Lina woke with an anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach. It grew as she realized that Gourry was not in bed beside her. She sat up, hoping that he had just gone down to the kitchen for a snack as she grabbed her robe when she felt a sense of bloodlust emanate from the hallway. She raced to the door as, from the other side, she heard Gourry call, "I know you're there!"
The laughter that followed chilled her, and then Zel's warning was drowned out by the horrific sound of an explosion, the force of which closed the door that Lina had tried to open! She had better luck the second time, but the first thing she noticed when she opened it was that Gourry was nowhere to be seen in the hallway that she started racing down. She managed to stop right before she fell through the hole in the floor. She avoided looking down as her eyes fell on the Mazoku by the head of the stairs. She couldn't afford to lose track of him.
"Gourry!" Zel called. He was crouched against the wall, cut and bleeding and he looked as though he was unable to move. Down the hallway, doors were thrown open as her parents and Amelia raced out to see what was happening.
Lina felt herself disconnect from her emotions. The Mazoku was at the head of the stairs and about to go down. "Ray Wing!" Lina cried as she shot over the hole and towards the Mazoku, who was rushing down the stairs and towards the dorms! Already the students were filling the foyer, bleary eyed and tousle haired, as they investigated the explosion.
Han reached the stairs at the same time she did, and they raced down together after the Mazoku. "Get back!" Lina called to the kids.
The Blast Sword gleamed in the Mazoku's hands, and Lina felt her fear spike despite her best efforts. How could he have gotten it from Gourry unless…
But then she saw the handful of red ruby jewels in his hand. "Kids, wind shields!" Lina yelled as he threw his hand back to pitch them forward.
Lina ducked under hers, and she felt her father crouch behind her as explosion rippled through the foyer. But the shield protected them from the heat and debris. Lina could only hope that the kids had gotten theirs up in time!
As soon as she dared, Lina stood up and found the Mazoku gathering a powerful amount of energy in his hands. But for some reason he was facing the children, who were still huddled behind their wind shields, "Stop!" Lina yelled as she moved between the Mazoku and her students, "Let's finish this, you and me, outside!"
Lina was fully prepared for him to attack. What she wasn't prepared for was him to take a step back and gasp. "How is this possible!" he cried.
How is what possible? Lina thought as she started chanting a spell. He backed away again, his own magic faltering in his hand. On the one hand it sounded conceited to believe that she could strike that kind of fear into a Mazoku, but at the same time, she was now well known for killing them. What did she had to lose? "Stand down!"
Amazingly he did as he let the spell die. Behind her she could hear the kids whisper. Lina continued to keep her gaze on the Mazoku. "Where's Gourry?" She demanded to know.
Lina wasn't sure what she was expecting, but a straight answer was not it. "He fell through the floor, Mother."
Mother?
"Give me back his sword!" Lina ordered.
"Yes, Mother." The Mazoku said as he sat the sword down.
"Who sent you?" Lina asked.
The Mazoku quivered, and then he started to race towards the door. Lina took a deep breath. She may have frightened the bastard, but she knew better than to push her luck and chase after him. Especially when so many people needed her here. The door slammed shut behind him as he let himself out.
"How did you do that?" someone asked, but Lina didn't take the time to answer. As soon as he was gone she dashed down the hallway to the wing where their bedroom was overhead. It didn't take her long to find the pile of debris and blood on the floor directly below the gaping hole in the ceiling. But Gourry was not there. "Levitation!" Lina yelled, and she managed to make it through the jagged hole in the ceiling without getting caught on it.
She raced to her room and opened the door and found Amelia standing by the bed and chanting a Resurrection spell. Lina got to the bed and put her hand over her mouth as the smell of burned flesh and hair made her nauseous. His wounds were bad. His right leg was gone, as were several fingers, and in addition to being burned from the explosion he had caught a lot of shrapnel on the way down. Shrapnel that Amelia hadn't removed yet.
"Lina!" Leia exclaimed from the couch where she was healing Zelgadis.
"How's Gourry?"
"Amelia says he'll make it. She doesn't know how he managed to survive that, but we're not complaining." Zelgadis said as he shook his head. Lina had never seen him look so shaken before. "I don't think anyone else could have sustained wounds like that and survived."
"But he's going to be okay!" Lina said.
"Yes," Leia said reassuringly, "With Amelia's condition giving her magic a boost, she'll be able to heal him and grow his leg back."
Lina breathed a sigh of relief as she got close to the bed. She wanted to grab his hand but was scared of hurting him if she did. "Don't scare me like that, you useless idiot!" She murmured.
She was hoping he'd respond, but he was soundly asleep. It was probably for the best. The pain he would be in were he awake would be terrible. She closed her eyes and worked to calm herself down, "I'm here. Damn, I always said I never really believed anything could really kill you. Let's not get this close to testing that idea again, okay?"
"Are the kids okay?" Leia suddenly pounced, "And your father? We heard explosions."
"Dad is fine." Lina said, "Several students got wind shields up, I think everyone is fine. Downstairs is a mess. I guess I should check on things."
But she stayed by Gourry. Amelia looked at her sympathetically, "It will be awhile until he wakes up."
Lina nodded and took a deep breath, "Right. You work on getting better. I'll be back."
When Lina got downstairs she found that the ground floor was going to need some extensive repair work. But at least there were no bodies in the hallway. She could hear voices from the classroom, and found her father talking to them as several students sat on benches where they received healing spells from other students. They looked at her in amazement as she came in. "How did you do that?" Peter asked.
"What?" Lina replied.
"You didn't so much as fire a shot, and that Mazoku did what you said and ran with his tail between his legs!" Peter said.
Lina bit her lip. She was just as baffled by it as they were. "I don't know how I did it. Is everyone alright?"
"Just a few scratches, Kara got it the worst with a large splinter going through her hand, but she's better now." Han explained, "Fortunately they were able to get up shield spells in time. But there's still undetonated jewels all over the place."
Lina exhaled. That was a new problem in and of itself. "But why attack the students? We knew Gourry had a hit on his life, but why would the Elmekians send a Mazoku? And why would they try to kill the kids?"
"I have some ideas. None of them good." Han said. "First, though, we've got to figure out what to do about the jewels. Just touching one will set them off!"
"Explosives are kind of my thing." Ace said, "There's a spell to make them inert, though it's a bit tricky, I can do it."
Lina exhaled at the thought of sending her on such a dangerous mission. Still, it wasn't as though they had a lot of options. "Okay. And we're going to need to make sure it's thorough and that we get all of them. It's going to be a long night, folks."
Lina had watched as Ace deactivated several jewels while some of the older students carefully walked the hallway to look for other ones. When Leia came down to help, Lina decided to take some time to go back upstairs to check on Gourry. He was starting to stir as she came in, and he looked a lot better than he had when she left. His fingers had been regrown, the shrapnel removed, and his skin healed. Amelia was still working on his leg. Lina closed the door behind her and walked over to him and grabbed his hand, "Idiot. Don't you ever scare me like that again!"
"You sounded like you were worried." He murmured as he turned to face her and opened his eyes.
"Shh." Amelia said, "Conserve your strength right now and don't talk."
Luckily, Lina didn't need Gourry to say a word to fill the silence, and she decided to take the time to fill them in on everything that had happened.
"How is Gourry?" Luna asked. She had arrived late in the morning and was now seated at the dining table with a strong cup of coffee.
Lina took a drink from her own cup. The caffeine was the only thing keeping her awake. "He'll be fine. He's resting. So is Zel. His injuries weren't as bad as Gourry's, but they were pretty bad."
Luna looked at Amelia, "Are you okay?"
Amelia put a hand on her stomach, "Experiences like this while growing inside of me will just make this little one a fiercer warrior for justice! We're fine."
Um, right. Lina thought as she resisted the urge to shake her head. At least she wasn't having to write Phil and explain that his daughter was now a pregnant widow or worse, dead herself.
"Are you still liking Guloisa for this?" Han asked as he poured Leia another cup of coffee.
"No, actually." Luna said, and everyone looked at her expectantly, "The Elmekian ambassador came to court first thing this morning to deny all involvement and to point the finger at Guloisa. The problem is, the ambassador knew about the attack before your message even reached us, and they knew details of the attack that were highly suspicious, such as that the Mazoku threw ruby explosives to attack Gourry."
"That's true." Han said, "We've been up all night finding every damn one of them."
"I just still worry that we missed one. It could be hidden in a floorboard, just waiting for when we get complacent." Leia fretted.
"It's a highly unusual way for a Mazoku to attack, though." Lina said. "But very lethal. I guess they realized they need to change their strategy. If I'm hearing right, though, you don't think Guloisa was behind this?"
"When we questioned Guloisa, she seemed genuinely in the dark for once."
"Gourry would warn against underestimating her." Lina said as she exchanged a look with her father, who took his own long sip of coffee. "At the same time, we can't figure out why, if this was an attack on Gourry, would they would have targeted the children? Or why they would send a Mazoku to do this."
"Or for that matter, why they didn't attempt to take out the most powerful person in the building." Han said.
"We're thinking that this was meant to look like an attack on Gourry's life using his family drama as a cover, when it was really an attack on this school and our attempt to train future Mazoku hunters." Luna explained. "I think for now the Mazoku race is too scared to confront Lina directly, though they would never admit it. However, if a group of students under Lina's care are harmed or killed, then Zeferians would lose confidence in this project and call for the school to close. I think we have someone high up on the chain scared and they wanted to ruin this school before it had a chance. And then, whoever is responsible, can point the finger at the Gabrievs and deny responsibility."
Lina exhaled. "OK. I can see Dils doing something like this. But why would the Elmekian Empire care unless they have been infiltrated?"
"I think it may have been to forge an alliance with Dils to counteract the one that we have formed with Saillune and Kalmaart. I'm not sure if the Elmekian Empire has been infiltrated, but it's only a matter of time." Luna said. "Elmekia isn't even trying to work with us anymore. The team that recovered Hellmaster's device never made it to the rendezvous point, and we lost contact with them before they reached the border. It's all looking rather bad right now."
"Damn." Lina said as she wondered just how much worse the situation could get.
"The Eternal Queen told me that if you have a plan, now is the time to use it."
"That bad?" Lina said as she felt torn between jumping up and yelling, "I told you so!" and put on the spot now that she was expected to have a plan.
Luna nodded as she pulled out a stack of papers, and Lina recognized them as the ones the students had written on Hellmaster's device. Lina grabbed them even as she shook her head. "I guess I'd better start going through this. Mind you, I'd be a lot further along if they'd never been taken in the first place!"
"That was the Eternal Queen and not me." Luna said as she handed Lina another stack of papers, "Here's our latest intelligence about where the device is and who has it."
Lina nodded as she rolled up her sleeves, "Tell Nellie to put another pot of coffee on. It's going to be a long day."
AN: Exploding jewels never make it into the novels, though in the "Hourglass of Falces" manga Luke made them. Lately kaette-kita has also been doing wonderful translations of interviews with Kanzaka on Tumblr (as well as the latest novel!), and the good news is there is a lot more information about what is cannon out there, the bad news is it gives me fits when I get anything wrong...but then after reading the interviews and seeing how Kanzaka contradicts himself at times, we'll just sweep it under the rug, ok ;-)