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

55- Where There's Smoke

"Work? But it's finally sunny out! I was going to take you guys sailing!"

Upon hearing Zelgadis' desire to return to Seyruun City for some important paperwork, Lina protested loudly. However, for all her whining, no one paid her much attention.

"Be sure to take an umbrella with you. It's possible the rain hasn't completely passed."

"Yes, Gourry."

"Oh! And wear an extra coat! It's cold out today."

"Of course, Amelia."

"Hey, I borrowed this book from the library and I finished it. Could you return it for me?"

"I'd be delighted, Zara."

By the time he was ready to leave, everyone was still talking, and he had to walk out the door without answering any questions.

"Good-BYE, everyone."

The door slammed and Lina groaned. "What a killjoy. I guess we can go sailing, just the three of us."

"It's rather cold today. I think I'd like to stay inside by the fire." Amelia commented.

"Zara said that there's a new card game the kids in town are playing and that he wanted to teach it to us." Gourry agreed.

"It's super-duper fun! You'd be really good at it!" Zara tugged on Lina's sleeve. "You like sitting under the kotatsu blanket, don't you?"

Lina cringed. "Ugh. My weakness. Fine, we can play cards instead."

"Hooray!" Zara jumped and started up the staircase. "Emily wrote the rules down on a piece of paper for me! Let me go get that!"

Lina sighed and turned to Gourry. "Do you want to wake the twins up? It's probably alright for them to play on their blanket while we play cards."

It took the group a short while to get everything set up. Zara had lost the paper with the instructions on it and had to search through the laundry, checking every pocket to see where he had left it. Enrico decided to be unruly for some unknown reason, and despite Lina's best efforts to placate him, cried for a solid ten minutes. He finally calmed down as though nothing had happened, but Lina stayed hovered over him afterward, just to make sure. Gourry forgot how to turn on the heater under the table and accidentally burned himself trying to get it working. Amelia unfortunately wasn't able to provide a healing spell, but she did help him bandage up his hand.

"Oh, no!"

Lina had finally gotten the twins settled on their favourite blanket on the living room floor when she heard Amelia's voice from the library. "What is it this time?" she called.

"Zelgadis forgot something!"

"Great. Just what we need. Is it something he can't live without?"

Amelia returned to the living room. "No. It's just… the coat I asked him to wear. He's probably cold without it."

"He'll be fine."

"I want to take it to him."

"He probably hasn't gone far yet." Gourry pointed out. "You're a fast runner, so you can probably catch him."

"You think? I'll do that!" Amelia started up the staircase.

"Where are you going?" Lina called.

"I'm going to get my things. I might as well go on with him to the city, if I'm going this far."

"Alright, then. Suit yourself. We'll all be waiting for you back here." Lina picked up one of the twins' toys that had a bell in it and shook it gently. Luke loved the bell, and he bobbed up and down in coordination with it, a smile on his face. Enrico was too busy chewing- well, as best as he could with no teeth yet- on one of the cloth animals.

"You think she'll catch up to him?" Gourry asked, watching the door close.

"Of course she will. Amelia could catch her husband even if he was running from her."

"Especially if he was running from her." Zara giggled.

"Lemme see that rules page, Zara." Lina put down the bell toy and reached for the paper that Zara had in his hand. "What's the name of this game, anyway?"

"We haven't decided on a name for it yet. But you need at least two people to play, and you start like this…"

"Zelgadis! Zelgadis-"

Zelgadis turned around in surprise and Amelia nearly collapsed in his arms.

"…I… brought… your coat…"

"Did you run all the way here? Sit down for a minute. Don't try to talk until you've caught your breath."

Zelgadis put his hands on her shoulders and sat her down underneath a tree by the side of the road, where there weren't puddles or muddy spots. He dug a canteen of water out of his satchel and handed it to her. She drank eagerly and that helped her to calm down some. Zelgadis sat for a few minutes with his arm around her shoulders, waiting for her to be able to talk again.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want you to be without this."

"You don't have to be so concerned." Zelgadis groaned, but he put the coat on anyway. "If you wanted to catch up to me, why didn't you raywing it here? It's not too far-" He caught her dirty look and suddenly remembered. "-ah. Oops. I'm sorry."

Amelia took another drink from the canteen and then handed it back to him. "I was worried about your well-being, so I decided to join you."

"In going to Seyruun City, you mean?"

She nodded.

Zelgadis sighed in exasperation. "You could've come with me from the start. I'm sorry I didn't suggest it."

After Amelia finished catching her breath, the two started along the road again. They made almost a game of trying to avoid puddles and big stretches of mud. Zelgadis feared that they were tempting fate, but Amelia didn't fall into a single puddle, which impressed him. They reached the city before it had even begun to get dark, and from afar they could catch a glimpse of a large cloud of smoke hovering over the eastern side of the city.

"…is something on fire?" Amelia asked in concern. "I can't quite see what's going on from here."

"I can raywing up a little higher and see what's happening." Zelgadis volunteered. He went only as far as to get above the trees before returning to the ground with a puzzled expression.

"What is it?" Amelia demanded.

"There's something strange going on. Whatever is happening to make that smoke, it's spreading."

"We have to get there right away!" Amelia grabbed his arm and pulled him with her along the trail. "People could be in danger!"

"We should go to the palace first." Zelgadis suggested, falling into step behind her. "They could give us more details. It's dangerous to walk into a situation like that without knowing exactly what's happening."

"There may not be time for that! You can go to the palace if you want- I'm going straight to the site of the disturbance!"

"Amelia, are you listening-"

"Of course I am! Are you? People could be in danger-"

"I know, I know!"

It was clear very quickly that they weren't going to come to any agreement, so when they entered the city, the immediately split directions. Zelgadis' path took him back to the palace, where the guards were surprised but grateful to see him. They questioned him about Amelia's whereabouts, and he informed them that she had already left to find the source of the disturbance.

He didn't even have to get to any high officials to find out exactly what was going on. Some of the servants were the first to inform him. It was more than just a disturbance- there was some sort of Mazoku creation that was causing damage in the eastern part of the city. According to reports, it moved so slowly that it hadn't directly caused any human injuries, but it was a seemingly unstoppable force, and no amount of magic fired by the sorcerers that were responding to the event could do much good against it. The way that it climbed over buildings, it seemed to weigh nothing, but it gave off so much heat that whatever it touched caught fire.

Zelgadis was puzzled. "In all cases, it sounds like a low-level heat beast. But those are normally susceptible to water magic… why can't ordinary spells hit it?

In the meantime, Amelia was dealing with the same problem, except up close. She was relieved that no one seemed to be getting hurt, but the heat beast was doing a lot of property damage, and that was the last thing the city needed after the tough season they'd just had.

"A heat beast like this should be easy to defeat, shouldn't it, Princess?" a young sorcerer asked her after unsuccessfully trying to hit it with a barrage of spells. He looked frantic- it was clear that he had never experienced something like this before.

"This must have a high-level barrier surrounding it." Amelia replied. "We need to stop firing attacks to hurt the beast and start firing attacks meant to break down the barrier."

"I'd started thinking the same thing." An older sorceress had taken the lead in the fight, giving orders to the younger fighters, and she immediately agreed with Amelia's suggestions. "I'll lead a group to find the barrier's weak spot if you would be willing to evacuate civilians in the path of the beast. The more it consumes, the faster it will begin to move."

"Right. I'll do that." Amelia nodded and wished the sorcerers good luck. Magical beasts created by Mazoku or Black Magic grew stronger with the destruction that they caused, making the damage grow exponentially as they attacked. More than anything, Amelia didn't want anyone getting hurt. Most families in the area had been pulled out of their houses out of curiosity surrounding the commotion, but some houses were still occupied.

"Princess! Princess!"

A little girl frantically tugged on Amelia's coat. She sounded like she was crying, and so Amelia turned her attention away from the evacuation orders for a moment. "What's going on?"

"Th-that thing is crawling on my house! You gotta stop it!"

"The sorcerers are doing what they can." Amelia assured her. "You should go wait with your parents-"

"But you don't understand! My sister's still in there!"

"What?!" Amelia shot a glance up at the house where the monster was beginning to climb over the roof.

"W-we were playing hide-and-seek, and she was hiding. When everyone outside started screaming, I came out without telling her the game was over. Mama and Papa are looking for her outside, but I think she's still in there…"

Amelia grabbed the girl by the shoulders. "Stay here." she ordered. She then turned to some of the people behind her. "Keep evacuating everyone from the nearby houses! I'm going to search for a missing child!"

There were some cries of "Princess, it's dangerous!" but no one tried to physically stop Amelia. The little girl led her up to the front door, and she entered the house cautiously. Julie was the sister's name, or so she had been told, and Amelia called for the girl as loudly as she could.

"JULIE! Come out, please! The game is over- you're in danger! Julie!"

There was the sound of a scream upstairs, and Amelia sprinted up the steps to see a tiny child hiding underneath a desk. The roof above them was on fire, and the wood was cracking and falling. Amelia grabbed a pillow from a nearby chair and held it over her head as she crossed over to where the child was huddled.

"P-please… help…"

"I'm going to get you out of here. Calm down and hold my hand."

The girl didn't just take Amelia's hand, she latched onto Amelia's arm completely. Amelia had to practically carry her. Her legs didn't reach the ground, and she was not letting go of Amelia's arm.

The two made it across the room fine, but as they reached the steps, a large chunk of the ceiling fell and caught the wood steps on fire with it. Amelia managed to slide down a short distance before her the step underneath her cracked and her weight caused her to slip through. Julie lost her balance, but managed to slide down to the ground floor unharmed.

"Miss!" she cried, seeing Amelia stuck.

"Don't worry about me! Get outside! Your parents and sister are waiting for you out there!"

The little girl obediently followed orders and ran as fast as she could for the door. Amelia meanwhile, grabbed hold of the banister and tried to pull herself out of the hold she'd fallen into as gently as she could. Her whole weight had landed suddenly on her leg, and her ankle had twisted in a direction she knew it should not have. On top of it, her whole leg was scraped up, and blood was running down it in several places. There wasn't time to think about the pain, of course, but the injury impaired her ability to move, and in a situation like this, that wasn't something to be taken lightly.

Amelia stumbled with difficulty through the rest of the rooms of the house to the entrance. She was amazed at how quickly the house had gone up in flames, and how quickly the rooms had filled with smoke. It was already a struggle to breathe- like she needed yet another problem to worry about.

But suddenly she had made it out of the door of the house, coughing, wheezing, and leaning heavily on her uninjured leg. A crowd quickly swarmed around her.

"Amelia!" It was a familiar voice, accompanied by a familiar pair of arms that supported her. She looked up, blinking quickly to clear the smoke from her eyes.

"Mister Pestis?"

"Don't worry. That beast's barrier was no match for Filia's holy magic. The sorcerers are getting rid of the magical beast now and Lyos is helping put out the fires."

"…thank goodness." Amelia coughed. Out of the corner of her ear, she could hear Julie's parents embracing their daughter. She closed her eyes and put all of her weight on her friends' arms. It was a welcome relief.

"Thankfully there was no loss of life from the magical beast attack, but there was a significant amount of property damage and the council is going to want someone to blame for it." The papers in Zelgadis' hand began to crumple as he held them tightly, venting his own frustration. He wanted someone to blame for his wife's sprained ankle, but that was just as difficult to find a culprit for.

"Mazoku are not the only creatures capable of summoning magical beasts like that one. I know that certain Black Magic sorcerers can do it." Amelia spoke up as best she could. She was reclined on a sofa with her ankle elevated and had a pack of ice over a couple of the bruises on her leg.

"But could a human sorcerer have created that barrier that protected it?" Pestis asked.

"He's right. That was a Mazoku's barrier." Filia offered. "It was difficult for even my holy magic to break."

"Someone wanted to do a lot of damage with very little effort." Shizuri glanced out the window of the parlour at the burned part of the city. "You think it could've been Xellos? He knew we were coming back to the city."

"This doesn't feel like Xellos' work. He's not one for collateral damage." Filia murmured.

"Is Azarel still in Seyruun City? I'd bet a lot it was them." Lyos offered.

Zelgadis put his papers down abruptly. "Azarel was in Seyruun City? When?"

"When we were seeking Xellos' location about a week ago." Shizuri answered.

Lyos nodded. "Pestis found Azarel's location."

Zelgadis stood up with a gasp. "You said that you didn't have Azarel's data!"

"I lied, okay?" Pestis shrugged. "But that's-"

"We could've known! We could've prevented this! Why did you keep it a secret?!" Zelgadis approached him and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. "Did you realize how important your knowledge was?!"

"No!" Pestis wrenched Zelgadis' hand away. "Of course I realized how important my knowledge was! But we couldn't have known what Azarel was planning, even if this was their handiwork- which I DOUBT!"

"What proof do you have?! How can you know?"

The questions made Pestis' shoulders droop. "…I didn't say anything because… because I thought my math was faulty. I thought it couldn't be true. But…" He stepped away. "…I guess I was wrong…"

"Miss Filia! Miss Filia!"

Enrique's voice interrupted the conversation. He burst into the room, out of breath, but quickly regained his composure and ran straight to Filia. "What is it?" she asked nervously.

"Th-the egg is doing something strange again!"