Chapter 35 – Resolve

“Okay, let’s go through it one more time.”

Chatfield’s voice sounded out from behind Sal. After the first leecher encounter, he had slipped into instructor mode and started guiding Sal on the best way to operate his revolver. Apparently, his form and technique were somewhere between piss-poor and nonexistent.

“Feet are shoulder width apart, good. Arms extended comfortably?” Chatfield studied Sal’s posture and shook his head ever so slightly.

“You need to bring the sights closer to your dominant eye, which is your right one. It would be pretty unfortunate if you ended up making a visor for the wrong side of your head. Okay, now keep a firm and consistent grip on the gun as you look down the sights. That notch at the back of the revolver should line up with the one at the front.”

“Ah,” Sal muttered, which caused Chatfield to pause with a raised eyebrow.

Sal gave him a sheepish glance before turning his attention back to the gun. He didn’t want to admit to Chatfield that he had been aiming with the front of the revolver. It explained why he hadn’t been hitting anything properly.

Chatfield stood directly behind Sal and looked at his form. “I want you to visualize that there is a target in front of you that you’re going to shoot at. Rather than snapping your finger on the trigger, you need to gradually pull it back while maintaining your aim. Steady breathing is key to this, and hold your breath only in the moment of taking the shot.”

Chatfield pointed into the distance in front of Sal. “When you take the shot, keep your aim fixed and watch to see where the bullet hits. That’ll inform you how much you need to adjust your aim. If you’re shooting to the left of the leecher, that means you need to aim that much to the right to correct it. Understood?”

Sal nodded as he continued to stare down the sights. Apparently, he had even been holding the revolver wrong, with his thumb held near the hammer at the back of the gun.

Chatfield paced around him, making slight suggestions to his form by pulling at his arms and shoulders. “That looks a lot better, so all you need now is practice. Tell me, what are your next six shots?”

Sal didn’t hesitate as he listed them off from memory. “Shock, Shear, Magnet, Decay, Freeze, and Shatter.” He wasn’t going to run into another scenario without knowing what he had loaded into the chambers.

Chatfield smiled and gave him a nod of approval. “You’ll be able to strategize how to best use the different effects, and depending on your hit rate, you could stack up some pretty nice combination attacks. Freeze and Shatter, for instance, could take out an entire group, but Shatter alone will just stun them in place. Going forward, you should reorder the bullets to maximize your effectiveness based on the encounter. Knowing what demons you’ll be facing is crucial for an effective strategy.”

Sal nodded again as Chatfield brought his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly. It seemed to go on for an age, and Sal rolled his shoulders to alleviate the tension he was feeling. In less time than before, another swarm of leechers darted toward him. They weren’t visible yet, but Sal’s visor had picked them up farther down the subway tracks.

The most difficult thing for Sal at the moment was keeping his breathing steady. Sure, he had managed to kill a few of them already but that sense of elation had taken a backseat to the fear of making a mistake. Fighting them at close range was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

“Incoming,” Chatfield stated with a smile as he took a few steps back to give Sal plenty of room. “Remember, you’ll have a higher chance of hitting the target if you keep your cool and don’t panic. We want to improve your proficiency, so practice the basics rather than relying on the effects of the bullets.”

Sal heard Upgrade say under her breath, “You’ve got this, Sal.”

He really didn’t feel like he did, but it wasn’t the time to argue. His right eye had locked onto the approaching targets, and Sal suppressed an involuntary shudder as his heart raced. His legs were in the right position, but their shaking wasn’t doing much for his aim. Even though he had just done this a short while ago, the exact same fear permeated throughout his body.

Sal wondered whether he was going to feel this sensation every time he faced a demon. Just as the thought of facing a prowler entered his mind, the first leecher came into view. For the dozenth time that day, Sal wished he had his monocle for the sense of calm it gave him.

He lined up the sights as he had been instructed and went through the motions Chatfield had drilled into him. The floating head of cabbage swayed from left to right as it moved toward him, and Sal watched its movements carefully through the visor. He couldn’t explain how he knew, but the pattern of its movement was going to put it in the optimal position for shooting in just a moment.

Rather than pulling on the trigger, Sal gradually moved it back as the window of opportunity appeared. Holding his breath in the final moment, Sal fired and did his best to keep the revolver in the exact same position.

A streak of blue lightning pierced through the darkness, illuminating the cave walls all the way down the tunnel until it extinguished itself on an unseen wall in the distance. He had almost hit the target, but his shot had skewed to the right. Remembering Chatfield’s words, Sal adjusted his aim slightly to the left to correct the change and readied himself for the next window of opportunity.

The visor signaled that it was very much an open window. All the leechers had been temporarily paralyzed by the passing lightning, just as before. The leecher leading the charge had also suffered some minor damage, with one of its vines evaporating in the first attack. Sal didn’t understand how they stayed in the air, but the loss of that tentacle had caused the leecher to turn endlessly on the spot instead of advancing forward.

Neither Chatfield nor Upgrade made any comments on the attack, and Sal was grateful as he prepared himself for the next shot. He repeated everything as instructed and adjusted his aim to the left of the spinning leecher. When the trigger compressed fully, Sal was rewarded with an incredible sight of the leecher exploding in mid-air. Chunks of the demon splattered in every direction, and Sal couldn’t help but feel a surge of elation and pride considering he had actually intended to hit it.

“Great work, Sal!” Upgrade’s voice called out from behind him, which made his smile grow wider.

He couldn’t tell whether he was jittery from the adrenaline or whether he was actually enjoying himself. The next shot would be Magnet, which had clumped all of them together the last time. Sal’s right eye searched beyond the leechers to see a half dozen swarms in various locations throughout the tunnel. If they all held at least five leechers, he was going to be facing around thirty of them in total. Before he could finish that thought, the visor counted all the leechers in range and placed a counter at the top right of his vision.

“Forty-two.” Sal breathed as he pushed all sense of accomplishment out of his system.

He couldn’t believe that he had been thinking of saving the Magnet shot for a larger group. Was it arrogance or complacency? He didn’t have time to dwell on it as the paralysis wore off the group of leechers in front of him. Three were latched to the ceiling, while one floated just off the ground. The one on the ground traced its tentacles along the corpse of its fallen comrade, and Sal felt a pang of guilt, wondering whether there had been some kind of bond between the demons. That thought evaporated when the floating leecher revealed a huge set of razor-sharp teeth and started to consume the chunked demon.

As much as Sal wanted to fire at the cannibalistic demon, he needed to think strategically. With a slow exhale, he raised his aim slightly and corrected it to the right of the leecher cluster. It felt wrong to aim in the center of a group, but that’s what had worked the last time. When he pulled the trigger, Sal was drawn forward by the force of the shot, but his legs kept him rooted. There was nothing dramatic about the shot, but Sal watched carefully down the sights as the leechers attached to the ceiling were drawn together into a single clump.

“Careful, Sal.” Chatfield’s voice sounded out from behind him, spiking Sal’s anxiety.

When he looked back to the cannibal leecher, the demon was nowhere to be seen. Just as he was about to turn his head to search for it, he consulted the visor, which told him to look to his right-hand side. In the short space of time that Sal had looked away, the leecher had almost managed to flank him by crawling along the wall. Its vines silently pulled at the rocks to increase its speed greatly.

All the shots so far had been at a relatively long distance, but this one was close. Too close! Sal estimated that it would lunge in just a couple of seconds, so he needed to act fast. Turning his whole body, Sal didn’t have time to align his posture and go through all the mental checks that Chatfield had taught him. Adrenaline took over; Sal aimed directly at the approaching target and pulled the trigger.

There was no finesse to it, but there didn’t need to be. The Decay shot didn’t need accuracy; it just needed something in the vicinity to kill, and the leecher very much fit that criteria. Sal stared in shock as the leecher burst away from the wall, extending its vines in the hopes of latching onto Sal. A collection of horrifying teeth appeared in a circular pattern from its base. Sal only caught a glimpse of its attacking form, because the Decay shot hit the offending creature right in the mouth and burned a hole straight through it, and even through a chunk of the tunnel wall behind it.

With a quick sidestep, Sal watched it twitch helplessly on the ground as its limbs and body melted away. The awful stench of rotting demon was something Sal would pay to never experience again. He checked again to see that it was no longer a threat before turning his attention back to the leechers on the ceiling.

His visor registered two things. The number of live leechers had been reduced by one, and the leechers affected by the Magnet shot were nowhere to be seen. Sal turned his head left and right in the hopes that the visor would pick something up, but it came up blank. Trepidation and uncertainty seeped into every nerve of his body, and he hated it. The visor counted the ones in the distance through the tunnel and came up with a lower number, which meant the ones he had fired at were somewhere he couldn’t see.

“Fuck.” Sal breathed as he took a step back and looked at his surroundings.

A chuckle from behind reminded Sal that Upgrade and Chatfield were watching his every move. Chatfield’s voice did little to soothe his heart.

“Fuck indeed, Mr. Argento.”

Sal threw his internal essence into his gloves and forced his entire set of clothing to transform into the protective suit of armor. He lifted his left arm to shield his face as he looked up at the ceiling. His visor caught sight of three leechers approaching rapidly, all baring their teeth as two of them dived down toward his face.

Sal panicked as the first leecher clasped onto his arm. Its teeth gnawed viciously at the armor as its vines wrapped around the elbow and shoulder joint. Sal pushed his arm away from his face to get farther away from the attached leecher, which gave the second leecher the opening it needed.

Sal whipped up his right arm, still gripping the revolver, and used it to bludgeon the approaching demon. It was a pretty basic attack, but the force of his armor coupled with the grade of his gun caused the leecher to crumple on impact. Sal didn’t have any time to celebrate as he slammed the butt of the revolver down on the head of the leecher adhered to his left arm. It exploded from the strike, showering Sal’s face with residue that made him want to gag. He started heaving as the third leecher descended from above, aiming at his chest.

An explosive blast thundered throughout the tunnel as the leecher was savagely repelled by Sal’s chest. White lights glowed from the jet-black armor, highlighting the protective runes that had just been activated. The third leecher had pretty much evaporated upon impact, with some residue on the wall being the only indicator that it had ever existed. Sal deactivated his armor and pulled chunks of dead leecher from his face. He barely got through the first handful before he vomited violently onto the dungeon floor.

“Okay, so I have notes.”

Chatfield’s voice sounded out from beside him. Upgrade remained quiet as she knelt beside Sal, rubbing his back. Sal heaved again involuntarily, and tears gathered in his eyes.

He just wanted the day to be over.