2013.04.30 - Dead Eyes Team Up: Class Clowns

Even Snake Eyes needs to rest. To meditate. To practice his skills in relative solitude, away from the eyes of his peers and allies.

The safehouse he's procured is relatively isolated- most of a fifth floor, tucked away into the dense sprawl of Gotham's more crime-ridden district. The low-level crooks have their own network of eyes and ears, and the control of one of the local gangs- Los Mariachis- guarantees that there's little in the way of territorial wars. All in all, it's a perfect hangout for someone who likes to operate with relative lawful impunity, and have an isolated location where privacy is assured.

As the moon creeps over the distant cityscape, shadows deepen- and where shadows deepen, subtle movement occurs. Individual flickers might escape the eye, but a keep observer on the roofs would percieve them as a gestalt advance- a flooping foot here, a forward-cocked hat there. The implacable motion of a circle closing, with Snake Eyes temporary home at their center.

Quiet. Silence. These are the things that Snake Eyes holds dear. While he may be still decked out in his full uniform of battle readiness, including his katana and all of his guns, the military combat ninja known as Snake Eyes merely doesn't move. Whether his eyes are closed underneath that mask and visor combination is anyone's guess, but he's definitely not moving. He's perfectly still, even as shadows creep upon him.

He's kneeling in the center of this quiet and dark locale, his body barely moving as he is probably meditating or sleeping or whatever it is that the Arashikage Clan has taught him to do in times where he may be in need of a recharge. While he would normally undertake such things in The Pit, his latest assignment requires him to be in Gotham and the rest of that is classified.

Snake Eyes remains, ever 'oblivious' to the notion of anything creeping up onto him or his immediate vicinity. Or is he just waiting for the right moment to strike and lash out like a furious warrior of cold steel justice?!

Or C) He's asleep. Seriously.

The song is quiet. Almost distant. But inevitable. It's a quiet sussurance at first, impossible to place. The volume slowly increases, though the source is omnidirectional. There's no beat- just the sound of quiet trumpets and a trombone, bellowing happily. It's utterly at odds with the sense of imminent danger that increases with every passing moment.

All at once, the lights go out, and then a moment later, the windows explode. Shadowy forms burst into the room, and the noise- what had been a quiet song- bursts into the full grandeur of the Ringling Brothers theme music. Spotlights, as if from nowhere, illuminate every one of the aspiring assassins.

Clowns. A dozen clowns, with floppy shoes, big red noses, facepaint- the works. One even rides a unicycle, teetering back and forth.

"Snake Eyes!" one of the clowns bellows. He takes two floppy-shoed steps forward and levels an accusatory finger, his white gloves soiled and fingerless. "I am Hobo the Clown of the Clan of the Big Top! And we have come here to settle accounts with you for the death of many ninja!"

Each clown takes a foolish looking pose that looks as if someone is drunkenly imitating a martial art form. One spins plates on sticks in the process. "Prepare to die, Arishikage scum! Bubbles, GET HIM!"

Bubbles the Clown produces a small horn from his pocket, 'meeps' it twice at Snake Eyes, then charges him with a pair of long ballon animal swords. The way he carries them, he clearly has lethal intent.

Snake Eyes is not amused. Not only is he not amused by the interruption of his meditation, but he is not amused by the fact that these clowns have decided that they want to ruin his safehouse. Clearly, he is going to have to work on getting better hiding spots if he's going to be spending any amount of time in Gotham. Perhaps even spend his time in the local Pit.

Right now, though, by the time those windows finish exploding, Snake Eyes is already up on his feet and in the air, somersaulting backwards to give himself some space. He has no words for this, though his eyes beneath that visor scan the room as clowns come in from all directions. There is a tilt of his head as his boots touch back down onto the floor and it doesn't even look like his arm has moved, though there's a pair of shuriken soaring through the air and off in the general direction of balloon animal swords within the grip of the Bubbles.

Snake Eyes does not move again, though, watching and waiting, playing defense against the sudden arrival of nonsense that has invaded his personal space. He was taught to never underestimate any enemy and these clowns are no exception. No exception at all.

"Meep!" Bubbles declares as his sword balloons are popped. He quickly backpedals, and faster than the eye can follow, produces another pair of sword balloons, hands moving like blurs.

The clown on the unicycle pedals forward with an angry screech of tire on floor, launching himself at Snake Eyes. The unicycle flicks into the air at the last second and razor blades explode from the rim, a blurring circle of razor sharp death.

Almost simultaneously, another clown, laughing like a moron, takes a comedic pratfall- and throws four glittering, razor sharp discs at the Arishikage ninja. He bounces to his feet effortlessly and continues to hurl the tiny little discs, which resemble beer coasters with sharp edges, as comically as if he were performing for little children.

Hobo jumps up and down with tattered boots flopping, shaking his fists angrily. "Get him! Get him! Never forgive him the slight against the honor of the Big Top!"

Several more clowns ready everything from handfuls of flowers to large whipped cream pies, waiting for a chance to close with the mysterious ninja warrior.

Snake Eyes is only still for .5 seconds as things start happening around him. It only takes him that long to see and notice the movements of the clowns around him and then he's taking a step of his own to start his own fluid motion of ninja skills.

Snake's body twists, his hand extending and his palm flinging out a handful of smoke pellets which are sent to the outer circle of clowns, aiming to just compact and explode to create as much obscured vision as possible, since there are many and he is one. The odds are against them, really. By the time he finishes that rotation, his other hand has brought up the uzi that he keeps strapped to his side and he's firing bullets in the direction of those razor sharp coaster discs headed in his direction.

Snake Eyes immediately bends backwards and drops, sliding on his knees underneath the unicycle of death that just tried to slice off his head. As he slides, shuriken are hurled in the general direction of the ankles of the unicycler, as if to make sure that he can't go get onto another unicycle of doom too easily. His sliding coming up short to allow him to launch himself back up and into the air in a somersault towards the Coaster Clown, a foot extended to kick him dead square in his chest and send him off somewhere.

His shruikenless hand is already reaching for the handle of his katana. The clown with the unicycle crashes heavily into the wall, bouncing off and staggering, trailing blood behind him from the handful of bloody shuriken wounds. The clowns, ninja as much as Snake Eyes, promptly vanish into the smoke, hiding from the deadly scything arc of the Uzi.

The coaster-hurling clown pratfalls again, as if by accident, but neatly dodges the hail of gunfire. He brings up a very real looking, hugely oversized revolver, and starts firing at Snake Eyes with explosive reports.

The clown with the spinning plates promptly hurls them at Snake Eyes, adding to the swirling melee of flying projectiles filling the air.

A shadowy form rises out of the mist and grabs one of the clowns by the scruff of the neck. There's a jerking motion, a sharp crack, and the unmistakeable sound of a body hitting the floor. Hobo and the other clowns look uncertainly at one another. "Tell your ally he's too late!" Hobo screeches, producing a handful of juggling balls. He sets up a blurring web of yellow and red spheres, flicking them at Snake Eyes- where they explode with the force of a small grenade, deceptively deadly.

Snake Eyes does not know of his ally and he surely cannot actually say anything to them. Not that he would if he could, mostly because he is in the mode of Ninja and attempting to take down these evil clowns without wasting any movements. Movements are hard to waste, though, when there are so many clowns around to actually take down.

Bullets are shot at him from a huge revolver and Snake Eyes is focused on making sure he doesn't get hit. So his body is turning and backflipping and running towards the wall to flip off it, while bullets are sent in his direction. He's pretty sure his armor could tank it, but he's not going to risk it. One can never be too sure with clowns. As he comes off his wall flip, he attempts to take some shots at the spinning plates headed in his direction, clearly intending on shooting them down, just in case they too are of the razor bladed variety.

His senses and his eyes take a glance off in the direction of the body hitting the floor As if waiting to see if this is a friend or foe. But this stalls him long enough for those grenades to hit the floor in front of him and send him backwards and sprawling into the wall. Grunt. Silent Grunt. Whatever. "How do you grunt silently?" someone wonders aloud. It's a familiar voice, one that sounds as if it's a few straws short of a full bale. There's a whisper of the sound of steel flickering through the air, and one of the clowns twists violently to the side and hits the ground, covered in blood. "Is that like, thinking it? I mean, I /heard/ you grunting, but isn't that at odds with the whole oath of silence thing? Or does that not apply to bodily sounds?" Does it apply to any sound at all? What about pantomime? "Yeah, can you pantomime?" A shadow flickers through the increasingly dense fog, and a clown is transfixed with a dark length of a sword.

"He's here!" Hobo shrieks, looking terrified. "The Madman! The Lost Disciple! Forget Snake Eyes- KILL HIM!" Hobo shrieks. He produces an automatic pistol that looks like it might be made of rubber, and starts shooting very real bullets at the shadow dancing through the fog. Snake Eyes is taking this moment to shake off just being thrown into a wall by exploding balls. He only needs a breather for a moment, his head shaking and then he's back in the game. While he may hear the words coming from the possible ally, immediately remembering the voice from another instance, he does not waste time in forming a response with his hands or anything. Who knows if this person even understands sign language. Instead, he is drawing out one of his pistols and taking aim at Hobo's legs, sending a pair of shots in that direction with the intent of taking out the shrieking clown's knees. Cripple 'em is always the best order of business, should interrogation be next on the list. And for Snake Eyes, that it is. "My balls are always bouncing, my ballroom's always full!" the voice sings, badly. "And everyone says I've got great balls of fire!" The gunshots hit meat, and the splatter of lead hitting meat briefly cuts the song off. "OW, that hurt!"

There's a grunt and a struggle of motion in the shadows. "Hey, can you see me pantomiming?"

"....no? Ok, so, I guess charades are no good."

Hobo screams in pain as the bullets take him in the knees, and he drops to the ground with blood spurting. Another clown, driving a tiny little car, promptly drives right for Snake Eyes, with little machine guns behind the headlights sputtering and spraying lead at the legendary ninja. "Die, Arishikage!" he screams in a tiny voice.

The voice from the shadows starts up again, laughing. "Oh my god, look at his little car! That's awesome! Don't kill that one, I wanna get a picture of me in that car for my special photo album!"

Snake Eyes blocks as many of the bullets as he can with his katana, swinging it front of him for classic ricochet action and just keeping himself from being shot all to hell. But it is also just a stalling tactic to allow himself the chance to retrieve a sliding disc with a blinking light and hurl it across the ground and off in the direction of the tiny car that's headed straight for him. He risks taking a bullet in the shoulder to dive out of the way, as the portable proximity mine slides beneath the tiny car and offers a somewhat potent explosion, which may or may not put an end to the vehicular ninjaslaughter that was being attempted on his life.

As with all ninja, though, Snake Eyes barely is still long enough as his body hits the floor, because he's back up and rushing through smoke-filledness to continue on beneath the stealthy disguise of earlier used smoke pellets. Random Clowns in his way will meet death via the smooth cool Arashikage steel.

No pictures for Deadpool! "You suck!"

Hobo stills flops and screams, clutching the ruins of his legs. A clown that dwarfs the others by at least a hundred pounds steps out in front of Snake Eyes, and instead of using his hands or his fists, he simply throws a giant beer belly at the ninja, as if intending to bludgeon him with fifty pounds of fat and muscle.

Another clown, grinning wildly, comes out of the shadows with a pair of pies in his hands, flinging them at Snake Eyes in rapid order. They look like banana cream, but they smell like acid. And a third clown flings himself at Snake Eyes with streamers of patched handkerchiefs, wielding them like whips in an attempt to restrain the master ninja.

Across the room, Deadpool- for it is Deadpool- is engaged in a slapstick fight with one of the clowns. Literally, slapping one another with bare hands, in a bizarre fusion of comedy and drunken boxing. One staggers and almost falls, and the other dances around him and performs an artful hipcheck, only to be knocked over in turn. Falling doesn't even seem to inconvenience the clown, who flops like a fish and lands on his feet as if he meant to do so. It's a deadly, bizarre dance, and kind of hilarious looking.

Btw, for the sake of onlookers, Snake Eyes and Deadpool are in the middle of a Gotham-city safehouse, fighting a gang of ninja clowns.

Snake Eyes probably saw the fat clown coming because he's already up and in the air, extending a foot to springboard off the sumo stomach attack that's launched at him. With the extra weight and velocity given by fat flinging clowns, Snake Eyes is able to soar over the bananacid cream pies and send uzi shots off in the direction of that pie-hurling clown. It's always good to track the trajectory of thrown objects in an attempt to take down said thrower of such things.

The Arashikage blade goes up to block one of those streamer whips, Snake Eyes allowing it to wrap around the blade and the handle, before he gives a mighty tug to see if he can't pull said whippersnapper clown off his feet, whilst he runs towards the whippersnapper with a running knee lift to maybe knock some teeth free. Sure hope these damn clowns have a dental plan. Snake Eyes may or may not be attempting to set himself up to take down this Big Poppa Clown. Deadpool finally turns and spins, and slaps the clown so hard that teeth go flying. The clown's eyes roll up into the facepaint and he collapses, groaning inarticulately. "Hah!" The last clown slides over to Deadpool, eying him. Deadpool eyes the clown back.

Clown. "Well Costello, I'm going to New York with you. You know Bucky Harris, the Yankee's manager, gave me a job as coach for as long as you're on the team.

Deadpool: "Look Clown, if you're the coach, you must know all the players.

"I certainly do."

"Well you know I've never met the guys. So you'll have to tell me their names, and then I'll know who's playing on the team."

"Oh, I'll tell you their names, but you know it seems to me they give these ball players now-a-days very peculiar names."

"You mean funny names?"

"Strange names, pet names...like Dizzy Dean..."

"His brother Daffy."

"Daffy Dean..."

"And their French cousin."

"..Who?"

Deadpool laughs, and points a finger. "Haha, you fail! I triumph in the duel of the Mighty Abbot and Costello!" The clown crumples to the ground, dead. Deadpool thrusts a fist into the air. "Whooo!"

The handkerchief whip wrapped around Snake Eyes' sword doesn't cut- it must be made of cloth-wrapped wire. The clown pulls back, trying to disarm the ninja warrior, and laughs manically. Big Poppa clown takes two ponderous steps forward as Snake Eyes retreats, drops low, and thrusts that huge stomach out at Snake Eyes once more, with enouh force to batter down a door.

Snake Eyes does not lose his grip on his sword because that is his sword and being disarmed by a clown would never be lived down should Storm Shadow hear of this. So he keeps his grip tight and merely pulls back on the wire streamers, dropping backwards and rolling out of the way of incoming stomachs. Which is good because he's pulling that streamer down to ankle level to see if he can't trip the Big Poppa clown and bust down down clowns with one fat stomach stone, more or less.

Snake Eyes may or may not be rolling his eyes beneath that mask and visor combination at the Deadpoolish antics that are happening within earshot. If he could comment, he would comment. But alas, he will just have to be somewhat content with hidden rolling of the eyes. Deadpool runs forward and drops into a slide, slamming his foot into the side of Big Poppa's knee as Snake Eyes uses the handkerchief line as an improvised tripwire. Big Poppa roars and starts to fall, like a mountain, and aiming right for the ninja master.

"Hey, I can hear you rolling your eyes at me!" Deadpool snaps at Snake Eyes. "Who's the secret master of Clown Fu here? Me! Who showed up to save your ass? This guy!" Deadpool jumps to his feet. "Man, this is not gonna go over well for ya at the annual Ninja Warrior Convention. I'ma tell everyone you almost got beat up by the Ringling Brothers Rejects." He turns to one of the remaining clowns and promptly slaps him twice in the face, then takes a pie into his hand and smashes it into the clown's face. The clown falls back, screaming, acid eating into his makeup.

"And this isn't even their best! These guys are the third-stringers. You haven't even seen the Deadly Art of the Spinning Plates, or the ancient techniques of the Stooge Brothers." Deadpool flings a pair of knives into the last clown's throat, the whipcord kerchief going slack in his hands. "It's an ancient and inviolate art, really. Kind of awesome. The Slap of Death is way more badass than it sounds."

Snake Eyes is rolling out of the way of the Big Poppa Clown and back to his feet, pulling his katana free of the handkerchief now that the whippersnapper has a throat full of knives. He makes no more movements, pausing and stilling for enough time to take stock of the entire room and make sure that there are no more hostiles present and capable of trying to take them down again.

As he does this, he also just kind of looks at Deadpool, listening to his words and just offers a shake of his head. The Arashikage blade gets sheathed and Snake Eyes eventually and reluctantly, extends a gloved hand towards Deadpool with the offer of a handshake. It is probably the only version of a thank you that this crazy person is going to get. Deadpool shakes Snake Eyes hand, then turns it into a complicated thumb grab, hand slap, and a fistbump. "Anytime, my fellow ninja warrior," Deadpool says, looking everything /but/ a ninja. He stomps on one of the clown's throats as it lurches and groans. "If you want to torture Hobo there, he's all yours. Practice the deadly Five Finger Slap technique on him! If he dies, you're doing it right." Deadpool heads to a window and stops on the ledge, then pumps his fist against his chest at Snake Eyes. "Peace out, yo!" He leaps out the window. There's a vast silence, then a loud crash and a long string of curses. Then another crash, more sulferous swearing, and the sound of someone limping off into Gotham.

Snake Eyes just watches as the Deadpool makes his escape and then turns around to look at the clown corpses and leftover carnage. He shakes his head once more, before pulling his arm up to look at his Gauntlet and activates the communication software.

To: Hawk

From: Snake Eyes

Message: Done clowning around. Clean up crew needed. My coordinates. Bring a mop.

With the message sent, Snake Eyes lifts his boot out of blood and backs into the shadows to make with the disappearing.