Kain held the recently-cleaned deer skull in his hands and questioned Luna. [Are you sure you want me to make something out of this? It just seems like an odd artistic choice is all.] Kain held the skull out to her, making its hollow voids stare at her.

Luna gave a questioning expression that was somewhere between confusion and annoyance. [I don’t know what the problem is.] She said, her voice a tone less chipper than it usually was. [Using a skull would save time and resources, make use of what we wouldn’t use otherwise, and look cute while doing it!] She yelled to emphasize her point. She was desperately trying to hide her annoyance at the continued back and forth between her and her older brother. After they had finished the cloak, which replaced the violet-blue poncho, he had been trying to convince her not to use the skull of the deer in her new weapon. She had been countering his attempts with, what she considered, very reasonable advantages. Due to this, they had been going back and forth for nearly an hour, using circular logic that never got to the point. [Why are you so adamant that we not use it? You had the skull of a green ape as your shoulder pad for a while, so why can’t I make my weapon out of the skull?] She demanded, trying to end the game once and for all.

He gave a sigh and looked into her eyes from across the dying fire that was used for their late breakfast. Since she wanted to finish the conversation, he decided that he may as well give his reasoning. [Look… I am only saying this because it’s my opinion, but I think that using a skull is a bit edgy. Also, the reason why I used the skull of the green ape was because I had no other option. And before you say that I said you could use it last night… I was a bit tired and didn’t really think about it too much then.] He confessed.

[... What does edgy mean?] Luna asked, baffled. It was a word that she thought she could understand based on the etymology, but nothing about the skull had anything to do with edges. If anything it was more pointy than edgy.

Kain looked at her, surprise showing for a moment before it devolved into laughter. [Sorry, sorry.] He managed to mutter between fits of laughter. [I forgot that you don’t really get what is considered normal or weird in a design case.] He finally stopped laughing, but he still retained his amused grin. [Edgy, if I were to talk about it in a technical sense, means that something expresses an idea that is new, different, or otherwise on the edge of a society’s norms.] He lectured. [Though, people now really use it to mean someone who’s a… I don’t know, like a goth or a loner. Bottom line, if you asked a random person from my world, the odds would be in your favor that they would think that a skull is edgy.] He finally answered.

Luna almost let her annoyance turn to anger and was about to snap at Kain when she stopped herself, trying to calm down. She did not want to take out her aggression on him for what she thought was his concern for her, despite the fact that she had no clue as to how it would help her. [Okay, I get how it would be edgy if it were by that definition -I am going to ask about what a goth is later- but what does being edgy have to do with making the weapon?] She pressed.

[Well, if we find people here, somewhere out there…] He gestured theatrically to the exit of the cave. [Then we will have to try to blend in with them, or at least show that we aren’t bad people. And in that case, using skulls as part of weapons kinda defeats the point. Besides, the skull is really hard to hide on you, not to mention more brittle than metal, and I want you to be able to carry your own weapons so you aren’t defenseless if I’m not there.] He gave another amused smirk. [But you don’t even know what I’m making you yet, do you.] He laughed. He had simply told her that he had an idea for a weapon a couple of days prior, so she had no idea about what it could have been.

[It has to do with the hydrogen-oxygen explosives, right? You said you had the idea after we talked about them so I thought that would be the case.] He gave an encouraging smile and nodded. [So what, will the thing shoot explosions or something?]

He shook his head, keeping the smile on his face. [Do you know what is needed to make a weapon effective?] He asked.

[Umm… you need… a blade or something heavy?]

[That is one way to put it, but you’ve only seen things like swords, hammers and the like. Let me rephrase the question: what do you need to make an attack effective?] She thought for a while, but didn’t answer, unsure about her answer’s correctness. [You need mass and you need speed. Or acceleration. The second one is correct at a theoretical physics level, but in our case, both can work.] He took out a block of black metal and shaped it with an increased efficiency compared to his first attempts, making a flat warhammer head with a cavity in the backside. [My idea was this: because you can’t use your movement energy to make things go fast enough to cause any damage, and dropping things from really high up would be inefficient, you can use the power of an explosive blast to propel something forward with enough speed to cause some damage.] He pointed to the deer skull that was still next to Luna. [A skull has no chance of surviving that, so that’s why we can’t use it. How about this: I’ll coat the skull in a layer of black metal and make it so you can ride around on top of it.]

She pondered her options for a moment, looking at the warhammer head in Kain’s hands. [Fine, we can do that.] She finally said. [But! You have to make the skull durable, okay?] She demanded.

He gave a small chuckle at her antics. [Yeah, yeah, I get it. Now, help me make this hammer.] With that, they got to work. By asking Luna, he was able to get a general understanding of how the hydrogen-based explosion spell would work in practice, even going as far as to use it himself for the sake of understanding.

The work on the hammer was much less difficult than the work on the cloaks, as there were many fewer moving energy constructs involved. Kain only constructed three functions for the hammer, but each was powered by their own energy collection construct that funnelled energy directly into the metal of the hammer when not powering the other functions. It was obviously given a series of regulators that would prevent the hammer from exploding from energy overload. Apart from the energy collection, the hammer was able to, one, make use of multiple energy collectors to float using the anti-gravity concept, two, reinforce the blunt side of the hammer by using a limited energy shield, and three, collect moisture in the atmosphere to store hydrogen and oxygen. The third function was much more complicated in design, as it needed to protect the hammer from the blast, collect and contain the fuel for the blast, allow for the user to easily trigger the blast, recollect the gasses used for the blast, and do all of it with a large control scheme, as Luna was the one using it. Once they had tested it and learned that every function worked, albeit with a weaker blast and more difficult maneuvering than anticipated, they were able to call the project completed. [I really like it.] Luna remarked vacantly, making the hammer fly around the cave. It swerved left and right, up and down, made sharp turns, did flips, and used the blast to perform other quick movements.

Kain smiled in satisfaction. [I’m glad. At least you can now use something new to attack with instead of always relying on the wind attacks.] He sighed. [Well, I guess it’s time to mess with the skull; throw it over for me.] He said. Luna, still too focused on her new hammer, threw it over with a bit too much force, which resulted in it crashing into his chest and taking the air from his lungs. [Oww… be careful with it, it could kill someone.] He mumbled, not that Luna paid any attention. Kain gave an amused sigh and began by grabbing a block of metal. He wrapped the metal around the skull and performed the arduous work of coating each and every nook and cranny in black metal. In doing so, the coating became thin and made the skull look as if its bones had turned black.

Once he had completed metal coating, he dragged Luna from her new toy and got to work making the energy constructs of the skull. Luckily, the antlers of the skull had a large energy capacity -not as much as the rose-red metal, but large nonetheless- and therefore was able to take most of the work out of Luna’s hands. The skull was, by the end, given a large energy collection construct from which Luna could pull energy at any time, anti-gravity constructs, and movement constructs that were large enough for Luna to use. [Well… I don’t know how you can call that ‘cute’, but I hope you like it.] Luna gave a happy nod, and began to play with both the skull and the hammer at the same time. Next to him, he saw her shield being propped up against the wall. Kain shook his head. “Yeah, no, that’s a problem for tomorrow. Or at least whatever ‘tomorrow’ is.” He simply looked on as Luna played with the hammer and the skull with a smile on his face. ‘Well, I guess I should ponder about what kind of weapon I’m going to use.’