Abdul stood on a high hill, watching his village of Western Almura burn to ashes. The sky painted blood red with seven crescent moons glaring down at him like eyes of gods. Hooks hung from the heavens. Ever-reaching hooks hung carcasses. He found himself to be a child in the giant shoes of an adult. Xavier stood next to him three feet taller. “You’re trash. You shouldn’t exist. You should’ve died in the fire with your mother. You can still do it, you know? You can still go jump in the flames and burn. Let it purify you from the sin it is for you to live. Do it before you go and turn into a devil.”

The kid’s face blanked out. It came with the fog in the brain. The fog that numbed everything. His left eye twitched nonstop. It never stopped. “I’m too scared to kill myself. Would you help me get it done?”

Xavier laughed. “Of course not. How would I sleep afterward? And stop calling me brother. We were never brothers. I merely took you in because I pitied you. But what do you do with trash other than burn it?”

I am trash. How did I forget?

I hung from chains in The Red Room, three clawed blades hooking into my back, toes hovering above the ground. The culminating stench of feces and blood’s iron was horrible, and the sounds even worse. In the distant room over, I caught glances of it: The Apparatus. A great machine the size of a building, eternally churning and slushing. My chained, strung-up neighbors wailed until their voices broke into morbid croaks. And when one assumed they were vocally obliterated, their lowering into The Apparatus toes first would rip out what bloodcurdling begging remained. I see malformed heads scream until the lung's consumption. With every sacrifice to be ripped from the hooks by men cloaked in white like phantoms, blood spattering the ground, my place down the line nears the mechanism with each day. One of these men pushed a cart with a big pot through the room daily, its squeaky steel wheels rusting with blood. He injects rancid pig’s slop down our throats whether we wanted it or not like livestock, and it’s not FAIR. Some hangers devolved to let themselves believe it too, squawking and honking like geese when The Cart Man arrives. Release us! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! He ignores the ones who beg for the slop while feeding and beating only those who starve themselves and AUGHHH! My Heart CRIES and MY BACK displays the scars, and I’m sorry I’m sorry Jericho I’m so so sorry! Abdul’s back displayed the stars His back displays them like coordinates His back still displayed them. A dotted map of constellations!

What do you do with trash other than burn it?

Grind it up to be transmuted

into something corrupted.

Homunculus.

Abdul awakened in the graveyard with a violent roar. His entire body burst into a tempest of flames. Ripping his boiling armor from his body, he fell to his knees, and then soon his chest. His figure entombed in flame cooked on the ground motionlessly. Ricard stumbled up to his feet with a chuckle and grin as Alumina materialized into his hands from the shadows. He skipped forth and swung a finishing slam into Abdul’s limp, dented helmet. “Nightmare. His visions must have been horrible to summon such an end.”

Primus laid on the ground near Abdul. “Human? Answer me!”

Ricard took off his mask of the owl to reveal emerald reptilian skin, fangs, and a lack of eyelids. Beastman. Worry washed over him when wetness hit his skin. Rain pitter pattered against the surrounding gravestones. It went out of control, intensifying into pouring storm rain so quick and overbearing that he almost suspected The Gods. Both Ricard and Ignazio looked at Abdul’s extinguished smoking corpse in eerie silence. He shook his head. “No, he’s dead. No human’s survived Alumina.”

He helped Ignazio up onto his shoulder as dusk ended and abyssal night lurked in to claim everything. The two wobbled away with great difficulty. The owl couldn’t shake a strange feeling though. A feeling that rattled his nerves for the first time in the last decade of coldblooded business for Rath Ghul. He glanced back into the dark to see nothing. Then, not too long later, he did so again. Ignazio caught him in the act. “What, you scared? You toasted him, Master Ricard.”

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“I’ve never seen Nightmare cause such a suicide. How did he even light himself on fire?”

Ignazio looked tense. “Are you suggesting the fire wasn’t you?”

Ricard held his tongue. They stood at the bottom of the green hill going up to the church’s cemetery. He looked back one last time. Lightning struck. It illuminated the pitch-black abyss around them for a moment.

Abdul pursued them noiselessly with a limp and twitchy supernatural speed, half of his armor singed or ditched, dragging his claymore machina behind him in the mud. Ricard gasped and tripped over himself. Ignazio dropped to the ground onto his knee, reacting with a tearful yelp.

Abdul stood only a meter away. He straightened up his posture, holding Primus at his side. “If anybody can be an owl no matter what, then the same goes for hawks too. As long as you get to live doing whatever you want, someone like me will hunt you. Someone has to.” He coughed, sputtering out orange flames through his half-open visored helmet. “I’m gonna burn and drag all of you down to Yellen with me.”

Primus sighed. “Abdul…”

Abdul looked down at the two who’d frozen before him. He crossed his arms. “I only need one of you. Which of you will be more useful to me? Which of you will die, and which of you will become a traitor? Beg. Choose.”

Ricard inched back, looking between his machina and Abdul. “How? How do you live?”

Alumina trembled. The whole weapon shook in his wielder’s hands. “I couldn’t complete my attack. He awakened to the nature of his soul. Those flames within him rejected me. They hurt.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ricard shot back, bringing himself up to his feet.

“The hawk in his youth bore the worst of all tragedies. His flames were born from that Red Room. You can’t drive a man ready dead to suicide.”

Ricard readied into a combat stance, but Abdul jolted forward faster than expected. The right arm holding Alumina ripped off with a fountain of blood. Ricard’s scaled skin faded pale. He collapsed cold and dead within moments with a whimper.

Abdul pointed his claymore at the final owl. “Stand.”

Ignazio put his hands up in surrender. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

Primus chuckled. “Abdul, what in the world are you?”

“Hell if I know. I remember my mother and Almura, and I remember meeting Xavier and the battlefield.” He hesitated, falling into speculative thought. “But there are two years somewhere in the middle I can’t recall at all. They’re empty.”

The claymore let out an enthused “Hmm.” before looking down at Alumina. “Hey, why don’t you feed that hammer to me?”

“I’ve heard of this before. Will it make you stronger?”

“It will.”

“Then chow down. How do we do this?”

“Stab me into its eye.”

Abdul followed accordingly. Alumina lay on the ground, breathing quickly. “Please, no! I don’t want to die! I’ll do anything! I’ll even form a contract with you! You can use me!”

Abdul shook his head. “I’ve got no use for a machina so weak.”

“I’m not weak! You’re just strong!”

“Tomayto, tomahto.”

Primus giggled as he absorbed Alumina’s energy through its blade. He mocked him. “Looks like your future is grave! Get it? It’s because we’re near a graveyard. Do you get this context-based pun?! This pun that only works due to our setting?! This pun that didn’t need explaining?! Not so funny now that you’re the victim, aye? Ima genius!”

The hammer’s cries fizzled out. Primus chattered to Abdul. “I’m not old enough a weapon to know myself for sure, but the legend is that machina were made to split up and seal the power of The Gods into tiny fragments. By reuniting us, you’re taking me a step closer to Convergence and godhood! Rejoice, boy!”

“You’d be a horrible god though. Maybe I should have taken up the hammer’s offer and fed you to him,” Abdul said. He tossed Primus down next to Ignazio. “Stand. Use the sword as a cane or something.”

Ignazio nodded apprehensively. “Too damn heavy. Guess I shouldn’t have expected you to be courteous enough to bring a wheelchair.”

Primus looked up at their new prisoner of war. “I’m accessible to weaklings, feeble human.”

“Augh, let’s just get this shit over with.” Ignazio raised his owl’s mask to catch a better breath. He revealed a rather boring young face and blonde curly hair.

Seeing this gave Abdul an idea. “Mask of the owl?” He muttered before kneeling next to Ricard’s corpse to retrieve his now bloodied mask. Unlike the usual black iron ones he’d seen, there were accents of gold and silver displayed here. “If I were to wear this, I’d pass as an owl. A disguise. That right?” He asked Ignazio who stood leaning on Primus.

Ignazio shrugged. “Maybe. High owls have their own uniquely designed masks made to show their rank though. Everybody knew and respected Ricard… Could cause a problem walking in there with his shit. You’d want a low owl’s mask instead.” He took his off completely and handed it to Abdul. “Like mine here. Go ahead, keep it.”

“You’re awfully relaxed.”

“What choice do I have right now? Can’t fight or run on this luck. This sure is my luck. If I cooperate and tell you whatever the fuck you need to know, will you let me go? You gonna let me live?”

“The only good owl is a dead one, but perhaps. Depends on how things go.”

Primus squinted, darting his focus between the two. “As long as Abdul doesn’t end up drunk under the same roof as you, you should be safe.”