1965-01-22 - Big Trouble at a Sketchy Motel
Summary: The X-ternals get done running from some anti-mutant protesters to run into some big trouble at a little motel.
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
jp severin elmo 


SETTING: It's a sketcy motel, you know the type - a little two-story L-shaped deal with all the doors facing out onto the front with a set of concrete steps leading up from the parking lot to the second floor rooms. Some of the windows are broken and patched up. The paint is peeling here and there. The colors are aquamarine and a drab olive that blends nicely with the vague greenish moss that grows in the cracks of the building, making it look like the place had been dipped in algae.
The rooms themselves are no better, with questionable carpeting, inconsistent plumbing and electricity, and beds that have definitely seen better days. The furniture is all the same, dated, and well-worn with the edges rubbed round from use and strange dents and dings all over the place. It's cheap though, and mostly warm in the winter.


It's been a long night. The boys had been out making some trouble for some anti-mutant protesters, giving them the run around through the city, stealing their signs, leading them on a merry chase, and eventually ditching them. They'd collapsed in the less than appetizing motel room to ditch both the cops and the protesters that were milling around outside, catching their breaths and perhaps catching a few winks of sleep. Maybe. But that was not to be. For long after the cops and the protesters have gone, there starts up a ruckus that is way louder than can easily be ignored. There's shouting, both male and female, and the sound of what might be somet glass breaking a couple of rooms down? The room next door? It's hard to tell.


JP is such a glorious trainwreck of questionable life choices and too much excitement. He'd elected to forgo a shower making it bad to this 'palatial suite' when the water ran on way: cold and orange with rest. Yup. Pass on that until that gets sorted. How JP ever sold this glamourous lifestyle to Elmo to buy into was something in and of itself a mutant power. But they did good for the community by rebellion and force and tomorrow there would be more. For now he was mostly passed out face down in boxers and a t-shirt with his jeans and boots in a puddle of fabric on the floor, and his jacket slumped in a chair. The pillow pulled over his head was not helping. A hand reached out and swatted for something, anything nearby to help. He groaned "Why didn't I hit up one of the cars t'beep at em when we came in?" Beeeecause JP you had to spent that ability on the door lock to get it to open. Oh yeah. Merde.


Elmo had some serious Opinions to bestow upon JP about JP's raccoon lifestyle. Like, JP /lives/ here? Does someone /pay/ him to live here? He doesn't actually give someone money for this. That would be way more of a crime than anything they did today (which was for a good cause so kind of doesn't count). He tried to dissuade JP from laying on the actual floor, because that can't be sanitary. He's slumped at the tiny almost-cardboard table, yawning—but the commotion makes him prick up his ears, involuntarily, it's impossible to ignore. "Ah, I hope yer teeth fall out and hair grows there instead," he grumbles at the source of the noise.


Oh it's entirely unlikely that either JP or Severin actually paid for the room, with their money or even someone else's. Severin lies butter-side-down not far from his brother, sprawled in the opposite direction. He grabs a pillow and flings it at the wall where it *plumphs* ineffectually and then falls onto his head. "Ungh." That's the most coherent anyone is getting out of Severin at the moment, though he gives a snarl that sounds like he might bite someone.

Outside, the noise continues and there's the sound of booted feet outside their own room, and a pounding at the door *BANG BANG BANG* "HEY! Come on out of there!" The voice is male and sounds like gravel in a blender. *BANG BANG BANG* the banging on the door rattles the room that already seems to be of questionable structural integrity. Further away, the sound of crashing and shouting continues.


JP mutterd tiredly "I swear to Christ if they keep bangin, I don' care I'm a go ahead and airhole someone." It was really 50/50 if he even meant it. Withthe lady's voice cutting through the wall he pushed himself to a sit and slid his feet into his boots. Didn't lace em. Didn't bother. That little pig sticker of a knife went with him though. He was tired and annoyed. The heel of his hand *THUMP*THUMP*THUMPED* against the wall loudly. His forehead thunked on the worn, discoloured wallpaper that was peeling and he yelled back, "Hey you wanna shut it? Fuckin fuck quieter if yous gotta." This was his one attempt here oto make peace. ince he was standing he kicked up the thrown pillow and threw it back down at the back of Sev's head. "Dropped that." He offered to Elmoe, "Tol' you you get a pool that fills up when it rains and free entertainment."


Elmo jumps like a startled cat, bristling like one too. Getting up, tense and nervy, he goes to the door and yells, "Whaddaya want?" without opening it. He also gets out his short-handled screwdriver, ready to jab a jerk.


|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 3


|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 1


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 18


Several things happen at once, and our whole scene slows down to one of those parts in the movie where you get a spin-around view so that you can see from all angles just what is about to happen.

Outside the door, one very large thug with a nail bat rears back, boot raised to kick in the door. He's about 6'8" and built of brick and resentment.

In the room next to theirs, his buddies are in the middle of beating the shit out of a guy while the hooker he'd been banging is huddling behind the bathroom door hoping that they'll get done with him and leave her alone.

Which returns us to our fine heroes. JP pounds his forehead against the wall while Elmo shouts at the door. Severin, still laying face-down on the bed, gets a pillow dropped on his noggin.

It's about that time that several things happen simultaneously.

First, one of the guys on the other side of the wall pulls out a gun and shoots. Now, it's fortunate that he's not a mutant and does not have X-ray vision, or he might have nailed JP square in the head, and that would have cut our story very short. Instead, he clips him in the shoulder, but that hurts like a sonofabitch, and their room is now up one peephole.

The thug behind the door rears back and slams his boot into the door which comes crashing into the room and into Elmo, knocking him backwards and onto the floor just as a snarling thug comes charging into the room.

Where'd Severin go? Suddenly he's not on the bed anymore, having disappeared from view. Did he run?


JP wobbeld his head, irritated, but for all intents and purposed he was relaly a pretty reasonable asshole. As far as assholes went. His hand *THUNK THUNK* And that's when the gun went off, through those paper thin walls. Really the Mechanic was lucky it missed both his head and his hand. The shoulder at least had a bit more meat on it, but also a lot more meat to heal. It peeled him back from the wall as striiped the sleeve of his shirt. "MERDE!" He let the momentum carry him back away from that wall incase follow up shots 2-3-4 and possibly 5 came to join them. All his intincts saidjust fall, get lo and do it fast..

It also figures that JP had control of the door or things he does. You know what what doesn't matter? Controlling the lock of a door that implodes. Something about being able to go fwip-fwoop with a lock and hold it shut while it is completely detached from the door jamb and was laying on ELmo instead. It feels a tad superfulous. He tried. Still he heard only one shot and that hit him. Good. That meant they were alright. It was about to get ugly. For now he was just trying to clear his vision and the ringing in his ears.


Elmo has the wind knocked right out of him and is left gasping on the floor. Under what remains of the flimsy door. It's splintery. He'd be cussing the guy out in Yiddish if he had any breath, but he doesn't. Instead he lashes out a hand and lightning arcs with a deafeningly loud crack and a searing smell of burned mildewy carpet.


|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 12


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 2


|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 3


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 12


While JP is reeling from the gunshot, shots two and three come thrugh the wall, but do very little other than open up more of the wall in an attempt to create a poor impression of swiss cheese. It's not a bad start, though. Neither shot hits.

The big guy brings up his nail-bat as though he were about to squash Elmo flat with it when suddenly there's that deafeningly loud crack and the smell of sizzling hair and the big guy stumbles backward a bit, nearly dropping the nail bat behind him.

Then there's a roar, not like, the roar of an engine, the roar of a dryer, no, this is the roar of a wild animal, a very large cat with very large teeth. Are there mountain lions in the city? Because there is now. Who keeps one in their room? Seriously? All claws and teeth, the big cat takes the opportunity afforded by Elmo's stunning the guy to plow into him and knock him back out of the room. It doesn't put him down for the count, but he does go stumbling back into the railing outside.


JP fucking keeps a goddamned mountain lion in his room whenever the fuck possible! Because assholes! Gah! He could smell that smell, well…outside of the mildew, but that gunsmoke. His head fressed to teh irty floor. Yup. laying low, great plan. Still there was that unmistakable smell of ozone that let him know ELmo was okay and pissed as hell. Severin? OoooowhEE!! that boy withthe bat was about to find out how VERY bad it was to wake his lil brother up on teh wrong side of the damn bed. He cleared his head and *fzzt* pout popped the switchblade as he wince,-crawled towards the foot of the bed towards Elmo and the very ajar door with the angry mauling mountain lion in it.


Elmo wants to laugh wildly as enormous angry guy takes a Severin to the face, but he's still wheezing. He's about to get up, then realizes JP's probably on the ground for a reason. Oh right—gunshots. Oh hey, JP's bleeding. He grabs the cord of the little lamp, yanks it down to himself, unscrews the lightbulb. Without ceremony he jabs his thumb into the bare socket. Fzzzzt! Sparks fly and the lights dim. And then he lets the shooter have it. CRACK!


|ROLL| Elmo +rolls 1d20 for: 6


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 13


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 6


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 7


JP manages to get up to his feet with his switchblade out without too much trouble. There's no one really stopping him at the moment. There's another loud *CRACK* as Elmo shoots lightning from his fingers wildly at the wall. Some goes through, and there's the sound of a shout from the other room, and then there are two more gunshots through the wall. One of them comes very close to Elmo's head, but misses.

Meanwhile, the big thug suddenly comes face to face with a mountain lion and there's a face off on the balcony of man vs beast as he thinks about swinging that nail-bat at the cat, and the cat growls menacingly, considering pushing him over the balcony. There's a sudden clash of bat and fur and snarling and biting and clawing and both cat and dude go tumbling over the railing and disappear from sight.


JP ran and risked getting zapped as he had on rubber souled shoes. It… made sense in the adreneline haze. There was what was undisputedly Creole slang for 'mother fucker' or some epiteth alike. and ducked his head to the side using the broad side of his body as cover to drag Elmo from the room. runningrunningrunningrunning! What he saw the man withthe bat there was no game left in his face and called out over the edge, "Rhinoceros!" Was he yelling something about… a rhino? He tried to stay low but for now tried to go for the neighbouring door. Damn, it was open! It didn't stop him from trying to go for it to make it swing closed.


Elmo, unwisely, doesn't want to run. He wants to stay here and ruin somebody's day. Several somebodys. But JP, by far more sensible, drags him away. He stumbles but he's light, it's not a problem for adrenalized JP!


|ROLL| Severin +rolls 1d20 for: 16


|ROLL| JP +rolls 1d20 for: 2


It doesn't take long for JP to get around the corner to the other room and try to close it. He's met face to face with the gunman inside who can see him run by the window. As he reaches INTO the room to close the door, the gunman takes another shot at him, this one hits him in the chest. This is NOT good. JP crumples like a man who just got shot in the chest, and the guy inside pauses to reload, which may be their only saving grace at this particular point in time.

The sounds from the parkinglot involve a lot of movement and screaming, but little else. There's no telling what's going on down there but it sounds ugly. Very ugly.


JP was not liking these assholes with guns. He liked that there was a woman scared shitless in that room les. And Least of all he absolutely didn't care for his brother going over no railing. Now, where his brother was concerned? It was jsut as likely that he turned into a squirrel taht wound bounce like they do, or a bird…or a fucking Rhino and crush the guy. Severin in flight was secondary on his list of concerns bnut he was on there. Getting he and Elmo out of the firing range? Well that was something else. THe idea was get to teh door and command the door to lock them in. The problem was there was a door open and when he rounded the doorway to slid past and snap it shut? Asshole number two was facing that way and let the rounds go foff. THere was, undoubetedly, a very appropriate look of surprise on Jena-Pierre's face. Well there was right before his body lurched and he fell straight down ot hte concrete walkway like a sack of laundry.


Elmo yells "JP!" and grapples with the falling body of his friend. He looks up at the shooter, eyes wide in panic, and this time the lightning doesn't arc for the man. It goes for the nearest light source. POP!


*POP!* Suddenly all the lights go out. In Elmo's panic he blacks out the room, the safety lights, the lights on the walkways, the lights in the rooms below, even the street lamp and the MOTEL sign on the roof. There's a shower of sparks and suddenly everyone is plunged into darkness. The shooter takes another couple of shots but he has no night vision now that all the lights are out and his shots hit the glass window and the wall but neither JP nor Elmo.

The woman in the bathroom takes that moment to run like hell out of the room, nearly plowing Elmo and JP down in the process as Elmo manages to help drag JP out of the doorway and line of fire. It's about then when a very large mountain lion comes running back up the stairs toward them. Cats see just fine in the dark. Elmo can hear Sev's voice in his head, "Put him on my back.. let's go. Cops'll be here soon. We gotta git. Now."


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