10416/Stop! Thief!

Stop! Thief!
Date of Scene:	10 March 2022
Location:	East Side
Synopsis:	Bando and Billy stop a common purse thief. Somehow they both thought it'd be easier.
Cast of Characters:	Bando George, Billy Kaplan

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Bando George has posed:
    It's mostly sunny, a casual cloud going over the brisk afternoon. Bando has made it out of school for the day, and since he doesn't have anything pressing for the evening, he's broken out his new costume, made blue and yellow. A little loud perhaps, but it fits someone like Bando and his rather loud personality.

    But it's a little cold still. Bando bounces on his heels on the rooftop he's chosen, and breathes some hot air on his hands. "Okay, somebody's gonna do something, right?" he asks the air. He wanders along the top of an electric sign. A couple of people below notice him, and wave. Of course, he's not a famous superhero, they are probably tourists. He waves back all the same. He can at least pretend he's famous. Oh yeah, is there crime here? He goes back to his studious observation of the undulating masses below.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
The past few days for Billy have been a little bit down. He gets into these funks sometimes. But today he pulled himself out of bed, took a shower, and got into his Wiccan uniform. It's time to shake this shit off. So now he is flying over Manhattan -- he lives with his parents and his brothers on the Upper East Side, so he's very close to home at the moment -- when he sees a figure on a rooftop in a uniform he's never seen before.

"Okay," he says to himself, "Who have we here?"

Angling his flightpath downward he lightly lands on the roof and walks toward the stranger. "Careful. Don't wanna fall off." His face is hard to see beneath the shadowy, billowing hood. His form and his voice would lead one to believe he isn't very old, maybe late teens or early twenties. When he gets about ten or so feet away from Bando, the young blue-and-yellow clad hero can feel a magical warmth. He has some sort of spell or incantation going that is creating a bubble of warm air around him.

Bando George has posed:
    Bando glances over. "Oh, hi," he says. "Are you a hero, too?" he asks. "I'm Bando," he offers with an extending hand to shake. "I hope you're a good guy. You got kind of a..." he motions at the shadowy cloak. "Spooky vibe there. Or are you maybe one of those anti-hero guys? The ones that go all 'I will take the law into my own hands because the system is broken!' types?" His quote definitely has a punisher-esque attempt at a gravely voice. It...well, it doesn't sound like Punisher even a little.

    Of course, that means he's missing the moment that's happening on the ground behind him. A woman's purse is stolen, a rather atheletic white man with a dusting of a five o'clock shadow wearing a ski cap delicately unclasps the yellow purse, and then runs.

    The woman was unaware it seems until the moment that the purse was removed, and she screams after him. "Stop him! He's got my purse!" Meanwhile, Bando has been busy jabbering away.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Bando seems to have this disarming nature to him. With a small laugh, Billy reaches out and shakes the other kid's hand. "Antihero? What? I'm /Wiccan/? Formerly known as Asgardian? You never...you never heard of me?" He doesn't sound particularly bothered by it. Truth is, he's so swamped with schoolwork that he doesn't have as much time for heroing as he might like.

Hearing the scream, Billy walks to the edge of the roof and peers down. "Well that's not nice, dude. Not only does that purse not belong to you but it doesn't match what you're wearing."

Bando George has posed:
    "Oh! Oh man!" Bando realizes his mistake. "YES! I do know who you are. What are you doing here? I'm sorry, that's so cool it's good to meet you and-" he follows Billy's gaze down to the action below. "Oh, dude, did he just? I'm on it!"

    Without another word, a *fwump* sound pops him out of existence, and he appears down at the street level.

    The crook looks up at Billy, "Well shit," he grunts. And he starts running. But have no fear, Bando has just appeared right in front of him. Bando holds his hand up. "Not so-" THUMP! The crook plows right through him, knocking him to the ground as he takes off running. "Ow!" Bando exclaims. "I held out my hand and everything!"

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Wiccan exhales sharply as he watches what happens. "That boy's gonna get himself hurt," he murmurs to himself. Talking to yourself is probably a disturbing habit for a 19-year-old, but nonetheless here we are.

Wiccan's words charge with magical energy as he casts an incantation: "Put me in front of him." If anybody else were on the roof, they would hear the arcane echo in the teenager's voice.

And just like that, Wiccan is standing on the sidewalk in the purse snatcher's path. But this dude is /fast/ and he reacts in an instant. He leaps up on the roof of a passing car, then onto the roof of a bus that was going in the other direction in the opposite lane, then out of sight on the other side of the street among a crowd of people waiting for the bus. "Are you shitting me?" Wiccan says with a growl.

Bando George has posed:
    Bando scrambles back to his feet, glancing around as those tourists start snapping pictures with their phones. Over there, got it! He leaps up, following on foot as he jumps across the car which stopped as someone jumped off the roof of it. Bando himself can only vault to the hood, though. He teleports again. *fwump*

    He missed. He teleports into the side of the bus, which doesn't seem to be agreeable in breaking the law of impenetrability. The misstep sends him flying as the energy of his own teleportation sends him flying through the air as if he was actually hit by the bus, flying right back involuntarily at Billy.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Some of Billy's powers are so ingrained and so practiced that he can do them without verbal commands. Fortunately, flying is one of them. He immediately leaps into the air and flies toward Bando and catches him in mid-air. "Hey bro," he says.

Hovering in the air holding Bando, the young spellcaster looks over to where the crowd across the street is parting as the purse snatcher quickly weaves through the people. Bando can hear and feel the electric, arcane energy in Billy's voice as he casts again. "Put us near the runner," he says. And just like that, they are on the ground -- well, Billy is on the ground, Bando is still being held by the magic-user who caught him -- just a few feet behind the purse snatcher.

BUT...there is a problem. Something went wrong with the magical energy and now Billy is wearing Bando's unform and Bando is wearing Wiccan's uniform.

"Oh for fuck's sake."

Bando George has posed:
    "I uh, sometimes things mess up," Bando says, I try not to teleport other pe-" he didn't notice the look that was different at first, facing forward as Billy somehow swapped uniforms. He sniffed. He sniffs his arm. "WThis isn't Old Spice." he asks. His own uniform has that exact smell. He looks down. "Whaaa!?" he seems fully distracted now. "Why do I have on your uniform?" he asks.

    Meanwhile, there's a purse snatcher still fleeing the scene, about ready to turn a corner out of sight.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Billy sets Bando down on the sidewalk in a standing position. "SometimesIMessUpMyMagic," he blurts out, red-faced. And now his identity is blown because he's not wearing his hood anymore. Everyone can see his face. Fortunately, people haven't really caught on that something has happened, so they aren't really associating Billy's face with Wiccan at this point.

Once Bando is set down, Billy reaches back and and tugs uncomfortably at the seat of his...pants? "How the hell do you wear this thing? It's riding up my a....Hey, he's getting away!" Billy points down the sidewalk to where the purse snatcher is ducking out of sight.

Bando George has posed:
    Bando looks and sees the crook round the corner. "Oh. I know that feeling." He has a bright red bruise on his face forming from the impact with the bus. "I guess we should probably get him, huh?" he asks. *fwump* he appears at the end of the block, and looks the wrong way. Then back in Wiccan's direction. Then he realizes he had the right direction to start with. He takes off around the corner chasing the crook desperately. "This thing creates a drag!" he exclaims, the cape certainly doesn' thelp running. Of course, who is he talking to? He left Billy behind, and just announced to the parkour bandit that he's still in pursuit. A random stranger is grabbed, thrown into Bando's path, who collides with him, slowing to make sure he doesn't do too much damage. "Sorry, Sorry!" he apologizes.

Billy Kaplan has posed:
Well, going just off of uniforms, everyone will be tweeting that they saw Bando George flying because Billy leaps into the air and flies quickly down to the end of the block. "This is /insane/. How can we not catch /one/ dude??" he says as he hovers to a stop at the end of the block. He's actually getting angry now. He made himself look like a fool in public. A bad guy is getting away. And there's spandex creeping up his driveway.

He looks down the new side of the block and sees the guy. "I've had enough of this." Again he charges his arcane syllables. "Bring the purse snatcher to me! NOW!" One might almost feel the very air warp as Billy's anger permeates into the magic. The runner vanishes and appears right in front of Billy-dressed-as-Bando. Billy promptly grabs the man's collar. "I swear to God if you run again I'm gonna turn you into a two-legged dog. You got me?" The guy looks up at the hovering Billy and nods his head quickly.

Bando George has posed:
    Bando finds the fact that the crook has disappeared form int front of him as a bad sign. "Where'd he go?" Bando asks. He spins around, looking about to find it with his costume swapped partner. "Oh." He turns around, jogging back toward Billy. He adjusts the uniform a little. It's slightly big for him, though not by a lot. "That's right, no taking purses from people," he agrees in a tone that says he's not sure what else to contribute.