Warnings: Slash - Lime, Het - Lime, Violence, a teeny bit of gore, some non-consensual stuff but it won't go very far (no rape).

Disclaimer: How does that go again? I do not own the Slayers, or Mazenda, or Xellos, or Zelgadis, or Lina…and especially I cannot claim to have created the greatest Mazoku of all time, the high and mighty Chicken-san, the Great Tiiba.

Authors notes at the end.

Chaos Principle

By Xellas M.

Chapter 3

Within heartbeats, the kiss had deepened. Mazenda's hands snaked downward from his chin, over his chest, to his waist. The feeling was not at all like it was before; this time the kimera felt strangely detached from his own body. His mind screamed at him to stop this, to try and fight it, but like an addict reaching for his next fix, the cravings of his flesh overruled everything else. Until Zelgadis realized he had entangled his hands in the monster's red hair and the overwhelming shame brought on by the sight of his own blue flesh in that crimson mass returned some of his strength.

He grasped a handful of soft hair and pulled with all his strength. Temporarily he succeeded in pulling her away. "NO!" He yelled more loudly than he intended, struggling for control over himself. His grip in his attacker's hair tightened further yet, until he was amazed that it was not being pulled right out of the woman's head.

Mazenda laughed. Although it was not a mocking laugh, or a cold laugh, or anything that would ordinarily freeze a man's spine, it chilled Zelgadis to his core. It was a throaty chuckle, a combination of amusement and arousal. "That's beautiful, lover. Please, don't stop, I can take anything you care to give me."

She lunged back toward the kimera quickly, pulling herself against his grip. So forceful was her movement that great bloody clumps of hair were ripped from her scalp, hanging in disgusting limp and messy strands from his shaking fingers. This time, when her lips met Zelgadis' they did so brutally, her tongue lashing viciously into his mouth.

The trapped man's mind froze in sheer terror. How could he fight this? There was nothing he could do; he could barely fight his own desires, much less work up the amount of energy it would take to fight someone who wasn't the least bit afraid of him, someone who wanted him to fight.

Fortunately, he didn't have to.* Before things progressed too much further, the kimera felt a change in the atmosphere, a presence. He did not need to look to know exactly who it was.

Barely a moment later, Mazenda's warmth was gone from his body, the air extremely cool against the sensitized skin the monster had managed to expose during her explorations. Immediately, the kimera straightened his clothes, his eyes never leaving the scene taking place before him.

The female Mazoku was slammed against a far wall, hard enough to crack the stone surface but it was still not enough to render her unconscious or even visibly much damaged. A single line of black blood trickled down her forehead and her inhuman red eyes quivered as she regarded the purple-haired priest that stood before her.

Xellos stood between Zelgadis and his attacker, sheer rage visible in his stance. The purple-haired Mazoku gestured and the same bolts of black energy that had taken the lives of a crowd now focused on the terrified female. As they hit, she screamed, a wail of pain so high-pitched it could never have issued from a human throat. Zelgadis' sensitive ears could not take the noise; desperately, he tried to block out the sound with his hands.

Finally, Xellos let up for a moment. Curious, the kimera removed his hands to listen.

"You disobeyed." The purple-haired man said, completely without emotion.

"You can't kill me, Gaav-sama would have your hide. The right was mine. He isn't yours yet, Xellos." Mazenda spat out. Her voice was terrified, shaky, as though she did not believe her own words.

"You are right, I cannot kill you." Xellos began. He waited. Eventually the words sank in and the purple-skinned female began to relax as much as she could, given that she was still pinned to the wall. "But you are here to serve Xellas-sama, and therefore to serve me, and it is my right to punish you until you beg me to let you die."

Again, black energy shot from the priest's hands to torment the captive Mazoku. Her face the picture of sheer desperation, Mazenda bit through her own lip in an attempt to stop her own screams. Inevitably, she lost that battle. Again she shrieked in high-pitched agony. Zelgadis did not wait to hear or see more. All he knew was that he had to get out of there, that he needed to pull himself together before facing his rescuer. He left the room; Xellos did not even pause in his torture as the kimera exited.

* * * * *

The first thing Zelgadis did upon leaving was return to his quarters for a very long, scalding-hot shower. But even water hot enough to cause steam to rise from his stonelike body was not enough to wash away his shame and self-loathing. He glared down at his naked body in disgust, feeling betrayed not by Xellos or even Mazenda, but by his own flesh.

He had to leave this place, immediately. If he stayed it would only be a matter of time before he woke up the plaything of a monster, doomed by his own nature to be nothing more than property. Given the choice, he'd rather risk dying at the hands of an angry crowd. But where could he go?

Eventually, he left the shower and got dressed but he still felt no better. It was ironic that he, of all people, should be missing the days of the Ryuzoku rule. The dragons had been horrible enough to him, true, but the monsters wanted him as nothing more than a toy and the humans had tried to kill him. Now he was in a horrible fix: he couldn't stay, but he couldn't leave. Unless…

Unless he had company, a single human willing to procure food and help him until he was able to survive on his own. He simply had to find one that needed him as badly as the kimera needed him or her.

Acting immediately on the thought, Zelgadis went in search of the dungeons. Unlike the library, the location of the prison cells was widely known - the lower ranks of monsters seemed to enjoy threatening the servants with imprisonment or worse if their demands were not met.

Within a very short time, the kimera found himself standing before the only entrance to the cells. The doors were guarded by a single Mazoku who looked much less human than Mazenda had. Actually, if Zelgadis had to describe this monster, he would have called it a…

"Chicken."

A feathered head tilted upward at him, irritation evident in its eyes. "I am the great Tiiba, kimera. You will address me with respect."

"Whatever. Just let me in to see the prisoners, Mr. Chicken."

Rage ruffled the monster's feathers and it began to take hopping steps forward. If not for recent events, Zelgadis would have found the sight extremely amusing. As it was, he pulled out his plasma gun and aimed it at the small Mazoku's beak.

"You do not touch me. You will open this door, now. If you so much as brush against me, even slightly, I will be having a fried chicken dinner tonight."

It shouldn't have been possible for a face covered completely in gray feathers to pale in fear, but the kimera's words accomplished just that. Wing-like arms shaking, Tiiba unlocked and opened the door leading to the holding cells. The Mazoku then backed away as far as it possibly could in the confined space, giving the kimera plenty of room to pass.

The airtight door opened slowly and it was all Zelgadis could do not to gag as the stench of unwashed bodies and worse reached his sensitive nose. Pitiful moans and insane babbling assailed his ears. He would be lucky to find anyone in good enough condition to walk, much less help him.

This fear was confirmed as he walked down the long corridor lined on either side with shallow cells. Almost every one of them was full. While the creatures trapped within might well have once been human, it was difficult to apply that description to them in their current state.

Until he reached a cell near the end in which sat one small redheaded girl. She could not have been captive long, she was still mostly clean and had enough awareness left to stare at him through the bars. There was something unnerving about the way she gazed at him. It felt as though she was cataloguing his every nonhuman trait, measuring him up for something and finding him lacking.

"Do you find my face that freakish?"** The kimera snapped. It was bad enough that he needed to use one of these creatures for survival; he really did not need to cope with further insult.

She shot back in an unexpected challenge. "You're not Mazoku."

It was the first time he had heard the name of Xellos' race on the lips of a human. Apparently this little girl was more than she seemed. Hope rose within him; this could be very useful. The kimera carefully kept his expression from revealing his interest as he replied, "No, I'm not."

She scratched her head and chuckled sheepishly. "Say, do ya think you could maybe let me outta here? My, um, partner is going to be very worried if I don't meet him."

"What are you doing in here anyway, little girl?"

For a minute, the prisoner looked crushed. Then her small hands bunched into fists and she turned a surprisingly effective death glare on him. "Little girl? Do I look like a little girl to you, moron?"

Zelgadis sighed. His entire life was falling apart around him and he was supposed to worry about some girl-child's vanity?

"I don't have time for this." He said flatly, then turned to walk away. The redheaded girl screeched insults at his retreating back, but he didn't really hear them. What he had said was true. Not only was he out of time, he was out of options as well. The girl was small enough; he should have no problems forcing her to help him. They would escape together, and then the kimera would rid himself of her.

The alien had hoped to make it back to his quarters, pack, grab the girl and be on his way before Xellos caught up with him.

He did not even make it very far from the dungeon. That strange and now familiar tingling shift in the atmosphere told him that he had company. As Zelgadis looked around, he noticed with alarm that he was very alone in a very empty corridor very far from any of the active portions of the temple.

"See anything you liked in there, Zelgadis-san?" Apparently even all the violence the kimera had witnessed hadn't been enough to stop that voice from sending shivers down his spine. If anything, they were getting worse.

"I haven't seen anything I like since the day I came here." Zelgadis could sense the monster behind his back but forced himself to stay still and not turn around.

His effort was wasted. Xellos floated around the kimera, close enough to touch, until he landed directly before the frustrated young man. The monster paused to pout for a moment before smiling broadly once again.

"That's good to know. For a minute, I thought you were starting a collection of red-headed females."

Xellos knew where Zelgadis had gone. For some reason, this was no surprise. Almost nothing about the Mazoku would have surprised him at this point.

"Don't you have anything better to do than follow me around?"

"Good question." The priest paused for a moment, pretending to think. "Nope!"

Zelgadis sighed, but the monster continued again before he could speak. "You could at least say thank you. It isn't becoming for a kimera to be so rude."

Becoming??? Who cared what that monster thought was becoming? But much as the alien hated to admit it, Xellos had a point. "Thank you." There, he'd said it. Maybe that obnoxious pest would go away now.

"You're welcome!" Xellos practically sang. "Well, I must be going- "

Here the kimera began to relax for a moment, until the priest continued.

" - Oh, but I almost forgot. You weren't planning to rescue that girl, were you? She's scheduled for execution and it really wouldn't do for you to interfere."

"Execution? What could a little girl like that possibly have done to merit death?"

"She put her nose where it didn't belong." For a split second, the Mazoku's eyes opened, reminding Zelgadis of the monster's cruelty.

"That's hardly a good enough reason to kill someone."

Xellos shrugged. "You want to save her?"

The alien's guard went up at the question. "What do you want?"

The priest smiled and held up a single finger. "One. You do not tell anyone about me, not one little thing. I enjoy my privacy and intend to keep it that way. We've never even met. I am your deepest and most personal secret. Understand?"

Like Zelgadis was going to run around advertising their relationship! He nodded agreement. "Yes." He knew more was coming; this was too easy. He had a sinking feeling that he knew just what the second demand would be.

The Mazoku held up a second finger. "Two. I want another kiss."

Sometimes Zelgadis truly hated being right.

The kimera thought it through carefully. If Xellos had intended to force him, the monster could have done so any time. He didn't know what kind of game the priest was playing, but almost anything had to be safer than wandering around loose in a temple filled with Mazoku. And most importantly, he knew just what would happen to the girl if he refused. When looked at that way, Zelgadis didn't really have a choice.

"Only one?"

"Only one." Xellos agreed. "It's really not a bad deal - an entire life for a single kiss."

No, the kimera had no choice at all. Xellos may be a monster, but despite everything Zelgadis had endured, he was not. He could not allow the girl to die over something so small. He gave in.

"Agreed." He looked to the monster.

Xellos just smiled at him.

Zelgadis waited.

Xellos continued to smile.

Zelgadis got irritated. "Well?"

"I'm waiting for you to kiss me, Zelgadis-san."

The kimera growled. Bad enough that he had agreed to submit in any way, however minor, to the dangerous man standing in front of him, but this was rubbing his face in it! Firmly, he reminded himself that he had no other choice. He drew in a deep breath and reached out to Xellos. The kimera's hands shook as they grasped the Mazoku's broad shoulders and pulled the purple-haired priest down.

Zelgadis had forgotten his irritation by the time their lips met. For the third time, he was overwhelmed with desire. This time it was different. He wasn't confused, or taken unaware or unwilling. He felt his partner melt into him. Xellos submitted entirely to his every unspoken desire, telling the kimera wordlessly just what he had to offer, seducing Zelgadis and promising everything. And the kimera did want everything; his protection, his self-denial, was simply not strong enough to hide this truth. He bit down on the monster's lip, hard, and relished the soft moan he received in return.

It was Xellos who was shaking as he pushed the kimera away, ending their embrace. His purple eyes were open, filled with an emotion Zelgadis could not name but one that seemed to stir up a half-remembered pain from deep within the kimera's soul.

"Take her and go. Now." The Mazoku's voice was soft.

The alien could not even object to being commanded. He knew now that Xellos wanted him as badly as he wanted Xellos, the monster's kiss had told him so. The priest's self-control was much greater than his own but it apparently had its limits.

Without saying another word, Zelgadis stumbled back to his quarters.

* * * * *

There was very little to pack. He had been brought to this place with nothing at all, even his clothes had been ruined. Zelgadis had planned to simply grab the few personal items he had managed to acquire through his stay and leave. There was no longer any need to sneak the prisoner out in the middle of the night, after all.

He was therefore surprised, grateful and suspicious all at once when he saw the warm, hooded cloak, mask and gloves that had been carefully laid out for him. It was a clear message - you can go, for now, but I'm not finished with you yet.

And just where was he to go? In his panic after Mazenda's attack, he hadn't stopped to think that far ahead. He needed supplies and a place to stay that was far removed from any of the human cities yet had all the facilities he would need to continue his search for his origins, which had become more important to him than ever before. With a sigh, he resolved to return to the one place he had sworn he would never step foot in again.

His return to the dungeons was quick and uninterrupted. The big gray chicken monster clucked nervously at the kimera's reappearance, hastening to unlock the gate before he was even asked. Zelgadis approached the cowering bird and smirked when he lifted his hand to the creature and Tiiba jerked back as though afraid he would be struck. The alien quickly removed a ring of keys from dirty feathers, bowed slightly, and went to free his new partner.

The redheaded girl was asleep when he approached her cell, one small fist curled up under a disarmingly peaceful face. She woke up immediately when he unlocked the door, with an alertness that was impressive.

"Oh! You are here to rescue me! But why? I know, you must have fallen for your lovely captive!" She finished, hearts in her eyes.

Maybe she had been here longer than he had thought. Maybe she had already become delusional. He looked at her intently, trying to determine whether or not she was sane.

"I guess not." She sighed.

He motioned for her to be quiet. Of course, there was no real need for secrecy, but the girl did not know this, nor did she need to. And whether she knew it or not, she owed him. Bigtime.

She followed him silently, only stopping to pull a knife and fork from out of nowhere which she brandished threateningly at the terrified monster who had been guarding her prison.

The pair crept unchallenged out of the temple and into the streets of a very large city. Zelgadis had no idea where he was but did not want to ask because that could lead to questions he had no intention of answering. Silently, he pulled up his hood and put on his white mask.

"Aaaah, it feels so GOOD to breathe some clean air for a change. Thank you!" The girl smiled up at him, openly. It was such a simple statement, so pure, that underneath his mask the kimera felt his lips tug into the first smile they had worn in weeks.

"Don't talk much, do you?" she continued, "Well, thanks anyway. I've got to meet my partner; he's probably gotten into who knows what kind of trouble by now, the jellyfish. Bye!" Nonchalantly, the girl waved at him and started heading off.

Only to be jerked back as the kimera's hand snagged her shirt collar. "Your partner can wait. You're going to help me."

"Pushy! I don't think so, thanks all the same. You look like the type that attracts trouble."

Zelgadis began to suspect that this was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. "Be that as it may, you are going to help me." Subtly, he opened his cloak to show her the plasma gun in his hand.

Her eyebrows rose in surprise, but she did not panic or freak out the way he had initially thought she would. "I guess I'll help you first, then. My name's Lina. Lina Inverse. And you're?" She extended her hand.

"Zelgadis." Carefully, he reached out and took her hand in one of his while keeping a firm grasp on his gun with the other. He let go almost immediately.

"And, um, where are we going?"

"To my Grandfather's house." Zelgadis replied, his eyes closing briefly as he remembered the man who had awoken him and become his mentor, his only family…the man who had later betrayed him. Rezo.

* * * * *

~End Chapter 3

To Be Continued

* * * * *

AN: Whew! That pretty well ends the set-up. More action to come…

*A penny to ShadowShapeShifter and jade-illusion. ^_~ If you were Xellos, would you let her have Zel? LOL

**Oh, and there are a few points in this story that in some ways parallel portions of the series…so I thought it'd be fun to borrow this line and Lina's line about Zel falling for her. I may grab one or two others as the mood strikes, unless it seems cheesy? I mean the bad kind of cheesy, not the happy kind. ^_^