"So you're the 'other stubborn one'" Amelia noted as she found Xellos also hanging about the spirit plane in the vicinity of their children. Xellos's spirit looked exhausted as he sat on the non-ground, leaning against the trunk of a mind-formed tree while sitting in its branches. At least he had recovered enough from Luna's summoning to do that much.
"So you've been talking our heavenly friend," Xellos sighed, smiling sarcastically.
"Heavenly?"
"Never mind," Xellos waved his hand. "And what have you been doing to aid our children? When I couldn't find you before I assumed you had passed on, as he likes to say."
"I was...." she scanned about the nothingness skittishly. "...Trapped...But even that seems to have served the cause of Justice."
"How so?" Xellos asked, wincing at the justice speech. Amelia smiled cheerfully.
All his minions were destroyed or freed. He had felt each snapping tie. They were all gone except those in this stronghold, his strongest minions. He now had to content himself only with their protection and the seclusion of this stronghold for protection. Considering the resourcefulness of his enemies he didn't quite feel secure that they would be stopped by such measures. If he was lucky they would miss his phylactery. Then again, perhaps he had another choice, dangerous maybe, but it couldn't be helped.
"Well, that's all those ghosts," the Zefilian sorcerer stretched kinked muscles while the slayers were sitting together next to a tangled tree.
"How many died?" Amethyst asked quietly.
"Thirty," the mage said somberly. "Another hundred or so wounded. Lucky considering the odds."
"Some luck," Jol laughed.
"Well, I assume you're returning..."
"No, we still have to finish this," Amethyst informed them. Jolrael nodded. Xalan looked and saw that Xina was also determined to continue for some reason. Despite the fact that everything appeared settled to him. He wasn't wearing the talismans at the moment, so he had to guess a great deal.
"But the entire army of undead is destroyed," the sorcerer noted curiously. "What else is there?"
"We still have to deal with the one who bound them all," Amethyst explained. "My thanks, and the thanks of Sailoon for your aid."
"Hmph, girl, this is our country," the sorcerer replied cheerfully. "We don't need thanks to defend ourselves. Say hi to Lina for us!"
"Mom's going to kill us," Xina moaned.
"Twenty years of anynmousity all gone," Xalan agreed. "But perhaps we SHOULD be getting home."
"Amethyst is right," Jolrael said. "We have to finish this."
"Roquen is dead isn't he," Xalan questioned. "We all saw him torn apart by his own spell. Except him."
"He was changing," Xina corrected. "I know you felt it too, that little tingle whenever mom changes shape."
"His soul didn't leave our world," Jolrael added.
"My mother told me where to find him." Everybody blinked and stared at Amethyst. She looked at Jol for a moment. "The specter that attacked me...was my mother." Everybody face faulted. Xalan sat up and narrowed his eyes, looking to Xina.
"You've been talking to father's ghost?" he didn't wait for an answer. "Okay, I'll come along, but she goes home right now."
"What?! You don't obviously think that...."
"Mom sent me to get you and bring you home," Xalan said. "The only reason I let you come all this way..."
"LET me come! I'm not a helpless little girl," Xina spat. "I can take care of myself, and I'm sticking with my friends." Xina stomped off angrily.
"Val, why don't you talk some sense in her."
"Are you kidding? Her mind is hazardous terrain for sense," the dragon arched an eyebrow, then toppled off the rock he was sitting on when something struck him in the back of the head.
"I heard that!!"
"Can't you see that this is a trap?" he asked. "Tinu and Xina should stay behind."
"It doesn't matter we have to do this anyway," Jol said. "If we don't do it someone else will have to."
"And Roquen is trapped for a long while yet," Amethyst added. "Justice must be served, and the best time is now."
"Xina...."
"Excuse me, Xalan-san," Amethyst interrupted him. "I can understand wishing to see Tinuviel left behind. But..."
"Where is Tinuviel anyway?" Jol asked suddenly.
"Okay, I'm listening, I'm listening," Sherra rolled her hands to indicate for the girl to continue.
Oh, this is pathetic.
"What's he like? Well...." and Sherra launched into a string of unintelligible psychobabble. With Sherra writing furiously.
Her friends are coming.
"Okay, I've got to go now," Sherra said, before vanishing.
"But you promised to..." Tinuviel sighed irritably.
"Hi Jol..."
Elsewhere Sherra was reading through the notes she had furiously taken down.
"What does any of this MEAN!?!" She wailed.
Why can't you just once reacted to these situations calmly?