Chapter 4 : Attack of the itty bittys
"What?!" Telca's gaze darted around the area they were in as Mischief's hisses grew into full fledged yowls. "Where? I can't see anything!"
::Mommy!::
"Shh, shh, it's okay. Everything's okay..." Lashana held the terrified dragon closer to herself as he buried his head into the crook of her right shoulder and freed her right arm so that she could raise her sword.
"How is this okay?!" Joyrock growled as the bushes all around them started shaking, high-pitched cries of challenge drifting down from the treetops.
"Shut. Up. There isn't time for this!"
"Hey! What's that?"
Everyone turned at Venom's question in time to see him crouch down and poke at a small red and black form that had just emerged from a bush, the symbiote that was covering Eddie's hand extending it's own curious tendril to nudge the tiny creature.
"What the hell?" Telca blinked and leaned over the psycho's shoulder. "It looks like a smurf."
"This is what the dragon's afraid of?" Inuyasha laughed and knelt to poke at the thing with a talon. "How can this pitiful little thing be scaryyy--IIIIEE!!! GET IT OFF!!!"
Lashana quirked an eyebrow as the hanyou shot to his feet, frantically shaking his left hand to try to get the little creature that had sunk it's rather large fangs right into his finger. "What was that you just said, Inuyasha?"
"Waaaait a minute. Didn't the dragon say 'horde'?" Joyrock asked, looking at Lashana warily and seeing her pale. "That's what I thought."
"Horde? Uh oh. Then that means...." Getting to his feet, Venom meekly pointed to the treetops, where hundreds of the little things were repelling down towards them.
"Oh shit! Run!"
"I can't believe we're running from smurfs!" Telca yelled as she and Lashana led the way through the underbrush, shoving bushes and vines aside as they did so, the three males in close pursuit as the horde of little creatures swarmed after them.
"We can't fight in here! We need open space!" the Elf yelled back, ducking to avoid a low branch and yelping when she tripped on a tree root, Kalamadea tumbling from her arms as she slammed to the ground. "...ow..." The sound of the swarm close behind made her scramble to her knees, screaming when something landed on her back and jabbed her in the shoulder with a tiny spear. "Get it off!! --urk!"
Joyrock spun at the scream in time to see twenty smurf-things loop a rope around the Elf's neck, pulling backwards in a bid to knock her over as they strangled her. Aw hell.... "Don't move!"
Even while being strangled, she still managed to shoot him a look of 'are you insane?!' before the rope tightened, cutting into her skin as more of the things latched onto her. The sight of Joyrock fully opening his mouth made her grimace before she remembered one of his attacks from the Slayers Movie she had seen him in, and despite her better judgement, she froze in place, closing her eyes as he spat/launched a ball of fire energy at the horde.
"C'mon!" Telca grabbed Kalamadea off the ground and let him get a death grip on her hair before ducking one of the little bastards that tried to land on her and backhanding it off the vine it had swung down on.
Lashana, now free of the rope, snarled and surged to her feet, turning to glare down at the swarm as she did so, an aura of rage flickering into sight around her as she rose her hands, the energy that was growing around her giving birth to a powerful wind that lifted her now partially unbound hair from her shoulders. "You want a fight?! You got one!"
"No!" Telca scooped a rock off the ground and pitched it at the Elf, hitting her in the back of the head. "We have to conserve spells!"
"Are you insane?! This doesn't warrant a spell?!"
Venom turned in time to see another thing dive out of a tree at her. "Watch out!"
Snarling, she spun and instinctively flared her aura, chuckling lowly when the creature hit the glowing energy and got fried. "Aha. No spells required."
"Good!" Inuyasha grabbed her left wrist and ran after the others. "Go! We'll use her as a shield!"
"What?! No! Put me down this instant you--!"
WHAM!
"....oopsie."
The entire group skidded to a stop and turned to look at the dragon that had slammed into the ground behind them, the rosary glowing brightly a moment longer before reverting to it's normal brown colour. Snarling, Skie rose his head and glared at the Elf for a moment before grimacing and slowly getting to his feet, shaking a vicious goo off his right forefoot.
"Well...." Telca fought to keep herself from laughing, her voice wavering with mirth. "On the bright side, we got rid of the horde."
Kalamadea grimaced. ::Ew.::
~*~
"That was the most pitiful victory I have ever had the misfortune of being involved in!" Skie snarled as he rolled himself across a clearing filled with lush grass, trying to clean most of the goo off of himself.
Eddie grimaced in disgust while the symbiote flowed around him, altering itself to appear like blue jeans, boots and a blue t-shirt. "That was just gross. I can't believe you two find this funny."
"It's just too pitiful not to be funny!" Lashana chuckled, glancing at Telca who was having a hard time trying not to snicker.
Joyrock smirked from where he was sitting in a tree, enjoying the emotions of sheer disgust from both the human and the dragon. "You know, she's got a point."
"Oh, shut up," Inuyasha grumbled as he walked out of the forest, sending an annoyed look at the Mazoku before heading over to the two Avatars and tossing something at Telca. "Found it."
Telca grinned and snatched the small skull out of the air, ignoring the disturbing fact that it seemed to have once been a dog. "Great! Yo! Q! Get yer arse over here you baka! We found your stupid skull!"
"One down, eleven to go," Lashana sighed, reaching up to tug the elastic out of her hair and smiling slightly when Kalamadea flew over to her and took his usual perch on her right shoulder, hiding himself in her hair.
"That's eleven 'or so', my dear Elf." Q reminded her as he appeared in front of them, smiling as he caught the skull that Telca threw at him. "Ah. I see you found it. And you all survived too, I'm amazed."
Eddie frowned and folded his arms over his chest. "Well good for you. Can we leave the paint-by-number gone wrong forest now?"
"Oooh, thought of that all by yourself, did you?" Q drawled, smirking when the human glared at him angrily.
"Will you just get on with it already?!"
Q turned at the yell and arched an eyebrow at Lashana, seeing her eyes momentarily flash from blue to gold. "Certainly, my dear Knight. Which test would you like first? The diamond or the book?"
Diamond or the book? The Elf glanced around at the group, receiving numerous shrugs as a response. "A lot of help you people are."
"Fine, fine," Telca looked at Q. "The diamond."
"You're sure now?"
Lashana growled, sending Q a scathing glare. "I hate you."
"Please take notice in how little I care. Now, for this, I'm going to have to be a little lenient."
"Ha!"
Ignoring the grunt of disbelief from Joyrock, Q turned to look at Skie and frowned. "Despite my better judgement, I'm going to let you be in control of your size. You'll be able to either return to your normal form or choose a smaller form at will. But this is only temporary."
"Feh," Inuyasha folded his arms over his chest. "And what's the catch?"
"Catch? Why would you think there'd be a catch?" When everyone gave him long suffering glares, Q smirked. "There's no catch. I'd imagine that the test you're about to partake in will be difficult enough without any catches."
Telca glanced at Lashana and sighed. "Lovely."
Grumbling under his breath, Eddie looked over at Joyrock. "Well? You're the one who's supposed to be shifting us places, remember?"
"I don't even know where we're going yet, baka!"
Q smirked. "That'll change. You see, this is the last time I'll help you--"
"You call this 'help'?!"
"Yes. As I was saying. This will be the last time I help you. After this, you'll merely be given messages on where... or when... to go."
"'When'?" Lashana glanced at Telca. "Oh dear lords, that doesn't sound good."
Stifling the urge to chuckle, Q smiled at all of them and waved. "Have fun now."
Telca blinked as he vanished, then growled softly. "Bastard. Alright, fine. Where the hell are we supposed to go?" She said the last to Joyrock, who gave her a bewildered look.
"I have no clue."
::Elfy, look there.::
"Hmm?" Lashana turned as Kalamadea leaped off her shoulder and followed him with her gaze as he glided down to land on the ground where Q had been moments before, ripping out pieces of neon pink grass before ducking his head down and pulling out a small silver item. "What is that? Hey! A Palm Pilot!"
Telca grabbed it out of Kalamadea's jaws and looked at it, lightly touching a few options on the touch-sensitive screen before grumbling. "A neutered one. No email, no internet...."
"....no way to contact the guys," Lashana finished with a sigh. "Damn."
"Mmhm. There is however, numerous folders about the tests. Looks like all but the one we're supposed to do are encrypted though."
"They'll probably only open after we finish each test," Eddie mused, daring to look over her shoulder. "What's the one we're supposed to do now?"
"Um.... Well, I can't read the first part, I have no idea what language that's in. But the rest says that we're supposed to get the diamond on the top of the temple." Telca paused for a moment, then sighed. "I have no idea what that means."
Lashana frowned and peered at the small screen for a moment before gasping in surprise. "Give it here for a second."
Meanwhile, Joyrock, Inuyasha and Skie were glancing from the trio to each other.
"What's a 'Palm Pilot'?" Joyrock frowned.
Skie shrugged, wings opening and folding with the motion. "I don't know. What's an 'internet'?"
"Yatta! I know where we're supposed to go!" Lashana grinned and pointed at the first sentence that Telca hadn't understood. "'Go to Egypt in 1933 and steal the diamond on the top of the temple found in the desert oasis of Ahm Shere....'" She trailed off and rose her disbelieving gaze to Telca. "That's from the Mummy Returns movie!"
"Oh, man. You mean we're going to have to trek through another desert, fight dead people, Anubis warriors and run away from flesh eating bugs?! Okay, this was not in our job descriptions!"
"Telca, we don't have job descriptions."
The sorceress shrugged. "It was a good line though."
Joyrock rolled his eyes as he walked over to the Elf and curiously looked at the small silver device she was holding, his eyes widening when he saw the small writing there. "You can read that?!"
Lashana looked at him. "Well, duh."
::He's a tad slow, I see,:: Kalamadea chuckled as he lazily stretched his wings and twisted his head around to lick at the bite he had received from the demon smurf creatures.
"That's the Mazoku language! The one that L-Sama...." he trailed off and looked at her in shock. "Impossible...."
::You'd think he'd have figured it out by now. At the very least he should have noticed just by seeing your aura,:: Kalamadea muttered, flexing his leg a little before flying back up to perch on her shoulder. ::Or just by sensing you.::
Ne, Q blocked most of my powers, remember? That probably has a lot to do with it. Lashana sighed and pocketed the Palm Pilot before elbowing a slightly catatonic Joyrock in the ribs. "Make with the spatial shifting already." The sensation of a weight settling on her left shoulder made her jump slightly, and she glanced over to come face to face with Skie, who was no bigger than Kalamadea. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"You don't seriously think that he's capable of opening a gateway large enough to accommodate me, do you?"
Telca smirked at the Elf. "You certainly have a way with the psychopaths."
"She should," Eddie chuckled. "You're her friend."
"Hey! I resent that!"
Joyrock shook himself awake as he sensed Telca's anger and automatically absorbed the emotion, feeding off of it as he turned and raked a talon across the air, a shimmering purple tear appearing in the space his talon cut through. Ignoring the silence behind him as the others watched what he was doing, he casually reached out and grabbed an edge of the 'cut', pulling it open. "Well? Are we going or not?"
"Don't get yer tail in a knot, frog," Inuyasha grumbled as Telca shoved Eddie in first before deeming it safe enough for her to go through. He yelped moments later when Lashana smacked him upside the head, and started to turn to yell at her only to be forcibly propelled into the tear. "Bitch!"
"That's Miss Bitch to you pal!" Lashana yelled after him as she ducked past Joyrock and stepped into the shift, dimly aware that the Mazoku was close behind her as she immediately emerged into a stiflingly hot desert. "Ugh. Not again."
Skie hissed in pleasure and threw himself into the air, returning to his natural size in mid leap before winging upwards, delighting in the sensation of the wondrous desert heat. He hadn't even noticed that he had knocked the entire group over in the process of returning to his natural size.
"I hate that dragon," Telca growled as she sat up and shook sand out of her hair.
"You!" Lashana glared at Inuyasha as he stood and proceeded to try to get the sand out of his clothes. "Sit!"
"Ack!" WHAM!! "Bitch!"
"Sit!"
Eddie winced as Inuyasha sunk a foot into the sand after that last 'sit' and felt his symbiote shiver slightly. Glad that wasn't us....
"Having fun?" Telca chuckled as she got to her feet then helpfully pulled the Elf up, smirking when she glanced down at Mischief in time to see the cat try to shake sand out from between the toes of her right hind leg.
"I'd have more fun if there was a five star hotel around here," Lashana muttered sourly, feeling Kalamadea dig his talons into her shirt as she shook sand out of her hair.
Joyrock grumbled lowly and slowly pulled himself to his feet, bushy tail flicking once in irritation as he looked around the wasteland they were in, blinking when he saw an expanse of green nearby. "Is that an illusion?"
Kalamadea frowned and climbed up until he was perched on the top of Lashana's head, claws holding onto her hair for balance as he stared in the direction of the Mazoku's pointing finger. ::No! It's a real forest! And it's a normal colour!::
"Oh thank the Gods," Lashana breathed, shielding her eyes with a hand as she took a quick look around. "Um... where's Skie?"
Telca growled softly. "He probably bailed on us."
"The idea did occur to me."
Lashana jerked her head upwards at the low rumble and blinked up at Skie as he seemingly materialized above them, his natural blue scales easily merging with the blue sky, giving him the perfect camouflage. Feeling Kalamadea slip off, she reached back with a hand and caught him, giving him a boost up until he was hanging off her shoulder. "Sorry, littling."
"Littling?" Skie frowned and landed nearby, taking a single step forward and lowering his head to be close to eye-level with the Elf, seeing the others take a step back in shock when they realised exactly how large his natural size truly was. "You speak to him as dragons do their young.... as a mother would."
::I told you that she raised us!:: Kalamadea huffed, glaring at the other dragon in annoyance. ::What, was I talking to myself or something?::
Telca laughed. "Oh yeah, Elfy, he's definitely yours."
"Oh, do shut up. And don't call me 'Elfy', Battleaxe!"
"Can we yell at each other in the forest?" Joyrock growled. "This sun is going to kill me!"
Sighing, Lashana looked over at him, Skie a powerful presence at her back. "Look, it's not that far, can't you shift us over there? Q said you could still shift a little bit, right?"
He frowned for a moment, inwardly looking at his own powers. While dulled, it was possible that he could shift from place to place, just not very far. "It's possible, but shifting from place to place is different than dimension to dimension. And I've never brought someone else with me when I shift, so I don't know how it would affect you." A slow malicious grin spread over his face as he grabbed the Elf's wrist. "Let's find out."
"What?! No! St--" The last was cut off as their surroundings blurred with shimmering purple light, and she felt Kalamadea's talons pierce the flesh on her shoulder as the world around them seemed to fold in on itself before they were suddenly standing at the edge of the forest.
"Well," Joyrock released her wrist and looked from her to the forest, delighting in the rage and slight fear he sensed from her. "That went better than I--"
"STAY!!"
WHAM!
~*~
"Well, I see he's been properly subdued," Telca grumbled when she and the others had finally managed to catch up with the duo. It would have taken less time had Skie not been a stubborn git and refused to fly them all there. She stifled the urge to scream and eyed Joyrock where he was lying face down on the ground, reaching out to nudge him in the arm with the toe of her boot. "Are ya dead?"
"She's been 'staying' me for the past hour. I might be," he moaned thinly, not even bothering to try to get up. Everytime he had, the Elf had 'stayed' him again. So he just lay there, in the very deep imprint of himself, hoping that the arrival of the others would distract her enough that he'd be able to get away.
Eddie glanced at the Mazoku for a moment before raising his gaze to the Elf that was perched up in a tree, her arms folded over her chest as she glared down at Joyrock murderously, obviously waiting for him to make a move so she could 'stay' him again. "As much as he deserves it, maybe you should stop. He's really denting the ground, it can't be good for the environment."
Lashana growled softly, hesitant to agree. But that hole was getting pretty deep... "I'll think about it."
"Yeah, well, while you're up there. See if you can spot a good place to camp," Inuyasha called up to her. "The sun's setting and we gotta find wood for a fire."
"Mreow."
Telca automatically reached up to bury her fingers in Mischief's fur, feeling the vibration of the cat's purring as she frowned and turned to look out over the desert. I wonder what Q meant when he said 'we'll see if the Elf survives the night'? Damned git, why does he always have to only hint at what he's saying? Ugh, males.
"Telca?"
She blinked and glanced over at Inuyasha, frowning when she saw the others staring at her. "What?"
"You coming?" Lashana asked as she hopped to the ground, pointing deeper into the forest. "There's a clearing nearby."
"Yeah, I'm coming." Sighing, the turned her back on the desert and headed after the ground, purposefully stepping on Joyrock's back as she did so. "Oops. Sorry. Didn't see you there."
"The hell you didn't," he grumbled as he slowly got to his feet, brushing dirt and grass off of himself before resigning himself to a long night of torment as he followed the group.
"Well, this is better than I thought," Lashana mused once she had shoved her way through a bunch of low branches and emerged into the clearing, taking a moment to look around before walking over to a dead tree stump.
"What's she doing?" Eddie whispered to Inuyasha, who shrugged. They both yelped seconds later when she sunk her nails into the dried bark and simply uprooted the entire thing, hefting it over her head for a moment before tossing it into the middle of the clearing.
"Heh. Source of all power, crimson fire burning bright. Let thy power gather in my hands! FIREBALL!!"
Telca looked from the large makeshift campfire to the smirking Elf. "Enjoyed that, did you?"
"I've been wanting to blow something up for hours!" she grinned, brushing her hands clean on her jeans before tucking her hair behind her pointed ears, keeping the locks out of her face. "You think Pizza Pizza delivers here?"
"It's nineteen thirty-three. Pizza Pizza doesn't even exist," Telca reminded her as she threw herself down onto the grass and relocated Mischief to her lap, lightly stroking the cat's velvet fur,dimly aware of Joyrock, Inuyasha and Skie's completely baffled expressions. When she looked up again, she saw Lashana perched in yet another tree, and she rolled her eyes as she lightly pitched a small rock at her. "What's with the trees all of a sudden?"
"I like it up here," Lashana shrugged, grinning when Inuyasha and Joyrock relocated themselves into other trees around her.
"Yeah well, just don't fall out. If you break something, I'm not going to be the one who'll carry you out of here."
"Gee, I can feel the love." Yawning, Lashana leaned back against the
tree and closed her eyes, feeling Kalamadea relocate to her lap as she
listened to the sounds of the forest around her, tensing when she heard
a low deep rumble that steadily grew into a loud growling. Oh crud...
"What the hell was that?"