Although the Bank of the Universe building had been requisitioned by the empire, they'd done a deep scan to ensure it would be safe for use as a temporary branch of their bank. After the scan discovered no issues, they had decided not to renovate it, as it would be a waste of resources. Some things had been done, however, such as upgrading the security system and installing a monitoring VI to ensure rapid reporting of any issues to the higher-ups for further evaluation and decision making.

*A superpowered individual is currently attempting a bank theft. Situation: rainbow. Casualties: one. Damage: white. Evacuation in progress.*

(Ed note: Rainbow is the key word for situations involving awakeners, since they introduce a level of uncertainty into how dangerous any given situation is. So it could be anything from harmless to catastrophic at any given time.)

The moment the report came in, the imperial agencies sprang into action. Orders were passed to the imperial health agency, the imperial police agency, and ARES.

The response was overwhelming and, some might say, unnecessarily large. Within a minute, two First Response Vessels (FRVs) had arrived, one carrying firefighting equipment that could douse an entire kilometer around them in firefoam to stifle any fires, and the other carrying over four hundred medical pods in its cavernous hold. More FRVs were hovering high above the Bank of the Universe branch in case the situation spread and they required more emergency medevac capacity.

Along with those, the imperial police agency dispatched a full twenty transport shuttles, armored to withstand heavy fire, and filled with squads of SWAT teams and enough riot control officers in full gear to cordon off an eight-block radius around the bank, plus a hostage negotiator and a detachment of LEAs to ensure his safety.

Meanwhile, the ARES base outside Pyongyang had dispatched two hovercopters loaded with a full platoon of ARES troopers. They were hovering just under five kilometers away from the bank and could reach it in a matter of seconds. High above, beyond the Karman line, was an ARES orbital strike cruiser with an entire two battalions of troopers loaded into yeet pods to await emergency deployment.

Three minutes since the start of the robbery.

The superpowered criminal was still holding the bank teller by the neck, supporting her entire body weight and holding her upright, even though she had fallen unconscious due to the pain of her cooked arm. The branch manager was scrambling in the vault, frenziedly sweeping cash from the shelves into large bags the bank generally used to transfer hard currency from place to place, as the young man had demanded.

Currently, the bank manager wasn't worried about the theft in the least. He was worried, however, about the time he was taking. The empire had emphasized during training that, if a robbery were to occur, they were to cooperate with the robber as best they could, as money could be recovered, but lives could not. And if the robber didn't release the teller soon, she would only grow closer and closer to her death.

When he finished filling the bags with money, he zipped them closed and turned to the young man. "This is the most these bags can hold without ripping. Any more than this and you won't be able to carry it. Can you please take these and run? Leave the girl behind, she'll only slow you down, and the longer you're here, the less likely your escape will be. So how about it, eh?"

He was trying to convince the robber to flee, so as not to escalate the situation any further than it already had been. Unfortunately, he had failed to take human nature into account.

"Are you giving me orders, you subhuman filth!?" the young man screamed in a rage at the thought of a piece of garbage without powers thinking he could order him around, or that he was smarter and could think of things that a member of the blessed couldn't.

"No, no, no," the manager assured with a wave of his hands and a shake of his head. "That's not what I'm trying to do at all. All I'm saying is that if you stay any longer, you'll increase your risk of being caught. That's all! I swear I'm just trying to help you!" He was panicking at the thought of potentially having made the situation worse.

"You lowly, unblessed, piece of-"

Just as he was about to start ranting about how great he was and how useless the unblessed were, he was interrupted by a voice coming from hidden speakers all over the bank. "Testing, testing, one, two, three...."

The voice cleared its throat and continued, "Ahem... Kim Ho Song, this is negotiator Park from the Pyongyang imperial police agency. Please pick up any phone with a signal and dial any phone number so we can have a chat."

The security guards in the bank had already finished evacuating everyone present except the teller, manager, and robber. Once the guards themselves had exited the bank, it was completely sealed by the VI security monitor, confining the robber like a turtle in a jar.

Despite not being exactly thrilled about it, the young man realized he had been trapped by the subhuman unblessed scum and took the Zeus One the manager was holding out to him. He dialed the local police number and the call immediately connected. It had been automatically routed to the negotiator in the form of a video call.

"What do you want?" Kim Ho Song sneered as he pulled the phone around in front of the teller. He kept one hand on her neck, holding her up in front of the screen and his hand soon began glowing red. The woman woke up from the new pain, but all she could do was whimper and shudder, her body weakening by the moment and her eyes in the process of fluttering closed, perhaps for a final time.

"Please release her and tell us your demands. With her alive, there's a greater chance your demands will be met. But if she dies, that chance becomes zero, and the empire will come down on you with the weight of billions."