Seth berthed the exoskeleton back into his personal workshop with a weighty reverberating thunk. Conductive metals and various linings, gels, and ancillary wiring were already piled high on either side of him. The culmination of ten years of design work and planning was finally upon him. The door to his garage was shut tight, couldn’t have anyone know just yet. Also battlesuits weren’t exactly legal to just make on your own. A few magnetic latches and a rattling hoist, and the suit was thoroughly set.

Everything ready, he backed up and stretched out his hands. Focusing, concentrating power into them. Power enough to destroy, but also create. Electrical arcs started racking between his fingers, ionized air particles began to glow around his arms. In one swift motion, he pulled his hands closed, locking in the power he just focused. It was mostly for show, but it had at least some purpose to it. He picked up a block of conductive alloy, the heavy metal weighing down his arm, and moved it over to its station. It reacted almost instantly to the power exuding from his hand, visibly shrinking, becoming denser and denser. It soaked up the power he’d offered it, used it to become almost crystalline in strength. With his other hand he pressed down on the corners, the metal giving way like dense clay.

The Garkah had devised this stuff almost specifically for him, something about its structure made it pliable to his powers. And greedy for energy. Within a few minutes he moved his hand away and the metal bar was now shaped into a plate, the top plate of the helmet. It was elongated, with two cut outs for the plate to fit onto the hinge of the helmet. But he took the plate to his workstation first, it needed more layers and additions.

Two extra layers, one a ceramic filler mixed with a heap of iron shavings, and the other a protective and adaptive gel layer so the suit fit tight without chafing. The ‘ferroceramics’, another one of the Garkah’s designs, acted to dissipate any kinetic energy impacting the suit, shattering like pottery. But the iron filings magnetized the mixture, resulting in that shattered plate reforming to a degree, meaning it could continue to act as ceramic plating without the need to replace it. The gel layer was full of iron particles much the same, but to a finer degree. This allowed the Garkah to manipulate the gel layer as needed, so Seth wouldn’t get crushed should that theoretical impact be too extreme. And to keep it snug, if not skin tight.

Lastly to go into this plate was the view screen and vision system wiring, a smaller and simpler set of eyes than the recon suite he tested before. No sense limiting his vision just because had to wear armor. A bit of hardened wiring sparing it from the inevitable. The plate completed, he slid it into place on the helmet frame… on his workstation. This frame looked almost nothing like the one still on the exoskeleton, almost snout like and with hinging sockets for a lot of other plates.

Work on one plate done, Seth moved on to the rest. Each plate formed by hand to the desired shape, fitted with layers, and either cushioned or wired up depending on where it went. Last to go in were the eyes, heavily plated glass with the main cameras formed to the slit wide sockets. A little more aesthetic than functional. The helmet done, he lifted it up. It was heavy, really heavy, but he grabbed it by the inside collar with one hand and took it over to the exoskeleton. With his free hand he twisted the frame’s helmet and pulled it off, tossing it aside like a burned disguise. A meaty clang signaled the real helmet falling into place on the frame, snapping it into place on its rotation joint. It fit perfectly, but was just one part down.

A whole body was left to go. Seth worked the rest of the day, shaping metal, fitting, layering, creating a suit like nothing the world had ever seen before. When the plates were done he moved on to the servos. They were special in their own right. Maglev servos that could hold up and move without resistance from such a heavy suit, they were also a lot quieter. Each was crafted by hand, though that didn't have much meaning anymore. The servos also acted as gateways between the capacitor-like plates, taking in almost as much power as them, but using it instead as electromagnets.

Oddly, there were other additions to the suit. Expansion joints, overlapping plates, transforming sections. The Garkah said it was an eventuality, a battle mode of sorts. Seth just saw it as disparate pieces, yet knew its significance to their atonement. A familiar face to change perceptions.

The last addition though was practical, but still odd. A port and mechanisms for a fire prevention system. Seth tested it with his workshop’s fire extinguisher, tearing away its hose and plugging the valve right in and firing it. It filled an internal system, small pressurized pipes that could be released at the squeeze of a hand. The Garkah were the ones to require this addition, seeing the limitations of Earth’s conductors and their tendency to meltdown if too much energy was put through them. And in battle Seth was going to be needing and output a lot of energy. Safeties in place, the suit was finished in its assembly, except for one final touch.

Seth stepped up and into the suit, its panels open and waiting. The connector suit snapping into its ports, locking the two together. The panels closed around him, locking him in darkness and flaky air for a brief second before the view screen flicked on. The onboard computer, or better yet the designated Garkah analysts who tapped into the suits hardcoded systems, scanned for defects, reading out various diagnostics in the makeshift control room they had set up in his mental spotlight. A common feeling of all sensors clear, Speaker gave the green light.

“The suit is perfectly functional, all systems are working better than expected even.”

Threat stepped on to the control room floor, feelings in sync with Seth’s.

“Functionality isn’t everything. Gotta make sure this thing looks amazing after all this work.”

‘My thoughts exactly.’

Seth stepped off the berth with a tremendous unwieldy stomp, carefully passing excess materials and plating, clearing a space in the center of the garage. Each step moving nearly a full ton of weight around like it was nothing, joints gliding along without resistance. But, the suit was odd looking, the shiny titanium frame acted as a border around each plate and clashed against the matte exterior. So Seth and Threat decided to test the suits mettle… err… metal.

From his central point, he focused, not on his hands, not on his body, but the whole of the suit surrounding him. The iron particles in the gel, the ferroceramic plates, the main capacitor plates over them, everything. The flow of energy from the Garkah controllers to the suits systems, the flow from him to the capacitors. Years of training and lectures paying off as his senses tightened across the suit. All of it falling onto those plates, each a separate section, one part of an expansive battery.

‘Not anymore.’

Seth doubled his focus, the plates began to heat, controllers monitored their hardcoded sensors to make sure the suit didn’t meltdown.

“We will exceed the baseline heat tolerance in 10 seconds. Make this quick.”

‘Only need 5.’

With little warning Seth’s power flashed across the suit, danced across its outer edges like fingers shaping it further, spreading out those plates as if they were under enormous pressure. Magnetic pull or focused might didn’t matter, it was his power to wield. The frame disappeared under forming metal, joints covered in extending plating, borders lost to smooth angular surface. And last, a light grey sheen brought to the surface of the pliable metal, polished enough to score the matte, but not quite reflecting the light away.

A cloak of heated air and mild steam was the only by-product. Now the suit was done, and ready for a real fight. Heavy gauntlets crushing tight their new splendor. It was time for Seth to use all this power for good, it was time to join the League. Or… tomorrow was the time to join the League. That tight fist slumping a little, Seth finally feeling all the weight bearing down on him. This suit had no motors to carry this bulk around so it was all him moving it. And focusing that much energy around was doubly taxing, not to mention it was already dark outside.

‘Wait, why can I…?’ *crash*

The garage door just fell in. In fact a lot of metal in the garage was pulled and bent inward toward him. He probably overdid it a little.