Try 6
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Again, this fight, Nanoha's fight and the fight of Riksfalto vs the men of the group are all happening at once.
Now it's time for Lina and Co. to go at it.
Lina looked at the various zombies and the newly minted Demon Dragons and narrowed her eyes. "First that stubborn Dragon decides that I'm public enemy number one and now this?" She sighed as she looked at Sherra. "So, tell me, who's your master?"
"He has no interest in this conflict." Sherra had a rather bored look on her face. "Though, your ability to use "mother's" power so freely is interesting, how is it possible?"
Lina smirked at Sherra as the zombies surrounded them, not moving just yet. "Why don't you go ask her?" A sphere of fire appeared in her hands.
"Why don't you use that power from before?" Lyos snapped at her. "You could crush them all with it." He wasn't sure, but the Dragons seemed terrified of it.
Lina growled and snapped at him. "Idiot! The power of the Lord of Nightmares, using that willingly starts breaking my body down. It kills me to use it for more than a moment. EVERY spell and power that calls upon the lady taxes my body so much that it's crazy." Hell, even though she could have cast multiple Ragna Blades these days, her body was in such a mess afterwords that it took her weeks to recover. Hell, the only reason she even bothered using multiple Ragna Blades against Death Bringer was because of the Demon's Blood Talismans.
And those were the safest powers of L-Sama she could use.
"I see." Sherra grinned at her. "Even with her power, you're nothing but a human."
"More than enough to kick your cute little Mazoku butt." Lina grinned up at her.
"We'll see." Sherra snapped her fingers and the demons started to move towards them.
"Lina, please tell me that you can deal with this amount of enemies without blowing all of us up." Zelgadis said as his sword glowed a bright red. Lina found it interesting that Zelgadis would choose to turn back to his Chimera form for fighting, but then reasoned that it was better this way, at least he wouldn't be so squishy.
"Actually, yes..." Lina smirked and snapped her fingers at the zombies. "Blast Bomb."
"WHAT?" Sherra and Zelgadis were shocked. No human, no human could cast that spell without amplifying their magic levels with something like Gorun Nova or the Demon's Blood Talismans.
Shocking as it was for Lina to say that, it was more shocking to see several small domes of firey death engulfing the zombies, destroying them.
Lina groaned and panted softly. "Dammit..." She screwed her eyes tight as she fell to her knees. "Ugh..."
"Sylphiel." Zelgadis snapped to the healer. "Get her back on her feet." The last thing they needed was Lina out of the fight. "Lyos, if that power of yours means anything, help us deal with the Dragons and that Mazoku."
Sherra grimaced as she looked at the handiwork. "Impossible." Humans shouldn't have had that much power, her entire zombie forces were taken out in an instant.
"Should have cast Raugnut Rushavna on them."
Sherra frowned at her sword. "Quiet you." Still, maybe it was right. Even so... "You five, get them!" She growled as Zelgadis and Lyos rushed at her remaining forces.
Lina groaned as Sylphiel cast Resurrection on her body. "Don't... Don't bother." Lina shook her head. "I'll get better." At least she wasn't hurting anymore. "Help... Help them."
"Miss Lina." Sylphiel frowned softly at her. "Please, we need you. Why is it so..."
"No human... Should have the power of the Lord of Nightmares." Lina said softly as Sylphiel held her hands over Lina's chest. "The Ragna Blade... Is the safest power that any human should use." She groaned heavily. "I never... Sold my soul to L-Sama..."
Sylphiel shook her head. "I never believed that." She smiled softly. "When you were back, Gourry-dear... He was so happy, even if you were married now. He would be so sad if you were gone."
Lina chuckled and coughed hard before grabbing Sylphiel. "Go, help them out, I'll be fine now."
Sylphiel nodded and turned to look as Zelgadis and Lyos were being driven back by the Dragons. "Miss Lina... I'm still upset at you... For casting the Giga Slave, and for hurting poor Gourry-dear. So don't go and die because of something so stupid."
As Sylphiel walked off, Lina smiled softly and groaned. Really, she could use the pure Chaos that resided in her, but anything longer than a moment? It was just as harmful to her as it was to her enemies.
Which was why she didn't bothered developing much more than just that version of purification and her personal teleportation spell.
"Should have known that it wouldn't be a good idea to cast the Blast Bomb after weakening myself back at the temple." Lina muttered to herself.
"Then why do it?" Lina looked up to see Sherra looking at her curiously. "No Mazoku would do something so stupid. Even those worthless Dragons aren't so stupid as to push themselves like that."
Lina smirked at her. "I'm human, we don't give up just because things are hard." Still, she felt like crap, and if Sherra decided to attack her, well, she wasn't sure that she could do anything.
Sherra smirked at Lina. "Your body is torn up." She knelt down and smirked at Lina. "You can't even cast a Flare Bit right now, can you?"
"Miss Lina!" Sylphiel finally noticed Sherra next to Lina. "You, Mazoku, leave her alone!" She gasped as Sherra fired a powerful sphere of destruction at her. Reacting quickly, a barrier went up, blocking the attack, but forcing her off of her feet.
Sherra shook her head, she may not have been as powerful as Huraker, Riksfalto, or anywhere near as close to Xellos in power, but she was still pretty strong. "To be honest, I was just curious how someone who killed Hellmaster and Gaav could be so weak right now."
"I'm near the end of my youth, Sherra. We humans get older after a few years." Lina shook her head at the confused look on the Mazoku's face. "You should know this." Lina was pretty sure that her youth was going to last a long time at least. Rezo was at least one hundred twenty years old when she killed him and he didn't look a day over forty.
Sherra shrugged, she honestly didn't care about that. "Yeah, well, it's not something I care about." Though, she found it odd that Lina didn't look any older than her other human friends, and that wasn't her physical looks, but the way her Astral Body was.
"Elmekia Flame." Zelgadis called out snapping a spell at Sherra, who blocked it in an instant.
"Nice try." Sherra said as she stood up to her full height.
Considering that she was about as short as Lina had been before a late growth spurt had increased her height from 147 cm to 160 cm, it wasn't too impressive over-all. "You know..." Lina chuckled as she saw Sherra. "For someone so short, you're rather well-developed."
Sherra smirked at her, even as Lyos cried out in pain as he was knocked away. "I'm surprised that your companions have lasted this long against Demon Gold Dragons."
Lina smirked at Sherra. "Zelgadis is a lot tougher than you think, Sylphiel might not be too good in a fight, but she can surprise you. Even that kid, Lyos, has a lot more power than even you know, he just needs to pull it out."
Lyos blinked as he heard that. Lina had kept dismissing him with every step of the way, but she was saying that now? And why weren't these Dragons doing anything more than just attacking them with physical attacks?
His eyes widened as a black laser beam escaped from the Dragons mouths, trying to destroy him as the ground was torn up while he jumped out of the way from the attacks. "Okay, no more wondering about stupid things."
"Elmekia Flame!" Zelgadis growled as the spell didn't seem to do anything to the Dragons. "Sylphiel, you gotta do it!"
"There's no, eek, room!" Sylphiel grunted as she was knocked back by a Dragon's attack.
"Just do it!" Zelgadis growled as he moved to get the Dragons closer together.
Lyos growled, he felt so helpless, so powerless, if only... If only he could just do something!
Sherra's eyes suddenly widened as she looked at Lyos in surprise. "What the?" His body was glowing with power, the energy was focusing around his sword as the power built up. "This is..." The energy, it wasn't Black, it wasn't Shamanistic, it wasn't Chaotic... It was... "HOLY?"
"RAAAAARRRGH!" Lyos let loose a yell as he swung his sword forward, a torrent of white-blue energy rushed forward and took the shape of a Blue Serpentine Dragon that swallowed the Dragons before launching them into the sky, where the water turned into ice, stabbing through the Dragons, killing them all instantly.
"Incredible..." Sherra shook her head as she saw Zelgadis and Sylphiel turn on her. She noticed that Lyos fell to his knees and seemed to be unable to move anymore. "Heh..." She smirked at Lina, who was still hadn't moved, before leaning down and getting close to Lina's ear. "I was just a distraction anyway. I wonder if your daughter survived Valgaav or not. And your husband... I hear Huraker's quite lethal." She smirked as she felt the raw anger and worry instantly spring up from Lina. "Well, time to go." She disappeared for an instant, before reappearing in the air and laughing at them. "We'll meet again, Lina Inverse." She laughed as she disappeared from view.
If only she was allowed to kill Lina Inverse. But no. They needed to let her live for now. Once Xellos' plans went through though... All bets were off.
"I don't like her." Sylphiel said as she knelt down and went back to working on Lina's body. "Still, that was too easy... Why was that?"
Zelgadis shook his head and went to check on Lyos. "It's simple. They were forced to turn into Demons against their wills. They're far too prideful and strong-willed to just give up like that. They had to fight us, but they didn't have to fight well." He grimaced as he saw the dead bodies flop to the ground at various points around the graveyard. "So that's the power of Holy magic, huh?" He looked at Lyos with some new respect. "Kid, you better be able to control that power, we're going to need it in the future."
Raugnut Rushavna - A mazoku curse that makes a person immortal and unkillable as long as the mazoku who cast it is still alive. The curse part comes from the fact that snakes pop out of your skin and start biting you, causing you tremendous pain and your body swells into a lump of flesh. It's a spell that Sherra's blade is known to cast in the novels.
Yes, Lyos has Holy magic, if you notice, it's... Quite a bit different than the magic we saw in Try.
Okay, now that that's out of the way...
I know people are going to complain about Lina not being able to finish off Sherra like that, but let me explain.
The power of the Lord of Nightmares, the power of creation, really, Lina, despite how powerful she is, is STILL human. She has limits. If she was over 100 years old like Rezo was, she probably could have lasted longer with what she did.
Like I said before, don't expect curb-stomp battles from me without a reason. Lina might be a lot stronger now, but, so what? If I had Lina fix everything, then the story would be rather dull, don't you think?
Really, at that point, it's just fan-wanking.