Log:Family Ties, Scene 4

Family Ties 2011/05/09 	 Kuroko Lunachica 4

A few nights of masquerading as Luna have failed to produce any results. Tonight's stop is Schiller's a usual haunt for some of the city's lowlifes and ne'er-do-wells, not far from the red light district in Colonial Bay's Upper East Side. After a few hours, it's time to go. It's past midnight, on the street outside the bar. The street is quiet and mostly empty. A homeless man digs through a trash can across the street. A girl in black glides past on a hoverboard.

Kuroko saunters from the bar and slouches over toward the maglev station, keeping a furtive eye on her surrundings, and occasionally touching the left side of her jacket, as if to reassure herself that something is still there.

The girl on the hoverboard flips her hoodie up over her head. She pulls a bottle from her messenger bag and prepares to chuck it at Kuroko.

Kuroko watches the Moon Howler girl on her hoverboard. . o O (Someone's outta her territory.) As the girl pulls out the bottle she watches calmly, but takes her hands out of her jacket pockets.

"Poser!" she says, cranking up the speed on her board. She crouches low for balance and speed. She tries to zip past Kuroko on the street and chuck the bottle at her target.

Kuroko smirks and runs forward, right at the girl. She tries to grab and flip the girl's wrist.

Kuroko sneers, "I'm a poser, am I chica?"

Kuroko snatches the girl and dumps her onto her back in the middle of the street with a thud and a crack. She grunts all the air out of her lungs and rolls onto her side, in obvious pain. Her hoverboard continues to coast down the street until it veers into the side of a parked car. She curses, and starts to moan.

Kuroko steps on the girl's wrist, "Stupid. I coulda just shot ya. What kinda @$!ing loser tries a @$!ing stunt like that. Now you and me get to have a little talk when you could be home letting yer mommy wipe yer @$$."

"Ow... you #$#1151&!" the girl says. "Stop it!"

Kuroko sneers, "Yeah? @$!&ing make me you stupid little piece of @$!&."

The girl sniffs and looks up at Kuroko. Her eyes are starting to tear up a little as she snarls, "You'd better... because the /real/ Luna is gonna kick your ass."

Kuroko smiles, "Oh, is that so?" She reaches down and lifts the girl up by her jacket. "So who's this fake me you think is gonna kick my ass?"

"Why don't you go and see for yourself..." the girl says. "She's in an alley, one block down."

The girl describes the location of the alleyway.

Kuroko snorts and starts walking, dragging the girl with her, "So she's all mean and everything, and she sends a little baby like you to send me a message? I'm insulted." She heads for the alley.

The girl comes along, holding her sides. "I can't wait to see her beat you up," she grumbles.

Kuroko sighs and starts dragging the girl back they way they came, "Let's go get yer damn flyboard first. Things are expensive."

On the way to the alleyway, Kuroko and her prisoner come across another girl in black, with a hover board. She's a lookout, posted in a place where she can see the alleyway and anyone who might approach it. She calls out, "Aroo-aroo!" before hopping her board and getting the heck out of the area.

Kuroko shakes her head and laughs, "You kids really take the wolf thing to silly lengths."

The girl mutters something obscene under her breath, directed at Kuroko.

Kuroko makes it into the alleyway. It's dark and smelly here. Further into the alley, about eight meters away, Lunachica pushes off the wall of an alcove and steps into view. She's a little taller than Kuroko, and that's not counting her hair, which is long and poofed up like an outdated rocker. Her skin is white, so white it practically glows like the satellite she's named for. She's got on a leather jacket over a tank top, bicycle shorts, and combat boots. "So. Here I am."

The girl in Kuroko's tow coughs up, "I'm sorry, Luna."

Kuroko lets the girl go and bows slightly, reverting to her normal appearance, "Indeed you are. I am Kuroko Kurando. Your brother has hired me to locate you and convince you to return to a normal life."

Luna stands pat for now, with her fists at her sides. "Hey, you ok, baby?" she asks of the skatergirl. She skater girl nods yes, even though she's still hunched over a bit from getting slammed out off of her board. Luna nods and says, "Go on. I've got it from here..." Once the girl is gone, Luna returns her attention to Kuroko. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Kuroko shrugs, "Just a private investigator, nothing more or less. I work for Ms. Sylvia Bianchi. If I may ask a question, why did you turn away from your chance to reform yourself?"

Luna relaxes a bit. "I hate it when other people have to pay for my mistakes," she says, nodding in the direction that the skater girl took off it. She takes a moment to look Kuroko over, head to toe. "At first I thought that maybe that worm Machlan hired you. To try and screw up my name or something. You say Tony hired you?" She shakes her head. "Where'd Tony get the scratch to hire a PI?"

Kuroko spreads her hands, "Ms. Sylvia believes in being a responsible member of the community. To that end, we work on a sliding scale. If I recall correctly, I am being given a new suit should I succeed in my task."

Kuroko says, "As for paying for your mistakes. I believe that is what Tony thinks he is doing right now. What could be a greater price than the loss of his sister?"

"Yeah?" Luna says, tilting her head a little to the side. "Well, don't throw out your old suit yet, because I don't think that you're gonna solve this one." She sighs and shrugs and finally uncurls her fingers from fists. "Look, I screwed up. That cop, Machlan, he's got me dead to rights on a parole beef. He says he's going to violate me unless I flip on my old mob connections."

Kuroko hmms, "So Machlan is the problem? I might be able to help with that, in some way, short of actually removing him, of course. What was the nature of your parole violation and what sort of evidence does he have?"

Luna looks skyward for a moment. "One of my old friends got knifed and was in a bad way. I helped him back to a safe house, a place that the crew runs numbers out of. I was there when the police raided the place." She look towards Kuroko. "So now I'm looking at a choice between going back to jail, or turning snitch."

Kuroko hmms, "A difficult quandry. It's not proper betray one's family or one's Family." She thinks for a while, "I think I need to talk to Machlan and see what he thinks he knows. There may be some uncertainy I can exploit. In the meanwhile, I suggest resuming your life as if you had never violated parole, or the violations will pile up beyond what I can patch. Of course, I can can resume your life if you prefer, as you have seen."

Luna says, "Thanks... but no thanks. Machlan's a bastard. If you try to get in his way, you might be next on his list. You don't look like a stranger to the underworld. I wouldn't put it past him to try and dirty you to get his way... I'm not going to say no to free help, but I want you to know what you're getting into. Besides, I've got my own plan to get out of this. Just waiting on something to come through, and when it does, the police won't have me to kick around anymore.

Kuroko smiles thinly, "As you surmise, I am no stranger to law enforcement, though I have no record in this country. I confess that I would find the prospect of distressing a police officer who has more interest in law and glory than justice and redemption to be personally satisfying."

"Yakuza would be my guess..." Luna says with a slight smile. "Alright then, Kuroko Kurado... give it a shot. If it doesn't work, I'm going to go ahead with my thing."

Kuroko smiles a little broader, and nods, "I shall. I gather I can grab one of these stray dogs when I need to have a message delivered? And you of course can have them deliver a message for me at Ms. Bianchi's office. A polite message, I shouldn't have to mention."

Luna nods. "Yeah, the Howlers are running errands for me while I'm going to the mattresses. Machlan must not know that I spent some time with Wolfmother in lockdown. Lazy @^&#-1 ARGUMENT MUST BE INTEGERg pig."

Kuroko nods, "Then I shall see what I can dig up on Detective Machlan. Police officers so often have secrets. It's rather sad."