Chapter Ten
A REALLY annoying new villain
"So what now?"
Zelas jumped nervously at the voice. She'd been cradling Nezard for almost an hour; ever since she'd woken up back on Mipross. It's not every day that a monster gets a gift; altruism isn't a mazoku strong point. More to the point, it had been given in a genuine moment of generosity, yet another thing monsters don't run into very often. Being an empathivore wasn't exactly fun, nice, or easy; you had to be careful what you fed on, and you had to be careful to get JUST the energy and none of the extra vibes of emotions.
Trent shrugged nonchalantly at Delphine; she'd been giving him no end of grief for giving the Talons of Light to Zelas and not her. As it was, he was finally getting numbed to her sniping. Now if I can just figure out a way to keep her and Zelas from trying to... "I'd say it's pretty obvious. Larth said that Valred is somewhere to the northeast of us, near the kingdom of Elmekia. We have a bit of a trip ahead of us."
Delphine rolled her eyes. He was starting to get jaded to her snuggling; not much, but enough that she could notice it. She was starting to get hungry; she needed a good crowd that she could just scare the daylights out of. "Why bother? As I recall, this Valred is only after that pink guy; Sirius was it? Why should we keep getting involved?"
Zelas answered for her. "He's not after Sirius, he's after the weapons. Now we personally have two, our extended group has three. He's coming after us, that's a given. We may as well hunt him down and finish him off before then."
Delphine rolled her eyes. What the hell was going on? Since when did Zelas start acting altruistic? Sultry, yes. Dignified, certainly. Downright creepy, when the occasion called for it. This? No way, nah-ah, no how.
Trent gave the two an odd look as they began to engage in some kind of mental conversation. At least that was his assumption of what they were doing. "So what's the verdict?"
Delphine growled under her breath. Getting snippy when she was hungry had always been a problem of hers. "We go look for this idiot, or whatever it is that you deem so necessary."
Trent considered glaring at her, but decided against it. He'd gotten what he wanted in the end; he could handle a little bit of bitchiness. "Well, hop on. I assume that I'm transportation?" he asked as he began transforming to full dragon.
Zelas just pouted despite herself. She'd been hoping for half-dragon; metallic scales just weren't comfortable for anything beyond sitting.
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Zelgadis glared behind his shoulder. "For the last time, do you two HAVE to do that?"
Valgaav glared right back at him. "What, you think I'm encouraging this? I've TRIED to get her to stop."
Kashura pouted up at the currently-human-looking dragon. "Aw, and here I came all the way from the north pole just to see you."
"I don't recall asking you to come."
"Dynast did."
Zelgadis sighed again. He was getting exhausted; at this point, most of his angst was being feigned. He turned to the other resident monster, trying his best to ignore the two arguing behind him. Oh, how the mighty had fallen; he was reduced to trying to be civil to Xellos for distraction. "Xellos, what precisely is the deal with her? I mean, why is she so obsessed with him?"
The trickster priest turned to regard Zelgadis, smiling all the while. "Well...that, is a - "
SCHNIKT.
"...excellent and well thought-out question," Xellos finished, sweat- dropping.
Zelgadis smiled back, his sword never wavering from under Xellos's chin. "Glad to hear it. So what's the story?"
Xellos inwardly berated himself. He'd forgotten that the blue demon third of Zelgadis made him a LOT faster than any human could have been; it had been so long since the trickster-priest had considered the threat therein that he'd gotten a bit careless. Now he actually had to COOPERATE with the chimera. Just the thought made him shudder. "Well, the truth is that I'm not terribly sure of the exact particulars. All that I know for sure is that Valgaav saved her life a few hundred years ago, and the rest as they say is history."
Zelgadis lowered his sword, giving the mazoku a quizzical look. "Just like that? One time saving a life and she's his little fan-girl?"
Xellos chuckled dryly, scratching at the back of his head. "I just said that those were the FACTS I'm aware of. Virtually everyone who knows about the incident is convinced that she suffered the demonic equivalent of a severe head injury at the time."
"Which is?"
Xellos shrugged as a clearing appeared. "Muzak."
They'd arrived roughly a day and a half ago following that weird energy surge in the altar of Falaris. Unfortunately, they'd only woken up about eight hours ago; those were mostly assumption based on the state of Zelgadis's stomach. He'd been able to recognize some of the area to a degree; he'd figured they were somewhere along the central continental coast, on the southern edge of the subcontinent. Probably near Ralteague, south and east of Atlas City.
As it was, they'd been roaming around the forests trying to find their way SOMEwhere, with little success so far.
It was the LAST time that Zelgadis intended to trust Kashura's assurances of her map's accuracy. Still, he probably deserved what he got; what had he been THINKING?! Trusting a mazoku for useful help...
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM NOT CUDDLY!!!!!!"
"Oh, don't be silly Val-chan. You're just a great big scaley lump of affection, aren't you?"
"GRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
Xellos winced, shaking his head dazedly. "Well, I never knew dragons had that kind of vocal range. Still, this is getting a bit painful." He abruptly teleported away, earning Zelgadis's undying envy. HE could only make dramatic exits by stalking away, his cape furling behind him. Not terribly effective when one's companions are faster than you are.
Xellos almost immediately returned. "Good news." That was more than enough to start Zelgadis's migraine. "I found a place nearby where we can spend the night..." Xellos sweat-dropped as Valgaav somehow extricated his arm from Kashura's grip long enough to zoom past him at hypersonic speeds. "...though there might be a few odd problems with the place."
"That, and he doesn't know precisely where you teleported off to, " Zelgadis quipped.
Xellos shrugged nonchalantly. Despite the fact that Zelgadis rather actively despised him, the two had a strange chemistry; they worked well together. (1) "Eh, he'll figure that out soon enough. Besides, he IS going in at least the vaguely right direction. Follow me."
As Zelgadis and Kashura followed, Zelgadis could only wonder why this particular brush-off seemed to have gotten Kashura so out of sorts.
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Zelgadis gaped.
Xellos's 'place to spend the night' was HUGE. It went right past house and mansion to near palatial; just the grounds covered by the mansion's foundation was enough to fit inside a football field.
It had been built in a fashion vaguely along Victorian or Greco-Roman lines; the main body of the mansion was a fairly simple rectangular building with an evenly peaked roof. That was where the simple parts stopped; the entire front facade of the mansion was one huge veranda set into the building, the outer wall a mostly open area of Corinthian pillars. The four-story building sported literally hundreds of huge, double-tall windows of flawless glass set in hand-carved frames of white birch wood.
As for the grounds themselves, they extended roughly fifty yards around the entire area, a precisely manicured lawn no more than three quarters of an inch in height. Equally precise hedgerows had been set around the edge to clearly delineate the change from grounds to the huge forest clearing, as well as along the marble-paved walkways to the mansion's front gates.
Add to that the tall, ancient forests surrounding the entire area and the three quarter moon shedding light across the area, and it belonged more in a fairy tale than the middle of nowhere.
Zelgadis turned a side-long glance at the rest of his group. "We're staying here?"
Kashura frowned at him. "Why not? What, do you think we're going to find a better, more comfortable place to spend the night?"
Valgaav sighed. "Probably not. We may as well try and stay."
Zelgadis groaned as the dragon walked off, a bit more tolerant at the moment of Kashura's clinging. He'd managed to find the place quite easily after his first mis-jump. "And none of you are even remotely suspicious of a huge, perfectly maintained palace in the middle of nowhere?" He sighed as he followed them. "It's a well-known fact that places like these ALWAYS end up trying to eat you, or the creatures who keep it maintained do." He'd run into one too many such places in his cure-searches; he knew better.
So why precisely was he still going in?
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Kashura sighed within her room as she began telekinetically seperating strands of her hair. She preferred to walk or ride wagons as opposed to flying or teleporting. Given a choice, she'd fight hand-to-hand as opposed to flinging around spells at her opponents. For a member of the monster race, she was ridiculously humanistic, and she preferred it that way.
Still, no one would mind if she used her powers for little conveniences like this, would they? After all, it was so much easier than carrying around all the cumbersome cosmetic paraphenalia that seemed to be part and parcel of the female human. Being able to alter one's appearance like this was just something she HAD to indulge in. Why on earth would she want to take the time and effort to remember all the shampoos, conditioners, styling gels, hair mousses, exfoliating cremes, hair brushes, combs, straighteners, curlers, crimpers, and everything else that the world of make-up had concocted to try and use to convince women they weren't beautiful enough? She had better things to do with her time. (2)
Like pursue/annoy the heck out of a certain unwillingly cuddly former ancient dragon turned half dragon half mazoku turned BACK to ancient dragon.
She sighed blissfully at the memory over three hundred years ago. At the time, she'd been under Scherra's command to try and deal with a nest of Gaav's rogue mazoku.
Unfortunately, they'd managed to consolidate their hold rather securely by turning the areas surrounding them into a sinkhole of depravity; the villages were little more than feeding grounds for the bandits nurtured there, the central cities little more than a convenient place to keep all the taverns and brothels in one location. The massive amounts of negative emotional energy that oozed from the place had allowed them to grow a LOT stronger than the mere peon demons they had originally been spawned as.
The battle hadn't been pleasant by any means; Kashura hadn't decided to foreswear (sort of) her powers, and even then it hadn't been easy. Though a lot of their opponents had been destroyed within the first few minutes, it hadn't been enough; she'd been on the ropes after a while.
Then Valgaav had shown up.
In later years, she'd managed to piece together the nature of his arrival and reasons for being there. Apparently, the demons had taken a page from Gaav's book and decided that they were going to be independent.
Neither Gaav nor the dragon had been pleased.
Gaav's primary concern had been that they were trying to dredge up this HUGE supply of energy, constructing an unimaginable power base, and they had dared to try and keep it from him. The long and the short of it was that they had become something of an embarassment for him, and despite his being sealed in a human form, he had enough mazoku pride left to despise being embarassed or dishonored.
Valgaav had been sent to clean the stain of his honor. His first order of business had been to reduce the three or four monsters still threatening Kashura into ethereal waste. They'd been the closest, most convenient targets after all.
What had been left of them hadn't lasted long after that. Not even Xellos was stronger than Valgaav; close, but just barely weaker. And while nowhere near as infamous or feared among the monster race in general, among Gaav's henchmonsters Valgaav had been their bogeyman, the skeleton under the bed that you hoped didn't really exist.
As yet, Kashura wasn't totally sure WHAT she'd seen in him. Oh, she could recite his various virtues certainly; his dedication, his raw power, his delicious habit of generating a very fine grade of rage and sorrow, his perfectly bishonen figure...but she didn't think that was what had captivated her in the first place.
She didn't really care all that much anymore; she knew what she wanted, and she intended to get it.
Then the mansion began to rumble.
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The title character (for this chapter, not a seraphim) grinned evilly as he watched the four unsuspecting fools who had suffered the grave misfortune of coming into his grasp go to sleep. They would feel pain, suffering, and fear the likes of which they'd never imagined possible soon enough; soon, they would know the absolute terror that he commanded! THEY WOULD GROVEL LIKE WORMS BEFORE HE KILLED THEM! THEY WOULD WRITHE IN AGONY AS THEY BEGGED FOR DEATH! AND MORE THAN THAT, THEY WOULD LICK HIS BOOTS CLEAN!
GWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
I swear, you can FEEL this guys bad karma catching up with him.
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Valgaav groaned quietly in the night. When one suffers as much as he had, one tends towards nightmares over restful sleep of any kind. As such, he was stuck in one of his most common nightmares; the memory of his people's death. As it was, he didn't really even consider it a nightmare anymore, just a dream of less than pleasant things. He'd had almost a millenium to gnaw on this particular happening; it was beginning to lose its impact on him.
Still, it had had its uses. Over the years, he'd forged his mind and body into weaponry dedicated to nothing save his survival. A small part of that was his ability to sleep lightly enough to detect anything that could conceivably be a threat to him.
To someone who can not only fly but also teleport and rip apart anything in his path, a change in environment didn't register as such.
The whole point of the above few paragraphs is this. Despite the fact that the house itself was writhing like some kind of living thing, sinking him into the catacombs beneath the foundation, he felt nothing. Simply because none of the movements were geared in the slightest towards harming him directly.
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Kashura growled deep in her throat as she pounded at the walls with her unfettered strength. Using brute force the way she did as opposed to magic had at the very least given her a great deal of extra power in that regard. Not that it was doing her a fat lot of good at the moment.
"Save your strength," came a voice as Xellos's face appeared from out of the shadows.
Kashura spun, glaring at him, only to feel her insides turn to ice as she recognized something. Something that told her in no uncertain terms that they were almost certainly screwed. Something that no monster, from the lowliest vampire to Lord Dynast himself would take lightly.
Xellos's eyes were opened. He wasn't smiling.
"I've already tried to teleport out of here, but apparently the area has been sealed with both magic and materials that block our abilities. It's also been armored to the point that nothing short of a Dragon slave is going to be able to puncture this armor. Someone went through a great deal of trouble to make sure that we stayed here." Xellos calmly and coldly surveyed the areas of their location. He wasn't in control of his situation. That was quite simply intolerable.
Xellos had been created to serve as both general and priest to Zelas. No other monster had ever tried that, no one had ever been willing to trust an underling with that kind of power. As such, there was no monster short of a dark lord stronger than him. That wasn't the real reason he was feared however. It was more who he was. He didn't feel fear. Not even against Dark Star, he'd never once in his existence been afraid of anything. He didn't feel pity, or remorse, or cruelty.
The only things he ever really felt were satisfaction and loyalty. That was the only reason he had yet to oppose Lina or the others; they'd proven loyal to him, and he would reward that. Certainly he considered himself deep down to be evil, or at least capable of it when necessary, but he kept his word.
However, it was the very fact that he never cared about the people he was sent after which made him feared. There was quite literally nothing that would stop him, once he was motivated to do so.
By taking away even a shred of his power, whoever had done this had made the mistake of getting him QUITE motivated.
A mistake that no one as yet had survived.
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Valgaav snarled to himself in disgust. He'd been thrown out of his bed during the last few minutes of the room shifting; he'd woken up instantly before he even hit the ground. AFTER the damage was done.
"What he hell is going on?" he muttered to himself under his breath as he looked around. From what he knew of human architecture, he'd assume that he was in a salle of some kind. The room was about fifty feet by a hundred, all exposed surfaces hardwood of some kind; teak probably. The two long walls were paneled in mirrors, most likely to make sure that any prospective combat students could watch each other embarass themselves in practice. The shorter walls were covered in rack after rack of weaponry; spears, axes, halberds, and every kind of sword imaginable from katanas to claymores to falchions.
He glared at the area around him. Despite the fascinating array of combat equipment, there was one thing in particular missing that was irking him to no small degree.
A door.
How PRECISELY did one get into a room that didn't have any way to go in or out? The obvious answer would be a trapdoor somewhere.
Which meant a long, careful search.
Valgaav was many things. A dangerous opponent, a devoted friend (if you survived long enough to befriend him), and according to several of my female friends, eye-candy. Patient was not one of them. Still, he could make do with his own ways. First of all, the most obvious place to hide a door would be behind the mirrors. As they were set in three foot sections, that reinforced the assumption. However, there were roughly sixty mirrors total. Not something he wanted to spend the time and effort prying down.
Hence the most straight-forward method of removal possible.
"Wind which blows across eternity, gather in my hands and give me strength! BRAM GUSH!"
The arrow of wind shot out from his palms, its slip-stream battering the glass to shards in mere seconds. No door behind any of them, unfortunately, leaving the ancient dragon stuck in a large room full of broken glass. A room he still had to search both the floors and ceilings of.
A room full of broken glass that had abruptly come alive as the various weaponry along the walls sprang out of their holding racks to start floating around as though they were some kind of insane swarm of locusts.
He grinned. FINALLY, something he could blow off his steam on.
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At the moment coccooned in some kind of carnivorous plant's vines, Zelgadis could really only come up with one thought.
Fate really DID go out of her way to torment him.
He'd woken up as the rumbling occured. Unlike Valgaav, he was a bit more at the mercy of his environment. Not much, but enough to make him consider rapidly and wildly shifting personal surroundings to be dangerous. Somehow or another, he'd ended up in some kind of subterranean greenhouse; why someone would be idiotic enough to try and grow leafy plants without natural sunlight he'd yet to figure out.
Upon exploring the place to try and find his way out, he'd been attacked by these damn plants. He'd had his sword out and had managed to slice apart the first few waves of attack. Then the roots had snatched him off his feet and yanked him towards more plants, conveniently disloding his sword from his hand in the process.
Still, if nothing else he was GOOD at fighting off bad odds. Razors of air pressure via the Wind Brid spell had gotten rid of most of them; a Howl Freeze had gotten him out of their grasp again.
Unfortunately, spells of that type required hands to cast. And whoever was controlling these plants seemed to have figured that out and taken appropriate steps. Namely, making sure to bind his hand securely before he could use them for any real spell-casting.
Which was what made the huge, orange seedpod that was apparently about to eat him so disconcerting.
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Still contending with an overwhelmingly strong sense of walking on eggshells, Kashura followed Xellos down the only open hallway. "What do you think is going on?"
"The obvious response is that we inadvertently stumbled across some kind of mage's lair; possibly someone engaged in clandestine experiments such as heightened channeling from the dark lords. It could also be that this mansion is a relic from a previous age, such as before the Monster's Fall." The still somber-faced trickster priest continued looking around, his senses at full power. "Still, that's not to say that the only possibilities are the obvious ones. If obvious was the only driving force in our world, sorcery would have been murdered eons ago by Algebra."
Kashura sweat-dropped at the odd, short solilouqy. "Uh...meaning what, precisely?"
Xellos shrugged. Given his past, this would have been the time for his 'Secret' remark, but he didn't really feel in the mood. AFTER he'd incinerated the fool who'd done this, THEN he'd return to cryptic and irritating. "All I mean is that we may or may not need to worry. The obvious reasons for us here would be a misunderstanding, blundering into a random series of traps. Still, given Miss Lina's track record as well as those that seem to surround the people around her, the most likely outcome will be us fighting one of Valred's servants who we 'inadvertantly' blundered across." Privately, he was wondering how the gods got away with being so blatant with their manipulations of the heavy-hitters of magic.
Kashura shook her head as they finally reached the end of the hallway, finding themselves in...
Her jaw dropped.
The word library came to mind and was summarily squashed. It just wasn't sufficient. Lore repository came a little bit closer, but it still didn't seem to fit the situation. The only phrase she could consider would be 'a fountainhead of knowledge,' the only thing glorious enough.
The room was easily five times bigger than the rest of the entire mansion; over a thousand feet long and a hundred wide, every square inch of floorspace was either a bookcase stretching easily sixty feet into the air or the bare minimum of space necessary to permit people to walk in between them. And save perhaps a few square feet on each bookcase, every other surface was covered in wood.
Kashura managed to reset he jaw as she walked towards the area. If this was a trap, it was a pretty silly one; what could this do, paper-cut her to death? She paused at the one table just outside the doorway. "Hey, what's this? I don't recognize this title..."
"Don't touch - " Xellos began, just before Kashura's opening of the pages yanked her into the book. "that," Xellos finished. Sighing deeply, he picked up the large, thick novel to peer at the title. "Gone with the Wind," he muttered as he looked it over. He paused, his irritation at least temporarily replaced with curiousity. "Somehow, I get the feeling this is Zelgadis's emotion. That odd feeling of almost guaranteed regret." Despite that, he opened the book anyway, letting it yank him after the odd demoness.
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Valgaav sighed deeply as he regarded his impromptu arena. "Honestly, I would have thought I deserved a little bit more respect from my opponents. He actually thought THAT would be enough to finish me off?"
What had once been an array of some of the finest worked iron and steel weaponry was now little more than so much rapidly cooling slag. The quality of the weaponry hadn't been an issue. The quality of the attacker had. The various swords and spears and such had flown at him in direct lines, at speeds that MIGHT have been enough to hurt an armored human being. Despite his appearance, Valgaav retained the full durability of his iron-hard scales regardless of his form. The attack hadn't even been ludicrous; it was a great deal closer to embarassing.
Then the heavy stuff had hit, namely the axes and warhammers. They'd likewise been a disappointment. After bouncing off his defensive shields, they'd just kept pulling back and beating him with the even rhythm of a chain gang; they probably would have stood a better chance against him if they'd just been dropped on his exposed toes.
"How the blazes has humanity SURVIVED if this is all they're capable of?" Valgaav grumbled as he began sorting through the mess of now-cool glass and metal for another trap door. That had been one advantage of cutting loose; the glass had melted and reformed into a smooth, dull, and no-longer-sharp- and-pointy surface. "Can't they come up with something slightly challenging?"
You know that old saying about being careful what you wish for? That could well be counted among the Laws of the Anime Multi-verse. Among such hallowed truths as the law of inherent combustion (EVERYTHING will burn and explode; large cities being qute possibly the single most explosive substance known to man) and the law of extra-dimensional capacity (most common in females; people have the strange ability to store objects (most often hammers or other blunt trauma instruments) in apparent nowhere), is the law of dramatic omnipotence. Namely, strange, possibly illogical and most likely insane events will occur for little or no apparent reason if they can either advance the plot or involve large amounts of gratuitous sex, violence, or nudity.
As such, NEVER say something like 'can't they come up with something more challenging?' This is quite literally an open invitation to the powers that be of the anime multi-verse to try and make your life hell. This is right up there with the "never say 'it could be worse'" law.
The whole point of my above rant is to explain WHY the metal that had been melted into daggers somehow reformed into a platoon of iron golems; essentially animated suits of armor bearing HUGE battle-axes. For conveniences sake, we'll claim that the caster had this contingency planned rather than a blatant if not slightly unimaginative plot device.
Valgaav whistled as the first of the seventy or so armored creatures (He couldn't for the life of him figure out how so much armor could have been made out of so relatively few weapons) attempted to smash him with enough force to reduce rock into a powder. "Well...I suppose I should be grateful."
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The formerly quiessent book exploded into a hail of paper and leather shards. In this hail of paper-cut potential, Kashura and Xellos appeared, both thoroughly shell-shocked. Kashura was at the moment wearing some kind of ridiculously fancy gown; pale rose in color, the hoop-skirt was big enough to have theoretically concealed a Humvee. Between the nigh-infinite ruffels and the knots and bows of ribbons covering every square picometer, she looked more like an insane cupcake come to life than anything else.
Xellos's outift was equally out of character, if thankfully a great deal more dignified; not particularly difficult at the moment, but come on. He was wearing a three piece black suit with a pale yellow silk cravat, his coat sporting tails, his leather shoes sporting spats.
Xellos shook his head absently. "Good god, I thought I was going to burst in there." The less-than-sane look in his eyes was one of almost religious fervor. "I never would have imagined that THAT many people could have pumped out negative emotions all at once. It was...paradise. That's the only word for the place."
Kashura gave the trickster-priest an odd look as she skinned out of her formal gown, replacing it with the simpler dark blue shift she'd been wearing when she'd first gotten sucked into the world. "If you say so. YOU didn't have to wear sixty extra pounds of cloth to blend into that retched place."
Xellos shrugged. "If you insist on being negative." Pausing, he seemed to notice his odd clothing for the first time. Tutting to himself, he immediately began shifting it back to the normal cape, tunic, and loose breeches he normally wore. He was a bit glad that only Kashura had seen him cut loose in there; if anyone other than the decidedly weird monster had ever tried to claim he'd let his dignity (such as it was) slip as much as he had allowed, he probably would have had to massacre a few hundred just to get his reputation back to snuff. Deep down, he was almost ashamed he'd let himself go to that extent. Really, he was.
Kashura sighed, shaking her head at the still slightly-out-of-it priest. "So, any idea NOW how we get out of here?"
Xellos shrugged as he started picking through the books nearby. "I suppose these will have something to do with it. The only real question is what."
Kashura sighed. "I just don't see why I couldn't have been seperated with my dear dragon. Not," she hastily amended at his raised eyebrow, "that I have any difficulties working with you, I just..."
Whatever she'd planned to say was cut off as the floor snapped upon under her feet, pseudopods of earth and rock grabbing her and yanking her elsewhere in the mansion.
Xellos sighed, shaking his head. As he perused the books for a decent bit of distraction, he started speaking to the air. "I'll assume that whoever you are, you can hear me. And please don't pretend that I'm talking to whoever is controlling this place." He slipped Moby Dick back on the shelf after reading the coverlet. Promising, but he wanted something less serious. "I can understand that you have some kind of strange purpose in what you're doing, but couldn't you try to be a bit more subtle? I doubt it will be very long before someone figures out that events are being guided like this. Keep this up, and the pieces may refuse to move." He smiled faintly as he put away a copy of the Once and Future King. Also promising, but it would be better to keep browsing. "Not that you have to take my advice. I just thought I'd offer it."
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A different where as well as a different when, a great power winced. Looking back, he HAD been a bit...blatant. Still, he'd been out of the Great Game for quite a while; he was out of practice. On the other hand, the mazoku priest had a point. People would notice.
Maybe he could make it just a TINY bit less obvious.
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Zelgadis breathed a sigh of relief as bits of flame-colored plant rained around him. The carnivorous pod had let go of his arms when it had stuffed him in its mouth. The time it would have taken for him to get swallowed had proven enough for him to get off a Howl Freeze. Most of the greenhouse's occupants had been finished off as he'd unleashed a Dug Haut; it was really a bit satisfying watching the blades of rock turn all the chlorophyl and wood that had been working so hard to eat him into so much mulch.
He didn't like what Rezo had done to him. It was unlikely he would ever forgive the priest for it. Still, he'd concede if nothing else that he'd known what he was doing; Zelgadis had no illusions as to how he would have fared without his golem's skin.
Dusting bark chips off his clothing, he peered around the area, trying to get a good look at his next target. Such worries were removed from his hands as the ground beneath his feet for lack of a better term swallowed him. He got off a levitation easily enough, but he was getting tired of this.
While he'd never admit it aloud, Zelgadis had a distressing number of similarities with Xellos. One of which being that he hated to be out of control. Someone was working VERY hard to get him good and pissed.
He didn't think it would be wrong to enjoy killing this guy. After all, he never pretended to be 100% hero; he was a heartless magic-using swordsman after all.
Touching down from his drop, he found himself in the middle of a cave of some kind. Unlike the precisely manicured hedges outside or the haphazard growth of the greenhouse, this place was just rough, bare rock, almost as though it had been dug out by animals of some kind.
Completing a slow turn to get an idea of his area, Zelgadis found only a single occupant. His first impression of the man was...well, size. He was easily eight and a half feet tall, and probably a good four hundred pounds in weight. He wasn't fat, more stocky. Judging by the way his clothing hung, he was mostly muscle rather than fat. Still, muscle wasn't something to worry about to much.
Karlimanthos grinned. "So, little girly man, you have DARED to enter my sovereign domain?! KNOW THIS, YOU WILL SUFFER LIKE NO MAN HAS EVER FELT PAIN! I WILL PUT A HURTING ON YOU, INCONSEQUENTIAL PERSON! I WILL MAKE YOU SCREAM IN BITTER PAIN SUCH THAT YOUR MOTHER AND GREAT GRANDFATHER WILL WHIMPER IN SYMPATHY! YOU WILL DIE UNDER MY BOOTHEELS! WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY TO THAT?!"
Zelgadis remained silent for a few seconds. "Oh, you're finished?" He grinned humorlessly as the giant face-faulted. "First, I want to say that you talk too much. Secondly, that part about making my mother and great grandfather whimper? I helped kill my great grandfather; I sincerely doubt empathy pains are going to be an issue." Drawing his sword, his grin turned feral. "So be a good boy, and hurry up and die."
To be continued...
Author's Notes: As for my little schpiel on Xellos, what can I say? I LIKE the trickster priest; I LIKE characters who are annoying to their peers without being useless. As such, I wanted to make him cool. For those of you who don't like my description of the Trickster Priest's inner nature, well, what can I say? He's still the fun-loving demon whose sole joy in life is tormenting and annoying Lina. Now his character's just more 3-dimensional; nothing wrong with that. And in case my descriptions of Trent haven't made it clear yet, you can BE a cold-hearted force of death and still enjoy life once in a while. Or in Xellos's case, more than once in while.
(1) - No, I don't intend a yaoi Xel/Zel relationship. I just don't see Zelgadis swinging that way. As for Xellos, who knows? (2) - I live in a family of six; my dad and I are the only guys. Living with four members of the 'fairer sex' has taught me more about hair, skin, and nail care than any man outside the Malebolge should ever be forced to know.
"So what now?"
Zelas jumped nervously at the voice. She'd been cradling Nezard for almost an hour; ever since she'd woken up back on Mipross. It's not every day that a monster gets a gift; altruism isn't a mazoku strong point. More to the point, it had been given in a genuine moment of generosity, yet another thing monsters don't run into very often. Being an empathivore wasn't exactly fun, nice, or easy; you had to be careful what you fed on, and you had to be careful to get JUST the energy and none of the extra vibes of emotions.
Trent shrugged nonchalantly at Delphine; she'd been giving him no end of grief for giving the Talons of Light to Zelas and not her. As it was, he was finally getting numbed to her sniping. Now if I can just figure out a way to keep her and Zelas from trying to... "I'd say it's pretty obvious. Larth said that Valred is somewhere to the northeast of us, near the kingdom of Elmekia. We have a bit of a trip ahead of us."
Delphine rolled her eyes. He was starting to get jaded to her snuggling; not much, but enough that she could notice it. She was starting to get hungry; she needed a good crowd that she could just scare the daylights out of. "Why bother? As I recall, this Valred is only after that pink guy; Sirius was it? Why should we keep getting involved?"
Zelas answered for her. "He's not after Sirius, he's after the weapons. Now we personally have two, our extended group has three. He's coming after us, that's a given. We may as well hunt him down and finish him off before then."
Delphine rolled her eyes. What the hell was going on? Since when did Zelas start acting altruistic? Sultry, yes. Dignified, certainly. Downright creepy, when the occasion called for it. This? No way, nah-ah, no how.
Trent gave the two an odd look as they began to engage in some kind of mental conversation. At least that was his assumption of what they were doing. "So what's the verdict?"
Delphine growled under her breath. Getting snippy when she was hungry had always been a problem of hers. "We go look for this idiot, or whatever it is that you deem so necessary."
Trent considered glaring at her, but decided against it. He'd gotten what he wanted in the end; he could handle a little bit of bitchiness. "Well, hop on. I assume that I'm transportation?" he asked as he began transforming to full dragon.
Zelas just pouted despite herself. She'd been hoping for half-dragon; metallic scales just weren't comfortable for anything beyond sitting.
--------
Zelgadis glared behind his shoulder. "For the last time, do you two HAVE to do that?"
Valgaav glared right back at him. "What, you think I'm encouraging this? I've TRIED to get her to stop."
Kashura pouted up at the currently-human-looking dragon. "Aw, and here I came all the way from the north pole just to see you."
"I don't recall asking you to come."
"Dynast did."
Zelgadis sighed again. He was getting exhausted; at this point, most of his angst was being feigned. He turned to the other resident monster, trying his best to ignore the two arguing behind him. Oh, how the mighty had fallen; he was reduced to trying to be civil to Xellos for distraction. "Xellos, what precisely is the deal with her? I mean, why is she so obsessed with him?"
The trickster priest turned to regard Zelgadis, smiling all the while. "Well...that, is a - "
SCHNIKT.
"...excellent and well thought-out question," Xellos finished, sweat- dropping.
Zelgadis smiled back, his sword never wavering from under Xellos's chin. "Glad to hear it. So what's the story?"
Xellos inwardly berated himself. He'd forgotten that the blue demon third of Zelgadis made him a LOT faster than any human could have been; it had been so long since the trickster-priest had considered the threat therein that he'd gotten a bit careless. Now he actually had to COOPERATE with the chimera. Just the thought made him shudder. "Well, the truth is that I'm not terribly sure of the exact particulars. All that I know for sure is that Valgaav saved her life a few hundred years ago, and the rest as they say is history."
Zelgadis lowered his sword, giving the mazoku a quizzical look. "Just like that? One time saving a life and she's his little fan-girl?"
Xellos chuckled dryly, scratching at the back of his head. "I just said that those were the FACTS I'm aware of. Virtually everyone who knows about the incident is convinced that she suffered the demonic equivalent of a severe head injury at the time."
"Which is?"
Xellos shrugged as a clearing appeared. "Muzak."
They'd arrived roughly a day and a half ago following that weird energy surge in the altar of Falaris. Unfortunately, they'd only woken up about eight hours ago; those were mostly assumption based on the state of Zelgadis's stomach. He'd been able to recognize some of the area to a degree; he'd figured they were somewhere along the central continental coast, on the southern edge of the subcontinent. Probably near Ralteague, south and east of Atlas City.
As it was, they'd been roaming around the forests trying to find their way SOMEwhere, with little success so far.
It was the LAST time that Zelgadis intended to trust Kashura's assurances of her map's accuracy. Still, he probably deserved what he got; what had he been THINKING?! Trusting a mazoku for useful help...
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM NOT CUDDLY!!!!!!"
"Oh, don't be silly Val-chan. You're just a great big scaley lump of affection, aren't you?"
"GRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
Xellos winced, shaking his head dazedly. "Well, I never knew dragons had that kind of vocal range. Still, this is getting a bit painful." He abruptly teleported away, earning Zelgadis's undying envy. HE could only make dramatic exits by stalking away, his cape furling behind him. Not terribly effective when one's companions are faster than you are.
Xellos almost immediately returned. "Good news." That was more than enough to start Zelgadis's migraine. "I found a place nearby where we can spend the night..." Xellos sweat-dropped as Valgaav somehow extricated his arm from Kashura's grip long enough to zoom past him at hypersonic speeds. "...though there might be a few odd problems with the place."
"That, and he doesn't know precisely where you teleported off to, " Zelgadis quipped.
Xellos shrugged nonchalantly. Despite the fact that Zelgadis rather actively despised him, the two had a strange chemistry; they worked well together. (1) "Eh, he'll figure that out soon enough. Besides, he IS going in at least the vaguely right direction. Follow me."
As Zelgadis and Kashura followed, Zelgadis could only wonder why this particular brush-off seemed to have gotten Kashura so out of sorts.
--------
Zelgadis gaped.
Xellos's 'place to spend the night' was HUGE. It went right past house and mansion to near palatial; just the grounds covered by the mansion's foundation was enough to fit inside a football field.
It had been built in a fashion vaguely along Victorian or Greco-Roman lines; the main body of the mansion was a fairly simple rectangular building with an evenly peaked roof. That was where the simple parts stopped; the entire front facade of the mansion was one huge veranda set into the building, the outer wall a mostly open area of Corinthian pillars. The four-story building sported literally hundreds of huge, double-tall windows of flawless glass set in hand-carved frames of white birch wood.
As for the grounds themselves, they extended roughly fifty yards around the entire area, a precisely manicured lawn no more than three quarters of an inch in height. Equally precise hedgerows had been set around the edge to clearly delineate the change from grounds to the huge forest clearing, as well as along the marble-paved walkways to the mansion's front gates.
Add to that the tall, ancient forests surrounding the entire area and the three quarter moon shedding light across the area, and it belonged more in a fairy tale than the middle of nowhere.
Zelgadis turned a side-long glance at the rest of his group. "We're staying here?"
Kashura frowned at him. "Why not? What, do you think we're going to find a better, more comfortable place to spend the night?"
Valgaav sighed. "Probably not. We may as well try and stay."
Zelgadis groaned as the dragon walked off, a bit more tolerant at the moment of Kashura's clinging. He'd managed to find the place quite easily after his first mis-jump. "And none of you are even remotely suspicious of a huge, perfectly maintained palace in the middle of nowhere?" He sighed as he followed them. "It's a well-known fact that places like these ALWAYS end up trying to eat you, or the creatures who keep it maintained do." He'd run into one too many such places in his cure-searches; he knew better.
So why precisely was he still going in?
--------
Kashura sighed within her room as she began telekinetically seperating strands of her hair. She preferred to walk or ride wagons as opposed to flying or teleporting. Given a choice, she'd fight hand-to-hand as opposed to flinging around spells at her opponents. For a member of the monster race, she was ridiculously humanistic, and she preferred it that way.
Still, no one would mind if she used her powers for little conveniences like this, would they? After all, it was so much easier than carrying around all the cumbersome cosmetic paraphenalia that seemed to be part and parcel of the female human. Being able to alter one's appearance like this was just something she HAD to indulge in. Why on earth would she want to take the time and effort to remember all the shampoos, conditioners, styling gels, hair mousses, exfoliating cremes, hair brushes, combs, straighteners, curlers, crimpers, and everything else that the world of make-up had concocted to try and use to convince women they weren't beautiful enough? She had better things to do with her time. (2)
Like pursue/annoy the heck out of a certain unwillingly cuddly former ancient dragon turned half dragon half mazoku turned BACK to ancient dragon.
She sighed blissfully at the memory over three hundred years ago. At the time, she'd been under Scherra's command to try and deal with a nest of Gaav's rogue mazoku.
Unfortunately, they'd managed to consolidate their hold rather securely by turning the areas surrounding them into a sinkhole of depravity; the villages were little more than feeding grounds for the bandits nurtured there, the central cities little more than a convenient place to keep all the taverns and brothels in one location. The massive amounts of negative emotional energy that oozed from the place had allowed them to grow a LOT stronger than the mere peon demons they had originally been spawned as.
The battle hadn't been pleasant by any means; Kashura hadn't decided to foreswear (sort of) her powers, and even then it hadn't been easy. Though a lot of their opponents had been destroyed within the first few minutes, it hadn't been enough; she'd been on the ropes after a while.
Then Valgaav had shown up.
In later years, she'd managed to piece together the nature of his arrival and reasons for being there. Apparently, the demons had taken a page from Gaav's book and decided that they were going to be independent.
Neither Gaav nor the dragon had been pleased.
Gaav's primary concern had been that they were trying to dredge up this HUGE supply of energy, constructing an unimaginable power base, and they had dared to try and keep it from him. The long and the short of it was that they had become something of an embarassment for him, and despite his being sealed in a human form, he had enough mazoku pride left to despise being embarassed or dishonored.
Valgaav had been sent to clean the stain of his honor. His first order of business had been to reduce the three or four monsters still threatening Kashura into ethereal waste. They'd been the closest, most convenient targets after all.
What had been left of them hadn't lasted long after that. Not even Xellos was stronger than Valgaav; close, but just barely weaker. And while nowhere near as infamous or feared among the monster race in general, among Gaav's henchmonsters Valgaav had been their bogeyman, the skeleton under the bed that you hoped didn't really exist.
As yet, Kashura wasn't totally sure WHAT she'd seen in him. Oh, she could recite his various virtues certainly; his dedication, his raw power, his delicious habit of generating a very fine grade of rage and sorrow, his perfectly bishonen figure...but she didn't think that was what had captivated her in the first place.
She didn't really care all that much anymore; she knew what she wanted, and she intended to get it.
Then the mansion began to rumble.
--------
The title character (for this chapter, not a seraphim) grinned evilly as he watched the four unsuspecting fools who had suffered the grave misfortune of coming into his grasp go to sleep. They would feel pain, suffering, and fear the likes of which they'd never imagined possible soon enough; soon, they would know the absolute terror that he commanded! THEY WOULD GROVEL LIKE WORMS BEFORE HE KILLED THEM! THEY WOULD WRITHE IN AGONY AS THEY BEGGED FOR DEATH! AND MORE THAN THAT, THEY WOULD LICK HIS BOOTS CLEAN!
GWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!
I swear, you can FEEL this guys bad karma catching up with him.
--------
Valgaav groaned quietly in the night. When one suffers as much as he had, one tends towards nightmares over restful sleep of any kind. As such, he was stuck in one of his most common nightmares; the memory of his people's death. As it was, he didn't really even consider it a nightmare anymore, just a dream of less than pleasant things. He'd had almost a millenium to gnaw on this particular happening; it was beginning to lose its impact on him.
Still, it had had its uses. Over the years, he'd forged his mind and body into weaponry dedicated to nothing save his survival. A small part of that was his ability to sleep lightly enough to detect anything that could conceivably be a threat to him.
To someone who can not only fly but also teleport and rip apart anything in his path, a change in environment didn't register as such.
The whole point of the above few paragraphs is this. Despite the fact that the house itself was writhing like some kind of living thing, sinking him into the catacombs beneath the foundation, he felt nothing. Simply because none of the movements were geared in the slightest towards harming him directly.
--------
Kashura growled deep in her throat as she pounded at the walls with her unfettered strength. Using brute force the way she did as opposed to magic had at the very least given her a great deal of extra power in that regard. Not that it was doing her a fat lot of good at the moment.
"Save your strength," came a voice as Xellos's face appeared from out of the shadows.
Kashura spun, glaring at him, only to feel her insides turn to ice as she recognized something. Something that told her in no uncertain terms that they were almost certainly screwed. Something that no monster, from the lowliest vampire to Lord Dynast himself would take lightly.
Xellos's eyes were opened. He wasn't smiling.
"I've already tried to teleport out of here, but apparently the area has been sealed with both magic and materials that block our abilities. It's also been armored to the point that nothing short of a Dragon slave is going to be able to puncture this armor. Someone went through a great deal of trouble to make sure that we stayed here." Xellos calmly and coldly surveyed the areas of their location. He wasn't in control of his situation. That was quite simply intolerable.
Xellos had been created to serve as both general and priest to Zelas. No other monster had ever tried that, no one had ever been willing to trust an underling with that kind of power. As such, there was no monster short of a dark lord stronger than him. That wasn't the real reason he was feared however. It was more who he was. He didn't feel fear. Not even against Dark Star, he'd never once in his existence been afraid of anything. He didn't feel pity, or remorse, or cruelty.
The only things he ever really felt were satisfaction and loyalty. That was the only reason he had yet to oppose Lina or the others; they'd proven loyal to him, and he would reward that. Certainly he considered himself deep down to be evil, or at least capable of it when necessary, but he kept his word.
However, it was the very fact that he never cared about the people he was sent after which made him feared. There was quite literally nothing that would stop him, once he was motivated to do so.
By taking away even a shred of his power, whoever had done this had made the mistake of getting him QUITE motivated.
A mistake that no one as yet had survived.
--------
Valgaav snarled to himself in disgust. He'd been thrown out of his bed during the last few minutes of the room shifting; he'd woken up instantly before he even hit the ground. AFTER the damage was done.
"What he hell is going on?" he muttered to himself under his breath as he looked around. From what he knew of human architecture, he'd assume that he was in a salle of some kind. The room was about fifty feet by a hundred, all exposed surfaces hardwood of some kind; teak probably. The two long walls were paneled in mirrors, most likely to make sure that any prospective combat students could watch each other embarass themselves in practice. The shorter walls were covered in rack after rack of weaponry; spears, axes, halberds, and every kind of sword imaginable from katanas to claymores to falchions.
He glared at the area around him. Despite the fascinating array of combat equipment, there was one thing in particular missing that was irking him to no small degree.
A door.
How PRECISELY did one get into a room that didn't have any way to go in or out? The obvious answer would be a trapdoor somewhere.
Which meant a long, careful search.
Valgaav was many things. A dangerous opponent, a devoted friend (if you survived long enough to befriend him), and according to several of my female friends, eye-candy. Patient was not one of them. Still, he could make do with his own ways. First of all, the most obvious place to hide a door would be behind the mirrors. As they were set in three foot sections, that reinforced the assumption. However, there were roughly sixty mirrors total. Not something he wanted to spend the time and effort prying down.
Hence the most straight-forward method of removal possible.
"Wind which blows across eternity, gather in my hands and give me strength! BRAM GUSH!"
The arrow of wind shot out from his palms, its slip-stream battering the glass to shards in mere seconds. No door behind any of them, unfortunately, leaving the ancient dragon stuck in a large room full of broken glass. A room he still had to search both the floors and ceilings of.
A room full of broken glass that had abruptly come alive as the various weaponry along the walls sprang out of their holding racks to start floating around as though they were some kind of insane swarm of locusts.
He grinned. FINALLY, something he could blow off his steam on.
--------
At the moment coccooned in some kind of carnivorous plant's vines, Zelgadis could really only come up with one thought.
Fate really DID go out of her way to torment him.
He'd woken up as the rumbling occured. Unlike Valgaav, he was a bit more at the mercy of his environment. Not much, but enough to make him consider rapidly and wildly shifting personal surroundings to be dangerous. Somehow or another, he'd ended up in some kind of subterranean greenhouse; why someone would be idiotic enough to try and grow leafy plants without natural sunlight he'd yet to figure out.
Upon exploring the place to try and find his way out, he'd been attacked by these damn plants. He'd had his sword out and had managed to slice apart the first few waves of attack. Then the roots had snatched him off his feet and yanked him towards more plants, conveniently disloding his sword from his hand in the process.
Still, if nothing else he was GOOD at fighting off bad odds. Razors of air pressure via the Wind Brid spell had gotten rid of most of them; a Howl Freeze had gotten him out of their grasp again.
Unfortunately, spells of that type required hands to cast. And whoever was controlling these plants seemed to have figured that out and taken appropriate steps. Namely, making sure to bind his hand securely before he could use them for any real spell-casting.
Which was what made the huge, orange seedpod that was apparently about to eat him so disconcerting.
---------
Still contending with an overwhelmingly strong sense of walking on eggshells, Kashura followed Xellos down the only open hallway. "What do you think is going on?"
"The obvious response is that we inadvertently stumbled across some kind of mage's lair; possibly someone engaged in clandestine experiments such as heightened channeling from the dark lords. It could also be that this mansion is a relic from a previous age, such as before the Monster's Fall." The still somber-faced trickster priest continued looking around, his senses at full power. "Still, that's not to say that the only possibilities are the obvious ones. If obvious was the only driving force in our world, sorcery would have been murdered eons ago by Algebra."
Kashura sweat-dropped at the odd, short solilouqy. "Uh...meaning what, precisely?"
Xellos shrugged. Given his past, this would have been the time for his 'Secret' remark, but he didn't really feel in the mood. AFTER he'd incinerated the fool who'd done this, THEN he'd return to cryptic and irritating. "All I mean is that we may or may not need to worry. The obvious reasons for us here would be a misunderstanding, blundering into a random series of traps. Still, given Miss Lina's track record as well as those that seem to surround the people around her, the most likely outcome will be us fighting one of Valred's servants who we 'inadvertantly' blundered across." Privately, he was wondering how the gods got away with being so blatant with their manipulations of the heavy-hitters of magic.
Kashura shook her head as they finally reached the end of the hallway, finding themselves in...
Her jaw dropped.
The word library came to mind and was summarily squashed. It just wasn't sufficient. Lore repository came a little bit closer, but it still didn't seem to fit the situation. The only phrase she could consider would be 'a fountainhead of knowledge,' the only thing glorious enough.
The room was easily five times bigger than the rest of the entire mansion; over a thousand feet long and a hundred wide, every square inch of floorspace was either a bookcase stretching easily sixty feet into the air or the bare minimum of space necessary to permit people to walk in between them. And save perhaps a few square feet on each bookcase, every other surface was covered in wood.
Kashura managed to reset he jaw as she walked towards the area. If this was a trap, it was a pretty silly one; what could this do, paper-cut her to death? She paused at the one table just outside the doorway. "Hey, what's this? I don't recognize this title..."
"Don't touch - " Xellos began, just before Kashura's opening of the pages yanked her into the book. "that," Xellos finished. Sighing deeply, he picked up the large, thick novel to peer at the title. "Gone with the Wind," he muttered as he looked it over. He paused, his irritation at least temporarily replaced with curiousity. "Somehow, I get the feeling this is Zelgadis's emotion. That odd feeling of almost guaranteed regret." Despite that, he opened the book anyway, letting it yank him after the odd demoness.
--------
Valgaav sighed deeply as he regarded his impromptu arena. "Honestly, I would have thought I deserved a little bit more respect from my opponents. He actually thought THAT would be enough to finish me off?"
What had once been an array of some of the finest worked iron and steel weaponry was now little more than so much rapidly cooling slag. The quality of the weaponry hadn't been an issue. The quality of the attacker had. The various swords and spears and such had flown at him in direct lines, at speeds that MIGHT have been enough to hurt an armored human being. Despite his appearance, Valgaav retained the full durability of his iron-hard scales regardless of his form. The attack hadn't even been ludicrous; it was a great deal closer to embarassing.
Then the heavy stuff had hit, namely the axes and warhammers. They'd likewise been a disappointment. After bouncing off his defensive shields, they'd just kept pulling back and beating him with the even rhythm of a chain gang; they probably would have stood a better chance against him if they'd just been dropped on his exposed toes.
"How the blazes has humanity SURVIVED if this is all they're capable of?" Valgaav grumbled as he began sorting through the mess of now-cool glass and metal for another trap door. That had been one advantage of cutting loose; the glass had melted and reformed into a smooth, dull, and no-longer-sharp- and-pointy surface. "Can't they come up with something slightly challenging?"
You know that old saying about being careful what you wish for? That could well be counted among the Laws of the Anime Multi-verse. Among such hallowed truths as the law of inherent combustion (EVERYTHING will burn and explode; large cities being qute possibly the single most explosive substance known to man) and the law of extra-dimensional capacity (most common in females; people have the strange ability to store objects (most often hammers or other blunt trauma instruments) in apparent nowhere), is the law of dramatic omnipotence. Namely, strange, possibly illogical and most likely insane events will occur for little or no apparent reason if they can either advance the plot or involve large amounts of gratuitous sex, violence, or nudity.
As such, NEVER say something like 'can't they come up with something more challenging?' This is quite literally an open invitation to the powers that be of the anime multi-verse to try and make your life hell. This is right up there with the "never say 'it could be worse'" law.
The whole point of my above rant is to explain WHY the metal that had been melted into daggers somehow reformed into a platoon of iron golems; essentially animated suits of armor bearing HUGE battle-axes. For conveniences sake, we'll claim that the caster had this contingency planned rather than a blatant if not slightly unimaginative plot device.
Valgaav whistled as the first of the seventy or so armored creatures (He couldn't for the life of him figure out how so much armor could have been made out of so relatively few weapons) attempted to smash him with enough force to reduce rock into a powder. "Well...I suppose I should be grateful."
--------
The formerly quiessent book exploded into a hail of paper and leather shards. In this hail of paper-cut potential, Kashura and Xellos appeared, both thoroughly shell-shocked. Kashura was at the moment wearing some kind of ridiculously fancy gown; pale rose in color, the hoop-skirt was big enough to have theoretically concealed a Humvee. Between the nigh-infinite ruffels and the knots and bows of ribbons covering every square picometer, she looked more like an insane cupcake come to life than anything else.
Xellos's outift was equally out of character, if thankfully a great deal more dignified; not particularly difficult at the moment, but come on. He was wearing a three piece black suit with a pale yellow silk cravat, his coat sporting tails, his leather shoes sporting spats.
Xellos shook his head absently. "Good god, I thought I was going to burst in there." The less-than-sane look in his eyes was one of almost religious fervor. "I never would have imagined that THAT many people could have pumped out negative emotions all at once. It was...paradise. That's the only word for the place."
Kashura gave the trickster-priest an odd look as she skinned out of her formal gown, replacing it with the simpler dark blue shift she'd been wearing when she'd first gotten sucked into the world. "If you say so. YOU didn't have to wear sixty extra pounds of cloth to blend into that retched place."
Xellos shrugged. "If you insist on being negative." Pausing, he seemed to notice his odd clothing for the first time. Tutting to himself, he immediately began shifting it back to the normal cape, tunic, and loose breeches he normally wore. He was a bit glad that only Kashura had seen him cut loose in there; if anyone other than the decidedly weird monster had ever tried to claim he'd let his dignity (such as it was) slip as much as he had allowed, he probably would have had to massacre a few hundred just to get his reputation back to snuff. Deep down, he was almost ashamed he'd let himself go to that extent. Really, he was.
Kashura sighed, shaking her head at the still slightly-out-of-it priest. "So, any idea NOW how we get out of here?"
Xellos shrugged as he started picking through the books nearby. "I suppose these will have something to do with it. The only real question is what."
Kashura sighed. "I just don't see why I couldn't have been seperated with my dear dragon. Not," she hastily amended at his raised eyebrow, "that I have any difficulties working with you, I just..."
Whatever she'd planned to say was cut off as the floor snapped upon under her feet, pseudopods of earth and rock grabbing her and yanking her elsewhere in the mansion.
Xellos sighed, shaking his head. As he perused the books for a decent bit of distraction, he started speaking to the air. "I'll assume that whoever you are, you can hear me. And please don't pretend that I'm talking to whoever is controlling this place." He slipped Moby Dick back on the shelf after reading the coverlet. Promising, but he wanted something less serious. "I can understand that you have some kind of strange purpose in what you're doing, but couldn't you try to be a bit more subtle? I doubt it will be very long before someone figures out that events are being guided like this. Keep this up, and the pieces may refuse to move." He smiled faintly as he put away a copy of the Once and Future King. Also promising, but it would be better to keep browsing. "Not that you have to take my advice. I just thought I'd offer it."
--------
A different where as well as a different when, a great power winced. Looking back, he HAD been a bit...blatant. Still, he'd been out of the Great Game for quite a while; he was out of practice. On the other hand, the mazoku priest had a point. People would notice.
Maybe he could make it just a TINY bit less obvious.
--------
Zelgadis breathed a sigh of relief as bits of flame-colored plant rained around him. The carnivorous pod had let go of his arms when it had stuffed him in its mouth. The time it would have taken for him to get swallowed had proven enough for him to get off a Howl Freeze. Most of the greenhouse's occupants had been finished off as he'd unleashed a Dug Haut; it was really a bit satisfying watching the blades of rock turn all the chlorophyl and wood that had been working so hard to eat him into so much mulch.
He didn't like what Rezo had done to him. It was unlikely he would ever forgive the priest for it. Still, he'd concede if nothing else that he'd known what he was doing; Zelgadis had no illusions as to how he would have fared without his golem's skin.
Dusting bark chips off his clothing, he peered around the area, trying to get a good look at his next target. Such worries were removed from his hands as the ground beneath his feet for lack of a better term swallowed him. He got off a levitation easily enough, but he was getting tired of this.
While he'd never admit it aloud, Zelgadis had a distressing number of similarities with Xellos. One of which being that he hated to be out of control. Someone was working VERY hard to get him good and pissed.
He didn't think it would be wrong to enjoy killing this guy. After all, he never pretended to be 100% hero; he was a heartless magic-using swordsman after all.
Touching down from his drop, he found himself in the middle of a cave of some kind. Unlike the precisely manicured hedges outside or the haphazard growth of the greenhouse, this place was just rough, bare rock, almost as though it had been dug out by animals of some kind.
Completing a slow turn to get an idea of his area, Zelgadis found only a single occupant. His first impression of the man was...well, size. He was easily eight and a half feet tall, and probably a good four hundred pounds in weight. He wasn't fat, more stocky. Judging by the way his clothing hung, he was mostly muscle rather than fat. Still, muscle wasn't something to worry about to much.
Karlimanthos grinned. "So, little girly man, you have DARED to enter my sovereign domain?! KNOW THIS, YOU WILL SUFFER LIKE NO MAN HAS EVER FELT PAIN! I WILL PUT A HURTING ON YOU, INCONSEQUENTIAL PERSON! I WILL MAKE YOU SCREAM IN BITTER PAIN SUCH THAT YOUR MOTHER AND GREAT GRANDFATHER WILL WHIMPER IN SYMPATHY! YOU WILL DIE UNDER MY BOOTHEELS! WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY TO THAT?!"
Zelgadis remained silent for a few seconds. "Oh, you're finished?" He grinned humorlessly as the giant face-faulted. "First, I want to say that you talk too much. Secondly, that part about making my mother and great grandfather whimper? I helped kill my great grandfather; I sincerely doubt empathy pains are going to be an issue." Drawing his sword, his grin turned feral. "So be a good boy, and hurry up and die."
To be continued...
Author's Notes: As for my little schpiel on Xellos, what can I say? I LIKE the trickster priest; I LIKE characters who are annoying to their peers without being useless. As such, I wanted to make him cool. For those of you who don't like my description of the Trickster Priest's inner nature, well, what can I say? He's still the fun-loving demon whose sole joy in life is tormenting and annoying Lina. Now his character's just more 3-dimensional; nothing wrong with that. And in case my descriptions of Trent haven't made it clear yet, you can BE a cold-hearted force of death and still enjoy life once in a while. Or in Xellos's case, more than once in while.
(1) - No, I don't intend a yaoi Xel/Zel relationship. I just don't see Zelgadis swinging that way. As for Xellos, who knows? (2) - I live in a family of six; my dad and I are the only guys. Living with four members of the 'fairer sex' has taught me more about hair, skin, and nail care than any man outside the Malebolge should ever be forced to know.
