I do not own Lina, Zelgadis, or Slayers.

Hit the Ground Running

Chapter Five


Zelgadis' eyes snapped open. In under a second, he reached under the couch he lay on for his sword and sprang into position to skewer whatever it was that was making that hideous howling. As he scanned the unfamiliar room for threats, said howling resolved itself into an exceedingly original concoction of profanity, relating somehow or other to a nightstand. That pitch of voice seemed familiar.

Oh. Right. He was in Lina's apartment. That went a long way towardsexplaining why he had had to reach under a couch to get his sword. With a sigh and a groan, Zelgadis sank back down on the couch and put down the sword in favor of holding his head in both hands. It was too damn early.

Lina yawned in between curses and dealt the nightstand a final vicious kick. Man was she tired. When had she gone to bed? She wasn't really too sure, but she seemed to remember hearing the bell toll four before she fell asleep. Oog. Having thusly exhausted all of her immediately available mental power, Lina gave up thinking altogether for the next few minutes as she stumbled through her morning routine. Upon completing this she trudged out into the main part of the apartment with another cavernous yawn. As she entered the living room, the first thing she saw was Zelgadis, seated on the couch with his head in his hands, looking about as wiped as she felt.

"Coffee?" she croaked. Zel looked up blearily and gave a singleemphatic nod in answer. Lina moved to the kitchen, Zelgadis silently trailing in her footsteps and they stood dumbly waiting for the water to boil.

The beverage was drunk in similar silence. After one cup, Lina was feeling more human, and Zelgadis was feeling...well, at any rate, he now felt rather more alive than he had before. In fact, Lina felt well enough to worry about her breakfast, and Zelgadis felt well enough to worry over the next stage of their venture. Predictably enough, Lina's more immediate concern won out.

In short order, they were seated at a restaurant a significant distance away from the cafe wherein presumably still dwelt the CAWUAT. Lina ordered everything on the menu, whereupon the waitress went bug-eyed and Zelgadis winced and dug around in his pocket dimension for extra money. The enormous order was devoured with the speed and efficiency normally reserved for tornados, whirlpools, and mythological creatures. At the end, all that was left of the disaster was a stack of dirty plates and Lina leaning back in her chair to contentedly pat her stomach.

"Ahhh, that was good. Ok, Zel, strategy meeting is in session. Today we case those warehouses, right?"

"Yes. That delay will have cost us, though. By now whatever mages weren't sidelined by your convenient destruction of the park will have..."

"'My convenient destruction of the park?' Wait a minute...you ticked me off on purpose?"

"Um...yes."

"Why?"

Oh, Zelgadis did not like this at all. The entire room seemed to have darkened. Lina's hair was doing its best to make like Medusa and he could almost hear her eyes crackling with electrical fury. This was going to hurt.

Crap.

Maybe if I explain it logically she'll see the reasoning and just maim me.

"The method we used was probably the fastest and most efficient way to find the Stone. I can think of a couple of other ways to do it, but they would be much more difficult and take quite a bit longer. Since you got rid of the draw point, nobody else was able to use that particular method and we'll be spared some of the competition."

Lina, unfortunately for Zelgadis, was not listening to reason. Thunder boomed over her side of the table. The purity of the rage pouring off of her made the Mazoku side of him hungry. It made the rest of him want to hide
under the table. He was pretty sure the human and the golem had it right. Mazoku, being immortal, had no survival instinct.

"You...you...ARGH!"

It is completely pointless to transcribe the next hour or so, mostly because there truly are no words capable of fully describing the wrath of Lina Inverse. Suffice to say that this undescribed period of time mostly consists of Lina casting a number of highly dangerous spells, making matchwood of the restaurant and the nearby shops. What was left at the end of the destruction was a still (figuratively) fuming Lina and a still (literally) smoking Zelgadis sitting in the small crater at the center of the wreckage.

"Never, ever, ever do anything like that again."

Zelgadis nodded meekly and privately resolved that if he ever did do anything like that again, he was going to make very, very sure he was hidden somewhere well on the other side of the world when Lina found out. Preferably underground.

"Anyway, you just have to ask if you want me to blow something up. Anyhow, you were saying...?"

Zelgadis shook his head in exasperation at the abrupt change of topic, but wisely decided that any topic that Lina wanted to discuss right now without attempting to kill him was just fine and dandy. Exactly the thing he wanted to talk about.

"Anyway, we'll probably meet up with the competition today."

"Oh. Is that all?"

Zelgadis hesitated.

"The competition includes the Red Priest."

"Rezo? You're kidding, right? Why would he want the Stone? He's already one of the most powerful mages in the country."

He was also one of the only mages in the country who got any respect. People in the city by and large feared the use of Black and Shaman (quite reasonably, living near Lina Inverse), but White was a different matter. It's really hard to hate a skilled White mage, with the power to cure ills and banish demons.

"He's trying to cure his blindness. If it comes to a fight, you're going to have to be the one to throw spells with him. I can't help."

"Wait a minute here! Why me?"

"Because that's why I hired you."

"You're evading the question."

Zelgadis shrugged and was silent. A brief staring contest ensued, but was abandoned in short order, as neither participant was really all that interested in pursuing the answer, Zelgadis because he disliked sharing personal information and Lina because she wanted to get out of there and kick some ass. She could badger Zel later. About a minute after Zelgadis' non-answer, therefore, the two left the remains of the establishment and headed for the docks.

It was already mid-morning and the city pulsed with people going about their business. Carriages pushed through the crowds, drivers shouting and gesturing, and miscellaneous businessmen could be heard declaiming their wares from the market. People bustled and shoved, treating the casual crowd-watcher to a flamboyant display of flapping calico, stained linen, and the occasional ripple of rare, luxurious silk, gleaming like a hummingbird in the midst of the flock. The spectacular dance was accompanied by the rich percussive score of horses' hooves, creaking axles, and the peculiarly echoing footsteps of the sturdy street-going boots most city-dwellers favored. The city's smell floated over the assembly, horse manure mingling gracefully with the delicate scent of jasmine perfume and the thick stew of scents coming form the cheesemonger's and the spice market. Mixed in with the ordinary traffic composition of clothiers, housewives, pharmacists, sailors, and merchants, however, prowled groups of patrolmen, casing the crowd like a gang of hammerheads eying a school of mackerel. A few new posters detailing the sensational escape of the demon hung on the walls. Apparently, the effect of the jailbreak would continue to be felt for some time to come. Zelgadis was careful to keep up the hood of Lina's borrowed cloak.

As they neared the docks, the hustle-bustle increased and an odor of dead fish hit them. Yelling, the thump of heavy crates of cargo hitting dry ground, and the occasional shout of real alarm echoed over the buzz of conversation. The river stitched a gray seam across the city, competing with the massive square warehouses for domination of the scene.

Lina looked at Zelgadis, who nodded, and they dived in.

The rest of the morning passed uneventfully. In fact, it was entirely fair to say that it was boring as hell. They walked up and down the streets of the district, breaking into every single building they passed. In most of the warehouses, "breaking in" simply involved convincing a bored security guard that they were Quality Control. In a few high-security areas, Zelgadis' skills (and Lina's proclivity for simply melting a door off its hinges) came in handy. In every case, once they were inside, they would quietly scout for security, and then check the warehouse over for any signs of the alchemical equipment needed to make a Philosopher's Stone or the lingering magical traces the process should have left. They found a few stores of smuggled goods, and some evidence of preemptive sampling of a large liquor shipment, but nothing indicative of high-energy magical-alchemical reactions. A couple of times during the morning, they both felt a magical sweep brush over them, presumably also searching for the Stone, but in both cases the competition (evidently having just as much luck as they were) soon retreated from the Astral with the psychic equivalent of a slammed door. In short, by the time 2:00 rolled around, last night's significant deficiency in the sleep department was beginning to tell on Lina and Zelgadis. They were frustrated, tired, footsore, and, in Lina's case, hungry.

They discussed the difficulty of finding anything in a warehouse whose contents mostly consisted of a very large shipment of imported cuisine. Quite frankly, neither had realized that the warehouse district was so very
big.

"So what now?" asked Lina, as she impaled the pricey steak she had filched from a nearby butcher's stand on the tip of her rapier and flipped it over on her makeshift grill (which consisted of a large pot lid from the next warehouse over sitting on top of a sustained fireball).

"We keep looking."

Lina grumbled something under her breath. Zel was getting all morose on her again. He was probably still sulking because she made him stop so she could eat.

"Awww...come on. I'm tired. The Stone won't even be complete for another three days. Let's just call it quits for today and take it up where we left off tomorrow."

"No."

"But I'm tired, you're tired, there's still half the district to search and..."

"No."

"If you're worried about competition, they can't do anything for three days either."

"No."

"If we're fresh when we do this we stand a better chance of finding it, you know."

"No."

"Oh, for crying out loud! If we don't get out of here soon I'll fireball your scrawny behind into next Thursday!"

"Fireball me and I cut your pay. No."

Zelgadis kept the smirk off his face only with a great mental effort. Now why hadn't he thought of this before? Lina, on the other hand, fumed. Zelgadis had perfected the art of boulder-like stubbornness to a point at which he could probably get into a "whoever-moves-first-loses" contest with a mountain and win through sheer cussedness.

Still, as he had just pointed out ever-so-adroitly, he was paying her.

"Are you quite done?"

Lina stuck her tongue out at him, shoved the last morsel (read: fist-sized chunk) of steak into her mouth, chewed vigorously, and managed to swallow in time to follow him out the door.

They spent another couple of hours in a fashion similar to that of the morning, albeit with more grumbling from Lina, more growling from Zelgadis, and a good amount of cursing from both parties. Around 4:30, the
restless crowds were beginning to tatter around the edges as people began trailing homewards, and Lina was about ready to make Zelgadis turn around and go home, pay or no pay. But as soon as she opened her mouth and curled her tongue for the first syllables of "Hey, Zel," fate intervened.

They both stopped in their tracks, frozen and uncaring as passersby buffeted them and alternately inquired for their health and cursed them out. This was totally unlike the Astral sweeps they had noted before. Those had been tentative and probing, quickly drawing back upon the detection of other magic users. This presence was strong. When its attention lit on them, it was like being slammed into a brick wall. This thing literally cut through the Astral chaos, leaving behind it a wake of planar distress. It swept the district in searchlight fashion, and they felt that ponderous concentration focus on one point. Zelgadis broke out of his frozen immobility.

"That's Rezo!" he snapped out. "He's found it!"

Lina stared. This was the closest he had yet come to losing his cool. Even when he was trapped inside that demon ward his face hadn't shown this much expression. His eyes glinted under the hood's shadow and his voice was sharp with something akin to desperation. Before she had time to say anything, though, he had grabbed her arm and they were racing through the shadowed streets.

"I'm tracking him! Get your biggest spell ready!"

"But..."

"Just start chanting!"

And that was that. Zelgadis had generally seemed a fairly steady sort, and Lina assumed that he wouldn't demand a Dragon Slave without good reason. And well, money was money. So Lina began the incantation for the Dragon Slave under her breath, carefully holding back the element that would ignite the spell, keeping it readied just at the tip of her tongue, set to explode at a word. After that, there was only the tense staccato snare of Zelgadis' impossibly fast footfalls. Lina gave up trying to keep pace and just let him pull her along. The sun cast long angular shadows across the streets from its low position in the sky. This district was almost completely emptied of people now, and the scene to Lina took on the eerie surreal qualities of one of those nightmares where you run and run forever from something you never quite see. To Zelgadis, however, there was nothing unreal about it. Everything was outlined in painful concreteness. There was an extra solidity to the steps he took and the air he breathed. Had he been granted a choice, he would gladly have appropriated Lina's perceptions
rather than this terrible clarity. In his opinion, the less real an encounter with Rezo the better.

They were close now, so close that he could taste the acrid sense of Rezo's magic. They would see him as soon as they passed the corner of this building, he just knew it. He paused and flattened himself against the building in question to catch his breath. He heard the click of Lina's shoes touching down on the street behind him. He was starting to feel a bit guilty that he kept dragging her around like that, without so much as a by your leave. This was what, the third time? Circumstances just seemed to conspire to necessitate it. Lina would probably kill him for it if it kept up.

Enough of that.

He shouldn't let his apprehensions distract him like this.

He turned to Lina and mouthed a question.

"Ready?"

She nodded. He hadn't really needed to ask. The inquiry was just meant to reassure himself that he wasn't going in without an offense. He could feel the magic coiled around her, the surrounding currents pulled in taut to the spell's workings. Whatever it was, it was huge.

He hoped she wouldn't obliterate the city when she set it off.

He hoped it would be enough to take care of Rezo.

Further delay was pointless. He stepped around the corner, Lina at his side.



As soon as they emerged from the building's sheltering bulk, Rezo turned towards them. Lina's first thought was, "He looks like Zelgadis." The same sharp features combined with the oddly tense expression matched the face of her companion almost perfectly. Had Rezo's eyes not been closed, sealed blind from birth, she would have had a hard time convincing herself that she was not looking at an older human version of Zelgadis.

"Zelgadis."

It was stated flatly, merely an acknowledgement of presence, with no emotional weight at all.

"Rezo."

Zelgadis spat the word out as if it scorched his lips in a bitter parody of Rezo's greeting.

The blind man appeared to study them, his head tilted slightly to one side in an uncanny semblance of inspection.

"Looking for the Philosopher's Stone, Zelgadis? It won't help, you know."

"I don't believe you. You've already proven yourself untrustworthy."

A tight smile twisted its way across Rezo's lips.

"Just remember that you were the one to back out of the deal."

Zelgadis snarled and nodded towards Lina, who took that as her signal to release the pent-up Dragon Slave. The tight lines of magic were suddenly pulled into the spell like yarn around a spindle. It flooded into her hands, bright and burning. One more surge of power and the spell was freed, screaming towards its target. The red light overwhelmed all vision and the force of its coming shoved all loose matter away in a blast of displaced air.

Again Rezo's thin lips twisted, and he put up a hand to do the impossible:

He shielded a Dragon Slave.

The spell dove into the crackling plane Rezo's will had thrown up in a plume of angry red magic and simply disappeared as if it had never been.

Without the roaring of the Dragon Slave, the alley was left startlingly silent, completely barren of sound. Lina gaped and Rezo smiled calmly. Zelgadis quietly swore, the obscenity falling into the sonic wasteland with all the echoing resonance of a stone breaking the surface of deep water. Rezo's face was suddenly completely blank as he turned again to Zelgadis.

"This is pointless. The Stone will not be complete for three more days. If you wish to fight me for it then, you're welcome to try. Until then, this satisfies no purpose except that of gratifying your desire for vengeance."

This made sense to Lina, so she didn't ready another spell. Zelgadis' expression was enough to make a Mazoku cower in gibbering fear. Since one chose not to oppose him further, and the other could not, Rezo turned and soon disappeared into the swollen shadows of the alley, his staff's piercing chiming audible long after the Red Priest had been swallowed by the gaping darkness.

AN: Okay, guys, here's the deal: You're going to have to wait for a while for the next update. I mean, even longer than usual. Not out of any sadistic impulse on my part, but simply because this is the last chapter I have beta-ed. The next chapter is written, but unedited, so, in order to bring you a better product, I'm going to make you wait. Sorry about that.

By the way, thanks for reading this. I'm flattered. And a bit incredulous. But mostly flattered. And I promise I'm not going to crap out on you. This thing will update, when I have the chapter beta-ed.