Anthem

April 26, 2017:

A metal concert. Fuck Yeah!

Random Concert Arena - Gotham

In RP!

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# Metal]


Fade In…

Nighttime in Gotham. Mattias Larsson was urged to not go to Gotham, but the trains were cheap and he'd spent weeks walking around New York City, exploring. Besides, he had super strength, super endurance, a dose of immortality, and mutant powers. Gotham? Gotham has the BAT. What's the worst that could happen? In fact, Mattias almost decided to not make the trip buuuuutttt….

….Children of Bodom were playing with Iced Earth. METAL.

Ding!

TWO tickets were purchased that day, and a train trip brings Mattias Larsson, leather jacket one and all, walking over the dirty Gotham streets towards a brick-lined concert venue. With one ticket in his pocket and his best, well-worn jeans on, he tugs his mane of blonde hair away from his eyes and dives, full force, into the concert. Hundreds of bodies crushed together, some with wristbands, others without. The concert is a sweltering venue, and by the time the main band has started launching into speedmetal, a light sheen of sweat has fallen over Mattias' temples.

He's shoved into a mosh pit. Others are shoved in, too. Within seconds, a circle of bodies are running about, slamming into each other, and the Asgardian is doing everything in his power to not check someone through the wall.

Ravager is there, she has been spending quite a bit of time alone when not attached at the hip…. It's odd suddenly having a friend… Makes her want to butter-knife the sensation from her hip, but then again…. It's comforting… Despite the raw rub of new ink that descends from hip to inner thigh in a wrap that spirals down her leg akimbo to the criss-cross lacing of shorts that do nothing to hide the 'SKWAD' written in a tribal-esque scrawl down her appendage.
We must find our WAY!
Lights flicker as drum-bass laden in heavy coatings of vocals of whiskey bring forth a violent outburst of bodies in a pit that is only lit up by flashes of light from the stage!
Flames burst up, beams streak, blink, smoke rises… Bodies clash…!
A flickering and a tattered vest laden in stds lain over a leather midriff corset can be seen, in mate with the shorts and the calf-high rise of boots that come up and that smaller body SLAMS into another with no remorse, one thumb pressed to nostril that seeps a dribble of blood like a boxer, a prance….
// … Bring you so much pain!!!…//
And back in Rose dives, the eye-patch not hindering her despite the veil beneath platinum razored strands.
Activate!
Spider Monkey!
She is basking in this, and through flickering lights and the pearl of blood upon upper lip she sings along and clings to a massive mans back…
Taking him down or along for the ride???
Shiiittt.

Over six feet tall and lined with muscle, Mattias isn't sweating the pit much. The metal community of Gotham City is vast, but between himself and the bloodied platinum blonde, the two are the ones the more sensible people in the pit are trying to get away from. When people slam into Mattias, their bodies bounce off of his, but the tall, blonde always jerks a hand down, pulling them off of the floor and shoving them to the sides where warm bodies will catch their fall.

Having long since checked his leather jacket in with security, Mattias' faded GOATWHORE shirt clings to his chest. His eyes lull with the bass rattling up through the concrete flooring and into his knees. It's been months since his last concert, and like a heroin addict, he missed it in ways he isn't willing to put on paper.

Another body bounces off of his. Mattias turns to lessen the blow and catch the man in the process. Another shove. Another paying customer.

Mattias loses sight of the bloody blonde. OH NO, did she leave? Mattias spins around and…

….WRRRRMPFH

The weight of Rose Wilson is slight against the rock hard back of a man who can lift an elephant with relative ease. It's like jumping onto a parked car; the parked car doesn't rock much. Mattias dips forward at first, growling as her weight centers against his back, and though it's wholly accidental, the arm that swings about to keep her legs up plants against her backside.

Back into the pit Mattias goes, diving into the worst of it. The NATIVE AMERICAN pit where everyone is two-hundred pounds, over six feet tall, and pissed off to have to share it with the arrogant fuckwhads who think that liking DOWN makes them tougher than the average joe.

Mattias wades in, face first, into the sea of elbows and swinging fists.


Rose is not here to be known, to be seen as who she is, or the name her father has earned for her - due to Grant given the 'birthmark' of the Wilson's with a missing occular. She gets that enough. It has caused her enough, her current decisions even making her lose far more then just a simple organ… But she did replace it afterall.
That is why she is here. The Mists, the reality bends… Her memories… Her last visit of ties that bound was through bullet-proof glass in Belle Reve, and she had a hard time… Remembering, grasping what had been done… Said… And someone else, someone deep - surfaces slowly and seeks to consume. The one Deathstroke claimed while he shunned her!
Fuck them. She shed the orange that did oh-so-much for her inked and pale complexion and this is where she is while the metal that thunders from stage to ground seeks to almost rattle the sod in twixt, the voices like a herald to drive it further..
Even if Rose bled she drove back in, only to have her form hoisted and thrown to impact someone…. Much like a brick wall…. Air huffs passed her lips as she almost slides down and lands in a crouch, her hand pressing across chest that is captured and histed in the lacing of corsetry beneath the stud-laden jacket also riddled in a maille unseen for ages down a sleeve. "Brick shithouse…" A light cough as palm slaps her ass, hoisting her before the decent into a crouch; and from the slumped crouch she is back into the melee with a spring that is just as inhuman, but tonight she left her adrenaline at home. No meta. "Touch me again…" On faded vocals before the pulse kicks back in!
Raw as she can get.


Mattias is there for different reasons altogether. YEARS at the hands of a teacher who led him astray, keeping him from high schools, friends, girls, girlfriends, parties, and concerts. The trip to America has unlocked a new chapter in his life, one that he's there to reclaim despite numerous attempts to dissuade him from visiting Gotham. The mutant had been reborn, or at best, led to a new wilderness, had the cage door open, and coaxed out into a brave new world.

The sweltering heat of the pit and the crush of bodies is something familiar to his past. Like a church. Like a fight club. No explanations are needed there, and as Mattias twists in his separation from the platinum blonde with the eyepatch, it's a forearm to the side of his face that reminds him, that here, there really isn't any hurting him. The test…is to not hurt others.

The Swede's head jerks to the side with the impact, robbing half of what she says from his ears. The sound of the band warbles in with the dull THOK of the forearm against his face. When the hair settles and Mattias looks to where Rose has waded in, he doesn't look any worse for wear. Another body slams into his back. Mattias holds firm. Then another. Letting go, Mattias allows himself to be shoved into the throng of elbows and flying fists.

It's like a ship in heavily rolling waves. One moment, it's close. Another? It's far away. In the blink of an eye, the wave brings it back to the forefront again.

A fist finds Mattias' face, followed by a shove. Bouncing, without so much as a scratch, Mattias shoves back. The throng of heavy bodies around Mattias becomes confusing, but lost in the melee, he turns once again, having been drifted back Rose's way.

Their eyes meet.

Mattias reaches out to her shoulders…briefly wrapping his fingers around the outside curve of her shoulders…and shoves her towards the outer wall of bodies that form the barricade.


Rose is in the midst of the pit even while it slows due to the change of song by Iced Earth. The one that brought her into adoration of the band on a car ride…
The snow slicked around the tiny Pinto shooting up a highway, it looked like warp-speed from Star Wars circumferencing the windshield and windows… Or maybe it was the drugs…
Through the anger and through the tears
I've felt his spirit through the years..

The pit slows due to the change but it is only momentary, Rose knows it and when she rises up to slam into a massive man that outdoes her height by 6 inches and weight by 200 pounds she is thrown, a rebound off Mattias that also throttles her into the surrounding wall that kicks up sod and throws bottles, chunks of debris, and things lit aflame.
I feel it once again!
It's overwhelming meeee~!

The pace lofted and she is rebounding off that wall of bodies. One eye blacked out, the other a frgid blue and is dead-set while a fist rises in her rocket back towards him while the heavily booted foot used another man's thigh as her leverage.
"Toss me out?? Not that kind of bitch!" Stated even through the split upon lip that pinkens her words in a form of its own Bleeding.
But in that yes, their eyes meet and she pivots enough to shoulder-ram into Mattias and 'Challenge Acceted!'.
Even if there is not one.


His spirit's like the wind
The angel guarding me.

By all rights, Mattias should be hurting. He's not. Now that some of the larger beasts in the pit have learned that Mattias doesn't get pissed off with the harder checks, he's getting them plenty. The greatest danger he faces in the bounce of his heels in his heavy, black boots is trying to keep some semblance of time in his bounce to go along with the power ballad.

The damp mane of vaguely Sebastian Bach-esque hair sticks to his neck as the girl bounces off of the wall and comes back pissed. Oops! Behind closed lips, Mattias bites down on his teeth until his jaw tightens. His boot turns against the floor, toe pointing to the side, a stable platform and…

Rose Wilson encounters a (mostly) unstoppable wall that is ready for her. In the sudden slam of her body against his, he hooks an arm out, catching her upper arm in his iron grip to keep her from spinning and falling. All she's met with is a gentle shove back and a laugh, blue eyes piercing as he ducks his face in closer to hers.

"FUCK IT!" Mattias barks into her face with no lack of twinge to his voice. His teeth bare to hers and he points to his jaw. "I just pushed too hard!" Mattias growls, planting his feet to shoulder-shove someone bounding in towards him out of the way. Once that's done, once they're clear, he points to his face again.

"GET IT OUT OF YOUR FUCKING SYSTEM AND DO IT!"


Rose's attept to throttle the opposition of Axl is ceased, he captures her arm in a manner that twists her around and casts her into a pitch like a heavy metal tango, she can even feel th wretch in her shoulder due to her own force contradicted, but she does nothing but flash her own teeth in a mate of grins shared between them.
Her body moves in a synapse of a trained fighter, seekinga break pint of his grip with a wrench of ease… A slide that has her facing him with both hands at her sides, fingers extending then curling into fists as his challenge is posed.
"You have no idea…"
Am I selfish for feeling this way?
A flash, a flicker but no weapons are drawn despite having many, a hulking man covered in tattoos even up along his bald head is sued as a throttle, Rose pinched him at a love-handle as she passed and his fist impact gave her a boost despite flourishing a purple bruise along her hip in the process, but she meets that Rose with her own fist risen and seeks to piledrive him with it!
"SAY UNCLE THEN!!"


Mattias Larsson twists his head, one eye drifting into a half-wink as she raises her fists and gets ready for the inevitable punch to the face. One that Mattias has, in fact, invited her to do. So he straightens his spine and leans back, brushing the front of his mildly damp GOATWHORE shirt down the front of his body and watches.

Metal concerts are a tricky thing when it comes to women. So many angsty men, brimming with testosterone, and any given number of them would love for a chance to dogpile onto a man stupid enough to hit a pretty woman in a mosh pit. Mattias knows the dance. So, to cover his angles, while Rose is shoved off of the heavyset tattoo mongoloid, he extends his arms to the side, opening his body — his face — to the incoming fury.

"NO."

CRACK.

Mattias' jaw is like iron, and when the punch comes in, the force of her fist rocks his head, but there's no break, no split lip, no bruising or darkening or flush of bright, red skin where blood pools from a contusion.

"Fuck, I missed going to shows." Mattias grins and turns his head back to the forefront, eyes devoid of any signs of twittering birds or stars in his vision. "I CAN DO THIS ALL FUCKING NIGHT, LADY."

Mattias extends his arms to the sides once more.

"CAN YOU?"


There's a silence as the impact is made, and even Rose knows what that means, even if she peenched and inch and was throttled into a fury of a squirrel monkey attempting to bring down a mole-hill… Or Mountain…
They were still waiting and watching. But the impact, and she is not juiced, nor truly up and armed, expectant… She stes back, that fist swelling and already flushing into a black and blue shade of Purple Rain…
He's watching over me…
A flash of teeth in a grind, and that smile almost seems challenging and will form a growl, but from the corner of split lips only red wells up and is pushed aside by the back of wrist. "No fun if you just stand there and … TAKE IT!" Rose rights her posture and as she does so that leather coat that had slacked off her shoulders but clung only to the stickiness of perspiration along pale and scarred skin is shed…
One fist clutches it and like a whip it lashes at him in her *flick* to cast it over one shoulder, and just as the pit starts back up that laden coat is used as leverage and a headbutt is landed in the sudden recoil leaving behind the scent of leather, sweat, salt… and copper.
"Ain't here to be PAMPERS!"

The taller man scoops his hair back over the top of his head. The strands hold back for as long as they can before they flop back against his shoulders and the tight lay of his tee shirt. His cheeks tighten and his eyes fall to her hand, eyes widen in sudden realization that while he can handle a punch from most of anyone Midgard has to offer, it doesn't exactly do their hands any favors to punch a brick wall.

"Oh like I can get away with hitting back, lady." Mattias scoffs and shakes his head, digging his back against another soul in the crowd. His eyes trip downwards, watching the curve of her shoulders as the leather jacket comes off. "Look, this show is amazing, can I buy you a-" Partly through the motion of lifting his hand, the studded arm of the jacket whips through the air, catches him across the face, cutting his words off with a strip of leather grazing over his EYEBALL.

Okay. That stings in any realm.

The Swede has one eye wincing closed, which is one eye too few to see the incoming headbutt. In the bonk against his head, his face smears with her blood. Once more, he swings an arm out to keep the dizzied platinum blonde from falling to the ground.

Someone in the crowd sees blood on her face.
Then sees Mattias.
Then nudges the man next to him…

In the flickering moments between blinks of Rose Wilson's eyes, the entire moshpit has become a battlefield melee. Elbows and fists are raining down on Mattias, who's finding no trouble shoving them back while trying to get Rose out of harm's way. Chaos and madness it is, until a large pair of men in black shirts drag Mattias off of the floor.

From her vantage point, in slow motion, with the sound wobbling around in her post-headbutt brain, she can see Mattias' leather jacket thrown in his face, and the rest of his body kicked out onto the streetside.


Rose done fucked up! Too late… But better late then never? Maybe… Who the fuck is he??
Her head rebounded off him like a basketball off a backboard and blood sprays, her spine bowing back in said rebound to have her laterally parallel to the ground of the pit before he catches her and her world spins
But so does his apparently! As she is blinking away the stars and stripes of sacreliege she just perfomed she is descending and he is being drug off while a meaty hand grips her to pull her from the ground…
" 'ey girl, ya oh…" Kayyy??
Someone else touched her and she was still in come at me BRO! Mode… Despit the fact her brow over one-seeing eyes is split and she is basically blind… But this is how she was, even as the sound warbles behind her and the ground thunders….
Rose is gripping the meaty fist, and with a sudden lower she is throttling the massive man forward his fist used as the battering ram into another man, the one who threw Mattias' coat in his face…
New fight!
Rose ducks low, but from between legs her own boot rises and a knee is swept out bringing another eye to ee with her. "Big girl. My honor is my own!" And from knees she is ascending the other male before her to kick off him and land on all fours and scuttle blndly the-hell-out-of-the-unruly-mess-she-made!
Right behind Mattias she is using the linging of her jacket to clean the blood from her brow as she staggers to the side and still tries to gather her wits. "Shouldn't….drank…too much…" Hence the blood. Human but not!
"Great show though, thanks for the memories!" A devilfist for Matti and she is dabbing her face and keeping th wall upright.

The perils of being stronger than everyone in the room. For all of the dozens of knuckles Mattias felt against his body in the span of two minutes, he doesn't throw a punch back. Yelling loudly, he tries to explain, but it all falls onto deaf ears. Somewhere past the bathroom where there are ZERO doors on the shitters and an autographed WARRANT poster, it dawns on Mattias that he's simply going to be thrown out.

So, he lets them.

Jacket flopping off of his face, he lets them throw their weight against his and fling him back into a newspaper machine that crunches under his weight. Bitter (he never did make it to the merch booth), he scoops up his dead-cow jacket and starts off before the cops can be called.

The grumbling under his breath is enough that it takes a few seconds to realize that the girl from the pit has been thrown out, too. Her voice rattles about his damaged eardrums, like doppler radar, before he turns to look her way. Despite being thrown out of the show, his lips tilt into a cheeseburger of a grin, holding out to her his own devil horns, just like Dio (not Gene Simmons) was famous for.

"Fuck yeah, was a good times." Mattias throws a plural onto a word that shouldn't be. "Take care and be safe, yeah…"

He turns to walk away.
Fuck. She's drunk.

Turning on one heel, Mattias steps over to the woman and lowers his head, and voice.

"Hey," Mattias introduces himself, but not really. "Let me get you to a cab or something before the cops come. I think I heard one of them saying they were gonna. Fokkin' Gothams."


I don't wanna be…
I don't wanna be me
…anymore…

Totally different bands, one playing, one long… Let's not talk about it…. Depressing!
But it is all Rose's mind can surmise as she is sitting there with the inner-lining of her leather coat trying to keep the blood from burning her eye. Costing them -both- a good concert, but she got a good fight! And she was not done!
… Okay, she was, just as her fst lifted to assault Mattias in his approach she remembered, the bruising still spreading and the swelling there to quickly snap away. Fun is fun, she has a mind and sanity to know when to STOP.
Maybe…
"Let the cops come….Orange is the new Black… Raaaiiigghhhttt? Fuck my eye!" And a finger come up to rub it furitively as she scrapes along the wall, razing the skin of her right shoulder before she attempts to narrow that one bloodshot eye and focus on Mattias.
"Yeah. Fuck Gotham… But it's more accepting… Trust me." A beat and Rose speaks lowly. "Red Hook, then." Somewhere in there is an apology, in that tenor that slowly deflates while she tries to regain sight in that bloodshot azure occular..


"No, how about we not let the cops come? I'm on a visa." Mattias hisses as her arm scrapes against the brick. Reaching out with fingers who remember, clearly, what happened the last time he touched the woman, he tugs on the edge of her jacket and tries to lure her away from the wall. "I heard all kinds of stories about cops in Gotham anyway, though, we might as well throw a brick in a pimp's car. Better odds."

Mattias comes to a stop by a streetlamp and tugs out his cell phone. He types in a quick order for a cab while sparing tentative glances to Rose, each and every one looking to the eyepatch, the blood in her eye, God Damn his lips twist, concerned for her physical level of fucked up.

"I've got a train to catch later tonight back to Manhattan." Mattias shrugs his jacket off of his shoulders. Bending his back, he peels the GOATWHORE tee shirt off of his ridged, Olympian torso. Quickly, he shrugs his leather jacket back over and steps to Rose, offering his tee shirt for her. "Here. Use this. Cab'll be a few minutes."
Rose pauses and blearily blinks Mattias' way, squinting. "We all go to the same place," A beat and when that shirt is handed to her in blur-visual she grabs it, snaps it from him and slowly descends to a crouch in wait while the shirt is spread over her face and held in place by hands that bear scarred over knuckles. One of which looking fractured!! TYVM!
"Hell." But it does not sound dour, or even remotely sad. It is affirmed and truth as slowly she rolls her head back and pulls the shirt down only to stroke it over her eye that blinks once, twice, thrice… His way.
"I'm good. As I told Bru(oo)no back there… I can defend my honor.. You don't gotta miss your train to make sure I make it deeper into Gotham." A huff of a laugh and Rose is slowly sliding back to her feet, shaking out the shirt, eyeing the emblem and band name with a squint.
"I didn't get my T-shirt, so I keep this… Yep.." At least her blood seemed to mesh with the title and print!
"Good taste for an asshole." But in her words and despite having slightly turned away the smile can be heard. Frigid bitch isn't all -that- cold…

"I'll get you as far as the train station, then you can go wherever you want from there." Oh, Mattias can barely stand to watch the shirt get used as a bandage. It's not ruined, per-se, but it's definitely been marked by her blood, which somehow managed to get on his own collarbone, visible by the opening in his leather jacket. Averting his eyes from the shirt's destruction, Mattias glances at his phone, voice low and wry. "But chivalry's dead and I didn't get my tee shirt either, so you can buy your own ticket, fokker."

There's a curl in Mattias' voice, a joking all of his own, as he shuffles his feet in the wait for the cab. Despite the cool, nighttime air, his bare torso beneath the leather jacket doesn't ripple with gooseflesh. The same as her punches, he seems…immune.

"But Bruno's a stupid man. If men never let women fight for their own honor, they'll never deserve it." Mattias says in his thickly accented tongue, glancing back over to Rose with a lift of his brow. "I asked you to the throw the punch. I started it and the cab ride's just a few bucks."

His chest sucks in and then deflates, setting the hammer pendant around his neck swaying. He shakes his head and digs his hand into his pocket, coming free with a pack of cigarettes. One is thumbed out in offer to her.

"Keep your honor." A beat. "Mattias."


“If a girl hits a man… She’s lookin’ for a fight.” Rose snares that cigarette like it is a trophy from his pack, but from within the corseted vest a zippo is drawn and brings it to light on her own.

“I keep my honor, even if it’ll kill me.” he zippo *clicks* shut and the shadows cast along the visage of the woman become darker. “Save your money, honey. I can walk. This Goatwhore Tee will save me from….” Beat. “Not hell. But I can make it work.” The plume of smoke arund her melds with the pale platinum of tress, but the smile now, he can see as the cig dangles from a corner of lips.

“You show me the last knight, and I’ll show you the last Snow White. Chivalry is as scarce as virginity. Pale as my ass…” A mutter and Rose staggers, but is making it down the block, the Goatwhore tee clutched while she draws the leather coat back up…. At least partially up her arms.

“You get back to York Mattias…” A pause and that eye crests shoulder with the smile laden in plumes of smoke.

…”Rose.”

… May I light your cigarette?
The beast inside of me
…Is gonna get ya…
Yeah..


A raw, almost tired smirk forms somewhere around scarce as virginity. Mattias turns his attention back to the street proper, dipping his head to light his own cigarette with the clank-clack of a Zippo lighter. “Suit yourself.” He says, though the smile transfers in his tone and the first exhale of smoke, adding a little extra smog to an already smog-filled setting.

The cigarettes are stuffed back inside of his own battered, stenciled jacket. The fold in the unzippered leather opens, flashing pale, unscarred skin, give or take a little bit of Rose's blood. Without any cosmic way of telling just how many concerts Mattias has been through, two things are certain: Past concerts haven't scarred him, and if he isn't some kind of secret Android… he's not afraid to ask for a punch. There should be more scars there. Should.

“Trivium in a few weeks, Rose. At the Paramount.” Mattias raises his voice to cover their extending distance. His chin dips and his eyes turn down the plane of his shoulder, watching the woman walk away with his shirt. His lip curls into a parting flash of teeth. Old leather creaks in a cigarette hand that waves an orange tracer low to his side, a cut of the wrist, a nonchalant wave.

The blink of his blue eyes capturing a souvenir mental image of the platinum blonde? Less nonchalant, but in a sweep of eye contact and a cloud of his own smoke, Mattias turns his eyes back to the dimly lit Gotham City street before him. Everything lined with graffiti and smelling like spilled beer, the filter on the cigarette might be the safest thing to breathe through.

“…Jesus Christ.” Mattias whispers under his breath, smiling to himself.


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