Completely soaked and covered in mud, Wrench stared at the murder scene, heart pounding, head spinning. For several seconds, nobody said anything. All three of them simply stared in awe at Zev's remains.

Fuck! Ray actually killed him! What if the cops come, what if someone heard it, how will we find Skye, what if–

Ray was the first one to take action. He walked up to the pile of viscera – prompting Wrench to cautiously follow behind – and kicked a chunk of sloppy white flesh, knocking out a few yellowed teeth from the horrid mass.

“Fuck with my crew, I'll do it again.” Ray turned to Janice. “You one of them fuckin' things?”

“Yo, she's cool, she's cool!” Wrench ran over to Janice, who slowly raised her hands at Ray's question.

“Yeah! I-I'm cool; I'm not like Zev, I swear!” she answered, shifting her arm back into a more human-like form.

“Don't pull any weird alien shit. Help us find Skye,” Ray ordered.

“R-right!” Janice nodded.

The three properly began their search for Skye. The group split up: Ray grabbed Wrench and insisted they came with him, leaving Janice to her own devices. Wrench wanted to argue, but there were other things far more pressing on the forefront of everybody's mind.

“SKYE!” Ray yelled, using the most of his robotic nature to scream his friend's name louder than an average human. Wrench and Janice both echoed Ray's calls; the storm continued fighting against them, drowning out their shouts, making the search all the more difficult.

Skye... please be okay! If you're gone, I... I...

They continued walking through the yard, exploring twisted passage and open space alike, until Janice's calls were hardly audible through the rain. Minute upon minute passed, amplifying the anxiety coursing through Wrench's head; every time they yelled out their friend's name and heard no response, Skye's hypothetical demise became more rooted in reality. They felt their face tensing up as tears threatened to leak from their eyes, but they managed to catch their errant thoughts just in time – Skye's not gone. He's not gone. Don't freak out. Calm down.

Fueled by stress, Wrench continued bellowing for Skye, until they heard something answer back.

Their heart skipped a beat. Someone else was calling out – Wrench's emotions bounced between hopeless and optimistic as they realized it was just Janice, but she was saying something different.

“Hey! Hello?!” she called out.

Wrench strained to hear her. They tugged on Ray's coat, gesturing for him to listen too.

“I can hear you! Where are you?!” Janice continued.

Ray and Wrench both immediately dashed back through the scrapyard, retracing their path through the maze to find their way to Janice.

“Wrench! I think I found Skye!” Her voice became clearer with every tread through the sludge underfoot.

Then, seconds later, they heard a fourth voice.

“Heeelp!” the raspy, worn-down voice cried out. It was so gravelly that Wrench couldn't identify it at first, but when they heard another cry for “help!” as they drew ever closer, Wrench knew who it was.

“It's Skye!” Wrench exclaimed. “He's here!”

A few hectic seconds of calling back and forth passed until Wrench spotted Janice, leading the charge over to her. She was busy grabbing pieces of scrap off the pile and tossing them aside.

“Skye! We're here!” Wrench shouted.

“He's in here!” Janice said, pointing to the metal she was trying to dislodge.

“Get me out, hurry, please! Oh god, oh god, Cassandra!” Skye pleaded from within the mountain.

As Janice hefted another piece of junk off the pile, Skye finally became visible in an opening inside the mound of metal, his expression the weariest Wrench had ever seen.

Wrench ran over beside Janice, helping her remove pieces from the pile to free Skye. But when Ray trudged over, Skye was visibly frightened.

“Ray, be careful, please! If this thing collapses on me–!”

“Yeh.” With his bulky, robotic build, Ray easily lifted huge pieces of debris away from the opening much faster than Janice or Wrench could. Soon after, Skye had a decently sized opening to escape.

“Can you get out?” Wrench asked.

Skye grimaced as he pushed himself through the opening in the junk, grunting in pain. Wrench prepared themself to help Skye out, grabbing onto his hands until he'd successfully squirmed out and put his feet on the ground.

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Wrench clung to Skye, squeezing him in a tight embrace.

Skye shook them off, grabbing onto the sides of Wrench's head.

“Where's Cassandra?” Skye yowled, glaring at Wrench with bloodshot eyes. “Where is she?!”

“Sh-she's at home!” Wrench stammered.

“No, no!” Skye whimpered. He let go of Wrench and put his hands on his head. “Cassandra! You've killed her! She's dead!” he wailed, tottering past his friends.

“Skye! Zev is dead! She's safe!” Wrench pleaded with him.

Skye turned around with an incredulous, wide-eyed face, his quivering lips slowly curling into a confused smile. “What?” he mumbled.

“Ray mowed him down, he's nothing but blood and guts! Cassandra's gonna be okay!” Wrench continued, matching Skye's uneasy grin.

Ray opened part of his coat, revealing the gun he'd killed Zev with.

Skye began laughing – slowly, at first – which grew into a maniacal cackle, then was interrupted by a hoarse coughing fit. He doubled over, shivering, clutching his abdomen.

Wrench and Ray walked over to him; Wrench asked if Skye wanted their muddy coat, to which he replied with a nod and, “please.” Ray, stoic as ever, simply watched as Wrench gave Skye a proper hug.

“Can you walk?” Ray asked.

“I think so.” Skye glanced down at his feet.

“Then let's get outta here.”

Now that the group had a moment of relative peace and they knew Skye was okay, they focused on navigating their way out of the scrapyard.

“Fuck happened?” Ray asked as soon as the group got a semblance of their bearings.

“Zev... it must've been Zev,” Skye began as the crew continued walking. “I-I was coming back from your place... and I don't know. That son of a bitch must've knocked me out or something. My memory after leaving your place is hazy... but I woke up in this place, Zev buried me in the scrap, chased me when I got out, told me that instead of eating me... he was gonna...”

Skye sniffled and sobbed before he could finish his sentence. “Zev was gonna eat Cassandra to get back at me for tricking him!”

“Geez,” Janice mumbled. Wrench followed up with another reaction of, “shit, dude.”

“And then he stuffed me back under that pile, and I couldn't get out, and I was fucked – totally fucked!” Skye couldn't stop the tears at that point. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of the coat Wrench gave him, which only ended up smearing mud across his face, but he didn't seem to care at that particular moment.

Wrench walked beside Skye and put an arm over his shoulder as they walked, also apathetic about the dirty coat.

“My head's pounding... my shoulder is throbbing... and I still have debt collectors coming after me – w-wait, what day is it?”

“I think it's Monday today.” Janice spoke up.

Skye took a few shaky breaths. “I got Zev to kill one of the loan sharks. I tricked him and he found out... that's why Zev was gonna go after Cass – he found out I fooled him. So I don't know if those debt collectors are gonna come after me or what anymore!” Skye buried his face in his hands. “They wanted payment by Sunday...”

“Fuck 'em,” Ray butted in. “I'll shred those cunts if they touch you.”

“I-I... I'm so sorry... I'm such a fucking burden to you guys!” Skye whimpered. “I'd be dead like three times over if it wasn't for you!”

“My advice? Get the fuck outta here,” Ray declared. “You're too straight-edge for this place. Don't need me to tell you Miyatama's gonna end up killing you.”

The group reached the slope Wrench and Janice had entered from. The path they'd initially used was now impossible to climb due to the mud, but after skirting around the bottom of the slope, they found a gravelly section of the hill with another gap in the chain-link fence to climb through.

“My phone... I lost it,” Skye continued, finally setting foot on solid pavement. “It was in my coat. I left a message for my dad – he said he knew of a place I could go in Era city... so I've been trying to get in contact.”

“Dude, high roller status,” Wrench teased upon hearing Era's name dropped, hoping to improve the mood.

“Why the fuck you still here, then?” Ray inquired, perhaps unnecessarily gruff.

“I... I don't know! I have this passion project at home that's, well... more or less illegal...” His tone suggested guilt over the thought. “A-and I just don't like my dad! He ditched me and my sister to pursue his work, and I wanted to prove that I could be a better parent than he could! Cassandra deserves that much...”

The group remained silent for a few seconds before Wrench spoke up with a simple, “yeah, I get you.”

“Do you need to borrow a phone?” Janice asked. “You could use mine to call your dad if you need.”

“Ah... thank you – you're Janice, right?” Skye realized he hadn't properly met her yet.

“Yep!”

“Okay. Well... if that's really okay with you, maybe later after we get home. Again, thank you.”

“It's nothing!” Janice smiled.

Upon reaching the main street – the road with Velvet Crumble – the group got the occasional concerned look from passersby. A hulking robot, two filthy humans covered in mud, and a volon in disguise; not exactly an ordinary group of citizens. For once, Wrench didn't care much about the stares from strangers. Skye was their utmost priority, and having both their lives threatened by Zev minutes prior helped put Wrench's social anxiety into perspective.

The storm wasn't nearly as deafening now that it wasn't constantly battering hills of steel in each direction, and the surrounding buildings gave a decent buffer to the wind. However, it brought a concern to Wrench's mind – did anyone hear Ray's gunfire? The wind and rain was loud, but surely not that loud. Granted, gunfire's common enough that people don't always call it in... Wrench vowed to plead ignorance if they did get stopped.

“I'm really sorry to get you involved in this, Janice,” Skye said. “I swear, I'm not always this fucked up.”

“It's okay. I wanted to find Zev anyways, for personal reasons. I just wish things had ended differently. I guess it had to be done,” Janice's voice turned into a murmur by the last sentence.

Minutes passed, and the crew soon advanced into the ultraloop station. It was fairly busy now that the late morning hustle and bustle had kicked into gear, and the waiting area didn't have any seats available, but there were still a few walls to rest against, away from the busiest pathways. Wrench and Skye sat down against the wall, while Ray and Janice opted to remain standing.

“I hope the ultraloop janitors don't hate us for the mud,” Wrench joked.

----------------------------------------

The ride was uneventful. By all means, that was a good thing.

The crowds had thinned out almost completely by the time they exited on the stop near Skye's home, leaving the group by their lonesome.

“Thank god... I just need to know Cassandra's safe,” Skye spoke up.

“I'm certain she's okay,” Wrench reassured him. “She was fine when we left, and we dealt with Zev before any harm could come to her.”

“Yeah... you're right. I'm still just kinda freaked out.”

Ray led everyone down the final stretch of street, moments until Skye could confirm Cassandra's safety with his own eyes. The robot turned the corner, giving way for Skye to run home–

Ray suddenly stepped back behind the corner, extending a hand to block Skye's advance.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What? What's wrong?” Skye asked, fear returning to his face.

Ray didn't respond. Instead, he pulled out his machine gun from under his coat and reloaded it.