The red car, still scuffed and cracked from their last escape, barreled through the remains of Clawdiff’s city center. Peppermint-covered signs were snapped, lamp posts melted, rubble spilling across every road like the city had been chewed up and spat out.
Inside, the emergency team was tense.
Mezzo bounced in the passenger seat, drumming a wild beat against the dash so fast it rattled. “Feels like a bloody rally race! I vote I get to yell ‘drift!’ every corner!”
“Don’t you dare,” Ray muttered, swerving past a toppled jawbreaker cart.
Mezzo squinted at the dashboard, then patted it affectionately. “Also, if we’re going to keep this car, I think it needs a name.”
Ray groaned. “No.”
“I’m serious,” Mezzo said, scandalized by her lack of vision. “I’m thinking… Car McMotorface.”
Arcade looked up from the tangle of wires in his lap with visible pain. “I may need C.H.I.P.’s help to modify it, if it survives this.”
With a shimmer of light, C.H.I.P. popped into existence above his shoulder, antenna spinning.
“Oh, wonderful,” the little robot chirped. “I’ve always dreamed of helping customize a death trap piloted by people with no self-preservation.”
Ray snorted. “Name it Trash Bucket. That’s how you’re treating it.”
Hughes, from the back, cleared his throat. “Gwennan.”
Ray shot him a look. “Why’s that?”
“It’s Caerfaenic,” Hughes said simply. “And it sounds better than Mezzo’s idea.”
Mezzo recoiled as if physically struck. “That is slander. Car McMotorface had heart.”
Arcade, hunched in the back with his cracked tablet, flicked it around for everyone to see. A faint dot blinked—Celeste’s signal. Weak. Alive.
“She dropped through here,” he said crisply, tapping the screen. “Sewer access. Straight fall. Brilliant place for a holiday.”
Ray gave a dry laugh. “Perfect. Sewers. Five stars on the brochure.”
“Could be worse,” Mezzo piped up cheerfully. “Could be Monday.”
“Every day’s Monday with you,” Ray shot back.
Arcade ignored them, fingers swiping faster. “Signal’s flickering. Translation: she’s still moving. Still breathing.”
“She’d better be,” Ray growled, grip tightening on the wheel. “She still owes me for turning my jacket pink.”
Mezzo leaned back with a smirk. “C’mon, she’ll be fine. Princess didn’t mean to wash your clothes with a different colour. Probably replaced them herself. You know how she is. Besides, she seems to be the only one who does it—maybe it’s a good idea for us to chip in more.”
He glanced between them, a rare softness flashing in his eyes. “You think it’s funny how she snorts when she laughs? Like—she tries to hide it, but it’s there. She’s not that perfect.”
Ray side-eyed him, suspicion sharp. “You’re deflecting.”
“Maybe.” Mezzo leaned back, smirk returning.
Mezzo twisted round in his seat, grinning. “Speaking of busted things, is this the part where I get to test the candy grenade launcher?”
“No,” Ray and Arcade snapped in unison.
“It’s literally what it was made for!” Mezzo cried. “Bracer installed it special!”
“Next you’ll be asking for chocolate dynamite,” Ray muttered.
Mezzo cackled. “Oh my gods, yes! Chocolate bloody dynamite! Arcade, write that down.”
Arcade pinched the bridge of his snout. “You are the reason civilisation collapsed.”
From the back row, Hughes cleared his throat, his voice gravelly and sure. “Less chatter, more focus. We’re running into the belly of the beast, not a sweet shop. Treat it that way.”
Lumina, perched beside Skye, hummed nervously and tugged on her sleeves. “I want Celly safe,” she whispered, voice small but firm. “She’s not allowed to die.”
“She’s not going to,” Hughes said firmly, not taking his eyes off the road. “Not on my watch.”
A silence fell—only Skye’s voice broke it, soft but certain.
“There’s movement. Underground. Not bugrats.”
Everyone glanced at him.
Arcade adjusted his glasses, tone clipped. “He’s right. Velocity’s wrong. Size’s wrong. Definitely not friendly.”
Ray’s jaw clenched. “Figures.”
The car screeched to a halt at the breach—a jagged sinkhole framed by the shattered stone of the old fountain. The dark below swallowed the moonlight whole.
Ray cut the engine, hammer resting across her lap. “This is it.”
Mezzo cracked his knuckles with a wild grin. “Alright, lads, let’s make it theatrical—”
Ray spun on him, eyes sharp. “No stunts. No jokes. We go in fast, stay low, and get her out. Got it?”
Skye tugged his satchel open, ears twitching. His words came flat but blunt. “Bracer’s listening on comms. If we scream… he’ll know.”
Ray snorted. “If we scream, we’re already screwed.”
“Eh,” Mezzo said, rolling his shoulders with a grin. “Screaming’s my specialty.”
A silence settled as they approached the hole.
Then—deep below—something massive shifted. The ground trembled.
Together, they began their descent into the dark.
One by one, the group eased down the rope into the sinkhole, their boots crunching against damp stone. The sewer reeked of sugar rot and mold, the air thick enough to choke.
Mezzo landed last, his paw brushing something half-buried in syrup muck. He bent down, fished it up, and held it aloft—a tiny charm shaped like a star with an angel wing, scuffed but still glittering faintly.
He whistled. “Well, lads… no doubt about it. Our walking sparkle disaster was definitely here.”
Ray rolled her eyes but kept her hammer ready. “If she left a breadcrumb trail of glitter, I swear—”
Skye’s ears twitched. His voice came quiet, blunt. “She’s fine. Plot armor.”
Arcade looked up from his scanner, one brow arched. “Plot armor?”
Skye nodded, matter-of-fact. “Main character energy. Statistically unkillable.”
Mezzo barked a laugh, clapping Skye’s shoulder. “Finally! Someone else says it!”
“Don’t get cocky,” Hughes cut in, his Caerfaenic tone low and stern. His cane tapped against the wet stone as he scanned the shadows. “If she’s alive, it’s not luck. It’s stubbornness. And down here, that’ll only get you so far. Keep sharp.”
The group moved, splashes echoing in the narrow tunnels. The silence pressed tight.
Then—
A scream.
Sharp. Echoing through the pipes.
And then… silence.
Arcade’s ears flattened. He frowned at the scanner. “That wasn’t good. Think it was her?”
Mezzo shook his head immediately. “Nah. Not enough awkward apologising and stammering. If it was Celeste, we’d hear, ‘Oh stars, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scream, it’s just I thought—oh no, oh no—’”
Ray snorted, almost smiling despite the tension. “He’s not wrong.”
“Look,” Lumina piped up suddenly, pointing with her small paw. Her wide eyes glowed in the dim light. “There! A door!”
Up ahead, the tunnel narrowed into a long, dripping corridor. The faint outline of a shadow flickered against the wall—catlike, swaying, then gone.
Ray raised her hammer higher. “Tell me that’s her, or I’m breaking whatever it is.”
The gang sprinted down the dim sewer corridor, boots slapping against shallow filth.
“I swear,” Ray growled between breaths, green eyes flashing, “if Celeste’s managed to get herself caught—I’ll kill her before anything else does.”
Arcade shoved his cracked goggles higher on his snout, still clutching his modified tablet with wires spilling out of it. “Just keep running. Her signal’s spiking—means proximity. Once we see her, our weapons should reactivate automatically. Microchips will sync to the danger.”
Skye said nothing, padding quick and quiet beside Lumina. His ears twitched at every echo, tail rigid. “Not rat movement,” he murmured bluntly.
Up front, Mezzo blurred ahead, skidding to a halt when the tunnel forked. “Bad news, lads!” he barked, Irish lilt thick. “Dead end’s packed with the sweet-toothed freak brigade—like, lots. Backtrack, backtrack!”
They scrambled, weaving through dripping side-passages, ducking collapsed pipes and vaulting cracked hatches. The air grew thick, oppressive.
Then—they saw it.
A faint glow ahead. A room. And through a grime-streaked window… a figure. Catlike. Familiar.
“Celeste!” Skye called, his voice breaking sharp in the silence.
Mezzo didn’t hesitate. He zipped forward, shoulder-checking the door open. “Alright, you sparkly disaster!” he shouted. “You better have one hell of an—”
SLAM.
The door clanged shut behind them, hinges bubbling as sizzling green acid fused the frame into solid candy-glass.
Lumina yelped, caught just outside. “Celeste?!” She shoved against the door with both tiny arms, eyes wide.
“Stay back!” Hughes barked, yanking her by the hood before another spray of acid hissed across the wall. His cane braced against the floor, steady. “It’s a trap.”
Inside the sealed chamber, Mezzo froze mid-rant. “…Oh. That’s—uh—that’s not her.”
The figure turned slowly. At first glance, it wore Celeste’s shape. But the closer it came, the wronger it became. Limbs stretched unnaturally long. The face was too smooth, too flat. Where a mouth should be—only stretched sugar-flesh.
Yet it smiled.
Without lips.
Ray’s grip on her hammer trembled. “What the actual hell is that?”
Arcade’s eyes narrowed, voice clipped and precise despite the panic. “Cat-o-Wrap. Mimic class. Copies voices. Copies faces. Lures prey. Don’t listen to it.”
Before anyone could move, a foul bubbling sound churned under their boots.
A Hippogum surged up from the sludge—a hulking mass of pink gum muscle, its jaws studded with sugar-crystal fangs. It roared, the tunnel quaking, as the gum beneath their feet stretched up, clinging and pulling like living taffy.
Arcade yelped, twisting furiously as sticky strands locked his leg in place. “This is statistically the worst-case scenario!”
Mezzo tried to blur, but his bootts yanked mid-sprint and he crashed headlong into the wall. “Bloody hell! I’m stuck!”
Ray spat her lollipop onto the floor, grip white-knuckled on a rusty pipe. “Good. Now I’ve got something to smash.”
C.H.I.P. popped into being over Arcade’s shoulder with a bright chirp. “Would now be a good time for big mode? I’d very much enjoy squishing them.”
Hughes didn’t even look up. “Tunnels are too narrow. You’ll get stuck.”
C.H.I.P. gave a deeply wounded electronic pause. “How tragic. Denied greatness by architecture again.”
