Mystic raises her hand, preparing to snap her fingers.

  “Wait!” Smith shouts, ripping the pebble out of their pocket.

  “Granix.” They wait.

  “Granix?” Smith says again. They hold the rock tighter.

  Granix was supposed to be at their call. Back in that vilge, they arrived immediately. The ground should be shaking at least. It did just a moment ago.

  Maybe Granix is here now? Yes. That must be it, Smith thinks as they fling the door open, paying no mind to the worried group inside.

  They run out onto the balcony, keeping the rock clutched in their hand.

  An ember falls onto their nose. The soot stains their pale skin as if gently marking it.

  “Granix?”

  There is fire in the sky. Even from space, the ashes still manage to fall.

  The pebble slips from Smith’s hand.

  Mystic, Anvil, and Cassandra all step outside to gaze into the clouds with them.

  “Granix,” Smith mutters again, thinking that it can’t be them. No. Granix can’t be-

  The entire city shakes as a screeching roar of pain echoes in the distance. Smith’s thoughts race at the cries, Granix is dead, and more people will be soon. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let anyone else die.

  I can’t let Nadeden die. I have to get to her. I have to save her before whoever or whatever killed Granix gets to her.

  Smith shoves the pebble back into their pocket.

  “What’s going on?” Cassandra asks.

  Mystic shakes her head. “That Rusting creature is loose. If we don’t get out of here, right now we’re as good as-”

  “I’m not leaving Nadeden.” Smith turns to Mystic, holds a finger directly at her eyes, and orders her, “Open a portal right now, and take me to her.”

  “You know that I can’t do that, Smith.”

  Smith pushes past her. They don’t have time to argue. Granix is dead, and Rome is crumbling. They can’t waste any time.

  “Don’t be a fool.” Mystic calls out, reaching for Smith’s arm. They quickly pull it away. “I’m going to save her, Mystic, with or without you.”

  Smith rushes into the attic and dashes down the stairs to the city below. Anvil follows after them.

  “What are you doing?” Mystic questions as he walks through the door.

  “They’re my sibling, Mystic. Someone has to look out for them.” Anvil darts down to the street below.

  Mystic huffs. “Fools. The lot of them. I’m gd you aren’t like that, Cassandra.”

  Mystic soon finds that Cassandra is already gone. She ran off after Anvil.

  Mystic sighs. “Very well then.”

  She snaps her fingers and vanishes in a fsh of blue light.

  The sparkling tower of gss reflecting the explosion in the sky is the only thing Smith can focus on right now.

  Their eyes hang on it, anchoring to the rooftop balcony where a man overlooks the chaos raging in the city below.

  Gelmidas’s breath is still as he watches his son smash a Fluoredon through the concrete spires below, toppling them in an instant.

  Gelmidas hangs his head and takes off his gsses. The crown is heavier than ever now.

  He turns away from the railing and begins a disturbed walk back into the Pza. He assumes that he will be safe inside.

  Little does he know that his life is now running on borrowed time, time that Vanessa Soryu is already counting down.

  An avanche of smoke bnkets the street.

  The humans in front of Smith scream and block the way forward.

  The rubble falls next.

  Smith can only watch in terror as the crowd rushes away from it.

  Smith pushes onward. Only stopping to shield a child from a hurtling chunk of debris with a quick sling of blood that manifests a metal wall.

  Once the child is safe, Smith scrambles up the wall and toward the Pza. Then something fast and violent sprints past them in the blink of an eye, and another building crumbles, sending another crowd into a panic.

  Without thinking, Smith rips the bandana off their palm and flings out a drop of blood that becomes a wall to block the rubble. Everyone on the street shouts as the concrete shatters into a million pieces against the metal.

  Smith grits their teeth, holding back the splitting pain that comes with the scar on their hand being torn open by the iron they create to hold back the destruction being unleashed on these people.

  However, it is not Smith’s metal that does the most good.

  A workman’s coat falls before Smith as pilrs of iron are shot out by the man behind them. The pilrs split and catch the deadly pieces of concrete.

  Anvil’s body is left bloodied by the act, but the street is clear now, and the crowd has found its way to safety for the time being.

  “Do you want to save the humans, sibling?”

  “I want to save everyone,” Smith huffs, taking only a brief second to catch their breath.

  “Life is precious.” They state, wrapping Nadeden’s bandana around their neck for safekeeping.

  “Life is all.” Anvil finishes the litany and snatches his coat to hide his scars.

  The city trembles once more.

  The creature speeds out of the spire’s wreckage, unching a bright crustaceous figure into the air with it.

  “You are strong.” The Fluoredon states, wiping glowing lifeblood from his mouth after he nds. Adamus crawls atop the adjacent building. His skeleton, the beast, is all over him now, but it does not have control of him. Not yet, at least.

  “Thanks for the compliment, but you aren’t exactly my type.” Adamus manages to snarl out the words despite his growing fangs.

  The Fluoredon ughs. “He jokes! All the good fighters joke, and this is indeed a good fight. A fight that I intend to win.”

  The Fluoredon peels off his red exoskeleton. The rough armor of the crustacean falls to the city below and exposes his blinding luminescent skin.

  The light bsts out from the Fluoredon with his every movement. He’s on Adamus in an instant and peeling at his bones. The beast is angered by this. It reaches out to defend itself.

  A spiked protrusion stabs into the Fluoredon. His shining blood erupts from the wound as he falls with Adamus, spshing into the sea of people below.

  The light of the Fluoredon’s body and blood burns the eyes of all those who make the mistake of gncing at it. The piercing rays reflect off the gss windows littered throughout the city. Fmes sprout from the light’s heat and consume everything they meet.

  Adamus pces a contorted hand over his eyes, blocking the light as he charges the Fluoredon. The shining warrior dodges the attack and leaps back onto Adamus.

  More spikes protrude from the beast. The Fluoredon escapes all of them. He grasps the bone with his cws and yanks at it. The beast yelps as it quickly recalls into Adamus.

  He tumbles into the mass of people. Each face looks on in terror as he forces the beast to burst from his palms.

  Adamus and the Fluoredon resume their csh in an instant. Both moving faster than the eye can see. Adamus blindly sshes out with bdes of bone, only to be endlessly countered by the Fluoredon’s cws.

  To the crowd, the constant trade of blows appears as nothing more than simple blurs.

  The exchange comes to a screeching halt as the Fluoredon snatches both of Adamus’s arms and snaps the bones off his wrist.

  Adamus and the beast cry in pain. The Fluoredon grins as his cws squeeze tighter on Adamus’s arms. The skeleton cracks under the pressure.

  Adamus grits his teeth. He has no choice but to break his arms and smash his skull into the Fluoredon.

  The glowing warrior is stunned as Adamus rips the shattered arms out of his cws. The beast clicks his joints back into pce, allowing him to snatch his bones from the Fluoredon.

  Adamus’s fingers dig into the jagged bdes that were once his wrists as he slices the warrior wide open. The Fluoredon’s eyes widen, and before he knows it, his light is extinguished.

  The beast opens Adamus’s skin and pulls his wrist bones back in.

  Adamus flexes his hands, stretching them. Once he is sure that he is healed, he finds that the beast is biting at him. It still isn’t satisfied.

  “That was just the first one,” Adamus reassures it and pressures it to come out again.

  “Adamus!”

  He turns toward the voice. Cassandra climbs up through the mess of broken cement and bzing rubble. She’s marked by soot and exasperation. Gasping for air, she asks, “What are you doing?”

  “I should ask you the same thing.” Adamus winces at the sight of her. The beast crawls out from his arms again.

  Cassandra flinches, “You have to stop. That thing is dangerous.”

  Adamus takes a look at the destruction and shrugs. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” She pleads with him, desperate to wrap her head around even a sliver of what’s happening.

  “Assassins are moving on the Pza,” Adamus coldly states, “I’m going to stop them.”

  Before Cassandra can say anything else, Adamus is gone.

  Mystic appears beside her. “You can’t do anything.” She tugs on Cassandra’s shirt.

  “If you want to live, you need to leave.”

  Cassandra wrests Mystic off her. “Smith isn’t the only one who has people they care about here! I have to get to my Father!”

  She runs off toward the Pza. Mystic snaps her fingers and nds on Cassandra’s back, wrapping her arms around her neck. “Mystic! You’re choking me!”

  She loosens her grip and clutches Cassandra’s shoulders instead. “Better?”

  Cassandra halts her run, startled by the sudden kindness.

  “You still know your way around the Pza, correct?” Mystic calmly inquires as if the past few minutes hadn’t even happened.

  “I do,” Cassandra states, unsteadily. “But my Father is there. I know you want to find a way into the basement, but I need to get to him first.”

  Mystic lifts her hand off Cassandra. “Fine,” She sighs as she snaps her fingers.

  Smith and Anvil don’t see the fsh of blue light.

  They are both far too busy helping those caught under the rubble.

  Anvil gives up a pint of his blood to raise a fleet of pilrs, which drag up the hulking blocks of concrete that pin down a group of Republic tourists.

  Smith takes the hand of a man covered head to toe in white ash, helping him back out into the street. The man doesn’t thank Smith.

  Instead, he reaches his hand out to those still crawling out of the crumpling wreckage.

  Anvil sacrifices more blood to hold up the falling blocks that threaten to smash those beneath. Smith and the man both work quickly to get everyone to safety.

  Each person that cws their way out of the debris joins the ranks of those helping lead others to salvation.

  When Anvil’s pilrs colpse, everyone is thankfully already out and fleeing to the edges of the city.

  “They didn’t thank us.” Anvil wipes blood from his chest.

  Smith shrugs, exhausted. “A lot is going on, Anvil, and we aren’t doing this for praise.”

  Anvil nods, trying to understand. “Life is precious.”

  “Life is all.” Smith finishes the litany, wondering why such a fundamental idea is so difficult for both of their siblings to understand. They dust themself off and continue to the Pza.

  Anvil follows.

  Neither of them know that they are being watched.

  The Qrow flies over the fmes spread by the Fluoredon, past the winding towers, and nds atop the head of a Martian woman.

  She tightens her blindfold as she walks through the shadow of the alleyway.

  Her fingers scrape across the walls. Feeling them to gain a sense of direction.

  The Qrow lets out a squawk. He flutters onto the Martian woman’s hand as she holds it out. “The pale one is allied with the archer,” She whispers to the bird, his talons clinging to her long, grey fingers.

  “I can’t find her. Can’t kill her…” She draws out a sigh and lets it linger for as long as she can before coming to a decision. “Instead, I’ll have them.”

  The Qrow leaves her hand, flying off into the distance. The darkness around the woman splits into a flock of shadowed bck that consumes the sky above her. The Qrows cry out in unison, their eyes are all the same piercing dark shade that the Martian woman’s once were.

  She is Galihend, daughter of the Martian soldier Galitined. She was but a girl when an arrow from the Scorched Archer took her eyesight all those years ago, but Galihend is a woman now. A woman who will have her revenge both on Nadeden and on the Division for devastating her home pnet, Tethener, and taking it as a colony.

  Her flocks of Qrows will consume all that stands before her.

  And Smith will be the first to fall.