Chapter 24. Gun Ethics

Alex stared at the large package, roughly the same size as their four-seater dining table. He was genuinely surprised that the Jenny clan had worked this fast, but he shrugged it off as the power of old money, old reputation, and old politics. Actually, now that he thought about it, he wasn't surprised at all. What truly shocked him was a new realization—the Jenny and Joy clans were far too low-key. They clearly had the power to make the world turn at the palm of their hands, yet they kept their abilities close to the chest, content with simply being cops and nurses. They were truly the angels of the Pokémon world, and Alex considered himself incredibly lucky to have been transmigrated to a world where they existed—even if it was a harsher place overall. He was even luckier to have been adopted by one of them. "Help me open this box. They overdid the sealing," Jenny complained. Alex complied, and after a few quick Cuts from Raticate, the package finally opened—revealing eight smaller boxes inside: two large ones, four medium ones, and two small ones. The two large boxes contained a strange device, featuring a tray on one side and a top that opened like a scanner. It basically looked like an office printer. The two small boxes held transparent crystalline bullets, 300 per box. The bullets were 6mm in diameter but noticeably longer than typical 9mm rounds. Inside each bullet were intricate laser etchings that made no sense to Alex. The four medium boxes contained matte black pistols, roughly the size and shape of a Desert Eagle. Like a proper firearm, the barrel had rifling, but everything was made of solid plastic, with no moving parts except the trigger and magazine. It weighed about the same as a pellet gun. 'It looks futuristic but feels like a toy. No wonder the Jennys didn't like it—it's like playing cops rather than actually being one,' Alex thought to himself. Each gun came with a magazine already attached and two spares in the box. The magazine was reloadable by sliding the internal mechanism that contained slots out of the casing and inserting bullets one at a time—or using a reloader if available. It could hold 40 bullets per magazine, utilizing a double-stack rotating mechanism that allowed spent bullets to remain in the magazine after firing. 'I definitely need to read the instruction manual,' Alex lamented. Still, he reserved final judgment until he had read the manual, loaded the gun, and fired a few shots. His initial impression, however, was not great. "Did you find the manual?" Alex asked. "Reading it now. It's too complicated. Too much technical jargon," Jenny replied. Alex decided to figure things out himself. He plugged in the device and pressed the "Open" button. The tray slid open, revealing slots for all 300 bullets. He placed them inside one by one and pressed "Close". The only other button left was "Load Move", so he pressed it. The top popped open, revealing a target under the lid. The display now instructed "Release Move", so Alex turned to Raticate. "Use Thunder Wave on it." Raticate gathered yellow electrical energy in his mouth and released a streak of lightning, which was absorbed by the target. The display updated: 1/300—one bullet was now loaded. The "Release Move" prompt remained, so Alex had Raticate keep going until he got tired at 20 shots. Curious, Alex placed Raticate's paw on the scanner and had him use Quick Attack. A wave of silver energy was released from Raticate before the machine absorbed it. After pressing "Done", the tray opened, revealing all 300 bullets—but now, 21 of them glowed, charged with the Moves Raticate had stored. Alex carefully removed the charged bullets and loaded them one by one into the internal magazine mechanism before sliding the casing over it. He then loaded it into the gun. Suddenly, the top of the gun lit up with a display: "Flying-type energy needs to be recharged." Alex pressed "Recharge", and the display changed to "Release". He had Raticate use Pluck on the top of the gun itself. The display updated: Battery: 100%. 'That's convenient.' Using the top display, Alex swiped through the loaded bullets by swiping his hand on the size of the gun vertically as if spinning the cylinder of a revolver, selecting the Thunder Wave round. He closed the scanner tray and pressed the "Load Move" button. The display on the scanner prompted for "Release", so Alex fired. A yellow streak of lightning shot from the barrel, striking the target and charging a bullet on the display. On his gun's display, the bullet was now spent and cycled to the next Thunder Wave shot. Swiping through the selection again, Alex found the Quick Attack round.  "Raticate use Protect," Alex commanded as Raticate obliged and a transparent energy shield was created in front of him. Alex aimed and fired. This time, the recoil was significant, almost knocking the gun out of his hands. The bullet slammed into the shield, briefly flashing silver, before dropping to the floor, perfectly intact. 'Looks like the gun works as advertised… but it's risky. Too many steps are involved—so many accidents are bound to happen when this hits the market,' Alex thought Jenny, meanwhile, just stared in silence. She had no idea how Alex had figured everything out so quickly without even causing an accident. Her boy was so smart. "Welp. It works as advertised, and there are only a few problems," Alex said with a sigh. "Like what?" Jenny asked, secretly opening the record function on her phone, well aware of how insightful Alex could be. "Scanner: 10/10. If I had to identify a problem, I would recommend putting some idiot-proof instruction stickers as a form of warning label for liability protection." "Bullet: 5/10. Works when used so far, but that is exactly the problem. What happens when the bullet is compromised? Do I have to eat a Blast Burn to the face? Is there a way for me to check if the bullet I am about to load is uncompromised, like an image that gets skewed from a hairline fracture in the crystal?" "Magazine: 8/10. The magazine loading process is tedious, so designing a plastic reloader that perfectly aligns the bullets with the internal mechanism would be essential. Preferably, it should be something you can simply slide from the scanner to double efficiency." "Gun: 5/10. I would never use it against my own Pokémon. I would happily use it against my enemies. The gun needs a physical safety switch. Otherwise, you risk Thunder Waving your own foot—or worse, shooting yourself in the head with a Quick Attack in the shape of a small projectile."  "I haven't read the manual yet, but if it's not included, there should also be a power slider to adjust how much force is used when launching the bullets. I don't want to accidentally shoot my Pokémon to death when I was only trying to train or empower them.  "Lastly, the gun also needs something to reduce recoil. Otherwise, its use should be restricted to strong adults." "Overall: 7/10. The whole package is great, and I will take the risks to use it only for Thunder Waves against enemies and nothing else. Personally, I prefer a cold, hard metal exterior with a bit of extra weight. It also needs a quick-draw holster, either at the hip or chest, with a magazine attached so you can slap it into the chamber for a quick reload during a fight. Also, I'd prefer if absolutely no electronics were involved and everything could be personally disassembled into parts I can scrutinize. Otherwise, I would never trust this gun enough to shoot my Pokémon with it." "Ethics: 5/10. Guns, in general, are significantly more dangerous than Pokémon. For example—Raticate, use Quick Attack to lop my head off." Raticate simply stared at him like he was an idiot. "See how he's staring at me like I was an idiot? Guns need this kind of restraint before they can be made publicly available, especially to children." "Guns are heartless. If you point one at your head and pull the trigger, that's it—you're done. I suggest making gun safety classes a requirement before purchase, as well as gun awareness training, maybe even a video showing the consequences of mishandling it. I don't know how you'd pull that off, but it needs to be real." "This will be significantly more dangerous in the hands of children—or even adults under the age of twenty, whose emotions are unstable. Imagine a bullied child, like I was, getting their hands on a gun. Goodbye, other children who didn't care about my feelings. Goodbye, director of the orphanage. Goodbye, boss. Goodbye, love of my life. Goodbye, teacher, father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter." "Now imagine a child mimicking their parents after getting ahold of this. 'Look, Mommy—pew, pew. Mommy? Why aren't you moving?' Depressing, right?" "Now imagine a criminal getting a hold of this. Surprisingly, that's actually fine because people have Pokémon trained to detect malice and use Protect the moment a projectile is fired. Trainers, police, rangers, Jennys, and Joys all train their Pokémon for that kind of protection. If criminals target the children, they would be dead from the Pokémon anyway, so it doesn't change anything if professionals have them—good or evil." "But children getting their hands on one? They likely don't have Pokémon that instinctively use Protect. That level of training is reserved for powerful trainers." "Lastly, this thing is electronic, isn't it? What stops the developers from messing with it remotely? Or a Ghost- or Electric-type Pokémon interfering with it? Or a hacker? Or disgruntled employees? Personally, I wouldn't trust any corporation with my life, so trusting this gun is equally impossible." Jenny frowned. "Why are your scores so high? 5, 7, 8, 10? Those seem pretty generous considering your points." "The gun is actually solid—most of my complaints were about minor features or personal preferences. As for ethics? People get into accidents all the time, even with Pokémon. That's just life. So no matter how controlled the release is, once these guns hit the public, people will accidentally kill themselves with them." ----- Support me on Patreon patreon/babywrath