Nergal paid attention as the others explained their run-in with heroes, having only heard of the big names that often got plastered in the paper it was good to know that not every caped crusader they ran into would be as problematic as those. Metallia’s explanation was somewhat surprising, Nergal would not have picked her to have had such experience but the way she talked indicated she had had a number of run ins. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the group who seemed to hardly react to the thought of heroes. Phone freak seemed to provide some level headed-information to add to what he heard from Metallia but Dianna and Love Light seemed to find them unconcerning. Nodding at the group he replied ”Huh, that was more information than I expected, guess you’ve all got more experience than I thought” he replied before meeting Love Light’s gaze to answer his question, his face adopting a cruel grin ”Don’t you worry about what I can handle, I crossed that line long ago. You’d be amazed at how much simpler small scale jobs become when someone can’t scream through a melting jaw and vocal cords. Still hopefully the presence has kind of plan for keeping heroes away from this, can’t say I’m keen to have complications”.

Taking in all the information everyone provided, Nergal re-evaluated his opinion of the group, though some of them still seemed crazier than he would like, he was getting the picture they could all hold their own in whatever situations came up today. His thoughts were momentarily interrupted as Maria introduced themselves to the group, given the fact there was a chance he was going to be shot at today having some kind of medical support was a welcome thought. Nodding in greeting he added to the others statements ”Welcome to the group, and get used to being kept in the dark, our employer doesn’t seem to like us knowing what we’re doing” he replied with a hint of sarcasm.

---

As the team drew close to the bank, Nergal paused to listen to the Presence as they provided an update to the plan. Once he heard it, he vision almost went red in anger, sharing the sentiment Phone Freak was voicing. ‘THIS was their master plan? A frontal assault on the bank vault? What in the hell was the Presence-’. His thoughts were cut off as the aftershock of the explosion rocked past the ground, his mind pausing for a moment before his instincts kicked in as the rest of the group sprung into action, there would be time for complaining later.

Arriving just after the initial members breached the entrance, Nergal quickly slid to the side following the wall, it seemed the rest of the group had the main entrance secured and as Sawbones correctly noted they needed to sweep the rest of the floor ”Already checking out the left side” Nergal called out before opening a door into the hallway and stepped through, running straight into a confused security guard. The guard hesitated for a moment before raising his gun, obviously uncertain if he would be able to bring himself to use the weapon. Nergal had no such concerns, the guards hesitation allowing him to strike first, one hand striking the man’s neck and the other seizing his weapon hand, twisting the gun away from a firing position.

Instinctively, he begun the chemical reaction in his hands, the guards eyes going wide in pain and horror as the smell of burning flesh began to seep from under Nergal’s grip. Grinning Nergal pushed his hands harder against the main, the guard begin to panic as Nergal could feel warmth against his palms now, before he paused and frowned. Maverick’s plea echoed in his mind, resolve wavering for a moment as he considered if he really did need to kill this one. Shaking his head he gazed at the guard and grinned sadistically ”Hmm, she did say not kill everyone... but unfortunately for you, she didn’t say to not to kill anyone” he told the man, enjoying the look of horror that spread across his face before pressing his hands deeper into the existing wounds, focusing his energies to make this quick.

The guard fired off two bullets in panic before the tendons in his hand failed, the firearm and remnants of the limb splattering to the floor, quickly followed by the man’s slumped body. Glancing at his hands Nergal sighed as he noticed they were covered in red now, he really needed to find a cleaner way to do this at some point. Returning to the task at hand, he quickly checked the other rooms of this corridor, but it seemed to mostly be office space that had already been evacuated after the bomb, no doubt the guard had helped all the civilians evacuate before coming back to assess the situation. Returning to the main room Nergal called out to the group as he walked in ”That sides clear, just a bunch of empty offices now" he explained as he glanced around the lobby, it seemed if they were going to make a stand here they would need some quick planning on the best way to do it

Phone Freak picked herself up off the floor as Dr. Bad News grabbed the men it had slammed into and dragged the prone forms over to the still bleeding guard it has roped earlier. She looked at the hostage corralled up against the wall by a lion with astonishment. Despite the complete lack of planning everything seemed to have gone smoothly. The lobby was theirs. "THANKS ED." She yelled, before wincing and lower the volume of her voice. "Thanks Ed." She repeated normally. "I think I might have gotten the wrong impression of you back at the warehouse."

They had taken the lobby. Step one, done and done. She looked around trying to access the situation now, her eyes landing for the first time on Dianna in full costume. Her heart skipped a beat. "Oh shit." she said, in a voice of awed disbelief. Suddenly the calm demeanor and flippant attitude toward heroes all made sense. She'd seen the forth of July video. Most in the community had. "Black Magic? You're Black Magic?" Dianna couldn't be that much older than her, so how was she able to throw off spells like that? There's no way she was the actual-

She arrested that thought where it stood, smacking the front of her helmet to bring her focus back to the here and now. If she got stuck ruminating on that mystery she would be here all day. Later. She could thing about it later. Bury the jealousy and save it for later. She couldn't start comparing herself to her right now, she couldn't think about her power...

Wait. Wait. Her power. Phone Freak looked up at Dianna and found herself agreeing with her. "Yes. Yeah, we should go up. We should take the second floor. If we do that we'll have a vantage point to watch the plaza out front. We can't secure this whole building, that's impossible with so few of us, but with her transformation powers we could seal all the exits. Every Stairwell. Every elevator. We could keep anyone up there from getting down to these two floors, but we have to work fast before they get organised and start evacuating the building because of the bombs."

Black Magic? That set off alarm bells somewhere in the back of Maverick's mind. Her attention was quickly drawn away from the subject when Nergal returned with the news that the offices were clear.

Phone Freak began dishing out orders that all sounded reasonable, and apparently "Black Magic"'s transformation powers were very potent. Sealing all the exits sounded good, and Maverick was just fine with the civilians being kept up on the upper floors of the building, where it was safe. At least, safer than down here, where a gunfight was sure to erupt and second now. In the mean time, Maverick needed somewhere to be where she could be useful. She did glanced around the lobby and thought she thought she could have saw something move behind the receptionists desk. Maverick effortlessly vaulted over it, which drew a yelp from a receptionist in her thirties, frantically pressing at a silent alarm button.

Maverick exhaled. She leveled her handgun at the receptionist and made the international symbol for a phone, as in extending her thumb and little finger, closing the rest of her digits and than placed it next to her left ear. The receptionist reached into a pocket and pulled out a smart phone. Maverick took it from her and placed it on the granite top desk. She focused for a split second, and the tingling sensation made it's way into her palm. She pressed onto the smart phone gently, the tingling sensation traveled into the smart phone, and it shattered like it had been smacked by a sledgehammer.

She glanced at the receptionist again and put her index finger to her mouth (where her mouth would be, it was concealed to the receptionist).

"Shh."

All the while, her gun was pointed at the receptionists center of mass. She wouldn't dare pull the trigger, but the receptionist didn't know that. The receptionist also didn't know that Maverick's safety was on. In the meantime, Maverick also made sure to smash the silent alarm. Wouldn't do much good now, though, anyway. She figured it didn't matter- the police were already on their way.

She hopped back over the desk.

"Alright, so, let's just keep the police out of the building until Vault Squad get's the money. Easy." Yeah. Easy. Her voice cracked as she said that last sentence.

LL was suitably impressed by the newcomer's obvious moxy and confidence but did not express it with words yet, instead just smiling and nodding to her slightly when he met her gaze - she seemed like a painfully sensible person, and as such he deemed the current time unfitting for closely socializing with her. Maybe a bit later, after the heist, when they are all safe and high on the success... oh, and just when he thought about it, Presence contacted them again - the boy listened to the orders by leaning uncomfortably close to Nergal to hear the voices in his comms before letting him go to fulfill his mission and proceeding to morally prepare for doing his own job.

"Jeeee-zus!" Loud Love cackled somewhat nervously, jumping in place for a bit, looking sheepishly at the rushing Blood Fang. "I-I-I'm not even sure, I mean i can't even take anything with me, why would i even wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-nt toahfuckitletsfuckindothi~"
And then, Loud Love mysteriously disappeared in a deafening thunderclap. His red track pants blew up like an agitated pufferfish when air flooded the emptied space and then slowly, miserably crumbled to the ground - shit looked like a sequence ripped straight out of a children cartoon. At the same time, Talbot and Metallia felt a mighty gust of wind blow all over their backs as Loud Love manifested at the side entrance right behind them. Then, with another windy explosion and a thunderstrike, Loud Love suddenly was in front of them, then - at the end of the corridor, blasting two guards and a very unlucky clerk away with horrible concussive blasts, and then completely left his partners' field of view - but at the same time another vry scared person flew out form behind the corner and collided with the wall with a loud crack of breaking plaster, obviously blown away by the glory and beauty of the robber's explosive, dynamic entry:
"O-o-oh, i love violence! And sodomy! Oh gee, they've a map on the wall here!" The boy called out to Metallia and the werewolf form the adjacent corridor. "Vault's downstairs, on the left side! Race ya!"
The thunderclaps - and screams - considerably increased in frequency. Clearly LL wasn't a big fan of just walking like a normal person. On the good side, there were no screams that ended really suddenly and in a very loud and wet *SPLAT* - that meant he at very least tried to do that "non-lethal" thing that Maverick asked for. Or maybe he really liked that fancy ornament on the walls and didn't want to muck it up.

At the beginning of the chaos, when Phone Freak's monster had slammed right through the front door, Mako had just seemed to vanish, but suddenly as the other villains spoke about keeping the cops out of the bank, the sprinkler system kicked on. Water began raining all throughout the upper part of the building and lobby, after that a sudden howl/roar ripped through the air, gripping the hearts of the less brave like a vice, now they were in Mako's domain.

Mako walked out of a side room where he had pulled the fire alarm and set off the sprinklers, His eyes were as black as Tartarus and in his hand he held a large black trident that crackled and sparked with tainted Atlantean magic, he looked monstrous and ferocious. Where the king of Atlantis represented the regality of the ocean, Mako represented the true nature of the ocean, cruel, cold and heartless.

Mako with a thought was suddenly surrounded by tentacles of water twisting around him and grabbing things like coffee cups or lamps and flinging them wildly towards the walls, "Let them come..." suddenly a wall of water rose and icy spikes formed at the front door about three feet high, this was the extent of ice Mako could use, he could freeze water but couldn't control ice, at the very least the front door was going to slow down enemy forces. The tentacles around mako twisted and writhed violently and his trident sparked loudly, "I will remain here in this lobby, you should take the upstairs quickly." Mako looked around, "Any who wish to help push back the police should stay here and get ready for a very bloody fight."

Blood Fang hurried to a flight of stairs that would lead them down into the vault, and he leaped over the railing and began to drop towards the ground below. He was now transformed and therefor had superhuman durability, which absorbed the impact of his landing. He headed down a hall and hoped that his teammates were following, it would be beneficial for all of them to stick together. There were a couple of guards that came at him from a side hall and Andrew grinned with his fangs showing. He tore into the two guards with wild fury and caused blood to fly everywhere.

"Now this is fun!" he said smiling at unleashing his primal side.

---

For team 2 at the main entrance of the bank, a group of eight guards was headed their way and The Presence's voice came on over their communicator.

"Team 2, eight guards are headed your so I suggest you take action against them and neutralize them otherwise this day might end badly" the voice said calmly.

Maverick didn't respond to the Presence's call, but took notice on the information. She glanced upwards as suddenly, a multitude of sprinklers were turning her unzipped hoodie a darker shade of blue and her exposed tank top an unpleasant grey.

"We can handle these guys without making a widow, Mako." She said, grimly. Eight guards armored in Kevlar and armed with pistols burst through a nearby set of doors. They immediately began shouting for surrender, but they were blindsided by Maverick who had sprinted off to flank them. She assumed her teammates would come to assist her as she did so, as they also had vested interest in taking these guys out. As she quickly approached, a guard reeled on her and attempted to level a handgun at her chest. Maverick ducked under the gun and quickly grabbed the man by the wrist, kinetically charging her hands to twist the gun out of his hands, and converted his standing momentum into jumping momentum, throwing him over her shoulder by his arm and slamming him into the ground. He grunted, and before another guard could open fire, she rolled herself over the guard and flipped him and herself upwards, using the stunned man as a human shield.

Now she had her gun pointed at another guard, and neither of them wanted to shoot. Maverick, however, had the advantage of the guard not knowing how insane she was. She glanced over at her approaching teammates. Now her clothes were soaked in water, and as she shuffled her sneakers squeaked against the wet floor.

Well. Someone wasn’t caring about Maverick’s request to not kill the poor defenseless guards, Metallia concluded watching Blood Fang rip them apart. That somewhat made Metallia feel like her own efforts were pointless. Pointless endeavors were abandoned in Metallia’s mind. Now, then. She had to follow Loud Love before he vanished way too far ahead-

Metallia became aware of two guards aiming their guns at her in a gesture of “don’t let them get ahead”. She gave them a swift glance.

‘... Don’t you dare.’ And with that, their guns were violently pulled from their hands by unseen magnetism, the poor guards having to see their only method of attack fly away and attach themselves loudly to the generators on Metallia’s chair. Annoyed at them, she then had the chair fire back. Small gun-holes opened to the left and right of her legs, and the chairs fired a spray of bullets through the guards’ legs, who fell over shouting.

‘Hmpf. Stay down.’ She commanded, raising her head. … Would they die from blood-loss? … It didn’t matter. She continued down in the direction gestured by Loud Love. They had to check if they could find a vault or anything.

As LL thunderclaps echoed through the building indicating team 1's progress, Nergal did he best to ignore them and focus on his teams task, glad that they didn't need to wprry about stealth given the tactics some of them were employing. However as the fire system started and the entire lobby became a very soddem area, Nergal glared at Mako figuring he must have been the one to pull the alarm. The sprinklers would do a fine job of ruining any airborne toxins he could create, destroying most of his plans and not to mention being soaked was rather unpleasant. Still as Mako showed off his powers, the action made some sense, the fool just needed to check with the rest of the team first.

"Well given you've volunteered to be the centre of attention Mako, I'll take one of the flanks and pick them off while they're distracted" Nergal ingormed those still in the lobby, taking one flank by the door while Maverick made for the other flank.

As the incoming strike team burst thrpugh the front door, Nergal took note that this group seemed much better equip than regular security, perhaps a rapid response unit? Dismissing those thoughs for the moment he focused on the situation, the ice wall had stalled their progress and Maverick had made their move, meaning the rest of them would have to act fast. With the guards attention focused on the other flank, Nergal quickly moved in while they were all distracted

Unfortunately, the soaked lobby floor removed the chance of getting into melee range completely unnoticed, Nergal swearing under his breath as the guard he was reaching began to turn around, alerted by the splashing. Taking note of Maverick's idea, he quickly grappled the guard, one hand wrestling the weapon so it couldn't get a clear shot and the other grabbing his opponents face, quickly releasing a paralysis toxin in their face as they struggled against him.

The sounds alerted the rest of the group, half focusing on Maverick while the other half turned on Nergal , who had managed to wrestle his guatd into a shielding position just in time, the two of them having the guards complete attention leaving them vulnerable to the rest of the team

(Collab post between @Gentlemanvaultboy and @SunsetRoses)

Dianna rolled her eyes as she became soaked. It was a rookie move, pulling the fire alarm. Now they would have police officers, security guards, and the fire department to deal with. That meant more press on the situation, which meant more attention from heroes. Not to mention the bomb that had gone off. Someone had to get this handled, and fast.

She watched with disinterest as guards stormed downstairs, eight of them like ducklings following the leader. Maverick handled two, which was all good and well. Dianna didn't see why she was a villain, if she hated casualties. It was disgusting, really. One of the guards fired two rounds at Ms. Muffins II, who was rubbing against a hostage with little care. Dianna swore, throwing up an energy shield before the bullets could impact.

“No one touches my cat.” Dianna snapped, pointing a finger at the guard. “Timore.” She snarled, viewing cheerfully as the guard began screaming and crying, running towards a desk where he could hide and sob loudly. Dianna snapped her head to Phone Freak, pointing upstairs. “You! You're coming with me, we have to seal off the upper floors.” She didn't wait for an answer, running off towards the staircase. Ms. Muffins II saw her, and ran after, intense muscles rippling under her coat.

"Right, yeah, that's what I was saying." Phone Freak shouted as she ran after her. "Doc, keep those hostages corralled." They had to keep those people under control. The lion had done a good job. You didn't even think of making a move that close to a wild animal. She trusted the others to handle the guys that had come charging in. Maverick had one hostage, Black Magic had just done something she she guessed was horrible to the other one, and now their attention had been divided up. They could handle this, but there were probably others on the way that would have to be stopped.

The stick thin form of Dr. Bad News stood up from where it had been crouched over the guard it had stabbed in the arm and collected him and his two brethren. It carried them over to the wall and laid them down before hovering over the lot. The guards shirt had been ripped apart, and his arm had been bandaged up by the monster while he'd writhed on the ground. He was, after all, at least half doctor.

Phone Freak pounded up the Stairs after Black Magic, gun in one hand and phone in the other. "Ignore elevators for now. They're not going to use elevators because of the fire alarm." She hastily tapped in a few arcane symbols as she ran. Anyone with a gun they ran into was going to get a facefull, if they were lucky.