Baltimore, Sunday Night

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Banzai rarely patrolled Sunday nights, taking the night off to rest and prepare for the upcoming week, but since she'd bailed on patrolling on Friday, it seemed only fair to make up for it tonight instead. Crime around the club and various campuses would be lower, but there were still plenty of drug deals, muggings, and various other, more dangerous crimes for her to stop instead. And it wasn't like Banzai was going to miss spending extra time manhandling drunk idiots into cabs and breaking up fights in alleys over stupid bullshit the participants couldn't even remember four steps away from the club itself.

The Ukranian mafia had all but vanished from the city over the past few months; apparently losing the Butcher was enough to convince them that Baltimore wasn't worth the effort. In a way, Banzai almost missed them; they were good practice for when she'd be going up against the Seventeens in LA eventually. Patrolling around Stanford (if she got in, please God let her get in) probably wasn't going to be all that much effort, so she was already making plans to portal down to LA proper at least once a month to get in a proper patrol.

Spotting Jewels, one of the working girls that was part of Banzai's loose confederation of informants, Banzai swung down from the rooftop to land on light feet nearby. Always good to check in, see if Jewels had heard of anything going down, make sure that no one was bothering her, pass along money and supplies to stay in Jewels' good graces, all that good stuff.

It felt good to get out and patrol. For all her speeches about wanting to do good for the people around her and make the world a better place, Banzai had to admit that the real reason she ran around in rainbows with a bokken on her back and rope darts in her belt was a lot more selfish. What could she say?

She loved this.

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Banzai snickered at that. "I should feel a lot worse about that than I do," she said. "Theft is a crime, blah blah blah. But, hey, you're taking care of the ladies, so I'm having trouble seeing this as anything but a victimless crime."

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"See, Isabela likes doing her part for the forces of good."

Dante smirked at her. "The rest of us just live in her world."

Admittedly, he'd been avoiding mentioning Ada just in case Kathy decided to get weird about it.

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Ezra and the stereo had proven to Banzai that she had no legs to stand on when it came to stuff like this. So rather than stress over it, she'd given everyone in Fandom a mental pass so long as their shenanigans stayed below a certain level and called it good.

Probably not her most heroic decision, but the one most likely to give her peace.

"The hell we do," Banzai snorted. "Her world has giant sex-spiders with lube spit and sex-venom or whatever. I am not living in that world, thanks much."

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"I can't believe you keep trying to sell yourself as the one with all the imagination," Dante said, shaking his head. "How's Superballing?"

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"I never said I had all of it!" Banzai protested. "My imagination has very strict limits, in fact. Members of the arachnid family need not apply!"

For pretty much anything, in fact.

"And it's going pretty well. Jewels had some good intel for me to follow up on, I busted a decent-sized drug deal, and stopped three kids from boosting cars. Not bad for a Sunday. What're you up to, besides making your charity rounds?"

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"Went clubbing, but the music sucks ass tonight," Dante said, pulling a face. Sure, getting laid was a major priority in his life at all times, but there were limits. Shitty Eurotrash music-shaped limits. "Then I figured I might as well stop by here, do some charity, then pick a bar or something."

Getting smashingly drunk on other people's money: almost as good as getting laid.

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"Always room for one more on patrol," Banzai suggested. She didn't expect him to agree, but it's not like she wasn't going to offer.

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"Or you could stop patrolling, get out of the ninja outfit and grab a beer with me," Dante said, side-eyeing her.

Seriously, Kathy.

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"Yeah, I guess I could do that," Banzai agreed. "Though we're going to have to backtrack to where I left my duffel. Otherwise I'll be drinking with you in my sports bra and these gi pants and that's just not going to happen."

Even if her pants were mostly free of the identifying rainbows, just no.

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Dante chuckled. "Eh, I don't know," he said, "We could say you were a time-traveling refugee from the nineties."

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"Only if you let me wear your coat," Kathy countered. "It's still too cold for this thin-blooded girl to be wandering around almost topless after dark."

It was wet and not even fifty degrees out anymore. No way in hell was Kathy going to wander around without layers on. Did he want her to freeze?

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LA girls couldn't handle shit, it was true. Dante shook his head. "Where's your bag?"

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Hey, this LA girl managed to handle him, no problems. It was just the weather that gave her pause.

She jerked her thumb back behind her. "A few blocks away up on a rooftop. I wanted it accessible, but hidden away from prying eyes. And I'm a little too conspicuous to rent a locker somewhere or something."

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Dante sighed. "All right," he said, "Let's take a hike. Or, y'know, you could power back there at full speed, do something useful with those powers."

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Banzai hip-checked him, more to show what she thought of his sense of humor than because she thought it would have an effect at all. "Such an ass," she said, smirking below her mask. "You know if I go off by myself, I'll end up getting distracted by stopping crime and saving the day."

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"Are you saying you need someone to hold your hand and keep you from falling off the superheroing wagon?" Dante asked.

He did look rather unmoved by the hip check, yes.

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Banzai's only real shot of ever taking Dante down involved using all of the momentum at her disposal and aiming it at his more vulnerable parts. Anything else she did was generally for dramatic effect, as she was the equivalent of a small kitten trying to take down a St. Bernard. It just wasn't going to happen and she'd made peace with that. But he knew what she meant with the hip-check and that was what counted.

"Anyone who voluntarily wears this many rainbows can't be trusted to say no to superheroing on her own," Banzai declared staunchly. "I've got it bad."

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Dante heaved a loud sigh. "Fine, fine, I'll head back with you," he said. "Get up on the rooftops?"

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Poor Dante, he was so put upon.

"Waiting on you," Banzai said, flipping herself upwards and using several nearby buildings to bounce her way up.

Yeah, there was a fire escape, like, right over there, but so? This way was far more fun!

[rebelseekspizza]

Yeah, Dante wasn't going to use the pingpong ball approach, that just looked stupid. But he jumped up, snagged the fire escape and yanked himself up. He did it again a couple of times, skipping two floors at a time, before taking the stairs up on the last one.

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NOBODY ASKED YOUR OPINION, DANTE. PEOPLE IN FLASHY HOUSES DIDN'T GET TO THROW STONES.

Banzai was firmly convinced that bouncing looked as cool as it felt and no one would be able to tell her otherwise. He was just jealous he had to abuse gravity before he could do cool things, so there.

And when he got there, Banzai was lounging on some brickwork, just as cool as she pleased, clearly waiting on him. "This way," she said, hopping up and pointing. "I stashed my stuff behind that big neon sign over there, see?"

It was a diner, because of course it was. After a night of patrolling, Kathy usually ended up half-starved. But it wasn't far from a few bars, either, so unless Dante had a specific place in mind to go, they weren't going that far out of their way before their beer.

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Dante reached into his pocket and snagged a pack of cigarettes, popping one in his mouth. He peered over towards where Kathy was pointing and nodded, taking a second to light up before wandering over to join her.

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She made a face at the cigarette but didn't comment. Verbally anyway; there was a sigh that accompanied the expression, but that could have been about anything.

"Ready to go then?"

Hey, if he wanted to run and cough at the same time, that was on him.

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Please. Nephilim didn't get lung cancer.

"Ready to go," Dante said, ignoring her look in a way that made it absolutely clear to her he was ignoring it.

Then he got moving, taking a quick jump from one building to the next. At least they weren't too far apart, or he'd have been in trouble.

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And when he figured out that he was a Nephilim, he could make that argument. Until then, he was just being stupid.

He'd be able to make those long jumps a lot easier when he got the Nephilim powerup, too.

Banzai took off after him, overtaking him in seconds. This was her arena to shine in and she didn't mind taking the opportunity to do so, flinging herself through the air with speed and reckless abandon. Ringo had AirTrek, Anders had magic, Dante had...so many different things it was ridiculous. Banzai had this: speed and grace and the feel of the wind against her face as she dove through it fearlessly.