Eventually Sand’s sights fixed on a cloud of blackened wings in the distance. She knelt for better stability and held her rifle in place, taking aim at the center of the flock for a moment before she lowered the rifle with a dissatisfied grunt. At the current distance she would just have to spray and hope that at least some bullets hit their targets, but she feared she might run through her ammo too quickly.
She was about to aim down the sights again when Violet stepped past her. Sand looked up, surprised, as the girl aimed down the length of her rifle and placed the hand on the trigger.
Sand raised an arm in protest. “Wai—”
The rifle’s rapport swallowed her complaint. Not in a volley or a burst, like she herself had been considering, but a single tap of the trigger. Off in the distance, a single shadow fell from amidst the larger group and vanished some distance below. As if to deny any claims that it had been a lucky break, the rapport rang again and was followed by yet another shadow dropping from the flock. The Grimm began to spread out in the face of this sniper, but even then, Sand simply watched dumbstruck as Violet continued to matter-of-factly kill the creatures with only a short pause between shots.
This aim can’t be natural, can it? she found herself wondering.
Last time I looked, she didn’t have eagle eyes. Then again, there was something in the information she had been given regarding their new team member that could work as an explanation. There had been a note about the Huntress’s arrows tracking targets affected by her semblance, but it had not occurred to her that this effect could manifest with other weapons.
Though in hindsight, there was no reason to think that. She was not born with that bow in her hands either. In the end, handing her a rifle to handle the Nevermores had been a stroke of luck.
By the time Violet stopped to reload, the number of Grimm had been halved.
“Maybe you should have given her both rifles,” Trad commented from behind her. Given what she had just seen, she was not sure she should treat that as a joke either.
“Let me keep a semblance of dignity here,” she called back regardless. Then she opened fire, and a smattering of black feathers burst from the side of one of the approaching beasts before it began to plummet. One thing was certain. The Grimm that remained had managed to close most of the gap, and as impressive as Violet’s shooting was, she would not be able to kill them all on her own before they reached the ship.
Recognizing this, the other three members of the team joined in the shooting, and were only moments later followed by the thunder of the ship’s own cannons.
In fact, the situation seemed to be set so overwhelmingly in their favor that Sand thought she had misheard when a panicked yell rose from behind her.
"Guys! Someone help!"When she whirled around and saw the Nevermore hauling off with Robert in its clutches, her blood ran cold.
‘How!?’ she wanted to howl. She had been certain that they had kept all the Grimm far from the ship, but now it was patently obvious that one had slipped notice and closed the gap.
“Violet!” Trad shouted hard into the wind,
“Take that thing down! We’ll hold the others off.”Violet had already turned, drawn by the scream like the rest, and was fixing her sights on the bird. However, she hesitated when she saw the fall that waited under Robert. Sand caught a glance thrown her way, as if asking for confirmation. As if it was needed. The bird was a Grimm; it was going to drop him one way or the other.
Sand surged forward. She tossed the rifle towards the elevator platform, not bothering to check where it landed, then slipped her hands down to the cases at her belt. The metal unfolded at her touch, covering her forearms in heavy, black gauntlets.
She needed a lifeline if she wanted to catch him, she knew, but her claws were liable to break if she tried to stab them into the flying vessel’s metal hull. Sand futilely scanned her surroundings as she ran, deeply aware that she only had a few steps left before she would have to jump, until a thought struck her.
“Trad! Hold these! Your semblance!”
Blades slid out of slots over her wrist left wrist, followed by metal cables, and she spun, swinging her arm outwards. The whip-like cables spun out of the slots, the blades travelling in an arc towards the Huntsman. Sand barely had time to see Trad bring up his rifle and snagging the wires before she had to return her focus to what was in front of her.
The last step.
Not too far in the empty air, Robert let out a panicked scream as the Nevermore let go of his clothes and gravity reasserted itself over him.
Sand leapt after him. Above her, the rapport of weapons and a pained screech sounded out, but her focus was on Robert’s stretched hand an inch away from hers.
There was a spark, and suddenly her right gauntlet had wrapped tightly around Robert’s arm. With her prize secure, she braced herself and locked the metal wires spinning out of her left gauntlet. With a wrenching motion, the downward fall turned into a swing, and the two dangling Huntsmen crashed against the ship’s metal hull. The jarring impact drew a hissing breath from her, but the tight grip on Robert’s arm did not slacken.
For the next few seconds, the pair only dangled from the side of the aircraft, wind rushing against their ears.
It took a moment for Sand to gather enough of her wits to take stock of their situation. Up above, the sounds of shooting had stopped. No more Grimm were visible. It also seemed, judging by the fact that they were not both free-falling into the wilderness, that Trad had managed to catch and hold the wires in place. Down below, against a backdrop hundreds of feet away, Robert stared up at her from only two arm’s lengths away.
“Thanks.” He breathed.
“For a second there, I was thinking my last name was some ominous foreshadowing I never got until now.”Sand gave him a dull stare, wondering if she had heard that right, before shaking her head in defeat. “Let’s not talk until we are back inside the ship,” she stated.
Almost as if of their own volition, the metal wires began to retract into Sand’s gauntlet, slowly pulling the two upwards.
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