Time To Choose

Lauren gave me a look that I hadn't seen from her before. It wasn't quite a look of disappointment, but there was definitely judgement there. As if she were reevaluating some things about me.

"Okay, just hear me out, yeah? Because while Greave may be tempting you with promises of caution, but I've got some pretty tempting points too, yeah?" She gave me a wink that sent my heart into a rebellious flutter.

"Fine," I said, trying to put on a begrudging voice but likely failing horribly. "I'll hear you out, but I don't expect you to be able to change my mind at all."

"Well, to break it down simply, Greave has said stuff like this before big jobs in the past," Lauren began, shooting her teammate a mock glare, "For example, a couple of weeks ago we hit one of the Coventry Mob's gambling dens, went off without a hitch."

I gave that a moment of thought and came to the slow realisation that it probably hadn't gone out with a hitch considering the boss of the Coventry Mob had been looking for them to put them six feet under the ground.

"The boss wanted us to pull a job at a specific time. He gave me free rein on what we'd actually do," She said.

"Wait, hang on," Greave cut in, "You're telling me that the boss just wanted us to do something and you're the one that came up with raiding a vault?"

She shot him the sweetest smile, the sort that would melt most people like butter.

"Well sure, and he liked it too," She said, "According to him, this Thursday the PHA is going out on a scouting expedition into the wider city, meaning a skeleton crew will be left behind to look after everything going on here. It's why timing's so important."

"So basically, we smash a vault and there will be no one around to retaliate?" Allen asked. Lauren gave a nod in response with a grin across her lips.

"Exactly that, so if we target Proxima in the northern sector of the Main Qua-"

"I'm sorry, Proxima?" I sputtered, "You want us to target the biggest vault in the entire community?"

"We target Proxima," She continued as if I hadn't even interrupted her, "Because if we're hitting that vault it'll be right on the doorstep of the Juniors, which means the other hero teams won't be able to join in without offending them. In other words, all we're going to be dealing with is Powered kids, understand?"

We all nodded with varying levels of enthusiasm. I still wasn't convinced, but I could at least see where she was going with this.

"Next up is the fact that, while Tristan's only got school on the weekends, younger kids have school every single weekday so their parents can go off to the reclamation yards. We know for a fact that half of the Juniors are so junior they're still in those classes, which means they're effectively off the board because if they left class they'd be unmasking themselves," Lauren went on. "Instead we'll be up against four Juniors at the most, in other words, we'll be outnumbering them."

"Well… Damn it," Greave grunted and ran a hand through his hair, "So we'd probably do fine against four Juniors, but-"

"Oh, and I don't know if I've mentioned it, but the boss is going to much us double for the value of everything and anything that we bring in," Lauren interrupted. "In other words, if our haul is worth something in the region of five thousand, he'll pay the team fifteen thousand, and that's after Tristan takes his pick of whatever he wants."

My eyes widened to the point that they looked as big as plates, "That sounds absolutely insane, why the hell would he do something like that?"

"Not just that," Lauren said, her cocky grin now fully back in place, "The boss is going to cover all of our costs, right from equipment down to any bribes that we need to make!"

It all sounded too good to be true. As someone who had spent their whole life living in a converted set of shipping containers in a long since abandoned train station the money that was being thrown around at the moment seemed simply impossible, and I voiced that opinion.

"Well, whoever he is he's our sponsor and any sponsor of a group of supervillains is clearly looking to make a major impact. This is one way to do that, and to do it at the time that he so desperately wants something to go down at," Lauren concluded her pitch with a self-satisfied smile on her face.

No doubt due to her power she already knew how everyone was going to respond.

As far as it went, I didn't really need to spend much time considering the deal. I wanted to convince them all that it was a terrible idea. A robbery like this could backfire and get me arrested, or even worse, a bystander could get hurt or even killed.

"I still don't like this," Greave said with a sigh before I could pipe up. "There's still some major risk at play. We'll be hitting one of the most well-defended areas in the entirety of the community, and we're going to be guaranteed to fight at least some of the Juniors. That's a lot."

"But?" Lauren asked, dragging the word out as if she knew Greave wasn't done talking.

"But… The gear in that vault would seriously help us out, especially with a crafter on the team. Plus, it really would get our name out there and give us some real cash to work with," He said, each word sending my stomach further and further into my shoes. "I think… yeah… It might be worth that risk."

Lauren turned to Allen, who simply shot her a thumbs up. Becca was never going to say no, and nodded at the other girl.

Then she turned toward me, and I had no choice but to agree.