There is a little bit of fangirling in this chapter, I'm sorry! I tried to base it on my personal memories about my crush back in school (also in the last chapter). That's why it might sound pretty pathetic here and there, hehe ^^; Sorry about that. I hope you like it anyway!
Suddenly, someone grabbed Wilbur's arm from behind. He jerked around. It was Violet, who looked anything but happy.
"Why did it take so long?!" She hissed, almost aggressive.
"Don't panic! What should I do?" he began, uncomprehendingly, "Now Liz sits there all alone and wonders where we are -" he tried to defend himself, but Violet interrupted him.
"Poor lil' Liz, all alone!" she muttered sarcastically. Wilbur didn't know how to interpret this behavior.
"What's wrong with you today?" he asked, confused.
"Nothing ..." she said darkly, and before he could say something, she activated the communicator on her wrist, "Flame?"
"Building of the Federal Reserve Bank, now!" a familar voice promptly came from the little device. Vi and Wilbur looked at each other in surprise. Were it just them, or did Flame's voice sound... happy...?
"What happened?" Violet asked carefully.
"You won't believe it! A real bank robbery!" Flame shrieked excitedly into the communicator. Now Wil and Vi really looked at each other surprised. A bank robbery? In Todayland? That wasn't Cobra's style. He rather acted undetected in the underground, without leaving any trace. But this was a fantastic show. The whole city seemed to be on the streets. And the ones who were not on the road to gawk what was happening, were leaning out of the windows of the skyscrapers to snatch at a glance.
The two made their way through the crowds. It wasn't easy to come forward, as most streets were blocked off by the police. Finally, they couldn't get any closer to the Bank. The whole area around the building was cordoned off. They had to take a detour. In an empty side street they found a quiet corner in which they changed their clothes quickly. Yet they still had the problem to pass the blocked road... Vi put on her mask, and looked carefully around the corner of a house, in an attempt to find a way. If she made herself invisible, she could perhaps succeed to sneak undetected into the bank. She would have a problem, however, if infrared cameras were set up. They had to come up with something, before -
Her thoughts were interrupted when she was suddenly grabbed from behind and pulled up into the air, all of a sudden she had no ground under her feet anymore. Startled, she clung to Wilbur, who was flying up with his rocket boots, and after a few seconds landed on the roof of the building beside them. Once up there, he let her go.
"Argh! I hate it when you do that!" Violet cried angrily.
"You're welcome" was everything Wilbur replied. He rolled his eyes and decided to simply ignore her stupid behavior today, finally they currently didn't have the time to fight. He turned away from her and looked down to the streets below them. Everything was full of journalists, police, robots and police-robots. Then he looked over to the bank building and thoughtfully put his hands akimbo. If they would fly over there, someone would surely discover them...
"Next time it would be really nice if you warn me, before you... hoick me!" Violet growled behind him. He turned to her and nodded his head over to the bank building that stood about 170 feet on the other side of the intersection. Violet looked back at him completely dumbfounded.
"May I, my lady?" he then asked over-gallantly, bowing down.
Vi groaned. Why wasn't she able to fly herself?! Then she wouldn't be reliant on him to carry her around. But then she groaned discouragedly. Only now she realized why she had been so reluctant to get a pair of rocket botts herself: she had told the others that it was because these boots wouldn't become invisible, but if she was honest with herself now, she had to admit that she enjoyed being carried around in Wilbur's arms.
"Go ahead," she said a little too brash. He put her on his arms, and she wrapped her slender arms around his neck. Wilbur then stood at the edge of the building, in order to have a better view of the hustle and bustle below them. He didn't want to take off when one of the spotlights was focused right on their flight path, or when a helicopter crossed their way. While he observed the area highly concentrated, Vi couldn't take her eyes off him. She was pretty much yearning for him. He had become quite strong within the last years, in the past he didn't have the strength to carry her like this on his arms, at least not longer than maybe two minutes, bot now he stood there as if her weight didn't matter at all. And since when was he so damn attractive?! And he smelled so good -
When Violet realized what she was doing, she was not only confused, but disgusted and ashamed of herself. She squinted her eyes, hoping that she could get out of this situation soon, before she started drooling all over him!
"Are you scared of heights?" She heard Wilbur's voice asking. Vi opened her eyes again and looked at him confused.
"No!" she protested. That was ridiculous - a superhero with a fear of heights...! Then she realized that he probably asked that because she desperately clung to him with squinted eyes - how should she explain this?
"I mean ... um, yes, I have a fear of heights to be hontest!" she corrected herself hastily, "But don't tell anyone!"
Wilbur merely raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He turned his attention back to the environment. Vi then suddenly felt how he tensed his muscles. She tightened the grip around his neck.
"Okay, take-off in three, two, one - !" he exclaimed with a low voice, and then it went straight up into the air. Vi struggled to hold on, because Wilbur performed some hair-raising moves to avoid the searchlights. Only a few seconds later, they landed on the roof of the bank. They immediately took cover behind a ventilation shaft, to avoid being discovered by the numerous television and police helicopters. However, they were not the first ones with this idea.
"Well that was very unobtrusive," they suddenly heard a familiar voice behind them. They jerked around. It was M, and behind her Flame was crouching, who gave the two newcomers an impatient glance. All of them were masked and wore the same black and blue outfit. Since Wilbur was the only one who had access to special technology without attracting attention, he had been responsible to get them suits. He took the opportunity to design these suits after his personal taste. Therefore, each suit had the Captain Future symbol printed on the chest. Violet and Flame were less than happy about that, only Emely was delighted - but not so much the design, but rather about the fact that they let her participate.
"There you are, finally!" Flame said, to express her impatience, but before Wilbur and Violet could justify, she continued exitedly, "Okay, two robbers have entrenched themselves in the strongroom. They took the staff and a few customers hostage. In the foyer, there are two police officers, one security guard and a few civilians. One of the policemen is wounded. There's a pretty tough gunfight down there," she rattled, while she drew the outlines of the rooms with her finger on the dusty ground, marking the positions of the involved persons with crosses.
"The police seems totally overextended, they have no idea how to deal with the situation," M added.
"How should they? They have no experience with such things," Vi said, who had always wondered, what the police of this time was doing all day long when there was no crime.
"And the plan?" Wilbur asked. As the oldest of them Flame had taken over the command, she had accepted the responsibility for the team. As long as you didn't questioned her authority or opposed her, you didn't have any problems with her.
"Vi and I will try to distract and overwhelm these guys, we are bulletproof after all." She began resolutely, "Wil, you'll get the wounded policemen out of here. We have no idea how severe the injury is... if it's not treated immediately, it might be too late."
Wilbur nodded, and felt the uncomfortable weight of responsibility resting on his shoulders. Normally he and Emely were the ones who cared for distracting the enemy, but usually they were dealing only with a few robots robots or clones, and not with trigger-happy criminals who had taken hostages. He swallowed.
"And me? What do I do?" Emely whispered excitedly and seesawed impatiently. Flame smiled at her little sisters ambition.
"You are the substitude, sweetheart" she said, with a wink, "If something happens to one of us you have to take his place."
"I'm benched?" Emely asked indignantly.
"Want to takeover my place? I'd rather like to be a bench-warmer!" Wilbur said with a wry smile. Emely looked at him and frowned.
"... No, thanks... "she murmured. Given the need to actually go into danger, being a substitude seemed to be the more attractive alternative.
"I also need you to calm the hostages." Flame continued with portentous severity, "The last thing we need are a few civilians running headlessly in the line of fire."
Emely took a deep breath, then nodded determined.
"Got it?" Flame ask one last time. No one had objections, which did not mean that they had no concerns, "Then let's go!" she cried.
They entered the building through one of the large windows on the roof. They were on the top floor and had to run through a few corridors until they reached the foyer and the strongroom. The corridor ended at a large gallery, from which you looked down into the foyer. Wilbur stopped and stared open-mouthed into the large room below them. The scene that met his eyes seemed like from a movie. Shots flew hissing through the air, and left bright streaks of light. The smoke of the guns and the smell of ammunition filled the huge room. The windows were completely destroyed, the beams of the searchlights fell into the room and drew sharp lines in the smoke of the weapons. Down in the foyer stood some very old-fashioned, heavy wooden tables, with green desk lamps placed on them. A few completely frightened people were squatting under the tables. Directly below the gallery one of the heavy mahogany tables had been turned over, behind it two police officers and a security guard of the bank took cover. They were under heavy fire, which came from the strongroom. They weren't able to shoot back, she shots hit the thick wooden board mercilessly. One of the policemen was lying motionlessly on the ground.
Wilbur was so overwhelmed by this setting for a moment, that he almost forgot about his task. When he came around again, the others were already in the lower floor.
Flame rushed without hesitation towards the robbers into the strongroom. The two masked people opened fire in shock. But since Flame was in her plasma form, the shots went straight through her, without any effect. Like a huge ball of fire, she rushed towards them. Meanwhile Vi positioned herself in front of the hostages, who crouched on a wall of the strongroom, and activated her force field, so no more shots came through. When the hostages (who had in their life never seen a real super), saw her, they were confused and started to panic. But just in time Emely jumped right in front of the group.
"Take it easy! Don't panic!" she said quietly. She didn't dare to use telepathy, because that would have scared that people even more probably. She could feel the people's fear, their emotions were like a raging storm within her. Subliminally, so that people didn't notice, she used her powers to calm them down.
Much to Flame's regret the bandits caught on quickly! One of them tore an antiquated fire extinguisher from the wall, while Flame just wanted to pounce at the other one. Within seconds he had sprayed the foam! Flame's fire extinguished - as if they had blown out a candle! Suddenly Flame stood there, covered all over with foam and looked around in confusion. Even Violet stared at her, with her jaw dropped. Even the robbers didn't expect that the fire extinguisher would the thatefficient. It seemed like an eternity that everybody was just totally stunned in suprise. Vi reckoned that Flame would explode at any moment! Flame tried to ignite her fire again, but it did not work!
Meanwhile, as the bandits had stopped shooting, Wilbur flew down to the policemen. Both, the security guard and the uninjured police officer pointed their guns at him, when he landed beside them.
"Stop! I'm one of the good guys!" Wilbur cried hastily and raised his hands. Until this day he had never needed to justify, after all they had only faught against Cobra, a few mindless clones and some lifeless robots. There had never been anyone to whom he would have to make his position clear. And now that he actually did, it sounded kind of stupid.
"My friends just take care of the Bandits" he added hastily, as the two still didn't take down their guns. The policeman lowered his weapon slowly, after all Wilbur's statement was confirmed by the fact that the fire had stopped, but he still kept an eye on the young man suspiciously.
"I'm here to get the injured policemen out of here," Wilbur then said conscientiously. Immediately the policeman's expression changed. He waved Wilbur to come over, then he layed a hand on the unconscious policeman's shoulder and shook him gently.
"Sharon, wake up," he said softly. Only now Wilbur realized, that the injured policeman was a woman... and only now he saw the gaping abdominal wound and the blood ... so much blood ... and suddenly he started feeling a little queasy. That was so ... real...! On television, the blood always had a really deep red colour, almost black, but in fact it was light, almost orange... And that smell! For a moment he was so dizzy that he briefly lost his balance and swayed.
"Boy! Pull yourself together!" He heard the stern voice of the old security guard, who had noticed his reaction. Wilbur swallowed, pulling himself together.
"Yeah, right!" he said with a toneless voice, then he bent down to the woman and took her gently on his arms. Then he activated his rocket boots and flew out through one of the broken windows.
Outside, everything was full of police, people began to scream, and bright light cones turned on him when he flew out and landed. He was so blinded that he could barely see.
"He's got a hostage!" Someone shouted.
"Don't shoot!" The policewoman called, semi-conscious with her last strength, but Wilbur doubted they heard her. He didn't understand, what was going on anyway. Who had a hostage? And who shouldn't be fired? When he turned around, he only saw his own long shadow on the road. He gulped and turned back again. He saw in the harsh light that not only all eyes, but all weapons were pointed on him - a whole lot of weapons! Then he realized what was going on ...
"Immediately, put your h-h-hands up!" someone yelled, stammering from fear, "O-o-or we'll shoot!"
Wilbur put the injured policewoman gently on the ground. Immediately, a pool of blood formed on the dark asphalt. Wilbur broke in a cold sweat.
"Uh, folks, someone here needs urgent medical attendance!" he cried, and had to stop himself from getting hysterical.
"I said, t-t-take your hands up!" the frightened policeman shouted back.
Wilbur didn't know how to react. He decided to do what they asked of him for once. He slowly picked up his arms.
#
Meanwhile Violet became nervous. Flame was about to pounce on the two robbers, although she wasn't able to turn into her fire shape. But if she wasn't in her plasma form, she was vulnerable - she could be killed! Flame grabbed one of the two and twisted his arm behind his back, so that he screamed in pain. She put her other arm around his throat and choked him. The other guy pulled a gun and pointed it at Flame's head. Violet hesitated – right now there was no need to protect the hostages with her force field ... Then she made herself invisible and lunched at the one with the gun! Since he didn't see her coming, she could hit the weapon out of his hand unexpectedly and with full force.
The other one was able to free his arm. He gave Flame a hard blow in the stomach. She collapsed in pain and dropped down on her knees, where she recieved a hard kick right in her face. After she was knocked out, the robber grabbed the weapon from the floor and pointed it at Flame, who was reeling while trying to get up on her feet again. Vi jumped in front of her, to protect her with a force field.
"Lets get out of here!" the other robber cried, the one Violet had struck the weapon from his hand. The other robber hesitated, then he took the gun down and pulled out another device. He pointed it at the opposite wall. Within seconds a green glowing circle formed, appearantly floating in the air! Inside the circle some dimly structures became visible...
"What is this?" Violet asked, breathlessly. Was that another weapon? Flame didn't realize what was going on. A little dazed, she looked around while these guys suddenly started to run towards this floating circle on the wall with full speed!
"That's a portal!" Emely cried.
Violet and Emely both ran after the criminals. They had almost reached them, Violet was just about to grab one of them, right at the very moment when the two robbers jumped into the circle! But instead of getting them, the two grils crashed against the massive stone wall of the strongroom. Needless to say that it was quite painful. Flame winced only from the sight of it.
When the two had struggled up in pain, they looked at each other dumbfounded. The shimmering green circle has disappeared. Flame looked at them disappointed. Their first mission as guardians of the law against real criminals... a defeat ...?
The policeman and the security guard came hesitantly out from behind the large mahogany table. All they saw were three young Supers and a bunch of frightened hostages ...
The policeman took his futuristic walkiee-talkie.
"The delingquents have fled, I repeat, the delingquents fled," he said wearily into the walkie-talkie.
"Are you sure? The building is surrounded! Nobody came out." a hissing voice answered on the other end.
"They are gone..." the policeman replied with a weak voice, wiping the sweat from his forehead. Then he waved the hostages from the strongroom to come to him, while the security guard cared for the people, who had entrenched themselves among the tables in the foyer. Emely led the hostages out of the strongroom.
Vi looked around in the meantime.
"Where is Wilbur?" she asked, a little concerned.
Before anyone could respond, the front doors of the bank suddenly exploded! The people, who had gathered in the foyer, started screaming in fright. Suddenly, a special unit of the police broke through the front doors (or what was left of them) - it were huge, heavily armed robots! When they saw the supers, they pointed their guns at them immediately!
"Stop! Don't fire!" the policeman cried, and positioned himself between the supers and the robots. The robots pushed him aside carelessly and trudged in lockstep towards the girls.
"When Wilbur's smart," Flame began, and backed away uncomfortably, while the robots, which were staring at them with their glowing red eyes, "then he has buzzed off! And that's exactly what we should do aswell!" she cried, and ran away, Emely and Vi followed her on the heels. At that precise moment, the robots opened fire!
"Listen, I'm one of the good guys!" Wilbur said to the policemen while he raised his hands and was blinded by hundred lights.
"On the ground! Now!" shouted another policeman, whose voice didn't sound intimidated and fearful, but hysterical. Wilbur didn't feel very comfortable at the thought that such people had their fingers on the trigger. What if they accidentally shot him?
"Wait, shall I put my hands up or lie down on the floor?" Wilbur whined confused. To his surprise, they didn't answere immediately, because the policemen appeared to be confused themelves. That was his chance!
"I can only do once at a time. If I lie down, I have to take down my hands, but when I do that, you'll shoots me. And if I don't lay on the floor, you'll shoot me too. So, you shoot me either way. Guys, let's be honest, that's not fair!" he complained. Somewhere in front of him, he heard a muffled murmur. The policemen seemed to confer. In the meantime Wilbur started feeling pretty hot in the beams of the searchlights. He heard shots from inside the bank again. It sounded like a fierce firefight. He had to get in there again!
"Okay," began the hysterical cop again, "You leave your hands up, and then go down to your knees, then you take your hands down, and then you lie on the floor."
"Ingenious plan, brilliant plan! Man, you are real pros! I am glad that the fate of the city is in such capable hands!" Wilbur cried out with exaggerated admiration, and the policemen seemed to feel flattered, at least Wilbur heard pleased murmur.
"And I would really like to stay to whatch your excellent police work, but unfortunately I have to leave! See ya!" he ended, activated his rocket boots and jumped up in the air and with a somersault he flew through one of the broken windows back into the bank again, leaving two dozens of confused policemen behind. He only hoped that the wounded woman would come through.
Inside, there was a totally unexpected szene. The people were gone, just like the bandits, instead there stood a dozen gigantic robots in the foyer and shot around like crazy. Violet tried her best to resist the shots with the force field, while Emely and Flame stood behind her, trying to open a side door. Wilbur had no idea what to do. Suddenly he heard Emely's voice inside his head.
"Come here! We need your help!"
At that moment, all three girls ran through the open door. Wilbur jumped from the balustrade and also shot through the door, flying with a breakneck speed. Because he approached the robots from behind, they didn't see him coming. And when they saw him disappearing through the door, it was too late. As soon as he was through, Flame and Emely slammed the metal door shut and locked it, but it was dented immediately by the shots.
"That won't last for long!" Violet cried concerned above the muffled noise of the shots.
"Then we should get out of here as fast as possible!" Wilbur responded, grabbed her and flew with her outside through the next destroyed window, Emely carried Flame (or tried to at least) and followed them.
Since they were in a hurry, Wilbur had no opportunity to look out for flying objects or searchlights - therefore they almost crashed into a helicopter when they flew to the coop.
Twenty minutes later.
Our team had fled to the roof of a tall building, two blocks away from the bank. Now they sat there frustrated and let their legs dangle over the edge. The mood was bad. They hadn't even taken the time to put on their everyday clothes again. Depressed and disappointed they observed the hype sixty floors beneath their feet. The bank was surrounded by a crowd. The whole city seemed to be there, to whatch this spectacle. One broadcast vehicle after another flew through the street towards the bank, or at least tried to. Although it was night, everything was illuminated brightly. All residents had switched the lights on to observe the hustle and bustle from their apartment. The stars could barely compete against the mass of artificial lights.
Flame took it really hard. While the others observed the people on the streets, she had put her face in her hands. She had dried blood on her face from the nose bleed.
Wilbur looked over at Vi. Her blue eyes seemed darker than usual, while she stared lost in thought into the disntace.
"A bank robbery ... a stupid bank robbery ..." Flame murmured in frustration, "Crap."
"We did a good job ... no one was hurt or killed ..." Emely tried to cheer her up, "Except for this one police-lady, but that wasn't our fault -" she corrected herself. Flame tore her hair furiously.
"If we had done a good job, we would have caught these bastards!" she snapped at her little sister, so that Wilbur and Violet jerked back.
"This entire mission was messed up right from the start!" she added, frustrated and let her head fall back into her hands.
"Let's get together tomorrow to make a detailed error analysis" Vi said suddenly, and seemed pretty sober, "Who has done something wrong, what are sources of error, how can we eliminate them -" she stopped and turned at Flame in surprise, "I didn't know that fire fighting foam can incapacitate you... "
Flame seemed to shrink, at the same time it suddenly became very hot on the roof.
"Me neither," she said angrily, almost a little offended, "Crappy foam!" she added. Then she stood up and turned her back to the others. She stood there for a while in silence, pondering. Wilbur was afraid that she would explode at any moment and that the people might discover it from below.
"I go home ..." Flame murmured finally, drooping sadly and shuffled towards the door, that was leading to the staircase. The others whatched her leaving. When the door had closed, Emely breathed deeply.
"I will accompany her... in case she wants to explode on the way home" she said with a wry smile and gave Wilbur a slight poke in the ribs. He returned the smile. She patted his shoulder and stood up.
"You were great!" she said encouragingly.
"Thanks, you too!"
"Oh, I didn't do anything! But you! You were totally courageous how you saved that wounded woman! That was cool!" M laughed. Then she waved and hurried after Flame down the stairs.
"Yeah, did you hear that? I'm cool! And I don't even have super powers!" he joked, but when he turned to Violet, she didn't show a single sign of reaction. She didn't seem to have noticed what he had just said. Had she noticed that Emely and Flame were gone at all? She looked thoughtfully down at the lights of the city, without really seeing them.
"Well ..." Wilbur began after a pause, but she still did not respond, "... I ... I think I'll go home too..."
"What ...?" Violet asked, and jerked around to face him. She really hadn't been listening. What was wrong with her today?
"Going home ..." he repeated, "There's nothing to do here..."
Violet rubbed her tired eyes. She was lacking concentration - maybe that was the reason why they had failed...
"Yes ... You're right - "she began, but then her eyes suddenly widened frightened, she gritted her teeth, then she cursed angrily.
"What?" asked Wilbur confused.
"Liz! She's still in the cinema!" Violet cried rushed, jumped up and ran away. Wilbur sighed and followed her.
After they had changed into their normal everyday clothes again, they ran back to the cinema. Onlookers, policemen, reporters, cars, lights and helicopters ... Sirens howled, policemen shouted commands, reporter shouted questions, people chatted, - it was a complete mess. When Liz was still here, it would be impossible to find her. Violet tried to call her via her cell phone, but she didn't answere it.
"So what? Is that so bad?" Wilbur asked, now a little irritated himself, his mood became increasingly worse.
"What shall I tell her, why we left?" Vi asked, almost panicked.
"I don't care, come up with something." he said, annoyed. Vi looked around uneasily, until she came to the conclusion that it was useless to look for Liz here in this turmoil.
"She certainly went back home" Vi tried to convince herself.
"Probably, and we should do the same," Wilbur replied, and put a hand on Vis back, pushing her gentliy towards home. They walked in silence for a while, the mood was depressed.
Wilbur somehow had the feeling that Violet was mad at him ... She had hardly said anything the whole evening and was irritable. He remained silent, simply to test whether she would say something, but she was shrouded in silence, staring straight ahead. Something about this evening was fishy – aside from the bank robbery. He didn't believe that it was because Pete and Liz had broken up. Why should this effect her so much? And he also doubted, that she was in a bad mood because of the bank robbers. The way she had suggested an error analysis, all calmly and soberly, as if it was merely a messed up math test...
"Sorry, if I ask again, but what's wrong with you today?" he asked, when he could no longer stand the silence.
"With me?" Vi asked, a little too surprised.
"You seem a little... tensed..." Wilbur said carefully.
"Tensed?" Vi asked puzzled, then her mood changed, "I'm not tensed, I'm pissed! We just failed all along the line! Two common criminals against three Supers and a – well, whatever you are – and yet we couldn't stop them! And to make matters worse, the police shot at us! We could have been killed, though we fight on the same side! That are enough reasons to be angry, don't you think?!"
"Okay, okay..." Wilbur said, raising his hands, "I just don't want to fight with you again."
"When did we fight?" Violet asked, annoyed.
"Yesterday?" Wilbur said dryly.
"That wasn't a fight...!" Vi said casually, but then suddenly her eyey widened. Wilbur was about to ask her what was wrong, when her mood changed completely again! She stopped and turned to him and grabbed his shirt with both hands.
"I'm sorry that I forced you to help me! Really! And that I have ruined your Friday night! I'm so so sorry!" she reeled. For a moment Wilbur was convinced that she was making fun of him, but one look into her blue eyes told him that she was serious... He even thought, that he saw fear in her eyes. Wilbur didn't even know, how to react, he actually believed that he was the one to blame. Why did she apologize for it now? The situation was so strange – well, if he fairly considered, the whole evening had been strange ...
"All right!" he began to calm her, taking her hands and pulling them off his shirt, "I'm sorry too" he said, and he meant it. For him, the issue was done with that, he started to turn away and go further, when Violet almost frantically grabbed his arm and held him back.
"No, you don't need to apologize! I'm sorry! It was my fault. I should have never be so mean to you!"
"Now don't exaggerate!" Wilbur replied. Slowly the situation started scaring him.
"So, you're not mad at me?" Violet asked hopefully, almost imploringly.
"No, of course not!" Wilbur contradicted determinedly. What was going with this girl today?
"Okay!" Vi said with a deep sigh of relief. She turned around and looked like nothing had happened. No need to mention that Wilbur was more than confused. They continued their way home without further eerie incidents.
When Wilbur finally arrived at home, all his relatives sat in front of the television. A special news program was on. They saw pictures of the bank and the surrounding area, which were obviously filmed by one of the helicopters. Then the image switched to a reporter who stood in the crowd in front of the bank and spoke into the camera, in the background flickered police sirens, helicopters circled in the sky and yellow warning tape hung everywhere. Hadn't Wilbur been there a few minutes ago and hadn't seen this spectacle with his own eyes, he would have believed that it was a movie. For ages nothing comparable had happened in Todayland.
"Can you believe it? A bank robbery!" Franny said to him when he entered the room.
"There haven't been bank robberies for more than twenty years, ever since they installed burglar-proof safes..." his grandpa said explaining, which was pretty useless, because everyone in this room knew about that. Again, everybody stared at the big screen. The reporter spoke, while some video clips were shown.
"According to the police, the bandits disappeared with diamonds worth several million dollars. Fortunately, there were few casualties. Most of the people will get away with a few scratches and a shock. The wounded police officer is currently in an urban hospital. She was put into an artificial coma." The reporter's voice said, while they saw footage of an ambulance. Wilbur swallowed. He knew it wasn't his fault that this woman was so badly injured, and he had done his best to get her medical help as soon as possible... Nevertheless, he felt guilty. He tensed, because he feared that this story could still come to a bad end. Meanwhile, the reporter continued.
"The identities of the robbers are still unknown, but we have video material, which proofs that some of them are human beings with superpowers," the reporter said, as if he was an expert. Wilbur's jaw dropped. Stunned, he stared at the screen. There was a video, that showed how Wilbur escaped from the police. That he had brought out the wounded cop previously was not shown! He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, angry about that it was cut the way that every viewer must think that the team would have something to do with the crime. He didn't even have superpowers!
Besides that, he noticed that he looked pretty cool with this outfit - he carefully looked around. He feared that his family might recognize him, but nobody seemed to notice anything. Then images from inside the bank were shown, right at the scene where a few shadowy shapes escaped from the police robots.
"Supers ...?" Tallulah asked incredulously.
"Shh!" the others made all at once, while the reporter continued.
"According to witnesses, there was a conflict between the criminals during the robbery. Some even say that the Supers had tried to stop the robbers. We assume, that there was a dispute about the haul. However, that's not confirmed yet. The only certainty is that a bank was robbed and Supers were involved, who have done nothing to prevent it."
"Bullshit!" Wilbur cried angrily. This agitation against Supers was extremely getting on his nerves! Then he realized that his family was looking at him.
"I just mean ... those are Supers ... I bet they were just trying to help... "
"Well, they did a really great job then!" Aunt Petunia grumbled sarcastically.
"It's not like in the comics, Wilbur..." Cornelius said thoughtfully, without taking his eyes off the screen.
Wilbur was annoyed, even more, he was offended. He knew it wasn't like in the comics, after all, he had been there and had seen it with his own eyes! In the comics, the supers and the police worked together hand in hand, but here they were almost shot! The reporter continued to make more absurd assumptions. Wilbur couldn't bear this crap any longer. He left the living room and went to his room.
He threw himself on his bed, thinking. Slowly he realized why Flame was so angry that these criminals had escaped... It wasn't just a trifle. The people relied on that Supers solved problems and stopped criminals. That confidence was shaken now...
He remembered something Violet had told him once: people feared supers - they were fine with them, as long as they only fought for the good, but only the slightest suspect that a super could use their powers differntly, was scaring the public. That's why the so called „anti-super-law" has been passed... But that was ages ago...
Well, they failed to stop the robbers... But was that a reason to automatically believe the supers were responsible for the crime?
Finally, how were they supposed to know that these guys had a portal? And that Flame's fire could be extinguished by foam so easily and permanently? Who could have imagined that there was an ancient fire extinguisher in the strongroom anyway, since almost all buildings were fireproof in Todayland? Wilbur turned on his back and stared at the ceiling. These guys would certainly strike again. And next time they would catch them. They had to.
Since I don't have a beta reader, please tell me when the wording or some scentences sound confusing. Besides that I hope you had fun :D Next chappy will be from Liz' point of view!
