Chapter 264: One Was Enough
"Now," Jin said.
Glitch lifted his head, and Draconic Dread struck Anvil as the ram closed the last few meters.
The hesitation was small. Anvil’s head rose, its ears flattened, and the shoulder that should have rolled in behind the horns faltered. Its body kept coming. There was too much momentum for a frightened step to stop it, but the guard Dell had trained so carefully arrived late.
Glitch shifted sideways and angled his left shoulder toward the charge. A horn scraped along the Hardened plate instead of catching him squarely. He absorbed the glancing impact through his planted left foreleg and hindquarters, then lifted his right claw.
Jin felt the energy gather down that limb.
Once.
Rending Dragon Claw swept across Anvil’s exposed near shoulder. Jin recognized the tearing sound from the reinforced target block, and then the plating opened and he saw what lay underneath.
Anvil’s foreleg buckled. The ram dropped to its knees, slid past Glitch, and rolled onto its side. Blood spread down the broken edge of its shoulder armor.
"Stop. Glitch, back."
Glitch had already turned toward his fallen opponent. At Jin’s command he halted, lowered the raised claw, and backed away.
"Match!" the referee called. "Medical team, in!"
Jin brought Glitch clear of the ram and kept him beside the entry lane. He had expected the claw to break through. He hadn’t expected Anvil to go down before Dell could give another command.
Across the arena, Dell was running.
Dell knelt beside Anvil’s head and put both hands on its face. The ram tried to rise when he touched it.
"Stay," Dell said. "I’ve got you. Stay there."
The medics arrived with a field stabilizer and a plating clamp. One took over at the shoulder while the other checked Anvil’s breathing and asked Dell to keep talking to him.
Jin moved Glitch farther from the treatment and made him lie down.
Someone in the tiers said, loudly, "That was one hit."
The answer came from several rows away. "We saw."
A few students cheered when the result appeared above the arena. Others were leaning over the rail, trying to see whether Anvil was all right. Near the front, three heads bent over the same phone as its owner dragged the recording back to the instant before contact.
Jin watched the medic tighten the clamp. The bleeding slowed. Anvil stopped trying to stand and rested its head against Dell’s knee.
Only then did Jin look down at Glitch.
He lay where he had been told, breathing easily, his right foreclaw tucked against the floor. A pale scratch marked the shoulder where the horn had passed. It was barely visible among the ridges of his plating.
All those evenings watching Varro’s recordings, and the actual opening had lasted less than a second. Glitch had taken it exactly when Jin asked him to.
"Good," Jin said quietly, rubbing behind the horn. "You listened."
Glitch pushed against his hand. Jin almost smiled, then looked back at Anvil’s shoulder.
That went deeper than the block made me expect.
He remembered the four pieces peeling away from the test target. He had treated that result as proof the claw would work. He should also have spent longer thinking about where to let it land.
An official from the ranking office approached with a tablet.
"The pressure before the strike," he said. "Did that come with the evolution?"
"Yes."
The official noted it against the match record. "That explains the hesitation. Varro’s going to watch that part a few times."
Jin suspected everyone in the tiers would. The official moved on without asking for a full skill description, and Jin was grateful to have one less conversation to handle.
Doyen arrived while the medics were preparing to move Anvil. She examined Glitch’s foreleg, took a strain reading, and ran her fingers along the scratch on his shoulder.
"Superficial," she said. "The claw’s left some strain, but it’s settling. You used it once."
"I did."
"I noticed." She closed the scanner, then followed his gaze to the stretcher. "They’ve controlled the bleeding. The muscle is torn, but the joint and major tendons are intact."
"How long?" Jin asked.
"Several days. Five or six before they consider competition, if healing goes well. They’ll reassess him rather than promise a date."
Fifteen days remained before the cutoff. Dell would lose a sizeable part of them.
"He’ll recover?"
"That’s what the examination suggests," Doyen said. "He needs treatment and rest. They’ve got both ready."
Jin nodded and stayed out of the way as the stretcher passed. Dell walked beside it with one hand resting against Anvil’s head.
The rankings updated before Jin left the building.
[Match result: Challenger victory.]
[Jin Astor — Third-Class Rank 28]
[Dell Varro — Third-Class Rank 30]
He read his new position twice. Two places closer, with Glitch healthy enough to walk out beside him. When a student near the doors congratulated him, Jin thanked her and meant it.
He found Dell outside the medical bay an hour later, sitting with his forearms on his knees.
"He’s stable," Dell said before Jin could ask. "They’ve cleaned the wound. He’s asleep."
"Doyen said several days."
"If we’re lucky." Dell rubbed his palms together. "Then I get to start from thirty with everyone else trying to get into the twenty."
"I’m sorry about the shoulder," Jin said. "I didn’t expect it to go through that far."
Dell looked up at him. "You expected to hit him, though."
"Yes."
"Right." Dell let out a breath. "I know. It’s a match. I’m just not enjoying that explanation much right now."
Jin sat at the other end of the bench. Through the door he could hear a medic giving instructions about Anvil’s next dressing.
"I thought about pulling out," Dell said after a while. "Yesterday, when I saw the profile. Then again when you walked in. I told myself he was still six-Star and Anvil could handle something heavy."
"Your pressure adjustment was good."
"Didn’t buy me much." Dell looked toward Glitch, who was waiting beyond the bay entrance. His gaze lingered on the foreclaws. "What was that? The pressure, and then his arm?"
"Both came with the evolution," Jin said.
"That’s not much of an answer."
"No," Jin admitted.
Dell studied him, then gave a short, reluctant snort. "Fine. I wouldn’t hand you mine either."
Students passed at the far end of the corridor. Dell lowered his voice. "I’d planned for a proper match. Now everybody gets to watch Anvil go down to the first hit."
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. Jin let him have the silence. There was no useful way to tell somebody his defeat hadn’t been that bad when they both knew how quickly it had ended.
He got up when the medical-bay door opened. Before going in, he turned back.
"Fair fight," he said. "I’m not going to pretend I’m happy about it."
"I wouldn’t expect you to."
"Good. He’s a good ram. He didn’t deserve that afternoon."
Dell went inside, and Jin left him to it.
Glitch rose as soon as Jin reached the entrance. Outside, someone called his name and asked whether the recording was real. Jin glanced at the animal beside him, then back at the student.
"I was there."
The student laughed. Jin found himself smiling too.
He could remember carrying Glitch’s crate with both hands, worried about jostling him. Now people were stopping to watch them cross the yard, and his ranking had changed again.
Glitch bumped his hip, impatient to get home and eat.
"All right," Jin said, putting a hand on his neck. "Dinner. You’ve earned it."