The Blonde, the Brunette, and the King of Thieves
By Paper Tiger
Disclamier: Lina, Naga, Mazoku, and all Slayers related elements are copyright of … I forget their names, but their collective authors, producers, and creators. Xena, Hercules, Autolycus, and all related elements are copyright of… okay, I forget them too, but they don’t belong to me either.
Foreword: All I’d like to say is that Bruce Cambell is a living cartoon character. All I did was make him 2d.
Chapter 1: Feeling the Heat
Autolycus, the self proclaimed King of Thieves, was not having a very good day. Gamblers often have a similar experience: they enter a room, risk it all in one daring maneuver, and briefly glimpse fortune, fame, and fortune before the oafish, hairy hand of Lady Luck steals it away.
Autolycus, at the moment this saga starts, was being beaten by the many oafish, hairy fists of the Royal Vanchuran Guard… this was a rare occasion in which his expertise failed him during a theft. Vanchura is a relatively small kingdom, and is not worth mentioning, really. It was to Autolycus’s amusement (if you could call it such) that such a small country could produce such giant Palace Guards. Go figure.
Lady Luck had stood him up as he escaped the Vanchuran palace. Auto fled into the woods, expecting to be alone and out of sight. Rather, he had fallen into the perfect ambush, and was now out of shouting range from any Greek demigods. Cest’ la vive.
But his salvation was casually approaching, in the form of two young women famous throughout the land.
"Drop him, boys," said a girl, stern yet cool tone. Fonzerelli cool.
Autolycus was unable to clearly see these newcomers, as he was both upside-down and given a black by Guard #3.
"AND IF WE DON’T," grunted a cubed guard near Auto.
"Then we’ll have to teach you a lesson," said a second, if not equally confident, feminine voice.
The sound of bone-crunching kicks and explosions filled the air and Auto was dropped to the ground. In the time it took him to stand up and dust himself off, the few guards still conscious were calling for their mommies.
Autolycus’s prayers were saved by a brunette and a redhead ….we know what you’re thinking…No.
"Ladies, ladies," he said as a smile slide across his bruised face
"what a pleasure it is to see you a-"
His eyes came into focus and something... wasn’t right. "-gain?"
His liberators weren’t who he’d expected. Sure, the younger girl was short and had red hair, but the girl Auto knew didn’t wear armor.
And even though the brunette was tall and wearing leather, she was too young and revealing too much skin.
Relatively speaking, of course.
"Forgive me," he smiled, still tilting from the mob assault. "I’d thought you were friends of mine, but I’m afraid we haven’t been acquainted."
The girls looked up from their work (i.e. relieving the unconscious guards of their wallets) and gazed at him with annoyance and suspicion. The brunette seemed surprised that he was still around.
"And you are?" he persisted.
The smaller strawberry –blonde girl, who looked about 14, wrestled her bottom jaw from side to side before giving in to his "charm."
"Lina."
Not wanting to be stood up, the brunette with huge… tracks of land... stood up dynamically and proclaimed:
"And *I* am Naga, the White Serpent!"
"Naga," Auto tossed up half-heartedly, "what a lovely name." Even he wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm.
Hmm. Cute kids, thought Auto, but they not interested enough in me to be worth hanging around. It’d be best to wow them now with an impressive exit and "accidentally" bump into them later. Be the real mystery man.
"Well, dear ladies, I must be hitting the road. But I want you to know that you’ve had the honor of meeting..."
tug on vest...
"The King of Thieves!"
‘Walk two hundred feet, swing into a tree when they’re not looking, reemerge only when out of sight. Brilliant plan as always,’ he thought.
"Hey, Naga," piped Lina. "How big a bounty do you think there’d be on a ‘King of Thieves’?"
The rogue froze with a familiar ‘Poit’.
"Ooohh, Quite a lot, I’d wager," mused Naga.
Autolycus’s comical grin hardened into a stern and solemn expression, chin jutting fiercely. He turned to the two girls and glared. If he was going down, he would face his fate like a man.
"I warn you, ladies, you’re not getting me without a flight."
The girls looked at each other in confusion.
"Doesn’t he mean ‘fight’?" Naga asked.
"Nope," sighed Lina upon turning, "’flight.’"
Naga followed Lina’s finger to where Autolycus was running down the forest path like there was no tomorrow (which, given his circumstances, was quite possible.)
"fireBALL!!" Lina cried, hurling the explosive orb underhand across the glen. It landed with a thunderous crash and a satisfying scream.
Among a hall of heartless stone and sparkling steel prevailed a throne of skulls. Atop this twisted monument to hatred and destruction was a figure warped greater still. Not a mere man, but a god.
His locks were curly and his sideburns imposing. Both were a brooding black, as was his villainous beard/goatee combo. He was in fact "too sexy for his shirt," for his clothing consisted only of a black leather vest and pants. If you haven’t guessed it already, he is Ares, God of War.
Normally not a very jolly character, today he was feeling quite good- in a sadistic way. All of his plans were unraveling just as he had planned, and soon the world would be his to control. War would prevail and all would bow before his fury.
Not that this plan involves Lina, Naga, or Autolycus. It may deal with Xena and/or Hercules, but who really cares? No, Ares and his diabolical plans really have nothing to do with this fic in any way, shape, or form.
I just wanted to say once and for all that if Ares was in anime form, he’d be a bishonen.
...not to say that someone else’s dark and evil plans didn’t involve our heroes.
The glinting, one-eyed sorcerer cackled to himself in either pure joy or in insurmountable frustration. He had delved too far into madness to show any distinction between the two emotions. For all we know, he could be laughing feverishly over a very good corn muffin. Either way, he drew a circle of dust upon the floor and placed a dark candle in the center.
The candle was odd, dark and twisted in every meaning of the word. It reeked of copper and decay, and looked like an art piece modeled after strangling vines. Modern art. Any one holding it would have gained a bad vibe. And most bizarre of all, however, was the fact that it bore three separate wicks.
The codger lit one of the wicks with a long match, not daring to step inside the circle.
After a blast of rancid air swept through the chamber, the candle burned with a maroon flame. But nothing else. The wizard’s ornate and arcane ceremony summoned... nothing.
He scratched his head and wondered if he had performed the ritual correctly... it had been a while.
As headed for his desk, his one eye fell upon the wall. The light of the candle cast the shadows of two separate people, one in the circle, one outside.
"I knew you couldn’t escape," creaked the old man, turning back to the center of the circle.
Within the circular seal of dust, the figure of a small boy wrapped in robes materialized into view. He gave an exasperated sigh.
"What do you ask of me now?"
The old man chuckled to some joke in his head. "I want you to retrieve something..."
Autolycus was really not having a good day. To paraphrase a well-known simile, he was thrown out of the frying pan and into the blazing fusion reactor known as the sun. Not that Autolycus knew that the sun they orbited was a fusion reactor, but he assumed that he’d be better off there than being dragged around by Lina and Naga.
He was right.
The two young sorceresses were taking him to market, to market, just like a fat pig. Lina literally had his wrists and neck tied to a length of rope and led him about like a dog. The tall bimbo was strutting triumphantly behind him.
"Is the leash really necessary?" he asked after a long while.
"Probably not," chirped Lina, making no movement to relieve him of it.
Only when the terrain became slanted did they notice something amiss. The birds had sung peacefully in the forest, not in the mountainside path. Hell, even the bugs dind’t buzz and bite in obscene places, so you know something’s wrong. Autolycus felt like someone breathing down the back of his neck, with a foul breath and stuffed-up nose. Lina felt it too.
If Naga wasn’t so busy praising herself, no doubt she’d share in there discomfort.
Lina stopped tugging at the thief’s leash, letting Auto gasp for breath.
"Hand him over now."
To their left was a 12-year old boy. The group never saw him approach nor emerge. It was almost as if he materialized between blinks... and he didn’t look all too pleased.
The boy certainly looked capable of mirth, though. His face was bronzed by the sun and glowed, while his dress suggested a far off land. Like a Nomad of the Desert. He stared at them with twinkling sky-blue eyes, squinted in a stare. The only part of his appearance not inviting was his short black hair, which neither shimmered nor glistened. Kind of dreary and foreboding.
But what really caught the group’s attention was his scent. Whenever the wind picked up a fraction of his smell and carried it to the three, their minds were flooded with images of desert landscapes and lonely flowers in the cool nights.
Lina wasn’t impressed. Foreigners were nothing to gawk at, and you can buy sandalwood perfumes at any market for half a silver piece.
"Sorry, but he’s coming with us," Lina piped.
"I must insist," the stranger said dryly. His tone was musical, but bleached and stripped of all humor.
"Well, I don’t know who you are," Naga proclaimed with contempt, "but what the Great Naga wants, she gets! OOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!!!!"
Autolycus winced from the laugh for the 11th time that afternoon. To the few of you out there lucky enough to have never heard Naga’s laugh, imagine a dentist’s drill: it produces sound that can drive any mentally-balanced, God-fearing, humane creature into his/her room sobbing. Naga’s laugh is a sound that can scare dentists.
Lina, who had been hearing that laugh for quite a while now, only twitched; but she noticed that despite the demonic cackling, the strange boy hadn’t winced in the slightest. Now Lina was impressed. Nor, she realized, did he even pulse, blink, or breathe.
"Finders keepers," coughed Lina, hoping for once that this conversation wouldn’t end in a fight.
"Well," the youth replied sternly, "I tried to play it nice."
As his caramel arms and off-white sleeves were raised above his head, a gust of wind sprung up around them. Leaves and pebbles cut like razors in the cyclone, buffeting the three travelers in the gale. Without a word, the stranger had lent them their own personal tornado.
"AERO BOMB," cried Lina, letting the air pressure release from her palms and into the storm. The cyclone was negated, and the world stopped spinning. Once again she could see the attacker clearly; he looked neither impressed nor amused.
But Naga beat Lina to the next attack, throwing everyone off guard.
"FREEZE ARROW!" The tall woman fired the pantomimed bow and three jagged icicles flew towards the Nomad.
A very effective spell, it can freeze or impale any human target it hits. Imagine the girls’ surprise as the arrows passed right through him.
"Wha-A??"
No punctured chest with exit wounds, no graphic gaping holes. The icicles moved through as if he wasn’t there. Intangible. Not of flesh and blood.
"HOLY [insert popular curse word of the Slayer’s Universe]," cried Lina, "HE’S A MAZOKU!!!!!"
Autolycus swung around towards the boy and gasped. The King of Thieves had only heard the word on rare occasions, and never in good context.
The Mazoku were a race of demonic wraiths that weren’t even mentioned in blood-chilling stories by hardened adventurers. Members of the Mazoku race (called by some the Monster race) could take any form, go anywhere, and have enough power to do almost anything they pleased.
The word Mazoku didn’t ring well with the pre-teen attacker either. His face contorted into a gruesome scowl and he flexed his tiny muscles. All around him, plants, rocks and trees started to tremble and fly away in all directions, as though scared for their lives. As flames burst from his blue eyes, Lina thought it a good time to retreat and rally.
She grabbed Naga’s cape and Auto’s leash, pulling both behind a rock. She peeked over to double-check on the Mazoku.
He appeared to be still powering up, or something. Good.
"Naga," she barked, taking control despite her age, "summon something to slow him down."
Naga clapped her hands together and light trickled from the cracks between. Globules of clay and dirt rose up from the ground and formed into golemous minions. Minions with beer-bellies.
‘Sure, they look like overweight middle-aged men,’ thought Lina, ‘but they at least will buy some time.’
She turned back to her captive King of Thieves, whose eyes were mourning his chaffed neck.
"Now, why is A MAZOKU, after you?" she interrogated roughly.
"I have NO idea," Auto lied.
Not as convincing as he’d thought, for Lina was now pulling his moustache off.
"WHY???"
"Oww-OKAY!! It’s probably something I stole yesterday. Maybe he’s come to take it back!"
"What is it you stole?"
"I don’t know exactly!" he said, (honestly this time.) "Some guy is pay-"
He trailed off, realizing he’d said too much.
Now Lina’s heart was into it. This was no longer a matter of life and death; this was about money!
"Some guy is WHAT??" she said, giving his ear an almost complete turn.
"OWWW!!!SomeGuy’sPayingMeToStealTheThingI’llSplitTheMoneyWithYouIfYouJustStopTuggingMyAppendages!!!" he yelled.
Lina stopped twisting his ear, but her fingers still gripped the it tight, ready at any moment for another turn.
"what split?"
Autolycus squirmed slightly.
"5o-5o."
Rather than forcing him to haggle, Lina thought of an evil way to twist his words around. He was in no position to argue.
"Hey, Naga," she dripped slyly. "He just offered us 50-50."
Naga gleamed. "How nice of him!"
Lina’s cunning nature hit Autolycus like a ton of bricks.
"What, you two split it 50-50??? I meant-"
He too realized he was in no position to argue.
"Okay, but only I KNOW where the item is and WHERE to return it, so here’s the deal: I give you girls the 50-50 and you make sure I’m safe till I deliver it. AND NO BOUNTIES WHEN WE’RE THROUGH!!"
Lina smiled slightly. This Autolycus knew what was and wasn’t negotiable.
"Deal!"
The last yelp from the clay pot-bellied person confirmed that their adversary wasn’t going to be delayed any longer.
Lina emerged from behind the rock and took a good at him. The young foreigner was no longer exotic nor entrancing, but was flaming, fuming, and the proud owner of a look of death. He also kinda looked like a little kid having a tantrum…but same difference.
Lina drew back her elbow and whispered the spell under her breath. A fiery rod formed between her ear and her wrist, and she let it fly.
The apparition would have laughed, if he wasn’t in such a foul mood. Flare Arrows can’t hurt Mazoku.
Lina did laugh. An Almekia Lance wrapped in a Flare Arrow spell CAN hurt a Mazoku.
For a brief moment, you could see directly through the young Nomad. He screamed and clutched his chest, waiting for his Astral body to pull itself to together.
"You are SO-"
He was cut off by a booming voice that echoed through the forest. It was hoarse and sounded like an ancient disgruntled frog.
"FOOL, YOU HAVE FAILED!"
"Whadd’ya mean?" the Nomad replied.
"TURN AROUND!!"
The Mazoku looked behind him. Far down the forest path, he could see Naga carrying Autolycus on a Raywing spell.
Lina was just the distraction.
The Mazoku cursed and prepared to move to Auto’s location in the blink of an eye.
"NO," yelled again the disembodied voice, "RETURN AT ONCE!! WE SHALL DEAL WITH THE THIEF LATER."
The Mazoku glared at Lina. And did. Not. move.
"NOW!!!!!!"
Before leaving, the caramel colored wraith let out a frustrated yell, more bestial than human. Neither one would have surprised Lina, considering his age.
He blinked out of existence.
Lina pondered all this a moment.
"So why is this creature after you?" inquired Naga, shaking Auto like a rag doll with Lina looking on. It was her turn to play bad cop.
Autolycus seemingly got a case of cold feet, and proclaimed ignorance.
… and had to be pummeled by fists a few times before he’d speak again.
"Alright! Someone old guy named Gurgenheim hired me to steal a ring. It belongs to a wizard by the name of Thrushmire, so I snuck into Thrushmire’s mansion I stole it. Easy as that."
"And why does he want it?" said Lina.
"I don’t know, but he’s paying a lot."
"How much is a lot?" Lina pried.
Auto’s eyebrows bounced twice, which is Fonzerellian for "a LOT."
But Naga wasn’t that trusting.
"Hm. Give it here!"
"Give what?"
"The ring, stupid," Naga insisted.
"No way, lady!" said Autolycus smugly.
"But how do we know you’re not making this up?"
The girls pressed forward, getting angrier by the second.
"It’s... in a safe place," Auto said, getting suddenly uncomfortable. His angst resembled stage fright more than it did mortal fear.
Naga cast a Lighting spell in her hand. Lina knew it was harmless. Auto didn’t.
"Cough it up," Lina said. She was sick of playing good cop.
"..."
And he did just that. After a good ten minutes of coughing and retching, Autolycus spit out of his mouth a large ring.
"That is sick," said Lina after the ten minutes. Naga was already retching behind a bush of her own.
Autolycus didn’t even bother with the suave attitude now.
"When I was ambushed in the woods, I had just enough time to swallow it, to prevent those guards from finding it."
Lina would have been impressed by this guy had she saw not it not seen him retching for ten minutes. Auto wiped the ring off with a handkerchief and handed it to Lina.
"Don’t get attached to it, I want it back," he said.
She was thankful she was wearing gloves.
It was a large ring. Not so much the adornment, so much as the hole size. It was meant to fit a man. While several cryptic figures were carved into the silver surface, Lina could only read one of the engravings. It clearly read "Ranguard."
It took Lina a moment to remember where she had heard that name. Then it took her several moments to realize that she couldn’t possibly have remembered correctly. This was followed by a period of her memory confirming, yes, that was the correct name, but if that meant what she thought it meant, she must be going crazy, because it couldn’t possibly be what she thought it meant. The only other possibility is that all of this was in her head, the ring wasn’t real, the thief in the green vest wasn’t real either, nothing in the universe was real, and Lina was literally the dream of a some butterfly spending it’s vacation time on a tropical island beach in the shape of New Zealand.
"HOLY [obscenity. Lina was on a roll today.] Is this THE Ring of Ranguard?!?" she proclaimed to Autolycus. Naga was still retching.
"Um, is there any way of you can explain this without the obligatory history lesson?" muttered Auto, who knew the formula.
"’Fraid not," said Lina, detached in her awe. "Ranguard is one of the oldest Magic Universities in the continent, founded by a wizard of the same name. While historians bicker like spoiled children, it’s generally thought that Ranguard kept most of his power in the ring he wore. When he died, he bestowed it on the college."
Autolycus did recall seeing a good number of Ranguard College trophies and tapestries in Thrushmire’s house.
"It is said," Lina continued, not without a dash of excitement, "that the ring grants magical power upon anyone who wears it. A shrubbery designer wearing it has the power of an Archmage. And if worn by an Archmage, then..."
She searched for a word that wouldn’t sound exaggerated to Autolycus.
She couldn’t find one.
"...bad news?" Autolycus asked, arching the left side of his face.
Lina just nodded.
"Of course," said Lina with thought, "that could be just a fable."
"Of course," replied Auto confidently.
Yeah right. We all know how many breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat adventures involve non-magical items and pint-sized monsters blown out of proportion by hearsay.
Isn’t wasn’t long before the unlikely union strolled into city of Commercila, a bustling berg of business and flashy advertisements. As soon as the city came into sight, they found it hard to avoid seeing fifty-foot billboards. One of them advertised Battery-Operated toothbrushes, despite the fact that the Slayer’s world had yet to invent batteries. Such was the nature of Commercila.
And while Naga’s and Lina’s new friend refrained from answering any questions, Lina guessed from Auto’s smile that his benefactor was close by.
Upon entering the streets of the busy marketplace, Autolycus clapped his hands and looked about him with a wide grin. For a wanted criminal, he was sure social.
"Looks like we’re in the clear, for now," he sat patting his chest. "It’s not a far journey from here, but we’ll need a full stomach and something to ride on. You girls grab yourself a table in that inn, get something to drink on me, and I’ll see if we can’t rent some horses."
He started walking but felt himself unable to move forward. He increased his effort, but all he did was kick up dirt.
Lina was standing, eyes closed, right behind. She was holding his belt with a slightly annoyed look on her face.
"Do you honestly think we’re going to let you out of our sight?" she asked, after a pause.
Auto assumed the customary Anime "I can explain" face, even with his back still to Lina.
He turned around, opting to drop the Anime expression for his default lazy-but-cute smirk.
"Can yah honestly blame me?" he said frankly and innocently.
"No," Lina admitted after a long pause. "But now I’m going watch you even closer."
"I would watch me too if I weren’t you… if you were in my shoes, I wouldn’t be in ..No... Or, if I were you, I’d wouldn’t trust me either… because you would be me..."
An awkward pause followed.
The three knew of one way and one way only to rectify the situation: alcohol.
Fifteen minutes later, after several minor heart attacks from the maitre d', we join the blonde, brunette, and the King of Thieves in mid-conversation.
"It’s *not* a Mazoku?" asked Autolycus.
Lina was busy eating like a pig while Naga drank like a fish. Autolycus tried his best to keep up with both girls at once, but the resulting animal would have looked pretty ridiculous.
"Well, no," Lina replied after inhaling a chicken potpie. "It’s an Efreet."
She started on a long illumination that Gourry would be glad to have missed.
[cue ominous background music]
"Under the Demon King Shabrinigdo there are the five Mazoku Lords. Likewise, under of each these lords are priests and generals, and under those beings are lesser Mazoku, and under them... you get the idea. Well, an Efreet is a Mazoku that, one way or another, is no longer part of the hierarchy."
"Howkan zat happensh?" asked Naga between bottles.
"I only know of a few ways," Lina replied.
"A. The Mazoku can either lose its master, like a ronin
B. It rebels and leaves the pack
C. It’s exiled.
"While Efreets are still powerful, occasionally sorcerers can capture them and force them into servitude. No other Mazoku comes to their rescue, ‘cause they’re longer part of the system."
"You mean some wacko who controls Mazoku is after me?!?" Auto said, connecting dots A and B.
"Yes, though there are restrictions to what a sorcerer can do. Djinns can be trapped forever and do unlimited service. With Efreets, however, it’s dangerous not to seal them up completely. When the controller needs a Mazoku’s service, he or she relinquishes only a fraction of the Mazoku’s power. This keeps the mazoku, or efreet, from running amok and killing its captor.
"Usually, sorcerers bind them in a candle or an hourglass. The wax or sand is infused with strong binding spells, and the controller can seal the Efreet completely. By burning the candle or turning the hourglass over, the seal is weakened slightly, and the Efreet is capable of using magic and roaming short distances for a desired task. If it gets too rowdy, the sorcerer just blows out the candle and it’s sealed again."
"What happens when the wax burns out?" said Naga, actually interested for once.
"Let’s just say it’s a bad day for the Controller."
"So what are we worried about?" mused Autolycus. The weight was finally taken off his shoulders. "You said you were able to hurt him earlier, and the efreet can’t use all of it’s power."
"Yes, but you’re missing the point...
"eh?"
"Not only are we dealing with a captured Mazoku, but also a mage strong enough to capture Mazoku."
"Ah."
End of Chapter 1
