3008/The drone superhighway

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The drone superhighway
Date of Scene: 23 August 2020
Location: E 84th and York Ave - Yorkville - NYC
Synopsis: When the Ninja Turtles and SHIELD crash a drone sewer party, new allies are made but the drone threat is not done yet.
Cast of Characters: Bobbi Morse, Donatello, Raphael, Natasha Romanoff, Leonardo, Lara Croft




Bobbi Morse has posed:
The police weren't sure what to make of this one. Cut marks on the walls of the sewer, chunks of human remains. It was like somebody sliced and diced up the two sewage workers. They hadn't checked in and when their safety officer went down to check on them - well, he's off for a few weeks needing therapy.

The police passed this one up the chain of command. It went to the FBI and very quickly they asked for help from SHIELD. That in turn made its way to 'the queue', a list of jobs needing looking at. One of the municipal sewage workers named Gus was assigned to escort the Agents of SHIELD down through the maze like set of sewage tunnels. There are so many layers and interconnected pipes and old transit ways, as well as active transit ways. It might as well be a labyrinth to those who haven't ventured down there much.

The scene still has some police tape set up, which was a novel idea for a sewage tunnel. It's one of the lesser used ones, newer and grander tunnels take the bulk of the sewage. The water is an inch high at the moment. The walls are lined with cables in copper pipes along the wall. The area is big enough for a large gathering of people. There certainly are what looks like metal cuts on the walls and while most of the remains were collected, giblets remain here and there, as well as the stains of blood on the walls.

"So.. here it is," Gus. He shines his flash light around the scene, "I've been working these tunnels for decades and I ain't never seen nothing like this before. I'll leave yous to your work, I'll be two pipes up. Holla if you need a guide out." He waves his walkie talkie, then heads back up a ladder.

Donatello has posed:
    The countless sewer tunnels, mostly identical in appearance, form a vast labyrinth underneath the five boroughs of New York City. For most, it's unthinkable to come down here, let alone become familiar with the many passages. Some, however, are as comfortable down here as they might be on the surface -- perhaps even more so.

    Not long ago, strange, mechanical noises echoing through the sewers brought the mutant turtle known as DONATELLO out of Brooklyn and into Manhattan, where he had discovered some evidence that was most troubling. Bits of bone and chunks of flesh, presumably human, were found, along with some metallic cabling that he had never seen down here before. And so, he made the long trek back home to get his brothers. They had to see this, too. Manhattan or not, the sewers were their turf.

    "It's just up here around this bend," he explains to his brothers as he leads them through the tunnels towards the spot where he found it all.

Raphael has posed:
Raphael moved with Donatello while Leonardo and Michelangelo covered another angle upon separating. It was useful to approach things in such a way that they weren't always all bunched up together. The sewers and the various tunnels that ran for miles in different directions beneath the streets and buildings were home to the turtles, and they knew just about everything there was to know about them. Getting lost was all but unheard of.

"Yeah, that don't look good," he says in a hushed tone once eyes land on the remainder of what had happened. "Definitely somethin' weird going on." Thick fingers brush the placement of his sai, and both end up in hand.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    So far Natasha hasn't suffered a single day where she misses the Red Room... but she has to admit... they never sent her down into the sewers. "Of course. Thank you." She replies to Gus without looking at him, instead focusing on the scene in front of her. a shoulder mounted lamp projecting light onto the walls.
    "... Know anything that could do this offhand?" Natasha asks, half rhetorically. She's gotten into an odd habit of assuming 'things' as a collective suspect rather than, y'know. People. Must be that weird crowd she hangs out with.
    Something feels off to her, though - just an instinct she's learned to trust, and she raises a handheld flashlight to peer around the area.

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo did his perimeter search...and there was enough of these things he didn't want to leave Splinter alone during an invasion of this size. Dad was good. REALLY good. But there was still only one of him, and nobody should be alone right now. So he delegates Mikey to stay with dad while he rejoins his other two brothers.

Even in the sewers, Leo arrives as silently as a ghost. "...this is not good. I sent him home to to stay with Splinter." He could only hope he wouldn't miss the athleticism and talent Mikey brings for doing that, but if Splinter suffers an attack, he'll know he chose wisely.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara had gotten the call from her Director in WAND, had had picked up her belongings from her desk to move out. She'd dispatched to the vehicle assigned and waiting for her, only to find Agent Romanoff within it. It'd been... intimidating, she'd not really spent time with the most talked about Agent in the SHIELD agency, so the ride over had been one of a kind for her since she arrived to the United States earlier this year. Lara had attempted to kick up small talk, to try to get to know the woman, however successful or unsuccessful that had been.

By the time they'd arrived on site, however, Lara was ready for business and using her phone to catalog their position on the most recent Under City Map she could find. She was researching a number of things as they were directed down the tunnels toward the crime scene. When they arrive, she stands just beside the hovering police tape, placing one hand on it while her other puts her phone away and draws her flashlight out.

She starts to scan the area, noting the walls and the marks. "Slices in the concrete. It seems whatever was here, wasn't very accurate in its... murdering." The Briton says as she ducks under the tape and tentatively moves forward.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The turtles are as adept at navigating the sewers as the most hardened sewage worker, but they had not found the other lengths of strange cable. The copper wires were built as if someone had knitted them on the spot and then dripped molten plastic over them to seal them up. The worksmanship was extremely shoddy and not something done in a factory or by hand. Some sort of custom machine must have been used. These extra lengths of cable in various tunnels aren't even connected together.

The sounds of the sewers can be eerie, with the echos of water waters and sloosh pumps, the sounds of the world above and the groans of subway tunnels. It's hard to miss the whirring sound of blades in these dark tunnels sometimes. And if heard, just exactly where they're coming from or how close they are. They are, however, new. Within the last week new.

Donatello has posed:
    "Leo!" Donatello hisses in surprise, giving a little jump. If there ever was a ninja who could sneak up on other ninjas, it would be Leonardo. The purple one gives his brother a look before turning away and facing forward once again to continue moving. Just a few more feet of shadows around the bend and...FLASHLIGHT!

    Donatello quickly ducks back with a sudden look of horror on his face. "Someone else got here first," he whispers. His eyes quickly flash towards Leonardo to watch his brother for some sign of disappointment. He might have been seen. Maybe not. Who knows? Donatello reaches back and slides the bo staff from the strap that secures it to the back of his shell.

Raphael has posed:
"Stop crowding me!" Raphael hisses back after Donatello's bump nudges him ahead a half-step, a small splash made as he steadies himself in the low-lying water, the sai held at the ready. Leonardo is given a short, gruff nod. Michelangelo would probably want to be here, but having someone to keep an eye on the lair, and Splinter, is not a bad call.

The beam of a flashlight might cross their path if they're not fast enough in ducking back, and he catches a glimpse of the source. They're very close to where that attack was, too. "Yeah, we got visitors. Lady visitors, and not April."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha did not, as a rule, do a lot of opening up on the ride over. When she talked, it was mostly to discuss the matter at hand. Very goal-oriented, that Romanoff. One supposes you'd need to be to get as close to the top as she has. Doesn't make for great conversation, though.
    Natasha nods slowly at Lara's remark. "Could be a number of things; though the list of humans with the equipment to do that, but without the restraint to use it with finesse is... short. Set up a Dwarf Drone, we don't want to get lost down here if we have to..."
    Natasha trails off as the strange noise hits her ears. "... Do you hear that? What is that?" Natasha isn't an expert on American sewer-maintenance or anything, but that sounds... wrong. Sweeping her flashlight over the area again, she thinks she glimpses something around the corner of a tunnel passageway, and furrows her brow, stepping forward and unfastening the holster strapped to her thigh to allow her sidearm to be drawn quickly if needed. "What in the... *hell?*"
    This is new.
    Giant bipedal turtles are definitely new.

Leonardo has posed:
Once the flashlight heads their way, Leo's command is swift. "Vanish, now!" Leo speaks in Japanese, as is customary when there's sentients around who understand language. Sure, the other people may speak Japanese, but it's less likely. They surely speak English if they live here.

Leo then follows his own command, and like a ghost, he's just straight up out of sight, gone like a giant green turtle ghost. Smoke bombs have been dropped to obscure vision, of course, as is customary for ninja.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara takes the backpack off of her shoulders that she'd brought down from their SUV. "Right." She says softly as she sets it on one of the larger iron pipes beside her... that looks not as filthy as some of the other older pipes. Her flashlight is attached to her belt and she unzips the bag to get out the drone case. It doesn't take long for her to get the drone's lights blinking on and the Dwarf Drone coming to life, but before she can launch it, she hears the senior Agent's commentary behind her left shoulder.

As she turns, she catches a glimpse of what Natasha is talking about, but it was gone in a flash, she's not even sure if she saw what she thinks she saw... it reminds her of something though, something she'd seen in a book recently.

"What, was that?" She asks, her phone in her hands with the drone waiting on stand-by, poised on the top of it's case as the British Field Agent takes a step further into the tunnel to investigate.

She looks sidelnng to Romanoff. "Voices." She quietly says, confirming they're being watched.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
As Lara launches the drone, it starts to fly down the tunnels. It moves quickly. A buzzing sound, not too dissimilar to the weird echoing noises Donatello had been hearing and trying to explain to his brothers. This one is more high pitched though. Its video feed starts to relay back to Lara's phone. It crosses one tunnel, in to another, this place really is a maze.

But then the drone flashes up a warning across Lara's screen. Before it is a much larger drone, with four rotors. It has a manipulator arm hanging from its center, dragging the end of one of those weird cables. Its camera turns to face the drone and from its chassis an arc welder appears, then suddenly the feed from the DWARF goes dead.

%-- S>H>I>E>L>D> drone detected, information super highway project compromised, deploy subterranean fleet.

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello gives Raphael a curious look. "Lady visitors?" he wonders. Lady visitors who are not April. The turtle considers that for a moment and glances to Leonardo for some idea of what to do. And from Leo, Donnie gets his answer -- in Japanese.

    The tall, purple-wearing turtle quickly crouches down, takes a breath, and sinks chest-first into the shallow water. It would be a really great hiding spot, without question, if the water was just a couple inches higher. As it stands, the top most point of his shell pokes just a couple millimeters out of the top of the water. From this spot, Donnie misses all of the sounds of the drone fight...and has no idea that his shell is poking up.

Raphael has posed:
Under most normal circumstances, Raphael would fade into deeper shadow at the command from Leonardo. These are not normal circumstances. They've already been spotted, cover is weak, and something of a racket picks up from another section of tunnel.

"Screw that, Leo. These are our tunnels, and something's wrong." So, he is the one out of the three to move past the smoke bomb, because what is that going to do in a situation like this but draw /more/ attention to their location?

As flashlights pass over the area, they will catch a humanoid...turtle, bald, a red bandana serving as a mask over the eyes. The light glints off the prongs of a pair of sai he holds, and he's about five and a half feet tall. "We're gonna need you to not shoot," he says, in perfect English.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes are down on her phone's display, holding it sideways so she can get as wide a view screen of what the Dwarf Drone is visualizing, she starts forward after it. As she steps around a corner, she stops when she sees the turtle ahead of her -- and his sais -- which instantly gets a look from the woman's face.

She quickdraws the holstered 1911 at her thigh and raises it up. "Don't move!" She commands Raphael, while her left foot comes up to rest on some support... in the form of Donnatello's shell. Lara's left boot falls right down on top of his back, as she aims at his red clothed brother with her side-arm.

Of course, all of this is bollocks, considering what she sees on the phone now....

Lara's eyes go from Raph, down to her phone, her gun hand wavers as she tries to decide what the bigger threat here is...

"Agent Romanoff?" Lara speaks out to her friend, just as the Dwarf Signal Goes down. "I think we have company down here..." The Brit warns the Russian.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    For a variety of reasons, it can be remarkably difficult to get a honest facial reaction from Agent Romanoff. This... does the trick pretty well! Eyes wide, disbelief written all over her face, Natasha hesitates from the extra instant or two it takes to process what she's seeing - and hearing! - before she draws her sidearm in tandem with Lara Croft. "On the ground! Hands where I can see them!" She barks orders like a trained officer. Offhand, this thing... doesn't quite seem like it would match the profile of whatever murdered this man, but it's presently the strangest thing they've seen down here.
    For, like, a second.
    Natasha's attention is drawn to the phone, and her throat tightens with alarm, muttering "O, chert voz'mi." in Russian. "Change of priorities, we need to get out of here and call for backup. You-" Natasha's gaze turns towards Raphael and she straightens her gun arm "You! Whatever you are- if you're smart to run, start running!"
    It's for the creature's own safety, really!

Leonardo has posed:
Leo has basically vanished, and is nowhere to be found. He's not at all happy Raph decided to ignore him, but he's not about to show himself again.

However, he's most definitely not going to run. He's monitoring the situation from his hiding place...which is not just one. Leo frequently darts around, from space to space, never sticking around in one for long...

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The first drone that round a corner in to the tunnel is sporting twin articulated circular saw blades. Oh yes, this fits the profile of the killer they're looking for. It has a camera that swivels around at the bottom of its chassis taking in the sight of the threats.

Unlike previous encounters - upgrades - this drone speaks. It sounds like a low quality 80s synthesized voice coming out of a tiny little speaker, because it is.

"He-llo. You have been se-lected FOR //death//. Please-- do not re-sist."

Another drone rounds the corner behind the turtles, twin miniguns deploy from its chassis and begin to spin up. The sound of more drones buzzing loudly echos through the tunnels, more are coming. The second drone repeats the declaration in verbatim.

A third drone moves in behind the cutter drone and from its chassis comes two arc welders, electricity dancing between the welding points. There is a clear design flaw with these drones in the sewers. They are used to having the height advantage. None of them sport any weaponry on their tops.

Donatello has posed:
    From his spot under the murky sewer water, Donatello can hear it all.

    BREW DET BREO BRES RE RE RUNNELS END BWAHBWAH BRW.

    DWART MRERVE. BRAYBENT BRREMEENOV. BRI BRINK BREVE BRT BRUNMPITY DRNT BRERE.

    And so on. It doesn't sound like danger, or fighting, but one of those strings of noise definitely sounds like Raphael. But then... There's some pressure. Probably just Leo pressing down to keep Donnie under water and in the shadows. What was it that Leo loved so much about those shadows?

    After a few more moments under the water, with Leo--probably-- pressing down on his shell, Donatello sighs a few bubbles up to the surface and rises, dark water dripping from his leathery skin. And that's when he notices that it's not, in fact, Leo, but one of the Lady Visitors that Raphael had mentioned!

    She might be startled, but so is he! "AGH!" he exclaims in surprise, scooting backwards a couple of feet, splashing dirty sewer water about as he does.

    "So, I /might/ have a girlfriend," he explains to Lara, giving her a worried kind of look. "I'm honestly not sure and it's all a little complicated, so, it would be best if we forgot about this."

    The painful moment cannot go on for much longer because there's a drone with a minigun coming around the corner and Donatello swings his bo staff to meet it, hoping to knock it off course!

Raphael has posed:
Guns pulled and orders given don't seem to bother Raphael a whole lot. "You could shoot me, but I think we got bigger problems right now and you probably don't want bullets going everywhere off my shell," he tells both Lara and Natasha, moving some distance away from Donatello by the time he begins to rise from the muck. Fear? If there is any, he's not showing it.

"Uh, you guys hear something?" he asks just before the call to run is given. "Lady, I may be a lot of things, but smart ain't one of them," he deadpans. In one swift motion he tucks a sai away, comes up with a shuriken from the belt around his midsection and, with perfect precision, flings it ahead of him. Not at the agents, but at the first drone that comes around the corner into view, the one asking them not to resist death. "Yeah, you can take your 'please' and shove it." The 'star' flies toward the drone's 'eye' even as he's asking, "What the hell /are/ these things?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Needless to say there's a lot to look at in this situation, a lot to process and a lot to get right, or... submit to death?

When Donny stands up, Lara feels the 'pipe' she thought she'd stepped on shift, move and then rise. This causes the archaeologist WAND Agent to stumble backward two or three steps and splashy-shuffles before she centers her gaze first on that of Donny, looking scared back at her. She has her gun up still, and quickly stuffs her phone away to put both hands on the grip of her custom 1911.

The gun flashes from one turtle to the other, Lara standing not far from Natasha's left now in the tunnels. "What the hell is thi---" But the arrival of the Murder Bots further down in the sewers now ges the sights of Croft's handgun!

It's the Mini-gun that makes her realize they can't likely run without being mowed down from behind!

So with a squeeze of the skeletal trigger, the gun in Lara's hands starts to pop off shots at the robot with the mini-guns! Whilst doing her best to avoid shooting the turtles... since they don't seem threatening, yet!

This is going to make for a loud night in the sewers tonight!

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    For a brief moment after Raphael gives his response, she fixes him with a look.
    Somehow his attitude makes her feel right at home.
    An instant later she draws her second pistol from its holster and opens fire on the blade and Arc Drones, backing away slowly and stopping only to avoid coming into view of the minigun Drone.
    When her guns click empty, she draws in a sharp hiss of breath and tosses the gun in her right hand aside before grabbing one of the twin tonfa on her back. Retreat means being chewed apart by machinegun fire, so... Stupid Option it is. She uses the extra range afforded by the tonfa to punch at the nearing drone with a short growl of exertion.

Leonardo has posed:
Oh, there's the blue bandana turtle. "Focus! Enemies first." Still in Japanese.

Leo, always efficient, noticed their weakness about not having weapons on top..."Strike from above. They're not armed on top."

Leo demonstrates, falling out of the sky, or so it'd appear, and trying to drive his ninja to into the top of it. Leo has learned how to cut steel with his swords, so he should be able to get through...assuming it's just steel and not a super metal. He's actually falling down drone 3, making sure to take out the one with electricity first, since he wields metal weapons. These are robots, so Leo strikes to 'kill' instead of holding back as he might with a living opponent.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The fight breaks out proper in sudden and specular fashion. As Donatello strikes the drone with miniguns, knocking it off its target, the guns begin to fire, the noise fills the entire tunnel making words momentarily impossible. The bullets embed in to the cement ground, while the casings bounce around mostly harmlessly. Lara unleashes her pistol on the same drone, which might not have been too effective, except that the weaker top part of the drone is exposed. Two of its roters start spewing smoke and it drops in to the shallow waters.

Leo's surprise attack on the third drone is whole successful. The metal is just metal, though the design of the drone and its construction seem wholly custom. Electricity arcs through the air wildly for a moment as the drone drops down and clutters to the ground.

The cutty drone launches forward toward Natasha as she unloads her pistols directly at it, which hits its most armored part, the blades spinning faster and faster. It makes its first pass at Natasha, though the tonfa does its job, making a parryable zone that allows her dodge its attack. A ninja star embeds itself in to the camera lens of the drone and it starts to turn and hits the wall of the tunnel with a scraping gnawing sound digging in to the concrete even as it tries to right itself.

From the far end where Leo is another drone rounds the corner - a long metal rod extended from its front that begins to crackle with red energy - a beam weapon, while from the other side two more drones round the corner, one sporting a harpoon of all things, the other two articulating swords that begin to twirl as they advance closer.

Donatello has posed:
    Donnie might be the smart one, usually, but it's Leo that knows strategy. The sudden callout to aim for the top of the drones strikes home for Donatello, as his first strike just knocked the drone off course. No matter -- Lara got it. "Nice one!" he calls out to the stranger. The turtle has bigger worries, though. As annoyed by him as he often is, Donatello's face flashes concern as the drone threatens Leo with electricity. Leo and his metal weapons.

    Donnie begins to move swiftly through the sewer waters -- they don't seem to slow the turtles down too much -- towards Leo, holding his decidedly non-metal weapon: the humble bo staff. Don't call it a stick. "Cover me, Leo!" he calls out as he positions his bo staff in a readied position, determined to swat the harmful electric rod away with his usually not-completely-harmless wooden staff.

Raphael has posed:
There are portions of the sewers that have deeper water than just an inch or two, some sunken sections that let more pool up. They can be easy to miss if one doesn't see the signs of it. Raphael avoids those, turning away from the drone he tagged with the shuriken as Natasha goes after the same one. It leaves him to focus on another, cutting through darker patches of tunnel until he comes up on the one with the harpoon. How did they come up with /that?/

"What you gonna do, huh?" he taunts it, taking a flying leap from one side while driving down toward its weaker top with both sai pointed at its body. Let's see just how tough these things really are.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's sights are down on the robot drones of death, specifically the mini-gun one, as it's the 'ranged' threat that she's sure would tear them all apart if given a chance. She's... shocked, somewhere inside, to see the turtles rushing in to the fight, rather than away from it. She has to file that away in her mind though, as there's fighting to be done here.

"Be careful!" Lara calls out to Nat, as if she needs to hear it from her, when she sees her partner in this mission also charge into the fray!

When the mini-gun robot drops into the water with a satisfying splash, she feels a sliver of relief before it's gone when the sight of that charging red energy weapon is spotted. Moving forward at a staggered pace, Lara keeps her gun up, watching out for friendly targets, she calls out.

"Stay away from the red laser!" She warns the Turtles. "It'll cut you to shreds!"

She tries to zero-in a shot at the weapon before it can do anything of the sort, and fires at it's base!

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    With a sharp grunt, Natasha kicks the blade drone as it struggles with the wall, holding her leg in place and pinning the Drone to the brick surface while she quickly reloads her remaining pistol and fires into the top of its head repeatedly until she's satisfied that it'll stop moving.
    That done, the pistol may be impractical here, if they're going to keep coming.
    Natasha doesn't know WHAT to make of these creatures fighting so skillfully against the drones, except for two things; One: It's fortunate that they're here, and two: One of them is about to get seared in half by an energy beam.
    "Stay away from that!" She shouts at the same time as Lara, though as she does she aims one arm down the tunnel and fires an electrical Widow's Sting from her gauntlets, aiming to pass beside the charging turtle and hit the Drone; if not to destroy it before it can attack, then at least hopefully to disrupt it.

Leonardo has posed:
Leo wasn't about to stay in the way of lasers...and since they do seem to rely on seeing...or at least visuals...he throws a smokebomb to cover Donnie like he asked, and he also disappears again, taking himself out of the sight line of the drones. He's now once again fairly invisible up above...monitoring the drones, and deciding which drone to take out next. He'll monitor the situation....

The laser is probably the most dangerous, and he's gonna wait for that drone to move forward a little till he has another chance to descend from above.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The harpoon is launched at Raphael as he flips through the air. It misses by a mile. The harpoon embeds in to the tunnel wall and its line starts to retract it, going taunt, but it seems stuck. As the sai's embed in to the chassis of the drone it strains its engines to break away. It disconnects the retraction line and starts flying backwards with the turtle on top.

Natasha pins that drone against the tunnel wall and it powers on its rotors. The power it exerts is impressive, but ineffective against the braced legs. The pistol has an easy time ripping through the chassis from this angle and after a moment the drone rotors power down and it falls dead against the floor. With Donatello bravely charging at the most dangerous weapon down here, then shrouded by the smoke from Leo; the weapon builds up to critical. Lara's bullets hit the base of the rod and it bends ever so slightly, followed by the net by Natasha which catches a piece of the rod, flips over and embeds in one of the rotors, causing the drone to turn sharply as it unleashes its deathly BRRRrrRRRRRrrrr drowning out all sound in the tunnel.

The beam weapon cuts up through the tunnel wall, unleashing a torrent of clean water from a neighbouring pipe. It continues to cut, blacking out the block above as it slices through electrical cabling too. The done re-stabalises and turns back around to face the combatants and the rod begins to spark with red energy again as it powers back up, even though it is slightly bent.

The last drone with dual swords charges in toward Natasha. This drone seems especially nimble compared to the others. Its design is sleeker, the metal appears to be some sort of composite alloy, darker and more matte.

Donatello has posed:
    With smoke providing a nice blanket of cover, Donatello readies his bo staff and moves forward to strike! But then...the simultaneous warnings come from outside the cloud of smoke. Maybe that's not actually an electric rod, after all? It looks an awful lot like the business end of the laser-powered pencil sharpener he just made. As the rod's red glow approaches its critical state, Donnie makes a split second decision. He drops!

    Just in the nick of time, too, to miss Lara's bullets and the red laser beam that starts to cut into the tunnels. The red beam of energy forces Donatello into a limbo stance to avoid being in front of its wave of destruction. He dives behind some of the newly created rubble and sinks into his mind. The drones seemed to move in coordination, right? They have to be communicating along a wireless channel, he figures.

    Donatello reaches into the canvas sash that is his belt and takes out his Shell Phone -- the turtle communicators that Donnie invented leech off the New York City mesh network, on their own secure channel, but are resonate on almost all frequencies -- or, they could be, anyway. Unlike those pesky cellphones you can buy in the store, this one doesn't have an FCC approval stamp on it and follows no rules.

    Behind the rubble, Donatello plucks his fingers against the buttons and sets the small device to just broadcast an endless stream of encoded zeroes, on all of the known UHF frequencies, hoping to drown out any signals that the drones might be using. It's nothing more than a hunch, but...no one would know the failure happening behind the rubble if it doesn't work!

Raphael has posed:
"Look, bros! I'm riding one!" Raphael calls out, and for a moment the women in the tunnel may get a sense of youthfulness out of the turtle.

Truth is, he's holding on tight because right now, falling off could be a bad thing. It's harder for the drone to get to him this way, and if he can steer it in any way at all, that will be to his advantage.

Or, he could just take one of the sai and jab it up underneath the drone's body, twisting with the prongs to tear it open. With water beginning to gush in from a busted pipe, and electricity around, and who knows how many other drones on their way, this could still get worse in a hurry. "We gotta finish this!"

He's also doing what he wants, not what Leo does. If it happens to overlap, so be it.

Lara Croft has posed:
Somewhere up above is the SHIELD vehicle that they took to get to the scene, and in the back of it is Lara's duffle bag filled with all of her combat-related equipment. "I don't need this." She'd told herself. "It's the sewers, the police and FBI had the scene under control already." So the bag sits, bow and arrows of all kinds... like EMP arrows. EMP arrows would be really great right now....

The harpoon that embeds itself in the wall of the tunnel, does so directly to the left of where Lara is standing, sending debris in all directions around her, and as she flees to the right, the laser beam dashes across the wall, causing all kinds of mayhem and madness!

Lara is down in the water on her right knee now, with the gushing clean water rushing past her, up past her waist as she tries to get back to her full height.

Gun still in hand, Lara's eyes are forward on what's left of their enemies. She notes Raphael's youthful enjoyment of using one of the drones as if it were a mechanical bull, and --- 'Really, what ARE these things. WHO ARE THEY?! -- she has to think to herself as she rises back toher full height, but stays back for now.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Whatever her contribution to the Beam Drone ends up being, Natasha doesn't have time to observe it as she narrowly dodges under a swing of a sword, losing a lock of red hair in the process. She pivots around to face the Drone and begins backing away; swerving away from one swing, leaping over another, leaning back far enought to win the limbo champinionship under a third before springing up and aiming her pistol at it, only to see the barrel chopped in half.
    Grunting with exertion with every near-dodge, Natasha throws the ruined pistol aside and manages to free up enough space to alter the setting on her gauntlets. A few harrowing monents later, she fires a line of cable attached to a metal tip that embeds itself in one of the Drone's arms. Immediately after she fires again, and the other end of that cable is embedded in the wall, forming a taut line before Widow presses a button on her gauntlet that causes the two ends to retract towards each other, pulling the Drone's arm and forcing it to whip around awkwardly to the side, putting its side and back to Natasha.
    Finally allowed some breathing room, Natasha hurriedly fires electric blast after electric blast into the drone until her gauntlet sparks and malfunctions from over use. Hopefully it's enough.

Leonardo has posed:
Leo once again descends from above...

He watches, from above, as the red haired woman fires a lot of electrical charges at the sword droid. He knows better than to stick steel swords into an electrified object, so he waits...waits for his moment, as the calm and disciplined one ought to do....There. It looks like the red haired woman's gauntlet is out of charge. Now he can act.

This time, he descends on the one with the swords, from above and slightly behind. The metal does look different, and he knows he'll have to really drive his swords in to take this one out. Even if he doesn't quite manage to cut steel, his training is enough that he should be able to at least dent it. Hopefully, the shocks it just suffered give him enough of a weakness in the metal that he can cut through the steel anyway.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
The drone that Raphael surfs briefly is gutted with the stabbing of the sai, bits of electronics fall out and dangle from the tear made in the metal. It crashes to the floor inelegantly, letting Raphael claim his prize.

Natasha's super strong line embeds and then pulls the drone up and off at a strange angle, pinning it to the wall as she hits it again and again with electricity, creating a fuzzy stunning field inside it. The engines turn on and off with each blast and its camera moves in sharp confused motions. This ends abruptly when Leonardo appears once more, dropping down with carefully placed sword, skewering it.

The beam weapon reaches its critical charge once more... and stays there. It crackles in the air, as the drone merely hovers in place. The communications jammer Donatello has improvised seems to have struck a chord. After a few awkward moments as the beam weapon holds the entire tunnel hostage, it powers down and the drone turns away, backing off away from the scene of the crime quickly.

The excess water is draining away down the tunnel and small connecting pipes, the sound of that last drone buzzing as it retreats, and then just the sound of the rushing water and the awkward meeting of SHIELD and Ninja Turtles against a common foe, the questions shouted by Lara hanging in the air.

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello's face is illuminated by the screen of his Shell Phone -- countless zeroes fly by on the tiny screen, being sent out over the airwaves as fast as the tiny processor would even allow. And no one knows about it but him...And the drone, it seems! A chirp comes out of the Shell Phone's tiny speaker, giving the turtle something to smile about. He stands up and peers over the rubble just in time to watch the drone accept his command to retreat.

    "One parting gift, courtesy of Heinrich Hertz!" the turtle cheerfully calls out. A moment of consideration. "That really hertz, doesn't it?" Donatello smiles broadly and looks to his brothers, expecting them to approve. They don't.

    Donatello tucks the Shell Phone back into his belt. "Okay, fine. It was 74.9 megahertz, in case anyone was wondering. Gave them a little bit of a binary tickle," he explains. The turtle begins to walk away from the rubble and towards the others, now no longer quite sure what to say. Perhaps he's wondering if Leo will remember him stepping in front of that drone when it comes time to yell at him for being seen by the flashlight.

Raphael has posed:
Raphael takes what he can of the harpoon drone and spikes it like a football. "Yeah, take that, you piece of s..I mean, take that!" It sparks a little more before fizzing out, and he calls after Donatello as beam drone starts to leave. "Donnie, don't you got like a tracer thing? If we're letting it go, tag the m...I mean, tag it!"

He is trying really, really hard not to swear openly in front of the /ladies/ on the scene.

Speaking of which, as he circles back toward the rest, the tail end of his mask whipping about as he darts his head to and fro, he maintains a ready fighting stance with both sai at the ready. Then he stops, eyeing Donatello again. "That's not the only thing that's gonna hurt in a second."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes are on her SHIELD ally in this fight, she watches the super agent disable that final drone with electrical bombardment. By the time that Nat's bracers short out, Lara is not that far away, having trudged her way up to the redhead and her work. She looks to the mechanical construct, and then to Nat, to nod to her, seeing that she's clearly safe and well by all accounts.

It's the turtle's subsequent banter that draws Lara's face to them, she's rather drenched at this point, the angles of her face glinting in what ambient light is around them in this dank tunnel, her dark hair plastered to the sides of her face. She nods to Donny, remembering that number he rattles off, as it's clearly important, but as the three of them speak to one another... she can tell they sound young in voice now, and how they relate.

"My name is Lara Croft. I'm with SHIELD." She nods to her companion. "This is... well, she's probably best to speak for herself."

"We're here, investigating---" Lara nods to the broken drones. "Apparently all of this." She looks back to the Turtles. "Who... are you?" She asks of the three of them.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    The moment the sword drone is cleaved in half, Natasha leaps backwards, putting distance between herself and a few hundred pounds of mutant Turtle as it drops from above. The moment that follows is almost awkward as Natasha softly says. "Well. Thanks for that."
    She turns Lara's nod, and appraises the situation. She's surrounded by armed monsters with alarming martial prowess, and three of her weapons are broken. So she stays on the side of caution while addressing them. "... Agent Romanoff." She says very evenly, as she peers around. Ideally she would have held off introducing herself to an unknown element, but everyone has to learn sometime. "... So. What happens now?"
    The fact that they fought the same enemy as them doesn't necessarily make them friends, after all.

Leonardo has posed:
Leo stows the swords. The humans he just fought alongside were allies, after all, and he sees no reason to be unnecessarily hostile.

"That depends on you. Respect counts for a lot, if you choose to give it." Leo has switched to English, because he's no longer trying to hide his speech.

But then, Lara asks what they are. "We're exactly what we look like. I believe the world above calls us Mutants, though we're of a different sort than the ones that look human." As for who they are..."I'm Leonardo, that's Raphael, that's Donatello." Why yes, they are all named after famous artists of the past.

"...SHIELD is the organization humans made to protect themselves from threats, or something like that, right?" He speaks of humans as if he isn't one. Because he is not.

Donatello has posed:
    It would seem that Raphael was not one to appreciate Donnie's attempt to deliver a catchphrase. "Oh come on, Raph! You don't even get it. You can't be mad about it if you don't get it!" Donatello exclaims, shaking his head at his brother.

    The suggestion to track the drone is a good one, but Donatello doesn't reach for his belt or any tracking device that may or may not be tucked in there. Like usual, he has science. "We know the frequency it communicates on. If it responds to one packet message, it likely responds to others. Just need to figure out the protocol!"

    Donatello briefly gets lost in his brain for a moment. "The city's mesh network is basically wide open in terms of security. We can use its transceivers to get range on the whole city..." he begins to explain, mostly to himself, but also to anyone who might care to listen. The turtle putters off as he remembers that he's in an unfamiliar part of the sewer with unfamiliar people, having just fought off a bunch of drones.

    Donatello stows his bo staff back onto his shell and folds his arms across his chest. As Leonardo introduces him, the turtle raises a hand and waves it in the air. Otherwise, he stays quiet, having done all of the science talk he cared to.

Raphael has posed:
"SHIELD, huh? Well, ain't that just great?" Raphael cuts in, and more of his New Yorker accent comes out as he tucks the sai back in his belt, the only sign of 'clothing' he wears aside from the red mask. Lara and Natasha are given a closer look, one of high scrutiny as he crosses his arms, waiting to see what their fearless leader has to say. "Oh, good. He switched back to English," he comments dryly. Could be he gets the idea behind using Japanese in an encounter like this, though he sarcastically adds, "Konnichiwa," when Leo gives his name. "And you're damn right I can be mad about it, Donnie." Even more mad than usual!

Trusting Donnie's reasoning behind being able to track the drone, he shrugs it off and eyes his brothers as the one in the purple mask gets techy again for a moment, leaving him to mouth in an overexaggerated way, 'NERD.'

"You know, it's a good thing Mikey ain't here," he begins to Leo and Donnie, his voice carrying a little more than he means it to. Tunnels and acoustics. "'cause everybody knows cops and government agents can't possibly be as hot as these two are, so he'd probably think they're space aliens and beg them to take him to their leader or somethin'."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha stares blankly at Donatello for several seconds. She... can not comment on this. She narrows her eyes, slightly, noting the weapons being put away. She'd do the same, but the only one she has left is attached to her wrist.
    "So you weren't born this way." She concludes, asking "How long have you been down here?"
    When asked about Shield, she answers "Something like that." softly. "Global defense without bias to a nation. In theory." She's continually caught off guard as the turtles display tech savvy, though she at least has a response for Raphael, raising an unimpressed eyebrow and speaking in remarkably good Japanese <Mind your manners, young man, I'm not *that* grateful.>
    She clears her throat.
    In english, she asks, "Have you seen anything like those before?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's handgun is slipped back into the holster on her right thigh. She scans her eyes over all three of them now as they speak and answer the initial wave of questions. It's their names that make Lara's eyelashes flutter in response as she processes that... it's... fascinating to her, for some reason. She lets Agent Romanoff deal with the bulk of the conversation, but it's what Raphael says that draws her eyes to him.

'Mikey'.

"Michelangelo?" She just hazards a guess, educated guess, you bet. It's right up her alley after all. "How many of you are there?" She has to ask, to slip that question in.

Leonardo has posed:
Leo is too savvy...and frankly, too ninja...to reveal unnecessary information, so he just replies, "Enough" to how many of them are there. If Leo has noticed the appearance of the SHIELD agents, he gives no sign of it...teen he may be, but discipline is his strong suit, and he works way too hard at discipline. He probably needs to live a little, really.

The drones? "...actually no. Those are new. First time we've had to fight those, though be assured we'll continue to destroy them if we find them. They clearly aren't friend to anything alive, and anything alive counts humans and mutants alike."

"We've been down here a while...living our lives as best we can. Call me crazy, but I doubt most of the upper world would be as understanding as you two are about people that look like us. ...that has created a need to stay out of the light. We're rather good at it."

Donatello has posed:
    Donatello gives Leonardo a quick glance. "I mean, I wouldn't say this was a /totally/ new experience. But these drones were way more sophisticated than the ones from the skatepark," he offers. As Leonardo declares that they're going to destroy them if they find them, Donatello perks up a bit. "Oh, we'll find them! They're just using VHF radio waves. They'll be easy to find," the turtle brags. Donatello decides to test the waters and rebound some questions back at the Lady Visitors, as Raphael had called them earlier.

    "So, what was all of this about? I think it's fair to say we've earned some answers, right?" Donatello asks, raising his eyebrows slightly and watching the two SHIELD agents for a reaction to that.

Raphael has posed:
The question of 'How many?' is covered by Leonardo well enough, but could also be answered by figuring out how many Renaissance artists there were. Raph's train of thought is interrupted by Natasha speaking to them, but mostly him, in Japanese, leading to a brief expression of surprise followed by an amused look. "Yeah. I was just sayin' what he'd probably do. I wasn't sayin' you're hot and..actually you're..."

Clearing his throat, Raphael finds something else to stare at instead of either agent. "Let's just deal with this stuff," he hastily says, gesturing toward the remains of what they just fought. "Donnie's right. There's other drone things out there, but they ain't like these."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    To Leonardo, Natasha replies "Give it a decade or two. Things are crazy up there." With a perfectly straight face and even tone.
    To Donatello, Natasha pauses briefly, instinctively slow to divulge intel, but she determines it's mostly harmless in this case. Natasha gestures to the gruesome remains of the taped off murder scene. "It was about that. Bodies found in the sewer. Came down looking for the culpret, and..." Natasha shrugged, "... Those things seemed better equipped to pulp a human than you all are." That said, she eyes Donnie curiously. "... This isn't the first incident with these drones. There've been a number above ground. If you can really determine some way to locate them, or see them coming..." Natasha hesitates. She's not sure what sewer mutants would ask in return, but she finishes anyway, "... Shield... may be willing to reimburse you."
    She does not feel any particular need to mention that the Drones have been singling out Shield agents.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara gently nods to the responses to her question, but though she has others, she lets the senior Agent here do her thing. Instead she pulls out her phone and brings up the app for the Dwarf Drones, she has more than the one that was destroyed back in her case... so witha few thumb flicks she sends them up and in to the air. "I'll send our drones out on a search, if they... meet the same grisly fate as the first, perhaps we'll know more enemies are out in force tonight."

Her phone is monitored then, while a hand reaches up to bursh across her damp forehead to strike her wet hair out of her eyes. She does glance up to the Turtles again though, because they're, well, hard not to get a look at... she's never seen anything quite like them before after all.

"The world is changing rapidly 'up there'. You and yours, might be surprised how accepting others would be of you, though, yes, there's plenty of those who wouldn't be... as well." She mutters that last sentence as she looks back down to her device's creen.

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo considers...what would he want? ...Well, more accurately, what would his brothers want? Particularly the one that's not here. "...If you mean to do something for us, I'd be satisfied with you convincing upper world we're not monsters and we're no different than mutants that look human. I understand prejudice cannot be defeated by your say so, but they also need to understand we're not something worse than human mutants. My siblings HAVE wanted to spend more time topside, and I'd prefer humans don't freak out and try to kill them if they're ever seen." Which he hopes they won't be, but accidents happen. "...But is that a thing you can actually do? Can you, well, verify we're not bad guys, at least?" Because such verification would give his brothers the freedom they've been asking for.

Donatello has posed:
    Something that Romanoff says to him gets a little bit of a chuckle from Donatello. The thought of SHIELD reimbursing him for the garbage and salvage he uses to build his technology strikes a cord with him. "Well, I'm a little surprised that SHIELD hasn't tried to find a control mechanism for them. I mean, they would need to be able to be supported by some really intense bandwidth, so, that kind of rules out high frequency transmissions," he explains. Donatello brings a finger up to his mouth, indicating thought. "So, I suppose that rules out long-distances..." The turtle looks up at the SHIELD agents, looking to see if they're taking note of the observations. It's all unproven, but the logic is sound and has given a base to start from, at least. Unlike clandestine agencies, the Turtles have no reason to keep information like that a secret.

    Donatello starts pacing back and forth, now retreating into his thoughts, working the problem out in his head. He interrupts Leonardo, briefly, to brazenly offer up a nugget of truth. "I go up to the surface all the time, Leo," he calls out. "We all do."

    As Donatello's path brings him closer to Lara, his eyes widen, staring down at her device. Instead of commenting, Donnie's eyes travel to his belt and he takes the Shell Phone into one of his palms. He stares down at the homemade smartphone and it suddenly seems not as good as it did five minutes ago when it saved them from that drone.

Raphael has posed:
"Leo, this is SHIELD we're talking about. They know almost everything about everything," Raphael explains. Yeah, even he's heard of SHIELD. "And what my nerdy brother here said is true. We've been topside a lot, but most of the time we keep to the shadows. We've been trying to help with trouble when we see it, but you ain't just gonna be able to say you met us and it's okay to be our friends and think everyone's gonna be cool with that." He looks pointedly at Leonardo as he says this.

Donatello just gets a long look after all of that techy mumbo-jumbo, leaving him to shake his head. "Look, we ain't asking you for a good word, or for your protection. I'd just as soon never see you again because then I'd know our home is probably gonna be safer. But you saw we know how to fight, and we ain't the bad guys. We just ended up this way 'cause of some accident, an' it'd be nice not to be gettin' shot at or have people tryin' to cage us and do experiments."

Already, he's edging his way toward the direction they entered from, a hint that he probably isn't long for sticking around.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha meets Leonardo's gaze unflinchingly, though she's thinking fast at the moment. Carefully, she says "That... will be a process. It'll take time. Especially if, I assume, you don't want me telling everyone you're down here and want out. That said..." Natasha sighs softly, a wistful hint of a smile coming to her lips, "... I know a few big names who might be willing to put in a good word. Depends on how fast you want to rip off the bandage."
    Honestly, she wishes they just wanted smartphones. Or like... pizza or something.
    It could happen.
    "It depends on whether you can help. And whether you're willing to put up with Shield... 'appraising' you."
    She doesn't not mention that there's presently an anti-Mutant bigot on the presidential ticket. Though, given how these guys are talking, they probably have at least SOME access to news.
    She looks to Donatello and manages not to sound defensive when she says "The drones have been... elusive. And autonomous, as far as we can tell."

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara's eyes are on her phone, while she works with the SHIELD-made drones that are out on patrol headed to other sections of the tunnels... at least until she hears Donny andlooks over to see his Shell Phone out on display, like he was comparing their hardware, since she saw him eying her phone like it was made out of bacon or something.

There comes a light smile from the British agent. "I like your phone." She says. "Do you have a number, Donatello?" She asks, oh god! "You seem very knwoledgable on these things, I think you'd be an asset to the research team studying all of this. It's possible that they might contact you, for assistance, if you're willing to offer it." Oh, it's work related, don't worry!

A glance is given to Natasha then. "We should probably get back soon, to report our findings here. The FBI agents are ... antsy for answers, as well."

Leonardo has posed:
Leo considers that..."...there are many parts of the outside world we don't fully understand yet. But...I would like to discuss this further when you're not in an immediate hurry. We need to discuss, ourselves, about that bandage being ripped off, and the pace at which we wish to do it. Secrecy is how we normally operate for a reason."

Leo thinks about it for a while, and, "...for further disussions...in about 5 days, at 10pm, meet us underground below the manhole cover at 5th and Park. We'll have time to discuss things on our end. In the meantime, we'll hunt the drones that hide down here. If we can eliminate them all, we'll inform you of it then."

Donatello has posed:
    "Well, they seem open to packet radio transmissions on at least one VHF frequency, is all I'm saying," Donatello fires back at Natasha. He doesn't sound angry or annoyed, but just that defending his hypothesis seems important right now. It is at that moment that he decides to let Raph and Leo talk with her and he'll stick with Agent Croft on matters such as these.

    And then, Lara Croft asks for Donatello's phone number. The turtle blinks and looks over at his two brothers -- Raph especially -- to make sure they're seeing this. "I don't, actually," he admits, having never really gotten a phone number for his pretend, homemade junk device. "But, you can e-mail me if you want to collaborate." He gives his e-mail address and walks a few steps closer to his brothers, as it sounds like they're all getting ready to part ways. Now isn't a good time to be caught alone in the sewers. In fact, New York's sewer system might have just earned its first bad neighborhood.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha gently shrugs her shoulders at Donatello, "I'm not the tech expert." Is all she says, before looking back to Leonardo. This is going to be... a strange one... but what's been normal since Loki's invasion? "... Okay. I'll talk to my superiors. We'll see you."
    Hell of Natasha knows what Shield's going to say, or if the Turtles will like it, but... what harm could there be in bringing it up, aside from being committed to an mental hospital? She looks to Lara and says. "... We should go."