Hocus & Pocus

When their cushy corporate jobs fell apart in the reces­sion, the young couple of Ashley Rahner and Matt Dick­erson found themselves unemployed and scraping to­gether a living from odd jobs and busking. The pair had met in college through an amateur magic club, and in between temp jobs they found they loved the lifestyle and applause of street performance. Between “Miracle Matt’s” charm and sleight of hand and “The Astonishing Ashley’s” ability to slip any restraint, the pair survived on pedestrian donations as they traveled the west coast. Their routine and innovative tricks eventually caught the eye of talent agent Gerald Gleason, and the pair sud­denly found themselves playing in actual theaters and appearing on morning shows. Their life had finally re­bounded, until Gleason vanished with six months’ worth of theater receipts.
Suddenly adrift without work or cash, Ashley and Matt also uncovered Gleason’s extensive debts to local crimi­nals to help fund their performances. Within days, enforc­ers arrived to collect the money owed, and in a panic the couple offered their considerable skills to pay off their debts. Ashley’s technical expertise and Matt’s gift for psy­chology and misdirection allowed the pair to waltz into the city diamond exchange unnoticed, while a phony staged robbery up front let them walk out the front door as “terrified witnesses.” Both found the thrill of turning their craft to crime irresistible. After paying down their debts, they donned the costumed identities of Hocus and Pocus and began pitting their trickery and wits against super-powered opponents!
Now working for themselves, the happy couple spends weeks at a time planning perfect criminal per­formances, staking out their targets as Hocus learns the human element and Pocus plants her mechanical trickery across a location. By the time they don their costumes and make their grand entrance, both magicians are ready to run through the robbery like an elegant dance, aided by an arsenal of gadgets to astonish and intimidate, and already sure they know exactly how their impromptu audience will react. With smoke and mirrors, they put on a daring show and rouse the crowd—all the while the true object of their desire was likely stolen hours or days ago, making its mysterious vanishing amidst their trickery seem miraculous. Hocus and Pocus know their roles well, and many law en­forcement agencies and superheroes remain unsure if the daring thieves are simply talented stage magicians or ac­tually command arcane forces.

Physical Description

Special abilities

Hocus and Pocus together are extraordinarily talented stage magicians, illusionists, and liars, who plot out their crimes in meticulous details timing how long it takes for police and heroes to arrive at similar incidents and using that knowledge to plan their exits or extended performances accordingly. Both have ranks in the Vari­able power, representing their contingency plans and concealed gadgets, whether that be a well-placed holo­graphic project or that makes them appear to teleport across the room, or smoke bombs and light shows that appear to be mystical attacks. Without days or weeks to plan a crime, neither can access these abilities.
Hocus plays the confident frontman, and after honing his cold read skills in corporate boardrooms, he can practi­cally read others’ minds through their emotions and body language. He lies convincingly enough to leave his victims swooning and to fool himself, needing his wife to help keep him grounded. Hocus carries a bag of tricks filled with a variety of smoke bombs as well as a fencing foil he uses for swashbuckling flair.
Pocus complements Hocus as the duo’s technical expert, contortionist, and escape artist. She plays the role of lovely assistant, mostly to keep all eyes following her bombastic husband while she plants explosives, palms tools, or opens locks. She is also the unexpected muscle of the pair, and handles herself with considerably more grace in a fight than Hocus. Pocus also carries a bag of tricks loaded with smoke bombs and useful tools.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Both Hocus and Pocus are excited and charming stage personalities who adore attention and love the rush of outwitting others. The pair are deeply and unabashedly in love, often flirting mid-crime. Hocus is a charmer and showman, always ready with a compliment or barb and eager to make friends even as he robs victims blind. Pocus is more reserved, preferring to let her husband take center stage while she manages the technical details of their crimes. Neither is especially violent or cruel, and while many of their stunts appear deadly or dangerous, they go out of their way to guarantee bystander safety for their flashi­est tricks.

Social

Contacts & Relations

In addition to their own robberies, Hocus and Pocus work as freelance consultants for other super criminals, helping them plan crimes or stage events, or stealing valuables on their behalf. They love working with other villains with a flair for the dramatic, including Freedom City’s Wildcard and Emerald City’s Ersatz. Most masters of the true arcane arts find the duo’s motif tacky at best, and insulting at worst.

Gender

Male & Female