A/N: Wow, Thanks for the reviews! ^_^
Gourry: Oi, who's that person at the very end of the last chapter?
Xellos: Oh no. Don't say it.
A/N: *Grin* Sore wa . . . himitsu desu!
Xellos: Stop doing that!
A/N: What? You can't feed off of your own frustration? ^_^
Xellos: . . .
A/N: Alrighty then. Don't forget to review! Let's get on with the fic!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that isn't mine to own. This includes the Slayers characters and world.
Ambush! Attack of the Killer Bandits?
"Gourry. Wake up. . . . GOURRY WAKE UP!!!!!"
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………."
Lina sighed. Gourry was sound asleep and they were already running late. Even Liona was already up. "Guess I have no choice then. FIREBALL!"
"Aaahhhhh!! I'm up! I'm up!"
Lina snorted. "You better be." Liona clapped and giggled happily.
An hour later, the group of six started their journey to Dils. Every so often, Liona would walk alongside her parents, but she generally preferred to be carried. When she did walk however, she enjoyed talking to Val in that cute little baby language that was very hard for adults to understand. After a long while, Liona finally got Val to start talking, and they talked until Liona was too tired to talk – which didn't really happen; Gourry just picked her up so she couldn't talk to him anymore (^_^).
They traveled peacefully all day long and camped in a clearing that night. Everyone, excluding Val and Liona, took shifts watching. The next day, they set off early again. Near early afternoon, Lina noticed something. Soon, all of the adults noticed it; they were being surrounded – by a group of bandits.
Zel quietly said, "You noticed it right? We're being –"
Lina and Gourry both hissed, "Don't say it!"
Surprised, Filia asked, "Why? It's normal for you to be surrounded by bandits, isn't it?"
Lina and Gourry held their breath. Liona blinked. Her ears perked up at the sound of "bandits" and immediately started to bawl her little head off. Considering she was Lina's daughter, her voice could carry pretty far. Everyone held his or her ears in pain. This wasn't any normal toddler crying – This was so loud that it actually hurt. The bandits felt it too, they groaned and toppled down the hills on either side of them.
Yelling to Lina, Zel asked, "Can't you turn that thing off?!"
"I'll try! SLEEPING!"
Liona stopped crying and blinked. Then she fell straight to sleep.
Lina sighed in relief. "It's a good thing they didn't come out before you said that – or else I wouldn't have been able to stop her until every bandit around us was knocked out."
Everyone else sighed too and slowly got up. Amelia stated, "Lina-san, it's unjust to knock out those bandits with such a terrible racket!"
Lina rolled her eyes. "You think I can change that?! Anyway, since they're already knocked out, we might as well collect whatever they have."
Gourry added, "And let's get away from here before she wakes up. If we don't, we'll be in for an even larger hissy fit. Trust me, I know."
Lina quickly ran around from bandit to bandit until she came back with a large, somewhat bulky brown bag.
Then, with a quick glance at Liona, everyone sprinted off down the path. After a while, they slowed down to a leisurely pace. Everyone wanted to know more about Liona.
Lina started, "Okay, well I tell you what I know. For one thing, I know she is definitely different than any other kid I've known."
Zel interjected, "I think we ALL know that by now."
Lina chuckled nervously. "Yeah, well, all I can say is she has quite a few strange habits that can sometimes get us into trouble. But besides her glomping, screaming, and head dunking, she's pretty much a nice person.. erm.. baby.
Amelia wondered aloud, "How old is she now?"
Lina answered, "Well, she's supposed to be two, but sometimes I swear that she really doesn't act her age."
Filia changed the subject slightly. "What was her first word?"
Gourry answered, "Oh I remember! She was 15 months old. She was kind of sleepy, but she said, "Ma..ma…L-shama."
Filia asked, "Who's 'L-sama'?"
Gourry shrugged. "I dunno. Lina do you?"
"I'm not sure, but I think she's either referring to me or . . . The Lord of Nightmares."
Everyone but Lina stopped walking at that. "WHAT?!"
"SHHH! Liona's still asleep! Well, the Lord of Nightmares is known by many names. I remember o-onee-ssan told me once that the Golden Lord is known as L-sama by several random people who were close to her . . . or something like that, but I never mentioned The Lord of Nightmares to Liona, so I don't know where she could have learned that from."
"…" Everybody was quiet; nobody knew how one would respond to something like that.
In the shadows, a figure smirked. "L-sama would be pleased."
Liona stirred. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at Gourry. She yawned and smiled happily. That made everyone else smile, too. They walked on in peace.
About three days later, they stopped to ask a local merchant how far away Dils was from there. They were told that the capital city of Dils was another week of walking, but only another four days if they rode horses. For good measure, they decided to ride horses and fly the rest.
The day that they returned the horses at a stop, Val was sitting with Liona and half bragging.
"My mum is a golden dragon. You know what a golden dragon is right?"
Liona cocked her head and replied, "Um… a dwagon that ish goldwen?"
Val sweatdropped. "I guess you could say that. But you know, that means she can fly!"
"Wow! Can you fwy too?"
"I'm trying to learn, but I keep falling down. They're black because my mum says that I was an ancient dragon."
"Ancient? Hmm…. Are you wewwy old?"
Val facefaulted. "I'm just about as old as you! Except I was born first."
"Eh………….Wewwy?"
"Of course!"
Liona made teary eyes. "Vowel (Val)………………."
"Uh..What?"
"I'm HUNGWY!"
Liona's tummy growled in agreement. (^_^)
Val sighed. "Don't tell me. Tell your parents."
"Okay, bwye!"
Liona stood up and waddled over to where her parents were talking with the others.
"Mommy . . ."
"What?"
"I'm hungwy."
"Eh? Oh sorry. We started to eat already. Here."
Lina picked Liona up and sat her on the chair next to her and gave her a hot bowl of miso soup (^_^).
Liona stared at it. A whole lot of steam was rising up from the soupy mixture. . . She reached what she thought was a reasonable conclusion.
"Ahh! It's on fyure(Fire)!"
Gourry reassured her. "Don't worry. It's just very hot still. Just blow on it and wait a little while."
Liona stared at it some more. She slowly blew over the soup. The wisps of steam blew sideways a little, but it was just replaced with more steam.
Lina watched this and let out an exasperated sigh. "Not like that. Harder. Like this!"
Lina expertly blew straight over the soup. When Liona looked again, the wisps were too thin to be seen. Liona carefully dipped in a spoon and tried a little (Lina had never given her scalding hot soup before).
Her eyes and ears perked up. "Dis ish good!" She forgot the spoon and just gulped down the whole contents of the bowl. Excluding Lina, Gourry, and Liona, everyone sweatdropped. When Liona finished, she put down the empty bowl, rubbed her tummy happily, and hopped down saying, "Tanks for de food! Bai bye!"
Soon, they set off once more. For a short while, at least while they were over the forest, Filia let everyone ride on her back (while in dragon form of course). Once more, all was peaceful until . . .
"My, my, are you sure you should be flying around like that? A hunter might mistake you for a giant lizard."
Of course, it was Xellos, here to annoy Filia once more.
"Lizards don't fly – Wait. I'm not a lizard! Namagomi!"
As Filia gave chase to an ever teleporting Xellos, everyone flew off of her back in a wild change of direction. Amelia, Zel, and Lina quickly cast a Ray Wing and righted themselves. Zel caught Val and it took both Amelia and Lina to float Gourry to safety.
Lina suddenly realized that Liona was plummeting to the ground and was frantically waving her arms around. Zel quickly dove down and caught her, much to everyone's relief. As soon as they all descended to the ground, Amelia squeaked in surprise. They had landed in the middle of a whole mob of trolls and berserkers who immediately attacked. There had to be at least 200 hundred of them; the barrage seemed relentless. The four adults separated to handle the mob. Zelgadis left the two young ones in the middle, before joining the fray.
Amidst the fighting, a figure walked forward from the shadows. He readied a spell in the form of a glowing fuchsia ball, and sent it hurtling towards the two toddlers. The four battlers noticed this in the corner of the eye, but before they could reach them, they were mobbed by even more beasts. Val and Liona instinctively shielded their faces and shut their eyes in preparation.
Suddenly, just before the sphere connected with them, a golden shield was cast around them. The ball deflected off of it and it was sent hurtling straight towards the caster. Fortunately for him, he managed to side step the attack, which completely killed the tree that was behind him.
A gruff voice emitted from the caster's apparent mouth. "Who's there?"
Surrounded by a golden aura, a raven-haired female descended from the sky (at least from the top of the trees). She landed gracefully in front of the two children. With a cold look, she told him, "This young girl is under my protection. If you do not wish to die, I suggest you retreat."
The caster was apparently scared of this newcomer, because he commanded the beasts to, "RETREAT!!! But mark my words, whoever you are, we WILL be back." With that, the person, the berserkers, and the trolls all turned tail and ran.
High above, Xellos noticed that the attackers were retreating. He teleported just in time to miss getting hit by Filia's laser breath.
"That's all the time I have to play around with you today, Filia-san. But don't worry; I'll be back later for another fantastic meal ^_^" With those last words, Xellos teleported for the last time in front of Filia, at least for now.
Suddenly realizing that nobody was on her back anymore, she hurriedly landed and changed back to her human form. Filia quickly found Lina-tachi. They were all surrounding what appeared to be a young lady about the same age is Lina and the others.
Filia came in just as Lina was asking, "What's your name?"
To which the girl replied, "Korin. I am known as Korin, the Kamikaze knight."
A/N: Ah . . . That was short and sweet.
Gourry: What's a "Call me kaze night?"
A/N: It's "Kamikaze Knight" and that is a . . .
Xellos: Don't you dare do that again . . .
A/N: Something that you'll probably find out in the next chapter!
Xellos: Phew.
Filia: *grumbles* I can't believe I let that Namagomi distract me like that . . .
Xellos: Me either. ^_^
Filia: Yes . . . Eh? Why you .. . NAMAGOMI!!! COME BACK HERE!!!
A/N: Alright alright. I hope they'll stop fighting by the time the next chapter begins. HA! Yeah right – those two will probably keep fighting until the end of their days. Anyways…Reviews are appreciated. They give me motive to go on with my stories. Of course, negative comments will downgrade this, but if enough people still like it, I'll still continue it. Thanks! Review until next time! See ya!