Another Change
He stood in the wreckage of the caravan and looked about with satisfaction. Despair and pain wafted across the battlefield, and there were no other mazoku in the area to steal any of it away from him. His power was growing, and as his power grew, so would his mistresses. He glanced down at two of the unconscious refugees and smirked.
"These two will prove useful," he smiled picked them up and vanished.
The elf stopped on his patrol and glanced back for a moment. He could have sworn that he'd heard something, but there was nothing there but some shadows. He shrugged and went back on patrol. There was no way anybody could get past the outer patrols anyway. He glanced up at the overcast night sky and sighed, wondering if it was going to rain.
As soon as he passed three people seemed to appear. Jolrael just stepped forward, as if he had been there the entire time, just nobody noticed him. Xina and Xalan seemed to rise out of the shadow cast by the clouds overhead.
"They're lazy," a voice whispered deprecatingly. "Almost as bad as you Xina."
"Hey!" Xina's voice came in whispered gasp.
"I don't suppose it would do much good if I asked you to be quiet," Jol sighed. Xalan shrugged and Xina fumed. "Good, let's get this over with then." The twins vanished into the shadow at Jolrael's feet again, and again dropped away from all his senses. It was as if they didn't even exist in this world when they did that, sometimes it disturbed him.
Jolrael idly wondered how long Amethyst would be able to keep up the cloud cover before someone noticed that it was magical in nature. The swordsman strode absently through the tents, ignoring the people around him. Finding the Lord's tent was an easy undertaking, it was the largest in all the camp.
Jolrael stopped short of approaching it though. A patch of shadow thickened at his feet and Xina's head stuck out.
"What's the hold..." she sniffed the air, Xalan's head appeared along the otherside of Jolrael. He sniffed the air as well and sighed irritably.
"Mazoku," the three of them said at once. The kage-kitsune glanced around nervously for a moment before stepping out of the cloud's shadow again. Jolrael yawned and walked forward as the twins swept from shadow to shadow closer to the Lord Fimore's tent.
"...have been destroyed," a voice was saying.
"You can count on that," Jolrael, Xina and Xalan blinked as they recognized the voice. Xina cringed a little, thinking of various unsatisfactory encounters with the owner of that voice. "Have you found the ones I seek?"
"I am not your errand boy, dark one," the elf lord growled. "When the humans are gone you and I will meet over the field and I shall tear you asunder." Zangulus smirked.
"Until that time...we have a bargain," he smiled. "Now when you DO locate those half-breeds you might want to tell them a certain blue-haired nuissance might want to see them soon." Jol nearly charged forward then, but Xalan stopped him.
"You sound as if you don't trust my ability to hold them," the Elf Lord noted.
"I don't," Zangulus said simply. "I'll be doing some sentimental travelling now, I'm sure one of them will know the sight I first joined my mistress." The presence of the mazoku vanished then.
"He's got Tinuviel," Jolrael grabbed. "My sister was with her."
"Let's get back," Xalan whispered. "Maybe your parents know what he was talking about." Jolrael nodded and walked out of their concealing shadow passing in front of two guards that didn't seem to notice him. "That is REALLY nerve-wracking." Xalan added as he melded into the cloud's shadow.
"Why do I suddenly feel sorry for Zangulus?" Xina asked herself before joining her brother in the shadows.
Zangulus appeared in the ruin of an old building out in the middle of a huge lake filled with rubble. He smirked as he thought how his prey would come running to him. He had felt them watching, but there was no way he was going to try and take the three of them with the possibility of an elven backstab to worry about.
He opened a rickety door and felt a sudden wave of extreme cheerfulness. It almost dropped him to his stomach. Looking in on his two captives he was treated to the sight of the blue-haired elven girl playing pattycake with the little blonde human girl.
"Oh hello," Tinuviel said as Zangulus entered. "Don't I know you?"
"We met once before," Zangulus admitted, ignoring the cheerful girl. He strode to the circle of symbols he had drawn on the ground earlier. Funny he had thought that he had drawn them on the otherside of the building. "Your friends will be coming soon. When that happens I'll crush them totally and take the staff for my mistress. Enjoy these next few days girls, they'll be your last."
"Does this mean there will only be nights from now on?" Kyrie asked blinking. Zangulus stared.
"Oooo...How do you plan on blacking out the sun!?" The mazoku face-faulted.
"Nevermind," he sighed and got ready to enact the spell to prepare the trap. He gathered his mazoku power and....suddenly felt as if he was being torn into millions of pieces. As the miscast spell subsided the mazoku gasped for breath and glanced at the circle of symbols in confusion.
"Pink...flowers?"
"I guess I didn't quite get it right then," Tinuviel suggested. "How about this one?" Zangulus glanced up and watched in horror as the blue-haired elf traced out the mana pattern of a Ra Tilt, and then added a twist. When the resulting flash cleared all three them lay in the crater staring up swirlly eyed at the sky.
"What can you tell about her?" Lina asked Filia irritably.
"She's becoming a mazoku again," Filia said simply. "There's not much human left of her actually."
"Okay, so why is she dying then?" Lina asked shrugging. "Wait a minute, didn't Naga say she was eating to rival me?"
"Yes, I do believe she said that," Filia admitted. Neither of them were too happy about helping a former enemy, but former enemies had become allies in the past.
"I think I know the problem," Lina sighed and sat down on the ground outside the vacant inn. "She can't feed, so she's starving to death."
"But why wouldn't she be able to feed?" Filia asked, confused. "She is filled with mazoku power already, shouldn't she have developed the empathy."
"Hey, sword," Lina smacked Duofolger and growled.
~What is it?~
"Don't you usually have to destroy the mortal body to transform someone into a mazoku?"
~Yes..but I don't see..oh...you're saying this is an unnatural transformation.~
"Yeah, so why don't you finish her off, complete the transformation, and everything is back to normal."
~Can't do it,~ the sword noted reluctantly. ~Such abilities were taken from me long ago, even if I were released from this form I wouldn't have the ability.~
"Oh this is stupid," Lina growled. She walked over to the unconscious mazoku-human. "HEY WAKE UP!!" The girl didn't respond, Lina sighed and looked to Filia. "I have an idea, but..."
"But what? Lina-san," Filia repeated.
"Just how human is she?" Filia looked at her confused. "Is her blood still human?" Filia walked over and formed one of her fingers into a draconic claw. Slicing a straight line across the girl's flesh, releasing a thin stream of dark blood.
"Mostly, it would seem," Filia said. "Why, what is your plan?" Lina sighed and took one of her own claws to slash open Sherra's arm, being careful to miss any major blood vessels. After that Lina slashed a cut down her own arm and then matched the two cuts.
~What are you doing?~ Duofolger demanded. He could feel the bond to his mistress fading as her blood mixxed with Lina's. With the bond's fading the mazoku sword could feel himself being freed somewhat, but he wasn't certain if that was a good thing or not.
"Saving her life," Lina growled. "We can't complete the transformation, so we have to reverse it somehow."
"What do you mean reverse it Lina-san?" Filia asked, watching as Lina removed her arm and waited for it to heal. The dragon blinked as she looked at Sherra again and saw the traces of mazoku energy fade away. "She's..human? What did you do?"
"It'll be fairly obvious come nightfall," Lina said quietly. She glanced at the sword. "It was all I could do, and she'll still need to get something to eat soon. Sorry." The werefox walked into the tavern to go speak to the other were-creatures that had arrived to help them.
Duofolger felt himself freed as the power in Lina's blood completed its work. The blade's form shimmered and grew into a silver and white clad warrior. Filia blinked in surprise.
"How did you...!?" Filia growled. She had thought the sword was boound in that form.
"This means that Sherra will never be mazoku again," the former sword explained. He sighed and sat down next to her unconscious form. "I'm...free."
"I...see," Filia narrowed her eyes. "Try to behave, we DO now how to handle mazoku after all." Filia followed Lina's path into the tavern and sighed at the sight of Naga and Lina working to eat all the food the villagers had left behind.
"So what do I do now?" Duofolger asked the fainted Sherra.
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