"Ooh! Ooh! I wanna go first!" Qing Yue said excitedly, raising her hand.

"Sure, little miss. What kind of gun do ya want?"

"Hm...something to match with Big Brother Xuan Kai!" Qing Yue replied after some thought. "Y'know, one of those...uh...hand cannons!"

"Whew, okay, little girl, but I don't think ya can handle the recoil like he can," he man said, frowning. But, although reluctant, he still grabbed a hand cannon off the wall, the one that had been placed right next to mine. He then handed the gun to Qing Yue, and circled back around the counter to find the Mana Projectile Compactor for this model.

Qing Yue's eyes shone in excitement as she spun around, aiming at non-existent enemies and pretending to shoot them down one by one. Honestly, the gun's appearance fitted her pretty well, just like mine did with me. It was mainly white, with pink designs. Since Qing Yue was wearing mainly white (and had white hair), it looked nice with her. Other than the colors, the gun seemed to be identical to mine, including the icon on the chamber and grip, so I had to ask.

"That gun you gave Qing Yue...does it have some sort of relationship with the one you gave me?" I asked. "They seem pretty...similar."

"Oh yeah," the man replied as he unpackaged a cardboard box containing the MPC for this model. "She said she wanted to match with ya, no? These two guns were crafted with the concept of light and dark in mind. Yours is the dark one, and hers is obviously the light. The idea is that everywhere there is light, there is also darkness. The two concepts are inseparable - on the surface, they may seem like total opposites and nemeses, but in reality, they are just two peas in the same pod."

"Heh....two peas in a pod...just like brother and sister, hehe~" Qing Yue giggled, diving into my arms.

"W-Woah, careful...that might not have bullets in it, but still," I reminded her.

"Alright, stop huggin' each other in front of my face, and come test out the recoil, would ya?" the man said, slightly annoyed.

Qing Yue reluctantly let go of me and repeated the same process as me - taking out the syringe (or rather, the MPC) and stabbing it into her wrist. She was slightly afraid at first, but after a while made up her mind. She seemed a bit surprised that it didn't hurt at all, like I was when I first did this as well. After a few seconds, she pushed down on the other end of the syringe, and a single bullet was revealed. After seeing how I loaded my gun, she knew by now, so she just did the same thing I did, and re-latched the chamber.

Then, taking aim at the same target dummy I had used, she closed one eye, and with an unusually serious expression on her face, fired. Surprisingly, her body remained firm, not kicked back by the recoil or anything. In fact, even her hand didn't budge an inch.

"Whew..." the man whistled. "That's one talented companion you got there, boy. I must admit, I underestimated ya, little girl. Ya got a knack for guns. Embrace it."

Qing Yue nodded happily, breaking the serious expression she had moments ago. "Yep, I will!"

"Alright...now then, onto the nex-" the man continued, but I stopped him.

"One sec. Before that...do these guns have names, or anything like that?"

"Names...? Uh, do ya mean model names? Sure they do," the man said. "But hey, any good gunslinger has their own name for their trusty companion. So I suggest you come up with one too."

"Coming up with my own name, huh..." I muttered.

Well...through various experiences, I've come to the conclusion that I absolutely suck ass at creating names. But...I'll give it a shot.

"How about...the Ace of Hearts?" I said, looking around for feedback. "I mean, the red on this thing represents hearts, and Ace sounds cool, so..."

"Hm...that's kinda long, if you ask me," Feng Mian replied thoughtfully. "Something shorter, maybe..."

"Then how about just Ace?" Yu An Yan suggested. "It's short and easy to remember."

"Ace, huh..." I looked down at the black weapon in my hands, shining an ominous bloody red, and I grinned. "I like it."

"Ace...okay! Then I'll name mine Queen," Qing Yue replied with a smile.

Ace and Queen, huh...pretty fitting, I suppose.

"Alright, I like those names," the man said with a laugh. "Nice and short. Now, as for the rest of you...let's get you guys some weapons too."

*****

In the end, after a good hour, everyone had received a gun.

Feng Mian got twin pistols, which were a rare type of dual-wielding weapon. She ended up naming them Gemini.

Yu An Yan got an SMG, which fit her I guess since she likes to be the one rushing in. A submachine gun would accommodate that well. She named hers Pyro, to match her fire elemental affinity and her Divine Weapon, the Axe of Fire.

Yu An Xue got a nice pulse rifle, the type that shot in 3-round bursts. It had good range, so she could just stay back and focus on landing her shots - almost like a sniper. She named this weapon Oculus, which meant something related to eyes, if I remember correctly...

Speaking of snipers, Obsidia got herself a full on sniper rifle. It was mainly black, but faded into white near the muzzle. She decided to call this The Whisper...whispering the melancholy melody of death into her victims' ears.

Xiang Peng got a classic auto rifle, which was a little bit of everything. Moderate range, moderate power, and moderate stability. When she told the gunsmith her requirements, the gunsmith had originally suggested just giving her a hand cannon as well, but she said she wanted an automatic weapon, resulting in the auto rifle she received in the end.

Its name? Harbinger.

She claimed the 'of death' part was omitted for the sake of convenience.

Lan Xiao Su, after some great convincing, finally picked out a gun for herself - a weak pistol...one that could immobilize people, but not enough to kill. She said she couldn't handle any other gun, so we just settled with giving her the weakest model there was.

Well...some day, she's going to have to get used to killing. At the rate things are going...we just keep heading into deeper and deeper danger.

The name she chose for her pistol was just simply 'Nine', which I guessed was a reference to her stage name - Su Ning. Of course, the other girls didn't know about this identity of hers, since she always had that veil on, even when sleeping and eating. For the record, when she ate, she just lifted the veil up slightly to bring the food in her mouth. And even then, she would block our sight with something else instead - for example, her arm. The other girls always questioned this, but Lan Xiao Su just brushed it off with 'I have scars', and the girls left her alone.

Flaria ended up without a weapon, since I was too afraid to give her one. She was still too immature to handle such a dangerous object, and with her mental capacity of a five year old, I wasn't about to risk it. She could pout all she want, but I wasn't giving in.

Lastly, Mei Gui got something different from the rest of us - an energy sword that could both fire long-distance crescent-shaped energy blasts, and be wielded just like a normal blade. The gunsmith told us these swords are rare because they are extremely difficult to control. However, they are undeniably powerful. Mei Gui said she would for sure be able to master this, so we agreed to give her this weapon. She named it Infinity, which represented infinite potential.

And with this, all of us had received a gun of our own. We were ready to set out on our mission to pay back the gunsmith. Flaria, as decided beforehand, stayed behind as insurance to make sure we come back. The gunsmith also gave us some ammo reserve packs for free, since we didn't have time to sit around and make our own ammo, especially for some guns like Xiang Peng's auto rifle, which ate bullets pretty damn hard.

"Alright. Before ya leave, take these. I'll keep in touch with ya through these," the gunsmith said, handing over a couple of earpieces - nine in total, one for each of us. We each took one, and placed them in our ear. The gunsmith then put in his own earpiece, and pulled out something else from the drawer of the counter - a piece of paper. More specifically, a map.

"Now, look. I've marked the location of their den on here. See this red X? That's it," the man said, pointing at a red symbol on the map. Then, sliding his finger over upwards, he tapped the map. "That's the entrance of The Fortress. Where ya came in."

Sliding his finger once more, he eventually landed on a spot near the middle of the map. "And this, is where this place is. So in order to get to the nest..."

"We gotta go south, huh..." I muttered. "Got it."

"Alright. Good luck," the man said, waving us off.

I turned around, and the girls did the same. We exited the shop, and with our newly obtained weapons, began our first mission in The Fortress.