Disclaimer; written for fictional purposes. Disclaimer #2; started writing this long before I got to this act. This has been sitting around since Act III at the least. Disclaimer #3; this is told through the original (first) Lincoln's eyes.

Act VI: Renaissance, Chapter VII: Lincoln Loud's War Diary

However long I've been being a Freight I don't know exactly, but I spent some years, so there's that. It's not like we have access to time and dates. We hide out in this place, this ugly and smelly factory that's been run down and abandoned way back when.

I've had my fair share of knowledge of guns and other unconventional, homemade weapons. Let me get right into that.

The first gun I've ever held was a Glock 17, and in the same day it was Lori and I who were practicing off of it, sharing just the one and running on only three clips. We were in a field with some trees a few yards away. Lori wasted a clip before I did, and even when she did that, I could tell she was scared of how loud the noise was. When it was my turn, I, too, had the same fear, or maybe calling it an irritable distraction might have also been best. We hit a few trees, but some bullets had to have missed. We weren't that good right off the bat, even though I distinctly remember Lori telling me she had some practice before coming here.

The Freights had more guns, of course, rather than just one pistol and limited weapons. Turns out they've been mugging anyone they knew had guns. Shotguns, many handguns, rifles even, and in one such case, Chandler had a damn M60, and it landed on our arsenal.

I got to see what they had. Only, they had no fortifications to guard them, when no one was able to, so it was no surprise to my eyes that all guns were scattered on the floor of the re-used storage room, as if we were Taliban terrorists, messily hiding our armory like this. The idiot Chandler was sure we could not be robbed, however.

Among these weapons, I scavenged through and picked up a double barrel. The gun was still loaded, and Chandler dodged nervously when I moved out of the storage room with it. Idiot.

Because I knew jack shit about these, he allowed me to take practice. No. He was acting to mold me, to sell me his ideas of destroying the world one bomb at a time. To make victims so that his little army of lost, broken souls could expand his power and influence. With this kind of thinking and emotional manipulation, he could have had possibly destroyed a third of the nation, maybe even half. Thinking about it now had made me really sick.

And I'm glad I killed them all to this day.

No one, and I mean no one should have to go through that type of tragedy. I, of all people, can say for certain that I truly understand it, and what it does after. Always. That's why I turned my back on them and defied their very ideals. All of them, victims. Chandler. Cristina. Dana. Rebekka. Fiona. My sister Lori. They fell... And then, so did I. I fell, but this place where I was now, was I still falling?

I took the double barrel with me to practice, as well as an M14, the standard-issue semi-automatic rifle that I thought I recognized from a video game. Only, I knew this was no game, and the recoil on it might have done my younger body by surprise. Turns out they aren't just set for semi-auto. I targeted the same trees, hit more than with the popguns. Only, there was a trick that even from the games I knew; I held my breath and steadied the rifle, taking this from when the players would do with the sniper rifles. It proved to help, of course, but the accuracy and handling did need improving on my part. I vowed to get better... If I didn't right off the bat run out of the only rounds this clip had. Oops.

Next was the double barrel, which no one knew the real name to. I suspected it had an official name, but back then I just didn't know what it was. For this one, I had to get up close and personal, as I was sure this shotgun was not made for long-range combat. I went and aimed at a tree that I hadn't hit yet, for the other one was ravaged with bullets.

Lori, who had been watching me, followed close, but not too close. I held the shotgun firmly in my hands before firing. The thing about this weapon was that it had two triggers condensed into one, meaning I had to be fast with them to get max damage, and to master whatever bounce-back I would receive. Oh, I fired, hit the tree, and had the thing come out of my hands, falling onto the ground. Well, at least I got my answer and a general idea on what to expect.

Needless to say, I went on to master it more.

Someone from the wide group in our ranks had killed a black drug dealer some time ago, and stole his whip. The dealer's car trunk had a bunch of Uzis, AKs, and some revolvers, the rifles being of both regular and compact versions, small enough to supply a private army.

I decided to test out the Uzi first. It was the same type you'd see in gangster movies. Small but not unnoticeable. I first tested with semi mode, tapping repeatedly into the trees. One. Two. Hit. Hit. Three.

Miss.

Impossible, I wasn't that far away...

The rest of them, I sprayed with full auto. Gunsmoke formed at the barrel. I thought I overheated the thing and dropped it. My dumbass had so much to learn. Lori was laughing in the background. At least she was having a good time.

The AK-47, a black variant, differentiated from the regular one I've seen in so many games. Truthfully, I didn't know that there had been different types of AKs back then. There was the AK-74, AKM, this one, and a few more I didn't really consider as part of that family. The grip was from, and the stock on my shoulder felt pretty nice. I didn't bother to check back then that it had setting preferences; or, put simply, I thought all automatics only fired automatics. Turned out most of them had select fire options on the side of the guns. I never really played Battlefield back then either, and that was because my friends bitched about the recoil and gameplay. Thanks, Liam.

If only they could see me now. Except Clyde, he knew how that went.

I double-tapped just as I did with the Uzi, and grew liking it. The rifle was pretty loud, but I had to suck it up and take the ringing. And right before I let out my sixth shot, I spotted a majestic gazelle, prancing like a lost, deaf animal. It moved smoothly through the forest where the trees marked. I had the funny idea to practice on a live target.

"Lincoln..." That was Lori's response, who had somehow read my mind back then. She knew my plans, and knew I wasn't going to back down. She came running, but I was faster. I heard her footsteps close in as I aimed and-

I fired, but she ran into me like I was her enemy. And to tell you the truth, if I was one second late, the gazelle might have been breathing today. Whether it hurt Lori or not was of no concern of mine; I scored the team deer meat for the entire day, and I did so with this rifle I hadn't touched before.

Maybe Lori might've been afraid of what I was able to do. Granted, I could not blame her if it was like that. I've come a long way, but I turned a new leaf, that's for sure. The Freight life was done, so no more hurting of the innocents.

And yet- Even after I had killed that animal, I returned to fire the bullets of the rifle, shooting my own soul and morality away in the process. Hmmm.

I distinctly remember I wanted to fuck with the light machine gun, a mesmerizing beauty with the sound of thunder that it erupted, but Chandler made it off-limits, a let-down for me.

When I inquired about suppressors, I've been told that none of them actually worked the way you would see in movies and games. Right before I got here, they did have one for the M60, but the thing tore off when a full belt had been fired, tearing away at it by the burned-out barrel. I wondered if there were any actual good suppressors out there. Just in case.

Apart from the whole gun training, we collectively had to learn to fight with our fists, and would then advanced to knives and other melee weapons.

For knives, the combat training was tricky; we had to constantly keep moving our arms to land strikes and avoid strikes. This was basic Krav Maga at its finest, and with my then-lover Rebekka, I flourished past an amateur. Apart from this, I've been given a run down of where to strike. The human body had a few weak points to hit, brief examples of these being the neck, behind the knees, the side of the abdomen, and lastly, right in between the ribs. We threw that into the mix and made it an objective to strike each other in those places with the fake knives on us.

I had good old Becky flipped over when she came in like a crazy bitch, to which I dropped the fake knife and had her in a lock as she fake-stabbed the backside of my waist. I then grabbed her knife and beat her when I ran it across her neck. That impressed the other Freights right away, and later, I was given advice that I should jam my knife into the neck rather than a clean slitting. Like I said, media was bullshit, which also brought upon some form of suspicion as to why and how he knew exactly what he knew. Back then, it advanced to me theorizing good old Redboy had some indirect ties to the military.

We could make weapons in disguise, and that's frankly what we did. We used zips- the store-bought brand- to put four wrenches into an umbrella, making a custom baton hard enough to create blunt-force trauma on whoever was unlucky to be kissed upside the head by the thing. We also reinforced it with lovely duct tape, later to save it for practice.

Next was this weird weapon that didn't feel too promising; if I remember it right, it was basically a small bat made from a newspaper folded and taped together, with a nail sticking out. I didn't like this one, for the strength of it seemed weak for my taste. But it didn't look like a weapon at first glance, so that was something, if I were to be honest.

At this point, I can't be bothered to remember them all. Ugh, I'm getting old.

So there was this book in existence. It was called The Anarchist Cookbook, the most dangerous book in the world. It had been banned in most places, and a heavily edited copy of it existed just for show, to prove how censored the government goons were- So Cristina claimed. It had the instructions on how to create bombs, wage war- anything that sounded and felt associated with terrorism, one could say. Maybe in good hands, it could be the guide to raise guerrilla warriors in the phenos and fight their battles. Oh, I would love to find the book and send it to Grimmtown. Lupa and the girls could use the Rambo tactics.

Anyways, back to the hand-mades.

Molotovs. Explosive little things, they were. Alcohol and rags? If you think that would be all that was needed to make one, you'd be dead wrong. The third ingredient to it, the most essential, was soap shavings. Get Dove bars, slice them up into rectangular shavings, and dump them in with the liquid content inside. The idea was that the shavings were sticky enough to latch onto the clothes of your targets, making it harder for them to put out the fire- and there would not be any escape from that danger either way. Just make sure you have a survival knife with you at all times.

So by then, I had a feel on shooting guns, and some fighting and using hand-helds. Next was bombs- Various ranges in blast size, some either of stuff we had, or the DIY types when resources were depleted. Claymore, C4 packs, TNT- we had so little of that, which surprised me. TNT was stripped of its gunpowder, serviced for a different type of explosive. The specifics weren't known to me at the time, but small ones, in the shape of water bottles, cylinders, and even, at one time, a soda can, had sat on one of the tables. These were just the beta testing, and the cycle was repeated for Lori and I to see and learn, right before they'd resupply and recreate it again with the real thing. In other words, these bombs were just for show, toys that I could use as target practice as long as I was far from their range.

Yes, the M14 never missed hitting the nine bombs on another trial run- and I set them up in the middle of the field over placing them in the forest. Like fuck, we didn't need a forest fire, much less the attention to it. I was closer to the base and felt the eyes of mostly everyone watching me, even Lori. My aim got better, but only because I didn't squander it, breathed correctly and did my best to keep the alignment as straight as possible. No shots had strayed, and it blew me away, too, even. Me, and the pretty Becky as well. Becky, the nickname I had given the Russian girl. We had our nights as often as we'd look at each other. Becky, sweet Becky... The mother of my child we gave up and placed in an orphanage, which was so long ago. My daughter had been, is, and will always be better off without me, that's what I always believe.

I'm sorry, Laika.

The MK3 grenade is a concussion grenade that kills when the pin is pulled. The idea is to drop one when you're cornered by a mob of enemy personnel- just make sure you get to cover before it goes off. The shockwave kills on instant, and none of us have ever used these in practice. We just have to remember to pull the pin, toss it and cover. It's awfully big and gray-white, not one of the round green ones were accustomed to seeing.

Then there's-

(Notes stop here)