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[[@Mel: You know that Logan isn't with them, correct? Oh, and I needed to tell you-- your signature freaks.me.out. No idea who it is, but man, is it creepy!]]

Lucas soon found his steps gradually gravitating closer to the computer hacker's as he tried to put distance between himself and Price.

"You know," he murmured, nudging Dominic playfully with his elbow, "You shouldn't feel nervous, or anything. If you take a bullet..."

He allowed a chuckle to fog the air near Dominic's ear. He leaned in as they walked, continuing, "I think you and I will be spending a bit more quality time together. Are you up to date on shots and everything, Dom?"

This was what he liked. Teasing. Pushing limits. Having a little control in the game.

((Oh look, a volume of posts. Fantastic. Wonderful. Joyous, perhaps. I apologize for the text-based torrent I have just unleashed, but I had a bit of inspiration I simply had to vent.))

"As much as I love your social interactions, boys," Price chuckled, "We're here."

He raised a hand to point at a two-floor building rather like all the others in Haven's Upper City. Sturdily built with no luxury afforded for scenery purposes, it had long since lost it's assorted glass windows to gunshots, earthquakes, fires, and other regular hazards of these inhospitable slums.

Instead of the boards of the upper floor, the lower floor had somewhat rusty steel shutters acting to guard the inside from the elements. Nailed above the door was a sign forged via blowtorch into scrap, reading "GUNMETAL" in somewhat jagged letters. Small sliding panels had been installed into the various metal window shutters, resembling the gunner points of a military pillbox. Even as they approached, one of these slats in the hinged metal door (quite an old fashioned sight, as most of the Lower City relied on automatic sliding doors) opened and a long, dark barrel peered out at them through it. While any seasoned soldier should have hit the ground from such an action, Price continued forward, raising a hand towards the slot.

"Logan!" He called. The barrel withdrew, and the door unbolted.

Within stood the man who could only be Gunmetal Logan, but he was nothing like the myths suggested. He was a moderate six feet tall, shorter than most Haven Guard but taller than your average men. He was skinny, practically malnourished appearing, but his shoulders were defined, as if he worked them out specificially. He was clad in snug brown denim pants and a white sleeveless shirt. Grease stains lined his hands and arms, and his tousled, dirty blonde hair was at this moment held out of his face by a red bandanna tied over his head. Wisps of it still escaped, which he now absent mindedly swiped out of the way, waving them closer with the extremely well cared for rifle that he was holding.

"Let's go!" He pressured, even as Price stopped by the door.

The Honor Sergeant, as casually as one might take out a cigarette, took a two handed grip on his pistol and aimed about the street, making use of the N.V. scope it was equipped with in order to make sure they hadn't been followed.

Logan held the door open, stepping aside to let the group into his workshop of terror, muttering "Kids. Why are they kids?"

The once-legendary terrorist looked no more than twenty six years old, but he had a weariness to him that put on a year or two more to his apparent age. (Still, to the unprepared, it might be suprising to realize that the mighty, cold tempered man, Gunmetal Logan, who threatened to destroy the entire Lower City in a single, merciless blow, could have only been sixteen to eighteen at the time of the threat!)

The workshop of Gunmetal Logan was lines of steel tables covered with shells, ammo tins, candy bar wrappers, and gun cleaning tools. If one were to count, there were enough items here to form up to ten standard Haven Guard gun cleaning kits, and enough candy bars to equate to either a small army of teenagers over a week or a single, very hungry man over the span of a few years. Logan never left his guns lying on the tables; instead, they covered the walls like a horrifying taxidermy exhibit transferred over to the firearms of the past thirty years. Haven Guard weapons, illegal weapons, weapons so modified their original make was unclear... all were hung lovingly in carefully labelled positions, oiled to a precision sheen and waiting to be unleashed. The entire room hummed with the silent song of war waiting to roar forth into the world.

Three old generators clanked and rattled towards the back of the workshop, and if Logan slept in this room, it was not clear where. From his sunken eyes and slouching posture, it could be called to question if he slept at all.

Sitting on the nearest wall to the door, there waited four Haven Guard standard issue sidearms, or "boyfriends", as they had been nicknamed by popular vote among the Guard. Two magazines for each waited at the table beneath the hanging weapons, each fully prepared, along with four combat harnesses adorned with hangers for weapons and weapon clips. On each harness, a silencer, a scope, and a laser sight were placed. The entire assortment was such an uncanny resemblance to something one would find in a Haven Guard armory, it could be wondered exactly how this "legit" gunsmith had acquired them.

Slightly to the right of the pistols hung the weapons that Logan had found for them; two "saw" SMGs, the standard primary weapon of the Haven Guard, with all of their available accessories (silencer, scope, laser sight, rifle stock, expanded magazine). The tags beneath the two read "Dominic" and "Jaime".

Alongside them rested a bolt action rifle with a wooden stock. An attatched 8x zoom scope and a fine black barrel. If anyone had studied weapons, they would recognize the M1 Garand, a weapon made famous in World War II of the old days, before the sky was black and the world was ash. Before Haven, and before the world they had known their entire lives. Three clips of brass FMJ rested beneath the weapon, and a tag had been placed reading "Topaz". A little message had been scrawled beneath with a crude smiley face, that read "Hurt my baby, and you die - Logan razz "

Finally, a large, roulette cartridge shotgun weapon was nestled on the wall. The barrel was nearly big enough around to fit one's fist into, and a bag full of heavy non-lethal "beanbags" (nylon-canvas weave around a load of rubber shot pellets). By pulling a switch on the shotgun, the packs could be ruptured on fire, to resemble the spread of a standard shotgun, but with a much more violent result. The note here had an arrow pointing to the switch that said "Don't like blood? Don't flip this switch!" and the name tag read "Lucas".

No weapon for Price was visible on the walls, but there were still many closed steel crates in the room. Perhaps it dwelled in one of these?

Logan gestured to the walls. "Suit up. There's some old school kevlar vests in that crate there, take em if you want em.

Price was the last one inside. He holstered his pistol and closed the door, then promptly went directly past Logan and through a door in the back of the shop, which he closed behind himself.

Logan watched him go with a bemused expression and shrugged, turning back to the others. "Not even a thank you... figures." He was more amused than hurt, really, and he showed it to the four others. "Well, load up. Richard can't hold the fort by himself forever."

"Hell," Logan waved a hand dismissively, as if what he were about to say was completely normal. "Anyone in the Upper City isn't considered to have his balls dropped yet unless he HAS taken a bullet. Question is, what kind of bullet? Most of the gang kids sling around solid slugs that'll stick in ya and break your bones with a good hit. I took two of those back in the days I duct taped shotgun shells together and lived in a tin shed. The gassers prefer hollow-points; I'm sure you know how those work. Nice little explosion of shrapnel inside the body. Got one of those in the gut during DE Echo."

He lifted up the lower section of his shirt, baring a well-formed (not six-pack, but definitely muscular) stomach. A jagged starburst scar rested about five inches up from his waist. "Carlan, that d**k, wanted to leave me dying for the bomb threat I put up all thgose years back." The gunsmith let his shirt fall and went to pick up a ridiculously large revolver, sitting down to clean the weapon with all the care of an artist tending to his trade.

He idly pointed with a cleaning rod to a nearby table that had a mirror in front of it. "He didn't figure that I could use a swiss army knife and duct tape to last out the day. Once they started bringing up medics for civilian casualties, I just dragged my pathetic self over." A chuckle escaped his lips and he broke into a grin. "Some gasser private said I was Gunmetal Logan, but the medtechs insisted that Gunmetal Logan was an Asian-lookin' guy with an eyepatch and fixed me right up. Crawled back here, coughed up some blood, and I was back in business as usual."

The revolver had somehow become disassembled so quickly and casually that it hardly seemed the former terrorist had moved at all. He glanced back over to Lucas. "And don't get me started on the rubber bullets you guys keep using on me when I get raided in search of illegal weapons. Those things hurt."

The gunsmith laughed, closing up the gun cleaning kit he had been using and gingerly placed the massive revolver back onto it's wall nest. "All right, all right. I'll bear it in mind. I haven't been shot in awhile, but you guys' little slum HQ is just down the street, right? I'll limp on down if the gangs get out of hand."

Logan looked momentarily at the door where Price had dissapeared, then looked back to the others. "Any idea what you're going into?" He finally asked conversationally, seeming relaxed and friendly. It was clear that he wanted to get along with Lucas, despite the fact they came from different worlds; weapons of death in comparison to lifesaving tools and techniques.

Dominic, more or less, hovered near the back of the group once they entered Logan's shop. After their warm rifle-to-the-face greeting, he was afraid of further hospitality finding its way to them.

While Lucas and Logan conversed, the blonde idly wandered around the workshop. Never before had he witnessed such a room. He could recognize a few of the weapons, sure, but many were so crudely constructed and morphed that he couldn't begin to name their indivudual components, much less the weapon as a whole. It wasn't but a moment's time that he concluded not to touch anything he wasn't instructed to. Best not to risk breaking anything and landing himself a solid place on Logan's bad side. Not only did he look a formidable man in himself, but Dominic figured he knew how to use most, if not all of the weapons in the place. One look at a particularly scary looking gun hanging on the wall, and he knew he'd do whatever possible to stay on the friendly end of the weapon.

Dominic found his way back over to the previously indicated crates. He avoided one of the kevlar vests which looked as if it had gone through a particularly nasty mission, instead picking up the one next to it. He slipped off his jacket, laying it on a nearby table before wiggling his way into the vest. It felt heavy, but also seemed to promise at least some protection. As long as it was the chest or back the enemies aimed for.

"I'm just going to leave this here," he commented, placing a hand upon his jacket. "I'd rather avoid getting bloodstains and bullet holes on it." Afterall, though it was cold outside at the moment, he was sure once he got moving and his adrenaline really got going, he'd warm up nicely.

((Out of character bump and a message for any Doorman fans. I would appreciate it greatly if you took the time to vote on my avatar submission in the Arena, even if you rate it poorly. Please encourage your friends to take a look as well. This is the first and probably only time I will try to get anywhere in the Arenas, so I would like to have a good "run", as it were.))