2790/Showing Off The Van

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Showing Off The Van
Date of Scene: 05 August 2020
Location: Turtle Lair
Synopsis: Donatello shows April the latest updates on the Turtle Van and gets some great advice in return.
Cast of Characters: Donatello, April O'Neil




Donatello has posed:
    On this evening, the turtle lair is strangely quiet. Most of the turtles are off on a pizza run and Splinter is in his bedroom meditating, leaving Donatello with a rare opportunity for some peace and quiet. He was spending the afternoon playing World of Warcraft with April O'Neil, but this rare moment of quiet made Donatello want to get offline and do some work. An invitation to come check out the turtle van was sent over via guild chat.

    Anyone coming into the turtle lair would find Donatello elbows deep in the open hood of the up-and-coming turtle van. He's wearing a homemade pair of welding goggles and currently sending a flurry of sparks into the air as he completes a weld.

April O'Neil has posed:
April took up the chance to come see the Van. She and Donny had been running dungeons, but she said she was feeling like getting up and out to stretch her legs for a bit. So she took her bike to Angelo's and picked up a couple pizzas, then biked them down to a drainiage tunnel that she knew she could ride her bike right on inside of...

So within minutes of that, the yellow-jacketed reporter appears at the Turtle's home beneath the streets, carrying that Pizza Backpack that she'd bought online to make all of this easier fo rher.

'Hey heeeey..." April calls out as she strides on into the lair, wearing a black and white bike helmet on over her auburn hair that dangles down around her shoulders, blue jeans and tennis shoes, with a tshirt on beneath her jacket.

"Got the fooood..." She calls out, to try to get the attentions of anyone inside the joint.

Donatello has posed:
    "In here!" Donatello calls out from his workshop area, his head still deep in the van's engine compartment. After a few last moments of sparks, the turtle extinguishes the welding torch and steps away from the van. He flips the goggle lenses up and walks over to meet April. "I still can't believe that a company really makes a pizza backpack," he adds with a grin. "But I'm not complaining." Donatello extends an arm to gesture towards where the van is parked.

    "It may not look like much, but I'm still working on it." Presently, it really just looks like a standard VW van that has been partially reinforced on the sides with armored panels. Meanwhile, Donatello seems to have also been reinforced. The trademark awkwardness that would typically plague Donatello when April was nearby seems to be gone entirely.

April O'Neil has posed:
April hears Donny's voice call out, but she spends a little bit of time in the Turtle's kitchen area to get some items for their food. When she moves to the workshop where Donny and the Van are, she strides in with the pizza boxes and some plates, napkins and some drinks for them both.

When she sees the Van, she sweeps her gaze from Donny to /it/ and just starts to grin. "Holy crap." She says in a voice that is muffled only by the inclusion of a little laugh. "That is amazing." She says about the vehicle. "You guys are gonna be able to just drive all over the city in that thing, and -- well you'll probably turn heads constantly -- but it'll work, I think."

April sets the food down on a workspace table and starts to set them both up with some dinner. She offers Donny a plate and smiles at him. "You're doing such a good job with it. What's left to do though?" She asks then as she opens up the fizzy-water she bought herself with a hiss after the cap is twisted.

Donatello has posed:
    "Thanks," Donatello replies, grinning the grin of someone who just got a compliment for something he's not that proud of. "It's not really a big deal...Yet."
    The turtle begins circling the van, pointing to this and gesturing to that as he passes by. "We've got reinforced armor on the side panels. Should be able to withstand a pretty serious blast. And there are several wire antennas blended into the alloys that are resonate at some standard frequencies -- police, fire, some cellular, and the Shell Phones, of course. Counterpoise wire joins up on the engine block."

    On one of his passes around the van, Donatello takes the plate with a smile. "Thanks, again! So, for the rest of it...Well, I'm working on strengthening the engine compartment. Then we'll need to darken up the windows so no one can see inside. The wireless repeaters and scanners will need to be set up, eventually..."

    "And, well, there's some talk about some kind of pneumatic launcher to get us from the street level to the rooftops, but I haven't worked that out yet."

    The turtle takes a bite of his slice and stops to stand next to April, looking out at the van. "I'm going to let Mikey paint it."

April O'Neil has posed:
April, of course, moves alongside Donny as he explains about the Van, but she'll want to do a full circle around it while sipping at her drink and holding her plate with the pizza slice on it. She's just grinning as she hears all the plans he has for it.

When they end up back at the front and he finishes, she looks over at him and just bumps shoulders with him. "Its great." She says. "I'm excited to see this thing out in action on the streets. And yes, tint the windows... but we both know that Mikey is gonna be hanging out of them and whistling at the girls." She says with a big grin.

The young reporter glances back and takes a step back to sit down on a work stool. She rests her plate in her lap and takes a bite of the pizza slice. With a muffled voice now she speaks again. "My cousin had a van like this when we were little. He was older than me. He used to drive it around Boston, laying on the custom horn that played... some song. I can't remember which. It was ridiculous, but I loved it."

She looks up then after chewing the food down. "Do ya need me t'get anything for it from the auto shops? I guess you can order stuff online though... like the Pizza Backpack." She says with sly grin.

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello grins at the shoulder bump, and puts his hand on his hip as he watches the van. "Oh, you're right," he replies, disappointed in himself for not thinking of it. After setting his plate on the top of the van, Donatello quickly moves to a wall that has a vinyl shower wall panel mounted as a makeshift whiteboard and uncaps a nearby dry-erase marker. There's a faint squeaky noise from the marker as Donnie jots down a fundamentally important task:

        FILL DOOR CAVITIES SO WINDOWS CANNOT LOWER

    "Right," Donatello continues, collecting his plate from the top of the van. "Well, I'll let you know. I found a backdoor into the city's public works servers and have put a temporary pause on the trash and recycling pickups for a few autopart shops in the area. Some nice junk should start accumulating soon," Donnie replies, grinning for a moment before taking another bite of his slice.

    "I'll let you know, though." When the pizza backpack is mentioned again, the turtle rolls his eyes in a friendly way. "Look, say no more, I'll get you the five bucks I owe you, once I get it. A bet's a bet. I learned a lesson. Never bet against the unlimited possibilities of online commerce."

April O'Neil has posed:
April remains seated on that metal stool as she watches Donny step over to the whiteboard to draw a note on it. That note, of course, makes her grin as she chews on some more food. After taking a sip from the bottle of water she shakes her head and her dark hair waves against the sides of her face.

"Mikey's not gonna like that." She softly says whilst Donny goes to pick up his plate again.

Her eyes go back to the van and she stares at it while he talks further, enjoys more of her food, and with another partially full mouth speaks up again. "You're so smart." She blurts out before putting a napkin to her lips. Once she clears her palette she looks back at him and smiles. "Figuring out how to make the junk piles fill up like that, just to get the best salvage from'em."

April takes another sip of her pink sparkling water and laughs at the pizza box bit. "Between you'n me, Donny, I think we could find just about anything in the world online."

"Computer geeks unite." She says, and extends a fist for him to dab at.

Donatello has posed:
    The turtle pulls the other shop stool over and takes a seat, himself, and props his legs up on the workbench. He brings the slice to his mouth and takes a bite. Donatello grins, with his own mouth full of pizza, and bumps his fist against April's. "We shall inherit the Earth."

    "Anyway, Michelangelo won't be happy but Leo would probably appreciate the fact that Mikey can't roll them down," Donnie adds. "Plus... The front two doors are, right now, completely vulnerable to damage." Making Leo happy is often the easiest path, Donatello has found.

    Suddenly, Donatello springs forward, as if he has just remembered something crucially important. "Oh!" he exclaims, standing from his stool. He moves to a corner of the work area that has a stack of unmarked boxes. He removes the top two boxes and sets them aside. Donatello comes back to the work bench, and April, carrying the mysterious third box. "I gotta ask you something," he begins, now bringing the volume of his voice lower in case his brothers come home. He opens the box's lid to reveal its contents. Inside, there are 19 glass bottles of cheap cologne, each separated by cardboard comparments. It's clearly a box designed to ship cologne from a factory to a retailer and one is missing. For now, the item speaks for itself.

April O'Neil has posed:
As the two of them sit side by side and enjoy their post-WoW dinner, April grins softly at some of the things Donny speaks of with regard to his brothers and the politics of pleasing them on individual basis'. "Leonardo probably knows best, at least when it comes to safety and how to approach a mobile command unit for the lot of you..." She idly comments, until Donny leaps up.

When he does, she looks up -- and around -- swiftly to see what he meant. She looks as he goes to get a box, and when he returns her eyes peer inside of it.

Once she gathers up what's /inside/ it she just looks up to Donny curious and tilts her head. "Are you asking me to smell your cologne order?" She asks with a grin. "Donny, do you have a hot date? Cause that..." She nods her head to the box. "Is gonna last ya a life time. So I hope ya chose wisely." She bites into the crust of her nearly-finished slice of pizza pie.

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello brings his finger up to his mouth and does a standard SHHHH! He turns to look towards the entrance of the turtle lair to make sure his brothers haven't returned. Clearly, Donatello is trying to keep whatever's happening on the down-low.

    "No, no," Donatello answers in a hushed tone. "Not a date. Not a date!" His eyes have widened a little bit, now a little bit paranoid that Leo, Mikey, and...even worse, Raphael, are going to walk right in. The turtle clears his throat and takes one of the remaining bottles out of the packaging. It's one of those super cheap brands typically marketed towards young boys with flashy commercials that usually suggest that this product will attract girls. Middle School Dance No 5.

    "So, I...I have this friend, right," Donatello begins, looking over at the entrance of the lair once more, just to check. "And...well, she's just my friend. We're friends. Friends! And...well, we decided we were going to meet up the other night... I kind of got it into my head to get this stuff so I could smell nice for her..."

    Donatello hands the bottle to April. Now two bottles are missing from the box.

    The turtle watches April, nervously, to see her reaction to its contents. "I don't think the commercials were very accurate," Donnie adds, glumly.

April O'Neil has posed:
Everything about this amuses April, all of it. From the way that Donny moves, to the words he says, to the content of what he's bringing to her... to the content of the /box./ She loves it all.

She sets her plate over on the workbench along with the drink bottle, then takes the cologne bottle in both of her palms to look down at it and read the label. "I've seen these ads on television. In fact, I think they had a big display setup outside of some of the restaurants in downtown Manhattan this week. I know cause there was a big deal about it blocking traffic."

April raises the bottle up and spritzes some in to the air, then leans forward to sniff at it. When she leans back her dark eyelashes cloes along with her eyelids and when she opesn them again she has a ... confusing expression on her otherwise pretty face.

"That is... strong!" April says then, deciding on 'strong' as the right word here. She waves a hand in front of her face a few times then. "Whew, yes. She's definitely going to smell it if you use it!" April then gives him a smile and hands the bottle back.

"Do you knwo the proper way to put that stuff on?" She asks him then.

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello watches this unfold in the way someone might watch a security video of themselves falling into a koi pond. In other words, he's utterly horrified.

    The turtle takes the bottle back and looks down at it. "Well, that's the thing... We already met up," he replies, pointing at the spot in the box where a bottle is missing. "And...well, she said I smelled weird. But, I don't know if that's because this stuff is meant to complement human skin, or if her sense of smell is just too finely tuned." The turtle pauses a moment and then adds another possibility. "Of course, it could just smell bad."

    Donatello nods his head, eagerly. "Sure, I knew how to put it on," he answers. The turtle opens the glass bottle and demonstrates his understanding of how to apply cologne.

    Donatello pours most of the contents of the bottle into his hands and splashes it all over the top of his head, cheeks, and neck. He dumps the remaining few drops onto the top of his head and spreads it around before opening his eyes to look at April.

    "Like that," he adds.

April O'Neil has posed:
April's dark eyebrows start to rise with every tidbit of info that Donny drops on this interaction with this mysterious girl he's talking about. She nods her head two quick times to what he says, then flashes him a big smile.

"Donny. It doesn't smell bad." She tells him, then motions off to her right. "We're in a sewer, for crying outloud, there's plenty of things that smell bad down here, but that." She motions to the bottle. "That just smells like someone who wants to impress people." Neutral compliments are a hell of a thing, and a skill she practices daily in her job.

April then shuts up when he does his demonstration on how to apply it, she watches him pour it--most of it--into his hands and then her eyes go wide. "Donny, wai---" She tries to stop him but it's too late.

Quickly, April puts her hands up to her face to cover her mouth and nose. She has to try not to squeak out a squeal, or let out a laugh. She starts to nod her head to try to be him, but ultimately her nods turn to head shaking.

Even with her nose and mouth covered she can smell it, thick in the air.

"Donny." April says - voice now nasal-. "That's too much. Way way too much..."

She lowers her right hand and covers her nose with her right arm, then takes the bottle from him. "You just spritz it into the air... and walk through the mist. Or you dab a little behind your ears---"

He doesn't have ears, not human ones anyway.

"Dab a little around your neck and wrists. Little finger swipes. That's it. It's concentrated!"

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello looks down at the floor for a moment before sighing deeply. He stands up to go retrieve a nearby bottle of water and begins dumping it onto his head, much like he did on the evening in question. "You know," Donatello begins, with a slight touch of annoyance in his voice. "...Turtles don't have the best sense of smell, so...I can't be expected to know this." Donatello comes back, now dripping with water, and picks up the box of cologne marked NOT FOR RESALE. He walks it back over to the corner of the workshop and puts it with the other nondescript boxes. "Well, I wish I thought to ask you about this /beforehand/...." Donatello laments. "You're the only other girl that I know." He sits back down and reaches for his pizza slice.

April O'Neil has posed:
April watches him go over and dump water on his head which makes her frown for him. When he takes the bottle back she shakes her head softly at him and speaks up again. "Donny... if she's the right girl, she'll appreciate that you're trying to better yourself for her. That alone will mean a lot. The right girl will find it admirable, what you're trying to do, even if she doesn't like it."

She motions to the box with the smelly water in it. "There's no reason ya can't use that stuff either. Just do like I said, apply it... sparingly. It always smells way stronger to everyone else, than it does to the person wearing it too... so remember that."

She flashes him a smile and as he sits down she reaches out to pat his shoulder affectionately. She offers him a bundle of napkins from the kitche for the drippy water. "And hey, if in doubt on something? Always ask Youtube." She grins. "They got how-to videos on everything, even this sorta stuff."

Donatello has posed:
    "Thanks, April," Donatello finally says, to both the napkins and the advice. He takes them and wipes off the excess water before crumhling them into a ball that gets tossed into a nearby trash can. "Somehow I doubt YouTube is going to have instructions on how to apply cologne to a turtle," Donatello observes. After a moment's pause, he shrugs his shoulders. "Then again...It /is/ the internet. That wouldn't even be the weirdest thing on there." He manages a grin and then stuffs the last piece of his crust into his mouth.

    "I think I'm going to stick with just smelling like me," Donatello decides. "Know anyone who would want those bottles?"

April O'Neil has posed:
April just grins over at him and shakes her head softly at his words. "Most soap these days have enough smelly additives in them that just soaping up and showering down is enough to make you smell like you're already wearin' stuff like that." She says with a motion to the box. "Trust me though, I worry sometimes how I smell when I come out of the sewers and have to go somewhere social too. So I get it, it isn't an unreasonable worry, Donny."

A second later and April's hip is buzzing. She sits forward to dig her phone out of her jeans and then raises it up to read the text.

April stands up then. "Shoot, it's my neighbor. I have her building's keys. She's been in Boston for a week. I gotta go get them to her."

As she makes her way back toward the main rooms of the turtles home, she grabs her things up and will drop them off in the waste bin. "You up for more gaming tonight? I could do another couple hours, if you are?" She grins at him and waves on her way out. "Just message me on Discord!" She adds on the way.