Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. They are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Shoko Yoshinaka.

Chapter Seventeen

At first Zelgadis didn't believe Sherra. "On top of the world," she said, but he didn't believe her, and he turned the Sword of Light violently in his hands, causing a great gash to form between her two shoulder blades.

"Tell me the truth!" he pushed, preparing to drive the sword down through her the long way to her tail bone.

"Quiet Zelgadis," Xellos said calmly, pointing even to a place even further north. "Look at that."

Zelgadis moved his attention from Sherra for a moment and glanced at the place Xellos had indicated. It seemed the earth was heaving, like there were heavy earthquakes taking place in the north. "What's that?" Zelgadis asked. Then he noticed that Sherra had used that moment to escape. "Damn it! Where did she . . ."

"Don't worry about her," Xellos commanded slowly. "She wasn't lying. We've got to go interfere with Dynast this moment. He's got to be there with Lina now."

"What is he doing to make the earth move like that?" Zelgadis asked.

"Probably what he planned to do with Lina since the moment he first saw her – have her cast a Giga Slave."

"A Giga Slave?" Zelgadis instantly remembered Lina's display of power when she used the Lord of Nightmares to slay the Dark Lord Shabranigdo. So, that was what Dynast wanted her for. It made perfect sense. "You knew all along?" Zelgadis roared and took hold of Xellos' tunic, forgetting for a moment that such an action against Xellos would not pose any sort of threat to the mazoku. "Why didn't you say something sooner?"

Xellos didn't bother to remove Zelgadis' hand, but instead said with his wide-open slitted eyes, "We'll have to move quickly if we're to stop them. You want to stop them, don't you Zelgadis? That infinitesimal bit of human left in you doesn't want to see the havoc that an out of control Giga Slave can summon, does it?"

Zel thought about what Xellos was suggesting. Was there really enough human left in him that he wanted to save the world? Not really. Zel wanted to save Lina, everything else could be sacrificed. That's what he decided when he became a mazoku.

Zelgadis let go of Xellos' shirt. "Let's go," he said darkly.

"As you say," Xellos said teleporting to lead the way into the chaos that was consuming the north.

Zelgadis and Xellos approached the place where Lina and Dynast were. It was on a jutting ledge near the top of a very tall mountain. There was sparkling snow thrashing and the chaos energy was spinning around Lina violently, but Zelgadis soon realized that she had not yet said she key words to the spell "Giga Slave". If she had not done that yet then there might be time to stop her and to save her.

Dynast was standing fairly far away from her, watching her with a vicious light gleaming from his mazoku eyes. It looked to Zel as though he were very well pleased with his arrangement. He obviously thought that Lina was quite the prize. Then his eyes came up, or his senses alerted him to Zelgadis and Xellos' presence.

Xellos had informed him earlier that he would be the one to handle Dynast and that the only part of this operation that Zel needed to worry about was Lina. After all, that was Zelgadis' objective – to get Lina.

Zelgadis didn't waste one backward glance to see what Xellos was doing, but instead instantly threw himself into the chaos energy – attempting to get close to Lina.

"Lina!" he hollered.

She didn't seem to hear him.

"Lina!" he shouted again.

Her eyes seemed hollow as she stared in front of her. She didn't seem to notice Zelgadis' approach at all.

Zelgadis came up in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders, "LINA!"

Not his touch or his voice seemed to be reaching her. What was the Giga slave doing to her? How was he going to save her?

Damn it! He drew the Sword of Light and was deeply angered that it had come to this. For some reason he always believed in the back of his mind that he would have to participate in combat with Lina, but to have her simply stand there while he cut her seemed like the most unbearable part of all of this, and he had to do it in order to bring her to her senses. He might rip out the remainder of his humanity to be with her, he might wage war with Dark Lords, but having to cut her when she wouldn't fight back seemed . . . like too much.

When he seemed able to face what he would do, he calculated how much damage he would have to do in order to wake her up. The wound would have to be fairly deep. Zelgadis guessed that even though Hellmaster promised that she would not be his equal, she would still be quite strong. Suddenly, he remembered the white mark on her chest. Her dress didn't cover it and it shown very white, even though the whitest, freshest snow was blowing around them in great gusts. He backed up and placing both hands on the hilt, slammed himself, blade first, into her. Zelgadis knocked Lina against the side of the mountain with his strength. He cradled her head in his hands, hoping what he had done was enough to wake her.

"Get away from her, boy!" Zelgadis heard Dynast yell. His voice was very loud as the chaos energy had subsided.

"Take Lina and go RIGHT NOW!" Xellos screamed - right before Zelgadis saw him teleport out. Zel had only seen a glimpse of the Priest, but he saw that Xellos' injuries were much worse than what he had done to Sherra when he had nearly cut her in half.

Dynast was approaching quickly, and Zelgadis teleported out without even thinking.

The only place Zelgadis could think of to flee to was the tower in the Desert of Destruction. Besides, Zelgadis knew that he could not take on Dynast by himself.

When he appeared in the tower, he saw Xellos sitting by Hellmaster's empty throne, nursing his wounds. Zelgadis saw that he had underestimated how hurt Xellos really was. One of his arms looked like it had been ripped off, and there were great gashes in his chest and thighs. Xellos was breathing hard, which caused dark energy to leak from his mouth, but that dark dangerous light that Xellos could shine forth from his eyes was not gone. In fact, the pure mazoku elements appeared to be heightened by his pain.

Zelgadis didn't know what to say to him. Instead, he didn't say anything, but sat Lina down and carefully removed the Sword of Light from her chest.

"You went that far Zelgadis-san? I never would have thought you had it in you," Xellos said, choking on something in his throat.

Zelgadis clumsily laid Lina down flat on the stone, and tried to chant a healing spell.

"Don't bother with that nonsense," Xellos said, and for the first time didn't sound patronizing. "It won't do her any good now. Not only can you not call on healing powers as a mazoku, but a healing spell will do nothing to cure her now. Just let her lie still. She's too inexperienced to know how to heal herself, and only she knows the secret to her regeneration."

Zelgadis sat back and felt very helpless. He wanted to help Lina, but most of all he wanted to talk to her. That was what was making him feel most deprived during all of this – that he had not been able to speak to her. In his mind, this whole scenario had played out very differently. He felt like he had been robbed of every chance to show her that he cared for her. What was left to him now except to sit by her and make sure she didn't teleport back to Dynast's side? It was not unlikely that she might have to do so. Perhaps he would end up fighting her as he thought – here.

Hellmaster Phibrizzo stood in front of Dynast with the snow shards of the north lightly dusting his childish appearance. Dynast didn't look in the least surprised to see him.

"What do you want?" Dynast asked coldly.

"Don't be stupid. You know exactly what I want. If you remember, quite some time ago I told you that I was interested in that little sorceress Lina, and even though you knew some of my plans for her, you went and snatched her before I got the chance," Phibrizzo said very slowly.

"Ah, but you have the chimera, who is very valuable indeed, so why should you care what I do with my servants now?"

"Don't act so smug or stupid. Zelgadis has not near the value of Lina, even when given enhanced power by the Red Priest and myself. Lina is the one with the power to call on the highest of all Lords, not Zelgadis. Admit that she's more powerful than your Priests and General, even though you did not bestow nearly the same power on them, because she was already almost their equal before you got your hands on her." The look of satisfaction on Dynast's face irritated Phibrizzo, so he continued. "I sealed you in your castle before. I didn't realize that the underground passages allowed you much more roaming space than I previously believed. This time, it will be far more restrictive."

"What about Lina?" Dynast asked.

"She's going to become my Priest."

"Don't . . ." Dynast suddenly said with urgency.

"Don't what? She was mine to begin with – you took her from me. Well, that's all over now. Because of your meddling, your sentence will now be twice as long," Phibrizzo said, before waving his arm and walking away from the failed Dark Lord.

Author's Notes: How was that? Anyway, if you're reading this, please review. Comments would really be appreciated at this point as I don't have a whole lot of experience wrapping up stories, and there isn't much left to this one. So, if you had any thoughts at all while reading this, please review! Thanks!