1675/Bank Robbery in Midtown!

Bank Robbery in Midtown!
Date of Scene:	27 July 2017
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	Central Union Bank is being robbed by The Million Dollars.
Thanks to:	Shout out to Trini Kwan for running this.
Cast of Characters:	Yellow Ranger, Wu, Raphael, Punisher, Black Ranger (Taylor)

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Yellow Ranger has posed:
It's been a long day in Manhattan, and there's just a half hour left until Central Union Bank closes for the day. A bank catering to the businessmen and employees who would frequent the district, it's a rather large building - two floors, the top being offices and the bottom being the more public parts, with a large and visible vault in the back, flanked by a pair of tough-looking security guards (not to mention the guards patrolling elsewhere). It seems like an impossible target to rob.

But there's no such thing as 'impossible'. The first strike comes when several canisters shatter the building's windows, pouring smoke into Central Union Bank, as several large black vans pull up, offloading several masked men. Their masks have a theme - people whose face are on currency - and this theme would allow anyone savvy on the local crime circuit to figure out who they are - The Million Dollars, an up-and-coming group of heisters who have been hitting small-name banks around NYC. Central Union Bank is a big step-up for them, and is a sign of them branching into new territory. The robbers are armed with assault rifles, as they pull themselves into the building as the smoke clears, shouting down commands and everyone to put their hands up. A silent alarm is triggered in the background, and one of the security guards moves to lift his gun up...

And finds his gun launched out of his hand, stuck in the wall, with...coins implanted into it? A man in tactical armor, with several padded pockets, and a plain copper-colored mask, with ridged edges, stands in front of him, barking orders to the others, as he shouts out loud. "Alright, here's the deal! Money on the floor, registers opened, and someone crack that damn vault, or I'll start having to get violent. Do you understand?" Nickel. The leader of the Million Dollars, and some sort of superhuman. The police likely can't deal with this...

Are there heroes who can?

Wu has posed:
    It's been a couple of months since the move to the east coast and to Gotham. Life's just been too hectic for sight-seeing. Today's the damned day, now. No excuses. No interruptions. Phone set silent. And to airplane mode for good measure. The battery would be removed too if modern phones didn't specifically prevent that. Nothing is going to interfere with Alice's rubbernecking in New York proper today!
    Tall buildings ... well, OK, taller than at home, but somehow ... kind of boring. Ooh.
    Boring, grid-layout streets. Like the world's dullest architect was given an island and told to 'go crazy' so he dared ... two diagonals! Ah.
    New York hospitality. OK, that is actually kind of interesting to watch.
    Shopping. On a cop salary? Are you nuts?
    Window shopping. BINGO! That's actually fun, and it's fascinating to compare the radical difference between the tight, windy, Hong Kong streets and their plethora of shops and department stores mixed together and Manhattan's antiseptic and well-regulated world. Woohoo!
    And a bank robbery. Yay.
    Alice lets out a small oath consisting of a very bad Cantonese word and calls up 911. "Gotham PD Detective Gulliver, bank robbery at ... uh ... Central Union Bank if I'm reading this right. Heavily armed suspects. At least one metahuman. Am proceeding to observe and possibly engage. You'd better send the metaSWAT."
    Alice ruffles in her pockets for a sheaf of rice papers, selecting two, one of which she crumples and swallows, the other of which she crumples and palms. Two handguns practically sprout from her hands in a well-practiced quickdraw as she jockies for position from cover, trying to get a good glimpse of, and potential shot at, the leading figures.

Raphael has posed:
    "Raph, wait!"
    "No, let him go, My Son."

You could almost predict the fights, every week or so it seemed. There's be a mission that went wrong or a arguement and Raphael would storm out. A lot of the time, it would lead to him getting into trouble and needing to be bailed out. Sometimes the situation was reversed. Others, he vented his frustration on some unexpecting mugger or a crew of robbers.

Guess which one of those this time was.

Beneath the city streets, Raphael stalked the sewers, bare feet slapping the ledge along a city 'stream'. He was pulled up short by a chirp coming from one of the pouches at his belt. Pulling his turtle-phone free, he thumbed past the lock-screen of himself and Slash and checked in on Donnie's app. It intercepted the silent alarm, patched in and monitoring local security networks.

A quick reroute later and a manhole cover behind the bank shifted in it's spot, metal grating against metal and then against asphalt as it was lifted and then pushed aside

This was hairier than his usual bit of exercise. He had only taken a cursory look through the security camera feed... But Raph was young, dumb, and confident. He was a Ninja, how bad could it go?

Emerging into the early evening, Raph quickly scaled the building with the aid of a grappeling hook. In moment's he'd gain access to the elevator shaft.

Punisher has posed:
Very early on in his career, Frank Castle broke into and stole a parked patrol car's radio -- he's in fact acquired several others since then through various means, each time updating or replacing that first stolen model at every opportunity. The current radio is actually quite fresh and mounted in the console of his van, a black, sturdy affair with a matte finish that he just so happens to be cruising in when the police report on the silent alarm comes through.

Castle's normally dispassionate face folds into an angry frown as he listens in, waiting only for the location to be repeated before he swerves out of the standstill traffic, into a nearby side street, and starts barreling his way to the bank.

When he arrives, he parks in the bordering alley, hops out, and yanks open the back doors of his van with a quiet squeek to reveal a legitimate mobile armory. With a grim set face, he selects a Mossberg 500 Tactical, a pair of Heckler & Koch 9mms, a kevlar vest, and handful of assorted grenades before slamming the doors shut and moving off towards the rear entrance.

Black Ranger (Taylor) has posed:
"... I hate New York."

Those are the mutters that come from one Zack Taylor as he's shoved into the pile of customers that just happened to be in the bank at this particular moment. Of course he'd have the worst luck and be stuck inside a bank that's being robbed on yet another one of his random visits to New York City. He really needs to stay in Angel Grove. Branching out like this is really starting to become a pain in his butt.

Then again, there's no place in the world like New York. Except maybe Tokyo. Or Vancouver. Vancouver passes for New York a lot.

Anyway, Zack had his phone out and was in the middle of Livestreaming his New York Adventures when all this stuff went down. Granted, he wasn't about to just stop recording because that would be insane. His hands go up with everyone else's and he makes sure to keep the camera side out while he sticks close to the back of the pile of bank customers that are likely going to quickly become hostages.

Yeah, New York sucks.

Yellow Ranger has posed:
And there are, infact, heroes ready to handle this. And the robbers aren't expecting the response they'll get. There's a few of them - Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin, and Hamilton, and they've all split up to slightly different roles, as Nickel grabs the bank manager as he tries to make an escape, pinning his shoe to the floor with another coin. The manager is forced towards the vault, as the leader leans against the back of the staircase, watching.

The man in the Franklin mask is stepping over the hostages, pocketing their stuff, when he spots Zack Taylor with his camera phone. Grunting, Franklin moves over to the teenager, shouting at him. "Hey, you, what do you think you're doing? Drop the phone!" The robber moves to try and grab the phone with one of his free hands, using the other to hold his rifle to the side. Which means he's distracted.

In the back office on the first floor, next to the rear exit, Lincoln's raiding the cabinets, looking for vault codes or keys. He's facing the door, but his head is down in a cabinet, as he mutters. "Goddamn, why do I always get the boring parts?" The Punisher has the drop.

The elevator is only for two floors, but the shaft is likely the most stealthy approach, as no one's using it. It's currently on the second floor, but the hatch could easily be cracked open, allowing access to the elevator (and the open door button)...which will lead straight to Hamilton on the second floor, moving between offices.

Also on the main floor are Washington and Jefferson, guarding the rest of the hostages and watching the entrance. Jefferson appears to be talking to someone over a frequency, while Washington moves towards the door for a second, as the police sirens are already blaring. It's that second that Alice manages to get her shot off - the first shot - hitting Washington in the chest and knocking him to the ground. There's a string of curses from Jefferson, who shouts something angrily into his comm, as all of the robbers move to take a glance at the front, Jefferson himself firing a string of shots from his rifle at Alice's position, and Nickel begins moving away from the manager, climbing up over the staircase. "So, it seems the show's begun."

Yellow Ranger has posed:
Outside, SWAT's on the way, but as they approach...a second van pulls up, and more men with guns pull out, using it as cover. Reinforcements of some sort? The first van begins pulling back into an alley, moving to go around the building. It seems they have some sort of plan!

Raphael has posed:
D    Raph was happy to find the elevator. Otherwise it was going to be air ducts... and shells were not friends of tight, confined spaces. The adolescent reptile works on the breaking part of breaking and entering, prying open the service hatch on the roof. Are there service hatches on rooves for two-story elevators...? We'll say yes, yes they are. His sais make it a simple chore, jimmying the modest lock and then swinging the hatch wide open on weather worn, squeeking hinges. Maybe there's another alarm, who knows? Not Raph, that's for certain, he's busy with slipping down those scant few feet past the primary motor for the elevator and then making his way through the rescue hatch. He was just about to skip the second floor when he hears, somehow, some commotion beyond the doors...U

Pressin g the siode of his head to the door, Raph listens with his keen, turtle ears... No whimpering or begging but the sound of someone making a mess. It could have been twenty people through that door. Raph couldn't help it. He pressed a thick, green finger to the 'Open' button and quickly bounced from one side of the elevator to the other, scaliong upwards by kicking off of the walls until he managed top brace himself against the elevator's cieling, hands and feet wedged against the walls to anchor him in place and give the illusion of the door having opened by itself with that tell-tale DING.

Wu has posed:
    Alice takes her shot and dives for cover, anticipating the return fire. From behind the car she crumples up the previously-prepared rice paper and flicks it to the front of the bank. The guns then get pointed skyward at a slight angle left and right. She kneels, head bowed, eyes closed, and fires a fusilade into the air. Nine rounds in each magazine. One round fired. That leaves 17 to go. 25 bullets go shooting into the air. 25 bullets twist in flight like guided missiles, orienting on their targets as they file supersonically through the open door Jefferson's rifle is chattering through. 25 bullets fan outward, striking weapons, body armour, and in Jefferson's case, a knee.
    A bit of revenge for shooting back, that.
    "Bang, bang, you're dead," Alice smiles from behind the car.
    The new van ... Another very, very, very bad word, followed by a second, is expelled from Alice's mouth.
    "Shoulda saved some of the trick bullets," she mutters. Oh well, it's time to bring da ruckus.

Punisher has posed:
Castle doesn't even bother trying the door. Chances are high that'd it'd have been locked before the heist, and almost definitely locked afterwards to keep out the cops. Instead, he makes sure his shotgun's loaded and ready, takes a small step back and leans on his back foot, counts to three quietly, then rushes the door with all his might, hoping the lock was weaker than his bodycheck.

When the door swings open, he spots Lincoln, pauses for a fraction of a second in surprise, then rushes forward to try and tackle the man and jam one powerful forearm into his throat to cut off any noise, while his other hand tries to pry off his mask. He looks around for some duct tape, but only finds simple scotch tape nearby. With a curse, he looks back down to the man, considers him for a moment, then takes out a grenade and attempts to shove it in his mouth and tape the pin to the man's cheek. "Better consider your next words carefully," Frank growls in a low, menacing tone as he works, "Because they'll be the last. Stay quiet, and you might just keep your head pretty enough to have an open casket."

Yellow Ranger has posed:
As Raphael opens the door, scaling and tricking up to the ceiling, Hamilton glances away from the firefight to take a look. "The hell?" Stepping inside, briefly, he begins pointing his gun around, before turning to look at the buttons. "Are they busted, or something?" He's totally clueless...

The door is no trouble for someone like Frank Castle. Lincoln glances up at him when the door is busted open, but luckily for the Punisher, the surprise lasts longer than his, and he's able to subdue the heister, who tries to struggle against him futilely, his mask being ripped off and revealing a man probably in his twenties. As the grenade is stuffed into his mouth, his eyes widen, glancing up at the vigilante and then towards his cheek as best as he can. They're pleading eyes. He won't have the composure to last more than a few minutes at most, looking at him. Out from the office Castle is in, he can get cover and a good look at the rest of what's going on.

And then Alice gets into a gun fight. One that she totally has the edge on, her bullets moving precisely for their targets - Washington's gun is disabled while he's down, Franklin finds his knocked out of his hand, barely, and Jefferson crumples halfway to the floor, shots going wide through the windows as he accidentally presses on the trigger, piling into Alice's car. Nickel also gets several shots in his armor...but besides some staggering, he doesn't seem to be affected. In fact, he laughs, as out of the shots where he was impacted, coins begin spilling out - and into the air. "Nice shot! Why don't you come out and reveal yourself, though?" There's a glance at the bank manager, and also at the SWAT cars that are starting to pull up. "But we're also going to need to hurry this up."

The floating coins are probably in the hundreds, and begin hovering around Nickel, before starting to fire off - primarily at Alice, as she's the only one to reveal herself, with the rest being used as some sort of makeshift shield. When they fly at Alice's car, they pierce through the metal, like bullets, but they're nothing more than nickels, just like his name. After a pause, several dozen more of the nickels floating around him begin flying towards the vault, and start grinding into the door. It's pretty slow, but it's making enough progress to not be futile...he's going to cut through the door!

The reinforcements outside, meanwhile, begin slamming through the windows. Two more guys in masks go inside, while one starts hunting for Alice's car, and any others try and hold off the SWAT.

Wu has posed:
    "Bring da ruckus," Alice breathes to herself, standing up and, like a living, breathing John Woo protagonist, drops the magazines from her weapons and slams in new ones in a smooth, well-practiced (and to be honest, ever so slightly-magically-enhanced) movement.
    "This is a citizen's arrest!" she calls out as she walks from behind the car, through the hail of bullets--and ... nickels?--directed at her. Her 'ladies' bark, vomiting lead and smoke as she takes alternating shots with each hand, aiming each at a perp until down, then moving to the next.
    This is all so John Woo looking it should be in slo-mo, but isn't. All that's missing is the cloud of doves. The pigeons thundering up from the little resting area/park at the corner will do in a pinch though.
    Woo factor: 80%.
    "Come out with your hands up or I will start blowing your heads off, not your hands."

Raphael has posed:
    There is gunfire aplenty, the sound of grinding metal and just so much noise that is not PG-13 laser fire or blasters.

Yet, through out all of this, Raphael must quip.

"Hey buddy,"

A poause for the expected look to catch sight of the man-sized (maybe slightly shorter than 'man-sized') turtle with a red mask...

You know, to keep his identity secret.

"goin' down?"

He drops from above, working his fists in with great aplomb! Trying to swiftly usher the presidential bandit into the warm, black embrace of unconciousness where he will not have to feel the beating that the turtle is dealing out until he wakes up once more.

Punisher has posed:
With a soft pat to the cheek in parting, Castle roughly grabs a fistful of Lincoln's shirt and rolls him on his side to ziptie his wrists together and then haul him to his feet. After a brief weapons check, Frank lays the barrel of the shotgun on Lincoln's shoulder, shoves him forward so he's standing in front of him, and grabs another handful of his collar so he acts as a human shield. "Try not to twitch," he growls, then shoves hard to start leading Lincoln out straight past all that plentiful cover and into the open and the gunfight.

Immediately, Frank draws a bead on the nearest perp that's still moving or armed, and pulls the trigger with an explosive report. The second he sees results, he moves on to the next one, the whole time attempting to keep poor Lincoln between him and any return fire.

Yellow Ranger has posed:
Breaking into the vault is going to be pretty unlikely, now that everyone's bringing out their A-Game - Alice moves straight like a hero out of an action movie, shots missing her due to 'luck', while her own shots start homing in, taking out the guy who was trying to sneak up on her, as well as finally putting Jefferson down. One of the two guys who burst in through the window drops to his knees, putting his hands in the air, while the other tries to return fire at Alice.

Frank Castle, meanwhile, has an explosive human shield, one that can't safely be shot. Franklin goes down, and Washington, who starts trying to get back on his feet, finds himself returning face down, just with a bit less face. Lincoln practically whimpers against him, unable to move or react due to the fact that if he does, he's going to explode.

Hamilton takes a look up, and pauses briefly at the fact there's a turtle looking at and talking to him. It's the last thing he sees as Raphael drops down, and gives him the peaceful comfort of 'not being conscious', which makes it also very unlikely he'll die today.

With most of his goons taken care of, and the SWAT outside starting to whittle away at the others, Nickel audibly growls from under his mask. The coins start flying again, as he begins moving up the stairs, aiming for an office - it's time to escape. As the coins fly, another handful move to swerve /around/ Alice and try and hit her from behind, while one flies straight for...Lincoln! It slams into his gut, causing him to cough up blood...oh, dear, that's just a few seconds of reaction time for Castle at most. The rest of the coins form around Nickel as a shield, as he moves to dash past the elevator, straight for an office window.

Wu has posed:
    Time to update certain charms. The arcing coins slam into Alice from behind in an attack that is as vicious as it is unexpected. Nickel after nickel slams into her back, impacting like bullets as they hit her leather vest. The vest abrades and scuffs as the last-ditch protection charms flare up and save her from the high energy of the nickels, though they still feel like multiple mules just kicked her in the back. She starts flying forward from the impact, thrown off-balance by the surprise, the pain, and the kinetic energy. The last two nickels penetrate the final layer, edge-on, slicing into the vest, through the blouse beneath, and partially into her flesh, leaving two semicircular metallic mementos of the price of hubris.
    Alice winds up face down, one arm brought in play barely in time to stop her from face-planting in concrete; she cries out in pain and surprise as she hits before that gets cut off by the breath very thoroughly being knocked out of her.

Raphael has posed:
D    A good Ninja always has some spare rope tucked away, Raphael is no exception. He's binding Hamilton's wrist and ankles, all bot popping a ribbon on the robber for later authorities to find.

"One down..." he uttered to himself, looking up when he heard the hurried foot falls of another approaching and then passing the elevator.

The coin-faced man gripped the turtle with momentary confusion before Raphael sprang into motion, coming out of the Elevator and stepping into the open.

Quick thinking and a glance askance showed him his opportunity. He dipped momentarily into a neighboring cubicle, grabbing the back of a office chair and wheeling it out into walk way.

"Hey,. what's your hurry, Pal?!" he barked, bracing his foot against the back of the seat, "Have a seat-" no Turtlke can resist a good pun. This should be self-evident by now. "stay a while!"

With that, he gave the chair a good kick, trying to propell it after the coniving, currency-controling crook

Punisher has posed:
As Lincoln takes a hit to the stomach and coughs up the grenade, the pin still stuck to his cheek, Frank gives a muffled curse and immediately shoves him forward, hoping to drop him on top of the live explosive before Frank plants a boot on his back to keep him in place. Even despite this, he doesn't stop firing at Nickel and his shield, waiting for the loud but muffled and wet sounding...

*BOOM!*

With a grunt, he's knocked backwards onto his ass and a fair bit of fresh blood spattered all over his boots and legs. He looks down, inspecting the mess that was Lincoln with a dispassionate grimace, then groans and rolls over onto his side so he can struggle back to his feet.

Yellow Ranger has posed:
Luckily for Alice, help isn't far away - the SWAT team, having cleared their side, moves up to reinforce her. Always good to call it in, and the guy shooting at her is taken out by the backup.

Lincoln is no longer recognizable, instead being a splatter of human remains. He took one for the team, even if he wasn't part of the team and was being used as a hostage. Castle's shots take Nickel off guard, chiselling through his coin shield, and Nickel's too busy paying attention to them to react to Raphael, who gets another surprise attack. The chair flies into Nickel's legs, sending him flying off the balcony and into the main hall below, where he slumps with a thud as his face racks against his mask (from the sound, it was made of real metal!)

With only a moment before SWAT moves in, what happens to the criminal is up to those 'heroes' who can still react, if they even want to do anything to him. Either way, he's probably not going to be robbing banks anytime soon.

Raphael has posed:
    It would be nice... to go down there and enjoy some congratulations. Recognition... or just to talk to someone that he wasn't going to apply some amature dental work to, someone he hadn't seen the face of every day for 17 years... but thems the breaks.

Dusting his hands, Raphael works his way back into the elevator. It wasn't much but he felt it was enough. Time to go home and have one of those heart felt talks where it seems like things reconcile... only for it to seemingly be forgotten by next week.

Wu has posed:
    Alice spends a few moments doing the 'I'm alright but I can't breathe just now' dance as she curls up on the floor, desperately willing her lungs to START WORKING again. Finally she gets a big, whooping breath in, then another, and another.
    "Shit."
    She slowly, gingerly, pulls herself to her feet just in time to see Nickel do his faceplant. The spirit of vengeance moves within her, as she shuffles toward the entrance, gun out, pointed at Nickel.
    "Hey, lady, what the ...? DROP THE GUN LADY!" one of the SWAT guys says, swinging his rifle around to point at Alice.
    Click.
    The hammer of Alice's extended piece falls on an empty chamber. In all the excitement she apparently lost count of the bullets she fired. Nickel should feel lucky.
    Defeatedly she slumps, the angel of vengeance moving on to other, more pressing business. She lowers the weapon hand and carefully, slowly, flips the lapel of her vest.
    "Alice Gulliver," she says. "Attached detective to the GCPD. I called it in."
    Beat.
    "Anybody got some pliers to get these coins out of my back?"

Punisher has posed:
*BLAM!*

As Alice took aim at Nickel herself, she was watched from behind a corner of the lobby by Frank, and when she turned up empty, he effortlessly raised his shotgun and fired once at the back of Nickel's head.

As soon as he takes the shot, he's gone, dashing back through the rear exit, only stopping long enough to pull another grenade -- this one a flashbang, and drop it at his feet right before he shuts the door and makes a sprint for his van.

Yellow Ranger has posed:
Nickel's dead before the SWAT can move in, a hole in the back of his head and a flashbang dropped to give Frank Castle the time he needs to escape. Luckily for Alice, the SWAT might think she was aiming at Frank, not Nickel, if she words her story right! Raphael meanwhile manages to escape, with only the briefest glimpses from the hostages that he was even there. Sometimes, a hero isn't recognized, but in the end, no civilians died.

A lot of /other/ people died, but hey, it's the thought that matters, right?