"I'm counting on you, Wolfie!"
Ethan shouted across the field at Big Big Wolf.
The wolf glanced back, gave a thumbs up with one paw, and flashed a brilliant grin.
"Relax, Boss. This Great King is invincible."
Then he dove headfirst into the scrap yard.
On the other side of the field, Jake's knight — a basic Tier 1 white card — wasn't exactly a speed demon. Positioned diagonally, there was well over a thousand yards between them, and even with agility techniques, it would take the swordsman about a minute to close the distance.
One minute was more than enough.
The moment Big Big Wolf hit the junk piles, his movements became a blur. He darted between stacks of rusted steel and discarded gears so fast that most of the time, only an afterimage was visible — hands grabbing parts, welding sparks flying, tools spinning.
"A Tier 1 card shouldn't be able to move that fast, right?" Sophie said from the spectator seats, frowning at the screen.
Normally, even a Tier 3 card wouldn't produce afterimages at full sprint. This Tier 1 cartoon wolf was moving like something two full tiers above his rank.
"Maybe it's a special trait tied to his environment," Lily guessed, though she didn't sound confident. "Inside the scrap yard, his crafting speed could be off the charts."
Honestly, watching Big Big Wolf work inside those trash heaps, you could make a case for him being Tier 4.
When Jake's knight was still two or three hundred yards out, Big Big Wolf stepped out of the junk pile.
He looked nothing like the wolf who'd walked in sixty seconds ago.
He was armed.
A laser gun in his right hand. Dark-soled jet shoes on his feet. A layer of cobbled-together armor strapped across his chest and shoulders. And a pair of tactical glasses over his eyes, green data scrolling across the lenses.
"Hmm." Big Big Wolf flexed his paw experimentally, then tapped the side of his glasses. "My brain doesn't feel as sharp as usual. Am I being restricted?"
He wasn't entirely happy with the loadout. Under normal circumstances, he could've built a small tank in that timeframe. But something had been holding him back — a ceiling on what he could produce, like an invisible hand pressing down on his creativity.
Tier suppression. The System's way of keeping things fair.
"Whatever. This'll do."
Big Big Wolf broke into a run. Pale blue exhaust hissed from his jet shoes, and his speed doubled instantly.
The laser gun came up. Three blinding beams of light lanced out in rapid succession, each one tracking the charging knight.
The swordsman sidestepped the first laser.
The second, he managed to parry with his longsword — sparks exploded off the blade on impact, and the force of it nearly knocked the weapon from his grip.
But the third came in at a vicious angle, too fast and too low.
The beam punched clean through the knight's aura shield and bored a charred hole in his left side.
The swordsman stumbled. He looked down at the wound, disbelief written across his face.
Then his body dissolved into motes of starlight and vanished.
One minute into the battle. First blood.
"Is that all you've got?" Big Big Wolf blew on the muzzle of his laser gun — even though there was no smoke — and struck a pose. "This Great King hasn't even used his full power yet!"
In the spectator seats, Sophie and Lily sat in stunned silence.
"An instant kill?" Sophie rubbed her eyes. "Just like that?"
"That knight was only a White card, sure, but it should've been able to stall for at least a minute or two," Lily said, still processing. "I didn't expect it to go down in a single exchange."
"The wolf's own combat stats are probably low," Sophie reasoned, replaying the sequence in her head. "But he equipped himself from the scrap yard. The damage came from the gear, not from the wolf."
"If Ethan joins our team..." Lily was already thinking ahead to the team bracket. "We hold the front line in the early rounds while his wolf builds equipment behind us. We could end matches in under five minutes."
The mental image was almost too good. She barely dared to think about it.
On the field, Ethan was also mildly surprised.
He'd known Big Big Wolf was strong in a support role, but he hadn't expected a clean one-shot kill on the very first engagement.
"If Jake had summoned his knight to midfield instead of hanging back, it would've been harder to set up," Ethan noted. "But the way it played out..."
The situation was looking very good.
"Wolfie!" Ethan called through the System comms. "New objective: destroy the enemy crystal."
"Oh?" Big Big Wolf adjusted his glasses. The lenses auto-focused and zoomed, locking onto the blue crystal tower across the field. "Leave it to this Great King!"
His jet shoes flared, and Big Big Wolf launched forward like a rocket, kicking up a trail of dust behind him.
On the other side, Jake watched his knight dissolve into light and his lip twitched.
"Instant kill? Didn't he say yesterday that this thing's combat power was basically nothing?"
He scanned his hand quickly, looking for an answer. He couldn't let the wolf reach his crystal unchallenged.
"Gotta slow him down."
Jake pulled a Blue card and channeled psionic energy into it.
The card flared, and a figure materialized directly in the center of the field — right in Big Big Wolf's path.
[Card Name]: Wolf Demon
[Quality]: Blue (Rare)
[Rank]: Tier 1
[Type]: Summoning Card
[Story System]: Legend of the Wolf Demon
[Cost]: 100 Psionic Energy
[Effect]: Summons a newly awakened Wolf Demon. Possesses the agility and ferocity of a wolf with basic humanoid combat capabilities.
[Note]:Barely humanoid.
The Wolf Demon stood about five-foot-seven, covered in grayish-black fur. Its hands and feet were still distinctly wolf-like — long claws, thick pads — but it moved on two legs, hunched forward, coiled like a spring.
"Awoooo!" It howled the moment it landed and immediately locked onto the approaching Big Big Wolf.
"Ugh, you're ugly." Big Big Wolf recoiled slightly. "This Great King doesn't have relatives like you."
He didn't slow down, though. Instead, he adjusted his angle, trying to bypass the Wolf Demon entirely.
But the creature was fast.
Its hind legs exploded off the ground, and its entire body became a gray blur, cutting off Big Big Wolf's new path in an instant.
Data streams flickered across Big Big Wolf's glasses.
[Threat Level: HIGH]
"Interesting." Big Big Wolf raised the laser gun. "Let's see how you handle this."
Another beam lanced out.
The Wolf Demon didn't have intelligence — no strategic thinking, no battle plans — but its reflexes were terrifying. The instant it saw Big Big Wolf's arm rise, it rolled sideways. The laser scorched a tuft of fur and nothing else.
Big Big Wolf fired again. And again. But the Wolf Demon's movement pattern was chaotic, borderline random — impossible to predict.
[Calculating enemy trajectory... Calculation failed.]
The readout from his glasses told him what he'd already figured out.
Big Big Wolf wasn't surprised. The glasses were built from literal garbage. A few glitches were par for the course. He still remembered the Mecha Dragon he'd built once that had automatically evolved a surrender function. Junkyard tech had its quirks.
"Fine. Plan B."
He holstered the laser gun and pulled out a second weapon — a Bubble Gun. On hit, it generated a restraining bubble around the target, locking them in place.
Big Big Wolf charged forward, closing the gap.
If he couldn't hit it from range, he'd take it point-blank.
The two collided in a flash.
The Wolf Demon slashed at Big Big Wolf's chest. Big Big Wolf pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The Wolf Demon's claws raked across Big Big Wolf's armor with a shriek of metal, slamming him backward several yards. Deep gouges ran across the chest plate — one more inch and it would've been a killing blow.
"Good thing I made the armor," Big Big Wolf muttered, looking down at the claw marks with wide eyes. "Otherwise I'd be heading home right about now."
"But —" He looked up. "I hit you."
The Wolf Demon was trapped. A shimmering, translucent bubble encased its body like a swim ring, pinning its limbs. It thrashed and howled, but the restraint held firm.
Big Big Wolf strolled over, laser gun leveled.
"This Great King is the Wolf King. Don't compare yourself to me, mutt."
Bang. Bang.
Two laser shots, point-blank, to the head.
The Wolf Demon was fast. It hit hard. But its defense was paper-thin. Two shots through the skull, and it began to dissolve into starlight.
"Wait — Wolfie, RUN!"
Big Big Wolf heard Ethan's voice a split second before his glasses screamed.
[WARNING — WARNING: Unknown energy signature approaching.]
He looked up.
A red fireball — massive, blindingly bright — was hurtling toward his position.
It was already in his face.
There was no time. No dodge. No counter.
The fireball hit him dead center. His body turned charred black from head to toe, cartoon-style, smoke rising from every surface.
He was done.
But even as his body began to dissolve into starlight, Big Big Wolf planted his feet, pointed one trembling paw toward the sky, and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"I WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK!"
Then he was gone.
PLzzzzz THROW POWERSTONES.