The sugar-slicked street outside was quiet, the air heavy with the scent of caramel and smoke. Somewhere far off, something metal groaned in the wind. Candy glass crunched underfoot as Celeste and Ray made their way down the ruined road, the glow of the Egg Tree fading behind them.

Celeste kicked at a melted wrapper, her voice small. “I wish you wouldn’t tease me like that, Ray…”

Ray didn’t slow down. Her hands stayed tucked in her jacket pockets, a lollipop stick shifting from one side of her mouth to the other as she scanned the rooftops.

“Come on, Blondie,” she said. “Toughen up already. You’re way too soft.”

Celeste pouted, ears drooping for half a second before she straightened her shoulders and matched Ray’s pace. “I am trying.”

“Try harder.”

There was a pause.

Celeste glanced sideways at her. Ray was all sharp lines and tired eyes tonight, her tail low, her stride loose but alert—the sort of person who looked like she could fall asleep standing up and still hit you with a hammer if you annoyed her.

Celeste hesitated, then tried anyway.

“So…” she said carefully, “where are you from?”

Ray’s ears twitched, but she didn’t look at her. “Here.”

Celeste wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Another pause. The wind shifted. Somewhere nearby, something sticky dripped from a broken shop awning.

Celeste kept walking, clasping her paws behind her back. “I just thought maybe… I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about you much.”

Ray let out a short breath through her nose, not quite a laugh. “There’s not much to talk about.”

“There must be.”

“Nope.”

Celeste looked mildly wounded at that, but pressed on in that gentle, determined way of hers—the sort of way that probably worked on sweeter people.

“I’m only trying to be friendly,” she said. “You always seem like you’re expecting me to bite you.”

Ray finally glanced at her, one brow lifting. “Should I not?”

Celeste blinked. “No!”

“Mm.”

Celeste huffed. “I’m not the sort of cat who acts all aloof, you know.”

Ray looked ahead again. “Congratulations.”

“I mean it,” Celeste insisted. “I know lots of cats are like that, all mysterious and difficult and…” She made a vague gesture with both paws. “Very swishy about things. But I’m not. So if you think I’m being weird, I’m not trying to be weird.”

Ray’s eyes narrowed slightly, the way they did when she thought someone was stepping too close. “Maybe it’s a fox thing.”

Celeste brightened a little, thinking she’d finally found an opening. “Maybe! Is it? Are foxes more—”

“Knock it off.”

The words were flat enough to stop her cold.

Celeste fell quiet.

Ray bit down on the lollipop stick, jaw tightening a little. When she spoke again, her voice was just as blunt, but there was something defensive under it now. Not anger exactly. More like an old habit.

“I’ve got friends in the Rustrows,” she said. “Don’t need new ones.”

Celeste’s ears lowered. “Oh.”

For a few steps, all that could be heard was the wet squelch of sugar sludge under their boots and the distant hiss of wind through shattered high-rises.

Then, because Celeste was apparently incapable of leaving well enough alone when she was curious, she peeked at Ray again.

“What are the Rustrows?”

Ray sighed like she regretted opening her mouth at all.

“It’s a pickup point,” she muttered. “For mythics. One of a few. They land there to trade, regroup, pick up news, then head out again.”

Celeste’s whole face changed.

“Oh,” she breathed, the hurt vanishing under a rush of interest. “Wait—really?”

Ray gave her a sideways look.

“Yes, really.”

Celeste moved a little closer without seeming to realise it. “Do they all have wings?”

“Not all of them.”

“But some do?”

“Some.”

“And they just fly in?”

“Some fly,” Ray said. “Others come in caravans.”

Celeste stared. “Caravans?”

Ray’s mouth twitched despite herself. “Big ones. Pulled through the sky with giant butterflies and moths. Harnessed up with cargo nets and lanterns. Sometimes they ride the wind right over the old rooftops if the currents are good.”

Celeste stopped walking for half a heartbeat, eyes going wide. “Giant butterflies?”

Ray almost rolled her eyes, but there was less sting in it now. “Aye.”

“And moths?”

“Also aye.”

“With wings? Proper enormous fluffy ones?”

Ray actually snorted. “What other kind would they have?”

Celeste clasped her paws together under her chin, visibly delighted. “I would love to see that.”

Ray looked ahead, but there was the faintest hint of amusement in her voice now. “Would you?”

“Yes!” Celeste said, nearly bouncing as she walked. “Oh, that sounds lovely. Imagine them all lit up at night with lanterns and banners and—” She glanced at Ray, practically glowing. “Do you think they’d let me pet one?”

Ray stared at her for a moment.

The ruined street, the stink of sugar rot, the blackened skyline—all of it seemed to drop away for a second under the sheer earnestness of Celeste’s expression.

“…You want to pet the giant war-moths,” Ray said flatly.

Celeste flushed, but didn’t deny it. “Maybe both,” she admitted. “See one and pet one.”

And there it was.

Only for a second, but it was there.

Ray smiled.

Small. Crooked. Gone almost as soon as it appeared—but real.

Celeste lit up like she’d just won something.

“I knew you could smile!”

Ray’s face closed at once. “Don’t push it.”

Celeste ducked her head, but there was a pleased little grin tugging at her mouth now. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No,” Celeste admitted.

For a few blessed moments, the patrol felt almost normal.

Then the wind changed.

Ray stopped so suddenly Celeste nearly bumped into her.

The fox’s ears went sharp. Her hand moved toward Heartbreaker’s handle.

“What is it?” Celeste whispered.

Ray didn’t answer right away.

The street had gone too still.

No drip of syrup. No creak of signs. No far-off crackle of fire.

Then—

A snarl split the silence.

Something hit the wall above them with a wet slap.

Celeste looked up just as a shape peeled itself from the brickwork and lunged.

The sugar-stinking air rushed at them in a black, twisting blur.

Among the swarm, the worst of the bunch slithered forward: Dogorice.

A twitching, malformed zombie dog sculpted entirely from black liquorice. Its tar-like body dripped and stretched as it moved, sticking to walls, floors, and even the breeze itself. Hollow eyes glowed red beneath strands of liquorice whip that hung like wet fur. Every step made a sucking sound.

Celeste wrinkled her nose, drawing her katanas in a flash of starlight. “Ugh. These things again.”

“They’re sticky little nightmares,” Ray muttered, planting her feet. “But low HP. Good for grinding.”

The first Dogorice lunged—fast and messy—but Ray was faster.

With a guttural roar, she gripped Heartbreaker in both hands and swung it down. The hammer struck the cobbles with a fiery arc of purple flame, catching the creature mid-pounce. It burst apart in a splatter of smoking black syrup, screeching as it dissolved into twitching globs.

Celeste spun, slicing through another with a clean flash of her blade. Liquorice strands clung to her boots and wrapped around one ankle like living tar, but she kicked free with a grimace.

“They’re getting smarter,” she said, ducking as one tried to spring at her from the side of a wall.

Ray brought Heartbreaker around in a savage sideways blow, smashing it flat against the bricks. “They’re getting desperate,” she snarled. “That’s worse.”

Another dropped from above.

Celeste parried too late, the impact jolting up her arms. The thing’s body stretched grotesquely around her blade, trying to crawl up it toward her hands. She hissed and flung it off, only for two more to surge from a nearby alley.

Ray ploughed into them like a wrecking ball.

Heartbreaker rose.

Then came down.

Flourish—Hammer Pulse.

The strike landed with a shattering crack. A radial burst of phoenix mana exploded outward in waves of violet fire, igniting the zombies where they stood. Candied shells snapped and popped like sugar glass in a furnace. Liquorice bodies writhed, shrank, and blackened into bubbling slag.

The blast washed over Celeste too—warm, fierce, strangely invigorating.

For a heartbeat, her katanas felt lighter in her paws, her muscles quicker, her whole body sharpened by Ray’s fire as though the fox had hurled a fragment of her own ferocity into Celeste’s chest.

“Push, Celeste!” Ray barked.

Celeste moved.

One slash. Then another.

A Dogorice split down the middle in a burst of sticky black ribbons. Another leapt from a wrecked bus shelter, and she spun beneath it, driving her blade up through its chest. It let out a sound like a kettle screaming before melting apart.

But then her boot hit syrup.

Her footing slipped.

A grotesque jelly-limbed zombie—something half-melted and stitched with gumdrop growths—lurched out from a side street she hadn’t checked. It came at her too fast, mouth yawning wide with strings of sugar spit.

For one awful heartbeat, she froze.

The street vanished.

The smell of sugar turned her stomach.

Her mind went blank.

She could hear it coming, and still her body wouldn’t move.

Then Ray was there.

Heartbreaker swept in a brutal arc and turned the creature into ash, syrup, and shattered teeth. Ray planted herself in front of Celeste like a wall, chest heaving, ears pinned back, eyes blazing with fury.

The surviving zombies hesitated.

Then fled into the dark.

A little blue shimmer danced at the edge of Celeste’s vision.

+300 EXP
+Liquorice Tar (Common Drop)

Celeste swallowed hard, her grip tightening on her blades. “Th-thank you…”

Ray rounded on her so fast Celeste almost took a step back.

“What was that?” Ray snapped.

Celeste flinched.

“I told you not to be so weak out here.” Ray’s voice cracked like a whip in the empty street. Her tail lashed once behind her, all sharp anger and frayed nerves. “You freeze like that again and you’re dead.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Celeste whispered, ears flattening hard against her head.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” Ray barked. “If you hesitate out here, you’re candy chow. You can’t stop. Not for a second. Not ever.”

Celeste’s throat worked. Shame burned hot under her fur.

“I’ll—I’ll be a good girl…” she murmured.

Ray blinked.

The anger in her expression faltered, confused out of shape.

“What?”

Celeste’s eyes dropped to the ground. “I—I’ll be good. I promise.”

For a second, the only sound was the sticky hiss of cooling syrup around their boots.

Ray stared at her.

Then her ears lowered, not in anger now, but in something more unsettled.

“Stop saying that,” she muttered.

Celeste looked up, startled.

Ray dragged a hand over her face with a harsh sigh and jammed the lollipop stick back between her teeth, though she wasn’t chewing it anymore. When she spoke again, the edge was still there, but dulled.

“You don’t need to be… that.” She gestured vaguely, like she didn’t have the words for whatever had just happened. “Just stronger. That’s all.”

Celeste nodded quickly. “Okay.”

Ray looked away, jaw tight. “I didn’t mean to lose my cool.”

Her grip shifted on Heartbreaker.

Then, more quietly:

“Hell, I was scared you’d get killed.”

The admission sat between them, awkward and unpolished.

Celeste stared at her.

Ray didn’t meet her eyes.

Instead, the fox stepped forward, checked the alley with a quick glance, then came back and stuck out a hand.

Celeste took it.

Ray hauled her up the last inch from where she’d slipped and then, almost as an afterthought, squeezed her shoulder once.

“We’re training tomorrow,” Ray said. “Proper Mythic style. Sparring. Footwork. Recovery. No more freezing.”

Celeste nodded again, this time with more conviction. “Okay. I’ll be ready.”

Ray studied her for a moment, then grunted. “See that you are.”

They started walking again, slower this time.

Celeste’s heart was still pounding, though now it was hard to tell whether it was from the fight, the shame of freezing, or the strange warmth left behind by Ray’s hand on her shoulder.