Ruins Raiders

Chapter Nine, Rumours Will Fly

By Relm

Zelgadis slowly made his way back to the party. He wanted nothing more than to ditch the party and go home but he knew Headmaster Sailune would be furious. So despite what he wanted to do he went back.

Immediately upon entering the room everyone stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads to stare at Zelgadis.

Zelgadis felt himself shrink under everyone's intense staring. 'Damn the rumours couldn't have spread that fast could they?' He thought in disbelief.

"My my Professor Greywars, could have at least cleaned your appearance up before coming back." Xellos commented snidely while approaching him from the side.

By this time everyone at the party had stopped staring at Zelgadis and resumed normal party activities. Though they still regarded Zelgadis suspiciously and he was still the main topic of conversation.

"What are you talking about?" Zelgadis hissed at Xellos.

"Well maybe you should take a look at yourself. It's very apparent by your appearance on what your recent activities have been." Xellos snickered.

Zelgadis gave himself a quick look over. His pants were slightly wrinkled as was his jacket and his dress shirt, which was no longer tucked in. His tie was loose and hung a little towards the left. His shoes were scuffed and he presumed that his hair was not in place. 'Damn. I ran after her and she knocked me down. Why didn't I check myself over first? Now it really looks she and I…' "We didn't do anything!" Zelgadis exclaimed exasperatedly.

"It doesn't look that way. And I doubt no one will believe you. Not after someone told that rumour about you and Professor Inverse alone in the library. And sneaking off in the halls later on." Xellos tried to suppress his grin.

"What someone saw us? Damn what am I going to do?" Zelgadis rubbed his temples in the hopes to sooth his developing headache.

"Well at least it's about you and a pretty lady like Professor Inverse. Most people thought you were gay."

"What?" Zelgadis exclaimed. He was going to protest that remark when he thought about something. "It was you spreading the rumours wasn't it Xellos?"

"Well I might have mentioned something to someone." Xellos laughed nervously.

"I can't believe you! You know damn well what I was doing with her!" Zelgadis practically screamed at his assistant.

"What were you two doing?" Xellos asked curiously.

"What the hell? What do you mean what were we doing? What do you think we were doing?" Zelgadis got really red in the face. Was it was the anger or the insinuations we'll never know.

"Well I thought you were just keeping tabs on her. But from the looks of it you two engaged in some rather physical activities."

"I ran around like crazy to find her and when I did she knocked me over! I wouldn't do 'that' with the likes of her!" Zelgadis exclaimed.

"Why not? You don't think Professor Inverse is an attractive woman?"

"No I mean yes oh shut up! You'd better fix this damn rumour right at once!" Zelgadis was about ready to smack Xellos silly.

"I will, I will. But you should really calm down, people are staring." Xellos attempted to calm Zelgadis.

"When weren't they?"

"What was she doing here anyway? And where is she now?" Xellos asked changing the subject.

"She left. Strangely enough she was looking for information on the second eye."

"The second eye? Why?"

"I don't know."

...

Lina hummed slightly as she approached her home. She was very pleased with herself. The information on the second eye was hers, and she caused a deal of trouble for Professor Zelgadis Greywars. 'Heh, heh I wonder what everyone back at the party is saying. Well he deserved it. Though he was a good dancer.' Lina thought with a slight smile tugging at her lips as she went to her door.

Once she realized what she was thinking Lina shook her head violently. "What the hell am I thinking? Zelgadis Greywars of all people! Am I crazy? I hate that guy!" Lina exclaimed while putting her purse and recently acquired information on her table.

Ever since Lina met Zelgadis she hated him. It was during that dig in Matgi that she met him for the first time. Lina had an appointment with the leader of the dig Mr. Mathers. She was supposed to meet Mr. Mathers to sign a deal to let her school have the rights to publish the findings of the dig. Only she never got the chance to talk to him because someone else got to him first. And that person also stole the rights to the dig. When Lina found out what had happened she was so mad and wanted to kill the person who did it. And when she finally met Zelgadis had had the nerve to suggest they go out for drinks. Of course he didn't know who she was. But after that he did, and he knew to stay as far away from her as possible. But that didn't usually happen. Quite often did the two of find themselves bumping into each other going after the same item for their respective school.

What had pissed Lina the most about her first encounter with the great Professor Greywars was that a part of her wanted to accept his date proposal. She would have liked it better if he hadn't been so hansom and charming.

'He's such a smug jerk. Well I hope he's going through hell right now. Heaven knows I'm going to get in trouble for going to that party. But it's all worth it for this.' Lina grinned as she sat down at her table with her new research lying in front of her. 'Well time to get to work!' Lina squealed with delight as she began reading.

...

Lina awoke up to the sound of her telephone ringing. "Huh? What the…?" Lina snapped her head from the table. She fell asleep while reading the previous night. In fact she was still wearing her dress.

Disoriented Lina ran to get the phone not know exactly where it was.

"Hello?" Lina said breathlessly as she finally found the phone on the other side of the room.

"Hello Professor Inverse." Headmaster Gaberieve said in a low tone.

Lina almost dropped the phone. "Hello Headmaster Gaberieve. How are you doing?" Lina asked quietly.

"Fine, fine. Or at least I was still I found out a little piece of information."

"Oh really, what's that?" Lina asked knowing damn well what he was referring to.

"Oh just that one of my faculty members attended a party at our rival school. And that person was YOU!" Headmaster Gaberieve yelled into the phone.

Lina winced in pain from the noise. "Headmaster Gaberieve I can explain-"

"Oh you'd better explain it to me right now! Never before have I ever had one of my teachers go to one of 'their' parties. I've been through heck with all the board members. I'm the laughing stalk of Greater Rixx! Headmaster Sailune is never going to let this down! What the heck where you doing at East Rixx University?"

"Photocopying information from some books on fixing the third eye that only East Rixx has." Lina answered matter-of-factly.

"Oh." Headmaster Gaberieve got really quiet.

Lina nervously continued. "Because you see if I snuck onto campus to poke around their library one more time they will press charges. And that would be much more embarrassing for our school. And I can't get anyone to sneak in there and check for me, they've got profiles on everyone I'm associated with. I didn't know what to do but then Sylphiel suggested the idea of the party."

"It was Miss Nels Rada's idea?"

"Yes she suggested it and pointed out that I did get an invitation. So it seemed like a good opportunity. And from what I've read through so far from what I got it seems I got some really helpful stuff."

"Uh-huh." Headmaster Gaberieve said flatly.

"Yes and I'm really sorry for the trouble but it was the only legal way for me to get the information that I could think of."

"Well our school was first to break this silly tradition, so I guess that shows we're more civilized. And since we already invite them to our parties even if one of their staff goes we still beat them to it first. So that's something to be proud of I suppose."

"Yes, yes. So you see it's a good thing I went." Lina insisted happy that she wasn't going to get fired.

"I suppose it was a good idea for you to infiltrate their library…" Headmaster Gaberieve's tone was little strange.

'Why do I feel like there's a 'but' coming?' Lina thought to herself.

"But as for you using it as an excuse to have a romantic rendezvous with East Rixx's head history teacher, that wasn't such a good idea." His sounded very angry.

"WHAT?" Lina exclaimed. 'Oh god the rumour spread that far already?'

"Yes I heard that you and 'him' snuck off together during the party. What you do on your own time is your business but when you do it so publicly with a rival school's faculty member you cause problems for our schools. I would have thought you of all people would know to keep your personal life secret. And with one of 'them'?"

"I am not dating Professor Greywars! I don't even like him. I hate him! He's the most repulsive man in the universe! I wouldn't date him even I was paid to do it! Everyone just thought something was going on because I snuck out to search their library. And he ran out to find where I was. Headmaster Sailune probably had him keep tabs on me. I'm pretty sure you would have Sylphiel do the same thing if of them came to one of our school parties. But of course some stupid idiot decided to tell everyone that him and I were sneaking off to meet each other."

"So you're saying that there's nothing going on between you and Professor Greywars, you two are not dating?"

"Not in a million years."

"Good that's a relief because I don't know what I'd do if I found out one of my faculty members was dating someone from East Rixx's staff. Keep me posted on your progress Inverse."

"I will." Lina laughed nervously.

"Have a nice day."

"You too." Lina hung up the phone once she heard a click on the other end. She let out a heavy sigh. 'It's a good thing I'm not dating Professor Greywars… I would lose my job for sure.'

...

Zelgadis poured through the information he had on the remaining eye, the book Lina had lent him helped a great deal. He was only moments away from a revelation.

'If this is right then the temple should be located here… I found it!' Zelgadis nearly jumped up from his chair. But instead he sat there thinking. 'This may not be the book Professor Inverse lent me but without that book I wouldn't have been able to find this one. There's absolutely no way she couldn't have figured this out. So why would she do this? Does she already have the last eye?' Zelgadis mused while tapping his index finger on the side of his head. 'No if she had found it, it would be all over the newspaper. No she has to be up to something else.'

"Well hard at work are we?" Xellos commented appearing right behind Zelgadis' shoulder.

Zelgadis practically jumped. He hadn't heard him enter the office. But then he never heard Xellos coming. Xellos always seemed to pop out of nowhere. He glared at the offending assistant. "Yes I am. Only I can't work with you hanging about, so do me a favour and leave." Zelgadis replied coldly.

"Gee touchy. I do have a reason for coming here."

"To annoy me?"

"Tisk, tisk Professor Greywars you should be careful how you talk, people might get the impression that you're rude." Xellos grinned.

"Get on with it." Zelgadis still wasn't happy with what Xellos had done. The ramifications of Xellos' rumour had been quite large. He'd been grilled by Headmaster Sailune and half the teacher staff at the university. Why any of them would care so much about him dating a teacher from their rival was beyond him. But still their 'concern' was bothersome. Xellos had 'attempted' to dispel the rumour but hadn't succeeded. Some of Zelgadis' co-workers refused to talk to him. He had been branded a traitor.

"Headmaster Sailune sent me to check up on you and report back with your progress. How are you doing with the research?" Xellos asked while tilting his head to the right giving Zelgadis a sideways glance. Or rather as close to being a glance seeing how Xellos' eyes were closed.

"I think I found where the temple is located-"

Xellos laughed in glee interrupting Zelgadis. "That's fantastic! I'll tell Headmaster Sailune and get you right on a plane!" He hopped off to tell Headmaster Sailune the news, not giving Zelgadis a chance to finish his sentence.

Zelgadis just sat there not amused by the situation. 'Why do I have a bad feeling about this?' He thought while letting out a heavy sigh.