#intimidate

A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fired from an underground silo on the nation’s southern steppe Friday on a scheduled check to ship a dummy warhead to a distant influence zone almost 4,000 miles away. The missile didn’t even make it 4,000 ft. Russia’s navy has been silent on the accident, however the missile’s crash was seen and heard for miles across the Dombarovsky air base…

In the past week, Russia has ramped up a diplomacy of intimidation in the Baltic Sea using planes, drones and words aimed at Ukraine’s European allies. After threats towards Finland earlier in September, Russia violated Estonian airspace on Friday and German airspace on Sunday, days after it had flown two dozen drones into Poland. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Russia’s escalation…

One nameless goon lives to tell the tale. The other wasn't so lucky.

Rick? Nah. He didn’t make it. We went over to do the job, we were meant to take out the target while the flatmate was out. Turns out the flatmate wasn’t out.

Flatmate’s mild-mannered. Mild look to him, moves careful, nothing flashy. Not like the target--that one's all swish and snark and pisstake. Don’t let ’em fool you, if the boss sends you after ’em. It’s not like birds, where the showy one shields the drab one, s’just the opposite.

Stupid cunt made that mistake. He tried to brush off the dun-coloured one and went for the flamboyant one. Found himself up against a bodyguard seemingly twice his previous size, stone-cold stare, blocking arm as hard as stone.

Flashman can look out for himself, it turns out, broke my nose without hardly moving. Gets a bit distracted by his pirouetting, though, that makes him vulnerable. But the flatmate, that bloke’s a stealth weapon.

He had that cunt Rick face to the wall with a gun at his kidneys before you could say jack robinson. Told him he could bugger off or he could die, his choice. Rick panicked and tried to get the gun off him, and it went off and he went down. I couldn’t swear the flatmate meant it to happen.

And cool as a cucumber he just wipes at the blood on his jumper and mutters, “Wrong choice.” Looks at me and goes: “You any better at choosing than your friend here?”

I’m inching towards the stairs wiping my own blood of my face and the peacock squawks, “You’re letting him go?”

And the stealth weapon just says, “He won’t be back. Will you?” And the look on his face was pretty convincing.

“Nossir, nossir, you’ll never see me again,” and he won’t. I scarpered, and I’m not going back.

What? No, I don’t care. The boss wants him dead, he can send somebody else or do it himself.

*

Thanks for reblogging! (The goon took me by surprise, but you won't be hearing from him again. I think.)

@calaisreno, thank you for the May prompt series. 🤍 Writers, I'd love to be tagged on ALL May prompt fics 🙏

(I'm tagging in the comments as tumblr is being volatile. Let me know if you'd like to be tagged or if you hate to be tagged.)

A peony flower

Intimidate those around you

In full bloom

牡丹花の

周り威圧し

咲き誇る

The king of Flowers.

Day 20: Intimidate