The courtyard echoed with the sound of their collisions crying out beneath the storm of combat. Phaser was already half-broken but he wasn't fighting like prey anymore. His body moved like a phantom, moving between Hinesia's strikes.
He had begun to read her but not her movements. Those were beyond normal. them. He blurred into her blind spot again with his shoulder dislocated and his leg trembling, yet his hand flashed out like a dagger. His fingertips slashed toward her throat.
Her hand caught his wrist mid-strike. He got another dislocation but before she could counter, he twisted his weight and smashed his forehead into hers. His skull split wider but Hinesia actually took a half-step back. Blood poured down his face. His body was screaming at him to stop but he was laughing.
"Not... bad, huh?"
She didn't reply. She blurred forward faster than before. Her fist cut the air, grazing his cheek with enough force to peel skin off. He ducked under, rolled and came up with a spinning kick aimed for her temple. Her forearm blocked. His shin bone cracked on contact but the momentum spun him behind her. He drove his fist into her spine. The impact was like striking a mountain. His knuckles shattered instantly but it barely staggered her.
"Better," she said simply, before her elbow slammed back into his chest.
He went flying. He hit the wall like a cannonball. Stone shattered. The whole chamber shook. When he staggered out of the debris, he was coughing blood. His chest was caved in.
"You would already be dead ten times over, but you're used to pain. That stubbornness... will make you dangerous."
Phaser dragged himself upright, spitting blood.
"Dangerous is good as long as I'm not boring, right?"
Her lips almost twitched. Then she came for him again.
This time her strikes were lethal. Phaser ran faster, every ounce of stealth training wrung out of his bleeding frame. He darted low, rolled beneath strikes that split the ground and even used the debris as cover to vanish from her sight for half a second. And in those half-seconds, he struck.
His broken knuckles smashed her ribs. His heel grazed her jaw. None of it slowed her down but each one carved deeper into her respect.
"Good," she said as his body cracked under the force of another parry. "Learn the rhythm of pain. Make it your ally."
Finally, the end came. Hinesia's fist shot forward straight into his chest. Phaser's body tore across the arena like a ragdoll, smashing through pillars and stone before slamming into the far wall. The impact cracked the entire structure. He hung there for a moment, embedded in stone with blood pouring from his mouth. His chest was a crater of broken bone and ruptured organs. He coughed again, blood splattering down his chin. Hinesia lowered her fist.
"Listen well, Phaser. If you want to live through battles like this, you must coat your body with Xana at all times, not in bursts. Always."
She stepped closer, her shadow falling over his broken form.
"That way, your body will never act without Roborare. Without it," she tapped his chest lightly, over his broken ribs "the next strike will kill you."
Through the haze of blood and agony, Phaser's lips curled into a smile.
"Then I'll... coat myself in it. You're a harsh teacher."
"Good. We do the same in the afternoon."
°°°°°°°
The morning spar had already been enough to tear Phaser apart yet Hinesia dragged him into the afternoon session with no hesitation. If the morning had been about testing him, the afternoon was about breaking him.
Her fists were merciless. Her legs blurred with the force of storms. Her palm strikes shattered stone and when they collided with his flesh, they left craters in his body. Phaser fought with every ounce of speed and stealth he had but there were limits to what flesh could endure. By then, he couldn't even lift his arms without hearing bones crackle. Soon, he had stopped feeling half of his body at all. His nerves simply burned out. When Hinesia's spinning kick sent him tumbling across the arena for the dozenth time, Phaser realized he wasn't training anymore.
The pyramid's medics rushed in before the final blow could land. Phaser remembered the smell of bitter medicine, the stab of glowing needles, the warmth of bandages wrapping around him and then darkness swallowing his vision whole.
When he woke up, it was to the faint shimmer of golden light above. The ceiling of the chamber was etched with hieroglyphics, glowing faintly with a healing field. Phaser groaned, forcing his eyes open. He wasn't on the cold stone arena floor anymore. He was in a bed, clean sheets tucked around his battered body. His chest rose and fell unevenly.
A woman sat at his bedside, adjusting the glow of a hovering glyph above his body. Her hair was dark and smooth as obsidian, tied in a single braid that spilled over her shoulder. Her eyes caught him off guard. They were not earthy brown or almond like the Rameses, but rimmed faintly with blue hues.
"You're awake."
Phaser licked his cracked lips, his voice little more than a rasp.
"Who... are you?"
The woman leaned back slightly, giving him space.
"Radellei, second daughter of Ruler Seirath. And yes, I know what you're thinking. Hinesia nearly killed you. You've been unconscious for hours. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be breathing right now."
Phaser coughed, blood still sticking in his throat, but managed a crooked grin.
"Figures. Guess... I should thank you for dragging me back from the grave."
"You should. Your injuries were severe. Internal bleeding, ruptured muscles, broken bones, even with your accelerated recovery factor, you would have been bedridden for months. Without me, you might not have woken at all."
He struggled upright with a groan.
"Wait. Months? And you healed that? I thought the Rameses bloodline was tied to Elemental Flux. Healing is an Alteration Flux, isn't it?"
Radellei folded her arms and scoffed.
"You're correct. Alteration and Elemental Flux are usually opposed. No one in the Rameses line was ever born with both until I existed. I'm an anomaly."
Phaser stared at her, still blinking away dizziness.
"So you're... the healer of the family, then? The one who stitches together all the damage Hinesia causes?"
That almost earned a smile. "You could say that."
He sank back against the bed, letting his head rest on the cool pillow. "Then I owe you one. Seriously."
"You owe me more than one," she said simply, adjusting the glyph so that it sank slowly into his chest, mending another layer of ruptured flesh. "But instead of promises, I'll give you advice. Something that will keep you alive."
"I'm listening."
"Use Xana on your body constantly. Don't treat it like a switch you turn on during combat. Treat it like your skin. Every hit you endure will teach your Xana what to do. The more pain you survive, the more instinctively it will coat you. That instinct is what will awaken Roborare fully."
"Thanks."
"You're reckless and I can see it. You throw yourself at Hinesia's strikes as if survival is a joke. But if you want to live Mr Phaser, then make Xana your second flesh. Let it bleed when you bleed. Let it break when you break until one day, you'll find it has already protected you before you even knew you were hit."
For a moment, Phaser just lay there.
"So basically I need to turn myself into a walking meat shield. Sounds... exhausting."
Radellei actually let out a soft breath that almost passed as a laugh.
"Exhausting or not, it's the only way forward. You did sign up for this harsh training."
He groaned, shifting his broken body into a half-sitting position.
"Great. So Hinesia's job is to beat me into paste and your job is to patch me back up and scold me into learning. Sounds like a pretty balanced system."
"You're not wrong, but whether you survive this depends entirely on how quickly you listen."
Phaser closed his eyes for a moment, letting the glyph's warmth seep into his battered body.
"Guess I better start listening then."