BANG BANG BANG BANG

I jolt from my slumber to the sound of someone banging loudly on my door.

"Come on Corsair! We've got a job this morning and you're going to be late!" Yelled Whey from the other side of my door.

Not having time for my usual routine, I quickly brush my teeth and slip on my costume before opening the door and exiting my room.

Whey is waiting impatiently for me with his hands on his hips and he scolds me when I open the door.

"Don't you know what time it is?! Hurry up and grab a banana or something, we gotta go."

"Sorry" I say, offering an apology. "I guess I forgot to set my alarm before I fell asleep last night."

"Whatever kid, just get some grub and wait by the elevator."

After he finishes speaking, Whey heads off to a room labeled "Equipment", while I head to the snack bar in the common room.

I quickly stuff my pockets full of protein bars before grabbing a banana and peeling it as I walk to the elevator to wait.

I don't have to wait long however, as after a few minutes the rest of them team joins me in their full gear and we enter the elevator to head to the surface.

Nobody says a word as we ascend, so I take the time to get a good look at everyone's gear they'll be taking on this job.

Royal Pain had her black and purple costume on from the precious day. The only thing that's different is that she's carrying an enormous metal baseball bat! That thing must have weighed nearly 60 pounds but she easily held it slung over her shoulder like it was made of paper.

Eye Wash is wearing his same dirty lab coat and goggles as well, but this time he has a yellow utility belt with two plastic spray bottles and a menagerie of vials filled with suspicious liquids.

Whey had on his jeans and white wife beater, but now he's carrying two large duffle bags filled with something heavy that made the fabric look like it was going to burst on the bottom.

And last but not least, Doctor Finklestein is wearing his same suit and sunglasses along with his cane. At first glance I couldn't tell if anything was different, but after closer examination I could see a series of tiny buttons inlaid on the handle of his cane, no doubt allowing for some amount of extra utility.

Before I knew it, the elevator slowed to a halt and a ding signaled our arrival at ground level. The doors opened, but instead of the street where I had originally entered the building, the doors revealed a garage with a large black van parked inside.

We entered the garage and the Doctor took the driver's seat, while Royal Pain, Eye Wash and I climbed through the sliding side door and took our seats.

Whey opened the back doors of the van, before tossing his cargo inside and squeezing into the back, causing the wheels to sag substantially.

As soon as he closed the doors behind him, the doctor pressed a button on the dash and a large corrugated garage door opened in front of the van, allowing the doctor to drive us out of the garage and onto the street.

"Allright everyone listen up." Said the doctor as he drove.

"This job is a quick smash and grab bank heist. We'll enter the bank and take as many hostages as we can. Make sure to take any communication devices they may have on them. I'll allow you to suppress any hostages that fight back, but I want to avoid injuries as much as possible. Whey will handle the vault, while the rest of you keep the hostages secure. Corsair, I don't want you fighting anyone. Keep the hostages under control but if you can't handle one on your own, call out to Royal Pain or Eye Wash for assistance. Your main job is to keep a lookout for any heros that might respond, so we need you to be alert. I'd like to hope the heros won't notice us, but you can never be too sure so keep a lookout."

And with that, we all acknowledged our rolls before continuing the drive in silence.

Before long, we came to a stop, and Whey popped open the back doors and grabbed the duffel bags again while everyone else piled out of the van.

The bank we're seemed to be a fairly wealthy establishment, as the exterior of the two story building was built of clean granite blocks with clean glass windows set into them.

As we entered the revolving glass door, my assumption was mostly confirmed by what I saw inside.

Large granite pillars stretched from the first story to the second in an elaborate open floor plan. On the back wall, several teller stations were protected behind bullet proof glass, with velvet ropes that cordoned off sections of the floor to create neat lines for patrons to wait their turn.

There are only a few people in the lobby of the bank, with ten customers waiting in front of the teller's booth and several employees working within them.

Whey suddenly runs past me with thundering steps that shake the floor, and leaps over the velvet ropes, landing directly infront of the booth.

"This is a robbery! Everyone get on the floor and hand over your commination devices and no one has to get hurt!" He bellows out loudly.

Immediately, there's panic, with several patrons attempting to make a run for the door only to stop when they see the rest of us standing in front of it and dropping to the floor, accepting their fate.

From over on Whey's side of the room, a loud crash is heard, causing my eyes to dart over to see his fist completely through the glass of the booth!

With a mighty heave, he pulls his fist back towards him and rips the glass out of the wall before climbing into the teller's booth and grabbing a trembling woman, who's hand was reaching under her desk, no doubt to trigger a silent alarm.

"You don't want to do that." Whey says to the terrified woman. "That'll make our time hear more... difficult."

The woman looks like she's about to cry and nods frantically at him, causing him to lift her out of her seat and deposit her on the lobby floor, before repeating the process with the other tellers.

He they walks towards the door that allows access to the booth from the lobby and presses a button, causing the door to unlock and swing open.

He walks back into the lobby and picks up both duffel bags before tossing one to me, causing me to loose my breath from the impact of the bag on my chest.

"There's a bunch of chains and locks in there Corsair. Use em to lock up the front doors and chain up all the hostages."

I nod as he walks back into the booth carrying the other bag and with the doctor following behind.

Royal Pain and Eye wash watch the hostages as I chain the front doors with several loops of chain before locking them together several times. After i finish with the chains, i flip the bank's "Open" sign to "Closed" and step back to admire my work. As soon as I finish with the front doors, Whey walks back into the lobby carrying two armed security guards and drops them to the floor, along with two crumpled pistols.

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"Chain these two up as well, we don't want anyone making a break for it."

As Royal Pain and Eye Wash drag them towards the group of hostages, I nod and drag the duffel bag towards the group.

I wrap several lengths of chain around the group and use a rachet to crank the chain down tightly around them, before binding all of their hands and feet and stuffing gags into their mouths.

As I work I ignore the terrified gazes they send my way, probably thinking we would kill them if we didn't get our way. I knew that the doctor didn't want to anger the heros however, so i ignored them and finished restraining everyone.

After I finished, Eye Wash told me that they would keep an eye on the hostages and that I should go keep watch for any heros, so I stood by the front door and peeked out.

From what I could see, it seemed like life was progressing normally outside, with pedestrians going about their lives. Every once in a while someone would walk up to the doors of the bank, but walk away dejectedly when the saw that the bank was closed.

As I kept lookout I could hear Whey smashing something in the back of the bank, probably the vault, as I heard a loud metallic banging echoing throughout the lobby.

Eventually the banging stopped, and after a few minutes, he emerged from the booth carrying several heavy bags under his arms.

He dropped the bags onto the floor with a thump, before heading back into back to make another trip.

He continued carrying the bags into the lobby several more times, until finally he exited with another set of bags and the Doctor in tow.

"All right everyone, time to get moving. Corsair, what's the situation like outside?"

"Looks like normal. I don't see anything out of the ordinary out-"

THUMP

Just as I was finishing, something heavy fell to the ground outside, causing Whey to start running in my direction as I turn to see what had made the noise.

"Corsair! Get ba-"

Before Whey could finish his warning, the front doors erupted in a shower of glass and chains, sending me flying backwards from the force with several shards of glass embedded in my skin.

I hit the granit floor hard, knocking the wind from my lungs as I slid across the floor. As soon as I came to a stop, i crawl onto my stomach to try to see what had destroyed the doors and the sight that awaits me is shocking.

In the middle of the lobby, Whey is grappling with an enormous man that made even him look small. The man is clad in silvery metal armor from head to toe, with slits for his eyes and mouth being the only gaps and his chest plate is painted with a large golden H.

His armor creaked and strained as he struggled against Whey but it seemed like it would hold up against the muscled monstrosity that was my coworker.

Eye Wash and Royal Pain had been knocked to the floor from the man's entrance as well, but had now gotten to their feet and began to help Whey battle the man.

Royal Pain's attacks seemed to have no effect on the man, as her giant bat simply bounced off of the man's thick armor, and Eye Wash wasn't doing much better as his attacks were melting the armor, but very slowly.

"You fools!" Shouted the armored man. "Did you really think you could commit a crime in MY district? Not if Heavy Metal has anything to say about it!"

As soon as he finished his entrance speech, the hostages all cried out with muffled cheers, no doubt recognizing this hero from their district, and causing Heavy Metal's head to snap towards them.

Having now realized he had to prioritize the hostages over fighting us, Heavy Metal crouched low underneath Whey, before throwing an arm between his legs and throwing him into the air like an Olympic wrestler.

As soon as he was freed from Whey, he completely ignored Royal Pain and Eye Wash as he charged toward the hostages.

In one giant hug, he lifted the entire chained bundle of hostages up from the ground and bolted for the door, bowling over Whey who was still trying to get up from the ground.

As soon as he made it to the sidewalk, he lowered the hostages to the ground and broke the chains binding them, allowing them to run away from the battle while he stood guard.

"Corsair! The Doctor pulled the van around back! Grab the bags and load up the van while I keep this guy busy!"

Following Whey's orders, I scramble to my feet and start grabbing a bag and began to drag it through the teller's booth and towards the back of the bank.

"This bag weighs a ton! What did they steal, bricks of lead?" I thought as I dragged the bag.

I got my answer as I drug the bag past the vault and looked inside.

Behind the vault door were rows and rows of shelves filled with large gold bars! Of course they'd steal gold instead of cash, you don't have to pay income tax on a gold bar!

I finally made it to the back door and passed the bag to a waiting Doctor Finklestein, before running back towards the lobby to grab another.

As I grabbed the bag I snagged a quick look at the battle taking place within the lobby.

Royal Pain and Eye Wash were now both defending the pile of bags, and Whey was busy wrestling Heavy Metal on the granite floor. It looked like he was winning, but as I dragged the bag back into the booth, the hero managed to escape Whey's grasp and landed a huge punch on his chest.

I finished dragging the bag and passed it to the doctor before running back to the lobby and finding a very different scene from before.

Eye Wash and Royal Pain were now unconscious and chained together infront of the pile of bags, and Whey was still fighting the hero, but his mask was cracked, revealing a river of blood falling from his mouth.

With a mighty punch to Whey's head, Heavy Metal sent him sprawling to the ground unconscious. As he fell to the ground, the hero sprinted towards him with thundering footsteps and slammed his face into the floor with an armored fist, shattering Whey's mask against the granite.

He punched him two more times while he was down, causing Whey's body to spasm wildy from the head trauma before falling unnervingly still.

After he finishes, the hero stands up straight, panting from the exertion, and turns to lock eyes with me.

I drop the bag I'm currently dragging and make a dash for the back door in a desperate attempt to avoid capture, but before I even make it half way there, the hero runs past me and blocks the exit with his hulking body.

"And where do you think you're going villian?" He says menacingly.

"Look, I don't want any trouble! It's my first day on the job!" I reply shakily.

"There's no need for you to end up like him." He says as he point towards Whey's unmoving form. "Surrender quietly and I won't have to use force against you."

"Sure thing! I surrender." I say as I put my hands into the air. "Just don't hurt me, I don't have any powers."

"I don't care if you have powers or not." He says as he grabs my hands and forces them behind my back. "You put innocent people in danger during your little bank heist today. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

He ties my hands behind me with some rope that he produced from a pocket on his belt and planted me next to Royal Pain and Eye Wash before he walked over to restrain Whey.

As he began to tie him up, I started looking for anything that might help me escape. (I REALLY didn't want to go to prison today.)

Eventually, my eyes land on the bag that Whey had brought with him into the vault, which was now in the pile of bags next to us with the zipper open, allowing me to see it's contents.

The bag held some kind of drill, probably useful for breaking into the vault, as well as some more chain and something I thought could be extremely useful.

C4 charges.

I slowly begin to scoot towards the bag, keeping my eyes trained on Heavy Metal the entire time.

He seemed to pay me no mind, having become entirely focused on the task of restraining Whey's enormous physique, so I was able to cross the floor without raising suspicion.

The first thing I do is rub my bindings against the sharp drill bit on the end of the drill until my hands are free. Then, I grab two bricks of c4 and squash them together, being careful not to damage the electronic detonator attached to them.

I then cover the charge with my suit jacket as to muffle the sounds of the beeping buttons as I set the timer for one minute and rise to my feet.

As hard as I can, I throw the c4 towards the hero's back and watch as it sails through the air and sticks to his armor.

The impact from the c4 causes him to turn around and see me standing there, and he sighs before rising to his feet.

"Throwing rocks? Really? This is just sad at this point." He says as he begins to walk towards me.

"You villians just never learn do you? Why can't you just stay still and make my life easier? I swear every villian is the same, you all have to-"

BOOOOOOOM

His complaining was cut short by the c4 on his back detonating, sending him ragdolling through the air at break neck speeds and crashing into the wall, falling to the floor in a heap of twisted armor.

As soon as he hits the ground, I grab Eye Wash and Royal Pain and drag them with all my strength to the back door, leaving them in the doctors hands as I run back to Whey.

When I make it back to the lobby, Heavy Metal is still heavy pile of unmoving metal on the floor, so I run over the Whey.

He's still out cold, and is way too heavy for me to drag, but luckily there's a bunch of rope tied around him that I could use.

I quickly undo his bindings, before tieing the rope around his ankles and running the rope around a granite pillars by the teller's booth.

I pull with all the strength I can muster and he slowly begins to slide across the floor towards me.

I keep pulling for what feels like hours, until he's finally dragged all the way to the door, and I run the rope around a corner on the wall near the vault.

The Doctor enters the bank behind me, and lends me his strength, as we both pull the massive pile of flesh towards the back door.

Finally, we arrive, and the doctor backs the van all the way to the door, and helps me cram Whey inside the back.

As soon as he's in, I slam the back doors and run around to hop in the side, but just as I'm about to reach for the door, the wall behind me explodes, and a chunk of debris sends me sprawling.

I painfully scramble to my feet and jump for the van door, but something grabs me and throws me past the van and out onto the street.

"You must think you're clever, little villian. I have to admit, that blast took me by surprise, but you won't be pulling a stunt like that again."

As I scramble to my feet once more, I look behind me and find Heavy Metal.