[center] The sky, as blue as tropical sea water infects Arduous’ eyes with glistening dew. “It’s too fucking bright” the words escape through the groggy haze of half-awakeness. The tram ride was unpleasant, and slower than he’d like; that old driver always took his time. [i]‘Honestly, only going 200 during morning rush hour, it’s not like any of us have anywhere to go,’[/i] his mind curmudgeons.

The lanky man hands fish inside of his dusty brown paletot overcoat, brushing past a wallet he knows is now empty, filtering out a similarly destitute metal flask, and finally grasping at a black leather bound case. An uncharacteristically quick flash of motion places shaded glasses atop his thin brow as if produced from thin air, the leather case returning to his inner left pocket as if his mind changed.
 
“Just great. . .” a voice says from a mouth seeming much closer than the sound it produced, Arduous lists slightly away from the noise, an involuntary response recorded through molasses. “Good morning officer...” Arduous manages to slur in return, gazing towards the city bank door. A crowd of similarly dressed men, all seemingly similarly squat and moustached idle around it’s twin carven slabs. One particularly portly officer begins to wrap yellow and black tape across the door before thinking better of it, and meanders his way back to the coffee and donut booth. His legacy reading  in white text “CRIME SCENE, DO NOT ENTER”. 

 The oddly angular man's hands again reach into his coat pocket, searching for his identification card. A moment of familiar dread fills him when he finds his right pocket empty. “We are no civilians.” states his towering companion, brazenly displaying both his own and Arduous’ Hero Association ID. “what he said…” Mutters the slumped figure, each moment of dral conversation taking a physical toll on his body and numbing his sense deprived mind. 

Without warning the ground beneath Arduous melts away, the sights around him blurring as he lurches forward. Dazed he shakes his angular head, “Oh… looks like I’ve found the door” he says still back-tracking his mind to the moment before autopilot kicked in.

His athletic college begins jogging in circles beside him, breaking out into a light run and then the speed is duplicated, and duplicated, and duplicated... until the huge man is no more than a mottled stream of bronze, red and white. Like a spinning top on the edge of collapse the muscled man widens his arc, spinning elliptically too and throw, the edge of the crazed dance turns, pointing almost like a double-thick line towards the gargantuan doors. The sound of a whip crack echos about the scene, as the foot of the mustached hero booms against the stone aperture. 

Dust spouts from the carven frame, as the great doors begin to slowly turn….

[H3][color=a0410d]~~~KUUUURRRRSSSHH~~~[/color][/h3]

 The pair peer into the first city bank, morning light beaming against their backs. Arduous still recalled his first visit all those years ago.  He remembered feeling as if their should be some sort of skylight or windows in one side, the gloom of the place permeates his being.  ‘this place is a lock box outside and in’ he mumbles to himself.

 His eyes adjust quickly to the low light, and are greeted by a the familiar grand charcoal pillars with their limestone ionic capitals, holding aloft the three main trading balconies. The hostages had been gathered in the central queuing area, from what he could see three men, six women, all bound with old rope and gagged with some unknown type of packing tape. The silent victims all wore the navy blue with white pin stripe that denoted them everyday till clerk. In the centre of the living, the body of a black tuxedoed man lays crumpled on the floor, a pool of crimson staining the back of his jacket. 

"H'what in tarnation?" Spat a heavy set man, dressed in blue denim overalls, his head quickly snapping towards the hero's under his sun faded straw hat. The cock of his shotgun sounds like music to Arduous’ ears. “Ehem-hem, Sir. Do you mind if we have a look around?” Arduous inquires, placing his thick baton like hands into his deep coat pockets. “Err.. s’of course I mind! Now get or y’all end up just like him” insists the firearm wielding man, a trickle of sweat starting to run off his shrunken forehead and across his grey, bagged eyes.  “Ahh..well that’s a shame, because... ah where is it…. Aha!” Ardous retorts while producing a folded up piece of paper. Taking a step forward with every de-fold, the lanky man slowly un-scrunches the thick, cream-white paper, with one eye on his work and the other on the assailant. “...I, Chief Lysander Tillman, give full permission for legal investigation and involvement in crime scene QA20157. (AKA; suspected armed robbery of First City Bank) to any Official “Hero” of the Hero Association. This includes full search warrants of said premises: #1 First City Bank, Premier Quadrant, Mercier Gardens..signed Chief L.Tillman 6/2/3/50.” He reads, a smile widening as he paces slowly closer to the now slightly shaking armed man.

 “N-now you hear… I ain’t playin’ Rosy here’ll get you good boy! She’s in the mood for more blood…” The hick threatens, aiming the jagged, sawed off barrel towards Arduous. “Oh, yes and another question I have Mr Bayou….do you mind if i call you Billy? No,no that wasn’t the question. Billy, do you have a license for that firearm?”  Arduous cranes his upper half to the side, mimicking as if a curious dog had been caught in some kind of taffy puller. 

The shot called out through the cavernous hall, the boom reverberating against ornate marble, and inlaid gold to produce the clatter of cannon fire. To Arduous the impact felt all at once like death and life, like pleasure and pain. The frail human skin that covered his chest was blown apart like wet paper. The buckshot however found a resting place not in sensitive muscle and organs but in blood soaked sponge. “....Oh, that was a bad Idea on your part Mr Bayou.” [/center]