Two Worlds (Written by a 10-year-old author, 62,000 words, 72 chapters)

Chapter 64: Paintballs!

Lily never thought fighting a battle could be fun. Paintballs changed the entire experience.

She and Tara sat at the base of the dragon's neck, shooting rainbow paintballs at dwarves. Occasionally they would hit an elf, but that was quickly taken care of. Lily did accidentally hit Jake with a paintball, though. That got a few laughs out from her, but she returned to being serious - at least, as serious as she could be while having a paintball fight. Turns out, paintballs were actually a good weapon choice. Soon, the dwarves had been reduced to mere hundreds.

It was around that time that Lily and Tara ran out of paintballs. Having fired their last rainbow projectiles into the dragons' eyes, they tossed their paintballs over their shoulders and drew their swords wearily. "Whoo!" Tara exhaled loudly and collapsed on the dragon's back. "That was extremely tiring. Can we please get off this ride?" Lily agreed, and so they slid down the dragon's tail and re-engaged with the battle. Stacy stumbled over. "Hey," she said breathlessly. Tara caught her as she keeled over. "Whoa, hold on, Stacy," she said. "I'm fine. I'm just a bit ... tired," Stacy mumbled.

Concerned, Lily felt Stacy's forehead. "I think she has heat stroke," she said to Tara. "Better get her somewhere shady and safe." Tara left, half carrying and half guiding Stacy away from the battle. Lily blamed the overwhelming heat on her exhaustion. But at least she could still fight. She didn't know how long she'd been in the battle until she began to get hungry. She ate a huge dinner last night, but it was probably around 2:00 PM. But it wasn't up to her to end the battle.

Five minutes later, Lily was battling yet another dragon when she heard a woman scream, loud and full of rage. She was vaguely aware of the dragon's shadow getting darker, and she dived out of the way, the dragon crashing dead on the asphalt seconds where she'd been before, a sword in its back. Lily rose unsteadily, only to be blasted off her feet by another grenade. Lily's ears rang as she crouched, dizzy and disoriented. Someone was yelling something in her ear, but Lily was too groggy to either hear or see the speaker. Struggling to remain conscious, she was yanked roughly to her feet. Lily cried out. She'd sprained her ankle as she fell. She gasped as her ankle twisted under her weight.

"Lily. Can you hear me?" Lily forced herself to look up and found herself staring into Theresa's eyes. The sorceress gripped her hand, and Lily felt the pain go out of her ankle. "You must flee," Theresa commanded. "I overheard Sophie talking to one of the dwarf generals. In about ten minutes, she'll cut the life sources on all the dragons and the dwarves will sink into the ground and disappear, transported to a prison under her home. Any other being in contact with a dwarf at that time will vanish with them." "So ... what do I do?" Theresa's eyes sparked with the old impatience she used to possess. "You should know. Run. Get out of the area and off the battlefield. Gather your friends and go." With that, she vanished.

Lily gulped. She was extremely keen not to get captured. She began to push warriors out of her way, gathering her friends as she sprinted past them.

With two minutes left on the clock, Lily grabbed Oneida's hand. She now had all her confused friends next her, but now what? They still had one-third of the crowded battlefield to cross. So she did the only option left. After telling her friends the plan, she jumped up and began to run over the dwarves' helmeted heads, careful to avoid the things that could trip her - which, in this case, were the elves' heads. They leaped off and ran away from the crowd just as the dwarves started to disappear, starting from the back.

As the shockwave quickly progressed, she saw someone else running over the dwarves' heads and heard Jake cry out in alarm. In all the confusion, she'd forgotten to grab Parker. And now he was racing in front of the shockwave, dwarves and elves vanishing inches behind him as he sprinted towards them. Jake stepped closer to the dwarves and stretched out his hand towards his brother. Parker grabbed it and they both tumbled to the ground as the last of the dwarves and elves disappeared with surprised screams, leaving no trace of the battle except for the dragon bodies lying limp on the road.

Parker doubled over, gasping for air as Oneida fussed over him. Lily blew the hair out of her face and saw that someone was running between the dead dragons, brushing her hand across their massive eyelids, white-blond hair flying out behind her. Lily knew who it was before she drew her sword. Her arm moved on its own, and the next thing she knew, the weapon was spinning towards Sophie like a boomerang.

When the blade wasten feet away, Sophie's eyes shot up forone second, but that was enough. She thrust out her hand and the swordrebounded off her glowing palm, spinning straight back at Lily, who yelped andducked as the weapon embedded itself in a nearby tree. Sophie brushed herfingers over the last dragon's eyelid and vanished into the air. The dragonsgroaned and stirred, wings sprouting from their backs, and soon they lifted offfrom the ground and disappeared into the clouds. "What are we going to do aboutthat?" Stacy asked. "Um ..." Lilythought hard for a few seconds. "We watch the news and see what happens."