Somewhere in Hattia
The boy smiled as he cleaned his glasses, winking short-sightedly at the sign that said ‘Kozlovsky’s Guns and Ammo’. He put his glasses back on, and walked into the store. The salesman was a man in his 60’s, old by the boy’s standards – but then again he himself was older than he looked. He took a look at his sketchbook and smiled at the owner:
‘Good day, Comrade. Can I take a look at your rifles?’
The boy looks at the shopkeeper: 'Good day. May I look at your rifles?'
The shopkeeper nods, "What kind of rifle are you looking for?"
"Any AR variants you might have. Especially competition-grade."
The shopkeeper turned around and took a very nice looking AR-15 off the wall. He then handed it to the boy. "Here you go, if you'd like to go out back and try it, I can let you have some ammo..."
The boy grinned as he tossed a credit card on the table. "Tell me, do you do gun repair work? I have completed gunsmithing courses, I might be able to help."
"Yes, I do, if you'd like some work, I could use some help around here..."
"Oh, great. I'll be taking this AR. I think you'd love what I'm going to do to it, too."
The man raised an eyebrow, "Oh, and what's that?"
"I'm going to improve everything on this baby that can be improved. Replace, modify, customize it into the best competitive AR in Haven." The boy grinned,
"This side of the Straights, at least"
The man smiled, "Ah, I remember thinking about that when I was your ge. We've got some pretty good shooters and whatnot over here..."
"Look, sir.. eh, Comrade... if we molycoated the barrel, and switched out to a recoil brake on the end, and maybe worked a bit on the trigger group..." <
The man looked intrigued and nodded, "That might work, whats your name kid?"
"Ehm... Anatoliy. "
He smiled, not completely convinced. "Well, Anatoliy, if you want to use my tools, thats fine with me."
‘Anatoliy’ smiled happily. 'Where is the workshop, then?'
The shopkeeper pointed over towards the left, "Its in there, Mr. Kazansky..."
Alexander Kazansky turned around in surpise: "Excuse me, Comrade?"
He smiled, "Alexander Kazansky, right? I've got a picture of you right here..."
He reached under his desk and pulled out a newspaper. It had a picture of Kazansky near an article about him...
The President sighed: "Alexander Kirillovich Kazansky indeed."
The man nodded, "Well, you are still free to use the workshop."
"You understand that I am worthy 150 million in rewards, yeah?"
He nodded again, "Yes, and frankly I don't much care for money. Even though I got a scar back in Allanea during the war, I don't think you guys deserved to be annexed..."
He pulled up his right sleeve, showing a long, scar running the length of his arm.
AlexanderKazansky raised an eyebrow. "You were in the South West, then."
"Yes, you fought well, if it wasn't for those traitors, we would've been in your capitol within a few weeks."
Alexander Kazansky raised an eyebrow again "As you will. Now, to our project..."