A Not So Simple Heist (Open)

[tuckerwyman]

It was nine in the morning with a slight, brisk chill in the air. The sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky on New York, with the streets bustling to life; wide eyed like woodland creatures peeking out of their nests. The children were off to school, parents were zooming about to work and businesses began the morning routine like good little worker bees.

The Cafe Tre-U was an odd mix of high tech computers and plushie, soft chairs accompanying them. An assortment of people, both business-person and hippie student sat mixed with one another either reading newspapers or sending the first few emails of the day. On the patio facing the street, Tucker Wyman sat sipping his morning coffee at a small, circular table with one spindly chair. An untouched cheese danish sat lazily on its bright blue plate; all of Tucker's attention was directed at a bank on the opposite corner of the intersection.

At nine-o-five exactly, a large rickety van with the words 'Sud Sheriff's Super Cleaning Crew' airbrushed along the side performed quite a speedy parking job along the street outside the Saint United Bank. The doors of the huge van rolled back as five crew members hopped out with various buckets and supplies, urgently moving to the front door.

"My goodness, you're quick!" A middle aged woman called from the steps of the bank. "We must have called you no more than a half hour ago!"

"Main Office, right?" One of the boxier crew members asked the middle aged woman.

She nodded and the group entered the bank without another word.

"Showtime..." At that precise moment, Tucker stood from his table, and pulled two things from his coat pocket: a black ski mask with a white smiley face spray painted on the front, which he proceeded to pull over his face; and a small fabric doll that was in terrible condition. The Raggedy Anne doll had several cigarette burns in it, a piece of rope tied around its neck and a letter opener plunged into its belly. After tossing the poor toy onto the table (along with his bill covered in cash), Tucker stepped into the center of the intersection and rolled his neck- cracking it several times in preparation.

The horn sounded before Tucker could turn to see it. A city bus- perfect. Leaning into the impact like a football player, the front of the bus crumpled around the small man's frame and its momentum was stopped directly in place. Glass and metal sprayed in every direction and the crowds that were bustling through the streets screamed in shock and surprise.

Unscathed and smiling broadly under his mask, Damage Control strode confidently toward the front doors of the bank. Several gunshots rang out from inside and the crowd began to run from the dangerous corner of the intersection. The alarm for the bank sound loudly through the air, mixed with the unconscious driver of the bus laying on the horn with the passengers trapped helplessly inside.

Walking through the foyer of the marble-floored, extremely opulent bank, Damage Control took his handgun from his coat pocket and fired it into the air. The patrons and staff of the bank were already sitting on the floor with their arms bound behind their back. The cleaning crew, all with a different colored ski mask, patrolled the line of people with automatic weapons.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, if you would kindly allow us to do our job, there's not going to be any need for violence." Tucker boomed from under the hood, firing his gun and clipping the security guard in the shoulder as he did so.

"That was just for good measure." He added, walking toward the vault.

[grace3]

Viator was outside the Big Apple at the intersection where Saint United Bank was. He was on the streets with his usual business suit on. Viator was selling magnetic marbles to adults and children alike. It wasn't really that cool after seeing it couple times, but the first time seeing it was a thought provoking. Viator was selling fifty marbles for five dollars. They were all magnetic and the same shape. The marbles could be connected to make various shapes or what not. Viator knew just a normal human couldn't sell these successfully. Luckily, Viator was a skilled mutant. He gave subconscious thoughts to his buyers, who all seemed interested at first. They would sometimes buy many. He was on his last set of marbles, when a huge crash could be heard.

Viator also sensed couple mutants around, but there was one close by. He simply turned around and watched across the street as a man was hit by the bus. There was so much chaos he couldn't see who it was and simply saw people going crazy. There was traffic everywhere, it would take a long time before police would arrive at the scene. Viator started to walk across the street and arrived at the bus' scene. "No blood..." he muttered, as his words were interrupted by the ringing bells of the bank.

The curious wanderer decided to see what was going on in the bank. He took out a sleek, straight cane-looking item. He used it like a cane as he entered the bank. When he entered the bank he saw a security get shot and fall. He saw a man covered in some debris, he wore a black ski mask with a smiley face on it. Viator wondered what this was... oh wait he knew what it was. A bank robbery! Interesting. "Hmm... very clever there sir," Viator said, sensing that he was a mutant. His power sensory abilities came in handy when trying to approach people.

Viator started to clap for the man, his cane seemed to balance on the floor, although obviously it was impossible for it to be balanced without being held. Putting one of his hands back on the top of the cane, he looked at the man. "Eyy... I don't think this is such a good idea, kid, you wouldn't want to steal from me now do you?" he spoke to the obvious leader. Maybe the business suit would indicate to the robbers that he was the owner of the bank. But Viator had several different accounts at different banks all over the world. Saint Union was one of those banks he had his money in.

[tuckerwyman]

Knowing very well that the manager of the bank was currently bound and gagged on the floor behind the desk in his office, the man who came through the front doors to meet the violence inside was obviously an unbalanced individual. The two goons closest to the front door raised their machine guns and pointed them in Viator's direction; one was lanky with a white mask while the other was far boxier with a red hood.. They stepped forward nervously and individually waited for orders from the man in the smiley mask.

"Look, boys, we got ourselves our first martyr." Damage Control barked a laugh in the other mutant's direction.

The five goons echoed his obvious pleasure in the situation and laughed lightly, themselves, continuing their personal tasks as the white and red robbers approached the newcomer. A female goon sporting a purple mask carried two containers of gasoline in both arms and continued to empty the contents on the counter top and backs of the hostages. The green and blue hooded robbers went on their way to diffuse the security system for the vault.

It would be pointless to slow down now.

Tucker maintained his attention on Viator, taking a few casual steps as he called out to the other man.

"You see, I'm just taking out a small deposit from the bank to my own personal account." He stated cheerily, emphasizing slightly with his hands. "Just a fee for protection to keep- well, to keep situations like this from happening again.

The white and red robbers shouted for Viator to kneel on the ground. With the mutant ability to sense other powers, it would have been obvious to see that Damage Control was an Omega-level that oddly preferred the gun in his hand and a group of thugs.

[grace3]

"I don't recall any services ordered, and at the most not of this kind," Viator sarcastically said, as he smirked slightly. Viator knew that this man was an Omega-level mutant, but he wasn't the only one. The Immortal had been living for many milleniums which could give Viator the same status. He looked at the men holding the machine gun near him and simply studied the area around him. From the looks of gasoline, he could safely assume that they were going to burn this place to the ground after their heist. Well, Viator wasn't going to allow that at all. Before the female, purple mask wearing robber could finish emptying her tanks of gas they started to float into the air. They hit the ceiling and seemed to stick there.

Viator started to walk closer to the leader of the heist, now he was only about two yards away from the man. "Now, I'll say this again, do you really want to steal from me?" Viator asked casually, as he lifted his cane and rested it on his shoulder. He noted where all the robbers were and knew there must be some others doing all the robbing of the money. "I am not a martyr, you might want to reconsider this," the man spoke through telepathy to Damage Control.

[tuckerwyman]

The woman in the purple mask let out a small shriek when the last of her gasoline floated lazily to the ceiling before making an abrupt halt. She backed up, instinctively toward her boss and pulled out the gun that was slung over her back. She raised it at the man that was just casually walking through the group and took another anxious step back.

"Look, pal." Damage Control started. "I don't really want to kill anyone, but if you're asking for it, you're asking for it. Got me? If you scoot on out of here, nothing needs to happen."

Tucker sized up the taller man and smirked beneath his ski mask. The whisper inside his mind was far more than unsettling, but luckily the change in expression wasn't visible through the thick fabric. He'd never had a real brawl with a mutant, but if it came down to it, there may be some fun yet. In one swift motion, Tucker made a shooting motion at Viator with his empty hand, instantly indicating the three goons that were facing him to open fire with their machine guns.

The crowd of hostages began to scream and crawl out of the way of the gunfire, two of which managed to get hit by some of the spray bullets that filled the air in just a moment. The fallen patrons and workers had no way of helping each other with their bound wrists, so they did nothing but manage to get in the way.

Pushing past toward the back of the bank, Tucker shoved two of his remaining goons from their current task at the security monitor to help their comrades in the assault on Viator.

"If you want a job done right, you just have to do it yourself." Damage Control grunted to himself and stood squarely in front of the vault door, charging himself up as ripples of translucent energy rippled around his figure.

[grace3]

Viator stood there as the masked man kept talking about not wanting to kill anyone. He simply shook his head as he watched carefully the goons that surrounded him with heavy machine guns. He rose an eyebrow as Damage Control pretended to shoot him with his empty hand. Viator waited for it, it was then a volley of fire started to be shot towards him. He watched Damage Control start to make a break for the back of the bank. He was probably going to get the money himself and leave before Viator could do anythign catastrophic to his operation.

Luckily for the bound hostages, all the bullets that were shot out of their guns seemed to only reach a feet before moving in slow motion through the air. Some gravitational power had disturbed the force of the bullets. Then instantly as Viator heard the clicking of several guns, he started to walk towards the first two thugs. The ones he saw on his way in and he simply took his cane, brought it down upon the lanky thug. He had increased the gravity around his cane so it would forcibly knock him out.

Viator walked over to the other, bigger thug. The thug didn't hesitate to start swinging against Viator. The skilled figher easily dodged the first few swings, redirected a kick with his cane, and tripped him. Viator used the cane to shoved it into the man's stomach. The intense force from the gravitational manipulation made the man cough up blood. The bullets still flew in mid air, then violently all of them came crashing onto the floor. It sounded like millions of pins were dropped during a church service.

Viator looked at the female thug that remained uninjured. She dropped the empty gun and squared up, ready to be beaten up. "Just leave here, so you don't go to jail," Viator offered, as two other goons appeared and instantly started to fire. The mutant started to run around as the hostages tried to hide behind desks and counters. Succesfully dodging bullets, Viator jumped into the air and flew across the room. From his cane, he pulled out a silver blade. It was a unique design, it had serrated edges on one side and a sharp edge on the other. There was no blunt side on this sword. "I'll make sure you never fire a gun again," Viator said with a smirk, as he slashed at the goons hand. He amputated the hand very easily, for this blade was adamantium.

Viator's cold eyes stared at the second goon that had came in only moments ago. "You can leave with the other one, if you don't want to be killed," Viator offered again. He wasn't in the mood to kill weak human beings. It would serve no purpose if he killed them, so he simply had to scare them. Maybe this would help them lead a life away from this one. Though, Viator could care less, he simply didn't want his money to be stolen. The Immortal walked through the corridors and appeared in front of the vault. In time to see, Damage Control surging with some kind of power. "Ey! I told you not to steal from me!" Viator yelled out as he started to walk closer, but cautiously towards Damage Control.

[tuckerwyman]

Tucker heard the commotion and felt Viator approach his back as soon as all the thugs had been done away with. There was a second of hesitation before Tucker turned to face the mutant that had spoiled most of his plans so far. How was he supposed to get the bags of money out of there now?

"Look, dude, you're really bringing this whole operation down and I'm not all too keen on that." He stated casually, as if Viator wasn't already aware of the situation.

At the second mention of stealing from the individual in particular, Damage Control rolled his eyes and did the classic 'you're a crazy person' spiral of the hand (with the gun in it) at the side of his own head.

"Don't you know that these banks are insured for millions of dollars for such an event like this? If I make it out of here with a fraction of that, this bank's actually going to make money." He shook his head incredulously. "Besides, I'm looking for something specific."

Tired of the situation already, and with the sound of police sirens wailing from a few blocks away, Tucker had to make quick work of the rest of the situation. Maybe if he got out of there fast enough, he'd be able to use the van parked out front still to make his escape.

Without another thought or indication of interest at Viator, Damage Control turned back to the vault door and motioned in its direction as if he was extending a large boulder toward the eight-foot tall piece of steel. The warping, groaning sound of bending metal mixed with the dull hum of Tucker's force field washing over the security device and pulling it out like a suction cup. Slowly raising his arms over his head, the massive, thick metal sheet came ripping from its layers of locks and floated lazily in the air slightly above his head.

A sudden bang announced the vault door's departure from its current space as it went hurtling through the air to Tucker's back. It very well could have hit Viator or simply clipped the wall- he wasn't aiming or paying enough attention to care. Instead, he walked casually into the depths of the security deposit chamber.

[grace3]

Viator simply listened to the man and watched him. He didn't intend on attacking anyone who didn't delibrately attacked him. The mutant watched as he used some kind of kinetic, psionic power to rip the vault's door out. He watched the door fly towards him. Viator slashed his blade against the vault's door, which easily cut through it and let it fly past him. It hit the walls of the corridor and made a large crashing sound. Viator kept on walking and entered the vault behind the man. He wondered what he would do, he wondered what he was looking for.

Viator heard the sirens blaring and coming closer. They were only a block away from the sounds of the sirens. "Well you should hurry up, because the police are coming," Viator said, as he looked around the vault. He noticed his stash in the vault and watched if Damage Control was really going for the money, or something in particular.

[tuckerwyman]

"Thanks to you," he started, clapping lightly over his shoulder toward Viator. "I don't have to pay any of those half-wits anymore. Now that we don't have to run a few bags of cash out to cover the goons, I can just take the quick grocery list of what I wanted to begin with."

Humming a soft tune to himself, Tucker ran his fingers along the drawers lining the wall and counted off the numbers to himself. There truly wasn't a better way for all of this to pan out in the end. What he had memorized in preparation for the heist helped in the limited amount of time left before the police were destined to make their way into the bank.

"Let's try out door number one." Sliding one of the drawers out, Damage Control investigated the contents within to reveal a manila folder and flash drive.

Shoving the contents into his jacket pocket, Tucker walked to the second security deposit box and pulled it out as well. A single piece of paper and what appeared to be a plain black credit card were the only contents inside and soon joined the manila folder and flash drive in his jacket pocket.

"You see, this bank's run by Luca Giovanni," at the name drop of the prominent mob boss, Tucker grabbed a handful of diamond jewelry that just happened to be hanging out of one of the damaged safety deposit boxes. "And what I'm taking out of this place... is some leverage. The street bosses are going to go through a bit of a shuffle in this town and I intend to wind this little game of king of the hill."

The manila folder and flash drive were full of incriminating photos and footage of the local district attorney used by Giovanni to sway some favors. Without the blackmail on the DA and with the information he could find out with the new resource, it was just one more chess move in his favor.

"This whole heist wasn't just for some dough." Sliding out drawer number three, Tucker held the entire container against his side and made his way to the exit of the vault.

A bang sounded from the front of the bank, a sign that the SWAT team had finally made their way inside. Damage Control chuckled to himself loudly, almost as if he was trying to lure the officers closer into the bank... into the trap. Slapping a ball of plastic explosives onto the side of the vault entrance, the thirty second countdown of the egg-timer attached to the explosives began.

"The two of us could take care of this city. Help each other out." he added, scratching the top of his head. "Except, we'd have to tone down the whole 'mutie' thing."

At that point, a SWAT team of ten members rushed forward from the back of the bank with their guns drawn.

[grace3]

Viator watched the male with interest, "Hmm I guess you weren't trying to steal from me, I like how you think," Viator commented watching what he was doing. "Sounds like I can have some fun with you, you're neither good, or bad, I like that," Viator started to laugh as he then heard a loud bang! He could hear the quick footsteps, and the cocking of their guns. It seemed they were surprised to find most of the goons on the ground along with the bank employees and attendants.

It was then he watched the SWAT team, follow Tucker into the vault and Viator only smiled. "Alright, we have a deal," Viator said, turning around to face the guns drawn. In an instant his cane was unsheathed to show his glistering, serrated, sharp blade. He looked at the SWAT team with a smirk, as his fingers showed three in the air. He counted down one by one, and when his last finger went down. The whole hallway was confused by a large explosion.

Viator used this as a cue to use his gravitational force to push all the SWATs toward the end of the hallway. He then lowered the gravity on them so they would be stuck on the ceiling against each other. Unable to move because gravity was too light for them to properly make any movements. He then slashed at the walls of the hallway, which led to an office. Then he slashed his way through another wall that led to a backstreet alley. "Lets go, the front door isn't going to help us but get fame," Viator simply said as he started to look around the alleyway to see if everything was clear.

[tuckerwyman]

Walking behind Viator as casually as he would walk through a grocery store, Tucker hummed lightly to himself. No need to expend any energy when there was someone perfectly capable of knocking down the walls for him. All in all, the plan couldn't have worked out any better; of course he would have liked to keep some of the goons around, but it was better that he didn't have to pay them in the end. This strange sword-wielding mutant was a surprise, to say the least, but it appeared as though he had one more ally in his attempt at a choke-hold on the city.

"Well done," He said lightly, stepping over the last of the rubble into the alleyway.

The wailing of police sirens sounded through the narrow space between the buildings; it was obvious that a crowd had now formed around the front of the bank, mixed with the wreckage and a growing cloud of smoke. The decoy of an explosion along with their improvised exit held some hope that they might be able to get away without any real confrontation with the law.

The less contact, the better.

"Look, man." Damage Control started, calling out to the man ahead of him. "I was shocked by the assault and impressed by this little meeting, but I have things to do and people to see. . . On that note, I'm sure we'll meet again. I'm sure we'll cross paths without too much trouble."

With that, Tucker took a few steps to the side, steadied his legs and took a deep breath. The same translucent ripples of energy collected in density at his feet and fanned out against the asphalt. There was a muffled bang and Tucker was sent rocketing into the air, only to land semi-gracefully on an adjacent roof. After leaping several more times to other buildings, he faded off into the distance and was gone.