2013.12.28 - The Cheshire and the Mock Turtle

It's late Friday night, and Mrs. Morrison really shouldn't be out by herself. Pushing 60, Mrs. Morrison is known around this part of town for two things. One, for having about fifteen cats living in and around her apartment, and two, for being a major benefactor of a local soup kitchen, both with her time and her money. But Gary either doesn't know her, or doesn't care. He runs by her at a sprint, shoulder checks her to the ground spilling her paper bag of groceries and making off with her purse. He pounds down to the end of the block, makes a couple quick turns and finally ducks down a dark alley.

"Yo dude," comes a young, male voice from the dark above, probably from the fire escape, but no one's visible up there yet. "/Not/ cool. Hand that over, and I let you go." With a soft whirring, a custom-made drone hovers down out of the shadows, supported by four vertical rotors, deploying a small hook as an obvious place to deposit the purse. But Gary just looks at the thing, backing away from it slowly.

There is a certain poetic justice in the fact that the next thing Mrs. Morrison sees after being knocked down to the ground is two feline eyes, yellow-green and far too large for them to belong to an actual cat. The reality is far more complicated than that.

"Are you alright, ma'am? Shall I call an ambulance?" The Cheshire cat kneels next to the woman, taking quick stock of her condition. He keeps tabs of the alley down which the thief ran, but the condition of an innocent civilian is his first concern. His hand goes up to the little comm device clipped to his ear, in case he needs to call for an ambulance.

Mrs. Morrison's eyes swim a little after her tumble, but over all she seems ok. She turns from the fleeing form of Gary to face Vorpal and her eyes go wide. "Oh... Oh! I knew it, I /knew it/! You all /can/ turn into people." Her eyes shine with delight looking at the young man, and then just sighs. "Thank you, I'm fine. But my purse..." She gestures in that direction, just as a flurry of motion takes place in the alley.

Gary apparently decides the drone isn't much of a threat, and bolts for another alley, but he doesn't get far. A bo staff lances out of the darkness, the blunt end cracking Gary in the back of the head, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. The man is groaning, and truly out cold. In another moment, the drone drifts out of the alley, rotors whining under the strain of the purse's weight. It comes closer to Vorpal and Mrs. Morrison, before depositing it on the sidewalk nearby.

Just another day in Metropolis, Vorpal thinks with a sigh.

"I'll get your puse, ma'am, please stay here---" whatever Vorpal was going to say after that is cut off when the little drone drops the purse near them.

"... I thought Amazon wasn't going to roll those out for five more years..." he mutters and bends down to pick up the purse and hand it to Mrs. Morrison. "... Cyborg usually doesn't hang around these parts," he mutters, walking over to the drone to take a closer look.

Mrs. Morrison doesn't look too sure about the drone at first, but when Vorpal quips, she seems to relax a little. After scooping her groceries into the crumpled paper bag, she shoulders her purse as well and says, "You know, you look just like my cat, Mr. Jack. Or well, maybe a little more like Clementine. Would you like to come back and meet them?" Only Vorpal's ears could catch the soft chuckling from the roof above, and the whispered, "I got your back, bro." The drone waggles, and a voice clears it's throat through the little speakers mounted on the device. "Uh, Cat-boy! We need you back at base, right away! Good work out there. Uh, over and out, dude!" The drone waggles side-to-side twice, and zips off to fly down the alleyway again.

'Cat-boy?'

Ooooh, Cyborg was going to get it. Or Booster Gold. This seemed like a Booster joke.

"Right-O, Trash-Man." Turnabout is fair play, as they say. The cat gies Mrs. Morrison his most polite of grins, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but duty calls. Please don't go out at night by yourself in this neighborhood, safety first!"

He gives her a corny salute to stay in theme, and then runs down the alleyway, following the little drone.

"Booster, if that's you... this isn't funny. What'd you do to Skeets?" he mutters.

The drone swoops on it's way to scoop up the thrown bo staff, and then climbs, gaining altitude in the narrow alleyway. "C'mon up dude. I can't eat all this pizza by myself." Up on the roof, a turtle shaped like a man is putting the retrieved bo staff into a sling on his back. He's also wearing an NYU hoodie and a trenchcoat which together probably do a passable job at hiding his appearance on the street. At night, at least. He's also wearing a purple headband, and is holding a remote control with two joysticks and a long, collapsible antenna.

The drone swoops on it's way to scoop up the thrown bo staff, and then climbs, gaining altitude in the narrow alleyway. "C'mon up dude. I can't eat all this pizza by myself." Up on the roof, a turtle shaped like a man is putting the retrieved bo staff into a sling on his back. He's got on a hooded trenchcoat which probably does a passable job at hiding his appearance on the street. At night, at least. He's also wearing a purple headband, and is holding a remote control with two joysticks and a long, collapsible antenna.

Vorpal narrows his eyes and looks up as the little drone gains altitude. Kicking against the ground, he levitates upwards at a considerable speed, reaching the rooftop in a snap.

When he lands, he takes a look at his host, and tilts his head.

"...Okay... if we're going by theme here..." he looks down at his purple, striped fur, and then at the muscular green terrapin. "... you wouldn't happen to be the Mock Turtle, would you?"

After a moment of fiddling with the remote, the drone lands gently on the surface of the roof, and the turtle sends the shut down command, which causes the drone to stop whirring, and fold up on itself until it's in a fairly convenient carrying shape, about the size of a tablet computer, though a bit thicker.

Donatello laughs at Vorpal's question and sets the remote down before walking over to offer his hand. "You were cool to Mrs. Morrison down there, which makes you cool in my book. 'Mock Turtle's a good name, but gots two problems. One, I'm a real turtle," he grins. "And two, I got three brothers, and we look a lot alike already, so that's gonna get confusing. Just call me Donny."

"Donny, eh? No codename?" Vorpal shakes Donny's hand, it is a firm handshake. "In the 'business', I go by 'Vorpal' but I don't have a secret identity. How could I?" He says with a smirk. "So you can call me Keith. Keith O'Neil. I'm a ... well, I'm a Cheshire cat."

"Heh, yeah," Don says, confirming his non-coded name. "Same with me. Never needed one, so yeah. Nice to meet you, Keith." He shrugs, grins, and then remembers something. He gestures at an unopened box of pizza sitting next to one which is clearly empty. "My bro was supposed to come with on patrol tonight, but he flaked, so his loss is your gain. If you like anchovies and pepperoni, that is. Oh, and that was a cool trick coming up from the alley. How'd you do that? Or is it a trade secret?" Donatello takes a seat on an empty milk crate nearby.

Keith sits down next to him, chuckling. "Oh, that's just part of my powers. Like I said, I'm a Cheshire cat... I can float, create illusions, that sort of thing..." he hmmms, smelling the pizza. "Anchovies, how could I turn them down? This is perfect, since my boyfriend's out of town and there's no food waiting for me back home." He makes a reach for the slice, and says, "Thank you, by the way. So... are you new to the vigilante thing?"

Donny shrugs and nods. "Yeah, I guess? I mean, we've been training for a long time, but we only just got the go ahead from our master to go out and try to help some people. We're uh... huh. Whoops. We're actually kind of a big secret, so like, don't go telling everyone about us, ok? There are some bad dudes who definitely wanna find us. That would be pretty annoying, you know?" He grins, looking a little embarrassed at his discretion. This little meeting will probably not get reported to Master Splinter right away.

Vorpal munches down on the slice and listens to Donatello, ears twitching. "I see, you're secret agents of some sort or another? I mean, you've got that awesome little toy..." he nods towards the drone. ".. but I understand the need for secrecy. I've worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. people whose name I don't even know. Your secret's always safe with me..." he taps his earpiece "I'm registered with the B.S.A, I'm into the whole honor and justice thing."

"Whoa, that's... dude... S.H.I.E.L.D.? That must have been rad," Donny enthuses. He brightens right up too when Vorpal mentions his values. "That's cool man, that's us too! We just do it from the shadows, old school style, you know? Just can't stand to see people get taken advantage of. When I saw Mrs. Morrison go out for groceries, figured I'd keep an eye on her just in case, you know? Was pretty sure I'd get chance to test out Amelia here properly." Don pats the folded up drone to indicate who he means by 'Amelia'.

The cheshire grins at this, "That's sweet, heh. So you must patrol the neighborhood a lot to know Mrs. Morrison." He finishes his slice, licking his lips. "Wait... Amelia, like Amelia Earthart? Did -you- build that drone?" He says, tilting his head to the contraption.

Donny nods and shrugs again. "We try to cover different parts of the city. Keep tabs on the guys looking for us, you know?" He holds up his hands in modesty at Keith's question. "Oh, not really. I saw the design on the web. And Amazon, like you said." He grins wider. "But I finally got a hold of a broken one, so I fixed it up, and made some little mods to it, like the pack-n-play." He looks down at it, a little shy actually.

Vorpal raises an eyebrow. Or a stripe on his fur that passes for an eyebrow over his eyeridge, at any case. He was not mechanically inclined- that was Patrick's area. He was so mechanically inept that the thought of changing a bicycle's chain caused him trepidation.

"That's nothing to sneeze at, Donny. I'm impressed." He says with sincerity, and then frowns a little. "... the guys who are looking for you. Who are they?"

Donny keeps his eyes down for another long moment, rubbing at the back of his neck, obviously a little embarrassed. He looks up at the question though. "Oh dude, Keith, I feel really bad, but I shouldn't say anything. Like, 'cause of orders, you know? I kind of already said too much. We're not even supposed to let anyone see us, but you seemed like a cool dude. But I can't really get into much detail, if that's ok? I'm sorry about that."

"Don't worry," The cat says, waving a hand. "I was just curious, since you seem like a good guy. I hate it when good people are harassed. Here..." he says digging into a pouch hanging from his belt, "I do have a card... you have a phone where you live, right?"

"Thanks for understanding," Don says, taking the card. He pulls a pretty expensive looking Stark brand phone from his belt pouch and nods. "Yeah man, here..." he types in the number on the card, and sends a text to Vorpal. "Now you got mine too. Everyone can use allies, right?"

The cat grins, that particular grin from Wonderland. "Of course, Donny. Look, don't hesitate to call for anything. Hanging out or taking down a drug lord, I'm down with that." The cat levitates upwards a little. "... I should get back to my route. But I'm glad I met you."

Donatello looks flat-out impressed at Keith's trick, and then remembers to wave. "Right on, you too. Thanks again, Dude!" Donny watches him levitate away, and then packs up his things to make his own vanishing act as well.