437/Your Average Metropolis Banking Day

Your Average Metropolis Banking Day
Date of Scene:	11 March 2020
Location:	Metropolis, First Metropolitan Bank
Synopsis:	Horrible bank hijinx that give Lois a big think about A World Without Superman.
Cast of Characters:	Lois Lane, Leon O'Malley

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Lois Lane has posed:
It's been a whirlwind couple of days for Lois Lane. It's been a lot of mental work, really, which left her a bit tired and neglecting some of the errands she needed to run--which in this case, meant depositing a paycheck. Stupid direct deposit error not putting it in her account meant she had to actually deposit it herself, a task no one enjoys.

So Lois finds herself in the First Metropolitan Bank, stifling a yawn as she waits in line to speak to a teller, doing her best to imagine what sort of coffee beverage awaits her next. She needs more caffeine.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
The bank is as boring a place as ever, moving at a snails pace with lethargic and half asleep tellers going through the daily drudgery. Meanwhile, in the manager's office, "I'm sorry, Mr. O'Malley, but I'm afraid we cannot give you such a high risk loan at this time." Dan stifles the disappointment and quietly thanks the manager for his time, Leon putting far less effort into restraining his visible upset at the rejection as he gets up to wheel his brother out.

    Even more meanwhile, a series of armored cars pulls up outside the bank, groups of well armed swat gear looking guys pouring out the back and storming the bank, bursting through the front door, a burst of assault rifle fire peppering the ceiling, "Everybody on the floor, this is a robbery!" The leader shouts as a trio of them make a beeline for the tellers, "Nobody acts tough, nobody dies..."

Lois Lane has posed:
Well, that was unexpected. Sort of. She's still not surprised that it's a bank robbery, banks were always easy targets but Lois just wasn't expecting it. She's off her game. As instructed, the reporter gets down to the floor, but she's not particularly interested in staying there. Right now, she's trying to figure out /what/ is going on. Bank robbers are usually not full on in swat gear--it's excessive. Overkill doesn't seem like something you do for a bank robbery.

So, while Lois doesn't try anything, she's busy on the floor peeking around to try and get a better view of just what's going on.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
In the manager's office, at the first sound of gunfire, Leon drops to a crouch low enough to lick the tiles, with Daniel tossing himself from his wheelchair to get even lower. As the manager goes to scream, Leon grabs his mouth and gives him a death glare, "Not. A. Sound..." He gravely whispers to him before ushering Dan and the manager under the desk, "You two wait here, I'm gonna see what's going on." The manager tries to protest, getting joint shushes from the pair before Leon skulks out.

    Meanwhile, from what Lois can see, the goons are moving like clockwork, forcing their way into the tellers' section and moving the tellers out onto the main floor. And then, "Hey boss, look, iddn't that Lois Lane? The reporter?" The apparent leader of the attack stomps over, "...You, get up." He says harshly, nudging her with a boot.

Lois Lane has posed:
"Crap, can't I even go to the bank without wearing a wig or something?" Lois, unfortunately, has far too much of a recognizable face at this point. One people look /out/ for in these particular cases. She does, however, have a better opportunity to get an eye on what's going on. She slowly gets to her feet, offering a sarcastic smile.

"Hoping to be the front page?"

Leon O'Malley has posed:
The boss goon forcibly spreads Lois' arms and legs out, tossing her bag over to an attending goon, and then patting her down, "Nobody said you could talk." The goon sifts through her bag, haphazardly tossing stuff all over the floor until he finds her phone, tossing the bag off towards a corner and then shooting the poor mobile device with his rifle.

    Meanwhile, Leon creeps slowly into the second floor hall, silently closing the door behind him before his clothes turn to an amorphous black mass, surging over his body to form a a spidery suit. Down the hall, a pair of goons make no secret of their intrusion into the security room, a few shots firing off as the cornered guard tries, and fails, to fend them off. Leon moves quickly and quietly to the hall corner, carefully peeking around to spot the opened door and then darting over to it. The goons dont even notice him as he slips in and smashes their heads together hard enough to crack their helmets, leaving him with two unconcious goons, a dead security guard, and the live feed of the bank's security cameras to look over, "...It's gonna be one'a those days, I can tell already..."

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois winces at the fate of her poor phone. "Well, shit." At least she's got a cloud backup of all her stuff. "Hopefully phone insurance covers bullets..." That's mostly to herself, but still a bit of a quip. "Nobody said I could talk, doesn't mean I'm not gonna." She, of course, knows the longer she stalls the more likely it is that /someone/ will show up. She knows more than one person who is likely to just walk right in the door and save the day.

There's just always a chance there's not. Calculated risks.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Lois' gamble...results in the boss goon backhanding her hard enough to blur her vision and split her lip, "Be quiet, or next time I wont be so gentle. Now, back on the ground, hands behind your head." He says as he strolls off, leaving the attending goon to hold Lois at rifle point.

    Meanwhile, Leon stalks out of the security room and slips down the hall, quietly and greviously dispatching the sweeping goons as he makes his way around the building to each of the camera covered rooms, striking situationally inapropriate selfie poses in view of each one as a reward for clearing the room until only the main hall is left.

    However, by now, the goons have become aware there's a problem due to the lack of radio contact, the boss growling angrily as he looks over the hostages before ordering the rest of the goons to line them up, "Looks like somebody hates you all enough to try to rescue you!...Oh yeah, I said hates you, because until your little hero shows himself. I'm gonna execute one of you every...hmm, let's go with ten seconds, every ten seconds until they show themself, and take a bullet for each of my men who haven't reported in." He pauses, and then suddenly shoots an elderly man next to Lois in the head, the goons gently dissuading people from moving to check on him by adjusting their aim on the crowd.

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois was pretty much expecting that something of the like would happen, but it never prepared her for the pain of it every time. She blinks a few times to clear her vision but, for the moment, doesn't mouth off after that. She'd rather be concious for whatever was going on.

But she regrets that after a moment. Maybe being out cold would be preferable. She flinches, not turning her head to look. Last time she was at gunpoint she tried to get help with her phone, but this wasn't an option this time. Actually giving in and /yelling/ for help wasn't an option here either--that would just get her shot with how triggerhappy they were.

But the question was, why so triggerhappy? It was a bank robbery. The more death involved, the more trouble, the more of a chance of bad things if they got caught. This was more of a task force but, for the moment, she didn't feel in a safe position to try and learn more. A little too close to getting shot, there. A shot to the head was a little harder to recover from than an arm or a leg.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
As the boss goon starts counting, Leon growls angrily, taking to the ceiling and slithering to the center of the room, "4...3...2...1..." As the boss points his gun at Lois, a series of black webs drop down and snatch the guns up, most of the rifles going off and one goon even managing to hold on as he's yanked into the air, unloading an entire clip in Leon's chest, neck, and face, the bullets oozing back out of the suit looking as if their covered in crude oil.

    "You want us, you've got us." Comes a hellish amalgam of a human voice and some sort of growling, gurgling, eldritch overlay as Leon whips the iron gripped goon across the room into the wall and drops down, his fingers elongating into long and jagged claws, "Surrender...Or dont. We love picking on the weak..."

Lois Lane has posed:
Executing hostages was certainly not the MO. This was here to be a scene, not for the actual money. The second stuff starts to go down and there's no gun pointed directly at her, Lois is diving out of the way and for the nearest piece of cover. Crap. If only her phone hadn't been shot she could get a picture of the /creature/. For the amount of bullets shot into him, he was certainly not just an ordinary creature. And despite helping, he doesn't exactly seem like a hero either.

"Crapcrapcrap..." She mutters as she crawls for cover.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Cover is available in plenty, chairs, tables ripe for the flipping, the still ajar door to the tellers' side of the counter, that guy sprawled against the wall. Wherever Lois chooses to run, there's ample places to hide. As for the goons, the result of eldritch horror dropping in on them semi-invited is a mix of panicked terror, some of them surrendering outright and throwing themselves to the ground, some of them shooting at Leon even more with their sidearms, and panicked rage from the boss, who tries to throw a knife at him, and one guy who just faints, dropping over like a narcoleptic.

    As for Leon, well, the bullets prove no more effective than the last time, and the knife is casually swatted away by a tendril snapping out of his chest. Before the goons can try another plan, the claw fingers whip out like vines, wrapping around their legs, and then whipping them face first into the floor...Again...And again. After the third time, only the boss remains concious, weakly trying to crawl away from the tendrils wrapped around him, the rest of his crew being released to further ensnare him.

Lois Lane has posed:
The important thing for Lois, once she's found a table she can knock down for cover, is to at least get an eye on the situation. If she's got no pictures, she needs to at least see what's going on, gruesome as it may be. She's also hoping that the creature treating the armed men as rag dolls was actually there to help and not there to destroy anything that moved.

It's the second time in a while Lois has been wondering if someone saving her was actually 'saving' her. What's with this new breed of 'hero'?

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Leon's tendrils wrap around the head of the goons up to his shoulders and hold him several feet in the air, Leon slowly looking from the dead hostage on the floor to the thug as his tendrils slowly wrap around his head, a sharp point preparing to stab through his eye, "...No...He may deserve it, but that is not for us to decide...." The tendril retracts, and Leon tosses the breathless thug to the floor.

    Suddenly, he turns and looks directly at Lois, "You. The police should have been here by now. Please, hit the silent alarm. We'll be right back..." He says in that horrific amalgamated voice as the tendril slithers back out, rounding up all the goons into a big lassoed together bunch as the other hostages panic and flee, leaving Leon to trudge through the bank collecting the slowly rousing goons before they can make more trouble.

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois watches. A man spared. The creature offers advice--they seem to be there to help, at least in this instance. No one had hit the alarm? Seeing as there's no one to be shooting at her now, she gets to her feet, darting to the door to the teller's side of the bank.

It's only a moment until she finds the button for the silent alarm, hitting it a few times to ensure that it's actually gone off as she makes her way back out to survey the scene a bit. It's... not great.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Leon returns a minute later, holding a large conglomeration of goons in various stages of conciousness, trailed behind by Daniel in his wheelchair, looking rather unphased by the whole affair, and the manager, who is a quivering, trembling wreck.

    Leon sets the goon lasso down on the floor, only just rough enough to possibly sprain some of their ankles, and forces them to sit and wait. He then walks over to the elderly victim by the wall and just....stares down at him.

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois, unfortunately, has been in this sort of situation more than once. So, while you never really get over being this close to danger and so she is a touch shaken, she's certainly able to compartmentalize and handle it later, in better circumstances.

Now she's going into reporter mode. First, she checks to make sure the other innocent civilians in the bank seem alright, other than the one shot in the head, and then she slowly turns her attention to Leon. "The help is appreciated, got a name?"

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Leon slowly turns to Lois, staring at her with that blank expressionless mask as a tendril slides out of his arm and rifles through the victim's pockets, pulling his wallet to Leon's hand. Leon slowly raises it and looks inside, "...Steven Kratchev...Seventy-two..." He then snaps the wallet closed and drops it next to it's now deceased owner. Leon lets out a low growl and jerks his head towards gathering of goons, his right hand elongating back into claws, "...No, no, the police will be here soon...Soon..."

Lois Lane has posed:
The name of the victim is noted in Lois' head. The creatures murmurings, though, are a little strange. Is he talking to himself? To her? "Do you have any idea what these guys were after? Seems like overkill for a bank robbery. A bit trigger happy..." The older man's body is noted with a wince. "You don't start executing hostages unless the stakes are /very/ high."

It's definitely something she's seen before, but she's trying to dig and see if her hunches are correct, or if he actually knows anything useful about the goons.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Leon looks back at Lois, "...We dont..." And then trails his gaze back to the gaggle, "...But we can find out..." The head goon chuckles cruelly, "Haven't you heard? Superman's gone. The cops around here are useless. Yeah, we were unlucky, but you're not gonna be around forever. This city's gonna belong to the criminal element. Just. You. Watch." He smugly declares.

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois glances between Leon and the head goon, making her way over. She listens, the smug delcaration given. He probably would have been fine if he hadn't mentioned Superman. So, as had been done to her, she smacks the head goon in the face, mimicking his prior action towards her. "No one said you could talk." A little harsh? Maybe. But she's angry.

Leon is given another look. "Someone died here. I'd like to know why." She's not sure /how/ he plans on extracting information, but she's hoping he can.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
The goon laughs at Lois' smack, "What, gonna have yer pet monster torture me? You aint got the guts, lady!" And then tendrils burst out of the binding line and slither across him, one slitting his cheek like a straight razor, "Maybe, maybe not...But we do." Comes the awful sound of Leon's Wolf modulated voice.

    The goon nervously chuckles it off, his bluster diminished, "Why? Why? Alright, I'll tell ya why. Because examples gotta be made, sweetcheeks. And nothin lets people know who's in charge like a stack'a bodi-"

    The thug is cut off by a tendril surging down his throat, "....It would be so easy to just expand, and burst you like a balloon...." The man's throat bulges weirdly as he starts to panic, "...We think it's been established who's in charge..." And then the bulge recedes and the tendril retracts, wiping itself off across the man's face before receding into the suit, "....And not a single body to pile." Sirens can be heard nearing the bank.

Lois Lane has posed:
Ah-ha! So she /was/ right. Lois is at least glad she's got to the bottom of the motive. The cops might be able to get the details on who they're working for, so hopefully there would be that. She lets out a slow breath, then looks towards Leon. "If you're the kind of person who has to bail before the cops get here, this is your cue."

She can hear the sound of cops exiting vehicles. "Thank you again for the assistance. That... could have been very bad." It certainly could have.

Leon O'Malley has posed:
Leon looks over to Lois, "In fact, we are." Tendrils shoot out from him and snatch up three of the discarded rifles, bringing them to Lois, Dan, and the manager, who shrinks away from it, "Once we're gone, you'll need to hold them for a few seconds for the police to arrive." He looks to the gaggle, "I wont be far." The guns are shoved into the gathered trio's grasp, much to the manager's dismay, and the would-be robbers are flung into the nearby wall, Leon rushing out the door and zipping away on a black web-line around the side of the bank, leaving Lois to handle the cleanup.

Lois Lane has posed:
Lois isn't really used to having to hold a gun, much less to prevent a bunch of goons from hurting anyone, but she sticks with it. When the cops enter the building, she quickly explains the situation. It takes a while for everything to get sorted (after all, the three were holding the guns when the cops came in) but eventually, eventually the goons get carted off by the cops.

She's able to recover her purse and broken phone, but she's stuck trying to explain /what/ it was that saved her in there. She still doesn't quite have an answer for that.