There was something different about the city this time; the children were all gone. Every one of them.
The only sound to be heard was the near-silent echo of Lina's footsteps as she walked through the abandoned streets. The only presence to be felt was the phantasmic emptiness of the deserted houses. It was as if life had never existed here, as if it had all been sucked out entirely by someone, or something, unimaginable.
As she glided softly through the pavement, she could begin to barely hear a sound other than her own footsteps coming from nowhere in particular. She stopped and strained to listen. It sounded, however faint, like a set of rusty, unlubricated gears grinding against each other and whining in complaint. For a second she thought that, perhaps, someone was operating a machine of sorts somewhere not too far from her. Perhaps if she'd look for the source...
But something was not right: the sound was growing louder with each second, its source becoming less and less discernible. She had not moved from her spot, yet the sound continued to grow louder. Slowly but surely, the city was being consumed in whole by them.
Her pace quickened. She needed to find some answers; signs of life; signs of death; anything, so long as something would materialize that would explain away the strange noises. But the more she walked, the more the city's dead emptiness bespoke an imminent danger. The more she walked, the more the sounds seemed to follow her, engulf her. They seemed more shrill, more shrieking, less machine-like.
Without realizing it, she was now wandering aimlessly around the deserted city. In trying to both find the source of the sound and escape it, her mind had likewise wandered away from reason, intention, and direction. She could not have helped it. The sounds would neither cease nor be pacified, and by now their shrills were resonating through every building, street, corner, and crack in the dead city. Her mind now worked towards a single goal: to get out of the city as quickly as possible. But regardless of what direction she walked in, the noise persisted and intensified. Her breathing started to come in short bursts; her footsteps became brisker; her heart beat faster. Unspeakable fear was slowly taking hold of her.
For the sounds' intensity now told her that they came from no machine. It was something more animalistic, something a human or any human-made device could never replicate. And as it grew louder and louder, she realized that it was the sound not of a thing but of things . Thousands of different things emitting sharp, shrill cries for something.
She felt only moments away from panic as the noise became unbearable. She desperately pressed her hands against her ears, but the noise persisted all the same, as if the sounds were coming from within her mind and not from the city. She was now running through the city, but the sounds followed her everywhere, engulfing and swirling around her in a vertigo of razor sharp noise.
The fear, rising in her at pace with the sounds' rising intensity, overtook her senses. She stopped running and pushed herself against the wall of a building, looking frantically in every direction, trying to see where the sounds were approaching her from. She could no longer think, no longer rationalize; she just wanted for the noise to stop. But they didn't. Like an animal cornered by human hands, Lina ground her back and her arms against the wall, instinctively seeking to separate herself from the unseen terror that engulfed her.
She closed her eyes.
She could not tell what it was when it happened, only that it did.
A single, deafening explosion.
And then silence again.
Still trembling with fear, Lina opened her eyes slowly, afraid of what it was that had silenced everything. Afraid that what had brought the silence would be far more terrifying than those piercing cries themselves. Afraid that her death at its hands would be far more unimaginable.
But there was nothing there. Nothing except the streets and buildings, deserted and dead.
She slowly moved her body away from the wall, her head and eyes scanning the area for the slightest hint of danger. As her ears became re-accustomed to the impenetrable silence, her mind frantically resumed its previous task: finding a way out. This city was damned. Staying there any longer would only pit her against the most gruesome of deaths, she was sure. And there was still so much to do.
Her steps were hurried through the empty streets, but she noticed that even now, her footsteps feel silent upon the stone pavement. All had gone silent. She didn't care to try it, but she knew that even her loudest scream would go unheard here and everywhere else. Why it had happened, she didn't know. How she would stand it, she knew even less. The smothering silence seemed as frightful as the shrills that had preceded it.
As before, her running seemed to be taking her nowhere, as each section of the town began to look more and more like the last, each street looking uncannily like the one next to it. She stopped, frustrated and desperate to find a way out, and tried to catch her breath. Unable to even hear her own breath, she thrashed her arms in anger and in panic and resumed her attempted escape.
And then she noticed her.
She hadn't been there before. She was sure of it. Moments ago, that street had been empty, just like all the others. But now, a single, kneeling figure, still and in silent vigil, occupied its dry pavement. She couldn't tell who or what it was because the figure had its back to her, but the familiar profile of the shoulder guards and the cape made her shudder. It looked to be a copy of her.
She slowly walked towards the ominous figure, unsure as to what to do or say that would break through the silence and get through to it. Her eyes were locked onto it, but she could discern no movement, no breathing, nothing that would indicate that it was not just an inanimate replica of Lina herself.
She was but a meter away from the figure. Close enough to touch her, close enough to now see the slightest of bodily movements indicating light breathing, close enough to notice that the figure could not, in fact, be a copy of her because the cape and shoulder guards seemed unusually oversized on it. This one looked more the size of a child. A ten or eleven year old, perhaps.
Her eyes suddenly widened.
The sound of a childish giggle had broken through the silence. Then it was gone.
She instinctively stepped back and frantically began to look around for the source of the laughter. The movement in front of her confirmed her fears that the giggle had come from the figure.
The figure stood up and slowly turned to face her. Her previous suspicion was confirmed, as the wearer of the outfit was a small girl no more than ten years old. And then she noticed just that: the outfit. It was the burgundy vest and leggings trimmed with the gold borders she had worn years ago, complete with her old shoulder guards and black cape. The wearer wore the same slouch boots she had worn back then, even the same jewelry and headband. And the wearer, the small ten year old girl, was a familiar face herself.
It was Myra. Jenna's Myra. And she stood there, beaming a terrifying smile Lina never thought a human, let alone a child, was capable of.
Lina stood there trembling as Myra's mouth opened to say something. She stepped back the moment she heard that it was not Myra's voice that spoke, but rather the voice of something animalistic, something demonic, something mocking. Something evil. And it spoke words that were all too familiar to Lina Inverse.
GIGA SLAVE.
What seemed like thousands of those same demonic voices flooded the city, all speaking in mocking incoherence, all merging to create a cacophony of terror that drowned out Lina's scream completely.
And as Lina's eyes frantically scanned her surroundings, she could finally see where the voices were coming from; in each and every visible window, a single, shadow-like form had appeared. She could see no eyes, no face, no discernible bodily features on them. It was as if they were living shadows inhabiting the world of the once-living, and they were all looking at and mocking her.
She spun around frantically, realizing that the forms had appeared all over the city. There was no escape now. They were everywhere, and they were all after her.
Even in her panicked state, however, she made out a single form that was different from all the others. The corner of her eye made it out, and when she gazed upon it fully, she instantly wished she had not. For through the window of the building closest to her, she saw a giant, red eye looking back at her. Whether it was a human eye or not didn't even matter; its sheer size, and the way it itself occupied the entire window frame, made it the single most terrifying thing in the city. It looked upon her, as if examining her, watching her every move, calculating its next step in relation to hers. Lina froze, her face pale beyond words.
The eye blinked.
A flash.
The cacophony of demon's voices and laughs went silent. The figures in the windows were gone. The eye had vanished. Lina stood there, trembling and whimpering, slowly looking around to see if all of them had, in fact, vanished. As far as she could tell from where she was standing, the city was empty once again.
Except that the silence was no longer there. In its place, she could hear the muffled sounds of something being consumed, being sucked dry. And this time, the sounds were clearly coming from somewhere in the city, seemingly only a few streets away. She began to move towards it.
As Lina reached the final corner before its revelation, the sucking sounds continued uninterrupted. Whatever it was that was causing the sounds had obviously not cared much about the loud echo Lina's footsteps had now been making, nor did it seem to care that she, quite suddenly, appeared from around a street corner and gazed upon its feast.
For it was a feast.
Lina's eyes beheld hundreds of Leeches, those humanoid monsters that grappled onto their human prey, impaled them in their spiked appendages, and sucked their victims of all their blood. They were feasting upon the ravaged remains of thousands of small children, indiscriminately throwing the emptied, pale corpses aside before looking for new ones. And they were doing so with a relish that could only come from those of the Monster race.
Lina could only gasp. And she felt she couldn't even move as three Leeches, finally having noticed her, rushed at her with inhuman speed and delight.
She screamed. Only she couldn't hear it.
"Shut up!" she could hear a familiar voice harshly whispering to her.
Her eyes looking up at Zangulus, her mind slowly bringing her back to reality, her next impulse was to wonder why it was that he had one hand over her mouth, and why he was unsheathing his Howling Sword with the other.
"Shut up!" he repeated. "They'll find us!"
For seven days now, the two had traveled towards the Oscura Mountain range without running into any significant monster encounter. By the look in his eyes, she could tell that the streak was over. Big time. Lina nodded her head quietly, and Zangulus removed his hand from her mouth.
They had spent that night among the fallen, charred remains of several large trees - an encampment obviously created by a now-departed settlement--so by carefully poking their heads from below, they were able to get a look at the wandering monsters without being seen. It was a group of about fifteen or so Leaches, and Lina wasn't sure if they could face that many and be quick enough about it to keep more from showing up. She certainly wasn't sure if using another Giga Slave would be prudent, especially in light of...
"They're hunter-killers," Zangulus whispered as he observed them. "There must be a settlement nearby."
He was right. They weren't the random wanderers that seemed to have straggled from the main groups and indiscriminately attacked wandering humans. These seemed too calculating, too organized, too intent on keeping themselves unseen while simultaneously observing as much as they could themselves, to be stragglers. They behaved more like a scouting party, if indeed any such parallel could be made between the war practices of humans and monsters. Assuming they were a monster scouting party, that could only mean that a larger body of monsters lay not too far off, and that any settlement discovered nearby would be annihilated instantly.
"Which means that if we just wait here for them to go away, they'll be that closer to finding it." Lina eyed them with hatred as they crawled stealthily across the blackened ground. For creatures with so many appendages, they seemed to have a slither-like motion to them.
Zangulus looked incredulously at her. "Are you saying we should fight them? Are you out of your mind?"
"Either way," she whispered back, fierceness creeping into her voice, "they're going to find us. You think they're not going to be more thorough if they think a settlement's around? Even if they miss us, their buddies probably won't!"
"We've evaded them before!"
Lina grabbed only the hilt of her sword. "You intend on evading them forever?"
"Lina!" he was almost trembling, but not with fear. It seemed more like suppressed rage. "I can't fight them with this sword!"
During the brief time she had spent with him, she'd examined and thought about his Howling Sword. By itself, it couldn't do much against monsters, but she discovered that its attack depended upon gathered miasma that was not so much launched from the sword but reflected from an astral rift generated around the blade. The Sword of Light's power depended upon a similar convergence of astral and terrestrial energies. She had concluded, therefore, that the grafted spell attacks she and Zelgadis had used to enhance the Sword of Light's attack would work with the Howling Sword's own astral discharge. At least, she hoped they would.
She turned her eyes to him. "On my signal, launch a salvo from your Howling Sword at the group of six or seven of them over there."
"Lina!"
She grabbed him by his shirt. "Just do it!"
The fierceness and confidence in her eyes swayed him, even if his own fatalism argued against his resolve. He nodded, however reluctantly, and prepared himself to go on her word. And for whatever reason, he started to think of his dead mother, and what it would be like to be buried next to her.
Jumping up from their spot behind the burnt trees, Lina immediately let out a fireball and hurled it towards the monster's general direction. The blast did no harm to them, but caused enough of a confusion for them to hesitate for all of half a second.
"NOW!" she yelled out.
Zangulus followed her up and aimed a Howling blast towards Lina's predetermined target. As the wave generated and reflected from the sword's blade, he gritted his teeth in instant frustration; there was no way this was going to work. He'd tried the same attack against monsters before, and all that the sword's blue-green discharge seemed to do was daze them.
A split second later, his eyes widened as he watched the Howling blast turn into a blinding wave of white fire and seemingly disintegrate three of the targeted Leeches. Lina had cast an Elmekia Flare into the blast in much the same way she had done with the Sword of Light before.
"What the..."
"Another, Zangulus!"
Obeying unquestioningly, Zangulus directed another blast at the same group of monsters, now three in strength. As before, Lina fired an Elmekia Flare into it, and the monsters were unable to survive the amplified magic attack.
Before they could get a blast at the other main body of monsters, however, the surviving six Leeches crawled like overgrown, and very fast, spiders towards Lina and Zangulus. They knew that, even if they could get another blast off, it wouldn't kill them all, and the surviving monsters would catch them defenseless. Without needing to vocalize it, both broke into a run, trying to get enough distance between them and the monsters to try another shot.
It was only a matter of seconds before Lina realized the futility in trying to outrun a group of Leeches; their spider-like appendages lent them considerable speed and mobility, even across rough terrain such as this. Lina and Zangulus, on the other hand, were slowing down with each tree jumped, each crater evaded, each rock tripped. On the run, Lina summoned the Sword of Light.
"Zangulus!" she yelled out, "we'll have to fight them here before we tire ourselves out!"
"A brilliant plan," his angry sarcasm responded, "so much for our little war!"
Ignoring his spite, her mind quickly thought of a long-shot plan of attack - defense really - that would counter the Leeches' mobile advantage. "Take the flank and cover me!"
He only nodded, not even looking at her. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was prepared to die right then and there. Without warning, he let out a Howling blast. The Leeches, now less than thirty meters away from them, were dazed for a short moment. Very short.
But it was just enough. Maybe Zangulus had read her mind. Quickly and abruptly, she knelt onto the ground.
"Mother of earth, water, and flame," she began the spell, "I summon thee, beg thee, in this hour of need."
She could hear the sounds of the Leeches resuming their frantic charge, and the sound of Zangulus grinding his boots into the ground. But she could not let them distract her; not for this spell.
"Make thy will manifest, thy presence fierce, thy spirit incarnate through thine own elemental. Make manifest thy flesh below and raise thine earthly hand to strike against our enemies."
The Leeches had closed the gap. Their demonic snarling could be heard distinctly. This had to work.
"Terra Haut!"
At her command, pillars of charred earth burst forth from the ground below and created a veritable maze of brown-black pillars between them and the Leeches. Past the rumbling of the earth, she could hear the loud thumping of the Leeches against the pillars and their confused snarls as they tried to figure out what had happened. She knew, however, that their confusion would be short-lived, and that they would soon be trying to blindly run their way through the make-shift maze to continue in their pursuit. Leeches were anything if not resilient. And dumb. If she was quick - very quick - her plan would work.
"Zangulus," she began to say but stopped the moment she noticed he was no longer standing there. Maybe he had been thrown from his position by the spell, or maybe he had run for cover, thinking she had unleashed a full-fledged earthquake on them all. Or maybe... "Damn it," she cursed to herself, realizing that she would have to do this by herself and worry about him later.
She did her best to hide behind the outermost pillar and waited; she could hear that the Leeches had, in fact, become dispersed, and she noticed that the first of them was heading in her direction. Having found a clearing past the pillars, the Leech assumed its original chase and headed quickly past the final row. Only it never made it beyond them. Lina, anticipating the Leech's emergence from the maze, struck out with the Sword of Light and sliced through the running monster. It disintegrated instantly.
She let out a yell and went running into the maze. The adrenaline of having killed a monster face to face, and the sudden recollection of past defeats, drove her towards near recklessness. Yet, she knew that the maze offered her one tactical advantage she hadn't before; the ability to ambush the monsters. If they were dispersed enough, she could conceivably kill them off one at a time. And though she knew that it didn't take much for a Leech to grab onto a human and impale her, she figured she'd be more than a match for them with the Sword of Light.
The adrenaline-induced courage sustained her as she came across one of the Leeches face to face. The monster, perhaps overconfident in its inherent advantage over the human woman, lifted itself from its crawling position and rose to its full three meter height. It was its gestation stance, the position it assumed right before it burrowed its mouths into its victim's body. However, its overconfidence was evident by one simple fact: it hadn't even bothered to capture, paralyze, and secure its prey with its appendages.
The creature launched itself at her, but its gestation position halved the speed with which it was able to move. With relative ease, Lina dodged the monster's attack and immediately turned back towards it, sword firmly in her hand. Swiftly, and before the monster could recover from its blunder, she struck it from behind with the Sword of Light. It never had a chance to recover.
The relative ease with which she found and killed the first Leech inside of the maze made her think that her plan would work even better than she had hoped. As its body disintegrated before her eyes, her corner vision just caught the silent, calculated movement of one or two Leeches making their way around her left. Sweat rolled down her forehead as she gripped the hilt of the sword tighter; they had adjusted to her strategy, and these, no doubt, would grab her first then burrow into her. She wasn't the only one doing the hunting anymore.
She could hear them scurrying around her, carefully hiding behind earth and pillars and slowly advancing towards her. Just when she thought she heard them upon her, they'd retreat quickly. They were making it impossible for her to know where they were coming from, and when they'd pounce. Her excellent sense of hearing could only do so much for her. Lina slowly began to realize that charging into the maze may not have been the smartest thing to do after all.
Slowly and carefully, she tried to inch her way away from her spot and begin to move out of the maze. As she did so, she could hear the scurrying grow more frantic. She stopped dead in her tracks; she couldn't see them, but they sure as hell were watching her every move. Swirling around to guard her rear, as indeed she thought she heard one pounce from there, she held up her sword, ready to strike at the slightest twitch. She could try to cast a Rae Wing, but Leeches could recognize a spell being cast and would no doubt pounce upon her, and kill her, in that one moment of vulnerability.
And then there was movement. Not from the left, or the right, or the front. From above. One of the Leeches had climbed up one of the pillars and pounced, catching Lina from the one angle she had failed to consider. It instantly grappled and impaled.
And then it died. Lina's quick reflexes had allowed her to jump out of the way so that the Leech ended up impaling not her body but her cape. In the microsecond between the jump, Lina unfastening her cape, and the monster's realization that it had missed, the Sword of Light had fallen upon it.
But the monster's attack had made Lina vulnerable, and two Leeches sprung from opposite directions towards her. One of them pounced violently at her, and all she could do was to jump out of the way and hope that she could react before the second's attack could claim her. She barely could, for just as the first one had pounced, so too did the second only a moment later. Pressed against a pillar, she quickly threw herself towards her left and heard the smack of flesh against rock as the Leech missed its intended target. Almost instinctively, she knew that the other was virtually upon her again. True enough, the other had sprung once again, aiming straight for Lina's torso. Rolling onto her back, she lifted her leg just in time to hurtle the diving monster towards its companion. The latter crumpled under the weight of the other.
Just as the two Leeches managed to get back up, Lina was able to get a fireball off. The blast, though harmless, caused several of the pillars of earth to explode around them. But Lina had also been able to throw her sword at them right after the fireball; she knew they wouldn't bother evading a fireball they knew could not hurt them. Consequently, just as the initial blast exploded harmlessly around them, the flying sword came through uncontested and cut down one of them. The surviving leech scurried away, though by now its movements were hidden by the cloud of smoke and dirt that had formed like fog on top of the battlefield because of the fireball's blast.
Lina could hear it scurrying about, but the fog kept its movements secret. Quickly moving to the spot where she had seen the sword land, she reached down through the fog to grab it.
Somehow, the leech had recognized Lina's tactical error. Lina had let her guard down, however slightly, while searching blindly for her sword. She would not have time to react, much less find her sword amidst the settling smoke. The monster lunged towards her, its claws opening and heading for Lina's warm body.
Only it never made it. Lina had been holding onto the sword's hilt the whole time, having known exactly where it had fallen. Her momentary lapse in defense had been intentional, intended to draw the monster out, force it to commit itself to a single all-or-nothing attack, and leave itself completely vulnerable. With deadly grace, Lina had lifted the sword and sliced through the airborne monster.
As the dust continued to settle, she strained to listen for anything that would indicate that there were any more of them running around. She could hear nothing. The sword firmly in her hand, she tried to recall how many Leeches she had seen-five or six-wondering if maybe one had survived. If it had, however, why hadn't it attacked before? Why was there no sound of any scurrying? Leeches were particularly fond of letting their victims know they were coming from them with those scurrying noises of theirs. Slowly, she turned around, scanning the area as best she could despite the artificial fog she had produced, slowly realizing and concluding that she had gotten them all.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead and dispelled the Sword of Light's astral blade. Remembering that Zangulus had mysteriously disappeared before the Terra Haut, she began walking, sword hilt in hand, out of the pillar-maze, hoping that her companion had not fallen or, worse yet, abandoned her.
Her mind sufficiently occupied with Zangulus' disappearance, with the possibility of more Leeches and monsters following in the others' path, and with how they, or she, would fight them off, Lina hardly had time to react when something pounced upon her. It was the last of the Leeches, and it had laid quietly behind the pillars and smoke even as its companions were being killed. Lina had assumed there were no more; she had believed that every one of the Leeches there had attacked her the moment she was made vulnerable by that one that attacked her from atop the pillar. Leeches were predatory, yes, and had finely-tuned hunting instincts, but it was almost inconceivable that they could actually demonstrate tactical thinking, say, leaving one of themselves in reserve to attack if the first ones failed. But as the heavy, grotesque body of the Leech violently slammed her into the ground, Lina realized the magnitude of her mistake.
It lay on top of her, its appendages quickly securing her body. She couldn't move her arms and couldn't move her legs enough to kick it off. In her fall, the Sword of Light had been thrown from her hand, and it lay well, very well, beyond her reach. And she knew that she couldn't cast a spell; there was no time. Within two seconds, she would begin to feel the cold razor-sharp spikes on its appendages ripping into her arms, legs, and torso, and then she would still be alive, just barely, to feel the Leech burrow its mouths into her throat and begin to suck out her blood. She closed her eyes; she could see Gourry's face and wondered if she'd see him again; she didn't want to see the monster's final work.
The spikes were on her flesh, not ripping into it just yet but about to. And it was at that moment that Lina heard the gushing sound of steel penetrating flesh, and the snarls of hunger turn into shrieks of writhing pain. The creature stumbled backwards, its spikes scratching Lina as it did so, and crumpled into a heap away from her a few seconds later. Its brick red blood squirted from the back of its head; that seemed to have been the point of entry for whatever it was that killed it. Lina couldn't help but to gasp with relief, amazed that she had been so close to death only seconds ago. With the danger removed, however, a single question raced through her mind: how had Zangulus killed it without using the Howling Sword's magic attack?
Lina turned her attention away from the dead Leech and onto him. Only it wasn't Zangulus that stood there sword in hand.
Standing there instead was a young woman, seemingly Lina's age, dressed in tattered black pants, an equally tattered white blouse, black boots and shoulder guards, and wearing her long black hair in two braids down the sides of her head. Her rather plain attire and features were complemented by a single wrist guard that seemed to bear a faded insignia of some Shamanist Order, but Lina couldn't make out which. Her stance was calm, composed, almost docile, yet her eyes and her sword bespoke a warrior's ferocity not to be taken lightly. By the looks of it, her sword was conventional, which confused Lina all the more as to how she could have killed a monster which was impermeable to melee weapons.
"Thanks," Lina said as she began to lift herself from the ground. She groaned lightly; she could feel several deep scratches across her body to compound the bruise she no doubt received when the monster slammed her to the ground.
Before she could say another word or move another inch, however, the woman brought her sword down and held it only centimeters away from Lina's face. Lina was stunned by the turn of events; she knew that this woman, whoever she was, had just saved her life, but she could tell by the look in her eyes and by the way she held her sword that she had every intention of doing precisely what the Leech had not been able to do.
"It's you," the woman almost hissed the word. Her fingers seemed to grind themselves onto the hilt.
Lina wasn't sure she could move without being struck down the moment she flinched, so she stood silent, still, hoping that she could talk some sense into her. No doubt, she was suffering from the same mental breakdown that Zangulus had had before.
Her mind worked to churn out words, words that wouldn't be her last. "Can I ask how you killed the Leech with that sword?"
The anger on the woman's face seemed to flare up even more. "Don't think you're going to talk your way out of this, Lina Inverse."
Two things surprised Lina. For all the rage evident in the woman's eyes, her voice was surprisingly calm; Lina found herself more afraid of that quality than the anger itself. The second thing that surprised her was that the woman knew her name. Even when Lina was fighting Zangulus without realizing it was him, she knew she had seen him before. She remembered almost everyone she had encountered, befriended, and fought with in her life; she did not, however, recognize this woman. As far as she could tell, she had never once met her, yet the other knew her name. Perhaps Lina's fame had survived better than she had imagined.
"I don't think we've met. How is it that..."
"Shut up," the woman said, maintaining the icy, menacing calm in her voice. "Just shut up. Don't make this any harder for yourself than it has to be."
"So it's not hard on you?" Lina was hating this ridiculous conversation but found it to be her only defense. "Hard to believe you would just kill me after killing that Leech."
"Having you killed by one from the Monster Race would doom us all," the woman said. "It has to be done right. Now just lose your eyes and I'll make this as quick as possible."
Lina was about to at least try jumping away from her when both noticed the sound of someone running toward them. Lina noticed that the woman didn't even flinch. A companion of hers, perhaps?
"You bitch!" a man's voice boomed. It was Zangulus, Howling Sword in hand, running through the pillars of earth and heading for the woman.
The woman continued still. Her eyes were locked onto Lina, despite the fact that Zangulus was now standing to her left and ready to attack her.
"Great, it's the useless swordsman again," she sighed. "Didn't I tell you to stay where you were?"
"Attacking me from behind and stashing me in some hole in the ground doesn't exactly count as 'asking' does it?" Zangulus was furious, more so than he was when he and Lina had run into each other.
"Oh please," she smirked, "I saved your useless life. The least you can do is stand aside and let me do my job."
"Excuse me," Lina spoke up, "I'm sick of playing the damsel in distress here. I think that if you're going to kill me, the least you can do is tell me why. I at least deserve that, don't I?"
"There isn't much that you deserve, Lina Inverse, other than your own death," she began, her left hand releasing her sword's hilt and rising as if to recite a spell, "but I suppose you should know what you've done before meeting your Maker."
"Damn you!" Zangulus yelled, recognizing the woman's intention to blast him with who-knew-what. He charged her with his sword and interrupted the spell she had, in fact, been preparing. With the woman now forced to defend herself, Lina was free to scamper towards her sword and call forth the Sword of Light. Once on her feet and armed, Lina watched as Zangulus and her exchanged lethal strikes. The skill with which they fought, attacked, defended, and dodged reminded her of Zangulus' fight with Gourry seven years ago, even if no magic attacks were being exchanged. Yet.
"Stay out of this," the woman yelled at him through gritted teeth, "you don't know what you're doing!"
"You're working for them, aren't you?" he said as his blade countered hers. "You're some form of monster!"
She was driven back by the ferocity of his attack, her own strength unable to match his. Her superior agility, however, allowed her to twirl around him using the pressure of his own sword to propel herself. Her maneuver bought her a clean shot at him, and it was only because of his own refined skill that he was able to defend against such a quick counter strike.
"I'm not, you idiot," she responded vehemently, casting a quick, angry glare at Lina, "but that friend of yours is!"
Zangulus pressed his attack, infuriated by the woman's accusation. Lina herself was dumb struck by her statement: how had a woman with that much conviction and skill concluded that Lina herself was a monster? She thought to herself that there was something strange about the woman, but it wasn't insanity. That much she could see by the way she handled herself both in battle and in speech; insane people didn't act with the precision that she had. Moreover, there was a deeply-rooted conviction in her actions and in her words: she wasn't on some mindless vendetta against her. The way she had mentioned something about "doing it right" suggested that there was conviction, method, and purpose behind her actions, strange and obscure as they seemed. She wanted to kill Lina, yes, but she seemed to genuinely believe that it was for some good.
Lina's attention was brought back to the fight with the sound of a particularly loud ring as Zangulus Howling Sword came down heavily on the woman's sword. She was far from beaten, but Lina knew that she couldn't match him strength for strength, and that she would be resorting to magic attacks soon. Zangulus, no doubt, would counter with a Howling blast, and the two would end up making such a ruckus that any nearby monsters would be sure to notice them all. As the two were about to exchange blows again, Lina stepped up.
"Enough!" she yelled. To her surprise, both of them stopped. They were both breathing heavily, sweating profusely, and both were ready to strike again at any moment. Zangulus' eyes stayed on the woman, his sword prepared for anything she might try. She herself looked at Lina, the anger and hostility still in her brown eyes.
"You want to kill me," Lina said, "then you fight me! But you know that you'll have to tell me everything, and you know you can't beat me."
The woman smiled a sinister smile. "I knew you to be an arrogant woman, but you'd do well to shelve that arrogance for a better time. Let's go, then. I'll deal with your useless friend later."
"She's mine, Zangulus," she told her companion as she noticed his uncontrollable anger. "Let's not make this any more unfair for her than it already is."
Lina smiled her own sinister smile. She hadn't felt this energetic, and mischievous, about a fight in years. Still, she knew that she had to force the woman to talk, not fight. She needed answers, and killing the woman would provide none.
"You should think twice before attacking me, Zangulus, is it?" the woman said, maintaining a steady grip on her sword. "If you kill me thinking you're defending her, I can assure you we'll all pay the price. More than we've paid it already."
"You're talking nonsense since the moment we met," he said. "Why don't you start making sense for a change?"
"Am I to assume," Lina chimed in, "that this is the sorceress you told me you ran into before?"
"The one and only," he growled. "Still the impertinent wench."
"Say and think what you want about me," the woman replied, "but I can tell you that Lina Inverse is the cause of all this."
"All of what?" Zangulus asked, exasperation creeping into his voice.
"Of all this," she said, motioning to the sky and the landscape around them. "Of all that has happened to us for the past two years." She returned her icy gaze on Lina. "Of all the death."
"What makes you think that?" Lina asked calmly. This was becoming very interesting quite suddenly.
"I don't know how, or why, I only know that you are."
"Not much to go on, you know," Lina smirked.
"Of course not," the woman smirked back, sheathing her sword. "which is why I'm going to spare your life for the moment and explain it to that little red head of yours."
Swallowing the insult Lina had in mind about the woman's braids, she dispelled the Sword of Light and waited for Zangulus to disarm before beginning anew.
Reluctantly, he did just that. "You better make sense for a change, or our next fight is our last."
The woman sighed with exaggerated boredom. "As always, I tremble at the severity of your threats, useless swordsman."
"The name is Zangulus, you bitch!" he bellowed out. "Remember that when I have my sword at your neck!"
"Zangulus!" Lina scolded before returning her attention to the sorceress. "It seems that you know who we are now, but I can't say we know you."
"The name's Natalia." She turned to Zangulus, her smirk broadening. "Remember that next time, and pray its not your dying word."
At least one thing was decided amidst the tension between the three. Given the chance that, in fact, more monsters were nearby, and that enough of them might show up to make any kind of fight hopeless, it was decided to withdraw from the area immediately and seek shelter in the nearby mountains. As frail as the truce was, however, neither Lina or Zangulus had any reservations about letting Natalia act as guide; she seemed to know the area like the back of her hand. Lina remembered how Zangulus had said he met her in this region, and by the looks of it, it was because the woman had made it her 'home' of sorts.
The degree to which Lina understated that fact became evident the moment they all reached a cavern along the base of the first mountain range. Natalia entered without saying a word, and when Lina and Zangulus followed her in, they found not an empty cave but a make-shift room complete with sleeping bag, provisions, and a several old containers holding water. Little else was there, but considering the fact that humanity had assumed a nomadic existence since the start of the war, it was nothing short of a miracle to see that someone had achieved at least the semblance of a permanent home. With incredulous eyes, the two looked upon their reluctant hostess.
"Try not to look so surprised," she met their gaze nonchalantly. "I grew up in Soledad, so I've known these mountains well. After Soledad was destroyed, I came here. Nearby vegetation feeds me, and there's a useable water hole not too far from here."
"Well yes," Lina muttered, looking at how well Natalia had stocked provisions, "but there's something very odd about the fact that you can stay in this single spot and not be found by the monsters."
"You are a monster, aren't you?" Zangulus said menacingly. "How else could you do what every surviving settlement hasn't been able to since the start of the massacre?"
"That depends on what your definition of 'monster' is," she said, unmoved by his accusation. "As a child I was always an outcast. Every kid in the village hated me, feared me, thought the worst of me. All because I was born with a curse. Or so they said. I've always thought of it as a gift, really."
"A gift?" Lina asked.
"Yes," she nodded. "I was able to dream of events before they happened. I was able to imagine distant places I'd never been to only to be told that I had visualized them as they were. I somehow always managed to walk through busy places without being noticed. The kids in the village always used to say that I was a freak, a crazy who sneaked up on people, a monster. So yes, Zangulus, I suppose I can be considered a monster."
Lina slowly nodded her head. "I've heard of this before. People who could dream the future and who could visualize things they'd never seen before. They're referred to as Astral Wanderers because it's believed that they're able to project their spirits through the Astral Plane and manipulate time and space. I've never actually met anyone who was able to do that."
"Hence the stigma of 'the curse,'" Natalia chimed in, her eyes rolling in exasperation. "There are so few that possess those skills, those of us that do are considered nothing short of freaks of nature. It's not the most pleasant thing growing up and convinced you're a monster."
No kidding. What did you think they thought of me in Zephelia?
"But that doesn't explain how you're able to avoid detection," Lina continued.
"As the years went by, I learned not only to come to terms with my powers, but to control them as well. I learned that the reason why I was able to unintentionally sneak up on people was because my spiritual signature shifted between Astral and Terrestrial Planes. We all carry spiritual signatures; that's why some people give you good feelings and good vibes, and why sometimes you instinctively feel you can't trust a person for anything. We're all naturally attuned to them, even if we're not even conscious of it. Because mine shifted as it did, people could not sense me.
"The reason, then, why the monsters have not found me here is precisely because I've been able to mask my signature. They can sense human signatures easily; that's why they've been able to locate settlements and wipe them out. All it takes for them is some systematic hunting. But they can't, or perhaps won't, search for spiritual energies emanating from the Astral Plane because they may assume it's one of them. That is why they've not been able to find me. That doesn't mean I'm completely invisible to them. If they see me, they attack. If they follow me here, I'm done for. But they're not going to be searching every corner of the Earth, especially if there is no scent, so to speak, of human spirits."
"How is it that you've been able to stand the solitude," Zangulus asked, rubbing his chin with his hand as he recollected his own 'difficulties.' "I personally know the dangers of extended solitude."
"Ah yes," she replied, "like I didn't notice that crazy look on you the last time. One of the advantages of being an Astral Wanderer is that I can travel, in spirit, large distances away from here. Whenever I feel like I need the company of strangers, I travel through the Astral Plane and situate myself as wandering spirit among different settlements. I can't be seen by anyone, obviously, much less be talked to by anyone, but I can see them."
"Interesting," Lina muttered, wondering if she had the ability to visit the Jenna settlement.
"Sometimes, I just loom over a conversation, hearing other people's stories and lives, hearing their fears and anxieties. It's a strange sensation; you feel you don't have a body, a face, a mouth, nothing. You're just there, floating over their heads, like you're not even air or wind or anything. It's unsettling at times, believe me. I sometimes wish I could just sit there next to them, at least, but my spiritual wandering is the best I can do. In any case, I was always alone as a child; my mother died when I was ten, and the village children always ignored me anyway. I find I don't need human company as much as most people do."
Both Lina and Zangulus listened to her with interest and curiosity. Neither had ever known an Astral Wanderer before, but both were even more amazed at how her skills had allowed her to survive as she did. And it was nice, for a change, to hear her talking and explaining things. Of course, Lina still had a load of questions for her, not the least of which was how and why Natalia thought she was responsible for the apocalypse.
As if sensing her thoughts, and Lina wasn't entirely sure that she couldn't, Natalia looked back at Lina with the fierceness of their original encounter.
"That's why I know you, Lina Inverse," she said. "About seven years ago, I began to dream nothing but nightmares. At first I thought they were just that, dreams, but they kept repeating themselves, and they became clearer as they continued. They told me of demons unleashed from an unseen place, of humanity's downfall, of how they were unleashed unto our world through some resurrection. I couldn't make sense of them." She paused. "Until I dreamed of you."
"Of me?" Lina asked, her eyes narrowing.
She nodded. "You appeared in my dreams some time ago, pretty much at the start of the war. I saw images of you surrounded in black fire, casting random spells that were killing innocent people around you. I saw you laughing sadistically as you unleashed spell attack after spell attack, laughing at the destruction and the carnage you were causing. At times, you appeared as a little girl, at others as an old woman, but your actions were almost always the same."
Lina felt frightened by the uncanny similarities between the images in Natalia's dreams and her own, especially since she'd never once told anyone about her nightmares. However, Natalia's dreams cast her as the enemy of humanity, and this she could not understand. "You said 'almost always.' What were the exceptions?"
"Sometimes," she began, iciness creeping back into her voice, "I'd see you crying to yourself, pitying yourself, being weak and selfish and stupid. Around you would lie mounds of dead children, and all you could do was cry to yourself because you didn't know what had happened. Sometimes, I'd see two of you, one crying, one laughing, both seemingly oblivious of one another. And in one dream..." She paused, the expression on her face softening inexplicably. "Once I saw you sitting next to a window, looking out and observing a group of children play. And then I saw a horde of monsters appear from out of nowhere and slaughter them, devour them. And all the time, you just sat there watching!"
Those last words seemed razor sharp as they cut across the stale air of the cavern. Lina didn't know what to think. It was obvious that Natalia's dreams weren't prophetic in the strictest sense of the word; they were too cryptic, too symbolic. She knew she'd never just start massacring people for the sake of massacring them, but Natalia's Astral wanderings had somehow reinterpreted the situation and placed Lina at the center of the apocalypse's start.
Before either Lina or Zangulus even realized it, Natalia had begun to cast a spell. Without warning, her left hand launched a Burst Rondo towards Zangulus, and the swordsman was propelled against the cavern wall and knocked unconscious.
"I'm getting sick of doing that," she muttered nonchalantly as she unsheathed her sword. "I had to do the same before going in to save your behind or else the idiot would have gotten himself killed by the Leeches."
"Natalia!" Lina gasped, shocked, and angered, that she had turned on them so suddenly.
"Now then, where were we?" she said, walking towards her. "Now that you know everything about your hand in humanity's destruction, you can do us all a favor and die quickly."
"Why are you so certain that I'm responsible for all this? All you have are vague dreams that say nothing for sure!"
"My dreams and my instincts tell me that you are somehow at the center of all this, Lina Inverse. And if you are, indeed, the reason why the Monster Race has been resurrected upon this Earth, then killing you would close whatever rift has been opened between our plane and theirs. Were you to die at the hands of a Monster, they'd be able to keep it open."
Lina was reluctant to draw her sword, for Natalia seemed too important, and dangerous, a person to make an enemy out of. If she could somehow make her see the folly behind her assumptions, perhaps she could convince her to wage war against the monsters in a different fashion.
But it wasn't easy. Every move Lina made was countered by her attacker; every step back brought Natalia forward; every step towards the right brought the other to the right. Running for it was out of the question. As Natalia inched closer and closer to her, Lina realized that if this kept up, she'd have no choice but to fight.
"Listen to me," she tried anew, "even if I am the cause of this, how can you be so sure killing me would end it?"
"Either way we're dead," she answered as her eyes continued to track Lina's every move. "If I'm right, we're saved. I'd say we have nothing to lose at this point."
"But you have to understand," the last words came hurried out of Lina's mouth, as she quickly jumped back when Natalia made a quick step towards her. "I'm trying right now to find some old sorcerer friends to help me fight the monsters. If we work together, I'm sure we can think of a way to defeat them."
Natalia smiled. "You mean that blue-skinned rock man and the arrogant Shrine Priestess? What makes you think any of you could defeat the Monster Race?"
Lina's eyes widened. She was talking about Zelgadis and Sylphiel, no doubt about it. She had seen them, probably in dreams as well. Which meant..."Do you know if they're alive?"
"That really should be the last question on your mind right now, Lina Inverse."
With that, Natalia charged at her, swinging her sword at her and missing a dodging Lina by only centimeters. As Lina lifted herself from the ground, she drew her sword hilt but did not yet summon the Sword of Light.
"Natalia, listen to me. I don't want to fight you."
"Oh please," she responded sarcastically, "a while ago you were all mouth. But if you don't want to fight, then don't fight. It makes my life easier. Now do us all a favor and die now, okay?"
Lina's eyes flared with anger; Natalia's casual arrogance finally struck a nerve. "Now you're sounding like that Rezo jerk! Light, come forth!"
The Sword of Light came through, though Natalia didn't look the least bit daunted by its glow. Nor did she seem any different as she defended against the first of Lina's strikes.
"You're going to listen to me one way or the other, Rezogirl," Lina snarled as she let loose a series of blows that landed upon the other's blade heavily.
"Stupid girl," Natalia muttered as she countered with a concentrated attack of her own. The cavern's confines meant that neither could use spell attacks, unless they didn't mind burying themselves alive under tons of shattered rock. For the next eight minutes, their swords alone did the fighting, as one would attack, one would defend, one would counter, one would evade, both sweating, both furious. Neither would back down. Natalia saw this as the only, and fairest, way to kill Lina, and fought accordingly; Lina saw this as the only chance of getting Natalia to sit down and listen for a change. Notwithstanding the difference in goals, each fought with equal ardor, strength, and skill.
But as the battle progressed, it was evident that something had lit a fire in Lina's heart. Natalia found herself defending more than she was attacking, and she found herself being pushed back slowly but surely with each strike; the fight had turned against her. Lina herself was tired and wounded from her previous battle, but now she seemed to disregard both as the ferocity of her attacks increased.
For Lina had, indeed, snapped. She had pulled herself out of suicidal sulking only a short time ago so that she could launch a new war against the Monsters, so that she might let Myra and all those like her be able to live beyond a few months. So that Gourry's death could mean something again. She had lived through two years of living hell after his death, decaying physically and emotionally, ceasing to care about her life and everyone else's. She had pulled herself out of it because she realized that she had chosen the easy way out and given up, even if she still had held the power to fight back. She had pulled herself together because she knew she still had a purpose, a duty, in life and to those she loved.
And she'd be damned if she just let some strange woman come and kill her just because she dreamed Lina was to blame.
A sound had slowly began to echo through the stone walls of the cavern, and it wasn't until Lina had Natalia pushed back against the wall that she finally noticed it. It was the sound of Lina's own angered yells, repeating You can't stop me, You can't stop me over and over again. During the course of the battle, she had slowly let the adrenaline of her rage take full control of her faculties. With a final, furious blow, Lina jarred Natalia's sword from her hand.
Lina stood there holding the point of her sword to Natalia's neck, breathing heavily as the adrenaline-induced rage began to subside slowly. Through the clouded vision of her sweat-soaked eyes, she could see Natalia standing there, quietly and calmly, waiting for her to finish her work. Lina groaned impatiently.
"What are you waiting for?" Natalia asked. "Don't show any mercy because I can assure you that I won't show you any when we fight again."
"Stupid girl," Lina muttered. "So willing to save humanity, so blind in your method. You're so sure of yourself, about me being the cause of all this, but you haven't even begun to consider that you're wrong and that there are other ways of fighting them."
"What other ways? You want to raise another Dragon Army, maybe?"
"We find allies, and we think, for a change, Natalia! Humanity is always reacting, seldom thinking. The monsters attack, and BOOM, we get some stupid little sorcerer army together instead of thinking of effective ways of fighting them. The monsters kill, and BOOM, we start feeling sorry for ourselves and mope around until they find and kill us. We have dreams about someone, and BOOM, they're guilty of everything that ever went wrong in the world. I'm sick of it! That's why I'm looking for Zelgadis and Sylphiel, and why Zangulus has joined me. Because we think we can think of a way to defeat them instead of just waiting for those damn things to come kill us. And that's why," she paused, trying to steady her voice, "I want you to join us."
"Me?" Natalia asked incredulously. "Why would you want someone in your ranks whom you know will try to kill you the moment the chance comes up?"
"Because I know that you're smarter than that, and I know that at some point you'll understand that simply scapegoating me isn't going to solve anything, Maybe I'm reading your signature now, but that's the hunch I get about you. We both want the same thing - to save humanity - so why wouldn't I want such a strong ally on my side?"
"You'll regret it, you know."
Lina lowered her sword and dispelled the blade. "No I won't, because you'll understand why I'm not the one responsible for all this."
"And how are you going to convince me of that?"
Lina smiled. "Let's just say that my nightmares are a bit different from yours."
Before Natalia could say anything else, the two heard Zangulus getting up from the ground, groaning at first then cursing seconds later.
"Oh, and I'd be very nice to him from now on, you know," Lina said as she walked towards the containers of water and poured them a drink.