Okay, maybe she wasn’t ready for this. It was the dead of night, but Swipe had to take a moment to just stare at this vent. That thing looked tiny! How was she supposed to fit through that?! After a brief pause, Swipe radioed in.

“Uh… Mama, this vent is like a foot wide at most.”

Her walkie clicked and buzzed to life as Huntress’s voice came through.

“Swipe, you’ve fit through smaller vents before. You’re alright.”

Not bothering to respond through the walkie, Swipe sighed and flicked out her claws, removing the screws from the vent.

“Doesn’t mean I gotta be happy about it…”

Just before she could slip into the vent, a sound caught Swipe’s attention. Her ears perked up as she tried to pinpoint its exact location, realizing that it was just an alley over. Swipe’s tail flicked as she tried to decide whether it was worth investigating.

“... Two minutes…”

She sprinted down the alley, ducking behind a dumpster to listen in on the screams and shouts for help. Not liking the sound of what was happening, Swipe looked down at her claws, her mind racing as she was faced with this decision. If she helped out, there was the risk that she wouldn’t be fast enough to disconnect the alarm, but if she didn’t help… Swipe shook her head and stood up.

“Damnit.”

Inside the bank now, Huntress had just taken out another security camera.

“Nice shot, hon.”

Kraken patted her on the back. Motioning to Blaze and Zap, Huntress pointed out a pair of guards walking near the door to the back of the bank. Zap reluctantly followed Blaze, a wide grin on the larger man’s face. Maybe Blaze was a little too excited. Zap’s gray eye grew darker for a moment before sparks of neon blue started to dance across it. The guards chuckled to themselves while walking before one of them was hit over the head with a chair, collapsing to the ground thanks to the attack from Blaze.

“What the?!”

As he turned around, the second guard had no time to react as a jolt of electricity was sent through his system, similar to the effects of a taser. He collapsed to the ground, a writhing mess. Sighing softly, Zap let go of the guard and motioned for Huntress and Kraken to join them.

“The guards are down, ma’am. We’re free to move forward.”

Back in the alley, Swipe was standing on a man’s back, holding out the recovered purse to an old lady. Her tail swayed slowly as a chuckle escaped her lips.

“Nice purse. Try not to head down any alleys alone next time, grammy.”

Taking the purse from Swipe, the old lady softly petted her ears.

“Thank you, dear. You’re such a sweet, wonderful young woman. I wish more people were like you.”

Swipe sat back and watched the old lady leave before sighing heavily and shaking her head.

“It’s always the old ladies. Poor thing has no idea what she’s wishing for, hehe. Ah, shit. I gotta get back!”

Running back to the bank as fast as she could, Swipe slipped into the vents, crawling like her life depended on it. It was a tight fit, but she had always been able to fit places she had no business fitting in. She figured it was probably related to the cat thing. Finding the electrical room, Swipe popped out of the vents and started reading every label.

“Lights… Swivel doors… Front desk? Why the hell do they have an entire separate system for the front desk?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Whipping out her walkie again, Swipe called in.

“Gimme a second guys, I can’t find the one for the alarm.”

“I bet I would’ve found it by now. Sounds like a skill issue to me.” Blaze chimed in over his radio.

“Blaze, you couldn’t have got your fat head through the vent!” Swipe retorted.

Huntress facepalmed and shoved Blaze a bit.

“Alright, kids. No more fighting. This is important.”

Taking her time to look around at every switch, Swipe was beginning to get frustrated. Everything else was so clearly labeled and marked. Where the hell was the vault? Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. That certainly wasn’t a good sound. Turning towards the beeping, Swipe found the switch for the alarm’s vault was also hooked up to the vent she had just popped out of. Attached to it was a sticky note, which simply read “Good luck getting out of this one.” with a smiley face on it.

“... Oh fuck.”

Swipe leapt through the air, grabbing a hold of the switch and flipping it right as it went off. She quickly radioed in.

“Abort! Abort! Somebody knew we were coming!”

Blaze was already in the vault, grabbing everything he could. Kraken, Huntress, and Zap weren’t far behind. Her eyes widening slightly, Huntress was quick to respond.

“What? That’s not possible. Are you absolutely certain?”

“Yeah! They hooked the alarm up to the vent and left a note! We gotta get out of here!”

Nodding, Huntress turned to the rest of her team.

“Alright everyone, we’re cutting this one short. Grab what you can on this go. We need to get out of here. Now.”

As each member of the group stuffed bags full of as much cash and gold as they could, Kraken overturned a gold bar, finding something underneath it. A small box filled with various documents. They seemed to be birth and death certificates belonging to an entire family. The Finnegans. Turning over the documents in his hands, Kraken tilted his head slightly and showed them to Huntress.

“This is pretty bizarre to find in a vault. What are these birth certificates doing here?”

Taking a closer look at the certificates, Huntress seemed to recognize them.

“Don Finnegan? Alice and Bella too? They died in that blast a few years back. I remember the police thinking that Blaze had something to do with it. Of course, he didn’t, but it’s strange that these would turn up here… No time to think on it now. Take them with us. Let’s get out of here.”

Huntress, Kraken, Blaze, and Zap, all took their loot and burst out the back door of the vault, getting into Huntress’s old tan minivan. Meanwhile, Swipe was frantically making her way out of the vents, crawling as fast as she could.

“Gah. There’s no way I’m getting out of here before the heroes get here. Gotta hurry…”

As she reached the vent and looked out, she seemed to be in the clear. Swipe cautiously poked her head out of the vent.

“... Phew.”

As if on cue, a superhero that Swipe was very familiar with, landed in front of her. He was tall and broad, with a scaled black suit and wings on his back, reminiscent of a dragon. This of course, was why he had called himself Black Dragon, a very dangerous hero when he wanted to be.

“Well, well. Looks like we’ve finally got one of you, huh?”

Deciding it was the best course of action, Swipe ducked back into the vent.

“No thanks! I’m good!”

This drew a chuckle from Black Dragon, who opened the vent and reached in, trying to grab Swipe and drag her out.

“C’mon out of there. We already have heroes on the inside too. There’s no way out for you.”

And then he got hit by a minivan. Black Dragon was tossed a decent distance by the hit, landing in the trash behind the bank.

“What the-?!”

Swipe was quick to pop out of the vent and jump into the open door of the minivan as it sped off down the road, dozens of squad cars behind it.

“That was a close one! Thanks for not leaving me behind, guys!”

As Huntress sped away from Dilstone Trust in her minivan getaway car, the group’s new problem was in hot pursuit. There were at least a dozen cars behind them, lights and sirens blaring.

“We’ve got company! Let’s show them what we’re made of!”

Leaning out of the window slightly, Kraken extended a hand toward the officers in their cars.

“On it. They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

As his concentration grew, the very ground started to rumble before a wall of water burst from below the streets, blocking the police in pursuit. Of course, they all tried to make the jump, soaring through the wave of powerful water. However, most of the cars lost control and spun out, crashing into each other. Only a handful made it through, five cars still in the chase.

“Nice work, Kraken. Looks like we still have a few more though.” Huntress said in praise of her husband.

“I got this one, don’t worry one bit!”

With a big grin on his face, Blaze leaned out a back window and created a fireball in his hand.

“Let’s see ya get past this!”

Cackling like a maniac, Blaze torched the road behind Huntress’s car, the heat hot enough that it burned the rubber off the wheels of the first few squad cars. However, one car was left, driving up onto the sidewalk to escape the flames. Only seeming to speed up, that car was rapidly gaining on them. It was going to pull a pit maneuver on them. Realizing what was about to happen, Swipe reached for a little something special she had been working on.

“I really hope this actually works…”

Standing up through the sunroof, she took aim at the windshield of the last car, right as it came up alongside them. It was now or never. This gadget needed to work. Throwing it as hard as she could, Swipe was delighted to see the windshield of the squad car covered in bright pink paint, causing it to swerve out of control, unable to see the Rogue Five escaping.

“Yes! Hahaha! That’s what you get for messing with us!”

The door to the now stopped car opened and out stepped the new chief of police. Richard Wood. For a brief moment, he locked eyes with Swipe and she could feel a sense of dread start to build in her chest. Even with the wind whipping her hair, her ears managed to fold flat against her head and her tail tucked firmly between her legs. She could feel her heartbeat accelerating rapidly, pounding away in her chest. She knew that face. She knew that scar. Knew where it came from. Ducking back into the minivan, Swipe grabbed Huntress’s shoulder, her claws coming out unintentionally and digging into her.

“DRIVE!! DRIVE!! DRIVE!!”

And drive, she did. As the Rogues sped away, simultaneously trying to calm the nerves of their youngest member, the chief simply watched. Finally, he leaned in and spoke into his radio.

“I want every unit we have on this case. Don’t stop until we have them.”