Neopolitan had sort of assumed that, since she and Emerald were just popping into town for a few short errands, it was going to be a quiet day. That had been a foolish assumption.

Granted it started off easy enough. Penny and Ciel were off with the dorks from RWBY, and the two of them were bored enough that getting breakfast in the city sounded like a good time. Ugh, how had they been tamed so easily?

Breakfast really had been delicious, and filling, and wonderful, and all that stuff. But it was also a stark reminder that Neopolitan was running low on lien and needed more. This felt doubly true because she was never sure when someone might suddenly descend from the constabulary to steal all her ill-gotten gains away from her. They might have had someplace to live, and a life to lead. But there was no allowance to go with that. So they mostly had what they brought with them, and what spare change either girl felt comfortable pickpocketing or grifting. But Neo at least had the brilliant thought to put some of her funds in the bank, and since they'd been getting constant morality injections, they just didn't feel right stealing money anymore.

They were standing in line together and shooting the shit, making sure to chat through sign language to avoid pissing anyone off. They had discovered the hard way that sometimes what they considered engaging conversation was not "polite for others to hear". So signing and giggling it was.

"C'mon, you gotta spill at least a few details. I told you how things went with Penny out at the club..."

"Yeah, where all you did was just dance a little. And I'm telling you, all Ciel and I did was hang out on the couch. We kissed like... once..."

"Boring..." Something seemed to catch Emerald's attention and her eyebrows went up. "That, on the other hand, is not boring..."

A cadre of strange-looking people walked in through the front door, and it didn't exactly take much work to put together that their covered faces and poorly concealed weapons meant this bank was about to be robbed. They had precisely ten seconds before the shit hit the fan. Without warning, Emerald lifted Neopolitan into her arms and jumped up to the second level of the bank, hunting down an empty office where they could hide out.

"Okay okay okay..." Emerald started to speak out loud before catching herself and switching back to using sign language. They were officially in stealth mode. "What do... we do? I mean, it wasn't that long ago we were the ones robbing people..."

There were some bangs below and one of the robbers fired off his gun as a warning, and they started herding everyone out of the way. "Alright folks, this should be over quick if you all just cooperate!"

Neopolitan gave her most comforting smile at Emerald. "Yeah, but we have auras and semblances. Even without our weapons, we could take them on no problem!"

"Probably. But they're collecting hostages now, which means we can't just go rick-shit riot. I mean... Well, we could, but I've been developing this nasty habit of having a conscience lately." Em looked embarrassed to admit that, and Neo didn't want to let her feel alone.

"...me too. Stealth it is..." Neo poked her head out of the office and noticed one of the thieves coming toward their hiding spot. "Shit! Got a guy looking for stragglers. What's the plan?"

Emerald just grinned at her, still rooted where she was. "We stay right where we are, and we keep signing. If he finds us, I need you to play the scared deaf girl con. If he doesn't find us, then they're really idiots and this will be easy."

"Are you sure? We can handle ourselves, but the bank was good and busy today. That's a lot of fleshy people to get shot up with bullets if we're not careful..." She took a slow breath and sighed softly. She was the tank. That had been decided some time ago. That meant protecting the people was her job. Emerald could take the charge on distraction and misdirection. "Which means we have to be flawless."

"Hey!" Neopolitan only just remembered that she was supposed to be deaf and kept herself from flinching when the masked gunman walked in on them. "Got two more up here!"

Emerald made a few more signs at her that roughly translated to "Ziggurat ankle nimble fish hook " before turning her attention on the guard. "Please! Please, it's my sister, she's deaf and she was freaking out. I brought her into this office to catch her breath when all the noise started."

The guy came around to get a better look at the both of them, staring hard at her in particular. "Neo? Holy crap, Neo, what the hell are you doing here?"

Gasping, she decided not to give him a chance to let this conversation go any further. From the floor, Neopolitan vaulted up and swung around to the guy's back, hooking her arm against his neck and choking him out until he tumbled to the floor. As she pulled the body away from the windows to hide it under the massive oak desk, Emerald decided to momentarily break the no-talking rule. "What was that?"

"Roman worked with a lot of dudes. My best guess, this guy was one of those disposable third-stringers who worked with me once or twice on missions. Either he was gonna want me to help them, or he was gonna ask too many questions about what I've been up to. I didn't need that... We... didn't need that."

"Okay, well now that one of them is knocked out and hidden under a desk, that puts us on a ticking clock. Someone will recognize their numbers are thin, or they'll find him, and they'll wanna know what's up." Emerald sighed and messed with her hair. "I'm regretting trying to do this."

"Me too... But I think I have a plan..." Slowly, carefully, silently, the girls crept along and found where the other hostages were being held down on the first floor. "Okay so here's the idea. I drop down and join the others. I put up as big a wall as I can to keep them safe and maybe provide them with a chance to escape. While I'm doing that, all you have to do is make your way around the place and trick a few guys into wandering down corridors or shooting each other. Once I get the hostages secured, we can stop holding back and crack some skulls."

In unison, the two of them reached out, gripping the others' head and bringing them together to touch foreheads. "Team Mindfuck..." Neo also stole a quick kiss before gracefully dropping down over the banister. She landed without a sound at the edge of the crowd, the woman next to her about to gasp before she clamped a hand over her mouth, shaking her head. Once it was clear she wouldn't make any more noise, she withdrew her hand and looked back ahead of her. The guards were all distracted with breaking into the vault, and already she could see one lone idiot being tricked down a hallway and off to the side.

Neopolitan took her time, gathering herself, getting centered and focused. She made her way to the front of the group and made a silencing motion to all the hostages before putting up as powerful an illusory wall possible – wide and tall and solid as could be. No one quite understood what was happening except that they were dealing with some kind of hero, perhaps from Beacon.

She knew how to make an escape, though doing so with an entire crowd was another experience entirely. She kept them moving slowly, but steadily, until they came to a back door, a fire exit. Neo went to open it only to be stopped by someone she assumed to be the manager of the place. "That's going to alert them. They'll be coming for you..."

Knowing there was no point in signing or wasting time with her scroll speaker, Neo just nodded before kicking the door right off its hinges and out into the alleyway. She motioned for them to go with a strong pointed finger as if she were dealing with a dog, and they all started filing out. Already, another thief was coming down the hallway to check on the commotion. She ran directly for him, wall-running to avoid gunfire, then closing in with a roundhouse kick to the face. The time for subtlety had most definitely ended.

"Little help?" Emerald just barely managed to yell out as she struggled with one of the other robbers with the gun he was holding.

The only thing around that looked even slightly useful was a crowbar that one of these idiots had left unattended. So Neopolitan grabbed it up and dashed over behind the big lug, bashing him over the head. It wasn't quite enough to knock him out completely but it at least got him to split his attention between them. Something, presumably an illusion, suddenly caused him to look to his right, at which point the real Emerald delivered a heavy punch right at his kidney. More than enough to send him crumpling to the ground, writhing in pain.

Neopolitan felt good for a moment until she heard three more guns cocking behind them. They turned and saw the remaining robbers standing there with rifles trained on them. "Hah, uh, hey there boys... Look, here's the thing. Your captives are gone, your crew is currently down by half, and the cops are undoubtedly on their way right now."

The guy who was presumably their captain suddenly turned on one of his two remaining buddies, aiming at his head, arms trembling. "N-No way! We worked together on this for weeks! If you was a traitor, I'd'a known!"

The dude obviously had no clue what he was talking about, but the sudden spike in tension forced him to raise his own gun in return. "Boss, what're you talking about? I ain't done nothin'!"

Of course now the third schlub was also aiming at the supposed traitor. Emerald couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't hear them now. He was in the middle of his own little imaginary world.

"I'm not going down for this!" the boss-man cried and shot him in the knee. The intention was that this would ultimately defuse the situation. Neopolitan was almost certain that her idea was not to set off a bomb of misunderstanding as the three remaining robbers started to all fire on each other. The girls dove for cover as Neo threw up a barrier for them to hide behind, waiting for it all to die down.

That was when they heard the sound of approaching alarms. "Shit..." was all Emerald muttered. Neo glanced over at her, surprised to see just how shaken she appeared.


"Thank you, girls. I'll be sure to contact your professors about this. I'm sure you'd like for them to know what a good thing you did here today." The detective made a few more notes on their scroll before closing it up and pocketing it.

Neopolitan really didn't want that. She wasn't sure she necessarily had any specific reasons for it. Only that she wasn't interested in attention, questions, curiosity, all of that stuff. It wasn't a moral thing, it was just... a need to feel like she could still operate in the shadows sometimes. Neo liked the concept that she was her own person who could make decisions simply because she could. Emerald looked over at her as if asking for her opinion, and Neo quickly shook her head in response.

Em actually looked pleased about that and turned back to the detective. "Um, thanks but we actually uh... We're not really looking for accolades. We just... made a promise recently to actually stand up to awful people."

"Huh, okay... Well, you kids have my number, you can contact me if you need anything. If there's some kind of court case, you may be contacted, yadda yadda." He shrugged and left them to go check in with the other officers on the status of all the robbers.

With everything coming to a close, the girls figured it was probably time to make their exit and get back to school. Neopolitan gave it a little while before deciding to address the strange thing she'd noticed at the end. "Are you... okay?"

"Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"That brief gunfight there at the end just seemed to rattle you a little." Neopolitan knew immediately that a deflection like that meant this conversation might not even happen. But she wanted to at least try and engage it anyway.

Emerald was quiet for a moment. "Y'know, I've killed people before. As I'm sure you have. But it sorta feels like I've really been sucked into the cult of heroics lately. I had this moment of terror that me using my semblance would lead to someone being killed. Like if I had just grabbed up one of their guns and shot them down, I could at least still live with that. But I was legitimately terrified of doing it accidentally." She gave a rather long, drawn-out sigh. "Am I losing my edge?"

Unable to help herself, Neopolitan chuckled softly and gently bumped hips with her, making Emerald momentarily stumble as she started to laugh along. "Dude, we just stopped a bank robbery with zero casualties, and then didn't take credit for it. We have surpassed edges. We have transcended badassery. We're gonna be huntresses, after all..."

"Mmm, I like the sound of that. Thanks, Neo" she mused, leaning over to quickly plant a kiss on her temple.