Zac didn't know Chanda Mama, but he DID know cooking. He could flambe a grape blindfolded, and knew how to cook 3 minutes noodles in under 60 seconds.

"The secret is HEAT," he said as he set up a little stool for his Chikorita. "So you just need to shoot a little flame."

Chikorita shuffled nervously on her stool. "Uhh, sorry but I don't have a flame." She winced.

"Huh? But didn't you melt all that metal in the junkyard?"

"That was with reflected sunlight!"

Zac chuckled. "Clever...use the sun's own bloody power against it!" He pulled out a stick of Tauros butter and started to grease Chikorita's leaf. "Can you do it again?"

"Haha! That tickles!" she giggled. "There's too many people around. It's dangerous! There are powerful sun moves that I get when I'm stronger."

"Oh is that right?" Buzzster said, looking unbearably smug. With a dramatic swish of his wrist he opened up his UI (on purpose). "Codeman! 'Level Up' my Grass powers!" Buzzster said.

"Player Tome: Grass has been purchased. 200 BYTES have been debited from your wallet. Player Buzzster Hooperham now has access to Grass moves," said the automated assistant.

"What! Not for me ya stupid code! For Petal! Upgrade my Grass powers! First class!"

"First tier of Gardener has been purchased."

"Not the bloody first tier! I want the max! The best! Power her up the whole way! I want Petal to shoot bloody sunlight out of her buttcrack!"

"I don't want that!" Petal complained.

"Okay well stop short of that then. But everything else!"

The automated assistant thought for a while, trying to pick out keywords from Zac's verbal slurry. "Gardener upgraded to tier 5. Tank moves upgraded to tier 5. Sweeper moves upgraded to tier 5. Support moves upgraded to tier 5. 2750 BYTES have been debited from your wallet."

Petal's leaf started to glow.

"The butter's working!" Buzzster shouted.

"No! It's my powers! I can use sunlight now!" Petal was on the verge of joyous tears. "I can use Solar Beam!"

"No need for a beam, just keep it in ya leaf," Buzzster said, as he opened the egg drawer. Inside were a thousand different kinds of eggs. They were organized by size, starting at little clusters of insect eggs and vials of frog-like foam down at one end and steadily increasing until the eggs were bigger than Zac's head.

He selected a red, green, and yellow Reggae and cracked it onto Chikorita's leaf. The yolk pulsed and bumped with Jamaican music, and Zac kept in on the leaf with some quick spatula work. The multicolored yolk set in barely a minute, and Zac slid it off onto a plate. "It's all in the presentation," he said, slipping a couple of hundred dollars into a napkin and folding it under the plate discreetly. He sprinkled some chopped green sunions over the dish for a pop of color, and was almost finished with his sunscreen mayonnaise when he realized his mistake.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself, tipping the abomination into the trash. "The sun doesn't want sunscreen! It wants, uh," he searched through the draw of ointments. "Aha! There we go." He whipped up a ketchup and tanning oil sauce and drizzled it across the egg.

He stepped back to admire his creation. "Now that's a damn good looking egg."

Chikorita leaf fried Reggae (sunny side up) with tanning ketchup sauce.

It must be stressed that Arthur was not a cook. It must be stressed because it provided context to the wash of emotions that the trainer felt when he whisked himself into this dungeon, the first of which he felt he could tackle, but he unfortunately did not really read what it was about before it was too late. He was standing in front of a counter choked full of ingredients, the majority that he had no idea what they were supposed to be or what they did or how they mixed, and there were utensils and fuck he had never touched a chopping board in his life. The kitchen was a domain he hardly set foot in, and that was only to take something from the fridge. The rest,

the rest was noise.

He frantically looked around once the timer had started, and he saw the other players begin with relative ease. He saw fire type Pokemon heat up black pans, water types filling containers, grass types adding some kind of seasoning (oh God, was that Poison Powder?), though one of them was acting as some kind of solar-powered oven. It was crazy, and Arthur wished he could enjoy himself more, but the whole thing was completely out of depth for him. Make a dish? He never even made instant noodles for himself!

So he did what every iPad-raised kid did: he panicked further because he didn't have access to Google or TikTok.

He only had an hour--fuck fifty minutes--so he had to think of something. Could he cook some kind of meat? Could he put together a salad? Would the Sun even want a salad? The Sun was bright and yellow and hot and burning, his pale skin hated it, and it would likely burn up anything that was presented. What was something that, if it had a mouth, would probably want to try because it never could?

Before he could think of an answer, he heard the distinct sound of one of his Poke Balls opening and a dragon's roar.

❝MUGAN!❞

The newly hatched Druddigon somehow figured out that they were in a cooking show through the barrier of the Poke Ball and forced itself out; his eyes literally sparkling at all of the ingredients on the table. The baby dragon only really knew how to say HUNGRY (and even then the pronunciation was botched, it sounded more like RRRRGRAH) and based on the selection of food in front of it, seemed to favor meat. Arthur was unfortunately too physically weak to pull away the dragon from horking down pounds of marinated Mareep thighs, and one of the spirits (that he was sure was shaped like a Pokemon, but he couldn't tell what), had to step in and give Mugan a sharp glare.

That was surprisingly enough to scare the baby dragon and make him hide behind the trainer.

"C̷O̴N̷T̵R̶O̴L̴ ̶Y̷O̵U̵R̷ ̸P̵O̶K̴E̸M̸O̵N̶"

❝Uh huh, yessir, he's just a growing baby boy, he won't bite! Muganpleasebehave.❞

<Rrrrrggggrrr.>

The spirit thankfully moved away back into the shadows, and Arthur didn't want to stay in front of the counter. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself and see what he and Mugan could do (the HUD told him he could not bring out any other Pokemon, so that was fantastic). It was then he saw, a little further away from all of the counters and sinks and ovens and stoves, that there were other curious contraptions that the contestants can use. When his eyes glanced over one of them, the words JUICER popped out.

He blinked. Was he really going to..? You know, how could he mess up that up, right?

❝Mugan I have an idea.❞ the dragon let out a small inquisitive growl - in hindsight, this was the calmest and most obedient that Arthur had seen his Druddigon, but then again he had only known the dragon for an hour or so at most. ❝Follow me, to that shelf!❞

Away from the meats were shelves and cabinets full of fruit. Arthur made sure to look for the one that had the word "SUN" in it, and thankfully, there were sun-kissed apples. He pointed at that and told Mugan to let them tumble into the cart that was sitting nearby, so that was what happened. Apples, beautifully red with speckled gold, fell into the cart, and because this was a game, there didn't seem to be an end to them. ❝Let's get some of those oranges as well!❞ there was another label of orange sunsets beside the apples, and they were brilliantly, perfectly spherical, but they also looked like oranges. Those were going in the cart as well until he had quite a good number of apples and oranges.

He then pushed the cart, its wheels a little janky and squeaky, to the juicer. The machine had two main parts: one that (when it noticed what kind of fruits Arthur brought), could cut out the core of the apples and slice the oranges, and the second was, for lack of a better explanation, a giant tub. There was also a huge cleaner steamer ala Ratatouille movie (y'know, where the rats had to get themselves clean before preparing the ingredients?) that was big enough for a person and/or a Pokemon. Mugan was first coaxed into the contraption, having to step in the STEP HERE sign before being enveloped in steam for a couple of seconds. After some roaring and complaining, he was then guided to the giant tub.

❝Okay, Mugan? Yes, Mugan, look at me. Watch what I do.❞ he would then place one of the apples on the ground and hover his feet (with shoes!) over it, pretending to step on it.

<Grrrow?>

❝Get it? We're making juice!❞

Well, he figured the dragon would eventually get it. He coaxed the baby into the tub, and there was [tangent=i forgot the word]a steel path dispenser thing[/tangent] where all of the cut apples and oranges would go after being handled by the machine. Arthur would be loading all of them in and hope that they had enough time to smash them all, because what better way to use a dragon than its weight and power, right? The machine was then fired up before he fit as many apples and oranges into the pipes as he could, and he would watch them get sliced up inside (because it was fascinating), but he had other things to do, like get other ingredients!

Mugan was thankfully cooperative, or at least having fun smashing the sliced-up oranges and apples. There was no clean way to do this, and it didn't take long before the Druddigon was covered in apple and orange juice, licking his face and roaring happily, sometimes snapping up the falling apples and oranges before stomping on more. There was a clear pipe that was connected at the bottom of the juicer that led to another container, perhaps to purify it or something, and at the end of the long-winding contraption was a sleek, tall glass cylinder.

Arthur would basically run back and forth to load more apples and oranges while scouring the other shelves and tables for ingredients. What usually went in these? Sweet stuff, right? And it had to be sun-related (he kept repeating to himself)! As others were turning up the heat and cooking their dishes, he would bring another cart to grab a can of whipped fluffy dreams, a glass container that had sticks of twice-baked cinnamon, another container with colorful sprinkles of starlight, a tub of purified solar-grown vanilla flavored ice cream, and a jar of organic, free-range Vespiquen honey. He grabbed utensils as well that could handle the extreme levels of heat and cold and was checking on how much Druddigon-stomped apple-orange juice was there.

Once there was enough, he twisted a valve and let the juice travel through more tubes and into the glass. Was it just him, or did it look like it glowed? And then, once it was two-thirds filled, he scooped the vanilla ice cream, sprayed some of the whipped cream, sprinkled the sprinkles and cinnamon, and also made sure to put one of those brown stick on the glass (holy shit it was hot - even with the Kindler class aesthetic active, he needed gloves!) for good measure, just so that it looked fancier. Oh and the honey! He made sure to drizzle it over, giving it that nice light brown accent.

A blend of hot and cold stuff! And thanks to whatever logic was holding up the universe of UNOVR, it wasn't melting each other! Surely the Sun would appreciate any kind of liquid, since normally it would evaporate it into nothing, yeah?

❝Whew, okay, here's to hoping this is good enough. Good job, Mugan, you really pulled through!❞

The Druddigon didn't seem to hear his trainer - instead, he was just sitting in a pool of fruit juice, liking his fingers like a cat grooming, and swishing his tail to make ripples in the tub.

Arthur submits an Apple-Orange Cinnamon Honey Whipped Cream Vanilla Cocktail, juiced by a Druddigon

Though Shalin wasn't much of a cook in the real world, she played a lot of survival games. Her knowledge of those recipes were what made her join the STEEL CHEF contest in the first place. Overwhelmed by the endless crates of every ingredient imaginable. "We've got our work cut out for us, don't we," she sighed, standing next to Flit. While the bug-type was not needed for most of the process, his special talent was an ingredient that would be invaluable for the final product.

Without the ability to access the shop, the girl was at a real disadvantage... but the speedrunning community had taught her just how much restriction breeds creativity. She would put together a breakfast of champions that she hoped would wow even the greatest scrutiny from a taste tester.

The Yanma utilized pinpoint GUSTS to compress air that served as the cook's heat source, one pan filled with pancake dough that was, strangely enough, a deep green-blue color right in the middle of the rainbow. Just as the dough was setting, the Yanma flew between the cooking surface and the darkened moon, casting a sun-dried shadow over both dishes. They gleamed bright as the sun, the eggs in particular almost blinding to look at.

The dough, still setting, also gleamed a bright blue-green. "Alright, Flit, let 'er rip!" she ordered, the Yanma hovering as close to the hot pan as he could without risking being burned. He churned his wings at great speed, the vibrations of his SUPERSONIC burst causing the dough to stratify by color. It formed a gorgeous rainbow gradient reminiscent of the sky after an enormous storm passed through, and it made the texture of the pancakes incredibly soft -- crumbly like a birthday cake. Even the eggs were much softer than sunny-side-up ones normally were.

With plenty of time to spare, she carefully scraped the soft entrees from the bottom of the pan onto a white, ceramic place whose edge was painted with a golden, jagged outline. Peppering the otherwise soft dish were slices of Pignite bacon that glowed shades of red from being exposed to the same conditions as the entrees, providing a much-needed contrast to the sweet-looking rainbow beneath the almost soul-staring, golden yellow eggs.

Shalin stepped away from the arena with plenty of time to spare, more pinpoint GUSTS serving as heat that kept her creation from growing too cold.

Morgana reclined in the marble bathtub. She was clothed, of course, and not wet in the slightest thanks to her Swimmer ability.

"The water's just right, I think," she said. Steam rose off the surface. Her Sneasel, Mystique, peered over the far rim of the tub.

<What's that you've got there?>

"The universe," said Morgana, pulling it out of the water.

It didn't look like much. Half-translucent, almost smoky, like the embryo of an egg floating in a sea of white. It was currently in a mason jar.

<I don't think that's true,> said Mystique, doubtfully.

"Oh, fine, so I took some dramatic liberties. It's a galaxy, technically. Our galaxy. It's the Milky Way. Soon to be the Yogurt Way, if it stays at this temperature for a little longer. That's entropy for you." Bergamot put the bottle back under and clambered out of the bath, tossing her hair.

Chanda Mama had supplied every kind of ingredient to the Steel Chefs, from this world and beyond. That wasn't surprising. For someone as galaxy-brain as Chryssa Glasgow, the galaxy itself would naturally make an appearance in her subconscious's dairy section.

<Are we making yogurt?>

"Not quite. Come here, I need your nose."

Mystified, the Sneasel followed Morgana over to the prep station, where a spice rack was waiting. He had no idea why he'd been the one chosen out of all Morgana's Pokemon to assist her on this occasion.

"Well? What are you waiting for! Start sniffing," Morgana exclaimed, lifting the cat-weasel up and plopping it on the countertop. It flailed, claws scrabbling on the stainless steel.

<What do you mean?! I don't-- oh, I remember this one.> Mystique broke off, sniffing one of the spices. <Chaat masala?>

"We'll put that in, then." Morgana snatched it up and twirled around like a victorious ballerina. "Anything else?"

<Coriander seed?>

"And?"

<Ginger?>

"And?"

<These are all the spices from the market,> the Sneasel said out loud, realizing. <The one where you brought me back from the Everworld.>

"I've never been particularly into cooking," said Morgana. The spice bottles she'd collected clinked together like ice. She moved smoothly, purposefully. "But I enjoyed that trial. I thought I'd like to make something from it again." In real life, she'd never pull it off: but here, perhaps it was possible.

Once the villainess had collected all the spices, Sneasel's Odor Sleuth isolating each one, she twirled over to the pantry. Mystique followed her helplessly.

"Something the color of the sun," Bergamot said, handing a golden mango to Mystique to peel. He sliced it up dutifully with his claws like a grocery store deli worker as the villainess kept digging. "And the color of the moon." She handed a silver mango over next. The Sneasel did a double-take. <Is this one... okay?>

"Of course it is. It's just one of those GMOs, or something," Morgana laughed behind her hand, not concerned. "Now find me a blender!"

Fruit and ice whirled around in the appliance until it was a pale, frothy liquid, and Mystique fetched the finished Milky Way yogurt from the bath to add into the mix. It had become opaque and creamy, and tiny stars glimmered in the whey. Bergamot spooned it into the blender.

"Almost done!"

Morgana stood with her foot tapping, looking over the last two spices. They were both grinders, salt-and-pepper style. One was white, and labeled HUMAN LIFE.The other was black, and labeled HUMAN SUFFERING.

"Well this is difficult," she mused.

The Sun was the source of all life on earth: surely HUMAN LIFE would appeal to it. Chanda Mama was a trickster deity who derived great entertainment from messing with n00bs less fortunate than her: surely HUMAN SUFFERING would suit the spirit's palate.

A pinch of each wouldn't hurt, she decided, and finished adding the spices.

Before serving it to the judges, she put on her salvaged sunglasses from the Ostellia gas station and cracked open a little tub of pure light. She filled the two glasses each half full of brilliant white bubbles, which cooled to a warm, softly-glowing gold. "Just a healthy heaping of photons," she told Mystique, topping off each glass with the yogurt mixture. They shone like amber marbles at the bottom of a foamy, peach-colored drink, flickers of centuries-lost light glimmering within.

"I present my Mango Lassi, with hydrogen tapioca!" The villainess served it up on a solar platter. "Take a fucking sip, babes."

Orion bowed at the compliments paid to his dish, arms crossed behind his back, his right hand wrapped limply around his left wrist. The digits of the aforementioned left hand curling and uncurling in a wavelike pattern, a physical tick, manifested of his own anxiety. Both in the act of being judged for something he has poured his heart into, and in the fact that this is the work of Chanda Mama, patron Sylvion Saint of the esoteric, unknowable, all things she touches inevitably devolve into a shitshow of cosmic proportions.

Rev up that hottub Bee, we might be in for round three.

Next up twin constellations were called upon, two tasks, each more abstract in their meaning than the last. Orion’s brow furrowed in intense contemplation. Feat without meat, something sweet, his consciousness was already beat pondering with what he’d compete. The atmosphere around him lended itself a certain air, a gentle nostalgia leftover from the lingering scent of lost childhood innocence.

What sweeter a contrast than hope?

Orion’s eyes snapped open, eyes wide as his mind raced over what he needed. The ingredient not on any shelf around him, but within his heart as he reached within, surely this concoction would plant the seeds for him to win.

Orion’s Deep Blue Hope:

First you acquire yourself a nice blender, given the gigantian portions this recipe uses you might need to get something custom forged, perhaps from the discarded fragments of metal from a stormy battle turned truce, perhaps scraped from the bowels of a bug infested mine. Once your implement of strife is acquired you begin to load it with your ingredients. Now, every good shake has a solid base of greens, for this recipe we’ll be using the beer soaked carcass of a thorny beast slain prior, and the half chewed remains of a once vibrant canopy.

With our greens loaded, it’s time to work on texture. Add one glacier worth of danced upon ice, scooped straight from the precipice of hope and despair. Then empty the ash from a volcano that's survived the apocalypse. While this seems peculiar, it will bind with the ice to create a texture akin to that of a finely blended cookies and cream milkshake.

With our texture settled down it’s time to work on the flavor, and by extension the color. Add in the oversized hearts of two starfruit crossed lovers, united across vast distances by the miracle of a technology more than capable of restoring their broken bodies, or destroying them beyond repair. Crack open one brotastic egg, insides jammy from a long boil in the stress of his life. Add in an entire garden of tears from a sweet child finding the love they deserve, and some electric sheep counted by the queen of dreams herself. The Confusion of a Young Man(?) finding himself online in a woman's body, the mischief of a princess of chaos, the change sought by a heroic figure turned hermit, the melancholy of an (un)lucky starving artist estranged by the vast sea. The hope of a maiden fair fleeing despair, the charm of a rake constantly down on his luck, the disillusionment of a hopeless cameraman chasing digital dreams, the aching apathy of a disenfranchised heir, the strife of a refugee caught in a political storm, the bloom of a wallflower seeking betterment. All of this and more, dumped into the mixing pot to bump into and change the flavor of each other's hearts, to meld together into one desire.

Hope.

But in order for there to be hope there must be despair, and in order for one to truly triumph you must first face a challenge. So you must put your brave little ingredients through the blender.

ACHILLES USED DARKEST LARIAT.

Storms must threaten to swallow the world we know, darkness must choke at the heart of your new home, chase you into your very dreams and even take to the skies. One must fight for every sunrise, every breath, in order to truly taste the true joy of being alive. Be it bearing down upon an endless army of bugs, dancing for the uncaring cosmos, breaking the chains of servitude foisted upon you by a cruel princess, or learning to find a different way forward when the fates put you in conflict with a hero who doesn’t want to die for the world. Then, and only then can one’s convictions shine through in the brilliant blue of the future’s horizon. A cloudless and shining sky clawed from the jaws of despair, dredged up from beneath bays of baleful dread. Only then can the horde of their collective hope be made manifest, their despair making the joy ever oh so sweet a treat. Pour all of this into a grand chalice that had far surpassed its initial design and serve cold.

Bon appetite.

Arthur knew it was a gamble picking up that secret ingredient. He saw the pop-up briefly when he passed it by, along with how it would affect the score. While there was a big plus, there was also a deduction. It looked like it affected his score quite a bit, even with the decent commentary. However, he also noted that there was a clearly better way to cook, based on the comments of the other players. Well, to be more technical, it was the ingredients that he needed to be more picky with. It wasn't just using an orange or an apple, but an orange and apple with feeling. How he was going to extract these things from himself or be able to find them in the sea of counters and shelves and machinery, well, he would have to figure that out.

The next judges appeared in view, and now there were two. As Chanda Mama recited the themes, he couldn't help but think that the Hunter's was seemingly harder to work with than the Dragon's. Sweet things in massive sizes was a physical pain, but at least there were plenty of recipes to choose from. The bird with the cloak, on the other hand, wanted...a catch? That wasn't meat? Did fish count as meat? He had already forgotten the distinctions between vegan and vegetarian, and he couldn't tell if the Hunter was either of these things.

But as his thought process dictated some moments before, he needed to pick the harder one so that he could get those originality points. He cursed under his breath as the timer was reset and started to count down, and everyone else started to go back to their stations to figure out what to make next.

❝Greatest catch...no, she said greatest catcher's feat.❞ his own Pokemon have not been around for very long, and it would take too long to ask them what they have caught, if he was taking it literally. It made more sense that the catcher was himself, but then he had to ponder: had he even caught anything beside a puny fish all those years ago? What else, what else? Catch...catch...catch on fire? Catch one's eye? Catch--

It was like lightning struck him, but a lightning of ideas. If it was actually a terrible idea, well, it was still better than nothing! ❝Thanks again, Mugan, but I'll need someone else for this one.❞ the Druddigon let out a small growl before being returned to his Poke Ball, which brought up his current party list along with their movesets. One of them caught his eye, so grabbed that Poke Ball and let out his Vulpix.

<You rang?>

❝I did. I need your help.❞

<That is within expectations.>

It was going to be something iced again, but it had some key differences to the previous dish he submitted. The first step was to gather some ingredients together to make a drink. Quickly surveying the area, he soon spotted the assortment of alcohol and liquor that would be perfect for flavoring. Using a recipe he managed to find in the drawers, he grabbed bottles of tequila, Oran Berry flavored liquor, and a large container of Nomel Berry juice (he had never realized that the berries in the Pokemon games were based out of real life ones). He had the cart again to push them all towards another interesting contraption, but before that he also picked up some Catcher's Lime and Bug-Hunter's Honey, making sure to snap those up before he forgot. The recipe asked for a sweetener, after all, though he wondered if the Trevenant's Maple Tree Sap would make a better alternative.

Instead of it being a juicer, it was an ice block maker. Specifically, it creates NeverMeltIce.

What would alcohol-flavored ice look like? Well, he was about to find out. He dumped all of the ingredients in the rectangular vat, measured by heart, and then before letting the machine whirl, asked Rou to add an additional spice by using Spite. This took for the form of floating, ghostly wisps, which the Vulpix hummed to life before releasing it into the mixture, giving it a slight eerie aura. Once that was done, he pressed the big red button to freeze it up. They had to get off the ladder and take steps back for this one, as it froze in one direction quickly and efficiently - with game logic, it only took a couple of seconds before the machine spat out a huge block of ice, smaller than Arthur, into a pushcart.

Now the next phase: he pushed the alcohol-based ice block over (that was really heavy!) to his kitchen counter, and when he sifted through the drawers, lo and behold, he found tools to sculpt the ice with! This game really was responding to what he needed, which was great! Had Arthur ever sculpted ice before? No. Did he have a creative bone in his body? Also no, but he hoped that the shape he was thinking of was simple enough to carve out. Hope and prayed, really.

Using another hint from the pile of recipes, he let Rou use Ember to heat up the pick so that it could actually make a mark on the NeverMeltIce Margarita (it was called NeverMeltIce for a reason). Once he drew the basic shape, he did it again so that the lines were deeper and so it would be easier to cut through. After that, he got the hand saw and started to cut through the ice (after once again, heating it up), but it was still really hard! And also, it really smelled like alcohol! (at least there was sweetness and fruitiness to it). He didn't cut all the way though - just enough that the last few movements should be able to make the ice blocks topple down.

After that, it was time to present it to the Hunter. Incomplete? No, Arthur remembered that they wanted a show, and while it was not a hunting show, he hoped that it was still amusing enough for the constellation not to squash him right then and there (or worse, scoff and not even bother to look). With some final pushes, he brought his ice cube that was mostly still a rectangle to the platform where contestants can present their work, and then he called to the Hunter.

❝Dear Hunter, I hope this is to your liking. Truth to be told, I am more familiar with being hunted rather than being the hunter, but there was a time where circumstances lined to my favor.❞

Arthur held the hand saw to slice off the last blocks -- with each cut, he remembered and infused the feelings of apathy and dread leading up to the encounter, the heat of the argument, the fire of words exchanged, of keeping his feet on the ground, not to crumble under the weight of sheer pressure and expectations that were impossible to meet. He remembered the moment he looked up and spat his piece, and when the last block fell off, the heat that emanated from his trainer class had smoothened out the edges (game logic) to reveal a basic shape of a man that stood upright. One of the manifestations of Rou's Spite had become a purple eyeball, glaring and unforgiving, but it also twinkled, like a star's fruit ready to be plucked and eaten.

❝Once upon a time, I caught my father's tongue, so I present to you a meager substitute, but hopefully one that complements your palette.❞

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Arthur submits a NeverMeltIce Margarita shaped like his father lol