The Caribbean Shakedown

March 25, 2016:

Jean-Paul and Melody stop a shakedown in the middle of a resort. (NSFW cause someone loses a speedo!)

Azure-II

Characters

NPCs: Hypno Dude whatever

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Azure II is an all-inclusive resort that does not allow photography on the grounds. It's the sequel to Azure, which is another resort in the Caribbean. This is not too far from Florida — just far enough for some laws to be a bit relaxed — and it's the kind of place where people go when they want a discreet vacation with the mistress, or a trip to spice up the love life with the spouse, or just a place where you can walk around not wearing very much and drinking cocktails, if that's your thing.

Really, it's the 'no photos' part that attracts Jean-Paul Beaubier. Via superhuman flight, it's a hop and a jump from New York to Florida, and then it's a quick /real/ flight in a plane to the resort. (He hates crossing national borders via flight, mostly because of the red tape piling up about 'illegal entry' this and 'attempted invasion' that.)

Right now, Jean-Paul is in one of the resort's many pools. He's wearing a black speedo that makes his Olympian body intensely visible, and seems content to be swimming laps — it's during the hours when half the pool is roped off for such a purpose. As he climbs out of the pool, the sun hits him just right, and really, it's fantastic to see, just trust your humble narrator on that. What could go wrong in a place like this?

Absolutely nothing!

Nothing is really going to go wrong, cause once Melody received the brochure in a pile of mail that was slowly building up, she decided to hit the bricks. Hit the bricks as in, ditching her phone and anything else tracable and packing only the bare essentials. Deoderant, sunscreen (cause contrary to popular belief, good black does crack), baby powder, etc. And a bathing suit. You can get a lot done in a bathing suit. Once the natural process was selected (passports in another name) she was off in the air on a first class flight to the Caribbean. And life was slowly starting to look up. Once she touches down she makes the necessary arrangements and found herself at the poolside. Her own little black bikini worn with hair down and looking glamorous. She didn't feel like straightening her hair for this; it was left by the wayside with a straw hat as she sits upon some weird ass layback bench sipping a mojito underneath the shades. -WITH- shades. Can't get cooler than that. Unless you're a fan. Or Ice Cube inside of Ic..

The general populace wasn't much to look at, at least until she sees someone akin to a movie star emerging from the water in his own little black speedo. And holy cow does she stare. Cue tugging the shades down to look and all. Ayup, nothing is going to go wrong here.

If Jean-Paul notices the stare, he doesn't actually show that he notices. He walks like he's the only one on the whole resort grounds, dripping freely like some kind of drip fiend. He walks up to his deck chair, right next to Melody's, and begins to towel himself off. She gets a spare glance, but not the same kind of stare that she gave him.

He does, however, turn slightly, to look off in the distance. "Is that music…?" he murmurs. It does sound like someone's playing a guitar not far off, at one of the other parts of the resort, jamming a funky solo. "I thought this place was better than an Eagles cover band or whatever," he grumps, maybe to Melody, maybe to himself.

So, Melody plays it cool. He was actually heading her way! She even shifted just a little to make herself seem more.. prominent, if that was a better word for it. Back arched slightly, almost like striking a pose but failing miserably because one sip put the mojito down the wrong pipe to the point she's coughing and patting her chest.

"Wha?"

Music? Who cares about music! There was a hot guy RIGHT there! She could reach out and grab something if she wasn't careful but there was the looming fact that she may have a hot guy at home. Stupid.. stupid conscious. There were times when Melody wishes she was a goddamned ho.

"I don't hear anything." Yes she does, she totally lied. "Either way, you expect some place like this to have some half naked dude with a harp between his legs playing angel baby music for whatever rich assholes decide to grace their plastic faces to this place.." She showed her scorn a bit, her hand waving, finishing off the rest of the mojito.

"Jose? Oy! Jose!"

The cabana boy quickly rushes to her side, her own small hand holding up the glass. "Get me like.. four mor.. no, five. Five more mojitos. I want to be face down in the pool by the end of the hour and if that happens you're going to get like.. five hundred bucks. Swear it."

Jean-Paul continues drying himself off. Does he have someone waxing him everywhere south of the neck? (…everywhere?) It's a valid question that might rise in the minds of close observers.

"Ah, so your goal in taking a vacation is not to remember it? I imagine you could have done that from your sofa," Jean-Paul says, lifting a leg up onto his deck chair to dry himself further and accidentally giving the same kind of 'casually prominent' view that Melody nearly choked trying for. "Isn't that the couples area?" he asks, looking back over towards the source of the noise. "Why would someone be playing a guitar solo there?" He frowns. Superhero-sense tingling. But he's trying to ignore it.

As Jose, or Jesus, one would really never know, skitters off.. Melody takes the time to rise from her bench. Yeah, she was looking. Then trying to not look. The whole entire point of being in a relationshit is to be noble, or something. Whatever. Wandering eyes be damned.

"It's cold in New York." Melody states plainly. "Besides, I'd like to think that I'm working on some tan but.. I don't think I can get any redder without looking like I'm a washed out apple."

The hat was soon gripped and tossed onto her chair, the towel that she came with soon tossed upon that hat so that the wind doesn't blow it asunder. But as he looks in that direction, she does as well, her eyes squinting. "Yeah.." She comments idly. She didn't have a superhero sense, or any sense for that matter when she could tell that something was going to go wrong. She was just -her-.

"It could be part of the song. You know, all the couples are dancing to some random 80's power ballad and boom, guy breaks out into a solo which is supposed to make everyone go home to do the do." Not.. that she knows about that. Ask her parents. That's how she got here. "You want to go check it out? Play pretend in a.. hang on."

"Cancel the mojito's Jose! We're going to the party area!" Melody calls out.
"QUE?!"
"I said.. WE'RE GOING TO THE PARTY AREA!"
¿Qué área de la fiesta?"
"The couples area!"
"Quieres que te traiga las bebidas allí?"
"Sweet Jesus.." Melody murmurs quietly. "No! ¡Regreso más tarde!"

Jean-Paul gives Melody kind of a squinty look, like he's trying to read her mind through sheer force of will, which is at least an upgrade from the usual kind of 'trying to tell if you can see a nipple piercing from under a bikini top' stares this kind of resort harbors. This woman is clearly a train wreck, he thinks. And possibly a ho. He cannot register her deep internal struggle.

Still. He does want to see what's going on over there. Well. Jean-Paul doesn't WANT to see what's going on, but old superhero habits die hard, so, well, he'll still go and see.

"Sure," Jean-Paul says, sounding like he's agreeing to drink poison and only maybe half hiding it. "We'll play pretend."

It wasn't like Melody was running the show or anything, but if they were going to play pretend, she might as well at least look like a happy and content rich person who wasn't itching to stick blow up her nose at any given moment. Cocaine was long gone from her system, burned out in Limbo.. or Hell, whatever. But that doesn't mean you can wipe away the traces of addiction, once an addict always an addict. So as soon as Jean-Paul says sure, Melody gets right to work.

Their bikini's (his speedo), were already matching. She just needed to clean herself up. With a gathering of her slightly nappyish hair, which was twisted and tugged to the left and quickly braided with her fingers. Pulled out and twirled around in a sideways bun and a crack and roll of her shoulders.

"I'm Melody." And that was all that she was going to give him, even holding her hand out for a shake even though the census says to 'Do more!'

"I guess we should play to cultural norms and let you lead the way and the show. Mostly because you're hot and taller and I need to look like some adoring side-piece you picked up at the bar or whatever."

"Jean-Paul," the Quebecois mutant replies, with a gentle shake of the hand, like he's going easy on her poor dainty fingers. Chauvinist pig. "Well, that seems like sound reasoning to me," he says, somehow managing to do an eyeroll with only the tone of his voice. "Though your breasts look too real to be one of those types. If they're not, compliments your surgeon."

With that charming witticism, Jean-Paul begins to lead the way, toward the couples' area. Part of the thing there is that they do awful, lame resort games for groups of couples to take part in. This being daytime, those games aren't very inappropriate — YET. Some people are wandering around in their swimsuits, and some people are dressed in vacationwear — shorts, palm tree prints, that nonsense. The guitar seems to be coming from the halfshell usually reserved for concerts by some parrothead cover band for the over-40 crowd. "Hm," Jean-Paul says, in judgment of all of this, as he continues walking toward the amphitheater area.

"Jean-Paul.." Melody murmurs as he.. lightly shakes her hand. That say a lot about the man. Either he thinks he was being gentle or something was wrong with his orientation. Or in Melody's view? Right! So what, she liked them.

Though, she does look down at her breasts, slightly proud of how they're holding up, her hands immediately mashing against them to hoist them up with a roll of her shoulders to preen. "Yeah.. they're real. Though, did you know extensive work-outs help? I mean, never have I ever.."

But with that, they're moving along. Melody hooking herself around his elbow with hers, following him with smiles as she looks on towards the display. It was just out of the brochure, though there were bits of lingering elderly who were giving it the last hurrah by playing gin rummy at their respective tables and gossiping. Like, did you see Francine's cover-up? Who wears flowers these days. Or.. orange is the new red. Everyone is wearing orange now a days and even Francis has taken a shine to that color..

"It all looks normal to me.." Melody comments, as if she could possibly sense that something was off with Jean-Paul. Sense his radar.. but no. "I really don't even know what we're looking for. Were you looking to dance or something?"

One of the cabana boys — well, cabana men, really, look at that muscle definition — gives Jean-Paul a look with a cocked eyebrow, seeing him with this young lady on his arm. He tries to face away from Melody as he gives a look like 'I don't know either.'

And those cabana boy-men gossip. This is just what Jean-Paul needs, he thinks.

"Something seems suspicious." Entering the amphitheater, Jean-Paul's suspicions are confirmed. A group of vacationers are lined up to stand at a table, where they appear to be filling out paperwork. On the stage, a lone figure is jamming on his guitar — a black man in silver lame, whose costume looks straight out of the 1970s.

"Go on, y'all!" the man with the guitar says. "Fill out yo' bank details, yo' social security numbers, yo' passwords, an' sign those forms givin' access to all of them to me — to the HYPNO-HUSTLER! Then go back to y'all's vacations like nothin' ever happened, y'hear!"

"Melody," Jean-Paul says, calmly. "I feel a compulsion to get into that line. And I am fighting it with every inch of strength in my body."

Melody was oblivious of all the gossip. Perhaps it was a good thing really, that stuff was for the boids. (Birds.) But she does follow along, the grip becoming tighter upon Jean-Paul's elbow, the face she makes is indiscernable from constipation to pure confusion. Entering onto the scene has her head tilting back, twisting just a little to the side and a shoulder raised to block one ear from the noise. This was bad.

Bad mostly because the music and the guys voice was horrible and it fucks with her ears so nastily.

"Jean-Paul. Don't do it." As if she were the end all and the be-all of things. This was wrong, it was genius, but it was wrong. She knew that much. And she also knew to trigger the nanites into a memory that included music, though without the video to block her vision, only audio. "I got you, alright?" She tries to tug him back, but he was actually bigger than her, and she wasn't using her full strength. If she did? She probably would throw him through the damned wall, and he was too pretty for that to happen. "Let's go, we gotta get out of here!"

Jean-Paul is making a face like he's trying to flex his way out of chains binding him. His muscles have even gone tight and taught in Melody's grip — he seems pretty strong himself, though not RANT strong. "No," Jean-Paul says through gritted teeth.

"We have to stop this. Let go of my arm, s'il vous plait. I am about to do something dangerous." The way Jean-Paul says it, he's so assured, he means that he's gonna do something crazy — but he's totally in control of it. And he still might do it anyway even if Melody doesn't let go.

"No? You just sa—.." Muscles. Muscles upon muscles. But she still doesn't let go. "Listen. We have to be smart about this. I know that you want to stop it.." And with the volume slightly lowered within her head, her jaw tenses. "We have to stop this."

And they were going to do it half naked and unafraid.

She slowly uncurls her fingers away from his arm as her lacksadasical (cant spell) demeanor falters, her expression blanked and nearly vacant as she cracks her knuckles. It starts with those knuckles, those little cracks within them allowing the lights beneath her skin to glow. But it forms in odd-shapes and runes (fucking Jericho) in that demonic-code she couldn't really speak. Or understand.

If Jean-Paul was going to do something right then, she'd be right behind him. Maybe. MAYBE. Okay she will. Any training is good training.

What Jean-Paul does is, he jumps straight up into the air. And then he doesn't come down! He just keeps going up! Really fast! In fact, so fast that he creates a sonic boom a safe distance above the resort — loud enough to drown out the music and confuse guests, but not so close to earth that anyone's ears will be bleeding.

That sonic boom is followed by a man in a speedo hurtling down from the sky like a bullet, to ram into Hypno Hustler like a freight train.

Wait, no. What happened to the speedo?

Once Jean-Paul jumps into the air? It was time for Melody to get to work.

Thankfully her own soundtrack was playing over that sonic boom, her eardrums were safe for now (though will bleed later). With a twist and a turn upon bare feet she was off, a slight blur left where she stood, clad in a swim suit and all to reach the last line of victims to be coerced into giving up the goods and possibly their ghost. It was slow at first, Melody snatching one of the victims and drawing them back towards the entry of the amphitheater with a shove out the door that may seem harmless. And this mode of 'rescue' continues. While Melody was no speedster, she was fast. Meta-human and training with Deathstroke at least had afforded her with that skill alone.

But on the other hand? Go Northstar Go!

And you dropped your speedo!

Upon being struck by a flying Northstar, the Hypno Hustler is knocked into his own amplifier, and knocked out. His guitar lets out wails of noisy feedback until Jean-Paul calmly walks over and unplugs it.

Then the French-Canadian turns and faces Melody. "See why I wanted you to let go?" A breeze passes, and he looks down. "Ah, hell. Crummy material. Must have burnt off from the speed." He doesn't actually really make a move to cover himself up. If anything, he's proud of what he's got.

Upon getting to the last victim, the feedback and the noise makes her stop cold, her hands upon the old womans shoulders, her gaze falling upon Jean-Paul and the knocked out Hypno Hustler and.. she gawks.

'Sweet baby jesus!' The old woman cries out, Melody's hand reaching up to cover the old womans eyes. "So.. you're sorta like Superman or something." Casual as always, and it wasn't like Melody hasn't seen a naked man before. "Don't answer that, give me a second."

Melody didn't rush the woman out, but she does politely turn her away from Northstar to guide her out of the theater. That doesn't stop the old lady from looking back, giving a wiggle of her fingers towards the man who rescues her, even as Melody slips the coverall from over her shoulders. "Get goin'. Call the police or whatever. I don't know."

It takes a few moments for her to return, the coverall bundled and bunched up and soon tossed towards Northstar, and as she does, she takes a quick hop upon the stage to walk over towards the man, the glow soon fading from her skin as her fingers flex in anticipation.

"You might want to look away. I'm going to snap his neck."

Was she serious?

"You will do no such thing," Jean-Paul says, resting his hands on his hips as if he was fully clothed. "I am not Superman. But I am faster than you. And I will stop you if you try." He sounds awfully firm about that.

"He will be handed over to the authorities and will serve out his time. That decision is final." Look at Jean-Paul, taking the lead in their fake relationship.

Right when Melody kneels upon the ground, her hands reaching for Hypno Hustler, she stops. A serious frown crosses against her lips as she looks up towards the naked man, who.. oh so refused the flowery cover up to mask his naked form. "Well fine."

Her hands clap against her thighs, soon moving to roll the thug over, unlacing his belt from his pants to be used as a tie to keep him still and steady.

"I mean, at least let me damage his vocal chords. Or maybe break his fingers. -Something-." She wasn't going to do it though. He said no, it was a no. She was just bitching.

Jean-Paul thinks for a moment. "Two fingers," he finally says, like a parent doling out a compromise. "And take off his pants. I saw you looking."

Two Fingers it is!

Since the guy was knocked out he wasn't going to feel it. With two crackling snaps, the thumbs were soon disjointed and crooked, checking once more to make sure he was secure, and soon the mans boots were off, pants tugged and pulled from the body which were soon tossed to Jean-Paul.

"So? Next time come better prepared." Yeah, she looked. She wasn't dead!

Jean-Paul tugs the pants on — they don't quite fit right and he's basically wearing silver capri-length yoga pants now, that ride a little too low at the hips. Still, it's better than nothing. "Oui, next time when I come to a vacation resort I will bring my titanium thong to prepare for battle with whatever ridiculous cretin this is. How silly of me to forget. You are lucky I am not also making you tip me for the view."

"Hey, whatever works, Fraggle Rock." Melody winks and snaps her fingers, which were soon formed into a gun and pew-pewed into his direction. With a walk towards the stage and a hop down, she fixes her bikini just right, her hand soon lifted to scratch at her scalp.

"So.. Jean-Paul.."

There was a lingering pause.

"Kinda hungry. I'll buy you dinner or something. You know, as thanks for the view. Or like.. 'yay, I managed to go two weeks without killing people' treat."

Jean-Paul looks at Melody for a long moment, like he's trying to figure out if she's playing some kind of bizarre prank on him. "Fine. Dinner. I am going back to my suite to change, however. I refuse to be seen looking like this more than is strictly, bare minimum necessary."

He turns to start walking away — and Jean-Paul's butt even looks good in those terrible pants. Poor Melody.

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