ic Nordic (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

"Disgusting," Eira opined, having joined them again just in time to miss whatever it was Astrid had been talking about behind her back. "This is not some sex thing, this is music." She poked him in the chest for emphasis, giving him a hard look. "Now come, let us see what you are made of. We have equipment back in the band room. Or do you need time to catch your breath?"

[KnightDisciple]

Micah's eyes widened.

 

"I know that was my point! I was talking about music!"

 

He narrowed his eyes at the comment on his breath.

 

"I play guitar, not flute, Eira. I'll be just fine. So long as you have a real guitar in there and not some weird space-age piece of metal junk."

[Cubismo]

Astrid was right in the midst of trying to alleviate Micah's genre concerns when Eira came back into the conversation with a huff and whole lot of attitude. The Asgardian rolled her eyes and had to fight the urge not to facepalm again. Things were going to Hel real fast by Astrid's estimation she of all people had to be the one to fix it. "Look," she cut in, trying to be civil as she addressed both parties. "We don't even know what kind of band we even want yet. Our sound is still totally up in the air. It could be anything really."

 

She let that plea settle for a second, hoping that it would chill some nerves before she got to the real heart of the matter. "But the only way we're going to figure that out is if we actually hear each other play. So how about we do just that at the band room? It ain't like metal and rock are polar opposites. Hel, they're both flavors of rock and roll when it comes right down to it. So we can totally find some middle ground or something new altogether if we actually give each other a chance." 

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira led the way back to the band room, a slight distance from her organic classmates, her head down and cheeks flushed slightly. Once they were back there, she took a step back and let Micah do his thing with the music and the instruments there, leaning against the wall and studying Astrid and Micah, her arms crossed across her chest and hair hanging low over her eyes. Finally, she offered a question - "Ideas, Micah?" 

[KnightDisciple]

Micah walked in behind Eira and Astrid, giving them a bit of space and getting his breathing all the way back to normal. When they entered the room, he took a look around before his eyes settled on a somewhat beat-up guitar over to one side. It wasn't his own instrument, but it was clearly well-loved and well-maintained. With a nod to the ladies, the Oklahoman went over and picked it up. It was an acoustic design, but looking closer he realized it was a steel-string flat-top model. It would sound a bit different than what he was used to, but maybe that was a good thing. 

 

Micah spent a couple of minutes quietly tweaking the guitar, tuning and testing the strings until they were just so. He was in no rush, regardless of the patience of the ladies in attendance. Finally, he settled back a bit and started to play a tune... 

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira watched Micah cooly, hands in her pockets as her flat blue eyes fixed on his music. When it was done, she nodded approvingly. "Acceptable," she said gravely. "I think we should let Micah in the band...and I have an idea," she said suddenly. "It will let us truly hear how we should. If the two of you are up for it." She smiled, her teeth white against her dark-painted lips, and unbuttoned her over-sized yellow shirt. Underneath she was wearing a halter top that would have fit in during gym class. "Can you give us aerial cover? Something we cannot be seen." she asked of Micah and Astrid.

 

She closed her eyes and screwed up her face as she spoke, and then something began emerging from out of her back. It looked like a metal frame emerging from her shoulder blades, chrome steel bright beneath a faint bluish discoloration, a liquid coating that looked like oil, one quickly matched by another. The frames expanded outward, spread backwards, and began to crackle with electricity about the time they took their natural shape of wings. Wreathed by lightning and steel, she grinned fiercely at her two new friends as flesh and bone seemed to fade away from her body, turning her into a cold chrome figure with white glowing eyes, one polished so bright her friends could see themselves in it. When she spoke, her voice was deeper and throatier, as if something in her throat had stopped pretending too. 

 

"Let us take our concert to the sky." 

[Cubismo]

Astrid knew that Micah was a pretty good guitar player, but she was still pretty impressed by what he was laying down. It still may not have been quite her genre or style of music, but talent was talent regardless of what favor it was and Astrid made sure to give Micah a sincere thumbs up as he played. While that was going on, Astrid's mind was focused on figuring out just how she could fuse her more heavy brand of rock with Micah's. So much so, that when she heard Eira give her tepid approval she was fairly surprised by her subsequent stripping right in front of them. "Woah, woah. What are you..." To her credit, Astrid caught on to what was going on when Eira started to sprout metallic wings from her shoulders. 

 

"Huh. I did not expect to see all that. You really gotten to warn people before you go all Transformers on us," Astrid says semi-jokingly as she taps her hammer amulet to transform Porrklubba. With her signature weapon now in her hands asked the obvious. "While the idea of a sky concert sounds metal as all, I have to say that playing out in the skies, while awesome, doesn't always provide the best acoustics," the Asgardian admits from experience before shrugging. "But whatevs. I'm game for anything. You game for it too Micah?"

[KnightDisciple]

Micah raised an eyebrow at Eira's "praise", though he did give Astrid a smile and a nod at her more enthusiastic encouragement. 

 

"I mean, if that's 'acceptable'...like, I know I'm not a profe-WOAH!"

 

He suddenly emitted a sound between "shout" and "squeak", and slammed a hand over his eyes as Eira started taking a shirt off.

 

"Okay, uh, so what in the world, Eira? You were just giving me a hard time out there...."

 

When Astrid stopped acting like this was going weird places, Micah risked a peek. When he saw that Astrid wasn't going further "down" than the halter top, he lowered his hand all the way. His head tilted to the side a bit. 

 

"Are you a...cyborg?"
 

He clearly didn't know her that well. And if one thought about it, Micah didn't seem the type who was "plugged in" to rumor mills. 

 

"Aerial cover...you mean clouds?"

 

He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face. 

 

"Can I? It is possible, yes. Should I? Dunno. It's a nice day. Big pile of clouds, all out of nowhere, that's suspicious. If I make it hollow, that's just asking for it to turn nasty if I don't spend most of my brain on keeping it leashed. I'm still learning meteorology; how much about it do you know, Eira? Weather's tricky. I can do stuff the size of a room or a car, not much worry. But to cover us being up there, playing, it'd need to be bigger. Which I can do, but not by much right now. Might look a tad suspicious, a big pile of clouds sitting over this school mid-day with nothing else for miles."

 

He opened his eyes, looking very serious.

 

"And when we're done, I'm gonna have to spend 15 minutes unravelin' what I raveled, so I don't end up dropping a twister on the city, or a flash flood three counties south of here. You willin' to help me sit still and track everything so we don't ruin someone else's life just so you have a fancy sky-concert?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"It will not take me fifteen minutes," Eira told him as she walked outside, her metal feet still soft and silent on the ground as she went. "And I am not a cyborg," she added in a throaty whisper as she looked up at the sky overhead. "I am Angelic," she added, spreading her wings slightly once they were outside.

 

"My magnetic flight provides a maximum airspeed of approximately 6500 KPH," she added. "I will not leave any of you behind. What elevation will provide us the maximum cover?" She smiled at Astrid once they were out there, her teeth a white curve inside a robot's pitch-black mouth. When she had her answer, and the relevant cloud-cover had begun, Eira kicked off and erupted into the sky with a woosh, her wings humming and crackling with their own lightning, the distant sound of music echoing from her form as she went. 

[Cubismo]

Astrid looked towards and the open sky and eye-balled who far up they'd have to be avoid to be get the kind of coverage they wanted and perhaps more importantly avoid sky traffic. "Well, if we're really going to do this I'd say two or three kilometres would be our best bet, give or take." Astrid paused for a second, thinking things over and really absorbing what Micah had just said about the potential fall-out of their little concert in the sky. The Asgardian started to frown. "I think Micah has a point, Eira," she begins to explain, her voice more serious than usual. "I'd really have to push Porrklubba to the limit to make the amount of coverage we'd need. Working together me and Micah might be able to pull if off, but like he said, dealing with the fallout of all that weather warping could cause some serious aftershocks. Honestly, it might not be worth it and Summers would lose it if she found out."

[KnightDisciple]

"Eira, wait, please. Look, I'm all for playing music, but...what's the point of this 'concert in the sky'? The acoustics will be terrible, and Astrid isn't sure either. You may think there's nothing that could go wrong, but you can't feel the weather, either."

 

He ran a hand over his hair, the other one grasped tightly to the guitar he'd grabbed as they walked outside.

 

"I mean, if we do this, yeah, a couple kilometers or so up, I guess? But then there's planes. If you want to be outside, why not just here?"

He swept an arm around them.

 

"It's a nice day. It'd be a shame to ruin it with a freak thunderstorm."

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira's chrome-polished face twisted, her jointed fingers folding into fists where they sat at her sides, and when she spoke the throaty whisper of her unaugmented voice had the curl of liquid mercury to it. "Very well, Micah. Perhaps I was misinformed about the nature of your powers." Her lightning-charged wings folded back inside her torso with a sound both mechanical and organic. She made a noise like a sniff as her flesh seemed to 'reform, her voice rising again to its usual tone, and said, "Your musical ability is adequate to our needs. Are you familiar with the work of Hank Williams the Third? "

[Cubismo]

Astrid made an internal sigh of relief as Eira seemed to finally let go of the whole sky concert. It might have been a rad thing worth doing, but the logistics and consequences of pulling it off were a bit much, even for her.

 

With that possible disaster avoided, Astrid looked to salvage whatever remaining chances there were of their band actually becoming a thing. The name Hank Williams the Third definitely sounded familiar to her and Astrid promptly searched her mind for some reference to it. Eventually, she found it and started to catch wind of what she suspected Eira was trying to get at. "The drummer for Arson Anthem? The guy's a talent whose totally not afraid to mix up and play around with genres. I like him. In fact..."

 

Astrid went and grabbed another electric guitar in the band room's storage. Quickly plugging it in, she made a couple notes at first but eventually started to play in earnest. Given what Micah had said about his preferences and Eira's mentioning of Hank Williams, Astrid came up with something that she believed fused both country and heavy rock with a touch of melodic thrown in for good measure. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira looked reluctant to join the music at first - her pale face set in a scowl rather than its usual look of bored disinterest, backed up against the wall as if she might flee through it at any moment. But as Astrid rocked on, Eira's foot tapped to the beat - and after a moment or two, she was matching Astrid's music not with any instrument but with sounds from her own body; a hard, electrified beat that sounded vaguely tinny but was nonethless exciting. She bobbed her head and writhed her limbs as she danced to the music, seeming to throw herself into it with gusto. 

[KnightDisciple]

Micah ignored the rather obvious insult directed at him and his powers. He was finding it difficult to get along with Eira, but he was willing to give this a try for a bit longer. Astrid was being nice enough, at least. And while he enjoyed playing in the worship band for youth group, there was a part of him that enjoyed the thought of someone wanting his musical talents. Perhaps that was why the bit about a concert in the sky didn't sit well, either. It came across as wanting his powers more than him.

 

"Hank 3? He's not in my top 5 but I've heard his stuff, yeah. Hang on."

 

They went back into the band room, and Micah settled back in the chair he'd been in. His posture was a bit different, but he started to play as soon as Astrid was done tuning. At first, it was a bit chaotic, but he quickly picked up on what Astrid and Eira seemed to be playing, and soon he was playing along. It was clear that,for the moment, Micah was content to simply follow along and play. His eyes were mostly closed, and his head moved with the rhythm as he rocked back and forth just a bit. 

[Cubismo]

As all three started to play in relative if still kind of chaotic harmony, Astrid began to smile. She honestly didn't think they'd get to this point with all the earlier arguments and talk of sky concerts, but right now they were jamming together in a way that reminded Astrid of the tragically short-lived bands she and a couple of her friends back in Norway would habitually try to form. It was a good feeling and Astrid hoped that it would last. 

 

Still playing along with the others, Astrid finally broached the question that all bands eventually come to answer. "So what are going to call ourselves?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Dåliga tikar," said Eira confidently. "...what?" she asked Astrid with a hard smirk before she went on, "Okay, okay! No cursing. The Lightning and the Thunder?" she hazarded. 

[KnightDisciple]

Micah's eyes were closed as he played. He seemed to just be going with the music still. His guitar playing had definitely smoothed out, and his instrument harmonized with the others much better. When Astrid asked her question, he didn't seem to hear her at first, since he gave no outward reply. When he spoke up, after Eira's suggestion, his eyes remained closed and he continued to play.

 

"Hm. I feel like that's too on-the-nose? Are you wanting us to only play for Claremont and 'super-groups', or would you try to have us go out and about? If we're gonna play in non-hero spaces, I'd rather not make the connection too obvious. Still...maybe something about rain? Or wolves or dogs?"