Speed / Accuracy

Realizing what they were up against, the group began to scatter.  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.

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.  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.  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.  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.

***

After watching him a moment, perhaps to be sure he wouldn’t retaliate, Shadow Stalker glanced at Flechette.  “Your man there is getting loose.”

Flechette had been caught up in the spectacle of watching Shadow Stalker fight.  A kind of horrified fascination.  She saw the thug she’d shot in the crotch, on his back in the water, his pants still fixed to the wall.  He was struggling to work his legs out of the jeans.  She loaded a shot and fired a bolt just beneath his armpit, nailing his sweatshirt to the ground.  Another just above his opposite shoulder and behind his neck secured him.