Flight School: Hunter

Black Snow

A/N: Stars! It is I, back with another chapter of 5.5k! It's a pretty weighted one, and I'm excited to hear about what you think about the... mystery boi. Hehe. Without further ado, and thank you for waiting—enjoy.

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The call of a hunter did not sound as sharp and radiant as the instrument had made it out to be; heard like the deep, rumbling of the heavens on the lowest note of majesty and despair, it made the creature within tremble like a loose leaf in the wind.

"They're coming," the raven guide had turned to Viktor at once and the others, blood drained from their faces, had their eyes raised to the sky in trepid fear. "Shift! Go now."

He kick-started an emergency signal in his Link at once and anyone who had access to it would know at once understand the situation but giving the grounds a quick survey, he was incapable of filling the space of two absent members.

"I'm missing some people," he told the raven guide who had her eyes trained on the formidable trees towering above her and in the direction of the hunter's call, as though what she'd expected was a giant-sized god whose hands possessed the power to destroy all. "And what about you?"

"They aren't hunting for ravens you idiot," she told Viktor in a voice low and urgent, hissing at his further inaction. "No one hunts for ravens. It's the reason we're posted here—to wait for them to show up." She'd muttered something else about the accuracy of their aim and barrels of wicked length, staring into the darkness that was a bullet ready to settle in blood and flesh.

Viktor did not need to provide further instructions to the Merlin and his partner for the next thing they heard was the firework of a rifle; its ricochet sending a blast through the soundwaves of the forest that was once still and serene, circling up into the sky. All creatures, within and beyond, startled and frightened by monster, began to flee.

The condor began urgently paging for his step-brother the moment they were in the air and skimming the forest canopy in search for a sign, leading the rest of his team away from danger and mapping a route to the lodging in which the school had arranged. He picked up some form of an answer; a clearing up ahead that housed a barren tree in its heart and on the forest floor, what looked like its dried, fallen leaves. A diseased tree, then.

In the split second they'd passed the clearing, he could make out the shapes of two to three human beings, raising their hands and turned aggressively towards a shadow beyond the clearing. Luka had picked up the signal along Viktor's Link and, joining the team at the far back, a safe distance away, he conveyed that his partner might have made a dangerous discovery.

But Viktor would not have liked to hear about some ground-breaking revelation, critical to the mission or not—he needed to know if the only person he considered family was alive and safe. Yet, as the head of the operation, he was incapable of leaving the team up in the air to fend for themselves.

You just left him there?! The condor had unintentionally raised his voice at his student and in an attempt to rein in the rest of his emotions, he led them to a thick convolution of trees and brought the party to a stop. Sullivan, you're his partner.

Luka did not appear at all troubled by what he did, to the extent whereby he almost seemed incapable of understanding Viktor's frustration. He's Vaughn.