Shoot to Thrill Story Arc: 4.2

"Think of it as a game." Tattletale said.

I snorted but didn't comment as she continued. I shouldn't have cursed us yesterday thinking about driving in bad weather. The rain came down in a steady downpour against the van we were in surrounding us not only in a cascade of water, but the steady unceasing sound if its impact against our vehicle. In addition to that, noonday traffic had completely stalled us out to the point Tattletale had not only parked, but shut it off. If the rain didn't let up, it was going to complicate things.

Our current set up had me riding with Tattletale while Renegade was with the others in the van behind us. Tattletale explained it as not quite a hostage exchange, but that was the general idea when different gangs worked together. Guaranteed neither side pulled anything since their people in the other party would be vulnerable and pay the price if anyone did.

"Like a high stakes game of Cops and Robbers."

"I think we're a little past the school yard version of that, don't you? Considering what we're here to do, I think this qualifies as the real thing."

"Seriously, hear me out here." She countered. "I mean, full adults in costume? Running around using stupid codenames beating the shit out of each other using fun-as-fuck powers and toys? It's stupid, and we know it's ridiculous but no one says anything. But it's fun, and at the end of the day capes like you and me, we're getting our thrills and just blowing off steam you know?"

"I don't think that applies to every cape out there." I said wryly. As I looked through the water running down the window beside me I hoped the traffic let up soon.

"Well, no it doesn't. There's people out there like the crazies who take it too far. People so fucked up in the head that if there's no one to keep them in line they're only one step away from being a monster. Lung, Heartbreaker, even Bitch." she paused a moment. "Renegade."

I frowned but didn't comment. Before yesterday, I would have half agreed with her about Renegade. After he shared a few memories with me, I couldn't. Was he dangerous? Fuck yes he was. Was he a monster that needed a collar? No. I wasn't sure how to class him anymore but I knew one thing. He lived his life by his own code. The fact that his code didn't exactly coincide with the law didn't matter to him. Only that his actions saved lives and helped people did. It was something that I didn't understand before last night but was starting too now.

"So then there's the monsters. Really dangerous motherfuckers. If you look at Nilbog or The Slaughterhouse Nine you see these guys that can barely be described as human anymore. Just fucking meat grinders who kill for fun. But going back to what I was saying a moment ago, ninety nine percent of the cape stuff that goes on, it's the first group. This applies to non capes too.

"The way I see it a city with a legit superhero group is like having a local sports team. Everyone loves rooting for the home team. There's boosts to city revenues from merchandising or tourism. Great media to keep Jonny Six-Pack from thinking about water shortages, unemployment, or whatever. All that stuff local government loves, but what good is any of that if there's no competition? Why do you think villains like Uber and Leet are still around and not in the Birdcage? They don't even try to keep them locked up. They always manage to get a regular cell and end up breaking out to start the game again. Sure, there's the three strikes law and eventually they'll get the Cage but really, it all boils down to the Game."

I made a noncommittal noise as I restlessly tapped my fingers on the sidearm strapped to my thigh. Renegade had replaced the old one with one of his Strikers. The weight difference was noticeable enough that I was very aware of what I was carrying. Though not nearly as noticeable as the rifle compacted on my back.

One thing was for certain. I was not walking into this like I did with Lung. If something happened to make my bugs unsuitable to the situation, I had options.

"Really, at the end of the day we're not doing much. Some property damage and a bit of theft. Nothing that insurance won't fix. Bystanders get a cool story to tell their coworkers and feel like they had an adventure. Get a bit of spice to their humdrum lives. Compared to the monsters out there, the city is better off with us in play. Besides, there's not much difference between the so called heroes and us. The only real difference is we took the path of higher risk, higher reward."

I felt a slight smile on my face as I thought over her words. Renegade might have agreed with her but I couldn't say I was one hundred percent behind it. I had my own agenda here. Maybe I would see things differently after being active awhile.

"Anyways," Tattletale continued seemingly unphased by my lack of comment. "The real evidence to my theory is when a cape crosses the unwritten rules. You see it now and then. A cape finds out his enemy's secret identity and hits them at home or goes after their family. Or a cape sees his downed opponent and feels a bit lusty. Shit like that doesn't fly. Word gets out and enemies call a truce. People start calling in or giving favors. Suddenly you have heroes and villains working together to bring the asshole down. All to protect the status quo, keeping the game afloat."

"Like with Endbringers."

Tattletale twitched. "Yeah, like that…"

I couldn't blame her for her reaction. They didn't make the most enjoyable topic. Traffic had finally started to pick up and Tattletale started the van back up and put it into gear. I checked my omni-tool to note the time and nodding to myself. So far, we were still within the operational window we established.

As I looked back up I also activated another new feature. Renegade had taken out the lenses of my old swim goggles and replaced them. Now you couldn't see my eyes, instead only bright gold disks. However, the big difference for me was the H.U.D I was still trying to get used to. I had a muted tactical readout floating in front of me. It was so weird, to have words, barrier status bars, and the small com window floating apparently out there in front of me like I could touch its semi transparent existence. It was nowhere near as detailed as the set up he used or wanted me to use. I think if I had not seen it through his eyes, from his memories, this would have been a lot more disorienting than it currently was. As it was, this dumbed down version was about all I think I could handle.

The other improvement was my vision had no blind spots anymore. It was like I wasn't wearing a mask and was wearing contacts. It was thanks to the upgrade that I caught Tattletale's eyes look to my arm when I checked the time.

"Fucking tinkers…" she muttered.

I smiled slightly. "I used to think that until I had one of my own. He has his moments though when I'll still say something like that."

Tattletale chuckled at my comment before pointing to our left.

I turned to look, feeling my heartbeat start racing. The Brockton Bay Central Bank. The words were engraved in marble over the lavish great doors in front of it. They sat high up with a set of wide ascending stairs, sort of like the courthouse. Several huge stone statues of horsemen flanked them giving the the six story building a castle feel.

"In twenty minutes we're going to be walking out of there tens of thousands of dollars richer with the rush of victory in pumping through our veins." Tattletale barely whispered.

I narrowed my eyes looking at the building. This was it. This was my last chance to turn back and call this whole thing off. It would mean a long delay to my plans. No bank job, no eezo. That meant no fix to the bay, no shipping, no ferry. No jobs for the masses of unemployed and no alternative for them working directly with villains...

"Lets go rob this bank." I said with far more confidence than I felt. As Tattletale signed our turn into the alley next to the building, I couldn't help but noticed the vulpine grin on her face.

"Fuck yeah, now you're talking."

She pulled smoothly into the alley and parked. By the time we had gotten out and walked to the back the others had parked and exited their own van.

I stopped in my tracks. Grue's power was about him making him look like a living shadow. I could barely see it, but through the obstruction over his face I could just see what looked like a human skull where his face would be. I couldn't deny it made him very intimidating.

The one they called Regent was dressed like a renaissance fair reject, to put it nicely. A cornet around his head, a scepter with a little crown at the top twirling in his hand. His shirt was opened up at the front like he was getting ready to pose for the cover of a bad romance novel. I suppose the effect would have been better had he worked out but he was either too young to have properly developed his physique, or just didn't care. Either way, he looked more foppish than anything.

Bitch was there as well, a cheap dime store plastic rottweiler mask on her face. She didn't really have a costume. Just ripped and faded jeans and fur collar jacket that had sort of become her trademark. I knew the most about her thanks to the Wiki. Her dogs weren't as big as it said they could be, but big enough that I think most people would have thought them demon mutts that escaped from some dark corner of hell. Bone spikes jutted from their bodies and joints with muscles that rippled along their mass. It didn't help they were the size of a small pony. I really hoped she had the control over them Tattletale said she did.

However, I'd seen them earlier when we met up so that didn't surprise me as much as Renegade did. He was walking toward me wearing his usual helmet and jeans but his jacket and armored plates were gone. Instead he was only wearing a t shirt. I felt my eye twitch when I recognized which one he decided to wear today.

As Tattletale stepped next to me I saw her smile bloom fully, but she did not comment immediately so I did. "Renegade? Where's your costume?"

Without breaking stride he jerked his thumb at Grue. "Darkness boy got his balls in a twist over the fact our costumes were similar. So in the interest of being cooperative, I got rid of mine."

Renegade's comment spawned an outburst from Regent that made me think he'd been laughing about this for a while.

"Look, all I said was that you should have changed yours up before today. This was my look long before you started out. It's a respect thing." Grue's voice had a weird echoing tone that did nothing to disguise his frustration. However, his retort did nothing to curb Regent's laughter.

I turned to Tattletale to see she had turned to me. I slightly nodded toward Grue. "Is he usually this sensitive?"

Tattletale looked torn between answering and erupting in her own laughter. "No comment."

As Renegade passed us he snorted. A quick tug of the back doors of the van Tattletale and I used opened them up. My bugs spilled from it in a mass wave over him and the floor. According to Tattletale, there was three hundred and fifty cubic feet in the back of the van. I had them packed cheek to jowl in there with only just enough room so as not to hurt each other or to spill into the front seat with us.

I'll say this: three hundred and fifty cubic feet could store a lot of bugs. Especially when they cooperated the way mine did.

Grue jumped backward which made me chuckle at the image of the hardcore villain spooked by a bunch of bugs. Afterwards, I directed the bugs into bank's interior. Renegade paid them no mind as if getting drowned in a wave of insects was no big thing. Rather, he started walking around me heading deeper into the alley.

"You want to get more bugs? Not sure you brought enough." Grue asked.

"I already have more." I informed him, ignoring his surly tone. He wasn't going to embarrass me by making me think I was being too prepared. "Fliers are on the roof with ground bugs of their own. They're already making their way inside."

Driving through the city had given me the opportunity to gather this swarm. More importantly, I had opportunity to be picky. When I fought Lung I had only what was available in my range. During the trade I found I could use my fliers to ferry the smaller ones who couldn't fly, but I was still limited to what was on hand.

This time, not so much. I carefully picked the ones I wanted. Centipedes, beetles, wasps, bees, hornets, cockroaches, black and horseflies. All big enough to sting when they bit and very fast and durable. I not only had this swarm but I was already augmenting them with what was currently in my range. By the time they all gathered together and we started this, my swarm would be massive.

If everything went the way I figured it would, I'd need it.

Grue shook his head before he started barking orders. "Tattletale, the door. Regent, Bitch, keep watch. Matriarch, with me. Let's move."

I raised my eyebrow within my mask but didn't comment.

"The fire exit at the back is protected by a digital passkey," Tattletale explained as we made our way in that direction. "Every employee has the number to get in if they need to, but that rarely happens because opening the door sets off a bunch of alarms. That password is easy. The interesting thing that the employees don't even know is that the capes and SWAT teams have a special code they can put in if they need to make a quiet entrance with no alarms going off. To do that, you punch in the regular code, three-seven-one, but you hold the one down, then press the number sign and the asterisk keys down at the same time…"

The sound of shearing metal cut off whatever else she was going to say. As we came around the side of the van we had a perfect view of Renegade. His arm was encased in his omni tool except for the flash forged blade that was extended a foot and a half from it. It was that eye catching bit of tech that caught everyone's attention as he extracted it from the door. He casually waved his hand causing the door to swing open, revealing he cut the door so the door knob was separated from the rest of it. From where I was I could clearly see the slightly glowing remains slowly cooling against the door frame.

As the omni-blade retracted and vanished, he turned slightly to face me. "Time?"

I activated my Omni-tool. "Three point two seconds."

"Damn."

"What the fuck?!" Grue half shouted. "The goddamn alarms are going to go off now!"

Except it was silent. I turned to Grue. "We disabled the alarms already. Renegade hacked the security company's mainframe this morning and set the banks systems to upload a very large and unnecessary update. The entire system's down as it tries to reset to the new software."

Renegad chuckled as I continued. "The phones and cameras still work, so I suggest we get things moving before the heroes get here."

Smiling widely Tattletale linked her arm in mine, moving us forward and leaving her dumbfounded compatriots to follow. "Why is Renegade upset?"

"He was trying to beat my time." I replied. At Tattletales questioning look I half shrugged. "What? It's not my fault the door was unlocked when it was my turn."

I removed my arm from Tattletale as she started laughing. As I looked to the icon on my H.U.D., activating the pupil response program I was still getting used to, I couldn't help but think about the villain beside me. I sort of liked Tattletale. So far she had gone out of her way to make nice and that was something I appreciated a lot. I had expected Grue's attitude being the prevalent one through the whole group, but she seemed different. Maybe it was more to do with that I spent more time with her than the others. Either way, had things been different, I could have seen us becoming friends.

I shook that introspection off. That kind of thing wasn't going to help us get this job done. I reached behind me for the butt of the unpacking rifle. I easily pulled it over my shoulder, handing it to Renegade before it had even finished configuring. I ignored the look that Grue directed at the still chuckling Tattletale. So far everything was going as planned and I wanted to keep it that way.

For his part, Renegade flipped the safety off but said nothing. Instead he activated his tech armor with me only a step behind. "Come on, by now the guards have spotted us and already called 911. We have five minutes to secure the lobby. Grue, Regent, pick up the people on our way through. I'll tell you which rooms they're hiding in. We'll add them to other hostages when we get there."

"If everything goes the way Renegade and I think it will, you'll have maybe ten minutes to do your thing before the Wards show up. That is, if Tattletale's intel on the Protectorate is right."

"It is." She replied. Her voice was still heavy with her amusement and seemingly unphased by my tone.

"Anything else Mistress?" Regent half snarked, half joked.

"I'll tell you when you need to know." I absentmindedly said to him. My mind had already moved on the next part of the script. The one part I was not looking forward to playing but couldn't see any way around.

Thanks to my bugs I knew where every single bank employee was in the building. That was the first thing I did when the bank fell into my range, tag every living thing inside. As we walked through the hallway I pointed out which offices had people in them. Despite the slightly hostile stance Grue was taking with me talking over he still did as I asked. Between him and Regent we collected three people on our way to the lobby. Only one had tried to call out or resist in any way. I was pretty sure it was Regent doing it but he never got a chance too. When he opened his mouth to yell, he suddenly started coughing. Regent walked in casually before grabbing him by his shirt collar. When the man tried to resist he ended up on the ground through no effort by any of us. Well, no visible effort.

The fight pretty much went out of him at that point.

From where I stood, I watched him turn to look at one of the other bank employees we grabbed. I swallowed thickly pushing down the knot in my stomach at the scared and defeated looks on their faces.

The last few rooms didn't have anyone, thankfully. Once we approached the archway to the lobby I nodded to Grue. In turn he directed his darkness inward creating a wall around those inside.

"Renegade."

He nodded stepping inside. The barrel of the rifle directed upward as he pulled the trigger. The loud buzzsaw cadence of the weapon caused several people to scream, but most to hit the ground in order to unnecessarily avoid getting shot.

"Tonight's presentation is brought to you by Random Acts of Violence." Renegade jovially spoke to the room. Since he wasn't shooting anymore, he had their complete attention. "If everyone would please take their seats, we'd be more than happy to get the show started."

As I walked into the room I heard a few muffled sobs coming from the crowd. Grue's power clung to the doors and windows which only left the overheads for lighting. It felt like my heart was going to beat itself through my ribcage as I addressed my hostages.

"Fifteen minutes. That is how long we plan to be here. Stay where we put you, stay quiet, and do as you are told and you will not be harmed." As I looked through the crowd I took in their terrified expressions and swallowed thickly, glad my voice wasn't betraying me.

"Now, if anyone is thinking of being a hero there is a very good reason not to. If the gun wielding man to my right is not enough then perhaps this will be. This," I stated holding up my hand. One of my spiders dangled along its silk string from my finger. "Is a Black Widow Spider and she, and her hundred sisters, are completely under my control. They are also on each and every one of you. Normally a single bite from one of these is enough to kill a full grown adult. Or put one into a coma. You move, talk, try to use your cell, kill the spiders on you, do anything but what we expressly allow, and I will know immediately and have them bite you several times."

I let that sink in a moment. If they were scared before, my hostages were terrified now. As I scanned the crowd I saw a grown man, maybe thirty-ish shaking as a tear rolled down his cheek. I saw a couple of mothers clutching their children close. A girl with freckles, couldn't have been much older than me, stared at me with loathing.

One of the biggest problems Renegade saw in the plan had to do with the hostages and keeping them contained. Keeping them from trying something that got the rest hurt or killed. This was my answer to that. With my spiders I effectively had a gun trained on each of them. As horrible as this was, I had to make sure that some foolhardy schmuck didn't do something that spun this situation out of our control. If I had to terrorize them to keep them from harm's way, then that was what I was going to do.

As I looked each one of my hostages in the eye that justification felt pretty thin.

"I am glad everyone understands the situation. Grue, you're up."

The shadowy figure nodded before waving Regent and Bitch to follow him. Bitche's dogs growled to the hostages as they passed but didn't do anything overt. Thankfully, none of them tried to bolt or made a move that would have forced me to act.

All three of them moved to the vault which Tattletale unlocked easily. From there Grue took a crowbar he had and started ripping open the safe deposit boxes. As he did Regent and Bitch traded off dumping the contents into one of several bags they brought with them.

I kept my eyes on the civilians a moment longer before I followed the others. Tattletale had already seated herself behind one of the computers and was typing fiercely. Renegade took the one next to her after placing the rifle on the counter top. I couldn't hear what they were saying but I knew they were hacking the system.

As I moved around the counters so I could see the surveillance feed, I couldn't help but remember something I had read a long time ago. 'The road to hell was paved with good intentions.'

I was definitely putting in my share of cobblestones today.

***Authors Note:

I don't give my beta's enough love. So, Special thanks to Materia Blade, MarkerIV, Suryn, and TheBSdude for their help in this story. Special guest, Landcollector, who caught alot of mistakes that slipped through.