Chairs scraped back as the Board members rose, Mana crackling in the air like static tension. The Great Hall had felt like an old money hive of calculated decadence, but now it felt like a war room.
Elaine was already moving, purple dress swirling as she snapped orders. "Princess! Seal the In Between! Call every available enforcer to this side of it! Sugar! Spice! Everything nice!!"
Princess's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, calm but urgent. "Sealing initiated. Breach detected on Floors 12,039 to 15,121. Salt Mana sensitives confirmed, but they can't yet reach the velocity needed to penetrate the In Between. I am so far successfully preventing them from overriding the bridge protections. Estimated time to forced entry: seven minutes and dropping."
My stomach twisted into cold knots. The last time I'd seen him he'd been tied up after getting the happiest ending of his life, and far happier than he deserved. Still, he can't be happy with Elaine, and he still might be after me. I doubt this was a social call.
Calliope hadn't moved an inch. She stood like a statue, gloved hands clasped elegantly behind her back. She looked at me with her deep blue eyes. "Your generosity has consequences, Sugar Well. You drained yourself dry for two eager little toys. Now the wolves smell blood."
Catherine and Shala bristled. Catherine's maid frills rustled as she stepped to my side. Shala's rabbit ears drooped slightly, but her fluffy tail twitched with nervous energy.
"I can still fight," I said, though my voice came out weaker than I wanted. Zero Sugar. It was like I was a diet version of myself. My body felt heavy, like I was moving through molasses. The tongue piercing Elaine had given me burned faintly.
Elaine shot me a worrisome look. "You stay behind me," she said. "This isn't your fight yet."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Seraphina answered before Elaine could, stepping forward with her brother Damian at her side. The chain between her pierced nipples glinted as she moved. "You're coming with us to serve as Vanguard against the Salt Miners." The rest of the Board had already gone. Whether to run away or toward their posts, I didn't know.
"They've reached Floor 43,302," Princess said. "The velocity is picking up at an increasingly accelerated rate."
We wordlessly followed Elaine toward the bridge car. She pressed a few buttons, again more than just a simple "down" button, and we stepped inside.
This was a circular metal surface with a raised railing as the only thing preventing us from falling off into a storm of Mana. The door we came out of appeared to again be from a cylinder placed in the center.
"This is the Hotel's core bridge car," Elaine said. "In fact, this might be the only place we all might get a chance to see a familiar friend."
Princess glided in from somewhere out in the sky behind me.
She wore the Mycenaean-style dress that exposed her large breasts like she had when she materialized as just a pure Mana form. Her blue skin glowed against the electrical Mana storm, and her black ponytail swayed gently as she regarded me with her often-unreadable eyes.
"Elaine," she said, voice carrying perfectly over the howling wind. "The Salt King's velocity has spiked again. They will breach the In Between in three minutes and fourteen seconds. I have rerouted all available defensive arrays, but... the corruption is spreading. The air itself is beginning to taste like salt."
Elaine's expression hardened. "I hadn't expected this level of capability from them."
She turned to me. The purple dress clung to her curves from the wind, side-boob and under-boob on display, but there was nothing playful in her eyes now.
"Teddy, listen carefully. You are the prize they want. You, and Calliope. If they reach you, they won't kill you. They'll disable you and hook you up so that you're nothing but a husk that still produces Sugar. So, you do exactly what I say, when I say it. Understood?"
"That's not going to fly this time, Elaine," I said, shocked at my own words. She raised her eyebrows as if in surprise herself, but she didn't seem offended. "I mean, I was able to handle the problem with the Sugar Rush state. I was able to take on Matterhorn. All I need is this tongue piercing off and I can do something! And besides..."
I leaned over to whisper.
"I don't want to look stupid in front of Calliope. This might be my only chance at impressing her."
Elaine's green eyes narrowed, searching my face for a long few heartbeats. The wind whipped her golden curls across her softly defined cheekbones, but she didn't blink.
Then, slowly, the corner of her mouth curved upward.
"Brave words, Teddy," she murmured.
She reached up, manicured fingers brushing my jaw before sliding to the back of my neck. Her touch sent a shiver racing down my spine despite the zero Sugar dragging at my limbs.
"But you're still tapped out," she continued. "And that piercing stays on until I say otherwise. You want to impress Calliope? Do it raw."
Before I could argue, Princess spoke again.
"Two minutes and eight seconds."
Seraphina laughed, the sound bright and dangerous against the howling Mana storm. The drifts of the fog-like Mana clouds started moving faster upward, as if we were continuing to accelerate downward.
"Aw, look at him," she said. "Puppy wants to play big dog already. Don't worry, if you survive the next few minutes, maybe I'll let you suck on these while Calliope watches. Motivational, right?" She pointed to her nipples.
Damian snorted. "Focus, sister. The 'Salt King' is almost here."
Calliope hadn't spoken since her earlier warning. She simply watched me, but I felt the weight of her gaze like a constant companion.
Catherine pressed against my right side. "Monsieur... please be careful."
Shala bounced once on her toes, fluffy tail brushing my thigh. "Yeah! Shame to break a carrot like that so soon."
The platform lurched violently.
Princess threw both arms wide. Blue light exploded outward, forcing a shimmering hemispherical shield around us. The Mana storm outside the railing turned vicious with crackling arcs of electricity and salt-white lightning clashing in midair.
A breach tore open in the air, and salt rained upward in glittering sheets.
Twenty hooded figures burst through the tear, riding torrents of crystalline brine. Their skin was cracked and bleeding white powder. Their eyes glowed with hollow desperate hunger.
At the center floated a man whose robe was made of dried sea-foam and crystallized tears. His body was bloated and twisted, muscles bulging unnaturally beneath the robe. Every fissure in his flesh glowed with pale, granular light. When he opened his mouth, white dust drifted out like ash.
"You won't be getting away from me this time, Teddy."
I bit my tongue, and the piercing on it.
And then had an idea.