Chubby standing there like a hollowed-out automaton, that terrifyingly mechanical laugh... it felt like my soul was being scrubbed with steel wool.
"You take my pets! I will take yours, human!"
The words hung in the red dust of the mine like a physical curse. And then—pop.
Chubby didn't fade; he was deleted. One second he was a dizzy, rebooted wraith at my boots, and the next, there was just an empty patch of dirt. No mana-trail, no spectral residue, nothing.
"Chubby?" I whispered, my voice cracking out of its CEO-tenor. I dropped to my knees, digging my fingers into the red earth as if I could pull him back out of the ground. "Chubby, this isn't funny! I haven't finished your performance review!"
Raya climbed out of my pouch, her tiny dragon body trembling so hard her scales rattled like dry leaves. She sniffed the air, her twin heads darting left and right, her eyes wide with a primal, ancient terror.
