Nomont: The Antimagus Gauntlet

Barsburg had abandoned Achyon -- for Achyon had long since abandoned its ideals. It was no longer the place Augustus once praised it to be... No longer was it the grandiose envisionment that was so often praised. For once, the beautiful veil could be seen past for the ugly ruin it had become... And with their numbers hidden beneath the surface? It was time to work towards a resolution.

Something, much faster than what they were originally aiming for. They were out of time...
And out of options.

Panicked individuals find themselves gathering within the underbelly of the former city of Achyon -- within Asura Nomont's personal workshop, devoid of legal protection.
He was vulnerable again...
They were vulnerable again...

And this time, there was no one to save them.

"To those, that hear my voice..." Asura spoke up, looking upon those whom gaggled to his audience.
"I know, you've heard what has come of this city... One, who's end had been a long time coming for years now." He shook his head.

"--and that would mean, that there are many of you, considering to flee for Barsburg to assure your livelihood can be assured." Asura's eye closed.

"I, would not blame you." A sigh escaped his lips.
"... But know, that if you do... There is no chance of freedom after that. That, you sacrifice your chance for true equality and liberty, for security. A trade for the same suppression we've experienced..." He scanned the room for the faces abroad.

"For -years-..." He'd emphasize.
"For once, we have the chance, to make a real change... Without those whom would see us fail breathing down our necks." He glared with a sense of absolute confidence in his claim. "For now? We can bring upon the creation that will set in stone... Our ascension, of our age... Our vision..." He exclaimed.

"We have seen, firsthand... That our numbers! That our coordination... That our -collaboration- has enabled us to vanquish some of the greatest threats known to Esshar." He exclaimed with vigor, shuddering his right fist to ingrain his point. "So, it should be NO QUESTION, that we... together! Can bring upon something to stand independent of the magus regime.

We have seen their mechs...

We have seen their powers...

But all the same, we have seen their weaknesses... and exploited them...

Now, by combining all that we've accommodated and wrought upon? Worked by -- and studied? We can stand against them... We can be truly independent!

We, can -equalize- them!" His tyrium fist shot for the air, a symbol of power...
Of anger and spite...
Of unbridled and latent power...

Alas, it was time to stir from the shadows...
It was time to bring upon the dawn of the Antimage.

"Now, let us turn our sights on our tools to achieve such... IGNITE, THE FORGES!"
(Asura Nomont)
The forges go alight and personnel are hasty to get to the materials stowed away. The typical materials fetched for Battlesuits. However, Asura had retired from the oversight of the productions momentarily.

His attention was towards a matter much more pertinent -- The designs of the newest iteration of Battlearmor. Something he couldn't manage with the Magebuster Armor. However, perhaps -- it wouldn't be lost on this:


Project: Antimage


Perhaps, his final product to the world, for with such straits going dire to force him to resort to this? It wasn't a secret that he, and those closest associated to himself would have their days numbered. His life was constantly toiled into the fray, which meant he constantly had to defend himself.

It was time to stop running... and face the monsters skulking from the shadows.

Iron saw the forging process, to produce steel.
It was something the Company had grown fairly effective at, however, now it was pushed into high gear.

There was a former prototype for this idea he had in mind, but it was far from finished, pushed off to the side as merely a skeleton of what should've been the MK IV. The illustrations at Asura's pen showcased a similar, albeit more updated design.

A skintight leather interior to insulate the wearer from the outside world's influence. It'd span his left arm, legs and neck to prevent anything vapor-like from breaking the seal of his armor. However, there had to be something to keep biological threats like magi capable of bending gases from afflicting him. Such, would have to be incorporated in a head-cover, but not something that'd cut off his breathing.

Something that'd clean the air? Catch things before they'd afflicted his breathing? A filter! Not quite a breathing apparatus, but certainly a step in the right direction. It required something light, thus the base could easily be decided as mythril -- resilient enough to take a strike or two if inevitable. However, not too difficult to work with as to allow his men to create fine needles to comb the air.

There needed to be something to further comb in -- on the off-chance the air material was too small...
Fabric? Something that could be pried apart like it. While he was no tailor, he could certainly consider the fashioning of string into an interlaced pattern to close the spaces between the mythril needles to catch even smaller contaminants.

Then, there needed to be actual protection from everything else. While the first three iterations of the battlesuit emphasized it purely on a physical level, this would have to transcend them. To eclipse their capability to ultimately protect him to face off against magi without the assistance of any other than the men he tasked with following him.
For, if tyrium could absorb mana? Even redirect it? What was to say it couldn't repurpose it?

Anti-mana collars were something well within his company's capability, so an armor that could take the mana of those supplied to it, to not only suppress at it, but function based on it, felt only right as the next step in Nomont Tech.
Benedict Delisle said it best:

'A light shield that defies antagonistic magus energies'

Then, came the mechanized battlesuit that'd surround the leather skinsuit. It needed to not only protect the user, but empower their motions to enable both hardiness and effectiveness against heavy and difficult instances from resilient magi to hardy environments.

Finally, it had to be of reasonable size -- Something larger than the first two iterations, but not nearly as bulky as the magebuster.

He placed his pen down to behold his work, attention drawn away from his envisionment for a courier making their rush for the doorway. The letter was opened before hiseye at the man's sole nod, silently commanding the courier read his message to him.

''From a 'Baki The Silver Hunter', sir... It seems they take an interest to the battery tech we've established some time ago.''

Asura's eye narrowed some, mulling over the next he was being shown and breaking his gander for his designs illustrated just moments prior. "See to it that an assistant provides him a response at once. I'll be tending this this project for the time being."

Work could not be delayed any longer...
He needed to see this through, to the end.
(Asura Nomont)
With steel at the ready, and a secretary tasked with replying to an interested party? It was time to reveal his designs to his forgemasters. Silent study was at hand, for molds had to be created and tools crafted before the actual project could begin...

They had numbers, but what they were sorely lacking was time.
He couldn't afford to travel on the surface with this product for extended periods of time. Every second spent above ground, was another second a magi could've been tempted to end his miserable existence.

Every moment he simply -was-, could follow a moment where he -wasn't-.

Thus, as his forgemasters retired from their study to get to work? He'd look over with great attention to detail. There could be no room for error. The only digression he'd take to, would be to the previous prototype as to inspect it for flaws that they could improve the new design on.


The Antimage's Arm


A seat was provided for which Asura to sit upon, with assistants inspecting his tyrium prosthetic with extreme attention towards the shoulder section where it was grafted upon. At some point, the organic shoulder was interlaced with orichalcum circuitry, and locked into place with mythril base. That's where they were going to start shaving.

Slowly, his arm would be disassembled until it'd return to the stub it once was. The mythril appendage with arcanium filling would be placed on a nearby table, all of it endured by a tyrium glaze and sheathing to keep it both stable and empowered. That wouldn't be the prime of their focus, but the stub it was removed from. Slowly, they'd shave at it, clipping at the girth at it, shaping it for the designs of Asura's writings.

He idled there, callously -- for the prosthetic had no nerve endings to irk at.
"Assure that orichalcum is left exposed when you are done. I need to assure that the suit not only clamps to the arm, but can freely pull from and push through it as well."

In the meantime, the ruby gemstone of metals was finally unveiled from the workshop chests, placed on a table beside the separated tyrium arm.

It was time.

A small blowtorch device, powered by a mana-battery was unveiled, set on the table as well, set beside a plasma torch. They were similar tools, with the exception that the latter was designed to melt through metals like this one, while the former was meant to merely heat them up and bond them on minute levels.

''Alright, first step is arming the tyrium prosthetic.'' declared the metallurgist, taking to the plasma mana-torch at the Haematic Iron. Upon unveiling the torch's blaze upon the metal, it took to a glow... An oddity in the eyes of worker. Surely, it'd heat, but it did not melt. The flames surely were hot enough, but were just as quickly robbed of their source before it manage to scathe the surface.

The mana-hungering material made mana-based equipment rather obsolete in harvesting from it. Perhaps a potent enough magi could overwhelm it? Asura couldn't be sure... At the same time, he didn't want to conceptualize such a tragedy. If the metal wouldn't be melted down by the torch? Then, it would be chipped away by a pickaxe.

Crude? Absolutely, but effective nonetheless. It'd simply take minutes longer than it was intended to be... Nay, upwards of an hour. Shifts of nonmagi workers took to the effort, offering breaks to those whom poured their energy into it, whilst others warranted the metal no period of rest.

In time, an atrocious lump small enough to vaguely fit the diamond shaped hole in the back-palm was readied. Now, it was time for proper shaping.
(Asura Nomont)


The now one-armed Asura Nomont looked casually at the workings upon his prosthetic, to keep his head aimed away from the occasional sparks wrought by the efforts on his metallic arm-stub.

Inactive diodes of orichalcum were being made of their destructive effort, with the exposed leylines of the magical gold material. The idea was that with an interlocking connection with the MK IV, it would seamlessly transfer power through it, and circumvent the need for a battery.

It was his way of sidestepping a glaring weakness of his previous constructs.

The blood-ruby metal lump extracted from the collected chunk was grinded down. A small tool with a disc of paper laced with an adhesive binding cleaned and purified beach-sand was utilized to reduce the course edges into a smooth spheroid reminiscent of a diamond. Crimson powder laden the working table and those working at the material, already subtly acting on the employees.

Though, their lives were already in dangerfrom what lied upon the surface. The inhalation of the mystery metal could not be taken to, with enough caution any longer. Sadly, these were new times.

Slowly, the shape was coming together as edges were seized once more... Sharpened. The diamond within the spheroid was was being sculpted of its prism. All the while, the inner machinations were already being worked out with the steel fashioned earlier.

Cogs were being forged of molds, and the systems for hydraulics were being established on a miniaturized level. Instances to support the weight and power output from both the legs and the left arm. Additional tyrium-shielding upon the tyrium arm was hammered on, giving it a bulkier appearance to not only match the left side, but give it additional protection above the hand-portion.

The sharpened haematic iron would be pressed for the diamond carve-out in the back-palm of the gauntlet clicking with its insertion. Within moments it'd take to a mana pulse throughout the appendage, lighting up the circuitry before suckling the tidbits of its last meal into its gluttonous depths, taking to a subtle gleam.

The subtle whispers of the metal were all too undeniable now -- if not only towards those whom were caught up in the dust residue? Then, to Asura himself as well. It cooed and ushered its sweet nothings. Yet, it was not living... He knew that well, but it felt as though it could coax him. It felt as though, on some level it understood him...
On some level, they leveled with one another... And it, sought out the fruits of labor that he intended to carry out on.

It hungered... And it wanted its host to feed it.

"It looks like its ready." Asura commented, eying the digits of the tyrium arm, subtly shifting ever so slightly. The material was hardly fed, but just enough energy coursed through the appendage to allow it idle shifts in movement, but nothing to be overalarmed about. An employee picked it up, only to find themselves overtaken with fatigue.

It was... Suckling at them, at the very touch. A soft alabaster gleam where they gloved hands made contact, and this disembodied appendage was all the notification to the public they'd receive of it satisfying its own relentless hunger.

Without much of a chance to follow through, the appendage is taken by another employee whom unintentionally becomes its second feeding within seconds of the first. Though, unlike their predecessor? They'd make it to Asura, whom looked upon them with a stale expression marred upon his visage. His stump was adjusted, aimed for the prosthetic, to feel the pressure of it being pushed into contact.

Then, it being twisted into place, followed by another click

… Click...
Click...

CLACK!
(Asura Nomont)

The circuitry lined up, and immediately, the newly fashioned arm went to violently siphoning at his reserves. It felt as though he was falling out of his own body, deprived of his very breath and caught off guard. The world, doubled over, triplied even... Replicating itself an infinite number of times before coalescing on his hardened glare upon his arm - now encrusted and empowered by 'Haematic Iron', treated as an enhancer rather than a building material to work with.

The world felt different...
The siphon felt different...
Stronger, for certain, but with a decent supply of his mana already having tempered the former iteration of the tyrium arm? This upgrade didn't require a lethal amount. Though, with caught breath, he simply couldn't help but marvel in it.

So, this was that same material that projected the spirit they fought back then?
This, was what managed to contain the power of an island of magi? Of decades of magi? Nay, a century's worth.

This, was the keystone to true power, as magi knew it.

"I've never felt it like this before..."
The arm, no longer felt like a meager tool, but a true extension of himself.
--and the material that always sought out more, extended those senses beyond the common man's as well.

For even the presences of other mana sources no longer felt foreign to him. It was for once, his eyes were opened. For once, his skin could feel... Yet, even now? The circuitry did not change. Rather, he became a pit in this world that was often poured into -- He was a vacuum.

''Hunger.''

Asura winced, for -- for the first time, he could hear the coo of the tyrium material coherently now.

''I... Hunger...''

He winced, examining the handiwork of his employees upon his arm, before looking at everything else.

"It's as though, I can feel... Everything."

On some level, he probably could. The arm had always acted as a magus detector, but with this enhancement and bonding to his body? It seemed to bestow upon him magus sensory capability as well. It tugged at presences beyond their reach, and he could -feel- it. On some level, he truly liked it, for the siphon on his own circuitry, tugging at his very essence would ease up.

What need had he for Alexander's glasses anymore? What use were they -- when one intuned with magical presences, could simply -feel- it out?

He turned his head towards a nearby presence, to find his eyes laying upon the storage of their mana batteries. It felt like a collective of miniature blotches. Each one resonated a different tone -- as if, an individual presence. Whether it was to sate the internal ache, or to test his capability, he pointed with his left arm towards a chest full of Nomont batteries.

"Hand me one of those." He ordered, digressing his emerald hue off to an idling employee nearest to the chest, before directing them via eye contact to the chest. Without much hesitation it'd be offered before being found within the tightening clutches of his tyrium digits. The alabaster glow the contact of his fingers would unveil overcame the sapphire shine, soon leaving the arm gattling with white static, and the battery? A vacant black, depleted outright.

The material crackled and bent under the tyrium prosthetic's increased pressure, breaking it outright before dropping the trashed remnants to the ground. "Feed it, and it grows stronger." He theorized aloud, "So, it would do well as a battery as I thought."
(Asura Nomont)