“…Which means for the time being, you will be treated as ‘mercenaries’ until the existential threat has been dealt with. A ceasefire.” Gen concluded, ignoring the gawking crowd. They had no doubt expected him to walk out with James’ head on a platter, not to give them amnesty, no matter how temporary it really was. That was, the majority didn’t expect it. There were still quite a few people who seemed to have expected this sort of outcome, who had quite possibly remembered the chain of events that led to their desertion. The Tyrant was ruthless, but in reality, he had spared no expense to eliminate what actually constituted a ‘threat to mankind’, albeit a hobbled one. Surely, pardoning some human rebels was nothing compared to out-and-out genocide. Madeline just seemed relieved to see Jim and James again, alive and intact.

James stepped forward, leaving Gen’s flank for the first time since they had re-entered the encirclement. “I expect compliance… for the time being, at least. The better we’re prepared, the less likely this new race wipes us out. We don’t even know if they’re necessarily hostile, but it’s important to be prepared. I made it quite clear that we expect minimal bloodshed on both sides if at all possible. We will be training with the City Guard,” He bowed slightly, scanning the crowd. “You can stop kneeling, now, you know?”

An embarrassed chuckle rolled through the crowd. Bit by bit they rose, finally back to their feet. Kneeling for such a long time was a real pain. It took about as long for the crowd to wipe off their knees and stretch as it did for them to stand back up, but once they finished, the encirclement broke around them. Gomen lined the stalls and market-building walls while Goblins huddled on the rooftops, weapons in hand but idle at their sides. The two sides sized each-other up properly for the first time in a long while and found each-other lacking. The Goblins decided the crowd was too disorderly and meaningless. A horde of goblins that size could have at least slaughtered the ground troops, albeit at great cost. The Gomen didn’t appreciate their desertion. After all, they had been conquered and oppressed- to some degree- but they still at least had a stake in the city. The Rebels had ran away and still had the gall to come back for help? Disgusting, in their eyes at the least. The new ‘mercenaries’ were simply unhappy with the face that the other two groups had decided to follow the General to the end.

Gen cleared his throat and Guards and Rebels alike refocused on him. “You’ll have plenty of time to glare at each-other later. I want you, and you, and you, and you too,” to which he picked out a few particularly tall humans, “to go with Fireteam One.” Begrudgingly the rebels obliged, and together with Fireteam One, a four-man squad of bow-trained Goblins, they filed off down the road towards the Fort.

Nine fire-teams, six squads, twenty-one mage candidates, and an awful lot of time later, preperations were well and truly underway. Gen finally relaxed, having seen off the last of the crowds, human and inhuman. James grunted. “Where are the residents? Threw em’ in Gulag?”

Gen shook his head, laughing. “Is that what you’re calling it? I’ve always preferred Alcatraz. It’s got a mystique,” he said.

“No, really, where are they?”

“They’re around,” Gen said, “it’s just a matter of where. Quite a few are scoping out the mines or doing R&D. Others are in the taverns and shops, some even working counters. The bulk are back at the Fort, though. You’ll see them.”

“You don’t know what you’ve been missing, Jim,” he said, letting a little pride into his voice.

“What does that mean? Oh, you can’t be serious,” Jim gasped.

“Merrilyn’s been busy. Why don’t you two take a walk with me?” Gen asked, beckoning. James started to ask what had Jim so excited, but before he could even get a word out, the frail man had hefted him up off the ground and took off, flying straight for the fort. James had never been on a plane before, let alone free-flown through the air, so whatever questions he had for Gen were cut off by a gasp and a shriek. Gen stopped walking, pausing to watch the two fly off into the distance. At first, James just flailed and screamed, but he got his bearings pretty quickly. By the time Gen couldn’t hear him anymore, the terrified screams were just hollering, like someone going down a particularly extreme rollercoaster. He smiled, starting back on his way, and he wondered for a moment if they’d cause much trouble before he got there.

Those thoughts were promptly interrupted by a voice right beside his ear. “Ready for your turn?” Kat asked, tone somewhere between ‘flirty’ and ‘taunting’. Gen juked away from her almost instantly, a reaction so primal and ingrained by this point that it happened before he really realized that it was Kat creeping up on him and not some unseen threat. The two of them had a sort of symmetry. He liked to plan, she liked to act. He was endlessly observant, but an interesting quirk of her particular system of magic was that it made her near-silent. Kat had spent just as long as him training her abilities, if not longer- sitting around in a chair was mind-numbingly boring, especially for someone who was expected to be on the move. She had been working hard to figure out how to make herself faster, quieter, more mobile, and to some extent, she succeeded. The most efficient augment she could do was to simply use a cushion of flowing air to help disperse the pressure of footfalls somewhat, as far as she could tell, but it wasn’t the most effective. With the seemingly endless supply of the city, she could form teeny-tiny layer of vacuum around her that cut off virtually all sound like a bubble. She couldn’t hear Gen, sure, but Gen couldn’t hear her.

Which meant that the sweat on Gen’s neck and the battle-ready stance he had hopped into were genuine, and therefore hilarious. She puffed up her cheeks, covering her mouth in a distinctly infuriating ‘I’m-not-laughing-at-you’ gesture that only really rubbed it in. Gen responded with a half-hearted scowl. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do that anymore,” he said.

“You agreed,” she laughed, “I just let you think I did.”

He groaned, ready to lodge a complaint, but she cut him off. “I was thinking we could get real creative with how we fly, you know?” The expectant grin was hard to deny, but reluctantly, Gen shook his head. “We’ve still got to get the others.”

“What others?” Kat asked, before promptly slapping her forehead. Gen hadn’t been the only one trying to catch up, but it had escaped her mind entirely.

“Merrilyn decided we needed to start preparing, so she took the others and went for the Depot.”

The Depot was a newer addition to the city, and one Kat had hardly spent much time in. It took the form of a secure ring carved into the side of the mountain, enterable only by new suspended bridges hanging between Alcatraz and otherwise sheer cliff-face. It was most accessible from those points, and as you got further and approached the ramps that spiraled down the giant ditch, it became nearly indistinguishable from the walls it was cut into. Very few residents even had regular access to the place, partially to prevent ‘dangerous goods’ from leaving, and also because ‘dangerous goods’ wasn’t a metaphor. It was armed to the teeth with explosives, experimental weaponry, and more, and they expected it would only get more volatile from there. Needless to say, ‘jumping over the abyss’ would be pretty pointless if they needed to go down into it. Sure, they’d probably still have a ‘controlled descent into the abyss’, but that was a whole lot less romantic.

They walked, she grumbled, and the sun strolled gently through the sky. Eventually the two of them got to the city’s primary intersection, a point along the abyss’ edge where the two main roads finally met. It was also the easiest way to get on a ramp heading to the bottom. After a great deal of back and forth and adventurous insistence, Gen finally relented and let her ‘parachute’ them onto the bridge below, more or less in-tact.

Gen knelt, hanging his head off over the edge of the bridge. “Remind me to add a roof to these bridges,” he choked out between wretches. Kat just shook her head. “You can’t possibly be that queasy after a little drop like that.” She said, sighing. He glared up at her for a moment before gagging and hanging his head back off the edge. “Hate heights. Why do you think I went deeper in that damn cave?”

“You know what, that actually makes a bit of sense.” She walked over, patting his back and rubbing it gently. “You could have just told me you were afraid.”

“Why would the great and powerful General be afraid of heights? This never happened, by the way.” He finally righted himself, scrambling to his feet- right in time to see Merrilyn’s smug grin. She loomed behind Kat, leaning on the now-open security door’s heavy frame. Kat followed his eyes and whipped around.

“Can you not do that?”

“Hah!” Gen chimed in, “Now you know how I feel.”

Merrilyn just enjoyed the little victory. She was a master of surprise, someone who spent years honing her craft. Something as simple as quietly appearing behind some kids was easy as pie, especially if they were ‘preoccupied’. “We’ve been waiting,” she lilted, spicing up the simple phrase with dramatic inflections natural enough to make most stage personalities jealous.

Gen wasn’t amused. He just rose one eyebrow. Why, of all possible ‘people to be’ at a given moment, had she chosen this one? It didn’t seem very practical. He decided not to give it much thought. Merrilyn was at mercurial at best and chaotic at worst, and that was when she was just being Merrilyn. He decided to play along, bowing slightly as he passed her by. The Depot unfolded in front of him, and he took a moment to bask in its glory.

Everything was more or less where it was supposed to be. He rubbed his hands in glee as he looked from shelf to rack to box, enjoying each toy he could use and abuse against the new threat- given the opportunity, at least. This would be their first expedition, after all. That made him nervous- it was quite likely that both sides would be entirely deprived of external mana, or at least of sizeable quantities of it. Then again, they didn’t really get how that stuff worked, and none of the city’s residents had a real answer. The Goblins simply didn’t need or use magic, and Ayala had never precisely gone on excursions into the wild.

The Conduit was milling about, intent on the various objects in the facility. Gen cleared his throat and she whipped around. “Are you insane?” She asked, incredulous.

Gen shrugged. “Whatever could you mean?”

“Half of this stuff is explosive. The other half is… Isn’t this breaking all sorts of unspoken rules? Even the voices were groaning about ‘their immersion breaking’, or something along those lines.”

“There are no rules where the fate of humanity is concerned, and wait what, the voices haven’t gone away yet?” He had been prepared to go one a particularly salient rant about survival and ruthless determination, but it occurred to him that the Conduit had only had it ‘open’ for a little while last time.

The girl just hung her head at that. “They won’t shut up, especially now that they’ve got their hearing back. That’s really not the point, though.”

Gen put a hand to his chin, pondering. “I guess you’re right. It just doesn’t bode well, at least compared to the past. Also, hello ‘voices’, how are you doing? This isn’t a British-style coat, by the way. I had it fashioned after the-”

“Don’t antagonize them, man.” The Conduit groaned. “They’ve been obnoxious enough.”

He started to speak, but the nameless girl threw a hand out. “Wait a moment,” she said. Kat and Merrilyn finally filed into the room, noticing the apparent tension. She froze in a just slightly strange posture, as though she had been dropped into a game of red light green light. The great and majestic performer Merrilyn, not to be outdone, managed to posture herself practically in midair, balanced only on one heel. Finally, the Conduit seemed to be satisfied. She slowly lowered her arm, and the silliness coefficient of the room’s atmosphere dropped at least 20%, Merrilyn and Kat alike assuming a proper standing position as though nothing had ever happened.

“You killed them,” she said, to which Gen cocked an eyebrow.

“The moment you addressed them properly, the voices cut out,” she explained. “Man, this power’s dumb. Maybe quantum teleportation or whatever isn’t so bad.”

Kat nodded vigorously. “The things I could do with teleportation,” she said.

Gen coughed. “I guess we learned something, at least. More importantly, we should be getting a few more visitors right about now,” he said.

One of the few virtually empty walls suddenly began to turn, façade falling away. The newly revealed tunnel had two occupants who promptly stumbled out of the dark- Jim and James, who they had last seen flying off towards the ‘Boom Room’. Jim panted, exhausted from flying one way and running another. “You could have told me that they weren’t that way.”

“Yeah, but you flew off before I could get to it,” Gen retorted. Jim didn’t object, still catching his breath. He frowned, looking around. “So, where are they?” He looked from side to side, still too out of breath to turn around and reveal the treasure trove behind him. James had no such affliction. He whirled around and gasped. “Mother of God,” he said, patting Jim’s shoulders and pointing. Jim finally pulled himself around, and he nearly fainted when he saw what was on the walls behind him.

Guns. Lots and lots of guns. Enough for a small army. Sure, they weren’t the fancy kind they had grown to know and love, but there were still enough weapons to make Jim almost faint. Thin metal tubes enshrined in carefully polished local wood. Carefully crafted trigger mechanisms and sights. Magazine slots. Boxes and boxes of virtually identical magazines that lined shelves wherever the place wasn’t loaded to the brim with explosives. Sleek, carefully proportioned ‘carbine’ molds. Jim just gawked, basking in the glow of reuniting with something he had missed quite dearly missed.

“You guys have been away for a good while. The first batch of Saltpeter came before you guys even left. Sure, we call it the ‘Boom Room’, but besides housing Merrilyn’s Chemistry playground, it was primary constructed as a Nitrary.” Gen explained. “Charcoaling took a while, and sulfur was dumb luck. We’re suffering for resources, sure, but the moment we hit Pyrite, I knew it was time to work on establishing a bigger foundry.”

Jim didn’t seem to actually be listening. He was just rubbing his face on the stock of one of the hanging weapons, lost to the world. James shook his head, sighing. “Have you told any of the other gun-nuts?” He asked. Gen nodded. “To a degree. I’ve kept this on the down low, but I sure as hell didn’t know how to design a M1.”

Jim snapped to attention at that. “This is an M1?” he asked, entirely too excited for a ‘detached from the world’ monk. Gen pondered that for moment, distractedly answering him. “Yes, why?”

Jim was giddy. “That’s, like, vintage. The first human-made guns in the New World and they’re M1’s! We skipped so many, though…”

Gen shrugged. “Practicality comes first sorry. I don’t have time to waste climbing up the tree to modern weaponry. I will admit I’d quite like to handle a fully-functional Modèle 1777, but it simply can’t be done, at least for now.”

The two of them looked at each-other more closely, perhaps really appraising their ‘enemy’ for the first time. Almost in unison, they strode to the middle of the room put their hands on the other’s shoulders. “When this is all said and done, we’re bringing it all back,” Gen said. Jim nodded, resolve burning in his eyes. “Damn right. Won’t even have to deal with licensing,” he growled. Kat and James exchanged glances of their own, a general feeling of resignation floating through the air- just one weapon-fiend was a handful, sure, but two was a small army. Merrilyn just sort of milled about, apparently mulling over how to interrupt the scene in a grandiose enough way, while the Conduit seemed to be hoping for a quick escape before people started waving around guns in a warehouse full of bombs.

The two nodded, content, and Gen seemed to regain a bit of his composure. “Humph, all that aside… I haven’t allowed the rest in here. Ayala and company may have some guesses, but as it stands, this trove is ours, and ours alone.”

Indeed, engraved into every stock was the simplistic Latin phrase “Umbra de Praeteritum”, or ‘Shadow of the Past’. It was a tad dramatic, but if Gen was going to be setting a trend, he needed to be at least that certain it would have an impact. Guns had been integral in the death of thousands and millions alike, but now more than ever, they were necessary.

Their entire group assembled a natural sort of line, staring at the wall of weaponry. Their faces were a range of emotion- apathy and excitement, dread and anticipation, fear and bravado, but in the end, they could all feel the sand trickling down in the hourglass. It wasn’t a matter of if the carbines were necessary, even, but when. They were dealing with enemies they had never encountered, of the sort that would never stop coming. Eventually, all of their moods settled into something like melancholy.

“I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do,” Kat said.

“What do you mean?” Gen asked, but really, he knew. They were about to run off to go have peace talks, armed to the teeth and ready to fight. Hell, he was actually almost hoping for that outcome.

Kat couldn’t really explain, though. The longer she looked at that wall, at all those faux-Carbines, at how out of place they looked in this other world, the more her stomach tied itself into knots. She just shrugged halfheartedly, letting the question hang dead in the air. The air grew more and more tense, the group subsuming back into an uncomfortable stand-off with the weaponry, until finally, Gen stepped forward.

He gently lifted one rifle, pushing it up and off the hitch it had been mounted on. He drew it closer, resting the barrel on his shoulder, and let it hang, perching the gun like a soldier on parade. He fixed his posture, fluttered his coat, and whirled around, channeling as much enthusiasm and insistence as he could muster. “What are you waiting for?” He asked, “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Slowly, they each nodded, retrieving a rifle of their own. Even the nameless girl, though she seemed squeamish at the thought. After some deliberation and a little bit of meandering, they finally left the Depot, carefully shutting it behind them. They marched, six people with six guns, each tromping their way across the bridge. Jim and Gen dragged along a huge box of cartridges and magazines behind them, but the bridge hung motionless, hardly swaying under their weight, and not at all swaying from the wind. Short of Kat’s intervention, it was quite difficult to get any sizeable gusts into the chasm, after all. They were greeted at the other side by Netya. He had been in one of the new huts constructed on Alcatraz, one of several guard posts meant to overlook the Depot rather than the prison itself.

He looked them up and down quizzically. “What are those?”

Gen winked at the man. “You’ll find out soon enough. We’re going down,” he said. The guardsman nodded, running to prepare an elevator. Naturally, this was not the obtuse, dwarf-made elevators they had seen when they arrived, but a simpler traction elevator making use of crank-driven chains that would allow the elevators to descend. It had been a huge pain in the ass to get them functional, but it was the only safe way onto or off of the hanging island now since the bridges were gone. Sure, Kat could bring him to the floor “safely”, but he doubted she could get the ammunition down.

Hauling was boring, dirty work. Descending deeper into a pit, dragging the load back up the ramps, so on and so forth. They had fair few diversions as they moved, the others pitching in on pulling along the ammo-box simply because they were that bored. They passed fair few residents, none human, which made the trip even more grueling. Diversions and helpful hands would have at least made the trip a bit more bearable. They finished the last stretch, on the grassy plains of the Fort’s sector at least.

Contrary to the abyss, the Fort was chock-full of activity. Goblins popped in and out of the tall grace, hunting a group of humans who tried to keep them at bay. Gomen and Rebels formed ranks and sparred. Groups of people wearing the city’s standard squared off with those who didn’t, exchanging greetings, banter, and tears alike. After all, quite a few of the Rebels had left behind friends or family. Normally, Gen would have complained about the fact they had ditched training to chat, but he wasn’t that insensitive. In any case, the groups were broadly preoccupied, so it wasn’t until they had dragged the box nearly half way to the fort that they were properly noticed. The moment any one individual in particular noticed them, though, they stopped to stare. It was a war of attrition- a sparring partner got distracted and froze, so the other looked to see what they were caught by, only to freeze themselves. People chatting notice someone wide-eyed and gawking, so they hope to see what was so interesting. Like that, practically the entire army was staring, or at least trying to see what was going on.

Gen cleared his throat. “As demanded by the Rebels, we will be making overtures to reduce bloodshed,” he said, brandishing his gun and swinging it out for all to see. “As such, all humans will be required to arm themselves with one of these weapons.”

One man, an older gentleman from the rebel camp, asked what everyone seemed to be thinking. At least, what all the humans who knew precisely how deadly the weapon Gen was holding could be were thinking. “In what way does bringing guns to the fight reduce bloodshed?”

The General shrugged. “We die less, they die more. One volley of overwhelming force and everyone- except whoever dies from those shots- go home happy.”

The man opened and shut his mouth a few times like a guppy. Perhaps he hadn’t expected such an impressively shameless response. He grunted, falling back into the fold. Some others had shaken themselves out of their stupor, especially those of Gen’s camp, simply accepting the fact their little Tyrant had walked up with a bunch of guns. Madeline, on the other hand, spoke up.

“Why did you make guns at all?” She asked, incredulous. “The stakes are already high. Why are you escalating? What’s next, WMDs?”

Gen nodded, smiling. “Ideally, yes. We’ve got a lot of stuff to line up, and probably at least three new generations of New World children, but with any luck, we should have enough experts to get nuclear power- and bombs- online.”

She gave him her best glare, making sure to share that glare with James- who stood right next to Gen as he talked about bringing back Mutually Assured Destruction- and he promptly coughed and looked away, whistling.

The humans were generally resolved to what came next, but the Goblins and Gomen alike were left in the dark. Ayala was the third to find her way out of the crowd. “What are those things, then? Why are they so… on edge?” She asked, worry playing on her face. She had experienced firsthand the sorts of weapons of war Humans could create in the form of high explosives, after all. Gen grinned, properly harmless. “Set up some targets by the Fort, please.”

Ayala looked from him to the fort a few times, finally nodding, and the crowd in between their squad of six and the fort, terrified humans pitching in to drag their nonhuman compatriots out of the way. Ayala barely cleared the targets, standing off to the side. Gen could practically see her confusion from 200 yards. She gawked, looking between them and the targets, perhaps waiting for them to approach enough to get in range.

“Ready magazines,” Gen said, and so they did.

“Take aim,” Gen said, and so they did.

“Fire,” Gen said, and so they did.

The crack of gunfire rang across the grassy field, some black powder puffing from the fronts of their carbines. The smoke cleared fast, revealing the results of the first volley of Humankind’s most reliable weapon- the firearm- in the New World. Several of the six targets had gaping holes, straw and sticks torn and lightly singed by the shell, in particular that of Gen, Jim, and Merrilyn’s targets had been hit, with Jim and Merrilyn striking lethal spots with relative ease. Gen was barely off, and he scowled. The other bullets had impacted near, and in lieu of the straw, they chipped dents in the stone walls nearby. Ayala had tipped backwards, splayed across the ground, gawking up at the now-perforated targets she had been standing next to. She scrambled away, chest heaving.

“I will expect at least a minimum proficiency in shooting from each Human soldier,” he said. “For now, you can return to training in groups. We will begin unloading the firearms tomorrow.”

No one moved.