The Morning Of The Week Of

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[10:38 a.m.]

Biefurt Eternal Trust.

The only bank within the Tri-state area that houses hundred of tons of unmarked gold bars of various international businesses. There was at least 10 billion dollars' worth of gold sitting on the third sub-basement of the establishment, so it was almost public knowledge that the bank had one of the tightest security in the country.

"Can that skirt be any tighter, Seline?" A middle-aged man in an expensive mustard yellow suit leered at a younger redheaded woman. His hair was precariously slicked back as he removed his sunglasses, revealing his bloodshot eyes.

Twenty war mercenaries fresh from the Al-Sayyid Sultanate civil war patrolled the bank 24/7, almost a hundred CCTV's covering every inch of the place, ten automated wall-mounted machine guns placed in various hallways, and a two-foot thick chromium alloy walls and doors encasing the main vault. It would seem improbable to break into the place and steal its content. At least that's what Robert Biefurt, acting-manager and son of the Eternal Trust Holding's vice-president, thought.

He would've never guessed that when he opened the bank to let his employees in this morning, ten fully armed men would join them. He still remembered the icy feeling of a sub-machine gun on the back of his head. They were wearing sleek metal suits lined with small, long, purple liquid-filled tubed snaking from their legs and hands to a square metal bulge on their back. Their blank metallic mask were resistant to bullets, much to the mercenaries' chagrin.

He watched as the group of ten robbers split into two; five of whom rounded up the other employees and prepared for a defensive battle with the police. The other five grabbed him to head deeper into the bank and into the staircase to the elevator.

"Heads-up, fucker!" A stinging pain in the back of his head brought Robert to his senses as a robber butted his ear with a gun. His thick eyebrows and round brown eyes were wet with sweat. The mind-breaking hangover he was experiencing intensified as the robbers dragged him by the scuff of his collar.

"O-okay... l-look... I know what you want... the gold, right?" His eyes darted around the group as they solemnly led him inside the elevator. "You don't get it, man. You only saw a 10 guards on the upper floor. Bank protocol placed the guard's lounge on the same floor as the main vault. You enter that floor and they'll shoot you like target practice."

"Shut the fuck up!" The man who hit him shouted. He then pressed the B-3 button.

"Fucker. Grab your key-card and enter the code. No sudden movement. No mistakes. You have 5 seconds. We hear something wrong, then our guys upstairs will kill your assistant. You know the one... with the pretty face and tight skirt." His menacing voice demanded, making sure that Robert was looking at him and only him, then he continued, "Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes!" He hastily nodded. Swiping the key-card onto the screen, then typing out a passcode. One that activates the elevator and sends a silent signal to their corporate office about the robbery.

As soon as the screen confirmed the code, Robert sighed in relief, "It's done".

He then turned around and saw all five robbers looking at him with their leader, pointing his sidearm at him.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Shouldn't have done that." Robert could hear the smirk on the leader's face as he pulled the trigger.

Bang!

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[10:22 a.m. Jacques' Delightful Shears.]

Bang!

"What do you mean, it doesn't fit anymore?" A lithe man with a French accent pointed his shears at his customers. Confusion, annoyance, and anger coloring his delicate face.

Jacques Bissonte was supposedly a tailor of great skill. His motto; We shear therefore we're sheer, arrogantly announced his artful deftness, as well as his innate stubbornness to learn proper English idioms. Yet a woman who clearly didn't know how to control her weight was ruining his reputation.

"I know. I know." The black-haired customer merely chuckled and put up his hands in defeat, "Mishka said that the waist gets a little tight every time she bends. We just don't want it to be ripped mid-way. Please?"

"Hmph! Fine. But I expect compensation, Anthony!" Jacques reluctantly agreed and merely gave out a condition. He then took the dress from the man and went into the back of his rather small shop.

"Yes. Yes." The man named Anthony just sighed and followed Jacques.

Anthony Fresco. A hero that goes by the codename Crimson Bandit. He had gotten lucky and met the love of his life, Elaine Muller. In just three years, they had gone from budding friends to flirting best-friends to intimate lovers to nervous betrothed. Thomas Sydermann, a friend of Anthony, would wed them a week from now. A dream come true, really. The other kids at his boarding school had often teased him about his lack of family; no parents, sibling, or even a relative came for him all those lonely years, but now he was going to fix that. A family of him, for him, and by him.

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[10:18 a.m. Jacques' Secret Hangar.]

Though from the outside Jacques' Delightful Shears was quite small and not nearly enough for a man of such renown, the back offered much more to its customers.

A large hangar filled with dozens of tailoring machineries moving on its own. Measuring, cutting, drawing, and sewing bits and pieces of suits. One could even see a large forge on the west, where they smelted a few lithium bars. They then forged it into long thin plates only to be sewn in-between fabrics. Workers on break smoking near a barrel of synthetic oil; a no-smoking sign behind them like the most crimson of red flags.

"Tell me, Mon gros... how goes the wedding preparation?" Jacques' amused smile betrayed his indifferent tone. His hand moving around the workplace, taking fabrics and other materials.

"Eh. So-so. I'm basically a runner for Eli now." Anthony answered.

"Hah! Regret not hiring a wedding planner yet?" Jacques scoffed as he flicked a toggle that lit up a corner of the hangar.

Anthony merely chuckled in reply. His eyes darting around the enormous hangar and its content. He could see top-of-the-line industrial machines in a room creating what seems to be a full body suit.

"Not as much as creating a BDSM factory." Anthony said, his brow quivering in hidden mirth.

Jacques turned around as they reached the farthest room in the hangar and threw scissors at Anthony in annoyance. The scissors seemed to have a life of its own as it aimed for Anthony's vital organs.

"Damn! I was just kidding." Anthony defended himself from the scissors. His hands swatting its blade while the handle flew around his body, looking for a kink in his defense. It finally saw one as Anthony shouted for mercy; aiming for the nape of his neck.

Tang!

A sharp metallic sound ringed as Anthony grabbed the scissor that was inches away from his nape. It wriggled in contention as he tightened his grip; the scissors vibrated until he broke it in two.

Anthony rolled his eyes and nodded towards the room. "Enough. Can you just remedy the dress?"

"Hmph! Fine. Give me a few minutes..." Jacques opened the door of the room and went inside, leaving Anthony alone to his thoughts and the broken scissors.

His gaze roamed around the place and settled on the red marks on his hands. It wouldn't form any bruise, nor would it be permanent, yet Anthony saw it as a big sign. For the first time in his life, he experienced fear. The fear of...

Bang! Bang!

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[10:51 a.m. Biefurt Eternal Trust.]

A dozen police cruisers surrounded the three-storied bank. The bank's door was being bombarded by almost hundreds of bullet every minute as the police and the robbers exchange fires. Five officers have already died and many more are getting injured. S.W.A.T. tried to rush in, only to get blown up by the high-powered portable missile launcher. Their entrails were still hot on the pavement.

Lieutenant Henry McCuish already requested for reinforcement from the mayor yet, to his dismay, they would arrive late. He could see the robbers further fortifying the bank. He grunted as they took out an expanding bullet-resistant foam bag and put it on the doors.

Lt. McCuish sat inside his truck drinking his latte and his everything bagel. Someone robbing Biefurt City's namesake bank was not an everyday occurrence. Especially when Mayor Linda just got reelected for her 3rd term.

Ting!

He checked the notification on his phone as he ate the last of his bagel.

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[From: Mayor L]

[Finish this fast!]

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"Well. Time for the big guns!" He said as he finished his coffee. He opened his glove box and took out a cylindrical device. An OmniSyde military grade Ultrex Flashbang. He recieved it as a gift from a highschool friend who used to work in OmniSyde Incorporated. In fact, he was offered to take more than one item seeing as boxes upon boxes of unpened OmniSyde products lay rotting in the friend's garage, buy he declined considering the way his friend's way of acquisition.

"Is all this shit worth your wife getting banged by Syde Step?" He muttered as he step out of his truck. He whistled for his men to stand down and slid flashbang towards the S.W.A.T.'s corpses.

The device emitted a green light; mesmerizing everyone in the vicinity until it detonated and launched a green flare high-up in the air. As it reached the clouds, the flare exploded with a pulse that colored the cloud green. While the green flare momentarily distracted the robbers from shooting, the resulting explosion from the device pushed the foam bags deep inside the bank, leaving the door open.

Boom!

"I guess it is!" He acknowledged, impressed by the device. He then took out his bullhorn from his car.

"Fuck 'em up! Don't worry about collateral." The lieutenant barked. The police soon swarmed in as the gunfight that livened up the streets of Biefurt went inside the bank.

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[10:45 a.m. The Powered Clubhouse. Alkatech Office.]

Ting! Ting!

Elizabeth Blackhart was enjoying her Jasmine tea in her corner office when the emergency bell rang on her phone. Since only the mayor, chief-of-police, and the regional director of the North American Protectorate Guild have access to the alarm bell, she assumed the police couldn't handle the Biefurt robbery and now needed the grown-ups to deal with their mess. And a mess it is, the robbery had national news ten minutes ago and it wouldn't take long for international media to report the crime causing foreign investors, specifically those who invested in the city, to drop their investments.

Elizabeth sighed, putting the tea down on her coffee table. She went to a bookshelf on the corner of her office and pulled the fifth volume of the encyclopedia, the dust blew free as metal sheets rolled down the windows of her office, closing it off to any gawkers bystanders outside the building or 'Elephant Ears' Ellisandra. The shelf then gently rumbled and flipped to the side, revealing a depression which contained a decoy model clad in her Alkatech costume. It was the standard Protectorate Guild uniform with her own embellishment. A sleek black jumpsuit, fashioned from a synthetic fiber produced by a special silkworm bred by the Avian Society. Purple tubes lined the sides of her suit that led to a large violet backpack filled with a liquid. Neon blue strobe lights accented the seams of her suit, a fact which generated hundreds of civilian complaints about epilepsys and mental health. Hogwash, for all she cares.

"Can't say I miss you, love." She caressed the suit with a wistful look. A few years ago, she would've donned this suit and get to work. But these days, the only work she does was through hounding her ex-husband. She chuckled as she remembered him, but another ring of the emergency bell brought her out of her revelry. The situation must be getting tenser, so she took out her phone and read the messages.

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[From: Mayor Loser]

[What the fuck are you still sitting on your asses!!! deal with the robbery at Biefurt bank. I can't have investors pulling out of me rn!]

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"What a bitch." She muttered in contempt as she scrolled further down, not bothering to repl at all. She never did like the bitch, reminded her far too much of people at her home; corrupt, entitled, and whiny. Even though the Powered Club works with the government and all of its affliated agencies, their main contractor was still the North American Protectorate Guild, Biefurt city, and Mayor Linda, was just hiring them on case-to-case basis. Shaking her head in contempt, Elizabeth scrolled to another, far more important, message.

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[From: AG Lockley]

[Please handle the Biefurt Trust robbery ASAP. President's orders. Thanks.]

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"Huh? They must have a stake of the gold in the bank," she mused. If the president had ordered them to finish the job, then someone big enough had a share in the bank, though the decision to not bring in a tactical team directly from Guild proper and just make use of the local group raised an eyebrow out of her.

The other messages were from less important people, so she just deleted them. Withholding a sigh bubbling in her throat, Elizabeth texted her team.

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[To: Club Members]

[Someone rang the bell. Biefurt Trust. Robbery in progress. It's time to work!]

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