Prelude to Episode 35
Well if that don't beat all! [sitting on her bed back in the castle, looking out on the Sea of Chaos]
So in other words, not only is my entire life being recorded as its own separate part of Lonnie's diary, the Claire Bible, but in living breathing moving color! And that breathing is a bit too much!
And those SHOTS! AAAKKKK! How COULD she? [squeezing the images out of her eyes]
Does she have no sense of decency? [hugging herself newly re-traumatized]
And then this bit about letting herself be vulnerable to me.
What is THAT all about?
So all these times I kicked, bit, punched or whatever, it really had no effect on her.
Or at least it only did to the extent she allowed it to.
So is that just some game she plays with me?
Or is there some other reason she would let me strike back when it really serves no point?
I mean, in reality, she is not even a she! She's an...an...an...IT!
She's something not male or female, but kinda sort of both, and she has STUFF I think I might have found on Gourry or Zelgadis if I had looked. [nervous shudder]
I'm amazed she hasn't tried to USE that THING on me! [worried] I hope I haven't JINXED my self now...
Episode 35
"Reconciled! Zelas Takes The Victory But Aqua Takes The Purse!"
The queen herself blushed at some of the frescoes Zelas had put up, and one she said simply HAD to come down.
A few of the pirates who had been forced to make the piece and some of the men of that region groaned in dismay.
Not a few wives hit their husbands with various items including fists, purses, canes and available stones.
Zelas, being offended at this, said she would take it home and place it in her viewing room which made Lemmy blush, since it was two nude women intertwined in a moment of heated passion with water spraying from various places.
"Are you REALLY going to put that in the viewing room?!" Lemmy whispered fiercely.
"I thought of putting it in the guest bedroom," the Mazoku said thoughtfully.
"No please don't!" she whispered again.
"Although it seems you have won many more votes than you did before," the queen declared, "You still did not win the overall approval rating from the citizens as did our esteemed Naga and her crew."
The one set of prisoners jeered the others who snarled back defiantly and a few childish faces were exchanged.
As was with the previous results a few citizens elected to trade properties, although in this case, it was more the single unattached males trading out with married couples with or without children.
"Zelas-Metallium," the queen ventured to ask, "Why exactly is it you decided to make this a competition in the first place?"
"I have my reasons," the Mazoku replied in a soft, ladylike tone, "Its between my self and my opponent." glancing sidelong at Naga with disdain, "Call it somewhat of a challenge that we can undertake despite the vast differences in our power and skill sets."
"As you wish," the queen replied, "and did you wager stakes?"
"Not really," she replied, "Its just for my own self satisfaction."
"You Mazoku are a strange lot." the queen sighed.
"Not so terribly," Naga suddenly spoke up, "Actually when I was a foolish child," turning a flashing glance at the blond, "I too once set my heart to challenge myself against one I knew was far better than I, in an attempt to win them over."
The words resulted in a shocked, indignant expression on Zelas's face but before she could come back, Naga continued, "I lost of course," she said humbly, "And in a way," getting teary eyed, "I am eternally grateful too."
"Because," she continued, getting a bit of a lump in her throat, "If I had thought I had won that contest," she blinked some tears away and swallowed, "I would surely be dead and have missed out on knowing and loving the greatest woman this world has ever known..." she sniffed a little and blinked away some tears, "Miss Lina Ul Mariela Inverse."
The crowd was silent...until Zelas had to go and say "Oh that flat chested little – aoowwww!"
Hotee had zapped a hole right through her chest making a smoldering round spot with her laser breath and she was dragging Luna who had her by the tail as she was coming at the Mazoku growling in her tiny little voice.
Zelas-Metallium took that as a good sign to grab Lemmy and leave!
Ep 35, Chapter 2
When Zelas and Lemmy appeared in the keep, the hole was gone.
Lemmy did a double take but Zelas waved her off, "This is only a projection darling," she smiled, "I'm immortal."
"But it -!"
"Yes," she acknowledged, "It burned a hole right through me," she shrugged, "That's one reason I left." as she snapped her fingers and lesser demons rushed out with wine and a meal.
"So then -?" Lemmy began.
"Well those little yellow monsters have HOLY magic and can slice me to bits if I'm stupid enough to stand there and take it." Zelas looked aside annoyed.
"But you could have just -?"
"What?" she looked at the swords-woman dead serious, "Started a war? Ruined all of our plans?" she sighed and took hold of Lemmy's hands, "Look darling," she softened her expression, "Some times you have to know when to step back and let the enemy rage and waste their energy."
"But it made you look like -" she began.
"Like I'm weak?" she asked then smirked and rolled her eyes, "No sweetie, it made me look like the better person."
"Is that your goal?" Lemmy asked.
"My GOAL," she leaned in very close, almost across the entire table, "Is to get hold of all those yummy PRISONERS so we can take them all here and torture to our heart's content!" and she ended with a sunny crinkle-nosed smile.
Lemmy lay in her room thinking about all of these complex issues, being a swords-woman, they were totally beyond her and not remotely relevant to her life's upbringing, but right now, it seemed to have taken on an entirely new meaning.
She got up, walked around, lay down again, got up, lay down, stared at one wall, then the other, images went through her head, images of the past days, of possible scenarios with the people in Zephilia and even what it would be like to have hundreds upon hundreds of prisoners working under her lash.
She got up and walked out into the observation lounge.
The stars were visible tonight and the moon shone in.
There on the large central couch Zelas sat, arms on the back of the couch, legs crossed in front of her looking at the sky as if deep in thought.
"Couldn't sleep either?" Zelas asked without turning.
"No," Lemmy came around and looked at her.
"Come here." she patted the couch beside her.
The dejected Lemmy sat climbed up on the long seated couch and lay against the monster and looked up at the moon with her. "Is this really going to happen?" she asked, raising her hand as if to grab the moon.
"With patience dear, with patience," and with one hand she gently pulled the swords-woman's head against her breast.
In a few minutes Lemmy was sound asleep.
Ep 35, Chapter 3
On the third and final week of the projected clean up, both crews had reached the far borders of Zephilia and turned south where they would ultimately meet at the southern side of the country.
Zelas had a real strategy this time.
Going to the city library, she sat down with all the maps of the area, and despite the foul looks some people gave her, placidly ignored them and proceeded to magically make a copy of the map on a piece of blank paper the exact same size.
Once she had this, she thanked the curator, and walked past the people who seemed to be there just to glare at her and make her feel unwelcomed.
Granted, these people naturally had every reason in the word to hate a Demon Lord, so she was not even slightly fazed by them, although Lemmy glared back at them menacingly as they passed by.
Taking their map to a quiet place, Zelas laid out the map and had two lesser demons hold the four corners with their immense long arms, being careful not to tear the paper with their sharp claws.
With a few swishes of her fingertip and a few waves of her hand, lines and images began growing along the surface of the map.
Using her superior intellect, and some of her many thousands of years of observation of art, science and architecture, she took into account all kinds of technical details and even made notes of empty lands deemed worthless by others.
She had a lot of labor at her disposal, and nothing in her own self made competition said she could not use it.
"We shall see who is the better builder miss smarty panties," she chuckled to herself.
"Smarty panties?" Lemmy looked askance yet blushed at the same time.
Both crews loaded up in wagons to speed their arrival at their final destinations because time was of the essence, as the economy of the nation depended heavily on having this country rehabilitated before spring, and with winter about to set in, work would become virtually impossible soon.
Greater Beast Zelas-Metallium had a serious plan and had every intention of making it happen.
She sent lesser demons to quarry stone from deep canyon gorges where humans would never achieve such work in a timely manner, and sent others to collect timbers at rates no human ever could, and even set teams of lesser demons to the job of excavation and hauling of muck and debris, leaving the human workers to do skilled work like carving, fitting, cementing, and the likes.
She had fire breathing demons melting sand and metal to forge glass and structural steel, she had water demons sucking the sap out of trees to make varnish to lacquer polished wood and glue joints securely, and she even had lamps blown of glass, hung on finely hammered iron chains to hang from ceilings, street corners and signposts.
She had drains dug to amazing depths and widths to take away excess rainfall, streams diverted to water wheels to build grain mills and sawmills where there never were before, and even a novel bilge that pumped water through long brass pipes into small collective style farm plots.
Each farm plot was designed where all the houses would be grouped into one mutual corner of four adjacent plots at the end of a circular driveway with one common stone road.
She made double wide main roadways which carefully followed exact geometrically calculated values of curvature around rolling hills and intersected gracefully with conservatively scalloped bridge barristers lit with blown glass lamps.
The lamps were set to operate on swamp gas piped in by way of specially designed giant brass funnels and had a water clock timer to light them every night and shut them off every morning.
Narrow gorges were widened by the quarrying and then flattened and finally dammed up to make lakes.
These lakes would not only hold water in case of droughts or fires, but would also serve as flood control by holding up much of the water which normally raced down the gorges ripping out trees rocks and soil to be sent downstream as killer mud slides.
When she was in presently known habitable farm lands already held and occupied, she took on a different tack on housing.
Old houses were completely removed unless they had some clear evidence of extreme age and latent initial handcrafting.
The valuable houses were restored to clean white lime washed stucco for the residents to paint as they wished, while the shoddy houses were replaced with clean stone and fresh timber structures from the basement to cut slate-rock roofs, same as the small farming plots.
She made all main roads double wide and all the fences on every field was pitch coated posts with long iron wire stretched and wrapped tightly in neat parallel rows about a hand span apart.
She had a mill set up specifically for drawing this wire where one demon would heat the ingots and another would hold a forged piece of metal and another would pull it through until it was too long and flimsy, then they would begin winding it on giant oak spools between drawing.
There were glass workers, brass workers, stone workers, iron workers, steel workers, and wood workers.
Many of the men, having been aboard sea vessels many years knew all the trades it took to make a ship and therefore other than stone masonry, they all had what it took for these jobs.
By the time the week was up, she had added over three thousand homes on cleared plots in the wilderness with piped in water where nothing but jagged rocks and gnarled trees once grew, created seventeen flood barriers and nine mills.
Everybody was stunned, most of all Naga.
Her surprise was not because she was competing, but simply because she never imagined a monster would go this far and do this much and take this much care to detail for any reason other than their own personal pleasure and gain.
When the votes came in, it was a clear win on this round for Zelas, but added to the previous two, it was a draw.
The Mazoku showed her first ever real sign of perturbation. Losing by a long shot, she just had to readjust, loose by a little, and she was really upset, tie, and she was livid.
"If you had exhibited this kind of initiative in the first place," the queen said, "You would have won handily."
"Some people are slow learners." Naga said.
"I w-" she began to state the obvious then just turned around for a second thinking, then spun back around, "I'll make you a deal."
"I'm listening," the queen offered.
"I'll re-do all the undesirable parts," she held up a finger, "IF..."she shook her finger a little for emphasis, "If I get to keep the prisoners when I'm done."
Everybody stood in stunned silence a while, looking back and forth at each other amazed at this proposition, before the queen got this peculiar look of bewildered incredulity before saying in a rich and mirthful tone, "I can't believe you are asking for them but by ALL MEANS! TAKE them!"
The whole city cheered.
Ep 35, Chapter 4
Aqua and Kuppy were at odds over the idea of flying because Kuppy loved flying while it terrified Aqua.
In the end, Aqua insisted they walk because it was good exercise and they had not been exercising enough.
"Fine." Kuppy pouted, "I'll exercise if you think I'm getting that fat," she picked up her case and trudged away from the inn, "After all, nobody wants a fat fish."
"You're not FAT" Aqua said, swatting at Kuppy's tail section playfully.
"Oww!" Kuppy protested then giggled as she broke into a run.
"Hey slow down!" Aqua chased after her, "We're supposed to be WALKING not running!"
They walked on freshly paved roads all the way to Seyruun where the road returned to dirt and in many places, a muddy wash.
Kuppy used ice magic to make the ground freeze solid so they could walk across.
They walked well into Seyruun before they ran across bandits who had blocked the road robbing weary travelers, only these men were all weird. They wore tightly fitting thin clothing that looked strange at best, and every one of them were muscled up, and most of them were standing around posing to show off their physiques.
Kuppy was watching the scenery more then the road as usual.
"Looks like we have company," Aqua said in cautionary tone, laying her hand on Kuppy's top fin to make sure she was paying attention.
"Huh?" she looked ahead, "Oh my!" and her knees began to tremble.
"Don't worry," Aqua tried to soothe her, "You know magic now, and I'm more than ready for a fight."
With that Kuppy steeled her nerves and the two proceeded forward to where the bandits waited.
"Who dares to cross this road?" one man demanded, wearing a pink outfit.
"Who wants to know?" Aqua asked disdainfully.
"We're the Fighting Dragons Blood Macho Men!" he announced, followed by a series of various pointless poses, "And we own this road now!"
"I guess that makes us trespassers then." she announced and proceeded to walk past him with Kuppy in tow.
"Hey!" he shouted, "You can't just WALK through here like you OWN the road or something!"
A large chorus "Yeah!" came from the men nearby.
"I'm DOING it aren't I?" she scoffed.
"Well," the man scratched his head, "I guess you are – HEY! Stop right there!"
"Don't feel like it." she replied as she strutted confidently amongst them.
"Well maybe we'll MAKE you feel like it!" came a voice from behind a tree up ahead, as Tiny George stepped out, with a broken nose, cauliflower ear, an eye patch and missing most of his teeth.
Worst of all, now he too was wearing one of the ridiculous skin tight outfits, which lowered his credibility even further.
"When you feel good and ready, go right ahead girly boy." she chuckled.
"I will then, MANLY-GIRL!" he snarled and came charging.
"You called me a MAN?" she snarled back, "I'll show YOU!"
Leaping up as high as his face, she executed a spinning mule kick to his face.
At that same moment Kuppy burst forth with ice chip which began spraying sharp little pieces of ice at the bare skin of the scantily clad men who were shouting and crying and running around, STILL trying to make poses, which looked even more foolish seeing as they were running then stopping to pose then running some more then stopping again...
As Tiny George stumbled back from the first kick, his last tooth flew out, and he cried out "Gawth my lath toothh!" while holding his mouth.
"That's what you get for being a jerk and messing with me and my woman!" Aqua shouted and then charged again, this time doing a baseball slide into his shin.
"OW-OW-OW-OW!" He hopped around on one foot holding his shin.
Kuppy was running around chasing the half naked men in every direction giggling as the ice chips continued to cut them up and make them miserable.
Finally she said, "You like posing so much?" and she called out "Freeze Bullet!" and one by one, froze each and every one of them into statutes where they were posing.
At one point one man cried out, "Wait! Let me get my pose right! Okay!"
And she froze him in place as well.
Finally there was only Kuppy, Aqua and Tiny George.
As George hopped around, Aqua ran up and stomped on his toes making him cry out even more.
Finally he could not longer stand and he fell over crying, begging for Aqua to stop, and Kuppy froze him in this position.
They found the loot in a strong box behind the tree George had first appeared from, and took it away with them on their way home.
"Looks like this trip wasn't ALL for charity, huh darlin?" Aqua leaned over and one arm-hugged Kuppy as they walked away.