Crackjaw lifted his hammer—not to strike, but to command.

He turned it slowly in his grip and brought it down once, hard, against the ground.

The sound carried.

Around the park, candy growths split and moved.

Zombies poured out from behind shattered rides, from between trees, from the cracked earth itself—jawbreaker hulks, licorice-limbed runners, things half-formed and snarling. They closed ranks with unnatural discipline, circling the base in a tightening ring.

“No—!” Ray snarled, spinning, Heartbreaker flashing.

Hands grabbed her.

Too many.

They dragged her down, pinning her arms, claws digging into her shoulders as she fought and cursed, purple flame flaring uselessly against sheer mass.

Pitch tried to shadow-jump.

A hand caught his coat.

Another slammed him to the ground.

“Get off—!” he snapped, cards flashing, but bodies piled on, crushing the magic out of him until all he could do was snarl and struggle.

Crackjaw didn’t look at them.

He stepped past them.

He stepped toward her.

The Minotaur stepped closer, filling her vision, blocking every escape.

Nowhere left.

“Kenaz,” he rumbled, lowering his head. “You will greet me properly.”

He tilted his hammer, not threatening—expectant.

“The way you did,” he continued, almost reasonable, “when you beat me in combat.”

His eyes burned.

“You owe me that much. At least.”

He drew back to headbutt her again.

Time slowed.

Hughes moved first.

He twisted on his heel and swung the crook in a wide, grinding arc, runes flaring as the air itself seemed to shed weight.

Hourglass Spin.

The crook carved a luminous circle around him. Zombies were flung back as if struck by an invisible tide—bodies lifted, tossed, and staggered away in uneven arcs. Dust and sparks spiraled up together, whirling like falling sand caught in a storm.

A faint shimmer settled around Hughes—a warped pocket of time. Incoming debris, stray shots, even drifting embers slowed as they crossed its edge, hanging for a breath too long before dropping.

Hughes slammed the crook into the ground at the spin’s end, veins of light racing up its shaft as the world dragged deeper into syrupy stillness. His voice cut through the distortion, strained and urgent.

“Now, Celeste! Summon your blades—hit! I can’t hold him!”

Her katanas answered her call in a flash of light.

She launched forward.

Mana surged—bright, floral, desperate.

Starpetal Bloom.

Celeste spun into a tight spiral, blades flashing in a flurry of interlocking arcs. Slashes bloomed outward in a widening helix, petals of light scattering through the air—soft, star-bright motes that lingered as she moved, each cut feeding the next.

She struck.

Once—clean, precise.
Again—harder.
Again—angrier.

The spiral tightened, faster and brighter, petals raining down as each blade found seams, joints, edges—every place her instincts screamed was right. Light hissed against armour. Sparks burst. The air filled with shimmering debris.

And for the first time—

She saw it.

A thin curl of steam leaked from beneath his armour.

Hope flared.

Hughes grunted, forcing the crook deeper into the ground as the delay bubble shuddered. Cracks of golden light raced through it like stress fractures in glass.

“I—can’t—” he gasped.

Time snapped back.

The Minotaur’s head missed her by inches and slammed into the wall behind her, stone exploding outward in a violent spray.

Celeste staggered, heart racing.

Crackjaw straightened slowly.

Then he laughed.

Deep. Harsh. Getting sharper by the second—like a man who’d been promised a bar fight and handed a children’s party instead.

“Ha!” he boomed. “Impatient, I’m gettin’. You hear that, universe? I’m impatient.”

His lip curled as he eyed Celeste.

“I’m gettin’ tired, Astallan,” he growled, voice turning rough and biting. “Either you try—”

He leaned down, eyes burning through her.

“—or you stop flailin’ and let me finish the lesson.”

His smile widened, ugly and pleased.

“And you’re doin’ neither.”

His hammer crashed sideways and sent Hughes flying, the crook tearing from his grip as he hit the ground in a spray of dust and broken stone.

“No—!” Celeste cried.

Mezzo dove in from above, axe raised, a desperate blur of speed and rage.

Crackjaw didn’t even look at him.

His hand snapped out, caught Mezzo’s arm—and twisted.

There was a sickening crack.

Mezzo screamed.

Crackjaw flung him bodily across the park, straight into the tree where Topsy was firing from. Both went down hard in a tangle of limbs and shattered bark.

Silence fell around Celeste.

Crackjaw tilted his head, studying her like a smith judging a warped blade.

“…Are you done?” he asked calmly.

His gaze sharpened.

“Just you and me now.”

Celeste’s chest tightened.

Celeste’s chest tightened.

This is it.

She didn’t see a way out. Didn’t see a win. Just the end.

Then—

Light exploded behind him.

A summoned gladiator slammed into existence in a crash of sigils and radiant force.

“Celeste—MOVE!” Lumina shouted.

Skye stood beside her, hands shaking but steady, magic flaring as they poured everything into the summon.

Celeste ran.

She turned mid-sprint and unleashed her special attack, blades screaming as mana tore free from her core and slammed into Crackjaw in a blinding arc.

The gladiator charged.

The Minotaur backhanded it.

The summon shattered into light and vanished.

He turned—too fast.

He charged Lumina.

“Skye—!” Celeste screamed.

One swipe sent Skye flying across the field, tumbling end over end until he lay still.

Crackjaw pinned Lumina beneath one massive hand, lifting her off the ground.

She choked, feet kicking uselessly.

“C-Cel—!” Lumina gasped. “P-please—!”

Celeste didn’t hesitate.

She attacked—again and again—katanas slashing, screaming, striking with everything she had left.

Nothing.

Crackjaw leaned closer to Lumina, eyes bright with recognition.

“…Ah,” he murmured. “Another Astallan.”

His grip tightened.

“Perhaps I’ll greet this one the way you used to.”

Celeste knew.

She saw it in the angle of his head.
Felt it in her bones.

“No!” she screamed—and charged.

Something snapped inside her.

Instinct took over.

She loosened her rune.

Reality glitched.

Ethereal horns tore through the air above her head, half-formed, flickering between planes. Wings of fractured light burst from her back, clipping into existence in jagged pulses.

Primal.

Unstable.

She threw herself forward—

—and took the headbutt meant for Lumina full-on.

The impact cracked the ground.

Celeste slid back a step—

and stayed upright.

Her horns locked with his.

Their foreheads pressed together, power grinding against power, the air screaming around them.

Crackjaw froze.

Then he laughed—soft, pleased… and far too familiar.

“Ahh,” he breathed, like he’d found his favourite bottle under the bed. “There it is.”

His eyes burned into hers.

“Kenaz.”

“I was wonderin’ when you’d finally crawl out.”

Celeste’s neck screamed in protest.

Pain roared through her skull, down her spine—but it wasn’t her bones that had taken the worst of it. It was her forehead gem and her dragon horns, both forced outward by sheer will, trembling as they fought to stay real.

She could feel it.

Her grip on her Primal form was slipping.

Her fur burned with light, a halo of blue fire licking along her silhouette. Mana bled off her in waves, hot and unstable, her fingertips glowing white-hot where the energy wanted out.

Too much.
Too fast.

She shoved forward anyway.

The force of it broke the lock—just enough.

Lumina dropped from the Minotaur’s grasp and hit the ground coughing, rolling away as Celeste’s aura washed over her. Lumina stirred immediately, eyes snapping open, reacting on instinct to the familiar, overwhelming presence of Celeste’s Primal core.

Celeste didn’t look back.

Her katanas tore back into her hands with a shriek of displaced air.

She launched herself at Crackjaw.

Mid-charge, she twisted her wrist and brought one blade across in a blazing arc.

Radiant Slice.

Holy light flooded the edge, clean and white-blue. The slash carved through the air and struck across the Minotaur’s chest, light hissing violently against jawbreaker armour. Lesser zombies caught in the wake ignited instantly, bodies searing and collapsing under the burn.

Crackjaw grunted.

Just once.

Celeste didn’t stop.

She drew both blades together, shoulders locking, stance narrowing as she poured everything she had left into a single, impossible line.

“Please,” she breathed—whether prayer or threat, she didn’t know.

Twinkle Pierce.

She thrust.

Both katanas drove forward as one, a sharp starburst erupting at the point of impact—brilliant, blinding, beautiful. Light detonated outward in a tight flare, scattering motes like shattered constellations as the blades slammed into his centre mass.

Steel met hammer.
Blades rang against armour.
The ground fractured beneath their feet.

The starburst faded.

The light guttered.

And the Minotaur was still standing.

Celeste’s arms shook—not from fear, but from how much of herself she had just spent to buy nothing at all.

This time—he fought back.

“Sloppy,” Crackjaw growled as he parried, hammer sweeping wide enough to flatten trees. “Where is Kenaz’s technique?”

Celeste snarled, barely holding the sound in her throat.

“Where is the Moonlight Ōdachi?” he continued, driving her back step by step. “Where is the flare? The discipline? The rage shaped into purpose?”

Her arms burned.

Her mind felt thin—like glass under pressure.

“I’m—n-not—him,” she hissed, forcing each word through clenched teeth as she ducked under another swing. She struck again. And again.

Nothing.

Not even a crack.

Crackjaw laughed, hammer slamming into the earth hard enough to send her skidding. “This is instinct without mastery,” he said. “Power without memory.”

Celeste planted her feet, aura flaring wildly as she absorbed the shock. The blue fire surged higher, licking up her arms, her claws elongating without permission.

Stop.
Stay here.
Think.

If she lost herself now—

No one around her would be safe.

She held her ground as he swung again, catching the hammer on crossed blades. The impact drove her to one knee, stone pulverizing beneath her.

Still—she didn’t fall.

But she wasn’t hurting him.

Not even close.

Across the shattered park, Ray dragged herself upright, blood in her teeth, eyes wide as she took in the sight of Celeste glowing, burning, still failing.

“…If she can’t even make a dent in that form,” Ray muttered hoarsely,

“We’re screwed.”

And Celeste felt it too—
the terrible truth pressing in with the weight of the storm clouds above:

She had the power.

She just didn’t have the time to learn how to use it—
before it used her.

Celeste pushed.

Too hard.

Something in her head split—just for a heartbeat. No thought. No names. No faces. Only pain and instinct, sharp and feral and wrong.

No.

She tore herself back.

With shaking hands and a sob stuck in her throat, she slammed her rune shut before the Primal could finish pulling her under. The blue fire guttered, horns flickering, wings tearing themselves back out of reality.

And that was when he hit her.

The Minotaur’s fist drove straight into her center.

The impact folded her around it and sent her flying—a limp, burning arc across the field before she struck the ground and slid, unmoving.

Everything rang.

She barely managed to lift her head.

Her glasses were gone. The world was a smear of light and shadow, sound muffled like she was underwater. She could just make out his shape as he walked toward her, each step heavy, inevitable.

Celeste couldn’t hold herself up.

Couldn’t summon her blades.

She closed her eyes.

Please… let it be quick.

Crackjaw stopped in front of her.

“Well,” he said mildly, disappointment lacing his voice. “I truly expected more. Still so weak.”

The hammer rose.

Then—

A roar tore the sky open.

White fire slammed into the Minotaur from the side, hitting him with the force of a falling star.

The White Candy Dragon Marzipan crashed into him, scales blazing, jaws snapping as she tore at his armour with savage fury. Her flames burned hotter than anything before—so hot the jawbreaker plates cracked, fractures racing through them like lightning.

Crackjaw staggered, roaring back, swinging wildly—

Marzipan hit him again.

Harder.

He was launched into the air, his massive form tumbling before smashing back into the ground in a crater of shattered stone and dust.

Celeste barely felt herself being moved.

Marzipan coiled around her and Lumina protectively, warm and solid, her massive head lowering as she let out a deep, rumbling purr. Light poured from her body—soft, steady, alive.

The pain eased.

Celeste gasped as breath returned properly to her lungs. Lumina coughed, then clutched at Celeste, shaking but alive.

Across the park, Crackjaw hauled himself upright, cracked armour steaming.

He snarled—then looked around.

At the wounded.
At the dragon.
At the storm finally breaking apart above them.

“Pullout,” he ordered coldly.

Zombies fell back at once, melting into the ruins as the General’s presence withdrew.

Marzipan stayed curled around Celeste and Lumina, glowing brighter as the last of the storm thinned to mist. Mana rain faded. The air stilled.

Celeste pressed her face weakly into warm scales, trembling.

She was alive.

Barely.

And as the dragon’s purr echoed through the ruined park, one truth settled heavy in her chest:

This hadn’t been a victory. 

It had been a warning.