Worth Its Weight [IC]

[trollthumper]

The vault had been loaded for bear when it came to magical booby traps. Any mortal who'd dared to touch it without proper recognition would likely have been dead before they hit the ground. Then again, mortals hadn't exactly dared to pry it open. Extract it from a wall, but not pry it open.

Back down on the street, Cannonade assessed the situation. Weather Mistress was still fighting off the aftereffects of Asad's blow, but the new woman - the teleporter - was still up and about. Hoping to change that, he charged forward, aiming to take her to the ground. She was more agile than he expected, though, and just caught the blow in the shoulder. "Don't you know anything about chivalry?" she said.

"Thought that involved ladies who didn't rob banks in their off time."

"Thought that wouldn't work." She reached for a few stray slivers of mirror, laying at her feet. "Not much, but..." The shards ran between her fingers, forming a cat's cradle. "...they'll do." She swung the cradle thrice around herself, the strands catching Weather Mistress as they cut through the air. The two vanished before Cannonade's eyes - and ended up on the second floor, right next to the vault.

"Come to mama --"

She reached out for the vault, her quicksilver creation flowing out to it. When it made contact, there was a flash of light, and the Thieves' Guild - including Firebug - was gone, complete with the vault. All that was left were the inert Charibdrones and a few stray gold bars. In the distance, the heroes could hear the sirens. Freedom's finest would soon be arriving.

[Raveled]

Ironclad's scanners worked over the scene even after the villains disappeared. So often they disappeared just to strike from a position of concealment... but it seemed that they had genuinely retreated, leaving the heroes in control of the street. "Smart ladies," she said, rising into the air and landing in the rent hole in the side of the building. "Hel-lo, what do we have here?" She knelt down next to the shattered drones, pupils dilating behind her mask. She rotated one wrist in its socket and a set of thin metal rods extended from her gauntlet; she grabbed them and started poking around inside the robots, humming as she did so.

[trollthumper]

Asad handled the police, talking to Freedom's finest about exactly what had happened. His charm and repute helped soothe over some of the weirder details, like why the bank was short one wall and the sheer number of wrecked robots. Cannonade, meanwhile, dug through the wreckage, picking up a gold bar that had been disgorged from one of the drones. What caught him immediately was how soft it was. He knew gold was soft from trade experience, but there was a difference between "soft enough to get scraped up against stone" and "soft like cold butter." It wasn't even hard to leave an imprint.

"How hot was it inside those robots?" he said. "This stuff's half melted..." He took a closer look at the bar, up from the accidental thumb print he'd left in it. "Weird kinda seal. Who uses a three-headed dog?"

[Raveled]

"This isn't encouraging." Ironclad flew down to the wrecked chopper, holding one of the empty robot-heads in her hands. She walked over to Equinox and showed the witch the interior of the head; she'd pulled out the lining and exposed layers of criss-crossed gold wiring. "I mean, it's downright insulting. Look at the wiring there, the hatch-mark pattern. Characteristic of stuff Talos was using almost two years ago! Huhn!" She shook her head and tucked the helmet under one arm. "Whoever sent the robots here isn't exactly working with the latest tech."