[Elric]

Elric opened his eyes and stared lazily at the fireplace. His mind still half-asleep, he just lay there and enjoyed the warmth...

"mmmm...."

Then he realized that it wasn't HIS fireplace. He wasn't home, and he wasn't supposed to be sleeping.

"OH! AAA!"

Elric jumped up and grabbed his sword. He was at Henna's house. Hax had sent him here last night to guard the woman, and she'd been nice enough to feed him breakfast.... after which he must have fallen asleep in front of the fireplace.

"Sleeping on the job!" he mumbled frantically as he searched the house for Henna. She wasn't there. "Oh GODS I'm dead! Hax is gonna skin me alive!"

Elric shoved his feet into his boots and tightened the straps.

"I'm dead... I'm SO dead! Sleeping on the job, what was I THINKING! Especially after the trouble last night... I'd better get back to the guardhouse right now. I hope I didn't miss anything important..."

---

Meanwhile... at the guard house...

[Blaymore]

Damn!

Blaymore watched as Hax advanced towards him. He'd just seen the already-imposing figure transform into to some strange iron golem, and it had just announced its intention to either kill or subdue him. Blaymore knew he couldn't allow either one of those things to happen. Unfortunately, nearly being electrocuted downstairs had left the assassin weak and vulnerable. His mind still reeled, and without full concentration he didn't dare use his full speed.... or his magic

Perhaps Blaymore could reason with him.

"Hax," he said firmly. "Things are not what they appear! Certainly you have your suspicions..."

"Suspicions are irrelevant," the Hax-golem boomed. His voice sounded very much like a thunderstorm trapped inside a steel drum. "You will return to your cell, and if you resist I will kill you."

"But what about the doctor? What was HE doing downstairs with us? He is not what he appears!"

"DON'T LISTEN TO HIM!" squealed Berwick, who was being held flat on the ground by Dwar. "HE'LL TAKE OVER YOUR MIND!"

"That fits the evidence," said Hax. He was still approaching Blaymore... trying to intimidate him into moving backwards towards the stairs. "And I know the doctor a lot better than I know you. Ready to go back downstairs now?"

So much for reason...

"No."

Blaymore went into action. The iron golem was incredibly fast... but not as fast as he was. Blaymore leapt into a forward roll, making a lunge for his dropped sword.

WHOOOSH! -THUNK!

Hax's steel axe... which was somehow a permanent part of his right arm... splintered the floor less than an inch behind him. He grabbed his sword, stood, instantly had to duck...

WHOOOOSH!

... to avoid loosing his head.

A quick glance told Blaymore that Berwick was still secure. THAT was his real objective here. He spun towards the prone doctor and the guardsman holding him down. Neither of them saw the blade swinging towards them , but Hax did.

The golem struck-

CLANG!

Hax blocked Blaymore's blade just in time. Blaymore's winced as the force of the impact traveled up the blade to his stinging, burned hands. But he managed to hang onto his sword this time. Hax reached for him with his other arm, but Blaymore sped around to his rear, slashing him with a series of high-speed blows as he did...

CLANG!

CLANK!

CLANK!

He was testing the golem for weaknesses. He found none. Each blow produced the ring of metal against metal... and Hax's body seemed to be of a much harder metal than Blaymore's sword.

But Blaymore was behind Hax now... maybe he could-

Hax made an impossible turn... the top half of his body rotated a full 180 degrees while the legs remained motionless. Hax struck out with his hand-

THUD!

And swatted Blaymore clear across the room.

"UNGH!" Blaymore hit a wall slid to the ground. Hax thundered towards him. As Blaymore rolled away, he grabbed one of the special daggers from his belt. It was perfectly balanced for throwing... and also completely invisible. He threw it... not at Hax, but at Berwick.

Predictably, Hax lunged-

K-TANG!

-and deflected the dagger with the blade of his axe. That's exactly what Blaymore wanted, for a soon as Hax had begun to move, Blaymore charged. He thrust his sword at Hax's waste... hoping to jam the swivel-joint-

CLINK!

There was no joint. Unfazed, Blaymore spun and slashed at the shoulder joint-

CLANK!

There was no shoulder joint.

The iron Hax had no joints... no moving parts. It was all one solid hunk of metal.

But that's IMPOSSIBLE! A golem with no joints can't move this fast!

At that moment, Blaymore's element of surprise expired. Hax swung his powerful metal fist. Blaymore ducked and backed away just in time-

WHOOOSH!

Now Hax had room to swing his other arm... the one that ended in an axe. Blaymore did a backflip that took him out of range. Or so he thought.

Blaymore reached for another dagger while Hax pointed at him with his 'normal' hand. Blaymore saw it coming... but was too surprised to do anything but gape.

Hax's arm extended... again without the benefit of joints or extendible segments... and shot across the room. The solid metal flowed like water as the appendage changed. The fist swelled to enormous proportions as it came towards him at an impossible speed.

But even with less than a split-second to move, Blaymore had plenty of time to dodge. The fist roared past him like a giant cannonball. He didn't look to see what it did to the wall behind him. Blaymore made another charge, hoping to use speed to his advantage. With enough momentum he could drive his sword right through Hax's chest, and hopefully jam the internal mechanisms.

Hax wasn't going to have that.

At the last second, giant spikes erupted from Hax's body. Each was about two feet long, and ended in a needle-sharp point.

"YOOOWWW!" Blaymore veered to the right just in time. A spike caught his left shoulder, ripping his cloak and digging a groove in his flesh. "ARRRGH!" Leaking blood from his shoulder, Blaymore spun and ducked. He saw the spikes retract back into Hax's body, but-

WHOOOOSH!

The axe sailed just over him. He twisted, and a kick by Hax narrowly missed him. Instinctively Blaymore reached for the extended leg... and nearly shredded his hand on the spikes that suddenly thrust out from Hax's metallic skin. Blaymore leapt to one side. The foot changed directions and moved at an impossible angle... right towards his head. Blaymore ducked. He saw Hax reach for him again and spun out of the way.

The axe came for him once more. Blaymore swung his sword at the same time, trying to deflect it.

Suddenly, the axe was no more. Metal flowed and twisted, and by the time it touched Blaymore's sword, Hax's weapon was a giant iron fist. It grabbed the tiny sword and yanked it out of Blaymore's grasp.

Hax took the sword in two hands and snapped it like a twig. He threw the pieces to the ground and walked towards Blaymore.

"NOW are you ready to go back to your cell?"

"Nope. Not yet."

His hands moving like a hummingbird's wings, Blaymore launched the rest of his daggers at Sev, Dwar, and especially Berwick... who were all standing behind Hax. Seven invisible missiles whistled towards their destinations. Hax couldn't possibly stop them all, and hopefully he'd choose to save his own men over Berwick

Or, as Blaymore quickly saw, he could just save them all.

As soon as Blaymore made the first movement, Hax did the impossible again.... He expanded across the room... his metal humanoid body stretching and flattening, becoming a solid wall of iron reaching from one wall to the other, sealing Berwick and the others away from Blaymore's missiles.

The daggers were traveling with such momentum that they actually sank into the metal and stuck... but they did not pass through. A shudder passed through the metal like a wave, and then all seven daggers fell to the floor. The holes in the metal sealed instantly.

Blaymore was dumbfounded.

"Uhhhh...."

A bulge appeared in the center of the metal wall, and it quickly resolved itself into a perfect likeness of Hax's face.

"Whoever you are," said Hax. "you're outclassed and outmatched."

"Obviously," said Blaymore.

"Give up?"

"Ummmm.... no?"

The face changed, becoming a formless bulge once more. It then took on a new shape...a giant fist. The fist reached into the small area of the room where Blaymore was trapped. It tried to grab him, but the assassin ran. Blaymore ducked and dodged, but he fist kept coming. Even in such a small space he could avoid it indefinitely. The only problem was he had no idea of how long Hax could keep it up. Blaymore would get tired eventually... but would Hax? Was Hax even remotely human... or alive?

And what was going on behind the iron wall? Had Berwick escaped?

Blaymore's attention was drawn back to Hax when the fist suddenly retracted back into the wall.

Was Hax giving up?

Nope.

The whole wall started moving forward, propelled by some unseen force. Blaymore was already trapped in a small section of the room, and now that section was growing smaller and smaller as Hax approached.

Hax was going to CRUSH him!

Blaymore looked behind him, and saw the only exit was the stairway leading back down to the dungeon. Hax was trying to force him back downstairs... but Blaymore wasn't going there again. There had to be a way out. His mind had almost cleared now... he could try going intangible and running THROUGH the wall... but if Hax's metal body was enchanted, which it most certainly was, then Blaymore would splatter himself all over it rather than go through it.

As if summoned by Blaymore's thought, foot-long spikes projected from the rapidly-approaching wall. Now he had even LESS room, and running through Hax was even less of an option.

But there were other walls.

Blaymore whispered his spell of intangibility and ran for the wall on his right-

BZZZ-KATHUD!

He bounced off of the enchantment with yet another blast of electric pain. To make matters worse, one of the spikes from the metal wall reached him... digging into his thigh.

"ARRRGH!!"

Blaymore pulled himself free.. literally yanking his impaled leg off of the spike... and then went for his only remaining option: the dungeon. He leapt through the doorway and tumbled unceremoniously down the hard stone steps. He came to rest at the bottom, and heard the upstairs door slam shut.

Henna and Ronce were still there. Henna had untied her brother, and they both looked at Blaymore when he arrived.

"Back so soon?" said Ronce.

---

SLAM!

Click!

Hax, now in non-metal human form, closed and locked the door to the dungeon. He'd have to go down there and put the prisoners back into their cells in a few minutes, but he had to check on the others first.

"Is everyone all right?" he asked.

Sev and Dwar nodded silently. Berwick just stared at him with a silly smile on his face.

Hax grabbed the old doctor by the shirt and pulled him up.

"I... I really should be going," Berwick mumbled.

"Not a chance. This building is hearby sealed. No one leaves until I figure out how those people got out of their cells and what part, if any, YOU had to play in it.

"You... you're going to lock me up?"

"Maybe you didn't hear him," said Dwar. "The building is sealed."

"There's no need to put YOU in a cell," added Hax. "because the whole BUILDING is a cell now. I am the only one who can deactivate it. There's something dangerous going on, and whatever it is, I want it trapped in here with us instead of wandering around the town."

"Oh, how nice," said Berwick. Hax released him and the doctor stumbled back.

"Hope you don't mind, doc." said Dwar. "Standard procedure."

"Mind? Mind being trapped in here with you gentlemen?" Berwick eyed Hax and smiled. "Oh no... I don't mind at all."

[To Be Continued]