Months had passed since Layla had broken Richard, with his salary she had been able to live a pretty cushy life and of course she had made Jin go away. But after that she had decided to lay low, in time she eventually got bored of Richard being her slave so she kept him normal and unaware of what he was doing when giving her his salary.
Layla and Sam were still living together, Layla had found a way to keep him mostly normal and their lives had gone on as usual.
In the past months Layla had acquired a much better mastery of her power, she had reached a point where she didn't really need to make people completely her salves, but she could just hypnotize someone for a short period of time and then make them forget of ever being under her spell and so she hadn't turned anyone since Richard.
This way of using her power was so much more versatile in the day-to-day life allowing her to get people to do whatever she wanted in basically any situation.
Having this power had made her much more self-indulgent and she would sometimes lose herself in fantasies where she could control anyone, acquiring more and more power over time. These fantasies where usually shut down by the thought that she wasn't the only person with powers and notoriously the superheroes of her world, the most powerful ones, probably wouldn't really be affected by her powers. She mostly got used to the easy life that she could conduct like this and eventually settled that the best course of action was probably to lay low and try not to be noticed by anyone. After all she could still have fun with her powers, committing minor crimes every now and then without being noticed.
This all came to an end one night by complete chance, when Layla had finally decided to rob a jewelry on which she had set her eyes for a while. She had planned this out a week prior, she hypnotized one of the employees and ordered him to switch off the camera when he would close at night, additionally to give her a copy of the keys to open the store.
Everything had gone according to plan; she had made Sam come along because his powers were going to be helpful in getting away quickly when they would have been done.
When they arrived at the store everything was as planned, they could open the door and check that the cameras where off. They started getting the items that Layla wanted in the first place and bagging them into a duffle bag.
That was until the door opened and BlackHawk came in.
"What is going on in here?"
BlackHawk was one of the superheroes of the city. They had all eventually formed a team of 9 and BlackHawk was one of them, they usually would take care of the most important crimes or events in the city, never something small like a robbery during the night, but he had found himself there by chance and had seen movement inside the store, so he decided to check it.
"What do you guys think you're doing?" he said as soon as he saw the duffle bag on the floor full of the items they were stealing.
Layla was overcome with fear, she never would have thought that one of the 9 would come during such a small robbery, her worst case scenario was a couple of cops that she could have easily hypnotized into not noticing anything that was going on.
As soon as she could think straight again, she immediately turned to Sam and ordered him "Knock him out Sam".
After all Sam had super strength and flight so he could probably put up a fight.
Sam obeyed immediately and went after BlackHawk striking him in the face, the superhero was launched back out of the store.
"We have to go now Sam" said Layla right away in panic "we need to get out of here before he catches us or remembers our faces".
So much for laying low, Layla couldn't believe the luck she was having right now, the first time she tried to rob a store and one of the 9 showed up.
They tried to run out of the store, but before they got out of the door BlackHawk came back swinging at Sam and with his own superpowers and his hero experience quickly overpowered him knocking him out.
Layla was still in shock, all of this was not going as she planned and it was all happening so fast.
BlackHawk turned to face her.
"Wow I did not expect that, you guys will have a lot more explaining to do once I turn you in" he said looking at Layla while Sam laid unconscious on the ground behind him.
"It's not what it looks like" said Layla panicking, she could not believe her luck tonight, even Sam's superpowers couldn't buy them enough time to escape.
"I think it's exactly how it looks and now I'll need you to stay there so I can handcuff you" said BlackHawk very sternly.
