"It sounds like destroying Earth is a lot tougher than you thought it would be," Elliot said. He figured that he and Kovol might as well have some conversation.
But Kovol only grunted. He paced back and forth, every so often looking up at the bright springtime sky. Maybe he was waiting for the sun to go down before he did anything really mean. Elliot understood that. He had always felt that if he were a super villain, he'd do all of his super-villain work at night too--as long as he had taken a nap in the daytime so that he didn't get tired.
Elliot wondered if Kovol had taken a nap that day. Probably not. He'd probably had more than enough naptime in the last thousand years.
"I have a question," Elliot said. "What are you planning to do after you destroy Earth? Because if you destroy my world, then you destroy yours too. What if you get bored and want some candy from the store? But there is no store because you destroyed it?" Elliot shrugged. "I'm not sure that you really thought this plan through."
"I will destroy Elliot," Kovol muttered.
"Well, yeah, I think you've made that clear," Elliot said. "But what about everything else? Maybe you haven't noticed, but Demon Territory is the ugliest, stinkiest, dirtiest place in the entire Underworld. And if you go around destroying all the nice places, you'll be stuck without a home."
"I'll destroy everything," Kovol said. "Except for one sunny island."
Elliot's ears perked up (except he was still upside down in the rope, so his ears actually perked down). "Oh, like Fiji or somewhere? My teacher went there for a trip last year."
Kovol grunted, which was probably a yes.
It gave Elliot another idea. Hiding his grin, he said, "So you don't want to destroy everything. Mostly just me, right?"
Again, Kovol grunted a yes.
"What about all those creatures you took prisoner inside your cave? Are you going to destroy them?"
This time Kovol spoke in sentences. "I'll rule those who serve me. Those who fight me get eaten."
Elliot thought that was a pretty lame way to rule. The Brownies didn't bow to Elliot because otherwise he would eat them. They bowed because he served them and loved them and did everything he could to make their lives better.
But to Kovol he only said, "I'm the one who got all those creatures to fight you. I'm responsible for that."
"So I must destroy Elliot," Kovol grunted again.
"Yes, I know. But you've already got me. So it doesn't make sense to keep all those other creatures as your prisoners."
"You're right," Kovol agreed. "I need creatures to serve me."
"So you wouldn't care if everyone you took prisoner down there went free?"
"No."
Elliot hoped that would be enough. He wasn't clear on how all the rules of magic worked, but Kovol had just said he didn't care if all the creatures he had taken prisoner went free. Was that enough to release them?
Technically speaking, Elliot was also one of the creatures that Kovol had taken prisoner. So if they were free, did that mean Elliot was free too?
There was only one way to find out. Elliot closed his eyes and tried to think of a place where he wanted to poof himself. But it wasn't an easy decision. Wherever he went, there was a chance that Kovol might follow. So he couldn't go home or to Burrowsville. And he didn't want to go to Demon Territory, where Kovol could take him prisoner again. If he got the chance, he wouldn't mind stopping the war long enough for a bathroom break. That would give him a good place to think.
Elliot was usually a pretty good thinker. But sometimes he was also a pretty slow thinker, and trying to figure out where to poof was definitely not a good time for him to take so long to think.
Because while Elliot's eyes were shut, Kovol decided he might as well just get rid of his prisoner once and for all. He made a twirling motion with his fingers, and Elliot started spinning with his rope. "I like my breakfast scrambled," Kovol said.
"News flash," Elliot called back. "Breakfast was hours ago! I guess you'll have to wait until morning." Except he already felt his insides scrambling. He didn't want to do this all night.
Elliot opened his eyes only long enough to figure out that he was getting dizzy really fast. Then he closed them again and tried to poof away to anywhere. It didn't matter. He'd poof to the top of Mount Everest if he had to. Or to the moon. Or, better yet, to Fiji. He thought Fiji might be nice this time of year.
But with so much blood crowding out the other thoughts in his head, and with the problem that he was now spinning like a top, Elliot couldn't form a single picture of anywhere he ought to go. In fact, he couldn't put any thought together that made sense. He started sputtering things back to Kovol like "I...you...sometimes pickles...let's dance."
He wasn't sure what that meant. Kovol didn't seem to understand it either, because he slowed Elliot's spinning long enough to say, "No more. With Elliot gone, no one rules the Underworld but Kovol!"
Kovol raised his arms above his head to strike at Elliot, releasing the most horrible armpit odor that had ever been sent into the world. A butterfly that had just flown into the area exploded as soon as it crossed the smelly vapor. When the breeze carried the odor to a fat pine tree, eight of its branches fell straight to the ground. If Kovol's armpits had smelled good, like a fresh-baked apple pie or something,