Let it be known that Weiss was never a person to abscond from her duties and responsibilities. Lay a series of tasks upon her and she will complete it to the letter under most circumstances. However, she was now being informed of an awful combination of a deep burning in her lungs, the harsh wheezing of each breathe she took, and the distinct sensation of being skinned alive which currently emanated from her legs, both the muscles and the joints. This all clearly highlighted that Weiss had neglected something from her training regiment, far more than she thought.

Cardio.

Weiss thought that maybe all of the marching around they did in Mistral and Atlas would have compensated for the fitness loss she experienced after she was forcefully returned to her birthplace after the fall of Beacon, however it seemed that was not the case.

She knew she'd been getting a slight bit pudgier than she used to be, she'd assumed, hoped that her body was becoming a tad more "mature" and "filled out."

Unfortunately for her, the human body does not mature from overindulgence in vanilla ice cream.

Blake still remained unresponsive on her back, her head listlessly resting on her shoulder as Weiss performed what she could barely refer to as a sprint, it was far more similar to a light jog.

Although the patented bella-booty was making it feel anything but that.

Weiss could see Old Iron and Ruby running in the distance,given that they'd been running for several minutes now she had to assume they'd slowed down for her.

Weiss thought it would have been a lot nicer if they'd swapped bodies to carry, or if Ruby could have helped in some way, rather than running unburdened unlike the rest of them.

The mud under her feet was getting even soggier, clinging to her even harder than before, the weather must have worsened without her noticing, the heavy rain continued to batter down upon them.

It was incredibly loud rain, she could barely hear her own footsteps as she clattered along the ground.

And yet, she could still hear the loud pitter-patter of several different creatures chasing ever closer.

Jabberwalkers.

She briefly turned her head back, her own curiosity plaguing her.

They were far closer than she would have liked.

She had a few metres on them, at best.

She couldn't keep going like this for much longer.

Perhaps, this was the end for them? A gruelling chase that came out of nowhere, on their very first step towards the return they craved?

Weiss nearly vomited at the thought as her head turned forward.

She was broken from her inner monologue by a call from Old Iron, who was waving at her from a good distance away, no longer running alongside a now standing Yang and Ruby.

They had crossed a chasm of some sort over a dull & grey dead tree, stripped of all of its branches.

It was at this point Weiss remembered another weakness of hers.

Her balance.

Weiss balked at the notion of crossing this haphazard path, but she knew there wasn't another choice beyond giving up and allowing herself and Blake to die here.

She knew the Jabberwalkers wouldn't be able to get their large, lumbering bodies over such a narrow path. This overturned log was salvation for the moment.

She knew what she had to do.

Weiss bounded upwards and onto the log, feeling the log creak as she did so.

The log was rotten, and already breaking.

If Old Iron's heavy armour had survived the passing, she knew she could make it.

Weiss sets forth her steps as quickly and yet carefully as possible, even more difficult than it sounded given the creatures rapidly encroaching on what little lead she had on them.

With her tenth step, she'd met the halfway point of the log.

Weiss was knocked from her stride when she felt the log roll under her feet.

She stopped for a moment to place her footing properly, and turned back towards the Jabberwalkers.

There were dozens of them, all cawing and screeching at her from the other side of the chasm, piling over one another reaching out in her direction, as if she could be snatched from where she was.

Then she noticed the culprit.

A single Jabberwalker sat idly at the base of the log, almost like a dog. It's hand was wrapped around the end of the log, and it was rotating and sliding the log around.

There was something inherently different about this one, that much was clear.

It didn't look different to the others, apart from one distinct feature. A single one of its horns was a sharp white, far brighter than natural white horns made from ivory would typically allow, as if it had been painted or had some kind of magical property.

This one was smarter than the rest, considerably so. Did these creatures have pack leaders and chains of command like the Grimm?

Weiss couldn't allow her fear, nor her curiosity to get in the way of survival, for her and Blake.

She turned back to her friends, and continued her steps forward.

One step. Two steps. Three steps.

The log slides to the left and twists to the right, Weiss has to shimmy her feet to the side repeatedly to keep herself on the log below, lowering her torso down towards the surface to try and get a better balance.

Four steps. Five steps. Six steps.

Weiss hears a loud crack behind her as the surface below her feet creaks even louder.

She didn't need to turn her head back to see what had happened, she could take a guess.

And her guess was that she had a couple seconds to get to the other side of this chasm, tops.

One large bound is all she could get before the log caved in below her, and her second bound got her nowhere.

Weiss reached out to the cliffs edge, just a hair away from her.

She watched in horror as she just barely missed the edge by a foot.

Weiss felt an incredible pressure on her hand, and her descent rapidly stopped as she and Blake slapped against the cliff wall.

Weiss looked up, to see Old Iron, glaring down at them, clearly furious over something.

He silently yanked both of them up to the ground once again, with an almost comedic lack of effort.

Weiss released Blake from her torso, letting the now partially conscious Blake to sit by herself, while Weiss desperately attempted to catch her breath.

Old Iron got down on one knee, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"That was a very close play, you almost didn't make it… We'll have to work on that."

Weiss chuckled at that, and to her surprise Old Iron joined her, in his own gravelly baritone way.

"We can't waste time talking, we have to keep moving!" Yang screamed out with a bellow, seemingly fully recovered from her brush with fate.

Old Iron flicked his gaze towards her, and muttered out his own monotone response.

"No need… This chasm goes from edge to edge of this region from what I can tell, nothing can cross it without some kind of bridge."

Yang flopped to the ground, relief washing over her just as much as the rain was.

Weiss took note of Yang's dirtied and matted mane, covered in mud and soaked through much like everyones hair, besides Old Iron… if he even had any hair.

Once Yang realised, Weiss was certain she'd undoubtedly go off like a firework in her usual fashion.

Unfortunately, Yang had bigger concerns.

"Blake… What the FUCK!" Yang screamed out like a toddler mid-temper tantrum, glaring at Blake with every ounce of vitriol she could muster in her still panicked state.

Blake seemed to curl even further into herself as the weight of her actions, or lack thereof, settled in.

Yang's tirade continued. "That thing snuck up on me, and you… you heard it, you saw it, and you didn't FUCKING DO ANYTHING!"

Weiss couldn't tell if it was rain or tears pouring down her face.

"I needed you, and you left me again! You promised!" Yang was snarling & growling like an animal, Yang attempted to point her finger at Blake, but was thwarted, as she was trying to point with her dominant hand.

The hand that was currently missing.

Yang seemed to get even angrier, her snarl deepening even more, swinging up her other arm wildly and rapidly closing in on Blake.

"YOU PROMISED ME!"

Even Old Iron flinched at the sheer volume of this screech.

"I needed you, and you weren't there AGAIN!"

It was at this point Weiss remembered just how hard the fall of Beacon had affected Yang in particular. It was hard to remember that Yang even had a period like that sometimes, given how headstrong and confident she could be most of the time, but all of them knew that Yang wasn't alright inside anymore.

To be fair, none of them were alright anymore, but Yang got it first, and arguably, she lost the most.

Add onto that her fear of being abandoned, thanks to Raven, and it was rather obvious what this about. Blake had, at some point, promised Yang that she wouldn't leave her again. And while Blake didn't go back on her word directly, what she did might actually have hurt Yang even more.

Considering how Blake had reacted at the time, and given that she was still borderline catatonic, Weiss doubted any of this was intentional.

It was a damned shame that Yang didn't see it that way.

Yang screamed as her left hand clenched into a shaking fist, swinging a wild haymaker directly at Blake's head.

Weiss and Old Iron had moved to act, but Ruby moved first.

Yang only missed because of Ruby's intervention, and while Ruby intervening wasn't surprising, her method sure was.

Ruby had directed Yangs fist off-course by jabbing her in the stomach, and pushing her to the floor by her waist.

Weiss and Old Iron visibly flinched as Yangs head clattered against the muddy surface of this rapidly flooding forest.

If Yang wasn't pissed about her hair before, she'll be fucking furious now.

Yang started writing on the ground, furiously trying to get back to her feet, Ruby was struggling to keep her planted on the ground, even with Yang lacking an arm.

As quickly as they could, Weiss and Old Iron scrambled towards Yang, with Weiss wrenching Yangs arm down to the ground and Old Iron placing his knee against Yangs midsection, just below her breasts.

Yang continued to writhe and scream on the ground, rubbing the filth even deeper into herself as she howled like a wounded dog, incomprehensible wailing that didn't have any sort of language behind them, although the howling itself did speak of far more sorrow than fury.

They spent minutes like this, watching with bated breath as Yang ever so slowly ran out of energy, and eventually, finally, stopped screaming, stopped clawing, stopped moving.

Weiss cast her gaze back towards Blake, finding her in the exact same position as she had been several minutes prior, still frozen in preparation for the blow Yang fully intended to deliver.

Weiss looked back towards Old Iron, who seemed to already understand what she needed him to do before she could even ask him.

Weiss remembered how often Jaune used to do that for her all the time before… this fate. Especially during their time in Atlas.

Old Iron stretched over and grabbed Yangs arm, planting her to the ground with far more force than Weiss was capable of delivering.

Weiss got to her feet, and slowly staggered towards Blake's curled up figure, leaning against the base of one of the hundreds of nearby trees. Her ears twitched continuously as the harsh rain continued to beat down on her delicate feline features.

Weiss dropped to her knee just in front of Blake, barely able to keep her balance in this terrible environment, and placed a hand, gently, on her shoulder.

Blake, suddenly, snapped to attention, eyes beady and twitching.

"Blake, you there?"

Blake's grubby hands reached out in an uncoordinated manner, loosely pawing at Weiss's chest, pulling her closer into a makeshift embrace.

One, that Weiss returned.

She felt Blake begin the violently quiver below her.

Was she freezing? Was hypothermia setting in?

Weiss heard Blake suck in a gasp, loud and pained.

Blake was not freezing, and clawing for warmth.

Blake was sobbing, seeking what little comfort she could get after her lover almost damn-near broke her jaw.

Of course, for Blake this was far more meaningful than some petty domestic violence.

This was a betrayal of everything their relationship was meant to be, and knowing Blake, she was almost definitely blaming herself for this, much like she did with everything else she had ever been involved with.

She had blamed herself for the Fall of Beacon, despite being exclusively a side-target for one of the many perpetrators.

She had blamed herself for seemingly the entirety of the White Fang and their recent jump from protest to genocide, despite playing a relatively minor role as a scout for The Bull that once stood alongside her, occasionally she'd act as an assassin too, although she rarely admitted to that part of her prior career.

And most importantly in this case, she blamed herself for Yangs state, her disarmament happened, in her mind, purely because bad luck follows black cats wherever they go. Of course, if Yang had actually listened to Blake's warning literally 10 seconds before Yang attempted to dive bomb at an international terrorist with a decade more field experience and a semblance tailor-made to counter her own, Yang likely wouldn't have lost her arm in that fight.

Blake would not let her friend blame herself for Yangs own fuck up again.

Weiss lowered herself to the level of Blakes ear, and whispered to her, just barely audible above the cascading rain.

"You froze back there, I'll assume that's to do with Faunus senses?"

Blake slowly nodded, rubbing her head against Weiss's chest (or lack thereof) as she moved.

"Then you know you could not have stopped it"

"...I should have been better" Blake said back, quietly yet rapidly, with all of the self-hatred within her clearly coming to bare.

"It wasn't your fault, Blake."

"It was…" Blake grumbled out, notably quieter than before, though still audible.

"It wasn't your fault, Blake."

"Stop…" Blake whispered out.

"It wasn't your fault, Blake"

Weiss was met with silence.

Weiss raised her head away from Blake's faunus ear. "It wasn't your fault, we all know that. If Yang won't see it that way, you will always have us." Weiss said loudly, more than enough for everyone to hear.

"Ruby won't leave Yang, and you won't leave Ruby, and then I'll be alone again." Blake said with a broken pitch, sobbing as she spoke.

"Ruby knows right from wrong, I know she'd stick with you through this."

Weiss moved to the side to allow Blake to see the rest of their group, and turned to look towards Ruby with an expecting look.

Ruby put on a small smile as she raised both of her hands into a thumbs up position.

She heard Old Iron, just behind Ruby, sigh very loudly, and then give his own thumbs up.

Weiss turned back towards Blake, noting that Blake didn't look any happier.

"What's wrong Blake?"

"I DON'T WANT YANG TO BE ALONE EITHER!" Blake bellowed out far louder than anyone was expecting.

"And she won't be, we can't afford to leave anyone behind, not here, not now, not ever."

Blake seemed to calm down slightly as her posture loosened slightly, and her breathing steadied.

With Blake's panic attack relatively cowed, Weiss returned her attention to the raging mongrel typically referred to as "Yang", who was still pinned down in the mud, now unmoving and borderline catatonic, breathing steadily with deadened eyes that didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. Her remaining hand had finally uncurled from the tightened fist, dirtied and stained by the mud below her. Weiss hoped to Oum she hadn't cut her hand open with her nails again, they could not afford Yang getting infected at a time like this. Yang's condition was already below optimal given the missing arm and weapons, but at least she was able to get around by herself. Yang losing her mobility would kill their ability to run if they wound up in Jabberwalker territory again, and a grievous decision would have to be made, leaving Yang behind or trying to carry her out, which barely worked out this time, and likely wouldn't work if the run was any longer. Perhaps Old Iron would be able to do it a lot longer than her, given that he didn't even seem winded by the run to this cliff with Yang on his back, but given how much pain that dealt him, that wasn't exactly a comfortable thought either.

At least she'd calmed down and wasn't trying to concuss her girlfriend, which certainly helps.

Turning her attention to Ruby and Old Iron, Weiss took a moment to think since the situation had finally calmed down.

Ruby had been worrying her ever since they landed in this place, she hadn't been vocal at all which was already a massive discrepancy, she didn't have Crescent Rose with her and normally that would make her a living anxiety attack until she got a hold of her precious scythe again, and yet she seemed to be entirely unbothered which was far more worrying than how little she had spoken.

Come to think of it, had Ruby spoken at all since they got here?

Beyond that, her greatest concern was that fight they had with that… thing just before Yang was attacked.

Ruby had jumped in to assist in combat, which Weiss was grateful for of course, however her methods were frankly alien to her, and alien to Ruby for that matter.

Ruby had picked up a blade she had never seen before, and used it with a level of grace and balance that Ruby, frankly, did not have. Nobody had ever seen Ruby move like that, maybe that was her old fighting style before she made Crescent Rose, however that would create even more questions because why would she abandon a fighting style she was clearly competent in to change over to a weapon that had no transferable skills or design similarities? Even if Ruby had seemingly pulled this combat prowess out of her undersized behind, the concept of Ruby being capable of grace in combat comparable to Weiss' own, was rather insulting to her, if she was honest.

Another thing to note was that Ruby still had that blade with her, obviously there was no sheathe or anything for it so she just dropped it on the ground when Yang started swinging.

Actually, that gave Weiss another question she likely wasn't going to get an answer to anytime soon, since when did Ruby have the body strength to tackle anyone to the ground, let alone someone as physically dominant as Yang, sure she was missing an arm but she was still built like a brick wall as far as women went. Moreover, Ruby's takedown was far too coordinated to have been an untrained attack. Ruby had never mentioned any physical training before beyond using Crescent Rose, in fact it was one of her greatest weaknesses that practically everyone on her team had noted before, Ruby was useless in combat without Crescent Rose, she could barely swing a punch, something that even Weiss could do with some success… So where did this come from? She hadn't learned it in Mistral because quite frankly there wasn't anybody around to teach her, and even when Qrow was with them he had similar problems to Ruby, not as bad as her or anything like that, but his workaround with this weakness was to fight dirty, throwing dirt or sand into his opponents eyes or kicking them in the genitals was his method, and Ruby had never stooped to that level of desperation. The entirety of RNJR wasn't getting any training at that time, and Ruby certainly hadn't had the time to learn anything like that at Atlas given the gravity of the situation in Atlas from the moment they arrived to the moment they went into the portal.

There was a problem with getting answers to this riddle; Ruby wasn't being particularly verbal at the moment, and if she wouldn't explain anything about her unexpected skills, then Weiss would have to defer to Yang, who was currently flipping between furious and catatonic like a ball in a pinball machine.

On top of this, there was also a mountain of other small details that worried her. The brown pearl necklaces that had seemingly appeared on her at random that she couldn't remember Ruby ever having prior to falling, how quickly she just accepted that talking rat as a friend, who was presumably still in her pockets somewhere, her worrying behaviour back at the village of giant sentient tableware where she had essentially thrown a child to escape.

Funny how she had been furious at Ruby over this just a short while ago, and yet now Yang's lack of social awareness had somehow bothered Weiss far more than Ruby committing manslaughter.

It worried her, all of it did. Her friend was rapidly showing an alarming list of oddities and nobody could explain it.

Regardless of what happened, Ruby was her friend, the very best anyone could have asked for, and Weiss would not let mere worries cloud her perception of her friend.

This was Ruby, and Weiss would stick by her side, regardless of what had to be done to survive.

Weiss certainly wasn't going to get an answer to her questions any time soon, but thankfully she had far bigger concerns at the moment, even beyond Yang and Blake's fallout.

Old Iron.

There were plenty of odd discrepancies with him, but she'd noticed something far more alarming.

At some point either during or after their last fight, a dark red stain had started spreading across the right side of his armour's faulds, at his waist.

Old Iron was seemingly bleeding. He hadn't been struck at any point during their fight, not that Weiss could remember anyway, so either there was more magical bullshit at play, or Old Iron had aggravated a recent injury sprinting his way here with Yang atop his back.

He didn't seem to be letting it slow him down, and he certainly hadn't mentioned anything about it, but that wasn't exactly comforting either.

Old Iron was rather crucial to their survival, so none of RWBY could afford to let him work himself to death to keep them alive, regardless of how he felt about it.

She'd deal with him later, once they were somewhere dry and warm if possible, but before they could treat his problems they had to get Yang back on her feet and moving, and hopefully also keep her violence in check.

Weiss looked down at Yang, feeling a strange sense of pity wash over her.

"Yang." Weiss called out.

Yang blinked, and turned her head slightly towards Weiss.

Weiss got down on her knees in front of her, and used her hands to force Yang to look her in the eye.

"Yang, can you stand?"

Yang didn't respond for a few long seconds, and then eventually, slowly, nodded.

"Do you think you can still walk?"

Yang nodded again, faster than the last.

Weiss took a moment to figure out how to word her next question. The most important question she had to ask.

Finally, Weiss spoke.

"Is Blake going to be alright?"

Yang wrenched her head out of Weiss' grip as violently as someone pinned to the ground could, directing her attention to Blake, fury practically boiling within her.

Weiss watched as Yang took in what she had done to Blake, how much she had terrified the poor girl, and the fury rapidly melted away like an ice cube in a microwave.

Something then clicked in Weiss' mind, and she imagined Yang was making a similar connection at the moment in her own mind as well.

All of them knew Blake had a bad childhood given that she was a runaway who'd gotten stuck into the White Fang in a relatively high ranking field position, if you could even call it that given the White Fang's notable lack of leadership and chain of command outside of the high leader and splinter cell leaders, and that one lieutenant they had in Vale. She'd been attached to Adam Taurus since childhood, she'd watched as he fell into darkness alongside her, and while she was able to pull herself out of that pit, Adam never even tried.

The rest of the team had… suspicions that Blake had experienced far more pain at Adam's hand before she had left the White Fang, more than she let on anyway.

Blake had always said that Adam didn't hurt her directly, but given that Blake would experience a level of panic and stress that Weiss had never seen before when Adam was present, none of them exactly believed Blake's word on this.

Even Ruby doubted the truth of her words.

The question was how far the rabbit hole went.

Everyone suspected physical abuse to some degree, and that was most relevant to the current dilemma and the pressure this was putting on the relationship between Yang and Blake, but if it went deeper, it made things even more complicated.

Physical abuse isn't always just throwing punches and slaps.

Not to mention the psychological hazard Adam likely was to anyone who would listen.

Adam unfortunately had a lot of the same traits that Raven had from what little she knew of Yang's mother.

Traits that Yang, unfortunately, seemed to share.

Something that Weiss knew Yang hated more than anything else.

"She will be." Yang finally responded.

Ruby and Old Iron released Yang from her entrapment and rose to stand, Old Iron pawed at his seemingly injured hip while Ruby walked back towards the blade she had collected.

Yang slowly got on all fours, or rather threes given the missing limb, and crawled over towards Blake.

She stopped a couple feet away from Blake, and slowly slumped against the tree beside her, ensuring that she kept the bare minimum of distance from Blake.

With Yang and Blake's problem seemingly fixed for the time being, although there was likely going to be a metric shitload of aftercare required, Weiss finally had a chance to chase the other immediate problem.

Weiss turned to Old Iron, who was still pawing at his right hip, seemingly still unaware it was bleeding.

"Old Iron, I know you can't see that far down, but you're bleeding."

His head darted to Weiss for a short moment, before looking away again, seemingly incapable of looking her in the eye, for whatever reason.

"Old injury, it will pass" he muttered out quietly.

Weiss snorted.

"It had better, or I'll get that armour off and look at it myself."

Old Iron let out a wheeze that might have passed for a chuckle were he any healthier.

"Since when were you the team medic?"

"Since you started bleeding." Weiss responded dryly.

"Besides, you really think these three could handle anything beyond bandaging something?" Weiss said, her gaze falling on Yang in particular.

Old Iron tilted his head at her slightly, almost like a confused dog.

"Blake's pretty competent with medical aid, but she didn't get the qualifications I did, after all nobody else was stuck on house arrest after Beacon like I was, needed something to break up the monotony and I figured it would be useful… Beyond that, would you trust Yang or Ruby to get a bullet out of your arm?" Weiss chuckled as she finished her sentence.

"Yang would likely wind up causing collateral damage with how shaky her hands are these days, and Ruby's too squeamish for it."

Weiss went to continue talking, but she noticed that Old Iron looked somewhat confused.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you won't know what Beacon is, or even-"

Before Weiss could finish her sentence, Old Iron interrupted her.

"I know of the fall of Beacon, that is not what confuses me."

He… he knew?

That was a bombshell if she'd ever heard one.

She had assumed, seemingly incorrectly, that Old Iron had fell here from Remnant a long time ago, perhaps during The Great War or perhaps even before that, but now it's revealed that he fell here within the last 2 years? That was a staggering revelation.

If he was this old, and he'd only been here for 2 years at most, then how slow did time pass in here?

Was a year on Remnant equivalent to decades, or even longer, within this place?

She wanted to ask how that was even possible, but she knew that she simply would not get an answer, given that nothing made sense here already.

This revelation was daunting, it was horrifying, it struck at the very core of her being as dread smacked her upside the head all at once.

And then, relief replaced it.

Weiss realised that there was a silver lining to this.

If a year on Remnant equated to several decades at least in this place, then they didn't have to rush getting out.

If one of them got sick or injured and needed to recover, then they only lost a few days of time to take a year to recover.

It was a horrible thing nonetheless, but at least they didn't have to rush their plans.

Speaking of horrible things, Weiss had another question to ask Old Iron.

"Old Iron, that thing we fought, what was it?"

Old Iron shifted on his feet.

"You assume I know?" He replied almost coyly, it was hard to tell with the helmet obscuring his face and his damaged voice.

"I'm fairly certain you said its name when we first saw it, so yes I am fairly certain that you know." Weiss replied, her tone souring.

"Don't lie to me." Weiss added, her tone clipped and bitter.

Old Iron shifted again, seemingly uncomfortable.

"Very well… Raysiel, he was a human, but not from Remnant."

Weiss felt her eyes practically bulge out of her own head at that bombshell, Ruby had a similar reaction.

"I don't know where exactly he came from, but he was… changed."

"Changed?" Weiss replied, rather obviously worrying over the implications of Old Iron's last sentence.

"He was normal before, a friend… No longer."

"Why?"

Old Iron did not answer, the rain clattering against his armour seemed to get even louder.

"What changed him?" Weiss queried further.

Old Iron sighed with all the energy of a corpse, and after a few more seconds of silence, finally responded. "I do not know, he went off on his own and returned like that, hostile."

Old Iron looked at his left hand, a spatter of blood covering it in a thick veil, far thicker than blood should be.

Was it Raysiels? Was it his? Or something else?

Not exactly like the answer would matter, regardless if it was the blood of Old Iron or something else, she couldn't exactly fix that, now could she? She had a basic combat medicine qualification, she wasn't a doctor, or a nurse, or even anything remotely close to either of those professions.

"He'll be back as well, eventually."

Weiss felt her entire brain's processes halt all at once.

"Back? I think you're mistaken because last I checked we beheaded him 10 minutes ago!"

"I know… I've killed him a dozen times over now, he always returns at some point."

Weiss, finally able to think again after the shock of that creature repeatedly dodging seemingly guaranteed death, began to think rationally.

"How long?"

Old Iron tilted his head like a dog again.

"How long until he comes back?"

Old Iron sighed again, leaning against a nearby tree as he seemed to curl into himself a little, as much as his bulky ramshackle armour would allow.

"It depends, as soon as a few hours, as far off as a decade or so."

Weiss rubbed at her eyes with her unmuddied hand, and looked down towards her lower body. Her combat dress was soaked, sullied by so much water that it was a miracle Old Iron hadn't rusted over by now.

Weiss knew there were so many more questions to ask, so many more possibilities to dig into, but unfortunately it would all have to wait, Weiss would just have to ruminate on them until a more opportune time was available. They could not afford to delay any longer, every extra moment they were in this heavy rainfall the more likely they were to have accidents in the inclement weather, not to mention the potential illnesses they could get just from being this soaked and cold.

Weiss pondered for a brief moment if there even was illness in a place like this, she really hoped it didn't. After all, if this place did have illnesses, viruses and bacteria and so on, then it stands to reason that the potential illnesses floating around this area, were not anything like what they had on Remnant, and that meant they wouldn't know how to fight it, and their immune systems would be running blind trying to fight off an enemy unlike anything seen before.

Weiss grumbled to herself, annoyed that she had allowed herself to think herself into a downward spiral again. She looked back up towards Old Iron, who didn't appear to have moved an inch since she last looked at him.

"We'll talk more on this later, I need to get out of this damnable rain."

—-

Old Iron had led them north-bound yet again, from what he had described the inclement weather they had been experiencing since they had entered this damnable forest was most likely exclusively applying to only this place, however he didn't clarify how he knew that, so Weiss, naturally, could not stop thinking about the potential implications that statement made.

Old Iron was leading the pack as per usual, with the rest of the group fanning out into the same pattern they had been using earlier during their trek through this forest before a fight had broken out.

The rain still clattered down upon them, so much so that even Yang's veritable mudded mane had been mostly cleaned of the muck and grime she had previously coated herself in from the sheer force and magnitude of the rainfall that hadn't let up in the slightest since it first came on.

Suddenly, Old Iron stopped moving.

Weiss followed his action, but she had to grab Ruby by the hem of her shirt before she walked any further.

Weiss didn't immediately know why Old Iron had stopped, but upon following his gaze down towards their feet, she understood. They had reached a cliffside, one far more alien than the cliff they had faced earlier. This cliff was an immediate drop into seemingly nothingness, it seemed to go down forever into what she could only describe as a blank from them was what appeared to be an entirely different small-scale environment across the gap, it appeared to be a far more pleasant environment than the one they had spent the last… Weiss didn't know how long they had been trudging through this forest that had rapidly turned into a makeshift swamp.

The environment across the gap was a series of shallow hills dusted by tall grass and trees, it reminded her vaguely of Mistral. It appeared to have clear weather as well, however it was hard to tell given how much the current level of rainfall distorted her vision. Weiss took a look around at the neighbouring tiles, to the right of the tile they stood on appeared to be a desert, and ahead of that was some sort of arctic region akin to the blisteringly cold wastes on the northern mantle of Atlas territory. To the left of the tile ahead, there appeared to be a forest of blue-hued trees with blue lights emanating from something within the canopy, scattered across the entire canopy of the treeline. The tile to their immediate left was the most bizarre of them all, it appeared to consist entirely of cream and jelly.

It looked like some kind of fever dream Ruby would have.

Ruby prodded a finger into Old Iron's torso lightly, likely just enough that he was able to detect it through all of that metal plate covering him; she then began repeatedly pointing at the cake-themed tile.

Old Iron, to her surprise, let out a chuckle, which was different to what she expected.

This chuckle sounded far more genuine than all of his prior chuckles, which all sounded like he was choking down his own blood whenever he tried.

"I'm sorry, kid… beyond wasting time, none of it tastes how you'd expect."

Ruby looked like her whole world had shattered, to the point Weiss began to expect tears to start pouring down her face.

Weiss knew for a fact Ruby always had a sweet tooth, but she never remembered it being quite this bad.

"If it doesn't taste like you'd expect, what does it taste like?" Weiss asked.

In response, Old Iron pointed to his feet, and idly replied "Dirt."

Old Iron shook his head slightly, and turned back to her, taking a few steps back from the ledge. "This place is split into tiles, each is different from the next… some are connected, some are not."

Weiss immediately thought back to something Old Iron had said presumably hours ago, when they had crossed that cliff in the woods. "You said earlier that the Jabberwalkers couldn't pass that cliffside, but couldn't they just go to another tile and cross that way?" Weiss muttered out rapidly as panic set in.

Old Iron raised his hand towards her, almost as if to alleviate her worries. "All of the tiles north of here aren't connected to the south besides this one, and they won't be able to pass the cliffside."

Weiss thankfully managed to calm herself, although a small inkling in her mind kept worrying about the seemingly unending "what if?" scenarios that burrowed through her conscience like a malaise. One stood out as entirely possible to her.

They had crossed that cliff over an overturned log that was long enough to cross the gap and strong enough to hold their cumulative weight. She had to wonder if the Jabberwalkers were intelligent enough to try and create a makeshift log bridge and replace what they had destroyed.

Old Iron interrupted her thoughts. "Besides, even if they did get access to these tiles, they wouldn't dare cross over."

That statement threw Weiss through a loop, and Ruby looked worried in her own right about that statement. "What could cause them to refuse to cross that boundary?"

Old Iron clutched at his hip again, a worryingly common pattern that Old Iron had repeated frankly far too many times over the short time she'd known him. He looked off into the distance at the many distant tiles, and raised his hand to point towards a faraway tile.

"The mountains… Graal rests there."

That certainly explained it enough for Weiss.

Graal, whatever it was, was clearly some kind of invasive apex predator in this region, and the prior apex predators; the Jabberwalkers, were pushed away to the outskirts of what was likely once their own territory.

But that leads into several other questions…

What was Graal, was he familiar with anything they had faced before on Remnant? Was Graal something they could kill? Could they reason with it, bargain with it, perhaps ally with it?

A series of questions, almost all impossible to answer.

But looking at Old Iron, and how he clutches at his hip every time Graal is mentioned, Weiss had to assume there was great trauma in their relationship, and Old Iron seemed perfectly cordial so far.

She doubted that Graal could be reasoned with if Old Iron couldn't work with it.

"We need to cross over, the tile north of us is far more pleasant than this one." Old Iron muttered out, loud enough to be heard over the rain but not loud enough for anyone to make out his inflections.

As Old Iron turned towards the nearby land bridge to the next tile, Weiss noticed that the burgundy stain on his side looked to be darker than she remembered it being.

Surely it was a mere trick of the light?