xp_logs | No Pryor Convictions: The Pinch

Our fearsome foursome splits up to foil Avalanche's plan. Let's go steal us a bank robber.

Doug and Wade delay the silent alarm to get the innocent victim out of the vault. She's not quite so grateful as they might hope...

Doug closed his laptop. "All right, I've delayed the silent alarm, which should give us just enough time to get in, get this girl out, and make scarce before the five-oh arrive. They'll get here, find Avalanche, and send him up the river." He would have rather pounded on the bank robber, especially since Jubilee was better at B&E than he was, but that would have left him paired off with Marie-Ange. Which was almost certainly a terrible idea. Besides, closer physical access to the bank's systems made things easier for them to cover their tracks.

Wade flexed his fingers, then opened the door of the oh-so-conveniently-unmarked-van they'd borrowed and hopped out. "You have got to stop watching so many South of the Mason-Dixon line type movies, man," he said. "Your metaphors are all kinds of jumbled." Making sure the sleeves of his jacket covered his wrist sheathes, Wade headed for the bank doors, checking over his shoulder as he heard the doors on the van close.

With the silent alarm not yet triggered, and the vault footage showing what Doug had told the system to show, they technically didn't even need to break and enter. Which didn't stop the itchy feeling at the back of Doug's neck as they walked up to the main entrance, bold as brass, and ducked inside.

Maddie was alone.

That dirty rat had left her there as soon as the deed was done. Of course she should have known better than to trust a thief, and she hadn't. But she had trusted that he would stick to the plan enough for her to implement her escape plan. Obviously, she was wrong. The doors were locked, and Maddie was caught on the inside, with the only way out involving a police escort.

Maddie was scared.

Huddled in the darkest corner she could find, the young girl trembled. She was angry, she was afraid. Her heart beat furiously, her palms were sweaty, and there were tears in her eyes. Were her parents dead or alive, she wondered. Would she ever see them again? Had she known she would end up in a dark bank vault, her arrest inevitable, Maddie would have tried on every single one of those dresses without complaint. She wouldn't have walked away. Prison, she imagined, was far worse than any dressing room.

Maddie was not alone.

The sound of footsteps reached her ears. They were not urgent or numerous enough to be a police team. Perhaps the universe had decided to grant her a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. More likely, her "partner" had decided to have her killed after all. And she wasn't going to give up and accept death. Oh no.

Maddie was going to run.

Wade paused in the doorway of the vault, eyes narrowing for a moment. He didn't see the kid right off, but he figured she had to be in there somewhere. Taking a flashlight out of one of his jacket pockets, he clicked it on and directed the light toward the darker corners. Spotting that gleam of red hair, he paused with the beam of light pointing somewhere near the kid's shoulder. "C'mon, kid - today's your lucky day. I give it about two minutes before my friend here's delay gives out and the silent alarm starts going on, so that's two minutes for us to get out already." He used his free hand to indicate Doug as the younger man walked up beside him.

Doug came up beside Wade just as the beam of the flashlight showed enough of the girl's face. He could see her body language, the trembling of every muscle like a rabbit about to bolt. And then he saw the resolve to run cross her face.

"Oh, crap."

Drawn out like a mouse in hiding, Maddie bolted toward the door. A straight shot blocked, she would have to choose which of the two men she wanted to face. The man with the flashlight wouldn't want to be slowed down by something so clunky, so he would drop it, and the delay, however slight it may be, would be hopefully enough for her to get passed him. And that was a chance Maddie was willing to take.

She went for it - Wade had been pretty sure she would, but he was always a fan of hedging his bets a bit. Still, he was ready when she bolted for the door, moving faster than Doug would have been able to thanks to his enhanced reflexes. Catching her with one arm wrapping around the front of her shoulders, forearm resting against her collarbones, he said, "Not a good idea, kid." This was almost a sleeper hold, but Wade would never do that to a scared little girl, so he just kept his arm loose and steered her toward the door. "Out we go - less than - "

Incisors and canines sunk into his flesh with as much force as Maddie could manage. She didn't relish the possibility of tasting blood, but it was worth it if it would help loosen the hold on her. Freedom was only a few steps away; she had not come so close just to fail now.

"Ow - motherf- ow," Wade said, keeping his voice down even as he yanked his arm out from between Maddie's teeth. He ignored the stinging pain for a moment, knowing it would bruise and then go away fairly quickly, and just picked the girl up in a fireman's carry. "Sorry, kid. C'mon, Doug - little thing bit me. We've got what? Less than a minute until the cops show? Jesus. Ow. Seriously, kid," Wade directed that to the form now struggling on his shoulder. "We aren't the bad guys here, we're trying to keep you from getting a permanent criminal record." He was already striding toward the main doors. It wasn't like she was being ungrateful, though. She had no idea who they were and was absolutely terrified. "I'm sorry for all this, we'll explain it once we're away from the bank."

Doug checked his watch. "...three...two...one..." At zero, the alarms which Doug had kept at bay came on. "Average response time from the precinct is ninety seconds." He tossed a half-smile that was intended to be at least a little reassuring at the girl who was still struggling under Wade's grip. "We're not the bad guys," he told her, reinforcing Wade's statement.

The protests continued, her arms and legs flailing all the while. "Let me go you big oaf," she cried out, ignoring the attempts to subdue her using words. Like that would help. Please. Robbing a bank and being left there to get locked up in the clink made Maddie antsy.And now she was being kidnapped by two random guys. She had faced enough "stranger danger" for the rest of her life. Which she hoped would be more than the next couple of minutes. "You better not fart either. This day has been bad enough without having to relive your double bacon chili cheese dog, or whatever you had. Just let me go," she ordered. "Let. Me. Go." Loop an arm around the girl's knees to keep her from kicking him somewhere important, Wade shifted her on his shoulder so she wouldn't squirm right off and then made a beeline for the van. Vans were pretty much suspicious no matter what, but especially outside the scene of a crime - and especially outside a bank that had just been robbed. "Beans, beans, the magical fruit," he sing-songed, poking at the kid's calf just enough to get her attention as he said, "I had onions on my hot dog. And like three Reese's peanut butter trees because Douglas, here, is a saint among men. We're not letting you go because if we do, the cops'll get you like that idiot who was supposed to be in charge of your operation intended for them to. Our partners are taking care of him to make sure he gets collared, so just calm down and maybe well give you a Reese's peanut butter tree, too."

Doug felt a familiar tickle at the back of his mind, which quickly dissipated. He guessed it was probably hard to concentrate on telepathy when you were a) new to your powers, and b) slung over Wade's shoulder. "Seriously. Reese's trees and pizza." And a quick phone call to the mansion...

"All right, let's get out of here, he said, as Wade hopped in the back of the very nice midnight-blue van with the girl, and he hopped behind the wheel and drove away at a normal speed as several police cars came around the corner at the opposite end of the block, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Marie-Ange and Jubilee handle Avalanche himself, and leave the NYPD a little early Christmas present.

Marie-Ange glanced up at the roof of the building across from the parked van she was sitting in and tried to make out one shadowy figure among all the other shadows. It was not successful, but she knew Jubilee was up there... somewhere. "Hummingbird, do you see our target? He is not in the front entrance of the bank. Cypher and uh, Jedi Tacos just picked up the package." It was a secure line, but she had to admit, sometimes obfuscated conversations were fun.

"I see him, looks like he's around back," Jubilee noted, moving along the roof line to get a better view of their target. "Any particular ideas, or do we just jump him and beat him half to death?"

"I rather like that second thing you said." Marie-Ange set the parking brake on the van, and got out, pulling up the hood on her jacket "Perhaps only a quarter to death. It is too cold to stay out long enough for extra violence. I would rather go get a hot cocoa after." She slipped across the street and into the alley that led to the back of the building. "My treat, if you take point."

"I see you've learnt the way to my 'doing of things you want me to do'," Jubilee noted with an amused tone, she slithered down the side of the building, using holds on one of the down spouts and a conviently placed window ledge to get into position before she paused a moment, waiting for Marie-Ange to get closer. "Say when, dude."

Marie-Ange made a little wave with her hand and then pulled a pair of cards from her pocket; one baseball card, a catcher from the Blue Jays that had won some record or another, and one of her tarot cards. They were tucked into the sleeve of her jacket. "Whenever you are ready. You are steadier on your feet than I am, after all."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," Jubilee noted, and then launched herself from the building , feet pushing against Avalanche's back as she landed, before she was moving again, a backflip performed smoothly as she landed a foot away from her quarry. "So, hi there,"

The robbery had gone perfectly, and Avalanche had been a little too busy counting the take in his head, and picturing the expression the ginger brat would have on her face when the cops came busting in. Granted, he wasn't much on noticing stealthy people, but he'd been distracted, and so was taken completely by surprise. He staggered forward, barely keeping his balance. He thrust his free hand behind him and lashed blindly with his powers, enough to shake whoever it was behind him off their feet, and shake a bit of dust from the walls enclosing the alley.

Jubilee hadn't been expecting precisely this kind of attack, but she had been expecting funny business of some kind and so the powers usage simply sent her flipping sideways against the wall and back toward the man rather then off his feet. She pushed a foot off his shoulder, before pushing another foot off a dumpster, twisting to land in front of the man, flipping him the bird with a big grin. "Dude, gotta be faster then that."

Petros was still trying to catch up with what was happening. Who the hell was this chick, and what was she doing in the alley? "I'll show you fast," he growled, stomping at the ground and causing the patch of pavement Jubilee was standing on to thrust upward sharply.

"Oh, that was a terrible mistake." Marie-Ange said quietly, from the alleyway entrance. In her hands she carried what looked like a wooden baseball bat, and at a gesture, a man in a blue baseball uniform appeared well in front of her, carrying the same exact bat. The imaged baseball player strode forward, and swung hard and low at Petros' knees. There was a sharp crack as the bat connected, and then the baseball player and the bat disappeared into puddles of ectoplasm.

Petros dropped his bag full of the cash from the vault, and clutched at his knee with a grunt that was only just this side of a sharp cry of pain. His leg buckled under his weight, and it was clear that the strike had done serious damage to his knee. He turned, catching sight of Marie-Ange. For a moment, he thought the ginger brat had gotten out of the vault somehow, but then he realized this woman was older. A sister, maybe? Either way, it didn't matter. "Bitch," he spat, turning his power on her instead, several loose bricks shaking loose and tumbling toward her.

"Tsk, tsk," Jubilee said, having allowed herself to be thrown upwards by the jump in the pavement only to do an expertly performed tumble mid-air to land back on her feet in a perfectly stuck landing, Kurt would no doubt have been proud of her. She popped her shades down over her eyes, knowing Marie-Ange would recognise the signal that she was about to use her powers. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

The shield of disks that came up shielded Marie-Ange from the bricks, and she had just enough time as the last brick destroyed her shield to cover her eyes with her arm. Petros had turned around to respond to the taunt, and gotten a face full of incredibly tiny, incredibly intensely bright fireworks right to the face. They left him dazzled, and with tiny pinprick burns on his nose and forehead and cheeks. Temporarily blinded, he fumbled clumsly for the tiny Asian woman, but Jubilee had skipped out of the way already, as Marie-Ange came up behind him and clapped both of her hands over his ears hard.

The blow wasn't quite sharp enough to shatter Petros' eardrums from the air being forced into them, but it did deafen him, and he roared in pain to match the roaring in his ears. He made another swipe around himself, trying to hit one of them, either of them.

Jubilee had taken the break Marie-Ange allowed to pick up a trash can lid, which she now held gripped in both hands as she pushed herself off the alley wall once again. Using the momentum granted to her by the push, she swung the lid in an arc, the end of which connected with their assailant's head.

Avalanche had only time for one thought before unconsciousness took him. ~Goddamn gingers.~

"That was fast..." Marie-Ange mused after she and Jubilee had dumped Avalanche into the dumpster. She pulled a older-style clunky cell phone from her pocket. She tapped out 9-1-1 on the pad. When the operator answered, she reported "Some kind of fight or something, I think someone got shot!" at their approximate address, using a slightly nasal American accent, and a panicked tone. She hung up before the operator could ask her name, and dropped the phone back in her pocket. "I need you to melt the phone when we get back to the van. I have a bucket for it." She said, and tucked her hands into her pockets. "One too many times using that phone as a burner, I think... what are you doing?" She said, as Jubilee ducked back into the alley.

"Just give me a sec, I'm creating history," Jubilee replied, pulling on a set of gloves before she pulled out a piece of paper and hastily scrawled a note and a small graphic. She paused for a moment to look over the body, and then making a decision, placed the note upon the downed man's forehead, sticking it in place with a piece of duct tape. "There, now for the picture for Doug."

"Please be fast, we have perhaps 45 seconds before the police arrive." Marie-Ange said, somewhat unnecessarily. She heard the click, and then Jubilee emerged from the alley, and the pair calmly got into the rented van, and drove away. As they turned onto a side-street, Marie-Ange saw the flashing lights of the police car coming around the bend.

"What the hell are you doing with that note?" an older policeman asked his younger partner as the man bent down to pull the small scrap of paper off the trussed-up Petros.

"Taking it home. You think the feds need to see that, Lennie? They'll get all crosseyed wondering if it's real or not." The partner smirked. "Sides, my girls love Batgirl."