He wanted to be strong.
That was, essentially, all there was to him. To the world. The need to be stronger.
The need for strength.
And so he hacked at the nothing about him. His sword sliced through the nonexistent air with a clean, thorough precision that bespoke of unmastered potential, but it wasn't near good enough.
At once he could feel the presence was behind him; it was a presence he had long learned to expect. He turned to face his grandfather and great-grandfather, the great sage and priest heralded as a saint, a worker of miracles, the kindest soul alive. Except this was not any saint; this was a half-mad vessel of vain ambition ruled by the Lord of Mazoku. Any humanity this man might once have possessed was now stored away as Ruby-Eye Shaburanigdo ran the show. He knew this, and the knowing made it horrible, because he was unable to run.
The two of them appraised one another for a moment, his own sword-blows stilled as this vessel for destruction walked towards him, the ghostly kind of walk that never exists anywhere but with the supernatural. The rings of his staff clanged noisily together with each staff, ironic that the last remaining anchor between this vessel and his once-cherished Priesthood would resonate so loud, despite being so weak.
When the corrupt priest stopped before him, he was still unable to run. He knew he should, knew it even more clearly now that this man was before him, but he was rooted, and could not. He gazed at his ancestor with tremidity, and his ancestor's blind eyes gazed back.
It was then that he realized it was happening; like a demon's darkest dream, the red robes of who was once a great sage coiled towards him with the silken ease of a serpent, twining about his legs, his arms, his torso, his neck; pulling taut all about him, holding him as his sword dropped from a weakened grasp and fell beyond his line of sight. He struggled, he screamed, he flailed, and it had no effect; it never had any effect. He could feel the robes somehow coiling within his skin, getting deep into his life's blood, surging through him with a power at once exotic and horrible. He felt himself grow heavier, his hair constrict, tighten, and a sudden unexplainable sensation, an explosive increase in his senses.
When the robes withdrew, their job complete, his grandfather did not so much dissapear as he was lost in a sudden torrent of emotion, as he looked at his hands, felt his face, and knowing again the pain of his fate, screamed a loud, wild scream.
Zelgadiss sat up in his bed, chest heaving. Sweat rolled down his cheek, a sensation almost completely lost to him because of the granite that composed his skin.
He sat, for a long time, breathing and staring at the sheets knotted in his fists. Then his face hardened, pardon the pun, he uttered an obscenity, and thrust his head back against his pillow...
...wherein his spiky hair became promptly entangled. After a moment of comical wrestling with the downy softness behind his head, he managed to pry it off and reassert a little dignity into the serious scene. With a mutter curse, he rolled over and closed his eyes.
"Lina-san?"
"Hai?"
"Why do all bandit leaders always look like apes?"
Lina blinked, for that was not a question one usually expects to hear. "Huh?"
"Look at him," Gourry insisted, motioning to the scarred man cowering in her shadow.
Lina, seeing no harm in humoring her sidekick, indulged him and looked. "Hey, you're right! If you squint a little bit...."
"Oi..." the bandit began, quaking as he was.
"But apes usually don't have buck teeth."
"True."
"Oi!" the bandit tried again.
"And actually, I think they're a little less hairy."
"Really?"
"Oi!!" the bandit said, climbing to his feet and huffing. "You already ran off my band, took all my loot, and ruined all the credentials I ever had in this business! There's no reason for you to bring me down on my looks!"
"Gomen," Gourry said, quite politely. "It's just that all the bandit leaders we've fought look a lot like you. With maybe a few changes to the scar pattern."
"Animators slacking off with the character designs, probably," was Lina's suggestion.
"Hai," Gourry agreed.
Unreconciled, the bandit stomped a foot. "What is it you want from me?"
Lina looked over at him, her eyes wide and innocent. "You mean you didn't figure that out?"
"No," the bandit answered in the voice of all grudgingly admitted idiots.
Gourry cleared his throat and looked away. "Poor, poor man," he was heard to murmur.
The bandit blinked. "Wha? Wha?"
Lina took a step forward, shoving up her sleeves and looking very much like a cat about to pounce. The bandit's arms flailed a little as he tottered back, tripped over the root of a tree, and fell on his ass.
Lina Inverse, the evil and terrifying antagonist to all mankind, had shown up less than twenty minutes ago; before she had popped in, everything had been grand. His gang, known unoriginally as The Bad Guys, had just looted a small town an hour or so away, and had been partying with their money stolen wenches when a spheric chariot of fire burst out of nowhere, landing right in the center of their hideout (which was a grassy knoll, and not too hidden at all actually, the bandit leader mused too late). And of course the chick standing there after the flames dispersed had to be the notoriously evil Lina Inverse, who killed and then devoured the bones and inner organs of bandits and their kin. She had made short work of half the gang in under two minutes with a Fireball here and a Flare Arrow there. The Bad Guys fled every which way, leaving piles and piles of money and nude wenches behind. He himself was apprehended by the pet swordsman, who grabbed hold of the back of his shirt and held him in place until The Evil One had finished spilling all the littered gold into her pouches. Not a noble capture, the bandit groused to himself. It was then that Blondie had begun making rude comments about his appearance.
Lina towered over him frighteningly. He cried out and hid behind his arms, cinching his eyes tight and shivering uncontrollably. "Don't kill me! Please, I beg you, I have four kids and a wife and a dog and a monkey and parents and a sister and a cousin - "
"We won't," Lina said simply, and crossed her arms.
The bandit blinked. "Huh?"
"I said we won't kill you!" Lina repeated, louder.
"But..." The bandit's ape-like mind raced to understand this. "Aren't you... the evil devil woman Lina Inverse?"
Her eyes narrowed, and her teeth clenched.
"She Who Is Enemy To All Living Things?"
The corner of her eyelid began twitching. Her hands bunched into fists. A sweat drop appeared on Gourry's head.
"The Dragon Spooker, The Wicked Breastless Girl From - "
At that moment Lina very nearly made herself a liar; Gourry's reflexes were much quicker than his brain, however, and he managed to hold the wildly flailing sorceress back.
"LEMMEATHIMLEMMEATHIMI'LL - "
"Lina-san, calm down!"
" - USEHISHEADASAPAPERWEIGHT - "
"Keep her away! Keep her away from me, I'll do anything!"
" - ANDGOUGEOUTHISEYESAND - "
"Lina-san, remember the treasure!"
" - THENI'LLUSETHEMTOMAKESTEWAND treasure?" Lina blinked twice to a cute sound effect, calmed down, then slid out of Gourry's arms and grabbed the bandit by the hair. "Okay then! You're gonna tell us where you guys hide all your treasure!"
The bandit righted himself, drew tall, and, being a typical bandit, stubbornly refused. Lina, being a typical Lina, threatened to tear his body apart and then feed the remains to the local werewolf tribe. The frightened bandit, being a typical frightened bandit, handed her a key and give her detailed directions to the stash he'd been saving for his child's college fund.
"Arigatou!" Lina said with a wide smile, twirling the key around her finger.
"Can I go now?" the bandit grumbled.
"Of course not! How are we supposed to hunt you down and tear you apart if it turns out you were lying? Running across the country in search of a bandit wouldn't work with my image."
"You have a point," the bandit was forced to admit, and was dragged along by the pet swordsman yet again.
We shall interrupt this scene of hiking for just a brief moment to get us all back into the swing of things. Six months have passed since Lina and her group saved the world for the nth time, fighting off the engulfing insanity of the malevolent Dark Star and the tortured but attractive Valgarv who summoned him into their world. The group had dispersed after that and out of consideration for the reader, we won't get into any spoilers. Suffice to say things are as they usually are when a new Slayers season begins; unimportant fluff used to start up the setting without a trace of plot in sight.
And indeed, after a quarter of a mile's worth of hiking, the three found themselves at a big long expanse of meadow with a few trees and flowers and other pretty things. As good a place to rejoin the action as any, one would think.
"That's him," the bandit leader said, thrusting a finger at a tall, lanky, eye-patched gangster leaning against a tree. The young man was holding a medium-ish pouch and giving the approaching entourage an understandably curious look.
Apparently after a moment he recognized the leader, and waved and called to him by the name of "Boss."
"What you up to?" the lanky one asked. "And who're these guys? They don't look like bandit material."
"Naw, listen, I'm gonna need that loot," the boss said, attempting and failing at nonchalance. To be fair, it's difficult to appear cool when a swordsman's holding you by the collar and dangling you like a puppy.
"No can do, man. You know that. No one gets it."
"Listen, pal," Lina said, poking a righteous finger at him. "You better give us that pouch there, or there's gonna be some serious trouble."
"I cannot," he proclaimed. "I am the guardian of The Bad Guys' loot! I must not stray in guarding it, not even under orders of the boss himself!"
"Then how did you guys expect to spend it?" Lina asked, smacking her forehead.
There was a moment of silence as the bandits pondered over the revealed loophole to their plan.
Lina sighed. "I don't have time for this."
Gourry blinked, and ducked behind a nearby rock.
"Huh? What?!" the guardian of the loot asked.
"Dill Brand!" Lina cried, and the ground beneath the lanky guardian bandit exploded in a bright flash of magic. The pouch he'd been wearing fell and landed conveniently in the sorceress's hand.
"Lucky!" Lina smiled, spilling the coins into her open palm. "You can put him down now, Gourry."
"Good luck in your future ventures," the blond-headed swordsman said with a smile, obeying.
"I hope you both rot," the ape-like bandit said with a scowl.
Gourry nodded twice. "Hai, hai. Obayo!"
Lina glanced up from counting the gold. "Three hundred, not bad. Although I don't know how he expected to put his kid through college with it."
Gourry smiled, rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. "Maybe he was going to send him to Bandit College."
"Maybe. Carry on the family tradition." She paused a moment, and glanced sidelong at her ever-faithful sidekick. "Notice how all life seems to be lately is killing bandits and collecting treasure?" She shifted a little, and plunked down beside him. "I've been wondering if our grand days of universe-saving is over."
Gourry's brows raised, but he kept his eyes on the big expanse of blue. "I don't think so. Someone else will try to revive another dark spirit, and we'll be called in again."
Lina smiled, and for some reason felt content. "I'm not so sure I want any more hectic adventures. I'm only sixteen and I've already saved the world, what? Eight times? That's high by anyone's count."
Gourry began counting himself, to be of better assistance. Minutes ticked by, but he finally sat up and looked over at the petite sorceress next to him, and answering eloquently and flawlessly the sum of all that was in his head.
"I'm hungry."
Lina got to her feet and patted his shoulder a couple times. "The next village on the map is known for its foreign restaurants. We should able to get there by night."
Gourry rubbed his hands together, already envisioning the bountiful delectable morsels that awaited them. Well, not quite, because "envisioning the bountiful delectable morsels" was nowhere in his vocabulary. Instead, he "thought about a lot of yummy stuff."
Alas, Gourry was not the only one with these thoughts of food.
In the dark depths of the nearby lake, a lake dragon sat licking its jaws, glancing over and dismissing a school of fish that swam just above its head as being too gamey, and a family of lobsters by its left hinf foot as being too crunchy.
This time of day, a lake dragon likes to dine on more simple, refined eatery. Something like a complacent manitee or an unconcious koala bear. Or a redheaded sorceress and an unintelligient swordsman. These kinds of things in general.
A glimmer of gold caught the lake dragon's attention, and it swerved its head to take in the potential dinner.
So while Gourry was thinking of "a lot of yummy stuff," a lake dragon in the mood for a midafternoon snack broke the water's surface and reared above he and his feminine companion, jaws gaping and glistening, saliva (or maybe just river water, but we'll say saliva because it has a much more harrowing effect) running along its incisors.
Lina stared at this giant monster of a thing just long enough to take it in for what it was; a quick and unhappy gateway to death. "For Nightmares' sake," she grumbled. "Is the author really this pressed for fight scenes?"
The mentally slower but reflexively always-on-top Gourry Gabriev had leapt to his feet as well, his hand groping for the handle of his sword and slashing the blade before him in a warning arc as the beast made to snap at him. It reared its head back in time to miss the blow, but not before the swordsman leapt at it, throwing his weight into the blow, and shouted "Hikari o!"
And, in one smoothly captured move that was so impressive it was used in all three seasons without being reanimated, he cried "Hikari o!", calling into being a saber of pure energy, easily vanquishing the enemy.
Or that's what should have happened. Before Gourry could remember that no longer possess the Hikari no Ken, the blade of his sword was jarred aside by the tough hide of the dragon's neck. A giant claw batted the swordsman aside like an especially pesky (but not altogether threatening) fly, knocking him violently along the ground and into a small pine tree.
"You're such an idiot," Lina groused.
"I don't see you helping!" was the only reply Gourry could think, and so he settled with it.
She rolled her eyes.
"Stand back and watch, kids," Lina advised solemnly, pulling her hands together. "One simple spell ought to knock this thing down."
Gourry hurriedly backpedalled out of the line of fire.
"Source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson..."
The lake dragon blinked and tilted its head.
"...let thy power gather in my hand!"
Its eyes turned to slits, a deep growl resounded in its throat.
"... FireBALL!"
The swirling sphere of flames whisked through the air, its searing heat promising a horrible demise to all unfortunate enough to get in its way.
...and it plinked out of existence about five feet from the target in a sad, pitiful little whiff of smoke.
"Ano..." Gourry blinked.
"Shi-matta!" Lina screeched, and scrambled as far back as she could. "Gourry, kill it!"
"Just a second ago you called me an idiot!"
Lina flailed. "That was then and this is now! Go, go!"
Not so much upset as confused, Gourry turned back to the lake dragon and clutched his sword at his side. The lake dragon lunged itself forward, jaws open, seeking to devour this foolish young man. This foolish young man was, however, a good deal quicker than it had originally surmised.
Gourry leapt onto the back of the serpent's neck and plunged the blade of his sword into its base. The dragon screeched, thrashed, and fell to its side as a lifeless corpse. The swordsman hopped safely to the ground and turned to face an even worse danger. Lina bashed him repeatedly with a rock before he managed to scramble away.
"What did I do?!" he asked, tears streaming comically.
"How did you learn to kill lake dragons that easily?!"
"I took notes when we met Ashford. Itai, put that thing down! It's sharp!"
"So why didn't you do that in the first place?"
"I thought I had my old sword! You're the one with the dud Fireball!"
Lina paused a moment in her partner-bashing, and in that moment Gourry realized he had gone a little too far. He didn't know why, of course, but this wasn't due to his lack of intellect; no man ever truly understands the complex psyche of a woman. He just knows when he needs to back up and apologize like crazy.
"Gomen, Lina-san. I was just a little surprised to see it fizzle out like that."
Lina hmphed and tossed the rock to the side. He could tell she was still trying to be angry at him and decided to make that course of action difficult for her.
"What was the matter with it? The spell, I mean?"
"I just wasn't in the mood." She sulked a little more.
"Not in the mood?" Gourry asked. "That doesn't sound like the Lina-san I know."
"Shut up, Gourry," Lina said wearily. "I just want to get to this place and eat."
"Yeah, so do I, but... something's wrong." Gourry stopped and looked at her solemnly. "Ne?"
Lina stopped too. She almost had to smile. He really was a sweet guy, even if he was a raging moron. Still, she didn't want to talk about it, and told him so with a blow across the head.
"Itaiii..."
"Now can we please go?" Lina asked, straightening her tunic and marching off. "I want to get to the next village before dark."
Gourry, peeling himself from the ground, smacked a fist into his palm and smiled. "Ah-ha!"
Lina stopped again with that soft "erk" sound she sometimes makes.
"I know what's bothering you." He walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him with blunt acidity which fazed him not at all.
"Gourry, really..."
"It's that time of the month again, ne?"
Gourry pulled himself out of the lake. "I'll take that as a yes."
"You know I don't like to talk about it!"
"Hai." He smiled and shook his hair dry. "But I'm confused."
"Really?" She wasn't surprised.
"Yeah," he said. "You just took out all those bandits before using your general spell arsenal not six hours ago."
"The... time of the month thing springs at you unexpectedly, Gourry." She sighed and patted his shoulder, apparently over her little mood swing. "Let's just go eat. Dinner's my treat."
His attention was promptly diverted. "Really?"
Lina chuckled, turning and walking along the worn path that would lead to the nearest town. "With a life like this, who needs adventuring?"
Gourry smiled. "Hai! Oh, and Lina-san..."
"Yes?" She looked over at him.
"I won't tell anyone else about this being your time of the month."
Had his expression been anything but simple, innocent fondness, she would have fed him to whatever other river snakes were hanging around. However, it was, and so she turned her gaze back to the road ahead and smiled wide. "Arigatou, Gourry."
The meal that night was the best they'd ever shared.
He looked over the scene with a quiet frown. He did this in such a manner because, well, he was a quiet sort of guy. His cloak drawn in around his body and up over the lower half of his face, he cast his gaze across the land with the calmness he'd always possessed.
The sun beat down on him in all its midday glory. Birds chittered happily in their midday gaity. Fish leapt out of the water, but for no apparent reason; it was just one of those visuals that a lot of different anime liked to showcase to depict a state of serenity. The entire scene was peaceful, including this man in his pale cloak atop the mountain in one of those grand man-looking-across-a-valley scenes that no one can ever get enough of.
Below him was a town. The one he was looking for was in there somewhere, that he knew. Or at least suspected. The size of the town itself was rather small, which had almost thrown him off balance when he'd first seen it. Then he'd remembered that really important things usually did happen in small recluse towns like this, because otherwise, the author had to address a lot of annoying issues like why the robust local security force wasn't able to locate the cause of all the recent disappearances and such.
He didn't really sigh, but sort of slumped his shoulders in a pantomime of the gesture, and leapt off the cliff. Usually, that would be a very stupid thing to do, but the drop wasn't completely sheer, and he skirted down most of the length. This was pulled off with a lot of dust in the air, but since it was, again, such a small village, no one noticed the odd, pale-cloaked newcomer.
He peered forward, and saw a lot of blue. Irritated, he brushed aside his hair and peered again.
A good number of houses dotted his vision now. A lot of them were of regular size, and in regular condition, nothing fancy like in Seiruun, but nothing shabby like... um...
He paused, trying to think of a really shabby place he'd been to recently so he could properly complete the analogy. Eventually, he figured the slums of Seiruun would do, and took a few cautious steps into the parameters of town.
Passing by a couple houses, peering into a window or two and seeing things like little kids playing together, running around with their arms out, couples gingerly placing a baby into a crib, and other nice-little-town sights, he began to grow a tad restless. This was nothing like what he was looking for.
Ahead, a young girl was walking with a woman who was apparently her mother, the both of them pretty and brown-headed. The cloaked one paused for a moment, watching them carry on with their conversation. Apparently, they were discussing fruit baskets.
Then the girl saw him and opened her eyes moderately wide. The mother blinked at the pause in their little chat and joined her daughter in her Gaze of Surprise.
"Ano, Mister..." the little girl started, taking a little-girlish step forward. "Who are you?"
The man looked from her to the mother. A half-second passed as he quickly processed this innocent question, and decided on his course of action.
"I'm a tourist," he answered, and did it coolly, because pretty much everything he did was cool.
"What's your name?" the mother asked, coming to stand beside her daughter. The both of them were of gentle demeanors, and he could tell that unless they were superb actors, they were asking of nothing more than simple curiosity and even a bit of hospitality.
Thusly, he presented his true name for them. If you haven't already guessed it, then you really shouldn't be allowed to read fanfiction, and should be immediately put to sleep so the rest of mankind doesn't have to bear witness to your incredible stupidity. "Zelgadiss."
"Zelgadiss?" the pretty woman asked with a smile. "What brings you to our village? We haven't had tourists for... well, we've never had any, at least not since I moved here."
"I'm looking for somebody," Zelgadiss answered, also truthfully.
"Oh? Who is that?" her sweet, full lips asked. "This is a small village, everyone knows everyone."
"I don't know," he said, and that was also the truth.
The girl tugged his sleeve. "Zelgadiss-san?"
Zelgadiss looked down at her, the interruption pausing his hand and thusly his cool anime-ish psychological plan. "Hai?"
"Ano... why are you wearing a scarf over half your face?"
A pause, as he realized a good anime-ish type of psychological opportunity.
"Hold on," he told her amiably, and reached up to remove it. The mother dropped her fruitbasket and the girl shrieked in a high, shrill octave.
"That's why," he said with a scowl.
"MAZOKU!" the girl screamed and raced off with her mother, leaving fruit and basket alike.
Satisfied, Zelgadiss leaned forward and grabbed an apple. Judging by that reaction, nothing out of the ordinary had happened in this small town. Obviously whoever was at work here was doing it secretly. That had been a safe assumption to begin with, but now he was sure.
He turned to make his way back up the mountain to make further plans, and do further scouting. He got a total estimated amount of zero steps away from the spot he stood before another pretty girl, because, really, almost all anime girls are pretty, was blocking his way with a length of death-wielding steel.
"Ano..." Zelgadiss started, startled enough to sound like Gourry.
"Who are you?" the girl asked sternly, and suddenly Zelgadiss was taken aback. She was pretty, her apparent courage only adding to the physical beauty she flawlessly possessed. With blue hair and a golden sort of circlet on her head, a finely honed sword, deep eyes and a stance that screamed of skill with the sword. But she was young, just about his age...
Now, keep in mind Zelgadiss is not one to usually get caught up in a woman's looks. Which is what made this revelation that he could actually be attracted to someone a pretty startling one, especially for him.
"My name's Zelgadiss," he answered. His voice and posture was still coolly calm. Nothing less than expected.
"Zelgadiss," she repeated, and looked momentarily unsure.
A second passed, and in that second the chimera's quick brain processed it all and stored away the unwanted attraction. The girl then looked up and narrowed her eyes.
"I've heard of you. Are you Mazoku?" Her voice was instantly rigid.
"Hardly." He reached up and withdrew his hood entirely, so that the light played about his spiky and shiny hair to an overall awesome effect. "Nor do I know how or when you would have heard of me."
The girl mused this silently.
By the time she was done, two others had come huffing and puffing. Both of them carried swords, although "carried" wasn't really right. They kind of dragged them across the ground, while their bodies drenched themselves in perspiration.
One of them was an old man with a spiral for a haircut. It was very disturbing to look at, the way it protruded from his head like a cannon, and one kind of had to wonder about the character designer's sobriety at the time he thought it up. The other was a somewhat dopey looking man with a narrow face and black hair tied up in a wild fashion by a bandana. He was probably just slightly older than the girl, but the other was pretty much old enough to be her father. Both of them heroically tried calling out demands, but they were too exhausted to do anything but lean on their swords and pant.
"Che," Zelgadiss mutterred, and prepared a fireball. None of them looked like much of a threat, but he didn't have time to dally.
Okay, technically he did have time to dally, but he really didn't see any point in it.
The girl's eyes lit up, suddenly. "Do you know Lina Inverse?"
Zelgadiss pitched over a little. The two other men looked up smartly.
"Lina...?" the old one asked, and seemed about to ask more, but then made a wheezy sound and shut up.
"Ah... Hai. I do." Zelgadiss recovered smoothly, looking at her in a way that, privately, made her do a little shivery number. "Why?"
"You and she had wanted posters up all over the place a bit ago, ne?" She smiled, kindly, and lowered her sword.
Zel didn't find that particularly encouraging. Most people would raising their defenses against someone who used to be wanted by law.
"Oh, hai! I remember that!" This from the dopey-looking guy. "A face like his is pretty tough to forget!"
"Why do you seem so cheery about my status as a wanted criminal?" Zel asked calmly, after hitting the dopey man over the head with his own sword.
"We know Lina-sama wouldn't do anything bad," the girl put in with youthful optimism.
"And just how," Zelgadiss asked, trying not to laugh, "did you draw that conclusion?"
"Ah, all in it's due time," said the old guy with the cannon hair. "We shouldn't be discussing this out here. Join us at our cottage."
"Hai," the girl said, bowing a little to the confused chimera. "Welcome to the Village of Biatz."
Around the time Zelgadiss arrived at the quaint out-of-the-way town of Biatz, Lina Inverse was crawling out from under her covers, sliding her thin legs off the bed, stretching her arms over her head and yawning in the cutest way possible. She blinked her eyes, rubbed them for good measure, and hopped to the floor.
The inn they were staying in was a good one, in the middle of a large resort town named Daningu. Thusly, each room came with a first-rate bath, and so she slid out of the cute little pink slip she wore and hopped in, turning the medieval faucet and basking in the warm, sparsely sudded liquid that filled the tub around her.
She slid her hands behind her head to brace it against the hard surface of the tub's edge, made a content vocal that sounded sort of like "Ahhhh!" but was more abrasive and Hayashibara-sounding, and closed her eyes.
She didn't think about much of importance. She did, however, reflect back to that big river snake yesterday, and wondered why in hell that stuff always happened to her. Her life was always that perilous, whether she was saving the world or just trying to get from one village to the next. She paid no attention to the fact that she usually invited these things, by attacking bandits or blowing up towns while trying to show off, because that made her sound much less like fate's poor victim.
She raised a foot up out of the water, the rest of her leg raising after it, moist from its submergence. She sighed, and sunk lower so that her cheeks were kissed by the clear liquid, raising the leg a fraction higher and resting it along the rim of the tub.
The above was done not as enrichment to the world, to the set the scene, or to symbolize that deep down, beneath all her hectic and violent spells, her wild personality, and her happy-go-lucky visage, she was actually just a normal girl with normal girl wants and needs and even goals. Instead, the above was mostly done as fan service to overly hormoned adolescent males.
Something began pounding at the door, snapping Lina out of her quasi reverie. Her leg dropped back into the water to the disappointment of teens everywhere as she sat upright and gave a couple of owlish blinks.
Whoever it was knocked again. Lina reached out and grabbed her towel, no longer startled and now simply annoyed. As she began to climb out of the tub, the scene changed to one of the fist knocking a third time, and everywhere teens like the author shouted protest.
The door opened just a tiny tiny tiny little crack, and a tiny tiny tiny portion of Lina's eye showed up between the two bodies of wood that made up the doorway. "What do you want?" she demanded, and then, seeing it wasn't Gourry, opened the door a little wider and glared furiously. "And what made you think you could interrupt my bath?"
The man standing there was short, stocky, clean-shaven, and had short cropped hair that hung off his head with a distinct lack of life. His clothes were roughly the ugliest things in existence, but his face wasn't so bad, and his eyes were wide and black. When he smiled, his pure white teeth reflected enough light to blind a person.
"I have a warrant for your arrest, fiend," the man said, indeed not smiling.
"Excuse me?" Lina asked, throwing open the door and moving her hands into the Fireball casting motion. Then she remembered two things, both equally important. One, she needed to conserve her energy for an emergency, and two, she needed her hands to hold up her towel.
The man in the hallway, who it could now be noted was holding an ax and was also accompanied by four ruffled looking guards, took a step back and broke into a heavy nosebleed. The guards soon followed suit, once they figured what was going on, but by then Lina had wrapped herself in her arms, slunk to her knees and shrieked loud enough to cave the roof down on them all.
"HENTAIIII!" she screamed, tugging the towel back into place, picking up a chair with one hand, and hurling it at the axe-wielder. Then she slammed the door, and scurried around the room to get her clothing on.
The door burst inward just as she had cinched the last of her costume into place, the man with the ax rubbing his head and leaning on the doorknob for support.
"You dare to attack me after you murdered my child?" he cried, his eyes ablaze.
Lina was silent, with staring, wide eyes. Then her mouth and tongue met a mutual decision, and she shot back, "Murdered your child?" She didn't like the taste of that.
"Don't play innocent, you heartless killer!" he screamed, stomping his foot, and swinging his ax in her direction to indicate her to the guards for effect. "She killed my little Pochie!"
"Now hold on!" she cried and leaned forward, arms flailing. "I never killed anyone's child!"
By now the guards were beginning to file in the room, looking wary and somewhat lusty. She could tell by the uniforms that they were tacky, low rank grunts, and thusly surmised that if this was the best this wealthy town felt was needed to go after her, the allegation wasn't all that serious. But murder was a serious offense. She drew herself into an apathetic stance and smiled.
"Look," she said, trying to keep a level head about this. "I may have done a lot of things, but I've never murdered." A pause. "Well, at least, not anyone who didn't deserve it."
"Oh, you murdered her, all right!" The man placed the head of the ax to the ground, leaned on it with one arm and wiped his eyes with the other. "You slaughtered her right through! When I found her body, I used magic to replay the last moments of her life, and - "
Lina sighed, cutting him off. "Can the performance, Ghim. At least tell me the real reason you came."
"Denial to the end," the man cried, raising the battle-ax. "Death to you, abominable fiend! Death to Lina Inverse!"
"Li-Lina..."
"...Inverse?"
The last two paragraphs of dialogue came from two of the four guards. The other two were already retreating.
The man with the ax blinked and looked at the first. "Uh, hai..." he answered. "That's what the memories of my beloved Pochie displayed to me... She was talking to her companion on this grassy knoll, and..."
Lina blinked, suddenly very much confused. First, about this magical talent the man said he possessed.. replaying visions was a very complex spell, and, in fact, a myth. And then the fact that he knew what she was doing yesterday.
"Lina Inverse!!!" the two guards yelled, and hugged each other. "Oh God, spare us, spare us!"
Lina shook her head in exasperation. "For crying..." She turned to the two cowering guards, hefted another chair, and prepared to fling it. "Get out of here! Let me talk to this mystery guy alone!"
The guards fled happily enough, one of them on all fours. She then turned to the man who was wearing a confused expression and a large sweatdrop.
"Okay. Now you mind telling me your name?" Lina casually slipped into a chair, crossed her legs, and shot her gaze at him.
"I, um," he began. "They call me Halgon."
"Ah," she nodded. "Halgon, do you know why those men ran off?"
Halgon shook his head.
"To sum up, it's because I'm pretty famous."
"Famous?" He blinked.
"Yeah. Well, more like 'infamous,' unfortunately, but you get the idea."
"Wow, and here I thought you were just a small, flat-chested little punk!" he said, sincerely impressed.
The chair Lina had been sitting in found its way over Halgon's head. He collapsed, a large tear forming in his left eye.
"So you've never heard of me?" Lina asked, rubbing her hands together in that famous job-done gesture.
"No," he gasped, looking up.
"Well, I guess that's okay." She knelt in front of him. "So you mind telling me what you're doing here?"
"I told you," he said, and said it so vehemently that she finally believed him. "You killed my Pochie. I am here to get revenge."
"Look, uh, Halgon." Lina drew herself up and looked down at him, not smirking, but not exactly radiating sympathy either. "I never murdered any Pochie."
Halgon stood, backed up a step for the room he needed, grabbed his ax, and pointed it accusingly at her. "You did, so says I! My baby Pochie, the poor little lake dragon, was brought to an early doom by YOU, girl!"
Lina picked herself off the floor. "L... lake dragon?"
"Yes!" Halgon cried, drawing his ax back and preparing to swing. Well, Lina figured as she panicked, that explained why the local officials hadn't felt like sending more adept troopers to look after the matter. Halgon cried out and struck, obviously now beyond the idea of lawful dealings and instead looking for a more bloody resolution.
"N-now look!" she said, drawing her thin blade and just barely parrying the first thrust. "Oi! Oi! Watch it!"
Halgon swiped the ax across in a horizontal sweep, growling. "Have you any final words, fiendish Lina?"
"Y-yeah I do!" she said, suddenly realizing this guy had the brute strength of a pack of boars and she did not and that now TIME was the best life insurance she could get. "Um, I didn't kill that river snake!" Duck, parry, duck. "It was Gourry!"
Halgon stopped swinging. "Gourry? Who's - "
"Lina-san?" Gourry asked from the hallway. He was wearing his blue night outfit, peering into the room with half-closed eyes, and scratching the top of his blond head. "Is something going on in there?"
"YES, SOMETHING'S GOING ON IN HERE!" she shouted madly, and took the opportunity to duck past the oaf with the ax and club her sidekick with a slipper. "THIS GUY'S TRYING TO KILL ME!"
"Oh, I remember you!" Halgon said, renewing his stance. "YOU are the one who killed Pochie!"
"Make up your mind," Lina growled, the heel of her hands against her forehead.
"DIE, NOTORIOUS GOURRY!" Halgon ran at him, swinging his ax.
"Hereyagogoodluck!" Lina said, tossing the half awake man her sword and scrambling to the side.
"Ano?" Gourry asked, grabbing the sword handle and lightly moving his wrist to the right, parrying the sudden blow.
Halgon, reared, slashed again. Gourry blinked lazily, yawned, and lifted the sword four inches and gave a slight out-thrust to send him tottering back on his heels. "What's going on, Lina?"
"Uh, you remember that lake dragon you killed?" Lina asked with a fake smile. "Well, uh, I guess it was this guy's pet or something."
"Pochie was no pet!" Halgon said, drawing back and venting frustration. "I'll have you know, she was my god daughter!"
"He's insane," Lina pointed out calmly.
"Hai," Gourry agreed, and thrust in quickly, knocking the ax out of the man's hands and unbalancing him with a jab of the handle. Halgon fell on his keister with a groan and a generic sound effect.
"And now that we're all comfy," Lina murmured, walking back in, "maybe we could have a little chat about common courtesy towards our fellow man."
Halgon sat up, crossed his arms, and sulked.
"To start off, never interrupt a girl's private time." She ticked these off on her fingers. "Second, never do so and then have the balls to say you're going to arrest her. C, never do so and then say the reason is because her partner killed a river snake in self defense."
Gourry, who was rubbing his eyes and now partially more awake, gave a little yawn. "Hai, it did attack us first. I mean, I agree, I wouldn't want people killing off my god daughters, but..."
"Gourry!" Lina snapped, and he obligingly shut up.
"You're right," Halgon murmured, staring at the floor. "You're right, of course! She always had a mean streak in her, I always knew she did! But I couldn't accept the truth!" He rose to his feet, tears streaming down his eyes.
Gourry smiled and clapped the man on the back. Lina, simply annoyed his innocent little talk had once again done more than her bravado, muttered "Dammit" a couple times.
"...take it so hard," Gourry was saying. "Everyone has a black sheep in their family! I have my rogue Grandpa Raudy, Lina has her mean sister Luna, Zelgadiss has his great-grandfather Rezo..."
Lina threw the previously mentioned slipper at Gourry's head, watched as it did more damage than it should have, and turned to look Halgon square in the eye. "Look, we're busy people. We don't need insane yahoos showing up all the time, ne? Just... go on your way, we'll forget this whole ordeal."
"I cannot!" Halgon said, grabbing Lina's hands in his and smiling through his tears. "You have shown me the error of my ways, Lina Inverse! I must make it up to you."
"Oh, God," Lina groaned, but did so to herself. To him, she said with a bright smile, "No, no, that's okay, Mr. Halgon Sir, there's no need for that! Just don't let it happen again!"
"It might be kind of fun having a new companion," Gourry said thoughtfully, standing up and rubbing his slipper-inflicted bruise.
"You're not helping," Lina stated flatly.
No, that wasn't a joke about her cleavage.
"Then it's settled!" Halgon cried with a bright smile. "I'll devote my life to the two of you, doing whatever you need done!"
Gourry was all smiles. "Yosh! A new friend! Isn't this great, Lina? We can be a trio!"
Lina's scream filled the noon air.
Somewhere outside the inn was a person with a black cloak. She slid smoothly through the doors into the lobby, smiling to herself in a wide, sultry kind of way. She carried an artifact of great importance, an artifact that would change Lina and the other two in her room forever. She held it in her hand, in the light of day, uncaring if any of the people hustling about in their day-to-day lives saw it or not. Puny weaklings, the woman in the black cloak thought with a sneer. They won't be alive much longer, no. Soon indeed, they will get what's coming to them. Soon, soon judgment will rain from above! Black death will seep into their skin like a plague, eating their bodies and corrupting their minds. She smiled, then laughed, as her booted feet carried her up the stairs... after, of course, she had checked with the desk to see which room the girl was staying in.
She heard the scream, and was, for a moment, caught off guard. Had someone already reached her prey? Was this one, this Lina Inverse, this plague of destruction, was she already dead? The woman rushed up the rest of the stairway in a hurry, looking around with uneasy eyes. Her feet carried her past a couple closed doors, and she paused to sneer at the amount of work that had been put into furnishing them. Silly mortals, foolish mortals, to waste their short and puny lives with such ridiculousness. At the least, they could be conspiring to build an empire of world domination, but no, they just scurried around with desk jobs and expected everything to be fine, despite their lack of any integrity or other redeeming value. The woman in the black cloak hurried on, remembering the girl and the artifact, and wanting to make sure she wasn't too late.
She wasn't. When she arrived at the door, the girl was busy hitting some blond buffoon over the head with a slipper, and some stocky short man with an ax was laughing as if he thought the whole thing was part of an end-of-episode-laugh moment. The cloaked person sneered, drew raised the artifact over her head, and called clearly, "This is for YOU, Lina Inverse! This, this sacred artifact, will allow me to defeat you, and through defeating you, I shall rule over all!"
Lina blinked. Gourry raised his head and blinked. Halgon, not wishing to stop a trend, blinked as well.
Gourry strode forward and peered at the item in the woman's hand. "Um."
"What do you want, you foolish human?!" the woman cried.
"It just looks like an ordinary envelope to me," he said, poking it with a finger.
The woman drew the envelope away from him and clutched it to her breasts. "Ah, but it's what is INSIDE the envelope that makes it important!" she informed.
"So what's in it?" Lina said, folding her arms and allowing herself to forget about Halgon for the moment.
"Ah, my dear Lina-san," she said with a smile. "I can't tell you that."
"It's got my name on it," Lina pointed out with a frown.
"Oh." The woman blinked, and looked at the item. "Oh yeah. Well, here you go, then."
"Jeez," Lina cried, snatching the letter away from her. "One weirdo after another!"
"What's it say, Mistress Lina?!" Halgon asked excitedly.
"None of your business," she snapped, and turned away to read it.
Gourry looked at the woman with a smile while his partner read whatever it was she had been addressed. "Konnichiwa, I'm Gourry Gabriev."
The woman blinked, looked him over as if she hadn't seen him before, and shrugged. "Good for you."
Gourry, not used to the cold shoulder, was at a loss for words. "Do you have a name?"
"Yes," she said grandly, turning to him and placing her hands on her hips. "It resounds throughout the heavens and the hells. I am the one, the inheritor of the world! The minions of the lands flock to me, for I am - "
"Yuu Watase?!" Gourry asked, psyched out.
"No," the woman said. "I am of much more stamina and importance than she!"
"No way!" Gourry said, very impressed. "That's really something!"
"Yeah," she agreed with a nod. "For I, dear sir, am known as..." She paused for dramatic effect. "Raleic Deontri!"
Gourry blinked.
"You know," Raleic prodded.
"Afraid not," Gourry apologized.
"Oh, forget you," Raleic grumbled and crossed her arms.
"So, um..." Gourry looked over at Lina, abandoning the strange envelope girl. "What's the letter say?"
Lina looked up with a shrug, and handed it over. "Read for yourself."
Gourry blinked, took it, and Halgon and Raleic crowded next to him and read as well.
Dear Lina-san,
Seiruun is in great need of you. We've run across a problem that is much too complicated for words on paper to convey. I wish I could explain it all now. Please come to Seiruun, our royal Postal Worker, Miss Raleic, will escort you personally. Daddy isn't sure about this, but I know you'll be able to help us, with all your great power and wisdom, defeat evil and vanquish bad guys! Oh, and bring Gourry and Zel if you can.
Ja,
Princess Amelia Wil Tesla Seiruun
"Wow," Gourry said. "What's the problem there, Raleic?"
"I don't know," she said with a shrug.
Gourry looked at her. She was very pretty, with dark eyes and pure black hair and a matching robe which covered her entirely from the neck down. However, for some reason Gourry was nearly oblivious to all romantic and sexual effects, so he didn't really give her physical form all that much note.
"So you're just a Postal Worker?" Halgon asked.
"Only for disguise!" she shouted grandly. "For soon I shall sweep the globe with my fist of might, and all of humanity will sway to my will and demands! They will bow before me, their almighty goddess!"
"Uh huh," Lina said, suddenly exhausted, neverminding that she'd just gotten up. "All right, all right. What we've got here is a mysterious but urgent letter from Amelia, a megalomaniac postal worker, and a freak with an ax."
"Yep!" Gourry nodded. "So when do we leave?"
"Augh," Lina cried, throwing up her hands. "Get out of here! All of you!"
"You dare to ignore our Princess's royal summons?" Raleic demanded. "That is worse than blasphemy!"
Lina's glare would have shot directly through her body, if glares were scientifically able to do such things. "We can make it to Seiruun without help from a delusional mailgirl!"
"I'll be downstairs," Gourry announced, hurrying out the door as energy began to gather around both women.
"A runaway Orihalcon demon?" Zelgadiss asked, sipping the tea that the robed man had prepared for him. Wasn't bad.
"More like a monster," the town's mayor, that old guy with the twisty cannon-ish hair, corrected. "It nearly killed us all, but thanks to Lina-san and Naga-san, we were able to..."
"Naga?" Zelgadiss raised a brow.
"Hai. Do you know her?" The old man smiled. Oddly, he didn't seem to open his eyes very much, reminding Zelgadiss of a couple other people he wished he could forget.
"Afraid not," he answered.
"Ah." The old man nodded. "Well, the two of them managed to defeat it, and in turn we put the members of Xain to work." Now he gestured to the man in the robes, whose name was Galef Kainzard.
This man was pretty impressive, really. He had an impressive mustache, an impressive twinkle to his eye, impressive clothes. He had one gold tooth, it looked like, and Zel was sure that if he ever wanted to, he could look like one hell of a dangerous man. But his looks is as far as that would get.
"Xain, eh?" Zelgadiss sipped his tea.
"You've heard of my organization?" Galef asked with excitement. "I didn't know we were that famous!"
"Xain, hai." Zel took another sip. "The joke of all of evil's empires. The most ludicrous attempt to take over the world since the Legions of Fishmen. Galef the Eternally Impaired." Zel nodded. "Hai. You're quite famous."
Galef, a large number of tears streaming down his cheeks, turned away and wept loudly. Selena rubbed the back of her head, put a hesitant hand on his shoulder, and began trying to soothe his spirits.
"Ah, anyway," the old man started again, rubbing his hands with a cloth, "you didn't get around to telling us why you're here."
Zelgadiss looked at him for a moment. He didn't see any reason not to tell this man, but then, he didn't see much reason to do the opposite. There wasn't much he could do to help.
He glanced at the others in the room. The dim looking man with the bandana had disbanded and was out working the field, or something, but the others from his encounter on the street were in fact here; the old man, who was actually the mayor, and Selena, who was actually his daughter. Galef, the impressive looking one, had joined them with the soul purpose of bringing them tea, but their conversation had apparently enraptured him so, he'd decided to stay.
Zel looked back to the old man, who was chewing the end of a thin stick of wheat or some other such country thing. "Could I have your name first, Ojiisan?"
"Certainly," he answered, and bowed a little without getting up. "It's Jer."
Zel nodded. "Jer Biatz?"
The old man laughed. "Naw. When this town was founded, they didn't believe in that whole naming-towns-after-oneself-shtick, like they do in Seiruun." He glanced at the wounded Galef and the soothing Selena, and leaned in conspiratorially. "If you ask me, it's just a way for the writers to skip around thinking up additional names for their characters."
Zel said nothing.
The old man, or ojiisan if you want to be cool, righted himself in his chair. "No, the family name is Dyne. That makes me Jer Dyne, all together."
"Your family didn't found this village, did they?" Zel asked suddenly but slowly.
Jer blinked, except that his eyes were still closed, and so he didn't. "Excuse me?"
"Call it a hunch," Zel shrugged lightly.
"I'm quite sure they did," Jer said at length.
"Do you have any records?" Zel asked. "Anything dating back along your family's history?"
"We do." This was from Selena, the pretty one with the circlet.
Zel looked over at her. A little more closely than he needed to. "Could I see them?"
"Ah..." she looked at her father.
"I don't see why not," he said, and turned to the gold-toothed tea-bearer. "Galef, get me some sake."
"Yeah," Galef mumbled, shuffling out of the room.
Jer looked back at Zelgadiss. "But I don't see why you'd want them."
"Would it be enough for me to simply ask you to trust me?" Zel asked without much hope.
"I'm afraid not," he said apologetically. "These records are kind of confidential, you see."
"Confidential?" Zel's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Selena and Jer exchanged looks. "Ano..." was all that was said, but it was said simultaneously from both of them, so that should count for something.
"Neither of you has any idea, do you?" Zel looked at them with a slight tinge of sour humor.
"Now that you mention it..." Selena said, and give a kawaii little nervous chuckle.
"Have either of you even ever seen these records?" Zel asked with the subtle pointedness of a syringe.
"No," Jer admitted. "They say not to let even us look at them."
"I think," Zel said, with a light smile, "that I'd like a look at these documents."
The wall of the inn was destroyed following a sudden cry of "FIREBALL!" Clumps of plaster, wood, and brick tumbled to the street below and sent a number of people running off in panic.
"How does she expect to fight when she's lost her magic?" Gourry asked to the raining chunks of residential material. "That temper of hers is ridiculous."
Halgon, arms flailing, flew out of the hole in the wall and crashed by Gourry's side. "You're not kidding."
"Oi, let me help you up." The swordsman extended a hand down toward the bruised and battered axewielder, who gratefully used it to stagger to his feet.
"Is that all you can do, you pathetic young thing?" Raleic cackled, Ray Winging it to the ground. "I expected more from a girl summoned by her Majesty!"
Lina, not bothering with a spell of flight, leapt from the giant crater in the inn's wall and landed neatly on Raleic's face. The two tumbled to the ground, and with a shout of "Mono Volt!" Lina sent a staggering flow of electricity through her opponent's fallen body. Halgon and Gourry winced in respect.
"Who's a pathetic young thing?" Lina smirked, dusting her hands together.
"Jeez, you're violent!" Gourry groaned. "How'd you manage to do that when it's your time of the month, anyway?"
"G-Gourry!" Lina cried, waving her arms. "I thought you said you wouldn't talk about that!"
"Whoops," he replied, and offered a sheepish smile. "Sorry about that."
"Time of the month, eh?" Raleic, her cloak a bit blackened by that shock she'd just been put through, snickered. "No wonder you're such a weakling."
"I beat you down, didn't I?" Lina winked.
Before there was any time to reply to this, the ground beneath them began to tremble. The rubble about the street danced skittishly in place, and Gourry felt the sections of his armor clink together alarmingly.
"Earthquake?" Halgon asked, blinking up at the sky.
"Mazoku!" Lina shouted, rearing back with a frightened look skyward.
Glaring down at them from over the roof of the inn was the grim face of a skeletal monster, eyeless sockets peering, lipless mouth twisting into a grin. Giant wings unfurled from its back, two massive displays of fleshless infrastructure.
"M-Mazoku?" Gourry stammered, backing up a step or two. "What's a Mazoku doing here?!"
"Why, hunting for you two, of course."
The adventuring pair blinked, and look back to see the smiling face of Xelloss regarding them with those rarely-open eyes.
"Augh!" was the only response Lina could think of in answer to this, and swirled around to see the skeletal monstrosity push the inn out of its way like it was playing with model sets. "This is one seriously bad day!"
"Leave this to me, foolish girl!" Raleic perked in, jumping forward and striking a dramatic pose. "No Mazoku can stand before the great Raleic Deontri, master of all Shamanism!"
"Do you even know what a Mazoku is?" Lina shot.
"What's the difference between one evil thing and another?" Raleic haughtily protested, drawing her hands together. "Freeze Arrow!"
"Oya, oya," Xelloss commented with a little grin.
The flung spell of ice shot its way towards the awaiting beast, which batted it aside and scooped up the raven-headed sorceress with a crooked little smirk.
"You can't defeat Mazoku with tiny spells like that," Xelloss commented. A bit late, of course.
"What an idiot," Lina grumbled while Raleic kicked frantically to get out of the thing's grasp.
"But I don't have the Hikari no Ken," Gourry mumbled. "And Lina doesn't have her magic."
"Ah," Xelloss admonished, raising a finger. "You don't think Lina's as weak as she used to be a few years ago, do you?"
Gourry blinked, and saw that his partner had closed her eyes, and was preparing for what looked to be a giant of a spell. "What do you mean?"
"When you first met her," the priest explained, "she could only cast weak Lighting spells during her time of the month, correct?"
"Yeah, I think so." Gourry rubbed at his head, apparently under the impression that doing so would help his memory, and then it hit him. "You mean...?"
"Hai," Xelloss responded, and raised a hand towards the chanting sorceress.
Lina stood solidly, feet planted firm amidst the rubble. Although her chanted words were lost beneath the wild screams of the captured Raleic, the magical orbs adorning Lina's costume had begun to glow with the gathering of her energy and the focusing of her concentration. As they grew brighter, she looked up into the hideous face of her Mazoku, took a single step forward, and shouted the two final words that thing was ever going to hear.
"Dragu Slave!"
In the moments before the spell ripped the Mazoku apart, Gourry was almost sure he heard Xelloss chuckle.
Bits and pieces of houses fell down around them. Dust was screening the air, and Raleic landed on top of Gourry with a shriek.
"Nicely done," Xelloss commented.
Lina looked around and grinned, a little impressed herself. "Yeah, thanks."
"Don't you think it was a little overkill, though?" Halgon asked, dismally surveying what was left of the town they had been in moments before.
Lina's eyes widened as she saw through her pride and into reality. "Oops."
"I keep telling you you have to control yourself," Gourry reprimanded, pulling Raleic and himself to their feet.
"Oi, it wasn't my fault!" Lina shouted. "I didn't have any choice! It's not like Xelloss would have done anything!"
"You never even asked him!" Gourry pointed out.
"Since when has he ever helped us out of these messes?"
"Well, that's a good point." The blonde turned to the priest and frowned in confusion. "But I still don't get it. Why was Lina able to cast Dragu Slave when the Fireball she cast yesterday..."
"Fizzled out?" Xelloss supplied. Gourry nodded.
"It's all a matter of concentration," Lina answered with a sigh. "What I want to know is why you decided to show up again." She cast Xel an acidic glare. "And why you said that thing was hunting us."
"Ah, Lina-chan." The trickster priest smiled and waved a finger, before disappearing. "That is a secret."
"Damn, I hate him," Lina snarled.
Raleic groaned, blinking her eyes and forcing herself to regain consciousness. Her jaw dropped as she came to. "What did I miss?"
"Nevermind that," Halgon shouted, pointing into the distance. "Let's get out of here before that angry mob catches us!"
"This is becoming a familiar formula," Gourry commented, scooping the dizzy Raleic into his arms and making a break for it.
"Why do I always get caught up in these ridiculous things?" Lina wailed as the four of them dashed for the hills.
And somewhere else, later that night, a lone chimera in a small village was lost in fitful slumber and bad dreams.
(End)
(Lina Inverse voice-over)
Well, now that we have our new comrades, Halgon and Raleic, I guess we'll be able to answer Amelia's request and get to Seiruun! But wait... what's this thing that Xelloss wants us to find? And what about Zel? Next Episode Is: "Secrets of Twilight. Memories of Past Mazoku." Make sure you're here for it, or I'll Dragu Slave your ass!