Showdown!

Gourry Versus

The Dark Mages!

Suddenly, Noire opened her eyes. "Well look who finally decided to come round, we were just seeing if Gourry cared about his friend enough to abandon his honour. Said Tharja, "Care to join us?" Henry was holding his favourite dagger to the throat of a girl about Noire's age. She had long black hair and a dark green cloak. A young man with waist length blonde hair was on the other side of the room holding a sword with a glowing blade. She recognised him as the one who they had fought the day before. However, none of this was to do with what was on her mind the most...

"WITCH! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THIS BODY? SHE IS THE VESSEL OF THE VERY SPIRIT OF CHAOS!"

"Oh gods, here we go again."

Red, glowing runes started to appear across Noire's skin and her eyes began glowing red. "FOOLISH WITCH, NO MORTAL CAN STAND AGAINST ME!"

"Aw c'mon Noire," Moaned Henry, "you're ruining Mr Stabby's big moment."

Sylphiel and Gourry stared at him. "You named... the dagger?"

"Don't try to bring logic to anything he says." Said Tharja. "Anyway Noire, you don't even have your bow. How are you going to attack me?" Noire picked up a rock off the ground. "Are you serious?" The rock began burning with purple fire and she flung it at Tharja. "AAH!" It whizzed by her head and hit the wall, cracking it severely.

"THE LORD OF DARKNESS IS NOT LIMITED BY ANYTHING! NOW YOU WILL MEET YOUR END, WITCH!" More stones narrowly missed Tharja until the wall behind her collapsed. She tripped over and hit her head on one of the rocks. "Eek! Oh no what did I do what did I do!?" Noire ran over to Tharja. Henry, breaking eye contact with Gourry for the first time, looked to see if she was okay and Gourry ran. Henry turned back just in time to see the Sword of Light cut across his torso and he fell, losing grip on Sylphiel, who ran and hid behind Gourry.

"Hee hee hee... hee hee... I'm gonna kill both of you!" Henry grinned wider than ever. Shadows curled around his fist and he hit Gourry in the face. Gourry staggered back and Henry stood up, one hand over his wound and the other burning in preparation of a shadow ball. Sylphiel put out her hand and it froze in mid air, then dissipated. Gourry ran toward him and swung his sword at Henry. Henry tried to dodge it and it caught him on the shoulder, opening another wound. "Ha, ha ha ha ha ha." He teleported backward and started flinging balls of shadow towards Gourry, who cut them down with his sword. "Hmm, looks like I'll have to switch it up a bit!" He started throwing fire instead. These shots were much slower as he wasn't as adept at using it and were easily diverted away from Gourry by Sylphiel.

"Thanks Sylphiel, good team work."A stone tablet rose off the ground and flew towards Sylphiel, knocking her down. "Sylphiel!"

"Uh uh uh, can't have you two working together now can we?"

"Bastard!" Gourry ran full pelt towards Henry, dodging all manner of magic attacks and leapt at him. The sword of light cleft through Henry and he fell on the floor, bleeding severely.

"Oh, looks like someone's mortally wounded." The grin had gone from his face and he suddenly looked alarmingly serene. "Ha. Always thought I'd die in a dungeon. Or was it on the back of a huge black god dragon? I don't remember stuff like that. Oh well, guess that's the end of Henry. Not!" He put and his hand out and a beam of darkness shot out, hitting Gourry square in the chest. Henry's wounds started to slowly heal. "Wow, bet this really sucks for you. Get it? Because I'm sucking your life out of you!" Gourry fell onto his knees in great pain. "I'd love to make some more puns, but it looks like you're not going to be alive much longer to hear the-" He was cut off by Noire's body flying into him, him and Noire were thrown into a wall and didn't get up. Gourry stood up, breathing heavily, and saw Tharja walking towards him.

"I'm done with this. I'm killing you, I'm killing Noire, I'm even killing Henry and he didn't even do anything. Basically, everyone dies. Right now." Gourry raised the Sword of Light but a hand of darkness grabbed it out of his hand and threw it across the room. Tharja grabbed Gourry and lifted him off the ground... and then she dropped him, a look of surprise on her face as she collapsed. Sylphiel was behind her holding a cracked stone tablet.

"I guess you were right Gourry, we do make a good team." Smiled Sylphiel.

"Heh, guess we do." The wall behind them exploded.

"Aaaand here in the nick of time to save the day it's the beautiful, stylish, invincible and all powerful Lina Inverse!" Lina strode in, flanked by two young men.

"Lina where were you? We already beat them!"

"Well I decided we might need some extra muscle so I found these two mercenaries. This is Inigo,"

"At your service."

"and this is Owain."

"My blade is yours."

Inigo had light blue hair and was wearing a grey tunic. He had a buckler on his arm and a sword on his belt. Owain was wearing a short yellow kimono and was holding a sword in his left hand, his right hand twitched nervously. "Hold on, said Gourry. "You can't have thought we'd need any more help fighting these guys, what are the mercenaries for?"

"They're an extra two pairs of eyes, I decided we should look for Zelgadis."

"What about Naga?"

"Oh come on Gourry who the hell cares about Naga?"

So, the day is won and we have two new companions. But where's Zelgadis? And, less impotantly, Naga. Our adventures will continue next episode, but for now this is Lina Inverse signing off.