Rocky had always believed the universe was something you could bite.

In his world, everything made sense that way. Gems appeared, walls shifted, wormholes opened, and if something stood in your way, you simply chomped through it. That was how you moved forward. That was how you won. The grid was chaotic, but it was predictable in its own strange rhythm.

So when the grid stopped moving, Rocky knew something was wrong.

It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a hesitation, like the moment before a wall collapses. A flicker in the air where a wormhole should have formed. Rocky had been mid-meal, crunching down on a cluster of glowing gems, when the space around him went still. Even the others paused. Wingrid’s wings twitched uncertainly, Zuck leaned forward as if sniffing something strange, and Gemma narrowed her eyes at the empty space above the grid.

Then the signal came.

It wasn’t a sound, not really. More like a pull. A distant pulse that didn’t belong to their world, threading its way through the familiar chaos of Chomplings and unravelling it. Rocky didn’t understand it, but he felt it in the same place as hunger. A need to follow, to see where it led.

Before anyone could stop him or try to eat him, he leapt toward it.

The wormhole that opened was unlike any he had seen before. It didn’t snap into place with its usual sharp energy, nor did it promise an immediate landing on a new configuration of walls and gems. Instead, it stretched outward, widening into something deeper and darker. Rocky barely had time to register the difference before he was pulled through, his small, sturdy body tumbling through a stream of light and fragments that didn’t behave like anything from the grid.

For a moment, there was nothing.

And then there was everything.

Rocky emerged into a vastness so complete it almost felt empty. There were no walls to orient himself, no edges to define the space. The grid was gone. In its place stretched an endless expanse of darkness, punctuated by distant lights that shimmered softly instead of glowing with the rich, edible promise of gems.

He floated, turning slowly, trying to make sense of it.

The stars were beautiful, in a way he couldn’t quite explain. They weren’t resources to be consumed or obstacles to be navigated. They simply existed, burning steadily in the distance. But one of them drew his attention almost immediately. It flickered unevenly, its light stuttering as though something was interfering with it.

Rocky drifted closer, squinting. There was a pattern to the dimming, a slow and steady drain that reminded him, strangely, of a grid being cleared one piece at a time. Whatever was happening to that star, it wasn’t random. It was being affected by something unseen, something persistent.

The signal pulsed again, stronger now, and with it came flashes of understanding. Not full explanations, but glimpses. A human far from home. A mission driven by necessity. A desperate attempt to solve a problem that threatened everything tied to that distant light. Rocky didn’t grasp the details, but he recognised the urgency. He had felt it before, in the moments when the grid turned against him, when every move mattered, and hesitation meant losing everything.

As he watched, something else entered his field of view.

It moved differently than anything in his world. Smooth, controlled, deliberate. A structure of metal and light, gliding through the vast emptiness with quiet purpose. Rocky tilted his head as it approached, curiosity overriding the lingering confusion.

The craft was enormous compared to him, its surface lined with shapes and markings that hinted at intention and design. It wasn’t alive in the way he understood, but it carried presence. It was going somewhere, doing something, guided by minds that had built it to cross this impossible distance.

The name surfaced again from the fragments of the signal.

Artemis II.

Rocky circled slowly, keeping his distance but watching closely. The craft arced through space, tracing a path that suggested exploration rather than escape. It reminded him, in a strange way, of a Chompling navigating a particularly complex grid, adjusting to shifting walls and unexpected openings, always moving forward even without knowing exactly what lay ahead.

There was no hunger in it, no instinct to consume or dominate. Its purpose was different. It sought to understand, to reach, to push further into the unknown without tearing it apart.

Rocky found that fascinating.

For a brief moment, their paths aligned. A creature born from chaos and instinct drifting beside a machine built from precision and intention. Two very different approaches to the same vast mystery.

The signal pulsed once more, and this time it carried a sense of direction. Not forward, not deeper into the emptiness, but back. Back to the grid, to the familiar chaos that Rocky suddenly understood in a new way.

He hesitated.

The dying star flickered again in the distance. The Artemis II continued its steady journey, a small but significant presence against the enormity of space. And Rocky, who had always believed that the answer to everything was simply to chomp harder, felt something shift in his thinking.

Survival wasn’t always about consuming what was in front of you. Sometimes it was about learning, adapting, finding a different way through a problem that couldn’t be solved by force alone.

It was an uncomfortable thought.

The wormhole opened beneath him without warning, snapping him out of it. This one felt familiar, its energy sharp and chaotic, pulling him back toward the world he knew. Rocky didn’t resist. He took one last look at the star, at the distant craft, at the endless expanse that existed beyond the edges of his understanding, and let himself be drawn in.

The impact of the grid was immediate and loud. Walls shifted into place around him, gems cascaded down in bright, tempting clusters, and the air filled once again with the familiar hum of movement and possibility. Zuck lunged toward him the moment he landed, only to be knocked aside as a new configuration rotated into place. Wingrid darted upward toward a fresh opening, and Gemma had already positioned herself beneath a falling prize.

Everything was exactly as it had been.

And yet, it wasn’t.

Rocky didn’t pause for long. Instinct took over, guiding him toward the nearest cluster of gems. He bit down, the satisfying crunch grounding him back in the rhythm of the game. The grid shifted again, presenting new paths, new challenges, new opportunities.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, beyond the immediate need to move and eat and survive, the memory of that vast, silent space lingered. Of a star that needed saving. Of a machine carrying explorers into the unknown.

The grid was still his world. The chaos still his home.

But now he knew that beyond it, there was something even bigger, moving with a purpose he was only just beginning to understand.