((((.-)) Zel . Xelloss . Lina . Gourry ((.)) Amelia
Seyruun High Jinx
Prologue:
The Slayers characters experience the highs and lows of a high school year and their band's formation. Chapters 1-30 cover September through December; chapters 31-59 conclude the school year in June. This story takes the memorable Slayers characters into another universe similar to our own and runs them through the wringer for your reading pleasure; well…at least we hope you enjoy the show!
Disclaimer:
All characters featured in this story do not belong to the Kaeru Shisho writing team, but to more creative and worthy writers in Japan. I thank them every day for their wonderful ideas and special people we love to torture.
Authors: A team comprised primarily of 'frog' and 'rat'. 'Nuff said. On with the story!
Chapter 1
Summer was almost over. Only another week remained of vacation time, and then classes would start. Today everyone attending high school was picking up their class schedules, paying fees, and greeting friends not seen all summer. At the center of the whirlwind of activity, stood a petite, fiery redhead named Lina Inverse, sophomore student at Seyruun High School. She extruded confidence and 'can do' energy, and so, attracted followers like moths to a street-lamp.
"Ah, ha! Yes!" she cheered, "Got 'em all! Hey, Zel, how about you?"
Zelgadiss, known to everyone as Zel, was sitting apart, slight smile at the side of his mouth. His classes were as expected: advanced math and science, computer lab. drama 1-- the first acting class. He smiled slightly at this. Zel was a very introverted guy, but secretly he'd been looking forward to acting. Ever since that accident in his grandfather's lab, which had left him a young boy scarred on his hands and chest and over his right eye, as well as emotionally. His once dark hair had been bleached lavender and turned wiry, making him stand out in a crowd, which he hated and had avoided, up until this year. The year before Zel had shunned other kids, except Lina, of course. He had known Lina since kindergarten. She didn't care about his looks. In fact she once mentioned that he reminded her of an elf, but she had been reading a lot Tolkien at the time.
"Well? Are you listening to me? What did you get? Oh just gimme that!" Lina yelled, snatching his schedule out of his grasp. She had little patience for his reticence to join in activities or sensitivity toward his reasons for being that way. She simply accepted him at face value, er…for what he was. "Yeah...mostly the same stuff. Advanced science and wow, Calculus? Maybe you can help me in Trig...Hey, I got acting too, that's cool, Zel!"
A gaggle of starry-eyed choirgirls chimed in, "Acting? Ooooo we have acting too! "
"I hope we get to do Romeo and Juliet!" said one particularly dreamy one, named Sylphiel. She swung her beautiful shiny black hair shyly out of her face and smiled at a newcomer, "Hi, Gourry. Is everything okay?"
Gourry. Gourry and Lina, now that was a match Zel never understood, although 'match' wasn't quite the word…attraction, maybe. What did Lina find so interesting in that guy, a skater? "Ah, hi." Gourry greeted Sylphiel politely, and then turned to Lina, "Ahhh, Lina? What's this Drama 1 class all about!"
A group of punks dressed mostly in black decorated with studs, piercings and chains, roared with amusement. "Acting! Maybe we can do the Rocky Horror Show!"
One, a very tall arrogant kid with long, spiked, green hair strode up to Lina. He draped an arm over Lina's shoulder and asked about her plans for the afternoon, "Maybe you'd like to, ah…"
Lina had squirmed out from under his arm while cleverly nabbing his class schedule, "Look, Val, we've got acting together too!"
Gourry watched the incident out of the corner of one eye. Val was a guy to watch. Zel's head had sunk to the cafeteria table where they were clustering. He HAD been looking forward to that acting class, but NOT with all these people. He wanted to be in with strangers.
"Ah, well…" Zel mused. "I'll take it next semester, when they SURELY would be taking something else. Maybe I'll switch to ceramics. Filia would be there, she's pretty nice. Or archery, Kagome would be there… Of course, she has that boyfriend at another school, but she's nice to talk to and looks don't seem to matter much to her. Then there is… another computer lab."
"I'm taking acting too!" laughed a kid standing nearby.
"Oh, Gods… not that weird fruitcake, Xelloss, too!" thought Zel mournfully. "That settles it." Zel stood, mind made up, and made for the door.
Lina latched onto the hood of his gray sweatshirt as he passed by, effectively restraining him. "And where do you think you're going?" she asked.
"I'm going to go change my schedule," he grumbled, roughly removing her hand from his clothing, and then added in a lower voice, "Not that it's any business of yours."
"You're not getting away that easily. GOURRY! Come here, sit on Zel, and DON'T LET HIM GO!" Lina ordered. "Zel, I have someone I want you to meet. Stay here, I see her over there. I MEAN IT, STAY PUT!"
Zel sat back down obediently. There was no denying Lina her way when she had her shackles up.
"Uhhh, Zel you know what the drama 1 class is, don't cha?" asked Gourry.
Gourry sat next to Zel. He looked at the paper in his hand confusion obscuring his usually affable features. He was dressed in the usual skater (skateboarding crowd) attire: baggy cargo pants with lots of pointless 'things' hanging from the pockets and a huge brightly-colored T-shirt. He wore his thigh-length blond hair loose with bangs partially covering his handsome face. He was a year older, but was taking pretty basic classes, Zel could tell.
"It's the first semester acting class. Everyone's taking it, it appears," answered Zel glumly.
He liked Gourry, in spite of his differences. Both he and Lina lived in the same general neighborhood with Zel, and at times Zelgadiss had babysat one or more of Gourry's younger brothers and sisters. They rarely socialized other than that until last year, when Zel began tutoring him in History. Gourry had a difficulty remembering facts like dates and names, but he wasn't at all bad in math, and he was an exceptional athlete. Gourry never let on if he noticed Zel's scarred face. In fact, he had introduced Zel to his one athletic passion, fencing. No, Zel didn't understand why the nice guy hung out with those stupid skaters, except that he loved skating, or why Lina seemed to hang around him. Nope, he didn't understand Lina and Gourry. Gourry was dedicated to Lina, like a champion of the past, or a knight. All right, so Zel could almost comprehend Gourry's feelings.
Zel shook his head and thought, "…but Lina! She was so smart and funny and cute and...Whoa there! She's your best friend and she hits hard… Oh joy… Here she comes and who's that with her? A girl. She's cute and young. Nice eyes and figure and… Oh, no, there it goes! I wish I could simply fade away. Someone else to stare at the 'poor wretched boy' with horror and pity."
"...And here's my best guy-type friend, Zel. Zel, this is Amelia, first day freshman so make her feel welcome and smile a little," Lina insisted.
Amelia's eyes went wide at the sight of the remarkable boy in front of her. "He's so creepy and suspicious looking, and those scars!" she thought with a shudder, and then remembering to be polite said aloud, "How do you do, Mr. Zelgadiss. I believe we met at a chemistry conference last summer at the University. My father gave your grandfather the Mayor's Award for Outstanding Advances in..."
"Yes! Yeah, I remember. Well it was nice to see you again too, Amelia," interrupted Zel rudely. "Lina I REALLY need to get to the registrar before it closes." He left in a blur of gray-beige, but was brought up abruptly when his path to the door was blocked by an average-height kid with silky purple hair cut in a page-boy style.
"Get out of my way, Xelloss," said Zel bluntly.
"My, my, Zelgadiss, why such a hurry?" Xelloss asked in an affected, goofy, sing-songy voice and smug smile.
"Not that it's any of your business… I'm dropping the acting class, so let me go before the office is closed. Hey!" shouted Zel angrily.
Zel's class list had appeared almost magically in the grinning kid's hands. "Let's see...We'll have advanced science together. Isn't that nice? Calculus...I had that last year. Composition… me too! Computer lab." Xelloss frowned a little, and then added, "Just don't try and monopolize the resources, like last year, okay?" He grinned at some mutual secret, and continued ticking off all Zel's classes. "German…I took that last year. This year I'm taking French."
Zel sneered, "Why don't you stick with one language and finish it."
Xelloss grinned, "I did! I did all of German last year. This year I'll do French…maybe start Russian, if nothing more interesting comes up."
Zel gasped, "What's your rush? Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Why, no. Would you like to come over to my house after school? I just rented some new movies...or we could play a computer game or something," Xelloss suggested.
"Ahhh," Zel nearly choked. Here was a friendship he didn't want to establish. He absolutely had to get out of there! He was convinced that he was not that desperate for entertainment. Go to Xelloss'? Not today, not EVER! "Not now," he answered curtly, and then slipped by the smiling kid, zipping down the hallway at record speed to the registrar's office.
Which was locked, of course.
"CLOSED? Ah, shit! That fruitcake made me miss the deadline! Damn, now I'm stuck." Zel fumed and grumbled. "I hate my life."
"NICE board, man!" Val said in admiration of Gourry's new skateboard. "Custom wheels!"
"Yeah, it was from my brother. When he went off to college, he left me his sweet board," Gourry grinned. "But I'm gonna spiff it up a little! I thought I'd try and paint a sword-like a cool, glowy one and all, like in STAR WARS-on this part." Gourry showed him the place with a swipe of his huge hand.
Val flipped up his own wheels. "Yeah, like, see on mine! I've got this black dragon-"
"Whoa, with FLAMES! Yeah, that's so cool!"
"I painted it myself. Hey, I could do yours, I'm pretty good with spray paint," Val grinned. Everyone knew what that meant.
"Hey Lina, Me and Val are gonna go do some painting, see ya tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sure, I'm going to go introduce Amelia to some people. Bye everyone!" Lina gave a shout and wave.
"Oh, Miss Lina, thank you for coming along and introducing me to the student council members. Do you really think I should run for freshman student body president? Why don't you run too, for sophomore year, I mean?" Amelia asked.
"You'd be great on the council. Me? I like to bug them to do stuff, that's all. I've got too much to do," laughed Lina, imagining herself heading one of those stuffy meetings.
Zel stood looking vacantly at the closed office door. The halls were emptying as most the kids were heading home, happy not to have to hang around school any longer than necessary. Not Zel. He liked to spend time in the science labs or the computer center, anyplace but home. He lived with his grandfather who still held a position in the university chemistry department. The old man was blind and claimed he needed Zelgadiss around to help. But as far as Zel was concerned, as soon as he could afford to move out, he was going. After the 'accident' that had left him scarred, Zelgadiss had begged his grandfather to pay for the plastic surgery required to make him look normal again, but the old man refused. Claimed that vanity was a weakness. That it would make him stronger to live with it. That ended all further discussion. Zelgadiss hated him, almost as much as he hated himself.
"Oh…joy… Now everyone's gone," he sighed.
To his dismay, there came a response. "I'm still here," said Xelloss, sauntering alongside Zel. "Offer's still open."
"Oh…well…all right. But not at your house."
"Your house, or shall we play it safe and skirmish on the internet?"
"Internet."
"Starcraft?"
"Yeah, sure," Zel agreed with growing interest. "4:00?"
"That's fine with me," Xelloss said cheerfully. "Don't be late!"
Zel shook his head and quickly scooted around the odd purple-haired kid and practically ran out the door.
"You'd think he hadn't any friends to bug rather than me," thought the equally strange lavender-haired kid. With a shrug, he pulled his gray hooded sweatshirt closer and turned the corner toward his street. "Now, what do I do until 4:00?"
End Seyruun High Jinx Chapter One (revision 12/03)