The clearing in the northern jungle was dead quiet, save for the heavy, rhythmic breathing of the digital beast standing in front of Ace.
Rustyrose stared at the shattered remnants of his Sword of the Underworld. The dark, imagined magic dissolved into harmless ethernano, fading into the humid air.
He pushed his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose, his dramatic composure cracking.
"You shattered my blade with a physical strike," Rustyrose said, his voice losing its theatrical lilt. He glared at Zudomon.
"My Arc of Embodiment brings the deepest fears and grandest weapons of my mind into reality. It isn't fragile glass!"
"Your magic is just a projection," Ace said, leaning against a tree trunk. He didn't sound arrogant; he sounded like a mechanic diagnosing a broken engine.
"You imagine a sword, and the ethernano takes that shape. But it doesn't have real weight. It doesn't have real history. Zudomon's hammer is forged from Chrome Digizoid. It's dense, constructed data. It hits a lot harder than a daydream."
Rustyrose's eyes twitched. "You call my art a daydream? How vulgar. I'll show you the true weight of my imagination!"
The dark mage raised both hands toward the sky.
His magical aura exploded, painting the jungle canopy in a harsh, purple light.
"Descend from the heavens and crush the nonbelievers!" Rustyrose chanted, his eyes wide with manic inspiration.
"Tower of Dingir!"
The earth beneath Zudomon groaned.
The dirt ripped apart as a colossal, dark stone tower erupted from the ground right beneath the digital walrus.
The sheer kinetic force of the rising structure launched Zudomon high into the air, pinning him against the thick, ancient branches of the Tenrou canopy.
"Now, be sealed in the abyss!" Rustyrose yelled, clenching his fist.
The dark stone of the tower began to shift, jagged spikes shooting out to impale the airborne beast.
Ace didn't panic.
He just watched the trajectory. "Break it."
Zudomon roared, twisting his massive, muscular body mid-air. He gripped the silver handle of his hammer with both hands, his green furry pants flapping in the wind.
The spikes on his turtle-shell armor scraped against the rising stone as he brought the heavy weapon back.
"Vulcan's Hammer!"
Zudomon swung the weapon down, slamming the Chrome Digizoid head directly into the peak of the dark tower.
The impact rang out like a thunderclap. The shockwave stripped the leaves off the surrounding trees for a hundred yards.
The impenetrable stone of the Tower of Dingir cracked, spider-webbing down its entire length before the massive structure violently exploded into a rain of useless rubble.
Rustyrose threw his arms up, shielding his face from the falling debris.
"He broke the tower too?! What kind of monster is that?!"
Zudomon landed heavily on his feet, the ground shaking beneath his massive weight.
He let out a deep, rumbling growl, brandishing his hammer.
"Your constructs are big, but they're hollow," Ace noted, pushing himself off the tree. "If you want to beat us, you're going to have to imagine something that can actually take a hit."
"Don't mock me!" Rustyrose snapped. He pointed a finger at Zudomon. "Wings of Pegasus!"
Golden, ethereal wings sprouted from Rustyrose's boots. He shot into the air with blinding speed, darting around the falling debris of his tower.
He held his hands out, gathering a dense sphere of purple energy.
"Let's see your beast endure the wrath of a god! Golden Shield of Belerophon!"
A massive, ornate golden shield materialized in front of the flying mage, acting as a focus point for his magic.
The shield glowed with a terrifying, blinding light, preparing to fire a massive laser straight down at the clearing.
"He's got the high ground," Ace muttered, his eyes tracking the flying mage.
He swiped his hand across his D-Tector. "Bring him down."
Zudomon didn't jump. Instead, the massive beast planted his feet wide, digging his heavy claws into the dirt.
He reached behind his back, grabbing the massive, spiked shell strapped to his shoulders.
"Horn Toss!"
Zudomon ripped the heavy shell off his back and hurled it toward the sky like a giant, spiked frisbee.
The projectile spun with terrifying speed, cutting through the air with a loud, whistling screech.
Rustyrose sneered, hiding behind his golden shield. "A blunt projectile won't pierce the Shield of Belerophon!"
The spiked shell slammed into the golden shield. It didn't pierce it. The sheer, overwhelming blunt-force trauma of the spinning shell hit the shield like a wrecking ball.
The kinetic transfer was so massive that the golden shield buckled inward, shattering into pieces of purple light.
The remaining force of the blow caught Rustyrose right in the chest.
The poet gasped, the breath knocked entirely out of his lungs.
His golden wings flickered and died. He plummeted from the sky, crashing hard into the dirt just a few feet away from Ace.
Rustyrose groaned, clutching his ribs as he tried to push himself up.
His glasses were cracked, his elegant suit covered in mud and dirt.
Zudomon caught his returning shell, strapping it back onto his shoulders with a heavy thud.
He stepped forward, his shadow falling over the defeated dark mage.
Ace walked over, looking down at Rustyrose. "You rely too much on the flair of your magic. A real fight isn't a poem. It's just math and physics and my partner hits harder than you."
Rustyrose spat a mouthful of dirt, glaring up at Ace with pure hatred.
He reached out, his fingers trembling as he tried to summon one last imagined blade. "I am... the vanguard of the Grand Magic World... I won't lose to a..."
Before he could finish, Zudomon raised a massive foot and stomped down hard, the blunt impact knocking the poet out cold.
"One down," Ace murmured.
He looked toward the western jungle, where a massive, suffocating wave of heat was rising into the gray sky.
"Looks like Natsu is still struggling."
...
The western crater was a smoldering nightmare of pitch-black fire.
Natsu was on his hands and knees, gasping for air. His skin was covered in nasty burns, and his muscles screamed in protest with every movement.
He clutched the charred remains of his white scarf, his eyes locked on the dark mage standing at the edge of the pit.
Zancrow laughed, a manic, grating sound that echoed through the dead trees.
He tossed a ball of black fire between his hands like a toy.
"What's wrong, Salamander?" Zancrow taunted, tilting his head. "You look tired. You dragons are supposed to eat fire, right? Why don't you take a bite? Oh, right! You can't! Because you're just a fake, and I'm a god!"
"Natsu, please," Happy cried, tugging on Natsu's torn vest. "We can't beat him! His fire hurts too much!"
Natsu gritted his teeth, the pain making his vision swim.
He remembered the suffocating terror he felt when Gildarts unleashed his aura.
He remembered the feeling of absolute defeat.
'Knowing fear isn't a weakness,' Gildarts' voice echoed in his memory.
'It's the first step to knowing your own limits, and learning how to protect the people behind you.'
Natsu wasn't fighting an exam anymore.
He was fighting for his guild. He was fighting for Happy. If he lost here, this crazy bastard was going to burn Tenrou Island to ash.
"I'm not losing," Natsu growled, his voice rough and ragged.
He forced himself to stand, his legs shaking but his posture unyielding.
"Still standing?" Zancrow grinned, his eyes wide and unhinged. "Fine! I'll just burn you down until there's nothing left but bones!"
Zancrow threw his arms wide open. The black fire erupted around him, forming a massive, roaring hurricane of dark ethernano.
The heat was so intense it began to melt the rocky walls of the crater.
"Die, fairy! Flame God's Explosive Flame!"
A colossal wave of black fire launched toward Natsu, threatening to swallow him whole.
Natsu didn't run. He planted his feet. He closed his eyes and focused inward, feeling the magical container inside his own body.
The vessel that held his Fire Dragon magic.
The reason he couldn't eat the God fire was because his container was already full of his own, conflicting ethernano.
The two magics rejected each other.
If he wanted to hold a new kind of power, he had to empty his cup.
Natsu opened his eyes, a fierce, terrifying resolve burning in his dark pupils. He threw his arms back and screamed.
A massive, blinding pillar of red-orange fire erupted from Natsu's body.
He was releasing it.
All of it.
He burned through his entire magical reserve in a matter of seconds, pushing his ethernano to absolute zero.
The red fire faded, leaving Natsu standing vulnerable in the path of the incoming black inferno.
Zancrow laughed harder. "You idiot! Did you just throw all your magic away?! You gave up!"
The wave of black fire crashed down on Natsu.
But there was no explosion.
The dark flames swirled around Natsu, wrapping around his body like a violent vortex.
Natsu opened his mouth wide and inhaled deeply.
The pain was immediate and excruciating. The heavy, dark ethernano burned his throat and scorched his lungs, fighting against his draconic biology.
But because his magical container was entirely empty, there was nothing for the God flames to clash with inside him.
He forced the dark magic down, claiming it as his own.
Zancrow's laughter died in his throat. His eyes bulged in pure shock as the massive wave of black fire vanished, sucked entirely into the Dragon Slayer's mouth.
Natsu stood in the center of the crater, wiping his mouth with the back of his charred hand.
He looked up, a fierce, feral grin spreading across his face.
"Thanks for the meal," Natsu said, his voice dropping to a low, draconic growl.
"Impossible!" Zancrow shrieked, taking a step back. "You can't eat a god's flames! You're just a dragon!"
"I'm a Fairy Tail mage!" Natsu corrected.
He slammed his fists together.
The resulting spark wasn't red.
Natsu's right arm erupted in his standard, blazing red-orange Fire Dragon flames. But his left arm ignited with the heavy, pitch-black fire of the Flame God Slayer.
The two contrasting magics swirled around his body, the heat generating a localized storm in the crater.
"You want to see a real explosion?" Natsu asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
He merged the red fire and the black fire together, creating a massive, terrifying sphere of swirling, dual-colored energy.
Zancrow panicked, throwing both hands forward to summon a desperate shield of black fire. "Don't you dare!"
"Dragon God's Brilliant Flame!" Natsu roared.
He threw the massive sphere of merged fire. The projectile tore through the air, moving faster than Zancrow could track.
It slammed right through the God Slayer's hastily constructed shield as if it wasn't even there.
The resulting explosion eclipsed the entire western jungle.
A massive pillar of red and black fire shot high into the gray storm clouds, burning away the heavy fog and illuminating the island.
The shockwave leveled the surrounding canyon walls, turning the stone to molten slag.
When the smoke finally cleared, the crater was silent.
Zancrow lay embedded in the far wall of the canyon, his eyes rolled back in his head, completely unconscious.
His magic was entirely snuffed out.
Natsu stood victorious for a few seconds before his eyes rolled back.
The strain of emptying his magical vessel and eating foreign ethernano caught up with him all at once.
He collapsed face-first into the dirt, dead to the world, snoring loudly.
Happy flew over, tears streaming down his furry face.
He landed on Natsu's back, poking his cheek.
"Aye... you really did it, Natsu."