Magical Fusion

"Magical Fusion"
by DQBunny

A couple of notes before heading into this story:

1) Disclaimer: Slayers isn't mine, but is the property of Hajime Kanzaka, Rui Araizumi and the companies that represent them. I'm just borrowing them long enough to relieve a little sexual tension among the cast members.

2) This story is a follow-up to "The Breaking Point." However, knowledge of that one-shot isn't necessary to enjoy this fic.

-----

Chapter One: To See a Swordsman Swoon

She woke to sunshine, the feel of a warm body against hers and the musky male scent that belonged to the man whose chest she rested her head on.

It was somewhat weird, not waking up alone. Lina had very faint memories of crawling into her parents' bed when she was little. It was her little ritual after having a nightmare, usually brought on by something Luna had done to her during the day. When she was around five, Luna teased her to the point where Lina decided that it was no longer worth seeking out her parents' comfort when she felt scared. The harassment wasn't worth those few moments of contentment and peace.

Of course, sleeping with Gourry was much different from sleeping with her parents. They did things that...well, Lina was pretty sure her parents still engaged in, but that particular thought wasn't very appetizing - especially before breakfast. But in the end, there was that same feeling of peace, contentment and not being alone.

Their failed attempt at trying to consummate their relationship had resulted in a mortified Amelia and Zelgadiss the next day. It was worth it to see those two squirm when they realized that they had been heard engaging in their own conjugal bliss. It had only taken a few knowing looks to have Amelia squirming in her seat and Zelgadiss turn as red as a chimera possibly could.

Ah, yes, payback was certainly hell for one particular princess and chimera.

Lina disentangled herself from Gourry's arms and got up to wash and get dressed. Maybe, if she was lucky, he would keep sleeping and enable her to get at least three servings of the breakfast buffet in before he joined her. She glanced across the room to see that the blanket had dropped to just barely above his groin. He shifted on to his back, causing the covering to slip slightly lower and... She flushed, poured water into the basin and rinsed off the remainders of the previous night's activities.

Sex, at first, really wasn't the be all to end all experiences that she had thought it would be, though it was getting better as each time passed. On their second try, she hadn't been surprised to discovered that Gourry had roughly the same experience than her in these matters - which was somewhere around zero. His years as a mercenary and her years on the road gave them enough working knowledge to know the basics and a little of what lay beyond that. They both were aware of the final goal and were eager to experiment in getting there. As making love grew less awkward, she could tell that the experience was starting to live up to the rumors that she'd picked up.

Lina mused as she pulled on her clothes. It'd only been a week since that night in the hot springs when she and Gourry realized that they wanted each other in an intimate manner. She figured it would come in time. It wasn't like her jellyfish would be going anywhere anytime soon. Giving him a fond smile, she slipped out of the room.

-----

Power filled her, coursing through her veins as she chanted the spell that was so deeply ingrained in her that she wouldn't be who she was without it. Her fingers tingled as the magic began to form into a fiery ball of elements, growing so large that it nearly dwarfed her petite frame. Yet she kept perfect control of it as she completed her recitation and hurled it at the unsuspecting bandit camp at the bottom of the hill.

Lina admired the aftereffects of her Dragon Slave as it promptly incinerated said camp. She stretched her arms above her head, lacing her fingers together in the process. She felt wonderful and her good mood seemed to had passed into her magic. She hadn't produced that powerful of a Dragon Slave in a long time, not since she had her Demon's Blood Tailsmen. But she had lost them a year earlier in the battle in the battle with the piece of Shabranigdu embedded in Luke.

Zelgadiss had heard rumors regarding some documents that the bandits in question had that could lead to something to do with his cure. Lina, sick of him and Amelia sneaking gooey-eyed expressions at each other, had immediately volunteered to check out said bandit camp. Gourry had followed, insisting that she wasn't going to blow up the countryside like the last two times she had visited a bandit camp.

Lina smirked as she surveyed the damage. Not only had the Dragon Slave been extremely powerful, but she had been able to contain it to where it affected a smaller area than normal. Take that, silly jellyfish, she thought with a certain amount of glee.

"All right! Let's go kick some bandit ass, Gourry!" Lina took two steps and froze when a sudden crash of metal sounded behind her. She whirled around and saw her protector sprawled face-first in the dirt, the Blast Sword a few feet away from him.

She braced and eyed the area, hands moving into position to cast a fireball. Seeing no random bandits or any sort of weapons sticking out of Gourry's prone body, she decided he was playing around with her.

"Come on, jellyfish," she ordered, walking back to his side. "I know we were up late last night, but it was your own fault. Get up." She nudged at his shoulder with her boot and scowled. "Stop playing with me, Gourry. Get up!" She grabbed his shoulder guard and pushed until he rolled onto his back.

Her scolding abruptly cut off when she got a good look at him. His face had gone grey and his eyes had rolled into the back of his head. Lina dropped to her knees and held her hand over his mouth to make sure he was breathing. She yanked off a glove and quickly felt for his pulse, frowned when it beat rapidly against her fingers.

She pressed her hand to his forehead. No fever. Gourry hadn't mentioned any health problems at breakfast, other than their usual tug-of-war for food. Lina cursed under her breath. Hoping that Amelia or Zelgadiss were outside, she shot several Lighting spells into the air, on the off chance that they would notice. Then she pressed her hands to Gourry's chest and started to cast Recovery, hoping that he had enough strength in him to aid the spell instead of it draining him.

The magic flowed into his body, stronger than Lina ever felt it before. She frowned. Recovery wasn't an easy spell for her. She could use it to handle most minor wounds, but anything major was well beyond her abilities in that segment of magic. She broke off the analysis when she noticed Gourry's face go from grey to white and his breathing slowed.

She cursed, broke off the spell and jumped to her feet. She had to get help for him, fast. She didn't want to leave him alone, but she had no other choice. Grabbing him beneath his arms, Lina tugged him up enough so she could get her arms around his waist.

She could Raywing with him, but it was much different to have him be unconscious than awake. If she left him behind, there was a very good chance that the remains of the now-charred bandit camp would come across him and finish him off. Gourry didn't appear to have a fever, which would be a sign of illness or poison. Since she cut off the Recovery spell, his breathing had started to even out.

Lina removed her cloak and balled it up for him to use as a pillow. She stood back, hands on hips and sighed. She would just have to wait for him to wake up and then go find a healer.

-----

Gourry did wake up, three hours later, looking and feeling normal. He insisted he felt as healthy as ever and was actually very hungry.

"It's strange," he told Lina as they walked down the road heading back to town. They had stopped long enough for Lina to retrieve a good bit of bandit loot. She wasn't about to let the endeavour be a complete waste. "I was watching you cast the Dragon Slave and I started to feel funny."

"Funny as in?"

"Well, I wasn't going to be sick. Just really, really tired. Like we'd gone a few rounds with that Shabra-what'shisname. Then the next thing I knew, you were saying I passed out."

Lina rolled her eyes, but didn't bother to correct him. It was useless at this point. "I still want a healer to check you out. A normal, healthy male doesn't decide to just take a random nap in the middle of the day for no reason. You're normally harder to take down than most Mazoku we meet. Besides, it doesn't hurt."

Despite the lack of concern in her voice, she all but dragged him back to the inn they were staying at. As soon as they reached the front entrance, Lina yelled for Amelia at the top of her lungs. The princess came running out of the gardens as Lina hauled Gourry upstairs and all but shoved him onto their bed.

Amelia skidded to a stop and immediately averted her gaze. "Lina-san, I know that you and Gourry-san are enthusiastic about your new relationship, but I really have no wish to see..."

"Oh, stop being a ninny, Amelia. And you, stop moving," she ordered a struggling Gourry.

"Lina, what has gotten into you? I told you, I'm fine!" He tried to push her off him once more. She growled and shoved him back to the mattress.

Zelgadiss strode into the room and quirked an eyebrow at the tug-of-war going on. "I appear to be missing something, Amelia," he observed.

"I think maybe it's time for us to leave." Amelia started to edge her way out of the room.

Lina sat on Gourry's stomach and gave all of them a menacing scowl. "None of you are going anywhere! Amelia, Gourry passed out while we were on our trip and was unconscious for three hours."

Amelia and Zelgadiss exchanged concerned looks, then approached the bed. "Are you feeling okay, Gourry-san?"

"I'm fine, Amelia," he told her. "Except I think Lina's gaining weight. She's sitting on me like a stone. And I'm starving."

Lina bared her teeth at him. Here she was, being all concerned about his well-being and he had the audacity to make jokes and complain about food? See if he ever had sex with her again! Instead, she gripped his shirt with both hands and tugged him up slightly. "You're going to be feeling a hell of a lot worse if you don't stick a sock in it, jellyfish."

Amelia immediately pasted on a placating smile and tried to bat Lina's hands away. "Now, now, Lina-san, get off of Gourry-san and let me check him over. What exactly happened?"

Gourry recounted the trip from his point of view while Lina started to pace the length of the room. When he reached the part where he passed out, she took over, describing in detail the symptoms she had encountered and his reaction to attempts to heal him.

Amelia nodded at several points during the story and was frowning by the end. She turned her focus back to Gourry and picked up his hand. "Do you mind if I cast Recovery on you, Gourry-san?"

He smiled at her. "No, go right ahead."

Amelia recited the full incantation of the spell and allowed the magic to flow into him. After a couple of minutes, she released it. "How do you feel?"

Gourry shrugged. "No different from before."

Lina had her back turned to them the entire time. She slowly released the breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was okay. He was okay. What infuriated her was that Gourry also appeared to be right. He apparently had decided to take an impromptu nap while she was making mincemeat out of bandits.

A headache throbbed at her temples and she suddenly felt very tired. After Amelia and Zel left the room, she crawled into bed next to Gourry and laced her fingers over her stomach.

He glanced over at her. "Your head hurts."

"I know." Automatically, she pressed her hand to her forehead and cast Recovery on herself. The spell drained her own energy, getting rid of the pain and leaving her pleasantly lethargic. Turning her head, she noticed that Gourry already had his eyes closed and appeared to be asleep. She frowned. Suddenly, he looked to her to be as exhausted as she felt. She yawned. Maybe it was her own tiredness affecting her perception of things. She inched closer to him and drifted into sleep.

-----

Three days later, they came to the town of Mylenta in Zefielia, which boasted the largest magical library outside of Zefiel City itself. Zelgadiss insisted on stopping to browse through the stacks and Amelia was agreeable to it.

It was close enough to home that Lina was halfway tempted to tell Zel and Amelia that she and Gourry would go on ahead of them. Home meant seeing her parents for the first time in seven years, and part of her was getting excited. She wanted to see them.

Home also meant seeing Luna.

Lina chose Mylenta.

They immediately descended on the library, where Lina, Zelgadiss and Amelia spent several hours searching through the stacks. Most of these books contained information on black magic, with a good deal of shamanistic mixed in. It was where Lina had first gone to learn many of her spells after she had outgrown what the Sorcerer's Guild could teach her. It was definitely a shift from the mostly white magic spells that were plentiful in Saillune's libraries. No offense to Amelia, she thought wryly, but she had been about to go insane with researching white magic.

Zelgadiss had decided to try another approach to looking for his cure - trying to figure out the origins of Rezo's spell rather than the cure for it. It was a deconstructing method that Lina approved of and the main reason that Zelgadiss had wanted to come to Zefielia. The kingdom, known for its bounty hunters and heroes, had also turned out some of the most renowned black-magic users in history. Lina smirked. Present company included, of course...

A few hours later, Gourry and Amelia slipped out to find food for them, leaving Lina and Zelgadiss among the dusty stacks.

Zelgadiss closed the latest book and sighed. "Sometimes, I wonder if my cure died alongside Rezo and Eris."

Lina glanced up, surprised. It was the closest she had ever heard to him wanting to admit defeat. But she wasn't going to lie to him either. "It is a possibility," she said. "Rezo did some pretty unique experiments, especially when it came to utilizing black magic toward the end. I wouldn't even be surprised if he knew Chaotic Magic."

"You think he knew the Ragna Blade?"

"No. Well, I don't know. I can't say that." Lina drummed her fingers on her book, playing through the battle with the first piece of Shabranigdu in her mind. "There is a possibility he knew of the spell. But not enough to cast it. From the way Xelloss implied, the Ragna Blade is a spell of my own creation that I just happened to perfect using the knowledge the Claire Bible provided."

"The Giga Slave was your own spell too, right?"

"Yeah. I pieced it together based off of stuff I read in a book, much like I did with the Ragna Blade." Lina stood and stretched, extending her arms above her head as far as they would go. She scanned the room until she located a shelf near the window. She levitated to the top shelf and pulled out a book.

"This is a history book," she said, handing it to Zel. "It talks mainly about the battle between Ceiphied and Shabranigdu and the Kouma Sensou. It talks about the spell here, but not how to cast it. I figured it out from there. It's always been my guess that Ceiphied called upon the Lord of Nightmares to seal away Shabranigdu."

He flipped through it. "I suppose that's why you were able to control the Giga Slave well enough to defeat Rezo."

Lina started to pace. It was an argument she didn't want to get into at the moment. If it had been prior to her obtaining the knowledge from the Claire Bible needed to control the Ragna Blade, she would had agreed with Zelgadiss. But now she knew it had been a very risky gamble, one that she really didn't feel like playing again. Hopefully she wouldn't have to.

Zelgadiss set the history book aside. "We probably should go get some food before Gourry and Amelia eat it all. You two have been a huge influence on Amelia's appetite."

Lina tossed him a saucy grin. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

She noticed the action going on out of the corner of her eye. Three men, a few years younger than herself, were advancing on an older gentleman who had a stall set up not far from the library. She caught a few words they were telling him and figured out quickly that they were up to no good.

She had two choices in the matter - ignore it, or do something about. Because she really didn't feel like dealing with both her conscience and Amelia's offended sense of justice in the same day, she decided to do something about it.

She left Zel and neatly inserted herself into the group. "Hello, gentlemen. Ah, dumplings! I'd like three...no, five skewers please. With extra sauce." Lina tapped her finger to her chin. "Oh, go ahead and make it six. I'll let Gourry have one."

"Back off, bitch," one of the men snarled at her.

Lina rolled her eyes. "Is that the worst you can do?"

"Can't you see we're in the middle of a robbery here?" One of the other men yelled. The third smacked the second and she snickered. Not the brightest of thieves, are we? Lina hummed cheerfully and began to chant the Burst Rondo spell under her breath.

-----

Arms ladened with goodies, Gourry and Amelia walked side by side as they headed back to the library. It was the largest building in the city and had been very easy to keep in sight as the two had done their best to clear every food vendor of their available stock. They also took the rare chance to actually consume food for themselves before Lina could get ahold of it.

"Lina-san's been really protective of you lately, hasn't she?" Amelia observed as they turned down the street the library was focused on.

He grinned at her. "It's okay. I don't mind. I'm really not sure what was going on though. It's not happened since, so maybe it was just a one-time thing."

"You really need to get some more sleep at night, Gourry-san," Amelia teased and grinned at the resulting blush that produced.

Gourry didn't mind the teasing that much. It was to be expected. He'd gotten used to that sort of thing during his years as a mercenary. Life, for most of them, had been nothing but battle after battle followed by whatever release the men could find with a handy woman. For himself, the battles had been followed by as much food as he could consume and as much sleep as he could handle - not unlike many of the adventures he'd had with Lina.

But it was different with Lina. Most of his energy was usually expended in getting her out of the troubles she managed to finagle herself into. It never failed to amaze him that what could take weeks for an entire army to destroy, Lina could do in less than an hour. She'd calmed down a lot in the years they'd been together, but he figured that the things they'd gone through would do that to a person.

She was older, wiser, and definitely the same sorceress he'd stumbled upon four years earlier.

The same Lina who was now surrounded by a group of men advancing on her with weapons.

Gourry and Amelia exchanged knowing looks. Amelia shifted her foodstuff so Gourry could deposit his armload with hers and he withdrew the Blast Sword. After all, he was Lina's protector. She didn't need protection, but he had to keep up appearances.

"Burst Rondo!"

Gourry and Amelia, along with everyone else on the street, braced themselves for the impending attack. As Lina launched her spell, he felt something tug at him so strongly that he stumbled and fell to his knees.

Amelia glanced at him for a moment, then did a double-take, dropping all the food in the process. "Gourry-san!"

He barely heard her. Everything was starting to spin around him, just like when he was watching Lina incinerate the bandit camp. He grabbed onto his sword for leverage and felt Amelia's arms wrap around his body as she started to cast Recovery.

The magic washed through his body and his vision cleared to the point where he could see Lina confronting what appeared to be the leader of whatever group that was unfortunate enough to get in her way. He saw the spell forming in her hands, just as the tugging started once more and the world started to fade away. There was a yell and he slipped out of Amelia's grasp, losing consciousness just as Amelia began screaming for Lina.