Seeing Amy listlessly walk into the bank, Marcus was once again sure that he had been doing a huge service for humanity. Amy looked far too bored for a beautiful young woman that was currently wearing a nice anal plug in preparation for a night of debauchery.
Too bad that her powers made that a problem for everyone in the world rather than Marcus, who was stupid enough to ignore one of the cardinal rules of casual hookups — don't put your dick in crazy.
He still snapped a picture to reestablish the connection, once again feeling her suffocating depression, too thick to be solved by the slight pleasure she was getting from the toy she had in. Luckily, it was only there to prepare her for the real thing.
He wished he had brought some spare clothes. She was dressed too drab for a beautiful young woman with a certain toy stretching her tight hole with each step. However, the moment she arrived at the bank, she moved to a concealed corner, avoiding the attention as she waited for her turn.
While scaring her was tempting, it was too dangerous as a prank to be used against a cape, particularly one that could turn him into a soup with a touch. While his own copy gave him a limited amount of defense, which he used to conceal the secrets of his body, he didn't want to test it against an attack.
Especially when it was not needed.
Still, her flare of shock was entertaining to feel through the connection. "Hello, stranger," he called.
"M-Marcus," she stammered even as she walked even closer to the wall. "What are you doing here?"
"Pure coincidence. I can guarantee. It certainly wasn't a certain blonde mentioning where you are while we had been talking," he said. Even the indirect mention of Vicky was enough to bring a very complicated mix of feelings to the surface.
Those feelings were too intense to be healthy, but he was happy to note that the intensity had dropped. Especially when he hugged her from behind, and she shuffled in discomfort before leaning back against him, her arousal spiking at his touch.
Everything was perfect … for one second. He was just planning how to take a step forward, when the door exploded. Three nightmarish beasts appeared in the room, followed by five figures. Five familiar figures.
The Undersiders.
He wanted to curse. When Taylor indirectly mentioned that she was trying to infiltrate a criminal gang, he expected her to do something rational, and keep herself limited to targeting other gangs. A bank robbery in the middle of the day was something else.
This was a statement.
He had to admit, her costume was scary. If he didn't know how she looked without it — intimately — he would have been a lot more scared. However, even that thought didn't exactly fill him with confidence. He had been sure that Taylor had been smart not to escalate the situation pointlessly.
He was wrong.
He didn't need his connection to know Amy was panicking. Truthfully, he was as well. He had a nice set of powers, but they were nowhere near enough to take five of them down. He raised his camera, just as some kind of darkness appeared around Grue.
He was faster.
Just as the darkness covered the room, he started to feel a group of people, almost forty. That was too much, so he quickly dropped them until he had only stayed connected with the villains. It was the important part.
As he felt their emotions, he was even more scared. What he was feeling was … a mess. He was able to recognize Lisa and Taylor easily, familiar with the way they felt. Taylor was still a bundle of insecurities, but with a thick dose of guild mixed in.
Meanwhile, Lisa was determined but smug, confident that she controlled everything in the room, unaware that she had missed his presence thanks to his Thinker defense. He could feel arrogance rolling off her in thick waves, even worse than their little photoshoot. Hardly a healthy mindset.
Yet, her problems were nothing compared to what he could feel from the others. He wasn't alarmed by what he could feel from Grue. He was tense, but in a professional manner, with a healthy dose of caution — or at least, what he assumed to be a healthy amount in the middle of an active crime scene.
Of the remaining two, he didn't know what scared him the most. Hellhound felt more like an animal that had been forced into a human body, her instincts strong in a way he couldn't begin to comprehend.
Meanwhile, the only thing he could feel from Regent was mild amusement. He had never felt anyone that react so little. Even ordinary people walking through the streets had stronger emotions.
It was a problem because he had no idea how they would react to anything.
He remembered one of the most important rules of any game he played. When in doubt, protect the healer. He pulled Amy into his arms even tighter. He expected Taylor to be using her bugs to check their location, but that didn't mean she could identify him.
"Stay calm. We'll make no move."
"W-we can't. I'm a hero as well," she whispered.
"You're also a valuable hostage. Let's not strengthen their hand anymore," he whispered. "Look, they are clearly professional enough to have a plan. We just need to stay hidden."
He still hid his camera behind him as he pulled Amy even deeper, feeling the bugs crawling over him. He did his best to stay concealed while he took another picture.
This time, he pushed a much stronger feeling through his connection. One that suggested that the right side of the bank had nothing important. A tricky feeling to convey, but it seemed to work.
None of them even looked at their side as Lisa delivered a speech about not making any stupid move. It would have been a cheesy speech, but the presence of five villains — well, four villains, and one very incompetent undercover hero — added a certain gravitas.
However, the problem was Amy's feelings. Even as Lisa delivered her villain speech, she tensed, and Taylor showing off her control over dangerous black widow spiders didn't help. "No, I'll protect you," he whispered even as he shifted to lock her between his body and the wall.
Not just to protect her, but also to pin her down to prevent some kind of reflexive reaction. The situation was bad enough without letting Amy mix. He was desperate, particularly since he wasn't actually afraid of Amy's physical wellbeing.
Lisa and Grue seemed to have a pretty strong control over the other two, and Taylor was still an undercover hero — just a terrible one. They wouldn't dare to hurt Amy, not when doing so would turn them from small-time players to public enemy number one.
He was more concerned about Amy's mental health. An unstable biokinetic was never a good idea in any situation.
"Any trouble?" Grue asked even as he played with his helmet, examining the hostages carefully.
"No, everything is perfect," Lisa replied, unaware of Marcus' presence, her overconfidence making avoiding a challenge. "Don't forget, folks. Just don't move, and nothing will happen. Don't risk yourself for the bank's money."
With that, they walked away, probably confident in Taylor's ability to control the bugs.
Amy realized that as well. She was unstable with a lot of problems, not stupid. "I can interfere with the spiders with my … healing," she said, panic radiating off her as she realized just how close she had been to slipping the truth about her power.
"You can heal the master effect from the bugs. Is it because they don't have brains?" Marcus said, immediately showing her that he had arrived in a completely different direction. "I didn't know you can heal animals as well."
"Yes, that's it," she said. "It's about healing animals. I don't tell it, because I don't want to deal with crazy people trying to heal their pets."
"Perfectly reasonable," he said, quick to reassure her as he felt her guilt flaring even as she said she didn't want to heal other people's pets. She was truly a bundle of issues.
Meanwhile, he could feel Undersiders moving deeper into the bank, their sense of success — in varying degrees — suggesting that they were successful in breaking into the vault.
She stayed silent for a moment. "Maybe I can try calling Vicky. She might —"
He immediately pressed his finger to her lips. "No, don't even suggest it," he said. "I have watched how she deals with the situation." Her anger flared as she thought that was an insult. "Look, we both know that she can be a little overzealous. Do you really want her to respond first to a hostage situation? What if she hurts someone, and cameras catch it before you can heal them."
Amy's sense of terror was too concrete for that to be hypothetical, showing that he was more accurate than he wanted in creating that scenario. "You have a point," Amy admitted.
However, it didn't stop her from getting tenser and tenser. Marcus decided to distract her in a different way.
He kissed her.
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