Easy Money

Ruin stood atop some random building somewhere in New York, he honestly had no idea where he was in the city at this point. He had the oh so brilliant idea to get as far away from his home before choosing to commit his first real criminal act, hoping that it would make it harder for anything to be traced back to him by the police. Of course, lack of forethought had got him now in the position of having no idea where he was going to stash his stolen goods, or suit, once he had actually done something. Deciding to leave that little detail until he actually had something to stash, he kept his eyes on the city streets below. For Ruin, this whole career criminal thing was very foreign to him and he was just having trouble picking his first target; a bank heist seemed excessive for his first job; a mugging would be just embarrassing; and burglary seemed to be a pathetic waste of abilities. As he stared blankly down at the world below, he realized he had no idea what he was waiting for. It wasn't like great opportunities just fell out of the sky...usually anyway. If he was going to do something, he decided, it probably shouldn't just be a spur of the moment thing. He had to carefully plan out his moves, pick the perfect target and devise the perfect strategy to increase his wealth significantly with minimum risk. Rising from his crouched position on the edge of the building, he turned and was about to make his way down from the roof, only to have something catch his eye on the road. Just turning a corner and making its way into Ruin's line of sight was an armored truck with a bank logo clearly marking its side. An almost sinister grin crept up onto Ruin's face under his mask.

Now it's pretty much common knowledge that armored trucks are some of the hardest vehicles to break into, or even damage. They also almost always are filled to the brim with massive amounts of cash; cash which was securely stored in tank like vehicles fully ready to stand against bullets, explosions and god else knows what else anyone could throw their way...Easy Money. Any normal human would be hard pressed to get inside of one without the proper access, but that's why Ruin felt so self assured. While he still didn't fully understand his powers, he knew that, as long as he had his suit, the control he had over his abilities was more than enough to tear into the secure vehicle like a tin can with minimum effort. Pretty much throwing his earlier plans of actually planning anything out the window, Ruin took the express way down. Landing with a less than elegant smash on the ground from his leap, he located his target which was now extremely close, almost directly in front of him only thirty feet ahead. Thinking fast, Ruin lifted the ground up from beneath one half of the still in motion truck. The vehicle was sent hurtling forward, tipped over on it's side and sliding across the road. The other cars in view either skidding to a halt or quickly escaped the suddenly chaotic scene. Being New Yorkers, the people seemed to have it programmed into their brains to immediately vacate the area to get out of the crossfire which was almost assuredly coming. This suited Ruin just fine as he personally didn't want some poor schmuck getting flattened by a stray boulder or something, he wasn't one for killing, just money. Speaking of death... He mentally said to himself, Ruin made his way over to the overturned truck looked into the front windscreen to check on the passengers. The two armed security men seemed to be fine physically, but looked significantly shell shocked after what they just experienced, at least their seat belts had kept them in place. It seemed unnaturally lucky that the two sustained no real injuries, to be honest Ruin had immediately regretting so violently taking the vehicle down the way he did, but no harm was done. Deciding that he didn't need to worry about the men anymore, mostly because they were in no condition to try and stop him, Ruin walked to the back and stared at the securely fastened doors keeping him from the loot.

Another unseen smile crossed his face. Lifting both arms in front of him, Ruin put his hands together cracked the fingers. "Time to get to work." He put his left hand back down to his side and focused his right hand straight in front of him, aiming at the door. Only the glowing of the light in Ruin's right gauntlet signaled what was about to happen next. Part of the concrete path at the side of the road started to rip apart and form a fairly large ball of rumble in front of Ruin's outstretched hand. A small flash of the light in his gauntlet and the ball was sent hurtling at the doors. The force behind the attack was more than enough to break through the doors which was good, but what he saw was less than pleasing. While he had been hoping for a truck full of bags and bags of hundreds of dollar bills, what he got instead was only two partially filled bags and a whole lot of empty space. A few moments of silent contemplation passed before Ruin came out with his next sentence. "Well f*ck."

Trace smiled at his client. "Well of course you have a case. I'll fill out all the necessary paperwork and get back to you very soon with further information." He leaned over the papers before him and flipped through them. "I think this is very solid, yes indeed."

"Trace. Get up and walk to the window." Romolus ordered. Following his command very naturally, still speaking in lawyer talk, Trace looked out of the window. In the distance, he saw someone standing on a rooftop. That was never good, in either of his trades of choice. Narrowing his emerald eyes, Trace turned back to the client, a man with a pair of crutches to his left.

"So, if there is nothing else..." Trace tailed off, gesturing to the door. The client nodded, smiled and climbed to his one good leg, refitted his neck brace and picked up his crutches, hobbling to the door, climbing into the lift and riding it down. Trace pressed the button that buzzed his secretary. "Maria, do I have a meeting now?"

"No Mr Faolan." She replied. "I will tell any callers that you'll be back in ten minutes." She was used to the routine by now, and merely went through the motions, accepting Trace Faolan was not like any other lawyer. He ran out of his office, sprinted down twenty flights of stairs and out of the front foor of his building, stopping only for a quick whistle at Maria. She blushed as she always did, but barely saw Trace move until he was gone.

He ran into a small cul-de-sac when he got near the site, the figure having now broken into an armoured van. Stripping off his shirt, he began the change. As painful as it always was, given the enormous growth both in physical size, of overall muscle, and of his organs, including his heart, kidneys and lungs, he screamed. This being New York, noone stopped to enquire what was happening. In this city, if it wasn't your business, you stayed out of it. Trace was doing the exact opposite.

A large wolf-like foot stomped the ground ten feet from the crook. Trace was confused. He thought the man would have made a run for it by now. "Hey you." He said in his gravelly Romolus voice. "Step away from the truck, and put your hands in the air, before I tear them off and beat you with them." He snapped, a long strand of saliva extending till it was a good three feet in length before it dropped from his maw and fell to the ground.

With a slight twitch in his left eye, Ruin stared blankly at the almost non-existent contents of the truck. Closing his eyes Ruin sighed in frustration, then the sound of screaming caught his ears. Now, it wasn't exactly new considering there were a number of other people screaming when he tipped the truck, this scream seemed pained and out of place. Suddenly deciding that he didn't want to be here anymore, Ruin picked up the two bags, carrying them in his left hand, and was about to make his getaway when a rough sounding voice addressed him. Looking over to the origin of the voice, Ruin was greatly surprised to see what could only be described as an almost seven foot tall wolf man, staring him down. His eyes widened and he actually had to blink a couple of times before he was sure that the voice he heard was from the beast before him. Now while he had been expecting people to try and stop him at some point, he wasn't sure that whatever this was, was human. There was no doubt that this creature was intimidating and quite frankly was seen as an immediate and terrifying threat as far as he was concerned, the fact that it just threatened to rip off his arms and attack him with said appendages didn't help with this either. Despite his fear, Ruin managed to keep his composure, desperately trying not to show any sign of weakness. It was expected that he would eventually come into confrontation with other super humans, but why did his first one have to be with a giant wolf man thing? He could handle the stereotypical guys and girls in tights, but monster men was pushing it. What didn't make it any better was the drool coming out of his mouth and pooling up on the ground, for all he knew it was eying him up as its next meal. God he hoped that it wasn't going to try and eat him.

The only real solace he got was that if this...whatever it was, spent its time trying to stop criminals, maybe it wouldn't immediately and viciously try to dismember his body and feast on the corpse...understandably this still didn't quite put his fears to rest. Choosing not to comply with the beast's demands, no matter how much more appealing it would be compared to the alternative if he lost the confrontation that was surely coming, he mustered up his will and spoke. "Yeah, I'm afraid that's not going to be happening." Raising his right leg, the faint glow of the lights on his suit signaled what was coming, he stomped his foot down, which in turn had shot up a chuck of the road just in front of his foot up at the creature's head with impressive speed, well impressive to him at least.

The criminal felt as though he was going to try his luck. If he had to guess, Trace would have linked the glowing lights with whatever powers the guy had. Casting his emerald gaze over the figure, Romolus' face twisted up into a sick evil grin. He displayed his claws on both large furry hands. "These aren't box cutters, you know." He warned. The man stamped down on the road and a chunk of rock flew at the wolf man's head. Romolus counted on the poor quality of the crumbling public road system as much as he did his strength. As it neared him, he punched, letting loose a vicious straight.

As his fist connected with the rock, minute fractures across the outside and inside of the rock grew larger and new cracks formed. With a cracking, splintering sound, then a loud bang, the rock exploded into hundreds of pieces of rubble of varying sizes. The whole process took a matter of milliseconds. Shaking his hand as if from pain, Dark Fang stared at his opponent for a second, then charged, Trace's instincts taking him in low for a football tackle. In the moments it took him to cross the distance between the two of them, he thought, This guy is faster than I was expecting. I need to push myself here.

Ooooooh sh*t... Ruin cursed in his head after seeing the rock he sent at the creature smash upon impact with it's fist. Alright, so maybe just throwing a medium sized rock at it's head wasn't the best of attack plans he could have come up with. He let out an almost inaudible gulp as he saw it shake it's hand off. Well at least it seemed to OH F*CK! A sudden panic overcame him as the beast quickly began making the distance between them, looking as if it were about to tackle him. With no plans to be pinned down by a monster that would probably start ripping him apart the second it had the chance and while he did trust his armor to protect him in most situations, he wasn't really eager to test it out, an almost instinctual combat reflex kicked in and he pushed out his free hand in front of him once more, this time sending a ten foot wall of rock up from the ground so as to shield himself from the charging beast.

The man raised a hand. What was he doing now? Whatever attack he was launching, the Dark Fang thought he could probably avoid-OH SH!T! The large wall of rock shot up from the ground at incredible speed. It was nothing he couldn't handle. He dropped lower, pressing against the ground with his hands and pushing off from the ground. For one moment, he looked like a colossal wolf. The next, he was airborne, propelled almost directly upwards by the powerful muscles in his arms and legs. He shot over the wall and reached the peak of his jump shortly after, landing on top of the structure with surprising grace.

He jumped down, landing with a loud crash. White hot pain radiated from his little finger on his right hand. Possible break, nothing major. He could work through the pain. He charged again, this time aiming high, his left hand curled into a fist, aiming for the crook's temple.

Ruin watched, almost in horror, as the monster leaped atop his wall and then charged for him once again, but this time he had reacted too late to be able to defend himself. The moment the monster's fist made contact with his head, Ruin was sent flying back, skidding across the ground and onto his back a good eight feet away. Unfortunately, while he had superhuman durability that could stop such a strike from collapsing his head in on itself, he did not have superhuman strength and thus, could not keep himself from being thrown around like a rag doll by this creature. Ruin groaned out painfully, rubbing his head with his right hand, his left hand still clutching at the bags for dear life. It didn't matter what this thing did to him, there was no way that he was going to be parting with his pathetic spoils any time soon. Lifting his head ever so slightly so as to get a look at his opponent once more, Ruin grimaced. Ah to hell with this... He raised his right hand in the air and once again the lights on his right hand lit up. Bringing his fist back to earth, Ruin collapsed the ground below him to create a roughly man sized hole in the middle of the road that sent him plummeting down into the sewers below. His descent was not a graceful one and he landed down into the caverns that was the New York city sewer systems with almost painful bang. With no time to worry about the disgusting liquid waste rushing past him, the nauseating smell defiling his nostrils, the pain in the back of his head or...whatever that brown thing floating over there was, Ruin pushed himself back up to his feet and started off into a run down down the narrow passageway, not really expecting to be able to outrun or outmaneuver the beast, but to instead give him a fighting advantage. In his opinion, if he could get the creature in an inclosed space surrounded by stone he would have an advantage when things got really rough. However, what seemed to slip his mind was that in doing so he would also be entrapping himself in an inclosed space with a creature that was bigger, stronger and faster than he was.

His strike landed with a sickening crunch, and the man was propelled back like a small comet. Judging by the way the man raised his head a minute distance from the floor, then raised his hand, those lights on his suit coming on again, he wasn't dead, and therefore it followed that he may have some degree of superhuman durability. Romolus watched as the man dropped his glowing hand to the ground, preparing to leap out of the path of an attack, and was surprised when the man disappeared from sight. It suggested he was using either super strength or the terrakinesis Dark Fang had previously seen him use.

Dark Fang stared down into the hole the man had created into the sewers. His keen sense of smell picked up many unsavoury stenches, of which the least repugnant was filthy storm water, and among the most vomit-enducing was the collective waste of the city's population. Although he knew that fighting in the sewers he would be surrounded by stone, and therefore at a disadvantage, the man still had the money he had taken from the truck. With a quick look around, the Lord of Wolves took a deep breath and plunged into the sewer, landing with a splash and a squelch. He looked around, and with a degree of resignation, sniffed, nearly gagging as he did so. Pushing past the foul scents that were so sickening he could almost taste them, he sniffed a few more times, locating the scent of his quarry, and he took off at a light jog, following the man.

Still running as fast as possible, Ruin trudged his way through the raw sewage that surrounded him. Honestly he was already regretting choosing to escape via the sewer as the feeling of being in this damp, humid and sickening place had him almost missing his old prison cell...Almost. While, granted he wasn't being chased by a werewolf during his time being incarcerated; the chances of this thing doing anything that prison inmates are notorious for doing are pretty slim. A more disturbing thought that went through his head was that he might have to keep going into the sewer for getaways if he couldn't think of anything better than running away on foot, he wasn't exactly the fastest person around after all. Granted it had it's perks, he didn't like the idea of going in and out of the sewer all the time, especially if he wanted to retain any sense of personal hygiene. The place was darker than he had been expecting, but the lights on his armor seemed to give off a very faint glow and kept him easy enough to see.

A part of him actually hoped to be able to escape the wolf man in the underground passageways, but this hope was soon shattered when the sound of the approaching man beast echoed out from behind him. Cursing lowly, he turned around and, just like a scene from a horror movie, saw the vague silhouette of his pursuer coming out of the darkness. Taking a deep breath, and then immediately regretting the action as the potent aroma of the sewage flooded his nose, Ruin clenched his fist and made a punching motion towards the monster. In that moment, bricks off the walls and ceiling tore away from their place and shot forward at Dark Fang, sending a wave of bricks and debris hurtling through the air.

He turned the corner, his vision immediately obscured by flying bricks. He threw both arms over his face, protecting his moneymaker from the bricks that hit his torso, arms and legs with bruising force. That idiot! He has no idea what he's done! Romolus raged in his mind. As the wave of bricks ceased, he charged forward, and tried to grab his foe around the waist with one arm. Whether or not this succeeded, he leaped straight up and flattened his free hand over his head, shooting out of the sewers as the damaged walls and ceiling collapsed in, creating a large crater in the road.

"Wow. Breaking and entering, burglary, and now, destruction of public property. You're really racking up the jail time, buddy." He growled. "I'm Dark Fang, by the way. What do they call you? Rocky?" He chuckled. He had decided not to attack right away. If he was provoked, then he would take the guy down. His emerald eyes watched every little move the robber made.