The storm rolled in as the boat entered the eye of the storm.

  It has been one month since Rome burned.

  One month since that day.

  That day, when she colpsed in their arms.

  She looked at them. Her blood seeped onto them. Her hand touched them.

  The hand that she cut open to save their life. The hand that she had bled from to fuel the consciousness transfer machine.

  Smith’s hand is bleeding now.

  The blood mixes with the rain before it turns to metal. The metal bde meets the stone one. Sparks ignite in the storm. Smith twirls away the bde and lunges forward on the wet deck. The thrust sends the pirate’s stone sword flying into the sea.

  Thunder cracks as Smith tosses the iron bde aside and sms their bloody palm onto the pirate.

  “Chains.” The iron in their blood obeys the command and enchains the pirate, sealing him to the wall.

  The ship rocks against the current. The chains crack out of the wall. Smith curses themself as the boat’s deck is bnketed in a roaring wave.

  The pirate tackles them. The surge of rain and saltwater soaks the boat, seeping into every inch of it. Smith fights back against the pirate. More blood flows from their palm as the water flows off the boat.

  Smith summons metal from their blood as the boat hits another wave. The blood joins the water and turns to iron inside the raging current. The chains crash into the pirate and pull him under.

  Smith watches the ocean drag the pirate down along with the water pouring off the boat.

  Smith struggles to stand on the rocking deck. The floor is as unsteady as they are. Before they or the boat can get settled, a bde flies over their head.

  Smith turns back to meet the weapon’s owner. The Squideel pirate doesn’t want to grant them the pleasure of a formal meeting, though, and neither does Mystic.

  She leaps down from the mast and snaps her fingers. The portal opens around the Squideel’s neck and rips their head clean off. Mystic snaps her fingers again and falls through a portal to nd beside Smith. “There’s a human expression you need to learn, my Smith,” she sneers, “Get your head in the game.”

  Smith scowls, “Get your head out of your ass, first, Mystic.”

  The boat rocks again. Its hull bursts through another massive wave. The water sms onto the deck and the sails. Thunder and lightning roll in the distance.

  Even further in the distance, more Squideel pirates swim towards the boat at a rapid pace. “At least twenty more are on the way.” A Fluoredon states as Anvil smacks Branaphis’s runed bde onto the st pirate, knocking them out cold.

  “Keep it steady, girl.” The Fluoredon tells Cassandra as he draws his own swords. “I don’t want my baby sinking on me today.”

  Cassandra fights back the urge to hurl an insult at the Fluoredon captain as she fights the ship’s own wheel. Her fingers dig into its wooden handles as she spins them to avoid an incoming wave. What Cassandra can’t avoid, however, are the Squideels now leaping onto the deck along with the blinding fsh of lightning that blurs her vision.

  “Here we go!” The Fluoredon captain cries out as he crosses bdes with the pirates. Anvil sps the runed bde on the tail of one slithering behind him as Smith and Mystic join the fray.

  Mystic snaps her fingers, chopping the limbs off a small group of pirates. Smith slides along the drenched deck, kneeling down as a rain of bloodied green skin falls alongside the relentless downpour of the storm clouds overhead. Smith sps their palms together once they reach the end of the deck.

  They wipe their blood across the wood. It spreads into the water, soaking the deck. As the ship tilts forward the blood becomes iron that ensnares the tails of the pirates standing on it. Mystic skips backward and snaps her fingers. A single portal is all it takes to slice the heads off the pirates.

  Anvil sheathes Branaphis’s runed bde. The Fluoredon captain sheathes his swords as well. “I don’t know how you all do it, but you sure are efficient,” He ughs as the boat strikes a wave that is thankfully less precarious than the previous ones. Still, the water spills onto the deck nonetheless. It mixes with the blood as Smith rests against the wooden rail marking the end of the deck.

  They stare at the mutited bodies of the Squideels trapped within the metal they summoned.

  Smith clutches their bleeding hand at the sight and pulls the bandana—the one she gave them—over the scar.

  The storm will pass soon.

  A Qrow nds on the dock outside the port as a low tide rolls in.

  The bird keeps its dark eyes trained on Cassandra as Anvil hands the captain his payment.

  “Acceptable?” He asks the captain after handing over the bag of coins. The captain hurries to count the bags' contents, but the sheer number of coins within overwhelms him with enough joy that he feels no need for a thorough review. “Ha!” He ughs, “More than acceptable, my mysterious friends, more than acceptable.”

  The captain slings the bag on his cw and pats Anvil on the back. “I have to say, very few would have chosen to take such a perilous voyage. Those pirates have only gotten more violent with the times, and the storms are no joy either, so if it isn’t too much of a bother, do tell…” He pulls Anvil closer. His mandibles flex in his crustaceous mouth as he asks, “What are you looking for?”

  Mystic kicks the captain’s leg. He stumbles back in annoyance. “Hey! What’s the matter, kid?”

  Mystic gres at him. Her uncanny blue eyes narrow in on the captain’s shell of a face. “What we search for is our business and our business alone. You never saw us, and more importantly, you never saw our abilities, understood?”

  The captain looks at Mystic in confusion, then looks to the bag of coins hanging on his cw. He nods. “Understood.”

  Mystic smiles.

  The Fluoredon steps aboard his boat as Smith, Anvil, and Cassandra all follow Mystic into the port town. The Qrow flies away.

  The town itself is nothing special to the group. It’s the typical fare that they’ve all seen over the past month. The Squideel species is one that takes pride in honor. Especially the honor of the hunt. By the time the party makes it deep into the town, they find that many of its residents are in the ocean, hunting Juntleheim and other saltwater fish.

  However, it is not a hunter that Mystic and the others seek but rather the mother of a warrior. Smith has a feeling that this meeting will not be a kind one, but after a full month of aimlessly hopping from town to town, asking questions about the origin of Branaphis’s bde, perhaps a heated confrontation with the man’s mother will at least yield something of a result.

  “So you killed him?”

  “Yes,” Anvil states.

  Branaphis’s mother gnces at the bde resting on the table, then gnces back at Anvil.

  “You bested him,” She sighs. “I always knew the boy was weak. I made a terrible mistake choosing to y with that disgusting human man all those years ago. Branaphis was forever cursed with his Father’s tainted blood.”

  She slithers over to her cabinet and fetches a bottle of something. She looks back at the ck of a response from any of the ‘humans’ now in her home. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Mystic huffs, “Can you tell us anything about where you got the sword?”

  Smith folds their arms and leans against the wall. Part of them wants to question how a mother could care so little for the death of her son. Part of them even wants to be offended or shocked by such a notion. Yet after everything that’s happened, they find that they are no longer shocked by people caring so little for each other. Even the idea of a mother holding apathy for her son shouldn’t be surprising. A son caring nothing for their mother shouldn’t be a shock either. After all, the sight of a son killing his mother is the thing that haunts Smith’s dreams.

  Outside of those dreams, the bandana rubs against Smith’s skin, and the scar on their palm that still hasn’t healed.

  The Squideel woman takes a seat and pours the contents of the bottle into four gsses. “Does the child speak for you, warrior?” Her four eyes focus on Anvil.

  Mystic scowls, “The child speaks for herself.”

  Anvil nods. “What she said.”

  The Squideel woman leans back in her chair and raises a gss. Her green skin pops and extends with her arm. “To children, then.” She waits for Anvil to take a gss. Then she waits for Smith and Cassandra to take one. Then she finally takes a swig of the drink and stretches her arm back into pce.

  “Brian gave me this and told me to save it for a special occasion.” She rests the gss back down on the table beside the sword. “Brian was my son’s Father, you understand?”

  “I do.” Anvil states. Mystic nods.

  Cassandra rests her chin atop her violin case as she takes a seat on a nearby couch. Or at least the piece of furniture that comes closest to resembling a couch. Just a month ago, Cassandra wouldn’t have even dreamed of going to a non-human pnet, yet here she is sitting on a couch designed for a species with a lower body that consists of a ginormous tail and little else.

  Cassandra is somewhat proud of herself for being so adventurous. So why is it that she feels uneasy? Well, for one, she didn’t like what the Squideel woman said about ‘tainted blood’. It struck a nerve and a hard one at that.

  As Cassandra swirls the gss in her hands and stares into it, she can’t help but imagine her own blood being as tainted and murky as the liquid inside. Mystic still refuses to speak about Tendo. She’s said that he “Isn’t worth speaking about,” and told her to not “Ask questions that don’t have proper answers.”

  Still, Cassandra feels the need to know what she is, who she is. Is she a simple halfbreed like this Branaphis man was? Born of nothing but reckless lust? Or is she something else? Her Father had runes on his skin simir to the ones on the sword that now lies on the table of this humble home. Perhaps if she can learn what those runes mean…

  “As for the sword.” The Squideel woman lifts it off the table by the sharp metal bde, “I’m afraid I can’t tell you about the markings on it.”

  “You’re sure?” Mystic stresses the question.

  The woman nods.

  Mystic lowers her head. Her white hair slumps over her face before she tosses her head back up and shouts. “FUCK!”

  She kicks the floor and stomps on it. Dust and sand fly everywhere as Cassandra, Smith, and Anvil all bnkly stare at their wise and powerful leader.

  “Fuck! Fucking shit, fuck, shit!”

  “Such vulgar nguage.” The woman mumbles as she sets the sword down.

  Mystic throws herself atop the table. She crouches before the Squideel woman and shoves a finger in front of her green four-eyed face.

  “Listen here, dy!” She snarls, “I have come a long fucking way and wasted a lot of fucking time trying to figure out how you organics deciphered a code that not even I, in all my ancient centuries of wisdom, could transte!”

  She snatches the bde off the table and points it at the woman. “Look!” She demands. “It hasn’t rusted yet! Do you realize what this means?”

  The Squideel tilts her head and raises her tail slightly. Mystic doesn’t give her time to answer the question. “It means the Rusting is fwed. It means the wishes, the things that made it, are fwed. Reality is fwed.” Mystic hops off the table, still keeping the sword pointed at the woman, “So are you completely certain that you truly don’t have any information that can help us fix this fw?”

  The woman shakes her head. “I hold no knowledge for you, child.”

  Mystic lowers the sword with a sigh. “Fuck…”

  Smith steps away from the wall after Mystic’s intense dispy of emotion. They certainly didn’t expect to see her exhibit such strong frustrations, but they suppose it makes sense. Smith is frustrated as well. This whole search has been pointless so far. They almost want to kneel and whisper in Mystic’s ear that all the other Machinists are dead and nothing will bring them back. Just like nothing will bring back the one they lost or all the other people who died in Rome. They don’t tell Mystic that though. Instead, they tell her, “Let’s stop standing around. It’s te, and I doubt this woman wants us staying the night here.”

  Mystic gres at Smith, but quickly yields to them. “Fine,” She huffs as she steps out the door.

  Later that night, Anvil makes his way around the town bartering for a pce to sleep, only to come back to the group empty-handed and exhausted. It appears that this will be yet another night spent under the stars of Ourobeel.

  Cassandra is a little thankful for that.

  She slips away under the cover of night once everyone is asleep. She takes her violin with her to a low cliffside. It has been far too long since she st practiced. She was afraid to do so on the boat for fear of alerting the pirates to their location, and didn’t even dare to py in the many taverns and inns the group have slept in over the past month, for she knew that even the slightest note may have woken someone unpleasant.

  Now though?

  Now is the perfect time to py her music.

  She rests the instrument on her shoulder and grips her bow. Holding it above the violin strings, she draws out a breath before drawing out a note. The sound brings out a Qrow that calls out into the night.

  Cassandra gnces at the animal perched beneath the cliff. She follows its gaze out into the beach below the hill where Smith is standing.

  The Qrow caws again.

  Cassandra steps down the hill and onto the beach as Smith wipes their blood across the bandana, turning the crimson mist into a length of curved iron. They sigh in disappointment at the shape they’ve summoned. It’s far too narrow and far too wide, and it cks a malleable string as well. They drop the contorted bow to the sand with the others.

  “You’re going to lose a lot of blood if you keep doing that.”

  “I know.” Smith nods as they pce the bandana back on their hand to try again.

  Cassandra gnces at the Qrow, then back at Smith. “You should be sleeping.”

  “So should you.” Smith removes the bandana and smears their blood across their palm.

  “Don’t you need arrows, too?”

  “I’ll make some next.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  Smith drops the next failure of a bow to the sand.

  The tide licks the beach, drifting in slowly with the night air. Smith gazes upon their scarred palm. This palm that is forced to be theirs. They make a fist.

  “Cassandra?” They ask, “Are you going to help me do it?”

  She tilts her head. Something has been off about Smith tely. They’re frustrated but not in the same way she and the others are. It’s strange, and that question is even stranger.

  Cassandra feels a lump in her throat as she asks, “Do what?”

  Smith ftly answers her.

  “Kill Adamus Atheneum.”