☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Part Twenty-Four

Sharpshooting was a skill that required time and practice to master. Anyone can grab a gun and pull the trigger, or pull and release an arrow, but without practice you’d miss your target. The longer the distance the harder it is to achieve your goal, this is where the divide begins.

A true sharpshooter should be able to hit any target within their sight, no matter if it's day or night.

This competition would allow the students competing to see who is better than who.

If that was all then no one would appear to show off their skill. The rewards for winning were nice. Depending on what rank your school received would also determine what reward you’d get.

The top prize for this year was five custom made weapons hand crafted by master weaponsmith Harry.

The weapons he crafted was above normal creations. He has not reached the level of grandmaster, but he was still a master!

The weapons he created sold for hundreds of millions, and for him to craft five custom made ones for the winning school was something unheard of. It was a one in a lifetime chance for these students.

Freya felt the pressure on her shoulders when she heard about the rewards. She was the only freshman competing and she did not want to drag her teammates down. Yet she would never give up on this chance, she needed this.

She never found an activity that felt right to her growing up, but shooting targets was fun for her. The club members were all nice, at times they could be a bit mean but she knew that was because they wanted to help her out. When one makes mistakes one needs to know the mistakes they made.

Slowly they became like a third family for her, Nick and Matthew were both the second family she had.

Now that she held something close to heart, she wanted to show off her hard work.

Ms. Woods seemed to notice how tense Freya has become so she walked over to her. Placing her hand on Freya’s shoulder caused Freya to jump.

“Ms. Woods!”

Freya shouted as she turned and saw the person behind her.

Wondering why she approached her Freya looked into her eyes trying to find the answer. Maybe she came over to give Freya confidence, or changed her mind about putting her in the rotation.

“Let me tell you about my younger days Freya.”

Ms. Woods told Freya with a smile on her face.

Freya glanced over at the other members noticing how they were stretching their arms, or doing breathing exercises. She also noticed how the judges were talking and marking areas.

She could tell that everything was about to get started soon.

“Do we have time?”

Freya asked her.

“We always have time, besides you are the last one to shoot. Just have a chat with me.”

Freya nodded her head.

“Back when I was sixteen there was this boy I had a crush on, he was an archer. Naturally he was also in the sharpshooting club as well. Because of him I too joined the club trying to impress him.

We got closer over time and eventually I had my first competition just like you are about to have. I stood there in a massive crowd of people with countless eyes watching me. My body tensed up, my stomach hurt and during the time I was standing on stage. I saw him. He was talking to another girl, laughing, flirting. I felt jealous, and that jealousy caused all my other emotions to go away.”

“Um.. Ms. Woods, I don-”

Freya tried to interrupt her, but Ms. Woods gave her a look that told her to shut up and listen. She wanted to ask what this had to do with herself, but gave up.

“Anyways, with jealousy clouding my mind it caused my head to clear up. I realized I didn’t fall in love with him for who he is, but what he had. He had this confidence in everything he did and it showed all the time. I wanted that too because I was quiet the timid girl in my day.

I came to realize that I started this because of him, but I fell in love with it because of how it made me feel. I thought, why can’t I be the greatest?

Slowly my body relaxed, but then the judge told me to hurry up because I was taking all day so I shot and missed. Oh boy, did the crowd have a laugh.

Mistakes happen but when they do there is always a way to fix it. My teammates cheered me on and my next shot it the target right in the middle. Then my next one, and next one. It continued on as if I was in the zone.

I felt it, the support of all my teammates pushing me forward not because they wanted to win badly. Instead they wanted to have fun doing the sport they loved!”

Ms. Woods stopped as she fell into a daze reminiscing about her past.

Listening to Ms. Woods story Freya relaxed a bit. She didn’t need to be all tense if they did not win this year, there was always next year or the year after that. This would be good practice and a chance for her to improve herself.

“What happened… to that guy?”

Freya questioned her.

Ms. Woods tapped her chin with her index finger a few times.

“He died. Some people fall before they can reach the sky Freya.”

Ms. Woods looked a bit sad.

Although they never went out, she was very close to him even after they both graduated.

“The sky?”

Freya wondered what she meant by that. It was the first time she’s heard someone say it.

“You’ll learn what it means if you are destined to reach it. I was close, but…”

Ms. Woods said as her words drifted off as she looked at her wrist. She was so close but she too fell.

“Next shooters. Freya Smith, Violet Rose, Jonathan Davis, Ben Witherting…”

An announcer called up the next batch of shooters which also happened to be the last shooters.

Freya did not realize that her and Ms. Woods had been talking for so long, she lost track of time. At the time Freya didn’t understand but that is what Ms. Woods wanted. The less time Freya had to think about the situation at hand, the less time she had to worry over it.

Freya stood on a large platform that overlooked the ground. Out in the distance she could not see the target at all.

Violet was on the platform next to hers. She was wielding a long silver bow with a quiver on her back. The quiver did not hold any arrows at all which was weird.

Violet felt Freya’s gaze on her as she looked over and flipped her hair with her hand lightly.

“Once I win this tell my future husband i’ll show him around the academy.”

Violet told Freya.

“He isn’t your future husband, you don’t even know him. How can you like someone you don’t even know?”

Freya actually wondered this. She had no recollection of Nick and Violet ever meeting before. If they did Violet would never have asked for his name. So why did Violet like Nick?

“That can come after and the reason is simple. He could sense me, that's all the reason I need.”

That day when Violet was on the rooftop she did not use any special abilities but most people would never notice her presence. The fact that Nick even started in her direction meant something.

His perception was out of this world. No one close to her age had the ability to sense her. The few that could were in a league of their own. Everyone else that would be able to sense her had years of training and she was not attracted to them.

If anyone just casually gazed in her direction she’d notice, but she felt it. He was out there looking for something. Nick just never noticed it was her.

Even now he questioned if what he felt was real or not.

Freya rolled her eyes, she couldn’t listen to Violet anymore.

Taking off her glasses, she set them on the rail and took out her sniper rifle.

Taking the prone position she looked through the scope. Her breathing became slow but steady.

Violet watched the targets in the distance. She couldn’t see them either, but she’d be able to once things got started.

The area in front of them started to change. The ground rumbled a few times before it started moving. The front wall lowered itself revealing the outside. Three large stop lights appeared overhead.

“Shooters get ready!”

The announcer yelled out

Freya felt her heart beat start to speed up.

The shooters on the platform had to shoot multiple targets from long range. The targets were 2.5 miles away. They’d start like any other shooting range, targets pop up and go down once hit or after a certain amount of time passed. After disk would fly in the air and you’d have to hit them.

Sometimes disk would fly up and targets would appear on the ground.

The stop lights were yellow but suddenly turned green.

As soon as the first target appeared a sudden burst of energy appeared inside Freya. She nailed her first target as soon as it popped up.

Freya was so focused on her targets she didn’t see the rapid fire happening next to her.

Violet reached over her shoulder as if she was grabbing an arrow but what appeared was an arrow made of lightning. That arrow was then shot out of her bow at lightning speed and spurred off into the distance.

Her motions were swift. Violet just continued to reach behind and shoot in one smooth motion, it was happening so fast you’d think she was some sort of machine gun.

The scoreboard showed her score go up constantly.

“Woah, that's some serious speed shes go there.”

Matthew commented as she watched Violet let loose.

“Thats two… three hits per target?”

Matthew asked curiously.

Nick didn’t respond to Matthew as he was paying attention to what was happening. He had to use his EXO ability to be able to keep up with all the shots she was firing.

Nick thought that if he was down there and they both were dueling how would he win. Countless scenarios was going through his mind.

Right as everyone was focused on what was happening a loud ‘zum’ was heard and everything went dark.

The crowd thought this was part of the competition but the judges looked worried.

A large wall appeared cutting off the light from the outside making everything pitch black on the inside.

“Cease Fire!’

Someone yelled multiple times causing all shooters to stop what they were doing.

Matthew felt drops of rain come down on his face.