Smith can hardly stand, much less run.

  Yet as Rome burns and the beast roars in the distance, they find that they have no choice but to push onward to the Pza.

  The street screams with bzing fire and pleading voices. Smith wants to help them. To save them. But every movement is pain, and every step is agony.

  They have to keep moving. They have to save Nadeden.

  Anvil grips their shoulder tighter. He almost has to pull Smith now. He sealed their wounds to the best of his ability, but those abilities are limited. Smith has lost a lot of blood. Not even the blood bag stabbing into their skin can repce all they’ve lost.

  Anvil stops at a pile of smoldering ruin that blocks their path. Smith realizes that they have arrived at what was once the Coliseum. The structure is nearly gone now, but making it here is an accomplishment in itself.

  The Pza is still waiting in the distance, and the only broken part of it is its windows.

  “Keep going…” Smith coughs. “We’ll make it.”

  A Lungoza speeds down between the pair, striking the pair to the ground.

  Smith and Anvil are separated by the sudden shove, but crawl back towards each other amidst the debris.

  “Excuse me, folks!” Jartall ughs. Their tentacles unch out from their fshing and fractured floating body. “I’d love to stay and kill you, but-”

  A hulking, violent mass hurtles down from the sky. The beast’s bdes of bone stab into Jartall. Digging into the translucent skin before slicing the orb in half.

  Smith and Anvil look up from the ground in sheer terror of the creature before them.

  The beast rises. It now has full control of Adamus. The boy has been consumed. His skeleton is now nothing more than a clump of spikes contorted around what was once his body.

  His mouth is littered with elongated fangs marked by blood. His hands and feet are cws that are twice his size. Any trace of what was once human is gone now, as if it never even existed.

  The monstrous insult to nature shifts its head to gaze upon the horrified Machinists.

  The metal sealing Smith’s scars begins to rust at the sight of the creature. They anxiously rise with Anvil, standing to face what they can only pray isn’t their death.

  The beast stares at the two Machinists in perfect silence. The three remain locked in pce with their thoughts still and their mouths shut for an seemingly infinite amount of time. That is, until the iron on Smith’s back gives way to the rust and crumbles.

  Smith cries out in pain.

  The beast roars.

  Anvil snatches their sibling and dashes into the coliseum. The beast follows at an uncanny speed. It’s a miracle that Anvil and Smith make it into the structure before the beast strikes it.

  The stone is broken apart by the sheer size of the creature and colpses in on itself, sealing Smith and Anvil inside.

  The beast sms down on the coliseum in frustration, yet with every movement, it only lumps more rubble onto the destruction and further seals the structure. Smith and Anvil should be thankful.

  If Adamus were still in control, he would have simply dug through the mess, but the beast does not possess such intelligence. At least not yet. For the moment, it is nothing more than a mindless animal, striking out against that which it does not understand and that which harms it.

  The quick ssh of a metal bde is the thing that harms it next. The sudden assault draws its attention away from the coliseum. The beast wails at the attack and grips its foot.

  The Squideel smiles and slithers past the beast as he sets both his hands on the hilt of the sword.

  Branaphis Thorn was hoping to kill Nadeden today. The woman did kill his Father after all, and Emperor Atheneum was the one who sent him to his death. He leapt at the opportunity to finally avenge his family name and prove himself as more than just a halfbreed, but now this beast is threatening the city.

  Branaphis can’t stand by and watch innocents die. He was taught to be a good man, a brave man. He is a Squideel warrior, and his steel sword is yet to succumb to the Rusting.

  He will sy this creature, and then he will sy the Scorched Archer.

  The beast cws down at him. Branaphis slips past the strike. The joy of battle takes him as his arms stretch out to ssh at the beast’s bones.

  The metal slices the skeletal hide. The beast writhes in agony. The steel has hurt it. The steel should not exist. It should be Rusting. How has the beast been hurt?

  Branaphis does not ask these questions. He has rger concerns. He recalls his elongated limbs only to reach them back out again to stab into the beast’s back.

  Branaphis’s tail swings in the air as he nds on the beast and begins to tear into it. His grip tightens on his sword as he plunges it deeper into the beast. It roars and cries and wails all at once. It isn’t just in pain anymore. It’s afraid.

  Everything in the universe is capable of fearing for its own life. However, only a select few are capable of acting despite this fear, and fewer still can adapt to it.

  The beast curls in on itself, cradling around Adamus’s limp body before growing back out again. It bursts out violently against Branaphis. Both he and his bde are tossed off the beast as if they were nothing more than insects.

  Branaphis crashes down into the Coliseum, nding on a pile of brick and stone that knocks the wind out of him.

  The beast takes off into the city before Branaphis can even stand. He curses himself for not finishing the job. He should have gone for its head or stomach, but he got so caught up in the glory of battle that he let his mind abandon him.

  He rises from the rubble and begins the search for his sword. He did find it odd that the bde was so effective, but he doesn’t put much thought into why. He hasn’t even paid much mind to the runes coating the steel. The runes that appear as nothing more than ones and zeros.

  The runes that Anvil and Smith are now gazing upon.

  “You two!” Branaphis calls out. “Hand me that bde!”

  The pair gaze at the unrusted steel, studying it in disbelief. Even when stabbed into the creature, it did not so much as tarnish. It’s unbelievable.

  Smith is the first to touch the steel and the first to think that: If this metal can survive, then maybe more can! “Where did you-”

  Anvil snatches the bde from Smith. “Where did you get this?” He asks Branaphis while keeping the sword close to his chest.

  Branaphis shrugs. He’s annoyed, sure, but he can’t bme the man for asking questions. “My home pnet, Ourobeel.”

  “What about the runes?” With Anvil’s question, Smith finally makes the connection. Those ones and zeros are the ancient code of the Machinists. How does a Squideel know them?

  They were on the boxes Hadel used to protect the metal on Terra-gilma, but he had supposedly made those solely from the information Nadeden gave him.

  Still, it is strange, and Anvil seems desperate for answers. Branaphis, however, doesn’t care to give them. “Look, I don’t know how they got there. They were on the bde when it was given to me, now hand it over and I’ll-”

  Anvil holds the bde to Branaphis’s throat. Smith tries to stand but finds themself too weak to do so. They try to dissuade their brother instead. “Anvil…”

  Branaphis finally meets Smith’s gaze. He stares into their eyes until he remembers the warning that was given to him.

  “You?” Branaphis doesn’t want to jump to any conclusions, yet he can’t take any chances. He wrests the sword from Anvil and points it at Smith. “Have you been traveling with the Scorched Archer?”

  Anvil lunges forward before Smith can say anything. They know that their brother wants to defend them, but not like this. Not like this!

  Anvil sms a fist into Branaphis and sprouts a metal spike from a scar on his chest. The spike pierces Branaphis. He grunts and cuts at Anvil with the steel bde.

  Anvil deflects the strike by summoning iron to shield himself. Branaphis twists against the spike lodged in his skin and forces it to stretch out of him. He yells in pain as the metal tears flesh that he bends back into pce.

  Anvil refuses to let up. “Who gave you the sword?” He demands as Branaphis clings to the bde. He keeps his grip tight around it as he smacks his tail into Anvil. The impact sends him flying into the nearest wall.

  Branaphis aims the sword at Smith’s brow. “Your friend is awfully violent, but he isn’t the Scorched Archer. Were you travelling with her, or were you not?”

  Smith carefully rises at Branaphis’s heated words. Their back bleeds out with every pained breath and movement. They gulp down the bile building in their mouth as they speak. “Nadeden was taken… Imprisoned…”

  Branaphis squints at Smith’s delirium. “Yes…” He slowly states. “I’m asking if you were helping her. I need to bring her and all her associates to justice. You fit the description of her companion, and-”

  Anvil explodes from the crushed wall with a loud thrashing of metal against brick. He has bled forth from all the scars on his chest to encase himself in iron. The suit of armor is impenetrable. He huffs under the weight of it. “Get away from them.”

  Branaphis keeps the runed bde pointed at Smith, only slightly lowering it as he speaks. “They are a criminal under interrogation. I will not-”

  The steel bde reaches the hole in Smith’s chest. They wince at the sting of the sharp point against their sensitive skin.

  Branaphis’s eyes widen. “Consciousness transfer?”

  He takes Smith by the torn shirt. “Such science is outwed! Why did you-”

  Anvil grabs Branaphis’s head. Smith doesn’t even see the drop of blood that their brother drips into the Squideel’s throat. They only see the iron rip the head open before green skin stains the walls.

  Smith slips from the fingers of the standing corpse, dropping onto the ruined floor of ash and dust.

  They y on their knees, unable to even blink, much less form a coherent thought. They don’t feel the pain of the wounds, which once stung them. They don’t even feel the blood being fed into them by the bloodbag taped to them, or the blood dripping from their palm and back.

  Smith is numb now. Completely numb. It’s like they’re back on the Forge, staring alone at all that death and unable to even shed a single tear.

  Anvil picks the runed sword from Branaphis’s limp hands, studying it before holding a hand out to Smith. The hand is coated in iron and blood. The crimson shines on the armor, reflecting Smith’s frozen face.

  “He would have killed you.” Anvil states with his hand still before Smith. The hand stays empty until beginning to slightly tremble.

  Anvil pulls it away and grips the sword. The sensation seems to have disturbed him more than killing did. Smith can’t help but notice that and be disgusted.

  “We should go to his home pnet after this.” Anvil solemnly states, twisting the sword in his hands and feeling the runes. “Mystic will want to know of this, and the people there will no doubt have information about the-”

  “Is that what you’re thinking about?” Smith whispers under hateful breath.

  “He was going to kill you, Smith.”

  “AND YOU KILLED HIM!” Smith yells at the top of their exhausted lungs. The words pull at Anvil. He backs away from Smith as they stand.

  “He… He was giving me a chance. He wanted me to plead my case… He would have spared me… He would have… He would have…” Smith wipes their face with Nadeden’s bandana.

  The cloth is stained now. Stained so much that no one can see its true color.

  Reality hits Smith like a hammer. No one cares. All this death. All this suffering and no one cares! It shouldn’t be this way! It shouldn’t be this way! “I told you life was precious,” they choke.

  Anvil does nothing but stare at them as he grips the hilt of Branaphis’s sword.

  “You’re supposed to know the litany,” Smith states, now stumbling toward the closest door. “You’re a Machinist, Anvil, Smith, whoever you are. We’re pacifists. I thought we were…” and yet I came here to kill Gelmidas.

  Smith suddenly remembers their quest for revenge, their lust for it. They thought bringing Gelmidas to justice for creating the Rusting would bring them relief, but it has only brought them pain. There’s nothing left for them now.

  Nothing, except Nadeden.

  Smith opens the door and slips under the rubble, desperate to find a way to the Pza.

  Anvil does not follow them.

  He stays behind, holding Branaphis’s sword.