Lina sighed, rubbing her forehead in both annoyance from failure and from the obviousness of Zelgadis' observation."To say the least," she muttered.
"What do we do now?" Amelia wondered, sounding gloomier than usual. "We can't just give up."
"Yeah, but if we keep going, we could be leaving ourselves open for another attack," Lina replied, looking faintly green. "And that's something I do NOT want a repeat of."
"Agreed," Zelgadis said lightly, allowing for a small smile. "That was probably one of the most embarrassing situations that I have ever been in, and I have been in alot."
"You and me both, buddy," Lina agreed.
"Can I ask something?" Gourry wondered, scratching his head a little. "What exactly happened to you guys that made you stop?"
All three asked shared a similar expression of nausea, which made Gourry reconsider pressing for more answers. Despite the fact that they had some time to not only settle their stomachs, but make a hasty camp in order to discuss their dilemma, proved not long enough for them to be rid of the horrid experience.
"It was...gross," Amelia said mildly, poking a twig into the tiny fire. The day was hot enough, so the fire served only as a stove and not a furnace.
Gourry's eyes were wide now. "Gross? How so?"
Lina sighed. "Something made us feel sick," she said shortly, wishing that they could pretend it never happened.
Gourry frowned. "But I didn't feel anything like that," he admitted.
"That's true," Zelgadis agreed, rubbing his chin. "Why weren't you affected?"
Amelia surrendered her twig to the flames. "Why don't we just as the Mazoku?" she muttered.
Lina reached over and gave the princess's head a light shove. "Increase those pep pills, miss," she chided with a smile. The last thing Lina wanted was morale to be in the gutter because of one horrible incident...no matter how horrible it had been.
Gourry, however, had copied Zelgadis and also had a hand on his chin in thought. "Could it be a magic thing?" he wondered off-handedly.
Zelgadis dropped his hand, not out of annoyance, but from surprise. He and Lina met eachother's gazes, Lina's mouth open, Zelgadis' pressed shut.
"Ah," Amelia nodded, her voice only an iota lighter. "Since Gourry-san can't use magic, then perhaps that was why only we were affected."
"White magic," Lina and Zelgadis said together. Both Amelia and Gourry looked over at them. "Each of us," Lina elaborated, "to some degree, can use white magic, right?"
"I can't," Gourry said apologetically.
"Exactly!" Lina agreed, grinning. It was the grin she wore when she finally figured something out, but it was something she did not like. "And Xellos, of course, knows that, so he sent one of his asshole minions to weaken us."
"Which worked," Zelgadis muttered.
"Okay, but even assuming that that's true," Amelia interjected, making Lina mad, "why would he leave Gourry-san alone?"
Lina jerked her hand at Gourry's hip, where the Sword of Light clone hung from his belt. "That's why!"
"Ah..." Amelia paled. "They were planning to leave Gourry-san undefended, so that..."
"Exactly," Lina growled, her eyes flashing in her anger. "Only they were fools, and didn't realise that Gourry is stronger than that."
Gourry nodded. "Seems careless to me," he replied. "One would think that Xellos would have warned them about that."
Lina frowned, her eyes narrowing. "Yes, indeed. Which brings us to ask the question: what exactly were they even trying to do back there, besides the obvious?"
"The obvious?" Gourry titled his head to one side. When the other three looked a little green again, he refrained from repeating his question.
A silence came over them, since no one seemed to know the answer to that question. Amelia, being who she was, decided to ask a new one.
"What should we do, then?" she wondered. "Even if we were able to break the seal on the sword and use the necklace to repair it - which seems unlikely in itself - that doesn't mean the Mazoku would leave us alone."
"Well, not entirely, but it would on the matter of the Sword," Lina agreed, "since it would be useless to them once the two parts are reunited together."
"Which is something that they definitely do not want," Zelgadis agreed.
"So if the sword were to be fixed, then they would leave us alone?" Gourry repeated.
Lina sighed. "Probably not," she admitted. "Even though the reason for the harassment was gone doesn't mean that they would be content with it. Revenge and so on."
"How petty," Gourry said mildly, frowning.
"But that still leaves us with the actually dilemma of trying to open the damned sword," Lina grumbled. "Amelia and Filia both couldn't do it, and they are the best shrine maidens that I know..." as she trailed off, her eyes went out of focus. Gourry seemed to be following her thoughts, because he slapped a fist into his palm.
"Sylphiel," they said together.
Zelgadis struggled not to roll his eyes. "I have a feeling that we'll be meeting with everyone from the past before long," he observed dryly.
"Oh, shut up," Lina shot back. "We met up with her before we met up with you."
Zelgadis looked surprised. Amelia, at the mention of that, looked watery-eyed. When Zelgadis shot her a confused look, she continued to look the same way.
Lina glared at the younger girl, and she turned off the waterworks, but still looked a little sad.
"Back to the New World!" Gourry exclaimed, looking a little excited. Lina frowned at him, but even her displeasure couldn't dampen his spirits at more travel and exploration. It was always a pleasure of his, and, Lina soon discovered, his excitement was catching.
"True," she nodded. "It would probably be best to, so to speak, return to the scene of the crime." She turned to Amelia. "When you heard from her last, was she still in that small town?"
Amelia shook her head. "Sylphiel-san tends to travel. She wants every priest to know her level of magic, in order to make the New World better."
"Noble, but annoying," Lina concluded.
Zelgadis leaned back, sighing a little. "If only we could fabricate some sort of spell to make communication over distance easier," he said wistfully.
Lina shot him a look. "Yes, like using small eyeball demons to deliver messages?"
Zelgadis gave her a sour look. "Sometimes you're just rude," he snapped, which oddly made her laugh.
"In any case," Lina continued, "our first course of action is to return to the town that Gourry and I initial found Sylphiel. From here, we can get some answers as to where she went, and see if she knows what to do about the sword."
"Can I ask something?" Gourry broke in.
Lina dreaded him doing so, but she nodded.
"I know it's a surprise coming from me, especially since I of all people would want my sword back, but..." he looked uneasy. "Do you really think that this is something we want to do?"
There was a silence, as each person considered this, actually considering it seriously, instead of brushing it off as usual Gourry-chatter.
It WAS a risk, Lina thought stonily. And from the sounds of it, if they got the sword unsealed before they learned how to reunite it with the necklace, it would complicate things, especially if the Mazoku got to them.
And Lina had been thinking about Gourry's sword dilemma for a while. While the sword he was using was well and good, it didn't suit his skills. There were times when he overused it and ended up having to repair it, which was annoying and time-consuming.
However, the initial design of the sword was good, and if there was some way to improve on that, like she had her own sword and, later, her dagger...
And knowing him like she did, Lina knew that Gourry was still smarting about not only losing the sword, but not finding a replacement that suited his needs. She knew it had to be hard on someone to lose the very tool that they were known and revered for, and that deep down, he probably had defined himself by that sword. If she could find some way to at least give him that back, for all of the things that he had done for her in the past...
"Lina-san?" Amelia's polite voice broke her out of her string of thought. "Did you hear me? I asked you what you thought."
Lina blinked slowly. Gourry caught her eye, and she met it, frowning still. Gourry was also frowning, but there was something else there, something she read as worry, but hope, too.
"We keep going," she decided, saying it mostly to Gourry. "If they attack us, the direction we go won't make a difference. But one thing is for sure: we can't just give it up now. We have to meet it to the end."
Zelgadis cupped his cheek into his hand, leaning forward. "I figured you would say that, but at the same time, what do we do if we're attacked like last time again?"
"Do what we can," she shrugged. She looked seriously at Gourry. "We may end up depending on you a bit. Are you okay with that?"
Gourry smiled, as if she had just offered pie. Lina realised that perhaps he had been feeling useless all along, but was just really good at hiding it. "You can count on me," he replied.
"I figured," Lina replied with a smile.