A/N: Yay! My first Flayers sanfic! *pause, blink blink* Er, I mean… My first Slayers fanfic! *waves a lil flag that says "yay" on it* Um, anyway… As I said, this is my first Slayers fanfic, and my first attempt at humor, so please be nice! Anyway, this fanfic started out with me thinking about how the Slayers seem to KNOW that they're in a TV series (this is especially evident in the first season), and I was thinking that they might know they were in a fanfic, too. And this idea just kinda blew up from there. I really hate the beginning, but I've tried to rewrite it twice and it ended up being really bad. So just skip the first paragraph, or something. Apart from that, the rest of it's pretty funny (at least that's what my friends at school say). And oh, yeah, I love Zel, really, it's just that picking on him is just too fun!

Oh, yeah, and how do the rest of your do those nifty little line things at the beginning of your story to separate the Author's Note and the rest of the fanfic? (guess I'll just use a couple enter spaces)

Slayers: The Fanfic

The main characters of Slayers were all suddenly pulled from their respective positions and thrown into some wacked-out place where pianos grew on trees and the purple cow was the murderer (don't ask… weird things happen when you play party games with crazed anime people on sugar highs…)

Lina glanced around, taking in the piano-tree and the vicious-looking purple cow. "What the—where are we?"

"It is MOST unjust," Amelia started. "To pull me here when I was in the middle of lecturing a group of criminal bandits about the virtues of—"

"Quiet," Zel snapped peevishly. He frowned at their surroundings. "This place… It looks like we're in—"

Lina paled. This frightened Gourry somewhat, because there was very little he know of that could make Lina turn that particular shade of green. He had no idea what was going on, of course, but as usual he decided to leave the thinking up to Lina. Everything was so much easier that way. When he started thinking, bad things ended up happening.

"No," She breathed, sounding terrified. "It can't be. We're not—not in a—"

Zelgadis nodded grimly, apparently steeling himself for the worst. "That's right. We're in a fanfic."

Oh, there is nothing an anime character fears more than a fanfic. To be at the mercy of a hormone-crazed teenager with nothing better to do with their time than write the aforesaid characters into silly stories created in the little void when their brains should be. There are lots of different kinds of fanfics, of course. The question was, what kind were they in?

"The question is," Gourry said, for once not looking completely oblivious. "What kind of fanfic are we in?"

I just said that.

"Oh, sorry."

Lina smacked Gourry upside the head. "You BAKA!" She yelled. "You're not supposed to converse with the narrator!"

"Oops."

Zelgadis, never one to be caught unprepared, conveniently had the pocket copy of "Fanfic Survival Guide for the Anime Character: What to do When You're Faced With a Crazed Teenage Author and How to Come Out With Some Shred of Your Dignity Intact" with him. He opened the little, red book to the "Identifying Your Fanfic" section.

"Let's see…" he said. "Listen up, minna!"

"' Of the many kinds of fanfic, few are more fearsome and terrifying than the Self-Insertion or the Lemon. This guide shall discuss both in detail:

'Self-Insertion – In this type of fanfic, the author or authoress (usually authoress) will put a character of their own design in with the already established characters. This new person (called the self-insertionist, since this person usually is the alter-ego of the author/authoress) is generally very attractive, extremely strong and/or magical, and has a dark and mysterious past that they don't like to discuss. Eventually, they will probably end up getting it on with the author/authoress's favorite character.

'Lemon – A Lemon is also known as a PWP (Can stand for either "Plot? What Plot?" or "Porn Without Plot"). The main concern of the lemon writer is to get two of the characters into bed with one another, from then on out it's just a lot of gratuitous sex, in detail. Often, these two characters are established couples (Kenshin/Kaoru, Ranma/Akane), but there are several instances where they are people you'd never expect to like one another (Lloyd/Dart, Miaka/Nuriko), much less sleep together. These fanfics are also sometimes yaoi or yuri, pairing two characters of the same sex.'"

The Slayers characters looked at each other, then quickly edged apart. Innocent, cute Amelia was about the color of blackboard chalk. "But—but…" she swallowed. "That's horrible! Which one are we in?"

Zelgadis looked up from his book, indigo eyes darting around the small clearing they were in. "Well, no one else is showing up, so it doesn't look like a self-insertion…"

Amelia clapped her hands over her mouth, looking half-horrified, half-sickened. "Does that mean this is a lemon?"

Lina shook her head, though she, too, looked nervous. "No, there and lots of other kinds of fanfics. Like humor and action/adventure and stuff. It all depends on the author, really."

"So…" Gourry looked nervous. "Lina, what kind of author do we have?"

Lina didn't answer immediately. She licked a finger and held it up, presumably testing the direction of the wind. Then she scooped up a handful of dirt and sniffed it. Satisfied with her assessment of the fanfic world, she announced her conclusion to her companions.

"It seems like," she said. "It seems like the space was created by a girl who writes fanfics in leaky blue pen when she should be paying attention in math class."

Eh-heh-heh… Not that that was true, of course…

"What??!!" Lina shouted. "Of course it's true! You just don't want to admit it!"

Oh, shut up.

"But Liiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Gourry whined. "You said we weren't supposed to converse with the narr—"

"SHUT UP, GOURRY!" Lina screamed in a towering rage. Gourry squeaked and quickly shut up, not desiring to be on the wrong end of a fireball. Lina began stomping about, muttering unspeakables under her breath. Seeing as the narrator was not a physical being, there was no one who she could take her fury out on. (ha-ha!) Lina screamed in frustration and began pounding on the nearest person she could find.

Gourry.

This was a bit odd, but not entirely unexpected. Lina and Gourry fought often, which Zelgadis suspected was the only way the could show their feelings for each other. Generally, he left them to it.

Amelia, however, had no such compunctions. "Lina!" She shouted, running towards the two of them. "It's not just to beat up Gourry for what the narrator said!"

"I don't care, Amelia!" Lina snarled. She continued to throttle Gourry. Zel ignored the three of them and went back to flipping through his Fanfic Guidebook.

"Favorite Characters – " (said the book) "The author's favorite character is usually the one who has the most things happen to him or her. Generally, these things are negative (illness, abduction, injury, etc.). The authors believe this gives their character more attention. (A/N: I am sooo guilty of that!)

Zel glanced at his companions. The only one who seemed to have bad things happening to him was Gourry, but somehow the chimera didn't think Gourry was the favorite character. He hadn't been given too much attention up to this point. Lina? Perhaps, though he didn't think it was likely. Amelia? Probably not, she'd only had about three lines at this point, and most of them had been ranting about justice.

While Zel had been thinking, he had failed to notice that the piano tree he had been standing under had begun dropping its fruit. In other words, a grand piano was falling on the completely oblivious Zelgadis.

Well, Zelgadis was thinking. If Lina, Gourry, or Amelia aren't the favorite character, that leaves me. I'd better be on my guard.

SMASH!

The piano crashed to the ground, flattening the thoughtful chimera with a particularly violent-sounding chord. Lina, Gourry, and Amelia looked up from their bickering.

"Wow," said Lina.

"Oh-no!" said Amelia.

"Gaaghkkk," said Gourry. Lina's hands were still around his neck.

"Zelgadis-saaaaaaan!" Amelia shouted, running over to the wreckage of the piano. "Are you okay?"

"What do you think?" Zelgadis asked sarcastically, voice muffled by the remains of the grand piano. "Get me out of here!"

"Oh, oh, don't worry, Zelgadis-san! I'll get that off of you!"

Zel grunted as Amelia started pulling strings and keys and bits of black-painted wood off the top of the pile that had been a piano a few moments before. Meanwhile, Lina had stopped pounding Gourry's head in, and both had come to peer at Zel's predicament.

"Where would a piano come from?" Gourry asked stupidly.

Lina pointed upwards. "Look up there, jellyfish brains. See? The pianos are growing on the tree."

The blonde swordsman looked at the tree, letting his eyes travel up the black-and-white trunk to the music note-shaped leaves and the ripening pianos nestled amongst them.

"Well," Gourry said slowly, as though choosing his words carefully. Not so that he didn't offend anyone, but so what he said was exactly what he meant to say. "If this were a serious fanfic, the author wouldn't put something like that in, would they?"

Lina stared at him. Why hadn't that occurred to her? This must be a humor fic, the sorceress reasoned. No serious author would have something like a piano tree in their story. Trust Gourry, always the wise fool, to figure that out. She recovered her composure quickly, however.

"Of course I knew that, Gourry! Do you think I'm stupid, or something?" she shouted.

"Anou, minna?" Zelgadis asked from under the piano. "Some help, please?"

"Oh. Uh, hai. Gomen," said Lina. She and Gourry bent to help Amelia.

It was when they were nearly halfway unearthing their chimera friend when they heard it. A scream rang through the woods, a scream of pure terror and pain.

Amelia leapt about six feet in the air and landed with a crash on top of Zelgadis. He yelped and shoved her off. The chimera was thoroughly fed up with this fanfic.

"What—who was that?" Gourry asked, looking a little frightened.

"Someone is being attacked!" Amelia cried, striking a dramatic pose. "We must go help them!" Zel sweatdropped, his legs and hips still trapped under the piano.

"Oooh," Lina groaned exasperatedly. "This'll take forever!" She stood up, brushing herself off. "Okay," she said, raising a hand, palm pointing at the remains of the piano. "Time to do this Lina-style. Gourry, Amelia, get out of the way. Zel, hold still."

The chimera's eyes widened fearfully as Gourry and Amelia quickly vacated his immediate area. "Lina? What are you going to do?"

"Oh source of all power…"

"Lina? You're not doing what I think you're doing, right?"

"Light which burns beyond crimson…"

"Lina?" His voice was definitely taking on a panicked edge. "Lina!"

"Let thy power gather in my hand…"

"AHHHHHHH!!" Zelgadis screamed, putting his hands protectively around his head before Lina uttered the last word.

"FIREBALL!"

BAM!

Everything within a six-foot radius of the ruined piano was thrown into the air with the force of a small bomb (which, in a way, is exactly what it was). Zelgadis barely had time to register he was soaring through the air before he landed hard on his back ten feet away.

"Zel?" Gourry asked tentatively, edging over to the prone chimera. "Zel, are you okay?"

"Eeeuuuug…" moaned the singed Zelgadis.

"Alright!" Lina said, clapping her hands. "Now that that's over with, let's go see who screamed!"

Zelgadis forced himself up. The hem of his cape was still smoldering, and he definitely looked the worse for wear. "You're insane," he gasped out. "Completely insane. Did you know that, Lina?"

"Let's go!" she cheered, ignoring Zelgadis and running triumphantly off into the woods. Gourry, always Lina's obedient protector/shadow/lackey, followed after her. Amelia charged after the two of them, shouting something inane about justice, which left Zel all alone in the clearing. He groaned, muttered something unpublishable, and limped after them.

They ran through the woods for a good amount of time before finding anything. While they were chasing after the source of the scream, Gourry quietly noticed the scenery. All the trees were huge (A/N: Think that big redwood forest in Return of the Jedi). Each had a different sort of fruit, as well. Along with the piano tree, Gourry also saw a chair tree, a toaster tree, a book tree, a mailbox tree, and a tree that was fairly normal, except that it was entirely pink.

"There!" Amelia shouted, snapping Gourry out of his observations and pointing to a crumpled figure clad in varying shades of brown under a tree that seemed to be growing very large oranges. A very familiar figure…

"Xellos??"

The group rushed to the Mysterious Priest's side, Zelgadis a bit more reluctantly than the others. "Maybe he's dead," he said. The chimera didn't sound worried. If anything, he sounded hopeful.

Amelia rolled Xellos onto his back. He looked very pale, and somehow… shrunken, as though he hadn't eaten anything for several days. That was silly, though. Mazoku didn't eat, not the same way people ate. The princess listened at his chest for any sort of heartbeat or breathing. Did Mazoku really need to breathe?

"I don't know…" she said slowly in response to Zelgadis. "It's hard to tell with Mazoku."

Lina chewed her lip, looking a little worried. She glanced around. "The thing is, though," the sorceress said nervously. "What could do this to a Mazoku?"

The answer to Lina's question was lurking nearby in the bushes. It had fled when the noisy new people had come. Now it watched them, keeping itself hidden and silent. Its' small eyes followed their movements, while its' large, batlike ears listened to their human-talk. The creature knew a little of their language, enough to understand the gist of what they were saying. It couldn't speak, of course, apart from its' monosyllabic exclamation, but it understood. And, for the time being, it hid, concealed. It watched.

A/N: Oooo, creepy! I wonder what it is?? (actually, I've already written the second chapter and most of the third, so I know what it is… and that last bit's REAAALLY funny when you know what I'm talking out). Um, anyway, this story has been mostly written out by hand in my math class, so it'll take me a while to type it all up (seeing as my handwriting's mostly illegible, even to me). So… yeah. Please review! I'll try and get the second chapter out as soon as possible! Any guesses as to Xellos's attacker are much appreciated! (HINT: It is an anime character, but not from Slayers) If anyone can correctly guess it (and you aren't one of my friends from school who've read all of the fanfic that I've written so far) then… uh… you get some bonus points, and stuff. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this whole chapter! Sayonara!

Fics forever!