Zel nervously glanced at the other occupants of the table, obviously as new to the Red Demesnes as himself: two female citizens or heir-apparents and a blonde barbarian that was apparently the bodyguard of one. The first was short, wearing a white outfit not dissimilar to his own, sporting an incredibly cheerful smile that spoke of naïveté beneath a short but thick mass of purple hair. Best described as an innocent. The second, with her bodyguard, looked a bit more knowledgeable, but shy: extremely rare in a citizen, so she must be new. Her getup had a slightly regal quality, as did her bearing. Best described as shy. Her bodyguard, the blonde barbarian, wore enough armor to break a horse's legs and his sword could probably chop one in half, but his eyes had a half-glazed quality. Zel didn't want to judge too quickly, but on a guess he'd say that the man with the muscle bound movie star look didn't have three brain cells to rub together. The best description would be repetitive at this point. Oh how much the least of words can say. They all looked about as nervous as he felt. Fortunately, with Lina not in the room, his circuits were all in total order and nothing but cold interest showed on his face.
An older woman, a wolf by the look of her, walked in and began setting table placements, "Dinner will be ready in just a minute, and as soon as 'Corn and Lina get done with their little chat, it will be served." The blonde barbarian and the purple-haired citizen make slurping sounds as they try not to drool on the table. Zel raises an eyebrow at them, which they either don't notice or ignore. "We've got another guest to wait on as well, but she should be here soon." Her voice is almost annoyingly cheerful at the moment, but Zel manages to keep from wincing.
As the older woman, Sirelmoba, Zel remembers, leaves, the shy girl with the bodyguard speaks up, her voice surprisingly steady, "Well, since miss Lina's invited us all here, we should try to get to know each other a little bit first. My name is Sylphiel and I'm a less-than-wealthy citizen by birth. I'm, uh… not much of a gambler, you see. Gourry?"
"Huh?"
"Introduce yourself, Gourry."
"Oh, okay." Yep, blonde barbarian to a tee, "I'm Gourry; current Champion of Armed Melee fighting, bodyguard serf to Sylphiel." Precisely three seconds after Gourry had stopped speaking, the purple haired Citizen stands and speaks. Zel had to re-define his definition of 'annoyingly cheerful'… and repair his ears.
"Hi! My name is Amelia! My father's a Citizen! I met miss Lina one day when I was walking around outside picking flowers and a buncha goblins appeared and told me they wanted everything I had and my clothes too but miss Lina appeared and scared them all off with a big fireball and invited me to dinner tonight isn't miss Lina so cool?!" (A/N: yes, I know that's a run on sentence, and yes, it is intentional… try saying it all with one breath, in a very high pitched voice, in less than five seconds, and you have what Amelia just said.) The girl plops back down in the chair, desperately sucking air from her brief but wordy speech. Sylphiel looks at Zel. Zel looks back at her.
"Could you introduce yourself?" She asks.
"My name is Zelgadis. Everything else you need to know is easy to see." Zel answers in his usual cold tone. The other three shiver. At that moment, Sirelmoba enters the room again. She pauses, feeling the silence, then moves again, stopping behind a chair and gripping the back.
"I hope you're all getting along well?" she asks, breaking the silence.
"We were just getting to know each other." Sylphiel explains in her still sturdy voice, her eyes flashing to Zel for a moment. Her hint doesn't go unnoticed by Sirelmoba. Between that and the almost tangible dark clouds hovering over Zel, she can guess what happened.
"Excuse Zelgadis for being a tad anti-social: he's never really had any friends before, and doesn't think attempting to make them is worth it." Sirelmoba explains, seemingly out of the blue. Four people stare at her: two curious, one shocked, and one with absolutely no idea why everyone's staring at her but just following along.
"Does everyone in this family know everything about me?" Zel asks with a pained/annoyed expression.
"Pretty much, yes." Comes the answer. Insert long silence.
"Well, I hope all my guinea pi- uh, all of you are getting along?" Lina asks from the doorway, breaking the silence.
"Yes dear, they're getting along just fine for people who just met each other. Well, relatively speaking anyway." Her mother explains, "And, as claimed by many a wise man and many a dumb man, everyone gets along better when there's food involved. Dinner is ready, if you and your father are done…?" she trails off her question.
"Yep. Dad'll be here in a minute." Lina says, plopping down in the chair next to Amelia and across from Zel, who was sitting next to Sylphiel with Gourry on her other side.
"Oh, I hope you made enough for Gourry; he has a large appetite." Sylphiel says over him at Sirelmoba.
"Oh, yes. I did my homework on all of you, so I think you'll find the meal quite satisfactory." Zel noted that Gourry, Lina, and Amelia began drooling at the news of food, and gave them his almost-trademark eyebrow raise. After Sirelmoba leaves the room, there's no sound besides the dripping of drool until Citizen Red enters the room.
"Well, what a lively crew we have here: two others with my daughter's bottomless pit of a stomach, if I'm not mistaken; one new Citizen, and one antique robot. Yes, quite a crew indeed." The Citizen rambles in the way of old men, sitting at the head of the table next to Lina and Zel, "An odd crew, but a good one nevertheless."
"Don't rile them up, you old bat; they're just getting used to each other's company." Sirelmoba comments upon entering the room with four plates of food, "And Zelgadis, Sylphiel? If they reach for your plate, just stab them with a fork. And watch mine, too, until I get back with theirs will ya?" She sets one down in front of Red, Zel, Sylphiel, and one at the foot of the table, apparently her seat.
"I was just making observations, Sirel." Red says stubbornly.
"Like when you observed that Filia needed to learn to control her temper? Yeah, 'just' doesn't cover it." Sirel comments before moving back into the kitchen. Zel, with his head turned toward the kitchen, hears a squeak of pain. When he turns around to look, Gourry is holding a fork menacingly and Amelia is sucking on the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, growing teary-eyed. Sylphiel looks pityingly at Amelia while setting her silverware in the proper high-style positions. Zel just looks at his plate, noting that the food is about as plain as can be, while Sylphiel and Red's have higher-quality food that Citizens would usually get for themselves. Of course, Zel doesn't care, because he doesn't eat. But the apparent psychoanalysis done to determine what he would ask them to make for his meal… something not too taxing on them, and his simple tastes… (yes, robots have taste buds, albeit electronic ones…) it disturbed him that they could look at him that closely without him knowing. It disturbed him that they even knew he existed.
The black thoughts are dispelled as someone else comes out of the kitchen: a large multi-purpose mechanical, holding three very LARGE trays of food and one of medium size with drinks. It deposits one in front of each of the three droolers, and sets the drinks right in the middle of the table, handing something to everyone. Zel takes a whiff of his and raises both eyebrows: coffee. Nothing of his functions required the dark but powerful liquid, and yet he drank it every day. Quality stuff, too, he noticed. The mechanical seems to grin at his expression, and he has an eerie sense that he's met this machine before, but is unable to place where, exactly. Things are suddenly more clear as the machine disappears, replaced in less than an instant by Sirel. Of course! How could he forget? Troubot/Sirelmoba, one of the four… three—some number that was hard to tell because of split personalities—children that journeyed to the poles to stop the Hectare invasion with the Magic Bomb. One of the stranger split-person mixes, on one side a werewolf bitch (not an insult… on Phaze, that's what they call female werewolves.) and on the other Troubot, a high class multi-purpose machine.
Sirel sits, and the three droolers look at her with a pleading look; "Yes, you can eat now." Cue feeding frenzy. Zelgadis once again raises an eyebrow (stop that, or your face will stick that way!) at the voracious three. Sirel, Sylphiel, and Red eat more sedately while Zel picks at his food and sips coffee. There is silence… well, more of non-talking than silence, hearing the loud noises of smacking and tearing from the three human deep-space garbage disposals. Then Citizen Red takes it upon himself to begin the conversation.
"It seems I must take it upon myself to begin the conversation." See? He thinks that way, "Miss Sylphiel."
"Hmm?" she says, quickly swallowing a morsel of food.
"I've heard you're having some financial trouble. Not much of a gambler?"
"No sir." She answers with an embarrassed but cute blush.
"There's a friend of the family who has a friend of the family who's very good at raising new accounts; legendary, in fact. You've heard of Mellon?"
"Sir… I couldn't possibly afford… I wouldn't want to bother such an important…" Sylphiel stumbled, each excuse arguing to be the best.
"Nonsense! The old boy will work for a percentage for a friend of the family, especially one that will give him free reign to work as he sees fit, with only minimal input and confirmations."
"Th-thank you, sir." Sylphiel mumbles, still blushing and staring at her plate.
"Not a problem, and considering the hell I think Lina is going to put you through, it's more of a sympathy gift." Red chuckles.
"Come to think of it, we still haven't been informed of why it is we've been brought here." Zel says over the rim of his cup. At this, everyone but Red and Sirel stop eating and stare at Lina. Well, except Lina, of course: kind of hard to stare at yourself without a mirror. But she does stop eating, and stands, looking each of them in the eye.
"I've brought you here for a very important reason. To do something that may keep our entire society from being destroyed. We are going to cease the consumption of Phazite." Absolute and total silences this time, Red, Sirel and Lina looking at the various versions of shock on each face.
"And how do you propose to do the impossible?" Zel asks sarcastically.
"You, and you, and you are going to learn magic."
OMAKE! OMAKE! OMAKE! OMAKE!
"Nonsense!" Heavy Italian accent "The old boy will work for a percentage for a friend of the family."
Suddenly, a window breaks and a man in a trench coat and a Tommy gun drops through, "You dirty rat." Even heavier Italian accent, gun pointed at Lina, "You killed my brudda, so now I'm gonna kill you…"
"Fireball!" he screams as he sails out the window and down the mountain. Lina turns around to meet bug-eyes and sweatdrops all around, "What? Is there something on my face?"
OMAKE! OMAKE! OMAKE! OMAKE!
Author: Hope you liked it. Next time! How do you Teach a Robot and two Non-Adepts magic? or Lina Feels Pity for her Teachers.