Scene #849: Armored Transport Heist

Owner	Pose
Bain	GenSec has really ramped up their operations. The convoy that moves through the grimey DC streets does so at sundown, the hefty armored trucks stacked up two-by-two and three rows long, spread out just enough to make it extremely tough to hit more than one with anything wide-area and just close enough to provide support and enhanced armor coverage to their fellows. Alongside that, the police are on high alert. Nobody's supposed to know this convoy is happening, so obviously they assume Bain knows about it and will try to heist the shit out of these armored trucks via some absurd Confederate muscle. They're passing near a harbor, specifically through the HARBOR STREETS. Bain has secured several LARGE SHIPPING CONTAINERS on the west end of the harbor for any involved Confederate Elites to store whatever materials they require in the containers ahead of time. There is also an ESCAPE VAN, at the north end, which they can also arrive at and stay incognito at. A large ADMINISTRATIVE BUILDING occupies the southwest end, while the street is bordered by a large CONSTRUCTION SITE on the east end, where several storeys of a future skyscraper are currently viable footing... The street to the south and north is also open to quick arrivals, swift attacks, or heroic responses, for those who wish to join in the followup rather than the ambush. The massive armored trucks, labeled with "GENSEC" on the side, are coming trundling up the road at a swift pace, and obviously have some considerable momentum. They'll need something harsh and absolute to stop them, and just one method is not likely to stop six of them at once...
Bain	"Alright gang. Let's go over the plan one more time, just so we're remembering. I know this seems a little puny for you, but trust me. It's not the vans we have to worry about, or the people in them. Police switchboard is lit up like a christmas tree these past couple hours, so this is the hornet's nest, and we're about to kick it." "Knock-Out, your vehicons are our heavy-duty vehicular support, so we're going to need you to run them down and get them immobile, or cornered. Flip them, box them in, you do what you do best. Those things are quicker than you'd guess, Nox, I need you hitting as many of them as you can with slows, stops, the works. Anything you got, make it happen. Focus on the rear guard, those will be the ones Knock-Out will have the biggest trouble working with." "Cipher Nine, you seemed to like the gunman duty before, so you're on it. I need you handling the south end, where I'm guessing police response is gonna be rushing in from. Lance, you'll be happy to know, this time, you're not on drill duty. Nox, you're our mechanical expert, after you get the vans stopped, I need gear on them to crack them open. Anything you've got for me. Lance, this time, I've got another role, something a little more sciency. Lots of chemical warfare gear in the containers on the south end of the harbor. Top grade stuff. Pop them open, keep Cipher's flanks covered, smoke out anyone using the construction site for cover." "Speaking of the construction site, Shiro, I'm gonna need your help on that. That bit, plus the north and south neighboring buildings, we'll see a lot of sniper activity about halfway through. Cover Nox, then a few minutes in, run through the roofs, take out anyone setting up sniping positions around us. Vehicons I need on the north end to cover any police response that direction. Any help you got for Nox, cracking those damn vans, give it." "Oh, and I left you guys some presents in your supply packages. Let's knock 'em dead."
Bain	The PRESENTS are unusual. NOX receives a fairly detailed design of GenSec's chosen lock mechanism and the design of the cars, to optimize his machines for cracking these things open. Alongside that is an unusual MASK, hand-crafted by Bain himself. It is a styled after a welder's mask, similar to Nox's own mask, but the lower half is torn away, revealing a stylized skeletal jaw, biting through an hourglass. It is the TIME EATER mask! Garen receives a small suitcase that deploys out into an AUTOMATED BALLISTIC TURRET of some limited capacity, that automatically targets police enemies! It seems extremely dangerous, definitely the most modern military tech Bain can get his hands on! There's also a variant of his SOLAR WARRIOR mask, painted with harsh flame decals to make it seem like the "damaged" half of his mask was on fire. Lance Benson receives another DOCTOR XENO mask, this one crafted in strange, shining materials that give it a surreal, moving look, and brilliant, vicious crimson decals around the teeth of the xenomorph face and blood splattered over the glasses. Shiro receives the BLACK DEATH mask, a rat-skull mask with the hints of a hood surrounding it to make it appear rather like a rat-styled grim reaper! Alongside that, a set of knives designed to pierce ballistic armor. Knock-Out receives a Transformer-sized pair of extremely stylish sunglasses and a vaguely apologetic note. Bain can only really equip people at human size, sorry! The sunglasses are pretty cool though, and they don't even get lost during transformation!
Nox	Normally bank heists are something well below Nox's radar. He hadn't actually stolen money in something like a hundred years, after gaining sufficient power that he could just take whatever he intends to buy with it by force. Unfortunately, with the cube only a quarter charged, his mass production capabilities are limited, and so any mechanical underlings have to be crafted by hand in a very time consuming process. It's also difficult to secure anything by force without a proper base of operations, and without excess power to burn in case of running into these so called 'Elites', and so Nox finds himself personally taking part in a quick, lucrative cash grab to buy large amounts of raw materials. At least the mask is hella cool. Of course that doesn't mean he's alone. Having whipped up something more or less on the spot by Bain's directions, deferring to the man's obviously greater heist experience, Nox has come to the party with his usual handful of Noxines, and a pair of mechanical critters roughly the size of a small crab, clinging to the reverse side of a well placed dumpster with six, panelled legs each. The fact that their legs look like they can close up to form a solid surface is intentional. The little bastards can roll if need be. Nox himself is relatively far away, using a portable looking glass to view the area through the abundant eyes of his Noxines perched inconspicuously on several buildings to get a wide angled composite shot. He intends to teleport to the scene as soon as the armoured cars enter the killbox.
Garen	Garen nods towards his fellow heisters and slides his mask down over his face. "Time to make some money, and a few beurocrats angry." He says. He hefts his rifle up and darts into position, his deadly skills ready to be plied once again.
Bain	The Noxines have remained completely unnoticed by the high density of patrolmen who they can spot by way of not being what the patrolmen are looking for in the slightest. Looks like the gang will likely want to be on-guard for taking down some more traditional policemen who will be the first responders here.
Bain	Bain's far, far away, in a safehouse, grinning while he watches six little lights enter a lightly defined square on his map. "Alright gang." He says, with much enthusiasm. "Vans in the box, and that means money halfway into our accounts. Special delivery!" He immediately sends out an alert as the last van enters a stretch of road where there will likely be substantial delays for any retreat and attempt to turn off, signaling the optimal time to immediately rush in and try to run them down, box them in, or potentially suspend them in the chronological flow of the timeline itself.
Shiro Kurosawa	Shiro's in that 'deniable asset' group of the Union's. Therefore, he has to make it look as much that he's NOT in the Union as possible. Best way to do that? Why commit a crime, of course! It's a brilliant idea-- this job provides an opportunity to keep his Union identity secret, get money, AND prune a few extra humans from a world. Win-win situation! Besides it's stealing from a bunch of humans, who cares about them anyway? He'd think they'd be a little less conspicuous about transporting something obviously valuable. Six vans driving in a caravan makes it REALLY clear that there's something worth stealing in at least one of them. Oh well. Time to hand out some Darwin awards! The speed of his Crinos form is useful here as he makes his way across the roofs towards the location Bain's pointed out. Roofs and a half-built skyscraper-- yeah, those are perfect places for an ambush. Thankfully the mask Bain provided fits reasonably well on a rat-like face, and he can see through it. It's also REALLY NICE. And those knives are pretty sweet, too! He pauses when he's on a roof he can hide on, one with some eaves he can duck under. And he waits for the snipers.
Garen	Garen turns around and locks eyes onto the lead transport. He sights his scope to the engine and lets fly a trio of shots, trying to take it out. Should that fail, he shifts up and aims to cap the driver.
Megatron	Knock-Out doesn't need to be told how to do his job when it comes to this sort of thing, and neither do the Vehicons present. It's funny how the Decepticons are operating in the heart of America's government and they're just here to help steal gold and printed paper when electronically gaming the stock market would've done this sort of thing quicker, cleaner, and safer for the squishies. That said, Knock-Out's always been the type to enjoy human entertainment more than most of Megatron's forces, and he's seen his fill of crime movies over the years posted on Earth. "Alright boys, you heard the human, clock's ticking!" He calls to the other Vehicons over comms. As he pulls onto the roads, headed towards the convoy's designated area, Knock-Out begins signalling to the other Decepticons present. Within seconds he's flanked by four black muscle cars, their holomatter disguises consisting of men in black suits with sunglasses. Each of them are identical in facial features, unremarkable enough to fade into a crowd, perfect just in case the human authorities eyeball any of them. Like Bain said, they're on vehicle duty to hit the cars and hit them hard. As they approach the vans, Knock-Out begins to maneuver until he's swerving between each of the trucks in nimble turns and twists. He's way beyond the skills of your average human wheelman, as are his troops. They begin to surround the convoy, deploying and priming plasma turrets as they begin to fire upon the vans' wheels to slow them down, one of the vehicons taking the initiative of slamming into the side of one van to veer it off-course. Knock-Out meanwhile takes to the front of the convoy, deploying shock-charges from a compartment on his sides. They go off, and should slow things down.
Bain	This will be quick. Knock-outs Vehicons manage to swerve through and around the gaps in the convoy. Bain gives a quick alert. "Switchboard's wild, we're loud." He says, eagerly! The vans seem less than entirely deterred, though the two front ones slam head-on into the muscle cars and stop moving as the rounds slam into their wheels; the left middle one loses both armored wheels and begins skidding to a halt, while the right side one loses just one wheel and doesn't wait before trying to GUN IT at the vehicons and smash through after maneuvering around the front ones! Left rear is being slowed down, but right-side rear truck isn't going to wait! He does a hard right and puts the pedal to the metal, trying to make a run for it by crashing through the construction site fence!
Bain	Garen attempts to drill one of the lead transports right in the engine, which seems to fail; these are, after all, very, VERY heavily armored! But when he swaps to the driver, he gets more response. The driver attempted to get out and get to cover while keeping behind the truck, and in his brief moment of exposure, went down! Three more drivers and four more passengers are already rushing out, trying to avoid getting boxed in. They're unarmored, private security forces wielding civilian-grade SMGs, and disoriented due to unprofessional training and the sudden attack, but they're going to rally and try to fire back soon! Looks like the gang needs to get into action quick before they establish defenses for the armored trucks!
Nox	"This hardly seems fair, now does it?" Nox sighs over the radio. "I'm impressed that any of them are still alive though. Maybe there will be a few survivors to tell the tale after this. Aha." As the remainder of the armoured cars go swerving and crashing through the blockade of vehicons, one without a driver to so much as hit the brakes at the corner, Nox teleports right in front of them. A fizzling pop and a flash of blue static resolve into his shape hovering a couple of feet over the asphalt, staring down the out of control armoured convoy without any intention of moving. When the first car is less than a second from colliding with him, he snaps his hand out towards it, and a barely visible pulse phases through the air in an expanding ripple, tinting everything inside of it blue for the instant it washes over. With a deep, strangely electronic whumph, the armored cars that are still able to move experience a very sudden, very pronounced expansion of fourth dimensional space. The furious spinning of their wheels slows down to a languid rotation that carries them forward inches at a time; the dust kicked up by their friction with the road hanging nearly motionless in mid air. Those in the process of turning look as if they should topple over any minute, but the force that keeps them balanced is still present, only acting over a much longer period of time. "That should calm them down!" 'Them' doesn't include the drivers. Nox hadn't bothered wasting energy slowing them down too. If they want to get out, they'll have to push on the door for a solid minute. Plenty of time to work as a pair of shiny grey spheres roll out of the nearest alley, leaping up from the road as they pop their legs open and stab the points of their feet into the backs of each van.
Garen	Garen grins as the vehicons impact into the transport. As the driver he pegged falls to the ground, he was already on the move. He found a good spot with some cover over the south end and set the turret to his back. "Right....now things get interesting."
Bain	The truck trying to make a DARING ESCAPE to the east suddenly finds itself doing so in SLOOOOOWWWW MOOOOTTTTIOOOOONNNN! It's pretty harsh. It means they can stop that last van at a leisurely pace, if they like. Meanwhile, the Noxines roll on in, leaping up and latching to the vans effectively. Copious amounts of armor and highly complex defensive structure means it'll be a tough nut to crack, but let's see what Nox can use to bust these open! Even the van stuck in its SLOW MOTION ESCAPE gets a latched-on Noxine despite its best efforts, since it's not going anywhere particularly fast. Of course, rudely, three of the drivers manage to rally and recover enough to stagger their way over to one and try to open fire on it with their SMGs. Nox himself has yet to be noticed, of course.
Bain	Shiro sees his first mark. In the distance, on the far, far east end. There's the silhouettes of two men who just got onto a nearby roof, one with a massive case for a hefty rifle, and the other with a high volume of comms gear and binoculars. Sniper teams! This pair is rushing over the roof on that distant after busting through roof access. Such quick deployment! They're so focused on deploying quickly that they likely won't notice Shiro himself yet.
Bain	Garen deploys his turret on his rear, which automatically guns down two of the recovering guards in a violent spray of bullets. Meanwhile, to his south, he's already seeing something. Taking cover over near an alleyway on the east side of the street, several patrolmen have already gathered, and are beginning to open fire with their revolvers, surprisingly high-caliber! There's a good spot with some cover over on the southwest end of the site, with that administrative harbor structure...
Megatron	One of the Vehicons is knocked aside as the right side van begins to push through. He spins until the Decepticon manages to reorient himself once more, and takes off after the van in pursuit. "HEY! I'm not done with you yet!" he roars over the speakers, managing to get his demands to carry over to the van's occupants. "You wanna play rough? That's fine by me!" The Vehicon converts into a massive, humanoid robot with dark-purple and black coloring, a red slit along his featureless face. His mug might be blank, but he's definitely fighting mad as he takes a leap after the truck, grabbing onto it with incredible strength that would make industrial hydraulics look feeble by comparison. Knock-Out meanwhile begins to play cops and robbers with the escort vehicles, joined up by another Vehicon for assistance. They fire back at them with auto-guns that emerge from their trunks, laser fire accurately locking on to immobilize the cars.
Shiro Kurosawa	Shiro's ears twitch as he hears vehicles swerving and screeching to a halt. And then Bain alerts them over the radio to the approaching snipers. He lays in wait until they start to show up. Aha! There! He circles around to try to approach from behind. Hopefully they'll be so focused on quick deployment that they won't notice him approaching from behind. Rats are pretty quiet. And Shiro's a Skulker, the ninjas of the Nezumi. He'll wait until they're side by side, and then approach from behind with a knife in each hand. Hopefully they'll find it hard to defend against sudden giant rat in a Grim Reaper mask appearing and trying to stab them in the backs of their necks with a knife.
Bain	Exploiting Nox's TEMPORAL DEBUFFS, the vehicon is going to have an easy time maneuvering to wrassle the truck, setting it up such that the large robot can easily send it into a skid or just outright tip it over! Dangerous! Meanwhile, the efforts to fully immobilize the trucks go as planned. The stopped vehicles can't do anything to avoid concentrated weapons fire on their wheels, and armored though they may be, eventually the mechanisms just sort of melt into slag. Meanwhile, a red dot can be see, drawn on the transformed vehicon's head... But will likely be interrupted shortly! The guards who remain unoccupied and not killed are dwindling to about half, but they try to assume a cover position and open fire with their submachine guns.
Garen	Garen runs over and starts into the building, his imperial training kicking in. He scanned every room he passed by and had his rifle ready to go. He reached a sniiping spot and scoped up the patrolmen, and with a squeeze, sent forth his rounds.
Bain	The sniper team member with the rifle goes down under Shiro's knife. The spotter seems to have been slightly more aware, and shifted uncomfortably just such that his neck is spared the blade, barely, as it plunges into his shoulder! Grunting with pain, he goes down, struggling to draw his sidearm from his hip and get a shot off, but relatively easy to finish off if Shiro has any CQC experience. It is also especially dangerous to do this on a rooftop. He's also got a lovely set of spotting equipment that could be used to locate and track down any additional sniper teams... Meanwhile, elsewhere, a red dot that was drawn on a vehicon's head is suddenly disrupted.
Megatron	Roadhog gives a hoot of satisfaction as his grip is true, and he grabs onto the van with one hand while the other converts into a cutting tool akin to an industrial saw. It's capable of cutting through solid steel, and it definitely goes to town on the van's door. Meanwhile, Knock-Out begins to take the direct route, Toolbox having opted to cover the boss-bot with laser fire while Knocky makes his way to the side of another van. The Decepticon doc-bot converts into robot form, before he deploys his own buzz-saw and a staff weapon. With the latter, he spears the van's side for a good grip while the other hand begins to cut a hole through the van's hull plating. The other two Vehicons begin to engage with pursuit cars, blasting away to take them out of the equation quickly and efficiently. They don't see a point in going out of their way to kill these humans, it'd be like smashing ants to them, but they definitely make it clear to the police they need to back off if they're smart.
Shiro Kurosawa	Shiro does indeed have some training in close-quarters combat. He also has a massive speed and mobility boost, as well as a pair of really good knives. By contrast, the surprised spotter has a throat that he's now more or less exposed to Shiro. A fact which Shiro's planning to take advantage of, with two quick, vicious slices at the spotter's throat. And if THAT doesn't work? Gonna be a ratkick aimed at the spotter's chest. Right off the roof, if everything goes as planned. Of course, if the throatslashing is successful, the boot to the chest won't be necessary. And would probably be less conspicuous besides!
Bain	Garen slips his way into the office structure and finds himself at a useful window position! Lightly vulnerable to snipers, but they have someone to cover that. Meanwhile, he winds up taking out several of the patrolmen. He's in a good position to be able to see that they're attempting to establish a secure forward position for SWAT teams further down the alleyway. These have gear that's much heavier, bearing bulky armor and hefty rifles! They're advancing behind a pair of men bearing massive, thick shields that seem to absorb whatever's thrown at them as they emerge from the alleyway!
Bain	Roadhog manages to wrassle the van into submission, the vehicle forced to a clumsy and graceless thudding stop. This means the last of the vans are stopped, essentially! But, unfortunately, it seems there's a reason Bain specifically requested a mechanical genius handle the matters of drilling these things open, and it's made apparent when the cutting tool bounces off the side of the truck! These things are TOUGH, like a mobile bank vault, and only long-term, dedicated trilling is able to pierce their thick, well-designed metallic hides. If they want to help breach these, dealing with that team of redshirted GenSec security who are trying to destroy the Noxines that are endeavoring to breach the trucks would be most efficient, at least according to the data Bain is slinging at them in a sort of passive do-what-you-like manner. One SWAT van is approaching from the north end of the street.
Garen	Garen narrows his eyes as he see's the SWAT shields mobilizing. He takes aim and lets fly again, aiming to suppress and surprise. He mutters softly in his native language a line he once heard his father say. "I almost pity you...All armored up only to never see that which sends you out."
Bain	A knife in the shoulder, and then, suddenly, sprouting from the neck. The SPOTTER goes down, and Shiro manages to neutralize the first team, causing the spotter to drop his LOOT, which is to say, sweet binoculars and other similar enemy-locating gear that may be worth using, because there don't appear to be more silhouettes, though the radio still buzzes with sniper deployment!
Nox	Having been built relatively cheaply while so low on materials, the first machine the drivers hit with their SMGs is pretty much turned into scrap by the point blank fusillade of bullets. Displeased by this turn of events, Nox winks out of existence, reappearing in the middle of the trio of men and smashing one upside the face with a backhanded punch that he doesn't even so much as look to deliver. Clapping his hands together in front of him, space ripples and undulates around the truck, causing the asphalt to wobble like gelatin, before violently snapping back into shape, sending the other two drivers hurtling through the air where they will probably smack into something very hard after a short flight. The conventionally immobilized trucks will skid over the ground a short distance as well, shooting up sparks in the case of those with tires shot out. Meanwhile, the remaining drone appears to have hit the deadlock. Two of its front legs fold out into triple jointed manipulators, one spinning up a diamond-edged saw, and the other spouting a get of blue-white fire like a tiny welding torch. Cutting through the outer door with the torch and ripping into the crossbars with the reverberating screech of the saw, where the critter's head would be suddenly sprouts an assortment of fine wires, sticking them into the lock one by one, and manipulating the mechanism from the inside in accordance with the plans Bain had delivered.
Shiro Kurosawa	SPOTTER LOOT get! In all seriousness, the binoculars and an enemy radio would be great things to have. With the radio, he can tune to the enemy radio frequency and listen in on where the other snipers intend to set up. Which he immediately does. With that done, Shiro grabs the binoculars and starts scouting the rooftops for other snipers in the area. Between the radio and the binoculars, hopefully he'll be able to see the next target.
Bain	The trio of guards is broken up by a backhanded smash that crushes one of their skulls! Screaming in a sort of panic, they turn their guns on Nox and try to open fire, just in time for him to clap so intensely that it winds up tossing the pair of them several dozen feet, breaking several of their bones. The process of cutting, picking, and drilling the lock is going to be a lengthy and tough one, but with a true mechanical genius at work this time, the vans can only manage to keep themselves shut for so long! In fact, one of the door mechanisms has already been released! There is someone inside. He is wearing an outfit that's a mixture between ballistic armor and a bomb disposal suit, rendering him completely armored in massive, thick plates. As soon as the van opens up, he levels a massive pump shotgun at Nox and fires a huge slug round wordlessly.
Bain	Garen manages to slow down the approach of the Shield units, but their large shields let them take cover and advance despite the jarring injuries to their arms, covering the approach of some half-dozen heavy SWAT officers! Meanwhile, while the column of shield-covered SWAT approach, a SWAT van on the south disgorges a slim, quick looking man in blue armor, who immediately heads north. Garen will recognize him as a Taser unit!
Megatron	Knock-Out's hand converts to a drill after the saw doesn't work, grunting in annoyance. "Well, time to do this the hard way." He plunges the screaming drill into the side of the van to make a hole, slowly working deeper and deeper as the diamond-tipped drillbit digs its way through armor plating. Roadhog does the same thing, screaming in frustration. "Wanna play hard to get, eh? Well FINE!" He punches the drill into the van's rear door, screaming with effort. The two Vehicons running interference run across the dozer on the way, and they exchange a nod before driving towards it. One of the 'Cons smashes into the side the knock the dozer away before peeling away, while the other fires away with a torrent of lasers to reduce the construction vehicle to molten slag.
Garen	Garen looks over, watching the show as Nox devestates the armored SWAT members. Then.....DOZER!!! "That's...not good." He says. He focuses in, taking deep, slow breaths. He aimed for the heavily armored officer's faceplate, when once again his fathers words came to him. 'Breath slowly, sight your target. Deep breath in, pull...don't squeeze.' In a flash, he sends one round at the dozer. His attention swaps over to the armored guys, to which he chucks one of his thermal detonator grenades. He also fires a round towards the Tazers, cheekily hoping to his the tazer and zap a few officers.
Bain	SHIRO manages to identify the location of the second sniper team, through a combo of abuse of this spotter gear and the listening in using that radio. These ones managed to breach a neighboring building on the northeast structure, and are inside! It looks like Shiro will need to approach, either via the interior of the structure itself, or just get right through the window! Jeeze. Unfortunately, they're already set up, and are going to be firing shortly! Urgent stuff!
Bain	As the Bulldozer emerges from the van, a vehicon slams into it, ramming it and making the man skid a great distance over the street, and then suffer a large quantity of damage to his armor from the laserfire. And yet, the human somehow doesn't go down. Wordlessly, he staggers, and stays on his feet, then levels his shotgun at the pair of attackers, unleashing a torrent of vicious solid slug rounds designed to tear through flesh, armor, and vehicles. There's a surprising lack of reaction to futuristic robot-cars, going for torso-shots and head-shots with a calm sort of implacable posture.
Bain	The other vans being opened up are going SLOW. Jesus, it takes MULTIPLE MINUTES to get these open if you don't have some kind of mechanical genius, apparently. Which is going to be especially problematic as a sniper team begins opening fire on Knock-Out's head repeatedly. Vicious! Though Shiro will handle that soon, most likely.
Megatron	"You'd think these guys would be a bit more intimdiated by us!" one of the Vehicons commends, raising a hand to block the Dozer's fire as he brings his metallic fist down on the bruiser like a slegehammer from hell. The other begins to fire on the soldier directly, shrugging. "Just don't let that thing get your face, man. I dont wanna know what they do to optic sensors." Knock-Out meanwhile has similar problems, forced to cancel drilling in order to bring a hand up to cover his face. "Do you apes have ANY IDEA how hard it is to buff bullet impacts from the finish?!" He angrily yells, ripping his spear free only to find the shooters are well out of reach. "Scrap." He sighs, before plunging his weapon into the hole he made, trying to wrench the van open so he can reach in to grab some of this gold and money.
Bain	Garen splits his attention three ways, which is gonna be tough. The Bulldozer is way over far to the north, which makes for some trouble, but the faceplate is weakening, at least a little! The first external covering makes a crashing noise as it falls. Unfortunately, splitting attention between the taser and the shield means chaos. While the thermal detonator staggers and wounds the shields, since he can't get the focus to fire on them it'll not be a kill, just a stall! Meanwhile, the tazer's helmet is blown clean off, but the tazer remains vigilant, and tries to fire his own taser back! He's managed to flank so hard around that the turret's opening fire on it now! Might be a good idea to pull back a bit. Bain's alerting Garen to some of the opened vans, for example, telling him to get moving north and grab some of that loot, and get it to the escape van at the north!
Shiro Kurosawa	Yikes! The second team is set up! Shiro can't afford to take a slow approach to this. On the other hand, enough bullets fired point-blank at him will indeed kill him. Nezumi aren't exactly the strongest of the Hengeyokai. Still, Shiro hoofs it to that next sniper's location! Once he's in the location, he'll use the sniper's fire to disguise the sound of his breaking a window. He stashes his knives and mask in the Umbra, turns into a rat, sneaks in through the hole in the glass, and finds a place to hide. Once he's sure he's not going to be seen, he changes back into his Crinos form, retrieves the mask and knives, dons the mask again, and goes sneaking around to find the snipers. Hopefully this will put him behind them so he can jump this team the way he jumped the other-- knives in the backs of the neck!
Garen	Garen hears the advice from Bain and takes off. Of course, before he does he lobs a flashbang into the mix of SWAT.
Bain	The vehicon slams a fist down on the dozer! It's flattened under a massive robot fist, but the armor remains intact... and the human, knocked off his feet within, seems still alive and conscious when that fist comes up, as the man fires anew at the robots, going for visceral shots with their heavy weaponry, the eyes, the mouth, the face in general, all the fiddly little joints on the hands and arms... He's very calm about this! And jesus he's tough. Second van open, albeit with an arduous effort on Knock-Out's part. Lots of sniping, but eventually it seemed to calm down... Rough! But now there's several SWAT officers incoming from the north, trying to fire a torrent of bullets on the large robots to keep them suppressed, boxed in between them and the southern group... Within the van are lockboxes! Lockboxes full of gold, cash-bundles, and diamonds! Looks like Bain had this right, oh yes.
Bain	Sneaking through the office structure that the snipers took up a position in will involve a lengthy campaign of stealth and surprise violence, as there are many patrolmen within! But Shiro can, no doubt, address these minimal threats with no worthwhile skill to them. The snipers themselves, once more, remain the group that is of the primary concern here, This time, it's the sniper who retalliates. Of course, Shiro doesn't make the same mistake twice. Knives to both nech-backs once, but, despite bleeding from a debilitating wound that grazed the spine, the sniper manages to struggle one twitching hand to his sidearm while he rushes madly at Shiro in sudden, silent retalliation, incoherently trying to deal with the threat.
Nox	While focused on the next van in sequence, Nox takes the shotgun slug straight to the chest, smashing into his steel grey armour in a shower of flying sparks and shattered lead. The impact actually causes him to slide back through the air, as if slipping across an invisible, zero friction floor. At such a close range, the round should have punched all the way through and out the other side were his armour actually made of steel, but instead it seems to have left an enormous dent so deep that it actually holds the squished remains of the slug in it for several seconds; deep enough that it should have forced its way into flesh and broken ribs were there a flesh and blood body underneath it. Nox does not take kindly to being shot. While his drone works on the next car, he teleports into the confines of the first one, reappearing already in position to have his hand around the barrel of the gun. Crushing it in his mechanical, vicelike grip, he rips it out of the security guard's hand, tosses it out onto the road, and telekinetically grabs the man by the collar of his vest, mimicking the motion with his hands as he hurns him out of the truck. Barely sparing a glance, Nox fires off a bolt of temporal interference after him, decellerating the molecular vibration of the air rather than the air itself. The result is that the atmospheric water instantly freezes, coating him from the neck down in a thick layer of ice. It's cheaper and more efficient than altering his personal timeline or blowing him to pieces with that much armour on. Why bother? "Isn't this excessive for a police force? You'd think they'd be escorting the crown jewels rather than a bank's laundry list."
Megatron	The gold certainly has a higher priority for the Decepticons. Money is something they really could care less about, but GOLD meanwhile can provide the materials they need for microchips, semiconductors, and other things. The raw materials have been a high priority, even if they can't get Energon this stuff will do fine. Knock-Out sneers upon spying a group of human SWAT officers engaging him, brandishing his spear as he leaps into combat. His motions are akin to hunting boar, graceful and swift while posessing terrifying precision and aggression as he spears and swats at the bothersome humans. "Make sure to save some of the gold for us while you're at it, Roadhog?" Knock-Out casually trills, before booting another of the cops like a football. "Yeah yeah yeah, I got it!" Roadhog snipes back, before he goes to help with extracting from the opened van when his own proved too much trouble for the effort. The Vehicons engaging the Dozer are having more trouble, sadly. One of the 'cons takes a barrage of fire to the face and optics, screaming in pain as he's blinded. "I'M HIT, I'M HIT! MEDIIIIIC!" "Big baby." the other 'con snorts, shoving his comrade out of the line of fire before he begins to kick at the Dozer like he was delivering a field-goal. "Tough little bastard aint'cha? You humans aren't so squishy after all, I'm almost impressed!"
Shiro Kurosawa	Ninja-ing his way through a building shouldn't be too tough. Stashing non-attuned things in the Umbra to sneak by as a rat will probably be necessary a couple times. 'Be quick but don't hurry' is the proverb to follow here! And eventually he'll get to the sniper team. And the spotter goes down! But when the sniper tries retaliating with a sidearm, Shiro moves quickly. He aims an overhead stab at the side of the sniper's neck, knife held in a downward grip. Hopefully that'll put the poor bastard out of his misery quickly.
Bain	The man, mid-fight with those two decepticons after being tossed out by Nox, is also disarmed; his gun's loading mechanism was damaged, so he's been fighting the vehicons this whole time on a very limited quantity of ammunition, and he's run out in short order, just in time to get frozen and then KICKED by the vehicon! The shattering noise and the loss of his weapon causes a loud, vicious CLANG as the bulldozer - jesus this man is heavy - skids further, still refusing to go off his feet, but... Staggering, near-collapse from the sustained wounding and the discouragement of losing his weapon. A non-issue for now, at least temporarily, for the moment! That means another van's worth of loot is free to grab if the crew here bashes open the lockboxes inside. But now here comes the shields and the taser - barely recovering from their huge delay caused by Garen - coming from the south! It might not be worth it to get another van! But... So much gold! Bain seems so sad about leaving more. "Gah... There's so much left, but we're getting pressure here, and I wasn't expecting a dozer so early... Sorry guys, we might need to get out of here quicker! We've already MORE than broken even, though, can you get the loot to the escape van?" Urgent, but eager tones! It's clear that they've already made a lot of cash...
Megatron	"Buff this..." Knock-Out gives some orders over comms before he breaks from contact with the enemy, making a nimble run towards the wounded Vehicon when that's cleared up. "Come on, big baby. Let's get you home." He tucks an arm over his neck before carrying the Vehicon away, the other giving cover. Toolbox and Roadhog proceed to make off with as much gold as they can, stuffing the bags in their trunks before converting to vehicle mode and driving off in a specific direction. "Knock-Out to Nemesis, I need a ground-bridge out of city limits. Send a retrieval vessel, and give sick-bay the order to prepare my medical kit. I've got one wounded right now at the moment." The two Vehicons carrying gold drive into a green portal that opens up in the middle of an intersection, closing before any human motorist gets in. In the more immediate area, a second portal opens, which Knock-Out and the remaining Vehicons make their way through. It remains open as long as it takes for the rest of the gang to get in, but they definitely will have to haul ass if they want to escape too.
Bain	The quick, struggling grapple-fight ends with two massive, bleeding wounds in the sniper's neck as the trembling, weakened man collapses, put out of his misery with a merciful sort of swiftness. There's more snipers incoming now, according to the radio, but... Too spread out, and too many to really take out! Maybe one more, but, the group seems to be preparing to leave! Since Shiro himself hasn't really gotten pinned down in terms of being an opposing force, he can escape on his own, alone, with little trouble... Assuming he gets out of this jam! A patrolman manages to round the corner and shout at Shiro, demanding he put his hands up, threatening him with a handgun alongside another patrolman that comes up near him! Both of them are completely inept, though, panicked and unskilled; a perfect moment for Shiro to escape in an appropriately dramatic and violent ninjalike way.
Nox	At this point Nox would usually open up a portal to Horolgium to stash the stolen goods, but that costs a significant sum of energy, and if there's already an escape vehicle right there, why not use it? As his drone finally pops the last van, Nox begins grabbing hold of boxes, sacks, safes, whatever he can find inside of them, and then rapidly zapping back and forth to and from the getaway van. He doesn't even really lift it or haul it around anywhere. He grabs something, teleports with it, drops it, teleports back, grabs something else, and repeats, swiftly depleting the insides of each armoured car like a time lapse video of someone offloading them. Seeing the shields moving up and not wanting to stay long enough to cause an all out, no-holds-barred gunfight, Nox hurls another bolt in the column's direction, this one aimed to accelerate the air at the molecular level rather than dampen it. The result is a massive screen of fire shooting from the ground up in a sheeting curtain, short lived and not really all that dangerous to those on the other side of it, but hopefully more than enough to distract them with the lingering flames and the thick cloud of smoke for him to grab whatever he can from the third car.
Bain	The sheet of fire from Nox is staggering, stunning, and more importantly, stalling; it buys a lot of time for a little bit of energy, keeping the group where they are for a moment while bundles of cash and bags of gold bars and diamonds are stolen out of the lockboxes by Nox now, and conveyed right to that van. Another truck gets emptied out by way of Nox's absurd temporal efficiency, With enough delays, it's no less than three of the six trucks cleaned out before the advancing column of vicious SWAT fighters are going to make it just sort of more trouble than any loot could possibly be worth, honestly. Hell, just half of one of the trucks would have been enough! Time to go, apparently, because the Taser unit is lobbing flashbang grenades like crazy, and the SWAT groups have spread out and begun unleashing a torrent of bullets down the street, trying to just inflict as much damage as possible to the heisters! Meanwhile, sniper teams can be seen setting up on nearby roofs... Good lord, whatever "Blue Tide" is, it's awful.
Shiro Kurosawa	And there's the retreat call! Suddenly there are patrolmen pointing guns at him, spoiling Shiro's perfect stealth bonus! But that's okay, more kills will probably balance it out! One of the knives is thrown at the first patrolman, aimed for his face. This should distract the second patrolman long enough for Shiro to duck down under his line of fire and put the other knife in the second patrolman's stomach. Should he be able to take out these two guards, Shiro will get out a window and down to ground level. Might even run past the van and try to grab some stuff if possible. That Umbral stashing technique will be helpful if he has enough time to grab stuff. Whether he does or not, Shiro's not going to get left behind for shiny things. Even though they're just SO SHINY~!
Nox	With the last of the valuables cleared out, Nox makes the prudent decision to abscond rather than get into a protracted firefight with far more SWAT officers than should ever realistically exist in one place at one time. He doesn't really require the use of the escape van, letting his spot go towards stuffing more loot into it, instead taking one last look to the advancing wall of policemen, and then disappearing from the spot from a high pitched chirrup of static. Zip. Gone.
Bain	A stab to the face, then a stab to the gut on the partner! The patrolmen both go down easy, getting only a few missed shots off as Shiro escapes without a scratch, leaping out a window properly ninja-like! There's even the time to grab some spare diamonds left behind, because they're so shiny! And then, away! Off into the night, where SWAT can't seem to track Shiro down at all. The SWAT from the north and south both seem unwilling to deal with the bridge, so Twitch, the escape van driver, floors it into the bridge and Knock-Out and his vehicons will have no trouble getting in there, with Nox free to escape his own way! The whole heist was a grand total of something like eight minutes of pure chaos. The local police force is left wondering just what the hell exactly hit them, and also left with several dozen SWAT officer, patrolmen, and security guard corpses.