Arcade didn’t move for a long moment.

He stood in front of the floating schematics, eyes racing over the plans so quickly the reflected light flickered across his glasses like lightning.

“These aren’t just pod diagrams,” he said.

His voice had gone thin.

CHIP projected the files larger, dragging pale-blue plans across the air: leyline routes, municipal grid paths, suppressor rune networks, tower relays, mana pylons scattered across Clawdiff like nails hammered into a map.

Arcade’s fingers tightened.

“Oh, you absolute bastards.”

Celeste stepped closer. “Arcade?”

He swiped the map wider. Red lines lit up across the city, branching from residential districts, transit stations, schools, hospitals, safe zones — everywhere.

“Every suppressor rune in Clawdiff,” Arcade said, voice shaking with anger. “Not just ours. Every registered Hybrid rune. Every licensed Mythic regulator. They weren’t only suppressing mana output. They were bleeding off the excess remotely.”

Ray’s ears flattened. “Bleeding off?”

Arcade jabbed at the map. “Absorbing it. The mana pylons across the city were collecting everything the runes vented. Tiny amounts from thousands of people, all day, every day. Enough to keep street barriers, transport rails, lighting grids, corporate towers… all of it running.”

Celeste felt cold. “So even before the pods…”

“They were already using us,” Ray said, voice low and dangerous.

Arcade’s jaw clenched as another file opened.

It was worse.

Blueprints for office buildings. Call centres. Food factories. Shopping complexes. All marked with proposed “workplace resonance collection upgrades.”

Arcade stared at the screen in open disgust. “They had plans to expand it into businesses. Anywhere Hybrids and Mythics worked long shifts. Call centres, workshops, kitchens, warehouse floors. Places where people were tired enough not to notice if their runes drained a little harder.”

CHIP’s voice chimed in, bright with venomous sarcasm.

“Wonderful news. Your exhausting job was also a battery farm. Truly, late-stage civic planning has peaked.”

Arcade kept scrolling, then suddenly stopped.

His brows pulled together.

“Wait…”

The file header changed.

AUTHORISED BY: CAEDRIX SILAS ARCTURUS.
STATUS: OVERRULED.
ORDER OF TERMINATION: CAEDRIX UMBRANOX ARCTURUS.

Arcade blinked. “Huh.”

Pitch looked over. “That a good huh or a we’re-all-about-to-die huh?”

“Both are available,” CHIP offered.

Arcade ignored him. “This was Silas. The workplace harvesting expansion, the pylons, the full-city rune siphon upgrade — all of it was planned under Silas.”

He flicked the next file open.

“But Umbranox overruled it as soon as she became Caedrix.”

Hughes looked sharply at the map.

“She shut it down?”

“Marked it as unlawful extraction,” Arcade said, disbelief still on his face. “Suspended all private-sector installation. Sealed the project. Ordered an internal audit.”

Hughes’ voice softened, thoughtful despite the horror around them. “Then maybe Umbranox is trying to protect Hybrids.”

Arcade’s eyes snapped toward the pods.

His anger returned at once.

“That doesn’t explain the prisoners.”

The chamber hummed around them, rows of glass coffins pulsing with stolen light.

Pitch let out a humourless breath. “Rune-draining itself ain’t new.”

Celeste looked at him.

He shrugged, though there was no ease in it. “Down in the Warrens, Hybrids hook little devices to their runes all the time. Power lamps. Heat plates. Radios. Chargers if you’re desperate and stupid. Half the lower district runs on scraps and spite.”

Lumina stared at him. “You’re saying people do this willingly?”

“Sometimes,” Pitch said. “When you’ve got nothing else. Difference is, you choose it. You know what it costs. You stop before it knocks you flat.”

His eyes moved over the endless rows of pods.

“This?” His voice dropped. “This is industrial. On this scale, they must be desperate.”

A quiet settled over them.

Then Celeste noticed something else.

Some of the candy pods weren’t Council-made.

They were imitations.

Rough, sticky duplicates, grown in warped sugar and sherbet resin, but using the same glowing cables. The same extraction ports. The same mana-flow design, copied crudely but effectively.

Arcade realised it too.

His eyes widened in horror. “They copied the tech…”

The candy zombies were learning.

Replicating.

The chamber’s sugary light dimmed, and the air thickened with that cloying, burnt-sweet smell.

A whisper, like the rustle of dry wrappers, slithered around them.

From the shadows, the Sherbet Wraith oozed forth — her form coalescing into something that half-resembled a rabbit and half a wisp of dissolving sugar. Her voice dripped with malice, like evil itself had crawled out of a fairy jar.

“Ohhh… what clever little morsels you are,” she crooned, words bubbling through layers of syrup. “My precious pet, my sugar-wolf, gone all to bits… and by you.”

She floated closer, her faceless head turning toward each of them. With every word, her features shifted—sometimes Ray’s face, sometimes Celeste’s, sometimes no face at all.

“Do you like my garden?” she asked, gesturing to the glowing pods. “The Council made these first. Such efficient cruelty—hybrids and mythics bound, drained, pulsed through copper veins to light their pretty towers. They wanted a city that ran on fear. Now… I’ve made my own.”

Her sherbet limbs extended, pointing at the imitation pods pulsing on the far wall. Inside them, prisoners twitched. “The mythics are the masters once more. The purebloods—our drones. But you, little hybrids…” her tone slid between a purr and a hiss, “…you stand in between. Will you defend your makers… or devour them with us? I can’t quite decide.”

Celeste clutched her chest, gasping. Her core burned. She could feel them—the trapped hybrids and mythics, their mana threads tugging at hers like invisible hands reaching for salvation.
It was too much.
Too many voices, too much grief.

She dropped to her knees, trembling. “I can feel them—like threads through my ribs. They’re calling, and I can’t untangle the knots.”

The wraith’s head tilted, delighted. “Ahhh… you can feel them. The dragon was right—you’re special, my sweet sherbet blossom. So very unique.”

The floor shuddered. The walls cracked open, spilling syrup as candy zombies clawed their way out—sticky, glass-eyed, their flesh half-sugar, half-stone. “Now,” the Wraith cooed, “my pretty pets will take you to the Giant Gumball. Step inside, won’t you? It’s quite the ride.”

Pitch’s gun clicked, the barrel glowing faintly purple.

He smirked, his usual sardonic charm cutting through the terror. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, cocking his head. “I’m terrible at traveling. Motion sickness. I’ll have to decline.”

The Wraith’s laughter echoed through the cavern—sweet, shrill, and utterly wrong—as the candy horde closed in from all sides.

The world went white-blue for a heartbeat.
Celeste’s eyes blazed—cold fire flickering deep within the irises.

A zombie lunged at her—fangs wide, claws ready—
and froze midair.

The group stopped fighting.
Even the sound of the storm dulled.

Celeste stood utterly still, her hands trembling, her breath sharp and shallow. Her katanas hummed like tuning forks, resonating with her heartbeat.

Inside her mind… she felt the creature.
The gnawing hunger. The fractured memory.
A voice—raw, broken—echoed through her skull:

Kill. Eat. Where am I? Stop the pain. Please.

Celeste gasped, tears stinging her eyes.

The zombie’s limbs twitched, faltering—
until Mezzo stepped forward, jaw clenched.
“I got it, Cece.”
His axe-guitar came down in a swift, merciful arc, ending the struggle.

Celeste flinched at the sound, her eyes fading back to normal.

The Wraith hovered above them, her sherbet form rippling with agitation.
“Oh, what delicious empathy,” she purred. “You felt it, didn’t you? Their pain, their hunger… their screams.”
Her tone soured, dripping venom.
“I must tell the dragon of this. He’ll want to know his little mirror can do what he does.”

Celeste blinked, confused. “What do you mean—the dragon?”

The wraith’s grin stretched impossibly wide.
“He touches cores too, sweetling.”

The Wraith tittered, licking syrup from her claw.

“Because they made him that way.”

Celeste’s grip tightened on her katanas.
“Who’s they?” she demanded.

The wraith’s eyes gleamed.

“The Council, sweetheart. Who else would carve something so… divine?”

Celeste didn’t get to answer. The wraith snapped her fingers—and chaos broke loose.

“Smash the pods, my pretties! Let their screams power our feast!”

Candy zombies turned, slamming fists into the crystalline pod shells.
Inside, mythics and hybrids stirred, barely conscious.

Mezzo howled. “NO!”
He leapt forward, battering back the monsters with his axe, voice breaking. “They’re still alive!”

The air was thick with sugar and static. Candy fumes rose from the cracked floor, and the Sherbet Wraith’s laughter slithered between the pipes like melting glass.

“Play for me, little rockstar,” she cooed, her voice bubbling with cruel delight. “Make it sweet.”

Mezzo bared his teeth. “You asked for it, sweetheart.”

He flicked a switch on his guitar-axe. The neon veins along the neck pulsed red. Flames coiled up his arms, feeding on rhythm. He kicked off the floor—spinning midair, tail whipping through a haze of molten sherbet—and came crashing down with a roar.

“PYRO SOLO!”

The impact hit like a meteor. Fire exploded outward in a brilliant ring, rippling across the power plant. The molten sugar hissed and flashed to glass; zombies ignited in cascading bursts of orange and violet. Even the Wraith staggered, her sherbet skin blistering under the wave.

Mezzo strummed one last savage chord, sending tongues of flame chasing the last of the shambling candy husks into slag.

Celeste shielded her eyes, tail fluffing from the heat. “Stars, Mezzo—please warn us next time! My whiskers are still sizzling.”

He slung the guitar over his shoulder, a cocky grin cutting through the smoke. “Can’t. Kinda ruins the solo.”

Behind him, the Wraith reformed from the melting sugar, her voice a crackling hiss. “Delicious…” she whispered, dripping anew. “Encore?”

Mezzo rolled his shoulders, sparks licking his fur. “You bet your sweet teeth.”

The music swelled again—louder, faster, hungrier—as if the flames themselves were keeping time.

The Wraith moved.Her sherbet arms stretched like ribbons, whipping through the air. Zombies stirred, smashing into pods and walls. The chamber filled with the shriek of breaking glass and the hiss of leaking mana.

“Stop them!” Mezzo roared, cutting down two at once. “They’re smashing the pods!”

Hughes planted his crook, runes flaring. “Chrono Bend!”
The world stuttered—sand slowing mid-whirl, zombie limbs dragging through syrup-thick air.

Arcade barked orders, Chip’s sensors flaring bright.
“Three on the right flank, two near the grid! Chip, crush mode—go!”

Chip leapt into his larger form, slamming down with piston fists that shattered candy skulls.

The room pulsed like a dying heart—lights flickering, syrup boiling, the Sherbet Wraith’s laughter dripping from every wall.

The Wraith stretched her syrupy limbs across the ceiling, taunting them with a grin made of shattered candy glass.

Then a voice cut through the noise, low and lazy.
“Mind if I cut in?”

The air shimmered. A puff of black smoke coiled upward like ink in water—Pitch was gone.

The Wraith’s eyes darted left, right, up. “Where did the little gambler—”

A click. Behind her.

Pitch reappeared from the haze, coat fluttering, cards scattering like falling ash. He leveled Lady Luck, the twin-barrel gleaming violet in the light.

“Phantom Draw.”

The blast thundered through the room. Sugar shattered like glass, spraying molten candy and mana mist. The Wraith screamed, her body splintering where the shot tore through her back.

Pitch exhaled, smoke curling from the gun’s barrel as he flicked another card into his fingers.
“House always wins, sweetheart.”

Celeste peeked through the haze, tail puffed. “A little warning before you vanish into smoke would be lovely, Pitch. My heart tried to escape through my throat.”

He tipped his hat, grin sharp as his shot. “But then it wouldn’t be magic.”

The Wraith’s silhouette writhed, reforming from dripping sherbet—but slower now, shakier. Each trick, each strike, was chipping away at her sugary facade, and Pitch’s shadows were already circling for another draw.

Skye drew a card, magic sigils spiraling. “Spirit Summon—Aqua!”
A watery figure erupted from his deck—a shimmering, flowing nymph. It danced through the battlefield, sweeping its arms.
Water rippled across the ground, soaking the sandstorm until it turned into sluggish slush.

The visibility cleared.
The barrier pods gleamed again under the flickering lights.

And Celeste—center of it all—spun her katanas in wide arcs, mana ribbons stretching from their hilts.
“Starlight Tornado!” she cried.

The ribbons spiraled around her, forming a vortex of light. The sandstorm shattered, blowing outward like dust before a rising dawn.

The wraith recoiled, shielding her eyes.

“Such light! Such potential! But let’s see how you handle this!”

She rose high above, arms outstretched.
Her shadow twisted. Magic surged, violent and unstable.

“Time to end the game. One blast to the core—and your little city goes pop!”

The reactor behind her began to glow. Power conduits sparked. The very walls of the chamber pulsed with too much mana.

Ray shouted, “She’s gonna blow the damn grid—!”

Celeste’s core pulsed, but her legs trembled.

This was it.

The battle had turned into chaos—molten sugar, flickering lights, and the sticky sound of zombie feet peeling from the floor. The Sherbet Wraith shrieked, her laughter echoing like broken windchimes.

Celeste and Ray were holding the line, but the tide of candy-coated corpses was closing in fast.

“Lumi! Now would be stellar!” Ray shouted, hammer sparking.

Lumina grinned, planting her boots in the slick syrup. “On it, Ray!”

She raised her heart-shaped shield, mana pulsing through the filigree edges until it gleamed with pink-gold light. Her tail swished once—then she sprinted forward, leapt, and slammed the shield into the ground.

“HEART BLOOM BASH!”

The impact burst outward in a radiant shockwave of heart-shaped light. Each pulse rippled like petals scattering on water, knocking the candy zombies off their feet and sending sweet shards flying. The glow reflected off the crystallized syrup, painting the room in rose hues.

Celeste gasped as the pressure wave lifted her hair and sent the nearby wraithlings tumbling. “That’s… beautiful. Like fireworks that decided to be kind.”

Lumina winked, spinning her shield back onto her arm. “Battle’s better with a little sparkle.”

Even Mezzo, still smoldering from his last attack, let out a low whistle. “Hearts and explosions… that’s my kinda rhythm.”

The Sherbet Wraith hissed, shards of sugar flaking from her melting form. “Cute tricks won’t save you forever, little lights…”

Lumina raised her shield again, smile bright as dawn. “Maybe not. But it’ll buy us time to shine.”