17 – Gearing Up to Kill a God

“Alright, let’s see it,” Erika said, eagerly rubbing her hands together.

Led by The Warrior, Simone and two minions Erika didn’t recognize lugged a heavy polymer crate into Varn’s, using a whole dolly to make moving it that much easier. It wasn’t until they started moving the crate to the countertop that Erika realized it was a quartet of crates all stacked on top of one another.

“One for each of ya,” The Warrior said, putting on the theatrics as she waved at the crates. “Each comes with a custom holster for easy carrying, undetectable by x-rays, ideal weapons for quick, discreet… interventions.”

She let the word hang, hands proud on her hips as she looked around the group. Nobody bit on the comment, but she savored it anyway.

Simone lifted the lid of the longest crate as The Warrior gestured for Leslie to approach. “For The Longshot, we have a Marlin carbine, chambered in .357. Easier to wield than a full-sized rifle while offering superior ergonomics.”

She pulled a long gun from the crate. Furnished with rich wood and black metal with a lever underneath, it looked like something out of an old western to Erika. The way Leslie’s eyes tracked it told her that he was more impressed than she was. The Warrior actuated the lever, demonstrated the empty loading gate on the side, then tossed it across.

Leslie caught it one-handed, immediately angling the barrel toward the floor and away from anyone. He worked the lever, checked the chamber, then checked again before he finally allowed himself a more thorough look at the weapon itself. “This an 1894?”

“Good eye. I am a fan of the classics, and with your moniker, it seemed fitting.” The Warrior pulled out three large boxes of ammo from the side of the crate, each with a streak of different colored paint on the sides. “Holds nine in the tube mag, plus one in the chamber. The ammo I have for you is my newly-dubbed marksman line. Red is your default—great stopping power. Green increases the effect of gravity on anyone hit, effectively restraining them nonlethally, though lethality increases should someone be hit more than once in rapid succession. Yellow are counter-undead bullets that allegedly work quite well against any of our masked friends,” she said with a wink.

Leslie flipped up the top, showing off a good four dozen bullets nestled in plastic. He plucked one out, rolling it between his fingers, testing its weight even as he examined the red tip. Erika had seen him handle ammunition before, but never with that particular expression. He wasn’t excited, but perhaps satisfied.

“Four boxes of red, two green, two yellow. Even with that much, I suggest focusing on priority targets, using other weapons and your allies to dispatch everything else.”

Leslie nodded, replacing the round in its box. He didn’t ask another question, which Erika suspected was a compliment.

The Warrior turned away, surveying Anna, Rick, Sofia, and Erika in turn. Her grin took on a sharper quality as she returned her gaze to the first of the line. “Now, given the adjustments made to your body—”

Anna’s jaw tightened. She stepped forward, arms crossed. Whatever The Warrior had been building toward in her pitch deflated slightly as she took on the dour expression on Anna’s face.

“—I was considering something utterly impractical, like a minigun or a punt gun, but a six foot long gun would be a little too impractical, and even with the catalyst, I could only enchant about twelve seconds worth of ammo a week for a minigun. Not to mention, I don’t know where to get a minigun.”

“I’m not…” Anna closed her eyes, shook her head, and sighed. “Thank you for your consideration.”

“Instead, I’ve got a SPAS-12 shotgun.”

Simone hefted it from the crate, and Erika’s first thought was that it looked like it meant business. It lacked that rustic feel of Leslie’s gun, made instead from metal and blocky black polymer. The Warrior took it from Simone, cleared it, and handed it over.

Anna took the shotgun cautiously, but as her grip settled, something clicked and she grew a little more certain. It was a bit oversized for her, not that it seemed to bother her as she racked the pump once, shouldered it, and aimed deeper into Varn’s.

“Watch the machines,” Rick hissed, looking tempted to move between her and his arcade.

Anna just shook her head, lowering the gun. Her frown hadn’t gone anywhere, but it shifted from reluctance to assessment.

“It works in both semi-auto and pump action modes, which is important. The dragon’s breath rounds—” The Warrior slid a large box of yellow shotgun shells out of the crate. “—do not recoil enough to work the semi-auto mechanisms, so you’ve got to pump it. The electroshot does cycle, however,” she said, adding a box of light-blue shells to the table.

“Electroshot?”

“Ever seen Star Wars?” The Warrior said, wiggling her fingers at Anna. “Unlimited Powah! That was my inspiration. Given the maggots and now the birds, The Strategist suggested one of you have the capability to clear large swaths of chaff. Congratulations, you’re in charge of that.”

“Right.” Anna glanced to Leslie, then back at the shotgun in her hands. “We can’t swap weapons?”

“I mean… I guess there isn’t anything stopping you… But The Strategist was the one who came up with your roles, so it might be wise to test them out before shrugging off his advice.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Rick said, edging forward like a child on Christmas morning. “Me next?”

Instead of opening one of the remaining crates, The Warrior opened her cardigan and pulled out a small box from a pocket sewn inside—padded, rectangular, and more flat than square, like the kind of box for a necklace or award. She held it out with a small smile that lacked the theatrics she had been maintaining thus far.

Rick’s eagerness dimmed as he took the box and opened it, quickly shifting to confusion. A large metal disc sat within the padding, covered in little blocks, arranged in a circle around the center of the disc. “A Gray code?” Rick said, apparently recognizing it.

“It is an upgrade to the talisman, sorry if it isn’t as flashy as the others—”

“No, no, this is…” Rick lightly ran his fingers over the surface of the disc and flinched. The cardboard tube on his back wiggled of its own accord, and for a split second, Rick looked like he wanted to throw the box and its disc across the room. But when The Warrior nodded at him, calm and steady, he pressed his hand to it with a little more force.

The tube remained still.

Something shifted in Rick’s face. The tension bled out, making him look less on-edge than Erika had ever seen. “I almost feel like I could leave the sword behind…”

“That would rather defeat the purpose, and leave you unarmed in the middle of combat.”

Rick’s brow furrowed. “I wouldn’t leave it behind if we were headed into combat, but like…” He looked down at the disc, turning it over. “The grocery store?”

Erika pursed her lips, tight and firm, biting down the urge to offer to break the curse again. She knew she could do it now, and without ill effects, but… Rick had chosen not to, back after waking up with The Castle. She wasn’t going to undermine his decision by bringing it up every time his sword came up.

After all this was over with, if it ever ended, she would offer again.

“As an added benefit, since you’ll likely be in the thick of things, it should nullify most of my enchantments.” The Warrior pointed at Anna’s shotgun with a grin. “Let me tell you, you don’t want to be in front of that thing without some help.”

“Most?” Rick repeated, relief replaced with wariness.

“Well, we’ll get to that.” The Warrior paused, turning to Sofia despite the latter’s attempt at turning invisible at the back of the group. “The Strategist wasn’t able to get a good read on you. Not enough data, according to him, but I think he was just being lazy. Since the other roles were already set, you get support!” She waited, grin on her face, looking at Sofia, expectant.

Sofia just stood there, shooting a glance to either side, looking for support from the other Hunters. None came. “Yay?”

“Yay indeed!” The Warrior said as Simone cracked open another crate.

Leslie’s eyes widened before Sofia’s did. “A grenade launcher?”

The weapon inside was large and tubular with an oddly shaped wooden stock.

“A grenade launcher is support?” Rick asked. “When you said that, I was thinking like… a healer in D&D or something.”

“What better way to support your team than by ensuring everything dies.” The Warrior laughed, picking the launcher up when Sofia made no move to. She ran her fingers over the tops of a large array of can-like grenades nestled in the crate. “Area denial tools, explosives, lingering gas clouds, and a whole plethora of other fun odds and ends. I normally think shotguns are a good balance between size and practicality, but things like this can just hold so much fun inside them. Might have to get one for myself.”

“I don’t know about this,” Sofia said, taking a step back from the crate. “It is a bit much, isn’t it? What’s wrong with a normal gun?”

The Warrior’s theatrics dropped for exactly one second. “Take it or I’ll take it. There are no backup weapons for picky fighters.”

Sofia looked at the launcher, then at The Warrior, then at Erika. Erika wasn’t sure why she was the next pick over Leslie or Anna, but she nodded toward the gun—no need to upset The Warrior by throwing her hard work in her face. Reluctantly, Sofia accepted it, holding it like a lit stick of dynamite.

Without wasting another word, The Warrior turned to Erika.

The shift in her demeanor remained. The Warrior offered no theatrics as she motioned for Simone to open the last crate. When she reached in, she didn’t present or show off, she simply pulled the massive gun out, cleared it herself, and held it out grip-first.

“Desert Eagle, .50 AE,” she said. “Iconic, fucking cool, and most importantly… large enough caliber to hold the big enchantments while still being a bullet.”

Erika closed her hand around the grip and near dropped it on her foot.

The peashooter from the pawn shop had been heavy, but not like this. The pistol was a solid lug of metal made for bodybuilders twice her size. It wasn’t actually heavy-heavy, and Erika worked out, so it wasn’t like she was struggling; the surprise of the weight still made her overcorrect, forcing her to cover the fumble by turning it over in her hands like she was inspecting it on purpose. “Big enchantments?”

“The Longshot is in charge of hard targets. You handle impossible targets.” She pulled out three individual bullets, no large boxes of bullets, each having been housed in their own slots in the foam. “This is all I’ve got so far, but they’re similar to the shells you fired at the ██████ of Maggots.”

“Three is more than enough for now,” Erika said, placing the gun back in the crate.

The Warrior gripped her wrist before she could pull away, gaze intense. “Be careful with them. It was a heat-of-the-moment bit at the ziggurat, but these things could well remove a significant chunk of the city if used in the right places. I doubt that ziggurat collapsed because of the creature.” She paused, adjusting her glasses with her free hand without releasing Erika’s wrist. “Combined with your abilities…”

Erika’s excitement whisked away off into the ether under the gravity of The Warrior’s stare. She licked her lips, nodding. “Understood.”

“Maybe you have some invincible safe to store them in?” Sofia asked, looking at Erika’s crate even more warily than she had been looking at her own. “You know… don’t want them falling in the wrong hands or whatever.”

“These bullets should be useless without this gun,” The Warrior said, pausing to consider. “Well, just don’t let anyone else touch them and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“How… reassuring,” Erika said slowly.

The Warrior offered no solutions, simply dusting off her hands like the problem wasn’t hers anymore. “That concludes our arsenal delivery. The Puppet thanks you for your purchase.”

“Purchase?” Rick said, eyes flicking from The Warrior to his talisman with a little suspicion like it might have been a double-edged sword.

“Well, I’ll accept a continuing work relationship,” she answered, turning to Erika. “There are other items like my new catalyst out in the world, all guarded and protected.”

“You could just say we’re friends, and friends help each other out.”

“If only the world worked that way—”

“We should be helping them,” Simone said, surprising not just Erika, but The Warrior as well. Face set in a heavy glower, she flicked her eyes up to The Warrior, challenging.

“I’m not giving away all this equipment for fun,” The Warrior said, again dropping most of her theatrical tone, giving Erika the impression that she would prefer conversations like this to not be so public.

“We should be doing more. Michael—”

“They’re working with The Eclipse,” The Warrior said in a tone of absolute neutrality. “Not the route I would have gone, personally, but I can’t deny that The Eclipse can put up the manpower to handle fights. If we show up, it is going to cause problems, so you’ll just have to settle with vicarious revenge.”

“But—”

“Does The Eclipse know Simone?” Erika asked. “If not, she could come with us…” Trailing off, Erika glanced to the others, wondering if she should have sought their input before blurting out suggestions like that. None of them looked like they objected, however.

The Warrior turned to Erika, visibly irritated, but said nothing as she regarded Simone with a calculating expression.

“I fought The Lust once and was involved in that mixup at the mall a few months back,” Simone said, back straight and gaze ahead, looking like she was some new recruit being dressed down by a superior officer. “I doubt I was prominent enough to be remembered in either case.”

The Warrior chewed on that for a long moment before sighing. “I’ll run it past The Strategist. If he clears it, I’ll gear her up.” She turned back to the group. “When was this operation taking place?”

Anna answered with an uncertain shrug. “They wanted us to report back as soon as we were ready, presumably to figure out what date works best.”

“Bureaucracy,” The Warrior scoffed. “I assume that means at least another week. Welp, guess I’ve got more work to do.” She snapped her fingers a few times, getting the other minions moving. As they dragged out the dolly, The Warrior turned. “I wish you all the best of luck with your murder of a god. Though, if you can bump one of The Eclipse off the side of that bridge on accident, I’d appreciate it.”

“We’ll… no,” Leslie said. “But thanks for the assistance.”

“If you get another lockbox you need broken, hit me up,” Erika said.

“Oh, I intend to.” With that, she departed—her crew packed up her battered van like they were arms dealers after finalizing a trade.

That left Erika and the rest of The Hunters sitting in Varn’s backroom.

Three bullets. Erika stared down at them, butterflies jaunting through her stomach. Each one was a potential city block erased. Clasping her hand into a fist made the bullets clink together—Erika winced, tense as she carefully replaced the bullets in the foam padding. The storage locker wasn’t going to cut it as a safe place. She would be keeping these on her person.

Leslie coughed the kind of attention-grabbing cough of someone with something to say.

Everyone else, looking over their new equipment as well, paused and looked at him, waiting.

“Clear your schedules for the week,” he said, looking around. “We’re all going out shooting, making sure everyone knows how to handle these weapons safely. We’ll test each round, make sure we know what they actually do, not just what The Warrior said they would do, and substitute standard ammunition for regular practice.”

“I think I’ll abstain,” Erika said, carefully picking up one of the black bullets. “Don’t want to vaporize half of Chicago.”

“I’ve got .50 AE rounds you can use instead,” Leslie said right away, like he expected her to object.

“What about me?” Sofia asked, hastily replacing the grenade launcher back in its crate. Erika was surprised she hadn’t done so earlier, but she had been looking at it just as intensely as Erika stared at the bullets. “No way you have grenade launcher bullets sitting around—”

“I think they’re grenades, not bullets,” Rick said.

“Dios… Whatever,” Sofia snipped back before glaring up at Leslie. “Do you even know how to use this thing?”

“I’m more familiar with a 203, but I’ve fired an M79 before. Several times, actually. Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“You were in the military?” Erika asked. She supposed she expected that, given everything she knew, but it still sounded off with how many anti-government conspiracy theories he had.

His eyebrows twitched like he was surprised she asked, but he slowly nodded. “Before my brother died. I’d… rather not discuss it.”

With a small grimace, Erika nodded, not pushing any further.

“As for ammunition… I know a guy who can get me dummy rounds.”

“Great.” Sofia stood, closing her crate. “Great. I… feel a little sick. I think I need some air.” Turning, she beat a hasty retreat, slamming the door behind her a little harder than necessary.

“Is she going to be alright?” Rick asked. “I mean, I’m nervous too. The ziggurat was a spur-of-the-moment emergency. Having more time to think about doing something like that again is giving me jitters.”

“It’s late,” Anna said. “We should all head home, get some rest, and be ready for whatever training montage Les has in mind.”

“Agreed.”