Percussive sounds of mechanical mania resound around the round compound, Tachikomas large and small going about their business, moving supplies, repairing vehicles, or stripping them of parts. The abandoned underground Arasaka munitions depo had changed hands numerous times throughout the years, a relic of old wars that had never quite lost its utility, periodically necromantically revived by some entrepreneuring company bearing positive relations with the iconic mega corporation. And thanks to the business brains of Section 9, it now houses the eponymous mercenary cadre.

It had taken mere days for Motoko to fill it with junk.

'Useful junk!' She would periodically insist to her cohorts.

And it is surrounded by this 'useful' mess that Motoko cries out in triumph from her 'small arms nook', a pair of large shipping containers that had been taken down the central elevator and chopped up for walls to mount gun racks to.

Don't worry, despite the racks, there is no visible rhyme or reason for the sorting schema of the armory.

Wait, no, that is something to worry about. OCD people beware.

Anyway, Motoko's joyous cry attracts the attention of her comrades, who find their way to her in short order. Even Hiromi makes her way down from the hanging office that she had made into her citadel.

"What's up, Motoko?" Ichi questions loudly, the first to arrive.

The partially mechanical girl lifts the weapon she had been working on, seemingly appreciating its silhouette in the shop light above her. "Just finished the last upgrade on MY ARSENAL! MUAHWhaWHaWHaHAHawha!"

As she laughs, Malcolm walks around the corner into view, and immediately about faces. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts up to Hiromi, who is still descending the scaffolding from her office. "HIROMI! SHE'S DOING IT AGAIN, SEAL THE BLAST DOORS!"

"WHAT?!"

Motoko puts the pistol down on her work table and glares at Malcolm with little heat. "I swear, it's not like last time!"

He stares at her for a moment in uncomprehension, then shrugs and looks back at Hiromi. "NEVERMIND, JUST SEAL THEM A LITTLE BIT!"

"I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU! IT'S TOO LOUD IN HERE!"

"Malcolm!" Motoko whines.

Ichi shakes his head at the pair's antics. "So, what did you do?"

"I made my guns talk!" She cheers with a childish grin, proud of herself.

Ichi and Malcolm stare at her for a solid fifteen seconds, looks of confusion across their features. Hiromi takes that moment to jog around the corner, slightly huffing from the distance she had to run. "Hey guys, made it. What were you saying Malcolm?"

"Motoko's gone crazy again."

Said Motoko crosses her arms petulantly. "Have not!"

"She's talking to her guns now."

Motoko briefly chokes, but manages to stumble out some words. "H-hey! Don't make my cool thing sound lame or crazy! I had spare parts from the Tachikomas and figured I'd put them to use."

"Huh. I didn't take you for the gun-waifu type.-" Hiromi can't quite hide a slightly amused look of disgust. "-Y'know they sell those pre-built, right?"

Motoko groans. "Uggh! They are NOT gun waifus!"

Her groan is echoed by another from behind her. "The hell is all that racket? My shift doesn't start for…oh right, retired… Uggrh. Alright! Sound off! Has she finished working on us yet? Is anybody dead?"

Motoko swings around in her chair with a gleeful expression plastered on her face. Small lights on each gun light up corresponding with their voices.

"*Yawn*. Tactician here, everything appears to be as it should. She has yet to violate my right to life, if not liberty…" One of the shotguns drawls in a surly fashion with a compressed digital voice.

"Я функционален, я не чувствую никакой разницы." I'm functional, I don't feel any different.

Motoko's eyes flit from one gun to the next as they light up.

"Oh my! This is terrible!" remarks the Overture.

The pistol on the table is quick to ask "What is it?"

"There's this… thing attached to my circuitry! It keeps buzzing and vibrating, making… sounds. She hasn't turned me into a… ugh, "joy-toy" has she? That would be a terrible look! How Horrid!"

"Shiiieeet, ain't just yew, bitch. I feel that too. Dafuq it is?"

Ichi, Malcolm and Hiromi step further into the armory, hoping for a better look at the ongoing interactions.

The Lexington on the table flashes as it hums in consideration. "Hmm, I don't know much about technology. Is Nekomata awake yet? She might know… hey, anyone else notice how they're watching us so closely? What's so interesting about a bunch of guns?"

Motoko's head fwips to look at the other side of the room as a large machine gun in a detached mount for Malcolm's various vehicles speaks up. "Uhm. Hey guys? They… I think they can hear us…"

"What? That's Frivolity, they've never shown even the barest ability to behold my glorious speech. Why, if they heard the melodic qualities of my-"

"Shut dafuq up, bitch. She be spittin' truth I think. They been lookin' at us as we talk'n'shit."

"This is some pretty colorful and nuanced dialogue, Motoko." Hiromi notes curiously. "Is this pre-programmed? Or… No, you didn't somehow manage to cram an AI in these things did you?!" One could almost see the eddies flashing in her eyes… No, those actually are Eurodollar symbols in her eyes. Cybernetic eyes everybody. (clapping)

Motoko lazily waves her hand in denial. "Naaah, you really can't fit that level of computing into a package as small as these. They're just pretty advanced and compact Virtual Intelligences… Although… I didn't expect them to get divergent personalities this quickly, I figured it would be at least a few days of interaction before that happened."

"... Well that sounds ominous." Tactician remarks.

"Now I really want to know what she changed in us, are they hearing everything? Or just simulated words. Nekomata! HEY! WAKE UP YOU DAMN CAT!"

A high pitched beep from the rifle hanging on the wall is the only response. But after a moment of silence the gun begins to quietly hum. The buzz of charging capacitors grows louder over the course of a few seconds.

"Motoko?-" Ichi asks carefully. "-Are you sure you installed that one correctly?"

"Positive, why?"

He simply points at the gun, which is now vibrating enough that it is bouncing slightly in its mount on the wall. The adjacent guns jitter in place softly.

"That's… It's probably just rebooting, or something."

The vibrations increase steadily in intensity, now shuddering the entire wall of guns, and nearly bouncing off of the mount.

Ichi leans over to loudly whisper in Hiromi's ear. "Blast. Doors."

Her eyebrow raises. "We don't have blast doors."

Motoko waves off their worries. "Relaaax~ I'd never accidentally rig one of my guns to explode. Let alone my favorite sniper rifle. It is shaking quite a bit though. Getting a bit worried here…"

Malcolm seems to take that as his que to put something between him and the rifle as sparks of lightning now zip around the components along its barrel.

"Oh! Hey Malcolm!" The heavy machine gun he'd swept behind chirps happily. "Can we go to the dump and do some more target practice later? It was fun to shred that garbage to powderized bits."

Malcolm visibly questions his motivation for using the weapon and mount as cover at its slightly deranged tone. "Uhh, sure?"

There's no words in response, but the gun does make a high pitched happy-squeal that almost blends in with the humming of the Nekomata. The rifle that seems to be approaching a crescendo of lightning as it glows like a floodlight.

"Okay, okay. Lemmie take a look at this thing, there's no way it's gonna explode or anythin-" A bright flash of light and the sound of an electrical discharge interrupts Motoko's words. The blinding flash causes glitches and pixel shears within the eyes of all but Motoko.

"Panpakapaaan!😻 Nekomata-chan has arrived-desu❣~"

After waiting for her eyes to bring the light compensation back down, Hiromi looks at Motoko with a raised eyebrow. "'Not a waifu-gun', huh?"

"It's not! I think…"

"Awawa ? What's thisu-neko😻? I'm feeling all Pika-Pika-des and I've got some new hardware🙀!"

"Nekomata, get yourself together for a moment. We're trying to figure out what the girl did to us. What's your take?" The Lexington asks.

"Okay-okay! Detective-neko is on the job❣" The rifle then makes a series of inquisitive sounds and almost definitely cosmetic beeps and boops. "Taa-daaa ! Investi-neko complete!"

"...well? What did you find?" Lexington asks hesitantly.

"I don't know-des! Tee-hee❣"

Lexington groans.

"Waitwaitwait❣ I'll check the forums, see what my fans know about it-desu … puru-puru-puru❣"

The rifle begins to vibrate again, which causes everyone to flinch and Malcolm to duck back behind the HMG, which giggles in amusement. "That tickles!"

But they needn't have worried. " -puru-puru-powaa~❣... Wha-HEY! FABER-NYAN! I am not a canon! I don't weigh nearly that much! Motoko ~ my dearest Jenni-flexx-chan~ tell Faber-nyan I'm not canon-sized!🙀 An idol-Hime like me needs to watch her figure.😭"

"Who? Faber? The heck is a Faber? Also, no, you're a reasonably slim electromagnetic sniper rifle not a can-" She cuts herself off with a gasp. "OHMYGOD HIROMI!"

"Huh?" Hiromi snaps back reflexively, her brain not quite up to speed yet.

"WE DON'T HAVE A CANNON YET! Can we buy one? Pleasepleaseplease~!"

Hiromi squints at Motoko partly in confusion and largely in disbelief. "No. You already signed off on the budget, and 'cannon' wasn't on it. What would we even do with one- Wait, stupid question, 'cannon-stuff', right?"

Motoko nods vigorously and practically floats on her feet out of the armory. "'Cannon-stuff'! You said it, that means it's your idea and we're getting one~!"

"No it doesn't. And we're not. I just said it wasn't in the budget." She sighs loudly.

"That just means we have to steal it! BITCHES LOVE CANNONS!"

Hiromi storms off after Motoko, attempting to reign her in. Meanwhile Malcolm and Ichi just look at eachother and shake their heads. Ichi shrugs. "How are the guns talking supposed to help in combat anyway?"

Malcolm opens his mouth to reply, but the pistol on the table beats him to it. "Only thing I can think of is a partner of sorts meant to monitor and address any psychological issues in the user. The NCPD briefly toyed with some agents that had a system like that; they were weird by the way, but the things were just too expensive and it cut into their embezzlement funds. And that's probably not the case here anyway, since most of us are… y'know, a bit crazy already."

Malcolm and Ichi simultaneously 'huh' in understanding.

"OH-MY-GOSH🙀❣ I just realized! I can talk to humans now-des !"

"Yep, seems that way. Even if it sounds a bit crazy." Lexington mutters.

" EEEE ! That means I can sing for them too-des❣❣"

Lexington stumbles over his words, sounding a bit frantic. "N-No it doesn't. I'm sure humans wouldn't want to-"

Spoiler: 😻😻 Poppin' Candy Fever❣😻😻

But it was too late as the instruments had already started to play from her speakers.

As the rifle sang, Ichi and Malcolm found that they didn't hate the sound. Pretty soon they'd brought some snacks and chairs into the armory and it wasn't long before Nekomata was taking requests for 'Inferior-des' modern musicians, like Us Cracks.

Much fun was had. And HMG even managed to beg a promise from Malcolm and Ichi to practice shooting on-the-move with her.

Oh. And Motoko did end up finding an old M256 120mm cannon, a historical piece, which she eventually bolted into a Tachikoma, who developed a complex of some kind around the weapon. Not going to get into it.

Author's notes.
Special tanks to The-AnonyM0US3-Otaku for pointing out these two posts to me and kicking the three and-a-half cylinder combustion engine that is my creativity into making this short.

And Martin Bajar for pointing out the 'Cannon/canon' spelling thing. I figured it was one of those interchangeable britishisms sacrificed on the altar of capitalism, like Honour, colour, and any other word that was chopped down to save on printing ink. Also, one can assume that Nekomata doesn't know the difference anyway.

We've made lots of jokes and omakes about Motoko's guns having feelings and thoughts, but could she legit install AI programs into her weapons after studying how Skippy works?

Yeeeees, Neko-chan shall rise and BECOME AS FAT AS A CANON!-DESU

"That's so meeeann Faber-nyan😭😭 But Neko-chan Fogives you-des❣ 🙀🙀🙀 "So niceu-neko of Neko-chan, FANK YEW NYEKO-NYAAAN " That's you Faber-nyan! How Niceu " What the... how'd that get th