Leet had decided that his power was too troublesome and had built a gun that would let him swap his powers for someone else's. The problem was that he needed an acceptable target, because he wasn't just going to trade with Über and saddle him with the troublesome thing. This led to monitoring police reports with a portable police scanner, and a parahuman-involved bank robbery sounded perfect.
When they showed up they were able to get into position. The gun had a limited-range parahuman highlighting system that worked through the cloud of darkness in the front of the bank, and with a single person highlighted there it seemed like a solid choice of target. Taking aim, he fired...and missed, the shot continuing on into the bank. Scowling, he corrected his aim and fired again...except this time the shot was dodged.
Pausing, he looked at the screen on the device. No locks, though he'd apparently hit some insects that had been discarded. That meant he was likely hitting the inside doors. Nodding, he took aim and fired twice more, both shots being dodged this time. Growling this time, he fired another two times, only for the parahuman to retreat further into the building and out of range. The other possible options in the area didn't look any better, too much chance of hitting a Ward, and...why was the gun heating up?
He barely threw the gun into a half-filled dumpster before it exploded, but Über hadn't gotten him into the car before they were suddenly blitzed and his vision went black.
Vicky had just dropped into the bank, and one of the villains had grabbed Amy...and then swung her around and out of the way of some kind of shot from outside of the bank.
That didn't seem very villainous, and in the process of doing so they'd taken the shot instead and had fallen over.
A moment later a second shot came through and struck Amy anyway, making it seem like that had been the goal, but instead of just falling over Amy had screamed in pain.
Getting Amy out of the way of any further shots was priority one, and Vicky focused on that...followed by the maybe-not-a-villain that had taken the first hit. Two more shots had come in and hit others while she was doing that, including one of the definite villains. Regent, she thought? Both of them had fallen unconscious as well, and she was more concerned about the young girl. But whoever it was hadn't stopped with hitting Amy, and she didn't fancy going through the darkness and hoping her force field could resist whatever it was, so she darted out through the hole she'd made coming in. That let her spot Über and Leet, the latter being the one shooting into the bank. She retained enough sense to make sure that they were the only ones that looked like they could've been firing into the bank, not wanting to go after the wrong targets or miss someone slipping away trying to frame the duo, and that had a bonus of giving them time to throw the gun into a dumpster where it exploded.
As they were now unarmed, she went straight for them, figuring that they could answer questions when they woke up in custody.
"This is a mess," Emily said as she looked over the information they had. "Four villains captured, except that Glory Girl stated that one of the villains seemingly-intentionally took a shot intended for Panacea. Something that the camera footage confirms, even after Panacea had delivered a hit with a fire extinguisher. The shot in question was from Über and Leet attempting to steal someone else's powers for Leet, supposedly unaware that Panacea was in the bank...but the security cameras show that the first two shots were aimed basically perfectly to hit the girl with the rest being more random after failing to acquire Panacea's powers for themselves. One had hit a boy dressed as Regent, likely formerly known as Hijack, but now showing no signs of having parahuman abilities. The young girl hit in the same pair of shots can make people around her twitch now. Cancer, but no powers, in the last two bystanders hit."
"And Armsmaster reluctantly admitted that the girl that took the first shot for Panacea had been heavily involved in taking down Lung," Renick noted. "But only after she said something about it to an officer."
"Have we confirmed if she has Panacea's powers?"
"She has a mild concussion. Nobody wants to risk testing it."
That...was honestly a very good precaution. "And we now know enough about the situation with her to make forcing her to do much of anything problematic. What of Panacea?"
"Still catatonic."
"Do we know why?"
"The other girl spent significant time in the hospital after her likely trigger event in January. It seems...likely that things were covered up significantly. Due to the concussion we can't use what she's saying against her, but she's rambled a bit about several topics, including a bullying campaign. One of the names that has come up is Sophia Hess. The assumption is that it takes time to recover from the sensory input of controlling bugs, coupled with Panacea having done something to screw that up further before the two were hit and that possibly causing additional issues when their powers swapped."
...fucking hell, this wasn't just a mess, it was a disaster. "Do we have any good news?"
"Not really. New Wave knows about the 'undercover hero' bit that Armsmaster revealed and is planning on offering the girl membership when she recovers...if only to get access to her assistance in helping Panacea learn to control her new powers."
That...wasn't bad news, exactly, but it was still annoying.
