From above, the chamber thundered with lightning.
Kirrin swooped in, her wings streaked with sparks as she spun her staff in tight, deliberate circles. “Alright, you sugary overgrown calamari — let’s see how you taste when fried!” she shouted, voice thick with her Scottish lilt.
Bolts of white-blue mana rained down, arcing between the kraken’s limbs and the cavern ceiling, lighting the sugary mist in flashes of brilliant colour.
Jell’thuzad shrieked as several of its tendrils recoiled, syrup boiling where the lightning struck.
Kirrin didn’t stop.
She folded her wings sharply, dropped like a spear, and slammed one claw into the cavern floor.
“Stormrune Pulse!”
A ring of glowing stormrunes burst outward beneath her.
The symbols carved themselves into the wet stone in a circle of crackling blue-white light. One by one, they flared — then pulsed.
Lightning surged through the runes in waves.
The first pulse slammed into the nearest tentacles, shocking them rigid.
The second rolled wider, racing across the syrup-slick ground and blasting smaller jelly spawn apart in bursts of steam and burnt sugar.
The third pulse shook the whole chamber, thunder cracking so loudly that Celeste felt it in her teeth.
“Now that,” Mezzo shouted, ducking beneath a snapping limb, “is a dramatic entrance!”
Kirrin grinned through clenched teeth. “Aye, well, I do try!”
But as the last rune faded, she staggered mid-air.
The feathers along her arms and wings glowed with tiny burned-in storm marks, each one sparking painfully against her skin. Kirrin hissed, shaking out one wing as the recoil bit through her.
Ray glanced up, alarm flashing across her face. “Kirrin!”
“I’m fine!” Kirrin snapped, though her voice strained. “Just a wee bit crispy!”
C.H.I.P., still flickering nearby, chirped weakly, “Medical note: ‘wee bit crispy’ is not a recognised recovery status.”
Kirrin bared her teeth at the kraken and raised her staff again, sparks crawling over her feathers.
“Come on then,” she growled. “I’ve got plenty more storm where that came from.”
Beside her, Plum crouched on a ledge, visor down, her arcbracer projecting twin barrels of condensed light. “Got your soft spots marked!” she yelled, squeezing off rapid bursts that cracked through the jelly hide. Each impact burst into glowing candy shards. “Smile for the front page, you calorie-stuffed monstrosity!”
Below, Pitch lunged again, a silver blur of primal power and fury. He tore into the kraken’s side, claws leaving molten blue gashes as he ripped through the tentacles that had trapped his teammates. His howls echoed through the cavern, raw and furious.
Celeste darted between falling rubble, her twin katanas flashing arcs of silver light that sliced through gummy tendrils. “Lunar Cross!” she cried, her blades sweeping outward in a dazzling X-shaped slash that left a trail of glittering stars across the kraken’s hide. The strike blazed like falling starlight, searing deep into its jelly flesh and bursting into a cascade of shimmering motes.
Mezzo leapt beside her, his guitar-axe blazing like a torch. “Blazing Chord Slash!” His swing cut a wide, flaming arc that unleashed a wave of molten heat, rippling through the mist and scorching the kraken’s tendrils into bubbling syrup. “Come on, lads! Let’s show him the sweet taste of defeat!”
“Terrible pun!” Ray yelled—but she grinned all the same. She slammed her hammer down in a furious overhead arc. “Crater Smash!” The impact split the ground, creating a shockwave that rolled outward in a glowing ring, blasting through lesser tentacles and stunning a cluster of smaller jelly spawn.
Arcade crouched behind a shattered pillar, his visor flickering with data. “C.H.I.P., Overclock Mode—let’s jam!”
“Overclock Beatdown!” chirped the tiny robot, its eyes flashing bright cyan. In an instant, it blurred into motion, unleashing a flurry of rapid-fire punches that struck like drumbeats—each impact leaving ripples through the kraken’s gelatinous mass.
Then Jell’thuzad reeled back. The cavern darkened. His massive mouth opened wide, releasing a cone of swirling pink mist that shimmered like liquid glass. “Mourning Maw!”
The vapor spread fast, creeping across the floor like a living dream. Where it touched, it hissed—and those caught inside froze, their eyes wide with terror. Phantom scenes flickered around them—old wounds, lost friends, their worst moments replaying in cruel clarity.
Celeste stumbled as visions of her father turning away flashed before her eyes. Ray saw her sister in tears. Mezzo saw his brother dying in front of him.
“Get clear!” Arcade shouted, voice tight. “That’s memory poison! Disperse it before it hardens!”
The mist began to crystallize, forming jagged sheets of candy glass around trapped allies. Celeste, shaking free of her trance, slashed through the forming prison with a burst of light, freeing Ray just before it solidified. Shards scattered like stars across the cavern floor.
She snapped her wings wide, hovering high above the churning pool as electricity gathered along her claws. The air around her cracked and spat, stormlight crawling over her feathers in jagged blue-white veins.
“Thunderlash!”
Kirrin slashed both claws downward.
Crackling arcs of lightning whipped from her talons like living serpents, snapping through the air with vicious speed. The first lash struck one of Jell’thuzad’s glowing nodes, bursting it in a spray of boiling syrup and sparks.
The lightning leapt.
It chained from one pulsing node to the next, then to a smaller tendril, then to a cluster of jelly-spawn crawling up the rocks. Each strike grew weaker as it travelled, but still sharp enough to make candy flesh convulse and blacken.
Jell’thuzad shrieked, limbs thrashing.
“Again!” Arcade yelled. “The next one’s exposed!”
Kirrin twisted mid-air, teeth bared. “Aye, I see it!”
She raked one claw sideways, dragging the lightning chain across three more glowing points. The first node exploded. The second smoked. The third seized, locking one of the kraken’s tentacles rigid in the air.
Ray’s eyes flashed. “It’s stunned!”
“Then hit it before it remembers how to be horrible!” Celeste cried.
Mezzo spun his guitar-axe, sparks and flame chasing each other along the strings. “Oh, I love when the plan is just violence with timing!”
Kirrin gave a strained laugh from above, though the tips of her feathers smoked faintly. “You’re welcome, by the way!”
C.H.I.P. beeped from Arcade’s side. “Tactical note: enemy paralysis window estimated at six seconds.”
Ray raised Heartbreaker.
Celeste lifted both katanas.
Mezzo grinned.
Arcade pointed at the frozen tentacle. “Then make them count!”
The team converged—blades, fire, lightning, and fury all striking as one.
The kraken screamed, its whole body trembling. The water boiled around it, turning cloudy with melted sugar and shards of dissolved crystal.
Celeste twirled her blades in a final sweeping cross, shouting, “NOW!”
The others followed—Mezzo’s axe crashing down, Ray’s hammer blazing, Kirrin’s lightning spearing through its head.
A deafening roar shook the entire cave.
Cracks splintered through the walls, beams of sunlight piercing through as the kraken’s massive form thrashed and crashed against the rock. With a final, echoing bellow—half rage, half agony—it tore through the far wall, smashing open a gaping hole to the sea beyond.
Water flooded in, cold and wild.
Jell’thuzads massive, broken body slipped into the tide, dissolving into glowing syrup as it vanished beneath the waves. The echoes of its roar faded, replaced by the crash of surf and the exhausted panting of the Knights.
Kirrin landed heavily beside them, wings folding. “Well,” she breathed, wiping her brow, “that was… disgusting.”
Plum dropped down next to her, dusting off her jacket. “Disgusting, terrifying, and brilliant copy material.”
Celeste steadied herself, blades still humming faintly as she stared toward the open sea. “It’s gone,” she said quietly, half in awe, half disbelief.
“Yeah,” Ray said, leaning on her hammer. “And it nearly took us with it.”
Mezzo gave a tired grin, voice hoarse. “But it didn’t.”
Pitch, still half-wolf, sat in the shallows, panting, fur slick with seawater and sugar. His eyes met Celeste’s—tired, but thankful.
Celeste exhaled slowly, finally lowering her blades. “Let’s head back before another dessert decides we’re the main course.”
And as they trudged toward the broken light of dawn filtering through the cavern, their reflections rippled on the water—tattered, battered, but together.
Pitch tore off across the rocks, claws scraping against slick stone as salt spray whipped around him.
“Pitch! Stop!” Ray shouted, her voice echoing off the shattered walls.
But the werewolf didn’t listen. He only paused long enough to throw his head back and let out a long, mournful howl at the moon—half grief, half fury—before vanishing over the ridge into the night.
Then Mezzo froze.
His eyes widened, reflecting the light from the cave mouth.
“...Oh no.”
Through the jagged gap where the kraken had broken through, he could see the harbour below—ships bobbing in chaos. The monster’s massive shape surged beneath the surface, ramming through the hulls like paper. One ship exploded in a bloom of fire and syrup, another crumpled in on itself, spilling passengers into the boiling water.
Survivors.
They were survivors—families, soldiers, refugees—trying to escape the zombies.
Ray’s breath hitched. “We have to help them!”
“The water’s too unstable!” Mezzo barked, slamming a fist against the rock. The tide churned violently, the undertow dragging debris and fire back toward the cave.
Above them, the cavern groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed along the ceiling, stones crumbling into the rising flood.
“Move!” Kirrin shouted, scooping up Plum in her arms as the reporter tried to grab her camera. “Ye can write about it later, lass!”
Plum clutched her arcbracer, wide-eyed. “That thing’s collapsing!”
Ray dove forward, catching Arcade’s arm. “Come on, we swim for it!”
“I hate this plan!” Arcade sputtered, but jumped anyway. They vanished beneath the surface, pushing through the wreckage toward the flickering light outside.
Behind them, Celeste struggled. The current slammed her against a jagged rock, knocking the air from her lungs. She coughed, gasped, and tried to kick upward—but her soaked coat dragged her down like an anchor.
“C–can’t—” she choked, reaching out as the water rose over her head. Panic tore through her chest.
“Celeste!” Mezzo twisted around, seeing her vanish beneath the churning water. “She’s drowning!” He turned back immediately, fighting the current to reach her.
“Mezzo, don’t—!” Ray shouted, but he ignored her, diving toward the sinking glow of her arcbracer.
Above them, the ceiling cracked again, a deep, thunderous sound like the world breaking.
“Mezzo, look out!” Plum yelled. A massive slab of stone sheared free from the roof and plummeted toward him. She hurled herself forward, slamming into Mezzo and knocking him aside just as it crashed down—sending up a wall of spray and foam.
He coughed, sputtering. “We lose our powers if we don’t save her!” he roared, voice breaking with desperation.
Ray grabbed his arm, shaking him hard. “You’ll lose your life if you don’t move!”
For a heartbeat he hesitated—just long enough for another crack to echo overhead. More rocks began to fall, splashing into the water like cannonfire.
Below, Celeste’s vision blurred. Her limbs felt heavy, sluggish. She tried to keep her head above water, but the current spun her around, dragging her into the dark. Her lungs burned. The world tilted.
She reached out once more—fingers brushing light that wasn’t there—before the last of the ceiling gave way.
Stone and foam came crashing down.
And then—darkness swallowed her whole.
