---[ POV: Flynn ]---

The greatsword's attacks came Flynn's way one after another in a flurry of fluid blows, transformed into a waterfall of silver gleam by the afternoon sun.

The lieutenant parried them one after another but the might behind the blows forced him to take a couple of steps back to create some room between himself and his opponent. Facing him, the powerful Warden of the princess was swinging her large and imposing steel sword using only her left hand with more strength than most men could output using both.

That's insane, thought Flynn. She has the power of a genetically engineered Regulator commando!

Both he and Gwenvar were sweating profusely but the woman was not graced with the Stygian Predator armor that absorbed the sweat and cooled her overeating body. There was a wrinkle of effort and concentration on her forehead and the skin of her face and forearm were shining almost as much as her blade as she danced with Flynn in their spare match.

They had been training for about two hours and the woman was starting to tire despite her incredible physic. She was not used to face an opponent able to sustain her sheer might for so long so her main tactics - overpower the enemies and crush them before they can do anything - was not yielding much result and she was burning through her reserve of energy quickly. From their repetitive matches, Flynn had won 12 and she had won 3, most of them when they had just started and she was still fresh and full of peps. Her mood had gotten darker and darker after her latest lost streak and Flynn had realized she was kind of a sore loser.

The young man dodged a strike coming his way and Gwenvar was pulled forward by the momentum of her own blow and her heavy steel blade. Flynn threw his power-hammer at the over-extended woman, not to strike her, but simply to hook the hammer head beneath her sword's guard. Seeing what he was trying to do, she cursed and tried to change the trajectory of her weapon but without her right hand, she was not able to correct it in time. Flynn took a step back and pulled the hammer back violently, yanking the sword from Gwenvar's hand and sending it flying a couple of meters away.

"Fuck!" she said angrily. "When you said you wanted to train with me because you lacked experience with that hammer I was a bit skeptical but still thought I could give you at least a pointer or two! But how the hell are you 'not that good', you liar?! You're excellent! I'm supposed to be one of the best knights of Osgarath and now I just feel stupid! Damn you and that fucking hammer!"

Flynn laughed uncomfortably, preferring to keep for himself that, between the time he had asked the woman to spar yesterday and today's training session, he had Athena replace the content of one of his chips with melee combat skills, so he felt like he was cheating the poor woman a bit. Physical skills loaded on a chip or the stack could not be used as optimally as raw technical or academic knowledge - which was simply data one could access at will - and actually required a lot of practice and training to yield their full potential, but despite this drawback, Flynn still had the upper hand, mostly because of his armor and because the greatsword of Gwenvar was not designed to be used with only one hand. Not only that, but the remaining hand of the woman was not her dominant one.

The fact the woman was still able to use her huge sword with such might and efficiency despite her handicap was impressive enough for Flynn - with both her hands and a combat armor, she would probably be as fearsome a warrior as a fully enhanced Regulator - but it did not seem enough for her.

Seeing how Gwenvar looked at her stump with an irritated and regretful expression as she went to fetch her weapon only made Flynn feel even more guilty for going all out against her, but he also knew that going easy on her on the account of her missing hand would only hurt her pride and make her even angrier, as he had experienced at the beginning of their training session.

Amaryllis and Athena, who somehow had become akin to friends, were sitting on the lowered ramp of the corvette and observed them while discussing this morning's lesson in magic.

Some praises and a word of encouragement were thrown in Gwenvar's direction by the princess but her Warden did not react to it, which threw Flynn off a bit.

That's strange; that woman would normally jump in the clouds and feel smug for hours after being praised or patted by the princess. She must be more affected than I thought by this hand thing. I had dismissed it at first because of how she didn't seem to care, but in the end, it's still a serious handicap, especially for someone whose whole job is to fight.

Flynn looked at Amaryllis and could see that she had the same reflection as him. Her face had crumbled into a sad and worried expression but since there was nothing she could do, she simply kept silent, continuing to listen to the blabbers of Athena with a now distant and distracted air.

For about a week now, Herman had come every day to teach the young princess about the basics of magic. At first, Flynn had assisted to the lessons with interest but had soon realized that they were not at all geared toward helping someone like him, that started from nothing. They were designed to help someone with an already formed core to sense their mana and start to manipulate it.

Flynn would have liked to ask Herman for lessons on how to create a core, but the princess came first; she had had some other small crises where her mana went out of control and it was clear she had to learn how to control it before something more serious happened. Since Gwenvar only allowed the old man to be around the princess when she was herself present and fully dedicated to her Ward's protection, which was about half a day, Herman focused all the time he had to help the girl progress.

After two days, Flynn had decided to spend his mornings continuing working on the corvette or other tasks instead of assisting to the lesson in person; Athena, whom Flynn had asked to keep an eye on Gwenvar and Herman to prevent any hostility between the two, listened to the lessons and compiled them into comprehensive data files that she transferred to him afterward anyway so he was not missing a lot.

Once he was done with his lessons for the day, Herman usually gave Amaryllis some exercises to do on her own, which, at this stage, consisted mostly of meditation to increase her awareness of her own core and mana, then he left only to come back on the next day. Gwenvar was not about to let him stay with them for the night and she seemed to have taken for granted that Flynn would keep harboring her and the princess for the foreseeable future.

Flynn could understand such a train of thought; if Amaryllis was really a princess of a feudal realm, she, and her servant, would naturally expect to be treated as important guests by anyone not at least of the same rank as them. They treated him like an important and revered individual, but Flynn could still see just how important ranks and titles were in their society, and there was not much higher than a princess in their feudal hierarchy other than the king and his official heir. Not only that, but from what he had learned from the geopolitical situation of this world, Osgarath, the kingdom of the princess, was the most important and influential one on the continent, having even vassalized most of its neighbors. This coalition of nations was referred to as the Second Realm because its founder, Amaryllis grandfather, had justified his subjugation wars and maneuvers by proclaiming Osgarath was the cultural offspring of the ancient Empire of Kaldor, the First Realm, and that it was his right and duty to unify the continent once again.

Flynn did not mind the attitude of the princess and her Warden. The company was pleasant and he was used enough to the rigid hierarchy of the ISF that their observance of feudal ranks did not feel too unnatural. His only concern was that the princess and her Warden still had not explained why they had been searching for him in the first place, and exactly what they wanted from him, despite rousing his curiosity the first day they met. That, and the constant tension and animosity between Gwenvar and Herman.

Or rather, of Gwenvar toward Herman, since the old man did not seem to care or take the woman really seriously. Flynn was sure he was doing it on purpose just to annoy her, and given her fiery temperament, it worked most of the time.

Gwenvar was honest, brash, and upfront, so it was not that hard for the old man to get under her skin. One could even say he had a knack for it.

The princess' Warden always walked with a serious, almost severe, expression, but it sometimes seemed a bit forced. Her face often betrayed exactly what she was thinking and pointing it out to her either made her mad or shy, depending on what it was, but the shyness never lasted long, quickly replaced by pissed-off imprecations and the threat of physical violence.

Gwenvar acted like a feral mountain lion when Herman was involved, but seeing this tiger of a woman turns into a purring house cat as soon as Amaryllis was handling her was both funny and endearing. Of course, Flynn would never make the mistake to voice this opinion out loud.

The young man was suddenly driven out of his thoughts by the whistling sound of Gwenvar's blade coming his way. She had recuperated her weapon and used his momentary distraction to launch an attack. JAX automatically reacted to the perceived danger by triggering a defensive maneuver from the new combat skills the young man had downloaded the previous night. Since the AI could not move in Flynn's stead, it sent a nervous prompt to initiate the desired response and eased the movement with the Stygian Predator armor instead. Guided in such a way, Flynn raised an arm and stepped aside, letting the blade pass by him to then trap it beneath his arm. He dematerialized the hammer to free his two hands and grabbed Gwenvar's sword-holding arm with them, twisting on himself while pulling her in his direction to throw her on his shoulder. The woman tried to resist but she was too exhausted to put up much of a fight. She flew above Flynn with another curse and ended up on her back, splayed on the ground.

Her breath was cut short for a moment and she fixed Flynn with a shocked expression. Given the fact that she was as tall as a man and a lot stronger than most, she obviously was not used to getting tossed around. After a short instant, reality seemed to dawn on her and her expression came back all at once. Her face reddened a bit from embarrassment and vexation.

Flynn extended his hand to help her back up but she got even redder, rolled on the side, and started to get back up on her own as quickly as she could despite her missing hand.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she said, grunting as she pushed herself on her knees using her only remaining hand.

"Sure you are," said Flynn as he silently willed JAX to scan and evaluate her stump to compare it with the data he had collected in the previous days.

Her condition had not changed at all. At this point, the medical lymphites he had injected her were no longer active in her system and it was clear her arm would not heal further, even less grow back as he had hoped. It was strange.

Is there some kind of magic affecting her, or maybe a particularity of her biology, that prevented the lymphites from doing their job properly? If my basic lymphites can repair my bones or heal a gut wound in a day or two, medical lymphites should have healed her and restored her body completely in a matter of hours. It worked just fine for the gash on the princess' face; you now have to know it's there to even see the scar. I should probably ask her at some point, but I doubt she would understand what lymphites are or how they work so she would probably be of little help. I could maybe ask Herman, but I'm not sure even him could help and Gwenvar would probably be mad at me for asking him about her.

"I think we should stop for today," said Flynn.

"What?!" said Gwenvar as she wiped the sweat from her brows and forehead. "We are just starting up. Don't tell me you're already tired?!"

You're obviously the one tired!

"I am," said Flynn. "I need to rest a bit and I also have other tasks to do. Thank you for the spar, it helps a lot. You are free to continue training alone as you did previously. Not much else to do around here anyway."

The woman tried to remain impassible but she had a small triumphant smirk that she was not able to wipe off completely.

As usual, an open book.

"Well, nothing we can do about it if you need to rest," she said with a falsely regretful tone. "Then I'll stop too, and go take a shower to wash off the grime."

Since she had discovered the shower, Gwenvar had spent a lot more time than necessary enjoying the hot water. Amaryllis was fond of it too, but not nearly as much as her Warden. The princess had explained to Flynn that she was somewhat used to hot baths prepared by her servants but that Gwenvar often had to bathe and wash with cold water.

Flynn followed the woman inside but as he passed by Amaryllis and Athena, the young princess smiled at him.

"Congratulation, Lord Flynn. The knights at the court of my father would be green with jealousy if they could see you right now. Most of them have dreamed of beating Gwen for years. The provocations to a duel were so frequent that I had to forcefully limit them to once a week."

"I'm not a lord," reminded Flynn. "And why so many duels? Would it be that prestigious to beat her?"

"Well, it's not that much about prestige than to correct a perceived slight to their honor."

"How so?"

Amaryllis seemed a bit hesitant. She looked in the direction of Gwenvar but the woman had already reached the second floor and was about to disappear in the small corvette's bathroom.

"Well, for one, she's a woman. A female knight," said the princess. "The other knights don't take very kindly to this fact. The knight title is traditionally reserved for men. While a female knight is not unheard of, and would normally just irritate them, the fact that this particular one has been considered the strongest at the court has been driving most of them crazy for years. The fact that she wiped the floor with everyone that challenged her to prove otherwise has won her many enemies. I've told her to just let them beat her once or twice so that they would forget about her and leave her in peace but she absolutely refuses to do so. She has nothing to prove, but says that as my Warden, it's her duty to be the best at all time, otherwise, she would not be worthy of her rank."

"Must be rough," said Flynn.

"Yeah, you have no idea," said the girl with a sad expression. "Gwenvar is not of noble birth. She would have never been made knight had I not unearthed the old and almost forgotten tradition of the royal Warden to elevate her. This doesn't sit well with the other knights and nobles of the court; not only is she... from lower birth, but her Warden title is technically higher than that of a regular knight. Even my mother didn't like it very much in the first few years she was around. She said that someone like her had no place by a princess' side, or in the royal castle for that matter. The only person that backed me up was my father, actually... Anyway, that's not really my place to talk about all this but I just wanted to congratulate you, but also to ask you to be understanding with her. I know she might be a bit obstinate, rough around the edges, and somewhat of a sore loser, but she has her reasons for it. Don't be too harsh on her."

"Don't worry about it, Princess," said Flynn. "I like her. She's brave and honest. What you see is what you get, be it good or bad. I would be a poor sport if I got mad about that."

Amaryllis smiled brightly at him. "Lord Flynn is too good."

Flynn excused himself and went to the engineering bay. He had started to fiddle with numerous projects since the others had joined him, such as outfitting Athena's drone with an Aegis and a laser turret by repurposing one of the available pistols, or trying to devise an observation and measuring device that would be able to detect this magical essence Herman had been talking about. After all, if it was some kind of energy, there were bond to be traces of it somewhere, he just had to figure where. Those projects could wait, however. They were not what he wanted to focus on for today. After what he had seen earlier, he had a different idea in mind.

He placed on the working bench in front of him a contraption he had started to assemble as a side project earlier in the week; it looked like a gauntlet made of dark and golden alloys. Several parts of the gauntlet were opened, revealing an interior made of complex machinery and circuitry; an artificial forearm made from the recycled gauntlet of one of the damaged Stygian Predator armor for the casing and filled with a custom-built cybernetic hand.

Flynn went to the fabricator to recuperate the pieces he had launched the production of in the morning and returned to his half-finished project.

"JAX, the blueprints for the Stygian Arm and its connector, please."