Chapter 2:

When Tzilpapali wakes up, she feels completely refreshed. The tension from excitement that she’d felt in her shoulders and middle to lower back is gone. She takes some time to remember the previous day. The R-Suit is waiting for her in her garage. At some point much later, she will finally move it. But she’ll wait until late at night to do so. That day of the week she has to manage her stand in the mechanics market. Missing a day without prior notice results in a fine for the stand owner.

She stands up then heads to her restroom to brush her teeth and tie her hair in a ponytail. After that, she puts on a cream colored buttonless shirt with bright, colorful patterns around the neck area. Below she wears a set of green cargo pants with the shirt firmly tucked into them, and brown working boots in which she tucks her pants.

She decides against taking her truck. She already has a fair set of wares in her stand, and moving the R-Suit around may have far-reaching consequences. Beyond that, the stillness of her daily life will be a necessary contrast to anything that results from her driving the R-Suit. Something to settle herself down.

Knowing that, she heads to a transport center. There, she takes a cableroom to the north side of the city, this time through the entrance for people. The cableroom is spacious, but even then, the crowd feels oppressive. She takes a hold of a handrail in a corner and waits until she has arrived to her destination, 5 stations onward.

She exits the cableroom and then the transport station. Small stores line her sight in the commercial district of Iltzik. Tzilpapali walks for two blocks, a large, tacky, yellow sign with black letters indicates that she’s arrived in the mechanic marketplace. She walks in through the back door with her key. The area for employees and stand owners is filled with grey, unpainted bricks, as well as large sewage pipes sitting out in the open above her.

Door by door, each 7 or 8 steps lead to another stand. Little over a minute of walking later, and she’s found a large gate. She uses her key to open it, inside, she finds the stand owner eating hall. A very large room with dozens of rectangular stainless, there’s a kitchen and a kitchen vendor in the far back. The place provides food for every meal at a relatively low price. Tzilpapali heads towards the vendor and asks for the breakfast for the day.

She pays and receives her tray. A plate of eggs scrambled with spinach, onions, coriander, tomato and potato. As well as coffee sweetened with jaggery. Once she has taken the tray to her usual table, she is greeted by two friendly faces. Atzxi’om and Yala. Both of them in their 60’s, Atzxi’om a jovial and rotund man, proudly balding with hair receding all the way near the back of his head, as well as a fairly contagious laughter. And Yala, a somewhat hunched woman with admirably well-kept hair, who always seemed to know more than she initially let on.

The two of them greet Tzilpapali.

"Good day to be young ain’t it Tzil!"

Says Atzxi’om

"You wish you were young ya donkey. Now, ready yourself for work and check your inventory twice, today’s crowd might be surprisingly large Tzil."

Says Yala.

Both of them have their own stands to tend to. They befriended Tzil gradually, since she started eating in the same table as them due to habit. They’ve always enjoyed and fostered the company of the girl, ever since she was very young. As a result of this, they are among the few people with whom Tzil talks with relative naturality.

"I’ll keep that in mind. Both things."

Says Tzilpapali with a plain voice. Atzxi’om laughs at this, and soon, Tzil does too, Yala simply smiles at the two problem children.

"Speaking about age, have you made friends your age yet Tzil?"

Asks Yala kindly, she does so every few weeks, worried about the state of the girl. Tzilpapali went straight into being a mechanic, and never studied in the O’oshitlan public school that other Huitzlian teens would go through. Since she left school to become self-taught at 12, Tzil doesn’t know anyone her age. A rarity since it is free, but her father thought it was a waste of time.

To an extent, he’d been proven right, as Tzil is more financially independent than most people with whom she’d study at the time. The only reason why she hasn’t moved out of her father’s house was because she wants to be able to afford buying her own place before doing so. Her dad had bought her her workshop, and she now has exclusive ownership to it. Moving there, however, is not necessarily the most comfortable of living conditions.The conversation goes on right until 20 minutes before the stalls open. Each of them goes back to their own stall and prepares their merchandise in an orderly fashion.

Tzil’s stall sits in the “home devices” area. Other places sell their services and expertise to fix things for others, or to make custom orders for some machines. On the other hand, Tzilpapali focuses herself on making many things, she makes them reliable, and sells them. She refuses any form of commission work that isn’t from her pre-existing catalogue of things to build. This is possible because of her obsessive focus on building things, causing her to naturally become rather quick in doing so. And it also gives her enough time to work on larger projects for herself.

Once she sets up everything for quick access, the only remaining thing is to wait for doors to open. Without looking at the time, there is no location-wide indication that the doors are open. However, the strut and stutter of footsteps quieted down by the echo-less building, as well as the varying tones of chatter happening near the entrance, are a telltale sign that people had started coming in.

As experienced merchants know, this only means that one has to keep high alert about themselves. Especially in Tzil’s stall, which is in the center of the market. Some days, people walk directly towards the home area, looking for a vacuum or a microwave, or an oven that doesn’t break. Other days, hours pass before someone decides to take even a time-wasting walk in that direction.

That day, neither case matters much to her. Her savings are sizeable, but more than anything, Tzil can’t help but to want the day to end. She finds it hard to focus, her imagination takes her to wild lands when she thinks of how it will feel to drive her invention. The number of people that had driven an R-Suit didn’t reach the hundreds, and she’d join their ranks. Her brow furrows in a focused expression, right until a voice snaps her back into reality.

"Excuse me miss, how much for this hair drier."

Asks a young man in his mid 20’s, pointing at one of her more popular products. A hair dryer with a diminutive Rhydian core and a very tightly controlled amperage. Allowing for a wide and safe manipulative range in the pressure of the air it emits, as well as its temperature. A perfect product for someone looking to style their hair with minutiae.

"230 Ipil"

She states unflinchingly. It’s a high price, around the cost of a meal for 2 at a good restaurant. The man notes this immediately and responds.

"I’ll give you 130 for it".

Tzil remains steady, keeping her eyes trained on the man’s face without budging. She waits until he is about to take a step backward before saying

"190 and it’s yours."

The man blinks rapidly, then nods. He takes out his wallet and hands the corresponding bills to Tzil. After that he nods politely and says.

"Thanks."

Tzilpapali returns the words in kind.

"No, thank you and have an excellent day sir."

She says this in a practiced singsong tone. Polite and friendly, but deliberately so. The kind of politeness that came from years of dealing with this type of thing instead of any actual intent to be nice to that specific man. Rather, she forgets him as soon as he leaves her sight.

There are some people that she knows, people that come by once a week for one of her products. Many men and women, often parents, are acquainted with and appreciative of Tzil’s particular brand of products. Some people buy from her and only her, and as such, she usually calls those customers by name.

The day passes. The market fills up with people, then empties up again, then it repeats. Food, hustle, the deep thuds of someone carrying heavy objects to and fro. It all blends together as a period of time that happens without any added input from her. Just repeated patterns to memorize and repeat until she can successfully sell as much as possible.

The lull ends. she grabs her things and locks her storage room. Then she meets with Yala and Atzxi’om one last time. They say their standard goodbyes for the day and each heads on an own road home.

Once Tzil reaches home her stomach sinks and her eyes go blank. Heat reaches her face, her throat dries, her back straightens up taking on cardboard fragility. Her shoulders slump and her breath slows. She considers not going through with what she wants to go through with.

But she’s stuck with the motto of going through with every choice and taking it as far as needed. And it has worked for her so far. That day won’t be any different. Tzil walks to her garage with her resolve made and a bottle of water holding her back from fainting along her path.

She takes her truck. Beyond her garage and the transport station, it goes all the way back to her workshop. That place is where it will happen. She puts her R-suit back in place, back where she originally made it.

In her hands she has a controller with multiple buttons and a front-facing connector, which she plugs to the large robotic suit. With a click, the suit’s chest area opens wide, leaving enough space for a person to go inside. Tzil thinks about going inside immediately, but then she notices her outfit.

Her clothes remain unchanged since the morning. She rummages through her workshop, looking for something more comfortable to wear. She finds a set of overalls and puts them on, deciding to match them with the boots. With that done, she goes back to the R-Suit.

Her brain racks itself trying to find another way to delay this. It can’t find any reason to do so. It’s time to go inside of the suit. And there’s nothing that Tzil can do about it.

She climbs inside the suit, one step at a time. Once she’s climbed high enough, she can enter the hatch. She goes in and turns around, facing forward. With a button, she closes the door. Everything darkens for a moment, then everything lights up. Now, it is time for her to undergo the “leashing” process.

The precision required to make an R-Suit function properly is largely owed to this process. A process in which the Rhydian cores in the suit link to brain of the individual driving it. It’s a type of interference with the person’s own electric impulses, that allows the Rhydian cores to take charge of some functions, and makes controlling the R-Suit a similar process to controlling one’s own body.

For Tzil,, it feels as if air is going through the inside of her brain. First she grows dizzier and dizzier, then, it feels as if some weight has been lifted, then it’s brought back, then it’s lifted again. Gradually, she stops noticing things.

The saliva in her mouth, the sensation of being laid in her chair on her back, the soft chill of the night passing through her face. Tzil’s consciousness becomes pure spirit, the Rhydian cores are now handling her body. Instead, she has to deal with something very different.

If everything had stopped at that very moment it was because it worked or she had died. She keeps her eyes open without blinking for as long as she can. She doesn’t know for how long she manages to do this, but she knows that time passes. If time passes she’s not dead, not quite dead yet anyway.

She begins to notice everything else. The visual perception inside the cushioned cabin of the R-Suit allows her to see 360º both vertically and horizontally at once. Images innundate her mind, nothing is hidden for her. From the dilapidated tiles on the floor that she’s failed to properly maintain beyond routinary cleaning, to the bolts hidden far off to her extreme right, behind appliances of all sorts. The perspective she’s able to perceive is unlike anything she has ever seen before.

She turns around, and as she does, she feels the one sensation that Rhydian cores don’t override. Pain, exhausting physical pain in the form of a headache. She closes her eyes and opens them again and closes and opens, she focuses on other things aside from what she sees, what she hears especially.

Her ears are filled by a large, airy, void. There is something there, around herself and beyond, but it passes by slowly. She can perceive any variation in tone of otherwise long sounds like the clanking of the metal armor of her R-suit. As she rotates her head to the right, so does the sound emanate from her right side. At first with a tone that pitches itself high, as high as possible. Then, in a breath, it spreads outward, up her head and down her neck, growing lower and lower without ever becoming a truly low pitch. She finds it hard to focus and harder even not to. Everything is new, and everything hurts.

After some time she begins to deliberately reduce the number of things she is focusing on She looks at her engineering suit, the thing that enables her to work safely and protects her by connecting itself directly to the current and powering up. If she could feel the sensation of being inside the Rhydosuit, she imagines that it’d be similar to the engineering suit. It’d be warm, and a bit stuffy, right until the moment in which she’d get used to it, then she’d remember exactly how it feels to not be wearing it the moment that she slides off of it.

She’d worn that engineering suit for ages by then. She’d continuously modified and changed it by patching it up rather than buying a new one. She had affection for it, even if she wondered if there was a single remaining part of the original that her father gave her. Changing to an R-suit was the first true upgrade to it in a way.

She gets used to her new form, to her new way of existing, the movements of her body feel more and more natural.

After she accomplishes that, she opens the hatch and readies herself to exit. Had there been any onlookers, the process from the outside would appear instantaneous. But to her it feels gradual. The first thing that goes back to normal was her sense of hearing, the void in her ears ceases slowly in favor of the regular ambient noise that perpetually surrounds her. Then came touch, she feels the cushioned seat, made so that she, or any driver, didn’t accidentally damage their back when they stood up. Finally, her sight adapts, the expanded vision range closes off until she could finally only see what’s in front of her, that is to say, her workshop.

She turns towards her R-Suit to stare at it. She feels the light warmth that exudes from it, and sees the Rhydian cores, whose particular blue glow disperses ever so slowly. Appearing as some form of aura around the suit. She didn’t notice while she was inside, but the suit makes noise, a light, bare, continuous, growl. The decorative indents and protrusions and the stone-like color of the suit only serves to accentuate its naturally feral look.

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The only thing that remains now that she has succeeded in getting used to the feeling inside of the R-Suit, is to take it outside without being noticed. She grabs a remote controller and brings it inside the suit. Then closes it. The same arresting sensations come barging in again, but this time she’s braced herself properly.

She takes the remote forward and clicks on it to turn a machine on, The R-Suit doesn’t mimic her movements this time around, as she doesn’t will it to. Once she’s clicked on the remote, a camera drone raises itself from the ground in front of her, just behind a garage door that faces the back exit of the workshop and to Iltzik’s first wall. The drone is flat and large, right under the size limit for drones, and large enough to hide the Rhydosuit underneath.

Clicking on the remote, the drone exits first, and she follows with her R-Suit. Controlling not entirely dissimilar to controlling one’s own body. To her, it feels as if she was controlling a body other than her own while she still had full willing control of herself. The closest thing she can think of are video games.

But even then, even considering the somewhat more defined games that were ever present before the world restructuring that lead to the current separation of nations and the private internet in every nation that communicates only locals. Driving an R-Suit, the infinite number of sensations that are ripped away from oneself by it, as well as the new ones that replace the original ones, that’s a thing, a something, that Tzilpapali herself feels she can’t describe, but perhaps a more eloquent person would be able to.

While the drone and her R-Suit move forward in unison, Tzilpapali begins to notice just how slow it feels. Compared to her, the drone appears to be stopped, it’s a clock hand moving forward second by second. She can perceive it, she knows it’s moving, but noticing it is doing so is only possible by looking back at the distance now travelled.

Once she’s passed the wall through one of the many places that don’t have guards on active lookouts. And Tzil would know if the lookouts were active both because of her R-Suit, and because she is there every day. She prepares to reach the second wall. After some point, she leaves the drone behind and has it return to the garage, which she closes with another button.

The second wall is significantly less guarded than the first, as geography itself aids in making it harder for people to safely go inside Iltzik without being detected. There’s a large valley, several kilometers long going downward, and then far upwards before reaching the inner wall that leads to Iltzik. The fact that people in the outside don’t have access to flying machinery, as airplanes are expensive to make, and R-Suits are not feasible to make except for the best mechanics in the world, means that the only possible way in which outsiders can go in or out is by foot.

This is not a problem for Tzilpapali who easily flies past the wall through a blind spot, she remains at a low altitude to avoid being noticed by radars right until she is at a safe distance to move at full speed. A sonic boom and a dazzling shade of YInMn blue accompanies the speedy dance of Tzil’s R-Suit. Less than a second later and she is in the clouds.

Thanks to the Rhydian cores taking on her other functions, Tzil’s brain processes this as if she had simply risen towards the sky at a speed only slightly higher than running. Clouds naturally go from their cotton-like texture from afar, to the more natural appearance of concentrated gaseous water standing right above herself, and slightly past those, there’s clear skies.

She admires the view for what feels like a long time, but she knows, at least on a conscious level, that less than a minute has passed. For a moment, she forgets her supposed mission. But then she recalls it and she goes down ever so slightly. The R-Suit is equipped with telescopic capabilities to zone in on relevant objectives, which Tzil makes sure to use.

She notices a small town or a community, she is not exactly sure what it is, but what matters more than that is that it’s being attacked by raiders. She was hoping to see that, and she is right on time to see the raiders leave.

Tzil follows them with her sight without actually moving, just by seeing them while keeping her eyes peeled for any object that would be able to see her R-Suit. Once they’ve arrived at their camp, Tzil follows suit. And then she waits. She waits until all the raiders have left their armored vehicles behind, until not a single one of them remains there. She tells herself thus, that she’s a hero, not a murderer.

When most of them have left, her R-Suit’s left arm transforms into a weapon. it shapeshifts quickly, the sides around its forearm propel themselves forward and reattach together along the center. There’s a line passing inside the weapon. Her arm has successfully morphed into a shotgun. It’s a short range weapon for an R-Suit. But that still is more than enough to allow her shots to reach the ground a couple of kilometers below without any chance of failure.

She can’t make out the faces of the raiders when she shoots, in fact she can only make out their human silhouettes. But she imagines their surprise as her shotgun fires in focused mode, avoiding spread shots to not hit innocents. A large pellet of pure energy falls from the sky, hitting one armored vehicle and functionally dissipating it from existence. Then she shoots again and she hits the next one, and the next one, and the supply room.

Tzilpapali doesn’t stay to look at the people whom she’s devastated. She doesn’t care. They decided to attack innocents, they decided to steal from unprotected communities, and similarly, she’s decided to act in retaliation for those communities.

Once she’s done that, she heads home. The journey back is comparatively uneventful, or at least she feels it as such. The drone is waiting to help her get inside the garage unnoticed, and so it does. Tzilpapali likens it to following a line to the medical office. It’s tedious, but necessary. she ponders bringing a magazine inside, but since she wouldn’t be able to read it regardless, as her sight is the same as the R-Suit’s, she admits to herself that it would be pointless to do so.

Inside her workshop, she closes the door, and repeats the process that she underwent in the past. She takes the R-Suit inside her truck and heads home, and when she’s home, she takes the dinner she prepared a couple of days ago from a container and heats it up and eats, by herself, again.

While she does so, she thinks of what she’s just done. She is happy about having protected people, but at the same time, she clenches her jaw and grits her teeth. She doesn’t quite understand why, and she doesn’t notice until her jaw begins to hurt. She rubs her mouth and grows weary of her jaw clenching, but otherwise she repeats the pattern and heads off to bed. She’s elated, she finally tested her invention, and she did it for a good cause.

-------

Il’ilo seats in his office, alone. His shift ended some time ago, but he hasn’t gone outside just yet, he doesn’t want to exit. He thinks about sleeping there, and dreaming, ideally of the exact thing that just happened so it could all be chalked up to that.

But he can’t escape, and things will keep on moving whether he tries to or not. As such, he is left only with the chance to reminisce. And reminisce he does. He thinks back of a time long ago. The time when he was consecrated as the hero of Huitzli, the time when he succeeded in taking down an R-Suit without a Huitzlian one to fight back.

He recalls it vividly. It had been 4 months since he had ranked up to commander of his own unit. The previous commander, Tsuk’a, a woman whom he deeply admired, had been selected to become the next empress, and had been sent to Iltzik to train as such. She was the niece of the, then emperor, Lopocoh, the man in charge of encouraging conquests of every territory they could find. This time around, the territory that they were taking was owned by the Axcal people. The community of the Axcal was small, but they were battle hardened and clever.

They were clever enough in fact, to have an R-Suit before the Huitzlians. Although it was impossible to know exactly what number it was due to international secrecy, it must have been the 6th or 7th R-Suit ever created. It was created past the time of high mental stress R-Suits that could only be safely driven for 1 hour, in fact it was one of the first, if not the first, to last the current standard of 4 hours. It still utilized regular ammunition rather than energy from the Rhydian cores that powered it. However, that didn’t make it any less threatening, not in the current Il’Ilo’s eyes and mind in any case. The past Il’Ilo wasn’t nearly as aware of an R-Suit’s true nature.

Back then he was stationed in a near border city between Huitzli and Axcal, a city that in the current day seats near the center of Huitzli. The city of Plin, an otherwise unimportant recent acquisition, was now a major geographical center for the war that had been going on among the Huitzlians and the Axcal. Rumor had it at that time, that Axcal was trying to expand its own territory too, and if they were able to push back the Huitzlians successfully, they would be able to push farther and take some of their territory.

A few weeks before the event, Il’Ilo was given a very in-depth list of the resources allocated to this particular campaign. From what he’d read in reports, Huitzli had been pushed back three times already, and each one of those times had been a rout. Following this, the number of resources he was granted was immense like nothing he’d seen before.

Il’Ilo was given everything, top of the line mortars, supersonic jets, tanks, vans, all kinds of vehicles. And explosives, hundreds of explosives, including a particular set that had been previously deemed near worthless by the army. The set in question took the shape of tiny metallic spheres, they were unable to be fired off of a firearm without combusting, and they had a very small area of effect. The only advantage to them was that the sheer power of a much larger explosion was focused on a tiny surface, which would be enough to go past most known objects. But they were also outrageously expensive to make, and weaker explosives would be able to cause the same amount of destruction as the MSE (Miniature Sphere Explosives) would. Still more resources were always good, reasoned Il’Ilo.

He reunited with a couple of well-known strategists among the ranks of the Huitzlians, and then began to train drills for the large unit that would take charge of the attack on Axcal. There was no time to waste, he gathered them all and began coordinating the assault with repeated simulations.

Day-in and day-out, the units’ practiced their movements to the millisecond, any failure, no matter how small, would lead to defeat. They placed safes upon safes upon safes in their movements. If one thing couldn’t deal with the R-Suit, the next one would, if not it would be the next. All kinds of attacks and weapons, and tactics, and vehicles were all designated to combat the assail of the R-Suit. Il’Ilo was confident, far too much.

Finally the day arrived. They had undergone all the required regulations to declare their intentions to commence an attack on Axcal. Both parties knew what was at stake, and both would be ready in their own ways. It was only time to see if the sheer number of units of the Huitzlians would be able to go toe to toe against the might of the Axcalian metallic behemoth of an R-Suit.

The day started before dawn. A large formation of aerial units slid through the air at full speed. They worked together with one another, their positions firmly set so as to maximize the efficiency of their attack, which would be entirely focused on the barracks at the border of Axcal.

The initial bombing was successful, the Axcalians were not expecting the sheer number of aerial units that would come directly at them, and as a result of this, they were unprepared to form an immediate counterattack. Slowly but surely, explosive growls dealt with the army units set in place around the barracks. Tanks, motorcycles, mortars, all of those were dealt with before they could be properly manned in a process that took roughly 30 minutes.

Il’Ilo assumed that this was almost enough time for the Axcalian military to be informed of the mobilization of the Huitzlian forces, and for them to lunch their secret weapon. He commanded his combat jets to come back and sure enough, they obeyed immediately. The fighter jets rushed towards Plin. The middle point between Plin and Axcal had hundreds of weapons lying in wait for the R-Suit.

The jet planes would never reach that middle point however. They were intercepted unceremoniously and taken down in the blink of an eye. Shortly after they had left the Axcalian barracks, the planes still in formation found themselves on the receiving end of supersonic ammunition fired their way. 2 of them were shot down before they could even see what was coming. the others were able to see the 9 meter long machine rushing their way and tried to engage in a dogfight.

Their efforts were in vain. The enemy R-Suit, a plain, large, green, box-like thing, was too much for the planes to handle. Its shots all flew true, cutting through the aerial machines effortlessly, The pilots were shredded into pieces by the force of the impact without being able to do anything in return. It was a massively costly operation, the monetary losses to that point were incalculable, and they would only keep growing from that point onwards.

After such a successful counterattack, most armies would’ve considered this a success and retreated immediately. But the Axcalians had an R-Suit, they knew in their heart that there was nothing that the Huitzlians could do to stop it. The R-Suit, the large green “Rioter” R-Suit as its creator had named it, rushed forward. And it reached the middle point waiting for it far before the planes would have done so, and just shy of a minute after the units had been informed to prepare, as it was coming.

There were 5 different groups along the way, all waiting for the Rioter. The first one had dozens of anti-aircraft missiles, a variety of tanks in case it came down, and all of it spread thin in a wide formation to avoid being hit all at once. Out of all of them, only one anti-aircraft missile was shot, as the rest of the available units were only able to see the Rioter static, high above the clouds as a tiny dot. They weren’t able to react before it was already done with them, the bullets flying through the air only appeared on their sights for a faint moment before they had passed through them.

The automatic rifle specially made for it dispensed death quickly. Its aim was affected by dozens of factors, and the R-Suit could only account for so many. As such, many of the rounds failed to hit their mark, but this did not matter as the ones that did were more than enough to carelessly cleave through all opposition.

As crashes loudly broke through machine after machine, and shrapnels flew in every conceivable direction, the units lying in wait behind them. The people who stood there, all knew one thing. As far as they were concerned, they were all dead. And in spite of this, they held strong. Some due to fear, some due to acceptance, and some because of a sense of pride in the Huitzlian military.

Anti-supersonic aircraft sniper rifles boomed with thunderclaps that struck the bodies of all those behind making their chests rumble. And not a single shot was able to hit the R-Suit while it danced through the air, jovially making them into an obstacle course. No one stopped their attack, they all hoped to get lucky with one shot, or for the suit to somehow fail. But it did not, and it took on the second layer, and the third, similar one.

The fourth layer focused on weapons with slightly less power but a higher fire rate, spread much thinner so that the R-Suit would waste much more bullets on them. To their luck, the sheer number was enough for at least some bullets to hit the R-Suit, but to no effect. The armor deflected all damage, and in turn, it shot once more, sending its attack through the air and towards every attacker, trees and land collaterally breaking apart in turn.

The last few shooters were taken down by the Rioter’s hammer, lining the machine’s fist.It was its melee weapon for when it ran out of ammunition. Huitzlian soldiers never stopped shooting, but it didn’t matter for the R-Suit, which was clearing a path for the Axcalians to pass. There weren’t many places through which the Axcalian army could safely make their way, and using the R-Suit on a city would have constituted a war crime, as well as being impractical to take down structures rather than occupying them. The rest of the border had lush forests and large rivers along the way, which is why Plin was so pivotal as a city.

As it neared its destination, the R-Suit found itself facing what initially seemed to be more anti-air missiles. This time, the cannons were set up all together, huddled to apparently maximize their offensive capabilities by focusing on a single point. The Rioter didn’t wait for them to shoot, and rushed towards them, hitting the machines with its hammer and body. But something unexpected happened, rather than taking down opposing machines, the R-Suit triggered a group of MSE bombs set so that they’d work upon receiving an impact.

The sheer power of the explosives would’ve been enough to collapse half a city, just focused on a really tiny point of contact and thus making it far more damaging. The attack reached all the way to the Rioter’s insides. The Rioter rose up, and started to fly again. This time slowly, much more slowly. Its armor had been broken, and its speed had been vastly reduced.

It was attacked by a final formation of supersonic aircraft. This time only 9, coming one by one. They shot at it with all their might, but the Rioter’s pilot still had some fight in him, dodging or deflecting with his somewhat healthy left arm’s hammer. One by one they rushed him and passed him, he managed to resist without being able to mount a counterattack, all the way until the ninth, which struck a lucky blow down its chest, sending the Rioter’s green Rhydian core flying and causing the machine to plummet.

The ground shook from the impact, the R-Suit fell past the 5th line of R-Suit deense and all the way in front of the line of defense against the regular army, armed with mortars. Il’Ilo was stationed there. And he saw the machine, broken and defeated. Il’Ilo knew then, that if the rider had been slightly more careful, or f thing had been slightly different, he’d have been dead where he sat. But he was alive.

He, as well as a group of soldiers, rushed towards the R-Suit and forced it open. With its Rhydian core no longer protecting it, and it being as damaged as it was, the suit gave way. The pilot’s body was limp and lifeless but his face could still be made out. Il’Ilo took a picture of the R-Suit with its pilot inside, and then sent it to his superiors, who then communicated with the Axcalians. He was soon informed that the Axcalians had surrendered, that there was no further need to fight.

From there on out, the only request that the Axcalians made was for their R-Suit pilot, their warrior, Huicole, to be treated as a hero from there on out. And both the current emperor, Lopocoh, as well as the empress to be, Tsuk’a, agreed, making a statue of him in the city of Plin.

Il’Ilo finishes recalling the moment. He is once more, seating in his office, he is alone and there’s no R-Suit in sight to speak of. The incident that day changed him, both its terror, as well as the way in which the Axcalian man fought till the end.

The current R-Suits don’t have the weakness that he exploited then. They can be defeated, of that he is sure, but doing so would be a task hundreds of time more monumental than what he already did in the past. He shakes in fear thinking of all the young adults waiting for a chance like this one, he doesn’t want them to actually take it.

A knock on his door prompts him to fully head back to reality. It’s a woman in her early twenties, a former spec ops agent, and his right hand woman. Her name is Quixila, and she seems exalted.

"Field Marshal Il’Ilo, Important news."

Says Quixila, prompting a simple

"Speak"

From Il’Ilo.

"There’s news of an R-Suit here in Iltzik."