I do not own Slayers! I do not own Beauty and the Beast! All my writer's mind did was put two and two together as I was working on a film analysis project about the Disney animated version. This fiction is to definitely incorporate elements of original French fairy tale and Disney movie skewing so that writing this won't take forever and a freakin' day and force me to involve characters I barely know anything about. Characters from Slayers are apt to some persona changing to help fit the story, but basic elements are to be kept. Let me repeat: this is not based on the movie or the book singularly, I have not read a spoof like this one before (so I am not copying someone else's idea) and I do not own either of the Beauty and the Beast story versions or the Slayers anime/manga. Thank you, that is all.

Meganekko and the Chimera

Once upon a time, there was a nobleman who was all alone in the world. His parents had died when he was very young and left unto him a vast fortune and a castle full of caring servants. Yet, even though the servants all had good hearts and raised the young man well, he remained a bitter, spoiled brat.

Then, one snowy day, one of the maids found a beggar outside the home. The castle was in the middle of a blizzard so the young maid took him into the house and brought him before her master. The old beggar asked for food and shelter for until the storm passed and offered a single white rose in payment. All the servants thought it well enough, being there were no more roses from the gardens anymore and it was only a single poor beggar, yet the young lord believed otherwise.

"Get out of my house!" he roared. He had not notion to help anyone, even the blind beggar. The young nobleman regretted his refusal though, for immediately afterwards the beggar's guise melted away to reveal the most handsome enchanter that there ever was.

"You shall pay for refusing me," the red-clad enchanter said. "Your body is to be fused with the cold stone of your heart for always and eternity." Aiming his hand at the young man, he instantly cast the spell, causing the lord's body to painfully transform into stone.

"If you do wish to become human again, you have to find true love. Not only do you have to love her, but she has to love you in return, despite your appearance," the enchanter added.

The enchanter thus left, leaving the white rose as a reminder of the young noble's cursed life. It was an enchanted rose, therefore blooming forever and never showing signs of death. The years went by and the young man grew deeper and deeper into despair. The most loyal of his servants all passed on into the afterlife and his castle abandoned by all but himself. All this time he lived on, the same as the night he was cursed. His castle became legend and folklore, centered around his beastly stone appearance. Not a soul came by the property, even as a dare. Over time his hopes for finding love eventually became lost to him; for who in all the land could ever learn to love a beast?

"Daddy, I do not like this road," the young woman said. It was late autumn in the mountainous countryside and she was traveling home by horsecart with her elder sister and father from a nearby town. She sat next to her sister who drove the cart whilst their father rode on his black horse Gaston separate from the cart.

"Don't be silly Amelia!" her father, Phil, laughed. "This road is perfectly safe for travel. Those silly rumors about Graywords Castle being occupied by a beast made of stone are simply to scare off the weak-minded and superstitious."

"I know that Daddy," Amelia sighed. "I just do not think of this area as safe."

"You should listen to Father," her sister Garcia said as she snapped the horse's reins. "He knows what he is getting us into."

"By the sound of your voice, I would almost expect you to be agreeing with him for a change Garcia," Amelia said slyly. Garcia just turned red and concentrated fully on the earthen road.

"Girls, I shall be right back," Phil said. "Hurry on without me. I should not take too long."

"Sure thing Father," Garcia said blandly as Phil directed his horse to double back. The horse galloped away until he was safely out of sight.

Good thing I saw that clump of rose bushes earlier, Phil said to himself as he rushed his horse down the road. Those poor things look as if they are going to die soon. If I have any luck, there will be some nice ones left and I can bring them home for Amelia and Garcia. They both do love roses.

"Whoa Gaston!" Phil cried out as he brought his horse to a stop. There was the rose garden. Phil dismounted and looked about. He could not see any sign of life. In the distance was a castle that appeared dilapidated and uninhabited. Figuring that it was just the abandoned Graywords Castle and that everything was fine, Phil went and plucked a deep red rose from a nearby bush. He examined the flower in the afternoon sun. It was beautiful, having not a single blemish of the recent cold weather upon it.

"What are you doing?" a deep voice suddenly yelled. Phil turned around to see a man hidden in a cloak, glaring directly at him.

"I am sorry sir," Phil said apologetically. "I did not know..."

"How dare you!" the man cut in. He forcefully grabbed Phil's collar and looked at him straight in the eyes. "You are trespassing and stealing. What do you have to say?"

Phil did not know what to say. All he did was stare with fright into the eyes of the stranger. They were literally set in stone.

"Fine, to the tower with you," the man snarled. Phil pleaded with the man, offering to pay him for the rose, but it was too late. The man shooed away Gaston, dragged Phil into the castle he had thought to be abandoned and threw him into a tower prison cell. As the man stormed off, his identity flashed through Phil's mind.

This must be the Beast of Graywords Castle, he though. The legend is true! My life is over...

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"I wonder what is keeping Daddy," Amelia said as she looked out the window of her home into the evening darkness. Garcia was reluctantly cooking in the kitchen as she popped her head out of the swinging door.

"He is probably lost again," she said unenthusiastically. "He'll be here once he gets hungry enough."

"He has never been out this long though," Amelia said sadly as she went over by the bookshelf and picked up a book. She sat in an armchair by the roaring fireplace, put on a pair of reading glasses and started to read.

"Get your nose out of that book," Garcia scolded. "It is not right for a woman to read."

"Since when have you been like this?" Amelia snapped. "Always telling me what to do and how to act, as if you are Mother! It is not like the Garcia I know. The Garcia I know is just a miscreant with a severe problem with authority."

"Whether you like it or not, I care for my little sister," Garcia said as she walked into the room with a plate of mashed potatoes. She placed it on the wooden table in the dining area and scoffed. "I hear Gaston's whinny. Father must be home."

"Daddy!" Amelia cried out as she went outside to greet her father. Her spirits were quickly doused, for all she saw was her father's spooked horse without his rider.

"So, is he coming in for dinner?" Garcia asked as Amelia bolted back into the house. Without a word, Amelia grabbed her cloak and rushed back outside. Once she mounted the horse, she snapped the reins and rode off into the night, leaving Garcia at home to fume over having to cook a whole dinner and not have anyone else eat it.

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Amelia rode faster and faster into the bleak forest, her mind racing as fast as Gaston was. Her father must have been hurt or captured in order for Gaston to arrive home without him. She directed the horse to take her to the place where Phil was. Warily, the horse understood and took her up and down the various mountain passes that led to the crumbling castle.

"He can't be here," she said out loud, gazing in amazement at the grandeur of the castle exterior in the wan moonlight.

"Pfft," Gaston replied. Sure is!

"Stay right here," Amelia said softly as she dismounted Gaston and left him by the front steps. The horse whinnied in understanding reply and Amelia walked in through the front door.

The castle was so enormous, Amelia could barely believe her eyes. The hallways were tall with vaulted ceilings and many a window stain-glassed. Demonic paintings and gargoyles decorated the halls. It was frightening, looking around the castle for signs of her father. Finally, she came to a spiral staircase that went up into a tower. Grasping the torch by the entryway, Amelia gathered her courage and walked up the stairs, not sure to what she would find.

"Daddy?" she called out when she reached the top of the stairs. She seemed to be in a room with jail cells in it. This could not have been where her father was.

"Amelia!" Phil coughed. Immediately, Amelia rushed over to one of the cell doors. There was her father, scared as he could have ever been in his life.

"Who did this to you Daddy?" Amelia asked. Phil cut her off.

"Get yourself out of here!" he ordered. "Get away from this castle before he finds you!" Phil then started to cough and wheeze in the dank cell.

"Before...?" Amelia started. She could not finish her sentence, for the torch was whipped out of her hand and thrown across the room. The light was doused in a puddle of stagnant rainwater in the corner by an opening in the stone wall. Amelia looked over into the darkness. A man stood in the shadows, straying from the moonlight that shone through a hole in the ramshackle roof.

"Who are you?" the man's deep voice bellowed.

"I am this man's daughter sir," Amelia said. "Please let him go. My sister and I have dinner at home and are worried about him. Please sir..."

"I cannot do that," the man replied curtly. "This man is a trespasser and a thief"

"My father would never steal on purpose!" Amelia retorted.

"The fact is that he stole from my garden and should therefore be locked up," the man snarled. "Unless you want to take his place, I cannot let him free."

"Can you not hear his cough?" Amelia said over her father's coughing fit. "He is getting sick from this horrid tower! You have to let him go!"

"Then will you take his place?" the man asked. "If I let him go, you have to stay here forever in his place."

Amelia did not know what to do. Should she take her father's place or not? Amelia pondered the situation, before making up her mind.

"Step into the light," she meekly requested. She thought that she might as well see the face of the man that was to keep her prisoner.

Slowly, the man forced himself to step into the moonlight. His cloak hood was down, unlike before when he had imprisoned Phil. Amelia could see the steel of his hair gleaming in the light. His granite skin was as grey as a cloudy day and his blue sapphire eyes pierced her soul with cruel and ruthless spite. A wicked rapier sat at his hip and taunted Amelia's heart with its very presence.

Amelia gasped. Every story she had heard about the Graywords Castle immediately came back to her. According to local legend, the castle was supposedly inhabited by a beastly man with a face of stone to match his heart. Her neighbor claimed that her great-grandmother was once a servant of the monster and said that in the past one hundred years, he had not changed a single bit. He was a being to be feared, for none that went near the house ever returned to their homes alive.

Yet Amelia heard her father's coughing and stood up bravely. She walked over into the moonlight until she was standing right in front of the man. She looked him right into his eyes, his cold eyes of ice, and took a deep breath.

"Agreed."

"No! Amelia!" Phil exclaimed. The man went over to the cell door and pulled Phil out. "Amelia! Leave me here! Let my daughter go!"

"It was her choice," the man said coldly. He dragged Phil out of the house and threw him at Gaston, who was still waiting by the steps. Phil went and tried to get to the tall oaken door before it closed, but he barely missed it. He pounded and banged on the door, trying to get it to open, but it was no use. Instead, Phil hopped onto Gaston's back and rode off towards town, bent on finding some help.

Amelia cried as she watched her father ride away from the window of the tower. She knew that she would most likely never see him again and that she would die there in the castle. When Phil and Gaston were out of sight, she collapsed into the stone wall and wept even more. She only stopped when the room lit up, signaling a lit torch was near.

"Go away," she sniffled. The man looked at her with caution. It had been over seventy years since the last of his female servants ran away to the nearby village. It was barely imaginable to him now that a woman was to be his prisoner. It was useless to think that she would break his curse, being how she came to stay there. Sighing, he figured that he might as well be courteous with her, since he could not have his only human companion completely despise him.

"Follow me," he said grimly. Amelia looked at him through her bleary eyes, quite perplexed.

"Why...?"

"Do you want to stay here in the tower?"

"No..."

"Then follow me."

Amelia obediently followed him down the staircase and into the hall. In the torchlight, the whole castle appeared to be different. Amelia saw the shadows dance across the artwork, revealing gruesome images in the canvases. There were also portraits and busts all around the hallways as well. She was amazed at her surroundings as she caught things she did not see earlier.

"This castle is your home now," the man said, breaking the silence. "You are allowed to go anywhere you wish. Anywhere except the West Wing."

"What's in the W...?"

"It is forbidden!" the man roared. Amelia immediately quieted herself as he turned around and looked her dead in the eye. Those eyes frightened her more than anything.

Please God, she thought to herself as the man turned around again. Please do not let me die. Do not let him kill me.

"Here we are," the man solemnly said as he came to a stop by a door. He opened the door slowly and showed Amelia inside. It was a plain bedroom with a four-poster bed, wardrobe and vanity mirror. It was very dusty inside the room, as if there had not been anyone in it for years.

"Is this where I am going to stay?" Amelia asked.

"Yes," the man said as he lit some candles with the flame of the torch. "In an hour, you are to join me for dinner in the dining hall."

"I don't want dinner," Amelia sighed as she sat down on the bed.

"I never said it was a request," the man snarled. He spun around and stormed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Amelia fell into the mattress and cried some more as the wind howled outside her windowpane, bringing the first snow of winter with it.

Meganekko: Japanese for "pretty girl with glasses" or a hot geekish female, hence Amelia's reading glasses.

My Spoof In General: Yeah, I know everyone who has seen Disney's Beauty and the Beast had visuals of Amelia and Zelgadis before their eyes. I know the whole concept might sound cheesy, but I like it all the same. This whole thing is most likely going to seem stupidly humorous to the majority of readers as the story progresses, but remember, I'm over-critical of myself.