Wild ARMs: Off on a Tangent
By: Chibi-chan
Part 7: “Black Magic Naga”
*
Boats, boats, boats, I hate boats, I’ve always hated boats… Laine thought as she laid all sprawled out on the floor of the little cabin Captain Bart had let her stay in. Why on the floor? Because Laine had a sneaking suspicion that if she tried to move, she’d just have to throw up again. She wasn’t particularly fond of throwing up, you know. My, the ceiling looks interesting… Hey, cool, that crack in the ceiling sorta looks like the great female ARMsmeister and Dream Chaser, Rally Vincent… she thought. (Hey, your thinking would be a little weird too if you were too seasick to eat anything for a day or so.)
At this point, one of the ship’s crew members entered her room and gave her the best news that she had heard in a long time. He said, “We’ve arrived at Rosetta. You can get off here if you like.”
That was all it took to get Laine up off the floor. Although quite a bit woozy still, she picked up her stuff and got off that ship faster than a bat out of a bad baseball batter’s hands.
*
Three days after Laine getting separated from the group, Yard…
“This is Yard?” Cecil said, looking around. “This place is too small to be a port town…”
“It’s not used that often, that’s all. No other towns close enough to trade with inland because of the desert and the mountains,” Boomerang answered simply.
Elmina looked a little sad. “That, and Arctica, the place they used to trade a lot with, was destroyed a while back…” she added.
Cecil, for once, picked up on something subtle. “Why so sad about Arctica? You used to live there or something?” he asked her in a softer tone than usual.
Elmina remained silent. Zed went over to the prince and whispered to him, “It’s a long story. She doesn’t like to talk about it much.”
Cecil whispered back, “I can see that.” He then took on his all-too-familiar “Champion of Justice” demeanor and said, “Well, let’s get to those docks and catch up with Laine!”
“Sorry, Sailor Stoldark, but I have other business to attend to…” Boomerang said, walking away with Lucied.
“’Sailor Stoldark’?! What the hell do you mean by that?!” Cecil demanded to know.
Boomerang didn’t even stop and turn to face Cecil. “Exactly what it sounded like, Sailor Stoldark,” he replied.
Cecil growled and opened his mouth to say something. Fortunately, Elmina decided to intervene rather than watch them fight, however amusing that might be. “Hey, could be worse,” she said to Cecil, “He could have made a nickname involving ‘Wedding Peach’.” The mere word “wedding” had involuntarily made the warrior woman laugh and the prince shudder.
“Point taken,” Cecil muttered.
Before Boomerang had gone too far, Elmina called out to him. “Yo, Boomer! You sure you don’t wanna come with us? Our little tomboy could have gotten into trouble by now and needs you help! And there could be some kinda reward from someone or another for helping, too!” she said, smiling. If this don’t get him to come with us, I don’t know what will! she thought.
Boomerang stopped in his tracks. “Reward?”
Elmina shrugged. “Sure, maybe…”
Boomerang turned around. “Well, that little brat just might need some assistance by the time that ship gets to Rosetta… Hmph, may as well stay with you people a little while longer…” he said, trying to seem a bit reluctant…
*
Back to the present for now, Rosetta…
Laine was utterly, completely, and thoroughly pissed off. For once, it wasn’t because of Boomerang either. Since she was in public at the time, she couldn’t yell out her frustrations as she liked to do in dungeon-type situations to stop being so irritated. ARGH! The… the… the utter “ARGH!”ness of these people here! Do they think of anything besides money?! Even most of the kids around here are like that! And to top it off, they’re blaming some poor little Naga girl of making their mayor sick! Thank the Guardians there’s a boat leaving for Court Seim tomorrow! Grr… but where can I stay until then? Even if there was room at that inn, I wouldn’t wanna stay there…Laine was thinking during the time it took for her to get from near the back of the town walls to the town gate. An idea struck her. I wonder if that Naga girl takes in boarders…
*
Let’s do the Time Warp again! Four days previously, aboard the ship “Black Wolf”…
It was sometime past midnight. Cecil was leaning on the rail, setting his head on his arms, looking absently out at the sea. He sighed and thought, What am I doing? What’s the point of this chase? The Tear Drop seems pretty safe in Laine’s hands… She doesn’t need me hanging around, does she?
A voice from behind asked him, “Thinking ‘bout her, are ya?”
Cecil’s train of thought derailed as he recognized the voice. “’Mina?” he asked, not looking back to confirm that assumption visually.
“Yep,” Elmina said. She then leaned on the rail as well, but facing the opposite direction of Cecil. “You really like her, don’tcha?”
Cecil’s eyes widened, but he tried not to let his voice show any surprise. “What do you mean? ‘Like’ who?”
Elmina chuckled. “Why, Laine, of course. Why else would you be going through all this fuss to find her?”
Cecil replied mechanically, “Because it is my duty as the prince of Adlehyde to reclaim the Tear Drop.”
“Feh. If that were it, you woulda gotten it back first thing when we caught up with Laine back in Timney,” Elmina said, “Instead, the first thing you did was hug her. Did you even mention the Tear Drop to her once before that wedding fiasco?” Cecil remained silent. “Thought not, princey,” she said.
“… go ‘way. I wanna be alone,” Cecil mumbled.
Elmina stood up straight and shrugged. “If that’s how you want it, princey, then fine. Good night.” She then left.
Cecil watched Elmina’s retreating form. He took one last glance at the ocean and muttered, “Is she right?” before heading back to the cabins. However, there was someone else at the door to intercept him. “Boomerang? What the hell do you want?” he asked roughly of the bounty hunter.
“She’s mine,” Boomerang said.
Cecil blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Laine. She’s mine,” the bounty hunter said.
“I thought you don’t like her and she doesn’t like you,” Cecil said coolly.
Boomerang “hmph”ed. “Things aren’t always as they seem. She will be mine.”
It was Cecil’s turn to be arrogant. “Yeah, but sometimes they are as they seem. She might not like the concept of being with you too well.”
“Like you’re any better than I am,” Boomerang retorted.
“At least I treat her with some degree of respect. You just insult her,” Cecil said, staring blanky~ er, glaring at Boomerang.
“She insults right back, you know. I also think she goes out of her way to annoy me. I tell her not to call me ‘Jamie’, but she insists-“
“’Jamie’?” Cecil asked.
Boomerang froze for a second. “… never mind,” he muttered after a pause. He then started moving away from the door.
“No, no, I wanna know what this ‘Jamie’ thing’s about!” Cecil said.
Boomerang pointed out towards the ocean and yelled, “GIANT SQUID! GIANT SQUID!” Cecil, like a twit, looked in that direction and saw nothing. When he looked back, Boomerang was gone.
“Dammit!” Cecil muttered to himself.
*
We’re going back… TO THE FUTURE! The present, some distance out of Rosetta…
Laine looked around. Any sort of meadow in Filgaia was truly a rare sight. Flowers speckled the area, their sweet smell wafting in the breeze. Something, however, left Laine unsettled about the area. All the trees there appeared to have been there about fifty years at the most. However, if this were the place where the Naga girl lived, the trees should have been a whole lot older. Also unnerving were what appeared to be some parts of houses that looked like they were blown totally apart. They seemed to be scattered about in a manner that someone had dropped some form of bomb or had some major accident involving attack magic in the area.
Nevertheless, Laine stuck around and found a house that was in one piece. Thinking that might be where that Naga girl might be living, she knocked on the door. “Hello?” she said in a soft tone. No response from inside. She knocked again. “Anybody home?” she asked. Nothing, nada, el zippo from inside. Laine turned around and leaned on the door. “Guess nobody’s ho~” she started as the door opened and she fell over backwards. “~me. Ow.” From her new position from the ground, she saw the Naga girl look at her.
The Naga girl looked rather like a young human girl, with the exception of the trademark long fuzzy ears of the race. She had long red hair with matching red eyes and was dressed as if she planned on going on some kind of adventure. “What do you want?” she said, a bit annoyed.
Laine got back to her feet as quickly as she could and bowed to the Naga girl. “I- I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I was wondering-“ she began.
“About the ruins? Well, they started it!” the Naga girl said defensively, “It wasn’t my fault that they mobbed up on me and…”
Laine bolted upright. “Oh, nononononono! It’s not that!” she cried.
The Naga girl blinked. “That’s what visitors usually ask,” she said.
If it were possible, Laine would have had a large sweatdrop going down the back of her head. “That’s, er, understandable… eheh…”
“Then what do you want?” the Naga girl asked impatiently. “There’s treasure out there and I’m gonna claim it!”
Better ask now, Laine… Sheesh, who knew such a small woman could have such a presence? Laine thought. “Er, I just wanted to know if you, uh, knew of a place to stay outside of Rosetta… That place…”
“-bugs the hell outta you too, huh?” the Naga girl finished for the more polite Laine. Laine nodded. “Well, the only place around is right here, but…”
“I’d be willing to pay you. It’s just for tonight…” Laine said.
The Naga girl brightened. “Pay? How much?”
“Whatever you think is a fair price…” Laine said, not quite sure what she was in for.
The Naga girl was doing gleeful cartwheels in her mind. Money, money, money, money, money… she thought. “… say, can you cook too?”
Laine, again not knowing what she was getting into, said, “Yes, I can…”
If it wouldn’t look odd to Laine, the Naga girl would have squealed joyously and done a happy little something or other. “Well then, come on in!” the Naga girl said cheerfully. She paused for a moment, and said, “Oh, right, it might be nice to know each other’s names. I’m the beautiful genius Naga sorceress Lina Inverse.”
“Uh, I’m the, er, something or other Laine Roughnight,” Laine said.
*
I should never have mentioned I can cook if necessary… Laine thought as she flopped down in one of the chairs, How could someone her size eat so much?! Dinner, as you can probably guess, was a little hectic for our dear little lady here. She had been stuck cooking for Lina for hours and was quite tired, which was saying a lot because Laine rarely ever gets tired. Laine took out the Tear Drop from her little travel pack thingy and looked at it. “Cecil, are you doing any better than I am right now?”
*
Three hours earlier, Rosetta…
Cecil and Elmina (and Zed too, of course) loitered outside the inn in Rosetta. “What’s taking that guy so long? How hard can it be to find a blue-haired girl in a group of people with normal hair colors?” Zed complained.
Cecil shook his head. “You know Laine. She’s good at hiding even when she isn’t trying to hide,” he said.
Boomerang finally rejoined the party. “She’s left town,” he said.
“Left town? Where else could she go? There’s nothing around here to go to!” Zed yelled. After a pause, he added, “Except her house…”
“’Her’ who, Zed?” Cecil asked.
“HER! Some call her the ‘Dragon Spooker’, some the ‘Shinigami’, and some call her ‘Miss Squeekyhoyo’. I’m not sure exactly how that last nickname came to be, but…” Zed said, trailing off into his own little ramble about the last nickname.
“Mousie, does this woman have a name?” Elmina asked somewhat impatiently.
“Lina. Her name’s Lina. She’s the last Naga on Filgaia and about fifty years ago, if I remember right, she utterly obliterated the old town of Rosetta,” Zed said gravely. “She’s not a woman to be messed with, I’ll tell you…”
Boomerang, if one took off his visor, would look worried. “Laine’s doomed…” he muttered.
*
Back to present, just a few seconds later…
Lina quickly turned her attention to the Tear Drop. “Is that what I think it is?!”
Laine quickly got flustered. “N-n-no, it’s… ah… er…” she stammered. She silently cursed herself for being a horrible liar.
“It’s the Tear Drop, the secret treasure of the Adlehyde family, isn’t it?” Lina asked, smiling. “May I see it?”
Laine didn’t like the smile Lina was giving her. “Er, I’d rather not let it out of my hands. I still have to return it to its owner…”
“Not yours, hmm? I should have known it was odd for a… Holmcross, perhaps… to hold onto it. Still, can I just look at it for a bit?” Lina said, still smiling as sweetly as possible.
Laine nearly dropped the crystal. “Y-you know?!”
Lina chuckled. “Sure, I know! I mean, the blue hair and red eyes are a dead giveaway. Don’t see that many humans with those features,” she said. “Why do you look surprised?”
“Well, no one else seems to notice that’s out of the ordinary…” Laine said softly.
“Eh, not many humans would know about your kind, and would probably just assume you dyed your hair or something,” Lina said. “Now can I see the crystal? Heck, I could probably return it for you if you want.” And get a handsome reward for it, too, she added silently.
By now, Laine was getting annoyed. “No, you may not see it! It’s not even mine! I shouldn’t even have this, but I wasn’t able to give it back in Timney because I got stuck on a damned boat and I hate boats and I spent most of the time seasick and wanting to just throw myself over the edge of the boat so I wouldn’t have to be seasick anymore and then got stuck in Rosetta, also known as the redneck asshole capital of Filgaia, and then get stuck cooking for you for hours and isn’t the money I paid you ENOUGH?!?” she ranted, amazingly enough in one breath.
Lina looked stunned at her guest. “Wow. Sucks to be you, don’t it?”
Laine took a deep breath. “You have no idea…” she said.
*
Back to three hours earlier, Rosetta…
Boomerang tried to cover any worry he had and said, “If she survives, she’ll be heading on a ship out of town.”
“Laine’s a tough girl. She’ll be fine,” Cecil said, less then confident. “So, where’s she headed?” Boomerang said nothing. “Well?”
“I… couldn’t get that information,” Boomerang said hesitantly, “All I could get was information about where the ships available were heading.”
Cecil was… annoyed, to say the least. “You WHAT?!” The prince took an angry step to the bounty hunter.
Elmina held the prince’s arm tightly to keep him from getting into a scuffle in a public place. “Where are the ships heading, then?” she asked.
“Two to the Court Seim area and one to Milama,” the bounty hunter replied. “I’ll be on one of them heading to Court Seim. I have some business there that can’t afford to wait any longer.”
Elmina nodded. “Well, thanks for the information. It may prove useful,” she said. She then started to drag the prince away.
“Wha? ‘Mina, where are you taking me?” Cecil said, half protesting.
“We got a ship to catch, princey!” she said.
“But what about that ‘Dragon Spooker’ lady?!” he complained.
“She can get her own ship!” she informed him.
*
“So, ‘Mina, what’s the plan?” Cecil said after they had finally stopped in a few feet in front of a shipmaster’s desk.
Elmina turned to the prince. “Well, I’ve noticed something. Everywhere Laine has disappeared to recently, Boomerang has followed her to,” she said.
Cecil looked puzzled. That was probably because he was, in fact, puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked.
Elmina laughed. “Silly boy. If Boomerang’s the one going away, then maybe…”
A metaphorical lightbulb appeared over Cecil’s head. “… then maybe she’ll wind up following him!” he finished.
“Precisely!” Elmina chimed. “Now, to get passage on one of those ships to Court Seim…”
*
Present time, elsewhere in Rosetta…
A man was standing on a box in the middle of the town with a crowd of people circling him. “That Naga girl has inflicted an illness on not only our mayor, but our town itself!” he proclaimed. A wave of “Yeah!”s and “Right on!”s were heard through the crowd. “She has destroyed our town multiple times in the past and will do so again in the future! We must stop her!” The crowd enthusiastically endorses his statement. “We will go tonight and destroy her to protect our beloved town! Who’s with me?!” Silence. “I said, ‘Who’s with me?!’” Still utter silence.
“We don’t wanna die!” a voice from the crowd called out.
“If she can destroy a town in one strike, what makes you think she can’t beat all of us?!” another voice called out.
“Cowards!” the man yelled to the crowd. “I’ll just go myself!”
A musician that was passing through the center of the town took out her instrument and started playing a funeral march.
“… I hate you all,” the man said.
*
Laine was sleeping surprisingly well, given the fact that the Naga girl had tried to get the Tear Drop away from her earlier. However, she had her trusty ARM nearby in case Lina tried to pull anything. Naga sorceress or not, no one crossed Laine Roughnight and got away with it.
*
Outside, however, things were not as peaceful. The man’s “mob” (which consisted of him, the musician playing the funeral march, and a dog) had gathered outside Lina’s house with a torch, a pitchfork and a trumpet. “Listen, you evil Naga! You will pay for your crimes against Rosetta!” the man yelled. He paused, then barked at the musician, “Will you STOP playing that funeral march?!”
The musician stopped playing for a moment and dryly told the man, “Why? Going up against her’s your funeral.” The musician started playing again, but with more feeling this time.
The front door of Lina’s house opened, revealing a currently sleepy and grumpy Naga sorceress. “What the hell do you want?” Lina asked crabbily.
The man glared at Lina. “I just told you! I’m here to make you pay for your crimes against Rosetta!”
Lina sighed and rolled her eyes. Wonderful, another one of these yahoos, she thought. “Fill out a complaint form and come back in the morning, OK?” she said, handing the man a one-inch square of paper. She then stepped back and slammed the door in his face.
The man, even more irked than before, pounded on Lina’s door. “Open up! You can’t get away that easily!” he yelled. The door opened again, but this time, he got an unwelcome surprise…
“DILL BRAND!” yelled the Naga sorceress. With a relatively minor* explosion, the man, the dog, and the musician were sent flying through the troposphere, eventually landing in a cactus patch.
(*relatively minor when compared to the Arc Smash ARM)
*
Laine, still in bed while this happened, rolled over and muttered something about Cecil, Boomerang, and chocolate.
*
In the morning…
Laine checked that all the items she had on her before were still there and left Lina’s house. When she was out, she saw Lina standing next to a decent-sized hole in the ground and grumbling. Laine wisely decided that she had better not ask and left quietly to get to the boat headed for Court Seim…
*
Boomerang was waiting on the docks before getting aboard, hoping to see Laine before he left. Unfortunately, he was looking in the wrong direction and missed her as she boarded the ship just yards away from him.
*
Cecil was looking out at the sea. He never had any sort of chance to see Laine board the neighboring ship. He was too lost in thought to even thing of looking for her at the time. Laine, next time we meet, please say you’ll stay with us… Say you’ll stay with me…
*
End
Chibi’s notes:
Ha ha! Finally, another chapter bites the dust!
Rudy: Don’t you mean just plain bites? *WHAM!*
Trowa: … to think, he gave up semi-muteness just to wind up getting malleted… ((_-;;
*sigh* Anyway, it took a long time; longer since I lost the muse about nine pages in and didn’t get back to the story until now. Anyway, I hope I did OK with this. Heheh… ^^;;