2070/Klunk's Day Out

Klunk's Day Out
Date of Scene:	20 August 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	The cat is out of the bag and into the sewers.
Cast of Characters:	Jacky Diamond, Michelangelo, Stardust

---

Jacky Diamond has posed:
It seems that Splinter was not excited about his lads going out in the daylight, and one John Winters, DVM, has had a nightmare about something happening to a certain kitten. Normally his nightmares are not quite that wierd, but this one ... was. So he's appeared from slightly less thin air just above a sewer grate that's inside a fence, said fence being locked-ish in the middle of a street that used to be public but is now WareHouseCo, a division of Lexstor, an entirely owned subsidiary through four layers of LexCorp, because it's really not a business that looks glamorous at all but any corporation with its fingers in a myriad of high technology and merchandising deals might also be in up to to the elbow in the Storage of Stolen Goods business and won't want that part traced. Clear? No? Good, that's how it's intended to be.

Jacky Winters reaches down with one hand, and puts his fingers through the holes in the manhole cover, and lifts, one-handedly removing the metal disk from the ground with an ease that looks a bit like someone lifting a pizza box. He places it to the side, and picks up a bag that looks slightly like a messenger bag, and then hops through the hole, disappearing from sight. A moment later there's the tap-tap-tap sound of someone running through a tunnel.

This doesn't seem like anything more than some unauthorized Steam Tunnel Running, but then, a few black-clad men are seen to crawl a bit like cockroaches down through the hole about 40 seconds after the veterinarian made his entrance. They look Suspicious. They're far too silent, far too creepy, and they're wearing far too stereotypically Ninja attire.

Michelangelo has posed:
He had lost Klunk.

It wasn't exactly his fault- he had been about to feed him when his brothers started arguing with each other (You get two guesses as to who was arguing with whom) and he had come in to try to play peacekeeper. Long story short? An hour later, Mikey came back to feed Klunk.

But there was no Klunk. Apparently, when you keep kittens hungry, they go wander off in search of food. That's another thing he has in common with them.

"Klunk. Buddy!" Mike says very quietly. He doesn't need to raise his voice, because cats have crazy hearing.

He also knows that ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of cats don't come when called. But, as he roams through the tunnels with a tin of tuna, it makes him feel better anyways.

Stardust has posed:
(I'm booooored...)Oo Stardust thinks to herself, as she sits, legs dangling, over the edge of a roof. oO(Boo-ooored.)

...Or perhaps not entirely to herself, for there is an answer. A gruff, male, distinctly Australian answer. Even though the answer is heard only in her head not her ears, there's no doubting the accent.

"Ah shut yer yabber. This is no job fer a bludger. It ain't all action, ya know."

(But there's nothing happening. I could be at home watch... working.)Oo

"Stop whinging and focus, ya daft Sheila. Look around. What do you see?"

(Buildings. Stuff. Umm... okay. Focus. Theeeere's... normal... wait. I thought I saw... yes. What's /that/? Ninjas?)Oo

"JAPS!"

(Oh, shut up.)Oo

Ignoring the annoying voice in her head, Stardust slips off the edge of the building, and floats quietly in the air. She is dressed in a skintight costume that covers her from scalp to toe, two dark lenses covering her eyes. The fabric is patterned with chevrons of pale light grays and whites. For a moment it shimmers in the moonlight, then seems to dull. Hugging the walls of the building, she drifts silently lower, keeping a watchful eye on the ninjas as she tracks their passage through the city from the shadows above.

After some minutes, Stardust drifts over the WareHouseCo fence, and finds her quarry gone. Inside, maybe? She stops, holding her breath, and listens.

Tap tap tap

Stardust frowns, and looks behind her. Then down. Then around. Her eyes fall on the manhole, and she drifts over to it and sets down on the edge, peering through. There's a long sigh. oO(But... it SMELLS. That's a SEWER.)

Strewth!

Jacky Diamond has posed:
The presence of ninjas in the sewers of New York should be no surprise to anybody. This is a storm sewer, so //most// of the stink is from stale water rather than from things that should be processed and sanitized, but there's definitely animals down here, some of them allegedly ninja-eating albino alligators, and yet Jacky is going along as if he didn't care. Perhaps he's part honey badger? Nah, if that were the case he wouldn't be going directly to where Klunk the Kitten, aka Monster on Jacky's books, is hiding from a non-intelligent non-ninja rat that came through and stole some of Klunk's food. NOT acceptable behavior, as far ask Klunk is concerned.

Jacky comes to an intersection. This is one of the "Fun Room" intersections that looks like someone insane designed it. The storm water overflow goes down a good 200 feet, and there are three tunnels at different levels that open on this area, plus a plethora of pipes plumbed for gas, water, waste, and one or two for pneumatic capsules, though that system //probably// doesn't work. Rather than jumping or running to the right place, Jacky pauses, disappears, and is abruptly standing across the room at one of the lower tunnels, which is close to where Klunk ended up. Jacky begins sitting cross-legged, in midair, arms extended slightly to either side, trying to feel the best 'vibe' for how to get to where the kitten is, because there's some really tight corners.

The black-clad sewer ninja are momentarily stymied, before they begin swarming across the arched ceiling and along the side of the chamber, ignoring the lack of hand-holds.

Michelangelo has posed:
Mikey is one with the shadows. He is also, as far as his brothers are concerned, the most likely of the brothers to walk into a trap if something has caught his attention. It isn't that he has trouble focusing, contrary to popular opinion, it's that his brain sees a lot of possibilities and juggles through them... until something really takes root. Then, he will go from seemingly scatterbrained to thoroughly tunnel-vi-

Sorry. Couldn't finish that with a straight face. As bright as he is, it does cost him quite a bit of effort to settle down on one track. Usually, he has to really care about something, or someone, before he focuses. His brothers, his father. His cat.

The young turtle comes to the crazy intersection and frowns. He doesn't look in the right direction to see Jacky, yet, because he's looking down at the tuna can. A thought has just occurred to him.

"... I should have brought his usual food. Isn't he too young to use tuna as a lure?"

And, of course, he is momentarily oblivious to the swarming swarmy ninjas. For now.

Stardust has posed:
In all things there is an hierarchy, and so it is for the stealth of those intrepid souls traversing the sewers in the separate ways, yet about to cross paths. In Ascending order, we have:

SUPERHEROINE flying carefully, but the occasional hissed 'Ew!' reveals her passing.

TURTLE one with the shadows, but calling for Klunk.

VETERINARIAN formerly tap-tapping his way but now floating silent.

NINJAS For they are ninja.

KLUNK For he is cat.

The upshot of this is that SUPERHEROINE can no longer hear the tap-tapping of VETERINARIAN, which she mistook for the sounds of NINJAS who move undetected half way between her and the sounds she'd been following. When she comes to the complex intersection, she is therefore rather lost.

Stardust hovers at the mouth of the tunnel they'd all been following, looking out onto the industrial baroquery of the multi-levelled junction. She does not see the turtle, deep in the shadows below. The floating man is at just too tight an angle to see. The ninja move in unexpected ways. She taps at the lenses covering her eyes, sighs to herself, and looks longingly back the way she came.

Jacky Diamond has posed:
Spider-Man, like nearly all the spider-themed heroes and villains, has a "spidey-sense" that alerts him to imminent danger. Jacky also has an early warning system for when someone means to do bad things to him, especially when he's got his whole esper sense open wide. There's a particularly tricky corner that the sewer ninjas need to traverse, and when they get there the first one momentarily forgets how to ninja, his climbing-claw slips, and he drops about 40 feet to splash in the gunky storm water. He crawls out a moment later, slowly making his way back up as the other one (or two? Can't really tell, they're ninjas, they obscure everything) realize that someone just used a "butterfinger-no-jutsu" on their group and one of them couldn't hold it off.

"Come on out, Monster," Jacky says quietly, but it's completely audible by every mammal in the tunnel intersection. The kitten makes its way forward to where Jacky is now standing again, and accepts scritches and some kitten treats. The rat also wants kitten treats, so Jacky tosses three or four in its direction. It will escape with them while the ninjas are busy re-skulking.

//Kill the intruder, brothers,// the wet ninja says using silent-speech jutsu (chirp chirp klunk).

Michelangelo has posed:
"Who goes there?" Michelangelo calls out, frowning as he looks up finally. And then his eyes go wide and he grins. "Oh, hey! It's you! And you've found Klunk!" the ninja throws his can of tuna over his shoulder, seeing no need to look for a bait now. It probably will end up conking *someone*.

"How did you know I was looking for him? Or do you just, like, hang out here for fun?"

The young turtle sees nothing wrong with that question. After all, he hangs out here for fun, sometimes. "Donnie says nobody comes here to have fun but there's some truly awesome piping to be done if you've got the right skateboard, and I am convincing Donnie to scope out a place to do rafting-" He considers what's the best approach towards Jacky as he talks, annd then shuts up because for there to be a conversation, one person needs to shut up long enough to let the other one answer.

Stardust has posed:
Even the most skilled practitioners of the sui-ren-jutsu, the art of water crossing, have trouble making their passage truly silent when it's prefixed with a 40-foot drop. This immediately places the butterfingered ninja firmly in last place of the aforementioned stealth hierarchy. Stardust had been about to give up and head out of the sewer, but the splash draws her attention back to the intersection. She peers down into the darkness, but even with her light-enhancing lenses, it's hard to make anything out. Until the voices!

Klunk? (Who's klunk?)Oo Stardust wonders. That, she reasons, must be who the ninjas are looking for. They must have met up with some other ninjas. A ninja conspiracy must be afoot.

A ninja conspiracy to... skateboard? That does not make a whole lot of sense. Wondering briefly if there's some kind of secret skateboarding jutsu thing, Stardust floats out over the intersection, drifting downwards towards the sound of the voice. "Who's there?" she calls out firmly, voice echoing through the tunnels. "Identify yourselves!"

Jacky Diamond has posed:
"I figured no way was your Dad going to let you guys come back out in the daytime," Jacky says, and he puts Klunk in the pocket of his hoodie while he gets out the collection of four needles (pre-loaded with vaccine) from his vet case.

"OK, little Monster, we need to give you your shots now." The veterinarian cleans the kitten's scruff with a few alcohol swabs, then jabs each of the vaccines in, sequentially. As he does the second one, a ninja hand can be seen back-lit by the weak but still present light outside the tunnel. Mikey will be able to see him in profile, throwing a shuriken at Jacky. It's not apparent in the dim lighting that Jacky's gone all translucent and shiny because there's not quite enough light to shine properly.

The wet ninja and the one in the tail position both look directly at Stardust. They exchange words in the Secret Language.

//Attack the enemies,// they say. Bit of a one-track mind.

Michelangelo has posed:
"DUDE! LOOK OU-" if anyone else, say, Stardust speaks, Mike is too busy worrying about the vet getting stuck with a star- with lightning-like reflexes, he spins and flings one of his 'chucks at the ninja, hoping to at least knock him out with the spinning weapon.

And then he is under fire himself. A shuriken *clanks* (not klunks) on the ground, missing his foot by an inch, and then the arrows come.

Making himself as small as possible, the turtle ends up with most of the arrows hitting his shell and, luckily, bouncing off. But one of them comes close enough to his shoulder that he immediately leaps and lands on one of the wide pipes, suspended over one of the drops. "Get some cover!" Mike calls, and quickly lets himself slide down the side, his legs straddling the tube until he is hanging upside down from the underbelly of the pipe. He uses his remaining pair of nunchuks to hold on, grasped on both hands with its chain across the top of the tube. He begins shimmying away, using his powerful legs to move him along, inching his way towards the doc. Down below, there's a drop where another tunnel begins. If they could get there, the might have enough cover, and he could force the invisible assailants to come into the tunnel...

Stardust has posed:
Above, there is a THUNK, followed by an "Ow! Hey!" shortly followed by a second *clank* much lower down, as a shuriken bounces off Stardust's head and falls below. There is another THUNK*clank*, accompanied by an increasingly annoyed second "Ow!".

  Stardust swoops in the direction she thought the shuriken came from, but the ninja has already moved. "Who's throwing things at me? Have you no manners? At least introduce yourself first."

A third shuriken wizzes past her ear, and she flies rapidly in the direction it came from, making a grab at the shadowy figure as it scampers nimbly away across the wall. She's left with a small scrap of black fabric in her hands, and has once more lost sight of her assialant.

"Stop skulking around, ill-mannered ninja!" Colette calls out. "Show yourself. And apologise! Bad ninja!"

Giving up on shuriken, the ninja hooks his legs around a pipe, draws a bow and arrow, and lets lose at Colette. It hits, but again the results are a rather unsatisfactory "Ow!" Again Colette catches sight of her attacker, but he starts crawling along the pipe rapidly towards the far wall. Rather than try to chase him this time, she graps the pipe at her end and gives it a hard yank. The pipe comes away, pieces of it falling into the shadows below, along with one startled ninja.

"Okay. This BETTER be rainwater or I'm gonna break someone's leg," Stardust calls down damply from below the broken pipe.

Jacky Diamond has posed:
Jacky's favorite hoodie and shirt get sliced, as three shuriken PING off his back as if bouncing off a diamond-hard substance, and he finishes his work on the kitten without hurrying or rushing. He putds the spent needles in the proper container, as two Sewer Ninjas swarm the corner, not expecting to be opposed by someone who has been well-trained in a superior xschool. Once the kitten is vaccinated, Jacky opens his mind a bit more to catch the vibes, to find where the safest place is for little Monster-Klunk. There it is. He smiles faintly and the kitten disappears to re-appear in Master Splinter's lap as the ninja-rat is doing a meditation technique hoping to see something about what's needed to secure his reptilian sons' futures. He can take the kitten as an omen or not. The smell of the veterinarian is on the kitten again, though.

And, now, Jacky can begin to play with the S.N.s (Yes. He shortened it from Sewer Ninjas in his mind.)

"It's not entirely rainwater," Jacky shouts out. He spots a non-Mikey ninja and throws one of the shuriken at it. His throw should be wild but it impacts in front of the ninja and causes the fellow to lose his connection to the ninja group-mind. That never bodes well. There is a splash shortly after.

Michelangelo has posed:
"Aw man, you're going to have to get a good dry-cleaner," Mike calls out. It's one of those realities that you have to deal with, down in the sewers. Building his speed, he lets himself go towards sthe far end of the room and then swings himself down, landing at the beginning of the tunnel below. He calls out:

"Vet dude, floating mysterious lady-voice from above, this way!" Jacky is arrow-proof, but he isn't. And, in any case, it might be a better tactic to concentrate the ninjas into single file down the tunnel. There, he can do what he's best at: hand-to-hand, since close quarters eliminates the ability to shoot arrows. And, from the sound of it, the other two are also good at punching. They should be able to wipe the floor with them.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust swoops down on the falling ninja, grabbing him by the back of his hood before he has time to fully recover from his fall. She yanks him into the air, then swings him around to throw him into the wall.

That was the plan, anyway. The ninja doesn't want to be thrown into the wall, and clings on to Stardust's arm. Nonplussed, she makes a second attempt, but he still stays. She starts to shake her arm around violently, trying to dislodge him, but he holds tight. "Get off! Let go, you idiot. Seriously, what is wrong with you?"

Stardust swings a few punches at the tight-clinging ninja, but even at point-blank range, he's able to nimbly dodge each swing. Busy trying to punch, she does not notice the sudden glint as the ninja palms a deadly punch-dagger, and slams it into her side. This time there's a dual "Ow!", the louder one from the ninja who drops the slightly bent dagger and shakes his hand with pain.

The mid-air battle is not one that will go down in the annals of epic combats. As clashes of style go, it has stalemate written all over it. The superheroine is vastly outmatched by the ninja's training and doesn't seem to be able to land a punch. The ninja on the other hand doesn't seem to be able to hurt her. However Stardust has one major advantage -- the ninja can't fly, and she's holding him up.

Resolution arrives, noisily, as Stardust starts flying at the walls, bouncing from one to another like a pinball, ninja sometimes in tow, sometimes acting as crash bag. The chaotic maelstrom of collisions is something that the more invulnerable fighter is bound to win.

Eventually, Stardust comes to land, dropping a thoroughly stunned ninja to the floor. Oddly, she seems a little concerned for his wellbeing. "Are you okay?" she asks her attacker. "I don't think your arm should bend that... oh well. I did promise you a broken leg. I guess you got off lightly..."

Jacky Diamond has posed:
Jacky is fed up. He waits until there's a collection of three or four ninjas in a tunnel and then stops, putting the whammy out.

//WHY ARE YOU PESTERING ME?//

There's a sort of buzzing vibration that might be sensible to Mikey and Stardust, but it doesn't really focus on them. Instead it rattles the three, and they fall down drooling.

"Got it," Jacky says with a satisfied sort of voice. "They think I know where their secret hide-out is. I didn't but I do now."

There are actually only about seven of them total, and they're all subdued by this point. Jacky shakes his head.

"I can't get anything about who they are. They don't stink like murderers, though. What do you guys think we should do with 'em?"

Michelangelo has posed:
The turtle looks disappointed that there is no fun fight, as he comes out of the tunnel.

"Well, I dunno. Maybe make them forget everything? You can't do that, right? Then... tie them up?"

The turtle looks up at Stardust, "And that bouncing around was awesome! Are you Supergirl?" the turtle asks. Okay, maybe she didn't look like Supergirl, but maybe it was Supergirl in DISGUISE. For an important mission. It could happen. So Supergirl disguised as another superhero... that was, like, three layers of secret identities, right? That's super secret!

He frowns and looks at Jacky, failing to see the presence of a familiar furball. "Aw man... did Klunk run away again?"

Stardust has posed:
Stardust steps up to the other two, dragging her broken-armed ninja with her, and dumps him with the drooling ones. "Maybe they're wearing a deodorant," she suggests to Jacky. "They may not smell like murderers, but they did fire arrows. You can have someone's eye out with one of those. What to do with them then? Hmmmmm."

Stardust grins evilly in the direction of the ninjas and slaps a fist hard into the palm of her hands. "Let's... paint mustache and glasses onto their faces with indelible glow-in-the-dark paint. Ninjas would hate that."

Turning her attention from the ninjas, Stardust looks to see who her fellow ninja-assaultees are. Michaleangelo first. "Why do you have like, a she... oh. Uh." She blinks a couple of times and turns to Jacky. He sure is sparkly. She blinks a couple more times, and turns back. "Superg.. uh... no. Not me. I'm... you know, just uh..." she waves her arms around vaguely in the air. "I'm not... she's way... it's just..." she explains. "I'm Stardust. Hi. Klunk ran away? Neither of you is Klunk then? Yeah. Neither of you look like a Klunk. Hmm. Captain Tortuga and Mister Shine, right?"

Jacky Diamond has posed:
"Jack of Diamonds, if you want the silly superhero name I used to use in high-school. I sent Klunk to a safe place, Mike."

Jacky looks and considers and looks again at the fallen ninjas.

"We could give them to the cops, I guess. I'd rather not be outed as a metahuman, and making them forget ... I'm not that precise when I get to fine details. If I had my guitar and a half hour I might, but without that, I'd probably make them forget stuff that I shouldn't, like bladder control or how to dress themselves. Anything weaker than that would only stick with them a while and then they'd come after you and Klunk."

He stops. "Wait. I have an evil ... "

He grins. In the dimness, it looks creepy given that he's made of glass or something like it. He reaches into his vet bag and pulls out two bottles, and a large needle, and draws from the bottles, mixing the contents. He injects each of the ninjas with 15ccs of the stuff.

"Ketamine and a rohypnol-analogue. They're not going to recall anything that happened after dinner."

Michelangelo has posed:
"I am the Secret Ave-"

And Mike's attempt to have a cool nickname goes out the window when Jacy calls him 'Mike.' A little deflated, he nevertheless returns Jacky's grin after the devious plan is executed. "Awesome, dude. Very mission impossible, I approve."

"Stardust... okay, that's a cool name. I shoul've thought of something like that!" the turtle hms. Maybe he can be Starlord? Yeah, that sounds cool. Nobody's probably even thought of that. "Safe place? OH-" he makes the 'eyes of understanding' expression, "Then I should be heading that way... okay. We'll be in touch dude-" because even though Master Splinter is strict, Mikey knows all about how to sneak out when Sensei isn't looking. "And Starust. Keep fighting the good fight. Up up and away!" He grins, and then takes off towards one of the tunnels. He's pretty sure he knows which 'safe place' Jacky sent Klunk to!

Stardust has posed:
"Hmm. You don't look like a playing card. Mister Shine is better. Mister shine and Captain Tortuga, yep." Stardust nods to the pair. "Yeah, good work." She glances a last time at the ninjas before making her own way out of the tunnels. "Maybe we should give them something to wake up to that helps them fill in the blanks with the wrong story. Like leave a note on them with something like 'Don't sneak through our patch again'. Only, you know, written in Ninja. Do either of you guys speak Ninja?"