Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Slayers franchise, and am making no money from this fic. I am simply doing this for fun.

"Wait a minute, just back up a second there. Did I just hear you right?" Lina asked incredulously.

"I believe so," Nell answered with a small smile as she sat down beside Xellos.

"The first monster?" Amelia asked with a slight trace of panic in her voice.

"The first," Nell confirmed.

"The true Hellmaster?" Zelgadis asked.

"The one and only," Nell said with a nod.

Gourry blinked in confusion. "But I thought that Phibo guy was the Hellmaster. You know...that creepy little kid."

Nell sighed. "Ah, yes...Phibrizzo. Please don't associate me with that whiny, little brat," she said with a soft groan as she aimlessly poked the fire with a stick. "What a pathetic excuse for a Hellmaster...preferring to stay in the shadows and manipulate others into doing his bidding. Humans knew the true meaning of terror when I was Hellmaster. When they heard my name, they trembled in fear."

Nell's eyes glowed briefly. "I claimed the lives of countless humans without so much as a second thought...it didn't matter to me who they were, what they did, or whether they were innocent or guilty. I would take the life of a newborn baby just as soon as I would take the life of an ancient relic of a person. Young, old...healthy or sick, it didn't matter to me. All lives were mine for the taking. I killed indiscriminately and enjoyed every moment of it. I took great joy in reaping the fruits of my labor and was always coming up with new ways to cause terror and suffering. Disease of different kinds...pestilence, or simply just having perfectly healthy humans drop dead for my own pleasure. Just for fun I would even resurrect the dead and have them terrorize their living loved ones...ripping them limb from limb and having them feast upon their fresh organs and still pumping blood. I enjoyed getting my hands dirty...unlike Phibrizzo who preferred having others do all the dirty work."

Xellos chuckled softly. "Now, now, Nell. Be nice."

"Who's Phibrizzo?" Rii asked curiously, all the while trying to fight the urge to vomit after hearing all of Nell's exploits.

"My replacement," Nell answered. "You see, after I was sealed into a human body, the Lord of Nightmares got tired of creating havoc and chaos on her own, so she created Shabranigdo to help her wage her chaotic war against mankind. Shabranigdo in turn created five demons lords to help the cause...the first of which was Phibrizzo, who is now dead. Gaav was another...but he's dead too. The final three remaining are Greater Beast Zelas...who you met tonight, Dynast Grausherra and Deep Sea Dolphin."

"That's all well and good," Lina said. "But that still doesn't explain you...like why Ceifeed sealed you in a human body. Why not just destroy you?"

Nell smiled wryly. "Because he couldn't...and not for lack of trying. I was simply too powerful for him. Besides...why destroy me when he could make me atone for all my 'sins' for all eternity?"

"By sealing you in a body?" Amelia asked.

Nell nodded. "But not just that...he gave me a soul...a conscience so I could feel the guilt of all that I had done while I was Hellmaster, and the process would repeat every time my human body died. While I would be reborn into a new body, I would still retain all the memories from my previous lives." She sighed and leaned against Xellos, nestling into him when he slid an arm around her.

"So he repeated the same process with Gaav that he did with you," Zelgadis supplied.

"Not quite, Mister Zelgadis," Xellos answered. "With Gaav and Shabranigdo, the purpose to sealing them in human bodies was to purify them over time and thus eliminate them. In the case of the lovely Nell, Ceifeed sought not to eliminate her, but to punish her eternally by enduring her guilt for all time."

Nell nodded slowly. "And Ceifeed used up so much of his strength and energy exacting my punishment that all he could do was seal Gaav and Shabranigdo away before he himself was destroyed...he wasn't able to enforce the same punishment on them as he did with me." She sighed. "I've lost count of how many times I have been reborn...but the guilt, the weight of my 'sins' has pressed ever heavily on me."

"Not to press our luck, but couldn't you have broke free or merged your demon half with your human soul like Gaav did?" Lina asked. "I mean, you obviously have your powers despite being in a human body."

Nell smiled softly. "Yes, I could very easily break free of my mortal prison...just as I could easily merge my two halves together."

"Then how does that make us safe with you?" Amelia asked worriedly...the full magnitude of Nell's power making itself very clear in her head as images of all Nell's crimes against mankind played vividly through her mind. "How do we know we won't come to any harm, like you said?"

"Because I have no desire to wreak death and despair amongst either you or the world. I have no desire to reclaim my realm." Nell answered softly. "You see...I like it here," she said with a smile. "During all my lifetimes of being here, I've grown very fond of this world."

"Excuse me?" Lina and Zelgadis asked together in disbelief.

"What's so strange about that?" Gourry asked.

Lina groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I've explained this to you at least a dozen times. Monsters want nothing more than destruction and chaos. To come across one that wants neither is more rare than a triple blue moon. Geez, how many times do we have to go over this, yogurt-brains?"

Gourry grinned. "Want a taste?"

"No, I don't!" Lina exclaimed and she shoved the handsome swordsman hard.

"Oof!"

"Oh, poor Mister Gourry," Rii said as she helped the swordsman sit up again.

Nell giggled softly. "Allow me to explain. When I said I retained all my memories from my previous lives, it was both true and misleading. I do retain them...but I don't receive them until my sixteenth birthday. Every time I was reborn...until the day I turned sixteen, I was simply 'Nell', a carefree girl who loved her family and who had necromantic abilities. " She sighed softly. "That was sixteen years of me not knowing who I really was...sixteen years for me to become attached to this world and its people."

Amelia nodded. "Oh, I get it...so it was Ceifeed's final punishment to you."

"Exactly," Nell affirmed with a nod. "For how else could I truly feel guilt and contrition for all the evil I had done? How else would Ceifeed guarantee that my truest of forms would remained sealed away within my mortal prison? After sixteen years of living happily in this world only to suddenly feel the pain and anguish I had caused countless humans...it was more than I could bear. The first few thousand times that I had to endure it...I went mad from it. It was too much and I couldn't endure it...so I would take my own life...only to be reborn and start the cycle over again." Nell seemed to draw in on herself. "I remember each and every time I killed myself...right down to the last detail..."

Despite her strong sense of justice and revulsion over all Nell's confessions, Amelia could not help feeling sympathy for the blond girl sitting in front of her.

Rii blinked. "So...how are here now?"

Lina nodded. "Yeah...how did you break the cycle?"

Xellos smiled. "That was my doing." He reverently smoothed Nell's hair with a hand. "Shortly after the War of the Monsters' Fall, I came across the lovely Nell a month before her sixteenth birthday. I was immediately drawn to her dark powers and energy, so I naturally remained close to her. I had no idea at the time who she really was...I thought I had simply stumbled fortunately upon an endless supply of dark energy, so naturally, I did everything I could to assure I could remain in Nell's presence. I became her friend and companion...and later her lover. During our time together, I became aware that she had a very old soul, but it wasn't until a few days before her sixteenth birthday that I began catching brief glimpses of what could only have been her past lives...as though they were gradually beginning to awaken after years of being dormant. The night before Nell turned sixteen, she snuck out of her family's home and into the woods and met up with me..."

"Spare us the details," Lina said dryly as she blushed almost as red as her hair.

Xellos grinned and chuckled softly. "Very well, Miss Lina. Well, midnight came just as we were...finishing up, and I was suddenly flooded by Nell's memories as they awoke within her. I saw everything..."

"As did I," Nell added. "And I started panicking..."

"I was able to absorb what Nell was feeling, and relieve the pressure so to speak, and I began making sense of everything that I saw," Xellos said. "Once the worst had passed, and I was sure Nell was resting comfortably, I went off in search of something...anything that could confirm what I had witnessed...all the while going over all her memories in my mind. I could find no records at all of Hellmaster Nellistras, but I couldn't deny all the memories I had seen, or the surge of power I felt coming from Nell once the memories were awakened."

"Why weren't there any records though?" Zelgadis asked.

Nell sighed. "Humans were much simpler when I ruled over the Underworld. They hadn't yet evolved into what they are now...and whatever primitive records they did keep were no doubt destroyed over the course of time."

"So the most feared being known to man simply faded away into nothing," Zelgadis mused quietly.

"Yes," Xellos said with a nod. "Quite tragic, actually. So from that moment on, I became Nell's unofficial guide...and every time she was reborn at the end of her now much longer lives, I repeated the process."

"Talk about de ja vu," Lina said dryly.

Nell nodded. "Xellos kept me sane...he taught me how to embrace my past and not run from it. Once I had done that, I decided to begin using my powers to help others...and thus began my current crusade."

"Okay...if you're as powerful as you say you are, why were you freaking out after you battled Zelas, or whatever her name was?" Rii asked.

"Because I was fighting to keep my true self sealed away," Nell answered. "In battling Zelas, I drew upon powers that I hadn't used since before Ceifeed sealed me away...in doing so, I risked destroying the 'Nell' you see before you and being completely taken over by my demon self."

Zelgadis, Lina and Amelia all nodded in understanding.

"Well, on behalf of all of us, thanks for not losing control," Lina said. In all truthfulness, the sorceress had no idea of how she could have defeated Nell should she have become Nellistras and gone on a rampage. The Giga Slave was of course out of the question. Lina had no desire to cross that bridge again...


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...Three hours later...

The light of the full moon filtered down through the trees of the secluded area of the woods, illuminating Nell and Xellos as they walked in the night. Unable to sleep, Nell had decided to go for a stroll. Xellos had only been too happy to accompany her.

"You know what this reminds me of?" Xellos asked softly as he slid an arm around his mistress' waist.

"What?" Nell asked.

"The very first night we ever made love," the mazoku answered with a smile. "It was a night just like this..."

Nell smiled fondly at the memory. Xellos had spent nearly an entire hour with his head between her legs...his tongue deeply and slowly exploring her most intimate of regions before finally plunging into her with his hard, throbbing manhood and taking her virginity. "I remember that night...it was centuries ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday." Their's truly was an affair for all the ages, and Nell's smile only grew as she mused silently over that thought.

Xellos stopped and vanished his staff away so he could wrap both his arms around Nell's waist and pull her close. "Would you like to recreate it?" he asked as he gazed into his mistress' eyes. She aroused him in ways the Greater Beast never could.

Nell smiled impishly up at her lover as she slid her arms around his neck. "Do you really need to ask?"

Xellos answered by capturing Nell's soft lips in a slow, but hungry kiss as he began removing her clothing.


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Lina hugged herself and rubbed her hands over her arms in attempts to keep herself warm as she made her way back to the campsite after answering nature's call. All the while she walked, her mind kept going over what she had learned that night...

Nell was really Hellmaster Nellistras...the first demon ever created by the Lord of Nightmares...the true ruler of the Underworld, and by all accounts, a really heavy-hitter in the power department. She was an evil so ancient, that all myths and legends of her died after her defeat. Her truest form was a demon so dark and evil that she made Phibrizzo look like a basket of newborn kittens.

By all accounts, Nell should not be trusted...not after all the things she had admitted to doing. As it was, Lina trusted Xellos no further than she could throw him...but Nell had saved Lina and her friends repeatedly and without any ulterior motives. She had also fought so hard to contain her true self when she could have easily allowed herself to succumb to its dark power. Nell did have those things in her favor...could they make up for the constant threat of her Hellmaster self lying barely contained below her serene and lovely surface?

In all honesty, Lina had no idea what to think. She had never come a cross a 'reformed' demon as it were; yet, Nell seemed completely sincere in her desire to continue her repentance and live out eternity in the human world while using her powers to help those who needed it. However, despite being trapped in a human body, Nell's powers were obviously at their full capacity and more than able to break her free of her mortal prison and return her back to her formal infamous glory despite all her good intentions.

Lina felt lost. She had no answers at all...

The sound of whimpers tore Lina from her reverie and she tilted her head to the side, listening. She heard them again and set off in the direction they were coming from. Was someone hurt? Was someone lost? There was only one way to find out. The petite sorceress had been prepared to find maybe a lost child or woman wandering the woods. She had not however been prepared for the sight that greeted her as she carefully picked her way through the bushes.

There, about twenty yards in front of her, Nell lay on her back--completely naked and with Xellos' head between her spread legs. Her fingers tangled in the mazoku priest's luxurious hair and she whimpered softly in blissful surrender as her demon lover worshiped her warm center with his tongue...his hands gripping her hips and holding her in place.

Lina covered her mouth to keep from gasping in surprise and hurriedly dropped to her knees behind the bushes to avoid being seen. She should leave. She knew that she should leave and return to the campsite...

But the petite sorceress could not bring herself to move...completely transfixed by what she saw. What Nell and Xellos were doing...Lina had countlessly fantasized about Gourry doing the exact same thing to her...and as she watched the demon lord being so worshipped by her devoted servant, Lina could not stop herself from imagining Gourry and herself in their places--instantly being rewarded with an ache deep in her abdomen.

A pleasured cry caused the sorceress to peek again only to see that Xellos had impaled Nell with his hard length and was now thrusting slowly and deeply into her. Lina watched as Nell wrapped her arms and legs around her lover and she looked on with longing as Xellos lavished attention on the lovely blonde's breasts...kissing and nipping before suckling a nipple into his mouth. She imagined it was her instead of Nell, and Gourry instead of Xellos...how she longed for the handsome swordsman to lavish attention on her small breasts like that. How she longed to feel him inside of her...

The ache in her abdomen worsened and Lina felt a warm wetness pooling between her legs as she watched Xellos' thrusts quicken and harden until he was pounding into Nell whose moans of rising ecstasy combined with the mazoku priest's groans of pleasure. Nell's nails dragged along her lover's back as he spurned her onwards to blissful release...throwing her head back and crying out his name as he yelled out hers...leaving Lina feeling as though she would go mad with wanting!

As she watched Nell and Xellos curl around each other and bask in their afterglow, Lina tried sorting out her own feelings. She loved Gourry. She knew she did...no matter how she imagined her future, Gourry was always in it. She also knew she wanted him! Lina wanted no one else but him. Why could Lina simply not tell him so? What was holding her back? Was she afraid of getting hurt? Was she afraid of allowing herself to let Gourry into her heart and then suffering the pain of losing him in a battle? Lina did not know what was holding her back. But at that moment, she would have given anything to be able to figure it out.

Anything...just so she could experience what Xellos and Nell were experiencing right then at that very moment...

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