To Egypt

Sunset has "finally" come in Japan. Elaine and Diane are completely exhausted, but their hosts are preparing dinner, and they don't want to be rude. It's only now that they both really take a good look around the house and take it all in. The rooms are large and nearly empty by their perspective, and strange mats litter the floors. The doors all slide open, what they assume is an alter is incredibly strange, and even the gardens are very different from anything they've ever seen, including the orange-colored fish in the pond. All the cooking seems to be done over a square fire pit in the middle of one of the rooms. They wonder where everybody sleeps since there doesn't seem to be any beds anywhere. The children each play with a ball tied with string to what looks like a wooden handle (kendama). They give a couple to their guests, and they soon catch on, Diane especially having fun with the simple toy.

There seems to be some unrest in the air after the battle earlier. After seemly saying something to Kikyo and getting a huge slap for it, Herman has off on his own, nobody bothering to go look for him.

As fish is being cooked, the smell hits Elaine's nostrils and she suddenly feels very nauseous. She remembers this happening the other day when Ban had cooked fish, but she had said nothing and thought it was just a fluke. Diane notices that she looks a little green and ask her sister-in-law if she's ok. Elaine goes outside for some fresh air away from the smell, and she feels fine again. As soon as she returns and smells the fish again, however, the nausea restarts, but she decides to stick it out. Dinner consists of cooked fish, rice balls, a strange salad that was actually cooked (ohitashi), and miso soup. There's also a platter of uncooked fish in the center of the table, alone with a couple pots of hot tea, a bottle of sake, sweet rice balls, and cookies. Like before, they all sit on the floor on cushions, and each individual meal is served on trays, along with the chop sticks.

Elaine tries to suck it up, act normal, and eat. However, she just feels worse, especially trying to take a bit of the fish. Half-way through the meal, she can no longer take it and runs out. She hunches over in the garden and vomits.

Diane follows and asks Elaine if she's alright.

"I'm not sure," answers Elaine; "I don't know what's wrong. I've never reacted like that around fish before."

"Maybe you're allergic to this particular fish."

"Maybe."

Diane helps her sister-in-law up and they turn back to the door. Kikyo and her mother are there staring at them.

"I'm sorry;" says Elaine embarrassed; "I'm coming back."

"Anata wa byoki desu ka? (Are you ill?) ask the old priestess. Kikyo tries to speak through body language; sticking out her tongue, puts her figure in her mouth, and makes a sour face.

Elaine shrugs her shoulders; "I don't know."

Kikyo then points to Elaine, then to her own belly, and makes a cradle motion with her arms.

"You're pregnant?! Congratulations!" Diane excitably grabs Kikyo and tries to dance with her. Kikyo struggles to get free.

"Iie iie (No No)! Elaine!" She points to Elaine, who suddenly faints.

Several hours later in early morning, Elaine wakes up. She finds herself laying on some kind of mat on the floor, with a couple blankets and a strange, hard pillow, dressed in only the first under slip they had put on. Diane is sound asleep next to her, most of their hosts are asleep on similar mats on the other side of the room. Elaine gets up to relieve herself, and suddenly has to throw-up again. It isn't until she returns to the room and notices the children's sweet sleeping faces that she remembers what was said before she fainted.

PREGNANT! The word that other races use when their women are carrying the next generation inside of them. "ME? It can't be."

Elaine goes back outside and looks up at the full moon, wishing she could feel Ban's strong but gentle arms around her. It couldn't be, could it? Impossible! Actually, Elaine has known for months that it might be possible. Fairies don't reproduce, but instead are born of trees and flowers. Elaine and Harlequin were both born of the same plant, making them brother and sister. Despite the fact that no fairies are known to have reproduced with other races, several months ago Elaine had mysteriously started to menstruate like Diane and Elizabeth do. They had theorized that her body has somehow magically altered to be able conceive babies with her human true love. Both Elaine and Ban, as well as Diane and King, had wished and prayed for that to be possible.

The very idea that Elaine really could be carrying Ban's child inside of her, is still hard for her to imagine. Yet if she really is pregnant, it's like the ultimate miracle come true! She lovely puts her palm on her belly.

Suddenly, Elaine hears something coming from what she assumed is the chapel or alter room. She approaches the room with caution. She can smell smoke, which makes her nauseous, and sees flashing light. She can hear the old priestess chanting. She can't help but wonder what's going on inside there.

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Gowther has rode back to Lions to search Merlin's lab for the purple salt. Merlin has entrusted the Goat Sin to look after her Lions lab, however, she destroyed all her notes and journals. Gowther finds what he's looking for. The label says 'Transport Witchhazel Salt' with instructions on how to use it. However, it also contains a warning saying, 'only use during a full moon in a stable magical and physical environment.'

Gowther rides back to Avalon on a sky manta. It's late at night, yet as a doll he doesn't need sleep. Only Margaret remains in Avalon as the others got called away for other missions. When Gowther returns to the monastery, he's surprised to see her still awake, along with several monks still doing research. The only information Gowther was able to piece together from the invaders thoughts was that they were looking for something in Scotia's grave, a stone he thinks. The far-off lands of Egypt and Naples were also mentioned.

The alchemy lab confirms that the salt matches Merlin's. They also inform that the salt contains unknown ingredients that don't exist anywhere in Britannia. The instructions on the bottle are in Greek.

"Gowther;" says the Reverend; "Naples, one of the lands you mentioned, is in the Holy Roman Empire, much of which speaks Greek."

"Hmm;" says Gowther; "What about Egypt, especially with the legend of Scotia and your recent visitors coming from there? Have you discovered anything? Do they speak Greek or Latin in Egypt? What about the Egyptian church?"

"Those are difficult questions to answer Gowther;" says the Reverend; "Would you like some tea while I explain."

"No thank you. I'm good."

"I'll take some;" says Princess Margaret, who has entered the room with some notes; "I just came from the library archives, and they've uncovered something interesting."

They each take a set, Margaret allowing the Reverend to share what he knows first.

"If there are people who speak Greek or Latin in Egypt, Gowther, they'd be along the Mediterranean coastline. Most modern-day Egyptians speak a language known as Arabic I believe. The Coptic Orthodox Church is a different denomination from us and we have no direct connections with them whatsoever. I do know, however, that they're headquarters are in Alexandera, Egypt along the coast."

"Fascinating;" replies Gowther; "But how does that bring us closer to finding our friends? Do you think they have been transported to Alexandera?"

"I don't know."

"I don't know how it will help;" says Margaret; "but we did uncover something in an old scroll found in an old stone box.

The Reverend is amazed somebody actually thought of that as those 'hidden boxes' have rarely been opened in hundreds of years.

"Proceed please;" replies Gowther.

"Well, you mention a stone, right? According to the scroll (written in an ancient language that had to be translated with the only known translation book) Scotia fled here with her husband 5,000 years ago after the Tower of Babel was built. She brought what was called the "Stone of Destiney" with her, said to have been part of the tower. The purpose of the stone, however, has been lost to history."

Gowther thinks about that, remembering about the old map the Reverend mentioned earlier. "Hmm. I wonder if those Egyptians were also after that stone. That makes sense, but what do Egypt and Naples have to do with...." Gowther catches himself, remembering that he should be focused on finding his friends. "I think the Sins got in their way by accident. Maybe I should go to Egypt myself, assuming that's where they have been transported to."

"It's the only lead we've got;" says the Reverend; "but are you sure you should use that salt Gowther? Are you able to use it? There's no garneted that it'll work right, also there's no garneted that you'd get back."

Gowther looks at the bottled salt, wondering if he should come up with another solution. After brainstorming, unfortunately, they can't come up with anything better.

"Don't go alone Gowther;" says Margaret; "Let me go with you, I've studied Latin and Greek."

Gowther is surprised to hear that; "I don't know if that's a good idea Margaret. I don't think Gilthunder or the king would approve."

Margaret looks down at the ground, then looks up again; "You may be right Gowther, but Ellie and Meliodas especially have done so much for us. You all have."

"We'll go with you Gowther;" comes a familiar voice. It's Gulia and Jericho, who have returned from their mission.

"Sure does sound more exciting than saving farm crops from locusts;" says Jericho.

"Stop;" says the Reverend firmly; "Do you all known what are saying? You are talking about leaving Britannia and going off to a faraway land, of which we know next to nothing about. It's literally the unknown out there. The lands are different, the creatures are different, the people are different, they may not accept you. Even the magic is different. Worse yet, there's unknown powers out there that exceeds even the late Demon King and Supreme Deity. You'll be completely unprepared."

After giving the matter more thought, Gowther decides he has to go to Egypt, even though the Reverend warns him that he's literally looking for the smallest crumb in a vast meadow. With Britannia not under any major threat at the moment, the Goat Sin believes the land is in good hands with the current holy knights. Guila pleads to go with him, and he agrees. Jericho refuses to be left behind, but Margaret, reluctantly, agrees to stay.

After the Reverend points out Alexandera's location on a map, Gowther and the lady knights stand close together. The doll carefully reads the instructions, opens the bottle, and makes a circle around the three of them with it. He says the magic words on the bottle, hoping he pronounced them correctly. Nothing happens. Margaret asks to take a look at the words. She tries to whisper the correct pronunciation into Gowther's ear. However, even very faintly whispering the words is enough to trigger the salt, and Margaret gets swallowed up in the vortex along with the other three.

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At the black market inside a boat, Meliodas is "badly" on the losing end of a poker game. He's not even sure how it happened. One minute, he was guzzling down two whole barrels of cheap gin and gorging on lots of yummy 'fudge' that the 'nice' people here keep offering. He had tried his usual tricks of trying to challenge these people to a brawl and hoping they'd get smash (little did he know that he was the only one drinking any alcohol). The next thing he knows, he's been tricked into a game of poker. He blamed Ramesses for being a bad translator.

The black-market people are equally baffled as to way Meliodas hasn't even gotten a little tipsy, and their 'special fudge' has little to no effect on him so far. They are used to dealing with demons, but they've never seen any as difficult to 'get high' as this one.

Non the less, Meliodas's poor poker skills are very apparent. He has already lost all his money (and the lady panties he had in his pockets). The opponents start pointing at the demon and demanding something. Meliodas ask Ramesses what they want.

"Oh;" the cat says nervously; "they want your clothes, Meliodas."

The dragon sin refuses to bet his clothes and pounds the table, shattering it. The opponent gets mad and tries to punch the demon, who all to easily blocks it with his bare hand. Another guy jumps between them, reminding them that violence isn't allow for fear of who they might attract, plus not wanting to cause any property damage. Ramesses again tries reasoning with Meliodas.

"Forget it! You're not much help either you know! Tell them we either play something else or I'll..."

They suddenly grab Ramesses, place him on a table, and hold a small ax to his tail.

"HEY!" goes Meliodas; "What do you think you're doing?"

"They're making me pay the debt. Please stop them, Meliodas! My tail will grow back in three weeks but still, it's embarrassing."

Meliodas is annoyed; "Is that all?"

The leader says something. Ramesses translates; "Oh, he's offering one more game. It's triple or nothing."

"WHAT? That's it, I'm done playing." Meliodas grabs the boss and throws him through the ceiling. They swing the ax to chop off Ramesses's tail.

"Hold it;" comes a firm voice; "This match isn't over yet."

A short, skinny guy dressed in a black leather jacket, black jeans, and dark shades walks in looking all business.

Meliodas can't believe who it is. "Willie?"

"Wildelfredico, thank God;" says Ramesses; "you fellows are in for it now."

"Ramesses, can it;" says Willie.

The boss returns in a fury, but Willie reasons with him and puts a fresh deck of cards on the table. The leader chuckles and accepts the challenge from the seemly arrogant shrimp.

Meliodas cannot believe what he's witnessing. "Is that really Willie?"

"Just sit back and watch the show;" replies Ramesses; "It's going to be good."

Meliodas grabs about a couple dozen bottles of cheap gin and nearly twice as many tins of fudge.

"Uh, you probably shouldn't eat any more of that fudge Meliodas."

The dragon sin stuffs several pieces into his mouth. "Bullshit. Here, have a drink with me."

"Oh, I'm really not supposed..."

Meliodas sticks a bottle into the cat's mouth.

45 minutes later, the black-market guys, in humiliation, pay up to Willie. Even though they all cheated, and Willie played completely fairly, he still beat them all. Afterwards, he realizes that Meliodas and Ramesses are no longer sitting in the corner. He's horrified by all the empty gin bottles and 'fudge' tin boxes.

"Oh no. Please no!"

He hears screams and commotion coming from the deck. The lady hostesses run in horrified and complain about the things the demon did to them, including stealing their panties and tops. Willie hears very out of control laughter and runs on deck, them hears a splash. The deck is a wreck, and he nearly trips over a very smashed demon cat with a bad runny nose, singing horribly off key.

"I'm so sorry (hic) I broke your heart mother (hic)."

"Ramesses! You're drunk!"

"Oh, hiya Freddie. This beautiful feline clothed in gold linen can't take her eyes off me. I think she likes me."

"Ramesses, that's a statue, made out of bronze."

Ramesses takes a closer look; "No, I think your wrong. She's smiling at me. Right sugar." The drunk demon cat tries to kiss the statue, missing completely.

"Where's Meliodas?"

One of the black-market guys points at the water. Meliodas, completely naked with the exception of his red tie, is bothering some women who were innocently bathing. They runaway in horror. He's also grabbing both fish and rocks from the water, tossing them all over the place and breaking stuff for the fun of it. He's laughing like an unhinged manic the whole time.

"MELIODAS!" Willie jumps into the water, relived that it's shallow enough for him to walk.

"Oh, Willie, so you're here;" Meliodas splashes the still leather clad monk, then clumsily falls over into the water, laughing.

"Meliodas, stop this nonsense right now!" He tries to help the demon up, who's clearly a bit uncoordinated. He then grabs Willie and twirls him around, losing his balance and falling over again.

"Meliodas, how much fudge did you eat? With how much alcohol?"

"Don't know, don't care." He notices a boat sail poll taller than all the others.

"Woohoo! Come on Willie, let's fly." He picks up the monk and leaps up a couple of buildings to reach the tallest pole.

"What are you doing? You told me you couldn't fly."

"I can, sometimes."

Willie somehow manages to get loose from the dragon sin's grip and uses he threads to hang on to the pole. Meliodas laughs; "Elizabeth, I'm coming for you!" He jumps off and releases his demon power. Unfortunately, wings fail to form and Meliodas slams into the water, causing a huge wave. Willie carefully gets himself down from the pole and runs towards the edge of the boat.

"Do you want us to hang him out to dry?" asks one of the black-market guys.

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Zeldris, unable to sleep, is sitting in the church courtyard staring at the stars. Ban, who had decided to check out the local pub, returns in a huff and sits next to the demon king.

"Man, that pub was joke. Not only was the food nearly as bad as the captain's. The drinks were even worse. I've never tasted such bad boos in my life, and I've tasted a lot."

Zel's amazed; "Really, that bad?"

"Yea. I'm surprised they had any customers. They even had a dreadful musician there. He's playing and singing were just as bad as the drinks. When Pastor Jaz said it was bad, I didn't think she meant 'that' bad."

"Hey, where's she going?"

Ban looks to see Scout, still in her swim clothes, carrying a waterproof duffel bag and heading back to the water. She takes a look at them, stares for a moment, then waves and continues on her way.

"Is she going swimming again?" asks Zeldris; "She just got out of the water. She seemed to be trying to approach me earlier, but as soon as I stood up and called out to her, she backed off and ran." 

They both go to the top of the wall. They see both Jaz and Scout embracing as the latter takes off her mask and shades, finally disappearing into the waves.

"Where is she going?" wonders the demon king.

Ban shrugs; "I really wonder what she looks like. Why does she always hide her face?"

"I wouldn't even assume her as a girl by those baggy, boyish clothes of hers;" adds Zel; "Even in her swimwear she's completely covered from her neck down to below her knees and elbows. Looks like she's wearing at huge potato sack over a body suit."

"For modesty of course." Jasmine is right next to the guys. She too is wearing the same type of 'swimsuit'. Unlike her sister, they can sort of make-out Jaz's womanly figure, although it's still fairly well hidden even in her wet swimwear.

Zeldris is embarrassed and tries to apologize. 

Ban clears his throat. "Hey Pastor Jaz, may I ask where's Scout going? Didn't she just come out of the water?"

Jasmine whips the wet curls from her face. "She's going somewhere yes."

"Does it have anything to do with finding our friends?"

Jaz nods; "We're working on that yes."

The pastor starts to walk back to the courtyard when Zeldris calls out to her; "Is something bad going on here? Are you hiding anything from us?"

Jaz had anticipated these questions. She turns back to face the guys. "Let's just say, we're trying to prevent something really bad from happening."

"Is Britannia in danger?" asks Zeldris.

Jaz sighs; "I think Britannia's too far away to be effected directly;" she yawns; "Listen, I'll tell you more in the morning. Just keep my sister in your prayers, please."

Several miles from shore, Scout enters the exact blue cave that the Britannians first appeared in. She catches her breath, adjust her snorkel mask, and dives again. Underwater, she waves her hand over a spot, and something opens, revealing a hidden chamber. She swims in, closes the gate, and exits the water at the end of the chamber. Again, waving her hand, a dimensional water gate opens. She evaporates into blue light and disappears into the gate.

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As dawn approaches in Japan, the old priestess finally succeeds in a making contact through telepathy.

(Telepathically) "Carmine, is that you? Please answer me."

"Uba, my fellow priestess. It's been a while."

"I know it's been. Listen, I've got some troubling news. The jewel has been stolen."

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The black-market boss helps Willie (back in his monk garb) drag a stoned, semi-conscious Meliodas and drunk (plus very sick) Ramesses back to the client. Despite his business dealings, the boss is actually a pretty decent person and helped Willie nail down the dragon sin. Meliodas continues his uncontrollable gitty giggles, mumbling a bunch of stuff that makes no sense, and soon joins the demon cat in EXTRMEMLY awful singing (different songs). Soon, his mood switches to sad and crying for Elizabeth and his friends. When they get to the stairs of the clinic, staff takes the two nearly passed out demons inside.

Willie then tries to give some of his winnings back to the boss to pay for damages, who declines.

"No. You won that fair and square. If I'd known whose son you were, I would've bailed out much sooner."

Willie's shocked; "How do you know whose son I am?"

"Oh, come on. Where else could you have learned to play that way? Your old man's skills are legendary."

"You mean when he stayed sober enough to play."

A look of sympathy appears on the boss's face. "Yea I'm sorry to hear that. I'm glad to know that you joined the church. You turned out far better than any of us."

Willie lowers his eyes; "I don't know about that."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. You're not your old man. If I'd known how he was treating..."

"That's in the past. My mother's safe and happy now with somebody who loves and treats her right, that's all that matters." 

The boss smiles; "Because of your courage, that's why."

Willie very humbly shakes his hand and they part ways.