this is your badness level
     november bingo scene          san francisco      🕷 theo tate & nasim haddad
(404): I’VE GOT A LOT OF QUESTIONS BUT THE FIRST ONE HAS TO BE WHERE YOU GOT THE FLAME THROWER. (858): I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, BUT THERE'S A DRAGON ON MY STREET.

Cycling home from Berkeley was becoming a real task. It wasn't because Theo was tired - the opposite, actually, sometimes even skipping the BART and cycling the entire way home - the full hour and something. No, it was because his bike kept falling apart, bits and pieces dropping off - the handles being the main culprit, and sometimes the brakes. He'd already paid to get it fixed, he just hadn't delivered it yet, knowing that he would be without transportation while the bike shop put her back together. But he'd just have to bite the bullet at some point, because now Theo found himself striding with a bit of annoyance along a warehouse lined street, one cycle tire bouncing disjointedly with every push he gave it. "C'mon, bike, please," Theo sighed, "Don't fall apart completely right now." He made the decision then to deliver his bike to the shop first thing in the morning, and then he would just have to figure out how to get to and from work in the interim. Maybe River could fly him, Theo thought idly, and then he remembered the web-shooters he currently had tucked away in his backpack. No way. Not at that point, yet. Just as he was half tempted to stop to dig them out, just to see, Theo frowned and paused, hearing a crash and a rumble from nearby around the corner. Instinct told him to head in the opposite direction, but Theo rarely listened to that, and instead took up a little jog, rounding the end of the street and stopping with a blink. Ahead of him, a little furry blue figure raced away behind the nearest warehouse. Theo stared. Did that animal have multiple legs? "Uh... hello? Little guy?" Theo called after him, and cautiously took a few more steps forward, just as another crash rattled from within the yard of the warehouse.

Nasim's timing was off, so was the programming of a chip installed on the collar of 626. The design felt revolutionary by the hands of a regular man who often was on par with his engineering tracks. Intelligence from the ring was a bigger help when developing chips to fasten on the collars of all of his pets. Knowing where they were and how they were behaving at all times, helped his anxieties. He relied on the health care robot to do much of the care-taking when working for a rising conglomerate ate up most of his time. The time he could spend in bed being bothered by the likes of his dogs and cats, also the alien who was slowly trying to make a home away from a universe and planet. Stitch was unpredictable when he wanted to be even with the work done to help the alien get acclimated in this realm. Strides and providing shelter could only hold the rambunctious back for so long. While consumed and stuck in a meeting, he left his ring on mute. Disabling a feature that ran notifications like clock work. Emails, texts, other correspondence for the Corps, all went to spam in a temporary channel that he set up. Missing the alert that should have immediately caused an emergency departure while hammering out production cues in the cutting room floor. Meanwhile, Stitch tried to blend in for the time he strayed away from his treehouse. Lessening an alarm to be reeled back in by the manager of the house. The dog like form took shape long enough to wander like a stray. Sticking to the codes of Noe Valley to other neighborhoods, until he was lured by the ruckus of shards from wood being splintered to concrete crumbling off a location that was off a beaten path. The warehouse was abandoned space that a commercial realtor was trying to push off for months now. Some interest shown by potential lease holders and then owners to turn it into loft like apartments at a price that no one with a median income of the area could afford. None of the capitalistic and housing exploits would've been allowed to happen if hearts and care for the regular joe was taken into consideration. Stitch, for all of his programmed DNA had to offer, the blue alien was of heart and empathy to those deemed unredeemable. What was unredeemable to his beady eyes had been the disaster that was unfolding right in the path of a working class and those riding beneath the fragile boundaries of a neighborhood. Agents chaotic in nature, unknown by many due to their choice of identity shielding, had a set plan and one that involved a sure way of picking a fight. And one fight that the experiment wanted part of, even at its cost of being followed in what was more of a trapped playing ground for destruction. Stitch hadn't realized he was being beckoned by a stranger with the clap of upheaval in the warehouse yard booming through his sensitive ears. His hasty movements on what was assumed to be former hind legs, catapulted him to leap into action head first.

Theo looked around, wondering for a moment if this was some kind of a prank. But there'd been stranger things that had happened in San Francisco - just not to him, not until recently. The little blue thing was cute, too, in a weird way - and from the sounds of what was going on inside the warehouse, Theo was concerned that if it was left alone, it would end up hurt. He gave a sigh at himself, knowing immediately that it would backfire to follow - but what other choice did he have? He grabbed his bike and shoved it up against the nearest wall. Nobody would steal it - not in its current state - so he didn't stop to lock it up, just turned and bolted, racing into the grounds of the warehouse after the fuzzy blue thing he'd followed. Theo skidded to a halt where he entered. Ahead of him was the blue thing - Stitch - and a group of men, all in suits and strange masks, in varied states of disarray, some smashing in windows, others breaking whatever they could, pushing over crates of tools and whatever else they could find in the warehouse. One of them looked like he was trying to set up a small batch of small explosives, and Theo's eyes widened. This was way outside of his purview, new abilities or not - he had no idea how to control them, anyway. But still, this warehouse belonged to somebody, and it was in use, and these assholes were destroying it, and one of them looked like he was about to kick Stitch, so Theo clenched his fists and shouted a sharp, "Hey!" All masked faces swung towards him and Theo blanched. "I mean... hey. Hey. Uhhh, does anyone have ... uhh ..." Two of the larger thugs began storming towards him, and Theo finished off with a weak, "... Directions?"

Impulsive and designed to be the battering ram to anyone's plans, his little cursed physiology stammered in with the lot of the men. Upheaving and making the most noise possible. Stitch sped through on his smaller legs, tumbling through shorter paths. Rolling entirely behind crates and metal empty drums to pass through the legs of one of the approaching men. His sudden stop threw him near a pile of junk close to be incinerated with a lit match. The fumes of accelerant waving the stench away from a sensitive snoot. He spoke his known tongue and eyed the man that sauntered in with a better view. A view that put him in the prime spot of danger as the men were approaching less with caution. The masked men expected other known supes to barge right in with the flit of smoke starting to make its way, ascending above the height of the property. When the two foreground mean left questioning behind and began than lunging forward in a menacing way, it had weight behind the steps. And a degree of wanting to silence the wanderer where he did not belong. To no avail, Stitch found the nearest pipe that was 200% his size and in weight, wielding it like a baseball bat. Drawing back quick enough to bash into the side of the knee of one man, while yowling. "Meega nala kweesta!" And destroying was what he had been made for.

Theo had been positive that this was not one of his best ideas - at least until the reappearance of the little blue guy, who was definitely straight out of a fucking Disney movie, seriously - and that huge pipe that he wielded. "Meega what now?" Theo answered and hopped backwards, ducking away from the encroaching men - though one of them ended up completely wiped out by Stitch's pipe bat, knocked straight onto his face on the concrete floor. "Oh, yikes, that's gotta hurt!" Theo shot back at him, and ran forward and to the side, just narrowly avoiding being grabbed by the second thug, who reached out a big hand in an attempt to snag Theo's backpack to drag him back. But while he couldn't control them himself, Theo's reflexes were fast. Faster than he'd ever experienced before, of course - fast enough that he ducked and shot around the thug trying to grab him until he could run up behind Stitch, looking way out of his depth even if he'd just demonstrated some quick, immediate moves. "Hey, hi, I'm Theo, nice to meet you, are you alone? What's the deal here?" He asked the little blue guy, though he didn't imagine he'd be able to understand any answer, or if Stitch would even understand him. "I'm not here to fight, but you guys should stop - you know - breaking things!" Theo called to the group of thugs, and now they were closing in on them - another lunged at him from behind, and this time something hot shot through the back of his neck that caused Theo to spin and jerk sideways away from the incoming tackle, though that ended up just pointing the thug directly at Stitch instead.

Stitch wasn't worried about his distance from 'home' or what he stumbled into so flagrantly without worry. His eagerness to combat the men who were being destructive for no reason, cause him to see the evil that expanded from more than what relied in DNA. As an experimental being, the intelligence wasn't beyond of what he could comprehend when it came to opening up of self-reflecting or seeing the worst in others as it were presented. These guys had a choice to drum up property damage while Stitch in his creation, did not. He also didn't have a choice in being thrusted into a strange but not so different reality, until it was explained and broken down that he did have a choice. The choice in a moment's notice was to stop the men as much as they could while the clueless man was associating with understanding. Stitch understood various languages and with considerable help of Nasim, he got more of Earth's languages to shift through including English. Handling the pipe with both hands and bouncing on his back legs with effort & ease, he nodded with enthusiasm. "MEEGA MEEGA! Me-Stitch!!" Stitch was ready to wind it up for another strike to batter the incoming men like a bat to ball, and was more amazed by the spectacular reflexes of the human and jumped up and down with excitement. "Ahhhh! Morcheeba!." Head bobbled upward to nod and to look up at Theo and his shadow hanging over. Not as intimidating as he could be but with an impressed alien now manning the frontline, the time to chat was integrated with protecting what potentially could be a rotten disaster. "Ah Theo!!! Stitch alone. Safe! And alone. Not lost," his speech soon cut off for there was more to say. More to provide but his instincts were quick to reckon with. Swiftly as the collided occurred, Theo out of the direction of contention, Stitch maneuvered his small body as fast as he could. Igniting another glutted swing. "Meega-o-itume!!!!!!"

Stitch. That's right. He'd seen that movie. Theo's mouth went a little slack, because - hadn't his - hadn't he - hadn't his body been at Disney just the other week? Not that he could remember it, but there were photos on his phone and notes left and all sorts of weird shit. And now this. And - well, was Theo really going to question it? He did work for CSA after all, had seen this sort of thing before, but it hadn't actually happened to him. And now it was one thing after the other, too much all at once and altogether, and there was nothing to do but to go along with it like it was a rollercoaster he was strapped onto and couldn't escape. At least Stitch seemed - well - cool. And he was helping him. And Theo couldn't understand him, but that morcheeba had sounded complimentary, so he flashed Stitch a grin and ducked out of the way again as the little alien creature swung his pipe so hard into the tackling stranger that it knocked him clean across the rest of the warehouse. "Oh, holy moly," Theo said with an abrupt blink. "You're strong." But Theo had come to learn that he was, too - at least he was getting there, and that came in handy when a thug's crowbar came down towards him and he caught it in one hand, blinked at the ease at which he did it, blinked when he yanked it away, and blinked again when he cracked it over the guy's mask hard enough to knock him out. "Maybe next time you should wear a helmet instead, buddy!" Theo quipped with a wince and a, "Sorry!"

Stitch's shout for space came at the price of injury for the men. He was also encouraging in his leaps that wielding a heavy pipe wasn't going to be enough to ease the intrusion of them all. Stitch was in the fight for the most part, encountering someone worthy to combat with and also want to befriend since his memory didn't stretch as far to know that humans were capable of such feats that Theo showed. If the little alien could throw the thumbs up without dropping the pipe on himself he would. But his small hands were occupied. "Ahhhhhhh!!!" He exclaimed loud enough. Jumping up and down, wanting to see more of the sport of defense on Theo's end. Being that impressed meant a lot even if he wasn't in the right space to express it without falling into tantalog the entire time. "Strong! You are! Ah-qae jihad!. He called out just as the crowbar fellow was stopped, in order for one more the fall in line right behind him. Stitch dropped the pipe and threw himself into a ball to begin speed chasing in a cylindrical fashion between the mens' legs to get through the other side, and unfurled until he hopped on his legs in order to lurch forward with a firm grasp of the man's leg. Teeth shown that clamped down tightly on the calf before he released to stammer back enough to wait for an in to toss a mini but powerful punch. Meanwhile, and many miles away from the incident at the warehouse, Nasim was deliberately trying to break away from the hectic assignments. And when he finally received the break he deserved, the sinking notion that messages and alerts rendered silent were coming through like a rapid fire of beeping notifications after he finally motioned for his ring to turn on. The green expansion of light brightened and dulled, then brightened once more following voice alerts of one of the tags being out of a designated area. The feedback was enough to step out from the building he was located to disperse with the specialties available via his lantern ring.

Theo had those web-shooters in his backpack, and he knew they would be helpful if he could just get to them - but he couldn't, not with the way the thugs kept coming, every one of them trying to grab him in such a way that it would prevent him from fighting back with as much efficiency as he'd been able to so far. It wasn't with the usual kind of finesse that came with years of practice - Theo had never fought much in his life, except for a few incidents as a teenager, and now he was mostly copying Stitch, ducking this way and that to avoid capture and kicking out where he could, managing to knock one thug back and into the nearest wall with a great deal more vigor than he'd expected to achieve. "Thanks!" He called back to Stitch, grinning brightly. He ducked again, flipped the crowbar in his hand, and swung it behind him, managing to knock into the arm of a thug, who let out a sharp shriek from behind his mask and staggered back. "Shit, sorry, sorry," Theo winced again. He really did not enjoy actually hurting people - but there was no other way around it. "Stitch, I think we better try to leave--" Theo called to him, staggering forward when one thug managed to get a hook of a fist into his shoulder, and that was when Theo went headfirst into the largest thug there - easily a foot taller than him, and built like a brick house. "Oh, dang--" Theo winced, and the big thug wrapped his arms around him before he could move, tightening so hard and fast that Theo was sure he could hear his spine popping.

It never seemed to stop. The gathering of evil-doers filing in like clock work. Stitch was less than overwhelmed, only to feel invigorated by the challenge and his chance to hit the pavement running. His encouragement was out of the excitement of the charge but he too winced at the apprehension of Theo. Stitch escaped a similar treatment when he felt the hovering presence of one man trying to scoop him up like a baby. The pipe dropped and rolled away. Clattering against the pavement, coming to a stop. Ears and antennae sifted in movement at a sound he was a little familiar with. He couldn't keep his attention at the incoming sonic hum his sensitive ears overheard at such a short distance. His new friend was in danger before they could even make a full escape. Stitch was being chased and his dive into a rollie pollie wasn't enough to send out the SOS needed or barrel into the hunk of a thug that held Theo all too tightly in a squeeze. Before Stitch could war cry into the man's thick calf, and take a bite, the air bristled up. Blowing a bit of debris and loose construction pellets from it's way at the incoming green light outline of a man marked in uniform. Deep emerald energy aligned with the black materialized uniform of a Corps officer coming in to make a landing. Just as intelligence of the ring processed the scene that erupted in total chaos, his head tilted at the side and glanced around the warehouse yard for the blue alien floof, only to see someone else in potential need. His feet barely made contact with the ground as the framework of a backhoe etched in scale, housing him as the operator. He honked the imaginative horn, ready to clear the bunch of men with masks out of the way while Stitch caught on to help Theo the best way he knew how.

Theo wiggled and kicked and would have done maybe a bit more had the warehouse not nearly exploded in green light and a very impressive display of the Corps officer arriving in all of his brilliant, space magic-y glory. Even the brute holding Theo blinked and stopped what he was doing to stare up at Nasim as he arrived, and Theo did the same, hanging there in his grip and staring a little wide eyed. Okay, so, his day was just gonna get weirder, was it? First Stitch, now this. Welcome to the new world, Theo Tate, he told himself. Your days are gonna be filled with cool looking superheroes probably rescuing you from dumb situations. And then action broke out again, and when the horn sounded Theo did what he thought best to do - he kneed up so it clocked the thug right in the groin, hard enough that Theo worried, momentarily, that he'd made it impossible for the poor guy to ever have children. And it was at that moment, too, that Stitch managed to get a bite on the back of the thug's leg, and Theo was released suddenly and sharply, staggering backwards and spinning around to give one hard kick into the thug's gut. It sent him sailing away, and Theo grinned, holding a palm out to Stitch. "High five! Look at that team work!" And then he glanced over towards their green glowing friend. "Do you know him?"

No one could ever get used to the unexplainable in the city but it was always an adjustment, especially after getting the hang of seeing what was normally based in fiction. Nasim had his own time to deal with it all but also broke because of it. When he broke, it was a downward spiral trying to accept the vast trauma that being considered a hero came with. When his operational construction truck was meant to bum rush and scoop up some of the remaining masked men, his double honk was in part of signaling that the one man calvary was present. Even though it would take a bit of finesse and maneuvering to get them out of the way while avoiding the possible mess that could alert the authorities, especially CSA, for whom he wasn't aware he worked for. Not to leave out the possibility of this incident making the 5 o'clock news, like it occurred before. Only negative thing was Stitch becoming the prime subject of attention, and Nasim was going to do anything in his power to limit those entities to intersect once again. Stitch was in celebratory mode, jumping up to slap his palm against Theo's. Understanding the concept more than anyone. His head enthusiastically nodded, granted he wasn't aware of the conundrum with secret identities and public ones. But knew Nasim to be special with an obligation that the public wouldn't begin to know the gist of. "Ahhh! Nasim! Nasim! Green glow. A lantern!!" He hopped to turn and wave at his homestead host, while the big truck pushed through especially growing extensions of a mechanical claw to grab at nearby masked men trying to stop the green framed vehicle.

"Nasim?" Theo echoed, furrowing his brow a little and shooting a look over his shoulder to the big green truck and its glowing driver. He couldn't make out his face through the light, but - well, Theo only knew one Nasim. Which didn't mean it could've been someone else, someone Theo didn't know - but, he was standing there without a mask, too, and wondered suddenly if that was something he needed to figure out. But it wasn't like he'd been doing anything incredibly unbelievable in front of Stitch and the goons - just moving quickly. Maybe he could explain that away as some childhood martial arts training. Probably not, Theo guessed. There wasn't more time to think about it, because in their effort to get away from the green truck, two of the men had bolted towards Theo and Stitch. He reached down to grab the latter, shoving him up onto his shoulder, and dove out of the way. By the looks of it, the thugs were now mostly fleeing, scrambling out of the way after biting off more than they could chew when going up against a Lantern. One threw a crowbar directly towards Nasim's head, and Theo snapped around to shout out a, "Hey, watch out!"

As the truck was moving its own pace including backing up with the horn blaring while doing so, it was one thing for him to have eyes in every direction and another when he lacked the perception of most for things to come at him from the back. His sight that extended into a future that was unpredictable as the antics he found himself trying to patch up, never bothered to warn him instantaneously. Instead he was made to move off of instinct and the hidden will that allowed for his movements in particular circumstances to still stand. His confidence of clearing the field went out of the window as the construction truck stalled. In the wrong gear momentarily as the crowbar connected to the back of his head. At enough force he grabbed the back of his head, and slipped from the construct as it broke down. Focus lost to maintain its shape to scale operation, green energy fizzling out. The drop was sudden and he rolled across the dusted ground, holding his head until the pain welled over. Stitch yowled in an explicative of his mother tongue, ready to leap right off the shoulders of Theo to scramble and aide Nasim. The other, while favorably in a partial mask to his entire disguise seemed to recede long enough. It wasn't like the public had been unaware of who's who in the green and black nylon fitting costume. Nasim cursed under his breath, parting his eyes from a watered squint when he spotted the rest of the remaining men scramble, including the crowbar throwing bandit. He immediately lassoed a green rope that expedited like a reflex, coiling around an ankle. Part for leverage to get up off the ground and the other to have at least a moment to question the last to make a bolt since rounding up the others felt like a waste of time. "Ugh, fuck this." He looked around until eyes landed on Theo and Stitch. Theo again, and the masked man who tried to pry at his ankle until he was slightly dragged with some might to lightly jog where the two were. "Stitch, what in the hell, fam?"