Chapter 63. High Noon!
The day wore on like that. Each time I would lose, and be corrected on my mistakes, and shown what I need to be. For hours we fought like that. Unknown to me, we were being watched the whole time by the side-kicks and workers in the building. They all were watching and making bets on the whole thing. After our 20th match I wanted to take a break, but I stopped myself. ‘I have to get as many chances to win as I can. If I take a break, so does he. I have to keep pushing through if I want to win.’ I kept on pushing through until the 40th match.
“It’s my 39th win kid, only 61 more for a perfect hundred.” I ignored his trash talk and focused on only the coin. After ‘Snipe’ tossed it into the air I kept an eye on the arc to calculate when it was going to touch the ground. I put my hand on my holster, and kept my eye on ‘Snipe’ as I was mentally counting down the seconds for the match to start. As soon as my counter hit zero, and the coin hit the ground at the same time I pulled out my pistol and shot once at ‘Snipe’ while ducking behind a house.
Knowing I missed I didn’t let up from my assault. I pulled myself over the house with my grapple, and looked over the range from above. ‘Snipe’ quickly threw down smoke to obscure my vision and began to relocate. I did the same, and then silence. All was quiet in the room. The smoke had long since died out causing a deafening silence to befall the room. ‘I know ‘Snipe’ can somehow walk without making any noise, so I have to do the same. Luckily I don’t have anything that jingles so this shouldn’t be hard. Just walk slowly and with purpose.’ The match evolved into both of us hiding our presence as much as possible to sneak up and find the other.
All the viewers were watching us with bated breath, making as little noise as we were inside the range. Nobody could think of anything, but to watch what would happen in this match. Back inside the range I was walking silently, and with as little presence as possible. ‘I can’t see him often, and I can never hear him when he doesn’t want me to. I have to rely on something else besides sight and sound, but what?’ I kept wishing I could just use my quirk, but had to push those thoughts away as they wouldn’t help my troubles. ‘I have to rely on my 6th sense. The gut feeling I have when something isn’t right, when the hairs on my neck stand up in fear of something. But how do I train that?’
I kept thinking while moving from building to building, clearing them out. I then got that stomach pit dropping feeling, and fell to the floor. Just to have a bullet land on the wall behind me. I crawled outside the house without letting my head go above the cover. I went outside the opposite end of where I was shot at. Outside I looked around and noted that there was an open area between the surrounding buildings. ‘Too far and out in the open.’ I then looked to the roof.
Climbing the roof without my grapples so as to make no noise. I made it on top in 10 seconds as opposed to the normal one second it normally took. I took off my goggles around my head, and held them over the ledge to try and use the reflective surface to see around without using my head. I saw a glint of something nearby the building in the direction of where I was shot from. Seeing this I sprung up, and shot directly at it. As soon as I did I heard a loud ping, and then complete quietness again.
I then heard laughing from the same area. ‘Snipe’ then came out from around the corner, with his left spur broken. “Well done kid. I assume you saw the glint off of my spur and quickly shot at it?” I was still in shock that actually hit him while slowly nodding in confirmation. This just made ‘Snipe’ laugh even louder. “Well done kid. Just like I promised that gun is now yours. You better take care of it, for it to take care of you.” I broke out into a massive smile. “Of course, she will be the centerpiece of my arsenal!”
‘Snipe’ continued to chuckle. “She?” This caused me to blush. “Well of course… Looking at her she is just a she.” I looked at her with a small smile, and continued talking. “She is not entirely mine yet though. I’m gonna have to wait a little bit, and make her truly mine before I give her a name.” ‘Snipe’ just looked at me for a bit before nodding in understanding. “All right kid, now is the time to train with your quirk while using your pistol. I’m gonna get back to work on other things. Feel free to use the range, and test out how well you can use your weapon in congruence with your quirk.