This was the worst possible result. Jared's abilities were perfect for handling the creature shrouds from the Ether Soldiers. Now, that whole plan was out the window. No one expected Jared to beat Victor. He was going to have to forfeit.

Jared turned, ready to leave the stage.

"Hey, Woah Woah Woah." Victor raised his hands in a non-threatening posture, smile still firmly affixed to his face. "Don't run off on me yet. I kinda want to fight that shroud of yours, so I'll tell you what. I'll take a handicap for this round."

Jared stopped.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a villain cliche, and that's not my bag, but if it'll make you stick around…" Victor waved his hands as if to pull Jared back toward him. Physically, he was incredibly average. Almost aggressively so. His hair was neither short nor long and colored dull brown. His skin tone wasn't light or dark but somewhere in the middle. His entire build was utterly average in every way. The only standout factor was his green eyes that held a maniacal, fanatical edge. Every time he saw those eyes, Caeden wondered if the man was sane. His odd manner of speech added to that sensation.

Jared didn't leave the stage as he should. Caeden had no idea what the division commander was thinking.

"Yeah, I figured you might be interested." Victor held out both his hands, fists clenched, but not aggressively. "Here's what we'll do. In the palm of each hand, I have a small manifestation of each of my shrouds. You pick one, and I'll only use that shroud for our whole fight. You win if you can make me use the other or beat me normally. Sounds good?"

Jared looked intensely indecisive. He kept looking back and forth between Victor and the hallway that would lead him back toward the ready room.

"Hmm, I can see you're not convinced." Victor crossed his arms, contemplating the issue. He snapped his fingers, a revelation crossing his face, "I got it! I'll only use one mnemonic. There, that's more than fair, right? C'mon, kiddo, these are the best terms you'll ever get. You've got a real chance to take me down, play the hero with your senpai and whatnot. Come at me!" He opened his arms wide, gesturing for Jared to take a shot.

"No, don't do it." Caeden couldn't help but speak, even knowing Jared couldn't hear him. "He's baiting you. There's no way he would do it if he thought you had a chance."

Lily nodded, wholeheartedly agreeing with him.

Jared hesitated a moment longer before turning back to face Victor fully. "F-fine. I-I'll agree. I-I expect you to h-honor the deal."

Victor's smile grew wider, shifting from friendly to predatory. "Of course. Of course. I'm a man of my word. You can take that to the bank and cash it, promise. Now." He held out his closed fists once more. "Pick a hand."

Jared looked back and forth before pointing to the left at Victor's right hand.

"Ahh, you really got me." Victor opened his hand, revealing a sliver of reflective, silvery material. "Mirror it is. That's much harder to work with." Despite saying that, he didn't look concerned in the slightest.

Elune, who seemed to have held off her announcement so that Victor and Jared could talk, began to speak. "Our next member of Ether Soldiers is the faction leader himself, Victor! As first in the Academy rankings, he holds the illustrious title of Chosen One! He is dual shrouded, with both Light and Mirror as his domains."

“AAAAAAAND BEGIN!”

Recognizing that he was in an overwhelming amount of danger, Jared immediately created a thick cloud of glass around him before creating a pile of yellow-green powder that he immediately threw across the arena, scattering it around in front of Victor who looked on with a vaguely amused expression. Jared didn't stop, creating an even smaller amount of white powder and throwing that out, immediately retreating as far back as he could get.

The white powder landed among the yellow-green and immediately began to smoke before rapidly combusting into an explosion. Standing in the middle of it all, Victor merely said two words. "Great Wall." He was surrounded by a massive working of reflective material, mimicking the appearance of a gigantic wall formed of mirror bricks. It was over ten feet thick and even had a guard tower as a part of the construction.

Once the explosion faded, the wall dissipated, revealing Victor, completely unscathed. He started talking casually while walking forward. "You know, it seems we have similar shrouds. Powder and Mirror are both such nebulous concepts. After all, any material can be a powder under the right conditions."

"In the same way, anything can be a mirror if it's reflective enough. It seems you have that concept down pat. What was that? Chlorine and ammonia? That was fucking sharp. You're a creative guy. Mine was a lot less impressive by comparison. After all, making steel polished to a mirror shine isn't that big a leap, don't you think?"

As he spoke, Victor's Mirror shroud manifested beside him. It was a silvery-white that looked almost liquid, with the edges showing a rainbow kaleidoscope of shifting colors, much like an oil slick. He created a razor-thin circular disk hovering beside him as he kept talking. "I'm kinda regretting the whole 'only one mnemonic' thing right now. I have so much I want to try against you. Would you agree to me using a couple more?"

Jared stared back, frozen in place. That attack had been a trump card, and Victor had shrugged it off like it was nothing.

"I'll take that as a no. Oh well." Victor shrugged, "Just so you know, this right here is something I have a mnemonic for, but I made it manually, so I'm not breaking the rules. I just want to be transparent about that." He raised his hand, the silver disk moving to hover over his palm where it began to rapidly spin, small blades coming out all around the edge. "I wonder if you have an answer for my kienzan."

Thrusting his hand forward as if throwing the disk that now resembled a saw, the creation shot through the intervening space, buzzing and whining as it cut through the air. Jared dove out of the way as the spinning saw flew past him and bounced off the wall of the arena before immediately reorienting and coming after him once more.

Jared filled the air with a thick white powder, completely obscuring Victor's view. He then rolled out of the way of the incoming blade before thrusting an arm out and sending the cloud he'd created directly toward his attacker.

For his part, Victor formed mirror bracers and bazubands wrapping around his shins and forearms, lifting himself into the air and flying away from the approaching cloud. Even as he did, he just kept talking. "Damn, a cloud of strychnine. Now that's brutal. Sucks that it won't work. You don't really have the fine control necessary to keep up with my movement speed. You know, I never understood why more people don't do this." He gestured vaguely toward himself as he moved through the air. "I mean, basically everyone can pull a discount magneto and pick themselves up with their own power. Flight is such a cheat too."

Even as he spoke, the flying disk continued to seek out Jared unerringly, hunting him down as he barely dodged out of the way each time. "Sorry to say, but the whole hiding idea isn't gonna work. My investigative sense is pretty damn good, so you're not doing yourself any favors."

At this point, it was obvious to Caeden that Victor was more or less playing with Jared. The fact that he was just relaxedly monologuing and that every attack missed Jared just enough for him to scrape by both indicated that the man didn't feel threatened in the least. He wasn't even trying to win. "I've had enough." He stood up.

{}

On the arena floor, Jared was messily jumping out of the way as another attack flew at him. He was tired. His infusion skills were abysmal compared to others, and he could use physical enhancement except for the barest minimum. Usually, that wouldn't matter, as his offensive power was so great that most of his fights ended as soon as they started. But Victor dodged or blocked everything he threw out with casual ease. Now he was at the limits of his meager stamina with no hope of winning the fight.

Suddenly, the buzzing disk that had tormented him for the last few minutes came flying in low. His attempt to dodge caused his footing to fumble, and he tripped over himself, falling to the hard arena floor flat on his back. He let out a small groan of pain. His body was too tired for anything more. He was panting and sweating profusely, and had been for the last couple of minutes as the disk ran him ragged.

Internally, Jared wanted to cry. He had been a timid boy ever since he was little. Other kids mock him constantly for his stutter and his weight. Some of them hated him for being shrouded. Coming to the Academy had been a nightmare for him, taken from his family's bakery, the one place he felt safe and loved and placed among his peers. He had expected to be bullied more harshly than ever, and he had been right. The Bronze Seat was a waking nightmare for months as every family student singled him out as an easy target and took the chance to beat on him simply because they could. It only worsened when the factions formed.

He had heard about some famous students forming their own faction that was open to everyone by listening to other students talking as he sat alone in the cafeteria. He had found no friends or comrades among any of the others, not even other continentals. Out of pure frustration and hopelessness, he had decided to go. Anything was better than what he was going through. Even if the new faction threw him into fights like the current ones did, at least he'd have some support. The Metal Knights wouldn't even think about letting someone like him join, even if he had asked.

He never, ever imagined he would become the division commander for an entire branch of the Forged. He was responsible for precisely 93 other students who were in similar situations to him. It was overwhelming at first, and he wanted to quit or defer the position to someone else. When he brought it up to Caeden after a week in charge, his response changed Jared's whole mindset.

"You can if you want to." He nodded amicably. "It'd be a waste, though."

"W-what?" Jared couldn't help but be surprised.

"Jared, you're a far more capable fighter than you tell yourself you are. I've seen you fight; you're good. You might not see it, but I do, and the other Forged do as well. They respect you, especially with how humble you are. Tracey, Evelyn, and even Demaro can be a bit prideful at times, but you're constantly aware of your own weakness. I know that doesn't come from a good place, but it's an asset. I think you'll make an excellent division commander if you just trust yourself a little more." Then he patted Jared on the shoulder and walked away. Jared never asked to leave his position again.

No one had ever trusted him with anything important. Even in his own family, his job at the bakery was making flour. That's it. No one ever had expectations of him or gave him any responsibility. He couldn't help but want to live up to that expectation, to see if he was as capable as Caeden thought he was. He wanted to prove him right.

Over the next several months, he fought many times in defense of other Forged, and he started to see something remarkable. Respect. Other Forged looked at him with respect and admiration in their eyes. They didn't mind his stutter and looked past the extra weight he could never seem to shake. They liked him. He felt proud for the first time in his life.

Now here he was, on the ground and helpless. His opponent wasn't even taking him seriously and hadn't from the very start. Jared had made a fool of himself and the Forged as an extension. The one time he tried to take the initiative and step up in a public setting, he was smacked down without a shred of results to show for it. Victor wasn't even hurt, not at all.

He felt a crushing weight settle in his chest that had nothing to do with his heaving breaths or his rubbery muscles. He couldn't imagine being more disappointed in himself. Victor's blade came at him, headed right for his neck, falling like a guillotine. He couldn't have stopped it if he tried.

It froze an inch from his body, gripped by a golden hand with purple accents.

"I think that's far enough." His faction leader's powerful, booming voice blared above him, "Or were you intending to kill him?"

"Ehh, I didn't think the fatso would just lie there and take it. I mean, he's faking, right? No proper shrouded would be winded from just a few light attacks. That's too pathetic." Victor responded from somewhere off to the side, laughter in his voice.

"SIlence." Caeden's tone was cold and hard as steel. He looked down toward Jared. His voice softened. "You did your best, Jared. It was a good effort and well-executed. He's just out of your league right now. Can you get back to the observation room?"

Jared wanted to crawl into a hole and die. This was beyond humiliating. "Y-yes." He wheezed, still winded from the fight. Still, he forced his way to his feet and shuffled back to the hallway. Behind him, he heard Caeden speak again.

"Now then. I think I should teach you a lesson for bullying one of my Forged." For the first time, Jared thought his faction leader sounded genuinely angry.

"Oh yeah? Let's see if you can, 'Golden God.' Surprise me." Victor only sounded amused. He wasn't even worried.

Jared felt like he was drowning in shame. Caeden had to come in and clean up his mess. How had this gone so wrong?