The high-stakes urgency of the Umbral upgrade dissolved the moment the doors of the Gutter Nest's forge clanged open. Mothman and Koba shuffled in, their arms straining under the weight of three extra-large pizzas, the cardboard boxes radiating a smell far more comforting than ionized plasma or Orgone energy.
The crew gathered immediately. Ash, holding the terrifying secret of modular dragon power close, watched as Felicity reached for a slice of pepperoni.
Bu my hand moved faster than hers, a light but firm slap on the wrist. "Hold it right there missy!" I commanded, a playful seriousness in my voice. "What do you think you're doing?! I gotta say grace first."
Everyone paused, slices hovering, and curiosity replacing hunger in their eyes. "Close your eyes," I instructed, waiting until I was sure every head was bowed and every pair of eyes—crimson, purple, black, and human—was shut.
I took a slow breath, savoring the collective silence that briefly settled over the metal and steam of the forge. Then, I uttered the sacred words, my voice clear and resonant:
"Good food, good drink good god Lets eat."
A chorus of relieved, grateful voices answered him, with "Fahram." And the brief moment of reverence was past. Hands grabbed, cheese stretched, and the Gutter Nest's forge filled with the easy camaraderie of a crew that had just navigated an ascension.
The silence of the blessing shattered into the sounds of hungry chewing.
"Hey, Marla, can you pass the peppers?" I called out, my mouth already full of pepperoni.
Marla, mid-chew, didn't even turn her head. A small, concentrated burst of emerald Orgone—a tiny, psychic flick—gently nudged the glass shaker of crushed red pepper flakes across the metal table toward me.
"Thanks for the service, Orgone Queen," I chuckled, catching the shaker.
Felicity, meanwhile, was carefully examining her slice. "Hey, Mothman, do we even have parmesan cheese? This thing is naked without it."
Mothman, whose entire head seemed to be coated in pizza grease, looked up, his large, dark eyes blinking slowly. He pointed a sticky hand toward a corner of the counter. "It's in the foil container next to the leftover engine parts. Koba got the good stuff, the big shaker."
Koba, already on his second slice, just grunted in confirmation.
"Awesome," Felicity said, already teleporting herself a foot to the side to grab the shaker. "I knew there was a reason you two were worth keeping around."
Suddenly I was struck with a thought and shared it with my clan. I looked around and grinned. This caught Felicity's attention. "What is it, Ash?" She said as she licked her grease fingers.
"Does pizza and sewers remind you guys of anything?" I asked, my grin widening as I looked around at the puzzled faces of my clan.
In her private, meticulously organized Ceno quarters in Washington, Mya Tarq paced the polished floor. She held a sleek, secure phone to her ear, and a slice of pepperoni pizza in the other, her expression taut with impatience.
"What have you learned with the Herja data?" she demanded, her voice cool and sharp. "Can you reproduce an A.I. sentient Beast crystal yet?"
The voice of her lead researcher, filtering through the encrypted line, held a distinct wince. "Not yet, Mya. It's... highly complex. The sentient core resists all simulation. But we are working non-stop, uncovering the late Ishimoto's findings in the data you recovered. We believe the key to replication is buried there."
Mya gave a single, dismissive nod to herself. "Okay. Keep me in the loop. I have other business to attend to."
She ended the call abruptly, her focus already shifting. She moved across the room to a thick, steel vault door disguised within the wood paneling of the wall. She entered a precise, complex code, and with a low hiss of hydraulics, the door unlocked.
Mya descended a short flight of stairs into the basement—a sterile, concrete-lined 'safe room' beneath her stately Tudor-style home. In the center of the secure chamber stood a large, covered object. Mya walked up to it and, with a swift, dramatic motion, pulled the sheet off.
It was an ancient, intricately wrought obsidian mirror. The surface was deep black, framed by carvings of celestial events and forgotten glyphs. As Mya stood before it, three glowing, Angelic Chibis—tiny, divine entities—began to circle her head, their presence almost imperceptibly raising the room's electric hum.
The surface of the obsidian mirror began to ripple, the black glass becoming liquid and swirling. A vision formed: the pocked, familiar face of the moon appeared, dominating the mirror's surface. Cutting across the moon's stark light was the shimmering image of the Black Ribbon—the mysterious, ethereal force that all of the moon's monsters were now relentlessly flocking toward.
There were huge, silent creatures that didn't walk or swim, but floated lazily on the air currents.
Some resembled bloated, pale jellyfish the size of buses, trailing dozens of thick, whip-like tentacles that occasionally lashed out at smaller, swarming beasts below. They possessed no discernible head or eyes, seemingly navigating by the pull of the Ribbon alone.
There were powerful, heavily armored sluglike creatures that had evolved a terrifying form of mobility. They were massive, their carapaces the color of rusted iron, standing upright on two powerful rear limbs. The front of their bodies was a tangle of multiple scuttling, claw-tipped limbs, wielding them like crude, razor-sharp weapons, slashing their way through the throng.
There were monstrous, impossibly long Eel-like creatures that writhed through the low moon gravity as if it were water, their slick, dark bodies weaving through canyons of mara. Their jaws were wide, lined with overlapping rows of needle-like teeth, making them apex predators even in the midst of this chaotic migration.
There were stampedes of sleek silver centipedes. They moved with impossible speed, their segmented bodies catching the light like polished chrome. Each of their numerous legs ended in a razor point, allowing them to cling to and traverse any surface—climbing sheer skyscrapers and fortifications with effortless, chilling rapidity. They were the ground assault, a silent, glittering wave of unstoppable carnage.
There were four-armed silver apes, gigantic moon moths and three headed lunar dragons. Mya watched as a massive praying mantis with the lower body of a serpent slithered toward the black ribbon of pandora.
Mya's lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile. Her voice was a low, triumphant whisper in the quiet room.
"Good. Good. Pandora's Box is almost full."