Quantum Scrambled Eggs

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Chapter 3

The tournament had been a fun, learning experience for Gourry, who had won fourth place. Which wasn't bad at all considering. But out the entrance fees, Yeal and Gourry had to really watch their spending. No gambling or inns for a while, because it was always a good idea to have a little spare cash on hand for the unexpected.

So, Gourry and Yeal continued their trek toward the troll infestation walking along during the day and sparring an hour after they got up and an hour before going to sleep each day, and it seemed like only a little while before they arrived in Fenris, a small town only three days at their leisurely pace to the troll infestation.

It was against Gourry's protest that Yeal pushed for entering the town and staying at the local inn, mostly because they had little cash to spare, but partially because Gourry had grown accustom to the constant bivouac, but in the end Yeal got his way.

As the two warriors entered the inn's dining room they heard something of a commotion. There were five or six big guys, all dressed similarly and displaying a tiger tattoo on their left arm, confronting and using bullying tactics on a thin, small, nerdy looking young man of about eighteen or twenty who was wearing thick glasses and clutching a weathered tome to his chest as he stammered.

"And what are you going to do, huh boy?" Ont of the men asked in a biting tone.

"N-n-nothing." The boy gulped loudly and visibly, "I- I- I don't want any trouble." He stammered in reply, trying to edge away from the one that was yelling at him, only to get closer to the one that attacked next.

"Then you shouldn't have sat in the boss's chair!" He said intelligently, ok, so maybe not so much, but it had its intended effect.

"I d-didn't know…" The boy stammered after jumping and whirling to face the one that had addressed him.

"You should have." The biggest guy that appeared to be the leader cut into the rest of the group's taunts, "It's not like our gang's moved in just this week… oh, wait, it is." The big guy finished with a vicious grin as he made a pounding motion with his fist into his open palm.

That was when Yeal stepped up and decked the guy, much to Gourry's surprise, as it happened rather abruptly, but he rushed to help Yeal out. Even though he would likely be able to take care of them all without his assistance. But what are friends for, eh?

Yeal had quickly struck the lead man in the back of the knee, the mid-back, and his right wrist before he could recover from the punch and moved on to the next one using similar tactics. Gourry rushed in to engage numbers three and four, who pulled long knives from their cloaks and started slashing back.

Gourry drew his sword and used the greater force to knock the blade out of one of the other's hands before using the return-strike to both cut the belt from the same guy's pants and drive the butt of the hilt into the hand of the other one, breaking at least one finger in the process.

Yeal, on the other hand was finishing his third ant the same time, so when the last gang-member stood in between the two warriors he threw his knife down and raised his hands in a peaceable, don't-hurt-me gesture.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"… and please, don't come back. " The innkeeper finished saying as he ushered the three out of the inn, which was entirely understandable, one doesn't relish having other prople fighting and/or pissing off the one of the local gangs in one's establishment.

"Well, that could have gone better…" Yeal said, trailing off at the end to gesture to the boy that had been on the receiving end of the gang, "Hey, Gourry, this is my little brother."

"Really?" Gourry asked, then looked closer at the young man, "He sure doesn't look like you."

"Well, Yeal is my step-brother." The boy replied. "Oh, I'm Ethan."

"Yeah, nice to meet you Etan." Gourry said smiling and offering his hand.

"It's Ethan." Ethan repeated his name, clearer this time.

"Oh… sorry." Gourry responded.

"No problem!" Yeal broke in, "Come on you two, let's get going so we can set up camp before dark."

"But you're welcome to stay at home." Ethan protested, showing more backbone to his brother than he had to the total strangers a little while ago.

Yeal made a noise like a grunt, or perhaps a soft growl, and continued walking, leaving Ethan and Gourry to stay or follow as they pleased. There was no way he'd allow himself to go home, not after what he'd said to his father.

• • • • • • • • • • •

The next morning, after Gourry and Yeal had broken camp, they started off at a quicker pace followed by Ethan.

"You know, there's going to be trolls there." Yeal pointed out, trying to dissuade him from coming.

"I'll be fine, you'll see… and I can help with my magic." Ethan replied cheerfully.

"You certainly didn't look like you could handle yourself against those goons back in town Ethan."

"Well... that was different!" Ethan protested.

"How was that any different?" Yeal spun on his brother and jabbed his forefinger into his chest. "If you can't take care of a couple of wannabe gang-members how are you going to be able to stand your ground against a pack of trolls? Huh?"

"It was different because they were people, even if I didn't like them, that still wouldn't ease my conscience if I killed them… and I didn't want to destroy the inn."

Yeal blinked at that, then burst into laughter, doubling over in pain and wiping tears from his eye, never noticing Ethan's scowl. "You think so huh? Prove it." Yeal challenged when he could finally speak again.

"Fine." Ethan said, then began chanting something, he finished by saying "Blast Ash!" and a black void appeared in a grove of trees. The trees suddenly turned grey and crumbled to the ground, apparently turned into ash.

"Wow." Yeal said, blinking in disbelief… "I guess you did learn a lot while I was gone."

"And that's not all I can do," Ethan said with more than a bit of smugness, "I learned the Dragon Slave, too."

"Really?" Yeal said, "Then I guess you're well on your way to becoming a first-class mage."

Ethan smiled at that, it had always been a dream to become a good mage, maybe not a great one like the legendary Rei Magnus, but a good one. Hearing his brother encourage him was something he was always glad for, it seemed like he knew his stuff, but lacked the social self-confidence to operate effectively around strangers.

Yeal looked around a bit and then nodded, "Okay then, let's go everyone… we'll be in and out, and get that reward quickly."

• • • • • • • • • • •

Yeal, Gourry, and Ethan emerged in the hilly region the trolls were inhabiting two days later, having picked up the pace, and after a quick recon they had come up with plans for attack. Nothing overly complicated, one, because trolls aren't overly smart, and two, because no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Battles are fluid, almost organic things, that will destroy you if you try to fit it into the small, restrictive form of a plan.

"Okay, everybody, remember to watch out for that regeneration." Yeal reminded, "Only cutting their heads off, or incinerating them, or otherwise causing massive damage will actually kill them."

"Sure, I can open with a Dragon Slave." Ethan said with a grin, "I really want to test it out."

"You and your new toys…" Yeal joked, "Well, it would make a good opener if it's as powerful as I've heard."

"Don't worry, it is." Ethan reassured Yeal, then stood up and went over to the ridge and began chanting the spell.

Gourry and Yeal quickly scrambled down the steep hill into the edge of the semi-valley/plain in the hills that the trolls were gathered in. In a flash there was suddenly a crater in the center of the plain, that was their cue, and so drawing swords, Gourry and Yeal charged into the throng of now thoroughly pissed trolls.

Yeal broke to the right while Gourry met them head on. The first several trolls that they came across instantly lost their heads and, for some reason, Gourry was tempted to yell "There can be only one!", the next wave was the beginning of the end.

Yeal fought three trolls, slicing through any limbs that he could and taking that opening to slice through their necks, several trolls that were trying to flank him met a sudden fireball, not killing them but stopping them long enough for Yeal to see them.

Meanwhile, Gourry had finished off four more trolls, mostly lucky swings, he thought… either that or hall the training he'd been doing was very practical. He turned to Yeal to check how the other swordsman was faring, just in time to see one of the semi-charred trolls grab his sword and pull it into its own stomach, and the other three trolls swarmed him, beating him viciously in the bare seconds it took Gourry to run over and assist Yeal.

Gourry cut through the group, separating heads from bodies, cutting through torsos, he finally made it to Yeal. Too late to prevent some nasty cuts and bruises, probably broken bones, but hopefully enough to prevent any permanent damage to his friend.

Ethan had also seen the entire thing. And he had started running down to help, he had a couple of pinpoint precision spells, but they were close-range. As he ran his boot caught a small rock and sent him tumbling, literally head over heels, the landing knocking his glasses away.

Gourry was fending off what seemed to be about thirteen trolls, of course things were somewhat exaggerated at the moment, but he still kept his sword swing fighting back the trolls, cutting here, slashing there, not standing with his back to any one direction for any amount of time, and not allowing his sword to slow so they could use the same tactic they used to take Yeal down.

Ethan, having stumbled about groping for his glasses, had finally gotten up and was as well on his way to helping his brother and Gourry. It was a pity, he thought, in the back of his mind as he ran, that he didn't know any healing magic.

Gourry had thinned the trolls down some, but he was surrounded and it was now only a matter of time before they overcame him, all they really needed, he realized, to bring him down was to make a single orchestrated dive, to simply and suddenly push forward. But just as Gourry knew he was doomed four trolls died in a sudden flash and the smell of burned meat reached his nose making him want to gag. Instead of gagging Gourry attacked the edge of the hole Ethan had opened up, hoping to use the surprise to weaken them even further.

The trolls broke out into a frenzy, there were only eight now, but still they growled and charged like some frenzied football team, in fact some of the smells would remind many teenagers of the locker room, some would remind their father about the hamburgers that he forgot on the grill, and some would remind them about their Uncle Ernie's halitosis, that offensive breath that could incapacitate a rhino, all these smells ane more were included in the physical assault of these remaining eight trolls. Trolls that rushed over the body of poor Yeal, stamping in and being trampled in a manner reminiscent of those idiots that go to Spain to try to commit suicide or whatever it is they do with those bulls. Ah, but I digress, so back to the fight.

Ethan paled and stammered as he saw the trolls charging. He quickly spewed the words to the first spell that came to mind: Blast Ash, which reduced the trolls to nothing more than heaps of ash that disintegrated and blew away on the wind… unfortunately Yeal had also been in the spell's zone and was reduced to nothing more than a pile of ash wearing Yeal's equipment.

"Wha-wha…" Ethan said as his eyes found his brother's armor, " n-n-no! NO! NOOOOO!"

Ethan took a step back, and let out a sob, then a wail as he turned and fled the scene.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Gourry finally caught up to Ethan the next day, and the encounter wasn't pretty. The poor boy was blaming himself for his brother's death, something which in all honesty was questionable considering that they two days, at the quickest, from anyone who could really help. But Ethan refused to be comforted and shut up like a clam and refused to even speak.

Having nothing else to do Gourry collected the reward for the troll job and began wandering from town to town, and for a while he was really depressed, but he was always, if not cheered than distracted from it, somewhat by fighting and studying his book. Needless to say that the total immersion in the art of the sword left him stunned when he came to his senses and decided to try, as best he could, to be cheerful.

Author's Notes:

Well, here's yet another chapter. I hope everyone liked it. Don't worry, it picks up from here on out, because Gourry's gonna meet someone in the next chapter: Lina Inverse.