This is a prologue, and is entirely setting the table for future continuation. This is only a look, but don't touch chapter. You have been warned.
There are dive bars, and there are
dive bars
. The ones on the main drag - those were for the constant stream of tourists and other visitors. This wasn't one of those.
Cheap fluorescent tubes cast an antiseptic glare over the aged slab of wood near the entrance that was the proverbial "bar", their light offering an at best wan glow to the beaten tables and chairs near the front and not even that to the booths against the far wall. There, only the occasional ember glow of a cigarette marked activity in the dark - and lay a shroud of privacy over those least interested in scrutiny.
Nursing a large, cold mug of cheap beer - a tall woman let her eyes gaze into the liquid without seeing it, irises unfocused, mind adrift. Even in the dark of the booth she occupied - her eyes seemed to reflect a light not found in that dank shit hole of a bar, and even her sleek silhouette seemed out of place in such a trash heap.
"Calling all units. 211 at 315 North Green. Backup requested. Possible meta activity." A police scanner crackled through a scratchy old speaker in the corner, followed by a burble of voices from officers responding to the dispatcher. This seemed like a cue - and where the tall woman had been, only a half full beer mug remained, frothy contents still settling.
***
Quiet sobbing interrupted by the rumble of angry men shouting played as the soundtrack of the well lit corner bank branch - it's glowing green signage so bright as to lend a slightly sickly glow to the spray of shattered glass on the floors within and the sidewalks out front. A gang in dark wool balaclava masks and practical black coveralls worked methodically but hurriedly to load sacks of cash into a waiting van - while a few others held long rifles at the ready, with heavy, curved magazines clipped to their belts. All were armed though, pistols in hand or at the hip, and tension evident in every action and step.
There were men and women kneeling on the floor here and there inside, wrists and mouths held tight by crudely applied duct tape - some with eyes shut against the terror, others with eyes open in abject fear or apathy. A few forms lay prone, crimson pools forming slowly around them - with empty gazes staring at nothing forevermore.
As the figures in black hurried, the sounds changed - interrupted by the approaching wail of sirens.
"Cops! Come on! We've almost got it all. Where's Bill?" One voice - a gruff man - snarled.
"Codenames asshole! Brick's coming. Cracking the vault wasn't easy y'know!" Another man, his voice a hoarse rattle.
Before more could be said, a new figure emerged from the back of the bank with a puff of dust gathering about him as bits of debris fell from his broad shoulders. A vast tank of a man, his balaclava ill-fit around his meaty mound of a head and his coveralls torn as he stumbled into the bright bank lobby a few steps behind those last few carrying bags of cash.
"There he is. Bil...Brick! Get over here. Time ta' go!" The gruff man again, shouting now over the rising sirens.
Brick never got a chance to respond - as a moment later, one of the walls of the bank behind him exploded in a shower of dust and concrete fragments, a fist erupting through the mass to strike the monumentally large man directly in the back of his head. The force of the impact knocked him forward into a self service bank terminal - shattering the machine and spilling its load of paper bills and coins into the air and onto the ground in a spray of metal and plastic.
"Oooof! Bill hurt! Who hit Bill?!" The big man called out in confused alarm, his words slurred and speech slow. His own shout accompanied by the alarmed calls of his peers, as rifles swiveled towards the settling debris cloud behind him and the figure emerging from it.
She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders and wide hips - her features sharp and handsome. The lobby lighting made her hair look a slick oily black as it sat up in a high, long tail tied off by a simple black band at the back of her head, and her pale gaze seemed alight with a glow all its own. Gray dust and flecks of taupe painted wall fell loose from the knuckles of her black fingerless gloves as she curled and uncurled her hands into fists and her breasts pressed against the straining grip of the black vinyl cups of her bare-shouldered leotard with every heavy breath she took.
"FUCK! IT'S HER! BRICK GET OUTTA THE WAY!" A voice called out from the gang near the van alongside the metallic sound of rifles being brought to bear, followed by overlapping staccato bursts as rifle after rifle discharged multiple rapid fire rounds towards the dark-haired woman.
But with sprays of more dust - bullets tore holes into walls, but never flesh, and moving as fast as an olympic sprinter the woman in the black leotard appeared behind a man standing by the open driver's side door of the van, and with a firm grip and a twist, seized his head and turned it just so. The sickening sound of his neck snapping was followed by the potato sack noise of his body slumping to the road limply.
More shouts followed, more frantic now - accompanying ever more gunfire and ever closer sirens. Until there was no more gunfire, and no more shouts, just bodies in black on the road and floor - some groaning and cradling shattered arms, others forever silenced. Only the giant and the tall woman remained - he now standing amid the ruined lobby of the bank, clad in dust and debris; she on the street outside, looking inwards.
Then, as police cruisers begin to arrive to the screech of tires and brakes - the two figures raced to meet, fists raised high, and with a roar and the chimes of glass shards bouncing, fell backwards away from each other from the force of their mutual strikes.
The woman would rise, the giant man would not - though his chest still heaved with labored breath even as blood darkened his now askew mask, and a bruise began to purple her cheek and blood trickled from her lip.
