Author's Notes: This is the first new official part of this fic after the sea of chaos swallowed up RSBI. I know I had previously stated that I didn't know if Xellos was going to appear in this fanfic, but you know what? I've decided to throw him in. I don't know how his part is going to play out in this fic, or how the fic is even going to play out, but there will be some Xellos/Filia action eventually. ^_~
Ghost Slayers
Chapter Fourteen
By Relm
With guns a totting Lina and company went upstairs to where Amelia was.
Zelgadis was actually quite excited to see Lina 'slay' the ghost. In the back of his muddled mind he vaguely remembered a little bit about the Ghost Slayers. Though he had followed Lina and everyone and seen a little bit about what they did, he himself was still curious. Of course previously he had been foggy in the head so he didn't quite grasp everything that he had been seeing. He was very curious how the ghosts would react. 'What an exciting line of work.' He mentally mused with just a tinge of jealousy. His memory of his 'life' before being trapped in a ghost like body was very fuzzy and spotty he was sure that it wasn't full of excitement. 'Until I got turned into whatever I am now.' Of course the fact that he could remember anything should have been encouraging but he was already riding the train down into gloomsville.
Lina watched Zelgadis as they went upstairs. His face was a kaleidoscope of emotions. 'Guess I'd be conflicted too if I were in his shoes.'
"Miss Lina!" Amelia screamed from behind the office doors.
Lina sighed. "We're coming, just a moment." Lina opened the door. "Are you okay?"
"No you took all the charged packs!" Amelia screeched trying feebly to zap the ghost. But it wasn't just a ghost head anymore. It was a headless ghost holding its dismembered head in his left arm.
Once the ghost 'saw' Sylphiel it went to her and tried to grope her butt. "Eeek!" Sylphiel screamed. Not that the ghost was actually touching it, but it was disturbing and it made her butt feel cold. And that was never a welcome feeling.
"The ghosts always seem to love Sylphiel." Filia joked while laughing.
"Don't laugh, do something!" Sylphiel protested feebly trying to swat away the ghost's hand while running away from it.
Lina charged up her gun and blasted the ghost. It made a soundless scream as it convulsed from the current.
Filia slid the open ghost containment box towards the ghost. "Now Lina!"
Lina grinned as she guided the stunned ghost down toward the box.
The box became a black hole sucking in the gun rays and the ghost's 'body' into the container. The box made beeping noises as it shut steaming with cool vapours.
"It's cold." Zelgadis observed putting his hands through the box.
"Don't do that!" Lina tried to swat Zelgadis' hand away but again she went through him. 'What the hell is with this guy and poking everything?'
"Are you afraid I'll get sucked in?" Zelgadis wondered.
"I don't know, and I don't want to find out either!" Lina shook her hands up in exasperation. "Don't go touching everything you see! We don't know how things affect you!"
"But him touching things are what got him speaking again." Filia pointed out while Zelgadis nodded his head in agreement.
Lina glared at both them.
"What now? Are you going to put the ghost in that room?" Zelgadis asked while looking and not touching the box before him.
"That would be the plan." Filia donned gloves and picked up the freezing cold container.
"Can I watch?" Zelgadis looked hopefully at Lina.
Lina glared in response.
"I won't touch anything I swear!" Zelgadis insisted. "I just want to watch."
Lina sighed. "Fine. But I'm going to watch you like a hawk."
"What's the point? It's not like you can stop him if he does do anything." Filia rationalized.
"Shut up."
...
Inside the ghost purgatory room all was still and quiet. The only sounds evident in the room were the slight buzzing sound of the machine. Filia led the way into the room with Zelgadis and Lina following her.
Lina flicked the power switch charging the unit up. "Okay it's live. So no touching Zel." Lina warned.
Zelgadis whom had been transfixed by the machine was broken by his trance. "Zel?" He questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Filia snickered.
Lina shot a glare at the blond woman. It would have been more effective if she wasn't blushing. "Yeah I kinda gave you a nickname. You didn't seem to protest earlier when I was calling you that."
Zelgadis tapped his chin in thought. "You did call me that before didn't you?"
"Zel seems like a natural nickname for you. What did your friends call you?"
Zelgadis took off his glasses and put them in his pocket. "As far as I can remember, which isn't much, I think I was called Mr. Greywars or Zelgadis. Maybe I didn't have any friends...?" That thought only mildly bothered Zelgadis. Sure admitting you probably didn't have any friends was sad but at the same time he couldn't remember much anyway. 'No sense dwelling on something I can't even remember to rationalize getting upset about.'
"Or your friends could just respect you too much." Lina suggested.
"I guess that would mean Lina's very disrespectful." Filia said with a smirk.
"How about we put the ghost in the room?" Lina stomped her foot. 'I'm the boss god damnit! If anyone deserves some respect it's me!"
Filia giggled as she loaded up the box into the machine.
Lots of lights, bells and beeps went off as the ghost was transferred into the waiting room. The ghost sat down against the glass wall putting his head back where it was supposed to go. As expected his head re-attached to his body. He smiled as he closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep.
Zelgadis was genuinely impressed by the technology. 'Lina must be quite smart to come up with such contraptions...' He dared to look over to the redheaded Ghost Slayer.
As she had promised Lina was glaring at Zelgadis very intently. "You're not thinking about touching the machine again are you?" Lina demanded.
Zelgadis shook his head. "No, no I was just wondering how you came up with this technology."
"Trial and error mostly." Lina flicked off the switches. "Originally I wasn't going to do this for a living. I was trying to discover the next great scientific breakthrough. I wanted to examine ghosts, prove their definite existence and get famous for it. But I wasn't well received by the scientific community. They wildly mocked me and refused to believe any of my findings. I became the laughing stock of my peers. And the university that I worked at didn't appreciate how I was 'wasting' my funds and thus I was canned. But I couldn't let the science go to waste. And turning a profit is always nice." Lina let herself think about all the money she could make, that is until another slab of plaster fell from the ceiling dashing Lina's daydreams. She let out a sad sigh.
"Aren't you afraid of this place coming down on you?" Zelgadis asked looking very concerned.
"Nah." Lina laughed it off.
Zelgadis turned to Filia. "So how did you Filia, Sylphiel and Amelia end up working for Lina?"
"I was a professor at the same school as Lina." Filia started off. "And I was there until I was fired for a completely stupid reason."
Lina leaned in close to Zelgadis and whispered, "She got caught beating up another teacher. It was already her twelve warning."
"That garbage deserved it! I should have filed a sexual harassment suit on him!" Filia huffed.
Lina rolled her eyes. "Xellos giving you flowers, candy and asking you out on dates hardly counts as sexual harassment."
"The flowers he charged to my credit card. The candy was either filled with hot peppers or bugs. And the date proposals were grossly inappropriate and suggestive, and while I was trying to teach my class! Of course there was also all the calls at all hours at the night, the love letters he posted on the school bulletin board, the thousand pictures of him he plastered all throughout my office and classroom-"
"Okay I get the picture!" Zelgadis begged her to stop. "So he's an annoying creep! Does he bother you anymore?"
"No because the smug bastard is now teaching my class! Why if he ever shows his stupid grinning face here why I'll-!" Filia screamed in frustration.
"So what about Sylphiel and Amelia?" Zelgadis quickly changed the subject.
"Sylphiel was my teaching assistant." Lina explained. "And Amelia was one of my grad students. I don't know why they both wanted to work here they could have done other things but I'm glad to have them." Lina grinned. Though they were an odd bunch they did their jobs and had fun while doing it.
"Isn't Amelia's father the mayor of Sailune?"
Lina nodded.
"Well couldn't you hit him up for money to help fix this place up?" Zelgadis pointed up as another piece of plaster fell.
"I would love to but Amelia's pride is just too high. She feels that she needs to prove to her father that she can make it on her own and she doesn't need handouts. Phil sends cheques every so often but somehow Amelia always gets to them first and rips them up. And apparently the banks don't cash ripped up cheques that have been tapped back together." Lina admitted sheepishly. "Anyway let's get back to work."
...
"...and that should take care of things." Lina summarized the plans for tomorrow's job.
Amelia frowned at Lina. "Miss Lina what are you hiding?"
"What makes you think I'm hiding anything?" Lina laughed nervously.
"Because Miss Sylphiel looks very uneasy." Amelia pointed out motioning to Sylphiel whom appeared to be sweating bullets.
Lina glared at Sylphiel. "Okay fine. The reason the house is haunted is because of the house next door. It was my first job before I had perfected my equipment. The owners had previously got an amateur to 'cleanse' the house and messed it up. Now it's a ghost magnet. I only got rid of one ghost and I didn't get paid for it." Lina explained.
Amelia looked very cross. "So what were you going to do Miss Lina? Do the job and not warn the people about the house next door? That's dishonest! If we don't deal with that mega haunted place our client's home is going to be haunted over and over again!" Amelia protested. "Look what happened to our car! You just drove it by the place and a ghost hopped in and hitched a ride here. Imagine what the other people in the neighbourhood are dealing with!"
"Which is why we make sure to hand out our business cards when we finish the job." Lina rubbed the back of her neck with a guilty smile.
"Miss Lina!" Amelia glared at her.
"Couldn't you leave something at the house to repel ghosts?" Zelgadis suggested.
Lina shook her head. "Ghosts aren't like mosquitoes. You can't just light a Citronelle candle and expect them to stay away. Yes you can buy stupid charms that can repel some spirits. But those things are very weak and only work on the weakest of spectres. Like aimlessly wandering ghosts or family members trying to reach out their loved ones. You know the kinds you'd like to keep around. But they don't work on nasty ghosts like poltergeists. It just pisses them off fuelling their rampages. And in this case I wouldn't suggest any silly charms." Lina explained.
"Miss Lina what are we going to do? We can't do nothing."
"Okay fine let me do some calls." Lina muttered grabbing the phone. She wanted to do this after tomorrow's job. 'May as well get this over with now anyway...'
...
"Okay then fine." Lina muttered hanging up the phone. She'd been on the phone for almost an hour trying to track down someone to talk about the mega haunted house. It had changed hands a few times. Which Lina found surprising, as she didn't even think it was possible to sell that house as haunted as it was. 'I guess if the price is right you can sell anything.'
"Well?" Amelia prompted Lina.
"The new owners don't believe in ghosts and refuse to hire us. Even though they are desperately trying to sell the house." Lina was disappointed. She had hoped they would get hired. There was so much money to be made in that house. 'Could have made a killing.'
"So what do we do now?"
Zelgadis snapped his fingers. "I got it; you do the job and explain the situation. You tell the clients that they are being haunted because of their next door neighbours. And that you contacted them to get them to hire you guys but they refused. Despite the fact they are being irresponsible and causing the whole neighbourhood to suffer by doing nothing about the problem."
Lina smiled with dollar signs in her eyes. "Zelgadis Greywars you are a genius! If I could I'd kiss you!" Lina exclaimed.
Zelgadis blushed.
"How does that help?" Sylphiel frowned.
"If we tell our clients whose fault the haunting is they will talk around the neighbourhood. And then the neighbourhood will put the squeeze on the mega haunted house owners. They will have no choice but to hire us! And that means hello money!" Lina clapped her hands in glee. "With that settled tell me Amelia did you get anything interesting out of Zel's computer?"
Amelia frowned. "I got in even with his impressive firewalls. But I didn't get any scans of the book covers and the stuff I got looks like chicken scratch to me."
"Maybe I can help; it's my research as it is. Even if I can't remember much right now it might jog something in my noodle to look at it. I might remember something useful." Zelgadis offered looking at the computer screen.
Amelia opened up some of the files she snagged for Zelgadis to se.
Once the files were open Zelgadis tried to look at them. But that familiar feeling of pain, nausea and discontentment set in and it made Zelgadis recoil. He fell to the ground and rolled into a ball. His limbs started to fade.
"Zel?" Lina got to the ground to look at Zelgadis. "Amelia close those files!"
Once Amelia complied Zelgadis seemed to improve.
"First the library, then the drawing, and now this. We need to find that damn book. It's got to be the answer!" Lina decided. "Zel are you feeling better?"
Zelgadis nodded. He tried to say something but no words came out of his mouth. He looked at Lina wordlessly pleading her to help him.
"Fine. Let's go give you a good shock Zelgadis." Lina shook her head.
Zelgadis smiled pathetically.
"Only person I know that willingly wants to get electrocuted..." Lina muttered.