"Naniii? He has the Eye of Siefied TOO?! That rotten no good bastard taking my treasure now too.... where is he?!"
"How should I know?"
"Ksaaa... that guy is just more and more annoying every day... I say we go and beat him up!"
"Lina, even he has his rights."
"Ameria, shut up."
"So what happens now?"
"Well, obviously you tell him no next time you see him, Zel, and then...."
Zel looked straight ahead, not acknowledging Lina's statement.
"Zel, you aren't seriously thinking of trusting him..."
"Why shouldn't Zel trust him?", Gourry inquired.
"You MORON!!", Lina yelled, bonking Gourry. "Xelloss has NEVER been trustworthy! He took from us the Mazoku secrets scroll, the manuscript of the Clair Bible, any seriously magical treasure we've ever had, and now the Eye of Siefied!"
"Lina, the Eye of Siefied was never yours.", Zel calmly stated.
"What do YOU know?!", Lina yelled, reaching out to bonk Zel as an instant reflex. "Iteeee...", she said, rubbing her hand. "I'm so mad, I just want to blow up something!"
"But you just blew up a bandit gang."
"I want to blow up something else! Ahhh none of you can understand.... waitress! Chicken dinner for thirteen, and it better be here before I get hungry!"
The poor waitress slinked off to toil some more.. she'd been trying desperately to get Lina to stop eating, but she'd had no success.
"I wonder what was on that scroll...."
"Why don't you ask Xelloss?"
"YOU IDIOT! HE LIES!!!", Lina shrieked, getting Gourry in a suplex.
"Do whatever you want.. I'm going to find Xelloss.", Zel stated, calmly rising from the table.
"Zel! Zel!!!!", Lina yelled. He started walking out of the restaurant. She ran up and interposed herself between him and the door. "LOOK! He has never been anything but a ba-"
"I'm not going to see him for that."
"Then why are yo-"
"To get the scroll back from him. I'll translate it myself. And to tell him to go to hell."
"THAT'S the Zel I know! Hold on a sec and I'll come with you!"
"Fine, but I'm going."
Zelgadiss exited the restaurant, and Lina went back to finish up her food. However, Lina never managed to catch up with Zel, because the waitress, hard toiled as she was, had already put enough sleeping potion into Lina's food to knock out a herd of elephants. Once she ingested enough to put the entire population of Sudan under, she was out for awhile.
Zelgadiss walked through the town, veil up. He enjoyed walking by himself.. others just distracted him. Especially Lina and Gourry.. so noisy, always drawing attention to themselves. And Ameria, always clinging onto him.. luckily, he had managed to perfect the art of zoning her out. So here he was, walking through town, all by himself. It gave him some time to think.
"If Bastard really wanted to help me get rid of this form, what would be the reason? Does he want me out of the picture? That must be it.. the threat I represent is too much for his plans.. but I'm going to change back sometime.. how will that affect things? I wish I knew his true objective.. puh... 'that is a secret'.... he won't be able to hide everything forever.. sooner or later I'll find out what's up with him. I bet Lina knows.. I could ask her.. but I'd rather find out myself... I don't need to ask anyone."
At that point, Zelgadiss had entered a desolate region of town.. it was night, and nearly everyone was in their beds. Except for one, of course, who was standing in an alleyway.
"So you're here, Bastard."
"Have you made a decision?"
"Give me back the scroll."
"Oh.. hmm.. must've lost it."
"Don't play games, Bastard. Give it back."
"Sorry, can't do that. Bet Kyvin remembers a lot of it, though. Why don't you ask him?"
"Yes.. why don't I...", Zelgadiss mused, and started walking off towards the palace.
"Wait! What is your decision?"
"Go to hell, Bastard."
"My, my.. no manners at all. Not even for your precious Eye of Siefied?"
"I don't care about that anymore. Leave me alone."
"Very well."
Zelgadiss turned around to see that Xelloss had disappeared. "Puh...", he said, and continued his trek to the palace, where Lina had been brought to lie down.
"Gourry-san, this has happened before, hasn't it?"
"Yeah.. 'bout every third restaurant tries to poison Lina. She's grown immune to most types of poison like that. Just a matter of time before she does the same with sleeping potion. She'll be okay."
"Okay, good."
Outside, Kyvin walked through the halls, muttering to himself.
"What's he doing?"
"He's trying to remember as much of the scroll as he can. Since he spent so long translating little bits of it, he can remember a lot of it. He thinks if he can write it down, then maybe he can spend some more time, and eventually translate it."
"Persistent."
"As all allies of justice should be."
Suddenly, from down the hall, they could hear Kyvin yell, "Eureka!"
Gourry and Ameria ran down the hall to Kyvin's room, where they could see him furiously scribbling down on a piece of paper.
"You remember it?"
"Better yet, I figured out how to translate it!!"
"What?! What does it say?!!!"
"Hold on.. I can tell, it says a lot! Let me write it all down!!"
Suddenly, the wall exploded. Ameria and Gourry had seen a lot of walls explode in their time, but not that many that were five stories up. Hovering outside the tower was a Mazoku. It didn't look like one at first; it looked like a very large hawk. But upon closer inspection you could see that it had only one small red eye slit in the center of its forehead, and its talons had been significantly sharpened. It wore a shimmering black breastplate, connected on the back as to not get in the way of the wings. And what wings... they were large and ornate, yet every feather in there looked razor sharp. It looked very impressive... and not the type of thing which you would want to fight.
"That is enough.", said the Mazoku, and slashed out with its wings. With a quick snash, Kyvin lay dead on the floor. Gourry brought out the light as Ameria cast fireball. The Mazoku closed it's eye, concentrating, and then reopened it, letting loose a blast of energy which cancelled out the fireball. Gourry charged in and slashed at it with the Sword of Light, and had his sword bounce off the shimmering black fabric. "Shit.", thought Gourry, as the Mazoku started slashing with it's wings, hacking up everything in the room. Ameria bounced around everywhere, as did Gourry, avoiding the wings. They moved so fast that they even went through the Sword of Light unharmed.
"Pathetic.. to seek to destroy me. Hand over his writings, and I shall not kill you."
Gourry and Ameria shared a moment of communal thought, and then shakily replied, 'No.' "Then so be it. I shall take them from you."
With that, the Mazoku blew a great gust of wind with its' wings and moved in through the hole. Gourry charged at it wiith the Sword of Light, which missed. However, Ameria hit it with a fireball on it's other side, badly singing it's arm.
The Mazoku held it's arm, growling, and blew both combatants against the walls with its' wings. It then proceeded to take the writings, and leap out the hole. Gourry slashed at it, but missed, and Ameria fired off a Ra-Tilt, but she knew that it would avoid it.
"VAN REHL!!!!"
The Mazoku, which was looking backwards at the tower as it flew away, ran straight into Zelgadiss's wall of ice and was stopped there for a moment. Just long enough to be hit by Ameria's Ra-Tilt.
"Khaaaaa.... you.. will not.. defea-"
"RA-TILT!", Zelgadiss yelled.
The Mazoku, injured by two Ra-Tilts, started to limp away on wounded wings when Gourry flung the Sword of Light straight at it.
"Gourry, what were you aiming for?!", yelled Ameria, as she viewed the intense pain on the face of the Mazoku as the Sword of Light ran itself right through the Mazoku's crotch.
"Uh.. sorry! Sorry!", yelled Gourry out the window. His words fell on deaf ears, for the Mazoku had been destroyed by that time, and faded into nothing, as they usually do.
Zelgadiss, upon catching the falling papers, ruffled through them and swore vehemently.
Several rooftops away, Xelloss smiled.
"They didn't have anything in them?!"
"Nothing useful."
"Damn... this sucks crap."
"What did they have?"
"The pickle recipe."
"Is it any good?", inquired Gourry.
There was silence for a moment.
"I was waiting for Lina to bonk Gourry, but she's unconscious. Oh yeah."
"I'm not going to wait for her to wake up. I'm going."
"But Zel....!", whined Ameria.
Zelgadiss left.
That stupid Xelloss.. Zel knew somehow that he was behind the Mazoku attack... that Xelloss had been orchestrating it all. Zel could just tell that wherever he was going to try to turn human again, Xelloss was going to stop him. Zel burned with a great anger against Xelloss now.. Xelloss was going to have it so Zel wasn't going to turn back unless it was on his terms.. which were probably death. Xelloss probably wanted Zelgadiss out of the way, just so he could go ahead with his plans.. well, Zel had gotten used to this body, and if it meant pissing Bastard off, then he would stay in it. No matter the cost.
Then Zel saw a sight he hadn't seen in a long time.. Selyan. Selyan was the reason Zelgadiss had first sought power.. she was walking down the street, arm in arm with.... Sephros. Her husband.
Memories burned in Zelgadiss's mind. How he was so much in love with Selyan, but the laws of the village... if challenged, the strongest takes her. Zelgadiss wanted power.. that way, he'd be able to lay Sephros low.... and when he had been granted it.. when he'd been granted it....
"DAMN YOU REZOOOOOOO!!!!!!!", Zel shrieked in his mind.
"So she paired up with Sephros, did she? They make such a cute couple!", the always-optimistic voice of Xelloss resounded from around a corner.
"Don't mess with me, Bastard.. don't you dare...."
"I WOULDN'T dare! Here, I'm here to help you. It's all I've ever been here to do. I can turn you back.."
"Name your price."
"Oh, I just want to see you with her again! I think it'd be so nice, seeing the two of you, side by side!"
".....that's all?"
"Yes. No tricks. I just want to see you two next to each other... I'll change you back."
"...very well."
Far away, in a very rural area, the grave of Selyan Solcor shined magnificently in the sun.
Chapter Four : FLASHBACK! A voice from the past explains all!