Jenny did not have enhanced strength.

In fact, muscle wise, she was a little weaker than an average human. That wasn't because she was a genie, it was because of her. Her build, her natural talents, her natural tendencies. Had she been born a human, she would simply not have been very athletic. But shed been born a genie, which meant there were ways to compensate. Dr. Myrden had been showing her. So she flooded her muscles with magic. In a way, she was faking the physical enhancement Kyle, Evan, and Trevor had built into their bodies now. It made her faster and stronger, and she could close the distance to the deranged elf faster than if she was floating.

Evan got their first, of course. He was actually physically enhanced. But it didn't matter who got their first, because Sylvanandra disappeared seconds before Evan's fist could collide with her. Her laughter echoed from the trees around them.

“Ooh scary!” she laughed. “Look, I'm going to have to beat you both up but I guess you don't have to die. So just lay down and I'll wrap you up in vines or something. Your other option is to fight a sorceress so talented with shadow magic and nature magic her title is The Forest Shadow....in a big dark scary forest. Does that sound smart? Because it sounds kind of stupid to me.”

“Yeah well I guess we're stupid!” Jenny shouted.

“Apparently so am I,” Evan grumbled. “I picked this over her tits, something is seriously...”

Something grabbed him around the ankle and dragged him into the air. A huge vine swung him up and brought him back towards the ground at breakneck speed, but Jenny tackled him out of the vine's grip at the last second. It withered away as they sat up together in the dirt.

“That feels like cheating,” Evan complained.

“I don't think there's cheating in the fight to the death,” Jenny said.

“So you've got flight, and illusion magic right?” Evan said. “That's about like the sum total of your powers?”

“I've been working on other stuff!” Jenny said. “I can throw magical bolts now too.”

“How big?” Evan asked.

“Uhhhh....pretty big,” Jenny said. “But it would take me a while to get my magic organized to throw a really big one.”

“Okay fine,” Evan said. “Look, would you follow a plan I came up with?”

“I mean your whole big focus is your enhanced brain right?” Jenny said. “Get your hand off my thigh and sure!”

“Sorry old habits,” Evan removed his hand. “This is what we're gonna do...”

He bagan to hurriedly whisper a plan, but not hurriedly enough for Sylvanandra.

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“I'm sorry are you two done?” her voice echoed through the trees. “I mean I get that it's all polite and whatever to give you time for hero dialogue, but this is getting ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Evan said, brushing himself off. “Yeah we're good. Just talking about how annoying it is when you do the echoing voice thing so we can't tell where you are.”

“Pretty cool right!?” Sylvanandra sounded incredibly proud. “I mean it's super basic stuff for both forest magic and shadow magic, so I'm really good at it...”

“Yeah but the thing is you're just a copy of the original,” Evan said. “But you're a really good copy. And your heart is still beating, you pointy eared pain in my ass.”

Evan disappeared in a blur of motion and reappeared behind Sylvanandra in the tree she was sitting in. The elf yelped in surprise as evan punched for the back of her head, but she swung around the tree branch like a monkey and dodged the blow. Evan kept going, plummeting towards the ground, but she caught his ankle.

“This is a bad day for your ankles,” she said, slamming him against the tree and letting him drop. Cuts from the bark leaked blood from all over, but he landed on his feet as she gracefully dropped to the forest floor beside him. She looked almost angelic that way.

Must be an elf thing, Evan thought bitterly. Lucky bastards.

“Tell you what,” he said out loud. “How about we stop fighting and you let me give you a bad day for your knees?”

Sylvanandra blinked.

“Was...was that supposed to be a blowjob joke?”

“Kind of what I was going for yeah,” Evan shrugged.

“That was terrible,” the elf shook her head. “First of all, I am never going to blow you. Second...seriously? I'm gonna blowjob so hard it breaks all your knees? That's not hot orintimidating, it's just weird.”

“I've been told I'm weird,” Evan said. “Look I was going for sexualized tough guy dialogue and it didn't work, okay? Can we move on?”

“You realize it would be better to capture your friend, but it's not necessary. Right?” The elf pulled a strand of hair out of her face. “Once we kill her master and get the lamp, she'll be drawn back to grant our wishes anyway. So making stupid blowjob jokes to give her time to run away isn't going to....oh never mind, she's still there.”

Jenny stood in the clearing where they'd been talking before, eyes closed, hands in front of her as she gradually gathered a bigger and bigger ball of pinkish magical energy. Sylvanandra gasped, her eyes sparkling.

“It's a spirit bomb!” she said excitedly. “You're doing a spirit bomb! She's powering up some big magical attack while you're fighting me so I can't stop her! It's a spirit bomb!”

“It's got nothing to do with...”

“It's a spirit bomb!” Sylvanandra cut him off.

“Scenes about defended power ups aren't exclusive to....”

“Spirit bomb!”

“I mean okay, maybe it's a little similar to...”

“Spirit!” The elf said pointedly. “Bomb!”

“Yes okay!? Yes, fine, it's a freaking spirit bomb!” Evan said. “Just because it's unoriginal doesn't mean it isn't going to work! You obviously can't do that vine trick again or you would have already, probably something to do with this just being a copy body. And I'm strong and fast and I can definitely keep you busy before she blows your ass to...clone...hell. Or whatever happens when we blow you up.”

Evan charged in to punch her.

“You're right,” Sylvanandra sighed. “That thing she's building looks like it could maybe hurt my original body, and this is just a much weaker clone. And I couldn't even give any of the clones all my powers, this one got almost no magic at all.”

She casually caught Evan by the face, halting him mid attack.

“That's because I gave it all the physical enhancement,” the elf laughed, slamming Evan's face into the ground. She turned and bolted towards Jenny and the growing ball of magic.

“No!” Evan shouted as the elf's hand slammed into Jenny's stomach and just...kept going.

Through empty air.

Jenny disappeared in a rush of sparkling pink magic and reappeared at the edge of the clearing, a huge ball of magic in her hands.

“Got you!” Jenny shouted, throwing the ball. It slammed into the confused elf with an enormous burst of sparkling pink energy, throwing sylvanandra's smoking body through the air. The elf's skin was charred, and she was missing an arm on one side and a leg on the other, smoke pouring from her mouth.

“You...bitch!” The Sylvanandra coughed. “Gimme a minute to heal this and I'm gonna...”

And then Evan was just there. It was like he hadn't even moved, suddenly he just appeared beside her in the air, a broken branch impaled through her heart. The elft coughed up blood...and then the clone's body collapsed into leaves and starlight that blew away on the wind. When Evan landed on the ground he stood alone.

Until Jenny tackled and hugged him.

“Great job!” She said. “That plan worked so well!”

“I only told you to hide and power up,” Evan said. “I didn't expect the illusion. I got so pissed when I saw you just standing out in the open like that...why didn't you tell me you could cast illusions and charge up that spell at the same time?”

“We were in a hurry,” Jenny said. “But we did it right? Big win!”

“We did it,” Evan agreed.

“So let's go find Kyle and the others!” Jenny said. “And take your hand off my thigh.”

“Sorry! Sorry. Old habits.”