AN: I apologize now for any OOCness that ensues.  This fic is Xel/Lina, Zel/oc, Ame/oc, Gry/Syl.  Read on!  Let me know what you think, good, bad, suggestions, etc. 

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Chapter One: Assignment

Zellas rolled the idea around in her mind just as she was rolling her goblet between her slim fingers, swirling the deep red liquid within.  It was an interesting notion that her priest had proposed and she decided that there should be no adverse effects of allowing her minion the rare enjoyment.  Drawing another drag off of her cigarette, she pondered another thought, sending the smoke pluming above her with a breath; granted she allowed him to do things his own way assuming that her orders were carried out, but she seldom granted him his own ideas as they would make him temporarily unavailable from her service.  In compensation she usually supplied him with various ways to spend his time, the availability of several women being just one compensation, one she knew that he indulged in on occasion.

"Hmm, I see no reason why not," she finally answered the young man standing before her.  The brief expression of surprise that flickered over his handsome face was enough to make her smile.  His expressions rarely varied much and that brief instant that his jaw was slack and his eyes opened slightly was enough to make her decision worth it.  "Just so long as you realize that you're still going to be called upon."

"Of course, Juuou-sama," he replied brightly before he bowed low before his mistress and vanished.

"Enjoy yourself, Xelloss, because you won't have very long to once Ceiphied realizes what we're up to..." she told the air. 

Her priest could no longer hear her as she wasn't sending her thoughts, but merely saying what she felt should.  The Beastmaster shifted slightly in her seat, the jangles about her ankles tinkling with the movement from where her feet hung over the arm of the throne as she leaned back against the other, taking a sip of her wine.  Blonde curls hung over her shoulders and she shifted her goblet to the other hand to flick them behind her and straighten the loose folds of the draping dress she wore.

"Luna should be here shortly, and then we'll see what she thinks of this idea of yours, Xel-chan."  She chuckled softly, sounding more like an amused growl to those with the most sensitive of ears.  "Earning such a level of trust from the sorceress Lina Inverse.  A challenge even for you I would think, my dear priest, especially after your last little trick on her companions."

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Lina'd just finished eating and was on her way to the baths when she felt a familiar tingle in the back of her mind, halting her immediately.  Swinging around she saw no one down the short corridor of room doors and grumbled incoherently as she turned back around, continuing on to the baths, towels in hand.  She had been jumpy lately and not being able to figure out the reason was really starting to grate on her nerves, making her more irritable that usual for that time of the month. 

She'd been without her magic for the past few days and knew that the most she had been able to cast the day before would have been a very weak fireball, maybe strong enough to singe, possibly burn for a second but nothing life threatening, a fact that she didn't have to test as she knew from experience.  Perhaps that fact doubled with her most recent location was what was putting her on the edge, she mused as she slid the doors to the baths closed behind her.  By tomorrow she would be back to tip top shape, for which she was glad.  There was no one in the baths tonight, she noted with a relieved sigh as she moved over to the various shelves built into the far wall.  Quickly undressing and folding her clothes into one of the many square spaces created by the shelves, she hurried into the next room, taking her towels with her.

Sliding the second door closed, she dropped the towels on the side of the public bath to tie her hair up out of the way with her headband before slipping into the warm water.  Almost immediately she felt some of the tension in her body vanish and she sighed again, leaning back against the side with her hands behind her head.  It had been a few days since she'd been near a bathing house and her body welcomed not only the opportunity to free itself from traveling grime but the heat that relaxed her cramping muscles.  Her last hot water bag had been broken when she'd thrown it at Gourry for one of his brainy comments, darkening her mood even more.

The only thought that kept her from harming the swordsman bodily at that time had been the promise of a bath and a decent meal, but what she hadn't know was just what town they'd be staying in.  It was Cryuun.  A town that hardly anyone knew of because of its tendency to relocate due to the magical disk it had been built on.  It never stayed in one place long and Lina determined that she would be out of there before it shifted again.  The last thing she wanted was to wake up one morning and have no clue where she was once she set foot outside the edge of town.  She'd tried explaining the concept to Gourry but the jellyfish had only asked, "Well if it just shifts from here to there, why not ask it to go to Seyruun so we could see Amelia and get some good food?"

"Ask it," she grumbled, her expression darkening.  "Yeesh.  I swear he's gotten nuttier this past month.  Just like Amelia and Zel.  She suddenly decides that she wants to be responsible and high tails it back to Seyruun and Zel had to throw a fit when I said that I wasn't going back to Eshynal.  I mean, it's not like I don't have a good reason!"

The fact that she hadn't explained it to her chimeric friend nagged at her and she swore softly as she grabbed up the soap nearby and began lathering herself, all the while muttering beneath her breath.  The soft splash of someone entering the men's bath halted her grumbles; she didn't need anyone overhearing her, though at the moment she wasn't sure that she cared.

"Oh, hey there," came Gourry's voice over the high wooden partition.  "I didn't realize you were here too."

"Just on a vacation of sorts," the swordsman was answered and Lina froze.  That voice belonged to only one person: Xelloss.  "Then it is safe to assume that Lina and the others are here as well?"

"Naw, just me and Lina."  There was a few moments of silence, broken only by the occasional soft splash and swishing of water.  "So, Xelloss, what are you doing here?"

"As I said," the priest replied brightly and Lina continued her washing, "I'm on a vacation... of sorts."

"Of sorts?"

"I have a few... tasks that I need to do but for the most part it is a pleasure trip."

Lina snorted softly while she pulled the tie out of her hair and set it to the side, shaking out the length of molten tresses behind her shoulders.  Yeah right, she thought as she grabbed up some of the scented oils near by and added them liberally to her hair.  A pleasure trip?  So in other words, a mission to wreak havoc on the world again, and lead Gourry and I into yet another string of troubles…

A part of her dreaded the fact while the other part of her welcomed it; at last a break in the monotony of meaningless travel she'd fallen into!

The two men's conversation turned to more trivial matters and the sorceress tuned them out and concentrated on rinsing the rest of the soaps from her hair.  Once she was finished, she stepped out of the bath and wrapped one towel around hair and the other around herself before moving back into the dressing room.  Collecting her stuff from the cubbyhole, she hurriedly made her way back to her room where she tossed her clothes onto a nearby chair and settled herself onto the bed before lighting the candle nearby.  Tucking her feet under her, she pulled the towel from her head and pulled the wet tresses over her shoulder to brush them out with the stiff wire brush she'd snatched off the dresser on the way.

It didn't take her long before the length was brushed and quickly drying, and she started on the top, working out the few knots and snarls, leaving her hair neat and straight down her back.  Just as she started to get up to put the brush back on the dresser and to get ready for bed, a hand settled on her shoulder, keeping her seated with gentle firmness.  She froze beneath the touch; there was only one person that could appear in her room unnoticed and unannounced and she fought back the urge to pound the tar out of the trickster.