Kaia the Argent Wing

The idea that an adult in a position of power would give me a gun to play with would've deeply alarmed and confused pre-storm Kai, and yet here we were. We had two squiron plates set up at the back of the sports fields—square on to the shooting position to decrease the likelihood of ricochets, two scorpion carcasses, and six bullets. Three were your average unmodified bullets, while the other three had squiron tips.

Holding the unmodified sidearm that would be used was the soldier from yesterday with the glasses. He was apparently a very good shot, hence why we had him here. His army buddies, along with Chloe, Ollie, and Camilo, were sitting a ways back, watching.

April handed an unmodified control bullet to him, and he nodded and slipped it into the pistol.

“Ready?” He asked.

April gave a thumbs up, and he raised the pistol and took aim. A heartbeat later, and the gun bucked in his hand with a loud bang-ting as the bullet both fired and immediately hit the plate.

Once the gun was safely pointed at the ground, I rushed out and picked up the plate. I walked back to the group while inspecting it. The impact point was bright with bare metal, and I swear I could see a warping in the centimetre thick plate.

“This is pretty much what you'd expect from ten mil,” the man said when I offered the plate to him. “No, actually there's much less warping. It's like it's twice as tough? One centimetre is pretty thick, though.”

“Try the scorpions?” I asked, and he nodded. We all stepped back, while he returned to the firing plate that was actually just a scuffed section of snow.

Hefting the pistol again, he took careful aim… and fired. The smell of gunpowder filled the frigid air, and once he had the gun stowed again, I wandered over to see the damage.

The bullet had made it into the soft meat of the monster, but only just.

“Alright, I think we’re all familiar with that result,” I said, walking back to the firing line.

The soldier nodded earnestly, dim sunlight catching on his glasses. “Yeah. Sometimes we'd have to pump a whole mag into something to kill it.”

He was looking at me so… I wasn't sure what it was, but it made me feel all funny inside. It wasn't the butterflies of a kindling crush, although he was super cute. Nah, it was something else. Whatever the sensation was, I liked it a lot. I liked when he and others looked at me like… oh… he was looking at me like I was a pretty girl. That was totally it. Oh fuck.

“Um…” I mumbled, then cleared my throat. “Yes. Uh. Everyone take a few more steps back this time… the iron bullet has a much higher chance of pinging off in an unpredictable direction.”

Once we were all a healthier distance away, the soldier guy raised the pistol again, took aim at the squiron plate and fired. Immediately afterwards, he turned and put a bullet into the second scorpion corpse.

When we got to the plate, I was mildly surprised to see that it was basically intact. There was a definite dent where the bullet hit—much more so than the previous plate—but it was still un-holed. The scorpion, on the other hand, had a nice chunky hole in it, although there was still no exit wound.

“The bullet should've ripped a hole clean through the scorpion,” the soldier said with a frown. “It's still not as strong as it should be.”

April let out a small thoughtful sound. “I think if we really wanted to match the old lethality of guns, we'd need to build the gun, powder, and bullet out of magical materials. The few people who can use bows in the school were complaining about issues with penetration until we gave them mutant fat to rub into their bows.”

“That was a nightmare of phrasing,” the soldier muttered under his breath, and when I glanced at him, he flushed just a little more than the cold warranted.

“Guns are very expensive, then,” I said, summing up our discovery. “I bet you could get a better result with someone who had high strength and a bow made out of squiron or something.”

“A metal bow?” The soldier asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “That way you take the gunpowder element out of the equation. Assuming we're right and the propellant needs to be incorporated into the storm system.”

He made an adorable little thoughtful expression and asked, “How hard is it to learn to shoot a bow?”

It was April who answered with a snort of amusement. “Really fucking hard. Still doable, mind you, but hard.”

“I kind of want to learn,” the soldier said. “I have two Strength, so I assume that would let me pull a hefty bow.”

“Possibly,” April said while we shared a quick glance. It'd take some fuckery on our end, but it might be worth setting up a dedicated arrow production area. Put a blast furnace in place with a dedicated spout for pouring the metal into a proper mould, then a little anvil and grinder to work and sharpen the heads.

“I'll talk to the cap,” I agreed. “Once we have the shrine built, we might get some other folks who swap into archery.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” he grinned.

We continued talking about what we were doing here in Edgewood, along with testing gunpowder itself. That still hurt when you got burnt, but the burn itself was superficial, which lent further credence to the idea that any gun would need storm-imbued gunpowder too.

As I was leaving once we'd dispersed to work on our various projects, I walked past a group of random folks coming back from a scavenging mission. The fighters had already left them to sort through their finds, so I didn't recognise any of them.

“I hope the Silver Angel is okay,” one girl said.

“If she is okay, where the hell is she?” an older guy grumbled. “Seriously, we need her! She needs to do something about our food.”

“How would she even do something about the food?” the girl asked, tossing a pair of jeans into a pile.

That girl had it right. What the hell was I supposed to do about the food situation? I couldn’t magically grow crops or whatever. 

“Well that’s the thing, right? She’s just disappeared again without getting a job from the Captain,” the guy said. “You know what I think? I think she’s too busy riding on her high horse thinking she’s a hero and all that.”

“She’s not a hero!” a third person interjected, this one an elderly woman with what I could only describe as ‘big boomer energy’. “Pastor Thomas says she’s a demon come to trick us into selling our souls to the devil.”

“Grandma!” the ‘Pro-Silver’ girl complained. “Don’t be like that! Silver and her goddess saved us!”

I passed out of earshot before I could hear anything further, and I breathed a sigh. Everyone had opinions about Silver, and while most of them were positive, they were also just… needy. I felt bad for using that word, but it was true. Silver needs to do this, Silver needs to do that. It's like they all thought of me as a resource to be deployed rather than a person.

That is, everyone thought like that except for Pastor Thomas and his followers—like the old woman just now. At least the Captain was keeping them in check.

I finally made it into the workshop while I was lost in thought, and almost walked head first into Charles. He'd been standing just inside the door staring at the workshop that was currently empty. Wait, why…

“Ah. Kaia.” He rumbled, giving me a nod of greeting. “It seems that you were right.”

I gave him a quizzical look. “I was right?”

He hummed affirmatively. “Those soldiers had a mighty concerning tale to tell. I reckon you were damn near spot on when you said we needed to think long term.”

“You do?” I asked, staring at him incredulously. “I mean, you agree with that idea now?”

“Mhm, yes I do,” he said. “I reckon it's 'bout time we upgraded the workshop and got serious on equipping our folks. Problem is, I don't rightly know where to start.”

“Helve hammer,” I said instantly as my excitement began to increase. “Steam powered helve hammer.”

Finally! Finally Charles was on board! Yes!

“Alright, but we'll be makin’ that from scratch. I know you were looking to fix that old school project steam engine, but I ain't sure that'll be up to snuff,” he said with a rumbling chuckle. “We have all of April's welding gear. May as well put it to use…”