Sharp Reflections
Sherra found the cooling trails of three teleports as she arrived at her target's last known location. She frowned as she considered the trails. She could still follow them, the teleport hadn't taken place much longer than ten minutes ago, so that was not what bothered her. What bothered her was that the trails had approximately identical levels of decay, they had been produced by three seperate beings teleporting at almost the exact same time.
"Filia, Xellos, and who else?" she pondered.
~Perhaps the chimera has stronger demon blood than we suspected?~ Sherra nodded.
"That has to be it." She wrapped herself up in darkness and warped space and time about her. Two places became one, and time stopped as she cautiously tested her destination. There was no sensation of mixxing as she would expect from the nearby presence of another mazoku or dragon. Her prey had teleported some distance from their destination, so much the better. She let time and space return to normal, the sudden and brief spike of power hopefully going unnoticed by her prey.
~Careful, this is the beast master's child and hunting would be something she has taught him.~
"Yeah, I know," Sherra mumbled as she padded after the trail of human emotions with a quick silent step. She held the mazoku power of form inside, trying to keep from being noticed as she approached them. Her prey apparently wasn't taking similar precautions. Of course they had no reason too, they obviously teleported over here to escape Amelia's eye, not a mazoku's. It wasn't long before she found them.
"Amelia is...here?" Sherra asked herself, then the raven-haired girl turned her head and the mazoku could see that she lacked the mazoku given scar.
~Your "mistress" isn't who she appears to be.~
"I'll have to ask her about that. But, first things first." It was a simple matter to summon a force of minor mazoku and clothe them in the forms of common bandits. It wouldn't fool Xellos, but it by a second or too of surprise from the others. Besides, all she was trying to do was seperate the new girl from the rest and bring her to "Amelia."
"Attack them," Sherra ordered. The mazoku-bandits chuckled and rushed into certain doom, unaware of just what they were facing.
"Oh dear," Xellos sighed with mock frustration. "Company." He smirked as the others turned to face the horde of "bandits."
"Great, just what we need, bandits," Zel grumbled. Surprisingly Gourry didn't pause to consider the new opponents.
"LIGHT COME FORTH."
"They're not what they look like!" Xenith shouted following closely behind. She resisted the desire to cast a spell, mazoku didn't start life with advanced spell knowledge any more than humans did.
He charged forward and slashed at two of the first attackers, and growled when they managed to dodge. Both of his targets moving faster, and jumping higher than most humans could manage.
"What kind of bandits are these?" Amelia demanded, calling power into her hands.
"They're not bandits," Xenith shouted from where she had just slashed one in half and then watched as the body dissipated into nothing. "They're..." Xenith vanished from behind Gourry.
"Where'd she go?" Zelgadis growled. "Elmekia Lance!" A bandit disintegrated from the nearly absent minded spell. The chimera enchanted his sword with an astral vine after the fifth time it failed to cut an opponent. The slayers weren't really breaking a sweat, as soon as it became obvious that they weren't facing mortal men anyway.
"Somebody else teleported in and out with her," Filia explained, she looked to Xellos and saw that the mazoku was focused on watching Amelia's back. She narrowed her eyes. "Aren't you concerned at all?"
"Not particularly," Xellos said, cheerfully incinirating another minor mazoku. Filia grumbled something about Namagomi and followed the teleport trail.
"Oh no you don't!!" Xenith sniped and warped the teleport, making what was supposed to be a long range teleport into something crossed perhaps a mile.
"What!" Sherra snapped, surprised. Then, as she popped into normal space and rose Duofolger into a defensive stance, she snarled and narrowed her eyes. "High mazoku." Xenith drew her own sword.
~Let's see if I can do this without magic.~ she thought to herself, if she could it would be easier to hide she was once human. "Took you long enough to figure it out, Sherra." Xenith said, bearing her own sword. Sherra charged forward and slashed out, Duofolger connecting with Xenith's blade and rebounding back. Sherra prepared for another strike and was surprised when Duofolger whipped around, pulling her arm along, to block an attack from her opponent.
~She's faster than you.~ the sword said desperately. Sherra teleported back away from her opponent. Xenith was slow to follow, and by the time she did, Sherra had teleported to a new location. Sherra smiled
~She's inexperienced.~ She chuckled silently. She sent another message to the sword and then teleported as Xenith came in again. Duofolger didn't follow.
"Running away already?" Xenith snarled, preparing to teleport again when she felt the sword's presence behind her. "NOT THIS TIME!" she shouted, swinging her blade around to deflect the sentient blade away from her. As she did Sherra appeared behind her and kicked outward with a smirk. Xenith flew across their chosen battlefieldand smashed through a couple of trees.
"How's that?" Sherra asked. Xenith stood up with a smile.
"Felt pretty good," she laughed. "Care to try again." Sherra growled and teleported with her sword again.
In the split second before she appeared, Xenith smiled and rolled to the side. As sword and girl appeared, they found no Xenith to fight. The first clue they had was Duofolger being grabbed by a sharp-nailed hand and tossed into a nearby tree. Sherra turned to see Xenith in mazoku form.
"Unicorn trap," Xenith said in sing song manner as Sherra growled and fired an energy blast into the raven winged girl. Xenith cursed herself for that moment of ego as Sherra freed Duofolger and the pair were attacking her again. ~I need to end this.~
"DIE!" Sherra yelled as she and Duofolger came from different angles. Xenith smirked as power gathered into her hands. "What are you...?" Filia arrived as the young mazoku was starting the spell.
"FIREBALL!!" Xenith shouted, nearly shoving Sherra aside with the somatic portion of the spell.
When she had been Lina, Xenith had perfected the fireball to almost unheard of levels of destruction. Now, with the much greater level of energy available to a mazoku and her former level skill with the spell, the blast was tremendous indeed. Sherra flew backwards, great holes appearing in her body.
"DIEM WIND! DIGU VOLT!" The mazoku sword was likewise embedded in thick boulder by the hurricane winds and then charred by the lightning blast. Both mazoku soon vanished away in retreat. "Hah, take that you..."
"By Ceipheed...." Xenith turned around to see Filia.
~Oh no, she knows.~ Spellcasting style was unique from person to person. Just the same way fighting style was. Even if she had been reincarnated, and her true name altered, the essence of her casting style had not yet changed enough that it couldn't be recognized. It was most of the reason she had refrained from casting spells around her old friends.
"Lina?"
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