Benny was, understandably, not at all thrilled to find out his girlfriend hired people to assault and possibly murder us. I was still shaky on what their orders had been, but regardless of whether the intent was to take our lives it had clearly been to at least screw us over, and my best friend was devastated.

We debated over what to do for a short while, but in the end, we only really had one option. We headed for the Academy to talk to Celine. I wasn't sure what she might have to say, but in the end, she deserved a chance to speak her piece, and Benny deserved a chance to hear it.

Jessie, to my surprise, was livid. She and Celine had bonded during the siege, and she and Benny had gotten closer waiting for us during our time in Doomtown. For her own sake I hoped the elf had a good explanation for all this.

We were all unusually quiet during the ride, arranging to meet up with Teague and the others later while we went and handled what could only be described as personal business.

I expected Benny to hang back when we arrived, let Callie and I take the lead since this would already be hard on him, but my friend was the first one out of the car. We had to hurry to catch as he purposefully strode through the campus, ignoring everyone as he approached the dorm where Grimmengap lived. When he arrived,he pounded on the door calmly, still and cold as he waited for someone to answer.

Sarah was the one who opened the door. "Oh!" She said happily. "Hey guys. I thought you had your match today? How did it go?" The soft spoken blonde was as happy and upbeat as usual, but when she saw our faces, her smile wilted a bit. "Ah, not so good then?"

That was a reasonable conclusion to come to, but Benny just shook his head. "They did fine. Is Cel here? I need to talk to her."

"Sure..." Sarah said slowly, seeming unsure what to make of this sudden and apparently unpleasant visit. "She's in her room. She's not feeling well today. Guess she had some trouble sleeping last night."

Benny seemed to ALMOST react to that, his eyes flickering with a bit of hope before he squashed it down. "She'll want to see me. It's important. Tell her we met some friends of hers outside the arena and wanted to talk about them." His voice was thick and raspy, as if he was slightly sick, and I felt my heart clench for him, knowing how awful this must be.

Benny hadn't been in Doomtown with us, hadn't been in the tournament or involved in our dueling training. He'd been doing his own training some of that time sure, but he'd also been spending most of his time with Celine. Been getting closer to her and getting to know and care about her. I tried to imagine how I would feel knowing that Callie had potentially been planning to stab me in the back for our whole relationship, and I just...couldn't.

Clearly sensing my best friend's seriousness Sarah nodded and turned, hurrying back inside to ask her team leader what to do. She came back a minute later looking worried. "She says you guys can come back." She paused. "Are you sure it needs to be right now? She looks really bad."

I bet she did. But we just shook our heads and pushed past. Abel and Mel hung back, since this wasn't really their deal, Mel intercepted Sarah, asking the girl about the wolves they had sleeping around the dorm, while Abel started chatting up Martin, much to my relief and gratitude.

We headed back to Celine's room, and when we knocked on the door, a faint voice told us to come in. Celine was sitting at the mirror, brushing her hair, and Sarah hadn't been kidding, she looked...bad. Dark circles under her eyes, sunken cheeks, and a dull expression somehow different from her normally placed countenance. Her eyes stayed locked on the mirror for a second when we entered, before dragging dazedly over to us.

"Oh." She said in a quavering voice. "Hello everyone. I was glad to hear about your match going well. Sarah said you met some friends of mine?" Her tone was high and kind of unsteady, like she was trying not to cry, and I noted that this was probably the most emotional I'd ever seen her. Benny had been coldly furious this whole time, but I could see real concern on his face, and I didn't blame him.

He didn't let it deter him though. Forcing himself to focus on the pain he was feeling. "Yeah." He said lightly. "We met some people who mentioned knowing you. Guy named Miles, and a few people from the mercenary guild. They're friends of a friend apparently."

She swallowed hard. "Ah. Those friends." She closed her eyes, taking a shaky breath. "That's...unfortunate."

"Unfortunate?" Said Benny calmly. "Why is it unfortunate Celine? Is it unfortunate that you betrayed all your friends and had us attacked? Is it unfortunate that we found out? Or is it unfortunate that you had to waste all your time pretending to give a shit about me to accomplish your mission? Maybe it's unfortunate we didn't just die and save you from this conversation."

Her eyes snapped open as she whirled to stare at him frantically. "No!" I was shocked by the vehemence in voice voice, and from their reactions so were the others. She was...well I wasn't sure what she was, but it was certainly dramatic. "No one was supposed to die. No one was supposed to even get seriously hurt. I was VERY clear about that. I hired FIVE F-rankers to counter your minder, made sure that they would strike when you were in a small group and overwhelm you."

She was almost pleading as she said it. "There were so many of them so they could handle you without any danger. You weren't in harms way at all. I made sure of it. I know that doesn't make it better, but I did my best to make sure you would be as safe as possible."

Benny laughed coldly. "Oh, I guess I should be grateful. My girlfriend hired a bunch of thugs to beat me and my friends, but only a LITTLE bit." He threw his hands up. "All better! That fixes things."

The groan of frustration that came out of her mouth was almost animalistic in intensity. "I didn't WANT to do it. But if I didn't one of the others would have handled the hiring and they might have sent people to actually kill you. I was TRYING to keep you safe." Her eyes frantically scanned over all of us. "Please. I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I was trying to protect you all. I DO care about you Benicio. That's why I made my sister give me this assignment."

"Ok." He said casually. "So you care. Not enough to be loyal to me. Not enough to pick me over your family, but sure, let's say you care. How long have you been planning this?"

Callie cut in. "From the beginning." She said solemnly. "That was why they sent you here. For this tournament. You enrolled here at the academy to wait for this. Is it really that big of a deal? Like Impact is important, but a few points of it can't make that much of a difference."

Celine just shook her head sadly. "You're wrong. The competition between the younger generation in the galactic centers is horrifying. A few points of Impact could be the difference between one of the faction heirs claiming glory and resources in several of the major competitions. There's almost nothing the Queen wouldn't do to get even a small advantage for one of her sons or daughters. It's the same for any of the major factions."

Her eyes pleaded with us almost as fiercely as her voice did. "This isn't going to get better. It's going to get worse. This was the best thing for all of you. If you had agreed to drop out of the tournament early they never would have paid any attention to you." She looked at Callie. "You were thinking about it already. You TOLD me that. It would have been so much safer."

"The Fairieland was preparing for this for a while, to invest so much manpower." I said slowly. "They set things up so they could attack all the major factions and weed out as much competition as possible. You mentioned your sister. Is she the higher up that's responsible for all this."

Celine's eyes were filling with tears. "Yes." She whispered. "My sister Nalia had been here for quite some time. She has special equipment to prevent herself from being noticed, it suppresses her aura constantly.

Benny snorted. "Well, guess that explains why I never met your mom. She didn't need to meet me not to approve. Bet your sister told you to dump me as soon as you stuck the knife in huh?"

"I wouldn't!" She snapped. "She told me to end things weeks ago. She said I had enough information, that I'd made inroads with your other friends. She said your training was enough of an excuse to break things off without alienating me, but I wouldn't do it." Her tears were flowing now, but she wasn't sniffling or anything. Celine was a quiet crier.

"I feel so flattered." He said woodenly. "I meant enough to you that you wanted to really drag things out before you threw me under the bus. Glad to know I was at least a good distraction."

Celine looked like she wanted to pull her hair out. I reminded myself not to feel bad for her. This could all be bullshit. She was a courtier, putting on the waterworks and pretending to be upset was her bread and butter. Her shoulders slumped as her eyes dropped to the ground, and I found myself struck by how...defeated she looked.

"I know. I know I can't fix it. I know it's too late. But I am sorry. I just...I thought it would all work out." The desperation leaked away, leaving only hollow emptiness and shame. "I thought I could keep you safe and do my job at the same time. I just...I've never had friends before. I wanted to keep you. All of you, but especially you Benicio. I realize that was selfish and stupid."

Her eyes snapped up, emotion filling them again as she forced herself to look him in the eyes. "But if you ever cared enough to listen. Listen now. You don't understand how bad this will get. The Fairieland tried to make the first as devastating as possible, but if you drove off your attackers than the less effective groups will have failed as well. Retaliation will be swift and brutal, and it will not be targeted. Please. PLEASE drop out of the tournament." She aimed that comment at Callie, obviously. "Please don't get yourselves killed playing above your paygrade."

Benny just shook his head in disgust. "How am I supposed to trust that? How are any of us? How am I supposed to be sure you aren't manipulating us, AGAIN."

"Because I love you." She whispered. "Because I don't want you to die. I don't want you to lose your best friend, or to see Shane lose Callie, or to see Jessie die. Because I care." She sighed brokenly. "But you have no reason to believe that. Or anything I say." Her eyes never left his though. "But...do you?"

The anger went out of Benny, and he just looked...tired. Just as tired and sickly as she did. "I don't know what I believe anymore Celine. Thanks for that." Then he turned and walked out of the room, and the elf lost her composure and finally broke down into wracking sobs. We all left then. As much as we might be angry at her, some things shouldn't be seen by other people.