Nock roared, charging back into the fray. This time, there was no posing. He met the golem head-on, ducking under a sweeping haymaker with liquid grace. His massive sword became a blur of steel, no longer deflecting but attacking. Clang. Crack. Crunch. Every swing connected with purpose, the blade biting into the stone joints, exploiting hairline fractures Zac hadn't even seen. The golem staggered, chunks of its rock-flesh cleaving off in showers of gravel.
"Stupid golem!" Timon hissed, slamming the butt of his staff onto the dais. "Must I do everything myself?!"
With a wave of green light, the earth rumbled again, and a second, larger golem burst from the floor. But Timon wasn't done. He pointed his staff at the debris field of the first crumbling construct. " Lapidem Bullet! "
The fallen shards of stone levitated, vibrating with kinetic energy, before launching themselves at Nock like a shotgun blast.
Nock didn't flinch. He spun, his cape flaring, his sword weaving a defensive web that batted the projectiles out of the air. He didn't lose momentum. He rolled under the second golem's legs, slashing upward into its knee joints, severing them cleanly. The construct toppled with a deafening crash. Nock was a hurricane of feline fluidity and roaring steel, dismantling the stone giants with terrifying efficiency.
Zac noticed Pumbaa, still sitting on his skull-throne, clenching his fists into the velvet fabric of his robes. The warthog looked genuinely nervous as chunks of golem flew dangerously close to his head.
"The brave hero will save me, Evil King!" Zac yelled, rattling his cage to get their attention. "You'll never get to smell my ripe bikini after I toss it into the hamper when I jump into the shower! And then when I get out of the shower and catch you, you'd be all embarrassed and aroused trying to hide how naughty you were being!"
Zac's voice dropped to a husky, roleplay whisper that echoed weirdly in the stone chamber. "And I'd pretend to be so upset with you. I'd tell you, 'If you don't want anyone to know about your little sniffing habit... take those pants off, you filthy piggy.'"
The sound of battle died instantly.
Nock froze mid-swing, his sword buried halfway into a golem's torso. Timon's staff faltered, the green light dimming. Pumbaa's jaw hung open. All three demons stood motionless in the debris-strewn room, staring up at the suspended cage.
Inside, Zac was hugging himself, swaying back and forth, eyes glazed over as he muttered something about "snout play" and "truffle hunting."
Nock cleared his throat. It was a loud, sharp, deliberately unromantic sound. HRA-HEM.
Zac's eyes fluttered open. He looked down. The demons were looking at him like he was the weird one.
"Oh," Zac said. "Are we... still fighting?"
Nock blinked, shaking his head as if to clear water from his ears. He yanked his sword free from the stone torso with a spray of sparks and snapped back into a heroic stance, pointing the blade at the dais.
"Fear not, sweet Zac!" he bellowed, his voice cracking slightly before returning to its booming register. "Keep your eyes upon me and dare to hope! Your knight is coming!"
Timon was a few moments too slow getting back into the proper "Evil Wizard" mindset. He was still trying to process the phrase "ripe bikini" when Nock lunged.
The lion's sword flashed silver in the moonlight. It sliced cleanly through the wooden staff, shattering the glowing green orb, and continued its arc, embedding itself halfway into the meerkat demon's skull with a wet thwack.
Timon let out a choked squeak. Nock didn't hesitate. With a violent twist of his wrists and a savage upward heave, he ripped the blade free. The force of the motion nearly exploded the demon's head, sending a spray of gore across the dais. Timon's body crumpled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
Pumbaa yelped, swallowing hard as a piece of his friend's brain landed on his velvet sleeve.
"The dark wizard is no more!" Nock declared. He swung his sword to the side with a sharp flick, splattering a line of blood and grey matter onto the floor. He planted a shining, armored boot on Timon's twitching corpse and pointed his blade directly at Pumbaa's snout. "This is your last chance, Corrupt King! Free Zachary and forfeit your titles! Only then will I let you live!"
Pumbaa's eyes darted nervously to the mangled remains of the wizard. He tried very hard not to look directly at the open skull cavity. "If... if I leave peacefully, you'll let me live?"
Nock's expression grew somber. He lifted his chin, his golden eyes filled with tragic resolve. "Of course, you'd never do that. Killing hurts my soul... but sometimes it is the only answer when such darkness exists."
Pumbaa whimpered, raising his hands in surrender. "Really! I think I'll relinquish my-"
"HRAAAAGH!"
Nock gave a heroic, bloodcurdling roar and charged, his sword already swinging in a lethal, decapitating arc.
Pumbaa squealed in terror. He scrambled backward, grabbing a massive, ornamental war axe from beside the throne just in time to block the blow. CLANG. The impact sent Pumbaa flying off the dais, his crown clattering away as he hit the stone floor and rolled.
"Why are you making me fight you?!" Nock shouted, tears gathering in his eyes as he advanced on the scrambling warthog. "You could have lived! Why did you choose death?!"
"I DIDN'T!" Pumbaa screamed, barely parrying another strike that would have split him in half. "I SAID I QUIT!"
"Vile fiend!" Nock bellowed, swinging again with enough force to crack the floor tiles. "This hurts me more than it will hurt you!"
Zac, watching from his cage, slowly started to frown. This wasn't exactly the noble duel he had pictured. It was basically a heavily armored super-soldier chasing a fat guy in a velvet robe around a room while screaming about mercy.
"Uh, Sir Nock?" Zac called out tentatively. "He looks pretty sorry... maybe we can just skip to the rescue part?"
"Don't listen to his lies, sweet Zachary!" Nock cried, cornering the wheezing Pumbaa against a pillar. "Evil never surrenders! It only waits!" He raised his sword high for the killing blow. "I do this for YOU!"
Pumbaa's high-pitched squeals of fear were cut short as Nock began, quite literally, mincing the pork. The lion knight stopped occasionally mid-hack to wail about how he "didn't want it to end this way" and that "the evil king forced his hand," despite the fact that Pumbaa was very much dead and very, very tenderized.