The chamber had descended into chaos. Bracer’s voice was sharp in their ears, every word clipped with urgency.
“Sugar Rushers. Dozens. Converging on your position—hold your ground or get swallowed.”
Arcade was already sweating through his hoodie, fingers flying across his hacked terminal, rerouting the old security system. Sparks lit the ceiling as vents hissed open, dropping rusted shutters between swarms to buy precious seconds.
“Come on, come on…” he muttered, teeth bared. “Overclock, damn you!”
Mandibite slithered through the melee like a nightmare given flesh, claws slicing, antennae twitching with cruel delight. His many limbs pinned Ray’s hammer against the wall and sent Pitch sprawling with a guttural roar.
Then his shadow loomed over Skye.
“Little mouse…” Mandibite crooned, rat face splitting into a manic grin. “I want to hear you squeal.”
He raised a claw to crush him.
Skye’s hands shook, but he didn’t hesitate. He yanked a card from his launcher and slammed it in.
A wizard spirit burst from the glyph-light, robes flaring, staff raised. With a flash of blue flame—
Skye vanished, reappearing clinging to a catwalk high above the chamber.
Arcade’s voice cracked with sheer relief.
“Thank Motherlight you had that card!”
Skye, breathless but smug, called down “Told you—I’m smarter than you think!”
Arcade actually laughed, but it was short-lived—because Celeste, charging forward with her blades raised, tripped.
“Oh—oh goodness, oh no—!”
She stumbled, slammed headfirst into a heavy steel door—and it swung wide with a thunderous bang, smashing square into Mandibite’s face.
The creature reeled back, shrieking in rage.
Arcade blinked at his console, stunned.
“Wait—what? That door was locked. I couldn’t override it…”
Mandibite’s laughter silenced him. It was low. Wet. Filled with fury.
The beast twisted, body coiling like a serpent, and before anyone could move he had wrapped himself tight around Celeste.
She gasped, blades slipping from her hands as the pressure forced the air from her lungs. His massive head lowered until his reeking breath fogged her glasses, his eyes boring straight into hers.
“ASTALLAN,” he hissed, voice breaking into a scream that shook the chamber.
“No. More. Running.”
Mandibite’s claws dug into the stone as his massive head lowered until it filled Celeste’s vision. His eyes burned—madness layered over grief.
“You abandoned us,” he snarled, every word vibrating through her ribs. “You knew we were suffering, and you didn’t have the balls to end it. Yorath begged you—and you walked away like a coward. I can still hear Branwen’s screams, Kenaz. I thought we were brothers.”
Celeste’s whole body shook. Her breath hitched, heart pounding against his crushing grip.
“I… I’m sorry,” she stammered, her voice breaking. “I’m not Kenaz. I’m… Celeste.”
“Liar!” Mandibite’s spittle hissed against her fur, his coils tightening. “You said the Council would help. You’re a liar. FIX my head! Fix the voices screaming in the dark—you lied!”
Celeste froze, her mind racing. And then—through sheer instinct—she reached out with one trembling paw and stroked a patch of fur beneath his jaw. Gentle. Almost tender.
“Who were you?” she whispered. “Before this? What did you used to do?”
The great beast faltered. His many eyes blinked, and for the first time the madness cracked. His ratlike snout trembled.
“I… was…” His voice shifted, soft, almost human. “I was a courier. One of the best.”
Celeste’s lips quivered into the faintest smile, tears in her eyes. “You still are.”
For a heartbeat, his face softened. The monster seemed smaller. A man in a cage of sugar and rage, realizing what he had become.
But then it was gone. His eyes flared crimson. His jaws split wide with a scream of madness.
“You’re my meat, little cat,” he roared. “Let’s hear how your screams sound—when I start with your limbs!”
The coils tightened. Celeste screamed.
CRACK.
Mandibite’s head snapped sideways, a spray of sugar shards exploding into the air.
Mezzo stood behind him, guitar still vibrating from the strike, chest heaving, eyes blazing.
He grinned through his panting. “Now we’re even.”
Celeste gasped as Mezzo’s strike sent Mandibite staggering. She slumped against the wall, dragging herself upright with bloodied claws. Her body was trembling, but the wall’s faint glow pulsed through her core. She pressed her palms flat, forcing the warmth to spread—not just into herself, but into Mezzo sprawled beside her.
The glow rippled outward like a tide.
Mezzo blinked, chest heaving, bruises fading as the fire in his veins steadied.
“Bloody hell, Princess… that’s new.”
Before Celeste could answer, Ray and Pitch crashed into the fray.
Ray roared, Heartbreaker slamming down with enough force to shake the stone. “GET AWAY FROM HER!” The shockwave staggered Mandibite back a step, cracks splintering across his chitin.
Mezzo picked himself up, wiped blood from his lip, and grinned wildly. “Round two, you sugar-coated rat!” His guitar flared, fire licking the strings as he dove in beside her, strikes coming in fierce, fast chords.
Madibite shook its massive head, snapping its candy-fangs, still dazed from attack. It staggered forward, claws gouging sugar-stone, the ground shivering under its bulk.
Mezzo spat into his paw, grinning.
“Alright, sweet-tooth. Time t’feel the music.”
His guitar shimmered into being, and with a reckless spin he jammed the whammy bar down hard.
The strings screamed.
Sound warped into a jagged wall, a surge of discordant waves that tore across the battlefield in a cone of raw noise. Windows of crystallized sugar around them cracked and splintered. The very air seemed to shudder, bending with the vibration.
Madibite took the brunt of it. The blast slammed into its chest, sending ripples through its gum-hide. It reeled back, eyes flashing wide as its whole body convulsed, the sound stunning it into a rigid spasm.
The Sugar Rushers nearby shrieked and collapsed, their cube-forms rattling apart like brittle dice.
Mezzo leaned into it, every push and pull of the bar unleashing another shriek, each wave slamming harder, sharper, until even his teammates had to cover their ears.
“Ya like that, ya sticky bastard?!” he roared over the cacophony, grin manic and wild.
When he finally yanked the whammy bar free, the noise cut out sharp, leaving only the ringing echo in their skulls.
Madibite swayed drunkenly, stunned, smoke curling off its gum-flesh where the sound had torn through.
Mezzo rolled his shoulders, striking a dramatic chord just because he could.
“Whammy. Barrage.”
Ray groaned, shaking her head. “I swear, you’re more dangerous to my ears than to them.”
Pitch’s shotgun, Lady Luck, boomed from the sidelines—each blast flaring with chaotic bursts of mana. He barked over the din, “Rushers! Left flank!”
Madibite’s jaws snapped shut with a crack like breaking glass, candy fangs grinding as he lunged for Ray. She braced, hammer raised—too slow this time.
A puff of smoke bloomed at her side.
Pitch was gone.
Madibite hesitated, his molten eyes scanning the haze. Then came the click of a chamber snapping into place.
“Boo.”
The wolf hybrid reappeared behind him, stepping out of the smoke as though it were a curtain. Lady Luck, his shotgun, gleamed wickedly in the half-light.
The blast tore free with a roar. Cards flared like glowing shrapnel, each edge glinting as they spun into Madibite’s back. The monster staggered, howling as sugar-flesh cracked and peeled beneath the scatter.
Before it could whirl around, Pitch had already ghosted back into the smoke, vanishing from sight once more.
Ray exhaled sharply, her hammer steady again. “Show-off.”
Somewhere in the mist, his voice chuckled low, sly as a gambler with a winning hand.
“Only when the stakes are high, love.”
Madibite twisted, snarling, trying to track him. But the battlefield had changed—the monster was no longer the hunter. With Pitch lurking just out of sight, smoke curling like phantom cards in the dark, it was prey.
The shadows giggled, high and sharp. Sugar Rushers spilled from the cracks like a tide, skittering across the walls and ceiling.
Skye’s voice cut through, steady despite the chaos. “On it.” He loaded a card into his launcher—snap—and a spectral fire witch flared to life, her spells arcing into the horde. Flames scattered the Rushers, lighting the chamber in orange bursts.
Madibite’s claws swept wide, syrup-slick and glowing with a warped spell circle. Candy-light surged outward, a wave of sickly magic meant to engulf them all.
“Brace!” Ray yelled, throwing her hammer up as a shield.
But Skye’s paw was already at his deck. The cards shimmered, his fingers trembling for only a heartbeat before confidence sparked in his eyes. He snapped the holder open, the deck fanning wide like a radiant wing.
“Not today!”
The cards burst with light.
A flare of pure brilliance erupted, every card reflecting the monster’s twisted glow and throwing it back tenfold. The wave of corrupted magic bent, recoiling, bouncing harmlessly off into the cracked walls of the ruin.
Madibite staggered, shrieking as the reflected blaze struck its own hide. Its molten eyes flared, then squeezed shut against the glare.
The battlefield itself glittered with refracted light, the air filled with gleaming motes.
Ray peeked from behind her hammer, blinking rapidly. “You could’ve warned us!”
Mezzo laughed, already strumming a riff to chase the chaos. “What, and ruin the drama?”
Skye snapped the deck shut with a flick, his ears still twitching from the echo of light.
“Mirror Flare,” he murmured, almost to himself, as the monster writhed in temporary blindness.
And in that stolen moment of darkness for Madibite, the group had their opening.
All the while, Celeste pressed her palms harder to the wall, her glow deepening. Her wounds closed, yes—but something stranger rippled outward.
Ray blinked mid-swing as the ache in her muscles ebbed. “What the—”
Mezzo’s grin widened as the sting of cuts vanished from his arms. “Oi, I feel bloody fantastic!”
Even Skye flinched, looking at his own hands as mana steadied. “It’s… it’s her. She’s healing all of us.”
Pitch reloaded and fired again, a rare awe breaking his gruff tone. “Motherlight above… she’s a conduit.”
Celeste’s voice cracked as she forced herself to focus. “Just… keep them off me!”
Her eyes were bright, burning with both fear and determination. The chamber echoed with the clash of hammer, guitar, gun, and spell, while at its center, Celeste’s light pulsed stronger—binding them together, each heartbeat syncing as one.
And Mandibite, snarling, realized his prey was no longer fractured.
They were a pack.
