The house was in quite a lot of disrepair afterwards, taking Charles, Percy, Chris and Simon an entire day to clean up and make any temporary fixes. "Someone should come in next week for the bulk of the repairs." was what Simon had said in response to Charles' inquiry on how they would fix the major damages.

Electricity had gone out in large portions of the manor, leaving many halls illuminated by only the ambient lighting from the sun. This caused the mansion to inherit a yellow hue throughout the rooms, as if you had applied a stained filter over your eyes. Luckily, cloud coverage was low that day, allowing the halls to be bright enough for Charles to navigate to his office, opposite which was the hole which Harry had made during his dramatic entrance, now replaced by an oak wooden door. Apparently, a lot of the employees had a habit of making these "overly-zealous entrances", to the point where it was "standard procedure" to install a "provisional manhole" now, as stated by Hector himself. Charles’ office also had to have a cover installed due to his excessive violence on said exit, the cost of which had been deducted from his pay.

Charles’ office was not able to escape the destruction either, having suffered great damage in its organisation. Documents, filing cabinets and desks were kicked over from the aftermath of Harry’s combat. If only I had foreseen the possibility that we were going to have a full shootout, I would have put more thought into securing everything into position. Of course, hindsight had stung Charles quite badly but luckily did not deter him from taking into account that a grenade could go off in his office, which goes without saying, would not be beneficial to Charles’ work performance.

The autumn chill had a strong grip on the residence, breathing the cold afternoon air into Charles’ office whom was securing a filing cabinet onto the wall with Christoper’s borrowed tools when Aiden happened to walk in.

“How are the renovations going?”

“Hector allowed me to do this on the clock so overall, it's fine. Could be faster I guess.”

“That’s fair. Anyway, Sam’s got the armoury up and running again so you should probably take a gander down there some time.”

Charles paused: “Okay, two things, who is Sam and we have an armoury?”

“Well… where do you think we keep all our firearms?” Aiden replied. “In some random closet? Those things need maintenance, though looking at your background, you probably didn’t even know that.”

“Uh, sure. I’ll keep that in mind. Just phone Harry that I’m going to head for the armoury in half an hour for me. Thanks though.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Aiden chuckled a bit, and left with an “Alright.”

According to Harry, the armoury was located in the basement which was accessed through a small, stone staircase. The entrance had an old, oak door fitted securely into the frame, behind which was the dimly lit spiral downwards into the earth. Charles used his phone’s flashlight to provide additional aid for his vision, revealing the cracked, cobbled steps. Further down was another door, this time made of steel, which was operated via an electronic mechanism. Charles knocked on the sonorous surface twice, before taking a step back as the servos and motors within the contraption whirred in their places as the heavy door gave way to a contrasting room: it was a well lit room with glass displays on the borders, the backlights making the weapons on show seem to shine. The chamber shared the same aesthetic as the entrance to the manor, though this room was quite a bit smaller and hosted a myriad of guns, explosives and ammunition. At the centre was a large wooden table by which stood a red-headed man whom was cleaning the barrel of a rifle when he heard the door open. He turned around and saw Charles.

“Afternoon, Charles I’m assuming.”

“You would be correct.”

“Great! I’m Sam and I’ve heard from Aiden that you’re here for some more firepower, right?”

“Uh-huh,”

“I mean, what do you have right now?”

Charles pulled his pistol out, ejecting the magazine into his palm, then tilted the pistol and racked the slide, releasing a cartridge vertically into the air, landing in his off-hand.

“P320? If you’re going to complain about the ammunition, please just leave.”

“Kind of. It’s more the type of gun.”

“Ah I see, an upgrade in calibre, barrel length and ergonomics?”

“Precisely.”

“We have plenty of options! Do you have a preferred round, maker, customisations? - though those will take some time. You can even have a tour around the armoury if you really want.”

“A Russian Concern would be nice.”

“Right, yeh, um…” Sam grimaced slightly.

Charles raised a stern eyebrow.

“PMCs don’t give you anything good, do they? So, sorry but I may or may not have accidentally wrecked - sorry, decommissioned - most of our AK stockpiles while having a bet with Percy on whether they would survive a ‘rust’ test…”

“What.”

“Mate, just, cut me some slack will you? I lost like five-hundred quid on this stupid bet and now Hector’s slightly more annoyed at me. Luckily, no-one’s asks for Concern rifles much so I’ve more or less gotten away scot-free, but your request is quite… Conce-”

“I implore you to stop. If so, what else do you have?”

“We do have a few MK47s lying around. Um, shotguns, pistols, SBRs, wildcats, carbines, sub-machine guns. Anything really. We even have some more destructive weaponry towards the back, though only Harry’s allowed them after… that incident.”

“I feel as if pressing that incident would be needless.”

“Precisely.” Sam said with a slight smirk. “Alright, have you made up your mind yet?”

Charles ignored the mockery and surveyed the surrounding displays once more, scanning each weapon for whether it was suitable for him or not.

“Do you have a range?”

“Of course we do.”

“Surprise me.”