Kitsune Lina - Chapter 24 - Xellos's Gambit

Author: Thrythlind Title: Kitsune Lina - Chapter 24 - Xellos's Gambit

Kitsune Lina

Xellos’s Gambit

The moment he stepped into the flow he was flooded with power. Xellos gritted his teeth in an effort to resist merely being ripped away in the flow. He hadn't felt near this level power in all his existence as a Mazoku. For a long time now he hadn't been surrounded by enough pain, terror and rage to come even close to filling his reserves of power. Now he was going above and beyond what he had thought was his maximum level of power, and it still wasn't stopping
Xellos turned stiffly to the outer wall and further demolished the tower top, leaving the doorway behind him intact. It was a pathetically minor thing to do with all this power, but he needed to buy some time. He needed to slow down the rate at which power was filling him. The mazoku priest overlooked the city below with vision enhanced sharply by the pure flow filling him, and the faint twinge of burning pain that he was only just now beginning to register.
Extended his hand outward he picked out a thug here and thug there, and raining death upon him from his position. He didn't particularly care who he killed, beyond the fact that these were the servants of his enemy, but Lina would care. To further dissipate power he filled the room about him with a rather harmless light show that further terrified the people below.
Battle mostly ceased as everyone merely tried to run from the monster on the tower, not noticing that only the traitor monks were being targetted. This terror entered the pure flow like every other negative emotion, Xellos felt the surge moments later. This wasn't slowing things down enough, that twinge of pain was becoming more noticeable now. Every joint and muscle seemed to hot and stiff, sweat was breaking out in rivelets running down his face.
"He's not here yet," mumbled. "I need more time." The mazoku circled his arms in, gathering power, and then thrusting his staff upwards. A blast of black red energy erupted into the sky harmlessly flying into the space beyond the world. The power it took to produce even that eruption of power was quickly refilled.
Xellos leaned on his staff, he didn't know how much longer he could continue this. If Zelgadis fulfilled his part in the plan and he was stubbornly trying to buy more time for Regin to arrive then nothing would be accomplished but his death. That last display had slowed down the building pain, even alleivated it some, but it was coming back. He had to do it now, before the pain was too thick for him to think clearly.
Xellos stood calmly in the center of the pure flow and tapped his staff twice on the hard stone beneath him. Then space around him began to warp, the sensation was easily recognizeable. For the barest instant, two places would become one and then split again leaving the teleporter in a new place entirely. Only this time the instant was slow in coming and it wasn't leaving.
Regin appeared suddenly in the hall outside the doorway.
"I never thought of you as one for self-sacrifice," the rogue smiled as he walked into the demolished tower top. He noticed the warping effect immediately and realized that his enemy's full power was concentrated on shaping it, for whatever reason.
"You're...late," Xellos wheezed. He let slip his effort to merge the other location into this one and dropped a circular wall of force around him and the rogue mazoku. He almost lost the merger, but recovered in time to keep the effect building.
"And just what do you plan to do with all that power," Regin asked glancing amusedly at the force wall. He knew there was nothing he could do to Xellos at the moment, too much power flowed around him, but he didn't need to anyway.
"Sore...wa...hi..mitsu...desu," Xellos managed something like his normal cheerful smile as the spacial warping solidified into Xelas's throne room. He was there, he was in the circle at the top of the tower. The two places were now one. Behind him was the remainder of the tower top's wall and the entryway beyond, all else was Wolf Pack island, it was a bizarre merging.
"What is the meaning of this, Xellos?" Xelas asked irritably. Xellos wasn't fooled, the Beastmaster recognized the pure flow. She knew her general well enough to know that he wouldn't go through all this if there wasn't a plan somewhere. She had already tried to teleport out of her throne room, and failed. Xellos had locked them in.
She was afraid, and Xellos could feel it. He could feel it twice over in fact, his master's fear had been sucked into the pure flow in a particularly painful surge. Regin didn't seem to understand though, he was just enraged and irritated. All he could see was Xellos wasting energy that he had planned to use for breaking the walls seperating this dimension from the old ones' prison.
"I...promised...that we'd...discuss...Lina again..." Xellos answered through gritted teeth. "I won't...get...another chance." He laughed wearily, this was taking tremendous effort, and keeping his power reserves relatively low. Still the old saying held true, half a dozen of one or six of the other, the result is the same. Not only could he exhaust himself utterly this way, he was still being filled despite how much power he was using.
"And you think burning yourself away and making me watch is going to accomplish something?" Xelas asked. "You think I'll be happy that she inspired further disobediance?"
"Problems at work, Xellos?" Regin asked quietly, Xelas glared at him, but she couldn't do anything. Regin wasn't all there, caught on the edges of Xellos's place merging. He couldn't leave, but the amount of power it would take to do anything significant would be tremendous.
"You...know better..." Xellos suddenly closed his eyes and slipped down the staff to his knees. "It shouldn't...take...much longer." He laughed again, still obviously in pain.
"Stop this now, Xellos!" Xelas demanded. "If you stop now, I'll spare your little pet's life!"
"Lina's...nobody's pet," he spit the last word. "It won't...take long...now."
"Oh what are you going to do?" Regin asked. "You've got nearly limitless power, but you're already at the limit of how much you can do at one time."
"So..re...wa...himit...su desu," Xellos smiled. He was breathing heavily, and again that burning pain was filling his body.
"XELLOS!!" the named mazoku's smile ended as he heard Lina's voice. He struggled to his feet and turned around watching the approaching light of Zelgadis's Ra Tilt. Regin and Xelas saw it two, Regin was suddenly afraid and trying to break out of the fringe of non-being bordering the Sailoon palace and Wolf Pack Island. From Xelas, there was a kind of angry resignation as the building spell came closer.
"LINA, DON'T COME IN!!" Xelas smiled then from her throne, there might be a way out after all.
"What's it going to be Xellos?" she asked. "Kill me or save your little human lover, if you even have the strength to do that."
Xellos gritted his teeth considering, the Ra Tilt would follow the pure flow and open the barriers temporarily, and Lina would follow behind. She would be here when it finally struck the circle he was standing in. That could not be allowed to happen.
Xellos pushed himself further, unaware until now that he could channel so much power. He didn't plan on living either way, so the pain didn't matter, only keeping Xelas trapped here long enough for that Ra Tilt to rip through the astral side of Wolf Pack Island.
Xelas growled as she felt the bonds of the merger reconnect from Xellos to the pure flow itself.
"No! Xellos, stop this now!!" she stood up and blasted an stream of energy at her traitorous servant. It merely swirled away, sucked into the pure flow about him, she had known that would happen, but she was desperate. "Stop now and I swear by L-sama that nothing will happen to your family! I swear it!!"
Xellos tumbled from the pure flow to the floor, he had succeeded. The merging of places and the lock in depended on the flow rather than him now. Xelas saw this and fired several more energy bolts at his prone form, all swirling into the pure flow. Xellos climbed up his staff onto his feet as the Ra Tilt finally rounded the corner as a bloated crackling stream of killing power.
It ripped through the region of non-being with Lina rounding the hallway corner just behind it. Xelas roared in impotent fury as she saw her betrayer dive into and through the Ra Tilt spell. If the pure flow hadn't taken him beyond the point of survival this was sure to, but Xelas didn't consider that. She only saw her general pushing the charging were-fox back as the Ra Tilt ended in the pure flow circle.
"NOOO!!" she screamed as the boundless energy within exploded outwards in uncontained fury.
Xellos's merger died as the flow exploded, releasing Regin from his private prison as a fringe of the greater effect slammed into him and the two slayers. Compared to the fury no doubt tearing through Wolf Pack island, this was nothing. Regin felt his astral side ripped from all the directions as he was thrown against the remains of the wall.
It didn't even last a full second, the merger ended and suddenly those still in Sailoon were spared the destruction. All three remained still and unmoving for a long moment, before any of them began to stir.

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