A Perfectly Ordinary Tuesday

Canvas Fortress had never been the quietest place in Creative Zoo City — but on this particular Tuesday, it was almost peaceful.

Super Artist Lion stood at the wide observatory window, arms crossed over his blue-and-black supersuit, red cape barely stirring in the recycled air. Below, the city hummed. Trams rattled past painted storefronts. A family of flamingos in striped scarves argued over a pretzel cart. A tiger in a business suit typed furiously on his phone without looking up once.

"You're doing that thing again," said a voice behind him.

Lion turned. His partner, Zara — a sharp-eyed red fox in a white lab coat, her tablet tucked under one arm — was watching him with a raised eyebrow.

"What thing?"

"The brooding-at-the-window thing. It's very dramatic. Very you."

Lion almost smiled. "The city's calm. That always means something's about to go wrong."

Zara rolled her eyes. "Or it just means it's Tuesday."

From somewhere deep inside the fortress, something went — very quietly — *pop.*

The Pop That Wasn't Nothing

That quiet little *pop* from somewhere below wasn't so quiet anymore.

Lion and Zara — the sharp red fox in the white lab coat — were halfway down the main corridor when the second sound hit: a low, wet *splat*, like a bucket of pudding dropped from three floors up.

"That came from Lab Seven," Zara said, already moving.

Lab Seven was where the fortress kept its experimental paint compounds — colors so concentrated that a single drop could cover an entire wall in under a second.

The door was already bulging.

Lion grabbed Zara's arm and pulled her back just as the door burst open. A wave of brilliant, electric violet paint rolled out into the corridor — not splashing, not spilling — *moving*. On its own. Slowly, deliberately, it crept toward the wall, climbed it, and started pulling chunks of canvas clean off.

"It's eating the fortress," Zara said flatly.

The blob turned. It didn't have eyes. But somehow, it noticed them.

Then it lurched forward.