This is Weird!
---Falsified Kidnapping

Part 2 in a weird series

A "Slayers" production by G. A. Curtis Wildcat

supreme_cat@hotmail.com

Don't send any flames, please. What do you think the "Delete" key
is used for?

---------------------------

"Look, I'm telling you that the sandwiches here are the best on the
continent!"

"Hey, the chicken soup doesn't taste half bad either, Lina!"

Lina and Gourry had stopped in a tavern in Crimson Town on
their way to visit a few old friends---rather, the few that Lina
actually had; it's rather hard to make friends with a person who
uses a Dragon Slave to settle an argument. Zelgadis had
decided to leave the group behind temporarily in order to resume
his search for a remedy. Amelia, with some misgivings, had
decided to leave Seyruun in order to meet these surprising
individuals. They couldn't make the whole journey in half a week,
much less a day; and thus, here they were. Things would get worse,
though. Xellos had popped in on them right before they entered
town; he claimed to have sighted the once-thought-to-be-dead
Phibrizzo eating soft-serve ice cream in Seyruun, so tensions were
rather high.

"BLT sandwich!"
"Chicken soup!"
"BLT sandwich!"
"Chicken soup!"
"BLT SANDWICH, AND THAT'S FINAL!"
"CHICKEN SOUP, LIKEWISE!"
"WHAT PART OF 'THAT'S FINAL' IS CONFUSING YOU, JELLY-HEAD?"

Xellos, who noticed that Amelia had wisely stepped out of the
way of the argument, decided to intervene. "Look, they're ALL
good. You might as well decide----"

"NO ONE ASKED YOU, MR. "THAT-IS-A-SECRET"!" Lina shouted.

"Okay, okay! I'm just saying that you might want to think of what
you want QUICKLY before the waiters come back!" Xellos said hastily.

"I'll decide WHAT I want WHEN I want it and no time sooner!" Lina's
face was visibly turning crimson with anger.

"On the contrary," Xellos retorted, changing gears abruptly.
"You'll get a BLT sandwich RIGHT NOW before I hit you on the head
with my staff."

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" The teenage sorceress was starting to
reach the boiling point. "WHY won't you shut up?!"

Xellos grinned; he couldn't resist this opportunity. "That....is a
secret."

"Why, you little....!" Lina jumped out of her seat and threw a fist
towards Xellos. The monster-in-human-form deftly dodged the
blow---but the punch neatly put a hole in the wall behind him.

"Hey, don't look at me. You asked for it!"

---

"FLARE ARROW!"
"ELMEKIA LANCE!"
"BRAM BLAZER!"
"DRAGO---eh, ditch the Dragon Slave. FREEZE BLADE!"
"BURST RONDO!"
"RA TILT!"

---

When the smoke cleared, Lina was breathing heavily from the
rapid-fire attacks she had launched. Gourry had went to the other
side of the tavern, presumably to avoid the attacks. Amelia was
still where she was on the outer edge of the explosive attacks.
Xellos was sitting on a chair, having avoided each of the attacks
cleanly and being quite pleased with himself.

As for the tavern? The wall that they were sitting near was
blasted wide open due to Lina's attacks.

The waiter, who had joined them during Lina's assault, looked at
Amelia. "I'm sorry. What was it you said you wanted?"

Amelia looked at the damaged tavern, then gave a depressed sigh.
"On second thought, sir, I think I'll have the cheesecake instead."

----

The manager of the tavern was not a very happy man. "I don't
believe this," he moaned. "Just HOW am I going to get the money to
pay for all this?"

He knew how the place was nearly destroyed, of course; almost every
tavern-owning citizen on the continent had dealt with Lina Inverse
at one point or another. Judging by her garb, he assumed that she
had some money with her. Thinking back to the people that were with
her, he decided on what was a plausible---at least to him---solution
to the problem.

A secret kidnapping.

----

There would be no problem as regards being heard. One of the other
sleepers in the inn had this really bad snoring habit, so most of
those staying for the night had burrowed some ear plugs.

Amelia was one of them.

The manager had snuck into the room in the dead of night, almost
tripping over a few odds and ends as he did so. He was at a loss
as to how he was going to drag her out until he remembered a swift
and sneaky technique that his uncle had taught him. "How did he
do it...ah! Now I remember!" he muttered to himself.

--

Amelia didn't wake up until 8 hours later, when a ray of sunshine
shone through the window onto her face. Blinking, she tried to
stand up---but found herself tied to a chair with her hands tied
behind her back. "Hey! Who's there?! Get over here and untie me!"

"I can't do that," the manager said, stepping out of the shadows
ominously. "I'm holding you ransom."

"Ransom? WHY?" Amelia asked curiously.

"My building nearly got destroyed by that wretched Inverse lady,
lady," the manager growled. "You're not leaving until I get the
ransom money from her!"

"Oh, she'll be by, all right," Amelia shot back, "and the horses
of justice are going to leave hoofprints on your face!"

"That's a new one," the manager said sarcastically.

Amelia ignored the man's remark. "How did you get me in here? Tell
me!"

"I used a special technique to get you out of bed and into that
chair," the manager said. "Namely, what I did was grab your arm and
run like my life depended on it. With those ear plugs, you never
even heard me!"

Amelia just groaned...."How could I have been captured so easily?"
she mused quietly. With that thought out of her mind, she settled
down and waited for Lina and Gourry to show up.

--
ONE HOUR LATER
--

The manager walked back into the back room with a tense look on his
face. Amelia snapped her head back up. "Has Lina shown up yet?"

"Not yet," the manager muttered with a smug look on his face, "but
I'm sure she will."

--
ONE HOUR LATER
--

"Blast it, Lina, where are you?" the manager and Amelia murmured
simultaneously.

Two hours had gone by since Amelia had woken up, but Lina still
hadn't shown up. Just what was keeping her?

"You better hope she shows up soon. The longer she delays, the
longer you stay in that chair," the manager said briefly.

"I hate you," Amelia muttered. She gave a sigh of relief. "Whew!
That felt good to say."

--
TWO HOURS LATER
--

Four hours had gone by overall, and it was close to lunchtime.
Still no sign of the two Slayers. Amelia and the manager were
bored out of their skulls.

Amelia looked around, looking for something to occupy her mind. Her
gaze focused on the manager. "That hat...is it new?"

"Yeah...bought it just a few days ago," the manager said. "My old
one accidentally got set on fire while I was cleaning out the
house's chimney..."

--
THREE HOURS LATER
--

"So, when that guy from Sairaag offered you that bum deal, you
actually hired that crazy swordsman to go after him?" Amelia asked.

"Yes. He brought back the salesman before the crook even knew what
hit him, but it took him about a week to do it!"

The two of them laughed for probably the 70th time in the last
few hours. No one had shown up recently to pay the ransom and set
Amelia free, so the manager had decided to oblige her with his life
story. In the end, despite the situation, Amelia was starting to
enjoy herself.

The two of them fell silent for the first time in hours as the story
ended. They stared at each other, not knowing the next step in the
plan to get the ransom money. Finally, the manager just groaned to
himself and walked out of the room, leaving Amelia alone with her
thoughts.

"When is Lina going to come and rescue me?"
"Just how much is that tavern worth to him?"
"I wonder what a cheesecake sandwich tastes like."

--
ONE HOUR LATER
--

"That's it. I give up," the manager blurted out. "I'm sick and
tired of waiting, so I'm just going to set you loose."

"Huh?" That got Amelia's attention. "What do you mean?"

"If she was going to show up, she would've done so by now. You're
free to go."

This left the Seyruun princess even more surprised than ever. "But
what about the money you have to pay to rebuild that part of the
tavern?"

The manager just sighed; he must've been thinking about this for the
past hour. "I think I'll just sell a few things and get the money
that way." He stooped down to untie Amelia's hands and feet.
"Besides, now that I think about, kidnapping just isn't my
specialty."

Freed, Amelia stood up and stretched her muscles for a few seconds.
"I could you get you the money."

"You can?" the manager asked suspiciously. "How?"

"Simple," Amelia replied smugly. "I'm Amelia, the princess of
Seyruun!"

"YOU'RE the princess of Seyruun?!" the manager blurted out again.
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I could've set
you free a lot sooner!"

Amelia shrugged. "I dunno. Tell you what, though. Send a courier
to Seyruun in my name and have him talk to my dad, Prince Phil.
He'll get you every coin you need to repair the damage."

The manager nodded. "Great. Thanks." He started to leave, then
paused. "You can grab a sandwich on the way out, if you want,"
he said.

Amelia smiled. "I just might do that."

---

A few days or so later, Amelia finally caught up with Lina and
Gourry not far from their destination. This invoked a puzzled
reaction from Lina, considering that she hadn't expected to see
her here---and that Amelia was steaming angry. "Amelia! What are
you doing here?"

"You didn't know that I was kidnapped?" Amelia protested.

This startled Lina. "Kidnapped...?"

"So THAT'S why she wasn't in her room at the inn!" Gourry said
thoughtfully.

"Well, what did you THINK I was doing?" Amelia was starting to
lose her temper....

"I don't know," Lina said calmly. "You didn't seem too thrilled
about joining us, so I had assumed you had just gone back to
Seyruun."

Amelia realized that there wasn't any way that she was going to
get through to her, so she just sweatdropped and slowly calmed
herself down. "I'm still not too happy about it. I think you owe
me."

Lina sweatdropped at that statement. "Owe you what?"

"For one, you're paying the bill at the next tavern we stay in,"
Amelia stated. "And for another...I could use some pain medicine.
My shoulder hurts."

"Sitting in a chair with your hands tied behind your back can do
that to you," Xellos commented from the safety of some nearby trees.
"Trust me. I know."

"Okay, I will," Lina said to Amelia, not one to be foxed out of her
money, "but if you get a cheesecake sandwich, YOU'RE the one paying
the bill."

The Seyruun princess looked at her in shock. "So you've been
thinking about that, too!"

The three of them---plus Xellos---began walking again towards the
village. In the end, Lina got in the last word. "I'd say `great
minds think alike', except lying is unjust."

"Rrr...stop stealing my material!"

"I'll steal it if I want to, Justice Friend," Lina remarked. She
started laughing at that little joke.

Three seconds later, though, she was caught off-guard by a ticked
off princess...a ticked-off princess with the Fists of Justice.

*KA-POW!* "Hey, that hurt! Why, you little...!"

"What a way to end this anecdote," Xellos muttered, sarcasm coloring
his voice. He looked on as the two females fought each other, then
sighed. [Guess I'd better end this fight quickly], he thought,
raising his staff above his head and walking towards them quietly.

*CLOBBER* *THUNK* "D'OH!" "AAH!"

-----

Could've been better, I admit; but then again, This is Weird!
There's SUPPOSED to be room for improvement. It's a lot bigger
than the first part, and it only took me 24 hours to do this when I
got started. I'm quite impressed.

If you thought that was dumb, you should see what the next chapter
is like.