Cheruguns

Cheruguns are Holster’s signature Gun Path constructs and the first technique she ever invented. They are not ordinary weapons or merely summoned equipment: they are extensions of Holster’s qi, shaped by her unusually deep reserves and imbued with portions of her soul and autonomy. Their existence turns the legacy of her forced life as a Human Pillar into a practice of protection, cooperation, and care.

Nature and Construction

Holster’s Cheruguns are created from her own qi, which allows them to materialize weapons and later dematerialize those weapons back into raw energy. Their armaments are not uniform. When Holster whistles, six Cheruguns gather around her, each displaying a different weapon, ranging from cannons to Kalash Angels. This variety makes the technique adaptable rather than tied to a single firearm or combat pattern.

The Cheruguns are not truly sentient, but Holster has given them part of her soul and a degree of autonomy. That distinction governs how she treats them. She prefers to make requests instead of issuing orders, even though they are extensions of her own power. Her choice is explicitly connected to her past: Holster was once a slave, and she does not want to boss around beings that embody part of herself. The technique therefore carries an ethical structure within its mechanics, converting qi control into a relationship of trust rather than simple domination.

Use in Rescue and Combat

The Cheruguns’ clearest recorded use comes after the destruction of a trashcan farm. Holster encounters a terrified boy trapped in a vehicle and asks the large creature Gotama to remove him. Once the child is safe in Gotama’s jaws, Holster whistles for her six Cheruguns and asks them to carry him to Mr. LaChair, a doctor experienced in treating Human Pillars who has even cured some of them through surgery.

The Cheruguns respond by making their weapons vanish into the qi from which they were formed. They then take the boy gently by the arms and carry him over the dunes. Their function in this scene is not destruction but evacuation: the same constructs capable of presenting cannons and Kalash Angels become careful transporters for a frightened child. Holster watches them with Gotama, and their successful departure confirms that the technique can support medical rescue as well as battlefield action.

Revolver questions whether it is wise to entrust the boy to Holster’s “critters,” noting that the Wayfinders sometimes know where they wander off. Holster answers that she trusts them. The exchange establishes both their independence and their reliability: the Cheruguns may be imperfect and capable of making a mess, but Holster believes they always give their all. Their autonomy is consequently not presented as a loss of control, but as a bond that can function under pressure.

Holster’s Power and Development

Holster’s childhood as a qi battery left her with reserves many times greater than those of other cultivators her age. The same Human Pillar condition that restricted her bodily advancement also gave her an exceptional capacity for techniques requiring enormous output. She finds channeling that excess qi through the Cheruguns easier than using Gunsongs or Black Haze, making them the most natural expression of her current strengths.

Her history gives this power a sharp contrast. The procedure that made Holster a Human Pillar caused her core to hoard qi instead of processing and redistributing it to strengthen her flesh. She was raised to store energy for someone else’s benefit, and Yuan recognizes that she will never reach the Second Coil regardless of how much qi she cycles. The Cheruguns do not erase that limitation, but they allow Holster to redirect the surplus that once marked her as a disposable resource. Through them, stored qi becomes agency, mobility, and protection.

Holster hopes to master Gunsongs and Black Haze within the year, but the Cheruguns already reveal a distinctive path of her own. Their effectiveness depends not on conventional bodily cultivation alone, but on the conversion of accumulated qi into multiple active forms. The technique is therefore both a practical specialization and evidence that Holster is developing beyond the role imposed on her.

Significance

The Cheruguns embody a reversal of the Human Pillar system. Holster was created to function as a living battery, with her body and death treated as resources for others. Her constructs instead distribute her power according to her own judgment. They can display an arsenal, but their most important action is carrying a child to a doctor; they possess autonomy, but Holster refuses to reproduce the coercion that shaped her life.

As an object-system, the Cheruguns also make Holster’s growth visible without requiring her to overcome every physical restriction. She remains unable to progress to the Second Coil under the condition described by Yuan, yet her immense reserves support a technique no less personal for being made of qi. Their six-figure formation, varied weapons, partial souls, and obedient-but-not-commanded behavior present Gun Path cultivation as something that can create companions as well as weapons. The Cheruguns are thus the material expression of Holster’s central change: power once hoarded for exploitation becomes a chosen means of sheltering others.