R-Suit

 

Chapter 1:

Inside a mechanic workshop on the eastern lookout of Iltzik, there’s the racketing sound of someone working on their magnum opus, the thing that will finally consecrate them among the greatest. Despite the workshop’s prime location for an excellent vista, the person working inside of it hasn’t seen the sun rise in the past 2 days. Minutes, hours, and days, have gone past them as they enthusiastically push themselves over and over. 

Yet, they reason to themselves that the project is almost done. It has been 3 years since they started building it, and now they get to see it move. The thing that they are making, it has arms, and it has legs, and it has a chest and it has a head. All fully armored, protected by the intricate, rose-tinted-gray colored metal. 

Its design is inspired by the pyramids and sculptures of the ancients. Its head resembles an ornate serpent sculpture, with indents in its eyes, it has patterned symbols on the back of its head that naturally lead towards its back, its back is composed of a couple of large black blocks, ready to illuminate when the machine turns on. In the front, its chest and belly are composed of reverse-escalated blocks, 4 of them in total, two in the chest and two in the abdomen. Between every block and within joints, there are smaller, almost scale-like blocks protecting them thoroughly. Its arms are large rectangular prisms, and its forearms extend forward as pyramids towards the hand. Its hands are highly mobile, almost as much as a human’s, and its leg to foot structure follows a similar structure to that of the arms, only with two simple blocks for feet. The humanoid machine stands 3m tall.

In front of the machine is currently its creator. A person inside a protective, working, suit. Their current suit, consists of thick plastic with some metal layers in-between, it emanates a subtle glow from its source of energy, and it helps the person inside work safely. The person inside finally takes off the suit with a zipper from the back. 

It’s a young girl, 18 years old. She has short, practical, jet black hair, dark brown skin small, slanted, eyes and a wide face with a short, hooked nose. She is short and of a naturally strong build, compounded by her work in the workshop to make a strong appearance but not one deliberately conditioned and balanced. Her name is Tzilpapali, and she is currently staring at her own creation. A certain tension permeates her entire body, mixing anxiety, excitement, and the painstaking effort she’d just made at once.Her eyes dart back and forth, from the boosters in its back, to its limited, yet effective weaponry, consisting of a single melee weapon and a single long-ranged one. 

She is aware of two things. She knows that it is time to test if it works, and she knows that if it does, she will join a limited number of people, no superior to 20, that can call themselves Craft Mechanics. The people that can not only utilize  Rhydian cores to absorb and generate electricity, as almost every machine in the current day did. But they could utilize the energy in these Rhydian cores directly and to its full potential by painstakingly spending years to work in them, affecting them at a microscopic level in order to achieve their desired result. 

The desired result could be none other than a machine like the one she had in front of herself. The pinnacle of human technology. She doubted her eyes, her ears and her smell. But she didn’t doubt her mind, and she knew that she was capable of modifying Rhydian cores.

She takes a deep breath and accepted that it was time to turn it on. She connected an interrupter from the outside, and put her protective engineering suit back on. Her hearing becomes obsessive, things in her surroundings seem louder and louder in spite of how small or how meaningless. Cracks in metal, misplaced objects sliding off from their place, and her own imagination running tricks on her right before she pressed the button. 

She grabs the tiny, grey, improvised, controller, and presses hard on the button. Time stops at that moment, or at the very least it appears to. Everything that had been happening before leaves her field of view, and instead, the only thing that remained was the quiet, vacuuming, sound of the machine turning on, followed by a bright blue light that emanated from the machine’s back, neck, knees, feet, and between its pectoral area in the chest. The Rhydian cores are working perfectly, they show themselves as these lights, which would function as boosters once there was a pilot inside the machine. 

Tzilpapali had done it after all. She had managed to create the primordial combat suit of armor, a Rhydosuit, or R-Suit for short. From that moment onward, she had immortalization in history guaranteed. And her career options had now expanded to essentially anything she felt like working on, since nobody would refuse a craft mechanic. The only thing that remained was to take the suit to the military base in Iltzik. 

Utilizing a moving platform with a built in lift, made to carry heavy machinery, Tzilpapali lays the R-suit on top of her transport truck. She puts her engineering suit back on as she’ll have to do some added effort to put self-made electrodomestics, her regular wares to account for her livelihood, On top of the R-Suit. There’s vacuum cleaners and leaf blowers, as well as alarms and large electric fans. Each piece is technically unique, although each shares her signature greys and ornamental, rounded indents similar to stone monuments. Much the same as everything else, all of these utilize the energy from Rhydian cores turned into electricity in order to function. 

One by one she puts things over the R-Suit. In spite of its importance, she feels no need to be overly careful with it. She made it after all, and she know better than anyone that something as small as this won’t ever deal any form of damage to it.

She gets on the truck and opens the gate to her garage. Natural light thrusts itself in her direction, stunning her momentaneously as her eyes adjust to it. Thankfully for her, the morning is long past. It’s the afternoon by then, the sun will set in an hour or two. 

Her truck passes through the observation deck. From here she can see beyond the city’s outer layer and into the wilderness beyond. She knows what goes on there only from newscasts. Beyond the greenery and past the mountains that cozy up the city into a safe valley, there’s people, people living in cities like her own. Cities that were not originally from the Huitzlian Empire unlike Iltzik, but which were conquered and made to hand in tribute. Even further beyond that, are innocent settlements, too secluded from the world to matter to the people in most places, but leading their own lives nonetheless.

She drives through the singular, circular road that surrounds the entirety of Iltzik. There’s a large wall surrounding the city, it’s a concrete wall, large, gray and plain. In spite of it, the main part of the city is still easy to see. 

Where there were once multiple pyramids, there’s now an efficient and large transport system. The pyramids have been separated into pieces that go from one place to the next via large railways, minimizing the need for private transport such as cars, except to take merchandise to and fro.

Once she arrives at the gates of the inner wall to the city, she is greeted by guards. The guards know her, none with any form of depth, but they recognize her well enough. One of them, a slightly overweight, but strong, tall man, greets her.

-What are you bringing today huh? Something fun in your bag of tricks?

Says the guard.

-Things to sell, everything for money.

Replies Tzilpapali, lying with naturality. The guard laughs heartily and lets the girl pass. She hasn’t gone past the second wall, the one that leads to the unprotected lands in between relevant cities. To care about what she had been doing is more than what the guards have been paid to do.

Her truck enters the city safely. A road filled with robust rows of trees, dense in their darkening autumn foliage, with wide trunks of red-brown greet her. Further back are small buildings 3 stories or less, all proudly decorated with wood and stone facades. Making for a sight of black, brown, white, and brown again. All of this combines to make repeated patterns that don’t distract from daily life, while still keeping a sense of individuality to each part of it, inspiring curious minds to observe.

Her truck trods naturally through the road. The route is flat due to good maintenance and minimal usage, and there’s no one to obstruct her way as she reaches a transport station. From there she can head downtown, to the center of the city, where the administrative center for the military base rests. But she decides against it for the time being.

Instead, she waits for a pyramid piece, formally known as a cableroom, to come by with a large number “3” sign on it. Each of these cablerooms has an entrance for cars and trucks, and an entrance for people. They are graying brown in color in the exterior, but mostly black in the interior, albeit well illuminated. 

Roughly 10 minutes later, she’s arrived to her destination. A suburban district 3 stations away from the downtown area. A wide variety of flowers and trees make the place look only a step away from being just nature. The houses take on cubic, minimalist aesthetics, with pure whites, pure blacks, and large windows are among the predominant designs for the large houses in the area. Eventually, she arrives at her house, a large place with an even larger garden. She parks her truck in the garage and leaves it there with all the merchandise and the R-Suit. Her dad won’t come home, and if he does come, he won’t check it.

After having left her truck in place. She walks up the stairs towards the kitchen. She turns on the lights revealing a kitchen that has spent its last couple of days in complete abandonment. The only thing that has kept everything from having a thin sheet of dust on top, is the hired cleaners that visit her house for a couple of hours a day every weekday. 

She walks with slacking levity towards the fridge. The slow drumming of her feet grows louder by the presence of silence in every other part of the room. She takes out 3 sealed containers from the fridge, and a couple of frozen tortillas. Then she starts preparing to eat.

Force of habit makes her put a table mat with a plate on top and a spoon to the side. Then she brings out the rustic tortilla holder, which sits contrastingly to the room’s otherwise modern look involving near black wood and white concrete with ash colored granite to top it all off. Once the preparations are done, she begins cooking.

She puts the frozen tortillas in a griddle and the 3 plastic containers in the microwave one by one. Said microwave was the first thing she sold, to her proud father, and it had held on surprisingly well with some maintenance. After a few minutes, her food is ready to be served. There’s red rice, seasoned with tomato sauce over a couple of hours beforehand, refried beans, and spicy rabbit thigh. Tzilpapali cuts the rabbit thigh into a couple of pieces, brings out one tortilla, spreads some refried beans, then rice, and then rabbit thigh in the center of the tortilla with the spoon. Then she rolls it and eats, she repeats this a few times. The ambient in the house while she’s eating is much the same as it was before she had arrived. 

Once she’s done, she washes and arranges everything, returning the kitchen to its original state. She then turns off the lights and exits through the door on the left, to head towards a second set of stairs upwards and towards her room. Her room has a couple of books on engineering and mechanics, a television,  and a surreal painting of some form of orca getting draped in clothes made out of water. to the opposite end of the room there’s a large squared window. Tzilpapali’s view is privileged.

After laying herself on her bed, she turns on the tv, to look without watching it. Her mind is occupied by the subject matter of the R-Suit, the television just makes some good background noise. She finds herself naturally nodding in harmony to the sounds from the tv without realizing. Time passes by, she finds herself knowing that she wanted to hand in her suit, but not feeling like doing so in spite of logic telling her to act immediately.

At one point she decides to pay attention to what’s happening on the television screen for a brief moment. A movie is playing, she recognizes the actors and the background from some advertisements, but she can’t recall the name. It’s famous nonetheless, famous enough for her to know the basic plot in spite of having missed the first hour or so.

It’s a movie dealing with a hero from a community in-between protected cities, one of the communities that pays tribute to the Huitzlian Empire. The main actor, a handsome man in his 30’s, is taking revenge against the raiders who killed his wife, and finding a new flame in the process. The movie is fun enough for Tzilpapali to get invested and watch until the end. She can’t recall the last time that she watched a movie attentively. 

An hour passes and the credits roll. The man dealt with an entire town of raiders by himself, with the strongest being the leader of the raiders, who is the only person throughout the movie to give him a tough fight. He kisses the movie’s heroine, his new love, and the two of them return home to form a new life presumably. The movie leaves Tzilpapali with an idea.

Considering that the raider problem exists, she thinks seriously about handing in the R-Suit to the military. If she does, they will keep doing what they have been doing, she has no idea what that is, but figures that it is nothing related to the raiders. On the flipside, she figures that it would be possible for her to use the R-Suit. She has a couple of ways in which to hide that she is taking off with it, and if she uses it, she’ll be free to do what she wants with it. 

Not being one to doubt herself for long, she decides that the next day she will start using the R-Suit. Having solved her conundrum, Tzilpapali resolves to sleep. She’ll need to have her first proper rest in a while if she is to drive the R-Suit properly.

-------

Seating in a cold, metallic office in the administrative center for the military training grounds, is Field Marshal Il’ilo. He is built as a sandstone tower with height and strength fitting of a younger man. He has a large jaw, prominent, weathered, features and greying, hair, slicked back. His skin is a very dark brown, and he’s in his reluctant early fifties. His age says as much, but he himself retains the energy of a young adult. 

He is currently revising the logistics for the Huitzlian empire’s army, famous for its sheer numbers. He’s spent all day revising document after document, with multiple spreadsheets making their way to his table. He takes a sip of lukewarm water from his thermus before turning to the last page. There, he finds that the last page has just one line of information. Something that feels almost as a waste of good paper due to not fitting in the previous page. A piece of information that makes him frown upon reading it.

 

Unit Type: R-Suit

 

Number of Units: 1

 

Cost per Unit: Incalculable

 

This information is not new, in fact, Il’Ilo has kept it in his mind for years. The Huitzlian Empire has only one R-suit to claim as their own, a unit made by an old mechanic in the far north looking to make his mark in history before dying. He thinks to himself that the number is too small, but heaves a sigh of relief as he realizes that the new generation won’t have to face the consequences to that in his lifetime.

The Huitzlian empire has, by and large, conquered every small state and country that it could. Now, for the first time, it is focusing on improving in what it already has. Conquered cities are still asked to give tribute. Yet the amount shrinks by the day, and they are gradually being adapted into the country as their own. 

He is interrupted amidst his musing by a young man, one of his aides. 

-Sir, the conference begins in 30 minutes, please head to the podium.

-Understood, you may head back to your office now. 

The younger fellow performs a brief reverence towards Il’ilo, and leaves the room. Il’ilo on his end stamps the papers with his seal of approval to be handed in to a government official for the sake of formality. He stands up from his chair and dusts off his condecorated grey uniform briefly. He is feeling slight numbness from remaining seated for a long time, but this subsides soon after he starts walking. 

His decisive steps echo through the cool metallic hallways in the military center. The bouncing sound makes a timid person feel larger, and a stronger one feel all-encompassing. He stands perfectly straight as he makes his way past three offices and towards the conference hall. Once he has arrived, he climbs up a small set of stairs past the curtain behind the podium. There, he sees a couple of technicians and some privates, who will escort him towards the podium once it is time to present.

He is required to present to the new recruits, but he hasn’t rehearsed at all. Truth be told he doesn’t need to. He’s given this same speech dozens of times, the young men and women in the audience listen closely every time. More so because of his sheer presence and reputation than his words. 

There’s still time left before the recruits come in, but he remains standing. There’s nothing that keeps him seated for the time being. Standing allows him to remain ready at all times. Uncoordinated steps begin to make their way towards the room, And then gradually subside as the audience begins to seat down in their place. Finally, someone tells Il’ilo that it is time to head outside and he does. As soon as he appears from the curtain, the room erupts in claps that slowly quiet down.

Looking around the room briefly, the hopeful, idealistic gazes reach him all at once. Most of the people present that day have dreams of becoming the next hero of the Huitzlian empire. To become Il’ilo’s successor, as it were. 

Once the room has managed to remain in silence for a minute, he finally raises his voice.

 

--Good evening and welcome, to every one of you. Today is the day that will mark the rest of your lives. All of you have decided to take on a path that many are too afraid to face. A path, that will be undoubtedly unique for each and every one of you.

As you know, I am field marshal Il’ilo, you may know me by many names. “The unbreakable wall”, “The hummingbird”, or “The man who brought down an R-Suit without having one of his own.” But what you may not know, or may not understand, is that t one point, I was sitting there, just like you are. Hearing a superior officer greet me, and knowing, that I was doing my best for my country.

Before I became field marshal, it was tradition to make speeches long-winded and complicated, to speak about the history of our country, and to instill our glory on you.

I for one don’t believe that I need to.

Rather than hearing an old man, you should be given the work you asked for. Rather than talking about history, it would be better if you started making history on your own. And why talk about glory when the fact that you are all here means that you already have the glory of the Huitzlian Empire etched into your very soul?

I’ll only tell you what you need to do and what you need to feel.

You need to feel proud in the battlefield, for there’s nothing that strikes more terror in your enemies than a soldier who won’t stop when wounded. 

You need to feel thankful to your superior, that they are willing to train you, and that they are commanding you to maximize your utility.

You need to know that an enemy captured is better than an enemy killed, but that you can only do so when you are confident that victory is at hand.

You need to know that whether alive or dead, you’ve already done a service to Huitzli. And you need to feel proud of it.

For now, that is all. I’m hoping to hear of your exploits.--

Once he finishes talking the room claps once more. After a short time, the recruits are guided outside towards their new living quarters. Il’ilo leaves the room from the other end, heading back to his office immediately after. 

The only reason why he was able to inspire them with as much confidence as he had, was because he couldn’t bear to let down their hopes of ever having a glorious death. Instead, he promised without lying. It was possible that all the things he said could happen, would happen. Il’ilo didn’t believe that they would.

He reaches his office, there’s still some menial tasks left before he is able to leave for the day. And so, he works on them tirelessly. By the time night time has arrived, he is finally done with hs job. He gathers his belongings and motions to leave, but he is stopped by an aide, another one this time around. 

-Field Marshal Il’Ilo, sir, your presence is requested in the high command room.

The moment he hears this, Il’Ilo grits his teeth. His body tenses up, starting from his jaw, to his back, all the way to his feet. It takes him a moment to recover, before he can answer weakly.

-I understand.

The aide dismisses himself, and Il’ilo heads to the high command room. It has been some time since he was last requested to head to there. Years, ever since the last conquest in which Huitzli had been involved. Usually, if a higher up had something to ask of him, they would convey it in a one on one, or wait for the yearly meeting. 

The high command room was reserved for emergencies. Il’Ilo heads all the way to the other side of the building. There, he finds an elevator and calls it. He clicks the button for the bottom floor feeling his heart sink at the same rhythm as the elevator itself. Once in the bottom level, 1 floor underground, Il’ilo walks forward, past a large, heavy door, and to a second elevator, this one activated by a key on his person. He goes down two levels more, and is now face to face with a giant door. 

He breathes deeply, puffing up his chest and keeping his strict posture intact. His brow furrows in a focused manner, and his eyes fixate on what is coming next. He places his thumb into the scanner. The ground trembles in unison with the door, its rumbling only quiets down with a metallic thud once it finishes opening. Then, as soon as Il’ilo is inside, it closes again. 

Il’ilo is greeted by a dark room, lit only by a light aiming upwards. The only visible decoration in the entire room is a large, round, grey table. The table is large enough to accommodate 20 individuals, but it only has one chair. He seats on it.

Weight pressure from Il’ilo seating on it triggers the connection to a large and expensive underground cable system. Unlike the local internet that allows the Huitzlian people to see information posted in other Huitzlian websites, but not other countries’ sites. The cable connection that Il’Ilo just activated allows for direct communication. This information is not stored anywhere, and it is impossible to intrude upon.

The information in question comes in the shape of projections. Specifically, projections of every other person that is allowed in talks of utmost importance. An assortment of politicians begin to fill the spaces where the rest of the chairs would be, leaving only one spot absent. The spot reserved for empress Tsuk’A who would be informed of the contents of that days’ talk, but wouldn’t be present in it.

Usually, the people present in that room would present themselves with knowing smiles and a sense of innate pride to themselves. They are some of the most important people in the Huitzlian Empire. And everyone present is rightfully proud of their own competence. But that day is different.

A fearful silence fills the room. Anything that is discussed that day will be a product of necessity, not want. In the end, one man finally dares himself to speak. Joh, captain of the Huitzlian empire’s intel division. Joh is far and away the tallest man that Il’ilo knows, compounded by equally elongated features, black hair and a sand skin tone. His body type is sleek just barely past the point of being underweight.

-No use in waiting anymore, right friends?

Says the man in a light, almost leisurely tone. Il’Ilo has always disliked that lackadaisical attitude of his, however, Joh has proven himself enough times for Il’Ilo to still hold a great deal of respect for the man. Joh continues by saying.

-Field marshal Il’Ilo, I trust you’ve been well.

Says Joh before being interrupted by Il’Ilo

-I need not hear your ramblings. Why am I here?

While Il’Ilo had not been present for past conferences, they still happened. He just wasn’t needed, as the military had not been requested in immediacy for a long time. Knowing this, Joh drops the charade for a moment.

-Our spies in Ilvyria have given us news that the Holy Kingdom of Ilvyria is intent on finding a reason to openly declare war on us.

The other members of the table begin to respond as well. 

-We will support you as much as we can in recruitment drives sir.

Says Huicol the director of communications of Huitzli, talking to Il’ilo.

-As we speak, my people are already drafting out plans to drag out any formal declaration of conflict if need be.

Continues Pamil, the Huitzlian ambassador.

Other members of the table take turns in contributing to the conversation. But it’s clear that they are just waiting to hear words from the man who will be bearing the heaviest burden among them. Field marshal Il’ilo.

Il’ilo feels the blood drain from his face throughout the talk. He fears that at any point in time his body will no longer be able to keep him steady, that he is going to faint and won’t be able to reply at all. He originally intended to dismantle the arguments of anyone who suggested that they’d invade another place, but he’d never imagined that they would be the ones on the receiving end of an invasion.

As a result, he answers in the only way he possibly can. 

-I’ll draft out a response plan in case they go through with their attack. Expect me to submit it by the end of the week for your approval. 

Once he says that, he is greeted by a response from Joh.

-We have far more resources in our military than they do in any case.

-They have 4 Rhydosuits, we have 1.

Snaps back Il’ilo.

-True, but we know the full extent of their power.

Says Pamil. Il’ilo looks at the rest of the room, and says plainly.

-No, no you don’t. Field marshal Il’ilo out.