Ander looked pissed. Or maybe that was just his normal expression. Honestly, every time Caeden had seen Ander, the man was angry, so it was hard to tell. However, in this one instance, his anger was justified. Caeden had decimated all of his faction members, several of them to the point of near-death.
"I knew you were scum when you took my sister away, but now I can see you're actually a monster," Ander growled. "I'm going to put you down like the rabid animal you are."
Caeden didn't respond despite his desire to point out the obvious hypocrisy, his head still clearing from what he now realized was a severe concussion. Malik's hit to his head had done more damage than he had initially noticed, the attack scrambling his head. Along with his new clarity came the understanding of what had happened. He could still clearly remember the wet slap of Juliette's leg hitting the ground and the ugly cracking of Malik's body shattering. He almost wished the concussion came back.
His brief exchange with Vincent had gone horribly wrong while his mind was out of it. The molten metal had burned deep into his body. Caeden was lucky he had been using defense form at the time. Otherwise, he might have died. His increased durability and regeneration managed to mitigate most of the damage. However, Physical Enhancement was on its last legs. He was under a fourth of his capacity. In fact, he was rapidly approaching one-tenth.
With a shake, Caeden tossed all the material from his body. It had cooled off and turned into a greyish-black substance with a chalky texture. Considering it had already done as much damage as it could, Caeden was glad his burns weren't any worse. The sections of his upper torso and arms that had been splashed were uncovered muscle, the skin completely gone. Caeden found it mildly interesting that when he formshifted, his muscles turned purple.
He might still be in shock because the burns didn't hurt. Then Caeden realized the reason it didn't hurt was that all the nerves had been burnt off. His shroud was working to repair the damage, muscle regrowing before his eyes.
"It appears that Ander Meteoris is stepping in for his faction member. In accordance with the rules, replacing a member already in the arena constitutes their forfeit. Are you aware of this?" Elune warned. Ander waved his hand, signaling his understanding.
"Alright. Our final challenger from Solar Radiance, the Living Storm, Ander Meteoris. Placed fourth in the rankings, his shroud is Weather with the Lightning splinter!"
Ander's eyes narrowed, glaring at Caeden through the gaps in his helmet.
"AAAAND BEGIN!"
Ander released his grip on the razorwind, flexing his armor-clad hands through a series of gestures with shroud flickering around his fingers. The strange, circular weapon with its three blades placed equidistant around a circular guard, the grip set into the middle of the circle. Before the weapon could hit the ground, lightning flickered between it and Ander. It started to float, then spin. According to Lily, the original design of the razorwind was meant to be used with the Weather shroud, where high-speed winds would control the spinning weapon, sending it flying after enemies.
Ander used a modified version of the same technique. Instead of using wind, he skillfully used lightning to generate magnetic fields, levitating and controlling his razorwind with insane precision. He used a mnemonic now, but the fact that he had the mnemonic meant he could do the same without it. It was a masterful use of his shroud, both creative and skillful.
This was looking dire. Every other encounter Caeden had had with Ander involved the man vastly underestimating him. Now, he was wearing armor that hadn't been present in any fight he'd had all day, using his preferred weapon. Ander was taking this fight completely seriously, and Caeden was running on fumes. This would have been difficult in the best of circumstances, and Caeden couldn't think of a situation that could be any more stacked against him.
"Rose Garden. Rose Garden. Rose Garden. Rose Garden." Caeden dropped Sharp down to half as he created an additional 800 thorns. With those left over from his fights with Malik and Vincent, Caeden had 900 thorns total. They clouded the air around him, floating and spinning, refilling his shroud at an absurd speed. He didn't have the luxury of doing anything less than his absolute best here, and he couldn't rely on Physical Enhancement for anything. As it was, the amount of shroud he had left wouldn't be enough to repair all the damage he had suffered. He would win with Sharp, or not at all.
With a swing of his arm, Ander sent the razorwind careening off towards Caeden, who intercepted the spinning blades with some spinning blades of his own. Ten thorns in total flew across the arena to stop the weapon before it could reach Caeden. With several thorns pressing on each of the three blades, the razorwind was stopped dead.
Ander flexed his hand, and arcs of blue lightning connected him to his stalled weapon. The energy burst out like a shockwave all around the razorwind, destroying Caeden's constructs. They burst apart in flashes of red before dissipating into nothingness.
Undaunted, Caeden just sent out more. He had plenty to spare. In fact, "Rose Garden." His current set of thorns had generated enough shroud for him to make 200 more. He wouldn't be running out any time soon.
Ander seemed to realize this, "Burst!" He shouted, and thousands of tongues of lightning surged from him across the arena to strike at the thorns floating around Caeden. Caeden sent a few dozen thorns forward to stop the attack and let the lightning rip them apart. Multiple arks would strike each thorn simultaneously, vastly decreasing his losses.
"Rose Garden." At this pace, it took five seconds for his Sharp to restore enough to make another 200 thorns, and the time just kept decreasing. He had over a thousand thorns now. Caeden was hoping to build up enough to simply overwhelm Ander. To buy some time, Caeden sent several lock/release thorns flying Ander's way, hoping to stall the faction leader's attacks.
It didn't work. Ander saw the incoming attacks and muttered, "Lightning Clad," and lines of brilliant blue crawled across his skin. The instant one of the thorns got close to him, a fork of lightning leapt off him and exploded the construct. Ander clicked his tongue. "I promised myself I would actually take you seriously, yet here I am, still holding back. FULL BURST!"
With his yell, arm-width arcs of lightning fired all around him, slamming into Caeden's thorns. Unlike before, these arcs didn't stop; they just kept coming and chaining through Caeden's thorns and destroying dozens every second.
Thinking furiously, Caeden tried to come up with a way out of this. Ander had nullified his attacks and was now systematically taking apart his reserves. His constructs weren't durable enough to hold up. His only method of getting out of this was being systematically destroyed. He only had one option before all his thorns were gone.
He crouched down, holding his hands together. Thorns started flooding in, combining together in between his hands. Thorns would be drawn into his hands even as lightning destroyed them. Ander noticed, cutting off the constant stream of electricity.
"So this is what you're going to do? You have nothing else?" Ander sounded almost disappointed. "I was planning on making you hurt for all the time you've spent with Liliana, but if you're going to force a confrontation with you, I think I can oblige." He held his hand out, fingers pointing at Caeden as a ball of lightning began to form around his hand, thick streams of it running from his chest and up to his arm, rippling and crackling through the air.
Hundreds of thorns streamed into the space between Caeden's gauntlet-covered fingers, coalescing into a single rose-shaped construct. Its color shifted and darkened as more and more poured in, going from blood red to a dark purple. Over five hundred thorns in this one attack. More than he had used on Victor.
Ander continued to charge his response, his hand glowing a bright white with all the lightning wrapped tightly around it. The air itself began to hum with power around him. Caeden had no idea how strong that attack would be, but he doubted it was inferior to his own.
Finally, every last thorn Caeden had remaining was fused into one deep purple rose, pointed straight at Ander. It was time.
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"Rose Cannon!"
"Gigabolt!"
Ander fired his attack at the same time, a massive bolt of lightning, as thick as his arm but a hundred times denser than anything he had used previously. It turned into a streak of eye-blinding brilliance racing across the arena. Caeden's beam of dark red cutting force slammed into it only a few feet in front of him. Ander's attack was much faster than his.
At the point of contact, great beams of lightning and crimson blades were thrown in all directions. Because their attacks had met so close to him, Caeden was inside the range of this cast-off energy, and several blades and bolts cut and fried him even as his Rose Cannon continued to fire. He had no other option. So he weathered the constant stream of residual force their attacks created, focused entirely on maintaining the cannon.
Moments passed, and Caeden didn't feel like Ander's bolt was overwhelming his beam, but he wasn't winning either. They seemed perfectly balanced. He tried to push harder, increasing the force of the beam by shortening its duration. The second he did, there was a matching increase from Ander's bolt. Caeden's eyes widened. Ander was matching him. The only reason his lightning hadn't overwhelmed the Rose Cannon was because he was holding back.
Long seconds later and Caeden was running out of power. His beam petered out, the storm of runoff dying out with it. Ander weakened his lightning bolt in tandem with Caeden's beam so that they both ended simultaneously.
"There. I think you're on the down and out now, aren't you?" Ander sounded smug. Caeden couldn't see his face properly through the helmet. "Now, let's have some fun."
Caedan realized during the beam struggle that he was being condescended to. Despite Ander's earlier statement, he seemed incapable of treating Caeden as anything other than his lesser. The problem was, Caeden couldn't do anything about it. He was out, almost entirely. Physical Enhancement was on its last gasp, still working to fix all the myriad wounds he had sustained over the last three fights. It would be gone in only a few minutes.
Sharp was still half full, but Ander had proved how utterly meaningless that shroud was against him. All of Caeden's constructs lacked the durability to pierce through his lightning. He had nothing, no means of attacking, and barely any way to defend himself. Is this all I can do?
Ander sent his razorwind flying in once more. Rather than waste any thorns he didn't have vainly trying to stop it, Caeden waited for it to approach, then slammed his gauntlets together, catching one of the blades between his armored palms in a burst of precision and strength. He heard and felt a dangerous clicking from both of his arms. The bones were nowhere near healed, and that move had placed them that much closer to breaking.
Forged Infinity went to work eating up all the shroud Ander had in the razorwind, consuming its ability to move. Even as that happened, though, Caeden could feel Ander reaching across the distance, his shroud grabbing onto the weapon and pouring more shroud in. It wasn't something Caeden could use. All the shroud Forged Infinity absorbed went to powering its transformations, not to him.
In the meantime, Ander wasn't done. He raised a hand into the air, firing brilliant blue bolts into the sky. Caeden wondered what he was doing until the first one rained down on top of him, coursing electricity through his ravaged body. His muscles spasmed, ripping themselves apart and damaging his fragile bones. Caeden managed to choke out another Rose Garden, using the thorns to block the bolts from above even as they were destroyed.
Meanwhile, Caeden stewed in his thoughts. He was pinned. Broken, burnt, shocked, beaten, and tired. Every attack he tried was matched and exceeded. His defenses were on their last legs, barely holding him together. He had lightning raining from above and a blade to his throat. What could he do?
It was…frustrating. The second he was taken seriously, he was backed into a corner he couldn't see the way out of. For all that he had said to Lily, he genuinely wasn't strong enough. What would she look like, when he lost? Would she be disappointed or tell him she had expected this? Which was worse? Would she laugh it off? What was he going to do?
Black anger started to grow inside him. All the things he wanted, Lily's respect, Unc's recovery, his own peace and quiet. All of them were outside his reach if he couldn't even win a fight like this. Victor had taken him down after Caeden got in only a single hit. He thought he could reach the number one spot with just this?
Caeden wasn't mad at Ander, Lily, or anyone else. He was angry at himself. If he had just gone all out from the beginning, using everything he could from the start, he wouldn't be in this situation. His unwillingness to use all his strength to spare others who wouldn't offer him the same courtesy was letting all his goals slip through his fingers.
So Caeden reached into himself, grabbing the constantly whining and crying part of himself that said every life was sacred and killing was wrong, telling him to hold back and play nice, and he choked it. He choked until it was silent. After all, that whiny, reasonable, compassionate voice was the reason he was in this situation. Caeden didn't want to hear it anymore.
The second he did, something else within him clicked into place. Unbidden, Sharp began to coalesce over his left hand. His shroud sigil appeared, the dagger dripping blood forming in the air. Thick bands of shroud, lines of crimson red streamed out of his hand and up into the blade.
Caeden understood. He had contemplated Sharp for months, trying to increase his understanding. Trying to reach this point. He understood Sharp's purpose as a part of nature and tool. But that part of him that never wanted to come to this Academy, the one that hadn't wanted to leave his forge, rejected the most fundamental aspect of Sharp.
It was harm.
If it was sharp, it could hurt. Everything sharp was a weapon, whether it wanted to be or not.
Him included.
Bolts of Sharp burst out unbidden, smashing into every bolt Ander sent and the razorwind alike, throwing the attacks away from him, surrounding Caeden in a bubble of protective power even as ever more energy flooded into his sigil. Then it snapped, every bit of Sharp he had summoned sucked in.
His incarnation of Sharp took form.
The dagger that made up his sigil split then split again and again. Each split then split over and over until Caeden had a hundred daggers floating around them. Then they warped, every individual blade transforming into its own iteration of Sharp. He had stilettos and butcher knives, even a corkscrew. Literally a hundred different variants of a simple knife and other small, sharp objects. None were larger than a foot in any dimension, and most were household tools of some description. Each and every one was crimson, from blade to hilt.
"Oh, ok." Caeden grinned, that information of his incarnation flooding into his mind. Toolset, that was its name. And it was exactly what he needed.
"Seriously?! An incarnation?! Fuck you!" Ander shouted, any smugness gone from his voice. He threw a fist-sized bolt at Caeden while his shroud yanked on the razorwind, trying to pull it from Caeden's grip instead of pushing it toward him. Caeden let it go. He was still barely standing with more injuries than he could count, but his situation suddenly felt much less dire.
With a flick of his finger, Caeden sent the butterknife among his selection flying to intercept the lightning bolt. They collided, and the lightning dissipated against the knife, which was unharmed. These weren't constructs but physical objects. And, as his incarnation, they were completely indestructible. Ander wouldn't be blowing them up with a bolt like the thorns.
To cut off any further attacks, Caeden sent half of his incarnation off toward Ander, fifty different sharp objects flying for his head. There was even cheese wire. Every one aiming for Ander's head and his Lightning Clad wasn't going to stop them.
In an instant, Ander went from an uncontested offensive to a desperate defense, firing off massive bursts of power just to hold Caeden's incarnation back. That dark anger felt vindicated, satiated. He had fully given up on his empty morality, and look! Now he was winning. Ander could die, and Caeden's goals would be that much closer to accomplished. It was simple.
But as knives and chisels and saws began to dig into Ander's no-doubt expensive grandmaster quality armor, cutting onto it with bone-chilling ease, Caeden's thoughts yanked back to why he was doing this. So Lily would respect him. Would she respect the man who killed her brother because it was easier than sparing him? To restore his uncle. Would he want to be healed on the back of a dozen bodies?
Caeden froze. Before him, he could see a dark, black pit with no bottom. Taking a life was a line he had crossed in defense of his own life and the lives of others. That was not what he was about to do. If he killed Ander now, it would be because it was easier than sparing him. Where did that end? Where would that take him? Caeden stared at the pit.
He turned back. Even as the line of cheese wire wrapped around Ander's neck, Caeden held up his hand. Every object in his Set froze. He knew that Ander wouldn't afford him the same mercy in the same situation. He knew that letting him go would only make his life and the lives of his friends harder in the future. Ultimately, Caeden didn't want to be ruthless. He didn't think any of his friends wanted that from him either. So he chose mercy.
It wasn't easy. He was still blindingly angry in a way he hadn't felt in years. His mind still roiled with all the endless wrongs Ander had done to him and others, things he would no doubt do again. There was no doubt in his mind that the world would be a better place if Ander died right here, right now. The pit remained.
But once he went in, there was no coming out. So Caeden turned away, even if he could feel that bottomless depth in the back of his mind.
He would not be a monster, not today.