I wished we could have taken the next day off so I could keep Benny company while he thought things through. Sadly, that wasn't in the cards. We had to start looking into our next opponent immediately. We only had the day to prepare for the fifth round, and after the next fight we wouldn't even have that. With three hundred arenas in the city the fifth round would take place in a single day, as would every round until the eighth. Which meant our downtime was officially gone.

After granting Rime her wishes and passing the elixirs to Benny (all Focus based bringing him up to one hundred eighty three focus), we headed out to meet up with the other teams we knew in the tournament. Since we had no leads on a new source for the tournament, our best bet was to talk to the other teams, especially the ones who lost, so we could start compiling information on the groups that were still in.

Since any of the winning groups would only have information on defeated enemies talking to people like Lament would be pointless. But Silent Dagger's team and Beast Lord Garden would be easily able to share some info. We had them meet us at Deva again, because the food there was fantastic. Rime decided to wait outside, not feeling up to a big social event, so it was just Callie and I after Jessie headed off to do some errands.

When we arrived, Sloane and Abigail were sitting on one side of the table, and their teams were mingling on the other. They'd saved seats for Callie and I, and we both plopped down next to them, stopping to order our meals before pleasantries. Once we'd done that Callie gave the other girl a hug. "Hey, Sloane, good to see you. I was sorry to hear you guys got dinged out."

The Beast Lord Initiate frowned, sighing deeply. "Not just me. All of our teams got bounced. Mine was the strongest and with us losing the other three didn't have much chance."

Callie made a sympathetic sound. "I'm sure you guys did great. Winning isn't everything, you'll definitely get some stat points out of the match for putting on a good show." Her tone wasn't conciliatory, more upbeat and positive, and despite seeming to appreciate it I didn't think Sloane was buying.

"No." Said the other girl. "We didn't. We got crushed. The Burning Heaven Abyss is one of the factions with a Master Candidate. Their gunner absolutely destroyed us. From what I can tell they built their whole team around him. Two augmenters and a heavy to play defense up close. Their defender is tough too. Wren and Falken double teamed him and couldn't leave a scratch."

Abigail made a sympathetic noise. "I can sympathize with such sentiments. My own heart grows dark with sorrow as my mortality eclipses my hopes for the future. Curses and malaise on the heads of the swine who divert the paths of our bright destinies, leading us down the road to ruination."

I stared at her blankly. "I...have absolutely no idea what the hell you just said."

Sloane snickered. "Don't sweat it. You pick up Abby speak pretty fast when you're around her long enough. She basically said 'sucks to be you, I'm pretty pissed at the assholes who beat us too'."

Callie raised an eyebrow. "Is the whole super formal archaic speech thing really useful? Or is it just a preference thing?"

Abigail smiled serenely. "Tales fly swiftly on wings of whispers of the maiden with the transcendant speech. Worthwhile? Who can say, but the paths we take lead ever to the same peaks, naught a one walks them with less alacrity as can be managed at their utmost."

I tried to puzzle that out, but Callie picked it up first. "Translation, we all do crazy shit to get stronger." She said with a smile. "Fair point. So what about you guys? Who did you lose to?"

Sloane cut in before Abigail could respond. "Whoa there." She said before the other girl could respond. "Sorry sweetie, but I don't think any of us will get a word of that. They fought the Night Demon Throne. Super creepy group of berserker nutcases. I was actually at their fight. Those weirdos attack each other to boost their power before the fight. They have some kind of ramping ability that makes them stronger the more injured they get."

That didn't sound great. I was about to ask more about them, when the scan ring on my finger vibrated. I left Callie to talk things out with the others as I stepped away, answering the call to find a surprising face. "Celine." I said calmly. "Wasn't expecting to hear from you any time soon. Anything I can help you with?"

The elf girl looked awful. Her eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles around them were deeper, her skin was sallow and waxy, and her gaze was hazy like she was too tired to really function. Her voice was a rasp when she answered. "Benny wouldn't answer my call."

"Can you blame him?" I asked gently. I was at least slightly pissed at her myself, but being an asshole to someone clearly in this much pain seemed like beating a dead horse. That did NOT mean I was going to humor her. "I don't have anything much to say to you either Celine, so if you don't have anything you need to talk about I'm going to go."

Her eyes cleared, focusing on me as they widened. "NO!" She yelped desperately. "Please. No. Wait. I have information. I checked with some of my sources and found out..." She paused, looking around. "Information you can use. I can't talk about it over an unsecured line. It's important though. If you can meet me I can give it to you. I promise it'll be worth your while."

I could only think of one obvious bit of information we could use on short notice, our next opponent. The question was why she would give that information to us when it would be directly counter to the interests of the Fairieland. That very question made this extremely suspicious. "Why would I trust you enough to meet?" I asked blandly.

She sighed. "You shouldn't. I know that. But I had to offer. I used all my resources getting this information. If you are going to use the it you need to do it quickly." The look of frustrated agony on her face was kind of heart rending, especially from the normally taciturn elf. "I...I just want to make things right. I wanted to use the resources I had to do something to help all of you."

"I believe you." Came a voice from behind me. I jumped, whirling to find Callie behind me. She shot me a warm smile. "I felt your shock through the bond, this seemed important so I excused myself." She looked back to Celine. "I believe you." She repeated. "But we aren't coming to you. That would be pure idiocy. Coming to see you on campus was a calculated risk because you wouldn't have had time to hear about us finding out and you were in Unity territory, but with prep time I absolutely won't bring my people to a place you'll have an advantage."

Celine's head drooped. "It's fine." She said quietly. "I'll come to you. I can meet you at your place to hand over the info. That way you'll be under the protection of your strongest backers and all your defenses. Is that acceptable?" Her tone was formal in a way that reminded me of the old Celine.

Smiling, Callie nodded, her tone gentler than I'd have expected. "It is. We'll meet you there immediately." I looked at her sharply, but she just ignored me, saying goodbye. Once I shut off the screen her smile dropped and she gave me a worried look. "I know. He might not be ready to see her. He can wait inside. But we need this information. Not to mention this is a good chance for her to show him that she wants to make amends."

I pulled her into my arms, smiling. "You big softie. You just wanted to give them the chance to start to reconcile." She shrugged coolly. Smiling, I let her go and stepped back. "Alright, we should go then. We don't want her to beat us there." I texted Jessie who was looking at plants nearby to come pick us up, and then Benny to fill him in on the situation as Callie went to say goodbye to the others and apologize for cutting things short. She also paid for the meal, since it had been our invite.

Once Jessie showed up we headed back to the house, filling her in on the way. She was a bit suspicious, having taken Celine's betrayal to heart more than any of us, but when we explained everything she seemed to come around. "Well." She said tightly. "If she's coming to the house where Zeke and the ice queen over there are waiting I doubt she can cause much trouble." She nodded to Rime, who was in the back seat either pretending to sleep or ACTUALLY ignoring us. "I'm sure you already told Benny about all this?"

"Of course." I said. "He wants to sit in on the meeting actually." She glanced at me in the mirror with concern and I shrugged. "I don't like the idea either, but it's his decision. It's not my place to tell him how to handle his life."

She sighed. "I guess. I don't know. I'm not happy about all this of course, but based on some of our conversations maybe I'm not TOTALLY surprised." Catching our glances in the mirror she gave a guilty shrug. "Looking back, some of the things we talked about back when we were working on the perimeter for the siege might have hinted a bit at how beholden she was to her family. I just didn't notice it."

She snarled, slapping the steering wheel. "Which is my fault. I'm the one who is supposed to puzzle out stuff like that. The one who gets people to say too much and listens when they do. I dropped the ball, and now Benny is hurting and it's all my fault."

Her voice was raw, and I felt a pang of sympathy for Jessie. We hadn't really checked in with her about this because Benny was so much more affected. Seemed like she's taken it to heart more than we'd thought she would. Callie leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder.

"Hey." Said my girlfriend softly. "Stop that. This is not your fault. It isn't Benny's. This is Celine's mess, and further up the blame chain it's her sister and mother's fault."

I nodded sagely. "It's true. You mess up more than enough. No need to take credit for someone else's mistakes on top of that."

Jessie giggled, rolling her eyes as she flipped me off in the rear view mirror. As she did that, we finally turned the corner heading back to the house, and we all braced ourselves for the upcoming mess. Regardless of intentions there was a lot of raw emotion involved here, and this was going to be dramatic and painful for SOMEBODY. As we pulled up, we could see Celine standing outside the house across from Benny.

Annoyed we hadn't beaten her here, we hopped out of the car and made our way over to where they were talking. Benny's face was closed off, but not cold, and as we approached he nodded to us solemnly. "Hey guys. Glad you're back. Celine stopped by. She says she has information we can use." He turned back to her, saying flatly. "Go ahead."

She swallowed hard before turning to us. "I've been digging into it and I've discovered the identity of your next enemy. I wanted to tell you as soon as possible so you can prepare for the fight." She took a deep breath. "Your next battle will be against the Burning Heaven Abyss." Ah. Well. I could understand why she would think that was urgent. Shit.