"Uh, mind taking a guess? Quit struggling, don't make this hard!" Alize answered, trying to keep Rina from moving and do dumb things while Lloyd's taking care of the beast.
"Don't expect us to comply…" Mei whispered.
"When you just broke our unwritten rule, that is..." Pearl took a moment, then aggressively bashed his back head against Barack's forehead — freeing himself from Barack's.
"Don't touch my daughter!" Marc vaguely opened his eyes, grabbed the sword stuck on his leg to swing it towards Lloyd; caught the guy off guard, but Lloyd didn't take too long to react and dodged the slash by a simple backstep outside of Marc's reach.
"Sorry to disappoint you then." With a quick dash towards Esmeralda and a leap upwards towards her giant body.
Lloyd was already reaching Esmeralda's neck, underneath her chin — where there's an ingrown scale, also known as the dragon's shame. He knew this and was aiming at that vulnerable spot.
"REIK!" Esmeralda wildly swung her claw towards the floating Lloyd, yet in midair the man seems to be able to control his movements pretty well — by simply ducking down a bit; he dodged Esmeralda's strike, now there is no stopping him from finishing this, he's not mere decimeters away. That is when a flying fire light rushed towards him.
"Elemental Spell: Breeze Torch!" Pearl's voice could be heard from inside the fire.
After escaping Barack's control, he immediately used a mana-consuming spell called Breeze Torch to help Esmeralda.
The spell itself is a combination between Air and Fire magic: the two elements he isn't the best at. By covering the user's body with very weak fire, then use the air to lighten your weight and control the fire as fuel to help with that process: you can fly and your body won't burn, just your feet.
Lloyd's jump can't compare to Pearl's air and fire combined magic. So he had to deal with Pearl first before stabbing Esmeralda, but Lloyd couldn't fly so he had to think of a better idea.
Reaching Lloyd, Pearl distinguished all fire on his body, only on his right fist remained. Serving a boiling punch directly at Lloyd's jaw.
To his surprise, Lloyd did a skillful backflip mid air, Pearl didn't get time to react when Lloyd stooped on his back and used it like a pedal to get another jump upwards.
"That's humanly impossible!" Pearl expressed his anger as he's falling down.
"Indeed!"
In one quick strong thrust, Lloyd's claymore hit Esmeralda's neck, right where the ingrown scale would be, after that, Esmeralda yelled in anger and slapped Lloyd down with his sword.
Thud
"Tch." Lloyd landed safely on the ground. Proceeded with an annoyed glare at Esmeralda. Kick in after that was realization.
On the other side, Marc got up and caught Pearl from the fall. Barack who was onto Pearl, saw and took this opportunity to defeat both of them at once.
"Magic Spell: Surrounding Crush."
From Barack's palms, two steel rods flew out and more rods grew from underneath those two rods, creating a nest of sorts. Barack then swung his hands towards the direction of Marc and Pearl, intentions were to slam them from two sides.
Pearl quickly jumped over the incoming steel rods, since it's only height-tall. But he seems to have forgotten about Marc, who is usually more athletic and can definitely jump over the rods, except right now he got a wound on his leg. Both of Marc's hands are now used to fight against Barack's spell.
"Novendex! Is this one an emerald dragon?" Lloyd asked from the other side.
"Correct, sir!" Barack answered. He thought Lloyd would've guessed based on Esmeralda's skin/scale color.
"Should've told me earlier" Lloyd mumbled.
Emerald dragons are unique, they don't have the ingrown scale underneath their chin. They don't have any weakness on their skins. don't have a visible weakness, especially during Rage.
On the other side…
"You're not going to hurt me like they did, are you?" Alize giggled. In her current position on top of Rina; Rina couldn't break free easily. Her choice was Wind Dance but her wrists were being held and she's being exhausted.
"What are you…" Mei is completely powerless, she layed on her stomach while Nea controlled her on her back.
Very strangely though, Mei didn't feel any pressure on her back, as if Nea wasn't physical and she didn't weigh anything. But the more Mei struggled against her, the more powerless she felt.
"Nea Vitones, D-Rank Combat Analyst." Nea answered, not even batting an eye on Mei, her attention fully focused on Esmeralda and Lloyd. "Stop struggling, or do if you will, the search for faith and hope is not over, turn to burn."
"I used to have a classmate who was an asshole and a complete weirdo, maybe they will fit right in with you SSS people." Mei let out her frustration by mocking Nea.
Though fragile, a piece of history has been formed.
"Roar!"
Esmeralda versus Lloyd is an imbalance match, with Lloyd dodging every mindless claw swing that Esmeralda threw out. While that, he had no problem keeping an eye on Pearl and sent threats every time he tried to intervene.
'Emerald dragon isn't a fighter race, with Rage activated and draining its energy seconds by seconds. After a minute it will faint.' Lloyd thought.
Just as Lloyd suggested, Esmeralda's attacks were getting slower and with less force, to the point where Lloyd can just block her swings with his sword. But he's on the fence about whether he should actually cut her or not, leaning towards no.
"Captain! We don't have an escape route!" Mei yelled out for Marc, who's already escaped the rods and is now dueling Barack.
He knew, he knew very well that this is a one-way ticket, either they defeat these five highly-trained combat officers right now and run away, or they'll be god-knows-what, but even if they run, where could they go? The SSS already knew the town where they live.