Caeden's consciousness slowly faded back in. The last thing he remembered was Victor's attack landing and the overwhelming desire to knock his teeth in. After that, it got hazy before fading out completely. The pain in his side was much less than it had been, so a medical shrouded must have seen him. Unlike their resident idiot, Caeden had no qualms about letting professionals heal his wounds.

Before he moved or even contemplated moving, Caeden ran a mental checklist. Head, fine. Arms, legs, all fine. It was only when he got to his torso that things got… not fine. The whole lower left side of his body was tender and sore, like a giant bruise. The second he felt it, Caeden experienced once more the moment Victor's Kamehameha overwhelmed his Rose Cannon. It punched through his enhanced body like tissue paper in front of a pressure washer. Just gone, in an instant. It was after that point that his memory grew fuzzy.

Feeling all that flesh, albeit damaged flesh, where there used to be none, was immensely frustrating. After all, it was proof positive that a few minutes was all it would take anyone to fix his uncle's injuries. They could probably regrow his lost fingers and muscle tissue better than it had been. Most likely, the only reason he was feeling sore was because the healer had left it like that, not a lack of ability.

A check of his reserves revealed that Sharp was full, as it should be. Physical Enhancement was a bit over halfway back. He must have been out for twenty minutes, max. It didn't take long for his shrouds to restore when resting. Finally, Caeden decided to move. He was laid down on one of the benches in the observation room. Sitting up and looking around revealed that Cat was nearby, asleep on another bench across the room. Up front, near the window, both Jared and Erik were looking down into the arena.

"What's going on?" Caeden asked, keeping his voice low. If Cat was sleeping, he did not want to be the one to wake her up. According to Lily, she was violently attached to her sleep.

Erik whipped around before jumping to his feet and skipping over to Caeden's bench. "Sweet, I'm glad you're up!" Despite his chipper tone, Erik also spoke quietly. "How you doing?"

"Well, this whole section," He gestured toward the sore spot, "Feels like it got pounded by a sledgehammer, but otherwise, I'm good."

Erik nodded. "Yeah, We've still got the matches with Solar Radiance, so the medical staff said they would only bring you out of critical condition. Might want to get to healing that. Not sure Lily will let you in on the next round, though. She's pretty pissed."

"What? Why? That fight wasn't perfect, but I'm betting it was better than whatever would have happened if she went out there." Caeden frowned. "What is up with her?" In six months of seeing Lily every day, the only times she ever got mad were when Ander was around and talking to her, when she saw a Forged getting abused, or that one time with the revolutionaires. She wasn't an angry person, and her anger always had a legitimate cause.

So why was she angry now?

"Yeah, she's been acting really weird; maybe you should talk to her." Erik gave him a pointed look.

"Why is it my responsibility? You or Cat could talk to her just fine." Caeden grouched. His last confrontation with Lily hadn't gone well. He wasn't looking forward to a repeat.

"Cuz you're the big boss man; it's your job." Erik lightly punched his shoulder. "Get to it."

Caeden rolled his eyes. "Lily's as much in charge as I am, and you know it. Everyone knows it."

Erik completely ignored him.

"Fine, fine. What's happening right now, anyway?" Caeden sighed, giving in. It's not like he could make Erik do it, and he doubted that conversation would go well anyway. He wasn't exactly the king of emotional sensitivity.

"Oh yeah! You got your ass kicked and passed out. That was a fun fight to watch, even if you only got a single hit in after he already blew out your guts." Erik laughed.

"Yup, so what happened?" Caeden said through gritted teeth.

"Well, Lily wanted to go kick that dude's ass, but me and Cat figured that was a bad idea, so I stitched her to the wall while Cat dealt with him." Erik gestured to Cat's sleeping form.

"And that worked?"

"What part, the stitching Lily to a wall or Cat beating the douchebag?"

"Yes." Caeden's tone leaking sarcasm.

"Well, Lily didn't see it coming, and Cat just flooded him with a couple hundred constructs. It totally wiped her out, but he was already super tired from beating you up, and he got swamped. It was pretty anticlimactic, honestly." Erik pouted. Then he grinned evilly, "He still took out over half of them before he got overrun, which was pretty awesome."

"So Cat emptied her shroud out, and Lily's fighting the other Ether soldiers?" Caeden surmised.

"Yup! She already beat two and is working on the last one. The one with some kind of snake shroud resisted Chill Vein, so she just froze him, and the girl with the goo modifier also got frozen. She basically froze everyone so far. It's been fun." Erik nodded along with his spiel.

"Wait, so she's fighting Rikard right now?" Caeden jumped to his feet.

"Yeah, but it'll be over soon. She's not messing around." Erik shrugged.

Caeden moved to the window. The Ether soldiers were the only other faction besides the Forged with more than one member in the top ten, and that was because of Rikard. He was a non-family islander and had become famous around campus for being fanatically devoted to Victor. He was the right-hand man of their faction.

Looking down over the arena, Caeden watched Lily throwing streams of icicles at Rikard from across the arena as he dodged all of them. Rikard's shroud was Bend. They had seen him use it in previous rounds to affect the trajectory of arrows from the bow he used. Currently, he was using it to formshift, turning every facet of his body into its own independent joint.

It was gross to watch as he bent at completely unnatural angles. Sometimes limbs would fold in on themselves as if he was completely boneless. Caeden felt like he was watching a nightmare monster wearing a man's skin. Which, arguably, he was. Shrouded were pretty horrifying on a regular basis.

Fortunately, it looked like the fight would be over soon. Even as Lily was throwing around storms of foot-long, inch-thick icicles, Caeden could also see a line of ice crawling across the ground from Lily's feet to Rikard's. The Ether Soldier didn't seem to notice his encroaching doom. Most likely, he was too occupied with not getting stabbed by a dozen ice spikes every second.

When the secret ice reached him, it wrapped around one of Rikard's feet, stalling him. It wasn't strong enough to hold him for long, but it didn't have to. In that moment, five spikes embedded in Rikard from different angles. The fight was over. Caeden wondered why Lily went for this approach instead of her usual strategy. Rikard was a long-range attack specialist. Sneaking in close was his ultimate weakness.

Considering it was ultimately unimportant, Caeden focused on formshifting his side, letting Physical Enhancement take over the healing process. Hopefully, he would be back in top condition to participate in the next round. He was also waiting for Lily to appear. It seemed the conversation he had been putting off all day couldn't wait any longer.

When Lily entered the ready room, she immediately zeroed in on Caeden. Before, she looked slightly grumpy. That expression shifted to outright rage with an edge of relief. "What the hell was that, Caeden?" She walked right up to him and punched him in the chest. Since she didn't put even an ounce of infusion into it, it didn't hurt, but Caeden got the message.

"I get that you're mad at me, but I'm not really sure why," Caeden stated naturally. Getting mad at her wouldn't help.

"Seriously? You went and fought Victor when we agreed I would do that! Then you got yourself hurt. That was so stupid! Why couldn't you just let me handle it?" Though her expression was locked in a snarl, Lily sounded frustrated instead of angry.

"Could you?" Caeden said quietly.

"Could I what?" Lily spat.

"Could you handle him?"

Lily's expression looked stunned.

"See, that right there." Caeden pointed at her face. "That's what I'm worried about. It's the same thing I saw when we first talked about this. You were so wrapped up in not wanting any of us to fight him that you forgot to think about how you would fair. He has a pure type advantage against you and strong defenses. None of your normal strategies would have worked, at all. He's practically your perfect enemy. But you weren't thinking about that. Instead, you were too busy worrying about us. About me."

Caeden stopped, letting the words settle in. "Lily, what's going on? I understand you're mad about me not doing what we agreed on, but this is more than that. Since this ranking day was announced, you've been strangely protective of all of us, and I don't understand why. Help me understand." He gestured toward the bench.

Lily looked at him, around the room, then at the bench, her expression pensive. Then she deflated a bit. The anger wasn't gone, but the worry he had seen for days and returned. "Fine, fine. It's not like I'm keeping secrets. It's just awkward."

They both sat, and Lily started with a question. "Caeden, why did we make the Forged?"

He responded easily. "You felt a lot of injustice going around in the school, like the rest of us. So we came up with a way to fix it. The Forged is a way to prevent the military, and the Central Authority in general, from grinding up and using the less fortunate.

Lily nodded until he stopped. "But there's more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"That's why we said we were making the Forged, but you had another reason. We never talked about it, but I knew." Lily looked at him, a wild series of emotions playing across her face. Caeden wasn't sure how to interpret it all.

"What? You mean keeping Ander away? Obviously, but that wasn't ever a secret. Did we never talk about that?" Caeden was surprised. What about this had her all torn up?

"We never discussed it, but it was there in the background. At first, I was fine with that. Having you all want to help me so much was…New. It was nice, knowing you cared that much. How much time all of you poured into the Forged, at least partly to let me hide from my brother. But…" She sighed. "Then this competition was announced."

"So what? How is this different?"

Lily shook her head. "It's not. Nothing about this ranking day changed anything about what the Forged was or is, but it made me notice what I'd been ignoring." Her eyes bored into Caeden's, storms roiling in their dark grey depths. "Do you understand how much danger this is putting you in? The three of you, specifically. Every member of the Forged is a target by being a part of this faction, but we four are the leaders. I was always going to be a target because Ander is who he is, but now I dragged all three of you into the same position because I kept running away."

"It's my fault all of you are targets for every family in the CA, just because I was afraid to confront my brother."

Caeden recognized the most significant chunk of emotion swimming in Lily's stormy eyes. Guilt. But… "Are you sure about that?"

"What?"

"Are you actually afraid of Ander?" Caeden asked bluntly.

Lily's head snapped up like he had slapped her. "What are you talking about?"

"It's not like I can tell you how you feel, but… Every time I've seen you interact with your brother, all I've seen from you is rage. I don't think you're afraid of Ander; I think you're scared of what you'll do to him now that you're stronger. Whenever he's around, you go to a dark place. We've all seen it.

"None of us thought we were 'protecting' you from Ander. You don't need our protection. But you obviously don't want to be anywhere near him. Besides," Caeden gave her a stern look. "It's our own choice whether or not we do want to 'protect' you. It's not like we're treating you like glass or anything. I'm pretty sure that so long as we're not limiting your personal freedoms, we can protect you as much or as little as we want to."

"We're adults, and we can take care of ourselves." Lily flinched. "Unless…Oh. OH! Wow, Lily. Seriously?" Caeden couldn't keep disappointment out of his voice.

"What? What are you talking about?" Lily deflected. But she wouldn't look at him.

"You don't think we're capable of protecting ourselves against them." Caeden accused. Lily didn't respond. "Wow. I mean, I get that you're stronger than us, absolutely. But I think maybe that's gone to your head a bit." This was the last thing he had expected.

"You have to admit; I'm not wrong!" Lily shot back. "They're strong, and they have more resources. The families won't let this go if you keep fighting. Creating a rival faction not ruled by the families threatens their authority. Just leave it to me. I'm a family member; they can't mess with me as much." She was completely open, earnest even. She truly believed that she was right.

Caeden shook his head. That look… "I think you need a demonstration."

"What?"

Caeden stood up. "You think we're not strong enough to survive standing at the front. You're wrong. I'll prove it."

Lily looked worried. "How?"

"Easy." Caeden put on a grim smile. "I'm going to sweep Solar Radiance."