Hello, everyone! As usual, I don't own anything, I'm just a fan writing some fiction. Please enjoy!

50- Off the Beaten Track

"Someone please tell me why I am awake at this time of night, because I am not happy, and I think I have a good idea who's to blame." Lina pulled a blanket around her shoulders. "I hope you can give me a damn good reason for this, Professor Nisery."

Gourry sat beside her, looking curiously around the library where everyone was gathered. "I'm not angry or anything, but I agree that this is a strange time for a meeting. Couldn't it have waited until tomorrow?"

"Pestis said that he had to share this information with you, now." Zelgadis groaned. "I'm just taking his word for it."

"Yes, yes, yes!" Pestis stood up and waved his arms around, trying to grab everyone's attention. "I've discovered something important that'll help us find Luke. I wouldn't have called you here otherwise. You do want to hear that, don't you?"

"Do you know where Azarel is keeping him?" Lina demanded. "I don't care what time it is- give the word and I'll go there!"

"W-well, that's the thing. I don't believe that Azarel is the one who took him."

"Excuse me?" Lina stood up, approaching Pestis slowly. "What do you think you're-"

"LISTEN to me, Lina!" Pestis jumped back and hid behind Filia's shoulder. "Filia is the one who can prove it!"

Filia looked up confusedly. "Me? But I don't remember anything."

"You don't have to. Miss Filia, do you trust Xellos?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand the question." she replied, raising one eyebrow.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Lyos agreed.

"Just listen! Filia, do you trust Xellos?"

She glanced out the window with a pensive frown. "Only about as far as I can throw him."

Pestis smiled. "Which is a pretty far distance, considering the strength of the Dragon Race."

"I… guess?"

"Right! That confirms it!" Professor Nisery jumped triumphantly. "Zelgadis mentioned earlier that, looking at the way the wound was positioned, it had to have been inflicted by someone taller than Filia is. Surely Azarel wouldn't have taken an adult form if the goal had been to catch Filia off-guard. Azarel has shown that their preference is for childlike forms when it comes to things like that. Furthermore, Xellos could have easily taken Filia by surprise because of their previous relationship-"

"But what would he want with Luke?" Filia asked.

"That's right. If he was trying to frame Azarel, it wouldn't have been a hostage situation. If Luke isn't a hostage, then what is he?" Amelia asked.

"If you ask me, this whole thing sounds fishy." Lyos mumbled.

"Look at it this way- Xellos told us that he wasn't on Azarel's side. If we haven't seen or heard from Azarel in all this time, it's possible that Xellos turned on them. If that's the case, and Xellos is up to something evil, then he may not want us to know about it. Why not keep us in the dark by making us believe that Azarel is still the enemy we need to worry about?"

The group was quiet for a moment.

"Suppose all of this is true." Lina finally spoke up. "If we pretend that Xellos somehow framed Azarel for the kidnapping of my son, how does this change anything? We still don't know what the enemy wants and why they took him."

"It changes things," Pestis began, "because we can track Xellos."

Amelia and Zelgadis glanced at one another as the whole group turned to them. "…while that's true," Zelgadis began, "there are a lot of limitations as well."

"B-but we could find him!" Lina exclaimed. "We could find him and make him talk! Even if he isn't the one who kidnapped Luke, he might know something about Azarel!"

"Didn't you say that you got Xellos' data from previous records? What about Lorelei?" Zara asked. "Maybe we could ask her, too. If Xellos doesn't give us a straight answer, she might be able to… especially if I ask nicely."

"That's always an option." Amelia nodded.

"So- wait. Does this mean we need to go back to Seyruun?" Shizuri asked. "All of us?"

"Not all of us need to." Zelgadis stood up and started pacing back and forth through the room, the way he did when he was thinking hard about something. "But it might be best to keep the group together. Once we get disjointed, it'll be hard to keep in contact."

"Seyruun City is less than a day's journey from here." Amelia suggested. "We could leave tomorrow and be there by the afternoon."

"If Lord Beastmaster is up to something, I want to know about it as soon as possible." Pestis agreed. "We'll leave tomorrow."

"…Beastmaster…" Enrique, who'd been sitting in the corner of the room listening to the conversation nervously, suddenly jumped up. "Um, um… Lord Pathosmaster, there's something I need to tell y-"

"Tomorrow? That's too sudden! We need some time to prepare!" "What about Milady? I can't just leave her alone." "I'm tired. We don't have to leave early, do we?"

The whole group was talking at once, and Enrique's query got lost in the commotion. He jumped up and down a few times to catch Pestis' attention, but it didn't work. He sighed sadly and sat down again, hoping soon for another chance.

"…Craighouse?" Lina clutched the piece of paper, her hand trembling. "That's impossible. There must be some sort of mathematical mistake."

"You can search for one, but I triple-checked it." Zelgadis leaned against the window, staring out at the skyline of Seyruun City visible from the palace's main laboratory. "According to the data from two days ago, that's the first place Xellos appeared after the kidnapping took place."

"Why would he take Luke home?" Lina asked. "We weren't there. That doesn't make sense."

"Maybe he was retrieving something from your home." Amelia suggested. "It's possible that he needed something of yours."

"He took our son! What else does he want?!"

"It's also possible that Xellos wasn't the one doing the kidnapping, and this thing is sending us in circles." Lyos mumbled.

"H-hey! It was Xellos, I know it was!" Pestis defended.

"Well, according to the data, Mister Xellos didn't appear in Craighouse until almost two-o'clock in the morning after the kidnapping took place." Amelia added. "So it's possible that he took Luke somewhere else first."

"Where?" Filia demanded.

"Wolfpack Island, probably." Pestis replied. "It's notorious for having one of the most well-constructed barriers of any Mazoku headquarters."

"And we can't track anything that's inside a barrier- it disrupts the response." Amelia added.

"So Luke might be out there in some void of Mazoku territory right now?" Lyos demanded. "What are we supposed to do about that?"

"Well, I can't find any calculation errors." Lina put down her pen sadly. "It looks like we need to go back home before we do anything. If Xellos returned to our home, then there might be some sort of clue there."

"Where is Xellos now?" Pestis started poking at the device that was taking down measurements. "How does this machine even work?"

"I can show you the numbers you need to work with." Amelia eagerly jumped over to help him. "This is the equation here, and you can get the variables using these calculations here, and here…"

Zelgadis stood up and motioned toward the door. The laboratory was small- not quite large enough to house that many people- and got stuffy and cramped with too many bodies occupying the little space. "While Amelia is helping him with that, why don't we all take a break and discuss what we want to do with this informa-"

"What we want to do?" Lina interrupted. "I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to Craighouse tonight."

"Lina, I'm sure that Mister Gourry will be happy to back you up on that, but you shouldn't drag others with you." Amelia quickly added in. "Even if you travel all night, it'll be midday tomorrow before you get there, and with no sleep, that could be hard on some people- especially the kids."

"Amelia and I can stay the night here in Seyruun City with Zara and bring him tomorrow." Zelgadis volunteered. "I assume Enrico will travel with you?"

"He's good at sleeping on the road with me." Lina nodded in agreement. "He'll be fine, but I think Zara is better off with you and the rest of the group for the night."

"Good. We'll all proceed to Craighouse tomorrow, after getting some rest here in Seyruun City-"

"WAIT, WAIT!" Filia yelled. "Someone has to go find Xellos!"

There was a pause.

"…now?" Shizuri asked.

"Yes, now! We were searching for him anyway, right?" Filia answered. "While Miss Lina and Mister Gourry go back to their home, I want to go right where Xellos is hiding!"

"I assume that means you volunteer?" Lyos questioned.

"I will too." Shizuri reached out to place a hand on Filia's shoulder. "I want to know what really happened."

"I have to hear it from Xellos himself." Filia stated firmly. "I was put in charge of Luke and Enrico's safety, and I failed them and their family. I need to know for my own sake just what happened and where I was at fault."

Lina reached out hesitantly. "Filia… you know we don't blame you…"

"I blame me."

Her sentence sent a silence over the group, except for the conversation between Amelia and Pestis in the back.

"So here's where you plug in the specific miasma concentration into the equation," "Ah! Is that really Xellos' number? Hot damn!" "Mister Pestis, really." "Relax, will you? There aren't any children present." "That's not the issue!"

Zelgadis cleared his throat loudly. "ANYWAY. The rest of us are going to return to the main building to check on the kids and see Lina and Gourry off. You two can finish up your calculations and meet with Filia and Shizuri to figure out where to go-"

"Zoana. He's in Zoana."

"What?"

"Well, that's the general region that we're finding now." Amelia stood up and held up the piece of paper. "His data hasn't changed much recently, so he seems to be staying in one area."

"We'll find him!" Filia declared. "You have my word!"

"I'll go with 'em. Milady seemed well enough when we left." Lyos walked toward the door. "I wanna give that Xellos guy a piece of my mind."

"Wait for us!" Amelia gathered the papers together and ran toward the door with the rest of the group. "Like Zelgadis said, I'll accompany Zara-chan to his home tomorrow, but I can help those traveling to Zoana with supplies and maps."

"Pestis? Are you coming?" Shizuri called to the professor, who was still examining some of the instruments and various experiments in-progress.

"I'd like to stay here and look around more, if that's okay."

"You can stay as long as you like," Zelgadis began sternly, "but don't touch anything."

"Yeah, yeah, I won't touch."

"Do you promise?" Amelia questioned.

Pestis chuckled. "I won't touch anything!" He waved at the rest of them as the door to the laboratory closed. They stayed for a moment, looking at the door.

"…he didn't promise…" Lyos muttered.

"No." Zelgadis shook his head. "No he didn't."

Once the door was closed, Pestis proceeded to touch all the things.

Well, it was really just one particular instrument that he was interested in- the one Amelia had been showing to him earlier. He hadn't meant to lie to the group about knowing Azarel's data, but he had. It was a safety measure. There was no telling what they might do if they actually located Azarel, and Pestis was still sure that the poor Mazoku just needed guidance. How he was actually going to get that guidance across, however, was the issue.

He just needed to know where Azarel was. Nothing else. Pestis wasn't going to risk approaching Azarel after their conversation the night before. But the knowledge of Azarel's location was meant to give him some peace of mind for the time being.

As a scholar of Black Magic, Professor Nisery was no stranger to complicated mathematical equations surrounding miasma concentrations and their effects on other magical objects. Unfortunately, his skills had gotten a little rusty over the years, and it took him longer than he'd expected to replicate the process Amelia had showed him, substituting Azarel's data. It was a gruelling process that had Pestis' head spinning, and when he finally came to a conclusion, it didn't look right at all.

"This can't be it… it's all wrong…"

Amelia had been very specific with her explanation. The answer would be a number- likely an irrational decimal value- less than zero and greater than negative-one, and could be used to identify the Mazoku's position. If the answer came out to zero or an undefined solution, that meant the Mazoku was hidden behind a barrier and would be impossible to locate. But Pestis' answer was neither of those.

"0.222782227822278… and so on, so forth…" He shook his head. "I must've switched a sign somewhere. It can't be a positive value."

But, try as he might, he couldn't find a mathematical error anywhere in the equation. He went through every step, combing his work for a mistake. He repeated the entire process without looking at his previous work in an attempt to see the problem with fresh eyes. But every time, his conclusion was the same.

"A positive value…" he muttered to himself, massaging his temples in frustration. "…could only mean that Azarel is in Seyruun City. That can't be. I must've made a mistake somewhere along the line."

Dissatisfied with the whole ordeal, he picked up his papers and made sure that everything was in its proper place before leaving the laboratory. He'd re-do the problem later, perhaps on the way to Zoana. If Xellos had really locked up Azarel and performed interrogations about the Key of the Aqualord, he wanted to know about it first-hand.

He could worry about Azarel later.

"…Gourry?"

Lina found him in one of the parlours where he and Zara had been watching Enrico earlier. The children were gone now, getting dinner, but Gourry hadn't appeared with them. He was sitting at a desk with his head buried in his arms and he looked asleep.

"You know that if you're tired we don't have to go anywhere tonight." Lina gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure you heard we were going to Craighouse, but if you're not up to it, I don't want to force you-"

"I'll go." Gourry was clearly not asleep, but he didn't move either.

"You sure?"

"Yes. What about Zara and Enrico?"

"I'll carry Enrico with me. Zara is going to stay with Zelgadis and Amelia. They're coming tomorrow."

There was silence. He didn't answer, keeping his head pressed against the desk. Lina leaned closer in concern.

"…you okay, big guy?"

"No."

She sighed and started to massage his shoulders. "Don't worry. We'll find him, I promise."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

"Mm." Lina nodded in acknowledgement, though he couldn't see her. "We'll find him and he'll be alive and well."

Gourry pulled his head up from the desk, running his fingers through his hair to get it away from his face. Lina took her hands off his shoulders and stepped away to give him a little room.

"How are you so sure of that?"

"Because," Lina answered sternly, "if I had even the slightest bit of doubt, I'd be doing exactly what you're doing, and that doesn't help us."

Gourry put his head back down on the desk. "Easy for you to say."

"Gourry Gabriev, for goodness' sakes, stop moping around! You're accomplishing nothing!"

"WHAT DOES IT MATTER?!"

There was a tense silence and the two stared at each other for a moment. They were both a little shaken from the outburst. Gourry picked himself up from the chair and moved toward the door, but Lina caught him by one arm.

"Don't you dare." she warned. "Don't you dare walk out of here without telling me what's really bothering you."

"It's nothing." He pulled at his arm.

"It can't be nothing if it has you so upset." She didn't let go.

"I'm worried about Luke. As his father, I have that right."

"There's more to it than that!"

Gourry finally managed to pull his arm free and started down the hallway. Lina ran after him.

"Gourry! Gourry! Hey!" Seeing no response from him as he continued down the hallway, she stopped, but continued to yell. "You can't leave me when I need you the most!"

He stopped. Lina caught a hopeful breath.

"Who says you need me?"

Her mouth hung open for a moment. "…what?"

"You're so lucky- you have it all together. You can just decide to be optimistic. Some of us don't have that luxury. Why do you need help from someone like me?"

"What are you talking about?" Lina gasped.

Gourry had reluctantly dragged himself back to Lina's side. "Zara hid for a whole day, Lina. My youngest son got kidnapped and then my oldest disappeared- how was that supposed to make me feel? We interrogated all of Miss Lin's employees, and every time I was sure one of them would know something. But we found nothing, and I felt… so useless. It doesn't matter if it was Azarel or Xellos- I have a feeling that it's about that Key of the Aqualord thing. I can't let a sword tear apart my family again."

"You… really hate feeling this helpless, don't you?" Lina murmured softly.

"It's not just the helplessness to protect others. I know some things are beyond my control." Gourry was staring at his feet, still not making eye contact. "It's the helplessness to comfort my family. When I was a kid, my father was horrible to our whole family. He was a self-righteous bastard who didn't care about anyone but himself. I don't want to be that kind of father."

"Gourry, do you think you're overreacting… just a little? No one thinks you're a bad father."

He looked away from his feet and out a window instead. "Luke probably does."

"Luke adores you- haven't you noticed? Enrico too. And you know that Zara idolizes you. You're everything he wants to be when he grows up."

"Lina-"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be arguing." Lina stopped and shook her head. "You're hurting. I understand. You don't need logic so much as you need solidarity."

"…"

She moved closer and tentatively put her arms around his waist. He didn't flinch, and so she rested her head on his chest.

"But, to ask why I would need you… isn't it obvious? You're my dearest friend in the whole world. We're a team- we've been a team for years. If you weren't pulling your own weight, I'd tell you. Believe me. But you're stronger than anyone I know- stronger than I am, even. I'm proud to call you my partner. Don't forget that."

Gourry slowly pulled his arms up around her. "If this breaks us, we'll be broken together."

"Nothing can break this family." Lina replied firmly.

"But-"

"Nothing."