Baltimore, Saturday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy--err, well, Banzai now, she was in costume--still wasn't quite sure how this had happened. She was on a date, with a guy that she'd talked to exactly once, and while their date had begun with the traditional nice dinner in town, their main activity was definitely not going to be found in any traditional dating guide.

Well, that might not be entirely true. If Fandom ever published a dating guide, superheroing in Baltimore would probably rate pretty highly on the 'things to do with your date' list.

"So, this is pretty much the start of my beat," she explained, tightening her mask. "I like to start up here. It's the tallest building in the area and--I don't have to explain why I like the high ground to you, right." The guy who could fly around likely understood why she liked starting off high up, yes. "I'd ask if you had any questions before we started, but I'm pretty sure you've been doing this for longer than I have. Ready?"

[NFB for Baltimore, but open to anyone likely to be wandering around Baltimore. Come crash the date! It's a new Fandom tradition (h/t notaweenie)]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

FLATTERING METAPHOR, JOHNNY.

"Aha!" she said, turning on a dime and increasing her speed yet again. This was a hard sprint, so she wouldn't be able to keep it going very long, but it was useful in a pinch.

...And there was something to be said about the ability to keep up with highway traffic, at least for a few hundred yards.

"Hazard a guess on how far away it is?" she asked, vaulting up onto a balcony to scale another building.

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Couple blocks at most," Johnny said. "We'll be there in no time! What kind of robbery do you think it is?"

Johnny span off to dive toward street level so he could look for smashed storefronts.

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It wasn't the alleys or streets that was the big worry about running over rooftops, but really it was shoddy maintenance. Loose bricks. Weak beams. Banzai skidding on some completely unfastened tar paper (health hazard!) and would have fallen if her agility wasn't cranked up to eleven. Instead she turned it into a forward somersault and sprang back up to her feet.

"Around here?" Banzai asked. "Probably a small store. Lot of mom and pop shops, bodegas, used book stores, stuff like that. Nothing high end, so we're probably looking at small-timers or local punks."

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"So I shouldn't go in with my biggest flames. Gotcha," Johnny said as he arrived at the store with the broken door.

He came to an abrupt stop and started shouting, "Oh, criminals! We have some concerned citizens here to tell you to knock it off!"

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About thirty seconds later, Banzai leapt down to the ground, peeking into the doorway. "No one even has to get hurt! But if you really feel like tangoing with the guy on fire...well, that's on you. Or you could go for the small, not-on-fire girl. She can't be any threat at all, right?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"How does ladies first work when there are maybe armed street toughs in there, but the lady has powers?" Johnny checked. "It's never come up for me before."

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Banzai peeked in again. There were signs of movement, but no one seemed in a great hurry to come out and tangle.

"Well, I think it's less about ladies and gentlemen and more about turf," she said, eyes mischievous behind her mask. "As my guest, you can go in first if you'd like."

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"You're so kind," Johnny said, lowering to glide into the shop just above the ground. He also pulled his flame in a bit so he didn't set the shop on fire. "Okay, kids. You're making the Human Torch come inside. If you try anything, I'm gonna burn your pants off and then my lady friend is going to kick you in the face as you try to run away."

The couple robbers he saw seemed to be pretty surprised that, yes, a guy who WAS ON FIRE just floated in.

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"I did warn you about the guy on fire," Banzai said, waving at the from atop a shelf of groceries. While their eyes had been trained on the Human Torch, she'd quietly snuck in and climbed up. "But I probably won't stop at kicking you in the face. After all, traveling with this guy, I've clearly got something to prove. So...last chance to come quiet and peaceful-like?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

One of the robbers decided to run toward the back of the store, hoping to get to an exit. Johnny sped forward, low enough to not set off the sprinklers right away, and flaming off in time to turn himself into a human missile aimed at the guy's back, tackling him.

"I lied. You would spaz out if your pants were on fire. I can't deal with a spaz in hot pants unless we're talking about someone dancing at a club."

[spin_kick_snap]

That was a signal for the other three to break as well. Banzai launched herself at the closest one, using his shoulders as a springboard to stay in the air. Her momentum drove him into the ground with a choked cry. "I'm pretty sure I didn't dislocate anything," she said, yanking a be-ribboned baton out of her sleeve and aiming for another one of the runners. "But I'm not a doctor yet, so it might be best for you to stay. Like I said before, remember?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

As the last guy made his way out the door, Johnny got back to his feet, lit a fireball in his hand, and threw it like a baseball. Sure enough, it hit the guy right in the butt and his pants were suddenly on fire.

Johnny was able to trot casually outside as the guy stopped, dropped, and rolled. "Hey, you know something about fire safety. Good for you," he said as he approached the guy in the street. Too bad you never learned not to annoy the guy who makes fire."

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The baton end went sailing through the air and socked the third guy in the back, right between the shoulderblades. Overbalanced, he fell forward, his jaw clacking hard against the linoleum floor. Banzai winced. That hadn't sounded pleasant.

"Warned you," she sighed. The first one she'd knocked down was pushing himself to his feet and Banzai didn't hesitate to plant her foot in his bottom to push him right back down again. "Sorry," she said, producing a bag of zipties. "You're not going anywhere. Hey, Torch! You wanna bring that guy back in here?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

Johnny grabbed the guy by his shirt collar and dragged him to his feet, leading him back to Kathy. "You see, this is kind of a date," Johnny told the guy. "She said she didn't want flowers, she wanted be to bring her some criminals. Personally, that's my kind of girl. But I doubt you agree."

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"Why are you telling him that?" Banzai yelped. "He--I'm sure he doesn't care."

"Actually," the guys said, "it's kinda cute in a real pain in the ass kind of way. You two a thing?"

"We're on a date," Banzai informed him sternly, yanking the ziptie a little harder than she had to while binding his wrist to a shelf that was bolted into the wall. "We're hardly an item. Just...just...just a date."

"Aww yeah," the guy said, giving a chin nod to Johnny. "Playing the field? There are enough of you types to do that?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's not just a date. For these chuckleheads, it's also the night they got their butts kicked by a couple of people who weren't even one hundred percent focused on that butt kicking," Johnny said, dropping his guy in front of Banzai to get the wrist-tie treatment. "(I'll go get the guy I tackled, too.) Remember that, fellas. Tonight's also about you and how much you completely suck at this."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He's right you know," Banzai said, sounding almost apologetic. "You're clearly amateurs at this. But that probably means you have time to turn things around."

She tilted her head; sirens in the distance. They only had a few more minutes here before they had to go, too. Vigilantism was still illegal, after all.

"Look, the people who own this place are really nice. They barely make enough to get by week to week and they still donate to all sorts of neighborhood causes and give food away to a couple of homeless guys. If you have to rob stores, leave people like them alone. The payout isn't worth the risk and you hurt them a lot more than is really necessary."

A few more poses and that could be a magical girl speech there, Banzai.

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Also, don't rob any stores," Johnny said as he dragged the last guy over. "Or next time, I'll st more than just this one guy's pants on fire, and then you'll all look silly going to jail."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Agreed," Banzai said. "I mean, we're still going to stop you, regardless of who you rob. But the caliber of your victims still says a lot about the kind of criminal you are. Our jokes are going to be snarkier if we catch you robbing nice old mom and pop stores. But it really would be better if you stayed on the right side of the law from now on. Eventually, he's going to get impatient and start singeing more than fabric, if you catch my drift."

All four secured, she looked up at Johnny. "Sirens are closer. I'm thinking that's our cue?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Flame on," Johnny said. This time his hands and forearms weren't flaming. "If you'd like a lift back to the roofs, give me your hands."

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"You have really excellent control over that!" Banzai exclaimed, momentarily distracted from imminent arrest to marvel. "That's really cool..."

Oh. Right. Sirens.

"I mean, yes please!" She grabbed his forearms, clamping them tightly. "Up, up and away?"

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"I think somebody else says that already," Johnny said as he flew off, carrying Banzai by the hands to a rooftop a couple blocks away. "And I've been working to make sure I have the best control possible since the accident. It's pretty much required. I hav the power to do a lot of damage if I'm not careful."

[spin_kick_snap]

"The accident?" His control over the non-flame parts of his body was impressive. Banzai was slight, sure, but bodily lifting someone and carrying them a ways wasn't the easiest task and yet she didn't think she'd felt so much as a tremor in his muscles. "Is that how you got your powers? Or, umm," she bit her lip. "What happened immediately afterwards?"

If it were the latter, it could be a really painful memory. Heck, even if it were the former, it could be.

"You can tell me to mind my own business," she added softly as her feet made contact with the rooftop. "I'll understand if you'd rather not talk about it."

[ultimatehottie.livejournal.com]

"Well, the experiment was in Nevada, then I woke up in a hospital in France, accidentally set the room on fire, got soaked from the sprinklers, and called for a lift home," Johnny explained. "And then I got to help my sister get away from underground monsters controlled by one of our old teachers."

"You were expecting something more traumatic and less awesome, weren't you?"

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"A little bit," Banzai conceded. "That actually sounds like the kind of thing that could happen on the island. We end up getting kidnapped and dragged underground by monsters sometimes. It's a thing, you learn to deal with it."

Much easier when you had superpowers.

"Glad it was awesome and not traumatic."