With a rip of the sky, Hikaru's portal spread open in the sky of Euphoria, with Alice and Elara falling through first. Then came Rachel and Zalgo, then Gabrielle and lastly the IOTA members. The sky was a bright blue with pink clouds, and the buildings were made of bright pastel blocks, candy cane pillars, and some looked like they were crafted from giant marshmallows. A fountain nearby shot out rainbow-colored soda that fizzed with tiny laughing bubbles.

  “…Well,” Rachel said, blinking slowly as she took it in, “at least it’s pretty.”

  Liana’s ears twitched. “Nya! Do you hear that?” she asked suddenly, her voice tight with unease.

  They all went still.

  Then,

  A low thrum pulsed through the air, not loud, but deep… rhythmic… almost like a heartbeat under the cobblestone streets.

  Gabrielle crouched slightly, her fingers brushing the ground. "Not just a heartbeat," she murmured. "Breathing. This whole place... it's alive.”

  "Great," Iritscen muttered, fingers curling into fists, "so I'm going to be walking around on the inside of a giant breathing thing. Fantastic."

  Antiquus looked just as irritated, wings stiff with unease, though he said nothing. Zofie was eyeing up the buildings like they were enemy camps, while Liana seemed unsure if she wanted to explore… or hide. Alice and Elara both had their hands on their weapons as they studied the landscape like it could come to life any second.

  "I feel like someone's watching..." Zalgo said quietly.

  "That's because you're not wrong," a voice said from behind them.

  The group whipped around, hands instinctively flying to their weapons, only to stop as a figure emerged from the shadows of a nearby building.

  Elara stared, the others doing the same from beside her. The figure was… striking, to say the least. Tall, broad shouldered, with dark purple eyes and a confident smirk. The man leaned against the building, almost too casually for the situation.

  "Who are you?" Elara asked, voice taut with tension.

  "Me?" The man glanced at the sky as a pink cotton candy cloud drifted across a blue sky, giving the impression he had all the time in the world. "I go by many names, but you can call me… the Architect."

  Iritscen's brow knitted. "The Architect." He repeated the title with a slight edge. "Like… the creator of this place?"

  The Architect gave him a smile that didn't match his glittering eyes. "That's right.”

  The Architect started circling the group with languid, confident strides. His movements made Elara tense, but she fought to keep her expression neutral. Antiquus wasn't quite so careful; Elara could see the muscles in his shoulders coil like a snake ready to strike.

  "Let me guess what brought you and your little group here," the Architect said. "You're hunting someone… or something."

  Elara bristled, he was far too accurate for her liking, but said nothing, fingers still curled tightly around her lasso.

  The Architect finished his circuit of the group, stopping right in front of her. His gaze held on her eyes for a moment, as if searching…

  Then he moved away, casually strolling towards the laughing soda fountain.

  "I'm right, aren't I?" he called over his shoulder. "You're on a mission to find something important.”

  "It's none of your business," Elara ground out. "And it certainly doesn't require your help."

  The Architect's grin widened as he stopped beside the fountain, tracing a finger through the soda's fizzing bubbles.

  "I could help you, you know," he said. "I know this world inside out. It's my design, my creation."

  The group stood as still as statues, all of them listening, even Antiquus, whose gaze was still wary.

  "But it won't be easy."

  Elara frowned at him. "I never said it would be."

  The Architect chuckled. "I like your attitude, girl. It's refreshing."

  He looked her over again, and this time his expression turned thoughtful… like he was seeing something he hadn't before.

  Elara's hand tightened on the holster of her lasso.

  "You're not just here for the records, are you?" The Architect asked suddenly, his tone softer now. "There's something else. A personal score."

  Elara didn't flinch, but her silence said enough.

  He nodded slowly. "Yeah... I thought so." His gaze drifted past her, to the others, Alice with her clenched jaw, Rachel scanning the sky like she expected it to collapse, and finally settled on Gabrielle.

  Then he smirked again, the knowing kind that made Elara want to punch him.

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  "You’ll need more than weapons," he said lightly. "Euphoria doesn’t care about strength or plans.” He tapped his temple with two fingers. “It answers to truth. Yours… or someone else’s.”

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Gabrielle snapped.

  The Architect leaned back against a candy cane pillar, crossing his arms. "It means that in order to get what you want out of this place, you have to play by its rules."

  He gestured around at the pastel buildings. "This world reflects your truths, your desires...and your fears. If you go in, it'll show you who you really are."

  The group was quiet, all except Iritscen. He looked thoughtful, even intrigued, as if the Architect's words had sparked an idea.

  “Then perhaps,” Iritscen said slowly, adjusting his goggles, “Euphoria is not a maze to be conquered… but a mirror to be understood.”

  A beat.

  Gabrielle snorted. “Great. So now we gotta get philosophical to save the worlds? Just what I needed.”

  The Architect smiled, almost gently, and reached into his coat. He pulled out four shimmering keys, each glowing with a different hue: crimson, silver, deep void-black, and one that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  “Each key opens a door,” he said. “But only if you’re ready for what’s behind it.”

  He tossed the crimson key to Elara. She caught it instinctively, her fingers curling around its warmth.

  “This one leads to memory,” he said. “To where your pain lives...and your strength is forged.”

  Elara stared at the key, its glow reflecting in her gemstone eyes like fire in stone.

  “And the others?” she asked quietly.

  The Architect didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked past them, all the way down the candy-colored street, where buildings began dissolving into fog under shifting skies.

  “You’ll find out,” he whispered. "When Euphoria decides you're ready.”

  "Wait, what do you mean when Euphoria decides?" Rachel demanded, her jaw tight.

  The Architect gave a little shrug. "Like I said, you aren't the one making the rules here. You have to play by them.”

  Iritscen was still studying the sky, specifically, the shifting fog. "It's a world of truth," he murmured, almost to himself. "But what kind of truth? Metaphysical? Emotional?"

  Elara didn't even know what the hell he was talking about.

  "The hell are you going on about?" Zofie asked, raising a brow. "Stop making no sense for five minutes.”

  Iritscen gave her a look like she'd just proven his exact point. "I'm analyzing it from a scientific standpoint. You can't understand a world without knowing how it works. Once I understand the underlying principles, "

  "Oh my god," Gabrielle groaned, throwing up her hands. "You sound like every mad scientist ever."

  Gabrielle then turned back to the Architect, taking Alice's mission in mind as she asked: "Anyways, have you seen any members of the Seven Deadly Sins around here?"

  The Architect's smile vanished.

  For the first time, his eyes darkened, like storm clouds rolling over a sunny sky.

  "...One," he said quietly. "The first to rise again."

  He turned slowly, lifting a hand to point down the candy-colored street, past the giggling soda fountain, past marshmallow huts melting into rainbows, and toward a towering clocktower made of broken mirrors.

  "Pride is already here." He glanced at Alice. "And he's been waiting for you.”

  Rachel took that as a green light and grabbed Alice's arm. "Perfect, then let's go, "

  Elara grabbed her arm before she could take a step. "No. Not yet." Her gemstone eyes flicked to the Architect. "You said Euphoria shows your truth… then we walk in blind, it'll rip us apart from the inside."

  Gabrielle snorted, but there was no real bite in it this time. "Ugh... so now we gotta get emotionally ready before we can punch evil?" She glared at Elara’s grip on Rachel's arm, and the latter's grip on Alice's. “Get real.”

  Elara didn't loosen her grip.

  "Listen to me," she said, voice low and fierce. "This isn’t about punching or running or even fighting Pride. This is about surviving long enough to do either."

  She looked around at them all, really looked.

  "We walk into that tower without knowing what this place does to us?" She shook her head. "It won’t just show us mirrors. It’ll use what it sees, our doubts, our regrets, and turn them into weapons."

  A beat of silence.

  Then Hikaru spoke up, sipping tea like they’d been listening the whole time: “So… we go in one at a time.”

  Everyone turned.

  Hikaru lowered the cup slowly. “Let Euphoria face each of us alone first. One door, one truth… then we know what we’re dealing with.” They tilted their head toward the clocktower’s shattered spire. “And maybe how to break Pride from within.”

  The group was quiet again, this time not out of tension, but thought.

  Elara finally nodded once, sharp and sure.

  "One at a time," she agreed. "But not now." Her gaze lifted toward the sky as pink clouds twisted like storm signs forming overhead, "We rest first."

  Zalgo raised an eyebrow. "Rest? You mean nap?"

  "No," Elara said coolly as thunder rumbled softly beneath their feet, "We wait until Euphoria picks who goes in first.”

  "And how the hell will we know when it's picked someone?" Zofie asked, looking a bit like she was going to explode out of sheer frustration.

  Elara just crossed her arms.

  "We'll know," she said simply. "You'll see."

  Her gaze drifted to the sky again, to the cotton candy clouds building like storm clouds.

  It started raining chocolate.

  There was a beat of stunned silence, only interrupted by Zofie's annoyance: "Ugh, of course it's chocolate."

  Iritscen was the first to snap out of the shock and held out his hand to catch the falling sweets.

  "This is a fascinating phenomenon," he said, turning a chocolate raindrop over and over in his fingers. Then he popped it into his mouth and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "And delicious.”

  "Did you actually just eat the candy rain?" Zofie demanded, staring at him incredulously.

  "Why not?" Iritscen asked, catching another chocolate drop and biting into it. "It's free and I'm hungry."

  The others hesitated, but then Rachel and Jax both held up hands, both catching and eating the candy rain.

  Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "Fine. If everyone else is eating the weird candy sky," she grumbled, flicking a chocolate drop into her mouth. "Ugh. This is actually not bad…”

  "You're all children," Adeyemi muttered, brushing chocolate off her armor, though not before a single piece slipped into her mouth when she thought no one was looking.

  Alice said nothing. She just watched the sky darken behind the sweet storm, eyes narrowed.

  Then a sudden thump echoed from within one of their packs.

  Liana’s ears twitched. “...Did anyone else hear that?”

  Before anyone could answer, Antiquus took a sharp step forward, his talons scraping stone, and growled low in his throat.

  “Something’s waking up,” he said. “Inside your bag, Elara.”

  Elara froze, her hand slowly reaching for the satchel at her hip.

  Inside, something shifted again, a soft tap… tap… tap, like fingers against glass.

  She unclipped the bag with deliberate calm and opened it just enough to peer inside.

  And there it was.

  A small orb, no bigger than a marble, but pulsing with deep violet light, veins of silver flickering across its surface like cracks in time. It had been silent since they left Venera’s chamber...but now it trembled, resonating in time with the raindrops falling from the sky.

  Charlotte gasped. “That’s not one of my clocks…” she whispered. “But, it’s keeping a perfect rhythm.”

  Iritscen pushed his goggles up and leaned in slightly. “Fascinating... It’s synced to Euphoria itself.”

  Then a voice, not loud, but clear, hissed from within the orb:

  "She's coming."