"You two seem to have forgotten something," Gajeel said, tilting his head slightly toward Wendy.
"This is a tag-team battle. Our Sky Dragon isn't some side character you can just ignore."
A little ways behind him, Wendy still held the posture from her spell, right palm raised, left palm extended toward Gajeel.
She had just cast the abnormal-status removal spell:
"Dispel."
To Sting and Rogue's shock, Wendy didn't stop.
She drew in a breath, then cast another enchantment:
"Abnormal Status Resistance Up, Rileje!"
A soft blue glow enveloped Gajeel.
He immediately understood: they wouldn't be able to restrict his movement again with tricks like holy seals or paralysis marks.
And behind him stood a comrade who needed protection, yet at the same time, that very comrade was protecting him.
Gajeel had to admit…it felt pretty damn good.
Though he could already imagine certain people lecturing him later: "How dare you make Wendy worry so much!"
Annoying.
Gajeel tightened his grip on Sting's fist, twisted his arm, and swung him around like a flail, smashing him toward Rogue.
The White Dragon and the Shadow Dragon collided, spinning and tumbling several meters before rolling across the floor.
Gajeel inhaled sharply.
"Iron Dragon's… ROAR!"
A tornado of whirling iron blades erupted outward, carving trenches across the arena floor and swallowing both Sting and Rogue in a storm of metal.
When the winds settled, the Twin Dragons lay sprawled among shattered rubble and iron fragments.
The audience murmured, it looked like a clean victory. Even Pumpkin Man was lifting his hand to announce the result.
But, White and black radiance burst from the trench.
Sting and Rogue stood up casually, brushing the dust from their shoulders.
White, scale-like patterns ran across Sting's face and torso. Rogue bore similar markings, only pitch-black.
Bands of white wind circled Sting like living ribbons. Shadowy wisps coiled around Rogue.
Gajeel's eyes narrowed.
"Their magic… it's way stronger than before."
It gave him, faintly, the sense of standing before a real dragon.
Wendy felt it too and gasped, "Mister Gajeel, they've suddenly gotten so strong…"
Gajeel cracked his knuckles.
"We'll figure it out the old-fashioned way."
He didn't think they had become impossibly strong, but he gave Wendy a serious warning.
"Stay alert. Even those idiots should've realized your role by now."
Wendy nodded firmly.
"Yes! I won't be a burden!"
Sting stepped forward, letting his aura peak.
"Sorry, Rogue. Gajeel should've been your opponent. But for Lector, I have to defeat him here!"
"I understand. As long as we win."
Rogue slipped into the ground, his body flattening into a jet-black shadow.
Sting launched forward like a streak of white lightning.
He drove a punch straight into Gajeel's jaw, slammed a knee into his gut, then brought his elbow crashing down onto the back of Gajeel's neck.
Every strike crackled with holy light.
Wendy was just about to give Gajeel another layer of enchantment when a black shadow shot past her like a blade.
"Don't interfere with Sting's fight, Shadow Dragon's Claw!"
Wendy instantly redirected her spell, casting speed-up on herself, and leapt aside, narrowly dodging the slicing shadow claw.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she sucked in a breath:
"Sky Dragon's ROAR!"
She consciously reduced the raw power to widen the attack spread, prioritizing accuracy over force.
Even so, it missed.
"Too slow. You'll never reach the Shadow Dragon's form."
Rogue's voice whispered behind her.
A burst of air erupted as his shadow-coated fist swung toward her spine.
Wendy's eyes sharpened.
"Crown of Heaven!"
She remembered Rhode's lesson clearly:
"When you can't judge the enemy's strength, defend with your strongest barrier first."
Rogue's punch slammed into her back.
Wendy cried out as she stumbled forward, but she didn't fall.
Since joining Fairy Tail, the countless battles and brutal training sessions had long since transformed her.
She was no longer the timid girl afraid of pain or falling.
She was a Dragon Slayer, and a Fairy Tail mage.
Wendy's accumulated combat experience kicked in instantly. Instead of falling, she twisted her body mid-air, letting her momentum carry her into a full spin. A powerful current of wind burst outward from her sweeping legs:
"Sky Dragon's Wing Attack!"
The gust propelled her upward like a Sky Dragon spreading its wings, lifting her several meters into the air and sending a sharp, slicing wind toward Rogue's last position.
But once again, her attack cut only empty space.
Rogue, trailing a long smear of black shadow behind him, slipped beneath her like a phantom and reappeared behind her lower back.
His voice came from the darkness:
"Indeed, I can't treat you like an ordinary little girl.
Shadow Dragon's ROAR!"
Wendy's body was still mid-air, no footing, nowhere to dodge.
'If Carla were here, she could help me!'
But there was no choice.
Wendy forced her body into a backward flip, bent her knees into an inverted bicycle-kick stance, and inhaled sharply:
"Sky Dragon's ROAR!"
But this was no ordinary Sky Dragon's Roar.
This was the technique Rhode had taught her, the special breath of the Cloud Dragon.
More concentrated. More compressed.
More razor-sharp.
Instead of a wide blast, a thin, piercing column of wind, like a sky-blue laser, shot from her mouth.
It stabbed straight into the shadow storm like a needle against a tidal wave.
For a moment, it seemed futile, like a mantis trying to stop a chariot, but then, a strangled sound came from within the shadow.
Rogue's chest had been pierced clean through by that deceptively small beam.
If he hadn't been in Dragon Force, he was certain he would've been coughing blood.
The audience gasped as Wendy's small body was swallowed by the swirling black mass.
A second later, she was hurled out of it, her black dress and stockings torn, and one of her twin tail ribbons snapped, blue hair spilling freely over her shoulders.
But thanks to the lingering protection of Crown of Heaven, she endured the damage and landed shakily on her feet.
She touched her hair, exhaled once, and tugged off the remaining tie, letting her long blue hair fall completely loose.
Her opponent was overwhelmingly strong. Even her best might not be enough.
But today, she was filling in for Mira-nee.
She refused to be a burden.
Wendy bit down, rubbed her bruised shoulder, and inhaled deeply, air swirling violently around her as she took her stance.
"Dragon-Slayer Secret Art."
Rogue's cold voice cut in, dark magic pooling into his palm.
"Still not giving up? Then I'll just defeat you here."
He plunged into the ground, a streak of shadow, and immediately burst out at Wendy's side.
Every time she moved, the shadow flickered to a different angle, impossibly fast, zig-zagging like a living blade.
Wendy couldn't get a lock.
The shadow rose next to her, Rogue leapt upward, arm extended, his limbs coated in black shadow shaped like a cross between feathers and hooked blades:
"Shadow Dragon's Chain."
He swung down.
And stopped.
Because something solid, unmovable, had stepped between them.
Wendy's eyes widened.
Standing before her, broad back glinting with steel scales, dust rising around his feet, was Gajeel.
"M-Mister Gajeel!"