5330/Super rescue for a Contessa

Super rescue for a Contessa
Date of Scene:	09 September 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Ekaterina Vespucci, Superman

---

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
It is midday and Ekaterina is going about ehr business doing some banking. She's been engaged in a process of gentrifying parts of the more dangerous neighborhoods by opening her commercial galleries in the more livable parts of them. This process has gone largely unnoticed ny the press just the way she likes it. At one property she was opening in Gotham she had already been mugged and rescued by Red Robin. This time she thinks her luck will hold but little does she know she is terribly wrong.

The bank is a fairly modest afdfair not a central branch but cut in the new open plan format that some of the big banks have adopted in an ill advised fashion. There is not alot of cash in the bank but this draws both competant and incompetant criminals. The former have decided to pay a visit to this bank. They are after somethinbg very specific in the vault and they know which locker it is in. They'll nab the cash as well but just as a cover. They file into the bank just as Kat reaches the counter. The small girl turns to see them file in - five men wearing balaclavas and carrying smg's. An actual professional outfit - and out this far? Kat being involved in organised crime herself thinks that they should really be hitting something bigger.

As they fan out amonst the customers and the handful of clerks they identify which hostages they are going to take with them. Kat with her large cornflower blue eyes and angelic face is almost immediately identified as a nice sympathetic head to hold a gun to to ward off police and she is dragged out into the middle of the floor. "Not again," Kat mutters to herself. The men start to force the manager to open the vault dragging Kat along for the ride.

Superman has posed:
     Of course, it's at this moment with a hostage that the underpaid, and under educated security guard tries to draw his weapon, a quick pair of gunshots to the chest though has the man falling to the ground and not moving as the other customers and workers in the bank let out screams.

    Clark Kent on the other hand is currently twelve blocks away, having just paid for a chilidog from a corner vendor, the mild mannered reporter's senses letting him hear the sudden and swift violence that has him quickly paying for the hot dog and running around the corner of a building into a near by alleyway, the hotdog tossed in a near by dumpster he rips open his shirt exposing the shield of the House of El as he rises into the air quickly flying to the bank in question X-Ray vision letting him see where the badguys are and the hostage situation.

    Landing infront of the bank Superman calmly walks in a quick scan of the guard showing that his vest took the bullets leaving him winded but not hurt. Resting his hands on his hips Superman takes every thing in. "Gentlemen" he says in a friendly tone of greeting. "I don't know what you planned to accomplish here, but it's not really going to work, if you would just kindly lower your weapons and come peacefully nobody else needs to get hurt.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
The odds of running into Superman were low but at least one of the crew 'the brains' as it were had put some serious thought into what he might do if he ran into Superman in this enterprise. He does not have any kryptonite not even that he would know that that was a weakness but he does have an advantage in so far as he has no scruples. He knows about heat vision however and places his gun in the back of Kat's head so that he is out of the abilities feasible arc unless Superman wants to burn through Kat's head. The girl is a lovely little angel faced thing with large cornflower blue eyes now grown to anime size with the experience. But her expression is one of being fed up more than scared even with her adrenaline peaking. "Leave or I put her down. Let the police deal with this Kryptonian. No need to solve every problem. We just need one little thing and we're out of here. We'll even compensate the family of that guard out there. But make a move and consider this gun is on a hair trigger. Use that speed and we'll see how bullet proof this young lady's skull is..." Even the other robbers don't like the idea of killing the small innocent looking thing that he has picked.

Superman has posed:
     Superman sighs at the man's words.. "You really don't need to do this, I either take you down before you fire your gun, leave and wait for you to make your exit and then take you down. I'm already involved it's just a matter of you making the better choices in your life. So I'll ask you again, please put down your weapons, come peacefully, it'll look better on the polce report that you didn't attempt violence, lets not turn bank robbery into attempted murder." he says earnestly.

    Superman's fast, and watching all of this with his x-ray vision, the split picosecond the gunman starts to twitch a muscle to fire the gun he'll be on him faster than the eye can register movement the hostage in no real danger as he does as he always does trying to give the criminal the chance to change their ways..

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
But the criminal is not backing down, "Guys get some more people guns to heads - I wonder how fast the man of steel is. We need an empirical experiment - you can save the honey here first or second or not at all. But can you take down five of us before one bullet hits home." To emphasise the point and urgency he wrenches Kat's hair. Unbeknownst to him Kat is an External mutant one with a horrid condition of central sensatisation. The pain she experiences from the hair pull is fifty to a hundred times what is normal. She shrieks - her great blue eyes tearing up as though someone had cut off one of her limbs rather than gave her a nasty hair pull. This ends the stalemate and the man pulls the trigger on Kat's head but she has vanished completely leaving him with a handful of a few strands of black hair.

Superman has posed:
     Superman doesn't really bat an eyelash at the woman vanishing, moving faster than the eye can track he doesn't disarm the man, but instead just pinches the end of the gun faster than the bullet is traveling causing the gun to heat up a bit as the bullet lodges in the mangled barrel the other mens guns are given the same treatment barrels being bent and twisted before the gunman has a chance to pull the trigger.

    Superman then gets a quick visual scan looking for the woman, was she a teleporter? did she go intangible and invisible? "Gentlemen, I ask a third and final time.. drop your weapons, and come along peacefully, while I can control my strength enough not to kill you with a punch, there's a thin line between knocked unconcous and given a concussion.."

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
The woman is on the roof clutching her head if Superman's xray vision scanned in that arc. The good news is that the henchmen surrender at the display of power. There is no longer any point and if the guard outside makes it things might not go too badly for them in court. If worse comes to worse they could still try the escape from jail route. "Damnnit!" says the now disarmed leader - but he is looking incredulously at the strands of black hair in his hand. Not letting them go. The police are on their way.

Superman has posed:
     Gentlemen, if you will all come to the center of the room and have a seat." he says a quick scan of each man has any knives, back up weapons, or other gear quickly removed at super speed. "I am going to go talk to your previous hostage, but I will be keeping an eye on you down here. If any of you attempt to get up or cause trouble, I'll hand out concussions like candy corn." he adds giving them clear instructions of what their expectations are before he's once more stepping out of the building and rising up into the air, the sounds of police sirens in the distance coming through the open door before being cut off as the doors close.

    "You ok there?" Superman asks as he reaches the level of the roof an expression of honest concern on his face as he lands just a few feet from the blue eyed woman.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"Ugh!" says the small lady with her large blue eyes looking up to Clark teared up but with gratitude. "Sorry I have a condition. That should be a lot less painful for a normal person but that is not what I am. The man downstairs the leader - he has some strands of my hair - can you please get them back for me? I'll explain the why if you do I promise..." The woman looks up at Superman doing the puppydog eyes thing.

downstairs the robbers have actually restrained their own leader - plainly all are planning on testifying against him the lucky guy. Black hairs are in his hot little hand.

Superman has posed:
     "Would you like me to help you down from here?" he asks the red and blue lights of cop cars can be seen coming down the street now growing louder, a fire truck and ambulance hot on their heels as Superman nods. "Lets get you down from here, and I'll get the hairs for you." he says moving to hold out one of his hands in invitation..

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"Very chivalrous of you - I can teleport down but I believe I'll take your invitation - please avoid the press though not sure I want to be the mystery woman. I don't like attention." Ekaterina looks up at Superman with the sort of adoring eyes that he tends to get from the ladies he rescues - even if this one didn't need rescuing.

Superman has posed:
     Superman nods. "I'll do my best, you'll need to give the police a report of the incident, but things like this tend to happen and I doub't we'll be mobbed by the press, this is at most a page ten story." he says taking the ladies hand he takes another step forward.. "Just step on my feet ma'am, you won't squish my toes and I can take you down." he says waiting for the woman to do just that before he rises into the air much like an elevator, his hand holding hers, and his other on a shoulder helping her to keep her balance as he quietly floats back down to the ground before opening the door to the bank to let her back in..

    It's at this time that the police pull in screeching to a halt the men and women in blue stepping out of their squad car. "Hey Superman, everything taken care of?" one of them calls out. "Yeah officer Grady, they're well behaved, I just need to take care of one last thing with the ring leader, come on in." he says before he moves to step on into the bank "Sir." he says to the ring leader as he moves towards them, the other thugs scooting aaway to give him access. "You have something of this young ladies." he says as he reaches down to pick the man up with one hand, his other hand moving to get all the hairs out of the mans fist..

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
The man is stunned by everything that just occurred and clark gets all the hairs without resistence. Mercifully for Kat the cameras in the bank are not of the best quality her disappearance can be put down easily to a glitch and eyewitness testimony unreliability. Unless Superman wants to out her. Kat tells the truth for the most part to the police. She is popular even though she does not want to be with a couple of officers more than needs be fawning over her as she gives her statement. But she exhaustedly wants to get back those pesky hairs from Clark expeditiously. Hoping for a second or two alone to do so.

Superman has posed:
     Superman waits for the police officer to be done taking the statement, all the men and women being rather professional since Superman is there, the other officers going through the various other witnesses as Superman moves back up the hairs rolled up into a small ball. "These belong to you." he says holding it out to the young woman. "Did you drive here, or take a Taxi Ma'am?" he asks politely..

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"Really," the small woman with the blue eyes asks, "you don't even want my name? You are a curious one. I think I might have only encountered your like close to 1000 years ago." Kat gives him that breadcrumb.

Superman has posed:
     Superman smiles "If you wnat to introduce yourself, you will, if not I have no reason to demand your name Ma'am." he says simply giving a bit of a shrug. "I think you'ed have met folks like me probably back in the early 20th century, most folks back then didn't have an overriding desire to know everything and anything about a person." he comments mis-understanding the woman's comment as a statement of the times, and not a hint to her age. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" he asks politely..

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
"We'll if you really hold to the values you claim to then perhaps you can help me with a little bit of everything. I am very grateful for your help. I want to trust you with some very sensative information if I can? Those hairs I wanted back - well I wanted them because I am an External - a very powerful mutant - one of very few. I'm pretty weak relative to them all - but of middling age - I was born about 1200 years ago. I'm basically the bratty younger sister of some nasty characters Apocalypse or En Sabah Nur and the Black Queen of Club Hellfire. These are my darn siblings - effectively - so you know I have problems. Or maybe you don't know of us?"

Superman has posed:
     Superman's face turns serious as he listens to the woman's claims, his head tilting to the side as she speaks. "I'm sorry to say I've not heard of either of those." he says apologeticly "And what sort of help might I be able to render?" he asks curiously not sure where this conversation might be going, but being more than willing to listen.

Ekaterina Vespucci has posed:
'There are some very powerful I think originally human folk who have risen up I'd fancy in an evolutionary reaction to your presence and that of other superhumans on earth. Some well before you were ever here. People who can do the most extraordinary things. Unfortunately most of them are awful and they are about to m,ake things much worse than you can ever imagine. I am one of them and I am trying to stop them." Kat tries to simplify. "I'm Ekaterina - but call me Kat please," after a pause, "In the underworld I am called the Contessa and Lady Artifice amongst other things.

Superman has posed:
     Superman nods.. "If you have contact information, if you can forward it to Clark Kent of the Daily Planet, let him know it's for me and he'll not persue it as a story." The Kryptonian says earnestly. "It looks like the press is going to show up, so I'll go speak with them so you can make your exit Miss Ekaterina." he says nodding to the appproaching news vans.