Martina's Fall
"You're our creator?" Xina gasped.
"Yes," the blonde woman smirked, until a straight bolt of blue lightning struck the gray non-ground next to her. L-Sama glanced at where the lightning struck and sweated. Xina and Xalan edged close enough to see writing as the gray swirled around the writing. "That's odd, usually it's yellow."
"What's it say?" Xalan asked.
"'In a manner of speaking'" L-Sama read aloud. Her eyes narrowed as she considered something. "If I didn't know better..." The sound of another lightning bolt carried through the strange realm along with a shocked scream.
"What was that?" Xina asked nervously staring at the creator of her world.
"A white-haired joker." L-Sama smirked, crossing her arms as she stood up.
"Uh, Okay," Xina said setting her father's staff across her shoulders and wrapping her arms around it.
"No snappy quips?" L-Sama didn't seem to be in pain, despite the steady flow of golden blood from her body. "No superior, secretive smiles? A little nervous in front of the Lord of Nightmares. Though even your father was appropriately cowed before me." The blonde laughed. ~Until he died and became a real pain.~
"Is there anyway you can um, send us back home?"
"There's something I want you to do for me first," L-sama said softly with a hint of a teasingly cute whine. Xina and Xalan sweatdropped as the woman smirked and giggled.
"You have to ask us?" Xalan said blinking.
"No, I can force you to do pretty much anything I want you to do," L-Sama said. ~For the moment at least.~ "I just thought I'd have a little fun and try to convince you to do it. Or do you prefer to do it the hard way?" She smirked viciously at them. "I suppose I owe your father for this." She gestured at the bleeding hole.
"I seem to remember the alternative being the destruction of all four universes," another voice put in. L-sama rolled her eyes at the new arrivals.
"Dad!" Xina gasped. "This is..."
"The Lord of Nightmares," Xellos nodded from his perch in the tree that was just suddenly there. "And she hasn't let up on that little scratch for the last twenty years."
"That's our father?" Xalan asked. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Who's the woman?"
"Why Xalan-san?" Amelia said sweetly. "Don't I remind you of anyone you know?"
"Amethyst's mother?!" Xalan nearly shouted.
"Is the other guy here somewhere?" Xina asked glancing around.
"That's what we're here to talk about Xina-Chan," L-Sama smiled recovering from growling at Xellos. "Its part of that favor I was going to ask of you."
"Oh?" Xina asked nervously.
"You see there is this little battle going over the continued existence of the multi-verse," L-Sama said. "And I certainly agree with letting the multi-verse, and me coincidentally, continue existing. But since they choose my universe, me again, coincidentally, as their battleground, I feel I have to alter the plans just a little."
"And what does that have to do with us?" Xalan asked. L-Sama smiled and gestured to the souls of the dead Slayers.
"You're being sent to a battle you're expected to lose," Amelia informed them. "Sacrificed in the name of justice and all that is good in the world."
~Definitely Amethyst's mother.~ Xina and Xalan thought in unison.
"Which would be okay, if he were doing the sacrifice himself," Amelia clarified.
"Instead of my family," Xellos said irritably. Everybody looked at L-Sama.
"Hey," she shrugged, a little bored. "I just want to get a little bit of a revenge for setting this battle in my world."
"So what are we going to do?" Xina asked, glancing at the three spirits.
"We're going reroute the source of all things," L-Sama said casually.
"AAAHH!!!" Martina blinked out of the charging chimera's way. "You little brat, you almost ruined my hair!" Martina shouted from her position a few dozen feet up in the air. She brought her hands together and black bands of what seemed to be dark lightning coruscated across her body before launching at the chimera dodging below.
"In the name of all that is good I will take you down, monster!" Amethyst shouted, unaware that her mother's spirit was saying something similar at almost the exact same time. "Elmekia Lance!! Elmekia Lance!!" Martina cackled as the spirit blasts collided with a near-invisible shield.
"You'll have to better than that, little girl," Martina sniped. "In a matter of moments Zangulus is going to recover, I doubt your pet dragon will recover in that time. I don't think you can handle me alone, much less me and my general." Black bands of lightning flashed out from the green-haired menace ripping up clouds of dust as they traveled across the ground converging on Amethyst.
"Levitate!!" Amethyst shot into the sky and cut off the spell as she past the mazoku. She wanted to give a short speech, but she needed her voice for spell casting. The chimera pointed herself and her sword straight down at the floating mazoku. "BRAM BLAZER!!"
"What do you think you are doing?" Martina asked as a blast of blue power and energy slammed into her. The mazoku was slammed into the ground shortly before her shield gave way. She irritably reformed herself into standing as she looked to where her opponent was still falling, descent momentarily halted by her spell. "AAAHHH!!!"
Martina dodged out of the way of the blade and then growled at the chimera recovering from landing.
"You almost cut my hair again!!" Martina snapped.
"You mean like this?" Amethyst growled back. She snapped her hands together, sword temporarily embedded in the ground.
"What do you think you are doing?" Martina asked again.
"Bram Fang!" A blast of wind ripped past the mazoku's head. The demon felt something brush bast her skin and hesitantly reached a hand up to pat her bare head. She looked down to see her feet surrounded by green hairs which were rapidly dissipating into black energy.
"You, you...you BITCH!!" Martina snapped. "Bram Fang!!" The mazoku stared as a non-pulsed chimera let the wind blow past her "hair." Both noticed that the magical wind didn't even shift the strands of wire.
"Was that supposed to do something?" Amethyst asked dryly.
"This isn't fair!!" Martina whined stomping her feet.
"HA!! Justice is triumphant again!!" Amethyst declared loudly. "Elmekia Vine!!"
The chimera slashed out with her sword again, irritated as Martina ducked under the swing. Then the now-bald mazoku whipped up and slammed a fist into the surprised chimera. Amethyst had about two seconds of uncontrolled flight to think about what her mistake had been before she landed hard on the ground.
Amethyst was trying to shake her head clear when, and guage how far she had been thrown, when the wave of darkness ripped across the ground towards her. She whipped her arms forward and raised a field of power in front of the attack. The spell was easily overwhelmed and shattered, but Amethyst was already airborne by the time it had done so.
The ivory-skinned girl reached a hand under her tunic to discover that her stone flesh had actually cracked. She was even bruising a little. The princess swallowed and wondered what might have happened if Martina possessed a brain and knew how to do more than just randomly lash out. Speaking of the mazoku, Amethyst barely dropped out of the way as she felt the demon materialize behind her.
A blast of dark fire ripped over her head as she landed. Amethyst's response was a fireball into the loudly cackling demon. The chimera painfully sprinted across the battle field again trying to buy time and space while Martina was distracted by the fireball. She glanced at the stunned combatants and noted that Zangulus was moving, Martina was right, and soon she'd have to deal with two of these monsters.
"Source of all souls which dwell in eternal and infinite." Amethyst brought her hands together as she quickly began chanting.
"Just one fireball, you little brat?" Martina snapped. "Lina would have used at least three."
"Everlasting flame of blue, let the power hidden in my soul be called forth from the Infinite..."
"What do you think you are doing?"
"RA-TILT!" The spiritual blast struck Martina and the mazoku screamed in pain and rage as she dropped to the ground. Amethyst didn't bother to watch, she knew the Ra-Tilt wasn't powerful enough to do more than delay Martina. It was enough of a delay, however, to cast a spell she doubted that anyone would even suspect that she knew.
"Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows;" Amethyst chanted quietly and calmly.
"THAT HURT!!!" Martina gasped as she wobbily stood up, a thin stream of black energy bleeding into the air around her. She shook her head out as she glanced about and tried to fix on that annoyingly familiar buzzing sound she was hearing.
"Buried in the flow of time; in Thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness!"
"Hey, I've heard that before," Martina noted curiously. She finally found Amethyst and cackled as she saw Amethyst gathering powering. "What do you think you are doing?" One would think that Martina would learn to stop asking that and just attack, but, oh well.
"Those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess! DRAGU SLAVE!!"
"SHIMATTA!!" Martina managed as she finally recognized the spell, by virtue of seeing it wave over her in its characteristicly destructive manner. "ZOMALGUSTAR WILL YET PREVAAAAILLL!!" Martina assured Amethyst as the chimera's spell destroyed her completely.
Amethyst tried to turn to face where she knew Zangulus was about to rise and slumped to her knees instead. She managed a glance at the stunned pair before exhaustion and injury took command and Amethyst slipped into unconsciousness.
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