Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (23/?) WiP 1 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here's the Work in Progress for Chapter 23 I hope you guys enjoy! :D 

“So, does that weapon of yours have a name?” The wolf inquired with unrestrained enthusiasm. If his voice didn't already give it away, then the ferocious wagging of his tail most certainly did.

“There’s… a lot of nomenclature involved, but for the purposes of this conversation I’ll try to keep it brief. We call it a gun, Thalmin.”

The gun.

A tool as varied in complexity as the problems it was designed to solve.

An answer to a question that has been asked in a thousand different languages, over a thousand different ways, across a thousand different eras.

A question that ultimately boiled down to a single, simple, sentence:

What is the most effective way to kill?

For most of human history, and the Nexus it seems, the answer was almost always reliant on solutions as simple and as limiting as the hands that gripped them. From the club to the blade and the spear to the polearm, strength and skill had proven itself as the only reliable means to achieving this deceptively simple end. Acting as the indisputable limiting factor to any who attempted to answer this age old question.

This placed a hard limit on things. Most notably, it restricted scalability and accessibility.

Civilization, however, wasn’t ever content on leaving a question of such importance answered so half-heartedly.

The Nexus seemed to stumble upon a better answer to this question by virtue of their inherent gifts, extending their effective reach, and embracing the natural advantage afforded to them in the form of mana manipulation.

Humanity, however, wasn’t so fortunate.

We didn’t have the ability to summon lightning, earthquakes, and missiles right out of the gate. We didn’t have the privilege of evolving a second, unseen set of limbs through which to manipulate the world around us in ways previously inconceivable.

All we had to our name was a set of two gangly hands, ending in those five, blunted, wiry digits.

But that didn’t stop us. In fact, it was those very ‘limitations’ that forced us to think outside the box.

As what we lacked in claws, in fangs, in venom, or in magics, we made up for in deductive reasoning and innovation.

For all it took was a simple mix of chemistry and metallurgy for the tides to truly shift, and by the advent of industry, that shifting tide had all but become an unassailable wave leading to nearly two millennia worth of further refinements and unprecedented advancements.

Two millennia, that saw us moving from bamboo tubes with some spicy powder, to fifth generation composalite with a choice of chemical propellants or magnetic accelerants to choose from.

Although unlike the Nexus, what we had wasn’t a force multiplier exclusive to a select few, nor one that was gatekept behind ancient tomes and hidden spells.

What we had was a weapon. One that only took two hands, two eyes, some bullets, and a tempered resolve to wield. A weapon that with a single squeeze of a trigger, was capable of bringing forth to the table a destructive potential once locked behind decades of training and practice. A weapon which was capable of bringing that same destructive potential to bear consistently and without fail, until you ran out of bullets or resolve.

This weapon wasn’t rare, either. It wasn’t locked away in a far flung tower to be handed and gifted to adventurers daring and brave enough to make the long, perilous journey. Nor was it talked about under hushed breaths within the dark corners of taverns or the deepest depths of a scholar’s study.

It was as common, or perhaps even more common, than your average spear. It was so ubiquitous that there were, at the present era, enough of them to arm every single human currently alive more than a hundred times over.

Humanity, with all of its so-called ‘shortcomings’ with a lack of magic, mana, or other such natural ‘gifts’, had answered this age-old question with the ultimate testament to its indomitable resolve. A resolve which was only satisfied so long as the envelope kept being pushed. To forever address and re-address all of life’s questions, especially the ones that were so crucial to its continued survival.

To do anything but innovate, to be satisfied with the current standard, was to invite stagnation to begin its inevitable creep.

“So, what would you like to know about guns?” I asked Thalmin with an excitable grin underneath my helmet, the wave of underlying anxiousness that had lingered from the battle being supplanted somewhat by this new hyperfixation. A part of me knew this was a temporary distraction from the uneasy feeling still welling within my gut, but another part of me knew there was no point in allowing it to eat at me more than it already had. Or, at least that’s what I told myself.

“Well first off-”

“Could we see it?” Thacea, surprisingly, interjected with a great deal of apprehension, cutting off Thalmin before he could finish his sentence.

Both Thalmin and I turned to face each other in a small bout of disbelief, but just as quickly turned back to Thacea with a toothy grin on both of our respective faces.

The avian, however, didn’t seem to share in either of our enthusiastic spirits.

We made our way over to the sofas and lounge chairs, set against the backdrop of the deep orange rays of the dwindling sunlight. It was here that I once more found myself palming my holster, and the magnetic locks that kept my sidearm virtually impossible to rip from my side.

The only real way of doing so would be to disable the suit’s power supply, which really did give a whole new meaning to prying it from my cold dead hands.

“Alright.” I spoke to no one in particular as I flicked open the maglocks, only for my heart to flutter. This… wasn’t the fluttering of excitement, however. It took me a second to recompose myself before I realized what it was, as that uneasy feeling of gut-churning vertigo came back with a vengeance only to disappear again as soon as it began. My breath hitched for a moment, my shaky hands taking a second to steady themselves. My mind didn’t immediately register it, but the feeling was undeniably similar to when I’d first unlocked the pistol from my side back in the gardens.

I refused to let it get to me however. It was literally just one engagement, I was fine.