Side Fangs: “Impromptu Casino Visit” (Part 3) (Stella)

We were stuck in a void casino, and the only other people who weren't in a trance were Chumbler and Z.O.K., two students I mercifully hadn't had much experience with prior to this.

"Are you hypnotized or anything?" Evy asked.

"No?" Chumbler said. "We just got here, really."

Evy picked Chumbler up by her wrist.

"Hey! Put me down! Unhand me this instant!" Chumbler said as Evy found the girl's power blocker and tried to send a distress signal out with it.

"Damn, something's blocking it," Evy said, letting Chumbler fall to the ground, the impact making a strange splat sort of noise. "Kid, what's going on here? Did whoever did this involve you in it? Or did you do this?"

"Um...I'll explain, because I know Chumbler won't," a Kanibari girl approached, Chumbler's companion Z.O.K. "They offered us five hundred dollars to just keep you all using the slot machines."

"That's five zero zero," Chumbler said. "Not fifty. I would've done it for fifty. I would've done it for five. But five hundo, and they get to revitalize the Chumblerosa IP for even a brief moment? Come on."

"OK, who did that?" I asked.

"Revitalized the Chumblerosa IP? That'd be me," Chumbler said.

"No, just. Stop," I said. "Who put you up to this?"

"I...dunno," Z.O.K. said. "Some Taramin science lady."

Evy and I exchanged glances. This couldn't be my mother's work, could it? Was it a massive mistake to even give her a grain of sand sized amount of trust?

"Did she look like me?" I asked.

"Hmmm," Chumbler rubbed her chin. "No, not at all."

I wasn't sure if I should be relieved by that or not.

"I'm mostly annoyed that I've missed most of the gambling so far," Chumbler said.

"We wanted to dance, so...we went to the dance first," Z.O.K. said.

"And if you're wondering why we're ratting out the lady that did this, it's because she paid upfront, so I don't really care if we tattle on her now," Chumbler said.

"You know you're gonna be in major trouble for this even if you got paid already, right?" Evy said.

"What, for betraying her?" Chumbler asked.

"No, just for doing this," Evy said.

"Even if we skipped most of it?" Chumbler asked.

"Yes," Evy said.

"Eh, we can evade trouble like that," Chumbler snapped her fingers.

If we kept bantering with these two, we could be stuck here a while.

"We have to get the others awake, and get out of here as fast as we can," I said. It was obvious, but in a moment of chaos like this, a clear goal was vital.

"Ah! Maybe I can help with that," Chumbler said. "There's an imp somewhere in here, or maybe a bunch, I dunno. You beat that, and you get out of here. Probably."

"Probably!" Z.O.K. said.

"Waking someone up from a void imp spell usually involves loud noises," Evy said. "But everything is loud here, so..."

"We'll think of something," I said. We woke up on our own, so maybe the rest would, too? Even if we couldn't snap them out, Evy and I were awake, so that had to count for something. I was still lurching from the sudden new place I found myself in, but my will to protect my sister was strong enough to put that at the back of my mind. There wasn't time to do anything other than act in this moment.