Lina carefully concentrated on the spell. It was a new one that she had found in an old spellbook that she had...acquired...recently and would hopefully save her a lot of time and trouble in the future. It's purpose...to inform innkeepers and restraunteers of her approach so that they would have a sufficient foodstuffs on hand for her arrival. Of course, the idea could backfire since these same people once informed might instead close their places of business and take a vacation until she left the area, but she didn't like to consider that possibility. She carefully drew her sword and cast the spell on the gleaming blade. The blade began to glow brightly. Lina grinned. It was going to work, it was really going to work! Then the glow flickered and died. Lina scowled. She tried again. And again. After the last repetition flickered out, Lina glared at the sword. It had to be the sword's fault after all, or the spell was no good to start with. You just couldn't trust those old spellbooks that you stole from bandits anymore, after all, she noted to herself, but there was no way the fault was hers. Reassured, Lina once more gathered her concentration.
"Okay, just one last time and if this doesn't work, I'm just going to start walking."
The sword began to glow as it had before, but instead of flickering out it began to gain intensity and finally the glow arched into the sky.
"Lucky!" Lina crowed as she waited for a response.
Faintly she thought she heard a voice that began to gain strength as she listened. "...have reached the Heavenly Help Line. A representative will be sent to you soon..."
"Wait a minute!" Lina protested, "I wasn't trying to reach a help line! I was..." She trailed off as her sword began to glow strongly once more, only this time instead of white, the glow was blue and getting brighter by the minute. Nervously, Lina dropped the sword and took a couple steps back, readying a spell in case the glow presented any danger. Her concentration broke, however, when a figure began to rise out of the glowing sword. Lina rubbed her eyes, and looked again. The glow had disappeared, but the figure had not. A tall blond man stood over her sword blinking his eyes at her curiously. When he noticed that he had her attention, he smiled cheerily and greeted her.
"Hi! I'm Gourry, and I'm here to grant your wish."
Lina was stunned. Her jaw dropped as she stared at the stranger for another minute before croaking, "My wish?"
The blond, Gourry, nodded his head causing his long ponytail to bounce. "You were the one that contacted the Heavenly Help Line weren't you?"
"Well, I guess, but..."
"L-sama wanted to call it the Goddess Relief Office at first, but then she heard that some other dimension had one of those and she didn't want to be restricted to just using goddesses anyway, so..." He trailed off when he noticed that Lina still looked faintly stunned. "Hey! You do want a wish don't you, Lina?"
That snapped Lina out of her stupor. "Of course I want the wish! I was just thinking, and... Wait a minute. How did you know my name?" She glared suspiciously up at the blond, sure now that this was all just an elaborate trick.
He blinked at her as if trying to determine what her question was. "Oh! You want to know how I knew your name was Lina Inverse?"
"Yeah..."
Gourry grinned and extended his palm toward her. Lina noticed her name, smeared a bit but legible, written on it. "I took notes," he said seriously. "I didn't want to mess up my first assignment."
Lina rubbed her forehead. "But WHO told you who I was?"
Gourry looked surprised at the question. "Why, L-sama of course! Didn't I say so?"
"No, you didn't," she gritted out. 'Okay, so this guy's an idiot,' Lina noted to herself, 'but I may as well play along. It shouldn't hurt anything...' She sighed. "Okay, let me get this straight. L-sama sent you and told you my name, right?" Gourry considered this for a moment and then grinned and nodded his head. "Right. And now you are supposed to grant me a wish?"
"That's right, Lina!"
"Uh huh. So, I can wish for anything that I want?"
"Right, but I can only grant you one wish," Gourry said with uncharacteristic seriousness.
"There's always a catch," Lina muttered. Lina began to consider her options. Even if this was just a hoax, it was better to be safe than sorry. "Anything that I want, huh?" Lina smiled faintly as visions of her own private kingdom, and endless supplies of food danced through her head. "Is the wish supposed to be phrased in any certain way?" Lina once more turned her attention to her companion only to find that he had fallen asleep leaning on his own sword. Irritated, Lina brought her fist down on the top of his head causing him to collapse on the ground in a pool of oddly matched blue cloth. "Pay attention!"
Gourry rubbed his head and stared accusingly back at Lina. "That hurt, you know..."
"So? I asked if the wish had to be phrased any certain way."
Gourry closed his eyes as if in thought for a moment before answering. "No. I don't think so... You just say, 'I wish' and whatever you want. Does that help any?" His gaze was once more bright and eager to please.
Lina sighed. "Yeah, Gourry, that helps. Now about that wish..."
Lina, however, didn't get the chance to finish when several rough looking individuals suddenly appeared on the road in front of her.
"Well, well. What do we have here? Looks like a little girl has wondered a little too far from home, and she brought her pet freak along with her..."
Gourry looked down at his flowing sleeves and then back at the bandit-type people. "You really think so?"
Lina took this opportunity to apply her to introduce her fist once more to Gourry's head. "Pay attention, Gourry! We could be in real trouble here!"
Gourry winced and rubbed his head. "I really wish that you wouldn't do that, Lina..."
Lina glared back at him. "Tough. Now get out of the way so that I can deal with these bandits."
"These are bandits?"
"Yeah..."
"And they're attacking you?"
"Yes, you dunderhead, now move!"
"I can't let them do that."
"What!?"
"I can't let them attack you before you've even made a wish, Lina. That wouldn't be right," Gourry said seriously.
"No kidding! So if you'd just..."
Lina, however, never had a chance to finish before Gourry drew the sword that he had been leaning on and in a few blinding moves sent the bandits running. Lina stared, mouth agape, as Gourry smoothly resheathed his blade. He turned back to her with a smile.
"There! Now you can make your wish in peace!"
"You..you," Lina stuttered. She had never seen anyone handle a sword that fast. Or that well. "How?"
"What?" Gourry blinked innocently at Lina who was still staring at him.
"How did you do that?" Lina finally managed to say.
"Oh!" Gourry rubbed the back of his head for a moment. "Well, I'm sort of the patron god of swordsmen...I think...so I have to handle a sword well, right?"
"Yeah, sure." Lina recovered herself with her usual bluster, and took a deep breath. "You know, you can be a rather handy guy to have around in situations like this."
"Really, Lina?"
Lina nodded and laughed lightly. "Yeah, I wish that you would stick with me, just for insurance you know." Lina stopped in horror at what she just said, slapping her hands over her mouth. "No, no! Wait! I didn't mean..."
Lina's protests were too late, however, for the odd marks on Gourry's face had already began to glow. He tilted his head back and floated easily a foot from the ground as the blue light shot in a beam towards the heavens. After a few moments, the glow died and Gourry floated back to the ground. He leveled his head and opened his eyes to Lina's horror stricken face. "Wish granted."
Lina collapsed on the ground. Visions of her own castle and mountains of food sprouting wings and flying away from her. "Why me?" she moaned.
"Lina? Are you all right?"
Lina looked up at the concerned face of the reason for her current stress. "Yeah, Gourry. I'm fine." She sighed and ran her hand through her loose bangs as she settled herself crosslegged on the ground. "So, what exactly did my wish get me?"
"Well, I guess that you've got me hanging around you for a while, unless you want to break the contract. Do you want to break the contract, Lina?" Gourry asked sadly. He had noticed that Lina seemed less than pleased with the results of her wish. And he had so wanted to do well on his first assignment...
"No, no,no!" Lina waved her hands in front of her. "I'm not breaking the contract!" She bounced back to her feet, once more in control of herself. "I guess that you're with me then, right?"
Gourry stared up at Lina from where his current position on the ground and nodded seriously.
"Well then! The first thing that you've got to do is take your hair out of that ridiculous ponytail! It looks silly and it would reflect badly on me. Do something about your clothes as well while you're at it."
Gourry smiled, glad to see that Lina was getting back to normal. Concentrating on her request, his body glowed faintly and he was soon clad in regular light blue clothes and a darker blue half armor with his long blond hair flowing freely down his back. "Better, Lina?"
Lina eyed Gourry critically for a moment before nodding sharply. "It'll have to do." Reaching out, she snagged his arm and began to pull him down the road. "Now come on! I'm starving. When is the next town anyway?"
Gourry smiled and allowed himself to be towed after Lina. Maybe his first assignment wasn't such a loss after all...