After saying that, Tristan wandered toward the far corner of the massive room, hands clasped behind his back, humming off-key as if he were strolling through a park instead of an underground armory. His shoes squeaked faintly against the polished floor.
"Where did you get all of this?" I asked, following him. My voice echoed more than I liked.
Without stopping, he waved a hand. "Buy and sell business. I buy things overseas, then sell them to those who want them."
I frowned. "So… you're a smuggler? Black market trader?"
He halted in front of a seamless white wall and slowly turned around, adjusting his round glasses with two fingers. "You're painting me in very ugly colors, kid. I prefer entrepreneur. Or businessman, if you're feeling polite."
Before I could reply, he pressed his palm against the wall. A faint click sounded, followed by a low hum. Lines appeared where there had been nothing, and a door slid open as if the wall itself were breathing.
"Well," he said cheerfully, stepping aside, "that was only my side hustle. This—this is the real thing."
I froze.
The armory behind us had already shattered my expectations, but what lay beyond the door made it feel primitive. The room was enormous, a cathedral of steel and glass. Mechanical arms hung from the ceiling like patient giants. Consoles blinked with soft lights. Machines I couldn't even name thrummed quietly, alive in a way that made the air vibrate against my skin.
But my eyes were drawn to the center.
A cylindrical glass container stretched from floor to ceiling, and inside it floated a cube—small, no bigger than half a foot on each side—glowing white and blue. It hovered unnaturally, as if gravity had simply forgotten about it. Beneath it, less than an inch away, was a metallic structure wired into the floor, pulsing faintly.
I swallowed. "What… is that?"
Tristan's expression softened, almost fond. "That," he said, "is my masterpiece. SUNLET."
"SUNLET?" I asked, mishearing him.
He snorted. "SUNLET. Stellar-Unified Nuclear Lattice Energy Transmutation." He spread his arms like a stage magician. "A miniature sun. Enough energy to power the entire country of Melloway for hundreds of years."
I couldn't find words. "That's impossible. Nuclear plants barely cover a few cities."
"For them," he said with a smirk. "Not for me. Especially not with this."
He opened his hand. Resting on his palm was a tiny cubic container, transparent but oddly dull, like light didn't want to reflect off it. Inside was a metallic fragment, barely larger than a grain of rice.
I leaned closer without thinking—
"This," he continued casually, "is Triswyne 355. Highly radioactive. It serves as the fuel of the SUNLET. Your father and I discovered it by accident back in college."
My hand stopped midair.
Highly radioactive.
Why was he holding it like loose change?
He smiled, then tossed it toward me.
"Hey—!"
Panic surged through me. My mind screamed don't touch it, but another part of me feared letting it hit the floor even more. I reached out clumsily. The container slipped past my fingers and struck the ground with a dull thud, leaving a visible dent in the metal floor.
It didn't break.
I stared, then slowly looked up. Tristan was grinning like a child who had just pulled off a successful prank.
"Relax," he said, waving a hand as if I were overreacting to a spilled drink instead of potential radiation poisoning. "That's not ordinary glass. Cryztium fiber. Same stuff as the container around SUNLET. Isolates radiation, nearly indestructible, and light enough that I don't dislocate my wrist every time I pick it up. Trust me—I wouldn't still have hands otherwise."
I blinked. "What… Cryztium fiber?"
He brightened at that, the way people do when someone accidentally steps on their favorite conversational landmine. "Ah. Story time." He leaned back against the worktable, tapping the cube with one finger. "It's what happens when silica sand gets melted right in the core of SUNLET. Not near it. Inside it. I found it by accident while trying to build the perfect container for my masterpiece. Turns out ordinary silica glass doesn't just survive the radiation—it thrives on it. Prolonged exposure makes it tougher. Meaner. Like a stray cat that keeps winning fights."
He paused, squinting at the cube. "Downside? Making Cryztium fiber takes forever. Weeks of calibration. Months of failure. I lost three eyebrows and one perfectly good microwave figuring it out."
Before I could respond, he picked the cube up again, blew on it twice for no apparent reason, wiped it against his already filthy lab coat, and slipped it into his pocket as casually as someone stuffing spare coins away.
"I wouldn't build a miniature sun under my house," he said, tapping his chest with quiet pride, "if I wasn't at least seventy-five percent sure it wouldn't end the neighborhood."
He paused, tilted his head, then added, "Eighty on a good day."
Then he moved to a cabinet, rummaged through it, and tossed a box toward me. "Catch."
This time, I caught it.
"Open it," he said. "It's yours."
Inside were a black hood and matching pants. Plain. Unremarkable. Almost disappointing.
I frowned. "Thanks, but… no thanks. I don't need clothes."
"You sure do," he replied, unfazed.
"What do you mean?"
He leaned closer, eyes sharp behind the lenses. "Those aren't ordinary clothes. Took me ten years to make."
I looked down at the fabric again, unease crawling up my spine.
He continued, voice lower now. "Same material as the container. Woven with spandex and cotton, so you can actually move. Comfortable enough to sleep in, strong enough to stop bullets and blades. Better than Kevlar, without turning you into a walking refrigerator."
I tightened my grip on the box.
"For someone like you," Tristan added softly, "mobility matters as much as survival."
I shifted the box in my hands; the fabric inside suddenly felt more comfortable than it looked. "So it stops bullets," I said carefully. "What about… everything else?"
Tristan clicked his tongue and scratched his head, smearing a bit of grease into his already messy hair. "Ah, you're so demanding, you know. Of course, there's more than being bulletproof." He took the box from me without asking, flicked the hood open, and pinched the fabric between his fingers. "This thing hates heat."
"Hates?" I echoed.
"Hates," he repeated with a grin. He walked over to a nearby workstation and pressed a button. A mechanical arm whirred to life, lowering a controlled flame nozzle. "Most fabrics burn, melt, or weaken under high temperatures. This one?" He tossed a small scrap of the same material into the flame.
The fire licked it greedily. Seconds passed. Nothing happened.
The fabric didn't blacken. Didn't curl. The flame bent around it like water around a stone.
I felt a chill crawl up my spine. "Fire resistance?"
"Extreme flame resistance," he corrected. "Direct ignition, incendiary rounds, even short exposure to plasma-level heat. It disperses thermal energy instead of absorbing it." He snapped his fingers. The flame died. "You won't walk out of a volcano, but you won't turn into charcoal from a Molotov either."
He tossed the scrap aside and leaned against the table, rocking slightly on his heels, like he couldn't stay still for too long. "Think of it as artificial exoskeleton armor. Same principle as a Nihilkin's transformation—reinforced molecular lattice layered over organic structure."
My stomach tightened. "Like Nihilkin? Like… their armor."
"Exactly like that," he said, then raised a finger.
I remained silent.
Tristan noticed. His smile softened, just a fraction. He cleared his throat and clapped his hands once. "Visual aids help. Come here."
He waved me toward the wall of monitors and tapped a few keys. The screens flickered, then stabilized into grainy lab footage. A woman stood in the center of a reinforced testing chamber. Her body was encased in a glossy, insect-like armor that seemed grown rather than worn.
"Subject 002. Real name: Emily Myer," Tristan said. "Codename: Ah Muzen Cab."
In the footage, a technician shouted a warning. Gunfire erupted. Bullets struck Emily's armor and flattened, clattering uselessly to the floor. She didn't even flinch.
My throat went dry.
"They escalated," Tristan continued, voice matter-of-fact. "Higher caliber. Armor-piercing. Same result. The exoskeleton redistributed the kinetic force across her entire body."
The footage jumped. Emily staggered this time, one knee dipping.
"There," Tristan said, tapping the screen. "Limit reached. Hairline fractures. Microfatigue in the lattice."
The video cut.
He turned to me, serious now. "Nothing is indestructible, Nick. Not her armor. Not your suit. Not even SUNLET. Everything has a breaking point."
He placed the box back into my hands, closing my fingers around it. "This will keep you alive. It will buy you time. But if you rely on it like you're invincible—" He shrugged. "That's how people die."
I looked down at the black fabric again, its surface dull and unassuming in my hands. It didn't look like much—just cloth—but my fingers lingered on it as if my body already understood what my mind was still resisting.
My father's words came back to me, steady and measured. You'll get what you need there.
He had been right. That realization didn't bring comfort. It brought a tightness to my chest, a slow, creeping dread.
I swallowed and let my gaze drift to the floor, to the faint scuff marks and oil stains left by things far heavier and more dangerous than clothing. Did he know? Had he always known?
The question settled in my gut like a stone.
Does he know I'm one of them?
One of the monsters they had started calling Nihilkins.
My grip tightened around the fabric. Part of me wanted to throw it back into the box, pretend I had never come here, pretend last night had never happened. Another part—quieter, colder—recognized the truth with terrifying clarity.
This wasn't protection meant for a normal boy.
This was equipment.
And equipment was only given to something expected to survive the fight.
Tristan smiled, crooked and tired. "Wear it wisely, kid. Survive first. Be brave, second." His words were wise and cryptic.