Sala awoke next to see that she was lying in one cage while the rest of her group was lying in others. All of them were hanging above an arena that they could fall into if not for the cage.
"Alright everyone it looks like there is no one watching us thus maybe we can..." Sala started to before the bottom of her cage seemed to vanish as she was dropped into the arena below.
"Faker as you really fool everyone with your family's status and wealth to hide what an embarrassment you are as a dragon" the mage dragon stated
"Seriously I knew there was something up about you that's why I joined this party to find out. Good thing you did not recognize me then again you did not seem to notice any one of us was applying for your party were amongst those that you stole our chance to get our scale even stronger" the attacker dragon said.
"Have fun becoming that Dragon Fighter of theirs as they are offering us the very power your family was trying to hoard for itself to hide your shame on our people" they said
Sala could not hear them anymore as she already crashed into the arena.
"Welcome to the arena where you will become the Dragon Fighter that Master desires of you," Arca told her
"How did you three find out my secret as no one other than my parents should know of it" Sala demanded.
"It kind of obvious when you compare you to us," the beast girl said looking rather confused that it was not that for her too," the Beast Mage said "We have a Demon Tank, a Beast Mage, thus what would you be to round out of trio"
They were watching her as she was stronger than the one that was supposed to be doing the attacking in their group and it was the same way at the very end while the four of them were still pretending to be the Rotune group before the betrayal and reveal of the true mission as well purpose for their group.
Having Sala here though was to properly force her down the path to becoming the physical powerhouse that Rotune was missing. Of course, it was not going to be easy as it was not that simple the other two times. In practice at least as in theory, it was a rather simple method as Sala was just going to be forced to fight an endless stream of enemies over and over again. She would be allowed to leave until she had fulfilled the requirements needed to do so. This was something not even dying would get her out of it as she would just be brought back from the brink of death by Arca every time it happened.
This leads back to why she was called a faker and a shame of her own people the Dragons. Well, it was because her scales were in their original state are really the weakest of any modern day dragon. As a result, her natural defense is the weakest of all dragons making it so that she can not take a hit at all. In a culture built around defense and being a tank. Sala was not one as she was only able to fake having a strong defense because she had more attack power naturally than any other dragon around.
Her natural attacker power could rival that of Beast and of course, outpaced Arca thus why she was such an ineffective attacker near the end of their time as the Rotune group. It was this attack power combined with her ability to merge armor into her scale that allowed her to fake it until she made it. She might not have had the natural defense that was second nature to all Dragons. Making it harder for her to be around others of her kind when she was younger because things were not made to accommodate her at all.
However, she had something that her former two teammates did not grow up. She had filthy rich parents who just brought her all the rarest armor that they could find to boost her defense by having her absorb the properties of the armor into her own scale to pad her numbers. Her rate of doing so was far higher than any other Dragon which was how she managed to get through the Rotune group selection process for Dragons.
The power of money, fame, and status.
Once she came back having strengthened her scale even more while within the Rotune group. The real reason her family was keeping the discovers to themselves was to prevent anymore from getting even the weakest of the materials for themselves. Sala had weak defense by her own nature compared to other dragons thus she would never be seen as strong as a tank if the playing field were even.
Did Sala's parents go through all this because they actually cared about their daughter or did they do it because they did not want news of her having the weakest defense of modern day dragons any one of them for that matter?