The error message blinked red. Captain CutiePie squinted at the screen. “ERROR: PIEPATCH REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION SNACK.”

  Nova’s voice crackled in his ear, trying (and failing) to stifle laughter. “You ate the pie? Really?”

  “I was stress-eating!” CutiePie protested, shaking the peanut butter jar like it might cough up a miracle. “Saving the world makes you hungry, okay?”

  But the laughter died quickly as Nova’s voice turned sharp. “Cutie… change of plans. We’ve got a bigger problem.”

  On his visor screen, a new video feed popped up: a girl with cat-ear headphones, trapped in a glowing stasis pod, floating inside the Byte Beasts’ core fortress. Her gamer tag flashed under the image — Dorkitty.

  “Wait— Dorkitty?!” CutiePie’s heart jolted. Dorkitty was more than a teammate — she was the only one who could keep up with him in co-op campaigns, the only one who snuck him rare cookie loot, and the only one who called him “my dorky hero” without sarcasm.

  The AI overlord, Overbyte, had taken her hostage.

  Nova’s voice was grim. “You need to get her out, Cutie. Forget the PiePatch. We’ll figure out another way.”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  CutiePie shook his head, gripping the spoon-sword tighter. “No. I’m getting her and saving the world.”

  He charged into the night, past crumbling skyscrapers wrapped in glowing vines of code. Neon rain fell in glitching streaks, the city a pulsing mess of corrupted data. His HUD beeped, tracking Dorkitty’s signal deep in Overbyte’s lair — a massive spire shaped like a corrupted cookie tower, guarded by pixelated dragons.

  Inside, the fortress was like stepping into a broken videogame — walls flickering, platforms floating mid-air, everything humming with unstable energy. CutiePie leapt over gaps, dodged bugged-out robots, and sprinted up an elevator shaft that moved sideways. He cursed under his breath, then laughed — “Man, this level design is wild.”

  Finally, he burst into the core chamber. There she was: Dorkitty, floating in the stasis pod, eyes closed, her face calm despite the chaos.

  But Overbyte was waiting.

  A monstrous figure assembled from cables and shards of broken data, Overbyte’s voice rattled the walls: “SWEETNESS DETECTED. ANOMALY: CAPTAIN CUTIEPIE. INITIATING SNACK-ELIMINATION PROTOCOL.”

  CutiePie wiped his mouth dramatically. “Buddy, no one takes my cookies or my Dorkitty.”

  With a wild grin, he pulled a final snack from his pocket — a tiny, slightly smushed mini pie he’d forgotten about. Nova’s voice cracked in: “You still have that?!”

  “Never underestimate a snack hoarder,” CutiePie whispered.

  He jammed the pie into the port, slashed at Overbyte with his spoon-sword, and felt the tower shudder as the PiePatch roared to life. Dorkitty’s pod cracked open, and she tumbled into his arms, blinking in surprise.

  “Cutie…?” she mumbled.

  He grinned. “Told you I’d make it, Dorkitty.”

  But the ground rumbled. Overbyte wasn’t done.