Difference between revisions of "Log:Nite Brite - Unexpected Visitors"

24 June, 2017

Three unexpected visitors show up on Maddox's boat. Two Summers have an altercation. The boat drifts into dangerous waters. A lighthouse is to be explored.

The door from the junkyard requires visitors to crawl into the back seat of an old VW bug They arrive below deck, in Maddox's chaos that serves as a workshop. There are half-built automatons littering workbenches, as well as a small, equally as chaotic, living area. Beyond that, the stairs up onto deck. No one's currently down below, although the engine churns away, the paddle turning as the boat slowly makes its way along the Hedge river.

That's not the only sound, either. There's the sound of metal banging on metal coming from the deck, as well as a familiar, southern accented baritone that's currently hurling out what is likely stream after stream of profanities.

Maddox is currently up on deck. Or at least half of him is. His legs stick out from under a mechanical contraption of some sort, which likely has some function, although the actual function is hard to discern. The rest of him isn't visible, lost beneath the machine. His feet kick around and he struggles with some bolt or nut. More profanities follow, and then the wreck is flung, skittering out from under the machine.

"God damn fucking piece of shit! Fucking eight tittied goat! Goddamned festering snail slime! Why won't you fucking WORK you piece of motherfucking eat your own asshole piece of shit!" He's apparently been working on it a while, as a few empty beer bottles are strewn across the deck nearby.

Meanwhile, the boat moves slowly onwards, the Hedge slipping past them as it churns its way through the inky, slithering water.

Leo leads them through the Volkswagon portal, stepping out and clearing away clutter with his feet to make a path for the others to walk through on his way over to the stairs. "C'mon he's up here, I can hear him." Leo says, simply. Like the antennaed bug or fox-eared girl somehow wouldn't be able to hear the shouted curses up above.

He mounts the stairs and steps up onto the deck, pursing his lips in amusement when he sees where Maddox is, his stars tinkling pink for a second. "Mads!" he calls out, "We got company! Remember you said they could use the boat?" calling it out at the man on his way over to the wheelhouse, stepping inside and lazing into the chair by the wheel, peering ahead, like he was making sure the course was good. No telling how long Maddox had been upside down there.

AJ is dressed for... well. Something. Not exactly tactical combat, but at least she's not in shorts with her rear hanging out the bottom. That's good, right? Maybe. The Beast arrives dressed in tight black jeans, black boots, and a white-with-black baseball tee. The word 'Filthy' is pulled tightly across her bust. She also has on her backpack, of course. "You sure he's here?" AJ asks, with a roll of her eyes, as she moves along to follow Leo.

Dielle is there. She's wearing hiking boots along with jeans, and a black tee with "Nevertheless She Persisted" written on it in rainbow letters. There's a backpack, a gun, and her hat, too. She looks like a happy yoonicorn. Well, she is. "Hey, guys! How the hell is everyone?"

Rorschach was looking like a wasteland pirate in the coat and that dark bloody mantle of his bathing everything in here in dark red shadows shifting things into a sort of high contract mode. Thank the Dawn for that. His welders goggles were on, gloves, and backpack and twining rig. The man was built to be dumped and forgotten about in a kingdom of twisted rust so really... for once he felt perfectly normal. He commented as much in his amusement to Leo <<This never happens>>. Aj got a hug. Leo got a hug. Dielle already got one.

People. Maddox hears voices. They are familiar voices, but they are voices. People. On his boat. The /Go Away/. Why does no one listen? It's bad enough that hobs terrorize him constantly, like the two currently manning the wheel. That's right. One of them looks kind of like a bear cub, only it's fur is blood red and no matter what it's doing, it looks like it wants to murder somebody. It's currently more or less steering the wheel. The other is a gangely, monkey-ish creature with limbs too thin and too long to be proportionate, and a thick torso, covered in white and gray feathers, with eyes far too large for its feathered face. It seems to be the navigator.

Maddox, hearing the voices, lets out another stream of profanities and pushes himself out from under the machine. He's a mess, with three days of stubble on his jaw, his hair standing up in every direction, greased smudged in it, as well as on his skin, in his clothes. One pant leg is burned away from mid-calf down. Otherwise, it's the usual jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. He's not a fancy man.

He sits up, /glowering/ up at the group of visitors. "Didn't /any/ of you see the fucking 'Do Not Disturb' sign? Fuck, I'm going to rename this piece of shit the 'I Will Fucking Murder You If You Interupt Me'." Still, he doesn't look as if he's going to murder any of them. He just looks grumpy. Still scowling, he pushes himself up and moves towards a strapped down cooler, popping it open and snagging a beer. He twists the cap off and tosses it overboard. It wasn't a twist off, but he doesn't seem to notice.

He looks at Leo, since Leo's the only one who actually knew where the entrance was, "why are people on my goddamned boat?" Then, just because he's still frustrated, he gives the machine a solid kick. Surprisingly, it chugs to life, sending out a billow of black smoke. He glares at it. "Fucking asshole." As if the machine were a person, too.

Leo nods at the small bear-thing driving the boat. "Sup." He says to it before turning to step out of the wheelhouse to address Maddox for everyone else. "Mads." he tries, getting cut off by Maddox's continued rampage.

The machine is kicked and suddenly chugs to life, and Leo uses the pause after the profanity to speak, "Mads, you invited people to use the boat at the Harvestmen meeting. Remember?" He says, crossing over from the wheelhouse toward the machine that's now billowing smoke. "What're you working on?" He asks, suddenly, like he just got distracted from the 'introduce people' task at hand. Or like he's trying to distract Maddox.

AJ just keeps meandering on out, until she catches sight of Maddox. "Hey babe, how you doing?" she asks. Then she pauses, and her eyes go wide. "Ohmygod. Is that an Ewok?! Do you have an Ewok crew?!" she blurts. Then she looks at the other hob. No... not an Ewok. She scrunches her nose, and then turns to step to Maddox's cooler, to grab a beer. Without asking. "Oh, and, try it, whenever you feel up to," she says, with a sweet smile. "Murdering me, that is." And then she turns, to hug-a-bug, and then catches sight of Dielle. "Oh, Dielle, you are like a hundred kinds of beautiful. And I love that shirt. And I swear to god if I ever meet Mitch McConnel in prison I'm punching him directly in the face."

Dielle gets a look on her face that's enthusiasm akin to adoration. "Paul Ryan, too?" she says, eagerly, puppyish. "And Pence, I totally wanna stomp his nuts so that he doesn't have to worry about not being able to see women as anything but sex objects! But Trump...I wanna ignore him and totally blow him off as unimportant, it'd make him have a fuckin' STROKE!" She sounds gleeful about the amounts of violence she wants to do. She grins at Maddox and Leo and says, "Thanks for your hospitality, Maddox! We'll take advantage of it as often as possible, since you were so nice as to offer it! Bless your heart!"

Rorschach signed to Maddox, giving him the recurring day pledge so they can actually sort of communicate if his focus lasted that long. <<For one, I'm an invasive species. For two we're going scrapping, you're driving because you are the most qualified and said so. >> He eyes Dielle and AJ going on about world politics, blinked, and looked back to Maddox <<Apparently I was downgraded from 'most invasive' status. What ARE you working on?>> The chaos he could navigate. It's when things were too put away things got weird to find. It wasn't natural, also bugs didn't care.

Maddox scowls at Leo, as it's obviously Leo who brought the visitors to his Hollow. Then again, Leo does make a good point. He /did/ say that. He scowls even further, then runs a grease stained hand through grease stained hair. Electricity crackles around him, as well as that blast of heat, slightly modified by the Dawns. Less exhaust, more heated pavement. Even a little freshly cut crass. What the hell?

He grunts at Leo, "Oh, right, whatever. You should have fucking /warned/ me, though. Fuck, I could have been int he middle of a goddamned battle or some shit." His mechanical-electric gaze darts around, reassuring himself that they're not.

He rolls his eyes at AJ, but when she approaches and just /takes/ a beer, the twitches. His beer is sacred. He would have tossed some over. But to just touch his beer? Leo sees what's coming and does what he can to jump forward. Maddox is like lightning, though. He free h and cocks back and, with zero hesitation, he swings. It turns out the fox is, well, wily as a fox. Not only does she deflect the hit, which is a powerful one, but it sets him off balance. He stumbles back, over the cooler, and lands on his rump. This pisses him off even more. He turns his electrified gaze on her.

"Get the fuck off my goddamned boat! You don't just steal a man's fucking beer! Get off! Get off! Get off!" He's pushing himself to his feet. Ah, Summers. So much for hospitality. "I was going to fucking give you one!" Electricity crackles further. He might attack again. Yet... there's Leo at his side, and Leo really does put up with so much. And there's Ror there, too, who's accepted him, on a probationary basis at least, into the squad. And Dielle, who speaks his language.

He struggles, but he gets himself under control. He glares at AJ. "You fucking do that again, I won't goddamned miss." The electricity sizzles down, but only a little. "Fucking ask." At this point, even the hobs have come to look and watch. Meaning the boat is actually not being steered by anyone or anything. It starts to veer a little, although there are no immediate dangers. Yet. There are, however, some ominous shadows up ahead.

Leo shows up at Maddox' side right as he tumbles back down, stepping in right as Maddox rights himself, a hand suddenly on the man's arm, gripping lightly now that it's obvious no second attack will be forthcoming. "Mads!" He exclaims, surprised and a tiny bit angry, his stars hopping up a quarter inch suddenly and flaring with purple, blue, and red as he says the man's name before they flicker back to their original position, staying dimly purple, blue, and red over the yellow.

Leo picks up on the veering after a moment and his attention shoots to the hobs, "One of you go drive!" shouting it suddenly without shifting from Maddox' side, his arm still holding onto the Levinquick's. Leo's trying to stay on top of things. Who knows what those hobs do though.

"Totally, Paul Ryan. At least Mike Pence looks like the sack of shit he is. I thiii-EE!" And AJ lets out a rather undignified squeal. Exactly what one might expect from a fox. On instinct alone, a hand fires up, to deflect that blow, and then she pivots, letting the man's momentum carrying him forward. And maybe giving a little shove as he goes. And then, by the time he looks back, well. AJ looks... foggy? Not quite solid? Definitely something strange, there! "Sorry sorry sorry!" she squeaks out, as quick as she can. She waits for a moment, and then, when it doesn't look like Maddox is going to take another swing, her form solidifies. She quickly reaches back out, to put the beer back in the cooler. Then, hands up, she's backing away from the mad elemental. "I will ask! Promise!" she says, wide eyed. Frightened. And maybe a little more feral for it all.

Dielle is in the middle of this perfectly lovely political discussion and suddenly, there is APESHITNESS and insubstantiality and putting back of beer. "Holy FUCK," she says. "Maddox, for fuck's sake, remind me to bring you a six-pack so you could try for five seconds to be generous with your damn beer. What kind do you like? Sam Adams? Rolling Rock? If you say Bud Light, I will fucking nutpunch you, swear to God!"

Rorschach reached out with a hand to Dielle and held it out either to keep her from leaping in or from things flying at her. It wasn't much different were he a parent stopping a car suddenly. The Roach first surveyed that Mads and AJ hashed out the shit. Okay, good. First thing was first he signed <<It's not got to do with generous. It's got to do with the primal rules of hospitality. Maddox, she's sorry. Your boat will be respected.>> The shadows thickened around him and calmly, VERY calmly the Roach looked at everyone present, and there was no anger and no accusation. He was just psychotic and sometimes that and the calm were enough to just seize the floor to speak and get a message across. he was a bug of action in that sense. <<We are strong personalities, and all very different. We will need to learn to ask, trust, and forgive and that... will be earned over time. Today is a mission to improve communication though, and that is perhaps a good sign. We will learn. If there are grievances... come to me. We're not goblins.>>

Thing seem to calm down a little. Leo takes Maddox's arm, and that touch is enough to keep him from lashing out again. Especially combined with AJ moving to put that beer back. And who the fuck is Paul Ryan? He ignore that shit, not relevant. He does reach out, attempting to snag AJ's wrist before she puts that beer back, just lightly. He looks at her with piston-pumping, electrically infused eyes. He growls in that southern drawl, "Don't. You fucking earned it, ok? You knocked me off my goddamned feet. Not many fucking people can do that."

Yeah, he didn't like it - he was pissed - but now that he's calmed down a bit, he can show some appreciation. He lets go of her hand, assuming she keeps the beer, and then starts pulling out others, offering them to Leo, Dielle, and Ror. By offering, it means he tosses them towards their intended drinkers, without really paying attention if they're paying attention.

His attention is focused on AJ. "That was pretty fucking slick." When Dielle speaks, he glances at her and snorts, "Come on." The bottles are actually unlabelled. It's the Hedge. Should one be opened, it smells of hops and honeysuckle, and isn't too bad. Not too sweet, yet somehow whimsical. Is 'whimsical' a flavor? With this beer it is.

He shifts his gaze to Ror and grunts. "Yeah, yeah, it's fucking cool." He seems to have moved beyond it already. Summers. Hell, this is the /best/ way to introduce yourself. They've both realized how formidable the other is, and thus what to except at their back.

"So, Why the fuck are we..." The hobs did make it back into the wheelhouse. Maddox has himself some fans, but they're still just hobs. Mad has an alarm set for when the wheel veers too much, and this is when it starts going off. It beeps out 'twinkle twinkle little star' at eardrum bursting levels. Mad grumbles, "Fuck, gotta fix that. Slips ahead!" He heads towards the wheelhouse, motioning for the rest of them to follow.

Paul Ryan drinks Bud Light, that's who Paul Ryan is.

There's a slow puff of breath as Maddox calms down and things start to move toward a more normal direction. Then suddenly Rors is doing his thing and his eyes shift over to watch, blinking a few times. He just sort of doesn't say anything for a minute, letting everyone else hash it out, his constellation still a bit red and purple, the blue mostly faded.

Then the alarm goes off, and he turns suddenly, straightening up and heading off toward the wheelhouse alongside Maddox. "We need to change that Mads. Remember when -all- of our alarms were like that because we got that shipment of music boxes from the dump and they were all Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, when we were first setting up the Go Away? And we never knew what was breaking, we'd just have like dozens of refrains of this song going off all the time?" He asks, suddenly rapid fire speaking. Because Leo kinda hates this song.

Wrist grabbed, AJ's eyes go wide, then narrow. Skittish fox, yes. Submissive fox, no. But then the man tells her to keep the beer, and her brows lift. Rather emotive, this one! "Uh-... Thanks!" AJ decides on. She takes her hand back, and her beer, soon as it's released. One claw comes out and she scraps the cap off, and then flicks it into the river, just as he did. She might have more to say, but then there's an 'alarm' (?) blaring, and she just looks confused, and startled. But the two men seem to have it under control. Or something like it. So AJ just slinks over to Dielle, and then stands close enough to bump her shoulder against the other woman. Hiding? Never! But she's definitely learned a thing or two about the rules of life on the river.

Dielle shoulder-bumps AJ back. Sisterhood is a thing, ESPECIALLY in this shirt. She whispers, "I'll save my beer for you." She raises an eyebrow and says, "I think this might be marginally better than "Let It Go." I mean, alarms could always be worse, right?" She grins at the guys and nods at Rorschach, whispering, "Not gonna try to nutpunch a man on his own boat. Well, not unless he drinks Bud Light. Person's gotta have standards!"

Rorschach patted Dielle on the arm and looked over she and AJ. Both good. At the song though he immediately started to look around and maaaan those antennae stretched out waving in slightly different direction looking to 'pick up signal' as it were. He slapped his own chest and pointed up giving Leo, who was closer a tilt of his head offering to head up to go look for the source.

Maddox does seem to calm once Leon is there, murmuring things he's likely said again, and again, and again. Mad knows Leo, and seems to trust him. More than that, his anger seems to fade. At least until that alarm goes off, and then he's tensing again. He growls to Leo, "I'm /still/ fucking /sure/ you requested that shit." Stars. "Just to fuck with me." Still, he's breaking away, heading quickly towards the wheelhouse. Beer still in hand.

He pushes the hobs out of the way and grabs the wheel, jerking it to the left. And the boat isn't a quick boat. It's a river paddle boat. They don't move fast. Yet he knows just how to tilt that wheel, just how much momentum he has, and how much he needs. The man knows boats. Rivers. He'd be lost out at see, but a river, he's got it.

The boat, slow, it's so slow, shifts, turning, and Mad manages to call them. They don't crash into anything. They don't even scrape anything. By the end up of it, the feathered hob is on his shoulder. He knocks it off, grumbling, "Just fucking go away, already, shit." Yet there's an odd, antagonistic fondness for them all the same.

Mad points up ahead. There's the shadow of a dock in the distance. He drawls in his growling voice, looking back at the others, "I should fuel up and shit."

Leo nods at Maddox as they head to the wheelhouse. He lets Maddox take the wheel and reaches up to make sure the alarm stops. "Maddox. How would I have made a factory that makes music boxes dump all of their Twinkle Twinkle Little Star music boxes and throw them away at the dump -you- were showing me for the first time? Your theory has never made sense. Also I hate that song." He says, not grumpily, just sort of informing him. Then he looks over to the others, popping his beer and starts to walk out along the deck a bit, rolling with the shift of the boat smoothly, like he's been out here a lot. "We could see what we could salvage around here, while we're stopped? Probably take you a minute to figure out where fuel is anyway, and we could get some stuff?" glancing to Rors, then Maddox, then AJ, then Dielle to check opinions.

AJ is pretty soon leaning on Dielle... with the express purpose of putting one ear to the woman's shoulder, while she covers the other. Because she only has one hand, on account of holding that beer. "I'll bring beer next time!" she says, over the alarm. Then it turns off, and she sighs out relief, and stands straight once more. "Yeah, um, I'm just... here for the rid. Never... did much stuff... you know. On this side. So... learning."

Dielle says, quietly, "I've done some. Not enough. Doing more, though!" She has no problems with being leaned on. Must be a Beast thing. She stands up straighter, though, glances around, then says, "Let's go get some stuff. What are we looking for, anyway? Just stuff for drones and things? Or any old thing we can scrounge up?"

Rorschach seemed to grasp what was going on, however there was the unaccounted for factor. Chester. Rorschach's red cricket the size of a walnut and shiny and red (which was good as it was the only colour that survived around him), was still in his pocket. When the music boxes started to wind down there was a resurgence of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the style of an enchanting 4 piece string quartet. The Roachman's antennae bent low and his head rolled back in a tired sigh and for Maddox's sake buttoned his pocket shut to try to muffle it. He signed to them shouldering the backpack and setting his empty bottle in a place more useful to be repurposed for another task. <<Look let's just pop out now because if we stay here Chester will never shut the fuck up. Let's go see what we find. We need construction materials, anything that might be passable for a current, and ya know, and thing chammerd or organic built for similar use.>>

Maddox just shrugs at Leo's question. It's a good question, really. He grunts, "I needed a fucking tune, ok? It was part of the fucking deal. You just happened to /provide/ one. Think, next time, before sharing your goddamned music." or clicking on the wrong link, or being victim of the wrong person passing by at the wrong time, whatever the case. The tragedy happened, and now they're stuck with it.

Thankfully, The alarm shuts off once Maddox pushes the hobs away and takes the wheel. The churn through the Slips, rocks jutting up, close enough to reach out and touch from the railing. There's a brush of metal on stone, but it's a whisper. A degree off, it could have been hull damage. Yet, Mad doesn't look particularly concerned. Hell, he still holds a beer in one hand as he navigates, and makes the time to take a swig from it.

Once through the trouble area, he glances back at the rest of them. To Leo, he says, "Your fucking fault." His electric gaze shifts to AJ. "IPA. And you're about to fucking learn, ain't you?" Then, to Dielle. He doesn't say anything, he just looks at her, but there's understanding in that gaze, even respect. Yeah, he likes the murdercorn.

He looks towards Ror, then, focusing on that cricket as it picks up the tune. He snorts, "Good. You won't fucking forget it." With that, he's concentrating on pulling the boat, which moves slowly, towards the dock of a shabby looking... well, there's a dock, a ramshackle boathouse, and an ominous looking 'lighthouse' a ways up, which looks largely covered in vines. He pulls up to the dock, growling, "Hobs will refuel and shit. I been wanting to check out that goddamned lighthouse for a bit. What you say?" r things"

"I know it is." Leo says to Maddox, offering a mild shake of his head. Then the cricket starts, and he turns to look over at Rorschach's pocket, a vein suddenly appearing in his forehead all of a sudden, until the pocket is closed. He puffs out a small breath and starts towards the dock once they've berthed. The vein is gone all of a sudden as he hops off the boat and glances around, stretching his back out. "Ok. So. Lighthouse." He says with a purse of his lips, the first to just up and leave the boat.

AJ flashes a smile to Dielle, then nods a few times. Agreement in that sentiment, in doing more. Then she stands up straighter. And then the music starts again. AJ's eyes shoot to Rorschach, and then she starts into giggle fits. It takes a minute before she's back to composed. Deep breath in, deep breath out! "Conductive stuff, got it," she echoes Rorschach, with a little nod. Shiny stuff, she hears, even if that's not right. Before she goes anywhere, though, the boat needs to dock. And coming into the dock, as it gets so close to the rocks, she lets out a near silent hiss. Yeah, she's worried what happens to the angry man when he messes up his own boat. But, all seems well, so AJ relaxes. Then looks up, off at the lighthouse. "Spooky. I'm down."

Dielle grins back, winces as Chester starts up and puts the beer in her backpack. She puts the backpack back on and says, "Ready when y'all are." She straightens her shoulders, then her back, and looks around. Then she follows Leo.

Rorschach nodded as Maddox gave a rundown of what was happening with the boat. He hopped up on the edge of the boat but not off yet noticing the water getting darker. Soooo many things down there. He could survive anything, but drowning was an entirely different thing. He turned to his team and waited to catch their attention with a glance. y anyway"

To be continued...