(Sigh) Finally, I get to work on this story...I took too long on Rumble and FictionPress...oh well. Can't be helped. If any of you have read my profile, then you know that I am going to be on hiatus very soon. Very, very soon, as a matter of fact. I hope I can finish this before it starts...anyways, go to my profile to see the details. I don't want to stop, but I must...'tis the way of summer vacation. Anyways, time to start with Chapter 5.
Chapter 5 – Camaraderie
Lina sipped some hot tea out of a cup, waiting for everyone else to wake up.
"I always hated this stuff." she said, putting more and more sugar into it.
A yawn from Gourry was followed by, "Oh, good morning, Lina. For some reason, I feel sore all over..."
"Yeah...about that...Amelia said something similar a long time ago. You may or may not have been victim to a night beating."
Gourry rubbed his face, but his hands flew back when he realized that his face hurt twice as bad when he did that.
Well, Lina thought, that takes care of that. I wonder how everyone else is doing.
Then came a knock at the door.
"Who is it?" Lina asked.
"Room service – who the hell do you think it is?" Cecil responded angrily.
"Coming!" she cooed.
When she opened the door, there was Cecil. He didn't look quite as happy as she had expected.
"What's wrong?" she said in her baby talk voice.
"Lina...fix your dragon friend and the monster dude...now."
"What's their problem? Couldn't they sleep back-to-back like everyone else?"
"No. Go into their room...and see what the problem is..."
And she did. She walked past Cecil and over to the door that held back the worst pairing ever. All was quiet. Too quiet.
She opened the door, and there was Filia, smiling contently.
"What do ya need, Lina?"
"Uh...where's Xellos?"
"Oh, don't worry. He's in his place."
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
"And where is that, if I may ask?"
"Right there." she said, stepping back and pointing at Xellos.
He was still in bed, staring at the door, with pleading eyes. He was bound and gagged, struggling to get his hands and legs free. If that wasn't enough, he was also surrounded by a tall, electrified cage.
"What the hell, Filia?" Lina exclaimed, but she had just barely stopped herself from bursting out laughing.
"What? He's Xellos, Lina." Filia explained.
Lina sighed. As if it wasn't enough to have Amelia and Zel back, Filia and Xellos would be at it again. Just wonderful.
She fought off Filia while she released Xellos from whatever torture chamber Filia had set up. Finally, he was out and Lina quickly escaped the room unscathed. Everyone else was already out in the hall.
Geez, she thought to herself, as if it wasn't enough to have to take care of all this crap with the books, now I have to babysit all these people.
"Good morning everyone!" Xellos said, walking out of the room, obviously unfazed by what had just happened.
"Morning..." everyone else sighed, exhausted.
"Aw, now what's wrong?" he cocked his head.
"Because you decided to stay with us," Lina said, "no one got to sleep. Which reminds me...you were supposed to provide us with information if we let you stay, right?"
"That's correct."
"Then tell us what the hell you found!"
"Fine, fine...you can be sort of pushy, you know that?" the monster cleared his throat, "Well, it's really only rumors going around, but supposedly, the one causing this phenomenon has taken up residence in the nearby Akata Desert."
"A-Akata Desert?" Henrietta asked, "Where's that?"
"Only two or three days from here on foot." Zelgadis answered.
"Why are you helping us, then?" Filia asked, "I'm sure whatever monster is doing it could be beneficial to whatever your cause is."
"No, it's not a monster." Xellos said, giving her a solemn look. "It appears to be human. And whatever human is doing this knows more than we ever could about how magic works – his existence threatens the entire monster race, along with the humans and dragons."
"W-what?"
"Believe me or not, but if we don't hunt down this sorcerer, we could all be in danger of dying. It's bent on erasing all knowledge of this world's existence. I believe that it intends to change the world in its own way."
"And you got all this information how?" Cecil asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, I forgot about you. That's right – you already knew about all of this, didn't you?"
Cecil seemed surprised, "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, there's no need to hide it any longer. You have the information necessary to track down and eliminate this threat."
"Cecil," Lina said, turning to him, "what's Xellos talking about? Do you know something, or don't you?"
After a bit of silence, Henrietta said, "Cecil, I-I think it's time that we tell them. If we can help these people...th-then we can g-get them to help us, too."
Cecil sighed, "Fine. But this might take a while to explain. And I don't blame you if you don't believe us."
"Go on." Lina urged.
"All right. Now, this may be hard to swallow, but the reason that there isn't any records of us existing until about two months ago...is because we didn't. Why the look of surprise, Lina? We knew you were checking up on us. Anyways, we were somewhere entirely different. We were about two-thousand years into the future."
"What?" everyone exclaimed.
"That's right. We were sent here as part of an experiment to see if humans could survive being sent straight through time. But it worked a little differently than expected...it seems that time and space really are intertwined. We were sent to a parallel dimension as well. Before us, though...there were many experiments. Most people involved were fried because they weren't...special."
"Special how?" Zelgadis asked doubtfully.
"They needed a special, innate ability. The ability to control and create molecules on command. You call it magic."
"But everyone can learn magic!" Lina exclaimed.
"Not where we're from. You need a specific gene to control magic. Only two of the lab rats had that gene."
"You and Hen?"
"No. Henrietta doesn't have it. She survived because she was in the time chamber with me. The only other person was a former scientist. He was sent roughly a year before us. I believe that should line up with Amelia's notes quite nicely."
Amelia gasped and started flipping through a big bundle of papers.
"He's right." she said. "That fits in perfectly with the profiles..."
"So what do we do about it?" Lina asked.
"Well," Xellos said, "this is one case where I've been ordered to help you, so I say take full advantage."
"How?"
"By going over there and kicking ass, of course."
"Hm. I've never heard you say it quite like that but...yeah, we'll go and we'll kick ass!"
"Then we should gather up anything we need. We should also find some way to take us to the desert. If we walk for three whole days, we'll be swatted away like insects. I believe we should find some sort of carriage system which offers rides across the Akata."
"Of course," Zelgadis suggested, "it would be helpful if we sharpened any weapons we have."
"And don't forget about the food!" Gourry exclaimed.
"Of course, Gourry." Lina nodded. "Now that I think of it, this is sort of anticlimactic. Don't we normally have a lot to do before we fight the Big Bad?"
"Maybe he's actually really weak?" Amelia suggested.
"Don't get your hopes up." Zelgadis said, "He's strong enough to pose a threat to everyone."
And then everyone was quiet.
"Well, that was depressing." Xellos said, turning to the stairs.
Without anything else left, everyone followed.
Outside, the sun had been covered by gray clouds and it looked as if it could rain any time. The group decided to split into two – one would restock on supplies, the other would refurnish weaponry. Of course, because she had a dagger, Lina went with the latter.
"Hey," Lina said to Zelgadis as they exited the smith shop, "do you really think that we have a chance against this big bad freak?"
"No. Not in the least."
"B-But why not?"
"Even most monsters would have trouble going through the world, destroying knowledge undetected. Now, we're fighting a human from the future AND from a different dimension. How exactly are we supposed to put up with that?"
"I don't know. But you sort of spoiled the mood."
"Sorry? I guess?"
"But speaking of the people from an alternate world...I don't think that they told us the whole truth. I just have the feeling that they held a little back. After all, after keeping that a secret for so long, I strongly doubt that they – Cecil and Hen, I mean – told us everything."
"Yeah...but I guess we'll just have to trust that they know best, for now."
Suddenly, Gourry popped in, "What are you two talking about?"
This was answered by a gloved fist to the face.
"Idiot!" Lina exclaimed, "We're talking about what's freaking happening! What are you, stupid?"
"Um...I don't know."
Lina sighed and gave a shrug.
"At least he isn't a Filia." Zelgadis suggested.
"Hey!" the dragon exclaimed, "I resent that! What did I do?"
"One word. Xellos."
"Hey, it was his fault! He...he...uh...well, he's a monster!"
"And you're a dragon."
"There is a huge difference!"
"Oh really? I don't think so."
"Well, when did you get so annoying, Zelgadis? And since when did you care what I think about monsters?"
"Hmph."
Zelgadis walked faster, pulling away from the group.
Lina sighed and said, "That's kind of a sore subject, I suppose."
Soon, they met up with the rest of them. Xellos, Amelia, Henrietta and Cecil had very large amounts of food with them. Probably enough to fill multiples of Henrietta's suitcase...which no one knew the contents of, anyways.
"So," Lina asked, "what'd you get?"
"Ooh!" Amelia exclaimed, "We got vegetables, fish, herbs, meats, bread, cheese, several bottles of milk and wine, poultry, mushrooms-"
"Got it."
They pulled everything together and they set off to find a coach or something. It would have been far too painful to walk the whole way, and the desert had extremely fast winds, so riding on Filia was a big no-no. After all, the riders would be blown off and the "ridee" would crash. They soon found something that seemed very promising.
"A camel train?" Lina asked disgustedly.
"Yes." Xellos said, "Camels are very useful creatures. Much like horses, but they work in the desert."
"Um...anything I should know about these creatures?"
"Well, Cecil? Henrietta?"
"Oh!" Henrietta said excitedly, "They spit! A lot!"
"Wonderful." Lina said, shaking her head.
So they walked inside. They found an old man behind a desk, looking over some papers. He wore a turban, which wasn't too strange, considering Cadia was very popular with the Akata's nomadic people.
"Can I help you?" he asked, glancing at the large group.
"Yes. As matter of fact, I need you to loan us enough camels to take us into the Akata." Lina answered, "How much?"
"Would you like the luxury or economy cruiser?"
"Cruiser? Oh, a camel. Luxury, of course."
"Lina!" Cecil exclaimed, "This is my money you're talking about!"
"But you have so much! It's just gonna go to waste in that wallet of yours!"
"Okay," the merchant said, "that will be...about seventy silvers."
Lina looked at Cecil, who promptly sighed.
"Fine," he said, "but we have to stop carelessly spending."
"Sure, sure. Just get our camels!"
Cecil picked up a bag of coins seemingly out of nowhere and paid out the money. The merchant stepped out of the building, hopefully to get some camels ready. In the meantime, the rest of them waited.
"So, Hen." Lina began to ask, "Do camels ride well?"
"Not really. It's like riding a really slow horse that's been drunk for months."
"Oh. That's quite...descriptive."
"W-well...I sort of spent a lot of t-time with animals...at the lab where we were b-before we were sent here."
"That sounds like fun."
"I didn't finish the sentence." Henrietta's voice started dripping anger, "It's only because they treated us like animals. We were just...experiments. They took everything from us...my vision...Cecil's family..."
"What?"
Neither Henrietta or Cecil answered.
Finally, Cecil spoke, "It's true. But it's...a sore subject. I'd rather not talk about those...bastards."
"Okay. That's all right."
Suddenly, the merchant popped back in.
"Hello, we have your camels out here."
Single file, the group came out and saw the camel train. There were ten camels, one in front with a guard mounted, same with the back. The other eight were for the group. The camels were adorned with very soft looking quilts and had large containers of water on either side.
"Well." Lina said, proud, "I think that you won't regret this, Cessy. Now, let's get on."
And everyone mounted a camel. After a minute or two, they finally headed out for the Akata.
END~
Oh my gosh sorry! I had to make this chapter short because I must inform you of this – I will be on hiatus until about five weeks from now. I'll still work on this story, but I won't be able to post because I will have no internet. Stupid vacation. Oh well, at least I'll have a long time to work on these! Plus, time seems to move really slowly when we vacation in the mountains...anyways, see ya soon!