The rest of Dethklok knew that Toki spent a lot of free time making model planes. They didn't know that he spent even more time on the shooting range, but they probably wouldn't understand that any better than they understood the planes. They'd just think it was another thing taking up free time he should spend practicing his guitar.

For Toki, though, it was one of the few things he was effortlessly good at, and so it was worth going to bed early and alone some nights, just so he could wake up hours before the rest of the band, even if he wasn't jarred from sleep by a nightmare. Then he had time to come down here and blow off steam before having to deal with the day.

"Pulls!" he shouted, and the Gear who often came with him sent another clay pigeon up. He focused on it, felt the anger he always felt after a nightmare seeping out of him and imagined it filling the stupid clay bird. He squeezed the trigger. The pigeon exploded, and he grinned. Another perfect shot.

A throat cleared behind him. "You know, Toki, if you practiced your guitar as much as you practiced your shooting, you'd be better than Skwisgaar."

Toki scowled at the band's manager, adjusting his goggles, then turned to shoot down another projectile. "Guitars don'ts explode," he said, as if that explained everything.


Standard disclaimer: Toki and Charles belong to Small and Blacha.

Note: This was an unfinished scene in something else I've been working on, but it doesn't fit at all anymore, and I liked it and didn't want to just delete it. So now it's a drabble.