The day had come.
It was time for Ira’s fabulous bank robbery. The start of the plan was simple; Ira had dressed up in a clown costume, makeup and red nose and everything, and he walked right through the bank’s doors like he owned it. Putting his hands on his hips, he smirked at the people looking at him and slowly beginning to mutter to each other.
Ira snapped his fingers, and like on cue, his minions entered.
“This is a robbery,” Ira gleefully announced, throwing out his arms wide. The people flinched, horror staining their expressions. And he grinned brightly, his joy sinking into his bones and carving out a home there.
Then there was a lot of yelling and screaming as his minions used their weapons to threaten the dozen or so people into compliance, herding them like sheep into a corner. Ira watched on passively, content to let other people do his work for him. It was for the better—Ira was not very good at interacting with people, and all the crying and screaming and begging would probably make him slightly homicidal if he was forced to deal with it.
Well, he was still homicidal, but not to the same degree!
Clearing his throat, he looked at the approaching leader of his minions, a woman… whose name he did not remember. “We’re ready,” she said, leaning her large gun against her shoulder. She grinned at him viciously, her red hair in a polite bob and her lips glittering with gold paint. …Ira kind of also wanted to paint his lips like that, it looked very cool.
“Then let’s get started,” said Ira.
She laughed, throwing her head back and turning to the other minions, “Chop, chop!” she swung her gun wide and pointed it at the bank’s front doors, squaring her feet and unleashing the safety. “We’re doing this, baby!” she called out, and the others laughed, too.
Ira rose an eyebrow, but the loud shrieking sound of sirens approaching cut off whatever words he was thinking of saying. It was fine, though, he hadn’t really settled on what he was going to say yet.
While the others split up into the group that would guard against the coppers, and the group that’d take care of the civilians inside the bank, Ira walked up to the frozen security guard. The old man was wrinkly as all hell, back bent and hand trembling around his gun. As Ira got closer, the man pointed the gun at him, and Ira merely smirked and continued walking. “Don’t—” the guard inhaled sharply, “Don’t come any closer! I’ll… I’ll shoot!”
“Feel free to do whatever you want,” Ira murmured, eyes half-lidded. He glanced at the other people with guns in the bank, his minions, and said, “I don’t imagine it’ll do you any good, anyhow.”
The guard licked his lips. “The coppers will catch you! You won’t get away with this!”
Ira laughed, pressing his hand to his stomach. “You— you honestly think that?” he couldn’t help but ask, his amusement ringing through his tone.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“Yeah, you’re a bad person,” said Ira. He pushed off the floor to get momentum, grabbed the gun’s muzzle, and pulled it harshly from the stunned guard. Then he punched the guard in the nose, smiling at the satisfying crack he heard and the guard’s subsequent howling. It was music to his ears, really, even though the pitch was kind of painful.
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“Initiate phase two,” Ira said, raising his voice so that it would be heard over the guard’s persistent howling. It was getting kind of gaudy, actually. Ira had only broken his nose! Shaking his head, while his minions went behind the counters to get at the money already out of the safes, Ira kicked the fallen guard in the nuts. Just for fun.
The howling got louder. Ira shook his head again, sighing, and then decisively left the guard behind. The guard was a pretty shitty person, too, Ira had already calculated. Somebody screaming about not letting him “steal” things when he had hostages and was one-hundred percent ready to off them as soon as they got troublesome… really was despicable. Ira didn’t care for humans, either, but at least humans should. Since they, you know, were humans.
Which Ira was not, and thus his disdain was perfectly acceptable.
Nodding in satisfaction at having come to such a perfect solution, Ira reached his minion’s leader. She nodded at him, large gun still pointing at the door. “I’ll hold them off, sir,” she said, and her eyes were deadly serious.
Ira patted her on the shoulder, as he’d been learning to do lately, and said, “Thank you for your service.”
She blinked at him, visibly stunned. Then she smiled, and nodded again. “Thank you for trusting us,” she murmured, turning her head back toward the door. Ira narrowed his eyes slightly, confused about whatever trust thing she was talking about. He didn’t trust them at all. He just knew that it didn’t matter if they failed and he died—he’d just possess a different body.
But he didn’t want to burst her bubble. It might make her shoot him. And so he said, “Angelo spoke highly of you.”
Was that a singular or plural you? He didn’t know. And could not care less.
Shrugging discreetly, Ira turned towards his other minions. “It’s time to breach the vault,” he announced. The kiddos glanced at each other, then their leader, then Ira. They grinned at him, their eyes shining with excitement that echoed through him. He was proud of them; of their willingness to do exactly what he wanted. (They didn’t give a shit about things like morals and ethics and they were so honest about it, it was so refreshing.)
Ira shamelessly used the gun he’d stolen from the security guard to threaten the hostages as he went further into the building, where no clients were allowed. “No funny business, now,” he warned, glaring at them with a dangerous gaze.
They huddled under his gaze, weak to his obviously superior mentality.
Hmph, Ira was awesome.
Swaggering into the bank’s basement where the vault was, Ira hummed a jolly tune under his breath. His minions muttered to each other, but nobody sounded like they were about to commit mutiny so he ignored it. Rather, he took the brief interval of time to check in on his Host. AS far as he remembered, he’d last seen her running through a… castle? Mansion? Some fancy building, at least.
Anyway, he checked in on her very dutifully because he cared about his duty and his job, okay. Really, he did.
…Okay, maybe not.
But that just made his actions even kinder! See, even though he didn’t care, he was taking care of his duty properly. He was a master of his job, a role model for all other Systems! He was a saint, a noble martyr who was willing to endure any pain to accomplish his goal! He was gonna go down in history books!
Ira blinked at the strange road his own thoughts had taken, entirely without his consent. How impolite. Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue and actually paid attention to his Host, however much he might despise her. (It was a her this time, right?)
His Host was (thankfully not having sex) investigating another crime scene. There didn’t appear to be any law enforcement nearby. Which… might be his fault, considering how many cops were surrounding the bank right now. Like, there was a lot. Way more than there needed to be. And still lots of sirens, and somebody was banging on the front door, trying to force it down.
So, yeah, he might have something to do with this. Just possibly. And he was absolutely not going to take the blame for any of it, of course not.
He ceased paying attention to his Host pretty quickly, though. It wasn’t really interesting, watching her hemming and hawing over every clue she could find. He didn’t know who the actual murderer was, and he felt no need to know. If it had been relevant, it would have been in the mission’s information package.
At the vault’s door, they stopped. Ira hung back, observing with his hand on his chin as his minions broke effortlessly into the vault. They were truly the creme of the crop, the best of the best, and other smiles sayings. They proved that they were worth the money spent on training and keeping them safe and fixing them when they broke.
“We’re through,” announced one of the younger guys and less than a second later, they pulled the heavy metal door open.
Ira rose from his seat, putting his gun on a nearby minion, and stepped into the vault.
Gold. There was so much gold here. Piled as high as the ceiling, on many, many shelves, were gold bars of the finest quality. Ira licked his lips, gulping as he walked over and picked up a bar, feeling it in his hands and trying to judge how much it weighed. He couldn’t really tell. And just for fun, he softly tried to bite it.
He stopped before his teeth broke, obviously. (Could gold even break teeth?) With the taste of gold on his lips, he turned toward his minions and said, “Good work,” because positive reinforcement was important. One of his mangas said so.
Therefor, it was obviously true.
They didn’t have time to answer (not that he’d really listen) before the sound of violent gunfire burst through their eardrums. It was loud, sudden, and echoed down throughout the basement, hitting their bodies with a sound not unlike a rock falling from a great distance. Ira frowned somewhat, tilting his head as he ordered, “Pack these up and use exit plan a,” and then started to walk back up topside.
As he got closer, the noise got louder. It bounced in his skull ruthlessly, and he clicked his tongue with prejudice as he detected the beginnings of a headache. Annoying. Shaking his head, he climbed up the stairs and finally reached the bank’s front room.
A bullet flew passed his ear and lodged in the wall behind him. Ira blinked, momentarily startled into stillness, and then he growled. “Minion Leader!” he called, giving up the pretense of pretending to remember her name. “Execute Plan F!”
“Roger!” The very effective leader instantly let out a loud roar of bullets from her almost comically big gun. It jolted her whole body with every kickback, but she planted her feet wide and continued to shoot down the officers of the law. Quote a few dots on his map went dark—meaning they died. She’d killed almost a dozen people by the time her gun ran out of bullets.
Instantly, she threw away the gun and ran to him. “Go!” she yelled, and he unfolded from the fascination with murder that had kept him rooted.
“If I die, tell Angelo I’ll be back!” Ira panted as they ran, his knee aching. It felt loose, disconnected. He was starting to think this part might have been poorly planned.
Oh well.
“You won’t die!” Minion Leader yelled, her previously perfect hair now frizzy and standing up in all direction. She was splattered with blood, too, he belatedly noticed. Nice. He also wanted to be blood-splattered.
As they turned another corner, he could hear the shouts of the police following. But the roar of their getaway car was just as loud, and he only sped up.
Until his knee flopped uselessly beneath him, and he fell flat on his face.
Ow.
A/N: I’ve joined mastodon! You can find me here (I am way more active there than on twitter)
Ira going wild 😌