They arrived the next day, after having a good rest overnight and were dropped off on the outskirts of Seyruun. Knowing the police would be looking for a short brown haired girl and a tall blonde man, they realised that they would have to disguise themselves somehow. Passing a fancy dress shop, Lina came upon an idea and dragged Gourry into the store, not knowing what was about to occur.
"Lina! I am not going out like this?"
"Oh stop being so dull. You don't want us to get caught do ya? This is the best idea I have and unless you can come up with something better, you can just shut it and get on with it."
"But Lina…"
"Shut up and stop calling me Lina! I'm Leo!"
Lina tucked her hair up and placed the baseball cap on her head. She then started chewing on some gum and placed her hands in the pockets of her newly acquired jeans. She was disguising herself as a boy, what with being short and underdeveloped. The latter was the comment made by Gourry which earned him a fist to the top of his head.
"This is really uncomfortable…" Gourry grumbled as he stepped out from the changing room.
Lina grinned and ran over to him, clutching his arm tightly.
"Oh big sis! Look at how beautiful you are!" Lina said a little too sweetly.
Gourry just gave a disgusted look and then reached up to fix the bra with the fake breasts. He shuffled them about to try and get more comfortable which only succeeded in shifting their position which Lina then had to fix. She then took Gourry's hair and brushed it, and fixed them into pigtails. Gourry was now looking more like a woman, with the lipstick, fake eyelashes and cute pink dress that was long to hide his manly legs, but the boots helped a little with that. Lina was wearing a baggy shirt with jeans, trainers and a baseball cap.
"Right, let's go Lola!" Lina said enthusiastically, tugging on Gourry's arm.
"My aunt is never gonna let me live this down." Gourry sighed.
"Gourry!"
"Aunty Melly!" Gourry replied and hugged his aunt, knocking his fake breasts out to his sides.
Lina blinked and followed Gourry into the house. Then took the cap off her head and ran her fingers through her hair.
"And this must be your 'partner-in-crime'. Nice to meet you, Ms?"
"Lina" She replied a little shyly.
"Ahh."
"You do realise we didn't do anything Aunty" Gourry stated as he pulled away.
"Of course I do, I know you wouldn't have done anything of the sort. Stealing and such!"
Gourry frowned slightly and looked to Lina.
"Umm, well the stealing thing is true. Except we didn't take the stone, and we didn't kill those guys either. We just took the book and the sword, and knocked the men out so we could escape."
"Why did you take those things then?" Melly replied.
Lina and Gourry sat down in main room and began to explain the whole situation and why they had decided to come to Seyruun.
"So you see. We really need to try and get to Old Seyruun and search those old libraries." Lina finished.
"I see. Well I have to admit it sounds pretty far-fetched but I think with the situation you are in; you have nothing to lose really. It does seem very coincidental that Gourry is good with swords and possibly in a past life he was a swordsman. I don't think I could help you get into the old libraries and not get caught, but you're welcome to stay here and my neighbours all know you're innocent so you won't have trouble around here."
"Thanks!" Lina replied happily.
Later that day, the moment the sun set, Lina and Gourry had decided it was now the time to try and get to the old libraries. They were in their own clothes, much to the delight of Gourry who couldn't wait to remove that uncomfortable bra. They kept to the dark alleys and out of the light, using those alleys to hide in whenever a police patrol drove by.
They then reached the wall which marked the edge of Old Seyruun. Looking back and forth they checked that the area was clear, and then Gourry helped Lina up on top of the wall. Then Gourry stepped back a few paces and took a run up, his first couple of steps he used to run up the wall, and then with his momentum, he leapt and grabbed the edge of the wall, pulling himself up.
Now next to Lina they both took a quick view of the area. Luckily there were not that many guards as they had originally anticipated. However there were still a few about patrolling the area so the still had to be discreet. Lina pointed out where the old libraries were which meant crossing the courtyard. Gourry nodded a little and then leapt down silently. He then helped Lina down and they both slid stealthily alongside a building till they reached the edge of the courtyard.
They both watched carefully the movements the guards made and worked out when the best time to run across the courtyard would be. They worked it out to the second at which point Lina made a dash for it. Gourry looked on anxiously, hoping the guard wouldn't turn early and catch Lina bit thankfully he didn't and Lina made it safely to the shadows of another building.
It was Gourry's turn to wait this time, so he sat there patiently until the right moment came. When it did, he sprinted quickly but as quietly as possible too. He could see Lina now looking warily to the guard, and she bit her lip when she thought he was about to turn. He stopped for a moment only to bend down and take a look at something on the ground. Gourry made it to the shadows before the guard turned.
They then had free access to the library with no worries of anymore guards, at least outside the building. They entered the library through the main door since they left all the places unlocked. They were a lot more wary of security cameras this time but a quick look about showed that they hadn't decided to use them.
They used the shadows to sneak around the libraries carefully but further investigation found that they didn't have to sneak around because not only were there no security cameras, but there were no guards either. It seemed that they were only patrolling the outside and really not as worried about people sneaking into the grounds as they had originally anticipated.
Gourry stood up and scratched his head, looking towards Lina.
"Hey Lina? Don't you think it's a little weird that there isn't really anyone guarding this place?"
Lina just shrugged in reaction.
"Does it matter? It just makes our job easier."
"It doesn't seem right though."
"Do you want us to get into trouble?" Lina spat a little angrily.
"Fine then…" Gourry gave up.
They then both walked through the rows of shelves all containing books. They looked through the first few rows but they all seemed to contain irrelevant books about geography or history. Some were just novels of adventuring and romance. After getting bored of that Lina decided to try and find a quicker way.
"Hey Gourry, you check upstairs and just see if you can find anything on magic. Ok? Anything you find, bring it down here. I'll just keep checking the rest of this floor. It'll take forever otherwise."
Gourry nodded and headed off to the old wooden stairway. He walked up it cautiously, worrying that it might break off at any point. He then reached the upper floor and looked around slowly. Suddenly being alone in the dark in an old place had him feeling a little worried. He just hoped ghosts weren't real!
Meanwhile, Lina skipped a few rows because they all seemed to be the same thing. So she moved on and headed to the other side of the room. Then moving back through the rows, she suddenly felt as though she had struck gold. Each of the spines all had something to do with magic, whether it was the introduction of magic, or the history of magic. She began gathering them together and placed them on a large table on the middle of the room. She smirked thinking Gourry was going to still be looking upstairs, but at least it would keep him out of her hair.
Gourry kept searching but he couldn't seem to find anything with magic in it. He was growing bored and so just strolled about the place until he came across a small book which had no title. He took the book and moved to a small table and sat down to take a look.
Lina was growing more and more frustrated as she went through the piles of books and found nothing on actually casting spells. They just seemed to describe all of the properties of the spells or the reasoning behind them. All the books on the history talked about how the spells came about. She started throwing the age old books to the ground in frustration, not caring that they were nearly falling apart at the seams.
Gourry opened the front cover of the book and read the inscription on the inside.
"To anyone who has the evilness inside to read the private thoughts of a woman, let it be known that justice will strike you down and you will pay for all of the other evil deeds that you have done."
Blinking a little, Gourry wondered if he should start reading through this thing or not. However he figured that this woman must long be gone and so it would probably be ok because whatever was private would be able to embarrass that person anymore. He skipped through the first few pages and found that it was written by a girl of about 15. Infact she was a princess and lost her mother at a young age. He then began reading how she started to learn magic and began explaining how she went about doing it. He realised what he had in his hand and ran back down the stairs to Lina.
"Hey! Lina! Look what I got! You have to read it!"
He handed the book to the now seriously pissed off Lina, who snatched the book from Gourry and read the inside cover.
"What kind of a freak is this woman?"
"Huh? Oh! Forget that, keep reading on."
Lina did so after shaking her head and slowly her eyes began to widen as she got to the pages talking about learning magic.
"Gourry! This is it!"
At which point, she leapt out of the chair and hugged Gourry tightly.
"My, it's taken you two long enough to work out your feelings for each other."
Lina and Gourry suddenly turned towards the voice which shook them into reality, both thinking they had been caught. They were only greeted by a strange looking man in some weird clothes. He had purple hair which almost covered his eyes and looked like someone had planted a bowl on his head and cut around the edge. He had a staff with a strange red stone on the top and was wearing a really freaky smile.
"Who are you?" Lina and Gourry managed to say simultaneously.
"My, Ms Lina, Mr Gourry. I'm hurt that you don't even remember your old friend. Although I do admit it was a very long time ago since we last met. Maybe I should remind you then. I am Xellos."
Author Notes: Sorry for the long time for the next chapter but I was a bit busy over Christmas and I lost a bit of inspiration for this story. The thing that affected me the most was my aunt passing away on the 26th Dec. It's all kind of upset me and I struggled to write this chapter just because I guess I lost my desire to write this. I will try to keep this going but with uni starting again soon, I won't be updating it as often. It might be good though because it won't be as rushed since I felt the need to update it every day beforehand. Anyway, enjoy!