They were stood on the roof of the apartment complex, Virgil alongside Sterling and Lyla. A lightweight table had been set up here, the sort you might find in a school cafeteria, but it was devoid of firearms and equipment at the moment. Well, Virgil had ensured that his gun was unloaded and set it down there, but that was it. There were a small number of targets that had been set up twenty metres from a line marked in chalk in front of the table, so Virgil was pretty sure that everything was taken care of and ready. Well, except for one thing:

Cygnus wasn't here.

He was late. He was never late. Sterling and Lyla had been stood up here with him for perhaps five minutes now, looking mildly confused. Actually only Sterling looked confused; Lyla looked almost as carefree as she ever did. Virgil didn't feel capable of delivering an entire class on gun safety by himself, but if Cygnus was going to be late then he may as well make a start as best as he could.

Well, here goes nothing.

"Cyg will be with us in a moment and he'll run through this list in full, but I'll start us off by just listing out a few rules. These aren't the two of us trying to impose restrictions on you or anything, it's just rules that the two of us have to follow as well."

Lyla nodded and Sterling looked up at him. Both waited for him to continue.

"Okay, here's the first thing; always treat your gun like it's loaded, even if you know it's not. That means trigger discipline, good safety, the works. Cyg will get into that more when he gets here, but I'm just giving you the basics for now. Second, and this is more a part of the first rule than a rule by itself, make sure you always keep the weapon pointed in a safe direction. Basically, don't point it at anyone.

"Again, Cygnus will run through the more complex stuff, like how to check your safety and remove magazines, but I don't think I'd be able to do that justice personally. Uh, what else... oh, yeah, never rely on a weapon's safety mechanisms. That basically means that even if you think the safety is on, act as though it isn't. I know I don't need to tell you this since you are both sensible people, so please don't take this the wrong way because I know you'd never do anything this stupid, but please don't point it at one of us and pull the trigger as a joke when the safety is on. The safety latch, or whatever the proper name is, is mechanical. Mechanical things don't always work."

Lyla nodded, and though to anyone outside of their group it probably looked as though she was barely paying attention as she kicked her feet absentmindedly whilst sitting on a wall, he could tell that she was rapt and attentive. Sterling, for his part, had stared at Virgil with an unerring alertness this whole time, though he did seem to be biting back a comment at the last thing Virgil had said. Virgil knew they wouldn't actually try anything like that, and Sterling knew he was only saying it for his own piece of mind, but the more argumentative side of the youngest member of their group had probably flared up a bit at that comment. Still, his rational side seemed to have understood that it wasn't a slight, and so it had been let go.

"I get you, Virgil. No need to worry about it. If I were in your position I'd be worried as well."

Sterling nodded, though did seem to grit his teeth as he did so.

"I agree with Lyla. I'm sorry if I seem... like me... about this, but I know you're only looking out for us."

Virgil smiled at the two of them.

"That's good, thanks for that. And uh, no worries Ster. Anyway, the only other things that come to mind off the top of my head in relation to safety involve maintenance. Good maintenance means your firearm will be more reliable, and reliability is a core part of what makes a gun 'safe'. Relatively safe, anyway. Cleaning to check for rust, servicing the insides by dismantling it, that sort of thing. We shouldn't really be doing that last part, since deep maintenance is more meant for technicians who actually know what they're doing, but seeing as there aren't any technicians around at the moment we've had to teach ourselves how to do all of that.

"You won't need to worry about that today though. Today you'll learn how to hold and shoot a pistol, whenever Cyg gets here that is."

"I'm here now," came a voice to the side, "and might I just say you've done a stellar job at covering the basics of firearm safety in my absence? Here, I have pairs of ear defenders for everyone. We don't tend to use these in the field since it leaves us vulnerable because we can no longer hear threats, but whilst you're still training up here it'll be good to use them so you don't develop tinnitus. Don't put them on yet, for we've still quite some time before you begin shooting rounds, but they'll help prevent you from being too shocked by the sudden noise later on."

Sterling moved to pick up one of the pairs of ear defenders, then hung it around his neck. Virgil looked at Lyla and nodded pointedly at the table, causing her to follow his gaze before hopping down from the wall she'd been sat on and mirroring Sterling's actions before returning to her point at the wall.

"Excellent, thank you both for your compliance. I overheard the majority of what Virgil told you, and I have to say I'm in agreement with his assessment on safety being the most important part of learning to fire a gun. Now I know you were told a lot of different things, and I know that such a long list of rules sounds like a lot to consider before we even start practicing firing, but it's very important you remember them all. For ease of memory however, the most important points can be summarised by the 'SAFE' acronym. Virgil, if you please?"

Virgil nodded, reciting the mantra that had been drilled into him when he'd first started using a firearm.

"S is for security; always secure your firearms when not in use. A is for awareness; make sure that you maintain awareness of people and animals in the area and prevent unapproved access to your gun. F is for focus; make sure that you're always focused on your weapon and your responsibilities both when handling it and when not handling it. Lastly, E is for education; make sure you educate yourself as much as possible on the topic of firearm safety to help prevent accidents."

Sterling looked at him, attentive and almost eager, whilst Lyla didn't take her eyes off of the pistol the entire time they'd been talking.

"That makes sense. Security, awareness, focus, education. Got it."

Cygnus nodded at Sterling.

"Good. I'm glad to know that you understand how serious this can be. We're not going to police you on this matter of course, for we trust you both greatly, but we do implore you to observe those safety guidelines. Of course they won't be much good if you don't know what to apply them to, will they? Here, if you wouldn't mind. These are beginner's handbooks to handling firearms, specifically sidearms. Myself and Virgil will give you a, ah, what was the term, Virgil?"

"A 'crash course', Cyg."

His boyfriend nodded at him in thanks, then continued.

"Myself and Virgil will give you a 'crash course' in firearm handling and safety, but the handbooks will admittedly contain more information than that which I am able tell you. Now, not everything in those books will be applicable to us. Some sections are devoted to firearm ownership regulations and laws, which of course don't hold any bearing over us since those who might have prevented us from owning such weapons are all gone, and other parts might be unusable to us simply because we don't have the background information that was no doubt given to those people who used these handbooks in person. They're more meant to be supplements to an actual course from what I can tell, and none of us have ever undertaken such an educational pursuit. Unless I am mistaken in that last point, of course."

Virgil watched as Sterling quietly shook his head and Lyla waved her hands about whilst kicking her legs from where she was sat on the side of a low wall.

"Nah, I wanted to but I was never allowed. I don't think I'd have been old enough before all of this went down anyway, and even if I was old enough I wouldn't have had the time to head out since I was too busy looking after my brother whilst my parents were working. I'd still have liked to though, so I am glad you're trusting me with this. I know I can be reckless at times, but I promise you right now that I'll listen to everything you say about this and be as careful and sensible as I can."

Cygnus nodded at Lyla's words, seeming somewhat gladdened by her promise to be sensible. Virgil hadn't doubted her for a moment, but he knew that Cygnus was only worried because he knew that he'd never be able to forgive himself if she got hurt. There was something in Sterling's eyes at Lyla's mention of her parents, a brief fleck of anger and pity, but it was gone so fast Virgil hadn't even been sure it had ever been there. He wouldn't have been surprised if the boy had felt angry at the mention of Lyla and Wesley's parents, for he'd always hated how they'd ignored their children in favour of work, but then this wasn't the time nor the place to allow oneself to be overcome with emotion. He was glad that Sterling seemed to understand that point as well.

"Well, in that case I'm glad to be able to help you learn this now. I know it isn't as good as a true course on shooting, but it'll have to do for now. Now, me and Virgil made a journey to the gun shop on the other side of town yesterday, and we've brought back these."

The taller man pulled out a pair of unloaded pistols, and gently set them down on the lightweight table they'd set up out here.

"These are Heckler and Koch 'universal self-loading pistols'. A semi-automatic sidearm, that is to say you'll fire one shot every time you pull the trigger, chambered in nine-millimetre ammunition. For our purposes that means it means that you can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger, and every time you do fire you'll be launching out one of these."

Cygnus took out a magazine from his own pistol and gestured towards it so that Sterling and Lyla could get a closer look, Virgil hanging back and just sitting on a low wall whilst Cygnus dealt with the majority of the teaching. He was just here to provide backup where necessary and help his boyfriend with anything he got stuck on to be honest, not that Virgil expected him to get stuck on much. Well, nothing much that Virgil could help him with anyway.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"These bullets are nine-millimetre rounds. They're small and, when compared to larger rounds, relatively low in stopping power. One round will never take down a creature, but a magazine should do the trick. Each of your magazines will contain seven rounds for you to fire, after which you'll need to reload. I'm pretty sure the USP is supposed to have a magazine capacity of fifteen when firing nine-millimetre parabellum, but for some reason the only magazines for it we could find seem to only be hollow about halfway down. I don't understand why, and to be honest I never really questioned it.

"When you've finished firing the rounds in your magazine, don't just drop it to the floor when you reload. Well, I suppose you can, but make sure you pick it up afterwards when it's safe to do so; you'll need to manually refill the magazine. It's a little fiddly when you first attempt it, but I'll run through it with you and you'll get the hang of it in no time."

"Besides," Virgil cut in before Cygnus got any more ahead of himself, "that's not too important right now. It'll be some time before you have to fire one of these at anything that isn't a target anyway, so you'll have plenty of time to practice in between shooting. You also need to learn about maintenance, but I don't think that's good for today. Today, correct me if I'm wrong here love, you'll just be looking at safety, shooting, and reloading magazines into the gun. The rest of it we'll cover in the coming days. Of course it'll take longer than a few days for you to have this down, it took me a month of daily training, but I'm sure you'll have it done far faster than I was able to. You're both good at learning this sort of thing, all outdoorsy and sporty."

Cygnus nodded back at him, agreeing with his statements.

"Ah, you are correct dear. Thank you for reminding me. Apologies to the both of you; it isn't my intention to overwhelm you with information. I fear I rather got carried away with explaining things in the moment."

"It's all cool, Sea. I can't imagine anyone being annoyed 'cause you're trying to make sure they don't blow their head off accidentally."

Sterling voiced his agreement with Lyla's words, though in a far more tactful way than the far more extroverted girl had expressed herself.

"Yes, I agree. Whilst I'm glad you're not trying to overwhelm me, and you Lyla as well of course, with information, I'm equally glad to know that there's a lot of work going into this. It means I know what to expect going forwards, as well as the sort of things I need to be careful of. I know now that not only will I be responsible for simply firing this weapon with accuracy and reloading it with speed, but that I will also be responsible for making sure myself and others are safe whilst the weapon in in our proximity. As well as this I now know I am to be responsible for maintaining this weapon, and the magazines of ammunition that go along with it. Maintaining the weapon, if my understanding is correct based purely on what I've heard and a little pop-culture osmosis, involves stripping the weapon down and disassembling it as well as cleaning it, correct?"

Cygnus nodded, a slight smile on his face. Virgil had one as well; it seemed that their students might have a little more knowledge on this subject than they'd first thought. That was certainly a pleasant surprise; it was one less thing they'd need to start from scratch on.

"You are correct, thank you Sterling. Indeed, proper firearm maintenance involves safe gun disassembly and reassembly, which I believe we will start teaching you somewhere around a week from now. I'd rather you both get comfortable with the idea and practice of firing the weapon in good order first, and then look at maintenance after. Myself and Virgil can look to the maintenance of these two pistols in the meantime, but these are now yours. They are unloaded and perfectly safe to handle, but just for good practice keep your finger away from the trigger. You may pick them up and examine them now. Try to get a good feel for them in your hands."

Sterling and Lyla moved to pick up the empty weapons, holding them in their hands though making sure not to point it anyone. It didn't matter that there weren't magazines in the pistols, they'd been told not to point them at anyone and so they made sure they didn't. They were doing well so far, in all honesty.

When he felt that they were used to their weapons he told them to put them down, instead having them pay attention to the example he was to set.

"Now, pay attention here. There's a stereotype in films and the like for firing any sort of weapon to be exhilarating with a great deal of recoil. Whilst it is true that even smaller firearms such as these pistols do have a fair kick to them, that only becomes true when you're handling it incorrectly. If you're holding the weapon properly then you should hardly move. Please, put on your ear defenders and watch my arms and hands as I fire my pistol."

Sterling and Lyla made to follow Cygnus' commands, putting on their ear defenders and zoning in on his hands. Cygnus, when satisfied that the two of them were paying attention, deftly loaded his pistol and made himself ready to shoot. Aiming at one of the targets down the range, he fired off four shots in relatively quick succession, though not as quick as the volleys that the two of them tended to put into monsters in the opening moments of a kill attempt. Virgil supposed that he was trying to be a little slower than normal so that the two inexperienced young people watching him would be able to follow his lead a little easier.

When he was done he allowed his arms to hang there, still aiming down the range, for a few seconds more. Afterwards the unloaded the half-empty magazine from his pistol and set it down carefully on the table, at no point ever aiming it anywhere near the three of them. Cygnus nodded at Virgil, wordlessly stating that he was done with this part of it, and bid the other two to take their ear defenders off.

"You should have been able to see," Cygnus started, "how my hands hardly moved when firing. Now if I were to hold the pistol incorrectly, for instance, if I for some reason needed to hold it one-handed or at an awkward angle, then that might be quite different. Pistols aren't particularly difficult to keep a hold of, and you certainly can fire them one-handed, however I would not recommend it unless you have no other option. You will find it easier to keep your recoil under control if you maintain your grip with two hands, and of course your shots will generally speaking be more accurate this way. If you find you prefer firing one-handed later on when you're already adept at firing two-handed then by all means change your style, but for now we're only going to fire two-handed. Virgil, would you mind handing Sterling and Lyla their magazines?"

Virgil nodded, suppressing a small spike of anxiety as he handed the live ammunition to his friends.

"Now," Cygnus started, "before we fire your pistols we need to make sure they're properly loaded. Virgil, would you mind showing Lyla how to correctly load a magazine into a pistol whilst I do the same with Sterling?"

He nodded at his boyfriend, shooting him a thumbs-up.

"Sure thing, Cyg."

Moving over to stand next to Lyla he demonstrated how to correctly ensure that a magazine was fitted into a pistol, then bid her do the same with her own pistol. He guided her through it, for he wasn't expecting her to know how to do it just from watching him, but she proved remarkably capable even without much guidance anyway. Virgil was pleasantly surprised; she'd all but got it spot on first try. By the sounds of things Sterling was having a little more trouble with the fiddly parts, but soon enough he had his pistol ready as well.

Cygnus instructed them in the correct manner to hold their pistol if they were ready but not about to shoot, trigger finger in front of the trigger guard instead of resting on the trigger itself, for in his own words "you only put your finger on the trigger if you're intending on pulling it. Never go near it otherwise."

When that was done with the two 'students', which Virgil guessed made him the teaching assistant, lined up at their place behind the chalk. Their fingers were in the correct place on the trigger guard, and their stances were mostly correct. Cygnus walked around their sides and behind them, and made one or two minor corrections to how they were standing or else how they were holding their pistols, but by and large Sterling and Lyla were doing very well.

"Alright," Cygnus started, "I'm going to put the ear defenders on you so you don't need to worry about taking the magazine out of the gun and dealing with that right now. Just keep aiming down the range. You should still be able to hear me, it'll just be a little muffled. When I give the word take aim at the target that is in front of you and open fire. There are three targers in front of you; you're going to shoot all of them with the magazine you have until you run out of shots. When you run out of shots you will lower your pistol, but you will keep both hands on it and keep it aimed downrange until I tell you to take the magazine out and put the safety on. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sea."

"Yeah Sea!"

The two responses varied in tone and excitement, but they were broadly the same. Virgil couldn't help but fire as Cygnus gave the word and the two of them fired their pistols for the first time in their life. With any luck they'd never need to use them for anything other than kill attempts, but he felt a surge of pride as he realised that he was helping teach his friends to protect themselves. He was doing some real good here.

The shooting lesson continued on for perhaps another hour, then Cygnus called it to a stop. The pistols were made safe and placed down on the table, the debris and shell-casings were cleared from the roof, and the two students made their way back to the same positions that they'd started the day at.

"Okay, so there's our points of focus for the next few days. Sterling, you're rather good at ensuring you hit the target with a fair degree of accuracy, but you're firing rather slowly. There's nothing too wrong with that, especially if you were to hang back and fire at a creature from further away, but if we're trying to make a kill attempt you'll need to learn to combine that accuracy with a faster speed."

Sterling bristled, but kept his antagonism under control. He always did where Cygnus was involved. Instead of arguing he just nodded, taking the compliment from the first part of Cygnus' statement for what it was worth as the oldest member of the group turned to Lyla and continued.

"As for you Lyla, we seem to have the opposite situation. You're rather good at firing rapidly without losing control of the recoil such an action generates, but your accuracy could use some work. Assuming you were face to face with a monster right now I have little doubt you'd do fine at close range, but you'd struggle from further afield."

Cygnus was silent for a few moments, rubbing his chin, then looked at the two of them and smiled.

"You've both done well today. Very well. I was honestly expecting this to be more difficult, but the two of you have been excellent students. You've listened to my criticisms and comments, and more importantly you've actually listened to them. You've both got your forms down well, and you've got the basics down far faster than I did when I was younger. You've got your strengths and your weaknesses, which is of course to be expected seeing as you've never fired a weapon such as this before, but we'll work on them together. You've both got half of the shooting down already, so I don't think it'll take us too long to get you both trained enough to be proficient shots in your own right."

"We'll set aside two hours every day for the next week to continue your training." Virgil continued. "We probably won't use the entirety of those two hours, least of all because I might end up being knackered by the time I get back in from wherever me and Cyg headed out to for the day, but just make sure you've got some time that you've jointly set aside when me and Cyg are back so we can get the rest of your basic training done with as quickly as we can. It'll probably be quite intensive, especially at first when you're less used to it, but it'll mellow out afterwards. I know you two can do it."

Sterling gave the two of them a small smile, which was a genuinely lovely look from someone usually closed off, whilst Lyla beamed at his and Cygnus' words.

"You got it, bosses! We'll set aside the time for this, don't worry. Come on Ster, let's get back inside for dinner. I bet Mads is worried sick."

The two headed back off inside, leaving Virgil up on the roof by himself with Cygnus.

"You did well today, Virgil. I knew you'd do wonderfully."

"Hey, you did most of it. I just filled in the gaps."

"You may believe that to be so," Cygnus retorted, "but you did just as much as I today. I even hung back a little at the start, since I heard that you were doing so well."

Virgil looked at him, then punched him lightly in the shoulder.

"Dick. I knew you'd never actually be late."

Cygnus just smiled at him and kissed the fist that had punched him.

"You love me for it, V."

He rolled his eyes and turned his face a little, smiling. He didn't even try and pretend that such a statement wasn't true.