Eris was the one who recognized the voice. “Vrumugun!” She spun towards the source of the voice, looking into the darkness.
        The sorcerer glided forwards, cloak obscuring his body and face. When he came near enough, he stopped, looking towards Eris quietly. “Blue eyes, not gold.” He noted. “You are the original, I see.”
        Eris lifted her chin slightly. “Of course I’m the original. And I have a bit of a score to settle with you.”
        The shaded smile under the hood twisted. “Do you now…? It seems that we all have one reason or another to dislike each other… don’t we?”
        Lina rolled her eyes and folded her arms. “Great. First, Dilgear, now Vrumugun. What is this, old home week? Is Rezo going to appear out of the shadows and try to resurrect Shabranigdo again?”
        Black eyes shifted to the redhead. “No, Lina Inverse. Rezo is indeed dead. And for that, I feel that I should thank you. You removed the largest obstacle that I had in my research.”
        “Your research…?” Lina echoed. Her eyes narrowed. “It was you who was behind the copy research, wasn’t it? You’re the one who wanted to make clones that you could control! Only Rezo wouldn’t let you.” She started to pace as she put it together. “You wanted subjects that you could test with, and you had the perfect source: Rezo’s own family. Because he was so wrapped up in restoring his eyesight, you could do what you wanted when no-one was looking. Only Eris resisted, so you switched her out with a copy. But there was a problem. The copies were insane, and you couldn’t get the eyecolor right. No matter what you did, the eyes were always wrong.” Lina stopped and looked at Vrumugun. “Now, I wonder why that was? I’ll bet that you were using Rezo’s original notes on the copies he made of himself, and you had to guess about the eyes.”
        “That’s none of your concern!” Vrumugun snapped. “What matters is that you are here, and soon I will be rid of you once and for all!”
        “Yeah, yeah,” Lina waved a hand. “So before you go and destroy us all, why don’t you explain the crystal?” She pointed back towards the human Zelgadis in the crystal.
        Vrumugun looked from the redhead to the crystal and smirked. “That’s a secret.”

        Lina frowned and looked over to Amelia. “Hey, Amelia... is that how it’s supposed to go?”
        Amelia pulled a sheaf of paper from her cloak and peered at it. “No, Mister Vrumugun, you’re supposed to say ‘You wouldn’t understand it if I told you.’”
        Vrumugun blinked, his cloak parting and a gloved hand lifting some papers to his face. “Mmmm…. You’re right. I got the lines mixed up again. Do forgive me. Shall we try again?”
        They nodded, putting their scripts away.

        “Yeah, yeah,” Lina waved a hand. “So before you go and destroy us all, why don’t you explain the crystal?” She pointed back towards the human Zelgadis in the crystal.
        Vrumugun looked from the redhead to the crystal and smirked. “You wouldn’t understand it if I told you.”
        Lina sighed. “Why do the bad guys always have to make it hard? Look, Vrummy. Just explain it all, and we’ll go away quietly.”
        Zelgadis looked at Lina. “That’s easy for you to say. It’s not you in that crystal.”
        “It’s not you, either,” Lina replied, and then looked to Vrumugun. “Well?”
        “I have no intentions of telling you anything, Lina Inverse. Knowledge is power, and while I have the knowledge, I have the power. For example,” Vrumugun approached the crystal, pointing his finger at the figure within it. “If I were to do this…” A flash of lightning arced from Vrumugun’s hand into the crystal, impacting on the human’s right hand.
        Zelgadis dropped his sword, his left hand clutching at his right hand as he cringed in agony.
        “It would harm your friend here.” Vrumugun continued smoothly. “And as I am the one in control of that crystal, it would be best that you do precisely as I say.”
        She looked at the human form which showed no pain, and then to her friend who was kneeling with his right hand cradled. There was no way that she was going to let Vrumugun continue to hurt Zelgadis… and any wrong move would be disastrous. But Vrumugun had also shown Lina something that she hadn’t considered; the two were linked. It gave her a few ideas, but in order to act on her ideas… She’d have to play his game. “Okay, Vrumugun. What do you want?”
        “What I want, Lina Inverse, is to make a complete copy of you.”