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CHAPTER 3
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"I'm trapped. Alone. In a complete dork. This totally sucks."
A gaggle of women followed her full-time now, whispering and giggling amongst themselves whenever she looked their way. Every so often, one would timidly separate from the group to ask for Joxer's autograph, or a hug.
She wanted to kill herself every time she saw her reflection in a puddle of water or shopkeeper's window. The groupies didn't make matters any easier. A little confidence, a little dress sense, and a few flash fighting moves had produced a platoon of female fans big enough to hold their own Olympics. Truth be told, she was kind of flattered, but the thought of spending the rest of eternity trapped in Joxer's body depressed her beyond belief.
Two in particular were especially earnest in their pursuit of the Mighty One. They had been dogging Callisto's heels for a day now, and no amount of melting into crowds or doubling back could shake them. She was about to confront them and offer them any number of signed woodcuts they wanted as long as they went away when they abruptly disappeared.
Callisto spun around, raking the forest with her eyes for any sign of them. Seeing none, she turned to continue on her way and collided with a fist.
She fell hard on the path, blinking furiously to clear the birdies circling her head. Xena's malicious smirk appeared above her, blotting out the sun. "Can I have your autograph?"
Xena and Gabrielle stripped off the cloaks and wigs they had been using to disguise themselves. Callisto ground Joxer's teeth in aggravation for not having seen through the cheap trick earlier.
"Fuck off and die. Wait, let me rephrase that: die, then fuck off." Callisto surged to her feet, delivering a roundhouse kick to Xena's face before being tripped up by Gabrielle's staff. She grabbed the chakram on the way down and frisbeed it at Gabrielle's head, but the target ducked in the nick of time.
Through the trees, she could just make out the narrow mouth of a cave at the base of a sheer rock wall. If I can make it to the cave, I can take them one at a time instead of both together.
Callisto rolled out from under the deadly arc of Xena's sword and cartwheeled the hundred yards or so to the cave. She flipped them off with a smile and dashed inside.
Xena put out a hand to stop Gabrielle from running after Callisto.
"Aren't we going to follow her?" Gabrielle asked.
"Don't worry," Xena said smugly, "she won't be coming out of there alive."
"But what about Joxer?"
Xena clapped a companionable hand on her friend's shoulder. "We'll just have to hope he finds a body to inhabit that's already schizophrenic."
Callisto wandered deeper into the recess in the rock, looking for a good vantage point from which to ambush Xena and her irritating self-righteous sidekick. If only there was a way to get back to her own body. She shuddered to think what Sovereign had been up to with it.
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He bobbed in a light breeze above a terraced outcropping of rock. Below him, a figure jiggled a long wooden pole stuck into the ground and yelled some very nasty things at the sky. Another figure, with long blonde hair, was propped up against a boulder nearby.
It can't be. Joxer floated lower for a better look. Her hair has been lovingly brushed and braided, and she sat in front of a flat-topped rock on which were laid out little cups and saucers whittled of wood. Her eyes were open, but completely vacant. Joxer shrugged the shoulders he didn't have and went for it.
Growling in frustration, Sovereign turned away from the wooden key just in time to see Callisto's eyes flutter open. "I was wondering when you'd come back." He loomed over Joxer, an exceptionally vulgar grin plastered across his face. "I tried to make this place a little more homey for you." Sovereign gestured at the crude tea service laid out on the rock.
Joxer stared at the small wooden vase holding a few scraggly wildflowers. "I see." There was a long and painful pause. Joxer got to Callisto's feet, looking at the ugly grey clouds blotting out the horizon. "How do I get out of here?"
Sovereign leered at him. "Why you wanna leave, baby? The party's just getting started." He did a little striptease with his leather vest, absentmindedly rubbing a nipple.
"I think there's been some misunderstanding," Joxer laughed nervously. "I know I'm inside of her body, but I'm not Callisto. I'm Joxer. The Mighty. Maybe you've heard of me?"
"I'm Sovereign. And you're hot." Sovereign grabbed Callisto's body by the waist and pulled it to him. He puckered his lips and went in for the kill.
Joxer pushed him away in disgust. "No! Don't you understand? I'm a man! I like women, you know?"
"Yeah. I like women, too." Sovereign lunged at him. Joxer backed hurriedly away, but slipped on a patch of gravel and sprawled on the ground. He felt Sovereign's weight pressing down on top of him, along with a disturbingly hard object poking into his thigh. "You want it, don't you? I bet you want it bad."
What Joxer wanted more than anything else was to be at the bottom of a cask of very strong ale. He was no match for Sovereign and he knew it. "Okay, but no tongue-kissing."
Lightning struck the key again, re-opening the vortex in the sky. Joxer seized his opportunity—in this case, Sovereign—by the balls, clenching tightly with Callisto's fingernails. Sovereign squealed like a pig, curling protectively into a fetal position around his squashed dignity. Joxer squirmed out from under Sovereign's bulk and made a dash for the edge of the cliff, flinging himself at the vortex.
Sovereign moaned in pain as he watched the vortex drain itself away after sucking Joxer into its swirling depths. "Very disappointed!"
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She was fairly far underground and still had no sign of the Warrior Princess & Co. She could hear a soft shuffling noise where two tunnels intersected ahead. She crept stealthily around the corner, coming face to face with—
—herself. A goofy grin threatened to split her head in two.
"Hi!" The sheer boisterousness of the greeting confirmed Callisto's worst fears.
"Joxer," she spat out the name, staring at herself in horror.
In the absence of his helmet, he was wearing an actual colander on her head along with matching cookie sheets strapped to her chest and back by way of armor.
"How… ?"
He shrugged, clanking softly. "Some kind of vortex opened up in the sky that led me to your body, and another one dropped me here."
"Give me back my body," she demanded.
Joxer took a few steps back. "Why? You'll only beat me up and then go kill my friends."
"I promise I won't," Callisto lied.
"You're lying," observed Joxer.
She growled, exasperated, and lunged for him. Joxer danced out of the way, evading a punch.
"You want money?"
He shook her head. Callisto seized a handful of blonde hair, but couldn't bring herself to rip it out. She decided to try a new strategy.
"What about groupies, Joxer? There's a cult of women out there worshipping you right now!" cajoled Callisto. "Don't tell me you don't fantasize about luscious, busty women drooling all over you."
"What do I need them for when I've got… me?" Joxer grinned indecently as his hands slid over Callisto's body.
"Get your hand off my ass!" Callisto shrieked.
"My ass now!" Joxer retorted, giving it a good squeeze.
Callisto screamed and rushed at Joxer, hands outstretched to strangle her own throat. Joxer laughed maniacally and bounded away, licking a finger and swirling it suggestively around the metal studs of her halter top.
Try as she might, Callisto couldn't catch up with Joxer to throttle him out of her body. An idea presented itself. She head-butted the nearest wall.
"Hey, that's my nose!" Joxer exclaimed.
"My nose now!" Callisto laughed. "Give me back my body!"
"No!" Joxer attempted a pole dance with a stalagmite and failed miserably.
Callisto ran into every wall and tripped over every stone in the immediate vicinity. When she was done with that, she punched Joxer's face repeatedly with his own fists. His body bled from cuts on his face and arms, and the throbbing pain in his ankle told Callisto that it was almost certainly broken.
In a last ditch effort to get him to give in, she lowered his head and rammed a nearby boulder. To her surprise, the boulder rolled slightly with the force of her impact, pitching her into a hole that concealed behind it.
Callisto slid down a sharp incline, gaining speed. The tunnel widened, then dropped off entirely. She sailed through the misty air of a huge cavern, watching helplessly as the rocky ground rose up to strike her in the face. Ow.
She pushed herself to her feet. Oh, fuck. The last time she was here was after Xena had so thoughtfully left her to breathe sand after Perdicus's death.
She heard an all too familiar giggle behind her. "Oh, man. I've been waitin' so long for this moment."
"Oh, come on, Strife. It can't have been more than a few days since I killed you."
"That's still far too long ta spend in Tartarus!" he shouted. Calming down, he added, "Dork suits you, by the way. What's your spring collection look like? Salmoneus?"
"Leave me alone," Callisto said, searching for the entrance to the tunnel leading to the surface. "I need to find a way out of here."
Strife cackled and tented his fingers deviously. "The only way I'm gettin' outta here is if I'm in a livin' body."
"So what's that got to do with—aakkk…" Strife cut her off in mid-sentence with a thumb to the Adam's apple.
"Ya know, I really wanna get tha fuck outta here, but I think I want you dead even more." Strife grinned evilly as he commenced beating the shit out of Callisto.
She tried to throw him off, but with limited success. Joxer's already battered body revolted against her at every opportunity. Strife knocked her down and landed on top of her, seizing Joxer's head and repeatedly pounding it into the ground.
Callisto grabbed him by an earring and yanked his head down to her level. "You can't kill me! I'm a goddess, or has death affected your brain?"
"That's what you think. You're not immortal unless tha body you're in is immortal."
"Aw, fukkkk—"
"Stop it!"
Callisto cringed at the approaching clinking of cookie sheets. Strife ceased trying to crack Joxer's skull like an egg as Joxer himself skid to a halt beside him.
Strife looked from Joxer as Callisto to Callisto as Joxer and back again. "I'm not even gonna ask."
"Please don't kill my body," Joxer begged.
"I know you. You've always been a big follower of mine."
Joxer bashfully shuffled Callisto's feet. "Causing mischief is the only thing I'm really good at."
"You forgot bumbling idiocy," Callisto supplied. Suddenly she could feel Strife inside her mind. She felt like she was dangling precariously above a chasm, holding on to safety by a single hand, and Strife was peeling off her fingers one by one. Her grasp began to slip, but instead of falling she found herself floating again, watching as Joxer blinked and sat upright, finally back home in his own body.
Her own form lay slumped on the ground like a used tissue. She drifted down to enter her own body, startled when her eyes fluttered open of their own accord. She tried to slide into her head, but it was as if a brick wall had suddenly built itself around her body.
A smile stretched across her face as her eyes focused on her disembodied spirit, a high-pitched giggle emanating from her vocal cords. "You're shit outta luck, babe."
No!
Strife grinned mischeviously as he twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "I always wanted ta be a blonde."
You fucking bastard! Callisto dove for Joxer's head but was stopped by a ball of energy flung from her own traitorous fingertips.
Strife took Joxer by the elbow and steered him towards the way out. "C'mon, Jox. Let's get outta here and find ourselves a tavern. I'm in tha mood ta get down an' dirty an' do stuff I'll regret in tha mornin'. Ya dig?"
Don't you dare!
"I'll dig anything you want," Joxer said, enthralled that someone inhabiting a body as attractive as Callisto's wasn't trying to kill him or use him. "So, um, are you seeing anyone?"
YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE!