"Do you have to be so loud about it?"

"I can't help it. I honk when I'm nervous!" Pockets explained as her unicycle squeaked louder than a door in a horror game with every rotation.

Dang it! complained Death. I can't keep his attention.

The hollow king had thrown his sword through the air without letting go again. The blade cut through the mist and was headed right for Sentenza and Pockets. While still being cradled, Sentenza shoved Pockets head to the side and pointed his pistol at the emaciated man. He quickly opened fire on the fingers holding onto the blade again. Each shot rang true, but this time, the ethereal arm had moved to block most of the bullets, and they bounced off of ethereal fingers that seemed to be even less effected than his skin was to the bullets.

He wasn't alone in defending them, as Death leaped up to try and intercept the blow with his scythe. It seemed like no more than an annoyance for the hollow king, as he simply kicked Death's ribcage instead of actually clashing blades. As Death was knocked away, his aim seemed to have been knocked off as well, as his sword crashed down away from Pockets and Sentenza, with the shockwave from the crash sending them flying off of her unicycle.

Pockets honked with every bounce on the ground, while Sentenza just let out a pained grunt.

This isn't close to being over, is it? Death asked as he stuck his arm back onto his body.

As the hollow king stood up, he cracked his neck from one side and then to the other as he let out a low hiss.

"Nope," sighed Sentenza as Pockets continued to honk.

The room was an absolute mess. Narissa and Og'drimun both looked like they had just been tossed around by a hurricane. Vials were spread all over the ground, with chunks of the wall missing various places, and boulders blocking the only door, it was clear something had gone wrong.

"I've got to say," coughed Narissa. "Your wards have gotten much better."

"Really?" Og'drimun said with obvious joy in his voice at the compliment. "Uh. Umm. I mean. Mhm. Of course. I improve with every spell I cast. So of course, a spell I cast now is far superior to any I have cast before."

Narissa brushed her clothes off as she stood up and walked towards the fire pit. "I'll check on the portal. See that our guest is finally placated, will you?"

Og'drimun sulked. "Huh? I'm the one who held them off with my wards and bare paws. Now I have to babysit them?"

"Well, who else would I be talking to?" Narissa scoffed. "You don't see any other minions here, do you?"

"What!" snarled Og'drimun. "I am not your minion! I am a partner! Or at worse an independent contractor of sorts."

"Don't fool yourself, I'm the evil witch, and you're my minion." she chuckled as she stood over the glowing portal.

"If you're going for tropes, wouldn't that make me a familiar?" Og'drimun pointed out as he floated up into the air. He lifted his hand and snapped his stubby fingers.

"No, because a familiar implies something much less anno..." Her face turned ghost white as she turned to see him snapping his fingers. "What do you think you're doing!?!"

"Huh? Checking on things, like you asked." he explained as a silver bullet with red markings all over it spun around into the air and flew towards his hand.

"That thing will...!"

It spun quickly but landed directly in Og'drimun's hand between his fingers. "See? Safe and sound."

"How you can constantly be so careless with an unstable weapon built to kill you is beyond me." She sighed as the bullet didn't explode. "Especially when you send surges of magic through it like that."

Og'drimun smirked as he taunted her by tossing the bullet into the air and catching it again. "What? Now you don't trust our seals? Then why'd you say we were done with that last batch we added on top?"

"Because it was ready to rupture!" she snapped as she waved her arm around to show the wrecked room. "If we pumped more magic in, the entire thing was likely to snap."

Og'drimun dismissively waved his hand at her. "You worry too much."

"You seemed plenty worried earlier." She countered.

"Well...yeah, but now the danger is gone. So why worry? I mean, I know my magic is good enough to hold it back, so why stress, right?" he said with a smile as he continued to play with the bullet. "We're done with this thing, so why would I freak out about it now?"

"Maybe because we still need more of that exact thing, and something that can use it without being obliterated?" Narissa opened her mouth to try and explain more but gave up on it and turned her back to Og'drimun. Instead, she dug her hand down into the portal and carefully reached around inside.

"Dang it." he grumbled. "I forgot he needed more..."

"It's more for us now." She added. "He should already be ready for the first part. He just needs a couple horses and those sheets of metal."

"Us? What do we need something like this for?"

Narissa put her hand not in the portal up against her forehead and sighed. "A weapon capable of actually killing you? You can't see why we need that?"

"Uh...no? I mean, I'm pretty awesome, and I don't think killing me should be on the agenda."

Narissa's hand stopped reaching around in the portal, and slowly pulled back revealing a hand mirror held in her fist. "Maybe try and use your imagination for once?" she said before she lifted up the mirror to look at herself. She smiled into the mirror as she started to try and straighten up. Pulling pieces of debris from her hair, wiping makeup smudges off, and all around inspecting herself rather closely.

"A mirror? Did you really need that?" Og'drimun scoffed.

Narissa turned towards him with a tired smile, as the mirror flashed with small streaks of green electricity. She nestled the mirror into her belt and walked over towards the furry demon. "You seem to have gotten even better at missing the obvious, so I won't bother explaining it to you. Just show a little faith, hmm?"

"Faith?" Og'drimun snorted. "Me?"

"Call it whatever you want, trust, friendship, loyalty, I don't care. Just clear the way out for us, would you?" she said as she walked towards the pile of stone blocking the only exit.

Og'drimun turned towards the blocked doorway and chuckled nervously. "About that..."

"Yes?" she asked as she raised an eyebrow.

Og'drimun tried to make his eyes as big as he could as he turned to look up at Narissa. His face seemed to plead with her, and he tried to make it as cute as possible. "I'm pretty tired after all that work. Could you open it instead?"

"Tired? But not tired enough to use magic to grab our little trinket." she said as she narrowed her eyes at him.

"But that was going to take forever to look through all the vials on the ground!" he complained.

"And this won't?" she said as she pointed towards the rocks.

"I mean...I figured you could..." he said as he poked his two fingers together and looked down towards the ground, before he slowly raised his eyes up to meet hers.

Narissa groaned as she rubbed her temples. "I can't believe you. You do realize I'm completely spent, right?"

"I figured you had some left over for something tiny like this." he continued to try and play off of his cuteness, but from Narissa's expression, it only seemed to irritate her more.

"I don't do things halfway like certain people," she scoffed. "Especially when our lives along with everyone else's on this rock are at risk."

"I guess that makes sense," Og'drimun said as he dropped the cute act entirely. "But uh, yeah I'm pretty spent too. At least too much for something heavy like that."

Narissa sighed and walked back to the portal. She reached in and pulled out a coconut drink with a straw. She shook her head as she looked at it and reached back in. This time she pulled out a tiny umbrella. She smiled and tossed it into the drink. She reached in again and pulled out a tiny silver platter of perfectly triangular sandwiches. She leaned against what used to be some kind of advanced machinery, but now was nothing more than a giant paperweight with the coconut drink in one hand, and after she set down the platter on the machine, she pulled one sandwich off into her other hand.

"Oh! A break to recover our energy, what a good idea!" smiled Og'drimun as he rushed over towards her.

She held up a finger and said, "Uh uh. Not so fast." She took a quick sip from her drink. "You wasted yours, so while I recover enough to use magic, you're going to clear the way by hand."

He looked down at his tiny paws and then over to the large rocks, of which many dwarfed him. He turned back to her. "What? Are you crazy?"

She dismissed him with her hand that was holding a sandwich. "Get going. If you do a good job, I might share one of these delicious sandwiches with you."

"How do you know they're delicious, you haven't even eaten any yet!" He complained.

She shrugged and then took a bite. She kept a blank expression as she ate it. Finally, Og'drimun seemed to give in. He let out a huff and floated over to the rocks and tried desperately to pull any of them loose.

"Close the door! Close the door!" Sentenza called out as Pockets crashed into The Oasis while holding him. Death was right behind them, and immediately turned to close the door.

"What's going on guys?" asked Ted as he stood behind the bar. He was wiping classes with a clean rag, not because they were dirty, but because it felt like the right thing to do when you were standing behind a bar like this.

"Close it!" Sentenza repeated as he pulled himself out of Pockets arms and onto the ground.

"Got it boss! Bone head and I will take care of it." Pockets giggled before she waddled up to the door.

Together the two of them were able to slam the door shut.

We have to barricade it somehow while we figure things out.

"Ted, where are Trizel and Bakade" Sentenza asked. "We need as many people to help as we can get."

"Trizel's in the basement switching out some barrels, and Bakade is in the kitchen." TEd looked at them, and it was clear something had happened. Death didn't have a shirt, and Sentenza looked like he had taken a quick trip down the side of a mountain. "What's going on?"

Pockets pulled various things out of her pockets to help barricade the door. A chain with oversized locks, a safe, an anvil, and even the kitchen sink.

Sentenza turned towards Ted. "A new guy that's pretty..."

WHAM!

Sentenza was interrupted as the front door threatened to be blown off of its hinges. The hollow king seemed to have arrived, and as his sword slammed into the front door, the very walls of The Oasis shook from the force of his blow.

"...aggressive." Sentenza finished.