Taylor followed the others through the bank, after Tattletale had gotten them in the back door without setting off alarms. The first few rooms they'd come to had been empty of people, but Grue had been preparing to check a room that Bitch's dogs had taken interest in when something came flying through the walls of the bank and embedded itself in what was probably a support post. A quick check showed that it was a key, of all things.
"Fuck," Tattletale whispered. "I think that was Skidmark's doing."
"And he didn't care who was hit," Taylor noted, even as she focused on the bugs at the other end of the building. "I think they've already taken the lobby. Think we can drive them off?"
The other girl gave a look that screamed 'what are you thinking?' for a moment, before her eyes went wide and she shifted to a grin. "Well, that'll change things, but I don't think it'll do so in a bad way."
"What?" Grue asked.
"Chances are the Merchants will do a pile of damage and possibly kill people. We stop them and we both hurt their reputation and improve ours."
He considered that, then nodded. "Okay."
"So let's start directing people to safety."
Clearing the back offices through directing everyone to the back doors was easy enough, doubly so when pointing out that the Merchants were out front. A phone answered by one person even turned out to be a security guard watching cameras, willing to provide intel for the team obviously trying to get the drop on the Merchants. It seemed that they'd brought something to the vault to force it open and it might be explosive in nature.
More importantly, Skidmark and Mush were in the lobby with a bunch of gang members while Squealer handled the vault. A quick discussion had them splitting up, Grue and Tattletale going after Squealer while Taylor joined Bitch and Regent to try and do something about the lobby.
Sending swarms of bugs through the vents and along the ceiling without being noticed wasn't difficult, especially as a few police officers had shown up outside and drawn attention to the doors. A quick peek around the corner let her confirm that everyone standing was a valid target, with those huddling on the ground being the hostages. Mush was probably the one that the police were having trouble with outside at this point, but Skidmark was easily picked out from the group.
Landing bugs on everyone didn't take long, and most of the gang members dropped their guns in shock. Bitch sent her dogs after Skidmark, bowling over several gang members and driving the man over his own lines of power. He and the dogs got launched outside, Bitch following but avoiding the glowing lines. The dogs had caused the last of the gang members to drop their guns, but Taylor had bugs start forcing themselves into all the mechanisms to hopefully jam them in case they were recovered.
"Drop the guns, get to your knees, and put your hands behind your heads," she said as she stepped into the lobby herself. "Or the bugs start biting and stinging until you do."
The gang members had seemed like they were going to argue, right up until the mention that the bugs could do more than just land on them. At that point a number of them gulped, and within a minute all of them had shifted to their knees as directed. Regent moved to start gathering the guns into a pile in the corner while Taylor more closely examined the people in the lobby, not wanting to get into the fight outside. It seemed like the officers had managed to shoot Skidmark in the leg anyway, and Bitch's dogs were probably far more effective against Mush than bugs would be.
Several of the hostages were injured, so Taylor grabbed a first-aid kit from behind the teller's desks and moved towards the ones that seemed to be bleeding the worst even as several others were moving towards a bag that appeared to be full of all the phones taken from the hostages. Except that a girl saw the first-aid kit and froze, then moved towards Taylor. "Is someone hurt?"
Taylor nodded. "At least a couple of people are bleeding, and I know enough to at least patch them up."
The girl snorted. "Like that's needed with me around, just point me at them."
That brought her up short, and she turned to focus on the girl. It took a minute to realize that the girl was Panacea, out of costume. "Er, right. I think the worst off is in the corner there, either a bullet wound that went through them or two different injuries that are both bleeding." Then she paused, and frowned. "But you're bleeding too, so we should take care of that first."
It wasn't a major cut, but the girl didn't argue having it properly bandaged before she was let loose on the other injured hostages.
Mush had escaped due to the protective covering of trash protecting him from the dogs, but Skidmark and Squealer had been taken into custody. The damage to most of the bank was minor, primarily from a few things Skidmark had launched punching holes in the walls and a couple of bullet holes, but Squealer's contraption had damaged the vault door.
Being hailed as heroes that had likely saved several lives hadn't been in the plans when they'd prepared to rob the bank, but nobody questioned why they'd shown up as their arrival had been nearly ten minutes after the Merchants had shown up. Slipping in the back when all the focus was on the front door had been seen as sensible, and not having reached the point of taking their own hostages before finding out that the Merchants were there had simply left others with no reason to assume they'd been there to rob the place themselves.
Working with Panacea to ensure that the hostages were all healed had certainly helped, after rescuing the girl and being seen putting her injuries first.
Their employer had been...less than enthused about the fact that the Merchants had beaten them to the bank and had to 'reconsider things' before arranging to pay them, though not having access to any funds pulled from the bank to launder through other sources made that at least somewhat understandable.
Taylor wasn't sure about the news dubbing her 'Swarm' either, but figured that it could be worse.
Coil scowled as he reviewed everything that had gone wrong in the past day. He'd triggered the bank robbery as a 'will happen in both timelines' event so that he could do his go/no go split on attempting to obtain his new pet, only for the Wards to show up there in the 'go' timeline. He'd wanted them to be pulled to the bank, but only after everything was in motion had word reached him that the Merchants had shown up first.
The PRT wasn't about to send the Wards after the Merchants in the middle of the day, and the Undersiders showing up afterwards just made it less likely.
Annoyingly, he couldn't fault the decision to switch from 'rob the bank' to 'save the hostages', and even appreciated how effectively they'd screwed over the Merchants. He just didn't like not getting his hands on his new pet, and would have to work on how to take advantage of the disruption. Doubly so since his moles in the ABB had indicated that something big was coming and that they knew that Miss Hebert had been behind Lung's capture instead of Armsmaster.
Adding 'the Merchants' to her list of captures had apparently created some kind of problem. Possibly because they didn't know who the girl would go after next, though 'redeeming' a villain team into heroics and befriending New Wave through saving Panacea probably changed any revenge plans on its own.
