It's Xel's time to shine!
************************
One of the dolphin-bears 'ba-bumped' a communication to another, though its true meaning couldn't be deciphered. But Jinnai knew. He felt rational discussion was in order. Normally he'd consider more forceful measures, but... well, he was really very naked.
"You there! Dolphin-bear filthmongers! This is unlawful exploitation! This moment is being taken completely out of context, I tell you!"
Seeming to hear him out, the dolphin-bears fell back, retreating into the shadows. Little did Jinnai know that they were merely switching tactics so as to avoid any open hostility. One leaned towards the resident cameraman. "We're going to have to dub in the sound for this one. I don't think it's very titillating as is."
Makoto managed to crack his eyelids open amidst the raging pain in his head. The first thing he laid bleary eyes on was a very pale, very bare ass. "Ifurita...?"
Jinnai whirled on him, blinded with rage.
"You're behind this, aren't you, Makoto?! It wasn't enough to win at everything, steal my bread and my Demon God, and ruin my presidency! You're determined to exploit me in any way possible if it gives you any sick satisfaction! But rest assured, vengeance will be mine. I will own you!"
Still quite disoriented and really just glad that those cameras were gone, Makoto's eyes could do nothing but trail mindlessly below Jinnai's waist. "Uh."
Jinnai paused in what had promised to be a very enjoyable bout of maniacal laughter. Yet another transgression!
His gaze mirrored Makoto's after a short moment. Then a slow grin spread across his features.
"Well, well... not entirely blessed after all, are you, Makoto?"
It could be said that Makoto, while beginning to grasp the moment as reality, didn't yet fully comprehend the gravity of the situation. The concussion probably didn't help overmuch. That said, he couldn't entirely be blamed when the dull pulse of blood in his ears drowned out his supposed enemy's words and left only the peculiar stare. He wouldn't lie; it was a bit disconcerting.
"He-hey there, Jinnai," he began, offering a slightly nervous grin, "look, I guess I'm flattered, but I just don't swing that wa--"
Immediately Jinnai was on him, hands wrapped firmly around his throat.
The dolphin-bears squeaked excitedly in the darkness, anticipating a wonderful influx of subscribers indeed.
The Demon God Jinnai frowned in worry, seeing one of his mightiest attacks do absolutely nothing to the floating Arjah head. The massive floating monstrosity laughed, mocking the ultimate Demon God's inability to defeat him.
"Pathetic little boy... that's all you ever were. Nothing but a crazed, love-starved little twit who sought respect and affection through bullying and plans of conquest. You truly are the epitome of idiocy!" laughed the priest.
"Oh spare me your half-wit insults," snarled Jinnai. His cultured voice was filled with anger and fear. "If you're going to destroy me, then hurry up and DO IT. Oblivion is a much better fate than spending any more time listening to your aggravating voice!"
Arjah chuckled. "Very well." A ball of immense power began to farm in front of his gigantic visage. Vicious arcs of electricity flared from the ball, which was ready to discharge towards the remaining Demon God and vaporize him. "Prepare to die! Ha hahahaha ha ha ha...."
Suddenly, the forming death ball vanished as the power supplying it became cut off. Arjah's giant face contorted in pain and surprise, the glow vanishing from it and the rest of the massive room. His wide eyes looked about in panic, not understanding what was going on.
Jinnai was confused as well. "What the fuck?" He asked himself, looking around. He quickly spotted the viewscreen, which was still in tuned with Makoto's group up at the surface. It showed the last Titan vanquished by one of the Bugrom superbugs, and Groucho holding the injured Kauru to the now activated failsafe device.
"No!" snarled Arjah, who had noticed the viewscreen as well. The weakened Priest of All Dimensions turned his attention to Jinnai, who was now floating in the air sporting a maniacal grin.
"Well well well! Looks like I'm not the one who's going to die today." Jinnai chuckled, then looked to his two companions. Ifurita was still in the midst of her mental breakdown, and the Pretty Magical God Nanami's pieces were still reforming themselves. The Lord Demon God laughed even louder, as he turned his attention towards the weakened Arjah. "So, it seems that I will be the one to save the world after all..." He lifted his keystaff and aimed its tip at Arjah's face. "... how surprising."
The massive face in front of him snarled in hate. "Go ahead, boy! Do your worst! I may be weakened right now, but I still have power! You are nothing to me! You are but an insect compared to my might!"
"Whatever." Jinnai smirked and let loose a massive blast of energy towards the floating head.
Arjah suddenly laughed. "The fool!" he thought to himself. "Doesn't he ever learn? The sphere around me will absorb any form of energy thrown at it! That little blast of his will more than likely reactivate my full powers! Ha! Stupid little... WHAT?!" The priest looked on in horror as Jinnai's beam missed his face by what seemed like a minute fraction and raced away. The beam shot behind him, shooting through the air, heading straight for a nondescript part of the spherical complex around them. "WHAT?! NOOOOOOOO!!!"
As soon as the beam hit the side of the cavern, Arjah's face vanished. The lights dimmed to almost nothing, and a massive explosion erupted from the damaged area. Fire spread outwards from the newly formed hole, electrical sparks flaring around the damaged conduits. From the debris, popped out a wrinkled, bloody hand, trying desperately to free the rest of itself from the heavy rubble.
Jinnai appeared over it, and smiled. The Demon God reached down, grabbed the hand tightly, and lifted the broken, battered body of Arjah from the rubble. The old man coughed and sputtered, the numerous wires and cables which had connected him into the massive machinery around him sparked with risidual energy now going to waste. "H-how...?" asked the old man in between coughs.
"Stupid fool," spat Jinnai. "Every idiot knows the Wizard of Oz strategem. A fake, larger-than life mock-up is set up to lead the heroes astray, while the real goon which they seek hides behind the curtained partition. It will take more than that cliche to fool the Great Lord Demon God Jinnai."
Arjah gritted his teeth as the Demon God lifted the tip of his staff towards him. He began to think up of a way to escape doom, but nothing came to mind. Any of the other fools in his way had simple weaknesses he coudl exploit, loved ones and friends he could threaten. But Jinnai was a selfish, powermad lunatic. He didn't care about anything but himself... or did he?
"Wait!" pleaded Arjah.
"Oh, and why should I?" Jinna began to power up his staff.
"Because... you are needed elsewhere," Arjah smiled and pointed to the viewscreen still floating above them. Jinnai turned his eyes up and saw that the scene has changed, this time showing Ifurina and Parnasse as then stood upon the desert sands, both tired from the most stressful ordeal of their lives.
"What is the meaning of-" Jinnai's eyes suddenly widened as one of the mangled Titan remains suddenly began to move. It lifted a small blaster in Ifurina's direction, then fired off a thin laser beam. The poor girl was caught completely by surprise, as the beam hit her right in the back and burned through her body. A hole appeared in her chest, from which an ugly red stain began to form. "NO!" Screamed Jinnai in horror. He watched with disbelieving eyes as Ifurina fell to her knees, then forwards onto the sand, a thick pool of blood forming beneathe her.
"YOU MONSTER!" Jinnai grabbed Arjah and slammed him into the wall. The priest cringed in pain, but didn't loose his demented smile. "How could you do that to her?! How could anyone be so cruel?! She did nothing! She was innocent! She didn't deserve that!"
"Oh, don't give me any moral lectures, for I won't have it! Not from you!" Arjah growled. "How many innocents did you harm and kill, in your mad dash for power? How many innocent girls and children did you send to their deaths when you had your armies invade their towns and villages? Now, just because you know that one girl, you think that her life is better than everyone elses?"
"Shut up!" Jinnai began to squeeze the small man's shoulders, eliciting a gasp of pain from him. "I'll tear you to pieces!"
"Wait! WAIT!" shouted Arjah. "You can still save her!" He waved a free hand into the air next to him. A second later, a dark portal, similar to one of Nanami's, formed. "This will take you directly to the surface, where she is. The wound didn't kill her, but if left untreated she will die. Only you, as a Demon God, have the knowledge and the ability to save her."
Jinnai looked at the portal, then turned back to Arjah. He seemed torn about what to do. "Kill me, and the portal vanishes," The old man laughed. "Better make up your mind quickly... the poor girl is losing a lot of blood."
Jinnai looked back at the portal, then up towards the viewscreen. Parnasse was kneeling over Ifurina's prone body, holding his cloak over her wound in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. It wasn't working.
"Damn you," snarled Jinnai, before he threw Arjah onto the ground and leapt into the portal.
"Idiot," muttered Arjah in pain. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, willing the agony in his body to cease. "I'll kill her anyway when I gain control of this world..." With that, the Great Priest of the Dimensions shut the portal, and waited for the failsafe to wear off so that he could remake the world in his image.
************************************************
"Ifurina!" Jinnai shouted as he dropped to his knees before the dying girl.
"I'm sorry," said Parnasse, tears dripping from his eyes. "I don't know what happened."
The Demon God shoved the boy out of the way and put his hands over her wound. His internal sensors began scanning Ifurina's body, checking her vital statistics while his computers figured out the best way to repair the injuries. "No," he muttered as the results came up. She was too far gone; the injuries she had sustained were beyond his powers to stop.
Jinnai felt something wet leaking from his eyes. Something heavy weighed in his chest. His throat felt dry and coarse. What was happening to him? How could the death of one insignificant girl affect him like this? It shouldnt, he knew that. He shouldn't care. This was beneathe him. He shouldn't care.
But he did.
"Don't worry, Ifurina," said Jinnai with a sad smile. He looked down at her beautiful face, which was now pale and stained with blood. "I will save you... no matter what happens to me, I will save you."
The Demon God lay his hands on the dying girl's chest and took a deep breath. He then closed his eyes and concentrated fully on healing her. He directed every nanomachine in his body to flow into her body and repair the damage as quickly as possible. Various messages appeared within his mind, warning that such a vast output of power would strain his resources and would most likely kill him. Jinnai quickly ignored them, as he had important work to do.
"Hold on, Ifurina... Your Demon God will not fail you."
************************************************
Arjah was still sitting next to the mound of rubble where Jinnai had thrown him, concentrating on healing his broken body. Soon the failsafe would be shut off, and he would be in full control of the planet once again. He just had to wait.
"Arjah," said a familiar voice.
The old man's eyes popped open, his surprise at hearing the voice causing him to gasp. There, directly in front of him, stood Makoto Mizuhara. The thin boy, clad only in a loincloth, looked like the most frightening creature ever to walk the world, at least in the eyes of the injured old man. "Mizuhara?! H-how?!"
As soon as the Demon God Jinnai exited the portal, he glanced around at the collection of misfits in front of him. While he couldn't stop Arjah himself, he damn sure intended to get someone else to do it for him. He looked from Groucho who was holding up an injured Kauru, to Parnasse tending to the dying Ifurina. No help there. His eyes then fell on the forms of Makoto and Ishiel, who was still in the grips of the magic-induced passion.
Jinnai frowned. "Mizuhara," he thought to himself. "I may despise you, but you've saved the world before. I need you to do it again. Just this once." The Demon God quickly leapt towards Makoto, pulling him off of Ishiel. He used his powers to create an enzyme which would counter-act the lust agent in the magic potion, then injected it into Makoto's neck. The boy cursed at first, wondering what was going on as the enzyme began to work. Without a word, Jinnai tossed Makoto through the portal behind him just as it began to close.
"It's all up to you now, Mizuhara," said Jinnai. He quickly turned his attention to his fallen master.
"Get away from me!" snarled Arjah.
"I'm here to stop you, Arjah," said Makoto. "Once and for all, I will stop you."
OOC: LGJ, my apologies for using your signature art without asking first. But I couldn't resist ::)
A nurse (an actual hard-working medical nurse, for once, instead of a bishoujou in tight and skimpy kangofu cos-play) came up to Doctor Smith, just after his latest dramatic narration. "Doctor? How did you come to be here, at the edge of the Desert of Bleached White Bones? I thought that you practiced at the royal infirmary in Floristica, and that you lived in the palace-town with your wife."
Doctor "Smith" grinned, and glanced back at a tall dark blue cabinet that stood in a corner of his office. "That's a secret, my dear. Would you like a jellybaby?"
Jinnai walked through the halls of the Floristica palace, hands clasped behind his back, smiling to himself and humming pleasantly. Though he had sadly been left out of the final conquest of Roshtaria, he had proven his usefulness with his exquisite humiliation of Mizuhara and the demon gods. And now, he had power over both the Bugrom Empire and the Alliance, and he was free to wield it at his slightest whim, while Londs kept Deva, uh, occupied.
This delicious triumph was almost enough to make him forget the heart-break that he had suffered only a short time ago. Unfortunately, he was promptly reminded of it.
Jinnai turned a corner, and found himself face to face with Ifurina, once again clad in a non-descript hooded brown servant's tunic, and carefully sweeping the floor with a new broom. She looked up at him and smiled cheerfully. "Oh, hello, Mr. Fred! How are you! Do you work in the palace too?"
Jinnai froze in shock, but his brilliant cunning genius allowed him to quickly recover his wits. "Er-- yes, that's right. But what are you doing here?"
Ifurina giggled. "I work here, silly! That is, Mr. Londs was kind enough to give me my job back, even though I took all that time off without permission."
"Well, you seem to have returned to your boring mundane existence happily enough," Jinnai said, not at all happily himself.
"Oh, yeah! When I came back, guess what I found in my mail?"
Jinnai sighed. "What?"
"A letter from my parents! It turns out, they weren't horribly crushed under that great big toilet after all! I didn't really understand their letter, but I think they went on a second honeymoon at a nudist camp, or something. Anyway, I guess I was just wasting all that time with Katsuhiko..."
Jinnai winced at this metaphorical sucker-punch to the gut. "Oh. Uh..."
Ifurina sighed, and continued to babble. "Oh, but I wish that I could see Katsy-Watsy again, and thank him for saving my life. And I never really told him, um, how I felt about him..."
That hurt Jinnai even worse. "Ack... Well, anyway, I'm glad to see that you're alright. You almost died, you know."
"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" Ifurina said solemnly. But then, she giggled again, and began to lift up her tunic. "You wanna see my scar? You have to look real close to see it, but--"
"NO!!" Jinnai yelped. "I mean, thank you, but I've, uh, got to install some hexagons, and--"
"'Kay. Well, it was nice to see you again, Mr. Fred! Bye now!" Ifurina continued sweeping along the hall, past Jinnai and around the corner.
Jinnai slumped against a wall, and held his face in his hands, his triumph over Mizuhara and the Alliance forgotten. He suddenly decided that it had been far too long since he had done some heavy drinking.
Pretty Magical God Nanami portal'ed into a dungeon cell far below the palace, intent on finding Shayla and returning her lamp of fire. "Shayla? Why are you-- OH MY GOD!! Fatora, you CAN'T do THAT with a GLOCKENSPIEL!!"
Nanami had quickly overpowered Fatora and Alielle, and freed Shayla. And then, Nanami had stood back, as Shayla did things to Fatora and Alielle that are best left to the reader's imagination. Nanami and Shayla finally left the dungeon cell together, and locked its door behind them, leaving what was left of Fatora and Alielle locked up.
Shayla grinned sheepishly, and rubbed at herself with a towel. "Thanks, Nanami. I owe you one. Although, I wish you'd got here before they poured the maple syrup all over me."
"Well, I might call in that favor right away," Nanami said. "I'll explain later, but you and Afura might be the only ones left who can help us--"
Shayla grimaced. "Uh, Nanami? We'd better not count on Afura. She had a blow to the head that hasn't healed yet. And she, uh, hasn't been herself lately."
Nanami blinked. "What do you mean?"
Shayla opened the door of the adjacent room, and she and Nanami looked in on Afura.
Afura was curled up on a cot, fast asleep. In an alternative manifestation of her randomly subservient personality, she had gone to bed like a good little girl. She wore an old-fashioned ankle-length night gown, and her hair was done up in pigtails and ribbons. She clutched at a large stuffed toy animal with one arm, and lightly sucked the tip of the thumb of her other hand.
Nanami and Shayla both smiled sweetly, and sighed in unison at Afura's out-of-character wholesome sleepy-girl cuteness. "Awwww..."
Nanami left the great lamp of wind at Afura's side, with a note asking Afura to join them when she felt up to it. Then she portal'ed Shayla to the Shinonome Diner, having arranged to meet back up with Makoto and Ifurita there.
They emerged from Nanami's portal, to stand on the palace-town street, beside a dumbfounded Makoto and Ifurita. Shayla sweatdropped as Nanami began to tremble with sheer rage at the sight before her.
Almost all of the buildings along the street had been destroyed in the battle with uber-Ishiel. But, in a testament to the hard work and craftsmanship of the Bugrom, the entire street had already been rebuilt from the ground up-- except for the Shinonome Diner. The vacant lot where the Shinonome Diner used to be now held only a large sign mounted on a heavy post.
The sign had a picture of Jinnai making a rude gesture with both hands, and a short message that was obviously intended for Nanami:
(http://www.zyworld.com/MrEnd/jinnai_3.JPG)
Who's the crazy weirdo freak NOW?
Steam blew from Nanami's ears. "Oh, he's really starting to get on my nerves!!"
In the small building that housed Makoto's workshop and sleeping quarters, off in a far corner of the palace grounds, the dimensional transporter that Makoto had abandoned after The Alternative World suddenly came to life with eerie extra-dimensional light.
But it wasn't Arjah, 'cause he's dead now.
A pair of impossibly long female legs began to emerge from the transporter. The legs were followed by the rest of a tall dark platinum blond supermodel with green eyes and strange blue emblems on her face.
Urd stood up from the transporter, and stretched in a fan-servicey way, trying to work a crick out of her back. I guess that's the closest thing they have to a television screen around here, she thought to herself.
After her latest inventory of love potion ingredients, Urd had found that one bottle had gone missing. She had then somehow worked out that the bottle had been taken to another dimension. She had decided to pay a little visit to the dimension herself, to find the entity that had stolen her bottle, and give that entity a sample of her patented Urd Lightning Strike.
Of course, she had no way of knowing that Arjah was dead, his body buried in an ancient cavern deep in the thick crust of the planet. She also had no way of knowing that the current writer had already crossed Mara over into El-Hazard, or that he had already hinted at another gratuitous cross-over in the first part of this very same reply.
And Urd had no way of knowing that, with her magic and her extensive knowledge of medicinal chemistry, she was the only being currently in El-Hazard that was capable of curing Makoto's Bugrom poisoning, and of producing a vaccine against further use of the poison. She didn't even realize it after the current writer dropped that hint in an incredibly gratuitous and fourth-wall-breaking way.
No, Urd couldn't have possibly worked out any of this yet, the main reason being, she had bumped into another piece of equipment in Makoto's workshop, in a clumsy Urd-esque sort of way, and she was distracted when the entire workshop suddenly exploded.
When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, a frazzled and soot-covered Urd was the only thing left standing upright in a shallow blast crater fifty meters wide.
"Oops," said Urd.