Zel looked around.  He DID remember something - something important,
but more the way you remember a dream, hazy, without details.  But he knew
he’d find out soon.  Right now he was just glad Lina and Naga had things
all sorted out, and death toll was at a record low.  But that golem was
getting closer every second.

     “What are you going to do about that walking rock, Lina?”  Amelia
voiced Zel’s thoughts.

     “I don’t know if any small spells will work on it….but I know one big
spell will.  Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows,
buried in the flow of time, in thy great name I pledge myself to Darkness -
all the fools that stand in my way shall be destroyed - by the power both
you and I possess….DRAGON SLAVE!!!!” and the beam of nearly the most
powerful energy in all creation was blasted at the creature.  It stumbled
backwards, but seemed to sustain no damage.  Lina looked wide-eyed at Naga,
very much surprised.

     “Naga, how did you do it?  You summoned something that doesn’t three
heads, no body, not mentioning the fact that a Dragon Slave didn’t destroy
it!”

     “Yes, well, us power queens have a habit of doing that.”

     “And she had help.”  Xelloss added, as he floated up to join the
group.

     “All right, Xelloss, what prompted you to screw around with reality
like this, huh!?  And while you’re at, maybe you’d be good enough to
explain how I’m supposed to beat this thing?” Lina spun around in an attempt
to sock him in the kisser, but she missed which only made her even more
frustrated.

     “Now what kind of mazoku would I be if I did that?  This is the
climax of the story, the object of the game if you will, and so it just
wouldn’t be sporting of me to come right out and tell you.”

     Lina turned her back to him, watching in horror as buildings were
trampled and cars were hurled into the air.

     “I have it!” Naga announced, pausing for a moment in hopes someone
would ask just what she had.

     “Oh great - bimbo to the rescue.”  Zel grumbled, since there simply
was nothing else a chimera could do.

     “Take that back!  Anyway, I believe my solution is a stroke of
brilliance.  You’ll thank me later, Zel-kun.  Why, none of you will ever
forget The Solution of the one and only most powerful - .”

     “Damn it, Naga, are you going to tell us or not?”

     “Okay, I propose we kill Xellos, and if we kill him, we’ll kill the
monster.  He’s the source of it, after all.”

     “All opposed?” Lina looked around the group.

     Silence, except for the distant crashing of a giant golem destroying
Tokyo.

     “Aren’t you forgetting something?”  Xellos appeared unshaken by what
sounded as though it was to his fate.

     “He’s right.” Zelgadis looked at Lina.  “Naga was the one who cast
the spell, whether she was under Xellos’ spell or not.  Anyhow, I’m
surprised you didn’t remember, but Lina, that kill the creator nonsense
only works in the movies.”

     “Now what??”

     “Well…ummmm….has anyone seen Gourry?” Amelia looked around to double
check her question was a valid one.

     “Oh my god!  Gourry?  Where is he?” Lina looked every which way
before she realized the obvious - he was still doing ballet the SUKUCHI in
Tokyo tower. She bolted down out of the sky and into the observation lounge
where Gourry was finishing off a grace pirouette.

     “Gourry, you need to get out of here right now!  It’s not safe -
you’re like a yellow golem jellybean.  Get out of here!”

     “How?  I can’t fly, the elevator is out of order and there are no
stairs.”

     Lina looked blankly at him.  “This goes against everything I stand
for.  I hope you’re happy, because this is absolutely not my idea of fun,
you understand me?  This is unreal, this is.” She walked over, grabbed his
waist, instructed him to - gag - hold on tight…she took off.  Mind you he
was howling the whole time, and wasn’t making flight easy with all
unnecessary moving about and Lina wasn’t having a good time of it either.
And now, what was she supposed to do with him?  If she put him down, he was
street pizza, because she had no faith her own ability to figure out how to
kill a golem that can’t be killed.  So he’d probably stomp all of Tokyo by
then, and Gourry would be an ick on the pavement.  HE couldn’t maintain
flight, she couldn’t make him maintain it and Xellos wasn’t going to help
one bit.  She might need to combine power between Zel, Amelia, Naga and
herself, so they couldn’t help either.  Temptation gnawed at her to just
accidentally let go, but that would defeat the purpose of this whole
revolting episode.  Now what?  Felia!!!!  But where was she?  Ah yes, Lina
remembered she was circling the diet building last time she checked.  She
spun around to discover that Felia was now doing some high altitude window
shopping over the Ginza.

     Making sure her aim was precise, she aimed a Fire Ball or two directly
at her.  They contacted, there was a roar of displeasure and Felia, who
was always easy to fool, came directly at the sorceress.

     “Stop!!”  Lina shouted.

     Felia didn’t grind to a halt but she did slow down to a mid-air crawl.

     “Would you please take this thing off my hands?” Lina, with her
childlike body hurled Gourry into the air, which seemed to obligate Felia
to catch him, which she did.

     “Thanks.  I’ll only be a minute.”  Lina took off in the opposite
direction, trying to ignore the cries for help coming from Gourry.
Sometimes that boy was more trouble than his sword was worth.  At any rate,
Lina caught up with the others, and they had a moment of silence and
golem-watching.

     “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about.”  Naga commented,
tossing her hair this way and that.  “This is sure to be Japan’s finest
hour.  I mean, a giant golem stomping residential areas, a Gold Dragon
circling parliament, a Trickster Priest posing as mild mannered television
reporter, and of course I, Naga the Serpent, the one and only most powerful,
sexiest Ultimate Rival of Lina Inverse!  This is better than a movie.”

     “Yeah, if someone would get his act together and wake up Godzilla
we’d be laughing.” Zelgadis grumbled.  “Look, we shouldn’t just stand here.
Obviously the Dragon Slave doesn’t work.  I think the Giga Slave is
over-kill for a golem, not to mention how well it would work in a made-up
world, so I think - .”

     “That’s it!  Zel, that’s exactly it!  This is made up, right?  This
is just some dumb thing Xellos made up to piss us off.  So if this isn’t
real, than none of the spells are real, so they wouldn’t have any real
effect.”

     “I don’t get what you’re driving at Lina.  The golem isn’t real
either.  It’s like hitting you’re imaginary friend with an imaginary rock.”

     “But who’s to say this is my real body?  Who’s to say that’s yours?
Who’s to say anything?  I doubt Xellos is powerful enough to physically
create a real world like this, and simply put us in it?  I’ll bet it’s like
mass hypnosis, and you just think that that is you and that this is me.”
She turned to Xellos for confirmation.  He grinned, but she wasn’t sure if
she was right, or if he’d been doing that all along.  She decided to take a
chance.

     “Anyhow, if that’s the case, than we aren’t actually bound by
physical limitations.  Amelia?”

     “Yes?”  Amelia turned around, smiling gently at the redhead
sorceress.

     “FIREBALL!!!”

     Amelia stood there, unharmed, but looking quite emotionally betrayed.

     “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Lina-san.  I was paying
attention to what you were saying, honest I was.  Gosh, some people are so
testy.”

     “See?  That didn’t hurt her either.  The Dragon Slave probably never
touched the golem.  It didn’t save me when you did it at the concert, Zel.
Trusting that was you, of course.” she smiled, in an attempt to remind him
it was the thought that counted.  “The point is, if spells don’t cause
some kind of damage, odds are if we all plummeted out of the sky this
minute, we wouldn’t feel much of anything.  We can defeat that golem because
our minds are real, whereas he’s a projection of someone else’s.”

     “How would we go about doing that?” Zelgadis knew it made perfect
logical sense, but it’d be like being a ghost.  Damned if your mind was
hunky-dory.  It didn’t matter, because you couldn’t touch anything.  In
their case, they may not be able to be killed, but that also meant they
couldn’t kill.

     Lina frowned.  “Well, that’s the tricky part.  I suppose in when your
mind is the only real thing at all, it’s like a dream.  If you are
conscious of what’s going on and concentrate on changing it, you really
can.”  She closed her eyes to demonstrate.

    Out of the blue Gourry came shooting up from the ground and joined them, his face expressing something slightly less than pleasure.  “How am I flying?  H-how a-am I f-flying?”

     “See?”  Lina beamed with pride.  She was so clever.  “I wanted Gourry
up here so we wouldn’t have to peel his guts of the sidewalk.”

     You could practically see the wheels inside Amelia’s head turn slowly
as she processed this information.  “So what you’re saying,” she said
carefully, “Is that if we want the golem to go away, all we have to do was
wish?”

     “More than that.  It’s bigger than Gourry, and a little bit smarter.

    It was created by someone powerful to destroy.  That means we have to
concentrate, join hands and focus all of our energy on the golem never
existing.  If we can do that, I think we’ll be home free.”

     “I don’t see what the matter is!” Naga looked critically at the
overgrown rock and it thundered it’s way through town.  “After all, it was
created by the most powerful being in creation (myself) and so I can
destroy it.  ELMEKIA LANCE!!!!!!!!!!!”

     Nothing happened.

     So Naga waited.

     No one said anything.

     And still Naga waited.

     And yet nothing happened.

     Except there was a giant stone golem stomping Tokyo.

     But that was all.

     “I told you, I told you, I told you!” Lina growled at Naga.

     “ No need to gloat.” Naga said quietly.

     “I told you ‘mind over matter’, but did you listen?  No!  That might
hint something to you, if you think long and hard.  We shouldn’t waste
time on physical attacks.  We should focus our attention on altering this
world with our minds.”

     “Lina, how would it be possible for a much more powerful being to
control or possess a weaker being, and conduct magic or spells through
them?”

     Lina glared at Zel.  “You’re asking me?  In case you forgot, the Lord
of Nightmares possessed me for a while.”

     “That was different.  You’re very powerful; how would someone much
weaker handle being possessed by someone stronger than you?”

     “Could you illustrate any relevance your question might have to our
current situation?”

     Zel looked at Lina.  “It is necessary for me to know.  Would you
please answer the question?”

     “Well, I’m not weaker, so I couldn’t be sure.” Lina frowned, but she
knew Zelgadis was far from stupid, so she stretched her patience as far as
it could carry.  “I suppose if someone is possessed by a being stronger
than they are, depending on how good a conductor they are, their bodies
might not be able to handle it.  Why do you need to know?”

     “I cast a spell.  It didn’t work.  You cast a spell.  It didn’t work.
Naga just cast a spell.  It didn’t work.  The only reason the Ray Wing
worked is because we believed we could fly.  Why can’t we just believe the
Dragon Slave worked?”

     Lina was confused.  But he was right.  “I don’t know.  But those seem
to be the rules.  They do contradict each other, don’t they?”

     “No, they don’t.  Lina, imagine a chess board.  Say you’re a queen,
I might be a king.” He smiled.  “Naga and Felia would be bishops.  Amelia
and Gourry would be or knights.  Sylpheel and Martina would be rooks.  The
people of Tokyo - pawns.  And do you know who is playing the game?”

     Lina’s confused expression melted into one of understanding and
frustration.  “XELLOS!”

     “When you play a game all by yourself, you can change the rules.  You
can support your favorite team in any you want.  The rules are: No magic, except that which the Players uses.

     The more the game pieces achieve, the closer they get to winning, the
more they become themselves.

     Objects or obstacles set in motion by the Player can only be defeated
by him.”

     “How’s that supposed to help us?” Naga looked over Xellos, who didn’t
seem the least bit interested in taking out his golem.  “That twerp won’t
do what we want.”

     Zelgadis glared at her.  “Don’t underestimate the power of knowledge.
That’s a fool’s mistake.”

     “Humph.”

     “Anyway, Zel,” Lina was getting sick and tired and bored.  “What do
we have to do to win this?  You’ve just said that our minds aren’t that
important because we can’t make believe in physical attacks and you can’t
kill things with thought, or at least WE can’t, so how do we win this game?
How do we make it go away?”

     “How do you win a game of chess?” Zel countered.

     “The queen checks the king from the opposing team.  But we can’t kill
the golem.”

     “I don’t think the golem is the king.”

     “Well then who?” Lina looked around.  Not Gourry, that was for sure,
not Naga or Felia or Amelia…..that left Xellos!  “But Xellos is the player…
how can he the king?” she asked.

     “What makes you think that that is actually HIM?  If this world is
only in our minds, that guy over there is probably only part of his.”

     “So he wouldn’t be as powerful, and I could attack him!” Lina smiled.
Now that she thought about it, it was kind of obvious.  Why hadn’t she
thought about it before?  It wasn’t like she had never fantasized blowing
him to hell and back!

     “Darkness beyond the blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night…..”

     Naga and Amelia looked over at Lina.  “That golem is REALLY close
Lina!  He’ll be right here in a second!”

     “King of Darkness who shines like gold upon a sea of chaos……”

     “Lina, things are getting crunched and munched here…I don’t wanna
die…..” Naga whined.

     Lina extended her arms to the sky.  “I give myself to thee - swear
myself to thee…..”

     “For Christ’s sake here, this is no time to chant!  HURRY UP!!!!”

     “All the fools that stand in our way shall be destroyed.”

     “I’m gonna die.”

     “With the power that both you and I posses…”

     “Naga, I want you to know I love you.”

     “Naga, quit talking to yourself.”

     “GIGGGA SLAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
 
 
 

     Quiet.  Dead air.  Nothing at all.  Strange nothing.  Not sights.
Not sounds.  Not even vibrations through the space between the game world
and the real one.  Silence.

     And then it was shattered and all around the group was the ordinary
sounds.  The kinds where birds sang and trees waver in the wind.  Crickets
chirp and if you listen closely you may here the faint babbling of a nearby
brook.  They were back.

     Lina was lying down on the soft, real, green grass and as her eyes
fluttered open, she was greeted with blonde hair, a crag-like face and two
gigantic breasts.

     She was home……………………….
 
 

End Part Eleven.