Kris:

  As they relocated to the firing range in the next room over, Kris studied her two weapons carefully for any mistakes in their construction. It took a monumental effort just to ensure her own excitement didn’t cause any steps to be skipped over.

  In the end, she found no issues with the overall designs, though she did wish a few of the harsher angles could be rounded off. Sadly, that wasn’t an option with how precise every factor of a mana catalyst had to be.

  Both weapons were similar, though Aria had a more streamlined barrel compared to the Requiem. Neither had the symmetry that made Mari’s Remera look so refined, but with the energy anyone with the right senses could feel from the weapons, they’d be no less intimidating.

  “So, what safety precautions do you have for us today?” Kris asked as she followed Mari to the far end of the range.

  The beauty in question was carrying the P90 in her left hand and some other firearm in her right. “I had a feeling we’d need something a bit insulated for testing anyway, so I set up some shielding and goggles in advance. Plus these.” She snagged a thick, long-sleeved thing from the wall hooks as they stopped behind a thick translucent plate of something akin to glass.

  Kris took in the setup carefully, then took the armored clothing after setting down the two catalyst weapons. “And here I thought you’d only try to get me to wear less.” She quipped with a smirk, enjoying how Mari’s cheeks reddened.

  She rolled her eyes as she slid the first sleeve on and wiggled her fingers in the gloves at the end. The entire piece of clothing was a shade of red that was entirely impossible to consider fashionable.

  “It’s for visibility. Just being overly cautious,” Mari filled in, seeing Kris frowning at the awful design.

  Kris sighed, but yanked her arm free and slid out of her school uniform’s robe. With only the white shirt beneath, she slid back into the safety jacket and let Mari zip the back together. When it was fully held in place, the armored plates covered the entire front of her body, and her arms were uncomfortably warm.

  Then Mari put the goggles on her, and Kris really started to frown. She felt like she was in a marshmallow suit or something. No good range of motion, no good ventilation, and zero fashion sense.

  “This is the last time I let you pick anything I wear.” Kris complained, already getting her hands on her Requiem and moving up to the shielded firing station.

  “Sure. Now, just make sure to keep the plate between your face and the gun when testing. Remember how I taught you to plant your feet and angle your body. I know your weapons don’t have kick, but it’s a good habit to keep up anyway.” Mari coached, already slipping into the other jacket behind her.

  Kris didn’t reply, but she centered her posture, planted her feet, and aimed down the sights of the gun.

  Requiem still only had basic iron sights. A valley atop the ammunition charge counter that lined up with a pin at the tip of the barrel. Everything up to that point was fine, so she paused and looked at the controls for her lane of the range, pressing a button for the twenty-five meter distance.

  A single round target slid along the ceiling track from the left wall, hanging from a pair of metal rods on either side.

  Kris aimed, checked her stance over again before centering the pin on the middle of the target, then gently pulled the trigger back, paying close attention to how her aim shifted under the pressure of her finger against the mechanism.

  Practice, she mentally noted.

  Then the target was ripped from the ceiling.

  Kris frowned, lowering her gun.

  [Catalyst Status: Nominal, 0 Spare Cores]

  [Core Depletion: 10%]

  There was a matching ninety percent on the gun itself, but that wasn’t why she frowned. That part was actually a good sign for her calculations.

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  The issue was how the target hadn’t survived the shot.

  “Safeties on!” Mari shouted.

  That was when Kris realized she’d not even registered Mari putting ear protection on her head.

  “Go check!” Mari shouted again, barely cutting through the muffling.

  Kris set Requiem down and stepped between the two lanes, walking across the range and inspecting the target where it had fallen five meters past the hanging clamps. The target itself was dented just above the center, and the back of the metal plate was tinted blue.

  “That explains it.” Kris muttered. The targets were treated to be impact resistant, using similar chemicals to what treated the stone that the whole city was made from. The clamps that held the target were similarly reinforced, but the removable nature of the metal discs meant a weak point. The force of the shot pulled the plate out… after bending it.

  “No wonder your gun poked holes in the behemoths.” Mari noted as she plucked the muffs off Kris’ head. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of something damaging that alloy quite this way before.”

  “If cold enough, the metal itself can break, even with the chemical treatments we use. Bending it? The entire notion is absurd.” Kris sighed, having severely underestimated the force in her predictions. She had to go back to that calculation later.

  “How much mass would you even need to generate the amount of gravitational force needed to replicate that?”

  Kris actually considered the question for a moment before tilting her head back and forth in a noncommittal gesture. “Around the mass at the core of a small planetoid, I think. The only question is ‘which planetoid?’”

  Mari grimaced, and Kris smirked at the expression. Mari was cute when she was being so deep in thought.

  “What about the other one?” The raven-haired girl inquired.

  Kris grinned in excitement. “Let’s get another target set up.”

  That part proved incredibly fast. The clamps were tightened down with simple mechanisms, making loosening them to insert a new target easy. Once finished, the pair moved back to the firing stations and Kris transferred the power core from Requiem to Aria, ensuring the same cores fit both weapons smoothly.

  Meanwhile, Mari was bringing in a wide range of weapons she had crafted, lining them up before getting her own protective gear on, though Kris didn’t miss the face protection added to Mari’s version.

  “What’s up with all the extra layers?”

  Mari gave a so-so gesture as she inspected a few of the firearms. “They use explosions to propel the bullets. If one misfires in my face? Sorry, but I rather like my skin how it is right now.”

  Kris shivered, feeling a wave of concern. “Yeah. In fact, maybe wear both of these coat thingies?”

  That prompted a laugh, but Mari shook her head after a few moments.

  “How would I move the trigger?”

  “I’m not sure I want you to if that’s the kind of humor these prompt from you.”

  “I’m sorry. That was in poor taste. I’ll be careful, I promise.” Mari slid in to give a gentle side-hug, made less enjoyable by the layered body armor they both wore.

  Kris sighed, but let the issue go, stepping up and aiming Aria down range.

  As before, she sighted through the irons, then lined up the target and double-checked every aspect of her posture and grip for mistakes. After that mental checklist, she focused on her aim, then pulled the trigger, which barely moved at all before a loud note rang out from down the range.

  “Oh. F sharp.” Kris grimaced, reaching for the hearing protection she had failed to put back on.

  Indeed, the weapon had gone off and rang out with a high pitch noise that filled the entire room. The noise wasn’t quite the intended effect she’d wanted, but peering down the range solved the mystery of the source quite soundly—pun, unfortunately, intended.

  The target was no longer hanging from the ceiling. In fact, the arms that held the target were also mangled. Yes, mangled. The entire target had crumpled into a useless chunk of metallic mass on the ground with the remains of the arms looking like twisted antennae sticking out. The noise had been from the metal being crushed.

  “And that was…?” Mari inquired, a wry expression in her eyes behind the goggles.

  Kris tilted the catalyst slightly, then ejected the octagonal prism from the top of the construction. “This is the prism the weapon uses to project the effect of. Eight rhombus-shaped sides created an eight-direction gravity well centered a distance beyond the impact location. Anything in those eight directions get drawn into the center point, not including gases.

  Mari stood stock-still, looking at the prism in something near to abject horror. “That would do horrible things if it hit a person.”

  “Or it could kill a Lizabear in one shot.” She supplied instead.

  Mari looked over at her array of very normal Earth-style firearms.

  “These suddenly feel a bit anticlimactic by comparison.”

  On one hand, Kris wanted to console Mari. On the other hand… she felt smug at her own successful testing. Until she looked closer at her HUD element for the weapon.

  [Catalyst Status: Nominal, 0 Spare Cores]

  [Core Depletion: 38%]

  “On second thought, I may need to make some adjustments. Three shots per sphere is pretty inefficient.”

  With that, Kris got back to work redesigning the etched runes on her catalyst, while Mari ran through some test-firing procedures with the various weapons she had created.

  When she headed into the lab to begin the refit on her gun, though…

  Something in the firing range suddenly exploded.

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