FAKE Ficlet: Target Practice
Title: Target Practice
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, OCs.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Having what seems like a very bad day, Ryo walks in on a crime in progress.
Word Count: 796
Written For: Challenge 333: Amnesty at fan_flashworks, using Challenge 253: Throw.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
‘Right out of the frying pan and into the fire,’ Ryo thought gloomily. Some days it just seemed like he must be jinxed. What had he done to deserve this? It had been bad enough that his car had broken broken down in the first place, making an odd clanking sound before the engine died on him, but then his phone had turned out to be dead as the proverbial doornail.
That at least was his own fault, he’d forgotten to put it on charge last night, but it had meant he’d had to go looking for a pay phone so he could call for assistance, and then when he’d finally found one, he’d discovered he didn’t have any change for it. That was still back at his apartment, on the nightstand, where he’d put it when he’d emptied his pockets on arriving home from work. It shouldn’t have been a problem because there was a convenience store just across the street from the payphone. He’d figured he could go in there, buy a soda or something, get change, then call the garage to send someone out to look at his car. That had been the plan anyway. Needless to say, nothing had gone as he’d been expecting.
Now here he was, sitting on the floor towards the back of the store, being held hostage. It was just his luck that he’d walked right into an armed robbery in progress, and naturally, as it was his day off, he was unarmed. If it had been any other day he would have had his police issue automatic with him.
On second thoughts, maybe being unarmed wasn’t such a bad thing; he didn’t think it would have gone down too well if the robbers had found a gun on him when they’d frisked him before shoving him over with the other hostages. He’d soon learned that none of them had been able to call for help since the first thing the robbers had done had been to confiscate their phones. So far, his day off wasn’t going at all well. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed.
What were the thieves even after? They’d already emptied the register and grabbed several cartons of cigarettes from behind the counter, but instead of running off with their loot they seemed to be having an argument, although they were keeping their voices down so he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Maybe there hadn’t been as much cash in the register as they’d been hoping for. Amateurs! What did they expect at before ten on a weekday morning?
Ryo looked around at the other hostages: a middle-aged man who was obviously the shopkeeper, a young woman with a sleeping toddler in a stroller, an elderly man with a walking stick, and two teenage girls who looked as if they should probably be in school. They were all terrified, probably expecting to be shot at any moment they’d seen the robbers’ faces, could maybe identify them.
Scanning the contents of the nearby shelves, Ryo considered his options; if he tried anything he could make the situation worse, but if he just sat here and things went downhill anyway, as was becoming increasingly likely considering the mood the trio of armed thugs were in, he might not get another chance.
Besides, he was a sharpshooter, he had excellent aim, and while he didn’t have a gun at present, he had no shortage of ammunition. There was a whole shelf filled with cans of budget priced baked beans right at his elbow, and none of the robbers were looking his way, too intent on their argument.
The first can hit one of the robbers in the shoulder with enough force to numb his arm, causing his gun to fall from suddenly nerveless fingers. Before any of the three men had time to react, a can of beans struck the second robber a glancing blow to the temple and he went down like a ton of bricks, getting off a single shot and hitting the third man in the leg. Unsurprisingly, the injured man screamed and fell, dropping his gun in favour of clutching at his bleeding leg with both hands.
One last deftly thrown can hit the first man in the knee, taking him down like a bowling pin and ensuring he wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon; then all Ryo had to do was kick the guns out of reach of their former owners.
He smiled in satisfaction at a job well done. Time to call the cops. In retrospect, maybe he wasn’t jinxed at all. Perhaps the universe had simply arranged events so that he’d be in exactly the right place at the right time. It was something to think about.
The End
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, OCs.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: Having what seems like a very bad day, Ryo walks in on a crime in progress.
Word Count: 796
Written For: Challenge 333: Amnesty at fan_flashworks, using Challenge 253: Throw.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
‘Right out of the frying pan and into the fire,’ Ryo thought gloomily. Some days it just seemed like he must be jinxed. What had he done to deserve this? It had been bad enough that his car had broken broken down in the first place, making an odd clanking sound before the engine died on him, but then his phone had turned out to be dead as the proverbial doornail.
That at least was his own fault, he’d forgotten to put it on charge last night, but it had meant he’d had to go looking for a pay phone so he could call for assistance, and then when he’d finally found one, he’d discovered he didn’t have any change for it. That was still back at his apartment, on the nightstand, where he’d put it when he’d emptied his pockets on arriving home from work. It shouldn’t have been a problem because there was a convenience store just across the street from the payphone. He’d figured he could go in there, buy a soda or something, get change, then call the garage to send someone out to look at his car. That had been the plan anyway. Needless to say, nothing had gone as he’d been expecting.
Now here he was, sitting on the floor towards the back of the store, being held hostage. It was just his luck that he’d walked right into an armed robbery in progress, and naturally, as it was his day off, he was unarmed. If it had been any other day he would have had his police issue automatic with him.
On second thoughts, maybe being unarmed wasn’t such a bad thing; he didn’t think it would have gone down too well if the robbers had found a gun on him when they’d frisked him before shoving him over with the other hostages. He’d soon learned that none of them had been able to call for help since the first thing the robbers had done had been to confiscate their phones. So far, his day off wasn’t going at all well. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed.
What were the thieves even after? They’d already emptied the register and grabbed several cartons of cigarettes from behind the counter, but instead of running off with their loot they seemed to be having an argument, although they were keeping their voices down so he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Maybe there hadn’t been as much cash in the register as they’d been hoping for. Amateurs! What did they expect at before ten on a weekday morning?
Ryo looked around at the other hostages: a middle-aged man who was obviously the shopkeeper, a young woman with a sleeping toddler in a stroller, an elderly man with a walking stick, and two teenage girls who looked as if they should probably be in school. They were all terrified, probably expecting to be shot at any moment they’d seen the robbers’ faces, could maybe identify them.
Scanning the contents of the nearby shelves, Ryo considered his options; if he tried anything he could make the situation worse, but if he just sat here and things went downhill anyway, as was becoming increasingly likely considering the mood the trio of armed thugs were in, he might not get another chance.
Besides, he was a sharpshooter, he had excellent aim, and while he didn’t have a gun at present, he had no shortage of ammunition. There was a whole shelf filled with cans of budget priced baked beans right at his elbow, and none of the robbers were looking his way, too intent on their argument.
The first can hit one of the robbers in the shoulder with enough force to numb his arm, causing his gun to fall from suddenly nerveless fingers. Before any of the three men had time to react, a can of beans struck the second robber a glancing blow to the temple and he went down like a ton of bricks, getting off a single shot and hitting the third man in the leg. Unsurprisingly, the injured man screamed and fell, dropping his gun in favour of clutching at his bleeding leg with both hands.
One last deftly thrown can hit the first man in the knee, taking him down like a bowling pin and ensuring he wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon; then all Ryo had to do was kick the guns out of reach of their former owners.
He smiled in satisfaction at a job well done. Time to call the cops. In retrospect, maybe he wasn’t jinxed at all. Perhaps the universe had simply arranged events so that he’d be in exactly the right place at the right time. It was something to think about.
The End