7032/A Night at the Ballet 2

A Night at the Ballet 2
Date of Scene:	22 July 2021
Location:	Podium at Theatre Row
Synopsis:	Phoebe and Cassandra are forced to delay their theatre night to deal with a kidnapper. But not all is lost! They do finally return to their fun, if perhaps a bit stranger than when it started.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Cassandra Cain

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Ah yes -- the line for the bathroom was ridiculously long, because everyone wears tights and pantyhose and not the far more convenient garters and stockings. Really, disservice to women everywhere.

    Phoebe had made a purchase, with half of her remaining funds for the week -- luckily, she eats on the cheap as an Outsider. She had plucked a wreath of silk roses and lace and ribbons, colored in bright pastel rainbows. Not quite the flower crown of spray roses and dasies she had made for Cassandra once upon a time, but she thought Cass might appreciate it -- even if the colors were ridiculously bright.

    And as she was coming back, she pauses, there was something off about a man who made his way through the throngs of the crowd.

    He was walking with purpose. His eyes were cold. He was alone -- and that arm of his was awfully stiff. And awkward shaped.

    And the folding stock was in his other hand.

    "... oh, Gotham--" Phoebe trails off, and then turns "-- got to find Cass--"

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Oh, you mean Cass? The lady at the other side of the room, casually plunking down some kind of black card in order to buy a single glass of water from the concession? The one who somehow, for all of her skills, manages somehow to miss the issue until it's already past?

The lady who spots Phoebe across the room, entirely too late, and suddenly goes absolutely cold right on the spot. Eyes that turn, scanning the crowd an instant after seeing Phoebe. She starts to make her way toward the healer, slipping past people like she was silk amidst cotton.

Her eyes glance to Phoebe, looking left-right as if asking where to be looking? Where?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe is quiet. She forms a fist, and motions two fingers out, the shape of a gun, and points at the retreating man in the red jacket as he ducks back into the crowd.

    It's not too late. They can stop this.

    Phoebe's eyes are clear, and she starts to mov towards the exit as the house lights dim in warning -- five minutes until the show resumes.

    Toilets flush faster. People are moving back to their seats.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra actually takes an instant to glance down at Phoebe's outfit. The move is so obvious that it's almost a message in and of itself. She doesn't seem completely certain that Phoebe is going to be able to move in her current garb. And this could be dangerous.

But meaningful as it may be, Cassandra doesn't push the issue. She's already moving toward the vanishing back of the target, her eyes flickering around without stopping on any one person. The way she moves, barely pausing even when confronted with a solid line of humans, is unreal.

But the man slipping into the changing room area takes him out of her sight, and Cassandra motions Phoebe toward a side door with a wave of her hand. Alternate access!

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe can still move in her outfit. You think she would choose something she couldn't fight in? And waste the legs?

    "Unless you have a change of clothes for me hidden somewhere," she states quietly as she moves -- but she *does*, however, have a cloth domino in her purse. "We'll make do."

    Phoebe is equally liquid, in spite of her different stance, and she pursues quietly.

    Ballerinas are lining up to re-take the stage, extras and backups as the principles are still back there -- but there's a tenseness in the air, some of the dancers are checking over their shoulders.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Whoever the man is, he knows the back passages of the theatre well. A hand over someone's mouth keeps her quiet, and he moves toward the back entrance of the ballet. The performer's entrance, which would be unused during the show.

Cass looks down a passageway. She doesn't know every hall, nor is she able to read the moves of an empty corridor. Her special abilities are of no use in reading signs, or in seeing the invisible. Yet she chooses a direction without hesitation and sprints, her movements so fast she may have been born to run.

It leaves Phoebe to take another hallway, perhaps one better chosen. As the Prima seems to have not shown up for her last check.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe checks another hallway, her eyes narrowing as she slips through the gloom of the corridor. What she wouldn't give for Tim's technological know-how now. Man has the layout of all of Gotham under his thumb.

    She sees a lit EXIT sign, and the young woman with her hair all in fancy braids listens for footsteps other than her own as she makes her way towards the side entrance of the Theater.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra had taken another route. When Phoebe sees the door opening ahead of her, and a figure holding a woman going through, she knows that she's on the right track. Cassandra is not Tim, but she does have her own talents. She's likely to be around...

This means that Phoebe is the first line of defense though. What she can do, with the man pressing his gun to the woman to keep her from struggling? That's on Phoebe.

Cassandra? She's currently diving out a window, her skirt tearing as she does, and leaving her shoes behind. Bathroom windows are small, but she's rather stubborn. Hips will go through, damnit.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe puts on the cloth domino, and the pretty multicolor flower crown. She looks rightfully not-heroic right at the moment as she slips out of her shoes, leaving them to the side.

    And she moves quickly. There was precious little space between them and the back door.

    "Going somewhere?" she questions quietly, tapping her fingers on a radiator to make sure she has their attention.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The man is wearing a ball cap now, kept low so he's hard to see too well. A heavy coat which could hide other weapons or gear, but the gun he's holding is by far the most threatening. The Prima Ballerina certainly thinks so. He turns, he waves his pistol toward Phoebe a moment. He frowns.

"No heroes, kid," he says gruffly. "Don't be a hero, I mean." Still no sign of movement in the shadows. Whoever the guy is, the Prima's eyes are wide with terror.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "No heroes. But the minute you leave that door, there will be heroes." Phoebe states with the utmost seriousness. "They have you on camera entering. She's due on stage, do you think they're not already checking rooms for her?" she states quietly. She takes a few steps closer -- not enough for that healing, feel-good aura to pick up on the gunman. The gun is centered on her. She knows how STUPIDLY unpleasant it would be to get shot again, but at least she can survive it.

    "For all you know there's already the Batman waiting to catch you."

    Phoebe gathers a little bit of Light in her palm, feeling her skin tingle. She could blind him, but shooting blind was possibly putting the ballerina in danger.

    She hovers there a moment, dark eyes peering through the cloth domino.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The man looks a bit nervous as she mentions the Bat. Who wouldn't? It's like kidnapping in Metropolis; you expect Superman. "Bat's not here," he says. "Big fight across town. He's busy."

The ballerina however, she manages to turn, to look out the doorway in hopes. Perhaps, perhaps the lady is right. Then she does see something, and the muffled scream that she puts through the man's hand is stunning to behold, and draws the gunman's attention like a shot!

He fires out the doorway, oh yes he fires. He leaves his back open to Phoebe, but whatever he and the lady have seen out there, that's got him worried. Unfortunately the Prima isn't doing so well with it either.

Yeah, Cassandra has that effect sometimes.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Well then --" Phoebe states, reaching her other hand into her little purse again, and she withdraws a pair of little pellets between her fingers.

    "Looks like we'll have to step in."

     Phoebe moves like liquid smoke in her dress, tossing the smoke pellets before her to obscure her identity better as she moves quickly towards the two. She skids in her stockings along the tiled floor, and as she brings her hand up, that palm full of light errupts into Phoebe's light staff, brilliance of a tiny sun filling the hallway and bouncing off a billion smokey reflective particles in the smoke as she sweeps it upwards to separate the man from the dancer as her other hand. Her first order of business was making the Prima safe.

    That meant putting Phoebe in her place. She trusted Cassandra.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
That was when Cassandra stepped into the fray properly. She came unequipped for such a thing, with no mask or weapons, and a dress that hindered more than Phoebe's own. But her complete lack of attachment to her dress, to her identity being hidden, or to her body being hurt makes all of those things inelegant, and quiet.

The Prima covers her face as the dark figure outside the door comes at them, quickly, and finding herself free of the man's grasp she takes the shove from Phoebe and runs! When she gets back to the changing rooms, she quickly tells security. She tells her team, that there is a kidnapper on site, and a THING, that was evil and wanted to take her. A dark creature, a -monster-!

The kidnapper would likely agree. For all that Phoebe has barely pushed the woman aside, Cassandra takes that chance like a whirlwind. She steps inside, taking the man's inertia, and guides him in a circle around Phoebe's body. She throws him out the door, into the outside alleyway, with what seems like no effort of any type.

She doesn't even glance, she simply steps after him with a speed that has her on him almost before he lands. The gun is still in his hand, but it hardly matters.

A moment later he's disarmed, and curling up in his own kind of terror.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe trusted Cassandra.

    She leaned back and away was her partner=in-heroics moves in and moves the man. There's a nimbleness to Cass's technique that Phoebe can't match, and she draws back as the smoke in the hallway begins to clear, her eyes adjusting again to the light as she walks out.

    She follows the pair out the door quietly, stepping carefully into the alleyway but keeping her distance from him in case he tried to fight.

    Doesn't seem like he's inclined to, though.

    "... drat. Forgot zipties." she mumbles to herself, her glowing staff still lighting up the area quite brightly as she turns to Cassandra.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Does the Ballet stop? Did the fearful event cause the Prima Ballerina to step aside, offer the part to an understudy, or to cancel the show outright? They do not, and the final act has a tightly controlled Prima dancing a performance that will garner her fame. A level of emotional control that shows to everyone present, as she slams herself into her part. As the Swan dances, and the death of the characters on stage is a close parallel to what could have happened if, if, if.

Two seats in a balcony are vacant, one of the pair having torn her dress, lost her shoes, and given up her leggings in order to tie up a kidnapper. But they are not missing out on the show.

Far from it.

Most of the clientele can't climb above the stage. And neither Phoebe nor Cassandra is likely to be upset by a clothing malfunction. Not at this point, as they share a moment there. Feet dangling above the stage. And missing a shoe, lost somewhere just out of sight.