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CHAPTER 1

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"I'm bored." It was the frustrated exhalation of a spoiled brat, and spoke volumes about the calloused warrior that uttered it. "Nothing interesting ever happens here."

"Why don't you die? That might be interesting." Callisto did her best to ignore Sovereign's restless twitching, focusing instead on the contraption of wooden poles in her hands. At least he wasn't tapping. She hated the tapping.

What she had heard of Hercules's escape from the place between worlds, recounted by Sovereign with lots of vague hand gestures, had involved the use of these wooden poles to create some kind of key to open a vortex leading back into her world. She jammed the largest pole into a crevice between the rocks at the top of the cliff, turning it this way and that, keeping her eyes on the sky.

Lightning flashed in the distance, followed several moments later by a deep rumble of thunder.

Sovereign chuckled. "Sounds like Zeus has indigestion." He frowned, annoyed that Callisto seemed to find the wooden poles engrossing, if not enjoyable. "Why haven't you found a way out yet?"

"Why don't you help me instead of sitting on your ass and bitching all day?"

Sovereign belched loudly and scratched his crotch. "Nah. Too much work."

Callisto contemplated breaking Sovereign's neck, but as much as she hated to admit it, endlessly aggravating company was better than no company.

"This is so boring!"

Callisto sighed in profound irritation. "You'd figure that since Hercules is such an infernal goody-two-shoes, being stuck in the place between worlds with his complete opposite would be—entertaining—to say the least."

Sovereign leered at her. "If you're bored, we could always play house. You could be the screen door and I'd slam you all night long, baby." He absentmindedly drummed his fingers on the ground, tapping his fingernails against the hard stone.

Callisto pinched the bridge of her nose. "As tempting as it sounds, I'm afraid I'm going to have to KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS!"

She somersaulted into the air, jackknifing as she descended to kick him squarely in the balls. Sovereign doubled over in pain, affording her the chance to scratch his eyes out with her fingernails.

He socked her in the gut, grabbing her in a headlock on the way down. Callisto elbowed him in the kidneys as he punched her head repeatedly.

A deafening thunderclap reverberated on the jagged rocks as lightning struck the key. A shimmering blue vortex appeared in the sky, sucking everything unsecured into its swirling depths.

"It worked!" Callisto exclaimed, worming out of Sovereign's stranglehold. She launched herself at the vortex, already anticipating the look, the smell, the feel of her own world, the rush of adrenaline as she slit Xena's throat from ear to ear…

She was brought unpleasantly back to the present by Sovereign, who grabbed her firmly by the ankles. "Nice try, bitch!"

Callisto struggled to free herself from his grasp to no avail. Sovereign dug in his heels and held on tight despite the awesome pull of the vortex. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, feeling as if she would be torn in two if something didn't give.

A horrible wrenching sensation wracked her very soul. Opening her eyes, Callisto saw her own body below her and realized that somehow, her consciousness and her physical self had become separated…

The vortex collapsed in on itself and vanished with a bang.

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She was floating in the clouds, high above the earth. She could see a forest below her, patchwork-quilt fields, little towns the size of a child's building blocks. Shimmering liquid silver threads marked streams, and a river.

From her aerial vantage point, she could just make out four dots moving towards the forest, as tiny as ants. Their voices were a distant twitter on the very edge of her hearing. She began to descend, a shred of latent humanity buried in her consciousness desperate to confirm that evolution didn't stop with the Neanderthal that was Sovereign.

As the ants passed under the eaves of the forest, she heard an "oof!" followed by a crash.

"It's bad enough that you trip over your own feet, Joxer. You don't have to trip over mine as well!" a whiny voice complained.

There was a muffled "sorry," sounding as if spoken through several inches of leaf litter.

Descending farther, Callisto saw a blonde girl haul herself to her feet with a stick bigger than she was. The largest ant, now horse-shaped, pranced skittishly in place.

"I think I sprained something," mumbled a pile of leaves.

A voice like steel wrapped in silk sliced through the air. "Go on ahead, Gabrielle. Find a place to camp for the night by the river. We'll catch up." Strong hands reached into the leaves to haul out a figure built entirely of elbows and knees.

Gabrielle took Argo by the reins and led her into the forest, headed for a thin silver ribbon a few miles away. Callisto sailed effortlessly through the trees, trailing after her. The horse, sensing her presence, shied away from every bird's chirp and rustle of foliage.

"What's the matter, Argo?" Gabrielle stroked the horse's neck, trying to read the warning in Argo's panicky eyes. "You're so jumpy all of a sudden."

Quite out of the blue, another woman's voice issued from Gabrielle's mouth.

"Do you often hold conversations with dumb animals?" the voice asked.

Shrugging, Gabrielle decided to answer herself. "No…"

"I was talking to the horse."

Gabrielle's limbs moved seemingly of their own accord, flopping to and fro like a marionette with several strings missing. "Stop that!" Gabrielle ordered.

"No. It's fun," answered the voice. Gabrielle spun around crazily and ran headlong into a tree.

"You made me do that, didn't you?" Gabrielle accused the leaves fluttering overhead. "You're controlling me like I'm some sort of puppet!"

Duh. The voice answered her in her own head, satisfied that Gabrielle's vocal cords were under control. Gabrielle bounced to her feet and tottered unsteadily towards Argo, twirling her staff dangerously in her hand. Here horsey, horsey, horsey!

Argo took off like a shot through the forest. Gabrielle's shoulders shrugged of their own accord.

What's with the stick, anyway?

"It's a staff. It's my weapon," explained Gabrielle, affronted.

It's kindling. The staff broke over her knee.

Gabrielle screwed up her features, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw.

Are you trying to tell me that nature is calling?

"No, I'm trying to force you out!"

Laughter rung out in her head. Nice try, little girl. It'll take more than that to get rid of me. To prove her point, Callisto ran Gabrielle up a tree, somersaulted her through the air, and finished it all off with a triumphant jig.

Gabrielle collapsed to the ground, exhausted. "What do you want with me?"

I'm going to use you to kill Xena. The flush of fear and anxiety coursing through Gabrielle's veins felt like the bubbles in champagne to Callisto. I wonder if she'll die quietly or scream like a girl—I mean Perdicus.

Gabrielle's barely contained rage boiled over. Callisto felt what control she had slipping away through Gabrielle's fingers.

Gabrielle seized half of her broken staff and pounded her forehead with it. "Get… out… of… my… head!"

Callisto was unceremoniously ejected from Gabrielle's mind in a rush of fury. She found herself floating once more, disconnected, insubstantial as the wind.

A soft snap of twigs announced the presence of the warrior princess. Torn between concern and curiosity, Xena stood a little ways away, watching her friend beat herself senseless with her own staff. "Gabrielle? Are you all right?"

If Callisto had a body of her own, her face would have displayed a close contender for the biggest shit-eating grin in the world. She slid into the skull of her mortal enemy and made herself at home.

Get out. The words were little cubes of solid ice in her mind.

Aw, Xena, aren't you happy to see me? Figuratively speaking, of course.

"It's Callisto," Gabrielle panted, mildly concussed. "I don't know how, but she was in my head, talking to me! She wanted me to kill you!"

"Fancy that."

Fancy indeed. Would you look at all these little secrets and bottled up emotions?

Leave those alone.

Make me.

Anguish and remorse flooded Xena's mind. Tears as fresh as those she shed on the day she abandoned Solan cascaded down her face.

Callisto felt Xena struggling against her, mentally as well as physically. Xena anticipated a blow to the head with the hilt of her sword and ducked out of the way just in time.

Another internal button was pushed and pictures of Gabrielle being ripped limb from limb by bloodthirsty Bacchae danced before Xena's eyes.

This time Xena wasn't quite ready. Callisto took the chakram from her belt and used Xena's hand to press it tightly against her throat, choking her with it as she slowly sliced through the skin of her neck. Callisto's grip on the chakram slipped as Xena began to suffocate. She cried aloud with Xena's voice in frustration, struggling against both Xena's weakening body and Xena herself.

Xena's thoughts pierced their shared mind. Don't you get it? If you kill me while you're inside of me, you die too.

Callisto pondered this for all of half a second. It's worth it.

Xena's head slammed repeatedly into a chunk of granite protruding from the forest floor. Throwing herself at her friend, Gabrielle caught Xena's head in her hands, preventing Callisto from bloodying it any further. Xena's hands released the chakram and wrapped themselves around Gabrielle's neck instead.

Gabrielle straddled Xena with her knees on her friend's chest, straining to release Callisto's grip on her throat. Callisto responded by pulling Gabrielle's face closer to Xena's to better bite off her nose. The pushing and pulling between the two women and one demented disembodied goddess produced a mad see-saw motion, their combined grunts and squeals of aggravation drowning out the sounds of the forest.

The crunch of brushwood underfoot signaled an arrival. They looked up as one just in time to see Joxer's mesmerized face smack into a tree branch. He tried to laugh it off, rubbing his forehead in pain. "Didn't see that there. Guess my mind must have been somewhere… else…"

Xena used Callisto's split-second of distraction to squeeze her out of her mind like a watermelon seed.

"Um, sorry for interrupting… I, uh… I…" Joxer gave up on apologizing after a few attempts and frankly stared.

"She's gone," Xena croaked from under the weight of Gabrielle's body. Relieved, Gabrielle stood up to dust herself off, giving Joxer a hearty glare in the process. "You can re-attach your jaw now, Joxer," Xena said, massaging the cut on her throat.

Bitch. Callisto muttered curses to herself as she rose freely into the air. Both Xena and Gabrielle had grown wise to her little scheme, and furthermore had figured out how to expel her from their minds. There was only one option left, really.

The intended victim swallowed nervously and headed a little ways off into the forest to give his companions some privacy, trying his hardest not to smack into anything else.