Over two hundred students streamed into the newly expanded arena, which was over forty times its previous size. There was more than enough room for all of them to move about freely. Even though this was supposed to be a battle royale 'everyone for themselves' round, Caeden saw most of the groups that had walked in together forming back up. Some did choose to go it alone, but that was the minority. Caeden had expected as much.

"So, Ander's going to come at us immediately," Caeden said flatly.

"Absolutely." Lily nodded.

Caeden hated to do this but- "Are you good? You phased out for a bit there."

Lily took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yes. These three weeks are the longest I've ever gone without him being around. It was so nice, especially being with all of you." She smiled beautifully at the three of them. "I was just afraid of that going away. Erik smashed that thought thoroughly. I'm good, honest. I still want to knock him on his ass, though." She growled the last bit.

"Great, 'cause I have an idea, and you'll need to handle Ander." Caeden nodded, more than a little relieved.

"Oh, what's the plan, boss man?" Erik jumped forward.

Caeden laughed. "You'll love it. It's going to piss Ander off to no end. Lily, how long do you think you and Cat can lock down Ander's group? Not beat him, just stop them from moving or engaging."

"Hmm," Lily hummed. "Cat, how much shroud do you have?"

"Two-thirds. About 1,500. I can give you fifteen specters, but if you want archer, I'm going to need leeway for the arrows." Cat responded automatically. She had picked up the habit of meticulously tracking her shroud since her mnemonics used so much.

"I can get you about ten minutes, and it'll drain me. Five would be much, much better." Lily shrugged.

"I can work with that." Caeden nodded. "Ok, Erik, you and I are going to put on a show."

"Oh, now you're talking!" Erik laughed, rubbing his hands together.

{}

Every team and the independent students had taken up their desired positions. Most were up against the walls of the arena, giving them fewer angles to cover from incoming attacks. Caeden planned to abuse that decision to its limits, as it also cut down on their options for escape.

Erik was next to him, giggling madly. "You come up with some nasty plans. I knew we'd get along when I saw you on that ethership."

Caeden shook his head. "I swear, you get all apologetic about your brother and his pranks, but you're just as bad."

"Hey!" Erik gathered himself up and looked at Caeden indignantly, "I'll have you know I only use my mischief for justice!"

Caeden just stared back.

"And maybe for fun. Occasionally." Erik deflated. "But no one ever gets hurt."

"Is 'not getting hurt' what you call what we're about to do?" Caeden added as much skepticism to his tone as he possibly could.

"This is combat, totally different rules." Erik waved his hand dismissively.

"Whatever, man." Caeden shook his head. "Are you ready?"

"Yup! I super love this plan!" Erik's excitement came barreling back.

"Great." Caeden nodded. He looked over toward where Lily and Cat were positioned. They had taken up a spot much closer to Ander and his four Sun Seat friends, which was making Ander visibly uncomfortable and confused. They had their own part of the plan to handle, mainly locking down that whole group for as long as possible. Honestly, that was the part Caeden was the most worried about. Not because he didn't trust Cat and Lily to be able to pull it off, but because others might try to attack them as they did it. They would be vulnerable until Caeden and Erik could complete their part and join back up with the girls for the finale.

"Begin!"

Caeden stayed focused on the girls. They had to get things started. Lily opened up by covering Ander's entire group in a thick fog. She kept it localized to cut down on the shroud cost, instead of flooding the whole arena. It would have been much more costly now that it was so much bigger. Meanwhile, Cat created an equal number of spectral assassins and archers, seven each.

Lily immediately made a series of hand signals, creating a sword and dropping it for one of the assassins, which disappeared. Moments later, the assassin was next to Caeden, offering him the sword. This was where Caeden and Erik's part of the plan started. Caeden immediately used Sharp to give the ice sword the finest edge he could. Then he used Physical Enhancement to maximize his hand-eye coordination and threw the sword. It landed point down in the very center of the arena and sank half the blade into the bronze floor. Caeden had put quite the edge on it.

"You're up." Caeden slapped Erik on the shoulder.

"Oh, I so love this!" Erik giggled. He stitched himself to the sword, letting his shroud pull himself bodily across the room as fast as possible, flying through the air. One of the most powerful aspects of Stitch was how fast it could pull things together. Erik crossed the space in a fraction of a second. He then stitched his hands to the sword and his feet to the floor; then, he stitched Caeden to himself.

Since Erik was so well anchored, Stitch pulled Caeden toward him at full speed. By the time he reached Erik, he was going over 60 miles an hour. Right before impact, Erik canceled the stitch and ducked under Caeden's flying form. Now Caeden was heading toward the opposite wall at considerable speed. Right toward another team.

Now, Caeden was a bulky guy. Much of that was muscle, but he still weighed over 200 pounds. Midair, he used Physical Enhancement to its limit, gaining three feet in height but nearly doubling in weight. Now he was 400 pounds. Then, he used Forged Infinity, changing its form twice in rapid succession. First to 002, giving him a buckler shield, then to 025, giving him a truly massive great shield, weighing close to 100 pounds. Caeden was now a quarter-ton projectile going 60 miles an hour headed toward a group shield-first, tucked up behind it in a ball.

Needless to say, anyone he hit was going to have a bad day. If they were normal humans, they would most likely die on the spot or at least suffer life-threatening, debilitating injuries. Luckily, he was hitting shrouded, who could infuse themselves enough to certainly survive the hit. They would still have some broken bones, probably internal bleeding, but nothing the Academies medical staff couldn't fix.

In less than a second from launch, Caeden made a bone-crunching, body-shaking impact shield first. He rolled up and over the impact. After all, he didn't want to ram anyone into the wall. That could cross the line into fatal damage. Instead, he hit the wall over their heads. With his extremely high degree of physical enhancement granted by his shroud, that kind of impact was like falling ten feet for a normal person. Jarring, and his knees hurt for a second., but he was fine. The increased healing he had kicked in and repaired the minor damage.

Then he was on the ground among the disoriented and injured group. Immediately, he laid into them with his great shield, slamming it into anyone standing until they were beaten into either unconsciousness or submission. Next, Caeden slammed his shield into the floor, the sharp edge setting into the bronze. Then Erik stitched to him. While Caeden had been taking out the team, Erik had pulled the ice sword from the ground.

"Yes! The Caeden Cannon works!" Erik was still laughing.

"We're not calling it that."

"Nope, I'm the launcher, I already named it. It's the Caeden Cannon, and you can't change it." Erik stuck his tongue out while handing Caeden the ice sword. Which Caeden immediately threw with a sigh.

"I don't have time for this."

"Yup! Just accept your fate." Erik patted Caeden's shoulder before stitching to the sword again. All of this took less than thirty seconds. Caeden and Erik were going to eliminate as many teams as they could while Lily and Cat could hold out. They were doing this because of something Caeden had realized after Lily's group match.

Everyone recognized that Caeden's and Ander's groups were the most powerful. Ander was dead set on fighting them, but no matter who won that fight, they would have to deal with all the other groups wanting to take out the weakened victor. So Caeden wanted to eliminate that problem at the root. Other groups couldn't attack them if there were no other groups, after all.

They managed to take out five more groups with the newly christened Caeden Cannon before Lily signaled them that she was losing her hold over Ander's group with a swirl of dark clouds shading the arena. While the boys had been eliminating groups, the girls had been hard at work.

Lily's whole strategy for handling Ander and the Sun Seats boiled down to hemming them in and keeping them uncertain. To that end, Lily kept the fog around them going as thick as she could. It was so bad that anyone inside wouldn't be able to see an inch. That meant they had to rely on investigative sense, which not everyone was good at. It immediately cut down on the threats they had to deal with.

This worked as long as they were in the fog, but they could just walk out. To prevent that, Lily put together two strategies. First, she switched over to Ice briefly to create a thin layer of ice all around the fog-covered group. They would have a hard time just walking out, and they couldn't see the ice. The next part of the plan involved Cat essentially playing sheep-herder. She had archers and assassins, and whenever any of the group moved at all, Cat would have one or the other launch an attack.

This worked surprisingly well. Ander tried to use Weather to push back the fog, and Lily had to constantly fight him to keep it in place. The others in the group repeatedly tried to either remove the fog via other methods or just leave, but Cat was able to keep them distracted and wary with constant arrows to the face and assassin attacks from behind. All the Sun Seats had to focus their shroud on defending against the surprise attacks. It limited any attempts they could make to remedy their situation.

The setup was fundamentally unsustainable. Cat and Lily were using much, much more shroud than the Sun Seats just to keep them in place. Especially Lily. She was in a direct battle with Ander for control of her fog bank, which she was slowly losing. Somehow, through whatever method the families had, Ander had managed to raise his Invasion Pressure even higher than Lily's. He was using that and his more powerful domain to wrest control of the fog from her bit by bit, despite her superior control.

That was why Lily sent up the signal. She was running low on shroud and losing the fog bank to her brother. As much as it pissed her off, she wasn't able to beat him in this circumstance. In response to the signal, Caeden and Erik set up one last Caeden Cannon, aimed directly at Ander's group. Personally, Caeden doubted they could go down that easily, but it was a free shot, so they were taking it.

Once more, Caeden whipped through the air growing in size and expanding Forged Infinity. The constant shifting from normal to golden body and back again was cutting into his Physical Enhancement reserves, though he was still well above half. Out of all his friends, Caeden was actually the one with the most reserves right now, despite each of his shrouds individually having a lower IP than any of the others. In this fight with Ander's group, Caeden fully planned to act as the frontline defender. Compared to everyone else, he had the most shroud and the best infusion. He could soak up damage on a level no one else in his group could even approach.

Caeden flew into the fog bank, his passage blowing away the low-lying clouds and clearing the air. He just barely missed Ander, hitting the man next to him dead center. His victim was already using infusion, probably to defend against Cat's constant harassment. Consequently, the damage he suffered was relatively minimal. Caeden broke his arm and heavily bruised every single rib, but he could still stand and fight.

The lady behind him, who was hit by his flying body, got it worse. She either wasn't as good with infusion or wasn't using any at all because she broke several ribs and gained a pierced lung and some internal bleeding. She dropped immediately, her mind unable to take the pain. While she was unconscious, her shroud went to work stabilizing her injuries, and the teacher moved her away from the fight with his shroud.

With one person out of the fight and another heavily injured, Caeden had just evened out the numerical advantage the Sun Seats had over his group and put them ahead for damage dealt. Unfortunately, the remaining four were at an extreme shroud advantage. Caeden focused on taking out the already injured man as Erik stitched himself over to join the fight.

For some unknown reason, none of Ander's group had come to ranking day with armor or weapons of any kind, which was absurd. They wouldn't have suffered nearly as badly from the Caeden Cannon with just the bare minimum of armor. Perhaps it was because all of them seemed to specialize in more long-range attacks, but that was a terrible reason to come to a life-and-death fight under-equipped. Either way, now that both Caeden and Erik were in melee range, the Sun Seats were on the back foot, even with the shroud advantage.

The man with the broken arm was the rock shroud that had fought Erik alongside Ander in the first round. To stop Caeden's attack, he created a wall of rock between them. Trying to get through as quickly as possible, Caeden slammed his great shield into the barrier, cracking it badly. He didn't get through, though, and the cracks healed before his eyes, the Sun Seat funneling shroud into his wall to regenerate the damage. With a growl of frustration, Caeden switched Forged Infinity to a more suitable form.

First back to 000, then 005. Caeden's right hand was now wrapped in a golden gauntlet with purple clawed fingers and red accents in the gaps between plates. The tip of each clawed finger shared that red hue. Curling his hand into a fist, Caeden punched the rock wall with his full might. His fist went straight through it in a burst of reddish-brown stone. The whole wall seemed to lose its integrity from the blow, so Caeden slammed his knee into another section, glad he had Physical Enhancement to stop the rock from shattering his kneecap.

The blow caused the whole wall to crumble. On the other side was the Sun Seat. He had his broken arm in a cast of stone, and his whole body was a reddish-brown hue. He was fully infused and ready for a fight. Caeden supposed he shouldn't have discounted the man's melee capacity. He was a family member, after all. The fist on the man's unbroken arm grew a coating of stone, and he took a fight stance. Despite his long-range specialization, he was almost certainly better trained in martial arts than Caeden. Caeden readied his own gauntlet-covered fist. This was now a brawl, apparently.

While Caeden squared up, the other members of both his team and Ander's had not been idle. Erik was facing the other girl of the group to the other side of Caeden, opposite Ander. She had some kind of insectile creature shroud, producing a swarm of ruby-red wasps with shiny, gem-like carapaces. It was a bad match for Erik since his speed was his main defense, and these insects were both faster and more agile than him. That was, until he cast out a net of Stitch, tying together the bugs in a large clump. Then he turned to take down the summoner, only to see her drop, screaming in pain. A spectral assassin appeared behind her, having just knifed the girl in her kidney. Erik's presence was enough of a distraction for Cat to slip the specter behind the girl's guard.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Caeden, Cat and Lily were up against Ander and the object shrouded who made molten metal. Ander was already turning towards Caeden as the fog cleared, even before the fight between Caeden and the rock shrouded began. Lily wasn't having that. She wanted to fight Ander one-on-one. To do that, though, she had to get through molten metal man. It was a bad matchup, domain-wise, but Lily was ready.

She immediately went through a series of hand gestures, gaining a dagger in one hand and longsword in the other. This was her desired weapon setup going forward. The dagger was for parries and follow-up attacks, acting as a sub-weapon for the longsword. This configuration matched her gloves, with the longsword held in the Chill Vein glove and the dagger in Frost Break. That's not what she was using either for right now. Instead, Lily swung her longsword before closing the distance producing a wave of ice speeding toward her opponent. She spoke as she swung. "Cut."

The Sun Seat casually, almost contemptuously, melted the ice wave with a chunk of glowing hot metal. He failed to notice the sliver of Ki buried in the ice that was not nearly as easily deterred. It cut through his metal and moved right toward him, carving into his body from face to groin in a long line before he could even react. It was no more than a flesh wound, the amount of Ki in the strike too small to do much more than that. That fact didn't matter much, given the size of the cut. He was bleeding heavily and entirely distracted, his defenses falling apart in the face of the surprise attack.

Lily capitalized on this, following up with a thrust from her longsword, the tip of the blade catching the bleeding man in the shoulder. That was all it took. Immediately, the Chill Vein poison started to take hold, numbing his body and slowing his reactions, starting with that arm and moving across his body. The man's surprise worked against him, as he was not properly infused, so he had no ready defense against the poison flowing through his veins. Within a minute, he collapsed on the ground, gripping his head as the pain of Chill Vein ravaged his mind, like the worst brain freeze with no end. By that point, Lily was long gone, facing down her brother instead of worrying about her last opponent.

For his part, Ander's battle with Lily was disturbingly one-sided. He had no weapon, so all he could do was throw lightning at his sister while she came at him again and again with weapons of infused ice. He literally had to run away, unable to respond to her attacks at all as Lily used chunks of ice to absorb every lightning bolt. For all the raw damage he could output, Ander was relatively squishy in shrouded terms. He had an aura shroud, and he leaned into that, so his infusion skills were lacking. Normally he had the support of his lackeys to hold off attackers, but Caeden and Erik had effectively removed that support before the battle started.

Eventually, Lily ran him down, sword to his throat. She was beyond happy. She was ecstatic, elated, and high on life. Finally, finally, she had her brother at her mercy. After all these years, she was the one in control. She was the one with all the power. Lily could see it in his eyes; he was afraid. Not as much as she used to be. He didn't understand yet what being powerless really meant, after all. She could show him, though. Now that she was stronger. Now that she wasn't alone and friendless like Ander had forced her to be. Her thoughts crystallized, her vision narrowing down to the tip of her blade, oh so close to her brother's throat. It would only take an inch and… Her sword started to move.

Only to be stopped by a golden hand wrapping around the blade. "Lily, that's enough." Caeden looked at her, completely ignoring the poison trying to creep into his body. It couldn't get past Physical Enhancement anyway. His opponent's body lay passed out on the ground behind him with a black eye and a partially cracked skull. He wouldn't be getting up any time soon.

Absolute, undiluted rage passed through Lily for a moment. She was so close. Why was he stopping her? Ander deserved it! She wanted to yell and scream, tell Caeden to leave her alone, to let her do this. Let her have this one victory. To make Ander suffer enough so that he would never, ever try to come near her again. So he would finally understand how much Lily hated him.

"We're not done." Caeden interrupted her seething thoughts. His voice held sympathy and warmth. He gestured around them and toward their friends. Other groups had indeed been waiting for either Lily's or Ander's group to fall, and Cat and Erik were both being attacked by more than one person. "He's not that important."

Lily's mind stilled. She looked at Ander with his hands up in surrender, her sword, and Caeden. Then she looked at their friends, fighting off attacks from all sides. "You're right. He's not."

Caeden smiled. "Let's go finish this."

The two of them rushed into battle.