Night had fallen, casting a haunting stillness over the city. The group made their way through the abandoned mall, their footsteps echoing off cracked tiles and shattered glass. Bright advertisements still flickered overhead—endless loops of fashion promos and perfume commercials, now eerily out of place in the sugar-coated dystopia.

Celeste’s eyes swept over the wreckage—chairs overturned, prams abandoned, bags scattered like breadcrumbs. No people. Only the gouges across the floor and walls, jagged and desperate.

Her ears folded back slightly as she crouched to trace one with her paw. “It’s like… oh, stars… it’s like they were dragged,” she whispered, her voice small but heavy.

Arcade stepped up beside her, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. His tone was flat, clinical—but his eyes carried a sharp edge.
“No blood. No bodies. Just mess. Whatever happened here? It wasn’t random. It was systematic.”

Celeste looked up at him, worry flickering in her eyes. She didn’t need to say anything. The glance between them said enough: something had taken these people. And it was still out there.

“Oi!” Mezzo’s shout shattered the tension. “FREE CLOTHES!”

They whipped around to see him strutting out of a still-lit clothing store, already changed into three-quarter brown shorts, a loose red button-up with rolled sleeves, and a black undershirt. He smoothed the fabric dramatically, slapping his old badge onto his chest like a medal.
“First job uniform, baby! D’you see this? Minimum wage chic! Nostalgia has never looked this good.”

Celeste groaned softly, though a smile tugged at her lips. “Mezzo… only you would treat the end of the world like a costume contest.”

Still, she followed him in. Her paws ached from the cracked leather of her boots. Spotting a sleek pair of blue trainers, she slipped them on with a sigh of relief. Before leaving, she tugged off the tiny wing charms from her old shoes and carefully clipped them to the new pair.

It was such a small thing, but it steadied her.

“If I’m going to be a disaster,” she muttered under her breath, “I may as well be a coordinated one.”

The others trickled in, scavenging—belts, jackets, anything sturdy. For a fleeting moment, it almost felt normal. The shadows beyond the storefront made that illusion too fragile, too temporary.

Lumina, meanwhile, had vanished into the toy shop with the younger kids. Celeste found her buried in a heap of plushies, a unicorn bobbing on her head as she hummed to herself.

“Look, ‘Leste!” Lumina held up a pastel bear missing one eye. “He’s sad, but I’ll fix him.”

Celeste’s chest squeezed tight. The sweetness of it cut sharp against the dread curling in her stomach. She crossed her arms, watching with a mix of fondness and urgency. “Take him but we don’t have much time,” she murmured, eyes flicking toward the echoing shouts bouncing through the dark mall corridors.

Arcade was already on the move, fiddling with his arcbracer, muttering, “This place is a labyrinth. Worst possible choke point. We shouldn’t linger.”

Mezzo, twirling a belt around like a lasso, grinned. “What’s life without a little mall crawl, eh? Bags, bargains, and brain-eaters—it’s all part of the experience!”

Then—noise.

A dull crash echoed from deeper in the mall, followed by the faint scrape of something heavy being dragged. Distant, but not distant enough.

Both Mezzo and Arcade froze mid-motion. Slowly, they turned to Celeste, eyes wide with the same unspoken fear.

Arcade swallowed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That… didn’t sound like plumbing.”

Mezzo forced a crooked smile, but his tail betrayed him—tucked and twitching. “Welp. Guess the fun part’s over.”

The two of them exchanged a wary glance before stepping forward, shoulders tense.

Arcade adjusted his omni-tool, the glow of its screen shaking slightly in his hands. “We’ll check it. Quietly.”

Mezzo gave Celeste a lopsided salute that didn’t hide his unease. “Back in a sec. If it’s just a raccoon in the bins, feel free to laugh at us later.”

And with that, the pair slipped out toward the noise—leaving Celeste clutching Lumina’s shoulder a little tighter.

Celeste stepped forward quickly, her voice hushed but firm as she rested a hand on Lumina’s shoulder. “Stay here, love. Please. No matter what happens.”

Lumina blinked up at her, chewing her lip. Then, in a small but steady voice: “But you always say that, and then you run off.”

Celeste froze—caught between guilt and resolve.

“…This time,” she whispered, brushing a strand of hair from Lumina’s face, “I’ll come back.”

What they found was startling.

Ray—tough, brash Ray—was running for her life. Sweat poured down her face, panic in her eyes. A small horde of gummy-eyed zombies swarmed her across the tiled atrium.

Arcade’s brows shot up. “She’s not even swinging. Where’s the hammer?”

Mezzo leaned forward, squinting—then burst out laughing so hard he nearly doubled over. “She looks like a feckin’ cartoon character leggin’ it! Like a cat in a frying pan!”

But as Ray bolted toward their side of the atrium—toward Celeste’s direction—something changed.
Both girls began to glow faintly, a shimmering pulse of energy linking them.
And suddenly—with a whoosh of air and flickering purple light—Ray’s massive spiked hammer materialized in her hands.

She skidded to a stop, eyes wide in shock. “Finally!”
She didn’t waste time asking why. With a shout of defiance, Ray spun around and tore through the zombies in wide arcs of crushing force. They pixelated into neon confetti and fragments of candy as they fell.

Meanwhile, back at the toy store, the children giggled and played among the soft mounds of plush creatures. Bonbon was hugging a bunny twice her size. Lumina poked at a stuffed dragon with curious eyes.

But Skye froze mid-step. His ears twitched.
“…Wait.”

He pointed. “That one. Don’t touch it.”

Among the cutesy bears and smiling unicorns sat a plushie that didn’t quite fit.
Its eyes were too wide, its teeth stitched into a creepy jagged smile.
On closer inspection, it was one of the sugar mice from earlier—a twisted version of the first creature they’d fought.

Skye took a step back, pale. “It’s a Sugar Rusher,” he whispered, involuntarily naming the species.
Celeste’s heart dropped.

She turned and ran, boots thudding down the hallway back toward the toy store. As she approached, the familiar aura between her and Ray faded, and with it—
Fzzzt—
Ray’s hammer vanished into thin air.
Ray looked around in shock, suddenly vulnerable again.

Celeste skidded to a stop. Her chest heaved. The pieces fell together in her mind—horrible, undeniable.

“The weapons…” she whispered, voice shaking. “They’re—oh stars, they’re tethered. To me.”

Arcade caught up, breathless, omni-tool still flickering at his wrist. His tone was clipped, sharp.
“Confirmed. Distance cut the connection. You’re the power source, Celeste. No you, no weapons.”

Celeste froze. Her breath caught in her throat.

Her ears drooped, panic overtaking her face. “Oh no, no no no… then it’s my fault! I’m the reason she can’t fight—I’m ruining everything—what do I do, what do I do—”

Her hands trembled as they clenched into fists, her heartbeat crashing like waves in her ears. Her gaze darted between Ray and Lumina—one pinned down under fire, the other wounded and vulnerable.

And now, for the first time, Celeste faced a terrible choice:
Stay with Ray and help her survive…
Or stay with Lumina—and protect the children.

The shout of the sugar rusher echoed from the corridor as Celeste skidded back into the plush pile where Lumina stood, frozen, clutching Bonbon to her chest. At the far end of the mall, Ray was cornered again—desperately swinging her fists as the glow of her hammer faded to nothing.

There wasn’t time to choose. Not again.

Ray staggered backward, eyes wild. “Why does this always bloody happen? Why can’t I ever—just—hold onto something?!” Her hammer fizzled out of existence, leaving her hands shaking and empty.

Bonbon stirred in Lumina’s arms.
She opened her mouth and—softly, unexpectedly—began to sing.

It was a strange, haunting tune. One that hummed deep in the chest more than the ears. The air shimmered faintly with a golden hue. The sugar rusher paused, blinking, disoriented.

Celeste looked down as her core shimmered a brilliant blue. She could feel something—Bonbon’s song unlocking something in her, like a gate unlatching inside her chest.

“I… I can reach her,” Celeste whispered, her voice trembling. She closed her eyes and breathed deep, imagining her fear unraveling into ribbons of light.

A thin thread of shimmering blue energy extended from her chest—first toward Lumina, then branching like a neural pulse—reaching out toward Ray.

At the far end of the hall, Ray gasped as her chest glowed. Her hammer sparked back into existence, roaring with purple energy.

She grinned. “Now that’s more like it.”

With one brutal swing, she knocked the sugar rusher back into a wall. The creature pixelated violently, leaving only a swirl of candy behind.

Lumina’s pink glow pulsed in harmony with Celeste’s blue, while Bonbon’s golden hum wove between them, binding the three lights together like a braid.

A conduit. A net. A link.

Arcade froze mid-step, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You’re… you’re bridging their cores. Like a live mana relay.” His voice trembled with awe and disbelief in equal measure. “That’s not possible. Hybrids don’t even have cores. None of this makes sense.”

Then—his own arm began to glow. A sharp blue pulse raced from his wrist to his palm, light sparking in jagged arcs. He stumbled back, clutching at it—

—and with a cheerful ding, something shimmered into existence.

From the glow above his shoulder, a palm-sized spherical robot blinked awake. Its eyes—one red, one blue—lit up as its little antenna spun. It hovered, bobbing slightly in the air like it had always been there.

“Salutations, Master Arcade!” Chip chirped brightly. “Would you like me to run a diagnostic, or should I just scream and pretend this is fine?”

Arcade gawked. “…You just—summoned yourself out of my arm?”

“Correction!” Chip said smugly, projecting a hologram of Celeste’s glowing chest cavity. “I was summoned via your brand-new mana core. Congratulations, you’re officially magical! Side effects may include glowing ribs, accidental lightning, and a persistent urge to monologue.”

Arcade pointed furiously at the hologram. “You’re telling me she ate a bioweapon—and now I can conjure talking hardware?!”

Celeste hunched her shoulders, ears drooping, her voice small. “...I really thought it was a gumdrop.”

Chip continued, undeterred. “The substance restructured her biology, allowing her to convert mana into a stable power core. She now functions as a central hub—rerouting ambient and partner mana through her body via thought-activated transmission. This includes weapon summoning, defensive boosts, and shared emotional feedback.”

Arcade’s jaw dropped. “Hold on—so I can channel my mana independently now, but it still runs through her? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Correct!” Chip chirped cheerfully. “Your flow remains tethered to her core. Her biology and mana imprint form what we call a high-resonance hybrid interface. She doesn’t merely replicate mana—she synchronizes it.”

Arcade squinted. “Fantastic. So I’ve known her all of ten minutes, and my life force is now hard-wired to her circulatory system. That’s not unnerving at all.”

Chip’s tone dropped into mock sympathy. “You’re tethered, sir. No refunds. Terms and conditions apply.”

Celeste flushed, giving a tiny, awkward wave. “Um… s-surprise? And, um… sorry about… being your, uh… router?”

Arcade pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unbelievable. I spend a decade engineering mana stabilizers—blood, sweat, equations—and you, Astallan, eat one cursed jawbreaker and turn into the city’s first walking Wi-Fi tower.”

Bonbon squealed, clapping her paws. “Mae hi mor ddisglair nawr!” (“She’s so shiny now!”)

And despite the chaos, the exhaustion, and the strangeness of it all… Celeste smiled softly.

She didn’t understand what she was becoming.

But for the first time in a very long while—

She felt connected.