Chapter 459: Fervent Discussion

In a remote small district in Africa, four men wearing black stockings and wielding AKM rifles were causing a scene in the city’s only bank.

Several patrons had their hands on their heads and shrunk themselves into a ball in the corner. Two men were standing by a metal gate that blocked them off from the inner section of the bank.

“Everybody put your hands in the air right now! I’ll put a bullet through your a** if you don’t comply!”

“Listen up, open this metal gate right now or else I’ll start killing hostages one by one!”

“Clang!”

Left without a say in the matter, the bank manager had to open the metal gate. Immediately, the metal gate was flung open with a swift kick. One of the men approached the bank manager and swung the back of the gun at the manager to knock him on the ground!

The hostages started to cry and wail.

“Alright, if you want to live, get your a** into the lounge immediately!”

The other two bank robbers nudged the bank patrons into the lounge using their guns. After locking and chaining up the door to the lounge, they proceeded to get to work immediately.

“Put the money here inside the bag, hurry up!”

“Are the explosives for the vault ready yet?”

“Fire in the hole!”

“Boom!”

A deafening explosion sent waves of violent tremor across the entire bank. The door of the vault was blown wide open…

The alarms sounded off the moment the explosives were detonated. Apart from one of the robbers who was charged with standing guard by the entrance, the remaining three charged inside the vault.

When they emerged again after several minutes, they had crisp stacks of dollar bills stuffed into their bags.

“Go, let’s go!”

The three of them did not spare so much as a single moment and proceeded to sprint out the building with their accomplice standing guard by the entrance. Before they even made it out of the building, they saw several police cars parked by the entrance, cutting off their path to freedom.

“Crap, how did these cops arrive so quickly!”

As soon as they saw the police, they took out their guns and unloaded a barrage of bullets that riddled the police cars with bullet holes!

As soon as the police officers stepped out of their vehicles, they saw the robbers readying their rifles. The ones who managed to survive were the ones with quick reflexes that immediately darted into the shop lots on the opposite street instead of hiding behind their cars.

Meanwhile, two police officers who chose to hide behind the police vehicles were immediately shot dead.

“Reinforcements! Call for reinforcements!”

“Robbery at a Finroche Bank. We’re pinned down by heavy firepower, requesting reinforcements!”

The police officers hiding inside the shop lots in the opposite street did not dare to even poke their heads out. They shot as much suppressing fire as they could while calling for backup.

The two parties were going back and forth in a steady shootout. Meanwhile, the three police vehicles parked by the bank entrance were utterly destroyed.

“Crap, our car!”

One of the robbers seemed to have realized something as he quickly turned to look at the side of the bank and saw that the getaway transport they prepared had one of its tires unintentionally shot in the middle of the shootout.

The police cars parked out front were no use as well. There was no way they could worm their way out of this.

“Listen up, we have six hostages over here. If you don’t let us go, we’ll kill all of them right this instant!”

Sensing that the situation had gone awry, one of the robbers forced one of the hostages out of the lounge and presented the hostage in front of the police with his gun drawn to the hostage’s head. “Let us go right now!”

However, what they got instead was not any degree of cooperation, but more police cars rushing in from all directions.

By this point, the bank was surrounded by the police. A lengthy standoff between the robbers and police would soon follow after.

The sheriff who was at the scene was in constant communication with his superior at the moment. “We’ve surrounded the robbers. The problem is they have hostages so we cannot afford to act rashly!”

“Yes, I’m holding them off for now…”

“What, BHB combative police force?”

“Understood, we’ll hold them off until the combative police force arrives!”

The sheriff ended the call and proceeded to get behind the set-up bunker and announced with a megaphone, “Listen, release the hostages immediately and put down your weapons. The Namibian police will not yield. Release the hostages right this instant!”

“Crap! Boss, they’re not buying it!”

The four robbers trapped in the bank were panicking like ants on a hot griddle. Among them, the robber who had a gun pointed to a hostage’s head shouted into the bank, “They don’t care about the safety of the hostages!”

“That’s impossible! Tell them we’ll give them ten more minutes and if they don’t evacuate from this street in ten minutes, I’ll execute this hostage right in front of them!”

The largest member among the robbers cried out, “By the ten-minute mark, I want you to kill the hostage, see if they still don’t back down!”

The robber in charge of the negotiation proceeded to relay the message issued to him by his leader. The sheriff was stunned by this threat. He announced again after contemplating briefly, “We understand, give us twenty minutes to evaluate our decision. Don’t hurt any of the hostages in this period! If you do, we’ll storm in the bank!”

“No, ten minutes I said!”

The robber in charge of the negotiations frowned upon hearing this. He knew that dragging it out any longer would only make things more disadvantageous for them, therefore he insisted on ten minutes.

While the two of them were exchanging back and forth from across the street, they suddenly sensed their surroundings turning dark as if something was shielding the sunlight above.

At first, the robber out front thought it was just the clouds and paid no mind to it. However, the moment he caught the glimpse of a flash when he looked up to inspect, he was greeted with the sight of a large aircraft the size of a public transport gliding overhead, blocking off the sunlight from their view.

Immediately, he spotted several tiny drones flashing past the entrance of the bank. They vanished out of sight the moment he tried to identify them…

“What is that!”

The robber was stunned by this sudden development. Before he could say anything else, he felt his vision turning blur and then promptly cut short…

A bullet had punched through the wall behind him and straight through his forehead…

“Nola!”

The pack of robbers inside the bank was shocked by this sudden turn of events as they started to reach for their guns when he saw this. In a split instant, the wall beside them burst into smithereens. A large, tall person donned in all-black armor had burst through the wall beside them and before any of them could react, the titan had grabbed two of the robbers by their shoulders!

Within seconds, the two robbers jolted violently all over as electricity coursed through their entire body!

When he saw that all three of his accomplices were taken out, the final robber who was the leader took off and ran. Before he even took two steps, yet another armored titan burst through the ceiling in front of him and landed with both feet planted on the ground.

“Die!”

The desperate robber lifted his rifle and unloaded into the armored titan blocking his path!

“Da da da da da….”

The series of violent gunshots only created tiny balls of sparks on the surface of the armor. Even 7.62 bullets with measured kinetic energy of more than 2000J could not penetrate the armor!

“Clack!”

A sudden click cut short the volatile burst of the rattling rifle. The robber realized that he had emptied his magazine and along with it, realized that all hope was lost…

At that point, the mask of the armored titan in front of him was unveiled automatically to reveal the chiseled face of a stoic man. “Boswell, in accordance with Article 370, Article 5 of the Namibian Criminal Law, you’re accused of violent robbery, dangerous crimes, threatening public safety, and possession of illegal automatic weapons. You’ll now be arrested along with your accomplice. You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say may be used against you as evidence in court!”

The man spoke with great authority as he grabbed the arms of the robber and immediately latched cold handcuffs on his hands.

Without any hostage casualties, the violent robbery had come to a close…

The next scene was framed to be remembered forever. The picture of three armored titans posing in front of the camera —

The three of them stood in formation in front of the wrecked bank entrance. Meanwhile, broken shards of glass and police cars riddled with holes framed the background behind them.

The three armored titans lifted off their helmets to reveal three heroic faces. They looked straight into the camera as if directly addressing their viewers.

A burst of solemn and heavy orchestral background music played to complement the framed piece!

Below the three men were a string of letters that read BHB along with a logo. Another italicized sentence was written below in smaller font — “All recorded footage scenes are real and recorded with drones. Please do not reenact the events depicted.”

Next, the image transitioned into a close-up of the three men. The first one was the man with a chiseled face that made him look like a roman sculpture. He slowly turned to look at the camera with a somber expression. “BHB never asks how many criminals there are, only where the criminals are!”

The next one was a bald black man. He looked into the camera and proclaimed in fluent English, “Striving to race against time, for every second wasted could mean the loss of another innocent civilian!”

The last one was a teenager who looked the most child-like of the bunch. The teenager tipped his head confidently and announced solemnly, “Committed to combating all forms of injustice. Justice may be late, but it is never absent!”

“Courage!”

“Honor!”

“Sacrifice!”

The three of them spoke in unison, each pronouncing their unique tagline. After that, the three of them stretched their mechanical arms outward and stacked them on top of each other’s palms while proclaiming at the top of their voice, “We — are the BHB combative police force!”

Meanwhile, the background music had reached its climax.

“Yes! They’re so cool! The BHB combative police force are like my idols!”

Somewhere in Northern America, a young boy just entering his teenage years cheered excitedly in front of the television, “Dad, Dad! When I grow up I want to join the BHB combative police force and become a superhero!”

In another city in Northern America, several teenagers were sharing bottles of cola while also cheering in front of the television. They made exaggerated poses, one of them spat his tongue out while making Brooke’s symbolistic pose. “D*mn, Brooke is so cool!”

“Hodge is cool too, isn’t he?”

The youngest teenager among the bunch chimed in as well, “He’s the youngest of their trio but is the strongest one of them all!”

“What are you talking about, Brooke is obviously the strongest one alright?”

While the two argued back and forth, the black teenager chipped in with his take as well, “Blake represents us black people. He’s the most agile of them all and boasts the highest number of arrests!”

“Nonsense, Hodge is superior!”

“Shut up, it’s Brooke!”

…

The phrase BHB dominated the Internet as well. The video had only been uploaded on YouTube for a day before hitting 500 million clicks. Some of the most common questions asked in the comment sections below the video were [What is this video? Is this some kind of promotional clip? What’s BHB, how come I’ve been seeing it everywhere the last few days?]

There were around 50,000 likes and more than 30,000 replies to one of the comments. The reply with the highest amount of like went like this:

[BHB is a public welfare activity organization that is a subsidy of Blacklight Biotechnology’s Project Xingtian. Project Xingtian refits a group of disabled police officers into super-soldiers using mechanical armor, all for free. Their agenda is to purge criminals from society and BHB is the name of the three members abbreviated, which are Brook, Hodge, and Blake.]

Many people added their piece under this comment. [That’s right. Don’t be fooled by their current powerful appearance, they all once came from horrible backgrounds and lived pitiful lives…]

[Do you have to use the phrase “Pitiful”? BHB doesn’t need anyone to pity them, they are superheroes fighting against crime!]

[I second this notion, our Blake doesn’t need anybody’s pity. He’s a true warrior!]

Naturally, if there were supporters, there were people against them as well.

[What hero, what ultimate soldiers? They’re no longer humans but robots instead! We humans should be cautious of them and Blacklight Biotechnology. They will try to destroy everything we humans have built!]