Searing Reflections
Filia narrowed her eyes as Xenith winced and then laughed, tossing her hair in a very Lina-like manner. She had seen this before several times in her travels with Lina. The mazoku was about to try and bluff.
"What are you talking about?" Xenith asked in an amused voice. "Did you drop that mace on your own head or something?"
"Please refrain from from insulting my intelligence," Filia crossed her arms. "I know your casting style."
"Lina's dead, I was there when you buried her."
"I thought you were hiding in a room somewhere?" Filia leaned forward and arched an eyebrow.
"You really think I would miss a meal like that?" She started to waggle a finger. "I am not..." Xenith paused and seemed to consider something, then sighed and shrugged.
"Lina dies and the same day Xellos comes back from his master with you," Filia notes.
"I am NOT Lina, I am just her reincarnation," she shrugged again.
"So when were you and Xellos going to tell us this," Filia demanded.
"Xellos doesn't know," Filia was confused and must have shown. "And it stays that way. Don't tell anybody else about this."
"That isn't...." without the chaos of combat both felt the teleport behind them. Filia restrained herself from continuing, until she could convince....how should she refer to the young mazoku. Anyway, until she could convince the girl how silly this was, it wasn't Filia's secret to divulge.
"I told you there was nothing to worry about," Xellos piped cheerfully. "Insufferable brat she may be, but Zelas does not create weak...is something wrong Filia-san?"
"Namagomi," she muttered before fading away in a teleport.
~What was that about?~ Xellos asked.
~I don't know,~ Xenith shrugged. ~You know her better than I do.~ Xellos narrowed his eyes and felt the smug satisfaction coming off his sister. She was acting quite the mazoku, Zelas should be proud.
"She's still with us," Filia said by way of explanation as faces turned to her. Amelia breathed a sigh of relief.
"I suppose we could always hope for next time," Zelgadis commented sarcastically. Amelia turned to defend Xenith, which had been developing into something of a habit with her lately, and paused as Filia's mace flattened Zelgadis to the ground. "What was that for?"
"You shouldn't wish harm on anyone," Zelgadis stared at her blankly for a moment, before returning to his normal expression of near-eternal frustration. Filia laughed nervously and looked at her mace in embarrassment, and hid it behind her back.
"It was sarcasm," he said levely, brushing himself off. Filia regrouped before Zelgadis's rather well-deserved confusion and hmphed.
"Some other mazoku tried to kidnap her," she informed them. Xellos and Xenith appeared behind the dragon.
Xenith, in her human form again, yawned and leaned against a tree. She was tapping her foot and being rather purposefully bored, virtually screaming the message, "let's get on with it." Filia noticed that she didn't seem to be paying the dragon any more notice than usual. Which was to say that she was watching whoever was talking as if branding the image to memory. The dragon hadn't understood that particular character trait until now.
"Dynast Grausherra appears to be behind this attack," Xellos said with his normal cheer.
"Who is that?" Gourry asked. Filia watched as Xenith's hands clinched and she gritted her teeth. The next reaction should have been her hitting Gourry on the head and yelling something about "Jellyfish brains." That did not happen, the mazoku shrugged and leaned back against the tree.
"Yeah, who was that girl anyway?" Xenith asked.
"Now you asking makes sense," Zelgadis said. Filia arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
"Actually Gourry asking makes sense too," Amelia sighed quietly, with the exasperration most of the group usually felt when Gourry asked something silly.
"Dynast is one of the remaining darklords," Xellos explained.
"You act like this is good news," Zelgadis complained.
"His general made a direct attack on Xenith, and failed to kill her," Xellos pointed out, waggling a finger. "Unless he declares her rogue, he's subject to reprisal from our master. He can't win."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"She didn't know who or what Xenith was," Amelia answered. She turned to Xellos. "It's her again, isn't it."
"But why would she be interested in Xenith?" Gourry asked. Filia watched Amelia and Xenith both react to the question. Amelia cringed, while the mazoku seethed with anger. Filia almost screamed as Xellos stepped further away from Xenith to comfort Amelia. As far as Filia could tell nobody else even saw her reaction.
"What did you say!?" Tes shrieked at the injured mazoku.
"The girl is Lina Inverse," Sherra gasped, she was already almost fully healed, but that fireball had been painful.
"That's impossible," Tes spat. "She was killed."
"Reincarnated," Sherra explained, shaking her head. "She's a mazoku, but it was her." A wave of fear engulfed the human. She had always been afraid of Lina, and now Sherra had just told her that her greatest fear was still walking the world. Only now she had much more power, and much more reason to hate "Amelia."
"Xellos must have transformed her," Shadow-Zelgadis reasoned for the distracted queen.
"She's a general," Sherra said, channelling the wonderful fear into healing. "She's too powerful to be a servant's minion. There was another Amelia there as well, and another Zelgadis."
"There are two of you, she was alone," Tes growled. "And yet you STILL failed to destroy her?"
"She remains a powerful sorceress." Sherra didn't bother to mention that the failed attack on another dark lord's general would probably mean their deaths.
Tes whirled and marched to the secret compartment that held the pledge stone.
"What do you think you're doing?" Tes drew out the pledge stone and turned to face Sherra and Zelgadis smiling viciously. The stone was a simple tablet marked with runes.
"Do you remember what you swore by over this tablet?" she asked.
"I pledged to link your life to mine, to serve you and protect you as long as helped complete my goals."
"'I swear by this stone to bind my life in yours, and your power to me,'" she said. Sherra looked at her confused for a moment and then lurched to her feet in shock. Shadow-Zelgadis moved to intercept her uneccesarrily. "I'm calling for the oath to be fulfilled."
Sherra stopped in mid charge, doubling over in horrendous pain as a dark miasma rose from her physical form and drifted toward the pledge stone, toward Tes. The shadow-Zelgadis backed away from the madly cackling queen as the darkness flowed out of Sherra into Tes. Then it was finished and the light slowly returned to the room.
Sherra was curled into a little ball on the floor as Tes walked softly across the room to her prone form. The mazoku felt cold, empty, as somebody's fingers lightly brushed across her face. She knew it had to be the false Amelia, but she could only weakly sense the emotions coming from her. It was only when the person firmly grasped her chin and turned face up that Sherra's suscpisions were confirmed.
"You were so very careful," Tes whispered. "You caught every ploy I put before you in the early negotiations, and you actually thought you had convinced me it was hopeless to try and cheat you. You never even bothered to listen to what was said at the actual pledge."
"What did you do to me?" Sherra gasped. Tes laughed and leaned down to whisper right into the girl's ear.
"What does it feel like to be mortal again?" Then she stood up and looked down as Sherra continued to lie on the ground, trying to recover her strength. A few gestures lifted her off the ground and carried her to Tes's bed. Sherra's eyes widened as the soft silk bed rose to meet her. She struggled to sit up, looking over in the direction of the human that had stolen her power. There was a familiar hungry expression on Tes's face.
~No, she couldn't. I'm Dynast's general! I'm Dynast's general!~ The queen teleported to her side and smiled down at her. She tried to punch out and Tes easily caught the strike and held the arm twisted against her back. Sherra cried out briefly as Tes settled on top of her started brushing her sweat soaked hair back.
"You haven't heard my news yet," the shadow-Zelgadis snapped. Tes snapped up and glared at him.
"What is it?"
"Someone thinks they may have spotted the shadow Xellos and Filia," she snapped to her feet dropping Sherra negligently. She curled up again trying to shelter herself, the shadow-Zelgadis glanced once at her. He tested the air and the scents of the two women. What he found was amazing, Tes was still human and Sherra was still mazoku. He had thought that Tes's plot had reversed their races, he had apparently thought wrong.
"Where are they?" Tes demanded.
"A village on the borders," Zelgadis said. "At least that is where they were reported. They were heading for where Lina's friends were."
"They'll have moved on by now," Tes said walking out of the room, trying to figure out where the two fugitives would be by now, she carried the pledge stone away with her. The shadow-Zelgadis glanced after her apprehensively.
"This is certainly not the arrangement I was promised," he sighed. "Guard!" It was only moment before a guard, who had been trying to ignore the sounds of pain from this room, appeared before the Prince Consort.
"Yes, milord?" He tried not to glance over to where Sherra had passed out.
"This servant girl is exhausted, can you find her a room to rest in?" He didn't have to say "other than this one." The guard understood. As the unconscious mazoku was carried away he glanced at the sword that Sherra had dropped when the ill-thought pledge had stricken her.
~She has to be stopped.~ The shadow-Zelgadis arched an eyebrow and picked up the sword.
"Find someone who isn't concerned with remaining civilized," he hmphed setting the sword back down.
~Or at least willing to risk their neck.~ The shadow-Zelgadis arched an eyebrow, pausing at the doorway, and then continued out of the room.
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