"Zelgadis Greywers."
Kunikida walked to the front of the group. "I am Daitetsu Kunikida."
Zelgadis simply looked at him. "Why were you following me?"
"To find out why you were in Izumo."
Zelgadis folded his arms and looked around pointedly. "This is not 'Izumo', or whatever that world is called."
Matsudaira ran up to him, causing him to back up and nearly fall over. "Our world ? Can you please explain this to me?"
Before he could say anything, they heard a tapping noise behind him. Turning around, they founnd a short red-head, in a black cape and headband, with her arms crossed and tapping her foot impatiently. She was glaring at Zelgadis.
"Hi Lina." He said, a tad sheepishly. She responded by trying to punch him in the gut. The only reason why she missed was that he dodged away at the last second. Unfortunately, she tripped and her momentum carried her head-first into Momiji, knocking both of them over.
"Oh! I'm sorry. I meant to hit Zel!" Lina apologized as she helped Momiji stand up. She looked around, startled.
"Zel, who are these people?" She looked at everybody, now noticing the strange clothes they were wearing.
"Lina, do you remember what I was saying about parallel worlds?"
"Yeah, that occaisionally the barriers between worlds wear thin in spots, but it never lasts long."
Matsudera, tapping her finger against her cheek, walked over to Lina and around her. "Yes, that would explain why we're here .... But why were you in Izumo, Zelgadis?"
"Would you believe dumb luck?"
Lina scowled at him. "Zel, around you there's no such thing as dumb luck."
"Doubly so around you."
She threatened him with a large rock she had picked up. Momiji and the others stared in shocked surprise. The rock had to weigh about twenty pounds and she was tossing it in her hand like a baseball!
"I was attacked by a man-demon of some sort when I was unable to tell him where the 'Cave of The Sun God' was. He hit me through one of those 'weak spots'. There was a young girl and a boy with him."
Kusinagi looked up at that, his face serious. "Did you find out who they were?"
Zel shrugged. "No, but he called the girl Katie, or something like that."
Kunikida and Matsudera exchanged a grim look. "Susano-o, Murakumo and Kaede .... This is not good." Kunikida's voice was harsh.
A male voice yelled from the woods. "Hey Lina! Did you find Zel yet?"
"Gourry! Amelia! Commere! There's some people you need to meet!" Lina yelled at a tall blonde man and a dark-haired girl who walked out of the woods further up the lakeside. When the new two had reached the rest of the group, introductions proceeded. "I'm Gourry Gabriev." The blonde man with the sword said.
"And I am Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun." The young dark-haired girl.
They looked at Zel expectantly, waiting for him to introduce the others. Zel simply looked at Kunikida, who coughed an introduced everybody, who nodded when he said their names.
"Oh yes, I'm Daietetsu Kunikida, this is Azusa Matsudaira, Yoshiki Yagaeshi, Kome Sawaguchi, Ryoko Takeuchi-"
"I am Sakura Yamazaki!"
"And these two are Mamoru Kusanagi and Momiji Fujimiya."
Gourry looked at all of them, asked "Who are they again?"
This gained him a whack on the head from Lina and a dirty look from Zel. A crashing noise from the woods startled everybody, causing Amelia to jump on a rock to see what it was. She paled and jumped down out of the way just as a man with short black hair went flying over the trees and into the lake. In the brief pause before he resurfaced, Lina said,"That's Xeros, and the one who whacked him into the lake is Firia." Aside to Zelgadis, "No, you may not strangle him."
Zel simply stalked over to where the Xeros was swimming out. Not surprisingly, Xeros decided not to come in reach. A blonde woman in white priest's robes with a strange blue headdress ran out of the woods and up to the edge of the water, screaming insults at Xeros. She also ran into Zel, hitting him into the water. Luckily, the water was shallow, so Zel simply walked out of the water, glaring at Firia. He wrung out his cloak over her head, causing her to shriek in rage and chase him up and down the lakeside until she was exhausted. Zel was barely breathing hard as she panted, lying on the ground.
Momiji and the others watched in amazement at all the juvenile antics, while Lina was amused, Xeros drying off and Gourry totally oblivious watching a bug.
An hour later, after Sylpheel had arrived and calmed down Firia as well as being introduced, the entire group was headed up the lakeside towards a nearby town. It was soon obvious that they wouldn't reach it before dark. Lina looked around, then beckoned Zel and Kunikida over to where she was standing.
"Zel, Kunikida, how are we going to feed all these people?" She asked them.
Kunikida frowned, and scratched his chin. "Hmmm ... we did bring supplies, but they're not going to last very long."
Lina looked at Zel. "How much money do we have left?"
Zel pulled a pouch out his cloak and looked inside. "Not much, considering how much you and Gourry eat, maybe two-three meals more, especially with this many people."
They frowned, thinking over the implications of the money shortage. Kunikida looked puzzled about something else as well though. He asked, "Zelgadis, you seem to know more about this, what type of world are we in?"
"I believe you would call it a 'swords&sorcery' type."
"That's going to be a trouble."
"How?" Lina sounded very curious.
"Our world is relatively high-tech in comparison, with no magic whatsoever."
"So?"
"Lina, we're not fighters in the way you are, most of us live by skills that are pretty much useless here, and I don't know about any of the others, but I'm pretty out of shape. And none of us know a thing about magic."
A splash sounded nearby and they looked up. Xeros had been batted into the lake again, but this time he cast some spell and threw Firia in even farther in. She shrieked and swam after him, trying to drown him.
Kunikida looked at Lina. "Question, is that normal behavior for them?"
Lina just sighed and Zel simply answered,"Yes."
Kunikida leaned back and folded his arms. "It's going to be a long journey from here on out."