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Born To Raise Hell

Born To Raise Hell

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Private RP. At this point it's unlikely anybody unaffiliated with the RP is gonna see this anyway, so I shan't be bothered to include some clever shit or whatever in the description.

3,188 readers have visited Born To Raise Hell since Iye Khara created it.

Introduction

.

.

Going for broke, rock till you choke
It don't matter if you drink or smoke
Speak through the beat, get up on your feet
Sweating like a hound dog, white as a sheet

Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
We know to do it and we do it real well
Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
Voodoo medicine, cast my spell
Born to raise hell, born to raise hell
Play that guitar just like ringin' a bell
Take it or leave it


MotΓΆrhead - Born To Raise Hell

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The Story So Far... Write a Post » as written by 4 authors

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Kodie found it a little unnerving how she was starting to get used to the drummer's antics as she watched him dislodge his foot from a very unhappy person's lap. She followed the skeptical little drummer around as he fucked around with his phone for a while which had gradually made her more and more impatient. "Maybe we should let the technology whiz handle it." She said, after a few minutes, nodding toward Craig who was probably the most well versed in how to handle technology such as that. Kodie wasn't a big fan of fancy phones for the exact reason same reason Cormac was having trouble.

After a while though, he finally seemed to be able to get the demonic little piece of technology working and then after taking a picture of himself with that nifty little camera thing he got some help from Izzie astonishingly enough. Maybe Craig was right and Izzie did care about Cormy in her own special way.

Once he got the GPS working he ended up taking them on quite the adventure, through an art art museum and LGBT+ festival where they saw...Izzie? Craig leaned way over into Kodie's personal space trying to see around her apparently, wearing an expression that implied he wasn't entirely sure what he was seeing.

After that, their journey was surprisingly short, all the while their guide was muttering to himself until they actually stepped foot inside. He then inquired as to what they were going to be doing.

"Don't know about you, but I for one am going to go check out the new death metal releases. Kodie, I take it you're going to revel in your ultra dark, kvltness?" Craig asked.

"Nah, I think I'll join you." Kodie said, shrugging. She wanted to see what was new and figured they probably wouldn't have that much black metal anyway. As they made their way over to the metal section, they quickly realized they weren't the only metalheads present.



There was a couple guys in the same aisle that Craig could've sworn he'd seen last night during one of the performances but he didn't say anything as he started to look through the most recent albums, Kodie picking up a Hypocrisy album and flipping it over to look over the tracks.

"Kodie...Toivonen?" Craig looked up in surprise to see the drummer of one of the headlining bands standing before them. He couldn't remember his name, but he recognized him easily enough. He was tall, taller than Craig was and asian with hair down past the middle of his back. His features were what would be considered strong and he had the toned arms of a guy who worked out although he was still slender and probably around their age. He guessed he was what most girl's would consider attractive. Craig slowly turned to look back at Kodie whose face was completely wiped clean of expression and if she thought he was attractive or was surprised by him knowing her name, she certainly didn't let on that she felt that way. For a minute he didn't think she was going to respond.

"Ah, yes. Daisuke." Kodie said and for a minute Craig thought he was going to freeze to death from the cold that radiated from her voice. Damn. He guessed the two were previously acquainted.

Daisuke was unruffled by this, so it seemed. He approached a little more cautiously than he had before, however.

"Right..." Criag heard a little awkwardness creep into the drummer's voice. "It's good to see you again. What has it been...Three years?" He asked, turning the heads of a few of his bandmates and Craig got the uncomfortable feeling of being in the center of a show and took a step back, looking around for Cormac.

"Thereabouts." Kodie replied as she set down her CD and crossed her arms, the tension between them still solid.

Daisuke was quiet for a moment before nodding slowly. "Anyway, I see you're playing for Psychosis now. That's good." He said, looking back at Craig and Cormac.

"Temporarily. I see you've done well for yourself." Kodie's tone was neutral enough.

"Yes, I've been rather lucky. I'm glad you seem to be doing well. Perhaps we could catch up sometime?" He asked, his voice betraying a hint of hopefulness.

Kodie didn't look like she wanted to catch up, but she merely nodded. "Sure." She said and then quickly turned back to her bandmates. "We had things we wanted to look at in here, didn't we?" She asked, clearly not wanting to continue this conversation with Daisuke.





Chris stared at Alex blankly as she damn near choked on some gum, managing to get something about 'no' and 'Lestari'. He wasn't sure what exactly that meant, lucky for her he was too tired to be able read too much into that although he was definitely suspicious. What on earth could have made the usually so stoic guitarist that uncomfortable? In his current state his mind wasn't functioning well enough to pull together a scenario that was all that plausible. Then she started giving him a little too much information and he quickly backed away from the subject matter. "Okayy, I don't need to know that much." He said, holding up his hands as though he could physically hold back anything else she could say on the matter. Maybe he should leave the topic alone, although part of him wondered if maybe she'd gone back out with Lestari after they left and had a little too much fun, although he didn't think he'd ever seen Alex really drink. Although she didn't appear to be hungover...Chris' brow furrowed as though he were trying to solve a difficult math equation in his mind.

"Well, you look like the corpse of Lenin on display in the Red Square, so how 'bout we go grab something to eat? I'm pretty sure Liam's already down there, and Lestari..." Ah, that sounded more like the Alex he knew.

"Right." He was too tired to comment on the less than pleasant comparison. "that's probably a good idea." Chris said, nodding slowly as he studied the guitarist's face. Why was she acting all weird at the mention of Lestari? Did something happen? He didn't have much time to ponder this as they arrived rather quickly into the dining area where the young drummer was engaged in conversation with Liam.

Rather than giving the guitarist her usual, excited greeting, Chris watched as Lestari gave a little jerk of surprise when she saw Alex. There seemed to be an awkward sort of tension between the two. Chris squinted at the two, wondering what possibly could have happened. The two usually got along great, did they have a fight or something?

"Good morning." Said Liam, who broke the silence.

"Ah...So, you two aren't going to team up to mock me this morning?" Chris asked, looking from Lestari to Alex and then back again. Normally by now the drummer would have said something none too kind about his face and then Alex would chime in with an equal or less kind remark.

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And so they took to combing the aisles.

Cormac supposed it was simply a fact of life that if you were gonna shop for metal in an actual record store-- I'm talkin' real underground, extreme metal here, not fuckin' A Day To Remember-- you had better be damn well prepared to be disappointed. Cormy'd never stepped a toe outside the United States (except for one time back in 2006 when he might have crossed the Canadian border-- that night was still pretty hazy), but he was under the impression that as hotspots for metal went, few places rivaled the States: Brazil, Scandinavia, apparently Chile of all goddamn places, all could boast comparable metal scenes, but it was an exclusive number. And yet still, even here-- in New York no less, the state that had spawned such titans of metal as Suffocation and Immolation-- you were hard-pressed to find anything much more underground than, say, Jungle Rot.

Speaking of Jungle Rot...

"Ooh!" Cormac all but squealed in delight, lunging for the 'J' section of the metal aisle and emerging with a jewel case clutched in his hand. "Dudes, check this shit out, they've totally got the new Jungl--" He spun about in search of his two bandmates, and found them standing further down the aisle, approached by... Cormac's brow furrowed. He didn't recognise the dude (though goddamn if that wasn't one hell of a good-lookin' dude, lemme tell ya), but it looked like he'd recognised Craig or Kodie, and once Cormac scurried on over to where the three of them were standing, it became apparent that it was Kodie he'd recognised-- and it didn't take a whole lotta that good ol' empathetic instinct to figure out that Kodie wasn't particularly pleased that he had.

Daisuke, she'd said his name was-- said it in a voice so damn icy that somewhere out there Abbath himself musta felt a chill. It was... Huh. Wow. Kodie actually seemed real tense about the whole affair. I mean, she did a damn good job of presenting herself as no less blase about it all than she normally was, but Cormac had always been good with pickin' up on what people weren't sayin', and there was a lot she wasn't sayin' right now. She must really not wanna see this dude right now, he observed, glancing from her to the dude in question; although he knew it was none of his business (and the mere thought of how Kodie woulda reacted to any attempt to make it otherwise was enough to make the drummer wince), he couldn't deny a twinge of simple human curiosity. They clearly had some bad blood between 'em, so... Former bandmates? Rivals of some sort? Nah, couldn't be that-- this Daisuke seemed eager for Kodie's company, almost apologetic in some sense.

So... former lovers? It frankly stretched Cormac's suspension of disbelief to imagine Kodie in a romantic relationship (when you find it easier to picture Izzie Martinez in love with somebody than you do another person, that's seriously sayin' some shit about that other person). Then again, he supposed he really had no right to be surprised. Kodie was, as she'd made clear to him and to Craig, merely the fill-in bassist: for all he knew all he'd ever seen of her was her professional disposition, and she had no obligation whatsoever to show anything more or less than that. He'd only know her for maybe another month or so, which was a pity, 'cause he couldn't really say he didn't like her or didn't enjoy her company-- hell, she seemed interesting, the sorta person he woulda liked to just talk to if he thought she'd ever actually be interested in just talking.

But it wouldn't last. She'd be gone soon, and in her place... well, part of him earnestly hoped Edei would be able to come back and things would be the same as they'd always been since she'd joined up, but another, wiser part of him urged himself not to count on it, lest he be disappointed when Izzie hired some person she'd played with for two weeks in 1989 to replace her.

By the time he'd shaken himself from those musings, however, the brief little confrontation had long since concluded-- Kodie and Craig had back further down the aisle, and Cormac hastily scampered along to catch up with them. It was very clear that Kodie had no interest in delving into the details of that particular encounter, but... Well, Cormac had always prided himself on being good at understanding other peoples' emotions: he wasn't quite so good at keeping his mouth shut when that ability of his made it clear he shoulda.

"Didn't seem too much like you wanted to catch up with that dude--" The words just came stumbling out of his mouth-- it was like the verbal equivalent of walking into a pole, in that it just happened, and nobody could really be surprised, 'cause y'know. Cormy.







There was a moment of silence so thick you could cut it with a knife as the four bandmates glanced at one another-- and of course, it was Liam who took it upon himself to shatter it. Alex gave a noncommittal nod of the head in responce, but Chris interjected before she coulda gotten out a verbal responce even if she'd had it in her to offer one.

"So, you two aren't going to team up to mock me this morning?" He glanced back and forth between the two musicians, and Lestari scratched the back of her head, fingernails raking through tangled masses of sable black hair before she brought her notepad to bear. Your face looks... Uh. She trailed off briefly, and then finished lamely, Dumb.

"Yeah," Alex was quick to concur. "Uh. Really, really dumb."

The two of them exchanged sceptical glances, and then Lestari scribbled something about 'BATHROOM', flashed it at everybody around her, and vaulted out of her seat. She'd made it to the elevator (it's a well known law of physics that awkwardness increases velocity exponentially) by the time Alex caught up-- and catch up she did, her long legs bearing her in loping strides until she had a hand on Lestari's shoulder.

"Dumb?" Lestari winced, but at least Alex sounded more... more amused than angry, for whatever reason she might have been angry at all. "Your razor wit never fails to impress, Lestari."

The drummer shrugged her broad shoulders uneasily, but she managed to write with a steady hand. Look, I was under pressure, okay? And you weren't much help, Miss 'Really, Really Dumb'! The elevator had arrived by then, and out of sheer habit Alex stepped into it along with Lestari, who punched in the number of their floor and felt the mechanical construct lurch as it began to bear them upwards.

"Seriously though..." The guitarist's voice took on a rare twinge of uncertainty as she turned to face Lestari. She hesitated for a moment-- but then again, this was Lestari, who had always been incredibly physical about things. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to reciprocate for a change. She reached a hand out to the younger musician's face, her gaze resolutely and stubbornly pointed toward the door, cupped her jaw, and turned her eyes toward herself. Lestari felt something like an electrical spark run through her veins as Alex's cold skin met with hers, but she managed to maintain her composure as she returned Alex's discerning gaze. "You haven't told anybody about this, have you? Not Liam?"

Shame immediately seized Lestari-- bitter, biting, but not quite severe enough for her to tell Alex the truth for fear that the guitarist would trample their relationship (or whatever this thing they had with each other was) before it could go anywhere at all. She shook her head vehemently, and didn't bother breaking out the notepad before she signed with her own two hands, Of course not. That Alex so unquestioningly swallowed the answer-- nodded her head gratefully, even murmured "I figured you wouldn't've"-- only made the shame all the worse, but... Well, she wouldn't ever have to know, would she?

The ding that signaled the elevator's arrival mercifully drew Lestari from those thoughts, and as the doors slid open, Alex's lips pulled taut into the vaguest hint of a wry smirk. "Well, I guess I better head back down," she mused, and reached a hand out to press the lobby button. It was intercepted, however, as Lestari's fingers curled around her wrist, and before she knew it, the smaller woman had leaned up and pressed her lips against Alex's. By the time she broke their kiss, she was already tugging Alex out of the elevator and down the hall toward her room-- she positioned herself behind the guitarist, pushing her along and planting swift, impish pecks along her neck, pulling up her dreadlocks with her other hand to expose the throat.

"Now hold on a sec--" Alex sputtered weakly, hardly putting up any resistance as Lestari steadily guided her along toward her hotel room. "I-- I thought we agreed we weren't doing this!" She expected no answer, but she couldn't deny a chill-- a hardly unpleasant chill-- that washed over her as she felt Lestari's finger tracing gently into the very skin of the back of her neck the shapes of the signs. She clumsily wafted through her rudimentary knowledge of sign language, what little Lestari had taught her-- We're not doing anything. She could all but feel the devilish tone of the words in Lestari's skin as the drummer stopped her in front of her door and reluctantly pulled away from her to unlock the door.

"... you wicked little scamp, you were planning this all along, weren't you?" Alex couldn't help but remark dryly. Lestari paused just long enough to shoot her a positively fiendish smirk, before finally unlocked the door and reaching out to tug Alex in. The guitarist had already given up whatever semblance of remonstration she'd managed to offer before, and willingly let herself be pulled in. She had just enough time to begin "Look, let's just keep things--" before the door clicked shut.





"Wow. So that was... uh. Wow."

Lestari merely tossed another mischievous smile toward her nigh-speechless lover (after the things they'd just done, there was no way that wasn't the right term, right?) as she pulled her shirt on over her head. She reached down and collected some of Alex's things, tossing them over to where she lay just about catatonic on the bed. Silent she herself may have been, but if there was one thing Lestari Kiaidemak liked to pride her hands on other than beating the fuck out of drum kits, it was extricating the sweetest, most unsubtle noises from other people. Neither she nor Alex had exactly had the presence of mind to keep from going further this time-- and Lestari felt confident in assuming that Alex didn't quite regret that at the moment.

At some point, the guitarist regained some level of command of her muscles, and she dragged herself up from the sheets. "Can I... uh..." She glanced toward the door leading into the bathroom, and Lestari smiled and nodded. Alex murmured some word of thanks and then vanished through it; a moment later, the sound of water streaming in the shower emanated into the room. She waited until she was sure Alex wouldn't come back out for one reason or another, and then leapt up onto the bed like a little kid the morning after Christmas, hopping up and down vivaciously and forcing herself to restrain the energetic display only when she heard the water shut off. Alex emerged a moment later, still looking just a little shell-shocked as she went about tugging on her clothes one at a time.

They were silent-- blissfully so-- on the way back down to the lobby: Alex had forced her features into their usual expressionless mould, and Lestari found herself only barely reining in the jubilant grin that constantly threatened to overwhelm her lips. Hopefully she was maintaining some pretense of composure by the time they returned to the dining area and found Chris and Liam still sitting there.

"I, uh." Alex began, glancing from Lestari and then back to Liam and Chris. "I had to borrow something from Lestari." She scratched the back of her head, added awkwardly, "Y'know. Cramps." And then fell lamely silent again.

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Kodie kept walking with Craig who was looking at her, his expression puzzled as if to say, "What just happened back there?". She didn't explain though, instead she just kept her back to Daisuke and the rest of his band. She hadn't expected to see him there, although she supposed she shouldn't be surprised. She was likely to have bumped into or heard from him again at some point. He was a talented drummer, it was no surprise he had scored such a role in such a large band but Kodie couldn't say she wanted to have seen him again. It had been a good three years since she'd been with Daisuke, their relationship had not ended on good terms.

No sooner had Cormac (who she had almost forgotten) caught up with them, he blurted out the questions she hadn't wanted to answer. "No shit." She replied, as she stopped in the prog section and looked for the new Steven Wilson album though she didn't have much hope for that. Still, hopefully she'd get something out of this little trip.

"Care to uh, tell us why?" Craig finally piped up, looking half afraid to hear what she'd say. That made her feel a little bad and she let her face soften slightly. No use being a bitch about it, it wasn't their fault anyway.

Kodie had a hard time trying to find the right words to explain it still though. "We used to go out. Didn't end on good terms." She shrugged, ready to leave it at that. It was the most simple way she could put it that didn't involve her getting all in depth about what happened and their whole relationship in general.

A look of surprise briefly flashed across Craig's features. "I didn't know you really dated metalheads..." He said, slowly. He was probably remembering her last boyfriend who couldn't be more different from Daisuke if he'd tried.

"I normally don't." Kodie shrugged, looking up from her search. "He was the last one."

"Right. And what kind of bad terms? Y'know, so then I know if I should I leave him alone or put him into a coma if I ever see him again?" Craig asked, crossing his arms. Kodie guessed this was his way of showing that he cared.

"Leave him alone. Things just didn't work out between us." She replied, though she found herself smiling. Sometimes Craig felt a little like the brother she never had.


Chris, even in his hangover induced stupidity stared blankly at Lestari. That was all she had...really? He had never known it to be in her or Alex to make such a pathetic attempt at mocking him. Liam stirred his coffee, his mind apparently somewhere else. Typical. He looked back at Alex when she concurred with, "Really dumb.". "Is that really all you ha-" He broke off when Lestari scribbled (okay, scribbled is probably a strong word. Lestari always had flawless handwriting that he really did have to envy.) hastily onto the notepad that she was leaving for the bathroom. Alex followed suit.

Weird. His eyes followed after them as the two disappeared. What was going on with those two? They never acted so awkward in each others presences. They always got on fantastically and well...He had to admit, he was concerned. Were they fighting? Did Lestari not know about Alex's kid and then get mad because she hadn't been informed...?

Chris spent the entire rest of his meal staring out the window as people came and went and the sun began to rise higher into the sky, contemplating what the reason could be why his bandmates were acting like this and each one seemed to become increasingly more ridiculous. If this were one of his games or movies, Lestari would be some sort of villain set on destroying the world and Alex would be the hero (Y'know, like Wolverine or something.) and they would be upstairs right now causing mass destruction in the epic battle to save the world. But somehow he doubted that as what was happening...


"Do you think they're fighting?" Chris asked suddenly, making Liam look up in surprise. The bassist had been mostly quiet this morning, not that he could blame them. He must have quite the hangover after last night.

Liam stifled a laugh. He wasn't going to tell him the truth, nothing was certain now and to be fair he didn't know what the two of them were currently doing right now but he might be willing to bet it involved physical contact based upon what Lestari had told him earlier. "Fighting? Them?" He carefully composed his features again. "Yeah, I'm sure they're fighting or something like that." He replied, sarcastically. "Nah, but if they are I'm sure they're working it out right now."

After that, the two of them discussed things to do today - Chris wasn't really up for a whole hell of a lot because he was still rather fucked up and then shortly after the two lapsed back into a comfortable silence. Liam was thinking about Alex and Lestari as well. It sounded like things had gone well for them last night but part of him worried if Alex may end up shutting Lestari out a bit - she didn't seem the type to just suddenly let someone into her life like that, no matter how much she liked them. That would hurt Lestari and be potentially uncomfortable for everyone. He also needed to talk to Lestari about her drumming style and potentially making alterations to it, but the other day hadn't seemed a great time and he was thinking it needed to be a good time to bring it up.



"So...Do you think they're actually going to come back?" Chris asked. Quite some time had come to pass and they hadn't seen either of them since earlier. He hoped they weren't too mad at each other or whatever was going on...

"I don't know. We could always text them and ask if they want to go catch a movie or something." Liam said, shrugging. If neither of them responded or showed up, they could always go to the movies themselves. Chris was feeling better and was thinking he might be able to endure going to go see the new X-men movie. Normally Liam wouldn't be especially interested but that was the only thing Chris really wanted to go see and he supposed it was better than just lurking in his room all day.

"Yeah, let's go ahead and do...Oh, hey." Chris looked up as Alex and Lestari suddenly walked down into the lobby. "Hey! Where were you guys?" He asked, frowning slightly. They looked to be in fairly decent moods, which made him feel slightly better although Alex still seemed a little awkward.

He grimaced and Liam just looked at Alex quizzically when she gave her excuse for disappearing. Chris, quick to get away from the matter decided to ask them about the movie. "Right. Soo, either of you wanna go see the new X-men movie?" He asked.

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"No shit," she all but spat back. Cormac scratched the back of his head, slightly stung, but he merely nodded his head and returned placidly, "Yeah, that was pretty dumb of me." He figured they'd leave it at that, so he took to glancing about the prog-rock section himself (not that he was terribly fond of progressive rock, but hey, that was where they'd ended up, and he had to dispel the awkwardness somehow). Of course, there were no new names to be found there-- Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, bands that either didn't interest him whatsoever or interested him enough that he'd already long since gotten his hands on every LP, EP, split 7", bootleg, and demo they'd ever put out.

He had to admit, though, he hadn't expected Craig of all people to pursue the subject-- Craig, who seemed to generally mind his own business most of the time. Of course, he also looked like he was half convinced she'd react by threatening to ritualistically sacrifice him in the name of Satan, Varg Vikernes, and black metal, but Cormac was surprised to see her expression relax just a smidge. Guess it makes sense, he supposed. Craig was her friend, after all, so of course she'd feel more at ease talking about these sorts of things. I mean, Cormy wasn't gonna get all weird about this shit or anything. He wasn't gonna get all sensitive and feel vaguely hurt that she'd reserved the cold, callous answer for him, only to open up to Craig or anything. That woulda just been really pathetic, after all. Logically speaking, he understood completely that it would have been foolish to get his feelings all stung up over something like this, so naturally he was going to do the rational thing and...

... okay so yeah his feelings were just a little bit hurt LOOK HE'S A TENDER FLOWER OKAY THERE'S NO SHAME IN THAT

It wasn't like Kodie offered up all the juicy details or whatever, anyway. Although apparently she didn't date metalheads. Who knew. He kinda wanted to ask what was up with that, but he'd already gone and shoved his face all up in her business a minute ago and that hadn't exactly won him much endearment from her, so he kept his mouth shut as she and Craig went back and forth a bit. He did have to crack a smile at Craig's little threat, though, largely because he suspected if Kodie wanted anybody put into a coma she'd probably be more than capable of carrying the threat out herself. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but add, "You sure? Just say the word and Craig here 'n I'll put the hurt on 'im." He spent about five minutes trying to crack his knuckles menacingly, and then, failing this, made a show of swinging his fist theatrically into empty air. Or rather, what he thought was empty air, which turned out to be occupied by a whole lotta concrete pillar, into which his fist sailed gloriously. After that came several minutes of 'ow ow ow ow ow', whimpering, and horrified contemplations of 'Shit, I think I broke a knuckle' as he massaged knuckles that were very obviously totally not broken.

"... well, I guess you can handle him just fine," he admitted at last, once he'd recovered from his injury.






Lestari glanced quizzically at Alex-- cramps? But the guitarist's gaze remained steadfastly directed forward, away from Lestari, and remained as such as she raised an eyebrow and ventured, "X-Men? Is that the one movie with Megatron Prime and the whole 'beam me up, Scotty' gig?"

Lestari smiled, and swiftly took up her notepad. I'm pretty sure it's that movie where Superman fights the Dark Lord Voldemort over ownership of the One Ring, she quipped, only for her smile to diminish slightly as Alex didn't even glance over at what she'd written-- Alex, who even discounting her veritably preternatural sense for communicating with Lestari had obviously heard her writing. Her mouth fell flat into a thin line of dissatisfaction, and she prodded at the guitarist's broad shoulder-- and only then did Alex turn, her motion mechanical and almost unwilling, to look at what Lestari had written. And when she read it, she merely curled her lips a smidge, nodded, and said, "I guess that could be it."

She turned away again, leaving Lestari staring at her feeling... well, hurt. What the fuck was this? Just five minutes ago, they had been completely cool, totally fine, and now all of a sudden Alex had decided to play this game? She couldn't help a resentful scowl, but then... well, the bitterness took on an overtone of guilt. What right did she have to be angry at Alex? Alex was the one who'd asked her to take things slowly, and she'd... well, they'd enjoyed at the time, hadn't they? Why did Alex have to get all standoffish now?

Shit, she decided in a huff. She hadn't had to deal with this romance bullshit in a long-ass time. She was clearly out of practise.

She suspected, at the very least, that maybe Alex would appreciate being given her space now-- or, to put it less nicely, maybe Alex would prefer not to have to look at Lestari's face right now. And so she turned back to Chris, doing her best to maintain a pretense of her usual irrepressible vivacity. Well, I for one have little better to do, and hell, I figure you made a good call with that Star Wars shit. Maybe you're onto something here too. Maybe she was imagining things, but she thought she caught a glimpse of something like gratitude in Alex's otherwise stony expression as the guitarist mused, "I'd love to, but I shall have to pass for today. There's an LGBT festival going on in town, and I was planning on hitting that up for the day. In fact, I better go grab my shit and head out for that now..." She nodded at her three bandmates, tossed a lackadaisical sort of salute in farewell, and then traipsed off to don her usual armour and depart for the festival.

Well, it was something. Lestari grudgingly turned back toward Chris and Liam, and, eager to get away from the subject of this weirdness between herself and Alex, she scribbled away, So, what now?

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Naturally, she couldn't seem to locate the Steven Wilson album. She wasn't shocked, she hadn't expected to find it in a place like this. She sighed slightly and browsed through the other names, not finding much that was of interest to her seeing as there was nothing new or particularly interesting.

While she wasn't thrilled that Craig was pursuing the matter, she reminded herself to relax. She couldn't snap at her friends, it wasn't their fault after all. Hell, they didn't even really know so she had no right to be annoyed with them. They were just curious. Still, she hated seeing Daisuke and knowing she was potentially going to have to deal with him.

Craig merely shrugged at her statement, but Cormac on the other hand, decided to try to crack his knuckles and informed her that if she just gave the word he and Craig could take care of the matter. The statement would have been a lot more intimidating if he hadn't given up on cracking his knuckles and then instead tried to throw a punch into thin air, which also failed in all but sending his hand crashing into a pillar (Guess he did crack his knuckles, but you know...Not in the way he'd wanted to.) "You okay?" Kodie asked, looking mildly concerned. They still looked like they were solid.

Craig looked like he'd seen this event a few times before and so after a moment he turned back to her. "Really though, if you ever need..." He trailed off as Kodie shook her head.

"I've got it. But thanks guys, I appreciate it." Now she actually did smile, grateful for these two. She might actually be kind of sad to leave Psychosis, Craig was a good friend and although she didn't know Cormy well she had already grown rather fond of him, even though he was a bit eccentric.

As she turned back toward the CDs, so did Craig who got all up in her personal space and leaned in over her shoulder. She was about to ask him what the hell he was doing, but just then he reached over and grabbed a Dream Theater digi pack (even though he hated those because they get fucked up easily.) and said quietly, so quietly she had to strain to hear him even in such close proximity. "You're probably going to want to apologize to Cormy. You were kinda harsh." He then stepped back and pretended to inspect the back of the album.

Realization settled over Kodie as she looked back over at Cormac. Oh. She thought as she considered her response to his previous question. She hadn't meant it badly, especially not toward him...She just hadn't really thought about it. She had been so caught up in her own thoughts about how fucking great it was going to be to be stuck on tour with Daisuke of all people that she hadn't even realized the harshness of her own words. Cormy didn't even really know her, he didn't know she didn't mean it badly. She was definitely going to have to apologize to him.

"So, anyone have anything they wanna do after this?" Craig asked, suddenly, looking up from the tracklist.




Chris stared at them in horror. "OptimusPrime. Optimus Prime is from Transformers. "Beam me up, Scotty!" is a classic phrase from Star Trek..." He said, slowly, as though he couldn't believe how someone could make such an error.

Liam didn't even bother commenting, instead he just took another swig of water. He was probably pretty used to these situations by now, in the beginning he had been surprised by Christopher's comments and such but since then he had long since gotten used to it and even begun to appreciate it at times.

The young, bearded man put his hands on the sides of his head and sighed. "You two are doing this to torment me...Aren't you?" He asked, suspiciously as though he doubted anyone could lack such obvious knowledge about the assorted fandoms. To be fair, Liam had his own suspicions that they were simply doing it to make Chris crazy as well. Still, he thought it was good to see Alex and Lestari teasing him again, although there was still some awkwardness between them. Liam wasn't entirely sure what had come to pass between the two, nor was he really sure it was any of his business. He just hoped the two of them would be okay, that their friendship would remain intact and that nothing would change for the band. He was a little afraid that would be too much to ask for as he watched Lestari, still attempting to keep natural informed them that she would like to go - apparently Star Wars hadn't been that bad, so why not X-Men too?

Alex on the other hand declined and after the boys bid her farewell, Chris momentarily looked bewildered as he watched the guitarist rise to her feet and depart. "Wait..." He said, slowly, as though he was unsure of what he'd just heard. "Alex is bi?"

"I guess so." Liam shrugged, although he had already known because Lestari had told him what Alex had said. He wasn't worried about Chris' reaction at all, he'd never had a problem with Lestari or anything like that, which had relieved Liam because if he'd had a problem with them he would have ended up having to fire the new guy because there was no way he would tolerate someone with such a closed mind.

"Huh." He said and then shrugged after a minute. Not that it surprised Liam, Chris wasn't always the most perceptive of folk and therefore he was usually surprised by matters of the real world.

"So, movie?" Chris asked, Lestari, seeming to have recovered from his, "Omg, what are we going to find out about Alex next? Is she a secret agent? A superhero? A superhero that doubles as a secret agent?" shock..

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Well, at least his tribulations managed to provoke what looked like a sincere smile from the forbidding young bassist-- that was, what, the second one Cormac had succeeded in evoking, through one method or another (well, primarily through the method of making a massive fool of himself)? Surely an accomplishment of this magnitude could not be boasted by anybody short of such historical figures as Subutai, who had conquered thirty two nations and had once crushed two entire sovereign empires simultaneously, or Queen Tomyris, who reacted to the efforts of Cyrus the Great, liege of what was then the world's greatest military power, to conquer her realm by beating the fuck outta his troops, chopping off his head, stuffing it into a wineskin full of human blood, and then crucifying his carcass, because seriously, fuck Cyrus the Great.

... he actually wasn't sure where he'd been going with this. Honestly he was just impressed with himself for retaining that much of Izzie's drunken history lessons.

Oh yeah! Suffice to say, he felt pretty damn proud of himself for having managed again to elicit such an open expression from Kodie Toivonen, and so, whether or not he was conscious of it, the drummer adopted something of a precocious swagger. Of course, he didn't have a whole lot to do here-- outside of a handful of exceptions (King Crimson, Jethro Tull, a bit of Pink Floyd, the like) progressive rock and metal, perhaps ironically, wasn't much his sorta thing, unless there was death metal involved; as far as metal was concerned, death metal was certainly a passion, and he admitted something of a penchant for thrash and even a smattering of grind, but the less extreme variants had yet to quite connect with him. He sorta just milled about, glancing over the racks and vaguely noting the occasional interesting name, until Craig posed his quandary.

Something to do after this... Cormy's brow furrowed. "Well..." he began slowly. "There's that one festival goin' on that we saw Izzie at. That looked like fun." An idea struck him, and he hastily added, "Also, there's that new X-men movie that just came out. I mean, I dunno how enthusiastic you two are gonna be about that, unless I'm only just now going to discover you're both diehard Marvel fans, but that could be cool. Barring that..." He shrugged his shoulders, and a vivid expression came over his mien. "I mean, it's New York City, man!" He wheeled around on his heel, pointing off sensationally toward the wide windows that dominated the far wall of the record store, see-through portals to the city life just beyond their bounds. "One need but step a foot outside the sanctity of these four walls, turn in any one direction, and begin walking, and one is simply bound to stumble upon something exciting."

He paused suddenly, and frowned visibly. "I mean, that something might be a mugging, but shit, ain't that sorta unpredictability just the thing that gives this city its flavour?"

... okay, maybe not.






Chris appeared absolutely incapable of comprehending that somebody could not be so enlightened as he was as to the minutiae of Star Wars and Ring of the Lords-- and hell, maybe he had a case for it. Lestari supposed this was the sorta shit that was pretty much ubiquitous in modern globalised society; she'd known fuck all about Star Wars up until a couple days back, but she had certainly heard the 'Luke, I am your father' thing long before she'd ever even felt the vaguest twinge of interest in watching the films. But most of the other shit... yeah, that was completely lost on her.

Maybe it could be attributed to the fact that as a kid, she'd never really... well, never really done much with anybody else. Until the age of fourteen the extent of her interactions with other people, in particular her peers, was punching them until they fucked off and stopped making fun of her voicelessness, or silently forcing herself to go through the motions where interaction was unavoidable-- shopping, or turning assignments into her instructors, the like. It wasn't until the age of fourteen that any of that had changed, and even then, it wasn't like she'd become some social dynamo with a hundred thousand friends she could pick up on cultural memes from. She'd had exactly one friend, and she and Kaede... A hint of a rare frown tugged at her thin lips. Now that she thought of it, she and Kaede had never done anything much together but play and listen to music. Even when Lestari had been just fourteen years old, she remembered how they would spend hours on end together, just relentlessly blazing through every damn song they knew, and learning more on top of that-- and that hadn't changed much after they'd begun dating. They'd never curled up together in bed to watch a movie, and neither of them had ever really been much for the whole video game thing-- it'd just been music, day in and day out. They'd made better bandmates than lovers.

In fact, when she thought about it that way...

One could always count on Chris's absolute cluelessness to avert a delve into the sort of introspection that only ever resulted in dejection and cliched, action-hero style brooding. It was his baffled exclamation of "Wait, Alex is bi?" that stirred Lestari from her brief funk, and she only had to half-force the smirk that came upon her lips. Or pansexual, she reminded him. Or polysexual. Or asexual. Or of divergent romantic and sexual orientation. Or hell, maybe she's an ally. Y'know, straight but not narrow and all that shit. Of course, Lestari was pretty sure she had good reason to suspect that Alex definitely had some degree of sexual inclination towards women-- there was just no faking what had happened only ten or fifteen minutes ago-- but sexuality was a bizarre construct, and Alex's biological child didn't necessarily make anything clear. After all, Lestari knew plenty of asexual folks who'd decided to bear children for reasons of their own; for all anybody knew, Alex coulda been homoromantic or panromantic but strictly homosexual, which was, upon second consideration, a pretty valid reason for why her marriage might have collapsed...

But that was none of Lestari's business, and she was pretty sure attempting to explain the oddities of human sexual and romantic orientation to Christopher Addams would at the best of times have only confused the poor guy even more. She'd encountered plenty of bigots in her time in the metal scene, here or back in South Carolina, who'd tried to give her shit because she was lesbian, and as long as the people she was playing with now weren't of that fetid ilk, their knowledge of LGBT issues otherwise wasn't a big deal to her. So she dropped that matter, and instead answered Chris's question. Movie indeed. The deadpan was almost tangible on the paper.

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Both Craig and Kodie listened to Cormac's suggestions. Craig couldn't really imagine Izzie being too enthusiastic about seeing the rest of her band showing up at the festival but then again he supposed she might not see them or hell...Maybe she wouldn't even care? He had no idea. She had seemed to be in a pretty good mood earlier so maybe she wouldn't mind so much. "Do you think Izzie would be cool with us just showing up there though?" Craig asked Cormy, unable to help himself. The movie seemed like it might be a better idea, even though he didn't really know a whole hell of a lot about X-Men.

"I think going to see the new X-Men could be fun." Kodie stated, suddenly which made Craig tilt his head slightly. She wanted to see the new X-Men? He couldn't really imagine her being into that sort of thing, although now that he thought of it he had never really discussed such things with her. They had always talked about music.

"You're into...X-Men?" He asked, curiously even though he was wondering if asking was a great idea.

"Yeah, why?" She seemed a little puzzled by his question.

"No reason, really. You just don't seem like you'd be into that sort of thing." Craig said, quickly.

Kodie shrugged. "Even I have my guilty pleasures." She admitted, nonchalantly before looking back over to Cormy. "You make a good point - and while I don't particularly care for the idea of being mugged, I do think we could probably go out and wander for a little, provided we watch where we're going and end up being able to find something to do."









Chris nodded slowly, considering what she said. "You have a good point there. I didn't think of that." He admitted. He knew of being asexual and pansexual and all of that, whereas Liam merely looked puzzled by the list that Lestari rattled off since he'd probably never even heard of such things before. Honestly, he wouldn't have been surprised if Alex was asexual or something because he didn't think he ever recalled her ever expressing any desires toward someone before but now that he saw that she had a daughter that seemed slightly less likely. He didn't think about such things often because well, you just didn't hear about it that much and he wasn't that involved in such matters - he'd always considered himself heterosexual but he was always cool with people of other sexualities because he really didn't see a reason not to be because it wasn't really any of his business who you were into or whatever. As long as you were a nice person he didn't really care about much.

"Sweet!" Chris grinned despite the fact Lestari didn't look overjoyed by the prospect of going to an X-men movie with him. He hoped she would cheer up either during or after the movie. Maybe he could get a chance to talk to her and find out what was going on too. "You guys are in for a treat, X-Men is great. Well, I'm hoping this one is going to be great..." He had no idea if this was going to be a hit or a miss yet.

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Hmm. Cormac brought sceptical fingers up to his chin, and he nodded grimly, conceding to Craig, "You have a point. I mean, it was a pretty damn big festival, but if Izzie caught sight of us she'd probably tell us to make like trees and make trails. Well, that's the festival out, then. I don't reckon either of yous are terribly big fans of Marvel, are you?" he added dubiously, glancing from Kodie to Craig and vice versa, totally prepared to hear one or the other remark that all they knew about Marvel was that there was a dude named Badger or some shit with claws taped to his knuckles and wicked anger issues--

"I think going to see the new X-Men could be fun."

Cormy's gaze flitted back to Kodie, brow furrowing-- but Craig beat him to the unspoken question. Huh, he couldn't help but muse. Can't say I saw that one coming. He had to remind himself yet again that he couldn't exactly pretend to be surprised by anything he learned about Kodie, any more than he could anybody else he'd only known for a handful of days in a purely professional setting. But hey-- it was cool to have somebody in the band who shared his own interests outside of music, if only for a little while. Craig was... well, actually, Cormac couldn't even tell you what Craig was into other than working out and socialising, and Izzie seemed to entertain a passion for literally everything-- quantum mechanics, gender studies, human history, ethnolinguistics, cytogenetics, anatomy-- basically anything and everything except what Cormac was interested in. Hangin' out with Craig was good fun, sure, and Cormac honestly did enjoy listening to Izzie drunkenly sharing knowledge even if he was convinced it was possibly the strangest drunken quirk he'd ever encountered, but maybe now he'd have somebody to complain to about how damn overpowered Batman was (seriously, he couldn't be the only person who thought Batman would be a much more interesting character if, y'know, he didn't know every martial art ever and have the physical strength of Superman on steroids).

"Irrelevant!" he spontaneously declared, perking up immediately. "For we've a film to watch. Come, comrades! Onward to the cinema!" He marched off through the doors like Julius Caesar boldly leading his legions across the Rubicon, though his gravitas was more than a little sullied when he promptly set off every alarm in the place and he had to be escorted back into the store to set down the Jungle Rot CD he'd been toting along the whole time. His dignity somewhat tarnished but nevertheless resolute in his determination to do every conquering warlord proud with his bravado, the young drummer merely turned right back around, struck a gallant pose, bellowed "Once more unto the breach, dear friends! We ride for the theatre!" and marched through the doors again.

And so the afternoon went along.







Well, that perked Chris right up, didn't it? Lestari couldn't help a widening of her smile as the bassist took to grinning and assuring all around him of the masterpiece of cinema they were about to witness. She shoved a hand into the pocket of her hoodie, withdrawing her phone-- her lovely little multi-tool. She couldn't talk, and in face to face interactions she still preferred the notepad as much out of habit as out of greater efficacy with handwriting than with navigating the little buttons on her phone, but there was still a reason she'd splurged more than a fair bit of money on this sleek new smart phone of hers. It was just about a computer she could carry around in her pocket-- looking up directions to the nearest theatre was the least of its capabilities, and many of its other uses were unique in their utility to the mute woman.

There was a theatre a few blocks from the hotel that was doing a showing of the film in a couple hours-- in fact... Oh. Mott Street. She smiled. The theatre was just around the corner of Lombardi's, and though Lestari had only lived in New York for seven years, even she knew damn well that if you were within a mile's radius of Lombardi's, you were absolutely obligated to step in for a pie, and it didn't matter one bit if you were on your own or with fifty other people. It was in the New York Constitution or some shit. Granted, Liam and Chris had finished up with breakfast only just now, but Lestari hadn't eaten, and anybody who'd been on a tour bus with Lestari Kiaidemak for any meaningful amount of time could testify that she could very comfortably dispose of an entire New York-style pizza on her own, and then complain about the small portions.

So she showed the little map on her phone screen off to her two bandmates, and then, taking up her notebook, added, There's a couple hours before the movie's showing, so I elect we grab some pizza before then! She looked from Chris, to Liam, and then impatiently, as if to say, Well, any fuckin' time now, jackasses!, she motioned vividly with her hands for them to stand up, and did so herself in the same motion.

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Craig nodded. He didn't know why, but sometimes felt like Izzie had some sort of radar that let her know when they were around so she could either leave or tell them to get the hell out of wherever they were. They might have been able to make it through the festival unseen or hell, maybe Izzie wouldn't even mind having them around...But Craig would rather err on the side of caution. He had to admit though, he didn't know anything about Marvel and this whole X-Men deal other than that Marvel had superheroes and this X-Men thing had some dude named Wolf of something. It sounded interesting enough he supposed. How Kodie knew about it or was into it or whatever, he had no idea. But he guessed she had a point, even she had things she enjoyed that she probably didn't share with everybody.


"Irrelevant!" Cormac suddenly declared, snapping Craig out of his brief daze and consequentially making both him and Kodie jump in surprise.

"What was he...?" Kodie looked after the drummer, puzzled. They hadn't been saying anything before that.

"I don't know. I've found it's best not to ask." The young guitarist admitted, shrugging and then heading after Cormac who was now well on his way to out of the store.

"I think he still has that -" Kodie broke off as every alarm in the store went off. "CD." She finished, awkwardly as Cormac was then hauled back in to return the CD. Man, that guy had all kinds of bad luck, didn't he? Seriously, all kinds of shit happened to him.


Once again, the three set back out, this time Kodie and Craig followed closer behind. "So, you two are going to have to tell me about this whole X-Men thing. I don't really know anything about it." He said, willing to wager Cormy would tell him. He was also hoping that at some point afterwards Kodie would get around to apologizing to the drummer. He figured she would, she wasn't the type to leave the poor guy wondering if she just really disliked him or something.




The two let Lestari whip out her handy little smartphone and get to searching for the nearest theater. He supposed it was good that Chris seemed excited by this whole thing, since he didn't really know much about this movie and it didn't seem like Lestari did either, although since she had watched Star Wars the other day he figured maybe she was trying to strengthen her bond with the guy which he thought would be nice since he didn't think anyone else in the band was really into the same things as Chris.

"Alright, sounds good to me. I'm sure you're hungry." Liam said, having assumed Lestari was going to want to grab something to eat since she hadn't eaten anything before she'd gone running off with Alex. Besides, even if she had he was pretty sure she would still have been hungry - it never ceased to amaze him how that girl could eat. Naturally, she didn't seem to want to hang around any longer and wasted no time in looking at them like they were holding up the rest of her life when she decided it to was time to go. "Alright, alright." Liam sighed, smiling and rising to his feet along with Chris. "Wouldn't want to hold up the rest of your life." He told her, jokingly.

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Cormac grinned widely at Craig's naivete-- ah, to be young! To be uninitiated in the ways of the righteous and exquisite comic book, to have before oneself an immeasurable universe of wonder, of intrigue, of comedy and tragedy, of joy and sorrow, of great triumph and unimaginable loss-- to stand before the doors of human imagination itself and reach a tentative hand for the knob! Cormac remembered that sense of wonder back when he'd been in Craig's position-- that mysterious feeling of standing on the edge of an inconceivably vast ocean of characters, places, plots, entire universes-- and his grin widened. Truly, the lad didn't know just what he was in for.

"Oh, my child." He shook his head ruefully, not unlike a veteran soldier recounting the glories of wars from days long past to a fresh-faced recruit. "You know not the sights you are to see-- the characters you are to meet, the strange, alien, wondrous places you are to visit! For truly, the many universes of the X-Men cannot be encapsulated in mere words." He paused suddenly, his brow furrowing as if coming upon a massive revelation, before he added, "Now that I think of it, that's probably why they're comic books. You ever read a Marvel film novelisation? My god. I'm no big reader or anything, but even I know an atrocity against all of literature when I see it."

Suffice to say, the journey to the theatre carried on in much that way. Cormac spent the walk of about an hour expounding to Craig the scope and breadth of the Marvel universe, extolling the virtues of the noble comic book artist ("Verily!" he declared with a flourish. "There is no greater calling in this strange, ephemeral construct we call life!"), and reenacting particularly moving scenes from various comic books and films; at one point he broke into open, unabashed sobs as he delivered a heartfelt eulogy to the evidently recently departed Peter Parker, and ended up blowing his nose rather obnoxiously into a handkerchief hesitantly offered to him by a sceptical city-goer who appeared to be quite convinced that both he and his two companions were more than a few tea cups short of the whole set.

In any case, one way or another, they trekked their way over to the theatre, one of the other two taking up the duty of guiding them there (either thanks to a spontaneous bout of unexpected wisdom and self-awareness, or, perhaps more likely, because he was too busy solemnly recounting, with tear-misted but resolute eyes, Spider-Man's last heroic stand to remember to insist that he take them on another cross-city journey). By the time they made it to the movie theatre at which the film was showing, there was about a half an hour left before the movie began, and Cormac wisely utilised this time by spending more money on food and snacks than he had on his actual ticket. He bought so damn many candy bars, hot dogs, popcorn bags, and sodas that he almost couldn't see over the pile in his arms to murmur, "Hey, aren't those three...?"






Meanwhile, Lestari Kiaidemak had evidently come to the conclusion that an entire pizza for lunch at Lombardi's wasn't quite sufficient, because she shelled out another few bucks for a large sack of popcorn, a large soda, and a hot dog, upon which she promptly piled generous amounts of mustard, ketchup, and relish. Yeah, sure, she'd probably regret this the next opportunity she had to step on a scale, and this was definitely one cheat day off her calendar, but hey, it gets exhausting meticulously recording the nutritional details of every last pebble you eat. If all else failed, she'd ask Alex to help her out with making up for it, since Alex was always so much better with that sorta thing than...

For just the vaguest flicker of a second, Lestari's smile almost diminished. But crisis was averted: she wasn't gonna think about Alex right now. She didn't do the whole relationship drama thing, after all. Alex needed her space, that was all. And in the meantime, she was gonna hang out with her bandmates.

Speaking of bandmates, she turned back to face them, her popcorn and her drink toted along in one hand, her hot dog in the other, smile untarnished by that brief delve into darker thoughts. She'd always thought that bandmates oughta be friends as well, outside of the professional setting-- it just seemed logical, y'know? Always makes for a more cohesive creative vision, she reckoned, and definitely made for less animosity and discord. Plus, she didn't have any friends outside of the band, so if anybody was gonna be chummy with her bandmates, it was definitely her.

Anyway, they had a little bit before the film started, so she set the popcorn and the drink down on a nearby counter and felled half her hot dog in a single bite. She was about to dispense of the other half when a sudden bellow of "LOOK, IT'S LEGION" damn near caused her to drop the thing, and have a heart attack on top of that (which was almost as bad as dropping a perfectly good half of a hot dog). Heart still beating off at a mile a minute, the drummer turned her head, and her gaze fell upon the slender form of Psychosis' very own Cormac McMurphy. Oh yeah... She still had to enact her retribution upon him for interrupting that little doughnut date with Alex a few days back. She hadn't forgotten about that-- but now was hardly an opportune moment to carry that out. She'd have to bide her time, like a predator in wait, until such an opportunity presented itself.

"So are you guys here to see the new X-Men movie too?" Cormy inquired in a chipper sort of voice, as though he were speaking with friends he'd known since childhood and not members of the band headlining the tour he was on. Lestari, her hands full with food and unable (and equally unwilling) to access her notepad, left the issue of answering to Chris and Liam, merely smiling and nodding her head in greeting to the other two Psychosis members behind their drummer. It wasn't too difficult to figure out that, as much as taking Legion out to the movies had been Chris' idea, taking Psychosis out had been Cormac McMurphy's.

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Craig who was used to the drummer's strange behavior merely nodded along with what he said. He didn't know jack about the Marvel verse so he figured he better just take Cormy's word for it since the dude clearly knew way more about it than he...Probably should. Aside from when he was a kid he'd always thought superhero stuff was kinda geeky. Not that he meant any offense to anybody who liked that though.

"I didn't read the X-Men novels for that exact reason, I was afraid it wouldn't do them justice." Kodie admitted to the drummer, hands stuck in the pockets of her leather jacket. "So, I suppose that just confirms my fears." She said before casting a glance over at Craig. "I think you'll like Wolverine. I do." She then let her own voice fade and allowed Cormy to carry on in his excited manner. It must be fun for him to tell someone about all of this stuff, although after a point Craig was starting to wonder if asking his companions to tell him about this was such a good idea, especially when Cormac began to reenact scenes. Kodie looked incredibly uncomfortable and ended up looking the other way, as though she weren't accompanying the two of them when the drummer broke into sobs. She didn't just keep walking though, which Craig supposed was a good thing.



By the time they finally arrived at the theater, Craig was immensely relieved. One, because he had been pretty sure at some point Cormac was going to get them lost because he was too busy being Superman or whatever the hell and two because Cormac trying to be Batman or Superman or whatever was a little embarrassing. By now the little Irishman seemed to have settled down and he and Kodie went about the business of purchasing their tickets, popcorn and some candy to share. Kodie apparently wasn't going to be sharing her sour candy though, as she very clearly stated but agreed that he could have some of her M&Ms.

"Huh?" Craig inquired, a bit dumbly as he peered behind the wall of food at Cormac.

"So it seems." Kodie looked away from the two and at a small group of people. Hmm. Seemed they kept bumping into them, she thought as she looked over at the drummer who looked about ready to finish off her hotdog, the lanky vocalist and the lumberjack bassist. Weird.


LOOK, IT'S LEGION. Kodie turned to stare at Cormac, who couldn't seem to understand how drawing such attention might be a bad thing and fought back the urge to wince. Sure enough, when she turned back to Legion members, they all looked startled - not least of all the drummer who looked about ready to have a heart attack. The vocalist merely looked uncomfortable momentarily until he realized the source of it - the bassist's reaction was a bit similar although he looked more disappointed that it wasn't a bunch of fans calling their name.


Cormy of course, ever the friendly little leprechaun came right on over to Legion and so Kodie and Craig followed. When he inquired as to what film they were attending, Lestari bobbed her head in a nod and Chris grinned automatically then. "Hell yeah, we are. I'm hoping it'll show these guys just how great Marvel really is." He told Cormy, eagerly.


Kodie and Liam nodded to each other in a sort of greeting, which Chris didn't miss. "So, um. You look familiar." He said, fixing her with a gaze that seemed to say he didn't know where he knew her face from. "Oh yeah, you were at the doughnut shop that one day. I don't remember if we properly met or not." He said, as it came to him after a moment of studying her face.

"We did meet, but you seemed a bit out of it. I'm Kodie." She told him.

"Right, right. Um, well I'm Chris." He replied. "I was just about to say you look a little like Morrigan from Dragon Age to me." He blurted, as though he couldn't help it and then as anyone who knew him could expect, his face turned bright red and his gaze instantly fell to his shoes.

Kodie arched a brow at the unusual comment. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment." She said, simply.

Liam who had taken the backseat in this conversation looked uncomfortable, as though he didn't know what to say. "So, I take it you guys are going to go see the new X-Men movie too, then?" He finally asked Psychosis after a second.

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Ah! A kindred spirit! Nay, there was no mistaking that enthusiasm that sprawled across his face as the dude behind Legion's four strings went from looking mildly disappointed that he wasn't about to be assailed by legions of adoring fans (get it? Legions? Get it? ... shit.) to all kinds'a high-spirited. That was a jubilance that crossed the features of only two sorts of people: those who are hearing Errol Garner's Concert by the Sea for the first time, and those who are about to see a new Marvel film. Never mind the fact that in this RP it's only September of 2013 and the Marvel movie everybody's been flipping a shit about won't be out in the Born To Raise Hell universe for like another year. Strict realism in roleplays is bullshit anyway (so's the fourth wall, but I digress).

As if Chris Addams' nerdine... uh, let's say... particular flavour of hobbies had not yet been demonstrated quite satisfactorily, he went right on to announce that Kodie looked like a video game character to him. Now, in Cormac's experience, comparing people to video game characters was rarely the most sagacious of choices (perhaps because the last time he'd done it he'd been drunk off his ass and had discovered that declaring to the whole bar that the lady next to him looked a lot like Wario was anything but a good idea-- he still had the scars to prove it). But Kodie seemed to take it in her stride, despite clearly having fuck all clue what she'd just been compared to. Cormy, for his part, figured it was a pretty flattering comparison-- at least, in terms of looks, not so much in terms of disposition, since, y'know, Morrigan was actually kind of a psychopath.

Then again, considering how emotionally muted Kodie was...

The young drummer shook his head, figuring it wasn't worthwhile to pursue those thoughts, possibly because he'd just constructed a mildly paranoid fantasy in which Kodie was a Ted Bundy-esque serial killer who could read minds and he didn't want her to think he was onto her... shit! She was totally gonna gut him now that she knew he'd deduced her unsavoury affair. Alas! he silently proclaimed with fatalistic misery. I have sealed my fate! Now I have to think of somebody to fall madly in love with so that as Kodie strangles the life from my body and I meet her cold dead eyes, the life slowly fading from my own, I can whisper 'Tell [person in question] I love them' just before I go limp and cold in her arms.

Actually, that was pretty cliched, now that he thought of it. Maybe he'd tell her to tell his mum he loved her. Or his sister. Or hell, maybe his father. You always saw in all the movies how the dyin' dude tells 'em to tell some female figure that he loved her. Shit, it was like dying people had no love for the dudes or whatever. That's what I'll do, he resolved firmly to himself. After all, he'd always been all about bucking the trend.

Lestari watched as a plethora of emotions crossed the other drummer's face-- from satisfaction to contemplation to abject horror to spontaneous puzzlement, followed promptly by a triumphant sort of resolution as though he'd finally solved some mystical quandary that had baffled the greatest of scientific minds and philosophers since the beginning of civilisation. By the time he'd figured out whatever it was that so puzzled him, however, she'd finished off the other half of her hot dog, and stepped away briefly to chuck the waste in a nearby bin.

When she got back, the little guy was gushing about the X-Men to pretty much everybody within earshot-- this was clearly gonna be his and Chris' conversation, seein' as Chris was Legion's very own Marvel fanatic and it was pretty obvious Cormac McMurphy fulfiled that capacity for Psychosis. The other two folks in Psychosis weren't sayin' a whole lot, either, leaving Chris to discuss his passions with somebody who actually shared them for once. Lestari smiled, and turned back to Liam , pulling out her notepad and pencil and scribbling away.

About time he found himself a friend, ain't it?

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Kodie watched as the Legion bassist seemed to consider saying something else and then looked right back down at his shoes. I guess he's not much of a talker. She thought, although to be fair she probably really wasn't one to talk. When she turned back to Cormy who seemed to be the only one who really got what the dude was talking about, she watched as a myriad of emotions washed over his face. Fortunately, she was somewhat used to that by now and more or less just waited for whatever crazy ass scenario(s) the little dude could think of passed. Maybe when he comes out of it he can tell me who the hell Morrigan from Dragon Age is. She had no idea said little dude was likely thinking that she was probably going to kill him and therefore probably wasn't going to be so inclined to want to chat with her.

So, instead she turned to Craig as Cormac and that Chris dude started in on the X-Men with equal bursts of excitement. Cool, so she was gonna be hearing about it from the two of them. Not that she minded too much though, she supposed there was worse things they could be talking about. Craig on the other hand, was watching in bafflement as the went back and forth about it as though he'd never heard English before.



Liam, who had contemplated striking up a conversation with Kodie Toivonen again remained silent as the dark haired woman offered the guitarist some M&M's. He felt rather out of his element, which he guessed shouldn't really surprise him. He'd never been a great conversationalist although he wondered why he'd never taken up watching Marvel movies before remembering that he thought a lot of superheros were cheesy. Yep, that was why. Hopefully this wouldn't be too bad.

He just got done checking his watch when Lestari returned after chucking the wrapper from her hotdog and began writing in her notebook. "Yeah, it'll be good for him to have a little friend, won't it?" He said after reading the note, smiling and then looking back down at his watch. "The movie is going to start soon and if we want to criticize the previews we should probably go in about now." He told them, shrugging. Hey, who didn't like being a critic sometimes?

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11 September 2013

"Alright, crew, welcome to Baltimore. Now get the hell out."

At the very least, nobody looked about two steps from being mistaken for an extra in a George Romero film as they eventually shoved one another outta the van; Baltimore was but a stone's throw from Pittsburgh, after all, so Izzie hadn't had to wake the gang up at the crack of dawn to get there on time. And sure, granted, she hadn't really had to do that at any point in the tour-- not quite yet, anyway-- but she also hadn't felt it prudent that morning to get everybody up at six in the morning for no particular reason other than that it amused her, as a morning sorta person, to watch people who were absolutely not morning sorta people stumble about as though they were at risk of simply collapsing into sleep at any given moment.

She wouldn't be winning any 'Leader of the Year' awards any time soon, but hey, she liked to think she ran a tight ship. And as far as she was concerned, they could all count themselves fortunate this tour hadn't been goin' down just a year ago, 'cause considering the way her affairs had been at that time... Well, suffice to say, there was a band out there by the name of Cor Leonis whose constituents could attest to just how nice a person Izzie Martinez had proven herself to be at the time. It was mildly embarrassing to recall, but what was done was done, so she was just gonna have to live with it. It wasn't like she was gonna end up running into Ted Marubini and his band again outta the blue on this tour, after all, 'cause seriously, what were the chances of that shit happening again? Marubini wasn't even into death metal, so catchin' him at a show like this woulda been like stumbling upon John Gallagher dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief in the back row at a symphonic performance.

Izzie killed the ignition and then finally got out of the van herself, heaving her bulk out of the driver's seat and slamming the door shut behind her. She turned around to find Cormac leaning back against the van with his arms crossed across his narrow chest, looking as though the whole world had grievously wronged him, and allowed a vague hint of a smirk curdling at the corners of her lips. "Still all peeved about the lack of a Boston Mass show, eh?"

"I am not peeved," Cormac declared loudly, earning him little more than a sceptical raise of Izzie's brow. "Oh, all fuckin' right," he conceded in a huff, his hands dropping limply to his sides. "Yes, I am quite distraught that this tour isn't going to be blessing the most magnificent city to grace God's green Earth from sea to shining sea, but y'know what? I'm over it. I'm not gonna be harbouring a grudge over it for years or anything."

"Admit it, you're just pissed 'cause you wanted to give us a grand tour of your city and then boast about how many of your old squatter friends came to the show."

Cormac fixed her with a baleful glare. "I thought you were supposed to be nicer now."

Izzie merely shrugged her broad shoulders. "What can I say? A nicer asshole is still an asshole."







That particular show, Psychosis was not destined to be the first band up. Throughout the first handful of shows, across New York and the one show in Connecticut, a local New York act by the name of Reincarnage had been sorta taggin' along; and sure, that was all well and good. Izzie had even liked their music. Unfortunately, Psychosis had ended up in the frankly humiliating position of opening for the local tag-along band. Izzie'd had to restrain the sincere urge to strangle the tour organisers for that one-- she'd forced herself to stop, take a couple breaths, do some of those exercises her therapist had said would help her keep her temper in check (well, her therapist's exact words had been "Whenever you're about to do dumb shit, just stop and do these things", but whatever).

This time, though, the opening band was some local group called Sturm-- some sorta melodic death metal shit, from what little Izzie had tangentially heard of 'em. She'd certainly never heard a damn thing about 'em before this tour, so she looked forward to hearing what could turn out to be a decent underground band. Or a shitty Children of Bodom knock-off. All the bands on this tour so far were pretty alright, though, so the tour was batting a thousand as far as she was concerned. She leaned back in her seat at Psychosis' merch table, and kicked back another modest gulp from the plastic cup of beer in her hand, pulling closer the book in her hands. So far, so good.

The new bassist was handling the materiel pretty okay, although Izzie wasn't much one for live musicians; she preferred that the person who was recording the shit in the studio was also the one playing the shit on the stage. Unfortunately, she'd called Edei the day before, and it didn't sound like they'd have her back for this tour-- possibly not at all, though she couldn't be sure of that just yet. She hadn't had the opportunity to tell the others just yet, but hell, you couldn't just bring that shit up. It had to come up organically, lest one risk coming off as less professional than Izzie Martinez prided herself on being.

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11 September 2013 β€” 16:34

"I swear to God, the day I can afford it I'm getting a Kemper."

"Th'fuck's a Kemper?"

"It's a modelling amp. Trivium uses them, I think."

"You're gonna go digital?"

"Either that or I'll start lifting. I hate carrying this head everywhere."

"You bought it, you carry it."

"Bite me."

"Okay."

"..Ow!"

"What? You said bite me."

The biter was a Black man in his late twenties, muscled like the cord of a whip, wearing a T-shirt for Metallica's Black Album and jeans. The other was White and in his mid-thirties, wearing the bottom half of a skinny black suit with a sleeveless white undershirt. He had the other half of the suit, a real shirt too, but he was saving them for the show proper.

The White man sighed and continued lugging the Blackstar head into the Ottobar's back door. Inside, the headliner was already set up, though the drum riser had been wisely moved back from the front of the stage to make room for the other drummers. The venue's cabs were set up on either side of the under-construction drum kit. The White man paused, trying to choose.

"Ted!" He whipped around to see the soundman. To call them friends would be pushing things, but they knew each other. The soundman pointed to the left side. "It's the side she's playing on! Irony, eh?"

Ted couldn't make sense of that remark, so he shrugged as well as he could and shuffled over to the cabinet, setting his head on top of it.

"Did you hear what I said?" The soundman's voice boomed through the venue's PA system.

Ted jumped, then chuckled. "I heard it, but I didn't get it. Who's she?"

"Didn't you see who else is playing?"

"Think so. Legion, right?"

"Yeah, but there's another band. You didn't hear?"

"I didn't, but I'm not surprised. Is there a point in the near future?"

"That chick you told me about, it's her band!"

Ted was about to ask for clarification, then he realized. Though he had worked with several female musicians, only one would have been notable enough to just be "that chick" to the soundman. Only one he could have known so easily.

Psychosis. Izzie Martinez.

Ted stood on the stage for a moment in that realization, staring at the drums blankly. Then he burst out laughing.

The Black man entered on this scene, lugging his own amplifier. He took in the scene for a second, then shook his head and put his amp up on the other guitar cab.

"Inside joke, Lionel," the soundman explained.

"Whatever," Lionel replied. "Want me to run soundcheck first?"

"Sure. Give him some time to laugh it out."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ted explained things afterward over a cigarette, and Lionel had to admit the coincidence was pretty funny. Sturm made a commitment to kick even more ass than usual, just to show Izzie, who no doubt would be watching. Lionel had only heard of her tangentially, but apparently she had made quite an impact on Ted, not only with the failed "Sturm & Drang" collaboration, but in forcing Cor Leonis into its final lineup before metamorphosing into Sturm.

And now was the moment of truth. The the Terminator theme's coda boomed over the speakers. A little bit of homemade fog floated through the air. In the darkness behind the fog, Charlotte sidled past the riser and settled behind the kit.

From the left of her, Ted emerged with his Ibanez Destroyer slung right at stomach level. On the other side, Lionel emerged with his Viper slung an inch below where Ted's was. Victor was right behind him. The Terminator theme faded out to nothing.

Ted picked a silent note, slowly turned the volume knob from off to full. The single note crested...

Behind him, Charlotte's sticks clicked one, two, three, fourβ€”

And off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first number finished with a bang and a held out chord. "Make some fucking noise!" Lionel yelled into the microphone, the first comprehensible thing he had said into the microphone. The crowd roared. "This next one's called Killer of Worlds!"

Charlotte counted five, and Ted started the pentameter riff off. Lionel harmonized it, Victor played the counterpoint. Ted had written this, basing it off a Cor Leonis jam. It certainly felt a bit out of place at first, but when Ted slammed from that to the main riff and the crowd roared, he felt vindicated. Finally, he was playing music people loved. Hell, he looked to be playing to quite the crowd.

Well, many of them were probably here for Legion, or even Psychosis, but still, having a crowd was nice.

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Kodie peered over at Craig who sat - or well, more precisely he was sprawled across the seat - across from her on the van. She sighed. He'd stayed up too late last night. It wasn't her job to wake him up though. Rising to her feet, she tossed the shirt that had been draped across her door the other night at him and when he didn't so much as twitch she shrugged and walked off of the bus, zipping her leather jacket up over her Watain shirt and marched off of the bus, figuring she might as well get in some alone time before the gig tonight.


She didn't wait too long to turn up though, in case the band needed her for something. It didn't take too long to find Izzie and Cormac with Craig not too far away. They seemed to be discussing something rather important and Cormy seemed all upset about it so she decided to go hang with Craig in case the drummer accidentally hit her in the face like he looked like he was about to do to anyone else around them.

"Hey." He said, casually, leaning against a pillar. "Any idea why I woke up with this trying to suffocate me?" He asked tugging lightly at the fabric of the gory Psychosis shirt.

"Ah, yeah. That was my fault." Kodie replied with a shrug. "So, what's up? I've been out for a little while." She wondered if they knew who they were opening for yet and what had happened while she was out.

"I figured." Craig said, even though for all he could have known it was Izzie or Cormac. "And yeah, I guess it's some melodic death metal band called Sturm." He told her. He didn't seem to know much more than that about him and for some reason the name Sturm rang a bell although she couldn't quite remember where she'd heard it before, so she merely nodded. "And, well..." Craig began but she didn't pay much attention as she saw Daisuke and what looked like the rest of his band went wandering about. Awesome. First we're opening for the local band and then I'm stuck seeing him. She thought, sulkily before reminding herself that life wasn't always fair. Best to suck it up and just deal.

She then turned her full attention back to Craig. "Let's go see Izzie." She said, watching confusion pan across his face.

"Uh, sure. Okay." He said, probably wondering if she'd heard a word he'd just said. She hadn't, at least not really.

As they headed over they passed Liam and Chris of Legion who seemed to be in a debate as to if the television show Game of Thrones did the book series any justice.

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Now, Izzie woulda been the first to admit that a dimly lit, badly ventilated venue packed full of hot, sweaty metalheads making a metric fuck-ton of noise was hardly the most apt of locations to hunker down with a good book. And yet here she was, elbows rested on the merch table, a plastic cup that boasted beer of marginally inoffensive quality planted beside her arm, content to resolutely reject everything and anything happening around her and let herself be absorbed into the book before her eyes. She didn't much bother glancing up as the opening band-- Sturm or whatever-- took to setting up, though it did get kinda hard to ignore once the sound guy started abusing that poor venue PA system to go ranting off about some shit that had nothing to do with Sturm's sound. Something about a 'chick' and her band? Izzie merely suppressed a snort-- who the hell actually, unironically called people 'chicks' these days, anyway? She smirked, and turned the page of her book.

Sturm's soundcheck came and went, and the dimming of the lights, accompanied by eager cheers and crowing from the crowd, was the augur of the onset of their set. Izzie set her book down, figuring, shit, maybe Sturm would turn out to be halfway decent-- unless they came barrelin' right outta the gate soundin' like the whole of their inspiration was born outta Morbid Angel's new record, in which case Izzie was divin' right the fuck back into her book and doin' her best to pretend she was deaf. She took note of the page number she was on, shut her book, set it down on the table, glanced up at Sturm as they prepared to begin their set, and thought 'oh for fuck sake'.

Man, she just couldn't shake these asshats, could she? The other guitarist was different-- naturally, seein' as Izzie had... uh, sorta fired their last one for them (look, she wasn't exactly proud of herself for it)-- but the perky blonde and the ratty Irish dude were still there, and of course, Ted Marubini was at the left wing of the stage, wielding a guitar with more pointy bits than Izzie would have figured Ted was comfortable with. In other words, it was basically Cor Leonis-- except apparently Ted had been broadening his listening selection, because the second the music went hurtling off, it became very much evident that this was not Cor Leonis, the shitty power/nu metal abomination. This was Ted Marubini, playing death metal... and shit, it wasn't even awful.

Although the new singer wasn't exactly the most original frontperson Izzie'd ever seen. Y'know, the whole 'make some fucking noise _______ City, this is totally my favourite place to play and I totally didn't say that at literally every other city we've played in'. Actually... Izzie leaned back in her seat as Sturm began their second song of the night, and smiled.

Kinda gave her an idea, now that she thought of it. She made a point of keeping it in mind as Sturm ran through their handful of songs-- and yes, she rather enjoyed their set, she'd have to torment Ted Marubini later on with the prospect that Izzie Martinez actually liked his music. By that time, however, Craig and Kodie had seen fit to make their way back to her homely little domain at the merch table, and she glanced over at Craig in particular, indicating with her hand toward the retreating Sturm. "Just can't get rid of these fucks, can I?" she drawled dryly.





"Well, this is an illustrious occasion."

Alex Rykov had largely kept her silence-- owing in no small part to, y'know, the fact that Sturm was currently up on stage rendering any attempt at audible conversation futile. And yet, even as their last song wound down to a finish and the crowd surged up to bid them an enthusiastic farewell, Chris and Liam were, lo and behold, still at it: hell, Alex wouldn't have been particularly surprised to learn they'd kept it up even throughout Sturm's set, which she wouldn't have noticed, since she'd been too busy actually paying attention to the opening band.

"Chris actually has somebody in this band who can understand a word he's sayin'," she elabourated drolly. "And it's Liam of all people." She glanced over to Lestari, who was sitting with her chair precariously tilted back against the wall and her sneakers up on the table, tapping away idly with drum sticks, and added, "And to think I feared that you would end up spending all the rest of your days geekin' out with him about the ways of the Tri-Force and such."

Lestari smirked, and dug a hand into her pocket to retrieve her notepad. The Tri-Force is from the Legend of Zelda. Even I know that. Alex merely shrugged her broad shoulders. "It's all, as the saying goes, Greek to me." But Lestari had already turned her attention back to the drum beats that were undoubtedly wracking at her very nerves, demanding to be released in some form on something, if not actual drums. The drummer had been giving Alex her space these last few days, which Alex appreciated; they were doing a dangerous little dance here, and Lestari... Lestari had pushed it a little further than Alex was comfortable with.

Not that Alex was going to let that panic her and prompt her to end it altogether. Not so long as this was just something... something between herself and Lestari.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before Psychosis went up next; Alex had to prepare herself mentally for what was undoubtedly going to be quite the jarring whiplash of transitioning from melodic death metal to... uh, what Psychosis did. And she wasn't incorrect, of course: Psychosis laid right into the crowd from the very first slam of their opening song ('Worm-Infested Cadaver', eh? Very death metal). The moshers came right outta the woodwork, assailing one another roughly in time with each chugging breakdown and each fretboard-abusing spat of sweep-work, and didn't look to be losing any energy as Psychosis' first song of the evening came to a grinding halt.

"Alright, alright, that's enough fuckin' noise," Izzie Martinez, towering over the crowd, rebuked harshly into the microphone. "I'm gettin' old, y'know. Gonna give me a headache up here. Anyway..." She made a show of digging around in the pockets of her jeans briefly as she spoke. "It's just great to be playing back here in... uh..." She finally managed to tug a piece of crumpled paper from her pocket (nothing was on it, of course-- it was just a fuckin' prop) and unfurled it before her eyes. "Charleston, Virginia!" she finished triumphantly. "Yeah, so lovely to be back in Charleston-- lemme tell ya, this is bar none my favourite city to play in, so..." She was cut off by a chorus of amused jeers as the crowd played along, accompanied by one or two people bellowing out "Baltimore!" Izzie pretended to furrow her brows in confusion, before glancing down at the paper, tracing down it with her finger as though scanning a list, and donning an expression as though she'd just come to a sudden understanding. "Oh. Baltimore. Right." She cleared her throat, and grunted, "It's just great to be playing back here in Baltimore again! Lemme tell ya, this right here is bar none my favourite city to play in, which I'm totally not gonna repeat when we actually do hit Charleston tomorrow..."

She smirked, and crumpled up the paper again, tossing it aside. "Nah, I actually don't really give a shit about you, Baltimore. I mean, did you come here to hear a bunch of metal singers insincerely fellate your hometown for a few cheep cheers, or did you come here at the risk of permanent tinnitus, hearing loss, and grievous bodily harm to be ground down into pulp by several tons of heavy fuckin' metal?" The crowd's eager responce was answer enough, so she smiled, and finished, "Good, because I don't expect to see anybody come outta this next song alive. This one's called Gilles de Rais."

... what? Sometimes it didn't suck to actually be a frontwoman.

Just before the song began, however, Izzie turned away from the crowd and toward Cormac in particular, nodding at him. "Hey," she grunted shortly. "How about you intro this song with a little run across the windchimes, eh?"

Cormac looked at Izzie as though she'd just personally brought Christmas early right to his doorstep, before turning his nigh-uncontainable jubilance toward Kodie and mouthing 'TEN BUCKS'. And then, of course, none too eager to squander this opportunity, he did just that, and Psychosis' set went along from there.

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"...And once again, thank you all so very much for coming out, stick around for Psychosis, stick around for Legion! We are Sturm and we have one more song! That song! Is! THE EXECUTION BLOOOOOCK!"

The crowd roared again, then died. Ted held the pick in his mouth and concentrated. He was a bit frazzled and didn't know why. Maybe it was knowing Izzie was out there, probably judging. Maybe she liked it because it wasn't Cor Leonis. Maybe she hated it because it had too much consonance. Why did he care?

-----

By the time The Execution Block reached the seven-minute mark, Ted could feel the sweat beading on his hands. He should have ditched the jacket. He should just not bring the jacket in the first place.

The harmonized soloing and duet finale began. It had been Lionel's idea, after accidentally layering two solo tracks together and discovering they could work well together. Though the whole 16 bars seemed entirely improvised, like a conversation through guitars, it was actually the product of nearly a week of nonstop writing, figuring out the harmonies, counterpoints, and fills. Lionel was inordinately proud of it all.

The duet closed with a final harmony leading into the classic Big Rock Ending. Lionel let Ted make the guitar noises and took the mike again. "Thank you Ottobar, have a great fucking night!" With a flash of the horns, Sturm's set ended. Now to break down and take the gear out so Psychosis could set up.

Fun.

-----

All loaded. Psychosis's set had been...almost the same, but not really. Ted had to admit, their musicianship was exceptional, especially Izzie's. The whiplash between slow and fast caught him off guard, but surprisingly it worked. When the last song finished, Ted whooped and cheered with everyone else, then turned around and headed outside. The creeping urge was coming back.

Time for the evening smoke.

He'd quit for a brief period after taking up his position as singer in Cor Leonis, but when that gig passed, the cigarettes returned. He kept himself carefully rationed to two or three per day, and made sure to make up for it in other ways. He considered that fair. He'd quit again eventually. Hopefully not too late.

Right now, he really needed to smoke out the unexpected stress. He stopped about ten yards from the venue entrance and pulled out a pre-cut strip of paper. Holding it between his fingers, he pulled out the tobacco pouch. He set the paper on the ground and knelt by it, carefully putting just enough tobacco on it, then rolling it carefully and sealing it up. He then lit it up and took a long drag.

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"Guess not." Craig mused as he turned back toward Sturm's set. Looked like the lineup hadn't changed much since he's last seen them when they were Cor Leonis - that friend of Cormy's was still there which he didn't doubt would please him. Kodie on the other hand...He peeked over at her. She wore a neutral expression, seeming to be paying more attention to the music than to anything else. None the less, knowing her she probably wouldn't be super psyched to see Charlotte again since he got the feeling the blonde's seemingly endless energy would get on her nerves after a while. He looked back to the stage. It seemed Whatever-His-Name was had broadened his horizons and Craig had to admit, he was a little impressed. "Not too bad." He noted, nodding slowly. He was more of a old-school and brutal death metal kind of a guy but he liked some melodic death metal and Sturm's wasn't bad from his perspective. He could appreciate what he was hearing but he knew that Kodie could probably nit-pick at it more since it was more her thing.




Craig was glad to be back up on stage, to feel the strings beneath his fingers, the lights shining bright above his head and hear the roar of the crowd as they dug into their first song for the night.

After Worm Infested Cadaver, it seemed Izzie had something in mind. She dug around in her pockets and produced a single slip of paper which she read off of. Craig peered over at her from the other side of the stage, suddenly very uncomfortable. They were in Baltimore. What the fuck, did she suddenly have Alzheimer's or something? Izzie was always on top of that shit. He didn't dare say anything, instead he merely glanced at Kodie who shrugged her shoulders, a puzzled look upon her face as well as they crowd shouted 'Baltimore' back up at them. He glanced at Cormac and then back to Izzie.

He felt his shoulders relax when she spoke again. Oh. She was putting on a show. That would be just like Izzie to mock someone else. He felt better now.

Kodie's lips twitched into a smile. Sometimes she thought she rather liked Izzie Martinez. After listening to Sturm's performance they were willing to wager that Izzie had taken some inspiration and what she said applied to many performers worldwide. It was refreshing to hear someone give it to you straight, because let's face it. No one actually gave a shit what you thought of their hometown. What they did care about was your performance and Izzie clearly knew how to handle that along with writing lyrics which were something of interest to Kodie rather than just the stereotypical, lack lustre gore lyrics like some bands did (They know who they are.). She quite liked Izzie as a frontwoman. She moved her fingers back up to the neck of her bass, preparing for the beginning of Gilles de Rais when Izzie suddenly looked back to Cormy and asked him something that Kodie had been a hundred percent sure would never happen.

Honestly, she probably would've been equally surprised if the woman had knelt before Cormy's kit and declared her love for him. After all the endless teasing him for having those damned things she was actually going to tell him to use them. She smiled and watched the little drummer mouth 'ten bucks' to her and with a slight nod of her head turned back to the crowd, her smile not fading quite yet as her hands found the neck of her bass. She started out doing this as a favor to Craig but she actually might miss playing with these guys at the end of all this. They were an odd little group to be sure but Kodie had to admit, she liked them and their music.




Charlotte strode out of the venue like it was a runway and the floor had not littered with alcohol, sweat and likely some blood after Psychosis' set. "Hey, Ted." She called, cheerfully although her nose wrinkled slightly at the scent of cigarettes. She had never been overfond of tobacco. It fucked up your lungs, teeth and made you smell like an ash tray. Ick. She sighed, as though looking upon an incorrigible child, resting her hands on her hips. "I thought you quit that." She said, walking over to him and regarding him with her best disapproving frown, an expression which she wasn't sure she had quite mastered. And while she wanted to stand there and remind Ted of how bad smoking was for you and all of that, she figured she should probably just tell him what she came out here to tell him since she was sure he was sick of hearing it by now. "So, I thought after this we should go get some drinks or something. Maybe I'll invite Cormy and the others if I can find them, don't know if they'll be interested or not. But oh, well. You game?" She asked, curiously.



Liam and Chris hovered in the audience near the other two, watching as Sturm's set came to a close and Psychosis was to begin. He liked Sturm's sound and was pleasantly surprised by their musicianship. He looked forward to Psychosis' set though, there was something about them that he quite liked.


He listened as the drummer kicked of the song with some windchimes which blew Liam away since it was Psychosis, but he just smiled and watched the clearly ecstatic drummer. He still really wanted to talk to Lestari about her drumming style, but he didn't want to bring it up so suddenly...He was hoping it would eventually pop up naturally and he'd be able to casually mention it not make her feel uncomfortable, as though what she were doing wasn't working which wasn't the case at all. Liam liked what she brought to the table but simply wanted to experiment with Legion's sound. "I bet he's never been so happy to be able to use his windchimes." He remarked, more to himself than anything. He wondered if they'd get a chance to talk to Legion again - probably since they'd run into them quite a bit lately. Chris might not be so talkative in that case, since it seemed he was all shy around the bassist now.

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[No, I did not, indeed, wrest control of ted from Erik. This is a co-post between me 'n him.]

And so, as the final slam chords of A Sanguine Reverie drew Psychosis' set to a slow, grinding close, Psychosis ceded the stage to Aborticide. Izzie didn't waste much time on the general post-set melange of 'thanks for comin' out, stay for the rest of the bands, stay metal/brutal/whatever'; she grunted something vaguely along the line of 'thanks or whatever', and then ushered her troops along in vacating the stage. Breaking down the equipment and then packing it back up didn't take long at all-- after all, she wouldn't be winning any awards for being the nicest band leader you ever worked with in your life, but Izzie did like to think she ran a tight ship here. Well, sort of a tight ship, anyway.

As the band emerged from the backstage and back into the general milieu of the venue, Izzie clapped a hand on Cormac's slender shoulder-- just about scaring the little drummer outta his wits as he gave a little jerk of fright (whereupon he had to continue jerking about like that intermittently so that people wouldn't think he'd gotten the daylights scared outta him, that was totally just how he walked around). "Staff the merch table," she grunted tersely, delving a hand into the pocket of her jacket and withdrawing a pack of cigarettes. She'd managed to kick the drinking habit to the curb since she'd found herself mired in it once again about a year or so ago, but the smoking... yeah, she knew it was probably about time she started cutting down on this too. She wasn't young anymore, and though she'd maintained a pretty healthy lifestyle otherwise-- diet, exercise, that whole gig-- drugs had proven the chink in that armour since her youth, and smoking remained the only addiction she was battling these days.

Although frankly, she added silently to herself in disgruntlement. That would probably be a much simpler war to wage if I didn't need the smokes to relieve the stress. If everything around her just fucked off and quit making things so difficult, quitting wouldn't have been such a pain in the ass.

By the time she emerged from the heat of the venue out into the cool air of the Baltimore night, the cigarette was already balanced between her thin-drawn lips, and she was bringing the lighter to bear by the time she noticed what she supposed could be called a familiar face. Granted, his back was turned to her, but it was still pretty clearly Ted Marubini. Izzie's lips quirked just slightly into something like a smirk as she flicked the lighter and set the end of the cigarette ablaze. The drummer-- the one Cormac had been old buddies with, though the name escaped Izzie (Champagne? Chardonnay? Something like that)-- was out there as well, and she caught a snippet of their conversation as she approached.

"So, I thought after this we should go get some drinks or something," the drummer was saying. "Maybe I'll invite Cormy and the others if I can find them, don't know if they'll be interested or not. But oh well. You game?"

"I'm sure Cormac'll be just delighted to join you," Izzie drawled by way of greeting, before turning to Ted in particular. "Y'all sounded pretty good back there. I reckoned if I ever saw you again I'd apologise for bein' an idiot a year back and firin' your other guitarist for you, but I gotta say, if that's what got you to quit playin' that bastard amalgamation of nu and power metal..." She took another drag of her cigarette, and shrugged her broad shoulders. "Either way, sounds like you've found your stride."

Ted blinked. He had been about to say "Sure, that sounds nice," but then a very different (though not entirely unexpected) voice cut in. Ted whirled to see the speaker, but he recognized her immediately. The scarred, angular face, the rough black hair, the amazonian build...Yup, Izzie.

He took a short drag from the cigarette and blew it at the ground, then said, "Hullo t'you too, Izzie. I guess it has been a while." He chuckled at a thought, and continued, "Gotta say, you sounded pretty good. Guess it sounds better when it's not in a supposedly soundproofed studio."

Izzie made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a scoff. "Yeah, that's one studio that ain't gettin' my business any time soon. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just set a recording studio up at my own place. Cut out the middleman 'n all that shit." She took another quick puff from her cigarette, and added, "And I'd say it's baffling to hear you express enjoyment in my music, but then, I would've said much the same about coming across you on a death metal tour, and yet here we are."

"I've considered it once or twice," Ted said. "But I couldn't possibly justify it. Or afford it. I thought jazz pay was mediocre...the crap we get sometimes for a set just like what you saw. But I guess we gotta start somewhere. Hell, I don't think we've played a gig outside of the city yet."

He paused a moment, took another drag and blew it to the ground, then remembered something else. "Oh, apology accepted. I think it was for the best in the long run. We'd already lost two band members from the original lineup. It was as if an occult hand had forced the band apart, saying 'No. This will not do.' Honestly, Bey should have at least picked up her phone."

Now, at that, Izzie did give a gruff chuckle-- er, that being the bit about making a pittance off this sort of music, not the bit about the long-lost guitarist. "Yeah, you can't exactly go into this kinda business for the money," she confirmed in a voice that was as rueful as it was amused. "I should know: I've been at it for thirty years and as far as I'm aware neither the diamond pool nor the solid gold Astroturf have arrived just yet."

On the subject of the aforementioned long-lost guitarist: "Well, I ain't proud of it, but I can't say her absence left y'all worse for wear." Izzie took a drag of her cigarette before adding, "Whatever that occult hand might be, I reckon it's got an idea or two about what it's doin'."

"Quite possibly," Ted replied with a chuckle. Upon reflection, much of his career had been built on that sort of serendipity. Meeting Izzie, not going insane, forming Cor Leonis, helming "Neo Cor Leonis", meeting Lionel, Trap dissolving...all of it had led to this moment, in a way. Not that this was an especially notable moment. There would probably be more like it. But this was definitely going someplace where he could play guitar for a living, and that was really all Ted needed.

Speaking of which... "By the way, nice guitar." He was surprised to have recognized it as the same guitar she had used on Sturm&Drang.

"Thanks," the Colombian guitarist returned languidly; by that point her cigarette had whittled away to all but nothing, and she dropped the bare remnants to the ground, where it fizzled out listlessly. "Damn things nearly as old as I am, and it can still churn out anything from death metal to fusion like nothin' else. Quality luthier work does wonders."

She crossed her arms across her broad chest, and leaned back against the wall of the venue. "Speakin' of which," she added with some hint of wry amusement to the hard rasp of her voice. "Nice Ibanez. Odd to see you playin' a guitar with quite so many points, but I guess you gotta meet a certain quota for how many parts of your guitar can impale somebody before you're constitutionally permitted to play death metal on it."

As Izzie dropped her butt, Ted realized his was burning dangerously close to his fingers. He hastily flicked it to the ground and crushed it, thinking of a witty retort. By the time the cigarette had been thoroughly smashed, he admitted defeat to himself, and instead said, "It looked like a nice compromise between no points and lots of points. Plus...it's just great. Plays great, sounds great, balances great. You should try one sometime."

A familiar strain of music caught his attention. "Ah! Next band should be starting. He always plays Robocop for the third band."
"That would be Aborticide," Izzie noted, pulling away from the wall and turning back to head into the venue. "I dunno how fond you are of thrash, but everybody likes Aborticide, so it's worth bein' in the thick of things to listen to." And with that, as Aborticide's vocalist kicked off their set with a rabid howl, the evening went right along.






Meanwhile, at Psychosis' merch table...

Great show in Baltimore tonight! Who's got tickets for Charleston tomorrow? - Cormac With a press of the touchpad screen of his phone, the message was posted to Psychosis' Facebook page-- the one Izzie had reluctantly permitted Cormac to create after considering the benefits of using social media as a means of getting her band's name out there and keeping in touch with fans. Granted, Izzie herself didn't really use it much other than to post every now and then about tour dates and new materiel recording, so generally, it fell to Cormac to keep it alive, which Izzie allowed, so long as he signed off on each one with his own name so people knew whatever dumb shit they saw was comin' outta his hands, not hers. It was mostly an okay gig, though Izzie had nearly revoked his Facebook privileges after a comment about 'that pipsqueak drummer of yours' had resulted in a several-pages-long tirade that had concluded with Cormac declaring that raspberry jam was inferior to strawberry jam and anybody who disputed this inarguable fact of reality was a culinary leper who deserved to be drowned in an ocean of the clearly superior breed of jam.

Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Cormac glanced about at his two bandmates, before zeroing in on Kodie in particular. "Now then," he mused absent-mindedly, as though remarking upon nothing much more consequential than the weather of the evening. "I believe somebody said they'd do something if Izzie ever told me to use my windchimes... what was it? Something about ten dollars?"






Psychosis was... well, Psychosis. Lestari couldn't say she was particularly fond of the ultra-technical 'FULL BLAST AHEAD' bits, and the slam death metal aspect of their music wasn't much her kinda thing either, but they mercifully threw in just enough d-beats to keep her engaged. After all, everybody with the vaguest iota of musical appreciation knew that the quality of a given album or performance varied directly with the number of d-beat sections-- it was, like, some kinda quantum physics law or whatever. Feynman's second law of d-beat dynamics and all that. Other prominent laws of metal physics included Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which stipulated that at a certain point a slam death metal fan has no fucking clue what band they're listening to because all slam sounds the same, and Einstein's theory of relativity, which demonstrated that compared to Demolition Hammer, all metal bands were relatively inferior.

Speaking of d-beats, Aborticide was about to go up, and Lestari was pretty certain their drummer had yet to learn that there were even any other physically possible drum beats besides the d-beat, so that was sure to be a fun show. Now that there was a drummer who understood that good heavy metal was not the product of flagrantly flashy flourishes or pointless bouts of off-kilter time signature fuckwittery, but ruthless, pounding, violent fucking drumming. At least, that was Lestari's own philosophy, and it'd clearly served her well, since she was still here, wasn't she?

Either way, you could be damn sure she wasn't gonna be the one to kick off a slam with a run across the goddamn windchimes.

Speaking of which-- "I bet he's never been so happy to be able to use his windchimes," Liam mused. Alex, between him and Lestari, permitted the vaguest ghost of a smile to tinge her lips, and she added, "Next thing you know, Psychosis' percussion will consist of nothing but windchimes, bongos, cowbells, and the odd triangle beat."

Just that? Lestari couldn't help but point out mordantly, displaying the note before quickly scrawling on. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to Charleston tomorrow and discover him breaking out the marimba and the harpsichord, 'just in case'.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "The harpsichord isn't even a percussion instrument."

That wouldn't stop him, Lestari retorted, which Alex had to concede with a shrug of her shoulders. "Hell, I gotta admit," she mused. "I would be the first up to watch a slam harpsichord band."

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After Kodie and Craig helped break everything down and put back, the two of them headed back off into the venue. They ended up chatting with a few fans for a couple of minutes, some inquiring as to who the fuck she was since she didn't look much like Edei and some who were just commenting on the show. They all seemed nice enough, but Kodie ended up leaving the rest of the conversation to Craig since she wasn't a great conversationalist and ended up checking out the merch tables for a bit.

She ended up buying an Aborticide album and then moved on through the line before she unfortunately almost literally ended up bumping into someone. Both of them hastily made apologies before she looked up when she heard a familiar voice and swore. She wouldn't have been so quick to apologize if she had seen who it was beforehand. Naturally, it was none other than Daisuke. She went to step around them.

"Kodie." He said, though he didn't make any move to stop her.

"What?" She asked, irritably.

He looked down, furrowing his brows as though he hadn't thought that far ahead. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" He asked, at last.

Kodie frowned. She didn't really have any desire to speak to him. Last time had been uncomfortable enough. As far as she was concerned they were ancient history. "Not really." She replied, plainly.

"Please?" He asked, almost pleadingly.

While her first instinct was to say no, Kodie silently wondered if she was being a little too much of an asshole. "Maybe." She shook her head and then set off to go find Craig. As much as she hated to admit, Daisuke still got on her nerves. Things had ended rather poorly between them - she had always thought they had a pretty good relationship, they were both musicians so they understood how much time went into being in a band and making music and never let it interfere with how things were between them. They bickered a little, but nothing any other couple hadn't done before. Things had started to get a little rocky toward the end, naturally. Then it finally snowballed out of control. She sighed. What a pain in the ass.

To her surprise she ended up finding Cormy instead of Craig first. Despite his casual tone, she suspected the drummer felt a lot more smug than he showed. Unable to help but smile, Kodie fished her wallet out of her pocket, sifted through her dollars before producing a ten and holding it out for the drummer to take. "A well earned ten, if I may say so. I've never been more stunned in my life." She said, shaking her head.

"Hey, guys!" Came the ever so cheerful voice that Kodie knew could only belong to Charlotte King. Sure enough when she turned to look, she saw the little blonde striding toward them and then before she knew it she had arms wrapped tightly around her as Charlotte was seemingly trying to strangle her. "It's been so long since I've seen you guys. I missed you." She rambled, finally releasing her and then turning to Cormy. "Anyways," She began again. "I was just outside with Ted and told him I was planning on going out for some drinks. Do you guys want to go?" She asked them. Kodie looked back over at Cormac, thinking she ought to leave this one to him.




"If Izzie Martinez let him have his way, it undoubtedly would end up that way." Liam agreed, shaking his head. The Psychosis drummer was a curious little fellow, he had to admit. But while he was rather eccentric, Liam did think he saw why Izzie Martinez kept him around though, he was pretty handy behind the kit. Plus, he liked him okay as it seemed he and Chris could likely be friends since it appeared they had similar taste in hobbies. It would be good for Chris to have someone else to talk to about those things since none of them usually had any idea what in the hell the guy was actually talking about.

Apparently Lestari didn't think that Cormac McMurphy would stop at the first three, instead she was willing to wager he'd bust out the harpsichord for no reason other than that he might need it, just in case. He had to admit, he wouldn't put it past the guy,even though he barely knew him. "If he ever gets around to it, I'd be willing to watch it too." Liam admitted, nodding slowly. He'd honestly just like to see how the guy could pull it off, as he could honestly imagine if someone told him that he'd rise to the challenge. "I like changing things up as much as the next guy but..." He glanced over at Lestari. "I promise I won't make you do anything absurd next time we get to work on the drum pieces." He said, smiling.

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"One T-shirt, please. Medium."

"Cool." Lionel sorted through the box of shirts, found a Medium. "That'll be ten," he said as he removed the shirt from the box.

One green Hamilton-fronted bill passed from hand to hand, and the shirt passed the other way. "Don't forget to follow us, y'hear?"

"Already did," the buyer said with a grin. "Thanks, man. Great show!"

"Thanks," Lionel said. Fuckin' smartphones. Keep forgettin' how easy it is.

The Robocop theme started playing over the speakers. Lionel craned his neck to see the stage. The next band looked to be set up already. Nice gear, or so he supposed.

Is Ted seriously going to get a digital amp? He thought about it. Nah. Probably not. I'll hook him up with some lifting.

That'll do it.

Speak of the devil, Ted wove behind the merch tables. "You go on in," he said. "I could use a sit."

"Suit yourself," Lionel said. "Who's the band?"

"Aborticide. Izzie said they're really good."

"Izzie? I thought you hated her!"

Ted shrugged. "She's mellowed out some from the person I remember. You and she might get along."

Lionel looked at Ted skeptically for a moment, then said, "Whatever you say, man." He ceded his seat to Ted and eased out around the others at the merch tables, then moved with the crowd into the pit.

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Cormac plucked the ten out of Kodie's grasp with an unabashedly triumphant grin-- made a show of holding it up to the light as if inspecting it for the telltale auguries of counterfeit. Evidently, the bill passed muster, because it was with no shortage of pride that he shoved it into the pocket of his denim shorts, and turned to Kodie to wryly muse, "Yeah, quite something, isn't it? I guess Izzie finally realised the value of the noble windchimes in enhancing the brutal death metal experience."

Perhaps fortuitously, the young drummer did not appear to be on the precipice of launching into yet another exaltation of the proud and dignified windchimes and their irreplaceable capacity in the... uh, 'brutal death metal experience'. Either way, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to inundate his present company with another such tirade, for right around that moment, a familiar face framed by trailing locks of flaxen hair joined the fray.

"Charlotte!" Cormy exclaimed by way of greeting, throwing wide his scrawny little arms and enveloping his friend and former bandmate in a fleeting embrace. He cast a swift glance back toward Kodie-- he'd forgotten that she and Charlotte were evidently... uh, acquainted; 'friends' didn't appear to be quite the proper term, since for all of Charlotte's camaraderie Kodie seemed little inclined to reciprocate. But hey, no need to let that cramp his jive, right? He'd been delighted to find that Charlotte's band was going to be accompanying the tour for a portion of its east coast leg, almost as delighted as he'd been to find that she and her band had begun playing death metal and stopped... well, sucking, to be honest. Look, Cormac didn't really put much stock in power metal, and all the nu metal he'd heard in his time had appealed little to him, so he felt he could hardly be blamed for finding little to like in a band that put both those unsavoury forms of music into a blender and played the grotesque product. And anyway, they were soundin' pretty damn good these days!

"Well, I can speak only for myself here," Cormac declared, chest puffed out in a proud display of... I dunno, speaking only for himself here. "But I for one would be most delighted to accompany you to the nearest establishment of merriment and fine drink. Oh!" He suddenly perked up as a thought occurred to him. "We should also invite the peeps from Legion too! You guys'll like 'em. They're total homies."






Meanwhile, on the total homies side of things...

They continued small talk as Aborticide went about setting up-- Lestari answered Liam's assurances with a resounding I should hope not! You 'n I both knew what I was bringing to the table when you hired me, and it sure as fuck wasn't any of this windchime shit! And then, of course, once Aborticide fired up their set, it was time to hit the mosh pits: Alex wasn't much one for moshing, admittedly (plus, she didn't wanna be that asshole who delves into the mosh pit in their spike-studded leather jacket-- seriously, fuck those people). But Lestari, for her part, rather enjoyed letting herself really absorb the intensity of the music and then dispelling it in an appropriately visceral fashion, which was really just an overly verbose way of saying she liked shoving and smashing into people along with violent music. What? She was a simple woman with simple passions.

Anyway, eventually Aborticide's set drew to a close, and then there were two more bands-- one a typical old school death metal revival band, the type of band where the musicians have clearly not heard a single piece of music more recent than Mortal Throne of Nazarene, the other more in the vein of the usual post-1995 Suffocation worship. And then after that-- it was Legion's time to take the stage, baby. Time to give (at least half) the crowd what they'd really come to this show to hear: some relentless, melodic, hard-hitting, soul-soothin' metal. Or something like that, Lestari mused as she perched herself down behind her drum kit and took to goin' about the usual business of soundcheck. And as Liam and Alex and Chris did the same, Lestari basked in that sensation that inevitably preceded the onset of a show-- that tension, that certain energy, that anticipation amongst the crowd and between the band-- it was something she had reveled in back when she had first begun attending shows, a lanky, bitter fourteen year old, and it was something she reveled in even now as she looked down at the crowd.








It was just half past midnight by the time the show drew to a close-- maybe 'just' was a little misleading, but after all, sometimes these shows could last out to the early hours of the next morning. Cormac preferred it as such, though: it left you a little time to enjoy the night life of wherever you happened to be playing that evening-- to live a little bit without being too exhausted to do anything but go to bed, or indeed to have a drink with an old friend and her bandmates. He dropped a quick line with Kodie about askin' the fine musicians of Legion if they would be interested in joining Psychosis and Sturm for a friendly round of drinks, before subtly making his way over to where Izzie was clearing up the merch table. He called her name, and she set a nearly-empty box of t-shirts down to turn and face him.

"Thanks again for agreeing to the windchime thing," he said by way of greeting as he dug the ten dollar note out of his pocket and held it out to Izzie. She raised an eyebrow, and grunted, "You know, I probably woulda done it anyway even if you hadn't offered the ten bucks, right? They're just fuckin' windchimes, it's not like they drastically altered the course of the song or anything."

Cormac merely shrugged his shoulders, and continued to hold out the ten. "Nevertheless," he replied with dignity. "I offered the fruits of Kodie's bet in recompense, and if I must I shall dog you to the ends of the earth until the tribute is accepted."

"... well, that sounds like kind of a drag, so I reckon I'll just take the ten." Izzie went ahead and took the bill, stuffing it into her pocket before glancing back up at Cormac's oddly victorious expression, and added, "Should I even bother askin' what the hell the point of winning the bet was if you were just gonna give me the money anyway?"

Cormy puffed his chest out. "Only an Irishman's pride, Miss Martinez," he declared. "Only an Irishman's pride."

For a moment she merely looked down at him with the sort of expression one normally dons when faced with a poor abandoned wreck of a mutt, uncertain of whether to regard it with pity or with disgust or with disdain. But in the end, she gave a fleeting bout of raspy laughter, and growled, "Hell, you really are a goddamn idiot, aren't you?" And then, shaking her head ruefully and still chuckling a little under her breath, Izzie stacked the remainder of the boxes one on top of the other, and absconded, leaving Cormy to track down Craig and let him know what the plans for the rest of the night were.

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Liam found himself in a surprisingly good mood as he and the rest of Legion went through soundcheck. He normally was much more business-like and serious at times like these but for once in a blue moon he felt relaxed and eager to put on a show tonight. Maybe it was the time he spent hanging out but when it was actually time to go onstage he turned to his bandmates and smiled. "Let's do this." He said. Getting up on stage tonight was a great deal of fun. He had to admit, and that apparently showed in his performance tonight as they launched into their first song. He was more lively than usual - not that it meant he was bouncing around the stage like one of those metalcore jackasses. Nah, he was just more in the show-time spirit than usual but he was still himself - more reserved than some metal performers for sure but for Liam this was him being showy. Alex was definitely still clearly the real performer here though, that much was without dispute and the crowd seemed to enjoy the performance that Legion put on. Chris actually seemed a little moved by Liam's obvious good mood and looked to be having a good time tonight too. Liam truly had no idea who was actually here for them and who was here for say, Psychosis and some of those other bands of the sort. He didn't let that concern him any though, he merely focused on his role as vocalist and guitarist and let himself enjoy being on stage for once.





Kodie watched the warm exchange between drummers, thinking it was no wonder the two were friends - they both had rather...eccentric personalities. The two of them being in the same room together though could either end well, where they both entertained each other or it would send Kodie running to the hills. Cormy would apparently be delighted to go have some drinks with Charlotte, which in turn delighted the little blonde drummer. "Oh, that would be great. The more the merrier. I've never met them but they seem like interesting folk. I've seen them around the venue and heard of them. Even though melodic death metal isn't really my thing, I bet they're really good. I've heard their guitarist is fantastic..." She prattled on and after she finally stopped for a breath she then turned her bright, smiling face to Kodie who suddenly felt very uncomfortable. While she doubted it would truly disappoint Charlotte, she didn't want to appear rude (Not that she thought a whole heck of a lot would disappoint her, aside from maybe losing an earring or something.) "I'll see what Craig wants to do, but we'll probably both join you guys." She said, nodding once. The little blonde looked like she was going to start grinning like a kid in a candy store. "That'll be great, it'll be so good to catch up with all of you." Charlotte replied. It was strange, even though the drummer was several years older than Kodie herself she often felt like she was the older of the two. Maybe it was because of the endless youthful energy that blonde emitted, maybe it was because she was short and had one of those faces that made it hard to guess one's age. She wasn't too sure, but what she did know was that while she didn't really mind Charlotte's company she did find her to be tiring sometimes with all her endless flitting about and chattering.

"Anyways, you guys should meet me over at the bar across the street. I've been there a few times and it's nice enough." The little blonde said with a wave of her hand. "Plus it won't be hard to find or take a long time to get to."

Kodie nodded once more, glancing between the two drummers. "Anyway, I should go track down Craig. I'll catch you two later." She said, knowing that it probably would be better to find the young guitarist sooner rather than later as if she waited much later she might not see him until tomorrow as he might already be getting thoroughly intoxicated. She offered the two a wave and then parted ways with the two. She then ended up scanning the crowd, looking for some sign of Craig's shaved head. If she couldn't find him in a minute or two she'd just call him as he likely had his phone on him.



It seemed she however was going to run into damn near everybody but Craig tonight though. Along came fucking Daisuke. Again. This time, however, he cut the talking portion down. "Look, Kodie..." He began quickly, but she just as quick cut him off. "Look what?" She asked, irritated now, her gray-green eyes hard. All she wanted to do was find Craig and have a nice, quiet night. She was in no mood to deal with this nonsense.

"Fuck..." He took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm sorry." Upon seeing her arch a brow disbelievingly at him he held up a hand. "I know there was some shit between us..." Still disbelieving. There was some bad blood between the two, that was for damn sure although apparently after seeing her suddenly he wanted to apologize for his behavior three years ago. "I just want a chance to apologize. Try to...make things right." He pressed a single piece of paper into her hand and then closed her fingers around it before walking away and fading into the crowd. She tried not to scowl as she unfolded the slip of paper and saw that it was merely his number. Like hell she was going to call him, she thought although she found herself tucking the piece of paper into her pocket. He probably expected her to just throw it away if he really knew her at all. A mere second later Craig emerged from the sea of bodies.

"Declarations of love? Lingerie like the rockers get thrown to them on stage?" He asked with a boyish grin as he nodded toward her pocket. Apparently he hadn't seen the exchange.

Kodie couldn't help but smile a little at that. "Yeah, it's lingerie." She replied, sarcastically, thinking of all the absurd things she'd seen at rock gigs when she was younger. "Anyway, I guess Charlotte King wants us to go hang with her and her band and maybe Legion at the bar across the street. You in?" She asked him and didn't have to wait long for a response, the guitarist nodded almost immediately. The show had already drawn to a close by now and she just hoped she'd be able to find someone from Legion to ask them about the whole drinks thing before they ended up leaving.

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Well, this had turned into a regular little pow-wow, hadn't it?

It probably went without saying that Izzie was nowhere to be found in the vicinity-- probably back in her hotel room, doing something really exciting, like reading, or sleeping. But the rest of the gang was here, in spades: Craig and Kodie, Charlotte, a couple of her bandmates, the two guitarists from Legion... and of course, one Cormac Ryan McMurphy, currently mildly inebriated and rather enthralled with the conversation he was maintaining with the mute drummer from Legion.

"Wait, so..." Cormy gestured vividly with his hands in a general expression of bafflement and inability to understand, his face screwed up in a show of confusion. "Palm reading? You can tell peoples' fortunes just by feeling out their hands?"

Lestari nodded her head vivaciously in affirmation, adding by way of her notebook, It's an ancient and respected practice amongst my people, one that only a select few are permitted to study.

Well, his brain may well have been currently bathing in the finest booze Baltimore had to offer, but even so, this was pushing it a little bit for Cormac. His expression pulled taut into a certain sort of scepticism, and he tentatively ventured, "I dunno, I hear that sorta thing is kinda-- like, y'know..." He winced a little bit, before finishing, "... fake?" The profoundly insulted look that flitted across Lestari's features sufficed in leading Cormac to conclude he had been quite right to hesitate (though he didn't quite pick up on the hint of a smile Lestari was failing to suppress at that point), and it didn't hurt that she took it upon herself to indignantly scrawl upon her notebook and hold up her retort. It is a sacred art! Who do you think you are to disrespect my culture's traditions simply because you don't understand them?

"I'm sorry!" Cormac raised his hands as if in surrender. "It's just..." He struggled to figure out a tactful way to express his sentiments on the subject, before finally blurting out, "In this... uh, culture, people tend to think that kinda thing is, like, pseudoscie-- subosci--" He frowned as he found himself drunkenly stumbling upon the word, before finally managing to mumble, "Sumo-scientific."

Lestari merely shook her head vehemently. Look, she offered, showing him the single word before turning the notebook around to add, I'll even prove it to you. Give me your hand. She provided him all of about a half a second to read what she'd written before she set the notebook aside and reached over to grab his smaller hand in her own. Cormac found himself staring down as if stricken, holding his breath as he felt the rough skin of her fingers tracing along the contours of his palm, her eyes behind the aegis of her glasses inspecting the lines. They remained as such for about a minute, before two things happened: Lestari withdrew her hand, nodding sagely as though she'd come to a profound and indisputable understanding about the man before her, and Cormac finally let his breath loose, having been on the verge of going purple in the face.

"Well?" he ventured, once he was done wheezing and gasping for breath as though he'd just been saved from drowning. "What have you discerned of my destiny?"

Lestari raised her eyes to meet his, and he found an unusually grave expression about them, as though she wasn't sure how to tell him what she'd just discovered. "Go on," he urged, finding himself a little unsettled despite his professed scepticism. "Give it to me straight. I can take it." Lestari shook her head ruefully, and took up her notebook, before scrawling, Well, I dunno how to tell you this, but... you're Irish.

Cormac nearly fell over in his seat. "Impossible!" the dude with an Irish flag plastered across his back and the name 'Cormac Ryan McGoddamnMurphy' exclaimed in disbelief. "How can you tell something like that just from looking at my palm?" Realising he was making himself look like a fool in light of his prior doubt, however, the young drummer cleared his throat, and moulded his expression into one of suspicion. "I dunno," he declared in a decidedly dubious tone. "It still seems kinda shady if you ask me. Like, maybe you're just one of those people who can, like, look at somebody's face and tell where their great-great-great-great-great grandparents came from. I'm not convinced."

Lestari merely shrugged her broad shoulders. Oh ye of little faith, she couldn't help but jest, before adding, Perhaps something of a more personal nature will persuade you of my skills? Cormac mulled it over for a moment, tossing the question about in his inebriated little skull, before steeling his jaw and answering, "Alright then. Let's do it. Tell me something about myself-- my personality, something you can't tell by looking at me." He held his hand out to her, and she took it again, repeating the process. This time it was much quicker: it was only perhaps thirty seconds before Lestari set his hand down, grabbed her notebook, and wrote down, You're gullible.

Cormac's expression wore the sort of shock that was normally reserved for people who have just been informed that they've won a hundred billion dollars and a date with the ghost of Chuck Schuldiner. "Dude," he breathed in awe. "Like... everybody who's known me for more than like a year tells me I'm gullible. Who-- how the hell'd you-- ?"

Seemed she had him convinced now-- and that meant it was time to break out the big guns, the entire point of this little charade she'd been leading the little Irish drummer on. It was time for her to exact her revenge. Actually, you know, she began scribbling away. I did feel something a lot deeper when I was delving into your... Uh. ... persona to find that last bit. Something maybe you don't even know.

Cormac's brow furrowed. "Something I don't know?" he replied-- but the doubt in his tone had been entirely dashed by what was clearly Lestari's clairvoyant powers. There was even something a little like anxiety to his words, as though he feared what he did not know about himself. Lestari's expression was grim, but she nodded, and Cormac bit his lip. "Well," he ventured reluctantly. "I guess I'd be remiss to neglect an opportunity to understand myself better." He made a show of sitting up straight in his chair and setting his jaw hard and rigid in a display of grit and willpower, not unlike a condemned individual staring death in the eyes, and finished, "Alright."

Lestari forced herself to choke down the triumphant smile threatening to pull taut the corners of her lips as she reached out one more time and took Cormac's hand in her own, inspecting it and coursing her fingertips along its creases. Her brow creased, and her lips went thin, as though she were conducting some strenuous labour, before she reached over to her notebook with the pencil in her hand and, without releasing Cormac's palm with her other hand, wrote and held up, You... there's somebody in your life...

"Somebody in my life?"

Yes... a woman. A woman that you... She paused writing briefly, her fingers digging into the skin of Cormac's palm, before she finished, A woman that you feel very strongly about. A woman that you love.

"I-- love?" Cormac squeaked. Lestari nodded her head solemnly, but pressed a finger to her lips; Cormac obediently kept his lips sealed as she continued to go about her work. After all, he didn't wanna distract her. This was clearly serious business-- serious enough that Lestari was even transcribing ellipses into the things she was writing as if to denote hesitation. That serious.

This woman... Lestari began to write almost absent-mindedly into her notebook as the fingertips of her other hand traced along Cormac's palm, reading into his destiny, into his very soul (or, more accurately, adding a little theatrical flair to her bullshit). She's... quite close to you. Somebody you've played music with, perhaps?

Played music with? Cormac immediately began mulling over the various female musicians he'd played with in recent history. Well, there was Charlotte, of course-- and, well, sure, he liked her, but he wasn't in love with her. As for Edei... well, much the same could be said, couldn't it? He wasn't sayin' he'd be runnin' for the hills if she expressed any romantic interest in him (you know, supposing she ever came back from whatever situation had necessitated her swift departure), but he certainly couldn't say he was deeply, passionately in love with her or anything. And as for Kodie-- shit, he'd only just met her a few days ago. Cormac had heard of 'love at first sight', sure, but he really didn't think 'the scruffy little drummer and the frosty black metal bassist' was the sort of thing that came to mind at that phrase.

So then... who could it be?

As if on cue, Lestari's notebook appeared held up before him once again. She's a rather tall woman, it seems, she had written. Quite well-built too, I think. Tall and well-built... and someone he'd played music with... Cormac's brow furrowed in puzzlement as he attempted to guess at the identity of his evident one true love. None of the three women who came to mind when he thought of people he'd played with in the recent past or was now playing with fit all those criteria: none of them were exactly bodybuilders, and though Kodie had a couple inches of height on him, she was also almost as lanky.

"I got nothin'," he admitted.

Lestari gawked at the dude as though unable to believe anybody could be so inconceivably thick, before suppressing the urge to roll her eyes and continuing, figuring if it got to the point where she'd set everything right in front of him and he still couldn't work it out she'd just tell him the damn name herself. She's a guitarist and a vocalist, she added slowly. Of... hmm. Hispanic descent, I think?

"Tall, well-built, guitarist, vocalist, Hispanic..." Cormac's voice trailed off as he listed the various things he now knew about his mystery beau. He had to admit, she was sounding more and more like Ricky Ricardo with every word-- hell, if the next words Lestari wrote down were 'she also plays the conga drum, is prone to bouts of harried Spanish ranting, and is married to an ambitious redhead', he'd probably have to dye his hair and start calling himself Lucy. But-- naw, really though. Who had he worked with who fit all those criteria? He was drawin' a blank here. Had he even ever played with a Hispanic woman before? Hell, now that he thought of it, he--

... oh. Oh.

"Oh!" Cormac damn near hurled up off of his seat with an exclamation that, he felt, aptly conveyed the amalgamation of shock, bafflement, horror, and astonishment he was feeling at that point. A quick glance around him revealed he'd managed to attract the attention of half the bar in his awe, and so he forced himself to speak in hushed tones as he whispered, "Izzie? I'm in love with Izzie?"

Lestari nodded silently. The palm doesn't lie, the motion seemed to say.

"But-- but that doesn't... that doesn't make sense--" Cormac sputtered for a moment, before he began to recover his senses and he began to realise... really, what about it didn't make sense? She was a talented musician, she was scary smart, there was no question of whether or not she was strong, and... and hell, she was even somewhat not-an-asshole sometimes! She could be domineering, sure, but... uh... well, obviously that was just because she cared about the music! He could respect that. Passion for music was a good thing. Hell, framed in that light, he actually couldn't think of any reason not to be in love with her. I mean, really, it all made sense.

"Oh my god," Cormac whispered as though he'd just come to the most earth-shattering epiphany of his entire existence. I'm in love with Izzie Martinez.

"Bartender," he called out. "I'm gonna need more beer. Lots more."






"... so anyway, that was right about the time Liam here jumped into the van and drove off to get Chris to the exorcist while Lestari 'n I stayed behind to hold off the demonic hordes."

Alex paused her little tale to take another quick sip of water-- no booze for her tonight, she wasn't gonna risk the temptation. Chris had, perhaps wisely, seen fit to opt out of the festivities tonight, considering his experiences with alcohol the past few times they'd gone out to bars across the course of this tour. Honestly, she'd considered doing the same-- but hey, people from three different bands were gonna be drinking here, and that meant something funny, amusing, and/or embarrassing was probably gonna happen at some point tonight. And damned if Alex Rykov wasn't gonna be there to watch it happen.

She was about to finish up her story when out of nowhere, like a shambling, decrepit zombie risen from the crypt, Cormac came shuffling by... and then right past them. Then he turned around again, and did the same thing. He walked by the little group about a half a dozen times before, on the last pass, he stopped, blinked, looked at them, and then recoiled as if in horror. "Shit! There you guys are!"

Alex raised an eyebrow, but he was already headed for his own bandmates. "Hey. D-- dude, dude." Cormy reached a hand out to pat Craig on the shoulder-- or was that Kodie? Actually, that might've been Kodie. He really wasn't sure. They both had long hair, after all. And pale, Scandinavian skin. And a really nice pair of--

He frowned. Actually, he was pretty sure this wasn't Craig.

Either way. "Dude, hold my drink, will ya," he mumbled, before dropping one of those little cocktail umbrellas you get with real highfalutin drinks into said individual's lap. "I gotta... gotta go confess my love to Izzie... tell 'er that I 'ppreciate 'er, 'n... 'n like, love 'er, 'n... " Before anybody of a mind to respond could do so, he suddenly bellowed, "NO, man. I'm COOL. I'm FINE. I GOT this. I-- I..."

And just like that, Cormac McMurphy forgot how to stand, and straight down to the floor he went.

"Why is this always happening," he sighed from down on the floor.

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View All » Add Character » 16 Characters to follow in this universe

Character Portrait: Craig Duncan
Character Portrait: Edei Delanore
Character Portrait: Liam Mathias
Character Portrait: Raisa Trelstad
Character Portrait: Kodie Toivonen
Character Portrait: Christopher Addams
Character Portrait: Ted Marubini
Character Portrait: Victor Holden
Character Portrait: J Lionel Anderson
Character Portrait: Alex Patterson
Character Portrait: Matt Holmes

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Character Portrait: Matt Holmes
Matt Holmes

"Just like old times, eh?"

Character Portrait: Alex Patterson
Alex Patterson

"Yeah, sure, I'll play with T???wait, who?"

Character Portrait: J Lionel Anderson
J Lionel Anderson

"Step 1: Plug in. Step 2: Kick ass. Step 3: Profit."

Character Portrait: Ted Marubini
Ted Marubini

"You again?"

Trending

Character Portrait: Ted Marubini
Ted Marubini

"You again?"

Character Portrait: J Lionel Anderson
J Lionel Anderson

"Step 1: Plug in. Step 2: Kick ass. Step 3: Profit."

Character Portrait: Alex Patterson
Alex Patterson

"Yeah, sure, I'll play with T???wait, who?"

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Character Portrait: Alex Patterson
Alex Patterson

"Yeah, sure, I'll play with T???wait, who?"

Character Portrait: Ted Marubini
Ted Marubini

"You again?"

Character Portrait: Matt Holmes
Matt Holmes

"Just like old times, eh?"

Character Portrait: J Lionel Anderson
J Lionel Anderson

"Step 1: Plug in. Step 2: Kick ass. Step 3: Profit."


Fullscreen Chat » Create Topic » Born To Raise Hell: Out of Character

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Most recent OOC posts in Born To Raise Hell

Re: Born To Raise Hell

And now it's Something's turn to post.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

I submitted Victor :D

Re: Born To Raise Hell

oh wow people are posting in the OOC

hello Something

Re: Born To Raise Hell

I will have Victor resurface shortly. So glad this is happening, Holy crap.

Hi :3

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Ayy. Good to see you again, Erik. :)

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Hi guys. It's been a while.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

I leave it entirely in your hands. I doubt this will die unless Celedia... I dunno, just plain never returns for one reason or another, but we could continue a post every now and then until they get back just to avoid the possibility of our own interests fading in the interval.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

I'm up for writing something to keep things going if you think that would be best. I don't want this to die, but I also don't want Celedia to get left behind.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Wanna maybe put in another couple posts to keep things moving and such? Or perhaps we should just continue to wait. Hopefully all's well with them.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

I hope so too. I had just been contemplating writing to you to ask if you had heard anything from her lately - I knew she had said she would be back around the first of the year, and I wasn't going to be surprised if it would be a little later as she had a lot on her plate but it's been awhile.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Well, I sure hope everything's alright with Celedia.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Finally got that post up. Ain't much, but it should keep shit afloat until Celedia's able to post again.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Sorry to hear that as well, Celedia. I myself am likely to be rather busy lately as well because as usual when the holidays approach, life becomes hectic for just about everyone.

I can go either way, Comrade (I still have a hard time not calling you Painkiller.). Whatever you think is best, I personally think we should probably try to keep things moving a little bit but not do too much as we don't want Celedia to fall behind or anything like that.

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Sorry to hear about that, Celedia, but thanks for lettin' us know. In that case, Arma, do you wanna wait up a couple weeks for Celedia, or should I do a post to keep shit moving til then?

EDIT: I just realised I accidentally typed 'years' instead of 'weeks', so in case anybody read that and thought I was being a massive dick, nope, just a massive dumbass. :v

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that you haven't been forgotten but that writing has unfortunately had to take a back seat while real life intervenes. I am currently working 65 or so hours per week, plus I've been busy in my down time because my boyfriend's grandmother is in hospice and the holidays are (obviously) rapidly approaching. I haven't even really been able to get on the internet for a week to show you how much free time I have.

That being said, I probably won't be back until the first of the year or close to it. If you need to skip my characters or fade them to the background to continue moving along so the story doesn't die completely, feel free. If you have any questions I can be reached at RPGCeledia[ at ]gmail.com though once again please don't expect a swift reply since it's a tertiary email.

Otherwise, know that I think about this place often and wish I could join you. ;) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Re: Born To Raise Hell

She was just sayin' she didn't wanna end up in Raisa's 'collection' or something like that.



Pretty much that whole paragraph required quoting but I'll just post this one and say that I actually LOL'd.


I can totally imagine Raisa collecting people... Which is the creepy part. ;)

Re: Born To Raise Hell

Naw, the post was fine, Celedia. And sorry that you're so swamped :v

Anyway, followed it up with my post, wherein Izzie introspects angstily! No, no, please, there's no need to cheer, it was her pleasure, really.