Unfortunately I don't have enough buffer this time to put up an extra chapter, so I'll be back next Sunday.

So Vomit boy actually had a spine.

Cardin kicked a stone off the path and watched as it skittered into the trees. Maybe this whole thing would be worth it just to put the idiot in his place, but being ordered around by some living noodle who couldn't even fight rankled. He kicked another stone.

"I must say," the Huntsman they were shadowing called out from above them, "this new method you two have developed for attracting the Grimm is brilliant."

"New method?" Cardin's eyes narrowed.

"Being so insufferable to one another that you draw every Grimm in the sector."

Jaune made a pathetic little half-laughing noise that made Cardin want to pick him up and shake him. He couldn't, though, because he was playing nice. Another kick, another pebble sent spinning into the forest.

They weren't talking. That was fine—boring, but probably better than listening to his 'leader' babbling. Cardin flicked his wrist, spun his mace around in his hand, then slung it over his shoulder. "This is taking forever."

"Trust me, they've sensed you already," the Huntsman said. "It's just a matter of communicating with one another and gathering into a pack. I'm guessing the other six were too impatient to wait for the rest. Happens with young Grimm."

Cardin rolled his eyes. It was like he was back in one of Port's lectures. With less storytelling, which was an improvement, but still. See Grimm, kill Grimm—that was all he needed.

"Come get some!" he shouted, kicking another rock. It struck something that let out a low growl.

"Oh." Jaune backed up a step. "I guess we found them."

"You guess?" Cardin reached out to shove him.

Jaune turned around and glared. "Remember our deal."

Cardin was tempted to just punch him. But that could wait until after the idiot dropped the ball and got himself demoted. Instead he just flipped his 'partner' the bird and turned his attention to the trees. Pairs of red eyes started emerging from behind trees and bushes. One pair was much higher up than the others.

"Right." Jaune looked around. "Let's do this."

Cardin moved forward towards where he could see the Alpha was. "Cardin, wait!" He took another step, turned, and scowled.

"If your grand strategy is having me do nothing—"

"My grand strategy is having you not wander off into the middle of all of them." Jaune pointed to the spot next to him. "Stay."

"I'm not a fucking dog!"

"Cardin!"

Muttering darkly under his breath, Cardin moved so that he and Jaune were back to back. The Beowolves began emerging from the undergrowth, teeth bared. His Aura was mostly recovered, and Jaune's had apparently never broken in the first place. Probably because he'd been cowering under his shield the whole time.

He took a swing at the first monster that came at him, knocking it back. Then he tried to turn, only to bump shoulders with Jaune.

"Stay there, I'll move forward a bit."

Cardin's free hand twitched. It was getting harder to convince himself this bullshit would be worth it. He snarled and smashed the next Beowolf over the head, then kicked it. It shook itself, then jumped at him again. Another moved at the same time, and while he was putting the one down the other latched onto his arm. He tried to bash it over the head, but it kept yanking him around and making it harder to aim.

"I got it." Jaune moved around him and slashed the monster across the throat. It let go and started to dissolve, and Cardin gave the other boy a shove.

"I don't need your help—"

Jaune rolled his eyes and for half a second Cardin wondered if one of their other teammates had possessed the guy somehow. Then he moved around so that they were back to back again.

Another two attacked him, but he managed to keep them both at bay with a sweeping blow with his mace. He stepped forward, swung left. Then right. Another step.

"Cardin!"

Something slammed into his back and bowled him over. It turned out one of the smaller Beowolves. Cardin managed to heave it off himself and get back to his feet, then swing at its neck and kill it. He turned around, then smirked at the sight of a pair of Beowolves playing tug-of-war with Jaune. One had a mouthful of his right glove, the other his left pant leg.

"Some help would be nice," Jaune said. Cardin stepped forward and slammed one of them into the ground. The other got a sword through the neck.

"Thanks."

"Any time you want to start pulling your own weight..."

"Okay, maybe I'll take that thank-you back."

Cardin returned to his spot behind Jaune, then realized with a shock that there were only three of the monsters left. The Alpha was just reaching them, having mostly watched while its pack was slaughtered. Now it approached the two of them, circling.

"Might want to be careful," the annoying Huntsman said. "One of you is a little low on Aura. I'm sure you can guess which."

"Oh, shut up," Cardin snarled. He was tough, had been since he was a kid. Jaune apparently had a ridiculous amount of Aura, which really just made him an excellent Grimm chew toy considering he couldn't swing a sword to save his stupid life.

"Okay!" Jaune tapped him on the shoulder. "I'll handle the Alpha, you get rid of the other two."

"Like you can take that fucking—"

"I said handle, not take. We can deal with it together after the other two are gone."

Cardin scoffed. Right, so he was going to have to do everything. He turned on the two Beowolves, managing to hit one in the foreleg before either attacked him. The other jumped on him, and he had to kick it away before he brought his mace around and crushed its skull. The other limped toward him and was dispatched. Easy.

Until it wasn't. Something slammed into him and then he and Jaune were both rolling on the ground, tangling up and losing both sword and mace. Cardin landed sprawled across both his partner's legs, with the Alpha getting ready to bite his head off.

"Duck!"

"No shit!" Cardin rolled to the left so that he was out of the way, then watched the monster collide with Jaune's shield. It snarled and snapped at him over the edge. "So much for handling the Alpha."

"Yeah, well I wasn't expecting it to bat me around like a baseball!"

Then the Alpha pulled the shield down with one massive paw and tried to bite his head off. Jaune yelped and tripped over himself, then rolled to his feet with the shield still raised. Cardin started looking around for his mace. He found it, scooped it up, and charged the monster.

It met him halfway, crouched down, then lifted him up by the leg with its teeth. He swore, then felt himself launched through the air. For a moment he was flying, and then a tree hit him in the back and he landed face-down on the forest floor. He groaned and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Cardin!" He shook his head, wincing. That had hurt, and Jaune's annoying voice was not helping.

"Cardin you really need to get up!"

He lurched to his feet, swinging his mace as the Beowolf lunged at him. He hit it in the side of the jaw and snapped its head to the side, but it kept on coming. Jaune was running at the pair of them with his shield held high.

"Climb!"

Cardin moved before he could think, reaching up and heaving himself up into the lowest branches of the tree he'd smashed into. The Alpha roared and jumped for him, and he had to climb another two branches before he was out of its reach. Then he glanced down at Jaune.

"Are all your plans this pathetic?"

"Shut up and listen!" Jaune winced and backed away when the Alpha turned its attention back to him. "When I tell you, jump out of the tree."

"What?"

"You're really low on Aura. Like, probably can't take more than a couple hits low. So I guess that makes me the bait."

"Bait?" Surely, even Jaune wasn't that much of an idiot.

Except now he was throwing rocks at the Alpha, and Cardin realized that he hadn't picked up his fucking sword. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He edged along the branch a little, then stopped when it started making uncomfortable noises. Then he shrugged and leaned back against the trunk to watch. It wasn't like the moron could get himself killed with a Huntsman watching them, anyway.

Jaune advanced slowly, then circled around the Beowolf until he was between it and the tree. It growled, long and low, then bounded towards him. He backpedaled, tripped over a root, and landed on his ass.

"Nice moves," Cardin called out.

Sure, he could probably have gone down there and helped, but Almighty Jaune had told him not to. Not his fault if that meant he got a show.

Jaune managed to get up, though not before taking a slash from the Alpha's claws across the face. Then he started backing up again, waving his shield around like a maniac. He clipped the Alpha's nose with it at one point, and it headbutted him into a tree.

"Still awaiting your command, O glorious leader." Cardin snickered and tossed a twig down. It bounced off Jaune's head.

"Really not helping my concentration any!"

Jaune retreated so that he was right in front of the tree Cardin was standing in. He looked up, screwed up his face... and then let the Alpha bite down on his arm. He yanked it forward so that the monster's head was just a few feet away from the trunk of the tree and yelled, "Now! Aim for the back of the neck!"

Cardin gaped at him for a second—that had to be the dumbest thing he'd ever seen anyone do on purpose—and then jumped. He charged up his mace as he fell, then smashed it down on the back of the Alpha's neck. There was a bang, a snap, and the beast went limp.

"Ow," Jaune hissed, shaking his hand. "Ow. Okay, that was not fun and I am never doing it again."

Above them, someone started clapping. It was a slow, sarcastic kind of clap, and was followed by the Huntsman dropping down out of the canopy. "Much better done," he said, clapping Jaune on the shoulder.

It took that long for Cardin to remember their bet. He'd been so caught up in the adrenaline and the thrill of killing the little bastards he'd hardly even thought about it.

"That's not—" he started to say.

"No take-backs," Jaune said.

"All you did was tell me to jump out of a fucking tree! How is that leadership?!"

"He's no General Gladiolus," the Huntsman agreed, "but the other half of the pack is dead and I didn't have to lift a finger."

"Thanks?" Jaune shook his head. "Look, if you're going to go back on your word just because you're a sore loser or something—"

"Screw you!" Cardin folded his arms. "That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen, and it was definitely luck."

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Don't care. You lost, I won, and I am done having this argument. Are you going to play ball?"

Cardin snarled at him. "I'm not your underling."

"No." Jaune stood straight and lowered his shield. "You're my teammate. And I'm still your leader. We made a deal, and you're going to respect that. Clear?"

For the first time, Cardin noticed that the arm he'd let the Alpha chew on was bleeding. Not heavily, but there were little spots of red showing through the bracer on his forearm. He glowered at his partner.

He hadn't thought he might lose. Not when the last fight had gone so badly, and when Jaune acted like such a useless moron. "That was all luck," he said.

"You can call it that if you want." Blue eyes bored into him. Jaune held out a hand. "Are you going to keep your word?"

Cardin worked his jaw, then grabbed the hand. Shook it. "Fine." His stomach churned at the word. It felt acidic, stinging and burning on the way out of his mouth. He glared, stuck his chin out, squared his shoulders. He wasn't some fucking stooge.

The whole thing was just luck. Just dumb fucking luck, and he wasn't going to take it lying down. He'd play along for now, maybe, because he wasn't the kind of coward that ducked out of a deal like that. It was just a matter of time until he got the chance to put Jaune back in his place.

The whole way back, he found that it was hard to look his leader in the eye.

"Of all the ridiculous—"

"—civic-minded, at least."

"Absolutely inexcusable—"

"—albeit rather effective."

"Ozpin." Glynda Goodwitch glared at their headmaster, then turned to survey the students in front of her. "You could have died."

Nora grinned sheepishly. "But... we didn't?" Goodwitch glared at her, and she slowly lowered her head to stare at her feet.

"It was my idea," Ruby said.

Yang stood a little straighter. "Hey, no it wasn't! Looking into Junior was my fault!"

"I should have said something," Ren added. "Before we went inside."

Nora gaped at him. "But we all ran out ahead of you! I mean, I always do that, it's not your—"

"As heartwarming as it is to see that you are all eager to take your share of the blame," Ozpin said dryly, "I believe it is safe to assume that the fault is just that—shared."

Goodwitch took a deep breath. "The four of you endangered yourselves and one another. You brawled with criminals in the middle of Vale. Past curfew." Nora felt her heart sinking lower and lower with every word.

"With that said," Ozpin interjected. Or, well... tried to interject.

"Not only that," Goodwitch continued, cutting him off completely, "This is the second time some of you have acted like this." Her gaze turned to Nora and Yang. "You are Huntsmen and Huntresses. You are not vigilantes!"

"With that said." Ozpin drew himself up to his full height. Goodwitch didn't interrupt him again. "You also worked together and protected one another. Not to mention the fourteen tons of raw Dust you managed to recover, most of it smuggled here from other kingdoms."

"Smuggled?" Ruby blurted out. "Not stolen?"

"Not precisely," Ozpin said, smiling. "It is still very illegal, particularly considering the recent... issues Vale has been having surrounding the sale of Dust. You've caught some unsavory individuals profiting off the misfortune of the city."

The four of them exchanged looks. Then they turned to Ruby, all silently wondering—Should we tell him? She stared back, a bit shellshocked.

"Um," she said, after a moment. "We were wondering... if maybe this might be connected to Torchwick?"

"How so?" Ozpin asked. Nora narrowed her eyes at him. That smirk looked way too knowing.

"Well, um... it's just that Torchwick is apparently gathering a bunch of Dust, and so was Junior. It seems... connectable."

"That is not your concern, Miss Rose," Goodwitch snapped. "What is your concern is how exactly the four of you are to be punished for this... incident."

"But we caught a criminal!" Yang protested. Nora shuffled to the side and stepped on her foot. She'd seen that look on authority figures before.

"Indeed you have," Ozpin said, still smiling cryptically.

Goodwitch glared at him. "Yes," she gritted out. "And in doing so, you apparently decided that a firefight in the middle of a warehouse full of volatile Dust was the optimal place to apprehend said criminal. And, of course, that you four should investigate rather than calling in a teacher. Or—and I say this knowing that the very words themselves are meaningless to you—the proper authorities."

Nora traded another sidelong glance with Ren and the others. "Well," Ruby said, wincing when Goodwitch looked at her. "We just thought... um..."

"We are an institution that trains heroes." Nora had to fight down a sigh of relief when Ozpin started talking again. "Granted, this entire situation could have been better handled—and you will be punished—but the fact remains that you have proven successful."

Goodwitch gave him another look, a bit like the one Ren had worn the first and only time Nora had tried to do the cooking. He kept talking. "Of course, it is just this sort of investigation that you will doubtless be responsible for once you graduate." He smiled warmly at them. "But do try and wait for that to happen."

"Of course!" Yang replied, grinning back. Nora forced a sunny smile of her own, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the others doing the same. Goodwitch's eye twitched.

"The four of you will be receiving quite a lot of detention," she said, scanning each of their faces in turn. Ozpin gave her a look. "Two weeks," she gritted out. "One hour every Tuesday and Thursday evening." It looked like she really wanted to add something else, but in the end she just gestured sharply at the door. The four of them fled the room like it was on fire.

"Oh, man," Yang groaned as they exited, resting her hands on her knees. "I think she was trying to kill me with a glare."

Ruby nodded, eyes wide. "I've never seen her that mad before!"

"Or annoyed," Yang added, snickering. "Did you see her face when Ozpin started talking?"

Nora frowned. "It's weird, though," she said.

"What is?" Ren asked.

"Ozpin. I mean, I get why Goodwitch is mad. Teachers are supposed to be like that when you do something crazy."

"We'd know," Yang said, holding up a fist. Nora bumped it.

"It's just... he's not even annoyed at us."

"Well, he was a lot like that when I met him," Ruby pointed out. "I fought Torchwick, and Goodwitch was really angry until he talked to me and offered me a spot in Beacon."

"I'm not complaining or anything," Nora insisted. "It's just weird, that's all."

Very weird, actually. She remembered BRYN's punishment for going off into the Emerald forest—that had been over a month of Saturday detentions. It made what they'd gotten today seem kind of tiny by comparison, and maybe this was just her but she didn't think it had been that much crazier than their fight with Junior. Plus, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not Saturdays and Sundays, where the extra time spent cooped up in some classroom would keep them from doing what they were doing.

Ozpin hadn't punished the rest of BRYN and RSPR either. Sure, they hadn't run away like Sky, but... he didn't know they'd been helping, did he?

Ruby woke up feeling like she'd spent the night in a blender.

"Gah..." she wheezed, rolling herself over. She ended up on the floor, tangled up in blankets and making little groans of annoyance and pain.

"Are you okay?" Pyrrha gently picked her up and propped her against the bed.

Ruby blinked a few times. "Yep." She gave her teammates a shaky thumbs-up. "Just, y'know, sore in places I didn't think I had."

"I'm not surprised," Ren said. "Yesterday was... harrowing."

"And awesome." Ruby shook her head back and forth to clear out the cobwebs. "Don't forget awesome."

Pyrrha made a face. "I heard from Nora that you and Yang both nearly died."

"Pfft." Ruby waved a hand. "Nearly dying is, like, a rite of passage for our teams."

"Still." Pyrrha hesitated, then patted her on the shoulder. "I... don't like hearing you've been in danger."

"I'm fine." Honestly, people kept acting like she was gonna blow over in a stiff breeze. "And anyway, we did it! We got Junior!"

"You... what now?" Sky winced when the other two looked at him. "I mean, um... I didn't really get the debriefing on what happened last night."

"I told you!" Ruby said indignantly.

"Well, yeah. You told me... while you had your face in your pillow. I think you fell asleep halfway through."

"...Um, okay. Short version is that Junior was working for Torchwick and we totally got him, even though one of them got away. But I think he was working for someone else, someone above Junior."

Sky nodded slowly. "So... the whole scouting thing—"

Pyrrha sighed. "It's not like we did much better. Especially when someone thought it would be a good idea to fall off a catwalk."

Ruby cocked her head and looked from one to the other. Pyrrha was being weird at Sky, but that had been happening so often that it was mostly the new normal. Sky was staring at his feet.

"You know what, you guys?" They looked at her. "We need a day out in Vale. This time without any almost dying. Just as a team, right?"

"Don't we have... um... investigating to do?" Sky asked.

"It probably wouldn't be a good idea right now," Ren said. "Professor Goodwitch is angry enough as it is. Better to wait until things die down a little."

"Yeah." Ruby narrowed her eyes at them. "And you guys are still being weird."

Pyrrha and Sky both went scarlet, while Ren looked anywhere but at his partner. "See?! Weird. So let's go do something fun to celebrate being the youngest Hunters to take down a crime lord! Even if Junior is the lamest crime lord ever."

Sky wanted to hang out in the library, and Ruby suspected he was probably planning to do even more research on the sly while she wasn't looking. Pyrrha thought that going to the gym counted as a fun activity to unwind after a giant battle and subsequent chewing out by the administration. Ren started eyeing his bed.

"We're going to the arcade!" Ruby declared. Usually she liked leading democratically and everything, but... c'mon.

They went, though Sky wouldn't talk unless someone made him and Pyrrha was doing that thing she sometimes did where she smiled instead of actually joining the conversation. Ren was Ren. Ruby decided that if something didn't change by the end of the day she was gonna lock all of them in a closet. She wasn't totally sure how that was supposed to help, but she'd heard Yang mention it before and she really was desperate.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" she called out, gesturing to the Arcade's front door. "Or, I mean... I guess Lady and Gentlemen since it's sort of weird to count myself. And I'm not really that much of a lady, so—"

"What game would you recommend?" asked Ren. Ruby really liked having him around when she started rambling.

"Um..." Ruby looked frantically between the three of them, thinking fast. "Pyrrha would probably like skee ball... for Ren, maybe Dance Dance Revolution? And, Sky... we could look around and try to find something?"

Ren cocked his head to the side. "Isn't the idea to bond over playing games together?"

"Yes!" Ruby hesitated. "Just, um..." How do Yang and Nora do this stuff?! "I! Need. Um... to make sure we have a better sample of all the games we can play! I mean, if you guys don't go to arcades—"

"I've been a few times with Nora," Ren said. "Though this will probably be the first time where I don't get kicked out at the end."

Sky also raised his hand.

Aw, c'mon...

"Well, I've... never actually been to a place like this before." Pyrrha was turning a little pink. "It would be nice to have a little time to explore my options first. I wouldn't want to drag everyone into playing a game only to find out that I don't like it."

"Yeah!" Ruby paused. "Wait, no! Pyrrha, it's not dragging if we want to have fun with you."

There was a beat of silence.

"But, I mean, if you want to look around for a bit then that's great!"

Sky was giving her a really weird look, now. So were Ren and Pyrrha, actually.

"Can I just say I wanna talk to Sky for like ten minutes, and we can all pretend I did something super subtle and socially impressive to make that happen without anyone else noticing?"

Their faces cleared. "Oh," Sky said. Then he went pale. "Oh."

"It's nothing bad, I swear!" Ruby flailed her arms desperately. "It's just..." she glanced at Ren and Pyrrha. "Just... entertain yourselves! We'll be right back!" Then she fled into a mostly deserted corner in the maze of arcade games, with one—and only one!—of her teammates in tow. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"I should make Yang give me talking lessons," she decided.

Sky was shaking.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

He nodded. He wasn't looking her in the eye. "What... did you want to say?"

"Um." She scuffed her foot on the floor. The rug was covered in popcorn and soda stains. "Just that it wasn't your fault. Or... the first part was, and it kinda sucked, but I know you were trying."

Sky flushed right down to his Adam's apple. "You mean... before?"

"When we fought Torchwick, yeah." Ruby tried to grin, but it just wasn't there. "Look, I know everything's been kind of off since then, and... I don't like it. Pyrrha's mad at you, and I didn't even think she got mad at anyone, and Ren's being too quiet, and you're upset and..." She flailed her hands again, because talking was hard and she wasn't quite sure what she'd been trying to say in the first place.

"I'm sorry." He looked a bit like he might cry.

Ruby found herself tripping over her words a few times trying to reassure him. "I mean, wait! Just... not that it's off because of you, or... it's a little bit because of you and a little bit because of them and a little bit because... I'm not good at this. I came here to kill things with a giant scythe, I wasn't supposed to have to talk to people, and I kind of thought I'd be on a team with Yang and she could just... do all the talking." She sighed. "So I don't... I don't know how to deal with stuff like this, because people are complicated and this whole thing is complicated and... yeah."

Sky hesitated. "Well, you talked a lot about Pyrrha and Ren being mad at me. Are... are you mad at me?"

"What?" Ruby blinked. "No! I mean, it was... it was bad, looking around and realizing you were gone. But it's not like you just left us to die like people keep saying. You called Goodwitch! I'd rather fight five of Torchwick than call Goodwitch!"

"I called her because I didn't want to get myself hurt," Sky protested.

"And she sent Oobleck! That whole thing saved our lives!"

"That's not the point!" Sky sniffled a little and wiped his face on his sleeve. "Sorry. I just... I know. People keep telling me—Goodwitch, Pyrrha, your sister—"

"My sister?" Ruby froze. "When did Yang talk to you?"

If he'd gone pale before, when she told him she wanted to talk to him, he was whiter than Weiss now. "I, uh... it's not... forget I said anything."

Ruby knew that look. She'd been confronted with it way too many times not to recognize it. "What did she do?"

"It wasn't like that," he mumbled.

"Yes it was!" She folded her arms. "What did she do?!"

"...Nothing." His hand went up to touch his face.

"Oh my god."

"I said it was nothing!"

"Yang beat you up! That's just—I'm gonna—"

"No!" He shook his head vehemently. "It doesn't matter. She... she didn't do anything unfair."

"Unfair?"

He tapped his cheek, just under the eye, and his side. "Just... where you and Ren got hurt."

"That's what beating you up means, Sky!" Ruby started pacing back and forth. "Ugh. I can't believe her!"

"She was right, though."

"No, she wasn't!" Ruby jabbed a finger at him. "Okay, first thing! If I wanted to beat you up, I could do it myself!" She paused. "I didn't mean it like—"

"Yeah, no, you definitely could."

"...Yeah. But second, you saved our lives!"

"I didn't. Oobleck did."

"Because you called him!"

"Because I was too much of a useless coward to fight for myself!"

"Sky." Ruby flapped a hand at him. "Just... just stop for a second, okay? I'm not saying what you did was perfect, or the most heroic thing, or... or anything. I'm just..." she struggled for words. "It's like... like those little plastic floaties little kids use to swim."

"...What?"

"Shh! I'm trying to make a metaphor here. Like, they're not super aerodynamic or hydrodynamic or whatever, and maybe when you're wearing one you won't be able to swim as fast. But they're good. Because they make sure you don't go in over your head and drown. Like, say, if you're deciding to go and take down a super dangerous criminal, they'd want to go slower and make sure you have lots of information before you do anything crazy."

"So... I'm a plastic floaty thing."

"Yeah! And it's okay not to be perfect right now." She grinned. "I mean, look at us. Yang and Nora almost burned down a bar, Pyrrha's embarrassed about never going to an arcade before for some reason... Alabaster... and let's not even get started on me and how I waited until now to talk to you."

He started to protest, but she made sure to glare very sternly at him until he stopped.

"You're not perfect, Sky. None of us are. But... that's why we're teammates. We can help each other get better!"

There was a moment of stunned silence. Oh, no! I shouldn't have compared him to Alabaster, what if he thinks I think he's like Cardin?!

Then, "You're totally full of it."

"Bu—what?"

"I'm terrible at speeches, Sky. Look how bad I am at socializing, Sky. Lies, all lies!"

"Hey! I'll have you know, that's the least awkward I've ever been in my life!"

Sky grinned. "Well. I think you're pretty inspirational."

"Pfft, stop it!"

"A regular paragon."

"Am not!"

"A Beacon of hope, even!"

"Sky!"

I can feel my teeth rotting right now, send help.