Celeste's icy blue eyes scanned the chamber below as her heart pounded like war drums in her chest. The dome was immense, a grotesque hive lit by flickering candy-pink bioluminescence, its walls webbed with viscous strands of syrup and clusters of pulsing cocoons. Each one twitched — alive.
Mezzo hung from the far wall, gagged with licorice rope, his limbs twitching as the Centerpied loomed below him. Nearby, the chubby peach rabbit writhed against thick jelly strands as the monster hissed in amusement, toying with her resolve.
The chocolate-marshmallow abomination that had once been the penguin stood idle, its round belly rising and falling with eerie, silent breaths. Waiting.
Ray crouched beside Celeste, her amber eyes focused, tail flicking in anticipation. Pitch leaned over the balcony, cradling Lady Luck — his shotgun fashioned from playing cards, the suit symbols etched deep into its barrel. It had returned to him, humming with possibility.
Ray’s tail lashed, teeth bared. “They’re gonna rip him to shreds if we don’t move.”
Celeste shook her head quickly, voice soft but steady. “N-no, no, we can—we will stop them. But we have to be clever, aye? If we all run in swinging, we’ll just… break like biscuits.”
Her eyes darted upward, catching the web of pipes glistening above. She pointed, excitement flickering through her nerves. “There! The ones hissing, see? I can snap the valve, flood that whole bit of the floor—make the sugar fiends slip about.”
She looked back at Ray, hope lighting her expression. “You’re quick. You knock the big one off its trotters while it’s distracted. And Pitch—” she gestured to the steel walkway overhead, “—that ledge curves right ‘round. You could sneak along it to Mezzo, aye?”
Pitch tilted his head, squinting. “…And if all that goes belly-up?”
Celeste hesitated a beat, then smiled sheepishly, blades half-drawn with a metallic click. “Then… we make something up. That’s worked so far, hasn’t it?”
Ray groaned, but her lips twitched like she couldn’t help the smirk. “Bloody hell. Fine. Let’s make a mess.”
Celeste moved like a shadow, leaping down a rusted ladder to a maintenance platform above the west wall. She found the valve — corroded but intact. With a deep breath, she slammed the hilt of her weapon into the metal.
The pipe shrieked. Then it ruptured.
A high-pressure blast of water exploded from the wall, drenching the chamber’s floor in seconds. Sugar rushers screeched, dissolving into goo as their bodies hissed and collapsed.
The Centerpied turned sharply, eyes narrowing. “Clever.”
Ray took the cue, vaulting over the railing, slamming boots-first into the ground and rolling into a sprint. Her hammer roared to life with kinetic pulses. She barreled toward the chocolate penguin and swung hard. The monster absorbed the hit, but reeled back, dazed. That was enough.
Up above, Pitch darted along the catwalk, muttering about “damn balance beams” as he raised Lady Luck. The card-barrel glowed faintly.
With perfect timing, he fired a shot — the blast knocked free the licorice cords binding Mezzo. The dog dropped hard, grunting on impact but alive.
“I said duck, not dive!” Pitch shouted.
Mezzo flipped him off mid-cough.
Celeste jumped down, knees absorbing the shock. Her boots splashed through the rising flood. The Centerpied lunged at Ray, but she danced back just in time — Celeste dove forward, sliding beneath its legs, and slashed a support pipe. Steam burst upward, briefly obscuring the creature’s vision.
“We’ve got seconds!” she shouted, grabbing Mezzo’s collar.
“I was almost dinner,” he wheezed, but stumbled to his feet.
Ray shoulder-charged the Centerpied again, knocking it off balance as the boiling water hit its side. It shrieked, retreating for just a moment — just enough.
“Go! Up the side tunnel!” Celeste called.
As they ran, the Centerpied hissed behind them, skittering across the walls like a spider. The water had slowed it — but not for long.
Its many eyes gleamed a sickly caramel glow.
Then it lunged.
“Candy Chomp!”
The Centerpied’s jaws split wide, rows of crystalline teeth snapping down with a sound like shattering hard candy. The crunch echoed through the cavern as it crashed forward, mandibles dripping with syrupy venom.
Celeste barely rolled aside as the bite cracked through the stone where she’d stood, chunks of rock sheared clean in the sticky grip. The air reeked of caramelized sugar and burnt molasses.
Ray swung Heartbreaker up, sparks flying as the hammer clashed against the gnashing jaws. “It bites like a bloody jawbreaker!” she yelled, skidding back from the force.
The beast reared, body coiling, jaws clacking in a rhythm that promised the next strike would come even faster.
Mezzo’s ears flicked, a grin splitting his soot-streaked muzzle. “Great. A sugar millipede with anger issues. Just what I wanted today.”
Just before they could climb into the upper tunnel, the Centerpied lunged from the shadows, its long ratlike face twisted in a grin of hunger. It struck downward with impossible speed, aiming straight for Celeste’s chest.
Time slowed.
Celeste twisted, channeling every ounce of precision she had — then slashed upward.
Steel met flesh.
Wings of Grace.
A swirl of feathers burst into the air, scattering like radiant embers. For an instant, Celeste vanished in the flurry, the jaws closing on empty space.
She reappeared in a flicker of light behind the monster, twin katanas gleaming with borrowed fire from Mezzo’s lingering aura. With a sharp cry, she slashed upward in a cross that carved clean through the centipede’s hardened candy shell.
The Centerpied froze, a shudder rattling down its massive length.
Then its body split, segments cracking apart in a cascade of sticky syrup and shattered sugar. It collapsed in two smoking halves, the crash echoing through the tunnels like thunder wrapped in sweetness.
Celeste landed lightly, her ribbons trailing, blades dripping molten sugar. She exhaled slowly, heart hammering.
For a moment, silence followed Celeste’s strike. The Centerpied’s massive body sagged, split cleanly in two by her blazing blades. Segments twitched, syrup dripping into steaming pools on the stone floor.
Then came the screech.
High-pitched. Piercing. Wrong.
Both halves of the Centerpied convulsed violently, sugar shells cracking and splintering like glass under pressure.
“Split and Swarm!”
The body burst apart with a sickening crunch, shards of candy scattering like shrapnel. From the wreckage, dozens of smaller forms poured out—twisting, gnashing things. Not full centipedes anymore, but a horde of scuttling hybrids, each no bigger than a rat but armed with glinting mandibles and burning sugar-venom.
They hit the floor in a rush, skittering across the stone in every direction. Their claws scratched out a frantic chorus as they swarmed toward the gang, eyes glowing with the same sickly caramel light.
Mezzo swore, backpedaling as flames sparked off his fur. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me! It was already bad enough as one!”
Pitch aimed his shotgun, eyes wide. “We made twins!”
Ray smashed Heartbreaker into the floor, crushing three of the things in a single blow. “Spread out! Don’t let ‘em box us in!”
Skye flicked his deck, cards glowing in a frantic fan. “There’s too many!”
Celeste spun, ribbons flashing, her breath ragged. The battle wasn’t over. The real fight had just begun.
The smaller centipede-rats poured across the cavern floor, a tidal wave of skittering claws and gnashing mandibles. Their screeches rang out in disharmony, echoing off the stone until it was almost deafening.
Celeste tightened her grip on her katanas, ribbons whipping behind her as light gathered along the blades. “Not this time,” she whispered.
She darted forward, slashing once, twice—two rapid light strikes that carved through the nearest swarm, their sugar-shell bodies bursting in sparks of syrup.
Then she pivoted, channeling her strength into a third heavy cut.
Nova Spiral.
Her blades crossed, and with a cry, she spun into a whirling surge of light. The ribbons flared outward, wrapping her in a cyclone of glowing steel. The spiral burst outward in a radiant wave, shredding the rat-swarm around her and knocking the rest back in a glowing circle.
The swarm hit the cavern walls, scattering in hisses of molten sugar. For a heartbeat, the battlefield cleared, starlight shimmering in Celeste’s wake.
She skidded to a halt, chest heaving, blades dripping syrup. Her blue eyes flared as she lifted her katanas back into guard. “Come on,” she whispered to the skittering shapes regrouping in the shadows. “I’m not done yet.”
The chamber echoed with the sharp clatter of boots, the hiss of metal, and the snarling skitter of the twin abominations. Every swing, every shot, every desperate strike only made things worse.
Celeste slashed low—clean cut, fluid motion—but as the blade severed one of the Centerpied’s new forms, it only gave birth to two smaller versions.
They twitched.
They grinned.
They came for her again.
"Don’t cut them!" Ray shouted between swings of her hammer. “You’re multiplying them!”
"Bit late for that!" Mezzo barked, stumbling backward as two child-sized Centerpieds lunged at his legs. He kicked one into a wall, but it just rebounded, rubbery and relentless. “This is like fighting candy-covered worms from hell!”
Ray turned, slamming her hammer down. One creature was reduced to pulp—but another skittered up her back and nearly latched onto her neck. She grabbed it, snarled, and threw it across the room. Her chest heaved with exertion. “They're learning. Getting faster.”
The swarm pressed closer, a seething tide of sugar-rats scuttling across the cavern floor. Their mandibles clicked in unison, filling the air with a horrible, insectile rhythm.
Ray planted her feet, her hammer glowing hotter in her grip. “Alright, sweet tooths. Let’s clear the floor.”
She spun once, muscles coiled tight, dragging Heartbreaker in a wide, sweeping arc.
Molten Sweep.
The hammer scraped across the stone with a thunderous CRACK, sparks exploding outward before erupting into a blazing crescent of purple fire. The ground scorched in its path, a burning arc that carved straight through the swarm.
Centipede-rats shrieked as the flame caught them, bodies sizzling into bubbling syrup before collapsing into ash. The crescent blaze lingered for a heartbeat, forming a scorched barrier of fire that kept the rest at bay.
Ray straightened, embers curling from her mane, hammer still glowing in her paws. “Anyone else want to step up?”
The swarm hissed but hesitated, their advance slowed by the purple fire licking across the cavern floor.
Pitch stood atop a cracked ledge, Lady Luck blazing with each shot. Cards burst from the barrel in sharp bursts of magic, but it wasn’t fast enough. “They’re multiplying faster than I can deal,” he muttered, frustration bleeding into his voice.
Attack - Shadow Flush
Pitch flicked his wrist, and Lady Luck roared to life in his grasp. Shadows curled around the barrel like smoke from a gambler’s cigar.
“Let’s make this interesting.”
He pulled the trigger.
Five spectral cards burst forth in a rapid spread, whistling through the air like razors—red backs glinting in the gloom. They struck the enemy in perfect rhythm, thudding one after another into its chest.
The fifth card shimmered, twisting mid-flight as though it had a mind of its own. It curved on a streak of violet fire, homing straight into the creature’s heart. The impact detonated in a critical burst, a spray of embers scattering into the night.
Pitch spun Lady Luck lazily on his finger, lips curling into a smirk. . “Flush.”
