Turns out it's pointless to talk about definite finales! Almost a year later, this continues from "Green Fairy"!

Chapter song titles:

1) Labyrinth / Dream Theater

2) Manowar / Sabaton

3) Nocturnal Rites / Europe

4) Manowar

Thanks to AgentUrsa for some inevitable familiar elements!

- ArmageddonClan

Chapter 1: Falling Rain / Wither

Almost in time with the hangover becoming tolerable at last, the rain first lessened in intensity, until the clouds parted and the sun came through. It felt almost too fitting, as the drinking session had certainly been a success. Now they would be a four-piece doom metal band.

Jo drove the Toyota; they had just turned from the narrow forest road to the larger one that passed right through the town of Rocks Falls.

She considered how for years – practically all through the time she had played guitar - she had thought thrash metal to be the ultimate form of musical expression. It was somewhat of a leap to the unknown to leave it now.

But if she was honest, thrash metal had a shitload of rules to be observed. Restrictions. Practically, the core of the music always had to be aggression. There had to be beats you could pit to. There could be slower, quieter or melodic parts, but how you led the song in or out of them had to happen through aggression, again.

Jo almost chuckled aloud as she remembered the infamous "0 percent" review for Metallica's Master of Puppets, written by the Metal Archives user UltraBoris. She could agree that the record, while a certified masterpiece, had done a lot for narrowing down what was acceptable. Further hammering down the rules. Though that was mostly the fault of the countless imitators.

Doom metal naturally had its own set of rules. But if you thought of something like Black Sabbath, they could do almost anything while staying within their recognizable sound. Or if they'd expand to occult rock / metal (though it was already getting crowded), it would be a further degree of freedom.

"So that was in good spirit, you and Kim cursing at the other all through the morning?" Ian asked from the passenger seat. Judging from the slouched position and the frown on his face, his condition was still more severe, and he was certainly not fit to drive yet.

"Right. Setting up a positive chemistry."

It was naturally too early to tell, as things could turn sour yet, but the start could have been much worse. Jo could never have imagined Black Flame of Sin – the neoclassical power metal band she had auditioned for – behaving the same in all their professional rigidity.

Jo also still remembered some of the more … esoteric … things they had discussed while high on absinthe. Or was it just about relationships? In any case, it was probably easiest to sum up that she was rather a human, instead of something with wheels.

Now there was naturally much left to do. Like decide the band name, get the necessary equipment, and a rehearsal space. She and Ian probably needed to leave Antisound Studio behind at last, too.

It was possibly easiest to start from the gear.

The Toyota was slowly cruising through the town. A large, ugly green camo painted pickup truck right in front of them meant Jo could not exactly drive any faster.

Ian's voice alerted her. He was pointing to the left side of the street, suddenly almost excited despite his suffering.

"What's that, a music shop? I didn't know Rocks Falls even had one."

The brick building looked old and almost disused, but there was an "open" sign, and lights inside. The name of the store was Forte Music, which was somewhat unimaginative, but traditional. Even through the dusty shop window, Jo could recognize the guitars hanging on the walls.

She turned for the parking lots in front of the store, and they disembarked.

…

It was a find, all right. To pass through this small town, and find a deluxe neck-through BC Rich Warlock in dark red. Now Ian thought he deserved it, and now there was no danger for it being blown up in the self-destruct sequence of an Agent HQ. Or something.

You fought the fucking SCEPTRE. And the MSA. Now all you need is to play this, Ian thought to himself, as the Toyota was on its way again, Rocks Falls long left behind. The guitar was in its hard case, propped against the back seat. The few riffs he had played in the store had felt just right, and the decision to take it had been a no-brainer.

Jo's ESP was a bit more top of the line compared to this, but this was no low end either. The price of a little over 1000 USD had not been a problem, but with the Agent sponsors - the Grieg Industries - up in smoke, there would likely not be any more refills. Well … time to get a job, then?

The hangover from the absinthe session at the cabin was almost a distant past now. Having their stomachs full from a local restaurant had helped as well. They'd be back at Antisound Studio before nightfall. All in all, a very successful day.

Of course … this level of gear meant Ian's playing and composing would have to live up to it. The fear would of course be - what if nothing came up? What if he would fail Jo, Erik and Kim?

That subject felt something familiar. Something Jo had played to him at one point. It had been the latter leg of their summer trip, after the broken Ka had given way to the nearly as old Fiesta.

"What was that song where the guy talks about an empty page and nothing coming up?"

"You mean the prog metal song? That's Dream Theater, Wither. What, you feel like that already?"

"No. I just wanted to recall."

Back then the song had felt fitting for whole another reason, as their life itself had felt like a never-ending loop. In retrospect, it was clear the trip had been going on too long, until Erik had taken contact. Ian remembered the routine - staying up late, watching videos of bands actually kicking ass out there, live, while he wasn't … and watching Jo in her sleep. Well, that part was endearing of course, but ultimately it had been a period of pure soul-crushing, wondering if he would ever have the courage to return to the world.

In a flash, Ian got an idea. It was almost blasphemy, but no-one would need to know. It didn't matter where the inspiration for the riffs would come from, as Kim would invent her own doom metal lyrics anyway. While the riff playing behind it could actually be titled something like "The curls of Jo's hair lit by the nocturnal glare of the laptop screen, part VII."

Fuck. That was outstandingly stupid, even by his standards.

"What?" Jo asked from behind the wheel, and Ian knew his expression had given something away.

"I was just thinking how to guarantee inspiration."

"Tell me. In full detail."

"Fuck. This is too stupid."

"All the better."

…

Back in the dimly lit Antisound Studio recording room.

Of course Ian needed to test his new weapon right away, playing slow, suitably doomy riffs through the Marshall half-stack at a rather low volume. Jo had to give credit to the method he had explained, ridiculous as it was. In Cyberpriest it would have been irredeemable. But maybe now, it would just be acceptable.

Jo didn't feel like playing herself. It had been a long day, and possibly she just needed to call it quits already. There would be a new day tomorrow.

She got up from the sofa. Or tried to. Suddenly the world tilted forty-five degrees to a direction she could not determine. This was accompanied by the headache from the early morning returning, but with an amplified vengeance. Like tenfold. Her vision was blurring. And this wasn't even the end of it, as an insistent urge to vomit joined the chorus.

In the middle of this mental cacophony, Jo found herself panicking like never before. What was wrong? What was happening to her? Absinthe shouldn't have after-effects like that.

Somehow she thought of SCEPTRE. Their experiments. Or her later adventures, the unexplained vehicular fall that shouldn't have been survivable.

Almost distantly she observed herself falling onto the floor, and Ian breaking away from the playing.

She remembered thinking of his disappeared chest scar … and at times, how long whatever was behind it now, if not SCEPTRE's metal heart, would keep beating?

But now she feared that the damage she had sustained herself would come to take its toll first.