Author's Notes: If medical procedures depicted in this part are incorrect I'm sorry. I blame Hollywood for wrong things.

Ghost Slayers

Chapter Twenty-Five

By Relm

Filia was checking one of the empty rooms of the old police station turned Ghost Slayers headquarters when she heard the screaming. She knew right away that it was Lina and she was yelling for help. If it were Sylphiel or Amelia then Filia might have not been so concerned. Though neither girl was by any means a coward them squealing out in fright wasn't out of the ordinary. From falling drywall to scampering mice the two of them tended to scream often.

But Lina screaming, and screaming for help no less was big reason to be concerned. A very big reason to be concerned.

With her ray gun armed Filia went running.

...

When Amelia and Sylphiel heard Lina they had just finished putting the first load of ghosts into the machine and were back to grab the rest.

"That's sounds like Miss Lina!" Amelia exclaimed.

"Amelia get your gun we have to go!" Sylphiel grabbed her partially charged pack and the two of them ran down the hall towards the labs. The two ran so fast that they almost ran right into Filia.

"Did you hear Lina?" Filia asked stopping to catch her breath.

"HEEEEEEEEEELP!" A tortured cry came from inside Filia's lab to affirm the trio's fears.

All three of Ghost Slayers in the hall had their scanners on. And all three scanners were going crazy. There was definitely a ghost in the room with Lina.

Right away Sylphiel, Amelia and Filia tried to get the door open. But as they soon found out the door was locked.

"LINA!" Filia yelled. "WE CAN'T GET IN! THE DOOR IS LOCKED!"

...

As Lina got knocked into another wall trying to get away from the ghost that looked like Zelgadis she heard Filia and the others trying to get in. She hadn't seen Zelgadis lock the door, but ghosts could move things with their minds so it wasn't a stretch to believe that he locked the door the moment he got in. "THEN BREAK IT DOWN!" Lina yelled desperately as Zelgadis got her in another choke hold.

...

On the other side door the trio was trying to do just that. But none of the girls were accustomed to breaking down doors. Usually if some sort of brute force was needed it was Lina that usually did it. Rarely was it Lina the one in danger needing help. Lina was usually the savoir not the damsel in distress.

Repeated bashing into the door proved to be futile. And the only weapons they had in hand was their guns and they knew that they would most likely need those if they got the door down.

...

Up until this point Slimer had been floating around the building tracking where the new ghost Xellos was going.

Xellos didn't seem to have a destination in mind he just explored the building aimlessly.

Slimer was intent on following Xellos until he made his new friend acknowledge him. The thought didn't occur to him that perhaps Xellos was just leery of Slimer and was trying to get away. But as Slimer passed through one wall he came into the hallway where Filia, Sylphiel and Amelia were bashing on the door. He knew which room was beyond that door, he'd been in that room many times. It was Filia's lab.

Even before his death Slimer wasn't known for complicated thinking. Looking at the desperation in his friends' eyes and actions he knew something was wrong. But he lacked the concentration to grasp the situation. So Slimer just floated on over to them hovering behind them watching.

"Damnit!" Filia cursed. "LINA WE CAN'T BREAK DOWN THE DOOR!"

The trio waited for an answer from their leader but all they heard were things being knocked around.

Slimer cocked his head to one side. With his limited understanding he knew that something was going on in the lab and the others wanted to get in but they couldn't.

"MISS LINA PLEASE ANSWER!" Sylphiel pleaded.

All they heard was the sound of tortured breathing.

Slimer opened his mouth in surprise and a big glop of goo fell to the ground alerting the others of his presence.

"Slimer!" Amelia exclaimed. "You have to help, Miss Lina is in danger!"

...

Lina desperately fought for air as the ghost choked her. Her assailant seemed to enjoy toying with her. He'd choke her till she was close to passing out before tossing her body across the room. But before she had a chance to recover the ghost would go back to choking her.

All seemed hopeless as Lina flailed around helplessly. 'I'm going to die.' Lina thought miserably. 'Ghost Slayer slayed by ghost... that will be a great headline for the papers. My life and my death will be a joke for the world to read.' She was about to give up, she really was, that is until she saw that green floating blob go through the door.

Slimer smiled a gooey grin before unlocking the door.

Right as soon as that click of the lock sounded the door swung open with the other three Ghost Slayers bursting into the room.

"Mister Zelgadis?" Amelia exclaimed in horror as she watched the ghost who looked the man that wasn't quite a ghost choking the life out of her boss.

"It's...not...ack...Zel!" Lina managed to choke out.

"What are we going to do?" Sylphiel looked around desperately. "If we fire the gun we're going to hit Miss Lina!"

"Just...do...it!" Lina ordered them.

"But I don't know what that will do to a human!" Filia protested.

"I'm...dead...anyway...!"

Slimer tried to get distract the ghost into letting Lina go. But the ghost that looked like Zelgadis just flung him off to the side as though Slimer was lighter than a feather. Slimer hadn't been able to touch Zelgadis before because Zelgadis wasn't a real ghost. But this wasn't Zelgadis.

It really was a ghost. And a nasty one too.

Filia charged her gun and took aim.

"Miss Filia!" Amelia protested. "You can't!"

"We have to! You saw what it did to Slimer! It's not going to stop until Lina is dead. We have to! All three of us! This thing is at least as powerful as a poltergeist!" Filia exclaimed shooting her gun hitting the ghost that looked like Zelgadis in the back.

Begrudgingly Amelia and Sylphiel did the same.

...

Inside his dark prison Zelgadis felt the white hot light all over him. It was so bright and so warm that it felt like he was being embraced by the sun. He saw the cracks in the wall that the light made. Cracks where Zelgadis had been trying to break the wall down previously. The light shined through weakening the bonds that held the wall in place.

With his bloodied fists Zelgadis went back to striking the wall. He wasn't going to stop till he broke it down.

...

The pain was immense. Lina had never experience such pain before. Sure she had been shocked before by her gun, the one she had before Filia made one that was more stable. She used to get shocked all the time. But having three guns indirectly shocking her was a different kind of pain.

Zelgadis struggled to keep his hold on Lina's neck. And in doing so created a current for the electricity to follow. With each pulse of energy Lina felt like her whole body was on fire. As hard as it was endure Lina knew it was working. Zelgadis' hold was weakening.

...

With one good hard hit Zelgadis broke the wall and was surrounded by the light. It bathed him in a painful blast of pure energy. "AHHHHHHHH!" He yelled.

...

The sight was a strange one. There was the ghostly form of Zelgadis still holding onto Lina convulsing in pain with another ghostly form was being expelled from his back.

It was monstrous looking man with wild white hair and cold gray eyes. As the second ghost was being expelled from Zelgadis the energy from the guns focused on the new ghost. Once the ghost was completely expelled from Zelgadis' body both him and Lina fell the ground in an unmoving heap. This other ghost however still flailed around the room trying to free itself from the beam.

"We have to get a containment box!" Filia yelled trying to keep her hold on her gun. The force of this poltergeist was so strong that she had to fight to keep her gun in her hands.

"If one of us let's go the ghost is going to get away!" Sylphiel declared as she too fought to hold on.

"Well one of us has to! I don't think Miss Lina is awake!" Amelia said miserably. They could barely see their leader as she had fallen behind on the lab tables. What they could see of her wasn't moving. 'Please let her still be alive!'

"What are we going to do? My gun is running out of power!" Filia noted looking down at her gun. It was beeping at her signalling the low power.

Slimer answered that question as he grabbed one of the spare boxes on Filia's pack and activated it and quickly slid over to the poltergeist before it opened.

"Good work Slimer!" Filia cheered as she and the other two Ghost Slayers guided the ghost down into the box.

The poltergeist fought the whole way down into the box but it shut closed trapping him inside.

"Miss Lina!" Sylphiel and Amelia both cried out as the four of them went over to see what had happened to their leader.

Lina lay motionless on the ground with Zelgadis equally emotionless lying on top of her. He stirred first looking at Lina in horror. "Lina!" Zelgadis tried to shake her awake but it was apparent that wasn't going to happen.

"Get out of the way!" Filia shoved Zelgadis off Lina and got medical kit ready. Since knowing how dangerous electricity can be Filia was always prepared for the worst. She wasn't a medical doctor, but she knew her way around electrical equipment. As Sylphiel prepped Lina Filia charged up the defibrillator and gave Lina a shock.

Lina's body convulsed but her heart didn't respond.

"Again!" Filia shocked Lina.

Again Lina's body convulsed, but this time her heart responded.

...

When Lina woke up hours later she felt like she had been hit by a ton of bricks. Her whole body hurt particularly on her neck and chest. It felt like it was burned. As she tried to get up she felt gentle hands guide her back onto the bed she had been resting in. She looked up annoyed by the person preventing her from getting out of bed. But as she realized it was Sylphiel and a very worried looking Sylphiel at that Lina stopped resisting. "What happened?" Lina managed to choke out. Her voice was very hoarse as her throat was still very much sore.

"Try not to talk." Sylphiel advised her.

Lina's eyes darted around the room and she saw Amelia and Filia both looking like they had the life scared out of them. Slimer was there too looking extremely worried which was a stark contrast to his normal cheeriness. Lastly Lina's eyes fell on Zelgadis who sat in the corner with his face buried in his hands. There was something wrong with the way Zelgadis looked but Lina's brain was too foggy to figure out what it was. She looked back to Sylphiel as if to re-ask with her eyes that same question she previously posed.

"You were attacked by a poltergeist. It did hitch a ride with us back to Ghost Slayers HQ like you thought." Sylphiel explained. "But it wasn't riding in the car with us. It was riding in Mister Zelgadis."

"Looks like while he was waiting in the car for us a poltergeist decided to possess him." Filia elaborated.

"It used me to try and kill you!" Zelgadis exclaimed miserably. While being possessed the only thing Zelgadis remembered was being stuck in that prison and the light. Filia and Sylphiel were the ones to fill in the gaps. That prison he had been in was a mental one. The ghost hijacked his body and locked his mind away. Once free and told what happened Zelgadis felt awful. He wanted to run away. Lina was the one person he trusted most after being stuck in his strange situation and he'd almost killed her! But as much as he wanted to leave he couldn't. Sylphiel, Filia and Amelia refused to let him out of their sights.

"As you can see Zelgadis here is feeling very guilty." Filia rolled her eyes. "Even though he had no control at all while he was being possessed. He told us he managed to pick up a photo frame while at your home this morning. It's possible the poltergeist saw that Zelgadis had more physical control than a ghost and decided to take advantage of it. More likely it chose to attack you because you have the strongest connection to Zelgadis."

"In order to stop the poltergeist who was strangling you we shot it." Sylphiel continued to explain. "But it still had its hands around your neck so it created a current. You got shocked too. When we managed to trap the ghost your heart had stopped. Miss Filia managed to shock your heart back to life and I bandaged your wounds. But you need rest. I'd prefer that you'd be resting at your place or one of our homes but we didn't want to move you too far."

Looking around Lina realized that she was in that makeshift bedroom she had set up in Ghost Slayers HQ. 'Looks like the bed was a good idea after all.' Lina thought bitterly.

"We're going to have one of us stay with you at all times at least for tonight." Amelia tried to assure Lina. In Amelia's mind she had decided to stay the whole night by Lina's bed to keep an eye on her. But when she told Filia and Sylphiel her plans both of them disagreed. Yes someone staying there with Lina was a good idea but not the same person the whole night.

Lina shook her head. She didn't like the idea one bit.

Sylphiel frowned. "I know you like to do things on your own and not have people take care of you, but we're not taking no for an answer. This is what is going to happen. Amelia is going to stay with you first while Miss Filia and I are going to get some food and sleeping bags. Slimer and Zelgadis are going to stay with you too."

Lina looked over to Zelgadis again now starting to make sense of why he seemed so strange before. She couldn't see through him like before. He was solid!

Zelgadis felt the stare and made the wrong assumption. "I shouldn't stay! Clearly Lina doesn't want the guy who almost strangled her death staying in the room with her while she sleeps!" Zelgadis tried to get out of the room but Filia grabbed his arm and pushed him back into the chair.

This action really made Lina's eyes go wide. "How?" Lina choked out. Though it was one word it conveyed the whole question that Lina was meaning. How was Zelgadis solid again?

"He got hit with three gun's worth of energy. It's made him solid for the time being. Just like when it gave him back his mental alertness and momentary ability to touch things. Because we don't know how long it's going to last I don't want him out of our sight." Filia said sternly.

Zelgadis who looked rather glum dared to look up at Lina. What he saw shocked him.

She was smiling. And she also motioned for him to come to her bed.

Cautiously Zelgadis moved over to her side and sat in the chair by it.

The first thing Lina did was touch his arm. It felt real and solid like a normal person. Next she touched his face. It was soft and warm. Blood rushed to the man's cheeks under her touch causing him to blush.

Then Lina smacked him over the head so hard that it knocked the ghostly man's face right into the bed. There was a satisfied smugness to Lina's lips as she smiled.

"Ow... I guess I deserved that." Zelgadis also smiled as he gingerly rubbed his sore head.

It was then that Lina noticed the bloodied bandages on Zelgadis' knuckles. She looked at them questioningly.

"Oh that?" Zelgadis looked at his hands sheepishly. "I hurt them trying to break out. I heard your screams for help. I guess what happens in my mind happens to my body too." He explained.

Lina frowned. Things were just getting stranger and stranger.