Operation of Opportunity

[Sarah]

They were little more then paid thugs for the most part, five fools who liked to hurt people and make money. Yet, they weren't completely unintelligent. The truly stupid were arrested or insulted someone and just dissapeared. No, they'd had promise and had worked well for quite a while but now they were becoming a liability. Taking jobs from the local crime bosses, trying to run their own protection rack. If they were caught or snitched they might reveal enough for people to see the bones of Cadge's plans. And seeing the frame was a short step to destabilizing it.

Sarah rubbed her eyes and looked at the lot of them. In her natural form they wouldn't have given her a second look, foolish, or had some other plans for her, suicidal. As she was, though, she fit the model of the kind of person they were used to accepting money from. An angry looking man who could have made her old drill sergeant tremble in fear.

"Alright. This is a simple op. for once." True. "We're going to go into the bank down on forty third, fire a few rounds off and set up a hostage situation. Standard bid, cash and car for the lives of the people inside." True. "We'll be there to keep the police busy so that my employer can move some questionable merchandise without worrying." True. "I'll be with you for this to act as negotiator so we an all get out safe. You'll get to keep a cut of what we negotiate as well as your fee for this. This should go off without a hitch." False, there'd be only one survivor here. One way or another she'd be keeping them from talking. With a grin, she picked up the old M1 she had brought with her off the chair and swung it up to her shoulder. "You can call me Azrael."

----15 Minutes Later----

She'd made sure to demorph and remorph before leaving, as well as drink plenty of coffee to give an excuse to run to the bathroom, but now was the time for action. They all had light body armour, run of the mill bullet proof vests you could buy on the internet, and what weapons they thought were useful. Jim, the 'leader', had a hunting rifle with a 4x scope which, along with the plaid shirt he wore over his vest, made him look like a hick. Mike and Danny both had pistols. Phil had a sawed off shotgun, despite the protests of his friends. He'd be a danger to anyone in front of him. James, Mike's brother, rounded out their weaponry with an AR-15.

Sarah/Azrael nodded to Jim as the walked in. "Everybody down on the ground now!" Jim yelled, his shouts punctuated by Mr. Shotgun firing a burst into the ceiling that shattered lights. "If you get up, or try to make any moves I don't like we'll shoot you. Now, I need all the cellphones over here..."

As the hired muscle confiscated weapons from the guards, gathered phones, and constructed a makeshift baricade in front of the door, Sarah fixed a bayonet to the end of her rifle and sat down to watch the prisoners. Then, quietly, she started feeding armour piercing sabot rounds into her rifle. She liked this gun and didn't feel like losing it after shooting anybody today. "Guys, the police will be here in five minutes. Let's hustle."

[Johnny]

Johnny really had rotten luck. First, he had been falsely accused of stealing money from a bank when he was recruited by PHANTOM. Then he had been held up on a bus by kamikaze red-circle people. Shortly after that he had been attacked by piranha. Now he was crouched behind a stall in the back of the men's bathroom, hoping that none of the armed robbers that he had just seen enter the bank would walk in.

He was going to morph to look for a way out, but he had something to do first. He pulled out his cell phone and quickly typed out a text.

@ bank. armd robrs. hlp! wil mrph now.

He sent the text off to the other animorphs who had cell phones. Then he turned his off and slipped it in the back pocket of the shorts that he was conveniently wearing under his regular clothes. That was the only part of his morphing suit though, but it would be enough. He put his wallet in the shorts as well before stripping his shirt and jeans off. He stuffed them behind the trash can before walking into a stall.

There, he visualized a gecko. Scales began replacing flesh. His blonde hair sucked itself intoh is scalp and his fingers flattened. Then his eyes bulged out and his lips extended themselves. Within a couple of minutes, Johnny was scampering across the tile floor, heading towards a wall. After another minute, Johnny had slithered out of the bathroom via the crack between the door and the doorframe.

Now he had to look for a way out of the building.

[Rox]

Rox just got back from an interview with another place she had sent an application. It was at a bowling alley, and this time she got the job. She could now spend her evenings renting out shoes and serving beers to sweaty old guys during their bowling tournaments. Not too terrible of a job in Rox's mind.

She barely had time to open up the fridge to scavenge for some leftovers before her new cell phone started vibrating in her pocket. Maybe it was the bowling ally, trying to reach her for a change of scheduling. She took out he phone and flipped it open. It was a text message from Johnny.

"What does that annoying little twerp want now?" Rox grumbled to herself. "Did he find a potato in the shape of Elvis's head or something?" She wouldn't put it past him to text her about something pointless like that. She didn't even want to give him her phone number, but it was practically unavoidable.

@ bank. armd robrs. hlp! wil mrph now.

Rox let out a bark of laughter before realizing that the message might actually be serious. There was a bank being robbed and Johnny was morphing? What, was he going to try and stop the robbers all by himself? Rox had the urge to go fly over to the bank just to see Johnny try. It would probably be hilarious! You know, as long as he didn't get killed...

"Oh no. He's going to get himself killed," Rox said flatly. She quickly went over and flipped on the TV. "You guys! We gotta go get Johnny!" she yelled to whoever might have been in earshot. Johnny hadn't told her what bank he was at so she would have to find out the hard way. A breaking news story was just coming up on one of the news channels. Rox was already halfway into her dove morph.

[Mark]

((Obligatory peanut gallery post... only one Mark's going to do.))

"Does he even have any animals useful for this? The only thing I've seen him morph is a bug?" Mark said as he plopped down on the couch. The rapidly shifting form of Rox was immediately visible, but he ignored it. He'd be next to useless for this mission. Too slow or obvious to get there in morph, and a human would be hard pressed to get through the police blockade. Trying to get there would be a waste of effort. He could watch the television and try and keep them up to date though. If they had phones. Yeah, that's gonna happen

With a sigh he walked into the kitchen to grab a bag of popcorn and a soda. This felt too much like bad reality TV, like a mix of Big Brother and Fear Factor. "Hope I don't miss the good part."

[Sarah]

The sirens faded into hearing, a minor harmony that punctuated the sobbing of the prisoners and the rhythmic tapping of Danny's foot. "Did anyone check the restrooms?" Jim yelled as his head snapped up. Someone had forgotten the tendency for plucky good samaritans to hide in the bathroom. When head shakes indicated the negative, he pointed at two of his followers who sprinted into the rooms with guns ready. "And remember to SEARCH this time! I don't want a repeat of the May incident."

Sarah/Azrael smirked. Traffic and panic slowed down the cops, but they were almost here any way. Any second now... "THIS IS THE POLICE. WE HAVE THE BUILDING SURROUNDED. PLEASE LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES." Right on schedule.

A couple heads perked up at the sound and one old woman decided to yell for help from the police. Phil kicked her in the head and spat on her, scaring the rest of them silent. At this point if any of them fired a weapon they'd all end up shot in return. Luckily, the police liked negotiating with hostage takers more then they liked dead civilians.(Unfortunately I don't actually know the SOP for negotiations so I'm gonna wing it)

Clearing her throat, Sarah yelled "HOW ABOUT YOU GIVE US OUR OWN MEGAPHONE AND SHUT DOWN THOSE BLOODY SIRENS SO WE CAN TALK THIS OUT RATIONALLY."

About this time, Mike came wandering in with a pair of pants and a shirt. "Nobody there, but it looks like someone was getting Biz-zay!" He said to his brother accompanied by some wildly inapropriate air humping.

"I hope you get shot in the crotch, we don't want them to think we're going to abuse the prisoners because of your idiocy."

[Leopold]

Leopold hadn’t yet gotten a job, but he was still searching. While he wasn’t really bringing any income, he still made himself of use, keeping the place clean, as well as memorising the layout of Arbella through his hawk morph.

Leopold was in the living room, reading a book. He really liked Day of the Vipers; it was about events leading up to his favourite TV show. When he was loudly interrupted by Rox, he looked up, seeing her flip the TV on and turn to the local news. His eyes widened as he heard what she said and saw what was going on, on-TV.

He could see Rox already morphing. He had no way of knowing whether or not she knew where to find the bank – though it was downtown and was a Bank of America, which was a start. It would have policemen and camera crews surrounding it, as evidenced by the news. And Leo was beginning to really familiarise himself with this town – he had mapped out much of the city while in hawk morph.

Hawk was the only morph he had. He hoped it would be sufficient, as he began the morph, after undressing to his morphing clothes, and saying, “Right behind you!” When he finished the morph, he leaped up to the windowsill, and spread his wings, taking off, turning his hawk head slightly to check for Rox or any of the others. He caught a thermal radiating off of the buildings, and rode it, hopping onto downtown’s thermal as soon as he could. He kept a close eye on the white dove, as he did.

It wasn’t hard to miss the flashing lights, or the sounds of sirens and shouting. The hawk circled downwards, and landed on a telephone pole, peering down at the scene below. He couldn’t risk contacting Johnny right now; the thought-speech might be heard by the wrong person, and that might lead to further complications. Instead, he listened to what was being said. The sirens were loud. The hawk didn’t like the noise, and wanted to fly away; Leopold kept her under control.

((OOC: Would he be able to see Sarah through the window or not, with his hawk vision?))

[Johnny]

((Probably, if there are large glass doors a big window.))

Johnny was trying his best to control himself. It was just so hard when the apparent ringleader had such a sense of humor! He tried his best not to let it roll out in thought-speak and possibly alert the thugs. But nothing was stopping him from enjoying the comedy. He would definitely have to write that down for later.

As he scuttled across the really high ceiling tiles, Johnny fervently hoped that his friends, and Rox, would come. He didn't realize that the only people, unless they were already close by, that could come were Leopold and Rox. If he had wanted a fight, Bony and Keith could've helped, but they wouldn't work in his situation. Leopards and wolves tended to stick out on city streets or in banks. But Johnny didn't think about those aspects. He just wanted a way out of the bank so he could start thinking.

Johnny hit a wall that was going as far up as he could see, which meant it went down as far as he could see. He began climbing on that, trying to orient himself towards the doors. Maybe he could slip out of a crack between a door and doorframe, like he had done in the bathroom. But Johnny also had other things to worry about. Like, how were they going to stop the thieves? He had a powerful morph, but it couldn't stand up against at least three people who no doubt had guns. Johnny really had no idea how many people wer there. He had ducked into the bathroom a moment after they walked in and he was going by how many voices he heard. But no matter what, he couldn't defeat 'em alone. If only Tony and Keith were here.

[Rox]

(Even in Leopold can see Sarah, keep in mind that she is using a human morph at the moment.)

Rox was pretty thoroughly annoyed that Mark didn't even pretend to want to help, but she didn't comment. If doves could glare, she would have been glaring a hole through his head at the moment. Not that she would have acted any differently in his situation...

The flight to the bank didn't take too long, thankfully. She went with just herself and Leopold. Rox didn't know him very well yet, but he seemed decent enough. At least he didn't annoy her with every other word that came out of his mouth. Unlike the one they were trying to save.

Speaking of which, where was Johnny? Rox landed on a windowsill across the street and observed the situation. She expected to arrive just in time to see some wild animal get shot trying to get into the bank to save everyone. It suddenly dawned on Rox that she may have misinterpreted Johnny's message.

<<Oh man,>> Rox groaned to Leo. <<Johnny is inside, isn't he. I thought he was gong to try and save the people in the bank, but it's him who needs saving, isn't it.>> Rox was speaking her questions as if they were statements. They had come here to rescue Johnny, but Rox was thinking they would only need to talk him out of something. But now they needed to get him out of something.

<<So, what? Do we try to get inside?>> Rox really hoped the answer was no.

[Sarah]

There was a sudden silence as the sirens' wail cut out, lights still flashing above the cars. As captors and captives watched watched, one of the officers was relieved of weapons and radio. He then proceeded to make the slow walk towards the door of the bank carrying a megaphone in his hands. The poor guy looks terrified.

Sarah made her way to the edge of the door and stood, rifle at the ready, as the officer opened the glass door and stepped in to the entryway. The rifle was lowered until the sharpened point of the bayonet was right behind his neck. "Turn around." She whispered in her current harsh voice. As he turned, she raised the gun barrel to eye level and, even though the man went cross-eyed, he managed to keep control of his bladder. "Set the megaphone on the ground and we'll let you walk out, real slow. Try anything and you'll be wearing an eyepatch for the rest of your life."

Cautiously, the officer set the item on the tile floor and backed out of the door he'd entered through. He didn't seem to dare take his eyes off of the blade. And when he gets back, we'll get the 'hostile to police' treatment. Just a little more and I can ensure that none of these fools will be allowed to leave whole. With a grin, she slid their communication across the floor to their fearless leader. "Why don't you get on the horn, Jim, tell 'em what we want."

James raised his hand, acting like a five year old. "Ooh, ooh, I want a pony." He smirked as the others glared at him briefly. "What, there's good eatin' on one of those..." She tuned out the rest.

Rolling her eyes, Sarah made her way to the bathroom. Immature, useless, and unprofessional. I'll be glad when this is over. Shutting the door behind her, she concentrated and felt her bones shrink as her body twisted about her. It'd been more than an hour and she liked to play it safe. A short time later she was left, still cradling the rifle, standing in her own body in the middle of the men's room. She stretched briefly, making sure the fabric was loose and wouldn't tear, before shutting her eyes and returning to the guise of the old crook. Fixing her sleaves, she made her way back into the main bank to see the fools crash and burn.

[Leopold]

It looked like it was just going to be Leopold and Rox; it was irritating, though, that Mark had just shrugged them off like that. If he ended up doing things like that with other missions, Leopold would, no doubt, be really annoyed with him – and that would be especially disappointing, since Leo considered Mark to be a friend. And Mark was an adult; couldn’t he set a good example for the younger of them?

He was glad Rox had caught up to them. He’d been using his keen hawk vision to peer into the windows. He’d gotten a good glimpse at the faces of the thuds, and he also heard one of them – the apparent leader – telling them to give them a megaphone and shut the loud sirens off. Soon, the sirens died out, and Leopold was grateful; the hawk did not like the loud sounds. It looked like not all of the thugs were competent, and were he in a human form, Leopold would have rolled his eyes.

Hawks couldn’t do that, however, but that didn’t stop him from preening, as he listened to Rox. Leopold responded, <We need a plan first. We don’t know what form Johnny is in, currently – could be the wasp or something else – and I don’t know how I can get in contact with him without alerting the robbers. Oh, and I hope he’s hidden his phone well...> He didn’t like the thought of the thugs finding the phone.

An unarmed officer approached the bank with a megaphone. Leopold watched, and continued to converse privately with Rox. <What other morphs do you have? I have a cockroach morph.> He’d gotten it back in Hemington, in that old, dusty house. He’d figured a cockroach, though unpleasant, would make a resilient stealth morph. It took a lot to kill the things.

He watched as the officer was taken inside the bank, and hoped no innocents – including the officer – would be harmed. He wondered if Rox had any ideas, and thus, he waited on her response, continuing to preen.

[Rox]

<We need a plan first. We don’t know what form Johnny is in, currently – could be the wasp or something else – and I don’t know how I can get in contact with him without alerting the robbers. Oh, and I hope he’s hidden his phone well...>

<<You don't know how to contact him? The same way you are contacting me right now. Private thought speech. But you got a good point about that phone. We definitely can't let it stay in there. If either the police or the crooks read his latest text message, we could be in big trouble...>>

Rox broadened her thought speech to include both Leo and Johnny. <<Johnny, me and Leo are here, outside. Try to get out of there, but make sure you don't leave any of your stuff there as evidence.>> Then, just to Leo she said, <<And I got no other morphs that breathe air, so this is pretty much it for me.>> Rox really hoped this all turned out okay.

[Leopold]

<Oh,> Leo said quickly. <I didn't really know that.> He was still getting the hang of thought-speech. To both Johnny and Rox, he spoke now, <Well, then, if any of us need to go inside, you could be the lookout.>

He wondered what to do now. Would Johnny be able to get his stuff and get out of there? Or would Leopold need to go in and morph cockroach? He was nervous about the latter - what if they had already found the phone and what Johnny had sent, and to who?

Leopold was already scoping out an entrance to the bank. If he needed to do a cockroach morph, Rox would probably have to pick him up and drop him onto the steps, and from there, he could crawl inside. It was extremely risky...but then again, cockroaches were - albeit disgusting - amazing at survival. It was why he had acquired one; he knew it would be useful.

[Johnny]

The voice in Johnny's head almost made him fall from the ceiling. <<Oh God! Now I'll never get out of here alive!>> he said in mostly mock-horror as Rox told him that it was just her and Leopold. But seriously, that does narrow my chances of survival. Leo's voice was reassuring though. At least he wasn't alone with Rox.

But he reported to them both. <<Well, one of the thugs found my clothes and I don't wanna know what he did to them. I morphed the rest though. I guess my shorts even made the phone skin-tight, but I doubt I'll be sending out any texts for awhile.>> Johnny kept moving the whole time. He saw some patches of light so that would be where he would go. The bank did have large glass doors, right? At least, Johnny thought so. The branch back in Mariposa certainly had.

[Sarah]

((And... Johnny missed the chance to see recognize Sarah. Yay!))

As she emerged from the bathroom, she saw that one of their hostages had a shotgun up to his head. The megaphone was in the hands of another of the thugs and several of the innocents were crying. "...And I don't care about your traffic bull sh**! You'll either get me that vehicle or I swear I will blow his ****ing head all over the **mn counter! Do you understand me, you arrogant pig b**tards? You've got thirty minutes before we start killing hostages." Then he nodded, and the shotgun weilding one threw the man into the wall.

Wonderful, we're ahead of schedule. Glowering, she walked up to Jim and shoved him back into the counter. "Is this a joke? Are you kidding me? Your boys haven't even opened the safe yet, you have none of the cash and you're already asking for a way out? Take care of the money first, we can worry about leaving later. Did you know that you've set us up for sniping and SWAT already? Are you out of your mind? If you keep this up, it's coming out of your cut." She was rewarded by an attempt to push her backwards, two hands shot towards her shoulders with enough force to knock her backwards. She edged sideways and grabbed one of the wrists as it passed, pulling it up into the small of his back and then raising it until she heard him gasp. "You think you could just off me and leave without giving your due? I'm not an idiot."

"I never said you were, but you're also only one man... Danny?" She felt the muzzle of a pistol press against the back of her head as she stood there. "You can't take out all of us and expect to get out with the money. You need us to crack this safe, but we don't need you. Try to pull rank again and danny hear will make sure you can't do it again."

With a grimace, she let go of Jim's wrist and brought her free hand into light. It was clutching a grenade, sans pin. "I let go of the lever, we all go up." As the pair stumbled back she replaced the pin and slid the grenade back into her pocket. She returned to her lookout post and pulled out a cellphone, pressing the first speed dial button. "We're ahead of schedule and they've turned treacherous." Then she dropped the phone and ground it under her heel.

~

Across the city, a line of cement mixers left a gravel pit and turned onto a road that would bring them to the interstate. Nobody had seen the trucks loaded or suspected the spinning drumbs of containing anything but wet concrete... And so many police were occupied at the moment. How unfortunate.

[Rox]

Rox had no idea what to do. She couldn't go in to help, but she couldn't leave without Johnny either. So she waited and watched.

The police were trying to figure out what to do as well and more seemed to be arriving all the time. They had the place surrounded and Rox even noticed some that were stationed in the upper stories of surrounding buildings. <<I don't think they're going to get out of this very easily,>> Rox commented. <<I think I'm going to stretch my wings a little bit. Get a better view. Let me know if Johnny makes it out.>>

Rox took to the air and circled the building. As far as Rox could tell, the crooks were stuck in the bank with no exit. Unless they had a secret tunnel or something. As Rox finished her circle, she landed on the sidewalk in front of the bank doors. She pecked at the ground to try and look natural, but at the same time she was looking in through the doors. At least this morph is good for something, Rox thought to herself.