---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Damnit!” yelled Poole. “Fire!”

The other officers fired on Schrader. He was prepared, however, and two other members of his group poked their guns out the sides of the doors and covered him as he ran back into the bank. As soon as he was back through the doorway, the guns retreated, and the doors slammed shut.

Poole called for an ambulance, and Elijah grabbed his gas mask. They had to be ready for anything. Elijah hadn’t seen this group in a while. They were ruthless and didn’t take prisoners. The Silencers. They had been hitting banks and storage depots for years, and only recently backed off. It seems, Elijah thought, they had gotten bored of sitting around.

Elijah jogged over to Poole and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Are we doing this, Mark?” Eli asked.

Poole stared at Morris’s corpse and spoke without moving.

“Go get them.”

Elijah nodded and gathered his team. There were 5 of them in total, including Elijah. They were all covered in DragonScale, and fully armed. Eli inspected them all, and, deeming them all properly ready, gave them the affirmative signal.

Elijah glanced one more time back at Mark, who nodded to him, with a “Good luck” look on his face. Eli and the team made their way over to the side of the blockade, and quickly moving between pillars of the neighboring building, made it to the side of the bank.  The back had a large fire escape, which led to a door on the second floor of the bank. Eli and the team climbed the escape and got to the door.

The door had a window in it, and seeing there was no one there, Eli quickly opened the door, and they all dashed in, quickly scanning the room for hostiles. It was empty. Elijah noticed a door open on the north side of the room.

“Alright, Murphy, Andrews, stay here, and stop anyone from getting in or out this way,” Elijah ordered.

The two men nodded, and Elijah and the two others left through the north door. It led to a small room with a balcony overlooking the lobby. Seeing no one else, he told his 2 men to wait there and went to look over at the lobby. There were 4 men there, as well as 6 hostages, all lined up against the wall, faces full of terror. A few feet away from them, talking with one his men… Schrader.
“Alright, we get the cash, we go out the back way. The trucks waiting for us a block east. Straight back to base, got it?” Schrader commanded.

“Yes sir.” his lackey responded. “The bags are almost full, just a few more minutes.”

“They better be,” Schrader said. “We’ve already spent enough time here. They’ll be sending a squad in soon. We can’t be here when that happens.”

Elijah watched the exchange attentively. Poole had said there were at least 5 men in here. The lobby only had 4 of them. That meant there was another man here, somewhere.

Click.

“Looking for me?”

The Silencer pressed his gun to Elijah’s temple and grinned cruelly. Elijah slowly raised his hands and turned around, with the gun swiveling around his head to face the gang member. Behind the man's shoulder, he could see his two men, dead on the floor, stabbed to death. From the man's belt, a gleaming Razor could be seen, coated with blood.

“Drop the gun, I don’t think you’ll need it.” he commanded.

Elijah complied, tossing his pistol to the floor,

“You really thought you could take down all of us with three guys? Really? That’s just sad.”

“Five.” Eli responded. “Murphy, Andrews!”

The Silencer jumped around to face the door. The two other officers came into view and were fired upon by the Silencer. Elijah ducked and grabbed the knife from the Silencers belt, and plunged it into the man's neck, ending his illicit career.

“What the hell was that?” came Schrader's voice.

Elijah grabbed his gun and grouped back with Murphy and Andrews, who hadn’t been hit.

Schrader and his men fired on the balcony, and the three ducked behind the walls.

Elijah signaled the two to maintain position and made his way back to the south door. Back near the fire escape, he entered the east door. It lead to a staircase down to the first floor. Reaching the bottom, he ducked behind a corner. From his position, he could see the four men firing on the balcony. Elijah watched as, after a moment, Schrader told his men to stop.

“Damn, how did they get in here?” Schrader yelled. “I thought we had a guy up there.”

Elijah aimed his gun at Schrader's head.

He was about to fire when a sudden rumbling could be heard. It grew louder and louder as Schrader and his men turned to face the west wall, where the noise could be heard.

“What in the hell is that?” he said, pointing his gun at the wall in apprehension.

The sound got louder until a sudden explosion blew the wall off. One of Schrader's men was unlucky enough to be close enough to the wall and was crushed. The dust blew into the building, and Elijah was glad he’d brought a gas mask. Once the dust settled, Schrader and the remaining two men had jumped behind a counter and had taken two of the hostages with them.

The source of the walls collapse was then clear. A large, black van had smashed through the wall, which had two, large, square rams on its sides, towards its front.

The van was a dark black, with light grey stripes on its sides, near the bottom and top. Both its side windows, and its windshield were heavily tinted, and Elijah couldn’t see inside at all.

Schrader and his men, both of which had hostages in their arms, slowly rose from the counter and walked over to the front of the counter.

“Alright, you’re gonna come out here, right now, with your hands up, or we’ll blow their heads off!”

There was no response from the van and its occupants. It sat there, dust and debris settling around it.  One of the thugs, hostage in hand, carefully approached the vehicle. As he got about 3 feet away from it, the door opened. A hand slowly poked out of the doorway and was followed by a man in a light grey colored suit, with dark blonde hair, who had the look of someone who really didn’t belong in this situation.

“I do apologize, for this whole situation, I mean. I had hoped the police would have been more effective in detaining you, but, alas. Plans change.” the man announced. “I suppose we’ll just have to do it the
harder way, then.”
The thug had hardly interpreted the man's words, when the man in the suit pulled out a sword from his back, the size of a shortsword, and leaped forward, the blade slicing through the air, right through the thug. Elijah watched, stunned, as the woman who had been grabbed, dash to the side, and the gang man's head fall, right off his shoulders. The man with the sword stopped and turned to face Schrader and the other man.

“You picked a bad time to rob a bank, friend. A very bad time.”