Chapter 14: You Can Do It!
The dust cloud did not settle.
It hung over the center of the crater in a slow-rolling mass that swallowed everything behind it, and the crater held its breath in the way crowds held their breath when they were afraid of what the clearing of it would show.
The research girl’s pen had stopped moving for the first time since the fight began.
The brown hair boy stood with his slips of paper in one hand and his mouth slightly open, which his monkey reached up and gently pressed closed, and then the brown hair boy’s mouth came open again.
Cassian had not moved from the edge of the crater.
Leon watched Arthur.
Arthur was smiling and shouted "COME ON, VEDAS!"
The voice hit the crater wall and came back, and every head that had been looking at the dust cloud turned toward Arthur instead. Because the sound was so out of place against the silence that it took a moment to process as real.
Arthur cupped both hands.
"VEDAS!"
Every head turned.
Arthur pointed toward the dragon. "Show everyone even a dragon can fall to a goblin!"
The entire crater froze. Several students looked at him like he had completely lost his mind.
Mephistopheles turned its head toward Arthur.
The golden eyes considered him for a moment.
Then the dragon snorted and it released a roar that rolled across the battlefield from one edge to the other.
The rubble at the center of the crater exploded outward.
Stone blasted sideways in pieces, the dust cloud scattering all at once, and a figure stepped through it.
Vedas.
His armor was shattered and his shield was cracked but somehow still intact. Half of his body was covered in blood and his spear was missing pieces of iron in the middle. But even after all that punishment, he was still standing.
The crater erupted.
"He’s alive!"
"That’s impossible, the impact—"
"No way he’s standing after that—"
The research girl’s pen resumed moving so quickly it was audible from several feet away. She was writing something that required more pressure than usual. "Subject survival rate continues exceeding projections."
The owl on top of her head looked at the page and then at Vedas and then at the page again and appeared satisfied.
The brown hair boy’s mouth had fallen open a second time. His monkey looked at it, then at him, then pushed it closed again with more resignation than the first time.
"...what," the brown hair boy said, which was all he had.
Vedas ignored all of them.
His eyes remained fixed on the dragon.
Arthur’s grin widened. "There you are."
Vedas raised his shield.
The cracked metal shook with the effort of the arm holding it, and he raised it above his position and drew a breath that came from lower than his chest and released it as a War Shout.
The sound that came out of the Goblin Warrior filled the crater and kept going, and the students nearest the center flinched. A pair of beasts at the edge of the gathered crowd groaned. The spectators three rows back felt it in their chests before their ears had finished processing it.
Mephistopheles froze.
Only for a second, but that was more than enough.
Arthur’s eyes lit up. "NOW!"
Vedas was already moving when the word left Arthur’s mouth. The dragon recovered instantly but it was too late.
The shield smashed into the side of its face.
BANG!
The impact wasn’t enough to knock Mephistopheles down but it made the dragon stumble backwards.
One step.
It was only one but it was enough to leave everyone who saw it was left speechless. Vedas had already spun, and Armor Piercing activated behind the spear as it crashed into the golden dragon.
Nobody saw the strike.
One moment Mephistopheles was unharmed.
The next—
Golden blood sprayed across the battlefield. Everyone watching that line stood completely still for the full second it took to understand what they were looking at. The golden droplets glittered beneath the sunlight.
The spear had cut deep across the dragon’s side.
Nobody spoke.
The impossible had happened.
Vedas landed before pausing and looking at his spear. Then at the wound. "...I did that?" he said.
"I know! I saw it! I’m so proud!"
Vedas awkwardly scratched his head.
Mithra’s silver eyes widened. For the first time since entering the Entrance Realm, she looked genuinely stunned. She looked at the blood on the ground, then at the dragon, then at Arthur. "His vision," she said, slowly. "Was actually right?"
Arthur burst out laughing. "See?"
Vedas turned to see him grinning. And then he saw Arthur’s green eyes holding absolute confidence. There wasn’t a trace of doubt or even a trace of hesitation.
"You aren’t inferior to it."
The words hit harder than any attack.
Arthur pointed at the dragon. "Believe in yourself. I already do."
Vedas looked at him and then the battlefield disappeared as he began recalling.
The laughter that had surrounded him the moment he opened his eyes for the first time. The chair behind the vendor stall, and his own hands over his own head because the world had already made itself clear about how it felt about his arrival. The crowd called him disgusting, saying he should be thrown away, and called useless.
Then a different memory.
A hand extended without hesitation, pity, or any disgust. And instead with a smile that kept believing in him. Vedas tightened his grip on the spear before he slowly nodded.
Warmth spread through Arthur’s chest in the same instant. He could feel Vedas joy, gratefulness, and desire to win. A screen appeared at the edge of his vision that had not been there a moment before.
[Synchronization Rate: 40%]
Arthur blinked. "...Huh."
Somehow...
Understanding Vedas felt natural now.
Across the battlefield, Mephistopheles stared at the blood dripping from its side and then it surged forward.
Arthur opened his mouth.
"Le—"
Vedas was already moving.
Arthur blinked. "...Oh. You already knew."
The claw passed through empty space. Vedas was already rotating on the step that had taken him out of its path, and the dragon spun hard in the follow-through.
"Shield—"
The shield was already up.
The impact slammed Vedas backward and he slid rather than fell. The slide ended with him upright, and the crack in the shield had grown longer but the shield was still there. Arthur stared at him for half a second.
Arthur nodded.
They weren’t speaking anymore.
Somehow...
They both already knew.
The research girl’s pen stilled mid-stroke. Leon’s eyes moved between Vedas and Arthur and back again with the focus of someone resolving a problem that had been sitting at the edge of his understanding.
The dragon attacked.
Tail.
Wing.
Claw.
In a combination that would have taken the fight apart in the first minute. But now Vedas moved through the attacks without getting hit by one and the exchange ended with the dragon overextended by a degree it had not been before.
Arthur saw the opening.
Vedas’s spear was already moving.
Neither of them had spoken.
Golden blood caught the light for the second time, and this time Mephistopheles recoiled, the entire body pulling backward from the strike in a motion it had not produced for the entirety of the fight until this moment.
The crater came apart.
"HE HIT IT AGAIN!"
"AGAIN!"
"That’s the second time—"
The followers completely lost control.
"COME ON, VEDAS!"
"YOU CAN DO IT!"
"BEAT THAT MONSTER!"
The Black Hawk screamed. The Deer released a brilliant pulse of light. The Spiky Ape pounded its chest. The Flameback Crocodile roared.
Even Taurus trembled and then the massive beast threw back its head and roared as well.
A roar of acknowledgment.
A roar of respect.
Arthur laughed. "I told you! That’s my partner!"
Vedas paused for a second before smiling and continued evading the golden dragon attacks.
Mithra laughed and held Melo in her arms. ""Not bad, Vedas. Those footworks really are helping."
Near the edge of the crater, even the brown-haired boy had started cheering. Though he looked deeply conflicted about it. His monkey sat on his shoulder looking both vindicated and betrayed.
Across the width of the crater, Leon watched all of it.
The cheering.
The blood.
Arthur’s calls and Vedas’s movements, which had begun to collapse from call-then-action to a single continuous thing. He looked at Vedas standing in the center of the crater, bloodied and cracked and still holding his weapon and his position, and then he looked at Mephistopheles.
The dragon had stopped moving and touched the wound. Its golden eyes narrowed before looking at Vedas and releasing a terrifying roar.
The shockwave swept through the area, making Vedas stabbing his spear into the ground to stop himself from being sent back. But even then, he still skidded back a bit before looking up to see Mephistopheles eyes glowing.
It was finally giving him its full attention. The dragon had stopped looking at Vedas like prey. It was now looking at him like an opponent.
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