EPISODE 42: Zeta Danger and the Scruffy Stripper Man

                                    

                                          
The in-motion targets leaped and darted about like wooden training dummy ninjas around the arena, and the gunslinger blew holes right through them.
                          
Cornelius' chamber was one of the biggest rooms in Cruxhaven's bastion and was equipped with its own cell fashioned-up into a shooting range. The targets were wooden humanoids animated by Aethenius' magic stones, custom runites turning them into a bunch of elusive entities whose only purpose was to serve as Cornelius' greatest of pleasures: shooting shit up. Of course, his other passion was reading and studying exotic places, things, and creatures. But a gunslinger needed their trigger finger tended to, caressed of its itch, and his white 'target eye' Graticulis—and his self-taught Gunmakra arts (you saw this performed in Vekta; no need for an explanation here) needed a workout.
                          
He was one with the gun, and the gun was one with him.
                          
If the wooden targets could feel pain, they'd scream a high choir of agony as Dusk and Dawn released their stress and turned the dummies' limbs into fine splinters. It was like a hard rewind when those splinters reversed into legs, arms, and heads again. Cornelius aimed with his right target eye and fired Dusk into a torso, where the enchanted runite acted as the dummy's heart, and it shredded apart with the stone flying unscathed. In seconds, the dummy rebuilt itself around that stone, brand-spanking-new. It dashed, dipped, spun, and flipped. Cornelius capped more holes into it and all the others.
                          
One of the dummies must be high on the luck stat for it slipped up behind Cornelius, too close. So close that it could 'bop' the top of the gunslinger's broad hat with its rubber ball fists.
                          
BADOOM!
                          
Its luck must have horribly sucked.
                          
It felt like an ogre's sneeze behind Cornelius' back when a warm flash of light clapped like burly thunder cheeks and the woody mannequin obliterated into sawdust. The runite pebble that controlled it flew across the antechamber, bounced off the wall, and revived its body from the powdery timber bits.
                          
As the other test dummies fled with arms flailing like a bunch of frightened toons, a startled Cornelius had spun when the whole kaboom went down, and when the mannequin recovered, immobile on the floor, he whipped his head over at Wickels holding another one of his creations, the Brutus Buster-7. The blue-eyed me'ka was armored up like some furry, cyber-mech warrior and was tucked in the cut of the chamber, the busy corner where he had spent enough time tinkering that overgrown Omega-tech hand-cannon that shouted like a shotgun. Wickels carried it like an RPG, over his shoulder and gripping the clutch as it auto-cocked itself, flickered with light, and droned-up for another energy shot.
                          
And if he had aimed it closer to Cornelius, which almost happened, then his 'brother' would've turned into a memory.
                          
"Me'ka..." His super-relaxed voice came with a slow, refreshing sigh trumping the air like when one has gulped a tall glass of cool, freshly-squeezed lemonade. A big smile on his lips, Wickels managed the big gun to the floor and it shifted into a smaller frame. The armor support shed from him, reverting into a tactical harness with a core plate on his chest. "Yep! Calibrations up to snuff."
                          
Cornelius held a narrow smirk whilst he holstered the twins then palmed the top of his hat, reconfiguring its place from the slight shift applied from the force of Wickel's weapon. "Too close for my sake, don't you think?"
                          
Wickels tensely shifted his eyes about. "No...?"
                          
"Dat's not a question to be questioned with a question, little brother."
                          
Wickels flashed his golden brow and flicked a tall and fuzzy ear. Cornelius made his way over to where he squatted, the Me'ka was assessing the big gun and his tail squirmed high and relaxed over his back—happy signs. "Considering the extent separating you and the ballistics doll, a few more clicks and you would've been phantom dust for sure."