Disclaimer: I forgot to add this earlier, at any rate I don't own slayers or any of the other already claimed characters and places that come from other anime series, books, video games, etc. the only thing I do own are the characters of my creation.

Singularity Chapter 2:

There's a Hole in the Bottom the Lab

"YAAA!" Xellos screamed as he got up and planted his feet on the floor. The floor was normally a little cold in the morning, but this morning it was ice, literally. It shocked Xellos completely awake and had the added benefit of sending him crashing into the wall at a good clip. Xellos climbed to his feet, established his balance and melted the floor with a well controlled fireball, and sighed.

I should be used to this by now, Xellos thought on his way to the kitchen, It's been what? Seven... eight months since I arrived here, and every day I've been tricked, or harassed, or the butt of one prank or another despite his several attempts to get the young-looking mage to stop. Some times I wonder if I would have been better off with that mage trying to start the hot springs resort.

Xellos finished his thoughts as he reached the kitchen. Giga wasn't much one for cooking so one of the first things he invented was, for lack of a better term, a magical food replicator. One just had to say the name of a dish or a certain type of food, and how they wanted it prepared and the replicator would magically make it by using the molecules in the air. So far the replicator worked like a charm and except for a few early glitches it had been unproblematic. Thus Xellos was not expecting to end up as a splotch on the opposite end of the room when the replicator hit him with a pressurized blast of coffee and a giant bagel when he ordered his breakfast.

"Okay, that's it!" said Xellos as he peeled himself of wall and stormed off. A few minutes later he confronted Giga in his study. "GIGA! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS! Every #$!ING DAY FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS I HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT THE BUTT OF YOUR PRACTICLE JOKES AND I AM SICK AND TIRED OF IT!!"

"Your point?" responded Giga without bothering to look up from his comic book.

"How long has it been since you've seen your brother?" Xellos asked.

Giga put down the comic book he was reading and narrowed his eyes at Xellos. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Then you leave me no choice," Giga said as he approached Xellos and started reciting a spell under his breath. Xellos took a step back wondering what Giga was up to. Giga reached into the front of his robes and recited the last word of his spell and through a glinting object and...

Xellos found himself with a face full of glitter and several loud fireworks going off in the room.

"CONGRADULATIONS YOU PASSED THE TEST!" shouted Giga as he threw more glitter and confetti on Xellos before going into a victory dance.

"Wha-" said a stunned Xellos.

Giga stopped his victory dance and sat Xellos down in a chair.

"You see," Giga revealed, "all those practical jokes I've been playing on you over the past few months were part of a test. I had to check a few things such as your level of patience and ability to think outside the box. How well and how long you put up with my jokes were to test your patience. You need that in my line of work. Most of the problems you come across require days, if not weeks or months, to figure out, which is where the thinking outside the box comes in. Finding out about my older brother and threatening to call him was a stroke of brilliance!"

Bing! The little light spell went off over Xellos's head. "So the last 8 months of hell you've put me through were all a test?"

"Correctamondo!" replied Giga, "And I must say you past with flying colors. Most people either leave, try to attack me, or go insane after the first two weeks."

"Why does that not surprise me," said Xellos as he pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

"Well enough chit chat, we're burning day light. Off to the Giga lab!" exclaimed Giga marching off with one finger thrusted into the air.

Xellos just sighed and moved to follow.

"Oh by the way," said Giga sticking his head back through the doorway, "Your next test is to find and easy way to get that glitter on you off. If you can do that you'll be a step up from most sorcerers."

WHAM! Xellos face faulted.

#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&

"So what is my first assignment?" asked Xellos as he followed Giga to his lab.

Giga stopped and turned around closed one eye and brought his index finger up in front of his nose and said, "Now that... is a secret!"

WHAM! Xellos face faulted. "No, tell me. What is it?" he asked.

"I seriously mean that it's a secret, I have no idea what it is either. I wasn't really prepared for it," Giga confessed, "Nobody has ever passed the test before so didn't really bother to prepare anythi-"Giga trailed off as a thought dawned on him. He snapped his fingers, "I've got it! C'mon!" he exclaimed. He grabbed Xellos by the arm and took off.

A few minutes later the two were standing inside the immature mage's lab looking at a hole in the floor... a big hole.

"Now this," said Giga, "is my hole."

Xellos sweat dropped before asking, "What is it a hole from?".

"No clue," said Giga, "Let's take the scientific approach." Giga knelt down by the edge of the hole and plunged his hand in. He felt around for a few minutes before pulling his hand up. "Nothin'. We'll need to probe deeper to find out anything. Here catch!" he stated as he tossed a fishing pole to Xellos. "You've got first watch, just cast a line in and let me know if you catch anything, I'm going to get back to my comic book."

And with that Giga left Xellos there holding a fishing pole. He stared at it for a minute before he shrugged his shoulders and casted a line in. It couldn't hurt, Xellos thought, It's not like this hole is going anywhere. With that Xellos settled down for a long wait.

#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&#$%&

Once again Xellos found he was asking himself the same old question, Why didn't I take the job apprenticing under the mage at the hot springs resort? I could be there right now relaxing it up in a nice warm spring surrounded by beautiful women in skimpy bathing suits, but noooooo. I had to seek out the more mysterious mage, and so here I am sitting on a cold, stone floor fishing in some hole that just came out of nowhere.

TUG!

Oh great now I'm starting to imagine things. Xellos sighed. ACHOO! And I think I'm coming down with a cold, Xellos added bitterly.

TUG!

"Oh great now I'm hallucinating again," Xellos ranted outloud, "Boy is Giga gonna get it. My shift was supposed to end 4 hours ago. I swear if he doesn't show up in the next 10 seconds I wi-"At that moment Xellos was jerked forward and perform a perfect face plant.

"Okay now that wasn't an hallucination," muttered Xellos as he picked himself off the floor. He tightened his grip on the fishing pole and braced himself before he started reeling whatever was on the other end in.

Now Xellos was expecting a lot of things to come out of this hole. Nothing was number one on the list. Perhaps maybe a stray object or two like a rock or a branch. Maybe something even as dangerous as a monster. What he did pull out was not the last thing he expected, but it was not high on his list either. This item that he pulled out just happened to be number 314 on his list. And so as he was told to do Xellos went to inform Giga about the boy lying on the floor of the lab.