The storm picked up around them, and he could feel the unique tinge of his enemy's arcane power behind it. Bolts of lightning lashed from the dark clouds spinning into a forbidding vortex that stared down on the battlefield like the eye of some angry divinity.
And then, the next blow was thrown.
From the dark stronghold a ray of crimson light lanced into the dark clouds overhead. The vortex roared, then expelled a flaming meteor that slammed into the middle of his battlefield, obliterating two of the hatchlings he'd been planning to grow into true behemoths after his power had a chance to return. Sadly he shook his head at the senseless waste, but braced himself as another meteor came down closer to the end of the field. The hellish projectile came down with an epic crash, shattering the walls he'd created to defend his forces in a fireball that was blinding even from that far away.
There was no time to waste. He turned to the golden chalice on his war table and threw in the flask of a bright golden potion he'd been saving for a more strategic moment. If he didn't strike now, there might be no strategic moment at all. Already he could see the dark, winged shapes of his enemy's dragon army taking off from their nests in the distance.
"By the blood of the primal, consecrated in the Vessel of the Progenitors, be strengthened, Pink Eaglewing!" he yelled and pointed to a young dragon waiting on the fields outside his castle. A ray of energy shot from his hand and covered the pink-scaled beast. She threw her head back and spread her wings wide, a few pink and white feathers scattering to the rising winds as she made her trumpeting call.
Her master's power filled her and her call turned louder, more savage. Her wings grew wider, her body longer until she was brushing against the hatchling dragons next to her. They looked up at her in awe, no longer a mere Pink Eaglewing. Her scales had turned the color of blood, a crown of spiraling white horns emerging from the back of her head. Drops of a poisonous fluid fell from between her feathers and sizzled on the ground.
Now, she had reached her full growth, the legendary Crimson Bloodwing dragon.
The same invigorating energy shot from his hand out to other dragons on the field waiting for their orders, or for the touch of power their master was now using to bless them.
With each ray the smoke from his chalice was thinning, but with each ray the size of his army was exploding with new legendary strength. Led by the giant Crimson Bloodwing a column of dragons took off from the field.
Already the enemy army was most of the way to his castle, groups of Black Arcteryx leading the charge. Fast and fierce, but not the strongest of dragons.
As the Crimson Bloodwing proved with her first blast of poison breath, knocking the sleek black horrors out of the sky.
"That's 3500 damage, and your Black Arcteryx are defeated," Doku Dasao announced proudly.
The seven-year-old boy sitting across the table from him blinked at him, looked down at the carefully latticed spread of monster and magic effect cards between them, then back up at Doku again.
"I'd say that decides the tourney," Doku said proudly to the heavy guy sitting behind the gaming store's counter. Realizing he was being addressed, he glanced up from whatever he was staring at on his phone, and reached under the counter with one hand.
The cashier slapped a chintzy plastic trophy on the counter. It was of a dragon, wings splayed, sitting on a block that had "TAICERANEGO" written across the top, and on the bottom "Dragon's Nest Champion." The whole thing was covered in reflective gold paint and stood maybe five inches high.
"Whooo!" Doku exclaimed, as he grabbed his prize and swept out the door with it, grinning like he'd beaten an army with one finger.
