At the afternoon of the third day they were directed down by Zel and Sylphiel towards a small village near the coast. They did a lazy pass over the place, and drew a lot of attention. Well, a Golden Dragon in his real form, accompanied by five flying magic users wasn't something you saw every day. Four flying magic users maybe, but not five...
After a quick spin to get their bearings they located the house they were looking for, and, ignoring the crowd that was rapidly running to meet them, they touched down outside of the house of Gary and Anesha. Oh, and Shantal. Judging by the fresh charring on the nearby trees the girl had been practicing...
Zel and Sylphiel knocked on the door, and a minute or two later Gary, dish rag in hand, poked his head out, looking startled. "Well, the newly weds. Let me guess, come back for your first councilling session? Marriage is wonderful but it's also harder than it looks...
A flying petite redhead burst past them from in the house, a dishtowel flying in her hand. "Oh wow! Is that a real Dragon? Mine! He's Mine! I claim him..."
A deep sigh announced the arrival of Anesha, dish cloth in her hand as well. "Well, ya gonna be anti social all day? Invite them in, twit." she glared at her husband, who smirked back "I was getting there..."
"First of all, hello, and secondly it's..." began Sylphiel. Her remarks were cut off by a scream. They whirled around to find Shantal and Lina apparently going eye to eye.
"Already?" sighed Sylphiel. "Was there any doubt?" replied Zel.
"Wait, is that..." began Anesha, looking at Lina...
"I claimed him! He's my Dragon." insisted Shantal. "Who do you think you are to say no to me?"
Lina frowned back "I think I'm ..."
Naga interupted, bouncing imperiously into the fray. Shatal caught one look at her "bounciness" and immediately backed off, looking rather blue."What is that?" she gasped.
"Naga the Serpent is a real person, not a thing, impetuous child. But more importantly, what have we here? A living book end to match this flat chested plain girl who wishes she was my rival? I don't believe my eyes, does lightning strike twice after all?"
"Big Sister!" snapped Amelia, but Lina had the last word. "Of course it does." she said turning to Naga. "Like this. Mono Volt! Mono Volt!" The acrid smell of ozone mixed with the sizzling and shrieking of Naga as she bounced around under the blue arc of the double cast spell. "Owie, owie, owie!" she cried as she came to a stand still as a crumpled heap on the ground. Head down, you know the rest...
At least she wasn't wearing her mother's costume anymore, Daddy had seen to that, but what she did have on wasn't a heck of a lot better...
"LINA INVERSE, THAT WAS NOT NICE!" She howled at the top of her lungs.
"Serves you right, now shut up about it" said Amelia, looking like she had a headache coming on.
In the excitement Milgasa took on his human form and now came up to Lina with Luna and Gourry beside him.
They looked at Shantal who was just staring back at Lina. Finally she croaked out "You, you're..."
"Lina Inverse! The World's Most Beautiful Sorcerry Genius!" Yes, that's me!" Lina crowed in triumph, flashing a "V" for victory sign (well, maybe it was "V" for vengance?)
"Flat chested, Bandit Killer..." added Naga with sarcastic revenge.
"Mono Volt." replied Lina sending the taller girl bouncing all over the place again.
"Serves you right." sighed Amelia.
"You mentioned that already..." humphed Naga, as she painfully got up from the ground...
"You left out Dragon Spooker." added Luna with a mild smirk. "Poor Lord Milgasa, he's been ever so brave to put up with her all this time..."
"B-big sister..." cringed Lina. "N-not in front of the upstart, please..."
"Who's an upstart?" snarled Shantal.
At this point, her friend from before arrived, along with the rest of the crowd from the village. "Shantal! What's going on, oh by the GODS! Is this, is this... her???"
"Oh, Hya Linni-kins, yup, this is her. Didn't recognise her at first, she would prat on so about being a Sorcery Genius or something."
Lina growled dangerously. "You left out Beautiful..."
"Well, if you had just introduced yourself properly the first time as the "Enemy of All Who Live" I'd have gotten it right off." replied Shantal hotly. "Hmph, I mean,why d'ya think you've really been my hero all this time..." she added.
"What? Your hero?" said a slightly startled Lina. Oops, musn't lose the fan base...
"Hey Linni! Now you can answer the question we always had!" enthused Shantal, brightening suddenly.
"W-we did?" asked a perplexed Linni-kins. This was clearly news to her.
"Yeah!" smiled Shantal. "Which one of us is flatter, me or her? Her, right?" she asked, sticking her chest out.
Linni backed off as fast as she could as several sweatdrops rolled down her face. "Oh, nonononono! I have to work at the inn tonight, and we never had that question, you maybe, Shantal, but not me..."
"W.h.a.t...d.i.d...y.o.u...s.a.y...?" Lina asked very slowly, and very, very dangerously...
Luna stepped in and spoke to Linni-Kins. "You work at an Inn too, do you?" she smiled. "Are you a waitress?" she asked, putting her good arm around the young girl's shoulder and leading her out of the danger zone. The rest followed, Naga being dragged by Amelia who had somewhat of a deathgrip on her right ear...
"I.t.'s...o.b.v.i.o.u.s...I.'m...l.e.s.s...f.l.a.t...t.h.a.n...y.o.u...!" was Shantal's response, as she glared back at Lina.
"Uh, yeah, I'm a part time waitress when I'm not helping mom and dad at the grocery store. Uh, I'm, uh, well, heck everyone just calls me Linni, 'cause it's the short form, and yeah, pleased to meet you, Miss, um..." said Linni-kins with a smile to Luna.
Luna smiled back. "My mom and dad run a grocery store too." she said as they approached the house. "And I am also a part time waitress in Zephilia where we live. My name is Luna and I have the dubious distinction of being Lina's older sister. I think we are going to be good friends, Miss Linni."
"Get in, get in, the house has fire proof spells around it." warned an anxious Anesha as she waved everyone inside. "The poor trees..." muttered Gary, sadly...
There were times when you stopped Shantal, and times when you picked up the pieces afterwards...
Soon everyone, villagers included, was inside and the tea was being brewed. And just in time too.
Lina had given a howl of rage and began to glow red. Shantal had followed suit
"We'll see about that!" shouted Lina. "FIREBALL!!!"
Alas, Shantal had realised Lina was about to toss some sort of a spell her way and also had charged up her own spheroid of flames. She cast it at the same instant Lina threw hers...
The resulting explosion actually left a crater in the ground and hurled the two combatants several feet in uncontrolled flight. They both managed to cast a Raywing and get under control before they actually crashed, but it was a near thing.
"Gyah! Don't you know better than to cast two fireballs at the same time ya dumb kid!" shouted Lina as she touched down again.
"I threw mine first, old lady!" responded Shantal, as she also reached the ground.
"And do you know what this Old Lady says to that?" shrieked Lina. "Flare Arrow!" she cried launching a firey shaft at the rival. Being magical it quickly divided into several arrows of fire.
"Bomb Di Wind!" responded Shantal, letting loose a veritable punch of air that scattered the fire darts, sending them careening all over the place to start lots of little fires when they landed"
"Bloody hell..." said Lina to herself. " She does know a trick or two..." Despite herself, she smirked. The kid might actually be good. But, of course, you didn't hear that from her...
She reached down deep and called up not one but two spells. "Fireball, Mono Volt!" she commanded releasing the two spells in rapid succession.
Shantal screamed and dropped flat. The two spells sped over her and smacked against the shielding spells of the house.
"Oops..." said an embarassed Lina.
"MY HOUSE!" yelled Shantal in horror. It was one thing if she burned it up, of course, and quite another thing for some miserable stranger to do it, after all...
She jumped up and glared at Lina. "Dug Haut!" she commanded, slamming her hand onto the ground.
Lina merely countered that one by levitating and observing that Shantal's spell was weak, the spikes leaping from the ground were small and very rounded.
"Ha, not gonna skewer too may people with those things." she chortled unkindly.
Shantal frowned and unleashed a spell of her own making. "Sky Rockets in Flight!"
Lina yelped as she immediately found herself surrounded by a noise, mostly harmless, but very distracting display of bright fireworks like explosions, star bursts, roman candles, and even a rather impressive pinwheel.
"Grrr." she growled, snuffing a sizzling fragment out as it tried to light her sleeve. She turned a frowning face to her opponent, only to realise the kid was loosing her own Flare Arrow.
Damn, they hurt, the youngster had been more successful distracting her with the fire works than she had realised. Well, time to get serious...
She didn't want to kill the kid, so "Digger Bolt" tempting as it was, was out. But what could she use? She rotated to the right fast to avoid another fireball. "Damn, the girl child is fast, good thing her aim is off..." she thought to herself.
Lina decided to buy some time and took advantage of the fact she was air born. She started circling rapidly and doing some aerobatics just to keep Shantal's aim off. And it worked too. There were howls of frustration as the girl found herself unable to track Lina and lob a spell at her. She made a couple of attempts to use more fireworks but Lina was able to just fly out of those.
Lina had her own worries though. She knew she could just pop off some almighty spell and end the fight, but this was one fight where obliteratin her opponent was so not an option. But she had the major problem of not knowing what this Shantal person really could do. She had a feeling the girl was still in the "Gee Wizz!" phase of magic and had laid up an impressinve supply of half ready attack spells, but would likely not have much at hand in the way of defence. So, she had to stick to the basics and keep it simple. Right, she couldn't blast her way out of this big time, so she'd need to use precision...
How boring...
Lina readied a fireball and did a few more loops and twists. Suddenly she dove down and released the fireball at the last second. Shantal gave a scream as the fireball burst on the ground beside her, though whether it was pain or rage, Lina wasn't sure. But Shantal's next spell let Lina know that Shantal had at least taken it personally...
And that Lina had better take her very seriously...
Shantal chanted something, Lina wasn't sure what but from the look on the girls face it was going to be big. Lina shot up into the air. She had a bad feeling about this...
Shantal glared at her and cast. "Burst Flare!"
"The hell?" screamed Lina, kicking it into overdrive and climbing as fast as she could. The spell followed her up as high as it could, hung a second or two then exploded into tongues of blue fire. Lina was fortunatlely out of range, and the explosion happened in the air so nothing was hurt, but Lina was mad now. And a bit frightened, that was a fatal spell! She zoomed down.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!" she shouted at her opponent. "You trying ta kill me kid? I've been going easy up till now, but you just asked for a world of hurt."
"Ah, you don't scare me that easily, old lady." retorted a rather mouthy Shantal.
"You better look to your protection spells then." warned Lina. She zoomed around once more, then landed on the ground several feet away from Shantal. She looked at her opponent. "All this over a dragon that isn't yours to have? What's really going on here?" she demanded.
Meanwhile, in the house, most of the crowd were jostling for space at the window. One man said "Wowee! Now that's a fight! First rate entertain... uh, sorry Anesha, I was just being analytical..."
"Analyse this!" Anesha snapped, as she also snapped a headlock on the man...
Back on the field Shantal explained "What's going on? HA! I'm a powerful mage in my own right, I deserve to have my very own dragon, and my parents don't take me seriously. No one does! Once they see me riding my dragon after I defeat you they will have to." she snarled, locking eyes with Lina in a staring contest. Naturally, she couldn't stare down Lina Inverse, but Lina's eyes were starting to water before she younger girl blinked...
"That's a golden dragon, kid." said Lina a bit more softly. "His name is Milgasa, and no one owns him but himself. Even if you could, beating me won't get you anywhere with him."
Heck, maybe this upstart would listen to reason?
"Doesn't matter." replied a defiant Shantal. "He sees me defeat you and he's gonna know I'm a force to be reconned with!"
Lina took that as a "No..."
After some more staring the combatants made ready to go at it again. Shantal opened with another fireball. This time Lina dug into her repertoir of lesser used spells and came up with a classic "White Serpent" defence. "Freeze Bullet!" she cast. The fireball sizzled and went out as the counter spell slammed into it. Lina was hot under the collar though, she just knew Naga was going to say something...
And sure enough, in the house... "Well, looks like she learned something in her travels with me after all..." the taller of the two sisters Seirune smirked.
"Big Sister! Enough!" commanded Amelia as she gave a wary glance at Miss Luna. Fortunately the Knight was giggling with Linni-kins over some sort of restaurant joke about a waitress named Flo and her dashing diner, and didn't appear to hear Naga's rather rude comment.
Still, she was an Inverse, and if Lina was anything to judge by...
"Oh! Shantal doesn't give up does she?" said someone and all attention went back outside.
Not to be out done Shantal had just summoned a lesser demon...
"YOU STUPID IDIOT!" screamed Lina. "You can't control that thing!" She hurriedly chucked a medium intensity fireball at the furry hellspawn and blasted it back to the astral plain.
"COULD TOO AND WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN IDIOT, IDIOT?" replied Shantal just as angrily. With a determined look she summoned another one.
"Fine! Prove it." snarled Lina as she levitated again and backed off. Hell, these things were easy enough to summon, but controlling them was hard even for a master mage. No way this kid was gonna..."
"Lina Inverse is your target, slave. Attack!" commanded Shantal in an imperious tone. The monster blinked, looked confused, then turned and advanced on Shantal with a snarl. Lina laughed, but made ready with an Elemicia Lance...
Shantal snarled too and leaped up high. "Demon Tamer Punch!" she shouted and smacked the beast upside the head.
Anesha glowed with pride and Gary enthused "She's getting the hang of it!" Amelia's jaw dropped then she turned to Naga and said "Daddy has to see that!" Her sister blanched and gulped. "Isn't he scary enough already?" she moaned quietly.
The Lesser demon howled in surprise, then, as Shantal's fist cocked back for round two it spun around...
AND HEADED STRAIGHT FOR LINA!!!
"What the hell???" gasped a startled Sorcery Genius, forgetting until the last second possible to cast the Lance. The creature dissappeared, but Lina got spattered. Messy...
Far worse, Shantal hadn't wasted her time. As the monster exploded a swarm of Flare Arrows came through and caught Lina dead on. Luckily Lina had a defensive spell or two she kept permanently "on" but this rank amature was getting too reckless. She had to be stopped, now. Lina frowned with determination.
Shantal taunted her."Told you I had bigger boobs! Comes with greater magic ability you know."
Now that was just dirty. Lina glared, the anger in her building.
Shantal didn't let up. "Come on. You are supposed to be so great, you are supposed to be all powerful, a destroyer of demons even. Is this all ya got, old lady?" she taunted. "Ha! I just thought of a new rhyme for you. Enough with the "Little Girl, Flat Chest, Spooked a Dragon from its nest" routine. Let's try something like "Lina Inverse, weak and saggy, now she's just a flat old lady!"
This was topped off with an evil giggle...
Anesha heard that and gasped in horror that Shantal would be so mouthy. This was bad, even for her. "I'll get the soap." offered Gary. "Make it two bars, that's one dirty mouth we gotta clean." his wife replied.
"Oh NO! Pink Swirls!" gasped Amelia.
"Dragon Slave!" shouted Gourry, Zel, Sylphiel, and Naga, all at the same time.
Milgasa, who had been sitting by quietly got up looking a bit scared.
"Let me out! Let me out, I have to stop..." shouted Luna as she jostled her way to the door.
Too late. Lina, forgetting herself, gave Shantal a strange, dangerous smile and said "More power, eh? Try this..."
She cocked her hand back and commanded "Instant Dragon Slave!" then tossed the instantly generated, but somewhat weaker version of her dreaded signature spell at Shantal.
Weak being a relative term, of course, it was still a Dragon Slave after all...
A hugh pink explosion dug up ground rocks, trees, and even moved the magically protected house several yards off of it's foundation with a BIG BANG!
"CERN!" said someone in the house when it stopped rocking.
"Language!" warned Anesha...
As the pinkish mushroom cloud dissipated and people could see again the first thing that was evident was that there was now a hugh crater where the lawn and the garden used to be.
And Lina was floating there, looking triumphantly at Shantal, who was lying on the ground at the edge of the pit.
The crowed gasped, then the Junior petite mage lept up and started crying "Foul! Foul!! Lina Inverse cheats!!!"
That was as far as she got before her mother's patented DX headlock brought her back to reality."Not the soap. Not the soap..." she gasped in horror, real tears coming to her eyes.
Lina laughed in triumph, until she became aware of...
"L-L-Luna..." she gasped, turning several shades of pale and collapsing to the ground in fright at the feet of her clearly angry sister.
"Of all the stupid and irresponsible things you have ever done Lina Inverse, this stunt takes the cake." snarled the elder Inverse sister, apparently forgetting Lina's recent change of name.
"I have tried to be nice to you and show both mercy and restraint for all these years, but this is just too much." she went on, sounding like the Knight of Cephied. "Really, I just yelled at you for giving me pneumonia when you tried to cure me with "Recovery". I teased you on purpose about that "Lina the Pink" dress you were so proud of so you'd take it off before people saw it and really did get the wrong impression. I apologised profusely for the slug incident. I dealt with you privately over "Deadwater Bay", and I even showed you mercy when you begged so much at the Shadow Projection punishment. What's more I even forgave you for that and though I may have teased you one last time, I gave up that hair brush and all it's symbolic attachments to you at your wedding! And now this!"
There was something about the way she spat out "this" that caused the trembling Lina to start turning into multicoloured jelly...
"You risked the life of a child for acting like a big brat, just like you did at the same age, and do now, for that matter. You destroyed the property of these people and blew their house off the foundation. You even endangered the lives of everyone in the immediate area!" she shouted.
"Yep sounds like Lina..."said Zel, helpfully as they stood around watching Lina squirm...
"That does it Lina. So help me you are going to get it now. This time, I'm really going to do IT!" Luna bellowed at her sister. Gourry frowned and moved into a defencive position between the two sisters. "Leave her alone Luna, you promised..."
Luna laughed evily. "I'm going to do it, Gourry, and there is nothing you can do to stop me..."
"Nonononononono! Please Luna, no, don't do it..." sobbed a pitiful and repentant sounding Lina as she fell on her face before her sister. Gourry looked worried and frowned up at Luna.
Luna glared at her sister. "This is long over due Lina. This time you're getting it. This time..."
Lina bega to panic...
"I'M TELLING MOM!!!" shouted Luna.
Gourry looked confused, then got knocked flat on his face as the shockwave from Lina's scream of terror hit him like a moving wall of air.
Which it was, of course.
Being a shockwave and all...
As they stood there watching Lina run around Luna asked, in a puzzled voice, "So, is this another "JUst do it. sis" moment?
"Far worse, actually." said Zel in a matter of fact voice as he watched the temple complex of four pyramids in a square with a central cathedral rise from the ground.
"Yes, definitely." added Amelia. "She settled for a single pyramid complete with ornate sarcophagus" that time."
"Oh. Is she turning the crater into an ampitheater?" asked Gourry as Lina tackled the hole in the ground.
"Looks like it, does she expect funerary games or something?" asked a puzzled Sylphiel.
Anesha came up, wiping some of the soap off of her hands...
"And what am I supposed to do with a major temple complex complete with battle arena?" she sighed.
"Actually, Ms. Anesha, we'd like to talk with you about this." said a man, obviously a merchant from the village, as he and some others joined the gang that was watching Lina's paniced building efforts.
Anesha sighed. "I'm listening..."
"Well," the man said, "the world doesn't need just another battle arena, there are ampetheaters and coliseums enough in this world for those who swing swords, but, and here's the brilliant part that I thought of, there are not very many places for magic users to engage, and none that are set up for the public to come and watch."
"Point, please." sighed Anesha.
"Well, my colleagues and I feel that if you will lease this complex to us, we can set up a rather lucrative business by slapping a dome of protection spells over the top of this battle arena and letting mages do battle inside it. It would be a Magical Battle Arena!" the man enthused.
"Hmmm..." said Anesha, thinking about it.
"A lease is fine but don't forget the temple tax on the gate reciepts, this is holy ground after all" smiled Gary, who had been standing there silently all the time.
There was a mild groan from the merchants.
"And the concessions!" enthused Anesha with a grin.
A loud groan...
"Well, we need some too." replied one of the merchants. "Three concessions for you, that should be enough, surely."
"Seven!" countered the priestess.
The men looked distressed.
Gary stepped in. "Lets cut to the chase, 5 concessions, and 10 percent of the gate, a standard tithe."
The merchants breathed more easily.
Anesha grinned grimly. "Oh, and Shantal, she gets a piece of this too."
"Wh-what piece?" asked one of the merchants warily.
"She gets to clean up afterwards." Anesha said with a cackling laugh. Gary chortled too. Shantal wasn't there, but one could only guess how she would react to that one...
"Done, but we get to name it, for marketing purposes." said the merchant who had been doing most of the talking. Heck, he recognised a good deal when he heard it. Anesha was obviously in a generous mood today.
"Let's hear the name first." said Anesha.
The merchants conferred. "Battle Arena is just a description, how does Magical Battle Arena sound?"
"Kind of lame..." said another one.
While they discussed it, Lina set the last capstone on the last pyramid, and, looking paler than pale, slunk off to have a good cry. Gourry joined her. By now Luna and the others were trying to use levitation to raise the house back on the foundation...
A merchant said "Well, look. Let's be realistic, one of the things that made this so exciting was the fact it was two girls going at it. Hey, sex sells. Now I'm not advocating a smutty title or dancing girls, but something feminine should be worked in to it. like "Girl's Arena" maybe?"
"Girls battle area?" suggested one.
"Girls Battle Arena." corrected another.
"Nice but lacking something." said a third.
They hummed and hawwed. Anesha sighed. "Come on, go to the obvious, ya twits. "Magical Girl Battle Arena" works, get a clue."
The merchants brightened up and agreed. With that the deal was struck and everything was set up to go to the lawyers in the morning...