What's in a Bank?

[Kolya]

Sorry, opsec means many details as to where and when are left out.

Our APC rolled slowly into position as we followed behind it on foot. I was helping Roma with the ramp. When the APC stopped we ran up to the bank building. We had two guys on the roof with basically a charge on a stick blow out the window of an empty room (according to the thermal imaging). I helped Roma place the ramp. Sasha and Lyosha ran up the ramp, and then I followed. Roma then peeled off to join Oleg's team, which was breaching through the cellar. My team was going down from the second floor. Another team would handle the first floor. Sasha placed a charge and blew out the north wall. Sasha went in first and I could hear the silent clack of his weapon. Lyosha followed and I went in last. There were two tangoes laying on the floor. This was a corner room and from there we entered the cooridor.

Sasha took the left lane, I took the right, and Lyosh watched behind us. One of the doors down the hall swung open Sasha's side and he opened fire. An AK poked out while Sasha was firing and the AK hit the ground. "Flashbang out," he said. I covered as he flung the grenade down the hall. We covered up for the detonation and continued to make our way down the hall to the room. Hopefully no one inside would be able to roll a frag out into the hall after all that.

One more flashbang, and "go," I said, and Sasha went in with me and Lyosh right behind him. The room was full of tangoes trying to reset their bearings. It was like shooting fish in a cup with a shotgun. We were literally ankle deep in dead tangoes. We redistributed ammo.

It came over the radio that Oleg's team was pinned down and quickly running out of ammo.

"We got one more room to clear," I explained. We rolled down the hallway in the same fashion approaching the last room on the second floor, which was basically a ring around the edge leaving the first floor greatly exposed. There were private offices of the bank managers.

Flashbang, go. As I went in to cover my sector I shot two tangoes in the face point blank and they went straight to the ground, and then I felt something like two ball peen hammers slam into my chest plate. I stumbled backwards, the air knocked from me. The door would have stopped from falling down but Lyosh had blown it off the hinges with his shotgun. I rolled with it, came up, shouting, "coming in," and I poured through the threshold but my guys had already taken down the threat.

Oleg's situation was, to say the very least, desperate. A reinforcing team was on its way in.

We moved down to the first floor to hook up with the other team, which was still working as they much more area to cover. We were on the north side of the building. A couple offices there. The walls outside the doors were not marked, which meant they had not been cleared.

Flashbang, go. Me and a tango shot each other at the same time. I took a pistol round right to the forehead jamming my helmet back with enough force to wrench my head back and cut through the skin in a neat line across my forehead. Most of his face sprayed out the back of his skull all over this banker's family pictures. Lyosha was reloading.

Few parts of the body bleed like the head. I could feel it running down my neck under my armour. I never take off my helmet. "I got a headache," I said, reloading.

"You're bleeding like a pig, too," Sasha added.

"Let's finish this," Lyosha said.

"Go," I said.

"Cautiously!" Sasha shouted, he had sensed something.

As we emerged our magic buzzers went off and immediately in front of us in the room there was what appeared to be a mirage flying towards us with great velocity. It came across the room lifting the three of us off of our feet and slamming us into the wall behind us, several feet off of the floor. And the mirage passed through us disappearing somewhere inside the structure of the wall, I guess. We slid down the wall to the ground, rolled, and came up. Then some four legged creatures materialised in air, not even a puff of smoke, and they came right at us, also with incredible velocity.

From instinct we dropped our magazines and slammed in some silver rounds. The bullets tore into the monsters' and the yelped liked dogs from the pain. Some of them flipped and slid to dead stops, turning to goo, and disappearing. But a few survived the hail of silver. In fact, one of them got to Sasha. He had managed to spin out of the way, and I was reloading. The creatured lunged and he double tapped it effectively. I saw the cap of its head tear neatly off with the inertia of the blasts carrying it off behind the monster. Goo. Evaporate.

No idea wha they were. Never got a good look.

I had turned to Sasha to check on him. "Behind you!" he yelled.

I spun down into a kneeling fighting stance trying to acquire the target, at the time I felt Sasha's heavy foot push off of my right shoulder, and flew through the air, and over Lyosha who had also spun down. I could see Sasha's katana flashing. I heard him grunting as he went to work. I could only see a vague shape through my goggles but I could not make out any detail through all the blood pouring out of my forehead into my eyes and down the sides of my nose. My knees gave out and I fell back on my ass. I felt my jaw drop. And that was it, the lights were out, but I still somewhat conscious. Or maybe I was hallucinating. I could hear the radio chatter, but as if it were taking place a thousand miles away.

I was in the back of an APC with an drip in my arm when I regained conscious. Sasha and Lyosha were in the basement working with Oleg and the reinforcements. The arcanist which we were after had thoroughly barricaded the downstairs and had a lot of suppy friends with him.

All the bad guys we had come across while clearing those rooms were looking for something when we showed up. They were going through file drawers. Interestingly, the bank vault and hard boxes were not tampered with. They were looking for something specific, and not money. But the guy we were really interested in got away.

The old addage: follow the money... not this time.

[Bert_the_Turtle]

Damn! You're lucky you weren't killed!

[Ron Caliburn]

I'd rather face a vampire than an automatic weapon.

[GhostSpider]

Me, I'd rather face the automatic weapon. In fact, there are few more satisfying things than watching the look of confusion and frustration on a man's face as he empties his weapon at you and doesn't hit a single time.

Priceless.

[Ron Caliburn]

Neat trick? How do you practice that? I imagine there has to be a pretty steep learning curve.

[GhostSpider]

Actually Ron, it's more of fooling the shooters mind than me actually dodging the bullets. It's sort of an illusion, mixed with a little psychic suggestion and a dash of enhanced relexes.

[Ron Caliburn]

Ahh, so a variation on the MacArthur idea - make 'em hit where you ain't

[GhostSpider]

Exactly.

Still, it would be very cool if I could teleport too.

[Sasha]

Teleportation would have saved me a lot of headaches over the years. "My husband is home early....." *poof*

[Greydawn]

That was bad Mr. Sasha.

[GhostSpider]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Natasha]

our Sasha...

[Kolya]

Hmm. Tomsk, 1992?

But there very well could have been others. I just happen to know about this one.

[Sasha]

hahaha!

Yes, it was.

[Kolya]

That may be slightly more embarrassing than Warsaw, '85.

May be...

[The Dark Voice]

I was in Warsaw in 1985. Ah, stalking young virgins in the streets, letting their terror and fear flow through me to my master. Finally I would catch them and sacrifice them in the name of Belladrox.

Good times.

[Sasha]

Sounds like it.

[GhostSpider]

Well, let's just hope your fear and terror are as appetizing to your master when we catch up with you Voice.