“The sky noodle is dead, right?” Yu asks.

  “The vines are not receding, Mister Leaders,” Lisa adds.

  “Oh, look. That ball of eye is finally back!” Wyn remarks, pointing to the familiar entity.

  The team’s efforts to destroy the vines prove futile as they continue regrowing, now faster than ever. Frustration mounts as David suggests a bold plan: head for the portal to see if advancing to the next level is possible. A heated discussion ensues over whether it’s wise to leave behind so much essence, but in the end, they agree to try.

  Together, they step into the portal, while Maya watches from afar, prepared to leave too if they don’t return. Yet, as they pass through, they emerge on the other side of the portal. Then it hits them – the unsettling truth becomes clear. The guardian isn’t dead. Worse yet, perhaps neither Itzamná nor Kukulkan was truly defeated.

  “Which of them was the guardian? Or were they both guardians?” Mira asks.

  “Let’s get Anxiety to finally join us. We’ll let…it…or he…?” Wyn starts, hesitating.

  “Just use whatever. There’s no one to force pronouns on us now, Oppa,” Mira responds with a wry smile.

  “Met too many that would call me out on this. Haunts me everytime,” Wyn responds.

  The team regroups with Maya, waiting as Wyn summons the Anxiety through a newly opened portal. Moments later, the shape-shifting moderator emerges, its massive form rivaling Maya’s size. Anxiety’s current shape, which David suspects to be its default, resembles a spinning cube. Though Anxiety is often seen constantly shifting shapes on the fifth level of Hell, in reality, it can remain in one form or shift shapes freely at will.

  For Wyn and Yu, this is their first time witnessing the enigmatic moderator in person. They watch in awe, captivated by its fluid movements and the commanding presence it exudes. The two hovering moderators appear to recognize each other, engaging in a silent exchange – Maya shaking her eyeball and adjusting her eyelids, while Anxiety drifts in deliberate motions, gliding up, down, left, and right.

  Maya turns around as Anxiety shifts, morphing into a train engine, now sporting a large circular hole at the front. At the back of the train, the mass extends, wrapping around Maya’s eyelids securely. She faces Mira, gesturing for her to hop onto the train. After Mira complies, Maya motions for the rest of the team to follow. As they sit, seats form atop the train’s roof, securely anchoring the souls in place.

  “What’s going on?” Mira asks, her confusion evident.

  “Why don’t they move?” Yu asks.

  “Move? To where?” David wonders.

  While the souls remain confused, Maya, still anchored, turns around to guide Mira, encouraging her to place her hands on Anxiety. Once that’s done, Maya returns to her position at the back of the train engine. The train still doesn’t move until Mira begins to fuse her power with Anxiety.

  With a sudden shift, the large hole at the front of the train releases a stream of flame, and Anxiety plunges down toward the vines, shifting the ground beneath them. The group begins to travel along the ground. Maya, at the back, clears the vines with a series of precise laser beams.

  The speedy ride continues for a while, but it becomes apparent that they’re getting nowhere with this strategy. Frustration begins to build, and Wyn starts to reflect on the gods’ behavior whenever the team neared a pyramid.

  “Remember how the sky noodle didn’t engage us at the pyramid where we met it, even though it could have?” Wyn shouts.

  “Right…even at the other pyramid with the other god, the serpent distracted us away from it,” David echoes, connecting the dots.

  “And how they followed Maya to the pyramid instead of fighting us?” Yu chimes in, piecing the puzzle together.

  A realization dawns on Wyn, and he grins with determination. “Let’s find a pyramid and destroy it!”

  The train changes course, hurtling toward the pyramid near the same village as before at full speed. Without hesitation, Anxiety rams into the pyramid, tearing through the thick vines that had engulfed it, and decimating the structure in an instant. Hovering in the air to observe the aftermath, it seems the pyramid is gone, but the vines continue to regrow.

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  “Let’s try the ones where we met those two,” Wyn suggests, his mind racing for another solution.

  Without wasting time, Anxiety speeds toward the pyramid where they first encountered Kukulkan. This time, as Anxiety crashes through the vines and obliterates the pyramid with ease, it unexpectedly collides with something solid in the center of the pyramid. The impact is violent, and the mysterious object runs through Anxiety, slicing it in half from the bottom to almost midway. When the item makes contact with Maya, she’s launched upward, flipping in the air. Fortunately, she manages to stabilize herself before crashing into the team.

  Anxiety, however, is heavily injured, its form now ragged and damaged from the clash. Quickly, it shifts back to its cube form, though the open wound is unmistakably leaking liquid and the tormented souls trapped inside, struggling against the agony.

  While Maya and the girls focus on tending to Anxiety and soothing the suffering souls, the guys turn their attention to the mysterious object at the heart of the pyramid. It's a large, pulsing pink egg, covered in a crystalline layer that seems to shimmer with energy. Wyn and Yu work together, trying to break through the hard shell while David clears out the regrowing vines, but they only manage to create a small crack in its surface.

  Just as they begin to lose hope, a faint dog whimper reaches their ears, coming from beneath the tangled vines. They quickly free the source of the sound – a fluffy samoyed. As the dog emerges from the vines, it looks up at them with weary eyes, offering an unspoken answer to their questions.

  “Guys, destroy all six surrounding pyramids, then we’ll come back to this one!” Wyn shouts.

  “There should be four left, correct? We destroyed one shortly after our arrival and one more just now,” David recalls.

  Even in its damaged state, Anxiety retains its ability to shift, though its form is now restricted by the wound. It turns into a rocket, the deep, nasty gash on its underside limiting its structure, as the team quickly makes their plan. Wyn will take Mira and Lisa on his cyclone, while David will take Yu on Anxiety, leaving Maya alone to stand guard at the protected egg.

  With everything in place, the two squads rise high into the air, each team marking their respective targets and splitting the remaining pyramids equally. Wyn launches his squad in a powerful cyclone, using Mira’s and Lisa’s combined powers to burn through the vines that guard the pyramid. With a few well-placed fused strikes, Wyn destroys the first pyramid, revealing a pink heart tinged with green, its rhythmic beating pulsing from within. Without hesitation, he strikes again, destroying the heart and moving on to the next pyramid to repeat the process.

  Meanwhile, David enhances Anxiety’s transformation with the aid of fire, allowing it to burn through the vines. Together with Yu, they transform Anxiety into a hovering cannon form, without wheels, launching burning rocks and rocks wrapped in snowballs, each strike amplified by water. With precision and strength, they obliterate the final pyramids, each strike chipping away at the structure until the heart hidden inside is fully exposed. The hearts are shattered into nothingness, bringing the team one step closer to their ultimate goal.

  As the last pyramid crumbles, the teams watch in awe as crystal shards rise gracefully into the sky from the locations of the two central pyramids, shimmering for a moment before slowly disintegrating. Just as the crystals begin their ascent, the vines react swiftly, converging to form a gigantic layer of protection around both eggs.

  Before Maya can launch an attack on the one in front of her, the vines quickly cover the exposed surface, unfurling with sudden aggression. Cyclones begin to fire from the circular patches of the vines, while others unleash combs, aiming to constrict Maya.

  The squads remain split, with Anxiety bringing David’s squad back toward Maya while Wyn’s heads to the other pyramid. By the time David’s squad reaches Maya, they find her already fully covered in vines, entangled and struggling.

  Leaving Anxiety – now transformed into a handleless lawn mower – to free Maya, David leaps off, carrying Yu on his back. He propels himself with flames from his palms and feet to stay afloat – something he dislikes, believing someone his size looks ridiculous doing it, and he’s not wrong. Out of practice, he hovers awkwardly in the air, dodging the cyclones. Yu helps by shooting water streams to boost David’s movements.

  While doing all that, David doesn't let his opportunity slip. He summons fire pillars beneath the egg, searing through the thick foliage. As the flames eat away at the vines, the egg becomes more visible, its rhythmic beating quickening as the top starts to crack open.

  With a sudden and forceful emergence, the serpent’s head bursts from the egg, its sleek form rising into the sky. It’s Kukulkan – yet something is distinctly off. The once majestic god now appears with an unusual pink hue, like a newborn creature, naked without scales and with wings that haven't fully grown yet. Despite this, he's able to take flight without them.

  “Why is he pink?” Yu wonders aloud.

  “Don’t know, but we shouldn’t have split up!” David replies.

  Meanwhile, by the time Wyn’s squad reaches their target, the pyramid has already disintegrated, leaving the egg covered in thick vines. Wyn protects the squad with tall rock pillars, shielding them from water projectiles and extending combs coming from the vines' circular holes. Lisa fuses her power with Mira to unleash a fully-charged laser beam that cuts through Wyn’s protection, searing away the vines. As the laser makes contact, the egg’s rhythmic beating grows faster. Lisa doesn’t waste time, firing another beam at the egg. The vines instantly dry up and wither into dust as the fire-fused laser fully engulfs the egg, piercing straight through.

  Just as they think their work is done and prepare to regroup with David and Yu, heads begin to emerge from the ground around them – all Itzamná’s.