{Round One} Big Day Out

[Duke of Clubs]

IC: Damn, these Aussies would not stop grinning.

There was good reason to smile, of course. Big Day Out, a music festival that had started out in Syndey and now came to around ten different cities in Australia and New Zealand, was basically the equivalent of a yearly Australian Woodstock. Hell, Tool was headlining. If Johnny Bones had ever needed a good excuse to drop acid (though, of course, he didn't), this would be it.

He contemplated stabbing himself with his hidden combat knife until he turned into a human for the sole purpose of going on an acid trip--as per usual, he had LSD in one of his many pockets--but decided against it. Tool wasn't coming on for an hour: sundown.

In the meantime, he lounged on the sidelines as tens of thousands of sweating, half-naked Australians made the hugest mosh pit he had ever seen. Johnny pushed the brim of his Red Sox cap up a bit higher so he could see. No one would look his way; no one would take notice of a skeleton calmly watching Muse belt out an amazing rendition of "Stockholm Syndrome."

"Damn," he said, aloud this time. "Those Aussies won't stop grinnin'."

As a lifelong (and beyond, yuk yuk) cynic, happiness irritated him. As elated as he was to be at a festival where many of his favorite bands were playing, nagging depression continued to eat away at the euphoria. He had tried some anti-depressants once when he was in human form, trying to dull the pain.

It had started as a headache. Months now after his death and resurrection, only two things made Johnny happy for long periods of time: crime and battle.

As Muse launched into "Citizen Erased," Johnny let out a sigh of contentment, shoved the bitterness out of his mind, and laid back on the grass, letting the screaming guitar and crooned lyrics wash over him.

Then, someone else was screaming.

"Skeleton!"

"Oh, f***berries," Johnny muttered.

The section of crowd nearest to him was scattering. Elsewhere, people turned their heads to see what was going on. Johnny stood and dusted himself off, his guns painfully evident on his hips.

Onstage, the band played on, deciding that it was part of the show.

OoC: Yeah...I like music. Keep Muse playing during the battle. You know you've always wanted to have a soundtrack while you write-fight. If you want, here's the first song mentioned above and the second.

[Nata'kar]

The godly voice of Talos echoed about the angel's mind as she soared, hovering barely a foot over the Indian Ocean.. A disturbing presence on the mortal plane, the planet Earth, the continent of Australia. The magicoordinates flashed in her mind; such coordinates would physically reveal themselves as an aura of red, only visible to angels and gods of her own realm.

The salty deeps of the Indian Ocean thundered as the angel's powerful wingbeats ripped the calm apart.

"Why I couldn't just teleport to these blasted lands is beyond me!" Sarrea yelled aloud, half to herself and half to her beloved yet most arrogant God of Storms.

Land was in sight; she decided to conceal herself, flying into the mist of the clouds above. Talos discouraged Sarrea's laze, as well as teleportation, making her fly until she was atleast on the continent. The angel could do as she wished from there. And so she continued her flight, until about twenty minutes of it. She declined 'till the clouds were above her, then furled her wings and lightly fell to the mainland.

The angel fished through her robes for a scroll of Omnivision. She carved the rune into the ground; as she did, the rune on the scroll faded away. Sarrea then stood on the rune, and allowed it to take her body. It showed her all of where she was at once; seeing the flash of red and facing where she did, she took out a scroll of Teleportation, using it the same way she used the scroll of Omnivision.

Arriving at the coordinates given, it was evident that something disturbed the fleeing Aussies, something in the area. It was wholly obvious what, too. The simple-minded (in Sarrea's head, anyway) residents of this smallest of continents had seen a skeleton, so they shouted...the angel laughed at their stupidity. Grabbing her maces, which were floating about via telekinesis, she walked in the direction opposite of the fleeing crowd. However odd it seemed that there was a skeleton that willingly showed himself in the open, it seemed as though a skeleton was what they were running from...For there he stood, looking somewhat annoyed; at least to the extent a skeleton could. Sarrea took up Azaraec and launched her mace straight at the skeleton. It exploded with about 250 pounds of force; the bones of the befuddled innocent scattered about the ground like bowling pins; Azaraec returned to Sarrea's hand.

"Not much of a challenge..." she groaned dismally, strolling reluctantly to bury the bones. Her hair shifted to silver, and began to shorten itself. In other words, the task was a complete bore. She snatched a femur from the ground; however, it fell from her hand, and began to jump away. "HEY! Come back here, you freaking thing!" she screamed, enraged. Her hair began to darken. She would have ran after it, but an extremely loud bang stopped her cold, and as soon as she heard it, he hair became completely white and shot back into fell to the middle of her spine.

The angel looked up, face to face with the skeleton she had just smashed as well as the gun it held, barrels steaming. Sarrea pumped her wings forward with great power, so as to propel herself backward. She concentrated on the skeleton for a few seconds, then charged again. It looked confused as to why anyone would charge at it, armed or not, if it had a gun pointing at them. Or at least that's what Sarrea made of it. The bullet was released, but stopped completely. Two loud bangs occured; one, obviously, from the gun, and the other from the barrier of compressed air Sarrea had produced around the barrel. She smirked and loosed two fireballs at the enemy.

[Duke of Clubs]

OoC: Craaaaaap. Belle has me all paranoid that we're being judged with other twosomes.

IC: Many people praise virtues like tolerance and kindness. Some say that they make the world go 'round.

Stupid American bitch, Johnny thought to himself. I ought to beat her face in. In all likelihood, the woman in front of him wasn't American...but Johnny found that he could easily blame America for basically anything. The only state he had respect for was Texas.

For Johnny Bones, tolerance and kindness happened to other people.

Despite his increasing annoyance--all I want to do is enjoy the "Muse-Ic", dammit--Johnny could not help but be surprised and even slightly impressed by the woman who even now sent fireballs careening towards him. The fireballs were boring. The barrier of air that rendered his guns more useless than a cap gun was much more interesting.

Johnny clicked his fingers. A wall of fire sprang up in front of him, swallowing the fireballs like the ocean swallows rain drops. Intrigued, he poked the air in front of his gun. Compressed air? Something like that. Johnny hated science.

Actually...he hated just about everything.

Once more, the now-enraged woman sent fireballs after him. Surely she was an angel. The wings gave it away, but she was pretty good-looking, too. If he wasn't scared to death of God's terrible retribution, retribution he had barely avoided, he would've tried to hit on her. He shivered at the thought of what might happen. Better play it safe.

"I don't want to fight, hurt, and-slash-or kill you, miss," he shouted over the music. "You're way to pretty."

She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off, pulling his sword out from under his jacket--where it could not have possibly fit--and lit the sword on fire. "Seriously. I don't want to. I was just minding my own business. I love this band. C'mon."