“What do you mean, the rocket just vanished?!”, Lucina shouted.

  “Well, um…”, the engineer responded, only just freed from Hex’s control. “…We were building four rockets in these big underground rooms. I have no idea why. After we finished one of them, it just disappeared”.

  “…Is Hex hiding it?”, Phoebe suggested. “In a pocket dimension, perhaps? But what would be the point of that?”.

  “…In theory, he could launch it from within his ‘Spooky Maze’ copycat spell”, I said. “Once he’s reached the sky, he could cancel the spell and continue flying”.

  “So what you’re telling me is, he could be landing on the Moon right now and we wouldn’t even know about it?!”, Lucina panicked.

  “Well, I don’t know”, I shifted uncomfortably. “It seems awful risky. After all, if the physics in his pocket dimension were off somehow, things could go horribly wrong. It’d certainly be a slapdash ending to a thousand-year plan”.

  It was a strange situation, to say the least. I hesitated, a new idea coming to mind. “…What if he isn’t hiding the rocket at all? What if he’s moved it somewhere else?”.

  Phoebe gave a surprised look. “He could do that? How would he move a rocket?”.

  “Well, there are two possibilities. One is that he used telekinesis…”.

  “So what, he can lift buildings now?”, Lucina retorted. “What’s your other idea?”.

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  “That he invented a teleportation magic of some kind”, I suggested weakly.

  Lucina bit her lip. “…Ok. Let’s say he used telekinesis. Just how far did he move it? I don’t see any launchpads around here”.

  “What if he used more underground rooms?”, Phoebe stepped in. “It’s possible that he’s had a network of these chambers dug out. He could smuggle it between rooms using his pocket dimensions until he got all the way to the launch base”.

  Lucina gave a piercing look at the engineer. “I d-don’t know of any other secret rooms…”.

  “Figures. If they exist, they were probably dug out centuries ago”, Lucina sighed. “So we have no clue where our missing rocket is, or even exactly how it vanished. Count Boogula, I don’t suppose you could lift our rockets out of the ground?”.

  “Even the jocks back in college couldn’t do something like that”, I snorted.

  “Then we’ll just have to dig them out. Sounds like we’ll be going on a trip to the Moon soon”.

  THUMP.

  An impact shook the ground, knocking the nervous engineer off balance. “W-What was that?!”.

  “A KING SLIME!”, the shout soon rang out through the city as another of the monster’s hops shook the earth. “I knew it!”, I cried out. “See?! They are trying to destroy the world! I was right, wasn’t I?”.

  Lucina’s eyes widened. “It’s coming towards us! Is it going to eat the rockets? Is this all part of Hex’s plan too?!”.

  Somehow I doubted that. Hex’s plan may have been dumb, but this rocket disappearing act clearly required a great deal of ingenuity. He should know better than to mess with powers beyond his comprehension.

  The king slime leapt forward again, making the ground creak painfully. And then, it vanished. Despite our startled blinking, none of us could conjure it back.

  Lucina rubbed her temples, fending off a migraine. There should be a limit to how much can happen in one day, she thought.