Dubs turned around and found himself face to face with the cloak. The very same one he couldn't manage to make replicate the original's abilities. The cloak imbued with a goddess's power.
Wait. Imbued with a goddess's power?
"I'm a genius."
Dubs took off running, a highly unusual thing for him, toward his storeroom.
He rummaged through dozens of crates stacked on top of each other, years' worth of commissions never picked up, materials set aside for some hypothetical day when they'd finally prove useful, until his fingers closed around what he was looking for.
The Scepter, Asclepius.
He'd almost forgotten it, tucked away at the bottom of a crate since the day he'd used it to heal Emrys, years ago. A precious relic, forged in partnership with a member of the goddess clan, capable of healing even the deepest wounds. An object he'd never intended to sacrifice, until this exact instant, when an idea had just turned everything upside down.
The scepter is imbued with a goddess's healing power. The cloak already carries that whole business of resistance to curses and demonic miasma, a similar power, a similar divine imprint. If I can melt the scepter down and incorporate it directly into the cloak's structure instead of trying to replicate the effect myself from scratch...
He rushed back into the secret room almost at a run, the scepter clutched to his chest as if he feared it might slip away from him.
*
The following days passed in a whirlwind of relentless work, punctuated by brief moments of rest that Emrys had to practically force on Dubs, the latter stubbornly refusing to stop as long as even the smallest detail still needed polishing.
Emrys took part as much as he was allowed to, holding glowing pieces of metal, working the bellows, listening to Dubs's technical explanations without always fully understanding them, but savoring every moment of this collaboration, which he knew, without quite admitting it to himself, would be one of the last of its kind for a long while.
One afternoon, while the armor was still only half finished, a familiar rumble rolled through the forest, close enough that Emrys felt his haki flare up slightly.
"Red demon," he announced, setting down the piece he'd been holding. "Pretty close, too."
"Perfect timing," Dubs answered, a mischievous smile on his lips. "We've got the forearms and the breastplate ready, at least. Not the rest, but that should be enough for a first test."
"You want me to test an unfinished armor against an actual demon?"
"You got a better idea for finding out if what we're making actually works?" Dubs shot back, shrugging. "A reinforced trunk won't ever tell you if the breastplate holds up against a real claw strike. A demon will."
Emrys hesitated for a fraction of a second, then let a smile spread across his own face, that same reckless excitement that had always pushed him to test his limits rather than respect them cautiously.
"Full-scale test it is, then."
He put on the still-unfinished pieces, feeling the uneven weight of the partial armor against his chest and forearms, then headed for the edge of the clearing, his haki already locked onto the crimson mass approaching.
The demon burst through the trees moments later, as massive and shapeless as every one Emrys had already faced, its maw opening almost immediately to let that telltale black glow build at the back of its throat.
This time, Emrys didn't try to dodge.
He crossed his forearms in front of his face just as the beam fired, letting the still-unfinished metal absorb the brunt of the impact. An intense wave of heat shot through his arms, but nothing close to the burn he should have suffered without this makeshift protection.
"It's holding!" he shouted, a mix of surprise and euphoria in his voice, before activating Blink to close the distance and finish the creature off with a precise shot to the eye, the way he now did almost by reflex.
By the time he made it back to Dubs, still out of breath but beaming, the giant was already waiting for him, a satisfied smile on his lips, examining Emrys's forearms with his fingertips to assess the damage.
"Slight crack here," he commented, mostly to himself. "Nothing serious, but it gives me some ideas for reinforcing that exact spot before we finish the rest."
"Are you telling me you were planning to use a real demon as a quality test from the very start?"
"Never said otherwise," Dubs replied, without the slightest trace of guilt, already heading back toward the workshop to resume work, more determined than ever.
Then, one morning, Dubs announced it was finished.
"Sit down," he said, his voice carrying an excitement he was visibly struggling to contain. "And brace yourself, kid. Because what I'm about to show you is probably the best thing I've ever made in my entire existence."
Emrys sat down on the usual stool, his heart beating a little faster than he would have liked to admit.
He heard Dubs bustling about for a moment, the sound of fabric being moved, of metal being lifted with care, then silence, a silence heavy with anticipation.
"Close your eyes," Dubs said, before immediately correcting himself, a small embarrassed laugh escaping him. "Well. You know what I mean."
"Technically doesn't change much for me," Emrys answered, amused, but complying all the same, out of respect for the moment Dubs seemed intent on orchestrating with particular care.
"There," Dubs finally announced. "Hold out your hand."
Emrys did, and felt his fingers close around something cold, smooth, roughly the size of a face. His haki revealed its shape almost immediately: a mask, thin, following the contours of a human face without ever feeling thick or cumbersome, and at the forehead, a gem, small but dense, humming with concentrated magical energy that Emrys felt instantly against his fingertips.
"A mask?" he asked, surprised. "I was expecting to see the armor directly."
"That is the armor. Well, an essential part of it, anyway," Dubs answered, an evident smile in his voice. "Put it on. You'll understand."
Emrys hesitated a moment, then brought the mask to his face, adjusting it as best he could without the help of his eyes.
The effect was immediate.
A wave of metallic warmth swept through his entire body, starting at his face and spreading down his neck, his shoulders, his chest, as if hundreds of invisible plates were materializing all at once, welding themselves perfectly onto his skin.
Emrys raised his hands in front of him, using a shallow Structural Grasp to methodically map out what had just formed around his own body. Black plates, thin but dense, overlapping one another like dragon scales, ran along his arms, his torso, his legs, each one bordered with a silver trim that outlined its edges. On his shoulders, two heavier, almost angular pieces framed his neck, connected to each other by a fine metal chain that clinked softly whenever he moved. His hands disappeared beneath black, clawed gauntlets, molding themselves to every joint of his fingers without ever hindering their movement. At his waist, crossed straps held the whole thing firmly in place, extending down to his thighs in an almost geometric pattern.
And then there was the hood.
A thick, heavy fold of fabric slid over his head almost of its own accord, covering his already-masked face entirely, plunging his usual field of perception into an additional texture he sensed to be a red so deep it seemed almost black. The cloak that followed from it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the clean, elegant cut he had projected himself just days earlier. Its edges were jagged, tattered, as if gnawed at by something, falling in wide, ragged sheets down to his ankles, rippling gently around him despite the complete absence of wind in the room.
"By all the—" Emrys cut himself off, an incredulous laugh escaping him. "Dubs, this... this isn't at all what I projected. It's completely different."
"I know," Dubs answered, undisguised pride in his voice. "I took inspiration from your base design, yeah, but I couldn't help adding my own touch to it. That whole business with the plates overlapping like scales, that's an old giant forging principle, originally meant to withstand blows from our own kind. The hood is to hide your face from anyone who'd try to read your emotions in a fight, given you can't see them coming yourself. And this tattered cloak..."
He paused, almost hesitant.
"...is purely aesthetic, I'll give you that. But an opponent who sees you show up looking like that is gonna think twice before charging in headfirst. Intimidation, kid, is a weapon just like any other."
"And the mask, then? Is that what triggers all of it at once?" Emrys asked, running his gloved fingers over the gem still set at his forehead.
"Exactly," Dubs confirmed, undisguised pride in his voice. "Wear the mask, the whole armor materializes. Take it off, it vanishes. But then again..."
He paused, and Emrys sensed an important nuance was about to follow.
"At the end of the day, it's up to you," he continued. "I tied the trigger to the mask, that's true, but I also left some room to maneuver. If you want to wear the mask without the armor appearing, you can. And if you want to keep the armor active even with the mask off, you can do that too. The mask is the automatic, convenient trigger. But the final say stays in your hands."
Emrys stayed quiet for a moment, taking in the ingenuity of the system, a flicker of emotion mixing with his technical admiration.
"That's... really clever, Dubs."
"I know," the latter answered, without the slightest false modesty. "One more thing. Don't worry about the size."
"What do you mean?"
"The armor automatically adjusts to your body. Whether you grow another ten centimeters, put on muscle, or lose weight after some improbable famine, doesn't matter. It'll always match your exact build the moment you summon it. I don't want you coming back to me in two years complaining your armor's too tight around the shoulders."
Emrys let out a small laugh, running his hands along the breastplate to feel its texture, that strange combination of lightness and sturdiness he never would have believed possible before feeling it with his own fingers.
"And the cloak?" he asked, feeling the thick fabric drape over his shoulders, something subtly different from what he'd projected himself just days before. "It feels... different. Denser, almost."
Dubs stayed quiet for a moment, and Emrys sensed an unusual hesitation in that pause, something that didn't match his usual coldness.
"About that," he finally began. "You remember the Scepter of Asclepius? The one I used to heal you, years ago, after your accident with Structural Grasp."
"Of course I remember it. You told me it came from a member of the goddess clan."
"Yeah. Well," Dubs paused again, "I melted it down. I worked it directly into the cloak's structure."
Emrys froze for a moment, stunned.
"You did what?"
"I melted it down, kid. Destroyed it, if you prefer that word," Dubs repeated, without the slightest trace of regret in his voice. "I was desperately trying to replicate the abilities of your original cloak, the one you'd projected, that whole resistance to curses and demonic miasma. And then I realized I already had, right at hand, an object truly imbued with a goddess's power. So instead of trying to imitate the effect from nothing, I integrated the source itself directly."
"Dubs, that scepter was... it was precious. A unique relic. You could have kept it, used it for years to come to heal other people who needed it."
"And you're about to go face a holy war wearing armor capable of protecting you from the worst horrors demons could inflict on you," Dubs shot back, his voice suddenly firmer, leaving no room for argument. "Honestly, kid, I never had a single doubt about which of those two options deserved that object more."
"It wasn't worth sacrificing something that rare for me," Emrys insisted, a lump forming in his throat despite himself.
"Yes, it was," Dubs answered simply, his voice suddenly losing all its harshness. "And I'd do it again without hesitating a second time if I had to. So stop arguing and let me finish explaining what this damn cloak does."
Emrys fell silent, still shaken by the revelation, but didn't push further, sensing that Dubs wouldn't change his mind, no matter what arguments he might raise.
"The scepter's healing power, once worked into the cloak's structure, transformed," Dubs continued. "Instead of a one-time, powerful burst of healing like the scepter could offer in a single use, you now have continuous, diffuse protection, active at all times as long as you're wearing the armor. Resistance to curses and miasma far greater than what your original cloak could offer, going by how you described it to me. And on top of that, a slight passive regeneration, nothing miraculous, nothing that'll bring you back from the dead, but enough to speed up the healing of minor wounds while you fight."
"That's... incredible, Dubs. Really."
"I know," Dubs repeated, this time with an audible smile in his voice. "Alright. Only one thing left to reveal."
"The release," Emrys remembered. "The ability you attributed to the armor itself."
"Exactly," Dubs confirmed.
He stepped slowly toward Emrys, shrinking with every step he took until he'd reached human size.
Once he stood in front of Emrys, he leaned in and whispered something in his ear.
Emrys drew a sharp breath, his eyes going wide.
"That's... unbelievable," Emrys blurted out. "Dubs, that's genuinely unbelievable. That power is incredible."
"I know. I was pretty inspired at the moment of the Attribution," Dubs said, a note of pride in his voice. "Alright, you know how to activate the ability, right?"
"I focus my magical energy into the armor and say 'Sacred treasure, release.' That's it?"
"Yeah, that's it," Dubs confirmed.
Emrys stayed silent for a moment, letting his fingers trail one last time over the black plates covering his forearms, that still-new and slightly strange sensation of wearing something this complete, this thoroughly considered, across his entire body.
"Can I try moving around a bit? See how it responds in motion?"
"That's what it's for," Dubs answered, stepping back to give him room.
Emrys launched into a series of simple combinations, cautious at first, then increasingly brisk, testing the range of motion at his elbows and knees, the way the tattered cloak followed his movements without ever getting in the way of his strikes. He activated Blink several times in a row, chaining together small jumps of just a few centimeters, watching for the slightest hint of resistance or excess weight.
Nothing. The armor seemed to have completely vanished from his physical awareness, as if it were part of him rather than something added from outside.
"This is insane," he admitted, a little out of breath after that improvised series of tests. "I can barely feel that I'm wearing it."
"That was the whole point," Dubs answered, a satisfied smile in his voice. "An armor that slows you down is an armor that gets you killed faster than it protects you. I didn't spend five years watching you fight just to hand you something that'd wreck your speed."
Emrys went still, letting his haki sweep over his own silhouette one last time, trying to commit to memory every detail of what Dubs had just given him.
"Thank you," he said simply, knowing the word fell short, but unable to find anything better to add in the moment.
"Take the mask off," Dubs answered, almost abruptly, as if trying to cut things short before the emotion took up too much space. "Still got to check a couple things on the joints before I'll call this really finished."
Emrys obeyed, feeling the armor dissolve as quickly as it had materialized, that same flow of metallic warmth now receding in the opposite direction, leaving him back in his ordinary clothes, the mask cold and silent between his fingers.
Dubs took it from his hands and hung it on a display stand near the forge's wall, and the armor reappeared automatically, held upright by the stand's chains.
(Image here)
*
Several days passed, marked by the final preparations for departure, by further tests of the armor in the training clearing, by Dubs checking and rechecking every assembly with an almost obsessive thoroughness, as if trying to push back, if only by a few more hours, the inevitable moment.
Then, finally, the morning of departure arrived.
Emrys stood before the workshop's large door, his pack loaded on his back, the armor summoned and stored somewhere in his memory, ready to answer his slightest need. Dubs stood facing him, silent, arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his massive face.
"Well," Emrys finally said, his throat a little tight. "Guess this is it."
"Guess so," Dubs answered, his voice rougher than usual.
A silence settled between them, heavy with everything they'd already said, and with everything they'd probably never say out loud, each too guarded in his own way to really exhaust the subject.
"Take care of yourself," Emrys finally said. "And don't work too much, alright? Rest every once in a while."
"You know me, kid. No promises," Dubs answered, a tired but sincere smile on his lips.
Emrys nodded, then, giving in to an impulse he didn't really try to resist, stepped forward and briefly wrapped his arms around the giant, his arms barely managing to circle a fraction of his massive frame.
Dubs stayed frozen for a moment, visibly caught off guard, before resting a massive hand, surprisingly gentle, on Emrys's back.
"Thank you for everything, dad," Emrys murmured, his voice barely audible, before stepping back, a trembling smile on his lips.
The word hung between them for a moment, heavier than anything said before, heavier perhaps than anything either of them could have consciously put into words.
Dubs said nothing back. He found nothing to say, actually, his throat suddenly too tight to let a single word through.
Emrys, sensing perhaps that it was better not to linger any longer on a moment already so charged, stepped back once more, closed his eyes, or at least made the gesture, for no reason beyond habit.
His silhouette began to waver, then to dissolve gradually, as if drawn into an invisible fold in space, until it vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but a sudden, crushing silence.
Dubs remained motionless for a long moment, staring at the empty spot where, just seconds before, the boy he had watched grow up had stood, the boy he had watched transform from a broken, blind child fallen from the sky into something that, with each passing day, increasingly resembled a true warrior.
A slow, genuine smile finally spread across his weathered face.
A single, silent tear slid down his cheek, which he didn't even try to wipe away, simply letting it find its way to disappear somewhere in his stubble.
"I'll have to get used to it," he murmured finally, to no one in particular, his voice echoing softly in the suddenly far too quiet workshop.
He remained like that for a moment longer, motionless in front of the open door, before finally turning around, discreetly wiping away this last trace of emotion with the back of his massive hand, and returned to his anvil, to his hammer, to this routine that had accompanied him for decades before Emrys' arrival, and that would still accompany him now, with the tenacious and warm memory of those five years that no silence, however profound, could ever completely erase.