Their training continued and Rose grew by leaps and bounds each day. As the last day of training approaches, Rose can feel herself getting stronger. Not only was she stronger physically, but also ethereally. She could stay in her hyper speed mode for increasingly longer periods of time as well as being able to speed up even faster than she could initially. She had also become an exceptionally capable fighter under Rex's tutelage. She has the greatest level of mastery over hand-to-hand combat, but she is also adept with most weapons, with her better weapons being throwing knives, daggers, and shortswords. Once they enter the days following they're training week, they notice that Hiro hasn't returned yet. Rex shrugs his shoulders saying, "It's not like him to be late. However, I doubt he's in any trouble, seeing as it was just a meeting. Negotiations are probably just taking a bit longer than expected.". Seeing how they have a bit of extra time, Rex asks her to partake in one more phase of training.
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"Umm… Mr. Rex? What is this… thing?" Rose says skeptically as she sits and stares in confusion at the poorly made replica of Hiro.
"Look, I'm not the best artist in the kingdom. I'm good with my hands in a fight, but that doesn't translate well to other things." He says, slightly embarrassed at the terribly made practice dummy. "This is a dummy version of Hiro that we'll use to train you. This will also be the last phase of your training."
"But I thought the last phase of training was the last one?"
"Not quite. There was something else that I nearly forgot. Do you remember what I said to you the first time we met?" Rex asks.
"Something about messing up, right?" She says, struggling to remember.
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"Yes, but the more important part that you were supposed to take away was to protect Hiro. Specifically, when you are with Hiro, 'Regardless of location or situation, you are to put his safety above your own.'. It's a saying that the Palace workers have been using since Hiro's ascent to the throne. It's important that you start to act in the same manner." Explains Rex.
"Makes sense. So this is supposed to help me with that?" She says pointing to the dummy.
"Yes. For the next three hours, you will be tasked with protecting this dummy. For every successful hit on the dummy, an additional thirty minutes will be added to your time, so be sure to defend using everything in your arsenal. I'll be attacking, but I will be attacking both of you. Helen will conjure a clock momentarily. Once it starts ticking, your training will begin."
"Yes sir." She says, preparing herself for the challenge. She readies a few throwing daggers and a knife for combat and awaits the start. After a few moments, she sees a massive analog clock begin to fade into existence with a red line at noon, indicating the trial's end time. A couple of seconds pass by, and then it starts to tick.
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Immediately following the first tick, a knife comes rocketing towards her from over her shoulder. She dodges, but it flies directly into the dummy's chest area.
"He'd be dead if that were actually him. That's an extra thirty minutes." Rex says, without moving from the spot he was in prior to the challege's start.
Seeing this, Rose enters Hyper Speed, and attempts to engage Rex.
They exchange a few blows in close quarters, with Rex dodging weapon attacks and blocking her other attacks. After a few exchanges like this, he parries a knife swing, steps in mere inches from her, and grabs one of the knives off of her hip and throws it at the dummy.
"Good job engaging me, but you can't get too far away from him." He says as he jumps backwards, away from Rose. As he jumps back, Rose quickly turns around and lunges at the thrown knife. After turning, she increases the amount of ether being consumed by her Hyper Speed to catch up to the knife, catches it, and throws it back at Rex. "All according to plan!" She says after throwing the knife back. Afterwards she reduces her ether consumption back to what it was prior.
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Rex stumbles while trying to catch the knife returning toward him faster than he threw it initially.
"Excellent awareness!" He shouts at her as he recovers from the catch. After recovering, he runs off behind a few trees and disappears from Rose's view. After Rose realizes she can't keep track of him through the bushes, she retreats back to the dummy. As she looks back up at the clock, it's only moved by a little less than a minute, still showing three hours and twenty-nine minutes.
"This is going to be a long training session." She says under her breath as she readies herself for the next attack.
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As she did during the other phases of training, Rose had improved tremendously over the course of this phase. She did let a few of Rex's attacks hit the dummy, but the dummy had gone unscathed for the last hour. At this point, her instincts had matured to the level where her guard duty had become second nature to her. She wasn't aware of the change, but Rex could see the difference was like night and day. The only thing that was left was to finish this phase and her training would be complete.
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Rex had minimized his approaches for the last 10 minutes by staying out of reach of Rose and hidden by the bushes and trees in the courtyard and throwing knives at Rose and the dummy. He was aware that she would start to feel winded after the first two hours of fairly intense combat, but she had become noticeably less reliant on teleportation and more so reliant on Hyper Speed and the occasional Boost as the time whittled away, along with her Ether reserves. At this point, there was less than a minute left, and Rex had decided to push one last time to see if she could withstand his close range pressure while being on her last legs, all while protecting the dummy.
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"Almost done. Just got one more minute." Rose says, trying to motivate herself. As she looks back up, she sees two knives come from two different directions. She rushes forward, grabbing the first one from in front of her and throws it towards the other one, deflecting both away from the dummy. Once they hit each other Rex appears out of the bushes to strike the dummy with a straight punch to its chest area. Rose instinctively dashes towards him in between him and the dummy, to block the punch using herself as a shield. As she gets hit, she gets sent flying backwards several feet past the dummy. Rex, without missing a beat, winds up another punch a bit stronger than the last at the now defenseless dummy. Rose, while still flying backwards from the earlier punch, teleports back in front of Rex and sticks a hand out, grabbing his fist and maneuvering it away from the dummy. As she brings his hand down, she attacks with a straight punch identical to the one he threw at the dummy, hitting him in his chest and pushing him back a few feet. He then recovers and, rather than resume his normal stance, he raises his hand and surrenders. Astonished, Rose asks through tired breaths, “Why’d you stop? There’s only a few seconds left, but you could’ve gotten another hit if you tried.”. “I know I could’ve, but what would be the point in extending this any longer? You’re clearly exhausted, both physically and Ethereally. Not to mention, you have already gotten what you needed out of this lesson. You were able to instinctively protect the dummy, which was the last thing you needed to learn before becoming a personal guard to the King. Well done, your training is complete.” Rex says, before extending his hand for a handshake. “You mean, I’m done with… All of it? Completely finished?” Rose says barely able to hold her excitement. She reaches for his hand, and upon grabbing it she falls over and passes out from exhaustion.
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Over the next few days, she feels overjoyed at the accomplishment. She eagerly awaits Hiro’s return to tell him about all the things she learned throughout her training. Not only that, but to also find out more about her mission. Rex on the other hand had begun to worry about his brother. He could make excuses all he wanted to, but with Hiro being nearly a week late, Rex couldn’t help but think the worst. After all, the only person that he cares for anywhere near as much is the woman who raised them, Vanessa. At around the two week mark, Hiro finally returns. Upon his arrival, he calls a meeting for all of the members of the Royal Family to the throne room.
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“As you can all see, I have made it back to the palace in one piece, albeit a little late. My apologies.” Hiro says as he takes his seat on the throne. “As long as you made it back safely, you have nothing to apologize for. Did you take care of the matter you needed to?” Says Helen. “Yes, with great success actually. Negotiations were progressing slowly for the first few days, but by the end of it, Lord Tyrol had agreed to cooperate with us on the Mana Beast Incident. He has agreed to research the beast itself and provide us with any intel they come across.” Hiro explains. “‘Scuse me, but what’s the Mana Beast Incident?” Rose inquires. “You should be quite familiar with it yourself, Rose. The Mana Beast Incident happened on the day you were arrested. A Mana Beast suddenly appeared in the Capital and Rex and I had to fight it off. It was also the fight that Vanessa was so deeply wounded in. These beasts have never been sighted on the mainland prior to that day. We in Rahu don’t have any kind of expertise in this field, however, the country of Kennis is the world’s leader in mana related subjects, so I requested their assistance on the matter.” Hiro explains.
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“It’s good to hear that things went well, but if that’s all we needed to hear, I’ll be taking my leave now.” Rex says as he begins to walk out. Helen turns to grab him, but Hiro raises his hand, signaling for her to stop. Once the door shuts behind him, Hiro asks, “Was he really that worried about me?”, rubbing his face into one of hands. “Helen, you are dismissed from the meeting. On your way out, have the maids tidy up the courtyard a bit. We’ll need it shortly. Rose, you stay here with me.”. “Yes, My Lord.” Helen says, excusing herself from the room. Once she’s out of the room, Hiro turns towards Rose saying, “Rex tends to pout like a child whenever he gets upset with me. He’s been like that since we were children and never really grew out of it.” He says with a grin on his face. “But every time this happened, there was one surefire way to get his spirits back up; a fight.”
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Rose was intrigued almost instantly. Not because she didn't expect it, but rather the thought of Rex and Hiro sparring was an idea that fascinated her to no bounds. The king of their nation versus the "self-proclaimed" strongest man in the nation: she was captivated by the thought. "You and I, versus Rex." Hiro said, this time to her confusion. "But why me?"
"Because it gives me the chance to see what you've been practicing and it'll cheer him up in the process. Trust me, it'll work.", he says.
She reluctantly goes along with it, letting her nerves get to her in the process, and goes to get Rex from his room. Hiro tells her to bring him outside for a ‘gift’ from Hiro as he walks to the courtyard. She goes and does what she was told and they arrive at the courtyard with Hiro standing patiently in the center.
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"Hey there Rex. I wanna get straight to the point here. Fight us."."Us? Who's your partner?" He says as he starts to get noticeably happier. "Rose and I will be fighting you two on one. You trained her, right? If so, she should be plenty strong enough to take part in a battle between us." Hiro explains. "I'm slightly opposed to this, seeing as she isn't well enough acquainted with you yet to fight with you, not to mention she also doesn't have as much experience fighting as we do. But if you say so 'My Lord', I'll go with it." Says Rex with a bit of sass in his voice.
"Good. Glad we could see eye to eye on this." He says sarcastically. "Since this isn't training anymore, be sure to go all out." Hiro adds. He then turns to a nervous Rose and puts both hands on her shoulders. "Try to calm down. I promise that this won't go as badly as you're thinking it will. Just focus on offense and I'll keep you protected. From what you've shown me, you have a sharp mind and can adapt well in the heat of battle. I know you can do this." As he says this, he turns toward a semi-excited Rex and prepares for battle.
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As Hiro begins to walk toward Rex, a thick white fog starts to roll out of his coat sleeves and pant legs. Hiro pulls out a coin from his pocket and says "The fight starts when this coin hits the ground." After he says this, he tosses the coin and looks towards Rose with a slight smile. She responds with the same half cocked smile as she enters her Hyper Speed mode. As the coin approaches the ground, she takes one last look at the courtyard surrounding them and realizes that it has been cloaked in the thick fog that Hiro was exuding.
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As she finishes her thought, Hiro's image fades away into the fog. She gathers her thoughts as the coin touches the ground, and dashes full speed towards Rex, attempting a swift roundhouse kick towards his temple. He dodges with relative ease and fires back with a flurry punches. She manages to dodge a few, with most of them grazing her. "Even though they just grazed me, I can see that I can't take more than one solid blow. More importantly, where is Hiro? He said if I take care of offense, he'd handle the rest." She thinks to herself. "I'll try to keep up the pressure for a little longer". She continues to block and parry as many blows as she can, but even in Hyper Speed, she can barely keep up. Punches, kicks, knees, elbows, headbutts and more are being thrown relentlessly at Rose until one of these punches finally slips through her guard. "Can't dodge this one. I REALLY hope Hiro steps in to help here. Otherwise I might not be awake for the rest of this fight." She thinks to herself as she braces for impact. As Rex's fist comes within inches of her stomach, it looks almost as if a wall appeared out of the fog in front of his hand, stopping his punch and causing a massive shockwave blowing Rose off of her feet, shaking the nearby trees, and blowing away some of the fog in the immediate area. As the fog rolls away, Hiro appears behind Rex, throws a heavy punch into his side and sends him a decent way away. Hiro then pours more fog out of his sleeves, vanishes into it, and reappears next to Rose. "Excellent work Rose. You held up qui-",
"What was that!?"
"What was what? The shockwave? That was just the force of the punch."
"Has he been hitting that hard the entire time?"
"Yes, why wouldn't he? I told him not to hold back. Quite frankly, he's even stronger than what you're seeing right now. If he were actually going all out he could destroy mountains with ease." Explains Hiro. It was at this point, Rose recognized that Rex might have been telling the truth when he said he was the strongest man in the nation.
"He really is the strong-" Hiro says before getting hit in his chest by a forceful blast of water coming from off in the distance.
"Mr. Hiro?"
"On your guard. Now is when the fight gets a bit trickier." Says Hiro as he reappears next to Rose once again. "I can sense everything in the fog, including his water dragons. They are the ones firing these blasts of water from different directions. Listen to my instructions and I'll let you know when and where they are coming from." Multiple blasts of water begin shooting through Hiro's fog at once.
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"9 o'clock high."
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He says. Rose drops to the ground and sees the blast appear from her left side and pass over her head. Seeing this gave her a rush of adrenaline that was new to her.
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"6 o'clock low"
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She couldn't put it into words at first, but she knew that she was beginning to enjoy their fight with Rex.
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"7 o'clock."
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She steps backwards to dodge this one as she scans the area looking for Rex.
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"He's approaching your 6."
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Her anxiety from fighting Rex seriously had now turned into an excitement of sorts. She then drops down, and attempts a blind leg sweep behind her, and hits one of Rex's feet, tripping him up. As he begins to fall a sudden blast of water appears behind her. Seeing this, Hiro disappears and reappears in between Rose and the blast to block it with a shield of water.
"Remember what I said. You focus on offense, and I'll handle the rest." Says Hiro as he blocks a few more blasts of water from varying directions.
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"Yes sir!" She says excitedly in response to Hiro, as she attempts to rush Rex with a flurry of punches. "You two have done well, but I'm afraid it's about time to wrap up our sparring session." As he says this, two dragons made purely from water begin to extend down his arms from his shoulders in a spiral, forming a pair of dragon shaped gauntlets around his arms and
hands. Using these, he parries all of Rose's attacks.
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"What?! He's even faster than before! And he's gaining the upper hand at an alarming pace." She thinks to herself, trying to keep up any amount of pressure on Rex, but to no avail. He breaks through Rose's offense with ease and attacks with a strong right hook to her temple. As the punch closes in on her, she sees Hiro appear in front of her to stop Rex's attack. But it seems Rex anticipated this, and had readied a blast of water in his other gauntlet for whenever Hiro reappeared. "And this, is what we call checkmate." He says as he blasts Hiro with a forceful blast from his left and sends his right crashing down on Rose. "You got me this time." Hiro says, acknowledging his defeat. "I'm pooped, and that last hit hurt like hell! I think I'll call it quits here too." Says Rose as she lays back on the green grass of the courtyard, covered in dirt and sweat, with a smile on her face.
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"Hiro? Are you alright?" Says Rex in a more concerned tone than normal.
"I've taken hits from you more times than I can count. It would be a little out of the ordinary for me to be hur-"
"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it. You've been moving a lot slower in this fight than usual. Even if you were holding back for Rose, you wouldn't have done this poorly."
"I'll tell you, but after we're back inside. Rose, that includes you too."
"Me too?”
“Yes, you too. What I need to tell him is important to you as well.” Hiro says picking himself up and dusting himself off. Rex helps Rose up and they all leave to go to Hiro’s study to discuss the details of Hiro’s trip to Kennis.
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