[FFML] [Slayers]Slayers Born 24-28

The Showdown Begins

"This is worse than Sairaag," Xalan spat as they
worked their way deeper into the wasted island. They
paused in front of a river bed running full with some
sort of golden...substance. Looking closer they
couldn't even tell if it was matter or energy, it just
seemed to be...there.
The discomforting river bed was easily bypassed, but
streams and creeks of the strange substance appeared
with disturbing frequency as they proceeded towards
the shattered mountain from which drifted Martina's
frenzied voice.
"This stuff isn't what I think it is, is it?" Xina
asked.
"It...appears to be the the substance of the Sea of
Chaos," Amethyst said swallowing nervously.
"That's what I thought," Xina said. They paused at the
edge of the crater that sat where, twenty years ago,
stood the stronghold of Xelas Metallium. The golden
rivers ate through the edges of the crater and Xina
and Amethyst peaked through one of the carved river
beds and saw Martina and Zangulus in the center of the
crater standing in front of a golden pool.
"The world is....bleeding." Xalan remarked in mild
disgust at that reality. "We should move now."
"Before they see us," Amethyst agreed, drawing her
sword.
"And what are we waiting for!" Xina snapped, rushing
up and leaping over the edge of the crater.
"Right, in the name of Justice we must put down these
fiends!!!" Amethyst shouted joining her friend in the
charge.
"Don't just rush...damn it! Nevermind," Xalan grumbled
as he followed behind the two girls, quickly passing
ahead of them. Though the great bulk of Val's dragon
form quickly overshadowed them all as they charged the
pair of mazoku.
"Ah, the mortals have arrived," Martina declared,
pausing her incantation to laugh. "Deal with them, my
love."
"My pleasure," Zangulus smirked as he launched
forward, crackling with dark power, floating over the
streams of gold. He paused for a moment as a swarm of
black and silver objects seemed to grow out of nothing
and charge forward obscuring the smaller attackers.
"Interesting trick."
A blade of black energy formed at Zangulus's commands
and sliced through the swarm of bird-like constructs.
The flock swarmed over him, but their incessant
pecking was little more than an annoyance as Zangulus
fought his way through to the mortals beyond.
"ASTRAL VINE!" A blade of glowing red steel flashed
through the constructs at the mazoku behind the birds,
and Zangulus only barely rose his own mazoku formed
blade to block. Then he teleported into the air as a
tremendous claw ripped through where he had been
standing.
"Get the woman!" Xalan shouted as he leapt from the
ground at the floating mazoku, light blades extended
forward. Zangulus dodged the kage-kitsune's first
leaping attack, and a wave of flame and power rose up
at a gesture from him, between the dragon and his
mistress.
"Xalan-san! RAYWING!!" Amethyst lifted off the ground
and snatched the Metallium before he could land in the
inferno. "You should be more careful about where you
jump."
"The fire wasn't there when I jumped," Xalan protested
dryly.
"Getting to her is harder than it sounds!" Val roared
backwinging away from another attack and turning to
release a blast of laser breath at the mazoku.
"Good try," Zangulus smirked as he blinked away from
the blast appearing next to the flying chimera and her
passenger.
"OH, BLOODY!! DROP!!" Everybody stopped and starred at
Amethyst for a moment. "Don't ANYONE tell my father
about that!!"
"Whatever," Zangulus said. The mazoku pulled out a
scroll and started scanning it. "Where were we?"
"Amethyst just cursed and yelled 'drop'," a female
voice called out from somewhere. No one bothered to
note that Xina seemed to have vanished.
"Oh, thanks," Zangulus. Then the mazoku looked about
for a little while "What are we doing?"
"Breaking the fourth wall," Val said. "It sometimes
happens about this point in a Slayers battle."
"Can we get back to the action please?" Martina
demanded, tapping her foot irritably.
"Right, Oh my! Drop!" Amethyst shouted.
"That's not what you said before," Xina shouted from
where ever she was.
"Can we just get on with this?!" Amethyst said
exasperated. "Before the author picks on me anymore?"
Everybody shrugged and then Zangulus slashed out at
the flying pair with his blade of black energy.
Amethyst cut her Raywing and Xalan dropped to the
ground narrowly avoiding the attack.
"You have no chance, mort..omph!!" Zangulus turned to
face the dragon that had rammed him from behind and
smiled. "I guess I should pay more attention to the
lizard."
"Watch who, you're calling a lizard!" Val roared
gripping the mazoku in his claw and trying to crush
him. Zangulus almost casually held out his hands to
stop the claw from closing in on him and met the
dragon's glare with a relaxed smile.
~Fools,~ Martina thought as she continued breaking the
seal to her lord and master, the monster Zomalgustar,
who would devour all. ~Let them play with my general,
even when they lay him low they will be too late to
stop me.~
The pool of gold in front of her started to bubble
upward as Martina's high pitched laughing approached a
crescendo. She noticed out of the corner of her eye,
that bitch Lina's son charging towards her, while her
general was playing with the dragon above. The chimera
was gathering power for an attack of some kind, as
well. Her hand was upraised with her fingers extending
downward, as if she were drawing power from the
ground.
~ZANGULUS!! You moron!! You left them alone to long!~
Martina shouted telepathically. The male mazoku turned
away from the dragon and looked down to see events
happening.
"Sorry, lizard, don't have time to play," the demon
smirked before blinking out, letting Val's claws, he
had been using both now, clapped shut. The mazoku
appeared in front of the onrushing kage-kitsune and
summoned his black blade again. "Where do you think
you're going?"
"ELMEKIA COMET!!" Amethyst shouted, slamming her hand
downwards in an arc, Martina, paused in her
incantation again to see a streak of energy rip from
above her into her general. Then the chimera
improvised another spell. "ELMEKIA VINE!!" The chimera
blurred and slashed out with the speed born of her
mazoku blood, quicker than even the two true mazoku
could register.
Xalan paused only a moment to watch Amethyst's charge
slowly lose its momentum as the mazoku tried to
recover the initiative. The chimera princess's blade
shone a blue white as she slashed and parried in a
dance that only appeared frenzied. The constant flow
of conflicting battle strategies flowed through
Xalan's subconscious by virtue of hie empathic
talents, and he knew Amethyst was outmatched in both
skill in power. He glanced up and saw the dragon
descending again and nodded. Amethyst had help, and
stopping Martina was more important.
~That idiot,~ Martina growled. Behind her the golden
pool grew brighter and started rapidly bubbling. ~I'll
have to help him if I want to finish this.~ Martina
turned to face her attackers, not noticing the silvery
black bird that settled on the ground behind her. Not
noticing Xina rising out of the shadow until something
jerked on the staff she had finally retrieved.
"Excuse me," Xina smirked. "But I believe that is
mine!"
"You little tramp!" Martina growled, turning to blast
away the impudent mortal. Then the pool exploded and
all was gold for a brief second. As the light cleared
away Martina saw neither of Lina's brats, nor the
staff, and the pool formed of the Sea of Chaos had
vanished as well. All that remained was a great crater
within the crater of the shattered mountain. Then
there was the tell tale sign of a dimensional gate
closing.
The dragon and her general had been in the air when
the explosion had occured, and now, were laying
stunned across the field of battle. Martina turned to
face the only other standing individual, the
ivory-skinned chimera wielding a blade still glowing
with spiritual power.
"They're gone," Amethyst said quietly, then looked
down at the ground and clenched her fists. The chimera
held in her tears and then snapped her head up. "I
know who you are! You killed my grandfather, you
cursed Lina-sama, you're trying to destroy the world,
and you TOOK XALAN-SAN!!" Martina smirked at the wave
of rage and anger that wafted from the chimera, and
then gasped as the chimera was suddenly in front of
her and swinging a sword.

Xalan suddenly found himself in a strange world
standing next to his sister. At first it seemed to be
gray as far as the eye could see, and then he saw that
same golden substance from before. There was almost a
sea here, and he sensed that it should not be here.
"No, it should be inside me," a voice said. Xalan
whirled to see a blonde woman leaning against a rock
and clutching her side as the golden substance seemed
to flow out. "That little rogue is trying to finish
what her old master started, this will take me
centuries to heal."
"Who are you?" Xalan asked. Xina crossed in front of
him.
"L-Sama," she gasped.
"What?" Xalan snapped, in shock.
"Of course," the woman smirked.

*****************************************************************************

Elf Lords

The wood elf turned at the sound of what he thought
was a twig snapping. Sure this was the far back lines,
but there was always the chance that some enemy could
be lurking about behind the lines. He relaxed when he
saw, heard and smelled nothing. He had to get back to
the front there was nothing out here to watch for.
"Are we there yet!?" a peevish childish voice asked.
The elf whirled around to see two humans and a high
elf standing behind him. He had to wonder how the
child, who was obviously not very concerned with
stealth, hadn't alerted him to their presence.
"Is there a place I can leave non-combatants nearby?"
the older human, a dark-haired boy in his late teens.
He looked familiar to the elf.
"You're Gabriev's son!" the elf declared suddenly.
"Yessss," Jol said slowly as if speaking to a child.
"Non-combatants, some place relatively safe. Does any
of this ring any bells?"
"There's the field hospital," the elf said, shaking
off the surprise. "How did you get so close to me?"
"The clouded mind sees nothing," Tinuviel said in
silibant voice while producing a small light spell
under her chin. The elf just looked at her blankly.
"What?" Jol asked. "Is that?"
"Something I read in a book once," Tinu said. "I
always wanted to get a chance to say that."
"Oh kay," Jolrael said. "Look, just direct me to the
field hospital and we can both get into..." Jolrael
looked up and past the elf. "SHIT! And let's get that
done quickly, we have more company coming." The human
pointed up at the approaching storm front.
"It's just a..."
"No it's not just a storm." Jol said.
"Then wha..."
"A whole bunch of minor mazoku I think," Jolrael
interrupted the elf again.
"The fiel..."
"The field hospital is that way?" Jol asked pointing.
The elf nodded. "Thanks."
"How do.."
"How do I do what?" Jol asked innocently. "Come on we
don't have time to be sitting around here discussing
parlor tricks, let's go!"
"How much further?" Kyrie whined as Jolrael seemed to
vanish back into the woods. The elf followed closely
behind, though he soon lost sight of the trio.
"Where'd they go?"

Fimore glanced to his rear line, past where he assumed
the wood elven rebels were stationed. There was a
storm forming on the horizon, a storm with a
particular taint emanating from it.
"Mazoku," he spat.

"Just what we need," Zelgadis sighed as the aftermath
of his last Dug Haut left him a little breathing room.
"A fourth army to join this mess."
"What army are you talking about, milord? It's just a
storm," one of the magicians next to him said.
"No they're demons, and they're heading this way,
spread the word," Zelgadis said dryly. "If it wasn't a
free for all before, its about to become one."

"Oh dear, that is not a natural storm," Sylphiel
sighed as she looked from the soldier she was healing.
Then she felt something approach, something that
didn't want to be noticed. She turned toward the edge
of the tree line and watched as her son appeared out
of the woods along with his sister and the elf-girl,
Tinuviel.
"Jolrael! And Kyrie!!" Sylphiel shouted. "You're
safe!!" Sylphiel rushed across the field, nimbly
avoiding bumping into anybody, and swept her children
into a hug. "Oh we thought you were gone, dear."
"But I was just with that strange man in the hat,"
Kyrie said. "He gets mad a lot!" Kyrie giggled.
"Mom," Jol sighed. "I'm going to have to go fight
now."
"Of course," Sylphiel said reluctantly, releasing her
children and accepting her daughter, who was perfectly
happy at being transferred. "Oh my poor dear. Thank
Ceipheed you're all right," Sylphiel sighed and turned
to Tinuviel. "Hakubi-san, (AN: another series
reference nobody got the first time I posted this) its
good to see you healthy as well." Sylphiel nodded.
"I don't see how we were in any danger," Tinuviel
said, though the hesitation in her normal cheerful
demeanor indicated she may not have felt it. "That
storm has moved very quickly since we first saw it,
though. So we might have trouble soon."
"I was already planning on an attempt to evacuate the
hospital," Sylphiel said. "Lina and your father are
near the front, where's every one else?"
"Most of them are chasing after Zangulus and Martina,"
Jol explained. "There are two more of us here, but I'm
not certain you know them. They're probably already
fighting by now." Jol said.
"Don't be too reckless, Jolrael," Sylphiel commanded
him as he turned towards the sounds of battle.
"I'm never reckless," Jolrael said. "I leave that to
other people." He waved and vanished into the forest
with a smirk.
"Excuse me," a elf said, stumbling into the clearing.
"Did three people just, oh, they're here already."

The sounds of battle reaching Jolrael's ears were just
transforming from an overall din into the sound of
individual skirmishes when the storm hit. In mere
instants the place was blanketed with snow an inch
deep, quickly growing from there. The white against
the bright, vibrant greens and browns of the forests
were mentally jarring.
Jol paused in walking as the first of the mazoku
descended. Three of the creatures, like the one
before. Jolrael shrugged as he drew his sword and
readied himself to face the monsters.
"I was holding back the last time I fought one of
you," Jol said to grimmly smiling creature. "Not this
time."
"Do not bluff uhhhfff..." the speaking demon was
tossed backwards through a tree, bringing the great
plant down between the other two mazoku. "...mortal."
The ice demon stood up and glowered at Jolrael.
"I don't bluff," Jolrael said simply before charging
forward.

Lord Fimore hesitated a moment before slicing through
one of the mazoku that had added there presence to the
field.
"Another Elf Lord," he muttered. "With the rebels!"
The scion of House Feanor turned back from the human
lands began to rush back through the ranks, what
little rank there was now. Absently destroying the
swarming ice demons that were tearing apart his
forces, assuming they came in his reach at least. He
paused only a moment before deciding that his
sorcerers and assorted magicians were holding their
own against the demons.
Fimore had bigger problems to deal with than a few
minor spirits.

"This is perhaps good news," Zelgadis said as he
blasted another demon out of existence. "There are
more of the high elves than there are of us. The
demons are a bigger problem for them. Remind me to
send Dynast a thank you message."
"Wouldn't that be dangerous for the messenger,
milord?"
Zelgadis turned to look at the young soldier.
"That was a joke."
"Oh, uh okay."
Zelgadis was sorely lacking people capable of
recognizing his sarcasm.

Lina smiled, a truly terrifying thing in the fourth
aspect. At the moment she lived for battle and battle
alone. And the addition of a few hundred demons to the
battle field was very satisfying. Especially since the
demons tended to occupy the minds of the enemy
spellcasters long enough for her or one of the other
surviving werefoxes to get close enough to kill them.
Lina ripped a demon apart, not bothering to use her
fangs. She had discovered that they did not taste very
good. After the demon fell she noticed a new change in
the air and the surprise shocked her enough that she
regained the second aspect. The fox woman glanced
around, ignoring the expressions on the various faces
of soldiers who suddenly realized that a very
attractive, if furry, and very nude, woman seemed to
have suddenly materalized in their midsts.
"That smells like...," Lina started.
"Lina-chan! Put some clothes on," a voice snapped from
behind her. "Really, how long have you been living in
that forest of yours?" Lina turned to face her sister,
actually out of uniform for the first time since she
could remember. Luna faced an oncoming unit of elves
and casually cast a mega brando that scattered the lot
of them.
"Oneesama? What are you doing here?" Lina demanded.
"Lina, clothes," Luna insisted. The woman materialized
a thick bulky robe and tossed it at her sister. "That
should survive your transformation."
"Okay," she put the robe on quickly, not wanting to
aggravate her sister. "Now, uh, why are you here?"
Lina asked bervously, making sure they were still in a
calm area for now.
"I missed work," Luna said coldly. "Since you are
properly attired, well as close as possible anyway, I
think its time we both returned to the battle." The
woman rose up off the ground and into the sky, the
mazoku formed storm clearing as far as a mile away
from her. Following Luna's aerial departure there were
a number of large, very large, explosions.
"I think that's good news," Lina muttered to herself
before she began to seek out more opponents. The
former sorceress grew and dropped to all fours for
more speed as shifted into the fourth aspect to hunt.

Jolrael felt the fool heading his way, they would meet
soon. Him and the Elf Lord, the absolute epitomy of
all that he despised about his distant relatives. The
arrogance, the superiority, the supreme hubris that so
many of them displayed to anybody that wasn't an elf,
and quite a few who were. Jolrael smiled quietly as he
considered the coming meeting and easily sidestepped a
pair of elven warriors.
Then he was there, and the way opened up between the
two. The Elf Lord regarded his opponent and sneered.
"A boy, a mere HUMAN child?" he growled. "By what evil
power do you bear an Elf Lord's power, boy?"
"I'd assume genetics," Jolrael said as he hefted his
blade.
"Genetics, what magic is this?" The Elf Lord started
circling him.
"Another word for heredity," Jol explained. "Much as I
hate to admit it, I do have the blood of you stinking,
haughty elves in my history."
"An abomination," Fimore spat. "When I return I shall
have all of mixed blood hunted down to extinction.
Humans are not meant for such power."
"Apparently we are," Jol smirked. They barely noticed
the appearance of Luna Inverse's power in the
battlefield, so concerned they were with each other.
The two swordsmen stopped moving and suddenly they
exploded into bright, shimmering lights as they
charged forward. Two men engaged immediately in two
battles. One a battle of swordsmanship, the other one
of clashing minds.

****************************************************************************

Dual Duel

"Can you split your mind?" the Elf Lord asked with a
smirk as his young opponent's image manifested in the
blank no-man's land between their minds. Jolrael
shrugged negligently.
"I believe so," Jol said dryly as his opponent
frowned. "Or did you just discover that on your own."
He dropped into a fighting stance, his blade
appearing in his hands. The Elf Lord snorted.
"You're experience is obviously lacking, boy," the Elf
Lord declared as the gray sky of the mindscape began
to blacken. "This is not like a sword fight." Jol
charged the arrogantly standing Elf Lord as the
lightning crashed down from the sky and into him.
The Elf Lord smirked at the resulting dust cloud and
prepared to lay an assualt on the part of Jolrael's
mind that was fighting physically. Until he realized
that there shouldn't have been a dust cloud. He
glanced about and barely lept out of the way of a
whipping strike as his opponent rose up out of the
ground slashing.
"It seems you've learned some of the tricks after
all," Fimore said reluctantly. He willed his image
back away from the sword bearing youth.
"Whatever works," Jolrael said, smirking. The Elf
Lord seemed bored as the predictable sword swings
battered against the field he had erected.
~The fool doesn't understand the subtleties of the
mindscape,~ the Elf Lord thought to himself.
~Predictable of a human. Just a mindless bug that
can't truly think beyond the flesh.~
"You really should take me more seriously," Jolrael
warned as he circled around to find an opening in the
Elf Lord's barrier.
"You are a skilled swordsman, boy," the Elf Lord
sneered. "But you are pathetic in this realm of
combat. I shall crush you like a bug." Jolrael
paused as he felt the ground shaking underneath him,
just before a tremor split the ground under his feet.
The swordsman dropped into the crack, Fimore didn't
see the smirk as Jol vanished from sight.
Jolrael hovered just under the lip of the crack for a
moment, before rising swiftly into the mindscape's
sky. He beat the crack closing back up by only a few
moments. Jolrael dropped, sword construct leading the
way. The Elf Lord extended his barrier to cover the
new direction of attack, and Jol had to swerve his
dive to avoid crashing into it.
"At least your defense is much better than your
offense," Fimore nearly yawned in boredom. He had
this measely little mortal on the run. All was as it
should be.
Jolrael landed smoothly and turned to face the Elf
Lord, adopting an appropriately grim face. He shifted
his blade almost absently in his hand. He smiled
again.
"You really should take me more seriously."

In the battle, the new sorceress was becoming obvious
to the Sailoon front of the battle.
"What is going on over there?" a soldier asked the
mage next to him as there was suddenly a huge movement
in the middle of the battlefield. A mass of elves and
ice demons both seemed to be running full tilt away
from somthing. In the haste of their flight, the high
elves and ice demons didn't seem to care that they
were supposed to be fighting each other as well.
"It looks like a woman in a tunic and breeches," the
mage said, curiously. Then the ground underneath one
of the fleeing flanks suddenly exploded upward into
the largest digu volt ever recorded. "M...m.m...must
be a sorceress."
"She has purple hair, doesn't she," both Sailoon
citizens turned to face the Regent in total surprise.
"Yes, why is that important?" The mage asked.
"Never mind, just withdraw and find another flank to
fight," he turned away with a tired and strained
grimace that could have been a smile on his face.
"And LUNA makes FIVE armies."

A few miles away two swordsman fought each other in a
wide space devoid of any other fighting. It hadn't
started as a clearing, but in the space of time since
they had started the duel, the space had been mostly
cleared of trees. Most of the topsoil, and a great
deal of the ground underneath it.
"A pity your mind is not as well-trained as your
body," Fimore huffed. "This would be a much more
interesting battle, if that were the case."
"Well, I could give you interesting," Jolrael said,
catching his breath as well. "But I prefer to win."
"Typical human," the Elf Lord scoffed as he came in on
the attack again. "Thinking brute force will carry
the day." The swordplay continued towards a draw.

On the mindscape Fimore seemed almost completely in
control as the mutually designed world about them was
warped according to his whims. All the while he
stayed safely in his little barrier.
"That's right little man," he laughed out loud. "Try
to run while you still can. You shall only die
tired." Jolrael ignored the commentary as he brought
his sword down on the elf's barrier. The feeling of
rigidity and resilience was much greater than when it
had been first raised. Jolrael couldn't help but
smile. His enemy had been reinforcing the mental
tower the entire time.
"You really should have taken me more seriously,"
Jolrael said as he dodged to the side of another
lightning blast. The swordsman thrust his blade into
the ground and smirked at the curious Elf Lord. It
was a split second later that streamers of
sharp-pointed metal erupted from the ground just
inside the barrier.
"Elbereth!!" The Elf Lord cried as the metal obscured
him from sight, curving inward at the top of the
barrier. All that followed was a muffled scream that
was cut off in choking gasp.
"One half down," Jol smirked as he willed his mind
forward to seek Fimore's remaining manisfestation.
One that would be engaged in fighting a battle of
swords.

"Surprised?" Jol asked as he pressed his attacks
forward. "I don't see why you should be." The Elf
Lord said nothing as he parried and riposted, all
initiative lost. Asusming he'd ever had it.
"How could you defeat me!" he said finally.
"Did you really think my offense would be so much
poorer than my defensive skills," Jolrael asked. "I
liked the way you'd shape the mindscape to announce
every attack you were going to make." He added
enthusiastically. "I suppose I needed all the help I
could get."
"You insign..ack!" The Elf Lord winced, and his stance
was suddenly non-existant.
"Can you fight on two fronts with only one point of
concentration," Jolrael asked. A twist of his blade
sliced through the sword gripped lifelessly in the Elf
Lord's hands.
Jol smirked as the Elf began to return somewhat to
awareness of the physical world. He snapped forward
at Fimore's knee with his foot, and the joint snapped
under the pressure. The Elf Lord toppled and shrieked
for a moment before an answering smirk appeared on his
face.
"I guess not," both Jol and the Elf Lord said at once
as Fimore's body calmly sat on its knees in front of
the young man. The two continued to speak in one
voice as Jol set his blade in front of Fimore's
throat. "I could kill you now, better yet, I could
have you kill yourself. Understand that in there?"
Both of them snorted in amusement, as if a third
person had spoken.
"But I'm not going to do it," the two said together.
"You are, however, going to command an end to this
war. Provided we deal with the mazoku, of course."
They eerily laughed once in unison. Then the Elf Lord
stopped and he glared in outright hatred at the young
man in front of him.
"You dare mock a scion of House Feanor?"
"I mock almost everybody," Jolrael said honestly, then
shivered. "Except Luna Inverse, tried that once,
didn't turn out too well. Now shall we find one of
your mages or do we have to tell every bleeding high
elf individually that you've surrendered." Fimore
just glared at him.

*************************************************************************

Martina's Fall

"You're our creator?" Xina gasped.
"Yes," the blonde woman smirked, until a straight bolt
of blue lightning struck the gray non-ground next to
her. L-Sama glanced at where the lightning struck and
sweated. Xina and Xalan edged close enough to see
writing as the gray swirled around the writing.
"That's odd, usually it's yellow."
"What's it say?" Xalan asked.
"'In a manner of speaking'" L-Sama read aloud. Her
eyes narrowed as she considered something. "If I
didn't know better..." The sound of another lightning
bolt carried through the strange realm along with a
shocked scream.
"What was that?" Xina asked nervously staring at the
creator of her world.
"A white-haired joker."[AN: yet another reference
nobody noticed first time around] L-Sama smirked,
crossing her arms as she stood up.
"Uh, Okay," Xina said setting her father's staff
across her shoulders and wrapping her arms around it.
"No snappy quips?" L-Sama didn't seem to be in pain,
despite the steady flow of golden blood from her body.
"No superior, secretive smiles? A little nervous in
front of the Lord of Nightmares. Though, even your
father was appropriately cowed before me." The blonde
laughed. ~Until he died and became a real pain.~
"Is there anyway you can um, send us back home?"
"There's something I want you to do for me first,"
L-sama said softly with a hint of a teasingly cute
whine. Xina and Xalan sweatdropped as the woman
smirked and giggled.
"You have to ask us?" Xalan said blinking.
"No, I can force you to do pretty much anything I want
you to do," L-Sama said. ~For the moment at least.~ "I
just thought I'd have a little fun and try to convince
you to do it. Or do you prefer to do it the hard way?"
She smirked viciously at them. "I suppose I owe your
father for this." She gestured at the bleeding hole.
"I seem to remember the alternative being the
destruction of all four universes," another voice put
in. L-sama rolled her eyes at the new arrivals.
"Dad!" Xina gasped. "This is..."
"The Lord of Nightmares," Xellos nodded from his perch
in the tree that was just suddenly there. "And she
hasn't let up on that little scratch for the last
twenty years."
"That's our father?" Xalan asked. Then he narrowed his
eyes. "Who's the woman?"
"Why Xalan-san?" Amelia said sweetly. "Don't I remind
you of anyone you know?"
"Amethyst's mother?!" Xalan nearly shouted.
"Is the other guy here somewhere?" Xina asked glancing
around.
"That's what we're here to talk about Xina-Chan,"
L-Sama smiled recovering from growling at Xellos. "Its
part of that favor I was going to ask of you."
"Oh?" Xina asked nervously.
"You see there is this little battle going on over the
continued existence of the multi-verse," L-Sama said.
"And I certainly agree with letting the multi-verse,
and me coincidentally, continue existing. But since
they choose my universe, which again, coincidentally,
happens to BE me, as their battleground, I feel I have
to alter the plans just a little."
"And what does that have to do with us?" Xalan asked.
L-Sama smiled and gestured to the souls of the dead
Slayers.
"You're being sent to a battle you're expected to
lose," Amelia informed them. "Sacrificed in the name
of justice and all that is good in existence."
~Definitely Amethyst's mother.~ Xina and Xalan thought
in unison.
"Which would be okay, if he were doing the sacrificing
himself," Amelia clarified.
"Instead of my family," Xellos said irritably.
Everybody looked expectantly at L-Sama.
"Hey," she shrugged, a little bored. "I just want to
get a little bit of a revenge for setting this battle
in my world, which AGAIN, I'll remind people is made
up of MY being."
"So what are we going to do?" Xina asked, glancing at
the two spirits and one goddess.
"We're going reroute the source of all things," L-Sama
said casually.

"AAAHH!!!" Martina blinked out of the charging
chimera's way. "You little brat, you almost ruined my
hair!" Martina shouted from her position a few dozen
feet up in the air. She brought her hands together and
black bands of what seemed to be dark lightning
coruscated across her body before launching at the
chimera dodging below.
"In the name of all that is good I will take you down,
monster!" Amethyst shouted, unaware that her mother's
spirit was saying something similar at almost the
exact same time. "Elmekia Lance!! Elmekia Lance!!"
Martina cackled as the spirit blasts collided with a
near-invisible shield.
"You'll have to better than that, little girl,"
Martina sniped. "In a matter of moments Zangulus is
going to recover, I doubt your pet dragon will recover
in that time. I don't think you can handle me alone,
much less me and my general." Black bands of lightning
flashed out from the green-haired menace ripping up
clouds of dust as they traveled across the ground
converging on Amethyst.
"Levitate!!" Amethyst shot into the sky and cut off
the spell as she past the mazoku. She wanted to give a
short speech, but she needed her voice for spell
casting. The chimera pointed herself and her sword
straight down at the floating mazoku. "BRAM BLAZER!!"
"What do you think you are doing?" Martina asked as a
blast of blue power and energy slammed into her. The
mazoku was slammed into the ground shortly before her
shield gave way. She irritably reformed herself into
standing as she looked to where her opponent was still
falling, descent momentarily halted by her spell.
"AAAHHH!!!"
Martina dodged out of the way of the blade and then
growled at the chimera recovering from landing.
"You almost cut my hair again!!" Martina snapped.
"You mean like this?" Amethyst growled back. She
snapped her hands together, sword temporarily embedded
in the ground.
"What do you think you are doing?" Martina asked
again.
"Bram Fang!" A blast of wind ripped past the mazoku's
head. The demon felt something brush bast her skin and
hesitantly reached a hand up to pat her bare head. She
looked down to see her feet surrounded by green hairs
which were rapidly dissipating into black energy.
"You, you...you BITCH!!" Martina snapped. "Bram
Fang!!" The mazoku stared as a non-pulsed chimera let
the wind blow past her "hair." Both noticed that the
magical wind didn't even shift the strands of wire.
"Was that supposed to do something?" Amethyst asked
dryly.
"This isn't fair!!" Martina whined stomping her feet.
"HA!! Justice is triumphant again!!" Amethyst declared
loudly. "Elmekia Vine!!"
The chimera slashed out with her sword again,
irritated as Martina ducked under the swing. Then the
now-bald mazoku whipped up and slammed a fist into the
surprised chimera. Amethyst had about two seconds of
uncontrolled flight to think about what her mistake
had been before she landed hard on the ground.
Amethyst was trying to shake her head clear and guage
how far she had been thrown, when the wave of darkness
ripped across the ground towards her. She whipped her
arms forward and raised a field of power in front of
the attack. The spell was easily overwhelmed and
shattered, but Amethyst was already airborne by the
time it had done so.
The ivory-skinned girl reached a hand under her tunic
to discover that her stone flesh had actually cracked.
She was even bruising a little. The princess swallowed
and wondered what might have happened if Martina
possessed a brain and knew how to do more than just
randomly lash out. Speaking of the mazoku, Amethyst
barely dropped out of the way as she felt the demon
materialize behind her.
A blast of dark fire ripped over her head as she
landed. Amethyst's response was a fireball into the
loudly cackling demon. The chimera painfully sprinted
across the battle field again trying to buy time and
space while Martina was distracted by the fireball.
She glanced at the stunned combatants and noted that
Zangulus was moving, Martina was right, and soon she'd
have to deal with two of these monsters.
"Source of all souls which dwell in eternal and
infinite." Amethyst brought her hands together as she
quickly began chanting.
"Just one fireball, you little brat?" Martina snapped.
"Lina would have used at least three."
"Everlasting flame of blue, let the power hidden in my
soul be called forth from the Infinite..."
"What do you think you are doing?"
"RA-TILT!" The spiritual blast struck Martina and the
mazoku screamed in pain and rage as she dropped to the
ground. Amethyst didn't bother to watch, she knew the
Ra-Tilt wasn't powerful enough to do more than delay
Martina. It was enough of a delay, however, to cast a
spell she doubted that anyone would even suspect that
she knew.
"Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that
flows;" Amethyst chanted quietly and calmly.
"THAT HURT!!!" Martina gasped as she wobbily stood up,
a thin stream of black energy bleeding into the air
around her. She shook her head out as she glanced
about and tried to fix on that annoyingly familiar
buzzing sound she was hearing.
"Buried in the flow of time; in Thy great name, I
pledge myself to darkness!"
"Hey, I've heard that before," Martina noted
curiously. She finally found Amethyst and cackled as
she saw Amethyst gathering powering. "What do you
think you are doing?" One would think that Martina
would learn to stop asking that and just attack, but,
oh well.
"Those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power
you and I possess! DRAGU SLAVE!!"
"SHIMATTA!!" Martina managed as she finally recognized
the spell, by virtue of seeing it wave over her in its
characteristicly destructive manner. "ZOMALGUSTAR WILL
YET PREVAAAAILLL!!" Martina assured Amethyst as the
chimera's spell destroyed her completely.
Amethyst tried to turn to face where she knew Zangulus
was about to rise and slumped to her knees instead.
She managed a glance at the stunned pair before
exhaustion and injury took command and Amethyst
slipped into unconsciousness.

******************************************************************************

Angels, Goddesses, and Mortals

Xina looked about as the grayness began to fade away
in the face of their enemy.
L-sama had told her this would happen, that she would
have to cross over astral
realms formed by this Michael Osano-Wo person that was
out to destroy the
universe. She gathered shadow about her and crept
through the ever more stormy terrain.

The fox girl felt naked without the behir-scale armor
she had "borrowed" from her mother. If all went
according to plan, as the shade next to her pointed
out, she wouldn't be the one to need it, but still, it
had been more than a year since she had been without
it.

"So where is this 'source' and how do we move it,"
Xina demanded quietly
slipping along the barren, war torn land that was
forming around her.

"Sore wa himitsu desu," her partner said simply.

"Amelia-san," Xina sighed. "You've been hanging around
my father too long."

"You could be right," Amelia admitted, shrugging. The
sky above them suddenly broke into great crack of
thunder. Then it was as if the sky were cut open and a
sea fell through, the entire manufactured terrain was
innudated with rain.

"I think he's here," Xina said swallowing. She glanced
about looking for motion in the sudden darkness.

Xina had never been in a darkness that she could not
see through, even
now, but it was not the darkness that impaired her
vision. It was the constant,
abrupt and powerful white flashes of lightning that
glared out all features. There was nothing to smell,
as usual in this world, and the thunder did a good job
of ruining her hearing. She couldn't even locate the
moon. There was none, and that was the most disturbing
thing about this place.

"How do we know when he sees us anyway?" Xina asked.

The fox-girl's answer came in the form of a thick bolt
of lightning that
struck nearly on top of her. She yelped as she bounced
away from the point of
explosion and turned to look at Amelia who didn't seem
too worried.

"I'd say he sees us," Amelia said. "Now we can put
this monster down and see that the cause of justice is
served."

"Says the woman who's already dead," Xina muttered.
The fox-girl glanced
about, crouched low in a bit of self-made shadow and
nearly hugging the ground.
At first she could discern nothing, and then the
lightning let up for a brief moment and she identified
the humanoid form standing several yards away.

"This is what the Angel of Death sends against me," a
voice roared,
seeming almost thunder itself. "A dead soul and a
mortal child. The fool always
was far too enamored of you pathetic little pests."

"So now what?" Xina asked.

"You're Xellos's daughter, and you're asking me what
to do," Amelia said,
surprised. "You need to get him to show the Waste."

"Yeah, okay, and how do I..." Xina paused a moment,
then shrugged.
"Worth a try. If we're such pathetic little pests, why
the flaming light show!"

"You're right, demon-spawn," a quieter, but not much
quieter, voice said as
the storm seemed to split around Amelia and Xina. She
turned to see an
impressive warrior standing at the edge of the storm's
new eye. The man's silver armor was etched in a
lightning design and he carried a great spear formed
of some radiant yellowish material. The man's hair was
an electric, gleaming blue and silver. He stood head
and shoulders taller than Xina, looking down at her
from a cloud-pale face.

The only thing dark about the man was his expression.
He appeared to be,
of all things, bored. He stood still and inactive
seemingly more out of having
nothing to do than because he was stoic. His lip was
curled in a derisive sneer as he looked over what he
considered to be a creature of darkness.

Xina's ears flicked lightly as she was distracted from
Michael Osano-Wo's
arrival by what she thought was the moon. The strange
thing was, that it seemed to be on the same level as
she was. It was moving, to, stalking in the rain.
Suddenly she knew what it was she was sensing and
immediately turned her thoughts away it, focusing on
her enemy.

"There is no need to be afraid of you two," the
warrior of light said
humorlessly. "An unfettered soul might be
indestructible, but you're hardly more than a talking
image so that does not matter. You can simply have the
privilidge of watching me destroy my enemies. For a
short time at least, it might take me millennia to
finish this sortie."

"This what?" Xina blinked. The shimmering man put his
face into his hand
and shook his head.

"He means a battle, dear," Amelia supplied.

"Oh, okay," Xina nodded. "Just who are you fighting
anyway? And what's
it got to do with us?" The man rose his head and
smiled evilly.

"Behold!" he waved his hand and the window on the
waste appeared, stuck
into it was the Staff of Xellos. Where the Staff hung
in midair the thin layer of energy about the window
was dissipating, fading away. "The Vagabond locked
this gateway well, all this effort to protect the
monstrosities within. I have been forced to sacrifice
my own sister to finally destroy those abominations.
And I STILL had to bring aid from you insects."

"That's the Waste right?" Xina asked, aware that the
stalking form in the
shadows was moving closer.

"If your father hadn't locked the key in that staff,
I'd al..." the Michael
paused. "What? Oh yes, that's the Waste." He then
attempted to continu with his villian monologue.

"Thanks!" Xina said cheerfully and zipped for the
portal.

"I haven't finished speaking yet!" the renegade angel
roared and the thunder
crackled off his body, streaming toward her. It never
reached her, the blast was suddenly intercepted by a
red-haired fox-man in a outfit of glittering blue
armor.
The lightning coruscated over the armor for a moment
before fading into it as the armor's shine grew
brighter.

"Do what you have to do," Xalan snapped. "Light come
forth!!" The
blades of Xalan's claw flared to life, and continued
to pull power from the ambient magic of the non-place.

"You seek to battle light with light!" the Michael
declared increduously.
"You are a fool!" The "man" faded into a semi-humanoid
form of bluish lightning
as he charged for Xalan. Xalan barely dodged out of
the way as the angel charged past him.

Osano-Wo formed back into a man shortly after passing
the kage-kitsune
and slashed back with his spear. The claw of light
reached up to black the
haphazard strike and then descended again to block
another. And the Michael was
still just playing.

"I will carve you into bite size pieces and then send
your sister into the
Waste that she seems so interested in," the snarling
power declared as he pushed Xalan's skill and power.
Xalan rolled to the side, and the Michael followed
with his spear. As the white metal pierced through
what he thought was Xalan, the kage-kitsune smirked,
and passed harmlessly through the weapon.

Osano-Wo was still trying to figure it out when
another Xalan slashed a
line of cuts across his side. They stung fiercely, but
healed quickly enough. The renegade glanced about and
suddenly realized that there were two fox-boys
fighting him.

"Xellos," the angel sneered. "You really are a pest."
Neither of the Xalans
moved to comment on the angel's discovery.

******

"What the hell do we do now?" Xina demanded standing
by the Staff but not yet
touching it.

Amelia smiled serenly and turned away from Xina. A
second portal
opened up and Amelia could almost feel it calling for
her to join it. Of course the Source would open for
any unfettered soul considering joining its populace.
It would also open for any newly dead soul, which
direction had lain the Vagabond's plans.

"Bring the Staff to the Source," Amelia shouted as she
pulled away from
the second portal. Darkness and light alike wafted
from each window, or so it
seemed. But as Xina considered Amelia's instructions
she realized that was not the case.

The darkness and light coming from the Source had
substance, and she
almost thought she heard a stream of voices. The Waste
instead seemed to be
sucking things in, leaving empty tears of black and
white. She only hesitated a
moment longer before taking the Staff.

She pulled, and the Waste followed her. Had she
glanced back she would
have seen many great and distorted things struggling
through the emptiness towards the opening window.
Things that might once have had a recognizable shape,
but were being pulled, stretched and torn by the vast
non-existance of the Waste. Now all that remained were
pain filled creatures of only semi-sentience and an
incredible urge to destroy.

Amelia threw her spirit body back as Xina charged,
Staff pulling the portal
behind her into a cone which further distorted the
shapes of the monstrosities
within. The Source flickered briefly as if to say "oh
well" as it seemed the one that called it changed its
mind. Then it flared as the thin border on the Waste
opened and approached the shimmering and swirling
light and darkness.

**********

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!" Osano-Wo shouted, pausing in
his futile attempt
to strike the correct Xalan. The boy hadn't, couldn't
cause any severe damage to him, but it was beginning
to get like the stinging of an ant. Then he saw the
other Metallium-Inverse child moving to pull the Waste
into the Source.

The prison, fashioned so long, was about to be ruined
by that little pest.
The beings thrown into the nothing weren't worth
returning to the Source, they
were all evil, traitors and demons. And they were HIS
to fight and destroy!

The angel blurred as he launched at Xina. No longer
anything human, he
was nothing but a surge of unidentifiable energy. The
angel pulled short, however, when the ground around
the girl and the portals erupted in a spray of golden
liquid. The spray did not fall, forming a great
liquid wall that shielded Xina from her attacker.

"Stand not in my path, Fallen One," the words were not
so much a voice as
a sensation. "You were allowed to escape long ago,
this time I shall do as I wished then and see you
destroyed for your crimes."

The mortals and spirits watched as the wall rippled in
seeming amusment.
Then the small eye of the storm was filled with
whirling and diving ravens, on the edges could be seen
the shapes and eyes of thousands of wolves staring at
the lot of them.

"And what of your crimes," the combined cawing of the
ravens produced
the words. "Murder does not apply to you?"

"The Old Ones must be destroyed!!" the lightning spoke
angrily. "Not
shunted off to some place to be forgotten, or returned
to the Source like anything else. That girl must be
stopped!" The energy surged forward again, and
surprisingly the wall gave way. The Lord of Nightmares
pulling back and forming
into a great pillar of liquid gold to watch the
proceedings.

*******

"It is already too late," the words seemed to smile
all on there own as everyone saw the Source reach out
and grab the other end of the Staff.

A stream of light and darkness of all shades and
colors streamed over the
Staff. It poured into the nothingness. Where Xina's
hands held the Staff the
Source flowed up through her as well, and passed on.
She felt voices and faces
pass through her mind like a river through a valley.
Memories would be shown to
her and then fade away, or stay. She saw worlds born
and destroyed, races and
species rise to power, and fall again. She saw the
number forty-two and more
besides.

There was no sense of danger, but something bothered
her. The Source,
rolling into and filling the artificial prison of the
Waste, seemed to roll over her and say "not your time"
and pass on. She felt herself growing somehow.

******

"NO!!! Blasphemey, they shall be born again now!" The
words shook everything
like a roll of thunder, the mortals and dead souls
were rocked back, while the other two powers seemed to
wince. Almost as if they had heard a discordant note.

There was no indication in the cloud of energy that
was Osano-Wo that the
Michael was pressing the attack, but Xalan knew he was
regardless of that. Some
hunter's instinct told him, and another instinct sent
him to act. The claws of light didn't seem to do
anything against the Angel of War, but then, Xalan
remembered how his mother had defeated Shabrinigdo. As
the kage-kitsune charged, wrapping himself in shadow
and sending the power into the claws. As he neared
Osano-wo his gift of empathic combat sent him a clear
picture rather than a mere impulse, it was the first
time he could remember ever experiencing it as such.
Before he had always just known what to do.

A darkness wrapped kage-kitsune leaped between a
shocked Angel and his
sister, and then launched himself upwards. The
blackening claw blades leading as he made himself the
shaft of one large spear.

There was a great wordless crack and the darkness
began to bleed through
the struck angel. As the angel seemed to shift in
order to remove the now deadly prong in its form, the
ravens and golden pillar just fell upon it. Xalan was
caught in the middle holding the blades in the angel
and letting the claws pull power, as two other powers
threw themselves about in the battle.

The essence of Osano-wo's power was spread through the
Sea of Chaos
like electricity, and drowned. Or else it was caught
by a raven and devoured.
What was left was pulled through the claws of light
into Xalan as the
kage-kitsune's darkness, empowered by a piece of a
Great Dark Lord, spread slowly and poisonously through
the renegade angel.

None of the three came away unharmed. The ground was
littered with the
corpses of ravens and a thin Golden mist seemed to be
rising from the portion of the Sea of Chaos that
L-Sama had brought to manifest in.

In the four worlds of the Lord of Nightmares, the
uninhabited portions of
deep space saw great upheavel. In several thousand
years, when the light reached them, the people of
Xina's home would watch in wonder as the stars winked
off and on throughout the sky and whole constellations
were destroyed or created.
Several thousand years after that the destruction
would reach some of the
more populated systems, by then there would be ways to
turn aside most of the
damage from people.

The results of the distraction of the Angel of Death
and Spirit of Storm were more immediate. It was also
spread across the multiverse, if effecting no single
universe as much as L-Sama's the mass effect coming to
the same. Storms arose and calmed at random, people
died and their spirits lingered. Worlds that had been
free of undead for millenia were suddenly deluged. In
other cases people who should have died, lived...on
and on and on.

Xalan, being mortal was paid the least attention to,
but he had been forced
to the his knees and seemed to be sweating towards
dehydration. A black glow,
streaked with silver was growing around him, as a
similar but reveresed glow grew around his sister.

*******

As the renegade angel was brought low, Xina became
aware of the misshapen
things of the Waste being overwhelmed by the Source,
subsumed, healed. The
insanity of eons of imprisonment washed out of them.
And she saw it all in flashes as each soul joined the
river.

Then she became aware of something else. She felt the
moon, and,
somehow, it was her, and her brother. Xina's eyes
popped wide as she worked for a brief moment to soothe
the roiled uncontrolled waves of power that were the
radiance of all moons across time and space. Then a
memory flickered across her
consciousness.

"Left behind all that I knew to shape and serve the
universe..." She didn't
know which of the endless stream of souls had said
that, but didn't care, she got the gist of it. She had
an image, a remembered dream of rising ever higher
than Val, and realized what was happening.

"NO!!! I'm not ready to leave yet!!" Xina let go of
the staff and stumbled
backward as the glow about her faded. "XALAN!! LET GO
OF IT!!" Already her
words were on the edge of that non-voice the powers
had used, but her words
returned to mortal limits by the end of her shout.

Xalan hesitated only a moment before obeying the
shouted plea. He pulled
away and the glow about him faded away as well. He
suddenly felt as if he were
shrinking, but as far as he could tell his body wasn't
changing.

The kage-kitsune staggered back and stared at his
sister across the swirling
portals, already indistinguishable from each other.
She breathed a sigh of relief and watched as the
wolves from the storm, already dying to nothing,
swarmed over the Angel of War as he was forced into
humanoid form again. He screamed once and fell.

The Source reached for the dead Michael's spirit and
accepted him in, the
despairing spirit didn't even consider staying. All
saw a feminine face form out of the vanishing portal
and mouth the words goodbye, seemingly at the wolves
and ravens, before the portal vanished.

The Staff of Xellos hung in mid-air a few seconds
afterwards before it
clattered to the ground of the non-place.

"I think its over," Xina said.

=====
"Caffeinated Kender? What's that, a berserk spell?" -
Tribble, Kender Warrior of the Celestial Kingdom
"God has to have a sense of humor, it's the only explanation for sex." - my father
"I have to write a how-to paper for class, so I'm writing a paper on how to be psuedo-evil." - my brother

http://members.aol.com/thrythlind/snake.html

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