It took fourteen straight hours of retracing his steps, walking in circles, and occasionally recognizing stones or trees that he passed. But, at along last, Gray found himself pounding on the door of Oscar's cabin.

His legs were tired and sweat was pouring from his face, stinging his minor cuts and bruises, but he felt alive.

"Oscar," he called, pounding loud enough to rattle the door on its hinges. Still no answer. This was weird... too weird.

Gray took a step back and looked around the side of the building, seeing nothing but a few trees and a window. He walked back to the front door and checked the doorknob. Locked.

Something was definitely wrong. "Oscar!" Gray yelled. He jumped over the porch rail and ran to the side of the house.

Gray banged on the window to no avail. It was dim inside, but he could tell the room was a mess. More of a mess than usual.

"That can't be a good sign," He groaned, glancing wildly around the ground.

What he wouldn't have done for Venso Rock in that moment. Instead he lowered his backpack off of his shoulder.

I'm going to regret this later. He thought, but he lifted it over his head anyway.

He slung the bag against the window, and, to his surprise, easily broke through the glass. But Gray didn't waste any time analyzing it. He simply leapt off the ground and climbed through the opening.

Gray landed on the hardwood, and barely even spared his backpack a glance.

Instead he glanced carefully around the room. At the burned corner, with it's scorch marks making strange design on the walls. There was blood on the ground. And the table, flipped on top of a goopy, mess of a corpse.

Gray crawled over to the body and scanned it's clothing. "This isn't Oscar..."

Maybe he got away.

His eyes landed on the necklace that Oscar had dropped upon being attacked, and he carefully lifted it up, by it's chain.

The scorch marks, the wreckage, the body. There was an unnerving amount of destruction throughout that one room. "Who could have done this?"

"I'll give you one guess," Rivet's voice echoed from the corner of the room.

Gray spun around and found that he wasn't alone. And his living nightmare stared right back at him. "Where are your goons, Rivet?" He gulped, trying to sound brave.

Rivet rolled his eyes with a mechanical whir. "Enough. My sons are doing my bidding at the moment. This isn't about them," he gestured at the walls. "Random slashes here and there, room half destroyed, gruesome murders. It screams out a name loud and clear to me..."

"Dare," Gray seethed. But, as angry as he was, his stomach clenched at the sound of the name. Fear slowly overtook the rage, and choked it out.

The name had come to mean something to him recently, more than it had when this was all just make believe. And just the state of the room, told him that it was far worse than he'd ever imagined.

"Smart Child," River hummed. He paced to the far wall, and ran his finger along the marks left by the madman's dagger. "Nothing can tame his bloodlust. Dare destroys everything he comes across, without a second thought. His so called friends. Oscar... Me,"

Gray looked up at Rivet. "Why are you here?"

"I came to see you, Grayson,"

The sound of his full name, coming from this monster's mouth, sent chills down Gray's spine. "Don't call me that,"

River rose his hands in surrender. "Whatever you say Child,"

"You will call me Gray, and you will fear it!" That sounded a lot less stupid in my head.

Rivet turned to face the Child of Stone, with a peculiar look in his human eye. "We have a lot more in common than you think, Gray," he breathed. "Unsure of our part in this war. Betrayed by our own blood. We are a lot alike,"

Even though Gray wasn't sure what Rivet meant by that, he knew one thing for positive: "I'm nothing like you, Rivet,"

"We both want to be part of something bigger than ourselves," Rivet countered. "This world has passed us by, so much so that we barely know how we got in it anymore,"

The sound of his own thoughts coming out of Rivet's mouth, struck him dumb. He was right. Gray never really was sure of where he belonged.

"I know how you fit in," Rivet whispered, stepping closer. "You read a story written by the enemy, painting us as villains. If the story you read had been written by me, that would make Skelitin the enemy. Did you ever think of that?"

"No," Gray said "Because I'd never choose the side with morals that I don't believe in,"

Gray spent the first hour after his grandfather left, reading the beginning of his favorite book again. He knew everything now. At least, everything Sara McKinney knew.

"You subdue your followers," Gray accused Rivet, backing away from the much larger man. "You take away their voice and take away their powers, just so they have nothing to stand against you with. Scary spoke up, that's why you imprisoned him. And when he broke out, half of the population went with him. That's why you're hunting Scary. Because if you neutralize the leader, everyone else stays afraid again,"

"That's half the story," Rivet nodded slowly. "Do you want to hear the rest of it?"

"I don't need you playing with my head," Gray spat.

Without a moment of warning, Rivet's hand shot out and seized Gray's throat. "You mortals are so stupid," Rivet growled, slamming Gray against the wall. He slowly lifted him of the ground, as Gray kicked at the cyborgs armored chest, and clawed at his hand.

"I've been watching you for years now," Rivet confessed. "A couple of times, I think you even knew I was there. I watched as, time after time, someone kept saving you from situations you were too weak to get out of,"

Gray wheezed in what little air he could get. His body convulsing, as he struggled to keep the world from fading into darkness.

"Nobody is here to save you, this time," Rivet's voice came from the depths of consciousness. Almost like he was hearing the voice underwater. "You are nothing but a pawn. An example of what comes of those who refuse to listen..."

Feeling faded out of Gray's body. Starting from his limbs, until his head rolled back against the wall. His lungs burned, but finally gave up their heaving. Everything went dark.

So this is what death is like. I'm sorry Mom. I wish there was more to tell...

Pain blossomed in Gray's side, slowly bringing the feeling back to his body. He found himself on the floor, rolled over, and swallowed air like it was his first taste of life, all over again.

Grimacing and gasping, Gray glanced up and saw Rivet standing above him. Great, stone, spikes, sprouting out of the ground and piercing through his metal shell.

Rivet gradually powered down, and collapsed backwards, suspended above the ground by several spikes through his chest cavity. Occasional sparks littering the floor around him.

Gray caught his breath against the wall and glanced around. Where was this person who kept saving his neck? But he was truly alone with Rivet's body.

He took a deep breath and lifted himself off of the ground. Using the wall for leverage, Gray made his way over to a table against the wall, and lowered himself into a chair.

Nearly getting murdered is kind of exhausting. He thought, waiting for the world to stop spinning around him.

Gray took deep breaths, and tried to focus on an object that was sitting still. He glanced down at the table, zeroing in on whatever book Oscar had been reading before Dare showed up.

"The Rosetta Curse," it read. "An intermediate spell used to preserve someone/something in stone for an indefinite period of time. Feeble attempts at the spell can be reversed by a simple potion (see Calprus potion pg. 206). However, it would take an individual of unusual gift to reverse the effects of a powerful Rosetta Curse. Effects may include-"

"Wait, what?" Gray reread the paragraph, then dove into his bag and retrieved his copy of the Skelitin Saga.

Scary froze himself, and Dare, in a shell of stone. Oscar went out of his way to find the spell he used in that book. But why? What was he looking for?

Gray went back to the spell book, and skimmed the rest of the page. The effects of the spell weren't even that bad. At least, none of them were extremely permanent. What was he hoping to find here? And what did the necklace he picked up have to do with any of it?

After sparing a glance to make sure Rivet hadn't moved, Gray lowered his gaze back to the Skelitin Saga.

"Wait a second," he flipped open to the middle of the book and skimmed the pages until he found an illustration. Page 94. He remembered because he always used to have to come down from the Re- uh, Simon's limbs to see the drawing when they got to that page.

Sure enough, he saw a sketch of a skull. A skull with a spider on it. Gray jumped out of his chair in excitement, then reread the page to make sure he had his facts straight.

Gray pumped his fist. It all made sense now. He had everything he needed to prove his worth to Scary and the group.

"Thank you, Oscar," he sang, dumping the necklace, and two books into his backpack and tossing it over his shoulder.

"Gray?"

Gray nearly jumped out of his skin as he spun to face Rivet, but, to his surprise, found the cyborg just as unresponsive as before. If the voice wasn't Rivet's than who-

"Gray," Crystal pounced into his line of sight. He jumped again, this time slamming his side into the table behind him.

"Ouch! What the-" He stared at Crystal, temporarily unable to find the words to express his astonishment. "What the hell are you doing here?!" He eventually choked out.

"Are you kidding me?" Crystal punched his shoulder, for the second time in the past two days. "You broke up with me and disappeared! I went to see your Dad and he said you were camping. So I assumed you went back to that place with the big tree, but I never found the tree. So I've been walking for hours, and I saw this house and thought I could ask someone for directions back home,"

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and punched him again. "But mostly: you broke up with me and disappeared!"

"Yeah," Gray rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "About that-"

"Wait," Crystal interrupted, walking over to Rivet's body. "That's the robot from the underground,"

His torso sparked, and she leapt back a foot or so. "Is he dead?" She wondered aloud.

"Uh, no," Gray said. "Simon told me Rivet can't ever truly die. Someone will be by to fix... oh, shit,"

Crystal glanced at the look on his face, and immediately grew alarmed. "What? What's wrong?"

"We have to get out of here," Gray glanced down at the table, to make sure he wasn't forgetting anything. "We need to find Scary,"

"Who?"

"The guy who saved us in the underground!"

"How do we find him?"

He lifted his bag, to show her the outline if the Skelitin Saga pressed against it's surface. "Everything we need to know, is right here,"

The front door swung open, and Gray grabbed Crystal's arm. "Out the window," He hissed. "Hurry!"

Crystal pushed herself carefully out the window, as incoming footsteps grew louder.

"Go!" Gray breathed, helping her along the best he could.

The door to the second room creaked open. And the Child of Stone dove straight through the window, just barely clearing the view of Jake and Snakeye as they entered the room.

"What have we got?" Jake demanded, marching into the center of the room with his wand drawn.

"Why are you asking me?" Snakeye spat at his brother. "My name isn't a joke. My vision it the worst of all of us,"

"Because Dad put me in charge. So tell me what you see," Jake demanded.

"I can only see in green and blue," Snakeye hissed. "And I'm extremely nearsighted. How about you look for yourself,"

"You can also see heat, you idiot," Jake snapped. "Tell me if there's anyone here!"

"I can see heat, not see through walls," Snakeye replied. "If I could see someone's heat if also be able to see them,"

With that he lowered himself down beside his father and leaned in close, to analyze the damage.

"Looks like whoever did this is long gone," Jake observed, glancing out the window. "Coward,"

Snakeye snorted and went to work on Rivet's chest. With a few minor tweeks, he'd given the cyborg enough juice to regain conscious.

"Dad!" Jake elbowed Snakeye roughly out of the way and dropped in front of his father. "Who left you like this?"

Rivet's eyes glazed in and out of focus. Then he glanced at Jake and grimaced. "Skelitin,"

Snakeye rose his eyebrow, skeptical of his answer. "We were trailing Scary-"

Jake rounded on Snakeye and stuck his wand against his brother's windpipe. "One of these times, your disrespect is going to get you-"

"Enough," Rivet waved his head in their direction. He probably would have waved his hand if he wasn't immobile from the neck down. "Let him go so the idiot can fix me,"

Not: let him go. Be respectful to your brother. Not: how dare you lay your hands on your older sibling. Not even: be nice. Snakeye seethed inwardly. I'm just a tool to him.

"The Child out these rocks here," Rivet informed them. "He doesn't even realize the strength he possesses, yet. So, he attacked me. But, yes.

"Skelitin is why I'm like this,"