Quantum Scrambled Eggs
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Chapter 9
Just outside Atlas City, Lina explained what had happened to her while she was separated from Gourry. After being captured she was taken to an old abandoned looking mansion and was questioned. Of course she hadn't answered them, so they tortured her… with excessive name calling and forcing her to kiss a fish-man monster and other… unorthodox tortures.
Then, in the middle of the night Zelgadiss had come and cut her free and helped her escape… only to use her as a human projectile to throw off their pursuit, which was none other than Rezo himself, then Zell - that was her pet name for the chimera, apparently - had scooped her up and an caring her until after dawn, evading Rezo in the process. It was then that Lina found that they were being pursued by Rezo himself, not some sort of identity thief, and he was also Zelgadiss's grandfather.
Upon further prying on Lina's part she also found out that Rezo was Zelgadiss's grandfather, and that he was the one responsible for him being a chimera, a state that the chimera would kill his grandfather for… and a ll that led up to the Philosopher's Stone, which was hidden in the statuette, and happened to be the most powerful magical power amplifier in existence.
That was what Gourry got out of the hour-long talk Lina had put him through at the dinner table. All in all, Gourry would have had the Reader's digest version and concentrated on eating the good food, the best he'd had in a while.
"God girl…" Rodimus muttered, "You talk a lot."
"I do?" Lina asked, caught off guard by the statement.
As one Zelgadiss, his two men, and Gourry nodded with an "Mmm-hmm."
"Now that everyone is up to date," Zelgadiss broke in before Lina could find more to add to her narration, "may I ask you a question: Are you going to give me the Philosopher's Stone now?"
"No, not on your life." Gourry said calmly and evenly before taking a drink.
Zelgadiss and Zolf both started to stand up to protest, but Gourry cut them off with a simple explanation, that it would be a waste to use it for revenge.
"What, are you going to start a fight now?" Lina asked, obviously unpleased with the behavior.
They stood there for a moment, as if contemplating it, and then sat down again.
"We can't let you or Rezo have it, right Lina?" Gourry asked, he thought he had the situation… but there might be something he was missing, or that had been drowned out by Lina's oration.
"We can't trust him, of course, but there's more to this than him wanting his eyesight back." Lina said, explaining her position to the others, "What is Rezo up to, really?"
"Here we go." The innkeeper said bringing several big plates of food, which Lina was excited about. She hadn't wanted to eat while talking, best behavior for Zell and his company, Gourry guessed… but she definitely was happy about the arrival.
"I haven't had a decent meal in ages!" Lina squealed, never mind that it hadn't even been close to a week, "I've been dreaming of this! It's what life is all about!"
And with that Lina became a human hurricane, wreaking havoc and destruction upon the food. How she could eat so much so fast was a mystery to most people as they edged back, probably a good idea considering how much she was acting like a starving beast.
"Keep eating like that and you'll pop…" Gourry said dryly, and barely managed to avoid the fork she threw in response.
• • • • • • • • • • •
Later, after cleaning out the food, Gourry found himself following Lina and the others to find an inn and bed down for the night. They were just outside one Lina had said was run by friends of her family when a small boy burst out the door and ran straight into Lina taking them both down into a tangle of limbs.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Lina yelled at the boy as she disentangled herself, "You could hurt someone."
"Y-yeas!" The boy replied, close to tears, "I-I'm sorry miss."
"Aww! Don't cry."Lina replied giving him a hug, who knew that those tears would have that effect on the Dragon Spooker?
The boy suddenly stopped crying, though it wasn't a natural stop. It was because he'd been turned into stone.
Lina leapt back and babbled about it, as anyone would who had just hugged a person and had them turn into a statue.
"Look!" Zelgadiss directed their attention to a floating sphere with an eye engraved into it.
The eye hovered for a second before Rezo appeared underneath it, oddly translucent. Gourry reached for his sword and was cut off by Lina, who had recovered upon finding the cause of the child suddenly turning to stone. "It's an illusion Gourry, he's not really here."
Gourry nodded and the ghostlike image began to speak, sound coming from the floating eye lent is an odd, disconnected feeling.
"Ah, Lina Inverse, I had hoped to find you soon." The Rezo-image smiled, "We do have business to discuss."
"What do you mean Rezo?" Lina asked, not even bothering to disguise her hostility.
"The Philosopher's Stone…" Rezo gestured to the people around him and they too became stone statues, stuck in their normal everyday activities, but still wearing their clothes. "I was prepared to offer you the life of the boy… but I see now that you need more persuasion, so I'm offering you the lives of everyone in this town, Atlas City and all it's smaller surrounding towns."
"What? Why" Gourry asked, "They have nothing to do with us or you!"
"Well, yes, that's true swordsman… but you see, sooner or later you won't have anyone left in the world, except your small group… and then the world will be nearly as empty to you as it is to me. I want that to cure my blindness, and I will not stop until I have it."
"So, that's what this is all about? Your blindness?" Lina asked indignantly, "I don't think you're being totally level with me…" Lina sighed, there wasn't much choice here, not when Rezo had in effect an infinite number of hostages. "Where are you? We'll make the trade in person."
The image of Rezo smiled and bowed, "So nice of you to see reason. I will be in my tower to the east."
Zelgadiss threw a knife into the floating orb, shattering it to pieces, before turning a finger on Lina. "You! How could you!"
"Zel, he has an infinite number of hostages… we've got to give them their lives back. It wouldn't be right not to… besides, if he's not playing straight with us it'll be five against one. Well, if you're there with your men Zel."
Zelgadiss nodded, "I do not trust him, Lina."
Lina nodded, "I don't like it any more than you do."
• • • • • • • • • • •
"Just how far is this tower supposed to be?" Gourry asked, they were already a better part of a day's journey from Atlas City, where they'd stocked up on supplies.
"I don't know… he didn't say." Lina admitted tiredly.
"I think we can make it there a little after noon." Zelgadiss said. "I believe the tower he was speaking of is a certain ancient tower, a thousand or more years old."
"Something from the time of the War of The Monster's Resurrection? When one of the pieces of Shabranigdo was reborn?" Lina asked excitedly, apparently it was a rare thing… but then thousand plus years is a long time to survive.
Zelgadiss nodded. "Legends tell of it as the final stronghold of the monsters that fell during that war, and only then after that piece had been sealed away."
"Really?" Lina asked, this brought up several questions in her mind… and she could imagine it being a piece of a rather nasty puzzle, one she desperately hoped was only fear and paranoia.
Zelgadiss nodded, only confirming her fears, and was about to say something else when he was interrupted.
"There it is!" Gourry exclaimed, pointing at their destination, still a long way off but now visible. "You know… it doesn't look safe."
Lina just stared at her companion, of course a thousand year old tower that was a stronghold for the monsters was not going to be a safe place, in any sense of the word.
• • • • • • • • • • •
"Okay, that is just creepy…" Lina muttered as the door opened with a shrill squeal that made her think of ancient, dry bones rubbing against each other and crying out… not that she'd actually heard thousand-year-old bones rubbing together. "Zell, do you know what's in here?"
"Mostly just empty space…" Zelgadiss replied as he walked past her and into the middle of the foyer, "Until you reach the top level, that's where he'll be."
Lina nodded as she walked toward the center of the room, it would be almost a given that Rezo had magical means of observing and communicating with people in this tower, so Lina yelled into the empty foyer, "Rezo! Hey, Rezo! We've come like you told us to."
Moments later there was a humming noise and a red glow that resolved at the head of a staircase into Rezo. "Heh, no need to shout Lina Inverse… I do have good ears, you know."
"Rezo!" Gourry grabbed the hilt of his sword just as Lina's arm blocked the space between himself and the Red Priest.
"No Gourry… it's only an image, like before." Lina said quietly to him, then turned back to the Rezo-image when he started to say something.
"I wish to bid you all welcome." Rezo said with a comfortable smile, like a king who knows that he is the most well protected person in several kingdoms. "Please forgive the form I've taken…"
"Have you no honor?" Gourry demanded, hoping to settle the whole matter quickly… if they could, then those people could be returned to normal.
"I am a bit occupied at the moment, prior commitments you understand." Rezo said through his image, "But I still wish to have the Philosopher's Stone."
"I'd prefer to give it to you in person." Lina said, obviously she had something she wanted to say to the man, "I want to ask you something."
"Ah, it is agreed then." The Rezo-image nodded, "You will come to the top of the tower, we will trade there, and I will answer your questions."
With that the image blurred into a red streak and vanished toward the top of the tower. Gourry followed the image upwards and was a bit disappointed with how high of a climb it was, it would take several hours to reach the top, and that was an optimistic estimate.
"Geez, that's going to be a pain to climb." Lina muttered, mirroring Gourry's own sentiments.
Making several gestures Lina quickly completed her spell with a shout of "Levitation!" and was soon in flight, followed by Zell who had his two men with him in his spell.
"Come on Gourry!" Lina said as she floated just above eye-level for a moment, "We're going to the top, so hang on tight."
"Um, ok…" Gourry reluctantly grabbed on to Lina and they were off the ground and floating up towards the ceiling. When they were thirty of forty feet up Gourry eyed the ground warily as he asked, "Hey, I can't fall, can I?"
"Only if you let go." Lina said with a laugh.
"What?" Gourry scrambled up Lina and crushed her in a death-grip, "I don't want to fall Lina, I don't want to fall!"
"Wha? Gourry!" Lina screamed, as best she could, "You're squeezing me and watch where you put your hands!"
Lina kicked Gourry off and onto the top floor which they'd managed to reach during their little struggle.
"Ah, NO! LINA!" Gourry screamed before hitting the floor, believing that she's just sent him on a one-way express trip to the ground level. "Th-that was cruel, Lina." Gourry said in a quieter voice as he picked himself off the floor and they made their way to a set of large, heavy doors that Zelgadiss was indicating as the way they should go.
The doors creaked open before anybody even touched them and they revealed, sitting at the end of a long table, Rezo. The Red Priest seemed to have just sat down, but what was interesting was that in front of the blind man were hundreds of candles, all of which were lit.
Lina and Zelgadiss were the first to enter the room, followed closely by Gourry, Rodimus, and Zolf.
"I've been waiting for you…" Rezo smiled and gestured towards the table, where chairs for everyone appeared, "Sit, my good and dear friends."
"Looks like you're the real Rezo this time." Lina smiled, sat down, and pulled out the statuette, "The Philosopher's Stone is in side of this."
"You will give it to me then?" Rezo asked calmly, almost in a friendly tone.
"Come on! It's not going to be that easy!" Lina yelled across the table at her Red-robed antagonist.
Rezo chuckled amiably, "Come now, surely you don't think I could be defeated here… do you?"
"There's one or three things I want to know first," Lina replied, not bothering to answer Rezo's obviously rhetorical question. "Answer them or I'll blow this thing to smithereens right now." Lina demanded and began charging up some sort of spell.
"What?" Zelgadiss turned a surprised look at her then leaned over and whispered, "Just what are you playing at?"
"Let's cut to the chase… what are you really after?" Lina asked Rezo, sparing only a moment to give Zelgadiss a reassuring nod.
"What, you mean Zelgadiss hasn't told you already?" It was hard to tell if the Red Priest was surprised, amused, both, or even if he cared.
"You mean that line about curing your blindness?" Lina said with a bit of venom that told everyone that she thought it was a blatant lie.
"Well, I could explain it to you…" Rezo sighed, "but you would never understand. None of you could."
"Even if that's the case it still doesn't explain something… why you didn't tell us the truth when we first met!" Lina pointed accusingly at Rezo… but then she realized that he couldn't see that gesture. "And what were you doing when you sent that monster and Dilgear to get the statuette? If you really wanted the stone it would have bee quicker for you to just come and get it yourself… unless you had something 'more important' to do."
"Is there some other reason you need it?" Zelgadiss asked looking back and forth between the statuette and his grandfather.
"Maybe you really do want to cure your eyes," Lina admitted, "but your methods are what I don't like."
"You don't mean…" Zolf began, only to be interrupted by Gourry.
"I'm sorry, but I really don't understand all this… either he wants the statuette for his eyes or he doesn't."
"Oh, Come On Gourry!" Lina screamed, beaned Gourry with the statuette, "I'm getting to the conclusion soon!"
"Well then, what is your conclusion?" Rezo asked, wondering if she could have figured it all out.
"Your deal with that monster…" Lina started, "was something along the lines of gaining your eyesight in return for resurrecting Shabranigdo, the Dark Lord of the Monster Race!"
"Huh!" Zelgadiss and both of his man were aghast at that idea, that Rezo, or anyone for that matter, would agree to restore Shabranigdo was… insane.
"Well, am I correct?" Lina asked with a satisfied smirk, all the while hoping that her shot in the dark wasn't on target.
There was absolute silence, in which the tension built to almost tangible levels… only to be interrupted by Gourry's excited cry of "WHAT? Resurrect Shabranigdo?"
"That's why you couldn't tell us the truth, and also why you had to spend so much time preparing to do it… isn't it?" Lina asked, ignoring Gourry's outburst.
"Well done!" Rezo laughed and clapped, "Well done indeed! A brilliant case of deduction… and I'll be truthful, it is all exactly as you supposed. Resurrecting Shabranigdo is the cure for my blindness."
"I don't believe it!" Zolf yelled, probably going through a mental list of his attack spells in case he had to use them.
"Who would imagine?" Zelgadiss asked with a calm rage as he rose from his seat, "I didn't think that even you, Rezo, would be both so malicious and so stupid to destroy the world for your own benefit."
Rezo shrugged, "If the powers of men are not enough, then one must turn to the gods or the monsters… and the Dark Lord's power is the greatest of all. I believe that Shabranigdo is sealed within this tower, and that is why I have brought you here with the Philosopher's Stone."
"Are you mad?" Rodimus demanded, accentuating his cry with a sharp bang of his halberd on the stone floor.
"Um, well, anyway… now that we know all this," Lina broke in, sounding a bit shaken at first, but then strengthening her resolve, "we can't let you have the Stone!"
Rezo reached for his staff, an iron rod with a ring atop from which smaller rings of various materiels dangled, "Well, we shall see what happens, won't we?"
"I'll blast this thing right here and now!" Lina threatened with only a small pang of regret in her voice. Though it was useless to her right now because she didn't know how to unseal the Philosopher's Stone from the statuette, while Rezo obviously would.
Rezo hit his staff on the floor and it made an odd jangling noise that caused Lina to pause for a moment, but it was a long enough moment for Rezo to quickly, yet calmly, recite a spell that was obviously his own creation.
"Life born of hardest stone,
formed of weak flesh.
Let this now release you,
and return you to your home!"
Lina blinked, nothing seemed different, but that's because she was watching the walls for signs of golems or some other surprise that Rezo might have cooked up. Gourry on the other hand saw Zelgadiss hunch over for a moment and then gain a dead look in his eyes, like a man sleepwalking with his eyes open.
"Become one with my will; become mine." Rezo finished, and as he did so ah red glow began to emanate from Zelgadiss's eyes followed by an inhuman choking sound, something that sounded very much like free will being strangled before one's own eyes.
"Go, Zelgadiss! Go!" Was all that Rezo said and the chimera sprang into action, knocking Lina down as he slammed into her and pried the statuette away, flinging it back across the room at Rezo, who caught it easily in a spell and let it float into his hand.
"Good, now keep them occupied Zelgadiss." Rezo said ans he turned and exited out of a door at the back of the room.
"Zelgadiss!" Gourry shouted trying to bring the chimera back to his senses.
"He's under Rezo's control!" Lina managed to get out before the chimera lifted her up and, once again, used the diminutive sorceress as a projectile, which he aimed at his own men, Zolf and Rodimus.
Zelgadiss immediately followed up by drawing his sword and charging Rodimus, who fortunately hd been able to dodge the sorcerous projectile, unlike Zolf. Zelgadiss pressed his attack, to which Rodimus had to fall back, either unable or unwilling to attack Zelgadiss.
Gourry looked back at Rodimus and Zelgadiss then at the doorway through which the Red Priest had made his exit, taking a moment to decide, he ran to the doorway. Saving the others would be a moot point if Shabranigdo were resurrected… especially if it was true that Shabranigdo would have so much more power than anything he and Lina had faced before, it was something that he should, at all costs, try to stop.
Making a flying leap that would have astounded Gourry had he been watching Zelgadiss instead of heading after Rezo, Zelgadiss rebounded off the doors, flinging them open, and landing right in front of him, chipping small craters where he landed, and charged to meet Gourry.
Gourry countered with a block, barely able to get his sword from its sheath in time to do so, and was forced back from the continued onslaught, which barely gave him enough time to block, and not nearly enough time to key the release on his sword…
"Master Zelgadiss!" Rodimus rushed in to help, and having to split his attacks between two opponents, Zelgadiss was unable to push them back. "Come to your senses!"
"I'll take care of him…" Gourry said as he continued to block, "I'll only need two seconds to undo my sword."
"Damn while he holds us back…" Zolf muttered at that same instant, then began chanting some strange spell Lina had never heard.
"No! Gourry, wait!" Lina cried, realizing that he intended to use the Sword of Light on her chimera friend. "Leave this to me!"
"What are you going to do?" Gourry yelled back to Lina, never taking his eye off the berserk chimera.
"We don't have much time, I'll settle this in one shot!" Lina ran up to just behind Gourry and Rodimus and began chanting her own spell, finishing before Zolf finished his own she sent a Diem wing slamming into Zelgadiss which literally grabbed him in the wind and smashed him into the stone wall of the room.
"Wake up!" Lina yelled fierily as she followed up with a kick to his back that would have likely sent a normal person to bed-rest for a week and fired another spell directly into the back of his neck.
"Ugggh… what happened?" Zelgadiss muttered as he pulled himself out of the rather painful depression that now graced the floor of the tower… just in time to get an elbow to the top of his head, courtesy of the little redheaded sorceress that had earned the title of Dragon Spooker, for obvious reasons.
"You know Lina… I thought he was back to normal." Gourry observed as Lina rubbed her elbow, apparently hitting Zelgadiss's stone-like head with it was actually painful, imagine that.
"Master Zelgadiss!" Rodimus ran over to help the chimera up. He'd never seen his master get like that beaten before, and certainly not with that kind of merciless animal ferocity.
"What happened to me?" Zelgadiss repeated, rubbing several sore spots, a list that included his back, neck, and the top of his head.
"You were under Rezo's control." Lina started to explain, only to be interrupted by an explosive whoosh! of wind as a giant snake of fire flared into existence and down the corridor after Rezo.
"What was that?" Lina gasped, then tracked the magic back to Zolf, who was dusting his hands off and coming towards them. Obviously she'd underestimated the former mummy-man's magical capacity.
"The Fire Dragon…" Zolf said dryly in answer, "It's been in my family for three generations."
"Ah, I see." Lina nodded, maybe he had more power than she'd thought, but he still seemed to have a very limited range of magic. Turning back to Zelgadiss, she quickly explained that he'd probably been programed to obey him when Rezo had given him his chimera body, and that Rezo had activated it with that last spell.
Zelgadiss shook with rage for a moment then punched the floor with a very vocal "DAMNIT!"
"There's no time for this! We've got to stop him!" Gourry shouted as he bounded through the doorway and down the corridor, closely followed by the others. He pulled out his pin and flipped the latch on his blade as he ran, discarding the blade… he wouldn't fight this at anything less than his best.
Gourry was slightly surprised when he suddenly rushed out into a large room, followed closely by everyone behind him running to his sides. Everyone was staring at the center of the room where a black aura has surrounded Rezo and seemed to melt into him by a strange process of absorption.
Abruptly the last of that dark fog vanished, rushing into Rezo and leaving everything both silent and still.
Then Rezo's eyes flew open, startling everyone with their intensity, and he smiled warmly at the group. "I can see you! I can see you all!"
"Lina Inverse!" Rezo said in an excited, yet friendly voice, then his gaze slid over to Gourry, "And her companion, Gourry Gabriev, too!"
Rezo's eyes locked with Zelgadiss and he loosened up in that sort way that family members that have been apart for years do, "Zelgadiss… what happened to you?"
"You did!" Zelgadiss snarled as he thrust his finger toward his grandfather, "You did this all to me!"
"Wha-!" Rezo's voice was cut off in mid-word as he made a choking, gagging sound and clutched his head, squeezing his eyes shut and doubling over in obvious pain. He let out a wail and opened his eyes, no longer the soft brown but a ruby red that was emanating a sickly looking light.
The light coalesced into a bright light, and as Rezo bent back in pain, clawing at his face causing great bleeding gouges. From his eyes, now pointing skyward, the ruby-red beam of intensified into a column of light that surrounded Rezo's body and distorted it making it seem as if it were growing at a rapid rate and changing its shape and texture into something quite inhuman.
"He was wrong! Shabranigdo wasn't sealed in the tower, he was sealed in his eyes!"Lina said in horror as she watched the rebirth of the King of Monsters. "The tower was only the place for the ceremony…"
Zelgadiss began working on some magic, it was Shamanistic magic, which Lina only had a minimal amount of knowledge in, and Zolf began working a black-magic attack-spell, and not just any attack spell, but the attack spell… the Dragon Slave.
"Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows;
buried in the flow of time…" Zolf began, the familiar words striking Lina's memory.
It was a description of what they'd just seen, what they were seeing. "No! Zolf stop!"
"In Thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness!
Let those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess!" Zolf continued, paying no heed to what Lina was saying…
"DRAGON SLAVE!" he finished, sending the massively powerful orb of magic energies toward Shabranigdo in the hopes that the most powerful black-magic spell could destroy him, but it was calling on Shabranigdo's own power to destroy Shabranigdo… it wouldn't work.
"Zolf, no!"' Rodimus charged in to grab his companion and pulled him towards the exit.
It was useless though, because Shabranigdo raised a stonelike claw of hand and absorbed the Dragon Slave that Zolf had summoned. Then, with a flick of his wrist, let loose a single blast that vaporized both Zolf and Rodimus.
"Ah, I was so hoping for some exercise… but these gnats aren't worth my time." Shabranigdo said in a voice that sounded like stones grinding together then, turning his glowing red eyes on the remaining three, he said "In gratitude for my revival I offer you a bargain, you may either fight me and die, or you may swear loyalty to me, become my servants, and I will grant you extraordinarily long lives."
"Gourry, Zell, run!" Lina yelled at them both, grabbing Gourry and dragging him along.
Author's Notes:
Well, considering the length of the original chapter I decided to cut it off here, trust me, it's for the better. As it is this is about 4500 words into the original ten-thousand word chapter.