PART 3

The children of Larissa watched eagerly as the son of Zeus and his best friend helped to rebuild a community center for them. It had been leveled a few months prior by a storm, and the local children had been running loose without it. A role model for the ages, Hercules dropped a huge support beam into the ground while his best friend and partner Iolaus tightened up the roof beams and started the foundation for a second floor. Amidst the other few locals working with them and preparing the framework, he gasped and dropped to the ground, watching the would-be god Hercules barely breaking a sweat. At times like this, he was glad to call him his best friend.

"I'm going for a drink." He replied.

"Thanks," Hercules looked at him. "And get one for yourself." They shared a friendly laugh as Iolaus picked up their empty flask and turned to the fountain in the square to refill it. The structure right now was a bare network of support beams and walls being laid out of stone and mud, but it was coming along directly as he stepped through an opening in an incomplete wall and crossed between merchants, running children and struggling mothers through the courtyard and then sat on the wall around the fountain of water. Dipping his flask to fill it, he turned his head up and noticed a familiar face. He grinned at the sign of another familiar face, turned back to Hercules and called out.

"Hercules," He replied. "Gabrielle is here."

"She is?" The tall demigod stepped out in the sun and looked over toward the road coming into town. The small blonde bard slipped down from her mount and left him unfettered by another group of horses and hastened for the fountain right next to Iolaus. Her left hand brushed her long hair from her face as she cupped water in her hands and lifted it to her lips. She was drinking from the fountain and appearing very haggard and tired as she drank her fill and splashed more water into her face. She looked unprepared as Iolaus hugged her.

"Gabby," He looked back into her confused eyes. "Where's Xena? Is she on the road behind you?" She looked back at him unaware who he was for a second then her emotion turned to a state of cold and calmed sobriety.

"Xena?" Gabrielle pulled her hair back. "Xena tried to kill me!" She was adamant.

"What?!!" Hercules and Iolaus chorused in unison and exchanged looks. They couldn't believe her.

"We were in Cynthus, that old cemetery, and she went nuts." Gabrielle started going into a story. "She told the priests there that I was possessed, but when they wouldn't kill me, she tried to do it. You've got to help me!"

"Cynthus?" Iolaus believed her. "Herc, I've heard the ghost stories from the cemetery there. It's bad news."

"Wait a minute," Something in the story didn't sound right to Hercules. "How'd Xena get possessed? She knows about that place. I don't think she'd be that careless."

"I don't know." Gabrielle was genuinely frantic. "You've got to help me get away from her."

"Xena's coming!!" Someone standing on the balcony over the courtyard looked out from the city and saw the familiar visage of a warrior goddess on a her Arabian steed and called out as she came charging at full gallop for the gates. It was almost as if the old Xena was back as some townspeople stayed to watch was she was going to do, but they knew they had nothing to fear. That was the old Xena; she had been through twice and had rid the area of brigands, warlords and thieves so they owed her all the rituals of hospitality. However, if another presence had reverted her to who she once was, Hercules was going to have to be the one to exorcise her.

"Hercules?" Iolaus asked to see what he believed.

"Get her out of sight." He told him. "I'll get to the bottom of this." Hercules watched the two of them head off and vanish behind the shops and markets as he turned to the gates. Argo charged in snorting from his run as Xena dropped off brandishing her sword as if ready for battle. Upset and determined, she looked ready to fight.

"Hercules!" She gasped out of breath. "Gabrielle, have you seen her?"

"Gabrielle?" He looked around. "Gabrielle, who?"

"She's possessed." She narrowed her eyes at him. "We were in Cynthus and I think she's dangerous. I need to..."

"I guess that confirms it." He cut her off with a knock to the abdomen. She flew back a several feet and looked back with surprise. Why would he do that?! They were friends and allies, almost lovers, and he had struck her!!! Confused and surprised, Xena shook off that momentary impact and jumped to her feet once more.

"What are you doing?!!" She leapt up and started kicking him in the face. Hercules wandered back from the blows as she finally knocked him down. "Have you lost it?" She looked over him.

"You're about to." He knocked her feet out and jumped up to gain the advantage. "Gabrielle told us everything!" He gripped her chakram at the same time she pulled it out and used her momentum to throw her into the brick wall of the local inn. Bouncing off that, Xena's voice let loose her battle cry along with a barrage of kicks to his chest. The two of them were nearly equals in fighting experience, but while Hercules was stronger, Xena was stronger and faster. Confused townsfolk hastened to get out of the way of their fight and scrambled around merchants and displays of produce. A few children were rushed down an alleyway past Iolaus and Gabrielle watching from a back alley along with several other witnesses placing bets between the son of Zeus and the Warrior Goddess.

"I really want to thank you for saving me." Gabrielle watched from over his shoulder. "I hope he'll be able to kill her."

"Yeah, right." Iolaus did a double take. "Wait a minute, Hercules won't kill anyone. You ought to know..." He looked back at her as she changed from a nasty conniving grin to a more humbled look of distant apathy. As Iolaus peered over her, he wondered why he had taken her word for it. She hadn't even called him by name yet. "You lied! You ain't Gabrielle! You tricked us!!"

"Oh, Hercules…" Gabrielle tried covering up and improvising. "Come on, I'm sure you're…"

"I'm Iolaus!" There was the sound of a crash between the two fighting heroes from the courtyard. "You are possessed!! You lied to us!!"

"I do that." Gabrielle shined, smiled innocently and clawed him across the face. As he reeled from that, he felt her fingers on his chest and then his feet being lifted off the ground as she lifted him up and flipped him over her head into a wagon filled with fertilizer. She seemed almost as strong as Hercules! Feeling embarrassed and humiliated to have been deceived so easily, he rolled over the cow manure and cracked open the side of the cart onto the ground. Coughing up the dirt he had swallowed, he looked up as she stared giggling down upon him. She looked harmless and just as attractive as the last time he had seen her, but the look in her eyes was almost pure evil as she screamed and struck the wall at the end of the alley as hard as he could with her foot. He watched in disbelief witnessing her force loose the bricks, pushing her body through them into another part of the city and then vanishing from sight.

"Hercules!" Iolaus lurched himself up in pain and limped back out toward Xena and Hercules fighting sword to cudgel stick. They were at most matching each other blow for blow as he hobbled between them. "She lied!!!" He wheezed between pangs of pain. "Gabrielle is the one possessed!!"

"She lied?!!"

"Now do you believe me?!!!" Xena was moments from severing that cudgel from Hercules at the wrist. She turned to Iolaus as townsfolk stood clear trying to understand what was happening in their upset little market place. "Where'd she go?!!" Xena demanded to know.

"Back this way!!"

"Sorry about the misunderstanding." Hercules realized his error and stopped fighting as he and Xena rushed after Iolaus. He looked up and briefly stood worried at the sight of the hole in the wall.

"It was a good fight." Xena mumbled slipping through the hole in the broken wall. "Another moment though, and I would have killed you."

"In your dreams." Hercules found themselves behind several markets and then stables. Entering the back way through a smithy, they found the blacksmith screaming and cursing in his native Achaean language.

"What happened?" Xena rushed to help him.

"This hateful little blonde just stole one of my horses and took off with it." He told them.

"Sounds like we got a runaway blonde." Xena whistled for Argo.