Yin & Yang: Criminal Halves

*Ding*

The elevator rumbled against the shaft as it passed another floor. Within were two criminal lovers, endearingly known as "Yin" and "Yang."

"You ready, Yinny?" Leo asked. He'd been loading several red-cased shells into his chrome-plated pump-action shotgun. Snaking across it were specially commissioned silver engravings.

"You bet, baby," Charlotte replied, clipping a magazine into each of her two custom Tec-9 pistols. Beyond the grip and trigger of each was an elongated magazine containing enough rounds to devastate a small platoon of soldiers.

The two eyed the elevator's top right corner and spotted an embedded electronic camera. They didn't bother wearing masks; their true identities were public knowledge anyway.

"Wanna give 'em a show?" Yin flirted with a mischievous smile. She wrapped her arms around Leo's neck, pistols in hand, and pulled herself up to meet his steely gray eyes.

Like her long silky hair, her eyes were black as the voids of space. It directly contrasted with her fair, smooth white skin.

She seductively pressed herself against Leo.

Her soft breasts pushed into his toned chest, though most of the feeling was dulled by his and her body armor. Still, the contact accelerated their heartbeats above the standard resting rate.

Charlotte always liked teasing Leo in any way possible. It was something she found the highest joy from.

Leo was used to her antics, so he only chuckled. Being watched wasn't ideal for him, but he couldn't help wanting to honor his adorable wife's wishes.

He leaned down to meet his lover's advances, and the two placed their lips together to share a passionate kiss. They wrapped their arms around each other, their tongues dancing and swirling together.

Her luscious and cherry lips became a sweetened trap from which Leo's instinct wouldn't let him escape. After having her so close, Leo's nose was permeated by the sweet scent of lilac, Charlotte's favorite flower.

He'd been utterly enthralled by his wife.

Like the elevator, their body heat rose ever higher, fueled by excitement and passion. But their affections were interrupted when the elevator stuttered.

The lights flickered, and the elevator jerked; it was the security's attempt to shut it down. Unfortunately for them, Leo hired a renowned hacker, 8-Bit, to override the building's infrastructure.

As quickly as the interference started, it subsided.

"You're welcome." A grainy deep voice said over each of the two's earpieces. "You two better make it out of this."

"Oh...and keep it in your pants; I can see you. We're here for money, not a strip show." Following was a sharp "click" of the earbuds being muted.

*Ding*

Hearing the elevator pass by another floor and 8-Bit's complaints, the two unwillingly ended their embrace. But, before Charlotte could pull away, Leo leaned in close, nibbled her ear, and whispered, "I love you, Yinny."

Charlotte's heart skipped a beat, and her cheeks tinted a rosy red, but the moment was ruined by another elevator stutter.

"Awww... Well," Charlotte pouted, "guess we'll save the rest for later." She winked at Leo and turned toward the elevator's door, raising her dual pistols to the ceiling.

Leo chuckled again, then pointed to the camera. "You think he's seen enough?"

"Mmhmm," Charlotte hummed with a smile. She spun back toward Leo, flourishing the red dress she wore under her pink-hued body armor.

Leo took the butt of his gun and smashed the camera. The glass layering it fragmented off, exposing the sparking live wires and circuitry beneath.

Leo unzipped and dug through the duffel bag strapped to his side. He pulled his hand free, revealing two thin but long steel cylinders fitted with locking pins.

"Oooooh, getting a bit excited?" Charlotte asked.

"You know me, Yinny," Leo held up the two flashbangs, "I like to make an entrance," he finished with a fiendish smirk.

The elevator began slowing; they were arriving on the main floor.

"Okay," Leo pumped a shell into his shotgun's chamber, "let's make some money."

*Ding*

After a second delay, the doors slid open, and beyond them was a barrier of a dozen kneeling security guards. The best they had were standard-issue 9mm handguns.

"Where the hell?" a trembling guard questioned. His hands shook furiously as a bead of sweat dripped from his brow. "Where the hell are they?"

The elevator was empty, barring the presence of a few dufflebags on the floor..

The guard captain nodded to a few of his subordinates, sending them to investigate.

The four he sent approached with extreme caution.

Charlotte, or Yin, was one thing. Though she was dangerous, she was just a rich man's runaway daughter.

However, in Leo's case, the man known as Yang was former military. After serving eight years on brutal battlefields, he came home, only to use those skills for crime.

Charlotte improved drastically over time and thanks to Leo's personalized training regimen. Despite that, Leo was still the true terror of the two, capable of easily snapping a man's neck.

A few seconds later, the guards were at the elevator's entrance. Two of them stepped into the empty space, and, to their relief, the fugitive lovebirds were nowhere in sight.

The guards' panic was replaced by a nervous optimism.

One kneeled to check the contents of the duffel bags. Most were empty, except two filled with ammunition and grenades.

"Why're criminals better armed than we are?" the guard griped. He stood up, turned to his captain, and waved the all-clear.

Only it wasn't clear.

The emergency hatch on the elevator's roof flew open, and two pinless flashbangs dropped inside.

*BOOM*

Like a solar flare, the room filled with a blinding white light. The guards, though trained, were rookies in a fight. Having never seen actual combat, they were too slow to react.

Leo and Charlotte dropped down into a room of blinded men.

With his shotgun strapped to his back, Leo needed a weapon. So he locked the turned guard in a chokehold and snagged his 9mm as he dropped it midair.

In the snap of a second, and with two "pops," Leo incapacitated the two guards just outside the doorway.

Charlotte took hold of the final one, pressuring the cold steel of a barrel to his temple. The guard was paralyzed in fear.

"Don't move, sweetie; I'm kinda trigger-happy," Charlotte said with a devilish grin.

"Sh*t!" the captain squeezed his gun's trigger toward an unseen enemy. He still suffered blindness from the grenade, so he couldn't shoot without risking his allies.

"Stop!" Leo ordered. "We want money, not your lives. Don't make us pick." Within his arms was a domesticated guard. He was too afraid to struggle out of worry for his life.

The captain had a decision to make. A decision between his job and his morality. Luckily for the two captured guards, he hadn't lost his morality just yet.

He motioned for a total surrender, and each security member disarmed all the way down to their flashlights.

With the security neutralized and the alarms disabled, courtesy of 8-Bit, Leo and Charlotte had a breeze of a heist.

Within ten minutes, they broke in, corralled the hostages into a locked room, and accessed the vault.

Stacks and stacks of green cash lay within, ripe for the taking. They could almost see their future reflecting off the millions of bills.

Both Leo and Charlotte were overwhelmed by the life-altering sight. With this much cash, this would be their final job. They could live peacefully, out of the country, in some nameless city.

They did all this without a single fatality. Though they weren't afraid to take life, they preferred to avoid it.

Finally, they left the same way they came in, down the hacked elevator. Only this time, their packs were loaded with a fresh start. Enough cash for them to flee the country and live anew.

"That was fantastic, Leo! I'm so excited!" Charlotte squealed in excitement and nuzzled her lover.

Leo raised a hand and affectionately petted the back of Charlotte's head. "It's retirement time, Yinny. You and me, together forever."

Charlotte excitedly nodded, planting a kiss on Leo's muscular neck.

The elevator doors chimed, signaling that they'd been opening to the underground parking lot. It was here where they'd stashed their getaway vehicle.

The plan was for 8-Bit to welcome them into his van and drive them out for a mission well done.

But, he wasn't there with a van.

His green-grey skinned body was motionless on the floor and a hole the size of a fist was blown through the back of his head. Though orcs had resilient bodies compared to other races, that still didn't stop a bullet to, or through, the brain.

The sight of his skull splattered across the ground sent shivers of dread up Charlotte's spine, but she was too stunned to react.

Having years of battle experience, Leo tried reaching for his shotgun to shield Charlotte from danger. But he was stopped by a shadowy figure donning a peculiar mask. One half depicted the face of comedy and the other expressed tragedy.

"Stop, stop, stop, stop," the figure cackled, "You're clearly outnumbered, outgunned, out-... Well, you get the picture... You're f*cked, is the gist of it."

Now standing above 8-Bit's bloodied corpse was a rival crew. A crew led by the chain bank robber infamously known as Larceny.

He peered behind the surprised couple to see the stacks of cash they boasted.

"No hard feelings," he smirked, then snapped his fingers.

Following their boss' order, the rival crew opened fire.

Gunshots crackled throughout the underground parking lot. Every bullet was emphasized by a series of deep echoes.

The bullets shredded through Leo and Charlotte's armor, ripping up their insides.

The two collapsed to the concrete floor, wheezing and coughing up a solution of saliva and blood.

As their life's crimson essence pooled and mixed, Leo and Charlotte crawled frantically toward each other. Their panicked faces, once filled with excitement, were now strained in agony.

Upon reaching one another, they exchanged one last heartfelt embrace.

Their fate was inevitable. Even so, amongst their tears, they found happiness in death. The happiness they'd get from dying in each other's arms.

Leo trembled and brought his wife's lips to meet his. They pressed them together, finalizing the vows they made nearly a decade ago.

Once again, petting his wife's head, one that had gone limp from blood loss, Leo whispered sweetly in Charlotte's ear. He rasped out a single line before succumbing to his wounds.

"Till death do us part, Yinny."

But their journey wasn't over yet... Not by a long shot.