Metalocalypse: Impending Doom

Chapter One: Salem

"What?" Salem's blue eyes looked up at the singer in suspicion, but had an inkling of what she was going to say.

"Nothin' just wondering if maybe you're not doing this for all of the band, but for Pi-"

"Don't you fuckin' dare!" Salem's face flushed heavily and they turned around to glare at her, but not actually angrily. "Don't mention him."

"Who, Pickles?" Salem groaned as another band member and their other close friend, Tobias, walked up to them with his own bag slung over his shoulder, with his face forever in a sleepy or sad-looking droop. Tobias had short-medium brown hair falling over his face, and sideburns to match in color. His long double labret piercings had gotten caught in his pointed beard so he proceeded to walk to the mirror to fix them, otherwise not worrying too much about his complexion. Not that he didn't care about looking presentable. It was just, unlike the others but especially unlike Salem, he preferred casual wear, sporting a normal t-shirt and black shorts. It was beginning to seem like Salem had gotten ready much too soon and was quite dramatic about their appearance, which did not look good for their case.

Salem huffed and chose to ignore the other two (though Tobias meant no ill will and had probably just mentioned it to be helpful since he was generally out of the loop with the actual context), teasing their hair instead. Nathalia continued anyway, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Wait until he finds out you have a tattoo of his face."

This time she received a scowl from her friend. "Fuck off and die, I was drunk," Salem spat, which was only half-true.

"Especially on your-"

Salem tossed a random object her way but they weren't good with aiming and it smacked harmlessly into the wall near her instead. Nathalia merely chuckled. Tobias checked the time while they bickered and announced, "Uhh, we gotta go, in like, five minutes."

"I thought we had an hour?!" Salem practically shouted as panic once again began to set in. They could NOT be late for this!

"Yeah, I read the thing wrong. Five minutes if we wanna make it," Nathalia admitted as she also checked the time in wonder, realizing quickly that she had royally screwed up. 

So the three friends quickly got ready, Nathalia changing her shorts into ripped jeans and Tobias putting on his own pants because their manager wanted them to look 'decent', before shrugging on his jacket, then made their way to their private jet where they would meet up with their other two bandmates. That was their friendship in a nutshell- Nathalia was all talk or action and no think, Tobias was the brains who actually preferred to contemplate or figure things out before doing things, and Salem was stuck somewhere in the middle. Technically the kind of person who thought really hard about things, and then somehow chose the most brainless decision anyway, as Nathalia would put it.

Nathalia and Tobias had known each other since mid teens; from what Salem knew it was because of a potential fostering situation which led to them being neighbors, and had met Salem in their late teens to early adulthood after the fact. Then had met their other two bandmembers, Ivy and Raven, separately, sometime in their early twenties. Salem, being the oldest one, was now 27, Tobias 26, Nathalia and Ivy 25 and Raven being 21 almost 22.

The original three had lived together for years, and Tobias would always make jokes about creating a band until one day Salem had come home, having spent all their hard-earned money from working two shitty factory jobs on some used instruments in a wild attempt at becoming famous (with really no expectation to actually succeed), and after some lessons and a lot of studying other bands, including Dethklok, the rest was history.

At first it was just them, Tobias on guitar and Salem on drums because despite them being able to sing, Nathalia's voice had the widest range between sharp and deep, (despite being a woman, because fuck gender stereotypes according to her), which worked for what they were trying to do. Eventually, after gaining some traction during their band practice in random people's garages, Raven had come up to them, eager to join as the bassist. Despite being young, she was very experienced and even more, always willing to learn and get better. Then a year or two later, Ivy had joined them as a rhythm guitarist, having dropped out of a previous band that couldn't seem to get their shit together long enough to actually properly take off... and supposedly, she really respected the direction their band had taken and how fast they were building a following.