Clash of the Dragons: Master vs Student

Issued Challenge
Aether sat on his throne. It had been used by all the previous masters of Dragon Gunfire as a sign of their leadership, but to him it was a chair.

"Mother!" called out Aether.

A young looking woman walked into the room. Miriam Cade, guild ace of Dragon Gunfire. "You called son?"

"I just wanted to see if you were here," said Aether. Aether's pet Blizzardvern, Winters, walked up to him. He made a sound akin to purring as Aether stroked his back. "I can sense something's coming. Whether it's good, bad, or something in between, change will come to this world. And Dragon Gunfire needs to be ready to face it."

"How do you know?" asked Miriam.

"The eternano levels in Caelum have been in flux for sometime now. I'm afraid that the threat we've been fearing might be amassing power."

"Well what do you plan to do?"

Aether smiled "What any rational man would plan to do: train. Getting more guild members isn't enough now. We need more power on our side. And I've called in just the right person that might be able to get me to break a sweat.

As Aether finished his sentence, the wind almost responded to his plea as the door open with a large bang. The ominous aura was now towered by an aura of warmth and happiness. The sky danced as the peaceful rays of the sun's light pierced through the fleecy clouds casting a light that was neither too pale nor too strong. The ground began shaking with the rise of ethernano levels, all of which originated from one man alone. Two shadowy figures made their way towards Aether as they entered the grounds that are considered as holy to those who are the members of the guild known as Dragon Gunfire.

As the light shined on them and particularly their faces, it became clear who they were in the first place. First entered a rather short stature and slender cat-like man with two tails on his back with his partner who appeared behind him moving in a lethargic manner. His partner, was a lean yet well built tall mage with spiky, medium-long red hair which were like the bright morning sun, dancing in the August breeze, like fire and his heterochromic eyes sparkled. He smiled as he revealed himself to be none other than, Seraph Kinmichi; the Metal Man (金属男, Kinzoku Otoko).

Seraph and Nekomata walked towards Aether as Seraph gestured his hand asking, "Is this where you plan to spar, master? I would hate to see this place collapse!" As he completed his sentence which was further emphasized with a hand gesture, the ring on his hand shined brilliantly almost reflecting his enthusiasm while Nekomata looked at Winters and purred at him.

"No," said Aether, rising from his throne, "I picked the perfect place for us to fight. That way neither of us will need to hold back." Aether led the two, along with Winters, to the exit of Nidavellir. He placed his hand on the Wyvern, and sprouting from his hand was greenery, forming into the shapes of three saddles. "Well, hop aboard."

"G-Green..M-Mag--? Fascinating! Green Magic, the same magic once used by one of the Four Kings of Ishgar? No wonder he's strong", Seraph thought to himself as he paused for a moment as if he was formulating something but soon enough, go on board along with Nekomata as they were soon riding a giant tree like thing that moved at great speeds.

After traversing a great amount of distance with the help of greenery, Winters flew the trio far, but it only took a few minutes before they landed on an island, floating in the middle of the ocean. Upon landed, Aether dismounted. "Good boy Winters, I'll summon you again, if needed." Winters roared, and flew off of the island. "I created this island myself. There's no people or wildlife so you don't need to worry about holding back." He turned towards Seraph and Nekomata. His blue magic aura surged around him, with the occasional bolt of lightning whizzing by as his aura caused a few tremors as they crushed the ground around him and electrified the impurities in the air. "So should we get started?" he added.

Witnessing his Master's actions, Seraph looked at Nekomata and then back at Aether. "Neko, its gonna get dangerous, I suggest you watch this one from above, buddy! Keep your distance." With that sentence, Nekomata began levitating in air as he smiled and ascended; one could describe this action with the immortal words, "Up, Up and away". "This is gonna be good!" Nekomata exclaimed as he flew out of the range of the two great wizards. Within a blink of an eye, Seraph became clad in a thick, particularly dense crimson aura with black outline. His eye's began glowing as the ground beneath him started shaking and his very presence casted an eerie ambience, as his power was so great that it could easily evoke and increase the fear of those who witnessed it, even causing high-ranking mage's to be instilled with great fear just with his mere presence. The density of his magic power released several shockwaves and heated the atmosphere around him as his aura grew, towering that of his Master's aura. Seraph stopped and looked his master in the eyes declaring, "There's no way my aura is superior to yours, its not even been five minutes and you're already holding back, eh? At least bring it to this level or it won't be any fun!"'' as he slightly increased his power again. "''Bring it on, old man!"

Dragons Clash
Before Seraph could react, Aether was already behind him. "Let's see if you can make me." He quickly collected energy into his palm, creating a sphere of condensed energy which radiated huge amount of fire and light. "Lightning Flame Dragon's Spiraling Sphere!" He forced the sphere into Seraph's back, sending him spinning away quite a distance. "By the way, I'm only twenty-two."

As the Spiraling Sphere hit Seraph, his body turned back into nothing but solid metal and then suddenly disintegrated. Thus, what Aether hit was merely a doppelganger that was instantaneously yet covertly deployed through the use of Metal-Make. Within a flash of second, the real Seraph appeared directly above Aether with his his hands cupped as he thrusted them towards Aether. A giant spiked hammer made out of metal came crashing down directly on Aether as Seraph shouted, "Metal Make: Giant Electrum Hammer!" The metal hammer crashed against the ground almost instantly which resulted in the creation of a gigantic impact followed by a small shockwave. Due to the spikes present on the construct, it would easily be capable of piercing one's flesh. Seraph landed as he made his first move and prepared himself by taking out two Magic-paper shurikens. "Oh? Twenty-two? I am sixteen and a half by the way! Also, you should have noticed the clone." he added further mocking his teacher.

Aether appeared next to Seraph. "And you should've realized I was already gone." Fire and Lightning collected inside of Aether's hands. "I'm a lot faster than you think. Lightning Flame Dragon's Electron Cannon!" Aether blasted him with his technique, sending him flying away from the intense heat and force.

Concurrently, Seraph had prepared himself and saw Aether moving as he placed his right palm over his left fist causing a magic-seal to immediately appear and said, "Metal-Make!" Before he could finish his spell, his master appeared before him delivering his speech but noticing that he was busy doing so, Seraph took this situation to his advantage and completed his spell, "Osmium-Steel Shield...". This caused a ginormous shield like wall to appear between him and the incoming attack. The shield made of Osmium and Carbonsteel could easily handle any level of impact force and much to Aether's surprise, yet another move of his was rendered useless. "Osmium has the greatest density and is super hard, that's why I use it to protect against great forces. You must be wondering why the carbon-steel? It absorbs your fire magic and as you hit it with your spell which was part fire-magic, it absorbed it and grew stronger and harder. All you did was raise my defenses. As for the lightning? Did you forget the Earth is like a giant dump-yard? I just used my metal construct to ground your lightning attack!" exclaimed Seraph as he explained his move to his Master. Seraph moved quickly as he pressed his middle finger on the base of the thumb while keeping the thumb on middle finger as well as keeping the other three fingers straight. Two comparatively large magic seals appeared above and below Aether. Undoubtedly, this was none other the fearsome Amaterasu Formula 2. The spell creates a net of volatile magic energy, which initially entangles his opponents and then causes a large explosion around all of them.

Aether smirked. "You're really trying hard to get me to work. Fortunately, I've been here before." A series of runes created a shield around Aether, completely protecting him from the blast. "Jutsu Shiki. Anyone within this enchantment's barriers cannot be harmed by any magical attacks. Unfortunately it only guards against one attack." The runes turned red and shattered, but this didn't matter. Aether had already sensed exactly where Seraph was. He transformed his body into lightning and fire, and at blinding speeds flew to his location, delivering a strong lightning and fire enhanced punch to the face, simultaneously connecting foliage to his body.

"Oh, I am not trying! That was just work out. Now, the fun begins!" exclaimed the young Dragon Slayer as his voiced echoed through the forest region of the Island as the one Aether landed his punch on was obviously another dummy which smirked at Aether while several cracks appeared on its body from taking the spell head on. However, before dissipating, the metal-clone took out two magic tags; a water one and an air one to be precise, as he deployed them in combination. Within a blink of an eye, a small explosion caused by, an air-enhanced water blast, occurred casting a smokescreen over the area which gave the real Seraph the opportunity to suppress his magic power and as he began moving within the jungle with absolute stealth. "Think of this as, Hide and Seek 2.0!" his voice echoed. Further confusing those in his vicinity.

Aether easily took the explosion, it was nothing compared to what he had endured in the past. Something changed in Aether's eyes. "I hate Hide and Seek." He let out a wail, matching the frequency of any metal on the entire, causing it to shatter into hundreds of pieces. "I don't like it when people treat my fights as a game." He closed his eyes and sniffed. He sensed the magical energy of Seraph and flew towards him again. He stopped roughly ten meters away from him. "Treat this like a game and you might get hurt. Runes appeared around Seraph. "Those only work on actual mages, which means you're the real deal. Anyone that steps inside those runes are marked, so that they cannot hide their true selves from sensory abilities. A purple rune appeared on Seraph's chest. Now that that's all cleared up. Aether created a small orb, and threw it at Seraph. It was slow moving, and seemed like a rather weak attack. "Lightning Flame Dragon's Blue Bomb!" The bomb quickly expanded, creating a large spherical explosion, and leaving a large crater where it took place.

Seraph was confident that his Master won't be able to track him because of him concealing his magic power and his unique mutation. As an offshoot to his induced mutation, Seraph aside from having an extremely pale skin and heterochromic eyes also had no scent. His mutation caused his body to give off no natural body odor both with or without sweat; making it hard for his enemies to hunt him down. However, soon he was left dumbstruck seeing how his Master found his location almost instantly. He looked below to notice a purple symbol, what appeared to be a rune and he wondered how did he end up getting marked until his mentor explained it to him. "Tsk, you really are the master, aren't you?" commented Seraph as he figured, it was about time he got serious. However, after his Master's flashy and cursory attack which seemingly left a large crater behind, he disappeared from Aether's line of sight. "You're not the only Dragon Slayer here!" declared Seraph as he appeared floating, next to his Master with his ring shining and creating a forming seal. "Foam Wave!" he shouted as a large volume of foam-like bubbles were immediately launched towards Aether. However, this assault only served as a diversion for the real attack as Seraph speed dashed behind Aether with his hand set ablaze and attempted to punch him from behind.

Aether swiped his hand in front of him, easily blowing away the bubbles with his magical energy alone. But he felt the flux of magical energy behind him, and caught Seraph's fist before he could connect with his attack. He sucked in, devouring the fire on Seraph's fist. "Thanks for the meal." He glared into Seraph's eyes, a glare that made even other Dragon Slayers tremble in fear. He squeezed with his hand. With delivering enough force to Seraph's arm to crush something harder than rock. "I had heard that you were a Dragon Slayer. Your words confirm my suspicions." He delivered a lightning and fire enhanced punch to his face, and followed up with several consecutive melee attacks, still holding onto Seraph's arm. He then threw Seraph high into the air. "Lightning Flame Dragon's Roar!" He fired his breath attack at him from the ground.

As his hand was caught by Aether, Seraph was taken by surprise by the sheer brute force of his Master. "Using Fire Magic against a dual element Dragon Slayer who uses fire---Damn, I was being reckless!" he thought to himself as Aether held onto his hand with crushing force but never did he imagine, Seraph was used to such level of force due to his extremely harsh childhood which required him to fight all sorts of tutors from across the globe, monsters, demons and even his father; the later being physically much more superior to the likes of Aether. With the first of the many magic-enhanced making its contact, Seraph grew restless as he turned his own wrist tightly gripping onto his Master's wrist with equal or even greater crushing force as he began matching him blow for blow for quite sometime, by constantly delivering extremely punishing blows with nothing but his raw strength which were several times of the strength of a normal Dragon Slayer. However, as Seraph was overwhelmed due to the sheer number of attacks in successions and his inability to deliver as many blows at the same time due to not enhancing them with magic. As he was fling up into the air, he wasted no time in calling forth the power of a Dragon. For he had summoned the Iron Dragon's power, a testament to which were the many layered jagged iron scales, which looked akin to that of the Iron Scales' of a First Generation Dragon Slayer, yet were somewhat more ghastly-looking specially with the presence of two demonic horns; something Gajeel did not have. Seraph then literally kicked the air below him, moving away from the trajectory of Aether's roar and then kicked the air beneath his feet again to hurl himself towards Aether with tremendous speed, who was on the ground. It became obvious, that his magic power had increased again and with the increased offensive and defensive power granted by the scales of the Iron Dragon, Seraph prepared his fist as he attempted to punch Aether with his might.

Aether noticed this, but wasn't worried. He let out a wale, resonating with Seraph's scales with his Vibration Magic, causing them to crack. "Dragon Slayer's Secret Art - Electron Dance: Plasma Armor!" Almost instantaneously, Aether rocketed up towards Seraph and struck him in the chest with an open palm, pushing him away, and further damaging the scales.

However, Aether's Vibration Magic failed because of the fact, his scales were not made of normal or man-made iron. They were not only different in composition and molecular structure bearing only a few similarities with normal Iron. Thus, due to having being constructed of different material, his scales obviously had different frequency and did not shatter or even crack as Aether expected them to. Instead, his vibration excited the molecules causing them to heat up and accelerating its kinetic energy slightly. The fall which was not only assisted by gravity but also by the propelling force of his own magic along with this new added weight of his scales in turn generated much greater momentum which allowed him to land on the ground while hitting it with his fist much before Aether expected. As, Seraph landed his fist on the ground, Aether had missed and rocketed up. Both of the Dragon Slayer's missed their targets, however, the impact from Seraph punch caused great amount of damage as it send debris and large pieces of the ground flying in every direction, leaving behind a gigantic crater and a small earthquake of sorts in its wake. It was obvious what would have happened to Aether if he were to be hit by such a punch; only if it wasn't for sheer luck and timing issues. Seraph got back looking at his Master with rage, "That move! You're were trying to kill me..."