Hello everyone! As per usual, I don't own anything- I'm just a fan writing some fiction. Please enjoy!
5- First Impressions Are So Very Important
"Y-your name…" the man gasped in disbelief. "Y-you… you're Lina Inverse?!"
He straightened up and made an awkward bow. "P-please forgive me! Really- I had no idea whose presence I was in!"
Lina was taken aback by the sudden reaction, though her mind told her not to question it when someone was paying her compliments.
"You should've." Lina huffed. "Honestly- don't you know who I am?"
"Y-yes, yes! You're Lina Inverse, the greatest Black Magic sorceress in all of history; on par with the great sages of the past, a revolutionary force in the field of Black Magic! You're a legend!" The man covered his face in embarrassment to be in such a shameful position in Lina's presence. "For years I've dreamed of meeting you! Oh, please don't let this event taint your opinion of me- I'm so horrible with first impressions!"
Wow.
Lina had to wonder if this guy was just boosting her ego in order to get her to give his glasses back, but he seemed pretty genuine. "Who are you, anyway?"
He took a step back and gestured to himself. "Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier. I am former professor Alexandre Nisery, scholar of Black Magic studies and Mazoku."
Lina nearly fell over.
"A-Alexandre Nisery?!" she spluttered. "The Professor Nisery?!"
"Former professor." The man responded. "I have recently become self-employed, and though that title has been part of my name for much of my career, I suppose that it can only be used if I am currently in the-"
"You mean, the Professor Nisery from A Complete Anthology of the History of the Mazoku Race?!"
"Oh, you mean you've read one of my books?" he gasped at the thought. "The Lina Inverse has read one of my books?!"
"One of your books?! I had the complete collection!" Lina exclaimed. "I was constantly pestering my parents for more of your Mazoku reference books! They taught me everything I needed to know to fight Mazoku once I left home!"
The man seemed to be overwhelmed, covering his mouth and jumping up and down. "I-I can't believe it… Lina Inverse read my books! Lina Inverse liked my books!" He stopped jumping and tried to calm down, taking several deep breaths. "Oh, what I wouldn't give for a demonstration of your Black Magic techniques. It would thrill me to no end if you'd indulge me that!"
Lina blushed. "Ah, well, if it's a demonstration you want, I'm afraid that you've caught me at a bad time."
Alexandre paused for a moment, and then quickly replied under his breath "Oh, I understand Miss Lina Inverse, don't worry about it. Honestly, I don't want to inconvenience you, but I'd be more than happy to wait a week or so."
There was another awkward pause, and Lina narrowed her eyes.
"You can't see without these glasses, can you professor?"
"Not at all; no." The man shook his head. "Why? Is there something-"
Lina placed the spectacles back on his face, and it took him a minute to get adjusted. He took a long moment to observe the sorceress in front of him and jumped back a little.
"O-oh! Oh." The former professor scratched his head embarrassedly. "I'm so sorry, Miss Lina Inverse. I didn't know; I couldn't see-"
"It's okay, it's okay." Lina laughed.
"But how wonderful! How exciting! To think that the greatest sorceress of our age is soon to have a successor to whom she can pass down her skills and knowledge… oh, it gives me such hope for the sake of the world!"
Lina chuckled. "That's the opposite of most people's reactions to date, you know."
"Opposite? Why?!"
"They think that any descendant of mine will share my propensity for massive property damage." The sorceress smirked.
"Oh, but that's just the price we must pay for advances in Black Magic, right Miss Lina Inverse?" Alexandre smiled.
Lina clasped the man's hands in her own. "I like your style, professor! Please, just call me 'Lina!"
"Just 'Lina?' Oh, I might faint from excitement!" The man swooned. "Please, please- if you would, just call me 'Pestis!"
"…Pestis?" Lina blinked. "Uh, no offense, but what kind of name is that anyway?"
"It's my nickname!" Pestis replied. "It was given to me by someone very special to me, and I am very fond of it!"
Lina sighed. "I see. I guess it's the same way I call my husband 'jellyfish' from time to time- however insulting it may seem from an outsider's point of view, it's more of a term of endearment than anything else."
"Exactly!" Pestis clapped his hands together. "Only my more intimate friends call me 'Pestis.' I love the name, I promise."
"Intimate friends?" Lina gasped. "Oh, my childhood hero considers me an intimate friend! This is like a dream come true!"
"Dream come true? If this is anyone's dream, it's mine! 'Lina…' Oh, just think of it~!"
"Lina? Hey? What's going on? Is everything alright?"
The third voice broke the two out of their exchange for a moment, and Lina turned and ran back toward the end of the aisle, waving excitedly.
"Gourry! Gourry! Come over here! There's someone you have to meet!"
"Goodness, Lina- what has gotten into you? You were so angry just a few minutes ago." Gourry seemed pretty puzzled at her sudden change in demeanour (though he really shouldn't have been), and looked at Pestis with a questioning glance.
"Don't you know who this is?!" Lina demanded.
"Um… the guy who knocked over all the peach jars?"
"Gourry! This is Professor Alexandre Nisery- the leading expert on all things Black Magic and Mazoku! He's practically a legend in the Black Magic community!"
"Me being called a legend by Lina Inverse? Oh, you flatter me, Lina! I don't deserve this sort of praise!"
"This is Gourry Gabriev." Lina continued, tossing her arms around him playfully. "He's the most talented swordsman I've ever met, and also my bestest buddy in the whole world! He's been my loyal protector through all my major conquests and I simply couldn't get by without him."
"It's such a pleasure to meet you, Mister Gabriev!" Pestis enthused. "I'd heard that Lina Inverse had married a talented swordsman, but I didn't know that he was so tall and handsome on top of it all! Though, I guess it would only figure that an amazing woman like Lina would deserve an amazing man to accompany her!"
"Uh… thank you…?" Gourry seemed to be unsure of how he ought to react to the praise that Pestis was giving him.
"Oh, and your child!" Pestis continued, seeming to just realize it. "What an exciting prospect- a successor to two of the most accomplished warriors in the world…"
"We don't want to make too big a deal out of that, though." Lina quickly interrupted. "It's all fine and good to encourage our kids to do their best in all of their endeavours, but putting huge expectations on their shoulders like that is not what we want. Yes, they're Gourry's and my children, but they are their own people and should be encouraged to follow their own dreams."
"We do have a son already." Gourry added. "He just left- some friends of his accidentally left a book in his backpack and he went to return it to them."
"Oh! I think I saw him! Was that the little brown-haired boy that was leaving here in such a hurry just a few minutes ago?"
"Yeah, that was probably him." Lina nodded. "Long hair, red jacket-"
"He passed right by me as I was coming into the store." Pestis nodded. "He was running so fast that he wasn't looking where he was going. I almost ran right into him."
"That's Zara, alright." Gourry nodded. "Always so full of energy. He'd probably run off to the North to fight the Demon King singlehandedly if we'd let him."
"The Demon King!" Lina gasped, grabbing Pestis by the shoulder suddenly. "That reminds me! We're looking for a powerful sorcerer!"
"Huh?" Both Gourry and Pestis were pretty surprised by the suddenness of Lina's declaration.
"You mean, instead of your sister?" Gourry asked.
"That's exactly what I mean!" Lina enthused. "Pestis knows everything there is to know about Mazoku, and is a powerful sorcerer in his own right! Oh, please Pestis- would you help us? Some of our friends are interested in investigating the recent events surrounding the Demon King, and they need help! You know that I can't do it… so…"
"I've been investigating the recent events surrounding the Demon King." Pestis replied. "If you have some friends that want someone to team up with, I'd be happy to!"
Lina let out an excited squeal. "Yes! Then we don't have to wait for my sister! Oh, Gourry, this is perfect! Pestis can help save the world, and we can go home!"
"To be honest, I was stopping here in Zephiel City in hopes that I could find someone to help me with my own investigation. It's a wonderful coincidence that I met you!"
"Oh, you don't even realize how much of a favour you're doing me, professor!" Lina enthused.
"Ex-professor-" Pestis began, but decided to let it go. It wasn't that important anyhow. "Wh-where are these friends of yours?"
"They're upstairs! C'mon, hurry, hurry!" Lina tugged on Pestis' arm, dragging him along with her. "Let's go before my sister gets back!"
"…you're just going to leave the-?" Gourry began, pointing down to the jars scattered across the floor, but Lina didn't seem to be paying attention. "I'm going to go out and make sure that Zara gets back safely. I don't want him running all over town if he can't find his friends."
"Okay! Good luck! Don't take candy from strangers!"
"…candy from…?!" Gourry sighed as he began gathering some of the jars and placing them back on the shelf. "How old does she think I am? Honestly, Lina…"
"So, let me get this straight... You two knew Professor Nisery all this time, and you didn't happen to tell me about it?"
Lina had been so excited to have gained Pestis' friendship, and suddenly Zelgadis and Amelia had to go and ruin her special moment by somehow being even better friends with Pestis. That stung just a little.
"How was I supposed to know that you wanted to meet him?" Zelgadis murmured coldly.
"How was I supposed to know that you knew him?!" Lina demanded.
"Besides that, what about you, Pestis? If you wanted to meet Lina so badly, why didn't you say something? You knew that we knew her."
"W-well… I… I didn't want to impose… besides, I didn't know how close of a friend she was, and so I didn't want to make an infeasible request."
"Don't be so worried about inconveniencing people, Pestis. If you want something, ask. If you never ask, the answer will always be 'no." Zelgadis finally sighed.
"Well, it doesn't matter so much." Pestis waved his hands in an attempt to end the argument. "What matters now is that the most powerful sorceress in the whole world is friends with my favourite couple in the whole world, and that's awesome."
"Professor," Mrs. Inverse began, "are you really the author of all those books? They were indispensable to me as a sorceress, and that knowledge became so for my daughter as well… but you look younger even than Lina!"
"Mom!" Lina hissed. "A powerful sorcerer like that isn't going to look his age! You should know it's impolite to ask!"
"What?! You think I don't know that already? I was just trying to compliment him, after all!"
"Ladies, please… calm down. You're right; I'm far older than I appear." Pestis bowed respectfully. "Why, I'm over two-hundred years old already."
Zelgadis stifled an indignant laugh. "Well over two-hundred."
"But what's a few hundred years for a powerful sorcerer, right?" Lina grinned and elbowed Pestis.
"Well, uh…" he responded. "To be honest, I'm not actually a sorcerer. I'm an astral being- similar to a Mazoku, except that I can't feed off negative emotions. I'm pretty much a defective Mazoku when you get right down to it."
Lina blinked. "Wh-what? But your perspective in all your books seemed so… so… human…"
"That's the defective part." Pestis chuckled. "Mazoku aren't supposed to think like humans. That's what makes me a dud, I guess."
"You're not a dud, Mister Pestis! Not to us!"Amelia reassured him. "You're such a wonderful friend-and talented professor- don't ever say that about yourself!"
"Aw, thanks Amelia- though I'm really not a professor anymore. I… well, er, my boss, actually…"
"What?"
"Well, in all the mess and confusion six months ago… my boss was killed. So I'm… on my own now." Pestis responded. His shoulders slumped over and his expression made him look like a kicked puppy. He tried to shake it off, however. "Th-though, it's not totally a bad thing! I'm free now- free to follow my own path and my own dreams! That's a good thing, isn't it?"
"That is a good thing!" Amelia exclaimed.
"Who's taken over for your boss?" Zelgadis asked. "Is it someone you don't want to work for?"
"Well, actually, there's no one qualified for his position, you see. So it's been left open and I've sort of been left in the cold. It's a tricky spot to be in, but I've faced worse."
"You still ought to be able to call yourself a professor." Lina argued. "You're still doing research, right?"
"Oh! Yes! About this crazy weather and the Demon King!"
"So it is the Demon King's doing after all?" Amelia asked.
"I told you that already..." Zelgadis muttered. "Maybe if you'd actually listen to me once in a while..."
Amelia heard and opened her mouth to object, but Pestis was able to speak up first.
"Ahahahaha, oh Zelgadis, you're always so funny! Hah; that's a good one!"
The room was quiet for a moment as everyone stared at the professor, not sure how to respond to his outburst. Mrs. Inverse cleared her throat and began the conversation again.
"So, uh, professor- if you've been doing research on the Demon King recently, does that mean you know what is going on?"
"Yes." Pestis had regained his composure. "There's been a persistent force acting on the Aqualord's barrier for some time now, and all the commotion has begun to wake the Demon King... sort of like those noisy neighbours that decide to have a party at 3 AM and come to your house asking to borrow a cup of sugar for the cake, y'know? And then you get angry for no reason whatsoever and yell at the poor soul who only wanted a bit of sugar to sweeten up his party-"
"That's... a really bad analogy." Lina interrupted.
"Have you actually had a neighbour like that?" Zelgadis added.
"Have I had one like that? Well... no..." Pestis averted his gaze. "B-but, anyway, the point is that the Demon King is waking up and upsetting the balance of the world climate. The conundrum now is how to put him back to sleep without breaking the barrier."
"But... might he escape, if we don't do anything?" Amelia questioned.
"No, at least, not on his own. The barrier is impenetrable from both the inside and outside without the key."
"Key?" The question was asked by multiple people at once.
"Y-yes; a key is something that can be used to open doors-"
"WE KNOW WHAT A KEY IS!" Lina paused and took a deep breath. "We were asking about what kind of key could possibly break the barrier."
"O-oh! Right!" Pestis replied quickly. "The key... it's, uh, a key that contains power from Aqualord Ragradia, so… I've generally heard it called the 'Key of the Aqualord'…"
"How creative." Lina muttered.
"Where is it?" Zelgadis asked. "Something like that shouldn't be left around where just anyone can get to it."
"I have no idea." Pestis ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "To be honest, I don't even know what it looks like. I'm a Mazoku researcher- when it comes to the business of the gods, I'm in the dark."
"But, logically, we wouldn't need to even worry about it, because we don't want to break the barrier anyway." Zelgadis offered. "Right?"
"Well... that would be the case... if I wasn't worried about another Mazoku getting their hands on it first."
"Another Mazoku?" Amelia gasped. "One that... wants to release the Demon King?"
"Why else would a Mazoku be after something like that?" Zelgadis reasoned. His tone wasn't antagonistic, but the glare that Amelia shot him in response certainly was.
"Yes, I'm afraid that, before I can go back to the North to think up a good Demon King lullaby, I have to make sure that Hellmaster's favourite dog doesn't get its grubby paws on that key-"
"Wait, Hellmaster?!" Lina interrupted. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't you dare bring Hellmaster into this.
He's dead. I killed him twice. Twice."
"Yes, and I thank you heartily for both." Pestis adjusted his glasses, shifting his weight awkwardly. "But he didn't die without leaving subordinates behind."
"I thought he did. As far as we knew, all the subordinates of Hellmaster were killed during the War of the Monsters' Fall." Mrs. Inverse offered. "That's what was preached to me by the Sorcerers' Guild."
"Yeah, well, the Sorcerers' Guild didn't know about our cat." Lina huffed. "Riko was awfully chummy with Hellmaster the last time I faced him."
"Riko's been living with you?" Pestis gasped. "No wonder I could never track her down! I'd thought that loss of power from Hellmaster's death had made her senile and that she might have just dissipated onto the astral plane altogether!"
"Senile? Hah! The only word I'd use to describe that cat is 'complacent." Lina scoffed. "She sits on my furniture and sheds grey fur all over everything I own. I finally got little-mister-animal -lover to compromise; Zara says that she can be an outdoor-cat once the baby is born."
"I didn't know you harboured such a grudge." Pestis murmured incredulously. "I've never met anyone who hated Phibrizzo and his subordinates as much as I do."
"Youhate him too?" Lina gasped. She ran up to Pestis and grabbed his hands. "We should make a club! A club built on total animosity toward Hellmaster Phibrizzo!"
"That is a club that I would join!" Pestis enthused.
"Wait, wait, wait." Zelgadis stepped in and separated the two. "Were you kindly going to explain where this 'dog' of Hellmaster's came from?"
"Ah, yes." Pestis shook his head as though trying to dispel the tantalizing thought of an anti-Hellmaster club, where they could have tea parties with pretty cakes and the little sandwiches cut in dainty triangles and hold educated conversations about their complete and utter loathing for the late demon-lord. "Um, this particular subordinate of Hellmaster's used to-"
"Hey! Lina! Everybody!"
The loud voice stopped everyone for a second, and Gourry, having run up the stairs two at a time, was standing by the door, completely out of breath. As he stopped to catch his breath, Lina rushed to his side, not quite as shocked by his sudden arrival as by the outburst.
"Wh-what's going on, Gourry?! Where's Zara?"
"…I…don't know…" Gourry breathed. "Apparently he… left… with the other kids…"
"He what?!"
That got the whole group's attention, and Amelia and Zelgadis crowded around Gourry as well. "What do you mean? He just leftwith them?"
"That's what the people at the depot said. They told me that the three kids just left together as a group. No one asked questions or anything."
"But…but… that's impossible! Zara wouldn't do that!" Lina protested.
"He wascomplaining quite a bit about how you wouldn't let him go to investigate the situation up North. Maybe he decided to go out on his own." Zelgadis suggested.
"He wouldn't!" Lina asserted.
"Besides, the kids said that they were travelling south to Kunan, right?" Amelia added.
"That's what Azarel said." Zelgadis replied. "But we can't be su-"
"Azarel?" Pestis interrupted quickly. He motioned to a particular height with one hand. "You mean a kid about this tall; long, dark blue hair and brown eyes; wears glasses and a pink flower barrette and likes to carry lots of books around everywhere?"
"That... would be the one." Lina nodded. "How do you know Azarel?"
"Uh, well..." Pestis wrung his hands and laughed nervously. "How do I know Azarel? It's, uh, a long and funny story, that story..."
"Let me guess- Azarel is the Mazoku you're following." Zelgadis offered.
"What?!" Lina demanded. "That's absurd-"
Her voice cut off, however, as Pestis' expression betrayed his answer.
"...Hellmaster Phibrizzo's general..." Pestis murmured. "...his most efficient subordinate, most accomplished pupil, and most trusted confidant... with a higher death toll than any other Mazoku in history, save for the original retainers of Shabranigdo... and who was allegedly killed in battle during the War of the Monsters' Fall... Azarel learned all of Phibrizzo's tricks and perfected them..."
"Even the playing-an-innocent-child trick?" Amelia ventured.
"Especially the playing-an-innocent-child-trick."
(A/N: …I don't even know what to write here anymore.)