Something smells terrible, Crash thought to himself as he stared down the neck of another brew. Sitting at a duct taped stool in front of a duct taped bar at 169 Bar, the dirtiest dive on east broadway but the music isn't bad, and at least it's live. It's probably that guy, Crash was looking at a man with a shaved head and an unshaven face, in suspenders and dirty work boots sitting a couple chairs down. Crash shook a little bit, as he grew accustomed to the smell, and listened to the band on the "stage" finish the last song in a truly horrendous set, almost masterfully awful. Crash kinda liked them. They were called "Kickin' Wing" and he remembered that was from a movie, but he couldn't remember which. Fifteen minutes after they had cleared off and blended with the crowd, the next band got up and slowly set up their equipment. As if you could move particularly fast in the cramped playing space. Finally a chubby guy with a raspy voice stepped up to the mic in the front and center.

"Hey, I'm Jeff, you might have heard of us before. We're Bomb the Music Industry." This drew some applause and cheers out of the crowd, especially the college students packed up at the front. With a voice that you only get from years of experience singing in punk rock bands, Crash yelled so he was audible above the rest of the crowd (which wasn't really that hard in a dive as small as 169 Bar).

"Hey Jeff! It's Crash! All Ages Show!" Then he turned to the bartender and said "Shots of Evans, line 'em up and keep 'em coming." The bartender nodded and obliged. Crash was obliged to drink.

"Alright everybody, we'll start things off slow I guess. This one is off our last album, it's called All Ages Show." There were applause and then the song started. It's one of Crash's favorites.

Bars like this weren't usually Aurum's kind of deal. Gone were his days of punk rocking (which had been very short, and honestly, more in the line of rock and roll). The main things that remained were his tastes in leather jackets and his motorcycle rides. This bar was different. He'd heard good things about this bar, and this band. It might have been a shady, dirty, cramped dive, but this shady, dirty, cramped dive... had duct taped stools.

Okay. Maybe it hadn't been anything wild, like a recipe he just had to try, or a band he just had to hear, but this place had been suggested by a friend because it had good beer, decent music, and semi-clean glasses. And after slumming with the party crowd he'd gone to recently, he was okay with that. As a bonus, Aurum might just have been able to dig around and find out what all the deal was about the punk bands Ami listened to.

Aurum sat. Aurum listened. He watched what was up on stage, silently appreciative. And he sipped a beer in a dirty glass. Or maybe a clean glass. With dives like these, it was hard to tell...

"Andrea, come oooon! You've been cooped up in that room for daaaaays!"

The young mutants voice dripped with annoyance, and she tugged the Greek along faster. "I have a perfectly valid reason for not leaving it!" The green woman's voice whined back, while she padded along quickly behind the girl. She loved Alli like a sister, really... she did. But the girl had barged into her room during a nap, a very much needed nap, in order to drag her off to some bar. Apparently some band the Greek hand never heard of, nor cared about was supposed to play, and the blue scaled mutant didn't want to go alone. It was understandable... but Andrea was still none to happy. "Couldn't you find someone else? I really should not be out..." The girl, who a few years younger than her, shushed her. "This is for your own good too, ya know. Being cooped up in that room isn't any better for your health!" ...and yet, bar hopping was? Andrea's nose wrinkled and she sighed, allowing herself to be dragged along. There was little use arguing with Alli. She would only tug harder, and argue louder until she got her way.

Tugging her t-shirt down nervously, the gorgon turned her attention to eyeballing the shadows as they passed, and watching people on the street very, very carefully. She was partly worried that like before, the last time she had allowed the girl to drag her out, she would wind up ditched in some strange part of town with no clue how to get back home. Her eyes landed on the mutant before her, feverishly jogging down the sidewalk, and the Greek huffed. It was bad enough that she was still overbearingly paranoid, but now she had to watch herself around a crowd of strangers packed into a building. As if reading her thoughts, Sloth tightened his grip around her, effectively tripping her up mid jog. One scraped knee later and a few blocks later, and Andrea found herself standing beside Alli, with one blue scaled arm locking her arm in place against the girls ribs, just inside the door of the bar. There was no escaping. She eyed their surroundings in distaste, but allowed herself to be dragged toward the bar. "Hey... Andy? Would yo-" The Greek speared the younger girl with a motherly scowl, and narrowed orange eyes behind her sunglasses. "No. I am not going to buy you your drinks."

The pout she received in response was comical, at best. Alli grumbled under her breath, and dragged the gorgon with her past the bar.

"All of my work was done." Jeff started singing, very badly into the mic. Crash listened closely for a minute, Well, he's on something, god knows what. After settling up with the bartender, Crash got off the stool and walked towards the band, letting the slow start of the music guide the tempo of his footsteps. "We live upon the top, they leave the door unlocked, so just come in, I don't need to buzz you up." Crash saw a girl in sun glasses. It's almost eleven at night... whatever he didn't need to rationalize anyone else's behavior. "You are the shoes and feet, I am a pile of-" Crash was momentarily distracted by the young girl who came in with "Mrs. Corey Hart" something was off with this crowd, Oh well no time to thing about it now it's my favorite part! Crash started singing along with Jeff.

"And NEVERRRRR Go ANYWHERRRRRRRR!" Crash threw the bottle down on the floor smashing it in sync with the band making the loudest airplane crash you possibly can with two guitars, a bass, a drum set, and a bunch of crappy second-hand amps. So loud in fact that no one even noticed Crash smash a bottle on the floor. He kept singing, his arm around a stranger at the bar as he ordered another drink to replace the one he lost. "Can you stayyyyy here! Can we blast the descendants!? Can we turn our phones off! And get lost in the simpsons!?" He stopped long enough to take a swig, but by then the song was almost over and half the glass was gone. "Whoah. I need to slow down." Jeff sings the last two lines.

"My friends ain't all that bad, we play all ages shows and we'll start on time, if you deciiiiiide to gooooo." The college kids start cheering and clapping and Crash does too, well cheering anyways, if he was clapping he'd have to let go of his drink, not advisable in that particular environment. Even for a tough guy like Crash. You can never tell with some places.

This... was not that band. What with the bad singing and all. Although one never knew, these days. He'd heard the music his little sister listened to. How an Indie band could sing off-key about pandas and make it disturbingly catchy, he didn't know. But he liked it. Music took all types.

At the smashed bottle, an eyebrow arched. This music, he decided, was not for him. Maybe it was because he was focusing on the showmanship, rather than the music... hrm... there might have been something to that accusation.

Aurum took another drink of his beer. He gulped it down. Aurum stopped on a dime. He eyeballed his drink seriously for a few long seconds, then shoved it away. It was also not for him. Whoever had suggested this place had teeeeeeerrible tastes.

He pressed a crumpled wad of cash on the counter as he got up, and turned to go with a quiet 'thanks'. His eyes landed on a familiar face not too far away, with some people by the bar. She had green skin, sunglasses yet something about her seemed off from his memories. Now, what could it be.

Snake.

Aurum blinked, and ceased all bar-leaving operations. "Hey, Andrea." He said, taken aback. Since when had she gotten a snake? "Long time, no see."

Things were... violent. In Andrea's eyes, at least. She went from being dragged, to attempting to drag Alli back toward the door. She did not want to get pulled into the dancing, jumping, singing crowd... and she didn't want her small friend to get pulled into it either. What ended up happening though, was as she had feared. With a wink and a shout over the... singing... the blue scaled girl untangled herself from Andrea's grasp. The Greek watched as the slim girl bounced off into the crowd, screaming out words she couldn't quite heard right, and she chewed at her bottom lip. She had been ditched, more or less, again. With a little sigh, she turned and shuffled back towards the bar, where stools waited. Where she would wait. She only made it half way though, a teasing distance from an open seat, when someone intercepted her. A tall man and his... girl...woman friend. Tattoo's and piercings everywhere, but they had kind smiles. "Hey, mind if I pet your snake?"

Andrea blinked. The woman was talking to her, red lips arches in a smile, green hair spiked in a most unusual fashion. She remembered the last time she had conversed politely with such people... it had ended with the whole lot of them getting kicked off a bus. "...Uh, I don't know... He is usually pretty jumpy when it comes to pe-" The man cut her excuse shirt, reaching out a hand to stroke the snakes white hide. "What kind of snake is it?" A good question... one she didn't really have an answer for. "...He is a... head snake?" Both people laughed, and the woman patted the serpent gently. Her personal bubble was being invaded, and she couldn't think of a polite reason to shoo them away. "Head snake... funny! But really..." Blinking, the Greek lifted her curtain of hair and turned her head, allowing them to see exactly where Sloth was fused to the base of her skull. "....oooooh." She managed a timid grin, and scratched at her cheek. "That's pretty cool! The woman, who introduced herself as Jenna, went on talking, asking questions and such, while her husband (as it turns out) sipped at his beer and bobbed his head with the music, one arm draped around Jenna's shoulders.

"Hey, Andrea. Long time, no see."

Her attention shifted behind her, toward the bar a few steps away, and she locked eyes with a familiar face. "Aurum?!" Jenna and hubby took the sqeaky tone of her voice, and shift of attention as a cue to meld back into the crowd, and Andrea found herself suddenly alone with an old friend. Alli chose that time to come bouncing back to her side, a huge grin plastered on her face and a can of something in one hand. The Greek felt the girl elbow her in the ribs and glanced over at the mutant girl, who waggled her eyebrows and leered at Aurum. "Back, someone smashed a bottle out on the floor, so I left the pit early. Who's the hottie? Is he single?" Green cheeks flared deep brown and she turned and did a very un-Andrea like thing. She punched the girl in the arm, then ignored both questions. "Aurum... what are you doing here?" Alli reached for her sunglasses, giggling like mad and the gorgon slapped her hand away. Sloth shifted around her shoulders, one orange eye angled at the new man. A pink tongue flicked out, tasted the air, and he turned his attention to another sitting at the counter.

Crash drank slowly and wondered what he was going to do after the show. He just got into town, and he didn't have a car to sleep in, or a friend whose couch he could crash on. While BtMI! continued their set he turned the dilemma over and over in his head, until he reached the conclusion that, if he continued drinking, he would probably be able to sleep in an alley or something. It wouldn't be the first time, But this is New York City he thought, I could get mugged, or worse! Well, not really. He resolved to try and make a friend here, and if that didn't work, he was just going to steal somebody's car. Somebody like that guy, the one talking to Corey Hart, he smelled like money, and he wasn't even feigning interest in the music. That's what tipped Crash off the most, anybody who likes Bomb the Music Industry likes them because they're broke and BtMI gives their music out for free. Crash figured in that this was NYC and the guy might not even have a car. Oh well, I'll just take his wallet then get a motel room. Shortly after this train of thought and emptying his beer glass, Crash realized he had been giving this guy crazy eyes for at least five full minutes while his impaired thinking abilities processed his plan.

The pair that had bothering Andrea made themselves scarce. Then, a new girl appeared at the woman's side. Aurum's eyes hopped from one to the other, then settled back on Andrea. Her friend was pretty, he noticed. Pretty set on bluntly commenting about him in front of him, waggling eyebrows, and leering, that was.

How very un-Andrea. She slugged the pretty blunt friend in the arm. Eyebrows rose in surprise. They kept up there, as the snake examined him, and Andrea's friend made herself a nuisance. Altogether, it was very off-putting.

"Uh." He said. "Just leaving, actually. This music and the beer aren't all I heard they were cracked up to be... what are you doing here?" Eyes hopped with mild concern over to the blunt nuisance. He smiled politely at the both of them, soldiering on. "Who's your friend?" He did not ask because he was interested in her. It was more than he wanted a name to go with the condition. The condition of girls calling him hot in front of his face. Somehow, he didn't have such an ego that he took that as a compliment when it came off like a mace to the face. Blunter than should be physically possible, that was. Besides. Andrea was far more interesting. Snakey-thing, included.

As an after-thought, Aurum added, eyes dropping towards the snake. "Who's your other friend?" With a nervous laugh.

>> "Just leaving, actually. This music and the beer aren't all I heard they were cracked up to be... what are you doing here?"

"That would be my fault, actually. Had to pry her out of her room with a crowbar! I'm Alli, by the way... gonna go get us some drinks!" Andrea shamefully scratched at a cheek, while Alli slapped her on the back and politely excused herself. The blue scaled mutant carved a path for the bar and claimed a seat not too far away, leaning over the bar so she could shout her order at the bartender. The Greek laughed nervously, and took to scratching at one elbow with her gloves. "...what she said, heh... I just kind of got kidnapped."

Sloth shifted around her neck, and a few people behind her pressed into her back, pushing her unintentionally toward the bar. The snake was still eying the fellow at the bar, and Andrea could fee his muscles contracting as he lifted himself from her body. Her pressed her hand to the bulk of his body to keep him from knocking her off balance. "This is...Sloth. He is a new addition to the family, I guess you could say..." Both hands went to restraining the snake, who had all but given up on dragging her over to the bar, and was once again interested in Aurum.

"I have never been in a place like... this... before. I am a little out of my eleme-" Someone bumped into her, and before she could flee, arms were wrapped around her shoulders. "Snake girl! Come party with us!" The two from before, both man and woman, had returned (and brought a few friends) and she felt herself being drawn away from her conversation. Her snake admirers all but ignored her stuttered attempts to politely decline whatever it was they wanted with her. "Upsydaisy!" The gorgon shot a desperate look over her shoulder in Aurum's direction, before she was lifted into the air and sent on her very first crowd surf. Ever. Alli turned and spotted the scene, and a grin shot from one ear to the other. "WOO! Go Andy, Go!"

Crash cringed as he caught a whiff of the big guy again. He wondered what someone like that was even doing here. Probably a long-time patron, with nowhere else to go. Crash turned his attention to the stage for a minute, long enough to notice that by now, all the fans who had brought instruments were up on stage or rather, surrounding the band, playing along. Disorganized chaos. Beautiful. As he was taking another sip from his drink, sitting at the bar, he felt something brush past his shoulder, and turned around to see a girl, young, maybe too young for Crash, leaning over the bar ordering drinks. The scales threw him off for a minute, but didn't stop him from checking her out for a good minute and thirty seconds. When the bartender came back with non-alcoholic drinks Crash cursed in his head. Well she's not 21 he paused the thought to take another sip, How would I even say anything without coming off as a creep? He stopped thinking about it long enough to see Corey Hart get lifted on top of the crowd, he chuckled for a second, at the look on the crowd-surfing girl's face. Then Crash lucked out.

>> "WOO! Go Andy, Go!"

He turned to look at the girl sitting next to him, he spoke, not shouting so much as talking loud enough so she could hear him over the music and crowd, and said "Looks like your friend there isn't really enjoying herself! Something tells me it took some convincing to get her here!?"

Her friend's name was Alli. And then, she was gone. Aurum watched as the girl rushed off to get them drinks. Wait. Drinks? Aurum stared for a second, blinked, then turned awkwardly back to Andrea. Her friend was some character, wasn't she? Andrea seemed a bit put off by it, too. She'd been kidnapped. Right.

An eyebrow arched. Why had Andrea been kidnapped? Had she become some kind of recluse? Aurum would have asked about the kidnapping, but any questions got suppressed by a snake invading his personal space. "Uh."

She was out of her element. Right. Him too. And with the snake. Eyes were fixated on the snake. For the moment, he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Andrea's friends from before returned, with a vengeance, and once again, all Aurum could say was an uncharismatic 'uh'. They scooped the woman up, and then, suddenly, she was moving away. Over the crowd. Against her will.

Somehow, Andrea's friend didn't get how this was a bad thing. Aurum did. He shot the couple a dirty look, then started forcing his way through the crowd after her.

He really didn't do stupidly heroic things on purpose. It wasn't like he went into banks with the set purpose of standing up to overly-muscled men who were taunting terrified women, or went out of his way to throw himself in front of tigers. Rushing into a raging punk rock crowd three steps from moshing, and far fewer from punching him in the lip when he bumped into them, wasn't something he'd set out to do. Common sense for Aurum really was an after-thought.

"Hey! Put her down!" He shouted.

A pair of strong knuckles barreled right into Aurum's face. He went down like the housing market, vanishing under the feet of the crowd.

Alli watched from the bar, a grin on her lips. Her friend was finally out and about, having fun and making friends. Or, at least that's what the young mutant thought. She hooted and hollered, pumping one arm in the air for her shy friend. She turned as the drink she had ordered were set down, reaching to pick hers up. That's when she heard a voice next to her speak up. She strained her ears in order to heard what he said, and turned her self in her chair to look him over. Young, cute... just her type! A grin curled her lips and she plopped her chin in her hand, leaning against the counter with her elbow. "That's an understatement... Nearly had to use blackmail!" Alli paused long enough to sip at her drink, and cast her eyes out at the crowd again. "Looks like it's getting kinda rowdy, ya'know?" The young mutant held out her hand to him, and smiled deviously. "I'm Alli... What's yours? You don't happen to be single, do you?"
~
Andrea was too busy trying not to fall too make friends with anyone- which is hard when the only things supporting you are strange hands. One plus, was that she could very clearly see where Aurum was, or rather where he was heading, which happened to be toward her. Oh thank god... She thought, fighting the urge to flail wildly as she was passed around and jostled about. The mini crowd holding her up turned, and she found herself facing the stage... if it could be called that. The Greek was used to seeing grand stages in play and Opera houses.. not things like this, where people screamed into microphones and the crowd attempted to beat each other into comas.

"Hey! Relax a little, will ya? We've got you." A voice from below caught her attention, and a strong pair of hands wrapped securely around her ribs. Another pair caught her rump and lifted her ungracefully higher into the air. She was more than a little happy to see that it was not the male who had a hold of that particular area... She tried not to wiggle too much, as they helped steer her around where a few people were moshing, toward the stage. The crowd didn't seem to care, and when she turned her head to the left she noticed that someone else was being passed along like a sack of potatoes toward the stage. Only... he seemed to be enjoying it. Suddenly, it was a race...
~
The owner of the knuckles that had take the lawyer in training down grinned, before someone returned the favor by decking him across the jaw. He stepped over to where the fallen man was, and leaned down to help him up... but was knocked off his feet as the man he had punched barreled into him at full speed. The two toppled to the ground, becoming a pile of flying fists, curses, and feet. The people around them turned from the music, more interested in the prospect of a fight, and a few people flung themselves onto the pile.

From the bar, Alli turned from her pleasant conversation with Mr. McCutie pants, to see a mini brawl starting up at the back of the dancing crowd. She frowned slightly, having not planned for a fight to break out with Andy around. That... could very well end badly, knowing what her friends timid nature, coupled with nerves and an ungodly mutation could do. "Sonofab*#@%... " She turned, and gulped down her drink, before hopping from her stool. "Wanna come help me save a damsel in distress?"

The girl grinned, and Crash gave himself a mental pat on the back. Congratulations were in order, he took another gulp out of his glass. Once she made eye contact, he didn't let her out of it, listening to her tell him about her friend. Blackmail? Glad I didn't try to hit on Shades then, doesn't sound like a fun person. She said something about the crowd getting rowdy, but he wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about. He turned around in time to see the guy whose pocket he had been about to pick get hit pretty square in the face. He chuckled for a second, then turned back around.

"I'm sure this crowd's seen worse." He said calmly, then she dropped a relative bomb in the first few minutes of conversation. But she had offered her hand, so he was obliged to take it and give it a peck, the gentlemanly way. "Hey, easy there tiger. My dads call me Mickey, friends call me Crash, I just got into the city, and I am completely single." He glanced down to look at her scales and looked back into her eyes trying to make his next statement a little less ambiguous. "And you know, I think we've got a lot in common."

Alli's eyes shifted from their conversation towards the stage, and Crash could hear the crowd getting louder, a lot louder. He turned around to see Shades just about being swallowed by the crowd, and the floor was turning into a badly choreographed brawl. Crash turned around and watched Alli get off her seat, and she asked him just about the silliest thing he had heard all night. And he had seen ALL of Kickin Wing's set. He laughed and reached into his jacket pockets with both hands pulling out two brass knuckles. One for each hand of course, this wasn't his first rodeo. He Scanned the crowd and saw the towering 6'6" maybe 350 pound man in the suspenders, with the equally intimidating smell, heading for the brawl. So that's why he comes here eh?" Crash turned back to Alli and said simply "Looks like you get to see why they call me Crash. I'll deal with the crowd, you take care of your friend." He tensed his hands up and forced the energy that kept his body invulnerable into the knuckles, then calmly tapped the giant on his right shoulder. Before he could turn around all the way Crash threw his left fist straight up into the man's jaw, sending him staggering back, before he slipped on a piece of broken bottle and fell backwards on the tightly packed crowd. I hope Alli can take an opening when she sees one.

One good Samaritan tried to help. One good Samaritan got taken out. Oh good. He could do math. One minus one meant zero! Zero! Zero people to help him... Why did he see stars?

Somehow, almost magically, Harry Potter found his feet. Wait. Harry Potter!? Aurum shook some sense into his head. No. He hadn't been hit THAT HARD. Hard enough to get a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Or a predilection for pumpkin-flavored sweets. Although that could have been tasty... no. Aurum shook himself again.

There was a fight going on and it was a mess. As was the entire party. And. Nobody. Seemed. To care. About. Him. He would have to take it upon himself to handle getting out of the stomping feet, the flying fists, rescue the girl, and sue the puncher. Preferably in that order.

The first thing Aurum did was used those newly-found feet to get up off the floor. Earlier, he'd only realized he HAD them. Using them was a whole other thing.

With a wobble and a shake, Aurum got to his feet and started heading through the crowd, towards where it was loudest.

The ride ended suddenly, just a few feet from where she figured she was supposed to be set down, when two supporting hands vanished from under her. Moments later, another set disappeared, then another, until she was only be supported by the two who had kidnapped her in the first place.The crowd was turning around, facing back in the direction she had been passed, and as she craned her neck about to see exactly why, she noticed someone barreling toward her human support beams back first.

She barely had time to squeak, before both the woman and the man carrying her were more of less run over and she was dropped unceremoniously onto the little pile. The brawl had spread out like a bad infection, overtaking a good chunk of the floor. The Greek felt herself rolled off by two sets of equally angered hands, and she was dumped from atop the pile unto the floor as her kidnappers forgot about her and went scrambling after the guy who had more or less run them over.
She barely managed to scurry back out of the way of stomping feet and swinging fists, as another duo of brawlers lumbered past her, knocking people out of their way as they went.
~
Allie grinned, watching as her new bar friend armed himself and jumped into the fray. She took a less direct method of attacking the mob, by first hopping up onto her stool to scan the crowd for her green skinned friend. It took a few moments, buts he managed to spot the Greek before she was dumped from atop the crowd, and vanished into the mass of bodies. Wrinkling her nose, she paused and tried to figure out what was best to do... After a few moments, she decided on a course of action and darted off into the crowd, a little further away from the most violent of the brawling.
~
Andrea struggled to get to her feet, and received a forearm to the face for her efforts, as someone barreled past. It didn't hurt really, but it knocked her back into someone else- who, as it appeared, did not take kindly to the action. He planted a hand firmly on her face and pushed her away like she was a troublesome branch in his way. Unfortunately, he decided to keep her sunglasses. He muttered something rude, before she was swallowed up by the crowd again. Only this time she had one hand slapped over her eyes, and was running more or less blind in whichever direction she was shoved.

(I'm leaving for my vaca soon, so until then you two should skip me and continue on with the merry fight! Alli npc can be used or ignored, I may have her vanish in the next few posts when I get back. >.> Have fun! )