shot as well. The worst shot in the class was Delwood, who couldn’t for the life of him stop yanking the trigger like he was crushing a beer can.
Each week, Jenks would post the current class rankings for shooting and while I stayed in the top ten or twelve, the first three spots were always some combination of Jetta, Ashley, and Mack.
Caeco wasn’t allowed in the competition, which was only fair, as she was a freaking machine with a gun in her hands. Once a week, she got to shoot at the end of class and Jenks would give her all three lanes. Our practice was two-handed and some one-handed shooting, but nothing fancy. Hers was timed multi-target drills, using the standard black B-27 human-shaped qualifier targets that law enforcement agencies used. We used the same targets, just not four to six at a time, set to varying distances and in multiple lanes. Jenks would go so far as to put a yellow sticky note on a different part of each target while keeping Caeco facing away from the range. Then, at his command she would have to turn, draw, and shoot each note with a double tap.
It wasn’t much of a challenge for her, and she took no real pride in it, but the rest of the class was in complete awe.
T.J. started to call her Oakley, for Annie Oakley, and the nickname stuck.
In Wytchwar, things were progressing fast. Aunt Ash made me a referee for the first half-dozen games of capture the flag and manhunt and kept changing teams up every week. She also rotated captains, choosing the least likely candidates to run the course. At first, it resulted in some stunning losses and temper tantrums, particularly from some of the students who thought that they should naturally be boss. But then as avatar skill grew, people got a little better at accepting orders… emphasis on little.
When she finally let me into the games, I ended up on Delwood’s team and it was his first chance at the leadership he’d so craved. I thought his pride would be his undoing, but he proved a capable leader and won the match. His tactic was simple: send me out into enemy territory to draw their fire. The other team had almost all of my friends on it and was led by Britta.
“You’re the stud of the game, Duckland, seeing as you created it, and they’re all going to want a piece of you. So your job is to raise hell, create diversion, and give our strike team a shot at their flag,” Delwood had challenged me. I think he was surprised when I grinned and agreed completely.
“This will be fun, but I don’t know how long I’ll last against them, so don’t dick around,” I’d said, grinning from ear-to-ear.
Honestly, I’d been so afraid that I’d get stuck as captain—which was fairly egotistical of me—that I’d thought it wouldn’t be fun at all. Instead, I got to kamikaze over the hill and wreak all manner of havoc until my dude ended up buried under an avalanche of red team strikers and defenders. Delwood led an assault that easily beat the few avatars held back around the flag. Our own flag was never in any jeopardy at all. The other team didn’t even see it as a loss. They were all glad to have had a dirt hand in taking me down, especially my friends.
Somehow, through all the chaos, my aunt managed to teach everyone in the class something new, every week. Shockingly, so did Miss Berg. My aunt covered the practical aspects—kind of the lab, so to speak. Miss Berg talked about concepts like symbolism in magic, harnessing your will, and carefully defining intent. That last was important because a lack of focus and definition in magic crafting could be disastrous. The witches all learned new spells, including some for other affinities that could be executed by any witch if laid out properly. The other students all learned a considerable amount about general Craft and spell work, and were easily able to identify various spells and wards by their structure and components. Some spells could be activated by nonmagical people, and a few basic wards could be done by anyone.
Avatars quickly became customized and a heavy trade developed around spells and spelled items for the game.
All of the witches came up with new tricks, from air bombs and water cannons to spelled stones that could create berm walls and instant pits.