3057/Big Sorta Kinda Trouble In Brooklyn

Big Sorta Kinda Trouble In Brooklyn
Date of Scene:	23 August 2020
Location:	Alleyways: Brooklyn
Synopsis:	Cats have a tendency of stumbling into secrets, as Raphael finds out.
Cast of Characters:	Raphael, Terry O'Neil

---

Raphael has posed:
It was a Nightwatcher kind of evening for Raphael. With some frustrations building, and needing to clear his thoughts in the wake of the potential for a paradigm shift in the lives of the turtles, it was the right time to suit up in the armor that hid what he was.

Now, if we're being honest, there's only so much you can do to mask the shape of a humanoid turtle, so the back of the costume was designed to make it look like a large pack shaped similarly to a shell. But, a closer look at the gloves presented proof that the hands were different, and the helmet at least obscured any and all features, the basic style like an oversized motorcycle helmet with a black visor, a floodlight mounted to it for use when needed. Add in a heavy chain as a primary weapon and a souped-up motorcycle, and he had all he needed.

He also found a good fight. Members of the Foot Clan were out causing trouble in Brooklyn, accosting random people but also threatening to kidnap a few. For what, one could only guess, but if the Foot got their hands on someone it usually wasn't for idle conversation over tea.

"Yeah, that's right! I got somethin' for you right here!" came a somewhat mechanized voice in the alley as the sound of the chain coming into contact with someone led to a cry and a groan. "You losers picked the wrong night to go out screwin' with people!" That light swept back and forth as the Nightwatcher attacked, not only making it easier for him to see them, but also making it harder for them to see him.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
It was a Vorpal night for Terry O'Neil. Not only had he had a potential solution to his quandary placed on his lap by Troia, but his dinner date with Gar had gone very well. After saying their goodnights, Terry rushed home to type away at his story and make a second version incorporating the changes. Normally, on a Saturday night, Gar might have stayed over, they might have played some videogames, Gar might have slept over, but the redhead needed to steer clear from distractions, no matter how welcome, in order to get a working copy to hit Lois with (figuratively) and make the proposal more appealing.

That was the idea, at least, until the cacophony of clacking keys dried up at 2 am and Terry spent half an hour staring at his screen, his stream of thought dry all of a sudden.
The reason for it was easy enough to guess... he was trying to write from the point of view of Vorpal... and it had been /several/ days since he had been the Cheshire cat, for various reasons.

Which is why Vorpal was jumping across rooftops in Brooklyn ten minutes later, enjoying the night air and looking for people who needed to have a Cheshire cat happen to them. It was, you might say, a way to refresh his mind concerning that wilder, less restrictive mindset.

And that is why Vorpal's silhouette peers from the edge of a building, drawn to the scene of the commotion by his very sensitive hearing.

His night vision helps him identify the parties, at least. He has run afoul of members of this nefarious clan, thanks to tipoffs from April here and there, so when he finds an armored fellow fighting a bunch of guys in plack pajamas*, he knows which side to pick.

"Curioser and curioser!" he shouts, his voice echoing down to them, "What have we here? A lobster quadrille ready to go into the pot!"

Raphael has not seen Vorpal in motion when he's fully 'on'. The Cheshire cat's descent from the building is impressive as it is reckless, with the feline body abandoning itself to the void and then coiling along the fire escape the way a professional gymnast would do with stationary bars. There are shuriken thrown his way, but they only find air as they constistenly aim at the wrong place, unable to guess where Vorpal is going to be in this madcap, semi-controlled uncontrolled descent.

The last stage of it has Vorpal suddenly propelling himself away from the last level of the fire escape, and landing onto one of the Foot Soldiers's back, said soldier about to discover just how /sharp/ and painful the claws of a human-sized feline can be. "Tag!"

Raphael has posed:
Neither have seen one another in action, for that matter. The greater question might be in what, exactly, the Nightwatcher is supposed to be, and how it is that whoever he is, he's more than holding his own against easily half a dozen thugs, all of them with some sort of ninja and weapons training. The chain swings low in an arc, clipping one of the masked men in the legs enough that he flips head over heels before landing with a thud.

"You're pushovers, nobodies. What's a guy gotta do to get a decent fight around here? I'm askin' 'cause you ain't it!"

At that point, motion is caught out of the corner of the visor, and that beam sweeps in the direction of the cat guy. "Oh, just great," he mutters, mostly under his breath but at least audible thanks to the voice modulation. No straining is needed to hear the yelp of the one Vorpal's started kneading, or whatever it is he's doing.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Not just great, but terrific! Catch!" After giving that back a decent clawing, Vorpal backflips off the ninja's back, which sends him sprawling towards the mini-tank guy with the armor. It's a gift, since he seems to enjoy hitting them with those chains so much.

"I hope you don't mind if I join in? I heard the music and I couldn't help it." Vorpal is not a ninja, but he has the natural agility of a cat, paired with the body of a human, the mind of a Cheshire... and the very acrobatic combat training of one Harley Fuckin' Quinn, with some more grounded combat advice by Colette and Donna Troy. The result is that, as a group of Ninja close in on him, letting their captives go, he reaches into a Rabbit Hole that appears out of nowhere and draws...

A mallet. Or, rather, a flamingo club. Harley favors her circus mallets, and she's quite good at using them to great destructive power- Vorpal has had a similar bludgeoning weapon made for him, one that commemorates a certain croquet game that happened a long time ago. "Who's in for croquet?" he asks in a rather aristocratic voice, which is replaced by a wild cackle as the ninjas reach striking distance and Vorpal starts going to town on them.

If they expected a traditional attack, they are sorely disappointed as the Cheshire Cat uses his Rabbit Holes to attack from unexpected locations, sweeping in with a crushing flamingo blow before ducking out, leaving the ninjas to slash at thin air or, in the worst of cases, attack into a Rabbit Hole that opens up near them and they end up hitting themselves with their own weapons as the Cheshire cat backflips away, laughing.

Raphael has posed:
"What music?" comes a pointed question. The Foot member Vorpal sends his way might as well have collided with a wall for all the trouble the sap has remaining upright after coming into contact with the Nightwatcher, and after a glance down toward him, a hand merely squeezes into a fist and bops the guy on the top of his head, strong enough that he crumples to the ground at his feet before he's stepped over.

Then come the rabbit holes, the Wonderland weapon, the apparently crazy act from Vorpal himself, and more attacks being made. "Know what? Yeah, maybe I /do/ mind someone just comin' in like I needed the help. I got news for you: I don't need a partner." As if to prove it, the chain sweeps out toward another Foot Clan member, one caught between two freaks on the attack.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh come off it now, you're sounding just like Batman." Vorpal raises his club and suddenly a bust of chaos magic illuminates it, bright and purple. "Go give 'em hell," he says to the Flamingo, and lets it go. The club spins through the air, heading for the heads of the Footmen in an airborne rampage while the Cheshire cat leans against one of the alleyway doors, "This is my town too, you know, bucko."

He ducks as a foorman lunges for him, but the Cheshire disappears into a Rabbit Hole opened into the wall and the Footman gets a face-full of brick, instead. "So you get to share the dance floor. Yaknow what I mean?"

Raphael has posed:
Raphael's brain is working overtime right now. See the steam coming out of the port vents in the helmet? Okay, that last part isn't true, but as someone who has dealt with Vorpal before, he's getting a first-hand look at some of what the Cheshire cat can do, while under disguise of his own. "I don't see your name on it anywhere, whatever it is." How does he know, then? And what an awesome comeback that was!

Overthinking things can lead to trouble for this turtle, which is why he often acts on gut instinct and training. As the Nightwatcher, there's no sign of the sai he uses, helping protect the secret a little further. Distracted enough by the flamingo club going into flight, one of the Foot punches him in the helmet and whirls away clutching his hand in pain. Centering it, the Nightwatcher laughs but it's a harsh one. "You idiot. Didn't anyone ever teach you not to punch something that's hard?" He uses a sweeping roundhouse back kick to take out the legs of the guy, a very ninja-like move, then he moves atop the guy to throw a couple fists, a one-two to the stomach and jaw. "I'm not Batman," he adds as an afterthought, all gruff.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"That's 'cause the paint is still fresh, and I'm using /these/ guys' sweat to write it!" He leapfrogs over a Footie that is bending over in pain from, apparently, receiving a Flamingo to the sensitive parts, and then turns around and kicks him goodnigh, right across the side of the face. "These guys aren't very good. Who the heck trained them? Jar Ja-"

Before he can say more, he gets ambushed from behind by one of the clan members, who hooks his arms and grabs him. "Hey! You're supposed to say 'may I cut in?'

But he's in trouble now, as another Foot fighter comes to probably beat the ever loving crap out of him while he's being held. Fortunately, Harley prepared him for just such a situation. "Alley-oop!"

Swinging his legs, he suddenly wraps his legs around the other Foot Clan member. Now, this isn't an ideal thing, because as soon as the surprise subsides, said Foot Clan member has a perfect opportunity to strike Vorpal in the most vulnerable of places... but the whole point of this maneuver is that he won't have a chance to. "Peg out!" he shouts, and the spinning Flamingorang suddenly makes an alteration in its route, flying like a buzzaw to smack the Foot clanner holding Vorpal from behind with a *thud* over the head.

As he is let go from behind, Vorpal's upper body drops down and he extends his arms so as to balance himself. His downward momentum pulls the Foot Soldier forward and Vorpal manages to flip him over, sending him sprawling while he rolls on the ground and collects himself into a crouch. When the second Foot Soldier gets to his feet, he lunges forward, hitting him on the back and sending him face-first into the wall, knocking him out.

"And I'm not Robin. I can actually open cupboards," Vorpal answers as he looks around, to see if there are any more active bogies. The flamingo club continuing its flying trajectory, trying to pick a target.

Raphael has posed:
"That doesn't even make any sense. Paint doesn't even come from sweat," the mysterious fighter in the armor answers, but as he's getting back upright after dealing with the one he was slugging, he stops to see how Vorpal gets out of the predicament he's suddenly found himself in.

Imagine a large, floating head intoning, "Show me what you got" and that'd be the sum of things.

Hidden, a brow shifts upward at the way the feline deals with things, but it only earns a grunt in response as the Nightwatcher turns his attention toward another Foot ninja trying to step up to him from the back. He must have felt it coming, or maybe there's a small camera behind him like vehicles have, to let him know of any approaching trouble. A fist snaps up in front of the guy's face, and he runs into it with his nose. "I don't even know what that means," the Nightwatcher answers. "What does opening cupboards have to do with anything?"

With the Foot soldiers down and out, the flamingo club is indiscriminate in looking for another target. The Nightwatcher is still standing, and it arcs from one side, just out of line of sight, clipping the helmet just right. "What the--?!" It dislodges from the wearer, and as the Nightwatcher ducks it clatters to the ground as the beam of light streaks this way and that. Tails of a red bandana fall out, a bald green head suddenly visible.

He reacts to this with a word no teenager should be using, yet practically every one does. "Shit."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"What, you haven't seen Robin? He's like twelve years old and two feet tall." Vorpal thought everybody had seen Robin by now, but-

Vorpal has gotten very good at enchanting things. He sometimes forgets to turn them off in time, however.

When the faithful flamingo flicks the helmet off, the Cheshire cat stares for a good... five seconds. He suddenly snaps into action, though, because the club is coming back. "Stop!"

And the spell is broken, and the club clatters to the ground, harmlessly.

"Raphael?..." Vorpal asks, stepping around fallen Foot (feet?) clanners, and drawing close to the armored figure, now revealed to be One of The Guys. "Raphal, is that actually you?"

Raphael has posed:
Raphael quickly grabs for the helmet, but in a hasty, suddenly clumsy display he knocks it out of reach with a well-protected boot. A repeat of the same word follows, and as the helmet spins the light illuminates his face clearly for a split second.

"Who? Me? No. Dunno who you're talking about. Nobody named Raphael here," he claims, a rather poor attempt at a lie. He turns away, keeping his side and back to Vorpal. It's the first time his cover has been blown, all because of some dumb, enchanted weapon. Magic sucks!

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"... are you really..." the Cheshire cat exhales, and then crosses his arms. "Let's try this again, here..." he steps around, without getting in Raphael's face, but maneuvering around his back, "I thought I saw a green profile very much like that of The Handsome One," he says, conversationally, "Who just also happens to fancy the color red. Now, he's not a scaredy turtle, so the only reason I can imagine that he'd be reticent to face me is if he had just developed a nasty ol' zit the size of a football. I'm pretty sure that's it," he says, smirking a little and placing his hands behind his back.

Raphael has posed:
"What'd you just say?" Raphael, aka the Nightwatcher, asks accusingly, and that's what gets him to turn around and face Vorpal. "Let's get one thing clear, cat. I ain't afraid of anything. I also ain't got a zit." Handsome? Yeah, sure. Mostly a harmless joke, a boast, but it seems to be sticking now. "So unless you want to get slugged, you take that back."

He jabs a fat finger in Vorpal's direction, eyes narrowed behind the mask. "And if you tell /anybody/ about this, there are gonna be problems." Interesting that he doesn't say for whom. One would assume for the one spilling the beans, but it may go beyond that if the brief widening of his eyes and open honesty rather than cold fury in his expression and the /way/ he says that last part is a sign.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal raises an eyebrow. The glance that he gives Raphael encompasses a lot- what he is wearing, the unconscious Foot (feet?), the alley...

And the sound of sirens, approaching quickly.

"Looks like the true and the blue are on their way. Shall we adjourn somewhere less likely to have badges? I'd hate to have our conversation cut short this way. My apartment? A rooftop? Rabbit Hole Express is at your service."

Raphael has posed:
At the sound of the sirens, Raphael's first instinct is to seek out the closest manhole cover. The alley has one, which he'd already taken note of earlier, but normally the Nightwatcher would be roaring out of here on that motorcycle, which is parked a few blocks away in another alley.

Simply leaving right now isn't going to solve the problem, however. His eyes dart around the vicinity, bordering on coming off like a caged animal.

"Rooftop, five blocks that way." He points toward the south as he goes to scoop up his helmet and wind the chain back up to hook at one side of his costume. "You get there your way, I'll get there mine." This means scaling a fire escape ladder, following a leap up to the lower rungs.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
The Cheshire bows, "As you wish," he says in his most Westleyish, and vanishes down a Rabbit Hole that appears at his feet.

It deposits him on that rooftop instantly, so he has plenty of time to find somewhere to sit down, cross one leg over a knee, and look nonchalant.

"What took ya so long?" he asks, the only thing that could have completed the effect would have been him chewing on a carrot.

Raphael has posed:
Raphael arrives in no more than a minute, which Vorpal can watch him in the process of doing depending on his position. He ignores the question, the helmet dropped to the surface of the roof by a foot, the beam having been shut off. Now the only light around them comes in the form of surrounding illumination along with the moon, which is mostly visible on a night that is only partly cloudy.

"You can't tell my brothers about this," he says, gesturing to the getup.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Instead of commenting on Raphael's declaration, the Cheshire cat gestures to the getup. "What's 'this', though? Is it too much to ask to start at the beginning? I get the impression I've walked into a story half-way in, and I'm curious to see if I can get a recap."

He reaches into a small Rabbit Hole out of which the very identifiable light of a refrigerator shines, and withdraws two cans of soda. He tosses one to Raphael, "To wet your whistle." He is clearly determined to get a story out of it.

Raphael has posed:
Raphael's eyes track the small opening in space and time or whatever it is, watching with doubt and suspicion. He catches the can nonchalantly, giving it a once-over before grunting out something that could be the equivalent of a 'thanks' in his language, before he cracks it open on a sharp point nearby and guzzles it shotgun style. "You got a spot for this?" he asks, waving the can moments before lobbing it Vorpal's way.

Crossing his arms, he reluctantly says, "Yeah, there's a story."

Wait...wait...nothing else, yet.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Always," he says, and dumps it into another Rabbit Hole, which goes into the recycling bin at his apartment. Then he looks over at Raphael and raises an eyebrow, "Well? What's the story, morning glory? You can have a seat, you know."

He pauses, and looks at what Raphael is wearing before amending, "/Can/ you sit down in that thing? It doesn't look super flexible."

Raphael has posed:
"I'm good," Raphael answers, looking like he prefers to remain upright. In doing so, he shows that there's no casual stance he's settling into right now. Rather, as his arms unfold, he paces this way and that, moving the way a predator might. Or, the way someone often looking for a fight may do.

"I ain't giving you the whole story, but you can probably work it out in that fuzzy head of yours that we do a lot of stuff as a group. Well, at one point, Leo left and had to go find himself or somethin'. The rest of us kinda lost our way for a coupla months," he begins.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal's expression is one of those hard-to-read ones he goes into from time to time. His eyes are the only thing that moves, following Raphael as he prowls. "Aha."

He uncrosses his leg, then crosses his other leg over that knee, and leans back a little, "And you found..."

Raphael has posed:
Raphael waves a gloved hand dismissively. "Mikey was off playin' mascot for kids' parties, and Donnie was doin' tech support or whatever. I ain't too good at just sittin' around, and I wasn't gonna be doin' that kinda stuff, so I got a few things together and...Nightwatcher. Or, /the/ Nightwatcher."

He eyes Vorpal intensely, tracking his reactions amid his responses. "We try not to be seen out in the open, and I knew there was a buncha people up here who did the costumes and capes things. Capes are stupid, so I found a way to keep an eye out for trouble."

Clearing his throat, he frowns and glances off into the distance. "But nobody else knows. Okay, Master Splinter does, but he agreed to keep it on the down low as long as I don't blow it."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"It's always good to have a supportive father..." Vorpal nods with approval, keeping his expression perfectly neutral.

He opens his own can and takes a long, agonizingly slow sip of his own soda before putting it aside and looking back at Raphael. "You know what is just as good as haing a supportive father?"

Raphael has posed:
"It ain't that. I mean, it is but it ain't. He knows how we roll, and he knows I.." Raph's brows get closer together, showing in the way the fit of the mask adjusts with it. "..maybe I got what they call 'anger issues' once in a while," even emphasized with the classic finger quotes. "So I go find some losers who need a little lesson, and I beat it into them. I ain't killin' nobody. That's a line we ain't supposed to cross unless we have to."

Then, a pointed question is returned. "What's that? You gonna tell me I should come clean with everybody and go, 'Hey, you know that cool armored dude is me?' or somethin'?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Nah, Raph. A supportive brother." He finishes his soda and sets it down carefully, toying idly with it with a hand.

"You were pretty intent on coming down on your little brother and dissuade him from... doing what you're doing." He gestures to the getup. "I'm not one to tell you what you have to do, but if you were serious when you said I was included in the 'family' thing for my connection to Ape, you might want to lend an ear now and then."

"You called it filling his head with nonsense, but you're not doing nonsense, see?"

Raphael has posed:
"Hey, I support my brothers, so don't lecture me about stuff you don't know anything about, all right?"

One way to get Raphael's blood boiling? Question him over something like that, even if it's not meant to be taken that way.

The anger flashes in Raph's eyes, but he tries to quell it. "Look, Mikey means well, but I meant it when I said he's got his head in the clouds a lot of the time. Sometimes he thinks we can just go around up here like everything's normal, because there are others out there who look like freaks too, but that ain't the way the world works. I was doin' this to keep my brothers safer /and/ doin' it to keep what we are a secret."

He frowns, frustration spilling out. "Mikey's a good kid. I don't want to see him get hurt because of anyone takin' advantage of his trust or somethin'."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Yeah. I can understand that," Vorpal says. If he's affected by Raphael's anger, it doesn't show. Instead, he looks more focused, more intent. "But, you know, your brother will soon be a man," his affect is a little strange, as if he suddenly has aged by two decades, "and the problem with sheltering children in towers is that they don't learn to deal with the real threats when they come- not the dragons, but the harmless old women pretending to be kind but hocking poison apples. I know you care, otherwise you wouldn't be spitting at me right now..."

And then he leans forward, and it's a radical change in body language and tone, Vorpal sounding his actual age, "But you're missing out on a golden chance, dude. You can either prepare Mikey to deal with this stuff, or you can over-protect him to the point that if a blow that /doesn't/ have to do with physical fighting comes, his stomach will be exposed."

He tilts his head, "I don't want to see him hurt, either. I was an only child, Raph, I never had brothers. I always /wanted/ brothers and sisters, but that wasn't in the plan. So... I guess I'm speaking out of my depth and you probably think I shouldn't stick my nose in this business."

Raphael has posed:
The expression on Raphael's face as he's told about towers and women and apples suggests it's all flying over his head. "Are you tellin' me some fairy tale stuff right now?" he asks. "I ain't much of a reader, just so you know. You'd want Donnie or Leo for that."

"Anyway, you don't think we're trying? We just had a big talk about what we should do now that stuff up here is changing, but we're ninja. Ninja don't just walk down the street out in the open. I don't even do that when I'm being the Nightwatcher. I get in, hit hard, get out."

Arms go back to crossing when Vorpal shares not having any siblings. It's clear there's a level of protection Raphael feels toward his brothers, some more than others. "Family's, you know, good, most of the time. But I need you to keep this between us. I don't think they're ready to know."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I bet you haven't even red the book in which I'm the star protagonist," Vorpal says with a slight sulk, before he returns to the matter at hand.

"I really wish you wouldn't refer to yourselves as freaks like you did earlier, by the way. But that's another story to be told at another time." He bites his lips for a few seconds, and nods slowly "Your secret is safe with me, Raphael. But do think about what I said, okay? In families, secrets have a way of eventually being found out. When it does, what you do from now on will decide whether Mikey resents you or thinks you're awesome when that happens." He smirks a little, "You've got a good heart and a terrible temper. I know you'll eventually make the right choices."

Raphael has posed:
Raphael gestures with his hands up, and a shrug. "I've seen one of the movies. The cat looked dumb," he remarks. "And like it or not, most topsiders would think we're freaks. I ain't afraid to say it, and it ain't like that makes me think we're rejects or nothin'. I just ain't hiding from the way it is. Anyone who looks different is a freak to somebody."

There's some relief in his expression when told the secret will be kept. "Good, 'cause I wasn't really eager to have to knock some sense into you. That'd be hard to tell April about later." Assuming he could, which of course he does. "I just ain't ready for them to know, yet."

Of course, being told he has a good heart, more than a terrible temper, leads to him eyeing Vorpal once again.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Vorpal crosses his arms and smirks, "What? Okay, you have a rotten heart. And a terrible temper."

His smile is full of mischief, which is only amplified by a raised eyebrow.

Raphael has posed:
Raphael shakes his head. "Dude, I got a reputation to keep up. I ain't some softy, but I look out for my brothers in the end. We're stronger together than apart, especially with Leo back. But you definitely can't tell him that."

Reaching for the helmet, he slips it back into place and the modified, mechanized voice kicks in again. "All this is just way to keep the secret safer."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Keeping secrets from them to keep their secret safe. Well, it's not like I can blame you. I, too, tried to keep a secret like that from my boyfriend." Vorpal stands up and stretches his leg, "Fortunately, a well-intentioned meddler knocked some sense into me. Literally."

Glancing around, he decides that he is in the Cheshire mind enough to continue his article. "Well, then, I guess I'll see you around, Nightwatcher." The Cheshire does a two-finger salute, and starts walking towards the Rabbit Hole that has opened to his living room. He has an article to write.

Raphael has posed:
"Yeah."

This is the only thing the Nightwatcher says. Nothing further to the part about secrets, nothing about Vorpal and whoever he's seeing and whatever secrets they have, nothing about meddling, nothing about anything else.

Raphael can be a turtle of few words at times, and now that he's said what he felt he had to, it's back to closing things down again. He picked a rooftop that's much closer to his motorcycle, so the trek back to it is minimal before it comes back to life, leading to him getting out of the area while the cops deal with the aftermath of the fight.