Desperate Measures (L)

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So one night I was going over Arknight's firearms lore and was surprised to know that apparently, crossbows are somewhat stronger than guns in most situations on Terra. I'll explain more.

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All of us jumped off from our transports as they slid into the flames. The van and motorcycle erupted sending uncomfortable blasts into my ear. I was unfortunate enough to get poked in the back by Deevy with her horns unintentionally but now I'm the one closest to the explosion with my eardrums nearly ruptured, not to mention the poison dagger wound from Vierren made my body heat up and the bloody gunshot into my shoulder still hurts. The fire was only adding up to my rising body temperature and I couldn't stand up until Exusiai offered me a hand.

"Still breathing?"

"So much for the escape..." Even up close, her face was still made up of dots and circles. I couldn't see anything clearly at all. "Where's the bag? Is it fine? I swear to god if w-"

She pointed at my stomach. The black bag was still intact. Just a few blood wounds here and there, all from yours truly. The angel raised an eyebrow while assisting me to walk to the nearest street the girls were in. I knew what she was going to say.

"Why are you so concerned about the bag? We can lose it once in a while, we'll find it back anyways."

A pissed off me responded by enlarging my pupils and snapping at her, "If I'm risking my life for something, it better still be intact and not broken into pieces." To the energetic Sankta, it wasn't rare to see the boss say "Protect the package with your life". But this wasn't a really important package. Penguin Logistics went with me on this after I requested so with the LGD and a promise of not needing to repay property damage bills for two months from them. Only Deevy, them and I knew about the contents of the bag and how important it was to end this organization. 

It was well worth risking it.

She looked like she wanted to ask something else with her mouth wide open, but then cut off her own thoughts and finished carrying me to the dim streets.

The yellow-haired Sarkaz rushed to my shoulders concerned about my safety. "Are you alright? Where did you get hit?" She raised up the sleeve of my black hoodie to reveal the bleeding somewhat large hole with the shape of a dagger. I couldn't feel anything from my arm and the exhaustion from keeping up with Vierren's attacks was getting to me. 

"You're sweating hard."

"Thank you Miss obvious. At least this isn't as painful as your horns nearly piercing through my flesh earlier."

She frowned at that comment and put pressure on my shoulder, which resided the bullet. 

"Ow ow ow! Ok! Ok! I'm sorry!"

"We aren't that far from the meeting site. We'll get there by foot." Texas stated out. "Croissant, Bison, cover the rear. Sora, buff those two. Exusiai, cover me. Deevy, carry him around. He doesn't seem to be able to walk that much."

All of us nodded as we made our way around the corners. But due to our bad luck every turn we went to was a dead end. Eventually, the mafias caught up with us. We were held down with no way of escaping. 

The situation was dire and I clenched my teeth, thinking of a way to escape this. I'd have to use that. Right here, right now.

I closed my eyes recalling the bolt-action rifle blueprint I saw earlier in the warehouse. Extending my hands a blue aura hugged my hands, it slowly took shape as the weapon I needed for this experiment. Once the basic rifle was done I reached into Exusiai's pockets and stole a rubber bullet. 

Taking cover behind Croissant and Bison's shield on this narrow street corner I pulled the bolt and then inserted the rubber bullet into the bolt action rifle. Pushing the bolt back into its place I took a deep breath to what I'm about to do. Shutting off every noisy sound from my world, I began the process.

"Dominus illuminatio mea. Dominus fortitudo nostra. Domine dirige nos et animas perditas. Tu autem Domine miserere nobis." Even without taking a look, I could see the confused faces of our defenders and Deevy.

The tip of the bolt action formed a magic symbol and it grew larger and larger. 

"Texas, get back!" I exclaimed out to the vanguard currently punching mafiosos to unconsciousness. She took notice of my words and jumped over the two defenders in front of us. Exusiai looked over to my rifle, smirked a bit then stopped firing. 

I stood up in front of the charging murderers, not even bothering to aim behind our shields. Standing upright I aimed at the crowd armed with guns, swords and knives. 

 "DEO VOLENTE." 

The bullet, or perhaps I should say laser, fired through the air. It erupted a noise similar to a race car being completely stopped at high speed. What followed after was painful screams from both the crowd and my arms as I was launched back to the vines of pipes at the end of our defence corner. The entire rifle split into pieces, expected from a prototype.

I recoiled onto the floor as blood came out of my mouth. The force was too much for someone to handle, less so for an exhausted and wounded person. 

My vision faded to black.

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One is due to the high arts proficiency needed to operate a gun. Most people can't use it unless you're a Sankta, a Sarkaz, or just built differently. Two is due to the way it's operated. Let's pretend Sesa doesn't exist at the moment because he fucks up the firearm lore big time.

You see gunpowder doesn't exist on Terra. Instead, people use small little bits of originium. 

The user detonates the bits of originium inside and propels the bullet forward

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The user detonates the bits of originium inside and propels the bullet forward. Think of the gun as a wand and the trigger as a way to trigger the detonation of the originium. The reason why crossbows are better is that they don't require any arts to use and the arrow can be charged up with arts.

Guns can't.

Here's where pandora's box opens. What happens if you overcharge the originium bits?

This entire short is me attempting to answer it with my own interpretations.

In case you were wondering, this is the same laser shot from Survival's chapter 2. The sniper used the same principle, although with a heavily modified sniper rifle and possibly arm enhancements.

The translation for the Latin sentence would be, "The Lord is my light. The Lord is our strength. O lord, guide us and these lost souls. But Thou, O lord, have mercy upon us."

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