| Slayers Next |
| Episode 2: The Rougish Priest! His Name is Xellos! |
| At the beginning of another sunny day, Lina, Gourry, and Amelia are lying on the grass, commenting on the nice weather. "Yeah, but we're in the middle of a journey, so don't get too comfortable," forewarned Lina. Gourry, even in his sleep, seeks to contradict this statement, rolling over in his sleep and putting a hand on Lina's chest. "AAA!" exclaimed Lina. "Darn it, don't go to sleep, Gourry!" she growled angrily, turning around to shake him violently. Meanwhile, Amelia was oblivious to the situation. "But, we hardly have a chance like this, so I want to stay here a little longer," she commented on the peacefulness, not really caring about what was happening in Lina and Gourry's direction (strangling). "Right, Mr. Zelgadis?" She looked to her left, but of course there was no one there. "Huh? Where's Mr. Zelgadis?" Zelgadis was already walking away from the field without so much as a glance back in his companions' direction down toward a path supposedly leading around the lake. "Jeez, he always has to take off on his own!" Lina complained, as she dragged Gourry, followed behind by Amelia, in Zelgadis's direction. "Hey, wait up a sec! Zel!" she called. The scene changes to nighttime, and the Slayers are talking in a building in a town they had gotten to during the day. "I told you I'm on a journey to find a Claire Bible, but..." Zelgadis was saying, then trailed off. He tried again. "And I made it clear that this is my own personal problem!" The inside of the building was shown at this point, and the sound of clattering plates and silverware could be heard. "But even so..." Zelgadis continued, fighting to keep himself under control. "Would you please stop following and criticizing me...?" - Lina, Gourry, and Amelia are shown eating like they hadn't touched food for weeks - Zel got to his feet, suddenly getting very big anime-style. "Are you even listening to me?!" he demanded angrily. Lina and Amelia, both having food crumbs messily plastered on their faces, responded in a series of mumbles that nobody could understand. Zelgadis looked at them coldly. "Look, either eat or talk," he said. At this comment, there was a short pause, in which Gourry, Amelia, and Lina considered the possibilities. About 2 seconds after Zel's statement, they went abruptly back to eating like ravenous beasts again. Zelgadis got a very dry look on his face. "My mistake," he admitted, supporting his head with his arm on the table out of frustration. "Please stop eating and talk." Lina finished taking a large swig of her drink, and then slammed her mug on the table to emphasize her next statement: "I said, even if you say that, do you expect us to say 'sure, whatever', like we're strangers or something?" she demanded, leaning forward over the table, and making Zelgadis look uncomfortable. "You're being so distant, Mr. Zelgadis!" Amelia added, as Gourry crossed his arms. "And after we're all finally reunited like this, too! We'll all do whatever we can to help!" she finished, striking a mini-pose. "You all just consider me your personal diversion," Zelgadis accused. Lina reassured him that the situation wasn't like that, and Amelia seconded it. "Very well," Zelgadis decided. "I just ask that you stay out of my way." He explained that he was risking everything to find the Claire Bible, the exceptionally famous powerful sorcery book that supposedly contains the deepest secrets of the magical world. Amelia looked at him in confusion. "Huh? And what will you do when you find it?" This statement caused both Lina and Zelgadis to fall over at how naive she was being. Lina explained that Zelgadis was going to use the magic in the Claire Bible to restore himself to his natural human form. Amelia was surprised, however. "You still want to do that?!" she asked. "But you're so cool the way you are now!" "Well, I don't like it!" responded Zelgadis, dropping his head a little in frustration. "Look, considering he doesn't like it..." Lina began, but Amelia was too passionate about the subject to back off. "But why, Mr. Zelgadis?!" she asked, striking some dramatic justice poses. "Even if you look different, our friendship is eternal!" "With friends like these..." Zelgadis trailed off, getting an even drier look on his face. Lina advised that Amelia should be a little more subtle. "Saying right in front of the guy how he has skin like rock and hair like wire!" she scolded, making Zelgadis feel even worse to the point that he leaned forward and his head hit the table. Unfortunately for Zelgadis, his wire hair stabbed into the table first, and Gourry drew back in alarm at getting impaled or something. "I never said that much!" insisted Amelia, as Zelgadis struggled to get himself free from the hold his hair had gotten on the table. "Besides, you should never judge people by appearances!" Zelgadis straightened one of his hairs. "Enough... I'm going to bed," he decided. He started up the stairs, and stumbled once from how bad he was feeling. Gourry, Lina, and Amelia watched this display piteously. "You guys..." Gourry started. "Think we teased him a little too much?" Lina asked sheepishly. Amelia looked at Lina, surprised that what they were saying was "teasing". "Mr. Zelgadis..." she whispered, concerned. "I wonder if his hair grows back like ours does." About two dozen hairs were still stuck rigidly into the table from where Zel's had had struck it... Lina sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom, brushing her hair, and thinking about the Claire Bible. She muttered to herself that first she would have to get information on it, and then put the hairbrush back into its designated spot. Outside in the dark night air, all was peaceful... until in the distance, a huge explosion disrupted the quiet entirely. Zelgadis woke with a start at the sound, taking his sword with him. He went to the window, saw the explosions, and then seemed to have figured out what was going on. Amelia only managed to sleepily wake up, in the meantime. And Gourry, unsurprisingly, was still snoring. Wherever it was in the distance, there was fire and destruction everywhere, and bandits were running for their lives in all directions. They were getting burned badly, and it seemed that everyone was in a state of total torture. "Mercy! Mercy!" one of the bandits begged to the form that was revealed to be Lina. Lina got a semi-cruel look on her face. "You're not getting away!" she mocked. Striking familiar postures, she fired a powerful Flare Arrow at the bandit that was just talking. "But I was asking for mercy!" he cried, before he was incinerated by the flames. Lina walked up to his charred body and his bleeding mess of a face. "I figured I'd have to go out to find this information!" Lina crowed triumphantly, her voice ringing throughout the chaos around her. "Is the Claire Bible among your stolen loot?!" she demanded, picking the bandit up by the collar. "Huh?! Tell me now!!" As she shook him, various grotesque-looking masks fell off until the bandit's normal face was revealed. "Huh?" he asked. "Claire...? What's that?" He looked confused. "Hm? Don't have it?" Lina considered, as the bandit dashed away at light-speed. "Oh. Did I make a mistake?" She pondered this, and then decided to go find the next bandit group to interrogate for information. Striking a dramatic pose, she commenced her mission - But was cut off by Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis as they ran up to stop her. "Lina!" Gourry called. "Lina, what's all the fuss?" Zelgadis demanded. Lina, for once, didn't have a very good answer. She could only come up with some kind of weak-sounding excuse about how bandits always equaled money for her, and that it never let up... Amelia gave Lina a scary stare with her sleep-induced eyes. "Miss Lina! Do you always do this?!" Lina considered, and then decided to let it out. "The Claire Bible... I was looking for info on the Claire Bible," she admitted. Zelgadis let out a surprised sound at this. "Well, that's fine," Gourry contributed, in chibi-form and hovering in the air. "But are you just going to shake down every bandit in the world to find it?" "Miss Lina... you're doing this for Mr. Zelgadis, aren't you?" Amelia asked quietly. Lina turned around, her face exaggeratedly big, and shouted quickly, with spittle flying everywhere, "Uh, no! No! No! It's because I want it!" She continued: "Understand? Don't make light of the treasure and information bandit gangs have. It can be the most reliable method of finding anything!" Her advice was suddenly interrupted by the sound of semi-distant clapping, and a voice saying loudly, "My, my!" Lina, along with her companions, looked upwards in surprise, and high above, standing on a peace of wood from one of the remains of the buildings, was a mysterious shadowed figure with purplish hair, a cape, and an interesting-looking staff. He was merely standing there clapping as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing. "That was fine deduction," he commented. "I'm quite impressed." Lina, Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis were still looking at the person in total surprise, wondering what in the world he was doing up there talking to them. A close-up is seen of him, but the hair the reached to his shoulders still shadowed his eyes. "To be expected of the infamous bandit killer Lina Inverse. You've already realized that fact." With that statement, he suddenly leapt high into the air, and then landed on the ground right in front of Lina with a surprising amount of speed that left Lina stumbling back a little in surprise, and even Gourry and Zelgadis caught off guard. Amelia was driven to hugging Zelgadis from being startled so much. He suddenly leapt to his feet in a bold move and began talking straight to Lina's face, who was still caught off guard. "So, it was worth my while to secretly follow you all," he commented, and then revealed that he was also searching for the Claire Bible. "If you don't mind, I was wondering if you might retrieve a manuscript of it from a bandit gang that I've been following." He finished with a small bow. "The Claire Bible?" Amelia asked. "A manuscript of it?!" added Zelgadis in surprise. Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis all looked at the newcomer with mean, suspicious looks. "You..." Lina started. "Who are you...?" As if on cue, a flaming wooden pole in the background fell over to the ground, causing an explosion. "Ah, have no worries. I'm not someone to suspect," replied the man, his eyes still shadowed ominously. "As you can see, I am Xellos, the Mysterious Priest." At the name "Xellos", he sort of flung back his hair, and his eyes were revealed to be friendly-looking after all in the familiar ^_^ anime fashion. Lina looked back at him, her eyes not showing any particular emotion. "Xellos..." she thought. The scene shifts to the inside of a cabin where the group now gathered. "Okay, I know he seems sort of friendly at first glance, but what do you all make of him?" Lina asked. Apparently, Lina, Amelia, and Gourry were having a sort of discussion about Xellos, while Xellos sat a short distance away, and Zelgadis leaned nonchalantly against a corner, not caring. "Anyone who calls HIMSELF 'The Mysterious Priest' gets a great big 'suspicious' in my book," Amelia commented, and Lina agreed. However, then another issue that Gourry raised up- Xellos did indeed tell of them of the existence of a Claire Bible manuscript, so perhaps he could be trusted. "Now look," Lina responded, "We don't even know if that manuscript is real." Another log was flung onto the fire, and all of a sudden Xellos was right in front of them again. "There's no need to worry yourselves about that," he assured them, his friendly expression still on, as always. The three of them fell back in alarm once again, and Gourry in particular seemed surprised that he'd snuck up on them so fast. He explained that the manuscript in question had been stolen from a temple where it had been looked after for generations. "Okay, even saying that, why are you after this stolen copy?" Lina asked. Xellos further explained that he was a priest of the aforementioned temple. "The honor of our temple has been stained. I want to try and get it back if I can." He concluded that that was the reason why he wanted to join forces with them. "Hmmm.." Lina considered. "That does seem to make sense..." Xellos clapped his hands together. "So, telling a story like that will make you believe me?" he asked casually. The three of them doubled over in surprise yet again. "Did you just make all that up just now?!" Gourry asked. Lina demanded that Xellos stop "playing around", and Xellos assured her that it really was the truth... basically. "And I really do need you all to help me with this," he finished. "Well, then, what's the reason?" Lina demanded, her eye twitching. Xellos appeared to shake a little out of amusement. He then struck a pose wherein he brought his right hand up beside his face. "That's a secret!" he declared. Immediately, the three of them got into the "discussion circle" again. "What's up with this guy?!" Lina whispered. "This guy'd cheat everyone!" "Huh? Eat everyone?!" Gourry asked in surprise. "He doesn't seem THAT bad." "Cheat, you idiot!" Lina hit Gourry on the head, finishing the exchange. Zelgadis was not amused by this whole sequence of events, and demanded that considering what had just been said, who would be stupid enough to still ally with Xellos? "What if I said I'd let you have the information that you need inside of the book, Zelgadis?" Xellos asked good-naturedly, looking at the golem friendly as Zelgadis looked at him with the coldest of glances. "I don't trust you," Zelgadis stated. "My, my," Xellos commented again. Zelgadis lost his temper, picking Xellos up by the collar. "What are you up to?!" he demanded. Lina knew that this was going too far, telling Zelgadis to calm down despite his past. "She's right! Maybe it's a trick or maybe it's a real chance!" Amelia offered. Zelgadis still didn't like how it was going, and despite their efforts, he took off on his own again out the door after telling them again that it was his "own personal problem". Lina was frustrated that Zelgadis was going off on his own again, but there was nothing anyone could do about it this time. "Okay, Xellos. The deal is that we sneak into the bandit gang's lair and find the book! However!" "However?" Xellos prompted. "Our partnership lasts only until you get the Claire Bible manuscript!" Lina decided. "After that, I make no guarantees." "Very well," Xellos stated, his eyes covered by shadow again. Lina, since everything had been settled, now required Xellos to show them the way to the bandits' hideout. "I don't even know if this gang is called the Dragon Fangs or the Dragon Heads," she commented. "Close!" Xellos commented, turning back into his friendly self. "They're the Fighting Dragon's Blood Macho Battlers!" "Macho..." Lina began. "Oh, I have a REALLY bad feeling about this." From the distance, the bandits were seen, and a strange sight they were. They were indeed very muscular, and clad only in a dragon's head mask, a cape, boots, gloves, and briefs. "Miss Lina!" Amelia commented, as they began flexing their muscles in presumably the customary Fighting Dragon's Blood Macho Battlers fashion. "Miss Lina, they look really dangerous!" "Oh, we've come too far for you to start complaining now!" Lina told her. They commenced with their plan: Lina and Gourry, both disguised as Lily and Gourin, had come to join the gang. They had also tied up Amelia, offering a princess of Seyruun as a present. One of the guards flexed his muscles in affirmation. "Have you ever seen pecs that flex so much?!" Gourry whispered to Lina. "Oh, I wanna try that-" Lina began, and Gourry turned to watch. Lina abruptly hit him in the head. "BUT I CAN'T!" Amelia was thrown roughly into her cage, and she was frightened again as the guard began flexing his muscles. Meanwhile, "Lily" and "Gourin" were led down a long hallway by some more members of the gang. "Hey, Lina. You think this is really working?" whispered Gourry. "Who knows? At least it's gotten us inside, right?" she whispered back. They stopped when they reached large red double doors, and they continued whispering as one of the members went forward to open the huge doors. "Now all we have to do is ask the boss if he has that priceless manuscript. Then we choose the right moment for Amelia to cause a diversion." "And then we grab the manuscript in the confusion," Gourry finished. "Bingo!" Lina congratulated him, as the doors finished opening and the gang member raised the curtain. "You actually figured out the plan! Good job, Gourry!" They both suddenly gasped out loud when they saw the boss sitting on his podium. Blue fires on both sides burned, making the scene look very dramatic. "Kinda big, isn't he?" Lina asked. The boss growled, flexing his muscles. Gourry told Lina to ask about the manuscript, but Lina didn't know how to go about doing it. The gang leader grinned, flexing his pecs. "Lina, look!" Gourry said, pointing. "He did that pec wiggling thing, too!" "All right, now it's my turn!" Lina began, and then punched Gourry in the face. "I said I can't do that!" Gourry fell over backwards on the ground. The leader laughed at this display. "What funny people," he began. "C'mon, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm pretty impressed that you captured a Seyruun princess! Besides letting you join, I'll give you something as a reward." Both Lina and Gourry were looking at him in quiet surprise that he spoke so normally. "It can be money or any treasure. Say whatever you want!" Lina made some small conversation, and then asked happily for the copy of the Claire Bible. "The manuscript?" asked the leader. "If that's what you want, then take it. Take as much as you like!" He held his left arm outward, and suddenly demi-humans of all kinds rushed out to attack. The plan was a failure. "I was tipped off that someone was sneaking in here to steal it!" the boss announced. "Get 'em, guys!" "Oh, for Pete's sake. Let's get 'em!" Lina declared. Amelia, back in her cell, undid her loosely tied ropes. She debated whether or not she should cause the diversion yet, and then decided that she should. "FLARE...." she began. However, the ground began to shake, and she was buried by rocks. Lina was firing Fireballs and incinerating everything in sight. "What the? How can they be so strong?!" muttered the charred and defeated gang leader in surprise. "That guy didn't say anything about this. I'm gettin' outta here!" And he ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. "Hey! Wait! Gourry, take care of this!" Lina said, chasing after the bandit leader. Another round of enemies arrived, and Gourry agreed to "take care" of them. He drew his Sword of Light, and defeated them all in one strike. From outside, explosions could probably be seen for miles. Up above, Zelgadis watched the scene with interest. "So, it's begun..." The bandit leader kept running, sweat breaking out on his face. "Oh, why'd it turn out like this?" muttered Lina to herself as she chased close behind. "Our plan went completely to hell!" "Oh, not at all!" a voice said, next to her: Xellos. "Basically, it's following MY plan perfectly!" "Xellos! Wait, YOUR plan?" Lina asked. "Hold it! What do you mean this is following your plan?!" Xellos kept running alongside her. "I was the one who tipped off the bandits that someone was coming to steal the manuscript," Xellos revealed, without a hint of concern in his voice. Lina screeched to a halt, turning around to demand an explanation, but Xellos nearly raced right by her, continuing to the manuscript. The bandit leader went past a hidden passageway, into the treasure room. He took something from the wall inside glass, and stamped his foot on it to free the contents, all the time raging about how crazy Lina was. He picked up the pieces of paper, vowing that he wouldn't let her have them. "There, you see?" asked Xellos. "When people panic, they always go to grab their most previous possessions." Lina looked at him in annoyance. "So you caused this riot just so he'd lead you to the manuscript? You were just using us as pawns in your game!" "Pawns?" asked Xellos, considering. "Hmmm.. yes, I suppose you're right!" Lina got up out of anger, bumping her head on the ceiling of the small passage. "To fool your enemies, you must first be able to fool your friends," Xellos advised calmly. He put his finger on his lips, and then touched his finger to Lina's lips, causing her to blush madly out of surprise. "Quit fooling around!" Lina demanded. Xellos asked if they should go now, but then something happened that he had not foreseen - Zelgadis's arrival. As the boss ran badly to try to escape, Zel intercepted him, slaying him with the sword. "Don't worry, I struck you with the back of the sword," he reassured the leader. "Oh, sorry. This is a double-edged sword..." Lina stuck her head out from the passage above, appearing upside-down. "Hey! Zel!" she yelled. "You were after that thing from the start, weren't you?!" She correctly guessed that he had pretended he was on his own, and then had ended up following them in. "Nothing personal. I never intended to involve you in this," Zelgadis replied. He wouldn't even turn around to heed Lina's calls. "My, my," Xellos commented, causing Lina to turn her head. "This is no good." And all of a sudden, he simply vanished, his body seeming to phase away, leaving Lina completely bewildered. "Huh? Huh?" Lina asked. "Now then, no reason to stay here any longer," Zelgadis talked to himself, walking through the debris and the fire, but still inside the building. "You were helpful to me. Don't take this personally, Lina." The manuscript was clutched tightly in his left hand, taken from the bandit leader. He continued on his way out. He smiled with confidence, but his happiness was suddenly cut short. Xellos was standing on a piece of debris not far in front of him. "You...." Zelgadis muttered with distaste. "Forgive me. You need to let me have a look at that first," Xellos said calmly, and suddenly began an amazing fast dash complete with what seemed like teleports. Taking Zelgadis completely by surprise, Xellos snatched the manuscript right from Zelgadis's hands, and leapt impossibly high onto an overhang above. "Damn you! Give that back to me!" Zelgadis raged. "I'll give it to you now, once I know it's of no use to me," Xellos reassured him, reading calmly. "FLARE ARROW!" shouted Zelgadis, but the spell merely phased into nothing off an invisible shield that seemingly surrounded Xellos. He didn't even have to move as he leafed through the pages of the manuscript. "Such an impetuous person!" Xellos commented, mocking Zelgadis. Lina dashed up next to Zelgadis, catching up. "Xellos, wait! You promised that he'd have the information he wanted! Come back down here!" Zelgadis couldn't take it anymore. "Nothing will stop me now..." he whispered. Lina told him to wait, but he wouldn't listen. Xellos's gaze suddenly got a lot more serious-looking. Doing the appropriate gestures, Zelgadis fired his spell, despite Lina's yelling for him to stop: "Buday... WIND!" The huge wind spell erupted the whole place in an explosion. Both Amelia and Gourry got buried under rocks once again. Now everything was outside, and the pages of the manuscript fluttered to a stop on the rocks. Zelgadis picked them up slowly, ignoring Lina's wriggling hand right nearby. Lina pushed herself out of the rocks. "Damn it! Don't I matter to you at all?!" she demanded. "As long as I have this..." Zelgadis muttered longingly, finally opening the papers to look at them.... They instantly burst into blue flame and burnt to ashes.... Zelgadis was left broken and confused. From somewhere high above, Xellos's voice came, calm as usual. "Oh, dear. It seems the manuscript wasn't the one I'm looking for after all. I couldn't have you looking at those troubling pages now, so I took the liberty of destroying them," he finished. "You what?!" Zelgadis demanded. Xellos, however, reassured Zel that the information that Zel wanted wasn't in there either. "No..." Zelgadis whispered, and both he and Lina looked at the cracked rock surface in front of them, where the voice was supposedly coming from. "You think I can believe you?!" "Whether you believe me or not is up to you. I'm sure we'll meet again," Xellos said. "And when we do, I'll have another job for you all." "Xellos, what do you really want?" Lina demanded, and Zelgadis too waited for the answer. On the rock surface, Xellos's shadow was seen in the same pose as previous. "That... is a secret," he stated, and left. Zelgadis let out a mighty yell of frustration, and then fell unconscious. "Miss Lina, how could you! Forgetting me like that!" Amelia complained as the four of them trudged onward as the sun was rising. "Using me as a pawn... That kind of talk deserves a Dragon Slave!" Lina declared. "I wonder who that guy really was..." Amelia pondered. "Anyway, I'm really impressed, Mr. Zelgadis. How did you manage to find the bandit hideout all by yourself?" Zelgadis came to a halt, and since he was in the front, the rest of them stopped too to hear the exchange. Lina, too, commented how Zel had come in with all his "cool poses". She wanted to hear how he had managed to find the room with the manuscript... "Well, it was sort of... You see..." Zelgadis muttered, seemingly struggling with something and sweatdropping. "Go on, tell us!" Lina prompted. "It was..." Zelgadis continued, his back to them, and he was visibly shaking just a tiny bit out of something amusing.... "a secret!" he finished as he turned around. Elsewhere, a woman searched for food in the garbage, and started to eat it. A cat, screeching, ended up attacking her. She landed on the ground with a cry, and clutched at the ground. As she looked up, it was seen that under the dirty, disgusting hood was... Martina. |
| Overall Episode: 28 |
| Episode 2 of Video 1 |
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