Aphrodite City: The Bank Job

An Aphrodite City Story

By Psion

All Rights Reserved

First National Bank of Aphrodite City, Almost 4 PM...

The afternoon sun hung high above downtown Aphrodite City as rush hour died down and most of the city's inhabitants successfully hurried home. Home, behind upgraded alarm systems and reinforced metal doors projecting a false feeling of safety as the city buckled under a sudden explosion of metabeing activity. It had barely been a week since that first clash between the still unknown Latino pyrokinetic and the equally mysterious masked policewoman yet that hardly mattered to the local hardware stores. Sales on reinforced doors, deadbolt locks, and other home fortification devices weren't just climbing, they were skyrocketing like a NASA shuttle with no end in sight. About the only good thing to come out of this turn of events was that it was a great time to own a hardware store...

Some brave citizens were still out on their errands, rushing into the bank to make some last minute withdrawals or deposits before it shut for the evening. Pity, as none of the pedestrians paid much mind to the nondescript van parked on a side street across from the building. At least not until the doors opened and four costumed figures walked out of the back towards the towering marble shrine to the financial markets. Bystanders walking past suddenly thought better of it and turned to run in the opposite direction. Unfortunately one of the four masked males was having none of that, turning an armored gauntlet into the direction of the fleeing civilians and spraying them down with a quick burst of bluish-white energy. Wherever Venom's P.A.I.N.E.D beam touched flesh, people fell over in agony, lying on the ground twitching as their nervous system was overloaded with a seizure-inducing amount of electricity. Not exactly fatal but few people were ever the same after getting a taste of the Pulsed Agony Inducing Neurological Emitter Device.

The immediate concern taken care of, the armored bat took point for the group and turned back towards the bank, mechanically-augmented strength practically tearing the double doors off their hinges as the demonically armored Venom threw them open in a grand, sweeping gesture. His partners in crime filed in around him as tellers and a handful of bank customers looked up in response to the noise of metal sheering on metal. The sole security guard watching the main foyer reached for his sidearm, getting gunned down by a snow leopard dressed in an exceptionally patriotic Canadian jumpsuit and jet black fingerless gloves, the masked gunman from up north snickering as he cradled an exotic looking assault rifle, wisps of chilled vapor seeping from the barrel as the unfortunate sentry fell over and slowly bled out from a pair of icicles shot into his chest.

The third member of the group, a masked bear dressed in a Soviet Union-inspired costume, raised his voice. "EVERYBODY DOWN, THIS IS A ROBBERY!" The ursine clad in a blood-red overcoat shouted, sweeping the frightened crowd with a steely gaze hidden behind a dull gold-colored domino mask. "Please, think of your loved ones. Don't give my three trigger-happy friends any reason to hurt any more of you." He added with a thick Russian accent. Please... do as I say, I don't want any more blood on my hands. He added silently. Gods above and below, how did his life end up like this?

To his relief, their hostages complied. People got down on the floor as the tellers immediately began stacking up bundles of twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. The bear's minions looked at each other as the stacks of money grew taller, forgetting about his slight jab as they were briefly stunned by the display of compliance. "Aren't they supposed to you know, run around and scream for help or something Red Storm?" The fourth member of their group, a masked wolf dressed in a red and black jumpsuit asked the bear, a thick Australian accent to his words.

"What did you expect Screamer? Venom ripped down the doors, a second later Hypothermia shot the one guard stationed in the foyer, and the rest of them don't seem to be in a hurry to get killed. Of course they're going to cooperate." Red Storm growled as he motioned for Screamer and Hypothermia to start collecting the money. The foyer was silent except for the rustle of money being stacked... and the sound of someone chuckling softly.

"Who was that?" Hypothermia shouted, the Canadian snow leopard waving his cryo-gun around threateningly. "Do you think my name is funny, eh? EH!" He yelled, firing a bolt of cryogenic energy into the air, the skylights shattering from a burst of hailstones and causing shards of glass to rain down on the terrified crowd.

Red Storm was behind the feline in an instant, pointing the gun harmlessly towards the ground before giving the other masked male a hard slap upside the back of the head. "Stop terrorizing the bargaining chips! It's your own fault you picked such a stupid name." The bear growled violently. He hated himself for referring to the victims as objects but what choice did he have? This team consisted entirely of psychopaths and drunken sociopathic frat boys, he had to think like them if he wanted to survive this experience with the least amount of blood on his hands.

"What are you talking about? Hypothermia is an awesome name!" The feline argued through bared teeth.

"No, it's a stupid name that makes you sound like an idiot that thinks he's smarter then he really is. If you ask... have ice powers and you can't think of a name like Frostbite, Hailstorm, or Glacier, that's your own damn fault. Now stop trying to give these people a heart attack and get back to work!" The bear rebutted effortlessly.

Hypothermia glared at his cohort and snarled, but he walked over to the counter and did what he was told. Taking a duffle bag slung over his shoulder and setting it on the counter, the feline started stuffing it full of money. Venom turned his attention towards the main entrance while Red Storm watched the rest of the atrium. At the moment everything seemed to be going like clockwork. The tellers were quickly tapped dry and Venom switched places with Screamer and Hypothermia, using his armor's weapons to break into the main vault.

The bear was nervous, a fact he fought desperately to keep to himself. This was the largest bank in the city, where were the rest of the guards? Where was the alarm, there had to be an alarm, was it a silent alarm? Between the walk up the marble steps into the bank and their grand entrance, someone had been bound to hit the panic button that would send the police running. Yet nothing appeared to be amiss, the money was being bagged up and the vault door was soon cut open. Just had to keep working for a few more minutes and maybe they might actually make a clean getaway...

"So love, come here often?" Screamer could be heard asking one of the female hostages near the door.

"Screamer, if you really want to be here when the police arrive by all means say so and I'll make sure you're left behind while the rest of us run for our lives." Red Storm interrupted harshly over his shoulder as he turned to check up on Venom. The armored villain was slowly staggering out with about a hundred pounds of gold bullion in his arms. The Russian bear grabbed a duffle bag and motioned for the other two to do the same, it was time to leave.

Gathering up their loot and keeping a free hand on their weapons, the foursome walked out back the way they came. Several squad cars had parked in the street and almost as soon as they walked out, an armored truck with the livery of the ACPD rolled up and came to a screeching halt in front of the bank. Ah yes, the bear recollected, these days bank robberies brought the immediate attention of the local SWAT and... the Federal Bureau of Investigation... Well at least this nightmare had an end even if it wasn't a good one.

Cops in heavy armor poured out of the armored vehicle like water from a burst dam, a rhino and a bear slowly creeping forward with riot shields at the ready while their coworkers followed right behind them with shotguns and assault rifles locked and loaded. Meanwhile the driver turned on the police truck's speaker system. "You there, in the cheap-ass Halloween costumes, drop your weapons and get on the ground now!"

I'm sorry... surrender isn't in the cards. Red Storm thought silently as he raised his free hand and blasted the armored truck with a blast of blood red energy. The force of the blow caused the parked vehicle to slide back into a fire hydrant and drove the dismounted police officers into cover. Screamer and Hypothermia saw their cue and took it as water rained down from the ruptured hydrant, peppering attackers with automatic fire. The Canadian feline was brutally effective; his gun-shaped cryokinetic amplifier had no trouble turning the excess moisture into more ice projectiles, blasting vehicles and lawmen alike with icicle-like bullets.

Meanwhile the Australian Screamer preferred a more conventional arsenal to compliment his eccentric collection of superpowers. Barrett REC7 roared with a 6.8 mm bark as the red and black wolf lived up to his name, screaming insulting three-syllable gibberish with a voice that knocked SWAT cops off their feet and rocked squad cars like they were made of wood. The most coherent of his barbs was of course "Suck My Dick!" Clearly the frat boy mercenary was not using his sonic powers to their full potential. Then again, it could have been worse, he could have also preferred the discontinued M468 that tended to jam up unless the operator was an anal-retentive obsessed with weapon maintenance....

Fighting frantically behind cover, SWAT officers returned fire as gradually more and more of them went down from bullets, sonic screams, ice blasts, and energy beams. A pointless effort as The Brothers made sure all of their villains were immune to conventional firearm ammunition, projectiles bouncing harmlessly off of power armor cuirasses and sculpted chests as the four bank robbers waded through the onslaught. Red Storm tried to not think about how many of the cops may have stopped in his bakery or had families. While he made sure he took careful aim to wound instead of kill, his cohorts were far less merciful with where their attacks ended up.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the last officer went down, either dead or wishing they were with a dull moan. With no opposition left, at the moment at least, Red Storm hurried his cohorts towards the getaway van. In their haste, they failed to notice a Doberman policewoman slowly rising to her feet...

In a flash the loot was loaded and the van's engine roaring to life, the costumed bear hit the gas pedal and whipped the vehicle around as fast as he could... and narrowly avoided getting the engine crumpled by Shield's metallic fist. Fighting to keep control of the vehicle, the "communist" villain swerved and finally came to a stop when The Brothers' latest addition, the super-fast and super-strong Express Panda, did what Shield couldn't with a flying kick to the van's grill. Gold and bank robbers were all thrown around like dice in a jar, making the living occupants grateful that the bullion hurt them as much as bullets did.

With their getaway vehicle forced to a stop and dead in the water with the engine crushed, the robbers scrambled to unbuckle themselves and escape. "Leave the gold, it will only slow us down. Just grab the duffle bags and start running." Red Storm shouted over his shoulder as

"Seriously mate, why did the bosses put you, a god damn doughboy, in charge of the robbery? Screw this, I'm going to get me some spandex pussy!" Screamer yelled as he kicked the rear doors open and came out with a hail of gunfire. Almost immediately Express Panda was on him, knocking the rifle out of his hands and pummeling him with a flurry of rapid blows. The Australian merc threw her back with a shout, flinging her away like a toy. And then she appeared to put the punk in his place, Amp the All-American Rock Goddess.

Dressed in rather revealing patriotic attire, unsurprising given the costume choices the Brothers made for her peers and the slightly gravity-defying enhancements they made to her bust, Amp let out a sonic shriek that... Red Storm never quite appreciated the phrase "voice like an angel" as much as he did just then. If her scream had destroyed the bear's eardrums in that instant then no one would be able to say that his last moments of hearing weren't glorious. The resulting blast of sound threw Screamer off his feet and sent him flying back into the van and out the front window in an explosion of tinted glass, even with his enhanced endurance he was out of the fight for a good several minutes.

The other villains wasted no time in getting out of their vehicle and joining in the fight. Secretly part of the bear wondered how much of an amateur night this was going to turn into, none of them had their powers for more then a week. If he didn't have The Brothers coaching him, Red Storm probably would have never figured out how to use his energy blast technique, so how much of the fight they were getting from Shield and Express Panda was from their powers and how much was their training as a policewoman and martial artist?

Hypothermia spotted the police Doberman and fired a burst of ice shards at the metallic canine. The feline might as well have splashed Shield with a glass of tap water for all the good it did beyond cutting holes in her rather minimalist top. Icicles shattered like the super cop was made of steel, the irritated female ran up to her attacker and tackled him to the ground before pummeling him like a punching bag. He called to his cohorts but they couldn't help him, both of them were having problems of their own.

For being a heavily armed hunter of caped heroes, Venom was not off to a particularly good start with Express Panda. She wasn't really that much stronger then the armored fruit bat but the martial artist was certainly much faster. Metal crumpled and hydraulics squealed as she slowly gained ground against her battlesuit-wearing foe. Electronics began to spark violently as the damage piled on Venom's power armor. He tried to deploy his P.A.I.N.E.D. beam but it appeared to have no effect on the disciplined warrior monk. She just fought right through the agony to deliver a metal-crunching blow to his gargoyle-themed helmet that looked like it did a fair bit of damage to the face within.

Red Storm focused on Amp believing she was the weakest out of the three, as far as fighting spirit went at least. Power-wise, he was starting to have second thoughts on attacking her so the other two would have to face real opponents. In addition to her haunting siren shriek, the Rock Goddess was capable of conjuring an azure blue electric guitar seemingly out of thin air. That turned up to open up quite a few little tricks for her sound-controlling abilities, all of them painful. Bubbles of sonic energy that dissipated his energy beams, bolts of pure sound that knocked him around like a toy, she was definitely the girls' artillerist, keeping foes from getting in close with surprisingly precise area of effect attacks and effortlessly juggling between dealing with Red Storm and giving Express Panda support for handling Venom with a head banging guitar solo.

And like a flash, the battle immediately shifted. Shield's fur lost its metallic luster, Express Panda slowed down, and Amp's sonic attacks fizzled. Where the girls could originally dent steel with a single punch, now they could do little more then cut up their knuckles on Venom's metal shell. And yet Red Storm and his cohorts were just as strong as they were when the heist began, an advantage they were quick to capitalize on. The panda brawler went down from a second P.A.I.N.E.D. beam, Screamer getting back to his feet and using his enhanced strength to join Hypothermia in pummeling Shield. Amp fared only slightly better due to Red Storm's quiet reluctance, the bear's blows were aimed to neutralize his opponent as cleanly and as non-lethally as possible. The rest of the fight lasted barely a minute before it was over; all three of the heroines were knocked prone against the pavement. Venom's expression was impossible to read behind his dented gargoyle-like helmet but the others... the other two quite clearly still wanted their "spandex pussy."

As the faint wail of police sirens echoed off in the distance, Red Storm breathed a sigh of relief. Saved by the bell... The masked villains remembered their priorities and quickly disappeared with their bags of loot on foot. Fortunately the safe house wasn't too far from here, just a few turns down the right back alleys and through a manhole cover and they'd be back in their hideout beneath the city.

A little while later...

Deborah "Shield" Autumns sighed as she sat down on the couch in her apartment. Little by little she was starting to piece together just what was going on and the more of the puzzle she could see, the more she wished she couldn't. Her fight with Gonzales, the Brothers, the rules of this twisted little "game," Panzer Beast, and now four new psychos adding to the hurt locker. The Doberman policewoman groaned as she put tried to put an ice pack on her face, handing one to Sonya "Amp" Winters and Haru "Express Panda" Sakurako as they joined her on the sofa. At least it could be worse, she could have been facing this alone instead of having the company of her fellow captives; there was a small comfort in that.

Sonya whimpered softly as she applied an ice pack to her bruised side while Haru saw to her own cut hands. Both girls reflexively put an arm around the jittery Afghan hound and gave her a squeeze. The physical wounds would heal quickly enough; the Brothers couldn't stand having their little sex dolls remain "ugly" for any real length of time. But the mental ones... as hammy as it sounded the only real source of healing for that was each other. Which reminded Deborah...

"Haru, where are you staying? The Brothers did at least give you a place to rest didn't they?" The rookie cop asked her foreign friend.

The panda grew quiet, looking down at the floor. Autumns connected the dots and growled savagely. "Guess it was too much to expect that they'd at least keep you from having to camp out under bridges. Well then, after dinner you can make yourself at home."

Sakurako opened her mouth to try and politely refuse but the canine shook her head. "No and that's final. This city is going downhill, you stay out on the streets too long after most people are in bed and who knows what will happen to you... other then that the Brothers would probably like it. My landlord just replaced the locks on my door, I'll see about getting you a spare key."

Pride may have prevented Haru from asking for help but she certainly appreciated Deborah's offer, hugging the group's reluctant leader almost as hard as Sonya was. Autumns didn't fight it as their combined weight pushed her into the couch, the three of them wrapped in an affectionate embrace as tears silently stream down their cheeks and the adrenalin left their system. Just another day in Aphrodite City...

Meanwhile...

Boris grumbled as he counted the money from their heist in the safe house living room. Half a million dollars in potable currency and a hundred pounds exact in gold bullion, and his fellow villains were still sulking about like a trio of spoiled children. Between the money and the current price of gold, he valued their haul at 2.4 million dollars. Meaning in turn everyone got a little over half a million dollars. Not a legendary run by any stretch of the imagination but still much more then Boris's bakery currently made in a year. And still his cohorts were not happy. Granted, the bear could see why Venom was upset; most of the bat's share was likely going to go back into repairing his armor. But Screamer and Hypothermia... it would be the case that they would be too upset over "missing out" on molesting and violating the "Aphrodite City Girls" to realize they both had more then enough money to both hire three prostitutes to dress like the heroines. The unmasked Red Storm merely rolled his eyes and shook his head. Idiots, idiots the pair of them; at least Venom was a decent fighter. Hardly the kind of warrior Boris was initially lead to believe he was but a decent hand in a fight all the same.

"So why are you here Doughboy?" Hypothermia asked suddenly, walking into the meeting room licking a maple syrup treat. Apparently he was finally finished sulking.

"What difference does it make? I'm here." The bear rebutted curtly as he started to figure out how to split the haul in four even piles.

"Oh it makes all the difference eh. Way you carried yourself; you had to be something other then a baker back in the old country. So what are you in it for? Money? Recognition? Those smoking hot bimbos the Brothers keep sending our way?"

"Back in Russia... I was a baker. I left the 'old country' when a witch who thought she was Baba Yaga attacked my village and burned it to the ground. My family escaped due to a bit of luck and no small amount of cunning on my part. And our foes are not bimbos, there is only one reason why they faltered when they did."

"And what was that?"

"That what the Brothers give, they can take away whenever they feel like. Never forget that, we are not friends, partners, or even useful foot soldiers to those two freaks. We are merely captives, same as the girls."

"Haha! That's a good joke, us, captives. But I noticed you didn't answer my question, what do they have you working for?"

"My family." Boris began simply. Noticing the raised eyebrow the snow leopard was giving him, he shrugged and continued. "When I came to this country, I had only the clothes on my back and my wife and daughter. I settled in Aphrodite City because I was told it was a safe, ordinary city somehow existing apart from a world gone mad. Once here, I rebuilt my bakery and slowly clawed out my piece of the American Dream... the classic immigrant story really. And then your best friends in the whole world visited my home one evening, causing my family to sicken and slowly die right in front of me with some clever trickery. And I was given a choice, become Red Storm the Communist Terror or watch them die from that slow poison. You can guess what my decision is."

"Dawwwh, now that's just so sweet. Guess your sculpted abs really are the only thing that isn't soft." Hypothermia cackled; Boris didn't need to be a native English-speaker to know he was being mocked.

"Be grateful that is the case... because their uncertain fate is the only reason why you and that other flea-bitten mongrel are still alive." Boris replied, his gaze as cold as Hypothermia's sub-zero ice powers.

The Canadian feline opened his mouth to continue arguing but promptly decided against it. Boris was full of crap about their latest benefactors, he had to be, but at the same time the cryokinetic realized that the most dangerous person in the city wasn't Shield, Amp, or Express Panda, it was the bear right in front of him...