Chapter 13: Squish

"Fireball!" BOOM. The bandit camp went up in flames. Brigands ran around like headless chickens, screaming their heads off. Lina grinned, admiring her handiwork. Bandit-frying, she thought blissfully. Just the thing to soothe an innocent maiden's soul. Rubbing her hands together, she grabbed a nearby thug.

"Alright, pal," she growled, gripping him by the shirt collar, "Tell me where you guys keep yer loot, and I might let you live."

Instead of blubbering and pleading for his life, as bandits usually did, he just vanished. A split second later, everything around her turned into an empty blackness. Lina blinked. What in the nine hells was going on?

Suddenly, the empty black void was pierced by a hideously familiar sound.

"OOOOOOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!"

"Waugh!" Lina woke with a start, panting heavily.

"Lina?" Gourry lifted his head, looking worried. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing Gourry," she waved him off with a flick of the tail. "Just a weird dream, that's all. Go back to sleep."

The golden retriever shook his head, standing. "Nah, sun's coming up." He glanced around the clearing. "Say, where are Amelia and Zelgadis?"

"Huh?" Lina scrambled to her paws. "You mean they didn't come back last night?"

"It doesn't look like it." Lina frowned, but it was momentary.

"Ah, well, those two are probably just taking some romantic alone time," she said, grinning. Gourry gave her a somewhat reproving look.

"Aren't you worried about them at all?" he said.

Lina sighed. "Of course I am you jellyfish. They're my friends. But getting worked up won't help." Her expression grew determined. "Now, let's go back and see if if we can find out where they ran off to."

When Amelia came to, she immediately became aware that she was lying on something cold. Something cold that made squish noises when she moved.

"Blech!" Amelia sprang up with a cry of disgust. She tried moving away from the icky stuff, only to step in more of it. As she tried stepping even further, something pulled at her neck. It was a collar of some sort, with a leash attached to it that was fastened to a wall.

Where am I? she wondered. In the dim lit, she could see she was in some sort of small, windowless room, but that was it. What really got to her though was the smell. By human standards, it was revolting, but to her delicate feline nose… Amelia retched.

What is this stuff I'm standing in? she thought. On second thought, maybe I don't want to know.

Something on the other side of the room stirred, getting her attention.

"Wha-? Amelia?" the dark shaped muttered sleepily.

"Mr. Zelgadis!" Amelia cried joyfully. She bounded over to him, only to be stopped by another yank at the neck. "Gak!"

"Amelia?" Zelgadis got up somewhat uncertainly. In the dark light he could just make out her dim outline, along with her blue eyes which glowed slightly in the dark. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said, backing up slightly to keep from choking again, "It's just this stupid collar."

Zelgadis noticed that he too was similarly tied to the wall. "They put one on me too. And just what is this stuff on the floor?" he added, wrinkling his nose in revulsion. "It smells like…" he searched for an appropriate analogy, before thinking better of it.

"Personally, I don't want to find out," Amelia replied frankly. Her tail twitched angrily. "How unjust for them to put us in such horrible conditions! They may have caught us for now, but when…" Zelgadis sighed and waited for her to finish. He had learned through experience it was pointless to try and get her to calm down once she got in "Justice Mode."

"Well well well, this is quite a predicament you're in, isn't it?" Zelgadis groaned. He knew that annoyingly cheerful voice.

"What're you doing here Xellos?" he snapped in annoyance. The trickster priest faded into view, floating, Zelgadis noted, a few inches off the ground, thus not getting his feet covered in the mysterious substance which pasted the floor.

"Why Zelgadis," he said, an expression of mock-hurt on his face, "You make it sound as if I'm not wanted here!"

"That's because you're not."

Xellos smirked. "Well I see your manners haven't improved any."

Zelgadis growled, "Dammit Xellos! What do you-?! Wait a second." His eyes narrowed in confusion. "You can understand what we say? How?"

He smiled and held up a finger. "Now that is a secret."

"Hah! I see what you're up to!" Amelia suddenly yowled, a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

Xellos, who had forgotten about her up until now, looked taken aback. "Oh? And what is that?"

"You're just here to taunt us, and make us angry, so you can feed upon our negative energy, aren't you?"

"Very astute," Xellos said, sounding almost impressed. Almost.

"Hah! Well no Mazoku, no matter how irritating he may be, can overcome the blazing love of Justice that burns in my heart!" 'Almost impressed' was quickly replaced by 'slightly nauseous.'

Now it was Zelgadis' turn to smirk. It satisfied him to no end, seeing the effect Amelia's justice speeches had on Xellos.

"Well," the once-smiling priest said, sounding queasier and queasier as Amelia ranted on, "It's been nice catching up with you, but I'm afraid I must be going now." And with that, he vanished.

"Things are starting to get complicated," Zelgadis said after a moment.

Amelia gave him a look. "What do you mean, Mr. Zelgadis?"

"Well, Xellos' appearance. You were probably right in what you said back there, but I wonder…"

"You think Mr. Xellos might be connected to this somehow?"

Zelgadis nodded. "Morris never saw us after we transformed, yet he still recognized us when he got us last night. I'm betting Xellos told him how to recognize us."

"He could've used the spell he cast on us to scry for us from the Astral Plane," Amelia pointed out.

"True," he conceded, "But you need a crystal ball or a mirror or something like that for astral scrying. He didn't have those."

Amelia mulled this over for a minute, before adding dejectedly, "He probably also gave Mr. Morris the spell that got us into this situation in the first place."

Zelgadis hadn't thought of that. "It's quite possible."

Neither said anything for a moment. Finally, Amelia broke the silence. "Now how do we get out of here?"

A/N: Another chapter. Xellos gets a more major appearance this time. I just wanna point out that Zel and Amelia's little dialogue at the end is speculation on their part, and readers shouldn't take it as the gospel truth (although I'm not saying they were completely off the mark either...)

Writing about mysterious stinky substances that make "squish" noises is surprisingly fun. God I love to torture characters (yes, I'm sick, I know). Lina's dream was also fun to write (and yes, I realize it also seems kind of random).

A brief explanation of astral scrying for those who haven't read the novels: basically, astral scrying is scrying for something on the astral plane. However, you need to know it's magical energy pattern. For example, in season 1, Zelgadis explains that the reason Rezo's minions are able to track down him and Lina so easily is because Rezo created his chimera body. His body gave off a specific magical energy pattern, which Rezo used to scry for him from the astral plane. The same logic applies here: It was Morris' spell which turned Lina and Co. into animals, so he could use that spell's magical energy to scry for them from the astral plane (provided, of course he knows it. Which he might not -mysterious smirk-)

Oh, and fyi, the bit I said about needing a crystal ball (or something similar) for astral scrying is something I made up.

Edit: I didn't realize until after posting this chapter that there was a minor but still important detail I meant to include here but forgot to, so now I've edited it to include that change. Originally, the edited part was:

Zelgadis growled, "Dammit Xellos! What do you want?!"

He smiled and held up a finger. "Now that is a secret."

But now it reads:

Zelgadis growled, "Dammit Xellos! What do you-?! Wait a second." His eyes narrowed in confusion. "You can understand what we say? How?"

He smiled and held up a finger. "Now that is a secret."

It was bugging me. A brief explanation: remember, since Lina and co. are animals, they talk like animals. They can understand each other (because it was easier to write things that way), but other humans can't understand them. Xellos is an exception, cuz he's a Mazoku, and things were more conveniant that way.

Until next time, R&R!