"I wish I could tell you that our mission ran smoothly. I wish I could tell you that we slipped in and out of the restaurant completely unnoticed, got the information we needed and left. But, as you'd probably gathered from the fact that I started these sentences with "I wish", that wasn't the case.

I've always been a bit of a trouble-magnet. I'd tell you that trouble is my middle name, but that would be both cliché and an absolute lie-- my middle name is Blanc. Anyhow, the point I was getting at was that our being caught was probably mostly my fault.

It usually is.

Naturally, Magenta and I faced the problem of being surrounded by a couple of angry criminals like pros. Magenta pulled out her two identical semi-automatic pistols and aimed them at the two most important guys in the pack, and I whipped out my boomerangs and put on my most intimidating expression."

"FRANCE!"

"So you may be wondering; why boomerangs, Francis? I mean, if you're going down that action-movie lane, why not go the whole hog and get a bow with grappling hook arrows?

Well you see, the thing is, bows are a little overrated. I mean, they're absolutely awesome, don't get me wrong, but so many people use them already-- Hawkeye, the Rangers (Tolkien's and Flanagan's), Green Arrow, Legolas, Robin Hood, freaking Merida of DunBroch, and so on.

Also, bows and arrows take up too much space.

Whereas boomerangs are compact, amazing, and a whole lot more unique."

"FRANCIS!"

"I won't bore you with the fight scene details. I'm sure Lex didn't either -- although he probably didn't have a great many fight scenes, he's more the hit and run type.

Anyway, we won, obviously. We're the good guys, we always win.

We are still running though."

"Francisco White, stop recording and keep running or I'll smash that phone on the pavement," Magenta snarled, glancing over her shoulder to see if their pursuers were catching up. She saw that they were, and grabbed her partner's wrist, dragging him along with her.

Francis let out a yelp of surprise, ending the recording and stuffing the phone into his pockets while trying to keep up with Magenta. He succeeded, but only barely. 

"What-- *pant* --is-- *pant* --your plan?"

Magenta glanced over her shoulder with a disbelieving look on her face.

"My plan?" she repeated in surprise, "right now, it's 'get the heck outta here', I'll let you know if I come up with something better."

They vaulted over a fence in sync, and Francis ventured a quick look over his shoulder to see how those chasing them handled it. To his dismay, they vaulted the small fence just as effortlessly as he and Magenta had done.

"They're catching up, Mags," he informed her, "we might need another plan. We could just stand and fight."

"Because that worked out so well in the restaurant," Magenta mocked, and Francis rolled his eyes.

"Look, I honestly hadn't expected the waiter to have some insane phobia for boomerangs. I mean, how was I supposed to know he'd react like that?"

"You shouldn't have started throwing them so close to people's heads to begin with!"

"How else was I supposed to threaten them? If I'd shot an arrow above that guy's head you'd have been fine with it."

"Yeah, except a boomerang is not the same thing as an arrow, genius. Boomerangs come back."

"Well duh, that's what makes them boomerangs."

Magenta sighed, coming to a sudden standstill and whirling around to face their pursuers.

"Fine, we'll do it your way."

Her two guns were already in her hands once more, pointed at the ten men still chasing them. Francis screeched to a halt as well, unsheathing his boomerangs and taking up position behind Magenta. They were in a thin alley, which looked appropriately gloomy and filthy and all the other things desired of a good beating-people-up location.

Looks like you might be getting that fight scene after all.

"Don't come any closer!" Magenta ordered the approaching men, and they let out a derisive laugh.

"What are you going to do, shoot us?" one of them mocked, "you couldn't even if you wanted to, pink-hair."

Magenta aimed and fired within two seconds, unfazed. She canted her head, allowing a challenging smirk to creep into her expression.

"Whoops, my finger must've slipped," she apologized sarcastically as the man who had spoken clasped to the floor, crying out in pain and grasping his leg where the bullet had torn into the flesh, "and by the way, it's not pink. It's magenta."

The others jumped back with cries of surprise, before turning their gaze back to Magenta.

"He'll live," she shrugged, "anyone else want to risk their limbs?"

For a moment it looked like they were going to retreat, but then one of them drew a gun of his own, aiming it at Magenta.

"Come on!" he prompted his companions, "are you really going to let yourself be intimidated by a girl?"

"Bad move," Francis mumbled under his breath, and Magenta's gaze steeled.

"There's only one of her, and--" the man didn't get to finish his sentence, breaking it off in a cry of surprise and pain as a bullet buried itself in his upper arm.

Somehow, instead of deterring the remaining men, it only fueled them to attack. They drew their own weapons, sending bullets whizzing around the BRSS-duo's ears. Luckily for Magenta and Francis, these men's aim wasn't near as good as Magenta's, and they had plenty of time to take cover behind a few dustbins.

"What's your plan now?" Francis enquired.

"I can handle them," Magenta replied, "there's only five, I've been up against much worse."

"Wait a second... only five? There were ten before, and you've only taken two down."

Francis turned around, scanning the other end of the alley. A bullet whizzed over his head, and he took cover once more, searching the alley for the three men that had flanked them. He spotted them quickly enough, grouped close together as they attempted to sneak towards him.

Behind him, Francis could hear the shouts and yells of the men Magenta was taking care of -- he'd heard three more shots so far, which meant there were two left on her side -- and he shifted the boomerangs in his grip, determined not to let Magenta have all the fun.

He threw both boomerangs in short succession, and they sweeped over the men's heads. Said men dropped to the floor with cries of surprise at the unidentified flying objects, and Francis smirked as wove through the junk scattered in the alley and towards the confused trio, catching his boomerangs along the way. He was barely ten metres away when one deemed it safe to lift his head.

It was a perfect target. Francis aimed and threw one of his boomerangs, and it hit the man square on his forehead. He fell back onto the floor, unconscious, and the boomerang clattered to the floor next to him.

"A boomerang?" one of the remaining two men frowned.

"Yeah, a boomerang," Francis answered, before delivering both men a solid blow to the head with his fists. They sank to the floor beside their fallen companion, and Francis picked up his boomerang, cleaning it off on his shirt.

"Respect the boomerang, gentlemen," he advised the unconscious criminals, "or you won't live to regret it."

He made his way back to Magenta quickly, to see her swearing to herself and fidgeting with her guns.

"What's wrong?" he enquired, glancing at the two remaining men steadily approaching.

"My guns aren't working," Magenta muttered, messing around with the trigger in an attempt to fix the problem.

"Ah, so I guess you're having... trouble shooting?" Francis enquired with a small smirk.

Magenta raised an eyebrow as she took the ammo out of one of her guns. 

"So...?"

"And now you're troubleshooting!" Francis grinned triumphantly.

"Once again, not the time," Magenta rolled her eyes, shoving the ammo back into her gun, aiming at the closest of the men, and firing. She hit his thigh, and he fell to the ground like the rest of his companions, yelping in pain. Before Magenta could aim and fire a the last man standing, a boomerang whizzed over her head, knocking her target out.

"You're welcome," Francis stated, moving to pick up his boomerang.

"I don't think these guys will be any more trouble," Magenta replied, sticking her guns back into their respective holsters, "I'll inform the police of their location, and then we should get back to the backup squad."

"Right, those guys," Francis mumbled, dusting off his boomerang, "can't we just ditch them someplace and finish this alone?"

"I was thinking we could let them finish this mess here while we go pick up that Skywalker kid in Highcrest," Magenta suggested nonchalantly, "that way we lose them and we lose the paperwork that this'll leave behind."

A slow smirk spread over Francis's face.

"Now that sounds like a plan."