Baltimore, Thursday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai leapt over the edge of the building, pausing for a moment on one hand to let her quarry move into position, and then shifted her weight a fraction of an inch to let gravity take over. Freefall. A moment when she was almost flying, albeit in one direction. Hurtling four stories to the ground and loving every minute of it. She makes a noise only at the very last moment, turning her quarry's face up to hers. His expression is comical in its disbelief, which turns to pain a second later as she lands handsdown on his shoulders. If she really wanted to, she could probably dislocate his arms or maybe even break his collarbone. But that wasn't Banzai. She didn't like hurting people, not even scumbag drug dealers that liked to hit working girls.

The hitting women part really had her tempted, though. Just a little more pressure than usual and snap, crackle, pop. No more hitting people for him!

But she'd been Social Justice Warrior, not Social Vengeance Warrior, so she refrained. She hit him with just enough force to numb both his arms, forcing him to drop his briefcase with a gasp. From there, she flipped behind him, dropped low, and lashed out with her foot. He hit the ground with a cry and she kicked herself up into a standing position and dover for the briefcase, knocking it away from his grip.

That's when his three bodyguards decided to wise up and get involved.

They had guns, of course. Jerks like these always had guns. Fortunately, Kathy wasn't where they thought she'd be. She'd taken off just as soon as the briefcase had gone skittering into the shadows.

Spin kick. Hand spring. Cartwheel, backbend, roundhouse. Down went one of them. Hammer kick, vault, flying leap, gymnastic ribbons around his wrist and yank. Down went the second. Layout salto. Spin kick. Forward lunge. Spin kick.

And down went the third.

"Looks like it's just the two of us now," Banzai said, grinning at the dealer. "Do you wanna give up? Or let a little girl kick your ass, too?"

He whimpered and put his hands above his head.

Under her mask, Banzai grinned. God, she loved this.

[NFB. For anyone out in Baltimore, though thread with gunslingerpose comes last chronologically, please!]

Comments

[gunslingerpose]

Slow clap. Just that, from the far end of the alleyway. A slow, appreciative clap.

"You know, one of these days, we're going to have to figure out whose beat is whose," Gorgon noted, smirking a little from where he was leaning against a dirty brick wall. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we're right on our border, here, no big deal. But if I knew you had it handled, I would've stayed on my bike."

He nodded to the three goons on the ground.

"Hell of a show, though."

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai spun around to see Gorgon standing in the shows. "Lurk much?" she asked, putting a hand over her thudding heart. For a moment, she'd thought it was danger that she hadn't spotted. Already flushed with exertion, she couldn't blush at his compliment but she could grin at him. "Well, this spot is definitely mine."

[gunslingerpose]

"You got here first. I'll let you keep it," Gorgon decided. He was magnanimous like that. "You need to borrow a road flare, or were you gonna hunt down a payphone?"

He had road flares. He was willing to share.

Still magnanimously.

[spin_kick_snap]

"A road flare would be appreciated," Banzai said, holding out her hand. "I was going to use the pay phone three blocks over, but this will do nicely."

She really needed a better system than running to the nearest payphone, but she wasn't about to steal everything from Gorgon.

[gunslingerpose]

Gorgon just smirked as he produced the flare from his pocket.

"You know, pay phones are going the way of the dinosaur," he shared. "You don't see as many of the damn things around these days, have you noticed?"

He passed the flare over.

"And then what?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Then I'll probably get one of those stupid Tracphones that you pay by the minute and don't have to buy a service plan for," Banzai said, pulling out her lighter to spark the fuse.

Thank you, Reno!

"Of course, I don't really remember a time when they were ubiquitous, either."

She'd come of age long after the age of the cell phone, Nikolai. Sorry.

[gunslingerpose]

Banzai, you were making Gorgon make faces at you, again.

"I don't want to think about that," he decided. "Next you'll be asking me what a cassette tape looks like. Or telling me that you don't remember a time before DVDs."

... She wouldn't remember such a thing, Nikolai.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Cassette tapes?" Banzai asked, deliberately sounding empty-headed. "Aren't those what go in 8-tracks to make them play? They plugged in with the cord of the cordless phones?"

[gunslingerpose]

"That's right," Gorgon replied, his tone dry and one eyebrow cocking upwards. "And since we didn't have remote controls back then, we'd have to send carrier pigeons who would deliver the signal to the guy with the semaphore flags standing next to the turntable."

Two could play, Banzai. Two could play.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Where did the smoke signals come in?" Banzai asked, looking at him curiously. "Before or after the telegraph?"

[gunslingerpose]

"No, no," Gorgon made a big show of looking up toward the sky above, since a simple eyeroll would be lost behind the goggles. "The telegraph was all just science fiction in the talking pictures. What we really used was two tin cans tied together with string."

Honestly. Children these days.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Ooooh, you had talking pictures!" Banzai said. "I would have pictured you sitting in a theater with the silent films and a little man playing the piano whenever something thrilling was going to happen."


Braaaaat.

"There," she said, placing the lit flare down, directly between the dealer's legs, a little close to the seam of his pants for his comfort, no doubt. Better than he deserved. "Perhaps we should go, before we are noticed?"

[gunslingerpose]

"If we haven't been noticed by now, people aren't looking out their windows," Gorgon snorted. "But they're getting better at knowing that wherever we're at, they don't want to get in the way. You have a particular direction you're heading, Banzai?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"I was thinking of swinging to the west a bit, to do a long arc before heading back to the island," Banzai said, bouncing up from the street to a stone windowsill a story above them. "Wanna join me? Or would that be too much like partnering up?"

[gunslingerpose]

"I'd say I don't do teamups, but that's a blatant lie," Gorgon sighed, and then took a leap straight up to rest in another sill nearby. "Sure, I can swing West. You in any sort of hurry, or can I grab my bike?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Can I get a ride?" Banzai asked, eager. "I've only ever been on a motorcycle once, for class, and we only learned to hotwire it, not actually drive!"

[gunslingerpose]

"Just so happens I have a helmet that might even fit you," Gorgon mused, pursing his lips as he looked her over. "You ever ride a bike before?"

Why the hell not? He took Allie around on it pretty frequently. And anybody who needed a quick lift home rather than walking through rough streets. And, shit Banzai seemed kind of excited about the idea of riding a motorbike.

It was fucking adorable.

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

She had seen the other girl go over the edge, and Venus had gone running, taking her incredible leaps as she raced over rooftops to stop the jumper.

...who was apparently a costumed vigilante. A colorful costumed vigilante. How many were there around here?

Venus paused on the edge of the roof long enough to assess that the other girl had it well in hand before vaulting over to drop down next to the working girl, grabbing her wrist and hauling her out of the path of any danger. Fifty bucks, a pre-paid cellphone with the number for a women's shelter programmed into it, and a quiet-but-firm discussion about how no, that's not love, that's never love, and she was back around the corner, watching the girl in the gi finish up.

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai was in the act of tying them all up (with zip ties, yeah, she'd stolen Gorgon's sctick, but gymnastic ribbons were expensive) when she felt she was being watched. Glancing up, she saw the...girl? Young woman?...in the mask and tiny skirt, blond hair waving in the night air. Most of her face was obscured by the mask, but even so, Banzai could tell she was beautiful.

"I'd say this isn't what it looks like, but you look like you know exactly what's going on," she called lightly, pulling the sip ties tighter.

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"I think it looks like you went easy on a guy who sinned against love. And sold drugs," Venus replied, heels clicking against the pavement as she stalked over. Her smile as she looked at dealer wasn't friendly. "You're lucky she found you first. I don't like people who abuse others and call it 'love.' That's not how you treat a lady."

[spin_kick_snap]

"He's going to jail," Banzai said, going to fetch the briefcase of guns and illegal drugs to place next to the dealer. "It's not my place to do more than that. I caught him, subdued him, and I'll contact the police. Punishing him is not my job."

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"Sadly, the police don't care about crimes of the heart. Or even always assault," Venus said, giving the dealer her most intimidating stare from behind her mask. "Drugs, sure. The police are great about drugs! They like drugs!"

Beat.

"...That. Sounded wrong. But you know what I mean."

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai nodded. "The fact that he hit that woman won't matter to them," she agreed with a heavy sigh. "Especially since she was a working girl. But, in the end, so long as he goes to jail, does it matter?"

[beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com]

"She's a person. I fail to see how her profession should have anything to do with it," she replied sourly. Venus had... opinions. On people who abused love and loyalty. Very very strong opinions, and was kinda wishing she could at least kick this guy in the shin. "At least pin a note on him about the assault. 'Drugs, assault of a civilian, and criminally bad taste.'"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Hey, now, I'm not disagreeing," Banzai said, holding her hands up slightly to show they had no quarrel. "If I thought she'd testify, I'd have her stay and give her report to the police themselves. But that wasn't the impression I got from her."

She'd shown up too late to prevent the beating, but when she'd stopped to console the victim, she'd been told to get away, to go find someone else to bother. And so she had, going after the man who'd harmed her and so many others through his wares.