6941/Smart stuff and other things

Smart stuff and other things
Date of Scene:	17 March 2019
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	Mikey, Raph, Donnie, and April talk punishment
Cast of Characters:	Michelangelo, Donatello, April O'Neil, Raphael

---

Michelangelo has posed:
It's been a few hours now and Mikey is still pretty keyed up over the whole ordeal at the Cafe. So he does what any sane turtle would do in this situation and go digging around in the kitchen. When he returns to wherever Donnie is he's loaded down with snacks craddled in his arms and a piece of pizza handing from his mouth, around which, he's still trying to talk. "uh gurh ugh oohfa booh." Soda for Donnie, the rest of the food items are dropped down beside himself.

"Do you remember when he was like-" Adopting a voice that's not nearly as gruff sounding as he's trying to make it sound, "-I'll be back? Dude that was like... I mean aside from all the blood and guts and stuff.. sooo cool.." Swooning, Mikey spins in a swivel chair and munchs absently on the rest of the pizza in his hand.

Donatello has posed:
     Donatello had been on his computer since the cafe incident, typing away, then waiting, then typing away. He turns in his chair, sipping the offered soda. "Yeah, Like Arnie in Commando. But there was so many bodies... Did you wash your feet?" He asks, not wanting to drag blood into the lair. "I'm just waiting for that guy's tech guy to find my Easter egg. Oh and here's your gameboy." He tosses the gameboy to Mikey, good as new, now with a backlit screen. "I used mine to make the mic."

April O'Neil has posed:
April hadn't been by the turtle's place since Friday night when she'd watched a movie with Mikey before heading out. Now she's returning to check in on him. The young reporter rolls down the side of the sewer tunnel on a silver and gold roller scooter. She's not a 'wicked skateboarder' like the guys and she's not lugging her bike down into the sewer, so she's elected to use one of those scooters with the handgrip bar.

So she near-silently rolls her way through the sewers and then dismounts the board with a little hop and skip, and is through the door to their home within moments. "Everybody better be decent!" April calls out as she steps inside and leans the scooter up against the wall just inside their lair. She looks up and grins as she moves in and sees Mikey AND Donny. Her hands go to her hips. "Were you two just talking about me?"

Michelangelo has posed:
Mikey is in the process of looking at the bottom of his feet, which means whatever he says next is probably a lie, "Yeah, I washed them." Otherwise why would he need to look at them? Details, there's pizza, "I brought you a soda." He tells Donnie in a whisper, nudging it closer to his brother with the tip of his extended finger. "It would be a lot more cooler if he hadn't killed all those people."

Important musing.

Mikey is eating, which probably surprises nobody, when April arrives via scooter. "No! We were talking about this super cool dude we just saw blow up a cafe, which admittedly wasn't very cool, but then he shot a bunch of people, also not very cool from a moral point of view, but the best part was when he was all like-" Mikey stands up and holds one finger out like a gun barrel with the pizza crust he was holding shoved in the corner of his mouth like a cigar, "-I'll be back here if you don't do all the stuff I said to do." The gruff voice has not improved with repeated usage.

Donatello has posed:
     "MIKEY, HIDE YOUR TIGHTY WHITIES!" Donnie yells at his brother, expecting hilarity as April walks in.

  "Yeah, but he killed a lot of people. Like...a lot a lot." He adds in, taking the soda and sipping from it some more. "And Mikey still needs to wash his feet."

  The purple bandanna'd turtle spins back in his chair, typing away at the keyboard in front of him. "How's it going April?" He asks, smiling as he adds in some more code to what he was working on.

April O'Neil has posed:
April's yellow jacket is removed and draped over the back of their sofa as she fiddles with the zipper on her hoodie since these Sewers are often fairly chilly. She smirks at what they both initially say to her upon her arrival and then listens to the bit about this killer gunman.

Her blue eyes go from Mikey, to Donnie and then back again. "Wait a second." She says to them. "Who did what now?" She has to ask. "A guy killed a bunch of people at a cafe?" She seems heartbroken by this, stunned and shocked!

"My god, did you guys fight him?" She has to ask next, assuming the Turtles wouldn't just sit around and let something like that happen! "I hate it when you guys fight people who're using guns..."

April walks past Mikey, then over to Donnie, visually inspecting them to make sure they're not hurt.

Michelangelo has posed:
Mikey drops back down in his swivel chair and.. swivels in a slow circle all the way around so that he can prop his wrapped, probably bloody, feet up on the table Donnie is working at, "Well, see, that's the thing..." Rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly while looking to April, "I wanted to fight him, but it was probably better that we didn't because he had guns and we wanted to see what he was up to, aside from blowing up a cafe." Eyes on Donnie, help me out here, big bro.

"I don't know who he was, aside from-" Detailed description of Frank Castle follows, "-Also he had this van full of all kinds of smart looking equipment and weapons. It was pretty dope... except where he killed all those people, man when you put it like that we probably should have fought him."

Raphael has posed:
Raph obviously hadn't been at the Cafe Incident. He needed to think of a reason why he had been absent as of late- outside of telling the truth, that is.

The Nightwatcher had been very busy the last couple of nights. It was different than when he was busy with his brothers as a team. As the Nightwatcher, he took orders from nobody. There was nobody there to tell him how to approach a gang, there was nobody there to get on his case about destroying property. There was nobody there to tell him Enough Raph There's No Need To Hit Him So Much He's Already Unconscious GODDAMNIT LEO GIMME A BREAK!

Uh.

Raphal clenches his fists, but then takes a deep breath. As of late, the thoughts of Leo's leadership style tended to get him more riled up than usual. Maybe it was the taste of freedom and independence he felt when he put on that armor and was his own ma- turtle. Maybe it was Maybeline, who knew?

"I'm home!" he calls out as he enters the lair, his arms laden with two boxed pizzas, an offertory to hopefully dodge questions of where he has been.

"Oh hey, Ape!" Raph says, tossing the pizzas on the table. "How you been?

Donatello has posed:
     "By the time we showed up, the explosion happened, no one innocent seemed to be hurt. He was scaring a guy into giving up the big boss man. Then he pistol whipped him and I grabbed the phone he gave the goon. I left a message for his tech guy, cause come on, he HAD to have a tech guy." Donnie stands up and tosses the bow empty soda into the bin. "It wasn't a simple crazy guy killing random people situation. It was a calculated operation. Or else he wouldn't have cared to not harm anyone else."

April O'Neil has posed:
April stands at a point amongst all of them that essentially allows her to easily look from one of them to the other as they speak. Mikey and Donnie are holding her attention prior to Raph's arrival.

She starts to piece together enough details to form an idea. "So... he had a white skull on his chest, didn't he?" She then asks. The van, the guns, the carnage. "You're describing the Punisher. Frank Castle. He's wanted by the... well by the everyone, I think. He's a vigilante who claims to only kill criminals. I get a lot of calls about him on my show, and even more e-mails and tips about him off air."

A heavy sigh then and April shakes her head. "Why would he blow up a Cafe though?" Her thought is interrupted as Raphael appears and she lowers her hands from her hips to smile at him. "Hey there." She says to the brother who generally says the least. "Hows Raph doing?" She asks him.

Michelangelo has posed:
Mikey's attention span can be measured in stomach grumbles. When hes finished the cold pizza slice he was chewing upon, Raph shows up, so all conversations about the Punisher and his general awesomeness as a vigilante represeentation of 80s movie action hero are all but forgotten because there's the smell of piping hot pizza in the air.

Also Raph is back.

"Raph! Buddy! Brother o mine!" Mike spins to a halt after kicking his feet off the table and leans in against the edge to sniff real hard at the fumes coming up from those pair of boxes now laid down infront of him. "Is that..." Drool implied, "Double cheesy, pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and jelly beans?" He tenatively opens the box and shudders like someone in the midst of an orgasm, then grabs up a slice and rolls away from the table with it pedestaled on his three fingered right hand.

Up on his feet, he keeps spinning upon his toes and pirouettes towards the kitchen to grab some hotsauce. "So, this Castler dude, is he a good pun or a bad pun?" Is there such a thing? "Hey, you think we could work with him and maybe talk him into not killing people? He seemed reasonable." Raised voice echoing from the kitchenette. "He just pistol whipped that one guy."

Raphael has posed:
"Raph's doin'," he replies with a smirk. Then his expression goes completely neutral for a second upon hearing the exchange between April and his brothers.

That explosion. He had arrived after the fact in his bike when it was reported on the police band, and he made a hasty retreat due to police presence. But the fact that his brothers had been involved, and...

"The Punisher? You gotta be kiddin' me. You two tackled with *that* lunatic without backup?" He leans on the table, giving Mike and Don and incredulous look. "You guys didn't tell Leo about this, right?" Because if they had, Leo was probably somewhere meditating whatever urge to kill that had arisen from the news, and would promptly return to inflict new training on them to instill discipline, care and whatever other bullet points of the code the siblings had violated this week. Hour. Minute.

Donatello has posed:
     "He pistol whipped him just because he is supposed to give him the address of the next dead drop. Other than that, he would have offed him right then and there." Donnie paperclips that onto Mikey's statement.

  "We gathered intel. I didn't want to get shot and it was in the afternoon, in daylight." Donnie offers to Raphael, his two fingers gesturing gently. "That being said, if it had been night, we could have stopped him. But he's hardly the bad bad guy. Just not a great guy." The smart turtle approaches the offered pizza and grabs a slice, munching on the cheesy goodness.

April O'Neil has posed:
April, while the others talk, takes one of the kitchen table chairs and turns it around, then lowers down to sit upon it and fold her arms across the back of it while she lets her eyes move from one of them to the other, finally settling onto Donnie.

"You and Mikey made the right call." April then says before she looks to Raph. "Something you have to understand about Frank Castle is that he's a war hero. He's a... decorated veteran. But by all rights the war quite literally broke him." She glances down at herself. "He lost his family too... You guys should be careful around him. If he thinks you're..." She shakes her head then.

"You should avoid him, I don't think he's worth any of you getting even slightly hurt. The best thing for Frank Castle would be to turn himself in and get help." The last thing she wants to do is get the Turtles going after a gun toting man who's got no issues with killing in large quantities.

Michelangelo has posed:
The sounds from the kitchen equates to jars being moved around in the fridge and Mikey humming something that sounds horribly like the theme song to Mister Rogers Neighborhood. When he imerges a little while later he's carrying what once was a simple slice of pizza, but is now frankensteinish. Dripping with hotsauce, a whole pickle, and lucky charms, the Orange turtle drops back down on his swivel chair and umph umph umph pushes himself backwards towards the table where everyone is sitting.

"I tried to just help civilians, but they wouldn't let me." They were, in fact, running for their lives. Hot sauce is licked off his finger and he takes a big bite off the side of his cereal, hotsauce, pickle, pizza thing, "They didn't even seem hurt, honestly." There's an important detail in that statement even if Mikey doesn't realize it. "Maybe some emotional damage, I'm sure the cafe served really good coffee and club sandwiches... alas." Another bite.

Raphael has posed:
"So we got a war hero, trauma. Arsenal. We're okay with letting this guy run loose?"

Raphael turns to April, "So, what are the statistics on this guy? How high is that body count?"

the red turtle looks like he was getting ideas. And that was not necessarily a good thing.

April O'Neil has posed:
April just remains seated backward on the chair while she looks to Mikey and his continued eccentric eating habits which still amuse April, even if sometimes she can't watch because his taste in foods is a little too eccentric for her stomach!

Her blue-eyed gaze goes back to Raphael then and she draws in a breath and slowly shakes her head. "No one really knows." She replies about the body count. "I recall an incident where I believe he killed seventeen...? members of an Italian mob family, all at once, all on their home turf." She looks pretty un nerved by this, because well, thats not something to be taken lightly.

"He's the real deal, you guys. Sorta like Batman, but ya know... leaving a clear field of bodies in his wake, rather than seemingly doing everything in his power to keep his enemies alive. He seems to openly relish in the execution of them instead." April's reporting job, and her podcast keep her pretty well informed on topics like this, but even she can't know all the details!

Michelangelo has posed:
"On the one hand, he was kind of dope in how he was just standing there all Dirty Harry, but I don't know that we can let him just go around shooting people." Mikey finishes his slice of pizza and fishes around in the box of goodies he brought from the kitchen earlier looking for a twinkie to wrap another slice around. The same bottle of pepto April brought is pulled out and some poured on a little saucer for which he can dip the twizza, chewing thoughtfully and using it as a pointer between bites as he speaks.

"He sounds like he needs a hug." Some people say this sarcastically, some people are just being mean, Mikey wants to give the Punisher a hug. Swiveling back and forth with his knees against the underside of the table. "What if we like, show him there's a better way to do things? Oh! Like the musical episode of Scrubs!" That literally has nothing to do with anything. "I loved that show.." Another big bite of twizza dipped in pepto.

Raphael has posed:
"Yeah, yer not hugging anyone. You try to be lovey-dovey with this guy, you'll end up hugging a landmine, Mikey."

Raphael paces and looks away from his brother's eating, the gastronomic equivalent of a Bosch painting.

"So he goes after mobsters." He strokes his chin, "The cops must have a thick file on him."

Donatello has posed:
     "Well dammit. I just left a message for his tech guy. I just thought it was some cool guy that was just trying to take down some drug operation or something."

  Donatello places his hands on his head, holding back his now present headache. "And I gave him the IP address to my secured phone! GOD he's gonna try and kill us in our sleep!" Donnie starts pacing around now, his imagination running wild on him at this point.

April O'Neil has posed:
April looks over the three brothers and listens closely to them before she continues. "Do you guys remember that movie you made me watch? The Stallone one where he was a cop in the future? Judge Dreadful, or whatever?" She nods her head lightly and raises her right hand up to swipe some of the dark red hair on the right side of her face back behind her ear there.

"Thats... kinda like this, just without the dumb costume. Castle thinks he's the judge, jury and executioner of all criminals on the street." She looks over to Raph then. "Its not just mobsters, its thieves, its killers, its... men who'd do harm to a woman. You name it."

April then looks to Donnie. "If you got an in with his Tech guy, you're one step closer to tracking him down... or him you guys. I'd. I'd prefer neither happen. Because, well I just wa--"

April cuts herself off as she looks at Mikey. "Are you using Pepto as a dipping sauce?" She asks the turtle in orange then. Showing him a grossed-out expression then and there.

Michelangelo has posed:
"Oh yeah!" Mikey sits bolt up right after finishing up his twizza with a healthy scoop of Pepto and does a rather stereotypical impression of Stallone, "Obey the law?! I AM THE LAW!" Cheesy, literally, grin as he spins in his swivel chair and comes face ala face with brothers and April, "That movie was great. We should watch it later." Priorities.

Donnie's pacing has him getting a little antsy though. Donnie never worries without a reason! So Mikey pops up and follows, trying to appear thoughtful, and broody. "Leo would never let that happen though. He'd come up with a last ditch plan to get us out of the Castler's path of destruction... besides, we're not criminals, we're ninjas." So it's okay if he feels better. He gives himself permission.

April's question solidifies it because his attention span is very small, "You said I should drink it to keep from having a tummy ache... I'm just cutting out the middle man."

Raphael has posed:
"Ya gotta remember who you're talkin' to when you give out advice, Ape. If he had hair, Mikey'd think it'd be a great idea to use the hair dryer in the shower to save up time." Raphael walks over to his two brothers and reaches out to touch Donatello's shoulder.

"Yo, Donnie, simmer down there. You got an in with this guy's techie, right? So. Tell me."

He holds up a finger. "in ENGLISH. What exactly /could/ they find out about us, and how can we keep 'em from doin' that? And what's more, how could we turn that to our advantage?"

Donatello has posed:
     "I left a message for him in the code of the phone. I don't have an in other than that. That phone is not connected to anything in the lair. So, it shouldn't really lead anywhere." Donnie responds, as plainly as he can. Though by now he's no longer pacing around, just standing still and trying not to pace back and fourth.

  "So, the only thing he can find out is that the computer address leads to no specified physical address."

April O'Neil has posed:
April sighs as Raphael has to break down the Logic of the Mikey to her, which makes her nod her head. "You're right, you're right. I should've seen it coming. The rest of you weren't around when I dropped the stuff off." She looks to Mikey and smirks at him. "Don't injest too much of that stuff, it'll CAUSE a stomach ache... Its medicine, Mikey, not a milkshake."

She then sweeps her gaze over to Donnie and softly nods to what he says before she looks between the three of them. "He may not think that you guys are criminals right now, but... look at what you do. You're trained to fight in the shadows, you use the sewers to get around the city at large. You're all fairly intimidating and capable of scaring the average person up there pretty easily." She points up to the city above their heads.

"It wouldn't be a big jump of misplaced logic for this walking guntoting executioner to jump to such a conclusion. So... just be careful." She stands up then and releases an exhale. "And I'll stop... nagging after that last one." She runs both of her hands through hair on either sides of her face then and walks to her jacket to fish her own cell phone out of the pocket of the yellow faux-leather garment.

Michelangelo has posed:
"God, if it was a milkshake it would not be a very good one." Mikey is still pacing, even if his reason for doing so has passed. Seems their is no impending doom from the Castler. "It tastes like chalk, which works with the sweet and salty..." All three fingertips press to his lips to mewah kiss them in a bloom. "Magnificanti."

His big blue eyes dart from April to Raph, from Raph to Donnie, from Donnie to the two boxes of pizza. There's a brief pause and he stroles lazily to the table to grab another slice, "You hear that, Raph? I'm intimidating." While he does stick his tongue out at the Red Turtle, he does not do that while the red turtle is looking at him.

With his slice in hand he drops in his chair and umph umph umph scoots backwards to April, "Sometimes Raph needs nagging. I can see it in his eyes, right now he's thinking he'll go out there and beat the Castler into the ground for betting the criminals into the ground and preventing Raph from beating the criminals into the ground." The pizza dangles over Mikey's open mouth so cheesy dangles down into it like a cave diver!

Raphael has posed:
"Careful Mickey Mouth, I know where you sleep," Raphael says, turning to look at Mike but managing to miss the tongue. "Actually, I was thinkin' we could do this another way." He starts pacing now, gears turning in his head. "Dude's a walkin' arsenal, so going all out ain't smart. What we gotta do is..." he pauses, and then sighs.

"We gotta do what Leo would do- try to find this guy, do surveillance, find out where he parks, where he stays, surprise him in his element for a 'talk' before he can grab for a gun."

And then he turns to look back at Mikey, "And if you *tell* Fearless Leader I said that, Mikey, you ain't makin' it to birthday eighteen, ya hear?"

He waves a finger at the orange turtle, and then to the brainiac brother. "Donnie. Ideas?"

Donatello has posed:
     "I told him it was medicine, but you can't talk to him when he thinks something is tasty." Donnie reports, looking to April and Mikey.

  When he is put directly on the spot, he starts thinking. "Well, we would have to see if I can trace the tech guy. But for all we know, he is remote. And only then, we would know where the tech guy is, not Castle."

April O'Neil has posed:
April is checking her text messages from her phone in her hands while the three of them go over a loose sketch of plans on how to approach the guy she's just told them she didn't want them going anywhere near it... she's used to that though! April does sigh heavily in defeat and she lowers her phone to put it into her hoodie's left pocket.

When Mikey scooches over to her in the chair she just reaches out and puts her hand on top of his head lightly. "You guys just... do as Splinter has taught you. Stick together and use your heads." She pats the top of Mikey's dome after saying that and then lowers her hand back to her side. "If Castle seems too irate and things seem 'off'? Then just get away from him. He needs to be brought in, but... yeah."

With another heavy sigh, April picks up her jacket. "I'm going to start the trek home. I gotta be up early tomorrow to prepare for a podcast in the afternoon." As she puts her leather jacket on she looks around. "You guys make sure to bring Leo in on this and get his feedback on it." She eyes Raph. "And listen to what he says." She smirks to Raph softly and then starts toward the doorway, passing by Donnie to pat him ont he shoulder affectionately too.