Resource! Victory is in Sight!
Jadarin had been out of commission for quite a long time. Much longer than Lina expected from an injury from a lowly Elmekia Lance. She figured a guy who gave her this much trouble would at least have the decency to shrug off one of her more basic spells with a little more ease. But not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she was grateful for the moment to recover.
"Lina-san, what do you think we can do against him?" wondered Amelia. "He's got that shield that won't let us hit him, and he's got that spell that can end the fight in one shot!"
"It's gonna be tricky," replied Lina, rubbing her chin in thought. "This guy is all about strategy - hitting him in ways that he wouldn't think of. That spell of his has plenty of shortcomings, we just have to know the right ways to exploit them."
"You could throw a rock at him," suggested Gourry.
Lina sweatdropped. "If you wanna throw rocks at him, be my guest, Gourry. But I'm talking about REAL strategy here. Basically what we know is that he can't attack and defend magically at the same time. Meaning that if he tries to use a spell on us, his shield must be down."
"Ah," nodded Gourry, thinking it was a nifty thing to say, but completely missing the significance of this statement.
To clarify things, the ground blew up.
Lina lifted her face out of the dirt and coughed. "See, that means his shield is down," she explained groggily. "Which in turn means... Flare Arrow!" she shouted, rolling over and firing the spell into the sky.
Jadarin watched the spell nonchalantly as it evaporated on impact. "Four," he stated, holding up the expressed number of fingers. "You gave me four whole seconds to react to that. Honestly, I could have killed you ten times in that span of time."
"So why didn't you?" wondered Lina, getting up.
"You think that fireball just now was an attempt to make you healthier?" he questioned.
That wasn't exactly what she was wondering. She'd noticed that Jadarin really wasn't one to hold his trump card as a last resort. He very well could have killed them with Magic Lock, and much more discreetly than with a bulky fireball. But this didn't really look like a case of him not being willing to use it. It was more like he was unable to use it. But what could possibly be hampering his use of the spell now? Whatever the reason, it looked like the odds were more in their favor at this point.
Lina drew her dagger and motioned for the other two to close in around her. "It looks like we've got a chance of winning as long as he doesn't use Magic Lock offensively. But in any case, let's not let any more of his shots count."
Sonjia, in the meantime, was busy being very artistic with Xellos's hair, braiding in leaves and flowers. She stopped for a moment and thought, "You know, by touching Xellos, I bet it keeps anyone from casting Magic Lock." She shrugged and got back to her mindless tinkerings.
"He looks like he's just waiting for us to do something," observed Amelia, pointing at the Mazoku floating above them.
"So we'll make a move," said Lina, turning to Gourry. "Since he's in the air, he probably won't be expecting any physical attacks. Therefore, his shield is probably up."
"Ah," said Gourry, looking up at Jadarin and nodding blankly. "So, how're you going to get up there?"
"Physical attacks are your specialty," said Lina, winking and giving him the thumbs-up. "Go get 'im, Gourry! Raywing!"
Before Gourry had any time to object or question Lina's methodology, he was hurled into the air by a burst of levitation. "Waaaggghhhh! What are you trying to do, Linaaaaa?!" he wailed as he flew towards Lina's intended target.
Jadarin easily moved out of the way as Gourry went flying past, who eventually ended up crashing into the ground on his head.
"Okay, slight change in plans here," said Lina, scratching her head. "Amelia and I will get him from the air. Gourry, if we hit him with magic and he falls, hit him with the Sword of Light. If we hit him physically and he falls, hit him with your normal sword. Got that?"
"Uuuuhhhh…" was Gourry's response, still trying to shoo away all the stars flying around his head.
Lina and Amelia levitated up to face Jadarin face-to-face. Lina pulled out her dagger while Amelia readied a spell.
"My my, so this is your strategy? Pathetic!" he exclaimed. He put his arms behind his back and said, "Okay, here's the question you need to ask yourself: Is my shield up or down?" He hovered close to the two, and they honestly couldn't tell. He could use his wings to keep himself aloft whether he had the ability to use magic or not. At least, that's what Lina surmised.
Amelia on the other hand didn't even think and threw the spell she had been preparing at him. It evaporated on contact.
"Okay, his shield is up!" shouted Lina, rushing forward and plunging her dagger into his chest. Except it just phased through without leaving a mark.
"You know," said Jadarin, "I'm quite nimble with this shield. Take it down and put it up at a moment's notice." He pulled Lina's dagger out of his chest and hurled it away with tremendous force. "And now that neither of you have a physical weapon, what are you going to do, little girl?"
Lina raised her arm and chanted, "Lighting!" A brilliant flash of light erupted from her palm right in Jadarin's face. With that, she made her move in his momentary blindness.
Jadarin rubbed his eyes and re-adjusted his vision. "What a cheap shot! Blinding me to give yourself time to retreat? Of all the…" Wham.
Lina dropped down from above and gave him a solid kick to the back of the head. The next thing he knew, Jadarin's face was planted in the ground below. The first thing that came to mind was, "Now this seems familiar…"
Sonjia was still sitting with Xellos, putting the finishing touches on his flower necklace. She had to admit, she was having quite a bit of fun doing ridiculous things to the senseless Mazoku. Honestly, she was curious to figure out just what had caused the spell to lose effect, but she could always work on that later.
She reached to pull another flower, but at that moment, Lina's dagger came flying through the air and neatly embedded itself in her outstretched arm.
Sonjia blinked in surprise, her first thought being, "Where did that dagger come from?" But this thought was quickly replaced by another: "OOOOOWWWWW!!!!"
She gingerly pulled the dagger out of her arm, wincing at the pain. "Jeez, I'm not even part of the battle, and I still get beat up." She looked at her injured arm and sighed. "Why the heck do I always have to get injured only when I'm actually susceptible to injury in the first place?" She blew on her arm, which healed up completely within a second. In the end, no harm done, but she was still irritated that "someone" felt the need to involve her when she really didn't feel like putting forth the effort to comply.
After glancing at the dagger a moment longer, she shrugged and dabbed some of the blood off it with her finger, then proceeded to paint a little red smiley face on Xellos's cheek. True, it seemed kind of morbid in a way, but, hey, she was bored. A little red lipstick here, a little red eyeshadow there. It's not like anyone cared what she was doing.
"You know, if you were alive, you'd probably be getting a kick out of this," she said, dryly. Of course, there was no response. "But I think I've hung around here long enough. Lina can beat up my brother all she wants. Just as long as it keeps him from bothering me, I don't really care. Sorry you had to get your life force sucked away like, that, though. But there doesn't really seem to be anything I can do about it."
Xellos's mouth twitched in reply.
Sonjia blinked and cautiously reached out and poked his cheek. Xellos's lip twitched again on its own in response. "What the heck…?" Sonjia wondered out loud. She poked his face again. "You can feel that, can't you?" She scratched her head in confusion. "I'll be damned. He is still alive."
Gourry swung his sword down, and Jadarin barely had time to move out of the way before his head got chopped off. Although he could quickly manipulate his shield as necessary, the Inverse group was using increasingly varied attacks, and sooner or later, he wouldn't be able to keep up with them anymore. If only the Magic Lock would work! Then he could have infinite advantage over them.
Of course, it never hurt to check. Jadarin snapped his fingers and smirked as he found that the spell was once again operational. He'd have to beat down Sonjia a bit for causing this fight to take so long. But at least now he wouldn't have to worry about Lina Inverse anymore.
Jadarin flicked the silver string down towards Lina's group. Its movements were erratic, like a thread caught by the wind. He had no way of controlling where the thread went, but they also had no way of dodging it.
Lina paused and motioned for her companions to stop what they were doing. "Guys, that spell of his is working again!" she warned.
Amelia looked around frantically. "Did he just use it? Where is it? I don't see anything!"
Lina shaded her eyes and looked into the air. A futile move, since there was really very little way of spotting the spell. It was like trying to locate a single specific piece of dust. It couldn't be noticed until it hit something.
Or until something hit it. Lina spread her palms to the air and shouted, "Diem Wing!" The wave of wind shot into the air, and Lina studied it carefully for any signs of disturbance. There! About ten feet above her was an obvious sign of turbulence. A straightline wind like that shouldn't normally change direction in the middle of its flow. Unless something there was drawing it in a different direction.
Lina quickly felt around in the recesses of her cape for something to use. The first thing she came across was a small knife, and wasted no time throwing it at the point of wind turbulence. A moment later, the knife came sailing down and stuck in the ground a few feet in front of her. Lina smiled in relief as she noted that the knife had now become colored silver. The spell had taken it as its victim rather than one of them, as she had hoped.
"Oh, just stop doing that already!" Jadarin growled in frustration. He snapped his fingers again and arced his arm around his head, producing a very long silver string. He then snapped the fingers on his other hand, producing a similar long string. He then manipulated the threads, weaving them together until he had a giant web of silver fibers.
"Let's see you dodge this one!" he shouted, throwing the web down. It was a new trick, one which he'd never really tried before, so wasn't exactly sure what the effect would be.
It wasn't what he expected, and not quite what he wanted, but it was enough. The web formed a dome over Lina, Amelia, and Gourry's heads. It was like a giant, webbed shield that encircled them. And if they touched it at all, they would obviously die.
"Well," said Jadarin, "I may not have killed you with that, but my only goal was to keep you out of my business. And I suppose that will do."
"You haven't beaten us yet!" said Amelia through the dome. "We can just hit this web with something else, and it'll absorb the spell, just like Lina-san did with her knife!"
Jadarin motioned to the web. "Just how many strands do you think this is made of? Do you really thing you have enough random stuff to break down every single link in this web? And even if you do, it'll take you more time than I need to take full control of this spell. Once I do that, I can come back and finish killing you all."
Amelia sweatdropped. "So why doesn't he just do that right now and save himself the trouble?" Not that she was really complaining about his tactical choice. It gave them more time to devise an escape plan.
"It's because he can't," explained Lina. "This wall works both ways. We can't get at him, but he can't get at us."
"Quite observant, little girl," said Jadarin, pulling out his chopstick. "But as I said, I only wanted you to stop bothering me while I complete my business. But don't you feel much safer now? No magical attacks can hurt you while you're in there. Just like me with my shield up like this."
"Thanks for the info!" came a voice from behind him. Jadarin turned just in time to see Zelgadis come flying in, sword raised for attack. Jadarin dodged, but not quite quickly enough, as Zel's sword sliced through his side.
Jadarin roared and knocked Zelgadis aside. "Damn you! You had backup in hiding the whole time! Cheaters! The whole lot of you!" He raised his chopstick, ready to put up or drop his shield at a moment's notice, but was faced with a dilemma. Zelgadis held his sword in one hand, an Elmekia Lance in the other.
"Zelgadis-san! You really did come help us fight!" Amelia shouted. "I knew you'd come and aid us in a fight for Justice!"
"A little late, aren't we?" accused Lina. "Where the heck have you been?"
Zelgadis shot her a look. "I figured you three could handle him. But it looks like I was wrong."
"And I suppose you think you can handle me?" said Jadarin. "I've beaten you before, stone boy. I'm interested to see what you think you can do."
Sonjia began piecing together all the times Magic Lock had lost effect on something. "Okay, there was my ribbon, Jadarin's chopstick, and Xellos's cape and face. What's the connection between those?" She tapped the dagger against her cheek, thinking. "Seems like I was injured every single time it happened. So, does that mean the spell's health is connected to my health?" She looked at Xellos. "I guess it's a possibility, but it doesn't explain why the spell lost effect on certain things, but not others."
She lazily flaked some drying blood off the dagger. "Yeah, I guess when I'm injured, I'm bleeding, too. But what would that have to do with anything?" She thought back to all the items that lost the spell. "Yeah, I think I got my blood on all of those. But why would that do anything?" She leaned backwards, but ended up hitting her head on the tree. "Oww…" she said, rubbing her head. She suddenly stopped, then smacked herself in the forehead, which did little to help with the pain. "Duh! I'm thinking like a human!"
Sonjia looked at the blood on the dagger. "It's not blood. Well, not really. It's more of my life force spilling out when I'm too injured to keep it in. And it just takes the appearance of blood. Yes!" she exclaimed, proud of herself for figuring something out. "I'd hate to quote that moron, but he was right. 'A drop of water will not dampen the river, but merely rejoin it.' And this," she said, looking at the blood on the dagger, "is the river."
There was a moment of silence, after which Sonjia dropped her head. "Which helps me how, exactly? So my blood can take the spell off stuff. It's not exactly something I can or am even remotely willing to just go giving out to everyone."
Sonjia got a malicious grin and picked up the dagger. "But I'll make an exception with you, guinea pig. If this works, you get a second chance at life. But if anyone asks, I didn't give it to you."
She gripped the bloodied dagger with both hands and held it over Xellos's chest. "My blood into your body. It should wipe away any trace of the spell once it spreads. There's probably more elegant ways of doing this, but you get what you get, Mazoku." She grinned and added, "And if you get diseased from Gods' blood, it serves you right."
Stabbing someone in hopes of healing them was definitely an odd idea, she thought, but didn't think much of it as she plunged the dagger into Xellos's chest.
Of all things, she didn't expect this action to hurt her. But sure enough, the moment she used the dagger with malicious intent, she suddenly lacked the energy to even hold herself up and fell over backwards. She blinked weakly in confusion for a few seconds before realizing what had just happened.
"Maybe I should have thought this through a little better," she admitted to herself. Gods and Mazoku weren't supposed to use weapons, for the same reason they couldn't call power from other sources. They lived as self-contained beings, on the level of thought and emotion. If a God or Mazoku ever attempted using some power other than his own, it was like denying his own purpose. Therefore, their bodies didn't react too well to such things.
Sort of like Jadarin, who used nothing but others' powers. It was like he was reveling in defying his purpose. What an arrogant idiot.
Speaking of arrogant idiots, she sat up and checked on Xellos. Amazingly, the silver color was actually beginning to fade, which was a good sign. Unfortunately, he was showing no other signs of recovery. Sonjia hoped that she hadn't inadvertently killed him with the dagger. She sure didn't care if he did die, but she definitely didn't want his death to be her fault.
"Come on, Xellos, wake up!" she found herself saying. She wanted to be right about one thing in her life, and hoped this would be it. Besides, bringing the dead back to life was something that neither God nor Mazoku had ever achieved. And this was the closest she could get to that accomplishment.
Sonjia gripped Xellos by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake up, Xellos. Wake up!" There was no response. Sonjia fell back and sighed. He'd probably been affected too long. The spell would have killed a human instantly, but Mazoku had their astral bodies to fall back on. But his astral body had probably become severely weakened from sensory deprivation. That meant that even though she got the spell off, this was like pulling a body from the ocean. They might be back in the air, but it was too late to ever breathe again. Yet another failure to go on the long, sad list of things gone wrong with this spell. Gods, this was the spell from hell.
She buried her face in her hand and shook her head. She clenched her teeth in anger, more at herself for being wrong again and being utterly helpless. Finally, frustrated beyond anything, she said one last time. "Xellos… wake up…" Still no response.
"Figures," she said, getting up and preparing to walk away and just leave the Mazoku there.
Xellos yawned in reply. "Just five more minutes, ma…" he finally said.
Sonjia stopped dead in her tracks. She whirled around, not knowing whether to hit him or hug him. She decided on a compromise and mentally patted herself on the back for the first and only victory against the Magic Lock. Plus the added bonus of one more thing to have bragging rights for. She looked up to see Xellos sitting up and scratching his head, and none the worse for wear.
Well, almost. "Um, do I dare ask what the heck is in my hair?" he ventured. He then looked down and noted Lina's dagger sticking out of his chest. "Did I do something to anger Lina-san again?" Sonjia laughed at how idiotic he looked. Such simpletons, Mazoku were.
Xellos was lost. He hated not knowing what was going on, as he was always in control of situations. But the entire ordeal concerning Jadarin was quite difficult to handle. Speaking of that lowly piece of trash, where was he, anyway? The last thing Xellos remembered was getting ready to attack him, then blacking out.
"You should be dead right now, you know," Sonjia explained to him. "You're lucky I decided to experiment on you."
Xellos had removed the dagger and was now busy pulling the flowers out of his hair, which was a complete mess. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just feel a little drained, like I haven't gotten a good dose of negative energy in a while."
"I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. You either have a lot more power than you ever let on, or you're just darn lucky," observed Sonjia.
"It's not easy being me," said Xellos as his only explanation, regaining his usual grin.
Sonjia began wandering in the direction of the battle. "I'm getting dead sick of this spell. I'm gonna go out there, find that Mazoku, and give him a piece of my mind." She only hoped that the piece of her mind she ended up giving him was not the piece that contained the Magic Lock. Honestly, it was all idle threats, but he'd really ticked her off.
Xellos trotted after her. "Ah, I could use a snack. Mind if I tag along to witness this little 'cat fight'?"
The next thing he knew, Xellos was punted into the stratosphere. "If this is the thanks I get for clearing that spell out of your system, you can forget ever showing your face in front of me again!" Sonjia shouted after him as she watched him sail away through the air. With a huff, she turned back and stalked towards the battle.
Zelgadis wasn't faring very well. Jadarin just moved too quickly. Zel had only been able to get two shots to hit in the past ten minutes, and both had been absorbed. Plus, he had to worry about being thrown into the webbed shield whenever Jadarin countered.
Lina was shouting commands at him through the shield. Of course, this did little to help, as Jadarin heard the commands clearly as well, and could easily dodge Zelgadis's moves. Even when Zelgadis used his own techniques, Jadarin still dodged them with ease, as his movements were far too easy to read.
"What are you aiming at?" Jadarin taunted. "You'll never hit anything like that!" This was actually quite a useful strategy, as the taunts only made Zelgadis angrier, which decreased his accuracy even more.
"Ah, the sweet taste of anger. Such a delicacy." Xellos appeared hovering overhead, wearing a little bib. "Please continue, gentlemen. It's getting rather interesting."
"Xellos-san!" Amelia shouted, happily. "You're not dead anymore!"
Jadarin craned his neck to the sky at the sound of the familiar voice, surprised at his rival's sudden appearance. "How did you get here? I killed you, there was no question of it!"
"I wouldn't mind taking a time out to allow you to try again," Zelgadis said dryly.
"Zelgadis-san, must you always be so cruel?" said Xellos. "I'm just here to observe, and you decide to pick on me again."
"Xellos!" Lina shouted to him. "Don't just float there! Help out a little! He's your enemy too, right?"
Xellos stretched and made no move to do anything. "I would, but I don't feel up to it right now. You two can continue your business. Pretend I'm not here."
"You shouldn't be here!" Sonjia shouted from a distance. "Didn't I tell you to go away?"
"I did go away!" Xellos called back to her. "You just happened to show up in the same place I decided to go."
Sonjia fumed and stalked up to Jadarin. "And as for you… Just stop this, okay? Stop. Right now. Halt. Desist. Discontinue. Got that?"
Jadarin smirked. "Just who I wanted to see! Are you ready to hand over the spell?"
Sonjia grabbed him by the neck and yanked his face down right in front of hers. "Are you even listening to a word I'm saying? KNOCK IT OFF!!"
"My, how violent of you," said Jadarin, oblivious to her anger. "And I thought you said you would never use your powers for destructive purposes."
"Yeah?" Sonjia countered. "Well, maybe I'm not… but I'm willing to bet they are," she said, motioning to Lina's group, most of which was still trapped behind the shield. She stepped back, walking backwards until her back was right on the edge of the shield. "Come and get me," she challenged, backing up some more. Her body phased right through the web, as if she was passing through strands of water. It shimmered as she walked right through it, then reformed once she reached the other side.
However, the added area of her body, plus the wings, made the inside of the shield quite cramped, leaving Lina, Amelia, and Gourry little room to move without touching it. Before anyone could ask what the heck she was doing, Sonjia grabbed one of the lower threads and lifted it up, consequently lifting up an entire side of the shield.
"There you go, guys," she said as she herded the three out. "Have a blast beating the stuffing out of him."
"Whoa, wait a sec!" said Lina, just as Sonjia dropped the web back into place. "Aren't you going to help?"
Sonjia just sat down behind the shield and pulled out a cup of tea. "Nope," she stated flatly. "If I helped out any more, people might start mistaking me for a helpful goddess, which I'm not."
"Yeah. I can see that," said Lina as she turned away to join the others.
Of course, this simply put her in the same position she was in earlier. There was no way of knowing whether Jadarin's shield was up or down, and considering that state could change at any second, it really didn't matter. It was impossible to know what to hit him with.
Even so, Lina and Amelia flanked him on the left and right, while Gourry stood in front of him, Zelgadis behind. Two powerful swordsmen and two powerful sorceresses. But all the power in the world doesn't really mean that much if you don't know when and where to use it.
Xellos, in the meantime, was still floating overhead. He had a bag of popcorn in one hand, a little pennant with a super-deformed Lina head in the other. Being mostly dead for a while obviously hadn't left any lasting marks.
Zel made the first move. He swung his sword at Jadarin's back, but the blade passed straight through. A second later, Amelia fired a Flare Arrow at him, but his shield was already up. Gourry stayed put, unsure whether to use his regular sword or his Sword of Light.
Zelgadis and Amelia continued their respective attacks, but the shield changed states far too quickly for them to do any damage. Zelgadis alternated between his sword and magic, but it was no use. This guy was good at reading moves.
Gourry, on the other hand, was still trying to figure out which sword to use.
Lina hadn't joined the fight just yet, but was still contemplating to herself. "Well, since he doesn't have Sonjia, that means that means I've still got an extra card to play. But..." She glanced over at the aforementioned goddess, who was still lounging nonchalantly behind the shield. "If it has a chance of working, I'll give it a shot, anyway," she said, running a hand through her hair.
Meanwhile, the others were still fighting. "Let's even the odds a little, then!" shouted Amelia. "Dark Mist!" A cloud of black fog descended upon them, preventing anyone from seeing anything. Including Zelgadis and Gourry.
"Amelia!" Zel shouted. "What did you do that for? Now we can't see him!"
"Um, but he can't see us either, right?" said Amelia, trying to explain herself.
There was a chuckle through the fog. "Nice try. But I'm afraid you've forgotten one important thing: Cats can see in the dark. Besides, with my shield up, I can see through it no matter what. If anything, you've just set the odds in my favor!"
"Oops," was all Amelia had to say for that little mistake. She decided to make a run for it. She levitated above the fog to see if she could get a better look at things. Zelgadis did the same.
Gourry, who couldn't fly, decided on the Sword of Light to help him see. As soon as it lit, he saw Jadarin standing in front of him with a look that said, "Hello. I'm going to kill you now" plastered across his face.
Gourry decided that the logical thing to do would be to slice the Mazoku in half. So he did. Or at least tried to, but the sword had no effect.
"Go away," Jadarin said simply, grabbing the Sword of Light by the blade and yanking it from Gourry's hands. He then knocked Gourry across the head with the hilt, knocking him out. "This is getting a little dull." He looked up through the mist and saw Zelgadis and Amelia hovering overhead. Time to take those two out too.
Amelia looked down through the mist. "Ne, Zelgadis-san, do you see anything?" He was about to reply that he couldn't see a thing, when a pair of fireballs shot up from the ground, one at him, one at Amelia. They didn't see them in time and got caught in the fire, both losing their levitation spells and crashing to the ground.
"Now that just leaves the Inverse girl," said Jadarin. "Come out of hiding, little girl!" he commanded. "If you don't, I'll kill these three right here."
"Then you give me no choice," came Lina's voice through the mist. "I certainly don't want to see anyone else die because of you. Especially not my friends."
Jadarin smirked. "If that's the case, what do you intend to do about it? If you couldn't defeat me as a group, how could you possibly defeat me by yourself?"
"Because I've figured out why we can't beat you," Lina explained. "You don't fight fair. Someone who bends the rules in his favor always has the upper hand. So to remedy this, I decided that we might as well just change the rules to make it fair for everyone."
Jadarin lowered his head and peered at her figure through the mist. "Change them? What do you plan to do?"
Lina stepped casually out of the mist and smirked confidently at him. "That spell of yours. The Magic Lock. You can use it to your heart's content, but you yourself are not immune to its effects like Sonjia is. Am I right? As long as you do not hold control of the spell, it will work on you."
Sonjia looked up from her mulling about. Just what was Lina getting at? Yeah, what she was saying was probably true, but what good did this do her in the end?
Unless...
"You know, really great sorcerers can learn how a spell is cast just by observing it once. Of course, since I am Lina Inverse, the beautiful sorcery genius," she said, slowly raising her hand over her head, "this applies to me as well."
Sonjia slammed her hands into the dirt and stared incredulously out of the dome. "She didn't...!"
Lina snapped her fingers and lowered her hand, displaying the strand dangling from her fingertips. "I'd say this evens things up quite a bit."
"That's not...!" Jadarin exclaimed, backing away slightly. "No one else must know this spell! You can't be allowed to know it!"
"Then you shouldn't use it so much," Lina retorted. "It doesn't feel too good to be staring at it on the receiving end, does it?"
Sonjia clutched the dirt harshly between her fingers, observing this face-off from afar. "How could you, Lina? I thought I had you pegged as being a different kind of person! But you just want to make me wrong about something else. Just like everyone else in this pathetic world." She lowered her head, shoulders shaking. She hated stepping out to resolve things herself, but this was becoming more than she could bear. She'd have to teleport out there before Lina did something stupid.
If she could teleport. Sonjia looked up and blinked, noting that she couldn't use her magic. The field that the webbed dome created must have disabled it at this close range. But, if she couldn't use magic, didn't that mean...?
Lina blew the strand from her hand, letting it float through the air. "Nice knowing you, Jadarin, but it looks like I'll have to end this the simple way, just like you've been trying to do."
"You idiot!" he shouted at her, glancing around himself frantically. "You can't control where that thing goes! You're just as likely to hit one of your friends back there as you are me!"
"I'm willing to take that chance to end this here and now," Lina explained.
This was not a good feeling. Jadarin never expected himself to be on the receiving end of his own spell, but now the tables were turned, and he had nowhere to run. He attempted to teleport away, but the battle had drained too much of his energy for him to do so.
It was at this point that he became aware of another rather uncomfortable feeling. Sort of like a sharp pain in his side. He looked down and noticed the end of a knife protruding from his stomach. But his shield had been down to allow him to attempt teleportation. A physical attack like that shouldn't have worked on him!
"Good thing I picked a knife to counter your spell with earlier," Lina explained, walking up to him. "Since that knife got your spell on it, it'll put the shield up around you whether you want it or not. Which will then make you vulnerable to physical attacks."
Jadarin clutched the knife's handle and winced. "Good for you, but you do realize that by walking over here, you've become a target for your own attack."
As he said that, a strand blown by the wind floated over Lina's head. She shrugged and plucked it out of the air. "What, you mean this? This is an extremely useful technique right here. I call it 'Summon Distraction'."
Jadarin peered at it more closely. "Wait that's just a... strand of your hair!" Angered at her trickery, Jadarin growled and yanked the knife out of his side and tossed it to the ground.
But Lina already had her hand on his chest. "And now that you've gotten rid of that knife, your shield is very much down. Meaning magic will work on you."
"Not quite!" said Jadarin, reaching for his chopstick.
Too late. "Bom Di Wind!" Lina chanted, blasting him away with incredible force with the strongest wind spell in Shamanist magic.
Jadarin blinked as he sailed through the air. Wind? Wind wouldn't do anything lasting against him. Granted, if she'd used a more damaging element, he could have put up his shield within a second and only take a small brunt of the spell. But with the wind spell, even with his shield up, he still had a pesky thing called momentum to deal with. A little momentum never hurt anyone.
"Ack!" Ack? Jadarin twisted his head in the direction he was being propelled, and noted that it was Sonjia who had "ack"ed. He was being thrown right at her.
She was still behind the shield.
The Magic Lock shield.
Which he was being thrown towards.
And couldn't stop.
Crap.
He crashed right through the shield and, consequently, right on top on Sonjia. There wasn't anything to be done now. The shield collapsed and completely wove into his body, changing his dusky brown exterior to silver. As the dust cleared, there was silence.
And then, "LIIINAAAA!!" Sonjia poked her head out from under Jadarin's prone form and sighed. "What the heck did I ever do to deserve this?"
Xellos hung in the air, heartily applauding Lina's victory. "Well done, well done!" he congratulated. "An excellent use of your resources, Lina-san!"
Lina floated beside him and called down to Sonjia. "Come on, you know I'd never use that spell myself! But it's the only thing I could think of that would beat him! At least the one he got beaten by he cast himself! So, you could say he was a victim of his own ambitions."
"Well that's just great!" yelled Sonjia, trying to pull herself out from under Jadarin's somewhat weighty body. "Now if you don't mind, I could use a little help here!"
Lina crossed her arms and looked down. "If I helped you any more, people might mistake me for a helpful sorceress, which I'm not," she reasoned.
And, for once, Sonjia had absolutely nothing to reply to that with.
Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis had revived, and Sonjia had finally gotten herself out from under Jadarin, whom she had laid out on the ground.
"I'm not really sure what he was trying to do," she admitted. "He told me he was trying to show the world what a terrible spell the Magic Lock was, but I think that was just an excuse to hide some other reasoning."
Lina waved her off. "Yeah, you can ask him all about that later."
"Ask him?" Sonjia said, blinking.
Lina looked and Jadarin's body and shrugged, smiling. "It's just that I don't think he really wanted to hurt anyone to begin with. It's just that whatever was driving him to do this overrode that feeling. Hopefully being incapacitated for a while will help him come to his senses."
"Are you saying I should take the spell off him?" Sonjia asked, bewildered. "He'd just come back and try to use the spell again! That's too dangerous!"
"Somehow, I don't think so. Now that he's experienced his spell first hand, he probably won't have the desire to ever use it again," Lina admitted. "And once I saw Xellos miraculously returned from the grave, which I'm sure was your doing, I thought that a good Magic Locking wouldn't hurt the guy too much."
"And if he used to be a God, I'm sure the fire of Justice is still burning somewhere in his heart!" Amelia added.
Sonjia smacked her forehead. "After all that he's done to you, you're suddenly standing up for him? What kind of people are you?!"
"Simple!" said Lina, standing proudly. "We're humans."
"Well, I'm not!" Sonjia retorted. "And this guy here started acting like one, and look what became of him!"
"At least he was open to new ideas," Lina muttered.
"Being human's not bad," said Gourry. "I like being a human. And even though you're a God, you sometimes look human. And you get angry like Lina does, and she's human."
Amelia clenched her fists. "Gourry-san is right! Sonjia-san, you shouldn't think something's bad just because a human thinks it's good!"
Sonjia looked at them flatly. "So, you're saying that after all that, you want me to re-release his vengeance upon the world, just because."
"Actually, I'm saying that just for once, you should look at someone else's point of view," Lina corrected. "It's not as bad as you might think."
"You should practice what you preach, Lina," said Zelgadis, dryly.
"Oh, hush."
Sonjia lowered her head. "It's not because I think he'll get better. It's because he's my older brother. And no one should die because of this spell. Plus I've still got a few other things to ask him anyway. Only because of THAT will I remove the spell."
Lina grumbled. "But of course, she has to disagree with some part of the suggestion."
"But not here," Sonjia continued. "When he wakes up, he's not going to be anywhere where he can cause any damage."
"What kind of place would that be?" asked Amelia.
Sonjia looked to the sky. "The world we came from. My sister said that there was nothing there anymore. But our being here has only caused chaos on this world. If anything, hopefully at least one thing will be set right by going there."
"And how will you get there?" Lina wondered.
"Dunno. But if we got here in the first place, there must be some way to get back," she said, slinging Jadarin's arm over her shoulder. "Besides, if I go there, I won't have to hear the name Lina Inverse ever again." With that, she began to walk off, Jadarin in tow.
Lina waved half-heartedly, mouth twitching. "Nice knowing you, too."
Sonjia paused momentarily and looked back at Lina. "By the way... Even though your use of Magic Lock was a trick, was what you said about learning it also false?"
Lina put her arms behind her head and smiled. "Who knows?"
Sonjia regarded her dubiously for a moment before realizing that she wasn't going to get a better answer than that. Sighing at the Inverse girl's warped personality, she turned again and walked off.
"So I guess that's that," said Amelia. "That was one weird mess we got into."
Lina stretched her arms over her head and yawned. "Yeah, who would've guessed that one spell could cause so much trouble?"
Zelgadis turned his back on the departing figures, just a speck on the horizon now. "Hmph. I still don't believe a word of what she said. I for one am glad she's gone."
Amelia nodded. "You must've really doubted her abilities, Zelgadis-san. I'm surprised."
Zelgadis raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"Well," said Amelia, "she's a five thousand year-old goddess who specializes in healing, and you never even once asked her to use her abilities to try and turn you from a chimera into a normal human." She nodded again. "You must've really doubted her."
Of all the treachery, deceit, and other such happenings that Zelgadis was sure that Sonjia could have brought about…
…That one had never crossed his mind.
And so, a rather frustrated scream could be heard for miles around.
Lina, completely oblivious to this, decided on a more important course of action. "All this battling has really worked up an appetite. And now that that Mazoku isn't around anymore to mess up my dinner plans, let's find someplace to eat!"
And so Lina did finally get to eat an uninterrupted meal. And there was much rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Xellos sat in a tree, pondering why everyone insisted that he had been dead for a while. He sure didn't remember anything to that extent. But he also had no memory of how the flowers got into his hair, or Lina's dagger into his chest, for that matter. Maybe Lina just got really mad at him.
"Oh, no matter," he said, dismissing it. "Might as well go find out what Lina-san and the others are up to now," he decided, snapping his fingers.
He paused a moment before jumping out of the tree. Looking at his hand, he noticed that he had somehow produced a tiny silver thread. It promptly vanished after a few seconds, having just enough spark to light it, but not enough to keep it going very long.
Xellos squinted and looked his hand over. "Hm, wonder what that was?" he said casually. He shrugged and jumped down from the tree, focusing his attention back on meeting up with Lina for whatever strange adventure happened to be coming next.
Woo, the end. Now I guess I've got room for the fabled "Author's Notes". I would have interspersed them throughout the beginnings of the chapters, but then I decided that they would clutter up the story and interrupt it too much. So, here they are at the end instead.
This story is, in fact, a massive re-write of the original "Gods' Blood", which was originally finished in June of 1999. The ideal surrounding that original fic was simple: To write a Slayers fic that followed the feel of the actual TV series. I mean, come on, I love Slayers. Who am I to change it to any great extent? I wanted to leave the characters and themes the way they were that made me grow attached to them in the first place.
So, what's the difference between this re-write and the original, you ask? Well, not a whole lot, actually. Mostly just changing wordings and descriptions here and there, plus the addition of extra jokes. The story flows more or less the same, though. Although, notably, the ending was somewhat altered.
The main reason for the re-write was Sonjia, so you can blame her. I didn't have her personality really nailed down until about three-quarters of the way through the fic originally. So, when going back over it, she just seemed too darn nice (comparatively) at the beginning. Plus, in the original, she actually honestly apologized to Lina on a couple of occasions, which is unforgivable :P. Therefore, she was re-written to be quite a bit more extreme with her superiority complex (I never said I wrote her to be a likable character ^_^*).
Jadarin was left mostly intact from the original, although his motivations were slightly altered to match what happens in the second story arc.
Second story arc?
Yes, believe it or not, there's more to this story. There are a couple of minor loose ends that were left on purpose so they could be developed further in the continuation. I mean, if this is Slayers, it's gotta be 26 parts, right?
Unfortunately, I only have about a third of the second story arc written at this point. And if I have a set number of parts I want to fill, I'll have to wait until I finish the whole thing before I post it, so I know how to divide it up. Thankfully, my summer break starts tomorrow, and I'll (hopefully) have lots of time to work on it. Whether or not I ever get the motivation to is another matter...
At the moment, the FF.net-esque summary for part 2 stands as follows:
"Lina beat the bad guy, but the world gets screwed over anyway. Too bad no one noticed. Lina is thrilled to learn that she's the only one who can save reality from going ker-splat, and must go a-questing to do so, along with her most favorite people in the world. Thus the God spaketh: 'This sucks.'"
That is all for now. ::bows::
This story was brought to you by a bunch of 0's and 1's.