Slayers: X Generation

Nightmares Part I: The Burning Village, and a Meeting

Howling WereWolf: YES!! It is finally UP and RUNNING!!!

Zantos: Uh-huh. Over the space of at least one month.

Howling WereWolf: Aw C'mon! I got mobbed by both the Blaster3.Worm and the W3. Welchia.worm!!!

Zantos: That's no excuse.

Howling WereWolf: BULLY!

Sean comes in. Howling WereWolf rams a stack of notes into his face.

Howling WereWolf: I don't care how you feel, just read the &$% disclaimer and stop picking on me!

Howling WereWolf storms out, slamming the door behind her. Sean glares at Zantos.

Sean: Leave her alone, will you?

Zantos: What? What did I do?

Disclaimer: I do not own Erin McAteer, Ishii Kiru or Rezaru. Erin's dream, and anything else not belonging to either character, is mine though, so *cough*bugger-off*cough*. XP

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Erin McAteer sat by herself before a table in the inn.

The innkeeper returned with her placed order of ramen and fried wings. She would have preferred a nice plate of rice with Soya Sauce, but one has to live with what he [or she for the matter] got.

"New here and passing through?" The elderly man asked matter-of-factly.

Erin nodded before forking up a mouthful of ramen.

Around her were the sounds of bustling activity. With her sharp ears, she heard a pottery stall vendor flaunting his stuff from behind; a group of boys playing a wild game of tag to the right outside; two men discussing politics at the table in front....

All I would give to be back in some nice serene forests... Erin groaned inwardly. What am I doing out here anyway?

Then the pattering of shoeless feet hailed the arrival of another person.

The innkeeper barely looked up as he polished an empty table. "Go ahead. Just don't scare away my business, alright?"

The pattering continued. It got louder and louder, and came to another sudden stop. Erin looked up over the noodles.

A child squatted on the floor beside the next table, his large hazel eyes glued to the platters of food. He dribbled as the man at the table - a man whose silver hair hid his eyes from view - drank a bowlful of soup.

The man stopped drinking, wiped the corner of his lips with his sleeve, and looked down at the boy. He reached across the table, selected a large chicken drumstick and held it out. The boy literally squeaked with immense delight and dug in. Erin let a small smile play along the corner of her lips as she watched him messily devour the meat.

The man suddenly looked up at her with his own smile, strangely mysterious in nature. "Better be careful."

After the voice had barely drifted away, Erin was momentarily blinded by a flash of white light.

As the light faded, Erin felt her stomach lurch.

It was the same village, and she was standing in the exact spot where she had been eating earlier in the inn. There was something different besides the dark sky: Every house and structure was illuminated with fire.

The inn had become nothing more than charred wood and ashes. Burnt bodies were strewn all over the place. Screams were mercilessly pounding on her eardrums as those who were alive tried to save whatever and whoever they could.

Erin looked up. Standing before her was a stranger in a dark-colored cloak with the hood covering his - her maybe? - features. At the stranger's feet lay that same little boy in a pool of blood, with more of the thick red liquid dripping off a sword with simple yet magnificent markings in the stranger's hand.

Erin gritted her teeth. Her eyes became like two orbs of blue flame, burning with anger. "Was it you who did this?"

The stranger's mouth, the only visible thing on his/her face, betrayed no emotion.

"ANSWER ME!" Erin demanded, the fury now evident even in her voice. She unsheathed her sword in a single sharp movement, ready to extort a reply from the one before her.

A crescent-shaped blade flashed before her. It stopped short of her neck and hovered there like a shiny necklace. Erin was aware of someone behind her, but the only clue she got was a few strands of silver hair that the wind blew against her face.

"I'll be waiting...."

Erin felt a sharp blow delivered to her back, and her vision was clouded once again.

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"Erin."

Something warm touched Erin's shoulder and gently shook her. "Erin. Wake up."

Erin groaned before prying her reluctant eyelids back. Slowly, the blur of different colors settled back into focus, and Ishii Kiru's face was suspended over hers.

"You fell out of the tree again." Kiru stated matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, I know." Erin rubbed her sore back. It had happened again. That same nightmare had been heckling her for over a week.

"You seem troubled." Kiru remained seated on the floor, his bluish-green eyes following Erin as she stood up and dusted herself off. "Wanna talk about it?"

"What, are you a good listener?"

"Nope, but Fruitcake-chan is." Kiru finally got up. "I can go get him if you want to talk."

"Speaking of which," Erin looked around while neatening her slightly creased outfit. "Where is Rover?"

Kiru shrugged. "Swimming in the river."

Typical. Erin once again wondered to herself what had weakened her to accept the company of a flatfish-lover and an overgrown talking pooch. About one or two days after her recurring nightmare, she had met the bubbly duo on the forest path, and they had been tagging along ever since.

"Oh look. Here he comes now."

Sure enough, the wolf-troll Rezaru surfaced and shook himself thoroughly before walking up the bank. He held up a glistening fish in one furred hand. "A herring for your thoughts?"

"I'm fine."

"Your scent tells me otherwise." Rezaru's jaws parted into a small smile. "I can smell discomfort within you that has no outlet."

Erin stared at Rezaru a long while, before she looked skeptically at Kiru. "Are you sure that the two of you aren't related?"

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The second chapter will look a little similar. With any luck, it will be longer, so bear with me.

~Howling WereWolf

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