The world we live in

Rando,Yashiro and Rani stopped at a fast food joint on their way home, getting fried chicken and a few drinks. They decided to eat it at Rando's house, which was a few minutes walk from where they were.

As they walked towards his house, they noticed some commotion and stopped to check what was going on.

It turned out a few regulars were being held at gunpoint, in a bank robbery and the police had not yet responded.

The trio looked at each other, Rando and Yashiro nodded at each other, indicating that they were going to help out. Rani was against this and voiced her concerns.

"Guys, I think we should stay put and leave this to the police. Trying to help out could do more harm than good. What if they shoot one of the hostages?"

Yashiro responded, "we are going there to make sure that doesn't happen"

"We will be okay Rani, don't worry. We will be in and out quickly after we make sure everyone is safe," Rando added.

Rani shook her head "I don't like this at all. Be careful"

They nodded once more and dashed towards the bank. They knew that they would have to force their way in, as the doors of the bank were locked. The bank wasn't too big as it was a local bank, it had huge triple glazed windows at the front of it, which allowed people to look in and out of the bank but also served as a means of protection. The doors were made of the same material, and had metal handles for opening and closing the doors. There were also people standing a few metres from the bank, recording what was happening as they all waited for the police.

As the pair got closer to the entrance, they saw that there were a bunch of civilians laying on the floor with their hands on their heads while one of the robbers, who had a mask on, kept watch on them with an assault rifle in his hands.

Rando looked down at his hands and thought, [these are still very damaged, I'm gonna have to use my legs, or completely avoid fighting].

Yashiro was ahead of him, and increased the size of the muscles in his arms and hand, to about 3 times their normal size, took into account how close everyone was to the window, controlled how much force he used and punched his way through the window, causing a loud sound. There were a few screams from the frightened civilians inside as he came through the window.

The robber, who was too focused on the people on the floor didn't notice the pair running towards the bank, raised his gun but Yashiro was much faster. He leapt forward, grabbing the robber by the head and slamming him backwards into the ground.

As they landed, Yashiro had his hands on the robbers face and pinned one of his hands with his knee, to keep him from firing his weapon.

"Guys, please leave carefully. Leave this to us" Rando said, in a calm but authoritative tone to the people who were still laying on the floor. He unlocked the door and held it open for them. They got up quickly and began run out of the bank, including the employees. The bank was empty in a manner of seconds.

As the last person left, the other robber, whose job it was to get the money out of a small vault located at the back of the bank, came running out as he heard the commotion. He had a pump action shotgun in his hands.

He looked at Yashiro. Who still had his partner pinned to the floor, took aim with the shotgun, and fired.

There was a sound of bullets colliding with steel, as Rando jumped infront of Yashiro. The force of the shotgun was enough to take him off his feet and knock him back into Yashiro.

Both of them fall backwards, allowing the robber Yashiro was pinning down to get up and pick up his gun.

The second robber pumped his shotgun and walked towards the pair. Before Yashiro could react, both robbers had taken aim.

As they were about to shoot, the room was suddenly filled with pinkish gas, and the robbers fell, unconscious.

Rani was breathing heavily as she stood in the doorway. After she made sure the robbers were unconscious, she caused the gas to dissipate and ran towards her friends, who had also been caught in the gas and were unconscious.

[Shit] she thought to herself, [I didn't have time to think about control and my gas hit them too...] her thought process was interrupted as she noticed Rando was bleeding from his chest.

Her eyes widened as she shouted for one of the onlookers to call the ambulance. Who arrived shortly with the police behind them.

The police took witness statements from the people who were there while the ambulance made sure everyone was okay, especially the people inside the bank, including Rani.

After convincing them that she was okay and that they should check on her friends, the police began to question her and she was shocked at what they were asking.

*

Yashiro woke up 2 hours later in a spacious hospital room that had 6 beds, 5 of which were vacant. He looked to his right and saw Rani next to him, sitting on a chair and completely zoned out. Then he remembered what had happened and sat up quickly.

"Where's Rando?" He asked, his voice bringing Rani back to reality. Her facial expression indicated to him she was upset and worried.

Before she could answer, he spoke again.

"What happened? Are you okay? Where's Rando?"

"I'm fine" she said, looking down at her feet " Rando got hurt "

"What do you mean Rando got hurt? Rani, what happened?" He was standing up at this point and his tone emphasised the fact that he was panicking.

"Even though he was in his steel form, the impact from the shotgun was too much, the doctor said two of his ribs are broken and some are cracked. He's in the ICU, in stable condition but he still hasn't woken up." She looked like she was about to start crying, " that's not even the worst part, the..."

Fuhira entered the room before she could finish what she was saying.

"Good to see you're up and okay" He said, as he walked towards them. "I'm detective Fuhira Utari, and you're Yashiro Katsui I presume?"

As he entered the room, Yashiro noticed Rani sank even more into her seat but he thought nothing of it and answered.

"Yes I am, but I need to go see my friend"

"I just need to discuss a few things with you first young man, so please be patient."

Yashiro reluctantly sat back down and nodded

"I already got it from your friend Rani here that none of you had any permits to use your powers, is this correct?"

Yashiro looked at Rani is pure disbelief, she still had her head down. He looked back angrily at Fuhira and responded.

"Yes, you're correct, but I don't see why that matters. We saved everyone's life and my friend is in the ICU right now as we speak after taking a bullet that could've easily hit one of the other people there."

"You didn't have to do that, you could have and should have waited for the police to get there and left it to them. Instead, you caused severe damage to the exterior of the bank, and young miss Rani here, without a permit, used her powers on two non powered human being, which also raises another issue. Due to the nature of her powers, and based on the fact that you got gassed too, it's clear that she lacks control and something could've easily gone wrong."

Yashiro was shocked, "she did that to save our lives, we were about to be killed." He got up, visibly angry. "Also, she does have control. She's been working hard to make sure she doesn't ever kill anyone so do not take that away from her. If she didn't have control, we would have all died"

At that statement, Rani smiled, with tears in her eyes. Yashiro continued.

"are you also saying that in a scenario where you're able to do something, that could potentially save lives, you shouldn't?, because of a dumb permit."

Fuhira sighed and gathered some of the shroud that usually envelops him into his palm. Seeing this, Rani and Yashiro were both equally shocked. "Permits were created so people like us with powers wouldn't feel like we could do whatever we wanted." He put his hand back down and continued, "As an adult, I commend you and your friends for your bravery and thank you deeply for making sure no civilians were harmed. I'm also sorry to hear that your friend got injured. However, as a detective, I'm going to have to reprimand you due to the damage that was done to the building"

Yashiro sat back down and calmed himself because he realised that Fuhira was on his side.

Fuhira continued speaking, "You and miss Rani will have to do a few hours of community service and recieve an official warning from the police department. Which simply states that if you use your powers to cause destruction again without a permit, the consequences would be more severe "

Yashiro felt bad and spoke up, "is there a way to leave her name out of it? She was only there because she was trying to save our lives. She didn't want us to go in there in the first place"

"If it were up to me Yashiro, you guys would be labelled heroes and publicly praised, but because of the type of world we live in at the moment, unfortunately there's no way I can do that, there were several witnesses there who saw her using her powers, some even have videos. I'm sorry to have to do this but I'm just doing my job." He turned towards the door, and said once more as he walked out, "more instructions on what you have to do and what your punishment is will follow in a few days, but I wanna thank you guys again. That was well handled. Have a nice day, and I wish your friend a speedy recovery."As he left the now silent room, he thought to himself [What a tenacious but and kind hearted young man, I'll make sure they get a light punishment for this. They don't deserve to be punished anyway. Damn I'm hungry].

Yashiro spoke up, breaking the silence "I'm really sorry Rani. None of this would have happened if we listened to you"

"don't sweat it" she said, with a much more pleasant expression on her face "I'm just happy you're both alive. Speaking of which, do you want to go check on him?"

Yashiro nodded, as they both walked out of the room towards the ICU.