Chapter 4

  The war we wage within ourselves does not care whether you are a soldier or an artist. Each of us finds conflict in our lives, each of us has our own battlefield to conquer. Let those who toil in the fields and workshops be as mighty in your eyes as those that wield the blade.

  -Collected Teachings of the Exalted Sovereign

  The first thing Phaidros thought as he stepped into Daxia’s workshop was that the word ‘hoard’ described it perfectly. Where he had expected to see an armory of clearly distinct racks of weapons and sets of armor, instead he saw a cluttered mess. In one pile was a collection of swords and axes haphazardly placed atop one another. Against one wall were racks of pistols, rifles, bows and their quivers all competing for the same studs keeping them from falling to the floor. A few metal exoskeletons flanked the back weapon rack like statues. The actual counters were covered in what Phaidros could only assume were half-finished products and the only clean spot Phaidros managed to find was the front desk in the middle of the room in front of the door.

  He looked at Zenovia with a small grimace. Zenovia had a plain look of disappointment on her face before the two finally looked into the workshop proper to their left.

  There, amidst all of the machinery and tools that made up the forge was a single set of ignited armor on a stand that had various mechanical arms with different ends currently not in use. The black chitin plating gave it the appearance of a sinuous bug, with small ridges forming where the plates interlocked with one another. It seemed… rather ordinary from what Phaidros had seen before, save for the left gauntlet being larger than what was standard. What then caught his attention was the Ignited currently fiddling with something Phaidros couldn’t see beneath one of the plates.

  Daxia hadn’t even bothered to look at them when they had entered, clearly too focused on her work. She wore the same uniform that Zenovia and Phaidros wore but seemed to only be keeping it draped over her shoulders rather than properly wearing it, revealing a plain shirt that might have been white but was covered in oil and grease stains. Those were the normal things he noticed. Everything else was not what he expected. Two near-black, jagged horns extended out from Daxia’s head backwards in an arc. Her cream-colored hair could be described more like a mane that had been tied back out of her face in a messy ponytail while she worked, revealing two sharply pointed ears. Beneath her hairline and creeping into all of her olive-brown face were scales a similar color to her horns and extended down her neck. He found similar scales to be covering her hands which each ended in chipped, claw-like nails. Behind her he noticed a spined tail as long as she was tall, which was hard to gauge while she sat, and ended in a tuft of fur similar in color to her hair.

  She finally looked up to them and Phaidros could now see her eyes. The pupils were serpentine slits surrounded by deep crimson as if a black sword rested against molten-hot iron. To Phaidros she looked like a demon that had crawled its way out of the old stories and into the world. She sat up straighter and Phaidros felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  She then let out a big yawn. The motion revealed two lines on either corners of her mouth that separated to show darker red skin as her jaw extended way farther than Phaidros thought would be possible. “You’re Phaidros, right?” she asked, rubbing at one eye with the back of her hand. She sounded exhausted, and way less intimidating than Phaidros had expected. He looked over to Zenovia who stared at Daxia with surprise.

  “You’re a longshi,” she said.

  Daxia sighed. “Here we go…”

  “longshi?” Phaidros blinked. “Like… a dragon?” he said in disbelief. There were many tales about dragons, most of them horrifying, and from what Phaidros understood, mostly in opposition to the Order of the Ignited.

  “Alright.” She put up her hands. “Let’s just stop this before it starts. You’re here for your armor right, kid?”

  The fire of his potential burning within him gave him the strength to answer her—and to not ask her a million questions about dragons. “Yes, sorry. I’m Phaidros and this is Zenovia, it is nice to meet you, Daxia.”

  She nodded in appreciation as he changed the subject. “Yeah,” she answered simply before she looked back at the armor, “I was just finishing her up. I had to work all through the night to get the plates all fashioned right. Annoying things were rather stubborn about becoming all you-shaped.” She gestured vaguely to Phaidros, before continuing, “So I couldn’t afford to do anything fancy with it.”

  Phaidros felt a question about what that was supposed to mean on his lips followed by a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry, thank you for the effort though. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He looked up to the armor, approaching it curiously, leaning in to inspect the gauntlet. “Though I did notice the uneven gauntlets. Why is that?”

  “Ah, right. I did add one thing,” she said with a slow nod and pushed herself off her chair. She was about a foot shorter than both Zenovia and Phaidros, which put her horns at dangerous eye level. Her tail swayed behind her as she opened up a plate and tapped on unseen buttons. From the underside of the gauntlet the plate lifted and a chitin pointed much like a stinger launched forward and stabbed at the open air in front of its hand. Phaidros let out a surprised sound and leapt back to safety; Daxia only grinned. “It’s always good to have a little extra surprise out there.” She grinned sheepishly. “If you don’t like the look of the set, don’t worry about it. The plates all start to change as you wear them anyway.”

  Phaidros blinked. “They do?”

  Zenovia spoke up, “The chitin you see on the armor is reactive to your potential. People still debate on the exact cause but the general agreement is that it becomes a reflection of the person beneath the armor as people begin to associate the two as one.”

  “That’s incredible,” Phaidros said. “Where do you get the chitin then?”

  Daxia pointed down. “There’s some insect found all over the galaxy if you dig around in the earth enough. They’re large and just as the lady put it they’re extremely reactive to potential. The smiths put out commissions to hunt them for their chitin and we fashion it onto the exoskeletons you see there.” She jerked a clawed thumb back to some of the exoskeletons the two had seen earlier. “Great stuff, real tough against most threats, only gets tougher as you become shaped, defined, and so on, and it has the benefit of just growing back if it gets damaged.”

  “Dasos has a few of those cave systems that reach down that far,” Zenovia added. “Suneater sends us out on hunts for them sometimes if the supply is low.”

  Phaidros remembered hearing children’s stories of giant insects crawling out of caves to snatch up disobedient and unruly children in the night. Those always got tears out of him and required his brother or his father to try and calm him down. The thought made his curiosity die a little as he remembered his father’s fate. “Must be difficult,” he said distractedly.

  Zenovia seemed to pick up on something wrong and spoke again. “Why don’t you try it on? Then we can figure out your weapon.”

  Phaidros nodded and Daxia opened up another plate and pressed a few buttons. The entire front of the armor opened up, making it so Phaidros could just step into it. “It’ll be a little snug in there but you’ll get used to it.” Phaidros approached the armor wearily and slid into place, the armor closing around him with a hiss of various airlocks and seals. “The suit has a neural net attached to it that’ll sync up with your thoughts so once you get the hang of everything you’ll be able to use all of the suit’s systems as if it were second nature.” She closed the panel and knocked on the shoulder. “Take a few steps around for me will you?” She walked away from the other Ignited to rummage around at one of the far tables.

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  In front of Phaidros’ face the three slits that made up the visor shimmered before suddenly he had an unobstructed view of everything in front of him. Various notifications began cycling through his vision as he looked around. All of the weapon pile silhouettes began to be highlighted red while Zenovia and Daxia were highlighted in blue. The data stream was fast but Phaidros found that he was able to follow all of it, which he was certain was thanks to his new powers as an Ignited. He took one step forward and was surprised at how light his whole body felt, which in turn made him stumble off of the armor stand before catching himself.

  “Careful there,” Zenovia said, arms out as if to catch him if he fell. “One wrong thought and you’ll smash through the wall.”

  “Break my workshop and I’ll break you,” Daxia chimed in from the side, finally turning around to reveal she was getting herself coffee. She took an idle sip.

  Phaidros took a second step that was much more coordinated than the first as he walked back and forth through the workshop. “I feel light,” he commented, though Zenovia raised an eyebrow and Daxia was smirking. “What?”

  “The voice encoder is on,” Zenovia pointed out with a sigh. “We can’t understand a word you’re saying. Turn it off.”

  Phaidros had no idea how to turn it off but he tried to focus on that thought. A small flash of text in the corner of his display highlighted, reading encoder disabled. “Like this?”

  “There we go,” Daxia said with a grin, her tail swaying behind her in satisfaction. “Nice and easy, yeah?” Phaidros nodded and she gestured with a free hand towards the various piles of weapons around the workshop. “Take your pick.”

  Phaidros looked around to the cluttered weapons with some wariness. “Any of them?”

  “Yes, just try not to disturb the piles too much.”

  “Why do you keep this place so cluttered anyway?” Zenovia asked.

  “It’s not cluttered,” Daxia snapped back. “Everything has its place so I can remember where it is.”

  “You can do that while keeping the place clean,” Zenovia replied flatly.

  While the two argued, Phaidros carefully picked his way across the room to take a look at his options. He thought back to better days of his father teaching him how to use a sword with Charon watching close by. Phaidros had been an eager learner at the time, before everything changed. He didn’t want to just default to a sword without seeing the rest of his options, however. He walked over to the pile of guns on the counter and squinted, nervous to try and move any of them without invoking the longshi’s wrath. His visor began to pick out the silhouettes again with small blurbs of text identifying them. “I don’t see too many Ignited that use ranged weapons like these,” Phaidros mused. “Why is that?”

  Zenovia was the one to answer. “A lot of people think there’s less ‘danger’ in picking something with range behind it. It’s easier to learn how to use a rifle but people are often disappointed at what they believe is a ‘low skill ceiling.’”

  “What does that mean?” Phaidros asked, brow furrowed.

  “It means,” Daxia replied, “that Ignited prefer weapons that are harder to master and more rewarding when they do. It is better for the potential to be able to face an enemy with a sword in hand than it does with a gun because there is more personal risk and reward, or something like that.”

  “Seems like an odd thing to focus on when someone can just shoot you from afar and be done with it,” Phaidros answered.

  Zenovia sighed. “Yeah well, things start to get complicated once you get to Shaped and beyond. Daxia said it herself, the armor becomes stronger once you advance, making most attempts to harm you useless without some special trick of your own.” She gestured to the suit. “Besides, a normal Ignited in one of these suits can dodge or parry bullets more often than not and energy weapons bounce off the chitin or just crack the plating. If you’re hunting, some beasts just don’t care about being shot if they’ve advanced their potential enough.” Phaidros could sense some bitterness in her voice as she said that. Daxia only hummed thoughtfully and took another sip of her coffee.

  “Why do you use a rifle then?” Phaidros asked, turning towards the older ignited.

  Zenovia’s expression fell. “When you’re in the thick of it, too many people on the front lines can get messy and it can be beneficial for whoever you’re fighting with as a whole to have variety. That… and being a mighty hero on the front lines is all well and good until someone with a shaped power bullet or arrow completely ignores your fancy armor. Sure, it isn’t an honorable kill, but honor hardly matters when you’re still alive from making a shot more than a mile away and your big scary opponent with a sword is now dead before they even knew you were there.”

  Phaidros stared in stunned silence, letting that thought sink in. He could pick a ranged weapon like that too, be someone’s death before they even realized what was happening to them. Was that really what he wanted though? His stream of thoughts was interrupted by Zenovia continuing, “Besides, it doesn’t matter much if we’re not fighting ignited or shaped creatures. My aim’s still good and I can line up a shot that’ll kill three normal men in a single trigger pull if I wanted to.”

  Phaidros watched her for a moment longer before returning his attention to the gun pile. That was true he was sure, but even then his father still died while she lived. He hesitated, thinking maybe it would be safer this way, but then decided against it and moved to his original point of interest, the blade pile.

  He had always liked carrying a sword; it made him feel like he was some fabled hero of old only remembered in myths. His emerald eyes trailed across the pile, suit highlighting as needed until he spotted one sword in particular. A sword a little shorter than he was tall. It had blue wrappings around the long hilt with enough room for him to be able to grip it easily in two hands, with a black metal cross guard and pommel, and a vibrant silver edge that extended down into the tangled mess and coming to a point at the end somewhere beneath. It was simple yet elegant, a longsword worthy of some long-dead knight. It stuck out of the pile like a sword sheathed in a nest of steel. He grabbed the hilt and carefully pulled at it. There was a strange feeling of tension as the sword was freed from the tangled confines of its brothers and sisters. The pile remained intact when the sword was finally free and he let out a sigh of relief that he was once more spared the potential wrath of an angry dragon. He held it up to the lights, finding it lighter than he initially thought it would be as he examined his reflection in the steel. Something felt right when he held it and he smiled to himself. “This will do I think.” He would be able to honor his father’s memory this way, yet this sword was also his own, a large, simple sword as opposed to two elegant and graceful curved blades. With a nod to himself, the decision was made.

  “A bit traditional,” Daxia commented, “but a good sword will treat you right if you treat it right. If it starts to wear down just bring it back to me and I’ll fix it up good as new.”

  Phaidros nodded and smiled towards the smith, though she couldn’t see it. “Thank you, Daxia, I will be sure to do so.”

  “Think you can make some rounds that’ll punch through a shaped creature’s hide?” Zenovia asked.

  Daxia hummed, scratching at her scaled neck with her claws. “That’s a tall order without a shaped weapon. I might be able to come up with something though, I’ll have to see what the merchants can bring me. I’ll get back to you on that, just give me a few weeks.” Zenovia tensed, that was cutting it close, Phaidros knew, but the other Ignited nodded. “Alright if that’s all then please leave,” Daxia said with a shooing gesture. “I got more commissions to work on. The blade will magnetize to the back of your armor so don’t worry about needing a sheath.”

  Phaidros felt some sense of pity for Daxia but nodded with an unseen smile. Zenovia reached up and patted him on the shoulder guard. “Alright, let’s move on.” Without any further delay, the two left Daxia’s workshop. Zenovia led the way with an armored Phaidros following soon after with the blade resting against his shoulder. Phaidros couldn’t help but notice that Zenovia still seemed bitter.

  “We have a lot of work to do, Phaidros, so please, listen and don’t make me repeat myself,” Zenovia said dryly as she took them back towards the housing district they both resided in.

  “I won’t. Where are we heading first?”

  “The jungle. I don’t need you crashing through buildings because you accidentally activated your jets and blasted through someone’s living room.”

  “I’m not that green.”

  “That’s what they all say when they first wear the armor, I did, then two days later I got my head and shoulders stuck in a temple ceiling.”

  Phaidros’ eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t have expected a skilled hunter like Zenovia to have such issues when she started. “Point taken,” he muttered.

  With that, the two made a quick stop at Zenovia’s house for her to get her gear, then they made their way down the main road and towards the jungle. One month… would he truly be ready by then? A rogue spark of dread wormed its way down his spine before he let the gentle warmth of his burning potential mask it. The flame made it easier to simply ignore those negative feelings. In that comforting warmth new resolve started to flicker into being. He would avenge his father, or die trying.