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Right, so there was some sort of bank robbery going on, and I was supposed to help stop it alongside Lucent and Carousel. Talk about an eclectic group, huh? One independent Star-Touched alongside one of the Minority, and a TONI from the Seraphs. The three of us were going to go in there and stop this bank robbery. It sounded like the setup for a weird joke.
I said as much to the other two while we were quickly planning what to do, and Carousel immediately replied, “As we give them a poke, they’ll think it’s a joke. But they’ll see their mistake, when in jail they awake. I don’t have my team, but this…” She gestured around in a circle to indicate the three of us. “Helps my esteem.”
“I could not have said it better myself,” Lucent announced. “At least, not without a thesaurus or a rhyming dictionary. Bravo, my dear. But for now, I believe our best way forward is to carefully prepare the field out here. Paintball, would you mind quietly laying several spots of your wonderful yellow paint onto the vehicle down there without alerting anyone within? In case they flee, it would be good to be able to slow them down. Meanwhile, I shall fly closer and get a look at what is happening within, before preparing to hasten their retreat. Carousel, position yourself there, on the narrow section of roof just above the exit where they are sure to pass under you. Be ready to remove their weapons as they come within range, to prevent any unfortunate incidents as they endeavor to make their escape. And perhaps a… bouncy section of sorts on the way to the car?” He looked at me then. “As well as anything else you can think of to slow them down or disrupt their escape. Once everything is in place, I shall see about driving them out toward the two of you, safely away from any civilians within the bank.”
“A sign of when to commence,” Carousel noted, “would make a good sort of sense.”
“Yeah, what she said,” I agreed. “Should we give you a signal or something when we’re ready?”
Lucent gave a short, sharp nod, before looking at the spot of the roof next to me. A moment later, a statue copy of the raven appeared there, perched right on the edge. “I shall watch through my friend here,” the TONI announced. “Once you are both prepared for the men inside to be driven toward you, raise both hands in the, ahh, I believe it is referred to as the touchdown position. But be sure you are ready.”
“Right, prepping the battlefield,” I agreed. “Or, you know, hopefully not an actual battle. A small, simple skirmishfield.” Squinting then, I turned to Lucent before remembering that he couldn’t see my expression. So I painted a squinting emoticon-face across my helmet. “Just answer me one thing. Is this bank owned by La Casa? Because the last time someone robbed a La Casa bank, it set something off, and I’d really rather not go through that again.”
I could hear the faint amusement in the bird’s voice as he replied, “I assure you, as far as I am aware, the bank is not owned or operated by any Fell-Touched.”
“The other sort of knaves,” Carousel murmured, “who turn poor to slaves from birth to graves.”
“Someday,” I informed her, “I’m going to figure out why you do that.” It obviously wasn’t a priority right that second with the actual bank robbery going on, but seriously. I had no idea how she pulled out those rhymes so easily and quickly. Or why she did so in the first place. She stuck to it very firmly. I didn’t recall ever hearing the girl talk without rhyming. In most cases, I’d say that would be a detriment for team communication, but it didn’t seem to slow her down at all.
Carousel, in turn, simply stared at me with that broadly smiling jester’s mask. I had no idea if the girl behind it was actually smiling or not, but I had the feeling she was.
“A mystery to be pondered another time, I fear,” Lucent reminded us. “Be swift in your preparations, I shall endeavor to drive the foes your way once you raise the sign.” With that, he took off, flying around to the front of the building.
Okay, yeah, time to focus. We needed to get down there and set things up before those guys came out on their own. Trying to play catch-up with them already outside would be a huge pain.
Looking over to the Minority girl, I offered, “Want a lift? It’ll probably be a bit quicker and more subtle. Not that your way isn’t super cool, believe me.” She had been making the bench and other things revolve around her in miniature form (they were about the size of matchbooks) the whole time we were standing there. Which I supposed meant she didn’t have to focus on them at all once they were in place. Again, pretty cool. But I had a feeling the guys waiting in the car below might notice her unique way of getting across the gap to the other building. This whole plan of ours wouldn’t work nearly as well if they had advance warning. It could devolve into a real clusterfuck pretty quick if we weren’t careful. The best advantage we had here (well, besides our powers) was the element of surprise. It’d be pretty dumb to throw that away before the fight even started.
She agreed, so I painted my arm purple and put it around her. She held onto me a bit awkwardly given our height discrepancy, and I silently hoped she didn’t notice anything she shouldn’t. Not that I had much for her to notice, but still. After checking to see what her orbiting items did (they expanded their revolution to encircle both of us), I used a blue puddle to launch high into the air to get above the field of view for the guys below, then red painted us over to the other roof. On the way down, I shot a black owl symbol at the bricks and tiles just before we landed there, our arrival completely silent. There was even a pigeon perched nearby that didn’t react to our landing. Though it did happen to turn its head a second later and launch itself into the air as soon as it saw us so close. I think we gave the poor thing a little pigeon heart attack.
From this position, on the narrow section of roof just above the door, we could see the car a bit better. Sure enough, there were two guys sitting in it. The driver had one hand on the wheel while his other was resting out the open window with a cigarette in it. The other guy was in the front passenger seat, tapping a pistol against the roof rhythmically with the music they were listening to. They both had ski masks on, but other than that they seemed pretty casual about the whole thing. Well, beyond the fact that they were looking around a lot. They just weren’t looking up. Which seemed like a pretty big oversight in a city like this. Or really any city, these days. Not that I was going to complain about their mistake.
Either way, the point was, they weren’t paying enough attention to notice our arrival. Carousel and I took a moment to make sure of that, peeking over the edge and watching them carefully until it was clear they had no clue we were there. Then the two of us exchanged nods before I got to work. With Carousel watching my back, I leaned out and pointed, sending a shot of paint toward the car. But it wasn’t yellow. Not that first shot. Instead, I hit the car with a bit of black. I figured it would be better to make only one audible shot, activate the silencing effect, and then hit the car with as many spots of yellow as I could. Not that my paint was exactly loud to begin with, especially considering the music they were listening to. But still, better safe than sorry.
I lined the roof of the car with yellow circles and triangles, as well as a bit on the tires. Then I rethought things a little and put some red on the tires as well, before adding a couple matching spots against the wall nearby. Finally, I put down the blue bit on the sidewalk right below the exit door, painting that whole square. It was a toss-up whether they’d even notice in what would probably be a rush to get out, but at that point it wouldn’t really matter.
“If you had to,” I whispered, “could you pick up that car?”
“Not with it occupied,” she whispered right back. “It’s something I’ve tried. But when it comes to something alive, my gift just does not thrive.”
“Right, can’t use your power on the car when they’re inside it, but if they get out, you could take it away from them.” Keeping that in mind, I gave the area one more quick once-over before looking to her. “I think we’re ready.” When she gave me a thumbs up, I focused on the bird statue I could see staring down at us, raising both arms in the touch-down sign. After a moment of that, the bird turned its head to focus on the car. Which I supposed meant he’d seen me.
Sure enough, within a few seconds, we started hearing sounds from within the bank. It started with a surprised shouted curse, then a single gunshot. As soon as I heard it, my heart jumped into my throat. But I trusted Lucent to know what he was doing, particularly in a situation like this. After all, he’d been doing the whole Star-Touched thing a lot longer than me. And longer than Carousel, come to think of it. Still, the two of us exchanged glances, and while I couldn’t see the other girl’s face through that jaunty, garishly painted jester’s mask, I had the feeling that she was worried too. But we stayed put, just as planned.
Meanwhile, the guys in the car were cursing as well. I heard one of them ask what ‘those dumbasses’ were doing, and that they weren’t supposed to use the guns. That prompted a brief argument about whether one of them should go inside to check, but neither wanted to be the one to get out of the car, just in case the other took off without them. From that brief exchange, I had the feeling these guys neither knew nor trusted each other very much. Which begged the question of why they were robbing a bank together, unless they were hired by a third party? There wasn’t time to think much about that. Nor was there time for the guys in the car to stop arguing, before the door directly below Carousel and me burst open, and three guys came running out. The one in the lead was shouting something about ‘that fucking bird’ in between screaming for the driver to get them out of there. Meanwhile, the two behind were pivoting to shoot back into the bank with their own guns. All three carried large black garbage sacks that had been stuffed full with what seemed to be cash.
Immediately, Carousel and I went to work. I activated the blue paint, launching the three men into the air with a collection of screams. On their way up, the girl beside me used her own power, yanking the bags of money and guns out of their hands before bringing them, miniaturized, into her orbit alongside the bench, chair, and trash can. The air around her was getting a bit crowded.
Just as I had that thought, it became slightly less crowded as she sent the trash can flying into one of the men in midair, nailing him while he was falling. He landed on the ground with a groan, lying under the can before shoving it off.
Meanwhile, the other two had sprawled out on the ground. Both scrambled up to run for the car, but it was already starting to take off. With a squeal of tires, the driver started to peel out. Which, of course, was when I activated several spots of the yellow paint, slowing the thing down. The timing worked out just right so that the guys outside, scrambling in a rush to jump at the car, ended up bouncing right off it as its speed abruptly and unexpectedly halved. They both collided with the trunk and rolled off it to either side with a pair of curse-yelps.
Taking a quick step forward, I launched myself with a bit of blue on my shoes. Flipping over in the air, I landed in front of the car and waved before scolding, “Now did you walk out of there without even listening to the spiel about special interest rates for one of their credit cards? You know how hard they work on those things.”
The driver and his companion looked at each other, then floored the gas once more. Which might’ve been bad, considering even slowed by half, being hit by a car would’ve hurt. But at that exact same instant, I activated the red paint I’d put on the front left and rear left wheels, sending the whole vehicle sliding sideways to slam against the wall of the bank.
By that point, the three guys on the ground had picked themselves up. But one of them immediately went down again as a concussive energy blast from one of the bird statue’s eyes slammed into him from way up on the other roof. The other two whirled toward me while yanking what looked like knives (really?) from their belts, only to be hit from the side by a full-sized park bench shot at them by Carousel. They all went down hard, groaning in pain as the bench tumbled away to land on its side. At the same time, the knives they had pulled were yanked away, shrinking to join the spinning objects surrounding the girl as she advanced toward them.
Meanwhile, I caught a glimpse of the guy in the passenger side of the wrecked car shoving his way out with his own gun raised. Instantly, I activated blue paint I had reapplied to my shoes and sent myself up and backwards, flipping over in the air before landing on the roof of the vehicle. “Hey!” I blurted, falling onto my side and lashing out with one foot while activating an intricately detailed purple fist across my left shoulder. “This is a no-items brawl!” The kick collided with the gun, knocking it out of the man’s hand and sending it flying away. “Tournament rules! Three stock, no items, stage hazards and smash meter off!”
The man shouted an emphatic curse that also included the words ‘shoot him’, so I flipped up and over once more, landing in front of him in time to see the other guy (in the driver’s seat) pointing his gun upward where I had just been. “Okay,” I acquiesced, “maybe one Smash.” With that, still empowered by the purple paint for another second or two, I slammed both palms into the passenger’s chest to knock him back into the car and against the other guy. As he rocked forward once more, I reared back and kicked the door to slam it shut on him. “Or two!”
Then I dropped and rolled under the car, as both men bellowed in rage before shoving the door open once more and throwing themselves out after me, very intent on making me pay. They turned and looked down to see my head sticking out from under the car, staring up at them. I painted a broad smiling face on my helmet. “That thing I said about no stage hazards? I might’ve lied about that too.” The smiley face turned into a red arrow, pointing behind them. They reflexively turned their heads to look, just before Carousel’s trash can slammed into them, knocking both men forward against the car with a pair of screamed curses. Potty mouths, honestly.
By then, I had pushed myself out from under the car, pivoting on one foot to shoot a bit of pink paint against the side of the vehicle from either hand before the two men could push themselves away from it. Then I reached out, shoved both hands into the pink paint, and used that to tear the metal outward, bending it over from both sides to wrap around the men. By the time they started to push away from the car, the men were thoroughly trapped, with half the passenger side of the car wrapped around them.
With that done, I spun back toward the rest of the scene. But it was already over. Carousel had finished up with cuffing the last of those guys, with a little help from the Lucent statue to keep them from fighting back too much. She straightened up from them and brushed her glove hands off before looking toward me. “The foes are detained, their bounty regained.” As she said that last part, the girl indicated the trash bags sitting nearby, full of cash. “But where is our mentor? Still through that door.” Her gaze was clearly on the rear entrance of the bank.
“Hey, that’s right, he never came out.” Frowning, I looked briefly toward the bird statue in the distance. I really had my doubts that he would have simply left us to wrap things up here with only a little help from that thing if he’d had any choice. And the fact that he had only meant one thing.
“There’s something going on inside,” I blurted, before abruptly rushing that way. The guys out here could wait. The two at the car were securely trapped against it by the metal of the vehicle itself, and the rest of them were held by those stay-down cuffs. They weren’t going anywhere.
Carousel was right behind me after giving her own brief look around, as though to assure herself the bad guys were contained. The two of us paused right at the open exit door rather than barging straight in. I was really tempted to keep rushing through, but that would have been stupid. Worried as I was about Lucent at that moment, getting ourselves in trouble by bursting into a potentially bad situation wasn’t going to help anything.
So, we stopped on either side of the doorway, peering in. There was a short, very utilitarian-looking hallway beyond. This obviously wasn’t in the customer area of the bank. The floor was simple linoleum that had been very thoroughly scrubbed with lemon-scented cleaner, with wooden doors along the right side of the corridor with names and positions stenciled onto black bars across the middle, interrupted by two doors labeled for male and female restrooms. Straight ahead at the end of the hall was another door that had ‘Customer Zone – Remember Our P’s And Q’s – Polite, Personable, Quiet, Qourteous’ written on a sign. Which was–wow.
Shaking off my reaction to that, I gave the other girl a thumbs up before heading in. The two of us moved quickly, but quietly. Whatever had stopped Lucent from joining us, we didn’t want it to know we were coming.
In the end, however, all our precautions turned out to be pointless. We peeked through with the door there to find Lucent simply perched on top of a desk in the middle of the main lobby, staring at something. His head turned as we stepped in, and he called out, “Ah, there you are. Apologies, there were a few more in the lobby here that had to be dealt with, and by then you were finished with those who fled. My kingdom for duplicates that could actually move closer to you. Alas, tis not to be.” He heaved a sigh before turning back to stare at something behind the desk. “Come, look here.”
Carousel and I exchanged brief, silent looks before heading that way. We walked around the big desk to see what he was looking at. On the way, I noticed a couple more unconscious figures with the same ski masks, still lying where Lucent had obviously hit them.
“It’s a hole,” Carousel announced once we saw what was behind the desk, “but the men took a stroll.”
Sure enough, there was a wide hole right there in the middle of the tile floor. It cut straight down into what turned out to be a vault room in the basement (including going through the thick walls surrounding that), then even further through the floor in that.
“Indeed,” Lucent confirmed. “Though what the men you captured took seems to be a paltry sum compared to what was contained within that vault. I believe what we are witnessing is two robberies in one. The first, those men, were a distraction, allowing our tunnelers time to bore straight through, take what they wanted and escape.”
“Do you think they’ve already gotten away?” I asked.
“Only one way to find out,” he informed me, head cocking to the side briefly before turning back to focus on the hole. “Their hostages are in the conference room down that hall. With the authorities on their way, they should be safe.
“Which leaves us to pursue our quarry,” Carousel noted, “and discover the truth of this story.”
“Well what are we waiting for?” I quickly put in.
“Last one in the hole’s a rotten egg.”
Heretical Edge and Summus Proelium 