Disclaimer: I don't own Fairly Odd Parents.

A/N: Constructive criticism welcomed, particularly on characterization. If Losing Streak is on a losing streak, tell me so I can fix it. This fanfic is multi-chaptered so if you got an Alert for this chapter, you should go and read it from the beginning or else it won't make any sense. In addition, I allow reviews from people without accounts.

Chapter 14: There Are Others

The story of the malevolent spirit got entrenched into the tribe's mythology. The shaman's tent fell on him, killing him. A human took the lamp from the tent and rubbed it. Only once the spirit had come out, he remembered the story, and feared the spirit. One could probably guess what would happen next. Four years later, the spirit was no longer the only one in town.

Norm, the ten year-old not-spirit, groaned. Another human had rubbed his lamp. He was going to be persecuted again. Yawn! Being persecuted would sound exciting and dangerous if this was the first time it happened, but after thousands of times, it was totally boring and safe.

Norm got the usual spirit-overreaction. The human then recognized him from the legend and the overreaction turned into a rant about how malevolent he was. Groan, yawn. Why did most – or all – humans follow the exact same formula?

He glanced around, looking for something actually interesting to occupy his short attention span with.

He was not disappointed. A man, whose name Norm knew was Karam, had came back from hunting, holding a lamp that looked a lot like his, and a big catch. Norm watched Karam look over both the catch and the lamp. Karam rubbed the lamp idly, since he had glanced around to check if Norm the Malevolent Spirit had came out of his lamp and the results had came back positive.

Norm continued to watch. Dark orange smoke spiraled out of the lamp in a way that reminded him of his teal blue smoke. The smoke cleared, showing a man with a dark orange tail, wearing clothes that looked more elaborate and smoother than those worn by the humans. The man's skin was a light pinkish-white that Norm had never associated with skin before.

Norm grinned. The man was of his kind, no doubt – whatever his kind was.

"I'm Torvald the Genie!" announced the man, GONGing up some weird, glowing, floating things.

Genie? What was a genie?

Norm GONGed beside Torvald.

Torvald glanced around nervously. What was the other GONG about?

He saw the ten year-old and groaned. There was another genie in the area?

"What's a genie?" whispered the ten year-old into his ear.

He sighed in relief. The ten year-old was smart enough not to shout his query at the entire world.

GONG!

They both appeared in Torvald's yellow lava lamp. The ten year-old gazed around in a combination of confusion and amazement. Torvald supposed that the child had never seen comfortable furniture, TVs, computers, or books before. The child was born in the year of the Darkness after all, probably before it came.

"Genies are magical creatures."

"Creature?" asked the ten year-old in a mutter. "I'm just a creature? At least the humans think I'm something."

Torvald brought his hand onto his face and slapped it. Kids these days! What were genie kids taught these days?

"No, you aren't just a creature," he replied. "That's just what magical living things are called. Magical creatures."

"Okay?" replied the child, still feeling unsure.

"Yes. Other types of magical creatures are: fairies, Pixies, Anti-Fairies, elves, unicorns, Bigfoot, vampires, dragons, Lawn Gnomes…"

The child looked overwhelmed by the information. Torvald continued on talking.

"Genies used to live in Genie World."

"What happened?"

"The Darkness, that is the last I remember of Genie World. Just the Darkness."

"Darkness?"

"The Darkness."

"Okay?"

"Yes. I don't know much about the Darkness, so I won't try to explain it to you. It is why we're trapped in lamps and why we have to grant three wishes to any human that rubs our lamp, deserving or not. We never had to before."

"So, that means that a genie could escape their lamp if they wanted to?" asked the child curiously.

"Keep dreaming, little dreamer," replied Torvald, sounding sarcastically bitter. "I've tried, but I'm not free."

Torvald GONGed the young genie out of his lamp. The mere presence of the child played too hard on his uncertainties, fears, and locked-away wants. Not the type of thing that he wanted to be with him for any longer than the child was already.