"Amelia, how can you still believe that justice always triumphs in the end? You've been out of Seyruun long enough that you should know that good people suffer and die just as often as bad people."
"Even if good people sometimes die, even if bad guys sometimes seem to succeed, Justice always does triumph in the end!"
Zelgadis and Amelia were walking down a long, dusty road with monotonous fields stretching out on either side. Neither one could remember exactly how this argument had started but its real cause was boredom.
"How can you still believe that?"
"Zelgadis-sam...san, look at the facts. All the greatest villains we have fought -- Kopii Rezo, Seygram, Kanzel and Mazenda, Gaav, Phibrizzo, Valgaav, Dark Star, and the rest -- were much, much more powerful than we were. We won because we had justice on our side! That's the only reasonable explanation."
"We had Lina's Giga Slave and Gourry's Sword of Light as well as your and my shamanism. We weren't exactly helpless."
Amelia gave him a withering glance. "Most of them could have killed us as easily as you would squash a bug. What stopped them from doing that if not the power of justice?"
"Over confidence."
Amelia's expression said "Yes, and...?"
"We were very lucky. I still can't believe that we survived some of those fights. But we may not always be that lucky. Don't count on justice alone to protect you."
"Of course not! You also need a steadfast heart and unceasing vigilance. You must use any weapon and any true ally you can find in the fight against evil! You can always win if you stay on the side of justice, but only if you train hard and always fight with your whole heart! You can never take victory for granted."
Zelgadis stared at her in surprise. "I...actually agree with most of that." Amelia's face lit up with satisfaction. "...but only the part about hard work. If justice always triumphs in the end, how do you explain..."
"Chimera Alert! Chimera Alert!" screamed a hitherto unnoticed farmer working in the field next to them.
Before Zelgadis and Amelia had time to do anything more than look around in surprise, they were surrounded by townspeople armed with pitchforks, spears and a mixture of other makeshift or professional weapons.
"Watch out. It looks like a tough one."
"Ugly too."
"Hey!" Zelgadis protested.
"What do you suppose Diol made it out of?"
"I don't know and I don't care. Let's just get rid of it before it wrecks the town again."
"Don't you touch him!" Amelia threw herself protectively in front of the chimera (rather futilely since they were surrounded on all sides).
One of the village women spared her just enough attention to say, "I'm sorry, little girl, but we have to kill your pet. It's dangerous."
"He is not my pet!"
"Good, then you won't mind if we..."
"He's my friend!" Amelia took a deep breath. "You who judge a person by his appearance without giving him a chance to walk among you peacefully..."
Zelgadis gently shoved her out of his way and drew his sword. "Let me deal with this."
"No! Zelgadis-sama, don't attack them! They haven't proven themselves to be evil yet!"
Everyone ignored her.
One particularly aggressive-looking townsman strode up to Zelgadis. "Monster, you seem to be capable of speech so I'll try to talk to you, but if you make any threatening move we'll kill you. Understand?"
Zelgadis lowered his sword but did not resheathe it.
"This treatment is completely unjust! How dare you..."
"Our town has been destroyed by chimeras like you more times than we can count. We won't stand for it anymore. Leave now. We don't care where you go as long as it isn't here."
"...exclude people just because they're different?"
Zelgadis placed a hand on Amelia's shoulder to silence her. "I am a peaceful traveler," he said through clenched teeth. "I came here to consult with the chimera maker Diol."
"See, that's shows he's up to no good!" an old man exclaimed.
Zelgadis tried to keep his temper. "I'll leave tomorrow. I just need somewhere to stay for the night."
There were shouts of rage from the crowd. The spokesman summarized, "We don't trust chimeras. They all lie."
"You who judge without knowing..." Amelia began.
"Get out now, you ugly freak," the spokesman concluded.
Amelia stopped in mid-sentence. Her eyes narrowed. Her fingers flexed. "Apologize now, or I will turn you into a frog."
"Turn me into a frog?" the town spokesman laughed, acknowledging her presence for the first time. "Do you even know anything about magic, little girl? Sorcerers can't turnnaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhrribbit."
"Let that be a lesson to you." Amelia dusted her hands off smugly. Then she looked around with an expression of pure menace. "Is anyone else going to insult Zelgadis-sama?"
There was a general silence. Even Zelgadis looked stunned.
"Good," Amelia said. "As allies of justice, we will not harm you unless you show yourselves to be evil. No one who follows the path of justice and politeness has anything to fear from us. Now, may we enter the town?"
"You can always attack us again later," Zelgadis added wryly.
The townspeople did not protest.
Amelia gave them all a sunny smile and restored her victim to humanity.
The townspeople melted away with many frightened backward glances, murmuring to each other fatalistically.
"Amelia, since when can you turn people into frogs? The last I knew you could only turn flowers into other flowers."
"I've been practicing." On you, she did not add.
"Yes, but..." It had taken Zelgadis three months to fully master that spell. He was suddenly very glad that the only transformation spell he had taught her tended to wear off after a few hours.
"Zelgadis-sa...san," Amelia looked up at her companion seriously. "No matter what that man said, you are not a freak. You behaved with more humanity than any of them."
Zelgadis walked away without answering. After a moment, Amelia followed him.
While Amelia arranged for rooms at the local inn, Zelgadis very patiently and politely asked around about the chimera maker's location. Now that he was inside the town, the villagers made no move to attack him. They just hid inside their houses. The only person who would actually talk to him was a little girl.
"He lives up there." The child pointed toward the small mountain that loomed over the town. "It's real far. You can't make it before sunset." She stuck a finger in her mouth and looked Zelgadis over appraisingly. "Are you really a chimera?"
"Yes."
"You don't look like the other chimeras. You're the same all over. And you're smart."
"The man who turned me into a chimera was not Diol."
The child nodded wisely.
Then the girl's mother noticed what her daughter was doing and instantly whisked her away.
Zelgadis felt his shoulders begin to unclench as he followed Amelia up the stairs to the inn's bedrooms. The villagers had not attacked them again but their frightened stares wore on his nerves more than a straightforward attack would have. He was beginning to wish that he had just camped out in the woods.
"Which room is mine?" he asked with a yawn.
"This one." Amelia opened the door, sat down on one of the two beds, and began pulling off her boots.
"We have to share a room?"
"Yes."
"Why? They wouldn't let the beast out of its keeper's sight?"
"No, I asked for only one room."
Zelgadis' wariness level increased tenfold. "Would this have anything to do with that incident in the Chimera Forest?"
"You've been having nightmares ever since then. I hear you crying in your sleep. Zelgadis-sam...san, as you friend I cannot tolerate being kept away from you by a locked door when you need my help. Tonight I am going to stay right here and guard you from bad dreams, just like my Daddy used to do for me."
"He used to guard you from bad dreams?" Zelgadis suppressed a smile at that childish admission.
"After my Mommy...died, I had a lot of nightmares. My daddy used to sleep next to my bed so that if I had a bad dream, he could chase it away. It really worked, and after awhile the nightmares went away completely. So I'll do that for you tonight, okay?"
When had Amelia's mother died? Zelgadis wracked his memory. The answer, when it came to him, made his blood run cold. The crown princess of Seyruun had been murdered. Zel's father had heard about it in a letter from a friend and he had told the rest of the family at dinner one night. They all shook their heads in disgust at how bloody Seyruun politics were and then thought little more about it. There was one other detail, which Zelgadis remembered his mother exclaiming over. The young princesses had been the ones to find their mother's body. He had known those facts in the back of his mind for years, but he had never connected them with Amelia before. No wonder she had had nightmares!
"Do whatever you want." Zelgadis started pulling off his own boots.
In Zelgadis' dream, he was back in his home village shopping for the items his mother had sent him to get. The shopkeeper smiled at him as he picked out some tomatoes. A boy ran into the shop. Was it the puppy boy from the monster forest? No, it was that boy in the portrait, Ursus.
"Look, Mom, they have apples!" he called.
Two more people entered the shop: Rezo and, holding his hand, a smiling, black-haired woman, Mina. The shopkeeper, who was now the grey-haired Littletonian woman, said, "Greywords are always welcome here."
Rezo turned toward Zelgadis, his blind eyes seeking him out unerringly. "Zelgadis," he said in the soft, cool tone in which he had always spoken his great-grandson's name. He raised his staff, which now had rings, and suddenly Zelgadis was in his chimeric transformation nightmare again. It was so familiar that he barely even moaned in his sleep as remembered pain ripped through his body.
The aftermath was worse. The villagers of Littleton stared in shock and horror as sunlight revealed his face. The townspeople of this afternoon shouted their loathing. A stable boy shook a pitchfork in his face. A child cowered behind his equally frightened mother. The faces of all the strangers who had ever reacted to his appearance with fear and hatred confronted him. Then it got worse. The faces became those of the people he loved. "Who are you? What are you?" cried his mother. "Get away from me, monster," his brother growled.
"No, no! It's me, Mother!" Zelgadis wept.
Amelia threw her arms around Zel. "Shh, it's alright. Shh. What's wrong, Zelgadis-sama?"
Still asleep, Zelgadis answered her, "I'm a freak. Everybody hates me." He moaned again.
"No, you have friends like Lina-san and Gourry-san, and me. Not everybody hates you."
"Everybody hates me," Zelgadis echoed.
Amelia tried a simpler message. "I don't. I don't hate you. I love you." This was much easier to admit while he was asleep. "I love you just the way you are. You are not a freak. You are wonderful."
Zelgadis seemed calmed by her words. He lay still now although his face still held an expression of pain.
Amelia reverted to the phrases her father had used for her. "It's alright. I'm here. I'll protect you. It's alright. Sleep now. Justice will prevail. Sleep now. It's alright," she repeated over and over until she put herself back to sleep.
In Zelgadis' dream, his mother cradled him and sang his favorite song. "I love you," she told him.
Halfway through the night, Zelgadis woke to find Amelia wrapped around him. He peeled her off and placed her firmly back in her own bed, but the faint memory of nightmares made him gentle. He spared her a thoughtful glance before rolling over to face the wall and going back to sleep.
In the morning they set out to find Diol. His house was perched on an unnecessarily dramatic cliff. Just beyond the edge of the house, the land plummeted hundreds of feet to a narrow river valley. The house looked like it had once been magnificent but at some point in the past it had been smashed apart and inexpertly patched back together. It now reminded the viewers of a crippled animal clinging desperately to the cliff in terror.
It was almost noon by the time they finally reached the top of the mountain. Zelgadis found himself thinking about the delivery boy he had cured with more sympathy than he had previously felt.
"I guess Mr. Diol doesn't want too many visitors," Amelia commented, catching her breath.
Zelgadis knocked on the door. The knocker was in the shape of a grotesque face with a gaping mouth. The door slowly, creakingly opened itself. Such a cheap magic trick failed to impress the visiting sorcerers. They walked in. As soon as they were both over the threshold the door slammed shut behind them. Amelia jumped and moved a little closer to Zelgadis.
They were in a long, dark, twisting passageway. It had been intended to be a creepy passageway lit only by a faint eerie glow, but now the sunbeams pouring through cracks in the wall and ceiling gave it an almost cheerful atmosphere. Dust and water stains covered the floor.
That dark, twisting hallway led to another, and another. Amelia got annoyed. "Villain, show yourself!" she shouted.
"Hey, don't call him 'villain'," Zelgadis hissed. "We're here to ask him for help."
An old man with bristling white eyebrows and beard stepped out of the shadows. "Ah, visitors. Welcome. Come this way. I do apologize for the wait. I didn't notice you come in."
He led them to a room that was in much better repair than the rest of the house, although not noticeably cleaner. It was a laboratory full of glass tanks. Some of the tanks were empty. Others held embryonic monsters floating in bubbling liquid. Finished chimeras peered mournfully out of cages stacked against the far wall of the room.
The old man turned back toward his guests and did a double take. "You're a chimera!"
Zelgadis didn't bother to confirm such an obvious fact.
Diol stepped closer. He peered intently into Zelgadis' face. Then he grabbed Zelgadis' hands and examined them. He twisted one of Zel's ears, studying it from all angles. He rapped his knuckles on Zel's chest. The whole time he was muttering. "Marvelous. Simply magnificent. How did he...? Superb!"
He interrupted himself to ask, "Does this rock continue over the rest of your body?"
"Yes."
"How deep does it go? Are you stone all the way through?"
"As far as I can tell, the stone is only skin deep. If it cracks, I bleed."
"And can you perform all normal human functions: eat, sleep, de..."
"Yes," Zelgadis replied quickly, blushing and not looking at Amelia.
"Marvelous. Truly living stone. I have never heard of anyone achieving such a thing before. With that skin, you must be nearly invulnerable. What else did he improve?"
"Improve?" Zelgadis restrained himself from launching into a rant about how being a chimera was in no way an improvement over being human. That would delay getting the answers he needed.
"Your hearing perhaps?"
"Yes. And I can move with superhuman speed for short periods of time. The change also enhanced my strength and magical abilities."
"Fascinating. The base is obviously human, but what are the other parts?" The old sorcerer mused. "Stone golem, I would say, and something else..."
"No. Ordinary, clay golem and rock demon, I believe."
"Ah, I see." Diol stared at Zelgadis' skin with awed appreciation for several seconds longer before announcing, "I must try it!"
"What?" Zelgadis and Amelia exclaimed together.
"No, I came here because I want to be cured."
"Why, you...you...I forbid you to cause anyone else the pain that Zelgadis-san has suffered. Transforming people against their will is evil, and even if you have their consent..."
Diol appeared to notice Amelia for the first time. His eyes gleamed. "Girl, I have an offer for you that you can't resist. How would you like to have invulnerable skin, superhuman speed and hearing and enhanced strength and magical abilities like your boyfriend here? As an added bonus, you get beautiful, textured blue skin."
The young people were so stunned that for a long moment all they could do was stare at him with their jaws hanging open.
"And then I'd have a pair," the old man added to himself. "I wonder if stone chimeras breed in captivity."
"NO!" Zelgadis drew his sword. "No. Don't even think about turning Amelia into a chimera." The thought of someone else, someone he knew and cared about, sharing his curse was worse than his worst nightmares.
Diol ignored the wild-eyed maniac waving a sword at him. "Well, girl, what do you say?"
"No." Amelia spoke softly but her eyes were blazing with passion. "You who transformed hapless visitors against their will, you who loosed chimeras to ravage the towns all around, you who created creatures at war with themselves, you are the kind of person I call evil!" Her voice had steadily crescendoed through the speech into her usual righteous shouting. She pointed an accusing finger straight into Diol's face. "Tell Zelgadis-san how to find his cure or we will make you wish you had never started meddling with the order of nature!"
That last line was slightly out-of-character for a heroine of Justice, but Zelgadis chose not to protest.
"Are you sure?" Diol asked. "It will only take me a few months to track down a rock demon and a suitable golem and I'm almost certain I can figure out how to do the transformation." He turned to Zelgadis. "You will let me dissect you, won't you? It's for your girlfriend after all, and I promise I'll put everything back where I found it."
"NO!...and she's not my girlfriend."
Amelia decided that freeze arrows speak louder than words, and acted accordingly. Diol was encased in a ceiling-high pillar of ice before she was satisfied.
Zelgadis stared as his adversary literally froze in mid-word. Suddenly deprived of a target for his rage, he blinked a few more times and calmed down. That didn't mean that he was any less angry. It just meant that he was thinking clearly enough to plot revenge. He looked over at the wall of shrieking chimeras and slowly smiled.
"Amelia," he said in a conversational tone, ambling over to the cages, "did I ever show you the spells I designed for unmaking chimeras?"
Puzzled, Amelia let her fists unclench. "No, not the details."
"They're still in the prototype stage, but they work well enough for a demonstration. I think now would be a good time."
Zelgadis glanced over at Diol. By a fortunate coincidence, the frozen sorcerer's eyes were pointed in the direction of the cages.
"Okay." Amelia walked over to join Zelgadis. "Restoring these poor creatures to their rightful selves is an act worthy of a true ally of Justice."
"Um, right."
Zelgadis opened one of the cages and pulled out a winged rabbit. The frightened little creature chattered its needle-sharp teeth and puffed up its bushy tail at him.
"The first spell is for removing extra body parts," Zelgadis explained. "It goes like this." He began the incantation. The rabbit gave a thin squeal of agony. "Uh, it's best to put the subject to sleep first."
Having corrected that mistake, Zelgadis demonstrated how to remove the creature's wings and most of its teeth. Then he used the second, transformation-based spell to change the four front teeth and its tail into shapes suitable for a rabbit. "Now you try it."
Amelia reached into another cage and pulled out a cat-dog hybrid. Her sleep spell knocked it out before it could succeed in biting her. Slowly and with much prompting from Zelgadis, she managed to remove its second tail.
"What should I do with the tail?"
"Just drop it on the floor. There isn't enough of the original animal for it to survive."
"But there's a whole series of these cat-dog things. One of the other ones might need the tail."
"Hmm." Zelgadis thought hard.
"I know a spell for keeping severed body parts alive. Should I use it?"
"A spell for severed body parts? Why?"
"It also helps keep people from dying during surgery. It's one of the spells most shrine maidens learn, if they learn magic."
"Sure. Go ahead and use it."
Between Zelgadis' chimera unmaking spells and Amelia's healing spells, they had all the cats and dogs sorted out by the time Diol managed to fight his way free of the ice. He tried to take his revenge on his troublesome guests by casting a spell, but fortunately his teeth were still chattering so hard that the spell fizzled. The noise alerted Zelgadis, who bound the chimera maker to the floor with shining chains of energy. After a little more thought, he added an invisible gag as well.
"Zelgadis-sam..san," Amelia said awhile later.
"What is it?"
"I think this thing is a black dragon."
Zelgadis walked over to look. "I think you're right."
"What should I do with it?"
"Just let it go. It's too small to eat anyone. And you can call me 'Zelgadis-sama' if you want to. I don't really care. Just stop stuttering."
Amelia's face lit up. "Thank you, Zelgadis-sama!"
Zelgadis sighed.
"That's the last one." Amelia watched the fiery orange bird shrink into the distance.
"That was...satisfying. I think I've figured out the final forms for the unmaking spells now."
"Are you going to use my suggestion about simplifying the transformation spell?"
"Yes. It was a good suggestion. You seem to have an instinct for transformation spells."
Amelia blushed with pleasure. "Shall we go back and interrogate that chimera maker now?"
"No, I don't think he knows anything about my type of transformation. All his chimeras were tank-grown or surgically assembled. Let's just..." He collapsed.
"Zelgadis-sama!" Amelia whirled around.
Diol was standing right behind them, utterly enraged. "Did you think I would just let you go after all the damage you caused?"
Amelia shook his fallen partner. "Zelgadis-sama, wake up!"
"Sleep," the old enchanter cast a second time.
Amelia threw up a quick mirror-spell. The sleep spell reflected back on its caster. He slowly crumpled to the ground and started snoring. "Flow Break," Amelia broke the enchantment on Zelgadis and they left.
As they started down the mountain by a path that would completely avoid the town, Amelia declared, "That was another example of how Justice always triumphs."
"No, that was an example of how superior skill and cunning always triumph."
"Fate obviously brought us here to save those poor creatures and as true allies of justice we did it."
"If that's the case then why didn't it bring us sooner?"
They continued on towards the sunset, arguing peacefully. Below them, a tidal wave of furry bodies -- non-chimeric for a change -- trampled the village.
Author's Note: For those of you who don't know, Diol is a real Slayers character. He tries to turn Lina into a chimera (if he had seen the design, Zel would consider himself lucky to just be made of stone) and makes a bunch of kopii Nagas. If you ever want to see mindless destruction combined with an overwhelming bounty of bouncing bosoms... *Ahem*
For those of you who did know that, I apologize if I didn't manage to get Diol or the town quite right. I saw those episodes only once, and that was over a year ago. If I discover that I got something wrong and I can fix it without seriously altering the story, I will. If you spot any mistakes like that, please tell me.
The stuff about Amelia's mother is all true as far as I know. I don't have any official source on it, but it seems to be semi-official rumor.