Chapter 17: The Beast

With Gourry now human and able to act as an interpreter, explaining things to Naga was much easier. True, it was still slow, but Lina was grateful to not have to mime things to her anymore.

As it turned out, Naga had returned to find the bandit camp (or what was left of it at least) completely abandoned. Her search among the ruins had, however, turned up something useful: Morris's notebook, which contained notes from his research on some spells he had discovered recently, including the spell he'd used on Lina and company.

"This spell is one which will change a person's form, although the caster cannot control what form the subject will turn into. Furthermore, what form the subject takes seems to be completely random. If there is a determining factor for which form the subject takes, I've yet to discover it.

According to the manuscripts I found with the spell, this spell is only temporary. But what is most strange about it is the way it maintains itself. At first, like most spells of this sort, the caster puts a certain amount of magical energy into the spell which will serve to keep the spell in effect. With most spells, when that energy runs out, the spell wears off. With this spell, however, it will then feed off of the subject's own magical power to maintain itself, thus lengthening the spells life considerably."

"Well that explains a lot," Lina remarked after a minute.

Zelgadis nodded. "It certainly does."

"So do you think this means it will wear off on it's own for us too?" Amelia asked.

"Probably, but we have no way of knowing how long that will take."

"Zel's got a good point. Personally, I'd rather not wait however long it would take."

While the three of them discussed this new information, Naga sat cross legged across from them, watching their discussion. Not able to understand what they were saying, Naga felt a little left out. Sure, there was that Gourry-person to act as an interpreter, but he had stopped translating a while ago.

"Psst," she elbowed him to get his attention. "What're they saying?"

"Hm-? Wha-? Oh, sorry, I wasn't paying attention," he replied cheerfully.

Naga sweatdropped. This is the person Lina replaced me with? She opened her mouth to ask something else when-

BOOM! With reflexes that came naturally from traveling with Lina, they all leapt clear of the explosion just in time.

In the midst of all the dust and smoke, Lina lost sight of her companions. Coughing and sputtering, she blundered her way out of the smoke. Cat instincts taking over, she dashed up the nearest tree.

Looking down she could see several goblins had entered the clearing. Great. Goblins. Just what we need, Lina thought groaning inwardly. A couple of them were carrying small black objects she recognized as bombs. At least they're probably not working for Morris. Goblins and humans didn't exactly work well together. Though it doesn't make them any less of a pain to fight off…

"Hah!" With a grunt, Gourry parried as a goblin (which bore an unusual resemblance to Prince Phil) charged him with a war hammer.

"Demona Crystal!" Naga unleashed her spell, turning several more of them into large chunks of ice. Gourry took advantage of the brief lull in the fighting to look for his companions. He saw Lina had taken refuge in a nearby tree, for which he was privately grateful. Amelia and Zelgadis were nowhere to be seen.

"Freeze arrow!" Naga seemed to be almost enjoying herself as she launched more Freeze Arrows at a group of already fleeing goblins. "Oooooohhohohohohohoh! Don't think you can get away from the great Naga so easily!" She chased after them and disappeared into the trees, shooting off more Freeze Arrows all the while.

Gourry suddenly sensed another presence right behind him. He whirled around just as another particularly large goblin swung a sword at him…

A furious yowl split the clearing. A hissing and spitting mass of orange fur and claws launched itself at the beast man, clawing its head furiously.

"Graaaah!" The goblin stumbled backwards howling in pain and making blind grabs for his face. Quickly getting over his initial surprise, Gourry finished the goblin off with a blow from his sword.

"Not bad," he said, smiling slightly.

"What? Did you expect me to just watch helplessly from the sidelines like some damsel in distress?" Lina replied, grinning. Their celebration was short lived.

Ga-ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAR!!!!!! They both froze as an ear-splitting roar shook the clearing. The few goblins remaining shrieked in terror and fled. Boom! Boom! The ground shook with the approaching footsteps of something very, very, very big.

"Run!" Gourry scooped Lina up in his arms and, ignoring her yowls of protest, ran for it. Looking over his shoulder, Lina saw something big and dark over the treetops, with big, gleaming yellow eyes.

A/N: Bwahahahahahahahahaha. Yet another cliffhangar. What can I say? They're fun.

And I have an important announcement: This story has reached 50 reviews! Yay! -does dance- In honor of this, I drew a little comic based on the scene from the beginning of Chapter 13: http://www. deviantart. com /48711823/ Enjoy. And thankies to all of the people who've been reviewing -bows-

Until next time!