If there were ever a situation where wetting yourself in fear would be justified, being present during an active bank robbery would be it. Luckily for Elliott, he’d already handled that! He’d made a deposit, and went to the restroom afterwards. The bank robbers came into the bank while he was finishing up.

They entered the bank, in black ski masks. There were eight of them. Three had guns. The rest were mutants. Most likely. Maybe. That wasn’t clear yet. Elliott didn’t know about any of it, until they’d sent one of their number to the restrooms to check for lurkers.

Elliott was washing his hands. The man came in, tall and built like a refrigerator, with a military-grade looking rifle pressed into his hands. He was wearing a ski mask. His brown eyed gaze met Elliott’s red. There was a moment of contemplative silence, in which Elliott most decidedly did not wet his pants. Elliott broke the thoughtful moment by lashing out with one arm and launching a red tongue at him from the palm of his right hand. The tongue lanced outwards and wrapped around the man at the wrists. He tore the guy forward with all his might.

The man was caught flat-footed. He’d been surprised. His focus had been on checking the corners and breathing through his mouth, and if he’d been expecting anybody, it certainly wouldn’t have been a 6’2” green man with black antennae and red eyes. Even if he’d been expecting that, there was no possible way he would have been prepared for the follow up. The prehensile hand tongue flying out and grabbing him by the wrists, preventing him from aiming the rifle. The sudden rush of movement as he was pulled forward and staggered along for the ride. The sudden crack as his forehead met the bathroom sink, or the happy little starburst of light and pain. It was all too much for him, too surprising. He couldn’t handle it, and so he lost consciousness.

As Elliott moved the deadly weapon far, far away from the man’s hands, he had to hand it to him. In spite of his horrible reaction times and the lame fight he’d put up, the man’s trigger discipline? That was impressive. No finger on the trigger? Either daddy had taught him right, or the man had a military past. The military-Grade weapon meant nothing. You can get anything on the black market. Elliott got out duct tape.

He wrapped the duct tape around the unconscious bank robber’s arms. He wrapped him, all the way to the wrists. All the while, he frowned and his mind repeated the same four letter word.

How was he going to handle this situation? Should he just man up and hide? They’d come looking for the guy after he didn’t come back. People needed help. Could he help them? Should he help them? Was it worth endangering his life to help? Endangering other peoples’ lives? Didn’t they have bank insurance? If nobody did anything, maybe they’d just leave and no one would eat hurt? His mind ran a mile a minute as he slipped the duct tape back into the pocket of his leather jacket, and dragged the unconscious man into a bathroom stall.

Benji would have helped them, Elliott decided. His old roommate and vigilante partner in crime would have gone out of his way to make life hard for these bank robbers, however many there were. Even if they had guns. Because Benji... was a freaking idiot. But he’d already decided to help, so any second thoughts wouldn’t change his mind. Too late, common sense! You had your chance! He would do the ridiculously heroic thing, because he was an idiot.

Elliott turned off the sink. But how would he protect his secret identity, he wondered. His motorcycle helmet was outside with his motorcycle. What did he even have on him? And on the unconscious guy?

He checked his pockets. A roll of duct tape. Useful! But maybe not for this purpose, unless he wanted to maintain his secret identity by becoming a duct tape mummy. No thanks. And some glow sticks. Because practicality. And maybe him and his girlfriend had gone out clubbing at a rave? He couldn’t recall. Either that made it a really good rave, or a terrible one. Some paper money. Mint. Lint. He ate the mint, discarded the lint, and went to check the robber’s pockets.

No good. Aside from some money on a wallet (which he pocketed, don’t judge), and a freaking ID, Robert the robber had jack squat. Bubblegum and rubber bands weren’t any good to him. He pocketed the rubber bands, because why not? A Swiss Army knife. Yoink! And a black handkerchief... okay.

Elliott glanced at the gun. “Nope.”

The whole search had taken one minute, two minutes. Maybe three. Elliott stripped the ski mask off the man, then slipped it onto his face. It smelled like desperation, beer, and cigarettes. Elliott stared at himself in the rectangular bathroom mirror.

“Of course, this totally makes me look like one of the robbers...” he mused thoughtfully. Red eyes lit up at a thought. “And my brand is sorely underrepresented.”

He turned himself to resolving the issue of brand recognition. A few moments later, he’d finished duct taping a couple of broken glow sticks to the mouth area of his ski mask. They were bent into a crude smile, with strips of duct tape placed at intervals like rows of zipper-like teeth. Underneath them, he’d taped the black hanky in place to cover the open mouth of the ski mask. No reason to leave a patch of green skin uncovered.

“There!” Elliott said, muffled through the hanky!mask. “Cheshire is ready for action!” Brand recognition was important! And the Cheshire smile was his vigilante mark. Even on a ski mask with a black handkerchief duct taped over the mouth. One with a lightly glowing chemical smile.

All of that done, bank robber duct taped to the u bend of the toilet, Elliott stepped out of the Men’s room, dusting his hands.

“One down,” he said to himself.

It was difficult not to be frustrated by now. Rebecca was loathe to admit it, but the excess of hoops she was going through against her will were seriously getting on her nerves. Being a US citizen by her mother's birth made some parts of her arrival easy, but establishing credit and banking was not one of those things. After almost a month they were still asking for things, made worse by their website outright failing and forcing her to come in personally to finish.

After ten minutes of waiting, followed by five minutes of signatures and affirmations, Rebecca had been assured her account was all set. Relieved as she was, she had hurried to the bathroom to relieve herself before taking the bus to her apartment. She'd been warned against driving in New York City, and was definitely seeing why. She was a cautious driver back home, and learning to drive here sounded like a nightmare.

Of course, of all the things that could possibly have interrupted her seemingly-simple next step, Rebecca had not anticipated an armed bank robbery. She'd heard the shouting and demands before she'd opened the door, thank God, so she'd been basically hugging herself, leaning back against the entry point, teeth clenched to force herself to focus and be quiet.

Okay, okay, Rebecca could do this. Do what? Well, she could call the police. Right. She couldn't help but smile just a little. Okay, good, that was about the most she could hope for. She pulled her phone out of her purse; luckily she'd seen enough American television to know that the emergency number wasn't 112 here. She quickly hit the numbers, mentally walking herself through each step to avoid letting her nerves throw her off.

"911, what's your emergency?" Oh, God, Rebecca had never wanted to hear that in real life. She squeezed her eyes shut and spoke, quickly and quietly. "I'm in the Sterling National on Fifth Ave--" Was that enough? "And there's a robbery in progress. There's a few men, yeah, yelling in the lobby, threatening people, I'm in the bathroom, I don't think they know I'm here."

A mercifully short pause. "Alright, I'm sending officers to you now. Stay on the line, please." Okay, success. Rebecca took a breath, and let herself relax a little against the door. "Can you tell me your name, ma--"

Rebecca did not get to hear if he'd called her "ma'am" or "miss", which would have bothered her if not for the interruption that caused it. The sounds of thudding and crashes from the other bathroom, though quite faint, had made her lose her balance, slip, and land hard on her ass, her phone smashed under her hand where she'd caught herself. Briefly stunned, Rebecca quickly realized that the door was one that opened outward, and she'd landed on the handle, which explained why her side hurt.

There was a man standing there, extremely tall given her position on the floor, wearing a ski mask and some kind of colorful stuff stuck all over that made him look like some kind of freaky creature. Rebecca had only a brief moment to make a decision, and the only thing she could think of was try to take cover, or hope he was surprised enough to knock him over.

And since she was sitting down, it was hard to imagine ducking into any kind of safety. So Rebecca managed a sort of frog leap, turning and lunging in one incredibly clumsy motion, trying to wrap herself around the masked man's legs.

Red eyes widened in surprise as a woman tumbled out of the women’s room. Why he was surprised had less to do with the woman leaving the women’s room, and more to do with the tumbling and the suddenness of it all. With his mind already on overdrive from contemplating the situation, even something as simple as a relatively minor surprise made for an adrenaline rush and a heart beat racing in his not-actually-present ears.

Elliott paused as he took in the woman on the floor. That pause was enough of an opening for the woman to turn her floor-relevant position into a lurching frog jump at his legs. It wasn’t quite as good as one of his frog jumps, but it still managed to take him in the knees.

She may have been aiming to wrap his legs. She may have been aiming to head butt him down below. Nasty move, that. Props if she’d been attempting that, but if she had, it hadn’t panned out. He would have been thankful... if he hadn’t lost his balance and toppled backwards onto the floor.

Keh-rack! If there were anything Elliott truly missed having in this situation, it was his helmet. If he’d had his helmet, he wouldn’t have cracked the back of his skull on the floor. He went dizzy for a second.

“Karma...” Elliott mumbled groggily. “You nasty b*^%#.”

First, he’d made the bank robber see stars. Now, he saw stars. It was only fair. Perfectly balanced. Elliott lay on the floor for a couple of seconds. While his brain regrouped, he let the happy pain stars dance along the ceiling.

“Hey,” Elliott said, finally. “Why d’jou tackleme. Ima googuy?”

Oh God, oh God.

Somehow Rebecca knocked the masked man over, finding herself awkwardly atop his legs as he slammed against the ground. Frankly she hadn't thought this far ahead, and now found herself with a new problem; a would-be bank robber under her. Plus the loud noise of them crashing might attract some of his allies, and then-

"Excuse me?" Rebecca hissed, trying to roll off of her assailant/victim. On one hand, how on earth would someone end up wearing a ski mask, in summer, during a bank robbery, without also being an actual bank robber, and apparently being on the side of angels? On the other hand, what possible motive would they have for lying? If they were a real criminal, they would just fight back or call their partners. It wasn't like he had any reason to believe she was a threat on her own.

Rebecca got onto her feet and crouched, eyes on the hallway leading to the bathrooms. "I already called the police." She said quietly, half informing and half a threat. She paused, observing the downed man. He wasn't armed, and the other invaders seemed to have been, judging from the warning shots at the start. Why the mask, though? He wanted to get the drop on the robbers himself, maybe. If this guy was some kind of wannabe vigilante though, she really hoped he knew what he was doing.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Rebecca wasn't exactly superhero material or anything, being genetically normal as far as she knew, but NYC was a hotspot for mutant activity. Maybe this could be helpful? She had to hope for the best right now, and that actual law enforcement would be here sooner than later.

((OOC sorry this didn’t get replied to sooner. I got focused on other threads and other stuff. Really liking this thread!))

As Elliott stared at the ceiling, he silently prayed to whatever Gods of karma or balance were listening that things would get better. The woman had called the police. That would make things do much messier. Maybe no one had ever told her not to turn an armed robbery into a hostage situation? How helpful was she!

Carefully, Elliott rose into a crouch like her. Wasn’t there something someone had written, about gaining another persons trust by mimicking body language? He didn’t know. He didn’t really read.

“I’m going to stop them.” Elliott said slowly, as if he were turning his thoughts over and over in his mind like a polished stone. After hitting his head like he had, the methodical thought process helped.

“At least that was the plan.” He continued. “Steal a mask, disguise myself. Maybe infiltrate them and take them out from within.” Or at least disguise his identity so the whole thing didn’t come back to bite him, from either the criminal element or the people set in place to punish... the criminal element. “Stay here.” He finished lamely.

Elliott had told her ‘stay’, but whether she stayed in place or not was entirely on the girl’s head. Loyalty was not something he had a habit of inspiring. Especially when someone thought he was robbing a bank.

He crab walked to the end of the hall, and peered around to corner, cautious to stay low and stay silent. To avoid attention, and scout the room. There were several men, but thankfully only a handful of them had guns. The ones without guns were probably mutants, if his luck already were any indication of things to come. Lady Karma was working overtime today. As he watched, one of them idly flicked his fingers like he was igniting a Bic lighter. Electric sparks played across the man’s fingertips.

Possibilities ran through Elliott’s mind, and he went over them all at once in the most disorganized, contradictory way possible. That Chinese guy, Sun Tzu, would have been ashamed of Elliott. A Mish mash mosh pit of mediocre ideas, that’s what he had. Each one worse than the last. He was under pressure, so sue him. It wasn’t like Elliott rescued people from bank robbers every day or anything. Speaking of...

People were on their asses all over the building, under watch. The entire thing had turned into a hostage situation, as he’d feared. Somehow, they had learned of the call— maybe one of them held a police scanner or something? Whatever way they’d learned about it, it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. It made him wish he’d stayed home, and never gotten out from under the covers of his bed.

After a minute, he went back to talk with the woman. “7 men. 2 have guns. 1 definitely a mutant. Sparky hands. Others, dunno. Hostages now.” The words escaped him like a rolling tide.

“Means if police show up, there will be trouble. They aren’t getting out of there. Not unless the robbers are taken out or the police let them go... which means we’ve got a little bit of time before the snipers show up to figure out a solution to fix this problem without a lot of people getting hurt!” He finished lightly, glow stick smile smiling at the woman. “My name is Cheshire, by the way. And you are?”

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

Rebecca had no idea what to do, so she was perfectly happy to just wait for him to go off and do whatever. The temptation to curl up in the fetal position was strong, but it was also useless, and even if she didn't know she was going to do, it wouldn't help to be a ball on the floor.

At the very least, that man was apparently happy to make decisions and get information. That seemed useful enough. He returned and gave a rundown of what he'd seen, what they were dealing with. Not that she was really capable of 'dealing with' any of this. Physically or mentally.

Seven people, at least three with some kind of offensive armament. What was really bad, though, was his mention of hostages and police standoffs. That was...clearly her fault, and definitely had potential to make a bad situation much worse. "Sorry." In her defense, she wasn't an expert on crime or law enforcement, and having people come stop the robbers seemed like a good start. How was she supposed to respond to this?

Rebecca closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Getting upset wasn't going to help. Her ally of sorts gave his name and asked her for her's. "Rebecca." 'Cheshire' was probably not his actual name. He was either a mutant vigilante, part of that 'hero' team thing in the city, or a crazy person who thought he was one of those things.

"So...do you have a plan?" It came out slow, deliberate. Rebecca didn't want to be accusatory, but she definitely wasn't up to resolving a hostage crisis. She hadn't even studied criminal justice in school, and it probably didn't cover how to deal with a crime where you were the victim!

So she’d been the one to call the police? Eh. He couldn’t have blamed her for the knee jerk reaction. They aren’t something one thinks about, bank robberies and hostage situations. It wasn’t her fault she reacted in a way that probably would have been sensible in 90% of the other situations. Though trusting the police was a rookie move, in his opinion. He mentally shrugged it off and moved on. There were far more important things than lectures and assigning blame.

Rebecca was her name. Rebecca wanted to know his plan. Rebecca was in a difficult situation and already struggling. Asking her to help was both presumptuous and asking a lot. He was low on options. And so was Rebecca.

Sun Tzu probably would have had something to say about using what you have and making the enemy think it’s more... then crushing them for their mistake. Elliott has no illusions about his being able to do that. His options were limited to trickery or brute force. Or brute force and trickery. Maybe some sleight of hand could find its way into the plan, ala deception.

“I don’t want to ask anything of you I wouldn’t do myself.. and you can say no,” he said slowly, cautiously, as if expecting an immediate negative response. “What I was planning... was to sneak on in above all of their asses and get sparky sparky finger’s attentions through my boyish wiles.”

The glow stick smile on his stocking mask bent upwards slightly, as if creased by a smile beneath the smile. Elliott scratched at the hidden bump of an antenna that had been folded into the mask against the back of his neck. He sensed BO through the antenna, to go with the normal sense from his non present “nose.”

“I want to distract them all,” Cheshire clarifies with an upturned palm. He clenched it. “Make sparky knock out the power with an electrical surge if he can manage to hit one of the lights. Then, when the lights go low I was thinking someone could slip in and help the hostages out of the building. What do you think? Isn’t it a terrible idea?” He said. Fake cheer dripped off his words like honey. Thick and sweet.

Well, it was a plan.

"There's a back door, I think." She gestured vaguely down the hallway. It was a security door, with a big red sign, and an alarm would go off, but it would have to do.

"If you distract them, I..." God, what was she getting into? There were so many ways this could go wrong, and almost all of them got him and/or her killed in the process. "Well, what's your...what can you do?" 'Cheshire' was uncomfortably cheerful about this. He was probably trying to seem confident and reassuring but it wasn't exactly helpful.

"I mean...I guess we kind of have to, right?" Rebecca fought the urge to curl up in an anxiety-laden ball. "If you go out, and the lights go out, where should I be to be ready? And uh, how should I get people without getting, uh..." This plan was seeming increasingly terrible as she thought about it.

"You're the expert here, I guess." Was that the right word? She kind of doubted it. "If you think it can work, we should do it."

He could literally taste the fear and uncertainty on her voice. Unless that was the bad breath and the remnants of whatever the bank robber had eaten and gotten trapped in his beard... that had gotten transferred to the mask by way of some sort of porous bond. The mask did smell. But so did the whole situation.

Yeck. Elliott suppressed his sense of smell for the moment, and focused on senses like touch and hearing. Not smell... or taste.

She asked what he could do, and he summarized as briefly as possible. “I’m strong and fast and I call walk on the ceiling.” He nodded once, as if that was the whole of it. Anything withheld wouldn’t hurt, and she didn’t need to know about potential connections to aliens or grasshoppers or frogs.

Rebecca did not say anything about her being a mutant, which meant she most likely wasn’t a mutant. Easy enough to handle that fact. Most weren’t. He hadn’t been counting on any sort of magical mutant backup. If he could go out and the lights could go out, she could go out and get people out and it was as simple as that. No mutant powers required.

Elliott dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. It was a tiny thing with a folding blade and Swiss army tools, like a pair of scissors and a pen light. Nose hair trimmers. He held it in the palm of his hand as she spoke to him, fighting against her own better judgement with all the questions and the “uh”s and the “of we can, we should do it”s. Then, he held out a hand to her and palmed the knife into her grasp.

“We can. We should. We will. This should handle slicing bonds. Use the pen light if you need to but try and hold back, because it’ll be a beacon in the dark.” One that would draw them to her location like a loud fart in an elevator full of people.

“I’ll kick their asses thoroughly enough that they won’t notice you funneling people out. Hopefully. You should be able to play rescuer without any powers. That exit is probably as good as we’ll get.”

Elliott wrapped it up by telling her to stay in the hallway and peer out to keep watch. To wait until the lights went low, and the fighting started, then to act. If she made a mental note of where the people were in the dark, she might be able to remember it in an imperfect mental picture. Or she had the pen light. But he’d be working hard to make sure she didn’t need that. He’d also be glowing on the ceiling with that glow stick smile, so... he pointed at the smile to illustrate his point. A little prick of light would probably go below their notice. Especially if he tossed glow sticks down from above, at various locations where the robbers were stationed.

“Shock and awe,” he told her. “I’m going to move fast, and leave everyone distracted and confused.” Elliott suited the words with an appropriate action. He sprang into the air, flipping upwards and back onto his bare feet. They caught the ceiling, and he clung there one whole second! He gave her a cute wave, then turned and ran across the ceiling towards the end of the hall, and where all the men with guns were.

—

Distract and confuse. That was the crux of his plan. Distract and confuse. He crept across the ceiling in silence that first minute, and hoped desperately that Rebecca was watching and taking note of everything and everyone in the area from appropriate stealth around the corner of the wall. Once he was in position above the bank robber with the spark hands, Cheshire launched step two: distract and confuse.

He called down at the bank robber. “Hey you! Sparky!”

It wasn’t his best line. But as far as straight lines went, it was incredibly distracting. The man momentarily forgot his responsibility of watching the hostages, the windows, and everyone else as they worked on dealing with the fallout from the arrival of the police. He stared up angrily at the figure on the ceiling.

“What the f—-?!”

His day had not gone well for him. He’d cut himself shaving. His girl had left him. Something about money. Funny, what with how the end result of the entire day plan would have resolved that pesky problem. Ultimately, it proved she wasn’t worth it. But now, the bank plan had hit a snag. Someone had called the cops. They were forced to have Frank speak on the phone with someone who wanted to cut a deal! And if that weren’t already annoying enough to ruin the entire day, this guy on the ceiling had decided to play hero. Where had he even come from? And why had he turned his back towards him and smacked his ass?

The ass smacking distraction had been a cute touch, meant to entice the bank robber towards attacking him. If he’d had a gun, there would have been trouble. And his friends might have sighted on him too, for that matter so the whole thing had been inadvisable. But it had achieved what it had been meant to achieve. The bank robber forgot all caution, and starting flinging bolts of electricity up at the ceiling.

It was bad luck, really. For the bank robber. But good luck for Elliott. If the robbers power had been acid or fire or water, he might not have had a way to knock out the building’s power grid. As it was, bobbing and weaving around the electrical discharge almost got him killed within the first ten seconds. Fire would have spread. Acid would have melted his face. But electricity... it caused chaos, simply by being itself.

Rebecca likely got a good show. He flipped, he dodged, he danced across the ceiling. Guns were sighted on the target, but before they could open fire, Sparky hit the bank of fluorescent lights.

Pop pop pop. The lights went out! A glow stick smile turned, and assessed the whole bank in darkness. And then it fell on where one of the men with the guns had been standing not one second before. There was a meaty thud, and the sound of something clattering out of someone’s hands onto the tiled bank floor.

A single glow stick flew across the intervening space between Elliott and the next nearest thug, and then the glowing smile retreated thirty feet up into the air.

Here was hoping the backup generator didn’t turn on in a minute and bathe the whole scene in red mood lighting.

A couple more green glow sticks dropped from on high, to help illuminate the chaos. Elliott made good on his word by flying down at the bank robbers to attack them as he could, and cause the biggest opening Rebecca could have ever wished for. A distraction so she could try and rescue as many hostages as she could. He was very noisy, too. Plenty of rude quips and psychic warfare to build up fear.

Rebecca listened carefully, nodding periodically as she tried to focus on the task at hand. Cheshire at least seemed confident, and that was the best encouragement she had to go off of. While they weren't exactly 'friends' given they'd met about 2 minutes ago, but she didn't want him to get shot. He was at least trying to work with her and playing the hero when he could have just run out or something.

At least they had a plan now. Rebecca took the multitool and held it, almost delicately. She nodded wordlessly one more time, watching him climb up the wall and onto the ceiling. She stood up and slowly moved towards the edge, just out of view of the edge of the robbers. She didn't have time to analyze anymore; she had to act as quickly and efficiently as possible.

As soon as she heard Cheshire yell, Rebecca peeked around the edge of the corner, knife clutched in both hands like a sword. She was pretty good at perceptive tasks, but this was a critical juncture. She quickly took in the locations of the hostages; there were eight people in a huddled crowd in the far corner, plus the seven or so guys. She had a couple of moments to roughly figure out who was there; two middle-aged women, an elderly looking man and a woman in a work uniform, a muscular guy and an overweight man, and a pair that looked to be a couple. Everyone's eyes were on Cheshire.

The loud sound of an electric charge and smell of ozone made Rebecca flinch, especially as the lights suddenly went out, leaving the room surprisingly dark. Suddenly there was a burst of frightened screams and angry shouting. Luckily it seemed that the gunmen were no longer willing to start shooting at random, exactly as planned.

Hugging the left wall, Rebecca moved as quickly as possible across the back of the bank interior. She almost tripped on the nearest person, one of the older women with short gray hair in a bun. The woman was understandably rather startled, but Rebecca shushed loudly and grabbed at the plastic handcuffs holding the woman's hands behind her back.

Luckily, though Rebecca's hands were trembling terribly, her first rescuee picked up on the situation and held still. As soon as she was free, she stood up and started moving away. "Hug the wall, back door." Rebecca hissed, as the woman fumbled for the nearest hard surface and started moving along it.

Okay, so far, so good. Next, Rebecca cut free the athletic man. Rather than moving away, though, he pulled out his own pocket knife and moved to the old man. Rebecca was very glad to have the help; that renewal of confidence helped her ease into the movement, and soon the remaining clerk was the only one tied.

Then the alarm went off as the back door popped open. The woman had not thought to wait for them, and while Rebecca couldn't blame her, she was absolutely mortified as their escape was suddenly announced in an explosive klaxon.

Swearing repeatedly and furiously, Rebecca roughly grabbed the last woman as soon as she was freed, pulling her to her feet and dragging her behind her as quickly as possible. Luckily, the unexpected addition to the confusion caused by the alarm, along with Cheshire's antics, nobody took the time to interfere, and they reached the red 'EXIT' sign, glowing like a beacon, without getting shot.

With everyone outside the building, Rebecca paused, suppressing the urge to run out screaming in triumph and terror, and shouted back a little shrilly, "We're out!" Then she ran out the door and promptly collapsed in the parking lot hyperventilating as the nearby officers secure the escapees and moved towards the door.

The darkness hadn’t been complete. The glow sticks Elliott had tossed, and the small amount of daylight seeping in through the half moon upper window of the bank had provided enough light for Rebecca, and enough light for him. Still, the sudden darkness had provided the required uncertainty needed to deter the armed men from shooting everyone up. The emergency lights had not sprang to life during the whole sequence of events. And in spite of the mild illumination, it was surprisingly dark!

He had no special night vision super power. Cheshire had operated on memory, and on strategic placement of glow sticks. He’d held the high ground, and utilized surprise, systematically attacking the armed men first, then the mutants. It had been close once or twice. He’d had to evade a brutal swing backed by some sort of enhanced strength package at one point, springing back several feet across the tiled floor.

He’d darted back in a moment later, and swept the muscular man’s legs out from under him. Then he’d cracked the man’s skull against the tile, using gravity and leverage to his benefit. It’s hard to bring a strong punch to bear when you’re grounded and seeing stars.

Another time, a mutant had hit him with a subsonic TASER that had stunned him for a second and left a high-pitched ringing in his ears. He hadn’t needed a sense of hearing to make the man regret being male. The swift kick he’d given him had left him crying on the floor. The hearing had returned, several minutes later.

His glow sticks had provided him with the light he’d needed to orient on the robbers, while he kept to the darkness, save for a haunting smile. But they’d also provided him with the light needed to see what they were up to. Rebecca never would know how close she’d gotten to being hit by an attack.

Elliott had seen the man turn towards the sound of one of the hostages. Some strange ambient green glow had surrounded one of the robber’s hands, as he’d pointed it her way. Out of the corner of her vision, it probably would have seemed like just another glow stick providing meager illumination. Cheshire had fallen from the ceiling several feet away and sent one of his prehensile hand tongues lancing out to snag the man’s wrist and pull him backwards onto the ground. And not a moment too soon. The attack had fizzled, during the shock of the fall. Cheshire had kicked him in the head.

He’d provided cover for the other tense moments of the hostage rescue, just like he’d said he would. He’d kept a running commentary from his mouth, to mask the efforts of the woman. He’d rushed each thug in turn, and delivered brutal kicks. He’d kept it so fast-paced and violent, most of the men had hardly been able to focus on what was going on around them other than his threat. The man with the green energy blast had been the only one to actually aim an attack at Rebecca or any of the hostages.

Only after the last bank robber had fallen, had the red lights of the backup generator sprang on. And that had been after the alarm had been tripped by the emergency door, and the hostages had all escaped. The alarm had provided a distraction for Elliott, funnily enough. And one that had saved his life.

The last robber had been tougher than the rest. Careful. He hadn’t shown his power until he’d closed the distance between them so that he was standing beneath the man on the ceiling. His friends were all down and unconscious. Many hostages were gone, though some were still filtering out. One person had done it all and stood in his way. He wanted revenge.

“Fall,” he muttered. Elliott barely heard it. Then the whole world turned upside down as he was hit by a stomach-turning dizzy spell.

Vertigo. He didn’t know it was that until after he went splat. He fell from the ceiling, but didn’t die. He managed to stick the landing on his legs and his side. Everything hurt. He didn’t think anything was broken. Unfortunately, for the moment, he couldn’t move.

There was a glint of silver in the low light. Or really, greenish silver. It caught the reflection off the nearest source of light. A glow stick. It struck Elliott just what the glint was. It was a knife.

The man was going to slit his throat.

“Freaking finally,” he said. His voice was a ragged whisper. He got real close, and reached down for the slashy slash slash to make the throat gash. The warning klaxon blared, right before he would have given Cheshire a second smile. Elliott’s red eyes widened under the stocking ski mask as the man stepped back, knife clattering to the floor. He took his opportunity.

A pink tongue shot out to hit the robber in the face. He reeled backwards as the sloppy attack smeared across his eyes, blocking his entire field of vision.

The whole thing was quiet. Amid the noise and confusion, the remaining hostages probably wouldn’t have noticed the brief scuffle. People filed out as Cheshire struggled to his feet, and pulled the man towards him by the tongue wrapped around his head. Right into an elbow, followed by a one two punch combo and a leg sweep. Every hit made Elliott wince in pain. Something was definitely broken. Or cracked.

The lights sprang on about a minute after the last hostage made it out of the bank. Cheshire stood over the unconscious form of the last bank robber, breathing hard. He clutched his ribs.

Was that all of them? He looked around. Yup. He took a minute to duct tape them all to the floor, covering their hands. Then he gathered up his glow sticks and any other evidence he may have left. He didn’t bother wiping down the bathroom sink. Idly, he wondered if blowing the lights had blown out the security cameras. Eh. He was wearing a mask. Without a word, Cheshire leaped up onto the ceiling and made himself scarce.

—

He didn’t want Rebecca to think he’d died in the bank. He also didn’t want anyone to see him and ask him any questions. Especially the police. So, he found a solution.

The pen sailed across the parking lot to land inches in front of Rebecca’s face with a skip and a bounce. It had come from somewhere up high. Somewhere...

It wasn’t apparent how he’d done it. How he’d escaped from the bank utilizing an entrance that wasn’t the main entrance or the emergency entrance, then got to the roof. Probably some sort of utility closet trick involving vents, or something. But whatever the case, there he was. On the roof. Hands on hips, in his leather jacket and his black ski mask, looking heroic. He only stayed long enough for her to notice him, then he sprang from one rooftop to another, up and away!

((OOC react and wrap up, I think? They’ll have to meet again some time.))

There was a lot of stuff to deal with after the fact.

By the time she'd regained her senses, the fighting had ended and the police had gone in and rounded up the defeated intruders. None of the hostages had been hurt, luckily, so after some debriefing they were free to go.

Rebecca did her best to remain composed once she'd recovered and the police interviews began. Though her involvement in the escape was pretty obvious to everyone else, she hadn't really needed to lie about anything. She'd been in the bathroom, and when the lights went out (seemingly induced by one of the criminals) she'd used a penknife to start cutting everyone free. Rebecca didn't say anything about Cheshire; only that he'd suddenly appeared and started beating on the robbers.

After that, they told her she might be called in to testify, which she agreed to, though somewhat hesitantly. Right now, Rebecca just wanted to home and lay down. Luckily, she didn't have to come back and finish setting up her account, since she'd finished her errand before all this.


As she was getting ready to leave, Rebecca noticed the small object fall to the ground. She turned, and caught a glimpse of Cheshire, posing dramatically on the roof before vanishing. She couldn't help but grin, amused by his antics but also relieved; she'd almost forgotten to worry about him, until now. Luckily, he seemed able to handle himself.

Rebecca crossed her arms and started towards the bus stop. She hoped New York City was less crime-ridden than this might imply. Maybe it was, even, though she got  the sense it was quite an eventful place. How that would affect her, she had no idea. Time would tell.