You only need to wait like that if you’re going to be violent, Flechette thought to herself. Why? When she has the tranquilizer bolts?
Ah, right. Time for Shadow Stalker’s more favored bolts, eh?
And Shadow Stalker had neglected to inform command. Flechette reached for her ear, where an earbud was nestled in the canal. She squeezed it twice. “Console, woman under attack by twelve or so ordinaries. Shadow Stalker and Flechette stepping in.”
Oh jeez, that’s like twice as many men as I was imagining.
Which suggests organization. Are these Chosen goons, perhaps?
“Acknowledged,” a voice in her ear responded, “Good luck.”
She fired a bolt into the corner of the rooftop, then jumped, rappelling down.
Shadow Stalker was already engaged by the time Flechette arrived at the fight. In a matter of heartbeats, Shadow Stalker answered Flechette’s unspoken questions.
Which can’t be a good thing. Right?
The other heroine didn’t flinch as one of the men swung a baseball bat at her – the weapon passed harmlessly through her head. In response, she stepped back, materialized from her shadow state, raised a crossbow and shot him in the side of the neck. A fraction of a second after the glass arrow stuck in her target’s neck, Shadow Stalker stepped forward again, driving her armored elbow up at an angle at the spot where the bolt had struck home. Glass shattered and the combination needle-arrowhead was violently dislodged.
Yikes.
The man went tumbled with a splash, going limp before he hit the water. The side of his neck and the corner of his jaw were a bloody mess of cuts and embedded broken glass.
Ouch. Is he alive…?
Shadow Stalker wheeled around, then simultaneously slammed the top of her right crossbow into her left forearm and her left crossbow into her right arm. There was a barely audible click as cartridges loaded into the top of each crossbow. She extended her arms to fire at the two of the men closest to the woman. They dropped on their backs in the water, splashing.
She’s looking awesome, but she’s also – as expected – being far more violent than was probably necessary.
Realizing what they were up against, the group began to scatter.
I don’t have high hopes for Stalker letting them go that easily.
Flechette raised her arbalest, shot one bolt so it struck a wall just in front of one man’s throat. Still running, he ran headlong into it, clotheslined himself, and fell over, gasping and gurgling.
Though apparently Flechette agrees with that, she still takes a less violent approach.
She spared a glance to double check he wasn’t in a position to drown, which very nearly cost her. One of the thugs turned to attack her, drawing a gun, but she had a bolt loaded and fired off before he could aim it, spearing through the gun’s barrel and out the back, to strike a wall.
Not bad!
She loaded another bolt even as she was already pulling the trigger to fire it, so it was sent out an eye-blink after it was in place.
Seems to me that with most firearms, pushing the trigger during the reload would get in the way of the reload, but this isn’t most firearms. Probably Tinkertech, this crossbow too.
The shaft of metal struck the thug through the crotch of his sagging jeans, pinning them to the wall he was backing up to. He didn’t scream, so he clearly wasn’t well endowed enough to get hit anywhere important.
Heh. Sure, let’s try not to pull a Hebert here.
Flechette wasn’t exactly an expert -or even a novice- in that sort of thing, but she was ninety-nine percent sure that men didn’t dangle nearly to their knees.
Ahaha! Yeah, that’s usually not the case. 😛
(Also is that another hint about her being a lesbian?)
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