Weeks passed like smoke drifting on the wind. To the rest of FAWS, life was routine: calibrating barrels, soldering power nodes, swapping out fried coils, logging endless checklists. To Sirius Blake, however, the world had narrowed into something far sharper, far brighter—an obsession that consumed every waking hour.
Day after day, his corner of the workshop rattled with the clatter of tools, the fizz of sparking wires, and his constant muttering. At odd hours, laughter would break the monotony—quick chuckles, sudden barks, sometimes sharp, almost feral bursts that made other techs glance nervously over.
"Blake's at it again," one sighed.
"Always is," another replied, never looking up from her diagnostic panel. "Just leave him to it."
But they didn't ignore him completely. In their tired eyes, there was a grudging acknowledgment: madness or not, the boy kept delivering.
---
The Breakthrough
One evening, the noise from Sirius' bench stopped. The silence was so sudden that half the room looked up instinctively. Then Sirius sat bolt upright, clutching a small glowing module in both hands. His fingers trembled from exhaustion, but his eyes gleamed with wild triumph.
"It's finished," he whispered. The whisper became a chuckle. The chuckle swelled into a laugh. The laugh broke into a full-blown, unrestrained cackle.
"HAHA! HAHAHAHA!"
Every head in the bay turned. A wave of groans rippled through the workshop.
"There he goes again."
"Lost cause…"
But one younger tech smirked faintly, murmuring under his breath: "Yeah, a lost cause that keeps saving our skins."
Sirius ignored them all, raising the module like a priest lifting a relic. He pressed it into the side of a waiting rifle with reverence. The weapon's frame hummed faintly as the new system slotted into place.
---
The Test
The next morning, Sirius stormed into the firing range, eyes bloodshot but grin wide. A rifle was cradled under his arm; three micro-mags clinked in his belt pouch.
He slammed a mag home. A glowing number appeared across the weapon's new side display: 50/50.
"Oh, I love you already," Sirius breathed. He pulled the trigger.
The rifle barked. The counter dropped.
49/50. 48/50. 47/50.
Each round ticked away in perfect rhythm. Sirius' grin stretched wider with every shot. When the mag hit zero, the auto-eject system spat it out with a sharp metallic clatter. Sirius snatched another micro-mag, slapped it in, and the display reset. 50/50.
Again he fired. Again the counter blinked flawlessly.
By the end of the third mag, Sirius' chest was heaving, sweat streaking his face. He lowered the rifle slowly, savoring the moment like a fine drink.
ARI's voice whispered into his mind.
> "Mission Complete: Ammo Counter Display. All objectives confirmed."
Sirius closed his eyes, exhaling in relief. "Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful."
---
Watching the Infantry
Later, he lingered by the training grounds, leaning casually against the wall. Out in the yard, infantry squads drilled with sweat and curses.
"Reload! Aim! Fire!" a sergeant barked. Soldiers cycled through their drills, fumbling with magazines, counting rounds by instinct, snapping shots at the mock Hivebug targets.
Sirius watched, arms crossed. His counter could solve all of this—no more guesswork, no more wasted mags, no more panic as chambers ran dry. The solution was sitting in his pocket.
But as he observed, something twisted inside him.
He saw how the soldiers learned to feel their rifles, to hear when a chamber was almost empty, to strike weak points instead of pouring round after round into armored plates. It was ugly, it was inefficient, but it was discipline forged under fire.
If he gave them the counter now, they'd rely on it. They'd lose the instinct to conserve, the instinct to fight smart.
"No," Sirius muttered. "Not yet. Let them earn their instincts. My baby can wait."
ARI's calm voice responded.
> "Observation: withholding deployment may reduce short-term efficiency."
"Yeah," Sirius admitted, watching a private snap off shots at a Hivebug dummy's leg joints. "But long-term? They'll be killers when they finally get it. My counter isn't here to replace discipline—it's here to sharpen it."
---
The Tank Problem
That night, Sirius sat alone at his bench again, the ammo counter rifle leaning against his chair. His grin had faded, replaced with something sharper, heavier.
The Hivebug Tank haunted him. He could still hear the way it roared, still see its massive silhouette crushing mechs like toys. Bear's mech had barely survived. Stone's heavies had spent every shell they had just to slow it down.
The ammo counter solved one problem, sure. But against the Tank, it meant nothing. Fifty bullets into its armor was the same as one: wasted.
Sirius tapped his fingers against the bench, restless. "What do I do about you…?"
ARI's glow shimmered faintly in his vision.
> "Query detected: Hivebug Tank. Recommended mission directive: development of a new project."
Sirius chuckled, rubbing his temples. "Figures you'd say that. One miracle at a time, ARI. But yeah… I'll get there."
---
The Reactions
By morning, Sirius was humming again at his bench, scribbling crude outlines of heavier, sharper ideas in his notebook. FAWS techs moved around him, sighing, shaking their heads, muttering the same words as always.
"Lost cause."
"Mad as a bug hive."
But Chief Loras, standing at his office window, saw more. He saw the intensity in Sirius' eyes, the precision in his sketches, the restless drive behind his grin.
"Not lost," Loras murmured to himself. "Just different."
---
Quiet Resolve
The ammo counter was finished. It was perfect. But it would remain Sirius' secret, for now. The infantry would continue drilling, counting their rounds, training their instincts to strike Hivebug weaknesses. They would sweat, bleed, and curse without the counter's comfort.
And when the time came—when the swarm returned, when another Tank-class horror rolled out of the earth—Sirius would be ready with his next project.
For now, he sat back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and whispered with a faint grin:
"Alright, ARI. What's next?"
> "Recommended: New Project. Priority: Anti-Hivebug Tank. Mission parameters ready."
Sirius laughed softly, shaking his head. "Figures. No rest for the Renegade."
And with that, he leaned forward and began sketching anew.