Skull Drone vs. Dragon Form
“Hah! Hah!”
Dick and Meilin were sprinting full tilt up the sloped stone stairways of the castle district.
“Seriously, none of this makes any sense!”
Dick shouted, his face a mask of disbelief even as he ran.
“How did the guardian stone break? And what's Hector doing on the siege team of all things?!”
“Quit whining and keep running.”
Simon's order as Commander-in-Chief had been simple.
All Kizen students were to assemble at the Royal Palace. He had judged that holding the outer defenses any longer was pointless.
“Speaking of which, who's guarding the palace right now?”
Meilin asked.
“Goul and Fengel,”
Dick answered, but Meilin clearly had no idea who either of them was. So he added, “Goul's just an ordinary hemomancer, and Fengel's mid-to-high squad level, at best. If Hector's the one coming for them, neither will last long. Unless Fengel manages to land Banshee's Embrace on him, maybe.”
“...Banshee's what?”
“There's a spell like that.”
Dick tipped his head back and groaned.
“Ah, come on! Please, just let somebody figure it out and get there ahead of us...!”
* * *
The open ground before the Royal Palace — the final destination on the road to the game's objective, the 'King'.
Hector and Simon stood facing each other across the distance.
“...You.”
And yet Hector, who should have been delighted at the prospect of fighting Simon, wore an expression twisted with fury.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Simon looked, to anyone's eyes, like a man who had just walked straight out of a battle. Dirt clung to his clothes and hair, his face was drained pale, and his breath came in ragged gasps.
The gears turned in Hector's head. Only one person on the siege team other than himself could have reduced this guy to such a state.
“...You're the one who took down Jules.”
“That's right.”
Simon forced out the words with as much composure as he could muster, though he was still heaving for breath.
Hector's scowl deepened into something savage.
I told him I wanted to fight Simon Polentia at full strength!
Hector recalled his conversation with Elisa.
— Just do what I say, and you win the game AND get to fight Simon. Two birds, one stone.
— Not interested, you leech. I'm moving on my own.
— Then the situation you want will never happen. Simon's the Commander-in-Chief. You really think the defense team's going to hand their boss over to you on a silver platter?
—...
It had sounded convincing enough. The moment Hector paused to consider it, Elisa pressed her advantage, coaxing him along.
— Just trust me. I'll set up the perfect stage for you.
Her plan went like this. First, seize the outer walls and push into the assault on the inner keep. Then, through some trick or another, shatter the guardian stone. The instant it broke, Hector would transform into his corpse dragon form and fly straight for the Royal Palace at the castle's peak.
Once he was fighting the palace's defenders, she'd declared with utter confidence, Simon would be the first to come running — because she was going to make sure of it.
True to her plan, Simon had indeed arrived. But he arrived already half in tatters.
“One question.”
Hector said, his eyes narrowing to slits.
“Was fighting Jules your call?”
Simon hesitated, then decided there was nothing about it worth hiding.
“No. Jules came after me. Wouldn't let up.”
Hector wrinkled his nose in disgust, threw his head back, and roared.
“ELISA CELIIIINE!!!!”
The cry thundered across the grounds. Simon clapped his hands over his ears.
...Th-that's Dragon Fear?
It was a sound-based curse on an entirely different dimension from what the werewolf student had unleashed from the castle walls. Dick had said Hector couldn't manage Dragon Fear yet, but to Simon's eye, he wasn't far from mastering it completely.
“When this fight is over, that woman is going to pay!”
Hector ground the words out through his teeth, then fixed his glare back on Simon.
Damn it all.
His feelings were a tangled mess. The man had taken down Special Admission No. 5 and come straight for him. Beating an exhausted opponent meant nothing to Hector — nothing at all. Maybe, in Elisa's twisted mind, this was her way of guaranteeing his victory. To him, it was nothing but deeply, bitterly insulting.
But.
As much as he wanted to dictate the terms, this exam mattered too much. And for all that his duel had been shuffled down the priority list, this was still the battle he'd been longing for — against Simon Polentia himself.
“Bring out your Royal Guard.”
Hector said imperiously.
“I'll wait that much for you.”
“Sorry, but I don't have the strength left to use the Royal Guard.”
Red flushed up Hector's neck.
“So you burn everything against that knife-fighter, but I'm supposed to beat you without your Royal Guard?!”
...How did he manage to twist it into THAT?
Simon let out a long sigh and raised his arm. A subspace gate tore open behind him, and five Skeleton Mages descended at his back.
Casting the Royal Guard a second time here was realistically impossible. It was a hastily improvised technique — but this was no time to be picky.
Simon unfurled a magic circle in the empty air.
Click!Click!Click!
The skulls of all five Skeleton Mages launched skyward. Then the Cloud streaming from Simon's body surged up and swallowed the skulls whole, each one wreathed in emerald smoke curling around its center like a living corona.
Simon's Original — Skull Drone.
With Simon himself at the center, the five Skeleton Mage skulls began to rotate slowly through the air.
Watching it, Hector bared his teeth.
“Some cut-rate knockoff of the Royal Guard — and you think THAT's enough to fight me?”
Behind him, his dragon wings snapped open with a roar of stretched membrane.
“Don't say I didn't warn you, Simon Polentia!!”
“Knockoff? Please.”
Simon grinned and dropped into his stance.
“I'm pretty proud of this one.”
No further words were needed. Hector charged. At the same instant, the jawbones of the floating Skull Drones hinged open, and jet-black flames began to flicker and writhe inside.
Dark Blaze.
As the fireballs hurtled toward him, Hector's eyes went wide mid-charge.
No staff, no body — casting straight out of the skulls?!
He wrenched himself sideways, and the fireballs slammed into the ground with booming concussions.
“!”
While Hector was still scrambling to evade the fireballs, Simon reversed the flow and came at him, fist cocked.
Hong Peng Original — Chwita.
BOOOM!
Hector caught it in a guard stance, but a grunt escaped him as he skidded backward, scales peeling off his dragon-wrapped body and clattering to the ground.
“Kuh!”
This time it was Hector who lunged forward, fist raised.
WHAM!
Then, out of nowhere, something detonated behind him. He staggered and rolled his eyes back — and there hung the Skull Drones, bobbing serenely in the air.
“You sneaky, son of a—!”
Crack!
Simon followed up with a rising punch that caught Hector square in the face.
Yes — clean hit!
Fighting in tandem with the Skull Drones, Simon's style was pure flair. He traded Magic Combat blows with Hector while his drones orbited all around them, raining spells from every direction.
Watch the fireballs and Simon's fist found you. Watch Simon and the fireballs caught you. Caught between attacks from six directions at once, Hector was taking hit after hit he never saw coming.
“You little rat!”
Baleful energy rippled across Hector's eyes. He flung both arms upward as if shaking something off, and the dragon scales he'd blasted loose came pelting down like buckshot, smashing into the Skull Drones' skulls.
Thwack! Thunk!
Simon flinched, the connection searing through him — and Hector closed the distance in a flash, driving a fist deep into Simon's stomach.
WHUDOOM!
Simon barely got his guard up in time, but Hector's lips curled upward.
“Right. So THAT'S how you want to fight.”
Hector retreated a step and swept his arm. The bone shards strewn across the ground rose into the air and assembled into Bone Spears.
“Go!”
The Bone Spears streaked toward the Skull Drones while Hector himself charged at Simon.
“Move!”
Simon steered his drones out of the spears' path and met Hector head-on.
Crack! Thud! Smash!
The two boys hammered each other with a furious exchange of blows, then broke apart at the same moment. Hector tried to raise the Bone Spears again—
Dark Blaze.
Dark Blaze.
Dark Blaze.
The drones were faster. Hector threw up his wings to shield his body, deflecting the fireballs in a defensive crouch.
“Hahh! Whew!”
Simon gasped for air and re-set his stance. Hector wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth — and smiled.
“Good. Good. GOOD!!”
Yes. This is it.
It wasn't the full-strength showdown he'd craved, but this — this was exactly the feeling he'd wanted! This one stood on a different tier from the endless stream of forgettable students. More than worthy of being the rival he crushed beneath his heel.
Hector's entire body began to swell and surge.
Dragon Form — the hereditary power of the Moore family. Before, the dragon parts had hung loosely off Hector's frame like borrowed armor. Now, roughly forty percent of the dragon itself was emerging, scales settling into place, wings moving with natural, liquid grace.
“Time to die!”
Airborne, Hector dove straight at Simon's Skull Drones.
Pierce of Blizzard.
SHAAAAAA—!
A maelstrom erupted. A raging blizzard roared down in a storm of ice shards, and Hector threw up a hasty guard as he was forced back to the ground. And in the very spot where he landed, a viscous, glue-like puddle had appeared out of nowhere.
“Meilin, NICE!”
Dick, who had appeared out of nowhere, grinned and pumped both fists.
Venom Whip.
A whip of pure poison lashed out at Hector. He spat a weak breath of flame to burn it away, tore himself free of the glue by sheer strength, and launched skyward once more.
“Dick! Meilin!”
Simon called out in welcome.
“Miss us, Commander?”
Meilin winked. She and Dick moved up in front of Simon in a protective screen — and Hector's face contorted.
“Out of my way, you gutter trash! Don't you DARE interfere with my fight!”
“Are you insane? The palace's about to fall and you're worried about a fair duel?”
Dick drawled. In a heartbeat, the odds had shifted to one against three.
“Simon!”
“We're here to help!”
On top of that, students from the defense team, alerted by Simon's transmission, were arriving one after another. One against three swelled to one against nine.
“Whatever you do, don't let that one get away.”
Dick pulled a net from his subspace.
“Take down Hector, and we flip the whole game.”
“Fine by me.”
Hector's Dragon Form surged further still, his body shifting into unmistakably draconic shape.
“Come at me, all of you. I'll take every last one of you my—!”
KWA-BOOOM—!
KWAA-BOOOM!
Before he could even finish the sentence, cannonballs came screaming out of the sky. The defense team students scattered in a panic, and someone's horrified cry rang out across the field.
“Th-that's Elisa's Ghost Ships!”
Far in the distance, three spectral galleons hung in the air, half-visible. One by one, siege team students dropped from the ships' decks and rallied behind Hector. The head count between the two sides evened out in an instant.
“Hector! We came to back you up!”
“Hah! Perfect timing, right?!”
...Damn it all!
His allies had no idea what they were saying. Hector ground his molars together. Just when he finally had a real fight with Simon on his hands, it had turned into a group brawl.
He swept his gaze over the arriving students and snarled, savage and low.
“Simon Polentia is MINE. Touch him, and I'll deal with every one of you first.”
“Y-understood.”
Both groups of students sank into fighting stances.
“GO!”
And without anyone needing to call first, the siege team and the defense team hurtled toward each other across the open ground.