Following after a menacing dragon-like creature wasn't too exciting, to be sure, but Amelia was glad for it guiding her to the mansion in question. They had made so many twists, turns, and whatnot through the forest that she knew she would have gotten hopelessly lost by herself.

When the mansion came in to view, Amelia noticed her guide slow down. It glanced about nervously, and if she knew any better she would have thought it looked frightened. That struck her as odd. What could scare something as intimidating as this beast?

"Mister creature, what is it? What's the matter?" Amelia nearly reached out a hand to try and comfort it, before reminding herself she still didn't know its true intentions.

The creature made a deep hissing sound at the mansion, then looked back at her. A small whimper came from deep within its throat.

"You don't like that place." Amelia interpreted. "But why? Did that man do something to you?"

The creature growled quietly, then resumed its march to the mansion. When it reached the massive doors, it stepped aside and motioned for Amelia to come forward to knock on the door. Amelia complied, grabbing a door knocker, knocking twice. (She didn't want to seem rude, after all!)

They both waited in silence, but then Amelia heard something scamper to the opposite side of the door. The door opened to reveal a small humanoid...thing. Amelia wasn't too sure what kind (or was it kinds?) of animal it was, but it was staring back at her imploringly just the same.

Amelia cleared her throat. "I, that is, we," she glanced back at her companion, who nodded approvingly, "wish to have a conference with your master. Is he in?"

The doorthing nodded enthusiastically and made what sounded like a laughing sound as it grabbed a hold of Amelia's pant leg, as it pulled for her to follow.

Amelia beat back the urge to kick the small oddity off of her leg, but the last thing she wanted to do was leave a bad impression, so she allowed herself to be dragged down the hall. Her companion followed silently behind, although she heard it hiss in disapproval more than once.

The trio finally entered into a large room. The place stank of a laboratory, and Amelia tried her best not to look at all the vials, capsules, and other containers, nor at the misshapen creatures held within. Amelia spied a man in the room, as he turned around to greet his guests.

The man grinned warmly. "Ah, Servee, new guests? And look, you found my wayward experiment!" The man eyed Amelia's companion with scorn.

Amelia stood up straight, trying her best to be formal. "Excuse me, sir, but I have reason to believe that someone came to visit you recently, and well, I was wondering if you had seen him."

The man tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Could have. I get many curious people. What did this person look like?"

Amelia twiddled her fingers nervously. "Well, he's on the tall side, and slim. Not weak, mind you! And...well..." Amelia suddenly flushed. It didn't help that her companion was making funny gagging noises. "Truth be told, he is a chimera, sir. He's got blue skin and silver hair."

"Ah!" The man's face lit up. "Why yes, he came by just the other day! He did leave rather quickly though. I can't see why, since I had only begun to help him with his search."

Amelia jumped as her companion began to growl ferociously at the man, advancing with his teeth bared and claws extended.

The man yawned. "I suppose I shouldn't feel too hurt. After all, he's come back, and with another to experiment on as well."

"What!" Amelia staggered back. "You mean he...you're...?"

Her companion looked back at her, and hung its head. His head, Amelia realized. She hadn't noticed before, but his ears were basically the same (if not much larger now), and he still retained stony ridges above his eyes. They both came back to reality when they heard the man chant, the creature, no, Zelgadis leaping to action.

Amelia gasped as he leapt at the man, covering her eyes for fear of seeing the man's fate at those horrible claws and teeth...but it didn't happen. She dropped her hands back down to her side as she could only look on in confusion. Zelgadis was turned away from her, facing the man, so she couldn't tell what he was doing. The man however still had that smug grin on his face.

"Bring her to me."

With that Zelgadis turned away from the man. His eyes glowed a deep red, and even Amelia knew what this meant. She looked for an exit, but was met with the doorthing from before, now baring its own pointed (if little) teeth at her. With no place to run, and not wanting to fight Zelgadis, Amelia was easily dispatched when Zelgadis leapt and pinned her to the ground.

Amelia grit her teeth in pain. If Zelgadis applied any more weight to her arms he'd surely crush them. She glared up at the man from her spot on the ground. "What did you do to Mister Zelgadis?"

"Who?" The man looked at her in confusion. "Ah, you mean Mino here. I didn't do anything, aside from tinker with a spell previously placed on him. He's a very interesting creation, to be sure. I bet Miss Vrumugun was praised for her skill."

"Miss?" Amelia's eyes grew large. Who the heck did he mean?

The man waved her off. "Never you mind. You don't need to know anything, anyway, experiment. Come, bring her this way, Mino." The man coaxed Zelgadis to drag Amelia across the floor, eliciting many cries of pain from the trapped girl, to a large capsule. "Move one inch to get away, and he will kill you. He's completely under my control."

Amelia suddenly wished she had never agreed to help out that man. She could have spared herself a lot of hurt and misery if she had just been selfish and thought of herself first, for once. She mentally slapped herself. No! Champions of Justice never faltered against doing good! Even when they were met with dire circumstances!

Amelia cringed as the capsule was placed over her, and a slimy substance filled it, replacing all of the oxygen. "Where is someone to save me for the sake of justice when I need them?" Amelia fought back tears as she looked at Zelgadis' still blank face. Then she was overcome by massive shocks, and again felt herself blacking out.

(Zelgadis, how could you?)

When Zelgadis came to his senses he was quick to note that he wasn't where he had been last he could remember. What's more, Amelia had just been right in front of him, and now she was nowhere to be seen! He sure didn't remember seeing that large capsule in the room.

Wait a second...

Zelgadis looked closer at the capsule, trying to make out the figure concealed within whatever ooze the thing was filled with. He made to get in closer for a better look, but stopped when he heard approaching footsteps. He knew who was coming, and glared with contempt.

The man from before came back into the room, holding a small vial in his hand. He smiled at Zelgadis. "Mino, I see you've come back around. See what I've done with that experiment you brought me?"

Zelgadis bared his teeth and hissed, thumping his tail against the floor.

"At ease. I thought you'd be happy to have a friend. It would do wonders for your aggression, you know." The man grinned eagerly, then stepped over to the capsule. "And you know this won't take long. At least, I think. I didn't take into account that you were already a chimera before I tinkered around a bit more, but it's the same principle. Either way, I digress. It'll be fun to see what takes shape, eh?"

Zelgadis roared with anger as he got up onto his feet and stalked up behind the man. The man didn't even turn as he said, "Get any closer, and I'll be sure her death is swift. No one is to interfere with my pursuit for knowledge, not even the likes of you."

Zelgadis' bloodlust died as soon as it had come, and he backed down. He continued to express his outrage by hissing at the man.

Both stopped their dispute with the other as the man placed the contents of the vial into a mechanism that inserted it into the ooze within the capsule, turning the ooze from a sickly pink to a green color. Zelgadis looked on in horror as the unconscious girl within began to twitch and spasm uncontrollably.

"Yes...yes..." The man stared intently into the capsule. "So far everything is happening just as the last time. Any moment now, we ought to be seeing some results."

Zelgadis couldn't help but watch in morbid curiosity to see what would happen, even while secretly hoping that nothing would happen at all, and that he would be able to get Amelia away from the madman.

Both sat in silence waiting to see any change within the capsule, but aside from Amelia twitching now and again, nothing did. She even finally settled back into a state of total unconsciousness. Zelgadis breathed a sigh of relief, then set about planning an escape.

"Hey, what's happened? It didn't work? Did I miscalculate something somewhere? Hmm..." While the man scratched his head in wonder, Zelgadis took his moment of being distracted to sneak in closer. When the man finally did become aware of his presence, Zelgadis gave him a toothy grin, before clubbing him across the skull with his tail.

Zelgadis could only stare at the complicated controls for the capsule, wishing that once, just once he had paid attention to Eris when he had been with her in her laboratory. Even if it had disgusted him, he might have retained some knowledge on the safest way to get Amelia out.

No such luck. He would have to do something more drastic, and hope for the best. Zelgadis raked his claws across the glass capsule, but all he did was scratch it. He struck out at it again and again in frustration, but then thought better of it and dragged his claws all around the top portion of the capsule. Then, with a precision tap of his tail against the scratch, the top part broke cleanly away, spilling its ooze all over, but more importantly giving Zelgadis access to Amelia.

Zelgadis hoisted himself up onto his hind legs, so he could better tear at the broken capsule, until enough was broken away that he could pull Amelia out. Then, being as careful as he could, he gripped her under one arm. He took one more look at the madman behind this mess, happy to see he was still very much unconscious himself, then made a wobbly dash to escape.

To be Continued...

Author's Notes: (I lie again! I have a lot of homework to do this weekend, and nothing to do at the moment, so you get another chapter a day early.)

I bet you weren't expecting that, were you? You thought Amelia would have it easy this time around. Ha! ...anyone who knows me should know that I never let Amelia (or anyone) get off easy. No playing favorites!

Dorel is my very own creation, although he is based loosely off of an existing character in the Slayers world. (More to be explained on that later.) He's also very odd. He likes to give his creations names based on words. "Servee" for example is short for "servant", and "Mino" is short for "Minion". He's just weird and unoriginal like that. As for who he was referring to before...if you haven't read the Slayers novels yet, go get them and do so now! You are seriously depriving yourself by not reading them.

Speaking of Servee, when I conceived this I imagined him to be similar to a lemur in look, minus the long tail. (Lemurs have a very intense stare. I like them.) I should try drawing him one of these days...

Zelgadis was a fun one to try and transfer his quirks and mannerisms over to his altered self. His pounding his clubbed tail against the ground, for instance. Zelgadis seems to have the habit of pounding his fist when frustrated, but since he can't exactly do that very well any more, he had to find a new way to do it. Expect to see it a lot as things progress... (And he's skilled at scoring glass! I did it in a science class way back when, and I found it a very appropriate solution to Zelgadis freeing Amelia without causing her harm. Huzzah for science!)

Enough babbling from me...

Next time: Zelgadis could hear Amelia's distress. "We'll be there soon, just hold on. We'll make it!" He then picked up the pace, just in case she couldn't.