Slayers Fan Fiction ❯ Crucify Me ❯ The Eyes of the Dragon ( Chapter 4 )

Crucify Me
Chapter 4: The Eyes of the Dragon

Death is your gift*

"Oneechan!!" the boy screamed as soon as he saw the red-headed sorceress coming towards him. He held out his arms tearfully for her, begging to be saved. "I'm scared!"

"Hang on, kid!" she called back, altering her coarse subtly to grab him. Her arms wrapped around his little body and yanked him from the wreckage, speeding away with him just seconds before the large chunk of cement above him fell and landed with a loud crash where he'd been just seconds before. "I got ya, kid," she assured him, looking around for a safe place to set him. Finally spotting a completely wrecked building (she'd just love to see something fall on him there) she set him down in the shadow of the three foot high rock that remained of the foundation. "Stay here, it's not safe anywhere else," she instructed. He nodded.

"Okay, Oneechan." He looked terror stricken, and Lina honestly didn't blame him.

With one last glance to make sure he'd be okay, she turned and sped back towards where the others were trying (albiet, unsuccessfully) to lead the dragon away from town. The dragon had landed and was shrugging off every attempt by her companions to attack it with barely a glance. It glared in annoyance at Amelia when she attempted to Rah Tilt it. It casually flicked her away with one over-sharpened claw.

With a growl in her throat, Lina sped up, gathering a deadly ball of energy in her hands, a quiet incantation on her lips. "FIREBALL!" The bright red/orange ball of flaming energy sped towards the dragon, exploding in a brilliant white flash upon impact.

At this, surprisingly, the dragon looked up from the ground where Amelia had landed and blinked at her, turning it's head to view her directly first with one eye, then with the other (even though the second one was nothing more than a green orb and obviously sightless.) Lina was already powering up another spell.

"LINA INVERSE," the dragon's voice rumbled, knocking down a few more pieces of barely held up building. Lina froze in midair, her spell dissapating in her hands. "LONG HAVE I SOUGHT YOUR LOCATION, ONLY TO FIND YOU HERE, SO VERY CLOSE TO WHERE YOU SHOULD BE."

"Where she.." Amelia began, trailing off.

"..should be?" Zel finished the thought (rather impeccably).

"Who exactly are you, pal?" Lina demanded gruffly, fists on her hips.

"COME HERE, CHILD, AND I SHALL TELL YOU WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW."

Gourry held his breath as Lina slowly floated over to the dragon, hand gripping the hilt of his Blast Blade so tightly his knuckles were turning white. If this were a trick... he'd have almost no time to react to save her.

He absolutely could NOT fail to protect her. He just couldn't.

Lina came to a stop a reasonably safe distance away, elevating herself up to the creature's eye level, putting her even further out of Gourry's reach than before.

She was on her own and he knew it.

"Okay, I'm here, now tell me what you want," she snapped, a firey challenge sparking in her ruby eyes, daring the dragon to do something.

"I AM SENT WITH A MESSAGE," he boomed.

"A message?" A clawed, scaley hand reached up and clutched calmly at the blinded green eye. Without so much as a flinch, he plucked the eye from its socket, revealing it to be an orb of sorts rather than a true eye. The vague and distant forms of dragons flew through the green haze and disappeared. "Wha-.. what is it?" the sorceress breathed, somehow compelled to touch it. She forced her arms to stay where they were. The thought of actually touching that thing made her skin crawl.

"WHO YOU ARE." Lina's eyes widened.

"Who...I am?"

"TOUCH IT, SORCERESS OF CHAOS, VESSEL OF THE MOTHER."

Lina's skin turned cold and her mouth dried out. A faint ringing resonated in her ears, as if echoing from the very depths of her soul, rising and deafening her. There was sharp snap as her cape unhooked itself and the black and violet cloth tumbled to the ground with her shoulder pads. Her arms raised and reached forward against her will, muscles protesting violently to the action, stiff from the chill that swept through her body.

The greenish white light from the orb reached for her, grabbing her forearms, shredding her petal-pale lavender gloves, scratching thin lines of crimson blood along her skin, but even with her arms dripping what would probably be considered an unhealthy amount of blood, Lina didn't cringe or cry out, she simply stared at the orb, eyes reflecting the green haze until her own natural coloring was washed out and only the light from the orb could be seen.

Her hands finally touched the smooth cold surface; first just the tips of her fingers, then her hands, caressing the orb as if it were the face of a lover, or the small hand of an infant- delicate, fragile. The orb's light seemed to fade, then brighten, swirling colors blending together to make a brilliant white light that engulfed her.

SORCERESS OF CHAOS... DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE?

Lina blinked at the voice that came from the glowing orb in front of her. "What... What I am? What do you mean?" she asked.

YOUR PURPOSE, YOUR BEING, YOUR CREATION... ALL THAT YOU ARE, ALL THAT YOU DESIRE TO BE.

No... don't think like that. He had to be alive. He HAD to be. She simply couldn't imagine life without him.

Wonder why they call me Hellmaster? .... The controller of death. That's who I am. Human lives are my toys.

"Phibrizzo!" Zelgadis snarled, his fangs bared at the voice that filled the area.

No... not Phibrizzo... Gourry thought. A memory.

Lina was not aware of the tone of Zelgadis's voice, in fact, she was not even aware that he'd said anything at all. She was there, there, reliving that nightmare all over again, this time jumbled, in pieces, pieces that didn't make one iota of sense, or at least less than it had when it was really happening.

You.. want to save him.. don't you? Gourry... Even if the entire world is destroyed... it doesn't... matter... does it..?

How was this.... who she was? Or what she was? What was this thing trying to tell her? ....had it been revealed to her back there, in Sairaag, as she watched her friends die one by one, as she watched Phibrizzo try to steal from her the one thing that mattered the most to her?

What was she?

He wanted to take more from her.

You do realize what I'll do next, don't you? I'll kill them for real.... It's quite lovely to see these crystals shatter.... He's about to die unless you do something.

One moment, frozen in time... Gourry's crystal began to shatter, and with it, Lina's heart, soul, life... world.

And then it went silent inside her, cold, numb... for a brief second she glimpsed nothingness.

She simply no longer cared. She realized what Martina meant now. Without Gourry, there was no use for a world. Death could come. Take the world, take her with it, just don't take him. Death... her gift, her final gift to him.

Right now, I don't care where the power comes from... If I lose control of this energy..

I could destroy the world... but.. I choose
Gourry over the entire world...

Gourry felt his heart clench and bubble with an odd warmth in his chest. Lina... his Lina had literally chosen him over the world. The tiny red-headed sorceress that both burned and healed him with her look, the fire that he danced so dangerously close to, life and death, had been faced with that decision, that horrible, terrible decision that no one on earth should be faced with....

...and chosen him.

You, who so desperately seeks destruction... as you wish, you shall be destroyed.
No... this isn't what I wanted....

His body was being ripped away... and a look of pleasure was on his face. Free.... he was free.... He tried to run towards the humans that Mother had freed, reaching... reaching for someone in his death.... before his body disappeared forever, consumed by the chaos.

Slowly, she was beginning to see the truth buried amongst these tiny whisps of memory. Death... it was always death..... Vessel of the Mother... Sorceress of Chaos.... could it be.... could it be that death was she had to give to the world? To her friends? To Gourry?

DO YOU UNDERSTAND, LITTLE SORCERESS GIRL?

Gourry stood helplessly by on the ground, watching silently as Lina held the green orb in her hands, the voices of the past swirling around them, the images that raped their minds, forcing the old wounds to open again, to bleed, to hurt all over again, to scar anew. Please, no more.. just let her go, don't make her relive that nightmare, he prayed silently. He didn't care if this wound was reopened for him, hells, it was opened in the back of his mind every night as he started to sleep. But not her. She couldn't even remember most of what happened.. she was safe, pure, innocent of this. She was safe from that horror after she'd cast the Giga Slave and had descended into a blissful nothingness.... don't send her to that hell.

The golden King of Chaos raised one of Lina's fingers, pointing directly at the blonde man staring helplessly at her, helpless to bring his Lina back, helpless to stop the empty feeling welling up inside him.
I appeared on this world because the one called Lina willed me to. She sacrificed all that she was.... All to save that man's life. The wish that the girl named Lina sent me.. Her honest thoughts, her pure heart... Because of those thoughts, I am here now.
She sacrificed all that she was...? The young princess of Sailoon held her hands over her chest to force her heart to keep beating. All that she was? Did that mean there was nothing left of her but their memories? Nothing at all?!?
Are you saying that's what Lina wanted?! No, not Lina. The first person that had ever accepted him as who he was rather than what he was... she always had a passion for life, she would never just give up all of herself like that.
But for Gourry, perhaps she would. Perhaps they'd all underestimated how much the swordsman meant to her... they'd all suspected her feelings towards him, but never to that extent... he had never realized that it was possible to care about one person as much as that.

What she wanted... yes, she wanted an end to the pain, an end to the constant battles, the danger to the lives of her friends... but that? Is that what she wanted? Lina felt the tears well up in her eyes as her mind began to wrap around the concept that maybe... just maybe... she did want that. She tasted death every day, be it human or otherwise... and.. she was.. just a bit curious.. of what it was like... maybe... But she didn't want to leave. She loved this life. She was tied to it.

It's a dance, Child of Chaos. Everyone participates, and in the end, everyone gets burned. But not you. You've tasted that flame. You've embraced it, and came out brighter than ever. Do you understand what that means? What that makes you?

"No..." she whispered, horror struck. It had to be a lie... it had to be! "NO!" The tears started to fall freely now, unhindered as they made their way down her face, leaving offending trails of discolored streaks on her skin.

"Lina!" Gourry drew his sword, unsure of how he'd get up to her, but determined to not fail to save her.

Gourry took a step forward, an angry spark igniting in his eyes. NO ONE would take away his Lina so casually.. he didn't care WHO they were. It can't be true... I dunno what's going on here, but if Lina's disappeared... I want it all undone! I want it undone! Martina nodded and turned her face away to hide her tears.
That's right! What's the point of you saving all of us and Gourry if you aren't here anymore?!
That's right! That's exactly right! Zelgadis agreed, his own defiance to the Mother of All surging up.
Lina! Wake up, Lina! The swordsman almost sounded desperate now, his voice tightening as he screamed her name, howling his pain and defiance. He would NOT let her take Lina away from him.

Lina's eyes widened. This... this wasn't supposed to be shown to her... she could feel it. This was wrong, this dragon was NOT supposed to show her that. How then...?

The glass orb shattered in her hands, the light sucking itself in to the small void left by the orb's destruction. Lina started to fall, her mind still gripped within itself, too far down on the levels of conciousness to catch herself. The dragon roared in anger and turned it's one eye to look disdainfully down at first the Blast Blade which had landed on the ground to one side, then at the swordsman clad in a pink dress and red bow that had thrown it. The dragon cried its rage to the sky then moved one clawed hand to crush the jellyfish of a man. Zel and Amelia jumped in front of Gourry, both casting a protection spell. The dragon's foot smashed against the barrier, but the barrier held, though barely.

Gourry was unmindful of this as he rushed forward, vaulting himself off pieces of wreckage to catch the falling red-head deftly in his arms, landing like a cat, crouched, Lina securely in his arms...

...before falling over because of a broken heel on his red pumps.

The impact of Gourry landing ungracefully on his butt jarred Lina back to full awareness, leaving her glancing around, trying to figure out how she'd ended up on Gourry's lap on the ground with the dragon fighting with a magical barrier produced by a rapidly weakening Amelia and Zelgadis.

"Gourry..." she trailed off, looking more at him than anything. Yes, it had been just memories, not a reality reborn. The fact that Gourry was still wearing his dress proved that almost as much as the dragon's presence. He reached up and wiped the remaining tears away from her face with the sleeve of his dress.

"Lina.. can you fight?" She nodded, the fire rekindling in her eyes. He smiled. There was his sorceress. They struggled awkwardly to their feet (him more so than her... he'd never realized how hard it was to stand up in high heels... especially when one was broken) and Gourry kicked off the offensive shoes with a tiny sigh of relief.

Lina reached over and yanked Gourry's Blast Blade out of the ground, handing the enchanted sword to her companion. "Ready?" He nodded and gripped the golden hilt tightly. Lina turned her attention to the dragon, summoning a Zelas Bleed. Gourry quickly took off the dress and yanked out the bow while her attention was diverted. Ah, sweet freedom.

This did not actually escape Lina's attention. She sweatdropped.

"Rah Tilt!" Zelgadis shot the astral spell at the dragon, having given up on the barrier and jumped out of the way just barely in time. The spell didn't seem to have much, if any affect at all. "K'so!" he shouted, then yelped as the dragon tried to whack the chimera away with its tail. "Astral spells won't work at all on it."

"Diem Wing!" Amelia didn't fare any better with that one. By this time, the dragon was just annoyed to high heaven with these two and tried flicking them BOTH away with its tail. Zelgadis jumped and grabbed Amelia, casting Ray Wing and speeding just out of the way to save them from the massive tail that nearly killed them.

"ZELAS BLEED!" A thin ray of light shot at the beast from somewhere to its left, coming within a hair's breath of taking out it's OTHER eye. The dragon's head twisted and stared at the red-haired sorceress approaching him quickly, her blonde companion in nothing but his boxers. The dragon sweatdropped.

Lina pulled back, letting Gourry take his own turn at attacking the giant reptile while she found a particularly tall piece of building remains and levitated herself up to it. If the Rah Tilt wouldn't work, then she had to play her own trump card. "Gourry, distract him!" she instructed. The swordsman didn't reply, but he'd obviously heard because instead of attempting to attack to kill, he merely went for whatever he could reach (even though any moron- including him- knew that attacking that thing's gigantic feet would hardly do anything but annoy it). Lina began to chant the Dragon Slave. Darkness beyond twilight....

"LINA-SAN! THE TOWN!" Amelia warned. There wasn't much of the town anyway, and there wouldn't be any of it if she didn't do something, so the red-headed sorceress ignored the young princess. Crimson beyond blood that flows...

"Lina! What about the boy?" Zelgadis yelled, trying to help Amelia stop their friend from destroy the town. Lina paused. No.... she couldn't afford to destroy the town... there were others here too, too many. She had to get that thing out of town. She powered down the spell for a moment as she racked her still fried brain, forcing the crackling little nuerons to process things. But her thoughts had been nearly completely scrambled, giving her a weird image of how Gourry's mind worked. ...that poor poor man.

"Dragon!" she called up to the creature. The creature, who before had been watching Gourry in mild amusement as the swordsman hacked at the giant foot, looked up at the sorceress.

"DO YOU WISH TO SAY SOMETHING, SORCERESS OF CHAOS? OR DO YOU WISH TO FIGHT ME RATHER THAN HIDE BEHIND YOUR FRIENDS?" Lina's temper flared up.

"I DO NOT HIDE BEHIND ANYONE!" she screamed. "But I'm not fighting you here in town. I'm guessing there's more to your orders than to bring me a message. You're here to kill me, right?" The dragon nodded, not in the least surprised that she knew that. "Then you'll have to kill me outside of the town, because I'm not sticking around here, and neither are my friends. Gourry, Amelia, Zel, let's go." She Ray Winged over to Gourry and picked him up, giving him a good thunk on the head when he tried to struggle. Damned jellyfish, afraid of a little thing like heights. Amelia and Zelgadis quickly followed, the latter keeping his eyes towards the dragon.

The dragon snorted in irritation and followed them at a leisurely pace.

*~the first slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer