“Your sister?!?!”
        Zelgadis blinked as all four of his friends replied in one voice. Given the fact that she was his sister, he’d thought the similarities were there for all to see. However, when one took the stone blue skin and the various other differences related to being a chimera into account, he realized that they didn’t look all that alike anymore, and his friends hadn’t known it back then, and he sighed. “Yes, my sister.”
        “But you two don’t look a thing alike!” Lina protested, eying the two of them side by side.
         Zelgadis sighed again, but this time in annoyed exasperation. “I didn’t always look like this, either, Lina!”
         Lina blinked in startlement. “That’s true… I’m sorry, Zel. I… didn’t mean…”
        “I hate to interrupt… but what happened?” Eris was looking at Zelgadis in surprise. “You… grew up. I get the feeling that you aren’t my baby brother anymore…”
        Lina couldn’t help it; she started to snicker. “Zel…? Someone’s baby brother? Mister ‘I don’t really need you around, so go away and let be as depressed as I want to be?’” Her snicker turned dangerously close to a laugh. “I’ll bet he was cute, too.”
        Before Eris could tell Lina if he was cute or not, Zelgadis scowled at them both. “Enough. Let’s get out of here and go back to the campsite and talk there. This place has too many things crawling around in it to be safe.”

        Once the campfire was started, Zelgadis introduced everyone to Eris, and Lina noticed a complete difference from the Eris they had fought. For example, the Eris before them was quiet and polite, her mannerisms similar to Zelgadis’. When introduced to Sylphiel, the two immediately began discussing the magic of Cepheid, which had been long lost to the world.
        Lina shook her head, looking over at Zelgadis. “I never would have imagined that you had an older sister.”
        “You have an older sister,” Zelgadis shot back at the redhead.
        “Well… yeah… but you never so much as mentioned it when we fought… the copy,” Lina retorted.
        “That wasn’t my sister. My sister would never have fallen in love with her grandfather!” Zelgadis snapped. “The problem with Rezo’s copies was a severe mental imbalance. Look at them both. They were megalomaniacs.”
        “And a megalowhatsit is bad?” Gourry interjected.
        Lina fell over. Is it me, or is Gourry being more dense than usual? “Oh, I don’t know, Gourry,” she said sarcastically as she sat up. “A megalomaniac person is your overzealous take-over-the-world type. The kind of person who wants power, and lots of it.”
        Gourry closed his eyes and thought about it for a moment. “Oh! Like you! But that’s not so bad…” He opened his eyes to see a furious Lina being calmly restrained by Zelgadis. “What? Did I say something?”
        Still held back by Zelgadis, Lina glared at Gourry. “A megalomaniac is someone like Hellmaster Phibrizo!”
        Gourry blinked. “But he was just a kid! Kids get like that. You know, when I was little, I wanted nothing more than to have all the marbles in the village.“
        Even Zelgadis couldn’t hold Lina back after that. “You idiot!” Lina shouted, breaking away from Zelgadis and pummeling Gourry. “You don’t have any marbles!”
        Amelia walked up to look at the fracas, and sighed. “They’ll never change, will they?”
        Zelgadis watched Lina beat on Gourry for a few moments before looking to Amelia. “I doubt it, Amelia.” He looked over to where Eris and Sylphiel were animatedly discussing magic. “I wonder if she knows how long it’s been…”
        Amelia looked across Lina and Gourry to see the two women talking. “I don’t know. I’m glad that you found her, Mister Zelgadis.” The wistfulness in her voice made him look at her.
        “You have an older sister, don’t you, Amelia?”
        She looked back at him in surprise. “Yes… but she ran away a long time ago.”
        Zelgadis nodded. “You’ll find her. I’m sure of it.” One of his rare smiles crept across his lips, and for a moment, Amelia basked in the smile that was shared only with her.
        A high-pitched scream broke the moment, and Zelgadis and Gourry leapt to their feet, swords drawn and attention on the raven-haired woman who was screaming.
        “What is it?” Zelgadis asked, darting over to Eris and looking around.
        Shaking, his sister pointed to a small brown spider on the ground. In all fairness, the spider really wasn’t all that close to Eris, and it seemed to be minding its own business, but Eris would have none of it. She practically climbed onto Zelgadis’ back, insisting that he kill the spider.
        Sylphiel walked over and bent down to look at the tiny brown thing. “It’s just a little spi…der…” As she looked at it, it grew in size until she was forced to back up. It was turning into every woman’s nightmare: a six-foot tall spider with fangs.
        Eris screamed again, her grip tightening on Zelgadis.