Stella lay on a surface of black scales, her limbs splayed to the side. Sweat covered her face and dampened her hair. She was staring up at the sky, her breaths shallow. “Well, it looks like this is it, Chompy,” she said. “This is how we die.”

Chompy let out a low growl and swiped his tail back and forth, keeping the invaders at bay. He roared out when they stuck a few spears inside of it, metal chains attached to their ends. His body was covered in wounds, and the ones he received from fighting the chimera queen had reopened long ago. Hundreds of spears and arrows with chains were slowing his movement, and every time he tore one out, a ball of flesh would be yanked out too by the barbs on the weapons’ ends. The seemingly endless army of red soldiers wasn’t as numerous as before, most of them having perished, but the new invading army of beings with horns looked even more threatening than the first one.

Stella turned her head to the side. Mervin was lying beside her, still face down with a burnt back. Perhaps he was already gone. Could genies even die? Stella nudged his arm, but there was no response. She sighed and faced the sky again. It was covered in hundreds of thousands of streaks of lightning that hadn’t been there moments ago. Her eyes widened as her vision filled with white, blinding her. Then came the thunder, a roaring so loud that it turned into a low, high-pitched whine from her eardrums rupturing. When her vision cleared, lightning bolts were still dancing in the sky. She sat up and looked around. The soldiers that were surrounding Chompy were on the ground, twitching and spasming. Before she could see any further, her vision was robbed again by another torrent of lightning raining down. The sound wasn’t as bad this time since she couldn’t hear as well, but the heat generated by the lightning was hot enough to burn her skin.

The world flickered with white and black, alternating between the two until Stella couldn’t tell which was which anymore. When it finally stopped, a burnt smell filled her nostrils. Was it Mervin? Stella shook her head and rubbed her eyes. Though her vision was still blurry and filled with black spots, she managed to make out the remainder of the red army and the army of cows. All of them were on the ground, blackened and unmoving with charred bits crumbling off of them as a wind swept past. The wind stopped blowing, and then it turned around. A pair of eyes formed in front of Stella. “Hey! You alright?”

Stella blinked twice. “Zilphy? Speak louder; I think my ears stopped working.”

A vortex of ash and dust swirled around the pair of eyes as Zilphy took in a deep breath. Her voice thundered out, blowing Stella back from the force, “Hey! You alright!?”

Stella shouted back, “Do I look alright!?”

The pair of eyes scanned her from head to toe. “Yep! You look absolutely untouched and chipper! Your ears are bleeding though! You might want to make them stop bleeding!”

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“Yeah, let me just will them to stop!” Stella shouted. She swatted at Zilphy, but her hand passed through the wind elemental without making contact. “What happened!? Where did that lightning come from!?”

“Why are you shouting too!? I can hear you just fine!” Zilphy took in another deep breath. “Vur was freed from his chains! It turns out they were stopping him from casting magic! So, Sheryl and I brought him up to the walls, and he shot thousands of lightning bolts out of his fingertips like bam, boom, bang, kaboom!”

Stella slumped down and exhaled. Her eyes met with Chompy’s, and she smiled. “It looks like this isn’t it, Chompy! This isn’t how we die!”

Chompy snorted and put a claw to his lips as if he were telling Stella to tone it down. His nostrils twitched and flared twice. Then he crawled forward, past the dissolving corpses of the red army, and towards the perfectly seared cows. His tongue wet his lips as saliva pooled and fell out from between his teeth.

Stella waved at Zilphy. “Tell Vur to come down here! Mervin was injured to the point of dying!”

Zilphy blinked. “Can’t you just say Mervin was killed!? What do you mean injured to the point of dying!? Oh, and that’s a shame, by the way. Poor Mervin.”

Stella leaned back until she lost her balance, falling flat on Chompy’s head. Living inside of Vur was supposed to be a surefire way towards immortality, but she almost lost everything within a day. It seemed like she’d have to improve the defenses inside of Vur some more. Speaking of defenses, where were Mistle and Deedee? Could it be … they were having an affair? Two elementals tasked to work together by combining their elements. Two elementals mixing together in close proximity. Two elementals together when one of them was already known to be madly in love with the other. Stella blinked at Zilpy and shook her head. Nah, it couldn’t be. Deedee was married. But wasn’t that the definition of affair? Maybe it was possible.

While Stella was stuck deep in thought, a familiar face popped up in her vision. Vur blinked down at her, and she blinked up at him. Her landlord tilted his head. “Are you okay?”

“Do you think Deedee is cheating on Zilphy with Mistle!?” Stella whispered, but only to herself. Her ears still weren’t working, and her voice came out louder than usual.

“Deedee is what!?” Zilphy exploded, her eyes blowing apart into thousands of little eyes that shot through the air, carried by the wind.

Vur tilted his head to the other side. “Well, it seems like you are okay,” he said and nodded before picking her up. Then he hugged her to his chest, almost squishing her. The two bobbed up and down from Chompy’s eating motions. “What about Mervin?”

“Right, Mervin!” Stella shouted. She wriggled around and pointed at the genie, who was sitting upright with a grin on his face. “Wait!? Mervin!?”

Mervin’s grin spread into a smile. “I knew you cared about me!”

Stella’s eyes bulged. “So, you pretended to be dead!?”

“Pretend?” Mervin coughed out a few mouthfuls of blood. “Uh, no. I’m actually dying. Vur, I need you to make a wish, so I can turn back into a beansprout. If you don’t make a wish, I’ll really die! So, wish for anything, anything at all, even a sandwich. Wish for the first thing that comes to your mind, hurry!”

Vur scratched his head. The first thing that came to mind?