Zelgadis had had better days. Really, this morning was much better than he had expected it to be. But right now, things looked pretty bleak. He took stock of the situation, looking at the monster calmly. It had a tight grasp on him, and he knew that he had a slim change of working his way out of that grasp.
        Except, he had Amy to worry about. She was watching in horror, her skirt flipping wildly around her legs as the wind blew.
        Wind…? Wind!
        He closed his eyes and focused his will, bringing forth the power within him. He could cast a Bram Gush with himself as the center. All he had to do was tap that wind…
        His eyes snapped open in sudden shock as two things came to him. First, that wasn’t a natural wind. Second, its center was Amy.
        He looked down to her and saw that her stance had shifted, her hands were spread out, and she was drawing the wind towards her. Her eyes were closed, her braid whipping around in the wind as it grew stronger.
        The monster reached for Amy, and Zelgadis hollered a warning. Before he could do much else, her eyes opened, a fiery determination flaring within them. Her lips parted, and the words that he heard both chilled and warmed him. “Darkness beyond twilight, crimson in the blood that flows, buried in the stream of time is where your power grows. I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand against the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hand.”
        The Dragon Slave. Well, he’d survived it before; he’d do so again. But… Amy…?
        “Dragon Slave!”
        There was a moment, a frozen spot in time where he saw the magical wind hang in the air before her, and then the moment was broken, the spell turning into a brilliant scarlet flame and bursting away from her, violent violets flickering around the scarlet as it hurtled towards him and the monster. He’d never seen the Dragon Slave quite like that before. It occurred to him that he might not ever want to see it that way again.
        The scarlet and violet flare shot through the monster in a fiercely controlled path, and the thought struck Zelgadis that he’d never seen Lina control the spell so precisely. It destroyed the monster, coming to a point behind it and then just… falling apart. There was none of the brilliant explosive damage that he had seen before.
        He realized that the monster was no longer holding him captive, and his levitation spell was still holding him in the air. He alighted beside Amy, who was brushing off her hands and surveying the destroyed monster. Eyebrow raised, he looked at her.
        “Hey, Zel! Long time no see!” She grinned, holding out a victory sign. That wasn’t Amy.
        He blinked in confusion, looking at Lina as she stood there looking back at him. “Lina…?” He asked hesitantly.
        “Who else do you know that can fire off a Dragon Slave with that much control?” She shot back at him, hands on her hips.
        Zelgadis had to admit that he hadn’t even known Lina could exercise that amount of control over the spell. “Well, to tell the truth…” He caught her as she fainted. “Damn.”
        He was really having a lousy day.

        He carried the unconscious girl into the house, and met Ian in the hallway. “She…” At a loss for explanations, he shrugged. “She was Lina for a few minutes… and then fainted.”
        Ian hmmed softly. “I wonder if there’s more to Old Man Balck than we think. He maybe could be controlling her?”
        She fretted quietly in Zelgadis’ arms, and he looked down at her reflexively. “I don’t know. But we have to find out what’s going on.” Ian held the bedroom door open for him, and Zelgadis gently placed the girl on the bed.
        When the two men left the room, Zelgadis looked to Ian. “Let me tell you what I’ve seen.”

        After the recounting of the evening’s events, Ian lit his pipe. They were standing out on the porch so as not to wake Amy with their voices. “So that makes four times so far that I’ve seen Lina.” Zelgadis said. “The first time was when she mentioned that I’m not too talkative.”
        Ian chuckled faintly. “Only when you have to, eh?”
        Zelgadis smirked. “Something like that. The second time was when she was half asleep. She actually broke through enough to ask me what was happening to her. Before I could answer, she fainted.”
        Ian frowned. “So when Lina is herself, she faints?”
        “It would seem so. The third time that I saw Lina was on the porch yesterday. She remembered part of what happened, but she didn’t faint afterwards. And then this evening, she cast the Dragon Slave on the monster and greeted me like nothing had changed. Then she fainted and I brought her here.”
        Ian frowned harder. “Sounds like something so bad happened that she had to come up with someone else to cope with it.”
        Zelgadis stared at Ian. “Another… personality?”
        Ian shrugged, drawing on his pipe. When he spoke, smoke rings punctuated his words. “Maybe. Maybe not. Can’t know. Not yet, at least.”
        Zelgadis considered. “I think I ought to go see if I can’t find where Lina and Gourry had the fight.”
        “You’re going into the woods, son?” Ian asked skeptically. “That place isn’t safe, least of all at night.”
        “I have to go. Even though a year has passed there will be signs of the battle left. Maybe I can learn something from there,” Zelgadis countered.
        Neither man saw Amy stop in the doorway and turn around, darting silently back to her room.

        Zelgadis had been in the woods for about twenty minutes, and the ‘creep factor’ as Lina had once said, was fairly high. There was something in the woods, and it was a good deal more than simply his imagination. Zelgadis, for one, wasn’t easily ‘creeped out.’
        Something rustled behind him, and he spun to hear silence fall. Something or someone was nearby. He frowned, sensing around, and smirked. “Why are you following me?”
        Amy guiltily stepped out of a bush and looked at him. Her hair was bound back tightly in a braid, and she wore brown pants with a brown shirt, as if she were trying to blend in with the trees. “I… didn’t want you going alone.”
        “You shouldn’t be out here.”
        She shook her head. “I know where it was. You don’t. I’ll take you there.”
        Zelgadis folded his arms. “I thought you didn’t remember.”
        “I don’t really. All I remember is where. I don’t remember what happened… just where it was.” She said, walking past him. “It’s this way.”
        As he followed her, they worked their way through the forest, until they came to a section that could only have been cleared by magic. Or, Zelgadis corrected himself, a highly controlled Dragon Slave.
        Amy looked to him. “This is it. This is where it happened.” She sat slowly, looking at the magically scorched earth and grass.
        The surrounding area was pale, as if someone had come by and drained the colors out of the trees and rocks and grass. A flash of color caught his attention, and Zelgadis walked towards it.
        Half-buried in the pale green grass was the end of a dark brown stick.
        He reached down and gave the stick an experimental tug, surprising himself and Amy as he stepped back and pulled a staff up from the grass, gasping as he recognized it.
        Xellos’ staff. So, the fruitcake had been here.
        He turned, showing the staff to Amy. “Have you seen this before?”
        She frowned, holding her hand out to it. “I… I don’t know… it’s familiar… in a vague sort of way…” She touched it, and the sphere at the end burst into brilliant fiery life. Her hand closed around it, and she took the staff from him, looking at the stone that was glowing red. She tilted her head, looking first at the stone, and then to Zelgadis.
        “Amy?” He asked, worried that something had happened.
        She looked away from the staff, over to him, and the look in her eyes was one of lost confusion. “Zel… what’s happening to me? It’s like… like I’m somebody else…”
        “Lina?” He asked dumbly.
        She nodded, wobbling towards him, using Xellos’ staff for support. “There… was a monster. It… attacked us. Gourry…” She was close enough to him, and he reached out to her. “Gourry tried to defend me… and Xellos appeared…. He told us to go… but the monster tore him in half…” She fell into him, still clutching the staff.  “In the town… Gourry took me in the town. When I woke up…” She looked at him, her voice stronger. “Zel… he’s dead. Gourry’s dead and it’s all my fault!”
        The words echoed faintly in the woods, and Zelgadis looked to the redheaded woman in his grasp. She was Lina, undoubtedly. He knew that pained look in her eyes, had seen it when Hellmaster had stolen Gourry. He’d hoped to never have to see it again. But here she was, looking at him with that same pain, and it tore at his heart. Damn that he had to care.
        “Lina,” he asked roughly. “I need to know what happened. I need to know how to fix this.”
        For a moment, he thought that she was going to answer him. She looked at him, mouthed the words, and consciousness fled. The staff rolled out of her open hand and he caught it reflexively, pulling the staff and the girl close as he turned to leave the woods.