The cookie-room table glowed faintly with the spinning sugar-map, but the mood in the room was heavy.
Bracer leaned over the edge, arms folded, eyes narrowed at the flickering glyphs. His silence carried weight.
Behind him, Mezzo noisily unwrapped a sandwich bigger than his head—stacked with jelly, marshmallow fluff, and who-knew-what else. He took a dramatic bite, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, then noticed everyone staring.
“…What? Stress eating builds morale,” he mumbled around the bread.
Ray groaned. “You’re unbelievable.”
Hughes ignored him, cane tapping once against the floor. “Bracer. I’ve trained squads before. Seen recruits snap, seen ’em crack. What happened with Celeste wasn’t on you. Standard pressure test, that’s all.”
Bracer’s jaw tightened. “It wasn’t standard.” His gaze flicked toward the ceiling, as if replaying the balcony fight in his head. “I meant to corner her. To draw out the feral. Cats, when pushed, they bare their claws. I thought it might remind her she’s not as soft as she thinks.”
He exhaled sharply. “But what I saw… that wasn’t feline instinct. The aura, the fire—it looked draconic. Alpha-dragon, even.”
Arcade, who had been tinkering with a gear-spanner at the table’s edge, froze. The tool slipped from his fingers and clattered loudly against the sugar tiles. He stared. “You’re saying… she’s unstable? That she could break at any second?”
Bracer shook his head. “Not unstable. Contained.” His tone was grim, deliberate. “That rune she carries—it isn’t a leash. It’s a seal. And what it’s holding back might be worse than any of us realized.”
Hughes’ brows furrowed. “And you’re certain you saw alicorn traits too? That glow…?”
Bracer nodded once. “Dragon strength. Alicorn light. In the same body. That shouldn’t be possible. No hybrid’s ever carried traits like that.”
The cookie-room went quiet. Even Mezzo set his half-finished sandwich down, his smirk gone.
For the first time, none of them knew what to say.
Then Ray clicked her tongue and folded her arms tighter.
“I’m saying there’s something not right with that girl,” she said flatly. “Her mana is freaky as shit, and it’s not right. Other people can’t use our mana without her around. I mean, I can breathe fire, sure—but when she isn’t around, my rune locks it off like normal. Same as always. That’s not normal.”
Arcade frowned. “You think she’s a Council spy?”
Mezzo barked a short laugh. “Celeste? She’s too derpy to be a spy.”
Ray shot him a look. “That’s the point. Bring our guard down.”
Arcade’s ears twitched. “What about her sister?”
Ray shrugged one shoulder, expression hard. “Don’t know. Maybe that’s part of it too. Make us feel sorry for her.”
Mezzo looked genuinely offended now. “That’s a bit much, even for you.”
Outside the sugar-glass windows, Marzipan paced back and forth around the Egg Tree, her ribboned mane swaying sharply, her tail lashing as if something had put her on edge.
Hughes noticed first. “What’s with the dragon?”
Arcade glanced toward the window. “She’s Marzipan. She’s… friendly. We think.”
Hughes shook his head slowly. “I miss normality.”
Mezzo dragged a paw down his face, then sighed. “Look, whatever she is, as long as we keep an eye on her till the Council sorts out this mess, we’ll be fine.”
Ray cracked her knuckles. “Fine. I’ll check on her. She’s probably sulking in the marshmallow beanbags again.” She shoved her training hammer onto her shoulder and stormed out.
The others lingered, the silence heavy.
Arcade adjusted his lenses, tone clipped. “If that rune really is a seal, then removing it wouldn’t just be risky—it’d be catastrophic. We’re talking full meltdown. Unstable core, uncontrolled output, systemic failure—boom.”
Bracer’s claws flexed at his sides. His eyes narrowed. “Don’t speculate.” He looked away, jaw tight. “Truth is… I wouldn’t want to think about what comes out if that seal breaks.”
Hughes leaned heavily on his cane, his voice gravelly but steady. “In Brecon, dragons used to have rites of passage. Ritual hunts, flame trials, meditation in the caverns under the mountain. Ways to temper the fire in their blood.” He shook his head. “But we can’t get there. Not with the dome sealing us in.”
Bracer grunted. “Unicorns and pegasi have similar rites. Harmony rituals. Blessing circles. It’s… cultural. Instinctual.”
Mezzo rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the window where Marzipan still paced. “Right. I’ll do a quick run round the base. See where Celeste is. Check on Marzipan while I’m at it.”
No one stopped him.
As Mezzo jogged off, Arcade hesitated, then looked toward Hughes. “There’s something else.”
Hughes gave him a look. “Go on.”
Arcade fiddled with the edge of his bracer. “Celeste’s ID and data were altered. Hacked, maybe. Definitely tampered with.” He frowned. “But her dad is someone called Kenaz Astallan.”
Hughes turned so fast his cane scraped hard across the sugar floor.
“You mean the Silver Commander Kenaz Astallan?”
Arcade blinked. “Uh…”
Hughes stepped closer, voice suddenly sharper. “First hybrid ever awarded the Arcturus Star? Leader of the Silver Arrows? That Kenaz Astallan?”
Arcade nodded slowly. “Yeah. Looks like it.”
Hughes went still.
For a long moment, he said nothing at all.
Then, more to himself than anyone else, he muttered, “She must be adopted, then.”
Arcade’s ears twitched. “What does that mean?”
But before Hughes could answer, quick footsteps pounded back down the corridor.
Before he could continue, Ray stormed back in. Her hammer scraped against the wall as she shoved the door open.
“She’s gone.”
Everyone froze.
Ray tossed a crumpled note onto the cookie table. “Left this.”
Hughes snatched it up, squinting. His ears flicked. “…That explains it.”
Arcade blinked. “Explains what?”
Hughes tapped the note with a claw. “I wondered why I couldn’t summon my crook this morning. Felt off. Should’ve known—she’d already slipped.”
Arcade zoomed in on the sewer network. His fingers trembled against the glowing runes. Then his eyes narrowed.
“Wait… is that—?”
The tracker pulsed softly on the map.
Celeste.
In the sewers.
Surrounded.
Mezzo’s half-eaten sandwich slid off the table and smacked the floor with a wet thud.
“Is that girl suicidal or stupid?” Hughes barked.
Before anyone could answer, Mezzo blurred across the room, skidding to a stop in a puff of candied wind. He perched casually on the back of a chair, arms folded.
“Could be a third option,” he said dryly. Then his smirk faltered. “Or both.”
Arcade shot up so fast his chair toppled backward. His voice cracked. “This isn’t a joke, Mezzo! Look at this—she’s knee-deep in the tunnels and there’s hundreds of signals! That wasn’t even on the last scan. Something’s changed.”
“Yeah,” Mezzo muttered, his usual humor gone. “She changed.”
Arcade’s hands blurred across the console. The sugar-map flared bright, expanding until the entire sewer network was visible. Red pulses swarmed like ants.
“Emergency meeting. Now.”
He slammed his palm down on a glowing rune.
A hideous alarm blasted through the Egg Tree—part arcade siren, part military klaxon, part sugar-glass shriek.
Mezzo jumped. “When did we get an alarm?!”
Arcade didn’t look up. “I couldn’t sleep. So I installed some things.”
Ray narrowed her eyes. “What things?”
Arcade said it like this was entirely reasonable. “Tripwire runes, motion beacons, door wards, sugar-pressure sensors, emergency shutters, two backup map projectors, a threat-level indicator, a rotating alert tone library, reinforced root-locks, auto-lights for corridor breaches, three independent signal repeaters, a panic rune under the table, and a prototype defensive mist system.”
Silence.
Mezzo leaned toward Bracer and whispered, “I think Arcade’s lost the plot.”
Bracer, still watching the map, said flatly, “That sounds reasonable.”
Doors down the hall slammed open as the rest of the gang rushed in. Lumina stumbled in first, hair mussed, eyes wide but alert, with Skye close on her heels. Bonbon toddled after them, clutching her mask.
Ray was already leaning against the wall, her lollipop clenched between her teeth like a cigar. Hughes tightened his grip on his cane. Even Bracer lifted an eyebrow as he strode in, ears pricked.
Arcade didn’t waste time. He stabbed a claw at the glowing red swarm.
“She’s down there alone,” he said, voice sharp. “And if we don’t act fast—”
He looked at each of them in turn.
“—we lose her.”
The sugar-map spun wildly, red dots swarming like angry hornets in the sewer tunnels.
Ray jabbed a finger at it. “This is suicide. You’ve seen the numbers. She’s surrounded six ways from Sunday—there’s no pulling her out of that mess without half of us ending up dead.”
Before anyone could answer, she snatched up the Nommiepedia, flipped it open, and slammed it onto the table.
The pages flared.
A full illustrated entry exploded into the air above them.
MANDIBITE
The candy-rat centipede.
All teeth. All speed. All nightmare.
Its hooked limbs. Its clustered eyes. Its dripping mandibles. Its size. Its hunger.
The room recoiled as one.
Even Mezzo visibly leaned back. Arcade’s ears pinned flat. Lumina made a tiny frightened sound and clutched Skye’s sleeve. Hughes’s jaw tightened.
Ray pointed at the image. “That is what’s down there.”
Nobody argued.
Then Arcade snapped, brittle with panic, “Then what? Leave her? We can’t survive without her, Ray—you know it. Every one of our weapons, our powers—they’re tied to her resonance. Without Celeste, we’re just civilians with bad attitudes.”
Mezzo slammed his paw against the table, sandwich crumbs scattering like confetti. “I say we go. We’re already knee-deep in this sugar nightmare. If she’s down there, then so are we. Simple as that.”
“Simple?” Ray growled. “Simple is getting eaten alive by a mob of candy freaks because someone thought heroics sounded fun.”
Skye, quiet until now, spoke up bluntly. “If she dies, we all die. Mathematically. So… we should go.”
Ray blinked at him. “…That’s the creepiest logic I’ve ever heard, but you’re not wrong.”
Lumina tugged at her sleeve, voice small but firm. “She wouldn’t leave us behind. So… we shouldn’t leave her.”
Silence hung.
Even Ray couldn’t argue with that.
Finally, Hughes tapped his cane against the floor, sharp enough to cut through the tension. “Enough jawin’. The choice is made already. You lot know it.”
All eyes shifted to Bracer, standing a step back, arms folded. His expression was unreadable—stone, but shadowed.
“I’ll stay,” he said flatly.
“What?” Mezzo frowned. “No, no, no—you’re the only one here who actually knows what he’s doing!”
“And she knows that too,” Bracer replied evenly. His voice held no anger, only certainty. “After what happened the other day, if she sees me first, she’ll shut down—or worse. She won’t trust it. She needs to see you, not me.”
He leaned forward, claws tapping the glowing runes. “I’ll run point from here. Track the signals. Call out enemy clusters. Keep Bonbon safe.”
Then, with a quick flick of his wrist, he tossed something small across the room.
Mezzo caught it on instinct.
He blinked down at the tiny device in his paw. “What’s this, then?”
“Ear communicator,” Bracer said. “Put it on. I’ll watch the map from here and tell you where the centipede is. And where Celeste is. Makes it easier to find her before he does.”
Arcade’s ears twitched. “That’s… actually a good idea.”
Mezzo shoved the earpiece on at once and gave Bracer a crooked grin. “See? Knew you liked me.”
Bracer did not dignify that with a response.
Ray adjusted her hammer with a sigh, chewing her lollipop like it was a nail. “This is still insane. This is exactly the kind of shit the Council should be handling.”
Bracer’s eyes flicked to her. “The Council won’t help, and you know it. So look out for each other.”
Ray’s jaw tightened. She pushed off the wall. “Easy for you to say. Coming from a pureblood.”
That landed hard.
But Bracer did not flinch.
“A pureblood who still wants to help,” he said evenly. “We aren’t all the same, Ray.”
She scoffed, but there was less bite in it than before. She reached down, grabbed her training hammer, and started for the door.
“Yeah, well,” she muttered, “we’ll see.”
As if on cue, Bonbon waddled in with her bunny mask slightly crooked, clutching it like a shield. She blinked up at them, sensing the heavy mood.
Bracer’s voice softened just slightly. “Someone has to stay with her. That, I can do.”
Arcade glanced at him, reluctant but acknowledging the logic. “Fine. But if your updates lag even a second—”
“They won’t,” Bracer cut him off.
Mezzo slapped a baseball bat onto his shoulder and cracked a grin. “You love it.”
“I hate it,” Ray said.
“Same thing.”
Arcade shook his head, muttering. “This is going to get us all killed…”
But as the map pulsed with red, he was already stuffing gadgets into his bag.
Bracer looked at each of them, his voice dropping low, steady. “Then go. Get her back. Don’t make me tell Bonbon she lost her sitter.”
The cookie table hummed as the sewer map zoomed in, red pulses writhing like veins.
Their mission was set.
