Strong magic was strong magic; he'd seen it a thousand times, but this.. was.. murder... Stunned blue pin-points took in the stance and the killing smile, and gave him just enough time to scream. "NO!!!" Then the strike. Lina was thrown back and up into the air, limp body given an eerie grace as gravity deserted her, and Gourry tried to lunge and catch her. Her whole form began to glow in that sickly purple shade that flew from murderous fingertips and then...
She was.. gone.
No! screamed in his ears and throat and hair, welling and running down his face as the burnt end of her pink tunic fell mournfully to the ground.
"no.." he whispered, unable to look away, even his voice denying the reality of this terrible, terrible action.
"Oh my God," Zelgadis intoned, and Amelia gave a whimper of fractured disbelief. Nothing. There was nothing of her left. Just the brutalized remain that might have been magenta. Once.
Denial and outrage and Oh GOD rattled in a base growl and rose to a shrill scream as Gourry unsheathed his sword and flew foreword, pain his drive and rage his sharpened vessel.
If he could just make it to her..
Just get there..
Then maybe it wouldn't still be too late..
A gilded blur swinging vengeance ran for the murderer, nothing more than a black hood revealing a twisted, loveless smile, and bilious plum between cupped hands. Pain lanced in a bite about his waist, and Zelgadis let the full force of his concerted mass carry Gourry to the ground. "GOURRY! NO!!!" Zel screamed into his ears, and STILL Gourry thrust himself foreword, pulling hand over hand, sword blade glinting and demanding blood to dim the burn of the light. Shocked horror carried the swordsman towards smiling death.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!" was the screamed mantra, and not once did the hateful lips waver. Amelia's foresight sent her leaping over both, her scream of "BALUS WALL!" saving them where it had been too late for Lina. A scream and a backlash of power threw Amelia, her scream freezing Zelgadis where he struggled with Gourry. She landed painfully, the crack from her skull meeting with Zelgadis's back, an audible sound, the blow to her head catching her awareness in a stranglehold. "oh.." she moaned, a soft escape of sound, and her limp body rolled from the tangled pair to land heavily, orange and purple and unwell green blooming behind her eyes, her ears recording no more than a bizarre and distractingly high pitched whine. She did not hear Zelgadis and Gourry, the former screaming her name as concern rode shotgun towards her still form, the latter a scream of hoarse denial, Zelgadis just barely holding him down.
"My my! So easy!" The murderer laughed and then phased out, only a torn scrap and a loss the size of a sorceress in his heart a sign that the robed killer had ever been there.
"NO!" Gourry screamed, so loud and so hurt something in his throat cracked.
"Gourry! Gourry! Calm down -- "
"FUCK YOU!" He screamed and heaved and twisted violently, finally throwing Zelgadis off into a sprawl of tangled cape and limbs. Amelia lay very, very still.
"Amelia...?" Zelgadis asked, concern shredding the normal dulcet ringing of his voice. She still breathed, he was relieved to note, and focused on her. Only her. Do not think of anything but.
Gourry had lunged to his feet, finally, finding a final set of footprints and the torn magenta that served as the final rites to ..Lina. More than a name... and now not.
Lina was gone.
His head began shaking, nonononono, and he fell heavily to his knees as the gave out; a shaking hand reached disbelievingly for the violated remain. A whisper on the wind; he could hear her hair as it slid in it's cool whisper against her cloak. A scent rode along with the breeze, and he could smell her hair, and in his torn and bleeding hands, her eyes looked out at him.
"Gourry..?" Zel's whisper was sacrilegious in the swordsman's memories, once shared and now all alone in his head. "I...I'm so.. sorry..."
And Gourry's scream echoed through the now silent woods, trees silent mourners nervous before the grief on display. "COME BACK YOU BASTARD!!!! COME BACK AND DIE!!!"
"Gourry!!" he cried, afraid for his friend, afraid for his friend's sanity, afraid for the large crack that ran through them all, and now just.. afraid. With out Lina...? The Chimera's eyes ran over,
unknowingly, and the taste of Gourry's loss and confusion was deepest purple in the back of his throat. Zel walked forward, placing a shaking hand at the bowed shoulder, trying to stop the disturbing outpouring; this was dangerous, and frightening, and they needed to go before the killer returned.
And finally Gourry broke down, silent sobs wracking his frame as reality sawed it's sharp teeth over and over his shoulders, and he shed his silent tears in the only thing he had left. Fractured magenta was pain's voice now, and the silence was heavy indeed. "Gourry..." Zel murmured, tears rising in mutiny again, even rock forced to move under this onslaught. "I know..."
"HOW COULD YOU KNOW?!!!!" Gourry screamed, rounding on his friend, and throwing the unwise words back into his face to shatter and tear. "SHE'S GONE!!! I CAN'T FIND HER!!! COME BACK YOU FUCKER!!! Oh God..." Zelgadis was raw and numb inside, simultaneously, and confusion, as always, sparked his temper. He suddenly raged back.
"Do you want to die too, Jellyfish?!!" Lina's insulting endearment had come unconsciously, both men stunned by the sound of it, and then Gourry..shattered.
"GOD DAMN YOU!!! YES!! YES!! YES!!!! I WANT TO DIE!!!!" His voice gave with a slight pop; the screaming too much, and in a broken whisper made that much more disturbing, he said "Yes. Yes. Yes. She is the best of me. So what am I now." He began to pull at his hair, then tug, and finally he began to rip in great handfuls. "Never call me that!!" he rasped, his voice wet and shattered, too thick in ways that have a tendency to run red. "You're not Lina!!!" He lept suddenly, and to Zelgadis' eternal shock, he felt Gourry's strong fist connect painfully with his chin, knocking him to the ground. Blue rage now pulsed where red blood had been, and a generous, loving heart lay as broken shells in his too tight chest.
Again and again he punched at Zelgadis, offering up his fingers and his flesh to the Empty in him. He felt each digit break and did not care. Skin tore until Zelgadis' face lay bloodied and stunned, and all Gourry could do was hit, and hit, and hit for not being there and letting her die and failing her and he wept. "YES I WANT TO DIE!! SHE'S GONE!!" The last word a wail in the night. It was his confusion and terror and guilt for being fast.. but not fast enough.
Then Amelia was behind him, hands raised high, and blue incandescence slammed into him as she screamed "SLEEPING!!!!" Limp and stunned he fell, heavily onto his side, staring at Zel's worried and gored features, bloodied in Gourry's own pain.
"I have nothing left." And the spell hit again, he heard it, felt it slam into his body, and then his eyes slid shut to see that he really was empty inside now.
".....i grieve..."
-- Peter Gabriel, I Grieve, City of Angels Soundtrack