“I have it!” Naga graciously decided to share with everyone in
earshot.

     Zelgadis, ever curios and interested in the general happenings of
his close chums politely inquired about his dear friends sudden realization,
all the while displaying a great deal of openness and insight into the
obviously stirring event: “What’s your problem now?”

     “OOOOOOOOOOha ha ha ha!  Zelgadis-san, it seems you are the person
with the problem.  All this time I actually thought you were serious about
meeting with this Mr. Matallium guy, but now I know how quiet and secretive
you are, so now I understand that you actually didn’t know whether to
accept or not, so you put on a brave face for me and told me the first
thing that came to mind.  Oh you are cunning, Zel-san, but unfortunately
you are not wise enough to out smart me, Naga Serpent!  I knew all the
while you were putting me on!”

     “Can’t fool you for a minute.” Zel agreed, leaning out the window of
his two-tone blue Toyota, checking to see if perchance a man looking as
though he belonged to the name Xelloss Matallium was standing on the
sidewalk outside the soon-to-be-closing Tokyo tourist attraction by name
of The City Tower.

     Dr. Seiyluun yawned.  Even though she had caught up on all Z’s
entitled to her (a total of 16 hours to be exact), she was still a tad
withered from jet lag because of her too long for human comfort plane trip
from London to Tokyo.  She hated planes beyond a sane persons comprehension,
because they were high, and they were loud.  And they were manmade.  And if
you spent as much time when you were a teenager protesting about all the
horrible mistakes humans make, in the name of justice, as Amelia did, you
would be afraid of them too.  Many of her creative writing papers back in
high school and ALL of her debate essays were bluntly rambling about how
humans have screwed the Earth big time and that they were way imperfect and
so was everything they created.  One day at the annual “Let’s Kill Off
Man-Kind and Let the Planet Rejuvenate” convention (a.k.a. L.K.O.M.K.L.P.R),
she met this lovely girl named Kaede and they really seemed to see eye to
eye, and Kaede promised to call Amelia so they could have lunch while
discussing human annihilation sometime, if she wasn’t too busy carrying it
out of course.  Apparently she was.

     Off topic.  Amelia didn’t like to fly.  Her parents didn’t like to
fly.  Her cat, Microorganism, didn’t like to fly. Terra firma was where it
was at.  Nothing useful ever happened in the sky.  No inventions were
created in the sky, no peace agreement was ever established at 12,000 feet
above ground.  And if that didn’t do it, she simply was not a big fan of
having her ears blown so damn far out of her head during rapid incline or
decline in the air.  As for windows…ha!  As far as she was concerned, the
shear mention of the word relating to aircraft of any size or property
was…was…it wasn’t good at all.  If she truly wanted to ralph, she’d go to
a Hanson concert.  So it was a BIG thing that she managed to take the plane
with Gourry in tow, all the way from England to Japan.  And it only took
half a jar of pills and a bottle of booze.

     Now they were on their way back from the lab.  It was silly to make
such a fuss over being granted permission.  In the end it turned out all
she really had to do was ask.  And they weren’t doing anything immediately
with the dumb old root, so she had firm, detailed plans to go right to the
hotel and hit the sack.  Nothing’s ever easy, is it?

    Gourry was driving  (mistake #1) at the time and yabbering about all sorts of controversial
issues such as the devastating matter of wearing mismatched socks and other
such topics.  So busy in fact, that he didn’t see the man on the side of
the street waving a very stubborn thumb at them as they sped by.

     “Oh gosh!  That man needs to be somewhere.  I pity these poor people
who can’t make enough money to afford a car.  Let’s stop and pick him up
Gourry!”

     “Amelia, are you sure?” the street wasn’t busy, so Gourry almost
slowed to a stop, eyeing the man on the sidewalk.

     “Course I’m sure.  He’s human too, you know, and we all deserve a
break every now and then.” Amelia fondly recited her favorite line from
her University ethics assignment.

     Gourry pulled the car back to where the guy was standing and unlocked
the passenger door.  This brings us to mistake #2.

     The man got in, slammed the car door, and promptly pulled a cute
little fully loaded handgun from his coat pocket and offered Gourry his own
life if he’d be willing to part with all cash at hand.

     “Scoundrel!  It’s not very nice to threaten somebody’s life after
they were kind enough to pull over and give you a ride.”  If you could
count on Amelia for one thing, it’d be to state the obvious again and again
and again and…

     Scoundrel, for lack of a better name at the moment, was as most bad
guys would be - speechless at such an…ummmm…bold statement.

     Amelia continued.  “I think it best you leave sir.  Or better yet,
turn yourself in to the authorities!  There is no need for crime, if we
could all just work together.”

     Scoundrel had decided he was through wasting all his time with this
foolishness and turned to Gourry.  “All right sweety-pie.  We can do this
your way or mine.”

     “Sweety-pie??”  Gourry hadn’t a clue what to make of this whole
episode.

     “Hand over your cash or I’ll make mincemeat out of your little lady
friend, here.” and he grabbed Amelia’s static prone mane to prove that he
would.

     Gourry still didn’t clue in to the problem, and sat there dumbfounded
just long enough for Scoundrel to make of with his wallet.  This time Gourry
assessed the situation properly and wasted little time as he and his
cop-instinct dove out of the vehicle and pursued the thief down the block
and around the corner out of sight.

     It was apparent that this guy broke the law.  No two-ways about it.
And Amelia was damned is she was going to let her pal with the IQ of a
bulldozer handle such a difficult case all by himself, officer or not.
It was up to her to uphold justice!

     Amelia dashed out of the car and followed the two like lightening
through shops and buildings and such until she spotted Gourry.  A surge of
disappointment enveloped her, as she noted he seemed to have to whole d
ilemma under control.  It would be nice to be needed for once and as it
turned out, she wasn’t.  But that couldn’t stop her from helping herself to
a bit of the glory.

     “Good job, Gourry-kun!” Amelia pranced over to where Gourry was
sitting on the victim/criminal.  “Man, you’re sure lucky I slowed him down
for you.”

     “Huh?”  Gourry was officially confused.

     “Gourry, Gourry, I know you have a short term memory, but come now.
I did head him off that pass.  You really ought to give credit where credit
is due, don’t you know.”

     Gourry wasn’t sure what was being said, but the odds of him
forgetting of Amelia aided him were likely a hell of a lot higher than her
trying to pull the wool over his eyes (everyone who had tried to fool him
so far had been unsuccessful, because he caught on pretty quick and realized
that they were right even before they did, if that makes any sense to you).

    “Arigato, Amelia-san!” Gourry finally decided.

     “Well, I’ll just call the police to come pick this lawbreaker.” Amelia whipped out her cell phone and began to make the call.  She stopped though, and took a look over at a little sky blue car that ought to get repainted, because in several spots on the vehicle were large, navy-indigo
splotches.  But that was nothing.  The fact that in matched the face of it’s occupant blew Amelia right away.

     “What is it, Amelia-san?” Gourry looked where the scientist was
looking, but could see nothing from his awkward roost atop the obviously
unamused Scoundrel.

     Amelia didn’t answer and continued to gawk at the blueness.  Gourry
was sure he was missing out on something, and got up to investigate.
     “What’s up?”  he tried to locate the spectacle.

     “Oh nothing important Gourry, I was just…GOURRY!!!  You just let the
bad guy get away!”

     Gourry’s face went from confused and almost intrigued to downright
ashamed.  And rightly so! Amelia decided.  “Gosh, I’m sorry Amelia-chan.
I didn’t think.”

     “No bloody kidding. Hey - whadya mean ‘chan’???!”  Gourry had always
had a great deal of respect for her and she was not used to being spoken to
as though she were some eight-year-old kid.  “Jesus, never mind.  Let’s go
get him.  We can’t fail when something like justice is at stake!”

     Gourry and Amelia hadn’t a clue which way to go.  And to be perfectly
frank, Scoundrel wasn’t so stupid after all, and he came to the conclusion
from watching one too many cliché American cartoons that it simply wasn’t
in his best interest to hang around to see if they noticed his absence.  So
he darted off in zigzags for lack of any real escape plan and it worked.
Boy, those too must of been the dumbest pair of do-gooding so and sos he’d
ever had the displeasure of crossing paths with…EVER.

     “Over here!” Gourry pointed off in the direction that Scoundrel
probably didn’t go.

     “No, no!  This way!” Amelia took off in the direction of the two-tone
blue vehicle, the very direction Scoundrel DEFINETLY didn’t go.

     And Gourry, being Gourry with no further explanation needed, agreed
that she was right, and he was most likely wrong, and followed right after
her, nicely allowing the thief an effortless getaway.  One thing was for
sure though; he’d think twice - no, six or seven times before attempting
to rob and/or hijack another automobile for as long as his pathetic life
held out.  They may have been dumb, but they were patriotically dumb,
obsessed with the right thing, and were not the kind of people he’d like
to run into in a brightly lit alley.
 
 

     Zelgadis had stopped with the mucking around and decided to get down
to business.  He was open to fairness and giving everyone in his company a
break, but to be honest he had had just about enough of a certain
brunette’s company.  She was loud, and more overbearing by the second and
just a little too enthused about life for his taste.  And if she laughed
one more time, just once more, he had firmly decided he was not responsible
for his actions.

    And then they came barreling towards him at mock speed.
Two of them, a tall, muscular blond girl and a shorty with black hair and
look on her face that screamed “Save me from my pathetic self!”

     Zel anticipated something like this and swiftly avoided them both.
Naga on the other hand was all too entirely busy with a set of press on
black fingernails to notice the pair of super sonic amigos.  It’d be a bit
too much fun to get away with, but that had never stopped him before.

     “Look out, Naga.”  Zel whispered, his voice almost inaudible.

     The two collided right into a pair of…..  Naga lay flabbergasted on
the concrete, with a mans boot, complete with foot, propped on her shoulder
and a little kid draped across her lap.  “I beg your pardon?”  was all she
could come up with.

     Zel decided that that was certain to be all the comedy he was
entitled to for the day, and it was fast ending.  He checked his
watch: 8:43PM and the sunlight was beginning to migrate west.

     “Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”  Amelia apologized, apologetically.  She
picked herself up and then helped Gourry do the same.  She leaned over to
help up her most recent victim.

     “GRACIA!”

     “Who?"

     “What?"

     “You!”

     “Me?”

     “Why?”

    “Explain.” Zel figured he had better break the cycle of stupidity.

     “Gracia, don’t you recognize me?  It’s me, Amelia, your sister.”

     “My name is Naga.  You must ne mistaken.”

     “Sister?” Gourry couldn’t count and didn’t much want to count how
many times a day the subject of Amelia’s sister, Gracia, the one in whom
Amelia adored, gushed over and idolized wriggled it’s way into the casual
natter.  And this was it?  All three of them was what Amelia was constantly
bragging about?  He was damn glad he was an only child.

     “A sib?  How interesting.  Sure she has you totally mistaken, Naga
Serpent?”

     “Naga?”  Amelia took her turn to be confused.  “Your name is Gracia
Seiyluun, and I’m your sister, and we had a little dog named Toto and we
lived on a little farm in Kansas with Mom and Dad, and Aunt Em and Uncle
Henry and…”

     “Amelia?  Sis? You’re here.  That’s…ummm…that’s…that’s…just…”
horrid.  Disgusting.  Fate is playing a sick joke on me and I can not
excuse myself.  Your presence sucks the holy hell away and I spent my
entire life trying to get far, far away from you, was what Naga couldn’t
bring herself to admit.

     “I knew you would recognize me!” Amelia hurled herself at her sister
with energy that dangerously rivaled that musically inclined little pink
rabbit.  “I haven’t seen you in ages.”  She examined her kin with a keen
eye.  “You grew obstacles.”  She observed bluntly.

    “Yes, well this has been a fun-filled adventure for the whole kit and
caboodle, but Gracia here had business to take care of, with me, don’t you
Gracia?”

     “Naga!” Naga snapped.

     “Oh goodness, Gra -I mean, Naga, what do you do for a living?”

     Kill people, Naga deliciously considered sending sisterwards.  What
would Amelia do?  Uphold justice, that’s what she would do.  Sister or
lawyer, it terrified Naga that it made no difference.  “I’m a correctional
officer.”

     “Come again?”  Amelia never failed to ask stupid questions all who
were present knew the answer to.

     “I’m with the FBI.”

     “Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhh…. That’s terrific, sis!  I always knew you were
headed for the family business!  I can’t believe it - my sister is probably
nationally reknowned!  Where is your main headquarters?”

     Naga thought a moment. Where WOULDN”T Amelia have connections??

    “Maryland.”

     “Really?  I have a friend you works there!”

     Dammit.

     “I’ll call her and we should all have lunch some time!”

     “D-did I say Maryland?  I meant Fairyland.”

     “You don’t say?”  Amelia decided to contradict the whole issue.

    “I’ve never heard of that place.  But I bet I know a friend who has…”

     “Ahem.”  Zel cleared his throat.  “I’ve tried the polite approach,
but that doesn’t seem to work with either of you, so I’ll be blunt; I don’t
care to be in earshot of this particular family reunion, so if ya don’t
mind, could you take it elsewhere?”

     “OOOOOOOOOOha ha ha ha!  Why so grumpy, Zelgadis-san?” she leaned in
closer to him. “After all, she’s your sibling horror.”

    Zel had a hell of a time trying to figure out who was worse - Naga or Amelia.  To be honest,
he’d rather put a continent or two between both of them, which would happen
as soon as he got this destiny thing over with.  But for now, with fifteen
minutes to stick it out, he was determined to pass time with a challenge -
find out which sister was worse.  Let’s compare pros and cons.  Naga was….
well…she was loud, overbearing, bossy, conceited, annoying and her
priorities were questionable, right along with her mental health.  As for
her pros, she was optimistic, friendly (overly so), she had a good heart,
even if she did kill people, dress like a member of Kiss and hate her
goody-two-shoes little sister beyond the point of sanity.

     Amelia was dumb, or at least clueless, she was soft headed and justice
obsessed.  She had demonstrated she unobservant, annoying and she was so
sweet, it was giving him cavities.  On the other hand though, she was
polite, social and also had a good heart, even though she used to listen
Fred Penner when she was little, her idol was most likely Barney or Captain
Planet and she probably memorized the whole Care Bear song and sung along
every time she surfed channels and so happened to locate it.

     No, this was a problem.  Who was worse?  Naga did have more cons, but
they were canceled out cause Amelia’s few were more annoying.  And neither
of their optimistic personalities did a thing  for him, because he just
wasn’t the most upbeat person himself, anymore than he was social.  Polite
obviously didn’t cut it, so there really was nothing their were in the way
of ‘good’ that make him think they were ‘good’.
 
 
 

     Xelloss paced around opposite of where he figured Zel would meet.
There was such a thing as fashionably late, but he didn’t wan to be it.
No, but he didn’t want himself to look desperate and show up half an hour
early either.  He’d just have to wait a bit until the time was right.

     Suddenly he was given a violent jolt forward and his pace met the
concrete.

     “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!…..oh.  It’s you.” a woman with long blonde
 hair, a pink and white cap, and BIG earrings loomed over him.

     “Ryu-Sama.  It’s you.  What are you doing here?” Xelloss picked
himself up and brushed is coat off.

     “I think you know what I am doing here.” Felia fidgeted awkwardly.
But she had a right to eavesdrop the way he had been acting toward her.

     “No, I can’t say that I do.”  Xelloss knew EXACTLY why she was there.
Had she thought she could fool him into thinking that there wasn’t someone
else on the line?

     “Well, if you must know no, I listened in on your devious little plot
with the king, and decided that she was my customer and she was my
responsibility as a person to help find her.”

     “You eavesdropped on me, Felia-san?  I am shocked.  You fooled
completely.  Why, had I been clever enough to catch you…I wouldn’t really
know what to do, because you’re simply so cunning, and you know-.”

     “Cut the crap, mazoku.” Felia never complained having her ego stroked
like that, and sometimes it even clouded her better judgment, but she was
not dumb as a post.

     “Monster?” Xelloss repeated.  “Felia-san, I am quite offended.  You
think, I, Xelloss Matallium am some creation of utter evil, some vile beast
bent on the destruction of all human life, so that order may plunge to the
rubbish pile, and chaos may be restored to the planet once more?”

     Felia took a few moments to gather and process that.  “Damn right I
do.”

     “At least I don’t go around salivating on peoples property.” Xelloss
grinned.  What else is new?

     “Hey, that’s a cheap shot buddy!” Felia was still embarrassed.  It
was not nice to get caught accidentally ruining some bodies clothing,
especially with your spit.

     The verbal exchange between the two of them, at least as far as
Xelloss was concerned, made things more interesting and killed the time
beautifully.

     “Well, I hate to interrupt, but I have some where to be that I’m sure
you’ll insist upon coming as well, so we may as well go now."

     That little statement hurt.  Was exchanging nasty dialogue just a
game for him.  She was taking it all to heart!  “Bastard.” She said.

     “Yes, yes, if it makes you feel better we can continue that along the
way.”

     Felia had nothing to respond.  She certainly didn’t want to give him
the satisfaction of him knowing he was allowing her to feel better, so she
just followed him.

     Xelloss rounded the corner and there was a blue man, a transvestite
cop, a munchkin, and a woman that put poor Dolly Parton to absolute shame.

     “So this is your social circle.  Explains a few things.” Felia
muttered.

     Xelloss too was taken aback by the menagerie, but kept his cool.

    “You must be His Majesty.” Xelloss couldn’t guess who was his majesty- they
all had the potential, so he addressed the whole group hoping the weirdo in
question would step forward.

     “Yes.” Zelgadis did the deed and extended a hand.  He had learned no
matter how much he didn’t wan to shake hands with doorknobs, it was probably
in his best interest not to try and make them bow.  Xelloss shook
vigorously.

     “Who’s this young lady?”  Amelia pointed to Felia, which made
everyone sort of stifle a snicker.  “Gourry, you never told me you had a
twin.”

     “MAZOKU, MAZOKU, MAZOKU!!!!!” was the response from the tall blond.

     “Forgive her. Prozac just ain’t what it used to be.  This is Felia.” Xelloss supplied helpfully.

     “They don’t look much alike at all.”  Zel commented, although he had
been trying desperately not to care.

     Felia was much impressed by that, and went over to give the chimera
king a quick and heartfelt hug.

     “Get away from me or you’re dragon soup, got it?” Zel shrugged away
from her grasp and brushed off his suit.

     “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOha ha ha ha!  You’re so uptight, Zelgadis-kun.  You
were so nice before.  What’s the matter?  You can tell me.  I am Naga
Serpent, secret keeper wonder queen!”

     “Well, Naga-chan, you’ve been getting weirder, so there may be
trade-off in here somewhere.”  Zel wouldn’t trust Naga with a Tupperware
dish, let alone a secret.  Not that he had any.  His life was pretty much
an open book.

     Naga sighed.  “Well, there’s not point to standing around here
staring at the concrete.  Let’s go in.”

     “Where are you going, sissy?”  Amelia asked.

    “WhAt DiD yOu SaY???!!!”

     “Where are we going?”

     “AFTER THAT!”

     “Sissy???”

     “Don’t EVER call be that stupid name again, k?  OOOOha ha ha ha!  It doesn’t do me the justice a person of my caliber deserves.  Of course, there are no other people of my caliber! OOOOOOOOOOOha ha ha ha!!!”

     “Well then, where are we going Naga the Great?”  Amelia asked.

     “That’s better.”  She glanced over at Zel to see if he thought Amelia
ought to be informed. At least she was beginning to show proper respect.
Zel’s eyes, or the eye that wasn’t covered by excessive amounts of
human/rock hair.  “Well, Amelia, we’re going to save Lina Inverse, an--.”

     “LINA INVERSE????  She’s that marvelous pop sensation!  You’re going
to save her?  We’ll join you.  Justice needs all the help in get in
instances like these!  I, Amelia Wil Tesla Seiyluun will triumph!”

     Zel grumbled, “Secret keeper my left foot, why if I had a nickel for
every time those girls pissed me off, I’d be the god damn richest man in all
 this son of a gun world…..”
 
 

End Part Nine.