[Accidental Video | Canon Move]

[onlysanechimera]

[The video starts with the door to a tavern opening and a young woman's voice saying "Oh, there they are!"

Events continue as shown here (minus the interlude with the fish woman).]

For those who can't/don't wish to follow the link, Zelgadiss and Amelia meet Lina and Gourry in a tavern. Initial pleasantries include the knowledge that Amelia and Zel apparently almost sank a pirate ship Lina and Gourry were on and the fact that Gourry has managed to forget Zel and Amelia's names. A tall man in a blue coat walks in and introduces himself as Special Investigator Wizer Freion of the Ruvinagald Kingdom. He sits down at their table casually... and immediately slaps a pair of handcuffs on Lina and proclaims that he's arresting her, to general consternation.

As it turns out, she's being arrested on charges of being Lina Inverse. It even says so on Freion's warrant. Gourry, Zel, and Amelia huddle up and agree that they can't exactly dispute this, which gets a general collective kick from Lina. She decides, unsurprisingly, to resist arrest. There's just the small matter of the platoon of soldiers outside, complete with cannons, cavalry, and defensive sorcerers. Zelgadiss just smirks.]

Tell me, aren't you worried?

What do you mean?

About getting caught, and possibly killed in the attack.

What? Surely she wouldn't take on such a large military force.

It appears that you don't fully understand just who Lina Inverse is yet, Inspector.

[It looks like Zel has the right of it - over Amelia's protests, Lina rips her handcuffs apart, flies off the porch of the tavern and blasts the soldiers with a spell that throws up a massive dust cloud. Unfortunately, the soldiers do manage to wheel a cannon out of the rubble left behind, and our heroes are forced to flee quickly. Amelia is worried about an international incident, but according to Zel...]

Don't worry, Amelia, nothing will happen. If a country were to have its highly trained army trounced by a single girl, it'd be too embarrassed to go public with it.

[Gourry leans over behind him.] Aaand that means...?

They'll have to let us escape to save face.

[More running ensues, with the Inspector pursuing them on a bicycle. Just as they reach the city gate, Zel turns and gives the Inspector a parting shot.]

Unless you brought some super magic weapon, there's no way Lina's going to surrender to you.

[Unfortunately, Zel seems to have been tempting fate. The Inspector chuckles, and the gates burst open from the other side, revealing an enormous turtle-shaped tank. The Inspector boasts that "This incredible weapon's got it all. Armor, incredible firepower, and the mobility of a tortoise."

Logically, our heroes decide that this means they can just run away. Sadly, the other way is blocked by the recovered soldiers, so they're forced to have an actual fight. Lina's fireballs burst harmlessly on the tank's armor, and Gourry shatters his sword on it. As he frantically attempts to reforge it, the tank bears down on him - and Zelgadiss blocks the tank's own magical attack with his own body, emerging entirely unharmed. Having seen the tank's thick armor, he advises them to hit it from below - and Lina and Amelia oblige. This sends the ruined tank careening through the city, smashing up several buildings as well as the attacking soldiers.

Lina's about to finish the fight when a strange voice begins chanting from somewhere unseen. Amelia points out the source - a small figure stands on top of a church spire, glowing red as it chants the incantation for the powerful Dragon Slave spell. The town is reduced to a crater slowly filling with seawater, and our heroes are left there on the shore, with Lina screaming and ranting.]

You mean there's someone else besides Lina who can do that?
Who was that...?
It looks like he's already gotten away.

[Their speculations are interrupted by Lina raging about having her "big scene" stolen as the video ends.]

((OOC: In dialogue, normal text is Zel, italics are Inspector Freion, bold is Gourry, underlined is Amelia.))

Comments

[pikapikapikarin]

That was incredible. What a chase! Though did they really have to blow up the whole town just to get rid of the turtle tank?

[onlysanechimera]

Ask that to whoever cast the spell.

Whoever it was, they have a lot of power. Even from a Dragon Slave, the only person I've ever seen get that kind of effect has been Lina.

[pikapikapikarin]

Huh, so the Dragon Slave spell you said, it doesn't usually have that kind of effect or...?

[onlysanechimera]

It's powerful, but not that powerful. It's about the strongest Black Magic spell a human can cast unaided. The amount of power that goes into it is immense even normally, never mind when someone like Lina casts one big enough to level a town.

[pikapikapikarin]

Hmm, so it's modular in a way. The more juice, the bigger the effect. Good to know. Though I wouldn't want her to cast it in my hometown.

[onlysanechimera]

Most spells are like that; it's just that with something as powerful as the Dragon Slave it has a more dramatic effect.

It's probably best to hope that Lina stays out of your hometown entirely, though. You saw the state that town was in even before the spell.

[pikapikapikarin]

Yeah that's probably true. And I don't think my hometown will magically fix stuff either, considering everything. Not that it really does it often but hey.

[onlysanechimera]

Does your hometown ever magically fix things?

[pikapikapikarin]

Once in a while. If the damage is really bad, magically the damage fixes itself. I would be worried if there was more lasting damage though.

[onlysanechimera]

Well, that's... convenient. Do all the towns in your world do that?

[pikapikapikarin]

Not all of them, no. And sometimes Precure battles don't even fix damage either. It depends on what kind of power is backing us. And the Sentai battles don't fix magically either.

[onlysanechimera]

... I'm not even going to pretend to understand that. I suppose it's nice that you have a power backing you that's helpful at all.

[pikapikapikarin]

Well yeah it is, even if we can't actually talk to it. I don't know if Royale Queen is the one fixing the damage either.

[onlysanechimera]

It's nice enough that something is, I suppose. Though I would think it would be better to know for sure.

I can think of some possibilities that might actually be worrying.

[pikapikapikarin]

It would, but I've learned not to question it for the time being. Some battles are so insane in their scale, it destroys the world for at least a few minutes.

[onlysanechimera]

Really? Even ours tend to stop short of that.

Which is an accomplishment in itself, honestly, considering what we're usually up against.

[pikapikapikarin]

Yeah, I think Ayumi told us that the team after Nagisa and Honoka and Hikari fought an enemy who first dried up the entire ocean and then after that reduced the world to an asteroid field.

You fight world ending things all the time?

[onlysanechimera]

... The entire ocean? Really?

Only about three times so far, thankfully. But they were coming once a year for a while. Things seem to be somewhat quieter now.

Though knowing our luck, they may not stay that way for long now that we're all together again.

[pikapikapikarin]

Yeah. It wasn't fun at all.

Mmm that's quite a record. Once a year. You'd think there'd be more to it than that.

Yeah. Definitely.

[onlysanechimera]

Well, they were all... mostly unrelated, oddly enough. And we managed to take them all down fairly quickly, or things would have been much worse.

[pikapikapikarin]

That's good. I'd hate to think how bad it would be without doing so.

[onlysanechimera]

It certainly wouldn't be pretty. I don't think we've got anything that would magically fix things if the world was destroyed.

[pikapikapikarin]

In that regard, we're lucky. The loss of life would have been immense if we weren't lucky enough to prevent all of it.

[onlysanechimera]

I should say so.