Glykos, Axia, and the gambler flew throughout Rico as they fought.
Everyone on the ground ran for their lives. It was an immense panic.
"Inescapable Maw!" Axia called out as a huge pair of jaws arose from beneath her feet.
"Bakery of Dreams!" Glykos called causing the buildings around her to bend and stretch until they formed a bakery.
"Gambler's Fever Dream!" The gambler yelled as his slot machine turned into a huge casino.
Then suddenly it went black.
She put the remote down and stood up. As she stretched she complained.
"Ugh! Why did she have to misinterpret my instructions!"
"Ellen, you told her that was a mission for her and Hirune. You never mentioned yourself, or anyone else for the matter," a tired voice said from next to her.
She sighed, "Shut up Tundra. Put some emotion into your voice if you're going to criticize my instructions."
"Your words cut deeper than ice," Tundra said clutching his chest dramatically.
"There you go. Maybe now Hirune will fall in love with you. I've seen the way you look at her~," she teased.
Tundra stayed quiet and pretended to be asleep.
Ellen sighed and dissapeared.
***
The jaws, the bakery, and the casino all warped in a spiral into themselves. Only thing remaining of them being a small black hole that soon dissapeared just like them.
"Alirght children wrap it up. Hirune come with me. We'll finish this up another time," Ellen said floating above them.
Axia looked up at her, stuck her tongue out, then proceeded to devour both Glykos and the gambler alongside an entire city block.
"Well that's unlike you. And I barely know you so that says a lot."
A birthday cake rose out of the ground and out of it came Glykos.
"Witches are immortal genius. You can't get rid of me that easily."
Using killjoy, Glykos started up another three-way fight.
While all of this happened in the outside world, Hirune was just chilling inside of her new pond. Trying to figure out a way to get out of the Forsaken Realm as the incantation didn't work.
"Shady, come here a sec," Hirune said calling for the Shadow Jester.
The shadow jester rose out of the water beneath her and bowed.
"Does this version of the Forsaken Realm have a manual exit? One that isn't the usual incantation."
The jester put a hand flat on its forehead and bent forwards slightly. It turned left to right, looking all around. After a good second it looked back at her and nodded.
"Lead me there. I need to stretch in the real world."
She stood up and started following the jester.
***
It didn't take them that long to reach the exit. It was a weird little stump in the woods outside of the castle.
The stump was hollow and had a bright purple light within it. She hesitated for a moment, but in the end jumped in after thanking the jester. After all she didn't really have any other choice.
Axia was now in an intense fight with Ellen. Glykos got tired out long ago and returned to her leader.
'Two more seconds... I'm sorry Hirune, but I can't let this go on any longer,' Ellen apologized in her head as she raised a blade made out of a black hole above her head.
Hirune pulled some random girl backwards and into the stump in her mind. Causing it to close and got her body back.
Though the moment she got it back, her eyes widened in fear. Her heart stopping mid beat as Ellen lowered the blade upon her head.
The sword sliced clean through her, causing a huge explosion of the devourers energy to come out of the black hole sword turning what used to be Rico into a crater.
Before Ellen could process this though, her conscious got sent back ten seconds in time. She made a forcefield around herself as she processed what just happened.
Hirune struck it with the devourers jaws. Though this time she wasn't trying to kill Ellen with them, this time she inflated the jaws and threw herself away with them.
"Hirune! You're back to normal!"
Hirune didn't answer and kept on distancing herself from her.
"I'm back to normal? You just-- No, I don't-- I can't trust you enough to tell you that."
Ellen looked at her with her eyes full of concern and teleported to her.
"Hirune... Are you okay?"
Hirune quickly devoured herself onto the bottom of the dome. Trying to get as much distance between Ellen and herself as possible.
Right now she just needed to clear her thoughts. It's not like she could avoid Ellen forever, after all Ellen was one of the few people that actually cared for her and that she cared for. She just needed a moment to think of a reason as to why Ellen would kill her.
Ellen appeared next to her, "Whatever is going on with you can wait. At least Axia is gone now, so we can destroy this dome together."
Hirune glared at her. The Devourer's Jaws seeped out of her feet like a liquid and covered the entire dome before slowly but surely shrinking in size. Soon enough, there was nothing left but a small orb at the bottom of her feet. Covered in the Devourer's energy.
"That's the artifact. We need to seal it away in another realm now. Hand it over if you could."
Hirune looked down at her feet and scoffed, "I really don't think it's possible for me to hand it over. Now shoo, I need to be left alone with my thoughts for a bit."
Ellen tried to use a small black hole to pull the Devourer's energy off of the artifact but it just got eaten up.
Ellen shook her head and tried again, but to her shock, this time Hirune swung herself up and gulped down the black hole.
"Hirune!"
Her eyes sparkled, "Hey those taste really good!"
She blinked a few times, made another black hole, and offered it up to her. Of course, Hirune casually took the black hole in her hands and started eating it like a snack.
'I already knew there was something wrong with this girl back on the Triple Red Peaks. But this? This a whole other ball park,' Ellen thought to herself as she made Hirune another deadly cookie.
Suddenly a bright flash came from the artifact within the hungry essence and blew it off. Ellen tried to quickly stop whatever was happening but was knocked down by a huge torrent coming out of the artifact.
A huge torrent of golden water strong enough to destroy buildings, and there was seemingly enough of that gold water to flood the entire city.
Ellen escaped the current and searched for Hirune within it but couldn't spot her. She sighed, sent a prayer up to her all powerful mother, and made a rift beneath the forever flowing waterfall that opened up onto an actual ocean.
It didn't take that long for the thing to stop pouring out a lakes worth of water. So, Ellen was able to secure the artifact and close the rift in no time.
Though now she had no clue where Hirune was, nor how long it would take to get her back. Nevertheless predict how much she'd come to hate her after this.