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"Dragon-kind, is it? Interesting." Wesley hadn't taken this fight too seriously until now. He wet his lips without noticing, the crimson dragon reflected on the surface of his eyes, and somewhere beneath that reflection flickered an envy he'd never have admitted.
Even inside Celestial, dragon-kind stood among the spirits Card Masters coveted most. And with the whole academy full of the young, the heat around dragon cards burned several times hotter than it did outside.
"Dragon firepower does sit at the peak of all the races. That doesn't make dragons unbeatable. My Giant Ice Bear and Frost-Soul White Tiger are nothing ordinary either." And even as he spoke, Wesley sent both spirits forward to meet the charge.
Bone-Eroding Edge!
Frostfang!
The White Tiger roared, the Giant Ice Bear slammed both paws into the ground, and the two fierce beasts fired their signature arts in the same instant. Cold condensed into blades and swept at the dragon, while fang after fang of ice tore up out of the earth, and the whole line of WarGrowlmon's advance turned into one frozen killing field.
Conrad's eyes drew tight as he watched. Put his Nether Tiger into that, and there was exactly one way out, and it ended underground.
ROAR!
WarGrowlmon ignored all of it. Speed unchanged, it drove straight through Bone-Eroding Edge and Frostfang alike, and every strike that landed on its body broke against the Chrome Digizoid, unable to leave so much as a scratch behind.
"The armor WarGrowlmon wears is forged of high-purity Chrome Digizoid. Ordinary attacks won't crack it." Luke watched without much surprise. The same could not be said of anyone else present.
"That's not possible!" The onlookers looked like they'd seen ghosts. "Those were two Seven-Star spirits' attacks. It didn't even raise a guard. It just ATE them?"
"Worse than that. The dragon isn't even scratched. How does that make sense?"
"I know any dragon is strong, but not THIS strong, surely. Is Luke's dragon defense-specialized? It doesn't look the part."
Even Wesley's eyes had narrowed. Bone-Eroding Edge and Frostfang weren't his beasts' strongest arts, granted. They were still nothing a same-grade spirit shrugged off bare, with no guard raised.
The armor, then? His gaze swept the dragon fast and locked onto the metal sheathing its upper body.
Attacks useless, armor unbroken, the two beasts ran clean out of patience and simply closed to grapple.
BOOM!
The Giant Ice Bear rose to its full height and slammed into WarGrowlmon head-on, and the wind-pressure off the collision shoved rows of spectators backward. Not one of them looked away.
The two giants locked for the space of a breath, no more, and then the bear was giving ground, step after step.
"Ssss! Even the Giant Ice Bear's strength can't hold that dragon?"
Giant's Might!
The bear roared, Giant's Might took hold, and its strength surged by nearly half again. With that it finally, barely, held the line. Which quietly horrified everyone doing the math. Half again on top, and "barely" was the word.
Mana Burst!
The White Tiger vaulted clear over the melee and came down behind WarGrowlmon, its aura swelling in an instant to the very edge of the bear's. Cold gathered dense along its raised claw.
Bone-Eroding Edge!
The same art as before. But riding Mana Burst, this cast ran a full step above the last one.
"There it is. Wesley's combat experience still beats Luke's."
"That tiger-and-bear coordination is seamless. Put me down there, and the moment that strike lands, I surrender on the spot."
Stunned or not by what the armor had just eaten, the crowd's lean had swung back to Wesley. One was a freshman, one was a senior, and going by spirit configuration alone, Wesley's read better.
"THIS is what refusing Brother Wesley buys! Dragon or not, we'll butcher it while you watch!" The Society members had gone bright-eyed, half of them already rehearsing the dragon-slaying celebration.
Actually, Luke has a Seven-Star angel too. Conrad very much wanted to tell the entire road, and said nothing.
For one thing, he'd been strong-armed in, and however livable the arrangement, a grain of resentment stayed a grain of resentment. For another, if he said it, who'd believe him? No sense doing thankless work.
Inside the Society's ranks, exactly two faces showed no trace of celebration. Conrad's was one. Wesley's was the other. He could read no tension off Luke at all. Not even fear. And that was not normal.
Does he think one dragon handles both of my spirits? Wesley's brow creased. Even with the higher quality, there's no dodging a combined strike from the two of them. Or is there something else at the bottom of his deck?
He'd been an exam first himself. He knew better than most that everyone kept trump cards.
Then again, you're not the only one with something at the bottom of his deck.
A third card slid into his hand as he thought it. Overcautious, maybe, and the need for it nettled him. But one year to the Society's third seat had rested on two things: strength was one. Always keeping a spare hand was the other. Wesley had no appetite for surprises.
Twin Edge!
The dragon-kind blood in WarGrowlmon ignited, and in one beat it crushed straight through the Might-boosted bear's guard. The vibrating alloy blades along both arms crossed in a blur, carved a vast X across the great bear's front, and the impact hurled it bodily away.
Ambush!
The assault balancers at its back turned serpent the instant the White Tiger closed, whipping around the tiger's body a half-beat before its claw could fall. WarGrowlmon hauled once, hard, and the tiger, control stripped clean away, went sailing stiff as a plank into the Giant Ice Bear. The two enormous spirits collided, and the anguished cry that went up split the air.
Atomic Blaster!
The twin cannon-ports on its chest condensed terrible energy, and two shockwaves of atomic grade fired into the tangled, crying pair. The explosions that followed shook the whole road.
"Good LORD!"
The blasts made everyone jump where they stood. The counter had been fast and it had been vicious, and in the space of one blink, the seamless combined strike had come apart, its authors eating WarGrowlmon's answer raw.
One against two, and the crimson dragon hadn't merely avoided the losing end. It held the advantage outright.
"No. No way!" The Society members stood struck dumb. One moment they'd been rehearsing the dragon-slaying party. The next, reality had slapped them all awake, and who was supposed to just take that?