This is Weird! ---Falsified Kidnapping Part 2 in a weird series A "Slayers" production by G. A. Curtis Wildcat supreme_cat@hotmail.com Don't send any flames, please. What do you think the "Delete" key is used for? --------------------------- "Look, I'm telling you that the sandwiches here are the best on the continent!" "Hey, the chicken soup doesn't taste half bad either, Lina!" Lina and Gourry had stopped in a tavern in Crimson Town on their way to visit a few old friends---rather, the few that Lina actually had; it's rather hard to make friends with a person who uses a Dragon Slave to settle an argument. Zelgadis had decided to leave the group behind temporarily in order to resume his search for a remedy. Amelia, with some misgivings, had decided to leave Seyruun in order to meet these surprising individuals. They couldn't make the whole journey in half a week, much less a day; and thus, here they were. Things would get worse, though. Xellos had popped in on them right before they entered town and claimed to have sighted the once-thought-to-be-dead Phibrizzo eating soft-serve ice cream in Seyruun, so tensions were rather high. "BLT sandwich!" "Chicken soup!" "BLT sandwich!" "Chicken soup!" "BLT SANDWICH, AND THAT'S FINAL!" "CHICKEN SOUP, LIKEWISE!" "WHAT PART OF 'THAT'S FINAL' IS CONFUSING YOU, JELLY-HEAD?" Xellos, who noticed that Amelia had wisely stepped out of the way of the argument, decided to intervene. "Look, they're ALL good. You might as well decide----" "NO ONE ASKED YOU, MR. "THAT-IS-A-SECRET"!" Lina shouted. "Okay, okay! I'm just saying that you might want to think of what you want QUICKLY before the waiters come back!" Xellos said hastily. "I'll decide WHAT I want WHEN I want it and no time sooner!" Lina's face was visibly turning crimson with anger. "On the contrary," Xellos retorted, changing gears abruptly. "You'll get a BLT sandwich RIGHT NOW before I hit you on the head with my staff." "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" The teenage sorceress was starting to reach the boiling point. "WHY won't you shut up?!" Xellos grinned; he couldn't resist this opportunity. "That....is a secret." "Why, you little....!" Lina jumped out of her seat and threw a fist towards Xellos. The monster-in-human-form deftly dodged the blow---but the punch neatly put a hole in the wall behind him. "Hey, don't look at me. You asked for it!" --- "FLARE ARROW!" "ELMEKIA LANCE!" "BRAM BLAZER!" "RAGNA---eh, ditch the Ragna Blade. FREEZE BLADE!" "BURST RONDO!" "RA TILT!" --- When the smoke cleared, Lina was breathing heavily from the rapid-fire attacks she had launched. Gourry had went to the other side of the tavern, presumably to avoid the attacks. Amelia was still where she was on the outer edge of the explosive attacks. Xellos was sitting on a chair, having avoided each of the attacks cleanly and being quite pleased with himself. As for the tavern? The wall that they were sitting near was blasted wide open due to Lina's attacks. The waiter, who had joined them during Lina's assault, looked at Amelia. "I'm sorry. What was it you said you wanted?" Amelia looked at the damaged tavern, then gave a depressed sigh. "On second thought, sir, I think I'll have the cheesecake instead." ---- The manager of the tavern was not a very happy man. "I don't believe this," he moaned. "Just HOW am I going to get the money to pay for all this?" He knew how the place was nearly destroyed, of course; almost every tavern-owning citizen on the continent had dealt with Lina Inverse at one point or another. Judging by her garb, he assumed that she had some money with her. Thinking back to the people that were with her, he decided on what was a plausible---at least to him---solution to the problem. A secret kidnapping. ---- There would be no problem as regards being heard. One of the other sleepers in the inn had this really bad snoring habit, so most of those staying for the night had burrowed some ear plugs. Amelia was one of them. The manager had snuck into the room in the dead of night, almost tripping over a few odds and ends as he did so. He was at a loss as to how he was going to drag her out until he remembered a swift and sneaky technique that his uncle had taught him. "How did he do it...ah! Now I remember!" he muttered to himself. -- Amelia didn't wake up until 8 hours later, when a ray of sunshine shone through the window onto her face. Blinking, she tried to stand up---but found herself tied to a chair with her hands tied behind her back. "Hey! Who's there?! Get over here and untie me!" "I can't do that," the manager said, stepping out of the shadows ominously. "I'm holding you ransom." "Ransom? WHY?" Amelia asked curiously. "My building nearly got destroyed by that wretched Inverse lady, lady," the manager growled. "You're not leaving until I get the ransom money from her!" "Oh, she'll be by, all right," Amelia shot back, "and the horses of justice are going to leave hoofprints on your face!" "That's a new one," the manager said sarcastically. Amelia ignored the man's remark. "How did you get me in here? Tell me!" "I used a special technique to get you out of bed and into that chair," the manager said. "Namely, what I did was grab your arm and run like my life depended on it. With those ear plugs, you never even heard me!" Amelia just groaned...."How could I have been captured so easily?" she mused quietly. With that thought out of her mind, she settled down and waited for Lina and Gourry to show up. -- ONE HOUR LATER -- The manager walked back into the back room with a tense look on his face. Amelia snapped her head back up. "Has Lina shown up yet?" "Not yet," the manager muttered with a smug look on his face, "but I'm sure she will." -- ONE HOUR LATER -- "Blast it, Lina, where are you?" the manager and Amelia murmured simultaneously. Two hours had gone by since Amelia had woken up, but Lina still hadn't shown up. Just what was keeping her? "You better hope she shows up soon. The longer she delays, the longer you stay in that chair," the manager said briefly. "I hate you," Amelia muttered. She gave a sigh of relief. "Whew! That felt good to say." -- TWO HOURS LATER -- Four hours had gone by, and it was close to lunchtime. Still no sign of the two Slayers. Amelia and the manager were bored out of their skulls. Amelia looked around, looking for something to occupy her mind. Her gaze focused on the manager. "That hat...is it new?" "Yeah...bought it just a few days ago," the manager said. "My old one accidentally got set on fire while I was cleaning out the house's chimney..." -- THREE HOURS LATER -- "So, when that guy from Sairaag offered you that bum deal, you actually hired that crazy swordsman to go after him?" Amelia asked. "Yes. He brought back the salesman before the crook even knew what hit him, but it only took him about a week to do it!" The two of them laughed for probably the hundredth time in the last few hours. No one had shown up recently to pay the ransom and set Amelia free, so the manager had decided to oblige her with his life story. In the end, despite the situation, Amelia was starting to enjoy herself. The two of them fell silent for the first time in hours as the story ended. They stared at each other, not knowing the next step in the plan to get the ransom money. Finally, the manager just groaned to himself and walked out of the room, leaving Amelia alone with her thoughts. "When is Lina going to come and rescue me?" "Just how much is that tavern worth to him?" "I wonder what a cheesecake sandwich tastes like." -- ONE HOUR LATER -- "That's it. I give up," the manager blurted out. "I'm sick and tired of waiting, so I'm just going to set you loose." "Huh?" That got Amelia's attention. "What do you mean?" "If she was going to show up, she would've done so by now. You're free to go." This left the Seyruun princess even more surprised than ever. "But what about the money you have to pay to rebuild that part of the tavern?" The manager just sighed; he must've been thinking about this for the past hour. "I think I'll just sell a few things and get the money that way." He stooped down to untie Amelia's hands and feet. "Besides, now that I think about, kidnapping just isn't my specialty." Freed, Amelia stood up and stretched her muscles for a few seconds. "I could you get you the money." "You can?" the manager asked suspiciously. "How?" "Simple," Amelia replied smugly. "I'm Amelia, the princess of Seyruun!" "YOU'RE the princess of Seyruun?!" the manager blurted out again. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" Amelia shrugged. "I dunno. Tell you what, though. Send a courier to Seyruun in my name and have him talk to my dad, Prince Phil. He'll get you every coin you need to repair the damage." The manager nodded. "Great. Thanks." He started to leave, then paused. "You can grab a sandwich on the way out, if you want," he said. Amelia smiled. "I just might do that." --- A few days or so later, Amelia finally caught up with Lina and Gourry not far from their destination. This allicted a puzzled reaction from Lina, considering that she hadn't expected to see her here---and that Amelia was steaming angry. "Amelia! What are you doing here?" "You didn't know that I was kidnapped?" Amelia protested. This startled Lina. "Kidnapped...?" "So THAT'S why she wasn't in her room at the inn!" Gourry said thoughtfully. "Well, what did you THINK I was doing?" Amelia was starting to lose her temper.... "I don't know," Lina said calmly. "You didn't seem too thrilled about joining us, so I had assumed you had just gone back to Seyruun." Amelia realized that there wasn't any way that she was going to get through to her, so she just sweatdropped and slowly calmed herself down. "I'm still not too happy about it. I think you owe me." Lina sweatdropped at that statement. "Owe you what?" "For one, you're paying the bill at the next tavern we stay in," Amelia stated. "And for another...I could use some pain medicine. My shoulder hurts." "Sitting in a chair with your hands tied behind your back can do that to you," Xellos commented from the safety of some nearby trees. "Trust me. I know." "Okay, I will," Lina said to Amelia, not one to be foxed out of her money, "but if you get a cheesecake sandwich, YOU'RE the one paying the bill." The Seyruun princess looked at her in shock. "So you've been thinking about that, too!" The three of them---plus Xellos---began walking again towards the village. In the end, Lina got in the last word. "I'd say `great minds think alike', except lying is unjust." "Rrr...stop stealing my material!" "I'll steal it if I want to, Justice Friend," Lina remarked. She started laughing at that little joke. Three seconds later, though, she was caught off-guard by a ticked off princess...a ticked-off princess with the Fists of Justice. *KA-POW!* "Hey, that hurt! Why, you little...!" "What a way to end this anecdote," Xellos muttered, sarcasm coloring his voice. He looked on as the two females fought each other, then sighed. [Guess I'd better end this fight quickly], he thought, raising his staff above his head and walking towards them quietly. *CLOBBER* *THUNK* "D'OH!" "AAH!" ----- Could've been better, I admit; but then again, This is Weird! There's SUPPOSED to be room for improvement. It's a lot bigger than the first part, and it only took me 24 hours to do this when I got started. I'm quite impressed. If you thought that was dumb, you should see what the next chapter is like.