Marcus raised his hand while smirking, “I’ll go at it first.”

Hobbs smirked as well, and pointed towards the middle of the platform, “Very well, go step on it and try not to move too much.”

Marcus leisurely walked onto the platform and stood in the middle of it with a lazy posture. Hobbs then moved his hands and from the platform, a blue light came out, similar to the kind that was making the Imperator Armors float, that covered Marcus and made him float as well.

“Well this is interesting,” reacted Marcus while still having a lazy posture midair.

“You’ll see how interesting this really is,” murmured Hobbs as he was moving around his fingers in the air.

The robotic arms started moving all over the place, some of them getting in particular positions while others were going under the platform. One of the armors being held in one of the tanks had its lights shut off and then gently floated down, its parts carefully being picked up by the robotic arms coming out from below to carry them back to the platform Marcus was standing on.

First the torso pieces were placed on Marcus by the robotic arms, followed by an orange sphere being placed in the middle of the chest piece. The sphere then gave a sharp orange glow.

“Argh! Son of a bitch!” screamed Marcus from the pain that it gave, feeling as if he was burned.

Natalia and Cleavon were taken aback, since they didn’t expect Marcus to react in such a way to the process that so far had looked like a careful performance.

“Oops! Sorry! It’s a new process, so some things might not be as pleasant,” smirked Hobbs as he continued to quickly move his fingers with some movements of the arms.

“You fucker!” shouted Marcus.

“Oh don’t be a baby, it’ll be over soon,” Hobbs dismissively answered.

The robotic arms then proceeded to place the armor pieces on the limbs, while the open spaces between the armor were being covered with light coming out of other robotic arms that left a membrane on it connecting the different armor pieces.

Finally, the head piece was brought over and put in place.

Marcus’ Imperator Armor was mostly black, with a few red markings on the chest, looking almost like blood splatters, however when looked at closely, they resembled more like skulls.

The shape of it wasn’t too bulky, and it would cling closely to his body, except for the armored pieces in the chest, limbs, and head, that were an inch or so thicker; while on the parts without armor, a black membrane was connecting the armor pieces, which on the certain parts looked like a thick muscle was there, like on the shoulders and some parts on the side of his torso.

The greaves had a sharp shape with a bit of a heel, increasing his height a bit. The head piece, like everything else, was also black. The shape of it was just like a skull, but its eyes were both of different shapes; one was in an oval shape, while the other one had an angry look. The teeth of the skull looked more like fangs where the canines were slightly longer, and their overall arrangement gave it a dangerous smile. The most distinct feature of the skull helmet was the couple of thick horns coming out from close to the back of the head, curving over to the sides and going to the forehead pointing upwards, looking like a laurel crown where the back part was thicker.

The armor with its colors and shapes gave the man a terrifying look that fit the person perfectly, so the people watching, other than Hobbs, stood in awe of its craftsmanship.

The field keeping Marcus in the air slowly dimmed and gently lowered him down to the floor, where he stood again in his normal, lazy posture. He looked at one of his hands, closing and opening it again, as if feeling the movements of his body, and of the armor.

“Wow, I didn’t think that after making me suffer that much, you’d make me feel as if I got a brand new body.”

His voice could be clearly heard as if he wasn’t wearing a helmet at all, and he himself could also see and hear the world around him as if the helmet wasn’t there, the only indication of it still being in his head were the few signals seemingly floating in midair from his point of view, indicating different things about his body and his surroundings.

“I can even feel the world around me. This thing doesn’t get in the way at all,” continued Marcus, seemingly impressed from the tone of his voice, “but how do I go about eatin’ with this thing?”

“Oh, the head piece can be retracted if you will it. The armor is as much as a part of you as you are a part of it, so doing that would be akin to moving your arms, or flapping your gums,” answered Hobbs while looking at his systems.

From the teeth on the helmet a thin red line appeared, and from it, it looked like the helmet started to disintegrate, however it did so in a very ordered way, from the middle of the mouth down quickly to the neck and at the same time going to the top until it disappeared to the back of the neck, revealing Marcus’ head completely.

The edges of the armor where the helmet had disappeared to, kept the same glowing red line, thicker this time.

“Oh that’s pretty neat,” said Marcus with his eyebrows raised a little.

Following that the helmet reformed again, this time in reverse, coming out of the thick red line on the neck and ending in the mouth. Marcus repeated the action of withdrawing and reforming the helmet a few times, until he was satisfied with doing it, leaving the helmet off for now.

“You still need weapons, and those are ready over at the armory. You can go ahead and wait over there for one of those assistants to hand them over to you,” said Hobbs, moving one of his hands in a shooing motion without looking at Marcus. Some of the robotics followed his movements as well, making it seem as if the machines were shooing him off as well.

“Nah, I think I’ll stay and see the look of pain in the face of Natty,” smirked Marcus while looking over at Natalia.

“Whatever. Step up now, Natalia,” said Hobbs to Natalia while still looking at the systems.

“Let’s get this over with quickly,” Natalia said as she was walking towards the platform and keeping a serious face.

“I couldn’t agree more!” smiled Hobbs in response.

Natalia had seen that someone like Marcus felt severe pain from the process, so for her, it was better to get painful things over with as fast as possible, which is why she couldn’t wait to walk over when Marcus was done. She stopped on top of the platform, same as Marcus, however she kept a straight posture, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, not knowing how painful it would be.

“Alright, let’s do this,” said Hobbs before Natalia opened her eyes again.

The process was the same as for Marcus, only that this time, the robotic arms first placed the armor pieces on the limbs, followed by the armor pieces of the torso and then the helmet, leaving for last the orange sphere that gave the same glow as with Marcus.

Natalia didn’t scream like Marcus; she didn’t say anything or even grunted in the process. She was quiet the whole time.

“Man, what gives? I couldn’t see her making a painful face, she didn’t even make a sound,” complained Marcus with a disappointed face to Hobbs.

Hobbs ignored him.

Her armor was a shining silver, and her body had more armored parts than Marcus’. Her body had always had a small frame with a slightly large bust, small waist, and thick long legs, and while she was overall thin, her arms were in no way as such, they were very well defined, fit for someone used to fighting. The armor on top of her didn’t hide any of those features, since it looked like the armored pieces were made to fit her perfectly, just like Marcus.

From her hips hung an open front white skirt made of thin metal pieces that went down to about half of the length of her thighs. Similar to Marcus’ armor, the pieces were connected by a white membrane, however, fewer in her case, due to her having more armor. The greaves on her weren’t as sharp as on Marcus, and the heels on it were taller. From her shoulder blades, a thick carved line went from there over her shoulders and down to her hands.

Finally, her head piece looked like a Valkyrie helm that covered her face with what looked like a bird beak down to a bit above the tip of her nose. From the side of the helm, around the temples, long white metal wings spread out backwards and upwards, and as for the lower part of her face, it was covered by a feminine shiny metal mask with features similar to those of Natalia, with the gently closed lips that carried an expression as cold as the silver metal they were made of.

The field carrying her dimmed and she was lowered to the platform again, where she just stood straight for a moment before walking down from it and going towards Hobbs.

Marcus looked at her with some suspicion. “Are you in so much pain that you can’t speak or what?”

“I didn’t feel pain at all, just some warmth.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Don’t lie to me, I was there before you. Let me see your face so I know you’re not just acting like a hard ass.”

Natalia sighed a little. “Fine, I should also test the armor’s helmet.”

She removed the head piece in a similar way as Marcus, only that the line that appeared in the middle of the mask’s lips was blue instead. The process was pretty much the same, and like Marcus, a thicker blue line appeared on the edges of the armor, around the neck, where the helmet had disappeared to.

Marcus looked closely at Natalia’s expression. She had the usual serious face she always carried on her, not a hint of pain or discomfort on it.

He half turned his face towards Hobbs without taking his eyes off from Natalia. “Hey, how come it didn’t hurt for Natty.”

“Because of this and that,” answered Hobbs dismissively without turning to look back, “anyway, get going to the armory now.”

Cleavon also had an eyebrow raised, wondering if Natalia was just resilient and didn’t feel pain or if the process itself wasn’t painful. Still it didn’t matter, they had to go now and everything seemed to be fine.

Natalia didn’t leave to the armory yet and was instead keeping her eyes on Marcus. Hobbs couldn’t be bothered to repeat what he had already said about weapons, so he just focused on the systems for the process.

“Hey…” said Marcus after seeing that Natalia wasn’t holding back anything.

Hobbs didn’t say anything and kept messing with his systems without looking back at them.

Marcus raised his chin and looked at Hobbs, “So… care to explain why I got pain? Did you do something to me?”

“Isn’t it because of this orange sphere on their chests?” asked Cleavon while looking at the sphere that laid between the chest and the stomach area.

“How observant. Yes, that is called a Dynamic Hobbs Particle Core. Although some idiots have decided to call it an ‘Imperator Core’. And it’s what powers most of the armor, it’s heart if you will,” answered Hobbs while he was taking off the helmet and gloves.

“Then was it because you placed that part first on Marcus that he felt so much pain?” asked Natalia this time as she too touched the core.

“Yep, since he hardly had any armor piece on him, much of its energy got transferred to his body, which probably made him feel like he was burned, while on the other one the armor pieces took its energy instead, so it must’ve felt warm,” smirked Hobbs as he looked at Marcus.

“So, did you do it on purpose?” asked Marcus with a lower tone of voice.

Hobbs smirked at Marcus. “Maybe.”

Marcus shifted his posture, he still kept some of the laziness, but the look on his face was murderous instead. “How about I do some ‘on purpose’ things on you with the armor, Jerry?”

Natalia noticed the murderous aura coming from Marcus and stood in front of Hobbs, while Cleavon on the other hand walked closer to Marcus.

“Calm down Lord Nossa, you heard Doctor Hobbs say that it was a brand new process, you just got burned because you went first,” then stopping next to Marcus, “besides, we still haven’t seen the weapons, and wouldn’t you rather see how they are if you compare it with the armor?”

Marcus relaxed his posture, and his gaze turned into a glare towards Hobbs. “Fine then, plenty of time to torture you later, Jerry,” he did a half smile and continued, “and I wouldn’t want to fight Natty right now just to get to you.”

Marcus then started walking to the exit, which made Natalia relax her posture as well.

“Now that that’s done, you all can go ahead to the armory, I’ll be here taking a rest,” Hobbs then complained. “Wish this could’ve been done by itself, I have better things to do than to fit soldiers!”

“Aren’t these systems filled with the best AIs that the Corporation could make, couldn’t they do it?” asked Natalia while looking at the consoles.

“Sure, but they’re nothing more than glorified tools, they can’t do the thinking that is required for greater things, and they will never compare to me,” answered Hobbs while wiping some sweat off his forehead.

Cleavon looked at Marcus walking away and followed while saying, “Let's quickly move to the armory, wouldn’t want to lose sight of Lord Nossa right now.”

Natalia started walking behind Cleavon as well, however she turned for a moment. She removed the helmet, turning to look at Hobbs and asked, “About these cores, if they’re the heart of the armors, wouldn’t an enemy go for it first? What would happen to us if they’re damaged or destroyed?”

Hobbs laughed out loud. “Those things are nearly indestructible, if anyone manages to even leave a scratch on it, then I’d say the rest of your body has been long gone.”

“I see… then I guess I’ll go see those weapons. Thank you for your hard work Doctor Hobbs.”

Hobbs just humphed without saying anything.

Seeing that the doctor was somewhat satisfied, Natalia decided to also turn and leave with the people already going for the exit.

As everyone left the room, Hobbs smiled and murmured, “Let’s see what kind of results you can bring me… Imperators.”