Chapter Eleven A REALLY Big Golem

Valgaav winced as a warhammer appeared where his head had been about half a second ago. Despite the fact that the steel golems fighting him were the exact same matter of the weaponry that he'd finished reducing to slag, these things were...a bit tougher.

In all honesty, they were actually a fair bit more than a little tougher. Despite their greatly increased size, they were a LOT faster; enough so that a fair number of his spells and spell-like attacks weren't doing any good. And for some reason, they had developed a fairly heavy resistance to those attacks that were actually hitting. Add to that their abilities to use their war hammers and battle axes to good effect with enough brute force to actually damage him, and things were slightly less fun than he'd originally thought.

He bit back a curse as he failed to completely dodge the next attack; the axe actually drew a fair amount of blood along his chest. The other problem was that there were just so damn many of the blasted things. If he focused hard enough, he knew he could get enough energy built up to vaporize one. Unfortunately that would take time, and whoever had made them had given them enough tactical brains to know better than to let him stay still for very long.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" THUD.

Kashura moaned painfully as the hole chose to open up in the middle of Valgaav's current impromptu battleground. "Ow...can't this bad guy be a little more gentle? I'm a delicate little thing, aren't I?" She paused as she noticed the various suits of armor surrounding her. "Wow...that couldn't have been cheap." She levered herself back onto her feet, any sign of her earlier declaimed delicacy forgotten. From the more advantageous point of standing up, she was able to get a fair idea of her surroundings.

Most importantly of all, she noticed...

"VALGAAV-SAMAAAAAA!"

The ancient dragon tiredly allowed her glomp. Why me? I'm meaner than Zelgadis, more ruthless than Xellos, and less companionable than...okay, maybe not Naga. Still, I'm NOT a very nice person. SO WHY THE HELL DO I KEEP ATTRACTING OTHER WOMEN? "Kashura...I suppose I'm thankful to see you. HOWever, do you think you could curtail any of these attacks of yours until after we deal with them?"

Kashura paused, surprised by his grudging acceptance looked around, noticing for the first time the wound on his chest. "You...you're hurt?"

Valgaav sighed, wondering why the golems weren't attacking any more. Oh yeah, Law Forty Five (1). "I got a bit careless. It's nothing real..." His voice trailed off at the look in her eyes. "Uh...Kashura?"

The navy-haired priestess of Dynast didn't really hear him. "They...they HURT YOU?!" Her hands came up, and abruptly she somehow fanned about forty fifteen-inch daggers a hand. "HOW DARE YOU HURT MY VALGAAV-SAMA!!!!!!"

Valgaav felt a sweat-drop start coursing down his head as Kashura went into some kind of screaming, berserk fit, the eighty or so throwing knives bursting out from each hand only to be instantly replaced as she became the center of some kind of warped tornado. "Uh...Kashura? You really don't need to..." he shook his head as she continued. "Never mind." The golems were now quite firmly occupied with the screaming priestess, leaving him plenty of time to charge up blasts powerful enough to start picking them off. Privately, he still had one question he was going to have to ask.

Where the hell does she manage to keep several thousand throwing knives on her?

--------

Karlimanthos stared as Zelgadis took up his stance number three, balanced on both feet, sword in right hand at his back, left hand forward in preparation for a spell. 'Impressively cool while still functional,' specifically. Abruptly, he started roaring in laughter. "TIME FOR ME TO DIE?!" Thankfully, he at least conceded to lower his voice a few dozen decibels even as he continued chuckling idiotically. "I'm afraid you're very much mistaken, Blue Boy. The only person who's going to die here is you. DILL BRAND!"

Zelgadis sighed a mushroom puff from within his Windy Shield. "Oh, come on now. Did you actually think that I had no defenses whatsoever? Give me a SLIGHT amount of credit." Raising a hand, he sent a series of flare arrows at the mage.

Rather than bother with a defensive shield, Karlimanthos chose the dramatic route. Harnessing some kind of modification to the Dug Haut (aka Stone Spiker) spell, he somehow caused a sheet of rock to burst from the ground at his feet, forming a small retaining wall strong enough to deflect Zelgadis's attack.

He grinned nastily at the chimera. "And you seem to be convinced that you're the only clever one here. KNOW THIS! YOU FACE KARLIMANTHOS, THE GREATEST SHAMAN THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEEN!"

Zelgadis idly slid a pair of earplugs into place; Trent had handed them out back on the ship before Delphine had managed to get rid of Naga. "If you say so. DEMONA CRYSTAL!" Drawing back his hands, he focused and unleashed ice erupting from the ground at the mage's feet, sealing him in seconds within a block of solid ice.

It didn't last long.

The ground beneath Karlimanthos began steaming somehow, the magical ice almost instantly beginning to melt. Abruptly, tongues of lava shot out of the ground, consuming the entrapping spell and leaving the self-proclaimed shaman rumpled but otherwise unharmed.

He grinned nastily. "You still don't get it you fool! I AM INDESTRUCTIBLE! THERE IS NO SINGLE SPELL IN THE WORLD I CANNOT FACE! AND NOW, FEEEL MYYYYYY WRAAAAAAAAAAATTTTHHH!"

Zelgadis braced himself, but the only accompaniment to his pronouncement was a low-level rumble across the area.

Then the rock began shifting and growing, until a horde of twenty foot tall golems of solid stone had risen.

Karlimanthos's smile shifted from nasty to smug. "Not bad, eh? I heard a while back about this crazed bimbo in a black leather bikini who invented a spell good for creating lots of golems at once, but she never perfected it. I on the other hand was able to intuit it in mere moments! NOW, CAST AWAY! YOU MAY BE STRONG, BUT NOT EVEN YOU CAN STOP THIS! WHY, A GOLEM'S FIST CAN STRIKE WITH THE FORCE OF A FALLING METEOR!"

Zelgadis shot to the side as the first golem's attack powdered the ground near him. A crazed bimbo in a black bikini. Figures Naga would come back to haunt us. He dodged another blow as his senses finished taking in the construction of his opponents. Despite Karli-whatsisname's claim, they weren't all that impressive. Basically, it was just Mega Vraimer; Vu Vraimer on a much larger scale. Decent spell, but there were several rather simple ways to counter it.

And the Chimera smiled.

--------

Valgaav shook his head in wonder as he regarded the carnage surrounding them. "I couldn't put a dent in those things with spells equivalent to an Elmekia Flame. So how the hell did your knives do all THAT?"

Kashura managed to stop panting and slavering like some kind of animal (she'd needed quite a bit of time to get her anger back under conrol) as she looked back. "Hmm? Oh, it's probably like that spell Guumueon. Unbelievable protection from magical attacks, but no real attention paid to direct physical damage. I get that all the time."

Valgaav nodded, his respect for the demoness going up quite a bit. She'd always seemed a bit...off, to him. She still did not to be blunt, but she had proven no matter how odd she was, she was at least competent. Nice to see that in an ally. "Well, any idea how we get out of here?"

Kashura shook her head. "None whatsoever. Although you might be able to just blast your way out; it doesn't look like this place is reinforced like mine and Xello's was."

The ancient dragon nodded. Bringing his hands together, he began to channel a high-energy attack, but paused. "Uh, before I blow the place up, don't you need to get those knives again?"

"Hmmm? Oh, don't bother."

Valgaav stared at her for a moment, his spell forgotten. "Don't you think you'll need them? I mean, you ARE pretty dangerous with them."

Kashura gave him an odd look for a moment, then abruptly knives started flying out of her sleeves. They didn't go far; as each was summoned in turn, they began to orbit her like miniaturized, razor-edged planets. She kept it up for about three minutes; by the end of that time there were easily five thousand of the bloody things surrounding her.

Valgaav had long since sweat-dropped. At the moment, he was pushing the record limit as the sweat-drop reached the size necessary to start affecting his sense of balance. "How...how the HELL do you keep that many knives on you? I mean, doesn't just the WEIGHT slow you down?" If so, it personally explained why she didn't fly; there was no way she could actually lift off if she carried that much wrought steel on her.

Kashura shrugged (I think. You couldn't see a thing through all the knives.) Abruptly, they started zooming back into her sleeves at a MUCH faster pace. Thirty seconds later, they were gone. "It's a little trick I've learned."

Valgaav batted at his sweatdrop, trying to get rid of the mass of sebaceous fluid. "Yes, well let's get going." Gazing upwards at the ceiling, he began to focus his energies enough for a blast to hole the room.

Karlimanthos's spell proved that to be unnecessary as a cleft opened in the ceiling long enough to drop a single book in from the above library.

Valgaav paused in his build-up gazing at the now open book. "'What with one thing and another, three years had pa' WHOA!"

The spells of the book started acting up, yanking him into the world inside. As he began shrinking enough to get inside, his flailing arms caught Kashura's, dragging her inside with him.

As they faded away, the cover snapped shut behind them, revealing the title "The Princess Bride."

--------

Kashura groaned as she came to. "Damned book worlds. What kind of hack came up with this idiocy?"

Sorry.

The blue-clad priestess frowned as she looked around. "Well, at least I'm not stuck in a world that requires petticoats." Sighing, she slid back to her feet, calmly gazing around to try and retrieve her bearings. She paused, blink-blinking as Xellos appeared in front of her.

At the moment, he was dressed like a fourteenth century peasant; brown leggings, knee-high boots, a white button-down shirt, a brown leather vest, and a rapier. "Uh..."

Xellos shrugged. "I got bored, so I hopped into another one of these worlds. Apparently, I'm supposed to be a villain who's kidnapped a princess who's to be killed to start up an economy-boosting war. How very human." He idly inspected himself, brushing some lint from his vest. "Anyway, I can't seem to find the princess, and I recently saw Valgaav loping around as some kind of swashbuckler; it doesn't really suit him. But the main point of this is that he's apparently the hero of this story. Soooooo...care to have a little fun with him?"

--------

Valgaav rolled his eyes in depression at the sight of Kashura. Sitting on a rock, blind-folded, with a short, pale, rat-like balding Sicilian holding a dagger to her throat. "Gods, not again..."

The rat-like man grinned. "Oh yes, you're dealing with me now. You didn't think those two idiots could possibly have planned this out, did you?"

The ancient dragon sighed again. "Of course not." Said two idiots had been a swordsman and some would-be giant; credit where credit was due, they had been QUITE good at what they did. Inigo had wielded his rapier with a level of skill and finesse that probably could have stood off against Gourry on a good day. The giant? He'd been nearly as strong as Filia. "Listen, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so could we possibly end this quickly? Maybe negotiate?"

"There's nothing to negotiate," the Sicilian snapped. "You're trying to steal what I have already rightly kidnapped."

Valgaav started moving forward slowly. "But if there can be no negotiation, then we're at an impasse."

He was favored by a slow nod as Vizzini brought his blade slightly closer. "Precisely. I can't contend with you physically, and you're not match for my intellect."

Valgaav carefully removed his sword, tossing sheathe blade and baldric to the side without removing the sword from its sheath. "You're really that smart?" He couldn't just assume that Kashura would survive; somehow that spanish swordsman had managed to knick him with unenchanted tempered steel; this world apparently made those within slightly more vulnerable.

Vizzini snorted in disdain. "Let me put it this way. Ever heard of Rei Magnus? Rezo?"

"Sure, everyone has."

"Idiots."

Valgaav grinned, keeping it from becoming nasty through sheer force of will. "Then I propose a contest of wits."

"To the death?" he asked. At Valgaav's nod, he returned his dagger to its sheath. "Then I accept."

Valgaav allowed his grin to turn nasty as he pulled out two leather pouches that had come with him. Blatantly careful, he upended both on the rock in front of him. The Sicilian's eyes widened at their contents.

Each held an identical gemstone; a cat's-eye sapphire, set in filigree worked gold. Mountings on each were set in such a way that they could have been attached to either gauntlets or simply attached as bracelets. Still with exaggerated care, Valgaav slipped the leather pouches under each, one in front of his opponent, one in front of himself. "Examine them if you'd like, but do not touch them."

"That's quite alright. What are they?"

Valgaav grinned. "One of those is a talisman, an artifact of power that allow a wizard to channel far greater energies from his or her surroundings. This particular one is known as a Dragon's Eye talisman, and was made by a lost civilization over five thousand years ago. Most importantly, part of the enchantments were such that anyone save a member of that society who touched one would die an agonyzing death by the shock of magical energies mere moments after picking it up. The other is a identical in form, but incapable of channeling." He spread his hands before them both. "Thus our battle begins. Ending when you decide which one we each touch, we do so, and find out who is right and who is dead."

Vizzini stared at him in dull amazement. "That's it? But it's so simple. All I have to do is take into account what I know of you; are YOU the kind of man who'd put the gem in front of himself, or in front of his enemy?"

Valgaav shrugged effortlessly. "You tell me."

"Gladly!" Vizzini pointed to the one before him. "First off, you would have known that only a fool would have reached for what was given him. As I am obviously not a great fool, I cannot reach for the gem in front of me. BUT!" he snapped as Valgaav nodded, "you would have known that you would not put it in front of me, and switched it. Thus, I clearly cannot take the stone in front of you."

Valgaav shook his head in mock amazement. "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

"I'm just getting started! You see, alluvial sapphire is mined in Australia, a former penal colony populated solely by criminals. Now criminals are not given to trusting others, and as such you would not trust me in my choices, and thus I CLEARLY cannot take the stone in front of me."

Valgaav rolled his eyes. "I can only assume that this is eventually going to go somewhere."

The sicilian snorted in disdain. "Oh it moves, I assure you! For you see, you have defeated my giant, showing that you clearly possess great strength, and would THEREFORE trust in your strength to get you through this trial, and would therefore place the stone in front of yourself. HOWEVER, you also defeated my Spaniard, and to do so would have required learning, and through your learning you would have found that Man is mortal, and fearing death you would have placed the sapphire as far away from yourself as possible!"

The ancient dragon shook his head in disdain. "You're just rambling, babbling random facts in the hope that I'll reveal something. Obviously, you don't have the faintest idea what you're doing."

"Don't flatter yourself," he snapped. "I know precisely where the gemstone...GOOD GODS, WHAT'S THAT?!" He shrieked in horror.

Valgaav spun, shocked by the horror in the man's eyes. "WHAT?! What's out there?! WHAT?!"

Vizzini took a deep, shuddering, breath as he composed himself. "I...I thought I saw some strange man with purple hair just over there. Must have been my imagination," he mumbled, not catching the flare of anger on Valgaav's face. "Regardless, let's get this over with. You'll take your stone, and I'll take mine."

Valgaav carefully extended his hands towards the gems, making sure not to touch his own until after Vizzini had done so as well. "So sorry, but you guessed wrong."

Vizzini started cackling. "You DOLT, you only THINK I guessed wrong! I switched the gems while your back was turned." He grinned, howling with laughter as he imagined what the stone was about to do to the dragon. "YOU IDIOT! Haven't you ever heard a Great Truth before? The best known is 'Never get involved in an Asian land war,' but only slightly less known is this! 'NEVER CHALLENGE A SICILIAN WHEN DEATH IS INVOL!!!!!!"

Valgaav tsked sadly as the rat-like man erupted in a storm of electricity. "And probably the least well known truth of all. 'Don't (censored) with a pissed off dragon." With a flick of his wrist, he slashed Kashura's blind- fold. "Well, any idea how we get out of this now?"

Kashura winced at the sight of her captor. "And to think, the talisman was in front of YOU the whole time."

"Actually, I lied. They were both talisman." Valgaav stooped to retrieve the stone, grabbing it casually in his bare hand. "I neglected to mention it, but the culture that made these dragon's eye talismans was my race of Ancient Dragons."

"I thought I was the only one who was supposed to play tricks on people," the 'Sicilian' quipped as his disguise faded away.

Valgaav's eyes widened. "XELLOS?! BUT! BUT!"

The trickster priest leapt to his feet, smiling as he brushed himself off. "Oh, those hurt me, you needn't worry about that. Still, very few people make items strong enough to finish me off." His grin widened even further. "Even when I'm in such forms as a drunken Spanish swordmaster or an Arabian Giant."

Valgaav stared at him, stare rapidly transforming to glare. "That...that was you, all three times?"

"Sure. What, you thought there were people naturally that strong in a false world as badly constructed as this? Uh, what are you doing?"

"Great lords of magic, you who wield the seven forces, grant your power to these unworthy talons..."

Xellos sweat-dropped at the currently pissed-enough-to-chew-iron-and-spit- out-nails dragon. "Uh, that's really not necessary."

"Oh, sure it isn't," he growled as he finished charging magical energies from the book's world, noticeably dimming the surroundings.

A long believer in discretion being a better part of valor, Xellos grabbed Kashura and started running.

"GET BACK HERE XELLOS!"

--------

If you go back to before the rants of the mazoku and dragon, you will recall that Zelgadis was being assaulted by approximately thirty forty foot tall stone golems.

We now return you to that particular spot of gore.

Karlimanthos sneered as Zelgadis continued dodging. "You're fast; I'll concede that, little man. Still, you don't stand a chance if all you do is dodge and run away! NOT AGAINST MY GOLEMS YOU DON'T!"

Zelgadis smiled innocently. "True. Unfortunately, there's a rather sizeable flaw in your logic."

"Oh? And what's that?"

Zelgadis smiled as he unleashed his spell. "There's a difference between running away and a tactical retreat."

Karlimanthos gaped as his minions began slowing down until they finally dragged themselves to a complete and total stop. "But...BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! YOU CAN'T BE STRONG ENOUGH TO FREEZE MY GOLEMS ALL AT ONCE!"

Zelgadis shrugged nonchalantly, his mockingly innocent smile never wavering as he started turning them into dust with various applications of Damu Brass. "Who said I froze them? I just countered with earth shamanism of my own."

The burly mage continued gaping. "But...but with WHAT?! What spell could have possibly defeated such POWER?!"

Zelgadis finished reducing the last of the golems to powder, before drawing his sword. "Astral Vine," he spoke calmly, energizing the enchanted blade. "There's a wonderful little spell called Dug Break. It doesn't have any immediate effects, and few mages bother to learn it due to its rather limited uses. Still, it gets its particular job done better than any other." He began stalking forward, the innocence in his smile starting to fade in feral glee. "What it does, specifically, is cut off the connections to Bephimos, the great spirit of the Earth element. And without any way to draw on His power, golems of any kind just become so much tacky sculpture."

Karlimanthos started backwards, allowing fear to show on his face for once. "That...that's not fair..."

Zelgadis stared at him in disdain. "FAIR? You expected me to fight by some outdated and unrealistic measure of 'fair?'" He began focusing more energy into his blade. "The only fair that exists in a fight is that I won't kill you if you're good enough to kill me. Any other rules are for practice arenas and cowards."

Karlimanthos swallowed thickly. He was used to pounding the life out of idiots and weaklings. Someone who could successfully fight back wasn't something he normaly dealt with. Still, he wasn't about to fail his lord and master. Dying wouldn't be any fun; it would be even less fun if he died by that blasted shadeworm infection. "Well, I suppose you're a decent fighter. Still, you don't actually think you can win, do you?"

Zelgadis's eyes narrowed as the giant drew his weapon from beneath his cloak, igniting the twin blades. "Ragudezaius."

He allowed himself a shakey grin. "This weapon can stop dragon slaves; it's at least powerful enough to balk that astral vine of yours. You don't actually think you'll win, do you?"

Zelgadis shook his head. "Stop repeating yourself. It's irritating." Taking a new stance, he ran through his options. His opponent was obviously powerful; he doubted he could have managed that complete Mega Vraimer he'd used to start up his golems. He'd have to assume that the man could successfully wield the spear of light; he didn't know anything about the man's hand-to-hand competence save that he was obviously strong. He'd have to be careful with this opponent; mere power wasn't going to do much, it would be all about skill.

Of course, if he really WAS as stupid as he looked...

Zelgadis continued to feed his energy sword's power as he gazed at his opponent. His left hand slipped back to the space behind his belt as he prepared a quick, simple spell. Abruptly, he charged his opponent, a single dagger flickering in the air as he attacked.

His initial estimation of the man's power proved true; trying to just batter through him would be like trying to shatter granite with nothing but a tree branch. Lucky for him that so far, his estimation of the man's intelligence was proving accurate.

Karlimanthos allowed his shaky grin to widen. THIS was all the chimera could do?! He needn't have worried; he was OBVIOUSLY going to win. "Heheheheh... DIE!!!!"

Zelgadis grunted as the spear of light shot him backwards. Rather than pursue, his opponent chose to simply raise a hand in preperation for a fireball to finish the job.

It was at that point that Zelgadis's dagger completed its brief flight, impaling the mage's shadow.

Karlimanthos grunted in pain as he felt the spell take hold, forcing his own attack to stop while in the middle of charging up. "What the..."

Zelgadis grinned. "A shadow snap. Once again, a simple, handy little spell you've never bothered to try and learn." Finished with witticisms for the time being, he channeled and fired off a second spell before the idiot could realize that his own attack could be countered by the simplest Lighting spell. "Disfang."

His shadow warped itself, attenuating to form the image of a Chinese dragon formed of pure darkness. The creature surged forward, sinking its teeth into the still struggling mage's shadow, fangs piercing deep within his chest. Karlimanthos screamed in agony as he felt the shadow's damage reflected into his own body. It didn't last long; Zelgadis was quick to finish him with a final stroke of his still-enhanced sword.

Then came the earth quakes.

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"WHAT THE HELL?!" was Valgaav's rather elegant rebuttal.

Xellos grimaced as the their world began to literally come apart at the seams. He managed to levitate quickly enough to keep from getting thrown completely off balance. Neither Valgaav nor Kashura were as lucky. Sighing at the unfairness of having to play a psuedo-hero, he teleported in their paths long enough to grab them. "I suggest we stay together."

The ancient dragon shook his head dazedly. He'd been fully prepared to reduce the trickster priest to a bloody smear moments ago, and the blasted demon had STILL saved him. "What the hell is going on here?"

Xellos shrugged. "This is the first time I've dealt with worlds in books. Still, if it's anything like normal subspace pockets, then I would guess that someone destroyed the stabilizing forces." He did a quick, short teleportation hop to dodge out of the way as a slice of the area's simulated reality flashed by them. "No big deal if it's just an on/off switch for the spell. If it's the entire basis of this reality however..."

Valgaav flashed to the side out of another spray of debris. "However what?"

Xellos's expression was troubled. "If the entire anchor for this space's existence is destroyed, then this place is going to implode into nothingness in a few minutes once the residual power has been burned off. In other words, we have at most two hundred seconds to get out of here or we rather painlessly die."

--------

Zelgadis grimaced as the ceiling started to rumble. He'd paused just long enough to grab the spear of light from what was left of his opponent, then tried running.

It hadn't gone well. His few attempts to blast his way out had resulted in near brainings from the falling stalactites and debris. Running had gotten him nowhere, and trying to tunnel deeper with Bephis Bring had just made the tremors worse.

As it was, he was at a bit of a loss. Well, and wishing bitterly that the one third blue demon in him was enough to pull off a teleport.

"Pardon me, but would you be at all interested in leaving here?"

The chimera turned to the unexpected female voice. "Uh...and you are?"

Scherra blinked in surprise. "That's it? No suspicions whatsoever, just a 'who are you?'"

Zelgadis fired of a flare lance, incinerating some of the falling rubble. "At the moment, my choices are A) be suspicious and lacking in trust, B) ignore you for other reasons while I try to get out of here, or C) trust you and get out of here before this idiot's home kills me." He shrugged idly as he started sending off more of the fire attacks. "Just do the math."

Dynast's priestess blink-blinked at him, but shrugged it off. "Alright, hang on to me." Taking a firm grip on the Chimera's shoulder, she teleported him out from the middle of the mansion's catacombs.

Outside, he groaned quietly as he swayed, finally depositing himself on the grass. "How do you people handle all this teleportation? I can barely think straight."

Scherra shrugged again. "It's something mazoku are good at." She paused. "You DID realize I'm a monster?"

"Not at first, but you don't look like a dragon so that's about the only other option." He sighed as he felt the reaction-headache start to fade. "And I can deal with Xellos to a small degree; I sincerely doubt that you could be worse than he is."

"Am I really that bad?"

Zelgadis turned tiredly to the monster. "Ah, shit. I'd hoped you'd gotten left in that place when it was destroyed." He paused as he looked over the sheepish trickster priest, the twitchy mazoku priestess, and the sullenly embarassed Ancient dragon. "How precisely did you get out of there, anyway?"

"That's none of your business," Valgaav grunted irritably.

Xellos sighed. "Such ingratitude." Turning back to Zelgadis, he elaborated. "Apparently, the spells on the books were barely powerful enough to catch us; if you have a power level beyond a certain point, you can resist it."

"What books?" Zelgadis interrupted.

"Hmmm? Oh that's right, you didn't have to deal with any." Xellos raised his copy of Gone with the Wind. "These things suck you into a world based on the stories themselves. Anyway, Lord Dynast was kind enough to drag us out of The Princess Bride before the house could squish us."

Valgaav flushed at the memory. It wasn't exactly one's finest moment when a giant, gloved hand suddenly descends on you and yanks you out of soul- rupturing danger.

Zelgadis's eyes widened. "Lord Dynast? You mean Ice Lord Dynast Grauscherra?!"

The mazoku lord shrugged nonchalantly from his position leaning against a convenient tree. "I originally sent Kashura to try and figure out what was going on here." He darted an arch look in her direction. "Apparently, she decided to change it into some kind of mission to make the dragon fall in love with her or something." He shrugged again. "THEN I found out that this... opponent was good enough to fight against Zelas and Delphine. It just seemed something I couldn't ignore." He turned as some of the bushes began rustling nearby. "Speaking of whom..."

"Are you SURE we're going in the right direction?"

Sigh. "For the last time, YES, I know where we're going. I doubt that Larth was lying when he told me to go in this general area."

"WHAT general area? We're supposed to be heading for the northeast!"

"What, you thought I was going to 'as the crow flies?' I have LIMITS to my flight range, you know."

Zelgadis sweat-dropped as Zelas, Delphine, and Trent arrived. The three paused at the sight of him, paused longer as they realized the rest of who was there, and ignored them. Except for Trent's distracted wave.

Xellos coughed loudly to draw their attention. "Lord Beastmaster, it's good to see you again."

Zelas ignored him. "Delphine, will you stop complaining for one day? You've done nothing but bitch about our refusal to let you raze down a village just so you can gorge yourself long enough. Show a little self- restraint."

"Oh, and your blushing googley-eyes at the elf-dragon are restrained..." she muttered.

Zelgadis groaned, using Ragudezaius to hoist himself back to his feet. "This is going to take a while."

To be continued...

1 - Go to for the laws of Anime. Specifically, Law 45: The Law of Uninteruptable metamorphosis.