“So your Guide’s name is Armsmaster then?” Sophie asks.

We’re both standing in Aunt Tamaya’s back yard, Sophie going through some stretches while I familiarise myself with the training sword. It’s heavier than my other one, though not by much, and I think the balance might be a touch off. It’ll do for now, though. It’s not like I need it to be perfect. Mom’s already reshaped Sophie’s spearhead, so it won’t injure me as bad if I’m hit.

“Yeah, she’s been good to me so far. And yours?” I know Sophie has a Guide, Armsmaster hinted as much, and a few times now she’s looked like her attention is elsewhere.

“Huntsman. Apparently they know each other.”

“Armsmaster said so too,” I say. “Right. We good to go?”

Sophie grins. “I’ll let you start things off.”

I can’t help but smile in return. “You may come to regret that.”

The past three days have been busy for me. My time in the Armoury was entirely taken up with combat lessons, interspersed with the control practice I’ve been sorely needing, while my time during the day was spent in reverse. I’ve made a habit of starting my morning by going over whatever Armsmaster taught me that night, as well as practicing the basics to help it all flow together. Then Mom and I work on my mana control in greater depth, to try and tease out whatever I might have missed. The afternoons have been spent with Aunt Tamaya when possible, though her preparations for Cardinal have kept her busier than we’d both like. Her job as Head Healer there means her time is spent getting everything ready before enrolment, as apparently confrontations between new students are not uncommon.

I’ve made fairly decent strides in my training so far, both martial and magical, though it feels like I’ve been progressing quicker than I should have been. Armsmaster’s lessons are a lot easier to both keep up with and retain than I’m used to. According to her, it’s because I’m projecting into the Armoury, as opposed to being there physically. It’s apparently easier to learn like that because it's the soul that’s remembering, not the brain, so they aren’t broken up by whatever tangents my mind might have gone on at the time.

Whatever the reason, it means I’ve come a lot further than otherwise, which means I’m not far off from starting work on my next weapon, and I’m now able to manage almost four minutes in my enhanced state.

I tug on my mana once more, which is becoming more and more natural. Unlike the first time, I only grab a few threads, allow them to tangle with some of the adjacent threads, and pull my mana through my body. The way I was doing it before meant forcing too much through all at once, which meant a great deal was dislodged from the whole before it could do anything. The mental muscle I use to manipulate is still not fully developed, so I’m not totally successful, but it’s still a major improvement.

Once more, my body is wreathed in shadow and stars, and power suffuses my limbs. All this happens in the course of seconds, so before Sophie can react, I dash forward.

As I step within range, I use my momentum to help knock aside her spear, and lash out at her shoulder once I’m within her guard. Sophie uses the motion to bring her spear into a hasty block, then pushes out her arm, hand facing towards me.

Instantly, a surge of wind blows me back. It’s not as bad as when Mom sent me flying across the yard, so I manage to keep my focus, but it still knocks me prone for a moment.

“Stay moving, Valerie! Don’t let her take the initiative!”

Armsmaster’s voice galvanises me, and on instinct I roll to the side. A gust of wind is all that precedes Sophie's strike at the ground where I lay, clothes and hair rustling in a breeze I can’t feel.

“Dang, you weren’t kidding. You are fast,” she says.

“You’re pretty quick yourself,” I respond, and swing out at her legs in an attempt to knock her off balance. She steps back gracefully, giving me the space to get back on my feet. Before I’m fully steadied, she rushes back in with a low strike of her own, which I sidestep and return a stab to the torso. Sophie uses her spear to knock my blow off course and attempts to back out of my reach so she can reset, but I don’t let up. Like Armsmaster taught me, I do everything I can to maintain momentum, never giving her the space to gather herself.

On and on we go, trading blows what feels like ages, but is likely only a minute. Twice more Sophie uses her magic to push me back, and each time I get up a little quicker. I’m not sure I like that I’m getting used to being tossed around, but I won’t complain.

One thing that catches my attention is that the longer this goes on, the easier time Sophie has defending herself, like she’s beginning to read my moves with greater ease. Maybe it’s her Aspect? She mentioned she couldn’t turn it off, so it’s possible.

Either way, this can’t go on much more. I’m almost at half my reserves and I’m needing to push myself more and more the longer our spar goes on. Either she’ll reach the point where she’ll be able to pick me apart, or I’ll run out of mana.

Regardless of the reason, time’s not on my side.

I can think of one way to end this with a win. It’s risky and probably not a great idea, but it’s the best shot I have.

Sophie has shown to favour striking the legs, likely to reduce my mobility and cut off my biggest strength. Knowing this, I deliberately leave my left leg a little further out than it should be, to bait her into attacking it. She does so, and I respond by stepping back slightly, letting the head graze past my shin. Once it does, I put every ounce of speed I have into stepping on the shaft of the spear with that same leg, then using it as a stepping point to flow into a kick into the side of Sophie’s head.

The blow sends her reeling, forcing her to let go of her spear at the same time. The drop causes me to lose my balance some, but I expected it to happen, which meant I was able to recover before Sophie had fully turned back around.

The next moment, the spar ends with my sword at her throat, pulse pounding in my ears, breathing heavy.

We stand like that for a bit, the adrenaline slowly leaving our systems. After a moment, I cease my enhancement, and Sophie quickly follows suit. The surge of pseudo-weakness that comes over me isn’t as debilitating now, as I’d spent some time getting myself accustomed to the change, but I still let it drag me to the ground alongside Sophie.

“Damn. A bit longer and I would have had you,” she says, panting slightly.

“I could tell. I knew something had to change at the rate we were going, it’s why I took the risk I did.”

I hear footsteps approaching from behind, and I turn back to see Mom and Aunt Tamaya walking up to us.

“Well done girls. You’ve made incredible progress these last couple days Valerie. And Sophie, I see you’re no slouch of your own. Your father taught you well.”

Sophie grins sheepishly. “Actually it’s mostly been Huntsman. Dad’s main contribution was his ‘surprise training sessions’. Not fun.”

Mom chuckles. “Yes, that sounds like Alex. Still, I imagine he’s quite proud of your progress.”

“Thanks. Ow,” she replies, clutching the side of her head where I kicked her. “You’re a scrawny one, Val, but damn you hit hard.”

“Are you okay?” I say, honestly worried I may have done more damage than I thought.

Aunt Tamaya steps past and crouches next to Sophie, outstretched hand already glowing with a warm golden light. “She’ll be fine dear. Beastkin are made of sterner stuff than us, and I’ll have the worst of it taken care of shortly. Though maybe I’ll leave the bruising. There’s a lesson to be learned here, I think.”

Sophie nods, “Yeah, Huntsman keeps telling me I’ve been relying on my Aspect too much. Guess I understand what he means now.”

“Your Aspect?” I ask, “Is that what was letting you read me so well?”

“It’s called Slayer. Basically, the longer I’m fighting someone, the easier it is to understand their technique, like a sort of insight. I can actually boost it into a kind of precognition that also tells me the best path forward, if I want to spend the mana, but I didn’t here.”

“Why not? That sounds pretty useful.” Knowing what someone was going to do before they didn could be vital in a fight, and being able to know how to best exploit that foreknowledge even more so.

Sophie grimaces. “Because that ‘best path forward’ always leads to the kill, and it’s not easy to step off that path once I’m on it, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sen- Ah!” Suddenly, a spike of pain shoots up my leg. Looking down, I see blood on my pants where Sophie’s spear grazed it.

“Let me see that dear,” Aunt Tamaya says, and steps over. She rolls up the leg of my pants, revealing a fairly deep cut in the skin, which is bleeding profusely. “One moment.”

Her hand starts glowing again, and the majority of the pain fades away, the torn skin sealing at the same time. “You’re lucky the bone’s intact. At the speed you were both going, this could have been much worse. I’ll leave the bruising like I did with Sophie, for similar reasons. Nothing teaches like a bit of pain, after all.”

“And what did you learn from this, Valerie?” Mom speaks up.

I sigh, and say. “That I need to measure the risks I take more carefully, and I probably could have planned that better to begin with.”

“Good. You also weren’t leveraging your speed fully. You had the time to completely pull back, and didn’t. You were thinking along the lines of a mundane human, which you aren’t.”

“Got it. I’ll have to practice moving while enhanced at some point. Maybe Armsmaster can figure something out.”

As if on cue, she says, “Already got some plans in place. I’ll show you what I have by tonight.”

“Which she already has. Okay. That’ll be fun.”

We pick ourselves back up and make our way inside, back to the cookies on the table. The conversation that follows is fairly idle. Sophie is beginning to loosen up around Mom, which is good, though I think she’s always going to have a mild reverence for her.

We swap stories about our backgrounds for a bit, in which I explain to Sophie about how Earth doesn’t have any magic and why I didn’t know Aldor existed until recently. She talks about her time growing up in her father’s cabin in the woods, where she’s spent the vast majority of her life. Apparently this is Sophie’s first time in a city, though she’s shocked when Mom explains that cities on Earth are a good bit larger.

Her Mom, Marian, is an accomplished alchemist, which ties in well with the fact the woods they live in grew around a mana spring.

“Mana spring?” I ask. “You never mentioned those, Mom. What are they?”

Mom looks a bit uncomfortable. “I’m not an expert, you may want to speak with Armsmaster when you get the chance, but they’re essentially places in the world where mana has gathered in large quantities, to the point of being self-sustaining. Quality alchemy ingredients and enchanting materials are fairly common there, though monsters tend to gather in them as well, making them rather dangerous places to live. It's somewhat surprising Alex made a home there.”

Armsmaster butts in. “Ehhhh. She’s not wrong, per se. But I wouldn’t call that correct either. We’ll talk more tonight, I’m going to go pay Huntsman an overdue visit.”

Sophie in turn says, "There's a Manticore Matriarch living in the center of the spring. Dad made a deal with it. I don't know the specifics, but it leaves us alone well enough."

"I see. Yes that sounds like Alex."

**********************

Armsmaster never felt comfortable in the Guidescape. Her connection to the Astral Armoury meant she always had access to a physical form. Being relegated to pure energy made her feel… loose, like a stray thought might cause her to fall apart.

Unfortunately for her, she always strove to make her appointments, and she’d kept Huntsman waiting long enough.

Traversing the Guidescape wasn’t easy to put into words. There was no up or down, forward or backward, left or right. If she ever had to describe it, she would say it was like a labyrinth. She would be given a choice on which path to take, varying in number, and she could feel which path would ultimately lead where. The interaction was as fast as thought, though the Guidescape was so vast it still took her a few minutes to reach Huntsman’s junction.

Each Guide, except her and the other Legacies, had their own point of intersection. A place they could be reached if they weren’t already in the Guidescape, and it was where they would appear when they returned. Armsmaster showed up in seemingly random locations, which made coordinating difficult at the best of times.

When she arrived, she sent a pulse of herself into the fabric of the Guidescape, calling Huntsman forward.

A few seconds later, his presence made itself known, a good bit smaller and weaker than hers, belying the difference in age. She always did her best to suppress it, given how uncomfortable it made the younger Guides.

“Huntsman. It’s been some time. It’s good to see you again.” They didn’t use words. It wasn’t actually possible to form them, so they transmitted sensations and concepts instead.

“You as well, Armsmaster. But I have to ask, do I need to be concerned? We both know what you being let out of the box usually means.”

“You know full well I have no way of knowing. I’m going to do what I always do and hope it’s one of the calmer times, but we’ll see.”

“You certainly lucked out on the kid. You’ve only had her for, what, two and a bit weeks? That’s pretty solid progress.”

“Actually, she only Awakened a little over a week ago. She’s remarkably talented, even with the aid of training in the Armoury. Though, her life so far has mirrored Leon’s to a concerning degree, so it leads me to an uncomfortable question. Do I have to worry about your charge? I won’t risk a repeat of Allaya.”

Huntsman’s presence bristled. “Are you ever going to let that go? It’s been thousands of years, Armsmaster. I’ve grown since then.”

“You have. Which is why I’m asking you if I have cause for concern. If you tell me she’s safe, I’ll believe you and drop the matter, but it must be asked.”

His presence settled down, projecting resignation. “She’s a wolf. You know how they get about loyalty, and your girl’s fast on her way to earning it. I’ll give her a nudge here and there, make sure she stays on the right path, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. She’s not Allaya, Armsmaster.”

She calmed herself. Threats to the Armoury’s safety had always been a sore spot for her, and that day has been a black mark on her record for a very long time.

“Good. Good. In that case, what have you heard? You’ve always been a reliable source of information.”