~* SLAYERS: FALLEN STARS *~

Miss me? Yeah, I do too. It's back to school time in my little corner of the retail world, which means tons of parents scrambling around with whiny kids in tow to buy last minute school supplies and uniforms. They do standardized dress in public schools around here, which is a real bitch because the dumb schools keep changing the colors of the shirts the kids are allowed to wear, as if it'll make kids smarter by wearing the right shirt. Yeah, real stupid...Can you say mindless collective everyone? In case you haven't noticed, I'm very anti-public education. I've had enough of it in my younger years to thoroughly traumatize me. I won't bore you with the details.

This chapter would've been up a few days earlier, but we had a little incident at home that put my dad on edge, as if this neighborhood wasn't dangerous enough. Lets just say that when the police came to investigate it, he told us about a major meth bust that was about to go down later that night a couple of streets over. Sigh...this is why I dream of moving to the country and living like a pioneer, seriously! Plus, all the business at work got to me the last couple of days, turning me into a real grumpy butt (still kinda am), but its all good now!

Anyways, enough of my boring life/sarc. Enjoy!

Chapter 37: Hunger, Heart Pains, and Laughter

Lina stared down the old man for another minute before she spoke again. "Oh, I get it," she taunted as she lifted her hands in a shrug, "You're more afraid of those monsters than you are of me."

"What are you doing, Lina?" Torrin said in a light urgent tone. "We're not here to hurt anyone, remember?"

She kept her eyes on the old man as she answered him. "Save me the lecture, Egan. These dolts who think they're doing themselves a favor by refusing help when they actually need it are deserving everything they're getting."

"Lina…" Alyssa said softly. She understood what she was getting at but did not think it proper to throw that in the faces of these desperate people.

Another man from the tables quickly stood up. "What do you know, Lina Inverse? We've had outside help before, and all they did was take what we offered then left after one lousy fight! We thought the mayors and other officials in this region were crazy when we heard they hired you! You're idea of help would involve blowing everything we had sky high with that Dragon Slave of yours!"

As many other townspeople chimed in agreement, everyone could see the vein on Lina's forehead that had been developing throughout the day start pulsating as she was being verbally smacked. Hunger was not becoming of her.

"Care to repeat that last bit?" She lifted a clenched fist. "Speaking of sky high, I can give you a tour of the peninsula and the Demon Sea right now!"

"Well, he's got a point," said Zelgadis irritatingly. "I told you we should've just left. If they want to deal with their problem alone, we should let them!"

"I'm really hungry too, Lina," added Gourry, "But I don't really want to fight a bunch of people just to eat."

The armored men came closer, causing them to back away towards the door, but Lina hardly budged.

"C'mon, Lina!" Filia begged. "Let's just go!"

"You know, camping in the woods doesn't sound like a bad idea," Jean suggested nervously.

"Let it go, Lina," Samira urged.

Lina ignored them and stood her ground. She was going to get food.

She lowered her hand and felt the familiar itch of a fire spell coming on. "Go ahead," she taunted some more, "make me. I dare you."

The old man motioned the armored guards to go after her. Lina lifted her hand to throw a powerful fireball, but as it left her hand, someone from behind grabbed her waist and darted out the door just in time to escape the massive smoke and heat from the blast.

She fought those arms the whole way, flailing her legs and yelling obscenities, but they refused to let go until they were outside of the city walls. Then Lina pushed them away and stumbled to the ground.

Everyone was panting very hard on the side of the road from running such a long way, and Torrin was the only one who had enough breath to say anything.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he yelled raggedly. "You could've seriously hurt someone back there! Its not like they're bandits or anything! They're just scared villagers!" He took a big breath. "And for someone who's desperate to eat, you have an awful lot of energy to be kicking and screaming like that!"

"Well, I didn't ask you to carry me out of there, Egan!" Lina yelled back.

"Well, thankfully, I wasn't the one who did!" he corrected her.

She looked at him blankly for a moment.

"You shouldn't kick so hard, Lina! That hurt!" Gourry managed to say as he got his breath back.

Lina blushed at the sound of his voice and quickly turned around. He was rubbing the parts of his legs where he had been kicked.

"Ugh! Sit down, Jellyfish!" Trying to ignore the shaking in her voice from embarrassment, she forced him down on the edge of the road to heal his soreness before they formed bruises. "You should've let go of me once we were out of that restaurant!"

"But then you would've just ran back in," Zelgadis complained, still trying to catch his breath.

"Will you guys get off my back already!" Lina sighed as she concentrated on Gourry's legs. "Lecturing isn't gonna fill my stomach!"

"Be glad that Amelia isn't here. She really would've given you a lecture!" he said.

"Can we just stop arguing and find a place to camp for the night?" Filia asked. Val had become very excited during the ordeal, but now that it was over, he began fussing again, this time out of hunger, and began pulling on Filia's dress.

Torrin straightened up a took a good look around. "At least this place is familiar. We're getting close to Dimos territory. I can find a good camping spot, no problem."

Zelgadis looked around as well. "I didn't realize we were so close to the Kataart Mountains. Must be because of all the running around we've done in the last two weeks. I'm not used to traveling around so fast."

"We're near the Southeastern corner of the range, but the mountains themselves are still pretty far away. I often passed by this place on my travels. There." Torrin pointed to a notch in a distant hillside circled by trees. "That should keep us from getting too cold at night, and there's plenty of wood lying around."

"But there's no food," Lina pointed out. She finished with Gourry's leg and got up. "What are you going to do about food?"

"What am I going to do? I'm not your errand boy, Lina." Torrin was trying hard not to lose his temper again.

"But you're the fastest one here," she said. "It should be your job!"

"And where do you expect us to find any?" Jean asked, sounding very tired, almost whiny. "Almost everyone around here knows what we look like."

"I guess I could go a little farther North and restock," Torrin sighed. He looked over to Filia who was attempting to calm Val down. "Will you be okay, if I left for a couple of hours?"

She saw the worry written all over his face and knew she was the only reason why he was hesitant to leave. "I'll be fine as soon as I can get a chance to feed Val," she reassured him.

"I'll go with you," Samira said to Torrin. "I'm sure you'll need a second pair of eyes to look for good bargains."

"Good." Then he turned to Jean. "Make sure Miss Filia is well taken care of, okay?"

He perked up a little. "Don't worry, I won't let anyone touch her," he said confidently.

Gourry got up from the ground and offered to take Val off of Filia's hands, his injuries already forgotten. "And I'll make sure this little guy lets Mommy take it easy."

Filia could not help but giggle at his comment and handed the hatchling over.

Torrin allowed himself to relax a little more. Then he happened to catch Lina watching Gourry, like she was in another world and had forgotten what they were in the middle of doing.

"Lina, you ready?" he asked.

"Yeah-yeah, I'm okay. Lets get moving," she said, pretending like she was still concerned only with herself. "After all this running, I can use some definite laying around time. We still got plenty of daylight left."

They had a nice campfire going by about sunset with a couple of tents and bedrolls around it, just in time before a cool North wind began blowing in from the distant mountains.

Filia fed Val in the privacy of one of the tents, then let Gourry play with him some more until he got tired and fell asleep. Jean and Alyssa kept looking around for extra firewood as a way to keep busy while Lina and Zelgadis were tending the fire pit and keeping an eye out.

A couple of hours went by, and Zelgadis could tell Lina was getting moody again. She was relatively complacent while they set up camp, but when she sat still, her hunger pains became difficult to ignore as evidence by her squirming. There was not much else to do to keep her mind off of it, even watching Gourry making Val squeal to the point of spitting up his dinner did not seem to help.

When Jean felt he had collected enough wood, which turned into huge pile about half his size, he sat down besides Filia to keep an eye on her as promised. It was clearly an unnecessary precaution, but Zelgadis saw that underneath the determination to help, Jean was beginning to feel a little homesick. Filia was the only presence he was drawing any real comfort from, though Samira and Gourry had done what they could to help distract him as well during the last two weeks.

Lina could see it too, but with all the frustration she had been dealing with lately, she had not been able to put much effort into helping Jean. She knew the trip would wear him down no matter how good his survival skills he learned from his brothers and cousins may be, but at the same time, she also knew it would be one of the most important learning experiences of his life, as it was for her when she left home not much older than he was. However in this area of training him so far, she sucked, big time.

Hunger really does make me a bitch, doesn't it? Lina said to herself as she watched Gourry hand over the sleeping hatchling to Filia. Jean was asking her what kinds of food does Val like to eat and if he could feed the hatchling during his next meal. The whole atmosphere over the course of the afternoon had changed from stressed to a more familial one.

It felt strangely comfortable to Lina, though the hunger pains did their best to make it as uncomfortable as possible. She sat back and continued observing them in fidgety silence forgetting that there was one other person missing from the group.

When Alyssa did not come back in the next few minutes, Zelgadis got up and left the safety of the fire circle to look for her.

She was leaning against one of the outer trees staring up at the sky watching the stars poke in one by one with her bundle of sticks beside her feet, looking even more troubled than before. Her skirt and her hair flapped about her like they had been thrown onto a statue. Zelgadis had never seen anyone stand so still before.

"You shouldn't wander off like that," he warned as he came up to her. "It'll make it easier for the monsters to attack you."

Alyssa remained stationary, alerted to his presence long before he spoke. "I wouldn't worry," she said quietly. "I could wipe them away with one hand, if I wanted."

"Does that mean your regaining you power?" he asked. Such power would have been a welcome addition to their arsenal, if it were not for one nasty catch.

"Most of my systems have been back online for a while, but…" she gave out a deep contemplating sigh, "Something's missing."

"Missing?" Zelgadis said curiously.

"I feel like an important part of me is damaged, gone, and something dark has taken its place."

It had become a growing concern to Alyssa after the last couple of weeks as she put Aldrich out of her mind and refocused on her task. This new problem put her in constant doubt in whether she would be able to fight Dark Star at all, or at least keep her new friends safe. She could not think of anything else.

Zelgadis took a different approach to what she said. "Hmm…" He cradled his chin. "A hole inside yourself filled with nothing but darkness. Sounds an awful lot like a broken heart."

It took a second for Alyssa to understand. "It does sound like one, doesn't it?" She smiled sadly. "It would make sense. I still miss him."

"Aldrich Gates." The revulsion was evident in his voice. "It might be for the best." Despite having nothing but a bad feeling to go by, Zelgadis never felt like he could trust the man, and it was a great relief when he left.

"I don't know." She finally turned her head towards him. Her voice took on a slightly romantic tone. "A part of me regrets being away from him. When we were close, we felt drawn to each other, like we were each other's missing piece. I don't know if that makes any sense."

"First love has that effect on people," he said. "Its tough to forget. I've seen it a hundred times."

"So have I, but…" Alyssa stopped in the middle of her sentence, then her smile turned a little mischievous. "What about your first love?" she asked almost pryingly.

The question caught Zelgadis a little off guard, and he fidgeted, feeling his face grow warm. "U-uh well, th-that's um, I…rather not talk about it," he half-mumbled.

Her smile fell. "…Oh."

She had a good idea why. All she had to do was look at him.

"L-let's join the others," he said while offering his hand. When she bent down to get the wood she collected, he stopped her. "Jean collected more than enough, so don't worry about that."

Alyssa took his hand and felt sadness crawl up her arm like little cold fingers. Pokota had the same affect on her the day they left. It was a different kind of sadness mixed with jealousy and worry.

She tugged back Zelgadis' hand. "Its Amelia, isn't it?"

He had almost forgotten she could read his emotions and attempted to let go, but she held on insistently. She wanted an answer.

"Yes," he finally said after a few moments.

"Do you regret leaving Amelia behind?" she asked.

"A little," he admitted. "Amelia…she seemed okay with it after we talked, but its probably just a cover. And… As much as she had to do at home, I'm beginning to wonder if she would've been more useful here."

"That's not it," Alyssa said seriously.

Zelgadis looked at her. "What do you mean?"

She squeezed his hand. "You and Pokota, you both love her, and you're both scared of losing her."

He felt his heart rise up to his throat at her comment but remained outwardly cool. "I wouldn't say scared."

"Then what would you call it?" she gently pressed, seeing right through him.

He did not want to get into this. "Look, we need to get back-"

"-You need to be careful," Alyssa advised. "She's only doing what you tell her to because she loves you."

"I'm not telling her what to do!" he argued. "Even if I was, she can still do what she wants!"

"And she wants to be with you," she added. "I know I haven't known both of you for very long, but its hard not to notice that your doing everything you can to drive her away."

Zelgadis stiffened and looked away. He hated how Alyssa can suddenly act so damn mature out of nowhere. There's no way I'm driving her away by keeping her safe. Amelia understands.

Deciding to stay behind after all was the logical choice, Amelia knew that. She was not the type to just suddenly give up just because things got difficult. The only thing that bothered him was the possibility of Pokota pulling something, but it was ultimately just a last ditch effort to warm up to the princess before he lost her for good. There was nothing that stuffed animal could do to change Amelia's mind.

With his justifications all lined up in his mind, Zelgadis was about to respond to Alyssa's last comment when they heard shouting coming from the camp.

Alyssa's body tingled from the negative energy laying over her like a blanket, and it made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

Zelgadis tightened his grip on her hand pulled her into the trees. "C'mon!"

They got there within a few seconds just in time to see Lina hurl an Elmekia Lance at a shadowy blob that appeared to have tentacles. It missed, and the blob shot back at lightening speed forcing her to duck behind a tree at the other side of the camp with Gourry following behind.

Another monster more human looking but with a putrid lavender tint to his face and arms and blocky geometric armor was harassing Filia and Jean making sure they could not come to Lina's aid.

Zelgadis had a straight shot at his back. He shoved Alyssa behind him. "Stay there."

Taking out his sword and raising it, he cast an Astral Vine and charged at the purple monster. Filia saw what he was doing and grabbed Jean as she got out of the way.

The purple monster turned almost too late but managed to dodge, and it quickly recovered. Then it pulled a blocky looking sword out of nowhere began swinging at Zelgadis.

Alyssa took a good look around to see if there were more, and sure enough, she saw several pairs of eyes peering between the trunks, as if waiting for any one of them to step away from the safety of the fire light. There was also something very odd about the light and the surrounding landscape. It seemed very dull and lifeless like there was some sort of odd grey film covering everything.

This is…another dimension! Alyssa backed away towards a large trunk hesitantly watching everyone fighting and wondering if she should do something.

She raised her hand slightly, then Zelgadis shouted above the clanging of swords, "Don't do anything! We don't need anymore trouble!'

"But, I can't just-!"

"-Trust me, we can handle this! Stay out of it!" he ordered.

Lina was relieved to see the both of them make it back to camp, meaning she could concentrate on herself now. She saw a few more oddly shaped figures appear amongst the trees, but they did not move. The tentacle monster was still lashing his limbs about making it near impossible for her and Gourry to move away from their tree.

Then she thought of something.

"Hey, Gourry! Do you have that Blast sword with you?"

"Of course I do!" he said.

"This would be a pretty good time to pull it out!" she said with frustration.

"Oh, right!"

He pulled it out and began swiping at the darting tentacles. They were hard to see, since they were so quick and blended into the oncoming night, but he eventually landed one. The monster screeched in pain.

Heartened by that sound, Gourry jumped out and cut down the other tentacles one by one, until he reached the head and sliced from the neck diagonally down the torso, cutting the monster in half. It disintegrated along with its screams.

"Good going Jellyfish!" Lina cheered, then she suddenly yelled out, "Watch out, Gourry!"

One of the other monsters hidden in the trees leaped out laughing manically as it drunk in the agony of its fellow monster and came after him. Lina aimed another Elmekia Lance right before it could touch Gourry, so he could have enough time to land a fatal blow.

More laughing came out of the dark.

Lina scrambled out from behind her tree to cover Gourry's back just in case anymore attacked. They still did not move.

"What's going on?" she asked no one in particular, then looked up.

Another shadowy figure of a more familiar shape flew above the clearing across the darkening sky.

Lina smirked. "Its about time!"

Filia tightened her hold on Val who was wide eyed and crying while guiding Jean into the trees, not realizing that they had been surrounded until an odd clownish looking monster with big hands reached out and tried to grab them. Filia's pendant immediately blocked it, and an echoing voice came from the monster's big mouth.

"What~ is~ this~?" it cried out. "Wait…~ Its~ you~." Its fat lips grinned widely. "The~ dragoness~."

"Try all you want, you're not touching her!" Jean warned shakily with his cutlass as his face paled.

"Try~ me~." The clownish monster taunted.

Filia pulled Jean closer, fearing not only he would do something stupid, but also the off-chance of casual contact which Xellos warned her about. "What are you doing? Don't provoke him! They can't touch me anyway!" she half lied.

Jean ignored her pleas and threw up his left hand. "Flare Bit!"

A small ball of light came down on top of the monster and burst into dozens of smaller balls of light that exploded leaving clouds of thick smoke.

"C'mon!" he said pulling on Filia's hand.

They managed to get only a few yards before the monster got in their path with three more slithering out and surrounding them.

The clownish monster laughed. "You~ think~ you~ can~ hurt~ me~ with~ a~ little~ smoke~, do~ you~?"

Jean clenched his cutlass, too scared to say anything else.

"Go~ ahead~, try~ it~ again~." More laughter from all the monsters followed.

He simply stared at him, not moving.

Filia quickly wrapped an arm around him. "Put your sword down! You can't touch them with that!"

"She's~ right~. It~ will~ take~ more~ than~ a~ small~ blade~ to~ harm~ me~," the monster goaded.

"Then try this on, for size!"

It turned at hearing the voice just as one of Samira's curved blades, fueled by her green stone necklace, came across its neck. The others broke their circle around Filia and Jean and came after her, but in an amazing display of acrobatics, she detached a few of their limbs rendering them temporarily useless.

When she was done, Samira sheathed her swords and quickly turned around. "Now!" she shouted.

She grabbed both Filia and Jean and pulled them to the ground right before a stream of what looked like black plasma came out of the dark and annihilated all four of the monsters.

"Follow me," she said urgently.

Then Samira took them into the fire circle where they found Lina, Gourry, and Alyssa waiting and carefully keeping their eyes on the dark spaces between the trunks while Zelgadis dealt a final blow to another hooded monster before joining the others.

As Filia entered the circle, a pair of hands grabbed hold of her arms startling her.

"You okay?" Torrin asked as he brought her closer to him.

"Torrin," she breathed in relief. "What took you two so long?"

"It takes skill to stretch what little money we had." He patted a very full satchel hanging by his side. "You can thank us later."

"Torrin noticed the astral rift all of you were sucked into when we got closer, so we went around for a sneak attack," Samira explained.

The laughing around them grew louder, and they all huddled closer together with their backs against each other in anticipation of another attack. Jean, though still very pale, managed to control his shakes a little more and remained by Filia's side. Little Val was crying very hard and was reaching over Filia's shoulder for Torrin who put an arm around to give him comfort.

"Wait, you can see into the astral world without actually being in it?" Lina quickly asked Torrin.

"Only when there's a rift, like Samira mentioned. I can even enter one. However," his eyes darted around as the laughing became very obnoxious like bad music playing at full volume, "I can't open one at will or leave once I enter like a monster, which is very unfortunate at the moment!"

"I'll say!" Zelgadis was the first to put his hand over his ears because of their sensitivity.

Gourry put his fingers in his, but kept a careful grip on his sword. "I don't know about you, but this is definitely not funny!"

"That's for sure!" said Jean, covering his own ears. "They don't have a very good sense of humor, do they?"

"Say, Filia!" Lina yelled above the noise. "How come you never told me you could see into astral rifts?"

"I can't!" she answered as best she could. "The only other dragon race that could were the Ancient Dragons!"

"Can we continue this some other time? We need to find a way to get out of here!" said Samira.

"Anyone got any suggestions?" Zelgadis asked. He took a quick look at Alyssa and noticed that the noise did not seem to phase her at all, but she still looked terrified.

"None!" Gourry answered.

Lina knew that this was turning into a very bad situation for them to be holding a conversation, but she was getting very curious. "But I want to know why a magical lightweight like the Dimos can do it too?"

"I resent that!" Torrin shouted as he plugged his ears.

Filia let Val bury his head in her cloak as she held one hand to one ear and her other ear against Torrin. "They make up for it by having a very high resistance to most magic! Its what gives them unusual physical strength! They only have a few vulnerable spots!"

"Like where?" Lina asked.

"I don't think this is the time to discuss my weaknesses, Lina!" Torrin warned.

"Aaargh! Make it stop!" Jean pleaded to no one in particular.

Then everything went silent, leaving a horrible ringing in everyone's ears.

"Well, that was fun!" a lone deep voice chuckled.

There was a low rumble of vicious giggles.

"Show yourself!" Lina demanded.

Velcarr phased in right in front of her like she requested. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Lina Inverse."

"And who are you?" she asked, not bothering to be polite.

He kept a smile on his face and gave a very gentlemanly bow. "They call me Velcarr."

"Velcro? What kind of name is that?" Gourry randomly asked.

Velcarr's eyebrow twitched horribly at the butchering of his name but remained calm as he adjusted his spectacles. "Its Velcarr. And I have a request, if you don't mind. Well, more like a demand, actually."

"Sorry, but after what I've been through the last two weeks, I won't be doing any more requests or demands," Lina stated with disdain. "I can still end this real quick, if I had to, but we're saving our energy for only one guy, you understand."

"Lina, maybe we should at least hear what he has to say," Zelgadis suggested. "We don't have much else to go on right now."

"I'm with him," said Gourry. "Going with Velcro has to be better than staying here."

"Its Velcarr!" The monster raised his voice, losing a bit of his composure before returning his attention to the sorceress. "So, what will it be, Lina Inverse? Stay here and fight until your exhausted as I continually send in reinforcements, or do as I say, and maybe get a shot at Lord Dark Star?"

She looked around at everyone. They all gave her a nod, including Alyssa who had a rare look of determination on her face. Lina signaled everyone to drop their guard as a sign of accepting Velcarr's proposal.

The monster's pleasantly evil smile returned. "Good. Now, remember, you must do exactly what I say, and when you're done, I'll give you the rest of your instructions."

In response to Torrin's last comment: We already know your weaknesses, Honey. Heheheh.

I had someone invite me to post my story on a Xellos/Filia site called Beloved Enemy. Its pretty cool, but small since they sadly lost much of their content through a forced change of address, including scans of a doujin I've been searching for. That actually made me want to cry. I'm a big fan of one of its collaborators that goes by the name Ly-Xu on Deviantart. If you haven't seen her art, and your a big Xel/Fi fan, you're missing out. I faved all of her stuff to my Deviantart account, including a few things from the doujin. Please go look at her stuff and go to Beloved Enemy and see what you can contribute to rebuild it. I feel really bad for their loss, and there's potential for it to become a great fan forum. Good fan forums are hard to come by, as it is.

Oh, and there seems to be some readers who are having a hard time keeping up with the OCs, and one of them requested that I do some sort of chart or bio with all their information. I might start posting some stuff at the end of the chapters here in the future. Also, when I start posting this elsewhere, like on a forum or my Deviantart account, I might do what some manga do and post the info at the beginning of each major story arc, adding characters and information as I go along.

Okay, wish me luck! I still have the rest of the weekend to get through before school officially starts! 9 to 12 hour days can easily wear a person's spirit down. We've already had a couple of cashiers breakdown when a customer decided to get nasty for no good reason. Its been about three years since the last time that happened to me, and I really don't want it to happen again anytime soon.

Oh, and Kuroneko-sama from Trigun has a special message for you: Review like your life depended on it! Nyaooo! ~NB~