Xellos' Greatest Fear
By: Songwind
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the Slayers characters....Darn...
It was just about your average day in Seyruun. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, justice was being dished out to people who dared interrupt sorceress' meals...
Wait, what was that last part?
Lina finally stopped hitting Gourry's head with the chicken bone, dropped the bone in dismissal, then continued to eat as Zelgadis and Amelia watched in disgust and slight amusement. Xellos was sitting a little farther off, sipping his tea and ^_^ the whole while, thus freaking out the passerbys...
Xellos fans- (start throwing random objects at the narrator)
ARGH! OK, OK! He was ^_^ the whole while breaking hearts! Happy now?!
Xellos fans- ^_^ (go back to obsessing over Xellos posters, stuffed mini-dolls, and so on and so forth...)
ANYWAY...
Yeah, it was the average day in Seyruun.
"Miss Lina, I think you should slow down, you might get ill," Amelia said tentatively as Lina ordered another whole roasted chicken. "And recovery spells don't take care of illnesses quite that well, I'm afraid."
Lina shrugged as she continued to stuff her face and said something incoherent, but the group guessed she was saying something along the lines of, "Oh, whatever Amelia. You know that doesn't happen to me!" Or at least something like that. In any case, they hoped she was just saying that.
But suddenly, as what happens in just about every day in Seyruun...
A MONSTER APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE!
Lina jumped up and away from the table, dragging Gourry with her as something large and ugly landed on the table and proceeded to devour everything, including the table. Amelia and Zelgadis got away as well, fortunately- though Amelia lost a boot. Xellos, of course, was unharmed since he scares most of the monster population already. So he's still kind of sitting there with that little smile of his, sipping tea, watching the entire scenario in mild interest.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Lina shouted angrily.
"My guess is that this is a monster of some sort, Lina," Xellos said from his seat.
"I KNOW THAT! WHAT THE HELL IS IT DOING APPEARING OUTTA NOWHERE?!" she shrieked, shaking her fists.
As though they were discussing the weather, Xellos lowered his cup and spoke. "I believe it's one of the types that prefers to appear whenever great amounts of food are devoured," he said calmly. "When a person tends to eat more than they normally eat- and you have been eating more lately, Lina, since you've been so bored- it usually appears."
"What does it do?" Gourry asked, blinking at the monster as it ate four or five nearby chairs, then started on another table. The other customers had already ran out screaming in fear, as is always the case.
Lina decided to take her temper out on him and hit him a few times. "GOURRY NO BAKA! HE. EATS. EVERYTHING. IN. SIGHT!"
"That's fairly accurate," Xellos agreed. He was still not being bothered by the weird, ugly, monster-thing, so yes, he was still there smiling and sipping his tea like they were talking about farming or something equally boring and normal.
"How do we get rid of it, Mister Xellos?" Amelia asked.
"I KNOW HOW!" Lina shrieked angrily. "DARKNESS BEYOND TWILIGHT, CRIMSON BEYOND BLOOD THAT FLOWS- LET GO OF ME!"
Zelgadis and Amelia were holding her back from continuing.
"DAMN it, IT ATE MY FOOD!" she said.
"A Dragon Slave will destroy the entire town! Where do you think you'll get your food then?" Zelgadis asked calmly.
"Hey, good point," Lina said thoughtfully.
"And my Daddy would kill me!" Amelia said, eyes tearing up.
Of course, everyone ignored that.
"So what other spells can we use that will only affect this inn and monster?" Lina wondered, then tried a Fireball.
The monster made a weird sound and ignored the Fireball, heading back towards the stores of food.
"NO! NOT THE REST OF THE FOOD!" Lina cried out.
"I'm afraid spells don't work unless you have the Arachni-gem," Xellos stated, opening one eye to look across the room. "It's the only thing that affects this sort of monster."
"Arachni-gem?" Lina asked, blinking. "What's that?"
Xellos shrugged. "It's supposed to amplify one's powers, either physical, mental, or magical, to a point at which the person is nearly invincible."
"REALLY?! Wow! Where is it?!" Lina asked.
Xellos paused for a long moment. "Well, what do you know?" he asked curiously.
"Nani?" Lina urged.
"I don't know!" he said, ^_^ once again.
Everyone falls over.
"What do you MEAN 'you don't know?'" Amelia asked. "Mister Xellos, you knew everything else about it!"
"At least he isn't saying it's a secret," Zelgadis muttered. Xellos grinned at him, and Zel turned away to glare at the monster. It ignored him.
"Who can we ask that might know about this kind of thing?" Lina wondered.
"Why should we bother asking someone about it? We usually just wander around and wander into what we're looking for anyway!" Zelgadis said sarcastically.
"Hey, you're right Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia said, brightening. "We can trust that heaven shall guide us, the protectors of JUSTICE, towards the right path so we can save the town from this EVIL CREATURE."
Xellos winced slightly at the word 'justice', then grinned again.
"Since you know so much about it, though, you're staying with us, Xellos," Lina said, walking over.
Xellos put down the cup on a part of the floor the monster hadn't slimed past on quite yet. "Oh?"
"You have two choices, as I see it," she said. "You can either come with us voluntarily, or I'll make Amelia give you her happy song-thing again and you can come along with us anyway!"
Xellos paled. "You know, this is a rather interesting quest to go on," he said quickly as Amelia started to open her mouth. "I think I'll go with you."
"An excellent idea, Xellos! Why, I was going to ask you!" Lina said with a grin. He shrugged. "OK! Let's GET GOING!"
There was a long silence, then Gourry asked, "Where are we going again?"
Everyone falls over again.
Yes, another typical day in Seyruun. Don't you love how typical this is?
Anyway, they wander through a number of towns and villages throughout the kingdom and so forth, blasting inns and what-have-you, and the monster keeps randomly appearing and eating everything in sight. Time is running short- as well as food!- and Lina is getting ready to just cast a Dragon Slave on the world to see if that would do anything to get rid of the thing.
But one day...
They were wandering through another town, and Lina was asking everyone in sight about the mysterious Arachni-gem when a Mysterious Woman (note the capitals) approached them.
"Be ye th' ones asking about th' Gem?" she asked in a strange accent.
Xellos coughed and everyone ignored him.
"Yeah, that's me," Lina said. "What do you know of it?"
"I be knowin' lots about it, dearie," the woman said. "It be a very powerful charm, it be. Put it in a sword, and th' sword be invincible. Put it in yer armor, and it be the strongest defense ye could wish fer."
"Wow, sounds great," Lina said, blinking.
"An' the one holdin' it gits lots more power in that which they be strongest in," the woman continued. "Makin' th' person near invincible."
"Do you know where it's held?" Lina asked eagerly.
"Aye, on a little island not far from 'ere. Ye row o'er the sea a ways and ye should be there in a short while."
"Wow! Um, which way is the harbor?"
"Jus' down the road." With that, the woman turned and left.
"Hey, wait!" Lina called, starting to go after her- and found that the woman had somehow already disappeared from sight.
"Well, that was awful convenient," Amelia said brightly.
"Isn't it a little too convenient for us?" Zelgadis asked.
"Who cares? As long as we have an idea as to where to go, the monster will leave my food alone sooner!" Lina exclaimed.
So they went to the port, as was obvious. They took turns rowing to the island, which was also obvious. Except for Xellos, of course- he sat there doing his best to look mysterious and priestly for his fans. When Gourry rested, he looked confused. When Lina rested, she was biting her thumb and thinking. Amelia muttered to herself about the proper way to do a speech about justice, and Zelgadis stared gloomily into the water, as was normal.
Zel's fans- Awwwww...
Hey, GET AWAY FROM ZELGADIS! (Hits them with an oar) BACK! BACK! HERE! (Throws Zel plushies at them)
Zel's fans- (hug the plushies and disappear again)
Anyway...
After what seemed an hour of rowing nonstop, the group found themselves beached on not a LITTLE island, but a BIG island.
It was so large they couldn't see the other side, so it was at least a few miles wide... Or maybe the fact that they couldn't see the other side had to do with the castle that stood in their way.
It was a large, dark castle, the type one might expect to see dark clouds and lightning surrounding it while evil laughter sounded from within. Unfortunately, none of those interesting things happened. The sky remained a bright happy blue, the sun continued to shine, and no evil sounds could be heard. The Slayers were very disappointed indeed...
"Well, where should we look?" Gourry wondered aloud.
"Gee, I don't know," Lina drawled. "Why don't we try that castle? It's just a guess."
"Hey, good idea," he agreed.
Lina sighed.
"Well, it IS kind of strange to see such a big building in the middle of an island like this," Amelia said, looking around nervously. "And it looks like it hasn't been touched for a while."
"Huh. Well, I guess it would be the best place to look for the Arachni-gem," Lina said.
Thus said, the group walked up to the front.
"Hey, what's this?" Lina asked, peering at the door handle. "This is the shape of... um, hey! It looks like a carving of a spider on here!"
"Spider? Where?" Xellos asked, looking around.
"No, on the door handle, baka," Lina said absently. "You're starting to sound like Gourry or something. See?" She pointed at it.
"Oh," he said faintly. "How fascinating."
"Maybe it has to do with the gem," Amelia suggested.
"Maybe," Zelgadis said. "Let's just go in and take a look already. Staring at a door handle isn't going to get us anywhere."
They pulled open the door, and it swung open, creaking ominously. Gourry put his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Amelia went over her justice speech and a couple of her spells in her head just to make sure. Xellos peered in curiously.
As soon as they all walked in, they found it was a sort of mini-room, that led to a larger room. Lina walked up to the next door, muttering about it being dark, and pushed that open.
Immediately, the door behind them closed.
Amelia shrieked and jumped into Zelgadis' arms. Gourry pulled out his sword and whirled around. Lina ran over to pull and push the door.
"Hey! It's locked!" she stated, kicking at it. She yelped and hopped around on one foot for a moment, then stopped and spread her hands. "FIREBALL!"
Nothing happened.
"Wha...? FIREBALL!" she shouted, trying again.
Nothing happened.
"What's going on here?" Lina asked the air.
"Your spells are not working?" Zelgadis asked, dropping Amelia. "Let me try."
He tried casting a number of spells and none of them worked. Amelia got up, muttering about being dropped without a warning, and tried as well. Nothing happened. Since Gourry couldn't cast magic, and Xellos wasn't about to do anything for them, Lina sighed.
"We're stuck in here without magic, I guess," she said. "I wonder... could this place be sealed with something?"
"Most likely. Perhaps the Gem is more powerful than we even think it is," Zelgadis said.
"Alright. Zelgadis, Gourry, you're good at fighting physically. If anything attacks us, it'll be your turn."
"Right."
The group walked into the next room, and the door entering this second room remained open, to their relief. Lina and Zelgadis both held up mage lights to look around...
"There's nothing in here!" Amelia cried. "Nothing but floor!"
"Was that lady making some kinda joke on us!" Lina demanded of the room. "C'mon, this is ridiculous! There has to be an illusion or a trap door or something..."
"Hey, you're right! But what an UNJUST thing to do to wandering searchers!" Amelia cried.
"They must be hiding it for a reason," Zelgadis stated mysteriously.
There was a long silence, then, "Hiding what?" from Gourry.
Lina turned and hit him- hard. "BAKA!"
"ITAI!"
The cry of pain echoed through the large, empty room, and a weird sound came from the other end of the room. Everyone froze.
"What... was that?" Lina whispered.
"I dunno," came the reply.
Xellos peered into the darkness. "It sounds like something crawling," he observed. "We may have to pass a test of some sort, like fighting another monster."
"Oh, wonderful, and we don't have magic!" Lina said angrily. "Wonderful!"
The crawling sound continued, then stopped.
Amelia suddenly yelped and jumped into Zelgadis' arms again. "EEK! Something was on my foot!" she wailed.
Zelgadis turned to look down at where Amelia had been standing, and sweat dropped. "Amelia, it's a CRICKET," he said exasperatedly.
"It is?" She got out of his arms and peered down at it. "Hey, it is! Oh, how cute!" she picked it up, now ^_^ and watched it. "I always love listening to these in the summer!"
"Nani?!" Xellos' eyes shot open and he stared at the cricket as though expecting it to attack him.
"Xellos, you OK?" Lina asked, looking at him.
"Eh? Oh, fine, Lina, fine," he said quickly.
"Are you sure?" She stared at him. "You look like you saw a ghost or something."
"N-no, nothing," he said.
"O...K..."
Amelia was running around showing the cricket to everyone and coaxing it to rub its wings together. "Come little cricket! Sing for justice!" she told it.
The cricket ignored her.
"How about it NOT do that?" Xellos muttered. No one heard him.
Suddenly, Gourry looked down. "Hey, what do you know? It's a caterpillar!" he said, and picked THAT up. "Don't those learn how to fly?"
"Baka, they turn into butterflies," Lina answered.
Xellos was now trying to stare at both the cricket and the caterpillar, eyes still very wide and alarmed looking. He was clutching at his wooden staff, as though for comfort. Lina gave him a weird look- Xellos was acting weird!- then shrugged and looked down.
"And hey, look! There's another bug! Where are all these coming from?"
"Oh, more crickets! Sing for the sake of justice, lovely crickets! Sing for me!"
"For crying out loud, stop bothering the crickets Amelia..."
"AAAH! One's in my hair!" Gourry whined, pulling a butterfly from his hair. "How did it get there?!"
Xellos was getting more and more alarmed. "..." He finally did something you never think you'd ever hear Xellos do.
He whimpered.
Everyone stopped where they were and turned to stare at him incredulously. "Xellos," Lina said slowly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of bugs!"
Xellos looked up at her. "N-no, I just don't like them," he stammered.
Zelgadis smirked. "Oh, really?" He dimmed his mage light. Xellos shivered and made his own mage light quickly. "Then why are you so worried?"
"Stop it, Mister Zelgadis, this is unjust!" Amelia said. Then she returned to coaxing the crickets to sing.
Xellos looked around- Zelgadis had disappeared! Then-
He shrieked and jumped into Lina's arms. "AAAAAAAIYE!"
"XELLOS-" she began, and Zelgadis started to laugh evilly.
"You look scared, Mazoku," he said with a grin. "Is something wrong?"
"Zel...?" She turned and noticed that Xellos was actually shivering. "Xellos, most bugs can't hurt you. There is nothing in here that can hurt you!"
"Oh, I don't know about that, Lina," Zelgadis said, still grinning. "I saw a red and green bug right by my foot just now, and I've heard those like to crawl under your skin."
Xellos yelped.
"And there's those worms, too," Zelgadis said with a dramatic sigh. "They like to get into your clothes and nibble at your flesh at their leisure. And then there's the regular brown spider, he likes to hide in your hair... hey, Xellos, is that a spot of dirt in your hair?"
Xellos shrieked, jumped from Lina's arms and ran for the door. "I can't take this! I can't take this!" he said, dodging around the growing amount of bugs that were crawling around. "I can't I can't I can't! I HATE BUGS! LET ME OUT!" He started to pound on the door.
"Mister Xellos is really freaking out," Amelia said. She was crawling in crickets.
"Why?" Gourry asked, pulling another bug from his long hair.
Lina hit him. "He's scared of bugs!" she told him.
"Really? How did you figure that out?" Gourry asked. "Geez, they're doubling every minute!"
Zelgadis was creeping up behind Xellos with an evil grin on his face. Xellos was leaning against the door still pounding on it frantically shrieking out random things.
"Mommy! Daddy! Hey wait, I don't have parents... I DON'T CARE! I WANT MY MOMMY!" he wailed.
Zelgadis poked him in the back. "BOO!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIYEEEEE!" Xellos jumped up into Zelgadis' arms.
Zelgadis dropped him, laughing maniacally. "Oh, this is so much fun!" he said.
Xellos curled into a little ball, whimpering.
An innocent spider came wandering along in the darkness, and found Xellos' long violet hair to be a nice new home. It started to crawl right in.
Xellos felt something in his hair and panicked, running around. "GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUT PLEASE!" he shouted.
"Xellos, CALM DOWN!" Lina hit him- hard- on the head as he ran past. For once, it was successful enough to knock him out. Wow. She looked at him in shock as he slumped to the floor unconscious and the bugs started to crawl over him- thankfully, all she could see were harmless enough, but they were going to make Xellos mad. "Zelgadis, honestly!"
"I was paying him back for all the times he manipulated us!" Zelgadis stated. "It was time he felt confused and panicked!"
"Nonetheless, that was an unjust move!" Amelia declared.
Zelgadis snorted. "Whatever. I think I know what we're supposed to do here," he said.
"What?" Lina asked.
"Remember the name of the Gem? The ARACHNI-gem?"
"Arachni- OH! Arachni as in Arachnid, as in bug!" Lina said in understanding.
Zelgadis nodded. "I'm guessing that, since there's nothing else here, one of these bugs are carrying the Gem."
"But how can we tell?" Lina wondered.
"We'll have to kill them all."
"YUCK! But that's unjust!" Amelia protested. "My boots will be destroyed, and plus I just got my crickets to sing!"
"Oh, WE won't have to," Zelgadis said. He gestured to the still-unconscious Xellos, who was starting to twitch at the feel of the bugs crawling over him. "He'll be panicked enough to run around and trample everything. When he gets too tired, we'll look through and find the gem."
"Hmm, it has merit," Lina said thoughtfully. "And you're right, he HAS used us before, so it would only be fair for us to use him a little..."
"Use wha...?" Xellos was awake and opened an eye, still twitching. "Who's poking me?!" he demanded, then realized he was covered in bugs. "AAAAAAAAAIYEEE GET 'EM OFF GET THEM OFF!" he screeched and jumped up to start racing all around the place.
Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry and Lina watched as Xellos raced around, basically stepping on just about all the bugs in the place as he tried to get the ones on him off. Finally, Lina walked over and started to shake him. Wild-eyed, he shoved his head onto her shoulder. "I can't I can't I can't do this I hate them I hate them I hate them!" he wailed.
"Xellos, calm down! They're almost all gone!"
"...Really?" he asked.
"Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry, do you see any on Xellos or any that are still moving?" Lina asked.
"No," was the answer.
Xellos took a few deep breaths and pulled away.
"See, Xellos? Nothing to be scared of," Lina said. "Now, let's start looking for the Gem."
"Hey, Lina? What's the gem look like?" Zelgadis asked.
"Um..." Lina scratched her head. "I don't know!" she said with a sheepish ^_^.
Everyone but Xellos fell over, and he was brushing the last of the bugs off of himself and doing his best to regain his composure. Amelia got up first. "Well, perhaps since we are all on the side of JUSTICE, we will find it with luck!" she said hopefully.
"Not ALL of us," Zelgadis muttered, glancing at Xellos. Xellos had finally calmed down enough to get his face back to ^.^ again.
"You know what I'm speaking about, Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia said.
"Well, the best we can do is just look for something shiny," Lina said helplessly. "Just hope that nothing here was poisonous."
Xellos' eyes opened again. "Lina?" he asked quietly.
"Yes?"
"Were there any poisonous bugs on me?"
"No, Xellos," she said with a sigh. "And even if there was, they're all dead now."
He closed his eyes again. "OK."
"Hey, there's a bug on your-" Zelgadis began, pointing at Xellos.
"NANI!? WHERE WHERE WHERE?!" he yelped, looking around himself frantically.
"ZELGADIS!" Lina and Amelia shouted at him.
"Didn't we just kill all of the bugs, though?" Gourry asked, confused.
Lina sighed.
They looked around for a while and found, to their frustration, that there was nothing shiny.
Lina growled and sat down right in the middle of the dead bugs. "This is ridiculous! That weird lady said that we'd find the Gem here!" she declared.
"How about we look at where the bugs were coming from?" Zelgadis suggested.
"Sure, if you can point out where that was," Lina retorted.
He sighed and walked over to a nearby wall, and tapped it with his sword. It was normal. Then he moved a little and tapped again. Still it was normal. A third time, he moved and tapped.
A hollow sound rang out through the large room.
"Well, that's our cue," he said, and struck the wall- hard- with his sword.
It fell to pieces.
"Well, let's go," Lina said.
"I'm not going!" Xellos declared stubbornly.
Lina turned back. "Think of it this way, Xellos. Would you rather come with us, or stay here with a bunch of dead bugs?"
Xellos actually bit his lip and then nodded. "OK."
~*~
OK, let me clear a couple things up. Xellos didn't even try to transport himself out of there because A) magic doesn't work in the castle and B) he was panicking way too much to have been able to remember that. In any case, can't you feel sorry for him? So mean Zelgadis! Anyway, what do you think? Should I actually continue in what's there of a plot?
By: Songwind
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the Slayers characters....Darn...
It was just about your average day in Seyruun. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, justice was being dished out to people who dared interrupt sorceress' meals...
Wait, what was that last part?
Lina finally stopped hitting Gourry's head with the chicken bone, dropped the bone in dismissal, then continued to eat as Zelgadis and Amelia watched in disgust and slight amusement. Xellos was sitting a little farther off, sipping his tea and ^_^ the whole while, thus freaking out the passerbys...
Xellos fans- (start throwing random objects at the narrator)
ARGH! OK, OK! He was ^_^ the whole while breaking hearts! Happy now?!
Xellos fans- ^_^ (go back to obsessing over Xellos posters, stuffed mini-dolls, and so on and so forth...)
ANYWAY...
Yeah, it was the average day in Seyruun.
"Miss Lina, I think you should slow down, you might get ill," Amelia said tentatively as Lina ordered another whole roasted chicken. "And recovery spells don't take care of illnesses quite that well, I'm afraid."
Lina shrugged as she continued to stuff her face and said something incoherent, but the group guessed she was saying something along the lines of, "Oh, whatever Amelia. You know that doesn't happen to me!" Or at least something like that. In any case, they hoped she was just saying that.
But suddenly, as what happens in just about every day in Seyruun...
A MONSTER APPEARS OUT OF NOWHERE!
Lina jumped up and away from the table, dragging Gourry with her as something large and ugly landed on the table and proceeded to devour everything, including the table. Amelia and Zelgadis got away as well, fortunately- though Amelia lost a boot. Xellos, of course, was unharmed since he scares most of the monster population already. So he's still kind of sitting there with that little smile of his, sipping tea, watching the entire scenario in mild interest.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" Lina shouted angrily.
"My guess is that this is a monster of some sort, Lina," Xellos said from his seat.
"I KNOW THAT! WHAT THE HELL IS IT DOING APPEARING OUTTA NOWHERE?!" she shrieked, shaking her fists.
As though they were discussing the weather, Xellos lowered his cup and spoke. "I believe it's one of the types that prefers to appear whenever great amounts of food are devoured," he said calmly. "When a person tends to eat more than they normally eat- and you have been eating more lately, Lina, since you've been so bored- it usually appears."
"What does it do?" Gourry asked, blinking at the monster as it ate four or five nearby chairs, then started on another table. The other customers had already ran out screaming in fear, as is always the case.
Lina decided to take her temper out on him and hit him a few times. "GOURRY NO BAKA! HE. EATS. EVERYTHING. IN. SIGHT!"
"That's fairly accurate," Xellos agreed. He was still not being bothered by the weird, ugly, monster-thing, so yes, he was still there smiling and sipping his tea like they were talking about farming or something equally boring and normal.
"How do we get rid of it, Mister Xellos?" Amelia asked.
"I KNOW HOW!" Lina shrieked angrily. "DARKNESS BEYOND TWILIGHT, CRIMSON BEYOND BLOOD THAT FLOWS- LET GO OF ME!"
Zelgadis and Amelia were holding her back from continuing.
"DAMN it, IT ATE MY FOOD!" she said.
"A Dragon Slave will destroy the entire town! Where do you think you'll get your food then?" Zelgadis asked calmly.
"Hey, good point," Lina said thoughtfully.
"And my Daddy would kill me!" Amelia said, eyes tearing up.
Of course, everyone ignored that.
"So what other spells can we use that will only affect this inn and monster?" Lina wondered, then tried a Fireball.
The monster made a weird sound and ignored the Fireball, heading back towards the stores of food.
"NO! NOT THE REST OF THE FOOD!" Lina cried out.
"I'm afraid spells don't work unless you have the Arachni-gem," Xellos stated, opening one eye to look across the room. "It's the only thing that affects this sort of monster."
"Arachni-gem?" Lina asked, blinking. "What's that?"
Xellos shrugged. "It's supposed to amplify one's powers, either physical, mental, or magical, to a point at which the person is nearly invincible."
"REALLY?! Wow! Where is it?!" Lina asked.
Xellos paused for a long moment. "Well, what do you know?" he asked curiously.
"Nani?" Lina urged.
"I don't know!" he said, ^_^ once again.
Everyone falls over.
"What do you MEAN 'you don't know?'" Amelia asked. "Mister Xellos, you knew everything else about it!"
"At least he isn't saying it's a secret," Zelgadis muttered. Xellos grinned at him, and Zel turned away to glare at the monster. It ignored him.
"Who can we ask that might know about this kind of thing?" Lina wondered.
"Why should we bother asking someone about it? We usually just wander around and wander into what we're looking for anyway!" Zelgadis said sarcastically.
"Hey, you're right Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia said, brightening. "We can trust that heaven shall guide us, the protectors of JUSTICE, towards the right path so we can save the town from this EVIL CREATURE."
Xellos winced slightly at the word 'justice', then grinned again.
"Since you know so much about it, though, you're staying with us, Xellos," Lina said, walking over.
Xellos put down the cup on a part of the floor the monster hadn't slimed past on quite yet. "Oh?"
"You have two choices, as I see it," she said. "You can either come with us voluntarily, or I'll make Amelia give you her happy song-thing again and you can come along with us anyway!"
Xellos paled. "You know, this is a rather interesting quest to go on," he said quickly as Amelia started to open her mouth. "I think I'll go with you."
"An excellent idea, Xellos! Why, I was going to ask you!" Lina said with a grin. He shrugged. "OK! Let's GET GOING!"
There was a long silence, then Gourry asked, "Where are we going again?"
Everyone falls over again.
Yes, another typical day in Seyruun. Don't you love how typical this is?
Anyway, they wander through a number of towns and villages throughout the kingdom and so forth, blasting inns and what-have-you, and the monster keeps randomly appearing and eating everything in sight. Time is running short- as well as food!- and Lina is getting ready to just cast a Dragon Slave on the world to see if that would do anything to get rid of the thing.
But one day...
They were wandering through another town, and Lina was asking everyone in sight about the mysterious Arachni-gem when a Mysterious Woman (note the capitals) approached them.
"Be ye th' ones asking about th' Gem?" she asked in a strange accent.
Xellos coughed and everyone ignored him.
"Yeah, that's me," Lina said. "What do you know of it?"
"I be knowin' lots about it, dearie," the woman said. "It be a very powerful charm, it be. Put it in a sword, and th' sword be invincible. Put it in yer armor, and it be the strongest defense ye could wish fer."
"Wow, sounds great," Lina said, blinking.
"An' the one holdin' it gits lots more power in that which they be strongest in," the woman continued. "Makin' th' person near invincible."
"Do you know where it's held?" Lina asked eagerly.
"Aye, on a little island not far from 'ere. Ye row o'er the sea a ways and ye should be there in a short while."
"Wow! Um, which way is the harbor?"
"Jus' down the road." With that, the woman turned and left.
"Hey, wait!" Lina called, starting to go after her- and found that the woman had somehow already disappeared from sight.
"Well, that was awful convenient," Amelia said brightly.
"Isn't it a little too convenient for us?" Zelgadis asked.
"Who cares? As long as we have an idea as to where to go, the monster will leave my food alone sooner!" Lina exclaimed.
So they went to the port, as was obvious. They took turns rowing to the island, which was also obvious. Except for Xellos, of course- he sat there doing his best to look mysterious and priestly for his fans. When Gourry rested, he looked confused. When Lina rested, she was biting her thumb and thinking. Amelia muttered to herself about the proper way to do a speech about justice, and Zelgadis stared gloomily into the water, as was normal.
Zel's fans- Awwwww...
Hey, GET AWAY FROM ZELGADIS! (Hits them with an oar) BACK! BACK! HERE! (Throws Zel plushies at them)
Zel's fans- (hug the plushies and disappear again)
Anyway...
After what seemed an hour of rowing nonstop, the group found themselves beached on not a LITTLE island, but a BIG island.
It was so large they couldn't see the other side, so it was at least a few miles wide... Or maybe the fact that they couldn't see the other side had to do with the castle that stood in their way.
It was a large, dark castle, the type one might expect to see dark clouds and lightning surrounding it while evil laughter sounded from within. Unfortunately, none of those interesting things happened. The sky remained a bright happy blue, the sun continued to shine, and no evil sounds could be heard. The Slayers were very disappointed indeed...
"Well, where should we look?" Gourry wondered aloud.
"Gee, I don't know," Lina drawled. "Why don't we try that castle? It's just a guess."
"Hey, good idea," he agreed.
Lina sighed.
"Well, it IS kind of strange to see such a big building in the middle of an island like this," Amelia said, looking around nervously. "And it looks like it hasn't been touched for a while."
"Huh. Well, I guess it would be the best place to look for the Arachni-gem," Lina said.
Thus said, the group walked up to the front.
"Hey, what's this?" Lina asked, peering at the door handle. "This is the shape of... um, hey! It looks like a carving of a spider on here!"
"Spider? Where?" Xellos asked, looking around.
"No, on the door handle, baka," Lina said absently. "You're starting to sound like Gourry or something. See?" She pointed at it.
"Oh," he said faintly. "How fascinating."
"Maybe it has to do with the gem," Amelia suggested.
"Maybe," Zelgadis said. "Let's just go in and take a look already. Staring at a door handle isn't going to get us anywhere."
They pulled open the door, and it swung open, creaking ominously. Gourry put his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Amelia went over her justice speech and a couple of her spells in her head just to make sure. Xellos peered in curiously.
As soon as they all walked in, they found it was a sort of mini-room, that led to a larger room. Lina walked up to the next door, muttering about it being dark, and pushed that open.
Immediately, the door behind them closed.
Amelia shrieked and jumped into Zelgadis' arms. Gourry pulled out his sword and whirled around. Lina ran over to pull and push the door.
"Hey! It's locked!" she stated, kicking at it. She yelped and hopped around on one foot for a moment, then stopped and spread her hands. "FIREBALL!"
Nothing happened.
"Wha...? FIREBALL!" she shouted, trying again.
Nothing happened.
"What's going on here?" Lina asked the air.
"Your spells are not working?" Zelgadis asked, dropping Amelia. "Let me try."
He tried casting a number of spells and none of them worked. Amelia got up, muttering about being dropped without a warning, and tried as well. Nothing happened. Since Gourry couldn't cast magic, and Xellos wasn't about to do anything for them, Lina sighed.
"We're stuck in here without magic, I guess," she said. "I wonder... could this place be sealed with something?"
"Most likely. Perhaps the Gem is more powerful than we even think it is," Zelgadis said.
"Alright. Zelgadis, Gourry, you're good at fighting physically. If anything attacks us, it'll be your turn."
"Right."
The group walked into the next room, and the door entering this second room remained open, to their relief. Lina and Zelgadis both held up mage lights to look around...
"There's nothing in here!" Amelia cried. "Nothing but floor!"
"Was that lady making some kinda joke on us!" Lina demanded of the room. "C'mon, this is ridiculous! There has to be an illusion or a trap door or something..."
"Hey, you're right! But what an UNJUST thing to do to wandering searchers!" Amelia cried.
"They must be hiding it for a reason," Zelgadis stated mysteriously.
There was a long silence, then, "Hiding what?" from Gourry.
Lina turned and hit him- hard. "BAKA!"
"ITAI!"
The cry of pain echoed through the large, empty room, and a weird sound came from the other end of the room. Everyone froze.
"What... was that?" Lina whispered.
"I dunno," came the reply.
Xellos peered into the darkness. "It sounds like something crawling," he observed. "We may have to pass a test of some sort, like fighting another monster."
"Oh, wonderful, and we don't have magic!" Lina said angrily. "Wonderful!"
The crawling sound continued, then stopped.
Amelia suddenly yelped and jumped into Zelgadis' arms again. "EEK! Something was on my foot!" she wailed.
Zelgadis turned to look down at where Amelia had been standing, and sweat dropped. "Amelia, it's a CRICKET," he said exasperatedly.
"It is?" She got out of his arms and peered down at it. "Hey, it is! Oh, how cute!" she picked it up, now ^_^ and watched it. "I always love listening to these in the summer!"
"Nani?!" Xellos' eyes shot open and he stared at the cricket as though expecting it to attack him.
"Xellos, you OK?" Lina asked, looking at him.
"Eh? Oh, fine, Lina, fine," he said quickly.
"Are you sure?" She stared at him. "You look like you saw a ghost or something."
"N-no, nothing," he said.
"O...K..."
Amelia was running around showing the cricket to everyone and coaxing it to rub its wings together. "Come little cricket! Sing for justice!" she told it.
The cricket ignored her.
"How about it NOT do that?" Xellos muttered. No one heard him.
Suddenly, Gourry looked down. "Hey, what do you know? It's a caterpillar!" he said, and picked THAT up. "Don't those learn how to fly?"
"Baka, they turn into butterflies," Lina answered.
Xellos was now trying to stare at both the cricket and the caterpillar, eyes still very wide and alarmed looking. He was clutching at his wooden staff, as though for comfort. Lina gave him a weird look- Xellos was acting weird!- then shrugged and looked down.
"And hey, look! There's another bug! Where are all these coming from?"
"Oh, more crickets! Sing for the sake of justice, lovely crickets! Sing for me!"
"For crying out loud, stop bothering the crickets Amelia..."
"AAAH! One's in my hair!" Gourry whined, pulling a butterfly from his hair. "How did it get there?!"
Xellos was getting more and more alarmed. "..." He finally did something you never think you'd ever hear Xellos do.
He whimpered.
Everyone stopped where they were and turned to stare at him incredulously. "Xellos," Lina said slowly. "Don't tell me you're afraid of bugs!"
Xellos looked up at her. "N-no, I just don't like them," he stammered.
Zelgadis smirked. "Oh, really?" He dimmed his mage light. Xellos shivered and made his own mage light quickly. "Then why are you so worried?"
"Stop it, Mister Zelgadis, this is unjust!" Amelia said. Then she returned to coaxing the crickets to sing.
Xellos looked around- Zelgadis had disappeared! Then-
He shrieked and jumped into Lina's arms. "AAAAAAAIYE!"
"XELLOS-" she began, and Zelgadis started to laugh evilly.
"You look scared, Mazoku," he said with a grin. "Is something wrong?"
"Zel...?" She turned and noticed that Xellos was actually shivering. "Xellos, most bugs can't hurt you. There is nothing in here that can hurt you!"
"Oh, I don't know about that, Lina," Zelgadis said, still grinning. "I saw a red and green bug right by my foot just now, and I've heard those like to crawl under your skin."
Xellos yelped.
"And there's those worms, too," Zelgadis said with a dramatic sigh. "They like to get into your clothes and nibble at your flesh at their leisure. And then there's the regular brown spider, he likes to hide in your hair... hey, Xellos, is that a spot of dirt in your hair?"
Xellos shrieked, jumped from Lina's arms and ran for the door. "I can't take this! I can't take this!" he said, dodging around the growing amount of bugs that were crawling around. "I can't I can't I can't! I HATE BUGS! LET ME OUT!" He started to pound on the door.
"Mister Xellos is really freaking out," Amelia said. She was crawling in crickets.
"Why?" Gourry asked, pulling another bug from his long hair.
Lina hit him. "He's scared of bugs!" she told him.
"Really? How did you figure that out?" Gourry asked. "Geez, they're doubling every minute!"
Zelgadis was creeping up behind Xellos with an evil grin on his face. Xellos was leaning against the door still pounding on it frantically shrieking out random things.
"Mommy! Daddy! Hey wait, I don't have parents... I DON'T CARE! I WANT MY MOMMY!" he wailed.
Zelgadis poked him in the back. "BOO!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIYEEEEE!" Xellos jumped up into Zelgadis' arms.
Zelgadis dropped him, laughing maniacally. "Oh, this is so much fun!" he said.
Xellos curled into a little ball, whimpering.
An innocent spider came wandering along in the darkness, and found Xellos' long violet hair to be a nice new home. It started to crawl right in.
Xellos felt something in his hair and panicked, running around. "GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUT PLEASE!" he shouted.
"Xellos, CALM DOWN!" Lina hit him- hard- on the head as he ran past. For once, it was successful enough to knock him out. Wow. She looked at him in shock as he slumped to the floor unconscious and the bugs started to crawl over him- thankfully, all she could see were harmless enough, but they were going to make Xellos mad. "Zelgadis, honestly!"
"I was paying him back for all the times he manipulated us!" Zelgadis stated. "It was time he felt confused and panicked!"
"Nonetheless, that was an unjust move!" Amelia declared.
Zelgadis snorted. "Whatever. I think I know what we're supposed to do here," he said.
"What?" Lina asked.
"Remember the name of the Gem? The ARACHNI-gem?"
"Arachni- OH! Arachni as in Arachnid, as in bug!" Lina said in understanding.
Zelgadis nodded. "I'm guessing that, since there's nothing else here, one of these bugs are carrying the Gem."
"But how can we tell?" Lina wondered.
"We'll have to kill them all."
"YUCK! But that's unjust!" Amelia protested. "My boots will be destroyed, and plus I just got my crickets to sing!"
"Oh, WE won't have to," Zelgadis said. He gestured to the still-unconscious Xellos, who was starting to twitch at the feel of the bugs crawling over him. "He'll be panicked enough to run around and trample everything. When he gets too tired, we'll look through and find the gem."
"Hmm, it has merit," Lina said thoughtfully. "And you're right, he HAS used us before, so it would only be fair for us to use him a little..."
"Use wha...?" Xellos was awake and opened an eye, still twitching. "Who's poking me?!" he demanded, then realized he was covered in bugs. "AAAAAAAAAIYEEE GET 'EM OFF GET THEM OFF!" he screeched and jumped up to start racing all around the place.
Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry and Lina watched as Xellos raced around, basically stepping on just about all the bugs in the place as he tried to get the ones on him off. Finally, Lina walked over and started to shake him. Wild-eyed, he shoved his head onto her shoulder. "I can't I can't I can't do this I hate them I hate them I hate them!" he wailed.
"Xellos, calm down! They're almost all gone!"
"...Really?" he asked.
"Zelgadis, Amelia, Gourry, do you see any on Xellos or any that are still moving?" Lina asked.
"No," was the answer.
Xellos took a few deep breaths and pulled away.
"See, Xellos? Nothing to be scared of," Lina said. "Now, let's start looking for the Gem."
"Hey, Lina? What's the gem look like?" Zelgadis asked.
"Um..." Lina scratched her head. "I don't know!" she said with a sheepish ^_^.
Everyone but Xellos fell over, and he was brushing the last of the bugs off of himself and doing his best to regain his composure. Amelia got up first. "Well, perhaps since we are all on the side of JUSTICE, we will find it with luck!" she said hopefully.
"Not ALL of us," Zelgadis muttered, glancing at Xellos. Xellos had finally calmed down enough to get his face back to ^.^ again.
"You know what I'm speaking about, Mister Zelgadis!" Amelia said.
"Well, the best we can do is just look for something shiny," Lina said helplessly. "Just hope that nothing here was poisonous."
Xellos' eyes opened again. "Lina?" he asked quietly.
"Yes?"
"Were there any poisonous bugs on me?"
"No, Xellos," she said with a sigh. "And even if there was, they're all dead now."
He closed his eyes again. "OK."
"Hey, there's a bug on your-" Zelgadis began, pointing at Xellos.
"NANI!? WHERE WHERE WHERE?!" he yelped, looking around himself frantically.
"ZELGADIS!" Lina and Amelia shouted at him.
"Didn't we just kill all of the bugs, though?" Gourry asked, confused.
Lina sighed.
They looked around for a while and found, to their frustration, that there was nothing shiny.
Lina growled and sat down right in the middle of the dead bugs. "This is ridiculous! That weird lady said that we'd find the Gem here!" she declared.
"How about we look at where the bugs were coming from?" Zelgadis suggested.
"Sure, if you can point out where that was," Lina retorted.
He sighed and walked over to a nearby wall, and tapped it with his sword. It was normal. Then he moved a little and tapped again. Still it was normal. A third time, he moved and tapped.
A hollow sound rang out through the large room.
"Well, that's our cue," he said, and struck the wall- hard- with his sword.
It fell to pieces.
"Well, let's go," Lina said.
"I'm not going!" Xellos declared stubbornly.
Lina turned back. "Think of it this way, Xellos. Would you rather come with us, or stay here with a bunch of dead bugs?"
Xellos actually bit his lip and then nodded. "OK."
~*~
OK, let me clear a couple things up. Xellos didn't even try to transport himself out of there because A) magic doesn't work in the castle and B) he was panicking way too much to have been able to remember that. In any case, can't you feel sorry for him? So mean Zelgadis! Anyway, what do you think? Should I actually continue in what's there of a plot?