Lina pulled the talismans off and looked at them with a wry smile.
"Well, I want to see how powerful I really am without you. Afterwards, I'll see how powerful I am with them."
She hesitated and placed the talismans back on before getting o with why she was here. Lina found a shadow in the cult's hideout that was large enough for her to step through. She hesitated and went back to the main arena and saw a guy whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
'He must be the cult leader. What was his name? Oh yes. Krotz'
Krotz went on with a speech about people worshiping unworthy gods. Lina felt her temper rise a bit and then a bit of confusion about her anger.
'Why am I concerned about if some loon calls gods unworthy? It makes no sense.'
She pushed aside her confusion and listened to the cult leader ramble some more and then her stomach felt as if the bottom dropped out when he announced his plan to destroy Seyruun.
'If Xellos is correct, then Krotz has a piece of the Claire Bible. He could very well destroy Seyruun. Sheesh, hasn't that city suffered enough? I think it's time to rescue Amelia and see what I can really do.'
Lina waited until the cult had left, before she headed to the hideout and stepped out of a shadow. Lina looked at herself and blushed.
'Considering the high powered fight I'm going to get into, I'll just stick with my 'natural' look,' Lina thought and felt a slight draining on her being.
Lina snarled and pushed past the weakness. 'I don't have time for this nonsense! I'm not going to let whatever that is hold me back!'
The chimera sorceress was about to head for where she saw Amelia when an explosion came from that direction. She suddenly felt a threat and ducked.
"So, you?" Vedur the beast man snarled, as his sword whisked over Lina's head.
"Yes, me," Lina said with a smirk on her face.
"I see you still wearing that silly outfit," Vedur said with a growl. "It doesn't matter. You're going to die here."
"I don't think so," Lina stated and started chanting the fireball spell.
"Vedur, pull back!" a voice called.
"What was that Gilfa?" Vedur asked.
"Get out the way."
"Too late! Fireball!"
Lina tossed the fireball right at Vedur and turned her body so she would shield the talismans. Lina turned back and gaped at the damage she had caused.
"That was my full strength Fireball? It looks like someone cast Blast Bomb!"
A small rock, three corridors away, fell from the ceiling and hit the ground and shattered into ashes. Lina gazed at the hole she had blown through three corridors and two rooms and laughed.
"Bring it on!" Lina called, and thought. 'You're still not off the hook Diol, but I can live with this power boost.'
She calmly dodged the sword that a hiding Vedur tried to slice her with. Lina stared into the quivering face of the beast man and grinned.
"That was just a fireball. Consider what happens if I use a stronger spell," Lina said.
"I don't care. You are a threat to Krotz ruling the world," Vedur said.
Lina folded her arms across her chest and waited. She heard Gilfa chanting and inwardly smirked.
"Shadow Web," the disembodied voice of Gilfa called.
A web of shadows surrounded Lina and entrapped her. Lina looked at the shadow spell with a bit of confusion.
'I was going to slip back into that shadow dimension through the shadow under my feet, but....'
Lina shrugged and stepped through the net, which promptly collapsed. "Any other tricks?"
Gilfa yelled in shock, "How?"
"I have no idea. First things first. This cult, then I deal with what happened to me," Lina said.
Vedur raised his sword a bit nervously as Lina frowned.
"Is this a private fight?" a voice asked.
Lina's head whipped around. "Zelgadis?"
Zelgadis saw Lina and blinked at both Lina's apparel and the sheen to her skin. "What happened to you and what are you wearing?"
"I'll explain later. First we have to deal with Vedur and Gilfa," Lina said, as she picked up the collapsed Shadow Web spell. 'When I get a hold of Diol, I'll ask questions. But for now, I'll just accept it and use it.'
"Hey Vedur! This Shadow Web spell didn't fit me, how about you try it on?" Lina called, as she tossed the net at Vedur.
Zelgadis' mouth dropped, as the spell energy wrapped around Vedur and held him fast.
"What are you waiting for Zelgadis? Kill him," Lina said, with a bit of exasperation in her voice.
Zelgadis blinked, as he shook his head from the impossible stunt. He slammed the point of his sword through Vedur's neck. Lina frowned and dismissed the Shadow Web, as if it was one of her own spells. Much to Zelgadis and Lina's amazement, Vedur stood up and jerkily walked out of the room.
"I'm going after him. Enemies should have the decency to stay dead after being killed," Lina said, as she raced after Vedur.
Zelgadis looked at the place where Vedur had been wrapped up in the Shadow Web. "What she did is not possible. What has she gotten herself involved with now?"
Sighing, he raced after Lina. He soon caught up with her as she faced off against the walking dead. Lina sourly looked around to find the source of the chanting.
"That's not going to work Gilfa. You already saw that I get out of Shadow Web," Lina said, as she removed the talismans.
Lina put her hand through a potted plant into the shadow dimension and deposited the talismans. She withdrew her hand, as Zelgadis stared at her.
"Digger Bolt!" Gilfa called.
A bolt of lightning struck Lina in the center of her chest. Lina was forced back a couple steps by the force of the spell, but was unharmed by it.
"Hey Zel! Do you have any idea where Gilfa is?" Lina asked.
"No. Wait. I see. I understand now," Zelgadis said, as he charged at Vedur.
Lina shrugged and was about to cast a spell when another voice rang out.
"Flow Break!"
A glowing white symbol appeared on the ground surrounding all four people. Lina felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water over her head from the spell. Zelgadis jumped forward and made some slicing motions through Vedur's body. Lina turned to see who cast the Flow break and idly retrieved her talismans.
"Hello Amelia," Lina said. "Now, we'd better deal with Gilfa."
"He's already dead," Zelgadis said.
"Eh?" Lina asked.
"See for yourself," Zelgadis replied, as he pointed to a hump of flesh on Vedur's back. "He was in there."
"If I had eaten lunch, it would be trying to come up right about now," Lina said, a bit queasy. "If Krotz created this thing, he is one real sicko."
"Miss Lina, We don't have time for this. The enemy could be here at any second," Amelia chimed in.
"Enemy? How many?" Lina asked.
Amelia frowned. "I'm not really sure. I was running to fast from them to get a good look, but there is one we really have to watch out for."
Lina winced, as she asked, "Who?"
Amelia squirmed. "I'm not really sure. I heard one of the cult members say, 'More intruders have arrived!' and then another say 'Let's use the weapon of last resort! Let's unleash him!"
"Unleash?" Lina whispered. 'Anything on a leash is bad news.'
Zelgadis' face was pale with dread. "Hold on! They said they'd unleash him?"
Amelia nodded.
Zelgadis looked at Lina and Amelia and then yelled. "Run!"
"Huh?" Lina said in puzzlement.
"Run, and hurry up about it," Zelgadis called, as he ran for the exit.
"Hey not so fast," Lina called.
"I feel we should run to. It might be for the best," Amelia said, and rushed after Zelgadis.
Lina frowned and cast Raywing and quickly flew after the two of them and swept them into her arms, as she caught up to them. Lina concentrated and poured on the speed.
"I don't know what's going on, but maybe running is for the best," Lina said to her two passengers.
A beam of white light shot up from where the cult's headquarters was. Lina looked down and back and saw a man glaring in their direction.
"That looked like a Dragon Lord's laser breath. I'm not going to be target practice for that. Dil Brit!" Lina called, as she poured some strength into the spell.
A massive cloud of smoke appeared in the area between the cult's headquarters and the retreating trio. Lina grinned wickedly as she could hear the distinct sound of coughing coming from cult compound.
'I managed to aggravate all those loons. Score!'
"Miss Lina, I thought you were using Raywing," Amelia said. "How can you cast another spell while maintaining Raywing?"
"When I get a hold of that crazy old man who did this to me, I'll ask him," Lina replied.
===/\===
Lina landed near a hay barn outside Mane. Lina quickly made some introductions.
"What happened to you Amelia? You never explained that part," Lina asked.
"Nothing interesting. After being captured that Mazenda woman sealed my magic and locked me up in a room. Every so often, I'd test to see if my powers were working or not, but they remained sealed for the longest time. I was starting to wish that old man we encountered did work me as well."
"Uh yeah. After we deal with Krotz, I'm going to deal with him. I take when your magic started working again you blew your way out?" Lina said, shifting a bit at her new nature being brought up.
"Yes. I then ran into some guards and fought my way back in and..." Amelia said.
"That's where we came in," Lina said.
"Wait just a moment here. Are you saying there is someone who can seal spells?" Zelgadis said, as his face started turning an interesting color.
Lina shrugged. "I'm not to sure about that. She was being chased by a priest named Xellos..."
"Xellos! Xellos is here?" Zelgadis shouted, as his face turned a bright purple, despite being gray rock.
Amelia shoved her way between the two chimeras. "All right. That's enough. We're stepping on each other's toes here. I think we need to hear the full story from Mister Zelgadis."
Zelgadis took a deep breath and nodded. "Fine. You've heard about my quest, right?"
Amelia nodded. "You want you human body back."
"Right. I'm not sure it's possible, but I talked to several mages and alchemist about it. I was trying to soften my troubles with wine, when a chemical researcher bumped into me and spilled half his juice in my lap. I'm quite sure it was the first non-alcoholic drink he had all day. He then poured the remaining juice in my cup and told me to separate the two."
Lina nodded. "Theoretically possible, but not easy. I've had this conversation before with probably the best chimera maker around. Stupid old man."
Zelgadis raised an eyebrow at Lina's comment, but pressed on. "At any rate. I went to find a more sober source of information and heard a rumor of the Claire Bible."
"The Claire Bible?" Lina asked, as her intrest picked up.
"Yes. Well, a certain part of it anyway. It supposedly has information on creating a different type of chimera. Now, I have to beat the cult and Xellos to get it," Zelgaids said.
"Beat Xellos? Before or after Hell freeze's over?" Lina asked.
"That's not funny. Right now he's my ally against Krotz. Once Krotz has been dealt with, I'll figure out what to do with Xellos," Zelgadis said.
"Zel, you do know that there is a very large chance the thing is a fake?" Lina asked.
Zelgadis looked at Lina. "Xellos didn't tell you?"
"Here we go. More surprises. Tell the story and I won't interupt," Lina said. 'Do I want my human body back? Hmm. I'll have to think about that.'
"The caretaker of the manuscript was a direct descendent of the high priest in the court of Letidus. The same Letidus that gathered a huge collection of magical knowledge in the king's quest for immortality. The priest supposedly had it when he fled the dying country. One hundred and twenty years ago, one of the caretaker's ancestors had doubts about the manuscript being real and did as it instructed. The results were a complete success, but for whatver reason the chimera he created went on a rampage. I'm sure you heard of it: the Demon Beast Zannifar," Zelgadis explained.
Lina froze in shock. 'Zannifar? The beast that destroyed Sairagg was just a magical experiment gone wrong?'
Amelia looked very pale as she whispered, "Is this stuff true?"
"If the owner wasn't bluffing and creating such a creature is actuall possible than Krotz and his cult..." Lina said, as she felt her stomach start to churn.
"They've already completed it. Zannifar Number Two," Zelgadis said in a short tone. "I didn't think they'd complete it so sonn, but there you have it. By the way, where is Gourry? If the legends are true,only the warrior of the Sword of Light can defeat Zannifar. He's not around is he?"
Amelia stood up and clenched her fist. "It's too early to give up. Even without Mister Gourry, if we combined our strength then...."
"Get over it. You really think we got a shot? Get serious!" Lina interrupted. 'I'm not in the mood for this.'
Amelia sat down and looked at Lina oddly. "I don't know. Exactly how powerful is this chimer going to be?"
Lina let out a slow breath. "There are a few things that we can guess. We know his predecessor destroyed Sairagg. This new oe will have an insane amount of firepower. If he's allowed to attack, he could destroy an entire city. We have to keep him from doing that. If the chimera is that powerful, there is no way the Sword of Lightcould wound him, regardless of the legend. The Sword is powerful, but it's still an imprecise weapon. The weildr wouldn't get close enough to tak a swing at the damn thing. Next, this isn't the same one. It's a new one and an improved one. There's a chance it could go beserk as well. If they made a dozen or two dozen Zannifars to test the manuscript, then we have one ugly situation on our hands. It would make the attack on Sairagg look like a picnic. Finally, it is clear that offensive magic won't work. Sairagg was the City Sorcery and there were probably many mages who could cast Dragon Slave and Zannifar still managed to raze the city. Zannifar must have nearly flawless magic resistance."
"What do you mean magic won't work?" Amelia cried out.
"First, you have to ponder the true meaning of magic," a cheerful voice said.
Lina sighed and looked up at the sky. "Hello Xellos. How did you find us?"
"I homed in on the talismans I sold you Miss Lina," Xellos said. "Now first, as to why magic won't work... No, let's backtrack. What is mana?"
Lina paid close attention to the description of how magic worked and nodded at what Xellos said. She nodded at the desription of how the astral spells like Dragon Slave and Ra Tilt worked and how certain spells would break through into the real worl if the target wasn't alive. At the end of the explanation, Zelgadis asked what this had to do with Zannifar.
"Ah yes. Zannifar has a wall sheilding himself from the astral plane, so spells that work via the astral plane will not work. The silver lining here is that the full power of Shamanisim will work against Zannifar. But, he has hide as strong as an Arc Drgon or even Dragon Lord. His hide alone can deflect human level Shamanistic magic."
Amelia stared at Lina. "What about Miss Lina? Whe was turned into a powerful chimera and her magic has gone up."
Zelgadis stared at Lina. "What?"
Lina shuffled her feet a bit nervously and explained what had happend to her, conviently leaving Diol's name out of it or that fact that the clothes she was wearing was her actual skin. She went into the detail of some of the new powers she had found out and looked at Amelia who had stood up and was about to launch into another speech. Lina calmly stepped on Amelia's shadow and Amelia froze in place.
"A better version of Shadow Snap," Lina muttered. "I'm not in the mood for another speech, Amelia.
"So are you after the manuscript to turn yourself back into a human?" Zelgadis asked.
Lina pursed her lips and shook her head. "As soon as we deal with Krotz, I'm going to track down that crazy old man and find out what he used to turn me into a chimera and exploit it. I've got Mazoku assassins after me for some reason. After I get the Mazoku assassins off my back, I might worry about it. But as you found out, it would be almost impossible to change back. "
Xellos smiled at Lina and pointed to Amelia. "Miss Lina, I think Miss Amelia would like to stop bein a statue."
Lina removed her foot and Amelia glared at Lina. "That wasn't nice Miss Lina."
Lina looked at a large shadow on one wall of the barn. "Zel, Amelia grab hold of my shoulders and don't let go."
Confused, the two did so and Lina walked into the shadow on the wall and dragged Zelgadis and Amelia into the Shadow Realm. Lina shrugged to get the two to remove their hands and turned around. She spread her arms out wide and smiled.
"This is that Shadow Realm I was talking about. We should be safe enough here," Lina said. "And, we can get the drop on Krotz and his cronies through this realm."
"Miss Lina, you're glowing," Amelia softly said.
Lina looked down at herself and shrugged. "So I am. It's not important."
Back at the barn, Xellos stared at the place where Lina and the others vanished.
"This is turning out to be very strange. Lord Beastmaster should really know of this, but she's the only one I'm going to tell. Mazoku assassins? Oh, Gaav. I wish you luck Miss Lina on keeping them from bothering you," Xellos muttered, and vanished into the astral plane.
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(Posted Mon, 29 May 2006 05:31)
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