About FAS

I smiled at the poor fellow, probably reminding him of just how colourful my imagination was when I ran out of bullets. This wasn't the kind of battle one read about or watched mimickeries of on TV, neither was it the sort of thing pretentious, overinflated "veterans" selectively remembered over a pint. One legion against another, no more than 32 soldiers at a time, you must be this tall to die. This was death itself, a human meat grinder that would only stop turning when the bodies piled roof-high and jammed in the gears. Around... 200 should do it, I think. What could be worth 200 corpses? I think you'll enjoy the answer when you find it. I did.

A trumpet call loud enough to shred the lining of more than a few soldier's ears rent the air over my head, signaling that the bridge had been taken by our enemy no less than 50 metres away.

One of them once asked me that if I believed in my own logic, what was I? Of so many things that passed through the minds of these puppets, these mannequins of flesh and bone, which thing was I? This caught hold of my interest for just a second, then I simply knew. The answer was with me all along, so there was no need for intuition here. I am death. I am murder. I was at the side of Cain when he claimed the life of Abel. I have been since antiquity, and so I shall be until eternity... as long as there is life. That is the nature of all of us - we are but extensions of the same purpose, but each a different shell.

He said that the way I perceived this place was evil, mad, impossible. He told me I would writhe in Hell's ceaseless agony until time itself ran short of life. I simply laughed at his pathetic, obtuse denial... it was all I could do. Existing only to slaughter a rival legion of soldiers who have our equipment, numbers, skins of every hue, voices, purpose, and myriad other traits in mirrored exactitude of our own. Two sides of a mirror clashing eternally, futilely, for the most trivial and hollow of objectives; annihilation... a genocide that would never be realized. They were our reflection; we were theirs, both detestable and wretched to the other only by the colour of a thin layer of cloth which separated us. Such a narrow world, yet so intriguing. He was such a fool to not have seen it - the signs were buried in our hearts, our flesh, our heads... those fascinating spikes of mutilated lead which signified the end of another puppet. Yet we return. After each tortuous and ragged dying breath, after each interminable second of horrific agony before our end, we are placed upon the chessboard once again, to kill, to die... ad infinitum.

Each death of this faceless doll of mine returns me to this place rather than the fiery abyss. Conveniently, the audacious cretin chose to overlook this small discrepancy in his evangelic tirade. You see, there's no need for me to seek out the gates of Hell when my time once again comes to a bloody end. I cannot be damned to a purgatory of unending carnage, least of all by him. Why? I am already here.

Who is to say what is the greater consciousness here, the man or the weapon? I will, of course, offer my own humble opinion on the subject for your... greater entertainment. So much for philosophy, but this is my mind and my story, so kindly forget that I mentioned it. When I die, and oh will I die, the faceless puppet of a man that replaces me -will I be him as well? It's getting difficult to tell, we're all so similar. The same package, different gun, like little pieces on a chessboard.

No, not quite. I lied when I said that my successor would be myself incarnate. The undeniable truth is that I am my weapons, that is all. A Colt Anaconda, 12-inch KABAR, Claymore, a pair of M67's, full standard gear, Night Vision Goggles, Bandages. That's what I am. I'll pass through ten thousand bloodstained hands, climbing this mountain of bodies for eternity, adding my own corpses to the pile now and again. Should I ever reach the top? I think I'll admire the view. The man is worthless here; the weapon, the firearm is his soul and mind in this place. Soldiers do not pick their weapons; weapons select new soldiers to carry them. Weapons do not die; weapons kill.

What to call this artistic pirouette of speed, weaponry, and bloody carnage? Well, there's no reason to be coy. This is Firearms.

Description of Firearms by Naota.

In addition to being officially endorsed by the FA Team Leadership, including current FA Team leader Alex Jordan and former FA Team leader Ben Irwin, Firearms: Source is currently led by a member of the FA Team. All maps are remade or ported with permission from the original authors.