(IT-WotS) All in the Game

[Star]

splooorrrrrssssssh

"Hey, toilet works!"

It's legit excitement. Remember, the first thing you do in a fleabag? Check the toilet. Then the...

pssssshhhhhhhhhh

...sink.

"Sink, too!"

Nobody's kidding. It's no joke when you find these things out The Hard Way. The Hard Way is a three day stake-out in Baltimore. Don't ask. This place isn't a big deal. Or the people out there. It's not the first time, and there's been worse. Been better, too. The Guardian's done up in a navy blue hoodie who's original ownership is questionable at this point. A backpack's been tossed on the bed, and now long fingers contest nylon for it's contents.

A pair of small work head lamps are produced.

"Ummm, like, I only have two. We should probably, you know. Not turn on the lights. But I can, ummmmm, do that thing?" Fingers waggled. By now? Caballeros know what that means. Magic, yo. "Unless, like, I dunno."

"Will the Gate glow?"

[Avis]

Three people in hoodies. Except one also threw a leather jacket over it. One with a few too many studs, but, still, it did what a jacket was supposed to do. Plus, it had been thrift store expensive. If she had to toss it later so be it. It wouldn't be the first thing she'd had to give up after a cabal foray. The loss of the van still stung like a cut on the fingertip, but finding some information in the GLO house would definitely go a long way to putting a salve over that sting. And, just in case it wasn't a salve she was finding but instead another cut, that was what the motel room was for. Winks from creepers aside.

"No, the portal won't glow," Avis replied. "now help me move this bed. We're gonna want like six feet of exit space in case we go through the portal at a run. Also, if y'all could spend a few seconds talking loudly about unrelated stuff that'd be great. Gotta cast."

And she wanted it to be strong. After the bed was moved, the Warlock's eyes cast about the room, her Will spinning phantasmal ties between herself and the space she stood in. The words of Atlantis fell off her tongue, focusing the image of thuamium threads pooling out from below her sternum and connecting to the room. The imago caught, and the new thread pulled taught.

"Alright," Avis interrupted, waving to her cabalmates. "We're good to go. If we need a quick exit we'll just be hopping into here."

  7 successes, hello intimate connection.

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2016-01-10 00:14:05		Avis rolls 10 to New Threads (gnso3+space5+HS2) (10 Again)		9, 9, 3, 8, 9, 10, 3, 10, 3, 10, 2, 5, 4		7 successes

Avis casts New Threads to give her an intimate connection to the motel room. Or, at least to the wall the Portal would open on.

[Star]

Oh, that's low.

If you're gonna pick the topic, at least leave the Easy side. Fine, whatever. File this under Challenge Accepted. Kind of like moving a big bed challenge accepted. At least it wasn't a massaging bed. You know, the ones that shake like a twenty year old Chevy that's never seen an oil change. They're heavy. Super heavy. Even when they aren't bolted down.

"Dude. You're wack. Die Harder is legit, and Vengeance is what, basically a remake of the original? Riding on Rickman's coattails? Oh, look, it's Another Gruber. Except this one isn't as cool, so make him a Billy Badass. I mean, seriously? Been there, done that. No. What you gotta realize, is that Die Harder is a commitment. It establishes the franchise. It proves that the Die Hard wasn't a one off, and that Willis can be a legit action hero. Because, look, I don't know if you remember this, but who was Bruce Willis? Really? Back then. I'll tell you who. He was that guy on that show 'Moonlighting' with Cybill Shepherd. Like, nobody, bro. You can't just look at Die Harder as an installment, because it wasn't. It was a sequel, THE sequel. Two of Two. Not Two of, what, five now? Six? Two of Two."

Yeah, that's solid. Flip the script on Cowboy.

"I'm gonna break it down for you. All the way down. Put it into perspective. And here's how. Answer this. Errr, these." A hand waved like an eraser on a chalkboard. "Let's say Die Harder never gets made. So. Not only is the whole Die Hard franchise gone, but. But. Who is Bruce Willis? Huh? Who? He's nobody. Some dude that was in a crappy TV show and made some movie that no one remembers. Where something blew up."

Whoah. Maybe there's some Truth to all that.

"Oh. Hey. You done?"

Because Avis.

[Avis]

"Um, yeah, I just said I was done," Avis replied. "So go, mush, I'll lock the door. And Die Hard fucking sucks, by the way. The last one just obliterated everything good about the saga. I couldn't even get through the preview. 'Cause, like, in Die Hard 4 Mclane's daughter has to be goddamn hostage bait. But his son, whoah, slow down, he's a CIA badass. Like fucking seriously? The daughter gets to cry while tied to a chair but the son, no, he gets to also be a badass like Daddy? It's such shit," Avis groused as they left the room, the Warlock stopping to check that the door was locked before she followed them out to the car.

[Star]

"Oh, well, you need to see The Last Boy Scout. Which, Eff Why Eye, is better than all the Die Hard movies." True story, Ju-lo. "Because the daughter in that? Darrian? Legit."

And Die Hard never had Halle Berry. Another once-upon-a-time Unknown.

"Wait, what? From being an average action star? How can you be, like, so old. And not know. Back then, it was all, like, Stallone. The Arnold. Van Damme. Die Hard was like, THE movie that mainstreamed normal Joe Blow being a," finger air quotes, "Action star. Not some, you know. Meathead like Dolph Lundgren. So that whole premise? That whole idea? It doesn't exist without Two. Without Two, that whole genre dies. Because then it proves that you have to have, like, Adonis, to have a legit action flick."

Words followed the other Guardian as he waited for the Warlock to lock up before heading over to the car.

"Will Smith. Tom Cruise. Matt Damon. Keanu Reeves. That's a long list. They're not action heroes without Die Hard Two. Every one of those movies would have been made with, like, uh. The Rock. Or Vin Diesel."

This is what happens when you start an argument with a guy who's been living in a movie theater ever since he arrived.

[Avis]

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up," Avis said as she flopped into the back seat. Which, incidentally, was definitely not her first time in the back of a cop's car.

"You can not, like, put all of that on Bruce Willis. Like, seriously, where the fuck would Van Damme or Keanu Reeves be without the other Bruce? Yeah, that's right, Bruce Lee. I mean, sure, he was pretty ripped, too, but he wasn't a gigantic white guy. Plus, he's basically responsible for introducing the US to the idea of the martial arts film, not to mention actually introducing the idea that there were other martial arts besides Karate."

Cause seriously, before Bruce Lee it was just the legacy of the American occupation of Japan that informed the US about other ways of combat. Anything else was ignored. That is, until a very driven man from China began to challenge that. Both on screen and on the mat.

"But, Bruce Lee aside," Avis added, leaning forward between the front seats, "we still haven't fixed my problem. Why does Die Hard have to be some epic monument in action films when it's still just another film about manly men?"