Slayers Fan Fiction ❯ Crucify Me ❯ You SAY That But You Just Like Dressing Me Up, Don't You? ( Chapter 3 )

Crucify Me
Chapter 3: You SAY That But You Just Like Dressing Me Up, Don't You?

"Koi ni koi suru onnana ko ni wa," Gourry sang happily as the trio made their way towards the outskirts of the city. It had been slow going since Lina, flush wiht cash, had been stopping at nearly every other vendor in the market to shop. A vein popped on Zelgadis's forehead.

"Would you mind NOT singing that?" the smaller man snapped. Gourry blinked.

"Ano... okay." So instead of singing it, he was humming it. Zelgadis's eye twitched.

"Damnit, Jellyfish," Lina snarled, "Can't you-"

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" a young woman's voice shouted, cutting off Lina. They looked up to see the silhouette of a girl about 15 years old with wild short hair. The girl leapt down from her platfor int the midst of them, then straightened, the ribbons from her headband dancing wildly. She pointed her wand-like scepter in Lina's direction. The red-head's face broke into a giant grin. The younger girl launched herself into the older woman's arms.

"Lina-san!" Amelia greeted enthusiastically. She turned her attention to Gourry, grasping his hands warmly in hers. "Gourry-san!" She paused as it came to Zelgadis's turn to be greeted. A small but tender smile crept on her face. His face got a faint paint of red over the gray-blue of his skin as he started (slowly but surely) to return the smile.

Amelia suddenly started beating the ever living crap out of him.

"Itai! Amelia! Stop!"

"Amelia, for the love of L-sama, what are you doing?!" Lina shrieked, forcing Gourry in like fashion to try to pry Amelia off of him.

"HOW UNJUST OF YOU TO ABANDON ME AND NOT COME BACK TO SAILOON LIKE YOU PROMISED!" Amelia ranted, the word 'justice' glowing on her fist as she pummled the now-deadly weapon into his rock hard face repeatedly.

Poor Gourry had a hell of a time wrenching her away from his friend.

Zel made sure that Gourry remained between him and Amelia for the next hour or so.

"Amelia, what are you doing out here?" Lina asked, trying to distract Amelia from Zelgadis and turn her attention to a more important subject: Lina's curiosity. "And why on earth are you wearing that outfit?" Amelia tightened her head ribbons.

"You like it? Daddy says I can't go out travelling anymore until after Grandfather dies and Daddy becomes the king," Amelia explained rather crestfallen. "So I'm taking advantage of this time by making sure that I am a successful warrior of justice!" She posed. Lighting flashed and glitter flew everywhere.

Lina dusted the glitter off her shirt while Gourry peered down (and down and down and down) at their friend. "Why do you need that outfit to do it though?" Amelia gave him a shocked look.

"Gourry-san, didn't you learn anything from those justice fighters we were with that day?" she cried exhasperatedly. He blinked.

"Who?"

Amelia gave up.

It was about that time that Jolean came running up to them. "Lady Inverse! Sir Gabriev!" she cried, gasping for breath. The group turned. She stopped to catch her breath before she began to (ironically enough) breathlessly explain to Lina and Gourry how they were now in very big trouble.

".....WHAT?" she cried. Jolean paused and tried again.

"Lesulie doth have strict policies about the sacred institution of marriage, Lady Inverse," she explained. Lina looked cross.

"And how does that relate to me and Gourry?" she snapped, red-faced. Gourry had a glazed look on his face, proving that he was smart enough to tune that out and not comment.

"You two shared a room last night. Unless you are either both females or married that is punishable by death!" The group stared at her.

"...isn't that a bit extreme?" Zelgadis asked, sweatdropping. Lina was fuming and Gourry looked panicked. This would either end with him in a dress or him fireballed. ....NOT good options.

"WHAT THE HELL KIND OF TOWN IS THIS?!" she screamed. Jolean shrank away.

"I meant not to offend you, Lady Inverse. My only wish is to help you in any way that is possible. Unfortunately, my hired hands are indeed aware that you two did share a room yesternight and word will get out that you did. You have little choice if you wish to keep your lives."

...keeping their lives sounded appealing.

"Excuse me," Amelia cut in, "I'm not sure what's going on, but does this include Zelgadis-san or I?" Jolean looked at her.

"Our home doth have very strict rules about marriage. If travellers of the opposite sex travel together they must be related or married or they are put to death."

The group stared. She sweatdropped.

"Thanks, we'll figure out something." Lina started to herd the group away. Jolean stopped her.

"Lady Inverse, you can hide at the inn as long as need be. Come." The group gave a collective shrug at the looks they gave to each other and followed the brunette back to the inn.

"Okay, everyone," Lina said as they got back to the inn and into one of the larger rooms. "Unless we want a torch-weilding mob after us ever step of the way out of this city, we have a problem."

"Why don't we just get out of town quickly?" Gourry asked as if that would be logical. ..which surprisingly, it was.

...Only not this time.

"Because I need information about what's been going on first," Lina explained, rubbing at her temples. Amelia looked at everybody in confusion.

"How much do you know, Lina?" Zel asked, arms crossed across his chest. Amelia was still looking at everybody, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Not much," Lina admitted, sitting back and staring at the table. "Those dead things are called Vanglear. They started showing up just after Phibbrizzo's death, so I think it has something to do with that. Some sort of after-effect." She sighed and placed a finger to the side of her head, pensive. "There's something going on out in the desert too but I'm not sure exactly what. Some sort of natural phenomenon, fire and lightning dancing acorss the sands, things like that. I want to find out a bit more than just that though before I go running out there." Amelia looked frustrated now.

"Understandable."

"So the question is, how do we manage to stay in town and keep our heads attached to our necks where they're supposed to be?"

"HEY!" Amelia screamed, slamming her hands down on the table and drawing everybody's attention. "Would somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on?" There was a collective sweatdrop.

"I'm here looking for my cure," Zelgadis told her as if it were obvious.

"And we were passing through and got attacked by the Vanglear," Gourry said as if that were of much help at all.

"Which are dead people like at Sairaag when we fought Phibbrizzo only they're really ugly and powerful," Lina continued. "It's been happening here for some time apparently and I think it's caused by the death of Phibbrizzo. Which means by me. Which means I have to find out what's going on and put a stop to it." She sighed and buried her face in her arms.

Amelia got shoujo eyes. "Righting wrongs...fighting for Justice...OH LINA-SAN, I ALWAYS KNEW I'D BE ABLE TO CHANGE YOU!" Lina sweatdropped a couple times over.

"Let's not go overboard, Amelia," she said, backing away a bit. "Let's just worry about getting around town without getting killed."

"Right! ...so how are we supposed to do that?" Lina looked pensive again.

"Well, we have to be one of three things: A) Related. None of us look like we could be related to each other. B) Married. Veto. Rememeber that damned marriage temple? It's not an option. C) All of the same gender." Amelia and Lina looked at each other, then looked at the boys with evil grins on their faces.

Both Gourry and Zelgadis ran for their lives.

"GOURRY, YOU COWARD!"

"ZELGADIS-SAN, DO IT FOR JUSTICE! GET BACK HERE!"

"Why can't YOU dress as guys?" Gourry cried in a voice that sounded more like a death scream. "YOU could pull it off easy, Lina!" He was beaten to a pulp appropriately.

"Amelia couldn't, not with HER figure," Zel popped off before he'd realized what he'd said. He turned bright red and recieved only a minor beating.

Within minutes the girls had managed to tie down the two screaming, kicking, protesting men and started applying make-up to their faces. Gourry (rather quickly) resigned himself to it. He knew better than to fight with Lina. Zelgadis, however, protested more.

"I refuse to wear a dress again!" he howled. Amelia glared at him.

"Do it for Justice! Do it for saving your own head!" she cried, posing on the back of a chair. Zel sweatdropped. Then sighed. And defeatedly held out his hand for the dress. She handed it to him. "Careful not to smudge your make-up!" she chirped. He muttered something under his breath and meandered to the bathroom to change.

Gourry emerged just as he reached to door in the frilly pink thing that Lina had saved for him. His face looked as droopy as the red bow in his hair. In fact, he looked like a kicked puppy.

Lina grinned brightly.

"Kawai!" she cooed then grabbed her lipstick. Gourry cried.

"All right!" Amelia announced when Zelgadis finally emerged. "Now, in the name of Justice, we're gonna go out and get information! Try to look pretty, guys, you'll get more help from people," she advised. Both men cried.

Finding information turned out to be harder than expected. Almost everybody in town knew no more than Jolean did. A couple guys were too busy staring at Zel and Gourry to answer questions, earning them fireballs from Amelia and Lina for being ignored. Their male companions cried some more.

"Linaaa...." Gourry whined, slumping over in hopeless surrender. There was no way she was letting him get back into regular clothes and OUT of that dress. "This is hopeless. Nobody knows anything and I DON'T need anymore male suitors," he griped. Amelia turned and whispered to him.

"Gourry-san, you're acting like a guy again," she warned, not noticing that Lina was slumped in similiar fashion.

"I know!" Lina snapped cutishly. She cried out in frustration, gripping at her hair. "I can't believe this! How can these people be so damned ignorant of what's going on in their own town?! Do NONE of these people know ANYTHING?!?" A small boy approached her cautiously at her outburst. She gave him a glare that warned him that he had three seconds to speak his peace before he ate a fireball.

"Um.. oneechan," he mumbled quietly. "I think I can help, I really do." He quivered in his boots. Lina's expression changed to a gentler one that she usually had for younger children. She couldn't usually stay mad at a child too long since for some odd reason they were one of her soft spots. She kneeled down in front of him to get more eye-level with him.

"You can?" she asked softly. "What do you know?" He stared at his feet.

"You're not gonna hurt me?" he whimpered. Lina sighed and shook her head.

"No."

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now what do you know?"

"Mommy used ta tell me before she died that some big dark lord guy lived out in that desert. She said he controlled the dead people and stuff. But everyone started saying that he musta been killed 'cause some big shield thing went down and that's when all those bad things started coming to town at night," he told her in a rush.

"So you think they have something to do with the dark lord's death?" she asked. The idea had occured to her of course, which was the main reason she was willing to stay to try to help since it had been partially her fault that the town was in this mess. The boy nodded.

"Uh-huh. Mommy said he lived way out in the desert in some r-...ru-... ru-ins that's shaped like a big star in a circle," he added. Lina considered. That was at least a tiny bit more than anyone else had provided. Out of the mouths of babes....

"Do you know exactly how far out there he lived?" The boy shook his head.

"Nope. Mommy never let me go out there. But she said the star was in the center of the sunrise." Lina blinked, then smiled.

"Thank you," she said, then handed him two silver pieces. "Go buy yourself some candy, okay?" The boy grinned brightly and ran off.

"Thank you, Oneechan!" he called back and then disappeared into the crowd.

"Woah," Amelia breathed in awe. "Whoever thought that Lina-san could be so kind or generous to someone she doesn't even know?" The other two nodded in agreement.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!" Lina growled, flames bursting in her eyes. Amelia sweatdropped and hid behind Zelgadis.

"Nothing," she squeaked.

"In the center of the sunrise? What do you think he meant by that?" Zel asked, hand on his chin as he considered carefully.

"It's hard to say," Lina answered. Gourry's eyes widened.

"You don't think this place is actually on the sun, do you?" Everybody fell over.

"Gourry-san, what would make you think something like that?" Amelia wailed.

"Well, the kid SAID it was in the center of the sunrise."

"I highly doubt he meant literally," Zel said with a sigh.

"Well, it makes sense that Phibbrizzo would want his main base to remain hidden so of course any clues to its whereabouts would be in the form of a riddle...." she mused out loud, chewing delicately on her lower lip.

Gourry seemed equally contemplative, though since no one really expected an intelligent answer out of him (not after that LAST one), no one really paid attention to him. But unbeknowest to his companions, the little jellyfish that powered his brain was swimming at top speed, causing the rusty gears in his brain to work. Finally his expression brightened and he nodded sagely, confident in his conclusion.

"Souka!" he exclaimed happily, then turned and headed east. The others jumped at his sudden departure.

"H-hey! Gourry!" Lina called. "What're you doing?"

"Goin' to the ruins," he answered over his shoulder. Lina huffed furiously and chased after him, leaving Zel and Amelia blinking in complete confusion.

"Now just wait a minute, Gourry!" Lina yelled, grabbing his arm. He stopped and turned to her. "Now just WHAT do you mean by 'you're going to the ruins'?"

"Well, I figure that kid meant that-" He was cut off by a woman's ear bleeding scream followed by the sonic boom of a large black dragon screeching by overhead, the shockwaves knocking the tops of buildings to the ground.

Gourry grabbed Lina and pulled her to the ground, ducking a large chunk of building that had decided to rudely land JUST where they had been.

"What the hell is a dragon doing clear out here?!" Lina cried, squirming to turn under Gourry's protective grip. Gourry helped her up and drew the sword he'd worn hidden up his skirt.

"I dunno, but we've gotta get it away from the city," he answered with a growl, mouth set in a firm and determined line. Lina nodded in agreement.

"Lina-san!" Amelia shouted. "The boy!" Lina took her ruby gaze to where the princess was pointing, then froze.

"Guys! Try to lead the dragon away from these people! I'll save the boy!" She cast Ray Wing and sped with all the power in her body towards the boy who sat huddled, trapped by wreckage, unable to escape as another piece of building teetered precautiously above him. Around her, buildings collapsed, raising so much dust that one could barely see ten feet in front of them.

"Lina!" Gourry shouted. But it was too late. The sorceress was gone.