A Simple Withdrawal.

[Living_Hellfire]

     Deborah Mogenthaller was not expecting to be the victim of a kidnapping and bank robbery on her third day at the Skyway branch of Paragon City Bank, but here she knelt, on the floor in front of her teller's booth with a 9mm aimed at her temple.

 

     Later she would look back at the memory and recall how fortunate she felt that there was no panic. She folded her hands in her lap and rested her buttocks against her heels and just simply waited, somehow confident that things would work out regardless of how dire things seemed in the moment. She would tell her children, years later how she thinks she should likely have been so terrified that  any sort of memory of the event at all should have been impossible and yet her recall is crystal clear. Her colleagues and the various bank customers knelt around her, similarly at gun point were not so calm, but not out of control. The sound of weeping and quiet begging was punctuated by the occasional shouted threat or thump as particularly obstreperous persons were reminded of the threat of violence in no uncertain terms.

 

     The scene is chaotic, the robbers clearly underestimated the PCPD response time and now find themselves surrounded. Their only chance is to bargain for hostages. Deborah recalls hearing a child's cry, distracting her before the sound of the front door of the branch creaks open. Her attention shifted to the entry and a man strolled casually into the branch. Of middling height, a flat black suit with burnt orange pinstripes, black leather loafers and a matching fedora atop his head. The man's face is grizzled at closer inspection, almost aged in an artificial way, but most striking is the cigar jammed between his teeth, in the corner of his mouth.

 

     "Howdy!" Declares The Man in Black, as one might greet a friendly neighbour. The miscreants immediately train their weapons on the newcomer.

 

     "Get on the ground!" Shouts the lead robber, a particularly ugly specimen of a person. Her hair is disheveled, eyes bloodshot. The gun wavers in her hand as she aims it squarely at the man's chest. The Man chuckles, shaking his head, the blue smoke from his cigar encircling his hat like a halo. "I dinnae think so, lass." He saunters, quite literally over to a nearby counter, leaning one elbow against it and takes the cigar from his mouth blowing a plume of blue smoke into the ceiling.

 

     At 2900 feet per second three Parabellum rounds exit the muzzle of the 9mm handgun, hurtling towards the chest of The Man in Black. There are three sharp splatting sounds as the melted rounds all but explode in a metallic goo across the chest of The Man. He makes a face of disgust while brushing off the spent bullets, now smeared harmlessly across his exquisite suit.

 

     The momentary silence is deafening in its own way. The Man in Black allows it to happen, his eyes flickering with Hellfire behind his opaque shades.

 

     The lead robber shakes her gun in frustration before shouting "Get on the floor now! Before I start executing these people!"

 

     The Man in Black shakes his head slowly "Ye ken how this ends, lass." He jams the cigar back into the corner of his mouth "Ye'll give up. Now, er I'll have yer guts fer garters." The lead robber points her weapon at Deborah's head, cocking the hammer, finger on the trigger. "Dude, you will get down on your knees right now or I'll blow this woman's brains out all over the floor, RIGHT NOW!"

 

     The Man grins, the smoke obscuring his face slightly as he straightens to a standing position. Hands up, palms forward his grin widens as the woman screams in pain, dropping the gun to the floor. The butt of the gun glows red, the lead robber's hand blistering and useless.

 

     The Man in Black moseys into the centre of the room, turning to face the other three bank robbers. "What'll it be, then?" The thieves slowly lower their weapons.

 

     The Man is gone by the time the PCPD storm the lobby of the bank.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2022 by Living_Hellfire