Gem grabbed as many carrots as she could while Cleo and Stress grabbed some other junk to throw at the sculk. 

"Y'know, if we had an extra set of hands, this would go by much faster." Cleo said, shoving some cakes into a bag.

"An extra set of hands... like False..." Stress murmured. "And... Impulse." Gem added, sadly looking off into space.

"Jevin." Cleo said. "And..."

"Frog." All three girls spoke at the same time. Gem shook her head. "Are we ready to go to the... sculk... place...?" She asked, straightening up. 

"As soon as all of us are ready, we can go through the portal that, I'm assuming, someone will summon, and then we'll have to go through it and, I believe, fight for our lives to safe Scar, Pine, Pearl, Naya and X. Hopefully we'll make it out alive with no problems. Hopefully. But, knowing dramatic stories like these..." Cleo trailed off as the others stared at her. "What? Was it something I said?"

A loud bang echoed through the shopping district, followed by a blinding flash of purple light that filled the air a second later. It vanish as soon as it had come, and Gem covered her deer ears in fright. 

"What." Stress gasped, "Was that."

~bonus story at the end of the chapter~ 

A low grumbling filled the halls. Black eyes peeked out through crevasses. A creature groaned and swept through the halls, clawing at the doorways and walls it bumped into. The attention was on the lobby, which the creature couldn't get through the door there. Hung up beside the locked door was a key. And around that key was a faint, glowing, blue light.