pigeon can reach, and I assure you, Ms. Inverse, justice will be swift.
To call this man's injuries horrific is to do a major injustice to the severity of his wounds. Therefore, I hope to see you as soon as possible, and hope that you will be able to shed some light on the condition of our mystery man. Until such time, I remain,
Lady Dainala,
High Priestess of the Temple of Cepheed at Tevila.
PS: You have until five days past the new moon to arrive in Tevila.
Lina's mouth hung open slightly.
"Miss Lina? I couldn't find him!" wailed Amelia, returning from the woods. "I'm so sorry, but - HEY!!" She bounded over to Lina and Gourry. "Where's the bandit boss, Miss Lina?"
Lina looked up. "Wha?" she said intelligently.
Amelia bounced slightly on the balls of her feet. "The bandit boss! Miss Lina, he's GONE!"
Lina waved a had disinterestedly. "Forget about him."
"What?!"
"I said forget about him. This is much more interesting. Here, read this." She pushed the letter at Amelia.
Amelia's eyes grew progressively wider as she read. Finally, she lowered the letter to her side. "Miss Lina..." Her voice was quiet. "You didn't do this, did you?"
"What is that supposed to mean?!" screeched Lina. "Of COURSE I didn't! I've been in Sailoon, you know that!"
"Oh," said Amelia. "Sorry. I knew that." Her brain began cooking up an alternate terrible possibility. "Miss Lina! What if it's Zelgadis-san?! He could be dying, or, or, or..." She found she was unable to come up with a worse alternative, and finished weakly, "or anything."
Lina, in a rare moment of compassion, patted Amelia on the back as she disentangled the letter from the weeping princess' hands. "It's okay, Amelia, I'm sure it's not him. Don't you think it would have said, 'Hey, we found a weird blue guy,' Amelia? I'm sure he's completely fine, and probably a hundred leagues away." Actually, Lina was right on only one count, but that'll come later.
Amelia wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve, a very un-princessly thing to do, and slowly nodded in agreement. "You're probably right, Miss Lina... After all, there's not that much that can hurt him."
Lina nodded encouragingly. "Right, now, who's coming with me?" Amelia raised her hand, but Gourry didn't move. "Gourry?!" she said in shock. "Aren't you going?"
He blinked at her. "Going where? Sorry Lina, I'm not really sure what's going on."
Lina groaned. "Forget it, I'll explain it to you on the way." She glanced down at the letter again as they left the charred clearing, and made a tiny noise.
"What is it, Lina?" asked Gourry, who was really on the alert for strange sounds coming from Lina this afternoon.
"Weird," she said. "It doesn't say anything about them healing the guy."
Beastmaster Zelas Metallium was not happy.
"Incompetence!" she hissed. The Mazoku, Dastikiel, she thought his name was, shrank back in fear. "I give you one simple assignment, and return to find that you screwed it up completely! How hard can it be to retrieve an artifact from an old ruin of a temple? Idiot!" She extended an elegant foot to push him down the steps of the dias. He landed on his posterior with a stricken expression.
"Mistress! I swear it wasn't my fault! The temple was booby-trapped, and - "
"And being a complete booby, you triggered every one of them. What is that covering you, Dastikiel? Red paint?" She could suddenly understand why some of the other dark lords kept lesser Mazoku around just to torment.
"...Tomato paste," he said shortly.
She shook her head slowly. "Dastikiel, you have disappointed me greatly. I don't think that I shall be employing your services again. I will inform the others of your failure, as well." She could hear his heart beat faster. Very good. He feared her.
"No!" he shrieked. "No, it wasn't my fault! Your second, Xellos, was supposed to meet me there. When he didn't show, I went in anyway..."
Dastikiel suddenly realized that something was very wrong. He nervously eyed the Beastmaster's hands as they tightened on the arms of her throne, then winced as cracks spread through the wooden arm. She spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm afraid that my General and Priest will no longer be available to work with you or anyone else," she growled. Her lips drew back revealing pointed teeth, and Dastikiel's own teeth chattered as he realized that she was slipping closer and closer to her wolf form. Oh... Her eyes had turned yellow.
He was definitely screwed.
Zelas Metallium padded from her grand hall, and contemplatively licked the blood from her muzzle. Dastikiel had nearly left her mind already, but he would probably never come out of the carpet. Ah, well. It wasn't likely that anyone would miss him. He was one of a myriad of freelance Mazoku, whose only standing orders were to go out and do evil things. She didn't keep any of the second or third level Mazoku on hand, but she knew of others who did. She simply wasn't interested. Her one servant had always been enough, outside of a few minor jobs...
She frowned as well as a wolf can, the warm fuzzy feeling she had gotten from Dastikiel's death fading away quickly. Now she was without her servant for the first time in well over a thousand years. This entire business irked her no end. She shifted back to her human form as she walked without missing a step. She stopped in front of a plain section of wall, and her hand plunged into the pouch she kept at her waist. When she found the purple Stone she placed it precisely in the center of her palm, then pressed it against a tiny indentation in the wall.
The spell she had placed on the wall dissipated, revealing a door. She pushed it open, and coughed a little as a cloud of dust sprang up. It took less than a thought to clear the air so that she could clearly see into the room. As she entered, a light spell triggered, illuminating the area. She felt a brief wave of satisfaction that her spell weaving had remained tight after all these years.
Others had heard of this room. Beastmaster's Lab, they called it. It was as good a name as any for the place. Books were stacked on every available surface; some of the piles nearly reaching the high ceiling. There was a table in the center of the room, with some ominous looking straps, and a couch sagged sadly in the corner. Hrm. It had been fashionable the last time she'd entered the room.
She slowly approached the room's last major feature. A long glass case with a velvet dust cover over the top. She whisked away the rotting fabric, and regarded the contents of the case.
A time spell covered the padded cushion, on which rested a dozen of the most valuable things she owned. She sighed, and opened the top. Carefully, she placed the thirteenth item on the cushion, and brushed her fingers against the last item she had put into the case, so long ago. It glowed faintly at her touch. She frowned. Why didn't the newest one glow? It was something to investigate, she supposed.
The remaining item in her pouch bumped against her hip slightly as she straightened. She fingered it through the cloth. It had some sort of magical resonance, just like that staff -
Her jaw dropped. She'd forgotten the staff. She'd forgotten the staff! It hadn't been with him by the time he'd reached Sailoon, she would have seen it there on the ground. He must have lost it sometime before - but where? The last time she could remember seeing it was... Damn. She couldn't remember. She was going to have to search for the thing now. Or... She could always just let it come to her. That kind of artifact created strange circumstances around it if it wasn't being tightly controlled. All she had to do was listen to the rumors. It was bound to show up, sooner or later.
She tuned and exited the room, switching off the light spell behind her. In the darkness, thirteen Stones pulsed with light, minus one.
"Mooooooo..."
Zelgadis Greywers not only barely heard, but completely ignored the cow's startled lowing as he zipped past the field at nearly top speed. It was nearly dusk, and he'd wanted to get to his destination before nightfall. It didn't look like he was going to make it, but that might not be such a bad thing, really. At the very least, night would give him some degree of cover when he reached the town.
He shivered slightly, and not from the wind that whipped over him as he sped through the woods. Every instinct he had said he should drop the burden strapped to his back, turn in the other direction, and never look back. The magical thread he'd been following had finally faded away, but he was fairly certain he still knew the route it had laid out for him.
Zelgadis was really a relatively young man, but he'd already seen more in his life than some did in a thousand years. The sight he'd seen the night before ranked right up there on his list of things he never wanted to be that close to again. The explosion had been of the type usually found in close proximity to Lina, but the dark powers he'd felt working were nothing like the black spells she worked. It was more like the power he'd sensed rolling off Shabranigdu in waves... Black magic wasn't his specialty, but the things he'd seen in the distance last night had been in the same league as the Giga Slave for sheer power.
Like an idiot, he'd just had to investigate the scene once things had died down, and what he'd found... He shivered again, and tried not to think about what might be going on. He'd already gone through every possibility his morbid imagination could dredge up, each one worse than the last. He concentrated on the feel of his feet pounding over the earth, and on maintaining his footing, and on a variety of other things... Really, anything except what he'd seen. Suddenly, he wished very much that Lina was here. This was her area of expertise, not his. Really, he'd like to stick to Shamanism and finding a cure for his curse, but fate didn't seem to have that in store for him.
He sighed, and kept running. If he kept up speed, he could be there by an hour past nightfall. It occurred to him to wonder why he was in such a damned hurry...