In the cave. everything looked as you'd expect a cave to be: dark, damp, and rocky. Zelgadis remedied the first by casting a light spell.

"Okay Amelia, be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary."

*Right!* Since her eyesight was greatly hindered by the lack of light (it didn't help that dogs by nature don't have keen eyesight), she did the next best thing and followed her nose.

As they delved deeper into the cave, everything became more smooth. Zelgadis noted that the temple was built right into the cave walls. He stopped to study some inscriptions.

"Amelia, any idea what this says?" Zelgadis turned around. "Amelia?"

Amelia had been too caught up in exploring with her heightened senses to notice she had wandered away from Zelgadis. So far she had found nothing of interest. Rocks, more rocks, a bit of mold... Wait! She heard something scuttling across the floor. She moved closer to the sound. Small, four legs, dragging tail, smells like..dead bugs? Whatever it was, it didn't enjoy the company, and told Amelia so by sinking it's sharp teeth into her nose.

Amelia yelped and reared back, crashing into a column, which unfortunately collapsed. Amelia tried to get free of the debris, but was stuck fast. She then realized that it was pitch black, the perfect atmosphere for wayward souls. Amelia panicked.

Zelgadis had heard Amelia's cry, and followed after it. He came upon a pile of debris (which would explain the sound of something collapsing) and a small lizard. He stooped down and pick it up.

"You're becoming more of a hindrance than helpful. Now come on, I think we'll find something further back."

Amelia noticed the fading light, and finding it suddenly much easier to move, she crawled out of the debris. She saw Zelgadis retreating further into the cave. Not wanting to be left in the dark, she lept after him. Wait..lept? Oh no... No wonder she couldn't hear Zelgadis very well. She could easily feel the vibration caused by his footsteps, however.

*Mr. Zelgadis, wait!* Amelia the flea lept as fast as she could after him.

After what felt like an eternity, Zelgadis stopped in front of a large statue. While he pondered over the statue, the lizard made a break a break for it. Amelia froze. It was coming straight for her! She tried to leap closer to Zelgadis, but the lizard cut her off!

*Mr. Zelgadis!!*

Just as it closed in for the kill, Amelia felt strange again. Wings sprouted out of her back, and her body elongated. She was quick to put her newfound wings to use and flew up and away from the lizard. She flew to Zelgadis.

Zelgadis had been absorbed in studying the statue. Of a beast man. Go figure. Might explain about the cave though. His thoughts were interrupted by something fluttering about his head. He waved his hand to scare it off, but to no avail. Now slightly annoyed, he looked up to see a small butterfly land on the statue.

He was about to swat it away until a thought struck him: Since when do butterflies live in dark caves? Moths maybe, but not butterflies. He looked closer. The butterfly had black wings, accented by blue and pink. "Amelia?" The butterfly didn't seem to respond, so he put his hand out in front of it. Just as he suspected, it climbed on.

While Zelgadis scolded himself for being careless, Amelia again changed shape. This time to a small black cat.

"Amelia, what were you doing?"

*I was looking around, like you told me to, at least I was until a lizard attacked me! Then the ceiling fell on me, you left me behind, the lizard tried to eat me, and Mr. Zelgadis...you almost killed me!*

Zelgadis rubbed the back of his head. "Yes, well, I wasn't thinking... In any case, I don't think I'll find anything of use here. We may as well head back."

*Aww, I thought for sure...*

"It's happened before. I'm not too surprised. Let's just go."

And so they did. As they approached the mouth of the cave, they heard fighting outside. But this wasn't another petty fight between Lina and Gourry, it sounded like a small war had broken out. Bandits, most likely.

*Mr. Zelgadis, we have to help!* Amelia bolted for the entrance.

"Amelia, wait!" Zelgadis chased after her.

Their suspicions were correct: there were at least 40 bandits attacking Lina and Gourry. There were a few charred and slashed victims, but Lina and Gourry couldn't hold out for much longer.

Amelia felt her rage for this injustice building. Before she realized it, she again grew wings and an elongated body, but 20 times as large as she had been previously. She let out a ferocious roar.

The bandits (those still standing) looked up to see a huge black dragon. They all but tripped over each other as they fled.

"You don't get off that easy!" screamed Lina. "Dragon Slave!" and the retreating bandits met with oblivion.

The battle over, Lina and Gourry turned to Zelgadis.

"Hey, good timing!" said Lina.

"What happened?" asked Zelgadis.

"We went fishing, and when we came back to camp those bandits were trying to take whatever they could. I wanted to just take them all out with a Dragon Slave, but they were too close to the cave!" Lina replied.

Gourry looked up to see Amelia towering over the group. "D-D-Dragon!" he yelled.

"Gourry, relax! It's just Amelia." Zelgadis also looked up at Amelia. "I think you got too carried away this time. Just look at yourself!"

*I couldn't help it! When I saw them all attacking Miss Lina and Mr. Gourry...Oops.*

Zelgadis, Lina, and Gourry were all cringing on the ground, their hands covering their ears.

"Ow, Amelia! Keep it down, we can hear you just fine! Great..my ears will be ringing for a week!" complained Lina.

*Sorry.* Amelia whispered (or tried to. It's hard to make a quiet roar!)

Zelgadis, having recovered, looked about the camp. The tents were all torn up. Fortunately he'd had his pack of essentials with him. He looked up at the setting sun. "It's too late to head back now. Do we dare stay here for the night?"

"I don't see much choice. We should build a fire before it gets too dark. Just to keep back the cold. I doubt we'll have anymore trouble tonight, especially since we have a ferocious dragon to protect us." Lina replied.

Amelia sweatdropped. Leave it to Lina to take advantage of every situation.

A fire was built and everyone gathered around it. Well, mostly. Amelia was too large and so instead lay around the fire. Since the tents were all thrashed, everyone prepared for a night under the stars. Amelia had just started to drift off when she felt a drip land on her nose. She looked up to see storm clouds moving in. Then the downpour came...

"Argh! Wet!" yelled Lina.

Gourry and Zelgadis were also quick to wake up. Not wanting her friends to get drenched, Amelia unfurled a wing above them to protect them from the rain.

"Hey, good thinking, Amelia!" praised Lina.

"But will you be okay?" asked Zelgadis.

*I'll be fine. Don't worry about it.*

So the trio didn't. Instead they all moved closer to Amelia's body, as she gave off more heat than the dying fire. They all snuggled into their bedrolls and dozed off.

Come morning, everything and everyone was feeling refreshed. All except for Amelia. Not wanting her friends to get drenched, she had stayed awake the whole night. And since she had no protection from the elements, she had a heck of a cold.

Zelgadis was the first to have rational thought. "Hey, Bert said the spell was temporary. It should have worn off by now!"

Amelia responded by sneezing a huge ball of fire.

"Oh great, and now you're sick! Things just keep going from bad to worse." Zelgadis grumbled.

*Ib's nob zo bad.* Amelia sniffed.

"Not so bad? You sound awful! We should get back to Bert's cabin. Lina! Gourry! Wake up!"

"Aww Zel, it's too early! Gimme an hour..." Lina snored.

"You leave me no choice, Lina. Amelia, if you'd be so kind?" Zelgadis said.

Amelia got up and shook all the water off of her, showering Lina, Gourry, AND Zelgadis.

"AAH!! I'm awake! I'm awake!!" Lina screamed.

"What time is it?" asked Gourry.

"Nearly noon. If you slept in any later, you would have missed breakfast." Zelgadis replied.

"Why didn't you say so?" demanded Lina. "Hey Gourry, how does fish for breakfast sound?"

"Sounds good to me!" responded Gourry.

So Lina and Gourry went to go deplete the fish population even more. They came back shortly after with a small mountain of fish.

Lina looked at the previous night's fire. "Drat! This won't do, it's still damp!"

Just then Amelia sneezed another blast right at the pile of wood. It blazed to life instantly.

"Hey, thanks Amelia!" said Gourry. He and Lina set to work cooking breakfast.

"Hey Amelia, want any?" asked Lina.

Amelia clutched her stomach, or would have if she had regular arms, so she lay down on the ground instead.

"I'll take that as a 'No'. Oh well, more for me!" and Lina tore into the fish.

Amelia was again woken up, but this time by Lina poking (actually jabbing) her.

"Hey, we're ready to go." said Lina.

Amelia yawned. *All right, I'm coming.* She started to amble off, but noticed no one followed. *Well?*

Zelgadis came forward. "Actually Amelia, we think it'd be much quicker if you were to fly there."

*Oh...right.* Amelia again yawned, but then crouched low to allow everyone to climb onto her back.

"Are you sure you're up to it?" asked Lina.

*Yes, Miss Lina.* Amelia then took off.

The flight was very similar to the day before, but it was harder for Amelia to gain altitude, and the gusts from her wings nearly leveled the smaller trees below. It wasn't long before they spotted Bert's cabin, and Amelia landed. Zelgadis walked up to the door and knocked. Bert was quick to answer.

"Oh, so you're back already. How did everything go?" Bert asked.

"We ran into a few problems, actually." Zelgadis responded.

"Oh? And where is the young lady?"

"Right there." Zelgadis pointed at Amelia, who had resumed sleeping.

"Oh my... I warned you not to let her get excited!"

Zelgadis was exasperated. "It's not like I could prevent it." He thought. "Can you fix it?" he asked.

"Not when she's like that. She'd never fit in my cabin! She needs to be in the form she was when you left."

"Hold on." and Zelgadis walked over to the sleeping dragon. Amelia." he nudged her.

No response.

He tried to shake her.

No response.

He even (carefully!) kicked her.

Still no response.

"Here Zel, let me try." Lina walked right up to Amelia's ear (or where she thought it ought to be) and shouted: "Hey Amelia!! Time to WAKE UP!!!"

Amelia shot up in surprise. *Huh, wha-? What?*

Zelgadis glared at Lina. "Amelia, you need to change back into a bird."

*But I'm so tired...*

"Amelia, you have to! You can sleep all you want afterwards." Zelgadis responded.

*Oh, all right...* Amelia tried, but nothing happened.

"It's just as I feared. I won't be able to help her." Bert commented.

"What do you mean?!" demanded Lina. "You can't leave her like this!"

"But you see, there isn't anything I can do for her. But I do know somebody who can. -If you're willing to make the trip."

"Where?" demanded Zelgadis.

"Near the Desert of Destruction. I have a cousin there that can help her more than I can." said Bert.

"The Desert of Destruction?!? That's a month's journey from here!!" screamed Lina.

"It's either that, or you have yourself quite the pet." Bert replied.

"I got her into this mess. I'll go." stated Zelgadis.

"Hey, you can't take all the blame. We contributed, I guess." said Lina.

"Actually Lina, it was you that-" Gourry got cut off by Lina whacking him.

"Shh! Quiet!" Lina said.

Zelgadis shot a glance at the two. "We'd better be off then."

"Be careful, and say hi to Vinny for me!" said Bert, then he went back into his cabin.

"If we're headed down south, we'll definitely need supplies." Zelgadis commented.

"Hey Lina." said Gourry.

Lina completely ignored him. "Yeah, but the nearest town, aside from Seyruun, is at least a day away! We'd better start walking now."

"Hey Lina!"

"You forget, provided she agrees, Amelia can fly us to where we need to go much faster than we could walk." Zelgadis replied.

"Lina..."

"Well, let's go ask her then." said Lina.

"Lina!!" Gourry shouted in her ear.

"What?!?" Lina asked.

"You'll have to wait anyway. Amelia's really konked out over there." Gourry said.

Lina followed Gourry's pointed finger to the again snoozing Amelia. "Well, she did stay up all night to keep us dry. I supposed we can let her sleep for a little while. What say we go find that bandit camp to 'fund' our trip, Gourry?"

Zelgadis sighed. Some things just never changed. "Have fun you two, but don't be out late."

"Yes, Dad." grinned Lina.

"Later, Zel!" called Gourry.

Zelgadis assumed watch over Amelia and mulled over the previous day's events.