Dan walked down the Balamb Garden hallway casually, his feet echoing in the unusally empty corridors. He was having a pretty weird day. First of all, Karen had run up to him and hit him in the face for no apparent reason, then, Sally had asked him for a salad in the library, also for no apparent reason, and just now he heard a huge BOOM from somewhere that seemed rather far away. Dan followed the sounds: someone screaming, another BOOM, a high pitched laughter, and the loud clanking of some heavy metal substance hitting the tile ground.
Dan neared the corner cautiously for he believed the origin of the sounds came from around it and saw Lina lying on floor, nearly unconscious and battle worn, Zell struggling to fight a rather familiar face, and Lina's pink-bladed sword thrown far away from her.
He soon realized that that unidentified face was the Gorld that Lina had challenged so many times, but had always run away from her during her moment of defeat. Gorld suddenly threw Zell back and he went sailing over to the wall where he hit his head against its hard tile and fell unconscious. Gorld's attention turned from Zell to Lina.
"Those monsters couldn't even finish you off," Gorld muttered under her breath sinisterly. "So now, I will."
Without thinking, Dan jerked out his gunblade from the side of his belt and smacked hard Gorld from behind. Gorld screamed out in pain as fresh red blood trickled down the side of her back and she turned on Dan menacingly. She immediately seized him by the throat and pinned him against the wall. His head hit the wall with such great force that he was almost knocked out. Dan could feel the cold marble against his cheek.
Gorld lifted a claw like hand and hissed at him. He wimpered a little bit to Gorld's delight. It didn't take a scientist to figure out what would happen next and he just knew what was coming. He felt the apprehensive, the fear, the pain, and the cold sweat you always felt when you knew something terrible was coming and all you could do was sit and wait for it to come. He glanced over and saw horrible twisted and writhed sharp nails like thick needles glued onto the thin, sharp sticks she would call fingers just before they dug deep into his soft flesh. Her hand --or more like claw -- burrowed deep into his body; his stomach; his internal organs were already damaged beyond repair and yet Gorld still twisted her hand in him to finish the job for sure.
"AAHHH!" Dan screeched in pain as he dropped his sacred gunblade. It seemed to hit the floor in slow motion, only emphasizing the anguish in his cry of terror. Something forbidden had just entered his body and suddenly, his eyes slid in and out of focus. Blood leaked from his wound and crawled down the wall slowly.
"NO!" Lina snapped back into consciousness as soon as she heard Dan yell; she grasped his dropped gunblade and shot it at Gorld's leg. It pierced her flesh deeply, perhaps causing permenant damage to it and it definitely made her bleed, but it wasn't half as bad as what she had done to Dan.
Gorld shrieked and disappeared instantly. Lina struggled to grab hold of her before she had left and she had gotten hold of her arm, but it slipped through her fingers and in an instant of mysterious wispy clouds of silver dust she was done, powers and all. Dan fell to the ground with a small moan.