Entry tags:

!complete, gourry gabriev, lina inverse

Who: Lina & Gourry
What: Gourry's Sword of Light goes a liiiittle bonkers
When: Today
Where: Gourry's apartment
Rating/Warnings: Nothing, really
Status: Complete!

Gah. Damnit. Another crapshow to shower the OC with, wasn’t it - towers popping up out of literal nowhere. Ones that messed with communication devices, others with weather, people getting a liiiiittle extra horny (not that it changed much for her, as she was always someone with voracious appetites across the board but), and from the looks of it the most recent one was messing with weapons, both mundane and arcane.

Gourry’s Sword of Light, for one.

Lina was already out and about - there were armor-clad and heavily armed mercenaries that’d been making their appearance so of course, so she’d been out flinging out a couple several fireballs and other notoriously destructive spells before she’d landed in front of the swordman’s doorstep. Yes, landed. One method of transportation she liked to practice in times of crisis was a sweeping ray wing that encased her in a protective shield and let her survey everything from above, in case she ran into someone that needed help.

Good samaritan points or whatever. “Hey, open up, it’s me!” she called out, dressed in combative black boots, and a leggings-tunic combo was that was a more modern mirror of her sorceress garb. No need to put on her own armor, either - the baddies today were shooting whipped cream from their guns. What a waste of perfectly good edibles!

Gourry opened the door quickly, looking a little confused--okay really confused. Which wasn’t that different for him. He stepped aside to let her in. “I never had it do this before,” he said with a sigh. “Usually it listens, you know?” The labs immediately went to the door to hide behind Lina, they weren’t very happy about this.

“What’d it do?” she asked, alarmed and concerned all in one facial expression. From the looks of it he still had a roof, and maybe the Sword of Light was doing something pointlessly hilarious like spitting out glitter in some kind of true magical girl fashion.

Or maybe it was going a little dangerous a la Hellmaster. Hard to say how it’d turn out with shit like this. Poor pups, though, she crouched and gave them some love - kisses and scratches on their scruff, cute little nuzzles, too. “It’s okay, babies, Auntie Lina’s here to do something.”

That seemed to calm them down, so they sat by the door once it was shut. Gourry gestured to the vibrating hilt on the coffee table. “It’s been doing that for a while. I haven’t tried calling forth the light yet.” He frowned deeply, eying Lina. “...Did you do something?”

Lina gave them a couple more kisses for good measure - aww, such good babies - before straightening. “What? No!” Why was the assumption that she always did something? Rude. “It’s someone’s thing, bleeding over from their world and messing things up around here but it should go back to normal too.” Hopefully.

But what was the deal with the sword? Her approach to the coffee table was cautious, and she hesitated to put her hands on it. “Have you picked it up? Tried to activate it or anything? Weapons here are going a little haywire today. I just fought mercenaries with nerf guns, but I’ve heard about some of the magic-related items getting screwed over too.”

“I thought I’d call you over first to get your thoughts on it before I did anything. If anything went wrong, I’d want someone to make sure to keep the animals safe, you know?” Gourry smiled at her. He headed over to the table though, eying the hilt warily. “Ready?”

Protect the pups, got it. Protect Gourry, too, as she wasn’t about to let a possibly out of control dormant demon sword mess with him either - so she hoped the effects were, y’know, comical. Like their lives. “If things get messy, I can try to contain it.” Lina had a couple tricks up her sleeve for the task. “Just be careful, jellyfish, I don’t want to be cleaning your leftovers off the floor or anything.”

There was a glare she delivered to him too, irises a deep red. Don’t think she wouldn’t find a way to yell at him even dismembered.

Gourry smiled at her before he turned back to the vibrating sword. He took hold of it and planted his feet, gripping the weapon tight enough that his knuckles went white. “Light! Come forth!” he shouted. The sword that exploded from the hilt was definitely the normal light they were used to, just… much, much bigger. His muscles tensed and he gripped it tightly, trying to keep it in his hands. Gourry gritted his teeth, glancing towards Lina. “It’s not normally this big.”

Oh, there was a dirty joke in there. Somewhere. Lina was a lady (most of the time) so she kept the potential of a lecherous wisecrack under a tight lid and focused on the problem at hand. The energy from it was enough to make her squint from the excess brightness. “Easy there, big guy. We don’t need too much of a fireworks show here - it’s not doing anything that could make a funny story later but it’s looking a little dangerous.

Drat. Carefully, she circled around him until the weapon’s blade of light was pointed at her. There was a spell she mumbled under her breath, a preparation to protect herself in case things got ugly. “Take a deep breath. Turn it off. I don’t recommend letting it go until you do.”

Gourry gave a slight nod her way, but gritted his teeth when the sword flared up even more. He took a step back, his arms shaking from the exertion. “Lina?” he breathed out her name. “Want to help me hold this?”

That request was a hint that he couldn’t just ‘turn it off.’ The Sword of Light’s blade was constructed of sheer willpower; it wasn’t difficult to snuff out but of course it wouldn’t work normally on a day everything was tits up, would it.

Something was going to break. It was just a hunch. Lina’s sixth sense included the ability to sniff out mass destruction before it occurred at this rate.

“Steaaaaady,” she encouraged and tiptoed her dainty feet over until she was next to the towering built of the pretty dumb blonde. Its power was unstable, that was for sure - and the sheer immensity of the vibrations swallowed the room. Her small hands went over his to hold the held with stability, but that jolt of power resonating from the hilt to them was so immediate it rattled her very teeth. “Wawawawaaaa--ohhhh, shit, maybe I’m better off trying to force the light back with a spell then holding this thing!”

Gourry looked to her, worried for her sake now as he turned back to the sword. He opened his mouth to tell her to step back when the light blasted forth. The dogs yelped, though uninjured, and Miss Ell knocked over all the items on the counter and dust covered the room.

When it cleared, he coughed, waving his hand around. There was a hole in the wall, revealing the innards of the apartment’s walls and… opened directly into his bathroom. He looked to Lina, eyes wide. At least the Sword of Light seemed to turn off after that. He glanced between the now still hilt to Lina. “...I guess we can be pretty explosive.”

There was the shortest of screams when the weapon just went off and that’s when she let go, immediately, hands up in surrender like it was an instinctive pose of it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it. Couldn’t blame her for this one, Gourry.

“There’s no ‘we’ in that equation,” she said, wincing at the damage. Unless grabbing onto it also channeled her will and them boom, and overload. Entirely possible, but hard to say when shit that happened here always didn’t make a lick of sense. So maybe there was a ‘we.’ Damn. “Don’t touch the sword until this latest tower’s done. I can put a protection spell over it in case, just to contain any other possible explosions, but. Gourry? That’s a pretty big hole.”

And there was rubble with some dust in the air, cough.

“...Can you fix walls?” Gourry asked. “I don’t think I have the money to fix this.” He looked down at the sword. “Bad.”

Sad thing was, Lina did know a thing or two about fixing holes in walls. It was only a couple years ago that the trials and error of her sorcery damaged the walls of the first house she owned, and the size was, unfortunately, comparable. “Not with magic,” she huffed a chuckle and put her hands to her hips, approaching the new gaping window into his bathroom. “You can patch it up temporarily with some plywood but you’re going to need a lot more than that to officially fix it.”

Her dad probably had some materials to work with in his garage. She’d have to inquire.

“On the bright side if I kept standing there that blast would have gone through me,” she tacked on, frowning. “Luckily Galvayra isn’t acting unstable like this, but - errr, put the sword on the table for now, Gourry. Lemme look at it.”

Gourry did as she asked, wiping some sweat from his forehead. “So it’s because of something coming from someone’s dream?” he asked, curious and yet still confused. “So is that how Shabawhatever is going to come through the dreams to get to you because of that cult thingie?”

Blink. Lina was surprised he remembered the first half of that name. Her stance turned to the side a little, hips cocked as she thought. "That's right. Someone's dreams are doing this, and with Shabs It's not an impossible scenario," she admitted. "I don't think it's Shabranigdo himself pulling the cult strings, though - I'm betting on one of the demon lords."

Most likely not Garv or Phibrizzo, but she also couldn't say that with one hundred percent certainty. "We've had the Lord of Nightmares come through. If it - she - can break through? Then seeing one of Shabranigdo's own subordinates crossing the line of worlds to carry out some kind of job isn't beyond the capabilities of this place. No one's tried killing me yet, at least."

“I won’t let that happen anyway,” Gourry said, coming out like instinct rather than anything else. He frowned at the sword, hands on his hips. “Hope I’d be some kind of help though if you need me.”

"If it comes down to weapon against weapon," she started, letting out a sigh that relaxed her shoulders. But there was a teeny smile that formed there - because Gourry was always reliable. "You're the best person I know to help." They'd been planning an infiltration mission into cult headquarters but all this had put a wrench in their plans. Deal with the immediate problem first and then with that issue in the horizon was her reasoning. "It's something from this set of dreams. After Hellmaster returned the Sword of Light to Dark Star we had another purpose for traveling: finding you another legendary sword."

Considering that their foes almost always turned out to be higher-ranking demons, and no normal weapon could do anything against them? Gourry would be screwed against them without something that could also effect the astral side. "But things get weird again as a fallout from what happened with Phibrizzo, and it involves a sinister sword. It's here. The cult has it."


Gourry rubbed his chin in thought. “Would make sense to attack if they knew that the weapons were being like this though, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, who knows,” shrugged the sorceress, reaching behind her head to rub herself there. “All I know is that they’re trying to wake up a piece of Ruby Eye and the sword’s there to help them - I just don’t know in what capacity yet.”

That remained to be seen. It was why getting into the belly of the beast and attend one of those damn meetings was so important. There was someone behind this, something playing puppet master and she knew she couldn’t just sit down with a plate of tacos and ignore it.

As much as she’d like to. “Either way, whoever, whatever is behind this is going to see my middle finger at some point. They’re using a bunch of civilians to do their dirty work. It’s practically brainwash.”

Gourry nodded. “Yeah, it sounds like that.” He eyed the hole in his wall, then back to Lina. “...How am I gonna explain it to the landlord?”

Hmm, good question. “Termites?” was her suggestion, but, uh - that wouldn’t really fly, would it. Lina wasn’t really sure how the hell to explain this one. “Someone broke in? I don’t know. This is why you need renter’s insurance, Gourry. Sheesh.”

Gourry just looked so confused. “Renter’s insurance?”

Ummmmm.

“I don’t know how you stayed alive for this long,” Lina deadpanned. “I really, really don’t.” Dumb luck.

Probably. Most definitely.