With the dual victories over Brenda and Susan Gable, a new, dangerous sense of normalcy began to settle over the apartment. Malakor had established a firm routine: strategic analysis of the morning news, a post-lunch nap on his throne (the sofa), and intense, whispered consultations with Maya about her "mortal tribulations." He seemed to be treating her life as a complex, turn-based strategy game, and he was deeply, personally invested in winning.
It was during this period of relative peace that he identified a new, insidious threat within their very walls.
His nemesis was Bubbles the goldfish.
Bubbles was a relic from a company fair two years prior, a creature of profound simplicity who existed in a state of blissful ignorance inside a small glass bowl on the kitchen counter. His world was one of slow, graceful arcs, the gentle filter of his pump, and the daily sprinkle of fish flakes. He was, by all objective measures, harmless.
Mal saw it differently.
It began with him standing on the kitchen counter, his hairless body rigid, his tail twitching, his golden eyes fixed on the oblivious fish.
"He mocks me," Mal stated, his voice a low growl.
Maya, who was washing dishes, paused. "Who mocks you?"
"The orange one. The floating, gilled simpleton. Observe."
Mal stared harder at Bubbles. Bubbles, in response, swam in a lazy circle and released a tiny, perfect bubble.
"Did you see that?" Mal hissed. "The audacity! A direct challenge to my authority! That bubble was a symbol of his hollow, vacuous reign over this... this tiny, watery domain!"
"Mal, he's a goldfish. His memory lasts about three seconds. He probably doesn't even know you exist."
"Precisely! The ultimate insult! To be so beneath the notice of a creature that considers a plastic castle the pinnacle of architectural achievement." He paced the length of the counter, his tiny claws clicking on the tile. "This cannot stand. He must be made to acknowledge my supremacy."
And so began the War on Bubbles.
Maya returned from work the next day to find a complex series of stacked books and kitchen utensils leading from the floor to the counter, a makeshift siege tower. At its peak, Mal was leaning precariously over the fishbowl, holding one of Maya's metal skewers like a lance.
"For the Nether Realm!" he rasped, and thrust the skewer into the water.
There was a plink, a splash, and Bubbles, startled, darted behind his plastic seaweed. Mal, overbalanced by the force of his thrust, teetered for a moment before tumbling backward into the sink, which thankfully contained only a few soaking pans.
Maya fished him out, dripping and smelling of old spaghetti sauce. "What did we say about Rule One? No disintegrating things inside the apartment!"
"I was not disintegrating! I was spearing! It is a time-honored martial tradition!"
"Rule One-A: No spearing the goldfish!"
The following attempt was more subtle. Mal had spent the afternoon watching a nature documentary on apex predators. That evening, he attempted to hypnotize Bubbles.
He sat on the counter, swinging Mr. Whiskers' laser pointer like a pendulum over the bowl. "Gaze into the light, finned one," he intoned. "See the endless void. See your insignificance. Acknowledge me as your Dark Lord."
Bubbles, intrigued by the little red dot, followed it back and forth for a full minute. Then, he got bored, swam away, and ate a piece of gravel.
Mal was incandescent with rage. "He resists my mental probes! The creature has a will of iron, shielded by a brain of utter emptiness!"
The climax of the conflict occurred at 3:17 AM. Maya was woken by a sound from the kitchen—a low, continuous muttering. She crept out to find the kitchen illuminated only by the dim glow of the digital clock on the oven.
Mal was seated on a stool pulled up to the counter, his chin resting on the edge of the fishbowl, his face mere inches from the water. His enormous golden eyes were wide open, fixed on Bubbles, who was sleeping (or whatever goldfish do) near the glass.
"...and so you see," Mal was whispering, his voice hoarse with sleep-deprivation and frustration, "your rebellion is futile. My legions stretch across dimensions you cannot conceive of. I have toppled empires built on foundations of obsidian and despair. Your reign of... of bubbles and flake-food ends tonight. Swear fealty to me, and I may permit you to remain as a provincial governor of this... this puddle."
Bubbles, in his sleep, wiggled a fin.
Mal took it as a sign of defiance. He sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed too big for his small body. "So be it. We are at an impasse." He didn't move. He just continued to stare, as if trying to win the war through sheer force of will alone.
Maya watched for a moment, a mixture of pity and overwhelming amusement washing over her. The mighty Lord Malakor, Breaker of Worlds, brought to a standstill by two inches of common goldfish.
She walked into the kitchen. "Mal, it's three in the morning. You have a staring contest with a fish you can't possibly win."
He didn't look away. "He blinked first. I know it."
"Fish don't have eyelids. They can't blink."
There was a long, profound silence.
Mal slowly turned his head to look at her, his expression one of utter, soul-crushing revelation. "No... eyelids?"
"None."
He looked back at Bubbles, the truth dawning on him. His greatest adversary, the mocking, floating nemesis who had resisted all his schemes, was not a master of psychological warfare. He was, biologically, incapable of surrendering.
Malakor, Lord of the Abyssal Planes, slid off the stool. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. He trudged past Maya without another word and retreated to the living room, where he spent the rest of the night on his sofa-throne, staring at the blank television screen, a broken tyrant.
The next day, a tentative truce was established. Mal ignored the fishbowl completely, treating it with the cold disdain of a conqueror for a territory he now deemed unworthy of his attention. Bubbles, for his part, continued to blow bubbles, utterly unaware that he had just won a cosmic war.