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Kitsune Lina
Plans Enacted She drifted through the darkness confused, shocked and overflowing with unbridled rage. She had been promised power. She had been promised a kingdom. She had promised the chance to humiliate hat meddling old man who whose diplomatic mission had sent the slayers her way in the first place.
She had not been promised betrayal. She had not been promised that flash of burning pain. She had not been promised death. She had certainly not been promised this endless darkness. That utter and complete helplessness of her situation magnified her rage beyond anything it had ever been in life.
In this lightless place her total and complete rage seemed to have a physical, if indeed this was a place where physical things existed, presence. She could have sworn that she felt it rippling outward, and reflecting back towards what seemed to be her body. She was not sure how long that she had been floating in that void before the ripples that returned to her weren't the heat filled and impotent rage of her own soul.
These ripples were cold, alien, and considering. There was one more thing about these ripples that made Martina's lips curl in smile. These ripples carried words. "R'Lyeh!" Philoniel roared out, and attacked the enraged mazoku. Again Regin was barely concerned at all with the over-sized wrestler prince. He caught an incoming fist and tossed Prince Phil across the room deep somewhere into the battle. It would take a while for the pest to work his way back to where he could annoy Regin again, this allowed tha mazoku to turn all his attention on the approaching slayers.
As he turned to face them and take account of the forces arrayed against him, his wrath turned suddenly into tremendous mirth.
"Only four of you!" Regin laughed. "Where is your pet mazoku, did he take my advice and stay out of this battle?" He stopped laughing as he heard the clicking of claws running across marble. Looking down he saw an enraged Lina Inverse charging towards him, short sword in hand and tail extended straight behind her almost horizontal body.
The mazoku hurriedly released a lightning at the charging were-fox. It was a minor spell of course, but it also didn't take very long to cast. He was surprised when the magically produced electricity merely gathered about the glittering blue scales of her armor and dissipated into nothing.
The sword slashed into the surprised mazoku's side, but it wasn't a weapon of power and merely rebounded off the little "man's" skin."
"Elmekia Lance!" that, however, was a problem.
The Sailoon princess and chimera's linked spell threw the preoccupied mazoku backwards into the rear wall of the great room. He stood up and shook his head clear in time to dodge the blond swordsman's magical blade. They had done nothing significant to him so far, and he laughed as he floated above the general battle and looked at the guardsmen overcoming his thugs and the slayers moving to attack. Your master has failed.
That fool is not my master.
The point remains that he has failed, the gate will not be opened.
I do not know what you are talking about.
Do you wish revenge on the mazoku?
Yes.
And you wish to rule over this world.
Yes, and then to destroy it all in the name of the monster Zomalgustar.
Not destroy, you will open the gate.
What is this gate.
The gate will not open now, but the world boundaries will weaken, it is as we have planned.
You planned this?
The stars are not yet right, but this will prepare for when they are.
You wish to return as our servant?
Yes. Lina glanced at her sword a moment and sheathed it in an angry motion before unfastening her sword belt and letting it fall. The direct attack was not the way she was going to win this. Regin wasn't paying attention to her, more concerned with the actions of the other three slayers.
The were-fox snarled and moved around behind the mazoku's elevated position. Willing the mazoku to continue not to see her. She jumped rebounded off the wall and landed atop the mazoku. Her sword might not have had power, but her claws did.
Regin cried out in enraged pain and reached back to grab at the offending were-fox. Lina was gone by the time his hand reached back. He scanned about, the swordsmen was taking the fox's idea and looking for higher ground to come down on the mazoku.
They exchanged blows and spells for a few moments more, entering into an obvious standoff. Regin snarled in annoyance, this was going nowhere. Then he noticed a fluctuation in the pure flow.
He teleported, incidently dodging attacks by both Gourry and Lina, and reappeared near the exit of the throne room.
Someone was channelling the pure flow, but that was impossible. Not only did he doubt any other mazoku would be willing to take that risk, he didn't know of any other mazoku in the...
"Xellos!?"
"Whatever Xellos is doing, its got his attention." Lina shouted, running across the room. "Get him!"
"Excuse me, I'd love to continue this fight," Regin said in his characteristic monotone. "But I have to see an old friend." The mazoku vanished again.
"I think I can find him," Zel said. "Let's go."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Are you forgetting someone?"
"R'Lyeh? You're alive? I thought he had killed you my love," Philoniel halted his happy rush as "Lady R'Lyeh" turned a sadistic looking smile at him and rose off the ground.
"What a foolish man," she snapped. "I never loved you, fool, you were just a tool, don't you get it? HAHAHAHAHA!!" Her ruined wedding gown vanished to be replaced by her normal mode of dress in a flash. Philoniel looked on aghast as he finally recognized Martina. The slayers stood unsure of what to do, leave this new Martina behind or chase after the other mazoku.
"You fooled me," Philoniel realized. "I'll not allow my kingdom to fall to hands such as yours! Treacherous witch."
"Father don't!" Amelia yelled as she watched her father charge the hysterical newborn mazoku. Martina extended a hand outward languidly, drunk on her new power, and a burst of power incinirated the large man as he attacked. "No you damn, Mazoku! Elmekia Lance!!" Her spell was echoed from behind her by Zelgadis and the twin spells barely missed the shocked Martina. At least it shook her new found confidence.
"Well, I guess I shouldn't get too confident then should I," Martina mused from where she had appeared from her hasty teleport. "Hello there, Lina, enjoying your new life?"
"Mazoku can die, Martina?" Lina growled, getting ready to attack this younger weaker mazoku. She started to rush forward seeing Gourry do the same, and then she heard something cracking.
Heard it and felt it, as the warmth emanating from the amulet Xellos had given her fluctuated briefly. She halted and held up the amulet in her hand, it was cracking slowly but surely. She could see the lines radiating outwards.
"XELLOS!!" she yelled turning around running out the room, not sure how she was going find him, but knowing she had to.
Zelgadis noted the were-fox's flight and nodded grimmly, thinking he knew what just happened.
"Ra Tilt!" he shouted, casting the spell into the stream of energy. The spell entered and flowed along it. The stream may have been invisible to human and lycanthrope eyes, but the Ra Tilt flowed along visible to all, oblitering the pure flow as it went and gaining in power.
Lina stopped and shielded her eyes as the channeled flow of astral destruction flowed past her. She turned and met Zelgadis's eyes in stunned shock, before racing after the flowing magic.
Martina looked on and smiled, she was already well on her way to defeat with only Amelia and Gourry to deal with, but she had accomplished all she needed to do for now.
"Well, I don't think I should stay any longer either," Martina declared suddenly. "I'll see you again sometime! Ta Ta!!" The new mazoku vanished and didn't reappear.
"Where's Lina going?" Gourry asked.
"She's going to find Xellos," Zelgadis said simply, he turned to face Amelia and saw that she was working to keep her tears in check. The eyes said it, there was still another mazoku, much more powerful than the fledgling Martina, to deal with. She could cry later.
"Come on, they'll need help and there's been enough injustice today," Amelia said running after Lina's path.
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