Archer was, in a word, surprised by the beast's sudden regeneration into something that could actually be considered as worthy of the lofty title it had attempted to claim. The regeneration undid everything that they had so far worked towards, which made this fight substantially harder than it should have been, but at least they had escaped the initial conflict unscathed, aside from the one girl who had chosen to punch the girl to death.

It was this redhead that the dragon chose to target; it picked a weakened foe to try and remove them from the equation entirely; it was a tactical choice but one that was unlikely to succeed with the assembled force. For one thing, Ascalon interposed itself between breath and target; the anti-dragon spear shattering but hopefully preventing Ranma from being peppered. It was an annoying loss with the weapon's previous success, but not an insurmountable one.

With practised ease, the counter guardian traced a familiar pair of swords... and jumped. His aim was to land upon the dragon's back; if he could split its attention between e everyone else and a target it could barely reach, then winning this fight would be trivial. The two swords were better than one for resisting any unearthly attack, too.