Asset Protection (OPEN to TWO)

If someone could know the circumstances of everyone in the bank at one time, they might laugh at the scenario that had just begun. Satanael, the representative of a habitual yet well-connected criminal organization, was here in this place of legal business in order to maintain the integrity of the illegally gained assets they and their organization had managed to get a hold of. There was another person here who had almost the inverse of this problem. Katsu Yuda had thus far not broken a single Law in his life, and he was here in this place in order to set up a haven for his legally acquired assets to hide those assets from a different habitual yet well-connected criminal organization than Satanael represented here. Funny enough, while Satanael had no desire to be observed for the fact that it might draw unwanted attention from law enforcement agents, Katsu had the desire to remain invisible here because it might draw the ire of the criminal organization he was hiding from for the time being.

Again, if someone could know the circumstances of everyone in the bank at one time, they'd probably find it hilarious.

Katsu had not been in the main lobby when the bank robbery had began, instead he was within a side room with one of the kind and pretty female clerks working through the paperwork that would allow him to open an account with this place. His childish body and quick smile meant the clerk was all too willing to help, and it didn't hurt that he had a few hundred grand of Zeni he planned to put into the account immediately. It was only a tiny bit of the total assets Katsu had access to, but he had no intention of drawing attention by putting massive amounts of cash into a single account. The Cruor Clan would be paying attention to those sort of interactions, surely.

Luckily, not being in the main lobby allowed Katsu the opportunity to remain a hapless civilian here, and when the guns came out Katsu slammed the door to the office they were in closed and helped the pretty clerk lady to push one of the comfortably heavy chairs up against the door so the gunmen couldn't make their way in. Or so they thought! The office they were in was separated from the lobby with a section of bulletproof glass, so ordinary ballistics fire would be nulled. But these gunmen came with energy rifles!

"Ya think you're safe behind that, lady?" came the mocking voice of a guman as he pointed his blaster straight at the nice clerk. Thinking fast, Katsu yanked the woman to the side just as the man pulled the trigger, pulling her clear and hiding her behind the big desk in the office as the bulletproof glass was shattered by the glass and sent spraying throughout the room.

Ugh. So Annoying! Why did they have to time their robbery today of all days? I'm just trying to handle some business. And WHY WAS THERE AN ANDROID HERE?! His thoughts racing as he turned to the woman, Katsu said in a low voice, "Sorry, I need you to sleep for a bit, m'Lady." before he used his ki to shock her system into unconsciousness. Stuffing her into the space beneath the desk where she was the least likely target in the whole building, Katsu surreptitiously made his way to the broken window, edging around the corner as he watched the feminine-looking android disable one of the gunmen with their own weapon before assuming a cutesy pose complete with a heart.

"Adorable, but a bit over the top, don't you think?" Katsu called out from behind the nearest robber. He'd had time to transform himself slightly, and so he had become just another random person in the bank at the moment, almost like an older sibling to the red-headed android.

The robber was shocked to hear someone had snuck up on him, and since Katsu didn't have any life energy to sense much as the android did, and he had turned himself to resemble her, the robber assumed he was working with the woman. He tried to raise his weapon but Katsu just backhanded him across the face before grabbing the man's hand holding the weapon, forcing it to the side of his head and turning them both to face the other robbers. "Look shitbags. I'm not in the mood for this crap, and I'm a lot less nice than my sister here. Either you put down the guns or we start testing how effective one is on this guy's dome, got it?" There, that ought to muddy the waters sufficiently and confuse just about everyone in the lobby all at the same time, right? Of course, Katsu could feel that energy coming from the bank vault, but at the moment he couldn't care less about the bank's problem. He just wanted these idiot robbers to go away so he could go back to his business. He had been soo close to being done with the paperwork!

---

Thread PL: 5,000
KP: 6
MP: 0
Damage: 0%/250%
Antisense always active!

Word Count: 849
Total Word Count: 849

"Hmm..." Satanael had seen enough to know that their hunch had been correct, though taking the box with them as physical evidence would be fundamentally problematic on many, many levels. Guess a few photos from a phone would have to do - they doubted the thief would hold firm under pressure when interrogated with less than scrupulous methods anyway. Though by the time their search was over two alarmingly large Ki signatures popped up from outside the bank, and within no time had entered proper. Both were weak enough that at the moment Satanael could handle them both, but transformations were always a risk, and given that the Demon still had no way of fully 'hiding' their own power... well it wasn't exactly a good sign. Their physical appearance and Ki signature (with help of a technique) wouldn't be recognizable on a second pass around, but that only helped if they could get away from this whole debacle before it turned even sourer. With a sigh they blipped out from the vault in a flash of energy, re-appearing behind the now shattered teller's row and glancing over the situation.

One of the criminals who had managed to sneak their way to the area stared in surprise, weapon raising and a word forming on their lips a smidgen too late given that Satanel's hand clamped down on their jaw. With a small amount of exertion, bone crushed beneath their grip as the man was lifted before being slammed face-first into the broken glass. "That's better." These dunces had decided to ruin a perfectly good day and interrupt their business, and for that Satanael had decided to not play so nice with them. "Anyway..." It seemed the lobby was in disarray from the slowly dwindling numbers of robbers and the two people who had stepped up to stop them - though once was an invisible blip on their sensing. Great. An Android, or just something more strange?

Unfortunately for the theatrical in the room, hardened criminals weren't exactly dumb enough to run in one by one and slowly get taken out. The remainder had started to bunch up to threaten both of the 'heroes' with their numbers and weapons, while a few had started to level their weapons at the cowering civilians. As much as Satanael didn't care for their lives, letting them die without any resistance would probably be a mark against their true intentions here, and thus with much ire, they intervened. The majority of the targets were covered in a sudden layer of crimson energy, shrugging off the blaster shots with no small amount of strain. A few Earthlings didn't get quite so lucky as Satanael's ability to stretch their barrier wore thin, and were promptly vaporized by the weaponry leveled at them. Oh well. The Demon grunted, blipping from behind the counter out unto the lobby at large. They hadn't much to say quite yet to any of the other strangers, though did quirk a lone eyebrow as a Majin atop a magical couch in the back.

There was something seriously wrong with these bank robbers. You know, something more wrong than being willing to enter a place of business and start shooting up the place. All for... what was in the vault of a typical Earthling Bank? Not only that but they were willing to fire on their own, which spoke of the heist team either being completely devoid of all moral compass and incapable of forming a team bond, which meant that their team was likely formed especially for this because a normal team would fall apart too fast to last more than a single mission. Or! The robbers had something they viewed as more important on the line than their own lives. Which normally meant their friends and family were being held hostage. Finally, their willingness to shoot up potential hostages meant they had no ideas about escaping this situation at all. They were here to complete their mission and die doing it.

Suffice to say; this entire situation was extremely ugly. Sighing a moment, Katsu ripped the blaster out of the hand of the man he was holding and used it to pistol-whip the man to the ground, knocked out cold. ”Alright, I get it. You fuckers want to die, is that it?” he said with a cold tone, his brows furrowed. All an act to fit the form he was taking as Captain Sweetheart's older sibling, Commander Jackass.

These blasters didn't seem to have any setting below “vaporize”, and so Katsu opted for an attack of his own instead. He raised his free hand, palm upward, and a single bubblegum pink ball of ki rose out of it, no bigger than his fist. It was an altered version of his Blood Orb attack, disguised to better fit the situation. Katsu closed his fist with only one finger supporting the ball of ki before he pointed it at the nearest robber who was paying attention to him. The ball would fly forward quickly, smashing into the man's arms as he fired a shot at Katsu (which Katsu merely crushed in his palm). Unlike an explosive ki attack, this one rammed into the man's arm with pure kinetic force, shattering the man's hands, wrists, and forearms while crushing the weapon in his hand into scrap parts. Unfortunately for the man, he'd live.

Katsu would turn and point at another of the robbers, the orb he had formed still in existence and swerving around to slam into the man's torso. The ripping sound of a ribcage shattering could be heard before Katsu moved onto the next target, speaking in a loud voice at the person whose energy he had sensed in the vault earlier. ”So who'd you piss off so bad they blackmailed a Hit Squad into coming here and shooting up the place to get at whatever's in the vault, huh?! We've got people dead over this!”

“And you!” Katsu turned to yell at the pink fellow on his magic couch, ”You with these robbers? If not, get off your ass and knock 'em out! They're killing people!”

What an ugly situation this was, indeed. Katsu sighed inwardly, thoroughly annoyed. There was no chance he'd be able to finish his paperwork here with people dead, but at least that meant there was nothing taking up the time he was now going to use to murder whoever had sent these goons here.

---

@bando Captain Sweetheart @faustus

Thread PL: 5,000
KP: 5 (-1)
MP: 2 (+2)
Damage: 0%/250%
Antisense always active!

Using the following to cripple a number of goons:



Word Count: 568
Total Word Count: 1,417

"Some intervention next time would've been helpful," Satanael's tone was calm, cold even. Even if he had decided to visibly save a few of the people stuck in this whole mess the deaths of the others didn't seem to carry as much of an impact. To be honest, if the girl had been more aware of her surroundings he wouldn't have had to help in the first place. Maybe it'll serve as a learning experience for later. The girl's companion took a much more angry approach to the whole thing, even throwing in a cuss as he began to lay down some serious brutality. How many heroes happened to stop by the bank at the moment of a robbery? Well if it even was a 'robbery' anymore. The whole armaments and shooting civilians things meant that the ultimate goal of these crooks wasn't really stealing money but rather something more specific. He seemed especially confident that these guys were here for him somehow, Satanael quirking an eyebrow at the accusation.

"My how astute of you, since I'm not you or the girl with a cape that means these fools must be my fault." In the midst of his reply a few of the goons turned their weapons to him, unleashing a salvo of blasts which was promptly dodged with another teleport. Appearing behind the initial shooter, the Demon would snap the man's neck before turning to his partner. Realizing the situation he dropped the gun, backing up a bit just in time to catch a fist to his face. Knocked out cold, it seemed, was one of the best fates that could possibly await these criminals. "Regardless, if the sarcasm wasn't response enough - you're wrong. I was here today by chance and thus an organized raid like this could not have possibly been organized in so short a time for my head."

He felt no responsibility for the deaths of any Earthlings here today. They had been killed by other Earthlings wielding weapons, not him. The pink being had apparently berated Satanael's spread barrier and while they were technically correct, the Demon had been saving it in case any of the current people present turned on him. "No, I couldn't," He replied smoothly. "I'm more of an up-close fighter than a long-ranged protector." Though by what 'standards' he was alluding to was beyond Satanael at the moment. Power spiking to a level even above his, Faustus quickly went to work in dispatching the stragglers of the goons with bloody efficiency. "Mm. Nicely executed." They clapped lightly twice, taking a moment to survey the damage around them. Satanael had at least gotten what they were after, now all that was left was to throw off any suspicion.

The persona that Katsu had adopted in order to keep his real identity hidden in this scenario really did fit with the name “Commander Jackass”, and while it was hard to look hard with shocking bubblegum colored hair and green eyes, Katsu folded his arms in front of him once the robbers were all down and surveyed the damage with a glare. There was a lot of dead people, both civilians and robbers, and the flippant answers he received from the two creatures that looked like separate flavors of Demon, which internally Katsu was going to name Black Licorice, for the pitch black with blank yellow eyes guy in a red suit, and Bubblegum, the pink blob with the head tail and nothing but baggy white pants, were pissing his persona off. When it appeared that Captain Sweetheart, the only one who seemed to actually have good intentions during this bad situation, was preparing to leave Katsu spoke up.

”There's more to be done, Captain Sweetheart. This is military grade weaponry, nothing civilian is capable of vaporizing anything let alone a whole person, and these fools were far too suicidal to be here just to rob the bank. There's something more than just a bank robbery, and if I'm right, more people that need saved from a bad situation. Stay a moment, and listen...” Katsu said as he looked around at the fallen robbers, trying to find any of them that might be in a condition to talk. Far too many of them were outright dead, but it turned out that there were roughly three or so who were in stable condition. The one Satanael had punched out earlier, the one whose arms Katsu had shattered, and the one Sweetheart had pistol-whipped in her entrance. All the others were either dead, too battered to wake up, or weren't capable of speaking.

Getting the perps awake was simple; Katsu merely summoned syringes of medical-grade adrenaline and injected each of his targets in the chest, he knew the chemical composition by heart, with each needle more than long enough to poke into their hearts to get them pumping right now! As the first one began to wake up from the drugs Katsu would haul them to their feet, getting right in their face with a pissed-off glare and harsh words, ”You've failed, shitbag. You couldn't get to the vault, and you didn't die. All you did was murder a bunch of innocents. You're gonna go away for the rest of your life. But I get the feeling you don't give two shits about that right now, do ya?

“Somehow I think there's something more important you're thinking of, eh? You had military grade weaponry and no exit plan. You ain't here by choice, are ya? What'd they have on ya? Debts and bills? Secrets? Maybe friends and family? Well since you fucked up it's all gone now, innit? You got two options. Stay quiet, and let it all burn. Or start talking, and hope whatever precious thing you want kept safe is still in one piece when I go rip the heads off the bastards who sent ya. Tell me. Mission, base location. Now.” Katsu had by this point dropped the first one and was glaring at all three equally, his fingers sharpened to claws and his teeth getting sharper by the second. He was getting into this role a bit too much; it was almost fun to play the bad cop. Made sense why a lot of people did it.

For a moment none of the perps wanted to answer, but when Katsu started to give off an inhuman growl one of them, the one that Sweetheart had pistol-whipped, spoke up, ”W-wait! W-we were s-sent to bust up the place. There was s-something in the V-vault they wanted gone. The r-robbery was just a d-decoy! I don't know w-what it was, but it's in Lockbox 658!” the man, overcome with emotion so much his voice was shaking, bowed his head to the floor, while the other two just looked numb at this point. Whatever they had wanted protected was probably already gone. ”P-please! They've got my Tammy at the Casino over on Quetzal Street! They were gonna... gonna...break her if I didn't do this...please..there's a basement under the building..” Most of the information spouted after that was too blubbery and full of tears to really understand, but Katsu got rid of the claws and fangs as he turned to Sweetheart, Licorice, and Bubblegum.

”So. There's more to the rabbit hole. Who else is jumping in? You heard it, Sweetheart? We've got a lost little Tammy that can be saved, and you, Black Licorice over here with the coal skin and sulphur eyes and the power suit. Lockbox 658 wouldn't happen to be the one you were in the Vault earlier for, eh, or you still trying to say this got nothin' to do with you? And what about you Bubblegum? You were talkin' trash at us earlier about our Hero-work. Maybe you wanna step in and show us how it's done, or are you only good at breaking things?” Katsu would appeal to each of them in a different way, tugging at Sweetheart's heartstrings, throwing shade at Satanael, and poking the Majin's pride. It was time to see if he had judged these people correctly. This little situation could fall apart in a moment, but there was nothing to do but keep slamming forward until it did.

It wasn't like Katsu could finish his own business here at the bank anyway. Might as well take the frustration out on some sleezebags willing to take hostages to get a vault trashed...

---

Nothing but pure trash talk and psychology!

Thread PL: 5,000
KP: 6 (+1)
MP: 3 (+1)
Damage: 0%/250%
Antisense always active!


Word Count: 947
Total Word Count: 2,364

It was clear that the rookie in the room was in a state of shock from all the violence around her. What, had the girl expected to fly in and just knock out all of the dangerous armed mooks before any blood had been spilled? It was an extremely naive thought to entertain, but given the lack of action and aftermath of it, all the evidence pointed towards Sweetheart being completely out of her element. The girl was set to walk out and Satanael had no reason to stop her necessarily, but the strange guy that had claimed relation stopped her. After a totally rousing speech he proceeded to jam some needles in a few of the still live goons, interrogating them in the most generic way the Demon had ever been witness to. Luckily for him, these were low-tier mooks and thus were thoroughly intimidated enough to start spilling shit.

Apparently, they'd been going after the Snakes deposit box, registered under the front company run by that potential traitor. It didn't take a genius to decipher why exactly that was. Yet Satanael didn't react at all to the news, arms folded and staring directly ahead even as the robber started to blubber on about captives. Again the boy tried to accuse him of being involved in some manner, Satanael sighing in annoyance and flippantly shrugging. "That'd be awfully convenient wouldn't it," He stated dryly, already quite quick of his shoddy detective attempts. "I'm not sure how many movies you watch in your free time, boy, but pieces generally don't fall together quite so nicely all the time. Whatever was in the box they were after doesn't bear any relation to me." He stopped to let out a small, deep chuckle. "Oh but I guess my entire appearance screams evil and thus mean I'm part of the absolutely heinous plot that took place here. Worry not little Hero, I'll weep salty tears into my pillow tonight for the lives of these people."

The Majin had been dragged in, and when he echoed the same sentiments as the other boy Satanael spoke up: "As I said to him I shan't bother saying to you again. By all means, go ahead and continue pointing fingers instead of bothering to actually investigate if you people are that involved. For the sake of transparency, I hold funds here too. I wasn't aware it was a crime to exist in an area as a Demon, so you have my most sincere apologies for that. I played my part in helping take these fools down. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've no reason to stay." Given that Satanael had simply checked and then replaced all the contents of the Snakes lockbox, there'd be no evidence left behind for the gaggle of heroes to really look into outside of the fact that it simply wasn't full. Satanael was fully interested in investigating further into the matter on his own and tracking down the business owner when he could - but such actions could be done via the proxy of Snakes agents or himself. Not these people.