defenderofdesmoines | Baltimore

Entry tags:

Baltimore | Thursday Night

So far, Starlight's first patrol in Baltimore was a raging success compared to her first patrol in Fandom!

After a fair amount of waffling, she had ultimately decided to try her luck across the causeway rather than attempt another dimension. Not that she had any lack of faith in Portalocity or Summer's directions on how to use it - it just didn't seem like the kind of thing one tried for the first time without...you know, witnesses. Maybe a buddy. Like skydiving.

However, Starlight knew she was taking a risk by heading to a city that didn't normally have heroes. Discretion had been the name of the game, and she'd done pretty well so far. She'd managed to stop a guy who was tailing some other costumed girls coming home from a Halloween party by blending in with them for a couple blocks, and by the time the guy caught up, the pack of girls had drunkenly stumbled ahead, and all that had been waiting for him was a very unamused, very sober Starlight.

She'd left the creepy guy's creepy, unconscious body amidst some trash (where he belonged!) before calling in an anonymous tip to the BPD. With that accomplished, Starlight retreated into a dark alley and reached up to yank down the ladder of a fire escape. Creaky and rusty, yes, but if she could work her way up on top of a building, she'd be able to see for several blocks and would minimize the risk of someone spotting her before she was ready.

[expecting one!]

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Diego somehow doubted that tonight would be as exciting as a car chase/drug bust in an ice cream truck, but he had stopped a B&E in progress which was something. Didn't even stab anybody, just threw 'em out a window.

They landed in a garbage bin, it was fine.

He had the same idea as Starlight, heading for the rooftops to get a better look at the city. He certainly didn't expect to see someone using the fire escape to get to the same roof he was planning to go on. That looked pretty suspicious to him, so he waited in the shadows, trying to gauge what was going on.

Probably didn't help he was dressed like a burglar.

It took her a moment, since she was grappling with the fire escape, but Starlight slowly started to feel like someone was watching her.

If she was being paranoid, whatever. It wouldn't hurt anything to send a quick blast out just to illuminate the ambient shadows for a moment.

Nothing that would really hurt anyone, of course. Just enough to make it hard for any lurking burglar-looking guys to see for a few seconds, if there were any.

Whelp. That was inconvenient. Diego cursed, immediately throwing an arm up to prevent being blinded.

With his other hand he grabbed a knife and threw it in the vague direction of the fire escape. Not his best throw but better than the average burglar looking guy.

If Starlight had been a regular human, she'd have a knife sticking out of her upper forearm. Instead, the knife bounced off her, though not without acknowledgement. "Ow!"

It still didn't exactly feel good, even if she wasn't bleeding.

All right, Mr. Knifey Burglar Guy - now that she had an idea of where you were, Starlight was going to try to close the distance. The nearest street lamp buzzed sharply, and her eyes lit up gold in the dark as she sent out another blast towards where the knife had come from.

"What the fu--" Why was this city so weird?!

Diego stumbled over a trashcan, grace not exactly being his forte when he couldn't freaking see anything. He did whip off two more knives in quick succession in the direction of the glowy person.

"All you're doing is pissing me off," Starlight called, more confident than she felt. Whoever this weirdo was, he had damn good aim, and she had a couple of neat holes in the middle of her costume now. Ugh. She only had like, five of these outfits. (Also: again, ow.)

She didn't want to actually blind the guy, though, since that would be a trick to explain. Instead, she was going to try to get close enough to throw a punch.

"Feeling's mutual lady!" Diego called. He unknowingly helped Starlight out, moving from behind the trashcan in order to move closer to her.

Let's be real, he deserved any punches he was about to get for being so knife-happy.

Did you want to get punched in the face, Diego? Because that was how you got punched in the face.

Starlight was holding back a little - in theory, she wanted to ask this guy what exactly he was doing skulking around in a freaking bandit costume - but it was still a much stronger blow than one might expect out of a woman her size and stature.

Okay, that had hurt. He had been punched by a woman before (no surprise there) but not quite that hard. He would have been impressed if it weren't for all the pain involved.

Instead he threw a punch at her too. Turnabout was fair play and all that.

If he took a second to collect himself and act like a human being he'd realize he knew this person.

Starlight's head snapped back with the impact and she let out a loud grunt of pain. Okay, so - screw discretion. He was bigger than her, and she couldn't afford him getting the upper hand.

She reached out to push her open palm against his midsection, her hand already glowing. She was hoping to use the force to shove him into the closest wall, though he'd also likely feel a bit of heat from the blast.

If Diego's siblings could see him right now they would probably be cheering Starlight on, especially when he got thrown into a wall by a girl who looked like she belonged in a Miss America pageant.

"Ow." Diego pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, wincing. That was definitely going to leave some sort of a mark.

He hadn't been hit like that since he was a kid. Which did not sound great, he knew that.

"What's the matter?" Starlight asked, trying not to reveal that she was trying to catch her breath. It was so much cooler if it seemed effortless, right? She reached down to grab his shirtfront so she could attempt to haul him to his feet and hopefully pin him against the wall. That seemed like a super-solid plan. "No more knives?"

Also a super-solid plan: taunting the guy with the knives.

Diego was moved pretty easily. One, because his ears were still kind of ringing from hitting the wall. Two, he wasn't going to be complain about being pinned by someone that looked like Starlight.

"No I have more knives," Diego said with a smile. He then took a moment to really look at who was pinning him. "...cute gym girl?"

Wait a second.

Starlight had been all set to go with a snappy one-liner, but now she hesitated. She frowned, staring up into the masked guy's face, and then her golden gaze landed on the scar at his temple.

The cute guy from the gym, yes. Fuuuuck.

"Oh, shit," she breathed, eyes fading though she didn't move away just yet. "Oh, shit, I am so sor - wait!" And with a light buzzing noise that almost seemed to come from her, her eyes illuminated again. "What're you doing out here?"

Because hello: still extremely suspicious, even if she did know him from Fandom.

(Several stories up in one of the buildings, a guy who had been peacefully watching infomercials was now banging on the side of his very staticky television.)

"Me? I was fighting crime," Diego said, pushing up his mask. "What are you doing here?"

The glowy eyes were fairly intimidating, but he was doing his best to look cool and collected.

He looked down. "Nice outfit."

"Thanks," Starlight replied, actually letting her eyes fade back to brown now and taking a half-step back. "Kinda telegraphs the crime-fighting thing a little better than...."

She gestured to him. "You know, dressing like Zorro." She had a cape, so - no room to talk there, Starlight.

"Are you okay?" Because now she was really looking at him and fuck, she would have been a lot more gentle if she'd known who he was.

"Yeah, fine, won't be the first time someone slammed me in a wall," Diego said, rolling a shoulder. "Probably won't be the last."

Starlight winced, anyway, now beginning to look genuinely apologetic. "I'm so sorry," she offered, hesitantly reaching out to him, then clearly thinking better of it and retracting her hand. "And you can see okay? How many fingers?" She held up three fingers beside her face, wiggling them a little.

"Three," Diego laughed, reaching to gently pull down her hand. "Seriously, it's fine. Serves me right for throwing knives first, asking questions later."

Would he learn his lesson and stop being so impulsive? Probably not.

"I could have blinded you." All right - he seemed fine, and he was also still cute even if he was dressed like a commando or whatever, so he was going to get a smile out of her now. "I deserved the knives. Speaking of which - you're, like, really good at that."

Seriously, she'd probably be dead if she weren't a Supe.

"It's a gift," Diego said. "You're really good at blinding people and slamming them into walls."

"I do what I can," she replied, shrugging a shoulder in a show of mock-humility. "So...Diego, right? Or is it something different when you're all masked up?"

"No it's just Diego." He liked to think he left behind Kraken/Number Two long ago. "Are you not Annie right now?"

"Nope, it's Starlight," she corrected him with a smile, shaking her head. "Where I'm from, you keep this stuff separate from your civilian identity."

Or at least you tried to. Probably helped if you did more to conceal it than slap on a smoky eye and let your hair down.

"Appropriate name," he said with a nod. "I used to have one when I was a kid. I don't know if it was to protect me or to make action figures though."

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