Illusion
“Okay, everyone,” the voice said, and it sounded almost tired, “Put your hands up, you know the drill.”
Most of the bank’s customers did as instructed; living in Edison City you got used to the occasional act of villainy now and then. One, however, wasn’t so resigned. He turned and faced the robber defiantly, although with some surprise. “You’re new,” he observed. “I thought I knew all the good heist people around here.”
“Obviously not,” the robber said coldly. “Now hands up or-”
“Yeah, no,” the civilian said, and suddenly a flare of acid flashed out and melted the robber’s gun into useless slag, forcing him to drop it with a seemingly incongruously yelp. “Mr. Acidic. Of all the days I’m off duty and trying to run errands, you have to pick today to be a bad guy.”
To his surprise, the robber didn’t turn and run out the door and into the city streets hoping for a getaway. Instead he bolted aside down a hallway and ducked into a side corridor where the bathrooms were. Mr. Acidic came charging after him, into the side hallway, then into the mens’ room and-nothing?
He froze, rethinking. Maybe the guy had done the unexpected. Mr. Acidic turned and ran out of the mens’ room and through the door of the womens’ restroom across the corridor. Here he ran smack into a problem.
The restroom was nearly empty, just the usual sinks, hand-dryer, changing table. He did, however, see a pair of legs in one stall. Mr. Acidic hadn’t got a good glimpse at the robber’s legs (admittedly, he hadn’t been looking) but he vaguely remembered the man had been wearing long pants, possibly slacks. Whoever was in that stall did not, in Mr. Acidic’s view, match that description, and he didn’t see a pair of pants on the floor either. “Ah…” he said.
“Hey!” an outraged voice said from inside the stall. It wasn’t the robber’s. “Get out of here, creepo!”
Mr. Acidic turned and fled.
Inside, the Scarlet Shapeshifter emerged from her hiding place and looked at herself in the mirror. The scar from the disguise still lingered; a flicker of concentration and it was gone. That worried her, though. She’d changed faces so many times since she’d been on the run. She wasn’t even sure her face was still hers anymore.
Be that as it may, she had expenses. A few blinks and she had rearranged herself again, this time as the hard-nosed bank manager. Plan A had been the robbery; Plan B had been using the manager’s identity to bluff her way around some cash and making off with as much as she could grab hold of. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was better than nothing.
Her face on, the once-heroine Scarlet Shapeshifter walked away.
Inspired by the below prompt from
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Dude, this was good. Would love to see more of her!
Ah, a bank robbery! You don't hear too much about those now outside of fiction now.